Is this our Kalam?

What hunger of power & fame can do to a widely perceived learned & noble man; can be seen from the recent act of Dr. Kalam clearly "demanding" another term. Earlier he rejected & decried the offer by NDA as his win was impossible because of zero support from any other front. But when he saw the consolidation of the 3 rd front & the NDA in doldrums, he sensed consensus among these two & some possible cross voting from UPA members. This selfishness & astuteness from a man of his stature & caliber wasn't expected & is an act of sheer oddity.
UPA & the left have projected a right, clean & experienced candidate in the shape of Mrs. Pratibha Patil & they should stand by her & make her the 1 st ever woman president of India. Some may label it as tokenism of women empowerment but tokenism only leads to trendism & after a PM from minority community, UPA is up in front of setting up historic examples.

THE REAL LOSERS?

Few things like this effort of mine have already been drafted & printed but still a thing has been found missing in them. Whole nation is disappointed & angry on the cricket demi gods for such an early exit from the premier cricketing tournament. Rightly so, every Indian is expected to feel bad & criticize the team but not in the fashion it is being done or must say being made to do by our electronic (24x7) media. The very channels which exalted the players to the status of super celebrities & encashed their popularity through daily 5 hour series like "windies ki jung" etc are now keen on making merry by degrading them to the fullest. Many so called news channels have self proclaimed cricket specialists (themselves good for nothing players of their times) who are seen brazenly abusing the present players. Our cricket team men are being labeled "losing rats", "shameless creatures" & much more degrading. It clearly sends out a message that we are a frustrated lot of people who feel happy & satisfied to blame fellow losing Indians while rudely ignoring the rationales & responsibilities. Protesting on streets while tearing & burning the player posters, taking out their dummy funeral processions & damaging their houses are some acts which in no way show the love, passion or the spirit of the fans for the game.
It only depicts that we are bad losers. The punishment if any for the players is ought to be given to them automatically through reduction in endorsements & expulsion from team.
Let's be realistic & act with maturity. Both the masses & the media.

With each passing year we Indians are leaving a mark on the world scene. Under an able & efficient leadership we have continuously belled high growth rates, increased our exports & raised the avg standard of living. Moreover tax collections have surged, social sector is being fed with money & judiciary seems to be booming with some startling convictions. But distracters still raise coarse noises about farmer suicides & one sided growth not realizing that no fort has been built in a day. The so called one sided growth has to be relied upon not envied. Finally after a long time & wait the world is recognizing us & we Indians can't & shouldn't ignore our success. Hoping 2007 to be more prosperous & 'peaceful".

NOT PAMPERING!!

NOT PAMPERING!!

Why are the measures to uplift the downtrodden class of Muslims being labeled as pampering and appeasement politics of the UPA? Maybe we are forgetting that the same UPA had pressed for reservation of OBC's & that wasn't on religious lines. The bad state & the treatment meted out to Muslim community people is well known to all, so SACHAR committee findings should not be put under the cloth but implemented with right measures. If the govt. wants to spend on social sector we should give room to it. It's strange that no political party opposed UPA's decision on OBC creamy layer inclusion but created furore when the issue of poor Muslims came. Moreover politicians are here to get votes & govern, so if they garner votes by doing some work for people then this type of vote bank politics is needed rather than false promises. We should understand that it is the responsibility of the govt. to pay special attention to the welfare of the weaker & the marginalized section of the society. The only point being that it should not be at any one else's cost.

FLAWED JUSTICE!!!

When police & general public opinion turns biased & communal, it becomes a matter of national concern. We all are finally satisfied & content with 1993 Mumbai blast accused being tried, convicted & rightly should be. What we are blatantly forgetting & ignoring are the causes & events that preceded these blasts. Thousands of innocent Muslims were butchered in mumbai streets & elsewhere after cowardly demolishing their shrine under police vigilance!!! The investigation team was undoubtedly biased registering few cases against the minority killers & leaving none convicted. The obvious resentment among the Muslim community members was then exploited by foreign Islamic terrorist organizations. Many top state politicians, party workers & police officers who instigated & fueled anti Muslim riots have till date remained untouched. For keeping our Muslim brothers attached to Indian society & to make them believe in nationalism & patriotism, justice needs to be done at any cost!!

