Ordinary world ...

Our Independence is valuable to us as is our survival. M.K. Gandhi showed that India needed to survive the British and fight fiercely for the survival of the nation as one. We should not now leave the path of struggle when we are free to do what we can; not to turn away from our duties as a nation, especially those that concern our survival.

When will we as a nation stand up to the real issues concerning us? One look at the innumerable news channels on cable TV is conclusive of the fact that Shah Rukh Khan is more important to us than expensive and unaffordable insurance premiums, health care, drought, vanishing ground water, and what not!!! But the government aims only at hiking tax of individuals and not corporates. Where would we go if we cannot afford to live? We all need alternate sources of fuel/energy, health care, and above all employment rights that are being denied to us by planned government efforts.

I fail to understand why in such a poor country like India the Prime Minister is not nailing the real issues, when a richer country like the USA; their President can put up a fierce fight against corporates for each individual's basic necessities.

We are an ordinary people with ordinary needs. We need to survive before we can aim for luxury. Affordability of necessities should be addressed first ...







References:

Obama invokes late grandmother in health crusade

Obama attacks insurance premiums

NASA says Groundwater vanishing in North India

Draft code may make individuals pay more tax

Drought woes claim lives of 20 farmers in Andhra

Drying out

Shah Rukh may have been victim of random selection parameter

If a spade can dig, so can a shovel, if the soil is loose and unsettled ...

The Agricultural Produce Market Committees are marketing boards established by the state governments of India to facilitate farmers to sell their produce to the APMC and get a reasonable price for it. However, due to middlemen creeping in, the system has become so profiteering that the ultimate price to the end consumers is more than 100% of the price of procurement from the farmers!!! It is also illegal to circumvent an APMC under state law. But due to political reasons, the Shiv Sena has shown that circumventing the system can enable them to sell agro-produce to the end consumer at 1/2 the retail market rates, without affecting the agro-procurement prices or the nominal profit margins.

This development poses a very interesting intersection of law, politics, consumer interest, constitutional duties of governments and above all the duty to serve by upholding justice (that may or may not include upholding the law!!!).

As it has been rightly said, Law is merely a tool, if its breaking serves the purpose, so be it.




References:

Eyeing vote gain, Shiv Sena sells veggies at no-profit-no-loss rates

Sena members stage protest against price rise

A.I. Salvation ...

and are we scared of the inevitable? Also known as Technological Singularity, a self-awareness of A.I. Are we on the brink of it, because it is not human to discuss such things out of a science fiction context, except when it becomes inevitable!!!



References:

Scientists fear a revolt by killer robots

Scientists secretly fear AI robot-machines may soon outsmart men

Is the truth out there eluding us?!

May be so, as the actual accounts of UFO sightings and encounters have been made available for the first time by any government. Was "the Abyss (1989)" true is what first comes to mind!!!





References:

Russian Navy Reveals Its Secret UFO Encounters

Russian navy declassifies UFO encounters

Is it not scary?! ...

I'm gonna be
Exactly what you wanna see
It's you whose haunting me
Your warning me
To be the stranger
In your life

Am I amusing you
Or just confusing you
Am I the beast
You visualized
And if you wanna to see
Eccentricalities
I'll be grotesque
Before your eyes

Let them all materialize

Is that scary for you baby
Am I scary for you oh
Is it scary for you baby
Is it scary for you

You know the stranger is you
Is it scary for you baby

Is It Scary?, Michael Jackson, Blood On The Dance Floor (1997)

A few words, true to the situation at hand. There is so much to talk about and think about after the brave Delhi High Court decision in NAZ Foundation that people even from humble backgrounds are taking bolder steps to step up to what they really prefer and want. Is it not scary for the traditionalist-moral godfathers who have kept things under wraps and ruled their communities with iron hands to see their fiefdom swiftly slip away?





Reference:

Married woman marries her 'girlfriend' in west UP

Duel !!!

Kindly read the responses of some of the readers to my following comments I posted to the article below:

I commented:

1. I agree that something needs to be done, but road tax is not a fair PPP (polluter pays principle) enforcement, as the actual pollution does not get cleaned by paying higher road tax, a tax that the government would not do anything about, or will it utilize the same to any useful purpose? We have manufacturers of REVA on the other hand that have no government subsidies or funding to cheapen the REVA or to further conduct R&D for the manufacturers to come up with bigger cleaner cars. India is an economy owned by the oil barons. We need Obama like initiatives to free India from the OPEC clutches and thereby reducing inflation across the board. CNG / PNG will never lead India into an era of energy self reliance. Only utilizing geo-thermal, wave, and ocean-current energy besides solar energy can make that dream possible. But there is little or no allocation whatsoever in any union budget towards any spending towards unconventional clean sources of energy. It is a shame to be facing OPEC and IAEA dependency when India, the vast nation it is has so many alternate sources of energy.


