The Revolving Doors of Indian Politics

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

It was late in the night. The year was 1998. The setting was a teevee studio in a remote corner of New Delhi. The participants in the discussion were then ‘senior Congress leader’ Sharad Pawar, bearded trampoline Prannoy Roy and a whole litany of non-Prannoy Roys, none of whom had fled the nest yet. As the votes came in, initial projections told us that – as expected – no party or coalition had a clear majority. As per its senior leader in the studio, the Congress was still intent on keeping the BJP out of power. When asked by one of the non-Prannoys how they would manage that, Pawar said that they would try to kiss and make up with the United Front. This shocked the non-Prannoy, who spent the next hour expressing his shock that the Congress was ready to prop up the same government that it had withdrawn support from twice in the last one year. It was ready to return to the status quo after foistering an expensive mid-term poll on the taxpayers. A political party playing politics! When did that start happening, the non-Prannoy wondered out loud.

This same naiveté was on display recently when we were informed that voter disenfranchisement enthusiast, Subramanian Swamy, was merging his one man party with the BJP. Because if there is one thing that the BJP needs, it’s another megalomaniac bigot who desperately wants to be Prime Minister. While scary music played over a montage of Swamy meeting and posing with various BJP leaders, questions were raised about how this came about. Wasn’t this the same guy who until a few years ago was the mortal enemy of one of the BJP’s tallest leaders? Didn’t he engineer the downfall of the first NDA government? All the Prannoys and non-Prannoys were shocked! Even though anyone who wasn’t in a coma would have seen this coming, the people whose job is to know things were dumbfounded.

Mortal enemies becoming best friends or best friends becoming mortal enemies is something that happens very often in Indian politics. As one irritating non-Prannoy never fails to remind us, a week is a long time in Indian politics. That is why our politicians’ favourite parlour game is ‘Six Degrees of Ajit Singh.’ The current civil aviation and the human embodiment of everything that is wrong with Indian politics has been in more parties than Suhel Seth at New Year’s eve. Almost every party or politician has been in an alliance with him at some stage in the past few decades. It’s sort of a rite of passage in Indian politics! Everybody has a mind-numbing, terrible, Ajit Singh anecdote. 

Political parties usually discover how horrible their former ally is as soon as they end their alliance. Like when the Trinamool Congress found out that the UPA is corrupt the day after they withdrew support. Or the current exchange of rhetoric between the BJP and the JD(U). Suddenly, the JD(U) finds the BJP communal and the BJP finds the JD(U) incompetent! You know what they say, keep your friends close for seventeen years and have no compunction in taking support from your enemies. Mulayam Singh Yadav never fails to remind people that the Congress party is a parasite on the Indian polity whose only purpose is its own sustenance. Yet, the Samajwadi Party is always the one to pull the UPA out of its self-made rubble. After the last general election, a humbled Mayawati declared her party’s support for the UPA, a year after trying to topple it to make herself the Prime Minister. Since our political parties don’t really have an ideology, they have no qualms in aligning with whoever gives them the best deal. 

Most of our politicians would like you to forget about the past. Smriti Irani once threatened to go on a ‘fast unto death’ if Modi didn’t resign but now she is one of his trusted lieutenants. Najma Heputulla found the BJP ‘politically acceptable’ and ‘totally secular’ when she figured the Congress wouldn’t be nominating her for another term in the Rajya Sabha. Buta Singh has been a minister in both Congress-led and BJP-led governments, but would like you to most remember him for being “Rajiv Gandhi’s #2,” according to whichever lowly intern was paid to edit his wikipedia page.

However, since August is now ‘Anna Hazare awareness month,’ it’s fitting that this week’s award for the most hilarious incident of hypocrisy goes to the un-caped anti-corruption crusader. Hazare, known hater of western ideas is now heading on an American junket. He is scheduled to ring the bell at the NASDAQ stock exchange. Apparently, the best way to fight corruption is letting yourself be used as a prop at the ground zero of crony capitalism. Looks like all that fasting made Ralegan Siddhi’s worst nightmare quite irony deficient.

As he felt the wheels of the plane touching the ground, Anna Hazare took off his ‘gandhi topi’ and put it in his bag. He wouldn’t need it for the next few days. Finally, he was going to be able to fulfil his childhood dream. He never imagined that he could ever travel to America. So he pretended to hate it. Now that he was here, he could live his life. Be himself, without being judged for it. All he wants to do is get a drink, find a nice lady to dance with and then take her to his hotel room. For how long has he denied himself these simple pleasures just because he was expected to? All that ends today! He could do anything here! And he wouldn’t need to explain his actions to anyone. “Whatever happens in America, stays in America,” he happily mumbled to himself. He felt his heart would burst with joy. Which was new to him, because since 1942, the only emotion he’d allowed himself to feel was acute misery. Seems like Christmas was going to be a little early this year.

How the Grinch Stole Your Democracy

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

One of the perks of modern life is the convenience of being able to order things online. For someone who hates shopping and goes to buy things two times a year, it’s a godsend. The best of both worlds! You mean I can get what I want without any human contact and with enough pretence of a bargain to satiate my ancient Indian urge to always seek the best deal? Shut up and take my money! However, this sweet, blissful utopia is interrupted by the constant emails one receives from every online retailer once you make a purchase on their website. Indian or foreign, they go after you with the zeal of a crazy person with whom you once went on a disastrous date and who hasn’t stopped trying to get in touch with you ever since. And yet, you can’t punish them for this. What are you going to do? Go shopping to an actual shopping place (plazas? bazaars? junctions? I don’t even know what people call them anymore!) and be forced to explain to a real person what you want and then pay in cash? Ugh. You will take away my online fix from my cold, bankrupt hands.

And I’m probably not the only one who is addicted to the instant gratification of the purchase button. The UPA seems to be suffering from the same ailment. Seems like everytime they have to win a vote in parliament, they ‘add’ SP and BSP MPs to their ‘shopping cart’ and click ‘purchase.’ I hope they’re at least getting a ‘frequent buyer’ discount.

Like the vote on FDI, which became a farce even before the debate was to begin. The BJP wanted a discussion which would allow both the houses to vote on the policy. The UPA dithered on holding the discussion until it could ‘convince’ enough ‘allies’ to vote in its favour. Or at least walk out before the vote giving it a majority by default. While the BJP disrupted the Lok Sabha session to get it adjourned, the Congress got its fair weather friends to interrupt proceedings in the Rajya Sabha under silly pretences. Synergy! Bipartisanship! Strategery!

The discussion in the Lok Sabha was held under the watchful eyes of the speaker, Meira Kumar, who reflected the calm demeanour of a serial killer. Even a government school substitute teacher monitoring a class in which half the students get serious injuries and the other half jump from a ledge has more control over her class than Ms. Kumar has over her MPs. Once her term as the speaker ends, she will go back to her original job - being the voice of a much maligned cellular network who, for some reason, seems quite delighted to inform you that the number you’re trying to call is not available at the moment. The speeches in the house were filled with so much jargon that our MPs were instantly invited to be the featured speakers at the next TED conference. Our sanctimonious parliamentarians even managed to sully the good reputation of the Indian potato. Allegedly, they make for small fries. The last we heard, the Indian potato was being cheered up by his girlfriend, who told him that it’s not the size that matters, it’s how you eat the fries.

The discussion in the Rajya Sabha was even worse. Which is expected because most of these ‘elders’ are rejects from the Lok Sabha. They are so unelectable, even their families voted for the other candidate. But since both sides needed all the votes they could gather, it was all hands on deck. Everyone, except Sachin Tendulkar showed up. He wasn’t able to because he was busy protecting India from another foreign entity. And unlike his large fleet of planes, Vijay Mallya decided to make himself useful and was also present to cast his vote. I think he’s not yet familiar with how Parliament works because he was overheard ordering a drink to whoever looked like a waiter to him. The proceedings of the Rajya Sabha were being handled by the most nondescript man in India, Vice-President Hamid Ansari. The only reason he shows up for work everyday is because no one has told him yet that he’s in a coma.

