That's all, your honour!: Apr25-May1

1. It is common knowledge that there is huge amounts of corruption involved in granting permissions for Engineering and Medical Colleges. However, one wouldn't expect that atleast those who are incharge of AICTE(All India Council for Technical Education) and MCI (Medical Council of India) will not be directly involved in the rot. The chairman of MCI is an exception though. He is so dumb, that he takes bribes directly. And he got caught red-handed while accepting a bribe! I mean, how do people rise to such high positions without knowing basic rules of how to take bribe? Doesn't it surprise you? His name is Ketan Desai, and the bugger is now in jail. Government washed off its hands from the controversy saying, the council is an autonomous body and will take decisions on its own. That essentially means, there will be no full stop to the corrupt practices of these exalted institutions - only that the next guy might be careful not to take bribe directly!

2. An Indian Diplomat working at the embassy in Pakistan was arrested this week, on charges of spying. She was asked to come to Delhi to help on work related to the SAARC summit and was arrested upon arrival. Guess what she first told the sleuths? "What took you so long to catch me?"! Madhuri Gupta worked in the translation department and was apparently nurturing a deep hatred towards the IFS officers, and hence to take revenge, decided to pass on information to Pakistan. Yes, you read it right. The motive was revenge! A reporter of The Jung (the same publication that started the "Aman ki Asha" campaign along with Times of India) introduced her to some Pak diplomats and apparently she used to pass on information, which according to Indian govt. was not "priviliged". And if you want to know how our "intellectual" media messed up the whole reporting, read B.Raman's scathing piece here.

3. On April 16, CBI filed a chargesheet in the Supreme Court saying that it had clinching evidence against Mayawati on some corruption cases. On April 23, the same CBI said it is ready to withdraw all its cases. On April 26, the BSP announced support to the UPA when the cut motions introduced by the opposition parties come up for voting. Cut motions are essentially motions that are moved seeking some cuts in the taxes/allotments in the finance bill. With SP, RJD and BSP not keen to support the governement, UPA had a wafer thin majority, and hence agreed to lift all corruption cases against Mayawati. SP and RJD did not vote - instead they walked out in protest. The great Lalu even asked why he will vote with the BJP when it foisted cases against him? When the cut motions were put to vote, UPA got 289 votes (272 needed for majority), and the opposition got 201. Telecom Minister A.Raja's scams have again been exposed this week. Yet, all is well - because Manmohan Singh is a honest and decent PM (it ain't matter that he has no voice or choice) and the "communal forces" have been kept at bay! By the way, the english TV media went ballistic on the opposition. Yes you read it right, they went ballistic on the opposition,the ruling party. According to them, when they knew they were losing, the opposition should not have bought in these motions at all!

4. Speaking of the cut motion, the Chief Minister of Jharkhand, Shibu Soren is still a Member of the Lok Sabha. BJP supports him at the state, and hence he is the CM there. So common sense would suggest that he will vote along with the BJP. Guess what - he did the opposite! Apparently the deal was that he will be made a Union Minister! But why give up CM post? The last time he became CM, he failed to get elected himself to the Assembly, so he feared the same thing would happen again. So now BJP will obviously get angry. They announced withdrawal of support to JMM. And then the comedy began to unveil. Shibu's son announces that his father voted for UPA "by mistake". That's right - "by mistake". Apparently, he also said that his father suffers from Alzeihmers! Now, trouble started in Congress party too - many did not want to include Shibu. Now, the guy is struck nowhere. And then Shibu's son apparently says that they will agree for a BJP led govt !! And when power is within reach, BJP also decided to dump ethics and is now negotiating with JMM and other parties on the modalities of government formation. Welcome to the world of Indian Politics!

5. So many things happened this week, and it's been a long update :D. So will end it now. Details of the Indo-Pak talks are here in a separate blog piece. And finally - believe it or not - IPL is off the news completely! After FULLY dominating for about a week, it is off - just like whooosh! The aim was to unseat Lalit Modi, and that has been accomplished. All that news about franchises not paying taxes etc etc are all over now. Apparently, "everything has been found in order". That's all, your honour!

That's all, your honour!: Apr 18-24

1. On February 7th, 2010, the Prime Minister emphatically declared that the worst is over with respect to food inflation. We are nearing April end, and hey guess what - inflation is still hovering around the same 17.5%. On what basis has the PM made that statement? What is the time frame he was talking about then? No one will bother to ask these questions, for the PM is a "honest" and "decent" man. The spiralling food prices are of a major concern, and when the BJP organised a massive rally against price rise in New Delhi this week - guess what sections of the media were worried about - traffic jams caused in Delhi because of this! No discussions of why the food inflation is still increasing. No discussion on the stagnant economic policies of the government. Or for that matter, not even a discussion on how this rally might have been a political show of strength by the new BJP President, Mr. Nitin Gadkari. No live coverage of the event. Nothing. They talked about traffic jam on a single day. Not that you people don't know, but this same media never talked about traffic jams when the "eternal opposition leader" Shri Rahul Gandhi went about travelling in Mumbai, or for that matter in other parts of the country. Any press conference of Shri Rahul Gandhi, or any public speech is ALWAYS carried live by these same news channels. But, a rally on price rise in the capital lead to traffic jams is what concerns us.

2. Post the Dantewada massacre, more rhetoric flowed from intellectuals. The same old crap - need development, gain confidence etc etc. While the intellectuals were dishing out this shit, guess what the Naxals have been doing. They attacked 5 CRPF camps in Dantewada, and also blew up a couple of mobile towers in Orissa. Why blow up a mobile tower? Because a mobile tower means better connectivity. Better connectivity means better development, which the Maoists are dead against. But hey, let's listen to the intellectuals, for without them, where would this country be?

3. And finally to the farce that EVERY single media channel has been covering for almost EVERY single minute this whole week. The IPL fiasco. So Shashi Tharoor resigned. And then the Congress started it's witch hunt (as is its wont). All the offices of IPL teams were raided. Lalit Modi was questioned. And then the big bosses of BCCI started leaking details about Lalit Modi's scams. NDTV's "sources" covered all possibilities, gave us multiple permutations and combinations of what can happen, passed them off as analysis. Some court cases etc also came into picture, some tax evasion issues came into the picture, some benami investors came into the picture, blah blah......yawwwnnnn. Lalit Modi might go as the IPL commissioner, but NOTHING will change. BCCI is a headstrong private organisation, and it will do nothing at all to change any of its functioning ways. Lalit Modi is just being expended because he took panga with Shashi Tharoor. And Shashi Tharoor pontificated yet again on twitter - " my resignation leads to real reform, it will be worthwhile." Yeah right, you kept quiet when you knew about it, and now this! haa! That's all, your honour!

