Love Story 2010

Folks, today i am going to talk about a little love story. I will then left it to your judgment, if it was really a love story or a case of mere infatuation or attraction. Let me begin with my character, his name is Vansh, a simple, honest and a very truthful guy. Who is lively and believes in enjoying life. Vansh works for a small organization and where everybody likes him & his way of living life. In his intial 6 months at this office he remained happy go lucky types. But then suddenly in the last couple of months he felt that he has something in common with a girl working for the same organization with whom he had been interacting quite often.

Suddenly he decides to take that girl's cell number and she gives him happily. They start exchanging SMSs and sometimes Vansh would call and even she would call him. Vansh realizes something, that may be he has feelings for her and even she has feelings for him. The way this was progressing was way too fast, Vansh realized that but somehow something struck him that no she is the one, his true love that he had been scouting for ages. Finally he decided to ask her for a date. But before taking any such bold step, he decided to consult her best friend in office. Vansh spoke to her and that girl gave a very confident answer that she is a very nice girl, you should propose to her.

On that very advise and given Vansh's observation, he decided to propose her. Went to her and told her that he likes her but then comes the girl's reply, you should have told me earlier,I am already engaged for the last two years. Vansh felt totally devastated by this answer but then could not help it either. That girls calls him up and says you yourself believe in enjoying life, so i am sorry, be happy and don't feel bad.

So, folks this is the end of the little love story. But belive me folks this guy Vansh, as I know of him,has always been through such times. He even shared this me and told me how unlucky he is in matter of love.

Sometimes i really don't understand what God has in store for us, especially when it comes to love, for Vansh i know it will be difficult to move on. Rest you guys decide what was his fault? Is falling in love with a girl, who is so cute and nice to you a wrong?

The Bhopal gas tragedy Verdict

Folks, just couple of days back, a local Court in Bhopal (MP) announced the verdict on the World’s worst industrial disaster – ‘the Bhopal Gas Leak Case’. The Verdict – it says has convicted 8 people for a mere two years imprisonment with a meager fine of INR 1 lakhs. There is a lot of hue & cry on the verdict in terms of very meager punishment accorded to some of the people manning the then UCIL.

People have compared this case with the recent oil spill that happened in the Gulf of Mexico, US, where the US President Barack Obama has announced that highest punishment be meted out to those responsible for the oil spill, that is the BP. The criticism or rather a comparison had been drawn between the two tragic incidents, as in the latter the US government has announced huge amount of compensation while in the former, way back in 1996 after the SC’s verdict a settlement amount was agreed to between the Government and the then UCC, which was to the tune of $4.7 million. This in fact prime facie seems to be a travesty of justice, especially considering that in the Bhopal case the then US government did nothing for extraditing the prime accused Anderson (chief of UCC). The defence was that US government’s hands were tied up by the existing laws. This to a certain extent was true that US laws were such that Anderson’s extradition could not have been effected.

But it’s really high time that we in India should consider enacting such laws, wherein a foreign government’s co-operation can be easily sought on such kind of disasters that are a result of the negligence of few of the man manning such foreign corporations. A good case in point here the ‘Nuclear Civil Liability Bill’, over which a heated debate has already taken place as to the capping of liability of a foreign government (the US in the Nuke deal). The road ahead in this direction is still murky & bad, we need to draw a make a clear policy decisions on this issue.

International Conference on Infrastructure Finance - 2010, IIT Khargpur

Folks, I have had an opportunity to present a paper & also to Chair a session on ‘Legal Aspects of Infrastructure Finance’ at the recently concluded International Conference on Infrastructure Finance, 2010 (ICIF, 2010). The ICIF was jointly organized by the Vinod Gupta School of Management (VGSOM) & Ranbir & Chitra Gupta Institute of Infrastructure, Design & Management, IIT, Kharagpur. It was really an awesome experience; they have called for almost 300 odd papers in the area of Infrastructure Finance. The Conference was a 3 day long event divided into almost 9 technical sessions, each session was dedicated to a particular area of Infrastructure.

My presentation -‘Financing National Highways – A Legal Perspective’ was in the first technical session. It was appreciated by all the people present there, including all the luminaries from academia ranging from Finance, Civil Engineering etc. I also got a privilege of chairing one of the technical sessions, wherein there were almost 11 presenters. My task was to judge them on merits of their presentation and give them valuable feedback. The session was on ‘Legal Aspects of Infrastructure Finance’, the papers were a good mix of finance & legal aspects of infrastructure, particularly Public Private Partnerships (PPPs), which is the area in which I work. During the whole conference I made some really good friends from academia & professionals.

All in all it was an awesome experience for me, especially to have chaired one of the sessions at the ICIF, 2010.