Set Kasab Free !

Its been 2 years Ajmal Kasab is behind bars and has been awarded death penalty, is not a news now. I have noticed in one of the publications that the daily cost to keep him alive is Rs 8.5 lakh per day. Yes, its PER DAY. So calculating the cost that our treasury incurred for the last two years is upto your math abilities :)

Our Government and legal experts declare that every accused has to be provided legal assistance however heinous the convict be. And similar "provisions" has been given to other "guests" like Afzal Guru (the mastermind behind Parliament attack) who is being taken care of for the last 10 years despite being convicted and awarded death sentence and Azhar Masood (chief of Jaish-e-Mohammad, set free after Kandahar Hijack).

So it goes without saying that Kasab WILL NEVER BE HANGED and we have to either see him enjoy Govt provided facilities or get free after some arm-twisting from terror organizations via a hijack or a kidnap. So we have to face either budget crisis or embarrassment, but never justice. Because judiciary is being continually raped by Government's appeasement and dormancy. So I feel it makes sense to set Kasab free.

The country witnessed Kasab and co's outrageous war on the country live. The public outcry went mega-decibels. Many martyrs including Hemant Karkare were shot dead. But congress politicians like Abdul Rahman Antulay declared in a couple of days that the ATS chief was killed by "Hindu Terrorists" and not militants. That is being fostered by Digvijay Singh of his party. The whole political party is hell bent on shielding anti-national elements despite the martyr's own wife's rebuttal.

Rahul Gandhi, who is put on the pedestal by some herd of sycophants just because he is a son of some ex-prime minister has an audacity of telling a foreign diplomat that "Hindu Terrorisim" is more dangerous than Lashkar-e-Taiba. Home Minister, P.Chidambaram raised concerns about "saffron terrorism" and interestingly never sounded so interested in any other color.

Inability to counter terrorism, intelligence failure can be forgiven. But can shielding, protecting and saving terrorists guilty of waging war against the country for last 3 decades be forgiven ? and that too through maligning a majority community and their sacred color ?

Muslims form 13% of Indian population and its a fact that all Muslims should not be identified as terrorists. Only 2% of Indians who happen to be Muslims turn fundamentalists and have been troubling the nation since late 1980's. And reasonably nobody used the term "Green Terrorism" as its an objectionable term as it affects the whole community.

Rahul Gandhi, Antulay, Digvijay Singh, Chidambaram and others of congress, Mulayam Singh, Laloo yadav, Ram Vilas Paswan of other parties always try to defend terrorists assuming they are appeasing the Muslim votebank. But they are ignorant of the fact that not all 13% of Indians identify themselves with these militants or their fundamentalism.

"Muslims" as a votebank appeals to most of the politicians and especially Congress, RJD, LJP, SP which appease one community are usually called "Secular parties" by our Indian media, especially by our beloved Barkha Dutt, Rajdeep Sardesai, Prannoy Roy.

These secular parties abhor "Hindu nationalist" parties like BJP, Shiv Sena and affiliated organizations like RSS, VHP, ABVP. But interestingly ally with MIM of Hyderabad and Muslim League of kerala :). Going a step forward, Congress though an ally of Majlis (MIM) in Hyderabad, also contests elections along with MIM. Can you guess why ?

Hmm, the reason is that its a general knowledge that Muslims in Hyderabad vote amass to MIM thus consolidating Muslim votebank, but its Congress' responsibility to break Hindu votes as they know all Hindus don't vote based on religion. In this way they could always block religious BJP, help MIM and prove itself to be SECULAR !!!

By the way, secularism in India also means providing a certain community special rights, special treatment based on their religion and treating rest of the "second class" citizens as per the state law (common civil code) and secularism also means over-riding supreme court judgement of upholding a woman's rights to appease a religious tenet (Shah Bano case).

Muslims as a community might not want this discrimination but politicians in a urge to appease them can go to any extent and even to malign Hinduism.Talking about Hindu Terrorism:

Hindus for 80% of the population today (and obviously were 100% some centuries ago). India and Indus valley civilization are the products of a way of life, which is called Hinduism. Etymology of Hindu says its people of India. Once the richest and most prosperous place of the world attracted many foreign merchants, artists, invaders and exploiters. Hindus received everybody, shared their wealth, their country and at times suffered. But never were xenophobes.

India with a population of over 95% of Hindus was ruled by Muslims (for centuries) who were mere 5% which shows the defensive or generous attitude of Hindus. They took minorities into their fold, made them feel at home and later abnegated a part of their land too.

From time immemorial, Hindus had no unity, were always welcoming, appeasing other communities in various ways and were perfect hosts. Hinduism being one of the world's oldest religions didn't refer to practices of other religions as false or bad.  If Hindus were "terrorists" or if Hindus were extremists or aggressive ever, India would have not been what it is today. Period !

But these pack of wolves (appeasement parties) started this maligning campaign through historians, educationalists, media and politics and put Hindu nationalists against the wall and waited for some retaliation from indigenous groups so that they can brand them as terrorists and balance the outrageous crimes of anti-nationals.

And there were some Hindu fools and fundamentalists who paved the way to this black mark. I personally denounce BJP leadership including LK Advani, MM Joshi, Uma Bharti and VHP bigwigs like Ashok Singhal, Vinay Katiyar and likes who incited masses to demolish a Muslim religious structure. Irrespective of historical and archeological facts, demolishing a place of faith under current democracy is an unacceptable crime and the perpetrators should have been strictly punished. So is the case with Narendra Modi who executed a state sponsored backlash against innocent Muslims, Sadhvi Pragya, Swami Aseemanand who are accused of terrorism (if at all they are convicted).

These pack of fools have done something which gave an opportunity to pseudo secularists, Muslim fundamentalists, hostile neighbors to raise their voice. Barkha Dutt, Rajdeep Sardesai and likes have never missed an opportunity to make stories about Hindu terrorism. But I wished they also covered news stories about hundreds of temples demolished after Babri demolition and also about the mastermind behind Godhra incident as Gujarat also saw massacre of hundreds of Hindus apart from Muslims, massacre of Hindu pandits and families in Kashmir and so on.

But that would not happen in India.

Communication Skills Vs Language Skills

Its a general perception that those who speak fluently and write eloquently are good communicators, thats true in most of the cases, but there can be exceptions. Communication, per se, is making other person understand exactly what you have in your mind and understanding exactly what the other person is trying to say. Language is a channel for communication.

Language skills, oratory skills,  fluency, command over grammar and vocabulary give an extra edge in communication or presenting ourselves but unfortunately, not all are blessed with these skills.

I always get jealous and envious of people who can talk eloquently and present their mind lucidly in speech or writing. I always tried to be like that, but could never be :D

I know am not remarkably good at written English, so is the case with spoken English, I suck at Hindi and I even search for words while speaking Hindi. Now don't even ask about written Hindi. My parents' objectives of admitting me in English convents, Hindi pandit courses went futile :D. I can manage written or spoken Telugu as its my mother tongue. I don't know/understand any other language in this world :(

Now that I realized that improving language skills is not my cup of tea anymore, I'm seriously contemplating to work on my non verbal communication skills and other soft skills. The bottom line is that I have to drill my audience's minds by connecting with their interests, intellect and personalities without wasting my effort on vocab, pace or grammar. Wish me luck :)

Dadagiri ROCKS !!!

