Whatever happened to collective responsibility

They swim together or sink together, is how the collective orientation of the cabinet has been described in the Indian parliamentary system. By definition therefore,cabinet is a body which makes coherent efforts towards the progress of the nation.within the cabinet, there are deliberations and member's dissent is taken into consideration. But once a decision is taken, the cabinet has to defend it both in the parliament and in public.This arrangement worked well in the Indian polity for the first couple of decades after independence.

With growing political instability post 1970s, the whole landscape of Indian politics has changes substantially.Now that the trend of coalition politics has settled in the Indian democracy, collective responsibility seems to be the latest casualty. This flows for the fact that in a coalition government cabinet berths are not allocated on the basis of merit, rather hardcore political bargain is resorted to. Also, this bunch of opportunist politicians have one eye always set on their support base. This leads to chaos and confusion. Ministers choose to stay away from the cabinet deliberations over supposedly controversial issues, or worse if they do attend the meeting, they openly criticize the decision. A case in point is the recent cabinet decision to decontrol the pricing of petroleum. Several ministers openly criticized the step. Also with a controversy looming large over the 2G spectrum allocation most ministers washed their hands off.

Turf wars between ministries is becoming increasingly common. Recently, a minister on a foreign trip criticized his cabinet colleague over the latter's way of functioning. The list is endless, which clearly indicates that cabinet responsibility and collective responsibility is passe.This is a clear indication of the degenerating political scenario in the country. Unless some radical measures are taken, the situation does not appear to be improving.

Lets build a consensus on consensus...

Of many imitated concepts of Indian democracy, consensus based decision making is a rather humble one.After centuries of decisions being imposed by the autocratic rulers, when Indians got their independence and with it power to write their own destiny, they understandably wanted to take everybody on board while taking all major decisions.

On the face of it, consensus is a rather noble phenomenon in model liberal democracies where people have a major say in the process of decision making, more so in some Scandinavian countries where even small decisions are put to referendum. Since India borrowed the concept of democracy intoto, consensus came along. India, however, is a unique case with multiple religions, zillions of castes, languages, cultures and what not. So it is practically impossible for Indians to build a consensus on major issues, especially because the diverse forces in play against each other result in a zero sum energy.But we are still obsessed with consensus building..

History of independent India tells us that whenever an issue is postponed till ' a broad consensus is evolved', it keeps orbiting in the endless universe of Indian politics for eternity. Even if finally a decision is taken by accommodating all opinions, it gets so diluted that the original purpose is defeated..

In our heterogeneous society, if everyone is to be kept happy, we will never move forward.This is precisely why our politico-administrative system has become status-quoist. Hard decisions are bound to ruffle a few feathers, but the political leadership does not have the guts to be visionary, look beyond what common people can see.

The need of the hour is, therefore, to re-asses our obsession with consensus. Lets build a consensus on consensus building!

No we can't.. MR. O

Yes, we can.. Obama said a zillion times during the run up to last year's Presidential elections. Now, the new savior of the world is saying the same at different fora, the context.. Global Nuclear Disarmament(GND)... If only Pigs could fly Mr. O.

Coz you are the ones who started this rat race... the crazy Mutually Agreed Destruction (MAD) agreement between US and Russia started it all... Now in this world of ultra modern communication, you cannot expect the technology to stay away from 'rogue' hands.. can you?.. and as soon as you find this out, suddenly you want to free the world of this menace called nuclear weapons.... O,thanks but no thanks we are not going to buy this sudden 'enlightenment' on your part Mr. O...Paranoids, as you are now you see a real threat of nuclear terrorist attacks.. don't you?

As far as nuclear disarmament goes, the only time bound and fair action plan has been spelled out in the world by India, that too way back in 1988, oh yes clean the dust off the 'Rajeev Gandhi Action Plan'. The NPT can never lead to GND. And you want all states to sign it. Pakistan would never sign it, coz India hasn't, you can't and you won't say anything to Israel, the only state left is INDIA and you are doing all that you can to push us into it..

But India can not sign this audaciously discriminatory treaty dividing the world into nuclear haves and have nots in the name of GND. Sorry to say Mr. O "No We can't, and we wouldn't, come what may!"

