Guju left, they exist!

I’m no leftist. I’m with the Kerala Congress (not a part of Madam Sonia’s Congress). We pretty much go left, right, centre and nowhere depending on what we get out of it. With about half a dozen MLAs and couple of MPs in the Lok Sabha, we are doing pretty well for ourselves.

Growing up in India’s south, in my backwater village, the first clue you get of your country is in grade standard class three when you have to draw the map of India for five marks in your social studies exam. Drawing the southern part of India was easy, something like a V. The tough parts were J&K and Gujarat. This exercise kind off makes you curious about these places. Then you start stereotype them at the age of eight. Bengalis like fish and are communists. Tamil Nadu doesn’t have water so people there don’t take bath ( and when they do, it’s by stealing water from Kerala!)

These change as you grow up, you meet different people and the stereotypes are broken. Except for two (till last week). Do anyone know a Gujarati officer in the Indian army? and know of any Gujarati who supports the left?

The army officer, I still don’t know but I had the pleasure of meeting Nishant Shah at Jace’s place in Bangalore, last week. The first Gujarati leftist I know He is not in Gujarat though, he hasn’t been there for a while and currently he is a visiting affiliated Scholar at the Center for the Study of Sexualities, Chungli, Taiwan.

It’s not censorship

If you studied under CBSE regime and paid attention during your eighth grade standard, you would have learnt that ‘freedom of speech’is one of your fundamental rights. and if you live in Kerala you also get the right to join the SFI and burn state buses. that’s another discussion, we will leave that for later.

There has been a lot of noise in the blogWorld (sorry, working for IDG makes you add World to everything) that India has become the next China, Iran, Ethiopia, North Korea etc. So much has been said about this ‘BAN’ and how dumb/idiotic/moronic the Indian establishment is for doing such a thing. Some even went to the extent of claiming that ‘The terrorists have won’.

Fellow countrymen, lets just go over a few points,

1. We don’t even block obvious porn sites.
2. Anti-government sites, almost every militant unit (LTTE, ULFA, JKLF etc) all have websites that are not blocked.
3. Do you serious think that people in the Indian Government, DoT, CERT-IN, the ISPs are silly enough to block/ban something like Google’s blogger?

A reason for this “access control” was posted on this blog. There is no issue of censorship here. If that were the case, trust me, the Government has bigger fish to fry than blogger. I can understand that the Indian government perhaps doesn’t have the best PR policies but let this not be a reason to slag them off throughout the blogWorld. Let’s go easy on the RTIs and show some patience.

Autonomy of scholarlay institutions: a follow up!

Here is the Frontline story about the AIIMS imbroglio, which, in my opinion, is more fair-minded. From the story, at least one thing is clear — the issue is more about politics than about the competence of Dr. Venugopal as a doctor, and, I guess Dr. Balasubramanian’s emphasis on institutional autonomy is misplaced — see this earlier post on the issue. If it is about autonomy, at least for the sake of completeness of story (and fairness of discussion), Dr. Balasubramanian should have noted the controversy surrounding his appointment itself. Having said this, let me emphasise that I am great fan of Dr. Balasubramanian and his writing — there are a host of articles of his which I thoroughly enjoyed — just that in this case, he is terribly off the mark, which is a pity

boing boing

boing boing, which according to technorati is the top number two blog linked to us today for the blogspot ban issue. Woke and I are based in the United Arab Emirates. Unfortunately, we can’t see post on boing boing as the site is banned in the UAE

India blogspot blackout, no ban

Two sources, one inside the Government of India and the other kind of inside/outside have confirmed to the Mutiny, that ISPs are being instructed to ‘control’ access to blogspot. It seems that some blogs are being used by some terror units (read SIMI) to communicate.

There is a crack down in place. IP numbers are being physically located and identified. All should come back to normal once this operation is over. There is no ban in place. Livejournal and WordPress have been spared. No reason given.

Now I know you are not going to believe this, so I’m going to quote what she said, “This operation is limited to certain parts of India. Bloggers in Andaman, Nicobar and Lakhsadeep islands are not affected.” I thought she was joking but I didn’t hear the reciprocal laughter from the other end of the phone line.

I’m sorry; I can’t give you any more details or updates unless we hear from our sources. They have indicated they won’t on this topic but we are trying.

Why can’t we do what Israel is doing?

