Entrance to Taj Mahal

I recently traveled to Agra to visit Taj Mahal, one of the seven wonders of the world. Though the drive on the newly commissioned Yamuna Express Way from Delhi to the outskirts of Agra was wonderful, the drive through the Agra city to reach Tajmahal was an agony. One had to wind one's way through the narrow market place, plying all modes of transport, including bullock carts, cycle rickshaws and hand carts, not to speak of convoys of cows and buffaloes crossing the roads, holding the vehicular traffic to ransom. The roads were full of cow dung and slush. Light showers of winter rain had made the place all the more dirty. But the culminating point of disappointment was the scene at the entrance to the Taj Mahal premises.  To save me from using words to explain the scene,  i am putting up some pics where the visitors to the Taj are seen doing obstacle course to avoid walking through ankle deep water gathered just at the entrance. I wonder what the administration is doing with the entry fee charged from the visitors. The heritage site is visited not only by the countrymen in thousands per day but also by foreigners from whom a hefty entry fee is charged. Please have a look and feel free to comment. The area around the entrance of the premises is dug up and is lying in a state of utter neglect.

Delhi's Under Belly

Every year, with the arrival of monsoon in delhi, the lightest of showers flood the streets of the National Capital. The reason is that the drains that are supposed to drain away the excess rain water are full of garbage and get choked.

Today during my morning walk I clicked some pics of the drain running through the posh residential area of Vasant Vihar, which is also the neighborhood of present Lt. Governor of the NCT of Delhi. Come on Mr.Tejinder Khanna. Get your drains cleaned in time. The monsoons have already knocked the doors of Andaman Islands and will be in Delhi in a few days from now.

Delhi Power Supply Competing with the Sun

During my morning walks i invariably find the street lights burning while the Sun shines bright in the morning sky.

I wonder whether Delhi has surplus power or are the power supply companies trying to outshine the Sun? Have a look at the pictures which i took over a period of few days on my cell phone.

A Promise to Pay

 

(click on the images to enlarge)

Yes these are specimens of Rs 5000/- and Rs 10000 denomination currency notes. Don't get surprised. India is not a poor country and she never was. These notes were in circulation in our country even after India's Independence and were later withdrawn in 1978 to arrest black money. 

Even today Indians have the largest deposits of money in foreign Banks like Swiss Banks etc. 

It is alleged that according to the Swiss Banking Association Report of 2006, Swiss Banks deposits by top five countries were :-

India : $ 1456 Billon

Russia : $ 470 Billion

UK : $390 Billion

China: $ 96 Billion

(Based on a statement by Mr. Joginder Singh, former Director CBI, in a reputed magazine)

Incidentally the figures might have changed upwards since then as the report is of 2006. And Swiss banks are only one of the tax havens. There may be much more Indian money deposited in other  banks abroad by our corrupt citizens.

Alas !! If only the country's wealth was equally distributed we won't have slums, illiteracy, malnutrition, and violent groups like naxalites and our Defence forces would have been stronger than those of America or China.

On Tenth Anniversary of 9/11

Friends, on the tenth anniversary of "9/11" -- the  famous term used for the day of the attack on World Trade Centre and other three sites in the United States that was carried out on 9th September 2001-- i want to share with you all an article that has been published in STRATFOR, a geopolitical weekly. The article is an explanation that why America has been successful in preventing another 9/11 and which carries a great lesson for us. Please read on:-

9/11 and the Successful War

By George Friedman


It has been 10 years since 9/11, and all of us who write about such things for a living are writing about it. That causes me to be wary. I prefer being the lonely voice, but the fact is that 9/11 was a defining moment in American history. On Sept. 12, 2001, few would have anticipated the course the resulting war would take — but then, few knew what to think. The nation was in shock. In retrospect, many speak with great wisdom about what should have been thought about 9/11 at the time and what should have been done in its aftermath. I am always interested in looking at what people actually said and did at the time.


The country was in shock, and shock was a reasonable response. The country was afraid, and fear was a reasonable response. Ten years later, we are all much wiser and sure that our wisdom was there from the beginning. But the truth is that, in retrospect, we know we would have done things superbly had we the authority. Few of us are being honest with ourselves. We were all shocked and frightened. Our wisdom came much later, when it had little impact. Yes, if we knew then what we know now we would have all bought Google stock. But we didn’t know things then that we know now, so it is all rather pointless to lecture those who had decisions to make in the midst of chaos.


Some wars are carefully planned, but even those wars rarely take place as expected. Think of the Germans in World War I, having planned the invasion of France for decades and with meticulous care. Nothing went as planned for either side, and the war did not take a course that was anticipated by anyone. Wars occur at unpredictable times, take unpredictable courses and have unexpected consequences. Who expected the American Civil War to take the course it did? We have been second-guessing Lincoln and Davis, Grant and Lee and all the rest for more than a century.


