The case of two terrorists

Ajmal Kasab one of the terrorists caught during 26/11 attack on Mumbai was hanged this morning at 7:30 am IST. The execution was carried out after nearly 4 years of the attack on Mumbai. Earlier this week Kasab's mercy petition was rejected by President Pranab. Immediately after the news of Kasab's hanging came through news channels started to praise President Pranab of showing resolve. News channels also reported Mr. Salman Khurshid saying that the Govt of India has sent a strong message to terrorists by hanging the terrorist.

Keeping the adjectives aside. I really can't understand the stance of news channels when they say that President Pranab showed bravery. What is the bravery is rejecting a mercy petition? An act of bravery was shown by the people who caught Kasab and also by the numerous armed forces who fought the terrorists during the 26/11 attack. Just rejecting a mercy petition is no act of bravery!! There was no other choice, the public perception on the delay of the justice to the victims of 26/11 was quite strong and the hanging of Kasab should have happened quite soon.

On 13th December 2001, 5 gunmen infiltrated the heart of Indian democracy (The Parliament). The attack led to the death of a dozen people, including one civilian. In the investigations that followed Afzal Guru was found guilty was sentenced to death. It is nearly 11 years since the attack on the Indian Parliament, but Afzal Guru is yet to be hanged. Be it the earlier President or the incumbent one, none have taken a decision on rejecting his mercy petition.

In my opinion, the only reason for the difference in the treatment of these two terrorists are that one is an Indian while the other is a Pakistani. The hanging of a Pakistani terrorist wouldn't upset the vote-bank, while the hanging of the Indian terrorist would seriously affect the vote-bank. Thus, the Country cannot expect Afzal Guru to be hanged anytime soon. The only message UPA has sent out on hanging Kasab is that only those who do not have political support will be hanged!!

2G auction and media spin

The just concluded 2G auction for 22 licenses fetched the Govt of India INR 9250 Crores. The Govt and the ever obliging media are potraying this as a damp squib auction. Few of the *Usual Suspects* in the media have already started to use this information to state that the CAG's 2G's presumptive loss of 1.76 lakh crores as incorrect and thereby the 2G scam never actually happened!

Firstly everyone has to get their facts right. Mr. A Raja sold 122 licenses of 2G for INR 9150 Crores and this auction was only for 22 licenses of the total 122. If the auctioning of just 22 licenses could have fetched nearly 100 crores more than what Mr. A Raja sold the licenses for, how could this auction be stated as damp squib?

One thing is pretty clear, all those journalists calling this auction as damp squib are absolutely mediocre as they do not have any understanding of the field which they are reporting or they can be very well be assumed to be Govt stooges/Govt propagandists.

If only there wasn't the Internet, everyone would have believed what was being spoken on the "National" media. Thank god for that (Now Rahul Gandhi would want us to thank Congress for this because as per his speech earlier this month, Computers were brought to India by the Congress Govt!)

Arnab Goswami ko gussa kyon aata hai?

On 6th November 2012, a letter written by Ram Jethmalani to Lal Krishna Advani found its way into TimesNow studios. This was apparently leaked by someone within Jethmalani's or Advani's office. TimesNow whole day started to air details of this letter and also an exclusive interview which they managed to secure with Ram Jethmalani.

The contents of the letter were related to Ram Jethmalani and the alleged disagreements of Jaswant Singh, Yashwant Sinha and Shatrugan Sinha on the continuation of Nitin Gadkari as the President of BJP. It must be noted that Mahesh Jethmalani (son of Ram Jethmalani) had earlier resigned from a party post in protest against the continuation of Nitin Gadkari as the President of the party.

Over the past month, TimesNow has been very active in alleging numerous wrong doings on the part of Nitin Gadkari. There have been numerous reports that Purti Group of which Nitin Gadkari is a share holder has numerous companies registered with shoddy addresses (this is the only clear allegation which I could understand). There  have been other allegations from IAC activist Arvind Kejriwal on land grabbing. These charges however were proved to be too weak and shoddy by the CONgress leaning "National" media.

For his point, Nitin Gadkari has said that he is ready for any probe by any organization into his allegations. And most BJP leaders decided to support him and wanted him to continue in office as the President of the party.

If you would ask me I would say, that was a really foolish of them. After all the same party had forced Yeddurappa to quit during the Lokyukta allegations, knowing fully well that the Lokayukta Hegde's investigation was shoddy and there were a lot of shortcomings of his reports when he hadn't found SM Krishna or the JD(S) CM guilty for any of the coal allocations during their tenure. Secondly, BJP being the party with difference, their leaders are expected to behave better, so Nitin Gadkari should have quit and stayed aside until the investigation was over. But that this is only my opinion.

