Train Accident....

The recent train accident in Bihar was very unfortunate, train accident in India is "common" in comparison to other railway network in the world. I have specifically put "common" in quotes as the figure of merit on which comparisons are made is not fair. When a comparison of railway network across the world is made, the population, the number of trains etc, such factors needs to be taken into account. But this doesnt mean we can allow accidents. Adequate prevention needs to be taken for avoiding such tragic incidents. A train accident will imply a heavy monetary loss on the railway ministry and ofcourse the loss of lives can never be compensated.

But this accident is not an usual one, the cause of accident should have taken many people by suprise. The bridge was 150 years old and had given cracks recently it fell over the train because it cannot bear the train vibration. The railway ministry spends around 18000 crores on the safety of railways. But such tragic incidents leaves out a big question, are they doing enough for the safety of passengers. Always one can give this as a reason, "to manage such a huge network is very difficult and errors are bound to happen, therefore what is important is not the error but the percentage of error in comparison to the railway network India has".

As an engineer I need to agree to the statement leaving aside the emotional reaction. But here is where a difference between a world class management and an ordinary management lies. Always one can come out with figure of merit(FOM) for the performance of a ministry to satisfy ones ass. Given such a large railway network as in India and making it fool-proof for accidents and taking number of deaths due to accidents as a FOM is what Indian Railway ministry requires. Can they resolve such a huge challenge.......

West Bengal politics

I was reading the book by Arun Shourie on "Eminent historians- Their technology, the line, their fraud". In which he has given several examples with proof where the history taught to Indian students are distorted and conviniently projected for political gains.

Especially the history book in West Bengal is so much edited right from the 3rd grade leading to an impression that Communism ideology is the only saviour of the world. The book goes on to give numerous examples from various text history books how the history is distorted for political gains and not to hurt minority sentiments.

In my opinion history should never be distorted it is much bigger sin than corruption. The repercussions are huge.

Riots is Maharastra

The recent riots in Maharastra shows the pathetic situation of the law and order in one of the important states in India. Maharastra is no ordinary state and it is responsible for generating a siginificant amount of Indian GDP. Any such riots will deeply affect the Indian economy and will create apprehensions on the way the government is controlling the law and order.

The causes for the riots should be analysed in greater depth, in my opinion the background politics involved is of major concern. The riots could be to divert attention from some other important mishap to come. I stress this because statue desecreted in U.P cannot cause riots of this magnitude unless there is huge motive behind it.

ISI in Srilanka?

Earlier I wrote an article on ISI in Nepal, though the news was outdated which means the information is a kind of open secret. And by stern action from the security forces the porous border between Indian and Nepal is made fool-proof. This had made ISI to find alternate routes to introduce terror in India, though the North-east border needs to be guarded heavily, ISI has found a new way to enter India....

Now after exhausting all their solutions of penetration, ISI has found a way through Srilanka. The present democratic (can be replaced by autocratic without loss of generality :) ) government in Srilanka which is already under severe criticism for its action against innocent civilians in North and Eastern part, now has a new issue to face.

The enforcement authorities at Chennai have sucessfully foiled the bid to pour lumps of fake curreny (running into crores) into India. They have arrested an ISI agent who came to India through Columbo, which poses a question how strong ISI are in Srilanka. And to India's bad luck this is the last thing they need, Srilanka turning blind eyes to ISI means the relationship between the two countries is in a down-run. Though the situation has not worsened but turning a blind eye might lead to another foe in the southern corridor.

As said in previous post India should involve itself in the peace process between LTTE and Srilankan goverenment. The diplomatic persons should find innovative ways to tackle the embarrasment which India faced during late '90s. This is an immediate challenge India is facing, would the center respond pro-activiely this time!!!!!

Verdict day

There were a lot of anticipation for this day from all parts of India. Sanjay dutt records is dusted over a decade long trial on the Bombay blast case. He was found guilt and at the same time he was not termed as a terrorist, this was seen as a positive sign by several people, which tells us he was expecting a very tough punishment. He was found guilty of possesing arms and his confession was seen as the major evidence in the case.

