If anyone needs an example to justify why autonomy should not be given to any organization/entity BCCI is a perfect example for this purpose. They do whatever they want to without any accountability to anyone. They make tonnes of money without giving anything back to the people of this country. If they do decide to share a small little part of their spoils with other sports it is more like charity and they keep reminding us of their generosity. The worst part is that our sports ministry is a mute spectator of all this and can’t do a thing about it even as BCCI keeps bringing on national shame one after another.

Posted on December 30th, 2009 under India calling. Tags: autonomy, BCCI, Cricket, Kotla, national, shame, sport. Comments: 1

At an ideological level, in recent times Christians don’t kill Christians, Hindus don’t kill Hindus, Sikhs don’t kill Sikhs and Jews don’t kill Jews. They may have many ideological differences amongst themselves but they generally do not launch a kind of war on others from their own faiths. Sadly, this is not the case with Islam wherein scores of Muslims are murdered by other Muslims on a daily basis. At the second level you find the Muslims also to be on a warpath with Christians, Jews and Hindus too. Both these struggles have rendered the religion not only weak but also evolutionary bankrupt. There was a time when Islamic civilizations of the Middle East were far ahead of the Western empires of the time. That was the time when the very best in scientific and philosophical works were produced by Muslim thinkers. More tolerance for different religious beliefs could be found in Muslim lands than just about anywhere else on this planet. Just look around now and you’ll see that exactly the opposite is true. No creative inventions, works or research can be found forthcoming from Muslim lands. Creativity is being stifled if not being killed.

Posted on December 29th, 2009 under Best Articles, Track the world. Tags: Al Qaeda, conflict, Islam, Osama bin Laden, Shia, Sunni, Taliban, Terror, Wahhabi. Comments: 13

If you really see both these recommendations are contrary to each other. On one hand you say that we should grant them autonomy and on the other you say that a referendum should be held in J&K to decide if and when Article 370 should be removed. I mean whom are you kidding? Autonomy is nothing but an extension of Article 370 itself. By giving autonomy, the resolution of NC clearly implies that, Kashmir would be “affiliated” to India for only defense, currency, foreign affairs and communication. In other words they would have all other powers like stipulating laws, having a separate flag, their own anthem, citizenship and property rights etc etc. Please note that they already have most of these powers by way of Article 370. Autonomy will only make the state govt more powerful on this score, something like ’state within a state’. If you grant them autonomy Article 370 would as it is become redundant in the state. They would enact their own more stringent laws wherein they may deny even Kashmiri pundits their right to own property in the valley. And the govt at the center would not be able to do anything in the matter. So what referendum are we talking about?

Posted on December 26th, 2009 under India calling. Tags: autonomy, BJP, Congress, J&K, NC, Omar, panel, report, Telengana. Comments: 4

The appointment of Nitin Gadkari as president of BJP shows that if we were all looking for a change in the party the appointment of Gadkari does not seem to be that change. For those of us who were indeed looking for a change in BJP ideology with another RSS man at the helm of it’s affairs I really wonder how different can he be from the rest. What BJP required was to associate themselves with the middle class of India who is more secular and for whom RSS does not mean a thing. Frankly with another RSS man as president I don’t really see that happening. Also, for those who say RSS interference in internal affairs of BJP should be minimum it is again very difficult for me to visualize Gadkari doing anything which RSS does not approve of. Another related and a very important issue is the discrimination of members of the party based on their association with RSS or rather lack of it, as we saw during the Jaswant Singh episode when he was sacked but Arun Shourie who openly challenged the BJP leadership on numerous occasions, was not. Quite possibly because Jaswant Singh had nothing to do with RSS whereas Shourie has everything to do with it. And to expect an RSS man who is new to the chair to correct this wrong would be rather naive on our part.