Now to consider the other side of the spectrum.  It is still not clear what is the alleged wrong doing of Nitin Gadkari? If it is a case of only shoddy addresses, what are various investigating agencies of the Government doing till date? Why haven't any of these companies found anything against Gadkari or his companies over the past 1 month. Surely this would have been the nail on the coffin? There could be two possibilities to this question. Either that there is nothing that the Government agencies can find against Nitin Gadkari, or the Govt(UPA) would like Nitin Gadkari to remain in office as this will take focus away from the corruption allegations against the first family and CONgress party. With an obliging "National" media both of these are very easily possible answers!

BJP grapevine has it that, this actually is a faction war to take control of the BJP Presidency. One faction led which I believe has the blessing of Advani and the other faction (who would like NaMo to be PM candidate). And looks like for now a temporary truce has been agreed. Things will change after the Gujarat polls. The agreement is that even if Nitin Gadkari does resign now, it will not reflect well on the BJP as a CONgress leaning media, will provide a complete new twist to the decision and turn the wave in favour of CONgress party.

The same things happened after BSY resigned and the party is now in tatters in Karnataka. It must also be noted that all cases against BSY fell like nine pins when the matters reached the Karnataka courts. But the perception that came out of that fiasco was not really good for the BJP. Given that BJP/RSS decided to back BJP in the first place, they must continue to do so until there is something serious proved against him or till the end of his Presidency term, which ends later this year. BJP must deal with their President on their own terms and not based on the agenda set by the media!

Now this brings me back to Arnab Goswami. For the past 2 hrs he has been showing his viewers how little air time he provides for non-congress speakers on the debates. He has been leading from the  front in a shouting and interruption competition in which his performance is Sergei Bubka-ish!

But what I really don't get is this? Who is Mr Nitin Gadkari? What public post does he hold? If he remains the President of BJP, how will the common man be affected? Why is Arnab Goswami so angry with Nitin Gadkari continuing office? Why hasn't Arnab Goswami shown the same anger against the more serious allegation of corruption against the sitting ministers, Presidents and Secretaries of Congress Party who still continue to hold some public post. Why doesn't he ask such probing questions to CONgress leaders on his debate? How did he manage to welcome back AMS with a smiling face? Will he care to answer?

Kargil War and FDI in retail

"We supported BJP led NDA during the Kargil War, but the BJP does not support FDI in retail" screamed Rahul Gandhi in the Congress organised ?Mega? rally at Ramlila maidan today.

Now that statement is really something! Why you ask? Well because even if Joseph Goebbels was alive today, he wouldn't have been successful in helping the Congress convert this statement of "Yuvraj" into a political propaganda!

Whether or not Congress supported NDA during the Kargil war is debatable. They have consistently refused to celebrate Kargil Vijay Diwas since they came into power in 2004 and you can read here on their activities during the Kargil War.

During World War II, Britain was run by a coalition Government headed by Winston Churchill (a Conservative) and his deputy was Clement Atlee (from Labour - The principal opponent party). Supporting the Country was/is the only the only choice any patriotic party will have during a war.

What I really don't get in Rahul Gandhi's statement is that did Congress really have another choice during the Kargil war? Is he suggesting that supporting Pakistan was an option? To call this statement of Rahul as absurd would be an understatement. Even school kids would have a better understanding or correlation than Congress's *Yuvaraj*.

What is more disgusting is that an erudite like Shashi Tharoor fawning over Rahul Gandhi's speech and oratory skills today (But then he stopped being an erudite when he joined the Congress party back in 2009)! Has Mr. Tharoor even considered that he was completing his PHd when Rahul was running down around in his nappies. Or this is his balancing act to remain as an MoS?

"National" English channels say that Congress is on a comeback mode! Really? the only comeback I can see in Congress is the shameless re-introduction of all people who were forced to resign for some issue or other in the past 2 years. be it Mr. Tharoor or Dr AM Singhvi, Congress has shamelessly brought them back.

Also I am really impressed with the battery of great orators that Congress brought out today to showcase their *reforms* agenda! Seriously guys, you guys started the rally with Rahul Gandhi's speech followed by Sonia Gandhi reading out from a paper and then followed it up with MMS the robot?? Manish Tewari would have done a better job single-handedly!!

And finally as every day goes by, the shameless "National" English channels can't hold their horses for Rahul Gandhi to become the PM of India(even though Rahul Gandhi's contributions to both Congress and the Nation has been "a Kapil Sibal"), while I am growing in confidence to a statement someone made on Niticentral. "Rahul Gandhi is actually an avatar of Vishnu who has been born to ensure the destruction of dynasty in India!"