The next verdict on Shibu soren was unfortunately on the same day, it was unfortunate for the news channel as lots of news are happening in all parts of India :) and they are confused which one to cover... News channel are confused whether to show Sanjay dutt or Prime minister asking Shibu soren to resign or Bacchan family at Varanasi or Dilip vengsagar trip to SA....

But the involment of Shibu soren takes the cake (though Bombay blast is high profile, the verdict was anticipated) his PA was killed near Ranchi and it took atleast 4 years for the Forensic department and the police to confirm the skull which they recovered is of his PA (the irony is in CSI seriel it takes only 40 minutes to crack the case, even extrapolating the time axis will lead to 400 days max at the conversion rate of 1 minute=10 days, which involves much more complications than the murder of PA).

Plight of Tamils in Srilanka

The recent developments in the island is very disturbing. The new Srilankan government has taken drastic measures to control the rebel group, LTTE. It is an irony that few months back there were reports which indicated LTTE is losing its base and Vellupillai Prabakaran is seen as a dictator rather than a vibarnt leader. But just after the new government took over the power there were heavy shelling in the tamil areas and more unfortunate it was over the area where unarmed civilians live. This lead to a widespread condemnation by the international community. But India still kept its finger crossed without actively involving to smoothen out the crisis. It is mainly attributed to the fact that she faced a lot of embarrasment during the Indian peace keeping force at Lanka and it seems the top official have not found how to deal with the rebel group, which is accused for killing Indian prime minister.

But this is no excuse to shy away from the present scenario. There were numerous reports and blogs written on this issue, the fact she is shying away from its resposiblity to keep the Indian ocean under its control doesnt go along with the aim of being a reponsible power in the domain of Indian ocean. Hope the top goverment offcials take a note of the scenario and catch the bus before it is missed.

Some rest to Party Politics....

The resemblances of the human being is stamped in their DNA and it was widely beleived that the genetic make-up is similar across different races. Recently it was discovered that the genectic make-up is very different across different races making a huge impact on the manufacturing of drugs.

As drugs for diseases depends on the DNA structure, if they are widely different across different races than the same drug cannot be used. This leads to an interesting result, the pharmaceutical companies in India should start focussing on this discovery and try to develop their own in house facilties for develping new drugs as no longer they can do a copy-cat from other western drug manufacturers.

Bomb Blast in Bengal

Have anyone heard that there is an underground organisation operating in the area of Darjeeling? It seems that they have close tie-up with the ULFA militant group and were involved in the 1999 bomb blast on soldiers going to Kargil from WB.

Even in today bomb blast they are suspected at large but it is pre-mature to come to a conclusion. Nevertheless care should be taken as this area is very prone to underground activities as it borders Bangladesh, Bhutan and some area of Nepal. Any unrest in this region will be difficult to control.

ISI in Nepal?

A largely unaswered question or should I say hidden truth? Yes, the Maoist rebel leader revealed the fact that ISI wanted to help the people liberation movement in Nepal. But what do ISI want in return? This is the question, the IB should quickly look into and if ISI have done some damage, IB should start implementing the damage control immediately.

As Naxalite movement got mentioned in one of the speeches given by Pakistan president which reveals that any close tie-up between Maoist rebels in Nepal and ISI will severly damage the internal situation in India.

Chinese premier visit to India

After a decade the Chinese premier is visting India for improving the bilateral relations. What we are presently interested is to resolve the boundry dispute amicably. But the chinese ambassdor to India cleary stated the purpose of the visit is to improve economic tie-up and the dispute is not much in their agenda.

In my opinion, Chinese government is very much interested is real estate across the world, it all started with Tibet,Taiwan and Pakistan ceding around 5000 sq.Km to China to sample a few. They are very keen in the North eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh for a long time. The goverenment of India should make it clear to the convoy arriving to India that besides business, boundry dispute should be solved amicably or atleast a road map is to be charted out.

