What do I say... read it urself and decide

Wanting Babies Like Themselves, Some Parents Choose Genetic Defects from NYTimes

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UN permanent seat... British support

UN seat: Britain backs India's claim from The Hindu

The British Foreign Secretary, who is just back from India after a six-day visit, said "one of the strongest impressions I took away from my trip to India was one of a country that is today an absolutely indispensable strategic partner for Britain.

"And equally, I sensed a country that was willing to engage in real debate on the global agenda."

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Quote

Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why.
-- Bernard Baruch

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Finally....

Jail for Imrana's father-in-law from The Hindu

MUZAFFARNAGAR: A local court on Thursday convicted 70-year-old Ali Mohammed of raping his daughter-in-law Imrana and sentenced him to 10-year imprisonment. After the June 6, 2005 incident, a Muslim panchayat directed Imrana to treat her husband as a son, sparking a nationwide furore.

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I completely agree...

Skills Gap Hurts Technology Boom in India from NYTimes

India still produces plenty of engineers, nearly 400,000 a year at last count. But their competence has become the issue.

A study commissioned by a trade group, the National Association of Software and Service Companies, or Nasscom, found only one in four engineering graduates to be employable. The rest were deficient in the required technical skills, fluency in English or ability to work in a team or deliver basic oral presentations.

The skills gap reflects the narrow availability of high-quality college education in India and the galloping pace of the country’s service-driven economy, which is growing faster than nearly all but China’s. The software and service companies provide technology services to foreign companies, many of them based in the United States. Software exports alone expanded by 33 percent in the last year.

The university systems of few countries would be able to keep up with such demand, and India is certainly having trouble. The best and most selective universities generate too few graduates, and new private colleges are producing graduates of uneven quality.

As I was educated outside India plenty a times I was subject to the criticism that my education was not good enough. But over a period of time I have realized that maybe primary and middle school education in India might be good but after that very few institutes are there in India that provide even reasonal education. I have seen fellow students and collegues (educated in india) struggle with what should be easy. But I won't just blame the education system here... each individual is to be blamed. Cause all that we worry about is getting the marks and not actually learning what we are doing. Maybe with time this mind set will change among the Indians

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(Diwali)Thought

Reminds me of the song Pal Pal hai bhari form Swadesh. Why do we celebrate these festivals??? It does not to have the same value... Seems to be just another holiday no one thinks about them. Some just do the rituals and others don't that is the only difference. Those days are gone when the every festival stood for a trait that was to be learned, a virtue to be added in once life. Now it is just something to show... But show what? That we are Hindus? Does lighting a few diyas or chanting few lines of sholaks actually makes us Hindu? Or just a good enf reason to buy new clothes? chillax at home?

I wonder does virtue actually has any value in life? If not why not? There is a trend in Hinduism in India that I am seeing these days... There no information, only misinformation. Too many (wrong)things are being done in the name of religion. I use to think that it is a problem faced more by other religion(recently) but now it seems to be fast spreading again in Hinduism.

But none the less I will enjoy my diwali to the fullest and hope u all do the same. Will continue on this thought later.

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To ban or not to????

We can't just pick and choose what to tolerate [from The Hindu]

The whole article is worth a read, so i am not quoting anything in particular. This is about the 'burkha'/head scarf ban in Europe. Don't know what to comment on this issue. Personally I do not support women wearing 'burkha' or 'ghughat'. But on the other hand noone(includes the govt., their husbands, their parents, etc. etc.) has a right to tell an adult what to wear and what not to. So if they want to wear it... it is their wish and should be respected.

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Why are we following other conservative religions????

Katrina's skirt creates a row in Ajmer via samamchar.com

What the hell is wrong with everyone. why do i see more and more headlines about what to wear and what not wear istead of some real issues in the society today. There are simply so many things that need to change in the society other than the lenght of her skirt... look around open your eyes.. no your mind and grow up.

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I wanted to blog abt this for quite a few days here it is now

Forgive Afzal (via Hindu) and why not it will fetch these idiots votes. That is all they worry about... I have an idea why not hag one of them instead of Afzal. What say...

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Thought

How can one event of life change all the priorities of life. There are a million thoughts running through my head these days and so many things that keep me busy. But there is nothing to show for.
Building a relationship takes effort, time and most importantly willingness to make it successful. :)

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Firefox 2

First Look at Firefox 2 RC1 from CNET

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Quote

When you aim for perfection, you discover it's a moving target.
-- George Fisher

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Quote

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.
-- Albert Camus

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stem cells are here in india... as expected

India to cure killer diseases from siliconindia.com

New Delhi: India will launch its first stem cell transplant center in Chennai, opening next month. Killer diseases like leukaemia, stroke, diabetes and crippling spinal cord injuries could now be treated in India only.

LifeCell, a pioneer in stem cell banking and research in India, in collaboration with the US-based Cryo-Cell Inc would be launching this center. The company has invested $4mn to set up the transplant center at the Sri Ramachandra Medical Center of Excellence, which will be fully operational by the end of this year.

"In India the concept of preserving the stem cell is gradually gaining momentum and the potential for this is huge," said Prasad Mangipudi, vice president of LifeCell.

"Stem Cell therapy is fast emerging as a revolutionary way to treat various diseases and injuries with wide ranging medical benefits," said Anthony Finch, who joined as Advisor to LifeCell, which is launching the country's first stem cell transplant centre.

Stem cell transplantation has been used for more than 30 years to treat a variety of cancers as also some types of solid tumors where other treatments have failed.

"Bone marrow cells are being used for transplants for the past 30 years. Its only in 1988 that the first cord blood transplant was done," informed Mangipudi.

Patients suffering from haematological and oncological ailments would be treated first using stem cells from various sources -- adult bone marrow, umblical cord blood and peripheral blood. The transplant centre would be operational by next month, Mangipudi said adding that he would like to wait for six months before venturing out on an expansion plan.

LifeCell currently offers umblical cord stem cells banking facilities and has about 4,000 subscribers. Stem Cells are undifferentiated cells that retain the ability to produce an identical copy of themselves when they divide and differentiate into other cell types. They have the ability to act as a repair system for the body replenishing other cells as long as the host organism is alive.

Stem cells, obtained from cord blood cells during childbirth, have the potential to cure over 75 diseases that humans face today as they can be used to repair specific tissues, according to researchers.

As for the future the company plans to open collection centers in Dubai, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore. Their Dubai center would have its own collection bank while the Malaysian center would be their Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) hub.

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they know when to change and what to change... Thailand's millatry coup

Thailand's military tightens grip from BBC

Martial law has been declared, with large gatherings of people and critical news reporting banned.

Mr Thaksin's deputy and chief aide, Chidchai Vanasathidya, has been taken into army custody.

Army chief Gen Sonthi Boonyaratglin said in a TV address that the coup was necessary to unite the country.

The military had no intention of holding onto power, he added.

The coup leaders have announced that regional army commanders will take charge of areas outside the capital, Bangkok.

...

In the capital Bangkok, tanks have cordoned off the government district. They have yellow ribbons tied around their barrels to signify loyalty to Thailand's revered king.

On the surface, Bangkok is functioning as normal, says the BBC's Kate McGeown there. The city's monorail system is packed with commuters, and cafes and street vendors are open for business.

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Now that is something...

Samsung Develops Tiny 32 Gb Flash Chip

Samsung Electronics says it has developed the world’s first 40-nanometer 32-Gb Flash memory, which is just about the size of a thumbnail but able to store 1,000 MP3 music files. The president of Samsung Electronics' semiconductor business Hwang Chang-gyu announced the next-generation of memory at a press conference in Seoul on Monday.

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Have the politician succeeded in dividing the Indian youth???

Caste-based bias rampant in AIIMS from NDTV

On Tuesday, elections to the Resident doctors association saw all pro-reservation candidates withdraw just a day before polling leaving only one contestant per post.

"The elections polarised, a meeting was held by director where it was decided to hold elections, what was the hurry to hold elections, the atmosphere is quite charged up right now," said Dr Sunil Chumber, Vice Dean, AIIMS.

Fight to continue

Nevertheless, the administration declared the elections valid. And the doctors who have won say they will continue to fight caste-based quotas.

Pro-reservation students say the caste-based discrimination at AIIMS has become even uglier after the anti-quota agitation.

Reserved category students have vacated their rooms and are now restricted to just one block of the hostel.

For the first time about a week ago, 40 students complained to the Director. But so far, there's been no action.

What's worrying is that what happens at this premier medical college seems to set a precedent for the rest of the country.