Taj and Wonder

At the outset, I would like to declare that I am a Hindu by birth and an agnost by choice and before anyone accuses my blog to have communal overtones, let me declare that this has got to nothing to do with the religion of the builder in question.

Wikipedia describes Taj Mahal as "The Taj Mahal is widely recognized as "the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world's heritage".

For years the NCERT history texbooks have shoved this information down our throats that the Taj is a wonder and probably the finest examples of Mughal architecture in India. I've heard almost everyone who visited the site to say that the Taj is massive and it is brilliant!

In the early 90s it was customary for every middle class family member in South India who had visited Delhi to have a taken a picture with the Taj Mahal in the background and decorate (sic) their wardrobes with this photo!

I never had a chance to visit Taj Mahal before, The last time I visited Delhi, I didnt have time to detour to Agra. So this time when we were visiting Rajasthan on a holiday, we ensured to have enough time to visit the Taj. The security check was really thorough, we were asked why we were carrying a thermos flask (even after seeing that we were with a Toddler!). The security thought our powdered milk was not safe enough to be carried into the Taj and threw it! He even threw away one of my Son's favourite plastic key chain! I will also like to point that at this time I was really frustrated and had second thoughts on visiting the place. After nearly 1 hour of security checks we were finally ready to see Taj.

At this point I was expecting to be bowled over by the beauty, but to say I was disappointed will be an understatement! With due respect to all those who asked me to visit the Taj, I have to say, I can't understand what is wonderful in the Taj Mahal?

Like numerous other Indians, I had on numerous occassions voted for Taj as a World Wonder. That was a more patriotic and not objective decision. As I had not seen the Taj earlier. I just wanted an Indian heritage site to be among the Wonders of the World. If asked to vote again. I will definitely not do so!

Some claim that the Taj is a wonder because, it is massive! Really?? Well there are more massive heritage buildings than the Taj. Size alone cannot be a determinant of beauty! But if this is a criterion for measurement. We can all agree, that there are numerous more massive buildings than the Taj.

Numerous forts in Rajasthan come to mind. The Amber Palace, the Mehrangarh Fort etc are more massive and have impressive architectures. The Jaisalmer's Sonar Qila is built on Sanstone and has excellent carvings done on them. You would have thought the carving was done on wood!

While others claim that The Taj is an excellent marble heritage building. In my humble opinion those who claim the Taj to be an excellent architecture on
marble have either not seen Dilwara Jain Temples of Mount Abu, Rajasthan or do not understand architecture! Photography is prohibited in Dilwara Temple and hence I cannot show you any photographs to prove this, but then a photograph wont do justice in depicting the wonder of the temple! Also the Dilwara temples were built nearly 500 years before the Taj Mahal!

You don't need to take my word for it. But a visit to the Dilwara temple will leave you breathless. You will wish to have more eyes to view the wonders or else you will want to walk upside down to view the intimate carvings that are done on marble in the temple.

Attached is a photograph of Dilwara temple (taken from a postcard).

 Needless to say, these photographs cannot help you in seeing my point of view. But do visit the places and decide for yourselves.

Furthermore I think that the like most lessons in our NCERT history textbooks are biased, there is bias in the promotion of sites for tourism as well. The Indian Govt must objectively consider Dilwara temple as a major tourist spot of promote it!

So the next time some asks me to vote for The Taj as a wonder, I will ask them to first visit Dilwara Temple and the decide.

Scaling the Wall

No, this is not a blog on "How to scale a Wall"! Scaling a wall is for that matter is a very old sport, this was one of the favorite sports of yours truly and his friends a long time ago in Bangalore! The wall, I am referring to here, is no ordinary one. I am referring of *The Wall*. No, not the Great Wall of China! I mean the Great Wall of India - Rahul Dravid!

Speculations are rife that Rahul Dravid will be announcing his retirement from test cricket tomorrow. Given that he has already retired from ODIs and T20s, this really means that we will no longer be seeing *The Wall* on National duty after tomorrow!! This blog isn't fan's paean to a celebrated hero! Better hands and pens have done that/will continue to do that in the next few days. What I cite here is my experiences of being an admirer of a very remarkable cricketer and person!

