Slumdog Millionaire wins 8 Oscars

Slumdog Millionaire Created history by being the first India based film to help itself with 8 oscars at the Oscar awards ceremony

AR Rahman helped himself to two Oscars thereby becoming the first Indian to do so.

Danny Boyle, the Director won the Oscar for the best director while in total the film claimed eight awards.

India's moral police or our own terrorists

Its been a long time since I made my last post in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror. On my return back in this new year 2009, it looks much worse. Terror of every kind seems to have seeped into our country. And this terror cannot be handled by commandos because it comes from our own civilian, state borne terrorists who claim to be the moral police of the country.

Besides our national army or the "Desh ki Sena" as we might call it, in our hindi language, we do have numerous other Sena's claiming their share of the pie in moderating and policing our country. These Sena's have their own rules and regulations which are not part of our constitution and rely purely on terror of the worst kind to express their sense of warped opinions.

The barbaric hoodlums who chose to attack a pub last weekend in Mangalore is proof of the intolerant and uncouth mindset of these bunch of goons bearing allegiance to a certain 'Sri Ram Sena" - a fringe right wing outfit - whose ideology was demonstrated by spewing venom on innocent women by physically assaulting them in the most dastardly manner in full public view.

Similar to many of their tribe of right wing extremist groups, these self appointed custodians of "Indian guidelines of culture" have now extended their purview to include beating up of women as their latest weapon to instill fear. By these actions such rowdy elements are trying to showcase their view of Indian culture where beating up women seems to be their ideological right. Just where did these moral police get this part of our culture? What kind of ambassadors are these?

It is a fashion in modern times for small groups of such disgruntled elements to demonstrate their brand of terror on people without any punishment. From pulling down theatres showing movies, to shattering shops on Valentine's day to hounding people in buses and trains and wherever they can, such groups seem to be emboldened by the fact that the state governments have no will to curb or clamp down their actions.

The people responsible for attacks on Churches and prayer halls last year in Mangalore are yet to be brought to book and this time a few of the attackers have been arrested only to silence critics for the moment. In all probability, weak evidence will be collected against them to enable them to escape punishment.

If the state government fails to show its resolve and responsibility in punishing these criminals in the most suitable manner, such incidents will render our security apparatus in the country under extreme risk. Such stupid creatures will cause unrest in various communities and failure to take action against them will be translated in more youth taking up arms, more terrorists being encouraged out of nowhere and our land will be full or arson and anarchy. Is this our vision of Shining India?

The Government of Karnataka has a responsibility towards the citizens of Mangalore and the rest of the country. Will it let this incident be covered under the garb of communal politics?

Mangalore must fight back! Karnataka must wage a battle for justice! Just like Mumbai did. Frighten the politicians with the power of your vote. Fight for a right to recall them back from the assembly. If they cannot protect our women against such brazen attacks tell me who will?

 

The Big Indian

An embarrassment called Antulay

It is still a strange dilemma that seems to have gripped the Indian national Congress under whose tutelage Mr A. R Antulay grew into a reasonably ranked political leader. His alleged back-door maneouvres many claim also helped him to remain in the saddle as the Chief Minister Of Maharashtra, something I think as inconceivable for an Indian Muslim to attain in such a largely polarized state . However he was given the grace by the majority community to even hold that position in a very sensitive state which differentiates within its own strong hindu ranks.

It is therefore rage which one feels when a senior politician like Mr Antulay gets away or rather gets others to sway over his most loose comment of the century. To fantasize about Mr Karkare and his gallant compatriots to be done in by a conspiracy from hindu zealots is nothing but sheer madness in the least. That after the unfolding of the events following their death makes Mr Antulay and his theory a big insult to the nation.

His remarks have been most delightfully seized by the “terrorist state of Pakistan” to counter India’s foolproof case against the rogue ISI and their handy comrades the LeT, in the Mumbai attacks. Their media are simply brandishing this hallucinatory Indian as their new weapon in their desperate attempt to camouflage the terrorist stink of their rabid country.

The Congress should therefore show some character. While the BJP is shamelessly using this issue to further their vote bank , the congress seems to be unduly worried that any action against Mr Antulay would erode their own bank. This dilemma is sure to cost the congress its most hardened supporters including myself.

For surely there is a limit to swallowing an insult. This is not an insult to a party politician. It is above petty politics. Politicians are used to give and take insults. But when someone covertly empathises with the enemy in such a brazen manner the reaction from the Congress should have been instant. Instead we find that the Congress is weighing its pros and cons keeping the upcoming elections in mind.

