Pradhan Mantri Mayawati

Yes, India is a technical superpower. We are The IT nation. Our IT services are so brilliant that American companies outsource these jobs in spite of the negative publicity it generates. So wonderful are they that they are a 6 billion dollar industry, contributing to over 7 percent of our GDP and 35% of our exports.

Apparently there aren’t any BSP supporters who can code. No, they can’t hire our wonderful IT professionals and programmers to build themselves a functioning website. Wait a minute, dalits can’t read, can they? That must be it; they are so impoverished and illiterate that a website would serve no purpose!

Democrazy Now!!

“The caste into which one is born remains for life.”
- Supreme Court of India. (on the Caste confusion of a (formerly) SC student)

In a country trying to battle casteism, for what seems like eons, the Supreme Court sure has landed a lethal upper cut to the spirit of equality. That being said, I don’t hold them directly responsible for their statements. The situation has gotten thus far, much thanks to our “secular” Congress led, UPA government. If we recognize castes (which isn’t very much different from the caste system of times gone by) then the same rules must be applicable as they have been before. Namely, your being born into the caste of your parents, however inferior or superior; Hence, no fault on the part of the SC.

What is even more disheartening and disappointing, is, that the way things are today, a person with no claim to a “caste status” prefers the labels society is willing to attach. I don’t mean to label the girl, as the need for SC status on her part may be due to impressed circumstance. But then again, I make no assumptions that her reasons are justifiable and understandable. She could just be one of those people ready to exploit the flaws and weaknesses of the system. Either way, this fact is unknowable to me at this time. So with benefit of the doubt, it can be assumed, that a system so warped in its need for strategic disempowerment is capable of forcing the tilt to extremes, and provide more avenues for misuse than for the intended upliftment of the masses.

In other caste news, Tea growing “adivasis” of the Assam region have given an “ultimatum” to the powers that be, to enlist them in the ST lists. I could be persuaded to believing that the tea industry has been doing pretty badly over the past decade or so, and that this has caused the economic bereavement of the tea tribes. But rather than request industry based economic impetus, the far easier route of SC/ST/MBC enlistment seemed far more viable. This might be a simplistic view of the tea tribe problem and I will accept that criticism.

Needless to say, all this is just part of the puzzle I like to call, the Façade of Democracy. From strategic disempowerment, to restrictions in freedom of speech, to a willful sidelining of the people’s interests, “the free world”, today, is a lot more willing to show its true colors. In the true spirit of freedom of speech, Taslima Nasreen would not be forced to delete parts of her book (not to mention that the Speaker and Centre have applauded her for this, rather than control the miscreants), nor would songs have to be re-written as they hurt the sensibilities of certain groups, or musicians sidelined for voicing their opinion in the “free world”.

On a completely unrelated note, for those that haven't read it, this article about the Malawian resurgence from famine to surplus is a must-read.

Editor on Holiday.

In between the work I have had to do coupled with the necessary amounts of procrastination, I have been left with little time over the past few days but to read nonsense like English Verb Tenses, Bread Recipes, Barbecue recipes, and How to Make Beer and Wine.

So I apologize beforehand for the extreme boredom that will reflect in this post, but do bear with me. I promise more interesting posts in the near future, or atleast to a degree amusing, depending on how you are inclined. Some might find it boring, and I strongly urge them to be as critical and/or abusive as they can be. It surely will reduce the boredom.

But for now, I feel the need to rant about the Indian "news media" once again. The fact that this happens to be an article about Shilpa Shetty is purely coincidental.

Startling that Newspapers or their online counterparts let such bullshit fly. I don't wish to debate over whether this is News or page 3 bullshit. The thing that does startle me is that a reporter typed this out and the editor didn't bother to proof read. Apparently, newspapers don't care about correct grammar and language.

"Indiafm.com

Wednesday, July 25, 2007: (Mumbai):


Shilpa Shetty is in legal trap. The writer obviously never got an A in class. Hence she figured no one would miss it in the sentence. Bad joke? Perhaps, but undoubtedly poor grammar. A London law firm has sued Shilpa's company Cine Entertainment for not clearing their dues.

A security company called CTR services is also planning to sue her on non-payment of bills as they had provided security services to Shilpa in the UK sometime backs. What backs? And if i remember my school grammar correctly, the subject of the sentence is a collective noun (Company) and hence 'is' should be replaced with 'are', purely speculative.

According to the reports, Shilpa has also been dropped from famous publicist Max Clifford's client list due to conflicts with Max's employees.

However, her representative in the UK, Farnath Hussain informs that her company Cine Entertainment has already paid every penny that they owe. Their payment got delayed because the figures CTR submitted were not right and her company asked them to rework on it. Rework on it??? wtf! 'it' refers to 'the figures', so lets plug it in place and see if it makes sense. '... asked them to rework on the figures. If you haven't shot yourself yet, I assure you the next one will take you over the edge.

Recently, she was allegedly linked up with her "good friend" and producer Raj Kundra. Kundra's wife Kavita openly accused Shilpa in media for breaking their marriage." In media? need I say more?

Giver of Knowledge: The Gupta Way?

Nalanda University is set to make a “come-back” from the dead. One of the world’s greatest universities, there is a plan to revive the university. A consortium led by Singapore and INCLUDING India and Japan is attempting to raise 500mn usd to revive the university. Sad state of affairs, since the university lies inside of India and has been one of the greatest centers of education along with Takshashila, banaras and many others.

But that might be a blessing in disguise, since the Indian government seems to have the anti-thesis of the midas touch. I shudder to think what they might do, if un-supervised, to what is undeniably one of histories greatest universities, and surely rivaling the IIT’s, MIT’s and Harvard’s of today, in the sheer number of great thinkers it has produced. Another reason I am disappointed, is thanks to the Indian Press, I am learning of this just now. NY Times covered this early December, 2006 and rediff.com just now. Sad that indians are informed of something that might concern them after americans find out about it.

But I shall, for once, not think of the negatives that this project might entail if left in the hands of the Sonia gandhi’s and Arjun Singh’s who would not waste their time in putting in place a system of reservation that would surely deprive us of a chance to gain knowledge in India’s greatest university, if they did manage to restore it to its former glory (no small task, especially for an Indian government).

Instead, there is so much that might go well, not just for India, but also asia and possibly the world. Firstly, the project seems like the first real effort at regional cooperation. ASEAN, NAM and the likes are a bunch of bullshit. Old farts lined up around a table, talking about their grandchildrens soccer games and sipping oolong tea. This seems like the first real effort at forging a working alliance that will aid asian countries in restoring some of their past glory.

But is this effort lacking foresight? Some would say so. A Yale School of Management Professor writing for the business section of NY Times seems to have picked up on this lack of foresight on the part of the Indian, singaporean and Japanese delegation. A startup of 500mn doesn’t seem like much when you compare it to operating costs at harvard which runs into billions annually. So what value is 500 million?

I shall leave you with the article by Jeffrey Garten, since any expansion on the above idea will surely tread on plagiarism, and it sounds way more convincing when it comes from a former dean of Yales management school.

Really Old School by Jeffrey E. Garten

P.S. The bulk of this article was typed out early April, so those who are going to stake claim that it was covered in the news a month back, kindly note that I do know that.