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Showing posts from July, 2011

Dhokhapal and an abdication

Yesterday was eventful. And I am not talking about me fighting with spouse. Our cm has finally agreed to step down and lokpal bill has been made into dhokapal bill and is approved by the parliament. First event was long pending. In fact I feel our cms spend so much time in saving their seats that they hardly get any time to govern.  And 16000 crore rupees loss to the exchequer! This loss proves that our government is really rich. Well, if I lose one lakh rupee in gambling (OK I do not gamble ) , doesn't  it prove that I had 1 lakh rupee to start with. So if our government can lose thousands of crores for each scam, it must have had lot of money.  We are RICH!!! Second event is a cruel joke on all of us. We have a lokpal bill which does not include PM conduct and voting of MPs in parliment Higher judiciary CBI and CVC (central vigilance committe) will not come under lokpal Lokpal will 9 members out of which 5 are from government. Well in news channel discussions, the polit

Water everywhere, nor a drop to drink? Need not be

I answered a quiz about famine in horn of Africa.  In east Africa the rainy season has failed for two successive years and has caused the worst drought since 1950s. My small brain started thinking, why can't our scientists who have managed to create so many miracles, find a way of desalination of sea water, and economically. So far all the commercial desalination plants are too expensive and consume lot of energy. It is very important and urgent to develop this technology, not for Somalis or Africans, but we Indians. How long will our ground water and rivers can sustain our growth. Or else a day will come when we may get water in rations, 3 cans per family per month, pay 4 times more for subsequent cans. You may want to read               Famine-in-horn-of-africa               Sun-Assisted Desalination

Gas connection

Dear bangloreans,  be prepared for a surprise. You may have your gas connection suspended. Even if you have furnished your details to your supplier. I was planning to check the info from the site ahara.kar.nic.in And like all the works I am supposed to do, it got procrastinated. Today I finally visited their site to only know that our connection is suspended. Tomorrow I plan to upload the details with scanned copies of gas card and electricity bill. I could not get any link in ahara.kar.nic.in. Then I got this article http://www.eshusoft.com/articles/news/karnataka-aharakarnicin-check-lpg-gas-connection-status-upload-rr-no-online.html Upload the details, NOW. Note: In Karnataka, according to new rule, if you do not furnish the details of your electricity RR number, ration card and gas card, you will lose your gas connection.  5 months back the gas agencies collected the xerox copies from us and due to data entry errors, thousands of customers' gas connections are suspended.  

MyBharatha - Devavratha

I heard that she is an angel  and my seven brothers are vasus who were cursed and hence were supposed to incarnate as humans. Do all these justify her to drown all the seven of them? Her own babies, soon after they are born? What happened to the affection of the mother?   And father stopped her from drowning me. And since he broke her promise she immediately left him. She raised me till I was 16 and brought me back then.   I am back in Hastinapur and see father has turned more like a hermit. I decide that I will try and correct my mother's mistake. I will always keep my father happy.   But suddenly father becomes moody. He is lost in thought, he does not eat his food properly. He is flippant when I ask him for the reason. I do my own investigation and come to know that father has fallen in love with a fisher woman and her father is not willing to marry her to father.   I go to their hut. Asking the hand of Satyavati for my father. Look at the irony of the situation. A son going

ಒಂದಾನೊಂದು ಕಾಲದಾಗ

ಒಂದಾನೊಂದು ಕಾಲದಾಗ ಏಸೊಂದು ಮುದವಿತ್ತ ಏಸೊಂದು ಮುದವಿತ್ತ ಮುದಕೊಂದು ಹದವಿತ್ತ ಹದಕ ಹಂಗಾಮಿತ್ತ ಅದಕ ಶಿವನ ಅಂಕುಶವಿತ್ತ  (Title song of the old kannada film ondanondu kaaladaaga)

I do not accept

Why do software installations have I do not accept the terms and conditions as default option instead I accept? Well, they know us, who are so impatient when installing software and know that we keep clicking next - next - next blindly. (So much so that if the installation is taking more than 2 minutes, we get up and go to TV or open another window of stumble upon). They want to ensure that we know that we have accepted to their terms and conditions. By the way, how many of you read the terms and conditions when installing software?

Shouldn't we say NO to Nuclear power?

When all countries are thinking of stopping nuclear power production in phases, we are gloating that we have found fresh deposits of uranium in AP  . My dear Enery minister and Prime minister, you should try to remember what happened in Fukushima in March this year. I do not want to sound un-patriotic. But even with Japanese Power plant, there were hundreds of thousands affected by radiation, what about our Indian chalta hai technology. You may say that this is not Japan, earth quakes are not common here. But what about 2004 Tsunami? The gap between demand and supply of electricity is very very large indeed. But there can be other solutions. And even if the alternative sources of energy are not viable, does that mean that you can put to stake, the lives of millions of people, when and if there is nuclear disaster? The aftermath of Fukushima

Garden City or Concrete jungle

In today's DH there is an article about 52 trees to be chopped on Mysore road for widening of the road. Already the road looks like a desert. Since last 2 years many trees have already been cut. You remember the days when travelling on that road, sun rays never touched you. Once upon a time, our city was called garden city, with beautiful weather, tall shady trees all around. It is a good thing that at least on Sankey road, people are protesting against felling of trees. Is the BBMP supposed to plant a tree, for each tree it cuts? If so, where are these newly planted trees?