In the end, the government’s investment paid off and the opposition’s motion was defeated in both the houses of Parliament, making the CEO of Wal-Mart India’s Governor-General for life. Seems like certain former chief ministers of UP will get a lot of ‘clean chits’ in their Christmas stocking this year. That’s probably what the framers of our constitution intended. Letting the fate of the country’s major policy decisions rest on the whims and fancies of two of the most opportunistic, vile, corrupt and self-serving politicians this country has ever seen.

If only politicians also came with a money-back guarantee.

Fahrenheit 2012

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

The streets of the internet filled with rumours. The news went viral faster than a video of a cat bungee jumping over the Potomac River while lip-synching to that irritating Carly Rae Jepsen song. The internet service providers in India were on a blocking spree again. Their actions brought various opposite camps on twitter together in their disgust and paranoia. The message the twittersphere wanted to send to the powers-that-be was clear: Steal our tax money and generally wreck up things to make our life harder, but don’t you dare try to take away our right to download free stuff from the internet or we’re going to HULK SMASH our keyboard and protest against internet censorship by posting things on the internet. And the powers-that-be did what they always do whenever legitimate users of something complain that their rights are being infringed upon - ignore them.

One of the parties involved in this iteration of block-a-mole has used the internet very successfully to create a buzz around their movie through a viral video. Now the producers of that very movie have turned on the very people who made them famous. Though they are not the only ones to do that. A large number of corporate entities try to clamp down on the internet by claiming that their forthcoming big-budget movie is allegedly being pirated online. They think that the reason people don’t want to see their movies is because they are pirating it on the internet. Not because they make terrible movies that have no stories but are just scenes of things put together haphazardly based on a focus group of one. Even though most people will not see these movies even if you paid them money, but, yeah, let’s pretend that the internet is the problem.

They keep trying to fight the internet instead of embracing it. If you make it easy for users to access your content, they would not need to pirate it. Trying to block torrent sites on the internet is like sending a hundred year old tortoise to catch the energizer bunny. Not only were they not able to achieve what they set out to do, in their haste, the movie producers even had the ISPs block, websites which had nothing to do with piracy. For example, they blocked Pastebin, a website whose sole function is to allow users on the internet to share pasted text, and Vimeo, a website which mostly contains time lapse videos of the remaining five picturesque locations on earth and indie movies made with such an austere budget that even P. Sainath would approve. By blocking these websites, they are actually hurting the people who want to showcase legitimate content.

In the end all the parties involved in this orgy of ignorance and ineptitude passed the blame for this to one another. The government could proudly claim that after a long time, it was relieved to not be the one trying to trample on its citizens rights. All we did was make these arbitrary and vague rules which can be willingly exploited by anyone to censor things they don’t want you to see. Don’t blame us! The corporate entities which sought to block the websites simply shrugged in response. We just cynically used our corporate heft to censor things that might hurt our business. Who is going to stop us? You? Or those government institutions who are so deeply embedded inside our ass that they can taste what we had for lunch?  And the internet service providers - who used this opportunity to block popular torrent and video sites to preserve their precious bandwidth - not only acted like they did not understand the court order and instead of blocking specific URL’s, blocked complete websites, and as of the time of writing this column, they were still pretending that they didn’t really understand how to completely unblock them. Sorry, court order! Our hands are tied behind our backs, giving you the finger. Meanwhile, the regulators responsible for protecting the consumers were AWOL as usual. Wait, are you talking to us? Are we supposed to do something in such a situation? Let us think about that for a while and come back to you with a whitepaper in 3 to 5 years. Hope that helps!

The internet is a problem for a lot of powerful groups in this country. Various governments and government institutions are unable to fathom the freedom of expression the internet offers. It is hard for them to accept the existence of a medium of communication which they cannot bully, cajole, or bribe into submission. Most politicians do not view the internet as a tool which can empower their citizens; rather they think of the internet as just another part of the vast conspiracy to destroy them. Instead of embracing it at every level, they resist it like white blood cells resist an infection. Corporate India does not like the internet because they can’t buy off all internet users by sending them on junkets or paying their child’s school fees. And the entertainment industry does not like the internet because it is full of “h8trz” who are “hatin” on them all the time. How can you allow a place where celebrities are not treated with the love and respect they deserve to exist? Sounds spooky, like something out of the Twilight Zone. 

On the bright side, at least they let us armchair critics feel like martyrs.

Fear and self-loathing in New Delhi

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

Members of constant anti-democracy infomercial, the Indian parliament, were going through an existential crisis recently. They were searching hard for their place in the world. They looked around and wondered: are they just another degenerating life form in the senior citizen play pen that they belong to? Are they simply disposable pawns in the hands of their party high command? Serving at the high command’s pleasure, not having a voice of their own, doing the same thing day in and day out, burying their aspirations, their needs, and their principles for the larger good of the party. Are they just biding their time until they go back into the abyss thanks to the sweet release of death? Will they ever matter? Will they ever be able to look themselves in the mirror and not feel repulsed at what they have become? Will they be able to go back one day to the people – who keep electing them in the hope that maybe, maybe, this time things will be different – with their heads held high? Our elected representatives were having a morbid crisis of morality. The air inside Sansad Bhavan was full of melancholy. Lawmakers were searching for answers to which they did not even know the questions. And then, as the fellow once said, seek and ye shall receive, they finally found something that would not only unite them with purpose, but also redeem them in the eyes of the cynical electorate. No more tarring all of them with the same brush because of a few bad apples; they would get back the respect they deserve. The clouds of dread were replaced by the unseasonal spring as the honourable members finally found the source of all that ails this country: cartoons.

Yes, cartoons. You better believe it! Apparently, those terrorists at NCERT, a government department whose original mission was to develop a cure for insomnia, dared to print in one of their textbooks about politics, cartoons depicting our esteemed politicians in a non-positive light. Outrageous! Our great leaders are nothing but beacons of justice and propriety. Those self-proclaimed ‘esteemed educationists’ at NCERT are misusing their government-given positions to damage Indian democracy. As Pranab Mukerjee – the nearest thing the UPA government has to an adult – said the other day, cartoons are not for children. Yes, exactly. They might be old enough to learn about hoohas & peepees (I would have known the actual scientific terms for them if they had bothered to teach my class the chapter on reproduction and not deemed it ‘out of syllabus’), learn about how history was full of monsters who killed millions of people on a whim, and might even be expected to comprehend how until six short decades ago they were second class citizens in their own country, however, showing them mildly amusing cartoons about politicians will ruin their innocence and mentally scar them for life. And that is just not cricket, old chum.

This is not the first time the hard working parliamentarians have had to defend the very roots of our democracy from egregious outside attacks. Recently, they have been metaphorically pulverized by powerful forces like 80’s hindi movie villain ‘Baba’ Ramdev (He’s got his own private island, thousands of followers who subscribe to his every diktat and lots of financial backers in foreign countries. ZOMG! HE’S MOGAMBO!), famous actor & king of the pox people, Om Puri and former policewoman and current fake teevee judge who prevents irritating people from divorcing each other, Kiran Bedi. These three dared to insult and question the very dignity of our parliament by making somewhat truthful assertions about our MPs in a public forum. So our fair and balanced lawmakers took the only recourse available to them. (No, they did get any of the goons they have on a retainer to beat up these people! Those are for people without ‘friends’ in the media, silly!) They passed a censure motion against them. You may think this is not appropriate use of our lawmaker’s time, but who cares what you think anyway? You’re an elitist having access to basic necessities like education, clean water and electricity. The only opinion that counts is of the caricatures of poor people that live in our politician's heads.

