Apparently, megalomania has no statue of limitations

Warning: This is not fake news.

An Indian politician is calling for a police force to be created to protect statues she has erected of herself and her mentors. The chief minister of Uttar Pradesh state, Mayawati, says her political opponents want to demolish the statues. A bill proposing the force has been introduced in the state assembly, to be debated at a later date.

Yes, pick up your jaw from the floor, sew it back on and then come back for more.

According to the bill tabled in the state assembly, the squad would be named the Special State Security Force. If passed, the bill will give officers powers to detain people they suspect of threatening security near the statues. The initial cost of raising the force is estimated to be 540m rupees ($11.6m; £7.1m). Yearly maintenance would cost 140m rupees ($3m; £1.8m).

That's just dandy.

Maybe if the people of Uttar Pradesh turned into statues, then someone might try to protect them from the criminals?

No?

I could really put a long rant here about how dangerous this woman is to the institution of democracy or how she doesn't give a rat's ass about her constituents.

But what's the point?

She's like Marie Antoinette who wanted the hungry people in her kingdom to eat cake, instead of bread. She's like Colonel Jessop and probably thinks that we can't handle the truth. She's like Arthur Kirkland and believes that it's not her but everyone else who is out of order.

She's like the ugly zit on your face which no amount of make-up can hide. She's like Angela Petrelli from Heroes, responsible for everything bad that occurs, but still getting away with zero percent of the blame.

She's like . . . wait, you get the idea!

In the driver's seat

Minister of External Affairs, Shashi Tharoor, training for a backup skill in case the MoEA gig doesn't work out. [Twatter]

The truth is nothing but a well produced marketing campaign

[Note: This is not a review of the new RGV film, Rann.  I haven't seen the film, and frankly I don't plan too.]

One thing that is apparent from the buildup to the new Ram Gopal Varma movie, Rann, is that Ram Gopal Varma hates the media.

Shocker! I know.

What makes me say that, you ask?

Well, if you haven't seen the thousands of of interviews he's given about 'hating the media', to the media then you must have seen him hold discussions with members of the cast of his movie, which was shown during prime time on the same "news" channels whose dubiousness he plans to expose. Or maybe you caught the press conference he held for journalists in which he told them how much he didn't care for them. Or maybe you are a journalist and were invited to the special screenings of his movie, which was held exclusively for journalists.

He's probably angry with the media for giving him so much coverage. I mean remember right after Rangeela and Satya the media anointed him as the master filmmaker?  And then, out of nowhere, they dropped him like a hot potato after the disastrous Sholay remake [in their own opinion RGV still stands by his masterpiece.] and those nineteen hundred Antra Mali movies. They called him a failed genius!

Him. The man who has the eye of Copola, the passion of Tarnatino and the raw cinematic vision of Hitchcock.

RGV will not play their game again!

He will also not be seduced by their current efforts to band him as "The Comeback Kid".

RGV will not be fooled by the media. Because he has seen the emperor and the emperor has no clothes!

What his "enemies" in the media have forgotten is that Ram Gopal Varma is an outsider. An outlier, as our friend Malcom Gladwell would say. 

That is why he only works with such small name actors like the Bachchans. And who has even heard of Paresh Rawal? The only "big star" who appears in his movies is Ritiesh Deshmukh, who, let's face it, only does Varma's movies for the friendship, as he is so busy otherwise, playing both male and female leads simultaneously!

Do you think Varma is in the business of making movies for the money?

Sheeple, please.

He is the personification of you, a brave everyman underdog trying to take on the system and show the truth behind the truth!

He does not care about how much business his movies do. That's just a bonus! He probably gives away all the profits, to charity!

He's just here to change society.

And don't you ever forget that!

If only they had given the Padma award to the iPad

The Samajwadi Party finds rebound Amar Singh. The most important question is, which 'powerful' Bollywood family is the new Amar Singh close too? [IndExp]

The Indian government says that the Padma Bhushan awarded to Sant 'Clinton' Chatwal was done so after strict due diligence. [TOI]. Exactly. The same due diligence give to Government of India advertisements. [BBC]. Meanwhile, non-elitist tweeter Vir Sanghvi has joined forces with another non-elitist tweeter Pritish Nandy to file an RTI application wanting to know the selection process that resulted in Mr Chatwal being awarded the nation's third highest civilian honour. [Twitter]. The highest award in the Padma series is the Padma Lakshmi and only one person of Indian origin has been known to receive it, although reportedly he received it over and over and over again.

