The Lies of the Year!

As Indians, we were subjected to a lot of lies in 2009. From outrageous claims like kids using a certain soap attending school 40% more than those who didn't, to news channels claiming they had "exclusive" rights to national disaster stories, we had our share of craziness unleashed upon us. Not very different from other years, and no less deserving this time, but here is a list of lies so goddamn spectacular and large scale, they were not just presented as truth, they are still being gobbled up as such.

5. India is going to be a superpower!

Yeah right. 29th position in competitiveness, based on economic performance, government efficiency, business efficiency, and infrastructure. Before you start thinking this isn't so bad, consider we are according to the World Bank, at the 122nd place for "Ease of doing business". Even worse, we're slipping. Just in case you'd like to bury your head in supersand and ignore these facts as mere numbers, we have 41% of the world's poor people, our public health system is a joke, and corruption puts us at 88th place in the world. In other words, there are 87 countries that are less corrupt than us, (not that our ranking will suffer much if the order was reversed!). 42% of our children suffer malnutrition, and rape is our fastest growing crime. Most definitely, we need someone with superpowers to save us, but we're by no means going anywhere near becoming a superpower anytime soon! It's a great lie given the facts stacked against it, but for sheer staying power, 5th place on this list!

4. Hindi is India's "National Language".

No matter how much we fight this untruth, there are enough people to propagate it. The print media was a bit careful about it this year, but channels like CNN IBN actually sent out reporters with cameras and microphones on programmes like Y Not, to proactively promote this absolute lie, calling Hindi our "national language", when the simplest of editorial ethics could have nipped this in the bud. Some of our politicians went far enough to trumpet this lie on the floor of the Parliament, and nobody went to jail for this blatant contempt of the Constitution. Example: http://in.news.yahoo.com/139/20091109/816/tnl-i-am-proud-of-abu-azmi-for-taking-oa.html Even though you have to be really stupid to believe this one, a lot of people actually subscribe to it, particularly Hindi speakers, so how can we deny them 4th place?

3. People in our government are on an Austerity Drive!

Sure! Just look at how many cars follow a minister to the railway station, never mind the airport, and never mind how many millionaires our political system creates while they all work for the upliftment of the poor and downtrodden. Austerity my left foot toe, could we have a little more efficiency? This joke was so bad, it even wore itself out of mention in the media in less than a month. What a lie to unleash upon even the stupidest amongst us! And now, a New Year Gift for the nation - Parliament approves free air travel for any number of ministers' relatives - http://in.news.yahoo.com/48/20091222/814/tnl-parliament-nod-for-free-air-travel-t.html. The lie itself wasn't all that great, but for silliness, it gets some ridiculously valuable points to stand 3rd here.

2. We are here to show our support for the victims of this horrible terrorist attack!

No shit! What are you willing to do? Offer yourself to terrorists in exchange for some of the hostages? A lot of our monkeys aped people all over the world in propagating this wicked lie and repeating it, particularly after the Mumbai attacks. Some of our celebrities, even rascals who bought guns from the underworld and have gone on trial for terrorist and anti disruptive act crimes, promptly pulled sad faces on TV and parroted this lie. Sure you're showing solidarity with the victims of terror, you bastards. Light a candle or shed a tear if you want to feel good for yourself, but please spare us the lie about showing solidarity with people who're getting killed by terrorists. How sick to lie to dead people, instead of saying to their souls, truthfully, "Tough luck my friends, but thank God that wasn't me stuck there!". Do we have to insult them after we let them die? Enough already with the biggest bullshit of the last two decades, now firmly in fashion in India.

1. Barack Obama becomes the USA's first black president.

Hello? Barack Obama isn't black any more than he is white. His father is black, from Kenya, and his mother Caucasian. He is a person of mixed racial ancestry. The real question to ask is - if he was elected President of Kenya, would he have been considered Independent Kenya's first white president? There is a limit to spread a lie, but how could the media of the USA not take up such a great opportunity? Their whole viewpoint was more like a reaction to the thought - "Wonder when the next nigger would come along for us to celebrate and exorcise our demons of being called a racist country!" A man who looked a little black was good enough for them, and the Indian media was quick enough to endorse him as a full black man, like we give a shit about black people in the first place!

This lie is #1 for the sheer scale of nonsense and the amount of gloss and floss that comes into play each time it is unleashed and for the audacity with which the whole world has gobbled this black horse-shit!

Happy New Year!

A question of rape

Shantaram Naik, MP, mentioned yesterday in the Parliament that some
women invite rape and murder because of their behaviour! The view
itself isn't shocking, coming from an Indian male living in the stone
age. But the logic behind it should disturb anyone who can spare a
thought about the quality of people we elect to public office, to
supposedly represent us.

In quoting what the fool said - "This incident has been blown out of
proportion in the electronic media... Young lady herself invited all
the alleged offences against her, ultimately resulting in her tragic
death in the middle of the night....!" and then later, outside the
Parliament building, "Two types of rape... different angle... rape is
alleged against a man who has been moving with a lady for some
time.... police should investigate very cautiously!"

How do you blow an incident of rape out of proportion? It is the most
demeaning of crimes, for there is no reversal, there is no complete
justice, and in my opinion should be punishable by death, like in many
Arab countries. No matter what you do, you CANNOT blow a rape out of
proportion. Nothing is even comparable to it and no compensation can
ever truly be just.

This idiot Naik is essentially stating point blank that if he can
reach the fruits in his neighbour's garden, he can very well steal and
it would be his neighbour and his garden that should be blamed for
inviting his thievery. Very nice, Mr. Naik.

How many times do women in India have to be abused and reabused before
our leaders even begin to respect them? How dare such ignorant,
insensitive, absolutely distilled morons refuse to even comprehend
that a crime is a crime! If I get verbally abused, and I ended up
killing my abuser, I very much doubt if I'd be let go on the basis
that the abuser invited his death at my hands, no matter how true that
may be. Is rape any less serious? What about when murder follows
rape? Can any crime be more heinous?

This Naik represents the stone age Indian Male's attitude towards
women - sexist, ill informed, and simply lacking respect. This is the
mindset that leads to abuse, assault, rape and murder of women. This
fool in my view has taken the side of rapists and abusers and is
encouraging them, basically saying women they think they can rape are
fair game.

S. M. Krishna, the External Affairs Minister evaded the "sexist"
remarks question about Naik and said, "Tourists safety is government
responsibility, but foreign tourists also need to be cautious". Why
don't we put "Be cautious about getting raped when you travel to
India" on every Incredible India poster? I thought this guy had some
brains, but clearly he is whacked out too.

If we have rapists on the loose, this is a bloody law and order
problem. We're still not saying that our rapists are a problem!
We're not saying that we have in our society, dangerous prowling
rapists, many of whom are politicians, who can rubbish a police case
and turn it on its head. What would it take to make this admission?

The Russian Consulate is about to issue an advisory to its tourists
asking them not to venture out after 10PM in Goa. This really should
be very insulting, but we don't care about such things. Not the
Indian male for sure. For all of this would take integrity and a
sense of decency. For some reason, the Stone Age Indan male, the
SAIM, for short, thinks this is an issue of attitude. The SAIM is
intimidated by modern women, especially if they are Indian. It is a
complex issue, and one that needs to be ruthlessly dealt with.

I have come across a lot of SAIMs who are nothing but third rate,
sexist scum, allowed to flourish on this earth by their mentally
enslaved mothers who cannot teach their sons an iota of decency for
having such a lousy view of women. A lot of SAIMs think rape happens
by women who simply don't behave appropriately. Some of them actually
think and express their opinion that this is an attitude problem.
Sure you probably won't get raped if you are ugly and sit at home, but
it certainly, most certainly, shouldn't be an invitation to get raped
and murdered if you are attractive, have a life and want to be out and
about at night.

Many SAIMs tell me about a golden period that India had, especially
under Lord Ram, when women were decent and our society was just
incredibly "good". Hello! Ravana also showed up around the same
time, didn't he? Was Sita flaunting something? How come she never
gets blamed? And what about the less spoken about story of Ram having
questioned her fidelity when she came back? Sorry, that is not the
mentality I want to subscribe to. Imagine an entire army fighting to
bring back your woman, and you dare ask her if she slept with the guy
who kidnapped her! If this story is true, Ram didn't set standards
high enough for me. But clearly, this is the highest standard that
many Indian males seem to subscribe to. Hey Ram.

BSK.

The Melting Point

In the rich tradition of poor Indian documentary film making, The
Melting Point today came on CNN IBN, presented by Bahar Dutt.

Sure enough, we found ourselves in front of the idiot box, and we must
be taken for idiots, for nobody else would actually watch and be taken
for the same ride again and again. We went to the Himalayas, saw some
ice melting, and a sage who also takes photographs of retreating
glaciers, and spoke to people who spoke of how a gushing stream is now
a trickle, of how one particular glacier is retreating at twenty
metres per year. Oh, we also heard that a billion gazillion square
kilometres of ice is now MELTING!

Everything is MELTING! The world is MELTING! The Clicking Baba says
so, and he thinks this could be the end of the world. What else can
poor Bahar Dutt do, other than sit at his feet and listen in rapt
attention? This is, after all, profoundly important.

Anytime you go to the Himalayas and look at ice in bright sunshine,
you will find water dripping off it. THAT is NOT global warming! It
is simply a regular cycle of ice forming and melting. That is not the
image we should be seeing. But this is lazy, insidious film making,
at its worst when done by a typically clueless Indian documentary film
maker. Okay, okay, we get it, the world is melting. So what? Why
did you have to drive your crew all the way upto the Himalayas and
pollute it some more to tell us what we already know? Why can't you
tell us anything new? Did you find out anything from YOUR trip that
we should absolutely be enlightened by? Of course not, Bahar Dutt.
Because you have not done the basic homework needed to make a
documentary. You have no story!

