Gujjars, Meenas strike in Rajasthan. Demand equal share of Bhanwari Devi case

Two major clans in Rajasthan, the Gujjars and the Meenas went on strike in the state today, crippling most activities except essential services. Both the clans claim that the members of the state legislature are unfairly hogging the spotlight in the Bhanwari Devi kidnapping and murder case.

In a jointly organized press conference at Jaipur today, spokespersons from both tribes stated that the current MLAs and MLCs are conspiring to ensure neither clan gets any exposure in the disappearance and subsequent killing of Bhanwari Devi. Former minister Mahipal Maderna and Parasram Bishnoi were remanded to judical custody till the 24th of December, and her husband, Amar Chand was recently arrested by the CBI.

The tribes say that they haven't been given their due in this case of sleaze, lies, and political aspirations, and that the men of the caste were feeling outcast in their own state. They have demanded and apology from Maderna for not having a Gujjar/Meena involved and have asked for written assurance that going forward, an equal number of members from each tribe will be.part of any such act. They will withdraw their strike only after getting the assurance from the chief minister.

This is a rare show of unity by both clans which were at loggerheads in 2004  after Gujjars started an agitation to get included in list of Scheduled Tribes.

Bhajji enters Big Boss

Indian cricketer Harbhajan Singh  gate-crashed into the Big Boss house today, less than a week after Andrew Symonds was brought in. Both Symonds and Bhajji are not part of their respective teams for India's tour of Australia.

In addition to gate-crashing the house, Bhajji also carried along with him a mysterious bag, which he said was a present for Symonds, which must be handed to him when he exits the house, either through eviction or winning.

There is much speculation about the present, and strong indicators suggest that it might be a stuffed monkey.

Meanwhile, S. Sreesanth, who was allegedly slapped by Bhajji during an IPL match, sent him the best wishes to stay on in the house and possibly win the season. In a press release, Sreesanth told Harbhajan to 'make it large in Big Boss, because his cricketing career is all but over'. Harbhajan or his agent were unavailable for comment.

Story idea thanks to Neets

Tokens sold at token fast.

The token fast undertaken by Anna Hazare took on an all-new meaning today with  tokens being sold at the venue. The numbered tokens were actually tickets to enter the venue where Hazare is on a day long fast in order to press the government to enact a strong anti-corruption law.

Supporters could redeem the token for one cup of hot beverage (tea/coffee/milk) and some biscuits available at the venue.  It was understood that the move was proposed by Ms Kiran Bedi, who was recently accused of inflating her travel bills and obtaining an excess reimbursement. Ms Bedi's had already spent the excess money she had received and decided to use selling tickets as a means of raising funds. The move, however, was approved by the core committee which decided to sell tickets and all profits would go to the funds for 'India Against Corruption'.

In addition to entry tokens, special tokens were also available for people who intended to shake hands with any of the core committee members. However, none of these were reportedly sold.

Ashwin to endorse brain power boosting products

R. Ashwin got himself a lucrative product endorsement deal after accepting to endorse "brain power boosting" products marketed by  a leading herbal products firm in India. Details on the amount being paid or the name of the company have not been announced by Ashwin's agent. The endorsement offer came in the wake of the complete brain freeze that Ashwin suffered in the last over of the final test match against the West Indies.

With  two runs required off the last ball, Ashwin chose to do a 'Ranatunga walk' for the first run and reluctantly ran the second, only to be run out, denying India a 3-0 win against the visitors.

Ashwin will be endorsing a Brahmi based product line in particular. Brahmi is believed to improve brain functions, like alertness and memory, both of which seemed to take leave of the Man of the Series. The advertisement is expected to feature footage of the last ball and a tag line : "You don't want this to happen to you. Use Brahmi'.

Mayawati gifts statue to Sebastian Vettel

Sebastian Vettel with the Mayawati Statue

Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh (UP), Ms Mayawati, gifted a statue of herself to Sebastian Vettel who won the inagural Indian F1 Grand Prix on Sunday, in an event held at the FIA headquarters in Paris. The F1 Grand Prix was held at the Budh Circuit in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh. Vettel took both pole position and winner honours in the race.

