Category: News

Borders, re-drawn by Google

It is quite normal of businesses to have different strategies for different regions but there are some things which should not be hurt just because of the business interests. And I think it is a pity that somebody has to remind a company like Google about that.

Google Maps, in it’s English version, has marked India’s borders with China as disputed area. However, Google Ditu, the Chinese localized version of Google Maps, has portrayed Arunachal Pradesh and other parts of India as part of China. Google Ditu also shows Taiwan and the South China Sea Islands as part of China. This is quite a big insult to the Indian nation and it’s people and I think there has to be a wide spread protest against this.

Google Maps screenshot

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Google Ditu screenshot

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(Thanks to Aravind for the info)

Commonwealth and Common Good

Yesterday on TEDIndia, Hans Rosling predicted that the average Indian would match up to the average American on 27th July, 2048 (yes, he’s even got the date). The Twitter stream was overflowed with Tweets rejoicing in the prediction. I am not sure if this is because of the TED organizers believing that “Indians are feel-gooders anyway, so let us just give them such feel-good statistics“, but I think Mr. Rosling has got a point there. We are matching up with America of the early days on many fronts. We are fast discriminating and ignoring some sections of people in our society. We are almost on the tip of a civil war. The central Government (with support from other political parties and corporations) has declared war on Naxalism which is sure to take the lives of it’s own people, including the innocent tribal people. I do understand the need for a military action against militant forces that threats the existence of a country, but it is going to be a mere exercise as a solution because the Government is doing almost nothing to root out the root problem – Though the Prime Minister himself has identified that very root problem.

There has been a systemic failure in giving tribals a stake in the modern economic process that inexorably intrude into their living places. The alienation built over decades is now taking a dangerous turn. The systematic exploitation and social and economic abuse of our tribal communities can no longer be tolerated.

That is what our PM has said some weeks back. And what is being done to solve that issue?

As Himanshu Kumar, a Gandhian and the only human rights activist on ground zero in faraway Dantewada where Operation Green Hunt is to be launched, says, “We can all be agreed on the premise that Naxalism is a problem, but why are these poor people attracted to a politics that will end in death? Have we created such a heinous system that death is more attractive than the deprivations and humiliations this system doles out? If that is so, why should I defend this system? All that these people want is food, health care, school, clothes and their legitimate right over their land. Yet, instead of weaning them away by strengthening the democratic process, if we are going to run our democracy only on the strength of weapons, I fear we are entering a dangerous and irrepairable state. We are headed for civil war.” Men like Himanshu should know. For 17 years, he has functioned like an ICU on the edges of a wounded society, providing education and health care, painstakingly drawing tribals into the electoral and constitutional process. The government, loath to undertake the trouble, has been happy to outsource its functions to him. Yet now, it is deaf to his wisdoms. Worse, it hasn’t even consulted him. [via]

And yesterday the Headlines India tweeted that “The government today more than doubled the budget for the 2010 Commonwealth Games from Rs.767 crore to Rs.1,620 crore“. Commonwealth seems to be more important than Common Good in this country. Such is our time.

Nothing Holy about Hollywood

I like Roman Polanski for his artistic talents. I think he is a great director. I loved his films like Chinatown, Bitter Moon, Death and the Maiden and The Pianist. They go straight in to the list of my all time favorite movies. I remember the first time when I went to see the movie “Bitter Moon” in Raagam theatre in Thrissur when I was in college. I didn’t know anything about Hugh Grant or Victor Bannerjee (who appeared in a guest role) but it is the Adult certificate that was displayed in the movie’s posters that caught my interest. But when I came out of the movie hall, it was not the nude scenes but the movie itself that haunted me for days. There is no doubt that Polanski is a great movie director. I would rate him to my top favorite directors at anytime.

But, he has been accused of abusing a 13 year old girl almost 31 years ago. He has reportedly drugged and had ‘unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor’. Would I not blame Polanski just because he is an artiste, a great artist at that? Would I not blame him just because he has contributed so much to the world cinema? The answer is NO. Polanski, the person is different from Polanski, the director. The person who has committed a heinous crime has to pay the price, no matter how much time has passed since. He was trying to escape after the incident, fleeing from country to country.

It is pitiful to see the directors like Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, David Lynch etc have signed a petition calling for an “immediate release” of Polanski. The French cultural minister said “he is a wonderful man”. I don’t understand what these people are thinking about. Are celebrities above the law? If Polanski is innocent and if this case has been made to corner him, he has to prove it in the court, rather than feeling from country to country. The very fact that he was trying to escape from the case all these years make us suspicious about the man.

