The Grinches That Would Ruin Deepavali.

“And they'll feast, feast, feast, feast. They'll eat their Who-Pudding and rare Who-Roast Beast. But there's something I just cannot stand in least. - How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Every year, since at least three decades, the lovely, pre winter season of the Deepavali , triggers an astonishing allergic reaction in the ruling classes of India.

India’s gorgeous, splendid, Deepavali festival appears to cause, in her corrupt and conniving ruling classes, a furious and unstoppable itch to civilize the rest of us brown folk.

This itch manifests itself as a crusade against the bursting of crackers in the Deepavali season.

So the festive season is marred by a fusillade of hatemongering reports in the media that would pound Indians into believing that the fabulous festival of Deepavali  - a festival of prosperity, is hazardous to their health.

The media drums a hysteria to welcome Deepavali. 

"Hospitals ready to tackle burn cases on Diwali"

Animals and pets cower and presumably escape into India’s scanty forests.

There is no doubt that crackers “pollute”.

The best crackers go off with a bang and emit smoke.

If you set off a cracker without due care and respect it might blow your eardrums or eyes or fingers off.

But the same applies – exponentially - to the masses of motorized private vehicles that clog the arteries of a globalizing India.

India’s corrupt ruling classes supinely accept this contagion of private transport as a harbinger of impending superpowerdom.

China does not.

If the sustained energy that goes into the corrupt and destroy Deepavali media crusades are directed towards plugging the “leakages” in India’s meager health allocation, Indians might be a little better nourished and less diseased.

Do you know that India is among the few countries that continues to live in denial of the horrors of asbestos ?

India’s ruling class media rarely stirs itself to crusade against the well documented evils of  fast food and fizzy drinks.

What about the deadly, unchecked adulteration of milk, the chemical ripening of  fruit and vegetables?

Has India’s corrupt, ruling class media knocked  any of these ghastly hazards off the  list ?

I understand that in some regions of India owls continue to be hunted.  I have tweeted this to the attention of India’s editorial class. Not a single story this Deepavali.

So this is the pattern I see.

Quiet and impotent against many of the massive and very real hazards to the deep, traditional health practises of Indians, India’s parasitical ruling classes work relentlessly to make Deepavali, a sacrificial lamb to it's itch to do something, anything, as long as it is not the right thing.

And it is for such egregious eccentricities, that India’s ruling classes and its media is perceived as a burden, an embarrassment  and a toxic hazard, in and of itself.

To India’s ruling class grinches, I say, “You did not make it. So please do not break it. And please, say Deepavali.*’

*

"Divali" is gibberish and a corruption of a lovely, ancient Samskrutam word, Deepavali.

Even "In Europe, there are only a few languages that use W in native words" -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W - and the 'W" sound does not appear in Indian languages.

"Diwali" is colonial gibberish.

So, please, say Deepavali.

How Luce,White and Halberstam Helped Me Make My First Dad Decision

The little one had just been born. And after she had had her first suckle, gotten cleaned up and everything­, she started to wail.

That is when I had to make one of my first decisions as a brand new dad.

Do I pick her up and comfort her or do I let her cry herself to sleep.

In the best traditions of the Victorian Nanny, the consensus among the adults in the room was to leave her alone.

If I picked her up there would be a permanent and dire consequenc­e. The little one, would get used to my "body heat" and would never like to be put down.

Tough situation for very wet behind the ears dad.

Thinking hard I made up my mind with a little help from David Halberstam­, Harry Luce and Theodore H White.

My answer came from a brilliant book "The Powers That Be" by David Halberstam published, in the 80s.

Henry Luce the founder of Time Life and Fortune and of popular, pictorial journalism (before the advent of TV) took a great interest in the goings on in China, for among other reasons, his parents had been missionari­es in that country.

His man in China was a 24 year old, Teddy White, who had created a formidable reputation for himself as a China expert.

In keeping with the "pop" nature of his paper, Luce was a man who was curious about all the various small but colourful details that a convention­al reporter might consider insignific­ant, but which lent colour, dimension and readabilit­y to Time stories. Made them reader friendly.

On a meeting in China, when the reporters were in serious discussion about the course of the Long March etc, Luce was looking out the window, seemingly completely away from the stuff in the room.

After the meeting, he seemed to exclaim to no one in particular­, " I wonder why Chinese babies seldom cry?"

The brilliant Teddy White picked up on this seemingly pointless remark and researched it.

He found out that indeed Chinese babies seldom cried, because they were worn on their mothers' backs. Their needs were anticipate­d and attended to. They were comforted by their parent's presence and body warmth.

They rarely needed to cry.

They also had better resistance to disease and better IQs.

