1) CODE: 24CAB
By:- Jammy
N Karthikeyan meets Sania Mirza
I always turn to the sports pages first, which records people's accomplishments. The front page of a newspaper has nothing but man's failures.
- Chief Justice Earl Warren
Today Narain Karthikeyan beat Michael Schumacher in the first qualifying times, at Melbourne Formula One Grand Prix. If you don’t know Narain, read on chances are you are a man and know Sania Mirza. No, she is not related Mirza Galibh.
Indian sport is going through a honeymoon phase. No, I am not trying to relate Narain and Sania here…Narain is already married and Sania has just started looking for the Mr Right who would be six-feet tall and yet would understand her.
In recent times, the twosomes have made an average Indian proud. I say ‘the average’ because, I consider my self an ‘average Indian.’ If you are not impressed by the exploits of these two sports men – one a Formula One driver and the other an upcoming tennis player…there is nothing to worry. Chances are you are extremely intelligent…. which leads us to the fact that you are a foreigner and thus don’t care about sports in India.
The two met recently. Don’t ask me the place. I did not arrange it. And the two had a conversation, which was overheard by an enterprising journalist called JV Rajan. That awesome journo even had the gall to record the conversation.
Everything below this line is as true as any of his other posts can get.
Narain: Hey Sania!
Sania: Hi Brother!
Narain: Now, that’s an insult. Why did you have to cut me out right at the outset? You know that I am married and won’t try anything stupid?
Sania: I thought you were quite fast. So I needed to be faster.
Narain: I am fast only when I am in a car. Haven’t you heard me talk in all those interviews I have given since making it to the Formula One? I can barely talk.
Sania: My other tells me that those that don’t talk…are the most dangerous.
Narain: Anyways, congrats on your recent success.
Sania: And hey…congrats to you too. You did not do that bad either.
Narain: Thanks. So what is up?
Sania: Even though I love this new-found celebrity status…sometimes I hate it.
Narain: Why?
Sania: The other day…one gossip magazine published my mobile number and ever since I have been getting calls. One psycho called, and when I said it was wrong number…he ends up asking me "Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?"
Narain: Smart chap. Why don’t you quit tennis. You could be normal like all others.
Sania: That is one option, but without a tennis racquet, I am like a fish without a Formula One car.
Narain: What has a fish got to do with a Formula One car?
Sania: Sorry…I thought you would be impressed with my analogy.
Narain: Some of my own friends are pretty impressed with you.
Sania: Really? And I thought only the men were after my looks.
Narain: No, these friends are men.
Sania: Oh…I see.
Narain: I am married you see. Now, I cannot run around the trees with the pit-babes.
Sania: That’s actually good for you.
Narain: What about you? Any boy-friend?
Sania: Yeah…I am looking for one. And in all probability I will keep looking for one….you know…once you are a celebrity…you cannot really give the name of your boy-friend.
Narain: One of these days somebody is going to catch you and your Mr Right in his/her mobile phone and sell it to Mid-Day. Like they did to Kareena and her boy friend.
Sania: I will be careful. Thanks for the warning. I wanted to ask you about your Formula One cars. If I want one, can I have it?
Narain: You could…but only after I crash. Which, I am sure to…considering the 300+ km/hour speed range that I have to stick to.
Sania: That’s cool. Aren’t you scared of going fast?
Narain: No not really…just that once you touch the 300kms/hr speeds…your hat keeps flying off and you got to use one hand to hold it.
Sania: Is it safe to be driving with one hand?
Narain: I always did the same in India. What can work on Indian roads can definitely work on the F1 tracks.
Sania: That’s really neat. What do you think is the plus point of being a celebrity?
Narain: Hmmm….I guess once you are a celebrity…when others get bored in your company…they think something is wrong with them. For example, they never suspect me.
Sania: Same pinch! It happened with me also. Now, all my friends think I am too cool for their comfort.
Narian: Precisely.
Sania: Narain, what advice would you give me to improve on my success?
Narain: I would suggest you follow what Ralph Charell once said: “Avoid the crowd. Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece.”
Sania: But I don’t play chess!
Narain: I know…you nose-stud… I am asking you to be a tennis player…and not the racquet or the ball.
Sania: Are you telling me that you just try to be the driver, and not the car?
Narain: Precisely. And that is what has made me India’s first Formula One driver.
Sania: Yeah…
Narain: Ok…I need to go now. Got to race.
Sania: Sure. Bye
2) CODE: 32CAA
By:- Pranav
slums and encroachments-truly disjointed
I was coming back from a quick coffee from Barista when I noticed that the pavements at Nariman Point were surprisingly clean...stopped, looked around..hey..! where were all the hawkers!
Went up ahead and saw the police and municipality forcing them away from places where they'd been earning a honest living. Saw the pain in these peoples' eyes - and the contempt in the govt babus' eyes. True, they cluttered up the area. True, they broke up the sidewalks making them impossible to walk. True, they littered like nobody's business, making it still more impossible to walk by the food stalls. But earlier whenever I walked by, I knew that India was shining because these people now had access to more opportunity and a better way of life. The same govt clerk or the policeman would come around in the evening asking for the daily/weekly bribe...and see the sneer on his face today, cursing the cobbler for not packing away his wares fast enough. Why doesnt the govt dedicate an area as a food court/hawker zone with complete transparency in operations and allotment of stalls?
Saw slums being felled on TV and distraught people gathering away their belongings. Slums should be demolished - but the governments should get their act together and create alternate housing for them on the outskirts of Mumbai. Along with that, the public transport system should be totally spruced up so that these people dont have problems in commuting to and from their jobs.
Many of the 'Mi Mumbaikar' variety say that these people should be banished back to their villages.
You just cant send millions of people away to the villages saying this is not their home. India is their country and they're free to move anywhere within it if they find better opportunity there. Tomorrow if you get a job that pays you 10 times more and gives you 20 times more opportunities and amenities, but is in a different city, will you shift to that city or prefer to stay on, waiting for the economic boom to hit your city and, like a rising tide, lift your ship too?
You cannot cannot deny anybody the right to better opportunity and a better way of life. I was talking to a cab driver from bihar and why he came leaving his family and a little patch of land and lived in a squalid room in Dharavi in inhuman conditions. He said...in the villages you only get 'anaaj' and nothing else. This is where I can dream to give my son a better schooling and hope that 1 generation down the line their kids will sit at a computer like you educated people in aircon offices. Besides, the land is'nt increasing, the population is - so there's no short term option but to move.
