From where I source my books?

I have been an avid reader all my life. I still find it difficult to eat my lunch/dinner without any book in front of me. Bad habit I know. During my school days, I remember going through the same article of ‘Cricket Samrat’ umpteen number of time because of paucity of new magazines or books at home. I and my brother used to have a daily scuffle on who would read the newspaper first. Sharing its pages was a complete no no.

My taste of books has undergone sea of change if you compare it with those cricket samrat days but this post is not about my reading taste. It’s about where do I source my books from?

Beg, Borrow or Steal:
This was the mantra till I finished my engineering. Quite late I know. And the steal part is a bit exaggeration. As steal part didn’t materialize, I never really owned any books till I finished my college. Begged and borrowed ones had to be returned to the kings and the Queens who owned them.

Roadside vendors:
I discovered them during my stint in Bombay and boy more than me, my wallet loved them. Pirated books were every where. Next to VT station, Fort, Fashion Street, near CST, Bandra, Andheri. 3 books for 150 bucks! And when they came that cheap, I never really bothered about 4-5 missing pages after every 50 pages!

Crossroads/Landmark:
When you have means, you always tend to find ways to put an end to it (whatever it means). I started earning sometime in 2003 and suddenly I was seeing Crossroads, Landmarks and Odysseys all around me. I started spending a fortune there. Huge business they got from me! And then the online thing happened.

Indiaplaza:
One of my friends pointed me to Indiaplaza where you could find anything and everything under the sun at great discounts. How true it was. He never told me though how pathetic they were in delivering those goods. As they say, always try to learn from other’s experience rather than making your own mistakes. (One good thing about me, I remember these quotes I just don’t implement them) I ordered my books from Indiaplaza and used to wait till eternity for delivery after numerous calls. I am sure my cell phone bills must have superseded the price of the book. Anyways, I repeated the process quite a few times before Flipkart happened.

Flipkart:
Anyone with some business sense would have realized that the market for online book shopping was up for grabs. It took two guys from IIT-D to execute it to perfection. What a dream run it has been for the company since its inception three years ago.I must have ordered around 30 books from them till now and yet to see a delayed delivery. Their prompt delivery service is what sets them apart. Till the time they are here, I don’t see a reason to buy books from any other store or website. Their nearest competition? Apparently Indiaplaza (really?).

Cheers!

Commonwealth Games Bulletin

25^th September 2010:

It was a busy day for all the people involved in the preparation of Commonwealth Games (CWG). Sheila Dixit assured the nation today that God willing, we will have the best Commonwealth Games ever. Final patch work is underway at a frantic pace at Jawaharlal Nehru and Talkatora Stadium while specialists from England are working round the clock to fix the leakages at Siri Fort Sports complex. These have just missed 7^th final deadline. This morning Sheila told the waiting reporters that the deadline has been extended for one final time by 15 days. Reporters reminded her that mathematically it cannot be extended by more than 7 days as we are scheduled to hold opening ceremony on 3^rd Oct. She settled for 7 days.

Another CWG scam broke out in electronic media today. It seems that Organising Committee (OC) decided to import pigeons for the opening ceremony from Australia instead of using home grown pigeons and the contract was given to a company owned by Michael Fennell’s son’s friend’s wife’s uncle. Rs 5, 00,000 for each bird were paid in advance for 1000 such pigeons. Kalmadi has rejected the allegation terming it as baseless and said he is ready for any enquiry. He said that the contract was given after employing a transparent process. He added that these pigeons are not normal Indian pigeons but well trained ones capable of handing over any letter anywhere in the world. To substantiate his claim, he told the reporters that the pigeon used in 1989 Hindi blockbuster ‘Maine Pyar Kiya’ was also provided by the same firm and reminded them that he successfully delivered the letter to Salman Khan. Meanwhile, Menaka Gandhi slammed this entire practice of keeping the pigeons under the cage and termed it as cruelty against birds.

27^th September 2010:

Today it was decided that Jawaharlal Nehru, Talkatora Stadium and Siri Fort Sports Complex will not be handed over to CWG OC as there is no time to actually do a formal handover. These will now be handed over directly to the athletes in whatever state they will be on 3^rd of October. Final patchwork is on target i.e. on 8^th revised target. A decision has also been taken to wrap the entire Connaught place with thick white cloth to cover up the debris and the unfinished work. Apparently, project was on time but when it was about to complete, MTNL decided to dig the entire place to run telephone lines. It was done again but this time MCD decided to dig the same for laying cables. When it was done for the final time, NDMC workers dug all of it as protest because they were not paid their last month wages. CPM welcomed this approach of workers and called for a 3 day bandh in Kolkata. Sitaram Yechury asked for Sheila Dixit’s resignation. Sheila Dixit visited Akshardham temple today after a quick visit to all stadiums and was seen praying silently next to Lord Indra’s statue.

