Electoral/Constitutional reforms I would like to see

After looking at the past few elections and also looking at the way the govt is run, these are a few of the electoral/constitutional reforms which I believe would help in trying to improve the political situation of the country. It is quite a huge list, but i do hope somebody reads through this.

- Make it mandatory to vote in elections. In the world’s largest democracy, it is pathetic to see that more than half the eligible people to vote do not vote and this after repeated efforts and pleas to make them vote. My idea is to make it into some fundamental duty which every citizen of India should fulfill.

- Have the option to reject all the candidates from the constituency in the EVM only. It being a secret ballot why should I let others know that I am not going to vote for anyone else.And going by the precedence even this time not many of the presiding officers in the polling station knew of what to do in case a person decides to reject all the candidates

- Have some system to make that negative vote count. Not sure how, but may be something like if the candidate gets negative votes amounting to more than 1/n th of the total votes polled, where n is the total number of candidates in the fray, then he/she cannot be elected.

- Some measure to reduce the number of independent candidates. Right now there are constituencies where nearly 70 odd independent candidates stand for election. I don’t know how many of them get more than 10 votes. Also reducing the number of independents also will lead to reduction in the cost of printing the extra ballot sheets and EVMs

- Try to hold union and state elections together. I feel that it will lead to a major savings in the cost of holding the elections

- In cases where a person gets elected from one party, then resigns soon after, joins another party, then the expenses for conducting the elections have to be taken from that person only. After all, he was the reason for having this extra election and we are not a rich country anyways. The same holds for people elected to state assemblies standing for parliamentary elections and winning and for the people who stand from more than one constituency and win more than one. It is not being conducted to show off your strength. And if you think the elections are a show of strength, then pay for showing off your strength.

- A fixed term for parliament will help, I believe. At least that way we know the people who we have elected have 5 years to do something.

- A way to question our elected representatives. Pardon me if this is already there in our constitution, but I need to have the right to question my elected representative about what he has done in that year or not done. Something like the General Body Meeting where we get to know what the person is doing. Or at least make sure that they release an activity report every year or twice every year.

- Make it mandatory for the prime minister to be an elected MP of the Lok Sabha and not Rajya Sabha. I am not having anything against any particular party, but my train of logic is this way. Every one believes that Lok Sabha election is the only election where they elect someone to represent them. Now a Prime Minister who is the leader of the country has to be someone who is elected by the people directly. Whatever the constitution says we all know that Rajya Sabha election is no way an election where the people's representatives are elected. If a party is sure that they will be elected to power, then I don't think they have any reason not to field their prime minister candidate from one of the constituencies. After all if he/she is good enough to lead the country, then the people will elect him/her.

- Some way of curbing the influence of the regional parties in the national politics. Now I know this is easier said than done. But the reason for me putting this here is what we have seen in the recent past. Too many regional parties are holding the national govt captive in order to achieve some of their regional issues/rivalries or whatever settled. Some way to curb this is the need. What can be done? Say have something like the regional parties are free to contest the state elections on their own, but if they are having candidates for the national elections, then they need to align themselves with one of the two/three main parties. And they need to do it before the elections and have to stay with them for the entire term of the parliament. The penalty may be something severe like de-recognizing the parties who fail to adhere to this or shift allegiance to another front. This way at least they do not have the power to threaten the government that they would withdraw support if they do not do some damn A, B or C

After mentioning all these things let me question myself too... Which individual or the party has the balls to get these reforms passed? I am sorry to say that though one or two of them might try to implement a few of them, not all of these will be implemented. And of course, I sincerely do not believe the congress-led present govt has neither the will power nor the interest in implementing it.

Arbit - 1

Things u need to make a mega serials( in short saas-bahu type)
- A “highly gifted” script writer. Not easy to find one, but they say that if you find someone who thinks he can write and get him high, he can become a “extremely gifted” script writer
- A protagonist, better if it is a female one cause all u want to do is give all the trouble in the world to her, and a female protagonist shedding the glycerinated tears in the story is more suitable to earn the viewership of your target segment-the female of the house and thus makes sure that u earn back the money u spent on bottles of glycerin
- A vamp. It is better if this is also a female, but now a days they are trying out by having some male vamps also (vampires??)
- A big family, where no one knows how they are connected to the other, but make sure that everybody knows that they are in some business, though no one knows what business they are in.
- Try and put in dialogues talking of deals amounting to some 300 crores – 500 crores every 5 minutes though none of the actors/actresses talking the dialogue will know how many zeroes are there in that much of amount
- Something happening to the protagonists other half (not sure that they are better), so that more bottles of glycerin can be used. Then she finding another “other-half” and so on and so forth.

What does CBI stand for?

