South Block

Government of India has long had a good relationship with Iran and its not a new thing for India to be supporting Iran for things which the whole world condemns Iran for and it goes to the days of Communist Russia when the cold war was on full swing and Russia was supporting anything and everything which said anything anti American and Iran as we all know has long been one of the anti US countries and hates Israel to bits. Iran with a nuclear toy would bring a new dimension to the middle eastern regional politics and that would be a time when I wont mind India being friends with Iran but now as we all know Iran  does not have nuclear warheads and India by supporting Iran is poking a knife in its own eye. Whats wrong with being diplomatic? Fuck iran if they arent as powerful as the US and other eastern European countries why mess around with them for a weak allie (don’t throw up just coz you are not used to straight talk ha ha ha I got nothing to worry about when I say all this as I live in a free country when every one is respected has a right to say what they have to say) India is so bent on getting that gas pipe line up and running which is going to run through Pakistan (where political will is nonexistent and populist measures make or break governments) which is a recipe for disaster. A major source of energy running thorough Pakistani soil? NOOOOOOOO it would be so stupid to do that and give Pakistan our artries which supply us with precious natural gas. Pakistani govt may realise the political implication of messing around with that pipline but they cannot provide 24/7 security for a pipline which will run through the remotest of areas and it would be vunrable to terrorist attack (ask yourself a question Where does Dawood live?) Dawood who as per intelegence sources lives in Pakistan and has a full backing by the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI and has a capability of striking in India as and when he likes, Hope you havent forgotten the 1993 serial bomb blasts in Bombay or Mumbai if you like.

  I personally think that this investment is a complete  waste of the Indian Tax payers money and poses a threat to our pride as we will be down on our knees as and when Pakistan threats to stop the pipeline from running any longer.

  Any other reasons for having good relations with Iran? Well yes US sanctions have left Iranian economy crippled to an extent and it just pounces upon any oppurtinity for profitable trade and there we go India is there to help. I agree that India gans aswell but  does it gain more then what it would if US sanctions are lifted from India ? I don’t think so. There are still so many sanctions US has on India and staying away from Iran would only help Indo US relations and better Indo US relations if you don’t know will bring lots of goodies for India and the standard of lifewe live in India will be a thing of the past soon with the trade opportunities US open trade would bring if and when that happens.

   Hope our UPA govt wakes up tomorrow and calls the Iranian head of state an idiot in an official statement J that will be an instant boost in Indo US trade.

  Yea I would take all my words back when and if Iran gets its nuclear warheads But that seems to be a distant reality so why waste time mending a sinking ship ? To hell with Iran. US rocks and I love American people and I think they are the most lively and friendly people I have ever met. I  lived in New Jersey for a year and I would love to go back and live there for ever if I get a chance.

Please do leave your comments about the Iranian connection I would love to ehar from you all.

I have had so much crap from star news that I couldnt keep myself from writing this post.

A news channel as they call themselves is supposed to broadcast news and start news on the other hand is actually a gossip channel. Two mins of news and after that you get a long interview of that little girl who appears in some movies and stuff,well once in a while is ok but one has to go through that same shit over and over every day and every hour. News for star news is when it rains in Bombay and when it doesnt its got nothing to do with matters of national importance.

The 2-3 day coverage of that little child stuck in that well a few weeks ago was stupid. They kept on showing it for 3 days and that too 24 hours a day no room for actual news.

The amount of advertisment is just amazing all they do on this channel is advertise thier stupid programmes on star plus.

Star news is far from being a news channel

THUMBS DOWN FOR START NEWS.

Fatwa politics

I saw the star news coverage about the sting operation carried out by star news reporters. I really don’t understand why this loud cry over suc a small issue on  a few Mufties giving out Fatwas for money, Well this is something which is wrong with the Indian culture which slowly developed since the British raj and this is nothing new besides the fact that this is a common practice in every religion including mine (I beling to a sikh family) Relegious politics is common practice and here we are talking about majority and not those who are the people or religious leaders who are an exception and incontrast to the vast majority stick to strict rules and regulations without being tempted by briges and ellurement.

Talk about the hindu religious leaders who are a puppet in the hands of high proile politicians and I guess this is no news to every one that rss and the vhp is run and driven by political machinery in India which is so powerful that there is no escape for them and who from time to time create opinions among the religious circles which as an end result will end up increasing their vote count in the elections.

Not going too far away and not wasting yours and my own time by talking about individual religions separately lets come back to the Fatwa episode which came into lime light a couple of days ago, Firstly I would like to condemn those people who brought this into media and I have reasons for saying this which I will explain latter.