Who will guard the guards... judicial accountability in India

Prashant Bhushan on Judicial accountability in India

The framers of the Indian Constitution would not have imagined that within 50 years of the framing of the Constitution, the Indian Judiciary would emerge as the most powerful institution of the State. The Constitution established the High Courts and the Supreme Court as watchdog institutions, independent of the executive and the legislature, to not merely dispense justice, but also to ensure that the executive and the legislature did not exceed the authority conferred upon them by the Constitution. Thus, the Judiciary was given the powers to interpret the laws and the Constitution, and also to strike down executive action which violated any law or the fundamental rights of citizens. It was also the authority to examine whether laws framed by Parliament conformed to the Constitution and declare them void if they violated it.

By a creative interpretation of the provision authorizing the Parliament to amend the Constitution, the Supreme Court in 1973 also acquired the power to strike down even constitutional amendments which were held by the Court to violate the basic structure of the Constitution. Many laws and some constitutional amendments have been struck down by the Courts during this period.
In the 80’s, the Supreme Court evolved a new jurisdiction which has come to be known as Public Interest Litigation which involved a liberal interpretation of the fundamental right of life and liberty guaranteed by Article 21 to include the right to live with dignity and, therefore, to enjoy the basic amenities of life, such as food, water, shelter, basic education, healthcare and even the right to a
healthy environment. Simultaneously, the Court declared that they could and should direct the executive to provide these amenities to citizens who were denied these.
Over the last 30 years, this jurisdiction of PIL has been used to occasionally direct the provision of basic amenities like food, water, education and shelter to the poor and marginalized sections of society. But increasingly, in the last 15 years, the jurisdiction has been largely used whimsically and subjectively by judges ostensibly for protecting the environment. Thus, the Court has ordered the shutting down of “polluting industries” in and around Delhi, around the ‘Taj’ in Agra, the conversion of commercial vehicles in Delhi to Natural Gas fuel, the dismantling of all structures on the ridge running through Delhi, the stoppage of a non-forest activity in forest areas, etc. It has also ordered the demolition of the shanties of hundreds of thousands of slum dwellers in Delhi and Mumbai. In Delhi, it was done on the allegation that they were polluting the river near which they were living. While exercising the same PIL jurisdiction, they have also ordered the removal of hundreds of thousands of vendors from the streets of Delhi and Mumbai on the ground that streets were only meant for traffic and not for vendors. In short, using this PIL jurisdiction, the Courts acquired and have used the power to order anything that the individual judges considered to be in public interest. The recent actions of the Court have clearly shown that by and large, the Court has given precedence to ‘Environmental Protection’ if there was a perceived conflict between that and the socio-economic rights of the poor. But environmental protection has been made to give way, if it came into conflict with the interest of “Corporate Development”.

Through all this, the superior courts in India have emerged as perhaps the most powerful courts in the world, exercising virtually Imperial & unchecked powers. While executive action and even legislation could often be struck down by the courts, the directions of the courts, sometimes issued without even notice to the affected parties, were beyond question, and had to be obeyed by all executive officers on pain of contempt of court. Of course, often these powers were wisely exercised to correct gross executive inaction.While the Court was acquiring these powers, by an even more inventive(called purposive) interpretation of the provision regarding appointment of judges by the government, it took over the power of appointment of judges. Thus judges of the High Court and Supreme Court are now appointed by a collegium of senior judges of the Supreme Court. The judiciary has thus become like a selfperpetrating oligarchy. There is no system followed in the selection of judges and there is no transparency in the system. In particular, no regard is given to examining the record or credentials of judges in their ideological adherence to the constitutional ideals of a secular, socialist democratic republic or their understanding of or sensitivity towards the common people of the country who are poor, marginalized and unable to fight for their rights in the courts.Thus, the courts in India enjoy virtually absolute and unchecked power unrivalled by any Court in the world. In these circumstances, it is absolutely vital that judges of the superior judiciary be accountable for their performance and their conduct – whether it be for corruption or for disregard of constitutional values and the rights of citizens.