1987 Reliance World Cup introduced me to the world of cricket. There was a kind of sudden sprout of patriotism everywhere in India thanks to the winning of previous world cup held in 1983. Till 1987 world cup, I was not much exposed to cricket or for that matter any other sport.

I vividly remember scenes when my cousins and I were glued to the idiot box right from the titles before every match when the cricketing eleven were introduced with their names as sub-titles. Srikkanth and Sidhu were hot favorites initially and my dad was vehemently discussing match results with his friends everyday :) Nostalgic, huh !!!

Like every other Indian, the cricket fever started gripping me and my everyday routine included playing cricket from 4 pm to sunset; galli cricket that was :) and that went on for next 10 years. Never used to miss watching a match especially when India was playing. Patriotism was all about cheering Indian cricket team then.

But Indian team was always an under-dog and had a defensive attitude. Never went aboard with the intention of playing despite having all-time greats like Sunil Gavaskar, Dilip Vengsarkar, Ravi Shastri and co. Kapil Dev was the only player and captain who had shown some kind of fighting and winning spirit.

Then came the sensation who later was called as the master blaster or the God of cricket, Sachin Tendulkar himself. Sachin was a phenomenon when he kicked off and I remember him as a darling of girls as was projected in news stories too. He revolutionized cricket and started intimidating other players double his age and experience. Sanjay Manjrekar, Ajay Jadeja and Vinod Kambli brought in fresh breath into the team which was otherwise infested with politics, carelessness, negligence despite fine talent.

Until 1996, Sachin was the only saving grace and the whole team was dependent only on his performance and consistency. Advent or Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid changed the scene. Indian team batting line-up during 1996 world cup was the strongest on paper with Md Azhar at the helm with Jadeja, Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid forming the formidable line up. Though the team reached semis, the winning attitude was a distant fantasy and match fixing scandals aggravated the situation. Azhar, Jadeja had to quit leaving the command to Sachin.

Sachin Tendulkar proved that his individual technical skills are not enough to make a formidable team. It takes much more. As Harsha Bhogle pointed out in one of his recent speeches at IIMA that attitude is more important than talent and that is something displayed by Sourav Ganguly, the next captain who is the architect of modern Indian cricket which knows what is winning.

Sourav was the kind of captain who taught to fight back, who instilled the winning attitude, who never feared to support his team members, who taught how not to get bogged down by sledging, who made evident the importance of confidence factor and how to psychologically win over opponents. These kind of non-technical intricacies were very important to pull the team from the conservative defensive mode, the team was known for.

The winning team or so called match winners like Sehwag, Bhajji, Pathan,Yuvraj, Dhoni, Gambhir, Zaheer were either handpicked or supported by him and were given ample chances to prove their mettle. Before Sourav's captaincy, Indian team never worked as a "team". The only other captains who built the team so meticulously and commanded the team affairs and showed true blue leadership skills were Arjuna Ranatunga, Allan Border and Vivian Richards.

All those silly brouhaha about his performance and silly jokes about his form were uncalled for as the age old saying goes, form is temporary and class is permanent. He was called God on off side, his square cuts, square drives were infallible, his timing, his lofts over midwicket were one of a kind. For all those who criticize him for not being a good player, the records shout louder than their cribs

Player	Span	Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	HS	Ave	BF	SR	100	50	0
SR Tendulkar (India)	1989-2010	442	431	41	17598	200*	45.12	20401	86.26	46	93	20
ST Jayasuriya (SL)	1989-2009	444	432	18	13428	189	32.43	14719	91.22	28	68	34
RT Ponting (Aus)	1995-2010	352	343	37	13082	164	42.75	16226	80.62	29	79	19
Inzamam-ul-Haq (Pak)	1991-2007	378	350	53	11739	137*	39.52	15812	74.24	10	83	20
SC Ganguly (India)	1992-2007	311	300	23	11363	183	41.02	15416	73.70	22	72	16

So clearly, he is the best batsman India has seen after Sachin. Yes, not even Rahul Dravid, Sehwag or others come close inspite of playing in more ODIs than Sourav (who started his career in 1992 but was kept aside till 1996). With 22 centuries in ODIs, he again is second to Sachin. Rahul and co are far behind here too. Dada was the guy who scored most runs for India in the previous world cup (after being written off and sacked from the team earlier).

In test matches too, Sourav's average was more than 40 and despite being criticized as a bad fielder, he took more than 100 catches in both forms of cricket which put him in top 7 in fielding in Indian cricket history. And yeah he was a medium pacer too and has records of 5 scalps which again was done by very few.

Now who can blame him for being a bad player ? His limitations in playing short pitch balls, leg-side, running between the wickets didn't stop him to create records, win matches.

And during his captaincy, Sourav never encouraged regionalism by continually selecting and harboring players of his region unlike his predecessors or successors. No Bengali ever got undue advantage when Sourav was at helm. But he himself became a victim of regional discrimination coupled by propaganda and politics played by selectors like Kiran More, Dilip Vengsarkar and co. During the ugly spat with Chappell (who did no good for India during his stint as the coach), none of his contemporaries or team members benefited by him supported him.

He is a legend, good batsman, resourceful bowler, exceptional captain, born leader, DABANGG and a maharaja in its true sense. Dadagiri ROCKS and his legacy is unmatched and unforgettable.

PS: I stopped watching cricket after his exit.

"Don't Care" or "Don't Know" ????

Lot of people when asked about their take on current affairs or latest political developments say "I don't care". And in most cases, the underlying statement remains that they don't have enough knowledge to decide if they should care or not :)

When we care enough to be a part of the society, to benefit or suffer from the rules of society, its establishment, its Government, we ought to care for the happenings around us.

Agreed that most of these happenings are directed by the corrupt forces of the society and we can't do much about it; but we should atleast be conscious and aware of the abuse thats going on with our basic rights, duties and our hard earned money going towards the state's exchequer. Awareness doesn't mean we are supporting everything going on.

When we don't shy off from "caring" the news about entertainment industry and sporting circles and also gossips about friends, colleagues and neighbors, it doesn't harm trying to get exposed to some more serious business.

The gen next or the youth assume that its older generation's business to cling to newspapers as they don't have anything else to do. But on the contrary, it is this gen next which needs more exposure as they can't afford to face the embarrassment of under-exposure and half baked knowledge in public fora, group discussions and professional or academic gatherings.

Today's generation is far more aware, knowledgeable and thinking than those in yesteryears and kids in early 20's are seriously contemplating about the prospects of jumping into the entrepreneurial world and are more focussed and aware of economic trends and the effects caused by socio-politico-techno trends.

Those who are career oriented started showing their interest in general knowledge and social awareness too as thats a vital tool  to cruise across aptitude tests, corporate ladders and professional lobbying too. And all those kids who still think serious news and current affairs are not their cup of tea are definitely missing a lot in the longer run.

For all working or business classes, its equally important to know, understand and assimilate the day to day news particularly when a part of our earnings are contributed towards running the society, when every decision taken by the Government, every policy approved by the parliament, every rule ammended in the constitution affects our well-being, our style and standard of living.

