Whoops

Hello, all!

Sorry for not posting for so long, but some things have been keeping me occupied.

Like the fact that we may soon have another smartass-in-writing on this blog, and while I can make no promises, I'm freaking excited too.

So, I leave you, with these so-cute-you-want-to-hug-it-to-the-point-of-strangling-it pictures of kittens in a basket! And who doesn't like kittens with large eyes and adorable whiskers, huh?

-Over and out-
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Rahul Gandhi: Not Ready to be PM

At least he has the decency to admit he doesn't quite have the necessary qualifications to be a PM just yet, even as his entire family, and the rest of the Congress, is hell bent on making sure he's the next PM candidate. It's sounds like a Shakespearean tragedy, where a man must choose between his family pressures and appearing sane to the public with his dignity intact.

He stated there were two reasons he wouldn't accept the PM post just yet:

"One is that I am working in the organisation of the Congress party which I think is fundamental for this country. I think it is very important for a strong, progressive, pro-poor youth organisation is developed in this country and that is a very, very big priority of mine.

"Number two is I don't think I have the experience to be the Prime Minister of the country right now," he said.

He earned a gold star in my book for that. But then he had to open his mouth again and say this:

Gandhi struck an aggressive note on being quizzed about the Bofors controversy and the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and whether he was prepared to apologise for them.

"There is absolutely nothing that I have to apologise about Bofors. It is a complete lie," he said adding that the controversy was a "calumny" spread by the Opposition for 20 years.

Rahul also hit out at the BJP blaming them of Babri Masjid demolition.

"Babri Masjid was broken by the politics of BJP. It was broken by the politics of division, it was broken by dividing Indians against Indians."

Striking the opposition for their mistakes, yet not willing to accept your own party's errors shows that he has a lot more growing up to do. Especially when both the incidents were proven to have a major Congress hand, just as the Babri Masjid incident was pinned on the BJP.

Ah, well, that's just the Congress influence for you...
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I Love Him, But I Adore Blacklighting Him Even More

SRK might be forcefully removed from stadium grounds if he's caught smoking at the IPL matches again, and there's no way he can hide that since the cameras pan on him more often than on his own team. Here's more from NDTV.com:

The National Organisation for Tobacco Eradication (NOTE), has protested against filmstar Shahrukh Khan who was shown on the TV screen smoking during an IPL match on April 21 in South Africa.

NOTE has asked the South African National Council Against Smoking (NCAS) to consider the issue seriously and stop smoking in the stadium during Indian Premier League matches.

"I chatted with them and sent details and motivation to the supersport. They are the broadcasters. I am soliciting an agreement that they will not show anyone smoking," Peter Ucko from NCAS has informed NOTE.

NOTE General Secretary Shekhar Salkar said that they had contacted NCAS to explore possible advocacy that can be coordinated in South Africa after King Khan was shown puffing on a television screen.

The NCAS in their reply has said that the Act which will ban smoking in sport stadium is not yet in force.

He said that smoking is not permitted in an enclosed area and if Khan does it again I am asking management to tell him that if he fails to comply they will remove him from the grounds, he said.

Poor guy. I say the guy should custom-design a plastic bubble for himself to he can smoke in peace. The addictive haze of poisonous tobacco smoke is pretty much the only thing holding him back from screaming like a girl every time the KKR loses.
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On Request

A friend asked me to do a piece on the recent Akriti Bhatia controversy, expecting my usual cynicism on the topic. But frankly, it hardly calls for any sarcastic remarks, not just because it would be distasteful, but since it's already a very obvious issue that we know prevails, but very few attempt to fix. My own school had terribly unhygienic bathrooms, a nurse who would make you pay for sanitary napkins and an administration that just never quite cared if you were genuinely sick, since it was a generalized notion that all kids tend to fake illnesses to skip class. That was the degree of trust and responsibility the school had over the kids. And we just couldn't care less, never bothering to complain about it or pose it as a serious issue so that it can be rectified.

I also found certain facts quite odd, one being that Akriti was not in possession of an asthma spray. Every child who is diagnosed with asthma is required to carry the mouth spray around for a temporary relief in case of an attack so that they can at least request help. And it is true that not all schools are given nebulizers since it is required that they be used with caution and in the most severe of emergencies. It is also not possible for all schools to have an on-call doctor since the doctor-patient ratio in the country is already at a pathetic number.