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:)

There will be fewer updated in the coming few days... my time is being utilized for some more imp things in life :)

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Quote

After all is said and done, more is said than done.
-- Aesop

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Happiness

The world will never know my beauty..,
It is far too ignorant and blind to understand...

Or even see something so exalted.

I’ll love whomever I please, and
I have, and still do..

I’m broken but strong, knowing
I’ll never die by society’s hand- though
Its weight makes it harder to breathe...

So I walk on and I walk tall,
With every moment of pain displayed on my delicate skin..
A road map to what once was,
A place I never plan to venture.

I live for the moment alone,
Forget the future and the past,
They exist only in one’s mind.

I expect little but hope for the world,
Think small but dream big..

The world will never know my beauty,
For I could never be part of this world...

Unknown Poet
-- via license to dream

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Funny but sad

From Asian Age

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Intersting...

Nuclear deal: the untold story from The Hindu

This means that the just passed nuclear agreement will reflect the interests of the U.S. energy industry, of the nuclear industry in particular. The details of the proposed deal, when reduced to basics, seem to bear this out. While the agreement is complex, one feature stands out: it calls on India to stop its thorium based research and development in exchange for uranium based technology and fuel (uranium) to be supplied by the United States. There is a great deal of verbiage about inspection and proliferation, but these are not central to the deal. It is best to focus on the central theme, which is `yes' to uranium and `no' to thorium.
It is this exchange that has the Indian scientific community up in arms against the deal. They fully realise that by agreeing to this deal India will be sacrificing its unique capability while relying on American businesses to supply its future non-fossil energy needs. India has substantial thorium reserves but little uranium. India also has outstanding technical capability in building reactors based on the thorium cycle, as good as any in the world. But the Indian political-bureaucratic establishment does not trust its own scientific talent. Western lobbyists, in the U.S. in particular, seem to have played on this Indian weakness to press a deal that is disadvantageous to India's long-term energy interests.

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Please tell me there is a better reason for not being worried abt the N-Treaty...

Manmohan: I have Bush's assurance from The Hindu

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday told the Lok Sabha that United States President George W. Bush had assured him that he did not intend shifting the goalposts of the July 2005 civilian nuclear agreement. However, if extraneous elements, not envisaged in the agreement, found their way into it, we would draw "appropriate conclusions," Dr. Singh said.

The U.S. Congressional process was not yet over and he could not predict what would emerge. "If it goes in a direction that hurts us, we will draw appropriate conclusions and will do nothing that will compromise the scope of our strategic programme, which will be determined by the people, the Government and Parliament," he said in a 40-minute reply to a discussion on the agreement.

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Quotes

Success in marriage does not come merely through finding the right mate, but through being the right mate.
-- Barnett R. Brickner

What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are, but how you deal with incompatibility.
-- George Levinger

I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.
-- Rita Rudner

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Quote

In the book of life, the answers aren't in the back.
-- Charlie Brown

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We lose a Gem

Ustad Bismillah Khan passes away from The Hindu

Varanasi, Aug. 21 (PTI): Shehnai maestro Ustad Bismillah Khan, one of India's most celebrated classical musicians, passed away in the wee hours today.

The 91-year-old Bharat Ratna awardee, who had been ailing for quite some time, died of cardiac arrest at the Heritage hospital here.

Khan had been admitted to the hospital on Thursday with age-related health problems and weakness brought on by his refusal to eat solid food.

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Thought

Sometimes when you think life cannot get worse than this it just does.
And sometimes when you think that there is no end to this darkness...
just then it bring out the silver lining.

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Don't question my coffee ...

Coffee Might Trigger First Heart Attack in Some from msn.com

This latest finding will most likely keep the coffee debate percolating among health experts. Previous research has suggested that coffee does not raise heart risks, and might even protect against high blood pressure and diabetes. As a matter of fact, only decaffeinated coffee has been shown to possibly boost the chances of cardiovascular trouble.

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Filhaal

Ae zindagi yeh lamha jee lene de
Oh, pehle se likha kuch bhi nahin
Roz naya kuch likhti hai tu
Jo bhi likha hai, dil se jiya hai
Yeh lamha filhaal jee lene de - 2
Maasoom si hasi, bevaja hi kabhi
Honton pe khil jaati hai
Anjaan si khushi baheti hui kabhi
Saahil pe mil jaati hai
Yeh anjaana sa darr ajnabi hai magar
Khoobsurat hai jee lene de
Yeh lamha filhaal jee lene de - 2
Dil hi mein rehta hai, aankhon mein baheta hai
Kaccha sa ek khwaab hai
Lagta sawaal hai, shaayad jawaab hai
Dil phir bhi betaab hai
Yeh sukun hai to hai, yeh junoon hai to hai
Khoobsurat hai jee lene de
Yeh lamha filhaal jee lene de ...
Oh, pehle se likha kuch bhi nahin
Roz naya kuch, oh likhti hai tu
Jo bhi likha hai, dil se jiya hai
Yeh lamha filhaal jee lene de ...

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A moral question

Blood on the tracks via ALDaily

MORAL PHILOSOPHERS and academics interested in studying how humans choose between right and wrong often use thought experiments to tease out the principles that inform our decisions. One particular hypothetical scenario has become quite the rage in some top psychological journals. It involves a runaway trolley, five helpless people on the track, and a large-framed man looking on from a footbridge. He may or may not be about to tumble to his bloody demise: You get to make the call.

That's because in this scenario, you are standing on the footbridge, too. You know that if you push the large man off the bridge onto the tracks, his body will stop the trolley before it kills the five people on the tracks. Of course, he will die in the process. So the question is: Is it morally permissible to kill the man in order to save five others?

In surveys, most people (around 85 percent) say they would not push the man to his death.

Often, this scenario is paired with a similar one: Again, there are five helpless people on the track. But this time, you can pull a switch that will send the runaway trolley onto a side track, where only one person is standing. So again, you can reduce the number of deaths from five to one-but in this case most people say, yes, they would go ahead and pull the lever. Why do we react so differently to the two scenarios?

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Happy Independence Day!!!

"Hope is like the bird that feels the light
and sings when the dawn is still dark."
-Tagore

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Bombay as is...

A Paean To The City Of My Life from Intentblog writen by Rahul Bose

Excellent write up on bombay/mumbai.

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The title says it all

Apple takes shots at Vista from CNET

photo slide show.

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Home grown terroist in INDIA??!!???

India Fears Terrorism May Attract Its Muslims from NYTimes

It is an intresting... NO it is a serious matter. It will be so much more difficult to fight these terror attacks if the "terroist" we were killing or being killed by were our fellow countrymen/women. This probelm if not dealt soon will result in many more blasts like the once in the recent past. Wonder what can be done... politician will do nothing other than make it a vote bank issue.

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Who needs it !!! :)

Arriving soon, an "anti-stupidity" pill from sify.com

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friendship....

Friendship Among the Intellectuals via ALDaily

“It is painful to consider,” wrote Samuel Johnson about friendship, “that there is no human possession of which the duration is less certain.”

Too true. Some friendships die on their own, of simple inanition, having been quietly allowed to lapse by the unacknowledged agreement of both parties. Others break down because time has altered old friends, given them different interests, values, points of view. In still others, only one party works at the friendship, while the other belongs to what Truman Capote called (in a letter to the critic Newton Arvin, his ex-lover) “some odd psychological type . . . that only writes when he is written to.” And then of course there are the friendships that end when one friend betrays or is felt to betray the other, or fails to come through in a crisis, or finds himself violently disputing the other on matters of profoundest principle.

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Book I want to read...

"The Felmale Brain" came accross this book via the following article and the article is worth a look too.

FEMME MENTALE via ALDaily
San Francisco neuropsychiatrist says differences between women's and men's brains are very real, and the sooner we all understand it, the better

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Quote

Transcend political correctness and strive for human righteousness.
--Anthony J. D'Angelo

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Close Encounter

It is these people I saw yesterday on mumbai local train... Frequent travelers know the rush at Kurla. So as usual at Kurla people poured in and I heard a shrill voice screaming at someone "Randi hat saath mae bachha hai" The lady must have been 70 something with a baby girl of 7 in front of her. After forging her way in she settled herself few paces away from where I was standing and asked the little girl to move to the side. I was shocked that after screaming at another women to make way for the kid she is asking her to move away. But then a girl of at most 15 or 16 moved into my view. She was holding a another baby girl of 3 who was crying in burst and to top it she was pregnant. I had this sudden erg to slap someone and say what the hell were you thinking. All I could was move a little away. After a while someone got up and gave her seat to this "women" and someone gave the crying baby some biscuits and she stopped crying.