Ladies and gentlemen, behold the new apple device which is going to take over your life. The iPad. First everyone will hate it because Steve Jobs is a douchebag, then everyone will buy it because besides being a douchebag, Steve Jobs is also like a kidnapper and we're all hostages suffering from Stockholm syndrome. Although I think he is losing it a little bit. Apple probably spends billions of dollars on product development, but that's the best name they could come up with? The only name worse than "iPad" is the "iQueada". [Gizmodo]

President Obama will give his first 'State of the Union' address to the joint session of the US Congress. Rumour has it that he might open the speech by singing an acoustic version of Pants on the ground. [VOA]

Hey McDonalds, yo mama so cheap she washes her paper plates! [BBC]

2010 Republic Day Live Blog

I realised that I never completed the essay on republic Day my teacher in third grade told me too write. So since I don't like to leave things incomplete, and I am up at this infernal hour, I thought why not do that essay in the form of a live blog. Because why the fuck not? Blogging is just like writing an essay in third grade, except with more cuss words.

Therefore (yeah, we're even using fancy words now! Mrs. Keeler would be so proud!) grab a bottle of your favourite alcoholic drink and join us while we commemorate India's 61st Republic Day. If you are one of the five people who read this blog, or are someone new, you can always use the comment section to comment!

08:55 AM They're showing various ancient people they call 'Governors' reading out something I presume to be a speech. If they had any guts, they would show an ND Tiwari/Viagra advert instead.

09:00 AM The news channels are going all out!! Everyone is dressed in ethnic chic!!

09:05 AM Headlines Today continues to do it's patriotic duty by continuing to SCARE PEOPLE! DON'T LEAVE YOUR HOME!! BOOOOOOO!!

09:10 AM Okay, news channels. We get it. There is heightened security. Can we move on, please?

09:15 AM My alarm just went off. I NEVER wake up before my alarm. This almost never happens. It must mean that the universe WANTED me to write this live blog.

09:20 AM They're showing patriotic songs now, sung by that famous old singing lady, while shots of determined people interwoven with other things. A thousand throats must be choking right now, with poignant sadness.

09:22 AM New song has mixed theme: Mobile Phones, children in school, solitary Olympic Gold medal. I had forgotten that DD videos are a work of 'art'.

09:25 AM The DD anchor lady is either on crack or just found out that her mother-in-law is moving out.

09:30 AM India Gate is looking beautiful! No, seriously. But Rajpath is fogged like a son-of-a-bitch!

09:32 AM They are doing a history lesson! In all languages!

09:36 AM No one can see anything. Specially the defence minister! Which is a good thing!

09: 39 AM The voice-over lady has said the words "Indira Gandhi" 31525463991740374891 times already.

09:44 AM Anchor lady is reading out President Kalam's poems. Kalam is many things, however, sadly, not a poet.

09:50 AM I hope President Pratibha Patil either fly's down on her own or has someone fly her over Rajpath while she skydives towards the podium, while everyone looks on, applauding her for her gumption.

09:55 AM This year's chief guest is South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. South Korea is the non-crazy Korea.

09:58 AM Dammit! President Patil did not do any dare-devilry today. That would have been awesome, and let's face it, done wonders for the ratings. Also, the video would have gone viral on You Tube. Sigh. So many missed opportunities.

09: 59 AM Also, why no theme song? Our President deserves a theme song! Even Vince McMahon has one!

10:00 AM Pranab Mukhrejee looks like he just teleported from Antarctica!

10:05 AM Wow! The brave Major's wife is also a Major! Our soldiers really do make us proud!

10:10 AM Someone please get the DD anchors some coffee. I think they have a DD anchor pool in their office where they hold a contest to see how many people they can bore to sleep.

