** January 2009 **

This is the first posting of mine for the blog this year. Well, I have reasons for abstaining from blogging for the past 30 days !! I decided to take the Sun Solaris Certification exam this year and had my exams scheduled for Jan/27. I was seriously preparing for the exams and I have cleared the first paper (hooray!!). Now, I need to prepare and appear for the second paper and then I would be a SCSA (Sun Certified Solaris Administrator). Well, lets hope that I get to finish it and get the certification soon.

There were quite a few things that happened in the past 30 days which are of immense importance to India as a nation and hence, a mention in this blog becomes inevitable.

Firstly the Satyam scam. Satyam story goes on to show how one man’s greed can take down the whole nation – and it cannot be better explained than this episode. Ramalinga Raju has let down his nation, his employees and his family. The big question mark on the whole episode is on the Auditing and the Auditors. Auditing – done over the past few years on Satyam has become a laughing stuff. Auditors are supposed to find the frauds being committed by their Patrons !! They are being paid by the same organization/persons against whom they are supposed to find faults. This client/patron hierarchy/chain becomes too compromising and undermines the whole “Audit” concept. Ultimately, Auditors lead their patrons on a path where they are being professionally aided and helped to do a perfect crime and safely (well, mostly) get away from law. When it comes to the question of very big and reputed firms – Auditors never would try to cross the lines for they would lose a lucrative Patron. This is what has happened in Satyam’s case. We urgently need to address this arrangement. Having said that, whatever we try to do – “திருடனாய் பார்த்து திருந்தாவிட்டால் திருட்டை ஒழிக்க முடியாது" (unless thieves mend their methods,thievery cannot be stopped ). More than any thing else, its time India, as a nation, start planning on building moral values!! Its down the drain and is at its cheapest elements at this point of time in this competitive society!!

Talking about the society takes me to the next topic – “Slumdog Billionaire”. AR Rahman winning the Golden Globe award and being nominated for Oscars definitely makes us all proud. But, I personally feel that he has scored a lot of even better and wonderful tunes than what he has won this award for (the song “Jai Ho”). Not scoring for English movies before could be the only reason that has stopped him from getting such awards before. Well, lets hope he gets lot of such awards and make us all proud.

The discussion on “Slumdog Billionaire” cannot end here as we also hear a lot of criticism about the movie – about selling Indian poverty abroad. While I have not seen the movie so far, my present opinion is that poverty, robbery, terrorism, etc., all exist in India in large scale. We cannot develop an ostrich approach to the whole issue. Don’t we have slums with abject living conditions? Don’t we have brothels where women are forced into prostitution? Havent we heard about kids being kidnapped by beggar mafia?? More than 50% of our people are still uneducated and are below poverty line. Why should we cry hoarse when such things are filmed?? Anyway, I reserve my comments about the film for the time being.

Another important topic is Sri Lanka / LTTE / Tamils / TN Politicians. I whole heartedly welcome the debacle of LTTE. LTTE is a terrorist organization. An organization that can break bunds and hold people as human shields cannot be a charity organization and we have had a lot of facts and stats to prove on what sort of organization LTTE is. LTTE has killed lot of Sri Lankan Tamilians. People like Karuna, who were once top leaders of LTTE speak volumes and volumes of the atrocities committed and is being committed by LTTE. Unfortunately, in India, we don’t have enough and powerful law like POTA to put people who support LTTE in jail (as was done to Vai Ko). Even more unfortunate is that we have a party (DMK) that has a poor record of handling miscreants and terrorists in power. Isn’t it time that we learn from countries like Sri Lanka the methods and means to curb terrorists and implement the same strategy in dealing with Kashmir terrorists?

Talking about terrorism and Sri Lanka leads me the topic of Israel. I am of the view that Hamas is a terrorist organization and it instigated Israel to attach the Gaza strip. Only countries like India will tolerate terrorists attacks !!

Unfortunately lot of civilians - hapless people, kids, old aged were all caught in the cross-fire and have been killed. Such loses can never be compensated by any means. My heart goes to all those families. Having said that, this should make the terrorists realize their folly and I do not vouch to the argument that Govts should stop attacking terrorists. Terrorists organization like Hamas, Al Qaida and LTTE have to be given a sever blow and they should be erased of the face of this universe. The world should speak in one voice against TERRORISM without giving any creed/religion color to it.

My final topic of this posting will be on local politics (Tamil Nadu). The comments of Election Commissioner on Thirumangalam bye-election is worth noting. He has said that Tamil Nadu fares worse than Bihar when it comes to election offences and violence. People who know about Bihar elections would realize the severity of such a statement. All the recent elections that were conducted in TN (especially after Karunanidhi came to power) have been severely rigged to the worst possible extent – as has been never seen before in TN. We already have a situation where educated and decent people stay away from politics. With more such elections – our fate for good future as a nation will permanently be sealed for the worst. “Rule of Law” will soon be replaced by “Goonda Raj” ! “Politics in India” has become a synonym of “Rowdyism”.