And he was atleast lucky, owning a small patch of land. What of others, who dont even have that?
Poverty cannot be wished away. It is the human survival instinct that brings them to big cities and we must laud these poor people's enterprise, rather than trying to make life more difficult for them.
There was this thing about Bangladeshi immigrants who need to be sent back home - great idea, how do you do that? Many of them have got ration cards now - getting one is a matter of a couple of hundred rupees. I remember, in Delhi, a rabidly jingoistic pro-hindu govt once used the Bangladeshi card to terrorise genuine Indian muslims from bengal and bihar. where does this end? your policies kill them like flies. they try to come in search of a better life here and your policies send them back to the killing fields.
Nothing is worse or more pathetic than seeing a lowly cheap havaldar (pandu, they call them) bossing it over a cobbler or a vada pao vendor who're at least trying to make a living honestly...getting 'hafta' from them and then when the screws are tightened from up above, make them move away from the Nariman point pavements from place to place.
Improve the quality of governance in mumbai, and you might just see the end to the slum problem...take this governance to all other states and the migration problem will go away. But it cannot be done over a short term. And as always, charity begins at home...be a contentious citizen, teach your kids the right path and a new order might just emerge.
Do you remember when you actually last went looking for a garbage can instead of throwing that piece of rubbish away on the road/out of the window?
The city literally runs on these migrants' shoulders. Take them away and things might just come to a grinding halt. I once heard in a local train, some locals angrily discussing how the local market had been spoilt because the bhaiyyas from UP and Bihar came and undercut everybody. too bad..thats globalisation for you! They provide much better service at better rates...so why not?!! Just because you were, by a quirk of fate, born in a better socio-economic environment doesnt mean you have the right to deny others the same
3) CODE: 36CAA
By:- Sadik
bang...bang...bang...
whats up??
there's a fire in d neighbourhood!!!
what?!
ya..come let's see...
So me n my excited friend jumped in d lift and rushed to d gates of the complex...there right on the opposite foot, is situated a kind of conglometure of semi-pucca houses with kuchha ceilings...emerging from one of them was a flurry of smoke... the whole road was peopled with curious scene gazers with whom it was difficult to determine whether they were enjoying or lamenting the spectacle....
One of the small houses was on fire...though not a very wild one but sufficiently strong to send up flames and smoke...the scene in d adjoining homes and shops was one of instant animation...I don't use the word chaos coz it wasn't definitely chaos...it just struck me that I have never seen anyone that animated...people were rushing all precious possessions out of their homes and shops...I particularly observed the pan-waala rush out of his tiny shop with the huge box he uses as support to make his paans...people were throwing out trunks upon trunks in fear of what if the fire spread to their homes....
"Ekhaan theke Norbi naa!!" (Don't move an inch from here!!) a lady draped in a nightgown ordered her kid as she rushed back from the road to the house to salvage her most precious....
Meanwhile..a few guys were all animated on their cell-phones bombarding the fire-brigade and police station with details and address...the police and fire-brigade btw dint miss retrieving the details of the callers....It struck me that I ain't got the numbers of either in my cell...what if I am stuck in an emergency???(For heavens sake! V dont have 911 here in India!!) Have any of u guys got those numbers??
In the midst of all this the house on fire was completely surrounded by folks with all kind of utensils and buckets with water with which they were mercilessly attacking the fire...the fire was coming in control but was being replaced by heavy fumes...a few ppl climbed the roof of the house in question and smashed the ceilings with stones to let the fumes out...the situation was coming in control....
Btw it was being aired that an exploding gas cylinder was the cause of the mayhem...
So what did I do?? Nothing much... I observed everything I just wrote before which I ventured in for some help...but there were already more people around than that small place could handle...sure of my inability to help..I ventured to call d fire brigade but as mentioned I dint have d number and many calls had already been made...
So what struck me about the whole incident??
1. In a tragedy people care about their most precious possessions the first...it was the child for a mother...his cash for the paan-vendor and their property for some...
2.People love to witness destruction which happens to others...it's kinda free entertainment and even better than a hollywood flick...
3.There actually exist such jerks on this planet who would try to earn leadership points n exercise superiority and show off utilising someone else's crisis...
Thankfully No one was hurt...and the damage to property wasn't extreme...
So that was an interesting Sunday Morning....huh..
Btw...the full time I was there, I dint notice any fire-brigade....n there's a girl in my complex who actually wanted to know all d details about the fire from me(GOD!!! she knows I exist??? How strange!! She doesn't have a vision defect after all!!)
4) CODE: 43CAA
By:- Invincible
BlogSense v/s AdSense
It's perfectly fine that everyone wants to make (BIG) money.
· Newspapers flaunt ads more than news
· Television has more commercials than contents
· Webpages host sponsored links
· Google devised a way of generating revenue thru Adwords (or was it someone b4 i dont know). An excellent way to make money for individual as well as Google, and people have become millionaires. You search for free, the small 'Ads by Google' would pay for ur search. And it makes sense as recently i read somwhere, Google has close to 200,000 servers (running on Linux) to support the awesome, lightning fast (& free) search. Ads by Google is a work of canny braines.
But why BLOGGING !!!!
Just keep clicking on the 'Next blog' link on top right and you will see blogging for money. 6/10 (& i m on pessimistic side) blogs would turn out to be hosting ads much like having ur webpage and putting sponsored links. The links spanning anything from cars n grocery stores to diseases n porn sites.
Can they not spare, the desire to scribble freewheelingly. To shout out loud, n dont care anyone's listening. Blogging is supposed to be that, ain't it.
'People see your blogs, click on the links and u make money'.
They call it AdSense. For me it is NoSense (i left out the additional n intentionally).
I may be wrong. As nothing in the world is free, hosting blogs means wasting n Gigs. But then not everything u do is for money, right. Especially if u luv doing it. I am not against those who r making big green bucks out of it nor am i jealous (if that is wot u think).
I think after sometime, everyone and not just F1 drivers will have their day-gear looking like an array of walking add-banners (n a 100 million other things wud follow too
5) CODE: 48CAB
By:- RS
What is it about being in a car that makes one want to strike out at the nearest living object? Why is it that men always think that women are bad drivers? These and several questions like these are the kind that will always remain unanswered and go down in the annals of history as one of those unsolved mysteries!
Take Old S and me. We always seem to get into an argument when we are driving somewhere. I put it down to the fact that a car and especially our car is a small little space where the arguer and the arguee have no recourse than to fight or die in the process. I have been driving since the age of 18 and have managed never to hit, maim or kill anyone so far. But you would never believe that if you looked at Old S in the passenger’s seat while I am driving. His fingers are clinging tightly to the edge of the seat, his eyes are glazed and his body leaning forward almost until his nose is touching the dashboard.