10:15 AM I'm not going to lie, but the Koreans are already bored. Quick, someone give them an idea so that the can get busy inventing something!

10:20 AM Wow! Portable pulls! They are going all out, for this parade!

10:18 AM I can never understand why the tank guns are AIMED towards the person they are supposed to be saluting? To scare them to keep saluting or something?

10:20 AM The tank carrying the medical supplies looks SO CUTE!!

10:25 AM The Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar has a permanent smile plastered on her face. She's the Arjun Rampal of Lok Sabha speakers.

10:27 AM Did you know that the Republic Day marks the anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution of India and the transition of India from a British Dominion to a republic on January 26, 1950?

10:30 AM The IAF tableau could have used a better font.

10:32 AM The display of all those missiles has a somewhat "Looking at you, neighbours!" spirit to it. Hey, it's Republic Day. We need to tell everyone that we can open a can of serious nuclear whoop-ass on them.

10:38 AM Obama wishes the Indian constitution a happy 60th birthday! http://bit.ly/6eAzEO

10:42 AM Right now, someone is explaining to the Thackreys what "constitution" means. *Spoiler alert*: It has nothing to do with the strange feeling in your digestive system!

10:50 AM The Rajasthan contingent has the tallest Sardarji's I've ever seen!

10:52 AM Millions of teevee viewers were disappointed that the Rajasthan tableau did not include that famous teevee child bride.

10:54 AM The Maharastha tableau depicts taxi drivers being beaten by MNS activists! Oddly, accompanied by a hindi song!! THIS IS NOT GOING TO GO DOWN WELL WITH YOU-KNOW-WHO!!

10:56 AM Seriously DD cameraperson, there are other people besides the UPA CHAIRPERSON attending the parade!

10:58 AM The Goa tableau has a bikini-clad drunk white lady along with Indian high school students who are snorting something. 

11:02 AM The Kerela float had a couple of replica buildings from Dubai and a person looking like Shashi Tharoor, typing intensely into his blackberry.

11:04 AM The Uttrakahand float depicts children who are lost in the Kumbh mela, who will grow up to be future hindi film characters and ND Tiwari's casting couch.

11:06 AM The cultural ministry tableau contains Ustad Amjad Ali Khan's broken sarod!

11:09 AM The South Korean delegation is amused by the Indian Railways ancient steam engine float!

11:10 AM So the Global Warming float consists of an actual healthy earth? So Jairam Ramesh wins?

11:15 AM The Travel Ministry float depicts touts fleecing millions of innocent tourists.

11:16 AM The sports ministry float contains half-built stadiums for the 2010 CW games and starving sports people.

11:20 AM All these kids have been rehearsing their performances for months!

11:21 AM The Delhi kids who are performing are accompanied by a tiny India Gate replica and a list of government officials you can bribe to get your work done ASAP!

11:25 AM Students doing aerobics for world peace! As Gandhi once said, nothing brings world peace like a Richard Simmons leg crunch!

11:32 AM You know what they call eight people riding a bike in China? A family's day out!

11:35 AM IF THE BORDER SECURITY FORCE IS DOING LAME MOTORCYCLE STUNTS, WHO IS LOOKING AFTER THE BORDER?

11:38 AM I'm sorry, whenever I see planes flying, I am reminded of this. Teehee!

11:40 AM The parade is now getting over? Well, I haven't even used up all my recycled jokes yet!

So here are floats we were not able to see:

- The UP tableau, which contained three statues of Mayawati Aunty along with a family which is without any food, electricity or water, but is still depicted voting for her!

- The Gujarat float, which only had an almost life-like replica of Narendra Modi's head.

11:45 AM The parade ends with famous old lady singer singing another national song which some people don't like singing, because of the difficult lyrics?

11:48 AM OMG! The DD anchor on crack is BACK!

So then we came to an end!

I haven't sat through such a long teevee broadcast in ages! Specially on DD, which I had even forgotten existed! It still is the same, sad network it was, back in the day. Except that the anchors are on drugs! Maybe they always were on drugs!