Is CBI Central Bureau of Interrogation or Congress Bureau of Interrogation? I am sorry to say it, but it is looking more and more like the latter. Do you want more proof?

Well lets look into the case of CBI vs Mulayam Singh Yadav.

March 2007 – A case of disproportionate assets was registered against Mr Yadav on the directions of Supreme Court based on a PIL filed by a lawyer.

October 2007 – CBI reports that it has completed the preliminary investigation and has found “sufficient material” to implicate Mr Yadav.

July 22, 2008 – Mind you till now Mulayam Singh is against the UPA govt in the center. Now in the wake of the left front taking back its outside support to the government and the government moving into minority consequently, Mr Yadav decides to support the government from outside. So he is on the side of the government now.

November 8, 2008 – The law ministry sends a file to the solicitor general asking his opinion on the case. SG reports back telling that Mr Yadav has his assets within his income limit and the govt must consider withdrawing the case. Legally the Solicitor General doesn’t give legal advice to Govt of India. It is the attorney Generals work.

November 17, 2008 – The union law minster signed off on the case writing “I agree with the legal opinion of the learned Solicitor General. The Department of Personnel may withdraw the IA pending in the Supreme Court.” CBI decides to withdraw the case and this U-turn even surprises the apex court which asks CBI to explain its conduct.

February 2009 – The relation between SP and Congress starts to turn sour. There were comments made by Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav and some other SP leaders against congress leadership. Congress and SP goes into a war of words.

March 31, 2009 – This was the latest hearing of the case and in this CBI informs the supreme court that it still stands by the “recommendations” made in the status report filed in October 2007, implicating Mr Yadav.

So this was an amazing double U-turn by the premier investigating agency and surprisingly the implication and withdrawal of case was consistent with whether Mr Yadav was on the side of govt or against it.

It is also amusing that in July 2008, the CBI suddenly files an affidavit against Ms Mayawati, the arch-rival of Mulayam Singh, in a disproportionate assets case which was on the backburner for the past 5 years and says that it has enough evidence to prosecute Ms Mayawati.

And also now the case of withdrawing the case against Mr. Quattrocchi in the Bofors deal.

CBI in 1999 names Mr Q as the conduit in the case and includes his name in the chargesheet. It also manages to get a red corner notice against Mr Q.
In June 2003, Interpol finds two bank accounts in the name of Mr Q and Mrs Q, containing 3 million Euros and $ 1 millon and says that it is a “curiously large savings for a salaried executive”. The CBI gets the account frozen, so that the money cannot be withdrawn from it.

In January 2006, the central law ministry suddenly decides to defreeze the above mentioned accounts and on January 16th, the entire amount was withdrawn from the bank by Mr Q.

February 2007, Mr Q is held in Argentina based on the red corner notice by Interpol. CBI does not even inform this news to the public in India and only announces it after the report comes in the media regarding this in March 2007. CBI bungles in its efforts to get Mr Q extradited and loses its case to get him extradited in June 2007, with the judge remarking "India did not even present proper legal documents". Embarrassingly, India was also asked to pay Q’s legal expenses.
Mr Q’s son who grew up with Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi visits India frequently, works in a company called Club Invest – Europe and has an office in Bangalore. When his father was arrested in Argentina, he was present in India and left India a day before CBI made the news public.

October 2008- Mr Q’s counsel files a protest against CBI asking it about the legal validity of the Red Corner Notice (RCN). CBI passes on the file to the law ministry and on the same day it is sent to the Attorney General for his opinion. The AG gives his opinion the next day.

“The whole purpose of a warrant of arrest is to secure presence of the accused,” said the AG. “This is possible by extradition when the accused is abroad. But two attempts have failed and the judgements indicate that there are no good grounds for extradition. The warrant cannot remain in force forever. Therefore, the warrant dated February 1997 would lose its validity, particularly in view of the successive failed attempts of the CBI to extradite the accused in Malaysia and recently in Argentina,” the AG said.

April 2009 - The law ministry tells that there is no use in continuing the case and the CBI asks for the withdrawal of the RCN and dropping of charges against Mr Q.

Yes, it does look as if all the things are done as per law. But the whole thing becomes murky because of the involvement of the law ministry of a govt which is in its last date and also the point that the govt is headed by the close friend of the accused against whom the charges are dropped.

That is what makes me wonder. What does CBI actually stand for?

Shoegate Menace

There is a new wave of rebellion or revolt going on in the political circle this election. It is all to do with the shoes. Made famous by the Iraqi journalists missile aimed at George "Dubya" Bush, this weapon has been picked up by the Indian common man this election.

Initially it was the journalist Jarnail Singh who aimed it at Mr Chidambaram, when he tried to avoid questions regarding a certain Sonia Gandhi loyalist ex-minister being given a clean chit in a case which has been dragged on for a silver jubilee celebration.

