Get a clue, Rediff
· #rants
Rediff.com apparently believes in outdoing itself all the time. Which is fine normally. But in Rediff’s case, they seem to outdo their own stupidity every few days. Consider this piece, Abysmal failure to check nature’s fury.
At the outset, it appears that Ms. Kanchan Gupta, the writer, is taking the Indian govt. to task for not putting into place an effective disaster management system after the cyclone in Orissa and the earthquake in Gujarat. But no, that’s not it!
The whole article is about how our scientific establishment has failed us by not being proactive in putting into place a tsunami warning system. The total cluelessness of Ms. Gupta is apparent if you read this:
The US-led 26-nation Pacific Tsunami warning system is an example. India chose not to join this arrangement, ostensibly because what happens in the Pacific is not of any interest to us. ... On the other hand, a more down-to-earth pragmatism as practised by China convinced its leaders and scientists that joining the Pacific arrangement was not without merit.
I think someone needs to lookup the world map. India isn’t a Pacific rim country, China is!
A sense of misplaced pride in our own ability and the outmoded slogan of self-reliance kept India out of the Pacific arrangement.
Misplaced? Outmoded? To rubbish the achievements of thousands of brilliant people with a couple of choice adjectives - yeah, that’s some journalistic talent.
This is not to say that the scientific institutions in India are without fault. Hey, I’ve spent some time at one such place and I’ll be the first to admit that things could be much better! But if you pick all the wrong reasons to criticise someone, then you aren’t a journalist Ms. Kanchan Gupta. You are just a hack.