Jawaharlal Nehru, Talkatora Stadium and Siri Fort Sports Complex will have Athletics, Boxing and badminton competition respectively from 4^th to 9^th October. Final patchwork is in final stages now while landscaping has been abandoned for good. It has been decided that the athletes competing at these venues will be given a greeting card with only 3 words carved inside it, All Izz Well, suggesting the state of the stadium roofs. Till this afternoon, catering for the games was still not in place but Mr. Lalit Bhanot pulled a coup. He managed to get the agreement from Haldiram’s and Bikanerwala, in the interest of the nation, to take care of games catering in makeshift tents, stores and restaurants outside stadiums and CWG village. Prime Minister lauded this effort of Mr Bhanot and has forwarded his name for next year ‘Padma Awards’.

The day ended with Gauri the Cow, India’s answer to Paul the Octopus predicting that India will top the medals tally in these games. This has sent shock waves among the Indian athletes. Kalmadi has termed the allegation as baseless while Meneka Gandhi has protested the use of holy cow for such practices and termed it as cruelty against animals.

Oh Randiv! The Sehwag-No Ball Controversy

Randiv has apologised. So has Sri Lanka Cricket. Are we still making too much out it? I surely don’t think so. There is no doubt about the fact that Randiv’s ‘no ball’ was deliberate to deny Sehwag a century. His apology to Sehwag has put it beyond just accusation.

More revealing was the fact that stump microphone actually caught captain Sangakkara reminding Randiv ‘if Sehwag touches the ball, he will get a century’. Let me be clear. It’s not about the laws. Both Sangakkara and Randiv are well within laws to bowl a ‘no ball’ even if it’s a deliberate one. People are questioning the spirit under which the cricket was played. Sri Lanka was nowhere close to winning the match and hence the sole purpose was to deny Sehwag a well deserved century. As per the rules, captain is supposed to ensure fair play on the field and here Randiv, who is barely 2 test matches old, was urged by none other than his skipper to bowl a ‘no ball’!

As one of my dear friend suggested, ‘what if the last Indian pair (Ojha and Ishant) batting in Murali's last test match had denied Murali his 800th test victim by running themselves out?’ Fair point. They would have been well within the rules then!

In defence of Randiv, I must say there have been similar instances where the line of fair play was blurred. Even by Sehwag. In one of the recent test matches against South Africa, Amla and Morkel were at the crease when one of the strokes was deliberately put beyond the boundary ropes when Sehwag kicked the ball. This was to stop Amla from retaining the strike. Atleast in this instance, Indians were in sight of a victory with the last pair on the crease. This wasn’t an act of deliberately stopping someone from a deserved personal milestone as it was in this case or it would have been in Murali’s case. Though in no way I am supporting the act of Sehwag here.

If Sangakkara is guilty, then it’s a blot on his career however illustrious it may have been. Like the one that Greg Chappell will always carry on his shoulders (though not of the same proportion). So where are we going from here. In all wrong directions. As I write this, Sangakkara has denied that he played any role in this incident and Sri Lankan Board has asked for a thorough report from the manager. It would have been better if Sangakkara would have acknowledged his brain freeze and apologised as Randiv did. Match referee could have played a role too and the matter could have been buried under the archives of cricinfo.

Movie Review : Peepli [LIVE]

Let me set the tone of this review. Peepli [Live] is not a 'must watch'. It’s a good and different movie which you don’t see often in Hindi cinema. A commendable effort by Aamir Khan Productions and Anusha Rizvi, the debutante director. Anyways, if you watch only 'must watch' these days, you will end up seeing only a couple of movies or worse, none in entire year!

The movie is a slapstick drama set in a sleepy village called Peepli where Natha, a destitute farmer who is about to lose his land, decides (or rather coaxed by his brother) to commit suicide in anticipation of handsome compensation from government. The film depicts how the plight of a poor farmer become the TRP catching fodder for media and a tool to go one up among politicians.