Antulay in the meanwhile is catching on a wagon of supporters. A breed of sidelined political actors are emerging from nowhere to carve their niche and finding common cause with him to add confusion to the already muddy issue. Politics which had taken a severe beating from citizens after the Mumbai terror, is now re-surfacing its ugly head with all these political furnitures trying to find their own space in the bloody ground of Mumbai’s terror carnage. These people will take India and all Indians to the gutter of death.

If the congress had been swift in its action we could have shown how we deal with such rabidly dissenting voices without considering their merit in an election. The BJP is another hawk waiting for its own pound of flesh from this issue. And so the real Indian has gone to sleep since the partition of our country. Our severed arm is however vibrant and determined to see our end.

The more the congress drags its feet on this issue the more I hope are their chances of losing the next election.

TheBigIndian

Antulay - a loose clown or a loose cannon?

There seems to be no shortage of clowns in our political class of India. The latest one to join the donkeyed wagon is the minister for Minority affairs Mr. A R Antulay who seems to be in a mood to piggy back the shameless and spineless media of “the terrorist state of Pakistan”.

While the whole world watched the Mumbai horror of 26/11 in disgust and anger, it seems Mr Antulay was saddled with his intelligent questions of how Mr Karkare and his two colleagues met with bullets of Pakistani terrorists. He aimfully links their death to the Malegaon probe and wants to paddle with an enquiry. In raising his fickle minded doubts Mr Antulay it seems has borrowed a leaf from the sick media of the “terrorist state of Pakistan” who fantasize the Mumbai terror to be the work of Hindu-Zionists.

Such comments from a senior politican like Mr Antulay show the utter sense of betrayal towards the country’s fight against terrorism and is a way of playing into the gallery of the enemy. By making such baseless comments is Mr Antulay trying to project ‘the terrorist state of Pakistan” to be innocent? Or is he trying to shield the Lashkar-e-taiba and the Jamat-ud-dawa from Indian prosecution? Instead does he want a probe to prosecute Hindus from India for the Mumbai terror?

If this is not anti-nationalism, I wonder what is. It is a surprise that he is still a Minister in the Indian establishment and one hopes that better sense prevails on the Congress to shrug off this liability from their party . Such loose cannons are an embarrassment to the country.


The Big Indian

The favours done by 10 terrrorists from Pakistan

Call it our tragic irony or our luck in distress , but after the dust of the terror attacks subsiding a bit, it does seem that we can identify the favours done to the general Indian public by the mercenaries from the terrorist state of Pakistan(TSP).

Bomb blasts in markets and bustops, in buses and trains had almost become a part of life for our Indian establishment. They had woefully got used to it. It was as if they always expected the next to happen anytime. All intelligence was cast aside as “ non-actionable” ( an euphemism for our intelligent laziness) untill the strike dealt a telling blow. And the pain had become bearable for our establishment. It did not change their way of looking at terror. There was no motivation to beef up our intelligence. It was as if the Indian citizens were pawns at the mercy of the laziness of bureaucracy which had mercifully seeped into our intelligence

Our outgoing home minister had become habituated to the terror blows being delivered from old fanatics in Pakistan and from newly emerging terror boys within our own country. His speeches were ready-to-deliver and he ranted the same lines before waiting cameras as if the people of the country were eagerly awaiting his rattle like an urgent task which he had to undertake by speaking out his spineless mind. Only speeches. No strategies or actions . The media had begun to mock him freely and some even played all his post-blast speeches in series to display his redundance of sense. “ we will find them, take them to task and punish them” were lines he must have memorized for the media emergencies so much that they always escaped his lips without any provocation.

Our entire establishment it now seems is very tardy. Our intelligence is mired in its internal bickerings and a former security advisor now claims that our intelligence network lacks mere co-ordination. There seems to be no benchmarks for actionable or non-actionable intelligence and it obviously looks like a job in the hands and mercy of the beholder. The contagious bureaucratic attitude of passing the buck and restricting to one’s own business seems to have taken a toll on our intelligence agencies and its vendors. Everyone was apparently happy at doing their own job and while the ISI were co-ordinatedly writing our obituary in Pakistan their counterparts in India seem to have been engaged in their own departmental battles. Our Intelligence as many sources claim is only namesake. Everyone inside merely does his/her job and no one is really bothered whether the purpose for which they are constituted as an agency is really fulfilled.

