L.K. Advani 2009

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Orissa Govt Does it Again

Orissa cops have taken the term gag order to a new level altogether. A Leftist writer and the editor of Oriya literary magazine Nissan, Lenin Ray was quite literally stopped from speaking to the media by policemen who muzzled him as he was being produced in Bhubaneswar's district court. [via NDTV]

How long will we let BJP get away with murder? What happened in Gujrat is haunting us even today.

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Do the Islamic Terrorists Care for Muslims?

I doubt it. A cursory glance at the deceased list from the recent Mumbai attacks is enough to conclude that these cowards merely want to spread terror. They are not really bothered about Muslims or Hindus. Their motives are political and far removed from a religious cause.
Muslims form approximately 15% of the civilian causalities. See deceased list.
Now tell me, does Islam condone killing of your own brethren? No. I think not. However, the foaming-at-the-mouth fanatics will come up with some screwed up theory that Allah understands collateral damage. The cliche is true: terrorists do not have a religion, for no religion accommodates killing of innocent people.

So if you by any outside chance thought that you were safe because you are a Muslim, perish that thought. They don't care about religion. They don't care about you. And, most importantly, they are not fighting for you.

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Hindutva Logic

"I do not know Pragnya Singh at all. But I know she is not a terrorist."
"No Hindu can be a terrorist."
- Praveen Togadia, leader of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP).

Are we, the average citizens, morons? At least, that's the impression I get from speeches of the Thackerays and the Togadias.

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While we hang our heads in shame...

"My appeals to the policemen who were standing nearby and watching only resulted in further beating. At one point the nun slipped away to plead with the police for help but she was dragged back by the mob and her blouse torn," he said. The nun was gang raped in a nearby building, and he was doused with kerosene by the mob, which threatened to set him on fire. [Via The Hindu]

If we turn a blind-eye, it will come back to haunt us. It is such acts of barbarity that widens the divide. I don't want to get into the argument about how some missions are forcing conversions. There is no excuse for raping women, like there is none for killing innocent people in the name of Jihad. Hinduism as I know it does not condone it. We were taught to worship women. And look what the so called Hindutva torch-bearers did: they gang raped a nun, with cops as witnesses. Now pray tell me, if our cops can't stop a rape, how in the god's name are they going to save us from terrorists and their bombs?

If you think about it for a moment you'll understand how a bigot can exploit this terrible situation. It is easier than ever before to hate us Hindus. If we turn a blind-eye, it will come back to haunt us. Remember Gujrat? We are still paying for it. Do you think our children should pay for Gujrat too? I don't think so.

What is appalling is discovering fundamentalist, religious rhetoric from blue-collar voices. Like I always said, education does not teach you civic sense, culture, or tolerance. I am hurt. I am ashamed. I hang my head low today. I probably will for a long time.

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The Right to Stupidity

I wonder why we can't make Cigarettes, Bidis, and Ghutka illegal. A little Googling reveals that the government does not have the guts to do so:

• The Indian government considers Tobacco as a legal, agricultural product.
• Cigarettes contribute nearly 10 per cent of total excise to the exchequer. [Link]
  
• The Indian government has invested 33% in equity holdings of India's main tobacco companies. [Link]
• Tobacco industry gets every type of subsidy from A to Z and from Z to A -- agriculture, seeds, transport, water, electricity, the works. The total estimates have never been calculated.[ Link]
• ITC alone employs more than 20,000 people. So, if we made Cigarettes illegal, thousands of people will lose their livelihood. The government obviously does not want to get into this issue.
• Other than that, the bulk of India's domestic consumption of tobacco is in the form of chewing tobacco or smoking bidis. Because Bidis and other forms of Tobacco products are largely in the unorganized sector (and can't be brought under the tax net) the government screws the Cigarette smokers, who amount to only 13% of all tobacco smokers (see link) and pay 55% tax on every cigarette they buy. There is no way we are banning Cigarettes or declaring Tobacco as an illegal product.
  

Our Honorable Health Minister has hogged a lot of media coverage, thanks to his high-profile, high-visibility campaign against Tobacco consumption.
CNN-IBN quotes him:

"Right now the fine is Rs 200 rupees, but soon we want to make it Rs 1,000 for individuals and Rs 5,000 for institutions that are allowing this," said Ramadoss.

And, we all know about his public tiffs with Bollywood celebrities. To make his case, he comes up with statistics. He says "13 per cent children in the age group of 13-16 years consume tobacco." Yes sir, that is very sad. What is the remedy to it? Make a law, like in the USA, where one can't buy smokes unless he or she provides an identification and age proof. Now, you might laugh and say 'hey that is impossible to enforce in our country.' I agree. But so is the public smoking ban that will come into effect on October 2nd.

Some reports state that enforcing a ban on smoking has given positive results in developed countries. I am not against ban on smoking in public places mind you. My angst is that our Health Minister is doing this for publicity. There are graver health-care issues facing us.