What would this sting operation do for the command man in India and especially the Muslim community? Well nothing and I can say this for sure that it will have no effect what so ever on any count as Muslims in general have no interest in what a mufti has to say in his fatwa sitting at devband especially when he is saying that we are done with credit cards and this comes to my mind after talking to more then 20 Muslim friends of mine who said to me they don’t give two shits about this stuff and they just carry on their lives regardless of what a mufti declares at devband may be this opinion is restricted to very educated Muslim sphere which is the case about my friends whom I spoke to about this matter and the majority who lives in villages may think other wise and may mean the world to them what a mufti says in a Fatwa But hey they aren’t going to read this blog either so lets not go there we will leave them to wake up to education a few years latter when the spear named education will poke them in the heart and bring out a shining India which will spear head this world into a new era.

All in all my point is this showing of a few muftis who issued a fatwa for money doesn’t really make me believe that one can get a fatwa for money. I still believe that the money which was taken is a sort of norm for any religious man be it a pujari in a mandir whose chant of mantras differs for a rich man and a poor man, Pass on some good number of Gandhi’s and you will hear the pujaris voice as loud as a loud speaker its all about money money. Cant stop myself from hitting the Granthi in a gurudwara who will also pay more attention to you if he makes good money out of you  don’t know about churches as I haven’t really had any first hand experience and I would not do any injustice to my blog by writing something I haven’t experienced first hand.

Have you ever been to haridwar har ki pauri? Yes the most famous Hindu holy river the great Ganges flows there and at the bank in the evening the arti experience is second to none. I am not a Hindu but as I have lived in a Hindu dominated society I do have a lot of respect towards Hindu beliefs and I am myself a devotee of lord Shiva so with no disrespect to any religious sentiments of any one reading this I will provide you with a first hand account of what happened when I went to har ki pauri back in 2005 when I got married I went to har ki pauri as its considered to be good to have a holy dip before starting a new life. Me and my wife reached haridwar in the middle of the night at around 1am and to my surprise there were still so many pujais around to help us out at that odd hour. Don’t remember exactly what the pujari ji said to me the puja was going to be for but he made it look like it would change our lives and I said ok as he wasent asking for to much money I think was less then one thousand rupees and I paid that to him he took us to the river bank and said some mantras and made us do a few rituals and stuff which was a great experience and I sort of got some satisfaction thinking I have done something great but hey the greatness dropped by a few kilometres when pujariji offered us to do a better yagya which was going to cost around rs50000+ (I am not sure if he spotted my rolex or was it my wife’s jewellery or may be it was the NRI effect) after all that when I said I am not interested and we just came here for the darshan of har ki pauri he got a bit stroppy with us and started telling us about things which could happen if I don’t go for this so called yagya which was going to change our lives for ever and he just wont leave us alone after that he kpt on following up to the other side of the river trying to persuade me to pay him 50 thousand rupees which I wasn’t going to for sure. In the end when he just got too annoying to me I had to go to the police wala and gave him a few references and he spoke to our pujari ji who just did the small ritual and took about a thousand rupees came running to say you should have told me that you know the Commissioner of police and this and that and he would have done it all for free and started pleading and offered to return the money we paid when I never asked for. So I left the holy banks of ganga with a sore experience and left the pujari to rot in hell with my thousand rupees and left haridwar for good.

Money is the way to go be it any religion. Do you disagree? Do let me know why and how and leave your comments here.

Getting a drivers license in India

Don’t know what your experience has been and if things have changed now but this incident I would like you all to know about is from back in 1996 and my friend who was 16 at that time who was one year younger then me and we were both in the same school. My friend was very eager to get a drivers license coz his dad got him a 100cc Yamaha bike and he was only allowed to ride it inside the township as he didn’t have a drivers licence and was under 18 and one has to be 18 to get a licence. But where there is a will there is a way. My friend decided to get a drivers licence and went to the licensing authority office the next day and got in touch with a tout there who promised a licence for 400 rupees in one day so it was time for saving up some money from our pocket money, he borrowed rs250 from me and he had the rest with him and went to the dalla and got his new drivers licence the same day without having to make a learners licence even. Took about 3 hours and total cost rs400 and he was 16 at that time and it was a licence issued by the authority itself and we even got it checked by other sources that yes it was a genuine licence and not a home made one. My friend started using it from that day and still has it as a memory.

Don’t know if it’s the same now but if it is the same I am sure the prices must have gone up by a bit.

If you have any such stories please leave your comments.

Does any one in the government ever bothers to think how many public holidays we have in India? Apparently it’s the highest in the world. The amount of lost man hours we get due to these useless holidays is just idiotic.