And with the kind of technical advancements, its not difficult either. Twitter has emerged the king and king-maker in this business of generating awareness. Scamsters and corrupted thugs who earlier didn't face the public wrath are now seeing the angry face of public through the twitter revolution. Mumbai attacks, 2G scam, CWG scam, media blackout, adarsh scam - no topic is exempt from public denouncement. Jessica Lal, Priyadarshini Mattoo cases have been put under hammer, only due to the increase in public outcry.

Facebook, Google form other sources which made traditional newspapers and TV channels a passe. If you want to get aware, you can do that with your fingertips through click of your mouse. You have the choice to be dumb like a dead-wood and move around with a mask of not caring or know whats happening with the money and vote you contributed to make the system. THE CHOICE IS YOURS.

Rs.1700000000000 Scam - Politicians, Media, Corporate etc

Can you read this number  1700000000000 ? Its 1.7 lakh crore rupees, roughly equivalent to $ 40 billion


This is the loss to the nation caused by the latest 2G spectrum scam. Coincidentally this is the amount India owes to World Bank. So a pack of politicians, corporate honchos and journalist lobbyists have embezzled the amount that India could have freed itself from World Bank debt and hence so many consequential issues.


This is one scam which puts the other scams of 2010, namely commonwealth scam, Adarsh scam, Yedyurappa's land scam, other powerbroking and horsetrading scams, to shame.


Corporate world (Ratan Tata - who claimed that he lost the airline business chance as he didn't bribe a minister some 15 yrs back) got an unfair deal from the then minister A Raja. Raja got the telecom ministry thanks to the powerful lobbying that went on which involved Niira Radia, a PR specialist and her accomplices in crimes like these being Barkha Dutta (NDTV), Rajdeep Sardesai (CNN IBN), Vir Sanghvi (Hindustan Times), Prabhu Chawla (Aaj Tak, India Today) etc


These journalists talk about "talking" to congress to manipulate ministries to their favorite politicians, "scripting" the interviews with corporate heads, so on and so forth. And not to mention, most of these are PadmaShris. This is a tip of the iceberg as it has been mentioned only by few media outlets and most of the electronic and print media has blacked this news out.


And these eminent journalists go hammer and tongs about the issues the country is facing through their debates (err..biased debates), scripted stories through the unfair and unnecessary freedom to media. 


DISGUSTING

Anti-Brahminism

I'm a non practicing Brahmin; meaning I'm a brahmin just by birth and not by actions. Only in my late teens did I take my caste seriously when I was undergoing my engineering admission counseling since caste was an important parameter there. Till then there was no such topic or context at home or friends or relatives, where I had to know my caste, thanks to the kind of upbringing I had.

But later once my social conscience started developing and I started observing news and society, I came across many incidents where the oppressed class were treated in-humanly by the people belonging to my social community. I read more about the social stigma, caste-politics and felt it was awful. I read about anti-brahminic movements and tried to understand the root causes for this kind of retaliation and I had to admit that Brahmins were (and are at many instances) highly dominating and discriminating against other social communities.

Then I met some fundamentalists from my own caste who deplored me for not feeling proud of my caste, for not avoiding other so called oppressed classes and who blamed me for committing blasphemy by not following basic tenets of Brahminism, as I was not a huge theist.

I then tried to skim through some holy scriptures and some books like Manusmriti which advocated brahmin supremacy. Out of many other points, what I learnt was that a Brahmin should

• Perform, practice and teach Yoga
• Should read and be knowledgeable of Vedas, Upanishads
• Should survive on alms (charity, donations)
• Should perform priestly activities and should never work for a business or other jobs.
• Should never travel across a sea
• Should perform all religious rituals including sandhya vandanam, surya namaskaram.
• Should live a life of austerity
• Should avoid non vegetarian, onion, garlic, alcohol, tobacco. (but this is the only tenet which is used for accusing or ridiculing. None of the above mentioned duties are taken seriously by brahmins and non-brahmins alike :D)

Now, for my surprise, I never came across anybody who follow all these duties and prove themselves to be good Brahmins, but these jokers have enough guts to charge me of blasphemy. But I never minded being accused by hypocrites anyways.

Just when I thought I was being rational and human, I came across another set of fanatics, who were thoroughly anti-brahminic and they started blaming me for discrimination and started ridiculing me for being a brahmin. I was blamed by them as being a fake-brahmin just because I don't follow the duties mentioned in manusmriti (which is ironically hated by many non-brahmins). For these half-baked minds, here is the list of rights the very manusmriti advocates.
A Brahmin

• Should be treated like a God
• Is the supreme human and be respected before anything or anybody else
• belongs to the privileged class and everybody else should submit themselves to brahmins etc.

Now, how many who ridicule brahmins of not following basic duties follow these above mentioned privileges given by the same books. Another irony is that the same set of people never cared or possessed knowledge of any duties, rules or rights of their own castes or social communities.

The whole point I'm trying to drive home is that these books which advocate supremacy of any particular community are impractical in current generation of secularism and democracy. The rights and duties mentioned in such scriptures are not necessarily right as they were written by people earlier to reflect the society in their generations. Times change, people should too.

There is a history of discrimination by brahmins which I admit and hence the anti-brahminic sentiment among non-brahmins is evident and logical. Brahmins and other such classes should shed their shell of supremacy and  understand the ground reality that they are as equal as their fellow countrymen.

Also anti-brahmins need to understand that brahmins are not a privileged class anymore, thanks to constitution, reservations, social awareness. Today's brahmins are economically backward sections with no support in community with regard to reservations, special treatment, social stigma, point of ridicule.

Social equality is inevitable and necessary. But social equality can be attained by abolition of social supremacy of forward and aggressive classes and abolition of reservations and appeasement of oppressed classes - two way, it is. 

Now how many are ready for it is a million dollar question.

Media - Mafia

Few days back, I happened to stumble upon a New Delhi based news channel which was covering a fatal train accident scene. The news was heart-breaking but what was more conspicuous was the reporter's continual rant about his channel being the first news channel to reach the spot and cover the story.

The newsreader sitting in the office asks: "If you believe the accident was due to the human error, sms "A", if you think the accident was due to technical failure, sms "B" to so and so number".

The media is called a fourth estate and is given unquestionable rights for bringing the news to the masses and keeping them abreast of the events and happenings. But what the intelligentsia, who wrote the constitution, didn't realize was that the very MEDIA could one day become a MAFIA.

Recounting the deadly attack on Mumbai by Kasab and co, their bosses hiding somewhere planned the whole massacre meticulously considering media's role and quite expectedly for them, media played an unpaid accomplice to their evil acts. When the security and Mumbai police tried to scatter the journalists, then started a debate on national television as whether those journalists have "rights" to cover the "event" or not. Sick.

I remember another funny incident when Arthi Agarwal got married in Hyderabad, jokers from TV9 barged into their private celebrations and when stopped by the actress' dad and brother, they were slammed an FIR and dragged behind the bars (oh yeah, on the very memorable day) and later got released on "humanitarian grounds"; and that was boasted on the TV as breaking news for the next few days.

News agencies which, during their inception, garnered popularity through their "hidden camera sting operations" started publishing the news selectively because not all sting-victims could offer lucrative packages to the big bosses of media houses, rather interesting, huh.

National, regional or vernacular print or electronic media house; politicians have friends everywhere. In some cases, owned by them too. Come election season, we can't really distinguish between a newspaper or a political party manifesto. Hawala cases, sting operations, horse trading videos would be published by one channel and the other channel vehemently tries to refute or defend the accused.

