Tune to any Indian news channel and you will see plenty of bizarre arguments being propagated about Indo-Pak bilateral talk this weekend. Everybody is trying to be messiah of peace and advocating to give dreaded country another chance. But why? America did not give Afghanistan another chance after 09/11. Why should we give a country which sponsors terrorism against us so openly another chance after 26/11? And what in recent past Pakistan did to amend India’s way of thinking towards it? People are giving silly arguments like it is Afghanistan which is making India to bow down. How pathetic! Or it is international pressure India is succumbing to…rubbish! It is the Media and Business Community of our country who are losing great deal in their businesses are pressurizing government to initialize the talk so that they can start selling their products and make border porous again. Government tried to do that in Sharm-al-sheikh, but failed due to domestic protest. Now its trying again by putting sponsored propagandists on news channels.
Pakistan has always been instigating. Militant activities in Kashmir is on rise, infiltration bids are on all time high, Jihadies are on road of Lahor and Karachi openly chanting anti-india slogans, Pakistani foreign minister is giving blank cheque to China to mediate the bi-lateral talk ironically, Sikhs are being beheaded…do you call this a co-ordeal environment to initiate talk? If you do then either you are mad or someone is driving you mad? And it’s a shame that we are being governed by a bunch of mads.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
Myopic BJP!
“Our yardstick of success is how much, and how fast, we move in the direction of making India achieve all-round progress and regain its glory and greatness.” That’s Mr. Nititn Gadkari , India’s main opposition party’s national president in his website. While he is trying to be the forward thinking man of this sinking party, his acts are mischievously obnoxious like his mentor Lal Krishna Advani. His vision again terribly myopic similar to his mentor. Otherwise how do you explain his tie up with all time corrupt Sibu Soren in Jharkhand, his continuation of coalition with Shiv Sena in Maharashtra and asking minorities to give up their claim in Ayodhya. It is pure short sightedness…nothing else.
Gadkari has been trying his best to copy Rahul Gandhi. He spent even a night in Dalit’s house recently. But action wise he likes following the footprints of BJP’s iron man. And that’s lead me to believe that he is just the next one helping this party with grand vision of its ancestor to reach to its lowest counting (which was 2 MPs in 1984).
As I have said time and again that India’s voting population is literate now. They can very well distinguish good from bad. Times of fake promises are gone. Politicians are not voted for their ideologies anymore. While it is good to keep old and experience people as a think tank, its important to develop a system to include more youngsters into the working committee of party. I am not saying that Rahul Gandhi is exactly doing this but somehow he has developed a credibility of a man who walks his talk.
I was in Jharkhand last week and trying to know from the villagers that what made them vote for a corrupt party like JMM. All of them said they had got threatening letters from Maoists advising to vote for JMM. I was amazed to see almost no naxal attack during Jharkhand election. Now only I realize that they wanted a peaceful election to get Sibu Soren as chief minister. And BJP helped him to get there. Next time what should this party expect from Jharkhand? In fact Jharkhand was one of very few states which rallied behind BJP once. But in return what it got? Unfortunately this state has become a money laundering factory for all the party. With fewer parliamentary seats, it anyway does not play major power balance game in center. With JMM in power at least some portion of looted money will remain in state.
BJP needs to follow its ideology of clean politics. In stead it has chosen to go to any extent even for small power gain. That’s tragic for this party. Mr. Gadkari, you need to walk your talk matey! For the time being at least WALK...that will help lose some fat...hahaha!
Gadkari has been trying his best to copy Rahul Gandhi. He spent even a night in Dalit’s house recently. But action wise he likes following the footprints of BJP’s iron man. And that’s lead me to believe that he is just the next one helping this party with grand vision of its ancestor to reach to its lowest counting (which was 2 MPs in 1984).
As I have said time and again that India’s voting population is literate now. They can very well distinguish good from bad. Times of fake promises are gone. Politicians are not voted for their ideologies anymore. While it is good to keep old and experience people as a think tank, its important to develop a system to include more youngsters into the working committee of party. I am not saying that Rahul Gandhi is exactly doing this but somehow he has developed a credibility of a man who walks his talk.