That's all, your honour!: Apr 11-17

1. On saturday, there were two blasts outside the Chinnaswamy stadium in Bangalore, just minutes before the IPL match between Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers. A third bomb was also found and diffused. These bombs were timed to go off at 8pm, but obviously 2 of them went off much before that. 17 people have been injured, and there are no casaulities. Preliminary inquiries have revealed that the explosive used is Ammonium Nitrate. Alert folks on twitter have pointed out that Naxalites have stolen a truck carrying Ammonium Nitrate about a month back in Gadchiroli. But police later ruled out the Naxalite theory. Also, this might be a way to distract public attention from the IPL fiasco going on right now. Well, they don't seem to have succeeded fully though, for the media is trying to balance both the blasts and the Tharoor saga! The match was delayed by an hour, but was played fully. This is a serious breach of security, but we might never know who did it, as is the case most of the times.

2. Eyjafjallajokull. No, I am not abusing you. And no, it is not some random keys that I typed! That is the name of the glacier on which a volcano erupted in Iceland. And what happened next? Practically all, yes ALL, airports in Europe have been shut down! Why? The ash that is emanating from this volcano is travelling towards Europe, because of some wind drift, and hence flying aircrafts has become practically impossible. Post the second world war, this is the most massive shutdown of airports in Europe ever. Tens of thousands of people are stranded everywhere, and airport authorities are having a hard time managing the airports. And the crisis is likely to continue to for another 5 days. This might be the biggest crisis the industry ever faced, and that too because of Eyjafjallajokull! Now, beat that!

3. ISRO tried to launch GSLV with its own cryogenic engine this week. Approximately 500 seconds into the flight, the cryogenic engine failed to ignite and the launch vehicle fell into the Bay of Bengal. This was the first time we were launching with our own cryogenic engine. It took ISRO 17 years to develop the engine. Though we have had an history of the first flights failing, this one came as a shock because of the extensive testing that has been done on the ground. ISRO has now announced that it will try to launch the GSLV with our own cryogenic engine in about a year's time. Good luck to them!

4. A cyclone devastated West Bengal this week. 120 peopl died, and about 1 lakh people were displaced. Guess who covered this news - BBC. That's right - not NDTV, not IBN, not TIMES NOW. But BBC! Fellow netizen has written a letter to the Editors Guild on the same. It is a real shame that such news get drowned in seemingly trivial "news".

5. And finally we will talk about this Shashi Tharoor mess! It is actually quite simple. Shashi Tharoor gave his "blessings" and "encouragement" to Rendezvous (pronounced as Ron-de-voo - oof, this English !) Sports, which won the bid for Kochi team. IPL Commisioner Lalit Modi reveals later that this consortium provided 5 % sweat equity to a lady called Sunanda Pushkar. As of today's market value, that 5% translates to 50-70 crores! Now, who is Sunanda Pushkar? She is reportedly the lady Shashi Tharoor is planning to marry! And so now all hell broke lose! Tharoor has been accused of impropeity, and massive pressure has been mounting on him to resign. He releases this statement, and accuses Lalit Modi of trying to scuttle the bid for the Kochi team. Now, that is a very serious allegation - IPL commiosioner trying to be biased. So now my question is very simple. Leave aside all that ethical, impropeitary stuff. As someone who wants to bring in a change into the system, did Shashi Tharoor officially complain to the IPL governing Council on Lalit Modi's attempts? If not, why? That's all, your honour!

That's all, Your Honour!:Mar.28-Apr.3

1. Believe it or not, 25 police stations under the old city of Hyderabad are STILL under curfew. That's right - one week after the riots started, 5 days after curfew was first imposed, after more than 300 people were arrested - the curfew is still on! It was relaxed for a couple of hours on thursday, saturday and sunday. Day time curfew will be lifted on Monday. Please note however that the entire curfew is not being relaxed. Are the Hyderabad Police being over cautious? Or is there real danger lurking around? This report in The Hindu is the best summary of how and why these riots started. Sakshi had a banner headline talking about the possible role of ISI ! Ordinarily wouldn't take Sakshi seriously, but then given that both the Home Minister and also the advisor to government on security are both very close to Jagan, story might have some credence. 3 people were killed during the riots. 2 died during the curfew, because they were not able to get medical care. All 5 of them had NOTHING to do with the riots. When curfew was relaxed, one litre of milk was sold at Rs.50-100! One Kg of vegetables were sold at Rs.50/-! And if you reside outside and have no clue about these facts - that's because the national media decided to concentrate and prioritize the other "most important" thing happening in Hyderabad - Sania Mirza's wedding with Shoiab Mallik (former captain of Pak Cricket Team). That's right - national media gave top priority to the wedding news over the riots and curfew situation in 1/3rd of the city of Hyderabad. And guess what - 3 days into the news, the media asks "us" why "we" want to intrude so much in personal lives. Dudes - go look in the mirror, will you? :D

2. 8 years after the bill was first passed by Parliament, the Right to Education bill became law this week. Now if you are wondering why it took 8 years, according to learned friends on twitter, it is because all states have to come on board and also finance commission has to work with all states to decide on how to split the funding between the centre and the state. According to this act now, all children aged 6-14 years have a fundamental right to free and compulsory education. Governments will have to take all steps to ensure that no child in this age group is deprived of education. The law also talks about infrastructure, teacher-student ratio etc too. However, the most worrying factor is this: Private schools have to reserve 25% of seats to "poor" students in the neighbourhood. These kids will have to be taken into class 1 without any entrance test. The government's concentration should have been on developing infrastructure, and recruiting more teachers. Or maybe a better model of Public-Private pratnership. Teachers need special training to deal with poor students. The students require special training keeping in view their upbringing etc. It still beats me why this government is so hell bent on reservations as such. The good aspect so far is that this bill has not yet been tom-tomed as Sonia/Rahul's vision. Well, it's just a matter of time before that happens!


3. Like most of us predicted last week, Sonia Gandhi emerged unscathed from the Amitabh Bachchan controversy. Congress spokesperson Manish Tiwari compared Modi to Dawood. Tiwari questioned Amitabh what his stance on Modi's role is. After spewing venom from the very dias he addresses press conferences as the spokesperson of Congress, one day we hear Prannoy Roy telling us that his sources say "Sonia doesn't know about this". hahaha, true Didn't we all see it coming. The next day, we are told that Sonia Gandhi has asked spokespersons not to speak about Amitabh anymore. The media lapped it up, saying Sonia has basically asked the likes ot Tiwari to keep quiet and she disapproved of their methods to display their loyalty towards "the family". The second part of the previous statement was the ultimate analysis of some of the "intellectuals" in the media. Sonia Gandhi did not know. We sooo believe it! By the way, later in the week, Abhishek Singhvi says this - "Mr Amitabh Bachchan has not been elected by the people of Gujarat to be the brand ambassador of tourism". I heard it and then fainted :D!. I rest my case!

4. Your honour, this has got to be THE news of the week. Pakistan has asked for a red corner notice on Ajmal Kasab. A red corner noticed is issued to a fugituve, one who has not been caught and is at large. Ajmal Kasab is caught, and safe in an Indian jail. And Pakistan has "issued a notice" for a captured terrorist. That's all, your honour!