“Watch out! There’s a car coming! Brake, for God’s sake.”
Me: *sweetly *: “Why would I want to brake, dearest? I enjoy slamming through oncoming cars at 50 kms. per hour. Its what I do best.”
Old S: * screaming *- “Why are you slowing down now?”
Me: “Well, dear, that’s what I always do when I get to a red light or a Stop sign. You know, I always try to slow down before I come to a complete stop; it’s a kind of preparation.”
Old S: “Yes, but you don’t have to do it so hard…One of these days……” * a meaningful silence follows while he gives me sidelong looks out of the corner of his eye. *
I pull over at a convenient spot, hop out of the car, walk over to his side, he gets out, I get in, slam the door, he walks to the drivers seat and we resume the drive in fuming silence.
I just don’t get it. If he thinks I am such a bad driver, why isn’t he calling 911 every time I take the car out alone? How come he trusts me with the lives of his children but not himself??
I am the one who has never been pulled over or ticketed or anything, while he has! I never drive over the speed limit even when cars and trucks are tailgating me honking and yelling obscenities, while he does! But I have the utmost confidence in his ability to drive! I don’t chew my fingernails down to the cuticles while he drives. I serenely gaze out of the window at the passing cows and suchlike while he puts me in danger of losing life and limb driving over the speed limit and screeching to a slower speed and looking innocent when he spots a cop car.
That’s another thing! The minute I go even one kilometer over the limit, I just KNOW that a cop car will be lurking around and pounce on me. He gets away with driving way over and never having any problem. Now that’s one thing that bothers me when he is driving. How come he gets off scot-free every time?
Anyway, we have a good system when we travel. He is a good driver; I am good at reading maps. I can tell you exactly how many centimeters we need to drive to get where we want to be. I can tell you exactly how many of those little roundy things we need to pass too and how many criss-cross lines. I can also tell you how many arguments this talent of mine has led to.
We should have a system. I should drive and he should navigate. We tried it one time; he was so busy with his nose glued to the map that he forgot to shout at me. I was so busy watching the road that I forgot to say mean things. It was perfect! But it was too quiet! Dang near put me to sleep!
I think the thought of driving in a quiet, argument-less environment doesn’t appeal to both of us. I know I would miss it! Guess we’ll just get a bigger car!
6) CODE: 49CAA
By:- Akshaya
Time & Money
If I am given money, what should I buy? I'd rather buy time. For me the only purpose of having money is to buy time. Maugham said, "Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five." He was absolutely right. And this is the only reason why I have to earn money. Once I have the money, the toughest hurdle that life forces you to jump over, is vanquished. Not that the struggle of life is over, but then who wants that?
So is it that easy? Actually, No. The problem is that you never know how much is enough. As a matter of fact, the entire struggle of life is about being 'good' and 'good enough'. Life never stops overwhelming and surprising you. It always remains a mystery and we are always kept guessing. The worst mistake that some of us make is when we try to be 'good' enough instead of just being good 'enough'. Life is funny for sure, but you need to get your fundamentals right to raise any questions at it.
Coming back to the time and money issues, there is definitely no situation when you can relax and sit back assuming that you have bought all the time. One should never give up on the spirits to make a comeback whenever needed, but a defensive mindset can also be very harmful. Any amount of money does bring some peace to our mind and in my view, we should always make use of that calm state of mind to create something. The entire running-around sessions that we are forced to go through all the time, must culminate in a serenity that we all seek for. Losing yourself in the rat-race for the sake of some silly accumulation is a sin. We are here to suffer, but our suffering is not without a purpose. Through a complete cycle of suffering, one must not forget the questions he is trying to answer. The answer is inside all of us. We live to feel the seductive beauty of that one morning when the darkness of the night opens the door to the light of perfect silence. A silence where no birds chirp, no cocks crow, no heat comes out of the sun; a silence thats overwhelming. That will be the prized moment when our bodies won't move; nothing would move, in fact. In that silence, there will be the music of eternal taste. The notes of music will sweep us to a world where only music exists. Then, we'll be nothing but a few notes of music. There won't be any material existence of mankind, it'll be a musical existence.
We all live for that prized morning. We live for that moment of musical existence. But we can not afford to forget that the moment has to be earned. It has to be earned through the extreme darkness of the night. It has to be earned like money. It has to be earned with money; with money that buys the time - of perfect silence.
7) CODE: 61CAA
By:- Atticus Finch
On Collateral Damage...
Throughout the '80s and '90s, The War held the attention of the family adults in its vice-like grip. It lived, moved and breathed fire like some monstrous being just beyond the horizon - its sinister presence announced in disturbing growls, gasps and roars carried into our living-room on transcontinental radio waves beginning with Veritas of Philippines at 5.30am and drawing to an hesitant close with the BBC's Tamizhosai at 10pm. Parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts writhed in agony, desperation, fear and anger as armored vehicles and rocket launchers moved back and forth through dense forest, disfiguring that beautiful island of their youth... Vavunya, Batticaloa, Trincomallee, Jaffna - every bomb dropped hit some memory-lush nook of their minds... Every killing left something dead inside them…
To me and my sister, growing up in the midst of a war fought hundreds of miles away was strange business. There were sacrosanct rules – “Nobody talks during the "Ceylon News" part of any news bulletin!”, “No jokes for hours after particularly high death tolls!”, “Keep your distance from Dad when skirmishes inch southward toward the central province...!” Words like "curfew" and "vanseyal" (a rather rare Tamil word for violence) were part of our playtime vocabulary. Horror tales overheard during hushed late night conversations were further colored and delivered as stunning first-hand accounts of bravado to friends. But, though The War hung heavy and phantomlike around us and gnawed at places from a life we'd never knew, we weren't really hurt or sad. The War's impact on a young and impassioned Atticus was more lasting and ghastly - it made me thirst for revenge against the unknown enemy.
To me, the Tiger was something stealthy, fierce, mysterious and majestic - a gun-toting, slim, dark youth on a crusade for vengeance and justice. The Tiger stood for freedom and the much-sung Tamil rising - the Che Guevera-like romance of brave young men seeking a Utopian homeland with AK47s and RDX. And in the simple cause-effect world of ten-year-olds, it seemed there was a lot of "setting right" left to be done - "revoked minority rights, marginalization in one's own country, butchered brethren, wronged women"... Wrongs that had been "set right" by blood and gore since time immemorial.
