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Five years after actress Shilpa Shetty was subject to racist behaviour on Celebrity Big Brother, Miss India UK Deana Uppal has faced similar 'insults' from a fellow contestant, prompting regulator Ofcom to launch an investigation on receiving over 1,000 complaints.

Hailing from Birmingham, Uppal is the current Miss India UK and has done modelling assignments in the UK and India.

In 2007, following an uproar over racist comments by contestant Jade Goody against Shilpa, Ofcom had ruled that Channel 4 had breached its code of conduct. The issue snowballed into a major row, with the Indian and UK government intervening.

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Sometimes, one wonders if the old Mughal technique of powerful princes imprisoning their Emperor-Dads and grabbing power is not a better way to ring out the old and bring in new ideas to governance.

In modern-day India, the thought processes on this score are ancient. The young are not leading, and the old are not retiring — or even receding gracefully into the background.

Whether it is politics of sport or even business, old is oversold. We respect age too much, and have been paying a price for it.

The country’s median age is about 26. Some 30 percent of the population is minor — below 14. And 95 percent of India’s population is below 64, but we are ruled usually by people well above that age.

Consider the number of above eighties in politics. LK Advani won’t retire, M Karunanidhi won’t retire, Parkash Singh Badal won’t retire, Jyoti Basu and VS Achuthanadan were CPI(M) Chief Ministers well into their eighties. The party’s General Secretary, the late Harkishan Singh Surjeet, did not yield to Prakash Karat till he was 89. Atal Behari Vajpayee retired as PM at 80 only because he lost an election. Manmohan Singh, who will be 80 in two months, won’t retire till 2014 — if even then.

Contrast this with David Cameron (he was 44 when he took over as British PM in 2010, Barack Obama (48 when he took over), and Vladimir Putin (48 when he first became president in 2000).

The late NT Rama Rao (“NTR”), founder of Telugu Desam, would have continued merrily well past his seventies but for a coup by his son-in-law N Chandrababu Naidu. Naidu did an Aurangzeb on him and seized power through an internal coup in 1995 — a year before NTR’s death.

Luckily, Mulayam Singh has given way to young Akhilesh much earlier, but apparently only because he fancies himself as a future PM in a Third Front government after 2014, or even before. He will be 75 if he gets to 7 Race Course Road in 2014.

On the other hand, the youth brigade is repeatedly failing us. Salman Khurshid’s interview toThe Indian Express on Tuesday is a case in point. A Congress Law Minister could not have expressed Rahul Gandhi’s failure to lead in starker terms. Even after being anointed heir-apparent for years now, Rahul has failed to measure up on the leadership front, as Khurshid points out: “…he has not taken up the mantle or accepted a functional responsibility. He is so far not willing to accept the No 2 position. In such a situation, we have to wait. This is a waiting time.”

However, in all this waiting, the entire youth brigade of the Congress is being sidelined. Reason: Rahul baba cannot be upstaged. So the youth corps of Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sachin Pilot, Sandip Dikshit, and Milind Deora is busy doing little in UPA-2, instead of blazing a sizzling new trail.

The BJP has a raft of younger leaders, but the party stupidly fails to promote them. It is now hoping Narendra Modi will do the trick for them — but he is past 60. Energetic, but not exactly the fountain of youth. The rest of the top leadership — Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and Nitin Gadkari — is busy neutralising itself.

But the scene is not any better in business either. Ratan Tata is retiring at 75 — but he should have probably done so five or 10 years earlier and merely stayed on as a guiding spirit. Dhirubhai Ambani passed away relatively early at 70, but such was his importance that he failed to do the one thing that retirees should: hand over the reins when the going was good. Worse, he did not even leave a will. His sons had to fight to get their share of patrimony.

But unlike politicians, whose inheritors have not got their chances till late, in business, at least, the heirs have gotten their dues and their chances to shine. Where they have split from their fathers or gone their separate ways posthumously — the Piramals, Mafatlals, Ambanis, Singhanias, Birlas are some examples — they have usually fared much better despite the heartburn of separation. The Bajaj family and the RP Goenka group split more gracefully, and the results are there for all to see.

The upshot of separation and division has usually been growth and new ideas. And this proves the point that while the young may fail, it is usually not for want of trying.

But another group of India’s oldies — bureaucrats — seem never to want to fade away. Secretaries retiring from ministries end up as chairpersons of regulatory agencies or other quasi-government organisations (Recent examples: Rahul Khullar moved to Trai after retiring as commerce secretary, Ashok Chawla moved from the finance ministry to the Competition Commission of India).

In a recent series, The Indian Express found that “a disproportionately large” number of IAS and IPS officers obtained sinecures or even big-ticket jobs after retirement. Says the newspaper: “Details of nearly 90 such appointments made in recent years show these civil servants being parked as governors, information commissioners, and as heads or members of a slew of bodies such as the Union Public Service Commission, the National Commission for Minorities, Central Information Commission, National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission and the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT). Most of these posts enjoy the rank of secretary to the government of India or above. In the case of some officers, new positions have been created to accommodate them.”

