How often have we seen those accusing others of doing something doing the same thing themselves?
Mayawati has for long been under fire from the Congress for putting up statues of dalit leaders, including herself, in UP. But now, the Congress party is all set to to outdo Mayawati who has only
six statues of herself in Lucknow.
As per Health Minister Danam Nagender,
at least 30 statues of YSR Reddy are going to be installed in Hyderabad alone. Not hard to imagine how many more will come up in the rest of the state. This is on top of a
massive 1,412 hectare memorial that is being set up in Nallamalla forest where Reddy died in a helicopter crash.
At this rate, India will soon be filled with statues and memorials of politicians. What a shame.
Although Samuel Huttinton's theory of the Clash of Civilisations included all civilisations, his reasoning was straightforward mainly when he spoke about it in the historical context of Islam and Chrisitianity seeking to convert and believing that theirs was the only correct religion.
Huttington also foresaw a shift of power from the West to two 'challenger civilisations', Chinese and Islamic. At that time India's rapid economic growth and rise was not visible.
According to Chinese philospher Hu Shi, India has conquered and dominated China for 20 centuries. But now China is on course to becoming the greatest power on earth. India's rise makes it uncomfortable. There will, however, never be a clash of civilisation between them.
A Competiton of Civilisations, a tussle between ying and yang, is what is likely to ensue between these great nations which can co-exist in harmony.
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China and India: Competition of Civilisations
The Congress in Uttar Pradesh has done something unbelievably stupid.
It has opened online membership to NRIs
with a fee of Rs 3. Someone surely must believe that NRIs wanting to join the Congress have to be really poor. Worse, rather than getting those three rupees, the party is actually losing Rs 65 per member. Paypal is charging Rs 68 for collecting the paltry membership fee!
Thankfully, only 347 applications have been receive online so far. For a party used to receiving money, this has come as shock. So, it is exploring options with private banks. One bank has quoted Rs 5 per transaction if it gets Rs 25,000 as a one-time payment and Rs 10,000 as annual maintenance fees.
The Congress must offer free membership. New Congressmen need to learn early on that in Indian politics, everything comes free!
"Democracy is built on the oft-tarnished ideal that any man or woman can get elected, but in India ... political dynasties, large and small, have proliferated so rapidly that ... nepotism is corroding the political system.” This is what an article in The New York Times says about India's democracy. There is more:
There are 1050 registered parties, but most have no inner-party democracy
9/32 Union Cabinet Ministers have political family links
31/58 women Parliamentarians have similar links
30 or more candidates in Maharashtra, including the son of India's President, are from political families.
“It has gotten into the DNA of the Indian political system,” says Jagdeep Chhokar, because politicians “trust family members more than outsiders”. Ordinary party workers are being shut out.
Is this democracy any more?
Picture: The New York Times
Bombay was renamed Mumbai in 1996 by a non-Congres government. Thirteen years later, that decision is still being milked to death politically by some sections of the media with a barely concealed motive.
The same lot is also extremely troubled when Mayawati constructs dalit memorials but inexplicably loses its voice when the Congress proposes a Rs 350 crore Shivaji Memorial and names the Sea Link after Rajiv Gandhi. It also has nothing to say when full and half-page ads are put out in leading dailies on Rajiv Gandhi's birthday. What about the 450 government activities named after Nehru, Indira and Rajiv? Or the naming of numerous prime landmarks in Delhi after them?
If these guys have their way, Delhi will surely be renamed 'Nehrauli' and India 'Gandhistan'. Bombay? How about 'Rahulbay' after a few years?
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Do read:
Politically milking 'Mumbai'
The rest of the world may be suffering due to the effects of global warming, but Ladakh is reaping the benefits of the plantation drive launched by the Defence Institute of High Altitude Research.
Oxygen content in the air has
gone up by 50% in this around 12,000 feet high altitude desert due the abundance of poplar and willow trees, wheat cultivation, horticulture and greenhouses. These have also brought in rain for the first time.
Earlier Ladakh used to depend on Chandigarh for its supply of vegetables. Now, 58% of the requirement is met locally. With the help of scientists and local farmers, 13 types of apples have been produced and there are plans to undertake organised plantation of vitamin rich Seabuckthorn, Leh Berry, that grows wildly.
