The economic slowdown has dampened the festive mood this season, with even business houses slashing their budget for corporate gifting by almost 25 percent.
According to an industry estimate, the festive gifting market, largely unorganised, is estimated at Rs.45 billion (nearly a billion dollars).
"Last year, corporate houses distributed gifts worth Rs.20 billion, but this year the budget has come down by Rs.5 billion," said D.S. Rawat, secretary general of the Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham), an industry lobby.
"It is not only the small corporate houses that are cutting down their budgets for corporate gifting during Diwali. Even companies like Videocon Industries, JSW steel, Tata group and large automobile, retail and real estate companies are going slow this festive season," Rawat told IANS.
Concurred Phani N. Raj, managing director of corporate gifts and brand merchandising company eYantra Industries: "The gifting sentiments are bit low this year thanks to the slowdown and bad profit margins."
The company caters to the corporate gifting of around 1,000 corporates across the globe including giants such as Microsoft, Infosys, Wipro, Google, Satyam, Dr Reddy's and Aurobindo.
"Last year, we got expensive orders for electronic goods like iPods, digicams, camcorders, mobiles and portable DVD players. However, this season, we are getting orders for gift sets like pens, watches, valets, keychains, and perfumes.
"The major cost cutting has come from IT companies. Obviously, the impact of slowdown is reflected," Raj told IANS.
The only item that is doing brisk business is dry fruits. According to the Assocham report, dry fruits sales have gone up by nearly 40 percent in the past few days as these are considered handy and most acceptable commodities.
What is also significant this year is that most business houses are going for Chinese gift items because of their cost competitiveness and attractive packaging, Assocham's Rawat said.
"The sparkle is certainly missing this festive season as even big corporate houses are cutting back their expenses. This year, we have received almost 20 percent fewer orders than previous year," said Ravi Chopra, a salesperson at online florist and diversified gift seller Fern N Petals.
"It is tough time ahead for us. Corporate gifting during Diwali is a relationship-building tradition and we cannot cut down the spending straight away. However, we are looking at less expensive gift items. After all we have to compensate somewhere," said the vice president at a leading software company, who asked IANS not to identify his firm.
He does not for a moment regret his supremely brave act of throwing out a ticking bomb from the bus window and saving over 50 lives, losing his eyesight in the blast that followed seconds later. But, DTC bus driver Kuldeep Singh does feel hurt that three years later he is made to run from pillar to post to get the promised medical compensation and that Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit chooses to "ignore" him.
Surviving on a meagre salary of Rs.8,500 that he draws as vehicle examiner at the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) Shadipur depot in west Delhi, 36-year-old Singh says life is tough for him, his wife and three-old-year son.
"I am proud of what I have done. But some times I really fight within and feel cheated when I have to run from pillar to post to get the promised medical compensation announced by Dikshit."
On Oct 29, 2005, a few days before Diwali, three blasts ripped through the national capital and killed at least 65 people.
Singh, then a DTC bus driver, spotted a bomb inside his bus and picked it up to throw it outside. His bravery and presence of mind saved the lives of over 50 people but took away his vision completely.
His right hand was severely burned and he cannot even hear anything in his right ear.
"Today I am forced to borrow money from others to buy necessities. Still I have no regrets of picking up the bomb and throwing it away at a safe distance," Singh, clad in light blue kurta pyjama, told IANS in his two-bed room apartment.
"I have saved the lives of 50-60 passengers and saved the bus costing Rs.1.8 million. God forbid, had all the passengers been killed, the government would have had to give compensation of Rs.50,000 each to their families," he said in a heavy voice.
"A government job is good for nothing. It is difficult to survive with this meagre salary, and this too was only raised last month because of the Sixth Pay Commission. Earlier I used to get only Rs.6,800. You can understand how we would be surviving when I have to foot bills on treatment of my son and myself," he said.
"Do they (government) have any idea how many families would have lost their breadwinners. I am not asking all this money. But I am hurt. The promises meant to us are still to be fulfilled. They gave me a permanent job in DTC after the blast. My wife and I were promised that the home given to us is part of the reward."
"But we are still paying the house rent. On Jan 25, 2007 Dikshit honoured me with Uttam Jeevan Raksha Padak and promised me that I would be given the required amount towards the expenditure incurred on the treatment of my eyes at Hyderabad hospital," he said.
Singh said he has visited Hyderabad 11 times so far and spent Rs.250,000 on his treatment. "In February last year, I submitted the bills and after some time I was given a sum of Rs.63,000. Since then, no further payment has been made to me. Whenever I ask the government officials, they say my file is moving."
"I even went to meet Dikisht along with my wife and two other people demanding the compensation amount. But she just overlooked us and casually directed his personal assistant to look into my grievances. But I am still waiting," he said wiping his eyes with his right hand which still bears the scars of wounds received that fateful day three years ago.
"Had these politicians lost their loved ones in the blast, they would have realised the pain and apathy. These senseless people only know about playing politics."
Singh has now only one wish - to be able to see his son growing up.