Why would CNN IBN put out such a poorly formed documentary on air?
That shouldn't surprise us, coming from a channel that sends out
equally dumb reporters on other programs that claim Hindi as the
National language, but let's not lose focus of the issue itself - poor
presentation of a subject already well known. In other words, there
is no film here. There is no story, and this whole Melting Point
episode is nothing but a gaping hole.

She also claimed we're living in denial. That's really pushing it,
unless this documentary is five years too old or we're about five
years old. Sorry, but this is an inconvenient truth. We are in the
middle of a well represented international summit in Copenhagen, for
heavens sake, on climate change, global warming, and all related
issues, and what each country in the world must do. This is
definitely not living in denial, and it looks like this woman is high
on thin Himalayan air and low on IQ.

Why is it so hard to even copy from the best in the business? The
same country that has polluted the earth the most for so long, the
USA, has long since leaped forward and found answers for reversing its
oil dependency, and has developed technologies to run entire cities,
for instance, on solar power. It is already here. A solar powered
aeroplane left the ground years ago and has been flying non stop for
years. Again, not Indian. There is no denial. It is time we ran the
stories that can actually make a difference to us.

A little bit of intelligence will go a long way in judging for
ourselves what we CAN do to fight againt climate change, assuming of
course that we caused it in the first place. India is one of the
lowest energy consumers in the world. Our per capita pollution is a
small fraction of those bums in the USA and now, China. We should be
happy we're concerned, but switching off all lights for an hour in
Mumbai, and all the young fools driving to the beach to join some
arbid human chain is just plain stupidity. Here's why -

83% of the world's atmospheric pollution is caused by power
generation. That 83% is not going to be touched even by a fraction by
any of our cities even having a blackout. If the power coming to your
grid is from a hydro electric or nuclear source, don't even try. The
nuclear fuel has already spent its heat on the heavy water and it has
already transferred its energy to the turbine that is running the
generator, well before you decided to switch off your lights. The
water that gushed through the turbine in your hydel plant is simply
running through it because of gravity. In other words, hydro electric
power is virtually free, and has no consequence on the environment.

Thermal power, on the other hand, is an issue. But still, the power
plant isn't going to run any slower because of you groping in the dark
for an hour and feeling good about it. Not only is India a very small
polluter, our biggest electricity consumption doesn't come from
lighting homes! It goes into heavy industries, running our trains,
and so on. There's no stopping any of that.

What we could do is run our vehicles more efficiently. Get more
mileage out of them, drive the longer route if it promises fewer gear
changes, do some hypermiling if we are expert drivers, and just plain
walk instead of drive when we can. The exercise cannot hurt, and we
can feel good for more than one reason. Public transportation is
miserable so there is no point sacrificing our productivity and having
to take a shower after each trip. A two wheeler instead of a car is a
great idea, but may not be practical. Driving without the A/c on is
simply not an option given how much grime and dust there is in the
air.

Too bad, but you as an individual living in India, don't count for
much when it comes to polluting the earth. But don't get to your
Melting Point, just because Bahar Dutt is so concerned about looking
concerned about it on TV. She doesn't count for much either.

Stone the liars.

What happened to the Austerity Drive? Already out of fashion? I had
a feeling this austerity nonsense would fade out and it has.

Rahul Gandhi's famous train journey was marred by an incident of stone
throwing, now thought of as probably being perpetrated by "kids". I'm
sure it takes the CBI, the RAW, the Railway Protection Force, and the
Special Protection Group a very long time to figure out the exact
details on who threw stones at the train Rahul Gandhi was in. It's
such a sad day for democracy when one of our representatives goes on
an austerity drive and gets treated like this. It is also a sad day
when kids are chosen for such terrorist attacks on unsuspecting
politicians.

MK Azhagiri and one of his cohorts chose to travel by economy class
instead of business class on a flight from Chennai to Delhi. I'm sure
this is remarkable, considering the plane consumes 40% lesser fuel
when two people move their butts from business class to economy class.
If they moved lower to the luggage hold, or even better, get thrown
out of the plane, it would lower the consumption even more I'm sure!
But austerity cannot be taken to such low levels, can it?

Who pays for a public servant flying on official duty? Surely it must
be the Government. Air India and Indian are both government owned and
operated companies, and so is the Indian Railways that Mr. Rahul
Gandhi is suddenly a patron of. So, who is actually "paying" less or
more? This is all internal government "billing". Just numbers on
paper, signatures to settle accounts, nothing going in, nothing coming
out of any pocket. So, what exactly are we saving? An eight hour
train journey instead of a one hour flight? That sounds like a loss
of productivity to me, nothing else. Security through two crowded
railway stations must be harder and more expensive to provide than
through two airports, but then, that is also government resource.
Lies, however, are a politician's resource and there seems to be
plenty where all this comes from.

Whenever a minister from one of the smaller constituences goes to the
capital, especially in Tamilnadu, a whole force of white clad "cadre"
of party workers accompanies the minister to the railway station,
looking very important and purposeful, but riding up and down in cars
just to send off one person. This entourage must cost money, and it
certainly causes a nuisance in public space. Imagine if every
passenger descended on the station with fifty followers to send them
off!

In all seriousness, it seems our politicians need lessons in
austerity. So let's cut their benefits and expense accounts. That
will make some difference to the treasuries, and the fact that they
will use their phones less and travel less will also mean that they
will sit in their seats more. That means they will have to put in
more hours if not more work, which is a good thing. At the very
least, they will be a little more available where they should be - at
their offices.

Without a sliver of a doubt, the Austerity Drive is not an eyewash.
Our eyes have tar, wool, and dung slapped riight on and should any
sight manage to sneak through, we have clouds around them. They
cannot be washed. They have to be excavated back to life. Let's get
adults to stone trains on Rahul's next trip.

The fact that baffles me most is how little our government mechanism
takes advantage of the technologies that we proudly trumpet - computer
science, information, telecom, remote sensing, you name it, we've got
it. And yet, our bureaucrats and politicians fly to another city to
attend a meeting, sometimes for just an hour or so, and then fly right
back the same day. What is stopping them from using a video
conferencing facility from their own gleaming unused laptops? If I
can chat face to face with my friends in the USA from a small town in
Tamilnadu, see their kids growing up, share files and audio and video,
and collaborate on projects, what is stopping our stupid politicians
from doing that?

If they're too stupid to do this, they need to be educated. Unless
the need for physical contact is immense, as in having sex, there
should be absolutely no need for anyone to travel to have a talk. I
would say the same thing of huge summits like the clowning that is
going on in Copenhagen right now. The whole summit is eco unfriendly
to the nth degree. So many countries, so many delegates, travelling,
their entourages, their laundry, their hotels, the food, the security,
the local transportation, for what? Just so that they can all be in
the same time zone physically? What could be more absurd in the 21st
century?

The "common man" has long since started taking advantage of
technologies to simplify his life. There are 59 crore cell phones in
India standing as proof for this simple fact. The politicians and
bureaucrats that claim to work for the well being of this common man
are the jokers that haven't got it yet. Time for a public interest
litigation.

The missing wealth of common sense.

Why is it that New Delhi gets excited with something as drab as the
Commonwealth Games?

Sixty years after getting independence it should be quite obvious to
us why the "Commonwealth" was formed in the first place. It would be
a way of ensuring legal thievery of certain countries by her majesty
well after granting independence. No matter how cloaked, it is a
cunning term, and a dubious collective that we should slip away from.

If Canada, UK, Australia, India and a smattering of other
insignificant nations form the commonwealth, it is not hard to see who
has the resources and who needs to plunder them. Does India have any
benefits of belonging in the commonwealth? Is it easy for any of our
people to migrate to the other countries in this club? Of course not.
Do we need any monetary aid from any of these old coots? Definitely
not. So, why even pamper the idea of a commonwealth? Because in New
Delhi, you can afford to be a bozo in government circles and not have
to think afresh, ever.

The Olympics are not profitable for the host nation these days, and
this, in the age of television. The Commonwealth Games are not going
to be anywhere near profitable, because, the biggest sporting powers
aren't participating, and who cares about this event anyway? But the
infrastructure cannot be anything less than Olympic level, so we have
to build and build and build, a lot of which we should already have
had, but now finally will. We're spending 10,500 crore rupees of our
wealth, but for what?

News just came in that the organizers of the Commonwealth Games sold
TV rights for a whopping US$120million. Wow! 564 crore rupees!! How
lovely. Since there are no other tangible incomes from events like
this, what about the other 9936 crore rupees? Consider the
US$1billion plus the IPL generates, and the fact that our government
refused to give security cover for it and it ran away to South Africa.
Our own, home grown world beating event, chased away to another
country, while this shineless, colonial remnant of a Commonwealth
Games that is a surefire dud is very much here to celebrate and create
a loss for us. Very nice of you idiots in New Delhi.

Here's the latest joke - top British athletes are not even
participating in the Commonwealth Games! All their gymnasts have
preferred to attend the gymnastics world championships instead of
coming to Delhi. Now, what kind of clowns couldn't have, after years
of fanfare and organization, foreseen this horrendous co-incidence.
Indian clowns, who else?

Is it a showcase that will bring us prestige? If a sizeable
population of the world is not going to be tuned in, who is going to
give us the kudos? Nobody worthwhile. New Delhi went the whole hog
for the Asian Games in the 80s, but then, that was Asia! We are a
proud and diverse continent, with plenty of sporting nations and a
history that binds us. There is something to look forward to.

