Aug

29

Politics, promiscuity and polygamy

August 29, 2009 posted by indiatime | 5 Comments

A storm is brewing inside India’s opposition party, and the rumors and talks about political alliances is ripe once again. They say politics makes strange bedfellows, but whoever ‘they’ are, ‘they’ had little idea how promiscuous Indian politics typically is.

But then again, just as art imitates life, so does politics. Tushar Waghmare, a 40-year old airline engineer in Maharashtra, was recently arrested after police found about that he had married 14 women in twice the number of months. Waghmare used matrimonial sites on the internet and his charms to get into the good books of 14 families. Posing as a divorcee, using false documents, and utilizing fake relatives, he pulled off what now seems like an easy internet scam.

Here’s the statistics of Waghmare’s marital venture. Out of the 14 wives, 5 have filed charges so far, 9 have remained silent or hadn’t yet figured out that they’ve been duped. Most of the 14 are housewives, but one is an engineer and another is an architect. All 14 lives in Mumbai except one who lived a few hundred kilometers away. None of the wives had met any of the others until the last one he married. The wife number 14 visited his second apartment and was greeted by wife number 13. They immediately went to the police and managed to stop Waghmare’s marital streak to 14.

In his short but successful stint as a serial husband and polygamist, Waghmare proved himself to be a man of many talents - an incredible manager (managing 14 families in one salary), a savvy netizen (using new media to fullest avantage), a slick charmer (charming 14 different families), a careful forgerer (faked documents to create a few identities). But above all that, Waghmare is a politician, whose ease and expertise in making alliances, may eventually open up a new career for him, once he is out of jail.

On second thoughts, let me take that last sentence back. Waghmare doesn’t need to be out of jail to be successful in Indian politics. He can not only contest a parliamentary election, he can most certainly become a parliament member and probably a lot more. And trust me, he will only be a petty criminal at best if you go ahead and compare his crimes to many other Indian politicians who contested their elections, won and now have bigger & better criminal enterprises in their official capacities.

Aug

28

Did Buddha smile or did he just smirk?

August 28, 2009 posted by indiatime | Leave a Comment

There’s a feud going on amongst those who coordinated and participated in the 1998 Pokhran nuclear explosions. The principal scientists and the politicians involved have been maintaining that India’s claims about the May 1998 nuclear tests are not to be doubted. K. Santhanam, the test site director and one of the main participants representing the Defense Research establishment (DRDO), has been claiming that India exaggerated its claims about the kiloton yields almost by triple.

The then national security advisor Brajesh Mishra is disputing Santhanam’s argument, contending that Santhanam himself had earlier verified the higher yield figures. “Was Santhanam speaking the truth then or is he lying now?”, asks Mishra. Santhanam’s then boss Dr. Kalam himself is disputing his test director’s assertions as well. Kalam is basing his own assertions on the post-explosion seismic and drilling measurements.

If India’s nuclear tests weren’t successful back in 1998, it would mean a boatload of trouble for India’s national security. Only 2 weeks after India’s tests, Pakistan had conducted similar tests, claiming an almost equivalent yield from its own results. Assuming for a moment that Santhanam’s claims are true, and assuming for a moment that Pakistan’s claims are true as well, puts India in a position it just doesn’t want to be in. First of all, it negates the assurances from India’s politicians and defense chiefs about India being ready to take on its enemies. Secondly, India’s signing of the comprehensive nuclear test ban will halt any further testing, arresting India’s nuclear program to a level much below Pakistan’s program. If that proves to be true, that would be a gigaton yield explosion for some political parties, forever eroding the credibility of some big name individuals who have so far been considered above the fray.

One one hand, Santhanam’s whistleblowing on this issue, can appear immature, untimely and unnecessary. So what if the nuclear tests weren’t as huge as we made them out to be? After all, as long as the idea is to use the tests as a deterrent, does it really matter what the real yield was? Because in such a deterrence scenario, a claim is as good as a yield and perception as good as reality. Right? And isn’t Santhanam doing a disservice to the nation by bolstering the spirits of the enemy across the border?

But then again, hiding an untruth if that is what it really is, may actually be a much bigger disservice to the nation. No matter what the yield of that 1998 test, it certainly didn’t prevent 10 terrorist murderers from trespassing into India in 2008, and it certainly didn’t deter the then ruling regime of Pakistan from illegally claiming Indian land back in 1999. False pride is just as big a sin as false humility, after all.