I was in Jharkhand last week and trying to know from the villagers that what made them vote for a corrupt party like JMM. All of them said they had got threatening letters from Maoists advising to vote for JMM. I was amazed to see almost no naxal attack during Jharkhand election. Now only I realize that they wanted a peaceful election to get Sibu Soren as chief minister. And BJP helped him to get there. Next time what should this party expect from Jharkhand? In fact Jharkhand was one of very few states which rallied behind BJP once. But in return what it got? Unfortunately this state has become a money laundering factory for all the party. With fewer parliamentary seats, it anyway does not play major power balance game in center. With JMM in power at least some portion of looted money will remain in state.
BJP needs to follow its ideology of clean politics. In stead it has chosen to go to any extent even for small power gain. That’s tragic for this party. Mr. Gadkari, you need to walk your talk matey! For the time being at least WALK...that will help lose some fat...hahaha!
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Thank you Shahrukh...
...for not giving in as your friend and producer Karan Johar did. Karan Johar is a coward in simple term and so as Jaya Bachchan when she says that she fought her war alone and Shahrukh should do the same without expecting film fraternity to rally behind. Mr. and Mrs Bachchan, you never fought anything ever. You had said something for Hindi language and apologized to Raj Thakerey thousand times. You are among one of those who chose to ego massage fading Thakereys for your personal gain. Most recently Mr. Bachchan did it through his blog.
But there are people who rightly deserve applause and Shahrukh, Anupam Kher, Sachin Tendulkar, Rajdeep Sardesai, journalist Kumar Ketkar and most importantly the Mumbai Police Commissioner who said few months ago ‘Mumbai kisi ke baap ki jagir nahi hai’ are certainly among them. These are the people who worked for their self esteem, not Bachchans who were fanning Amar Singh’s political base in Mumbai.
This is the high time when ‘spade’ should be bluntly called ‘spade’. Stop fanning hipocracy. While Raj Thakrey wants poor of Maharashtra to educate their children in Marathi medium, he is sending his kids to ‘Scottish High School’, one of the most prestigious English school of Mumbai. While Sena advocates to promote Marathi, it is shutting down Marathi Schools under its municipality. Isn’t it hypocritical politics to instigate uneducated, unemployed and frustrated maharashtrian youths? Or is it scare tactics to get some lost political ground?
Shiv Sena or any party is no better than Taliban if they choose to attack individual or a group’s ideology. That is what Taliban is all about. Democracy means nothing if it’s citizen’s way of thinking is threatened. It started with attacking news channel and theatre. Tomorrow they will go on to attack women wearing short sleeves or bikini. It is dangerous trend and should be crushed immediately.
Today entire north India is against Thakereys. But where were we when they were spiraling venom against Muslims, South Indians and Gujraties. Same goes for South Indians and Gujraties now. Basically we in India act only when our own house in on fire. That mentality is the biggest hurdle in everything we do.
Political parties act as per their suitability. When MNS was beating up north Indian students and taxi drivers in Mumbai, congress chose to stay silent for obvious reasons. As Maharashtra Election was around the corner they wanted MNS and Shiv Sena to fight as badly as possible for marathi manoos vote. And they were the obvious gainer. But now with upcoming Bihar Election Rahul Gandhi got the perfect opportunity to dare Sena. Surprisingly in all these political fights BJP has been acting foolishly. Their alliance with Sena can only be called insane. Nitish is also going to lose heavily if he keeps hanging on with BJP in this circumstances. He should take some lessons from Jharkhand Election.
Anyway, among all these we the people should keep on voicing our concern and let our politicians know what we really want. After all they will be as good as we are.
But there are people who rightly deserve applause and Shahrukh, Anupam Kher, Sachin Tendulkar, Rajdeep Sardesai, journalist Kumar Ketkar and most importantly the Mumbai Police Commissioner who said few months ago ‘Mumbai kisi ke baap ki jagir nahi hai’ are certainly among them. These are the people who worked for their self esteem, not Bachchans who were fanning Amar Singh’s political base in Mumbai.