Now some say that our MPs sully the very institution they pretend to revere by pulling various idiotic stunts like tearing bills they do not agree with. That is nonsense! The sanctity of parliament is not disturbed when the MPs frequently stage a walkout. They are just setting an example for the rest of the country to follow. Walking is good for your health. Keep walking! Neither was the dignity of the parliament affected when our MPs rushed to the well of the Lok Sabha with large amounts of currency. This was proof that India has finally arrived. We’re not that socialist country whose MPs can be bought for trifle amounts of money anymore. Now our MPs have ‘fuck you money,’ and only actual dollar billionaires can afford to temporary lease their integrity. If that doesn’t say progress, I don’t know what does. The parliament also maintains its status as a temple of democracy when the speaker of the house flouts the very rules she has been sworn-in to uphold by giving special consideration to a prominent leader of her party. Even real temples give preference to important people! It’s the rule of nature. If god wanted poor people to get any importance, he would have given them money.

If only there was a medium which we could use to illustrate the absurdity of this whole event.

Let’s get fiscal

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

As the budget day approached, the nation got ready to celebrate this non-religious holiday very religiously. Students were assigned essays to be written on why budget day is their favourite holiday. Everyone in the workforce cancelled all their appointments. Restaurants were offering their patrons special deals on drinks and appetizers to induce consumers to do their budget watching with them. Television channels dusted off their annual glimpses-of-various-finance-ministers-showing-off-their-budget-briefcase video. Twitter users were remembering Bengali stereotypes to make terrible Pranab Mukherjee jokes. Economic experts were taking a break from giving a discourse on other issues and concentrating on second guessing the finance minister. A number of think-tanks even came up with alternate budget suggestions, which they released on the day before the budget presentation (because obviously the most important financial document of the world’s fourth largest economy is prepared the same way I used to study for all my exams: by pulling an all-nighter). India was ready to get fiscal.

I was watching news television the whole day so besides breaking into a terrible rash, my only take away from the budget broadcast was that somehow I would have to back-pay all my taxes again, going back to 1962, for some reason. I was so outraged that I joined a Facebook group protesting this blatant power grab. As I was about to sign a strongly worded online petition, I ended up using the ‘Google machine’ and found out that my object of outrage was only a clarification of an old law, something that is not a punch in the face of the constitution but a normal budgetary procedure.

Can you blame me for not cutting the UPA any slack? This government has fucked up so many times the country has fuck-up fatigue. It has less inertia than a 101-year old man pushing his own wheelchair. A government so rudderless it makes a sunken Italian cruise liner seem like it knows where it’s going. A government which meanders from crisis to crisis and yet has the temerity to act like a ‘mean girl’ towards anyone who suggests that they might not be the most awesome thing to happen to the country.

Things are not helped by the fact that our free press- the supposed vanguard of our democracy- has the attention span of a schizophrenic sociopath suffering from attention deficit syndrome. There is no sense of proportion. Even minor governance issues are trotted out as do or die situations. Mid-term elections have been just around the corner ever since this government has been elected. The media is so eager to badly analyze a horse race that they have no qualms in disingenuously engineering a crisis every other week. 

They spend less time vetting the messiahs they force upon us than the amount of time the McCain campaign spent vetting Sarah Palin. Montek Singh Ahluwalia was supposed to be Manmohan Singh 2.0. He was everybody’s dream finance ministerial candidate, until it turned out that he had no idea where to draw the poverty line. Laloo Prasad Yadav was the best Railways minister in the history of the country until reports came out that he was pulling an Enron. Anna Hazare turned out to be less Ben Kingsley in Gandhi and more Ben Kingsley in Sweeny Todd. Rahul Gandhi was India’s ‘youth icon’ until he was unceremoniously dumped for India’s new boyfriend, Akhilesh Yadav.

Now, whatever you do, don’t blame me for being distracted by all these shiny objects. Blame stupid people for doing stupid things and those crass reporters for reporting every non-story as breaking news. The navel was already visible; all I did was gaze at it. Don’t shoot the recipient of the message! In fact, I get so angry at the media for reporting a non-story that I will punish them by continuously watching and/or reading every new non-development update about stories which don’t deserve to be extensively reported on. Don’t tell anyone, but, sometimes, I even go out looking for things to be outraged about. No, no, I don’t have any ulterior motives when I do that! I follow these stories ironically! Do you think I like feeling superior to stupid people? Don’t Simon Cowell me, bro.

A government which refuses to govern. An opposition which is even more incapable. A media which has a shorter attention span than an infant. A people who match the government’s sense of apathy.

At least the captain of the Costa Concordia had the decency to abandon ship.

This is how we treat 'em

This is simply stomach-churning, mind boggling atrocious:

. . . at 2 am on April 7, hours before Chidambaram’s farewell to the dead and barely 18 hours after the CRPF combatants were gunned down, it is only the angry lowly officer, a sub-inspector, representing the State at this government hospital at Jagdalpur town, 150 km north of the site of the deadly Maoist attack. It must be said that he is here on his own and not detailed for the job.

No chief minister, no state home minister, no other minister, no member of Parliament, no MLA, no director-general of police (Vishwa Ranjan, a man popular with journalists in all seasons), no chief secretary, no home secretary, no inspector-general (TJ Longkumer, who Chidambaram later told journalists had planned the dead men’s fatal foray into the forests), no district magistrate (frenzied a few hours later as reporters surged at Chidambaram’s press conference because he didn’t want anyone to throw a shoe at the Union home minister), no superintendent of police, not one high-ranking officer of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), to which 75 of the dead belonged, were here; just the very angry CRPF sub-inspector. “They were like my children,” he says.

Typically, the survivors mattered less than the dead. Head Constable Raj Bahadur and Constables Pramod Kumar Singh and Baljeet Singh are lucky to survive the carnage, having taken bullets everywhere but in the guts. A hundred paces from the mortuary, they lie writhing in pain on dirty hospital linen stained from previous occupants’ dried blood. Only one has a mosquito net. There are no doctors or nurses. Two constables who’ve come on their own watch over their wounded mates. The ward is a hovel; the toilet is a stinking blocked drain. “Our officers are home sleeping,” an attendant says.

Five hours later, just minutes before Chidambaram and Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh visit the heroes, bureaucrats and the hospital’s administrators fuss in panic over the non-functioning air-conditioning. “Can’t it run for just 15 minutes?” asks one. Bottles of intravenous fluids now hang from their stands, their needles pushed into the arms of the wounded. These weren’t here six hours earlier. The linen has changed. The hovel is now spic and span. A couple hours later, Chidambaram chokes at a press conference, grieving the dead and expressing his resolve to wipe out the Maoists.

I know this is not a new thing for our country, but this is just sick. This is supposedly under our "best home minister" ever. And while those brave CPRF soldiers sacrifice away their lives, Mr Palipapan Chidambram gets to be the hero because he supposedly "resigned" from his ministry. You know what, "PC", if you really feel that you can't continue doing your job anymore, stay at home and let someone else do it. Otherwise, stfu and do what you were appointed to do and stop acting like a prissy teenage drama queen.

I always wonder what makes all those poor people join our armed forces. The pay is crap, they are most likely to die in combat because of some stupid bureaucrat or politician and if they happen to survive, no one is there to take care of their injuries. Most of them probably do it out of pure-patriotism, for a state which gives nary a thought about them.

Even reality show contestants have better working conditions.

Also, the phrase "Can't it run for 15 minutes?" encapsulates the philosophy of "governance" that is prevalent in India.

Yes, we're Incredible!

Incredibly insensitive, incredibly ignorant and incredibly idiotic.

Maharashtra ready to be the new Australia

Everyone thought (not really) that they solved the MNS-is-punching-north-Indians problem when they elected the Congress-NCP people for a record third term. However, as it turns out, the election was fixed and no matter who they voted for, it turns out they elected the crazy guy who runs that bullying operation.

The Maharashtra Cabinet on Wednesday decided to grant taxi permits to only those people who have been residing in the state for 15 years.

The new rules also state that who applying for taxi permits must speak, read and write Marathi.

Ha, ha! Despite the Maharashtra government wanting the poors from other states to eat a bag of dicks, this won't last for long. That is because (a) As my Irish friend Colin (!) points out, it is against the feckin constitution and (b) When the noble bench of the Janpath High Court hears about this, they are going to put their foot down and hold the Maharshtra government by it's ear, and make them say "back-sies". 