Personally, I wish there were a time-bound moratorium on declassifying truths of such nature. Many other countries follow that simple rule of thumb and allow to declassify their secret documents several decades later. Santhanam could have done that on his own accord, but then again, every participant of such major operations is burdened with some balance of personal ego and a duty to the covert cause. It’s hard to say which of the participants have allowed that balance to be skewed.

More often than not, truth has a tendency to lie somewhere in the middle of the two ends of such disputes. “…Hold fast to Truth as a lamp; hold fast to the truth as a refuge…”, said Buddha once. But he too, is said to have smiled mysteriously when the sands of Pokhran exploded first in 1974 and then in 1998.

Aug

27

Sports ministry toys with the meaning of sports

August 27, 2009 posted by indiatime | 5 Comments

India’s Youth Affairs and Sports ministry has now officially ruled that Formula 1 racing or F1 is not sports. The ministry’s ruling came in response to a private promoter’s request for about $36 million remittance for a license fee payment to the Formula 1 admin body. “…The proposed F1 race does not satisfy conditions which focus on human endeavour for excelling in competition with others, keeping in view the whole sports movement from Olympics downwards…”, ruled the sports ministry. A spokesman for the ministry, however, clarified the ministry’s stand, adding “….This project is absolutely beyond the realm of the common man. We expressed our inability to consider it…”.

The JPSK sports, floated by a private venture and officially and secretly backed by the Indian Olympic Association, had been closing in on the issue with their partnership with the UP chief minister Mayawati. So Mayawati, last year, created a special economic zone (SEZ) for her business partners in F1 racing, slating 2500 acres of prime land for the venture. But the differences between the ruling Congress and Mayawati’s BSP party, turned into a red flag for the F1 project. The Indian Olympic Association, has been controlled and ruled for years, by Congress party loyalist Suresh Kalmadi, whose connections to the party headquarters seem to have come up short for now.

Cricket, India’s biggest business (ahead of outsourcing), biggest religion (ahead of Hinduism) and biggest entertainment (ahead of Bollywood) and biggest sports (ahead of itself) is already beyond neck deep in politics, with the state and central bodies completely dominated and under the whim of powerful politicians. It wasn’t so all the time, however. It took Indian politicians a while to figure out the money equations involved in the sports entertainment industry. But now that they have wisened up, their eyes are on the other big prize in sports - the business of racing. The real reason Formula 1 racing isn’t getting a jump start is not about whether it is sports or entertainment. It is purely about which political players stand to make the most money out of it. So until that decision is made, the bureaucratic wordsmiths in the government will keep coming up with ways to rain on F1’s starting lineup in India.

When does a sport stop being a sport? When does it become ‘entertainment’? And at what point does the entertaining sport become a business? Looks like those questions will best be answered once all the business interests involved have been assured of their take in the matter.

Aug

22

Unprepared, unaware, naive and stupid

August 22, 2009 posted by indiatime | 6 Comments

Heavy downpours brought everything to a standstill as darkness engulfed India’s capital city at 4 pm. Heavens opened up without a warning and uncommon chaos erupted on usually severely chaotic city streets. Even the airport lost its roof from some of its newer construction.

Nobody saw it coming. Not anyone in meteorology departments. Not a soul in any of India’s observatories. Nobody in the government. None of India’s many satellites. Nobody working on Bhuvan earth. Nobody. We have once again demonstrated that we have no clue, no expertise and no idea how to read and interpret weather maps, how to study and extrapolate weather patterns and how to warn our public about a doom about to befall upon us.

Whether it is a tsunami, a terror attack, a destructive and disruptive downpour or an endemic health emergency of the severest kind and highest priority, India has yet not ben able to successfully implement a wider alert system that can inform, educate, alert and save lives.

Let’s stop talking about sending a man on the moon. Let’s stop bullshitting about one-upping google. Let’s not speak about drones and nuclear submarines. Let’s quit the debate on our standing in the 21st century. All that is nonsense and idiotic chatter when you see that we can’t do shit right by ourselves. Once we get past initial stage of denial, we may be able to finally do something right.