That I guess was The War's most disturbing damage! It taught me the same lessons glorified by movies and mythology - the heroism of climactic blood, gore and vengeance! It made the child I was believe in murder as a solution! I bayed for blood with all the linguistic-fundamentalist fervor my young soul could muster. As the men from the country of my birth regressed into gory games like animal herds, I stood at the sidelines, cheered and kept score!!
Today I look back on those years with shock and disgust. Now I detest any widespread violence. I vehemently hate any bid to even wear identities on one's sleeve, let alone fight for them! We tend to think of the War as something that politicians bring on and soldiers at the border fight. But a bulk of the violence is fuelled by the “Us Vs Them” undercurrent in public opinion - Hindu-Muslim, Chechen-Russian, Israeli-Palestine and Tamil-Singhalese! Our implicit or explicit endorsements drive these shameful killings. Think of Gujarat...! Think of the US and an election fought on who's the better warlord! Think of all the 911-engendered madness! It all happens because these things didn’t strike us hard enough to shake us away from the comfort of our daily routines. It all happens because somewhere somehow even the well-educated and worldly-wise amongst us think “These Pakistanis deserve it!” or “America had it coming!”. Though we seldom face the fact, it’s true that the buck stops with each one of us!!
Now, when people ask me what I think of the LTTE and the Lankan ethnic conflict, I tell them I take life's side... The side where no teenage girl is dragged out of her home and gang-raped by the army... The side where her 12-year-old brother is not handed a gun and a cyanide-capsule to avenge her!
I once saw this photograph of an armless child in the Gulf War... Indo-Pak, Islam vs Christian, Tamil vs Singhalese...Iraq, Palestine, Kashmir, Eelam... Nothing can ever justify doing this to a child! Nothing is worth this - not wronged nations; not marginalized religions; not unavenged blood-relations!!!
The next time you think of Pakistan or America or Japan or Libya or Iran, try to imagine a child there. Think if that child deserves the hatred and violence that we actively or passively endorse! If you do think so, then amen to that.
8) CODE: 63CAA
By:- Gaurav Rathore
Bar barred...
Another dictum by a democratic government and more than 100,000 rendered jobless. Yes, the state govt. has decided to ban all the dance bars in the state of Maharashtra including Mumbai, stating that they promote crime and prostitution. The decision has directly affected not only the bar girls (75,000) but also the managers (1500), waiters (20,000), bouncers (6,000) and cooks (6000). The figure easily crosses the astonishing mark of 100 thousand! At least bar girls are lucky enough to have an association of their own which is desperately fighting for them. Rest all are not as privileged and they will have to find the alternative jobs over night.
The very ground on which they are banned is stupid enough to justify that the government here reacted in a hurry and pushed the accelerator a little too early. They reacted without any plan of their rehabilitation! Afterall one lakh is not a small number by any means.
According to the govt, they are promoting crime. How come? I don’t think that the murder mysteries and robbery plans are hatched there in dance bars with a dozen females dancing around you and where you find it difficult to hear even your own voice! I would be highly surprised if the crime chart shows a dip of even one percent after the ban on dance bars. My only question is..If they are talking about promoting crime, why only dance bars? Why not all the public bars? Infact they provide more conducive ambience for making devilish plans and they are the breeding ground to criminals more than the dance bars. Food for thought Mr. Deshmukh.
Secondly, according to them, they are the routes to prostitution. May be. Or I should say it’s partially true. But do you think it is justified to crush each and everybody on the road if 10% are guilty? And forget about Mumbai, each and every city has a well-defined ‘red light area’ where you can find prostitutes. Nobody bother to raid them or close them. Infact by banning the dance bars, there is every probability that these girls will take the route of prostitution and the govt. adventure of stopping it will only increase the prostitution in the city. Remember, most of these girls come from very poor families of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar & West Bengal and it’s very easy to coax them into the hell as they are vulnerable enough and they have to support their families back home.
The problem does not end here? It is more grave than it seems. Look at the bigger picture The question is..For how long we will have to bow ourselves to the moral policing of the government or of the certain section of the society. For how long Hallmark and Archies will bear the brunt of a certain political outfit on every 14th Feb? For how long we will be forced to accept that FTV and the likes should not be a part of our TV channel list? After all, Liquor shops are there all over the places but still teetotalers exist in this society. Same applies for lotteries and all. The point that I am trying to drive is simple. In this era when the society is getting more open with each passing day, you just cannot force anybody what to drink, what to see, where to visit and what to wear. Even a conservative nation like china with communists in command does not come up with such mind-boggling decisions and laws.
Probably the reason of our current mindset lies here. We are in a transition phase. At present, neither we are having a totally conservative society nor we are having a completely open or westernized one. Hence, when these dance bars comes up, we get afraid of loosing our moral values and traditions. But remember, 15 years back, when only DD national channel was in place, even a glimpse of scantly clad female was rare. And 15 years hence, we have a total collection of Sherawats and Dhupias…
I am not saying wherever we are heading to is the only way to progress. But my simple point is, in today’s world, moral policing is as bad as keeping a slave and I think we have progressed enough to make our own mind on what’s correct and what’s not. Still, the transition of our mind set is not complete. It’s happening. It will take sometime before we will realize that one cannot and should not keep a vigil as far as deciding moral values is concerned. And I don’t think in the era of my grandchildren, anybody will be bothered to burn Valentine’s Day cards or any government will take such drastic steps like the ban on dance bars without even blinking their eyelids about the future of 1,00,000 citizens
9) CODE: 69CAA
By:- Ashish Dange
NONCENSUS
News: They released the data for the 2001 Census in India. The already divided nation is now debating the religionwise population growth rates. As usual a specific religion is being targeted. Politicians are having a field day amidst insinuations and counter allegations. All this, while the figures and the accompanying analysis is now under cloud. And the Government intends to take a 're-look' at the data they released.
So we are now a nation of :
Hindus - 80.5%
Muslims - 13.4%
Christians - 2.3%
Sikhs - 1.9%
Others - 1.9%
How many Indians, you ask ?? They are still counting .....
I am not proud of this India at all. Why do we still need to 'count heads' on basis of religion ?? And why the fixation with religion wise growth rates ???
Post Script: Out of sheer curiosity I visited the official website of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner India . On the home page is a grand announcement 'We also count people in India'. So what sirs, if I may most humbly ask, is your primary job ?? Dividing people by religion ???