Till the dispute is not solved the Chinese government will be always seen through a prism of suspicion.

Defence delays

Defence spending is important in this "Kaliyuga" era where each country sees each other as threat to one another. Such a phase has passed by in the European sub-continent and everybody knows the outcome of it. But still nobody have not learned much from it.

Presently Indian sub-continent is going through such a phase where every country doesnt like each other (more or less), there is no need to mention India and Pak. În this scenario, it is imporatant to be well equipped so that we can respond almost instantaneously to others threat if any.

India spends 2.3% of its GDP on defence but this is not adequeate for the modernisation of the armed forces. It is required to spend 3% of GDP to have a decent armed force vis-a-vis to other upper developing countries. But it is sad to mention that most of our present fleet are not indigeneously developed even though we have 25% of human resources of the world.

It is not important to increase the defence spending but what is more imporatnt is to develop technologies on our own. The responsible organisation for this DRDO but the present functioning of DRDO needs an urgent change to be in match with our foes. Will DRDO wake up as it is not like other government organisation where delay can be accepted?

Dalit Muslim...a "NEW" phrase?

I am living in Swiss for the past two years and I should admit that right from the day when I encounter fellow swiss collegues who are interested in knowing more on India and its culture, the first question they ask me "Is caste system still prelavent in India" , " Do Indian people disrespect some of their own fellow citizens" .

I usually evade such questions as I am not very clear on this issue and the history behind the caste system. Also, I grew up in a city and I have never encountered any people who discriminate others, whether be it in school or in college, so I pretty much beleived that it is just the history which still haunts us and nowadays the caste system never exists. This conclusion can be a result of my ignorance as I never lived for a long duration in a village, where many people say caste is still prevalent.

I sometimes think, if caste exist what are the reasons for its exesistence. I strongly beleive that the caste system can be viewed as a huge economic disparity across the various sections of the Indian society and this disparity is projected as the caste system.

This conclusion needs proof and a rational reasoning. Caste system as it is beleived originates from Hinduism, in various Hindu scriptures there are different mentioning of caste system whether it is Bhagavad Gita, Ramayana or various other Hindu philosophical scriptures. I am no expert in Hinduism but nevertheless many people are of the view that the Caste system mentioned in scriptures are shown out of context. I dont second it neither do I reject it.

After saying this, let us ponder over other religion Islam, Islam is an egalitarian religion, it doesnt discrimate people who follow Islam. But there was an interesting article in Indian Express on Indian Muslims. In this article the author brings out the fact that there are varoius sub-sections within Indian Muslims based on their richness. He gives stastical evidence from the Mandal commision and from the Sacchar Commitee. Due to this he wants a separate quota for the lowest strata for the Muslims, which he calls as Dalit Muslims ( PS: they are not converted from Hinduism to Musilm, they are poor Muslims).

Hence to conclude I feel that though the caste system is originated from religious teachings (needs proof :) ), the present scenario is due to the economic disparity among various sections of the society, as the caste system is also prevalent in Indian version of Islam.

Famous Lawyers......

I was very much interested in the court proceedings right from my childhood, it might be because during 85's to 90's there were several tamil movies whose climax will be held in the court.

Such court scenes are really dramatic and as in most of the Indian movies the guilty is always punished and the Truth wins. Seeing such situations from childhood makes most of the person to beleive that Truth always wins till one has hard encounters with court proceedings, after which he will start to beleive that "Truth is substituted by good lawyer".

The present famous lawyers in our countries are Ram Jeethamalani, Arun Jaitley, Kapil Sibal to name a few, these people are defense lawyers and have the ability to turnaround the case. Always reading articles on such people makes most of us to ignore about the public prosecutors who often face the maximum brunt from the convicted. Such public prosecutors are very much important to the Indian Judiciary system. But as any other government job, the financial rewards are not attractive in comparison to private practice.

