Jinnah: the true divider of masses

Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the name brings just one picture into our minds "Partition of India". Pakistan respects its Quaid-e-Azam and calls him Baba-e-Quoam affectionately, for them he is what Mahatma Gandhi is to India. However, there is one major and true difference between the two great leaders. Gandhi's strength came from uniting people and Jinnah's from dividing people.

Jinnah was just another member of Indian National Congress and did not have any specific identity other than being a barrister and affluent class. That was not enough to highlight him in the Congress a there were scores of people who fitted in the same bracket and had better achievements to show. My guess is, he must have felt that by remaining with Congress, there was very small chance of reaching the pinnacle of Indian politics. So he founded the Muslim League, for the first time in 60 years of freedom struggle did the caste come into equation. People were fed with misgivings that India under the Congress leadership would not take care of its muslim population and treat them as second rate citizens. A fear so deep rooted that it remains alive even to this day.

Fear is the best method for gathering followers and using this Jinnah did gather many followers, he made people beileve that cast was an important criteria of who you are and your standing in the society. The divide started growing and the ultimate chasm was created in 1946 when he called for "Direct Action Day". Indians killed each other for creation of "Pakistan"; a concept so wierd that even 62 years later no one is sure what it actually was. Jinnah said Pakistan is the secular umberella under which all religions could co-exist unlike the Hindu India (aka Hindustan). Today the record states, Islamic republic of Pakistan and the Social republic of India. In short, its high time people realise that the concept of Pakistan was just a means for one individual to achieve his narrow goals in politics and every argument done to that effect fell flat on its face, today as we see it.

Jinnah divided country then and he divides it even now, there are no two opinions about it. Maybe, he realised it a bit too late in his life that what he had done would have reprecussion in the century ahead but that does not absolve him of the "sin of partition". Let us stop glorifying him even to this age because everytime you do so, he wins again... guys, he is still dividing us.. wake up..

So long....

Why India should come up with more start ups.

Hey guys, I am back with another interesting topic to discuss on this forum. Before I begin here is a tid-bit, 1 in every 10000 ideas gets acceptance; 1 in every 1000 accepted ideas gets the funds and 1 in every 100 funded startups becomes a success i.e. the chance of your pet project becoming full fledged start-up (successful one at that) is 1 in a billion!! Now you know why people dont take chances..

Like any great idea, even a startup has no value ahead of its time; the interesting bit is, if we wait for the time to come, the idea is wortless. So its upto the individual to hardsell his idea well before its time has arrived, so that he can reap a rich harvest when the right time comes along. A startup needs investment and gestation, so any person planning for one, needs to think atleast 5 years ahead of time. Trust me, once you are invested, the thrill is un-imaginable.

At any point of time around $250 billion is available in California, USA to fund startups. They are just waiting for the right ideas to come along. Why is it that they have surplus cash stacked up and we in India dont; the answer is simple, we are averse to taking risk and trusting in another human being's intelligence. There are no startups funded by the US federal government so lets not blame the Government on this one!! the funds available are pooled in by a board of venture capitalists (VC s) who come from various walks of life and are willing to invest into ideas that may become a money spinner tommorrow. Is it then a surprise then that more than 60% of scientific and technological innovation happens in the US !

We as Indians, need to take more pride in the ability of the young minds of our country and start investing in them, if the top 10 CEOs of Indian firms contribute even 10% of their salaries / bonuses, we will have a pool of Rs. 48,00,00,000 /- ; imagine the amount of money we are generating in our country. We need to understand that if we want the youth of India to take pride and work for the betterment of our country, we need to give them something to work with. Indian-Americans are getting the highest number of patents registered for American firms as per recent data; imagine we have a huge pool of such people and we are are allowing other countries to tap into this resource rather than we do it ourselves.

I sincerely hope the big money spinners and people with surplus cash start investing some part of their money into such VC funds, because the returns that these will give you are far greater than what the capital markets can imagine of, plus we would be doing our bit for "BHARAT NIRMAN" and creating employment for many individuals. Therein lies a greater sense of satisfaction by making such investments.

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There is no magic in this world..

Recently, I heard someone say, "nothing thats worth having in this world, comes easy". It took me a moment to understand what this actually means and then, all of a sudden, for no reason at all I mapped it to human relations. "We cannot choose our relatives, dats why God gave us friends", said a wise person and yet when it comes to mending relations we are always found wanting.

