Sri Padmanabha temple at Thiruvananthapuram has suddenly shot into the public eye and national limelight. So id it surprising that politicians, media, westernised Indians, rationalists and many other ill-wishers are all jostling for space.
The treasure by seems enormous, ancient and priceless. One can imagine some extra-ordinary items that represent the wealth of the royalty of those times and a peek into the richness, grandeur and culture of the time it represents.
The key question is.....This is wealth in terms of assets. Where is the money??? Seriously, does somebody believe that this treasure should be sold and the cash used for some ill-advised welfare programme with the inevitable stink of corruption tagging along.
Let us celebrate our rich legacy and preserve it for generations that will follow, to admire and learn from this amazing treasure and not squander it away.
Missiles, guns and robotic bomb-disposal units will be deployed in and around Mohali ahead of the diplomacy-laced India-Pak cricket encounter.
Thus screams
TOI and other main stream media.
What are our leaders expecting?
When the match ends tomorrow, with no unpleasant incidents (let us all pray!), either India or Pakistan will win.
If Pakistan wins, will they arrest LeT founder Hafiz Muhammad Saeed or hand over to India the wanted
terrorists?
And if Pakistan loses, does it mean they secure the right to export more terrorists? After all, we hurt them again did we not?
Has the whole nation gone bonkers over cricket or is it only me?
With the courts burdened with cases, the aam aadmi seems to have ran out of patience due to delays and adjournments. "Tareekh pe Tareekh" is the common experience for those who need to seek justice in Indian Courts.
Not surprisingly, this 60-something Anil Tikotekar sent a cheque for Rs. 20000/- seeking one hour of the court's time. Not a big sum of money considering the difficulties he faced commuting to the court each time. But he had to apologise to the court and withdraw the letter.
Read about it here.
Which political party in India needs to read this over and over again??
Media hates Modi.Political parties hate Modi.
Why do we accept mediocre and not better governance?
let us CHANGE INDIA for INDIA OF TOMORROW.
Transport Minister Kamal Nath said on Monday that in the current fiscal year, India will build only 12/13 km of road per day, in place of the target of 20 km per day.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said that building infrastructure will be crucial for India to achieve a growth rate of 10 percent in the next few years.One wonders how India will be able to build up this infrastructure when so many km of built roads are regularly being dug up.
June 2009-
The Maoists and their tribal supporters dug up roads.... to prevent the security forces from advancing.Sept. 2009-
the PSBJC supporters have reverted to their earlier method of protesting — digging up roads and felling trees across them . It seems to be an exercise in futility, building roads only to have them dug up!
According to Home Ministry figures,
the number of foreigners overstaying in India in 2008 was more than 65,000. The related figures for 2009 are not yet available.
Minister of state for home affairs Mullappally Ramachandran told the Lok Sabha Tuesday that foreign nationals found overstaying in India had "entered into the country on valid travel documents".These 65,000 foreign nationals include 31,200 from Bangladesh, 14,500 from Afghanistan and 7,500 from Pakistan.
Out of these, only 13,995 were found and deported. The rest are presumably still at large somewhere in India.
"Certain instances of some illegal immigrants having obtained voter identity cards, ration cards and driving licences through fraudulent means have been reported," Ramachandran said.One wonders why we bother to guard our borders at all!
Not surprised though...Read for
yourself:
"In an instance of shocking apathy, a sub-inspector of Tamil Nadu Police, brutally attacked by a gang in Tirunelveli district, bled to death as his cry for help went in vain even after two ministers with their convoy stopped by and saw his plight.
44-year old Vetrivel, who was a member of the Special Task Force that gunned down forest brigand Veerappan in 2004, lay in a pool of blood with his leg severed and begged for help after the attack by the gang at Alwarkuruchi shortly before the ministerial convoy was to pass by last evening, eyewitnesses said.
Health Minister M R K Panneerselvam and Youth and Sports Development Mohideen Khan, along with officials, including the District Collector, halted their convoy on seeing the profusely bleeding police official battling for life on the road.
Eyewitnesses said Vetrivel was screaming for help but did not get assistance in time from the ministers and accompanying officials."
Former Haryana police chief S.P.S.Rathore has been handed down a
6 month sentence for sexually molesting a 14 year old girl in 1990. Reason given: prolonged trial and his age.
There are some who still argue that our judiciary is unbiased. Give me a break!
All this time I was under the impression that the marriageable age for girls was 18 and that child marriages were illegal - I was wrong. Apparently, under the Hindu Marriage Act, child marriages are considered valid unless one of the parties moves court and gets such a marriage annulled.
Lawmakers changed laws when it suited them without seeing the whole picture. The disparities regarding the age of a minor girl under different laws such as the Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929, the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code, Shariat law, the Indian Divorce Act, 1869, and the Juvenile Justice Act, 2000 have created a lot of confusion in enforcing the law. The Centre now wants to rectify this and is considering making child marriages invalid.
About time, I say.
Cultural activists are fighting back as Hindi and English strengthen grip.
Classrooms at the Adivasi Academy in western India echo to the speech patterns of languages that may soon become no more than a meaningless jumble of noises. Kukna, Panchmahali and Rathvi are just three of dozens of tribal Indian tongues taught at the academy, which was set up in 1996 in an attempt to preserve the country's indigenous cultures.
[Link]Language is for communication. The more universally we can communicate, the more dynamic our cultures will be, because the more they will be open to new ideas. If the language group is very small then the group's survival depends on its ability to learn a more widely spoken language. I think what the activists are doing is admirable but for Indians to thrive, it is important for people to speak multiple languages including prominent ones like Hindi and English.