Then followed a series of shoes thrown at various persons as this mania gripped and spread more crazily than avian flu, targets being Navin Jindal, Jeetendra, Advani and the PM Manmohan Singh too. And with the last incident and the admission of the missile thrower that he did it for his 5 minutes of fame, the thing which I was fearing has come out to forefront.

Anyone can now throw a shoe at some prominent personality knowing fully well that he will be given air time in varying amounts by the various channels. While CNN-IBN might have a fleeting minute dedicated to you, Aaj Tak might have a full hour or two dedicated to you, where the 5 second act of yours would be played in a loop, pausing at different moments to discuss the various technical and aesthetic aspects of your throw.

Now add to it, the crazy politicians from the grand old party of India who are acting more delirious than any human being as old as their party, if alive, would act. If only they could think a Milli-second as to what they are talking before it comes out of their mouth it would have been better for them. Asking the chief minister of a state to apologize because someone threw a shoe at someone else, just because it happened in his state is more a reflection of the dearth of issues for the party on which to fight for during the election.

And this is not the only stupid thing which has come out of the grand old party of India. One ex-chief minister of a particular state from the northern tip of India comes all the way down to the southern part of India for campaigning and gives a statement telling that the government in that state is not favoring the backward castes and if they are favoring, let the chief minister resign and make someone from the backward caste the chief minister. Excuse me mister ex-chief minister of a sensitive state, did u do that when you were a chief minister. Will your party do the same if it comes to power in the center???

In all the craziness surrounding the elections and the stupid and the confusing statements given by the grand old party members and the pseudo-secularist behavior of all so called "secular" parties, it is appalling to see the voter turnouts in the second round of polling. I for myself saw a person who came to the booth and went to the presiding officer telling her that his office would give him a holiday if he had voted and since he is going out of station for enjoying the holiday he doesn't have time to vote and just put on the mark on his index finger. Thank God, the presiding officer was adamant and asked him to stand in the queue for that also. But it shows the apparent lack of concern regarding the country present in a section of the people. God help them and more so God help India from the Pseudo-Secularists

Devil's Incarnate

Looks like the truth is out. The election commission knows it too. My serial number in the voters list for this election is the devils number SIX-SIX-SIX

Kandahar Vs Mumbai

Now that the ruling party at the center is trying to use the Kandahar incident of the 2000 to counter the weak anti-terrorism front of the attack against them, I was thinking of the similarities or the differences between the two.

The similarities that i could think of between the two are that both of them were attacks on the nation, by trained Islamic fundamentalists. Both involved hostage situation. There were some people who paid with their lives in both the incidents.

Now lets come to the differences. In the Kandahar incident, the terrorists boarded the Indian Airlines flight in Nepal and then hijacked it. In Mumbai attacks the terrorists came over into India and attacked landmarks inside the country. With Kandahar, the hijacked flight was flown to Kandahar (of course), which is a different country and which was ruled by the Islamic fundamentalist group Taliban. We all very well remember the scene where the Taliban militia surrounded the plane as soon as it landed. Now it is very well a guess as to on whose side they could be on. With the Mumbai attack, the terrorists took over the buildings and started fighting from inside them.

I am aghast to see the statements from the many educated, elite and the youth icons of the country who try to compare the Kandahar and the Mumbai attack and give out statements that while in Kandahar, the previous govt sent a minister to escort the terrorist and get the release of the hostages, with Mumbai our govt sent commandos and fought against the terrorists.

Can you please clear a couple of my doubts "Mr Youth Icon", "Mr. Future PM". Suppose it was your govt which was in power when Kandahar happened what would you have done? Send commandos to Afghanistan and get the hostages released?If so, would you have sent an army over to Afghanistan along with the commandos to first take on the Taliban militia who were surrounding the plane? Do you really believe that you would have succeeded in this?

Also if you really want to compare the two, wouldn't Mumbai attack show that you are poor at handling terror. There were people from outside country who attacked our country and took hostages. First of all, you let them enter the country, then you let them take hostages, take 4 days to kill them and free hostages and paid with the lives of nearly 200 odd people.

I am not praising the previous NDA govt, but just questioning the audacity of the present govt in saying that they were better in handling terror. I am sorry, but you are not... If you were, you would not have let them get into the country and kill so many of the innocent people of our country

Seething with anger

Well now that i have finished my education, there has been no dearth on the number of people who are interested in getting me married off. Although at home, mom had started off pestering me a long time back (remember, that i had to get into IIM to ward off the pressure back at home), it reached a frenzied pace once i passed out. Add to it the idea of prank among a couple of my friends at Joka being to tell my parents to get me married at the earliest... yes some people are so sadistic that they cannot see others being happy even for a single minute.