Human relations are based on likes and feels, so its no magic that you tend to be close to people whom you like and with whom you feel comfortable. This set-up has its side-effects too, it magically gives these very people the power to hurt you the most deeply. Like, Julius Ceaser got the most deepest stab wound from Brutus, we get the most scarring wounds from someone we hold dear. Yet, when the person comes back to you, you forgive and forget; setting up yourself to be hurt again. The funny part is, you never regret letting the person back into your life even if it means you will be hurt again and again.

When you find a person who cares for you, who makes an effort to keep you happy and holds you dear, always keep them close to you. There are very few people in this world who would love you for no reason, parents; siblings; beloveds and friends to name a few. So when you mess up with one them, make an effort to make-up because they are worth it. They are worth every cent you spend to mend bridges with them, for without them, your life will not be the same again.

This brings us to "how do we do it ". Well, there are many ways to mend a relationship and waiting for things to magically mend themselves is never one of them. Time heals worst of the wounds but not a broken relationship, so next time you are guilty of hurting someone who is dear to you, dont wait for things to mend themselves; get out and get working to mend the fences for there are no quick-fixes or magical solutions and because someone wise said, "nothing thats worth having in this world, comes easy".

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Current Affairs.

Hello people, I am back and with a promise not to hibernate again.. I know you dont care, but it felt nice to say it :)

Sarcasm seems to be the order of the day, and I thought let me rub it in. You should forgive some comments that unintentionally hurt you.. Lets us begin with BJP's wonderful drubbing in the latest General Elections, I being not so much of a fan enjoyed this to the hilt. However I hope for sake of this country BJP comes to terms with this defeat and gets the message within; namely "Ram temple and communal violence has past its sell by date, further marketing this will dent the little goodwill thats remaining".

Moving on, rapes seemed to be in vogue lately or are reported more often.. wats wrong guys arent you getting some at your home that you are stooping to such a low level to satisfy your need. Come-on, for god sakes, if you are so desperate as a group, I guess you dont need one woman to vent your frustrations; you need to realise the "potential in you" to satisfy each other, after all the govenment is planning to do away with anti-gay law. You wont even get caught on the wrong side of the law ;) As for you, Shiney, you are an utter disgrace.. I know, you work for social equality, but equating your maid with an extra on-the-set (who wants to make it big in bollywood) is dumb. Now I hope the police make you realise how it feels to force things inside others..

Tamanna and Sakshi Pradhan have come out with their videos, oh godddd!!!! not again.. Guys, let me tell you and the risk of being repetative, by your antics on the sets of Splitsvilla-2 we guessed that you guys are a piece of shit.. Now you dont have to walk the extra mile to prove yourself all over again.. We do believe in your ability to land in shit of a situation always.. I hope Palak and rest read this before posing in any video.

Finally to the government, the last time I checked, we had right to life; right to freedom of expression and right to pursuit of happiness. So I guess there is no point in clenching your buttocks so hard when it comes to article 377. Lets be rational.. shall we !!


So long..........

Hara-kiri

Harakiri is a Japanese word which means a ritualistic suicide that the Samurai perform. I thought this might be an apt word to describe the turn of events in our very own Samurai's life.. that's right Mr. Lalit Kumar Modi. Its almost a shame if I do not dedicate a blog post to him after he pulled off a fast one on a billion people for 3 straight years.

Shashi Tharoor may have been caught in the whirlwind of things, but mostly everyone knew that game was being played elsewhere. He was a sacrificial lamb at the altar of our "holier than thou" politicians. It so played out that the very people who were gunning for Tharoor's scalp as the Minister are the ones found in bed with Lalit Modi and the sleaze money of IPL. Tharoor just paid the ultimate price for speaking up on a issue that most seasoned politicians would have not comment upon. He came out in the public declaring his mentor ship for Kochi team, his relationship to the beneficiary Ms. Pushkar and also the fact that he is not a share holder of the bid or in any form deriving any monetary benefits out of the exercises. He was dumped but not disgraced. I hope for his sake that the "hidden truth" behind failed bids of Adani and Dhoot are unravelled and we soon get official confirmation of the involvement of M/s Pawar and Son- in law(s) and M/s Patel and daughter(s) in the rigging of IPL bids.

Moving on to our Samurai in the picture; he has been the author of yet to be released book "How to lose friends and antagonise people". Long before he got the coveted post of IPL chairman he was known to burn bridges, pick up bones with powerful people; rub others on the wrong side, basically show arrogance. Somehow his personal charisma and contacts would get him out of soupy situations; contacts which he built not on basis of mutual friendship but mutual back-scratching. The disadvantage of such relationship being, you need to be in position of power perennially to scratch backs and the threat of being bumped off is always real. He used his proximity with Vasundhara Raje to win RCA elections, helped Pawar to win BCCI elections and became IPL godfather as a return favour. Then on he began his real business, involving making money for mainly one stake holder, namely Mr. Lalit Modi.