Natha is played by one Omkar Das Manikpuri an outsider to anything remotely related to Bollywood. He fits the character to perfection. He may have very little dialogues but he brilliantly portrays a simple man who is just overawed by the occasion and the attention he gets from everyone ranging from media and local touts to national politicians. On the flip side, Rizvi never tried to explore the psyche of a man who was hounded by thousands just to capture his suicide, live.

Three characters stand out in the movie. Shalini Vatsa as Natha’s wife Dhaniya, Farrukh Jaffer as foul mouthed amma, and Vishal Sharma as television reporter Kumar Deepak (a cloned Deepak Chaurasia). Raghubir Yadav has done full justice to his part but a seasoned actor like him could have sleepwalked through a role which is his forte. All other characters fit the bill too and looked lively on the screen, be it TV reporter Nandita (Malaika Shenoy) or the local Journalist Rakesh (Nawazuddin). Almost entire cast has theatre background and you should not be amazed by their acting prowess. Such is the bar theatre people have set for themselves on big screen.

Though director has tried to keep the movie short (a little under 100 min) as per the script requirement, squabble among the journalists for a byte becomes a bit repetitive after the first half. Dialogues are crisp and the local dialect and accent makes them even more interesting. Rizvi has brilliantly captured the mood of a village and superbly portrayed the TRP hungry media houses. On music front, you will surely enjoy ‘Mehengai Dayan’ sung by Raghubir Yadav in his rustic base voice.

Films like Peepli [Live] come few and far between as the producers today simply don’t see any commercial viability in subjects like farmer suicide. It’s a film which has shades of black humour. You surely won’t be disappointed if you decide to visit a theatre near you to watch it.

MNS cleanup operation

The self proclaimed messiah of Marathi Manoos opened his mouth again yesterday. Interestingly, he didn’t spit out some more garbage. Instead he chose to talk about cleaning it!

I would really love to see a follow up story on this one...

CWG

...Sadly no one is talking about the athletes, their preparation and their upcoming performances!

Sad state of affairs indeed.

Cheers!

The power of Shivaji

There is so much to write these days but then these statues keep popping from everywhere. I was just done with Mayawati's concrete avatar and now there is already competition to her. I wrote about him two years back. If it would have been a plan to do something good for the people, impacting them directly and adding some value to their lives, it would have surely been long forgotten. But then how can you forget Shivaji? Specially when elections are fast approaching. So the plan was taken out of the dust, file was cleaned and now they have taken the decision (Though a formal government's approval is still pending). It seems whenever a state grapples with fears of drought, they tackle it by planning the statues. First UP and now Maharashtra.

The entire project of putting Shivaji Maharaj in sea complete with plush gardens would cost the exchequer a cool 350 crores. Those who are not too fond of Shivaji can enjoy books at the library, if you are not too much of a 'sea' person you can visit the museum and the foodcourts there or if you are not into statues there would be a 200 seater amphitheatre.

What a monumental waste of money!

Cheers!

BJP At The Crossroads

The party with a difference is surely a different party these days. It’s limping badly. One can draw parallels with Jinnah. The preacher of communal harmony in 1916 became the sole messiah of Muslim in 1946. Same way as BJP from the single largest party and the ruling one in 2001 is now, in 2009, an organisation that resembles more like Pakistan Cricket Board as far as infighting, bickering and power struggle is concerned. The change is swift and radical. The party which sells itself for its ideology is struggling to define it.

In the last 5 months, party has spent most of its time in defending venom spewing Varun Gandhi, trying to satisfy the ego of Jaitley and Rajnath Singh (remember Sudhanshu Mittal episode), ignoring the poll debacle, mishandling Vasundhra Raje episode and the expulsion of the veteran leader, Jaswant Singh. Yesterday, Sudheendra Kulkarni dissociated himself from BJP because of ideological differences. All these are clear signs of breakdown.

With A B Vajpayee out of active politics, at 81, Advani cannot be seen as the future of the party. In fact, many say that the decision to expel Jaswant Singh was taken to douse the chants (RSS chief among them) of instating younger leader at the helm. With no clear succession plan in place, this ego tussle between the individuals is bound to grow exponentially and there is no dearth of second string leaders in BJP. For every Rajnath Singh, there is Murali Manohar Joshi, for every Sushma Swaraj, there is Vankaya Naidu and for every Yashwant Sinha, there is Arun Jaitley. Not to forget the state stalwarts like Narendra Modi, Sushil Modi, Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Kalraj Mishra, Ravi Shankar Prasad etc and then there is RSS burden to tackle.

