Like the last year this year too Padma awards have once again stirred a hornet’s nest when the name of Sant Chatwal was included in the list of awardees for Padma Bhushan. Be that as it may group of people who have not been included in this list are the scientists of ISRO who helped discover water on the moon and were part of the Chandrayaan team. But do you know why? Because there is some directive from the govt which says that anyone associated with the govt itself cannot be given this award. And ISRO is govt for sure. Can you guys believe it? A hotelier charged with fraud and tax evasion can be given this award but not our scientists. Pertinent to mention that two govt officials Anil Kakodkar and G Madhavan Nair were indeed given this award while in service but for that special sanction was accorded for this purpose. No such luck for the Chandrayaan team though. Another teeny weeny information on this issue is that the doctor who operated on the PM has been given one of these awards and so has been Venkatraman Ramakrishnan for science, after he has won the Nobel Prize though. As you can see those Nobel guys are better at judging our people than our own govt.

Posted on January 30th, 2010 under India calling. Tags: award, Bindra, Chatwal, hotelier, Nobel, Olympics, Padma, Vijender. Comments: 6

The Sri Lankan election results don’t really change anything for the Tamils 300,000 of whom are still languishing in camps. Rajapakse has been non committal on the specifics of future course on this issue though he does keep making politically correct statements like rehabilitation of Tamils is being done on priority and that he will continue to do so. But will anything really change for the these people now that he has won the elections? Quite unlikely. If he didn’t do it in the run upto the elections based on which he could’ve sought their votes it would be rather stupid for anyone to expect him to do so now when he doesn’t really need their support. Well, to be candid, he didn’t really need their support before the elections either as the results have proved beyond doubt whose support is actually required to come to office. And it’s not Tamils.

Posted on January 27th, 2010 under Track the world. Tags: elections, Fonseka, LTTE, Prabhakaran, Rajapakse, results, Sri Lanka, Tamil. Comments: 7

Sometime back when I met a Chinese immigrant settled in Austria I asked him if he supported one party rule in his country. He replied that he sure did. “How else do you control 1.3 billion people?”, he added. Good point for sure. But he had no answer when I asked him if he indeed supported his country’s system of governance why did he have to migrate. To some of us the two issues may not be related to each other. One is about the country as such and the second is about personal growth. And this implies that for some of us the country as such may be okay but it does not really provide ample opportunities for personal growth and satisfaction, however ridiculous it may sound.

Posted on January 25th, 2010 under Best Articles, Track the world. Tags: Avatar, China, dissent, dracgon, Google, Hacking, internet, leadership. Comments: 5

Though they keep saying that politics should not be mixed with sports but we all know better than that. On most occasions politics dictates sports in our country. And it is politics of 26/11 terror attacks that has forced the govt to direct the bosses of IPL not to pick Pakistani players. Had that not been the case and there was indeed an issue of security of Pakistani players, as brought out by franchisees, IPL should not have included their names in the list of players to be auctioned. In any case security of players was the problem of security forces and not the franchisees. By saying that there were problems on this score are these people implying that our security apparatus was not good enough for these players? Also, may I remind them that attack on international cricketers took place in Pakistan not in India. As you can see the reasons given by them can only be termed as flimsy at best.

Posted on January 23rd, 2010 under India calling. Tags: attack, Cricket, IPL, KKR, Pakistan, Priety Zinta, Shilpa Shetty, SRK, Terror. Comments: 13

I wish to categorically state that lack of response from Indian govt has shown our country in a very poor light, to put it very mildly. In my view it shows what kind of people we are. While we expect the world to listen to us on issues ranging from terrorism to climate change to what have you we are incapable of doing our bit for the poorest people on this planet and are therefore unqualified for any kind of recognition. In light of this lackadaisical and disturbing behavior of the Indian govt quite rightfully the world in general does not support our demands for a permanent seat in the UN. Permanent seat in the UN? My left bloody foot!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted on January 20th, 2010 under India calling. Tags: aid, death, earthquake, Haiti, quake, Red Cross, relief, UN. Comments: 6

The basic difference between India and Pakistan is not religion alone. The basic difference is the perception of identities of it’s citizens of these two countires by these very people. When Indians talk of Pakistanis they are actually referring to Pakistanis only and not Muslims whereas when Pakis talk of Indians they imply Hindus. That’s the basic difference between the people of the two countries. More often than not during debates on TV channels we see the Paki speakers invariably switch from talking about Indo-Pak relations to Hindu-Muslim relationship or lack thereof. By extension since Islam is so deeply ingrained in their psyche they see the problem as being a Hindus versus Pakistan issue whereas this is not the case. As a result there is no meeting ground for the two of us.

Posted on January 17th, 2010 under Best Articles, India calling. Tags: Bollywood, India, Movies, nuclear, Pakistan, Terror, terrorist, war. Comments: 10

Shah Rukh Khan may be very sympathetic towards our hockey team but this is not a movie running here. This is real life. And in real life SRK’s own team of Kolkata Knight Riders is down in the dumps. In fact they themselves could do with some sympathies. So don’t really expect him or his sympathies to achieve much except some headlines. As for the world cup, be thankful if our team manages to win just a few matches. Anything more is a bonus. The cup itself will be nothing less than a miracle.

Posted on January 15th, 2010 under India calling. Tags: dues, hockey, KKR, Shahrukh, SRK, strike, World Cup. Comments: 3

The second flavor of this season after 3 Idiots is for sure Shashi Tharoor. The man is in a class of his own. And it is not cattle class but a classwhich is much above the national class where you and me alongwith our media live and thrive. The man has got it all. He’s wealthy. He’s well educated and he has a mind of his own. As is obvious his credentials are absolutely impeccable but the factor which really sets him apart is his command over English language. It’s actually a treat to listen to a minister in the Indian govt speaking in such fluent English. Unfortunately, it is this command over English language which has put him in a thick soup time and again.

Posted on January 12th, 2010 under India calling. Tags: Congress, controversy, Tharoor. Comments: 4

Unlike the main protagonist of the movie Rancho and Hari (in the book) you cannot really succeed in life without being cunning. You have to have a bit of everything. Calibre as well as cunningness. In a way you have to be like the character of Chatur in the movie who was shown as a meritorious and hardworking student who could not see someone else succeed at his cost. Chetan Bhagat is exactly like him. Like in the movie Chatur does everything possible to succeed and be recognized at the same time Chetan too has ensured that his name will always be associated with 3 Idiots for good or bad for all times to come courtesy this smart controversy created by him. Rest assured that his next book will be sold at a much higher price than the stupid ten lakhs that he got for this one.

Posted on January 8th, 2010 under Feelings, India calling. Tags: 3 Idiots, Amir, Bhagat, Bollywood, Chetan, movie, Rancho, success. Comments: 8