Unfortunately, neither the Constitution, nor any other law has created any institution or system to examine the performance of judges or examine complaints against them. The Constitution provides that High Court and Supreme Court judges cannot be removed except by impeachment. That process requires signatures of 100 MPs of the House of People or 50 MPs of the Council of States for its initiation. If a motion containing charges of serious misconduct with the requisite signatures is submitted, and admitted by the Speaker of the House of People or the Chairperson of the Council of States, an Inquiry Committee of 3 judges is constituted to hold a trial of the judge. Only if he is found guilty, the motion is placed before each House of Parliament where it has to be passed by a 2/3 majority of each House. Our experience has shown that it is practically impossible to remove a Judge through impeachment even if one is somehow able to get documentary evidence of serious misconduct. This is because MPs and political parties to which they belong are very reluctant to take on a sitting Judge because virtually all of them have pending cases in courts. The judges often behave like a trade union and do not take kindly to brethren being accused of misconduct. It is, therefore, virtually impossible to get an impeachment off the ground unless the matter has become a big public
scandal. Only in those cases, is it possible to get enough MPs to sign an impeachment motion.

The only impeachment of a Judge to have gone far was that of Justice V.Ramaswami in the early 90’s. After the motion was presented, a Judges Inquiry Committee found him guilty of several charges of misconduct when the matter went up for voting to Parliament. The ruling Congress Party directed all their MPs to abstain from voting. Thus, though the motion was unanimously passed in the Lok Sabha, it did not get the support of the majority of the total membership of the House and, therefore, failed. The Judge remained in office till he retired,but was not assigned any judicial work by the then Chief Justice. Only last month, we have seen a second motion against a Judge of the Calcutta High Court signed and submitted to the Chairman of the Council of States.

Allegations and charges against a Judge even when supported by documentary evidence, rarely get any coverage in the media because of the widespread fear of contempt of court. The contempt law in India allows any judge of the High Court and Supreme Court to charge any one with criminal contempt and send him to jail, on the ground that he/she has “scandalized the Court or lowered the authority of the Court”. What “scandalizes or lowers” the authority of a Court is also the subjective judgment of each Judge. In Arundhati Roy’s (the well known writer) case, a bench of 2 judges of the Supreme Court charged her with contempt and sent her to jail merely because she criticized the Court in her affidavit. The facts were these: After the judgment of the Supreme Court in the Narmada Dam case, there was a public protest outside the Supreme Court in which Medha Patkar (the leader of the anti-Dam movement in India) and Arundhati Roy participated. A couple of lawyers (probably on the hint of the
Court itself) filed a contempt petition against Patkar, Roy and myself (I was the lawyer of the anti-Dam movement) alleging that we had raised abusive slogans against the Court. The lawyers’ contempt application, apart from being in grotesque language, also contained palpably absurd allegations that Roy and Patkar (who can hardly be considered rowdies) manhandled the burly lawyers. Roy, in her reply to the court notice said: “For the Court to have issued notice on such a ridiculous petition to three persons who have been vocal in their criticism of the Court shows a disquieting inclination on the part of the Court to muzzle dissent and stifle criticism”. Though he discharged the first notice, the same judge (Justice G.B. Patnaik) who had issued the first notice, issued a second contempt notice, this time to Roy alone for daring to berate the court in this manner. They eventually held her guilty of contempt and sent her to jail with Justice Patnaik sitting as a Judge in his own cause. Earlier, the Supreme Court has declared that a person charged with
“scandalizing the Court” will not be permitted to prove the truth of his allegation against a Judge. Though Parliament has recently amended the Contempt of Courts Act to expressly allow truth as a defence, nothing has been done to prevent judges against whom allegations are made from charging the person with contempt and hauling him to jail. The criminal contempt jurisdiction of the Court and the cavalier manner in which it is exercised, is another example of the enormous and unchecked power of the superior courts in India Our campaign for Judicial Accountability has since long been demanding that the courts’ power to punish for “scandalizing and lowering the authority of the Court” must be taken away by legislation. Of course, this demand has been stoutly resisted by the courts who claim that deleting this provision would greatly encourage baseless allegations and abuse of judges by disgruntled litigants and would thereby erode public confidence in the courts. But then, there is the law of civil and criminal defamation to protect judges against vilification. Moreover,
public confidence in the courts as in any person or institution, is generated or eroded by the actions of the courts and not by any baseless allegations by disgruntled litigants. However, with such fierce opposition by the courts, the legislature has not had the courage to delete this provision from the Contempt of
Courts Act.

