In an effort to improve its the city's image for the 2010 Commonwealth Games, the New Delhi government is imparting spoken English and etiquette training to some 8,000 auto-rickshaw drivers. A Hindustan Times report on the initiative had a very intriguing headline: "Feeling hot, madam?"



I wondered what were the chances of someone actually saying this (not due to poor English): "Feeling hot madam."



Knowing how unsafe women feel in the city, it shouldn't be a surprise to me if someone feels (or more appropriately molests) any foreign tourist arriving for the Games.

Dear Naxal comrades,

Why did you take the Rajdhani Expess—along with its hundreds of passengers—hostage and abduct the drivers?
 
Though I have a very vague understanding of the Naxal ideology, I do understand that its has gained ground because of the continued deprivation of Naxal organizations' cadre and supporters. You want an end to a flawed system that is unjust to a large fraction of people;  even I want the society to be equitable towards everyone.

But why take the recourse of violence, cold-blooded murders? If you start executing people (which you often do in kangaroo courts), doesn't that bring you on a par with your enemy. As an uninvolved spectator, I see both you and your oppressor indulging in anti-social activities.

A few days ago, one of your leaders—Kobad Ghandy—was shouting Long Live Bhagat Singh on his way to court in police custody. If you and your leaders are inspired by the revolutionary, why don't you live up to the expectations of Bhagat Singh. He believed that revolution does not necessarily mean blood shed. Revolutions take place only when the common man starts accepting your ideology and change their way of life. Bhagat Singh was fighting the British government that wasn't concerned about their demands, but you are being invited for talks by the Indian government. I think you need to give up violence if you really wish to bring a change in society.

I know it must be all very exciting and self-righteous in raising an armed-revolution and punishing your oppressors, but you will have to give it up. You have been raging a war since long. What has been the result? It only gives you a false sense of importance.

Naxal violence is causing more harm to the common man, the peasant of your areas. Stop making their lives more miserable with your armed revolt. Take the recourse of a non-violent revolution. If you have become addicted to the adrenaline rush of violence, go, kill corrupt people in the legislature (politician), judiciary and administrative.

Spare the common man.

Your well wisher.

In an interview with CNBC-TV18 on Monday, India's telecommunications minister A. Raja said the country can expect to see local phone call rates at 10paise per minute and domestic long distance calls at 25 paise a minute. But that's not the best part of the interview. He said:

I don’t want to be a stagnated and stinking pool. If it is a stagnated, stinking pool, no animal or man will come; nobody will throw stone on it.

After this thought-provoking statement, he said:

When you are flowing water, somebody will drink, somebody will use, somebody will use it for other purpose.

What did I think about after reading this sentence? Holy shit. Why would anyone want to be a river? Poor Ganga is enough for ablutions.

Flickr/Wonker

Delhi girls aren't unfamiliar with eve teasing and molestation. They brave it quite often—on buses, in markets and on roads, everywhere. A leering man, a group of boys passing filthy comments as a girl passes, it's all too common. And it becomes worse if the girl is from the north-eastern parts of the country.

According to a Times of India report, a 21-year-old girl from Arunachal Pradesh was allegedly molested inside a government school in New Friends Colony in New Delhi on Thursday. Police complaint didn't bring any relief for the girl.

Speaking to Times City, she said, "I was going to the university on a rickshaw around 3.30 pm when three-four boys started passing lewd comments. One of them even touched me. As soon as I stopped the rickshaw, they ran inside and I followed. Nearly 200 boys surrounded me inside the compound. When I tried pushing them away, those behind me pulled at my skirt. They also touched me and made embarrassing comments. Some of them followed me even as I rushed out and pelted stones at me."

What was the school principal doing? Who knows, but the ToI report surely has two contradicting statements of his.

School principal Javed Qamar said, "It's unfortunate. We had heard about a woman being eve-teased outside the school. I had even sent three teachers out to see what had happened but they could not find anyone. We will help the girl and the police to identify the offenders, and if found guilty, their names will be struck off from the rolls. But a lot of times, ex-students too come to the school in uniform." (Really! They like their uniforms so much?) The school has a security guard but he had gone to switch off the water pump at the time of the incident, he added.

In fact, Qamar claims that he came to know about the incident only around 5 pm on Friday when a group of Jamia students came to his office along with policemen. (So what did he send the three teachers for?)

Are these boys preparing for the 2010 Commonwealth Games? For them sexual harassment (har-ass-ment) seems to have different meaning altogether.

In India, schoolboys are one of the most prolific eve teasers as they step into adolescence and try to define sex and sexuality. It's more vulgar in boys from families in lower economic brackets, those who attend government schools due to lack of option.