By:- Jammy
N Karthikeyan meets Sania Mirza
I always turn to the sports pages first, which records people's accomplishments. The front page of a newspaper has nothing but man's failures.
- Chief Justice Earl Warren
Today Narain Karthikeyan beat Michael Schumacher in the first qualifying times, at Melbourne Formula One Grand Prix. If you don’t know Narain, read on chances are you are a man and know Sania Mirza. No, she is not related Mirza Galibh.
Indian sport is going through a honeymoon phase. No, I am not trying to relate Narain and Sania here…Narain is already married and Sania has just started looking for the Mr Right who would be six-feet tall and yet would understand her.
In recent times, the twosomes have made an average Indian proud. I say ‘the average’ because, I consider my self an ‘average Indian.’ If you are not impressed by the exploits of these two sports men – one a Formula One driver and the other an upcoming tennis player…there is nothing to worry. Chances are you are extremely intelligent…. which leads us to the fact that you are a foreigner and thus don’t care about sports in India.
The two met recently. Don’t ask me the place. I did not arrange it. And the two had a conversation, which was overheard by an enterprising journalist called JV Rajan. That awesome journo even had the gall to record the conversation.
Everything below this line is as true as any of his other posts can get.
Narain: Hey Sania!
Sania: Hi Brother!
Narain: Now, that’s an insult. Why did you have to cut me out right at the outset? You know that I am married and won’t try anything stupid?
Sania: I thought you were quite fast. So I needed to be faster.
Narain: I am fast only when I am in a car. Haven’t you heard me talk in all those interviews I have given since making it to the Formula One? I can barely talk.
Sania: My other tells me that those that don’t talk…are the most dangerous.
Narain: Anyways, congrats on your recent success.
Sania: And hey…congrats to you too. You did not do that bad either.
Narain: Thanks. So what is up?
Sania: Even though I love this new-found celebrity status…sometimes I hate it.
Narain: Why?
Sania: The other day…one gossip magazine published my mobile number and ever since I have been getting calls. One psycho called, and when I said it was wrong number…he ends up asking me "Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?"
Narain: Smart chap. Why don’t you quit tennis. You could be normal like all others.
Sania: That is one option, but without a tennis racquet, I am like a fish without a Formula One car.
Narain: What has a fish got to do with a Formula One car?
Sania: Sorry…I thought you would be impressed with my analogy.
Narain: Some of my own friends are pretty impressed with you.
Sania: Really? And I thought only the men were after my looks.
Narain: No, these friends are men.
Sania: Oh…I see.
Narain: I am married you see. Now, I cannot run around the trees with the pit-babes.
Sania: That’s actually good for you.
Narain: What about you? Any boy-friend?
Sania: Yeah…I am looking for one. And in all probability I will keep looking for one….you know…once you are a celebrity…you cannot really give the name of your boy-friend.
Narain: One of these days somebody is going to catch you and your Mr Right in his/her mobile phone and sell it to Mid-Day. Like they did to Kareena and her boy friend.
Sania: I will be careful. Thanks for the warning. I wanted to ask you about your Formula One cars. If I want one, can I have it?
Narain: You could…but only after I crash. Which, I am sure to…considering the 300+ km/hour speed range that I have to stick to.
Sania: That’s cool. Aren’t you scared of going fast?
Narain: No not really…just that once you touch the 300kms/hr speeds…your hat keeps flying off and you got to use one hand to hold it.
Sania: Is it safe to be driving with one hand?
Narain: I always did the same in India. What can work on Indian roads can definitely work on the F1 tracks.
Sania: That’s really neat. What do you think is the plus point of being a celebrity?
Narain: Hmmm….I guess once you are a celebrity…when others get bored in your company…they think something is wrong with them. For example, they never suspect me.
Sania: Same pinch! It happened with me also. Now, all my friends think I am too cool for their comfort.
Narian: Precisely.
Sania: Narain, what advice would you give me to improve on my success?
Narain: I would suggest you follow what Ralph Charell once said: “Avoid the crowd. Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece.”
Sania: But I don’t play chess!
Narain: I know…you nose-stud… I am asking you to be a tennis player…and not the racquet or the ball.
Sania: Are you telling me that you just try to be the driver, and not the car?
Narain: Precisely. And that is what has made me India’s first Formula One driver.
Sania: Yeah…
Narain: Ok…I need to go now. Got to race.
Sania: Sure. Bye
2) CODE: 32CAA
By:- Pranav
slums and encroachments-truly disjointed
I was coming back from a quick coffee from Barista when I noticed that the pavements at Nariman Point were surprisingly clean...stopped, looked around..hey..! where were all the hawkers!
Went up ahead and saw the police and municipality forcing them away from places where they'd been earning a honest living. Saw the pain in these peoples' eyes - and the contempt in the govt babus' eyes. True, they cluttered up the area. True, they broke up the sidewalks making them impossible to walk. True, they littered like nobody's business, making it still more impossible to walk by the food stalls. But earlier whenever I walked by, I knew that India was shining because these people now had access to more opportunity and a better way of life. The same govt clerk or the policeman would come around in the evening asking for the daily/weekly bribe...and see the sneer on his face today, cursing the cobbler for not packing away his wares fast enough. Why doesnt the govt dedicate an area as a food court/hawker zone with complete transparency in operations and allotment of stalls?
Saw slums being felled on TV and distraught people gathering away their belongings. Slums should be demolished - but the governments should get their act together and create alternate housing for them on the outskirts of Mumbai. Along with that, the public transport system should be totally spruced up so that these people dont have problems in commuting to and from their jobs.
Many of the 'Mi Mumbaikar' variety say that these people should be banished back to their villages.
You just cant send millions of people away to the villages saying this is not their home. India is their country and they're free to move anywhere within it if they find better opportunity there. Tomorrow if you get a job that pays you 10 times more and gives you 20 times more opportunities and amenities, but is in a different city, will you shift to that city or prefer to stay on, waiting for the economic boom to hit your city and, like a rising tide, lift your ship too?
You cannot cannot deny anybody the right to better opportunity and a better way of life. I was talking to a cab driver from bihar and why he came leaving his family and a little patch of land and lived in a squalid room in Dharavi in inhuman conditions. He said...in the villages you only get 'anaaj' and nothing else. This is where I can dream to give my son a better schooling and hope that 1 generation down the line their kids will sit at a computer like you educated people in aircon offices. Besides, the land is'nt increasing, the population is - so there's no short term option but to move.
And he was atleast lucky, owning a small patch of land. What of others, who dont even have that?