"I hid myself under the staircase. The crowd was shouting 'where is that sister. Come let us rape her, at least 100 people should rape.'"
Her head down, her bespectacled face wrapped with a printed scarf, her voice steady except for once when she broke down and sobbed, a nun Friday recounted before a stunned nation the horror of her rape two months ago in Orissa's Kandhamal district at the hands of a mob baying for vengeance for the killing of a Hindu leader.
Appearing live on TV news channels, the nun narrated her ordeal in the Indian capital, where she was brought by activists, and the way the state government and political parties had turned a blind eye to her suffering.
The press conference was held at the Indian Social Institute. Flanked by Christian leaders, the nun read out her handwritten statement that often made quite a few in the audience wince in horror.
The nun said a mob of 40-50 people dragged her out from the house of a "Hindu gentleman" where she was hiding, ripped off her clothes and raped her on a verandah strewn with glass.
"They pulled out my saree and one of them stepped on my right hand and another on my left hand and then a third person raped me on the verandah," the nun, who did not take any questions, recounted in a choked voice of the Aug 25 incident.
"When it was over, I managed to get up and put (on) my petticoat and sari," she said with her head bowed, stirring the conscience of a secular country that has been shaken by recent assaults by Hindu fanatics on minorities in Orissa and Karnataka states.
The nun recounted her story here two days after the Supreme Court ruled out an inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the alleged rape and asked her to cooperate with the state police in the investigation. She had not made a public appearance after the incident was reported.
It was a painful journey the Indian nun had to endure all the way from Bhubaneswar to New Delhi to draw attention to her plight because, as she herself has said in the past, she had lost faith in the Orissa Police to bring to book the perpetrators, reported to belong to the Hindu extremist group Bajrang Dal.
The alleged rape took place two days after the killing of a prominent Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader and four of his associates in his ashram in Kandhamal. The killing triggered widespread anti-Christian attacks in the district.
Not surprisingly, at the end of the 15-minute hair-raising narrative, the nun was in no frame of mind to take questions and was quickly ushered out of the room by another nun and an advocate.
After the rape, the nun and Father Thomas Chellantharayil were made to walk on the road to Nuagaon market, which was half a kilometre away.
"They made to fold our hands and walk. I was with petticoat and sari as they had already torn away my blouse and undergarments. They tried to strip (me) even there but I resisted and they went on beating me with hands on my cheeks and head and with sticks on my back several times," the nun said.
Personnel of the Orissa Special Armed Police (OSAP) were present at the spot but didn't even attempt to intervene, the nun alleged.
"When we reached the marketplace about a dozen of OSAP policemen were there. I went to them asking to protect me and I sat in between two policemen. But they did not move. One from the crowd again pulled out from there and they wanted to lock us in the temple mandap," she recounted.
Eventually, the nun and the priest managed to find their way to a police station, where the officials initially refused to register a complaint. They relented only after she underwent a medical examination and then too, what was recorded was an extremely watered down version of the incident, the nun said.
Replying to queries, the Archbishop of Delhi, Father Dominic Emmanuel, said the nun had come to Delhi in the hope that the Supreme Court would reverse its decision against ordering a enquiry into the incident that has sent shock waves throughout the country with the Pope expressing sadness over reports of anti-Christian assaults in India and European leaders seeking Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's intervention in the matter.
At least 36 people have died, thousands have been rendered homeless and dozens of Christians shrines vandalised in violence that erupted in the coastal Indian state after the killing of the Hindu religious leader.
The Supreme Court had Wednesday said "it does not feel the need to have a CBI inquiry, at the moment".
Dominic said that since the decision was "for the moment", the nun's open admission and "narration of injustice under the state system would make the requirement felt".
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray was arrested from Maharashtra's Ratnagiri town early Tuesday, prompting large parts of this city to shut down as his supporters went on the rampage torching public transport and telling office goers to return home.
Many shops and commercial establishments, especially those run or managed by non-Maharashtrians, chose not to open at all to avoid trouble. Thackeray, whose MNS workers Sunday attacked non Maharashtrians appearing for the railway board examination, was brought from Ratnagiri, about 250 km from here, to be produced at the Bandra court.
There was mayhem outside the court premises with large crowds milling around restively and camera crews waiting to capture the trouble.
While in some areas, buses, taxis and autorickshaws were set on fire, in others areas public transport just stayed off the roads causing great inconvenience to people. However, suburban trains on the Western and Central Railways and Harbour Line functioned as usual.
The office of the state Congress spokesperson Sanjay Nirupam was also vandalised.
As news about the arrest spread, there was violence in other parts of Maharashtra too.
Thackeray was arrested from a government guest house in Ratnagiri district at about 4 a.m. along with other party workers like Sanjay Ghadi and Pravin Darekar in connection with the beating up of some north Indian candidates at a railway recruitment examination centre in Chetana College, Bandra East, police said.
This is the second time in eight months that Thackeray has been arrested for his tirade against north Indians.
Indo-Asian News Service