Hey! What's Going On?

Yesterday (4th Nov 2014); I came across this article where our judiciary overruled verdict of rape in the case of sexual assault on a 65 year old woman who died post attack. If the reason given is to be believed that non consensual - forceful sex with a menopausal woman does not constitute rape. Is the logic for this verdict that fact that such a woman cannot conceive? Then by that count the Court will also have to use the same yardstick for girls that have not achieved puberty. Is this what our "great" nation has come to - allow legal loopholes to sick degenerates to molest children below 9 and women past 50? Both age groups fall in a zone called soft targets.

Each day the newspaper is full of articles citing rape and physical abuse of women and children. Some of the victims have not even completed their first year in this world. Quite a few cases of incestuous rape. Just today there was an article of some thieves robbing a house and then recording the raping of the house owners wife in front of him and his mother as a means of insuring that they don't report the crime. I guess the death penalty awarded to the culprits convicted and in some the cases has had no impact and we are at a point where we may soon be called a land of "Mother-F@%king Barbarians" quite literally given that it's not a North India phenomenon anymore.

Who do we as citizens turn to? Politician? Well didn't you hear what some of this breed had to say on the subject? From saying boys will be boys to stop eating Chinese food to banning swimwear calling it inciting and to top it all getting into the act themselves -  this route is not much help. Police of course - right? Wrong. The track record in this department is also not clean either and some believe that rape is linked to " lack of entertainment". Well what about the Judiciary? First the existing laws are all loaded in favour of the rapist; second we have some smart Judges like in the case yesterday making it even worse for the victim; and third, it itself falls victim to those who feel they are above the law.

So what is the answer? Do the people affected take up the law in their own hands to punish the guilty? Wrong as it may sound - is not the system pushing society in that direction? We all read what's going on; offer a few words of sympathy and then what? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. When are we going to get mad enough and not take it anymore?

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-forceful-sex-on-menopausal-woman-not-rape-says-delhi-high-court-2031918Mulayam Singh Yadav: Boys make mistakes, death penalty for rape needlesshttp://indiatoday.intoday.in/video/No+bikinis+on+Goa+beaches,says+Govt/1/81679.htmlGirl files rape charge against Goa politician - IBNLiveHaryana khap blames consumption of chowmein for rapes ...Cops gang-rape woman inside police station in Uttar PradeshGirl in police protection gang-raped - The Times of India'Lack of Entertainment Options' Causes Rape, Say Uttar ...Analysis: How India's police and judiciary fail rape victims ...Now, a woman judge raped in Akhilesh-ruled UP | India ...Police: Indian father kills man over alleged rape - CNN.com

Times are a changing

My email; SMS; whatsapp; BBM and all form of messaging boxes have been inundated with hundreds of messages carrying best wishes and good tidings for Diwali and New Year. Honestly; apart from the few I really care about - the rest - mostly from marketing e-bots fed with big data about me will go directly to my trash box as they don't need any reply or acknowledgement.

It's only now that I have noticed that I haven't received a single card via the postal or courier service. Thankful I am, for a couple of reasons; - first, I don't have to open them physically to see who they are from; second, no waste of precious paper and printing ink; and third no guilt of responding back in kind. It always felt cheap to respond back to a physical card sender with some form of e-greetings or e-acknowledgement. From a thriving money making industry, conveying of greetings through creative, time consuming and expensive cards has become a virtually free and relatively effortless task. In this age of CCP (Cut Copy Paste) one does not even spend time looking for a great original creative piece of work - just take something cool received - edit it to make it look personal (if possible) and forward to your own mailing list or respond back with a template reply.

I cannot decide if it's good or bad. Thanks to technology I have mapped my friends' birthdays, anniversaries, and such important dates - even if they are incorrect based on data entered by the source. It's good to remember people even for a split second - but does that really translate to care? At times wishing someone on a social network results in acute irritation from the alerts when others too have greeted that person. Does it give us a high to receive greetings from tons of people - many who we don't even know?

I still hold on to a few physical greeting cards that touched me emotionally; but I don't recall holding on to or printing a single e-card sent to me. We now click and share more pictures and probably leave them forgotten on social sites. There are those days when I go through my physical picture albums, scrap books and cards - hardly ever through my cherished memories on any e-platform. Its either there in my mind or somewhere out there. Times are changing - but I do hope in this age of e-junk we are able to sift through and recognise the messages of real care and respond accordingly. May be even call for a conversation rather than send back words with one of the few billion emoticons.

