Ratan Tata and Nira Radia Conversation - 2G Spectrum - Part 2 of 2

Ratan Tata has gone to the Supreme Court saying his conversations with Nira Radia are `private'....I'd leave to to the listeners to judge whether this conversation is private.

barkha dutt Nira Radia tape Part 1

Subramanian Swamy's Dinner At The Prime Minister's House!

By Manuwant Choudhary

India's Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh plans a special dinner and so tells his wife ...."Jeee Gursharan....dinner pe bulana hai jee mehmanon ko....zara theek se khaana banana....(I am calling some guests for dinner please put in your best effort).

Wife: "I have always put in my best. I am not like you. You have already forgotten the dinner I hosted for Obamaji. Obamaji sent me a post card from the White House complimenting me!"

Prime Minister: "I don't mean that. This dinner is going to be different. Its tougher than inviting Obamaji."

Wife: Okay you can tell me whom you want to invite?

PM: Subramanian Swamy!

Wife: Ohhh him!!!!! Not him???? Isn't he the man who wrote a letter to you eleven months ago and because you did not reply he has dragged you to the Supreme Court....its like inviting trouble for dinner.

PM: Oh no, you don't understand. Have you ever heard of dinner diplomacy?

Wife: No, not him. If there is no salt in the dal this Swamy fellow will drag us to the United Nations.

PM: I want to invite him so that he can eat your delicious food and stop writing letters.

Wife: I really don't understand why this man still writes letters. Nobody writes letters anymore. You should tell the Supreme Court you did not receive an email from this Swamy fellow and I know you personally reply to all your emails.

PM: Yes thats true I reply to more letters than all the chief ministers and bureaucrats have ever written across India.

Wife: Always say Nehruji wrote more letters than anyone else..don't brag... Soniaji may hear it and you may lose your job.

PM: Ok so how do we invite Subramanian Swamy?

Wife: I know this PR woman..whats her name..we can ask her to organise...

PM: Who?

Wife : Nira Radia.

PM: Ohh no...she is the cause of all the problem. You cant ask her...the CBI and Income Tax Department are tapping her phones and soon you will hear your voice all over the world. Don't you watch TV?

Wife: I watch NDTV. There is nothing on it.

PM: Aah thats because they are in trouble because of Nira Radia as well. If Ratan Tata had a news channel it would be as silent as NDTV. Actually, I prefer silent TV. Like the old hindi films before everything became Talkies!

Wife: Now don't get nostalgic. Okay we will find a way but do you think this Subramanian Swamy will come at your invitation.

PM: Oh yes, he will...he will do anything to be in the Prime Minister's House. Didn't you see the confidence with which he told the world that he is not just anyone..he is Subramanian Swamy....the Prime Minister knows him for decades.

Wife: But who is this man? He is not even a Member of Parliament.

PM: He is a President of a political party. Janata Party.

Wife: What errr??? Nobody wins from that party.

PM: Oh darling. Didn't you see Swamy's power on ZEE TV Subramanian Swamy Unplugged.. He said see who has won in Bihar...all are Janata...they all left me but they still win.

Wife: Yes, i hear the Congress lost is deposits in almost all seats in Bihar despite Rahulji and Sadhu Yadav.

PM: Now you are distracting me. Focus on the dinner.

Wife: But is Subramanian Swamy a real saint like Sri Sri Ravishankar or Baba Ram Dev?

PM: No, no ..no...he is no saint..just Swamy in name.
But he is more dangerous than all of Hindutva put together.

Wife: How you know?

PM: I know. You forget his tea party. Single-handedly he organised a tea party for Jayalalitha and Soniaji...and the 13 month Vajpayee's BJP government came down like a pack of cards.

Wife: But isn't he the one who brought down Jayalalitha also..so how is she a freind of Swamy now.

PM: Thats politics. But Swamy's politics no one understands. He says he does not bow before enemies or freinds. He is Jayalalitha's friend but has not dropped a single corruption charge against her.

Wife: I am sure he is a blackmailer.

PM: I thought he was one but who has the guts to tell him. On ZEE TV he menacingly said no Congresswalla has ever called him a blackmailer. If anyone does then I will go after him he said.

