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World of India!

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BVP,AFMC,VIT, Trees on Fire - Rock on !

Saturday, April 07, 2007 Digg! Add to Technorati Favorites
Yesterday a friend of mine invited me to join him to watch a Rock Music competition at ABC farms, Pune. The contest was organized by a newly launched print Youth Magazine called 'Poora Poona'. Me and my friend chatted with Sameer Agarwal, the live wire behind the effort, who lamented that Rock Music in general is very purely supported by corporates and finding sponsors had been a very tough job indeed.

Be as it may, Sameer and his team put up a fantastic show to conduct 'Dhwani'07' they way they did. This is going to be a bi-annual event. So watch out guys.

To the contest itself- there were 4 bands who played. Teams from VIT college of Engineering, Bharati Vidyapeeth, Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC) and one of Pune's most famous rock bands- Trees on Fire participated in the contest. I was surprised by the depth of talent in almost all the bands. While the teams from VIT and AFMC did well, the BVP band stood apart by the way they were able to play as a single unit. 'Trees on Fire' of course was of course leagues ahead of them all...Randheer Dange on drums, Robin and Sundar on the Guitar, Sharad on the vocals were all outstanding. When it comes to Rock bands the other bands should learn that its not just about how you sing and play- but also about how you perform these creative acts as a 'group'. Most importantly, a band needs to have that very undefinable of qualities which ' Tees on Fire' had in loads and that was the single most important thing all the other bands lacked, by an equal measure. For Chris sakes, AFMC and BVP appeared on stage wearing loosened up ties...! This is the 21st century folks, pl throw the ties out : )

After 7 good years I was in a place with so many youngsters and watching them all deliriously happy- flirting, dancing, drinking, smoking and abusing each other playfully- it was easy to go back in time, when we roughly did the same old things, in the same old way. There was something truly beautiful about the way these people were enjoying themselves so naturally and just watching it, made me feel good about many things.

After the concert me and my friend decided to check out Pune's most authentic Iranian restaurant -Nunoz- but that's a tale for some other time.
Poona '.

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The Glass is half empty...

Sunday, April 01, 2007 Digg! Add to Technorati Favorites
If you were asked a simple question - What do you think of the world as it exists today? chances are that you would go into a long harangue about whatever is wrong with today's world. You would speak of a break down in law and order, destruction of moral values (whatever you mean by that) and...of course corruption...what else can you think of...hmmm..poverty, farmers committing suicide, pollution, global warming....and when you run out of problems to list, you can always complain about the traffic.

You are not alone. Reading back at some of my blog posts, I am surprised by how sarcastic and pessimistic I sound, in places.

This pessimism is not unique , of course, but rather universal. A survey conducted in the USA by the renowned National Opinion Research Center based at the University of Chicago, reports the results of interviews with more than 1,300 adults nationwide, comparing the current data with the results of the same survey taken in 1991.Among the current set of respondents to the unhappiness survey, a staggering 92% cited at least one "significant negative life event" in the past year. That number is up from 88% in 1991.

That's a lot of pessimistic people.

One reason why people are so pessimistic is that all of us have have lost a perspective into history. We tend to look at the past with a sense of romance and nostalgia- "The air was so fresh in 1952 in Mumbai" or " Everyone was so rich and happy in ancient India". Part of the reason for this nostalgia is that since we are constantly dis-satisfied with our current lives, we automatically tend to think the past was much better.

Stephen Pinker who was formerly with MIT and now at Harvard, and author of 'How Mind works' explains this beautifully. Bruno Giusanni wrote a post about it and explained it thus -

" He shows images of the Auschwitz concentration camp, which have been seared into our conscience in the XX century. During that century we witnessed a series of atrocities, from Stalin and Hitler to Mao and Rwanda. And the XXI century has not started better (Darfur, Iraq). But despite this perception of inhuman violence in the last 100 years, truth is that our ancestors were far more violent that we are, and today we are probably living in the most peaceful times in history.