Poverty cannot be wished away. It is the human survival instinct that brings them to big cities and we must laud these poor people's enterprise, rather than trying to make life more difficult for them.
There was this thing about Bangladeshi immigrants who need to be sent back home - great idea, how do you do that? Many of them have got ration cards now - getting one is a matter of a couple of hundred rupees. I remember, in Delhi, a rabidly jingoistic pro-hindu govt once used the Bangladeshi card to terrorise genuine Indian muslims from bengal and bihar. where does this end? your policies kill them like flies. they try to come in search of a better life here and your policies send them back to the killing fields.
Nothing is worse or more pathetic than seeing a lowly cheap havaldar (pandu, they call them) bossing it over a cobbler or a vada pao vendor who're at least trying to make a living honestly...getting 'hafta' from them and then when the screws are tightened from up above, make them move away from the Nariman point pavements from place to place.
Improve the quality of governance in mumbai, and you might just see the end to the slum problem...take this governance to all other states and the migration problem will go away. But it cannot be done over a short term. And as always, charity begins at home...be a contentious citizen, teach your kids the right path and a new order might just emerge.
Do you remember when you actually last went looking for a garbage can instead of throwing that piece of rubbish away on the road/out of the window?
The city literally runs on these migrants' shoulders. Take them away and things might just come to a grinding halt. I once heard in a local train, some locals angrily discussing how the local market had been spoilt because the bhaiyyas from UP and Bihar came and undercut everybody. too bad..thats globalisation for you! They provide much better service at better rates...so why not?!! Just because you were, by a quirk of fate, born in a better socio-economic environment doesnt mean you have the right to deny others the same
3) CODE: 36CAA
By:- Sadik
bang...bang...bang...
whats up??
there's a fire in d neighbourhood!!!
what?!
ya..come let's see...
So me n my excited friend jumped in d lift and rushed to d gates of the complex...there right on the opposite foot, is situated a kind of conglometure of semi-pucca houses with kuchha ceilings...emerging from one of them was a flurry of smoke... the whole road was peopled with curious scene gazers with whom it was difficult to determine whether they were enjoying or lamenting the spectacle....
One of the small houses was on fire...though not a very wild one but sufficiently strong to send up flames and smoke...the scene in d adjoining homes and shops was one of instant animation...I don't use the word chaos coz it wasn't definitely chaos...it just struck me that I have never seen anyone that animated...people were rushing all precious possessions out of their homes and shops...I particularly observed the pan-waala rush out of his tiny shop with the huge box he uses as support to make his paans...people were throwing out trunks upon trunks in fear of what if the fire spread to their homes....
"Ekhaan theke Norbi naa!!" (Don't move an inch from here!!) a lady draped in a nightgown ordered her kid as she rushed back from the road to the house to salvage her most precious....
Meanwhile..a few guys were all animated on their cell-phones bombarding the fire-brigade and police station with details and address...the police and fire-brigade btw dint miss retrieving the details of the callers....It struck me that I ain't got the numbers of either in my cell...what if I am stuck in an emergency???(For heavens sake! V dont have 911 here in India!!) Have any of u guys got those numbers??
In the midst of all this the house on fire was completely surrounded by folks with all kind of utensils and buckets with water with which they were mercilessly attacking the fire...the fire was coming in control but was being replaced by heavy fumes...a few ppl climbed the roof of the house in question and smashed the ceilings with stones to let the fumes out...the situation was coming in control....
Btw it was being aired that an exploding gas cylinder was the cause of the mayhem...
So what did I do?? Nothing much... I observed everything I just wrote before which I ventured in for some help...but there were already more people around than that small place could handle...sure of my inability to help..I ventured to call d fire brigade but as mentioned I dint have d number and many calls had already been made...
So what struck me about the whole incident??
1. In a tragedy people care about their most precious possessions the first...it was the child for a mother...his cash for the paan-vendor and their property for some...
2.People love to witness destruction which happens to others...it's kinda free entertainment and even better than a hollywood flick...
3.There actually exist such jerks on this planet who would try to earn leadership points n exercise superiority and show off utilising someone else's crisis...
Thankfully No one was hurt...and the damage to property wasn't extreme...
So that was an interesting Sunday Morning....huh..
Btw...the full time I was there, I dint notice any fire-brigade....n there's a girl in my complex who actually wanted to know all d details about the fire from me(GOD!!! she knows I exist??? How strange!! She doesn't have a vision defect after all!!)
4) CODE: 43CAA
By:- Invincible
BlogSense v/s AdSense
It's perfectly fine that everyone wants to make (BIG) money.
· Newspapers flaunt ads more than news
· Television has more commercials than contents
· Webpages host sponsored links
· Google devised a way of generating revenue thru Adwords (or was it someone b4 i dont know). An excellent way to make money for individual as well as Google, and people have become millionaires. You search for free, the small 'Ads by Google' would pay for ur search. And it makes sense as recently i read somwhere, Google has close to 200,000 servers (running on Linux) to support the awesome, lightning fast (& free) search. Ads by Google is a work of canny braines.
But why BLOGGING !!!!
Just keep clicking on the 'Next blog' link on top right and you will see blogging for money. 6/10 (& i m on pessimistic side) blogs would turn out to be hosting ads much like having ur webpage and putting sponsored links. The links spanning anything from cars n grocery stores to diseases n porn sites.
Can they not spare, the desire to scribble freewheelingly. To shout out loud, n dont care anyone's listening. Blogging is supposed to be that, ain't it.
'People see your blogs, click on the links and u make money'.
They call it AdSense. For me it is NoSense (i left out the additional n intentionally).
I may be wrong. As nothing in the world is free, hosting blogs means wasting n Gigs. But then not everything u do is for money, right. Especially if u luv doing it. I am not against those who r making big green bucks out of it nor am i jealous (if that is wot u think).
I think after sometime, everyone and not just F1 drivers will have their day-gear looking like an array of walking add-banners (n a 100 million other things wud follow too
5) CODE: 48CAB
By:- RS
What is it about being in a car that makes one want to strike out at the nearest living object? Why is it that men always think that women are bad drivers? These and several questions like these are the kind that will always remain unanswered and go down in the annals of history as one of those unsolved mysteries!
Take Old S and me. We always seem to get into an argument when we are driving somewhere. I put it down to the fact that a car and especially our car is a small little space where the arguer and the arguee have no recourse than to fight or die in the process. I have been driving since the age of 18 and have managed never to hit, maim or kill anyone so far. But you would never believe that if you looked at Old S in the passenger’s seat while I am driving. His fingers are clinging tightly to the edge of the seat, his eyes are glazed and his body leaning forward almost until his nose is touching the dashboard.