And by we, I mean you, the bloody idiots in India’s legislative assemblies and the parliament. It is you all who have led this once great nation down a ridiculous path, cheating and deceiving the masses with you fake promises, keeping fake issues burning by dividing the public on every basis imaginable.

You can bet we’re in deep mess, when the biggest issues facing us are an over-the-hill actor’s whining about waiting at the airport or an over-the-hill sportsman’s whining about a house in restricted defense space or an over-the-hill politician’s whinings about matters past. Thank God yesterday’s downpour was not a deluge and thank God Kasab didn’t land in Mumbai with a hundred other colleague sand and thank God the Chinese are not that smart either.

Aug

5

Gang rape gazette - I

August 5, 2009 posted by indiatime | 1 Comment

A report about rising violent crimes against women, tabled in India’s parliament only last week, describes rape as one of the fastest rising crimes in India, up 10% in less than 5 years. And the 10% rise may merely be the tip of the iceberg. Many of the rape cases are never registered, never come to light, and for many of the victims, it’s not even a one-time crime.

So here’s a hurriedly compiled list of some of the high-profile rape cases during the last week or two. For the sake of brevity, the cases listed are all gang rape cases:

1. Yavatmal, Maharashtra (August 3, 2009)
Taibai Khartade (30) of Ghatanji village, died of burn injuries after she was gang raped and then set afire inside a local school.

2. Mumbai, Maharashtra (August 3, 2009)
On friendship day eve, a 15-year old local schoolgirl was gang raped by her friend and his pals in Nalasopara, Mumbai. Yesterday, the girl hung herself from the ceiling fan of her bedroom. Her mother discovered her lifeless body on Sunday morning, the morning of international friendship day.

3. Mumbai, Maharashtra (August 2, 2009)
A 22-year old woman who had recently come to Mumbai in search of a livelihood and a fresh start, was gang raped at the Diva railway station in Mumbai.

4. Gadchiroli, Maharashtra (August 3, 2009)
The police have identified three Maoist naxalites as the accused in the gang rape of 3 govt-school teachers. The naxalite rebels gang raped the teachers as a punishment for having held classes on a day the rebel leaders had called a shutdown of all government run facilities.

5. New Delhi (July 31, 2009)
A court in Delhi has postponed announcing the verdict in a gang rape case involving India’s members of India’s Presidential body guards (PBG). About 6 years ago, 4 members of the presidential body guards had gang raped a 17-year old local girl in Delhi’s Buddha Jayanti Park.

6. Bangalore, Karnataka (August 1, 2009)
Late last Saturday night, a former student and his friends gang raped Kumuda(32), a teacher and later strangled her to death. Kumuda is survived by her husband, an 8-year old daughter and a 3-year old son.

7. Mumbai, Maharashtra (July 25, 2009)
4 suspected activists of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), a local political outfit, were arrested for gang raping a minor who worked as a maid servant. The teenage girl was gang raped inside the security guard’s cabin at the local municipal garden.

8. New Delhi (July 20, 2009)
A 27-year old woman from Daryaganj, was gang raped and later sold for Rs 10,000 to a third party who kept her enslaved for 6 days. She managed to escape and walked several miles before finding a refuge with her relatives. Her first complaint was against the UP police who she said had refused to register her case.

9. Vijaywada, Andhra Pradesh (July 17, 2009)
The police chief suspended two senior police officers who had been trying to shield the suspects in a gang rape case. The suspects too, are members of the Andhra police and the victim has alleged that they had raped her several times.

10. Cuttack, Orissa (July 29, 2009)
Orissa high court has rejected the anticipatory bail appeal of Mahesh Agarwal, the prime accused in the gang rape case in a Paikamal block office. Bijay Ranjan Singh Bariha, who is Orissa state’s Scheduled Caste & Scheduled Tribes development minister, had been trying to shield the main accused in the gang rape against a young dalit girl (from scheduled caste).

Aug

2

A police complaint has now been filed against Bollywood actor Emraan Hashmi and his uncle Mahesh Bhatt for inciting communal feelings by broaching the issue communal bias in the matter of the house ownership in Mumbai. So far the actor has made public statements confirming his initial allegations of communal bias, and the opposing side - the housing society in question, has hit back with allegations that Hashmi was essentially twisting the facts, and that there was no question of him being denied anything on the basis of his Muslim faith.