The decline of violence is a fractal phenomenon, says Pinker, you can see it over millennia, centuries, decades (although there may have been a tipping point an the onset of the Age of Reason on the XVI century):

Millennium scale - Until 10'000 years ago all humans lived as hunter-gatherers, without permanent settlement or government. But recent research has revealed that the likelihood of violent death (that a man would die at the hands of another man) was of 50-60%. If we consider later civilizations such as the ones described in the Bible (about 3000 years ago), well, the Bible itself contains several passages like the one about "slewing all the males" (Numbers, 31).Century scale - Violence was common in European Middle ages and early modern times (while is rare or absent today): mutilations and torture were routine criminal punishments; death penalty was a sanction for a long list for nonviolent crimes; slavery; sadistic capital punishment (burning at the stake); cruelty as entertainment. One-on-one murder: criminologist Manuel Eisner searched historical records in Europe for homicide rates in the Middle Age, and determined a decline of at least two orders of magnitudes in homicides since then.Decade scale - Since 1945 in Europe and Americas steep decline in wars, armed conflicts, number of deaths per war per year. Since end of Cold War: similar trends.
So why are we so wrong about something so important? One of the reason is that we have better journalistic reporting which creates a cognitive illusion: memorable events are judged to be more probable (if we read every day about suicide bombers, we believe that's the norm); guilt; change in standards outpaces change in behaviour."

True, isn't it? In India, for instance, because of the recent media explosion, we are confronted with a expose' a day. Everyday we are being bombarded with news of how much violence and corruption exists in our country. Compare this to the amount of time & space that is devoted to 'positive' news and you will understand why we all feel so negatively about the world in which we live.


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Looks can deceive

Wednesday, March 21, 2007 Digg! Add to Technorati Favorites
When I see a member of the female species I can rate her on 1-10, no problemo. If I ask another female whether she agrees with my rating, we are usually on the same lines. In other words, females are good judges of how attractive other females are to the male eye.

Curiously though, my powers fail me if I (not when !) were to try the same experiment on males. I can of course distinguish the ones who look like Greek gods or pigs and sneer at them both appropriately and give them a 9/10 or 1/ 2. But I can't seem to be able to pinpoint how attractive the rest of the boring middlers would be to the female eye.

The problem is that while we are quite specific about what we want from females (symmetry and/or size ) all around, the female mind seems to also consider other puzzling factors like, "smoulder", "intensity", "warmth", when it comes to the middler males.

Not a life & death issue, this. But I thought you would like to know about this curious state of affairs.

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Press Information Bureau- Govt. of India web site blooper

Monday, February 26, 2007 Digg! Add to Technorati Favorites

See the headline on the centre of the page? No its not in Chinese - its just unintelligible gibberish. Welcome to the homepage of the Press Information bureau - Govt. of India !

Maybe, just maybe the web sites of Indian corporates are better....

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Incredible India - Best of Flickr pics (3)

Friday, February 16, 2007 Digg! Add to Technorati Favorites

Cut to Shah Rukh Khan's message to the youth standing next to a 'Kaun Banega Crorepati poster' - the headline on Rediff said "Some times ideals have to take a back seat"!

Hmm...

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Valentines day ! Dont read this great Beer joke : )

Wednesday, February 14, 2007 Digg! Add to Technorati Favorites

Hat tip : Dave

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Absent minded FBI

Tuesday, February 13, 2007 Digg! Add to Technorati Favorites
I have always been accused of being absent minded by people I know. I plead guilty. But at least I am in good company!

The U.S Justice dept. inspector general says that The FBI (Federal Bureau of investigation), America's premier interior security agency, looses between three to four laptops- a month ! And he then goes on to say that the FBI is actually doing BETTER compared to its past record. He adds helpfully that the FBI does not know, after loosing these mean machines, whether the laptop lost contained sensitive information or not. Wired News reports -


In a report five years ago, the inspector general said 354 weapons and 317 laptop computers were lost or stolen during a 28-month review.

The new report found that 160 weapons and 160 laptop computers were lost or stolen over a 44-month period.


How's that for steady improvement?

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A Florida fugitive - wrongly sentenced for 50 yrs, on the run and finally - liberated

Monday, February 12, 2007 Digg! Add to Technorati Favorites
Orlando Boquete was sentenced to 50 years for a crime he never committed . He broke out of prison, on the run for 10 yrs till a DNA testing procedure proved his innocence.

The scariest part of the whole story is that DNA testing as a technique had been always available. But according to Jim Dwyer of the New York Times magazine who wrote this piece on Boquete's story:

"During the 1990s, many prosecutors in Florida, and elsewhere, fiercely resisted DNA testing for people already in prison. Such tests often poked embarrassing holes in the original investigations. After an innocent man died on death row — the prosecutors opposed testing until the man, Frank Lee Smith, was terminally ill — the State Legislature passed a law that explicitly permitted convicts to seek DNA testing, as long as they asked by Oct. 1, 2003."


