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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.