Wife: But thats blackmail.

PM: No that Swamy fellow went on to say that he cannot be a blackmailer because wo har cheeze ka khulaasa kar deta hai...he exposes it all.

Wife: Is he like Laloo? Uneducated fool???

PM No, no even Laloo stays away from him. He is Harvard educated and still visits Harvard.

Wife: OK, ok...who should we invite..perhaps the top journalists like Barkha Dutt, Rajdeep Sardesai....and get our shifty Kamal Nutt to decide which journalist is on our side.

PM No,, no...you dont follow..this Swamy is very clever like Chanakya....if we call him for dinner then it must be just dinner no talk.

Wife: Ok I know this chinese ambassador...who speaks only Chinese ..so Swamy will get good company.

PM: Im glad you are not in my cabinet. You dont even know that this Subramanian Swamy knows Chinese as well !

Wife: What about entertainment?

PM: Ahh we'll play that song...My Name is Sheila..Im soooo sexy..katrina number.

Wife: But our chief minister may get offended again. See how New Zealand had to apologise.

PM: Think about it..

Wife: Okay one last thing if this fellow comes what gift should we give him. I think we should present him a German Shephard dog.

PM: Yah I know he likes dogs. But not pedigree. A stray Indian dog is what he will definitely like - one that bites.

Elections Make An Ass Out of You!

By Manuwant Choudhary

The newly launched Telegraph in Bihar has a banner all over Patna `Elections - Triumph of Truth'....but at one crossroad I met these two asses standing right under the banner so I thought how right - `Elections Make An Ass Out Of You!

The past few days I have been busy with two maternal uncles...one passed away and the other survived.

So we decided to take him home although he wanted to take the next flight to Bombay.

Even he knows that Patna is hell.

And right he was as his ambulance reached his home we found the water pipe had burst and his bylane had become a gutter.

Soon water entered his home.

Two labourers dug the road. I asked them how deep is the water pipeline and they replied 6 feet under. At their speed they would take 7 days. And the water supply pumped water every five hours.

So I asked the contractor if there was a drainage system where the pipeline water could be drained out so that the water doesn't enter the homes of people. And he replied, "Sir, what you have just said is an idea that belongs to the United Kingdom or to the United States of Amrika. In India we have no such system. The pipeline is 50 years old and the pump is new so pipe-bursts are common. Sirr...iss bikaas ke daaur mein bhee yeh jo aap kah rahe hain wo nahin hua..sirrf surfacing hua hai."

(Sir, what you have just said did not happen in the last few years of development also...only roads were surfaced and resurfaced during this period.

I tried meeting the municipal commissioner Manish Kumar (IAS) but he had no time since he was in a meeting.

I called a deputy mayor (who has many criminal cases against him) but even he refused to pick up his phone.

So this morning when I got a call again that more water had entered the home I called up the press and I asked my relatives to call a judge at the Patna High Court.

As photographers, reporters and judges began making the calls..even on a day of Bakrid...pumps were brought in and the water pumped out.

My bhabhi has invited me to her home for dinner - mutton chops!!

But I won't be going...just as I did not go to vote...there is just too much muck in this country.

Respectable Tees Maar Khan's of Indian Politics

By Manuwant Choudhary

Is there anything as a `respectable' scam? In India there is....the Adarsh Scam!

A multi-storeyed building in South Bombay meant for the dependents of soldiers killed at Kargil were taken over by politicians and their family members and even a former Indian army chief Deepak Kapoor.

Ashok Chavan is out...and Prithiviraj Chavan is in as Chief Minister of Maharashtra. (Mahascamrashtra)

But god knows who will remain in the Congress Party since Sushil Kumar Shinde and Vilasrao Deshmukh all figure in this scam for moving files and benefitting some of their relatives.

The flats were given to the relatives of the politicians at throwaway prices, building and environment norms overlooked.

Its hard to believe that a hyperactive environment minister Jairam Ramesh who can stop a Vedanta in Orrissa had no clue about this major violation in Navy Nagar.

