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Socialism is immoralProtest the quota systemEnd entitlement benefits for freeloaders Support the death penalty for terrorists and anti-nationals |
| FAKE STINGS AND SECULAR GAMES: | |
| The deep rooted conspiracy to subvert the political process [link] |
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Friday, June 30, 2006 |
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Identify the farmer quiz | |
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Today let's celebrate 60 years of farmer suicides. Millions dead, an estimated 1,600 dead in the last 5 years in Vidarbha alone. The PM has most magnanimously announced a package (just like his predecessors have been announcing for the past 60 years). Meanwhile Shivam Vij of The Other Idiots has figured out the root cause. Did someone say moral hazard? Anyway, let's get back to the quiz.  Question: Which image above is that of an Indian farmer? (a) A (b) B (c) C (d) All of the above (e) None of the above [Answer] The correct answer is (d) all of the above. The commenter who got it wrong, no OBC certificate for you. According to a report, Amitabh Bachchan claimed farmer status. Arjun Singh's official bio states his profession as Farmer/Agriculturist, whatever that means. Basically if your mother has a small patch of kitchen garden where she grows mint or coriander herbs, you may be able to claim farmer status. Farmer status comes with a whole bunch of goodies, wonder if the real farmers know. This is the big problem in India. We have basically dumped pragmatism in the river Ganga. Ask this professor what two and two add up to. He will write some 100 posts on his blog and in the end accuse you of being biased.
posted by barbarindian at 10:11 PM Permalink
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Tuesday, June 27, 2006 |
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The 100 Billion Mark Bill | |
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 100 Billion Mark, Nov. 3 1923 City of Freital On November 1, 1923, 100 Billion Mark would buy 3 pounds of meat. Bread is 3 Billion Mark a loaf. On November 15, 100 Billion Mark would buy 2 glasses of beer. Bread is 80 Billion Mark a loaf.Economics Quiz: Which macro-economic phenomenon is on everyone's mind in India (perhaps elsewhere too) these days? [Answer] The answer is of course inflation, as several readers pointed out. Once again, no prizes, get yourself an OBC certificate. Inflation completely destroyed the common man in Germany in 1923. The very next year Hitler would write Mein Kampf. Well. Now, here is a curious piece of document we would like readers to look at:  Railway Minister Lalu Prasad paid over Rs 10 lakh to Indian Tourism Development Corporation's (ITDC's) Ashoka Hotel for his daughter's wedding.  Tomatoes: Rs. 50 per kg. Daal: Rs. 80 per kg. Hapless incompetent ministers scrambling to do damage control: priceless.
posted by barbarindian at 11:43 PM Permalink
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Monday, June 26, 2006 |
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If only we were allowed to make bets | |
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 Has anybody heard anything from Arjun Singh lately? Didn't think so. After the initial mass hysteria the quota stage was stormed by P. Chidambaram (*) and Dr. Ramadoss. Meira Kumar was not too far behind. After that - no more Arjun Singh. It was reminiscent of the who will be the PM musical chair competition after the last general elections.Well, looks like the dogfight has intensified. A tussle for credit on the quota issue has begun between HRD minister Arjun Singh and Social justice minister Meira Kumar. While on the face of it, Kumar's objection appears to be on a point of procedure, the riposte-in-making of the social justice ministry is seen as echoing the feelings of many in Congress, including those in top positions. (*) Frankly, the likes of Dr. Ramadoss and Meira Kumar are totally expendable. They add no value to the economy while gobbling up profuse amounts of bureaucratic largesse. What alarmed us was that during the period of total turmoil in the financial markets and in this sensitive stage of the Indian economy, important ministers like PC were busy doing social justice.
posted by barbarindian at 8:46 PM Permalink
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Sunday, June 25, 2006 |
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What a shameless idiot | |
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Dilip D'Souza has enabled moderation on his blog, in the fine tradition of communist censorship and Congress emergency. Here is a shameless self-plug: Edited to clean up a private personal reference. My policy is to keep it clean, I hope the Gandhians] This guy says premier institutes must have representation from rural India. This guy is peddling his ideas of egalitarianism and blogging till kingdom come about how the privileged people do not want people from the villages to take away their seats. Yet when it comes to his own turf, he does not want any competition from rural reporters. This is insane! This is what goes for socialism in our country. Of course he will keep his empire safe from encroachment while asking you and me to give up our hard earned money, our hard earned seats.