Coming back to the topic, What do I mean by scaling the wall? To scale *The Wall* in cricket? Well, that is a no-brainer! Better cricketers have tried that and failed. Failed miserably! And I am not even a professional cricketer. My only claim to fame in the world of cricket was to be the most economical bowler in a sub-regional cricket match where I represented my school team as a second change bowler (Achieving an economy rate of 4 something, when every other bowler had an economy rate above 7.0 is really an achievement!). And that performance did not really don't inspire anyone. My captain Ramprasad did not allow me to even have a bowl in the same tournament the next year(There Ram, I said it!!). I even had the notorious distinction of being the Chetan Sharma of the School Cricket team. I threw away a match against our junior team, but allowing the batsman to score a 4 in the last ball of the match (Damn you Manish Biswas!!!). So obviously, there was no chance of that!

What does one do, when one cannot beat someone, you join them! In the essence, you try to ape them! This is exactly what I did. I had always been a Sachin fan, ever since I started watching Cricket, that is until I saw Dravid! Rahul Dravid debuted for India in ODI in 1996/97 in a match against SL at Singapore. At that point of time, I hadn't even heard of him (No I did not see Dravid scoring 95 against England at Lords!). In fact, I was pretty angry with the team selection, because I was disappointed that Vikram Rathore had not been given a chance. Dravid didn't score much in that match (I think he scored 3 and was incorrectly given out when the ball had brushed his pads). The first time I *noticed* Dravid was in the Titan cup match when he and Azhar put on a decent partnership and helped in India beat Australia in the semi-finals. That inning was to become my sneak-peak to this wonderful journey of 16 years as a Rahul Dravid fan! Every street cricketer tries to ape their favorite cricketer in someway or the other. One tries to play with a very heavy bat, another tries the two-eyed stance (Many regretted that decision after the match-fixing scandal!) and there were others like me who tried aping the shots! First, it was the flick, which I had to change to the *exaggerated on-drive* of Rahul Dravid (Not that I was very successful, I ended up making a fool of myself quite often!). And as expected failed very miserably at that too! I was fortunate enough to meet him personally once! In 1998, just before the World Cup, Dravid was out of the ODI team and played a lot of club cricket in Chennai. Guru Nanak college hosted numerous club cricket games that season. In one game (Butchi Babu) tournament, we had both Dravid (for Vijay CC) and Raju (for some other team) playing at the GNC grounds. More than half of our class were at the ground bunking classes to watch him. That really was a wonderful experience, watching him bat at MY college, something that others can't witness! After the match, a lot of guys went to get his autograph. I ran too. Dravid was really polite and did not refuse anyone. He patiently signed for everyone one of them! One fellow even asked him his Chennai address, Dravid was polite and kind enough to entertain him as well. It was on that day, I saw the person behind the player! It was then that I decided that I shall at least try aping him as a person!

I won't delve into Dravid's career history, that is for everyone to see. But will highlight one strange connection that I had with him. Everytime time I was going through a very difficult stage/situation in my life, Dravid had a purple patch in his career! And every time the tide changed in my life, the form of Dravid dipped. This one time in Feb/Mar 2001, I had just cleared the SCJP with flying colors and it was probably the best phases of my life, while as expected Dravid wasn't doing well with the bat! The Australian juggernaut had steamrolled India in the first test and the Indian team had gotten themselves all-out with a very low score in Calcutta! Given that, I was going through a purple patch, I decided to stop watching the match and bunked college to go for a movie! My! How much did I regret that decision!! That was probably one of his best innings and I missed it! That was probably the only time when both Dravid and I were experiencing a purple patch at the same time! If only such situations co-existed more often! Thankfully, I was fortunate enough to watch his Headingley innings and the other gems of the 2002 tour of England and 2003 tour of Australia!

To cut a long story short, this unique relation between Dravid and me continued for long and I must admit I have failed miserably even at aping him as a person! After all even the GOD of cricket has said, *There can never be another Dravid*; Sachin meant the Dravid the player. He wouldn't be far-off had he said there will never be another Dravid (Dravid the person)! It is now that I realize that there are walls that none can scale and there are walls that none can mend! Dravid's retirement is not just a loss for Indian Cricket, it is a loss for every purist of the game! All said and done, I must say, I am privilidged to have lived in an era, where Cricketers were also role models! That is something the current generation certainly wont be able to witness!

Thank you Dravid for all those wonderful memories! You have never got the due you deserved! All those nay-sayers will understand your worth only when on a juicy pitch India lose a wicket early!!

What next for Dravid: Given the fact that he is immensely respected in England, Scotland and New zealand, don't be surprised if he ends up being a coach of the English, Scotland or New zealand!

PS: I wanted to write more, but then came across this wonderful tribute to Dravid by Sidvee. He captured everything that I wanted to say!