“Watch out! There’s a car coming! Brake, for God’s sake.”
Me: *sweetly *: “Why would I want to brake, dearest? I enjoy slamming through oncoming cars at 50 kms. per hour. Its what I do best.”
Old S: * screaming *- “Why are you slowing down now?”
Me: “Well, dear, that’s what I always do when I get to a red light or a Stop sign. You know, I always try to slow down before I come to a complete stop; it’s a kind of preparation.”
Old S: “Yes, but you don’t have to do it so hard…One of these days……” * a meaningful silence follows while he gives me sidelong looks out of the corner of his eye. *
I pull over at a convenient spot, hop out of the car, walk over to his side, he gets out, I get in, slam the door, he walks to the drivers seat and we resume the drive in fuming silence.
I just don’t get it. If he thinks I am such a bad driver, why isn’t he calling 911 every time I take the car out alone? How come he trusts me with the lives of his children but not himself??
I am the one who has never been pulled over or ticketed or anything, while he has! I never drive over the speed limit even when cars and trucks are tailgating me honking and yelling obscenities, while he does! But I have the utmost confidence in his ability to drive! I don’t chew my fingernails down to the cuticles while he drives. I serenely gaze out of the window at the passing cows and suchlike while he puts me in danger of losing life and limb driving over the speed limit and screeching to a slower speed and looking innocent when he spots a cop car.
That’s another thing! The minute I go even one kilometer over the limit, I just KNOW that a cop car will be lurking around and pounce on me. He gets away with driving way over and never having any problem. Now that’s one thing that bothers me when he is driving. How come he gets off scot-free every time?
Anyway, we have a good system when we travel. He is a good driver; I am good at reading maps. I can tell you exactly how many centimeters we need to drive to get where we want to be. I can tell you exactly how many of those little roundy things we need to pass too and how many criss-cross lines. I can also tell you how many arguments this talent of mine has led to.
We should have a system. I should drive and he should navigate. We tried it one time; he was so busy with his nose glued to the map that he forgot to shout at me. I was so busy watching the road that I forgot to say mean things. It was perfect! But it was too quiet! Dang near put me to sleep!
I think the thought of driving in a quiet, argument-less environment doesn’t appeal to both of us. I know I would miss it! Guess we’ll just get a bigger car!
6) CODE: 49CAA
By:- Akshaya
Time & Money
If I am given money, what should I buy? I'd rather buy time. For me the only purpose of having money is to buy time. Maugham said, "Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five." He was absolutely right. And this is the only reason why I have to earn money. Once I have the money, the toughest hurdle that life forces you to jump over, is vanquished. Not that the struggle of life is over, but then who wants that?
So is it that easy? Actually, No. The problem is that you never know how much is enough. As a matter of fact, the entire struggle of life is about being 'good' and 'good enough'. Life never stops overwhelming and surprising you. It always remains a mystery and we are always kept guessing. The worst mistake that some of us make is when we try to be 'good' enough instead of just being good 'enough'. Life is funny for sure, but you need to get your fundamentals right to raise any questions at it.
Coming back to the time and money issues, there is definitely no situation when you can relax and sit back assuming that you have bought all the time. One should never give up on the spirits to make a comeback whenever needed, but a defensive mindset can also be very harmful. Any amount of money does bring some peace to our mind and in my view, we should always make use of that calm state of mind to create something. The entire running-around sessions that we are forced to go through all the time, must culminate in a serenity that we all seek for. Losing yourself in the rat-race for the sake of some silly accumulation is a sin. We are here to suffer, but our suffering is not without a purpose. Through a complete cycle of suffering, one must not forget the questions he is trying to answer. The answer is inside all of us. We live to feel the seductive beauty of that one morning when the darkness of the night opens the door to the light of perfect silence. A silence where no birds chirp, no cocks crow, no heat comes out of the sun; a silence thats overwhelming. That will be the prized moment when our bodies won't move; nothing would move, in fact. In that silence, there will be the music of eternal taste. The notes of music will sweep us to a world where only music exists. Then, we'll be nothing but a few notes of music. There won't be any material existence of mankind, it'll be a musical existence.
We all live for that prized morning. We live for that moment of musical existence. But we can not afford to forget that the moment has to be earned. It has to be earned through the extreme darkness of the night. It has to be earned like money. It has to be earned with money; with money that buys the time - of perfect silence.
7) CODE: 61CAA
By:- Atticus Finch
On Collateral Damage...
Throughout the '80s and '90s, The War held the attention of the family adults in its vice-like grip. It lived, moved and breathed fire like some monstrous being just beyond the horizon - its sinister presence announced in disturbing growls, gasps and roars carried into our living-room on transcontinental radio waves beginning with Veritas of Philippines at 5.30am and drawing to an hesitant close with the BBC's Tamizhosai at 10pm. Parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts writhed in agony, desperation, fear and anger as armored vehicles and rocket launchers moved back and forth through dense forest, disfiguring that beautiful island of their youth... Vavunya, Batticaloa, Trincomallee, Jaffna - every bomb dropped hit some memory-lush nook of their minds... Every killing left something dead inside them…
To me and my sister, growing up in the midst of a war fought hundreds of miles away was strange business. There were sacrosanct rules – “Nobody talks during the "Ceylon News" part of any news bulletin!”, “No jokes for hours after particularly high death tolls!”, “Keep your distance from Dad when skirmishes inch southward toward the central province...!” Words like "curfew" and "vanseyal" (a rather rare Tamil word for violence) were part of our playtime vocabulary. Horror tales overheard during hushed late night conversations were further colored and delivered as stunning first-hand accounts of bravado to friends. But, though The War hung heavy and phantomlike around us and gnawed at places from a life we'd never knew, we weren't really hurt or sad. The War's impact on a young and impassioned Atticus was more lasting and ghastly - it made me thirst for revenge against the unknown enemy.
To me, the Tiger was something stealthy, fierce, mysterious and majestic - a gun-toting, slim, dark youth on a crusade for vengeance and justice. The Tiger stood for freedom and the much-sung Tamil rising - the Che Guevera-like romance of brave young men seeking a Utopian homeland with AK47s and RDX. And in the simple cause-effect world of ten-year-olds, it seemed there was a lot of "setting right" left to be done - "revoked minority rights, marginalization in one's own country, butchered brethren, wronged women"... Wrongs that had been "set right" by blood and gore since time immemorial.
