VP Singh is No More

In the midst of all the news surrounding the Mumbai blasts, one important event got sidelined. The death of  Vishwanath Pratap Singh, former prime minister of India.

Adopted by the Maharaja of Manda at the age of five, VP Singh went on to become the Chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. As CM he gave away land to the poor as part of Vinoba Bhave’s Bhoodan movement and led a ruthless campaign against bandits.

VP Singh had a checkered political career of a mere seven years on the national stage.

In 1984 Rajiv Gandhi appointed him his finance minister. During the Bofors scandal, he was about to disclose the names of middlemen which led to a fallout with the then ruling Gandhi. He was dismissed from the cabinet and resigned from the parliament.

In the 1989 elections, the BJP and the left combined against the Congress and VP Singh became Prime Minister of India.
He was there when Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s daughter Rubaiya was kidnapped, and exchanged for five of the most wanted terrorists India had managed to nab. His role lasted all of one year, before the BJP pulled the rug from under the government following the Babri masjid demolition and the ensuing events.

But these are not the reasons why he will be remembered forever.

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Filed under: Desi, Happenings, News , India, Kashmir, mandal commission, mufti mohammad sayeed, reservation, rubaiya sayeed, Terrorism, vp singh

Terrorists’ Best Friends – News Channels

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Till a few years back, here’s how terrorists operated. They picked a target, decided whether they want to bomb or shoot, implement the plan and kill a bunch of people, and soon the world would get to know about it. There would be news for a few days and then people would move on.

With the advent of modern news channels, things have changed.

Now the terrorists’ job has become easier, thanks to 24 hour live coverage on TV. Now they need to begin their attack, and wait till media persons arrive. Then they start playing to the media.

Earlier their actions affected a few hundred, maybe a few thousand people, but now millions of people can watch in real time all the gruesome details, and the message is spread far and wide. As much as we appreciate information sharing, this is one arena where too much information is counter productive. Not only is the terror message delivered far and wide, and repeatedly, but they get assistance from television channels beaming live coverage of operations against them.

Its like the law enforcement agencies are fighting two enemies at the same time.

Case in point, the recent operations in Mumbai to weed out those rotten scoundrels responsible for bringing India to a standstill for the past few days. As NSG commandos were dropping onto the roof of the building, their images were being telecast live.

How in earth are they going to surprise any terrorists if they can see what is going on outside on CNN-IBN? How about deferring telecasting the footage by maybe half an hour?

…Shankar says anchors play a critical role in maintaining balance in the midst of live coverage. “Unfortunately, many channels have people of poor intellectual calibre and maturity as anchors. And this is across English and Hindi news channels,” he said. “We also need to find more dignified ways of approaching victims who’ve just emerged from a traumatic experience rather than thrusting mikes in their faces as if they have just come out of a matinee show.”[link]

You see survivors coming outside the hotels, and a dozen cameramen surround them.  A person coming out from a horrific ordeal in a state of trauma deserves some courtesy/water/space/respect, not twenty howling journos asking how he felt.

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Filed under: Desi, Happenings, News, Thoughts , attack, Bad Journalism, cnn-ibn, deccan mujahideen, India, indian media, maharashtra, mumbai, mumbai terrorist attacks, Terrorism, war on terror

The Last Straw

They carried out bomb blasts in Mumbai. We rebounded and rebuilt the city. They attacked our parliament, and we stopped juust short of eliminating our neighbor state. They carried out bomb blasts in Delhi, and we kept going on.

Today they crossed the line. We have had enough.

Our hearts go out to the families of those killed in the latest attack on India. This sudden turn of events is unbearable, unfortunate, undesired, unnecessary, and completely uncalled for.

When the US was attacked in 2001, they went to war with Afghanistan. How is India going to react? Our prime minister has already condemned the attacks. Does he have the balls to do anything more?

The proverbial long arm of the law apparently isn’t long enough. We are being attacked at will, and the intensity of the attacks and the damage keeps increasing.

Somebody needs to start taking their job more seriously.

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Filed under: Desi, Happenings, India, News, Thoughts , deccan mujahideen, isi, Kashmir, maharashtra, mumbai, mumbai terrorist attacks, Pakistan, simi, Terrorism, war on terror

Popping the Pirate Party

For all the hoopla over Indian navy’s new role as savior of the needy and helpless, take this.

The Navy’s decision to destroy a pirate mother ship is now being questioned by a Thai national who says the ship sunk last Tuesday in the Gulf of Aden actually belonged to him. [link]

Fourteen sailors are still missing from a Thai trawler that was sunk last week by the Indian navy as a suspected pirate ship, the vessel’s owner said Tuesday.[link]

Apparently, the victim was not the mother of pirate ships as so prominently claimed and acclaimed in the media. It was just another poor ship being attacked by those mean SOBs. The pirates were on the ship, but it wasn’t theirs!
No wonder they fired at INS Tabar, which happily shot them down.

