Imagine being one of the 37 passengers on a Greyhound bus travelling in Canada while one of your co-passenger calmly stabs another about 40 times before decapitating him. It surely would not be comfortable place to be in. A couple of months earlier, a Tomohiro Katō unleashed fury with his dagger in the busy Electric town of Akihabara in Tokyo eventually killing 7 people and injuring another 12. Both the attackers were arrested by the police eventually but had this been India, I wonder how this would have ended. I also have my doubts if Kato would have managed to carry on his rampage for so long.

Lynching of criminals is a growing concern in India, or is it? The people of Bihar seems to be OK with it, given the fact that even the policemen there have been caught on camera punching and kicking a chain-snatcher on the streets. Delhi and Mumbai too gets its fair share of mob justice.

Lynching seems directly proportional to the crime rate of the state. Furthermore, it would be safe to assume that Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujarat is one of the promoters of this summary justice, looking at the controversy of Sohrabuddin Sheikh. You tell me, how many Indian movies have you seen when in the end the bad guy does not get his ass kicked?

Coming back to the point, even though we might blame our Judicial system or the law-enforcing agencies as the primary reason for mob fury but it’s not just about justice. If the crowd at Akihabara or group of people inside the Greyhound had intervened, maybe some innocent lives could have been saved. I am not advocating the idea of Extra-Judicial punishment but there are times when the so called mob is salutary. Post Akihabara massacre, 12 more people have been arrested who have stated their intention to follow the steps of Kato. The Police of Japan surely seems to be on an alert, but are the people of Japan?

Via CBCCA

427 TV channels in India!!! Or so the TAM guy says. That is not the only fact to be thrown your way dear reader. While people criticize print media for selling out big time news space to rich advertisers, they seem to overlook the shortcomings of the news channels they so like to depend on. Hear hear, apparently a Hindi news channel has been a running 19 minutes of advertising in a 30-minute prime time slot. WHAT??? I know this must be the word coming out of your mouth. Wondering where the news went between the breaks.

I mean you cannot just crucify one media group when there are others who have very tartly played with the 19-11 edit-ad ratio to a 17-13 at primetime by bringing back recognised faces. Also 33 per cent of the ticker space at prime time is sold to ads, a phenomenon that BBC and CNN are totally unaware of!
And IBN7 is currently obsessed with aliens. There is nothing newsworthy unless it is other worldly. I mean talking about images from space that show the faces of Hindu gods and Mahatma Gandhi is like what??? Then there was the news report on Area 51, as if it was something new. What’s up with the news guys…….?

Via PressTalk

Ram Gopal Varma’s latest film ‘Contact’ that shares its plot with the Ahmedabad blasts, opens with the quote, ‘you may ignore terrorism but terrorism won’t ignore you’. Yes, isn’t that what our attitude is! As long as we know it is not harming any of our near and dear ones, do we really ever care? Not only do we listen to the news with a lazy ear but also continue with our reckless ways. Oh c’mon, who are we kidding here? We are responsible for spreading terrorism. Don’t we always like to play truant with the law? Get passports made by bribing whoever it is that finds information conflicting your interests? Don’t we lie to the law with a straight face? Have we forgotten all about the unlicensed cars? I mean this is not the entire list of ways how we play with the law in our country; if I tried giving every detail I may probably exhaust at least ten 10 blog posts. Little do we realise that our playing hide and seek with rules laid by the law enforcing bodies in our country spell danger for US!

See laws are there to provide obstacles to illegal activities. But our encouragement of thuggishness proves to be a magic wand for terrorists. They can get away with their misdeeds because we do not help the police and other law enforcing bodies to maintain a safe, abiding by the law environment. Are we anywhere close to getting there?

Via IBNLive

This is the classic debate between print media and blogging that has been going on for a long time now. It’s amusing to see how columnist Chris Watson describes his plight as his role at the 150-years old daily newspaper called Santa Cruz Sentinel in California seems to be ‘evolving’. Looks like after enjoying the warmth of a good and comfortable readership, Watson got a rude shock when he was asked to contribute on contract basis and was given less column-inch space to write in. Well, the dude leaves a smile on your face when he ends his article (please read ON A BLOGSITE) with a very cheeky ‘Got any writing jobs? Contact me’.