In the whole circus, viewers and readers are taken for a ride, and an optimistic lot will derive entertainment out of the nastiest, crudest and most biased news presentations too :)

Moving out the political affiliations and twisted reports, the other section of news media which is even worse is the gossip tabloid kind of sources. The only end objective would be bagging as many eye-balls as possible, even at the cost of the most insane and ambiguous headlines and the most senseless stories. For any such crude and down-market news, "great andhra", "mid day" are always there.

Movie reviewers fascinate me. Its a white secret that every well-known reviewer has his/her own set of "favorite" stars or directors and here favorite can be creatively or financially :)

There are some exclusive tv channels which take pride in being "gossip" channels. The more intelligent news channels broadcast obscene mms clips and scandals of people in compromising positions with an intent of "social welfare". And everything is strictly to present "news" to the viewers. TRPs, huh !!!!

Stupid debates, frivolous shows and stories instead of news - Thats a new era mafia, err....media. Those who watched "Rann" and "Peepli Live" would not take long to agree with me.

My brush with media:

I was professionally involved in some media related activities when I was working as a marketing face of my respective companies back home in India and here in Canada too.

Before my stint with press releases, press conferences for my companies, I assumed that the way to get into news is through excellence or success in the field. But later realized its not per sē. Excellence is good for us, not the media - This is the basic tenet I failed to grasp initially.

An industry defining alliance, debut of a new generation product, multi-million deal - nothing is a better news than a silly plagiarized and unimpressive press note which can rake in the moolah for the publication in form of cash or kind.

More diplomatic publications ask for donations or advertisements to publish our press release or arrange a press conference. If we don't oblige and if they need stories, they will publish our story and edit it to the core to make sure the gist is lost or the person who didn't succumb to their demands is eclipsed. After-all its their call :)

So next time when you watch a news channel or read a news paper, have a pinch of salt in your hands and if you want your own story to be broadcasted or published, have a fat paycheck in your hands. Know that you are dealing with MAFIA.

Indo-Pak Enmity - Who is responsible ?

The second bloodiest dispute and the most volatile issue on Planet Earth - Kashmir tussle; and as usual everybody has an opinion about it and no prizes for guessing that I have an opinion too.

Common man of India and Pakistan fume at the name of his neighboring country and their patriotism is directly proportionate to the hatred towards their betenoire nation, thanks to the structural programming of historians, politicians, bureaucrats, diplomats and media on both sides of the border. But there are a lot of things which are conveniently forgotten and deliberately avoided.

A conflict doesn't arise by bad moves by only one side and Indo-Pak issue is a perfect example which resulted in decades of mistrust, animosity and hatred despite common culture, tastes, social issues and thought process. The fact that simmering Kashmir dispute is a residue of Partitioning British India doesn't need any mention. Looking back at the facts:

Pakistan has been divided from India on the pretext of Muslim sovereignty to balance Hindu domination on the minority. But the history says otherwise. Islam's advent in India dates back to 10th century AD and for a millennium, muslims became a part of India, Indian culture, tradition, contributed to the heritage, ruled the country; Yet there was not an iota of religious discrimination against Muslims.

Muslims were as much responsible for attaining freedom as Hindus were. Iqbal penned the omnipresent "Sara Jahan Se Acha, Hindustan Hamara" in the very 20th century and Md.Jinnah himself was a vocal freedom fighter which shows the religious unity amongst all Indians irrespective of their faith. Then where did this religious intolerance against Muslims come in all of a sudden in a span of few months ?

Yes, the answers are personal ambitions, egos and mutual mistrust and of course British's divide and rule policy. MK Gandhi in an attempt to pacify one side, became a victim of another side; provocative speeches, negative instigation played its part and rest is the history. Nehru and Jinnah are the culprits and anybody with some grey matter in their mind would agree to this.

A newborn country was torn into pieces just on the basis of religion. But ironically the number of Muslims in India are almost equal (or maybe more) as those in Pakistan and the proportion of land and resources which got divided too refuted all laws of proportion. India got a raw deal. Partition saw the bloodiest massacres of human history and the mutual hatred was nothing but imminent.

Darkest era of South Asian history was only at its dawn yet. the worst was yet to come.

Race among annexing states started and Pakistan got the raw deal here. Hyderabad, Junagadh were forcedly annexed into India though police action because the population were largely Hindus, though the rulers resisted. But Kashmir's decision was left to the Hindu ruler and not Muslim majority population. This again refuted all principles of justice. This is a scar on Pakistan's self respect, identity which denies to fade away for decades. Further India's beloved PM Indira Gandhi interfered into Pakistan's internal politics to break Bangladesh away which was a catalyst to the already bruised situation.

Today for Indians, Pakistan is a country which was broken away from their motherland for people following a foreign faith, a country which is now trying to usurp Kashmir from them, sending infiltrators, terrorists to their country. For Pakistanis, India is a country which tried to inflict insults and wounds before partition through domination and then forcefully wrested Hyderabad, Junagadh, broke Bangladesh from Pakistan and now committing atrocities on Muslim majority Kashmir which should belong to Pakistan.

Can we blame anybody? No !!! Both sides have been demonstrating their evil face and the result is before our eyes.

Now anything that happens in India is squarely blamed on ISI and anything that happens in Pakistan is blamed on RAW (and most of the times, true). Pakistani military, Jaish-e-Mohd, Lashkar-e-Toiba are villains for India whereas Indian Military is so for Pakistan (and most of the times, true).

A coin has two sides !

Pure Hindi - New Age Sanskrit ?

विदेश में रहने का सबसे बड़ी हानि यह है की हमें हिंदी में बातचीत करने का अवसर बहुत ही कम मिलता है (विशेष रूप में अगर आपका मातृभाषा हिंदी ना हो थो ). और शायद ये दिन भी देखना पड़े जब हिंदी के कुछ शब्द बोलने केलिए तड़पना पड़ें (जैसे की मैं इन दिनों कई गतियों में अपने आप को पा रहा हु :) )


कहाँ जाता है की जो हैदराबाद में पला बड़ा होता है, उसको हिंदी भाषा से एक तरह की लगाव रहता है और मैं भी इसी धारा का हिस्सा हु. इसी लगाव, माँ की प्रोथ्साहन से दक्षिण भारत हिंदी प्रचार सभा के द्वारा आयोजित परीक्षावो में भी रुची दिखा कर सहनीय औसत से उतीर्ण भी हुआ था. अगर मेरी याद्दाश टीक है थो मैं शायद प्रथामिका, मध्यमा, राष्ट्रभाषा और प्रवेशिका नामक परीक्षावो केलिए बहुत कतिनायी के साथ तैयार हुआ था और अगर चार और परीक्षावो में उतीर्ण होता थो आधिकारिक रूप से हिंदी पंडित माना जाता था.

मगर उस से दृष्टी छूट गयी और हिंदी ज्ञान और व्याकरण भी कुछ हद थक बिगड़ने लगा. और व्यावहारिक रूप में शुद्ध हिंदी की प्रयोग भी कुछ सीमा के बाद कटिन होता है और विशेष रूप से हैदराबाद जैसे शहर में जहाँ हिंदी, उर्दू, दक्किनी एवं हिन्दुस्तानी बोलियों को मिश्रण करके उपयोग किया जाता है. और यह दक्षिण भारत के कई प्रदेशो में लागू है जहा हिंदी प्राथमिक थौर पे बोला नहीं जाता.


