India Declared Errorist State

The spot the errors contest is on..

Remember those pairs of pics in the funny pages of newspapers and comic books? And you had to spot 5 or 10 errors in the second pic? That was fun! Now for grown-ups the Central government sponsors this game. You have a list of wanted and in the second pic you have to hunt for the errors. Let me update the story. So far at least 2 of the 50 Most Wanted list are reported to be in India. Latest reports are that at least 3 in the list have died. Yes, died! CBI has also removed the current list of 50 wanted from its website. I like this game, except that it’s not so funny. We have now been declared an errorist state.

If this issue is currently playing second fiddle in the headlines it’s because Kanimozhi, Sharath Kumar and some have been denied bail and are in jail. I have no sympathies for these people but it’s odd terrorists and murderers get bail but economic offenders and corrupt people cannot. Sanjay Chandra of Unitech, also in Tihar,  can start planning new real estate schemes –  of the jails variety, we are going to need a lot more jails. Let’s get back to our game though.

In response to the goof ups and the embarrassment our Home Minister, P. Chidambaram, accepts the error but repeatedly points out that Kandahar was an embarrassment too. Right! So this is fine because Kandahar happened. So every time a terror related goof up happens the UPA’s pet argument is Kandahar happened. Imagine, each time a terror goof up happens in the US Obama responds by saying “didn’t 9/11 happen?”! That indeed is the approach of Chidambaram and the UPA. And our media doesn’t question him for his stupid utterances. Not one journalist in the media has ever bothered to even check on the 50-list and investigate its accuracy. Most of their romantic attention has been reserved for one person, Dawood Ibrahim.

That Kandahar happened is bad and tragic. But that happened in a hostile country with another hostile country in between. In the context of that incident and situation, exchanging a few terrorists for over a hundred innocent lives seemed sensible, even if not the best option. Let’s also not forget the media drama by people like Rajdeep Sardesai and Barkha Dutt during that incident. But in the current goof ups we are in no foreign or hostile land. We are in our own errorist state. And while Chidambaram and the UPA keeps offering Kandahar as an excuse for every goof up the wiseguys in the media never ask them a simple question. What would you have done if you were handling Kandahar? I have no doubts that if the UPA (with the likes of Digvijay and Rahul) were handling Kandahar they would have gladly released ten more terrorists. Someday that might come about and we may have to release Afzal Guru as well.

Come back to the 50-list. First, I have no idea why this has to be an exact 50? Maybe some accountant was making it and wanted the figure rounded off.  Maybe 50 sounded very romantic and adult like. Why not 46 or 54? I guess I do not possess the intelligence to figure that one. Maybe we were inspired by the pack of cards with pics of wanted men handed out to every soldier by the Bush administration after 9/11. In that case one has to wonder who stole the two cards from the pack of 52!

On a serious note one has to wonder what the UPA’s approach to such issues is. Not so long ago we had the intellectual Rahul Gandhi telling the US Ambassador that Hindu right-wing extremists are more dangerous than the likes of LeT. Then you have the Digvijay Singhs at the launch of books like ‘26/11 an RSS Conspiracy’ and so too his frequent utterances on Hindu terror. Most of all we have Chidambaram educating the security forces on the threats of ‘Saffron’ terror. Such being the internal beliefs and pursuits of the Congress it is natural that there are bound to be goof ups on the wanted lists and our attention to it and continuing intelligence failures. Add to all this fact that many of our ministers and rulers were too busy looting the nation under various scams and the intelligence failure is understandable.

It may not occur to Rahul Gandhi, Digvijay Singh or P. Chidambaram that even if there are Hindu terrorists they are not supported by the people, the state or our security forces. In contrast, most of the people on the wanted list have the support of a state machinery. That should tell us who constitute a greater threat and who should be receiving greater attention. In the meantime let us rejoice our newly acquired Errorist status.

CNN-IBN: Should Cooks Use Kitchen Knives Responsibly?

'Brace The Nation'? (the silly-half-hour)

On May 18 CNN-IBN’s program ‘Face the nation’ was quite interesting. Sagarika Ghose asked a panel questions about Twitter. Whether Twitter should be used responsibly by public personalities and whether facts or opinions should be tweeted. Do you really believe that? These are questions being asked by a person who is infamous for some of her tweets. I have never seen a more stupid question being asked on a TV program. And it had to come from Sagarika Ghose. Sometimes I feel CNN-IBN should warn us about silly-half-hour by temporarily renaming it as ‘Brace the nation’ so we can be prepared by putting our brains aside for that period. The panellists were Dilip Cherian, Derek O’Brien, Shishir Hattangadi and Anupam Kher.

