After 26 years of Bhopal gas tragedy......what's next?

Mockery of Judiciary....After causing death to thousands & making lakhs to suffer for life, our judiciary found few people guilty of negligence. It took us more than two decades and I am sure, it will continue for another two decades of 'apeal to higher court', 'stay order', 'reopen', 'reinvestigate'.........before putting the case under the carpet. By this time we can conclude - if you do not belong to a political family or from an elite english-speaking class, your life is worth few thousands (if you are lucky, the figure may go to few lakhs!!) of rupees.

Note that Mr Anderson, the then Chairman of UC, could never be made appear the trial. No wonder,we never dare to make big-bro unhappy.

Our citizens can not overcome the hurdles of Constitution ....why not give a padmashree to the ex-chairman Anderson & his team ? Mr PM can offer this in his next visit to US.

See this link on US double standard ...but I believe, the way Union Carbide case has handled is more of India's leadership failure - contrast to what BP is made to.

TATA Indicom sucks!!! Do they have customer in their line of sight?

Sometimes mid march, my Indicom connection was failing despite I had no outstanding dues. I thought, it was because of my modem settings etc. I tried all possible tricks that Windows allows but did not succeed. Finally, I called Tata Indicom help desk and found that my connection was disabled by them....they discovered that there is not enough documents that establishes my identity. I was puzzled as what else document besides photo copy of PAN, Passport and rent agreement, I could have missed to submit ( I was using this connection from last several months ). The Indicom help desk guys ( girl, to be precise ) are only trained to tell - "I am sorry sir, I can not help you" and "Sir, do you have any other issues that I can help" in a perpetual sequence. Frustrated, I resubmitted all documents and thought waiting for 2 days before attempting net from home. After, 3 days, when I checked the line, I found that the line is still disabled. When I called the help desk, they informed that there was a power cut in their office, so they could not give any status to my complaint !!! After two weeks,when I called the help desk, they informed that the line has been enabled....but ordeal is not to finish here. Any attempt to connect internet was responded with - "the remote server did not respond"!!

Decided, I won't talk to the help desk, instead I checked the internet (from office) logged a complaint with more f***words in the content than the actual issue itself. The TATA Indicom seems to understand f***words very well !!! .....the line was enabled finally with an executive calling me to get a confirmation. It took 25 days - what a great customer service!!!!
The tata indicom customer support executives (thats what they like to be called)are the worst ....very poorly trained...have no idea of what the cusomers could face....they are worst that I came accross.

Anyway, I m going to change my service provider soon... may be I will go for a BSNL broadband.

Institute(s) of higer learning....

What purpose our institutes of higher learning serve? I am skeptical about contributions of IITs and IIMs in nation building (compared to fundings they get). These institutes produce highly paid executives, mostly– yet our govt is spending huge amount of money for them while there should have been more investments on the primary education. Well , is it without any reasons? No.
• Opening an IIT /IIM/ University in a state is considered to be an achievement for the people’s representative who can cite that for seeking votes in the next election. This will create job opportunities for few hundred peoples as well – another reason why “you vote for me”. A primary school may not be that fruitful as long as ‘return’ is concerned.
• Guess what is the picture above? It is a university that WB CM is going to inaugurate in few days from now. Lest I forget, election is nearing!!!
Here is the src of the photo-> http://www.anandabazar.com/archive/1090226/26south1.htm

Do not ask HOW MUCH MONEY YOU MADE, MINISTERJI

If this is to believed, I am really disappointed, given that we have MMS as PM!! Looks PMO has yielded to the pressures from Amar-Mulayam, Lalu et all. Too bad Mr PM.

HAPPY 2009....

Composed few weeks back but could not post..... bad net connection... busy schedule...etc etc.
I hate lists... but thought of composing one. Few days back, we had an area meeting where evryone had to tell any one wish .... there was many interesting and noble pledges. For fun, we drafted the wishes and made an e-copy of it...plan is to have it discussed in a nxt years meeting:)

I have many plans....Here is my list................whats yrs?

• Quit smoking -if failed, would restrict smoking maximum 3 cigarettes a day (CFLY). Never drop cigarette buts on the street - will keep it in pocket and drop it at next available dustbin( if quit this will automatically follow).
• Learn driving a car(CFLY). Nooo I m not buying a car.( basically I know driving - but it has to be a big field - this time want to drive on roads - despite my clear theoretical knowlege, no friend is willing to give their cars to me :(... so no option but to call the driving school guys).
• Buy a TV and take a cable connection(CFLY).
• Would try to find a life partner (CFLY)- additionally this will keep my parent's mouths shut -:)
• With few exceptions, would not read pure fiction books ( I wish I did not spend few hundred bucks on Chetan Bhagat, Shirshendu(Bengali) etc etc!!!).
• Go to 'God's own land", Kerala(CFLY).
• Learn an Indian language and improve my Assamese which is currently 75% bengali. For feasibility studies, bought an urdu alphabet book.
• For films, won't follow read_review_check_whois_there_in_it_Then_watch, rather it would be other way.
• No more staying awake late in weekend nights. No reading at bed-time.
• Get my house agreement renewed (current agreement is till Jan-09)- crap they need a lot of documents/ gaurantee etc etc for a bachelor. Lucky that they have no rules like 'bachelors can not marry' .
• Will join a gym - no I don't like 6-8 Packs - Just want to improve stamina (currently in our housing society's court, I can not play 3 consecutive badminton singles...gotta improve).
• Will convince my nephew/niece/causins who are in schools, that it is not most important to get star marks in school. Its more important to explore and enjoy and follow your respective passions. Though good result should remain a priority as otherwise many avenues would be closed. ( Got to be little careful - otherwise I'd get a thrashing from their parents).
• Would work towards getting a govt registration for the club at my village.
• not subscribing any calcutta-based newspaper - enough of mamata-budha !!!!!!!!!!!!