Many say that the girl (now a woman) has withdrawn the complaints against Polanski. Even if it is so, the law has to take it’s course. And what really prompted the woman to say that she wants this whole thing to end? “Decades of publicity as well as the prosecutor’s focus on lurid details continues to traumatize her and her family”. Now should the man be acquitted of the charges because of this? I had high regards for directors like Martin Scorsese, but now I have lost my respect for them. There is nothing really Holy about Hollywood.

Related reading: Unforgivable Roman Polanski

(Image courtesy: Guardian.co.uk)

Age of Statues

I never thought that the statues had such enormous power. Without moving an inch, making an expression or talking, they can lead an entire group to engage in violence. They can call for Hartals or Bandhs in their names or rake controversies. You know, now I get why Mayavati is so keen on unveiling so many of her own statues, so that she would still have power over the people even after she is gone from this world.

We have been talking about ETs and Aliens taking over the world, but I think now we should rather worry about the age of the statues. Imagine what a statue which is 133 ft tall could do to the entire Kanyakumari district if it gets life. Or those numerous elephant and Mayawati statues could do to Uttar Pradesh. Isn’t that scarier than the aliens?

And I’m not even talking about the thousands of statues we call by the pet name “idols” which are placed in and out of our temples and churches. They must have already been frustrated and waiting for the final war to take control over the world. Imagine this conversation:

Statue #1: “Mate, that dude Statue #3 in the sanctum sanctorum steals all the fun”

Statue #2: “How is that?”

Statue #1: “We stand outside in this hot weather, looking at the same direction all the time, but he gets to see all those hot chicks who come to bow before him!”

Statue #3: “You think that’s fun? You get to see all the buzz going on outside, while am stuck in this garlands and holy smokes everyday! And that fellow in the white rob gets to drink red wine in my name and earn money for that and the other fellow in the saffron rob gets those offerings and earn money too!”

Statue #1: “Shit!”

Statue #2: “Pigeon-shit!!”

Statue #1: “What??”

Statue #2: “On your head”

Statue #1: “Oh damn, not again! Shoo… shoooo…“

Lt Colonel Mohan Lal

MohanLalIn 2007, I wrote a blog post about Mohan Lal’s promotional ads of a liquor brand. Mohan Lal had formed a business alliance then, with the owners of the same brand, Original Choice. When the news became controversial the defenders were of the opinion that Mohan Lal was only promoting ‘evening snacks’ under the same brand name (just like how Vijay Mallya is selling only soda and mineral water under the brand name King Fisher). Die hard fans and Mohan Lal himself had also argued that there would not be any raise in the number of drunkards just because the actor was promoting it, considering the fact that Kerala has the highest alcohol consumption in the country. The opposition’s concern was that the actor has high influence on people in Kerala, particularly the youth who see Mohan Lal as an icon and role model.

Now let us just casually say that Mohan Lal’s celebrity influence on the youth of Kerala was not going to boost the sales of anything – be it gold, lungies or liquor (you might ask then why would the commercial brands use celebrities for promotion and pay them millions for that, but let us just put it aside for the time being). In the last week, Mohan Lal has been granted the Honorary rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Territorial Army. This honor comes after Mohan Lal’s two successful Malayalam movies (Keerthichakra and Kurukshetra) in which he enacted the role of an Army Major. As per the Army Chief Deepak Kapoor, Mohan Lal will be yet another brand ambassador of the Territorial Army. Defense Minister A K Antony also said that, “this will be an inspiration for the younger generation to join the armed forces“. A CNN-IBN article on this says that, “Mohanlal’s role will be to inspire youth to join the armed forces“.

It is at this point that I have a question – As per the supporters of Mohan Lal during the time of Original Choice advertisement, his influence on the youth did not take any effect in boosting the sales of liquor. Has that changed all in a sudden? Now would Mohan Lal inspire the youth just because it is a good patriotic cause?

Skeptics say that youth is more prone to go under the bad influences first, than good ones.

PS: Some also say that considering the situation, Mammootty should be conferred an honorary position in CBI for his 4 successful movies as a CBI officer, or Suresh Gopi as an honorary Commissioner of Police for his numerous super hits as a highly ranked police officer. 😀

(Image source: Google Images)

Man eats 68 “dogs” in 10 minutes!