A UNICEF report says:

• With over 240 million children under the age of five, India contributes 25 percent of the world�s child deaths. It is evident that a major turnaround in India will ensure a significant impact globally!"
• "The message of hope in this challenging scenario is that a vast majority of children can be saved through a combination of good care, nutrition, and medical treatment. It is believed that other easy measures could prevent 90% of diarrhea deaths, 62% of pneumonia deaths, 100% measles deaths 92% malaria deaths, 44% HIV/AIDS deaths and 52% neonatal fatalities."

We are a different country. Statistics and research from the so called developed countries are not entirely relevant to us. The tobacco consumer profile is unique in India. The health minister should be forming his anti-tobacco/anti-smoking policies based on ground realities and not on some fancy report from the West. And, he should be saving our dying children instead of trying to save idiots that smoke out of their free will. An adult smokes knowing fully well that it is harmful. That is his liberty. It is impractical and silly to play the big daddy and think for every goddamned adult in this country.
We voted for you sir but we'd like it if you stopped poking your nose in our personal lives. Stop shopkeepers selling smokes to kids and leave the adults of this country alone. If an idiot chooses to die, he will. Ban or not. I am an idiot and I know it. And, I have the right to be an idiot, as long as I am not enroaching on someone else's liberty.

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Raj Thackeray Logic: Throw the Maharashtrians out of Bangalore!

After attacking migrants from UP and Bihar, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena leader Raj Thackeray has now trained his guns at a growing number of North Indian students coming to Pune for higher education.

"Pune, with its large number of reputed universities and institutions imparting higher education is attracting students from these states who are being given admissions on massive donations leaving in the lurch the deserving Marathi aspirants," he said at a party rally held here on Sunday night, defying police ban.

[Via The Hindu]
So Raj, can we go ahead and deport all Maharashtrian software engineers from Bangalore? I am not for it but going by your logic, looks like Bangalore has to lose the Maharashtrians. What!? Raj, I can't hear you? Can you talk after you finishing chomping on your Vada Pav?

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Cartoon wants animated characters instead of cheerleaders

Siddharam Mhetre, Minister of State for Home and guardian of Indian morality has called the cheerleaders of IPL 'absolutely obscene'. He also suggested that they use 'animated' characters in the place of cheerleaders. Why didn't anyone think of it? Didn't you all know that you are going to offend a few cartoons in this country when you brought those lovely girls to cheerlead?
Mr. Mhetre also said:
[quote]"We live in India where womanhood is worshipped. How can anything obscene like this can be allowed?" he asked. Mhetyre wondered why the organisers require "semi- nude" women to entertain people at cricket matches.[/quote] Oh gee! Really? Aren't you from the same party that watched in glee as rabid mobs slaughtered pregnant women in Gujrat?

Sharukh said: "What's wrong with cheerleaders? I am also a family person, I do not see anything negative in it," Yeah, I am sure Karan won't mind the cheerleaders. As long as they are women. Hee hee.

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No entry for educated dogs

There is this song in the Tamil movie Pudupettai, whose lyrics 'Padicha naaye ulla varaadhey' translate to 'No entry for educated dogs'. Thank you Selva Raghavan! And, I have heard our so called elders vent out their ire against a non-conforming person by saying 'padicha thimiru!' (arrogant that he/she is educated). Human nature?

For most of us getting a post-graduation berth in an IIT or IIM or AIIMS is impossible, but there are those that work hard and are blessed with a better IQ, who make the cut. So most of us would just love to trash the guys from IIMs. 'Oh this guy is supposed to be an IIM guy and gaawd, he is such a dud!' or 'IIT guys are arrogant and they lead a cocooned life.' or 'All IIT guys are gay.' You know? Yes, yes you are right. Sour grapes. But our governments have found a way to make you and me (if we belong to one of the the OBCs) enter the hallowed precincts of IIT or IIM, without having worry too much about our score and rank: yessir, Quota it is. But, these is some hope:

Three judges in the five-judge bench � Justices Arijit Pasayat, C K Thakker and Dalveer Bhandari � were of the view that graduation should be the cut off limit for availing quota benefits. Source: ET

Did I say there is hope? But we also have Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss, our Health Minister.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been pushing the Health Ministry to set up private medical colleges, but his plea has fallen on deaf ears. For the past eight months, Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss has failed to get the Medical Council of India change the laws that will help private sector enter the field of medical education.(via CNN-IBN)

Our honorable Health Minister, instead of attracting private participation in health education, chooses to tax the doctors of this land with a three year mandatory rural service (or three lacs in lieu of the rural service). If this mandatory service becomes a reality, it changes nothing for health care in rural areas: we'll end up with a disgruntled doc with only a steth for equipment in a PHC. The infrastructure is pathetic in government hospitals in metros, leave alone rural areas.

Quite a few of my doctor friends, who passed out recently out of MBBS, have opted to study masters in the USA; I noticed a marked increase in the percentage of doctors going abroad. And why not? What is the point of staying back and getting raped by successive populist governments?