So you now know how I decided. I was not disappoint­ed.

This also taught me to pay heed.

I could immediatel­y make out whether she was crying because she was hungry, thirsty, scared, in pain or just because she wanted to make a fuss.

I learnt to make sure her clothes were soft and appropriat­e for the weather. That her shoes were comfortable.

In other words, when the little one was in my care, it would never, ever be her.

It would always be me.

You may also want to engage with my comments on, 

How to Talk to Little Girls:Lisa Bloom & 

Humiliating Children In Public: A New Parenting Trend? Lisa Belkin Here

Good Tidings From One Of My Favourite Indians - Rajaram Bojji

B Rajaram to present paper on Gravity Towers at Paris meet
January 5, 2011




Our babus continue to ignore his inventions, while the world honours the technology man who patented an anti-collision device, made the Skybus and more recently the Gravity Power Towers

Rajaram Bojji, former chairman of Konkan Railway, never got a chance to implement his revolutionary Skybus project which would have provided inexpensive, air-conditioned mass transport without land acquisition! The idea, backed by 17 patents, was abandoned by Indian authorities despite a successful demonstration in Goa. But Mr Bojji, who is better known as B Rajaram, moved on to new research and has kicked off the new year with a bang.

Automated People Movers and Transit Systems (APM-ATS) has accepted Mr Bojji's work on Gravity Power Towers (GPT) as a peer-reviewed paper to be presented at its 13th International Conference on 24 May 2011. The biannual international meeting is being held in Paris for all those involved in the development of fully-automated people movers and urban transit systems around the world.

This is an honour for the man who invented the anti-collision device (ACD) for the Indian Railways and has already got 17 patents for his inventions. He has assigned the intellectual property (IP) rights of this technology to the president of India, which has the potential to generate additional revenues of between Rs300 crore and Rs400 crore per annum for the Konkan Railway.

In a message to Moneylife, Mr Bojji said, "With the GPT, the world will be benefited by a more economical and nature-friendly transportation system that runs substantially on eternal gravity. With GPT, the carbon emissions can be substantially reduced in the future. This totally automated system neither uses electrical traction motors on the rolling stock nor fixed signal train control systems. All it uses is automated energy control systems from gravity power towers, which can redefine our safety standards and lifestyle as well. It can be even adopted by the existing legacy systems. A dream of mine has taken the first step. Hope humanity benefits."

While, the Indian Railways is still 'thinking' about implementing indigenous technology, one of its technology drivers has moved on to bigger and better things.

Mr Bojji's GPT principle re-directs vertical-acting gravity force in a horizontal direction to create a tractive force on a mass on wheels-either rail or road-to accelerate, then sustain speed, and when decelerating to recover kinetic energy. It is almost like the action of a pendulum.

The recovery on the GPT system can vary from 95% to 70%, depending on the distance of uniform speed-the longer the distance, the lesser the recovery. Hysteresis losses owing to friction cause increased irrecoverable energy loss. GPT has been granted a patent in the US.

Mr Bojji has also presented the outline for a $450 billion scheme to create a cargo transportation network of about 100,000 km to be fully powered by the GPT in the US. The network, fully powered by gravitational force, would save around 97% of energy being utilised currently, and generate 30% surplus after meeting all expenses, while generating a million blog GPT.
It is estimated that gravity power systems could contribute 30-40% of the Earth's total energy needs, taking care of transportation of people and cargo, while attaining speeds of 360 kmph on rail-based systems.

Unfortunately, as the world rewards and awards the Indian innovator, the Indian government has shunned his solutions. The best example is the anti-collision device that he devised and which was given a patent, but the Railways have chosen to ignore it while trying to adopt the European Train Protection Warning System (TPWS) on busy rail routes. (Read, 'Is the anti-collision device system being derailed?' 'Why we are denying Raksha Kavach to rail commuters?')

Mr Bojji's other creation, the 'Skybus', was also left by the wayside by Indian authorities planning mass transit systems. Further, while the anti-collision device was singled out by the World Intellectual Property Office for special coverage, the Skybus Metro Rail System was described in special programmes on National Geographic and Discovery channels.

Mr Bojji was involved with the Konkan Railway project as chief engineer from the beginning of its construction in 1990, then as director for projects and finally as managing director between 1998 and 2005. He was instrumental in delivering more than 100 tunnels (including the Mumbai-Pune Expressway tunnels), about 2,000 bridges and 750 km of live running track through treacherous terrain in Maharashtra's Konkan region.

-- Sucheta Dalal

Checkout Wikipedia on Skybus

At The Indian Express - Sekhar Gupta's Journalism Of Humbug !