इसके पश्चात यदि हिंदी भाषा की विकास और प्रसार देश के चारो ओर है, तो इसका श्रेय हिंदी चलचित्र परिश्रम और हिंदी टेलीविज़न माध्यम को मिलता है. बीते कुछ दशक के कई हिंदी भाषिक चित्र और कार्यक्रम के द्वारा भाषा ज्ञान प्राप्त करने और सुधारने वोलों की संख्या बहुत है.


मगर चिंता की बात यह ही की इन माध्यमो द्वारा प्रस्थुथ हिंदी में भी अन्य भाषाओ (जैसे की उर्दू, पंजाबी, मराठी) का अधिक प्रयोग करने की कारण हिंदी की विनीत भाव पर प्रभाव पड़ना निश्चित है और अगले पीड़ी को व्याकरण बध शुद्ध हिंदी बहुत ही अव्यवहारिक और अनुचित भी लगने लगता है.


संस्कृत जो अनेक हिन्दुस्तानी और संसार के कई भाषाओ का मूल है, आज शिथिल और निष्क्रिय है और कई अन्य भाषाओ को भी यही परिणाम सहना पड़ेगा. आशा करते है की भारत का राष्ट्रिय भाषा एवं संसार का चौथा सबसे अधिक बोली भाषा को योग्य सम्मान मिले.


PS: यह लेख मेरी हिंदी ज्ञान को सुधरने, दिलचस्पी को वर्णन करने और चिंता व्यक्त करने केलिए लिख रहा हु. क्योंकि मेरी मथ्रुभाषा हिंदी नहीं है और नाही मैं हिंदी साहित्य का जानकारी रखता हु, मेरे लेख में कई दोष होंगे. अपने लीकित और मौखिक हिंदी का सुधार करने की प्रयास करूंगा :)

Software Bonded Labor in India

I've recently spoken to my friends working in software companies in Hyderabad and immediately got nostalgic about my stint with IT industry there. Trends haven't changed much and so haven't work habits.

As known to the world, white collared professionals especially in IT field in India slog for their companies and that has become a part of their lifestyle. Working 12 hours per day is very common and is stamped as professionalism. 10 am -6 pm would be the official working hours but only the start time is fixed. Its an unwritten rule that the time to call it a day should be extended to 3-4 more hours after the "official day" ends.

Quite often HR teams also identify that the resources (employees) need to religiously follow the punctuality..and again as mentioned, time to leave for the day is never considered under this "punctuality".

In one of my earlier experiences, the top management identified the need to increase the working hours and they changed the morning reporting time from 10 am to 9 am. I never understood why they did not change the leaving time instead, from 6:30 am to 7:30 pm. Oh, may be because they are anyways stealing evening time from the employees by moral policing.

If somebody leaves at 6:30 pm, they are looked with contempt or it would be decided that he/she will not last long in that company :) Keeping expectations aside, the employees themselves feel the need to work more to find themselves in the good books of bosses, some by addiction and some to avoid people back home and some of those motivated people who feel they are being paid much more than what they deserve.

But very few realize that they are the victims of bonded labor. This is how it works:

A low profile software company if working on an outsourced project (mostly from US or UK) will be paid $25 per hour. This is a win-win situation for both the parties involved because the outsourcing company needs to pay anything between $40 or $70 per hour if the same project is executed in US.

Now the company which receives $25 per hour will not invest more than $7 - $10 per hour for the project executing (including salaries, resources, amenities, administration etc). So a table profit of $15 per hour to the company is assured whereas $7 as salary to the resource (optimistically assuming an employee gets Rs 50,000 per month as their net take home). So putting down just the figures.

$45 (if project executed in US)

$25 (if project outsourced to India)

$7 (salary paid to the employee)

Who is the winner ? Clearly not the employee ! I'm not recommending equity to employees but the management of those companies should not exploit their human resources in the name of professionalism and productivity.

But an average employee never ceases to get motivated enough to work 12-14 hours per day. And HR team and top management always try their best to optimize employee's "professionalism" by expecting them to work for more than what they are paid for.

And oh yeah ! the very word "overtime payment" is taboo as an offer letter mentions all terms and conditions clearly. By the way, if I remember properly, the offer letter states CTC (cost to company) instead of gross salary. CTC also includes the amount equivalent to provision of free coffee, infrastructure and also washroom facilities, I guess. The net take home after all deductions would be a rude bouncer :)

I never knew and will never know the difference between this kind of white collared bonded labor and agricultural or construction bonded labor. Just that the IT bonded labor are provided plush amenities.

This is a seriously disturbing trend and pure exploitation of talent and knowledge.

Dealing with Negativity

Anger, frustration, disappointment, hatred - very strong and disturbing negative emotions which eat away one's mind and heart. Everybody has a choice of venting out these emotions: blurting out or forgiving.

Blurting out never repairs things and might occasionally backfire and will only prove that you value others' convictions and thoughts. Forgiving is possible only for people like Mahatma Gandhi or super-matured humans. This article is for those who want a third way out.

The way is to stop respecting or acknowledging the very existence of the source of these negativity. Be it people, things or situations. One goes through trauma only till he/she reacts to circumstances and values them.

Just understand that our life is way too important for us and we make a circle of loved ones only to make our life more beautiful. Once we start loosing our peace of mind, dignity due to anybody (including those supposedly loved ones), obviously they should cease to be loved ones and should be like any of those billions of people in the world who just "exist" for us.

Nobody is perfect and hence everybody has people who love or hate them. Just realize who love you and take them into your fold and everybody else would end up being some "living organisms" and nothing more than that.

If you feel bad as somebody doesn't think good about you, doesn't care for you, takes your love for granted - its only because you still feel they deserve your reaction to their acts. And realize that the person who backbites you is in the most convenient position to KISS YOUR A**

Congress Party - Boon or Bane ?

Indian National Congress is reportedly the largest and oldest democratic political party of the world with a very memorable history and leadership for more than a century.

In 63 years after independence, Congress party was/is in power for 55 years. So it implies without saying that whatever India is today, good or bad, the credit squarely goes to the grand old party. But what did they do to earn this power and what did they do with the power is altogether a different question. Looking back:

JL Nehru was more known for being an elite member and the most visible face among the political fraternity rather than his personal sacrifices for independence struggle. His affair with Edwina Mountbatten as a legendary folklore is more popular than his diplomatic achievements. His association with Gandhi, personal charisma and monetary status conferred him the prime minister-ship without any hurdle.

I won't mince a word before declaring my opinion that Nehru was the worst prime minister, India ever had. The kind of potential and fire in the newly independent country could have done wonders but bad decision making and mismanagement turned the tables for the whole country which inflicted a bad bruise on the face of Indian commoner.

Partition and subsequent riots that left a scar on both communities was very much avoidable if Nehru -Jinnah ego clash subsided. The scar developed into an unresolvable pit in the name of Kashmir conflict, thanks to his poor crisis management skills.

Current bitterness against China, present Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim border issues, unnecessary intervention in Chinese internal affairs by providing asylum to Dalai Lama, defeat in the Indo-China war are all certificates earned by Nehru.

Bad choice of getting closer to USSR and snubbing US (despite non-alignment policy), implementing socialism which brought in license raj resulting in todays corruption (read my previous article about India: History of corruption) remain the black spots in Indian history.