This particular war — the one that began on 9/11 and swept into Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries — is hard to second-guess because there are those who do not think it is a war. Some people, including President George W. Bush, seem to regard it as a criminal conspiracy. When Bush started talking about bringing al Qaeda to justice, he was talking about bringing them before the bar of justice. Imagine trying to arrest British sailors for burning Washington. War is not about bringing people to justice. It is about destroying their ability to wage war. The contemporary confusion between warfare and criminality creates profound confusion about the rules under which you operate. There are the rules of war as set forth in the Geneva Conventions, and there are criminal actions. The former are designed to facilitate the defense of national interests and involve killing people because of the uniform they wear. The latter is about punishing people for prior action. I have never sorted through what it was that the Bush administration thought it was doing.


This entire matter is made more complex by the fact that al Qaeda doesn’t wear a uniform. Under the Geneva Conventions, there is no protection for those who do not openly carry weapons or wear uniforms or at least armbands. They are regarded as violating the rules of war. If they are not protected by the rules of war then they must fall under criminal law by default. But criminal law is not really focused on preventing acts so much as it is on punishing them. And as satisfying as it is to capture someone who did something, the real point of the U.S. response to 9/11 was to prevent anyone else from doing something — killing and capturing people who have not done anything yet but who might.


Coming to Grips


The problem is that international law has simply failed to address the question of how a nation-state deals with forces that wage war through terrorism but are not part of any nation-state. Neither criminal law nor the laws of war apply. One of the real travesties of 9/11 was the manner in which the international legal community — the United Nations and its legal structures, the professors of international law who discuss such matters and the American legal community — could not come to grips with the tensions underlying the resulting war. There was an unpleasant and fairly smug view that the United States had violated both the rules of war and domestic legal processes, but very little attempt was made to craft a rule of warfare designed to cope with a group like al Qaeda — organized, covert, effective — that attacked a nation-state.


As U.S. President Barack Obama has discovered, the failure of the international legal community to rapidly evolve new rules of war placed him at odds with his erstwhile supporters. The ease with which the international legal community found U.S. decision makers’ attempts to craft a lawful and effective path “illegal and immoral” (an oft-repeated cliche of critics of post-9/11 policy) created an insoluble dilemma for the United States. The mission of the U.S. government was to prevent further attacks on the homeland. The Geneva Conventions, for the most part, didn’t apply. Criminal law is not about prevention. The inability of the law to deal with reality generated an image of American lawlessness.


Of course, one of the most extraordinary facts of the war that began on 9/11 was that there have been no more successful major attacks on the United States. Had I been asked on Sept. 11, 2001, about the likelihood of that (in fact, I was asked), my answer would have been that it was part of a series of attacks, and not just the first. This assumption came from a knowledge of al Qaeda’s stated strategic intent, the fact that the 9/11 team had operated with highly effective covert techniques based on technical simplicity and organizational effectiveness, and that its command structure seemed to operate with effective command and control. Put simply, the 9/11 team was good and was prepared to go to its certain death to complete the mission. Anyone not frightened by this was out of touch with reality.


Yet there have been no further attacks. This is not, I think, because they did not intend to carry out such attacks. It is because the United States forced the al Qaeda leadership to flee Afghanistan during the early days of the U.S. war, disrupting command and control. It is also because U.S. covert operations on a global scale attacked and disrupted al Qaeda’s strength on the ground and penetrated its communications. A significant number of attacks on the United States were planned and prosecuted. They were all disrupted before they could be launched, save for the attempted and failed bombing in Times Square, the famed shoe bomber and, my favorite, the crotch bomber. Al Qaeda has not been capable of mounting effective attacks against the United States (though it has conducted successful attacks in Spain and Britain) because the United States surged its substantial covert capabilities against it.


Obviously, as in all wars, what is now called “collateral damage” occurred (in a more civilized time it would have been called “innocent civilians killed, wounded and detained”). How could it have been otherwise? Just as aircraft dropping bombs don’t easily discriminate against targets and artillery sometimes kills innocent people, covert operations can harm the unintended. That is the nature and horror of war. The choice for the United States was to accept the danger of another al Qaeda attack — an event that I am certain was intended and would have happened without a forceful U.S. response — or accept innocent casualties elsewhere. The foundation of a polity is that it protects its own at the cost of others. This doctrine might be troubling, but few of us in World War II felt that protecting Americans by bombing German and Japanese cities was a bad idea. If this troubles us, the history of warfare should trouble us. And if the history of warfare troubles us, we should bear in mind that we are all its heirs and beneficiaries, particularly in the United States.


The first mission of the war that followed 9/11 was to prevent any further attacks. That mission was accomplished. That is a fact often forgotten.


Of course, there are those who believe that 9/11 was a conspiracy carried out by the CIA in order to justify interference in our liberty. But an organization as capable as they believe the CIA is would not need a justification to abridge liberty. That was a lot of work to justify something, and the truly powerful don’t need to justify anything. Nor do they need to leave people who are revealing the truth alive. It is striking that the “doubters” believe 9/11 was created in order to crush American freedoms but that the conspirators are so incompetent they cannot shut down those who have discovered the conspiracy and are telling the world about it. Personally, if I were interested in global domination triggered by a covert act like 9/11, I would silence those revealing my secret. But then I’m not that good at it, and the doubters all have reasons why they are blogging the truth and are not dead or languishing in a concentration camp.


