There are quite a lot of people who touched my life in the year 2008 and helped me in becoming a better person. I thank everyone of them ... Thanks, Thanks and Thanks a Lot.
I wish you and all your family members a very very happy, prosperous and a healthy New Year. May God Bless you with success & joy.
புத்தாண்டு நல்வாழ்த்துக்கள்.
Dec 31, 2008
Dec 19, 2008
** Tamil Nadu (aka) Dharmashala **
It seems, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, MK Karunanidhi has decided to take the State's financial status to the worst ever seen by any Indian State !! He keeps inventing new freebie schemes. Free TV, Free Land, Rice for Re.1 - those were his elections promises. He did not stop with that and is continuing this madness throughout his present tenure as Chief Minister. His latest is the Rs.2000/- as flood relief to the people of Tamil Nadu !! Those who did not even see a drop of water during the heavy rain last month are going to take the free gift of Rs.2000/- for nothing. Mr. Karunanidhi, did not stop his "tamasha" with that and his latest announcement is the biggest joke - "The government will distribute ingredients required to make 'sweet pongal' (chakarai pongal) for free to the people for the forthcoming 'Pongal' festival !! My God !!! When will all this madness stop ???
** Voting **
In India, even if just 50% of the people vote in general elections, it is considered as a very high voting percentage !! Isnt that a pity?? We need to find a way out of this mess. That, in my view, can be achieved if we make voting 'online' and make it possible for the people to vote through SMS!! It is not something that is impossible. Estonia has made 'online' voting possible way back in 2001 and is introducing voting through cell phones for their forthcoming Presidential elections. If the Estonians can - Why not India? With very high cell-phone penetration in India, the possibility of online/SMS voting should be taken up - atleast for a technical feasbility study. If we can operate our bank accounts (which is more precious than voting!) online - then, why not 'voting'?? If our voting system goes online, I am sure, we will see a higher percentage of voting, lesser queues at polling booths, choice of NRIs to vote .... the list of advantages keeps growing !!! Isnt that wonderful??
Dec 9, 2008
** Value of Life ? **
In the past few days, two suicide incidents (amongst many) attracted my notice. A school going girl committed suicide as her bicycle was stolen (the bicycle was issued under the "Free bicycle to students" scheme by the Govt). In another incident, a lady took her own life for she lost Rs.500/- that her husband gave to her for safe custody !! I was overwhelmed with pity and thought on how so little means so much to a lot of people.
Dec 5, 2008
** False propoganda on Hindu Terrorism **
The so called secularists of India have, at last, very eagerly pounced on a rare opportunity (Malegaon Blasts) and have gone on to meticulously brand it as "Hindu" Terrorism. I am of the view that this one mistake by one or two individuals should NOT be equated to the violence that the Muslim terrorists perpetrate across the whole world. Unfortunately, this is India and this sort of pseudo secularism is what most of the political parties in India thrive on, as it sells very easily and also gets votes. What else do these political parties want ??
Well, I read a nice piece of article on the subject - I am producing the same below.
Is there such a thing as 'Hindu terrorism', as the arrest of Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur for the recent Malegaon blasts may tend to prove? Well, I guess I was asked to write this column because I am one of that rare breed of foreign correspondents-a lover of Hindus! A born Frenchman, Catholic-educated and non-Hindu, I do hope I'll be given some credit for my opinions, which are not the product of my parents' ideas, my education or my atavism, but garnered from 25 years of reporting in South Asia (for Le Journal de Geneve and Le Figaro). In the early 1980s, when I started freelancing in south India , doing photo features on kalaripayattu, the Ayyappa festival, or the Ayyanars, I slowly realised that the genius of this country lies in its Hindu ethos, in the true spirituality behind Hinduism. The average Hindu you meet in a million villages possesses this simple, innate spirituality and accepts your diversity, whether you are Christian or Muslim, Jain or Arab, French or Chinese. It is this Hinduness that makes the Indian Christian different from, say, a French Christian, or the Indian Muslim unlike a Saudi Muslim. I also learnt that Hindus not only believed that the divine could manifest itself at different times, under different names, using different scriptures (not to mention the wonderful avatar concept, the perfect answer to 21st century religious strife) but that they had also given refuge to persecuted minorities from across the world-Syrian Christians, Parsis, Jews, Armenians, and today, Tibetans. In 3,500 years of existence, Hindus have never militarily invaded another country, never tried to impose their religion on others by force or induced conversions. You cannot find anybody less fundamentalist than a Hindu in the world and it saddens me when I see the Indian and western press equating terrorist groups like SIMI, which blow up innocent civilians, with ordinary, angry Hindus who burn churches without killing anybody. We know also that most of these communal incidents often involve persons from the same groups-often Dalits and tribals-some of who have converted to Christianity and others not. However reprehensible the destruction of Babri Masjid, no Muslim was killed in the process; compare this to the 'vengeance' bombings of 1993 in Bombay , which wiped out hundreds of innocents, mostly Hindus. Yet the Babri Masjid destruction is often described by journalists as the more horrible act of the two. We also remember how Sharad Pawar, when he was chief minister of Maharashtra in 1993, lied about a bomb that was supposed to have gone off in a Muslim locality of Bombay . I have never been politically correct, but have always written what I have discovered while reporting. Let me then be straightforward about this so-called Hindu terror. Hindus, since the first Arab invasions, have been at the receiving end of terrorism, whether it was by Timur, who killed 1,00,000 Hindus in a single day in 1399, or by the Portuguese Inquisition which crucified Brahmins in Goa . Today, Hindus are still being targeted: there were one million Hindus in the Kashmir valley in 1900; only a few hundred remain, the rest having fled in terror. Blasts after blasts have killed hundreds of innocent Hindus all over India in the last four years. Hindus, the overwhelming majority community of this country, are being made fun of, are despised, are deprived of the most basic facilities for one of their most sacred pilgrimages in Amarnath while their government heavily sponsors the Haj. They see their brothers and sisters converted to Christianity through inducements and financial traps, see a harmless 84-year-old swami and a sadhvi brutally murdered. Their gods are blasphemed. So sometimes, enough is enough. At some point, after years or even centuries of submitting like sheep to slaughter, Hindus-whom the Mahatma once gently called cowards-erupt in uncontrolled fury. And it hurts badly. It happened in Gujarat . It happened in Jammu , then in Kandhamal, Mangalore, and Malegaon . It may happen again elsewhere. What should be understood is that this is a spontaneous revolution on the ground, by ordinary Hindus, without any planning from the political leadership. Therefore, the BJP, instead of acting embarrassed, should not disown those who choose other means to let their anguished voices be heard. There are about a billion Hindus, one in every six persons on this planet. They form one of the most successful, law-abiding and integrated communities in the world today. Can you call them terrorists?