Which will then accomplish two things: (One.) Make the "high command" look all magnanimous and statesmen-like and will help them burnish their "pro-people" credentials (whatever that is) &&& (Two.) Local leaders of the Maharashtra Congress can pretend to be "sources" for those sexy clued-in journalists and tell people (anonymously, of course) how "disappointed" they are at their own party, which in turn helps them polish their pro-Marathi-speaking-people credentials (whatever that is).

Game. Set. Match.

And if you're wondering, it's a two headed coin. You have no chance of winning. Go home and watch some teevee. Or get a blog and vent.

Whatevers.

 

Maharashtra to grant taxi permits only to domiciles [IBN-Live]

India's environment minister will not believe any stupid scientific fact about global warming

India's Minister of Environment, Jairam Ramesh, who is also the first Cabinet rank minister in India to have an openly-Lesbian hairdo, has been hard at work during the past few months trying to come up with a coherent policy for prevention of climate change while continuously listening to the Madonna song "4 Minutes" on his iPod.

So let's check in and see how that seems to be going:

For the first time, the Indian government has challenged western research that says global warming has hastened the melting of Himalayan glaciers. On Monday, environment and forests minister Jairam Ramesh released a paper saying there was no evidence of such a link.

. . .

“The health of Himalayan glaciers is poor,” Ramesh said. “But according to the paper, the doomsday prediction of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Al Gore is also not correct. I want scientists to critique the report.”

Hooray, everyone!

There is no global warming. That's all a myth that has been perpetuated by those gay hippies and that giant talking carbon footprint people refer to as Al Gore. There must be some other reason why all those cities in Southern Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka  look like large, open-air aquariums.

And those effing glaciers? They probably melted because of the heat generated by the poster of Kareena Kapoor with Saggy McManboobs.

And what do these environmental terrorists known as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change know anyway?

The IPCC and Gore, a former US vice-president, were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

The government’s view goes against the IPCC’s claims that most Himalayan glaciers will vanish by 2035.

“Our prediction [in 2007] was based on government data, and a peer review was done by all countries before our report was released,” IPCC chief R.K. Pachauri said.

. . .

The IPCC’s forecast was based on Indian Space Research Organisation data that said 1,000 Himalayan glaciers had retreated by 16 per cent between 1962 and 2004.

Yeah those commies who run the nobel prize thing award these prizes for doing nothing anyway. And ISRO, those moon geeks went looking for water on the moon when they could have easily bought it at the Moon Starbucks for $50 a pop. 

Pachauri, who is also chairman of the UN's intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC), said the report prepared by geologist VK Raina was based on "insufficient data" and "unsubstantiated observations" made over a small two-year period.

While Pachauri was not in town, a Teri spokesperson said he disagreed with Raina's findings which flew in the face of well-researched and documented studies by thousands of IPCC scientists.

Pachauri pointed out that Raina's research was still to be reviewed and authenticated by peers. "It is like schoolboy science," he said. Teri glaciologist Shresth Tayal questioned Raina's conclusion that the melting of the Gangotri glacier had "come to a stand still". He said, "If rain is scarce for two years, can one say drought is here forever?"

Certain aspects of Raina's study were self-contradictory, Tayal said. For example, it claims that glaciers in western Himalayas are melting faster but also says the Siachen glacier is advancing. Even the conclusion that glacier melting is more pronounced in western Himalayas than eastern Himalayas was wrong, Tayal pointed out.

"Our research shows all lakes formed by melting of glaciers are in eastern Himalayas. A glacier in Sikkim, East Rathong, has reportedly lost over 80% of its mass. No one has recorded a glacial lake in western Himalayas," he said.

OH MY GOD. He didn't just say that. You can take your "thousands of scientists" and get stuffed, Pachuri. C'mon, Raina. Don't let him get away with this. Tell him to "unsubstanciate" his whatchamacallit.

“Nothing abnormal is happening to Indian glaciers,” said Raina. “They’re retreating because of negative mass balance. There’s no evidence of climate change.”

Mass balance is primarily determined by annual snow precipitation. Raina could not give reasons for the decrease in snowfall in the Himalayas. “It is for the weather departments to tell,” he said.

Sigh.

 

Ramesh says Himalayan glaciers not melting, PM's adviser says rubbish [DNA]
No proof of Himalayan ice melting due to climate change [TOI]
Government quells panic over Himalayan glacial melt [HT]
Kareena talks about bareback shot in Kurbaan [Total Filmy]

If only Julia Roberts could fight terrorism, we would be okay

The opening paragraph of this 'report' is the most awesome description of why things in our country are so fucked up. [Rediff Movies]

Pakistan puts Hafiz Saeed 'in custody'. They will let us know what that means once they figure it out themselves. Meanwhile, intelligence sources told us that Saeed is still allowed to order his favourite biryani pizza from Dominos, everyday. So much for austerity. [HT]

After successfully ruining some dude's life by getting him to impregnate Rakhi Sawant with an alien child, the producers of NDTV Un-Imagine have decided to find a child bride for famewhore Rahul Mahajan. Mahajan's ideal partner should have long hair, believe in traditional values, be able to change adult diapers and have both male and female reproductive organs. [NDTV Movies]

Sonia Gandhi asks Shashi Tharoor to write "I will not twitter during class" a hundred times, using a Mont Blanc ink pen. This will also go into Tharoor's permanent record and might hinder his getting admission into a good college. [The Hindu]

Sarah Palin will address fund managers in Hong Kong because those douchebags have too much money and they thought that instead of a real person they would just hire a hockey mom who winks a lot. After she gives her 'speech', she will give each attendee a free copy of the      straight-to-dvd movie Knocked Up: The Bristol Palin story. Then, she will go sightseeing to the 'Americatown' part of Hong Kong. [Bloomberg]

The Union Home Minister says that Delhiites need to change their behavioural pattern and need to learn to respect the rules. Phooey! That's such false propaganda. Delhiites respect the law, we just tend not to follow it on rare occasions. Like I jumped only two red lights today. Okay, it was five. But I had a good reason for it. I was late for happy hour. Fine, whatever. By the way, someone needs to tell the minister that the biggest lawbreakers in Delhi are those guys he sits with in that Lok Sabha thing where he and his peers do that thing they do. As I said, whatever.[TOI]

Let's solve all our problems by building a statue, like they did during ancient times

There is nothing surprising that the Govt of Maharashtra unveiled it's plans to build a monument worth Rs. 350 crores in "honour" of Shivaji. In India, you don't honour someone by trying to emulate the good works that those people did in their lifetime, rather you can only honour someone when you build an ostentatious statue in their probable likeness.

The statue is nothing but another step towards the black hole of identity politics. The foundation for identity politics in Maharashtra was laid by the Shiv Sena. The MNS simply snatched away the torch and took it to the next level. And now, it's simply like a game of poker. The Congress-NCP has upped the stakes. It's like their telling their opponents, I see your indigenous vada=pav stalls & your empty rhetoric and raise you a hundred million rupee Shivaji statue. Whose the real Manoos now, huh? Gappa Bas?

Since there is no reasonable explanation for the statue, the Congress-NCP government surrogates who are sent to defend such an expense will talk in cliches and say that only the  "elites" are against the Statue and anyone who is against building of the statue is against the Marathi people, and so on. And then if that doesn't work, they will send their violent-protestors-for-hire to intimidate and silence the critics.

Of course the money could be well spent in other areas. Like perhaps making a better life for all those slum kids who did not star in a Oscar winning movie by giving them access to quality education so that they don't spend their lives waiting for a their own great white hope. Or the  families of thousands of farmers who kill themselves because they don't have a good crop due to the fact that they can't irrigate their fields and can't pay back the large and unfair interest that the moneylenders impose on them.  Or developing a proper sewer system in Mumbai so that whenever it drizzles, the country's "financial capital" doesn't resemble Venice (Which by the way, is not something to brag about)! Or buying quality equipment for the people who are our first line of defence against a terrorist attack so that their courage is not betrayed by faulty equipment?