People might have given her food or a place to sit but the fact still remains "A girl of 15 with two kids, one crying of hunger and third on its way." And all I can do is write about it and then get on with life. Do we get immune to such things and let it pass? I wish that i never do...

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Test Blogger Via email

Since Bloggger is still not loading the page to let me log in I am
testing publishing blogs via email... hopefully this will work as
well.

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Tsunami warning issued in Andamans

Quake triggers Tsunami in Java, at least six killed

India on alert, Tsunami warning in Andamans
from IBN Live

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Quote

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
--Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy

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Bombay blast

Life seems to be really exciting here in b'bay... First there were rains that would not atop then there was a riot and now blasts. You will never get bored living here...

Well now on a more serious side... The response was not bad mostly from the people of the city. But what one desires is that this was prevented since the city has experienced this before. As the days will pass things will unfold but blame has already been laid on the "terrorists".

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Off I go to Turkey... so absolute quiet for the next 9 days

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Quote

We all have our time machines.
Some take us back, they're called memories.
Some take us forward, they're called dreams.
-- Jeremy Irons

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Quote

If the desire to write is not accompanied by actual writing, then the desire must be not to write.
-- Hugh Prather

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Anbe Sivam (finally got the lyrics)

Yaar yaar sivam? Nee naan sivam,
Vaalvae dhavam, anbae sivam,

Aatthigam paesum adiyaarkellaam sivamae anbaagum,
Aatthigam vaesum nallavarukkoe anbae sivamaagum,

Anbae sivam, anbae sivam, endrum,
Anbae sivam, anbae sivam, engum,
Anbae sivam, anbae sivam, endrum,
Anbae sivam, anbae sivam, engum,

Idhayam enbathu sathaithaan endraal erithalal thindruvidum,
Anbin karuvi idhayam endraal saavai vendruvidum,

Yaar yaar sivam? Nee naan sivam,
Anbin paathai saernthavanukku mudivae illaiyadaa,
Manathin neelam edhuvoe, athuvae vaalvin neelamadaa,

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Secret of India's booming economy

The India Model from Foreign Affairs via ALDaily

Summary: After being shackled by the government for decades, India's economy has become one of the world's strongest. The country's unique development model -- relying on domestic consumption and high-tech services -- has brought a quarter century of record growth despite an incompetent and heavy-handed state. But for that growth to continue, the state must start modernizing along with Indian society.

This article has lambasted the Indian bureaucracy and points out that we should still be hopefull of achieving something big inspite of such a system. A very well written article must read.

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trying to get the momentum going...

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Taken for granted....

These are the mystries of life... At times there is nothing worse then being taken for granted and at time there is no better relationship than the one that is taken for gratend...

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World War III has began....

(this is title is applicable to other places too)
i couldn't help but put this up....

GOOGLE vs MICROSOFT battle has picked up pace

Google guns for Microsoft from CNET

google spreadsheet???!!!!!

now back to hibernation........

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Hibernating

But I will be back...

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Man Ke Darpan Main - Om the Fusion Band

Man ke darpan main dakhe hai kitne rang jivan ke
Man ke darpan main dakhe hai kitne rang jivan ke

saat sur milke jaise sangeet main dhale,
phool chunchun ke jaise gulshan koi khile.

Man ke darpan main dakhe hai kitne rang jivan ke

pal main badal hai, pal main kirne hai,
bhor hai, sanjh hai kabhi.
ek pal man nirash hai, aas hai kabhi.
pal main muskan, pal main hairaan,
pray hai, bair hai kabhi.
log apne hai ek pal, gair hai kabhi.
pal ye kab jane din bane, jane kaise din badle sal main
ungloin par gine agar yu to sal bhi guzra hai kai
pachi mudh ke jo dakhe ek bar aaj bhi yaad hai sabhi
yaadion ke saath khaboon ke silsile chale
beete har pal ke rang, har khab main mile.

Man ke darpan main dakhe hai kitne rang jivan ke
Man ke darpan main dakhe hai kitne rang jivan ke

din ladkhpan ke, manchale pan ke kitne masoom the sabhi
aab hai aphsos lot ke aayege nahi,
pal do pal ke hai sare ehsas, pal do pal ki hai zindagi.
rishte nate bhi khel hai pal do pal ke he.
bahti nadya ki dhar ke jaisi har kushi aani jani hai,
sase jab tak chal rahi dharkno main jab tak ravani hai.
ek roshan diye ki lo jaise zindagi ki khani hai
andhiyo main bhi zindagi ki ye lo jale
sas ki lo per umar ki gastan chale

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Quotes

Every cloud has a silver linning, the challenge is to find it.
--Unknown Author

How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.
--From the movie Annie

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am waiting for some action to be taken!!!

Arjun has no sympathy for OBCs: He is playing crass politics via www.samachar.com

Different Backward Class Commissions have given varying figures. The latest figures claim 52 percent of India’s population as being OBC. It was spread among 3743 different castes. Putting them all together in one OBC category is ridiculous. The powerful Yadavas have hogged most of the reservation benefits for OBCs.

Even among Dalits the powerful Chamars have done likewise. Dividing OBCs into Most Backward Castes (MBC) and Extreme Backward Castes (EBC) does not help. There are too many castes to ensure equitable reservation, on a caste basis, for all the castes.

What is the objection to well defined economic and social criteria to determine reservation? Only one objection comes to mind. Pro-reservationists might claim this would result in partial selection because of forward caste bias.

There is a simple solution to this. Let all selection boards have reservation. Ninety percent of board members could be Dalit, OBC and Minority. That would allow affirmative action without accentuating caste in society.

To establish a genuine level playing field would require compulsory standardized government-run neighborhood schools throughout the nation. Even if the entire budget outlay for education were spent on implementing this the results would justify the investment.

Other ideas to ensure effective affirmative action for circumventing caste could be considered, but it would be pointless. It is the politics of caste that motivates politicians to support caste-based reservation.

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Fanaa

I would have seen the movie anyway ... But just to protest I want to go to Gujarat n see the movie. Sometime I wonder are we truly living in democracy????

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I wish i could contribute... (guilt is sinking in)

Faculty members on leave; JNU,IIT students begin hunger strike from The Hindu

After rejecting the Government proposal, medicos today stepped up their anti-reservation stir with faculty members of three premier hospitals going on mass casual leave and the medical fraternity gearing up for a total shutdown on Wednesday.

The striking medicos got a boost, as students of the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi began a relay hunger strike at their campuses to express solidarity with them.

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Marriage n scientific careers....

Scientific Success: WhatÂ’s Love Got to Do With It? from http://sciencecareers.org

"The productivity of male scientists tends to drop right after marriage," says Kanazawa in an e-mail interview from his current office at the London School of Economics and Political Science in the United Kingdom. "Scientists tend to 'desist' from scientific research upon marriage, just like criminals desist from crime upon marriage."

Kanazawa's perhaps controversial perspective is that of an evolutionary psychologist. "Men conduct scientific research (or do anything else) in order to attract women and get married (albeit unconsciously)," he says. "What’s the point of doing science (or anything else) if one is already married? Marriage (or, more accurately reproductive success, which men can usually attain only through marriage) is the goal; science or anything else men do is but a means. From my perspective, scientists are no different than anybody else; evolutionary psychology applies to all humans equally," he adds.

and there is much more that it says not just this aspect.

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The Dilemma

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out for another is to risk involvement.
To expose feelings is to risk rejection.
To place your dreams before the crowd is to risk ridicule.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To go forward in the face of overwhelming odds is to risk failure.

But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.
He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or love.
Chained by his certitudes, he is a slave.
He has forfeited his freedom.
Only a person who takes risks is free.

--Janet Rand

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Quotes

Courage is never to let your actions be influenced by your fears.
--Arthur Koestler


Optimism is the foundation of courage.
--Nicholas Murray Butler

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Some how this article feels incomplete but it good read...

Seduced by an elusive idea of India from The Hindu

People may no longer ask you if you have computers in India, but they still wonder whether there is clean drinking water and believe that India, despite its booming economy, remains a "terrible place to be poor," as New Statesman noted in a special issue on India recently. The magazine's South Asia correspondent William Dalrymple voiced concern over the "unevenness" of the boom India is experiencing and pointed out that "much of India remains completely untouched" by it. The jury on India's future was still out, he suggested.

"India is changing with a speed that is astonishing, but ... much still remains uncertain and the country remains as fascinatingly unpredictable as ever," he wrote.

Translated in blunt language, it means that the idea of a "new" and "prosperous" India poised to become a "modern" super power is slightly exaggerated. Eventually, India will be defined not by the swanky new neighbourhoods in Gurgaon but by its crushing poverty that makes the country seem like "one land, two planets," as a headline in the magazine put it.