After a dozen attempts of my mom pestering me to tell me what kind of a bride i need and i thwarting the question off as i have no idea and am not inclined in thinking about it as of now, the tension reached the peak today and as usual i lost my patience and had to shout.

I just can't find any reasoning in that i have to get married just because my parents can have the peace of mind that they have completed their so called earthly duties. And who ever added the children marriage in the duties list. What about the children's future? After all it is they who have to survive the marriage. I remember seeing such scenes in some old movies where the children had to get married coz some old granny wanted to see the marriage of her grandson/daughter and i felt the same even then.

Does one get married just to please someone else or do they get married when they are ready. And what does it need to get it into the head that even i can think about when i can or need to get married. Just because i am 26 and in the so called marriageable age it does not mean i need to get married.

Just hope somebody knocks some sense into the right heads. And i just hope my so called friends at least stop playing their stupid pranks.

Back again

After a brief(??) hiatus of 3 months i am back again here.

Updates:

Not much. Got placed in as a Business Analyst in a company in Mumbai. Finished my course and had my convocation. Back home lazing around doing practically nothing. So just thought may be i should look into my blog once again. So here i am back posting arbit stuff.

Thing is that there is soo many stuffs which i want to write on but none of them enough to make into a blogpost. So let me go back and think about how to put it across .

So till then cya

Playlist

Long time since i updated the blog, and this was not the way i would have liked to do it. But, i just couldn't resist posting this somewhat of a tag kind of post

The only song on my play list since yesterday going on in loop is the song You make me feel by Westlife. I just love the lyrics of this song. Something which is close to me as of now. So I thought i would share the lyrics of this "Awesome" song. With due apologies again for this random arbit post here goes:

I've been trying to reach you
'Cause I've got something to say
But you're talking about
Just nothing at all
And you're slipping away

We were cryin together
It was a long time ago
Before you walk out that door
And leave me this way
Just hear what I say

You make me feel
You make me real
For the rest of my days
In so many ways
You make me feel

I've been trying to leave you
Why should we go on like this?
But my heart can't breathe
When I hear you say
"It's better this way"

Ten thousand light years away from you
Keep thinking maybe it's time to let go
But by the end of the day
I still want to say "do you?"

- Westlife

2008: An year in review

As another year comes to an end, I thought of going back through the year that was, something which i had done a couple of years back.

The year began with the world in not such a deep trouble it is in as now and thus everyone concentrating on finance job out of campus (seniors) or in studying a fin subject (our batch). The year began on a good note for me in that I got into the studC here @ joka. Also there was my best friend's wedding which i had to miss just because i had a midterm starting the very next day.

When the bulk of the world was busy celebrating the magic of love in February, we the less blessed few were busy going through bulky books of Operations Research, Production and Ops Management and financial management, trying to make sense out of it.

Come March and after the seniors placement, it was time for me to go back home to recharge my batteries. Recharge or whatever, spending time back at home for a month was gr8. Bad thing was that my grades went for a toss in the term, which is hurting my prospects even now.

Then off to the city of dreams, Mumbai for a 2 month internship with J&J. All I could say is two of the best months of this year. Staying near Chowpatty, facing the beach, office a 15 minute walk from there, walks in the night on the famous marine drive ... amazing. Loner that i am, whenever i used to feel bored i just used to go on to the beach and stand watching the sea. Work place was fun. With 18 other interns, the whole day used to just pass off in a breeze. Celebrated my Birthday along with the fellow interns by cutting a pizza, and fulfilled my ambition to watch a game of cricket in the stadium, when i went to see the IPL match between KKR and MI.

Back to campus in June and back to the mundane existence. Only difference being that after the 4th term all we did had was lots to read ( a day before the exam that is), lots of movies and soaps to see, lots of treats. Started trying my hand @ TT and snooker, though i suck a lot in that.

My dreams of learning a musical instrument, guitar in particular, has remained a dream for one more year. And i am still in the same position if not moved back a dozen steps in the elusive dream.

Looking back, all i could say was this was another normal boring year, inclining more towards the bad than to the good. Resolutions for 2009, though i don't believe in those, are being drawn up. May be in the next post

Void life()

Long time since i updated my blog. Well here i am back to updating it at 3 am in the night. Looks like my brain works a lot better in the night or i am becoming an insomniac that i cannot sleep in the night and that is when all these thoughts come in my head.