That's all, your honour!: Mar 21-27

1. The Worli Sea link was inagurated, for the second time in one year :D. Well, the comedy in the story was supposed to be the fact that it was being "inagurated" again, but then the Congress party thought that humour is not enough for the nation. So it decides to take a huge step forward - The Chief Minister of the state, Mr. Ashok Chavan was disappointed that Amitabh Bachchan was also invited to the same function. He see this as a ploy by his ally NCP to embarass him in front of the High Command. Now, why would Amitabh's presence irk the high command? Hold your breath - because he has decided to become the brand ambassador of Gujarat! Yes - you read it right. And you'd think that after the media highlights this, the issue would have subsided? See, that's where Congress again stumps you :D. The CM and Amitabh were to share the stage at a literary event on Sunday but the CM prepones his presence by a day, in an "attempt to pacify Congress leadership". And then Abhishek Bachchan's posters were removed from the Earth Hour campaign too by Congress workers. All this because an artist decided to become the brand ambassador of a state. And not long ago, the same Congress was talking about artistic freedom etc. haa!

2. Last week, we lost count of the number of eggs that landed up on the face of sections of the national media (english). Documented the whole thing in a letter to teh Editors Guild here, to which Rajdeep Sardesai was kind enough to reply. A subsequent discussion with Nidhi Razdan of NDTV revealed just how much they are unwiling to accept their mistake. And then came March 27th - the day Narendra Modi and SIT decided to meet. Media houses started discussions (yet again) on what this case holds for Modi, his "aspirations" to become the PM etc etc. About 1 1/2 hours into the dicussion they ran out of topics, and started speculating that the questioning might be over soon, and then shifted to talking about "nearly 2 hours of questioning, what must have transpired?". The questioning began at sharp 12. And Modi came out at around 5:30! He addressed the Press, and told them that he will come back at 9pm and complete the second round today itself! He came back at 9pm sharp, and the questioning went on till 1am in the night! That's right, 9 hours of questioning. Some journos started saying that this means Modi had a lot to answer for, hence the long hours. Whatever dude! You had a huge problem speculating that he will not come to the SIT, and when he called your bluff and attended the deposition, chose not to drag and completed the whole thing in one day, you still continue to have a problem! It is nobody's case here that he should not be punished if he is guilty, but this is the first time a constitutional body wanted to question him and he followed it. Offstumped blog piece here sums up succintly the conclusions. The likes of Bhupendra Chaubey will do a huge favour to the nation, if they stop speculating and wait for the report to come out. Otherwise the chances of more eggs landing on his face are sky high!

3. Ahh - this you have to follow! The Indian Express broke this story on the battle in The Hindu top management for control over the newspaper! And then all hell broke lose! Certain members party to this struggle come out on twitter and make the fight public! This Outlook blog has all the details in full, no need to discuss them again here. Yours truly's question to one of the stake holders also finds mention here :).

4. Late YSR, promised 4% reservation to backward Muslims in state government jobs. As always, catering to vote bank. The High Court stuck this down twice when he was alive, and once recently too. The state government then approached Supreme Court, and guess what, the SC upheld the reservations! And then it was referred the whole case to Constitutional Bench who will decide it's final validity, because this involves many constitutional questions. Wait for other religions to up their ante now. See, reservations based on economic do make sense, there is no denying that. The larger question now will be why just include one religion in that? Why not the others? And more importantly how do you decide on which "communities/categories" fall under this category when the said religions don't follow a "community" system? We are just screwing up our system with so many reservations. The OC's will soon become the worst sufferers. See, this is the problem if you don't vote!

5. Ahh wait, the media had one more thing to go gaga this week. The US-Pak talks this week. Rumours of a purpoted Nuclear Deal with Pak plus many more such "gifts" to them made our media go into a tizzy. Ofcourse, all those turned out to be untrue. US as expected did not talk tough with Pakistan. The total bungling up by India in the David Headley case slowly was put on the backburner. Frantic efforts by the government to reign in the media paid off - not one channel questioned the political executives in the government. Don't ask why, you very well know the answer your honour!

That's all, your honour! : Mar 7 -13

1. Way back in 1996, Prime Minister H.D.Deve Gowda's government introduced the Women's Reservation Bill (which provides for 33% reservation in LS and state aseemblies for women) in Lok Sabha. All the major political parties, Congress, BJP and the Left support the bill. Regional parties oppose like SP, BSP, RJD oppose it, and oppose it vehemently. It was not passed for want of consensus on the issue. Subsequently the bill was introduced in 1998, 1999, 2004, and 2008 - and each time it met the same fate. Each time, the aggression of those opposing the bill plummeted to new lows. The bill was snatched from the Law Minister's hand twice and torn apart! In 2010, the government decided to introduce the bill in Rajya Sabha. The bill was introduced on Monday, March 8th and was touted as Sonia Gandhi's gift to the nation on International Women's Day. The MP's opposing the bill tried to snatch papers directly from the Chairman of Rajya Sabha. The government miserably failed in its floor management strategy. Stung by the all round criticism, Madam Sonia Gandhi was now insistent that the bill has to be passed - happen what may. The government moved for the suspension of those MP's who tried to snatch papers from Chairman. With that, I have no issues at all. Those MP's deserved to be punished. Now, here's where the problem arises. It is mandatory that atleast a 4 hour debate precede any voting on a bill that seeks to amend the constitution. The government, in its now familiar urge to satisfy the whims of Sonia Gandhi put to vote because there was slogan shouting in the house!!!

It took the leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha to walk over to the Prime Minister and convince him that this is not the way, a debate has to be held. It was then the government relented, and there was a dissussion. Instead of calling this blatant bluff by Congress to subvert all democratic traditions to cater to the wish of Madam, NDTV went bonkers on the "strength of Sonia". IBN was sensible enough to call this as a very dangerous precedent. The bill was passed by 186 to 1 vote. Here's what the lone civilised dissenter said about the bill http://realitycheck.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/thank-you-very-much-mr-sharad-joshi/ .

Now if you think the battle is over, you are mistaken. The bill needs to be passed in Lok Sabha, and because SP, RJD etc have threatned to withdraw support, and Trinamool Congress objecting to it, the "strong" Sonia Gandhi developed cold feet and the bill will not be tabled in the house for now. All those praising Sonia for her "resolve", go take a walk now!

2. Every year, India Today has a conclave. Leaders of industry, politicians and other prominent people are invited to speak. This year one of the speakers was the Home Minister P. Chidambaram. And here, in full public view, he ripped apart the Pakistan High Commissioner! He asked why there has been zero co-operation from Pak? He pointedly asked that a simple demand as voice samples of some 20 suspects was also not being catered to. Obviously the Pak HC had no answers. What was very clear was that PC is highly frustrated with this ridiculous behaviour by the Pakistani government. We have almost zero co-operation from them. And I think PC's problem is further compounded by the fact that his Prime Minister is always eager to just go and talk. Last we heard, India is ready for another round of talks (yes, you read it right. Pak has done nothing from the last time we spoke, but we will talk to them again).

3. This link here, gives full details about the riots in Bareilly town in UP. What I wish to point here is another instance of media hypocrisy. For a full 10 days since the riots began and the town was placed under curfew, the national english media did not cover this. Yes, they did NOT cover it. A Maulana was arrested for inciting a mob, and then inexplicably released 2 days later. And then fresh violence broke out when poeple started protesting his release. And this is when the media started covering it. No news so far as to how the riots actually broke. All news is concentrated on the violence after the Maulana is released. Pointed questions to them on twitter as to why this has not been covered met with this answer - "why is there so much hatred on the net" ! Need one say anything more!