posted by barbarindian at 10:01 PM Permalink
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Saturday, June 24, 2006 |
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The Other Idiots exposed | |
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If reading the previous post gave you an uneasy feeling, you are not alone. Quite obviously there are big names involved here. We won't be surprised if there is a straight line connecting the guy who bankrolls The Other Idiots blog and the ruling party. For instance, take this comment by Shivam Vij: I don't think I am answerable to you, and neither are The Other India bloggers - ten of us by now. And I didn't get all of them together; Dilip invited me. Now, let us take a close look at this interesting graphic (source register.com):  Those commenters on the dcubed blog who are demanding the ouster of Shivam Vij from the Other Idiots site (see here, here and here) do not know what they are up against. Come on people, you are falling for it hook, line and sinker. The is no Other India! This is a very elaborate scam in preparation for a certain event in 2009. Shivam's claim as to Dilip invited him to blog on The Other Idiots site is like Manmohan Singh saying, "I didn't want to be in the Congress, much less be the PM, Soniaji invited me", which is more credible by the way. The ten bloggers at the Other India are just about down to four or five now. The rest scrammed as soon as they discovered the scam. Among the current members are some who wear the party- card like a badge. The rest are there for some form of freebies or prizes at essay competitions, government scholarships etc. As a matter of fact, the presence of one of them who is in the payroll of the Indian Government is highly questionable from an ethical standpoint, given the agenda of the site. But then again, upper class (*) people often tend to confuse between privilege earned versus privilege assumed. Heck, what were they thinking, they will put up a website and suddenly the net savvy youth will go all mushy and stampede the poll booths to vote for a certain party? As far as I can see, it is not going very well. [Update] Dilip D'Souza made a follow-up post, in response to the barrage of requests from his regular readers to take Shivam Vij out of The Other Idiots. The post is so mushy that we felt nauseated. In this post he also asks why so many of us do not use our real names. Well, Mr. D'Souza, blogging ain't our day job, that's why. So, we have no upside - no government scholarships, economic benefit, book contracts or jury-rigged blog mela awards waiting for us yet there is all the downside such as identity theft, spamming and for some even a possible loss of a lucrative job. By the way, he has also enabled comment moderation which is another way of saying, opposing views not welcome here. (*) There will be a follow up post on the Mythical Indian Middle class.
posted by barbarindian at 10:16 PM Permalink
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"Secular" party's attempt to create Hindu-Sikh rift foiled | |
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The blogosphere is slowly becoming a major leading indicator of the political environment. Take for instance The Other Idiots blog. The blog started sometime during the last quarter of 2005. [Who owns the show is a mystery given that the writer of the very first post and the owner of the blog domain name claims Dilip invited him to the site.] Around the same time Arjun Singh et al started plotting the assault on middle India. Up to this point the owner of the blog was a campaigner for anti-ragging and a much hated personality at the St. Stephen's college, New Delhi. Come January, the blog started a steady stream of pro-reservation posts, many of them coinciding with political moves related to the reservation drama. Did someone say insider? We didn't hear it. Take Dilip D'Souza's latest post. Please convince us that it fits into his recent chain of thoughts and posts. In this post Dilip claims that the late (i.e. someone who can not defend himself) Raja Ramanna had anti-Sikh feelings simultaneously with anti-Muslim beliefs! In the same post Dilip gingerly reveals that Raja Ramanna's brother had sheltered his Sikh neighbors from communal riots. Quiz time again: Which party caused, aided and abetted the 1984 riots between Sikhs and Hindus? Answer below (*) Now please take a look at this news item: Under attack from pro-Congress Sikh religious leaders here for her comments on the martyrdom of Guru Arjan Dev, senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj said she stood by her remarks that a Hindu courtier had little role in the execution of the fifth Guru ordered by Emperor Jehangir.See the cunning in Dilip's post. It was blood-thirsty Muslim Emperors who slaughtered the Guru. It was the Muslim Emperor who in the characteristic Islamic mould attempted to smother the great religion (along with other great religions) but it's all somehow the fault of Hindus! More surprising is the fact that Dilip and the Other Idiot bloggers seem to be amazingly prescient of every move by the ruling party. Fortunately for Sushma Swaraj and more importantly the rest of India, Sikhs were quick to call the bluff. Among those who supported Swaraj were: Noted Sikh scholars Mohinder Singh (Director, Bhai Veer Singh Sahitya Sadan) Mahip Singh (columnist) Manjit Singh (Leader, Akali Dal Panthak) Onkar Singh (General Secretary, The Shiromani Akali Dal) In other words, who's who of Sikhism. Who tried to fan the fire? Harvinder Singh Sarna (Chief, Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee) Dilip D'Souza A certain political party (*) Dilip's repeated attempts to create communal rifts makes us wonder if he is in the payroll of the ISI. Frankly, we wouldn't be surprised.
posted by barbarindian at 2:11 PM Permalink
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Friday, June 23, 2006 |
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Science Quiz | |
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An object placed in water displaces an amount of water whose weight equals that of the object. Who said this? (a) Archimedes (b) Dilip D'Souza (c) An Engineering graduate from BITS Pilani (d) This is a trick question (e) All of the above (f) None of the above [Answer] This is really a trick question. The above discovery was made by Dilip D'Souza when he took a dive into the Bombay rotary club swimming pool high on scotch whiskey. Dilip D'Souza is also an Engineering under-graduate from BITS Pilani and has a graduate degree in Computer Science from a US university. So the correct answer is (d). Of course there are no prizes, all we can give you is a link to some sites where they tell you how to get a fake OBC certificate. Dilip D'Souza realized his mistake since then and corrected it. We were a little surprised, because as far as we knew, the displacement of water is the least important side effect of what is known as the Archimedes principle. The principle takeaway is the force of buoyancy, which, among other things makes interesting things like boats, ships, cruise liners etc possible.