I take this detour for four reasons. First, doubters should not be ignored but answered. Second, unless they are answered, they will be able to say the CIA (or whoever they think did it) needed one attack to achieve its goals. Third, the issue the doubters raise is not the structural integrity of a building but the underlying intent of the CIA in carrying out the attack. The why is everything to them, and it is important to point out that it is their explanation of motive that makes no sense. Finally, I am engaging the doubters here because I enjoy receiving an abundance of emails containing fascinating accusations and the occasional threat.


Considering the Failures


But to return to the main theme, it is important here to consider not only the successes but also the failures of the war, and here Iraq comes to mind. There is a case to be made that the Iraq campaign was not irrational, but even more interesting, I think, is the fact that no war is without its disastrous misjudgments, even successful wars. In my mind, the U.S. invasion of the Philippines in 1944 was a major mistake. It did little to contribute to the fall of Japan, cost far more than the 4,000 American lives lost in Iraq, and it could have actually delayed the end of the war. It was opposed by senior commanders and was essentially something Gen. Douglas MacArthur insisted on for political reasons. The Battle of the Somme in World War I cost 600,000 British and French casualties, with 60,000 in one day. Their total gain during the battle was perhaps six miles. And in the American Civil War, the federal drive into Virginia turned into a disaster.


Every successful war is built around a series of defeats and miscalculations. The perfect war is built around deeply flawed and unnecessary campaigns. My own personal selections are not as important as the principle that all successful wars contain massive mistakes. If we simply write off Iraq as one of these, that in itself does not change the fact that the American homeland was not attacked again. Did Iraq contribute to that? This is a question that warrants a long discussion. But conceding that it had no effect simply makes the post-9/11 war normal and, in that normality, tragic.


What has not been normal has been the length of the war. Heavy fighting continues in Afghanistan, Iraq is not quite done and new theaters for covert operations are constantly opening and closing. It is the first U.S. campaign — Afghanistan — that actually poses the most vexing problem, one that is simple to express: When is the war over? That, of course, depends on the goal. What is the United States trying to achieve there?


The initial goal of the invasion was to dislodge al Qaeda, overthrow the government that had supported it and defeat the Taliban. The first two goals were accomplished quickly. The third goal has not been accomplished to this day, nor is it likely that the United States will ever accomplish it. Other powers have tried to subdue Afghanistan, but few have succeeded. The Taliban are optimized for the battlefield they fight on, have superior intelligence and have penetrated and are able to subvert government institutions, including the Afghan military. They have the implicit support of elements in a neighboring major nation — Pakistan — that are well beyond American means to intimidate. The United States has no port from which to supply its forces except the one controlled by Pakistan and only complex and difficult supply routes through other countries.


On the other hand, the Taliban cannot defeat the United States, which can stay in Afghanistan indefinitely. But the major U.S. mission in Afghanistan is concluded. Al Qaeda has not used Afghanistan as a primary base since 2002. Al Qaeda in Pakistan, according to the United States, has been crippled. The Taliban, products of Afghanistan for the most part, have no international ambitions. Al Qaeda has relocated to other countries like Yemen and Somalia.


Given this, continued combat in Afghanistan cannot be linked to al Qaeda. It could be said that the reason to go to war in Afghanistan was to prevent al Qaeda’s return. But the fact is that it doesn’t need Afghanistan, and if it did return to Afghanistan, it would be no more dangerous to the United States than it currently is with its bases elsewhere.


In wars, and especially in counterinsurgencies, the mission tends to creep upward. In Afghanistan, the goal is now the transformation of Afghan society into one that is democratic, no longer corrupt by American standards and able to defend itself against the Taliban. This goal does not seem attainable given the relative forces and interests in the country.


Therefore, this war will go on until the United States decides to end it or there is a political evolution in Kabul in which the government orders us out. The point is that the goal has become disengaged from the original intent and is unattainable. Unlike other wars, counterinsurgencies rarely end in victory. They usually end when the foreign forces decide to leave.


There is talk of a long war against radical Islam. It had better not be. The Islamic world is more than a billion people and radical Islam is embedded in many places. The idea that the United States has the power to wage an interminable war in the Islamic world is fantasy. This is not a matter of ideology or willpower or any other measures. It is a matter of available forces, competing international interests and American interests.


Ultimately, there are three lessons of the last decade that I think are important. The first is the tremendous success the United States has had in achieving its primary goal — blocking attacks on the homeland. The second is that campaigns of dubious worth are inevitable in war, and particularly in one as ambiguous as this war has been. Finally, all wars end, and the idea of an interminable war dominating American foreign policy and pushing all other considerations to the side is not what is going to happen. The United States must have a sense of proportion, of what can be done, what is worth doing and what is too dangerous to do. An unlimited strategic commitment is the definitive opposite of strategy.