And what about India's much talked-about "soft power" in this "new era"? Its capacity to influence the world culturally? There is a worry that far from being able to influence others, the country itself is in danger of descending into a cultural black hole. "India goes Bollywood" was the topic of a debate, held as part of the Bonn Biennale, to explore the impact of India's economic boom and increasing "commercialisation of society" on its media.

Is there a danger that artistes and journalists in India are becoming too dependent on market forces? How big is the space for non-commercial art? And to what extent is entertainment replacing serious information and debate?

These were the questions posed to a mixed Indo-German panel, which included Dorothee Wenner, head of programme at Internationale Filmfestspiele. Opinion, as happens on such occasions, was divided with at least one participant — an art consultant from India — strongly opposing the view that space for serious debate back home was shrinking and being taken over by commercial forces. But because there was no consensus does not mean that the issues surrounding the relationship of culture, media, and the market disappear. These are real concerns and, in fact, the debate that took place in Bonn should be happening in India.

Ask any dispassionate observer of the post-liberalisation "modern" India and the answer you are likely to get to the above questions is: yes, artistes and journalists are becoming too dependent on market forces; there is little space for non-commercial art; and serious debate is almost non-existent. In fact, "India goes Bollywood" is a very apt description for what is going on in India on the cultural front — and in much of the media, especially in electronic media, which was supposed to herald a brave new world of information.

Those of us who live abroad and "get" their India through private satellite TV channels (alas, Doordarshan remains curiously invisible) get the sense that culturally nothing is happening in India outside of Bollywood. Watching Indian TV channels is like watching a long Bollywood sequence, only occasionally interrupted by news or current affairs. Even news is not Bollywood-free. Clearly there is a perception in Indian TV newsrooms that the only way to spice up news and make it interesting is to pepper it with filmi stardust — Shah Rukh Khan endorsing a new computer brand; Preity Zinta opening a new jewellery boutique; Amitabh Bachchan on a visit to Dubai; Bobby Deol showing off his new restaurant.

In a sense, what is happening in the media, especially in television, is symptomatic of a wider indifference to ideas in India, whether in the academia or in cultural institutions. And this does not augur well for a country aspiring to become a super power even if only as a "new sort of super power," as New Statesman called it.

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Quotes

They have stopped deceiving you, not loving you. And it seems to you that they have stopped loving you.
--Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin

He felt now that he was not simply close to her, but that he did not know where he ended and she began.
--Leo Tolstoy

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Mary Magdalene -- interesting read

An Inconvenient Woman from MSNBC

She witnessed the resurrection, then vanished, leaving popes and painters and now 'The Da Vinci Code' to tell her story. In search of the real Mary Magdalene.

It is worth a read if you r interested in religious history and if u r a Christian and get offended by the 'The Da Vinci Code' then skip the first page.... But it is not about the that book it is in general about Mary Magdalene's character and the mystery around it due to the fact that she was a women.

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One step ahead... but will it work?

Reservation — an alternative proposal from The Hindu

The proposal involves computing scores for `academic merit' and for `social disadvantage' and then combining the two for admission to higher educational institutions. Since the academic evaluation is less controversial, we concentrate here on the evaluation of comparative social disadvantage. We suggest that the social disadvantage score should be divided into its group and individual components. For the group component, we consider disadvantages based on caste and community, gender, and region. These scores must not be decided arbitrarily or merely on the basis of impressions. We suggest that these disadvantages should be calibrated on the basis of available statistics on representation in higher education of different castes/communities and regions, each of these being considered separately for males and females. The required data could come from the National Sample Survey or other available sources. It would be best, of course, if a special national survey were commissioned for this purpose.

Besides group disadvantages, this scheme also takes individual disadvantages into consideration. While a large number of factors determine individual disadvantages (family history, generational depth of literacy, sibling education, economic resources, etc.), we believe there are two robust indicators of individual disadvantage that can be operationally used in the system of admission to public institutions: parental occupation and the type of school where a person passed the high school examination. These two variables allow us to capture the effect of most of the individual disadvantages, including the family's educational history and economic circumstances.

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Two more casulaties to the quota....

Two quit Knowledge Commission from The Hindu

Two members of the National Knowledge Commission, set up by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last year, resigned on Monday in protest against the Centre's reservation policy.

While putting in their papers, sociologist Andre Beteille and political scientist Pratap Bhanu Mehta placed on record their support for affirmative action as opposed to numerical quotas.

The two were among the six in the eight-member Knowledge Commission who felt that the status quo ought to be maintained and the existing policy of reservation should not be extended to Other Backward Classes (OBCs) till alternatives were explored. The Commission formally discussed the reservation policy at a recent meeting in Bangalore and apprised the Prime Minister individually about their respective positions.

Dr. Beteille (Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the Delhi University) and Dr. Mehta (Chief Executive at the Centre for Policy Research) submitted their resignation letters to the Prime Minister stating that in the light of recent announcements by the Government in the realm of higher education, their continuation would serve no useful purpose.

Dr. Beteille told reporters later that he favoured affirmative action. "Though slow to bear fruit, affirmative action makes universities truly inclusive while quotas merely queer the pitch." He questioned the process by which the Government was imposing quotas on institutions such as the Indian Institutes of Technology without consulting their directors.

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Quote

You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need.
--Vernon Howard

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There is no Mandal II III or IV - Arjun Singh (so he says)

This entire weekend I have been flipping through news channels listening about the students' revolt against Mandal II... What started as a minor movement has slowly caught on and is due to become a nation wide revolt. And to some extent I would give full credit to the police for making this is nationwide event. Had they not done what they did to students in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore then probably this wouldn't be so hard fought by the students. There atrocities gave this Rang De Basanti generation another reason to come out on the streets and well why not. And so I say that let us thank the commissioner of police Bombay for his outrageous comments and then throw him out of his office.

Now let's look at the center of issue the reservation itself. Opinions flow from both ends in high passion on this issue. The people who favor this new (or the previous) reservation say that "It will give the traditionally underprivileged communities an opportunism to come at par with the rest of the society. Also that the underprivileged communities make a huge portion of the society and without there advancement we cannot make a progressive society."

My question to the government is what has it done in 55 yrs that these people have not been educated well enough that they cannot compete with the rest? Where has the money gone that was spent on education since independence? Why are these students not able to compete in the world today? Is because that they can't afford the expansive tuitions that is almost necessary for entrance exams? Or is it because that there basic foundation from the schools (government or private) is not strong enough? Is it because that these families do not give importance to education itself? Are backward classes the only once that suffer form these problems? Are there no others that will have the same problem? Why is the govt. signaling out the SC/ST? Is it because that they form the major vote banks? There are many question to be answered before we can actually there can be any appropriate solution.

None of the above is a fault is the fault of the student who will appear in the entrance exams... And then why does He/She have to pay for it? And most importantly reservation is a shortcut -- and some wise guy said that "there are no shortcuts to any place worth going" The uplifting of individual or a society is not done by giving them charity it is done by making them strong enough to be able to stand at par and with pride. Now lets look at the consequences of Mandal II(yes it is mandal II Mr Arjun Sing weather you accept it or not) Every deserving student that will loose out a seat to a non-deserving student will create a divide in the society that is already fighting many other such differences. Let us assume that we do not look at the intangible results but only at the tangible. Are we not pulling down the entire standard of education of some very good institutes? Are we not making the one strong selling point that India has (its educated youth) a lot weaker? Are we not passing out less competent workforce? Are we not increasing the already biased opinion about these communities? Are we not ruling by divide and conquer?

Now don't get me wrong I am not against uplifting of these sections of society it is jut that reservation is not the right way of doing it. If there ever has to reservation for anyone it has to be for economically backward. To bring them to the main stream we need to make them able and this is not done at university level it is done at lower levels, in schools. Open schools and make the education given there count. Follow through that programs that are implemented in villages to see that they reach there desired end. But no the government does not want to work all they want to do is find any number of way that will make others work and get them votes. Actually I can categorically say that Arjun Singh surely does not have the interest of the nation in his heart as he has a heart of politician.

Now let's look at the current situation… form the comments that have been delivered by our so called leaders of the society has been none other that Mr. Singh. This is a shameful act in itself. None of the politicians have cone out and made any comments including our revered PM. Shouldn't this be of some concern that the educated youth has taken to the streets, or is it because of the fact that the educated youth is still a small number vote that the politician do not concern themselves. Actually that is what is true. So for one thing we (this generation) should be aware of is that the more the number of people educated the better our voices will be heard. And second we need more educated people running this country, people who can think further than the next election. Mr Singh called the student movement 'propaganda' I call his move 'propaganda' because it truly benefits none.