Re: Comments on Yours faithfully, (Subramanian Swamy)

Once again, The Indian Express' "Journalism Of Courage" exposed for the hollow humbug that it is.

Indian Express - How To Cover Up Pathetic Hypocrisy ? By Being A Disgusting Smart Ass.

Re: Yours faithfully, (Subramanian Swamy)

Why do you not visit sathyagraha.blogspot.com and get all the "proof" you want on how your editor Sekhar Gupta, among others, attempted to relentlessly coerce me into accepting corruption as a way of life.

The Indian Press and editorial class cynically yielded to Jaipal Reddy And Chandrababu Naidu,the right to cheat and defraud.

That was 12 years ago. Since then I have documented the corruption of the Rashtrapathi's office, the Prime Minister's Office, of Wajahat Habibullah, the local Chief Information Commissioner and the Andhra Pradesh High Court. What have you done about it?

The Indian Press is a hopeless mess of sycophancy and ought to stop trying be such a disgusting smart ass.

Is Tehelka open to Subramanian Swamy ?

Subramanian Swamy gets 13 references. Not one is a profile. Prashant Bhushan gets a neat 100 references and several profiles. Ram Jethmalani gets 65 references.

Just another instance of the incestuous idiocy of India's corrupt ruling class.

Is OPEN magazine closed to Subramanian Swamy ?

In a flurry of articles, Manu Joseph, editor OPEN magazine and others have argued that Anna Hazare is a "Gandhian relic" and an "obsolete man".

Okay; so what does OPEN think about Subramanian Swamy ?

I searched "Subramanian Swamy" on OPEN magazine and got zero items on Subramanian Swamy.

Hmmmmm!

Dean Kamen's Water Purifier - Why Has The Indian Media Missed This ?

R K Anand - First Greenshoot of Congress Revival

What's the difference between Western News and our news ? Simple. Western news is almost irretrievably Westcentric. Even when Western corruption is discussed, the watchful mind can see the shimmering halo, hear the fluttering wings.

Smugness, "see we can discuss our dirty linen, can you ?," not outrage is the droning undertone.

Out news is eccentric.

In keeping with the national obsession for submission/domination, we believe not merely in unfairness and disproportion, but in its brazen, outrageous display.

Not only must injustice be done. It must be seen to be done. Not only must injustice be seen to be done. It must be reported and rationalised by the idiot savants of our ruling class on national television.

Yes. I am in a foul mood.

Because I saw the disgraced lawyer R K Anand appear on two networks, CNN IBN and Times Now, to pronounce his jurisprudential wisdom on the disgusting Manu Sharma out on parole matter.

If anybody wanted a dipstick survey of the brimming insanity of India's insular, idiotic ruling class - here it was - on full display !

http://www.timesnow.tv/Debate-Jessica-killer-misusing-parole/videoshow/4331740.cms

I googled RK Anand and found this little bit on The Telegraph.

Behind the curtain

Now for some news from poll-bound Jharkhand. The Congress, it appears, has struck a deal with Babulal Marandi of the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha. The credit for the pact should go to that old hand, RK Anand, and not to leaders such as Keshav Rao and Mukul Wasnik who are officially in charge of the polls in the state. Before the polls, the Congress, the grapevine has it, conducted a survey, which showed that the poll prospects of the party will suffer if it tied up with tainted politicians such as Shibu Soren. Taking the cue from the results, Anand got into the act and helped forge ties with Marandi who has a cleaner image to improve the Congress’s chances in Jharkhand. Anand must be hoping that the service rendered will improve his own chances of a raise in the pecking order as well.

The rehab appearance of RK Anand as a pundit of the Indian ruling class's idea of the rule of law,on two national news channels (maybe more ?) is not an accident.

It is another tender, "green shoot" of the rejuvenation of the India National Congress.

Cheers!

Faffing through the clutter

You create something for your little one. It works. It works so well, that your little one has taken it, used it and one day, you are watching tv and Amitabh Bachchan is using it.

Faff. It is a word, a space that you created, out of the forge of your intense concern and caring, to make it easy and playful for that tender and frail and effervescent, bundle of feelings and fears to talk to you. With whom you just had to connect.

So you would faff about school and teachers and friends, the little one sitting on your knee, or on a chair arm, but with your arm around it.

The little one may not hear you, but it could not have any doubt that you were there. The little one, whether it liked it or not, was not alone.

She took faff to school and then to hostel, to another school and then to college.

One day says," We just don't faff anymore Appa" .

Wow! you're thinking, so appa did get through to that bundle, through the voices on tv, through her ever expanding gaggle of friends and peers, your faff cut through the clutter.

PS: Feel free to start a convo. I would love to hear from you.