What do you think?
Traffic light ko dhak diya to kya hua, mera kaam to ho gaya...
This can happen only in India...
Hollywood starlet and party girl Lindsay Lohan has saved 40 Indian children in one day - at least that's what she claims in her tweets. The blonde beauty is in India shooting a documentary with BBC on trafficking of women and children.
Perhaps sensing skepticism, she explained in a tweet, "I''m only one person. Let''s not start judging and looking for negatives that don''t exist."
It's not clear how she saved these wretched third world children. Me thinks she probably flashed her snow white teeth, flicked her blonde hair and waved her perfectly manicured hands at them thus making them think she's a Goddess which in turn motivated and empowered them to turn their lives around.
While searching the net to know the significance of MM Singh’s US visit, I landed on this
page and the supposed five-pillars.
1.Strategic cooperation that includes arms sales, joint military exercises and cooperation in combating maritime piracy off the coast of Somalia. (American companies are competing for contracts worth up to $18bn)
2. Energy and climate change(India currently emits about 4% of the world’s greenhouse gases)
3.Economics, trade and agriculture.(Two-way trade with India was about $5 bn -1990, rose to $14 bn-200,nearly $50 bn-2008, according to U.S. trade statistics.)
4.Cooperation in education (higher education sector will open up to greater foreign investment)
5.Cooperation in science and technology($30 million science and technology endowment to be used for joint r&d, innovation, and commercialization.)
Hopefully we shall also hear MM Singh say that Pakistan needs to stop exporting terror etc..
Govt in Maharashtra is now going to be in place, 16 days after the results were announced. The delay was mainly due to portfolio allotment.
Justified.
In junior school, they used to recite a story, something on these lines.
A dacoit from Chambal used to be very popular amongst his gang members. So he was called chief.
After every decoity, he used to keep a major part of the loot and the rest was equally divided amongst his gang members.
Chief bhi khush-- toli bhi khush....Gaon wale dukhi.
Also at times, two gangs would get together if the expected loot was big.
I am not suggesting anything, except that let us start reading school days stories again.
When will we have someone to govern rather than rule this country?
Let us CHANGE INDIA for INDIA OF TOMORROW.
B k chowla
"Manushya kadi balwaan nahi
Samaya sub se balwaan
Kaabe Arjuna lutiyo
Wahi dhanush wahi baan"
"Men (people or nations) are not dominant. Time is. A time will come when the invincible Arjun will be robbed by a common robber, despite the unbreakable Gandiva and the inexhaustible quiver."
A bankrupt India had to ship planeloads of its gold reserves to London to get emergency IMF loans in 1991, because of the economic policies followed by Nehru and Indira Gandhi. It was after this that India started opening up its economy. Although the process is not complete, look where it has brought us.
India recently purchased 200 tonnes of gold from the IMF at a record average price of $1045 per ounce, spending USD 6.7 billions of its forex reserves and sending gold to its highest ever price recorded in open markets.
A new P. Chidambaram has emerged.
Yesterday at Madurai, Chidambaram, at a public meeting warned Pak of any further adventures and said that Mumbai 26/11 should be the last and if there is another 6/11,we will give fitting reply,A crushing
BRAVO....Chidambaram we love you and your guts.
After ages, India is seeing a Home Minister who is serious about his portfolio and knows his job.
Only if we have elected representatives like Chidambaram, this country can go a long way. Such ministers give the citizens a sense of security, sense of belonging, sense of involvement.
Let us wish Chidambaram good luck with a hope that we will see more of him and also other ministers also take their jobs more seriously.
Good luck Chidambaram.
let us CHANGE INDIA for INDIA OF TOMORROW.
Hundreds of expats have found that the severe economic crisis in rich nations can be turned into an opportunity in India.
Master chef James Sullivan who lost his job in Chicago, has set up a restaurant, 'Bread of Life' in Varanasi to cater to foreign tourists. He is now planning to expand to Lucknow and Delhi.
For Californian John Howard, language was no hindrance as he started selling solar powered LED lights in UP villages. Filipino Emma Trinidad launched a spa, S2, in Bangalore a year ago and is planning to expand to other cities.
Despite red tape, expats are finding their place under the Indian sun.
Sociologist KK Mishra says this is a dream that only the US once promised. “
You can achieve the American Dream here, give your kids a decent education and live a good life.”
Our ex-Minister and MP Shahnawaz Husaain has been denied visa by the US embassy.
Media seems to be taking pride in criticising and making this as an issue of the American policy.
America has a policy on security and don’t have the VIP culture that we are diseased with.
America has not had a single terror attack since 9/11 because of their being serious about country’s security.
In India, we have lost count of the terror attacks we have faced one after the other.
Instead of criticising the US for being strict on issuance of Visas and security checks, let us learn from them. Let us also become self respecting and security conscious nation. America is a proud and a secure, safe nation.
One minister had suggested tit for tat to the Americans. Ms Minister, please act on your statement.
China's assertion that Arunachal Pradesh is a part of that country has hit the headlines again. But this claim is not new at all.
Kiren Rijiju, a former MP from the state, says that well before the debacle of 1962, Mao Zedong had termed Tibet as the palm of a hand and Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Sikkim, Nepal and Bhutan as five fingers which were Chinese Territories and needed to be liberated. Another Himalayan Blunder is in the making, he says, as India is doing little more than verbally rejecting China's claims while the latter is furiously developing Tibet etc.
China, for example, has built a railway line in Tibet despite permafrost conditions, while India has not added a single kilometer to the railway line built in Arunachal by the British.
The full article, available only
here, is an eye-opener.