Even then few people had come forward to defend the case for the Police. An article on such persons is the need of the hour, the-week published such an article on the different public prosecutors who are well known today. Have a look at the article to know about the famous Public prosecutors in our country.

Sarath Kumar and Raadika inclusion into public domain

Radhika, the teleseriel champ in TN, during the last assembly elections she and her hubby switched loyalties and joined the ADMK. As everyone knows the Raadan networks has a close tie-up with the Sun networks which is controlled by the DMK party. Everyone was hoping that from now onwards Jaya TV will get the major junk of the production of the Raadan network but last week it so happened that Radhika was expelled from ADMK party for anti-party activites.

Her husband Sarath kumar voluntarily resigned from the party position to serve the people from the public domain and also to serve the south film industry as prsently he holds some important post in the film actors association.

This development being dramatic, what was more dramatic was the way Radhika reacted to the expulsion, as quoted from the-week website, she said, "she never asked for the ADMK memebership into was inserted into her hands by the party supremo."

Now, it will be fun to see how Radaan networks switch their loyalitie, is it the law of economics which holds the sway or loyality to ADMK supremo will decide the final result?

Delhi Sealing making it a "NEW" Delhi.....

Quite sometime it was/is in news, the shops were they are built are illegal and Supreme court says it needs to be demolished. As usual the political parties took their strides and wanted to have political gain in this sealing saga.

As usual, I should say it has become common nowadays that if the Judgement is not in favour with the present political colour, the parties without blinking an eye wants to amend the constitution so that it becomes legal. Whether it be the right or left or centre etc etc..

This is the present situation in the Indian Politics, now back to issue, is it good to clean Delhi by displacing numerous venders? I read many blogs most of them are of the opinion that the venders are also equally responsible for the corruption in the bureaucracy. Even me, I dont deny this "fact", the person who gives bribes is as corrupt as person who accepts it. But presently only one side is facing the brunt of the sealing drive, I would like to see how the parties/Court take strides on the other side of the lot....

Ram Jethmalani..

I always thought such turnaround in a criminal case happens only in movies but the present Jessica Lal case will seem to prove my point wrong.

A good lawyer is really necessary to defend a case but what makes them a good lawyer. Is it just their hold on making the decisions makes them good lawyer,i.e when one takes a case to a lawyer he goes through it before accepting the case and he accepts only when he is confident that it can be defendable? But is there at all any fun if one knows a priori that he is going to win the case?

The question of good lawyer apart, the hearing of the criminal cases are always interesting. As per the rule if so and so evidence is available against a accused then he is found guilty. Now what is happening in the court is, there might be several situations that might arise which is not mentioned in the constitution and how the judge will give away the judgement? This is an interesting question and that is why I sometimes feel I should taken the profession of a typewriter in a court rather than doing all these RF stuffs.....

Physical-Mental-Spiritual-->Anarchy-Communism-Democracy

Kind of busy over a month which lead to, not spending time in important things like writing blogs :), "bird" watching and ofcourse taking a "sip" of fermented grape and a "bucket" of -OH group substances.

So, thought atleast I can start one of the things....Ok, Today the topic of discussion is, does "Democracy" is very important in present day goverement across the world or is it as "crazy" as the name sounds...

To answer the above question I would like to bring a corollary with human life. I always beleive that in anyone's life there should be equal distribution of 3 important things "Physical" action, mental and spirtual (which should not be confused with religion). A right combination of the above 3 qualities will lead to a sucess.

So does in governance, in any government the decision making process should comprise of anarchy , communism and democracy style. A favourtism towards any one style is not in the interest of the respective country.

So the answer to the question is "Democracy" alone is crazy, a right mixture of the above style is necessary and a must for the sucess of the government and inturn for the country.

Again it is "Côde de Vinci"

Now, after the TN banned the movie, it is the AP which follows the suit. And ofcourse the north esatern states. These politicians are just blood suckers, they dont mind to lick anyone, anywhere if it is to increase their vote bank.

