Reservation in India: Congress leading India back to Quit India days

When our constitutional fathers were scripting the articles on reservation for the backward sections of our society who were subjected to the abominable caste system in India from times immemorial, they had the noble idea of actually bringing about the upliftment of the sections of the society who were chartered into the schedules of various development mandatory initiatives and programmes. The idea was to bring the whole population to a level playing field in the years to come.

What did they do wrong? In the nascent democracy that India was in the 50s, they should have actually reserved a quota of 50% in education, employment etc with 5% of it skimmed off every 5 years so that in 50 years there would have been no quota, no reservation, nothing at all. The children of 21st century India would be at least socially equal.

In 1989, VP Singh, the loser politician and his coalition of populist politicians played the Mandal card – the Commission headed by BP Mandal who advocated reservation for not only the members of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, but also the Most Backwards and the Other Backward castes. This resulted in large-scale anti-Mandal protests and scores of students committed suicide, often in public self-immolation bids as shown by the DU student Rajeev Goswami (who later went on to become the General Secretary of the DU Students Union, later resigned into the clouds of oblivion and died in 2004 as a handicapped baker in his mid-30s). Scores of young people died and the period itself registered as a black period in the annals of free India.

17 years hence, the derelict politician Arjun Singh, who once missed the PM’s chair owing to some internal bickering in the Congress after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination and now a man with one foot on his grave and the other on a banana peel, is trying to invoke the ghost of the Black Era of 1989-90. He is doing his best to put old wine in a new bottle with the motivation which is just what made the VP Singh government commit hara-kiri.

VP Singh now is irrelevant to India’s politics now. Arjun too is, but then the Congress-led UPA is holding the reins of the government. It is this reason only why the actions of the imbecile is being noted. Congress is the main culprit here for allowing the imbecile Arjun’s childish behaviour. However, his ain’t gonna last long. Already we are seeing countrywide protests with medical students showing the leading light. Others have joined the agitation as well and it is gaining momentum like nothing before.

India of 90 and India of 2006 is as different as chalk from cheese. This time there might be lesser number of self-immolations, but then the avalanche might just prove what many had been suspecting before:

As the candlelight flares up just before getting extinguished, the Congress is also showing the same characteristics before being completely resigned to history. They are hell-bent upon trying to move India back to the days of Quit India movement when we were backward, deprieved and illiterate; but then, it is unwittingly putting India even further back, as far back as the time when the Bolsheviks stormed the Alexander Palace during the October Revolution in 1917 in Russia which was followed by the execution of Nikolai Aleksandrovich Romanov, the last Tsar of Russia. [The point here is that we are going backwards in terms of development, so don't get lost here.]

Why am I saying this? Anyone noticing the march of the Reds since the last general elections? Is the Maoist movement escaping your notice my dear friends or for the fact the Commie-in-Chief, Comrade Karat and other members of his cabal holding secret meetings or negotiating with the ultras who can sing only one song – China’s Chairman is our Chairman? The day is not far off when the commies will overtake India and other parts of the Subcontinent like Nepal.

We are in deep shit folks and we have nothing but ourselves to blame for this. The time is now to act and uproot the UPA and its ‘outside supporters’ for they are the ones who will destroy us.

The text book to read now is George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Remember the 'Revolution', the pigs?

That's all folks. The Guru will be back soon.

Au revoir.

DesiPundit: Rapidly becoming irrelevant

DesiPundit was once upon a time my favourite ‘Web 2.0 joint’ from where I gathered info about whatever the Indian blogosphere was abuzz with. Alas! It is no more the same now. The ‘plan’ or the 'scheme' is being hijacked and only a selected few bloggers from India (which includes some really substandard ones) manage to find some sort of mention in it again and again.

It has lost really all credibility. This time it was too much for me to digest. It posted a Tamil blog in Tamil script and that only the Tamils can understand.

There was no attempt to translate the content either. It makes no sense to me as it wouldn’t to the rest of the country.

Not relating to the post in DesiPundit; I would like to say that Tamil is no Hindi and notwithstanding what JJ’s demand’s are to make the language a national language (which the previous govt. didn’t accede to proving that it hadn’t lost its marbles then), Tamil is in reality just another language like the score and half India has. It is not spoken by more people in India or abroad than Bhojpuri or for that matter Marathi or Bengali. In any case, it is not even understood by about 80% of the population if not more.

The auto-rickshaw drivers in Chennai would like to differ though. Have you experienced it? They are a scum-rotten bunch of thugs actually.

Lastly, a word for DesiPundit. If you want some sort of credibility for yourself, refrain from such things. If you can't, work a bit more, take pains translate such posts. Also, try to look beyond your nose, there are more bloggers than the ones you are hanging to for over a year.