Well, I read a nice piece of article on the subject - I am producing the same below.
-----------------------------------------------------------
The Hindu Rate Of Wrath
-By Francois Gautier
Is there such a thing as 'Hindu terrorism', as the arrest of Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur for the recent Malegaon blasts may tend to prove? Well, I guess I was asked to write this column because I am one of that rare breed of foreign correspondents-a lover of Hindus! A born Frenchman, Catholic-educated and non-Hindu, I do hope I'll be given some credit for my opinions, which are not the product of my parents' ideas, my education or my atavism, but garnered from 25 years of reporting in South Asia (for Le Journal de Geneve and Le Figaro). In the early 1980s, when I started freelancing in south India , doing photo features on kalaripayattu, the Ayyappa festival, or the Ayyanars, I slowly realised that the genius of this country lies in its Hindu ethos, in the true spirituality behind Hinduism. The average Hindu you meet in a million villages possesses this simple, innate spirituality and accepts your diversity, whether you are Christian or Muslim, Jain or Arab, French or Chinese. It is this Hinduness that makes the Indian Christian different from, say, a French Christian, or the Indian Muslim unlike a Saudi Muslim. I also learnt that Hindus not only believed that the divine could manifest itself at different times, under different names, using different scriptures (not to mention the wonderful avatar concept, the perfect answer to 21st century religious strife) but that they had also given refuge to persecuted minorities from across the world-Syrian Christians, Parsis, Jews, Armenians, and today, Tibetans. In 3,500 years of existence, Hindus have never militarily invaded another country, never tried to impose their religion on others by force or induced conversions. You cannot find anybody less fundamentalist than a Hindu in the world and it saddens me when I see the Indian and western press equating terrorist groups like SIMI, which blow up innocent civilians, with ordinary, angry Hindus who burn churches without killing anybody. We know also that most of these communal incidents often involve persons from the same groups-often Dalits and tribals-some of who have converted to Christianity and others not. However reprehensible the destruction of Babri Masjid, no Muslim was killed in the process; compare this to the 'vengeance' bombings of 1993 in Bombay , which wiped out hundreds of innocents, mostly Hindus. Yet the Babri Masjid destruction is often described by journalists as the more horrible act of the two. We also remember how Sharad Pawar, when he was chief minister of Maharashtra in 1993, lied about a bomb that was supposed to have gone off in a Muslim locality of Bombay . I have never been politically correct, but have always written what I have discovered while reporting. Let me then be straightforward about this so-called Hindu terror. Hindus, since the first Arab invasions, have been at the receiving end of terrorism, whether it was by Timur, who killed 1,00,000 Hindus in a single day in 1399, or by the Portuguese Inquisition which crucified Brahmins in Goa . Today, Hindus are still being targeted: there were one million Hindus in the Kashmir valley in 1900; only a few hundred remain, the rest having fled in terror. Blasts after blasts have killed hundreds of innocent Hindus all over India in the last four years. Hindus, the overwhelming majority community of this country, are being made fun of, are despised, are deprived of the most basic facilities for one of their most sacred pilgrimages in Amarnath while their government heavily sponsors the Haj. They see their brothers and sisters converted to Christianity through inducements and financial traps, see a harmless 84-year-old swami and a sadhvi brutally murdered. Their gods are blasphemed. So sometimes, enough is enough. At some point, after years or even centuries of submitting like sheep to slaughter, Hindus-whom the Mahatma once gently called cowards-erupt in uncontrolled fury. And it hurts badly. It happened in Gujarat . It happened in Jammu , then in Kandhamal, Mangalore, and Malegaon . It may happen again elsewhere. What should be understood is that this is a spontaneous revolution on the ground, by ordinary Hindus, without any planning from the political leadership. Therefore, the BJP, instead of acting embarrassed, should not disown those who choose other means to let their anguished voices be heard. There are about a billion Hindus, one in every six persons on this planet. They form one of the most successful, law-abiding and integrated communities in the world today. Can you call them terrorists?
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(The writer is the editor-in-chief of the Paris-based La Revue de l'Inde.)
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