Why do we have a holiday on 2^nd of October? Well Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi would spit on your face if he knew his birthday is declared a national holiday and the whole nation doesn’t work on his birthday and gets behind the whole world by one day and looses so much production and the work which could be done in that one day.

Gandhi ji never said he would like to see his loved nation to sit around and do nothing to celebrate his birthday. If I was in power I would declare Gandhi Ji’s birthday as a day when every one would do double shifts and I am sure Gandhi ji’s soul would bless me for doing it.

Ganhi ji wanted our nation to progress and be able to stand side by side with other developed nations but hey we decided to sit our ass instead and loose his birthday as a day when the whole nation does nothing but listen to bhajans.We can all remember the great Gandhi ji by working all day and having a loud speaker with his favourite bhajans running all day long.

Disagree with it? Well say it then and get heard by millions who will visit this page in the years to come. J

I would be very interested to find out who when and why declared 2^nd of October as a national holiday and this was just an example for argument sake there are lots more useless holidays which don’t make sense.

Our dear rikshaw wala

It is about time our government did something to stop human pulled rikshaws (not just the ones in Calcutta I am talking about the rikshaw which has pedels aswell).

Why do we have rikshaws? There was a need for them 10-15 years ago when auto rikshaws were out of reach of comman man both commuters and drivers who couldn’t afford to buy one or rent one.

A rikshaw can be hired for about rs25 to 30 for 12 hours and a rikshaw wala makes more then rs100 profit by pulling a rikshaw after paying that 25-30 rs rent and he works for 7-8 hours depending on his physical abilities and an auto rikshaw can be rented for rs 100 to 150 for a day depending upon where you are I checked in delhi 3-4 years ago may be thins have changed since then so don’t quote me on this.

Wouldn’t it be a wise decision for the government to ban human pulled rikshaws ? It will put and end to misries of so many people who are suffering from ill health due to pulling rikshaw day and night and hence putting further pressure on already streached health services.

Once rikshaws are taken off the roads the auto rikshaw business will surely become more lucrative and those who come from bihar and some other poor states into the metros will stop coming as there wont be the rikshaw option and those who would come in will have to get a licence for driving an auto rikshaw.

The government can also launch a lighter version of an auto rikshaw or shall we say mechanised version of a rikshaw which will run on petrol and will be a bit more faster then traditional human pulled rikshaw and will bring reduction to slow moving traffc on the roads of crowded metro cities.

Well that was me being me so I would like to hear what you have to say or if there are some policy makers reading this who have a say in these kind of decisions in the government please make me understand why rikshaws should not be taken off the roads.

Sealing of shops in National capital  region

The sealing of commercial establishments is Delhi is a long awated step which just took too lon to come by especially when delhi is growing in a very unorganised manner in the last few decades. This problem of commercial establishments in residential areas would have never happened but thanks to the corrupt DDA employees and MCD and NDMC employees everything is in a mess. Go to any place in Delhi you will just find shops every where even on the footpath which is meant for pedistrains but hey who cares if they have to walk on the roads and be vunrable to accidents .

Roads have been narrowed by the shops approaching into the roads and at some places the shops if not stopped will be in the middle of the roads and no where for the traffic to commute. It might sound funny but its not those small shopkeepers who make a living from the shops they have opened on footpaths they all need to go.

Now the big question of rehabilitation of those people who will loose their livings due to these commercial activities being stopped from the streets of  Delhi. Well no one can deny the fact that there will be a very large number of people who will struggle to make their ends meet but the demand for the merchandise they used to sell will still exist and the scaricity of commercial areas will prevail for a long time. The businesses that will be shut down will not really come to an end they will move some where else and especially manufacturing units and their cost of production will actually come down by moving into commercial areas and it will benefit every one in the long run.

People who are fighting for their businesses right now are not worthy of any sympathy, atleast I don’t have any sympathy towards them because it wasent m who asked them to pay hafta to the police, NDMC and MCD it was their own choice to do so. So let them suffer for their own doing.

The only thing I hate about this episode is that the corrupt officials and the police who let all this happen will still get away with the black money they have made all these years and no one is going to nab them for it. If a drive does start to get these people out of the system the whole machinery is corrupt and there are a very few people who have been abiding by the law so it will be the whole machenary which has to come down. Unless the government stops playing populist measures and does away with MCD, NDMC and the DDA  and privatises these things or creates a more reliable and robust structures by creating an altogether new body by making sure everything is under constant check and if something goes wrong there are provision that the person playing foul knows he wont get away with it every thing will go on as it used to.

Now is the time for our private sector to set up good malls all ove the place and be legally on the right foot and then they will make sure no illegal competition crops up this is the only way I can think of which wont be dependent on the govt departments.