Why is it so? Maybe due to the inability of the Indian society to accept sexuality as an integral part. Though we are opening up, still there are large tracts of society where sex and sexuality is not part of a respectable conversation. We want our children to depend on friends, TV, Internet to learn about sex and let them discover their sexuality through indecent and anti-social behaviour of eve teasing and molestation. Why not impart them correct knowledge though quality books and counselling? Why not teach them about sex in school rather then letting them eve tease girls?

Flickr/Fayemozingo

Blue Roses
Roses red and roses white
Plucked I for my love's delight.
She would none of all my posies -
Bade me gather her blue roses.

Half the world I wandered through,
Seeking where such flowers grew;
Half the world unto my quest
Answered me with laugh and jest.

Home I came at winter tide,
But my silly love had died,
Seeking with her latest breath
Roses from the arms of Death.

It may be beyond the grave
She shall find what she would have.
Mine was but an idle quest -
Roses white and red are best.
~Rudyard Kipling

Unlike Kipling, you can now buy blue roses for your love, though at a price that's 10-20 times that of normal red roses.

According to a BBC report, genetically-modified blue roses will soon be available in Japan's flower shops.

OK. A Hollywood film portraying the clandestine romance of India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and last viceroy Lord Mountbatten's wife Edwina has been shelved citing budget issues.

The Indian government had asked the film makers to remove scenes showing or hinting at  physical intimacy between the two lovers if they wanted to shoot the film in India.

While reading an article on Times, I happened to see this:

Nehru was prime minister from 1947 to 1964 and the dynasty he founded still dominates Indian politics.

The mention of dynasty has forced me to think if we any better than what the country was during the era of kingdoms. We read in history books that the  rulers founded various dynasties: Slave dynasty, Lodhi dynasty, Gupta dynasty, etc.

What dynasties do we have today: Gandhi-Nehru dynasty, Scindia dynasty, Pawar dynasty, Thakre dynasty, Karunanidhi dynasty, etc. Only consolation is that these dynasties are "vetted" by the common man. Else, they behave more or less like kings. No one can defy them, or else their sena will attack you and your establishment, killing people and ransacking shops. They cannot be arrested as their supporters will not allow the police to reach their leader.

Also, we have business dynasties whose ego-clashes become a threat to the country's economy. The apex court has to attend to their cat fights on a priority basis.

What dynasty do you intend to establish?

Union minister P Chidambaram is not only trying to tackle the issue of Naxalism in his unique way, he seems to be taking necessary precautions to avoid another serious threat as well--shoes hurled by journalists.

According to a PTI report (published in Deccan Chronicle) on Tuesday, a deputy superintendent of police (DSP) asked newsmen covering Chidambaram’s function in Virudhunagar, Tamil Nadu, to remove their footwear before entering the media enclosure near the dais. Earlier, they had been seated in back rows.hurling

However, just before they (journalists) moved closer to the dais, DSP Sahul Hameed asked them to consider the area as a place of worship and remove their footwear before entering it.

Of course, Chidambaram and his security personnel have every reason to be cautious of looming threats after he managed a narrow escape from the shoe thrown at him by a Sikh journalist, Jarnail Singh, in April this year. He needs to be even more careful as people may be inspired by writings of the Iraqi journalist who had been jailed for hurling a shoe at then US president George Bush.

When you might have been recharging your body for another day of work, or Diwali shopping, on Thursday night, a six-year-old boy was the lede on US electronic and Internet media. Emergency rescue team and television news helicopters were chasing a helium weather balloon, which was supposed to be carrying Falcon Heene, son of storm chaser Richard Heene.

The boy was supposed to have stepped into the silver balloon at his family’s home in Colorado at around 11am local time. The balloon was not tethered and it launched unpredictably.

According to a 16 October report published in the New Delhi edition of the Hindustan Times, a Ghaziabad resident who earns Rs12,500 a month, had Rs48.7 crore in his bank account for some time on Thursday, thanks to a "printing error made by ATM network" of Punjab National Bank .

The baffled account holder called up the customer care number and then informed his bank branch about the error. Soon his actual balance was reinstated--Rs23,487.

Instead of being thankful, the bank officials accused the account holder of creating panic situation and threatened of legal action against him. How ridiculous.

This is what the bank's assistant general manager (Meerut circle) Vineet Jain had to say:

There was an error in the ATM slip printing which was reported and identified at 9.30 am and rectified at around 12.30 pm. There is no such entry of ambiguous amount in his account and we have checked it thoroughly.

This person has created a panic situation out of this technical printing error and should have approached the bank to find out the exact reason. We may go in for legal action against him.

May be the account holder should have withdrawn the money and left. Only then could have it been a situation worth panicking.

