The siege is over, What now ?

Had been glued to the TV set at home and the internet at work following the developments in Mumbai. This was the worst nightmare. Probably every other Indian's as well and perhaps of all peace loving citizens of the world.

To see it come to an end was the biggest relief ever. But even as I saw the seige come to an end there was this vaccum in my mind. I mean a vaccum. Couldn't really rejoice the victory of our brave soldiers who fought to protect every man/woman they can and eliminate the last of the terrorists. I feel indebted to them. What could I ever do to payback some respect except stand in silence and salute. All of them, irrespective of the colour of their uniform, command my respect. I am proud to have you defend me brothers.

My heart feels for the families of those who have been affected: killed or injured. Life is never going to be the same for them, ever. The only wrong they would have done that ill-fated day was to live it like the day before that and get caught in a mindless pattern of attacks leaving their loved ones bereaved.

They weren't alone in leaving us. Brave constables and officers from different police wings of Mumbai who marched forward to shield innocent civilians to fight the terrorists only to realise that although their intentions were right, the weapons they were carrying were too un-sophisticated to tackle those ill-minded scroundrels, fell down to the bullets from automatic weapons.

In the days to come we would get to know more such stories of bravery, of men who laid down their lives to guard their fellow's. These stories will all die down one day. But there is something that would refuse to go away. A sense of vulnerability that the people of our country feel. And the sense of satisfaction perpetrators of those attacks cherish.

The truth of the day is that we are becoming soft targets more and more. The slew of attacks this year alone is proof enough that they are getting at us at will. I know its not easy to admit it, but thats how truth is. And thats what it is. When I look at that picture of the terrorist with a gun in his hand at the CST I feel agitated.

Understandable because its only just a day and a half since the incident ended. But the thing is I am afraid this feel would go away soon. I do not want it to go away. Not that I would resort to doing something myself but I do not want to put myself in the same bracket as those of our leaders namely: Shivraj Patil who would not leave despite his obvious failures and inability to tackle terror, Manmohan Singh who doesn't have the guts to say 'enough is enough, get lost' to his Home Minister and Sonia Gandhi who is the most powerful of the three but does not care a dime to do something about this headless minister who is responsible for each one of our lives and safety. She probably thinks 200 lives in a country as big as ours is not a big deal.

Whoever the blame falls on, the axe is really falling on our people, attack after attack, incident after incident. I am not expecting radical action but rapid action to put in place better systems and mechanisms to confront such barbaric attacks on us before they infict the kind of damage they intend to. This would not happen in a year or two, but like JFK said 'LET US BEGIN'.

Should we not start doing it we would lose badly, more so in the years to come. A proud civilisation that taught the world would go down in history as a nation that never learns.

This perhaps is the right moment to renew the old and buried cry : Jai Jawan Jai Kisan Jai Bharat.

Kick the bully....

I am eagerly awaiting an update from the ICC on the BCCI's request to delay the second test match with England to facilitate Dhoni into the team as he wouldn't make it to the match otherwise, owing to his participation in the Champions league T20 tournament.

I believe the BCCI's request is a ridiculous one and actually as an insult to the game itself. Why should the game be played at all if rules are to be changed like this just to please a few people ? It takes the natural sheen out of the game.

The BCCI has for long been trying to be the big boss of cricket which in my opinion is pushing fairness out of the game. What next ? Postponing a match to facilitate a key players fitness test after comeback ? or how about delaying a match because Sharad Pawar wants to make it to a match and unfortunately misses the flight.

Not only should the request be turned down but also the BCCI should be reprimanded for putting forth such a non-sensical request.

Come on ICC. Show us your balls. Kick the BCCI in the a**.

Wishing good Wealth

Did you ever wish you uncle good Wealth. This guy did.

MNS leader Raj thackeray drove down to Shiv sena leader Balasaheb Thakeray's residence to wish him good WEALTH.

Ironically enough nobody cared to edit the headline which was the lead article for atleast four hours. Click on the screenshot to see it clearly.

Chrome, Firefox, Opera ?

Its more than two months since Google launched its brand new browser Chrome.

After having used it for as long as its been, alongside my personal favorite Firefox, and trying a bit of Opera 9.5 (actually there is now a 9.6 version) as well, I should say I am very impressed with the features of the new browser from Google.

But perhaps since I have for long been using Firefox, I would still like to go for it atleast until Chrome would accomodate frequently used features like add-ons and plugins in it.

More importantly I will have to come back to Firefox to use Feedly, coz google wouldn't care to do much about its reader.

But on the speed front I should say its Opera that wins hands-down. It beats both the Chrome and Firefox browsers. Infact I was amazed the guys at Opera could comeup with such a very good product after a long innings of being an also-ran in the field. But the competition is going to be tough for them just as it is going to be for Firefox.