So coming to the topic of thoughts in the head, I was thinking on the lines of the void written by Gomzi here. And that was when i realized that even i was suffering from the same problem. And it is just that i have no one close enough who can understand what it is. Well, my parents are a different generation in themselves and i wouldn't expect them to understand it and of the rest of the people in my generation that i know of, half of them wouldn't know that I exist, rest don't care. OK, I am not telling that i don't have friends. But i am talking of those stuffs which u wouldn't want to talk to all the friends, but to someone who you treat as close. And the only difference from Gomzie will be in the fact that I had a couple of friends like that, with whom i could just sit and talk and would get the therapeutic treatment. It is just that they are married now and I do not want to burden my problems on them.

And yes, i do have a certain someone with whom i believe that i might be able to open my soul out. But again it depends on whether the recipient is ready or not :(

Why???

As I had said in some previous post of mine, I have a subject called Management of Self in Organization. As a part of the curriculum we are supposed to write an autobiography. So, I was actually thinking about my life till now (yeah as many ppl here say, I am too old to be here coz I am 26) and the stuffs which had happened. I was actually amazed to see that it was more like a cycle of events in my life just keeps happening again and again. This got me thinking about it. This led to me raising a few questions about these stuffs.

1. Why is it that I usually am hesitant in opening my mouth??

2. Why is it that even when I know I am right I don’t want to get into an argument?

3. Why is it that I am always thinking of not hurting others, even if it hurts me?

4. Why is it that even after taking all the precautions not to hurt others there are people who think that I hurt them?

5. Why is it that I suddenly run out of ideas for conversation when actually all I want is to spend some time talking to someone?

6. Why is it that I am not good in at least something?

7. Why is it that I end up on the losing side in most of the situations in my life?

8. Why is it that every night I think of new and amazing ways of popping up the all important question, think and find faults in it and finally convince myself that it is never gonna happen, only to start of all afresh the next day and repeat the same?

9. Why is it that I so much wanna help someone when I know it is all of no use and will be washed down the drain?

PS: Why is it that all these stuffs strike to me and make me write something usually at 4:30 am when I haven’t slept the entire day and have a class at 8:30 am?

PPS: Why am i posting a set of questions on my 50th post?

Modern technology: Final resort to fight crime ?

Well... One more series of bomb blasts. This time in Agartala. I was just thinking on how this could have been avoided. Well I dunno what the intelligence is doing... nor am i supposed to know, neither do i wanna know. But I was thinking what could be done. Will better information be useful? Can't some data mining or some stuff like that be done to get more information about these people.

Thinking about this, I was going through a last week's edition of Economist where i found this article . Well this goes on to talk about what i was thinking about. Imagine the power which is in the hand of the intelligence if we get the all the data and could correlate as given in the article. Yeah, being in India, we could leave the religion from this. Or we need not concentrate only on a particular community. Remember we are fighting the enemies of the nation and not any particular community.

But will such a thing ever be done in India. If it finds opposition in US of A, won't it find an opposition in our country where the Human Rights Commission is fighting vehemently against hanging a criminal mastermind who was responsible for attacking the very center of our governance? Will it ever care about the safety of the country?

I think one of the major problems in our country is that each of these commissions and agencies and et al have their own agenda and programme. Well just having their own agenda is not at all a problem. Only problem is that they are adamant and stubborn to stick to it in all conditions. Yes Mohd Afzal might be a citizen of India and yes, protecting his rights would have been your right(??), but now that he is proved to have worked against the country, I cannot find any sense in trying to protect him.

I still feel that it is the necessity to have such advanced technologies to fight against the modern threats facing our countries. Remember we are no longer fighting some uneducated individual who just comes over throws a few grenades, fires a few tens of rounds of ammunitions and blows himself. We are fighting some highly educated individuals, who knows how to use technologies and are using technology to fight. To protect our lives and livelihood, i think we should be ready to give up a bit of our privacy.

PS: All opinions are my personal opinions.

Arbit creativity

So as I had mentioned in some earlier post, I have taken a course which has writing of an autobiography as a part of the evaluation parameter. From the past many days I am thinking of how to start the autobiography and was hitting the writers block again and again. Yesterday night, I decided I need to start on it, sat in front of my comp with a new word doc open and stared at it for more than half an hour, but just didn't know where to start from.

Frustrated, I switched off the light and hit the bed, hoping for some creativity to strike me. After rolling around for half an hour, creativity did strike me, though not in the way i intended. All i could write at 4:30 am is this poem. Though it doesn't rhyme and could be called no more than a collection of words, let alone a poem, I would like to call it a poem. Considering that I usually don't write poems or anything that rhyme, I do believe that I am entitled to think so.

So this is what my sleepless brain could conjure in the name of creativity.

As she sat in her royal chair

The princess looked contented

Down in the ground stood many

Her hand it is they contended.