The United States has done as well as can be expected. Over the coming years there will be other terrorist attacks. As it wages war in response, the United States will be condemned for violating international laws that are insensate to reality. At this point, for all its mistakes and errors — common to all wars — the United States has achieved its primary mission. There have been no more concerted terrorist attacks against the United States. Now it is time to resume history.



Reprinting or republication of this report on websites is authorized by prominently displaying the following sentence, including the hyperlink to STRATFOR, at the beginning or end of the report.


"9/11 and the Successful War is republished with permission of STRATFOR."

Who is a Terrorist ??

Who is a terrorist?

I picked up this definition from wordnet
" terrorist (a radical who employs terror as a political weapon; usually organizes with other terrorists in small cells; often uses religion as a cover for terrorist activities).

But what i understand from the term "terrorist" is:-

"the one who spreads terror or terrorises the common public or the administrative machinery by resorting to violent means, acting himself or through the organised groups, consisting of his followers to achieve any motive -- linguistic, religious, political or just ideological."
Some of our politicians have terrorized people of our nation any number of times, resulting into loss of life and property. Every time the whole lot of police and some times paramilitary forces and even the Army has to be deployed to save common man from this type of  terror. The citizens are not as much scared of bomb blasts or gun attacks, as of the goons of these terror mongering political parties.
These political, religious or ideological terrorists are more dangerous because they are not only constantly present in the midst of us, but they also have the support of the perverts in the society and some times even of the governmental machinery.  They don't have to cross any borders, or smuggle any weapons. They just activate their sleeper cells at regular intervals and keep creating havoc amongst the public from time to time at the slightest pretext, some time just to gain one up man ship against their political rivals or against the break away group of their own party. But the one who gets terrorised is the common man. The property that gets damaged belongs to the public. They not only disturb the peace and harmony of the society and spoil the nation's image in the eyes of the world but also give a chance to the nation's external enemies to encash the disturbed law and order situation and further disrupt the country's stability and progress.

Shouldn't the leaders of these political terrorist groups be put behind bars ???

Welcome Back to Water

Life started in water.

If we put a little water in a container, undisturbed for a few days, we will find some organism breeding in it.

That is life.

Our life also started like that. We bred and lived in water first and then graduated to become amphibians and finally came out and started living on Earth's surface. Initially we lived as animals, walking on all fours, playing in the lap of Nature and gradually became erect and called ourselves human beings. Of course, the process took millions of years.

The Nature had put every thing in place for us to live comfortably. There was water, there was air, there was vegetation to sustain the oxygen that we inhaled and cleanse the carbon di oxide that we exhaled. The Earth had fertile soil to produce various foods for us. We had days for us to work and nights for taking rest. We also had different seasons.

The summers dried up some of the water from the oceans to form enough clouds, which would then float away in the sky to far off places and come down in the form of rain. This filled up our rivers, reservoirs and irrigated our crops. Then there were winters which ensured that there was enough snow on the mountains and ice on the glaciers to sustain the flow of water in the rivers all throughout the year. There were beautiful flora and fauna on the Earth which was called a 'paradise'.

We, the human beings were different from other animals as we were endowed with a very powerful organ called brain. With the help of our brain we made many discoveries and inventions to make ourselves more comfortable. We discovered fire to cook our food and to keep ourselves warm during nights and winters. We invented wheel for easy and quick movement and to transport our load from one place to the other. We invented wings to fly in the sky as well as space. We discovered radio waves for easy communication between far off places. We produced electricity to augment or replace fire and then we discovered nuclear energy to augment or replace electricity.

But, alas !!

We were not satisfied with all that. We wanted more comforts and modified the Nature for that purpose ruthlessly. We, dug up the earth, blasted the mountains, cut down the forests, opened up factories and manufactured plethora of goods for our comfort. We constructed concrete jungles and lived and worked in them. We emptied out the fossil fuel from the crest of the earth and burnt it recklessly and spewed the smoke and other poisonous gases up in the air. We also extracted plastic from that oil and threw it around carelessly after use which got mixed with the soil, choking and turning it infertile.

We artificially cooled our homes, offices, cars, shops and other places and threw out the hot and poisonous air into the atmosphere.

Instead of using our legs for movement even for short distances, we used the wheels running on the fossil fuel. This not only resulted in jamming our own limbs but also in clogging the roads and polluting the air that was required for us to breath.

Instead of working and enjoying during day and taking rest during nights, we extended our work and play into the night, driven by the greed to earn more money and the urge to enjoy more. For this we burnt electricity which we had produced either by burning coal, oil or by using the force of the flow of the river waters. This not only resulted into nights warming up against the design of the Nature but also disrupted our body clocks by our remaining awake during nights, thus ruining our health.

We invented religions, and divided the society on caste, class and cultural lines. We did not stop at that and killed each other in the name of God. We also produced weapons of mass destruction.