4. Two top Naxal leaders were killed in an "encounter" in AP last week. One was S. Apparao who was involved in the planning of many murders. He was instrumental in the planning of the attack on Naidu, the killings of IPS officers K.P.Vyas and Umesh Chan. He was a very key leader amongst the Maoists. The second one was Tech Ramana. He is South India incharge of Technical Operations! Some human rights people called for investigations into the encountebut frankly I don't feel anything for these people. These people are mass murderers, thugs who terrified people and try to bring instability into the system. Murderers such as these deserve no symptahy at all. Period.

5. And finally, here's another example of media's hypocrisy. Vikram Chandra, CEO of NDTV, tweets asking why we don't pay much attention to the visit of Putin's visit to India. I assume by "we" he meant the media. His own website, for a while, had the news as its 15th headline. And later, the news was entirely removed from the website! Why should a CEO choose not to have a news on his website and then ask seemingly innocent questions? And when I pointed to him that NDTV's website is itself not covering the news, he had this to say "I rest my case!". He forgot to say, "That's all, your honour!" :D

That's all, your honour!:Feb.28-Mar6

1. So the Prime Minister of our country visited Saudi Arabia. He took along, among others, Shashi Tharoor with him. After I think a day into the trip, Shashi Tharoor said this (he did not tweet, he actually said it :P) "We feel Saudi Arabia has long and close relationship with Pakistan and that makes Saudi a more valuable interlocutor to us". Now the dictionary definition for interlocutor is someone you talk to. In the context of his statement above, it is quite easy to interpret it that we are asking Saudi to sit in a meeting of Ind-Pak. Whether Saudi just listens to both India and Pak in that meeting, or talks there is where semantics kicks in! Shashi Tharoor came all out on the media, asking them to get the definition right, but quite frankly this time, he should have been more restrained in his comments and leaving room for so much interpretation was unwanted. His punishment - he had to take media management lessons from Janardhan Dwivedi of the Congress! LOLL.. am sure he will not repeat such mistakes for the fear of the punishment being repeated again ;-)

2. Just when we were heaving a sigh of relief that this entire M.F.Hussein overdose was coming to an end, some goons in Karnataka threw water on our hopes! No, they did not attack any M.F.Hussein's painting exhibitions. The story is this - A Kannada newspaper, Kannada Prabha reproduced an article written by Taslima Nasreen (ohh yeah, remember her? :D) in which she apparently made some remarks against the Prophet. It was published on Sunday and on Monday morning, some mobs took to streets in Shimoga (home district of CM) and then the violence spread to Hassan (2 hours from Shimoga, home of Deve Gowda). 2 people were killed (1 in police firing) and the violence was controlled after a day. Instead of unequivocally condemning this ugly violent reaction by mobs in these two places, our media again bought back M.F.Hussain issue, linked the whole thing to freedom of expression, and went blah blah blah!

3. In an unfortunate incident, a navy plane crashed into a building in Begumpet, Hyderabad while performing a sortie at the Air Show. Both the pilots died, and 4 people were injured. The entire Kiran flight has been grounded pending the investigation report. The main lesson to be learnt from this is that such shows should NOT be conducted nearby residential areas. The question is - will it be learnt?

4. In another unfortunate incident, 63 people were killed in a stampede in an Ashram in Uttar Pradesh. The stampede happened at the Kripaluji Maharaj where food was being served and utensils were being distributed to mark the first anniversary of the wife of Kripaluji. But here's the more disgusting part, your honour. UP CM Mayawati says that the state has no funds to compensate the victims! The lady spends a whopping Rs. 2500 crores for her statues and parks, but doesnt have few crores to compensate these victims! What more can we say about the level to which these politicians can stoop, your honour?

That's all, your honour!: Feb.21-27

1. Ok, first tell me this. Look at this letter by M.F.Hussain to The Hindu, stating that he has been offered the citizenship of Qatar. Now, what is a horse doing in that letter? :D Just beats me! Anyway, most of the media went berserk after seeing this letter. As is always their wont, they started asking question like "Has India failed M.F" etc, without even looking at the whole thing objectively. M.F.Hussein left the country fearing arrest and not violence. His house was attacked in 1998 and he left the country only in 2006. There were many court cases against him, and it was pretty ample clear that he was going to get arrested for hurting religious sentiments of millions of people. He did not just paint the hindu gods and godess in nude, he painted them nude in compromising and unthinkable positions. It is ridiculous that anyone would want to defend his art as freedom of expression. What M.F. has done is to totally misuse his freedom, nothing less, nothing more. And then he says he wants to relinquish the citizenship(fearing arrest, maybe?), and our media calls it our national shame??? It just beats me, your honour!

2. Maoist leader Koteswarao calls up media and offers a 72 day ceasefire to the government. This offer was given on Feb.22. The ceasefire would start on Feb. 25 and would be valid for 72 days till May 7. May 7th is when Parliament's budget session ends. May 7th is when the ceasefire offer ends. CNN-IBN said that Mamta Banerjee negotiated with Maoists, and therefore it the end date made a lot of sense! And here's where our Home Minister, P.Chidambaram gave her the twist. He announced next day that he did not receive anything official from the Maoists, and asked them to fax their offer to the Home Ministry. He said that he did not want any if's and but's, and gave them the number to fax their offer to. The Maoists then say that they will read the Home Minister's statement in newspapers on Feb.24th and then fax him the offer. Wait, they don't stop there. Koteswarao then gives his cell phone number and asks the Home Minister to call him at 5pm on Feb.25th! First thing is that they haven't faxed the offer yet, and then they ask the Home Minister to call them! By the way, the fax never came, and Home Minister just rubbished off the claim by Maoists! He also blamed a section of media for creating this confusion, and ofcourse our media reported very little of that statement! Obviously - how can the media do any wrong, your honour? :D

3. 13th and 26th seems to be the favorite days of terrorists. On the 26th, terrorists attacked guest houses which house Indian embassy staffers. 9 of the 17 killed are Indians. This is the fourth time that we have been targetted there. President Praitbha Patil, in an extraordinary gesture, went to the airport to receive the bodies of those who lost their lives to cowardly terrorists.

4. This year was a first for both the Railway and General Budgets. Both were unanimously voted as being the West Bengal Railway Budget and the West Bengal General Budget! That's all, your honour!

That's all, your honour!:Jan31-Feb6

1. What happens when an economist tries to control foriegn policy? Both of them get messed up! As is evident from what is happening in our country today. We have an economist Prime Minister who doesn't talk and act about price rise but is obssesed with Foriegn policy!