Many were there in the battle ground

All the heirs to some well known crown

But they line up against each other

To win the hand of the princess grown

All were there to win the same thing

It was the princess’ hand

But each had a reason of their own

Known only to their hand

Some wanted the kingdom

To which the princess was the heir

Some loved her beautiful face

Some loved her lovely hair

There I stood on the ground

As a contender in the ring

All the contenders other

Were sons of noble king

As I stood in the corner

Waiting the battle to start

I stole a glance at the princess

The queen of my heart

No one believed in me

I knew it deep in my heart

Not even my sweet princess

The ruler of my heart

I know I don’t have the valour

With which the princes are born

I know I wasn’t even a prince

I was a commoner born

But still I stood in the ground

To fight my battle last

Just to prove my love

I will fight till the last

I know I stand no chance

Before the noble kings

But still I fight this battle

Armed with my love for thee

A beautiful marriage it was

A splendorous ritual

Witness it my body did

Separated from its soul

-Stier

PS: I think i will put this into my autobiography. Though in which section is still a big question mark even to me.

PPS: Please excuse the grammar. Pretty poor in it.

PPPS: Last of the Ps and Ss, I promise... Any suggestions for the title of the poem is welcome

Utter nonsense

Yeah thats what it is ... What is happening around and this post ... and i think this blog too. So, we have a group of militants or terrorists or whoever they are happily going around bombing everywhere in our country and all our honorable (sic) home minister has to say is " A few cowards are trying to test our patience etc etc etc". Watching it on CNN-IBN, i had a de javu. Hadn't this same guy told the same things around a month ago ??? Is it a repeat telecast ??? Well I come back to my room, log on to net (wonder when i log off anyways) and see that it is not just me who felt the same way. And it was not a repeat telecast... Now, how much low can this person go?? And then what does he say ??? "We are just coming back to life after an attack and these ppl do it again". Hello Mr Home Minister are u pleading with them to give you some time???

Well thats one thing. And then there was this party organized to welcome the steppers into the campus. Thank God, i skipped it and watched a good movie instead. Reports from the party wouldn't make a nice reading anyways...so chuck it.

Regarding the movie, a beatiful wonderful movie called "A Wednesday". Just watch it if u haven't . It is really amazing and having watched it on the same day of the wonderful wonderful statement of our home minister, I somehow feel that is the only way to go. I don't want to give out a lot on the movie over here... but all i could say is that it has come out at the right time.

And regarding myself, well have been in a really bad mood nowadays.. Don't know the reason, (OK I won't tell the reason) but feel really miserable. Yeah this is the 5th term when i should enjoy, but i am actually pissed off with what a few ppl around here consider me to be. Just hope I get a really good chance to prove these #@@$#@$ wrong.

OK coming back from that rant, been in a really bad mood nowadays. And it is not that i have nothing to do. I have a project with the Initiative for Community Actions club of which i am a part and we haven't yet started on it. Then I have this really awesome course called Management of Self in Organizations. One of the evaluative parameter for the course is that we have to write our autobiography. Awesome way to evaluate people. And I was planning that I will start writing from the first day that I get this course.

Next we have a student body called ISG, which takes care of our extranet and the details of the courseweb where we get the course materials and other things which are uploaded by the profs etc. The ISG started a new initiative called as the ISG_Academic Committee and I am a part of it. We are a group of 5 people who handle around 5 subjects each and takes responsibility of updating the students on the stuffs which happened in each class and also any pre-readings or activities which need to be done before the next class or any submissions to be done on the day of the class. This is one activity which we are really excited in and hopefully we could maintain this level of excitement, so that it could continue through to the next batch and so on. Having said all these, I really think that the present ISG head has to choose a capable enough successor, who has the same level of enthu that he has.

And as usual, we have the students council. Yes, we are excited about our roles over here too and we need to give something back to the institution. We need to make a change which can have a lasting impact on the campus and possible help the batches to come. We are working on that right now and we have a really short duration as our term comes to an end by november end or december. We need to really get this thing done.

But yeah, even though i am in all these things, I am yet to get off from my foul mood. Today, it has been a bit better, coz i did go around and spoke to someone who could lighten my mood, even though could speak only for a couple of minutes as this person as usual has to rush out. And yeah, could catch up with a friend in some other insti too... All these talking did lighten my mood... but still.....

PS: Yeah now i really feel this post is an utter nonsense.... and so is this blog.

The 5th term bliss begins ....

Back to the campus after the term break, could call this period nothing but the absolute bliss. 10 classroom sessions spread over the week (the least since first term), nothing to study (shopping week going on) and nothing to do.

