Do you guys know why we have military exchange programs with any country? Well, we have such programs with those countries with whom we envisage a scenario where our troops would be operating together to achieve a common goal. That is the reason we have such programs with US, UK, Russia, Singapore, Malaysia and a host of other countries with whom we have good diplomatic relations. If that be the case, then why do we have such an exchange with China? What are the scenarios where we think we would be working alongside Chinese troops? To reduce tension in South China Sea or Sea of Japan? Quite obviously, I really do not think that a such a scenario would present itself anytime soon in future. Then why do we need to have these programs?

Do you know why Lalu Yadav was asking for Rs 80,001 as basic salary for MPs? No, it's got nothing to do with the salary of cabinet secretary as was being widely reported in the media. You see, if you have nine kids you need that kind of money to run your household. Don't you? OK, I know that was a poor joke. Nonetheless, I find myself agreeing with Lalu Yadav for reasons which I feel are worth talking about.

There is nothing against the law in America which prohibits anyone from building a mosque or an Islamic center, if you please, anywhere in America. That's a known fact. But that's just the law. There is much more to it than just the law. There was a 9/11 attack in which nearly 3000 Americans died and it cannot be just wished away. To say that an Islamic Center close to the site of attack will help in bridging gaps between the two communities is just too far off from the practical realities on ground.

So it was independence day, once again. Like all independence days I tuned in to hear what our PM had to say today. But I need not have because his speech was so boring, repetitive and ridiculous that I nearly fell asleep. And it was only eight in the morning. In fact this speech was quite appropriate for the last year, the year before that, the year before before that year and quite likely for the next year, the next to next year and may be even for next to next to next year.

All of a sudden in the last couple of weeks the entire policy or attitude, if you please, of every Tom, Dick and Harry including the govt of India on Kashmir and Kashmiris has undergone a drastic change. Now everyone is talking about the feelings of Kashmiris which has led them to resort to violence in the valley. Even media personalities like Barkha Dutt, Rajdeep Sardesai and Meghnad Desai (sitting in London) are constantly espousing their cause through regular tweets and columns in various newspapers. In fact Lord Desai even said that all stake holders must dilute their positions in order to reach an amicable solution.

When David Cameron, the British premier, was in India he said what all Indians wanted to hear, "Pakistan must stop exporting terror." When Zardari met him recently in London just days after this statement, the communique which came out after the meeting had no relation to his previous statement made in India. Not surprisingly, it said what Pakistanis wanted to hear, that terror must be fought decisively and blah blah blah. When Barrack Obama meets Manmohan Singh he refers to him as a 'good man' which is music to any Indian's ears but when he meets Zardari or Geelani the words that come out are that America and Pakistan have pledged to fight terror to it's end or words to that effect. There is hardly any reference to Indian concerns, though there is some lip service separately by their foreign office just to keep the Indians in good humour.

If our nationalistic fervor comes to the fore and we get emotional while we watch patiotic movies like Border or during an Indo-Pak cricket match, let us not fool ourselves by believing that we are patriotic because we are not. Those are only momentary feelings which lie subdued inside us and get stirred up when we are in these situations. Normally, the over riding feeling inside all of us is I, me, myself and how to make more money, legally or illegally. That's the bottom line. Period. Those of you who are feeling offended or are feeling bad by this statement may have a reason to, I agree. But that's the whole aim- to make all of of us feel bad about the kind of people we actually are. And we all need to be ashamed of it. By the way, our general attitude is not CHALTA HAI, as people like to put it. It is more like BHAD ME JAI!!!!!

Out of hundreds of allegations of fake encounter deaths why is the focus of our entire nation on Sohrabuddin and Amit Shah? Is it because a fake encounter of a Muslim is a different story than that of a Hindu? And that too because it happened in Narendra Modi's Gujarat? Why is the CBI investigating only this case and not so many others where the guilty are quite likely from the Congress party? What about numerous allegations of fake encounters in Andhra Pradesh? What about the prosecution of Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar in Sikh riots case? What about Ottavio Quattrochi?

Every Tom, Dick and Harry in this world knows that working out is important but if you count the number of people you know who workout on a daily basis or even regularly you'd be amazed to see that there are hardly any. If you have more than ten of your acquaintances/relatives/colleagues who make it to that list you are a lucky one. And no, please do not count those who go for walks regularly because walking the way people do is more like a stroll than anything else and let me add that it doesn't do a world of good either. Imagine, not even ten people in your entire list of all those people whom you know workout on a regular basis! But the important question is - ARE YOU IN THAT LIST OR NOT?