We called it 'development', but actually it was 'destruction'. The more developed a part of civilisation was, the more destruction it had caused to the Nature and to the humankind. We had not only polluted our soil, air and water but also the space.

Slowly the contents of oxygen in the air started reducing and that of carbon -di-oxide (CO2) and other harmful gases started to increase.

We slowly found it more and more difficult to breath and suffered many ailments.

Over a period of time, the CO2 gave way to carbon monoxide. That resulted in spread of more diseases. Many unknown and incurable diseases started to spread.

Also as the atmosphere was gradually warming up, the snow and ice on the mountains and glaciers started melting, the ocean levels rose and the beautiful surface of the 'Paradise' got submerged in the water.

The Earth became a revolving ball of water.

That is it.

We are back where we belonged in the first place -- the water-- breathing with our gills instead of lungs.

We have become water animals again.

Now, while swimming around in the water world, we bump into those monstrous structures made of metal and concrete and tell our youngsters that once our ancestors lived in those and that they walked on their legs, had lungs and breathed air.

We swim over the objects which were called cars, buses, and other vehicles, found lined up for miles and miles together. We tell our young ones that these were called traffic jams. There are human skeletons inside those iron coffins which have turned black, perhaps, owing to the smoke pollution due to which they had died.

We also find human skeletons holding necks of each other as they died fighting one another in caste and civil wars or perhaps fighting for food, drinking water and other amenities as well as from epidemics and endemics.

Thus we find the signs of life which had existed on the surface of the Earth, many millenniums ago and also the signs of its ultimate destruction.

But thank God !! All that is a thing of past.

Here in the water world there is no pollution, no fights for food, no wars over religion, caste or class.

There is no race for development, hence no destruction taking place here .

Welcome back to the water world.

We Can Bring the Change

Today we observe the first anniversary of that fateful day which has gone down in our history as "26/11", the name given to that three day trauma suffered by Bombay city in particular and by the country as a whole, which is also called Mumbai carnage. It's name as 26/11 (date/month) became more popular because it sounded like the US 's 9/11 (month/date). (We are in the habit of copying names from the west, for example, our film industries in various cities end with "wood" e.g., Bollywood, Tollywood, Mollywood etc. after Hollywood and we also try to call our scams as 'gates' after 'Watergate" of Nixon era).

Though, previously we also had 7/11 (the serial bomb blasts in the local trains of Bombay on 11th July 2006 which took away 200 lives of innocent travellers of Bombay suburban trains) as well as series of bomb blasts in different cities during 2008 itself, but somehow the world was not much convinced, may be because in the 26/11 attacks the targets were the elite crowd, including the foreigners, the Five Star hotels and the elite restaurant with the only exception of the attack on Bombay VT station where the causalities were common passengers.

9/11 changed the way the world looked at terrorism before the twin towers of World Trade Center in New York came down crashing after the attack by the terrorists.

Did 26/11 produce same kind of response and result ? Well it did but only briefly when large scale public outrage was exhibited not only against the terrorists and their handlers, sitting across the borders, but also against the political and administrative machinery of our own country who needed to be woken up from a deep slumber.

After one year of that event if we take stock of the situation, can we say that things have changed for better or are we just using good words to sound reassuring and are actually still struggling at square one ?

Frankly speaking, though, till today we have been lucky enough not to have experienced re occurrence of a terrorist attack of such a magnitude but it seems to be just co-incidence rather than our concerted efforts in averting the same.

Much has been said in the print and electronic media about apathy of our 'powers that be', regarding gearing up the security and administrative apparatus against such attacks in future, but let us ask ourselves that as common citizens, have we really contributed towards improving our security systems.

Security is a word which is very commonly used in our day today life. In today's environment where the threat to life and property is increasing day by day, this word 'security' has gained all the more importance. It has not remained limited to the security forces but has become part and parcel of our daily lives.

Security is not new to the man as it has been existing right since the inception of the human race. In fact the security is inbuilt in the Nature itself. Every object of Nature has its own security or defence system. A rose has its thorns. An insect has its sting. The plants have their sticky or smelly sap with which the enemy is either trapped or repelled, respectively. The animals have their claws, their teeth and their sharp horns etc, etc. As far as the human being is concerned the security has been part and parcel of his life right since Stone Age when he used to chisel arms and weapons out of stone to hunt as well, as to fight the danger lurking around him. He never forgot to keep a big bolder in front of the entrance of the cave where he lived, to ward off any wild animals that may come and eat away his family. As the world around us made economic and social progress, the threat to the life and property also developed and the need of security also increased in the same proportions.

Let us ask ourselves a few questions :

Do we remain aware of our surroundings ?