Happy Diwali and Indian New Year

The elections in Maharashtra has given a cracker of a result freezing the BJP a few inches behind the finish line and the rest way behind. To form the Government and claim the Chief Minister's chair; the BJP has to kind of decide between the Devil and the deep Blue Sea - namely the NCP - a party it labeled as the "Naturally Corrupt Party" and the Shiv Sena - its former ally whose leadership has been washing dirty laundry in the public even after the results were declared. In a case of warring siblings, both are waiting for the other to blink. The NCP of course; irrespective of the final equation must be laughing itself silly. By offering outside support to the BJP; it has killed two birds with one stone - first; if BJP accepts - then BJP too is susceptible to tainting itself for good as an opportunist that will do anything for power; and second - it has ruined Shiv Sena's bargaining power to near zero making sure that the leadership ego is ground to dust.

There are two more improbable scenarios - one where the 20 independents help BJP cross the finish line - at a cost that would probably be more expensive than making up with the Sena; two - BJP decides to wait it out and hope for re-election - at a cost to the exchequer and the people at large.

A re-election will in all probability deliver BJP well past the finish line but having come this far - no party would have the guts to seek a fresh mandate - even if it is on the strength of a high moral ground. With its victory in Haryana; Delhi is all but certain to fall in BJP hands should elections be called for. Such a possibility is true in Maharashtra as well given that it won more seats on its own than it would have fighting alongside Shiv Sena. The Congress looks all but washed out but not finished. Maybe it will reinvent itself with or without the Gandhi family leading it. It's more of a family political party now and would probably be better off with a non-Gandhi leader that is not a puppet to the family. There are quite a few good men in there and it would be good for an alternative to be in place just in case Mr. Modi falls in love with his own story and self.

Politics is a willy game and not improbable for scenarios five - six - seven and more to emerge including all independents joining the BJP or the Sena seeing a third of its MLAs splitting and forming a Sena B (that supports the BJP). A solution will emerge - however strange it may be. In the mean time the financial markets are celebrating that the Modi magic is more or less intact and he will now get down to doing the business he was elected for; that is make the India Story a sexy story globally once again.

So; on the eve of Diwali and the Hindu New Year - India may once again be the toast of the G-20 summit. I have moved to a new office and hopefully I will be fired creatively to write down more than just my political views. Wishing all my readers the best for the festive season. Pray that Indian festival of light and New year ushers in a new world order where Good is Good and not Breaking Bad.

War Peace and Haider

While the Indian and Pakistani troops were shelling each other's borders in the Kashmir region last evening (9th Oct); I was busy watching "Haider" - a film by one of my favourite movie makers Vishal Bharadwaj. It's a screen adaptation of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" that's been very well melded into the strife of the Kashmiri disturbance in the 90's, to set up the Indianized plot and characters. I am not about to write this film's critique barring that each actor played his or her role to near perfection - with the moral of the story coming out quite clear that revenge begets revenge and not a closure to anyone's pain. I think the leaders on both sides of the border should pay heed to this as the only people getting brutally affected by the events on the border are innocent citizens.


I must praise the openness of my own Nation's people for the screening of this movie, as it has shown the excesses of the armed forces in trying to control a situation. Pretty sure that a movie like this would have been banned in Pakistan had a Muslim film director made it showing excesses by the Pakistani army against its own people in the NWFP and Baluchistan. The Indian armed forces too have taken a pragmatic approach in not censoring it, given the artistic license that a filmmaker has to tell his story as he interprets it. There were no demonstrations on the street either in Kashmir or any other State in India protesting on how various Indian communities were portrayed. In fact people have praised the movie on all counts.

Unfortunately, the army (armed forces)  does not receive praise that it deserves unless it fights an external battle. Unlike the police that battles internal elements on a daily basis, the army knows only friend or foe and when it is instructed that it's own are foes - it does not discriminate in its dealing with them. It is this same unidirectional machinery that unquestioningly puts every resource it has at its disposal including lives of its soldiers at stake in dangerous conditions that challenge even the might of nature to rescue and rehabilitate its own people - and many a times even those that throw stones and abuses at it. The army is not known to betray its own - it only follows orders.