Rajdeep Sardesai says, "I thought SM Krishna acted with great dignity. He may not be the ideal foreign minister, but atleast he's a gentleman". Sardesai is not alone. All our media personalities including Barkha Dutt and Arnab Goswami are kind of hailing SM Krishna as if he was a great statesman who was in complete control of things in Islamabad and that his not doing some tough talking was an achievement in itself. In my view they're all mistaken, SM Krishna included. In my view by not retorting SM Krishna and in the bargain Dr Manmohan Singh has made us a laughing stock of the world, particularly in the Muslim world. I too was so very wrong when I wrote this post Indo-Pak talks: A goalless draw wherein I said that results were known to us before the talks started and that this would end in a draw. Sadly, it has not ended in a draw. Its 1-0 in favor of Pakistan. Yes, we lost, once again.

Dentists have a way of making you uncomfortable. Otherwise it is customary for other surgeons to reassure their patients before a surgery with something like, "You won't feel a thing" or words to that effect but not dentists. And I've no idea why. Yeah, they do smile and welcome you initially but after they have done your check up if they deduce that a surgery is required to extract your teeth or some such procedure is necessary, the next thing they do is make a very long face and very seriously start writing on the patient's slip without bothering to tell the patient what the hell is wrong with them, while the patient himself or herself is fidgeting like crazy in that stupid dental chair, quite scared to ask the doctor anything. After he has finished writing he looks up and says, "We have to extract your teeth and it is going to be a little painful. But don't worry. We'll give you local anesthesia". And no, they do not quantify 'little'. They also never tell you that 'little' is only applicable till the time the local anesthesia thing is working. After that, you are on your own.

Look at it any which way you want, it is only the man on the street who is hurt, on one hand by rising prices and on the other by political parties enforcing a bandh. And that's the irony of it all. The call for bandh to highlight the problems of the common man itself poses many problems to the man on the street. BJP president Nitin Gadkari says, "What else can we do in a democracy?" Well, a very valid question for sure. But then why was the bandh not so effectively enforced in non UPA ruled states? Is inflation and fuel price hike not an issue in opposition ruled states? If not then why the double standards? Unless, the aim was to punish the voters of these states for having voted for UPA?

The scenario in Kashmir has changed a lot in the last few years. In the 90s the extremists first began by claiming certain areas like Pattan as being liberated. When those areas were reclaimed by security forces the extremists started planting bombs in the valley. This stage too got over after security forces eliminated most of them. The extremists then resorted to throwing hand grenades at the forces or employing youths for this purpose and running away. Today even that stage is behind us. Now we have the stone pelters again employed by extremists who create chaos and provoke security forces into opening fire. Though these young buys (some of them are as young as nine-ten year olds) do not realize it but this is exactly what the extremists want. They want the security forces to open fire in which a few civilians get killed so that they can then exploit this anger to organize protests and create further chaos.

Who is a Lokpal? If thats tough here's another one, who is a Lokayukta? Well, Lokpal is supposed to be an ombudsman at the center who can look into irregularities by govt officials/politicians and give redressal to grievances of citizens. Lokayukta is supposed to be one in the states with the same functions. Thats the theoretical answer. The practical answer is that there is no Lokpal at the center. There are Lokayukta in some states, seventeen to be precise, but they are mostly toothless, with hardly any powers. And here is a shocker.

There is no difference in the way things were before 26/11 and now. Nothing has changed for Pak. America is still giving them money and arms as they were earlier. India is still making those same ridiculous noises that we were making before 26/11. And Pakistan too is giving the same replies to all these disconcerting noises. In manner of speaking, Pakistan has more spunks than us. They can tell Americans to hop. We can't. We can do only one thing- BEG. And beggars can't be choosers. So it is Pakistan which chooses what it has to do and America which chooses what kind of attention, if any, they must pay to our begging.

While there is no doubt that the subsidy which the govt will now save be to the tune of Rs 30,000 crores which can be used for other useful purposes but there is much more to it than just that. For starters, didn't the govt make more than Rs 30,000 crores extra than it had anticipated in 3G spectrum sale just recently? If they did they surely had more than enough for their current planned expenditures for this fiscal. Then why the hurry to decontrol petrol prices? Secondly, when the inflation starts to zoom up again won't it become incumbent upon the Reserve Bank of India to hike interest rates which they have been postponing for some time now? And that implies that all kinds of loans including home loans will be costlier, again having a direct bearing on you and me. Thirdly, to believe that the oil corporate lobby did not have anything to do with this decision is also rather pedestrian. There can be little doubt about that.