This is the high time when ‘spade’ should be bluntly called ‘spade’. Stop fanning hipocracy. While Raj Thakrey wants poor of Maharashtra to educate their children in Marathi medium, he is sending his kids to ‘Scottish High School’, one of the most prestigious English school of Mumbai. While Sena advocates to promote Marathi, it is shutting down Marathi Schools under its municipality. Isn’t it hypocritical politics to instigate uneducated, unemployed and frustrated maharashtrian youths? Or is it scare tactics to get some lost political ground?
Shiv Sena or any party is no better than Taliban if they choose to attack individual or a group’s ideology. That is what Taliban is all about. Democracy means nothing if it’s citizen’s way of thinking is threatened. It started with attacking news channel and theatre. Tomorrow they will go on to attack women wearing short sleeves or bikini. It is dangerous trend and should be crushed immediately.
Today entire north India is against Thakereys. But where were we when they were spiraling venom against Muslims, South Indians and Gujraties. Same goes for South Indians and Gujraties now. Basically we in India act only when our own house in on fire. That mentality is the biggest hurdle in everything we do.
Political parties act as per their suitability. When MNS was beating up north Indian students and taxi drivers in Mumbai, congress chose to stay silent for obvious reasons. As Maharashtra Election was around the corner they wanted MNS and Shiv Sena to fight as badly as possible for marathi manoos vote. And they were the obvious gainer. But now with upcoming Bihar Election Rahul Gandhi got the perfect opportunity to dare Sena. Surprisingly in all these political fights BJP has been acting foolishly. Their alliance with Sena can only be called insane. Nitish is also going to lose heavily if he keeps hanging on with BJP in this circumstances. He should take some lessons from Jharkhand Election.
Anyway, among all these we the people should keep on voicing our concern and let our politicians know what we really want. After all they will be as good as we are.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Racism Down Under...In India!
I have a very good friend from Lebanon (migrated from Jerusalem). She definitely knows more about India than me. She has read hundreds of books about India and said till yesterday that it is the most fascinating land she has ever known. What happened yesterday you mean? Oh yesterday, she came back from her north India trip. Earlier she had visited Eastern (Darjiling, Sikkim et.c), Southern (Kerala mainly) and Western (Goa) part of India and was awed with everything there. Few days ago she planned to visit northern part of India. I suggested her to visit Varanasi, Agra and some more tourist places. For some reasons she chose to travel around in India this time by train…and that’s it. She came back shattered. Not about the place but people. Her summery was people in north of India are unimaginably bad behaved. They are far from human in treatment. I myself is from north and do not agree with her completely. But I do agree with her about north Indian treatment to tourists. Tourists in north are treated like commodities. You can do whatever you want and get away with it. And most surprisingly government goes on to spend in crores to promote it's state but does nothing to protect tourists from its bizarre popultion over there. My friend says experience at Mugal Sarai station was worse. Thanks god she was travelling in group.
No matter how much we criticize Australia or even our own Raj and Udhav for racism and regionalism, we in north has to change our behavior towards humans of another race and country. Stop treating them as free ATM open to be looted. Delhi is considered one of the rudest city in entire world. We need some introspection and improvisation desperately. It is already too late. I was horrified to see a news package from Delhi which showed how horribly some black students were treated in capital who had come to India for study. There are some serious race issues down under I am afraid.
One more incident my friend Sandip was telling in the morning. His friend Aakanksha who had come to Delhi from Mumbai to work for a TV channel got slapped in her lower back by a motorist. She took down the bike's licence number and went to police. Police traced and arrested the culprit. Within two hours there were 50 jats assembled in that chowki to get his release. Under the presser police had to release him immediately. Hypocratic isn't it? But what better do you expect?