But hey, there's nothing a large statue will not solve, eh?

Chicken Manchurian is the best revenge

Hey, remember the time when we lost the war and said to ourselves, "never again" and decided to shore up our defence capabilities.

Let's check in and see how that's turned out.

Admitting that India neither has the “capability nor the intention” to match China’s military strength, Chairman of Chiefs of Staff Committee and Navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta said here today that “common sense dictates” that India needs to cooperate with China rather than confront it.

“In military terms, both conventional and non-conventional, we neither have the capability nor the intention to match China, force for force. These are indeed sobering thoughts and therefore our strategy to deal with China would need to be in consonance with these realities,” Mehta said, delivering an address on National Security Challenges organized by the National Maritime Foundation.

Oh, goody.

If only we you were in a position to do something about it, like being chairman of the chiefs of staff committee or chief of the navy. I wonder ho things might have turned out.

Thankfully, we've not been at it for long.

For most of the last six decades, the ethos of the Indian military has been to prepare for a battle on two fronts — to the west with Pakistan and to the north with China.

Oh, a-ha, ha, ha.

*Gulp*

 

However, that's not the important thing to focus on. No, not at all.

Even if the military balance with China is heavily loaded against India, it is simply not in the culture of armed forces officers to publicly acknowledge the weakness.

Mehta has gone against the grain, fully aware that he was giving a reality check.

Of course, government-official-who-knows-what-he-is-talking-about, how dare you say something aloud which everyone is aware off? I don't believe you. The only people I believe are those "defence analysts" on my teevee who have never really seen a battlefield outside of watching reruns of Lakshya and Border.

Also, since when have we started acknowledging things in public? It's totally against our culture. Because everyone knows that unless you publicly acknowledge something, it is simply not true. Just like pregnant woman and homosexuality, if you close your eyes long enough, it goes away.

Have you ever heard someone talk about a fart? No, because he who smelt it, dealt it. That's the rule that applies to most public discussions in India.

Our government officials aren't supposed to speak the truth. Heavens, no! Government officials are supposed to treat the people of the country like a five year old who starts crying as soon as he hears about all the bad monsters under his bed.

So instead of saying what you said, you should have followed the lead of the all our defence officials of yore and said that "We are more than capable of defending our borders with might but we act like wussies everytime China jumps from behind the door and shouts "BOO! because we are a PEACE LOVING people".

And that, my friend, is how it's done.

 

Aw, India is less macho now [The Telegraph]
Don’t have capability or intention to match China force for force: Navy chief [Indian Express]

Rajya Sabha MPs don't want the kids to learn how to use their unmentionables

Sometime this week, there was a huge uproar in the Rajya Sabha over the contents of a reality show. A lot of MPs got up and spoke out against how due to some godforsaken show on teevee, all the kids will run out of their classrooms straight into some seedy motels and start having unprotected sex after which they would have a pill to ensure that they don't get pregnant. After they have satisfied their carnal needs, they will overdose on combiflam and kill themselves. What's worse, they would be doing this while still wearing their school uniforms. And somehow, we would lose our 5,00,00,000,000 year old culture.

Right. I don't see the connection either. But that's what some Rajya Sabha MPs will have you believe.

The news of the "outrage" expressed by the MPs made people sit up, take serious note and ask each other, What in the blue hell is the Rajya Sabha?

Then everybody used the interwebs, checked their children's civics books and asked the old civil servant who they say "hi" to everytime when they go for a walk every morning and found out that the there is another house of parliament, which although is known as the upper house, has almost as much power as the an "actor" in an Ekta Kapoor serial. And whose members are hilariously referred to as the "elders". 

Afterwards, as usual, the government, which is such a wuss, caved in.

Hours after the furore in Rajya Sabha over the reality show 'Sach Ka Samana' broadcast by Star Plus, government on Wednesday issued a show cause notice to the TV channel. The Information and Broadcasting Ministry, which issued the notice, has sought a reply from the channel by July 27.

Dude, who takes the Rajya Sabha seriously? Not even the Rajya Sabha MPs give a rat's ass about what they say. Why do you bother? Just do what you do in every other case. Pretend that nothing happened and show some new shiny object to distract the media. It's all about keeping it simple and talking to the people as if they are in fifth grade.

BJP and SP MPs demanded the government to ban the show on Wednesday. The parliamentarians claimed that the reality game show is broadcasting vulgar values and it is a threat to Indian values and morality.

Yes. BAN Everything. That's the best solution.

Uneducated people more than educated ones? BAN education. Starving villages? BAN food.

Global warming? BAN the fucking globe.

There are farmers killing themselves because even after 62 years, our national irrigation policy consists of hiring a few contestants from Indian Idol and making them go to the drought affected areas and sing that oh-rain-god-can-ya-bless-us-with-some-damn-rain song from Lagaan. There are naxalites threatening our national "leaders". Oh, and there might be a global pandemic which might kill everyone but you because a swine can't really be infected by swine flu. But that's okay. However, some dipshit on teevee telling everyone that she has been ridden on more than the Delhi Metro, that outrages you.

Just like the constitution intended.

However, these are not the only people with too much time on their hands.

The Delhi High Court will decide whether 'Sach Ka Samna', a game show where contestants are asked a series of prying questions, is "obscene and against Indian culture and ethos" as contended by a Delhi-resident. One D***** M**** has approached the court alleging that the show telecast on entertainment channel Star Plus is against the values of Indian society.

Dear Outraged Phonies who seek publicity,

Your TV remote has a magic button, which when pressed will make all the slutty men & women go away. 

So please USE it.

Then, do the intelligent thing and Shut the fuck up! ALSO!

KThxBai.

 

 

TV channel gets notice over 'Sach Ka Samna' [TOI]
'Sach Ka Samna' TV show challenged in HC [PTI]

Maya's revenge: The perils of a VIP constituency

Why is this not surprising:

On Tuesday, Amethi observed a 'bandh' to protest the undeclared power cuts which last up to 18 hours a day. Amethi is being subjected to blackouts for almost a fortnight now.

So Amethi pays the price for voting their preference. Since the people of Uttar Pradesh threw cold water on her Prime Ministerial ambitions, she takes it out on them. Not that this is anything new. This woman lives in her own world where the constitution does not exist and everyone else in the country is there only to enable her to achieve her dream of installing a statue of herself in every inch of the country. She's like a female Kim Jong-Ill, right down to the bad hairdo.

Yes the power situation is bad all through the country, but the situation in Amethi is fubar'ed because of "political reasons":

If UP Power Corporation sources are to be believed, the 'power' problem is a more political one. A senior official said the Centre had set up a 220 KVA power sub-station in Rae Bareli at a cost of Rs150 crore, three years ago, to ensure uninterrupted power supply to Amethi, Rae Bareli and other adjoining districts. "Since this is a VIP area, the distribution lines were also linked with the national grid. If despite all this, power rostering of up to 18 hours is being done, then the reasons are obvious," the official said.

I find the fact that these two "VIP" constituencies given special rights quite disturbing indeed. That is nothing new and it deserves a whole another post.

However, denying the people their basic right and making them suffer for not voting for you is bullying and is nothing short of treason. She is proud of the fact that she spent millions and millions of Rupees building statues for herself while a large portion of her state lacks even basic amenities.

On Tuesday, people in Amethi who were trying to peacefully protest were lathi-charged.

Not that other people fare any better. When Mulayam Singh was CM, he used to do the same thing. Now is is huffing and puffing about the how the people of both these constituencies are being treated unfairly. How the mighty have fallen.

These "politicos" along with their counterparts in the bureaucracy and the police have their own unique system of governance. Instead of actually being doing their job, they exist to suck the the blood out of the tax-paying public.

People like them have no business in Government, but as long as they have a mass base which will continue to turn a blind eye to their shenanigans, we will never get rid of them.