How many Boquete's has India produced?

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Incredible India - Best of Flickr photographs (2)

Thursday, February 08, 2007 Digg! Add to Technorati Favorites
Any wonder why there are no tigers left any more?


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How much do Beggars earn in India?

Thursday, February 01, 2007 Digg! Add to Technorati Favorites

Kalyan who runs a popular blog has a good post (Hat tip : P.Anand) which tries to estimate how much beggars earn in Bangalore. He estimates that a beggar on M.G.Road in Bangalore would earn about Rs.24,000/- per month which is a little less that what a highly skilled white collar professional would earn.

Kalyan writes:


"12:09pm: Economics of Begging in Bangalore
 Lately, I have been observing the beggars at all the traffic junctions in Bangalore when I'm stuck for a long time in traffic. I've noticed a very important pattern.

At any big traffic junction, the traffic at the signal has to wait anywhere from 120 to 180 seconds these days. A beggar can cover at least 30 vehicles in this time and at least 1 in 5, give the beggars some money. This money these days is anywhere from Rs 1 to Rs 5. I've even seen a guy give out Rs 100 to a beggar.

So at a 3 min traffic light junction, a beggar can make anywhere from Rs 5 to Rs 20. Even if we assume the lower limit, in an hour a beggar makes Rs 5 * 60/3 = Rs 100. If he/she works for 8 hours a day like most of us, he/she will make Rs 800/day.. and that's about Rs 24,000 / month.

Now Rs 24,000 / month is lot more money than what most fresh software engineers get paid these days. The beggars don't even have to worry about tax on the money they make.

Who says the money in Bangalore does not trickle down to the poor :)
Current Mood: amused"


While I don't dispute Kalyan's observations, we must still keep in mind the fact that most beggars in India are run by mafia syndicates, who usurp the majority of their earnings.So the 'real' earnings are probably a small fraction of this mind boggling figure. More importantly how many beggars can beg on M.G Road? Only those who are under the 'protection' of the mafia and the police and have 'bought' rights to that particular territory.

And what trials and tribulations do these people have to undergo to earn their keep? Rain, scorching sun, police lathis are the easy part. CNN-IBN recently reported on how the the begging mafia operates in collusion with a network of doctors to chop off healthy limbs of beggars.

Moral of the story? Don't envy your neighbourhood beggar- yet! : )

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Hair loss problems? Call Dr. Batra...er...Dr.Mukesh Batra...