There will be some that will argue that doctors 'must' serve. I agree, but if you want them to serve you, make life easy for them. Don't take a knife called quota and ram them where the sun don't shine. Give them better infrastructure so they can serve, instead of wasting the tax payer's money on schemes like a free color fucking TV to the voters!

What we do, by introducing quota for higher education (instead of stopping it at the graduate level) is this: we send a message 'It is okay to be mediocre'. God save my country. Please. Make all the dogs that want to go to the USA, stay back. Happy Selva? No? But of course!

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The Bourgeois Commie

• Has put on 15 kg, gels his hair, sports a Stalinesque moustache and loves his blazers


• Wears a Rado (worth Rs 2 lakh), is driven in a Pajero, loves designer shades


• Drinks two pegs of Scotch whisky every evening. Cannot resist fried chicken.


• Appointed his son to the party's regional bureau. His daughter too holds a key post.

[Source: Outlookindia.com]

Who is this man? He is Prachanda, chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M). Self-abnegation is not sustainable after all. Now, he is not an aberration; he is just human. At least, he does it in the open unlike like his other comrades across the border. I am not into politics or ideology but I never quite understood how these commies manage to fool millions of people for so long!

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The Comedians Called the Left

The Hindu today carried a picture of the Left MPs protesting with placards against the joint Naval exercise with USA and other Asian countries. I was wondering 'what if we did it with China, they won't have a problem then I guess.' And, sure enough, a few pages later, I saw the headline 'China, U.S. pledge to foster ties' Irony?

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The Monsters That We Feed

The Gujrat fake encounter news may have shocked quite a few of you. But it doesn't surprise me at all. It wouldn't surprise anyone from Andhra Pradesh in fact.

Back in the 90s when I was a college student, there was this sub-inspector who used to carry a whip. He used to crack his whip on innocent by standers and once he chased us with his whip; why? Because the four of us were having tea on a roadside shop. The inspector, 'Jaati' Naganna later was involved, allegedly, in the rape of a woman in police custody. Back then in Chittoor, I was scared to go out for night shows at the movies, for I was scared of bumping into beat constables: they beat you up any way, whether you show them the counter-foil of your movie ticket or not. Especially in small towns like Chittoor, the police are very high handed and most often than not, their atrocities and violations never surface. Even a constable weilds a lot of power in such towns. Once, after studying until midnight at a friends house, a friend and I stepped out for a smoke. We finished our smoke and were chatting, seated outside a closed shop, when a couple of beat cops emerged. They immediately started questioning the integrity and morals of our mothers, sisters, grand mothers, and aunts. I was so affected by cops from Chittoor that I used to run in the opposite direction everytime I spotted them, after I moved to Chennai.

Cops in bigger cities are no better. Once, after working late, I was on my way back home on a friend's bike. I was stopped by two policemen near Holy Angels convent in Pondy Bazaar. The inspector was drunk and he treated me as if I were a criminal. Despite showing my identity card, he threatened to beat me up and made me sit on the pavement. He called my home and woke up my folks and spoke rudely to my brother. I have no clue why he did that. A year back, a cop in Bangalore stopped the auto I was traveling in and asked 'What kind of a party was it that goes on till midnight? Don't you have any sense? Can't you get back home early?' I wanted to tell him it was none of his fucking business, but the wisdom from my earlier experiences stopped me from doing so. One might ask 'why didn't you complain? why didn't you take legal recourse?' The answer is that I am chicken. I am a coward. I don't want something like that to affect my family or friends. No, don't laugh, it is worse than what's shown in the movies. Ask any small town person.

The Gujrat fake encounters is just one of thousands of failures of our system.
A glance the Andhra chapter of the India Human Rights Report (PDF, 600+ KB) reveals startling, alarming statistics:

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) of the Government of India recorded 53 deaths in police custody and deaths of 85 civilians in police firing in Andhra Pradesh during 2005.3 The NHRC had recorded 13 deaths in police custody, 116 in judicial custody and 18 deaths in encounters in the state during 2004-2005.

The NHRC recorded 18 deaths in encounters in the State during 2004-2005.

The National Crime Records Bureau recorded 53 deaths in police custody during 2005 while the NHRC had recorded 13 deaths in police custody during 2004-2005.

And, that's just Andhra Pradesh. And, just alleged violations by cops. I don't even want to talk about our beloved ministers and members of the parliament. Human trafficking is one of the crimes they are being accused of right now, but you know the whole list: rape, murder and what not.
And, some of us scream about Richard Gere kissing Shilpa Shetty; about how it is not 'our culture.' Is rape and murder our culture? Why the fuck are we silent about such issues?
It is a shame that we continue to display amazing patience (apathy?) to the shit that they throw at us consistently. So, the least we can do is stop burdening the judiciary with stupid and senseless PILs like those seeking the arrest of some actor kissing another! For fuck's sake, we wrote the kamasutra people! We invented good sex. So let's not act all prude. Fuck! it is in our culture!

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When Money Talks...

...principle walks. Not that I really believed these atheist politicians, but this was too much, no?

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