BJP catapulted to the national scene with the emotive Hindutva issue and managed to encash it for few years. But, to be honest, the issue practically died down with the demolition of Babri masjid. Now there is a makeshift temple at the disputed site and everyone in the BJP knows in their hearts that the talks of proposed temple at Ayodhaya are mere fiction. They briefly tried to reignite same agenda on the name of Kashi and Mathura but realised that people don’t buy stale food. They then tried to tread the aggressive tone with the nuclear tests in Pokhran, Kargil and then Operation Parakram. Then there was the aggressive economic agenda which they tried to sell through much maligned 'India Shining' campaign and failed miserably. Since then, Congress has patented the idea of economic progress of India.

BJP now stands at crossroads, unable to decide what its core ideology is and what agenda to pursue. With only a handful of states in its bag and the ever diminishing seats in parliament, BJP now plays the role of opposition which can be passed as laughable at best. And with a herd of leaders with fat egos sitting at various influential positions within the party, their future looks bleak, atleast for the time being.

Cheers!

WTF!

Read this.

The Cricket Board on Thursday cleared the deck for ex-ICL players, who have been granted amnesty, to take part in the third edition of the Indian Premier League with a cap on their payment being a maximum of Rs 20 lakhs.

Great!! I thought. First line of the article probably carried the best thing BCCI has done in recent past, amnesty to ICL players. By the time the line ended, BCCI was at it yet again proclaiming, “We are fools but love to flaunt it”. Cap on their fees, maximum being 20 Lakhs in a scenario where others including foreign players are minting money? Poor lads are still being discriminated. After being banned from playing any sort of serious cricket for more than 2 years, they are now being welcomed to IPL with the ICL tag firmly pasted on their purse by BCCI. If BCCI would have its way, they would have asked the ICL players to complete a period of 6 months rigorous imprisonment before being eligible for national selection or IPL. Niranjan Shah would have asked each player to polish his shoes one by one for a week before being given amnesty.

In 1869, Charles Darwin gave his theory, ‘Survival for the fittest’. These days, BCCI is. They are the ones who have the power and are calling all the shots in world cricket and the scenario is likely to remain unchanged for at least a decade. So we can expect more coming from them in near future. They are in world cricket what America used to be in the world for most part of last two decades.

Cheers!

Sab Maya(wati) Hai!

On Monday, Mayawati has raised a fresh demand of Rs 556 crores from the supplementary budget of the state for the memorial projects. Not forgetting the state drought, she has asked for an additional sum of Rs 250 crores.

A prominent party functionary has asked behenji to review her demand. In a letter written to Mayawati, he has asked her to merge these 250 crores to 556 crores as the contractors working on these memorial projects are already managing all her statues and a large number of elephants on a shoestring budget. As per him, drought has become yearly phenomenon and there is no solution to it other than waiting for the next year rains. On the other hand, memorial parks and statues will remain there forever, reminding people of the glorious achievement of Behen Mayawati.

Update: The budget is now approved. Mayawati gets Rs 806 crores for memorials. Demand for the budget for drought has been dropped. In a separate letter to the above functionary, she has asked for the meaning of the word ‘shoestring’.

January 2010:
All the pending memorial projects are now complete but in the meantime 258 new memorial projects have been announced and now they are pending. Out of these, 105 are parks with statues of Mayawati, 65 are parks with statues of Mayawati along with Kanshiram, 30 are parks with statues of Mayawati, Kanshiram and B R Ambedkar, 40 are shopping malls with the statue of Mayawati with a designer bag at the entrance and 18 are women’s mega toilets where only dalit women will be allowed. All the parks will bear the name “Mayawati memorial parks” .These will be differentiated from each other only by the colour of the statues. All the malls will be christened as “Mayawati Malls”. These will be differentiated from each other by the brand of the hand bag her statue will hold. Fresh demand for budget has been made to the UP assembly.