Let me digress a bit. Many years ago Bill Gates said something about MS WORD, either in one of his books or speeches. I don’t remember which but here is what he said (this is not an exact quote but effectively what he said):

We gave you WORD. You said you wanted a spellcheck. So we gave you spellcheck. Then you said you wanted more languages. So we gave you Chinese, Japanese, German and more. Then you said you wanted tables and diagrams. So we gave you tables and diagrams…. And on and on the list went and he finally said:

“..But we can’t tell you what to write. That’s totally up to you”!

I wonder if Sagarika Ghose understands the difference between a tool and the manner in which it is used. This is pretty much common sense with any professional or any grown up adult. Instead CNN-IBN does a whole half-hour program on prime-time debating the issue of Twitter as if it was some big national issue for anyone. For any medium that technology makes available there will be those that use it sensibly and those who will use it for other purposes.

It is usually the ones who haven’t used it too well who will constantly debate the merits of the tool. Is Sagarika the best user of Twitter? Hmmm! That is what probably bothers her. There are many tweets by her that have been lambasted. This blog carried a post on whether her tweets should be tagged racist. (Read HERE) There are many other blogs that have questioned her tweets some of which she has apologised for. Here endeth the lesson!

Kitchen knives can be used for murder, slashing wrists, slitting throats and if I were to go by CNN-IBN, sometimes to chop food stuff.  I am now waiting for the day when CNN-IBN will have Sanjeev Kapoor on this program to debate whether kitchen knives should be used more responsibly. Whatever it takes to fill the silly-half-hour!

The Fantasies Of Rahul Gandhi

I seriously wonder if Rahul Gandhi had even heard of a place called Bhatta-Parsaul a few months ago. The agitation there was quite tempting for him to go out there and demonstrate his deep concern for the plight of farmers. “I am ashamed to be called an Indian after seeing the atrocities. Congress will not budge from here till the demands are met..” he had said. Really? Well, if it’s any comfort there are many people in this country who feel that way too after all the scams Rahul’s Congress has heaped on this nation. But never mind that.

First, I am not sure Rahul Gandhi was inspired by his own conscience to rush to Greater Noida and be the saviour of farmers. That left me wondering where he derived his inspiration from. That was answered by the pics that have been up everywhere. See a familiar face? Yes, that would be the ‘royal’ farmer Digvijay Singh. The mentor and the ‘Apt Pupil’!

Now then, that is where Rahul’s imagination runs riot. He narrates stories of women being raped by police, people being burnt alive and so on. Violent agitation does cause damage to property and injuries and even deaths. His allegation, however, was that it was the police that heaped all the cruelties. And you know what? He even collected proof, pictures and selected a bunch of farmers to have a meeting with the PM.

Our news channels were quite conflicted as to which event they should cover. The drama of the Karnataka crises or the fantasies of Rahul Gandhi. In any case they had a great time between the Amul Yuvraj and the disturbing Hansraj. Suddenly, today there are news reports that much of what Rahul Gandhi stated was an exaggeration and not exactly entirely accurate. To that his mentor, Diggy and other Congress spokespersons, suggest that Rahul only repeated what he was told by the villagers. Of course, we already know that! Rahul only repeats what he’s been told. Do you seriously expect Rahul to say anything of his own?

One of the sound practices in management is to never rely too much on ‘second-hand’ news. If indeed one gets ‘second-hand’ news then some basic verification and corroboration is undertaken. Well, I don’t think they teach this at Harvard or Cambridge where Rahul Gandhi is reported to have studied. They also don’t teach this at journalistic schools I suppose. Our media simply belted out Rahul’s biggest hits of Bhatta-Parsaul without even a primary verification.

And now, it all comes tumbling down. A CNN-IBN report (and my compliments to them) has reversed much of the extra-ordinary allegations that Rahul Gandhi had hurled.  (Did Rahul Gandhi mislead the PM?) Typically, the Congress now says Rahul was misquoted and blah, blah, blah and another big blah.

No surprises here. I had sometime ago suggested that the Congress had long back changed a slogan. It remains ‘ShityamevaJayate’! And yes, they can count on the media to follow suit.

