India Absent In Manipur

By Manuwant Choudhary

Its now 90 days since two highways Manipur's only link to India have been blocked due to an ongoing feud between Nagas and Kukis over the carving of a disctrict and there is no sign of the government of India.

Wonder if Manipur is an `integral' part of India as our politicians often say about Kashmir.

Gas is selling at Rs.2000 per cylinder and petrol costs Rs.140 per litre and long queues can be seem at petrol stations

Potato in the rest of India is less than Rs.10, while in Manipur it is Rs.40.

Manipur depends on supplies from outside and trucks carrying essentials and other goods from the rest of India use the national highways (NH 53 and NH 39) passing through Nagaland and Assam.

The Sadar Hills District Demand Committee (SHDDC) had started its indefinite economic blockades on the National Highway 39 (Imphal-Dimapur-Guwahati) and National Highway 53 (Imphal-Jiribam-Silchar) on August one.

The SHDDC has demanded conversion of the Sadar Hills area in Senapati district into a full fledged district.

Opposing this, the United Naga Council (UNC) began its economic blockades on the two highways on August 21.

The government in Manipur is the same Congress Party that is in power at the centre and its chief minister is Ibobi Singh who is become India's most mocked at chief minister on facebook.

Instead of solving his state's problems he is busy scouting for land to build a 5 star hotel.

Manipur is also the state of Irom Sharmila who is on a ten year fast against the Special Forces Act, and the only time India took note of her was when Anna Hazare did his 11 day fast in New Delhi.

Wonder why India is not using the Special Forces Power Act to remove protestors from the streets.

Or is the Indian government scared of Nagas and Kukis?

The right thing would be to impose President's rule in Manipur, remove the blockades and deny any new districts.

Not The Last Tyrant

By Manuwant Choudhary

Television today brings us closer to history and how brutal...a tyrant being caught alive...is assaulted with his own shoes and you see Muammar Gaddafi being taken on a jeep, his face bleeding, a bit drowsy and pleading for mercy...as his last words were `Don't shoot'.

He was found in a highway drain trying to escape after a Nato bomb hit his carcade.

And then we see images of a dead Gaddafi being dragged on the streets of his home Sirte.

Yet, is he the same man Tony Blair had dinner with just a year ago?

I distrust governments - all governments.

And you can have a tyrant even in a democracy - people will elect him.

Hitler was elected after all.

And as I read todays newspapers there is no word from the Indian government or Dr. Manmohan Singh.

When the people of Libya were being bombed by Muammar Gaddafi and they looked east towards India, India looked the other way.

`Interests', economic, diplomatic or just plain corruption, and definitely not principles guide all governments.

Oil.

And governments get so badly involved it it all that even their Prime Ministers become lackeys of oil companies and their interests.

And I am not an `Occupy' activist or supporter.

But stop and look around the world we live in and you will realise that we are just one big cruel civilisation unable to resolve our problems.

Few individuals like beacons on light still exist amongst us who willl never take the short cut and who do not seek to dominate and they are not arrogant about their goodness.

Muammar Gaddafi was quite handsome when young...and disgustingly ugly when old.

A pencil moustache, eyes that is better with the sungalsses, a goat beard and a rock star hairstyle, but his face was so rough he did not look human.

Yet, in a CNN interview with Larry King he said he was not the Leader of Libya but Leader of the Revolution and that the revolution was still on.

And he was right, his own people revolted against him.

Gaddaffi's brand of tyranny was a combination of socialism, religious fundamentalism and his Green Book. 42 years!

Mahatma Gandhi once said, "When I despiar, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end they always fall - think of it, always.

Dala - Life on Earth - From Folk Alley

http://www.npr.org/2011/10/18/141457234/dala-sweet-and-gentle-harmony

The Blue Turban

By Manuwant Choudhary

Have you noticed European leaders avoid inviting Dr. Manmohan Singh...Dr. Singh has made most trips to the United States.

So I asked an EU MP and he confided it was because of his turban.

But why turban?

EU MP: You see its blue in colour.

Me: So what blue is a beautiful colour. I love blue shirts.

EU MP: No, no its not just the colour its also the turban.

Me: You mean Europe has become like France, no veils no turbans kind of policy.

EU MP: No, no, its not that. Dr. Singh is a gentleman.

Me: Then why? He is after all India's honestest Prime Minister.

EU MP: Look we value our ties with India but we just cannot invite him.

Me: Has that Anna Hazare asked you not to invite him?

EU MP: No, don't blame Anna.

Me: I would say if Anna wore a blue cap instead of white the Jan Lokpal Bill would have been passed.

EU MP: No this has nothing to do with the Jan Lokpal Bill.

Me: Then what? Is it that Arvind Kejriwal threatening you that they will campaign against European MPs?

EU MP: Arvind Kejriwal is an activist and we know how powerful he is...even slippers don't get him. And that poor fellow Prashant Bhushan gets bashed up in the Supreme Court for telling the truth about Kashmir.

Me: What truth? You see even Anna does not support his Team member Prashant Bhushan on Kashmir.

EU MP: Thats because Anna is scared of Balasaheb Thackeray.

Me: Why Balasaheb? Balasaheb has not visited Kashmir in his entire life. And that would mean Anna is intellectually corrupt? Should that also not come under the Jan Lokpal Bill?

EU MP: No, it seems you don't read wikileaks. WE know more about Indian politics than even the Indian people.

Me: How do you do that?

EU MP: we just take the Indian journalists to dinner at 5 star hotels and they tell us the juciest secrets that they do not write about.

Me: Is that so? So tell me the latest.

EU MP: Well, Digvijay Singh is better at shooting letters than shooting his mouth.

Me: I agree.

EU MP: That LK Advani is a tall leader so tall that even his chariot get stuck under bridges and trees have to to be removed across India for his yatra.

ME. What else you know?

EU MP: That Rahul Gandhi is getting married soon.

Me: Really? How come?

EU MP: He went for the Kind of Bhutan's wedding and after all he is the prince of India. But until then we are still worried about the blue turban.

Me: I know those hosiseries manufactured surplus blue turban material when Dr. Singh became PM but they remain unsold. Sikhs prefer wearing red and black like the Ranbaxy brothers ...see they built more hospitals in four years than Dr. Singh in ten years.

EU MP: Can you just ask Dr. Singh's wife to give him a pink turban.

Me: I did ask her once but she said Dr. Singh wears only blue.

EU MP: But why insist on blue? I know Montek Singh wears blue in India and purple in the United States.

Me. Well, even your EU flag is blue so whats your problem?

EU MP: You don't understand.

ME: Dr. Singh himself told students that he was always known as The Blue Turban.

EU: Thats what scares us?

Me: But why? Dr. Singh told me he likes blue because of his alma mater Cambridge..its their flag colour too!

EU: You dont have to wear your flag? Whatever happened to the flag code? Will he next wear the tricolour turban just because he loves the Congress Party.

Me: I think you are still not telling me anything?

Eu MP: Well, errr, eerrrrrr, I think I have to tell you that Nostradamus has predicted that
World War III will start when a man wearing a blue turban enters Europe.

Me: But Dr. Singh has not hurt a fly.

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.