Saw Jaane bhi do yaaro, C Kkompany (who is this wierd numerologist whom Ekta Kapoor visits every time she needs to name something), Rock On (Gold class in Fame, spending 350 bucks), finished reading Picadilly Jim and the 3 mistakes of my life. All these with sleeping atleast 7-8 hrs every day and in the past 2 days .... atleast 12 hrs everyday. The ways you can spend productively as long as it has nothing to do with studies :)

Well looking at the courses which i am taking, i could say that Archana, a friend of mine over here, is absolutely true. Some people do have r**e fantasies and looks like i am one of them. I don't think anybody would like to take loaded course in the 5th and 6th term and here i am taking Commercial Banking, having a project, midterm and an endterm - in other words a "pain", Country Risk Analysis, having quiz in all the classes ( u miss a class u miss a quiz), project, case analysis and class exercises, economics - my nemesis, but the only time i can be in the same class as some one else, and Management of Self in Organization - write a review on a movie, novel or some lyrics, end-term and write an autobiography (yes you heard it right ... an autobiography) and its analysis. The last course mentioned though is not sure as it will go into bidding and lottery and knowing my luck all these years, i might not even get it.

Coming back to the movies and the books i read...Rock On was an awesome movie, though in some parts it was boring, but could say it was a well thought out and well directed movie and Farhan Akthar was awesome in the movie. And know what??? I feel he sings well too... Really loved the songs composed by SEL and sung by Farhan Akthar. All I could say was that i did not feel too bad for spending 350 bucks on that ticket and watching the movie in the night show.

C Kkompany.... Thank god i didn't spend a single pie on this piece of shit. Not an iota of comedy though it boasts of Rajpal Yadav and Tusshar Kapoor. But what else can you expect from Ekta Kapoor of the K-Series fame. Though Mithunda tries to evoke some laughter from us, sorry da, couldn't find a single funny instance and apart from that the story did suckkk.

Regarding the 3 mistakes of my life, all i could say is that it is a typical Chetan Bhagat novel. Yes, he has lost his touch of the 5 point some one. That is his best novel any day. One night at a call center was slightly bad than 5 point some one, and this book is a touch down on the one night at a call center story. All I have to say is, it is a good time pass book, if you want to read some bollywood type of story.

I can't but wonder how in all his novel, the main protagonist gets his girl in the end. And it is not that the person tries really hard to impress the girl and all. Its more like khuda breaking open the chath to just drop this all lovy-dovey girl into his lap. And here we are, the normal human beings, where we see soo many guys desperately trying to woo someone and failing in the effort and having nothing else to do but thank khuda for not breaking the chath, as all he gets whenever Khuda does is nothing but heaps of misery piled on him.

Well whatever, but all these sleeping in the past two days has left me insomniac in the night now ... and now it is 6:40 in the morning and i am sitting and typing this post after a night-out doing nothing.

The nightmare called Term 4

Time has rolled on. After the nightmare called the 4th term, there is now the bliss called as the 5th term. Thinking back, 4th term must be the badla (revenge) which the institute takes of all the free-ridings and laziness of the students during the preceding 3 terms. As far as I could see, there was not a single student who enjoyed 4th term.

Yes we had the fresh batch coming in, new facchas and the facchis and all the joys of getting acquainted with them, but along came the cases, projects, write ups et all and the sorrows which they get along with them. With the term shortening, the projects piling, the fuses of temper for some blew out, minor mistakes took major proportions and major mistakes ... abnormal proportions.

Well all was not bad with the 4th term. It was the term when the PPOs or the pappus as it is better known, started rolling in. With PPOs we could see the erstwhile hard workers turn into the free-riders of the term and some turning on their GQ (Geelagiri Quotient) a notch more started flirting all around. Whoever said gossiping is bad never knew the fun involved in it. To cater to all these gossip inclined citizens of Joka land, DDCG came into existence and what a hit it was. The whole campus was tuned into this piece of information which would come on any time during the day ( mostly in the night though) through the lifeline of the campus, IP Messenger.

Though the standard of the gossips declined as the days went on to finally disappear altogether, DDCG did diversify into various other areas like campus radio to provide entertainment to the students. Though off late i could say that DDCG has been wiped out so much that it does not even exist now.

So much for the past. But the term did give us a lot of "pain". I get a week of term break and i spend it trying to complete two project reports. That reminds me ... still have a project report to submit and the person supposed to do one part has free rode on that and has gone off on STEP. Well that is the thing with most of the Pappu-dhaaris anyways.

And oh yeah, Term 4 was unforgettable for one more reason. This was the term when i was blessed with a cute little niece. The sleeping beauty (well she does sleep most of the 24 hrs ala me ) is named Ananya and she is really a cutie-pie.

Secularism or Communalism??

One of those rare posts which rant abt the politics

Well, the story goes like this. Election happens. No party gets the absolute majority. The incumbent party(X) is sort of routed, being third largest party now. Just to keep the single largest party(Y) out of power, in the name of protecting "Secularism" (sic), the incumbent party placed third and the second largest(Z), power hungry party, enter into a power sharing agreement, where X will hold the power for the first half and Z for the second half.

