quote

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
-- Albert Einstein

Documents made public

The Kashmir saga from The Hindu

"THE UNION Ministry of Home Affairs has done a great service to the nation and to the world by making available on its website the entire original text of the Instrument of Accession signed by Maharaja Hari Singh of Jammu and Kashmir on October 26, 1947. This document, long thought to be lost, has generated considerable controversy among historians and others alike."

Here is the link to the doc. http://mha.nic.in/accdoc.htm

Looks like they will make the documents related to Kishmir public.

Career and Motherhood... My comments

I would like to have read more comments on this one... But then.
Also this is what I have written at a go, so bare with me.

When I read this article the first thought that came to my mind was a comment I heard from a very senior executive of a company while we were having a general discussion. He said "when we consider people for senior posts we prefer not to hire women because they will not be able to handle their jobs since they have to take care of their house and kids won't be giving 100% at work."
While reading this comment did it cross your mind isn't it practical? Realistic?

My first reaction(though I kept my mouth shut that time) was who gives you the right to tell me what role am I supposed to hold and where? Shouldn't I be judged like a human being on the credentials if I can satisfy the job or not? Shouldn't I have the right to choose what I want to do instead of it being decided by someone else or the society as a whole? Am I perusing my studies that one day someone will look at me and say you are not given this job because you are a women?
And hope after reading this far you haven't already formed an opinion of me that I belong to that set of people(I will not use women because lot men fall in this category too) who will give family second preference to their work, or are very ambitious. Let me point something else out. That the same attitude would be considered by some, a positive trait in men and a negative trait in women. And my question is how can giving your family a second preference be a positive trait in anyone?
Back to the point... There are plenty of people who will not think twice or maybe not think at all when they ask their wives to put there career on hold or abandon it altogether. Or it is even taken for granted to do that. And that is the attitude that gets on my nerves.
Give everyone a right to decide on his or her own. If two people think that they can both have careers and raise a family then the decision should be up to them. Not up to the society. If the woman thinks that she can give up her career to raise a family, then that needs to be appreciated. If she wants to continue her career and have a family let the society support that too. I will not give the third option of a man staying at home to raise kids. I don't think it is possible, I have never met a man who has even considered doing this and I can't envision it either. So me suggesting that will give people the right to think that I have lost my mind.
Now getting back to the article. I am surprised that the article had all quotes form women who want to put their career on the back seat. There was only one comment in the article from a women who wants to peruse her career while raising the family. Where as they have 60 to 40 ratio in the survey.

"While the changing attitudes are difficult to quantify, the shift emerges repeatedly in interviews with Ivy League students, including 138 freshman and senior females at Yale who replied to e-mail questions sent to members of two residential colleges over the last school year.
The interviews found that 85 of the students, or roughly 60 percent, said that when they had children, they planned to cut back on work or stop working entirely. About half of those women said they planned to work part time, and about half wanted to stop work for at least a few years.
Two of the women interviewed said they expected their husbands to stay home with the children while they pursued their careers. Two others said either they or their husbands would stay home, depending on whose career was furthest along."

I got the feeling that it was trying to persuade the reader by giving these one sided comments that it is the "right decision" that is to be taken. Sowmya has posted a comment that "life comes full circle" can't we get a stable balance where it can stay instead of going round and round? Also I wonder if you also meant that this was the "right choice"?

"Yet the likelihood that so many young women plan to opt out of high-powered careers presents a conundrum.
"It really does raise this question for all of us and for the country: when we work so hard to open academics and other opportunities for women, what kind of return do we expect to get for that?" said Marlyn McGrath Lewis, director of undergraduate admissions at Harvard, who served as dean for coeducation in the late 1970's and early 1980's.
It is a complicated issue and one that most schools have not addressed. The women they are counting on to lead society are likely to marry men who will make enough money to give them a real choice about whether to be full-time mothers, unlike those women who must work out of economic necessity.
It is less than clear what universities should, or could, do about it. For one, a person's expectations at age 18 are less than perfect predictors of their life choices 10 years later. And in any case, admissions officers are not likely to ask applicants whether they plan to become stay-at-home moms."

I myself do not know that answers to these questions raised here. But do stay at home moms don't have right to high quality education?

"For many feminists, it may come as a shock to hear how unbothered many young women at the nation's top schools are by the strictures of traditional roles."

Really, for one I don't think feminism is to fight against the traditional roles. It is about being given equal opportunity to decide the path of your own life without the bias attached that you are a women so you should take this path. A very strong feminist held an opinion that women should not get maternity leave. And I was appalled by that and more so because she was a very strong "feminist". Isn't it about time that we accept that women do give birth? It is not a unique case it is the situation of half the human race. Another very well educated female holds the opinion that all jobs are not to given to women. And that is not because she thinks that we are physically weak but because the society is not a safe place. Would it have been the right decision to not give "blacks" the jobs when the racism was at its height? Or was it a better solution that the mentality of people was changed and everyone got their rights in the society?

""They are still thinking of this as a private issue; they're accepting it," said Laura Wexler, a professor of American studies and women's and gender studies at Yale. "Women have been given full-time working career opportunities and encouragement with no social changes to support it."

This statement I think is the most appropriate one about the situation today. So, yes arz000n I can believe that friend of yours has made that decision. Each of us, including me, knows if the need comes it will be women who will have to put their career on hold. I will willing do it, but that to be expected out of me is outrageous.

Imagine

It's a nice day for an iPod wedding from CNET

""I swear to god, the DJ was playing Solitaire throughout the dinner and cocktail hour," Spence noted in an online forum at wedding-planning site TheKnot.com. "It seems sort of silly to pay someone a lot of money to sit at a laptop and put on songs when we can do the exact same thing.""

hmmmm imagine at a desi wedding where the whole procession is lead by a band that signals to the traffic slow down or use another route we are celebrating a wedding what would happen if the band is replaced by an iPod and 2 speakers. Or what will happen in thoes procession when the band wallas are used as boundary so that the dancing relatives do not hit the traffic... iPod and two speaker will not do a good job :)

Cool!!

Islamic cell phones going on sale in Europe from IE

"For Muslims, it's a high-tech call to prayer.
The Ilkone I800 cellular telephone generates five automated reminders a day at prayer time, points Muslims in the direction of Mecca and contains a complete, authorized version of the Islamic holy book, Te Quran, in Arabic and English."

Now this is what I call a smart product. It already has a market for itself.

Gone too far...

Chappell questions Ganguly's attitude from Cricinfo

If this ends the era for Ganguly(which has to end sooner than later) then it will be a sad ending for a person who has added a lot of glorious chapters to Indian cricket.

Career and Motherhood

Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood from NYTimes

Must read article and actually, I have loads of comments on this article. Will write it when I get time, I hope soon.