 

Where is Mr. India when you really need him?

Gah.

 

Powerful Mayawati renders Rahul's Amethi powerless [DNA]
'Drubbed in polls, vindictive Maya targeting Amethi voters' [TOI]
Power crisis in Amethi, Cong suspects Maya's power play [IBN-LIVE]

Indian Government thinks that babies are delivered by storks and Dr Hymen visits Madhya Pradesh

Our national government is hard at work these days. Since taking charge a little over a month ago, our government has been busy protecting the citizens of this country.

For example, after spending thousands and thousands of hours of  manpower reviewing the evidence, your pro-people government has decided to go ahead and ban the Indian cartoon porn site, Savita Bhabi.

For those in the corridors of power, however, Savita’s promiscuity was no laughing matter. Last month the Government ordered internet service providers to block the site. To do so it evoked section 67 of the Information Technology Act. The law allows the Government to ban websites that threaten “the sovereignty or integrity of India, defence and security of the state” or that endanger “friendly relations with foreign states”.

In other words, the government thinks a cartoon porn site is a threat to our national security. Gee, I wonder who the cartoon really is.

Now, admittedly, I don't care for the existence of that site. Not because I am not cheap and trashy, but because cartoon porn does not interest me. Therefore I am not one of the "60 million sexually repressed" Indians who visit the website every month for their sexual catharsis.

What I want to know is why is the government policing the internet? The government is not supposed to "parent" the country.

No. That's the job for the anchors at Times Now.

Isn't it great that the people in our government have finally figured out this internet thing everyone keeps talking about? And now that they have banned the ungodly Savita Bhabi website, which obviously has NO way of being accessed through an alternate source, this will finally put an end to pornography on the internet.

Jai Ho, indeed.

_______________

Have you been looking around and realizing that the number of people around you is growing at an exponentially large rate? Have you ever wondered if the government is going to take a few steps to curb the population growth? Well, don't fear, cause Ghulam Nabi Azad is here:

Marry late and have children even later, is Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad’s mantra to control population.

Azad was speaking at a function to commemorate ‘World Population Day’, the day India’s population crossed 1.17 billion.

Couples from backward areas, who had opted to marry after turning 18, were awarded by the health ministry at the function

 

After reading the above extract, my mind fills with a million questions. First of them is, Why the fuck are we commemorating "World Population Day"? Is the human race on the brink of extinction? Do we not have enough people in this country?

In a country's history, a time comes when the the whole nation and it's people need to sit back for a moment and reflect. Such a time has come for our country. When we can have more than a thousand people who are ready to enter married "bliss" with Rakhi Savant, it should give everyone a little pause. What happened? What really went wrong? What caused such a tragic turn of events? Why do people have such low self-esteem? Where are we heading as a nation? My point is, don't we have enough people already? Why do we need to COMMEMORATE one of our nation's biggest failures? What's next? The child-marriage weekend extravaganza? A new reality show called I'm a farmer, get me out of here which documents the plights of poor farmers who end up killing themselves? Why not have a bi-annual weekly festival commemorating corrupt politicians?

Another question I have is about the brilliant suggestion given by the health minister. Asking people to get married at thirty. It's a WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL idea in a country which is OBSESSED with marriage. I'm sure hearing the honourable minister make such a dispassionate appeal about getting married at thirty will change the minds of millions of people who get their pre-pubescent teenage children married to someone else's pre-pubescent teenage children.

Okay, do you have any other ideas, Mr Minister, which will help to slow down the population explosion?

Ghulam Nabi Azad, the Health and Family Welfare Minister, has called for the country to redouble its efforts to bring electricity to all of its huge rural population.

The introduction of the electric light and television sets to those vast areas that still did not have them would discourage procreation, he argued.

“If there is electricity in every village, then people will watch TV till late at night and then fall asleep. They won’t get a chance to produce children,” Mr Azad said. “When there is no electricity there is nothing else to do but produce babies.”

 

Is it written in the constitution that the country's health minister has to be a DERANGED and DELLUSIONAL individual? Why are our health ministers mentally so UNHEALTHY?

_________________

However, the MP government is spending taxpayer's money to literally fell up it's constituents. No, kidding.

All 151 girls who participated in a mass wedding conducted by the Madhya Pradesh government on June 26 were forced to undergo virginity tests before doing so.

The mass wedding in Shahdol, 600 km east of Bhopal, was part of a welfare measure, the Mukhyamantri Kanyadaan Yojna (Chief Minister’s ‘giving away the bride’ programme) begun by the state in April 2006. Under it, single adult women from poor families – be they unmarried, widowed, divorced or abandoned – who have found themselves prospective spouses but cannot afford the wedding expenses, are married off in groups and paid a fixed sum of Rs 6500 as well.

 

Why is the government of Madhya Pradesh giving away brides? Did the people elect the owner of Shaddi.com as their chief minister? What exactly happened there? Who comes up with such ideas?

There is more:

“At first I refused to go through the test,” said a Baiga tribal girl, who was among the brides at Shahdol, but who does not want to be identified. “But an officer told me I would not be allowed inside the marriage hall unless the gynaecologist declared me eligible. And the only way I could be eligible was by going through the test.”

“The gynecologist [sic] manually examined,” she added.

I think the reporter writing this news item has never heard of a little handy tool called spellcheck!

As usual, this is not even the worst part of the news. There is still a little more:

“I’ve ordered an enquiry,” Neeraj Dubey, Shahdol district collector told HT. But his sympathies were clear. “The test was a precautionary measure,” he added. “Last year one of the brides delivered a baby even as the marriage ceremony was on. Since there is money involved, many women, try to take advantage.”

The programme [sic] been allocated a Rs 25 crore budget this year. In three years, 88,460 such marriages have been solemnized in different districts of the state.

 

This is the worst vetting process EVER. Even the McCain campaign, which cleared clusterfuck Governor Sarah Palin to be a heartbeat away from becoming the leader of the free world, had a better vetting process.

And if you're spending Rs. 25 crores, it is advisable to come up with a better method of investigating the intentions of the participants than HAVING A GYNACOLOGIST SEARCH FOR BROKEN HYMENS. ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY?

Also, I'm guessing that none of these brides were over 30. Where was the health minister?

Oh yes, he was busy COMMEMORATING the country's population.

 

 

I think I need to fill out my Prozac prescription right about now.

Later, then.

 

 

 

 

Savita Bhabhi cartoon porn website blocked by Indian security law [Times UK]
Ghulam Nabi Azad says late-night TV will help slow India’s birth rate [Times UK]
Govt holds virginity test for MP brides [HT]
Azad favours late marriages to curb population growth[HT]

Delhi Government to help city conserve power by not giving any to it's citizens

So people all over Delhi are spilling on to the streets because if they stay at home, they might dehydrate or die of a heat stroke or something. So what does the Chief Minister of the National Capital region do to help the masses? What does the third-term wonder, the woman who almost became Prime Minister back when there was a lot of speculation on which humanoid/robot/bat-like-creature would occupy the formerly august office? What wondrous solutions would the super-granny of Delhi come up with as per her pre-election promise of fixing the problems that she has not been able to fix in the past ten years, which includes everything.

Delhi Government is mulling a proposal to provide personal security officers to all the MLAs in the national capital.

Oh, goody! Go, Sheila, go! If this does not solve the problems of the people then I don't know what will. All the protestors who spend the night knocking the doors of an empty BSES office (saw this on teevee) and the day trying to earn some money to pay the government so that they can provide them with, err, water & electricity, can go home now. It always pays to keep it simple, stupid.

The problem with getting elected with a huge majority is that people actually expect you to fix things, attend to their problems, think of them for a minute or two during some fleeting moment when you are not trying to distance yourself from the problems that arise from the decisions you make or when you are not blaming someone else for your OWN failure.

Not that the rest of the legislature is any better.