I have quoted a passage from the news, the reason for the movie "Da Vinci Code" to be banned.

"Later in a press release, Mr. Paul Bhuyan justified the stand arguing that the minority organisations had pointed out that the film's story line attacked the very heart of the Holy Gospel destroying the divinity of Lord Jesus Christ.

It might lead to unrest among the semi-literate and illiterate rural folk following the faith, they had further warned."

Parallely there was a comparison on the movie "The Passion of the Christ", I have quoted the same below.

"A few years ago, the church had screened the movie, The Passion of the Christ for its parishioners to sensitise them about the sufferings of Jesus Christ through the very graphic images of the movie."

If one were to gain mileage from the movie like Passion of the Christ to sensitise people, the Church should also accept when the movie is against the faith.

Now its official...

As everybody knows there is a widespread protest on reservation issue. But nevertheless the government went ahead with the plan of implementing the reservation. The "intelligent" commitee have just now concluded to say "ok" for reservation.

Today I happened to read the resignation letter sent by Mr.Mehta, a knowledge commision member, who resigned recently expressing his displeasure over the "Reservation". I have posted the same here. The letter clearly brings focus on several issues.

Dear Prime Minister

I write to resign as Member-Convener of the National Knowledge Commission. I believe the Commission's mandate is extremely important, and I am deeply grateful that you gave me the opportunity to serve on it. But many of the recent announcements made by your government with respect to higher education lead me to the conclusion that my continuation on the commission will serve no useful purpose.

The Knowledge Commission was given an ambitious mandate to strengthen India's knowledge potential at all levels. We had agreed that if all sections of Indian society were to participate in and make use of the knowledge economy, we would need a radical paradigm shift in the way we thought of the production, dissemination and use of knowledge. In some ways this paradigm shift would have to be at least as radical as the economic reforms you helped usher in more than a decade ago. The sense of intellectual excitement that the commission generated stemmed from the fact that it represented an opportunity to think boldly, honestly and with an eye to posterity. But the government's recent decision (announced by Honorable Minister of Human Resource Development < http://www.indianexpress.com/story/4916._.html> on the floor of Parliament) to extend quotas for OBCs in central institutions, the palliative measures the government is contemplating to defuse the resulting agitation, and the process employed to arrive at these measures are steps in the wrong direction. They violate four cardinal principles that institutions in a knowledge based society will have to follow: they are not based on assessment of effectiveness, they are incompatible with the freedom and diversity of institutions, they more thoroughly politicise the education process, and they inject an insidious poison that will harm the nation's long-term interest.

These measures will not achieve social justice. I am as committed as anyone to two propositions. Every student must be enabled to realise his/her full potential regardless of financial or social circumstances. Achieving this aim requires radical forms of affirmative action. But the numerically mandated quotas your government is proposing are deeply disappointing, for the following reasons. First, these measures foreclose any possibility of more intelligent targeting that any sensible programme should require. For one thing, the historical claims of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and the nature of the deprivations they face are qualitatively of a different order than those faced by Other Backward Castes, at least in North India. It is plainly disingenuous to lump them together in the same narrative of social injustice and assume that the same instruments should apply to both. It is for this reason that I advocated status quo for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes until such time as better and more effective measures can be found to achieve affirmative action for them.

Some have proposed the inclusion of economic criterion: this is something of an improvement, but does not go far enough. What we needed, Honorable Prime Minister, was space to design more effective mechanisms of targeting groups that need to be targeted for affirmative action. For instance, there are a couple of well-designed deprivation indexes that do a much better job of targeting the relevant social deprivations and picking out merit. The government's action is disappointing, because you have prematurely foreclosed these possibilities. In foreclosing these possibilities the government has revealed that it cares about tokenism more than social justice. It has sent the signal that there is no room for thinking about social justice in a new paradigm.