The chief minister has already put up statues of herself all over the state and wanted to  gift the  winner immediately after the race. However,  F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone and FIA president Jean Todt persuaded her that the gift must be presented at the FIA heaquarters.

In the press conference that followed, Vettel said that he would carry the statue in his car in all future races and will lose weight to compensate for the statue's weight. It is also learnt that Ms Mayawati has already spoken to Ecclestone, Todt, and the Jaypee group to handout Mayawati plush toys at next year's Indian GP.

Stray dogs to teach pedestrians

The Bangalore municipal corporation (BBMP) has embarked on a project to improve road sense amongst pedestrians in Bangalore. Started in collaboration with the Road Transport Office and various NGOs, the project intends to use stray dogs to teach better road sense to pedestrians. It has been observed by drivers that pedestrians do not pay any attention to the surroundings  and tend to step into the path of fast moving vehicles with no concern for their lives. Strays on the other hand, pay more attention to the traffic and cross the streets with a safe distance between them and the oncoming vehicle.

Over the years, strays have attacked innocent joggers, and even mauled children to death. But the NGOs have cried themselves hoarse against the killing or even neutering of these dogs. However, with this initiative, these dogs will now become government servants, like canine squads used by the police. The move has been generally welcomed by all parties.

Indian beggar pays income tax

The Indian income tax authorities today issued notice to the beggar woman who was handed a $100 note by socialite Paris Hilton. It was reported earlier in the media, that Ms Hilton stopped her vehicle near the Andheri locality in Mumbai and handed the money to the woman, who did not have any clue of who the person was or how much the single currency note amounted to in Indian Rupees.

The Income Tax authorities stated that an income of 5000 per day amounts to 150,000 per month, which is above the no-tax income bracket. Using recorded  proof of the income, the I-T authorities identified the woman and have issued a 'non payment of tax' notice. The woman has been asked to pay the income tax by the 15th of October, failing which she will also have to pay fines.


Image courtesy: IBN Live
Special news item tag: 'one day in mumbai'

Government issues pre-emptive condemnation

The Central Government today issued pre-emptive condemnation of all attacks that could disrupt public life. The condemnation comes in the wake of intelligence reports that warned of possible terror attacks on luxury buses plying between Mumbai and Ahmedabad.

Repeated failures of intelligence has seen India fall victim to audacious attacks of terror including the attacks on parliament, blasts in trains in Mumbai, the attack on the Taj hotel in 2008, and very recently, the blasts in Delhi.

Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram, speaking in a press conference, said "We have received the reports and would like to issue an immediate, strong condemnation.
We hope that the pre-emptive condemnation will deter the assailants from executing their plan". The minister also mentioned that the all round condemnation issued after the Delhi blasts has already killed at least one terrorist. Therefore the pre-emptive condemnation is a warning of possible consequences.

Amitabh Bachchan peeved at Janardhana Reddy

Illegal mining baron and former MLA, Janardhana Reddy who is currently cooling his heels in Hyderabad's Chanchalguda Central Jail raised a new request today. Unhappy with his inmate number (697), he has handed a request to be given inmate number 786. Such a request is the first of its kind in the entire country.

In his written request to the warden, Reddy  says that he is a fan of Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan, and would like to get 786 as his inmate number.

Amitabh Bachchan, who is already trying to maintain his distance from Amar Singh, was not very happy with yet another tainted politician attempting to get friendly. Further, the unwritten rule is that Mr. Bachchan is the unofficial owner of that number because all his movies where he sported it became superhits.

New products and reality - Apple's challenges

Close on the heels of Steve Jobs announcing his resignation, Apple today announced additions to its gadget and app store portfolio with three new Jobs-inspired products - iResign, iRetire, and u-r-Fired.

The apps, designed for iPhone and iPad, cost $99.99, while the tri-functional limited edition gadget is now available for online-order at $79.99. Apple spokesperson, Tom Neumayr, said that "Apple is giving a choice for users to either pay $20 extra for an application that will run on their existing device or buy a new limited edition device."