Hey, it is not the end of a generation. C’mon, agreed that blogs are THE big thing today and stalwarts like filmmaker Shekhar Kapur have ventured into it with a warning to print journalists that they may be out of job soon if they don’t start blogging. I am not trying to negate that after all, I too am a blogger and would never like to be called a hypocrite. All I want to say is that, each form of media has its special place. There may be alterations in the domination scale of course, but all DO exist in harmony. To be honest, don’t we all still like to pick up a newspaper each morning even when we know that we can catch more updated news on TV or the radio, and the same applies to blogs.

Via BookCriticsCircle

And once again, Hollywood heartthrob of yore Tom Cruise is in news thanks to the controversial religion called Scientology that he follows. Apparently, he is one of the names mentioned in a federal lawsuit filed by ex-Scientologist Peter Letterese in Florida. Letterese’s complaint provides details of harassment by the notoriously thievish organisation that runs Scientology. Referring to the Church of Scientology as a “crime syndicate” in the lawsuit, Letterese demands the dismantling of the organisation under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisation law. For those of you who didn’t know, David Miscavage is the Church head of Scientology with Cruise as his ‘right-hand man’. The two have not left any stone unturned to promote their religion domestically as well as abroad acquiring and spending money in tens of millions of dollars, a huge portion of which is donated by Cruise himself.
A classic case of having to taste one’s own bitter medicine, isn’t it? Scientology made a killing by filing frivolous law suits based on falsehoods. And then there is the controversial past. Don’t we remember how in 2005, Cruise was described as a militant for Scientology by the French who regard Scientology as a cult and business respectively, and even decided to stop dealing with him. And of course, how can we forget the famous spat with Brooke Shields and the medical practitioners on the use of anti-depressants and psychiatry.

Via GlossLip

Sex education in school has once again garnered interest in India. We all saw how sometime back, National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) had decided to lift the talk ban on the taboo that sex is to Indians. But guess what, it was just a matter of time when the issue would be raised once again. Yesterday, NCERT on the advice of National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) decided to revise the sex education syllabus with quick effect. Apparently, some graphical representations of the human physiology and anatomy were found objectionable by seven states across India. The focus shall now be on abstinence from sex and on safe sex.

And we thought India had outgrown the stone-age mindset towards sex. Talking they are about sex but still there are just too many ifs and buts. Why call off the diagrams of the human physiology? C’mon we are talking about biology in terms of reproduction and not showing pics of the Kama sutra showing the various positions. The entire approach of NCERT is absolutely negative so how can it get positive results. On top of this, sex education classes will be held separately for boys and girls where male teachers will lecture the former while female teachers take care of the latter. So now will we not have any female biology teachers in an all boy’s school and vice versa! Almost a decade ago my class 9th teacher in a CBSE school asked us to read the chapter on HUMAN REPRODUCTION with graphical diagrams of the human anatomy on our own. Do you really think we have moved ahead from there? I have strong doubts.
Via NewsTrackIndia

Ever heard of the School Climate? No? Then you sure must have not read ASCD Executive Director Gene R. Carter’s latest column Is it Good for the Kids? The column talks about a high school in Baltimore struggling to make it to the surface as an unhealthy climate, chaotic classrooms, rowdy students and oblivious parents try and pull it down. No wonder 50 percent of the school’s 9th graders drop out by the end of their first year and the test scores are much below average. That is how Carter brings forth The School Climate Challenge by emphasizing the role of a whole school to nurture a whole child who is eager to learn, is healthy both mentally and emotionally, has a strong civic sense and is ready to face the world. According to Carter and the Center for Social and Emotional Education along with the Education Commission of the States, a whole school is one that collaborates with its community to deliberately build and sustain a positive school climate.

The column also offers suggestions to schools on creating positive climates like taking the pulse of the school’s current climate, using school climate evaluation results to develop and implement an improvement plan, incorporating school climate measures into a richer accountability system, and promoting community participation in improvement efforts. A very interesting approach, I must say, and workable too. Wotsay?