Anyways, all the cynicism aside, no matter how sucky it gets, no matter who they elect to be Prime Minister (Personally, I wouldn't mind Snooki from Jersey Shore, but whatever!), I will always love my country because there is no other place in the world where I can have Dal Makhani with Veg. Fried Rice!

Happy Republic Day, everyone.

Stay safe.

Also, use a condom, perhaps?

It's never too late to apologize

So a few months ago we pointed and laughed at Jairam Ramesh and this one scientist who said that global warming is false and that the Himalayan glaciers will melt by 2035.

Turns out, they were half right:

Leaders of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change apologized yesterday for making a "poorly substantiated" claim that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035.

The finding was included in the group's 2007 report in an error-riddled paragraph that also misstates the total land area covered by Himalayan glaciers. Scientists who identified the mistakes say the IPCC report relied on news accounts that appear to misquote a scientific paper that estimated the glaciers could disappear by 2350, not 2035.

Oops!

Hey, IPCC, aren't you guys scientists? So shouldn't you have OVERCHECKED for errors? Shouldn't you have higher standards than a student in fifth grade who even has typos in his project report which he completely copied from Wikipedia?

And yes, I WAS WRONG to believe the IPCC when they said that their "report was peer reviewed by scientists from various countries" and that they used data provided by ISRO.

So, to quote my favourite sign outside my neighbourhood grocery shop, "PLEASE BRING EXACT CHANGE. SORRY FOR THE INCONVEIENCE. THANK YOU FOR COOPERATION."

However, the point remains that even though the IPCC was wrong, even Jairam Ramesh and his crank scientist were wrong to deny global warming. Global warming is not a myth. It is something which is quite evident and in front of us. We see it when it rains unseasonly or the thick fog which envelops our cities every morning, we feel it when we have a heat wave and cold wave in the same year. It's real. The climate is changing and not in a good way.

Yes, I screwed up by believing those fact fudgers.

The pointing and laughing may now commence.

Regular programming will resume shortly.

Climate Science Panel Apologizes for Himalayan Error [NYT]
India's environment minister will not believe any stupid scientific fact about global warming [Me]

NBC is like the Shivraj Patil of American television

The greyest lady of all in newsbusiness, the New York Times, is to start charging people for reading their online edition from 2011. Which is funny because by 2011 we'll all be getting our news from the twitter client embedded in our brain. [Mediabistro]

The people of Massachusetts elected a crazy, wingnutty cosmo centerfold to replace Ted Kennedy in the US Senate. This gives the Republicans a 41-59 majority, which will somehow finally kill the world in 2012. Just like the Mayans predicted. [Gawker]

The Italian Prime Minister (aka the ND Tiwari of Europe) could even teach Indian politicians a thing or two about having your cake and eating it too. [WashPost]

Famous teevee journalist who writes books about food and hosts shows about getting stuff  custom made for yourself, thinks that bloggers and twatters are elitists. [Vir Sanghvi via FlyYouFools]

Shivraj "Crazy McPants" Patil and his extensive wardrobe are being rewarded for their performance as India's best minister of 'home' by being made Governor of Punjab. After this was announced, Patil, as is his habit, announced that "we will ensure that the perpetrators of this horrible incident will be caught and bought to justice". And then he wet his pants.  [Zee News]

Good news for all those stuck in the office because you don't really want to spend time with your significant other. The IPL will now be broadcast for free on You Tube. This will be even better than the teevee broadcast because you won't have to hear Ravi Shastri's "commentary" & "analysis" during the match. Another #win for the internets.  [Techie Buzz]

The NBC late-night show brouhaha is not just good for a few jokes, it's also a good business lesson. You can use this to make a PPT for the next company 'retreat' (if you work for a company which has enough money to have one) and sound all cool and zeitgesty. And if you really want the presentation to be a hit, make sure to end by making a joke about Jay Leno's huge chin. [WSJ]

Finally, in case you haven't already heard, Bill Gates joined twitter. He gets followed 208 times per minute. He also makes millions of dollars per minute. I fear that this is headed towards the all new Bill-Gates-will-donate-a-million-dollars-to-charity-for-every-follower-he-has spam meme. Kidding. He will probably give all his followers a free copy of Windows 7!  [PC Mag]

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]