There is a very high probability that our Prime Minister will win a Nobel Peace Prize, for his untiring efforts to make peace with Pakistan and for his unwillingness to guage public opinion in the country. Just days after the Home Minister and the External Affairs Minister said that they are not satisfied with Pakistan's response, just days after that spooky arrogant Foriegn Minister of Pakistan, Qureshi called us "shy", news leaked out that our Foriegn Secretary has alread extended an invitation to talk to her counterpart. Here's the best part - Pakistan is yet to respond to this offer because they are not happy with the offer! So what does our establishment do? Sources from NDTV revealed that India has agreed to talk about Balochistan also, and will include terror in a big way in these talks! So, all that humbug about "bad drafting" during Sharm-el-Sheikh finally turned out to be bogus. But hey, our PM is decent, humble and an integral man, so let's not question his judgement. Please.

2. Shahrukh Khan owns an IPL team. His team, along with all other IPL teams did NOT buy any Pakistani players. Then, just because his movie is releasing, our hero projects his "holier than thou" attitude by saying that they should have been bought in the first place. Frankly, I didn't care about that statement, but what followed from his precious mind is what still disturbs me. He credits Pakistan to have been a "great neighbour", they have always been "good neighbours" but we have to take into account the times we are in. A "great neighbour" does not keep quiet when his home is being used to attack yours.A "great neighbour" will not spread hatred withing, just for the kick of it. And please spare me of this lecture that the civil society of Pakistan is not bad. There is not denying that fact, but sadly it is not they who control what the establishment in the "great neighbour" does. And the icing on the cake was our hero says he just said what every Indian should have. Shiv Sena's rhetoric and threat to violence is deplorable, just as TRS' is. They just chose the wrong way to oppose SRK, but what SRK said is completely unacceptable(atleast to me). To hell with his movie, whatever it's "name" is!

3. Wait, by the way, the Prime Minister has announced this week that the worst is over with respect to the food prices. If you think that means Sharad Pawar is resigning, you are mistaken! He actually says prices will go down, because we have good amounts of storage etc. When he says the worst is over, he actually doesn't mean it because check out next - food inflation will increase! It's just UPA's way of projecting that magnificient work has been done to bring the prices down.

4. Finally, a committee on Telangana was formed. Justice B.N.Srikrishna, the man famous for heading the commission to probe into the Mumbai riots of 1993, is heading this committee. There are 4 other members, none of whom are remotely concerned with the Telangana/United Andhra Struggle. They are academics, and therefor I need not say anything about it's composition! Let's not forget that the terms have not yet been decided..patience my dear friend, patience. That's the Chidambaram style!

5. Your honour, my apologies for not writing about Rahul Gandhi's "bravado" in Mumbai and the subsequent drooling by the media in general, NDTV in particular. But this space is not enough to express my feelings! A fresh blog post will appear soon...until then, tata! (click here)

6. And finally, in this piece, Hasan Suroor blames a well known Delhi based Journalist for hijacking the agenda of the Afghan Summit. NDTV's Barkha Dutt was there in London. She interviewed both S.M.Krishna, and S.M.Qureshi. It was on her show that Qureshi called us "shy". No, I am not saying she was the one Hasan is referring to, I am just saying what I saw on TV. I don't want to get sued. That's all, your honour!

That's all, your honour!:Jan.24-30

1. Your honour, take a look at the ad in this link. This was put up by the ministry of Women and Child Development. The blunder, ofcourse, is in having a picture of a former air force chief of Pakistan. Even the Prime Minister's Office had to apologise for this. No one was fired/fined/warned though, keeping in line with our tradition of never punishing the guilty. However, there is one another point I wanted to make. Couldn't the designing agency not find any more icons??? I mean, what guided the ad agency in arriving at these choices? Randomness also takes a beating here. But hey, according the hon.min. Krishna Tirath, it is the message that matters! Wake up, people. Stop being cynical.

2. Come Republic Day, the spectre of Padma awards comes along. A huge majority of them actually deserve those awards. The minority that don't deserve it really put us to shame. No denying that. But, your honour, our media talks as if all the awardees are not worthy of it, that the awards have lost their sheen and thay we need to throw away the basket because of one rotten mango (I know we should say apple, but i dont like that fruit!). Saif Ali Khan was given the Padma Shri this year along with Rekha. Isn't it plain outrageous that such a thing happened? A hotelier with a dubious record, Sant Chatwal was given Padma Bhushan because he helped "with the nuclear deal". Intergrity, hard work, eligibility be damned! Anyways, media - please focus on individuals. You'd do us all a huge favour. btw, here's a full list of Padma awardees this year.

3. Suddenly (though not unexpectedly), our media started asking how long will we not talk to Pakistan, etc. What was the trigger point? Believe it or not, the IPL "snub" of the Pakistani players. Suddenly we have Suhasini Haidar of CNN-IBN visiting Pakistan, interview a group of 8 youth from there, out of which only 2 spoke, and then run the headline "Voice of Pakistan". I don't deny the youth's argument (who said there are people in Pak who want peace with India), but the harsher reality is that we are not yet ready to talk to Pak! And then came the interview with the Pak PM by her! The interview was just laced with arrogance, diffidence and non chalant attitude by the PM. The Pak PM was trying to project to the world that their country is also a victim to terrorism on par with us and so we must be more accomadating. The point he conveinently missed, and our media did not ask, is that we are both victims of terrorism emanating from their soil! And when the PM says so, will their FM remain far behind. He gave an interview to Barkha Dutt, and called us "shy", told her that we lack "oomph" and concluded that we are confused with Pak policy. Dude, are we confused about Pak policy or is it you who have no clue how to handle the situation in your country?!

4. Ohh, a small update. The auction for 3G spectrum has been postponed. Again. Yes, yet again. That's all your honour!

That's all, your honour!: Jan 17-23

1. This week, 38 junior ministers met the Prime Minister to complain to him that they are not being given any work. So 38 of the 78 ministers dont have any work. Of the remaining 40, there are atleast 15-20 of them who don't work (Eg: Sharad Pawar, Mamta Banerjee, S.M.Krishna, A. Raja, etc). So essentially there are about 20 of them who are running this country. Your money and my money is just being spent for the luxury lives of these wor(th)kless people!

2. The charred body of a student was found on the side of a road near Hyderabad. A suicide note was found near the body which said he was denying because he is not able to bear the anguish of delayed Telangana. The body is charred, but the paper is not burnt! And this death was enough for the violent participants of this telangana "movement". They started creating a hoopla again. First they called for a 48 hour bandh, and then they decided to play some politics with the body. They had to clash with the police because they wanted to take the body in a procession to his home town. Another day of violence ensued, but the good thing was that majority of people really did not care much about the bandh. I mean, aren't we all just tired of this crap?!

3. Finally, a new NSA has been appointed. Shiv Shankar Menon will don the role, taking over from M.K.Narayan. And I am fully tired of reading the deluge of articles trying to decode the term of M.K.Narayan. And there seems to be uniform opinion that his term has been the most lacklustre one so far!

4. The latest comedy show by Pakistan is having everyone in splits! 11 Pak players were up for auctions for IPL-3. None of the owners bid for the players, leaving them high and dry! That's it - all hel broke loose. Players got furious, officials got furious, cries of insult etc rented the air. And then Pakistan parliamentary delegation cancelled it's visit. And then a delegation that was supposed to come here for taking part in the 60 years celebrations of Election Commission cancelled their visit!! If they feel insulted just because some private parties in our country decided to "insult" their players, how much should we be when terrorists trained on their soil acutally kill our citizens? That's all, your honour!