The Scum Of All Spheres

Accused in terrorist acts in at least 3 cases that killed quite a few it is first of all amazing that Wazul Kamar Khan was allowed bail. Did the prosecution protest? Bail in all 3 cases of terrorism? Then for years he enjoys his private life peacefully at Thane. The media celebrates the fact that the Central government, the Maharashtra government and the Mumbai police were caught red faced. Why, because this man figures in the 50 most wanted list submitted to Pakistan.

Out of the blue the police discover the man and take him for questioning. The media finds another piece of sensational development to grind their cacophony all day and night. Not one in the media even bothers to ask the following questions:

1.  Why was this man out on bail in the first place? Acts of terrorism that have killed scores are heinous crimes that do not merit bail. Imagine Kasab being out on bail.

2.   Even if he was out on bail, why were the cases against him not being fast-tracked? Why were no hearings being conducted?

The man most responsible for this pathetic state of affairs has to be P. Chidambaram, the Home Minister at the centre. Having created the National Investigation Agency specially to monitor and prosecute cases of terrorism how this man’s name crept into the list of 50 submitted to Pakistan is beyond reason. Errors and mistakes can be made. But to find a terror-accused being out on bail in our country and living happily under the nose of a state which has MCOCA is a stunning failure of serious magnitude.

In another unrelated case Iqbal Kaskar, Dawood Ibrahim’s brother, was shot at yesterday. Why is this man so freely roaming the streets of Mumbai? If anything he should be in custody and used as leverage against Dawood. This is the Kaskar that was deported to India in 2003 from UAE.

Does the UPA government intend to send a message to the terrorists and the people of this nation? 

What if Pakistan did hand over the remaining 49 wanted persons from that list of 50? What exactly would our government do? Afzal Guru and Nalini (Rajiv Gandhi’s assassin) are still comfortably lodged in jails. So most of these people, if extradited by Pakistan, will probably be out on bail and enjoy the same comfortable life that they enjoy in Pakistan or where ever they are. I often wonder who are the scum of all spheres. The terrorists or the ones who are responsible for national security who refuse to act.

While the Congress is neck deep in petty politics of spying,  phone-tapping, attempting to pass laws suppressing internet freedom and free speech, of course, reaching greater heights in scams,  our security apparatus is as rag tag as the coalition government. True to his usual style of spewing gibberish Congress spokesperson Manish Tiwari states “…there is an inquiry by the home ministry….let the facts come out…The issue has attendant sensitivities. …so let us err on the side of caution”. Well said Manish. We will continue to err and err and err.

It is laughable that the central government considers Pakistan a safe-haven for terrorists. The real ‘heaven’ for terrorists is here in India. Ask an Afzal or a Kazab or the new found celebrity Wazul Kamar Khan. Criminals in parliament, criminals in assemblies, criminals free in society, terrorists living in our paradise. We welcome the scum of all spheres.

Communists Out, What Next For The Media?

The election results in Bengal have delivered a thrashing for the Left Front. Kerala ousted them with a smaller margin. The news channels have been gaga over a giant killer called Mamata Banerjee. She probably is. Was there any other option? The Congress did not have any great leader in Bengal, as it does not in many other states. The rise of state leaders in the Congress is taboo. The BJP doesn’t exist in either of the states. If the Congress does win a majority in a state it is the ‘high command’ which will conduct a lucky draw and appoint a CM. That will not be so in Bengal. Mind you, our media almost painted Mamata as a villain during the Nandigram and Shingur episodes.

The questions mostly asked in the media are about how the Left had become arrogant and about Nandigram and Shingur. About how the Left got decimated. The real question that needs asking is how the Bengalis suffered the communists for over three decades. Bengalis consider themselves artistic, intelligent or intellectuals and yet they fell for communism for such a long period. Perhaps the CPM and its gangs of cadres conducted operations that kept them suppressed all these years. The culture of tall talk in public and deception and violence on the ground is a common feature of communists.

One must bear in mind that the Congress is also a Communist party in disguise. Right from the time Jawaharlal Nehru took charge almost all the policies of the government were based on communist ideology. Modern day Indian history was also being written by communists of the JNU types. Suppressing and discrediting private entrepreneurship was a policy long followed by the Congress, which is another feature of communist ideology. If the practice in Bengal and Kerala was to marginalise the majority Hindu community and increase the Muslim population as vote banks it has been no different with the Congress either.  Even now, much of our financial policies and budgets have elements of communist ideology.