2. The problem is that we as a nation think in terms of aping the west as a show-off of status and consider that our sole aspiration. People want to purchase Tag Heuer watches running on environmentally damaging technologies whereas they could simply opt for the Citizen EcoDrive (solar powered watches). Honda should have sold more hybrid Civics had our priorities been right. The CIVIC HYBRID did not sell even after the price was slashed to Rs.14 lacs. Instead the fuel guzzler VW Jetta sold more, that ran even on diesel engines. It is just ingrained in the psyche that personal profit should surpass global interest. TATAs were the first to start off with diesel cars just when Delhi pollution was reducing with DTC going the CNG way. Today the state is that Delhi has become as polluted due to diesel car pollution as in the pre-DTC-CNG era. Petrol, all said and done, is a far cleaner fuel than diesel. Indians have never chosen cars for their fuel efficiency, but for their lower running cost, thus the move towards diesel. As for cheapness of cars, TATAs can experiment on Indian roads with Indian customers; no need to go to other countries to launch hybrids, BUT they do realize that the Indian customer would fail them. TATAs' move to purchase JLR is also worth noting. JLR produces one of the most polluting cars. They are the Chevys and Chryslers of UK. They could have instead used that money to fund R&D towards meaningful research like Honda has. Enough said ...


I do not think that people understand what I am saying, but my context has always been the climate change and our higher commitment to its prevention. India has never been and seems to never commit to the greater cause. The Indian government does not see beyond its "developmental goals", OR perhaps is so overwhelmed by the Indian oil barons' influence in their decision making!?



References:

A big no to Tata Nano

Himalayan glaciers have shrunk by 38% in 40 years

US unveils spy images of Arctic ice in rare move

and after the curtains fell ...

... no one remembered all that applause or the achievement. The Nano without promise of alternate fuel options is as worthless as is Reva without government subsidies to hasten R&D and production of cheaper versions of the Reva. Nothing but a sales gimmick, we Indians are blind to the needs of the country, leave alone the world. The following reference is the only article I have read, that highlights the gravity of the matter. So enthusiastic is the press that we all have forgotten to press upon the real issues that relate to, and concern the launch of the Nano!!!

Reference:

A big no to Tata Nano

They don't care about him ... only his economic stimulus!!!

Economic stimulus at a time when the world economy is sagging!!! Success is the right thing at the right time. BUT at the cost of the loss of a wonderful entertainer, who inspired a whole generation. Where are such entertainers who are role models of the masses. Let alone entertainers, we have also no politicians, no leaders, no individuals ... NO HEROES to guide the generations to come. Seems we are doomed to our selfish fate of mediocrity, uncreativity and decadence. Our generation is anything but BRAVE ...




References:

Jackson money-making machine set to keep on rolling even after his ...

Michael Jackson's death certificate for sale

Michael Jackson's record sales now exceed those

Who is the greatest – Elvis or Jackson?

Run to the hills ...

Millions being spent on a 70 year old extinction in a region that has ecologically moved on and learnt to live without the cheetah in its circle of life. Has the Indian government not got any other area to spend the tax payers' money on? Human healthcare, energy crisis, newer sources of energy and global warming and related sea level rise are far more important concerns than 70 year old extinctions being revived!!!




References:

Cheetah may be imported

Centre keen on captive breeding of cheetahs

Cheetahs to return to India's grasslands under multimillion-pound plan

Cart before the horse = natural before unnatural!!!

All that is now needed is a probe into our bedrooms. The irony is that by stating that the law has no business in our bedrooms, it has further sanctioned legal peeping by not clarifying whether age of consent for all the 3 types of sexual acts is the same or is different. In case they are different, we all know that legal intervention is unwarranted and such differentiation is useless and humanly impossible to adhere to. Thus the only way to go about it is to have an age parity. OR ELSE start assuming that people get more "perverse" after 18 years of age and only thereafter indulge in the formerly "unnatural" sexual acts.




Reference:

Now, confusion over age of consent

Blunder of the New & Rising World!!!

This is not the first and only civil engineering blunder that is apparent, yet this seems to be the only media attracting blunder nevertheless. In every street of Bombay and new & older parts of Delhi we see bottlenecks because of broader roads emptying out into narrower roads. the Delhi-Noida Expressway, NH8 joining Delhi & Gurgaon, the Western Expressway near Mahim, the Eastern Expressway near Dadar, Andheri-Kurla Road, on either side, Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road near IIT-Bombay, and the list is endless!!! There is no need for a civil engineering degree to realize the asymmetries apparent even to a common passerby?!



Reference:

Bandra Worli Sea Link: Hi-tech incompetence?

The Day of the Triffids!!!

When we are the ones not caring for them, they will have to take matters into their own hands; then the day would not be far when the plants would rule this planet!!!

References:

Boffins say plants can talk

Plants' airborne internet warns of danger

Plants 'talk' to warn each other of threats

Divesting wrong assets!!!

An age old question again needs to be re-looked at. Why should the government only divest its stake in profitable government ventures and leave out Air India type of loss making establishments.