The Mumbai terror has shaken these babus of intelligence before claiming a few other heads like the CM and dy Cm of Maharashtra and the overdue-in-retirement home minister Shivraj Patil . It has brought to the fore our complete mess of logistics to face a terror situation, Our absolute failure at reaching our commandos after a delay of over 9 hours, our fire fighting equipment found wanting, our police and ATS equipped with substandard bullet-happy jackets , complete lacunae in our coast line security and above all our complete intelligence failure which is the most alarming.

All these have come to light because of the Mumbai terror attacks.. Today the babus are being targeted as the ones who without effiency would face the door as well. It is time our intelligence agencies are also taken to task for all their follies. After all there needs to be an accountability. The lives of so many citizens have been snuffed out due to mere negligence and their families are left to cope with the loss. But the ones at fault are still at the same job. They need to be pulled and uprooted from their position if necessary. India has to show the world that it is not as soft as it has so far been.

Else, the next attack is simply waiting to happen.

TheBigIndian

What to do with Pakistan

Mumbai’s terror has left the country in a rage and the government with a hobsons choice. While the US actually does not know what to do and how far to go on ‘somebody else’s” terror problem, Pakistan is playing the usual hide and seek game that its establishment is very well known for.

Despite the strong reaction from India and Indians, Pakistan is bent on doing what it knows best. Hoodwink the world with cosmetic exercises which have no meaning and which are relegated to the dustbin with passage of time

What the terror has done
The terror has left everyone shaken including the most vociferous Pakistani culture-exchange and sports-hardy supporters. It wasn’t about bombs detonating in buses and trains. It wasn’t simply about ghatkopar, nagpada or such other suburban wail renting the air. This terror has now crawled up the skin of the net worthy and the sound of the scream is far louder.

Suddenly the elite have caught up with the bomb scaredom. It was never their moment of grief because the common man in the street was too common for them to be grieving. The captains of industry and the corporate biggies hardly took notice when bombs were ripping through cities, trains, buses or near bystanders awaiting a bus. But today they are fuming, as this time, the places of terror were designed with the rich and mighty in mind.

While the wounds will take time to heal, the so called Pakistani friendship champions will soon emerge from their self imposed current exile. They will scout for a lawyer for the dreaded terrorist who was caught. They will argue his sad need for non-vegetarian food in custody, his need for a television to avoid being in solitude, an Ipod and preferably a cell phone with lifetime validity( they want his life to go on forever). They will simply forget the terror and brandish their high selling “human rights’ products. However this time around they might find some resistance in their own ranks. And the battle should be interesting to watch. Some mud-slinging hopefully.

However the Mumbai terror saga has put terror in focus to almost every strata of Indian society for the first time. From the chief corporate honchos to the scavenger in the street, terrorism is now a very big threat. In this situation it would be interesting to see how India handles Pakistan in this very precarious state of affairs.

Pakistan government a dummy vs army
Firstly Pakistan is itself a lawless country ruled by whoever pleases at whichever time. Camouflaged by a toothless elected government, Pakistan is only ruled by its army. It is the start and end of Pakistan. Whoever comes in its way is halal meat. The Pakistan government is a mimic clown, a curtain to talk to the world. Their toothless President and spineless Prime Minister do not know when their last minute in those chairs will be. They are living on the edge and will never go against their army’s will, as it would mean suicide.

The single agenda that the Pakistani army and their cohorts the ISI have is to destroy India . All their energies are spent in that direction. India has no chance to negotiate with the fanaticism of the Pakistan army. They are a rabid force.

What should India do
India should therefore treat Pakistan as a terrorist state. Our media should openly refer to Pakistan as “ the terrorist state”. Every business forum, every international forum, every sports forum, every social forum. Anywhere and everywhere we need to refer to Pakistan as “ the terrorist state of Pakistan”. The caption should resonate all over the world

However we should not fall into the trap of a war with Pakistan. They don’t have any economy worth their name. They are extremely jealous of India’s progress. On one side their army is being forced against their will to fight the American cause of terror by fighting their own friends, the Taliban. So they want to provoke India to react with war so that they can divert all their army towards the Indian army and get away from their punishment of fighting the Taliban. Their army owns most of pakistans resources and so they being well off, are not concerned about their citizens and their citizens seem to be well charmed with their army. So let their honeymoon with each other take them to their own hell.