posted by barbarindian at 4:35 PM Permalink
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Guess the OBC game | |
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Question: Who is an OBC among the following: (a) Arjun Singh (b) Atal Bihari Bajpai (c) Rajnath Singh (Janata Dal Prez) (d) All of the above (e) None of the above [Scroll down for answer] Meanwhile, take a look at the following screenshot (*) from the Other Idiots site:  (*) The Other Idiots are notorious for randomly changing their URLs to mess up our posts. This is the reason our analysts almost gave up analyzing their posts. But we will be back. Many readers have complained about the dwindling number of analytical posts. We noticed that many bloggers have came back to the Other Idiots site, for instance Abi and Uma. Earlier we were requested not to analyze Uma's post as she was deemed non-partisan. Unfortunately based on some of her recent posts we can not guarantee her immunity from our analysts. [Answer] Heck if we knew. All we know is that there is a mad scramble among politicians to get OBC certificates. Apparently it is good for the political Karma. Read this story for more.
posted by barbarindian at 1:49 PM Permalink
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Wednesday, June 21, 2006 |
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Narayana Murthy flunks the Quota 101 Test | |
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Is Narayana Murthy a genius? An above average person? Opinions seem to be divided on this. In any case, he has flunked the basic Quota 101 test for sure. More importantly, he has proven himself to be a total political greenhorn and a PR disaster. "India must be the only country in the world, where people fight to be called backward" - Narayan Murthy. Excuse me Sir, but are you Clint Eastwood? You may have made billions, put India on the front burner of the globalized economy etc. etc. but how can you be so naive about the political environment under your very nose? That statement is gonna cost you. A year after the social justice ministry gave a list of 100 SC/ST engineers from top institutes to industry chambers, Infosys has finally come up with a concrete plan to train them and "provide them with sufficient skills to enable them to compete on their own merit". How many Employees does Infy have today? About 50,000? Please do some quick Math. How much is 22.5% of that? 11,250. Correct! How much is 27% of 50,000? 13,500. Correct again! You want to give away just 100 seats? What is this, some sort of charity? Don't you remember your ancestors robbed all these people for 3000 years? Now, don't you act coy or you are gonna get it real bad. How dare you talk about merit? What is merit anyway? You think you are a hotshot? It does not work that way in India. Here is what else you have to do. Each time Infy wants to recruit, you will have to send a notice to the labor department. The labor department will check out the scenario. No funny stuff, Ok? Until you have rounded up 22.5 Dalits and 27 OBCs for every 100 positions, the new recruits will NOT start work. Is that clear? Good. Remember that Aunty Meira will be watching you, so will Dr. Ramadoss and PC. Why are you whining? Azim Premji? Yeah, he also issued a bravura statement. So what? What is Mr. Premji's religion again? Yeah, you are slowly getting it. And, what is yours? Yep. Just what we thought. What is your caste again? You don't believe in caste? How does it matter whether you believe in caste or not, because we do. The constitution does too, don't you know?
posted by barbarindian at 9:30 PM Permalink
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Monday, June 19, 2006 |
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The Quota and the Cup | |
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 People can't seem to get enough of Veerappa Moily, the enforcer of the new quota regime. See Abi drooling over Moily's management skills here.Committee chairman M Veerappa Moily says, "The soccer World Cup selection goes to show that when weaker sections are given equal opportunity and access as other sections of the society, hidden talent emerges. It also broadens talent base and facilitates diversity." In a note circulated during the committee's meetings, the implementation of the proposed quota system is compared to the zonal representation practised by soccer's governing body, FIFA. Can't beat this. Goooooaaaaaaaaaal! [Update] Since we posted this, Moily's comment was widely discussed in the blogosphere and the media. Rashmi Bansal made a satire on her blog: An expert committee has noted that in the last 76 years, India has not been represented in the finals of the FIFA World Cup. This is a gross injustice considering that we represent 16.66% of the world population. From TOI (Oranges and Apples): There are, indeed, a number of parallels. One could think of the way parties have made the caste issue a political football, the goalpost they're all aiming at being some fraction of the OBC vote. Financial Express (Eh, Mr Moily? Don't twist opportunity into outcome): In sum, the football World Cup is actually an advertisement for critics of caste quotas as used in India. Promoting equality of opportunity and abilities to compete is unexceptionable; decreeing particular outcomes quite another. For meaningful debate, distinguish the two.
posted by barbarindian at 10:43 PM Permalink
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Sunday, June 18, 2006 |
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Rama Doss AIIMS | |
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 We have been following the AIIMS drama with great interest, partly because it is slowly becoming a microcosm of the TN communal politics. What we have is a showdown between an MBBS Doctor (quota beneficiary) turned Minister (profiled here) and a widely respected visionary (profiled on the RealityCheck blog here).Dr. Ramadoss is running amock through the AIIMS campuses like a pitbull in heat with his instrument in his hand, penetrating every soft spot he finds. What does the Government have against centres of excellence in education? Going by the systematic campaign of vendetta and vilification unleashed against select centres of learning by powerful Ministers of the UPA Government, it would seem that the ruling alliance has decided to launch an Indian version of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution. During that so-called Revolution, China's then supreme leader let loose thousands of illiterate lumpens masquerading as Red Guards on institutions of higher learning, humiliated scholars and men of culture, made bonfires of rare books and ancient manuscripts and directed university students to pack their bags and go to villages under the slogan "learn from the peasants". Welcome to the 21st Century, India.