Almost 130 years to this exact date in the calendar, modern Japan did just that. The Shinokosho system that had originated from Confucian philosophy of dividing people as gentries, farmers, merchants and artisans, had existed in Japan and its neighboring nations for centuries. But emperor Meiji’s reforms around late 1900s ended Japan’s feudal system, propelling it into a much more modern country willing to look past the feudal silliness.

Most of modern India’s social ills spring from the old divisions that originating from philosophies that no longer hold water. Had Vallabh Bhai Patel, the then home minister, not acted firmly back in the late 1940s, India would still be dealing with independent princely states with maharajahs and queens roaming on elephants. Not that it helped when they traded the elephants for rolls-royces, but Patel’s restructuring efforts, at least eliminated much of the chaos that could have broken India into smaller pieces in the few years after independence. No leader in today’s India has the kind of guts, the courage and the vision to put an end to the politics of casteism and racism by leveling the field for all, and making it a crime to even make a mention of someone’s race, religion or caste in matters of education, employment, law and justice.

Cases like Hashmi’s bring the issue to the forefront, urging us to sideswipe the issue. They need to be openly discussed, debated, and be part of the national dialogue that is waiting to happen for a few hundred years now. It’s obviously not just an issue about Hashmi’s apartment because, right around the corner from that apartment, most other Bollywood actors of his faith seem to be doing far better, owning much bigger real estate, and having the time of their lives. But Hashmi needs to be heard because if complaints like his are indeed genuine, they need to be addressed to and not ignored just for having come from a person with lesser or higher image perception issues.

For now, this does promise to become an issue that will keep simmering for a while, but the reasons for that happening are all wrong. There is an election coming up in a few weeks and some pols in Mumbai and Delhi are cooking this controversy up in their kitchen. They may just be playing fire that will not only heat up their own kitchens, but may consume many others as well.

Jul

28

A couple of years ago, Yasmeen, a 15-year old teen prostitute in Kashmir, told the police about how she was forced into prostitution by Sabeena, a local madam. Sabeena in turn, opened up her client diary, which consisted the names of VIPs, VVIPs and VVVIPs in and around the state, including the local officials, bureaucrats and principal secretaries, ordinary legislators and top politicians and cabinet-level government ministers, as well as top and mid-level police officials.

That teen prostitution sex story from 3 years ago has now come back and claimed the top pol in the J&K politics. Chief minister Omar Abdullah, the third-generation chief minister of his state (the son of former J&K chief minister Farooq Abdullah and the grandson of J&K chief minister Sheikh Abdullah), resigned a few hours ago, amidst allegations that his and his father’s name fared in the list of VVIPs from madam Sabeena’s list.

Yasmeen’s story started when while in her 8th grade, she was once invited to madam Sabeena’s house. She was drugged by a state government security guard, and then raped and blackmailed into prostitution after being filmed. Turned out that Yasmeen was not an only or one of the few victims, but was one of the many such victims who were regularly ‘fed’ to the top officials in the Jammu & Kashmir government. Not surprisingly, the police and India’s central investigating authorities initially dragged their feet, reluctant to touch or charge anyone, until the supreme court began slamming the investigation process. Added to the mix were allegations about high-level cover-ups.

Chief minister Abdullah’s resignation came about after recent allegations by People’s Democratic leader Baig who spoke about Abdullah’s famous father - Farooq, being on the sex scandal list as madam Sabeena’s client number 38.

Jul

26

A truth-telling twist for politicians

July 26, 2009 posted by indiatime | 2 Comments

The recent controversy over a reality show that exploits people’s lie-telling and technology’s lie-detecting skills, has thrown India’s hypocrite moral police up in disarray. That the show’s producers are exploiting TV ratings under the guise of truth is no secret. The newly imported truth-telling reality show on India’s Star TV guarantees provoking of controversies and raising of eyebrows, at a time when India’s TV viewers seem to be hungry for more and more of something spicier.

So politicians across India have now been clamoring over the immoral TV shows, vowing to ban the new rot on Indian television, ruing the golden old days when immorality was confined to bodily gyrations of Bollywood maidens. Funny thing is, none of those politicians and the moral police will dare to participate in the truth-telling show that seems to be exposing the myth of India’s moral mantle, revealing the hidden devils inside every participant, and making a mockery of those who have long claimed moral and spiritual superiority over the rest of the planet.