A day after Vidhan Sabha speaker Yoganand Shastri directed all House members to be present during discussions pertaining to their respective departments, the Delhi Assembly had to be adjourned for 30 minutes as the dismal attendance of Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for the session failed to fulfill the quorum of the House.

While the session was scheduled to begin at 2 pm on Friday, only 17 members of the ruling party and three of the Opposition were present, falling short of three MLAs to complete the quorum of 23 members required to begin the proceedings of the House

So while most of them don't even bother to attend, at least those who are there have something important to discuss:

Several MLAs in Delhi assembly yesterday demanded amendments in the relevant law so that they are allowed to use red beacon lights on their vehicles.

Raising the issue in the House, BJP legislator Saheb Singh Chauhan said although an MLA was higher in status in comparison to the Chief Secretary of the state, they were still not allowed to use beacon lights on their vehicles.

Several MLAs cutting across party lines supported the demand and said government should made amendments in the Motor Vehicle Act to remove the hurdle for using the beacon lights by the elected representatives.

Beacon lights.

They want beacon lights.

 

For more info, click here, here and here.

Delhi's grandmother wants to spend the next five years writing thank you notes

So last year, the people of Delhi lost their mind and out of respect and deference to the elderly, gave Shiela Dikshit a third term so that she may complete her task of ruining Delhi.

While her finance minister presented his budget in the annual laughing club meet of the Delhi assembly, her government billed it as a "thanksgiving budget". Why did they do so? because they wanted to thank the people of Delhi for voting for the Congress twice in less than a year. I'm sure most Delhities will never forgive themselves. Although, it's not like they had a choice. It was either Grandma Dikshit or that guy who puts anyone he speaks to into a deep slumber for a hundred years.

So what great gifts did the government reward it's people with? Ten bucks and an e-card? More electricity? Better roads? Mandating that tofu be served along with the snake-infested mid-day meals in government schools?

No, actually.

They went about this in another direction.

Long, long ago, in 2005, when the earth wasn't dying so fast and Maddona had only one stolen kid from Africa, our diligent lawmakers gave themselves a gift of top of the line laptops and inkjet printers. Now, many of them were from the previous assembly and already had been allotted printers and laptops. But, somehow, most of them seemed to have "lost" or "misplaced" their computers and thus required a new one. Just like when you lose your car keys, you havta buy a new car! This whole exercise cost the taxpayer a measly sum of Rs. 51 Lakhs. Turns out, most of the MLA's didn't even know how to use their fancy computers. So let's fast forward to this year, when, to help all our MLA's find free porn sites which don't install too many spyware programs, the government of Delhi has given them an allowance of Rs. 7,500 to be paid monthly to a "data operator".

It's like Christmas in June for the citizens of Delhi.

Meanwhile, the government also promises to one day complete the Delhi State Cancer Institute which was supposed to be actually operational by 2006. Hey, at least they almost got it's website to work. The real thing will follow soon. Progress takes time, ya know.

Oh, and the government also wanted to open a super-hospital for liver treatment sometime in this decade. They even interviewed people for it last year. So what, eh? Cheer up. Most people with liver problems are alcoholics anyway. And they can follow former prime minister VP Singh's example and get treated on taxpayer's expense in London. You can make a vacation out of it. In the mornings they can dilate your liver and in the evenings you can have tea and scones with the Queen in the Buckingham Palace Gardens while the Duke and Prince Harry shout racist abuses at you.

Oh, and don't forget grandmother CM's crowning achievement. A BRT corridor which has actually caused more problems then it has attempted to fix. In fact, some say that it outlived it's usefulness even before it was built. However, as per grandma, that's just media generated talk. The Chief Minister even drove through the corridor during non-peak hours when there was mild traffic to prove that it works. Even if in reality it doesn't work anywhere in the world. If Sheila Dikshit says it does, than it does. She's very Chuck Norris about these things.

Even though this might seem like the government's flipping you the bird and pointing at you & laughing while simultaneously chanting "Gotcha for a third time, you stupid suckers!" over and over again, it's a show of appreciation.

As the great decider of democracy once said, ". . . fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again".

It's not the swine flu which is going to kill us, it's irony-deficiency

Congratulations, everyone. Remember Poverty? Well, thanks to the new government, it's over now. 

There are no poor people in India anymore.

In fact, we did such a good job of removing poverty in our country that now we're exporting our knowledge of poverty-alleviation to China.

That's right.

For the first time, India has extended a helping hand to China by participating in its poverty-alleviation project by setting up a state-of-the-art training-cum-information centre for thousands of farmers in a relatively backward and mountainous northwestern region.

For all those people who doubted that this government will be all about reforms for rich people who eat out of plates made of gold, I bet you're eating your own words right now.

This government is all about the common man. So what if that common man is in China?

It's the thought that counts.

Our governments concern for the poor is priceless.

For everything else, there is Mastercard.

____________

In other good news, the Indian National Congress (Indira) has decided to do away with all feudal titles.

Yay! Get your parent's bell-bottom trousers out of mothballs, people, the 50's are here again.

More than six decades after Independence and over three decades after the government abolished privy purses and privileges, the Congress has decided to turn royalty into aam aadmi.

“The party has decided to strike off all feudal titles (against the name of Congressmen and women) from its records at all levels,” party leader Janardhan Dwivedi said.

Excuse me for a minute, sir. Shouldn't you have done this, uuuumm, I don't know, a few DECADES earlier? Wasn't it your party which did away with the privy purse and titles and other ancient shit all the while stressing that everyone's equal now?

So does this finally mean that you won't nominate your leaders and the seats won't directly pass on from parent to child as if a birthright? Does this mean that you would do away with actual feudalism?

Janardhan Dwivedi, however, admitted it was an “indirect suggestion” made to the leaders not to use such prefixes and suffixes, such as Rajkumar, Nizam, Nawab, Sadr-e-riyasaat or Mahant.

Oh cognitive dissonance, you can be such a motherfucker!

___________

Our national airline, the Maharaja of the skies, the kohinoor of our aviation industry . . .  Actually, it can't be the kohinoor because that would mean that the British would steal it from us again. Anyways, the non-kohinoor of our aviation sector is going bust. It asked it's workforce to keep doing the work but to wait a few weeks before cashing the salary cheque. Or, in some cases, not even getting the cheque at all.

So, the employees decided that since no one wants to pay them, they'll go on a strike. Hey, the best way to stop someone from bleeding is to take his heart out so that no blood is manufactured in the body in the first place.

Sounds like a great idea to me.

___________

Speaking of people with great ideas, last week I had lost my mind and was channel surfing the news channels. I happen to land on a ongoing debate about how having the IPL a few days before the world cup was against our national interest.

Huh?

What national interest?

Do we need our cricket players to defend us against an invasion of spin ballers? Have the Taliban suddenly started training it's henchmen on throwing grenades like a yorker? Is the police going to suddenly promote people on the basis of how many catches they take? Is our missile defence system going to be based on how many missiles Sachin Tendulkar can deflect while piloting around a bat-shaped plane?

Okay. Admittedly, the last one would be a cool thing to witness.

However, if anyone believes that people play professional cricket because they want to serve the country then (a) What are you smoking? and (b) If it is that good, please give me the number of your drug dealer because mine was just deported to Nigeria.

Thanks.

___________

So according to research done by someone who was supposed to write an advert to sell artificial sweetener, (a copywriter with a conscience. A rather rare breed these days.) it appears that artificial sweeteners kind of kill your brain and turn you psychotic.

I always thought how an artificial sweetener could describe itself as "natural".

And this does explain a a lot of things about me.

I know it's harmful, but I always tend to use an artificial sweetener for my coffee whenever I have it along with a vanilla-brownie combo which is extravagantly dipped in chocolate syrup.

It's all about achieving a balance.

Railways Ministry bites the hand it was (not) supposed to feed

Elections have consequences. Sometimes, even for those who treat the country as their own private backyard.

It appears that when Mr Laloo Yadav was Railways Minister, there was some land allotted to two of his relatives. Afterwards, the land was acquired back by the government for construction of a railway station.