On the flip side, he established premier education system and presented a young India to the world, but damage done was much more.

LB Shastri had a very short but able stint but had to succumb to heart attack (or poisoning ???).

Indira who became the next PM had no other eligibility or qualification except being Nehru's daughter and having (Feroze) Gandhi's last name.

With the sobriquet Iron lady, she took issues like Kashmir and Khalistan by horns. India won war against Pakistan, shook Khalistani (separatist punjabi) movement, began nuclear program. Defense became stronger in her era.

But hers was a golden era for corruption. The whole system got infested with corrupt executives, bureaucrats, police. She openly encouraged nepotism by conferring unlawful powers to unqualified rowdies like Sanjay Gandhi.

The worst phase of democracy anybody ever saw in world history occurred in the form of "Emergency". When the whole country was against her and when she was about to loose her position and power, she called for emergency claiming that the country was in trouble ($%/?&?&%?*&). 2 years of dictatorship, tyranny and authoritarianism plunged India two decades back in terms of development and human rights.

Her decision of unnecessary involvement in Pakistan's internal affairs and creating Bangladesh gave a reason and motivation for Kashmiri militants and Pakistani intelligence to split Kashmir from India and the quagmire is getting deeper by day. Desecrating Golden temple gave a chance to expat punjabi families to scream ugly slogans about Indian democracy even to this day.

Rajiv Gandhi again had a unquestionable privilege to become the prime minister of the country just because he was a son of her ex-PM mommy. A guy who didn't know the demographic and political coordinates of India became the prime minister out of nowhere and the gang of sycophants crooned his glory since then and its going on even today by naming every airport, road, sports village, government scheme on his name.

Behind suave and handsome looks was an immature mind which created a new passive enemy called Sri Lanka. Again, like his mom and grandpa, he meddled with internal affairs of an alien land and thanks to his decision, both the Sri Lankan govt and the LTTE started looking India as their enemy and hence the provision for China and Pakistan to setup a naval and army base in Sri Lanka. His assassination by LTTE was another outcome of his regime.

Mr.Clean as he was initially referred to, smeared his face with Bofors scandal (mother of all political scandals), Bhopal gas tragedy and subsequent escape of its Firang boss.

Anti sikh riots that took place after Indira's assassination was passively supported by Rajiv but he gave a new meaning to "secularism" when he dismissed supreme court judgement about equal rights to muslim divorcée women just to corner muslim votes through appeasement. Uniform civil code (equal treatment of citizens of all religions) was never upheld just to make sure secularism is applicable only for non-minorities. Religious divide and hatred took a new turn

PV Narasimha Rao came as a breath of fresh air in the dynastic politics and nepotism infected congress party. He started abolishing the license raj, imposing new economic reforms, bolstering liberalization and globalization and earning the title of "Father of Indian Economic Reforms". He brought in an official like Manmohan Singh into limelight who in-turn implemented PVN's vision. India took steps towards being a nuclear nation under his era. Crisis management was PVN's forte despite running a minority government.

Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid issue and scandals like Lakkubhai Pathak case, St.Kitts' forgery case tarnished his image heavily (but as usual with every politician, he got acquitted from all corruption related cases).

But the sad part was after his death when his body was not allowed into AICC headquarters or teen murti bhavan and neither did the incumbent chief of congress, Sonia Gandhi pay minimal courtesy visit to his funeral. His legacy was demolished and sadly hijacked by wicked dynastic worshippers.

Sonia Gandhi, by far the luckiest woman the world history has ever seen, became the chief of congress after a brief stunt from manipulative Sitaram Kesri. Sonia, an italian by birth, a novice by political experience, an ineligible by knowledge about India skyrocketed to chair the most important position by becoming a non-ruling and unofficial PM by installing a puppet govt under Manmohan Singh. Sonia has apparently emerged as an unconstitutional power who takes undue credit of the development that happens, but never takes accountability or responsibility for any failures. Smart Move !

Manmohan Singh is the most educated, best informed, most humble and honest prime minister, India has seen as yet. He is more a working leader than a managing leader and has been doing exceptionally well under the given circumstances. Nuclear agreement with US, improving the economy, stabilizing volatile situations, breaking the shackles of corruption are few of his notable achievements. With a bit more authority over cabinet and bit more transparency, and bit more pro-activity, he can eventually become the best PM of India so far.

So the bottom line is that if India is backward in development, living standards, infrastructure, honesty, Congress is responsible for that and if India is a powerful, self sufficient nation, Congress is responsible for that too.

The Most Powerful Nation ?

US National Intelligence Council released the latest list of most powerful nations of the World. Quite expectedly USA topped the list followed by China, India as second and third most powerful nations well ahead of other UN security council permanent members like UK, Russia, France, Germany etc.

Any survey, any opinion, any debate, there can't be more powerful nation than US. US has attained this position with sheer hard-work, optimal utilization of resources, sustaining freedom and liberty, improving standard of living, augmenting defense might and of course a very intelligent image building mechanism.

Million Dollar Question: Then why US lost a war against minnows like Vietnam and now is on the verge of loosing another war against a non-entity like Al Qaeda ?

There are more odds than evens. Going deeper:

America is projected as an invincible, unbeatable superpower by (1) Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombings (2) Foreign Relation Diplomacy (3) Economy (4) Media (5) Hollywood

World War -2 and subsequent atom bombing of Japanese cities as a retaliation to pearl harbor kamikaze attacks stamped US as a military giant. Before or after that, history didn't see any remarkable power display by US, except an illogical gulf war. Remember any ?

Thanks to its military giant image and cold war with then USSR, US was/is considered the most intervening nation of the world. Vietnam War was a blow on US' image of a super-power and world police. The setback against Vietnamese guerrillas was unexpected and unprepared for.

Two of the most bloody conflicts in the world history: Israel-Palestine and India-Pakistan were fanned to its current gravity by American vested interests and military support to one or both the parties involved. US direct intervention in Korean crisis, Iraq-Kuwait conflict received much criticism as US didn't hold any direct interest in the areas in conflict.

United Nations (UNO), an organization supposedly established to maintain international peace was eventually dwarfed and silenced into an American accomplice. NATO and Commonwealth jokers like UK, Canada, France, Australia were dumb American puppets as ever.

Icing on the cake is the ongoing "War on Terror" where ironically the so called terror is the brainchild of US itself. Al Qaeda and Taliban were supported in their inception by US to counter USSR influence over South Asia and now waging a loosing war against the same forces. Its almost been a decade of search for Osama Bin Laden and the results are known to the whole world. A serious dent on "Most powerful Nation's" military, exchequer and brand image.

The frustration was vented on Iraq with a lamest possible excuse that Saddam Hussain has weapons of mass destruction (more destructive than nuclear warheads ?@#$) and after not finding any such weapons, captured and executed Saddam Hussain for abusing human rights (not in US but in his own Iraq). Nobody else could question US' rights of hanging a Country's president to death for mishandling his own subjects (though the white secret is to plunder Iraqi oil resources). Incidentally US supported Iraq's weapons program during Iran-Iraq war.

Waging a decade old battle on terror on one side and selling weapons to Pakistan, an aide of terror is a hallmark of American supreme foreign policy and diplomacy. Again nobody could question them. Reasons ?