Remember all these is done with the "noble" cause of saving the state and the country from the so called communal party. Now this marriage gets done and somehow goes on for abt an year or so when cracks start developing. The power hungry Z wants stuffs done their way, which was obviously not in the interest of X. This war continues and at the end of 20 months, the party Z "breaks", in the sense, 45 out of its 48 MLAs decide not to support the government. They withdraw support and the govt falls.

Now, the so called "Secular" Party Z decides to get into an alliance with the so called "communal" party Y and being power hungry they decide to have their share of power of 20 months first. This continues for another 20 months and when the time comes to pass on the power to party Y, which actually was the one who was given the people's mandate to be in power in the the first case (well it was the single largest party), Z decides to break the alliance. And so comes the election.

The election happens. Obviously the people are frustrated with the politics of party Z and votes against it. Party Y almost gets the majority. Party Z gets routed winning only about a 10% of the seats. They still have the audacity to go to Party X and suggest an alliance, which Party X rightly disagrees to.

Finally Party Z does an introspection on why they lost. And what do they find? Do they find that the actual reason was the way they behaved when in power or their apparent hunger for power??

Well knowing party Z's characteristics as I have described the answer is an obvious NO. The reasons they come up with .... Have a look

• Migration of former minister J belonging to caste A and former minister L belonging to caste B.
• senior leader M upset with the party leadership (doesn't tell why)
• migration of workers in some place D sent wrong signals.
• Delay in candidates selection and giving opportunity to new faces (Think giving opportunity to new faces got them those seats)
• Communication gap between ministers and workers while in power.
• Failure to reward workers Internal reservation has not helped the party.
• OBCs like P,Q,R,S and other community people did not support the party
• Failure in handling media.
• Y and X spent huge money.

Knowing that the state i am talking of is my home state, i think it is easy for every one to guess which parties i am talking about.

Now my only questions are

1. What do mean by Secular? Does a party which support a minority religion just to get their votes and not work for them any secular than the group which supports another religion?
2. How can a party be secular when on introspection the reasons given out by the party for its routing in the election has reasons like a caste didn't support me, or a religion didn't support me?
   
3. Isn't caste based politics equivalent to communalism?
4. If so, how correct is to go on branding a particular party as a communal force?

Anybody has any answers?

First Day in Mumbai

Well, finally back on, after a 3 month break. Well it was not a self imposed break or anything like that. It was just that I was in my summer internship and with no net connection, wasn't able to post anything .

So now that i am back here lemme see what all have i done in the past 3 months. Well went to mumbai, the first time i travelled alone sans any family member to an unknown location. Landed in Mumbai and went to the hostel in which the accommodation was allocated for us from the placement office. Turned out that the hostel warden won't be sitting in his office on sundays. So there i was, in an unknown city with no place to go for the night. Luckily for me, there was one more person from my college who was in the same situation. So we both went around looking for accommodation in the nearby "Guest Houses". Finally we were able to find accommodation in a sub-standard "Aaram" Guest House. Having spent 700 on the room, we went and found that the room's door opened right into the kitchen and the so called Luxury guest house had nothing but a double bed, another single bed, a TV in which the cable connection looked as if it was stolen from a cable running nearby, and a bathroom with a broken commode.

Having somehow managed in this room for a single day, none of us could actually think of spending one more day in that room. So the next day we took half day permission from the office (on the first day) and thought of going searching for room. We came to know that as of now, there was only accommodation available for 2 ppl in the hostel mentioned above. And that the warden comes in at 7pm and is allotted on a first come first serve basis. So I decided that I will go and sit in the waiting room of the hostel from 4:30 and went over there whereas the rest of the ppl, we were almost 5-6 in number now, decided against it. When i went over there, there was already one guy from our college in the queue. Well to cut the long story short, we all ran up 3 floors from the ground floor to the warden office in the 3rd floor and I managed to reach 2nd and got the accommodation into Mackichan hall 4/11,12 which turned out to be my home for the next 2 months. I was sharing the room with 3 other ppl and i would tell this was the most memorable 2 months of my life till now.... not because of the room, but coz of the time i spent outside of it.

Hopefully i will write more about the stay in Mumbai ... Till then ... Ciao

Continued arbit musings

Continuing the musing which was going on in my mind for the past few days it suddenly struck to me...why do we hold on to people even after we know they are not happy with us? Why do we hold on even after we know that they don't want to be with us?

Are we holding on to them for reasons of our own insecurities?? Or are we desperate for the relationship to work out?? I have been guilty of these many times (Whaddya know... I might even be doing the same now)