The first and foremost necessity to maintain secure environments around us is to remain aware of our surroundings. Be it our home, our office, our work place, a train or a bus or be it a market place, the awareness about our surroundings will help us to a great extent to give warning about any untoward incident which may take place. If we have kept an eye over the normal, we will definitely come to know if there is some thing abnormal around us. For example if you find any unattended object near your home or office, near your seat in a train or bus or even near a shop in the market, you must immediately bring it to the notice of others so that appropriate authorities can be informed about the presence of such object and preventive action can be taken before the damage is done. Same thing should be done if a stranger is observed loitering around in an area where he or she is not supposed to be. It has been the experience in the past that many a times the breach of security had been noticed by the members of the public in advance but since the same was not immediately reported to the appropriate authorities, no preventive action could be taken and the perpetrators of the crime succeeded in causing the damage and achieving their aim.

Do we Co-operate with the Security Staff ?

In our country the Security set up has been made so much subservient to the VIP culture that the security staff has become more used to saluting the persons entering a premises rather than checking and frisking them. The more luxurious the car or brighter the neck tie of the person entering an institution, the crisper the salute by the guard. I am sure Kasab and his friends, while entering the five star hotels, with their bags slung over their shoulders, must have been ushered in like VIPs and must have been saluted by the tall turbaned and moustached durwan at the gate of the five star hotels. And it is not durwan's fault. He has been conditioned into doing so because if he does not do that, the threat to get him transferred or suspended by the high and mighty hangs over his head like a Damocles' sword.

Therefore, it becomes imparative on our part to cooperate with the security staff in carrying out the security checks, regardless of our status as VIP (Very Important), LIP (Less Important) or UIP (Unimportant) personalities. The security guard is duty bound to do the same and is doing so in the interest of security and not out of his pleasure. And it should also be ensured that if the security staff is found lax then no hesitation should be shown in kicking him hard by ticking him off or reporting his laxity to the appropriate authority.

We are all responsible citizens of our country and it is our duty to make our society a safe place. As charity begins at home, let us start by making our own home and our work place safe by adhering to safety and security norms so laid down. This will go a long way in making our country and the whole world a safe place, which we owe to our children. And that will be the true homage to the victims of the carnage.

Thackreys are Harming Marathi Manoos

Thank you BlogAdda for choosing this post in your 'Tangy Tuesday Picks'

The Thackreys (first Bal and now Raj) have been arguing that speaking of Marathi language in Bombay will result in improving the plight of Marathi Manoos. I just fail to understand that how the forcing of a local language on all and sundry living in the metropolitan city will result in development of the local community.

Here i will like to give the example of Punjab state which has a large number of migrants from Bihar doing all sorts of sundary jobs, right from tilling the farm land along with local farmers, to driving autos, cycle rickshaws and working in the factroies or at shops etc. The Punjabi community has never felt threatened by their presence and is rather happy getting the helping hand from them. As far as the Punjabi language is concerned, every Bihari who has lived in Punjab for more than a year can be heard speaking broken Punjabi. And that is out of sheer liking for the language and not out of any pressure. The 'bhayya' Punjabi has become a dialect in itself. If you approach an auto or a cycle rickshaw puller outside Jalandhar bus stand or railway station you will be greeted with a question asked by him in broken bihari-punjabi "tuseen Keethey Jaana".

A community, which is hard working and has rich heritage and culture, does not need to be afraid of outside influence but rather dyes the outsiders in its own hue.


The Maratha land, has given the country its warriors like Shivaji, its freedom fighters like Tatya Tope, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Gopal Krishan Gokhale, its artists like Lata Mangeshkar, its sports persons like Sachin Tendulkar in addition to Dada Saheb Phalke who founded the Bombay film industry to which artists form all corners of the country have contributed. Maharashtra has also contributed to the Indian Army in the form of a crack regiment like Maratha Light Infantry.

The development of Marathi manoos is not at the mercy of the goons of Thackreys who go around thrashing outsiders to force them to speak Marathi language.

Mere speaking of a language will not lift up its people. I feel that the Thackreys are doing to the Marathi manoos what Taliban is doing to the Muslim world ie, more harm than good

Killing in the Name of God or Religion

Today's newspapers carried a disgusting news. A Major in the American Army killed twelve of his colleagues in a shooting spree. No, the news about killing or shooting was not disgusting. It is happening daily on a routine basis in some or other corner of the world. But the disgusting part was that before shooting innocent unsuspecting fellow men, the killer shouted "Allah Hu Akbar" which means "God is Great".

If we look into statistics, we will find that most of the present day killings are taking place in the name of God or religion. Though, no religion preaches enmity or hate against any fellow human being or even against any living being.

Why do killers invoke God before killing HIS creatures? Is it to obtain strength for doing such a ghastly act or do they ask for HIS forgiveness in advance. One can only remember God before killing someone if one is doing the act in cold blood. If the killing is the result of a heated exchange of blows or gun fire or any other weapon, there is no time for one to remember God.

