India's Poorest Pay Bribes

By Manuwant Choudhary

Rajiv Gandhi got it all wrong....India's poorest pay higher bribes than estimated - a bribe in his mothers name -- Indira.

The Indira Aawas Yojna or the Indira Housing Scheme is about providing basic shelter to India's poorest and over the years the fund available has been increased.

Now a poor family would get Rs.45,000/- or roughly 921 US dollars to build a house.

But in practice he gets much less.

First he has to pay Rs.7,000/- to a local village tout and then another Rs.500 to open a bank account, another Rs.200 for paperwork.

Following this the tout goes to the local mukhiya (village head) and after the mukhiya gets his cut then he signs on the documents approving that the person is poor and deserving.

Then Rs.20,000 is sanctioned to construct the house as a first installment.

Once this is done, then there is an inspection and then the rest Rs.25,000/- is sanctioned. This is to be used for the cement/concrete roof and windows and doors.

But since the poor family have already spent Rs.8,000 before in reality he gets only Rs.17,000/-

So if a poor person does not have the Rs.7000/- bribe then he will most certainly not even get the Indira Awas Yojna fund.

What the mukhiya does is that he grants the scheme to those who already have a house, they just whitewash their old homes and pocket the money.

A better way for `gareebee hatao' would be to send the money directly to the poor man's bank account and let him spend it on what he feels like.

The scheme is also faulty in that it takes away the property rights of the poorest. Having built the Indira Aawas he cannot sell his dwelling land.

Politics Is For The Mediocre

By Osho

If you are intelligent, why should you be in politics? It is for the stupid, for the mediocre.

The intelligent person will have much more important things to do - he won't be interested in dominating others. His whole interest will be in knowing himself. To dominate the other is a way of escaping from one's own inner meaninglessness, inner emptiness, and hollowness. It is an escape from oneself. The intelligent person is not an escapist.

Politics is an escape, a great escape. It keeps you so occupied day in, day out that you cannot find even a few minutes for yourself. Even when you sleep you think politics; it continues in your dreams. To be a politician is a 24-hour job. You cannot relax because if you relax you will be left behind. It is pure violence.

Honesty does not pay in politics. And even if sometimes a politician is honest, he is honest only if it pays, not for honesty's sake. The proverb that 'honesty is the best policy' must have been invented by a politician. Even honesty becomes a policy! How can honesty be a policy?

Honesty is religion, not a policy. You are honest for the sheer joy of being honest. You are honest even if you have to lose everything; it is worth losing everything. Honesty can never be a policy, but politics makes everything a policy. An honest person in politics? Impossible!

A politician named Strange lay on his deathbed. His lawyer was summoned. "As an epitaph, on my tombstone," he gasped, "i only want to have the words, `Here lies an honest politician'."

The lawyer protested, "How will people know who's buried under that stone?"

The old man nodded wisely. "Don't worry," he advised. "Folks will take one look at those words and they'll all say, 'That's strange!'" And Strange was the name of the politician...

Honesty needs guts. The politician has to wear masks, he has to fulfil the expectations of people, so whatsoever you want he pretends to be that. Whatsoever you want, he is ready to promise it. He goes on promising contradictory things to different people; his promise means nothing.

And the whole world complains about these politicians, but somehow man is so stupid that if he gets out of the clutches of one politician, immediately he enters into the cage of another.

Man has to be freed from his stupid mind; only then will he be free of the politicians. Hence politicians don't want you to be intelligent. For thousands of years they did not allow people to be educated because that was dangerous. Now they allow people to be educated, but the education is such that it makes you less intelligent.

When the child enters the school he is far more intelligent than when he comes back from the university. Those 20 years will destroy much that was immensely valuable. He will carry just words, jargon, theories, knowledge. He will have sold his intelligence and he will have brought home just dead knowledge.

The older generation tries to mould the mind of the new generation. The teacher is just an agent of the older generation. He is the agent: he corrupts the minds of the new, but the corruption is done with such skill that you will not become aware unless you are really alert, watchful.

Courtesy Osho International Foundation and Times of India Speaking Tree

Steve Jobs - My Tribute

By Manuwant Choudhary

God is definitely not Steve Jobs.

God is more likely to be someone like Bill Gates and so we have all the bacteria and viruses floating around. And Cancer.

Steve Jobs passed away recently and so this is my tribute to a great individual whom I never met and know him only through his gadgets I use.

I am not a techie nor do I care much about Silicon Valley.

Yet, computers have become a part of our lives in a way much like electricity.

I am more like the man on the street in rural India scared of technology and when they work I simply marvel.

Of course, I must be among the really privileged to use computers at St. Joseph's College, North Point, Darjeeling, way back in the eighties. We solved some very simple Mathematical problems on them and played some games!

But I would not say it was enough to take the fear out of me.