As a society we focus on reservations largely because it is a way of avoiding doing the things that really create access. Increasing the supply of good quality institutions at all levels (not to be confused with numerical increases), more robust scholarship and support programmes will go much further than numerically mandated quotas. When you assumed office, you had sketched out a vision of combining economic reform with social justice. Increased public investment is going to be central to creating access opportunities. It would be presumptuous for me to suggest where this increased public investment is going to come from, but there are ample possibilities: for instance, earmarking proceeds from genuine disinvestment for education will do far more for access than quotas. We are not doing enough to genuinely empower marginalised groups, but are offering condescending palliatives like quotas as substitute. All the measures currently under discussion are to defuse the agitation, not to lay the foundations for a vibrant education system. If I may borrow a phrase of Tom Paine's, we pity the plumage, but forget the dying bird.

Second, the measures your government is contemplating violate the diversity principle. Why should all institutions in a country the size of India adopt the same admissions quotas? Is there no room at all for different institutions experimenting with different kinds of affirmative action policies that are most appropriate for their pedagogical mission? How will institutions feel empowered? How will creativity in social justice programmes be fostered, if we continue with a "one size fits all" approach? Could it not be that some state institutions follow numerically mandated quotas, while others are left free to devise their own programmes? The government's announcement is deeply disappointing because it reinforces the cardinal weakness of the Indian system: all institutions have to be reduced to the same level.

Third, and related to diversity, is the question of freedom. As an academic I find it to be an appalling spectacle when a group of ministers is empowered to come up with admissions policies, seat formulas for institutions across the country. While institutions have responsibilities and are accountable to society, how will they ever achieve excellence and autonomy if basic decisions like who they should teach, what they should teach, how much they should charge are uniformly mandated by government diktat? As you know, more than anyone else, the bane of our education institutions is that politicians feel free to hoist any purpose they wish upon them: their favourite ideology, their preferred conception of social justice, their idea of representativeness, or their own men and women. Everything else germane to a healthy academic life and effective pedagogy becomes subordinate to these purposes. Concerned academics risked a good deal, battling the previous government's instrumental use of educational institutions for ideological purposes. Though your objectives are different, your government is sending a similar message about our institutions: in the final analysis, they are playthings for politicians to mess around with. Nations are not built by specific programmes, they are built by healthy institutions, and the process by which your government is arriving at its decisions suggests contempt for the autonomy and integrity of academic life. Your government has reinforced the very paradigm of the state's relations with educational institutions that has weakened us.

In this process, the arguments that have been coming from your government are plainly disingenuous. It is true that a constitutional amendment was hastily passed to overturn the effects of the Inamdar decision. At the time I had written that the decision was property rights decision that was trying to unshackle private institutions from an overbearing state. But since the state had already displaced its responsibilities to the private sector it decided that the ramifications of Inamdar would be too onerous and passed a constitutional amendment. One can quibble over whether this amendment was justified or not. But even in its present form it is only an enabling legislation. It does not require that every public institution has numerically mandated quotas for OBCs. To hear your government consistently hiding behind the pretext of the constitutional amendment is yet another example of how we are foreclosing the fine distinctions that any rigorous approach to access and excellence requires.

Finally, I believe that the proposed measures will harm the nation's vital interests. It is often said that caste is a reality in India. I could not agree more. But your government is in the process of making caste the only reality in India. Instead of finding imaginative solutions to allow us to transcend our own despicable history of inequity, your government is ensuring that we remain entrapped in the caste paradigm. Except that now by talking of OBCs and SC/STs in the same narrative we are licensing new forms of inequity and arbitrariness.

The Knowledge Economy of the twenty-first century will require participation of all sections of society. When we deprive any single child, of any caste, of relevant opportunities, we mutilate ourselves as a society and diminish our own possibilities. But, as you understand more than most, globalisation requires us to think of old objectives in new paradigms: the market and competition for talent is global, institutions need to be more agile and nimble, and there has to be creativity and diversity of institutional forms if a society is to position itself to take advantage the Knowledge Economy. I believe that the measures your government is proposing will inhibit achieving both social justice and economic well-being.