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Filed under: Happenings, India, News , indian navy, ins tabar, navy, pirate mother ship, somalia, somalian pirates, tabar, trigger happy ships

James Ellroy once said “Anybody who doesn’t know that politics is crime has got a few screws loose.”

The dichotomy between crime and politics has been often talked about. Once you are a big enough politician/criminal, the lines start diminishing. Nothing you do is wrong. You can kill ten thousand people and nothing will happen to you.

Heck, you can attack the parliament, and nothing can happen to you. Ask Afzal.

After intense and immense analysis, here’s relative career graphs for politicians vs criminals. Those of you contemplating either of these professions might notice that there is no distinction between the two beyond a certain point.

All roads lead to, well, power public service.

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Filed under: Desi, India, Thoughts , afzal, Crime, Desi, India, parliament, policitians are criminals, politics, politics and crime go hand in hand

Divided We Fall

Once upon a time, there was a nation that could have lived happily ever after. But then that nation decided to become a democracy, and a confused mix of socialism and communism and capitalism.

Things would never be the same again.

Down the line, several new isms joined in. Big brother communalism started dividing the people on the basis of their regional identities. The nation of twenty one national languages and thousands of other languages and dialects started breaking up. South India hated North India. North India was suspicious of South India. Things came to a pass in 2008 when Maharashtra started beating up people from other states for taking up local jobs and not speaking the local language.

Separatism soon engulfed different corners of the nation. Kashmiris started burning flags and killing people. ULFA went on a rampage in the northeast. Naxalites took over Andhra and adjoining regions.

Then came along secularism. This one was funny because it was really anti secularism. This practice involved certain people from certain political outfits favoring certain religious communities, while ignoring the needs of the majority community. Anyone doing that was proclaimed non secular. Secularism acquired a new meaning – taking for granted the Hindu majority and appeasing the religious minorities to tap into their vote bank.

This secularism eventually broke up the country and gave rise to hatred and intolerance among the various communities.

Soon this evolved into fundamentalism. Muslim groups started blowing up Hindus. Hindu groups started blowing up Muslims. Christian missionaries started getting burnt (literally, unfortunately). When this got too predictable, terrorist outfits started blowing up their own people, just to make the other side look worse. Nobody gained, and a lot of lives were destroyed.

Sikhs got plundered in 1984 because two of them had killed the reigning monarch of India. Hindu pilgrims got burnt alive inside their train at Godhra, and many more Muslims were killed in the ensuing riots.

Gandhi died a second death. And a few dozen more.

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Filed under: Happenings, India, Thoughts , bhaiya, bihar, communalism, communism, gandhi, godhra, hindu, India, maharashtra, muslim, national language, north vs south india, Regionalism, Secularism, Unity in Diversity

Basmati’s Got Company

Readers might rewind their brains to many years ago, when there was this huge outcry about an American company acquiring patent rights over Basmati rice.

Yes, the very same Basmati rice that we Indians have been cultivating for, for, forever.  How dare they? Basmati is India, spelt in seven letters.

Well, they were told to stick it, and after a big campaign, most of the patents were revoked. More importantly, Ricetec lost the right to claim the Basmati brand.

Trust American ingenuity to come up with alternatives.

Presenting, for our very own readers, for the first time, here’s Basmati’s American cousins.

Big brothers Kasmati and Texmati.

Kasmati is Indian Style Basmati. Texmati is Long Grain American Basmati

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Filed under: Desi, Happenings, India, Pictures, SeenAndHeard , basmati rice, biopiracy, cool stuf, India, jasmati, kasmati, Newyork, rice, rice patent, ricetec, seen and heard, textmati

Turn of the Tide

They say a picture is worth a million words.

This one was discovered in a discount household store in Newyork.

So far we had only seen Indian stores selling stuff with prices printed in rupees. A non desi store selling Tide detergent for Rs 23 was, let’s just say, exciting.

(Just to clarify, these prices might be printed in rupees, but the beauty is that you pay in dollars, and the dollar price has no relation to the conversion rate)

God bless whoever thought up camera phones!

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Filed under: Desi, Happenings, Pictures , Cool stuff, Newyork, Pictures, piracy, tide

WordPress or Not

This blog had its humble origins here before moving on to its new self hosted location. Since then, many suns have set, many Biharis have got beaten up in Mumbai, a Black man has been elected US president, India has found an Olympic champion, and the global economy has gone into the crapper.