Here's a shocker for you guys. A fashion designer is now an artist, at least for the purpose of income tax. This is the ruling of Bombay High Court in respect of Tarun Tahiliani on his Rs 83.9 lakhs income from foreign sources in 2000. That's because according to Section 80 RR of IT Act of 1961 a resident of India who is either an author, playright, musician, actor, artist or even a sports person is eligible for exemption to the tune of 75% of his income from foreign sources. Well, if that's the law, you can't really blame the courts for saying that a fashion designer also needs to be considered as an artist, though some of us wouldn't really agree with that either.

According to Manish Tewari, spokesperson of Congress party, I'm an unpatriotic person because I believe that Rajiv Gandhi indeed had a lot to do with Warren Anderson's release and subsequent escape from India. Well, if calling a spade a spade is being unpatriotic, I am indeed unpatriotic. For that matter, I'm sure quite a few Indians would be unpatriotic by that analogy. And here's the irony. While I'm unpatriotic for believing that Anderson could not have escaped without Rajiv Gandhi's knowledge or quite possibly orders, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, another spokesperson of Congress who fought on behalf of Dow Chemicals to absolve the company from all legal and moral responsibilities towards Bhopal gas victims, is a patriotic person. Well, of course he is. Anyone and everyone from Congress is patriotic.

To begin with let us first appreciate one basic fact which is of paramount importance in our country, and that is that we still have to learn how to care for lives of each and every Indian citizen. Unlike the western nations who have made this aspect as the most important issue for themselves we are yet to do so. For our authorities, particularly the police, the life of an ordinary citizen is so cheap because of which the citizen too in turn cares two hoots about the country and it's laws. As far as our police is concerned, an ordinary citizen in fact dreads to go to them for redressal of their problems. And that's because of the attitude of the police which is ridiculous to say the least. Whatever we might say the fact is that it's got a lot to do with the amount of workload that they have and the pay our police personnel get. As they say- when you give peanuts you only get monkeys.

I cannot but help sympathize with the people of West Bengal. They are stuck between the devil and the deep sea, with CPM being the deep sea. Whenever Mamata comes to power I'm dead sure that she will not allow any security operations against Maoists to take place in West Bengal implying that whenever operations against them are launched from other states the Maoists will seek refuge in this state. And that can mean only one thing for India in general and West Bengal in particular- DANGER. And that's the reason why I call CPM the deep sea and Mamata the devil. Another implication of this very foreseeable future is that full scale operations against Maoists need to start right now and that too from the direction of West Bengal to wipe out each and every member and sympathizer of Maoists in this state before the assembly polls are held there.

Mr Prime Minister, My name is Sush Jaitly, a citizen of your country, and I'm literally weeping at this point of time. In my hands is a picture of a small girl Shirin whose lifeless body is being pulled out of the train wreckage in Sardhia. Her twin sister Shamim too is dead and so are her parents. This was a first train ride for the seven year olds, and the last. I only hope that the kids did not suffer too much before they died. Sir, if this is not heart wrenching nothing can be? Sir, do you know who the murderers of these kids are? No, it's not just the Maoists. In my opinion these kids have been killed by you along with P Chidamabaram, Mamata Bannerjee, Digvijay Singh, Arundhati Roy, Budhadeb Bhattacharya, Lalu Yadav and all those politicians who care two hoots for our lives.

The bus was not supposed to meet with an accident. Ramakant Nagre, whose nephew was getting married was traveling with his wife and two children alongwith his entire clan of forty odd people. The marriage party in the bus had been in a very cheerful and joyous mood till just a few moments ago. When they started from their homes in Beed for Aurangabad he had never imagined even in his wildest dreams that the journey would turn out to be so nightmarish that it would destroy his entire life. But it did. Just ten kms from Beed the driver lost control of the bus and it collided with a huge tempo coming from the opposite side, and tumbled. His wife now lay unconscious next to him, injured with blood coming out from her head. He looked around for his children. Both the four year old son and his two year old daughter had been thrown away from their seats. They were crying and seemed really scared. He could even see his daughter bleeding from her right hand. He tried to reach out for them but his right leg was stuck under the twisted seat. He couldn't move. He could hear the other passengers screaming for help. Their shrieks and cries filled the air. It was confusion all around. He looked at his wife. She looked pale. He checked her heart beat. Yes, he could hear a faint sound. He checked her breath. Yes, she was breathing, although it seemed very labored. He cried.