He had his finger in every pie and basically no matter what happened at IPL, he always made money out of it. Be it the bids for teams, bids for telecast rights, leaking insider information and I wouldn't be surprised if he also took cuts from players for placing them on the bid list. He did it all and did it in open. The strongest alibi for him being, he was IPL chairman and mostly the sole authority taking decisions. Such power normally gets into ones head easily and our protagonist wasn't any different; he pulled strings left, right and centre. The centre one bit him "u know where" as they have the power of institutions who can dig out the graves of done deals and flash a 1000W bulb on the dicey points.

What followed was IT / ED raids on basically everything Lalit Modi was involved with. The skeletons are still tumbling out and how. All I hope as a consumer of brand IPL is that this time let the buck not stop at him; let us see the makers of this monster who conveniently closed their eyes when he was out on looting spree. Let us see what Pawars and Patels did, what Narendra Modi did and basically what the Government did because we are bored of listening to the powers of Lalit Modi to hoodwink billions of people.

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Women's day 2009

It was yet another Women's day and nothing to celebrate about. Yes, we did hear commercials screaming out celebrate your woman-hood, but the sentiment hardly resonates when we look at reality. Even the women are done celebrating one day as womens day I guess, cos any woman I wished showed a luke warm response as if to suggest "Who cares a damn". So are we to say that women have become cynical or have they just resigned to fate. I hope for the happiness of the world this is not true.

Everywhere, you hear about crime against women whether it is harassment at work, domestic violence or say teenage crimes (date rapes etc.) and what you see often, is that the attitude seems to suggest, why make sucha a big deal about something thats so regular. Even the women have accepted it as a part of life and that is a dangerous thing. I am no bra-burning feminism theorist but it is my firm belief that the maker made no difference when he moulded women as compared to men.

We have reduced women to being a holy cow, in the name of reverence towards her and protecting her, we time and again inflict blows on her self-confidence. Such telling blows, that it dents the phyche and either makes her surrender to fate or stand up to the agressor and be called "woman of loose morals". In recent past we have seen many such "stray incidents" which cannot hide a pattern underneath all pointing towards one thing "women can never be seen as equal to men".

The next time we see a woman being attacked, (in broad daylight or ortherwise) lets take a moment to think, how would you like if your sister/wife/fiancee/girlfriend/friend was attacked and there was no one to stop it. Imagine that helpless situation, and if you dont want to be in that situation, then take up the cause of any woman you see in trouble cos u never know today's incident thats left unchecked may return and harm someone close to you and maybe in larger proportions.

This women's day lets take an oath that "Even if I cannot improve the status of women in this world, atleast I will not play a role in degrading it" cos if a woman can bring you to this world, there is hardly anything that she can't do :)

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In the name of Law..

Long ago, at school I heard a proverb, "Law is an ass, it kicks both ways". It didn't make sense to me then, but now its clear more than ever.

Law needs evidence and come to think of it, damning evidence can be falsified in the court of law and the orchestrator of this mockery becomes the most sought after "lawyer". I have nothing against the profession, but I have a few things against its practitioners. They shake our confidence in the rule of law, instead of instilling confidence in the masses.

Latest example of the level of stupidity of their arguments was when Ajmal Kasab trial was to go to court, no lawyer was ready to represent him. To an extent was the bar council chief was on television making a mockery of the profession by advocating that no self respecting Indian will take up the cause of a Pakistani terrorist and people like him must be hanged in public without a trial. This coming from a lawyer is funny enough and add to that the absurd arguments to prove the point, I pity the judge who hears such things regularly.

Lawyers have in the past always sought to represent the high profile defendants in the court whether its a Abu Salem, Muthappa Rai or in case of Nitish Katara or Jessica Lall murder. They have converted the so- called airtight cases into questionable cases and got the benefit of doubt for their clients. When a lawyer fabricated evidence in BMW case, people sought to get him barred from practice, but imagine the low profile cases where fabrication of evidence is a norm. These cases will never see face of light cos no NDTV is interested in low profile cases.

The point I am making is that a bunch of traders have converted a profession to a sham, so far, that people don't want to set a foot in the court room as they will be milked dry of their money and yet the justice they expect will not be delivered. It is my humble request to a few high profile lawyers, if you could use your expertise to represent the prosecutor and get early convictions, maybe another Ajmal Kasab will think twice before setting a foot on our lands. Lets make sure these people don't act with immunity to justice.