In India , we must ban the groups who love to associate with Pakistan and broadly there are four categories.

(1) The art, music craft and books lobby who think that the best way to deal with Pakistan is to sing and dance with them. So what if their gun is on our heads. This is art. It has a different nationality.

(2)The second category is of the people who migrated from Pakistan during partition. Their memories, their linen, their clothes and their toothbrush is still back there and they want to constantly go and see them to remain happy in their last days. They still miss those qillas, the kotas and the halwas and want their hallucinations to survive the modern times.

(3) The third category is of our cricket board. With the world at their feet, the BCCI does not need to piggy back a poverty-stricken Pakistan cricket board . Yet you will see that our BCCI supports the PCB at all forums as if their cricket is completely insulated from their army and their establishment. Why does India need to support Pakistan in cricket? Are they our thick friends that we should be interested in their cricket welfare? Or should we use every opportunity to ensure that cricket in Pakistan rots just like the bodies of those nine terrorists butchered by our commandos?

(4) The fourth category is the most indignified of the lot. It is our film industry. While it may not be the entire film industry, there are plenty of morons in the whole pack of filmstars and filmmakers who want to forge filmy relations with Pakistan and who find Pakistan a tempting market too difficult to ignore. Some of them also go to dubai to sing and dance like whores of the terror mafia hiding in Pakistan.

These four categories of people needs to be exposed and completely banned by the general public. They are actually working against India and should be ashamed of their beliefs.

We should completely shut Pakistan as if we were shutting the door on stinking garbage. Boycott Pakistan completely at all levels ,in all aspects. All art, music, sports,economy, commerce, or other shoulder holding activities. Pakistan is a fundamentalist sick state which has done too much of damage to us. We cannot afford to carry on pretending that we are not affected anymore.

We need to fight this battle on our own. The international community is a hypocrite. They jump only when they get hurt themselves and in their own country. Going by the scale of the Mumbai terror, all the anti-terror countries and their external affairs ministers should have camped in Pakistan to push that rogue nation to comply in weeding out all the terror worms responsible for the Mumbai terror and importantly hand them over to india. But instead they are still twiddling slowly and getting carried away by pakistan’s cosmetic exercises. One wonders what such a relaxed approach will achieve.

Pakistan and their army, ISI and their woefully fanatic media are constantly seeking proof from India about their involvement. India should never fall into this trap of providing them any more proof and in the bargain divulge strategic and vital information. Whatever proof has been provided all these years in all the terror attacks sponsored by Pakistan would probably fill a museum and with the whole world viewing Pakistan as a terrorist nation, they are making a mockery of themselves by asking for proof.

Finally for long lasting peace in the region and the world, Paksitan should be split into many nations. A unified Pakistan is a big threat. It should be dismembered and without resorting to civilian harm our intelligence should strain every resource to achieve this goal.

TheBigIndian

India’s reluctance to enforce tough terror laws

Lawlessness in our country is a way of life for our breed of elected representatives as mentioned in my previous post. How to mend, mould and melt the law is a prerogative which they enjoy, most often without being taken to task. The citizen is therefore forced to bear the brunt of all their unlawful actions and sincerity to their job is a myth best reserved for books on school civics.

There are numerous laws and regulations which should have been enforced in independent India without malice. Good laws are so important for the country to govern and take its stride forward. However our politicians come in the way of all such noble ideas and the country is therefore willfully goaded into their state of thinking which is narrow, cheaply motivated and for mere selfish gains of various lobbies persistent in the country.

The reluctance to act decisively against terror is therefore not a mystery. It is a joke. We are mired in controversy and lazy indecisiveness on this one. While we need tough terror laws, the fear that is propagated is that such laws are misused by the political parties against each other for political gains rather than against terrorists. What a shame.

While TADA and POTA have died a miserable death due to its misuse by political parties for their own ulterior motives and selfishly vested interests, there seems to be absolute blindness as to how to stop them from doing so. Instead of having a brainstorming session on how to ensure that the political class does not misuse the law, our lazy politicians are instead dragging their feet on the laws and thrusting us, the common citizens to extreme risk.

It is therefore amply clear that our sufferings of terrorism are due to our political class who have got all the time to do play their political games but have no time to work out tough laws which can nab, punish and reign fear in the terrorists to refrain from attacking at will.

No wonder Afzal Guru is making merry. He should actually be pardoned and our politicians be given the death penalty for their laxity on terror

TheBigIndian