How has our experience been? A wise old man said, “Think before you Leap“.
Our words of wisdom: “Think before you Host“.

For people contemplating moving to their own hosted blogs, here’s our reflections on the experience and on the pros and un-pros of going it alone.

Hosting on WordPress.com

1. One word. FREE!

What can i say? That’s an important one.

2. Convenience of setup

Setting up your blog on wordpress is as easy as blinking your eye, and some more. You can pick from a number of themes and have the blog up and running in no time.

3. No Downtime

WordPress does a great job of maintaining its servers, and your blog will be up and available pretty much most of the time. We rarely observed accessibility issues while on wordpress.com.This could be an issue once you move to independent hosting providers.

4. Traffic

WordPress also does a great job of providing a steady stream of traffic to your blog through subscribers looking for your tags/categories. There’s a huge community that wordpress has built up, and being on wordpress helps in getting your blog some publicity.

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Filed under: Blogging, Web Development , Blogging, domain registration, plugins, self hosting, website hosting, wordpress, wordpress.com, wordpress.org

Kahani Reality TV Ki

V is getting boring. Who really cares about Ekkta KKappoorr and her shitshow? Reality TV is the new Soap Opera.

Here’s a list of shows that we would love to watch on our Idiotbox.

Return of the Desi

This show documents the returning to India of a Wall street couple fresh from a layoff. Their innumerable sacrifices are the selling point of the show. Their coming to terms with the poverty, the various stenches, lack of power, abundance of crime, lack of water, lack of manners, and the all-encompassing corruption would bring tears of introspective joy to every self respecting Indian’s eyes.

Eventually they would give up the fake pretences, bribe their neighborhood district magistrate and open up a successful call center business.

Chal Meri Gaadi

This show goes inside the lives of four blue line drivers. We get to be part of their daily struggles on Delhi roads (daily on Delhi, see what i did there!?) dealing with unruly passengers, cops always asking for more, lazy helpers, and more importantly, people not getting out of the way quickly enough.

Chal Meri Gaadi would be one fabulous chance for redemption for Blue line drivers. Needless to add, the TRPs will be sky high.

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Filed under: Desi, Humour, India, Stories, Thoughts , Desi, funny, humor, India, Masti, reality tv, television

Obama Wins

Today is a historic day for America. The country just elected it’s first Black president after 43 White ones.

The US has come of age.

Leave alone the glass ceiling, the steel door has been blasted open.

Makes me think of India. When will we Indians rise through petty barriers to appoint leaders based on merit and not their race, religion, or gender?

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Filed under: Desi, Happenings, News, Thoughts , barack obama, democracy, India, us elections, us president

Travelogy – Las Vegas (Part 2)

One of the highlights of our Las Vegas vacation was a trip to the Grand Canyon. Special enough to get its own post.

The Grand Canyon is one of the great natural wonders on the planet. It was formed by the Colorado river cutting through the surrounding terrain, over the course of millions of years. Located at a short few hours drive from Las Vegas, this is a must see sight if you are traveling to that area.

One added bonus en route is the Hoover dam, one of the marvels of modern engineering. When completed in 1935, it was the largest concrete structure ever built. At its base, the dam is 200m thick. That’s two football fields of solid concrete.

Anyway, we decided to cut short the travel time. We took a helicopter trip offered by papilon helicopters. They would fly us to the canyon in about 45 minutes, land on the canyon floor(!), and get us back. We would get to see the Hoover dam as well, and all this would be done in about 4 hours. You could call it a time saver. You could also call it a wallet buster.

This was the Ecostar helicopter that flew us from Boulder city to the canyon.

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Filed under: Pictures, Travel, Videos , colorado river, grand canyon, las vegas, nevada, papilon helicopters, skywalk, vegas strip

Travelogy – Las Vegas (Part 1)

We took a trip three months back recently to a city called Las Vegas. Here’s my little travelogue.

Just in case you didn’t know, Las Vegas is a city famous for certain establishments called casinos, where innocent people empty their wallets in the belief that they can actually make money just playing games. Smarter people know that everybody loses to the casino.

Fun Fact #1: It’s estimated that every day Las Vegas casinos give away $3 million of freebies (more than $1 billion per year) just to get customers through their doors.Another matter that those billion dollar freebies result in many multiples of that in revenue.

Grand would be understating these casinos. They are huge. The nicer ones are pictures of opulence where the super rich gamble away their hardly earned dollars. Many of these casinos are based on elaborate themes to model famous cities such as New york, Paris, even Venice.

Here’s the Luxor which is built to look like an Egyptian pyramid.

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Filed under: Travel, Videos , bellagio, caesers palace, casino, excalibur, las vegas, nevada, Newyork, paris, Pictures, Travel, Videos