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Hey, is there an unspoken rule about a teen celeb having a similar aged rival. Oh c’mon man, can we forget Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera trying to get each other with toy boy Justin Timberlake being bounced off from one babe to another. Sadly, I see the same fate for the oh-so-loved Hannah Montana aka Miley Cyrus and her onscreen and now off screen rival Selena Gomez. For the uninitiated, Selena guest stars on Miley’s show ironically as her rival only. Now come to think of it, didn’t Britney also come with a BANG and now all we can hear is a whimper. I fail to understand where the parents of these star kids disappear leaving them in the clutches of the PR agents. Well, celeb rivalry sure is the most dependable way to be in the news but Mr and Ms PR agents please, at least spare the kids.

I mean the two girls are minting money for Disney channel with their huge popularity. Well, even I loved watching them on TV with my teenage girl cousins, and they absolutely adored them. But now the girls have gone petty to score a point against each other. Apparently, Selena Gomez hosts a show on YouTube with Demi Lovato which really is an honest attempt. The girls seem like regular teenagers and not stuck-up celebs. In fact, in one of the episodes Selena showed off her Power Rangers shirt and Demi showed that she fixed the gap in her teeth. So, on July 19th Miley with the help of Mandy Jiroux released a YouTube parody of the same show acting like drunken idiots. Pooh, what a shame! Later on, Miley did apologise with a very cheeky ‘Imitation is the best form of flattery’ quote but then everyone agreed that she was plain jealous!

Via BlogCritics

It may be a good sign for those of us concerned about the big brain drain and indeed a great example for the coming generations. Yes you heard it right, the IIMs were not really lured by offers abroad this year thereby marking a huge shift in their social consciousness, though I don’t mean there wasn’t any before it is just that it has never been so central to the agenda of the students. Many regard the salaries being offered as a deciding factor. For instance the slow world economy has not dampened the spirits of the domestic companies who have gone out there with a hike of 30 percent in the moolah while foreign companies have upped the last year’s salaries by a mere 3 percent. Another thing that has come to notice is the fact that IIM students have become extremely picky about the job profiles, to the extent that they are accepting less salaried offers if the job profile is good.

In other words, IIM graduates have become GLOCAL they think global but remain local which apparently is the mantra for a reputed Japanese university and we all know how the progress chart of the Japanese looks like. How else do you explain Neela Nageshwar Vittal’s refusal to a salary of Rs. 1.44 crore only to open a processing unit for medicinal plants. Yeah, the Indian future does seem bright…very bright!
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Coloring is in and those of you, who thought that one can color only one’s hair and moustaches and perhaps bleach one’s skin hair need a reality check! Many would chide themselves for even thinking about getting a colorful palette for their pubic growth. But as they say ‘necessity is the mother of invention’, collective conscious needs (read aspirations) led Nanci Jarecki to create dyes that bid greys down there bye-byes! Her Betty™ is raking in mullah for coloring the “…….” And “……” of both females and males some as aged as 80 yrs old! (Adventurous people,  I say : D ).  If you aren’t happy with the shade Mother Nature gifted you then gift yourself a new one by choosing any from the range at Betty - Blonde, Brown, Aurburn and Black for the regulars and Malibu, Fun and Starburst as exoticas!

Just in case you thought, I m talking about some weirdo punky-kinky store (the internet is full of such online buying options) kindly note that, bettybeauty.com is  registered and quite a trusted company when it comes to customer satisfaction. Advertising Age did a feature on it and the concerned article in it describes the coming-into-beings and becoming-a-success of Betty. The company’s products are safe and tested by skin specialists. For the ordinary netizen the figure of over 100,000 happy customers and the company website’s beating out traffic numbers from competitors like Proctor and Gamble’s Clairol.com is a proof enough, of the site’s sanctity and product’s ingenuity! And besides buying it online, you can also get Betty at 300 retail salons in case you are tempted to try out that hot pink shade

Having said all that, I was just wondering if Betty (or other similar product) is ever launched in a country like ours what a national furore it would create (bigger than what Rakhi Sawant-Mikka episode did!). While on one hand, VHP will declare it against Hindu sentiments, the Maulvis will issue a fatwā against all those who will dare to become its customers!
(Here, I would like to apologize to all those who might find my criticism offensive). With a neat intent all I wanted to say was, in case you want to fulfill your desire to color your pubic hair Betty dyes are a safe bet.

Via: colourlovers