180⁰ turn

Its very rare that you get a chance to witness a 'mathematical' event, or rather an event to which you can attach a mathematical connotation...

The Grand Old Party (GOP) of India has decided that enough is enough.

Now why do the citizens of India need to switch on the family dramas for the entertainment, when our own GOP has the expertise, the zeal, and the actors to provide it !

A B D E F G H....X Y Z

Did you spot thing odd ?

or did I miss something?

Here is the explanation:

There is a possibility that the administrators in charge of cricket in the largest economy of Africa will omit one letter from the language/communications guide for the present and future bunch of cricketers. It is to taken as a precautionary step to avoid what had happened 5 times before 2011, and what happened the 6th time in 2011.

Whether it succeeds or not is a separate issue.

I accept responsibility !

Now this has got to be funny.

Imagine what was the reaction of our 'Prime' Minister on being asked about the latest embarrassment for the UPA government, PJ Thomas case (ex-Chief Vigilance Commissioner)??

Nothing remarkable again.

As usual he replied, 'I accept responsibility'.

Kalmadi gets a free run to mess with Commonwealth Games and he literally turns it into "common-wealth".

The PM prefers keeping mum.

The Conspirationist

I was not really sure whether there actually was a word like "conspirationist", but when MS Word highlighted the word in red, I knew that my hunch was right. There is no such word as that.

But even if there isn't a word like that, it is the word which best captures the state of mind which is common to most Indians , including me : belief in the theory of conspiracy !

We always strive to find the conspiracy behind every statement, every act, every gesture, and every something !

What next?

 

What next?

India's GDP grows by 8.75 % !

Manufacturing sector witnesses impressive growth !

Future is very bright for India !

The moment of India has arrived !

We have been reading and hearing such comments for quite some now. Comments ranging from pure facts to pure fiction have been dished out for us across newspapers, televisions, internet, office places, and practically every place we go to.

So, now what?

Of the Arundhati Roys....

Sometimes you need to know how bad things can turn out to be in order to understand how good things actually are !

Sometimes you also need to know how unfortunate u can be in order to realise how fortunate you actually are !

This is something which Arundhati Roy and her cohorts need to understand.

Sample this : 1) the wife of arrested 'Maoist sympathizer' Binayak Sen commented last week : I wish we were in some 'liberal democratic country', and not India. We fear for our lives here.

2) Arundhati Roy : Maoists are fully justified in taking up arms against the 'Indian State'.

The IPL Team of 2010 : ZooZooZ are back

The IPL season is back !!

After the positive response to the IPL team of 2009, the selectors  are back with the IPL team of 2010. There has been a delay of couple of days in picking the team compared to the last year, but it only shows the merit of the players in contention this year, which forced the selectors to think hard (something which the Indian selectors don't like to !) !!

The rules remain the same and performances of players in 2010 only have been taken into consideration while picking up the team. The name remains the same: ZooZooZ ( which was the flavor in 2009), though one also considered for a while the Deceivers (which is the theme for 2010).

BROAKING NEWS !!

Got used to hearing, listening and watching the same old and cliched 'breaking  news'?

Relax.

The Indian Media has decided that enough is enough, its time to move forward. Gone are the days when you will be forced to find the 'breaking' element in the 'breaking news', we now present before you BROKING NEWS.

Yes, you read it right, there is no spelling error, it is indeed BROKING NEWS.

26 and counting..

We are back to the last month of the year.

Another year of the new millennium is about to make way for the next.

And once more we will be told about what happened 26 years ago in the capital of the state at the center of India.

The grief, the pain, the suffering, the accusations, the pleas for 'justice', the 'hope' never ceases to end.

The saga continues !

Many were delighted when last month Obama hinted at his willingness to support India's candidature for the 'coveted' permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council. These people claimed that the moment of India has arrived and has been acknowledged by the United States at last.

Bag-pack Oh-mama !

Its happened all over once again. 

Now before you ask what has happened all over again, lets do an "if-then" analysis and then perhaps the thing will become clear.

