Category — Deshwa

Sanjay Gandhi’s approach to sterilisation is well known.

Here’s Maneka’s Gandhi’s approach:

Killing [of stray dogs] has not been able to achieve that [reduce number of dogs and bites] in 50 years and crores of dogs have been killed. Sterilization is the only method that has brought down the number of dogs dramatically.

And here is Varun Gandhi’s approach:

In logon ko pakad pakad ke nasbandi karaana padega…nasbandi karaana padega

Well, I think – If Sanjay and Maneka Gandhi had seriously thought about the sterilisation issue, we wouldn’t have stray Varuns on the street.

Self-appointed Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani apparently is too excited about the Internet.  He suddenly is receiving chain mails like all of us – and has decided the government policy should be decided based on these email forwards.

Mr.Advani now wants all black money stashed away in Swiss banks by Indians brought back. And he promises to do that if he comes to power. Well,  how a man who couldn’t negotiate a few hijackers – will arm-twist Swiss bankers is beyond me.

But Mr. Advani has a lot of figures to quote from a “credible source” called the Wikipedia.

Quoting Wikipedia, which he described as the “most credible” source of information, Mr. Advani said that in 2007, holdings in Swiss banks by Indians were estimated at $5.7 billion, up from $2.6 billion in 2001

His  press release says:

It is equally well known that many wealthy Indians have deposited their illicit monies in secret Swiss bank accounts and tax havens elsewhere around the world. As per credible estimates, these amounts range between $500 billion (Rs. 25,00,000 crore) and $1400 billion (Rs. 70,00,000 crore).

Now where in the whole Wikipedia do these figures appear? I can’t find any such mention in the Wiki. Probably it has been edited out. But I can tell you precisely where Mr.Advani got those “credible estimates” from.

It comes from a hoax email chain that has been around for a couple of years now.  A version of it is here. Over the past year or so – a number of journalists, web media guys and bloggers have fallen for this and have converted the email contents into news reports and blog posts. And now Advani, the PM-in-waiting too has fallen for it.

Here’s what this legend claims.

Black money in Swiss banks — Swiss Banking Association report, 2006 details bank deposits in the territory of Switzerland by nationals of following countries:

Top five

India—- $1456 billion
Russia—$ 470 billion
UK——-$390 billion
Ukraine- $100 billion
China—–$ 96 billion

Okay, the small problem is that the ‘Swiss Banking Association’ simply doesn’t exist. There is a ‘Swiss Bankers Association’ - but that never released any such report. So, where does Advani’s figures come from?

Further Advani has a crack team in place who will work out a way to bring the money back.

The BJP will form a Task Force comprising experts in law, accounting, management and intelligence to prepare a strategic document for India to recommend ways to get back the national wealth stashed away illegally by the corrupt politicians, venal businessmen and criminal overlords. Shri S. Gurumurthy, well-known chartered accountant and writer specializing in investigative journalism; Dr. R. Vaidyanathan, Professor of Finance at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore; Shri Mahesh Jethmalani, a renowned lawyer; and Shri Ajit Doval, an acclaimed national security expert, have agreed to work voluntarily on this Task Force.

Now in addition to Advani – we have a further four idiots who don’t even the know the source of the information they are throwing around – and they will recommend ways to get back the money.

I don’t mind Advani’s populist promises- but at least he could get his facts right.

The European Parliament has banned the use of terms that they think aren’t ‘gender-neutral’, whatever that means.

The European Parliament has prohibited the use of the terms ‘Miss’ and ‘Mrs’ in case they upset female MEPs. 

According to a new “Gender-Neutral Language” guidance, the politicians are required to address female members by their full name only.

It has also revealed that ‘sportsmen’ should be called ‘athletes’, ‘statesmen’ should be referred to as ‘political leaders’ , and terms like ‘synthetic’ or ‘artificial’ should be used in place of ‘man-made’.

The guidance lists has also banned terms for describing professions, including fireman, airhostess,headmaster, policeman, salesman, manageress, cinema usherette and male nurse.

Now I am glad that gender-neutral language isn’t official in our part of the world. Else, we would be struggling to decide on how do we address our beloved nation – no Bharat Mata, no Bharat Pita – then Bharat what?

Worse, we can’t call our Prime Minister by his own name. Sorry, No Manmohan Singh or Womanmohan Singh allowed.

And the worst part – no Manishwa or Womanishwa. Just Ishwa. Isshhh…

The BCCI  is so panicky about any of its members coming in touch with the ICL rebels, that it has tried to keep Craig McMillan (Of the ICL league) away from the commentary box in the India-NZ cricket series. The New Zealand Herald has an interesting take on this:

It’s one thing to pull two players out of a festival match in case they’re contaminated by ex-ICL bacterium Hamish Marshall.

It’s two things to have New Zealand Cricket general manager of cricket Geoff Allott ring ICL virus Daryl Tuffey to ask him to withdraw from a State Championship match. But it’s a truly absurd thing to flex their muscles in the commentary box for fear that Ravi Shastri (IPL) and Craig McMillan (ICL) might accidentally exchange bodily fluids that could eventually infect all the right-thinking people of the cricketing world.