In 1991, the Supreme Court by another ingenious judgment, involving Justice Veeraswami (the father-in-law of Ramaswami), who was Chief Justice of the Tamil Nadu High Court who was caught with assets, vastly disproportionate to his income, laid down that no judge of a superior court could be subjected to a criminal investigation without the written permission of the Chief Justice of India. This judgment has been use to prevent the investigation and prosecution of many judges against whom there was documentary evidence of corruption, fraud, misappropriation, etc. This has also increased the impunity of judges who have now got used to the feeling that they can get away with any kind of misconduct or even criminal conduct, without any fear of any criminal action or action for removal. Armed additionally with the power of contempt, they also have little fear of public exposure.

In 2005, India got one of the most liberal and powerful RTI Acts in the world. It permits disclosure of internal notings and correspondence of public officials, has few exemptions from disclosure, creates an independent appellate body to decide disputes regarding refusal of information. It also provides for penalties against arbitrary and malafide refusal to disclose information. It applies to all public authorities including the judiciary. One would have expected that the courts which had held that even in the absence of any RTI Act, the fundamental right to free speech, encompassed that right anyway, would have welcomed the application of the right to the courts. Unfortunately, however, the court has fiercely resisted the disclosure of all critical information relating to the courts. Several High Courts have framed rules, in violation of the RTI Act, that no administrative or financial information would be given. The application fees for RTI applications in the courts are sometimes 50 times that of other public authorities. The courts have, therefore, refused information about appointments of employees of the courts, about appointment and transfer of judges, and about complaints against judges. The Supreme Court even refused to disclose whether any judges are declaring their assets in accordance with the Code of Conduct that they had framed.

All this makes for an alarming picture of lack of accountability of the higher judiciary in India. You cannot practically take any disciplinary or criminal action against misconduct or crimes committed by judges. If you expose them publicly you run the risk of contempt. And with the effective blocking of the RTI Act in its application to the judiciary, they remain ensconced in their citadels safe in the knowledge that no one can even peer into their affairs. This lack of accountability coupled with the enormous unchecked powers that the courts have acquired and are exercising make the judiciary a very dangerous institution and indeed a serious threat to Indian democracy. This lack of accountability has led to considerable corruption of the higher judiciary which is evident from the recent spate of judicial scandals which have erupted in India. The recent report of TI on corruption perception index shows that the judiciary is perceived to be the second most corrupt institution in India after the Police.
It is high time that this unhappy situation is corrected by reforms in the law
and amendments in the Constitution. There need to be independent statutory and full time bodies for the appointment of judges as well as for the performance audit and disciplinary control over judges. These bodies must be independent of the executive as well as of the judiciary. We have suggested a five member judicial appointments commission and a similar judicial complaints commission. One Member each to these commissions could be nominated by (1) The Collegium of all Judges of the Supreme Court, (2) The Collegium of all Chief Justices of the High Courts, (3) The Cabinet, (4) a Collegium of Leader of Oppositions in the two Houses of Parliament, the Speaker of the House of People and the Chairman of the Council of States, and (5) A Collegium of the Chairman, NHRC, the CAG, the CVC and the CEC. However, once nominated, the members would have security of tenure and would not be under the control of the appointing authorities.

These bodies must function transparently and must devise a clear criteria and methodology of selecting judges and dealing with complaints against them.They must have a small investigative machinery under their administrative control through which they could get disputed and relevant questions of fact investigated. Their decisions about appointments and removal of judges should be final and not subject to executive, legislative or judicial approval. The Veeraswami judgment must be judicially or legislatively reversed and there should be no additional impediment in the criminal investigation and prosecution of judges. That task could also be entrusted to the investigative organization under the Judicial Complaints Commission.
“Scandalising the Court or lowering the authority of the Court” must be deleted from the definition of riminal Contempt of Court and it must be made clear that an allegation however scurrilous against a judge would amount to defamation, but not contempt, unless it presents a clear and present danger to the administration of justice (The US Law). The High Court rules under the RTI Act, which conflict with the RTI Act must be rescinded.