If : A foreigner celebrity ( read Presidents and Prime Ministers of other nations) visits our country, or decides to visit our country.

Then : What happens?

Then : The India media (and to some extent some Indian people too) goes gaga about the trip. Melodramatic, over excited, out of the mind, exaggerating- all of these and many other words are just indicative of the reactions of Indian media. We seem to be too much obsessed about everything foreign ( read American) and this tendency is at its best when someone says something about India, or someone comes to India.

Tatkal and its Avatars

Recently on my train journey back to home a lady joined us with three time the luggage I was carrying. On top of it she did not have a confirmed ticket and kept repeating the following sentences every 5 minutes( or whenever any fellow passenger looked at her ( obviously she too had to look at him/her then !) ):

" I booked my ticket 3 months ago, it was wait-list no. 135 then, its 135 even now"

" I booked in 1st AC, in 2nd AC, in 3rd AC, in first class, but couldn't get a confirmed ticket"

" Railways are so bad, all are crooks".

I thought for a moment to interrupt her and point to her that there was no 1st AC in our train, but I refrained for the fear of listening to her all over once again. But it again made me think for the umpteenth time, in the last few months, about the "Tatkal" scheme.

Before I proceed further, I must say I genuinely admire the ingeniousness of the person who came up with the concept of "Tatkal" in Indian Railways sometime earlier in this decade.

I admit that it has been, and still is beneficial for many passengers in many ways.

It has also helped Railways improve their earnings.

But somehow I still feel there is a lot fishy about Tatkal.

Pictures can speak too

Pictures from my blogs.
Some of these speak more than the blog itself !!

Aliens in India

Empathy and sympathy: two words which are often misunderstood by many. Rather, the former is often misunderstood as the latter, probably because they both sound alike. They however convey different meanings, infact much more different than it appears at first. Empathy, to take definition from one of the dictionaries, is intellectual identification with feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of others. Very few know when to sympathise and when to empathise. One of the key differences is that suffering or pain is the sine qua non for sympathy, but not empathy. Sometimes one needs to look beyond the obvious to empathise and then act accordingly.

You might be wondering that what has empathy to do with aliens? And when did aliens come to India? Or are they planning to come to India?

The next few sentences talks about issues beyond the obvious meaning of aliens. It talks about the not-so-often-obvious pain of not being from the mainland India and more importantly the pain of not being recognized and treated as 'other' Indians. It tries to look into India and Indians from the eyes of those who are increasingly considering themselves to be less Indian than ever. It talks about the potential danger which India and Indians might have to face if they continue to remain oblivious of something which will in sometime appear very apparent. It talks about what is lacking in all of us.
It talks about the need for empathy.

Race against Race

When will the race against race get over?

The recently concluded Commonwealth Games would be remembered for various reasons and the reasons could be very different for different set of people.

There would be Indians who initially would have felt let down by the "leaders" and the "games" officials who were busy playing games with the Indian people and the image of the nation. These same bunch of Indians would be breathing a sigh of relief now that the games have concluded without any issues( barring a couple of glitches). The opening and the closing ceremony would definitely have given each Indian a moment to feel that extra pride of being an Indian.

But there would also be a bunch of people( those primarily from the West) for whom it is not over yet. These are the people who were the most vocal critics of games going to a "third world country" like India. What is more disturbing is the fact that this had little to do with the mishandling before the games. The major reason for it was the latent "superiority feeling", or the "racial prejudice" which many of them seem to harbour even in this supposedly "free from race" era.

A-Yodhha for Ayodhya

Verdict is out on one of the longest running cases in the Indian courts.

This is one verdict, the build up for which in the fast few weeks witnessed the best of behaviour from the Indian politicians ( which unfortunately is very rare). And it was not only the politicians who behaved responsibly and rationally, the people and the media also behaved in a commendable manner.

Now that the verdict is out, it is time to act even more rationally and more responsibly.

Its time to reflect on the greater repercussions of this decision.