But; Haider is a story of betrayal by his own and the exaggerated disgust that he felt by the same - enough for him to take harsh steps of reprisal. I think the trouble on the border is being attributed to the internal problems that the Pakistanis are facing with their own system and rulers and the situation with India has been "created" by the latter to divert attention. But politically, India is not too far behind Pakistan in this sentiment; even though the reasons may be some what different. The way Indian politicians have betrayed the trust of their own people - time is not too far when India may look like the streets of Paris in the French revolution. I hope I am as good in my prediction as Rev. Malthus was in economics.


Ironical as it may be - when the two nations are fighting a quasi WAR; it was fab to hear (this morning 10th Oct.) that the Nobel PEACE Prize 2014 was being shared by a deserving Pakistani and an Indian - Ms. Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi.

http://time.com/3489223/malala-yousafzai-and-kailash-satyarthi-win-nobel-peace-prize/

Jingle Poll Jingle Poll Jingle all the way

15th Oct. 2014; is poll day for the State of Maharashtra. A fortnight back the news was full of fracturing alliances. Parties that had worked together in happy - sad situations for 25 years or more decided to break away from each other and fight it on their own. The obvious reason being seat allocations and each of those parties thinking that it needed a better share than its partner. I could have understood if the tiff came about on ideological differences on how each one wishes to govern the State and make it a better - more progressive - less taxing place for its residents. Sadly, the electorate are of no consequence in such equations. And we claim India is a Democracy where it is rule of the people for the people by the people. This definition has to change or India has to coin a new word for the type of governance we have now become. Dictatorship elected by the people for persecution of the people by the Dictator and his cohorts.

Why do I feel that now? For one; the elected party is only interested in enriching itself at the cost of the subjects. All the major projects are dished out to related companies. the related companies do a bad job as they don't really have the expertise to carry out the works except believing in cheap is best as it delivers maximum profit - which of course is the motive - not to mention periodic price hikes which have an overall impact on inflation. Can I as a citizen complain? Yes of course I can - at the cost of facing the ire of the party leader and its members - who incidentally I help elect in the first place. If there is a process of election - can we have a process of de-election. NO. Because, a) there is no real process and b) all public servants have learnt the art of sucking up to the elected and make life miserable for anyone who dares to speak up about anything that is not a jingle to the ears of the Dictator.

As of now I am suffering from an overdose of poll jingles. It's uncanny how they stick in your mind and keep replaying again and again in silence. I am sure there is some psychology involved in creation of the same to have that effect - a kind of mind hypnosis. Anyway I cannot understand what message each one is trying to communicate. There is one that proclaims that it is time to end Mafia style rule and the severe level of corruption. Cannot figure is the Party hinting at the present State government being ruled by its adversaries or the Mumbai City administration being ruled by it along with its now splintered partner? The ruling administration's ad talks about putting Maharashtra first. Well if one goes by the State's economy (leaving out Mumbai) then it has probably ensured that the State would fall to some abysmal levels. The latest ad by that Party wants us to believe that it has been responsible for ensuring higher safety for women in the State and for implementing iconic projects like the Mumbai sea-link bridge; the metro and bridges to improve traffic conditions.  The jingle fails to say anything about 26/11; the numerous rapes in the State; farmer suicides because of incomplete water distribution projects; the over the top cost ( some Rs 16 billion) of the sea-link project (which was incidentally planned in 1968 from Bandra to Nariman point at a cost of some Rs 160 million back then) that has only reached halfway point; pot holed roads that can give the moon surface a complex; bridges that have collapsed and the list goes on.

Well for both of them; their partners in crime are now washing dirty laundry in public. But who does it help? All that the Jingles have done is pushed me closer to pushing the 49-0 button (which means I waste my vote on nominating no one). This election is probably going to be a waste of money as the votes will be divided 4 ways as each of the 4 major parties have their strongholds. I will be surprised if any party gets absolute majority. In any event - God help the State.  Will the results usher in new and more dangerous post poll alliances? Politics is like a soap opera - anyone can sleep with anyone; and it's not impossible to see sworn enemies share the stage together on the swearing ceremony day. Until the 14th then - it's Jingles all the way.

Big Data Or Big Brother of 1984?