The show’s future will most certainly rest in the hands of India’s supreme court, which sooner or later, will ban the darn truth-revealing show. Before that however, the show’s producers should offer to accept the inevitable on a condition to have each of India’s parliamentarians sit in the truth-chair, making them take the lie-detector test. One can start at the top, with the president, then the prime minister, then each of the cabinet ministers, and then the parliament members. Local language TV stations can run the local shows with chief ministers and local legislators. By the time we’re done with politicians, enough secrets will be outed turning everything upside down and charting a new path. And then there should be a law to mandate some lie-detector test for everyone who contests to become a people’s representative.

Once we get to that point, the show can go to hell, meaning where it came from. And the politicians can then go to hell, meaning where they’re headed for, eventually.

Jul

21

Frisking of a president

July 21, 2009 posted by indiatime | 2 Comments

There was an uproar in India’s upper house today about a recent frisking incident involving India’s former president Dr Kalam. The incident occurred a few months ago at Delhi’s international airport, when former president was about to embark on a Continental Airlines flight from New Delhi to Newark, New Jersey.

At the security checkpoint, the security personnel asked Dr. Kalam to remove his footwear and are said to have frisked him as well. It is not known if Dr Kalam was asked to remove his belt.

True to his nature, the former president did not raise any issue with the Indian government at the time of the flight, but the matter has now come to public notice and caused a stir in the parliament where the members expressed outrage over the humiliation meted out to the former president. And the civil aviation ministry is now asking Continental Airlines why action should not be taken on it, for treating the former president as an ordinary passenger.

Here’s what I think.

1. Every former president or prime minister will and should typically have his or her service detail traveling alongwith. One would think it is the duty of those personnel to protect the topmost dignitaries from being touched by others.

2. Every former president’s itinerary is and should be known to the government at all times, so a reasonable aount of protection can be accorded at all times. Once again, the former president’s staff seems to have failed him here.

3. In this day and age, top dignitaries, including diplomatic or white passport holders, should not mind going through a security check just as every other passenger goes through. What if the dignitary’s footwear is bugged and he is not even aware of it? What if the dignitary’s writing pen has a bomb inside? Wouldn’t we want to know why such devices were not interrupted at the security point itself?

4. It is not a question of humiliation, but a routine, a rule. In fact, everyone, no matter how high, should go through a rigorous security check, including domestic and foreign dignitaries. Dr. Kalam’s frisking has actually opened a door to this possibility and is a great opportunity. Imagine some member of parliament or some top bureaucrat is frisked tomorrow and complains about it, one can always tell him or her that even the presidents and the former presidents have to go through it. Meaning, nobody is above the law.

5. That Dr Kalam did not raise a stink over the issue speaks about his class. This is one former dignitary and president who sets examples everywhere he goes or travels. And for all the stink that is now being raised by others, the same politicians disrespected and humiliated him several times more when they refused to extend him another term, because they knew this guy to be a political independent and they also knew that he wouldn’t be their stooge.

Jul

14

A teacher’s killers walk free

July 14, 2009 posted by indiatime | 2 Comments

The Nagpur high court yesterday acquitted all six student activists accused of beating a professor to death. Almost three years ago, Professor Sabharwal of Madhav College, Ujjain, was pummeled to death by the activists of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), a student body long aligned with right wing nationalist parties.

The Supreme court had ordered the case to be tried in Nagpur after the victim’s son requested the case be transferred outside of Ujjain. Unfortunately for the victim family, the transfer of the case to Nagpur did not provide much relief, and the eye witnesses to the case turned hostile one after the other, leaving the prosecution’s case looking ridiculous and hopeless.

Although not intended by the victim professor’s family, the transfer of the case to Nagpur may actually have helped the accused who have pretty strong connections in Nagpur, the capital of ABVP’s parent organization. Additionally, the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh himself surely did not leave any stone unturned in helping the accused. He is known to have personally met and chatted with the main murder accused on the pretext of paying a surprize visit to that hospital, an astonishing thing to do for a head of a state.

In Nagpur and in Maharashtra yesterday, student activists celebrated the acquittal of their colleagues from the neighboring state, with firecrackers and dances on the streets. “…Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth cannot be sacrificed for anything…” read a message on the local ABVP chapter’s facebook site. Quite an ironical statement coming from an organization some of whose supporters sacrificed a professor in front of a crowd of hundreds and a few TV cameras.