One thing that does concern me is the suffering of the patients in the due course of the protest. We can put the blame on the govt. but the truth remains… they are suffering. So for protest let the medical students call upon some less fatal profession to conduct the strike. Let the MBA's, software professionals, industrialists', journalists' do that for them. Let the people not suffer in this fight for right with the government. Hopes are very limited, but the cause is worth a fight. But in the due process let us not forget that there are truly underprivileged people in our society and this fight is not against them it is against a wrong solution to a worthy problem.

Links:
Arjun rejects relook at quota issue from The Hindu
Quota protests: Private doctors join stir from NDTV
Students:Arjun inciting us from The Asian Age
Arjun rejects re-think on quota from Rediff.com (this has other article to read too)

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We might more than 70 IITs if this is the case...

Knowledge panel to study quota issue holistically from HT

"At present, just seven to eight per cent of our population under the age of 25 get to go to college. We need to increase it manifold to make India a knowledge society. Why cannot we have 70 IITs instead of just seven. The alumni of IITs can build 10 IITs. It is possible," he said.

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The future is coming !!

This is your brain on a microchip from CNET

He laid out several specific projects and figures. For example, computational power is advancing. The human brain produces between 10^13 (10 to the 13th power) and 10^16 operations per second, emitting 100 watts of energy while at rest. The human brain is incredibly efficient, too: The brain takes about 20 percent of the body's oxygen to perform at that rate.

Today's supercomputer, such as IBM's Blue Gene, processes about 10^14 operations per second, but with six orders of magnitude more wattage.

Also, money is flowing into artificially intelligent systems. Car and truck companies, for example, are investing heavily in collision-warning systems and vehicles that can drive themselves. (Hawkins even acknowledged that several major car companies have contacted him and are showing interest in his intelligent platform.) And a study from the Department of Transportation said that robotic vehicles with safety warnings will likely save more lives than airbags and seatbelts together, Albus said.

The military is building future combat systems and investing in technology such as fighter drone planes. Albus said that by 2015, cognitive reasoning capabilities in computer-driven systems will enable tactical behaviors on the battlefield.

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After I read this one all I coud was smile :)

Staying dumb may be the best option from Cricinfo

Around a month back, at the pre-match press conference before the sixth one-dayer against England at Jamshedpur, Sehwag was asked about Ganguly. His response was guarded, more an effort to pass the question rather than create a stir: "... there's no question of looking back ... We have already forgotten that chapter." No warning then, no yellow card, no nothing.

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Quote

Life is simple, its just not easy.
-- Author Unknown

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Mango Mania in US will catch up soon if they keep writting like this :)

Mango Mania in India from NYTimes

Now this article probably catches the full essance of the mango season in India from a outside point of view. Though for me it seems that there is nothing unusual when the mango season srrives... Other than ofcourse that it is "The Mango Season" :)

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It sure did make me numb...

So do you expect the girl to keep count? via IndiaUncut


I couldn't agree more with the comments made by Amit on this story. Do read.

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Fixing bug is a priority :)

Linux kernel 'getting buggier,' leader says from CNET

"I believe the 2.6 kernel is slowly getting buggier. It seems we're adding bugs at a higher rate
than we're fixing them," Morton said in a talk at the LinuxTag conference in Wiesbaden, Germany, on Friday.

Morton said he hasn't yet proved this statistically, but has noticed that he is getting more e-mails with bug reports. If he is able to confirm the increasing defect rate, he may temporarily halt the kernel development process to spend time resolving issues.

"A little action item I've given myself is to confirm that this increasing defect rate is really happening," he said. "If it is, we need to do something about it."

"Kernel developers will need to reapportion their time and spend more time fixing bugs," he added. "We may possibly have a bug fix-only kernel cycle, which is purely for fixing up long-standing bugs."

One problem is that few developers are motivated to work on defects, Morton said. This is particularly a problem for bugs that affect old computers or peripherals, as kernel developers working for corporations don't tend to care about out-of-date hardware, he said.

Nowadays, many kernel developers are employed by IT companies, such as hardware manufacturers. That can cause problems, as they may be motivated by self-interest, Morton suggested.

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Joke

President Bush was in New Orleans. He said that, "We all pray for no hurricanes this year." This is all part of the Faith Based Disaster Management plan.
--Jay Leno

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Women in "democratic" Iraq

The plight of women in Iraq from The Hindu

This is a documentary shot by an Iraqi women about the situtaion of women in iraq. A few days heard abt this documentary on one of the many news channels... here is kind of a summary to it.

The film is particularly good at capturing the texture of family life lived in such insecurity, and one effective section concentrates on the tale of a young girl, just eight years old, who was picked up by American troops after an attack on the car in which she and her father and other Iraqis were travelling. The troops first took her to a military hospital, but then her family says she was held for three months. Her family was not informed of her whereabouts and she was interrogated by being asked to identify Iraqi corpses in photographs. Her grandfather eventually tracked her down in Baghdad, and as we see her weeping in his lap we sense her family's frustration at having no accountable authority to whom it could take its anger.
...

To show the negative effects of these developments on women, Zeina travels to Basra. It will not come as news to those who have followed developments in southern Iraq that women are being forced to wear the hijab and prevented from living their lives freely. But it brings these developments home when we see young women and their families talking about being sent bullets and death threats because they played sport or did not wear a headscarf. As Zeina emphasises, this kind of experience is new to most women in Iraq, who enjoyed economic and social freedom before the occupation. "A while ago, I was looking at photographs of my aunt in college in the 60s, wearing pants and sleeveless tops, playing sports in the college yard; and then I looked at the photographs of the women in college today, and they are covered in black from head to toe, their faces also covered."

Occupation forces blamed

Zeina says the responsibility for these developments is solely that of the occupation — it has given sectarianism the opportunity to flourish. She simply laughs when I ask her whether she feels grateful for the democracy that America has given Iraq. "Democracy? What democracy? We do not have democracy. This democracy that Bush talks about — it is a completely empty structure, based on sectarian and ethnic interests. How can you have democracy when you are afraid that your life will be threatened, or your husband will be killed if you express yourself freely? It is a bad joke."

Not all women in Iraq are against the occupation — women are as divided as the men, and people in the West have heard Iraqi women speak in support of the U.S. war. But it is hard to resist the force of Zeina's passion as she describes the chaos that the war has brought to Iraq. She longs to go on documenting the situation of women, despite the very narrow limits within which she has to work.

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Questioning the decision of the Umpire...

Tampering or selective control? from Cricinfo

It is next to impossible to prove - one way or the other - Bucknor's charge that television producers are deliberately making umpires look bad, and also influencing the decision-making process by showing replays of only certain angles, selectively leaving out others. But, the fact that he has made these statements has brought to the public domain something many have suspected for some time now.

In all this, umpires around the world were keen to keep a low profile. When contacted Simon Taufel and David Shepherd declined to comment, while Rudi Koertzen was unreachable.

The International Cricket Council, who have strict guidelines on the matters their members are allowed to comment on, didn't have much to add either. Brian Murgatroyd would only proffer "no comment" when attempts were made to get a reaction to Bucknor's statements, but he and his team certainly have plenty to think about now.

Maybe Bucknor's comment has opened a can of worms but I think that there is an angle that we are not looking at is that the responsibility of an appeal against the decision of the umpire is the players responsibility... It is something like the walking when you are out. If walking when you know you are out is commendable so is asking to be able to stay when you are not. But yes we will have to look at the technologies that are being used to make the final decision before completely relying on it.

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The question of Afghanistan's question for India...

Indian security presence in Afghanistan from The Hindu
Read full article... it is worth it.

THE INDIAN "debate" about Afghanistan is narrowing down to a single agenda: ensuring the security of hundreds of Indian nationals involved in Indian projects in that country. Since the killing of Maniappan Ramankutty in November last, the Government began substantially augmenting the paramilitary forces deployed in Afghanistan. It reportedly decided on deploying the CRPF in Afghanistan even ahead of Suryanarayana's death last week.

It took the Dutch parliament an agonising six months to make up its mind whether a few hundred troops could be sent to Afghanistan. The "debate" deeply divided the Dutch public. An entire team of parliamentarians from the House of Commons travelled to Afghanistan at great risk to their personal safety before the parliamentary select committee could decide what conditions and preconditions had to be fulfilled before British troops were despatched to southern Afghanistan under the commitment to NATO. (Of course, senior British journalists separately travelled to Afghanistan for making their own assessment.)