Further, many facts still remain unclear, like those of the exact time taken since she went to the school clinic to when she reached the hospital, and whether she complained of a discomfort or recognized that it was an asthma attack.

I'm quite sick of cynicism at this point, especially when it comes to school-related controversies such as slow medical attention and ragging. They are definitely issues to deal with, but when the media highlights to such a point that it stands on the knife edge that wavers between the duty of a journalist and the disgusting lack of media ethics, you tend to sit back and wonder how cases involving humiliation and pain for the parties concerned can be so blatantly projected, just to take full advantage of a little necessary evil called 'freedom of the press'.
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I Can't Believe I Forgot!

The Unofficial Personification of Sex Appeal, Mr. Dev Patel, turned 19 yesterday and I missed out on that because I was too busy eating cake at my own brother's birthday party. He turned 12, by the way. It's a year late, but we're expecting his Hogwarts acceptance letter pretty soon.

Anyhotness, I still can't get over how Frieda Pinto is sticking onto my Dev. I get it, she's going international now. She has a makeup label that's dumping Gwyneth Paltrow for her and she's snagged a movie with Woody Allen, but seriously, woman, HANDS OFF!

By the way, these two were spotted canoodling in Tel Aviv where Pinto is shooting for her next movie. Sometimes I think there's just no justice in the world...
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He Beat Me To It

I can't believe someone beat me to my dream of becoming a secret blogger report from the depths of an IPL team. Dammit!

So this blogger, who is allegedly part of the Kolkata Knight Riders, had been spraying venomous words about the IPL all over the internet, something I've always wanted to do, but never quite accomplished. Some say this is because I am far too awesome to succumb to petty efforts like his. But I'd wager it has something to with my complete lack of hand-eye coordination and general suckiness in organized sports that prevented me from joining KKR and spilling the IPL's deep, dark secrets.

Then again, we have people like SRK who talk so much that there isn't much news to report, so the job would have been a futile one.
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Another Day Highlighting a Good Cause...

...that proves insignificant when compared to the economy, your job, your education, your mortgaged home and the cute guy next door who accidentally smiled at you this morning.



Cleverly Photoshopped images, like the one above, tend to trigger your tear glands and make you, temporarily, sympathize with poor, burdened Mother Earth. And a few moments later when you find out that the Kolkatta Knight Riders won their second IPL match this year (worthless win, though), the fact that the planet might become a ball of floating ash and dust in a few years hardly frazzles you.

Why this nonsense, you ask? Well, today happens to be Earth Day, not to be mistaken by World Environment Day, which is marked on June 5th. Or Arbor Day, on the last Friday of every April. Or the Bike-to-Work Day, third Friday in May. Or the Car-Free Day, September 22nd. Or World Habitat Day, first Monday of October. Or Zero Emissions Day, September 20th. Or Day for Water, March 22nd. Or Ecological Debt Day, September 23rd. Or Ozone Action Day, which happens at select times of select months that no one knows about.

Maybe life would be easier for environmentalists and the people they are trying to convince if they just had one freaking Earth Day and instead of lecturing people to be kind to Mamma Earth on that one day, just advocate everyday as one. Not that anyone is going to listen, but it's worth a shot.
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Cheap Shot

The Naxals wanted attention. And congrats, losers, now you have it.

Jharkhand seems to be bearing the immense brunt of the Naxal's fury as a series of tragic events have been taking place there prior to the second phase of the elections which is to start tomorrow. At around 7.30am today morning, around 200 Naxals hijacked a train on its way from Barkakana to Mughalsarai. Security forces were rushed to the area and after a few hours of total disarray, no thanks to the utter lack of a plan (except, you know, "storming in and rescuing everyone heroically") and the frenzy caused by national news channels, the Naxals obviously got bored and released the 700 or so passengers. Well, they got the media coverage they needed, didn't they?

This attack (I guess) comes after a series of public assaults by the Naxalites, preceded by the bomb blast at Utari railway station, just a few minutes before the Rajdhani Express was scheduled to pass. Several bomb blasts and small instances of violence have also been reported in Bihar.


