Kudos to the human spirit! It’s amazing to see the successors of Adam & Eve survive through what not. Especially in a time when each day brings in more bad news economy wise, a very interesting observation caught one’s attention.

Thanks to the economic slowdown, Americans have been busy cutting down luxuries to make ends meet. They are willing to eat only Ramen noodles for dinner every night, but absoultely anything for their one retreat –  movies!

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A bunch of hooligans chanting ‘Jai Maharashtra’ enter the Thane Railway Station in Mumbai and thirteen examination centres to rough up the students come to appear for the railway recruitment board exams. The gundas in reference are actually members of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena and the victims are people from North India. And guess what? Nothing is done about it. I wonder why………

Let’s hear what the play actors say in this grotesque display of violence and insanity. I have taken the liberty of voicing North Indians who ufortunately are left with no option but flee for their lives.

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“It’s not my record; it’s a record by an India. It’s a record for India” was what Sachin Tendulkar had to say when the dust settled and the early Diwali at Mohali came to a halt. That pretty much summed up one Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar and his cricketing journey which carried along with it an entire generation of cricket fans across the world. But unlike many other records, this was not about Tendulkar having another of those magical days on the field. It was a celebration of all that droplets of genius that we were fortunate to be a part of during the past two decades. It was a moment that was a culmination of 19 years of hard work, dedication and unadulterated love for the sport that is his life.
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The present scenario in Goa reminds me of the old saying ‘all that glitters is not gold’. That is precisely the truth for India’s tourist capital in the present day. Wearing the halo of a bohemian paradise, the beach city has been in news (please read international) for all the wrong reasons.

Imagine the money that four lakh tourists must be bringing to our economy but that too will not hold for long if the law enforcers as well as protectors do not wake up from their slumber of corruption and laxity.

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Since elections are largely a game of perception, the upcoming US presidential elections is at feverish pitch with smear campaigns. For Barack Hussein Obama, it’s working both ways on the perception scale. Those who are for him are accused of terrorism, while those against, of racism. The McCain-Palin camp brands Obama a terrorist. A Muslim-sounding name can easily be associated with Radical Islamism a.k.a. terrorism. So, if Obama wins, the hugely-budgeted US-sponsored campaign towards global collective panic and power of nightmares called War on Terror would have obviously worn out its use.

What’s in a name? A lot. A Muslim-sounding name makes for a Muslim stereotype which, in turn, makes for the terrorist stereotype. This is so because, in this day and age, the pervading mindset is that not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims. So, someone with a Hussein in his name is “palling around with terrorists,” as Sarah Palin averred.
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I am worried about terrorism in India. Not just Islamic, which without any questions and doubts does get addressed and taken adequate action against, but also Hindu terrorism, which always escapes from the grip of authorities for lack of hard evidence. Honestly, if nothing is done about the situation in Orissa we shall probably have yet another terrorist group, but this time participated by Christians.

The ‘gorious’ work of the Bajrang Dal in Orissa is not a figment of anybody’s imagination. Innocent people are murdered in cold-blood, burnt alive, nuns raped…do we really need more facts to take a call against the religious group? PM Manmohan Singh wants to ban the group immediately but defiance within his party is problematic because they fear the BJP may reap dividends out of it. So, in the political plotting nobody really suffers but people like the Armyman who fought for our country in the Indo-Pak and Kargil War; his paralysed brother gets torched by fanatics chanting “Jai Hanuman” in Orissa.

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Already beleaguered about her ‘presumed’ incapacity as future VP of the world’s biggest economy that might soon be no more because of the economic meltdown and controversial bailout, Palin has now been found guilty of abusing her gubernatorial powers in her native Alaska. The state legislature probe asserts that Palin dismissed a senior state official Mr. Monegan for not firing a state trooper Mike Wooten. This might sound like any ordinary day in the life of Alaska’s governor except that Wooten is the governor’s former brother-in-law who is in a bitter custody battle with the governor’s sister.

If that sounds like a story that is discussed inside one’s kitchen, this development takes the cake: the investigation was a partisan-led inquiry sponsored by supporters of Obama. If personal grudge is behind her abuse of power, the probe’s exorbitant 263-page report is an indication of what being the running mate of Republican standard bearer John McCain has to offer in the dirty world of politics. Surely, the report would have less number of pages if she were just plain governor.
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According to international nuclear inspectors, a Russian scientist helped the Iranians with technical know-how and also helped them conduct complex experiments on ways of detonating a nuclear weapon. The fact that this information was revealed excitedly on the New York Times has more political reasons  than any real danger from either the Russian scientist or the Iranian nuclear hounds.

The U.S. has been trying to create the image of an impending calamity due to Russian aggressive behaviors when the real reason why Russians are growing increasingly aggressive is because they have their own fears. The Iranians may or may not pose a threat to the world, but a bigger threat to the world lies in the form of American foreign policies and propaganda such as the one about the Russian scientist. What appalls me is that a venerable newspaper like the New York Times is also not immune to prejudice and, directly or indirectly participates in the dissemination of American propaganda.

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It makes me turn red with fury when I hear news such as this. A survey conducted in United Kingdom shockingly states that one in five teachers feel that students should be caned to discipline them. Not just that, closer home, four school children were severely beaten by their teachers at a Gurukul in Bhuj.  And in Delhi, another teacher caned a few students that resulted in one being admitted to a hospital with back injuries, while three others received minor injuries.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child says NO to corporal punishment. In many places, hitting children has been completely banned such as in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Austria, Cyprus, Croatia, Latvia, Germany, Italy, Israel etc. Yet, cases such as this come to light. My question is that some people seriously believe that they can benefit children by physical punishment. At the most, it will instill fear in the minds of young children which is not conducive to their growth. If hitting dogs is against ethics for many, fail to understand how can hitting children be acceptable?

What are the values do we want our children to learn- is it that powerful ones have a power and a right to hit the one in the subservient position. If violence is bad then there is no good violence. It might sound far fetched to many, but I would say that what our children learn in the early years of their lives goes a long way in building their personality, thoughts and way of life. Will these children not do violence, not plant bombs, and not murder people when they think they are on the right side? After all, their own teachers taught them that physical violence is not a bad thing if done for a good purpose.

Via

It is surprising to note that Muslims in the U.K have a greater freedom than anywhere else and they receive governmental grants and funds to build mosques in prime locations in British cities including London. A predominantly Christian society, the British have been quite tolerant in accepting immigrants and also allowing them to practice their personal beliefs. However, the fate of Christians in the Muslim world is one that has to be dealt with cautiously. Christians have been persecuted and marginalized in most Middle Eastern countries and recently, in India too.

However, the idea is to live peacefully and with religious tolerance. Though Atheism and non-religious societies are always welcome and of course safer too, it is difficult to change the way people think. If the British decided to avenge the persecution of Christians in the Middle East and promptly persecute the Muslims of Britain, it would be harking back to the Middle Ages. The Old Testament law of an eye for an eye and a hand for a hand would not work in a modern society and free societies must set up an example by not tolerating ‘other’ religions but in fact discouraging overt religious behaviors anywhere. In fact, avoiding religious topics and stopping the funds for religious institutions would do well and the money could be diverted to saner purposes like education and research.

The concept of religious tolerance must be thought over and when it is thought over, we would know that there really isn’t much to think, except allow others to live productive lives while we live our own live productively.

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Via: Guardian