Now we have three white counties, one full of trees and ice that
actually stands to benefit from global warming and has no clout of any
kind in the international arena, one full of convicts that have
recently attacked people of Indian origin, and another an island that
supplied the convicts, and then, India, that was ruled by the thieves
from the island for two hundred years who still won't return a famous
diamond stolen from us. Some history this. Neither of these
countries is anywhere near the top in any track and field sports or in
any big ticket showcase of talent, having been regularly beaten in
numbers and medals in all disciplines by China and the USA. So, we're
not seeing top class sports action either. It is all second tier - a
whole tier above what India usually aims for, but a whole tier below
what India's cricket crazy crowds are used to.

Let's get over trying to rack up the frenzy. This is a shitty event,
being held in a shitty city that our own Home Minister had to address
the people of and tell them to improve their attitudes! Fucking
Commonwealth Games. Who gives a f**k? What distinction is India
going to get from hosting these silly gala events? Is our sporting
temper going to get a boost? Definitely not. Is the infrastructure
going to last a lifetime? Think again.

One can walk into any public stadium in any Indian city, particularly
the capitals, and see how dilapidated the place is, how badly
maintained, and how beautifully representative of our administrative
disabilities the place is. Not a surprise that we don't produce world
class athletes. But we have the gall to question Abhinav Bhindra's
patriotism when he talks more about how his dad helped him focus and
gave him his infrastructure for training rather than the nation that
did nothing to bestow upon him a culture of excellence. We should
actually be grateful he has nothing to say about India as a nation for
his honest opinion might be very negative.

India is never going to win a bid for the Olympics. Thank God for
small mercies. But that doesn't mean we should constantly piss away
money on what we're not good at. If the recent debacle of games for
handicapped people at Bangalore wasn't enough of an embarrassment,
what could be? There were no steps to the stage, and the Chief guest
had to be physically lifted up to he could stand on his higher perch
and deliver some speech! We're a nation of fumbling idiots in the
collective. It is a good thing we don't have ambitions of empire, for
if we conquered the world, we'd turn it into a trash dump.

Cold facts - why do we go to a sporting event? To see our team win,
primarily. Not much of that is going to happen at the Commonwealth
Games, certainly not in the disciplines we'd like to see some
spectacle in. To see incredible human feats - that's not going to
happen either, because the Commonwealth doesn't have the greatest
sporting heroes. To have a good time - we can do that in several
different ways these days in India, thank you very much.

If Doordarshan is going to be covering these stupid games on TV, maybe
that's enough motivation to leave the country for a while, on its own.
DD's sports coverage is less than 1 on a scale of 10 in terms of
quality, and those mindsets are not going to change anytime soon. I
wonder why they are still around. That is one organization that
should be scrapped from the face of this earth. What a blight on
media civilization. Not very different from our other pathetic
attempts at "showing" we're world class, since we never get to "feel"
world class in anything.

Our cricket team, thankfully, is doing it, and it is doing it for a
reason - there is enough incentive to be good. Our track and field
athletes are heroes in that they are trying to scrape a living out of
drab circumstances, and despite every attempt by the government of
India to stop them, they are doing well in some cases. We could give
them 10,500 crores of incentives to become better - 3 crore for every
international gold, 2 for silver, 1 for bronze. That should reap us a
lot more than this pomp and gala nonsense that Delhi seems to have a
fetish for.

The right to be Indian.

IN FULL PUBLIC view, a few things happened in the last two weeks that
should make every Indian very, very angry. Every Indian that cares to
call himself or herself Indian, that is, in the truest sense of the
word.

The Babri Masjid destruction issue is not about to go away anytime
soon. By no means should the issue be buried, ignored, or postponed
in its resolution, no matter how complex the process may be or how
painful the truth may be to any of us. Someone as clean in his public
image as Atal Behari Vajpayee has been found culpable to the
destruction of the Babri Masjid, and India should not just hang its
head in shame, it should take every radical step possible to ensure
justice is brought upon the wrongdoers, no matter whose name the list
of such contains, ranging from those who are proud of the havoc
unleashed upon us on the worst day in free India, to those who assume
their right to "represent" the religious majority of this country with
absolutely no sanction whatsoever. They're not elected
representatives of Hindus, so they have no authority to represent
anything Hindu. Period.

This isn't about religion. It is about righteousness. It isn't about
Ram, it isn't about Allah. It is about that pledge we undertook to
uphold the Constitution of India. It is about character, and it is
about integrity. It is about our ability to judge for ourselves
whether we want an India that lives in the present and aims for an
egalitarian future or choose to live like cavemen in an India that is
deeply entrenched in dogma, irrational thought and a narrow minded
regressive mindset.

This is not a religious issue. The debate should never be allowed to
go in that direction, for that in itself will be an admission of lack
of understanding of the situation. This is about India, the nation,
the oaths we have solemnly taken, the sovereignty of everything we
stand for as a nation, and our integrity in protecting all that is
Indian. So, if a clown like Kalyan Singh wants to keep talking about
his temple versus a mosque, he should be shoved out of the room for
showing contempt of the nation.

The matter of how the Liberhan report leaked out is one of concern,
but by no means one of such staggering importance like what the report
itself contains. With wisdom or shortsightedness, the report has been
tabled well before its deadline, and even that is irrelevant in
comparison to the gravity of what it contains. This is a clear
indictment of a party that supposedly stands for a strong, united
India. This is the BJP being shown in its truest colour - that of a
shadowy, fundamentally religious, divisive party hell bent on showing
disrespect to the Constitution of this country.

Along with the BJP are the RSS, the VHP, the Shiv Sena, and a host of
other misled and misleading outfits that fit well in the
constituencies of the "Sangh Parivar". Let them fool us no more.
This is the mindset that not only wants to turn the clock back to the
years of Lord Ram, to the glorious times of an India that might exist
only in mythology, but also one that somehow equates a few of our
women visiting pubs to the erosion of this great Indian culture.

It is the same mindset that makes them declare, completely falsely,
that Hindus of India will go on the warpath if their temple at this
"disputed" site is not allowed to come up. I can swear by millions of
Indian Hindus, right now, that this is completely a hoax and by no
means representive of even an iota of how we feel towards this stupid
idea of building a temple over the destroyed remains of a monument
protected by law - Indian law, the law of THIS land.

Our "national" media is not mature enough to ask the most important,
incisive question to the parties indicted in this report - "Do you
think it is important enough to build this temple at the cost of
violating the Constitution of India?". If the BJP answers "yes", then
they are politically dead and buried. If they answer "no", then there
is no issue. The guilty go to jail, the rest can shut up and go about
their lives, and India moves on.

The whole problem is, this issue IS that simple. It IS that obvious
to those of us who are rational. We have a nation we are citizens of.
We have certain rules, duties, obligations, and regulations that come
along with the rights, the freedoms, the privileges and the
citizenship of this nation called India. The Babri Masjid is to us,
exactly what it was on the 15th of August 1947. Every structure from
the past that we inherited on that day is a monument and a treasure,
no matter what religious persuasion is part of its history. It is one
thing to hold on to beliefs about what might or might not have
happened in a bygone era from which no historical evidence exists, but
to base an act of destruction for reversing history is outright
hooliganism.

No national debate has ever been held that put rationale, logic,
respect for the Indian flag and the Constitution, and the rule of law,
against dogma and the illicit brewing of religious sentiments that
have constantly challenged and corroded India's every move to an
apolitical maturity of its masses. Are we incapable of even so much
as setting the topic for this debate?

A national treasure has been destroyed. The Sangh Parivar's claim
that no masjid existed at this "disputed" spot should be virulently
spat at as being irrelevant to the argument. The argument should
hardly ever be skewed away from the destruction of a historical
structure that belonged to India. The fact that it belonged to us as
Indians should necessarily supercede all other arguments. The act of
destruction, therefore, is nothing but an anti-national act of
violence against the state and people of India - no less potent, no
less damaging, and no less in meaning or significance than an act of
terror or war against us.

Let us not hide behind the veil that the goons of the Sangh Parivar
who destroyed the Babri Masjid are after all "our people". They are
Indian citizens no doubt, but look just a bit further, and they are
also the rascals who desecrated a part of India that is no less sacred
to us than our flag. They have shown disrespect to our nation, and
based on their religious ideology, they are standing up against us and
telling us that they are ready to go to any length to fulfill their
commitment to carry out the construction of their temple.

It isn't enough if we tabled this Liberhan report and pointed fingers
at these anti national elements. They should be treated like the
criminals they are. It is time for us to choose whether to allow the
religious sentiments of a group of people should find any freedom of
expression, when it is directly in opposition to the interests of the
Nation of India. Are we Indians before we are Hindus or Muslims or
candidates of other persuasions? That is the question before us. If
we are not Indians first, we do not deserve an India. We deserve
something much more constraining like rule of the Taliban. The Sangh
Parivar would most certainly fit the bill for this sort of rule.

In a smaller matter of loud mouthing, but no less indicative of this
malaise, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray attacked Sachin Tendulkar for
his anti-Maharashtrian speech. Tendulkar didn't say anything
anti-Maharastrian. He stood by his firm belief that he is first an
Indian, while acknowledging that he is proud to be a Maharashtrian.
This isn't opinion, it is the truth. Anybody who understands
Tendulkar's simple English words can know this truth. Not only has
stupidity pervaded the Shiv Sena, it is celebrated. This Shiv Sena is
part of the clown brigade that brought down the Babri Masjid, let's
not lose sight of that fact. So, now we know how intelligent their
perceptions are.

