ChinmayC Blog

The Supreme Court of India gave a historic judgment today. The public litigation petition demanding the Right to Reject for voters had been pending for last nine years and Anna Hazare during his Movement against Corruption in 2011-12 made a lot of hue and cry for this too. Today the Supreme Court put its seal of approval on this. Now voters can reject all the candidates in his constituency if s/he thinks all of them are crooks and useless.   There will be a new option in the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM), ‘None Of The Above’, so that all candidates of all parties could thereby be rejected by the voter. Exactly when the EVMs are going to be adjusted or the date of effect to this decision is a matter of pure speculation at the moment. This is basically a negative vote, but the apathetic voters now need not sit at home and abstain from their constitutional duty. They can go to the polling booths and exercise their Right to Reject by voting for the new option. Maybe Voters’ Apathy ...

As the Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh was en route to the USA to participate in the United Nations General Session scheduled to hold talks with the Pakistan counterpart Nawaz Sharif on the sidelines, terrorists belonging to Pakistan groups struck twice in the morning hours today. Three terrorists in Pakistan Army uniform entered Indian territory and first attacked a police station at Kathua in the Samba district of Jammu and Kashmir and then an Indian Army camp. Ten people including an Indian Army Lt. Col and four policemen were martyred. Gun battle raged on for most part of the day in the jungles and the Indian Army issued a release announcing the end of the operation and confirming that all three terrorists had been killed. The Indian Prime Minister condemned the attack saying that such dastardly attacks were aimed sabotaging the peace process. He, however, maintained his determination to push forward the dialogue by meeting Nawaz Sharif on Sunday. The Jammu and Kashmir C...

The corrupt are the most despicable creatures infesting our Mother Earth in large numbers, particularly India. This is just not right not to be seriously critical about it. However some amount of humor in corrupt practices is always there to tickle you in the abyss of absolute darkness. And, if you are corrupt you can still laugh in a guilt-ridden introspection and maybe you give it up in the effort to enjoy. If you are honest you can laugh all the clearer and louder. Since in the present constipated situation in India you need to laugh out a lot we have decided to start a new Series ‘Humor In Corruption’ on September 8, 2013 and today this is the second installment. If you have your experience on this please leave your plot or write out the full story as a ‘comment’ below . We will publish it in your name. Once upon a time somewhere in India I was having my warm cup of tea wrapped up cozily in woolens with the newspapers for extra company that wintry morning. I was on a family visit ...

Till that unbelievable 9/11 attack terror did not seem to be a global phenomenon. But since then terror became an industry with the formation of many groups having their bases in countries like India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Internal factors of these countries made themselves prime targets of the attacks. India has been bearing the brunt of it in a major way since 1993 with many of its cities continuing to be soft targets. The US interests—financial, military or strategic—in these countries and the growing conflicts thereof finally brought terror to the US in a most inhuman way in terms of the 9/11 attack in 2001. Al-Qaeda emerged as the global force of terrorism. However, even then it could be said that terror did not assume a global role thanks to efforts on counter-terrorism by USA and to some extent India. After more than a decade terror returned to America in April, 2013 in terms of the Boston Attack and last Monday’s (September 16) attack on the US Naval Base where shooter (s)...

Mumbai Police today chargesheeted Gurunath Meiyappan, the former Boss of IPL franchise Chennai Super King (CSK) and son-in-law of the step-aside BCCI Boss N Srinivasan, for betting and leaking crucial team information along with Bollywood actor Vindoo Dara Singh and twenty others. Pakistan umpire Asad Rauf and 15 bookies were also named as ‘wanted accused’ in the 11,500 pages long chargesheet filed four months after the IPL Spot Fixing Scandal rocked Indian cricket and the world of cricket. Gurunath Meiyappan who was arrested on 25 th May, 2013 has been charged under section 66A of the Information Technology Act, sections 4 and 5 of the Gambling Act. He has also been charged under sections 465 (forgery), 466 (forgery of record of court or of public register), 468 (forgery for cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document), 490 (breach of contract), 420 (cheating), 212 (harboring the offender), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code. Vindo...

The 10-day Ganesh Festival in Mumbai this year was highlighted by one unique natural element—rains. It was termed unique because of its unerring consistency. Lightning and thunder marked almost every evening of the period with accompanying rains—at times quite heavy—most of the times. Mumbaikars worshiping their beloved God got almost used to it and made preparations in advance every evening. Most of them were not at all disheartened as the rains submerged the soaring heat bringing welcome cheers. Mumbai has just recorded the lowest-in-a-decade September day temperature. However, a lot of them were very disadvantaged caught by lighting and thunder on the beaches on most of the immersion days. The consistency even improved. On the day of final immersion that is Wednesday-September 18 intense bursts of lightening and thunder started around midnight. And then the heavy rains that continued throughout the night and all of Thursday wiping out any rain deficit some areas might have been hav...

Ganesh Festival-2013 is coming to a close today as millions of devotees fill the streets of Mumbai to bid a fond adieu to their beloved God. Lord Ganapati, the peoples’ God who stands for showering happiness and success, and destroyer of all obstacles, has arrived this time in the city on 9 th of September when more than ten thousand public organizers and more than a hundred thousand household worshipers brought and installed the Ganesha idols. As per customs and rituals some of them immersed the idols in the Arabian sea on pond specially provided for Eco-friendly idols on the 2 nd , 3rs, 5 th and the 7 th day. Today, the 10 th day as per the almanac this year (normally this festival lasts for 11 days), the last farewell is being accorded to Ganapati. You can see a sea of humanity on every beach of the city and the surrounding areas and streets giving the administration the biggest traffic challenge of the year every year. Mumbaikars are used to this great day when they hardly ve...