I write this letter with a great deal of regret. In my colleagues on the Knowledge Commission you will find a group that is unrivalled in its dedication, commitment and creativity, and I hope you will back them in full measure so that they can accomplish their mission in other areas. I assure you that the commission's functioning will suffer no logistical harm on account of my departure.

I recognise that in a democracy one has to respectfully accede to the decisions of elected representatives. But I also believe that democracies are ill-served if individuals do not frankly and publicly point out the perils that certain decisions may pose for posterity. I owe it to public reason to make my reasons for resigning public. I may be wrong in my judgment about the consequences of your government's decisions, but at this juncture I cannot help concluding that what your government is proposing poses grave dangers for India as a nation. On this occasion I cannot help thinking about the anxieties of a man who knew a thing or two about constitutional values, who was more rooted in politics than any of us can hope to be, and who understood the distinction between statesmanship and mere politics: Jawaharlal Nehru. He wrote, "So these external props, as I may call them, the reservations of seats and the rest, may possibly be helpful occasionally, but they produce a false sense of political relation, a false sense of strength, and, ultimately therefore, they are not so nearly important as real educational, cultural and economic advance which gives them inner strength to face any difficulty or opponent." Since your government continues to abet a politics of illusion, I cannot serve any useful purpose by continuing on the Knowledge Commission under such circumstances.

Mehta

Though the government didnt change its stand, the protest are not completely useless. The issue of reservation has brought a new set of people into the arena of Politics, who till now were complacent on the National issues, they are none other than the student community. This community have the physical strength and the mental ability and are more impulsive then any other segment of the society.

The Indian politicians have lit the fire on this vast till now mute community. Days are not far before the fire engulfs them......

Does reservation really help?

I happened to read the transcript of Mr.Arjun Singh interview in Devil`s advocate.

The answers which he gave is truly appalling. Even the basic question of why there should be reservation, is not clearly answered.

HRD minister, a politician in his late 80s is stammering to the basic question. The main point which he brings to focus is, people who belong to backward community are way behind the race and hence he says reservation is the only way to get them into the forward foot.

My question is, are OBCs really backward that they need this quota system in place? Atleast in TN (a decent performing state in India), the place where I come from, if this rule is implemented, then around 60% of the population will be entitled to use this quota.

Most people agree to the below facts

• The present quota is introduced for increasing thier vote bank.
• Reservation for SC/STs has not done much to the real people who deserve it.
• And not even a single politician has come forward to address, when they are planning to get rid of reservation.

A amicable soultion for the upliftment of the people who really need it without compromising the standard of the presitigious institution is the need for the hour....

Will the present day politicians would be able to give an answer, only time has to tell.......

Is this what is called as Globalization?

This morning I had a call from my parents. My mom who is usually not bothered much about the social affires suprisingly said she is worried about the fall in BSE index yesterday.

Thats when I realized the deep impact of globalization in India. The credit should go to the present PM of India Dr.Manmohan Singh supposedly the pricipal architect of Indian economy.

Dude you took Indians to the global arena....

Genghis Khan-A Great Warrior -----> Present Day Indian Politics

Yesterday I read an article about the "Genghis Khan- A Great Warrior" on National Geographic magazine.

I will digress about some of the facts that happened to be interesting for me about Genghis Khan, from a phisophical point of view. Though I should caution the reader that I am not a great philosopher, yet I take this oppurtunity to use my meagre wit in philosophy to do a comparison.

Genghis Khan was a great warrior during the 12th century. Any king showing a slight hint of opposition will be vanquished. He conquered the whole of central asia from China to the start of eastern europe. He looted all the wealth of the kingdoms which he conquered. He didnt leave any people to survive neither the king nor the people who were in the Kingdom which he conquered.

Now after giving a "brief note" on the formidable Genghis Khan, the question is "How come, such a great country Mongolia which gave a Great warrior Genghis Khan is now not even spoken about in the present day world ?".