We need to go beyond these issues and ask ourselves why - in the most
secular of nations on paper, in a nation whose Constitution doesn't
even mention "God", we do not have the courage to give ourselves the
sanctity of our collective as Indians, the weight of importance to our
own human spirit that subscribes to the idea of "India". It is true
that a lot many of us didn't fight for the freedom to be Indians.
This is our chance, right here.

BSK.

Are you truly a human resource?

>>>> 3 D Artist, 24th Nov 2009
Newslink Services (India) Pvt Ltd
Delhi, 1-3 years: Candidate should have good oral and written english
communication skills and also strong analytical and logical skills.
<<<<

>>>>>Job Description

- FLUID visual effects.
- Expert in 3d Studio Max Mechanical and organic subjects (3D
modeling, texturing/Mapping, lightning, rendering, animation).
- Comfortable to be a team player.
- Minimum three years recognizable experience in the industry.
- Familiarity with Real Flow and similar software would be a
significant advantage.

<<<<<<<<

For some reason, I don't see anything connecting oral and written
English communication skills, analytical and logical skills - to the
artistry of visual effects, but some bum in a recruiting firm, or in
human resources, sees a connection. In fact, considering all the
above is in the same advertisement for a 3D Artist, the same person
must have all of this. Yes, the candidate should be analytical,
logical, and be able to communicate in fluid spoken and written
English, while tapping away at a computer to create 3 dimensional
wizardry as an artist. Perhaps during the interview, this incredible
candidate will have to demonstrate some cooking skills as well.

In India, I have come across the stupidest, most ignorant bums working
in HR - shitheads who don't even know what they themselves are doing
in their positions, but expected to gauge who might be a good recruit
for the company. These vermin are so bad at their jobs that most
candidates with any self esteem will want to run away if not puke on
their faces at the very first meetings.

If you ask any question that contains more than five words, for
example, "Can you give me an example of your company taking an
interest in an employee's growth?", you are bound to get a stupid
answer like, "We have some of the best growth opportunities in the
industry". Well, duh! If you haven't even grown enough to understand
my question, what the fuck is this growth opportunity that you missed?

Fucking bums. Just in case you're beginning to doubt the "bum" claim,
ask yourself how a DTP Operator job would get listed in the "Media and
Entertainment" section on a popular job site. Without idiots, idiocy
would die. It is really hard to explain how an unimpressive ticket
like Pratibha Patil could become the President of this country, but
don't put it beyond the recommendations of a highly "qualified"
inhuman resource expert to inflict us with this sad choice. Did you
see her interview after her famous Sukhoi sortie? If that is not out
of sorts at a human resource level, nothing is.

Why is it that HR in India attracts this kind of incompetence? In
reality, except for top notch companies driven by real vision, of
which there are very, very few in India, the rest are just cattle
class rigs, run by assholes who can talk big words without being able
to prevent any of it from sounding like farts. The simple answer is
that we have bred mediocrity for too long, and so that is all we can
find.

The real answer is that we don't really respect people for what they
are. There are just so many of us, that we don't need to respect
anybody we don't fear. Instead of focusing on how the best can be
brought out of a human as a resource, we focus indeed on how that
person would "fit" into our preconceived notion of the world and the
path ahead. This is the best way to plan the path downhill, but then,
all we have to do is look good to the bum above. So, neither is the
company likely to find a treasure of a human being in a recruit, nor
is the employee going to find a company worthy of giving a great deal
to.

Even if such a heaven made match occurs, it won't be because of any HR
clown getting his or her act right. It will be because of a senior
level manager meeting a bright young performer in the elevator, on a
flight, or in a seminar or social gathering. From the very first
contact with a company, Indian companies make sure the person calling
or coming in is viewed with suspicion, given the "threshold guardian"
routine by the reception, completely deflated with questions like,
"this is regarding.....?", while the person who just walked in would
know right away that this isn't the fool who would understand this is
regarding a revolutionary idea that might catapult the company to a
cutting edge presence in the field. Bums hire bums, and it is evident
from the very first contact.

If you can get past this nuisance, which will be distasteful but not
hard, you will most likely meet some HR retard who cannot get past
this idea that you are looking for a job, no matter how much they
"need" someone like you to actually tell them what to do with their
own mission! So, academic and professional track records dispensed
with, it is usually time to see what you are looking for - not because
the bastard cares, but because he wants to look and sound as cool as
someone else might in his position in another company. The whole
process should be exciting for both, right? But chances are, it will
be testy, pretentious, limiting, suspicious, or outright hostile.
See, it is always about preventing something great from possibly
taking off. That is what the HR bastards are there for - to limit
everyone to cattle class.

So, when one of these bums puts an advertisement for a 3D Artist, that
candidate has to have logical and analytical skills - as if anybody
would advertise for the opposite. What yardstick might be used to
gauge the logical and analytical skills of any candidate applying for
the post of a 3D Artist? And then, the whole "team player" shit.
This is just a warning to say, "Hey, you can't be looking better than
everybody else!". Chances are, their team sucks and cannot handle
looking bad after you show your brilliance. So, be warned with this
"team" thing. The management board probably resembles a gang more
than a team, and gangsters know how to come together to look good at
the stock market or to their bankers. That is how the crooks set up
their empire schemes in the first place. Pretend to perform, raise
stock value, encash, run, set up the next scheme. It is just success
after success.

If you want to do something really meaningful with your life, do it on
your own. Forget about applying for a job, forget about dealing with
tricksters and shenanigans and uncaring animals, and beat your own
path. If you see incompetence anywhere, make sure you take serious
offence. Be sure to point out who is a bum and appreciate who is
performing. Don't worry about what effect it will have. Refuse to be
impressed with buildings, dress codes, company image and rubbish like
that. Look everyone in the eye and be respectful, but stay on top of
the games people play. Especially the childish ones the fools in HR
will try to get you into. Don't let the donkeys bray louder than your
clear voice.

BSK.

26th November, remembering and realizing.

Today is the 26th of November, 2009. One year after the Mumbai
terrorist attacks. For some reason, a lot of the people who died in
those attacks are being paid tribute to, in various forms, from candle
light vigils to the formation of human chains.

I wonder why we don't pay such tributes to the fifty thousand or more
people we lose in road accidents every year, making us the country
with the most road fatalities in the world. Or to the thousands we
lose to malnutrition, inept medical care, snake bites, murder,
communal riots, food poisoning, disease outbreaks, illicit hooch, and
the myriad ways in which we can reinvent death in our special Indian
way.

What is so freaking heroic about dying at the hand of a terrorist?
And why are we so worried about forgetting them that we keep on
parroting "Lest We Forget"? After all, whether you die in a terror
attack or a road accident, they are both horrible enough, and caused
by some ineptitude somewhere.

When does a victim become a figure worthy of enshrining? Certainly,
it can't be because our news channels suddenly decide your death is
worthy of lighting a candle every year, but the poor sods who consumed
poisonous liquor aren't worth mentioning in the same breath?! After
all, we're all humans and not all of us are going to die of old age.
So, what makes terror victims so much luckier than victims of swine
flu? What the heck qualifies some kinds of death for this exaggerated
show of recollection on the anniversaries?

I think I may have figured this out. It's emotion. We are not very
vocal or expressive about fifty thousand people dying in road
accidents, because it is below our emotional sexiness. It just isn't
as sparkling freaking global in attention grabbing ability as a bunch
of terrorists going crazy with guns and grenades. And, god damn me
for being so picky, but whatever did the people who died from the bomb
explosions in trains in Mumbai some years ago do or didn't do to not
get the same treatment as the rich folks who happened to be at the Taj
hotel when it got attacked? See, again, it is the "sexy" thing! The
Taj hotel under attack looks a lot more like America's sexy Nine
Eleven! Heck, it even has "eleven" in it, only with the date and
month reversed in order.

Now that "eleven" has occupied the top spot for macabre sexiness, it
is easy to deduce that there are, certainly according to Indian
electronic media, only forty one sexy days to attack us on! Any day
in November, that's thirty days, and then the 11th of each of the
remaining 11 months! That's forty one days to get top tier poster
picture attention from the whole country, year after year.
Terrorists, please make sure you got these days marked. Our media
will be really pissed if you attacked us on the 5th of June, for
instance, for it might be a little more awkward to say 5/6, even
though that might total 11! Yikes.

On the subject of paying tribute - why do we pay tribute to poor
victims of barbaric acts? It is not that they died fighting, or died
in any cause for the nation or the human collective. Some of them did
some extraordinary things when under attack, and that is to be
appreciated without a doubt, like that nanny who saved little Moshe,
but almost all others died without a choice. Just like victims of bad
medical care. But there is something really chilling about knowing
you are going to die, isn't there? Like the victims of the
Jallianwallah Bagh massacre in 1919. Those were heroes since they
were fighting for India's freedom, but I wonder how many of them would
have turned up if they knew they were going to be shot at.

This whole "celebration, heroism, tribute" thing bothers me. How many
of these freaking tributes can we handle? Every single day, there is
someone dying somewhere, and the human spirit is being tested like it
has been for centuries. A moment of silence here and there, fine, but
this publicised call for forming human chains, a lot of clowns showing
up with candles and showing "solidarity" with the dead - come on.
That is not even real, unless you share grave space with one of the
victims. It is superficial, fake, emotional feel good mileage that
the living are getting out of the dead. We're fucking delighted and
full of glee that we didn't get shot, but somehow we think those sods
died in our place. It could so easily have been us, couldn't it? So,
we've got to thank them. It doesn't get simpler than this.

It is bizarre enough to dig up old memories repeatedly with the inane
interviews of the survivors on television. Many of them have neither
forgotten nor forgiven. Fair enough. Oh, wait a minute. How about
showing some real respect? If people are unable to forgive and
forget, it is because the karmic cycle has not been completed. It is
a story hanging in balance. We haven't bombed the crap out of our
enemies. We haven't got our REVENGE. That is why we're all souls in
suspended non-violent, unnatural, unfulfilled ambiguity. We are
repressed by this whole system of systematic response. On the other
side, the system of terror must be delighted.