Plan a trip. The days of gasping for breath there are over.
The statement by Sheik of al-Azhar University, Egypt, that
niqab or face veil has nothing to do with Islam has angered Islamists in that country who say it is part of a larger plan to de-Islamise Egypt. A majority of scholars, however, feel that the niqab is a pre-Islamic custom followed by tribal and nomadic communities living in the Arabian desert. Al-Azhar university has, in fact, gone a step further and banned the niqab in all-women classes.
It may be recalled that a few months back, the Uttar Pradesh Madrassa board had
banned co-education in madrassas on the ground that parda (veil) is essential in Islam and co-education encourages 'be-pardagi'.
Is it a coincidence that in every religion there are discriminatory social customs that have been given a religious cloak? Surely God has better things to do!
The recent rains and floods in Karnataka have killed over 200 people, damaged around 300,000 houses, destroyed crops in 25 lakh hectares, washed away bridges and damaged over 10,000 km length of roads. The government has estimated the loss at around Rs. 20,000 crore and sought immediate central assistance of Rs. 10,000 crore.
The people of the state are responding generously to help those affected by this calamity. Within two days of the state government opening a special bank account for donations, a
whopping Rs 500 crores have been deposited by the people.
Chief Minister BS Yediurappa too was overwhelmed by the response of people who jostled to hand over foodgrains, blankets sarees and cash when he went through Bangalore's commercial hub to seek their help. He has appealed to corporates to adopt villages to rebuild them, apart from contributing funds.
The Government of India
has declared the river dolphin as the National Aquatic Animal. Minister of State for Environment and Forests, Jairam Ramesh said that "
by doing this the government was not only ensuring the survival of the species, which are endemic to the Ganga, but also sought to cleanse the river".Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who moved this proposal,
has instructed the state authorities to halt dolphin hunting in the Ganga. He has said that the presence of river dolphin signified a healthy aquatic life in rivers. There are less than 2000 dolphins left in Indian rivers- mainly in the Ganga- and the river dolphin is categorised as an endangered species.
Only time will tell, whether the Ganga can be successfully cleansed, and the river dolphin saved from extinction.
A team of five Indian doctors from the Sunrise Institute of Medical Sciences, Kochi, Kerala, lead by Dr Hafeez Rehman, have
removed a 4.9 kg uterus from an unnamed 46-year old woman.
As per the Guinness Book of World Records, the heaviest uterus ever removed weighs 3.2 kgs. The doctors have already sent details of their September 29 feat for inclusion in the book.
What makes this surgery even more significant is that this fibroid non-cancerous tumor that resembled a full-term pregnancy of 36 weeks, was removed in just 28 minutes with minimum blood loss using laproscopic hysterectomy. The lady was discharged for the hospital in 24 hours and has resumed work.
The uterus is being preserved in the pathological lab of the hospital for professional reference.
STOCKHOLM - Americans Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas Steitz and Israeli Ada Yonath won the 2009 Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday for mapping ribosomes, the protein-producing factories within cells, at the atomic level.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said their work has been fundamental to the scientific understanding of life and has helped researchers develop antibiotic cures for various diseases.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33204831/ns/technology_and_science-science/
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As the name suggests...Venkatraman Ramakrishnan is an Indian but it needed America to make him shine....and also to claim his success...
Indians have the brains, the will and determination but yet the factor for success is missing..
The Delhi Metro is making a big difference and the city proud, thanks to Mr E Sreedharan.
The cost of construction of Phase-1 was Rs 10,571 crores. The value of social and economic benefits like passenger time saved, fuel cost saved, reduction in capital/operating cost of vehicles, will be Rs 10,801.64 crores by March 2012, helping recover the cost two years ahead of schedule.
Here are
some impressive statistics according to a CRRI study:
Daily ridership up to 8.5 lakhs/day
57, 953 vehicles off the roads daily
255 accidents, including 51 fatalities to be avoided in 2009
Commuters saving Rs 947.07 crores annually due to reduced time of travel and Rs 180.89 crores due to fuel
Emission of harmful greenhouse gases reduced by 1,31,614 tonnes/year
Similar Metros are needed in other cities too.
North India is contributing 5% to the total rise in sea levels due to excessive pumping out of ground water, according to a study.