Don’t believe it? Check out the front page of today’s Deshabhimani newspaper (click on the image below to see the full and enlarged version). It says a man ate 68 dogs in a competition organized in America as part of the independence day. And the second prize winner ate the flesh of 64.5 dogs. If you are just stunned at how a person could eat 68 “dogs” in just 10 minutes, check out this link.

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As the Malayalam saying goes, “kaala pettu ennu kekkumbum kayar edukkaruthu“…

The Terms of Affection

Bhanu Prakash Singh in a CNN-IBN debate says this (emphasis by me):

Nearly 50 per cent of India was formerly princely states. So how can one stop the people from calling Rajas, Ranis, Kunwar saheb? These are sometimes even terms of affection.

Now I can imagine this conversation from the Rajah era:

Man 1: I love my Raja so much so that I never even go one kilometer near his sight and lay flat in the mud when I hear the noise of his palanquin bearers!

Man 2: I love my Thampuran so much so that I don’t mind that my would-be now bears his local administrator’s child!

Man 3: I love my Naadu Vaazhi so much so that I didn’t say anything when he killed my younger son for questioning him!

Man 1: Wow! Such love & affection!!

******

And the Congress party has asked all its members to discontinue using any feudal titles. Discontinue using fuedal titles. End of statement. Is that all, Madamme?

New website for Audio India

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Hello! We have a new home for Audio India, a directory of music bloggers from India. Check out the new website at http://www.musicblogsindia.com with many new features which makes Audio India a one-stop-shop for all music blogging listeners. Also please update your feeds accordingly.

http://musicblogsindia.com/feed/ (for posts)
http://musicblogsindia.com/comments/feed/ (for comments)

A little bit of history for those of you who are new to Audio India:

The idea of a complete directory website for Indian music blogging community was suggested by a regular listener of music blogs from India. He said that he didn’t want to go and check every music blog to see if they have got any new updates. Neither did he want to subscribe to all those RSS feeds just to know if there has been any update. That is how Audio India, a music blog to track all updates from music blogs was born, in 2006.

Music blogging was started in early 2005 in India. Since then, the community has grown up from a handful of music bloggers to almost a hundred music bloggers. The first version of this music blog was hosted in Blogger and the new version is a WordPress hosted site with many new features which makes it a one-stop-shop for all music blogging listeners.

New Features:

  • Rating for posts: Now you can rate a music post and the top rated posts will be shown in the side bar. This will help to encourage music bloggers to continue treating you with their songs as well as to improve themselves.
  • Discussion Forums – Discuss anything and everything about music blogging – ask/share where you get the karaoke tracks from, the glitches of home recording, recording tips – whatever you need to discuss about music blogging.
  • Song Requests – You can use this page to request a music blogger to sing your favorite song (however it is the music blogger’s discretion whether to consider or reject the request)
  • Tips & Tutorials – Some great tips and tutorials from the people who have been music blogging since a long time. This will help those of you who want to know what kind of effort goes on behind every music blog post.

That’s all for now. Browse through our pages and let us know if you have any suggestions for improvement. Also don’t forget to subscribe to the Audio India feed.

Do we want blood on our hands?

This news from Times Online, comes as shocking to me. India, instead of supporting the proposal for a war crime inquiry by UN Human Rights Council, decided to thwart the process along with China and Russia. I do not support the LTTE and it’s ways and I do not think that they are what the Tamils need in Sri Lanka, but when 1000 people were killed each day, which makes the civilian death toll to above 20,000, shouldn’t the Sri Lankan government be held responsible? Or at least have undergone a UN inquiry? With it’s crucial role in the sub-continent, shouldn’t India have supported this inquiry? Our hypocrisy is wide open, because we supported a war crime inquiry into Israel’s operation in the Gaza Strip but chose to thwart a similar inquiry in Sri Lanka.

Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said that neither reason justified failing to act when the Red Cross warned of an “unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe”. India “could have saved many lives if it had taken a proactive position — and it would not have affected the outcome of the war,” he said.

Sam Zarifi, Asia Pacific director of Amnesty International, said: “India . . . simply chose to support the [Sri Lankan] Government’s notion that it could kill as many civilians as it would take to defeat the Tigers.”

India says that it provided Sri Lanka with non-lethal military equipment and sent officials repeatedly to persuade the Government to protect civilians. “We’ve consistently taken the line that the Sri Lankan Government should prevent civilian casualties,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

However, President Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka told NDTV: “I don’t think I got any pressure from them. They knew that I’m fighting their war.” [Via]

The Congress government at the center needs to answer for the murder of 20,000 civilians in Sri Lanka. We have blood on our hands.

(Thanks to Vassan for the links)