Watching the Election Campaign 2010, you can’t help but notice how the attention this election has turned away from the prime contenders Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott to players who are not fighting the elections. Old Prime Ministers and old ministers and advisors are all over the air waves which gives an indication that the electorate thinks that two main contenders have been forced down their throats by the political parties. Both of them don’t come across as dominant leaders who can steer Australia to a more commanding position. The elections have so far focussed on the former Prime Ministers primarily John Howard and Kevin Rudd apart from fringe players like Mark Latham and Laurie Oaks.

Fears of an Australian Indian confrontation were reignited again last month after John Howard’s bid for Vice President of International Cricket Council, as an Oceania candidate, got rejected. Had John Howard been elected he would have become the President of ICC after two years, when the current President and a powerful Indian cabinet minister Sharad Pawar steps down. However the controversy did not snowball into a media and a diplomatic tug of war, which partly showed how much John Howard is disliked these days even in Australia.

How does it feel to be in the company of most oppressed nations like China , Iran and other smaller nations with no freedom of speech and how does it feel to be the only Western Country being lumped with this category. “Some internet content is simply not suitable in a civilised society. It is important that all Australians, particularly young children, are protected from this material”.

In the next 15 years, the Australian Indian community will be one of the largest ethnic communities in Australia when Australian born families will become a minority group. Population of Australia will continue to swell at a constant rate reaching 36 million by 2050. A significant proportion of this increase is likely to be filled by Indians. Being in such numbers will carry upon itself a lot of challenges, opportunities and responsibility. The question we need to ask ourselves is “Are we prepared for this responsibility?” Clearly at this moment we are not. As a community there is a need to organise and redefine ourselves so that we can blend ourselves better in the next decade.

In the next 12 months we would have a new Liberal or Labour government in place after the federal elections. Now visualise the scenario in which Kevin Rudd becomes the PM again. He is most likely to stick to his banal stand of refusing to sell Uranium to India and this will continue for the next 4 years possibly till 2015. Now visualise the scenario in which Liberal Party comes to power and Tony Abbott or some other Liberal party member becomes the PM. In this case, it is guaranteed that Australia will commence uranium sales to India.

The recent tragic death of 3 year old Gurshan Singh Channa in Melbourne has served as a gruesome warning to young families in Australia about the dangers that are present in the bowels of the community. It is the sort of crime that absolutely distresses everyone. The boy’s parents had arrived in Australia from India just two months back and were about to leave for India in a week when the tragedy stuck.

Victorian Premier John Brumby had a tough last week. Labour party suffered a double-digit primary vote swing in a by-election for one of its ultra-safe mortgage-belt seats – a swing that went straight to the Liberals. Swing against Labour in Altona which was a safe Labour seat is the equivalent of Mulayam Singh Yadav gaining ground in the Gandhi family bastion of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh in India. Labour held the seat with a 20 per cent margin at the 2006 election.

When the garbage collector from Toongabbie rose up in the ranks to become the Premier of the largest state of Australia, he was expected to maintain status quo. Before becoming Premier, Nathan Rees had built deep linkages with the Indian community in areas around Toongabbie and had been a regular attendee at most Indian functions.

Master of the Sarod, Ustaad Amjad Ali Khan recently visited Australia as part of Freedom Concert 2009. A dinner function was organised in Sydney to honour the maestro. Visit www.sarod.com for more information about Ustaad. Some event pictures….

4 people of Indian ethnic origin were recently assaulted by 20 people outside a pub with an equal number of bystanders watching and shouting racial slurs like Go back to India. No, this did not happen deep inside Taliban territory in Afghanistan. The despicable act happened at a place which is the epicentre of cultural renaissance in Australia, a city voted to be one of the best places to live in the world and a city which prides itself on being the multicultural hub of Australia.

A few days back me and my office colleagues got an email from one of our IT suppliers with the heading marked “Unplanned holiday at offshore” and mentioned that there was an unplanned holiday declared in Hyderabad due to which the offshore resources will not be available for work on that day. While most of the people from India are very well accustomed with such holidays, my Australian colleagues found it very hard to imagine as to how there can be anything like an unplanned holiday in this world?

Termed as one of the largest gathering of Indians, in the Southern hemisphere, UIA Australia India Friendship Fair 2009 was graced by a galaxy of politicians including the State Premier Nathan Rees, Barry O’ Farrell Leader of State Opposition, Laurie Fergusson as Representative of PM Kevin Rudd and other State and Federal MPs. It was the perfect opportunity for the UIA President to put forward the case for providing better security for Indian students and addressing some of their highly publicised concerns. But what did the UIA President Aruna Chandrala do?