"The biggest conquest in human history are those of the Mongols in the thirteenth century, which were primarily due to the influence of Genghis Khan. These conquests, however, though more extensive than those of the Arabs, did not prove permanent, and today the only areas occupied by the Mongols are those that they held prior to the time of Genghis Khan."

--- Michael H. Hart's on "list of the most influential people in history"

It is a tough question to answer, though one might give several reasons from a economic point of view, I feel Genghis Khan- the king never understood what are the duties of a king, though to conquer a kingdom and winning a battle with tactics is an important task for a king, more to that it is more important to win the hearts of the people in the land which he conquered.

Genghis Khan on the contray was more involved in killing the people in foreign land. The statistics on the number of people he would have killed was astounding. He never bothered about the value of life. People who survived such attacks often quote "Blood flowed everywhere after he rampaged the kingdom".

Thus, though he was a great warrior of yester years, he often misunderstood the duties of a king. He failed to win the hearts of the people which he conquered, leading to eventual failure of the Great Mongolian Kingdom----The Present day Mongolia.The act of barbarism lead to an eventual failure of the kingdom as fast as it grew.

What relavence this story has in Indian politics, the main aim for any political body should be to win the hearts of the people through ethical means. Even if you succed in acheiving the throne by other means but in a long term the party is bound to fall.

One might say, this is a common logic and everyone knows about it....what is new in it? The answer is, the things which seems to be very common are the ones which are totally forgotten to be implemented.

Election Results in TN - A Review

Everbody knows that the real winner in TN elections was not JJ or MK, it was V. The reasons will be clear later. Before going into details about Mr.V faction, a small prologue about the EC and the activities which it had carried out during this election.

In the recent elections the EC website had extensive details on the list of candidates who are contesting and their material possesions. Everything were available in the website, you had to click the constituency and then the details of the list of candiates who had filed thier nominations and their movable and immovable properties which were declared by the candiadates are shown. This was really amazing and for sure I can say that EC is/was doing good work.

Now after saying this, what was very surprising and interesting was the fact that the EC gives details on the vote secured by each candidate. Though this information was available earlier, to make a comparsion between different parties in a state was not that easy. Now with this information, a party can easily make out their + and - ives. From this information, it was widely spoken that in TN, the clear winner was Mr.Vijakanth faction and not the dravidian parties.

This is mainly beacuse, his party came 3rd in most of the constituencies keeping other bigger parties (in some cases DMK, ADMK, BJP!!!!) at bay.

Ok, after saying this that the clear winner was Mr.V, the interesting question is "How his party managed to contest in all 240 seats (to contest in all constituencies, there should be atleast 50-100 crores) when not even a single party in TN, even the dravidian party was not able to do that?"

This question always disturbs me....Before the "time" leads us to the answer, let me express what I think about this..(the next few sentences are opinion of my own) What if, Mr.V and MK felt that Mr.V party will separate the vote bank of AIADMK and not of DMK. So, there can be chances that MK and Mr.V had a secret pact and MK funded Mr.V and made him to contest in all constituencies and thereby AIADMK vote was split, making the DMK & Co winner.

So the conclusion is MK might have given money to Mr.V leading to the split in ADMK vote bank. There are high chances that this might have happened, as to contest in all constituencies for a fresh party is next to impossible unless he is "Sultan of Brunei". To make people work for him and spending money for party cadres is very much necessary to keep the party alive.

Da Vinci Code

After a long time, I cant prevent this from happening. Yes..I started to write my blog on my favorite subject--The Politics (atleast for now).

This happened because back in India, the politics is reaching new lows. After reading the "Da Vinci Code News", I was really frustrated on the way the scenario is seen in India.

The author of Da Vinci Code is a Christain and the producer/director/actor of the movie are Christians and above all, Italy supposedly the heaven for Roman Catholics didnt restrict the movie. Why on earth are these Indian Politicians making a fuss about it? A question where you cant find an answer...but atleast for now one can say.. "Height of Minority appeasement"