At last the final nail in the coffin of millions of general category students' hopes was drawn when the supreme legislative body, the parliament passed the controversial OBC reservation bill. By including the creamy layer in the reserved column, the very purpose & reason of reservation has been challenged. Why does this economically, socially & politically sound class need a special package? In the past 50 yrs no real needy has been served through this & unfortunately no one will be in the future. The divide between the so called higher & lower class has increased manifold thanks to the political game being played by our leaders irrespective of their parties. It's in basic human nature that we won't love & respect a man who has been forcibly rewarded with thing that we deserved. Maybe our MP's don't understand this!!

ALLOW GOVT. TO WORK!!

ALLOW GOVT. TO WORK!!

It's impossible to decipher what we Indians really want from the govt. Having surpassed the limits of selfishness, we want all the seven colors in our courtyard without worrying for the bigger gloomy picture outside. We expect the govt. to save our illegal structures in the capital, to serve global items, malls & SEZs but don't want to give land for it! We want all the farmer loans to be wavered off (thousands of crores) & high MSPs for them, but as consumers we want everything at lowest price! We don't want the govt. to decide the pharmaceutical rates as then we the retailers will make less profit, but on the other hand we talk of providing cheap medicines to needy! Our business class brothers don't pay the due taxes but are the front runners in protests & bandhs regarding fuel hike! From where will the cash come to spend on social sector? The self proclaimed intellectuals & economists of India should stop making hue & cry & let the 'real' ones in the UPA govt. carry on the good & hard thought work.

DON'T FOLLOW WESTERN HYPOCRISY

DON'T FOLLOW WESTERN HYPOCRISY

Along with inviting FDI inflows into India , we are importing western world's Islam bashing techniques too. In Britain, a MP said that he was 'uncomfortable' with women wearing veil & meeting him, the world clanged on to the issue & his popularity rose. Debates started in India too about the backwardness & the orthodox Islam. Why? Why can't we let them preach their religion as they want? They have full right to wear what they want & to remain attached to their symbols. This bashing & accusation would force them more into ghettos & alienate from the rest. Has anyone ever raised the issue of gals wearing nothing & modeling on ramps? Doesn't that make those white men & us (the cultural Indians) uncomfortable? The problem with us is that we see Muslims from only the fundamentalist eye & want to keep them engaged in irrelevant issues. Banning of the head scarves of Muslims in France is & should be treated as oppressive as the ban on the turbans of Sikhs.

JUSTICE NOT FOR US!!

JUSTICE NOT FOR US!!



To start with, if criminal lawyers were not to defend criminals then there would be nothing else for them to do. The lawyers, journalists, housewives all are chanting against Ram Jethmalani for taking up Manu Sharma's case as we Indians fear that he'll bail out the culprit. Then shouldn't we be blaming our investigation & judicial system instead for having loop holes which are easily exploited by the experienced & top lawyers. Ram Jethmalani is known for taking up cases which defy public opinion, be it the case of Kehar S. or Prof. Geelani. Both of these small & simple men would have been hanged had it not been for Ram's intervention but Manu's case is different. This time Jethmalani won't earn accolades but as rumors are running he may get a crore added up in his account. The only thing turning up in this debate is that is justice available only to those who can pay for it??

Secular Dilemma

From recent events & happenings what seems is that being 'secular' has come in the way of decision & policy making of our PM & the President. After announcing the hefty vidharbha package, the strongly speculated relief package for Punjab farmers was not announced by the PM on his visit to the state leaving many astounded. Was that because he doubted being called a 'sikh' PM rather than the Indian PM? And the clemency plea of Afzal is pending on the President's table but even if he wants to change the hanging to a life sentence, he'll think twice due to the qualm of being labeled 'muslim biased'. You might jump now & say a big NO but we all will be the ones who'll keep gossiping about the non existing biasing & tarnish the undoubted secular image of these two leaders. With a Sikh PM & a Muslim President, we are at the un-scaled heights of secularism on 'paper' but at 'hearts'…??