Tuesday, January 23, 2007 Digg! Add to Technorati Favorites
Some hilarious excerpts from the Rediff chat with Dr.Mukesh Batra. The persons named Dr Mukesh Batra, Doctor Batra and Dr Mukesh Batra ANS below, are actually fake users who'r using the name of the real Dr. Mukesh Batra and writing this in the 'questions' section of the chat . Lol's !
----------------------------------------------------------------------
teeef says, DR batra to kat leeye, ab bhai log aap log bhi kaam par jao and aaj ke baad aise 'bhairupiye' ke chakkaron mein mat pado, its better u people go to some good doctor. The whole concept of Dr Batra's is to make money.(full stop)
Dear Sir, My mother who is around 50 years old has black spots in her face..is there any treatment for this?
Babuji says, frauddoc! can you show your "doc" cert? was it issued by Idi Amin?
Dr Mukesh Batra ANS says, I am GONE. BYE FOR NOW. See you in my clinic.
bachee says, baldness thru heridity is curable..?
Dr Mukesh Batra ANS says, Hey...I got to go to DUBAI now. Sorry I am leaving with my girlfriend. CIAO
pappu says,
abbbc says, sorry sir, had u looked into my case the result would have shown,, but not with ur inexperienced set of docs in bangalore.
pappu says, r u there doctor or gone
ashutosh says, Dear Dr Batra, pls reply to me after smoke.
Dr Mukesh Batra says, Hang on everybody....shall be right back.
abbbbbc says, ur tretament is all fraud dr batra, with all due respect to u, but that is a fact. You hire all fresh graduates who have not got any experience in homeopathy and what you do is all pure business and no treatment. i have ur patient with no improvements in my 'thinning of hair'
Chat says, I think the chat window should be closed by Rediff sysadmin
susant sabat says, Sir Good Evening I have problem of isnopholia. I am getting cold regular interval
Babuji says, doc, why have you gone bald?
Babuji says, hello fraud doc?
Dr Mukesh Batra says, Hello Tel me.
Doctor Batra says, WAIT LET ME GO FOR A SMOKE, THEN I WILL COME BACK
shanoo says, Dear Dr. Batra, My name is Gurshant and 32 y / M, My height is 5' 10" and I wiegh around 95 Kgs and following are the diffuculties that I am facing. I have a high BP since long time, due to the regular medication I have devloped this serious ACIDITY, due to this there is constant heaviness and burping and also pain in the chest and upper back. I cannot concentrate on my work. Also can u suggest any medication for High BP. I know I have a very sedentary lifestyle, please suggest!!
anitakasturia@sify.com says, dR. WILL YOU AVAILABLE TOMORROW ALSO. I STILL NOT GOT THE REPLY. ANITA email anita_kasturia@rediffmail.com
vasudevannv says, REDIFF.. WHERE ARE DR ANSWERS???????????????
afzal_alam8 says, Dear doctor My fatahe(51) is Asthama patient, He is suffering with that since last 20 YRS. please advice what should i do
shanoo says, please answer the questions sir.. thank you
reddy99 says, sir iam also facing problem with dundruff. what is the solution
bala says, dear doctor, my mother is 52 years old, is suffering with pain at left hand thumb, at times she'll not be able to life an empty glass also. She also has swelling on left leg below the knee and it is numb at times, pl. suggest suitable medicine
Doctor Batra says, I AM HERE..
ashutosh says, i am 33 yr old male,and have acute allergy problem, i have got first major episode of allergy attack in 1998 when my eyes were swollen, itchy, red and eyelids were so swollen that my eyses were to total closed, it reduced on its on in 2~3 days time and then ok, since ten it has happened at least 20 times. my allergy starts sometimes with redness of eyes, sometimes with itchyness in throat, smtimes runny and clogged nose. pls adv

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How to attract women? How to attract Men?

Friday, January 19, 2007 Digg! Add to Technorati Favorites
Researchers who publish 'quickie' research need to be put in a zoo. You know the kind of research I am talking about...Eating raw cabbage can prevent heart attacks! screams one headline and should you start to eat cabbage, some one else will publish another piece claiming it can give you Cancer, if not AIDS. But researchers also know that this kind of research is a sure eye grabber. So they keep up with it and publish the sham underbaked results of their torture on mice, monkeys and pigs, with disturbing regularity.

So was anyone shocked when the following headline was published and commented on widely, in some of the best newspapers and television channels around the world.
The mating game: Women play copycat, men look out for rivals
So what was the fuss about?


Yahoo!U.K has published the following AFP report



"A lonely man desperate to find a girlfriend might be well advised to hire a few women to smile at him -- and let female copycat genes run their course.British psychologists have discovered that, when sizing up a man, a woman takes her cues from other women around him. If those women are looking happily at him, that has a big influence on the woman's assessment. The more female smiles there are, the likelier she is to consider the guy a catch."


Now,can anyone answer one basic question for me? Why would women smile at a man, in the first place, for another woman to become jealous and attracted to him? Obviously only if they find the guy attractive! So where's the question of women being attracted to a guy because other women smiled at him?

If some one from Scotland gets hold of Mr.Benedict Jones of the University of Aberdeen and socks him, for carrying this 'research' and wasting the time and energy of millions of males around the world, I would be grateful.


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John Grisham hauled to the court for playing detective in real life

Monday, January 15, 2007 Digg! Add to Technorati Favorites
Author John Grisham of 'The Firm' fame, amongst many other worldwide hits, is now himself in the dock. It seems that Grisham couldn't resist getting to the bottom of a mystery involving anonymous letters received by the wife of the head coach of his son's baseball team. Grisham probably thought that given his writing experience in crime, this would be a breeze.

Things went horribly wrong when the object of Grisham's investigations (another parent) filed a suit against him, for securing information submitted by her in the school for handwriting analysis purposes.

Now a Judge has ruled that Grisham must face trial in this case and the hunter has become the hunted!

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Stereotypes of Bengalis, Maharashtrians,Punjabis, Gujaratis....served grilled !