July 2012:
All 258 projects are now completed as these were fast tracked and took priority before 27 bridges, 10 dams and electrification of 234 villages. As usual, 315 new projects have been announced. At the last count, UP has
26,512 elephants – 512 in flesh, 26,000 in concrete
6423 Mayawatis – 1 in flesh, 5000 in concrete and rest in bronze
2367 Kanshirams – All concrete
1215 Ambedkars – All concrete

December 2012:
Mayawati has just launched a ‘one of its kind project’. An order has been passed where all road dividers on state highways would be replaced by the statues of elephants. Elephant statues will be erected one behind the other and these will serve as road divider. Party supporters have expressed joy and have demanded “MTV innovative idea of the year award” for her.

May 2013:
Mayawati has made it compulsory for all the citizens of UP to display either an elephant or a Mayawati outside their houses. Citizens need to bear the cost of the statues as the state’s finances are in doldrums. In an unrelated announcement, she has banned the ‘laughing Buddha’. Instead there would be miniature ‘Laughing Kanshiram’ which people can buy from Mayawati stores after paying a ‘voluntary’ undisclosed sum. This money would be used for Mayawati’s birthday party.

April 2020:
Mayawati is serving her 6th term as Chief Minister now. Any influx of people from other city to Noida and Lucknow has been barred as there is severe space crunch in these cities. A recent census shows that the number of elephant statues have outnumbered the number for people below the age of 30 years in the state. In a new directive, Mayawati has declared that any new statues of elephants will be made hollow and big enough to accommodate one family inside it. These will be used to house dalit people who are currently staying in various shanties in slum areas. These shanties will be bulldozed and space for more such hollow elephants will be made. Party supporters have expressed joy and have demanded “MTV innovative idea of the year award” for her for 9th straight year. Fresh demand for the budget for these hollow elephant project has been made to the UP assembly.

Cheers!

Babudom and Netaland

One thing that I badly missed during my two year stint in UK was books of my taste. Though there were government libraries providing books free of cost, I rarely found books of my liking. Now that I am back in India, I am on a reading spree since past 9 months. Ideally, I should write a review of at least half of them but the reviews are written best if you write them just after you finish the book. So let’s leave them at that.

Currently the book that is featuring on my pillow is a class 'Journeys Through Babudom And Netaland' by retired IAS officer T.S.R Subramanian who last served as cabinet secretary in Government of India. He is someone who has seen and worked with bureaucrats and politicians from close quarters. The book is a real insight and first hand account of the red tapism and the corruption which is prevalent till the roots in public sector. A perfect blend of humour and satire. It portrays the moment of frustrations he had during his 37 years of service most of which were spent as the collector or district magistrate of small districts in UP.

It’s a must read for nonfiction lovers. There are so many anecdotes that I can mention but this one takes the cake :

"Contrast this with K K Dass, who had been chief secretary of UP in 1960's, and retired from service sometime in 70's.When he served as secretary to the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, his minister was the late Uma Shankar Dikshit. Dikshit soon thereafter became the home minister of India, and his staff officer Rajgopal, a dear friend of mine, showed me a file with exchange of correspondence between Dikshit and KK Dass. On his retirement,Dass had written a polite letter thanking Dikshit for all the courtesies extended to him and formally bidding farewell to him.The next letter in the file was the copy of an acknowledgement from the home minister to Dass, with a paragraph added, asking whether Dass would be available for a gubernatorial assignment. It is the home minister who usually initiates the proposals for the post of governor in the various states; and it was not a casual offer. Dikshit had made a mention on the file that he had discussed the matter with prime minister. In his reply, which is on record, Dass said that he was flattered and overwhelmed by the kindness shown by the home minister.Then he went on to add "I have served the Government of India for nearly 40 years. During this time, I have neglected the two true loves of my life -- my wife and my rose garden. Could the home minister excuse me and allow me to spend the few remaining years of my life in the company of my wife and the roses"

Such men existed!

Cheers!

Where are students?

About 5 years back I visited Hyderabad for the first time. One thing that caught my eye was the number of billboards advertising upcoming or ongoing Telugu/Tamil movies. Sheer number took me by surprise. Almost 80% of the billboards were displaying giant images of movies and it seemed as if whole city was painted by them. Cut to Pune, Oct'08. Here, movies were replaced by the advertisements of upcoming residential societies, Villas and and Apartments.