It is inhuman behavior in a human city that i am worried about. Rude and intolerant behavior in the Indian capital makes me thinking specially when the commonwealth game is just around the corner. Then thousands of cameras from across the world will be looking for off beat stories. Delhites you better change this time.
And its not only the people, I think whole system is racist for that matter. Let me give you an example that something particularly irritating for a 'white man'. Wherever he goes in India, he has to pay a special rate. Whether he visits the Taj Mahal where the 'white' tourist has to cough up Rs 750 to see the mausoleum, or a national museum, or even hotels or airlines, there is a true racial discrimination.
Rates are often ten times higher for those who have a 'white' or 'yellow' (Japanese) skin. Those who have made these rules do not understand that this policy harms India's image.
The desire to make a quick buck from the so-called rich tourists leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of the visitors who in any case would have spent their budget during the stay in India. To my knowledge, India must be the only nation in the world implementing these separate rates. And i am sure it is not going to change as in our country change only comes in actual term of votes and tourists can not vote anywhere in the world.
Indians are going global and they surely get looked down upon for their policies and behavior back home. Its time we get our act sorted before calling ourselves a superpower.
No matter how much we criticize Australia or even our own Raj and Udhav for racism and regionalism, we in north has to change our behavior towards humans of another race and country. Stop treating them as free ATM open to be looted. Delhi is considered one of the rudest city in entire world. We need some introspection and improvisation desperately. It is already too late. I was horrified to see a news package from Delhi which showed how horribly some black students were treated in capital who had come to India for study. There are some serious race issues down under I am afraid.
One more incident my friend Sandip was telling in the morning. His friend Aakanksha who had come to Delhi from Mumbai to work for a TV channel got slapped in her lower back by a motorist. She took down the bike's licence number and went to police. Police traced and arrested the culprit. Within two hours there were 50 jats assembled in that chowki to get his release. Under the presser police had to release him immediately. Hypocratic isn't it? But what better do you expect?
It is inhuman behavior in a human city that i am worried about. Rude and intolerant behavior in the Indian capital makes me thinking specially when the commonwealth game is just around the corner. Then thousands of cameras from across the world will be looking for off beat stories. Delhites you better change this time.
And its not only the people, I think whole system is racist for that matter. Let me give you an example that something particularly irritating for a 'white man'. Wherever he goes in India, he has to pay a special rate. Whether he visits the Taj Mahal where the 'white' tourist has to cough up Rs 750 to see the mausoleum, or a national museum, or even hotels or airlines, there is a true racial discrimination.
Rates are often ten times higher for those who have a 'white' or 'yellow' (Japanese) skin. Those who have made these rules do not understand that this policy harms India's image.
The desire to make a quick buck from the so-called rich tourists leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of the visitors who in any case would have spent their budget during the stay in India. To my knowledge, India must be the only nation in the world implementing these separate rates. And i am sure it is not going to change as in our country change only comes in actual term of votes and tourists can not vote anywhere in the world.
Indians are going global and they surely get looked down upon for their policies and behavior back home. Its time we get our act sorted before calling ourselves a superpower.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Talk for the sake of Talking!
Being Indian I bet you can not explain what compelled Indian Government to initiate composite dialogue with Pakistan. After all we are living in peace and doing quite well on all the frontier without war ravaged Pakistan. Why does one have to talk to a neighbor who is trying his best to bomb your house everyday? And most importantly why our esteemed prime minister is in such a hurry to initiate some sort of dialogue with Pakistan which he himself know is meaningless as Pakistan always is in whom to talk and what to talk situation? And what is the use of such a talk which depends on one terrorist attack from across the border and that was so openly being planned under the gaze of Pakistani authorities by JUD militants in POK while Indian government was trying to be Mr. Nice yesterday?
Going against my believe i believe that it is a talk to expect nothing. And that is the main point. And if it is so then it was a good diplomatic move by Indian government. It is mainly Afghanistan which is making Indian government to come with this move. What Pakistan is trying to project that because all his troops are busy guarding eastern frontier connecting with India, it can not deploy more troops in western frontier which is Taliban inflicted. Now entire world is asking India to initiate some sort of peace talks with Pakistan so that its army can be moved to the right places. Therefore i think India had to give in and start the dialogue process just for the sake of it.