A Right To Information activist says even a relative of the Information Commissioner has got an apartment in the Adarsh Housing Society and hence the Commissioner refused to give any information.

And then there is `Spectrum Raja' who says he will never resign although the charges against him are that the excehquer lost 1 lakh 80,000 crore rupees by way of revenues in the 2 G auction because he sold them at 2001 rates in 2008!

Has Indian democracy become a Con Job and our politicians are just Tees Maar Khan's?

Catch me if you can. catch me if you can???

A Perfect Heart

By Manuwant Choudhary

Last night at 11 p.m. a perfect heart stopped beating after 90 years.

Dr. Shreenivas - a veteran cardiologist - passed away at a Heart Hospital in Patna after being in a state of coma for the past month.

He was a maternal uncle of mine and an amazing man so I write this tribute to him.

Humble origins and born in a marginal farming family at Garhsisai..he studied medicine at the Darbhanga Medical College and
went to train in Cardiology in Boston (at Massachusetts General Hospital) in the United States in the 1940s in addition to other countries like England.

A brilliant student who did not stop learning even till his end.

On his return he worked in Bihar all his life...being the personal cardiologist to many Governors and chief ministers and even to the late Swatantra Party leader the Raja of Ramgarh Kamakhya Narain Singh.

He had a small clinic where he could be consulted by anyone and usually the poor came to him from all parts of the state.

When he realised that Bihar lacked a proper heart care institute he pleaded with the Bihar chief minister to set up a heart speciality centre in Bihar. He said he did not care what the name of the centre would be..his main aim was that people in Bihar would not need to go to other parts of India for something they could get at a fraction of the price in Bihar itself. This request led to the formation of the Indira Gandhi Institute of Cardiology at the Patna Medical College Hospital.

This was in the heydays of the Congress rule when everything was named after Indira.

But Dr. Shreenivas did not stop at that. When he retired and found that socialism had destroyed the quality of health services offered to people he pleaded with a fellow cardiologist DrA.K. Thakur to start a private Heart Hospital in Bihar.

Dr. Thakur considered Dr. Shreenivas as his Guruji. Every new year he would arrive on the lawns of Dr. Shreenivas's home in Patna only to touch his feet and seek his blessings.

Dr. Thakur's Heart Hospital is a dream come true and thousands of people in Bihar benefit.

An allopath by training...Dr. Shreenivas claimed he was the founder of a new system of medicine - Polypathy.

In an age where loyalty to a particular system of medicine was the norm..Dr. Shreenivas chose to take another path. He said medicine is that which cures. Its not important whether it is allopathy, homoeopathy or even ayurveda. He even recommended all three medicines to his patients.

And he wrote books..hundreds of them...and he was a poet.

People considered him mad...he named his sons after Einstein and after some ancient Vedic scientists....I still can't remember my cousins full names.

He did this in a state where caste and surnames matter most.

But he was different - even funny. In his books out of nowhere he would mention the names of all his family members.

I remember when my father would visit him he always had a new book to present my father and it used to contain our names.

My father was a homeopath after his arthritis was cured - not by training - but he read so many books that he could dispose a hundred patients in one hour. Every morning he would give free medicines to the poor for two hours.

So Dr. Shreenivas was always interested in what my father had to say on homoeopathy. They exchanged notes and books often...

This morning when I went to their home a young lady came out to look after my aunt. My cousins pointed out that she is the same girl who had a speech disability. She could not speak at all.

Memories came flooding back. I recall my father taking out his medicine kit and giving some medicine to the girl. After several months of taking the homoepathy pills she suddenly found her voice.

Miracle.

Dr. Shreenivas was not the routine doctor. I recall how when during the Laloo era in Bihar when the law and order situation reached its nadir..even Dr.A.K. Thakur was attacked and robbed. Dr. Shreenivas sat on a fast unto death till Laloo Yadav himself promised him that the dacoits would be dealth with.

But the Indian government did not give him the national award Padmbhushan. Lesser doctors in Patna get that award every year.

Five years ago Dr. Shreenivas suffered a brain haemorrhage and went into a coma. I recall visiting him them and everyone gave up.

But not him.