A quick Wikipedia search says that over 6000 civilians and police employs have been killed (ruthlessly, I might add) at the hands of the Naxals. Sometimes, I still don't get what the hell they're trying to convey. Are the against the government, or just certain policies? Are the against general public welfare, or they supporting it, 'cause killing hundreds of thousand of people doesn't really qualify as 'public welfare' in my books. Are they aliens, just waiting to kill of minorities and random citizens one by one, before taking over.. uhh.. India? Or maybe just North-east India, Bengal and Bihar. Or are they fighting against democracy in general?

Oh, who cares? We've given them more than enough attention already *grumbles*
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Israel Owns All. End of Story.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Despite how so many people pretend to support Palestine, even as they are awed by Israel's military and administrative superiority that, I assume, is incomparable, the recent UN anti-racism conference in Geneva (April 20th) makes me wonder if people really are thinking this through or just going with the flow, just as a majority of mankind does.

An international conference on racism fell into disarray as Iran's president launched a verbal onslaught against Israel, triggering a mass walkout and furious rebukes from Western capitals.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has previously called for the Jewish state to be wiped off the map, criticised the creation of a "totally racist government in occupied Palestine" in 1948, calling it "the most cruel and repressive racist regime.

"The UN Security Council helped stabilise this occupation regime and supported it for the past 60 years, giving them a free hand to continue their crimes," he said.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who had earlier berated countries for boycotting the meeting, accused the Iranian leader of incitement, while other Western leaders lined up to condemn his remarks.

"I deplore the use of this platform by the Iranian president to accuse, divide and even incite," Ban said in a statement. "This is the opposite of what this conference seeks to achieve."

The United States, which led 10 countries in boycotting the meeting, said the furore vindicated the decision by the countrys first African-American president to shun the UN conference on racism in Geneva.

-Indiatvnews.com

So far, Israel, Canada, the United States, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, the Neatherlands, Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic have boycotted the session. Ten nations out of some 190-odd countries participating in the summit. The rest of the world still remains stuck to their seats in the conference, even as it has evolved into an ugly scene of hate and pro-racist drama. Goes to show that herd-mentality is a still a force to be reckoned with.
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You Go, Girl!

You go, girl: A phrase commonly used by minority female characters in a B-list Hollywood movie to symbolize feminism in their community while stereotyping minority groups in general.


For those of you who have been living under a rock over the last week or so (I was on holiday, so I don't count), Sanjay Dutt has given a little monologue to UP chief minister Mayawati, which was meant to make people relate to him, you know, as an actor:

Actor turned politician Sanjay Dutt has landed in another controversy.

This time he made an offer of a jadu ki jhappi (magical hug) to Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati.

Sanjay Dutt, “I haven't come here to give a speech, mos1 I've come here to do 'Gandhigiri', I will give Mayawati jaadu ki jhappi, and a big kiss.”

In the film, Munnabhai's gesture would turn enemies into friends, but the belligerent behenji of the BSP is not the sort who turns the other cheek and clearly is no fan of Munnabhai's Gandhigiri either.

Considering how Mayawati has already proved herself to be quite badass (even more so than Phoolan Devi) and could take down Cokehead Dutt in seconds, it was not-so-surprising when she came out with a byte so polite that it hurt, while issuing a police notice in his name:

Mayawati saw this as an opportunity to score political points against her rival camp Samajwadi Party (SP) and decided that this was too sexist a remark for her to ignore in keeping with the jee huzoori in UP.

The Pratapgarh DM has promptly served a notice to Sanjay Dutt asking him to explain himself within 24 hours.

The District Magistrate has also asked the police to investigate if the matter requires a case to be registered against Dutt junior.

She also hit out with this:

"My political opponents have no good work to their credit and are demoralised over the BSPs growing popularity. Hence, they are now gathering people who are good at little except singing, dancing and "farzi" fake Gandhigiri", the BSP supremo told an election meeting in Allahabad.

Without naming Dutt or the Samajwadi Party which has made the actor its General Secretary, she said, "Our political opponents need to remember that naachne-gaane wale those who sing and dance, through their farzi Gandhigiri, may attract huge crowds but will not help them get votes".

Wow, dude. Heard your wife stormed out to the Bahamas or something. I'd join her if I were you, 'cause I'm sensing a lot of pissed-off UP people will be marching towards your home in a few days, and it might not necessarily be for a jaadu ki jhappi.

Ref: Timesnow.tv and Indiatvnews.com
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