• note - (CFLY) - carry forward from last year.

Week that was ---

Saturday - On weekend, ended up offending a friend by a poor joke (sad, everyone is not intelligent like me to understand jokes)...had to write big emails saying - sorry:-) Today was supposed to talk to doctor (for a stomach problem) n take an appo but the doctor's phone number was in my office id. Tried the VPN to connect to my office network but thanks to the slowest-on-earth-tata-indicom-dial-in-connection, could not get the office network either (though could check india-au cricket score after day 3). The doc is my friends brother-in-law (good that, i don't have to pay consultation fees) - tomrow, wd ring up my friend's resi number to get the doctors phone number and consult him on Sunday - poor sis of mine, who came last to last Sunday- no movies or shopping on Sunday! Though she made few friends here in the compound by this time, she is not that bored - atleast that's what she said to me.
Saturday night- My sis is there…so no “party” on weekends – but weekends are not dull when you have a sister around. Planning to catch a movie on Sunday.

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Sunday - Could not manage time for a movie. May be next week....I’m desperate to prove that I m alive:) so have to add something in the blog. An old incident does not seem to be bad to place it here!
My friend Ranjan told me about this. The incidence is a year old. Ranjan always insisted that we (particularly me, my other friend Tapan) would take a thousand years of “sadhana” to reach a level of our other friend Sidheswar. We all gracefully agree the talent of Sidheswar but that difference in ‘level’ never came out to be a factor in our friendship. Enough of “alaap”, let’s go to the story.

It was a puja vacation, last year, Sidheswar started for home- his train, Teesta Bhorsha express departed from Kolkata at 8.30pm. Sidheswar occupied his seat at right time and was sipping his mineral water bottle frequently. It was a hot day. Eventually by half an hour, when the train is well past the Calcutta station, his water bottle was empty and Sidheswar went to bed ( He didn’t feel like having the dinner). Everything was fine until midnight when he got awake to go to urinals. Mind that smoking is banned on trains now a days, Sidheswar did not light a cigarette in the urinal. After returning to the seat, he saw all his belongings are gone!! A cool person, he thought of reporting the theft to police, but on a second thought, there is little hope of getting the things back, so Sidheswar decided to stay back. He uttered choicest of curses n abuses for the bag-lifter. Since it was real hot and dry, he was more worried about the other mineral water bottle kept in the bag. Since there was no way of getting back the lost items, a cool head, he decided to sleep again. Having a relieved bladder, he slept immediately. Having a sound sleep, he got up early and had a cup of tea from the “cha grom-wala”. He was feeling bad and his brain is working on various possibilities. By the time he finished the tea, so observed something unusual with his seat number. His ticket shows, he’s allocated berth #35 and he was @ berth#53. He immediately went to b number 35 and ALAS…EVERYTHING WAS THERE. His bag, gifts for near n dear ones, medicines for a relative etc etc…everything untouched!!. Now, it’s time to get down at next station…Sidheswar was cursing railways for making the seats so similar.

----Disclaimer: #1 -Those not-so-near to Sidheswar, were saying, his mineral water bottle contained something intoxicating, but we don’t believe it.
----Disclaimer: #2-The above paragraphs are just a possibility – any resemblance with any real life incidence is purely coincidental.

"HEROs" do it again..this time on a daily wage earner!!!

On Oct 29 a day after Diwali, an UP labourer has been lynched on a Mumbai local train. Allegedly some locals boarded same compartment as the poor labourer and on learning that the fellow is a "Bhaiya", the locals started beating the labourer untill he was unconsious. The heros got down in a next station and RPF took the victim to a hospital where he was declared brought dead.
Well done Raj, as one of the readers say - we don't need Pakistan's ISI to divide and destroy the country - we have you, your uncle and some of your clan to take care of their plan.
Our Media seems to define terrorism something which has an islamic flavour in it. Killing inocent daily wage earners is not terrorism. Killing a young man who dreamt of a better life for his family is not terrorism.
Thanks Raj, thanks Shiva Sainiks , thanks Mawawati and like minded psychos, we can no longer be proud of the kaleidoscopic culture and ethnicity of the country. You are real heros these days!! You are so successful in poisioning thousand minds.
Shall I , now, need Passport/Visa to move to other parts of the country which has a different language than what I speak, a different religion than what I am born to?