When any land is acquired by the government, the person who owns the land is supposed to receive a fair compensation in lieu of the attached property.

So basically, the government gave away the land. After a few months it realized that it was a dumb thing to do and it actually needs the land. So it did the brilliant thing and BOUGHT back the land. Of course, an alternate route was a strict no-no.

I'm sure Mr Yadav being the railways minister had nothing to do with this "transaction" at all. I'm sure that it is simply a coincidence. I'm sure that there was no conflict of interest at all.

It can happen to anybody, can't it? I mean don't you remember when you were young you gave away all your toys to a younger cousin of yours and then you realized that you might have also hidden your porn stash in there and so you run to his house to get it back but you find that the little asshole has already discovered it and now you need to pay him off so that he would stay mum about your errr, exotic interests?

Since a new station wagon now runs the Railways Ministry, the new District land acquisition officer has not only cancelled the allotment, but has also asked the relatives of Mr Yadav to return the money.

How do you think it makes Mr Yadav feel? Till a few months ago he had a cabinet berth, a ministry a lot of people crave for and he was regaling students from Ivy league schools with anecdotes about his pet cow(s). And now, no one voted for him, no one wants to give him a ministry anymore and they are even taking back taxpayer's money from his relatives which they will now probably spend to build some railway track in godforsaken West Bengal.

As they say, the bigger they are, the harder they fall!

 

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Karnataka to turn into Oprah and buy all it's elected officials shiny new cars!

Rejoice! The global economy may be down in the doldrums, and all the banks may be going bust, but in the land of the pub-atheists, the recession is already over.

Yay!!

As the Deccan Herald reports:

Having dumped his Toyota Innova, leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council V S Ugrappa is now insisting the government provide him with the same car as the Council Chairman. But the Finance department has not wilted, having flatly refused to give in to the MLC’s demand which, if acceded to, could cost the exchequer – a whopping Rs 25 lakh.

How dare the government expect Mr Ugrappa to ride in a lowly Toyota Innova. How dare they?
Do they expect him to ride in just any car? Fat chance of that happening.

Three months back, the finance department approved the high-end Nissan X-Trail car which costs over Rs 25 lakh, for use by the Chairman, Veeranna Mattikatti. At the same time, the department approved the purchase of a Ford Endeavour, that costs around Rs 21 lakh, for Ugrappa’s use.

A ford?

Who do you think Mr Ugarapa is?

A farmer?

Ha!

He is the the leader of the opposition, bitches. If his party had won the elections, he could have almost become the leader of the house. Do you know how much power the leader of a legislative council wields?

No?

Well, me neither.

I'm pretty sure that even the members of the legislative council don't know what they are supposed to be doing. So they all just sit around and talk about cars and cricket.

However, for those haters who doubt Mr Ugarapa's intentions, please be assured that they are nothing less than noble.

When contacted, Ugrappa said he did not make any demand for a particular model of vehicle. “All I want is a diesel car which gives maximum mileage so that I can save on fuel. The Chairman told me that X-Trail Nissan is better and so I asked for it".

Yes. He wants to save the state some money by buying a car worth Rs. 25 Lakh. Isn't the logic obvious to you? Where is your common sense people? Where is it?

So what if the Top 10 Diesel cars in India are priced between 2.6 Lakhs - 14 Lakhs and the Nissan X-trail is very high maintenance. Good talent does not come cheap, baby.

I'm sure the farmers in Karnatake who are facing problems with their crops this year would be heartened to know that while they may be starving to death, their elected officials are riding in style.

Also, Mr Ugrappa is fulfilling his part of the bargain by raising issues relevant to the people.

Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council, V S Ugrappa, on Friday took the BJP government to task for showing scant regard to protocol and democratic traditions.

Speaking to reporters, Ugrappa said even though he had been the Leader of the Opposition for the last one year, the government had so far not allotted him a house. Moreover, he had been provided with an “old car.” “I have brought the matter to the notice of the chief minister. But so far, no action has been taken. I am of the firm belief that the government is showing disregard with a malafide intention,” he remarked.

Ugrappa also alleged that contrary to protocol, the government was deliberately avoiding carrying his name in the invitations of various official programmes. “For example in the invitations printed for the death anniversary programme of late Devaraj Urs, which falls on June 6, only the names of the CM and the chief secretary have been printed,” he noted.

Errr, okay. He is raising issues which are not relevant to anyone besides himself. Still. He's people too. Well, barely.

After all the Karnataka government is out to get him because:

The government has publicly said it would follow austere measures in the wake of global recession.

So how is the government fulfilling it's promise?

The chief minister is entitled to use a car worth Rs 21 lakh, while the Cabinet ministers are allowed to purchase vehicles that are half the price. Opposition leaders, who enjoy Cabinet rank, are allowed to replace their vehicles after they run 1 lakh kilometres. But the rules were recently relaxed in the case of Opposition leader in the Assembly, who was provided with a CRV Honda costing Rs 21 lakh. Chief Minister Yeddyurappa too uses the same model and his Cabinet colleagues are driven around in Toyota Innovas.

If this isn't proof of the government's commitment to austerity, I don't know what is.

As the fellow once said, if you wish to be a success in this world, promise everything and deliver nothing.

And as far as that goes, our governments are a BIG success.

Violent protests in India over something that happened in some other country

Today, riots erupted all over the country because something really awful happened in some country which most Indians, including this reporter, cannot even place on the map.

The details of the horrible events are very sketchy as of now, and more details are expected soon. No one really knows what actually happened, but everyone feels so strongly about it that they felt like burning or breaking something which does not belong to them.

Meanwhile, protestors all over the country have been destroying public property since the break of dawn. Till about mid-afternoon, 300 train compartments, 500 buses and a 1000 cars had been turned into scrap metal.

We asked a protestor in Delhi who was setting fire to a spanking new Volvo bus, the reason of his protest. He told us that he was dismayed by the lack of public transport.

Other protestors had their own reasons. A man was spotted breaking the windows of a luxury superstore. When we asked him why he was doing that, he said that his wife has been pestering him to get a new sofa for their living room and due to the recession he cannot afford any, this was the best way to get a new one. He then also stole our cameraman's equipment to help his son with his photography course.

A frequent protestor stopped us and gave the following statement, "I'm one of those people who will protest anything. Whether something even happened or not. Hell, we'll protest about stuff that takes place on television. The point is that we like to compensate for our lack of sexual expression by breaking stuff. It's just how we roll. When everyone is guilty, no one really gets caught".  If we hadn't recorded and published his statement, he threatened to "protest" outside our publication's office along with his merry band of protestors.

When asked to take stock of the situation, a newly appointed cabinet minister, who declined to be named, asked us to have some patience. "It's just a small protest involving thousands of people. They'll burn a few things down, destroy taxpayer property even though most of these protestors haven't ever paid any tax, hit people who had nothing to with the events that unfolded in some other country, and eventually will head home when they are tired. There's nothing much we can do".  He abruptly ended the interview when the reporter bent down to tie his shoe.

However, former home minister and future Provogue brand ambassador, Shivraj Patil, was visibly shaken and very upset. "This is a terrible tragedy and the government will investigate the matter and punish the perpetrators", he said, more of a reflex action than a meaningful statement. His tense mood could be gauged by the fact that he had changed his clothes more than five times since he first heard of the riots. He solemnly added that "This time, the pee on my clothes did not belong to my grandson".

The news channels were abuzz with activity since the morning. India TV showed images of the violence along with performances by stand-up comedians and predicted that this is the beginning of the end of the world, TimesNow somehow connected the event to Pakistan and blamed Arunadhiti Roy for being a frequent cause of such riots, everyone at NDTV was so outraged that all they showed were commercial breaks and the various anchors at CNN-IBN were so damn loud that one could hear them even after muting the volume.

State-run television, Doordarshan, was showing an old documentary about Mahatma Gandhi, which highlighted how his methods of non-violent protests were adopted by successful movements all over the world.