India, regrettably, is yet to reach that level of sophistication in policy-making — its tragic experiences in Sri Lanka nearly two decades ago notwithstanding. Secondly, Afghanistan is — it has been for a long time and may well remain for the foreseeable future — an enigma. Ambiguities shroud every "incident" like the one involving Maniappan or Suryanarayana. Things are never quite what they may appear to be. This is inevitable when intrigues double up as politics. What Selig Harrison wrote in his classic work Out of Afghanistan — that the Soviets actually blundered into Afghanistan in 1978 — has since been borne out by the declassified archival materials of the Cold War period in Moscow and Washington. A perception was deliberately created by the Western intelligence that they were using Afghanistan as a battlefield to threaten long-term Soviet strategic interests.

That is to say, there must be greater clarity as to who killed Maniappan and Suryanarayana. All that can be said with a measure of confidence is that they were political murders (which does not make them any less horrendous). Intriguingly, Hamid Karzai did not blame the Taliban for Suryanarayana's murder. Actually, for the past few days Kabul has been excited about the new overtures being made by the United States and Mr. Karzai to the Taliban leadership for a genuinely serious political dialogue aimed at working out a credible power-sharing arrangement.

The discourse in India has been to point to the possibility of a Pakistani intelligence hand in the killing of Indian workers in Afghanistan. The possibility is fast becoming a probability. With that, the "case file" is all but closed. And, it is time to move on to modalities of augmentation of the Indian security presence in Afghanistan.

While speaking of a Pakistani animus to an Indian presence in the sensitive Afghan border regions, would we countenance with equanimity Pakistani nationals appearing in their hundreds on India's border regions with Nepal or Bangladesh or Sri Lanka? Yet another question arises. Without compromising the commitment to "reconstruct" Afghanistan's economic infrastructure, is it not possible for Indian activities to sidestep for the present the highly explosive region bordering Pakistan and instead concentrate on the west, north, east, and the centre of the country till such time as there is less volatility in Pakistan's Balochistan or Waziristan regions?

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We are older than we think ;)

Universe may be much older than we think, say cosmologists from The Hindu

THE UNIVERSE we live in might just not be the real McCoy, but only the latest in a line of repeating Big Bangs stretching back through time, according to the latest theory from cosmologists.

Instead of being formed from a single Big Bang some 14bn years ago and destined to expand and eventually peter out, leaving only the cold dead remains of stars, the universe is, instead, possibly an endless loop of explosions and contractions, stretching for ever.

The latest theory has been postulated to try to account for what Einstein described as his "biggest blunder" - the Cosmological Constant, a force he proposed to account for the galaxies being driven apart but which has subsequently caused problems for physicists as it appears to be too small.

The Cosmological Constant is a mathematical representation of the energy of empty space, also known as "dark energy", which exerts a kind of anti-gravity force pushing galaxies apart at an accelerating rate.

It happens to be a googol (1 followed by 100 zeros) times smaller than would be expected if the universe was created in a single Big Bang. But its value could be explained if the universe was much, much older than most experts believe.

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Comment from the channel 7 talk show "Mudda"

Two comments that really struck me that how can someone think in such a way...
First was

"App hote kaun hai najma ka theka lane wale"

... I forgot the name of the guy but he was a politician.
Second was

"Tali kabhi ek hath se nahi bajti, per zyada galti aurto ke hi hoti hai"

someone from the audience
(and then there was a classic statement that never fail to outrage me)

"Rape unhi ladkiyo ke hote hai jo kam kapde phanti hai."

again someone from the audience

This episode was discussing a how can there be "sabhy samaj" (especially related to Muslim society) An interstice fact there was only one female in the audience.
I will not say anything to the last comment cause that is just a peace of bullshit and so is the second one.

Now lets look at the first statement coming from a politician (elected by the people of the country called India) who represents one of the minorities(Muslim). The context of the statement... to refresh your memory it was about the case when a man and his wife wanted to stay together even after one of the members of the guys family raped the wife which is wrong because the wife has become haram.(I totally don't buy that is actually true according to Islam I will have to cross check this) And the girl went to the court asking to stay with her husband. And this Mr. Politician has the guts to say that who are you(court or anyone else) to stand against the fatwa that was issued that this two cannot say together. Is it just me or is there someone else who thinks that the leadership of this country has gone down the drains. If this comment was by some random XYZ I would maybe let it pass... but a educated(supposedly) leader that is suppose to uplift the society that is a very much a part of this country is saying as if he is running some random kingdom of his own and that to taking them backwards. And ofcourse people support these kind of people.

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Internet, plagiarism and Kaavya Viswanathan

In Internet Age, Writers Face Frontier Justice from NYTimes

Frontier justice? Mob rule? Perhaps.

But last week, not just petty gadflies fueled by schadenfreude and bloodlust (though there was that), but also armchair defense attorneys and the merely curious were discussing the books — as well as whether Ms. Viswanathan's status as a) immigrant, b) minority, c) child of privilege or d) hottie — played a role in her treatment.

Many online commentators detected an underlying racism, for instance, in even good-natured rants — perhaps typified by Gawker's cheeky (and occasionally misinterpreted) comment on Tuesday: "Isn't it kind of awesome to see an overachieving Indian kid finally do something wrong?"

But others pointed to the fact that Ms. Viswanathan had only one week earlier told The Newark Star-Ledger that "nothing I read gave me the inspiration" for the novel, but now, under scrutiny, suddenly recalled adoring Ms. McCafferty's books and claimed to have unconsciously channeled them. Given that, her critics charged, she was being treated better than other fabulists of late.

"If Viswanathan weren't young, attractive and a student at the best brand name in higher education, wouldn't she be James Frey II?" Jane Genova, a marketing consultant in Connecticut, wrote on her blog (janegenova.com) on Thursday. "You bet," she continued. "The pile-on would have been fast and massive."

But what if she had been deaf and blind?

That was a question raised in a discussion at Metafilter, where Andrew Shalit, in a defense of Ms. Viswanathan's claim of unconscious copying, pointed to the Helen Keller archives at the Web site for the American Foundation for the Blind.

There, in her autobiography "The Story of My Life," Ms. Keller describes how, at age 12, she wrote a story — "The Frost King" — that created her own publishing scandal.

"Mr. Anagnos was delighted with 'The Frost King,' and published it in one of the Perkins Institution reports," Ms. Keller wrote (Chapter 14 at afb.org/mylife). "This was the pinnacle of my happiness, from which I was in a little while dashed to earth. I had been in Boston only a short time when it was discovered that a story similar to 'The Frost King,' called 'The Frost Fairies' by Miss Margaret T. Canby, had appeared before I was born in a book called 'Birdie and His Friends.' The two stories were so much alike in thought and language that it was evident Miss Canby's story had been read to me, and that mine was — a plagiarism."

It was surmised that Ms. Keller must have heard Ms. Canby's story read to her as a child and unconsciously retold the story years later as her own, an event that left her in dread of trying to write anything original again.

Back at Metafilter, Keith M. Ellis wondered if Ms. Keller would have received a fair shake in the rush to judgment that is now de rigueur in the Internet age.

"It seems to me we give zero consideration to the possibility that it might be plagiarism, but unintentional," Mr. Ellis wrote, adding: "If we changed the name and obscured the disability-indicating details, would we still be willing to consider innocence?"

A piercing question, that — though so, too, is whether Ms. Viswanathan's case warrants a comparison to Ms. Keller's. And as mercenaries stampeded to eBay to peddle copies of Ms. Viswanathan's suddenly scarce book (a first edition was selling for $80 on Friday), the hope for any larger lessons in the "Opal" episode began to dim. Yet here, too, the Internet presented something of a solution.

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Thought

I havn't been really good with blogging these days... there is so much that i hear and see that needs to be put down here but somehow when there is time there is no access and where there is access there is no time. I need to do something abt it.

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Quote

May you live all the days of your life.
--Irish Blessing (Now that is a true blessing)

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Intresting site....

Killing The Buddha via ALDaily

I olny read this (I broke up with Jesus) article and it seems intresting. I don't know what this whole site is about but will look through it in due time(as religion seems to be one of my fav topics :))

extract from the site about the site --

Killing the Buddha is a religion magazine for people made anxious by churches, people embarrassed to be caught in the "spirituality" section of a bookstore, people both hostile and drawn to talk of God. It is for people who somehow want to be religious, who want to know what it means to know the divine, but for good reasons are not and do not. If the religious have come to own religious discourse it is because they alone have had places where religious language could be spoken and understood. Now there is a forum for the supposedly non-religious to think and talk about what religion is, is not and might be. Killing the Buddha is it.