Two weeks back, I visited my hometown, Gwalior. For Geographically challenged (and I am one of them) its one of the city in Madhya Pradesh. Whole city was carrying large hoardings of new and existing colleges and institutes. Education is not new here. Gwalior had become an educational hub even 15 years back when coaching classes for PET, PMT and IIT mushroomed everywhere. This time I saw a number of hoardings attracting students for engineering, BBA, BCA, MBA, nursing, B. Ed, D. Ed etc. When I cleared my engineering entrance exam in 1999, there were 4 engineering colleges there and now I am told there are 25! I wondered who would be their potential students and wont they find it difficult to attract students. The other obvious question was the capability of the owners of these 'self financed' colleges and Institutes to cough up requisite facilities, campus and labs to start them.


I got my answer today when I read ' No students yet for 42 engineering colleges in Tamilnadu' on times website.


Only 27 colleges including Anna University's three constituent departments and government-run institutions have managed to fill up more than 96% of the available seats in various courses. "Less than 15 seats (1 to 10%) have been filled up in 177 engineering colleges, while 8 colleges have recorded an admission rate of 91 to 95%,"


So the situation is same everywhere. Now we have got a number of sub standard colleges owned by the rich and powerful but no students to join them. This too when every 'gali ka chora' is doing engineering and BCA these days. I heard that the same is happening even with the institutes as elite as IITs. With the number of IITs increased to 13 now, there is a dearth of students even there!


This is a glaring example when you start doing something just to showcase progress on paper. Education is the mirror of the society and the country and its high on every government's agenda be it central or state. Just to show that we are making progress permissions are being granted to all kinds of bogus institutes. This is to enable government to take the credit for opening so many colleges and institutes (needless to say these permissions are being granted in the most corrupt way) and we end up having colleges without students.


Soon we will see colleges distributing cash prizes to the student taking admissions in their institute and soon the headline ' Take admission and get two free tickets to Bangkok' wont be a joke!


Cheers!

Legend

I am not sure why a sporting event as gruelling as Tour de France is not covered extensively either in print or in electronic media. I understand that an event which spreads over 23 days does not attract too much attention from public but then then a race which requires participants to cover 3,500 Kms through steep climbs and arduous terrains throughout France and bordering countries and a race which can be termed as the ultimate test of human stamina deserves a bit more respect. Tour de France 2009 concluded two days back and any of the 1000+ news channels hardly covered it. I dont want to write about the winner. The guy is supremely fit 26 year old.

Lance Armstrong, a seven time Tour de France champion, at the age of 37 years stood 3rd. Now thats an achievement. Now consider this. He retired from professional cycling 3 years back after winning the event consecutively between 1999 and 2006 and returned from retirement only this year.

That he battled life threatening cancer disease at the age of 25 ( before winning any of his titles) make him the stuff of a legend. Two years back I got a chance to read his autobiography, Its not about bike and it had a deep impact on me.

Those who are looking for some inspiration from real life heroes, this book is a must read.

PS: Dont read his second book, Every second counts. That was written only to milk the success of his first!

Cheers!

Tears...

...sometimes its good to shed a tear or two...your gender not withstanding...

The Maestro

You must have read hundreds of articles on him. I have.

This is one that touched me.

Yes. Bit long but then all good things don't come in small packages!

Cheers!

The mystery of 49-O

Since the terror attacks, there is a flood of mails cursing the politicians, need for change and asking people to use Rule 49-O of ‘The Conduct of Election Rules’. There seems to be loads of myths associated with this rule. Even the websites on the net are providing wrong information (Check THIS and THIS) let alone social networking forums. This post is just to break a few myths associated with Rule 49-O.


49-O is not an article of Indian Constitution. Its one of the Rule of ‘The Conduct of election Rules .


Under this rule, you can visit the polling booth, identify yourself to the presiding officer at the booth and then inform him that you do not intend to vote anybody. Please note that in the process your identity will be revealed which is against the essence of Secret Ballot. This is just a way to indicate that you voted (So your vote cannot be misused) but not in favor of any candidate. Your vote would be a part of official counting numbers but it won’t have any impact on the outcome of the results.


Under no conditions there would be any re polling or cancellation of elections.


A few sites suggests if the no. of ‘ voted nobody’ is greater than the winning margin then the election would be declared void and there will be re-polling. Some even suggests that these candidates cannot be a part of re election process. These are baseless statements.

Cheers.

Terrorist Attack...2

Indian media is terming the recent terror attacks in Mumbai as 'India's 9/11'. I agree, it was. Hundreds were killed at WTC and large number of people were injured. Same happened at Taj, Oberoi and Nariman house. But let me assure you that the similarity will end there. Don’t fool yourself thinking that there will be preventive measures or stringent actions against terrorist outfits as done by America. Political eyewash has already started. RR Patil has resigned, Shivraj Patil has been shown the door and Vilasrao Deshmukh has followed the suit.