Now then, whatever the communist ideology or their misdeeds is another story. What one needs to ponder is why our media was so obsessed with the members of the Left or their spokespersons. If you look back at the two decades since the private channels explosion hardly a day passed when quite a few communist faces didn’t feature prominently on every national issue. As if Bengal was really some reflection of national agenda. The Yechuris, the Nilotpals, the Rajas, the Brindas, the Karats, the Dasguptas and many more. After the 2009 general elections one hoped the communists would be kept out of the TV having lost badly but that did not happen.

In the years prior to the TV explosion the main newspaper of the nation, Times of India was almost the champion of the communists. Of course, it helps that their head quarter was in Kolkatta for a long time. Among the TV channels NDTV has to be their greatest platform. Again, it helps that NDTVs owners are directly related to communists. So what are NDTV and CNN-IBN going to do now? Now that their heroes are buried in these elections one wonders what’s next for them. I don’t really expect NDTV to change colours too much but the other channels can surely learn a lesson in not allowing disproportionate voice to a redundant and rotting ideology.

If the TV channels haven’t found wisdom one can rejoice that the people of Bengal have finally woken up and booted out the communists. This has been done in a manner similar to the decimation of Laloo Yadav in Bihar. The darlings of our media are slowly being booted out. Do you now need more proof how out of touch with people our media is as much as most political parties are? One way or another I hope this is the death of the communist ideology and that it disappears from our nation.

My Sore Pak

I once again took a break, this time a longer one and was happy to get back on the day Osama Bin Laden was taken down. I have lost count of the number of posts where I have mentioned that Pakistan is a failed state with nothing to offer to anyone and surviving on misdirected aid. The only ones who think Pak is a great neighbour are the likes of Shahrukh Khan and Mahesh Bhatt. A few weeks ago our PM even wanted cricket to be played between India and Pak. Manmohan Singh cares two hoots about realities as events as shown over and over again. Friendship with Pakistan is not only impossible but not even desirable.

The idiots who have coined the term ‘people to people’ contact as an excuse to seek peace are the greatest enemies of India. You cannot have peace with a nation that has an army and outfits partly involved in terrorism. It took nearly a decade but the US finally got Osama. His hole just outside Islamabad proves what the Pak establishment was and is really up to. It might take a decade to get the perpetrators of 26/11 and other terrorists but instead our stupid government wants us to play cricket with those assholes.

We need not hate Pakistanis. Ordinary Pakistanis are not evil. But the way our media keeps promoting Pakistan and campaigning for relations with that country is sickening. The worst crimes on this count come from Bollywood itself. With an abundance of talent in India they still need singers and dancers from Pakistan and cite such cultural imports as a way of improving relations. Moron-in-chief of this theory has to be Mahesh Bhatt. And he is now in the Congress. Is that any surprise? And then there is still that Slime of India, with its ‘Aman Ki Asha’ crap. Do we need traitors?

What is the best question that Rajdeep Sardesai and others ask P.Chidambaram when Osama was killed? Hmmmm, when are we going to go after the Dawoods and the Saeeds!!! It takes spine to go after criminals. Do our politicians have any? In the tragedy of the 1999 Kandahar hijack the media turned it into an emotional drama and soap with the families of those hijacked to force the government to barter terrorists for hostages. And then Chidambarm tells the world India and US are the not the same when it comes to Pakistan. Well that is some comfort. Time to learn from tiny Israel on how to survive with cutthroat criminal rulers surrounding you all the time.

It didn’t take the Osama killing to expose Pak. Everyone knew it, everyone knew the Pak ISI and army are crooks and everyone knew Pak was playing host to Osama. The US finally decided not to be led up the garden path. But will our Manmohan Singhs, Mahesh Bhatts, Barkha Dutts and Shahrukh Khans learn? No they will not! The government still maintains talks will go on. Talks on what? To discover that Pak is a safe haven for another hundred criminals for crimes against India?

Right now Pak is sore. It is scab infested. Forget Pakistan, it’s good riddance.  Let’s get on with moving India on.  Pak should also learn a lesson from it’s friend Osama. You can run but you can’t hide forever. Pak will one day meet the same fate that Osama met. Hopefully, it will be at the hands of India.