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Quotes

Home is a place you grow up wanting to leave, and grow old wanting to get back to.
-- John Ed Pearce

To change the system you have to be a part of the system.
-- Page 3(movie)

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Dhoni #1......

Dhoni ranked top after India win from BBC

Believe it or not but it is Mahendra Dhoni in the top slot for ODI. I hope he lasts long.

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I would stop watching TV....

Philips device could force TV viewers to watch ads from CNET

Viewers would be released from the freeze only after paying a fee to the broadcasr. The freeze would be implemented on a program-by-program basis, giving viewers a choice at the start of each one.

According to a recently published patent, the apparatus could work inside a set-top box. It would use the standard Multimedia Home Platform to receive a first control signal and then respond by taking control of the TV. The MHP would also be capable of sending the payment information that would lift the freeze, as it does when authorizing pay-per-view content.

If implemented, the invention would have a significant impact on television culture.

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We get hiccup's because the brain gets confused what signal to send...

Why do we get hiccups? from MSN

Once in a while, often when you find yourself eating a bit too quickly, your brain sends conflicting signals to your diaphragm and epiglottis: "Close the esophagus and open the trachea--no, wait. I mean, pull the diaphragm and open the--hold it--I mean the food tube--no, the windpipe. Wait. Now, swallow and breathe. Yikes!" Once in a while your diaphragm contracts and forces air through your glottis, and you feel a bump and often hear that "heek" sound. That's when you have the hiccups.

Your nerve fibers have produced too many charged calcium ions near the muscles of your glottis and your diaphragm. They spasm; your brain triggers your nervous system to send a correcting signal, but it's too late or not quite of the right strength, and you hiccup again. Often there's an imbalance that is like a resonance. The signals build up and let go at regular intervals, like a sign flapping in a breeze.

The way to stop the hiccups seems to be to provide a new clear signal to your body--either a signal for swallowing or breathing. That's why for some people, it helps to hold a breath. For others, swallowing several sips of water in succession does the trick. You have to clear or overwhelm the confusing diaphragm-glottal-epiglottal noise. You can do it. Just swallow; I mean, hold your breath. Hiccup--I mean ...

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Worth a read...

About the Indian youth from The Hindu

To Mr. Kumar, I would like to say: Sir, not all the members of my generation are money seeking hedonists. A friend of mine is currently touring remote villages in Maharashtra, working on health care projects. Another dissolved a consultancy he had set up with six years of hard work and effort, because he did not want to work for MNCs.

I know a person who after completing an architecture degree, forwent an opportunity to work on Gurgaon's shining malls, and chose to join the Institute of Rural Management. Another is in Sri Lanka — working in rehabilitation — under threat to her own life. For every batch of IIM that passes out, (some of them on salaries more than 1 lakh a month), there is a batch of social workers from TISS and IRMA (some of whom start their career on 1 lakh a year). And I could go on and on.

I concede that a majority of the youth today are extremely self-centred and detached from politics and society. But who is responsible for them? Can society wash its hands of its youth? All the young people mentioned in the earlier paragraph are engaged in socially relevant work, against all odds from society, and mostly against their parents' wishes. The key concern of Indian parents is that their children should `settle down' — which means getting a secure, well-paid job, or sometimes for girls, a rich husband. Parents coerce their kids to take up lucrative professions; I know quite a few who have refused to finance their children's education for anything other than stipulated courses.

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Quote

If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is.
-- John Louis von Neumann

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Too Big to Put Behind

-- Rachel Naomi Remen

Disappointment and loss are a part of every life. Many times we can put them behind us and get on with the rest of our lives. But not everything is amenable to this approach. Some things are too big or too deep to do this, and we will have to leave important parts of ourselves behind if we treat them in this way. These are the places where wisdom begins to grow in us. It begins with suffering that we do not avoid or rationalize or put behind us. It starts with the realization that our loss, whatever it is, has become a part of us and has altered our lives so profoundly that we cannot go back to the way it was before.

The thing about the many strategies we use to shelter ourselves from feeling loss is that none of them leads to healing. Although denial, rationalization, substitution, avoidance, and the like may numb the pain of loss, every one of them hurts us in some far more fundamental ways. None is respectful toward life or toward process. None acknowledges our capacity for finding meaning or wisdom.

[Daily Dig from www.bruderhof.com]

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For a while I thought India would succumb to US pressure

India won't accept no-test option from The Hindu

NEW DELHI: India has conveyed to the United States that it will not accept a provision in any civilian nuclear agreement with the U.S. that says cooperation would be discontinued if New Delhi were to conduct a nuclear test.

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Quote

God loved the birds and invented trees. Man loved the birds and invented cages.
-- Jacques Deval

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Mockrey of Caste System :)

Air India Now Offers Business Caste Seating from The Onion

MUMBAI—Air India, the subcontinent's largest airline, announced it will offer upgraded Business Caste seating on all flights starting in July. "More legroom, wider seats—and no need to associate with the manual laborers," a spokesman for the airline said Tuesday. "Our business travelers must have lived good past lives to deserve this." Air India still ranks at the bottom of the airline industry in customer satisfaction, with a high volume of complaints about cooking fires in the climate-uncontrolled cabins, wandering cows that flight attendants refuse to remove, and the "Untouchable" Coach Caste, which is towed behind Air India jetliners in a giant burlap sack.

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Another article on Bush n Iraq

A Bad Leak from NYTimes

President Bush says he declassified portions of the prewar intelligence assessment on Iraq because he "wanted people to see the truth" about Iraq's weapons programs and to understand why he kept accusing Saddam Hussein of stockpiling weapons that turned out not to exist. This would be a noble sentiment if it actually bore any relationship to Mr. Bush's actions in this case, or his overall record.

Mr. Bush did not declassify the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq — in any accepted sense of that word — when he authorized I. Lewis Libby Jr., through Vice President Dick Cheney, to talk about it with reporters. He permitted a leak of cherry-picked portions of the report. The declassification came later.

And this president has never shown the slightest interest in disclosure, except when it suits his political purposes. He has run one of the most secretive administrations in American history, consistently withholding information and vital documents not just from the public, but also from Congress. Just the other day, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told the House Judiciary Committee that the names of the lawyers who reviewed Mr. Bush's warrantless wiretapping program were a state secret.

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Doesn't it sound ironic ....

Nitish has failed to check crime: Lalu from The Hindu

Samastipur: Announcing that the his party will launch a State-wide agitation against the "failure" of the Nitish Kumar Goverment to check crime, the Rashtriya Janata Dal chief and Railway Minister Lalu Prasad on Sunday alleged that the NDA Government's performance in Bihar was lack-lustre on all fronts.

Addressing a meeting, organised to pay homage to the party leaders killed here a few days ago, Mr. Prasad alleged that his party colleagues were being attacked on ``selective basis.''

He accused the State Government of dancing to the tunes of criminal elements and alleged that its promises of providing good governance had vanished into thin air. — UNI

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Narmada

Narmada project: clearing the confusion From The Hindu

Q: Why does the Narmada Bachao Andolan not confine itself to talking about rehabilitation? Why is it asking for stoppage of construction?

A: The answer is that in terms of the Narmada Tribunal's Award, the conditions of clearance of the Project, and the Supreme Court's judgments of October 2000 and March 2005, construction is not allowed to outpace rehabilitation work. That is the meaning of the pari passu principle. There is no question of proceeding beyond the height of 110 metres already reached until the failures and deficiencies in rehabilitation work with reference to that height have been remedied, and the prescribed advance steps have been completed with reference to the proposed further increase in height. The NBA is not asking for something new. It is merely asking for compliance with prescribed conditions, not imposing its own.

Q: Is the NBA anti-project, anti-development, as alleged by the Chief Minister of Gujarat?

A: Medha Patkar may have certain views about big dams and `destructive development,' and not everyone may agree with those views, but that is not the point at issue in the present case. The current protest is about failures in rehabilitation, non-compliance with conditions, denial of human rights, and infliction of injustice and suffering.

All things said and done what outrages me the most is that BJP workers destroyed the NBA office. Mr. Modi should have some sense of responsibility and try to prevent that after all he is the part of the govt. Just because there are some people who do not agree with him does not mean that he has the right to beat them up or threaten them in any way. Also I am surprised by lack of media coverage this is getting. Most TV channels are showing them destroying/burning Amir Khan's pictures... What good does that do. And happily Congress is letting BJP do the dirty work of bashing Amir where as their Govt in MP is responsible for major rehabilitation. My advise to Mr. Modi will be get after the people who haven't taken care of the rehabilitation and get the project moving. The way he is going maybe will keep him in the news but do people no good.
Also some of the comments from Narander Modi and even Arundathi Rai seem to be suggesting that the common man has no right to support the cause that he/she wants. Mr. Modi is asking why was Amir not there for people living on the streets of Kashmir and Ms. Arundathi is asking about his coke add.