This was not the first time when the ‘new age terror’ struck India nor it will be the last. Not so long ago, we have witnessed attack on the Parliament (which was also termed as attack on Indian soul or something), blasts in Jaipur, Bombay local trail serial blasts, operation B.A.D just to name a few. Every time we saw the rhetoric of politicians, blame game from the ones in opposition, promises of strong actions against terrorism and appeal to remain calm to the people of India in the hour of crisis. Needless to say, nothing concrete happens.

The problem lies elsewhere. These terrorists are not interested in killing a certain number of people. They make bold statements. That your parliament is vulnerable. That the life line of Mumbai can be cut. That the premier cities of India can be made to bleed at will with well planned serial blasts. Even they now know how soft we are on terror. Afzal Guru is a glaring example. What will come out of this Taj/Oberoi investigation? May be it will throw some names and a few arrests. What will we do with them when we cannot hang Afzal Guru even after Supreme Court ruling is a big question.

It’s been a decade since we are asking for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. Not sure how much we are going to add there when we have bigger security issues at home.

Much has been made of Mumbai’s undying spirit and its ability to bounce back. In this very spirit of Mumbai, politicians used to take shade in. For me, it’s not the spirit; it’s the hunger, the need to work for millions of Mumbaikars who cannot afford to sit back for a day or two as it would mean empty stomach at the end of the day. Is there any option left to the common man other than going to work and start doing the routine? This time even that spirit was broken. Mumbai didn’t bounce back for 4 days.

Whenever there are talks of national security, only two parties participate, Congress & BJP. Rest like NCP, SP, BSP, DMK, TDP, ABC, KBC, KKHH, HAHK goes into hibernation as if it’s not their headache. They come out of their hiding only when its time to form a coalition. In few days time, general elections will stare these political parties and all will get busy in deciding candidates, election rallies and India Shining campaigns. They will do what they can do best, Talks and Promises. As far as this media is concerned, somebody will fall into a bore well soon and they will be on their way to capture the ‘news of national importance’.

As for us, nothing will change.

Terrorist Attack...

TERRORIST ATTACK—Civilians Dead—Policemen Dead—ISI—Lashkar-e tayaaba—Pakistan is a terrorist state—Prime Minister’s appeal for calm—Long face of Home Minister--Urgent Cabinet Meeting—Emergency meeting on Security—Opposition attacks Government for being too soft—Chants of ‘Bring POTA’ --Tight security at all places – Police arrests 6 suspects—Charge sheet/Court cases….

TERRORIST ATTACK AGAIN! —Civilians Dead—Policemen Dead—ISI—Lashkar-e tayaaba—Pakistan is a terrorist state—Prime Minister’s appeal for calm—Long face of Home Minister--Urgent Cabinet Meeting—Emergency meeting on Security—Opposition attacks Government for being too soft—Chants of ‘Bring POTA’ --Tight security at all places – Police arrests 6 suspects—Charge sheet/Court cases….

The transition

Who doesn't get fascinated by the rags to riches stories? Stories of guys who made it big against all odds or those who rose from their humble background to become the Whos Who of their field.

Somehow, I find myself glued to such stories. I love autobiographies. Most of them tread this line. It fascinates me when I read about one Naresh Goyal who started as a cashier travel agent and now owns the biggest private sector airlines. I love the story of Lance Armstrong who battled his cancer, went through the rigours of chemeotherapy and then set the sporting scene ablaze with 7 Tour de France victories. The Dhirubhai Ambanis, the Oberois and the Kushalpals. List is endless.

A certain Christopher Gardener who once struggled in life so badly that he was left to sleep in public toilets along with his infant son but later became owner of one of the the best known stock broking firm. We love to watch a Hrithik Roshan winning mountain peaks in Kargil not because he was brave but because of what he became from what he was showed in the second reel of the movie.

All this blabbering because I just watched an interview of Milkha Singh on CNN IBN. The guy who till now , for me, was a headline who lost bronze in Rome Olympics by a whisker and whom I used to rate behind only Bishan Singh Bedi wen it comes to giving illogical views in media. This interview changed all that.

Cheers!

Congrats Preity Zinta and 'his' team

Thanks to Harbhajan now there is a controversy regarding Zinta's gender!