Even judges seem to work forever. It is rare for former judges to lack a job after retirement. Former Chief Justice of India KG Balakrishnan was made head of the National Human Rights Commission, while Justice Markandeya Katju has been making waves as Chairman of the Press Council. Santosh Hegde was till last year the Karnataka Lokayukta. Former Supreme Court Justice GT Nanavati not only headed the commission to look into the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, but now heads the Gujarat probe into the 2002 riots. He is still at it, 10 years later. Justice MS Liberhan took 17 years to submit his Babri demolition report.

The Express report also found that out of the 133 independent directors appointed to the boards of 21 public sector companies, “at least 46 of them are former bureaucrats.” So much for their independence. They are merely serving the government they always served even after retirement.

When the old stay on for too long, they are likely to fail for want of better ideas, newer approaches to 21st century challenges. India is a young country, and the first reform we need to is to ask the old to retire gracefully to make way for new ideas.

Age needs respect, not jobs for life at the cost of the young and fit.

( Source: Firstpost )

Cricketer Yuvraj Singh's memoir 'In Different Form', is scheduled to be published in December 2012 by Random House India.

The publishers in a press release say the memoir will be an open, candid, intimate and remarkably personal account of his journey through cancer - from denial and acceptance, from his battle to defeat the disease to the struggles he still faces.

For the first time Singh will tell, in his own words, the real story behind the 2011 World Cup when on-the-field triumph hid increasingly puzzling health problems and worrying illnesses. The cricketer says, "If I think of it my life is full of words beginning with C. I was born in Chandigarh, I became a cricketer, and through my decade as an international cricketer all I craved, along with the rest of the India team, was the Cup. This story, though, is about the new C in my life. It is the story of my cancer."

He will reveal how, plagued with insomnia, coughing fits that left him vomiting blood and an inability to eat, he made a deal with God on the night before the final to give him the World Cup, and in return God could take anything he wanted.

In the memoir he will speak honestly about the fears, doubts and lows he experienced during chemotherapy - when he lost energy, lost his appetite and lost his hair – and he had to battle to find the will to survive. And, most importantly, he will speak to other sufferers to help them come through the sadness, loneliness, fear and desperation of cancer.

Like Lance Armstrong's 'It's Not About The Bike', 'In Different Form' will be a brutally honest account of a sportsman fighting not for victory, but for his life.

Milee Ashwarya, editorial director for Ebury Press, Random House India acquired the memoir from Shruti Debi at Aiken Alexander India.

Ashwarya say, "In Different Form helps us understand Yuvraj as a cricketer and as a person through his most trying times. I felt Yuvraj’s story needed to be told, and we at RHI are delighted that he has chosen us to help him do that."

Yuvraj Singh says, "From the World Cup to cancer, the last two years have taught me a lot. In the team I am someone who feels I can help youngsters with what I have learned from my mistakes and always keep the team in great spirits. After cancer when I found out how many cancer patients there are in India, I learned that I belong to a much bigger group of people. I can imagine they may be lonely, confused, scared. So, I wanted to share my ups and downs. Guys, we are one team. I am thrilled that Random House India have joined me in giving shape to this book. I am thrilled also at the coincidence that they published Lance Armstrong’s book. I can't wait to see this book become a reality."

Random House India will publish In Different Form on 12th December 2012 in hardback and also special leather-bound edition.

The truth of Satyamev Jayate 
Now look at the irony here: people from all over the country belonging to different religions and communities are sending SMSs and making donations, and you can see clearly that money is spent on people of just one particular community and religion – the Muslims!

Isn’t it unfair that first you are attracting people from different religions on emotional grounds, and when they fall prey to it and give donation, you are using that money for communal purpose without even informing the people where their money is going to be used? How will building mosques and madrasas helps our nation? And if it doesn’t then why are people of this country being fooled like this and no one is raising questions? Are only Muslims unemployed in this country? If not then why this step-motherly treatment to people of other religions?

See the truth at: www.humanitytrust.com

Buy Postable online 

Having a spouse who makes lots of money might seem like a good thing. But according to a new study of millionaires, wealthy households with a female breadwinner are filled with potential problems.

The study, conducted by SEI and Phoenix Marketing, found that a third of the women who are the financial leads in millionaire households say their partner feels “stressed” by their financial roles. By contrast, only 14 percent of males in male-led millionaire households said they feel tension from their partner.

"When you're dealing with relationships and money, stress is a given, and when a woman is the primary wealth creator the survey shows it's even greater," said Michael Farrell, Managing Director for SEI Private Wealth Management.

Sources of financial tension might include spending decisions, savings decisions and investment decisions.

The top sources of tension in all wealthy households were kids and money, along with control and charitable giving.

Why are women-led millionaire households especially stressed? The study doesn’t say. And there may not be more actual tension. Women, for instance, may simply be more likely to recognize tension in their relationship than men. And many couples with women bread-winners are no doubt perfectly content.

Men might feel threatened in women-led homes because in classic gender roles men are the providers. (And if this is the case, the 1,500 men who have applied to marry in China might beware).

Either way, female-led millionaire households is likely to become more common. About 22 percent of American marriages have a higher earning wife. Maybe it’s time for guys to get used to wives who make more than they do.

Why do you think there are tensions in women-led households?