When asked about the name 'u-r-Fired', he said "The 'i' prefixed naming very effective at playing at consumer's ego. But iAmFired seemed gramatically odd, and iHaveBeenFired was too long a name. So we opted for u-r-Fired. We don't believe the name is going to affect sales, because we have a very specific target market for it. On the contrary, this limited edition app will actually be a keepsake item."

With Jobs' exit, Apple execs are now said to be facing their biggest challenge ever : reality. Job's Reality Distortion Field was able to bring the company out of its worst days in the late 90s to the profitable entity it is today. With that gone, the execs see that all they are left with are a bunch of fanbois, most of whom are uptight, self indulgent snobs with a fetish for with cuboids with rounded edges and painted white.

Reservation demanded for watching Aarakshan movie

The movie Aarakshan has now been drawn into a fresh and rather unusual controversy. The movie deals with the issue of reservation has seen its fair share of controversies prior to release. The various socio-political groups claiming to represent the 'backward castes' of India initially claimed that the movie was inaccurate/insensitive/misrepresenting truth etc without watching the movie.

Today however, things took an interesting turn as the same groups also demanded for reservation of seats in theaters for watching the movie. In a written letter to the Central Government and the Central Board of Film Certification, the groups stated that "Because this movie is about reservation, it is but natural to ensure that reservation is applied by theaters when selling tickets. The theaters must follow the reservation quotas set by the respective state government".

This demand means that each person intending to watch the movie must carry caste identification when purchasing the ticket - advance bookings have therefore been cancelled. If the seats earmarked for the backward castes does not get filled, then it will be provided to the upper castes.

It is believed that leaders like Mayawati, who have espoused the cause of upliftment, have also offered their moral support to the demand.

India IT wins ACM Turing Award

The Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) today announced that the Alan Turing Award for 2011 has been awarded to outsourcing companies in India for successfully passing the Turing Test.

The ACM in a press release said that for the past few years, India companies who have been providing customer support services have been successfully using computers to handle the first level of support, and not a single customer complained that they felt they were talking to a computer.


Using 'text to speech' and 'speech to text' software, advanced machine learning and AI techniques, computers were used to provide first level of support for all calls. A team led by Marvin Minsky, a famous and respected name in Artificial Intelligence, was invited to monitor the entire experiment for the past year, and recommended the Indian outsourcing industry for the award. They said that as little as 1% of the support calls were handled by humans; all issue escalations however were handled by humans. However the entire operation was processor and memory intensive, so to ensure smooth operation, calls were put on hold and music was played at appropriate times to allow memory to be freed at regular intervals.

India revisits visionary Sanjay Gandhi's compulsory sterilization scheme

People from all walks of life in India today paid tribute to visionary Sanjay Gandhi, who was almost 40 years ahead of his time with his thinking. For the uninformed, Sanjay Gandhi was credited with the (in)famous, compulsory sterilization programme for men during the mid 70s.

Though severly criticised then, the programme, with a slight modification to suit current conditions, is being seriously considered by the Central and State governments, with the support of the opposition parties. The reason is the spate of rapes that have been reported in recent times, all across the country.

The change from the original programme, envisioned in is that instead of undergoing compulsory sterilization, men will have the choice to undergo either forced castration or forced penectomy. The motivation is to ensure either complete stoppage of testosterone production, or remove the organ necessary for committing the act.

The proposal was put forth by a committee comprising of members from the National Commission for Population, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, and the National Commission for Women and will be tabled in parliament during the monsoon session. Hospitals have already launched special early bird offers ever since the news about the proposed law was made public.

Google image search

Google has a TinEye-esque search feature. Not sure if it will become a TinEye killer. I don't get how pictures of people are similar to pictures of Spongebob mushroom. :D

Riots? What riots?

Vancouver city witnessed riots post the Stanley Cup final match, in which the Vancouver Canucks lost to the Boston Bruins. But riots don't matter for some people.



Click on the image to see full version on CBC.

India launches "internet commenting" course

The Ministry of Human Resources Development, Govt of India today announced the launch of a new course - Internet Commenting - designed to teach people to post comments and opinions on various Internet fora and websites.

