A nuke in hand is worth two with Bush.

So, finally Bush came, saw and conquered too, if we are to believe the media. I am not
against new technology, FDI or responsible nuclear behaviour, but somehow the visit
of George Bush left a bad taste.

I feel bad that my country and its administrators were laying out the red carpet for a
criminal responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians that
include children and women, who due to no fault of theirs or their country had to suffer
bombing of their country and illegal occupation by foreign forces.

All this so that the US could dip into the huge oil reserves of Iraq to feed the increasing
oil-dependency of its citizens. All this by misling Americans and the world that somehow
Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11 and could wreak more havoc on the world in
general and the US in particular with the WMDs that he is in posession of. Even when
the whole world knew this to be untrue, the US and UK went ahead with their plan of
bombing Iraq to dust and even after 3 years, there is no sign of any WMDs.

And BTW, most dictatorships have always been armed by the US, to further its aims
or to have an ally in its erstwhile war with Russia. So, even if Saddam had any WMDs,
it would have been supplied by the US only. What a big joke. You supply a dictator
with WMDs so that he can wreak havoc on his enemy countries or even his subjects
and then later you accuse him of having WMDs which you sold him in the first place.

I am pretty sure that India will not benefit as much as the US from this much hyped
nuclear treaty. We could be lucky if we even get a 25% benefit for every 75% benefit
the US gains from this treaty. And, as history has proved time and again, while we
will be expected to keep our end of the treaty, do not even in your wildest dreams
expect the US to keep its word as we go down the line.

Till the Prime Minister briefs Parliament and we see the fine print of the treaty, all we
can do is keep our fingers crossed.

Saamy gets connected. And how ...

Saamy, my neighbour living in the colony adjacent to our apartment complex has got
connected. He's got his own cellphone, which is great since it indicates that all sections
of Indian society are reaping the benefits of the telecom revolution.

BTW, I guess this must be the only instance where all sections of the society have solidly
embraced a new technology in the Indian scenario. TV comes close, but I guess it took a
lot more time to spread, when compared to cellphones. And even today, the spread of TV
in India is much less compared to that of cellphones.

Our cellular penetration is awesome, to put it mildly. Go to any city, town or village in
India and you can see people chatting on their mobiles. I don't remember seeing such
high usage even in the US or Europe.

Saamy, as I mentioned in an earlier post, is a house painter by vocation and I guess the
mobile phone helps him get more work / business. However, what I found irritating was
his kid-with-new-toy behaviour. Like any new mobile user, he wants the world to know
that he has a cellphone. So, he positions himself on the stairs of his first floor home, calls
up friends / relatives and then proceeds to chat at real loud volume. I am sure his banter reaches each and every home in a 20m radius around him.

Last weekend, he was again at it, talking in a loud voice with a friend about meeting him
in the evening for a few drinks. Luckily for everyone around, his wife stepped out of their
home as soon as she heard the "drinks" part and told him in no uncertain terms that there
was no way he would go drink that day. So, Mr.Saamy disconnected the call and tried to
persuade her to grant permission for a boy's night out.

I am not sure he succeeded because I did not hear at night the usual racket that he makes
on returning home drunk. Maybe, this incident will make Saamy talk quieter on the phone
from now on and us neighbors could have it easier.

Why single out only the RSS for criticism ?

Reading my previous posts could give an impression that I am singling out only the RSS
(and thus only Hindu fundamentalist organisastions) for criticism. However, that is not
definitely the case and it is time I made my intentions clear.

I am against any form of religious fundamentalism, be it Hindu, Christian, Muslim or any
of the other religions in the world. I believe that religion is separate from politics and the
thrust of any religion should be to prompt its followers to do good. If a religion preaches
the so-called Golden Rule "Treat others as you would like to be treated", then I guess it
is worth following.

A religion should bring me closer to God, should teach me to be good towards other human beings, to lead a respectable life. If instead, a religion teaches me to kill my fellow human
being, I would rather stay away from it.

We do have fundamentalist / communal outfits from other religions also like the Indian
Union Muslim League and I am sure there must be some Christian outfits also (though I
do not know of any myself).

All these are abominable as far as I am concerned and can only do more harm than good
to our country. I hope that the Indian youth do not get caught in the web laid by these
so-called nationalists and have the prudence to avoid them.

Indianising Muslims and Christians, whatever that means ...

Another one from the head-knickerwallah of the RSS, Mr.Sudarshan, who seems to be bent upon proving conventional wisdom wrong. As people age, they tend to become wiser & tend
to deliver sage counsel. But not so for the types of Mr.Sudarshan.

After his stupid exhortation to India's Hindus to go ahead and multiply, about which I wrote
here (http://indiandream.blogspot.com/2006/01/go-ahead-and-multiply.html), another
great idea has struck him. This time it is to Indianise those who are not Hindus, whatever it means. To quote him, "We cannot throw our Muslims and Christians into the ocean. So, let
us Indianise them."

From when did India become synonymous with a particular religion ? My passport mentions
my country as "Republic of India". It does not mention "Hindu Republic of India" as in the "Islamic Republic of Paksitan".

Who the hell is Sudarshan to think about what should be the ethnic / religious composition
of India ? What authority does the RSS even have to debate such things ? They are at best
a group of thugs who use religion for their own petty gains. What locus standi does the RSS
have to make such an observation ?

Who made them the voice of even the Hindus, leave alone all Indians ? If they were indeed
the voice of all the Hindus in India, the BJP would be in power today, which fortunately is
not the case.

India is lucky that the majority are not taken in by the absurd logic of communalists. Else,
we would have probably degenerated into the kind of chaos that can be seen in countries
where religion is allowed to mix into politics.