Monday, January 08, 2007 Digg! Add to Technorati Favorites
The Bengali: Most Bengalis are in love with themselves and believe passionately in the theory that eating fish heads is what powers their battery. The trouble is that the fish in the Sea of Bengal, looking for revenge, are starting to mutate in a manner that is leading their asses to assume the shape their heads. I shudder to think what would happen to the world when the Bengali continues mouthing 'Intellectual' stuff in a few thousand years, as is his wont now.

The Maharashtrian: His name art 'inferiority complex'. He tries to hide it by acting superior, shouting about his glorious heritage three hundred years back and such like. But in this brave new 'baniya' world where the shop keeper is the new warrior, his goose is cooked and what's more- he knows it.

The Punjabi: The Punjabi is India's Amriki, foraying into lands unknown to open the Dhaba and wahe guru di kripa, take over the place. Confidence is his strong suit and he genuinely believes that the civilized (oye,chak de phatte!) world starts in Ludhiana and ends in Chandigarh.Rapacious, noisy animal.

The Gujarati: Together with North Indians, in general, Gujaratis are past masters at hogging public spaces. But his own flourish is evident in the way he dirties it with farsaaan, sewai,dhokla and asssorted snacks.Families are pests as travel companions. Generally industrious when it comes to sitting on his ass at the cash counter for long hours.

South Indian Software techie: The English stinks but he doesn't- thanks to two baths in a day. Software is the new Southern Railways, Bay Area the new Mylapore. The women are smarter (and more articulate) than the men, in general, and they both know it.Appearances are kept outside to save face, but once at home, fear takes over.Fear of god,fear of appa,fear of amma, fear of wife.The only thing he is not afraid of, is fear itself.

Mallu Omnipresent: He can be found everywhere except in his own state,where he is hell bent on harakiri. 100% literate but completely unemployable. Is curiously schizophrenic in terms of twin tendencies of both helping fellow mallus outside the state and also pulling them down, when they try to climb out of the basket. He accomplishes both tasks by joining an union.

The Bihari and the Bhaiyya:Cockroach like survival instinct allows them to survive anywhere. Can get restless if things are working out smoothly without their pushtaini 'jugad' systems. A very common name is Scam Kumar.Has left farming for the fertile fields of IAS, IPS where the 'jugad' is alive and well.

The Aspirant: 'Inadequacy' thy name, Aspirant. Always seeking the Ultra cool, Ultra chic orgasmic moment, but never quite there.

Urban Ultra cool: has figured out sex & computers before he was 5. Likes to portray cool aloofness but is frighteningly ambitious.Sickening power of self control and an ability to say 'no' to temptations, before his CAT,GMAT, GRE exams. His moksha is to be a multi-millionaire and get that ultra-chic chick.

Urban Ultra-Chic Chick: A sub-type of the category above,she can feign a foreign accent at a seconds notice and shed it the next moment,when haggling with the Bhaiyya taxi wallah.Can speak Hindi in a foreign accent if and when needed. Known to scare sophisticates from abroad with her knowledge of what's in- abroad mein ji.Moksha means marriage to a multi-millionaire munda. Her last unfinished business in Chic-land is to appear dignified even on the pot.THAT will be the day, I tell you yaar...

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Tavleen Singh wants her dog to poop freely in Mumbai

Saturday, January 06, 2007 Digg! Add to Technorati Favorites
If you ever have had the opportunity to read Tavleen Singh's rantings in the Indian Express, you have probably read this. In a column titled 'City plights' in June 2006, Singh cries plaintively thus-

"It is the humble view of your humble columnist that the greatest failure of governance in India is that the average Indian lives in conditions so unsanitary they would be declared unfit for humans anywhere else in the world. As someone who has had the good fortune to travel far and wide may I say that nowhere have I seen towns and cities as disgracefully unplanned and as filthy as ours. In the villages the majority of our citizens live with open drains, rotting garbage, unclean water and without sanitation. In the cities things may be marginally better, but the reality also is that half the population of Mumbai lives in slums that are unspeakably squalid. And, things are not much better in other metropolitan cities."