By giving so much attention to these attacks, we're giving terrorists
a place in history. This must be something they salivate over, for
being treated as something so freaking important. That is what
bothers me the most. These fuckheads coming over from Pakistan are
dreadfully ignorant, pathetically regressive in their thinking, and
should be shot for stupidity as soon as they show some of it. But we
not only allow them into our country, we let them shoot our people,
cause mayhem, and then we enshrine them in the media that has a
freaking appetite for celebrities and viewership. A road accident
can't give us that viewership, can it?

We have this readymade orgy of media, public sentiment,
oversimplification of emotional reactions, and uninformed but popular
notions that is ready to jump into action at any time, so long as our
TV looks as compelling as foreign TV. And then all we need to do is
open up these avenues of expressions, catchwords, and public events
that are very easy to subscribe to - and a lot of clowns will show up
with tears generated specifically for this occasion, and candles, and
all kinds of mushy overtones to feed the orgy some more. Tring,
tring, tring - easy viewership, easy money, stay lazy, get a good
name, it is all freaking good, good, good! As in, we're against evil,
evil, evil. Sounds too much like that idiot GW Bush if you ask me,
and we're loving it. Won't be too hard to get some companies to
sponsor these events either. In fact, they would love to come out
officially, "in support of" whatever cause you can con them into
becoming a part of. Trust me, they're dying to be conned into
something simple, just like many of our freak show participants.

Then the TV "personalities", ugh. A bunch of them showed up
yesterday, and said they really want to do something, to show they're
against showing the other cheek, and that they're really angry with
terrorism, that they won't give in, and that they will fight to rid
the world of this menace. What the fuck are they going to do, attack
Pakistani terror camps by themselves? More of the same orgy.

Here is what I would like to say to our victims of terror if they
could listen in - "Really sorry we let this happen to you, brothers
and sisters. Hopefully we will learn from this, and really go after
the bastards who brought this upon you, but this doesn't seem to be a
popular wish right now. Too bad you were born in a democracy, and a
really slow one at that. Don't expect too much from us. May your
journey onward be a more peaceful one."

London Dreams, Mumbai weeps.

London Dreams is like many other B-wood movies – about a dream, a fantasy, and a ride that doesn't always have to have its seat bolted to any kind of reality, or in this case, believability.

If three Indians are brought together by fate, even after their lives having taken completely different paths to that point, and the singular higher purpose that binds them is a rock-star performance at an enormously popular stadium like Wembley, we need something more than a concrete structure of a stadium to believe this story – they probably need to sing in English and play music that most of the people coming there would be able to appreciate.

It is not for nothing that Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy are busy making their living in Mumbai, composing music for Hindi movies. If their music was good enough to rock the world at Wembley, they would have been doing that, instead of Mannu, Arjun and Priya.

Granted that neither of these roles are played by Reese Witherspoon or Joaquin Phoenix who would train till they could render perfect performances for a "Walk The Line", granted that London Dreams has come out of the usual pedigree Mumbai cacophony and is meant for the substantially lowered expectations of typical Hindi language cinema audiences that have been mercilessly dumbed down by B-wood. But, given the story – chasing a dream, could one be blamed for expecting more?

If a film depends on its musical numbers to stand out, it needs to have outstanding music. London Dreams doesn't. If it depends on its storyline to be noticed, it has to have a little more than two friends uniting after many years, a little better character motivation than one of them bringing the other to London, and if their friendship was the big mover, then the token girlfriend should go through an experience of her own that is a lot larger than changing hands. None of this is part of this movie called London Dreams which has had a great deal of work done in the promos and the publicity, but very little on the script, as usual.

Scene for scene, you would expect two experienced actors like Ajay Devgan and Salman Khan to easily deliver the undemanding, oversimplified love to anger range of emotions that B-wood cinema invariably spits out mercilessly on its audiences and the director ensures they don't enter any dangerous territories of challenging performances. Everybody is adequately over the top exactly as you could expect from a B movie from B-wood.

Asin's role as always, could have been performed by any girl in B-wood, and she's adequately available to the uninspiring demands this script places on her. Priya is at the centre of a great friendship gone sour, but when there is such a human endeavour in progress like chasing that elusive dream of a great live performance before a big human gathering, how can we burden her with the extra gravity of the personal?

So, the men are allowed to bring the story to its (chrono)logical end, which is rather soothing after the long drawn out indifference to the music and the story. As for the earth shattering moment that brings Arjun down to earth, we all saw it coming, for that is what happens to good guys who went down the wrong path in Hindi movies. They never give us the pleasure of telling us that they had a great time on the dark side, do they? Because they have a reputation to protect – of being ready for the next mediocre film to do the same expected things all over again.

Yet another vague, purposeless, weak kneed, over-hyped, glossed over, noisily promoted offering from B-wood, with nothing special to offer. But then, heck, you can get to see Wembley, and some of us who aren't lucky enough to be sleeping with ear plugs in air conditioned comfort after paying the money to get in, we might even catch glimpses of Paris, Amsterdam and Rome. Want a good movie from B-wood? Dream on.

PS: Sure this was written before the release of the film, as you can tell by the time of this post, but did it make any difference, really? If you've seen the film, please tell me why I should too!

Caught in catch phrases.

"Whose WAR is it anyway?" Oh, great! I suppose not more than three
generations of English speaking Indians have seen "Whose Life Is It
Anyway?" so we must all really salivate over how good this sounds.

"Children of a lesser God", or victims of terrorism? Ditto here, who
remembers an Oscar nominated film with the exact same name?!

Chattisgarh, "War On" Naxals! After the War On Drugs, and the War on
Terror, both of which were flop shows, now we have a War on Naxals?
India is a great place to unleash Wars upon, starting from War on
Stray Dogs, to War on Corruption, War on Filth, War on Floods, War on
Drought, and hopefully we can fight the War of all Wars with a War on
Stupidity followed by a War on Wars?

How easily the pigs of Indian television use the word WAR! It is a
word of immense import, one that evokes a state where all reason has
failed, all our abilities as negotiators have been exhausted, and a
state where our conflict resolution skills have been overthrown by
bloodthirst - physical conflict guaranteed to bring about death and
destruction. Getting caught in catch phrases is one thing, but utter
disrespect for the power of words will have grave consequences as
well. (pun intended).

A "Total Recall" of Amitabh Bachchan movies on his 67th birthday!
Phew, that should make him really proud, considering he hates the word
"Bollywood". This one is really cheap, too, and must have come from
the unfailingly low Mumbai uncreative mindset that works for the media
industry there or in New Delhi. The word "recall" has really negative
connotations of faulty merchandise, and if Amitabh Bachchan is so
faulty, we really have to cry for this nation's heroes.

If these catch phrases have not worn us down with their uncreative
repetitions in the last forty eight hours, we finally caught up with
the oldest crap term of all time, "Nuclear Capable"! This one's been
away for some time, to be honest, but back with a bang today!
"Privhti-2 successfully fired today". We all know it is a missile.
Does it make it any more remarkable because it is nuclear capable? A
nuclear weapon is simply another payload for the missile to carry.
This is the stupidest way to get people all concerned, while it really
shouldn't mean anything.

Whether we put fireworks or a bomb on it, the missile is just the
vehicle carrying it. Even a donkey is "nuclear capable", and it
really is time our dumb news channels stopped hammering us with this
infantilish term.

A missile's job is merely to hit its target accurately and to evade
counter measures. That's it. If Prithvi-2 reached its target, it's a
success. Any missile that can carry 100 kgs or more, for sanity's
sake, is nuclear capable. Your kid's school bus is nuclear capable,
as is a bullock cart.

Now why the fuck do we need to "launch" new cars? Whenever cars get
launched, they get destroyed, don't they? Haven't we seen enough
movies to know this? The BMW Z4 was "launched" today after the
successful "launch" of the Jaguar and the Land Rover range by Tata
vehicles? Do we see any of these pieces of shit in orbit around us?
At sixty lakhs for a Z4 you wouldn't have to launch the damn thing -
You would have to beg, plead, market, schmooze, and lick the boots of
the richest Indians to get a sale. The guys who know where to throw
sixty lakhs aren't going to be dying to own something just because it
got launched into their faces from a hoarding.

It isn't just a matter of creativity, when it reeks incompetence to
the nth degree. If Formula One driver David Coulthardt drove an F1
car on a new bridge in the USA at 260km/hr, and had invited a speeding
ticket and a loss of Rs. 20 lakhs to the "organizers" of the event, we
wouldn't see just the car standing still and Coulthardt getting into
his seat fifty times. We would actually see the bloody car speeding
across. For some reason, even though it happened in Mumbai, and with
this whole story that got so much "coverage", we never saw the car
going across the bridge!

There is a bunch of uncreative, giddy Indians out there, putting out
messages like we are the USA. Many of these fools directly copy not
just the catch phrases from very American precedents, but also
stupidly and crudely emulate their presentation style, whether it
makes sense to Indians or not. Are these the same motherfuckers and
whores that put white skinned models on our brands? I dread to think
that is a whole other bunch of idiots for us to deal with.

India is being Mumbaied royally, Mind it! Ugh.

We're the Superloser, and proud of it!

Former President Mr. Abdul Kalam made a startling statement recently -
that he expected India to be an information superpower by 2020. A lot
of Indians have been using the word "superpower" in their expectation
of their country reaching that status, in the very least, in their
minds.

