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Showing posts from February, 2007

The Chicken Dreams!

Martin Luther King had a dream - a very powerful one. The poor in India has a dream too - to feed their children three meals a day and send them to school to build a better tomorrow. Download Mp3 Arindham Chaudhuri too has a dream - just that it is all about counting chickens and also eating Biryani. The Great Indian Dream - Restoring pride: Alternatives for a journey towards dignity - Philosophical & economic basis for the India of our dreams - An employed, well read, Biryani eating & AIDS free India - Courts which are not on strike - Igniting the sprit of entrepreneurship & patriotism - Voting without being embarrassed - India After 25 Years: A Vision How does he plan to achieve this? Through something called Happy Capitalism. There is a visual difference from that of a stereo-type Indian pseudo-intellect - also sometimes referred as Spiritual Guru; Arindham is not someone in saffron robe, or with a long beard... But he talks about the holy Gita like all the other fake gu

GIANT WHEEL OF HATRED

There is something wrong with this world. Blogs are being blocked. Bloggers are being thrown into jail. Whether your blog is good or bad for the internet and its users, whether your thoughts - personal or propaganda... everything depends on the point of view. Today, I found myself being attacked... for I spoke about the grace of life and kindness. If kindness and goodness is only something you share with your group/sect/herd/religion - then what's the point of living under this sky? When George Bush said, "either you are with us or you are against us", he was parading his ignorance at a world stage. He was also parading the soul-less self, telling us he is scared of the 'other man'. To many, a life without an enemy is almost impossible. Bush is that kind of a man. He needs to see an enemy to validate his life on earth; simply because he has no grace of his own. In today's debate on sectarian violence, I refused to take sides. Why should common people take law

Vulture Fund business!

"Vulture Fund” Company Wins $20 Million Payment from Zambia on $4 Million Debt Video courtesy and copyright BBC “Vulture fund” companies buy up the debt of poor countries at cheap prices, and then demand payments much higher than the original amount of the debt, often taking poor countries to court when they cannot afford to repay. Investigative journalist Greg Palast reports on one company that has won the right to collect $20 million from the government of Zambia after buying its debt for $4 million. In his recent State of the Union address, President Bush declared the United States was taking on the challenges of global hunger, poverty and disease, and urged support for debt relief, which he called the best hope for eliminating poverty. But what exactly are wealthy nations doing to reduce the debt of impoverished countries? Vulture fund companies buy up the debt of poor countries at cheap prices, and then demand payments much higher than the original amount of the debt, often t

How to stop Whaling?

In three steps. 1. Boycott all Japanese Goods. 2. Boycott all Japanese Goods. 3. Boycott all Japanese Goods. Say Say0nara Nippon! You got to hit them where it hurts 'em most - their yen for whaling. Boycott Toyota, Honda, Sony, Panasonic and all those big Japanese brands... when the sales figure goes down, Japan will listen to the world opinion.

Who needs Reality TV?

Arundhati Roy December 22, 2006 The Supreme Court of India has sentenced Mohammad Afzal, Accused No. 1 in the Parliament Attack case, to death. It acknowledged that the evidence against him was not direct, only circumstantial, but in its now famous statement it said: “The incident, which resulted in heavy casualties, has shaken the entire nation, and the collective conscience of the society will only be satisfied if capital punishment is awarded to the offender.” Is the ‘collective conscience’ the same as majority opinion? Would it be fair to say that it is fashioned by the information we receive? And, therefore, that in this case, the mass media have played a pivotal role in determining the final court verdict? If so, has it been accurate and truthful? A small group of scholars, writers and lawyers has followed the case over the years and meticulously documented media reports. Some of this work has recently been published by Penguin Books as a reader (13 December: The Strange Case of

India's shame

Mohammad Afzal is due to hang for his part in the 2001 attack on India's parliament building. But was he only a bit player? And is the country trying to bury embarrassing questions about its war on terror? -- By Arundhati Roy Friday December 15, 2006 The Guardian Five years ago this week, on December 13 2001, the Indian parliament was in its winter session. The government was under attack for yet another corruption scandal. At 11.30 in the morning, five armed men in a white Ambassador car fitted out with an improvised explosive device drove through the gates of Parliament House. When they were challenged, they jumped out of the car and opened fire. In the gun battle that followed, all the attackers were killed. Eight security personnel and a gardener were killed too. The dead terrorists, the police said, had enough explosives to blow up the parliament building, and enough ammunition to take on a whole battalion of soldiers. Unlike most terrorists, these five left behind a thick tra