In this 2000 km long stretch,
54 trillion litres of ground water are extracted every year. This is the largest rate of groundwater loss in a comparable-sized region on earth, and is likely to cause serious concern over future water availability in the region.
This water eventually reaches the sea through rainfall or runoff from the land, leading to 0.16mm rise in sea level. This is roughly equivalent to the rise due to melting Alaskan glaciers.
A study should also be done on the amount of water that is being prevented from reaching the sea due to diversion of river waters for irrigation, drinking etc. There may well be no net rise in sea level!
Remember how Amitabh Bachchan's life was saved by his coolie's badge, bearing the holy number 786, in that all time classic film 'Deewar'?
Something equally, if not more dramatic, has happened in real life. Krishna Shetty, a video parlour owner in Mumbai, was saved from certain
death by a much smaller five-rupee coin.
Shetty used to be taunted by his friends and relatives for his queer habit of putting his wallet in his shirt pocket.
On Thursday, as he was sitting outside the parlour with a friend, three motorcycle-borne people shot at them. One bullet hit Shetty in the stomach. The other that was headed straight for the heart, hit the five-rupee coin in his wallet, which was mangled by the impact, and fell harmlessly on the ground.
Credit cards or a 'pain-in-the-arse' wallet would not have saved Shetty!
There was an interesting news report in DNA yesterday, according to which, "The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking plans to have bus-stops in Mumbai named after you, at a stiff price, of course."
The right to name a particular bus stop will go to the highest bidder at an auction which will be held for the purpose.
This proposal, if passed, promises to open up some very interesting possibilities.
Local leaders in political parties will be eager to grab the rights to bus stops in their area- either to name them after themselves, or after their political bosses.
If a political party worker buys the rights to a particular bus stop, names it after a leader and then switches parties- then of course he will have to rename it!
President Pratibha Patil is making the most of her position.
Getting the
Congress party to field her son for elections was nothing. By the time she demits office, she would have set many dubious records that will almost erase the concept of probity in public life.
In these times when the government is faking austerity, the President is living life 'emperor size'. She is currently on a five-day visit – holiday – to Gujarat. And enjoying the fruits of her position are
117 relatives who have joined her as she visits Somnath, Porbandar, Gir and Dwarka.
Don't be surprised if Rashtrapati Bhavan responds by saying that the President reduced the number of relatives by over 200 due to the drought conditions preveailing in the country.
Will she pay from her pocket like Tharoor and Krishna? You know the answer.
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Today is Gandhi Jayanti. Last year, a rare recording of a speech made by Mahatma Gandhi in English had surfaced. It is rare mainly because, believe it or not, he was recorded speaking in English on only two occasions. These days, on the other hand, some Indians born and bred in India's capital find it hard to speak in any other language except English.
This speech was made a day after Gandhi offered the post of Prime Minister to Jinnah and only a few months before his assassination.
Read more about the speech and find the link to listen to it
here.
Anand Prakash Sharma, an independent candidate contesting elections from Karnal in Haryana has put the Election Comission in a spot. He wants to be
allotted 'condom' as his election symbol. Sharma has been working for the cause of sex workers and AIDS awareness and finds it odd that the EC does not realise the importance of including 'condom' in the list of symbols.
Considering that advertisements on prime time have been showing men and women saying 'condom' loudly in public to an applause, the hesitation of the EC in allowing it to be pictorially depicted is not understood.
May be the EC is worried about where things could quickly lead to: animated discussions in TV studios with 'experts' illuminating a backward nation and EC about the graphic art on temple walls and the fact that we even worship the phallus!
Auto sales are zooming. As a result, the top eight financiers disbursed loans worth a
record Rs 3,400 crores in September, 25% more than the average disbursements during the previous four months.
A combination of low interest rates, easier availability of finance and a spate of new launches by car companies seems to have turned the tide after consumer sentiment was badly effected following the financial crisis in the US and the resultant slowdown in India's economy.
While these figures do suggest, along with other indicators, that the economy is poised to accelerate, perhaps one factor that has contributed to this unusual spurt in auto sales is the Pay Commission effect. How much of it is one time, thanks to hefty arrears, and recurring, due to the sharp rise in salaries, will be only known in the next few months.