Unfortunately, neither the government nor the judiciary have shown any seriousness about tackling the problem of Judicial Accountability or rather the lack of it. Nor have they shown any political will to bring in other much needed reforms to repair the virtually dysfunctional normal judicial system, as a result of which hardly anyone is able to get justice through the courts. The executive is happy with a failed, corrupt judiciary which will not hold it to account and the judiciary is happy to enjoy vast powers, without accountability. The government has proposed a Judicial Council which will be an in-house body of sitting judges to deal with complaints against judges. The judges also oppose any independent institution and want only an in-house body of sitting judges. Experience, however, shows that such in-house bodies and self-regulation rarely works, whether in the Judiciary or the Bar or with the Medical Community. Judicial reforms in India are likely to take place only if there is a strong people’s movement and campaign which puts democratic pressure on the government and shames the judiciary. Unfortunately, all these years except during the last two, there has not been such a movement. The current campaign
during the last 2 years has certainly brought the issue on the agenda of the media and even of the political parties to an extent. We hope that it will grow in strength and that we will gradually be able to reclaim the Judiciary and restore it as a robust, independent but accountable institution, not merely as an instrument for delivering justice, but also to for ensuring that the executive and the legislature function in accordance with the ideals and principles of the
Constitution.

"SADHU nahi hote to CHOR kahan chhipte...."

Recently on a train trip to Delhi, I met a hindu saint who got me thinking about the educated people's prejudices against saints...

He boarded the train ( without ticket..) at a station before Mathura and came to our already packed compartment to request for a seat till Mathura. As already agreed upon by the pessengers, we refused him a seat. He kept standing there. Finally we told him to sit down.

As soon as he took seat, a fellow pessenger, Saleem started to pull his leg.. "Baba kuch chamatkar dikhao", he said..Baba calmly said "Mujhe koi chamatkar nahi aata beta.". Saleem now started narrating an incident when a dhongi baba came to his village, did some magic tricks and fooled people into giving away hundreds of rupees. He then boasted "Main in sab chalo mein nahi aata, maine ek rupiya bhi nahi diya". Baba was listening with patience as Saleem said "Ye sab dhongi baba hote hain" and concluded the story.

Saleem was expecting the baba to be embarassed, instead baba said "Beta, fir bhi tum mujhe chamatkar dikhane ko bol rahe the." Saleem instantly went in to a hole and did not speak for the next few minutes.

I was not involved in the conversation as I was already preoccupied with thoughts of moving to Delhi. But Baba's reply got me instrested.

I was already embarassed with my fellow pessenger's bid . "Sadhu ke bhesh mein dhongi bhi ghumte hain na baba." I said as if to make up for Saleem's act. Baba said "Beta, Jungle nahi hote to mor kahan chhipte, sadhu nahi hote to chor kahan chhipte." and looked at me, I gave a silent nod as if no more explaination was required.

I then started asking curious questions, all of which he answered patiently. Finally he deboarded the train at Mathura, but not before leaving a mark on all pessengers (including Saleem...!)

Law of inertia applied to humans..!!

Great scientist Newton gave three laws relating to motion of bodies in a straight line. These laws form the fundamental principles for other theories pertaining to rest and motion of a body.

The first law also known as the law of inertia states that every body has a tendency to maintain its state of rest or motion unless a force acts on it. While Newton thought strictly on scientific lines and used 'every body' in his principle, we being in a free democracy can take the liberty of extending this law to human behaviour and use "everybody" in the same statement.

Can we not say that human beings also have the same tendency. Whatever is our daily routine, becomes a habit and we start living with it. Humans get into a comfort zone in both static and dynamic states - the states can be thought of as professional, academic, personal, relating to relationships or of any other type. We grow and sustain a routine which seems impossible to break.

It takes a great deal of motivation to bring a change in this routine. One is apprehensive while moving from school to college, from college to job, from one job to another, from a single status to courtship.

Like Newton says, if you roll a marble on an ideal frictionless floor, it will always remain in this state of motion and will roll forever.Similarly a bachelor in the back of his mind does not want to give away of the freedom ( like that of a rolling marble) and enter into marriage. He does so because of internal ( insecurity, loneliness) and external ( social pressure) forces.