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Cash for votes, we didn’t know of it seriously…. :D

Beware SRK; you are not the best actor in India after all and no hard feelings Mr. Bachchan nor are you. The MPs have overtaken you and beaten you in your own game. 22^nd July was the day I laughed the most; nNot because I watched insane movies but because I happened to watch the proceedings in the Lok Sabha.

At first I was shocked that Advaniji was missing from the action the entire day but all that time seemed well utilized when he pulled off the cash for vote game right in front of Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha. Let me first ask Mr. Advani what promises he made to his constituency for voting him to the Lok Sabha upteenth time; also has he fulfilled even one of them. Point to highlight is, when you get elected to the august house on basis of false promises made to electorate and money paid to them to listen to your (yawn) boring speeches that have not been modified since 1970s, you are actually buying their votes. In your case or the case of other 542 MPs the purchase is void because you never fulfill your side of the bargain. So let’s stop sensationalizing a trivial matter.

Everyone knows the whole basis of ‘political ideology’ is the deal that is cut in the background and the perks being offered to MPs. So trying to catch the imagination of the entire nation on the wrongs being done is a waste of time. Just to remind you, we have seen the likes of you for past 60 years so anything that you do will no longer surprise us or make us feel ‘ashamed’ of being called a democracy. We stopped feeling anything the day we elected unsuitable people to represent us.

Let’s just say, the UPA defeated you and let’s be sportive and accept defeat and stop hogging sound bytes as to show you are the only one to care about the future of a billion people.

Deal Ya No Deal !!

Over the past few weeks, the imagination of an entire nation was captured by something that was supposed to be the civil-nuclear deal between India and the US.I cannot think of a past occasion when any bi (multi) lateral agreement between sovereign countries with elected governments in place was splashed in the paparazzi as to be mistaken for some clandestine affair.

Over the past few weeks, all of us have known from various political groups that they all care for the sole benefit of this country and were piping each other in the race for “Who is the real patriot”. Disgrace is a weak word to describe all that followed. Government that was held for ransom for over four years was finally sacrificed at the altar of patriotism or shall we call it egoism of Com. Prakash Karat. The result was not quite that was expected by Com. Karat but he didn’t want to admit that he committed a political hara-kiri (or wasn’t it). Anyways point of matter is that the Government survived a close call and continues to ‘serve us efficiently’.

The only fault of the Dr. Manmohan Singh is that, what seems obvious to him in 2008 will seem obvious to the rest in 2028. He is the right leader in wrong times. We saw it in 1991 during the tabling of reforms bill in the parliament and now again for the nuclear agreement of ’08. Maybe carrying a time machine to the parliament will be a suitable solution to convince certain obtuse people. What I say about the PM is a personal adulation and not for the government. Government messed up the flow of information in what should have been a done deal to make it a close call for the survival itself. Not good management Ms. Gandhi, time to shake things up.

I will not waste time in what seemed to be abysmal behavior of Shri L.K. Advani and his strong love for the office of Prime Minister. Personal goals are must for any person and everyone should aim high. But to fulfill your goals holding the country to ransom at every single instance is outlandish. Wake up sir, its time to face the electorate. Your behavior may well hamper your party’s chances at the General election ’09.

Until next time…..

Raj Thackrey.. grow up...!!!

MNS chief Raj Thackeray is capturing sound bytes with tirades towards everyone nowadays. He has problems with north indians on one day, with the use of word Bombay on another and shockingly the use of 'shanta bai'. Let us all pray for the departed intelligence of Mr. Raj Thackeray and may it rest in peace where ever it is.

The world in moving towards globalization and every city is developing a global flavor and here we are in the most happening city of India bickering about the usage of words. Lets remind Raj that Germans call their homeland Deutsch land, the Japanese call their homeland Ni hon or Nippon and Spanish call their home land Espanol. Now if these countries start bickering about use of words Germany, Japan or Spain then I think they would do anything other than forcing people to comply with their language. Even we use the word India to identify our nation rather than make people call it Bharat or Hindustan.

Point of the matter is, words change as language changes and a person using Bombay in English makes it Bambai in Hindi and Mumbai in Marathi. Therefore lets grow up beyond frivolous issues and look to improve infrastructure of our city and make it a more secure place to live in. When the whole of India is grappling with problems of terrorism, drought, inflation etc. We expect our so called leaders to show some concern about these burning issues rather than attend functions and make poetic remarks about what name do we call our city.