As Indians, we lack perspective about most things Indian, not only
because 70% of our population is below the age of 33 but because a
very small percentage of us have travelled abroad or extensively
enough to know where we really stand in comparison to other countries.

Is it in any way essential that we become a superpower? Are there any
measurable benefits to being such a power? Naturally, we should look
at the lone superpower in the world today, the USA, for some pointers,
and the gap is not something to be scoffed at. The USA is where it is
because of years of investment in science and technology, incentives
for innovation, and relentless application of the rule of law.
Recently, they have even made advances in freedom of speech and
reducing the impact of racism.

India is where it is because of our collective subscription to
socialist notions, our lack of integrity in implementing any policy we
put in place, and our almost militant aversion to innovation, not to
mention the rule of law being hijacked by a political structure that
breeds nothing but degradation of every principle we should be
standing by as a democracy.

In other words, India's democracy has never been on track, but we're
indifferent enough to let it have its survival. We have no problem
with democracy, simply because it can put up with all our ills and
stupid notions. Any other form of government or governance would
involve effort but this dummy democracy works for us because it gives
the average Indian the least amount of work to do, the most amount of
benefits, and the greatest rights to remain mediocre.

In the conceivable future, India is not going to do much more than
make feeble attempts at what the USA has achieved years before, will
not innovate, will not encourage leapfrogging technologies, and will
not take decisions capable of reshaping India's rise in the coming
century. We will rise, but not when compared to other countries that
will also rise during this period that had similar starting points as
us.

The reasons are not that hard to arrive at. We have the dumbest, most
crooked, shadiest and self centred politicians, because WE elected
them. But then, let's look at who is doing the electing. The average
Indian versus the Average citizen of the USA. The average Indian
thinks nothing of paying a bribe to get something done. The
counterpart in the USA would raise hell if such a demand was made.
The average Indian has no problem putting up with filth, dirty smells,
and absolutely dirty surroundings. We just get used to it. People of
the USA have by and large set higher public hygiene standards for
themselves. The average Indian doesn't think anything of breaking
rules, whether it is in traffic or in stealing water using a suction
pump to take water illegally from the public distribution system. You
would never hear of any of this from the average person in the USA.
No wonder we have lousy government, and we participate in the blame
game rather willingly!

Stay in a hotel in India, in which foreigners, especially those with
white skin are staying as well. What are the chances that Indians get
the same level of attention and service as the foreigners? Zero. As
long as we volunteer for the lower level of service, we will continue
to be the lower people.

It's hard to look at ourselves and think, "We're inferior", but all
measurable indicators point to precisely that. India is an inferior
country compared to the developed world, and not much better than most
in the developing world. In fact, we rank 134 in the UN development
index. Considering there aren't a billion countries, and indeed only
232, this is not by any means a place to be for a "Superpower" to be,
is it?

The baggage of our "great culture" weighs down heavily upon us. We
also assume that other countries have no culture and we have some kind
of bragging rights about what a great culture we have. Oh, yes, when
a woman is molested on the streets of Patna, in plain view of video
cameras and policemen watching, we definitely seem to be showcasing
our great culture.

Our slave mentality constantly dictates how low we should treat our
own country. Look at our software industry, that thrived when the USA
was booming. Not very many of our software companies that earned
enormous profits really took it upon themselves to play a role that
would bring the benefits of the information revolution to the average
Indian. The USA has a recession, India begins to lose jobs and
despair. Why does it have to be this way, instead of using our
incredible ancient wisdom and being able to predict such collapses and
being prepared?

It isn't how much money is in the kitty that can come to define a
"superpower". It will take eons before the standard of life of the
average Indian can come anywhere close to somebody living in the USA.
Enough of comparisons. Now, let's take the absolute view.

Our railway stations do have dust bins, but most Indians prefer to
throw their garbage on the tracks. Go to a wedding and watch our
guests leave the buffet area looking like a garbage dump. It shows in
the attitude that we don't want to live in clean surroundings. We
think nothing of trashing the country for others.

Our law enforcement mechanism cannot enforce any law, because our
police force is incredibly corrupt. So, we don't care for law
enforcement, for we have set this standard for ourselves that the law
exists only to be broken. What is really unfair is that law abiding
citizenry are also endangered because of this callous attitude and
there is no breaking this vicious cycle. We just don't care!

We have the roof of an international airport leaking in the rain,
flooding an entire section, and the Chief Operating Officer is happy
enough to say no flights and operations were affected. In other
words, we should have had anacondas and pythons coming through the
roof and eating passengers and pilots before we would really care
about the hole!

We're losers. India is a fourth world country caught in a dream of
making it to the third world. We think that is the first world,
because we know no better and we care even less. The dream is not
making us work hard, with our heads held high. It is giving us the
illusion that with very little effort, we will somehow make it there,
amongst the best nations in the world. That in itself is a joke worth
laughing ten times over. We have nothing, absolutely nothing to be
proud of.

Please spare us this superpower rhetoric, Mr. Kalam. We'd be happy to
just live without these horrible pressures of life in India. The rest
of us, I would beg, stop using this word like it is our birthright of
some sort. It is a needless aspiration, and one that is bound to be a
joke sooner or later, more likely sooner, and it's not a funny one
either.

Besides, it is completely unnecessary, especially if it might come
with added responsibilities. Oh, no! We don't want any of that now,
do we?

Need to connect ‘Shining India’ and ‘Backward India’: Rahul Gandhi

http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article30622.ece?homepage=true

What're you waiting for, Rahul?

Here we are!

"This is very bad, very, very bad!"

Condemnation is usually inevitable, and it is usually timely from all
talking heads all over the world. It is easy to dish out, and one can
add any amount of viciousness to it, without any fear of a
proportionate bite back. We are after all the human collective, and
very happy to be in the comfort zone of watching and doing nothing,
and we in India, are the kings and queens of this collective. Not
unless our very existence is under threat do we even bother to open
our eyes to wrong. Of course we are quick to condemn, because it
costs nothing, and it is easy to get away with.

Forty people died two days ago by drowning in the Thekkady lake,
almost all of them tourists. It would have been less spectacular if
some white foreigners were not amongst them, but they were, Thank God!
Now, this is international tragedy! A freaking calamity! So, heads
will have to roll! There's a full fledged investigation into what
happened, and even ex-Navy officials have chimed in with the inside
story on life jackets and lifebuoys, and the first clean chit has been
given to the engine of the "ill-fated" boat!

For some reason, when all people in the upper deck of the boat rush to
one side to see animals, and the boat capsizes, it doesn't seem to
have much to do with the engine. Nevertheless, here we have it, in
our typical Indian incompetent fashion, with the idiotic nerve to even
report something as stupid as this - "The engine of the boat has
received a clean chit"! Great. Do we hear anybody condemning this
nonsense? Of course not. Because it needs a little thought before we
can spew.

The reason behind this tragedy is very simple physics. The boat that
was carrying these tourists overturned because it was simply not built
to have a severely uneven distribution of load. Add the extra height
of the upper deck, and the moment provided by a one sided load from
that height simply turned it over. It had no deep keel, not much of
its structure under water, and certainly not enough balancing load on
the upper or lower decks. No matter how badly maintained the
lifebuoys were, no matter how nobody had lifejackets on, this is the
reason for people dying - using a boat not designed properly for all
people to rush to one side on the upper deck.

It means that safety norms were either neglected or not even known,
given that this is India, where we still think it is "fashion" to wear
seat belts while we drive at mad speeds with licensed murdering
lunatics all around. It won't be so fashionable when you die in a
crash in a head on collision, but never mind accountability, and never
mind this investigation. We don't even have a fundamental
understanding of how to implement standards and specifications in a
simple tourist ferry operation, and that exposes one of India's
fundamental attitude problems. We neglect everything we can get away
with. Forty people didn't get away with this, did they?

It is a good thing our planes are built by Boeing and Airbus, for if
HAL were to have built any of them, we wouldn't even have safety
instructions, maintenance routines and airworthiness checks. If any
plane crashed because of a wing falling off, we'd still give a clean
chit to the engine, which by the way is most likely to be imported.
Remember the Indian Airlines brand new Airbus A330 that crashed in
Bangalore? Indian investigators were quick to blame Airbus for it,
but had to hastily withdraw their claim when all data from the flight
data recorders, and the cockpit voice recorders and other scientific
evidence clearly pointed to the fact that that pilot had fed in the
altitude as the rate of descent, and even confidently answered in the
affirmative to the plane's computer asking him back if he was sure.
Cocky bastard killed over a hundred people.

We have a lot of people in this country who are licensed to murder us.
Drivers who use the turn signal to "allow" a passing vehicle, other
drivers who think this is the rule, fools who don't put their lights
on low beam when another vehicle approaches, the fruit markets that
sell produce spuriously ripened, restaurants that use dubious
additives in the food, and the entire government machinery that
supports the sub standard functioning of all services available to the
Indian citizen are all responsible for the systematic murder of people
- you and I are definitely on the hit list, make no mistake about it.

We Indians are so arrogant in our preoccupied states of being indian,
that we don't consider ordinary things worth maintaining, or others'
ordinary lives precious. A life jacket is called a life jacket with
good reason. If people aren't handed one as soon as they get onto a
boat, or if they are not in a position to get one very quickly, it is
useless to have them. This boat that drowned out forty lives in
Thekkady had life jackets! They were most definitely there to satisfy
the bureaucratic requirements - nothing more than a checklist! This
definitely had less to do with keeping the boat operationally safe and
more to do with having to answer questions in their absence. It is
simply the Indian thing to do. As long as nobody questions us, we
must be perfect. When somebody does question us, how dare they?