"The course is a pre-requisite for completion of secondary school and must be refreshed once every 2 years. The first module in this course is 'understanding satire and sarcasm', literary constructs that appear to be lost to the general Indian public. The Center and all state Governments believe that in order to make a useful contribution to discussions and consequently to society, Indians need to know how to read tongue-in-cheek articles that poke at the issues plaguing us." stated Ms Vibha Puri Das, secretary of the Department of Education under the Ministry of Human Resources Development in a press conference yesterday.

She also observed that "Typically such a journalistic/contributory article/editorial is followed by hajjar, mostly abusive, moronic comments by those who fail to understand the article; making the commenter look like a nitwit. Comments posted by Indians are can be broadly classified as either being irrelevant, anti-author/website, or if all else fails, anti-Pakistan and are almost always, unintentionally hilarious. Comments that do not fit into any of these categories, which is extremely rare, are the ones that have some sense in them."

"Our society prides in the importance it gives to education and such comments go to the contrary. We can't blame commenter it if she didn't understand sarcasm so we decided to add this additional course to the curriculum." - Kapil Sibal, Minister of HRD added.

Ramdev fast gains sponsors

After talks with the Government apparently failed, Baba Ramdev announced his fast against corruption and graft. A lot has been written and said about this fast, coming fast on the heels of Anna Hazare's recent "blackmail the government" attempt; allegations have been laid that the fast is politically motivated.

But, advertising gurus are most impressed with what they consider a complete sponsorship coup that Baba Ramdev pulled off. The fast has been sponsored by VLCC and Talwalkars, two companies providing personalised weight loss programmes, in addition to other fitness and beauty care services.

Dieticians from both companies said that a good fast helps clean the body. Spokespersons for both companies said that the fast was a great event for them to market their weight loss solutions. They also mentioned that the packaging of food items sold at the fast will be contain equal sized logos of both companies.

The two companies are commercial competitors and the fact that Baba Ramdev was able to get both to sponsor the fast, amicably, has left marketing gurus stumped. C.K. Prahlad stated at a media meet at the IIM-B yesterday that he is going to update his book with a new chapter discussing the same.

Vancouver

AARRGGHH!!



Got posted on BoingBoing yesterday and seems to have gone viral, for the wrong reasons. Could well give competition to Rebecca Black.

Center launches train to commemorate IPL finals

The Center today announced a new train between Bangalore and Chennai, the cities, who's IPL franchise teams reached the finals of IPL4. This train is the seventeenth train route to connect the two cities. This train route is expected to be available for ticket booking starting today. The government also added that this train route will be available only for 1 year. The train will then connect the cities whose franchises reach the final of next IPL instalment.

The notable features of the yet unchristened IPL train route will be the staff, who will be dressed in finalists' jersey colours, the food items available in the train, which be the cuisine local to the two cities. For a start, the Railways has setup an expert committee to identify the differences between the recipies of idli, vada, sambar, dosa (all varieties), chutney, coffee, and tea used in Chennai and Bangalore.

Feminists in India boycott themselves

Accussed in the 2G scam, Kanimozhi requested bail on the grounds that she is a woman, playing on and conveniently reinforcing the "abala nari" (helpless woman/damsel in distress) stereotype. Feminist organisations, who typically work to break the very stereotype are now in a quandary over the statement.

Further, no such organisation opposed this defense tactic used by the accused, resulting in the general perception that these organisations are being hypocritical. he organisations have now called for a boycott of and will be holding protest marches against feminist organisations that did not take any action against the 'stereotype reinforcement' . To put it simply, they have decided to boycott themselves.

Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalitha however, stated that Kanimozhi must not be given any concessions and told Kanimozhi to "be a man!" and do the right thing.

Implications of Warne's retirement

Job opening

Applications are now invited, in India, for the post of next spiritual 'guru'. This position is very challenging because it is equivalent to that of a CEO of a large, financially successful corporate organization. There is exactly one opening and competition is high.

The key roles and requirements of the job are listed below:

1. The role requires you to be the public face of a large establishment. You need to be charismatic, a good public speaker, and be able to carry yourself well in the presence of VIPs.
   
2. Ability to amass large amounts of real estate both in India and abroad.
3. A decent understanding of science, Chemistry in particular, to be able to synthesize chemicals in liquid/powder form. These chemicals must resemble substances that have a religious symbolism, for example, holy ash (vibuthi).
   