Two Israeli soldiers get kidnapped from Northern Israel, Israel holds Lebanon responsible. Lebanon claims it has no control over the southern parts of the country and Hezbollah. Israel attacks the whole of Lebanon and takes out Hezbollah leadership and infrastructure.200 innocents get killed in Mumbai. Our Prime Minister after four days says that this was an act done by groups ‘across the border’. Says Mumbai is strong and we are united. Does nothing. Are we going to do anything? Every day our soldiers and civilians are blown up in Jammu and Kashmir. We still so nothing.
Pakistan occupied Kashmir continues to harbour terrorists training camps. Terrorists cross into the country from there. We have the evidence to prove it apart from the increasing toll of dead and injured civilians. Can’t we do anything against these terrorists?

Pakistan claims that it has no control over these groups and the very same groups are out to kill their President. What are we waiting for? Let’s do them a favour and do what Israel is doing and weed them out!

Are we really the softest F***king state on the planet?

The Road to Guantanamo

Just saw ‘The Road to Guantanamo’ today. At first I thought it was impossible that three guys would venture into Afghanistan just out of curiosity about the size of the naans there. It was simply hard to believe that the Americans, the mighty Americans, would fly these guys half way across the word and lock them up for two years for no reason. I presumed, based on the London bombings, these guys were guilty, the Pakistani-British bombers had too come to Pakistan and then gone to Afghanistan for training.

But once you see the documentary, you realise that these guys were perhaps the unluckiest bunch in the world. Some parts of the documentary is funny, like the time the American officer asks them if they know where Osama bin Laden is.

I felt sorry for the guys, but unfortunately not all fault lies with the Americans. There were a numbers of British Muslims of Pakistani origin who flew down to Pakistan and Afghanistan to be a part Al Qaeda (like the London train bombers). The fact that the Taliban consisted of a large number of Pakistanis gave rise to the suspicion and these guys paid the price for it.

Here is a clip,

Is being normal really good?

After the bomb blasts, the media has been writing about the speed at which Mumbai has recovered from the blasts.

“The stock market was up”

“People went back on the trains and all the offices were open the next day”

As a person born and brought up in Mumbai, I am very proud of my hometown and commend each and every Mumbai-kar for showing true courage and daring. Every single one of you is my HERO !

But do we REALLY want life to go back to “NORMAL“?

Do the people of Mumbai want the TV and newspaper reports can go back to “normal reporting“ and gossip on the latest movie stars personal life? Is “Which star sleeps with who?” and “How many clothes a starlet is wearing?’ more important than the innocent lives lost ???

Do the relatives of the victims whose lives were lost want things to back to normal – so that can run around government officials for money to replace their loved ones  ( They probably won’t get the entire money amount since “normal procedure-wise“ government officials need help with “chai-paani kharcha”)

Do the people who board the trains everyday want life to go back to normal when they are facing the same risks as they did before?

Do Mumbaikars want life to go back to normal as it did in 1993 so that it is easier for politicians to go back to their “normal political life” of making more money for themselves rather than apprehending the murderers of innocent people?

Life does go on and I am sure not one single Mumbaikar wants to relive the tragic day of the Mumbai blasts. Almost everyone speaks with pride on how normal life is slowly becoming but aren’t they making it easier for people to not give them the attention and justice they deserve? Isn’t things going back to “normal” a form of passiveness?

I may be different, but give me some “abnormal life”. I don’t want things to go back to the usual state !

I was personally affected by the 1993 blasts and at that time extremely proud that I went back to school immediately and my parents went back to work. Now as I grow older, I want to take my time to grieve, to feel sad and heart-broken. I want the lives lost to mean something. I want to take my time going “back to normal”……

Just DO something, Dr Singh!

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said the terrorists behind Tuesday’s serial blasts in Mumbai were “supported by elements across the border”. Dr Singh said without naming any country.

“Without the support from elements across the border, the terrorists would not have been able to carry out strikes with such an effect,” he added.

Now, unless you are really sniffing petrol for the last 20 years (three times daily), you know he means Pakistan. Every time, this is the case. We blame them and sit back helpless and whining. That’s what we do, complain/lodge a protest/in the strongest language/call of a meeting. What has this achieved?
Come on Dr. Singh, 60 per cent of your populations is people like me who are below the age of 30. Most of us are tried of this nonsense. It’s time for ACTION. IF YOU HAVE THE EVIDENCE, DO SOMETHING.

Please light a candle for Mumbai-kars

 

Please visit the following link and light an e-candle for the Mumbai
victims. For every candle lit – CNN-IBN channel is giving 1 Rupee to the victims.