There was a time student organizations like ABVP were known for their volunteerism and dedicated and selfless acts in times of national emergencies like droughts and earthquakes and floods. What a pity, that an organization whose followers once made it credible by some incredible volunteer work, is now willing to put everything on line to save and protect some rogue elements who probably do not care a hoot about the ideals once set by its founders.

Jul

7

Indian man with 5 kidneys has 2 more in waiting

July 7, 2009 posted by indiatime | 1 Comment

A photographer from Chandigarh, is living with 5 kidneys, and is hoping that the fifth one, will finally bring him a future full of health. 33-year old Jaswant Singh has so far had three transplant operations, each giving him a kidney from a donor within his own family.

Singh’s ordeal started back in 2002, when both of his own kidneys failed, forcing him to undergo a transplant. His elder sister Harjindar Kaur chipped in with a kidney, helping Jaswant survive for a year. But financial constraints prevented him from continuing the post-transplant medication, resulting in his body rejecting the kidney.

So in 2004, Jaswant went in for another transplant and this time little sister Ranvir Kaur donated one of her own. A year and a half later, that kidney too, failed, and Jaswant was back looking back a kidney.

He is hoping the third time will be a charm, especially since the donor is Amar Kaur, his 55-year old mother. The third time has already been a little different since the doctors have charged him nothing for the surgery.

Has Jaswant Singh expended all his options? Not yet. He still has a brother and his driver with both their kidneys intact, and Jaswant is not shy to admit that he is pinning his hopes on them.

Incidentally, Amar Singh, a senior Indian politician and a leader of the Samajwadi Party, was in Singapore this week, for his own transplant. Rumor is, he is getting a kidney from someone in his political family, a former legislator from the Samajwadi Party.

Jul

5

Masters at the art of talking the talk

July 5, 2009 posted by indiatime | 2 Comments

A few days of a few inches of rains and Mumbai, it is being reported, has logged out. Barely last week, the Worli sea link, the city’s newest engineering marvel was being hailed as its greatest accomplishment. Within days, it is now clear, that the sea-link bypass is prone to traffic jams of unforeseen proportions and may actually make your commute longer than the original route. Years after talking the talk about turning Mumbai into Shanghai, Mumbai’s dreams of becoming India’s Shanghai remain far from accomplished.

But talking the talk is what tricks gullibles, fools the skeptics amd insults everyone. The city of Rajkot recently announced plans to become a major solar city. Just a few months ago, another city, Nagpur, was being bragged about as India’s first solar city. A few months earlier, Chandigarh was bragging to become India’s first solar city. While Indians talked about building dozens of solar cities, China in the meantime, flew ahead in the alternative world, overtaking India in wind power.

Two years ago, India’s space chief Madhavan Nair boasted that India could go to Mars in 5 years. He pretty much ate back some of his words yesterday, admitting that India’s moon-rover mission was facing technological problems and it might take an extra year to put a four-wheeler on the moon.

The only thing India’s politicians and bureaucrats have mastered and are at top of, is lying. You know, we could be discussing this 50 years later, and Mumbai will still be a hundred years behind Shanghai and a million years behind New York. The only city Mumbai is close to turning into is New Orleans. We came pretty close to it a few years ago. We will be closer to it in a few weeks.

Jul

2

Today, a high court in India has decriminalized homosexuality, ruling that consensual sexual activity in same-sex adults is legal. Here are some reactions:

1. We have finally entered the 21st Century.
- Anjali Gopalan, Naz Foundation working on HIV prevention

2. As the world’s largest democracy, India has shown the way for other countries to rid themselves of these repressive burdens.
- Scott Long, Human Rights Watch

3. Now, one is not a criminal when anyway one was not in the first place.
- Wendell Rodricks, Fashion Designer

4. Health workers providing help to homosexual HIV sufferers were also working in precarious situations…it’s not uncommon for police to arrest you because you are providing information on something illegal.
- Anand Grover, lawyer

5. The government should not … give in to the demands of a minuscule minority, and …. test the patience of the silent vast majority -

Statement by prominent Muslim Religious leaders

6. - It is between the court and the government…

Congress party spokesperson

7. It is worrisome to some degree, but it is different from a ballistic missile launch…So yes, people are watching it, the military is watching it here, but I don’t’ think it’s related to any plans or operations to attack anyone
Pinkston, International Crisis Group, South Korea