The humble columnist then goes on to suggest a host of solutions. Don't bother to read them now though, since it emerges that Singh herself is part of the problem rather than the solution. This humble columnist who has prescriptive dawas for all of India's problems, has been caught red handed with her dog who was pooping on Marine Drive. What's more, when the BMC demanded a fine of Rs.500/- she refused.In fact when the 'Mumbai Mirror' asked her the reason, she admitted herself that she has been caught two three times earlier and that she had refused to pay the fine earlier too! Her reasoning is that in cities like New York or London, the Municipalities there have put in place systems which ensure that rules are followed like special bags and bins. Since there is no such provision, she reasons that her dog has got the license to continue dirtying Marine drive, since " its dirty anyway". And isn't it Tavleen's responsibility to carry her own scooper and bag along?She adds " if my dog does not do it, there are other stray dogs who are doing things all over Marine Drive. There are human being defecating all along the coastline". In other words, since this issue exists, Tavleen feels that she can legitimately add to the problem.

Municipal commissioner R.A.Rajiv who was also interviewed put it well when he said

"... just because there are stray dogs doesn't mean that pets should be allowed to do the same".

I have a solution. Expel Tavleen out of India. If she lives in New york, her Dog can poop wherever it wants. Tavleen will be happy to scoop it, since its in New york or London that she is scooping poop and that carries its own prestige, after all. Aur fine dena padega to New york mein diya na...sadi huyi Mumbai mein to nahi diya?

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Philanthropy in America - surprising facts

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The Economic Times (dtd.Jan 5th'07) has printed a Bloomberg report, which gives some surprising facts:

- Last year, Americans gave away a quarter of a trillion dollars in charity (that is Eleven lakh, twenty five thousand CRORES, in Rupee terms).

- Three out of four Americans make charitable donations every year,$1800 , on an average. This is five times more than Germans and seven times that of an average Italian family.

- Self-confessed Conservatives are a percentage point or two MORE likely to donate to charity than self-confessed liberals.

- In 2000, conservatives gave 30% more money to charity than liberals and most importantly the discrepancy wasn't a function of income. Liberal families earn 6% more than conservatives, on an average.

- The author of the study who wrote the book - ' Who really cares:The surprising truth about compassionate conservatism'- Arthur C. Brooks, an economist with Syracuse University, is a Democrat turned Republican turned Independent.

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Indian Parliament - so funny, no?

Friday, January 05, 2007 Digg! Add to Technorati Favorites
The web site of the Indian Parliament tries to infuse some wit & humour into what is otherwise, a dull, unimaginative space. Is it a surprise that the sarkari babus have done this in their own inimitable style? Sample this piece, in a dutifully dour section called (what else?) 'Wit & Humour'-

'NO STRUCTURE, HENCE NO INFRA-STRUCTURE'

Participating in the short duration discussion on the need to improve the infrastructure at airports in the country, on 20.12.2005 Shri Varkala Radhakrishnan while referring to the poor condition of the Thiruvananthapuram airport, said: I would not use the word ‘infrastructure’ as there is no structure. If there is structure, then only the issue of infrastructure will come. In that airport, there is no structure. It is more or less like a boat jetty or something like it”. There was all round laughter in the House.

Stomach splittingly funny, I sayyy Saarr....hee hee

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Mallika Sherawat ko gussa kyon aata hai?

Wednesday, January 03, 2007 Digg! Add to Technorati Favorites
Mallika Sherawat danced in Mumbai's J.W.Marriot for 10 minutes, realized it was being aired on T.V, and walked off the stage threatening to sue the Marriot for breach of contract. She was supposed to receive 75 lakhs for 'displaying' her 'talent' for 45 minutes.

And no, that's not her skin, in case the picture has transfixed you ...she is wearing a skin coloured garment underneath.

Talk about poor value for money!

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Make a begining

Sunday, December 31, 2006 Digg! Add to Technorati Favorites




"And to make an end is to make a beginning." — T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding"


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Britain pays back last installments of WW II debts to USA and Canada

Friday, December 29, 2006 Digg! Add to Technorati Favorites
Did you know that Britain has been re-paying World War II debts to U.S and Canada, to this date? Yes, you heard it right. The last installments will be paid this year, before Dec. 31st'06, more than 50 years after the end of WW-II, according to this B.B.C report.

The amount repayed over 50 years has been more then double of what has been loaned, but considering inflation rates over the years, it's clear that Britain got a very good deal.

But that still doesn't take anything away from the fact that Britain did not excuse itself from the repayment, under the pretext that they saved the world from Hitler and Nazism.How many of us can put our hands on our heart and swear that India would have behaved as impeccably, and tried not to wriggle out, had we been in a similar position?

And now that Britain is free of this burden, how about asking them to behave as impeccably and give back our Kohinoor, which the Queen proudly sports on her crown, to this day? : )

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