Posted on December 24th, 2009 under India calling. Tags: Advani, BJP, Congress, gadkari, ideology, Mahajan, Modi, President. Comments: 13

What stupid laws we have in our country! Laws which are broken by the very people who are supposed to protect it. And the stupid law keeps watching helplessly. Actually, it doesn’t even watch because it’s bloody blind. And deaf, mute and crippled as well. If you have such a crippled law to deliver justice, what else can you expect? No wonder the darn thing took nineteen years to deliver, a warped sentence, I might add. Fact is that the law itself is warped as far as molestation of kids is concerned. Under the present laws a person can be sentenced to a maximum of two years for molestation. It does not specify anything about molestation of a child. Or probably, magistrate Sidhu thought that two years is meant for molestation of a full grown woman and therefore by an extension for a child six months of sentence is enough.

Posted on December 23rd, 2009 under India calling. Tags: aradhana, bajaj, dgp, gill, molestation, pathore, ruchika, tannis, verdict. Comments: 4

Americans, on their part have been very cagey about Headley from the very beginning when in August this year reports first started coming in of his arrest. They initially linked him only to a plot to kill a Danish cartoonist. Later on there were reports of Headley’s links to LeT. Later still, they said that he was an agent of DEA (US agency which fights the drug menace) but now it has become amply clear that not only was he involved in planning and execution of 26/11 attacks he was also on the payroll of CIA. Another very important reason why I’m getting increasingly convinced about US knowing much more about 26/11 than what they told us is the fact that our team which went to US to meet Headley in connection with his involvement in 26/11 attacks was not allowed to do so even as he was being charged for the same offence which was committed here in India. If this is not bizarre I really wonder what is?

Posted on December 21st, 2009 under India calling, Track the world. Tags: 26/11, 9/11, agent, attack, headley, Mumbai, rana, terrorist. Comments: 3

Make no mistake, India is the one who could have shown the way to the developed and developing world but we failed, miserably. On the face of it some of you may say that I’m exaggerating but take a closer look and you’ll see that I’m not. Had India not joined hands with China this deal would’ve been a legally binding one for the all countries of this world. Had we done so, South Africa and Brazil, the other two countries because of whom this deal became non binding, would’ve reconsidered their decision leaving China absolutely alone in this world. Had it reached that stage who knows China would have agreed, albeit reluctantly. But we did not do so. What’s worse is that our own media is gloating over the fact that we made good friends with Chinese on this issue. While there is nothing wrong in having good relations with China, if our aim was to do just that we should have gone to Beijing not Copenhagen. In Copenhagen our first priority was to save this planet which we did not fulfill when we joined hands with China to make this deal non binding. Good friends with China on this issue? My left foot. Its more like partners in crime.

Posted on December 20th, 2009 under India calling, Track the world. Tags: BASIC, climate change, coastlines, cop15, deal, framing, UN. Comments: 10

The disease of trying to malign the victims in cases of rape is actually nothing new. We have seen this crap in so many Bollywood potboilers like Damini etc. And politicians from Goa are pretty good at it. Even in the case of Scarlett Keeling who was murdered in the city politicians tried to paint her mother as a characterless woman who did not take care of her child as a result of which she was raped and murdered. Whether the rapes are part of a plan by a section of Goans to limit the influence of foreigners in Goa or not may not be very clear as of now but I sure have very serious doubts that it is. Well if it is, I must say that this is a very poor plan. Not only is this criminal but it can also backfire. Imagine if Russians strike back at Indian women in Goa themselves or pay other criminals to do this dirty job for them. Like I said, it’s a very poor plan. As it is the Goan govt itself feels that Goa is fast becoming the rape capital of the country.

Posted on December 18th, 2009 under India calling. Tags: BJP, comment, Congress, fernandes, goa, rape, remark, Russian. Comments: 7

As you can see things in the valley are still pretty bad. The violence levels may have come down but the people of Kashmir still have very little faith in the establishment. It is this lack of faith which is used by Hurriyat and parties like PDP to exploit any given situation to their advantage using innocent civilians as the rallying point. Omar would do well to ensure that his govt undertakes this as their main agenda for governance. He needs to transcend his sincerity into action for the people to see for themselves. Sincerity alone does not really count for much.

Posted on December 17th, 2009 under India calling. Tags: emotions, Kashmir, murder, Omar, pdp, Protest, rape, shopian. Comments: 6