Here we may argue that even the war cries in the battle fields are also after the names of God. That is true. For example, Indian Army infantry regiments are based on different regions, communities, religions or races as India has many of them. Their war cries are all based on the names of different gods or goddesses. A Dogra soldier will shout "Durga Mata Kee Jai" (hail goddess Durga) while running over an enemy post during final assault or while pushing his bayonet into the intestines of the enemy during close quarter battle. Similarly, the jawans from Sikh regiment will shout a war cry of "Jo Bole So Nihal, Sat Sri Akal" (One who utters it, remains blessed as the truth is immortal). And there are battle cries like "Har Har Maha Dev", "Jai Bajrang Bali" etc., etc. But such war cries are justified in a battle field where the enemy is equally heavily armed and if the soldiers don't kill the attacking enemy then they get killed themselves. Hence, there, the helping hand from God is very much necessary. However, having served in the Indian Army, i personally felt that the Indian soldiers, regardless of their religion or race, should shout "Bharat Mata Kee Jai" as their war cry. But then it is the name of God which provides them the killer instinct.

Gone are the days when the wars were fought for women (Sita and Helen of Troy), for wealth (invasions over India by Gaznavi and Gouri) or for kingdoms (no need for examples). The next major war will be fought in the name of religion or say, God (please mark my words). Personally i don't wish for that but one can't deny the fact that many of such fights are already going on, though on a small scale, in many parts of the world.

Does being religious mean being intolerant of others?
Should we stop being religious if it is creating hate in our minds against our fellow human beings?

The question is open to all.

Accommodation for VIPs

I had written a post some time back on this subject. In the light of recent incident of two of our ministers, one of them a cabinet and the other, a minister of state, staying in presidential suite of Maurya Sheraton and an expensive suite of hotel Taj Mahal, spending over Rupees One Lakh and Rupees Fifty Thousand per night respectively, while their official accommodations get renovated, i need to repeat the link here for that post to let my blogger friends find the contrast. Here is the link.


Though the ministers have stated that they are paying the hotel charges from their pockets, yet the expenditure incurred in these times of recession is colossal. I don't doubt their being so rich, after having read the list of assets declared by our politicians at the time of recent elections. Almost all of them are crorepatis.

I will appeal to both these ministers and other crorepati netas not to poop off their 'hard earned' money like that and instead donate part of their riches on health and education of the deprived children of their constituencies, in case they desire to get re-elected from the same.

Grow Up India, We are 62

This post is in fact an expansion of my comments on Ms Shobhaa De's blogpost " Grow Up ........ SRK"
It seems we as a country have not grown up even at 62.

Our Prime Minister goes abroad, talks to his Pakistani counterpart, de-links terror from talks with Pakistan in a joint statement, comes back and when cornered by the opposition parties, he tries to justify his goof up in Parliament and then ultimately back tracks.

When we talk of talks with Pakistan, whom are we referring to as Pakistan -- the civilian government, the military establishment, the ISI or the Taliban? In the past, every attempt at holding talks between the two countries has been followed by an attack by Pakistani forces on the Indian institutions in some form or the other.

Yesterday, our Prime Minister made an announcement on the electronic media about Pakistan planning terror attacks. Is there something new about Pakistan planning terror attacks ? And should a PM give out such warnings from roof tops to the common citizens. Should he not be calling the meeting of crack team responsible to take care of internal security of the country and call upon them to make fool proof arrangements to meet such attacks and then tell the countrymen about our preparedness. Though he was addressing the Chief Ministers of various states but then he should have kept that information to that forum only for them to take due preventive action in this regard. Or was he expressing his helplessness and was telling the countrymen to fend for themselves.

Or perhaps he was only sounding it to Pakistan to take that joint statement with a pinch of salt.

But then are Pakistani terrorists a real threat when a former union minister has threatened the union government that he will launch a militant movement to carve out a separate state of Telangana. And he is still roaming free.

On Saturday, the country was told about Shah Rukh Khan, one of our top film stars who got detained at an American airport for security screening. The electronic media erupted into telecasting different programmes on the subject including live shots from Newark and Chicago. Messages sent by TV viewers, sympathising with the film star and criticising America's security, started scrolling on the TV screens. A union minister hurriedly made a statement that we should treat Americans in the same way at our airports. I don't think any American will object to the security screening at our airports even if it is Brad Pit or Angelina Jolie, given the security discipline that they follow in their own country (the very reason that they did not have a second 9/11). It is we who will be falling head over heals to have a glimpse of those superstars.

Back in 2002, at one of the European airports, I was made to pass through a Door Frame Metal Detector (DFMD) several times, why because after having emptied my pockets of all the metallic objects like coins and keys, the DFMD still gave out a beep, every time i passed through it. It was only when i took out my small telephone diary (of the size of a match box) from my pocket which had tiny brass corners on its covers that the DFMD allowed me an entry. But then i am not a film star and more so, i understood their security concerns.

I don't blame SRK because as a film star he has to gain sympathy and publicity, but i was surprised at the statement of our union minister Ms. Ambika Soni who announced a tit for tat for the Americans. What is she trying to gain. Some browny points from voters for the next elections or some role in SRK's next film?