Google Analytics vs. StatCounter: Round One goes to StatCounter

I received an invitation from Google the day before for participation in the Google Analytics program. Google acquired the much-hyped Urchin a little over a year back, which was regarded as the best web stats provider with lots and lots of details.

I promptly inserted the invitation code and signed up for Google Analytics. Actually, this very blog of mine has both StatCounter and Google Analytics code inserted in the template. Having said that, I would like to make it clear that I would use Google Analytics for all the websites that I own for it certainly has some tools that I would need for as the erstwhile Urchin tag said – ‘For Deep Analytics’.

Anyway, that’s not what I am writing this post for discussion. Actually, in the two hours I spent on analyzing Google Analytics, I have found that it had too much frills. Not only that, I found the following ‘snags’ in it:

a) The stats were not real time. There is a considerable delay in stats updating.
b) Mysteriously, the 3rd graphic in the ‘Executive Overview’ that has a world map which shows the cities most of your visitors came from is missing now. It has been like this for the last two hours now. I thought that I might have clicked off something unwittingly in the settings but then it wasn’t the case.
c) On click opening a link in a new browser, most of the times it asks for signing in again. Strangely, if you happen to close the window without signing off and reopen the browser soon enough, you would gain access to the admin panel without even signing in! Some faulty cookie scripting is responsible. There is no security issue here.

There would be a few more bugs like these; I am sure of it. If you happen to find any, please do let me know.

Anyway, talking of StatCounter, well, it provides real time stats, the user interface is very friendly and you will get all the details that you would ever need. Creating projects is perhaps the easiest there and the whole setup is as clean as a whistle.

A few months back, I was wondering if StatCounter would survive Google’s deadly game where it purchases an already established web company and distributes it for free thus killing competitors of similar services. Very Microsoftly, wouldn’t you agree?

Anyway, back to Google Analytics now. If this remains the state of affairs, StatCounter need not worry. It will still have many, many buyers. Have you noticed that if Google happens to be the first one to innovate something (like its AdWords program), it charges a premium?

Before winding up, I would like to share a curious observation I made while signing up for Google Analytics today. I was given a link to sign up for a Google account if I didn’t have one already in order to get entry to the Google Analytics program in the invitation letter.

Since I already had a Gmail account I didn’t. Just used the one that I had and signed up for it. I thought you got a Gmail account only through invitation and can’t sign up that way. Well, then what is this? Would someone try and let me know? I could’ve done that myself, but would really like you to try out. *HEH*

Now Google is going the MSN Passport way where you can have access to a wide range of services with one single user ID. Passport is now history, but history repeats itself and its latest avatar is Google.

Did I hear someone say déjà vu? *wink*

The Guru back to basics with comments on a bloated snob, Google and Microsoft in his vitriolic self

Ok, I have to confess (rather admit is the correct word here) that I have finally got over the bug that bit me recently to follow some current affairs news and analyze them like the wanker from al-Qaeda sentenced to life in prison and Kaavya Vishwanathan, the Harvard sophomore who landed in some real hot soup and found much to her dismay that it wasn’t curry after all.

One more confession; I would like to make is that I do have a penchant for reading the blogs of some airy-fairy females, some snobby males and some who consider themselves like mega stars (as their attitudes belie) like Gaurav Sabnis, the accidental hero of Indian blogosphere in 2005 owing to the IIPM scam.

Though I knew that he was a lamer (as most of the fancily labeled IIM grads are) for the first time I felt that he exposed himself when it came in analyzing companies.

Let’s hear what he says;

“I have never been a big fan of anti-trust laws, but even under that premise, this reeks of hypocrisy. Firefox and Opera, both have Google as the default search engine...
You may want to point out the holes in Google's argument, and call it hypocritical. But it would be futile. I'm sure even P&B know how ridiculous it is. But you see, Google is a corporation now. And M$ is its competitor…”

Well, being a geek and Gaurav’s senior by a couple of years in Management studies from Bangalore (the then happening city in information technology) from the mid-nineties through 2000, I know what the MS phenomenon was (and for the matter it still is) and what the Google phenomenon is now.

I have never been a fan of MS, but I must admit that MS has been a part of my life since 1993, and yes, that was before the Windows 95 days. Having said that, there was a time when I truly loathed Microsoft but in the same time made Bill Gates my guru subconsciously.

Anyway, Google may have procured Upstartle, the makers of the online word processor Writely, pegged as the competitor to MS Office [upon which, my good mate Om has a great analytical article], did make some waves with it’s AdSense initiative and made noises here and there, launching GoogleTalk and supporting the standardization and evolution of these protocols through the Jabber Software Foundation’s community standards process and subsequently launching the GoogleTalk API.

