A Hindu clergyman made history Thursday by offering the Senate’s morning prayer, but only after police officers removed three shouting protesters from the visitors’ gallery.
Rajan Zed, director of interfaith relations at a Hindu temple in Reno, Nev., gave the brief prayer that opens each day’s Senate session. As he stood at the chamber’s podium in a bright orange and burgundy robe, two women and a man began shouting ”this is an abomination” and other complaints from the gallery. [NYT]
They shouted “No Lord but Jesus Christ” and “There’s only one true God,” and used the term “abomination.”
Every year on 6th December, thousands of dalits descend on Chaityabhoomi near Shivaji
Park – to pay homage to Dr B R Ambedkar on his death anniversary. Now I had my share of calling myself a Mumbaikar as I lived there for 5 years. As my parents live in
Nagpur, I used to travel a lot between Nagpur-Mumbai. Couple of times, I had done this route around 6th December and believe me it is not a journey you would like to take. I am a cautioned traveller who makes travel plans much in advance. So here I was, I had reservation in second AC from Nagpur to Mumbai. The date of travel was 5th December 2002 or 2003.
To start with, I had to scream on top of my lungs to get into my compartment. There was not a single police officer in site to handle the huge rush of Chaityabhoomi pilgrimage. With a travel bag in one hand and a suitcase in another, I Jumped over people and finally got to my seat. Much to my expectations, I found five people sitting on my hard-earned-money-worth birth. And what a site it was. In a compartment made to accommodate 70-80 people there were at least 300-400 people in it. Since it was a AC compartment, there was no free air flow. The heat was unbearable in the compartment. It suddenly was like-Bihar scenario. After much altercation with the family, during which I got lot of fiery glances from youths sitting on top berth, they vacated a small area for me to sit. And that was it. I traveled 18 hours sitting in that crappy area, smelling all the stench possible and cursing myself for choosing such an auspicious date to travel. I have my own opinions against reservation, in general, and Mandal Commission, in particular. I certainly oppose what happened in Kherlanji. I will not dwell into it in this post.
I have nothing personally against congregation going to Shivaji Park to pay their respect, but it should not be done at expense of other travelers.
No wonder that Mumbaites panic in first week of December.
India is considered as the mecca of outsourcing. We have BPOs, KPOs, Data Warehouses and every other aspect of outsourcing in India.
However, when it comes to Cyber Crime Chase, we are far behind other countries. The main reason that India cannot enforce or interpret cybercrimes is that our cops are not familiar even with everyday technology. There is a huge gap between a guy writing software for Microsoft in urban Bangalore and a field cop.
So it’s no surprise when you hear that a police squad confiscated some monitors as evidence of cyber crime from an office and left CPU/Harddisk behind. In another instance, they seized floppies and tried to staple them together, thinking they were documents. You can read the whole store here.
The point I am trying to make is that the thieves and law breakers are getting tech savvy everyday. They are coming up with new ways to do crime everyday, thanks to Hollywood movies and serials.
Setting up Cyber Crime Investigation Cell will not help much if our cops can not even operate ATM machine. What we need is an awareness program for our law enforcers and making them to use computers/gadgets in work. I mean you have to think like thieves if you want to catch one
India always had very complex relationship with China. Everybody knows about professional rivalism between two countries, especially when it comes to Services and Production Industry.
However, on political front, India and China have long standing bickering over borders. Areas under concern are Tibet and Arunachal Pradesh, which China refers as South Tibet.
As of today, Tibet is considered as Chinese sovereignty and India has traditional trading rights in this region. We, as Indians, have accepted this and respect Tibetian borders.
I have always believed that Tibet should have been under India’s control but I will discuss that later in some other post.
However, China has now ‘again’ started attacking Arunachal Pradesh, which is unacceptable.
It was a bad move by Chinese Ambassador,Sun Yuxi,when he claimed that Arunachal Pradesh is Chinese territory. Especially when president Hu Jintao is on his way to India.
Brief History — During British Raj, in Simla Conference (year 1913-1914), a 550 mile line (known as McMahon Line) was drawn as border between British India and Republic of China. The Simla Conference was attended by Tibetian and British representatives. Since China didn’t have any officer attending the conference, and they claim historical sovereignty over Tibet, they refuse to accept this aggreement. Point to note is that during the period of Simla Conference, Tibet had declared itself independent and hence they had authority to negotiate with India. Britain and Soviet Union considered the Simla Convention as a bilateral accord.
My take — British crown again played it’s trump card by keeping all parties in dark and the document vague. Classic divide and rule trick.
I guess Jintao sole purpose of this trip should be to promote political stability and economic development for both India and China.
He should not open can of worms by discussing borders.
India is considered as the mecca of outsourcing. We have BPOs, KPOs, Data Warehouses and every other aspect of outsourcing in India.