For the sake of our own lives, let's condemn our apathy first and
foremost. Let's condemn the stupid statements that come out of our
incompetent politicians and decision makers. Let's condemn the inane
noise that comes out of the mouthpieces of government. Let's condemn
the gap between "requirements" and implementation. Let's condemn the
lack of scientific temper in our approach to development. Let's
condemn the rise of stupidity over knowledge, the rise of noise over
truth, and the rise of nebulous inaction over clear actions. Since we
are so good at condemnation, can we please learn where to aim it?

Hindi Diwas, to hell with us.

It's official now. The whole of India is going to be oppressed by a
new demon called the Hindi Diwas, and apparently it stands for "Hindi
Day". It's coming on Sept. 14th, and this can of worms had to be
opened by the Hindi imperialists. From this day on, it can no longer
be hidden behind well meaning phrases of national unity, nor can it be
clouded by any doubts over whether Hindi is going to be imposed on the
whole of India.

It won't take very long for us to have a "Thamizh Dinam", a "Kannada
Dina" and umpteen other equivalents, and why not? To each his
language is important, and I'll be damned if anyone dare stands in the
way of any of these occasions.

There was a debate on television last night about this, on a program
called We The People. There wasn't enough confrontation here, but
there will be everywhere else, thanks to this mindless provocation from the Hindi
imperialists. As always, the most irritating comments came in as
tweets and e mails from people mentioning Hindi as a "national
language", as if such a thing exists. Clearly, ignorance rules.

In the debate was the question - "Do we need a national language to
unite us?". My answer is a categorical NO, and even if it were deemed
necessary, it sure shouldn't be Hindi. I'd prefer Tamil to be honest.
I can already hear the conch shells being blown by the majority.
Sorry, fools, the national bird is the peacock and it sure isn't in
the majority like the crow. Neither is the stray dog going to replace
the Tiger as the national animal, nor is the flower of the parthenium
plant going to replace the lotus. So, the "majority" nonsense isn't
going to work.

There's a reason we take pride in the Peacock, the Tiger and the Lotus
and cringe about the Crow, Stray Dog, and Parthenium. If we have to
choose our "national language" based on beauty, evolutionary status,
and power of communication, there are other languages that would give
Hindi a sound pasting. Out goes the "quality" angle for Hindi.

Now, we can get onto the real debate - do we need some "unifying"
language? Now, why would I want to be unified with the pigs who have
already declared Hindi Diwas as being something of national
importance? I don't want to associate myself with this bunch of
fanatics, ever. It's a dangerous ploy from them that will create
needless suspicions, misgivings, anger, chaos, and very sensitive
distinctions between Hindi and non-Hindi speakers, and is the first
salvo in what will invariably become the most divisive cultural battle
within India. Our enemies must love this!

The assumption that India is somehow not unified already is a
dangerous one. The Indian Rupee has more than ensured that we have
enough of a market size as "India" to keep all of us interested in
staying together as one nation. We have demands for new states, but
all part of the Indian Union. Strong as ever, more officially diverse
now, more chaotic, but also more dynamic, expressive and climbing up
the ladder on the international importance stage. None of this came
about because of Hindi, but a fair bit due to English, thank you very
much.

The laziness surrounding the thought processes that repeatedly lead to
this debate is remarkable. A farmer in Goa has no need to feel
"oneness" with a carpenter in Hyderabad, but I'm sure if these two
meet by circumstance, they will be civil enough towards each other.
With or without language, their realities are fairly different from
one another, and with or without language, their differences are what
will make each interesting to the other. Homogenity will kill India
and everything we stand for.

We are a large country, an ancient country, but a very young nation.
India is still just an idea to us, and nobody really understands it
completely. We as Indians have never had any need to show our
solidarity with one another, except when the very idea of our
existence as a nation has been challenged. We do not have to be
worried about our loosely defined existence either, for it has taken
enormous courage to conceptualize this Indian nation in the first
place and there is nothing to indicate we won't have the courage to
stand by the idea, however flimsy it may eventually prove to be.

By singling out Hindi for preferential treatment, the fools behind
Hindi Diwas have taken a very dangerous, uniquely annoying, and
shallow path of celebratory giddiness that will be received as a
challenge by many of us. Part of the price to pay to live in a
democracy is allowing for the potential for a few fools to disrupt,
distort, and delay our ideas of progress. In this case, there are
sady, a lot of fools, and a lot of us are going to suffer the
consequences of their flippant attitudes towards the non-Hindi Indian.

The descent of the level of this conversation, is now brilliantly
highlighted by this ridiculous Hindi Diwas. So, what can be the harm
in entertaining some low thoughts to mark the decision? What are we
supposed to do on this bloody Hindi Day? Greet each other in Hindi?
Or speak in Hindi the whole day? Sorry vakkalolingala, naanga
Thamizhley dhaan pesuvom. Otha ennada pannuvey, chappathi naaye? Any
lower and it won't be fun. Now, if we had a day for each language in
India, that would mean we would all have to speak that language on
that day, and we can already see a least minimum of twenty five days
of our productivity going down the drain.

What have we accomplished during "The Year of the Girl Child" or "The
Year of The Tiger"? Would Hindi Diwas save our students in Australia
from racial attacks, now that we are going to be miraculously unified?
It is apparent that some people in New Delhi have a lot of spare time
on their hands and have to conjure up some nonsense, ostensibly, for
us all to get excited about. The devil's workshop is working full
time and is flying the Indian flag on its chimney.

The slide in India's national debates these days brings to the fore
not an issue that two sides see differently, but distinctly, very
distinctly, puts on stage two Indias across an enormous divide. One
side knows what the issue is and has the intelligence to deal with it,
and the other is either ill informed, uneducated, or simply incapable
of cohesive thought. It is not hard to see which side of this
volatile divide Hindi Diwas came from.

This cannot be resolved without a massive reprimand to reverse
stupidity. Sorry dear Mother India, this is going to get ugly, real
agli.

India's Cattle have Class!

First of all, "Cattle Class" is a very common term used by many people
in many cultures and it is apparent India needs to wake up and lighten
up, since many don't even seem to have heard this term before.

The BJP thinks this is deplorable and the situation is "ominous"
because China is showing intent of transgressing our border!!! That
measures the BJP's knowledge of world affairs rather well, doesn't it?
Their spokesperson hasn't even heard of the term "cattle class" but
they know what China is up to! Never mind that the success of their
famous "Pokhran 2" has come under a shadow of doubt and could
seriously undermine our minimum deterrent capabilities.

Tharoor, after all, did travel in cattle class, didn't he? Why are so
many monkeys asking for his removal? The question is - should a man's
personal comment that clearly doesn't violate any known law somehow
become the grounds for his eviction from his Ministerial post? It
would be a sad day for India if it did, but then, there have been many
sad days for our great country and more will come as long as we have
these dumb cows in government.

At the bottom of this issue is ignorance, as is with many issues in
India. For some reason, it is perfectly okay for people to travel
worse than cattle in unreserved compartments in trains, on roofs of
buses, stuffing children by the dozen into tiny autorickshaws, making
them carry heavy loads of books, getting shoved and squeezed
physically in all kinds of transportation all over India, but a man's
comment about travelling "cattle class" is evoking so much emotion?
Clearly, when there are people who travel three days on trains,
sitting in the lavatories for the entire journey, we've got our
priorities totally screwed up.

Neither do the people reacting have any familiarity with the usage of
the term "cattle class" and many don't even speak English with any
fluency to be qualified enough to comment about this. But there is
plenty of jealousy, clearly, not about a man capable of making a
comment like this, but the fact that he is familiar with new
technologies, has a distinctly modern lifestyle, and is comfortable in
the age of the internet. Compared to Shashi Tharoor, indeed, many of
our ministers do look like cattle to me. And so do the fools that
vote for them. They deserve to be herded and hounded all their lives
till they find a way to start living and behaving like humans.

Cattle definitely have more class than the treatment humans get in
India. This comment should be a compliment. Look at the mindless
millions that show up in trucks (completely violating transportation
laws) at political rallies, the millions that travel in dangerous ways
on a daily basis, get killed every year by falling in ravines or
getting hit by trains at level crossings, and you'd be lucky to be
with a herd of cattle than with thousands of these poor sods our
country is dying to uplift. Doesn't the BJP think of any of these as
ominous exceptions to their "India Shining" image?

Take a crowded local bus in any city in India and you will know
exactly what being "cattle" is all about. The majority of India does
get herded like cattle in many a public place, being "humped" by
people while standing in queues, oppressed by people who have never
even heard of a deodorant and do not have the common sense to wear
cotton clothes, and having to put up with an obnoxious amount of
physical contact for no reason with complete strangers who think
nothing of shoving other people. And we're offended with a comment on
Twitter?

Please let's get a grip on ourselves. If you can't laugh at Tharoor's
comment, that is your loss, not his. If you haven't heard the term
before, well, now you have. There's nothing to feel offended about
and if your poor, sensitive, selectively depressed, bleeding,
patriotic heart is feeling bad, the man has apologized. You'll have
to find that apology on Twitter as well, but if you didn't go there in
the first place, what the heck are you feeling bad about anyway?

HELP, your Honour!!!

The ban on Jaswanth Singh's book "Jinnah" has been lifted by the
Gujarat High Court. The Gujarat government has to inevitably follow
suit since its ban notification has been overthrown. What they should
really be sensitive about is not the lift of the ban, but the
observation made by division bench, about the notification - "book was
not read, mind was not applied, opinion had not been formed"!

In other words, stripped of the diplomacy, this is the court telling
the government, "You bastards have neither read the book, nor are
capable of understanding its contents. You have no mind, and you have
no thought process. Get the f*** out of the way". Hee hee hee! Tell
us something we don't know already. Modi and his bunch of idiots have
been shown their place. No wonder Jaswant Singh is thrilled. So am
I.