8. High Court Judges cannot decide on everything
- Murli Manohar Joshi, BJP leader

9. India has never been a threat to Pakistan
- Gen Deepak Kapoor, Indian Army chief

10. It is indeed a unique privilege given to a chosen few to represent the hopes of over a billion people
- Man Mohan Singh, Prime minister

11. It would have been good if such a long time had not been taken…..There should not have been such a long delay in such a sensitive matter. This (not delaying) is in the country’s interest..
- Rajnath Singh, BJP President

Jul

1

Political bridges over troubled waters

July 1, 2009 posted by indiatime | 2 Comments

When Mumbai’s first sea-link bridge opened up for traffic yesterday, like everything else in India, it opened up new political avenues and inroads. Sharad Pawar, the local leader and also the agriculture minister at the center, stole the first opportunity to announce that the bridge be named after slain former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. That he did so sitting next to Rajiv’s widow Sonia Gandhi, the most powerful political leader in India, wasn’t mere coincidence.

Pawar’s generous gesture may keep his coalition partners at bay for a while, but local and regional opponents are up in arms against the naming of the new sea bridge. They had plans to name the bridge after Veer Sawarkar, a revered patriot who once jumped off a ship near France, almost pulling off a miraculous escape on sea.

But then Pawar is trying to pull of his own miraculous escape, especially in the wake of recent election defeats for his party’s leaders and those murder charges against his close aide and brother-in-law Padmasingh Patil. He is getting back into the game, hoping to score a few, trying to rebuild yet another bridge over the troubled and hot political waters that he and his party are in.

Sail on silvergirl,
Sail on by.
Your time has come to shine.
All your dreams are on their way.
See how they shine.

If you need a friend
Im sailing right behind.

Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind.
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind.

- Bridge over Troubled Water (Simon and Garfunkel)

Jun

29

No need to panic..nothing to worry

June 29, 2009 posted by indiatime | 3 Comments

India’s capital city has been plagued with water and electricity problems for last several days. Sheila Dixit, the chief minister, didn’t bring in much relief, when she told Delhi’s residents that their city was prepared to face the power crisis. For many residents, the power crisis has already been going on for days if not weeks, and thus the power disconnect was evident not just in the electrical overhead lines but also in the corridors of power.

That begs the next almost inevitable question of how India is ever going to cope with such crises, when very soon, most of India’s population is about to shift from its villages to its cities. Urbanization experts are predicting that the largest rural country in the world is soon about to become the largest urban country in the world.

If the urban migration cannot be slowed or halted, the resource crises, such as ones for water or electricity will soon engulf most other pressing issues of national importance and national security. And the total dependence on nature, like the current crisis with delayed monsoon winds, highlights how delicate the situation is.

One wonders where the geniuses in the planning commission are when, for the last six decades, everybody including newborn Indian babies have known about these things. India, the world’s soon-to-be most populated country has ridiculously pathetic infrastructural challenges, the kind of which, most of the rest of the developing or developed countries overcame decades ago.

A case in example is in India’s most advanced city which today, is bragging about an over-the-water bridge being opened to the public this week after an agonizing wait of 10 years, when the neighboring China and Japan built several more bridges like that in less than half the time and spanning more than several multiples in length.

So one truly wonders what the chief ministers or cabinet level central ministers are smoking when they keep telling the citizens that the country is prepared to handle water, power or food crises.

“…There is absolutely no need for any panic or worry. This trend of delayed monsoon activity is nothing new. As Agriculture Minister at the Centre, and in Maharashtra before that, I have seen such a trend. Even last year there were good rains in the beginning. After that there was a lull for a week. Again it started raining and again stopped for one to two weeks. Thereafter it continued to rain heavily…” the agriculture Minister told the media.

The food minister promises there won’t be a drought. The science minister promises the monsoon winds will eventually manage to find their way to India. The Defense minister promises India is prepared to handle national security as never before. The chief ministers promise their states are prepared to handle crises they’re already in. Cricket team captains promise their teams are fittest and readiest to become world champions. Bollywood item girl Rakhi Sawant promises she wants to get married to one of the 16 eligible bachelors on India’s copy of the Bachelorette show.

Man, are we screwed or what.

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Translations




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