That's all, Your Honour!:Jan10-16

1. For years now, all right thinking citizens have been crying from the rooftop that our sports system is screwed up. And those who led the various sports federations in the country did not belong to that group. Two incidents this weeks further reinforced this strong belief. Hockey players went on a strike with some demands, which Hockey India was not keen to solve. Their demands - give us salary, give us performance bonuses and have a contract system. That's it. Those were the demands. Nothing more, nothing less. And for this, the amazingly managed Hockey India did not have money! It is plain impossible to believe that the governent of India does not have money. On top of this, Hockey India, in all their wisdom asked the players to play for their country and not for money. The levels to which the administrators can stoop, really has no bounds!

While this was happening, India's lone gold medallist at Olympics, Abhinav Bindra was waging a lone battle against the National Rifle Association of India. The reason - he was not chosen for the Commonwealth Games! Abhinav clarified that he did accept to take part in the trials and they were cancelled when he came to take part in them, and he had to go back to Europe to continue his training. Nothing mattered to the NRAI. I mean, the lone gold medallist of the country is treated like this, just imagine the plight of the others. If you are wondering what the government has been doing about this, well our Sports minister is M.S.Gill. Need I say more, your honour?!

2. First he blames global warming, then he blames the states and finally he blames his lack of knowledge in astrology! Sports is not the only field that was screwed up this week. Our dear Agricultural minister, who incidentally is also the President-elect of the International Cricket Council, when questioned about why sugar prices are going up so drastically and when they are expected to come down, in all his wisdom tells us that he is not an astrologer to predict the rise and fall of prices! The next job posting for the Minister of Agriculture will specify this requirement too - Need to be conversant with astrology. Within two days, Pawar announced some half baked measures and said the prices will come down in 8-10 days. If he could really have done this now, why did he not do this last week, your honour?!

3. Remember a Prime Minister called Deve Gowda. There is a slim chance you might. If so, please erase that part also from your memory. Infact, I would request future historians to ignore his year as Prime Minister. Wondering why this request? This week, this fellow called the CM of Karnataka and the Advocate General of Karnataka as "bloody bastards". Yep, you heard it right. The media did not misquote him, he said this to TV media, and hold your breath, agreed on live TV the next day to have used that language and did NOT feel bad about for he had to use such language because he was angry with CM for ignoring the farmers. And just to add salt to injury, he repeated the word again on national TV and appreciated the national media's concern for the language he used. Now, do we really deserve to record his year as Prime Minister of this country, your honour?

4. I wrote a separate blog on this here, but wanted to mention that here too. Shivraj Patil has been made the governor of Punjab. Shame on the Congress High Command. That's all, your honour!

PS: Speaking of "your honour", the Delhi High Court ruled that the office of Chief Justice of India also comes under the RTI. Landmark judgement indeed.

That's all, Your Honour! :Jan.3-9

1. Just when we thought that the racial slur in Australia is subsiding came the news of three shcoking incidents in Australia. Two deaths, and one severe burning of Indian students. Finally our dear External Affairs minister decided to issue an advisory to the Indian students there. Well, the Asutralian minister refuted them, but we really don't care what the Australians have to say on this. However, Hon. Shri S.M.Krishna then chides the students for going to Australia to take up courses in hair styling and facials. Now, what does the type of courses we chose there have to do with racial attacks on us? At times, I just wonder how such ideas even crop up in the minds of our leaders ...

2. Ever heard of cat fights amongst media organisations. If not, please follow the news channels in AP! In what can easily be termed as one of the worst instances of media rubishness, the farce being played out in AP has begun to become an embarassment to one and all. A Russian tabloid The Exiled, that runs only the web version, published in its American version an article with the following headline on September 3rd "Enemy of Larry Summers ex-boss killed in a plane crash". If you are wondering what the news is about, the guy fantasizes about a conspiracy theory according to which Mukesh Ambani hatched a plot to kill YSR. One look at the website, and it is clear that this guy has a penchant for being ridiculous. But hey, the management of TV5 didnt think so! They had a full three hour talk show on this and other conspiracy theory, even terming their digging up this story by Exiled as "TV5 Exclusive". Congress goons then attacked Reliance outlets in the state, and mayhem ensured! If you thought the tamasha ended here, sorry! Sakshi TV picked up the news and went bonkers (what else would you expect from them? ;-) . NTV followed suit. Government arrests the editors of TV5 and the hypocritical cries of "freedom of press" began. Then Sakshi TV decides to deride TV9 for preaching and not practising. TV9 gets back with vitroilic language.... people, it is still not over..the drama will continue this week too... "picture abhi baaki hai mera dost" !

3. Two militants were intered in Srinagar. They started opening fire and went into a hotel! What ensued was a 22 hour long gun battle between security forces and the 2 militants. Four people were killed apart from the 2 militants. This encounter happened less than a month be the center decided to withdraw troops from Kashmir. Question is are we ready for that yet?

4. Amar Singh decided to quit all posts in the party. He didn't quit the party, but only the posts. And then Sanjay Dutt said, no Amar Singh then no me also! He resigned from party posts too. Next is who? Jayaprada :P ! I am tired of speculations as to where Amar Singh will go now, so will just wait for him to announce, whenever that is!

5. An all party meet was convened by Chidambaram to discuss road map for consultations on Telangana issue. All parties went, the talked, they came back. That's all, your honour!

That's all, Your Honour!:Dec.27-Jan.3

1. We always complained all other sports get step-motherly treatment when compared to cricket. We (read BCCI) prided itself as being the world's richest cricket body. We always assumed that cricket infrastructure is world class in our country. Well, maybe someone wanted to counter these arguments and decided- hey, what better way to do this than to screw up a pitch for an international ODI. Wait a minute, to make it more interesting, let me make that pitch in the capital of the country! In what is a huge and shocking embarassment for all cricket fans in this country, the pitch on Kotla ground in Delhi was not even tested once before allowing an international match! The result - India - SL match had to be abandoned because of bad pitch! Yet, now BCCI is trying for a workaround so that the ground does not lose its matches for the World Cup. Shame. Absolute shame.

2. If you thought the above incident was ridiculous, listen to this. Three terrorists who were in the custody of Delhi police escaped while having lunch in a hotel, after coming back from a eye-check up! Sounds like a movie story right? Unfortunately it happened in real life. These terrorists were arrested in relation to a case to a bomb blast case near Red Fort in 2000, and have completed tm. They were now awaiting deportation, and strangely they decided to escape! Maybe they had fears of an encounter :D !

3. So there was another bandh on telangana this week. Some stray incidents again here and there. Same old statments by stingy political leaders. No one knows who is leading the students in OU - that is a big mysternow. Naxalites have now openly announced support for separate state. Hon. Home Minister has callall party meeting on the5th of January. No one really expects anything to come out of the meeting. The media continues to drive its agenda and the common man continues to suffer.