The first time I really felt how important computers had become when I went to apply for a trainee job at The Afternoon Despatch & Courier newspaper in Bombay and the editor Mr. Behram Contractor asked me, "Do you know how to use a computer?"

I replied, "Well. err, errr, I did something way back in school but no."

Editor, "Do you know how to use a typewriter?"

And I replied No.

Editor, "Then please go and learn how to type on a computer. Remember no notes, just think from your head and type straight onto the keyboard."

I joined a computer course for a month and still have no clue about softwares and hardwares and what all they explained. But after classes I would just type my love letters from my head.

Thats how I got my first job.

Occasionally as a reporter we would hear of Shammi Kapoor trying to promote the internet in Bombay and I wondered why. Was it because of him having some stake in Yahoo !

Chahe koi mujhe junglee kahe ...Yahoooo! is a song which was more famous than computers and the internet and search engines.

Once in a while someone would mention Apple and we would say What?

Among our friends Anurag Sharma was considered just next to Bill Gates in understanding computers.

Yet, as a reporter my editor once gave me an invite to cover a public meet. "Here, here go Manu Bill Gates is coming."

For me it was just another assignment until my Malabar Hill friends began calling up for extra passes.

And when I passed on some I was doing them a favour greater than India's Prime Minister.

So as I walked towards Navy Nagar with my `jhola' and a pen, hundreds of Mercs whizzed past me.

Only then did I realise that Bill Gates was the richest man in the world.

His talk was quite ordinary and at the end he announced that he would be donating a few hundred computers to poor school children perhaps to please shifty Congress politicians like Murli Deora.

I just reported.

My report was as ordinary as the talk.

What was brilliant was my editor Busybee's take on it all in his daily column Round & About on how Bill Gates went to meet his friend on the 21st Floor (Who was richer than Bill Gates).

Later while studying in the UK I decided to buy myself a computer after saving every penny.

So I go to the Computer Advisor on how to buy a laptop. And his advice was `Don't buy."

But I pleaded but why?

And he insisted that laptops don't work, they are not reliable, why don't you buy a desktop.

But how do I take a desktop back to India with me.

I just went and bought a Compaq laptop with a Windows 95 software.

It had a one-month guarantee. I was too busy with studies and when I used it first I realised there was a problem.

And then many long walks to the Computer Store.

The one month guarantee had lapsed.

They had a one year worldwide warranty and the Store explained how I had to call the helpline (international charges would apply)

Its only when I called and called and finally shouted that they gave me a new laptop.

And I walk back.

And the new computer also had the same problem. Windows would just not save!

I tell you how much I hate Bill Gates.

And then the viruses that would stare you in the face while you worked on the more serious threats to society - our politicians.

So when my compaq laptop finally died I did not buy a new one immediately.

I just did not feel like it until one day I see this MacBook Pro.

And so this tribute.

Thank you Steve.

Recession in India? What Recession?

PIX Manuwant Choudhary


Recession in India? What recession? Mercedez Benz has sold 22 of these beauties in India already in just a few months since they were imported from Germany. Cost somewhere around 3.5 crore rupees each! I can understand why our Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh says India can lift the developed world out of their slump!

Vera Brezhneva's Real Life

Translation of this Russian Song

My tiny bird, you only see the sun on TV
Look out the window, I'm sending you a ray of light, catch it!
You know a lot about love from the Internet, definitely
But it's not your story, your tears are in vain
And the sun shines on everyone equally

The Ron Paul Campaign Video

Our Prime Minister Defends His Ministers, Only

By Manuwant Choudhary

Every Indian Prime Minister have their own style like Nehru's white sherwani's with thered rose, Lal Bahadur Shastri's simple dhoti-kurta, Indira Gandhi's sarees, Morarjibhai's Gandhian cap, Rajiv's shawl slung across his shoulders, Vajpayeejee's poetry, VP Singh's Muslim cap, Chandra Shekharji's brutal honesty that India's parliament should not discuss corruption, and Manmohan Singh's sky blue turban.

But Manmohan Singh looks more peculiar by the day.

Before it was just an intellectually high forehead and his wave that looks like he is dusting his home furniture.

Now its not just his gestures but what he has been saying makes one feel its time for him to go.

Like his latest from abroad, "I will defend my ministers."

But if you defend your ministers then who will defend the people?

I would say he is responsible for the 2 G Mess. Like if it was public policy that the spectrum prices be kept low then why doesn't the Prime Minister say so.

His ministers are going to jail one by one so its hard to believe the Prime Minister is even defending his own ministers.

And his other statement aimed at the western powers that they must not be involved in regime change. Did the Libyan leader Muamma Qaddafi call Dr. Manmohan Singh and should he have been allowed to bomb his own people?

I wonder what our Prime Minister has to say on Indira Gandhi's role in the creation of Bangladesh?