A Ray Of Hope
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Mandal Messiah-2 may not get support from his party
TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ THURSDAY, APRIL 27, 2006 02:43:09 AM] http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1506880.cms
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Keeping my fingers and toes crossed.. Hope they throw Mandal Maniac-2 out!!

The "Morality" Police

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Non-bailable warrants against Shilpa, Reema
Friday, 21 April , 2006, 16:26
Madurai: A Chennai court issued non-bailable warrants against actors Reema Sen and Shilpa Shetty for "posing in an obscene manner" in photographs published in a Tamil eveninger.
A non-bailable warrant has also been issued to the eveninger's editor Murugan.
Judicial Magistrate II Seetharaman had been issuing summons on a petition filed by one Dhakshinamoorthy, an advocate from February 15.
The Judge had earlier ordered them to appear on March 10. Subsequent summons also did not elicit any response. The summons were also published in newspapers in Hindi and English.
However, the actresses failed to appear in the court. Hence non-bailable warrants were issued on Friday.
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Well, there goes Tamilnadu again!! First Khushboo and now Shilpa Shetty and Reema Sen. It is obvious to me that a lot of folks there haven't got anything better or constructive to do. I mean, instead of filing useless petitions, use that money to feed the poor or for some other genuine social cause!! And if this petition filing is free, perhaps it should be made free only for certain categories. This is a waste of the court's time as well. And by the way, court cases in India take forever to be cleared/decided owing to a huge backlog and not very many judges. In this instant, this clearly frivolous petition should have been thrown out.

Mr. Dakshinamoorthy, advocate- you obviously don't have enough work/cases on hand which is why you were:
a) leafing through the 'eveninger' that published these pictures
b)Probably found the pictures scintillating
c)Felt guilty about it
d)Blamed the magazine and the actresses in the pictures for putting 'obscene' thoughts into your head.

And please, don't tell me that you were concerned about the impact these would have on the younger generation, including you children, if you have any. Trust me, with our Tamil cinema too providing all the right moves through its actresses, a few pictures of good looking, sexy women is not going to make a big difference to them.. unlike you, they are not going to be running around with the 'Shuddhum kuru, Pavitram kuru' type of mantra and wasting the court's precious time just to be in the news.

Having said that, I hope after this case is thrown out (as it should be!), this cheap publicity stunt will get you some clients!

Reservations about Reservations: A Letter Sent To Arjun Singh

Here is a letter sent to Arjun Singh by my cousin:
To,The Honourable Arjun Singh,
Minister of Human Resource Development,
Govt. of India.

Dear Sir,

I am writing to urge you to reconsider the proposed Bill introducing further quotas at the IIT/IIM. With these additional quotas, the number of "reserved" seats at these institutions shall increase to over 49% of the total.

I am writing to you in my capacity as a Professor of Mathematics at McGill University, Canada. In my professional assessment, the claim of admissions purportedly be "merit-based", i.e. via entrance examinations, rings hollow when many of the applicants are selected on the basis of caste/race/gender/religion. A glaring example of how standards fall when such dubious practices occur is the United States SAT examination. This is ostensibly an "entrance exam", but since other factors are routinely employed, the value of this examination is zero. Undergraduate degrees in the engineering and hardsciences at most American universities pale in comparison to those obtained in IIT. Internationally, in the mathematical sciences, the unwritten rule is that oneshould snap up Indian applicants from IIT before anyone else.

Indeed, graduates from India command much respect in the international research community precisely because they have actually taken, and survived, some rigorous examinations and coursework. Our only true competition in many fields of engineering and science comes from Chinese students graduating from some select universities there. IIT and IIM are universally recognized as providing an extremely talented pool of graduates, and I am certain that the proposed reservations will have a very negative impact on this reputation. This is particularly important since China is not introducing such measures.

The Indian Institutes of Technology (of which I am a proud graduate) were instituted as non-political centres of engineering excellence. It is not within their mandate to be testing ground for dubious social-engineering experiments.

I am acutely conscious of the grave imbalances and obstacles facing the OBC/SC/ST community in India. I believe that providing a solid primary education is a far more important and pressing need in this regard; it is proven to be much more cost effective, rupee for rupee, than trying to push at the graduate level. That isn't where the problems begin.