4. Many of us woke up on the morning ary first to see that Times of India tied up with the Jung newspaper in Pakistan to sta2 diplomacy to restore peace amongst the two countries! A hawkish newspaper suddenly changes its stance and publishes a front page editorial so full of rhetoric that it will put foriegn policy speech writers to shame! Laughable is a small word to describe this latest "initiative" by TOIlet paper :D!

5. Congress party, as is its wont, totally ignored P.V.Narasimha Rao at its 125th anniversary celebrations. Infact Madam has named all Congress PM's except for P.V.Narasimha Rao. She went a step further and said that Rajiv Gandhi was the one who initiated economic reforms. Cool Madam, waiting in anticipation for your next blatant lie to the country. Anyway, no one will question you. Go on.

6. Shibhu Soren becomes the CM of Jharkhand with support from BJP. That's all I have to say.

Madam - where are you?

For the last five years, all that we have been hearing from Congress people in the state is that "Madam has a full grip of the Telangana issue. She will take the final decision and that decision will be a favourable one". That's all we have been hearing. Madam will decide, madam will decide.

Our esteemed Chief Minister loses no opportunity to heap praises on Madam. Never loses a chance to invoke the name of Madam. We were told that the 11:45pm announcement on Dec.9th was Madam's birthday gift. Recently, 13 Telangana ministers resign and send their resignation letters to the CM. Not to the CM, not to the Governor, but to Madam.

All these incidents led me to believe that Madam is the all permeating, super caring, ever vigilant saviour of my state. She is the only person in this entire country who is capable and eligible to solve all problems we all face. She is the ONE, the ONLY.

Today my state, that twice sent about 30 MP's so that Madam can be in power, is in distress. For the last one month, her favourite aam aadmi has been suffering the most, hooligans have decided to hold my state to ransom, making demands at gunpoint. No word from Madam. These hooligans are forcing shops to close, burning buses and damaging public property. Not a single word from Madam. Colleges are being closed, businesses are leaving AP, summits are being shifted. Still, not a single word from Madam. Fear gripped large sections of people, governance has literally come to a standstill. Yet ... (you all know what's coming)

Infact, we are now being told by our national media folks that it was PC who bungled this. Implying Madam had nothing to do with it. But then, that was not what we were told no ... We were told Madam is awesome and she will take the final decision.

Congress people keep on saying that because TDP said yes to a resolution, Congress okayed the Dec.9th announcement. Wait a minute - weren't we told that the caring Madam will take the ultimate decision?

We are sometimes also told that Madam's present strategy is also brilliant - this violence will stop over time and people will live happily ever after. If time heals, then what is the need for Madam?? My friend called me up on Sunday and asked me, "Who is Madam to decide all this?".

My question is a little different - Where is Madam? Will the national media care to ask?

That's all, Your Honour!:Dec.20-26

1. Now Sharad Pawar lays the blame for price rise on state governments and global warming. Acutally I am not suprised that he is blaming global warming for the crisis in agriculture. What is however very surprising is that he didn't use this as an excuse to go to Copenhagen and have some fun there. Strange are the ways they surprise us :D

2. Just couple of months after the central government enacted the farce of Austerity measures comes a bill through which any MP can take relatives along with him on flights and the government will pay for it. I mean, I understand paying for the MP's flight charges and maybe his wife's...but relatives too? Whatever happened to cost-cutting.

3. So after 12 full days of hectic negotiations, the Copenhagen climate summit finally failed. Some countries and newspapers diplomatically called the outcome as "not upto expectations". Whatever! Western world blames the eastern one, and vice versa. So we are back to square one. Some hectic last minute talks between the heads of the state of US, Brazil, India, China, and South Africa led to a some formal drafting of a document. As usual, US intepreted this document in one way and our country interpreted it in the exact opposite way!

4. Vijayawada MP, L.Rajagopal decides to escape from Vijayawada! 15 hours later, he turns up in NIMS, getting down from an auto and running into the hospital! In the meanwhile, P. Chidambaram says there is need for more extensive negotiations. With that announcement, the agitations in Andhra and Rayalseema regions stopped. But then when our clown KCR is around, will this issue ever die? He again announces that this is a betrayal, the movement will start again blah blah. They again call for a bandh, burnt some buses, pelted some stones and bought life to a standstill. Yet, the violence is being termed as a movement. Shame.

5. Speaking about shame, a young girl Ruchika was molested by an IPS officer in 1990. The officer started harassing her family after she filed a complaint. Ruchika committed suicide three years later. She was 17 then. And last week, a court handed the IPS officer punishment. Guess what - he gets a full 6 months in jail plus he has pay a whopping Rs. 1000/- as fine. 19 years after he molested, this is what he got. Ohh wait, in these 19 years, this guy went on to become the DGP of Haryana too. The media too woke up to this travesty of justice, and is now demanding proper justice. 6 months for child abuse?? If not now, when else would you want to apply the strictest of punishments?

6. By the way, AP's governor (now former) N.D.Tiwari felt that the people of the state are a little vexed up with the Telangana issue and decided to provide them some relief. ABN Andhra Jyothy channel carried out a sting operation and released nude pictures of this guy along with call girls right in the Raj Bhavan!! Expectedly, he resigned, but this crook needs to be given harsher punishments.

7. BJP apparently has decided to support Shibu Soren for CM in Jharkhand. So finally the party with a difference has emerged as a party with no difference. Shibu Soren of all people??

So many points, so little time!: Dec 13-19

1. Mamta Banerjee released this report on the finances of railways in the past 5 years. She alleges that Lalu Prasad bloated and inflated the accounts to show good performance! Another scam, but the media is surprisingly quiet about this!

2. Ajmal Kasab is a very intelligent guy. He can quickly grasp messages from Pakistan and mould them according to his will. Last year, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari came up with this awesome term "non-state actors". Ajmal Kasab heard the word "Actors". And he began framing his defense based on that one word. In his statement recorded in the court last week, Ajmal Kasab tells us that he came to bollywood aspiring to join in films. He was arrested on November 25th itself for roaming around. The police killed actual Kasab and since looked like Kasab, the police have started framing him. Kasab also says he was interrogated by David Headley as part of FBI Intelligent guy, seems to be following the news too (NDTV broke the news that Headley was an FBI agent before). I am just waiting to see what story will come out from the next dose of his creativity.

3. More than anyone, the common man is severly affected by the ongoing agitations in Andhra Pradesh. For about 10 days, it was Telangana that shut shop. And for 10 days after that (and still continuing) it is Andhra that has shut shop. I dont understand the concept of "voluntary bandh"... obviously people are closing their shops fearing destruction by unruly elements more than anything else. Not just bandhs, even rasta rokos create so many problems for normal people. Colleges are being shut. And while all this is happening, the powers that be really dont seem to be concerned much. CM still says Madam will decide. Madam as usual is not saying anything. And that clown KCR has started this rantings again. Congress is now blaming Naidu for this fiasco! I mean...agreed he is not able to control his party now, but yo - Congress people started the resignations first! Why blame Naidu for "flip-flops"? Amidst all this, Chiranjeevi has changed his stance and announced support for United Andhra.

