Saturday, December 29, 2007

Bullets don't kill you, banging your head will....

Ofcourse we are all proud to be an Indian. But there are times when you are glad to be an Indian. Notice how the intelligence of the Pakistani people is taken for granted by saying that Bhutto banged her head on the car and died and blaming "foreign terrorists". That is a huge "up yours" for Bhutto supporters and a way of taunting her followers. Sindhis are the brains of Pakistans, their brains must have surely short circuited as a result of this "finding" of the "interior ministry".

What's scary is that if they can do this to their own people in this manner, imagine how much Kashmiris suffer at the hands of such callous monsters. Now that they have found a weapon even more powerful than guns and bombs, I guess the terrorists will start banging people's head against cars going forward. Classic example of "You are dead, go away" mentality of the terrorists and their masters.

Friday, December 7, 2007

Ram is too good to be true...So thinks Buddhadeb...

I had indicated top ten reasons as to why the Tamil Nadu chief minister hates Lord Ram in the Tamil Nadu blog.

Now the West Bengal CM has got into the act by denying Ram's existence. Of course the real reason is to appease the communist base and take their eyes off the Nandigram mess. As a ruling chief minister, these comments are very immature and divisive.

Added later: Buddhadeb has clarified his comments. Essentially he was quoting Rabindranath Tagore, who in turn was pontifying about the purity of a poet's mind and how a poet's mind surpasses any pious physical landmarks.

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Blogs for all Indian states and major cities

Due to the interactive nature of these blogs with news, videos and images, you might want to visit blogs of specific cities and states. You can go here to get a link to all the blogs with a similar format.

Monday, December 3, 2007

Ashley Judd, human being extraordinaire.....

Ashley Judd did some fantastic work in India recently to raise AIDS awareness at all levels and to get a celebrity fundraising going. Watch the moving video on National Geography or catch preview/make a donation here.

The clip on National Geographic has the portion where Shah Rukh helps out Ashley with the necessary airtime of himself as well as a hand in fund raising efforts. Notice how they talk about the conversation with Shah Rukh! Shah Rukh is putting his MBA degree to some great use! Another great human being that India should be proud of!

Other film personalities that help Ashley are Sushmita Sen, Akshay Kumar and the Rai foundation.

Added later: Both the working prostitute(who is now dead and to whom the National Geographic video was dedicated to) and the Rajasthani driver were lying about their identities. The woman's last name and her accent and mannerisms was clearly Maharashtrian, yet she was putting in the standard line about being abducted from Nepal. Nothing wrong about being abducted from Maharashtra itself, but that probably carried a lot of shame and emotional baggage for this now departed person. I think Sushmita Sen realized the lie, but she kept quiet as "outing" her would have really meant nothing. The Rajasthani driver was a crazy character and was lying all the way to the bank. Suddenly the name of the movie "Sex, lies and videotape" makes a lot of sense.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Chief minister derby in Karnataka.....

The Indian de"mock"racy spectacle is playing out in Karnataka. We tend to have one state per year on the average undergoing this scenario. Here are some suggestions to keep the politicians honest.

- A party switching incumbent will lose his seat in the legislature. The seat remains with the party and not with the person.
- Prime Minister/Chief Minister always gets to complete his term. This ensures the required continuity and eliminates mass changes at short notice.

The current system allows a few bad apples/highly principled people to create a total mess in terms of the power structure. The people deserve a stable government, not a two ring circus.

Friday, November 9, 2007

Happy Diwali y'all!

Wish you all Happy Diwali and a Happy New Year!



शुभ दीपावली!



Monday, November 5, 2007

Dinosaur extinction and the deccan plateau.

Volcanic eruptions at the Deccan ranges caused the extinction of dinosaurs, as per this study.

You can expect a flurry of scientific activity to confirm or disprove this particular finding. It is actually much more convincing than the asteroid theory. Long extinct volcanoes do tell a story.

Sunday, November 4, 2007

The extortion menace in India

Killing of prominent business man Ashish Dey is a sad day in the history of Jamshedpur, a town named after the founding industrialist of India. Our condolences to their family. It is not the politicians that run the wheels of India; it is the businessmen that take risks and contribute to the well being of numerous working families.

Mumbai policemen have typically followed encounter killings against extortionists. The encounter killing ensures that not all unemployed youth consider the profession as an easy living. Despite their filmy glamorous robinhood image in Munnabhai, extortionists are the scum of society and the dirt that connects the underworld and the civilized world. There are thousands of extortions to every encounter elimination.