posted by barbarindian at 1:53 AM Permalink
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Wednesday, June 14, 2006 |
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Funny Story 69 and the Google ticker | |
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 Funny Story Sixty-Nine is a Thai movie. A movie out of Thailand with 69 in the title is sure to make your imaginations run wild. This movie is pretty tame by the way. Nope, not even that, in case you are wondering.So, how is this relevant? Glad you asked. Remember the SC ruling that quotas shall not exceed 50% of total seats? Well, apparently Tamil Nadu has unilaterally decided that it does not need to pay heed to the SC directive. Backward classes have 69% of seats specially reserved for them. How does TN pull it off? Here is a blog that attempts to explain it. We could not really make any sense out of it except that TN has shown its middle finger to the SC through some complex legal maneuvering. Apparently this drama has been going on since 1994. Remember the Google ticker? The one that you see when you log on to gmail?  Well, it looks like we could affix a ticker of the same kind on the walls of the offices of Hon'ble Minister for Social Justice Smt. Meira Kumar. After securing quotas for her half-dalit kids, she is now trying to increase the 15% quota for SCs to 16.23%. In a move that may further fuel the quota controversy, the Social Justice and Empowerment Ministry is 'favourably' considering raising reservations for Scheduled Castes from the existing 15 per cent to 16.23 per cent following the increase in their population.This is alarming because if the population of certain segments increase at a very high rate, there is potentially no end to it. This happened in the past already. A draft proposal for this points out that the quota, pegged at 12.5 per cent in 1953, was raised to 15 per cent in 1970 in light of the 1961 Census. Funny thing is, now an entire religion will be officially considered scheduled caste, i.e. implicitly a part of the Hindu community. Guess which one? Besides the increase in population, Kumar said as many as 68 more castes and one religion - Buddhism - have been included in the SC category, resulting in an increase in numbers.I wonder how the Japanese will react to this!
posted by barbarindian at 11:21 PM Permalink
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The big bang | |
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 Folks in the blogosphere still continue to remain optimistic about the reservation issue.The fate of the country was sealed the very day the parliament almost unanimously passed a law intended to enforce the OBC reservations in the central institutes. It may be a matter of debate whether this was a well planned and coordinated step by the party in power to ensure a win in the next general elections or whether it was a case of one minister gone berserk and others having to gingerly play along. What is not open to debate or negotiations is the outcome. Let us assert once again:
As noted earlier, the overlook committee is making a great show of work being done. While admitting that for maximum impact of 27% quota for OBCs the "ideal step would be to implement reservation in one big bang", he suggests that due to cost and efforts needed "staggering the implementation process could be considered".Ideal for whom? This is what the suggested staggered implementation will look like: IITs/IIMs/AIIMS from academic year 2007-08Clearly, not much of a stagger there. The prized seats are in IITs/IIMs/AIIMS. The reader may recall that the reservations in unaided private institutes were eliminated following the landmark judgement in the Inamdar case. Moily can speak about this so casually because several constitutional amendments are in the pipeline. It is a very pertinent question whether it makes sense for the barbarians to continue blogging. Well, it does. First of all, the communists continue to provide solid entertainment. Secondly, we are sort of curious about where this is going. How far can it get? Any guesses? Meanwhile several private efforts to collect statistics are going on. Blogger Vivek Kumar and a few volunteers are trying to digitize the original Mandal commission report. There is another effort led by blogger RealityCheck to collect reports of various commissions. Please help if you can.
posted by barbarindian at 12:15 AM Permalink
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Sunday, June 11, 2006 |
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Acting like an upper-caste | |
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 15-Year old Penny was just another black kid growing up in the inner-city. Her single mother worked two jobs to make ends meet. Penny buried herself in books. Soon she became an honor roll student.One day, on her way back from the Church choir, Penny was surrounded by a dozen or so black teen males. They hurled abuses at her, accused her of "acting white". The next two hours were quite predictably very traumatic for Penny, the two hours she would try to shake off from her mind for as long as she lived.... You think something like that couldn't happen? Smart black students being accused of "acting too white" is an issue Triangle educators are debating at a youth and race conference this week. "They can get high grades but they don't want to because they'll be considered as acting white, so they put white people down," Guzman said. Are you saying it can happen only in America? You think that standing on the other side of the reservation issue is going to get everybody in this society to see you as a Forward Caste and hence superior. Is that what you are trying to achieve??The above was a comment on the popular YouthCurry blog. If you are tempted to dismiss it as noise, here is more stuff: Some IITtians who have benefited from reservation have declared that they will not accept reservation for their kids. Through such private acts of self respect, despite their best intentions, they down grade themselves from the bearers of a right to lucky beneficiaries of a favour. They must reaslie the need to back up these acts with a public commitment to raise the self respect of their caste. In other words giving up one's right should not be a tactic to conceal the caste origin of one's kids!The comment above, as quoted in the nanopolitan blog, was by none other than Professor. V. Sanil, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at IIT-D. Apparently he emailed it to all his students. In the end he asks, how many SC/ST friends have you got? This is funny. So, if an SC/ST tries to work hard and secure a seat on his own, he is trying to kiss up to upper-castes. How in the world will an SC/ST ever want to make friends outside his caste circles if such attitudes begin to take root? Does your question make any sense, you moron? Wait, there is more, not just another loony professor going off on a tangent. Younger generation from backward classes have a misconception that they would become members of upper castes through their anti-stand towards backward communities. So they raise their voice against reservation in IIT and IIM, he said.Above comment was by the former chairman of Permanent Commission for Backward Classes Prof Ravivarma kumar. We can see clearly what is happening here. SC/ST or OBC students who make it on their own seriously dampen the credibility of the claim of need for reservations. Besides it is quite anti-climactic for the pro-quota guys when these students join the anti-quota protests. They are spoiling the free-luncheon parties of the freeloaders. Hence the vitriol. Can it get any uglier than this?
posted by barbarindian at 8:28 PM Permalink
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Saturday, June 10, 2006 |
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North vs. South | |
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 Blogger RealityCheck believes that when the 27% quota floodgates open up for OBCs in premier institutes, it will be a clean sweep by Southern OBCs, especially the powerful OBC lobby of TN. The OBCs from the south (esp TN) will cream the hapless OBCs from Bihar and render the whole system useless. Do you really think a Kurmi from Bihar can compete with the Pillais and Mudaliars of Tamilnadu (who are into their 4th generation medical professions) ? Well, we are not too sure of that. First of all, we are talking powerful OBCs like Yadavs here. Yes, the Southern OBCs are probably a little more sophisticated as demonstrated by PC's gift of gab. But don't you ever underestimate the North, especially Bihar. Remember the ease with which Laloo swept the 800 crores loot from the fodder scam under the carpet? If betting weren't illegal, we would be taking out bets on which OBC lobby, the powerful OBCs from the South or the powerful OBCs from Bihar ends up cornering the lions share of the loot. I don't need your civil war
It feeds the rich while it buries the poor Your power hungry sellin' soldiers In a human grocery store Ain't that fresh I don't need your civil war
posted by barbarindian at 7:05 PM Permalink
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The glass is half full | |
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 54% Hindu upper-caste folks believe reservations will lead to equal opportunities. Ok, so what happened to the casteist ba****ds here? If the majortity of Hindu upper-caste members believe in reservations and strongly support it, doesn't the credibility of workplace discriminations go out the door? Of course, the barbarians are a small minority group even within the minority (12%) upper-caste group who believe that all reservations should be done away with and Article 15 restored to version 1.0 (yeah, the 3 clause pre-first amendment version) . Now, another interesting graphic:  32% OBCs do not believe that reservations create equal opportunity. The percentage of OBCs is a max of 52%. Hence, the percentage of OBCs in the total population that may require reservations (of course, some of them will say they need it anyway, like Dr. Ramadoss), is about 35%. Recall that the estimated percentage of OBCs in premier educational institutes is about 23.5% (for IITs the figure is quoted between 8 and 20% depending on which side you are). Even without factoring out the Ramadoss types, we have a very minor shortfall in OBC representation. As opportunities increase and the economy expands (which is beginning to look less and less likely with all the communist speak), this shortfall will decrease and ultimately disappear. Sadly, we will still continue to have reservations.
posted by barbarindian at 6:05 PM Permalink
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Friday, June 09, 2006 |
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Iodine for all | |
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 Chillao, chillao! Tere ghar me maa behen nahin hain kya? Dr. Anubumani Ramadoss, our Hon'ble Minister for Health and Family welfare could give Amrish Puri a run for his money. Dr. Ramadoss hails from a family of doctors. He attended Madras Medical College. It is a mute point whether he used the OBC quota to secure his admission. His biodata lists his profession as Medical Practitioner. Contrast this with the official biodata of Sri Arjun Singh, who lists his profession as Agriculturist/Farmer. Incidentally Arjun Singh is also a B.A., LL.B. Educated at Allahabad University and Agra University. Dr. Ramadoss has three daughters. As a progressive citizen and a national leader for Family Welfare, shouldn't he set an example in family planning and more importantly in rejecting preference for a male child? Well, we should not speculate on that one, after all accidents do happen. In the recent times, Dr. Ramadoss has been providing a helping hand to his colleague, Hon'ble Minister for Social Justice Smt. Meira Kumar. Among other things, he vehemently opposes the creamy layer provision. "There is no mention of creamy layer in the Constitution and we follow the law of the land," he told a private TV channel. So, what makes him an expert on economic policies? Attended the course on Introductory Macro Economics at the London School of Economics (L.S.E.) in 2003 (scroll down to the very bottom). Among his stellar achievements is a push for increasing Iodine consumption in India. ON June 15, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Anbumani Ramadoss declared the re-imposition of the ban on the sale of non-iodised salt meant for human consumption. Well, Hon'ble minister, we will need lots of Iodine after your quota salvos albeit in a different form. 
posted by barbarindian at 10:43 AM Permalink
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What! Me worry about market forces? | |
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"If they leave everything to market forces, why do we have a Government? What is the responsibility of the Government and anyway, who are these market forces?" Communist Party of India leader D Raja said. Exactly. Who are these market forces? Government should regulate everything, especially what the phat upper-caste girls eat. They eat too much and don't exercise enough! Why change? Why liberalize? Why reform? Everything has been going fine for us. We have been winning elections.
posted by barbarindian at 10:09 AM Permalink
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Thursday, June 08, 2006 |
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A rabid dog chasing its own tail | |
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 Former external affairs minister Natwar Singh has alleged that the UPA Government and some Congress leaders are trying to fix him and his son Jagat Singh in the Iraqi oil-for-food scam. Natwar made this allegation, which could greatly embarrass the UPA Government. Under severe attack from various quarters, including the Congress party, the government said the new form introduced for filing Income Tax returns would be dropped from next year. The Government today denied that it would reduce the revised fuel prices and began an exercise to "hardsell" the hike to protesting parties and states. But the option of a rollback remains open given pressure from the Left allies and even from within the Congress. Sounds like a serious case of schizophrenia. There is no leadership, the facetime awarded to the PM and Cong leadership has been miniscule compared to what was awarded to virtual non-entities like Arjun Singh. Meanwhile SENSEX appears to be all set for a bungee jump. Exchange rates are shooting through the roof. Hot money is disappearing. Who knows that the deficit is like? There is evidence of central bank interventions of the kind that collapsed Argentina recently. Here, you wanna help dada tie a rope around this rock? We'll tie it to her footsie then we'll roll her off the dock Ready now, here we go, on the count of free.. One.. two.. free.. WHEEEEEE!
posted by barbarindian at 11:17 AM Permalink
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Stray Dog | |
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 Stray Dog is a lesser known Kurosawa film. In this movie, we see Toshiro Mifune go in a hot pursuit of a murderer. Anyway, this blog is not about movies."SC/ST people are like street dogs in our department" - Vasudevan Amudavel, ISRO scientist The Chairman of the National Scheduled Caste Commission, Suraj Bhan, feels that premier scientific research centres like Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) should be opened up for reservations for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes. Does caste-based discrimination truly exist in Indian workplaces and institutes? We don't know. But one thing is for sure, after this reservation fiasco, anywhere an SC/ST or an OBC is denied a promotion or a raise, he is going to cry foul. Consider this: you are T.A. Abinandanan's colleague at IISc. You have two Ph.D. candidates, a brilliant upper-caste boy and a Dalit boy who had availed reservations throughout his career. He is good too, but you still decide to give the more coveted research topic to the upper-caste boy. Abinandanan will go after you like a rabid dog. Already we have automatic promotions for SC/STs in many Government organizations. How do American companies tackle this issue? Well, they pre-emptively promote a certain number of minorities in all sorts of visible positions. So, if a minority claims that he was denied a promotion, the company counters by saying another minority holds a similar position. It creates a few problems: a) In a number of cases a perfectly deserving white male is passed over for promotion b) In the pre-emptive promo cases, many undeserving minorities get rewarded c) When a truly deserving minority is denied promotion, there is little chance of redressal It is truly a mess. I think we have ushered in an era of true discrimination, allegations, lawsuits etc. When reservations get in, objectivity goes out the door. Expect a lot of barking and gnawing at your workplaces.
posted by barbarindian at 8:08 AM Permalink
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Wednesday, June 07, 2006 |
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We learned from the best | |
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posted by barbarindian at 12:59 AM Permalink
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Tuesday, June 06, 2006 |
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Thanks, Hon'ble Finance Minister | |
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 Quiz: How many ministers for social justice do we have? We don't know the answer, but it appears that more than half the cabinet (except perhaps Kapil Sibal) are busy uplifting Dalits. Abi asks an important question, what is the role of the National Knowledge Commission? That's our question too, what is the role of a Finance minister? Defense minister? How about Commerce and Industry minister? How about Chief ministers of several states? Meanwhile the SENSEX breaks new milestones everyday. India could free upto $48 billion of capital a year or 7% of GDP. This could raise the country's real GDP growth to 9.4% a year, a McKinsey research study titled Accelerating India's Growth Through Financial System Reform, said. We understand that the Hon'ble Minister for Social Justice, Smt. Meira Kumar needs a helping hand as she is too busy enacting laws for the upliftment of her own kids, but how about the country dude? Don't be so idealistic. Just accept the fact that quotas are here to stay, learn to live with them. - P Chidambarm to AIIMS students.
posted by barbarindian at 11:35 AM Permalink
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Monday, June 05, 2006 |
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Smug little bast***s | |
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Shivam Vij rejected the marriage proposal, read here. Though he wouldn't elaborate, he categorized his post under married and not looking. Is he married? He goes to school and by his own admission is looking for a job. We wouldn't be surprised, if you have a big estate coming to you, you don't need a job to get married. I am convinced beyond doubt that the real reason why most people are protesting against reservations is because their own seats are hurt, their own prospects are hurt (or may be they are not, especially since the government is increasing seats, but perception can be as devastating as reality when it comes to middle class insecurity). Yeah, right! The symptoms are all there, illusion of living in a bygone era when the gents in their breeches and the ladies with their fancy hats would gather for a tete-a-tete in the country club. The conversation would invariably turn towards the boorish middle class, someone would comment: middle class mentality! and everyone else would burst into peels of laughter. Yeah, those were the days. These bastards, the self-styled elites, ministers' kids and their psycophants, want to keep that club exclusive. One of them recently ODed. Another, a pilot's son, is being carefully groomed to make his appearence just before the 2009 general election to overwhelm 500 million hungry Dalits and MBCs into genuflecting before the neo-God. The French aristocrats at least had some right to be disdainful of the nouveau riche. They were polished, they read and understood literature, appreciated fine wine and music. The pseudo-elites of our socialistic economy are basically progenies of thugs who have been busy robbing our country. They reject any notion that we can make progress, because progress means transparency. If there is one thing that these leeches hate, it is the availability of data. 21st Century has put the likes of these at great danger of obsolescence. Therefore they are busy convincing everyone that will listen that he is backward. All the medicos wanted was a fair deal, analysis of data and stats and some sense of reason and logic behind a far-reaching system. All they objected to is the notion that a system is right because a minister's life lessons tells him so. Just for this they got lathicharged, tear-gassed and water-cannoned. Of course the country club types got a huge kick out of this, see, I told you, middle-class mentality!
posted by barbarindian at 10:20 PM Permalink
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Sunday, June 04, 2006 |
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The Quota net widens | |
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Not just IITs, IIMs, AIIMS, over 100 more institutes, public and private, in 27% OBC quota net: from Pune's Symbiosis to TIFR, Manipal to BITS. Arjun Singh's latest Bill proposal. On May 29, the very day the Supreme Court observed that quotas can divide the nation and asked the Government to explain its rationale behind the 27% OBC quotas, HRD Minister Arjun Singh further tightened the quota screws on the higher-education sector, both public and private. It was just a matter of time. This also includes all private institutes. Some of the institutes that will be affected if the new bill passes are: IIFT, NSD, TISS, TIFR, BIT-Mesra, BITS Pilani etc. Institutions, aided and unaided by the Government, and deemed to be universities will now be "Central educational institutions" to which the above percentages will apply. More importantly: There will be a "differential fee structure" for SC/ST/OBC students to make "reservation a meaningful reality." The Centre can specify what the difference in fees should be. Just who will foot the bill for the Dalits/OBCs in the private institutes? Or is it that the general category students will have to bear the cost? Any guesses as to when the wealth of all privileged people will be confiscated by the Government and distributed among the disadvantaged?
posted by barbarindian at 10:50 PM Permalink
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Breaking News: Quota for Meira Kumar's kids | |
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In the previous post, we proposed a matrimonial alliance between Hon'ble Minister for Social Justice & Empowerment Meira Kumar's third daughter Devangna and Shivam Vij. It would be a perfect alliance. It has been hotly debated and discussed whether Hon'ble Minister for Social Justice & Empowerment Smt. Meira Kumar's kids are eligible for any form of reservations. Well, speculate no more. The social justice and empowerment ministry wants to grant the status of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes to children who have a non-SC/ST father but a mother who belongs to SC/ST category. At present, the father's caste determines the caste of the children since Indian society is largely patriarchal. Confirming the move, a senior ministry official said, "A proposal to this effect will be placed before the Cabinet for approval shortly. It will allow the child of a non-SC/ST father and SC/ST mother to claim all quota benefits, specially allowances. One more reason for Shivam to ask for the hand of the fair Ms. Devangna, although a wrinkle to the story would be whether one-fourth SC/STs can still lay claim to quotas. More to follow: OBC quota for half-OBCs, one-time tax credit of Rs. 5000/- for marrying a Dalit woman and Rs. 1000/- for marrying an OBC woman. Issues: Concerns remain about whether one-fourth or even one-eighth Dalits/OBCs can claim quotas. A more contentious issue is whether upper-caste spouses of Dalits/OBCs themselves should be considered eligible. The latter point will be hotly debated. Update on issues: One more concern has come to light. What about spouses and children of those who marry animals? We already discussed some of the implications in this post. Upper-caste folks, no need to forge that caste certificate. You can lay claim to the great Indian quota system through legitimate routes. Resources: OBC Matrimonial Dalit Matrimonial
posted by barbarindian at 10:38 AM Permalink
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Saturday, June 03, 2006 |
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Barbarindian plays the matchmaker | |
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 Readers, remember this face. This face will come back to haunt you for the next several decades. More on this later, since we haven't quite given up on the reservation issue in the education sector. But we must confess that the outlook is gloomy at best, just like the skies at Barbarindian headquarters.Meet Hon'ble Minister for Social Justice & Empowerment Smt. Meira Kumar. Here is her official resume. Apparently she married an upper-caste man and hence her children are not eligible for reservations. If you carefully read her resume, you will notice that she has an unmarried daughter: Devangna. We like the name. What does Devangna mean? Body part of God? Perhaps this is a matter of semantic and not that important. Let us now introduce Mr. Shivam Vij, prolific writer of several blogs, including National Highway and The Other Idiots. Mr. Vij aka Amar Akbar Anthony comes from a long lineage of die-hard Congress supporters and beneficiaries of our socialistic economy. At the moment he is enrolled as a student in the prestigious St. Stephen's college, New Delhi. There has been allegations that it was his papa's donations that paved his way into the said institution. Mr. Vij is a champion of Dalit rights. He believes that much of India's problems lies in the practice of endogamy. So, the Barbarians propose a match between Mr. Vij and the fair Ms. Devangna. The Bride: Devangna (SC/Dalit). Comes from an illustrious family. Well educated. The Groom: Shivam. Comes from a well-to-do well-connected family. St. Stephen's. Champion of Dalit causes. Appeared on TV for a microsecond. Applaud please.
posted by barbarindian at 11:25 PM Permalink
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Stalling Tactics | |
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 In the previous posts we expressed our scepticism as to whether anything positive can come out of the oversight committee. Actually, it should really be called overlook committee because its prime responsibility is to ignore all available statistics gathered by the Government's own statistics generation machinery. Perhaps spooked by the constant chatter about TN reservations and by the militant statements by Ramadoss etc., the Government decided to make Veerrappa Moily the head of the committee. It is merely a tactic to stave off some pressure. Keep in mind that Moily comes from basically the same school of thought. Quotas are exploited to the hilt in Karnataka.As expected, one of the objectives of the committee is to lie low and bide as much time as possible. So, what kind of timelines are we looking at? Current status: The panel has already met twice. June 8: Moily will hold discussions with the members of the sub-committees. July 31: Five sub-committees constituted by him on the issue will submit their reports. August 31: The panel will put forward its recommendations to the government. (End of summer vacation in most schools?) September-: Admission process in IIMs begins with 27% quota for OBCs. The discussions for capacity expansion plan has not even entered the picture yet. It will take at least six months and several other committees to draw a realistic plan for a massive 53% capacity increase. Six months for floating tenders, around eight months for construction. We are talking best case scenario here. Then of course comes the biggest catch, where will the prized faculty come from? Allow us to speculate once more, the only way it can happen is if they upgrade several colleges. For instance, many NITs become IITs, many RECs become NITs and so on and so forth (*). Likewise, FMS, XLRI, XIMB etc. could become IIM equivalents etc. Come next year the quotas will be implemented. New surveys, OBC re-classifications etc. will be rendered a mute point by then. If history is any guide, these quotas will never be repealed. (*) This could be a great strategy to gradually increase our education system output, if and only if it was done in the right manner. For details on which colleges could be potential winners, check out Rashmi Bansal's post on college rankings.
posted by barbarindian at 9:05 PM Permalink
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Reservation Rap | |
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Listen to it here. Not really our most favorite genre, but still.
posted by barbarindian at 8:44 PM Permalink
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Friday, June 02, 2006 |
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Gimme seats | |
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Abi, we have a question for you. Your name Abinandanan, does it mean, like, Abinandan's son? And if so, will your son be called Abinandananan? No? Well never mind. Actually that's not what we wanted to ask you. What's with this obsession with Chinese women's bust size, breasts in general, underage kids, brain scans of gays and lesbians etc. man? Why don't you stick to what you do best, i.e. cutting and pasting every conceivable piece of tripe ever written supporting reservations? Also, how about some quality control? The crappola you served in your latest post really made us gag. Man, what a stinker. Anyway. We are thankful to Dr. Bruno (the prolific commenter on Abi's blog). He is giving us new insights into the minds of the gimme seats lobby on a daily basis. Will the seats in General Pool increase or decrease due to Creamy Layer . NO... No increase or no decrease. Why then is the forward caste lobby asking for Creamy Layer..... Forward Castes have no right in this section.... Er, doc, apparently the forward castes don't seem to have any rights in any section these days. We are much amused at the blogosphere's reaction to the oversight committee. We stand by our original prediction - one shot implementation of the 27% quota. The funny part will be how they handle the creamy layer and the 53% increase in the seats. Note: As always, we see an emergence of armchair statisticians on both sides. The 1999 data, the most current available that was generated by the statistics department of the Government puts the OBC percentage at 32% (while the OBC percentage in colleges is estimated at 23.5%). So, how good is the data? Check out: sample size calculator. Plug in the values for population (say 1 billion), a confidence level and a confidence interval you like. You may be surprised.
posted by barbarindian at 11:16 PM Permalink
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Shoummo, while you're right that there's probably not enough news about rural India in our papers, I'm not so sure it requires the papers to actually have "rural reporters" on their staff. That Cal daily you're talking about, last time I checked some years ago (I used to get it at home here in Bom) did make an attempt to have some serious news, often about rural India. (And I promise you -- saying so has nothing to do with the fact that I won one of those rural reporting award a few years ago).