Move to apply for colleges from home

Your son/daughter has finished school and now ready to go to college. Today his 10th standard results have arrived. Now he must join a good college. So you, your spouse, your son, your daughter, your brother/sister all head to different colleges in the city. All of you stand in queues whose length is anywhere near 1 km. You stand there for minimum 4 hours, then you pay around 500 rupees and buy the application form and prospectus. Next day same steps are repeated, and this is for submitting the filled application form. Then you wait eagerly for the admission list to be  announced to find which of these colleges your child has got the admission. Parents have to apply for multiple colleges because they are not sure where the child will get admission. In spite of government ruling that the colleges should not charge for application form and prospectus, they do charge hundreds of rupees. Hopefully you do not have to undergo this painful process for your next child. According to today'

Community living

Tell me what is your neighbor's last child's name? You don't know. Nor do I. I mean I do not know about my neighbor's children's names. Nor do I know what they are studying. Nor do I know, where are my neighbor and his wife working. We the city dwellers live in cocoons. If anyone asks us, our standard reply is I don't have time for all these socializing. But not so in our villages. In my ancestor village, every child calls other children of the village as anna (elder brother) and akka (elder sister). Every daughter in law is called as attige (sister in law). If there is some function in one house, all the ladies of the village go to their house early in the morning. In fact they would have visited the house previous day to ask if  there is any work to be done. They bring milk and butter milk with them for the function. They do most of the kitchen work like cutting vegetables, frying  bondas, making laddoos. Then the banana leaves will be put by the boys and

Your gadgets define you

Of course yes. You tell me what gadget are you using and I will tell you who you are . If you are frantically texting in a some what old mobile, and reading some dog eared note book a little bit in between messages, not much of it, but a little bit, ignoring the frequents shouts from kitchen "what are you doing. leave that sms and read",  you are definitely a teenager kid who has grudgingly accepted the rule that no mobile till you go to college, but anyways use mom's mobile, anyways she does not need it to cook. If you are having latest iphone or htc touch phone, but use it not so frequently, definitely not for messaging, you are some kind of manager - male one, who wants to show the juniors who is the boss. You have a touch phone with all latest apps, but have a wall paper of cute (at least you think so) toddler and keep talking to this toddler once in an hour, you are a female executive who wants to appear bossy to juniors but who is bossed by the said toddler at ho

Imagining Argentina

This English film is about Military rule in Argentina during 1970s where people used to disappear. The story starts with Cecilia writing an article about disappearance of people who protest against government particularly about school children who disappeared after they protested against rise in school bus fare. Carlos, a play wright tries to convince his wife not to publish it, but in vain. A few days after the article, Cecilia vanishes. Carlos keeps searching for her but could not find her. He gets psychic power to see what is happening to other such vanished people. He counsels the families of such people. But he can not prevent his daughter from being  carried away by the military rulers. With his powers, he sees that his daughter getting shot. Losing all hopes, he tries to drown himself. But then realizes if he kills himself, his wife will have nowhere to go when and if she comes back. Again thank god for our democracy.

TVholic

I am really going   southward. From being a book-worm , I have changed to a tvholic or couch potato. But I can not help myself, as there are so many movies to watch, so many different soaps with new themes and ideas (!). So I watch TV for at least 5 hours a day.  But now I am facing a big problem. What should I do during commercial breaks? As I recently read in some article (of course internet article), should I do some couch exercises?  Ha, catch me doing exercises. I don't want to exercise. Period. I am happy with my health and my fitness. ( and my tummy and my occasional leg pain and shoulder pain and....). You tell me I could do some preparation for the evening meal. What do you think I am, a chef in some fancy restaurant, to prepare so early for the meals? And what preparation does one sambar, one raita require? So during commercial break, I do what other couch potatoes do. I surf channels to see if I can multi task and watch two soaps simultaneously. My favourite channels b

Opposition

People talk always. Whatever you do, they will talk, they will have objections, they will find fault with your work. In a place where even birds tell you to have attention in what you do and ask you to be here and now, in a place where a ten year old kid can effectively reduce the fear or phobia in a man through talking (shrinks of modern era, you have a lot to learn from this kid), in a place where most of the people are in peace with themselves and hence don't see the need to have a military, even in such a place there are opponents. The queen who has a found a path to enlightenment which is like any other such path you see now a days, the prince who wants to build an army and industrialize and militarize the country. One comfort here is these royal people are like you and me. But they are completely against the reform which changed Pala into such a peaceful country.(Yeah, as I promised I am referring to the book Island ) So what I am trying you is Manya muukh mantriji aur pa