For instance reliance opens up a mall in a locality and keeps a check if some one is running his shop illegally in near by areas and take them to court and get them to close their businesses this way.

Do you think this closure of commercial establishments from residential areas is good or bad? Please leave your comments so we all can have some grass root level opinions about what people think of this drive which is going on at a snails pace right now.

What good or bad things will it bring to Delhi? I will talk about this some other day. This is all for today.

This might sound a bit stupid but hey what the heck its just me and its my right to put forward my opinion so I will use my rights today.

Used cars have a heavy import duty in India which goes up to 200% when I last checked a few years back may be things have changed now but I am sure they havent changed enough to make a difference.

No idea how you all would react to this but in my opinion if the government brings the import duty down to about 15-20% instead of the present more then 100% if I am right will see an influx of imported cars and that to at very cheap prices which inturn will benefit the end user. For example the mid sized cars like Toyota camary a Honda civic or opel astra they are all very costly for a comman man to afford in India and even the resale prices are sky high and for a car which have been used for 3 years you end up paying atleast 60% of the price of a brand new car which is not true in western countries. A car which is 3 years old and has done 10-20 thousand miles which is nothing and the cars don’t loose much of performance either will cost you about 30-40% of the price of a new car and there is a huge potential of some good business here. My point is that domestic manufacturing will not be affected may be a little but over all effect will be positive. With most manufacturers looking to set up manufacturing units in India for exporting purposes and for domestic sales. The domestic sales wont come down by letting the second hand cars come in from abroad Yes the growth in sales will suffer but its all for good. Manufacturers will make a car in India export to for example UK it gets used to 2-3 years and Indian importers buy it for 30% the original price and bring it back to India and it completes the circle well hold on, After that car is used for 3-4 more years in India then we can look at selling it in Nepal or Bangladesh or even Pakistan if things get better or may be afganistan where there is a huge demand for these old cars.

Te main benefit would be that our sales will increase in western countries with old cars being disposed off very early in western countries and hence creating a gap in demand and supply will increase new car sales by rising the used car prices in western countries. Does this make any sense or am I living in my own world?

Is any one listening to this from the south block?  Knock knock?  Well you can buy a new car in states and import it after 6 months and save up a lot of money that way ha ha ha  Mr minister you will save up shit loads of money this way go for it take off all the duties off used car imports ha ha ha.

Any comments? Leave them here.

Wake up South block

Its about time our Respected South block wakes up

I really appreciate the way our country has improved as far as employment has improved and our manufacturing and services sector has shown good growth and the phenomenal growth in IT sector but IT sector is result of just the Hyderabad and Bangalore leading the industry and a few hubs here and there.Over all India has seen one of the best decades ever as far as economy is concerned and that’s all I am talking about today.

Dear south block I appreciate the work which has been done in the past but now is the time to wake up and do some more to compliment the changes which have come by in the last 10-15 years if we want to be one of the richest nations on earth which we used to be centuries ago. I would love to see an influx of Americans and Europeans into India to make a better living and that would be the time I would really stand in front of the south block and salute it with all my heart.

Don’t think its possible? Well no one every though 20 years ago that a wonder called Manmohan Singh will take the finance ministers chair and change the Indian economy for ever. Its not that there is a lack of good policy makers the only problem is the lack of political willpower. Indian governments in the past have only been interested in trying their best to bring themselves back into power in the next term and all they all resorted to populist measures like subsidies which did no good to any one but made the economy even worse.

What needs to be done? Yeh that’s a good question and if I knew I wouldnt be sitting in my car writing this article, Well I am not here to advise what to do all I am here to do is criticise policies which went wrong and shout and cry about them so as to make it such a big issue that those mistakes don’t get repeated.

I will pull upon Nehru chacha’s leg today. Nehru ji took us into the socialist crap and tried his best to impose his fascination with communist Russia and we all know what happened to Russia. Well if we say Nehru didn’t know it wasnt the right way then why didn’t Israel hold on to Russia or UK or Spain or France didn’t get into the Russian side when the cold war was on? Well all it says about Nehru is that he didn’t see the future as well as the leaders of these countries did.

If India would have been on the American team through out we would have been living in a different world Although America does play boss in anything and everything but India is not a football and we have a very powerfull defence machinery to support us in times of aggression. If India would have been friends with America they wouldn’t have supported Pakistan and that would have meant a different Kashmir to us and there wouldn’t have been a Kashmir issue and probably no Pakistan any more and there would have been a bigger and better India by now and right now we are struggling to keep Kashmir.

Am I wrong? Well you might say I am wrong but does your opinion count? Well not unless you leave a comment here and tell us al why you think otherwise.