Not subsidizing petrol is good

Because government should

• not subsidize 3% (rich) population's leisurely drives
• better spend that money in building public transport
• build better healthcare facility
• bring down fiscal deficit
• provide money out to poor via NREGA
• pass food security bill and provide out food security
• take steps to reduce pollution by making driving more expensive and public transport more effective
• dissuade people from driving cars to de-congest city roads
• encourage car pooling and this is one way of doing it
• encourage innovation of alternate fuels in the country and prohibitive costs of petrol is a good way of doing that

Say Happy Diwali without fireworks

Watch this photo series and decide for yourself

http://wd-society.blogspot.com/2009/04/indian-fireworks-blaze-kills-23.html

http://www.ilo.org/dyn/media/mediasearch.fiche?p_id=307

http://www.ilo.org/dyn/media/mediasearch.fiche?p_id=449

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Bangalore/article36580.ece

I do not understand why do we let this madness happen every year. There is much more to Diwali than firecrackers. What do they give us anyway ? Pollution, many children without childhood, some without eyes and others dead. To add to this misery they cost so much and add strain to our already stressed wallets!

Saying no to firecrackers is not enough. Actively discourage others too.

A few things about India that is not so well known

1. India has a nuclear capable missile which can travel at 7mach
2. Rural population of India is about 60% of Indian population
3. More than 50% of Indians have mobile phones
4. Indian mobile network is better than most other mobile networks in the world in terms of quality, coverage and cost(one SMS costs less than 1 cent, calling is at 1 cent per minute).
5. There is a rural employment guarantee scheme which covers a very large part of Indian population
6. Medicines in India are very cheap compared to US and cost of healthcare is also a magnitude lower. There are a lot of good hospitals and medical tourism is on the rise.
7. India has an active fast breeder reactor program which, if successful, would lead to energy security
8. Some parts of India are very under developed and malnutrition is higher than sahara desert countries
9. About 40% of Indians are below poverty line and live in very unhygienic conditions
10. There are about 15 Indian cities where Metro railways in under construction or planned
11. India now manufactures more 4 mn cars and commercial vehicles per year. This is a 500% jump for last 10 years
12. India is the largest milk producer in the world. Production was about 120 mn tonnes in 2010. This figure is almost double of US milk production.
13. Gold consumption of India was about 745 tonnes last year. This is highest in the world and is about 6 times the US consumption. Women in India are crazy about gold and it is bought as investment

Joy of giving - Day 1

Sometime back I wondered here, if there could be a milk network, to feed poor children and take food out of their daily problems list. In fact, I have been wondering about it off and on. Today I decided to make a start. Though, it was not milk that I started with. I had some old clothes lying around and some extra food. These were some destitute people sitting near Sai dham temple at Kandivali East on the western express highway. They seem to be in business of making brooms. There were around 50 of them living in small roadside huts.

Here are a few points I considered/learned today:

1. I feel giving away clothes or other goods is better than giving away food. I feel that food gets over too quickly to make any significant difference in their lives. I'd much rather give them utensils, clothes, sewing material, carry bags, newspapers, books etc than giving away food. These things help them jack up quality of their daily life by a small percentage.
2. It is better to give to adults in the family and not to children. Children tend to be too eager with things and may not use them to the fullest. Adult members are more sane and they even tell you what do they want next time.
3. Choose a location close to home. Not too close as you don't want them to follow you back home and it is good exercise to walk a few kilometers a day.
4. Do not be afraid of them. They are people after all and will not try to hurt anybody who gives them
5. Talk to them and ask them about their needs. Try to dissuade them from asking money and ask them to use the goods to do something productive

More soon.

Say no to Anna

I sometimes wonder why we Indians are so gullible ? Why do we always believe everything that these babas, media says and never believe what the government says. I think it runs in our blood. With English ruling us for so long we are programmed to react this way.

But now things have changed. We are no longer ruled by them. We are no longer a third world country. We are a strong and dominant economy and there are people who would like us to remain in middle ages. We saw an example of that during CWG games. When we were busy maligning our own country, government and games, outsiders took advantage of this to show the world a negative picture of us.