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Quote

Some people, no matter how old they get, never lose their beauty - they merely move it from their faces into their hearts.
-- Martin Buxbaum

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thodu phodu

It looks like it is thod phod season here...

When the match was abadoned in Guwahati... what resulted?
When the mandal II came in the news... waht resulted?
When the govt didn't do it right in meerut... what resulted?
When Mr. Rajumar died... what resulted?
When India lost the 6th ODI... what resulted?

and there are many more such incidents..... I wonder if the public is taking the Thodu phodu add with Saif n Rani too seriously :)

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Quote

A single question can be more influential than a thousand statements.
-- Bo Bennett

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Hmmm ... read it and make up ur own mind

Christ Among the Partisans from NYTimes

The Jesus of the Gospels is not a great ethical teacher like Socrates, our leading humanitarian. He is an apocalyptic figure who steps outside the boundaries of normal morality to signal that the Father's judgment is breaking into history. His miracles were not acts of charity but eschatological signs — accepting the unclean, promising heavenly rewards, making last things first.

He is more a higher Nietzsche, beyond good and evil, than a higher Socrates. No politician is going to tell the lustful that they must pluck out their right eye. We cannot do what Jesus would do because we are not divine.

It was blasphemous to say, as the deputy under secretary of defense, Lt. Gen. William Boykin, repeatedly did, that God made George Bush president in 2000, when a majority of Americans did not vote for him. It would not remove the blasphemy for Democrats to imply that God wants Bush not to be president. Jesus should not be recruited as a campaign aide. To trivialize the mystery of Jesus is not to serve the Gospels.

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Surfing without connecting... Intresting

Surf the web without logging on to Internet from Indian Express

Ever thought of surfing the web when you are not connected? Well, that is the latest offering from Rakesh Mathur. Mathur, who co-founded Junglee — that was later taken over by Amazon — has developed a software ‘Webaroo’ that will make this possible.

Webaroo servers scour the web, analyse web pages and automatically select the subset of pages with the most content value in the least storage size. These pages are then assembled into topic specified ‘web packs’.

These webpacks can be downloaded on a laptop or a mobile phone. Once downloaded, the webpacks or web sites can be accessed anytime.

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Quote

Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That's why it's a comfort to go hand in hand.
--Emily Kimbrough

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And ofcourse

How can I not mention that I have been enjoying my frist few days in india just trying to keep up with all the cricket :) 4-0 not bad isn't it!!! I would love to see 6-0 :)))

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India is proud that you are an Indian

Paes to India's rescue again from The Hindu

MUMBAI: Leander Paes, two sets up in the fifth and decisive reverse singles against Aqeel Khan, turned around a script that had gone bizarre after an attack of cramps in the third.

The Indian captain played through pain, held his nerve and game together somehow for two more sets before riding a wave of public support to fashion a thrilling victory in the decider.

India won 3-2 after being stretched beyond the limit in the BNP-Paribas Asia/Oceania Group I play-offs at the Brabourne stadium on Sunday.

"I'm proud to be an Indian today," he said, wrapping the tricolour around the shoulders.

Prakash Amritraj, consumed by stage fright in the first reverse singles against a rampaging Aisam Qureshi, recovered a little of poise under extreme pressure but not enough to prevent Pakistan draw level 2-2.

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Back on track :)

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Will be back on tack

I think some time after 6th of April this blog should be back on almost its normal frequency(I hope). Till then do keep droping by :)

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The Argumentative Indian

I finally got hold of this book and have just completed the first chapter it is worth a read.

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some tit-bits

I have not abandoned this blog I will be back soon.
till then...
The most shocking tag on the back of autos in Munmbai is "Women Enpowerment"(more on tags on the back of autos later :))
There are two parts of mumbai one that is underconstrutcion and the other that is not.
Keep smiling!!!

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Home -- I am going to miss

Yesterday I went to place that I have called HOME for the maximum duration in my life. Everything looked the same, same set of decoration, same set of photos of family n friends hanging on the wall. But everything had a thick layer of dust... two thoughts struck me. One was that even though not a lot of time has passed but life is not the same and second it felt that even after so much has changed once u "dust it cean" it will be home again. But this time when I dust it clean it will be to pack up things n set of to a new journey.
I met friends who asked me y don't I work here... why am I going back to India. All I tell them is that I want to-- how else do I explain. At this point after I leave Thailand I will not have a place that I will call home. I will have to make a home and strat over again.

I will miss Bankgok. I will miss my friends here.

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Wonder how this will work out...

Two-way channel for The Hindu's readers from The Hindu

THE READERS' Editor of The Hindu will be functional from March 1, 2006. The key
objectives of this appointment are to institutionalise the practice of
self-regulation, accountability, and transparency; to create a new visible
framework to improve accuracy, verification, and standards in the newspaper; and
to strengthen bonds between the newspaper and its millions of print platform and
online readers.
The Readers' Editor will be a two-way channel for readers'
suggestions and grievances relating to accuracy, fairness, standards, good
taste, and the highest values of journalism in whatever is published in The
Hindu . Complaints will be enquired into and follow-up action taken by
publishing corrections or clarifications; by replying to the complainant; and by
enabling corrective action to be taken, as needed.

This experiment will depend on how responsible readers are.

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Time to leave

Few hrs from now I will set on to something new. I don't know what awaits me but I do know that I am leaving some precious friends... and as sad as that makes me I am sure that we will manage to keep in touch.

To meet and to part is the story of life,
To part and to meet is the glory of life.

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thank god!

India bird flu tests 'negative' from BBC

Indian health officials say 94 out of 95 samples collected from people with flu-like symptoms have tested negative for bird flu.

Results from one final sample are expected on Saturday.

Hundreds of thousands of birds have been slaughtered after the deadly H5N1 bird flu strain was found in Navapur town in Maharashtra state last week.

The authorities have now completely sealed the town, which has a population of 30,000, and 19 nearby villages.

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Holly-Bolly

Smith builds links with Bollywood from BBC

Actor Will Smith has called for closer links between Hollywood and Bollywood during a visit to India.

I, Robot star Smith said Hollywood could find a winning combination by joining up with the "beauty, colour and depth of Indian cinema".

He said he hoped to work with India's top producers and actors, adding: "I really feel there is a marriage to be made between Hollywood and Bollywood."

Indian cinema has one of the world's largest audiences and output of films.

Mr Smith met with Bollywood producers, directors and actors and visited film studios.

'Blown away'

He said: "I am meeting with these people to make artistic connections and come up with a new thing."

The actor said he had been "blown away" by the performance of Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan - also known as Big B - in the film Sarkar.

He said: "I was very impressed with his acting and have decided that from today onwards, I will be known as Big W."

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I bow to thy

India's feisty untouchable woman from BBC

After leading a spirited drive to root out alcoholism and get the government to work for her community in the troubled state of Bihar, she has become the first woman from her community of rat-eaters to address a United Nations convention.

Musahars are so poor that their staple diet often comprises mice.

On 27 February, the unlettered Girija Devi will lead five women from India at the international meeting to talk about the status of women. She will speak in her local Bhojpuri dialect.

This is simply marvelous. She has helped make 125 villages alcohol free WOW!

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Finally

I am moving back to India :) So this blog is going to be not as regular for the next few days. Once I get settled I am sure I will have tons to say.

But for right now I am really looking forward to going back. All this while when I had not made the decision I was wondering if going back to India is the right thing. But now that I have decided I think I was stupid not take this step before espically since that is what I wanted to do all this while. What will I leave behind. For the last few days days my mind has been bubbling with thoughts I will put it down once I am done with packing. PACKING I better finish it before I leave :)

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Bird Flu in India

Bird flu hits India from The Hindu

NEW DELHI: The dreaded pathogenic H5N1 bird flu has hit the country — about 50,000 birds are suspected to have been infected in the tribal Nandurbar district of Maharashtra. As a precaution, two lakh birds being reared in 16 commercial farms within 3 km radius of the affected area would be culled (killed), the Secretary, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, P.M.A. Hakeem, told The Hindu .

A red alert has been sounded in the adjoining Surat district in Gujarat, which has many commercial farms. India has about 490 million poultry of which 60 per cent is in the commercial sector. The rest is backyard poultry.

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