Even the most brilliant of people of any profession will need some time after a long break to get into their job. All this time they are applying a force on themselves to overcome the inertia of their comfort zone.

I guess I am facing the same challenge of getting over my inertia and getting into my new routine. Once I start, I wish to be like the rolling marble on the frictionless force.

Emotions on SALE...

I happen to watch one of the millions of reality shows currently being aired on Indian television.. To quote the promoters of the show... "The whole idea of our show is to provide a platform for young couples of the country who are facing the challenges of a conservative society, to show how love can win hearts".....

About half a dozen couples, apparently all madly in love... parents of most of the young couples did not know about their affairs before they publicly came out on the show... Some are Hindu-Muslim couples as well.... the winner couple will get a dream marriage ( of course an all-paid extravaganza)

The promoters of the show want the couples to convince their parents about each other and get them ready for a happily-ever-after type married life...

In the episode that I happen to watch, a Hindu girl tries to convince the brother of her Muslim boyfriend, but the brother is adamant that the girl will not be able to adjust in a joint and conservative Muslim family..the couple still says we will not get married until our families give their consent...

Now comes the girl's family... her sister is shown on the big screen almost cursing the girl for a shameful act of choosing a Muslim partner... the girl starts crying and says.. " bahut hurt kar diya mujhe"... the boy's family now consoles the girl...

Finally they take a commercial break.... I have never seen a more pre-scripted emotional drama like this in my life... But it works with our Indian viewers who are known to be "sweet at heart"... People weep with the couples..they smile with the couples and they are not shy of sending multiple SMSs to vote for their favourite couple ( mind you.. Rs. 8/SMS)..

It all appeared to me like a market of emotions.. every emotion is at sale.. of course there are a lot of takers...

GABAN - Munshi Premchand

Here's a book that will bring the memories of pre-independence era. Munshi Premchand has given such a beautiful picture of the life in that times, one feels like living with the characters especially RamaKant. The book moves ahead slowly and has a certain flavor of simplicity.It may appear too heavy and tragic but its really worth moving till the end. Typical of his style, Munshiji uses a very commonplace dialect instead of highly sanskritized Hindi (as was the practice during his period).
Jalapa, the daughter of a small time Munshi of a Zamindar is fascinated about jewelery since her childhood days. She got married to Rama ( son of a court babu DeviPrasad who earns a meager Rs. 50 a month and refuses bribe)... who is an 'avara' college drop out. Deviprasad buys a lot of jewelery for the marriage and spends a lot of money in show off hoping that the bride's father will give a lot of money and he can pay the debts of the Sunar.All the money that came from Jalapa's father was spent in other arrangements.Rama finally ends up stealing the jewelery from Jalapa and giving it back to the Sunar.Finally Rama gets into a job but ends up spending government's money due to Jalapa's obssession with the yellow metal. He runs away to Calcutta to avoid being arrested.. As soon as Jalapa comes to know this.she gives away her jewelery and pays back the government money.. but Rama doesn't know this and is still hiding in Calcutta.He stays with an old couple in Calcutta who start loving him like their son.Rama somehow falls into the police trap who make him give testimony in a fake dacoity case leading to one life sentence and 11 others being jailed.Now the story moves really nice.Its Jalapa's turn now to move her husband out of this mess.
The story is really moves your heart and depicts that the root to all misery in life is man's obsession to accumulate material wealth more than what is required and in fact more than that possible by the means available at his disposal.A great read..

Get over the HANGOVER.....

" India is more important to us than Pakistan : US " was the front page headline in a leading Indian daily. Really, its just another story, but when we dig deep into it one will find that it depicts the psyche of educated India. Is there even a comparison between India and Pakistan..... why do we go ga ga when Uncle Sam says that we are more important.... We have to realise, its not their choice.... it is the need of the hour..they have to be with us.....

We need to get over the hangover of being a third world country.....Evey survey, every statement from a western bureaucrat, anything that praises India and that our day is arrived is highlighted in all news papers and news channels... Have a look at some more examples :

BUSH URGES AMERICANS TO LEARN HINDI : In a long speech, Mr. Bush just mentioned that Americans may have to learn Hindi and Chinese to get closer to their culture.
'What's the big deal then'

INDIA TO BE A SUPERPOWER BY 2020 : A stupid survey but XYZ agency of Financial research in the US...