The single most acceptable reason for this American hegemony is "US Economy". the richest economy, the most traded currency and the richest treasury. Money power which results in muscle power is the reason and this is remarkably similar to the unquestioned and feared power of villains / gangsters in movies or real life.

With economy came the power to buy or control anything, everything in the world. US was shrewd enough to invest the rampant money in development in various areas and it worked out spectacularly well. This resulted in ubiquitous "number one" image of US.

Media played a beautiful role in projecting Numero Uno status. News articles, documentaries, projection of life standards mostly in English language which is most followed and accepted language of the world, made US a dreamland of opportunities for millions. None of these American crazy masses know the kind of development in France, Germany, Russia or China due to the language barrier. So it worked out rather well for USA.

Hollywood catalyzed a heroic image of US. Movies precipitated patriotism among American masses and movies of various genres like war, action have put US in a superior league. NYPD, LAPD, SWAT are always depicted as supernatural heroes (without delving in the facts that five crime families of NYC control the mafia and crime that affects half of the planet). The whole world along with Americans themselves patronizes these movies and idolizes American heroism.

Having said all these, I acknowledge that US is successful in creating, managing the image which is enviable and almost impossible for any other nation of this world.

Be an Entrepreneur !

There is an unwritten notion among the masses in general that starting a business or being an entrepreneur is a risky job and that there are more failures than successes and that it consumes a LOT to start a venture. 95% of youth strive, aim to land in a dream job in Infosys, Reliance or a well-known company, earn a handsome salary and "settle" in life.

The apprehensions are due to the discouragement from elder generations and seniors in the family, possibility of loosing money and time, lack of expertise, lure of safe jobs and early settlement, prevalent education system and many more.

But it has to be understood that the world we live in now is totally different from what it was a couple of decades ago. The very idea of venturing into a business is different in current times. The scope of doing something with nominal monies is remarkable. The government policies towards business have changed, economy has changed, obstacles have disappeared, venture capitalists and project financiers came into the scene. FDI is gushing in. You just need to identify the area of your passion and expertise and just add a bit of commitment to that. BINGO

Business ideas are born out of either necessity or opportunity and most of the times you don't need to invest a fortune and hence there is no stigma attached either.

There are highly charged guys who developed an online grocery software and distributed it to grocery stores which help its customers to buy anything from home. Developing the product didn't need anything more than software programming knowledge. To tap the market, they started distributing the product free of cost, initially, to build relationships. The business later evolved into a big software company.

There are youngsters who could write well who wrote freelance articles and started tapping the vernacular newspaper publications and then graduated to become a PR agency; pack of youngsters who started a staffing agency recruited employees for big corporations for free to get into their good books; people who created online learning software and started webinars; hordes of examples who have made their mark with no money, no office setup, no infrastructure involved.

Somebody's such initiative gave us Facebook and Twitter today and see how they changed the world with no big investments. Its pure commitment and clarity of thought!

The magic lies in understanding what you are good at and what your interest lies in. It need not necessarily be technology, anything would do. Planet Earth has population enough to generate demand for anything you are good at. Try to sharpen your knowledge in your area of concentration and give it a punching shot. If money is not involved in the trial, what else are you going to loose? Nothing ! Its worth trying.

There are people who have the entrepreneurial spirit but lack direction and right expertise. But this is not a blockade either. You don't need an MBA from a Harvard or an IIM. You have internet at your disposal. Stanford, Harvard, Wharton and all business forums publish innumerable articles in internet in addition to their Youtube channels. Google and Wikipedia are the best teachers. You can self-learn technology, management, business through research on internet and interact with captains of industry and subject matter experts too. Again, no cost involved.

So the age old myths about loosing something doesn't arise as long as you don't loose spirit and faith in whatever you believe in and faith in yourself. Strong mind, ability to overcome discouragement, adapting to changes, thwarting fears of failures will make a lot of difference.

The only thing needed is a passion to start something, be your own boss, create wealth for yourself and the society, create employment and stand out in the crowd. I repeat "The magic lies in understanding what you are good at and what your interest lies in. Try to sharpen your knowledge in the area and give a shot."

Yes, you can be a businessperson and an entrepreneur !

Invincible Heroes

Few days back, I've posted a comment on my Facebook wondering why do I see circulated jokes only about Balakrishna (one of the tollywood actors) and why not about others though everybody does the same kind of insane acts.

I didn't get a lot of response there but there were scores of people who told me offline that they got offended as I "dared" to compare Balayya with their Gods. Though I care a shit if they took me in wrong sense, I tried to understand what made them feel so strong about a person whom they have seen just on-screen.

I agree that movie is a great medium of entertainment and we like the piece of art if it moves us in any way and we definitely appreciate the person who performed to make us feel happy, sad or experience a kinda adrenalin rush or whatever. But how can an intelligent person drag the same image off-screen and start adulating him/her. Or am I too naive or an idiot to understand the underlying Gyaan behind the phenomena.

How many heroes who kick 20 goons at a time swirling in the air in movies are fit enough to face one average built 20 year old guy off-screen ? More entertaining than these stupid stunts are the interviews with those stars who claim that no graphics or body-doubles have been used in their stunts :)

Thanks to these kind of blind hero-worship, the actors started taking themselves rather too seriously and began their new innings in politics and few also enjoyed power. MGR, NTR (and family), Jayalalitha, Chiranjeevi, Vijaykanth, Jaya Bachchan, Dharmendra, Shatrughan Sinha, Sanjay Dutt, Govinda are the jokers of the same pack. Its not limited to India. Americans are equally crazy (read Arnold Schwarzenegger, Clint Eastwood). What did these guys do to earn the power or votes is still a mystery to me ?

During my engineering days in Kurnool, I saw two guys who fought bitterly on roads and came to blows because they couldn't agree on who is better among Chiranjeevi or Balakrishna. I heard about such fan wars which turned into ugly caste wars in coastal Andhra Pradesh. Heights of insanity and idiosyncrasy !

In the day to day parlance, the word "Hero" lost its meaning and is synonymously used for actors and fans can go really crazy about their favorite stars and can also wage a war against anybody who reportedly "belittles" their demigods. Yeah baby, "Heroes" are invincible, both on-screen and off-screen.

India: History of Corruption

[Preface: This article is for mature and thinking readers. All those who seek entertainment or fun can skip this.]

I was going through Corruption Percentage Index (CPI) published by Transparency International and as ever found all the five Nordic countries in the top 10 countries with least corruption. But where is India? My pursuit of finding India's rank in honesty again faced a setback when India ended up at 84th place. The only solace is that it is out of 182 countries :-)

The wise APJ Abdul Kalam's famous speech suggests that India is corrupt because general public don't do anything about it. 100% right. But what can an average Indian do ?

When a goon troubles a common man, he will go to police for protection. But most of the times cops abet goons. If the cop is honest, he will get pressure from a local politician who patronizes the goon. And as everybody knows politicians are invincible. If the person lodges a case on the goon or the cop or the politician, he has to deal with the judiciary which is equally corrupt. No outlaw will be behind the bars for more than few hours. So there ends the matter. Hence its so easy to get rid of one goon by going to a more powerful law breaker than following the books.