Which caste are you from? Are you a Jat? Or are you a Brahmin? Or a Gujjar? Or are you an SC/ST? More importantly, are you ashamed of your caste? I'm a Brahmin and I'm not ashamed of it. You may say that since Brahmins are considered to be the upper caste I don't have to be ashamed. May be, but let me tell you that I'm not exactly proud of being one either. I just happen to be a Brahmin. It's not my achievement and it's not my fault either. And I very sincerely believe that keeping the manner in which I was brought up the same (I'm referring to the financial status of my parents which was lower middle class) I would've been the same person that I'm today even if I was born in a different caste.

If khap panchayats have their way same gotra marriages should be made illegal. If indeed this amendment goes through, same gotra marriage between two Hindus will be illegal whereas marriage between a Hindu and a Muslim/Christian/Jew or a person of any other faith would be perfectly legal. Or by that analogy inter religion marriages will also need to be made illegal. And that includes the one between Sonia and Rajiv Gandhi (OOOOPS!!!). By extension it will also imply that marriages between a Christian and Muslim or between individuals belonging to any two different non Hindu religions will also need to be made illegal.

Disaster relief is basically a function of the state govts. The central govt can only facilitate this activity. And therefore it is incumbent upon the various state govts to put in place a mechanism to deal with any and every eventuality. The Disaster Management Act of 2005 lays down several guidelines for the central, state and district administrations to follow. After five years of the policy having been enacted it is now time to see if all the parameters as laid down by the govt have been met or not. Unfortunately, I'm not a govt functionary who can answer queries. I'm just a citizen of this country in search of answers. Also, it is not the purpose of this website to produce answers for every question that this country is faced with. The aim of this website is to ask the right questions and that's what I intend to do today. Here they are.

We all know that Ketan Desai, President of Medical Council of India, has indeed been arrested for corruption. What most of us don't really know is the amount of recovery made by authorities so far from him. Hold your breath folks. The amount recovered from him is Rs 1800 crore in cash and 1500 kgs of gold. HOLY CRAP!!!! 1800 CRORES and 1500 KGS OF GOLD!!! You can imagine the scale of corruption perpetrated by Ketan Desai. While all our news channels got besotted with Lalit Modi for allegedly having accepted 80 million dollars ie roughly Rs 350 crores but it pales in comparison to what this guy has made, and still no one feels like talking about it!!.

During the last few years the number of channels on our TV have increased to a level where we have lost count of them. With the channels going 24X7 there was a big inflow of all kinds of programs. Most channels had some kind of fitness related programs in the morning. Some channels had some swamis or babas delivering sermons, singing bhajans or even some gurus teaching yoga. Something on every channel for everybody's taste. I realized that all of a sudden every one wanted to catch our attentions. Our eyeballs were suddenly becoming very important. On the spiritual front not just the number of programs but even the number of channels exploded like never before. And some of them were rather too blunt and in your face. Your spirituality was being thrust on you. To my bewilderment I found my mom and after marriage my mom-in-law listen to these discourses and bhajans pretty regularly, something which I found rather difficult to get myself to do on a daily basis. And they were not the only ones doing this. Gullible as we are, I found millions of Indians across every town, city and state following some religious preacher or the other. It was as if the Hindu society was being divided all over again. And this time it was based on babas and swamis.

Twenty ten sounds so much better than two thousand and nine. Thank god for small mercies. But while all the newspapers and television channels gloss over the year gone by very few have spoken about the challenges that lie ahead of us. Apart from recapitulating the happenings of 2009 I feel it would be in order to take stock of things as they are today and prepare ourselves for the challenges that face the world. Let's check out the three major issues one by one.

At some point or the other each one of us must have asked these questions to oneself: Is my religion the correct one to follow? Why are there so many religions in this world with each one 'seemingly' out to destroy the others? Which one of these is the best? Why was I born in the religion that I was? If indeed there is one God then why are there so many different faiths which give vastly different interpretations to the truths of life? Why did God let this happen, if there is indeed a God?

Maharashtra is ahead of our times it seems. Or may be the rest of us are still living in the dark ages. And that's because we still feel that living in is not exactly the right thing to do. Making it legal will only encourage people to indulge in it. And we can all blame Maharashtra for this.