If we plan to introduce 49% reservation at institutes of higher learning, we only benefit 1700 people each year, at the cost of incalculable damage to the international standing of our top brand. For these reasons, I urge you to reconsider the proposed legislation. It will be an act of immense political courage on your part, but will be your lasting legacy.

Sincerely,Prof. Nilima Nigam
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
Mcgill.

The plight of Indians

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Racial attack: Indian student stabbed in Russia Thursday, April 20, 2006 (Moscow):An Indian medical student was stabbed in St Petersburg in what being seen as a case of a suspected racial attack. Anjani Kumar (23), a fifth-year student of the local Mechnikoff Medical Academy, was returning to his hostel last night when he was attacked by a group of "unknown" youths. News agencies quoted the police officials as saying that Kumar has been hospitalised and is reportedly out of danger. The police have launched a search for the attackers. The incident comes in the wake of a string of racial attacks by Russian skinheads in different parts of the country, to mark Nazi dictator Adolph Hitler's birthday today. (PTI)
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• India discriminates against Indians (in a relatively new reversal of caste hierarchy, you are damned if you were born in a caste other than SC/ST/OBC etc. etc.)!
• If Indians leave India in search of a future (I won't say better 'cause they really don't have a future in India if they don't belong to the new elite castes), they are discriminated against.
• In effect, Indians have nowhere safe to go?

Where do we go from here? There is hope in the form of the Private sector, which does not look at your caste, but your merits and capabilities - but is this hope soon going to be relegated into the past? There is a call for a law which will enforce reservations in the private sector.

What then is the point of staying in a country where even if you manage to secure a good job today, there is no hope for your offspring who will have to compete against caste and not capability or merit to even secure admission in a good college! And even if they get through college, what about their life after?

We are talking about equal opportunities here- the only opportunities I see are for politicians and those who have taken advantage of the reservations for several generations. The poor amongst them are still poor. And poverty does not see caste. So, if the intention is to alleviate the state of these poor people, shouldn't there be an economic criterion for reservation? And in anycase, if we are trying to build in equality into our society, aren't we missing the whole point by enforcing caste based reservations? I mean, the caste system will never go away as long as we have reservations based on it!

And now the bull-crap about changing the law to bring in reservation in the private sector. We are forgetting that the respect that India has earned in the International Community is largely because of the Private sector and its ability to deliver international quality products owing to a workforce that is selected solely on ability. If the bloody politicians succeed in stuffing reservations down the throat of the Private sector, they would also succeed in annhilating any standing that India has in the corporate world on a global scale. The resulting sub-standard performance owing to a workforce having sub-standard capabilities will awaken the MNCs and other FIIs to the caste system. And obviously, if your work is lacking in quality, you are not wanted. So, there go all the outsourcing projects.. and with it, hundreds of thousands of jobs! And of course, the crest we have been riding in the stock market will crash into a never-ending trough.

And nothing will change. The poor will still remain poor. Those who know of the systems in place will continue to take advantage of them without having to work as hard as their now non-previledged counterparts. And the politicians will continue with petty politicking..

A solution would require a concerted effort involving both the goverment and society. An effort towards education- which is what it all boils down to! If a change in our school education were to be brought about such that every school- regardless of who runs it and where- would afford the same standard of education, we would succeed in generating opportunities and fair competitions. Of course, to kick start the process additional effort will be required to bring everyone up to par. Just like we have classes for getting rid of the 'mother tongue influence' in our speech, we can have classes to help bridge the gap.

Yes, I understand that a meal a day is a luxury for most. But the way I envisage it, everyone is working in harmony. As a social responsibility effort, the private sector could pledge to provide meals in areas that need it. (Of course, the provision of meals had better be managed by the private sector too otherwise the funds will translate into meals for the greedy!). As a society, we must inculcate the value of social work in our children through example. If we make it a priority to help in the education of a child from an economically challenged background- whether it is by teaching in a evening/night class or by providing monetary support or helping maintain a clean environment where these children live- we will achieve the equality we seek.

The only real reservation that exists is in terms of individual social responsibility. And that too, like its caste based sibling, we need to shed- and soon!