That I guess was The War's most disturbing damage! It taught me the same lessons glorified by movies and mythology - the heroism of climactic blood, gore and vengeance! It made the child I was believe in murder as a solution! I bayed for blood with all the linguistic-fundamentalist fervor my young soul could muster. As the men from the country of my birth regressed into gory games like animal herds, I stood at the sidelines, cheered and kept score!!
Today I look back on those years with shock and disgust. Now I detest any widespread violence. I vehemently hate any bid to even wear identities on one's sleeve, let alone fight for them! We tend to think of the War as something that politicians bring on and soldiers at the border fight. But a bulk of the violence is fuelled by the “Us Vs Them” undercurrent in public opinion - Hindu-Muslim, Chechen-Russian, Israeli-Palestine and Tamil-Singhalese! Our implicit or explicit endorsements drive these shameful killings. Think of Gujarat...! Think of the US and an election fought on who's the better warlord! Think of all the 911-engendered madness! It all happens because these things didn’t strike us hard enough to shake us away from the comfort of our daily routines. It all happens because somewhere somehow even the well-educated and worldly-wise amongst us think “These Pakistanis deserve it!” or “America had it coming!”. Though we seldom face the fact, it’s true that the buck stops with each one of us!!
Now, when people ask me what I think of the LTTE and the Lankan ethnic conflict, I tell them I take life's side... The side where no teenage girl is dragged out of her home and gang-raped by the army... The side where her 12-year-old brother is not handed a gun and a cyanide-capsule to avenge her!
I once saw this photograph of an armless child in the Gulf War... Indo-Pak, Islam vs Christian, Tamil vs Singhalese...Iraq, Palestine, Kashmir, Eelam... Nothing can ever justify doing this to a child! Nothing is worth this - not wronged nations; not marginalized religions; not unavenged blood-relations!!!
The next time you think of Pakistan or America or Japan or Libya or Iran, try to imagine a child there. Think if that child deserves the hatred and violence that we actively or passively endorse! If you do think so, then amen to that.
8) CODE: 63CAA
By:- Gaurav Rathore
Bar barred...
Another dictum by a democratic government and more than 100,000 rendered jobless. Yes, the state govt. has decided to ban all the dance bars in the state of Maharashtra including Mumbai, stating that they promote crime and prostitution. The decision has directly affected not only the bar girls (75,000) but also the managers (1500), waiters (20,000), bouncers (6,000) and cooks (6000). The figure easily crosses the astonishing mark of 100 thousand! At least bar girls are lucky enough to have an association of their own which is desperately fighting for them. Rest all are not as privileged and they will have to find the alternative jobs over night.
The very ground on which they are banned is stupid enough to justify that the government here reacted in a hurry and pushed the accelerator a little too early. They reacted without any plan of their rehabilitation! Afterall one lakh is not a small number by any means.
According to the govt, they are promoting crime. How come? I don’t think that the murder mysteries and robbery plans are hatched there in dance bars with a dozen females dancing around you and where you find it difficult to hear even your own voice! I would be highly surprised if the crime chart shows a dip of even one percent after the ban on dance bars. My only question is..If they are talking about promoting crime, why only dance bars? Why not all the public bars? Infact they provide more conducive ambience for making devilish plans and they are the breeding ground to criminals more than the dance bars. Food for thought Mr. Deshmukh.
Secondly, according to them, they are the routes to prostitution. May be. Or I should say it’s partially true. But do you think it is justified to crush each and everybody on the road if 10% are guilty? And forget about Mumbai, each and every city has a well-defined ‘red light area’ where you can find prostitutes. Nobody bother to raid them or close them. Infact by banning the dance bars, there is every probability that these girls will take the route of prostitution and the govt. adventure of stopping it will only increase the prostitution in the city. Remember, most of these girls come from very poor families of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar & West Bengal and it’s very easy to coax them into the hell as they are vulnerable enough and they have to support their families back home.
The problem does not end here? It is more grave than it seems. Look at the bigger picture The question is..For how long we will have to bow ourselves to the moral policing of the government or of the certain section of the society. For how long Hallmark and Archies will bear the brunt of a certain political outfit on every 14th Feb? For how long we will be forced to accept that FTV and the likes should not be a part of our TV channel list? After all, Liquor shops are there all over the places but still teetotalers exist in this society. Same applies for lotteries and all. The point that I am trying to drive is simple. In this era when the society is getting more open with each passing day, you just cannot force anybody what to drink, what to see, where to visit and what to wear. Even a conservative nation like china with communists in command does not come up with such mind-boggling decisions and laws.
Probably the reason of our current mindset lies here. We are in a transition phase. At present, neither we are having a totally conservative society nor we are having a completely open or westernized one. Hence, when these dance bars comes up, we get afraid of loosing our moral values and traditions. But remember, 15 years back, when only DD national channel was in place, even a glimpse of scantly clad female was rare. And 15 years hence, we have a total collection of Sherawats and Dhupias…
I am not saying wherever we are heading to is the only way to progress. But my simple point is, in today’s world, moral policing is as bad as keeping a slave and I think we have progressed enough to make our own mind on what’s correct and what’s not. Still, the transition of our mind set is not complete. It’s happening. It will take sometime before we will realize that one cannot and should not keep a vigil as far as deciding moral values is concerned. And I don’t think in the era of my grandchildren, anybody will be bothered to burn Valentine’s Day cards or any government will take such drastic steps like the ban on dance bars without even blinking their eyelids about the future of 1,00,000 citizens
9) CODE: 69CAA
By:- Ashish Dange
NONCENSUS
News: They released the data for the 2001 Census in India. The already divided nation is now debating the religionwise population growth rates. As usual a specific religion is being targeted. Politicians are having a field day amidst insinuations and counter allegations. All this, while the figures and the accompanying analysis is now under cloud. And the Government intends to take a 're-look' at the data they released.
So we are now a nation of :
Hindus - 80.5%
Muslims - 13.4%
Christians - 2.3%
Sikhs - 1.9%
Others - 1.9%
How many Indians, you ask ?? They are still counting .....
I am not proud of this India at all. Why do we still need to 'count heads' on basis of religion ?? And why the fixation with religion wise growth rates ???
Post Script: Out of sheer curiosity I visited the official website of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner India . On the home page is a grand announcement 'We also count people in India'. So what sirs, if I may most humbly ask, is your primary job ?? Dividing people by religion ???
posted by anz | 11:27 PM