Beware if you are travelling to Manchester, UK. Now it won't require a spread eagle to strip you to shame. A new security scanner which produces "naked" images of passengers is being tested at Manchester Airport.

It will not only reveal hidden weapons and bombs but also a clear outline of passengers' genitalia, as well as any false limbs, breast enlargements or body piercings.

Though the image cannot be stored or captured, it will, of course, give a full view of your assets to the person manning the scanner. If you want to keep that piercing or enhancement a secret, better opt for a regular "pat down" search.

The scanner costs £80,000, just in case anyone is interested in owning this scanner for purposes other than security checks.

What will you do if your neighbour says you cannot sip tea sitting in your lawn? Won't you want to give him a tight slap that keeps ringing in his ears forever?

Wish it was possible in this case as well. China on Tuesday raised objections to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's recent visit to Arunachal Pradesh. The prime minister had been to this part of India on campaign trail for the state assembly elections. This is what a statement said on the website of China's foreign ministry.

China expresses its strong dissatisfaction on the visit by the Indian leader to the disputed area in disregard of China's grave concerns. We urge the Indian side to take China's solemn concerns seriously and do not stir up trouble at the disputed area with a view to ensuring the sound development of China-India relations.

The Indian government, as usual, was "disappointed and concerned".

Neither Jaya Sawant nor her daughter Rakhi is happy about her being evicted from "reality show" Big Boss 3. In a Hindustan Times report, Rakhi was quoted as saying that the inmates of the show have used a boodhi aurat (old woman).

Inki apni maayein nahin hain kya? Will they abuse their own mother and call her Hidimba and all that?

On Sunday, Anil Ambani issued a statement calling for truce with his estranged elder brother Mukesh Ambani. The younger Ambani says in the statement that he is making fresh efforts for reconciliation after invoking the blessings of Lord Shiva by visiting the holy shrines of Kedarnath and Badrinath.

The best part of Anil Ambani's truce statement reads as:

Yet, throughout this very trying period, I have maintained the greatest of love, affection and respect for Mukeshbhai - as I have done since my birth.

What would have Anil Ambani told his elder brother the very next day of his birth? I guess this: "I love and respect you, Mukeshbhai." Wish I had such a nice younger brother.

Why did Barack Obama get 2009 Nobel Prize in peace?

For resisting the strong desire to press one of the buttons that would fire nuclear missiles. Also, he hasn't declared war against any other country. No new war; he is just sticking to the wars raged by his predecessors. Of course, he has displayed indomitable will in not excersing the powers that he weilds as the president of the US, the world's only superpower.

Casteism is bad, very bad. Such discriminatory classification of human beings should never exist. Even reservations are not for an ideal society. All sort of reservations should be ended.

Taking forward Rahul Gandhi's statement that he doesn't believe in castes (applause for this proclamation), a blog post on Amit Varma's India Uncut proposes that reservations should be ended because they perpetuate the discriminatory caste system. I don't think the author has given a good thought to the issue else he wouldn't have dared to ask for an abrupt end to the reservation system.

The 39-year-old "single girl" Padmalakshmi, who is expecting her first child, says any man can impress her by cooking a great dish of spaghetti.
The Top Chef host said in an interview to a Vegas magazine: 

The way to my heart is through my stomach, with a really great bowl of spaghetti.

This shouldn't come as a surprise to those who have seen this Carl's Jr burger ad featuring the supermodel.

When you say Carla, everyone including Google knows it's Carla Bruni Sarkozi, the glamarous model wife of the French President Nicholas Sarkozy. Crala Bruni's personal website crashed moments after its launch on Tuesday. Seems like a huge number of people were eagerly waiting to get a peek into her life behind the scenes, like people waiting in queues overnight to get a copy of Harry Potter.

When I was watching a report on the brawl between Air India cabin crew and pilots, I noticed a very peculiar behaviour of the media? Why is that the media always wants to publish the photo or show a video of the "victim" girl? Why don't they publish the photo of the person accused of rape? It's always a blurred image of the girl. Is it because a female figure attracts attention of males?

Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.

~Mahatma Gandhi

I don't know when and in what context did the great Indian leader say this but, yes, I have had a few opportunities to witness some people show this indomitable will, most recently when I was being driven back home from my office.

To Love or not to love--an email with this title has stirred a furious debate in Pakistan's Lahore University of Management Sciences (Lums) and also other campuses. A female student had sent the mail to all email ids of the institute's campus mail, signing herself as Tajwar TashfinAwan (seemingly an imaginary identity). This mail led to long thread of mails, some in her support and praise, while others blasting at her.


Image: Let Us Build Pakistan

What did the mail read?