4. As if the present chaos in Pakistan is not enough, the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) was declared null and void by the Supreme Court. According to this ordinance, corruption cases against some 8000 poiticians were struck off in 2007. SC struck off the ordinance. One amongst the 8000 politicians is the President of Pakistan - Asif Ali Zardari! Now corruption cases will be opened against him. Not just him, most members of the cabinet will be affected by this! Zardari ofcourse is unfazed by all this. He will not leave his post at any cost. Let the country go to dogs, he wants his post!

5. A new generational shift has finally happened in the BJP. Sushma Swaraj took over from L.K.Advani as leader of opposition in Lok Sabha. Nitin Gadkari took over as President of BJP. The next one year is very crucial for BJP. Am hoping it will rise well to become a credible and strong opposition.

So many points, so little time! :Nov 22-28

1. Babri Masjid in Ayodhya was demolished in 1992. And the then government appointed Justice Liberhan to head a one man commission to submit a detailed report. 17 years later, in 2009, the final report is ready. Before it was officially tabled in Parliament, it was very selectively leaked to media. And when all hell broke lose, the report was tabled in Parliament. And because it took 17 years to prepare the report, all of us had lot of expectations. We downloaded the 130MB (1000 pages) document from the Internet and started to read it. Then all hell broke lose again!!! The whole report looked like a high school essay in which practically every aspect of post independence history of India was discussed. And in the section that was meant to recommend action against conspirators, Justice Liberhan spoke about constitutional reforms, bureaucratic reforms etc. He gave us a lecture on secularism and various other such topics. What we all knew 17 months after the demolition, Mr. Justice took 17 years to document it! It cost 8 crores just in salaries/perks for him and his staff in these 17 years. Talk about waste of public exchequer!

2. If you think the report was funny, you should read the Action Taken Report (ATR) by the government here. The ATR is replete with two words - "Noted". "Agreed". Poor Mr. Liberhan. He must have been fuming that after his 17 years of "hard work", all that the government had to say was "Noted". Please do read the ATR, it is bound to lighten up your mood!

3. It has been an year since the gory attacks on Mumbai happened. In Parliament, the opposition asked why compensation has been delayed to the victims. Government accused the opposition of politicising the issue, and all hell broke lose. The media then forgot about the compensation and started asking questions like "Will our politicians stop fighting?". Very conveiniently, instead of debating the question, we started to debate the timing of the question. Wow.

4. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited US this week. No agreement was signed, a joint press conference was held in which only 2 questions were allowed to be asked. The first question to Obama was not about Indo-US relations, but about US's new policy towards Afghanisthan! And then one Indian reporter asked the PM when the nuclear deal will be finalised. He says, we are dotting the i's and crossing the t's. Please don't ask how long that will take. Afterall, the PM knows everything!

5. Amar Singh held the collar of a fellow MP in Rajya Sabha. The link is here. The news died very quickly, primarily because Amar Singh was at fault!

So many points, so little time! : Nov 15-21

1. So now the Congress MP's want BCCI to revoke the life long ban on Azharuddin! First of all, what was the need to suddenly bring up this topic? Is it because Azhar wants to get into an executive post, thereby mint more money, in the 2011 BCCI elections? Why are Congress MP's so concerned about the ban on this man? He was banned for throwing away matches at will, and now we just have to show mercy and lift the ban, so that he can make more money? Don't the MP's have better things to care about?

2. Imagine the following situation is any country. The government announces a particular policy on an agricultural product. Farmers are unhappy with the policy and protest against it. The Prime Minister of the country calls a meeting of senior ministers to discuss the issue. That group would inevitably include the Agricultural minister of the country. But not in India. Farmers held a huge protest in New Delhi this week, and the Agricultrual minister of the country, Mr. Sharad Pawar was nowhere to be seen. The PM met with Home Minister, Finance Minister and Law Minister but not the Agricultural minister! The Agricultural minister also is the President of BCCI. Perhaps he was busy sorting out issues there. And yet no one in the media dare question this blatant absence by the minister. Because idhar sab kuch chalta hai :(

3. There is something very seriously wrong with Shiv Sena these days. The other day Bal Thackrey writes an editorial asking Sachin to just play cricket and not talk about politics. This was in response to Sachin's comment saying he is an Indian first, Maharastrian next. Quite expectedly, there was widespread anger from readers all over. Next, the Shiv Sena goes a step further and attacks the IBN-Lokmat office in Mumbai. How long do the goons of Shiv Sena think they can get away with such cheap and vulgar acts of violence? What really are they gaining by attacking offices of media? Despicable and deplorable are just small words to describe these mad acts. Plain disgusting. On a different note, I observed that while CNN-IBN was continously covering this story, the other news channels gave it a cursory mention! While the people unequivocally condemn any such acts of violence, the media houses shriek about freedom of press only when their houses are attacked. What stopped Sagarika Ghose from not going bonkers when other media houses were attacked in the past?

4. Jagan Mohan Reddy asked Rosaih why his father's promise of 9 hours power supply to farmers is not being implemented. Rosaih said that there are fund crunch issues and it might take a while before it is implemented. Then he says, why not scrap the Power GO no. 20 and bring back money from the private owners of power. CM calmy says, that GO was okayed by YSR himself. Howzzatt ?!

5. Rumours flew around that India submitted 7th Dossier to Pakistan regarding the Mumbai attacks. If true, then..well, yaawwnnn.

So many points, so little time! : Nov. 8-14

1. This was one overdose that I did not mind this week. Sachin Tendulkar completed 20 years in International cricket, and the media went gaga over it. But then, each time we saw him hit those amazing shots over the last 20 years, we were never bored, so just one week did not make any difference at all! Infact, it only enriched our memories and made me feel lucky to have been able to see him play all through these years. I will just continue to enjoy his game a long as he plays, and the day he retires is the day when the enjoyment will stop.

2. In UP, Mayawati won 10 out of the 11 seats for which by-elections were held. And yet the media kept on saying "Rahul Gandhi driven Congress" is emerging. I don't get it, if a party loses 10 seats, how is it the leader's credit that they are emerging?!

3. So, MNS MLA's beat up SP MLA in Maharashtra assembly. All parties religiously condemned it. And then the MLA's were suspended. Am sure, their suspension will be revoked sooner than later. And then we all will move on. First, we allow such precedents and then we rue the fact that politics has stooped down to such levels.

4. Speaking of stooping down, R.R. Patil, who was Home Minister of Maharashtra when 26/11 happened, was reinstated as the Home Minister this week. This single action speaks volumes about how low we can stoop to.

5. So finally the Karnataka crisis was resolved. Well, resolved might be the wrong word to use. The Central leadership gave in to the deamnds of the minig lobby and capitulated itself. The only saving grace was the CM will continue to remain in office. The Central leadership might pat itself for this "victory" but the cadre is even more sure now about the need for a change at the helm!

6. Forbes announced the most powerful persons list. Amongst the top 50 are Obama, Osama, Manmohan Singh and Dawood Ibrahim! What a combination, sirji!