Missing Rationalism

I’m sorry to say this but maybe we Indians have lost the way of thinking rationally or as ‘west’ says we are emotional fools no doubt! We have criticized Kashmiris & many liberals & intellectuals for supporting clemency plea of M.Afzal, a man who doesn’t fit in rarest of rare cases of death penalty & is not directly linked to parliament attack. His trial is suspected & he fought the case without a lawyer too. On the other hand, lots of Indian hands & voices have come up for supporting Saddam & criticizing his sentence. He is the same man who culled thousands of innocents & subjected more too severe atrocities. What makes us think & act so abruptly & absurdly? Maybe the emotional anti-US stance has lead to the support of saddam!!

Stall it!

BEWARE OF N.KOREA!!

It wouldn’t be wrong to state the NUCLEAR testing by N.Korea as the onset of a dangerous cold war having ample potential of transforming into a real hot one. With Iran also lined up to march into the N-States, Asia seems to be emerging as a nuclear continent rather than a developed one. Shedding the anti-US stand, the world lobby has to support US in imposing sanctions on N.Korea to keep a check on nuclear proliferation & send a strong signal to various nation dictators. We just can’t stand up & say, “if US & India can, then why not N.Korea?” The responsible democratic setup of these nations along with the anti-terrorist nature & history can’t be ignored. N.Korea can be effectively stalled if China supports the sanctions & cuts off its energy & food supplies making it feel like a lone stranger. China shouldn’t act softly just to show off against US or Japan & later repent, as US did in case of Al-Qaida & Afghanistan.

Not a weak PM at all

WEAK P.M. NO WAY !!



I've been waiting patiently for people to change their views on our P.M. Some have by the course of time and happenings but many haven't. Just because in the very beginning he was given the post and not demanded it, we termed him as 'obvious weak'. But he has made his niche very well and answered his critics by actions and words both. His single handed holding to the INDO-US deal and convincing the LEFT (insider OPPOSITION) is not ignorable. In the natwar episode, when his decisiveness and authority was questioned he compelled the party to serve natwar a show cause notice. In the obc reservation issue he made sure that unaided institutes were kept out and staggered the implementation. Now he has defied all predictions and made a joint mechanism program with musharraf. Being utterly convincing and honest and given ample time and room, he'll turn out to be the best P.M.

SEZs boon or curse?

SEZs! GOOD or BAD??



It all started well with a vision of development but is slowly taking an ugly turn. To bring INDIA in global eyes by raising its exports & inviting FDI, Special Economic Zones (SEZs) form a good option. They'll also generate employment for lakhs besides overall development of the area when 300 of them get fully operational. But can we neglect their negative implications? Farmers are being displaced forcibly and awarded paltry sum of what the industrial houses are paying to the govts. Moreover by allowing every firm to invest in SEZ our revenue account is being denied of millions in cash. Strict Regulation is necessary to justify its name or they'll be called 'Special Exploitation Zones'. All state govts should pay heed to the advice of Sonia-Manmohan duo of no SEZ on prime fertile agricultural land and duly compensate the land owners.

afzal hanging issue

WHY JUST HANG??



The debate on Capital Punishment can go on & on but there's an urgent need to address the issue of M.Afzal's Death Sentence. As per the present law, capital punishment is valid (in rare of the rarest cases) & the clemency plea recognized too. So if the President considers the mercy issue there's no need for me & you to make hue & cry. The main aim of the judiciary in this case is to make sure the guilty is severely punished & more such attacks are deterred. This parliament attack killing calls for special status considering its sensitivity. It has to be made sure that more Afzal's are not born by mere provocation & revenge feeling & we don't create a martyr of a national culprit. More punishing would be to keep him languishing in severe imprisonment for whole of his life and make his identity lost & invalid. We just can't afford to repeat the 1984 Butt episode.