4. Ability to exploit science to appeal to faith.
   
5. Sleight of hand. Further training in sleight of hand will be provided based on the selected candidates current abilities.
6. Ability to create mass hysteria for no apparent reason. This ties into requirement 1, of being charismatic.
7. Ability to keep secrets - very important.
   

Perks: All your expenses - including medical expenses - will be taken care of using other people's money. The disadvantage is that you will have to be celibate (or atleast appear so to the public).

Indians to stay off social networking in attempt to support Anna Hazare

Anna Hazare recently gave the war cry to Indians to battle corruption and the masses rallied around him; masses including corporate honchos, actors, sportspersons, celebrities, pseudo-celebrities, and celebrity wannabes.

The knee-jerk reaction to this war cry was creating pages on Facebook/Orkut and other social networking sites to spread the cause and using these pages to put pressure on the government to pass the anti corruption bill. Ideas floated initially to post the colour of ones piece of clothing associated with corruption - analogous to the case when women posted the colour of their bra on facebook to spread awareness on breast cancer. Because no piece of clothing could be associated with corruption, it was decided to post the colour of one's purse or wallet instead.

Later, the net-savvy Indians decided that in order to further their cause, they would now stop using social networking sites after realising that the chances of Indian politicians having Facebook and Orkut pages and being interested in the colour of their wallets and purses, is quite close to zero. They have now declared a blanket ban on social networking usage catching (primarily) their supervisors, system admins, and ISPs unawares.

While the sudden drop in traffic was surprising to ISPs, who suffer loss of revenue and system admins, who see a sudden change in traffic patterns, the worst hit has been company management - across the board -which has not been able to deal either with the sudden spurt in productivity, or with the money suddenly made available due to reduced electricity and bandwidth usage. Sources from different companies have stated that hasty meetings and adhoc committes that includes HRs, managers, and system admins, are being setup to handle this unforseen situation.

It happens only in India

Rather puzzled seeing IIIT-Bangalore playing host to the 20th Intl. WWW Conference while the conference is actually being held in Hyderabad. Usually, an educational institute in the host city, hosts the conference; so would have expected IIIT-H or some other university in Hyderabad to play hosts. Well, all I can say is "it happens only in India" ;-)

Airport wifi

Boston's Logan International Airport has free wifi, but for that one needs to either take a survey or watch an sponsor advertisement. Well, 30 seconds, so I watched the ad. Chicago, O'Hare, there were hajjar SSIDs. In Beijing, one needs to get a user id and passcode from the airport lobby office.

Whatever it is, no comparison to Vancouver International Airport! No ads, no username, no password. Just connect, and browse. :)

Pita pizza ;)

1. Unleavened bread - Pita/Roti
2. Sauce spread on it. I used pasta sauce.
3. Finely chopped onions.
4. Grated carrots
5. Grated chesse - I used Cheddar and Gouda.
6. Salt, pepper
7. In the oven for 10 mins, allowing the cheese to melt.
   

Quick to prepare and fingerlicking good. *drool* :)

Pesto-potato in gravy

An attempt at improvising with cooking, proved rather successful - made basil pesto-potato in onion-tomato gravy. Quite easy to make, though it did take a bit of time. Should warn anyone intending to read this recipe further (and have the balls to try it later :P) - I don't measure. I use my cooking experience to infer how much of salt and spice is required.

So, brave hearts, here goes...

1. Boil nugget potatoes until cooked.
2. Remove the skin, and chop the potatoes into 2-3 pieces if you feel like it. I would, coz that increases the surface area.
3. Add basil pesto and coat the cooked potatoes. You could use some other pesto too, but basil pesto has a wonderful aroma to it. :) Besides, if you stop at this step and add salt and pepper to the potatoes, you have yourself a nice side dish to munch along when drinking beer.
   