But the damning situation really isn't about Jaswant Singh's book and
the Modi government's knee jerk reaction of sorts. It has to do with
how many stupid people there are in politics and government -
something I have been harping about for a while now. Plain stupidity!
Can we constantly lean on the honourable members of our judiciary to
be rescued from stupidity? That is not what they are there for, but
they have certainly made a statement here.

We have the worst people in politics, and the worst manpower in
government. There is neither an atmosphere that encourages
intelligence or a demand for excellence in performance. Just visit
any government office and you can see how well the country is being
run. The problem with government is that it doesn't have to deliver
anything since we're okay with mediocrity.

Democracy, particularly when practised to the extreme degree as in our
country, has one major drawback. A few fools can hold back the rest
of us from progress. It is already a crime when many fools can hold
back the progress of a few intelligent people, but giving the majority
of India the benefit of doubt, we're still left with this incredible
trapping - those in government can make our lives miserable just
because they are stupid enough to do so!

What is our defence against plain stupidity? Insulation - you cannot
buy it unless you are very rich. That will mean, you have your own
fields to produce food, your own water supply, your own electricity
generation, and you have your own aircraft so you don't have to deal
with government maintained roads - at the very least. If today is any
indication, Air India planes will catch fire from fuel leaks. You
could DIE from government inefficiency.

Indifference is the other option - won't get us very far. Unless you
choose to live in a jungle without any interaction with anybody, you
are going to get hit by stupidity sooner or later.

Spiritual evasion - something we Indians are very good at! You can
tell yourself that this is God's world and you just have to learn from
it, evolve, mature, and essentially, you guessed it, do nothing! How
lovely that evolving in the spirit can lead you to be a coward putting
up with nonsense. If this is acceptable to you, like the majority of
Indians, then you have no problems.

But what about those of us who bloody well want something better than
what we have, on all fronts? Is there any real reason beyond
willingness to put up with stupidity and mediocrity for us to be
subjected to the fundamental anxiety of being Indian today? Why
should the most basic things go wrong in our country? Try going into
a government office to get a plan approved to build a house. You
cannot do it without paying a bribe unless you are willing to bully.
Why should we have to bribe OR BULLY dumbasses to do jobs they should
be doing efficiently anyway?

Look at how quickly they can move when it concerns their own parasitic
futures within government. One politician dies in a helicopter crash,
and immediately, there is an active debate about putting satellite
phones on all VVIP carrying aircraft! Doesn't matter if the rest of
us can never get accurate information about trains coming and going on
a simple automated system by calling 139. Doesn't matter how many
thousands of man hours are lost in productivity just because we have
to cover for government inefficiency, backwardness, delays and just
plain incompetence. VVIPs have to get their bloody satellite phones,
and we're paying for that, no doubt.

How come politicians get to travel on well paved roads everywhere,
while we pay road tax and have to put up with pot holes, snarls, road
blocks, dirt and debris that are never removed, and policemen willing
to ticket us for offences we didn't commit - like overspeeding on a
TVS Scooty! Come on!

The plain truth is that other people can affect our lives. The more
stupid they are, the more lazy they are and the more incompetent they
are, the more negatively they can affect our lives. Government jobs
in India attract precisely the most stupid, the laziest and the most
incompetent people. So, how are we going to escape the grind with
them? The judiciary is all we have on our side. Let's sue the living
daylights out of the government for all the crappy work they do, the
crappy decisions they take, and the things they never get around to.
No other way out of this mess. Sue, sue, sue.

Penny foolish pound mad.

It has suddenly dawned on some of our politicians in Delhi that they
are being wasteful. Gee! What a relief!

The last few times Tamilnadu Deputy Chief Minister Stalin visited a
little town called Erode in Tamilnadu, streets were decorated with
tube lights for kilometres, while the ordinary residents of the town
have had to endure a daily two hour power cut for a long time, and
posters and cut outs of enormous size and variety were on display all
along the route he travelled in. Traffic was diverted from the
arterial roads onto little roads that led to jams and delays and an
enormous loss of productivity resulted for the whole town! We can
safely estimate total losses and wasted expenditure to be no less than
Rs. 10 lakhs. This is just one day in the life of one of our
politicians who is not even a heavy hitter on the national scene.

We can also safely assume that Stalin alone has at the very least
fifty such days in a year, and so we're burning Rs. 5 crore for
absolutely nothing gained. (He doesn't even say anything profound or
accidentally drop any pearls of wisdom). Let's look at 25 states and
assume that only one politician in each state burns money like this,
even though there must be a much higher number out there. That's 125
crores burnt for nothing. The last elections cost an estimated Rs.
10,000 crore. Mayawati's beautification fiasco runs into figures well
over Rs. 100 crore. while she is begging for money from the centre to
fight drought.

But, we've got to have AUSTERITY! Hooray! SM Krishna decides to
travel economy on his trip to Belarus and Turkmenistan, going abroad
with only 3 members not 12. I suppose with an air ticket to Belarus
costing about Rs. 40,000 at the most, that saves the government about
Rs. 4.5 lakhs! Consider that a fair amount of this money could have
gone to the beleaguered Air India, which is really money going from
one pocket of the government to another, and it is essentially nothing
saved.

Who are we kidding here with this Austerity Drive? Today we have
Sonia Gandhi travelling economy class on Air India. According to CNN
IBN's own estimate, the total saving, including having to reserve 15
seats, keeping the seat next to her free, and all the other nonsense
that goes with her travel, the total savings is Rs. 10,000! The
Special Protection Group just makes sure they add to every travel
expense of every politician at this level. Again, when she is
travelling Air India, isn't this government to government billing?
What the heck is all the fuss about?

Fundamentally, with all the nonsense about India being an IT power, it
should be relatively easy to set up a robust video conferencing
facility between anyone and anyone else in the world today. Throw in
encryption and you have privacy, secrecy if you like to call it that.
So, why should anybody travel at all for a stupid face to face meeting
with anyone else? Isn't this the question that we should be asking at
this juncture?

If companies can carry on regular year round business using the
internet, why can't our politicians use these technologies for a few
days with each country? It will save an enormous amount of money by
completely eliminating all the fuss involved with VIP travel - flying,
hospitality, security, insurance, logistics, and medical emergency
arrangements.

Almost all our politicians have assets well beyond their legal means
of earning. Is there any austerity there? Absolutely not. For
example, there are corruption cases against Mulayam Singh Yadav and
Mayawati running into several crores of rupees. The figures allegedly
put away by some of our other politicians are staggering. No
austerity there. How else would we spend Rs. 10,000 crore on a single
election? That money is not even accounted for! So please, spare us
this hogwash about austerity. We want you monkeys to be efficient,
not austere. Get your butts off your cushions and get to work.

The Unique Idiot Detection Authority - all ours now!

Chairman, UID Authority, Nandan Nilekani, of Infosys fame, has just
announced that we are entering "uncharted territory" in technology,
and that it is a "technological challenge" to get the Unique ID scheme
working. What the f*** is this idiot talking about? And why isn't he
getting fired?
He spat all this to that other idiot Karan Thapar on TV - that we are
technologically challenged and going into uncharted territory in
collecting biometric information of a billion people and putting them
all in an online database. Karan Thapar for his part had to ask the
stupid question, "Isn't this a case of India's ambition outstripping
its ability?". Well, duh! Has our ability every outstripped our
ambition? Has anybody's? Nilekani assured us that this has never
been done before, and I wonder why he would be given the job if it
had. Where do we get these freaks from?
The "Uncharted territory" claim is a complete lie. Biometric
information is not some three hundred years into the future technology
in development and testing. The USA has been collecting it during
the visa process from every human applying for entry into the USA for
a few years now and storing it online for verification at the port of
entry. Two birds with one stone - collecting information is not such
a big deal, and putting it online for access from all over the world
is also not a big deal. There is a proven working model here! Even putting a probe on the moon was not uncharted territory!
How the heck can this be a technological challenge either? The process involves a retina scan, and a fingerprint scan, usually of the index finger. The chance of two people having the same
information is virtually non existent, and so this is considered very safe for
identification purposes. Once these two scraps of information go
into a database as THE identification parameters for ONE specific
person, it is accessible just like accessing your e mail, from
anywhere in the world. You cannot have two people with the same
information, and when you present your retina and your fingerprint
anywhere in the world, all we need to do is see if it matches the
information on file. That's it!
So that leaves us with numbers. If this works for millions of people,
why can't it work for a billion? Absolutely no reason it cannot.
Once we figured out how to lay a tar road from point A to point B,
would we really be stumped by having to connect point C? Probably
not. Once we figured out how to put a few sacks of rice in a truck
and send it out on one of these roads, would it be a challenge to fill
up a second truck with sugarcane and send it out? Probably not.
Ten people or ten billion people, same process. There are enough and
more places to store digital information these days and this won't
even take a fraction of the space Google offers free to its free e
mail users. Clearly, numbers and resources, no issues.
So, what is this idiot Nilekani talking about? Does he want this
merely time consuming process to sound like this is some breakthrough
pioneering invention in the making? He is either drunk or stupid on
this one. He can certainly be fired on the latter. If the Chairman
of such an ambitious and potentially crucial government program is so
out of sorts with even the most fundamental, layman expressions to
describe it, is this the best guy we could get for the job?
If a bunch of identification candidates closed their eyes during the retina scan, that
might be an issue, but that's hardly technological like Nikelani would
have us believe. Oh yes, this may really be a bit of a challenge if
one whole tribe of Indians doesn't have index fingers but we can
always agree to use the middle finger in that case. That wouldn't be
uncharted territory either.