Now, I am not sure on the exact procedure Ravi Shastri and McMillan would use to exchange bodily fluids, but if they did it on live television, that would be lot more fascinating than all the cricket, no?

PTI reports that celebrity couple Liz Hurley and Arun Nayar are headed for splitsville as Nayar finds his wife “bossy”.

Amid speculations that Liz Hurley and Indian business tycoon Arun Nayar are headed for splitsville, the friends of the couple have claimed that the friction in their marriage is the result of Hurley’s alleged “bossy” behaviour.

“She’s more like a boss than a wife,” a friend of the couple told the Daily Mail.

Wait a minute – aren’t most wives generally bossy? Or is my and Mr. Nayar’s households the rare exceptions?

If wonder if Mr.Nayar can gather a bit of courage (unlike me) and walk over to his boss’ cabin with an application in hand – just like you take a leave application to your boss.

Nayar: I have an application to submit

Liz: For leave? Or a raise?

Nayar: An application for divorce.

Liz: (throwing the application into the bin) Rejected. Anything else?

Nayar: Oh yes, can you at least fire me?

There is a lady somewhere who has gone on to marry the Eiffel tower.

Erika La Tour Eiffel’s madly in love. Her partner resides in Paris and is the tall, strong and silent type. Yet since they married in a ceremony with friends in the City of Love, the logistics of an intimate relationship have been more than a little challenging. Her  spouse, after all, is the Eiffel Tower.

See – no matter what the experts tell you – size does matter.

Back home I can think of a number of people wanting to marry inanimate structures. Mayawati and Taj Mahal could make a nice pair. Advani, Pawar, Paswan and the likes probably would be desperate to marry 7–RCR.  

An interesting poster of the Rajinikanth starrer, Arasan the Don – dubbed from the 1991 flop Khoon ka Karz.

Via: Rediff

Former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf want’s to play the role of the third umpire in the India-Pakistan disputes.

Mush wants to be third umpire between India and Pakistan.

I guess he would want action replays as well – of perhaps, Kargil?

Dear Shri Vijay Mallya ji,

Thank you dear Shri Vijay Mallya for spending $1.8 million of your precious money to bring back those personal belongings of Mahatma Gandhi – without which this nation of ours would have been doomed.

And what makes your act even more commendable is the fact that that the money comes from you during these trying times of recession – when 1.8 million could have bought you a couple of specialist 20–20 cricketers for Royal Challengers or a few much needed repairs to your Kingfisher aircrafts.

I promise you – years down the line, when you and and your companies are gone, and if somebody tries to auction off a vintage Kingfisher calendar with your favourite scantily clad models – I will be the first one to try and buy it – because all this is part of India’s unforgettable heritage.

Sincerely yours,

Manishwa

The Government now wants a currency symbol for the Indian Rupee.

The Government has decided to assign an internationally recognisable symbol to the Indian rupee, much like the US dollar, Euro, Pound Sterling, Japanese Yen, and some other major currencies. And has invited the public to suggest symbols for the rupee.

The symbol, the Finance Ministry has announced, “should represent the historical and cultural ethos of the country as widely accepted across the country”. It should be applicable to “standard keyboard” and has to be in the Indian National Language Script or a visual representation, it says.

[...]

The winner will get a cash prize of Rs 250,000 while the shortlisted five participants will get Rs 25,000 each.

Now that I have a fascination for entering design competitions, I present my humble entry for the Rupee symbol.

Now, it might look complicated at first sight, it really isn’t. It isn’t as complicated as how our country is. Allow me explain this masterpiece of a design I have created over the past 15 minutes or so.

The National Language Script: See closely – you can probably spot the “Ru” symbol in Devnagari script (??) . So the first need of sticking close to Indian culture is satisfied.

Secularism: Money knows no religion. Or probably it is India’s only genuine religion. When it comes to the rupee, people forget about Gods, or remember their Gods – depending on the situation they are in. That is why you can spot the chandra bindu from the “om“, the crescent/star and the cross on my creation.

Black in Colour: A lot like the India flag, the symbol should have a colour code – the symbol will always be in black – representing all the black money in our glorious nation.

Instability: Just like the cross-lines in $ or the ¥, which stand for stability, my Rupee symbol has two jagged horizontal lines – denoting instability.

The Falling Rupee: Note the down-arrow. At Rs.52 a dollar, and still falling, the down-arrow is so very appropriate.

The Triangle: The symbol has two triangles – let’s discuss the upper triangle first.  This triangle represents the bribe-chain (Like the food chain). Just as you pay a bribe to the traffic police constable, a chunk of it goes to the sub-inspector, who further pays a part of it to the senior inspector. Further the money goes to the police commissioner, who has to pass away a part of it to the home ministry. This rupee symbol correctly represents this chain of bribes.

The Inverted Triangle: This triangle represents all the money that has been stashed underground.

If you think this symbol is too complicated – it has huge benefits as well. You’ll soon find writing cheques so tiresome that you won’t spend money at all. Also, the babus at the nationalized banks would love it  – they can spend their whole morning session clearing just a handful of cheques, working at an even more leisurely pace. Kya karein “rupee” likhte likhte aadha ghanta lag jaata hai…

In all there can’t be a better symbol that captures “the historical and cultural ethos of the country”.

So, where’s my  250,000?