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.

Poverty and food security bill

What is the definition of poverty ? Is it that person who does not have enough money to buy food for himself & family or a house or a car ? Even if they are given money to buy these things they will not become "rich". This money will be spent on buying the basic needs and when that money is spent they will rejoin the ranks of poor. I think poverty is dearth of skills that allows a person to earn money and lead a good life and the only way to make people non-poor is to provide them with the resources & skills that help them earn money to fund basic and not-so-basic-needs of life.

Lets look at a family in a village right now and try to find the reason why they are poor. There is enough food available to remove hunger in most of the villages. I believe it more to do with the lack of healthcare and education infrastructure. They can earn enough money to feed themselves. But thats it. They spend all the money in food, clothes and other day-to-day needs. They manage to save very little and these savings are spent when somebody falls ill in the family. There are not good doctors in the villages so people are compelled to get healthcare in expensive private clinics. There are not good schools in the villages and they can either spend a fortune to send their kids to city schools or let them play all day long. This leaves a trail of poor people who are ready to migrate to cities and sleep under the over bridges. It is not as if our cities do not have enough jobs. On the contrary there is huge dearth of people with skills. However we do not have enough people with these skills because these people never managed to learn these much needed skills.

How does food security act fit into all this ? Why is government trying to feed people for almost free ? Won't it make people dependent on government and hence lazy to work ? Is it not better to tackle the problem of skills and let people earn their bread themselves?

It is not such a simple problem. Food is a very basic and immediate need. People cannot be compelled to send their children to schools when their very existence is in question. They take a shortcut to earn their living without gaining enough skills due to poverty which in turn keeps them poor for life. What availability of food is not going to do is to make people rich. However it will kill hunger and bring extremely poor people out of their misery. It will take their mind off this problem. It will make children of our country not beg for food. It would stop families from sending their children out in the cities to be servants and stop people migrating from villages to cities in such large numbers.

If combined well with NREGA, right to education and a massive upgrade in healthcare infrastructure then it would trigger people to think long term, send their children to schools & colleges and finally come out of poverty forever. I know it's a far fetched dream and given the track record of our government in past one is justified in being skeptical. Yet I am glad to know that the government is working on this problem and their is some strategic thinking and movement on the ground. I hope to see a poverty free India in next 10-20 years.

Sehwag!

Another century from Sehwag! The player who has no foot movement and who could have been almost written off by the greats of Cricket, had it not been for his aggressive run making. I believe he has been tagged as lucky batsman quite a few times by likes of Gavaskar. Sehwag is a prime example of why hard work and determination are more important than talent.

It's not about the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog!