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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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Sunday, February 25, 2007 |
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Suicide Solution | |
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 Vidharbha sits on a suicide volcano. Wine is fine but whiskey's quicker Suicide is slow with liquor Take a bottle and drown your sorrows Then it floods away tomorrows cause you feel like you're living a lie Such a shame who's to blame and you're wondering why Then you ask from your cask is there life after birth What you sow can mean hell on this earth From Suicide Solution, Ozzy Osbourne.
posted by barbarindian at 12:48 PM Permalink
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Saturday, February 24, 2007 |
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It's a free country! | |
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 India has secured the rather enviable rank of 104 on the Economic Freedom Index 2007, just above Ivory Coast. We improved our score a couple of points from 2006, from 52.3 to 55.6. Read the details on India here.According to the Heritage Foundation, a score below 60 is "mostly unfree". Meanwhile take a look at this new
posted by barbarindian at 3:28 PM Permalink
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Monday, February 19, 2007 |
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Burn | |
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The sky is red, I dont understand, Past midnight I still see the land. People are sayin the woman is damned, She makes you burn with a wave of her hand. Warning came, no one cared. Earth was shakin, we stood and stared. When it came no one was spared. Still I hear burn! From Burn by Deep Purple.
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Sunday, February 18, 2007 |
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60 years of ...... | |
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posted by barbarindian at 8:19 PM Permalink
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Trash Talk | |
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 Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav's brother-in-law and RJD MP in Rajya Sabha, Sabhash Yadav sees a villain in the media, which, he thinks, unnecessarily raised a hue and cry over the ticketless travelling episode of his father Shiv Prasad Choudhary and mother Sripati Devi in the AC-I coach of the Sampark Kranti Express recently.Meet Mr. Socialist, a quintessential specimen of the freeloader community. No sense of right or wrong. Not very sharp either, inadvertently admits wrongdoing by mentioning a completely unrelated incident. Weaned on state largesse. A big mouth and a giant sucking sound. He is an MP for no better reason than he happens to be the Bro-in-law of Lalu. The media targets his parents! Imagine that! Ticketless travel is the birthright of his ilk. Must be a conspiracy. Tickets? What are they? I want my free seat! Slurp slurp slurp! Brahmans hurting my daddy and mommy! It's a conspiracy! Awwwww! Fuckin' scum.
posted by barbarindian at 3:59 PM Permalink
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Friday, February 16, 2007 |
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Funny | |
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 The cover from The Economist Feb 3rd Issue (subscription required).Plenty of fun watching the socialists scurrying about, talking of import duty reduction which must be blasphemous for them. Faced with the rising discontent over price rise, the government was on Thursday forced to offer a placebo reducing petrol and diesel prices by Rs 2 and Re 1 respectively. [...]Inflation now clocking at a healthy 6.72%.
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OBC Trash | |
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posted by barbarindian at 12:11 AM Permalink
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Wednesday, February 14, 2007 |
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Movie Review: Guru | |
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 No, this isn't a poster from the recent Mani Ratnam flick Guru (official site). I just thought this picture was kind of cool. I was quite high when I watched this film. There was a dance sequence like this in the beginning of the movie, performed by Mallika Sherawat.This is really not a review in the conventional sense. Despite being quite high, I was able to register the theme and generally follow the storyline. I must say I was quite surprised by what I saw. Be forewarned though, I can not guarantee what follows will not spoil the movie for you. Just to make this warning foolproof: SPOILERS AHEAD A few scenes that registered strongly in my mind, apart from the one I already mentioned. There was a scene in which the Guru character is about to skip town (or village or hamlet if you prefer), leaving behind his newly wed wife. Now, I don't know many men who would leave behind a spouse who looks like Aishwarya Rai. The Vidya Balan kissing scene, strongly performed. I checked out the buzz on the internet. A certain socialist blogger didn't like the item number since it wasn't filmed in Gujarat. Someone ought to tell her that large portions of the movie was shot in Karnataka. Also, her favorite Anjaani Anjaana was shot in Fisherman's Cove which is nowhere near Calcutta, where the film Yuva was set. A western critic likened the movie to Citizen Kane. Another western critic called Guru the most interesting movie ever made about polyester. The People's paper resented Mani Ratnam's departure from his left-leaning stance. A southern commie paper claims the Ash-Abhi engagement had an opportunistic timing, just before the release of the film. The remarkable thing about Guru is that this is perhaps the only mainstream movie ever to come out of India which depicts the process of wealth creation in such a positive light. Added to the fact that it was made by arguably the most mainstream of directors (Ratnam is said to have invented item numbers), this is a real milestone. Come to think of it, all we had so far in terms of strong personality were gangsta flicks. Businessmen have always been protrayed in the worst possible stereotypes. In the seventies when a gentleman businessman was something of an absurdity, he would always be the owner of the neighborhood Kirana shop. He would be partially bald, paunchy, mustachioed and a known miser. This gentleman would then attempt to molest the lead female character. In the later decades the sophisticated businessman came in. Only now he was a smuggler. In any case, these characters were never central to the story, which would invariably be about its middle class protagonists and their chasing of a mediocre dream. In recent times, somewhat more realistic portraits of industrialists bring out their darkest side. For instance the movie Corporate. There is no redemption in the movie, business and morality do not mix. They don't even touch each other on the fringes. Businessmen as shown in that movie are promiscuous, have no regards to consumers. They bribe ministers and have no qualms about getting close family members killed. To top it all, all of them have all these evil characteristics in equal proportions! Guru changed all that, in one fell sweep. Capitalism has almost a starring role in that movie. There is no ambiguity about where the director's sympathies lie. A young man from a remote town (or village or hamlet, if you prefer) dares to dream and boy, does he dream big! Loosely based on the life of the late business tycoon Dhirubhai Ambani, the movie is an indictment to the soullessness of the socialists. It also exposes what an absurd regime we had in those days. Basically you couldn't carry out any economic activity without running afoul of the law. How in the hell were these socialists hoping to feed the country? By singing Raghupati Raghava non-stop? I read somewhere recently that the top bracket marginal tax during Nehru's time was as much as 98%. That's exactly how you end up with 300 million hungry dalits and OBCs. The Guru character did take ample liberties with the law and these were shown. being a shrewed director Mani Ratnam intersperses these with the Vidya Balan scenes so that we are constantly distracted. He also whitewashes the sins with an ancient Indian trick. You see, in India you just need to elevate a person to the level of a demigod. Hence the rather curious title - Guru. By the end of the movie, the Guru character is already a God. This dilates the believability and morality nerves in the Indian public. You can safely end the movie on that note. The popular success of the movie makes me optimistic that perhaps the moral default of socialism no longer holds true. To paraphrase the tagline of the movie, people are beginning to realize that dreams do not come true in a socialistic economy.
posted by barbarindian at 7:45 PM Permalink
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Monday, February 05, 2007 |
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Inflation? Gandhi says suck it! | |
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Our most Hon'ble PM recently asked us to vote for Congress for a better future. The question that almost jumps out of that soundbite is, a better future for whom exactly? As you know, the country is rather taken up with inflation. Sagarika Ghosh did a special report on inflation. In it she asks the question, is the Government doing enough to contain inflation? The right question to ask would be, is the public doing enough to protect their own interest? She could also ask intellectuals like her hubby if they prostituted themselves to elect a regime over and over again that got us nowhere. We are still talking about Gujarat. We are still haggling over Alu-Pyaj ka bhao. Anyway, let's proceed with the coverage. The CNN-IBN correspondent asks a well to do looking woman about the price of groceries. She nonchalanctly says - I guess it could hurt the poor. Lot of speculation about price rise. A specialist says it is a supply side problem. Oh, how profound! He also says oil price has something to do with it. Oil prices went way down. I guess he didn't get the memo. Perhaps he did get the memo, that was the FM's theory a few months ago. Next, the correspondent asks a humble looking woman what she feels about the price rise. She is pretty irate. Her daughter is next to her. Cute girl with an intelligent sparkle in her eyes, she knows she is being filmed. Would she go to IIT through the OBC quota? Clearly deserving if you ask me.  Meanwhile Reliance stores are doing brisk business. The store is jampacked. The quality is good too, a woman says. No wonder, the prices at Reliance Fresh are about a third to half less than the prevailing sabjiwala prices. A Reliance executive explains that they are sourcing directly for the farmers. By the way, have you seen Guru yet? We are not so convinced. Reliance is opening thousands of fresh stores across the country. Coincidence? Another specialist joins in and confirms that most sabjiwalas are not benefitting from the price rise, neither are the farmers. Only the middlemen are making a lot of cash.  Of course, if you are thinking that the inflation is bad for Congress, you are like, totally naive. This dude will have the last laugh as always. You see, the budget is coming up. This is the time to slip in some populist measures. How convenient!  Wonder what would Gandhi say. You see, popular interest in Gandhi and his philosophy is showing its cyclical uptick these days. Gandhi film, Gandhi book, Gandhi talks. These dudes are forgetting, Gandhi had a tendency to go on a fast every now and then. Veggies are expensive? No problem! A little fasting never hurt anyone. So, suck it up and stop whining, because India is finally shining!
posted by barbarindian at 10:35 PM Permalink
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Saturday, February 03, 2007 |
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Public perceptions about private education | |
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 Esteemed professor and well read blogger T.A. Abinandanan has written an Op/Ed for the People's paper. Naturally he has blogged about it. We are happy for him and we are happy for ourselves too.Let me explain, in the Indian psyche, professors hold a reverential position. This can be traced back to the Guru-Shishya tradition. College professors have a very strong influence on the minds of the public. They are regarded as infallible, their opinions irrefutable. Therefore, when a Prof. like Abi firmly goes over to the other side, it is a serious cause for concern. Think about it - the Prof. is churning out students by the dozen, all indoctrinated and ready to evangelize the unsuspecting people at large. Fortunately, we are all familiar with the People's paper. Hopefully this Op/Ed will open the eyes of the public about Abi's political affiliations. Read Abi by all means, just add a pinch or two of salt every now and then. Of course, we add a punch of salt, like Al Pacino said in the movie Donnie Brasco. Now let's focus on the Op/Ed itself. In this piece Abi severely critiques the Government's decision to expand the IIT infrastructure and also that of opening up science and technology focused Institutes - IIOs, as he calls them. He recommends that the Government create RUs - Real Universitites which will facilitate cross-disciplinary studies such as econophysics etc. and can serve a much larger number of students at a much lower cost. Those who have studied Indian history know how the IITs came into being. India suffered a series of Tughlaqian experimentations under Nehru which continued well into the future after his death. We are still suffering, a massive jolt in the early 90s caused an accidental structural shift and we are reaping the benefits of this shift. But it is becoming more and more apparent that we need stronger push towards real freedom. The recent issue of The Economist presents a starkly bearish view, which was discussed on indianeconomy.org. Those bloggers remain optimistic. We remain skeptical. There are two great dangers - one of divisive politics. The second is the reign of pseudo-intellectuals like Abi. In every sphere except education, the private sector has proved its mettle beyond doubts. We are beginning to see even a popular acceptance of this idea and the recent bollywood flick Guru (review will be up shortly) is a testament to this shift in attitude. So, what has kept the IIO bastion standing so far? This can be easily explained by supply side constraints and brand power. What are the odds that a private institute can challenge the IIT brand power? There is only one institute to my knowledge that has so far challenged the IIOs and that is Indian School of Business. Public perception about private education comes from three concerns. The first is about an equitable admissions policy. When an Indian looks around him and sees corruption at a massive scale, he does not feel confident that there will be fair treatment if private institutes are allowed to thrive. The numerous private colleges do nothing to alleviate this fear since these try to reap short-term benefits. The IIT and IIM admissions policy so far has been equitable by design. Of course this will be diluted to a great extent when the OBC reservations come into force. The second concern is about the cost of education. But this concern dates back to the days of high interest and lack of easy consumer credit. As a matter of fact this alone creates a filter for the applicants in the US schools. If a candidate does not feel that the cost justifies the value of the education, he simply skips school. This is evident by the numerous ROI calculators on the web. The third concern comes from the fact that privatization will favor the rich. Ivanka Trump goes to Wharton. Surely there will be moral hazard if privatization is allowed? Part of this concern comes from a sense of stagnation and misplaced jealousy which dates back to the 70s. Indian people do not resent illiterate politicians milking hundreds of crores of rupees from them but they would resent an honest businessman making it for himself (of course playing by the rules created by others). Indian people never believed that the common man can even become wealthy. The only way to attain greatness was to attain the highest education possible thus maintaining self-respect. Experience in the advanced economies prove that privatization increases supply manifolds, alleviating such issues. Also, Ivanka Trump would not line up in front of Infosys headquarters for a job. So, why does Abi not advocate privatization and chooses to bicker about minor variations of a Government controlled education system? Surely he should advocate a system which he has seen to be so successful first hand? Simple. It is in equal parts a belief in Nehruvian ideology, political partisanship and middle class concerns about education privatization.
posted by barbarindian at 7:18 PM Permalink
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Absolute Power | |
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 I absolutely recommend the 1997 Hollywood flick Absolute Power. Gripping story, a very plausible and frightening scenario and best of all - Clint Eastwood.Of course, the Americans and Israelis have exhibited their moral fabric in recent times very forcefully. Even top leaders are not immune to the rule of law. Clinton was impeached for the sordid Monica Lewinsky affair and more recently the Israeli Prime minister caught a lot of flack for alleged sexual abuse of female staffers. What if such a scenario were to occur in India? Mute question perhaps, given that the prosecution of the killers of Priyadarshini Mattoo and Jessica Lall took several years of public hysteria and high drama, when the perps were wards of mere petty politicians. HinduUnity.org seems to be in a lot of trouble again. You might remember the site from the blog ban last year. Apparently the site is running a feature alleging Congress dynasty heir apparent Rahul Gandhi of having been involved in a gang rape. Several blogs have picked up the story as well. According to the story, Rahul Gandhi and his buddies forced themselves on a young woman, daughter of a Congress party worker, at an alcohol fueled party. The story even carries a picture of the said woman. It is further claimed that the woman and her parents have gone underground. Now, there are zillions of hate sites on the web, perpetrating myths and propagating slander. The story itself sounds pretty cockamamie. What is surprising is that the Cong legal machinery has taken this seriously and gone after the site with full fire power. Congress MP Rahul Gandhi has sent a legal notice to a US-based website Hinduunity.Org for alleged "perverted, scurrilous and gutter writing" against him and his family members. Surely this whole thing has nothing more than shock value and public relations faux pas (far more people came to know about the site from the media coverage of the lawsuit). The question to ask is, what if the allegations were true?
posted by barbarindian at 12:04 AM Permalink
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Thursday, February 01, 2007 |
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Anu and Sudha | |
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Anu and Sudha were both born on the same day. Anu's mother and father were construction labourers and Sudha's father was a businessman and her mother a designer. - From NCERT Textbook titled Indian Economic Development, for Standard XI, Chapter 4. I guess the story is somewhat incomplete. Here is the part that is missing: Sudha had a classmate called Radha. Radha's father was a Class I Government officer and she would often come to school on a Government vehicle (which had a beacon). When Sudha and Radha were in standard XII, they wrote the entrance test for the state engineering college. Being privileged Sudha applied for the general category. Radha, who belongs to the Yadav community, applied through the OBC quota. Sudha did not make it to the college. Radha secured a free seat and went on to become a software professional. She made her family mighty proud.
posted by barbarindian at 11:47 PM Permalink
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