INDIA IS VERY CLOSE TO MY HEART says XYZ : Any Hollywood celebrity that comes to India is asked " How do you feel about coming here?" Here are the standard answers ( which prompt this headline): "Well Its different and its intriguing". "Its really nice, I like the food and the culture"...

FOLKS... Let us show some self-confidence now. If you are doing well, people are bound to talk about you. The last thing that we want is to get carried away with all this talking. Please do not give importance to such stupid headlines.... THEY PRINT IT BECAUSE WE LIKE READING IT.. Please get over this mentality...

Just let the Men in Blue be...

India lost the final wicket against Sri Lanka at 02:45 am and a mob attacked Zaheer Khan's restaurant at Pune at 03:00 am. Angry 'fans' stormed the under construcion house of Dhoni in Ranchi and tried to demolish it.

Now the question is .. are this people really fans of Indian cricket.??? I don't think so... Every man who is criticizing the team needs to understand that it is a game.. for God's sake, people lose, people win, whats the big deal in that..... Two lost games makes them a disastorous team, everybody starts criticizing the selection process and the domstic cricket system. Where were these people when India reached the Final of the last world cup with the same system being in place. I am not of the view that the selection process and the zonal cricket system are perfect, but the fact that every Indian needs to keep in mind is that true fans are those that support the team during its bad phase.....

If at all we cant support them, can't we jus LET THEM BE......!!!

Another Hijack...... are we really prepared

Amidst speculations that the terrorist groups are planning to plot another plane hijack, this time for their "hero" Afzal, the question that comes to our mind is that are we really ready, what if tomorrow this threat is materialized, do we have a solid policy to handle these critical situations. The answer is a big NO. We always believe in damage control, ours is always a reactive policy and not a proactive one.

Consider this scenario : An Indian pessanger plane is hijacked and taken to Afghanistan, or say POK. Now the terrorists demand a huge amount of cash and release of Afzal. As usual, our political clergy will announce not to panic ( although they are the ones who panic the most because of the lack of foresightedness to such events). Even if some really strong politician (which is a rare breed) requests the government not to succumb to their demands, I can predict what reply he will get from those cowards ruling this country " If the NDA government can free a terroroist as feirce and dangerous as Azhar Masood, why would we risk our public image by not releasing Afzal who is after all a "hero" to some of the people who call themselves "Indians"... "

And this will go on and on and on....... when will we have a government which will have a solid and aggeressive foreign policy.... when will the government that foreign policy is not all about getting appreciated by USA.. when will we have leaders who will not care about the world and let our soldiers croos the LOC if there is an infringement instead of letting them die.....when ??? when???..... The question troubles not only me but millions of other Indians.

North Korea.. Blasts and spits on Uncle Sam's face

Noth Korea proved to the world that there's survival beyond the shadow of the US and its allies. Amidst allegation that it got its technology through illegal transfer from Pakistan some people even speculate that the Pakistani government was involved in it.

Whatever may be the actual means of acquiring the technology, it is a big setback to the US intelligence agencies who boast on the kind of technology and network that they have. North Korea may have a thousand menacing objectives behind it but the way it almost slapped US on its face is worth admiring. I think Iran will also take a leaf out of N. Korea's book and not succumb to US pressure.

Beyond N. Korea's menacing objectives is a far more critical question, that of the illegal channel of Nuclear proliferation that has developed within Pakistan. If N. Korea can get it from Pakistan, why can't Osama Bin Laden with all his sources inside the Pakistan regime do the same????

Hang Afzal or hang ME....

Enough is enough..... we need to be active if not aggressive towards terrorism, how could people demand for mercy for a person who is responsible for the attack on our pride, our honour.....Faruq Abdullah, Mufti Mohammad Saeed are standing along with people of JKLF to demand mercy for a terrorist. Perfect example of India's contemparory political scenario where leaders will cross all limits of shamelessness to collect some votes.

If you ask me, Not only Afzal, but each and every person who was related with this or any other terror attack should be hanged. When will be stop being so soft, when will we become ruthless to kill this menace of terrorism..