I saw a newsclip yesterday commenting on facebook messenger (FBM). What it suggested was that FBM can supposedly "study" you using the front camera while you use FBM on your phone. Yes, theoretically it can do that as the service agreement accepted by the user (you) allows FBM to essentially capture everything you do on your phone; including text messages, pictures, et all. Well you could switch out of FBM and move to Whatsapp. Hey! did FB not buy that too? Dig deeper and virtually every app on your phone has sought permission to access almost everything that is stored or exchanged on your smartphone. At one time it was amazing how an email sent with references to wanting a vacation somewhere would result in the manifestation of deals from airlines and hotels servicing that destination. We are no longer awed; but we are not scared either - at least not yet.

We should actually be freaking at this very moment knowing that venture capitalists are pouring billions of dollars in technology companies going after"Big Data".  Each year you are being better and better mapped, solicited and sold for money; and did you think your downloaded app was for free? There is a fine line between use and abuse of all the data collected and some of it is very personal information. In the wrong hands - devastating. Think of it; the next big thing are smart watches. Now you are strapped even tighter in the net; and more data about your physical self will get transferred to a collector. To what use? Well, I don't have to spell it out - do I? Now that the human population will almost voluntarily radio tag itself like cattle and walk around with VR glasses with super smart phones on their person; the possibilities of predicting, influencing and extracting behaviour become infinite. From economic reasons it will almost certainly gravitate to the need to control.

Mankind has never followed the advice given by Uncle Ben (Spiderman) "With great power comes greater responsibility" and has abused the instruments available in his hands to wrest control. It's not clear if in 2024 will it be a battle between nations or religious factions as we know them today or between "FBians" and "Googlies" or much smaller or larger followings that may form by then. But, I do know that as of today - my fundamental rights of privacy are being violated and I am to a large extent willingly allowing it to happen. Mr. Orwell, your 1984 has just about begun 3 decades later; and we are being watched by not one but several Big Brothers.

“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”

Read this and scare yourself even more:

The Hidden Secrets of Online Quizzes

http://www.pcworld.com/article/164527/online_quizzes.html

PPP - (Pakistan Politics and Ping)

This morning, my salute went out to a set of airline flyers in Pakistan as they had the courage of forcing the airline to offload two Very Very Irritating Politicians (aka VVIPs) who delayed their flight. It's time politicians around the world realize that they cannot harass the very people who elect them as their representatives. I wonder when will we in India will stand up to such nonsense.

Then there was another piece of news that cheered me a bit more. Our Minister of Civil Aviation Mr. G Raju instructed Air India to lower VIP protocol and pay attention to fare paying customers. Honestly, a sizeable percentage of Air India's losses would vanish if it functioned as a customer friendly rather than a ruler friendly airline.  The Minister has already made a few important but quite moves that has earned my respect. He does not make passengers wait. He checks in line ordinary passengers and even carries his own bags. He has initiated the Know Your Rights portal for passengers to tell them what to do when they feel that an airline is taking them for granted. So there is one more person in the Modi Cabinet (besides the PM) that I can look up to.

During the Congress rule, there was a list of 21 persons exempt from security search at all Indian airports. Numbers 1 - 20 were obvious; but number 21 baffled me. Robert Vadra. Not Priyanka, not Rahul but Robert. Even the CISF guys had no answer to this question. All they could say was "Desh Ka Damaad" (Son-in-law of the nation). Well No. 21 is off the list thankfully and really there should be no exemption list to begin with. What prevents  any one of those 20 persons from becoming a suicide bomber theoretically speaking? They conveniently subject themselves to search at all international airports; but back at home - it's a different matter.

While at arrival and departures; India welcomes President Xi JinPing of China today on what is also PM Modi's birthday. Our PM is looking more and more like a Venture Capitalist getting term sheet after term sheet of commitments signed to fund India's infrastructure appetite. After Japan's USD 30 billion; China is looking at committing  USD 100 billion. This is a very important statement coming from a nation that has been officially at "Cold war" with us since 1962. PM Modi's "Inch to Miles" strategy can be a game changer for the entire world taking away the traditional monopoly of the western nations moral policing the globe militarily and economically. But, one always questions the Chinese agenda. Is the money linked to resolving the land and water dispute between the two nations running over a territory of a 1000kms? Or is it the recognition of Tibet as a part of China that will allow our neighbour to recognize Arunachal as part of India. Too early to say but I hope it's time that "Hindi-Chini" became "Bhai Bhai" again (India- China brotherhood).

(LOL amazing that one news reader thought the Chinese President's name was Eleven JinPing (Xi JinPing) )