First foremost case of rule of law, which I thoroughly believe is most important variable in progress of any democratic society. Given case of India where tonnes of case are filed (god knows how many go unreported) and millions are stuck in court, its becomes utmost important for society to understand how much it’s not only job of “judiciary (court) & executive (police)” but also of individual to obey the law that helps in implementation of “rule of law”.
Here is the case in point, I was standing at medical store and couple walks in asking for couple of medicine. Pharmacist asks for doctor’s prescription, couple replies they don’t have it. Pharmacist responds his inability to provide medicine without doctor’s prescription letter/paper. Lady starts whining (read “kya yaar, aisa kya….please yaar etc etc), But pharmacist stays firm on his position. Couple replies, they have evening flight for USA and they don’t have time to go back to doctor for prescription, pharmacist non-response meant “no medicine without authentic paper”. To this lady says, I will connect doctor through her cell and pharmacist can speak to him, however he replied negative and reiterate for written prescription.
To me this was surprising on one level only, pharmacist response/behaviour/conduct. Nonchalant attitude by customer was total expected, given they have not really experienced rule of law. Law clearly states that doctor letter is must for prescription medicine, but given our system it was always taken casually, as saying no means saying no to business and who says no to money. Hence when this pharmacist refused I was partly surprised. I had small chat with him and he made is clear some medicines are not allowed to be sold under any condition without prescription (these are one which have some drug like effect, think of sleeping pills). Hence it’s medical store’s responsibility to ask for doctor’s prescription and herein lays problem area on how to make medical store responsible. Difficult problem to tackle one way I can think is one can complaint
Coming to lighter topic Bollywood awards, which is flavour of current season given we are at beginning of new year. Interesting trend that was visible was how much general public at large have started to understand that awards are probably rigged. Best of the best, there are many blogs who have highlighted deteriorating standard & quality of awards in past (in 2011, 2012 etc) but it seems award organiser refuse to pay any heed. If that was not enough these days many of YouTube channels along with Movie stars have openly made fun of this award Link-1 . To me Deepika’s award dedication to Kangana (who refuses to attend any award show) clearly shows even movie stars seem to know how these awards are losing charm. One more interesting trend that hints at how old (print) media is losing to new (online) media is increasing trend of big stars working with startup YouTube Channels – have you seen SRK – TVF or Alia –AIB (All India Bakchod) and recent AIB knock out had attendance by Ranveer singh, Arjun Kapoor, Deepika Padukone, Sonakshi sinha, Alia Bhatt, Anurag Kashyap and many more. If you notice it’s clear, these guys have understood who trendsetter is gone be going ahead. In earlier days relationship between movie star and magazine/print media was inter-dependent, as they would give them fodder to print and media in turn would give them award or media would give star award so that s/he would perform for free at award ceremony or media would give star award so that s/he would give extra interviews & details for upcoming movies…etc etc. Now given audience had moved on-demand consumption of media, magazines & TV are losing appeal and hence the shift.
Here in lies opportunity, if somebody can organised an award show which has jury member with lot of credibility and whole process is more systematic and audited by auditors, basically making whole process systematic and authentic…boom…you have winner.