And then we have these BJP leaders who keep fighting over one man that is Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the father of Pakistan, who will be cursed one day by his own countrymen for having separated them from India.

Ms Shobhaa De has asked Shahrukh Khan to grow up. But why only Shahrukh, I will ask my countrymen to please grow up, more so our leaders, if at all we can call them leaders.

Is This Not My Job ??

You must have watched this video on your Television sets. If it does not play here properly, here is the summary :-

A large tree trunk has fallen on the road, which is blocking the traffic. The many vehicles blocked by this tree includes a school bus, a police jeep, and a car with beacon light carrying a politician. It is raining heavily and due to this every one is watching the scene from their vehicles as if waiting for some unknown force to come and remove the tree. A typical "this is not my job" attitude. After some wait, the politician is told by his staff accompanying him that another car is waiting for him on the other side of the road block. He, very conveniently, gets down from his car, walks across to the other side and rides away in the car which is waiting for him there. Meanwhile a small child who watches this scene from the window of his school bus gets down, walks up to the tree trunk, throws away his school bag and while braving heavy rain, makes a gesture of lifting the large tree trunk with his tiny hands. Ashamed by this, the rest of the onlookers also come forward and join the little boy who is already drenched with the rain water. In no time the tree trunk is removed.

Well, that is an advertisement of "Lead India" campaign of Times of India and has depicted a hypothetical situation which sends home a very strong message that nothing can block our way if we shed away the habit of saying "this is not my job" and make a collective effort to remove the obstacles.

And today i received a mail from a friend with this picture which is a glaring example of "this is not my job" attitude. And this is no advertisement but a handiwork of a man entrusted with the job of painting the edges of the road.


In this case the object fallen on the side of the road is not a very heavy tree trunk but a small branch not weighing more than a couple of kilogrammes, which could have been very easily kicked away, even by a single person. But see what the painter has done.

It is high time that we wake up. This is not the way that we will usher our country into being a superpower. We will have to put in that extra bit. Attaining average is very easy but going from average to high average and then above average will take extra effort. To take the steam engine from 50 kmph to 60 and beyond, extra shovels of coal have to be put in its furnace.
Happy Independence Day

Shameful Sham

Yesterday ( 05.06.08) we observed state sponsored ‘bandh’ in Calcutta …oops Kolkata. This was called by the ruling party of the state to protest against hike in prices of petroleum products by the Central Govt. The ‘bandh’ was a 100% success. Not that, all those 100% residents of Calcutta supported the cause of the ‘bandh’ but the sponsors of the ‘bandh’ were 100% successful in terrorizing citizens to stay indoors. There were different impacts of the bandh on the common man.

First the positive ones.

· There was no pollution, whatsoever on the ‘World Environment Day’ in the otherwise one of the most polluted cities of the world.

· It resulted in saving precious fuel for the country.

· Some brave hearts reached their workplaces on foot or bi-cycles, burning more calories and other harmful substances accumulated in the body.

· Kids played cricket on the roads un-interrupted

· The lazy bums and the timid ones had a nice holiday at home.

Now the negative ones:-

· The patients could not reach the hospitals except for a few ambulances running here and there as a mere show off.

· Passengers could not reach the airports or the railway stations or even if they did, they got stranded in transit for more than twelve hours (thankfully it was not a twenty four hour bandh).

· Students could not reach the schools and colleges.

· In one of the glaring instances a groom could not reach the bride’s home for their marriage ceremony.

· The daily laborer could not earn his wages.

· No transactions took place in the Banks.

· The office goers could not reach the offices.

· The shops remained closed.

· No production took place in the industrial sector.

· IT sector was hit hard.

· The total loss to the exchequer was to the tune of Rs 600 crores.

To add insult to the injury, the opposition party too has declared a twelve hour bandh today ostensibly for the same cause but certainly to compete with ruling party. Today's bandh seems to have met 80% success. With two back to back bandhs followed by Saturday and Sunday, one has to imagine the plight of the public who have got four closed days thrust upon them.

And all this to show solidarity towards the common man, after the hike in the prices of petroleum products.

What a shameful sham.

Unemployment

Recently I got my sofa upholstery changed. I contacted a furniture shop in near by market in Calcutta. The shopkeeper noted down my name and address. The very next day a man was at my doorsteps who offered to take up the job of fixing new upholstery on the sofas. After fixing up the rates etc., he turned up the next day with the material and resumed his work. He completed the job in record time and did it to my utmost satisfaction. I had paid him some advance and when I paid the balance he fell at my feet. He hugged my lower legs with his arms and burst into tears. I was shocked to see such behaviour from a man who had great skill. On asking the reason for his crying he told me that he did not have a job and that he had not eaten a proper meal in past many days. He begged of me to get him some job. I was not in a position to offer him any job and I promised him that whenever some one known to me would require such kind of service I will certainly recommend his name. It is really a sad state of affairs that such a skilled worker is compelled to go without a suare meal because of unemployment.