Will Kalam be back?

Will the Congress let president Abdul Kalam get re-elected, especially after the current stand of President Kalam concerning Office of Profit Bill?

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Just deleted a comment

I just deleted a comment posted by someone named Harsh. He’s from Gujarat and he supports the censure Aamir Khan is receiving, and considering this, I think he’ll understand that I had to “ban” his comment for containing lots of lewd language. He should be comfortable with blacking out people we don’t agree with, so there.

I’m not averse to lewd language, but as far as my blog is concerned, it should add value to the overall presentation, and should not just be there to insult a fellow commenter.

What a waste

Just saw in the news that Amitabh Bahchchan plans to denote 9.5 (I think more than 2 million dollars) crores worth of diamonds to a Balaji temple. He probably wants to cover the hands of the idol with diamonds. What a waste of good money. So much good can be done with this much money. I know, it’s his money and he can do whatever he feels like, but people like him are in a position when they can set an example. What would the lord do with such an extravagance? Lord Balaji can have all the diamonds in the universe if He wants them. Stupid, I say.

He can get a school built with this much money, or a shelter for the poor. Or for that matter, he can start a fund for scholarly students in need of money.

Marriages between lower castes and higher castes

I was just thinking…great strides can be made in the realm of social equality if there are more cross-caste marriages, for instance, a brahmin boy and a chamaar girl (I’m not writing ‘chamaar’ for a derogatory affect) or vice-versa. I see around myself lots of cross-religion marriages, and even cross-regional marriages, but not a single (at least in my vicinity) inter-caste marriage. But then, this is a vicious circle because to orchestrate a meaningful marriage, there has to be some level of intellectual parity. Economic parity is immaterial when love is involved, but intellectual equilibrium can be a major hurdle.

If I were invisible

Amit on his blog asked what would you do if you could become invisible? .

Well, first of all I’d love to spook people like Arjun Singh and Modi for the sheer fun of it. I would have also visited girls hostels in my younger days but the entire noble concept has been beaten to fatal boredom by cheap sex flicks.

On a serious note, I would just roam the street without doing anything.

They could be working at NASA, but they have no money

I’ve been reading this news about 4 students in Rourkela winning a NASA competition for a few days. They needed to conceptualize a model of an outer-space settlement that could accommodate 10,000 people. These students bagged the second price. There were more than 200 entries from more than 90 schools from all over the world and the students of the Ispat English Medium School run by the Rourkela Steel Plant, were awarded the prize for their project titled ‘Eden’. The NASA has invited these young students to go there and conduct further research. Sadly, up till now, no funds are forthcoming for their trip to NASA.

Although they have applied to various places, including the office of the Orissa chief minister, they haven’t received a response yet. It will be tragic if they cannot go due to lack of funds. They need I think around Rs. 5,00,000 (approximately $11,000). If you think you can help in anyway, please get in touch with the school mentioned above, or spread this piece of information through email or your blog.

Our obsession with self-interest

Kashmir brims with protests . Recently there were widespread protests against the sex scandal that hit the state. They broke the house of the woman who ran the racket and they are rightly demanding to know the names of those who are involved. This is a positive development.

The medicos and the people at other premier institutions all of a sudden want equality in the country and have been protesting against the government’s intransigent reservation policy . It’s heartening to know when people stand up for their rights. But there is a small problem.

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India is very much a democracy

With Soniajis, Arjun Singhs, Modis, Mulayams, Laloos,Togadias, Shahabuddins, current reservation-related pandemonium and a plethora of other malevolences although India may seem like a circus of democracy, it is still very much a democracy. I slept from 9 PM to 2:30 AM and while having khichri as a very-late-night-and-a-very-early-morning dinner Alka told me that she’d been reading this post at Sandeep’s blog that lambastes Arundhati Roy’s recent diatribe against everything India. The comment in the blog further led me to this post . Now, according to the news report in Indian Express Arundhati Roy says:

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Upper caste attrocities

The upper caste villagers of a place in Rajasthan threw stones at a wedding procession because it was of a lower caste community and the groom had dared to ride a horse. It seems the dalits are not allowed to ride horses.

This happened in the presence of the police as the relatives of the groom had informed the police in advance that he was going to ride a horse and hence some trouble was expected. This is the kind of protection we have for the so-called backward classes. In the times when we so vehemently protest against the government’s reservation policy, we should collectively act against such upper caste atrocities.

Why isn’t Bollywood backing Aamir Khan

I wonder why the Indian film industry not supporting Aamir Khan, especially when he has said nothing wrong. The youth wing of Gujarat BJP is threatening to boycott everything that has something to do with Aamir Khan. Fine, let them go ahead, but then the film industry as a whole should impose a ban on Gujarat too. They should come forward and say that none of their films should be shown in a state that lets the rowdy BJP cadres run amuck and impose their own Talibanist onion. I think just as the Islamic world is blamed for tolerating terrorists among their society, the Gujaratis too should be squarely blamed for tolerating the fanatics and the rioters among them. In fact, if this trend goes on, as responsible Indians, just to put some deterrence, we should threaten to boycott everything that comes from Gujarat.