With the kind of muscle and vast resources that Google has, not to mention their zeal to revolutionize the online space, it is obviously going to give every other browser a run for their money. The biggest loser obviously is Internet Explorer, which I do not even care to put a hyperlink for.

Chennai law college fight

A few years ago I had seen a video on my friend's mobile which shows a taliban militant executing a white man slitting his throat and thought about what could have gone into the minds of those killers to hate humanity so much that they could cold bloodedly butcher a fellow human being like that. It was barbaric. I only watched the video once. But as I think about it, it still runs infront of my eyes. It was truly barbaric. The most horryfying act I ever got to watch in any form.

After a long time I had a similar feel watching this video. I read about this story over the past week but never really watched the video. Students at Chennai's Ambedkar Law College fighting over caste.

Caste related violence, of course, has always been around in India. It not new to us to make use of any oppurtunity available to hitout at people who we think are not right whether by actions or by birth, in each other's respective views.

But after watching this video I really felt sick in the stomach for two reasons:

1. Students fighting each other is one thing but brutally attacking an unarmed  man, who was felled and possibly cannot even move after he was almost torn apart, by running back to him and hitting him indiscriminately like this bunch of barabarians did makes me think if our society is as savage as this video shows us.

2. The police stood by, as we can see in the video, as a mere witness to the incident which they should have never let happen in the first place. I mean that was not even a fight between two factions. It was about a dozen people hitting one fallen guy, who could not even possibly cry for help, with sticks and iron rods. 

  The Chennai police commissioner later says, those policemen have been 'transferred'. What the F**k. A mere transfer for failing to save a guy's life although it was very much within their reach and means !!! I mean they could have got a transfer saying they are allergic to Chennai's water. 

You know what Commissioner, if I were in your position, I would have made those officers liable, booked them for dereliction of duty, and lastly resigned from my post for being the head of a highly incomepetent team. 

If the first video I talked about was about brutality that made me feel sick, this one put me to shame. I can't believe I co-exist with such people in such a society as much as I can't disown their deeds, whether its the perpetrators of the violence or the muted spectators called Police. Its a shame on us all. 

They probably never learn (change)

I always thought its just the South Indian names that the anchors on mainstream news channels cannot pronounce properly.

Only to be proven wrong.

Today I was witness to 'Chandrayaan' being pronounced 'Chandraayan' (like a Narayan) which actually changes the very meaning of the word.

After a little thought, I kind-of figured out the best way to make the anchors pronounce names right. They should have been told that 'Chandrayaan' was a Polish word which means they would have never taken its pronunciation for granted as they usually do with Indian names and would find out the right way to say it.

I guess it does make sense to have a Indian language specialist in-house like they have voice trainers and voice coaches within their organisations to help people know Indian sounds better.

ISRO's Bhuvan

I just spotted this article at Pluggd.in 

Wow. I was absolutely delighted as I read it. If this were to happen I can't imagine the coverage it would get in the country and the world.

Just imagine how many millions of kids would find that story inspiring. The point is that the scientists are not only doing wonders, but they are inspiring millions of us.

Before I go any further I should mention this story I read on the internet atleast a couple of years ago.

 

Dr. R A Mashelkar, former director of CSIR, was once on an official visit to South Africa, during the course of which he was scheduled to stop by at a museum/exhibition. While going around browsing through the pictures/portraits he found a few satellite pictures of S.Africa very exciting. Apparently that was the first time he was looking at the pictures of a country taken by a space satellite with such amazing clarity. When he asked the officials of that country accompanying him about the source of the images  he was shocked to hear the answer. Probably they were shocked too to see him react that way. He was actually told that the pictures were taken by an Indian satellite.

This incident narrated by the man in question himself, later on as he returned to India, really opened my eyes to understand the capabilities of ISRO and made me feel proud, a feeling that further strengthened after reading reports of NASA chief's shocked reaction and appreciation (on his visit to ISRO's headquarters, if I am not wrong) of the work being done by the Indian scientists on what he called a pittance of a budget.

These guys, I mean the Scientists, are the heroes of modern day India. I have no doubt in my mind when I say ISRO deserves to be called a 'Bharat Ratna'.

Friendship at the cost of Judgement

This question has been on my mind for a while now.

Why cannot India and the United States be friends enough to agree to disagree on a few very important issues such as the Georgia-Russia conflict ?

Why should I, as an Indian, surrender my judging abilities on a particular issue just because I also like to be friends with the United States as long as we agree with each other on a wide range of issues and of course trade with each other as well ?

update(04-11-2008):
1. Just chanced upon this video on what really happened in Ossetia.
This has only strengthened the anti-Georgian version of the whole issue. The video was very insightful. Check it for yourself.
2. This is the video of Putin accusing America of staging the Georgian conflict so as to let one of the candidates have a competetive edge over the other in the run-up to the US presidential elections.