We should set an example for other people who help terrorists by hanging Afzal.If our government can't kill Afzal because he has a family which needs mercy, I think all innocent people like us should be hanged, because they do not have families,they have no right to live , or else people like Afzal will kill us anyway.

Hindi...The language of uneducated people!!!!

Yesterday I saw an interview in which Karan Johar was talking about his childhood days and how he would not talk to kids who speak hindi and watch hindi movies just because they had a group who called themselves educated and sophisticated, and speaking in hindi was prohibited in their group .

Why should smart and sophisticated people speak hindi???? It is the language that signifies backwardness, a language that signifies poverty, ignorance and all the curses that a poor country like India has. You speak Hindi because you are not educated, you speak hindi becsause you belong to an inferior category of population. isn't it??????? Isn't this the psyche that is rapidly developing in our minds, and more dangerously the minds of our children, our budding citizens who depict the future of this country.

A very recent incidence I'd like to quote at this point. I went to a mall in Pune, and I saw two kids not more than 8 years old quarreling with each other, they were speaking in such fluent english that amazed me. There's a very significant inference that one can draw in the way those two kids were speaking. That they were taught to speak in english from the very beggining of their lives. Their parents want them to become educated and smart, and english is the only way to do that. Lets consider this... all people in US and UK speak in english (of course they will... as it is their native language), so does that mean that all are doctors and engineers and all of them are smart citizens of the world.

There's a joke that I used to crack when I was a child, a sardarji comes back from US and says , man that country is really well educated.... even a sweeper talks in english there. The above mentioned parents can take a very good lesson out of this joke.

It does not mean that I am strictly against speaking in english, this we can't do because all our education is done in english, we have all scientific studies and researches being carried out in english, this can't be changed now, coz being under the brithish rule for more than two centuries, this price we will have to pay. But it does not mean that we start identifying hindi as an inferior language, Scientifically speaking, no language in this world can challenge Hindi and Sanskrit (Food for thought for the 'educated' people)
Germans, Russians, French, Japanese, Chinese and many other countries of the world conduct all of their scientific studies in their own language, not in thr 'universal' language i.e. english. One might argue at this point that we are a a knowledge superpower only because our people are well versed in english.

If you ask me , we are not knowledge superpower and we can never be if we continue to move in the same direction that we are right now. We hardly develop anything new, what others develop, we can follow, we can troubleshoot the technology that others have invented but we can never develop anything on our own. But the discussion on that is beyond the scope of this article.

Lets accept one thing, that whatever may be the reason, english is the need of the hour for us. But in the quest to learn english, lets not lose our own linguistic identity. A very important incident I'd mention at this point.... Few months back, there was a meeting where the finance ministers of all EU countries gathered to discuss fiscal matters. A French minister started addressing the meeting in english, at that very instance, one senior french minister stopped him and told him to speak in French. Its an inspiring thing for all, if we can uphold the honour of our language in front of the whole world then only we can be called the true children of our land.
Lets not get into a condition where we greet each other on 'Hindi Divas' as "Hey man... Happy Hindi Day" ( This has happened to me). Lets teach our people to respect our native language (not only hindi but other regional languages also). For that we dont need to have a revolution, we just need to educate our children accordingly .... because they are the future of this country, and if this is not done then after a few more generation, hindi will become extinct.

White meets black to fight BROWN

Twelve Indians treated like criminals, handcuffed and put in a single cell without charge...... The only charge that they could understand was that they do not belong to the world of Blacks and Whites.... "They were acting suspiciously.. and whatever was done was correct" Quotes the policeman of the world "USA"...Successful businessman from the East.. most of them millionaires were behaving suspiciously... as if they dont have anything else to do.... Can anyone define what does 'suspicious behaviour' mean..... talking in Asian languages ( which happens to be their respective native languages), is that a metric of suspicion.? If yes, then we should all start talking in english or a European language... else all of us are terrorists looking to blow off the West.

If Israel can demolish Lebanon, killing innocent civilians just because two of its soldiers were kidnapped... why cant we show some aggression when the pride of our nation is at stake.. Those twelve people were not handcuffed... our national pride, our honour was handcuffred.... People have raised a finger on our very existence..... If still we cant do anything, then we deserve to be treated like this.