4. Grind blanched tomatoes, onion, ginger and garlic into a paste.
5. Heat olive oil an add the paste and a bit of water (if you want a slightly diuted gravy). Pesto is made with olive oil; and contains generous amount of it too for preservative purposes. So, watch the amount of oil you use to cook the gravy. I didn't account for the oil in the pesto, so the dish had more oil than I would have liked.
6. When the gravy is about half done, add in salt to taste. And add the pesto coated potatoes. If you roll the potatoes around the gravy, the pesto will spread out. The other option is to not do so, so that the pesto sticks to the potatoes.
   
7. Cook on low heat, allowing for the flavour of the gravy to infuse into the potatoes. The oil will soon separate from the gravy, and the dish is done.
   
8. Your choice : adding angrezi spices - thyme, oregano etc to the dish towards the end.
   
9. I had it with rice.
   

Mamta launches dharna against ICC

The ICC has decided to move the India-England match scheduled to be held at the Eden Gardens, Kolkata to the Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore. The ICC said that the delay in the stadium renovation work forced them to take the decision. Following this announcement, Mamta Banerji, called for a press conference and announced that the Trinamool Congress will hold a dharna to protest the decision as it affects the employment opportunities of the people of Kolkata.

She said "This decision of the ICC has taken because Vijay Mallya gave the Sharad Pawar and ICC peoples free beer. It is not the right! If match is not here, many people have no work. Parking boys, policeman, groundnut shop, popcorn shop, pickpockets, beggars - all peoples have no work. Central government, state government should answer."[sic]

She also added that the scheduled dharna would be peaceful and no CPI party members or offices would be harmed.

PM acts to reduce food prices in India

Despite food prices in India rapidly leading to a crisis situation, there appeared to be no attempt by the Government to tackle the situation. Not even a press release was forthcoming from either the Agriculture or the Finance ministries; nor did the PM's office speak.

However, it has come to light that the PM's silence on the issue was intentional and the PM was not sitting inactive. Inspired by the likes of Irom Sharmila, Dr Manmohan Singh had undertaken the "Vow of Silence" or maunvrat till the prices of food items reduces. The silence which was mistaken for inaction appears to be the action itself.

However, the maunvrat was not without its share of issues. The SGPC Sikh religious governing body excluded meetings from the vow allowing the PM to speak. However the PM insisted on no-exclusions vow leading to a standoff. This conflict of interest between duty and austerity was resolved when leaders explained that duty is also a part of religion and the PM relented to speak for 5 minutes in every meeting to put forth his views and vote on resolutions.

BCCI puts Lalit Modi on IPL auction

The player auctions for IPL 4 are scheduled today and as few as 12 players are being retained by their current franchisees. Add to that is the introduction of 2 new franchisees - Pune and Kochi. As the auction action heats up, the BCCI today entered the fray by placing its best "player", Lalit Modi, in the auction pool.

At a base price of 22 crores, Modi is the most expensive player. However, BCCI Treasurer N Srinivasan said that the price would not deter buyers. He said "1 Modi is equivalent to 100 other players (think Rajnikanth in Basha). Sachin and Dhoni are at a price of 1.8 cr each. We calculated 2 cr * 11 players would be a reasonable price for Modi. With his match fixing and betting contacts, you can win the IPL 4 without taking the field even. 22 cr is a small price to pay for the glory of winning IPL 4".

All 8 franchisees are reportedly considering the offer seriously.

Sreesanth gets Australia bowling coach offer

After witnessing the performance of India's maverick bowler in the test series against South Africa, Australia has approached S. Sreesanth for the role of bowling coach for the short time between the end of India's tour of the Proteas and the start of the 2011 World cup. The Cricket Australia (CA) spokesperson Peter Young, addressing a conference yesterday said "We realise that this is a short time frame, but after his impressive performance in the series we decided that his services would help the Australian ODI squad." Australia has been going through a bad run in the recent times with England retaining the Ashes after winning the Boxing day test. Another important factor that influenced CA's decision was James Anderson statement that the tricks he learnt from Zaheer Khan helped his bowling in the ongoing test series.

S. Sreesanth initially declined to comment, but later confirmed the offer after Andre Nel wished him over the phone and requested that he break the news to the press. It is also learnt that seeing the Aussie batsmen struggle against Graeme Swann, CA approached Murali Kartik to bowl to the team at the nets and expect to hear from him in the next couple of days.