Even now these people are busy weakening our government and country and we are celebrating them. If you have issues with the ruling political party, settle it during the elections. Let government function and take country forward. Time has come to ignore such people and move forward. Corruption cannot be squatted by a bill. It is within us. Within you and me. Solve that first and government would become clean automatically. Government is just a reflection of our society.

We don't need a revolution. We need a stable and strong government. We need growth and prosperity.

Please don't be foolish and Say NO to Anna!

Facebook launches video chat

FB launches video chat. It will be an extension. It is based on skype.

Airtel broadband TV

I just purchased Airtel broadband TV subscription for Rs. 99 a month. I must say that it is a really cool experience. They have almost all channels I watch (except Movies now) like TLC, Discovery, Turbo, NDTV (all news channel but they do not have goodtimes yet), Bloomberg, ET now, Nat geo, Animal planet.

The sign up process was also quiet easy and not something I would normally expect from Airtel. They have also a bunch of movies that one can watch on demand.

I think they have a solid offering here. If they can add a few more channels (sports and entertainment) this service can really take off.

Ragini MMS is a well made horror movie

Ragini MMS is the latest out of Ms. Eakta kapoor's production stable and I must say that like her earlier productions like Shor in the city, One upon a time in mumbai, LSD etc this one also did not disappoint. A well made horror movie, a gripping story and chilling screenplay. I'd give it a 4/5. Must watch.

Dear google

Dear Google,

When I mark a sender's email as spam, I mean don't show it in my inbox again. I hope someday you'd understand. Please stop driving your automated cars and make your fucking spam filter work.

Thank you

While Americans celebrate death of Laden..

lets do a recap who created this Frankenstein's monster. Straight from horse's mouth!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3f9mlUQzJA

Team win vs century by player

Sachin	68.75%
Ganguly	81.82%
Ponting	86.21%
Sehwag	92.86%
Jayasuriya	85.71%
Lara	84.21%
Kallis	76.47%
Mahela	100.00%

10 failed states and USA

Out of the top 10 failed states 2010 list, USA has played active part in 9 of them.

1. Somalia- Direct involvement. USA started playing with Somalia in 1978. Govt. there built the largest army in whole of Africa. In 1991, govt. was removed and a civil war ensued. USA intervened using it's army. Black hawk down is a real story from Mogadishu, capital of Somalia! Somalia is now in total chaos and their government lives in Kenya, in exile.

2. Chad- USA gave military support to Chad to counter the threat of Libya's Qadhaafi. Finally USA bailed out when they saw things becoming ugly.

3. Sudan- From wikipedia: "Sudan – United States relations are extremely complicated, both politically and economically. The United States is critical of Sudan's human rights record and has sent a strong UN Peacekeeping force to Darfur. Many Sudanese, both civilians and Government officials say that the interference of the U.S. and other Western nations in Darfur and against leader Omar al-Bashir is part of a covert plot to throw their country in economic (since business relations between the two have been defunct since 1997), governmental, and territorial unrest"

4. Zimbabwe- USA supported Mugabe, autocratic leader of Zimbabwe, even as he committed genocide and human rights violations. Now they are trying to overthrow him

5. Congo- CIA aided 1965 coup of Mobutu. He ran a very authoritarian regime and supported by USA and France. During the cold war, he helped USA by allowing them to set up puppet governments in Uganda and Central african republic.

6. Afghanistan- USA used Pakistani military and ISI to gain presence here and defeat the soviets. They supported a highly radical army of people to Soviets. After the cold war was over, this army overthrew the Kabul government. Name of this army is Taliban!

7. Iraq- USA supported Saddam hussain to take power in Iraq. CIA helped him when he was hiding in Egypt. After Saddam's bath party seized power, relations turned sour. After Saddam attacked Kuwait, America attacked Iraq. Saddam was killed by USA in a second attack after sep 11.

8. Central african republic- US actively supported interventions by other countries like French here.

10. Pakistan- Direct involvement. USA has supported Pakistani govt, military and ISI for more than 50 years. This was done to fight soviets in Afghanistan. They pumped money and resources in the military and ISI. This has lead to weakening of government and society. Army has removed the popular government many a times and ISI runs a proxy government. Insurgents run amok in the country and bombings are a daily fixture.

Simple question: How can USA preach human rights, democracy, civil rights etc when they clearly do not practice what they preach.