References:

Air India seeks employees' help in 'fight for survival'

Air India asks senior staff to forego July pay to cut costs

CIL disinvestment likely by end of 2009-10: Coal Minister

Govt looking at proposal to divest 10% in BHEL

Shamefully Strange Events

How many days has it been
Since I was born
How many days until I die
Do I know any ways
That I can make you laugh
Or do I only know how to make you cry

When the baby looks around him
It's such a sight to see
He shares a simple secret
With the wise man

He's a stranger in a strange land
Just a stranger in a strange land
Tell me why
He's a stranger in a strange land
Just a stranger in a strange land

How many miles will it take
To see the sun
And how many years until it's done
Kiss my confusion away in the night
Lay by side when the morning comes

And the baby looks around him
And shares his bed of hay
With the burrow in the palace of the king

He's a stranger in a strange land
Tell me why
He's a stranger in a strange land
Just a stranger in a strange land

Well, I don't exactly know
What's going on in the world today
Don't know what there is to say
About the way the people are treating
Each other, not like brothers

Leaders take us far away from ecology
With mythology and astrology
Has got some words to say
About the way we live today
Why can't we learn to love each other
It's time to turn a new face
To the whole world wide human race

Stop the money chase
Lay back, relax
Get back on the human track
Stop racing toward oblivion
Oh, such a sad, sad state we're in
And that's a thing

Do you recognize the bells of truth
When you hear them ring
Won't you stop and listen
To the children sing
Won't you come on and sing it children

He's a stranger in a strange land
Just a stranger in a strange land

Stranger in a Strange Land - Leon Russell & the Shelter People, 1971

References:

N Korean Nuclear Threat Expected to Dominate US - South Korea Talks

Did Indian students falter in etiquette in Australia?

Delhi youth latest victim of racial assaults in Australia

5-member family from US quarantined in city

Israeli PM 'ruins' peace chance

Rahul birthday to kick-start 'woo Dalit' campaign in UP

Maya up in arms against all things related to Gandhi

The economic cost of race violence

Fans burn Dhoni's effigy, ex-cricketers appeal restraint

Roshans cooked up Hrithik-Barbara love story!

tuh-mey-toh (tomato) or tuh-mah-toh (tomato): Racisim or Not is the question!!!???

It seems that intolerance to difference is the bread and butter of the West and Caucasian Southern Hemisphere. Australian cops state that "Indian community members here point out that some Indian students do not behave properly in public places, especially in trains and market places. They play loud music and speak loudly on the phone in public transport, some can hardly converse in English and many choose to just stick to people from their own region."

In what civilized world does such behavior warrant assault on a particular community. Singapore does levy fines for public nuisance, a rational and civilized way to regulate public space (hence the name, "fine country"). Uniformity if pursued so vociferously would then leave us no different from the Islamic fundamentalists, the Hindu fundamentalists, and the like!!!




References:

Indians are not the only ones attacked in Australia: Cops

Australia: Indian university students protest racist attacks


Crikey wrap: Indian press on Australia's racism

Coercion: New Industrial Disease Part 2

Denial of job unless accepting restrictive terms, more so the amount of remuneration is now the norm. Call it ironical, but a while ago overvaluation of workforce only had led to the cash crunch!!! Guess we all are to blame.



References:

Coercion robs workers of $20 bn annually, says ILO report

IIP slumps 2.3% in March

Microsoft may cut more jobs if economy worsens

US shouldn't kill hi-tech talent: Steve Ballmer

Wind out of the Willows ...

Lack of political will to increase employment is evident from the latest Hyundai decision to move production to Europe!!! Probably the government wants more unemployed so as to tap the voter pool for future political prospects.




Reference:

Hyundai may shift i20 production base

Death of the Street Fighting Man ...

Only a few from the private sector remain organized only to be put down by the masters they serve. Is there no hope for the slaving workers, does no political party have their interest in mind, or do we not care for ourselves and be organized on a larger scale? I think the answer to all these questions should be in the affirmative.





Reference:

Striking Hyundai employees arrested in Chennai

They better have wings and fly!!!

So many cars, so many brands; do we have the roads?!!

References:

JLR in India by June

New Audi A6 launched in India

Audi to have 40 models by 2015; to launch its Q3 SUV in 2011

Auto makers report encouraging growth in April

Despite slowdown, April sales accelerate for car-makers

Hyundai Motor launches 'Hyundai Utsav' to tap rural India

Toyota Reveals Pricing for New Indian Compact Car

Honda Jazz – Honda's Small Car

Disguised Retrenchment: New Industrial Disease

About 3,500 Airport workers have been gradually transferred out of Mumbai and Delhi airports to other places after the private consortium GMR took over the operations and management in 2006.

I have been following this disguised retrenchment since a month now and am amazed to see very little or no media coverage on the issue. Possibly it is not as deserving as the IPLs and General Elections (especially the snappy irrelevant chat between L.K. Advani and Rahul Gandhi, neither of them addressing the real issues of this country) that forsake this country!!!



References:

Government should begin talks with AAI employees: Yechury

Airport staff calls off nationwide strike

AAI employees defers nation-wide agitation