Three friends are discussing and debating about whom could ideally be described as the common man: Friend 1 : “Common man is someone who has to struggle very hard to get everything from onions to ownership flats.” Friend 2 : “Common man is someone who suffers the most from all the hikes—be it petrol price, LPG price, bus or taxi or train fares, cereal prices, water or electricity rents and so on.” Friend 3 : “Your definitions mean that common man includes the poor or the poorest of the poor too apart from the middle classes. That makes it more than ninety percent of our population. Yes, utterly common indeed.” Friend 1 : “You are dead right. It is so common that you tend to find thousands of them packed into every square kilometer.” Friend 3 : “You forget something there. Common man is also someone most loved by the politicians. They cannot even exist without the common man. Their manifestos, policies, declarations, rivalries and fights and all are centered on the common man.” Friend ...

Friday the 13 th September, 2013. If you remember the movie for the sheer horror of it you must remember this particular date for the sheer excitement of it. One-two-three…on three counts of major developments in India. This date is considered unlucky as per superstitious beliefs of Western culture, but this particular date proved auspicious and lucky on three major counts. An auspicious beginning for a rape-tormented country as all the four accused in Delhi Gangrape rape were sentenced to death by a fast-track court in Delhi. It definitely proved lucky for Narendra Modi as the faction-ridden BJP finally managed to take the bold decision of anointing him as its Prime Ministerial candidate for General Elections-2014. A triumph for all genuine cricket lovers as the disciplinary committee of the Indian Cricket Board (BCCI) imposed life bans on Sreesanth and Ankeet Chavan for Spot fixing in IPL. Proof enough to make you reconsider the scare long attached to ‘Friday the 13 th’ ! Crowds Wai...

India is a country much used to outrages and debates. Maybe we have mentioned this earlier in these pages. When something horrific happens the nation gets outraged. By the time outrage eases debate takes over. And by the time debate takes over everything about it literally gets over. Back to square one the nation waits for the next most catastrophic to happen. A fast track court in Delhi convicted all the four accused (the main accused was found hanging in his cell in Tihar Jail sometime back and the another got away with three years for being a ‘minor’) of the Delhi Gangrape case on September 10, 2013. They were found guilty in all thirteen charges made by police against them. Judgment was to be declared today, but got postponed till Friday as debate took over. This is despite all the major forces pitched in this case including the victim’s family, major political parties, the women leaders and the youth organizations demanding death for the rapists most emphatically and vehemently. ...

The corrupt are the most despicable creatures infesting our Mother Earth in large numbers, particularly India. This is just not right not to be seriously critical about it. However some amount of humor in corrupt practices is always there to tickle you in the abyss of absolute darkness. And, if you are corrupt you can still laugh in a guilt-ridden introspection and maybe you give it up in the effort to enjoy. If you are honest you can laugh all the clearer and louder. Since in the present constipated situation in India you need to laugh out a lot we have decided to start a new Series ‘Humor In Corruption’ from today. If you have your experiences on this please leave your plot or write out the full story as a ‘comment’ below. We will edit and publish it in your name. Once upon a time one young man in a town somewhere in India submitted an application for a driving license in the local office. He had already bought a second-hand scooter and learnt how to drive it too through a friend...

Say No To Tea! We have already seen how some snobbish and ludicrous bosses try to cut down on wasteful office expenditures. All such characters necessarily boil down to the entirely harmless cup of tea. They deprive their lesser colleagues and visitors of their intrinsic right to a cup of tea as if by doing that they manage to save a whole lot of expenditures. This is only an extreme case of being pound-foolish and penny-wise. At the moment we would like to regale you with another classic example concerning your harmless cup of tea. The boss in a local production house wanted to adopt austerity measures and it was factually doubtful if he was actually directed by his headquarters to do so. And he came down heavily on the tea served now and then from the hospitality budget. Maybe he wanted to show his tea-clout as some of his furious colleagues would like to say. The office hospitality account was available to him and the next two in the hierarchy, but suddenly the boss started book-ke...

The Indian cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar has crossed forty years of age having a glorious 24-year-long career during which he created and broke many world records and made 15,837 runs in 198 Tests with 51 hundreds. He has achieved the unique feat of scoring a century of centuries when we add 49 one-day hundreds to his Test tally. However, all good things finally come to an inevitable conclusion and therefore in case of this unbelievable cricketer too speculation about his retirement has been rife, particularly after he announced his retirement from one-day and T20 cricket rather suddenly. During the IPL-6 he suffered an injury to his left hand which perhaps advanced his retirement from IPL too. Meanwhile, he did recover fully from his injury and has been included in Mumbai Indians team for the Champions League this month. But two basic problems persisted all the time, first his age and second his indifferent form in Test cricket for the last 38 innings that did not witness a single...

Even as the busy professionals of the local news channel get about making feature/interview stories on the nosediving Indian rupee against the US dollar in their inner minds they get perturbed too. They get the bytes of experts disturbing them further that the freefall is likely to continue for months and it would cross even the 80 rupees per dollar mark. Their meager salaries too threaten to mire them in the devaluation sludge. Schemes for the poor like the Food Security Bill that promises to make staple grains available at 1-2-3 rupees per kilo bring out the contrast of the devaluation. They wonder aloud as the amused editor takes note: “My goodness! See what just a single dollar can buy now in India! 68 kilos of coarse grains, 34 kilos of wheat and nearly 23 kilos of rice (at current rupee-dollar rate)!” “Right! I have one solution. Pay salaries to all of us Indians in terms of dollars! Then you won’t need to implement any pro-poor schemes or programs ever.” Of course, they laugh a...