He recovered after 6 months in hospital. Doctors observing the monitor said that even in that state his heart was perfect like that of a young man.

He had an unfulfilled mission. He felt he had neglected his home in his village so he wanted to build a temple to his family god.
His son did build the temple and Dr. Shreenivas visited his village to pray.

My father would often regale us with stories and one of them was when on an occasion a panditji from my hometown refused to eat dinner. When asked why he was not eating anything the pandit replied angrily, "How can I eat food when a Muslim is seated next to me?"

When my father looked he found the man sitting next to him was wearing a flowing white beard, dark glasses and a smile to pass him off as a Maulana - Dr. Shreenivas.

Was there a method in his madness?

Even as I write, this Maulana is being cremated on the holy banks of the river Ganga at Benares now.

"India Shies Away From Addressing Major Concerns Like Burma"Barack Obama

By Manuwant Choudhary


United States President Barack Obama's speech to the Indian parliament and the people of India took a rather sharp turn when he said the United States backs India's desire for a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council in a new world order but this did not come without responsibilities and leadership.

"India shies away from addressing major concerns like Burma. The sham elections taking place in Burma today are there for the world to see but you say you do not want to interfere in another countries internal affairs. This is not interfering in another countries internal affairs but being true to your own values."

Indiavikalp has in the past years shown the true nature of India's political parties, politicians and governments who have not only kept quiet on Burma but have even helped the military junta by way of trade and aid.

Senior ministers visit Burma often and never say a word against the generals or even demand the release of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Forget patriotism, is India morally ready to lead the world or will it be as bankrupt as the other powers who have a permanent seat at the UN Security Council?

And yes, President Obama spoke eloquently about India being the worlds largest democracy.

But he is not aware that India is a democracy where liberals are by law not allowed to form a political party.

Sonia Gandhi wore a new gold earring for Obama and even Dr. Manmohan Singh took out his newest blue turban but India is no more a land of values..just opportunism like the rest of em.

A woman Aung Saan Suu Kyi is still imprisoned in Burma while we become a Superpower.

A Silent Superpower!

Gifted Hands The Ben Carson Story

By Manuwant Choudhary

Is it just plain coincidence that while US President Barack Obama spends his hectic hours in New Delhi HBO telecast a great film `Gifted Hands The Ben Carson Story'? I watched Carson till the end.

I can say its better..much better ...than the Obama story.

Based on the real life of neurosurgeon Benjamin Carson at Johns Hopkins the film is inspirational on several counts.

So later i checked the wikipedia for some background and here it is:

Benjamin Carson was born in Detroit, Michigan. His mother, Sonya, had dropped out of school in the third grade and married at the age of 13. Carson's father abandoned the family after Sonya discovered he had another wife and kids, leaving his mother to fend for he and his brother. However, his mother insisted that he and his brother (who is now an engineer) read at least two books a week then proceed to write reports on these books for her. This early education and encouragement shaped Carson's future.

In September 1987 Carson performed at DSA a procedure to separate a pair of seven-month-old German conjoined twins, who were joined at the head. Carson was the lead surgeon on the team which performed the complex procedure. - - In 1997 Carson and his team went to South Africa to separate Joseph and Luka Banda, infant boys from Zambia. Both boys survived, and neither one suffered severe brain damage. The Bandas were the first set of twins joined at the tops of their heads to be successfully surgically separated. The operation lasted 28 hours, from 10:15 to 4:46)

In 2003, Carson was a member of the surgical team that worked to separate conjoined adult siblings Ladan and Laleh Bijani. Neither survived the surgery. When asked why he had performed such a risky surgery, Carson stated that they conveyed to him they would rather die than stay conjoined.

Dr. Carson also pioneered the hemispherectomy (the surgical removal of the affected half of the brain) in cases of Rasmussen's encephalitis or syndrome in children.

In 2008 he won the Presidential medal for Freedom.

Carson is not a symbol of social justice. He embodies everything of what a human mind can achieve and what it still has to discover.

A part in the film where Carson loses his twin sons is most compelling he says "I could do nothing."

Later he cries "Oh Lord help me please."