But, is Google’s arsenal stock good enough to take on Microsoft? Well, as far as I am concerned, Google’s search monopoly is under threat now from MSN search (and I am serious), Yahoo! has launched its own text ad program and MS is going to follow soon. Google isn't exactly doing as brightly as people percieve it to be.

In fact, Yahoo!, though not in the watch list of those who are waiting to see the demise of MS, is making the best and the correct moves now by procuring the right type of companies, web 2.0 companies to be precise. Flickr, and del.icio.us are under Yahoo’s kitty already.

Nah! I am drunk tonight, so excuse me folks for not going into deep analysis. The bottom line is that Google is not threatening MS; Google is just hype only. Google is not even close to Yahoo! and MS faces no competition from Yahoo!

I promise to discuss Google and MS in the next few days; but would like to urge to remember the truth. I also promise to discuss Google’s Page Rank, which I believe is the worst conning marketing gimmick by a new economy company in the last 2-3 yrs or so.

I dunno what will happen in the next life, but in our lifetimes, Microsoft Corporation will be the number one company as far as information technology is concerned, as it is now.

One must remember, we may loathe MS, but we can’t wish its demise or even afford to wait for it. After all no cow died because of a curse spelt by a vulture, isn't it?

IIM Lucknow might have taught Gaurav the Principles of Management, but I doubt if it taught him anything else apart from those second hand thoughts leftover by real thinkers.

IIM Lucknow, or for that matter all the IIMs in India are 3rd Class institutions when you compare them with institutions of repute around the world. Since we are Indians, we tend to give them much importance despite the fact that those mills produce the abominable babu characters that we come across in a typical sarkari organization in the country.

The only difference is that the IIM babu suffers from an artificial superiority complex brought upon by the labeling they get from socialites who discuss their sons (and sometimes daughters) getting admission in them over a peg or two of whisky.

That’s all folks from the Guru tonight! I promise to bring you lots of Google, Microsoft and ‘derelicts of the real intellectual world’ like the Sabnis bloke cooking bhurjee in Marathi, which is as a matter of fact, his best attempt in the Indian blogosphere.

Au revoir.

Moussaoui wins the win-win game, can seriously hope to walk free now

It seems like a fairy tale script going true for the radical Zacarias Moussaoui, the French citizen of Moroccan origin who prides himself to be an Al-Qaeda alumnus. The jury in the trial of Moussaoui reached a verdict that he rather is sent in prison for life than being executed. Wow!!

This proud member of the terror organization went on record that he was very happy to see Americans losing near and dear ones in the 911 attacks that he failed to be a part of directly.

He ridiculed the relatives of the September 11, 2001 victims, mocked the Americans, the judiciary and far from showing any remorse, proudly declared that he dreams that the US will release him in a prisoner exchange programme.

Well, the jury could have decided that he died. If he was sentenced to be executed, his dream to be a free man owing to a prisoner exchange programme would have died with him for it was quite possible that a high value American target wouldn’t have fallen prey to terrorist abductors.

Sparing his life actually gives him enough time to live on that hope and as things stand now, the Americans have actually played in the hands of the mastermind whose master game-plan gave him everything that he wanted.

The end result? Well, Moussaoui actually slapped the American public right across the face, mocked at their misery, made them spend money on his trial and investigation yet got away scot-free. In the prison, he can hope to live many, many years. His security is guaranteed by the American taxpayers’ money and the food he eats in the pen, no to mention his healthcare.

One day, he will fly out on the taxpayers’ money just as many of his accomplices were flown in to the legal and territorial limbo controlled by the Americans called Guantanamo Bay.

Americans are stupid, the Moussaoui trial proved it and the jury stamped its verdict on it that reads – Yea Mr. Zacarias Moussaoui, we agree with you, we all deserve to be buggered by you, after all we are a nation of idiots epitomized by our president who had been a village simpleton all his life.

Some guys will never ever be able to realize this like this bloke called Raymond who is so euphoric about the jury decision and this another epitome of the stupid American citizenry called Tony too is dancing despite getting smeared in shit Moussaoui excreted for the Americans in the courtroom.

Bravo you idiots, rejoice to your hearts content. It will be worthwhile to see how your monkey faces look like when the Moussaoui guy who dared you all walks free just as he predicted.

The Kaavya Tale: Insecure and yet to grow up Gawker Media bares its racist skin

Pathetic blog network Gawker Media and its cronies have left no stone unturned in launching a vicious attack on the teenaged Harvard sophomore Kaavya Vishwanathan that has all the signs of underlying racist connotations.

