4 days ago 30 people died and 56 were hurt in a terror plot in Malegaon . And yet, the western media has reported little about the whole incident. The news has been underplayed to the extent that apart from the first outbreak of the event - no other information was given by the western news channels who were otherwise busy trumpeting the call for support for 'War against Terror' by President Bush. There were 2519 terrorism related fatalities in India last year; the numbers were 2642, 3702, 3973 and 5839 in 2004, 2003, 2002 and 2001 respectively [ Source: http://www.satp.org ]. But MSNBC says that only "2,929 terrorism-related deaths around the world since the attacks on New York and Washington" - does the world include Asia, Middle East and Africa? I do not expect the NATO forces to land into India and fight the 'War on Terror' - but by turning a blind eye to India's problems, by protecting Pakistan time and again from facing the wrath of Indian retaliato

Javed Akhtar has very pertinent and sane advice for people loosing their sleep over singing of 'Vande Mataram' "....If some people don't want to sing the song, let them not sing it. But why waste our energy debating on it? We live in a democracy and should, therefore, allow people to exercise their democratic rights. ....A party with a strong political base should rather concentrate on other vexing problems. For instance, they should lose sleep over 105 farmers committing suicide in Vidarbha last month or children dying of malnutrition and not over a national song's supposed separatist tone.Instead of analysing Vande Mataram and going into hair-splitting details, they should take note of pregnancy-related deaths in rural areas, do something to eradicate poverty and the unemployment that dog the country. The politicians must not take people's attention away from core issues - they should not influence them to move away from the less privileged population of the

Are you none of those who simply love GMail for its conversation view? And long for similar arrangement of your Official Emails in that format as well?? Well ... I have a good news for you! I just discovered that Outlook also has a conversations view to arrange emails as in the GMail window. It might be surprising to know that Conversation View which GMail sold as probably one of the most compelling innovation [Read the 3rd and 6th paras here ], was always present in Outlook. For all you know not just Outlook but even other email clients like Lotus Notes, Thunderbird, and the non-so-well-known-ones might also have this mode of arrangement. But as Shiv Khera says(I tweaked his phrase a bit to suit my context) : Successful companies don't do different things - they do things differently! Google definitely used the same idea - but presented it in a completely different manner. More so, one should clearly appreciate that GMail is a Web-application while Outlook a Desktop App - implemen

In fact, history in post-independence India isn’t much different (even though it is hardly ever taught in school textbooks). The Indo-Pak wars in 1948, 1971 and the Indo-China War of 1962 have played pivotal roles in shaping the country’s political future. The outcome of the Wars could have changed the very economic fabric of the nation. The fact that the Kashmir Issue receives enough limelight from international media has a lot to do with India’s economic and nuclear status. The nuclear status owes itself to the fact that Vajpayee government won elections in 1998 which in itself owes itself to the Kargil War. All the text above just leaves me with one thought. Our lives, our comfort, economic status, our jobs, our money … every part of our life depends on our country. They depend on – sovereignty and democracy that we enjoy and celebrate on every Independence Day. Sovereignty is an expensive commodity that needs to be protected by winning crucial Wars, with the blood of our soldiers a

The other day, some of us were wondering why the UK keeps getting meddled with Bin Laden, Taliban, Saddam, Hezbollah and other terrorists when they have never directly caused any harm to them. (It is to be noted that the London Underground bombings of 2005 were probably the first acts of terrorism in the UK – and they followed UK’s participation in the War against Terror!). Clearly, it is the World War II – the mistakes and the triumphs during those days that fuel the current policies of the UK. The US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told the US Marines in California after 9/11 that there were direct parallels between America’s relative diplomatic isolation over the projected war against Iraq and Churchill’s lonely stand against the appeasement of Germany in the 1930s. The consequences of ignoring Hitler were very gruesome for Britain when it remained the only country in Europe to survive Hitler’s forces. The possibility re-occurrence of events of the 40’s is probably the reason why

I was in Switzerland on their national day (when the Swiss Confederation was formed) and it was nothing less than surprising that there was little celebration in Geneva. I also have been hearing how there is no National Day of Britain and patriotism is the last thing people think of in the West (with exception of Germany)! As I sit in London on the Indian Independence Day – it is – or rather was- very surprisingly difficult to understand what keeps the western nations intact, whose citizen care for little but their personal lives and private re-creation. However, a book I picked up from the local library ( Hitler and Churchill ) gave me some historical perspective on this subject. I quote – “Our world is still recognizably that which post-Hitler settlement of 1945 bequeathed us … Saddam apart, the West is presently enjoying those ‘broad sunlit uplands’ that Churchill promised and Hitler tried so hard to raze … “Many another nation has had its golden age, its moment in history’s limelig

Here is a Hindi poem co-written by a bunch of Bachelors - online ... on email http://the-new-cloud.blogspot.com/2006/08/frustration-ki-limit.html A post written on similar lines by me long ago: http://the-complete-man.blogspot.com/2005/04/i-need-girlfriend.html

As I sit here in London in my ‘fully-furnished’ (temporary) apartment listening to the album Aadat by Jal – I cannot help but recollect the past one year (rather more) that I spent in Mumbai. My first year of living – ‘on my own’ – not supported by a Hostel or home. Also my first year of living with friends – ‘on my own’ – on my own salary, in facilities organised and supported by myself. The beginning of the period in my life of what people term as ‘bachelor’s life’ – which continues still of course! The song ‘Aadat’ has a link to my ‘bachelor’s life’ – it is the song which both me and Somnath enjoy singing along as loudly as we could (probably to the horror and discomfort of our neighbours) and Sharad was most irritated to hear. The past one year was quite colourful, and apart from the three of us (Me, Somnath and Sharad) there were others who shared the apartment on-n-off. Pavan was with us from the day we dropped our luggage there – he was in for 4 months of his project stint. I

I don't think India was ever under a government madder and more incompetent than this !! Read this before you proceed: http://in.rediff.com/money/2006/aug/10cola3.htm The government is thinking of banning Cola Advertisements because a few Cola Bottles had pesticides found in them. After the utterly thoughtless banning of blog hosting sites , this is next paranoid decision of the so called 'intellectual lead' government!! This decision is ridiculous ! One, presence of pesticide in Colas reflects an utter failure of the government regulatory machinery in controlling proper standards of health in the drinking water and commercially usable water. Rather than accept this - the goverment is covering itself up by creating unecessary controversy with media (clearly knowing how much of revenue media houses generate from Cola advertisements). Two, I don't know why Mr. Ramadoss has this habit of always solving the wrong problem! Are we assuming that banning advertisement of Cola

My adventures for the day did not end with the take-off of the flight – which was uneventful however. On landing into Leon, as I handed over my passport to the officials – he gave me a suspicious look. I had known that there’d be trouble ever since they announced that they were diverting the flight to Leon, being well aware that Leon was in France and I did not have a Schengen Visa. But I had decided to play it – after all it was the air company’s headache, not mine – they were diverting the flight and planning to ply us by road to Geneva. So, this official curiously scrutinized my passport and then a list – which I suppose would be the list of countries whose nationals were allowed entry into France without a Visa. Had he known English, I would have spared him all the hard work by telling him that he will not find India in it; I had read about all these trespassing privileges just the day before (and out of curiosity looked for India as well in those lists of ‘allowed nationals’) w