When a person wants to officially get things done by a Govt officer, he is expected to pay bribe in cash or kind. If he doesn't, he faces world of hurdles and positively never gets his job done. If he escalates to higher authority, he learns that officers in the whole hierarchy are partners in crime. What else can he do ? If he goes to media, he finds himself in a state of shock as he learns that media-house owner is a accomplice in the trap he finds himself in.

When a person wants to honestly start a business, he is never given licenses by Govt. If anybody wants to be an entrepreneur, he has to be a relative or partner of the licensing authority who in-turn is affiliated to some political party which is funded by some corporate house. So everything is already fixed.

Criminals have support of police who have support of officers who have support of politicians who have support of judiciary, media and/or powerful businessmen. It is a powerful criminal network or a mafia with a long 50 years of history.

If a cop is honest, politician transfers him. If a politician is honest, criminals murder him, judiciary victimizes him with a fabricated case or self indulgent media maligns him with propaganda. If the political party is honest, businessmen don't fund them. If the media reporter is honest, the chief editor stops him.

To avoid all these issues, an average and common India condescends to bribing. Hence I would be the last person to agree that a country gets corrupt because of the general public who resort to bribing. If the authorities and the system is impregnated with corruption, the public is left with no alternative.

Flashback: Lets make a quick analysis as how did the corruption take its birth in India.

After independence, the great Pandit Nehru, in a bid to emulate Soviet Russia formulated a socialist policy which supported License Raj. It means no ordinary citizen can do business without Government's license and Govt is the only capitalist and the general public faces communism. Indira Gandhi revolutionized this with nationalization of financial institutions.

But sadly Govt failed to increase the economic growth, per capita income and mean standard of living with all the infallible plans on paper. Figures speak that economic growth was 1.5% from 1950 to 1990. A phenomenal shame and failure.Poverty began to rise its hood and so did desperation which is a natural mother of crime. The famous gap between haves and have-nots developed into an abysmal gorge.

Talented businessmen started lobbying with Govt for "licenses" and favors. Those who are close to bureaucrats and politicians started getting licenses, contracts for businesses and hence established firms. Now the omnipresent Tatas, Birlas, Ambanis enjoyed a "very good" relationship with all politicians across political parties and more remarkably the great Nehru-Gandhi family who were in power for 95% of the time during license raj.

This politician-businessmen nexus raised the curtain for bending the rules, corporates started competing among themselves with their money power which gave birth to muscle power, nepotism, corruption among all levels of supreme powers of the country namely legislature, executive and judiciary. Corporate world's currency, bureaucrats' greed, politicians' privileges, have-not's desperation proved to be an flammable combo. Struggle for the fittest was the mantra of the day and everybody raped the system to be the fittest and nobody was made accountable. This is the system which turned into quagmire and a breeding ground for corruption.

Things started improving, thanks to economic liberalization and breakthrough reforms upheld by PV Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh. Corporate-politician nexus eased a bit and rate of corruption decreased significantly. India became the 3rd largest economy in the world after US and Japan. With better economy came better standard of living, awareness, consciousness. But thats not sufficient.

The Roadmap:

The common man should be made aware of the "right to information act" to arrest the corruption. Ombudsmen, whistleblowers are working hard to improve the situation further but should be accessible to the common man. Anti-corruption bureaus should be unadulterated, public servants should be made accountable and answerable to public through transparent media. Putting this to implementation is not impractical but results don't appear overnight. Awareness and knowledge among the masses is the key.

May be in years to come, we see India cruising up in the index by Transparency International. Country has come a long way but has to go a longer way to heal the bruise inflicted by 50 years of mismanagement and bad direction.

Gandhi vs Gandhigiri

Albert Einstein famously quoted about Gandhi that "Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth". Back home in India, Gandhi is revered as a demigod if not God. Nobody needs an introduction to the person himself or the kind of value and respect he has been commanding for a century. Gandhian principles (or the more massy Gandhigiri, thanks to Lage Raho Munnabhai) have created a kind of sect with people devoted to those values.

But there is no dearth of people who fume at the very name of MK Gandhi and they have their own reasons. It can't be denied that Gandhi's contribution to Indian independence struggle was overrated and over marketed by vested historians and post independent regimes to push their own envelopes and surnames further. There were countless martyrs who forsook their personal lives for the cause and who suffered or sacrificed much more than him like Bhagat Singh or SC Bose who were systematically pushed into oblivion.

Like every mortal, Gandhi too was vulnerable to some follies and eccentricities. His passiveness in saving martyrs like Bhagat Singh received widespread flak. His political decisions were confusing to his own disciples and his minority appeasement, in a way, catalyzed a fundamentalism in Hindus, which gave a way to "Godsegiri" and muslims always treated him as anti-muslim congressman. Nathuram Godse and Md Jinnah are considered more patriotic by most Gandhi haters. Gandhi was not clearly the shrewdest politician.

Bypassing the political discussions about Gandhi, there is much more. But the younger generation quickly takes their stance without analyzing the difference between Gandhi the politician and Gandhi the inspiration / philosophy.

Agree or not, Gandhi is the best leader the world has ever produced till now and more likely forever. No other man born on this planet could shake the whole nation as much as he did. In the era of limited media and communications, the entire country swayed to the words of the single frail man. He created ripples in the empire where its said that sun never sets. The demigod status or mass hysteria he created among masses is unparalleled and I'm not sure if that kind of aura can be enjoyed by anybody in the future too.

While his leadership and winning the unconditional love and confidence of his subjects is one aspect, another being the philosophy and way of life he introduced; that philosophy surrounding extremities of truth, courage, simplicity and non-violence.

It takes a lion heart to face the anger and aggression of the mighty with non-cooperation and non-violence. It takes a hero to stand by determination and not get bogged over by threat, might, power, hunger and still not retaliate. It takes a legend to influence the nation to follow his ideals and it takes an icon to be remembered for his lifestyle and philosophy for centuries to come.

Simply put Gandhi is an embodiment of simplicity, self-restraint, humility, truth, determination, selflessness, will-power that only a sage of his wisdom can attain. Gandhism was/is a way of life that can never go wrong.

We can never become Gandhi, but we can definitely show some respect to the person who spent the whole life pleading the world, not to hate. Gandhi the politician may or may not be perfect, but Gandhigiri is !

Oh My God !

A question which I frequently encounter "Why are you so arrogant that you don't believe in God?"

Thats false. I never ever said I don't believe in God. I always believed in the existence of God, the things I don't believe are miracles of God, mythology, rituals and tantrums humans have devised in an attempt to influence the God.

As I've mentioned in one of my previous posts, I believe that there is a supreme power or an unknown power or a force which sustains and balances the whole universe and life on the universe. For me "Nature" is God. Thats something which is not apprehended or controlled by science or human intellect as yet. Nobody knows about that God and hence its perfectly OK to respect and revere that power as thats something which is bolstering our life.

But what I don't see eye to eye is when people assume that God is somebody who decides and controls the past, present, future of billions of people individually and we can influence God's decisions by performing rituals.

For me, religion is a way of life and performing rituals is an individual choice. The customs and rituals have been started by humans some centuries ago because they felt thats the way to appease the God or show their gratitude to that power and if they have done that, that doesn't mean they are always correct. Just that I don't see any meaning in following the same traditions and rites and if that means I'm haughty enough to override the almighty, I don't really mind it.

And if I'm doing a vratham at home or going to temple, its for the family and definitely not to influence the God to take my side.