The West even in the 21st Century is yet to come to terms that the power shift of the world is taking towards the East and by this I mean intellectual, economic and military power. The West has spawned not one but two generations of plainly stupid populations riding on the inherited wealth they got from their highly enterprising, wise, hardworking and at many a time opportunist forefathers. A glaring example of this is the entity called Gawker Media with its sub-standard editorial panel and even more sub-standard and pathetic content. The best example comes from the fact that despite such cheap and kiddish takes on serious issues, it still gathers to draw a good number of visitors who gulp the shit they dish out every now and then.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the commentators of the blog need to be first approved by Gawker, else you can't go and post a comment on heir blog. Their gaming blog Kotaku is already seeing a decline on visitor levels. I sometimes wonder if they are run by a bunch of kindergarten dropouts who happened to get an idea to start Gawker.

Kaavya is a teenager, student of a premier school in America, beautiful lass and what's more is that she is already rich and famous. This was too much for the subscribers of the Gawker School of Thought to digest for they don't come near the intellectual levels of her disposed sanitary napkin.

Kaavya has already said that she was strongly inspired from Megan F. McCafferty's works. How can she be accused of plagiarism when she didn't lift the theme of her stories?

The book that she composed – 'How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life' is a totally original story. She might have used passages similar to her idol McCafferty, but that's all right.

Musicians, actors and politicians etc do try to emulate their idols and often they subconsciously use notes, mannerisms and ways of their heroes. Does that mean they should be labeled as cheats and plagiarizers?

Does anyone of the pathetic registered commentators of this post by Gawker know that even John F Kennedy's famous quote – "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" – is also a plagiarized quote?

[P.S. I am unable to recall the name of the 19th bloke who said this, I vaguely remember that he was either a Judge or a Senator who first quoted this from where Kennedy was 'inspired'. I shall update you as soon as I find the names and maybe the links. In the meantime, if you know then please let me know.]

So Kaavya has done only what many famous people did before. Kaavya has done something that Gawker's re-writers of posts do for a living. Only difference is that at 17, Kaavya wasn't able to fine-tune what many do and what Gawker certainly does day in and day out for its sustenance.

Suryanarayana beheading: An ‘accidental’ suicide

K Suryanarayan, the engineer abducted and beheaded by the followers of a subhuman philosophy called the Taliban today, might have thought of one thing before his head was yanked off. Then, I am sure his confusion over his own thoughts must have made him feel utterly miserable.

“Why did I come to Afghanistan of all the places? If at all I did, what was the motive? Was it Manjula, or was it the young Sapna or both of them with their children? Or was it simply because I have had enough of adventure with bigamy and got away without anything thrilling happening, so decided to try for something dangerous? Anyway, whatever it is, I can’t really say whether I should have pushed myself this far.”

The official version from the first family (whose images were on almost all newspapers) was that he went to Afghanistan for the better future of his kids. Ok, every father no matter however bad once in a while thinks about the well-being of his kids. So can’t really blame the mom for claiming that the bloke went there for the kids.

Anyway, forget the family affairs now that are turning out to be utterly disgraceful for the reputation of two women and the future of a few innocent kids. To be honest, I have least sympathy for both the women now shedding tears over the prospect of losing the ex-gratia amount declared by the government and the other benefits that will follow.

The Taliban as we know are a bunch of retarded freaks that had been made dangerous by Uncle Sam in connivance with the Pakis by arming them. Now these retards have tried quite a few things spectacular and achieved moderate success. Those who were lucky enough to have been captured by Uncle Sam’s agents are now learning the ways of the civilized world that they would never have the chance to emulate. So they would die with voids in their hearts of having ‘missed out on the real fun’

Now back to Suryanarayan. How on earth can anyone land up in a place like Afghanistan given the situation there and the prevailing atmosphere for unguarded foreign civilians? I don’t think that the earlier beheading of Kutty got lost on him.

The story is simple; the lure of lucre is far greater than the risks involved in getting one’s head yanked off. My heart goes out to Kutty who didn’t have too many choices as a BRO member but to head towards Afghanistan. But as far as Suryanarayan is concerned, I just can’t accept that he didn’t have choices either.

Well, maybe he didn’t, greed didn’t allow him any choice. The blogosphere is being verbose against the Taliban. Well, they are like blaming fire from burning, rotten scum from stinking, dogs from barking, sun from lighting. The Taliban did what they are meant to do in this planet.

Suryanarayan wasn’t a ‘fearless’ human being. He was plain stupid, or maybe greedy or it was just a case of suicide, but accidental. In any case Afghanistan is no place to work.

As far as this guy is concerned, he is simply mad.

As for the two women out there, all I can say is – Happy Sobbing!