Secondly, It is Indian businessmen who have been pressurizing government to start some kind of peace talks with Pakistan so that they can again start selling their products over their. Filmmakers can sell their films and music, Media can distribute channels, IT can sell software etc. And there is nothing wrong in it. But make sure you do not start giving free visas to terrorists. Terrorists have always been taking advantage of good trade relations. This gives them perfect opportunity to cross border and create havoc. And that makes me thinking seriously. Start business but at the same time be very careful. And if you think so much of vigilance can not be afforded, then lose trade. In fact, with no trade with Pakistan India has been most peaceful and secure in one and half years. Therefore, government has got no right to play with the life of innocent just for the sake of some filthy gains of business community. Although governments in India always obnoxiously do this.
Thirdly and may some good sense prevail with Sardar that this all drama of talks is to get some ground in Afghanistan. It will be quite useful for India to befriend Afghanistan. By doing that it can gherao Pakistan from western border as well. Now a days Pakistan is busy doing some peace talks with Taliban. Pakistan is trying to convince Americans to get Taliban back into the power. This is going to be the worse situation for India. Indian has not forgotten Air India abduction episode. That’s why while India has agreed to talk to Pakistan it would like Americans to carry on their operations there and give India more room to strengthen its ties with Afghanistan.
A gentle disclaimer before I finish. Above all I have hoped against hope. I believe in Sardar and think he would not do anything without a good reason behind it. And if none of the above is a reason for talk then it is just foolish as always from the part of Mr. Krishna who always seek attentions for all the wrong reasons. I can just hope as i used to do when Shivraj Patil was home minister that at least for once he will be wise.
Going against my believe i believe that it is a talk to expect nothing. And that is the main point. And if it is so then it was a good diplomatic move by Indian government. It is mainly Afghanistan which is making Indian government to come with this move. What Pakistan is trying to project that because all his troops are busy guarding eastern frontier connecting with India, it can not deploy more troops in western frontier which is Taliban inflicted. Now entire world is asking India to initiate some sort of peace talks with Pakistan so that its army can be moved to the right places. Therefore i think India had to give in and start the dialogue process just for the sake of it.
Secondly, It is Indian businessmen who have been pressurizing government to start some kind of peace talks with Pakistan so that they can again start selling their products over their. Filmmakers can sell their films and music, Media can distribute channels, IT can sell software etc. And there is nothing wrong in it. But make sure you do not start giving free visas to terrorists. Terrorists have always been taking advantage of good trade relations. This gives them perfect opportunity to cross border and create havoc. And that makes me thinking seriously. Start business but at the same time be very careful. And if you think so much of vigilance can not be afforded, then lose trade. In fact, with no trade with Pakistan India has been most peaceful and secure in one and half years. Therefore, government has got no right to play with the life of innocent just for the sake of some filthy gains of business community. Although governments in India always obnoxiously do this.
Thirdly and may some good sense prevail with Sardar that this all drama of talks is to get some ground in Afghanistan. It will be quite useful for India to befriend Afghanistan. By doing that it can gherao Pakistan from western border as well. Now a days Pakistan is busy doing some peace talks with Taliban. Pakistan is trying to convince Americans to get Taliban back into the power. This is going to be the worse situation for India. Indian has not forgotten Air India abduction episode. That’s why while India has agreed to talk to Pakistan it would like Americans to carry on their operations there and give India more room to strengthen its ties with Afghanistan.
A gentle disclaimer before I finish. Above all I have hoped against hope. I believe in Sardar and think he would not do anything without a good reason behind it. And if none of the above is a reason for talk then it is just foolish as always from the part of Mr. Krishna who always seek attentions for all the wrong reasons. I can just hope as i used to do when Shivraj Patil was home minister that at least for once he will be wise.
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