Here are some tips to protect yourself.
- Keep a low profile. This includes not buying new imported cars. It used to be Income Tax that used to hound businessman before, now extortionists go by signs of good living. Have vacations abroad and keep quite about it too.
- Extortionists usually have a local connection. It pays to keep track of the local no good hangarounds. These are usually the local opposition party folks; they do not have the steady income stream of the ruling party goondas.- Do not give in. If you do, make sure that law enforcement knows about it. Extortionists leave tons of traces behind and are easy killings.
- Make sure that the family in always aware of any funny calls. Compare notes and take action immediately.
- Have base in more than one state. That sounds like running around, but it does help if your travel and business plans are unpredicatable. Extortionists tend to scout for predictability and being unpredictable helps.
- Keep following up with police if you have had an extortion experience. Typically, by this time, you know who they are and where they live. Do not let up the pressure. The police will call you directly or via your local politician when the encounter happens. It is a very satisfying day when that happens. With luck(and I mean lots of it), you may even get to meet them face to face for some private time before the encounter. I do not recommend it, as stooping to their level is not a good idea in the long run.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Half hour video crash course for India!

If you are Indian, this video is mostly nostalgia. For others, this is a half hour crash course.

Subscribe to our Google engine to have India information at your fingertips!

Google provides a way for people to allow for a prioritized search engine to be developed. This allows for expertise and knowledge to be added to search results and provide better value for the search. For example, I have added features so that Capital of any Indian state can be found. You can try it out before subscribing yourself. Here are some example queries that you can enter:

Capital of West Bengal
Festivals of Maharashtra

If our expertise does not match any information, you will get the default Google search results. I intend to keep adding functionality. Suggest, let me know or send me interesting functionality if you happen to have an XML frame of mind.





The Google search machine always allows you the option of unsubscribing yourself in case you feel no need for the functionality.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Where's the emotional intelligence?

Cricket is hyped up so much in India that fans feel it is ok to "vent their feelings" every time the Indian team loses. Some of these fans should hold a cricket bat in their hand and face a short ball sometimes in their life. Maybe they will get some perspective at that point in time. Such violent outbursts at a cricket ground is one reason why families and kids are usually not watching a cricket game live.

Part of the problem is that these fans pay a lot of money to see these games and the loss seems to add to the frustation.

Ask yourself if you can control your emotions in some decent fashion. If not, watch the games at home.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Chak de when?

For all you fans of the movie "Chak De", Indian women never won the world hockey cup. They did have one fourth place finish, way back in 1974. They did win a four nation tournament in Singapore in 2005 which went brutally unnoticed. Notice the comment made by "Malaysia Field Hockey fan" way back in 1995! Chakte phate!

Except for the field of education, Indian women have mostly regressed and it is not their fault. So there is still ways to go. The Indian cricket women team is pretty good, but we are nowhere there in other sports.

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Google map of Ram Setu

Here is the disputed area map on Google maps. Commerce and Religion should be kept apart; commerce and science do not work by disproving religion. You are not going to make money by disproving stuff in religious texts. Just going to get people worked up and lose elections.


View Larger Map

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Harry Potter and Ramayana/Mahabharata similarities?

Harry Potter, Hermoine and Ron end up in a forced "Vanvaas" similar to Laxman, Sita and Ram. Jealously, loyalty, doubts come into play very similar to issues explored in Ramayana. Dumbledore alternates between being Bheesma and Krishna.

Similar to the themes in Ramayana and Mahabharata, almost nobody is perfect. Sita and Krishna were the perfect characters in Ramayana and Mahabharata; Hermoine comes close to perfection in the Harry Potter series.

It is good to see these similarities. When kids eventually migrate to knowing Ramayana and Mahabharata later, they will appreciate all the moral dilemnas in these excellent texts.

Monday, June 11, 2007

India blog

Welcome to the India blog!

This blog has a variety of Google news feed related to India. Plus links of interest related to India in a clickable map format. There are tourism, history, geography, culture, cuisine, festivals, adventures and wildlife related clickable maps for all the states of India.

You will also see an India specific search engine attached to this blog. This search engine will give priority to Government and other good websites that have a focus on India.

So if you are a follower of events related to India, this page should provide you with all the required tools and you will be tempted to bookmark this page or even make it your homepage.

Give all the tools a try! Happy browsing!

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