On A Loose End

The media may be talking about Obama bending backwards to accommodate China by bending forward, but what we are missing is that in China the US has probably her biggest ally. And even if the general population does not seem to understand the importance of China to the United States, the fact is that it is China which is funding, in a major part, the seemingly good health of the American Economy. Consider this, the Chinese are carrying an American debt of $ 800 Billion. Do the American people know that America pays about $5o billion to China every year as interest? It is a different matter altogether that the interest also may be on paper. What happens when China decides to cash in on the bonds that it has collected over so many years? If any American knows the answer he will understand why Obama "stooped" to wish the Chinese premier. Anyway the more important issue for India is, "What the hell is America doing?" On one side is Pakistan, whom America is kind of shelt...

The news doing the rounds now is that Tahawwur Rana and David Coleman Headley were actually on a terror recruitment drive across India and that the duo was using the advertising mechanism to liaise with their other operatives. Guess who is shouting from the rooftops about these new developments. The media itself which carried those ads without any verifications. This issue is the most important and the least discussed in the media, for obvious reasons. No one in their sane minds bites the hands which feed them. The media gets away by making a simple disclaimer statement about not having to do anything with the ads that they run. They do take the money but won't take the responsibility of the veracity and the genuineness of the advertisement they are carrying. They put that responsibility on the reader. Now what do you do if terrorists are using those very ads to communicate with their ilk or to recruit more people into their clan. The media will not take any responsibility still. A...

I received my Voter's I card a few days back and finally understood why and how the election process is never upto the mark. If my Voter's I card is anything to go by, the esteemed offices of our Election Commission are full of incompetent or overworked people with no resources at their disposal or someone making a hell lot of money. To start with my name is wrong. That is an understatement actually. My first name is spelled wrongly, I do not use a patronymic name which the commission has forcibly introduced into my name and my surname is also spelled wrongly. My father's surname has been spelled the same as mine and hence wrongly. So much for my name. Next my date of birth is also wrong. Let me correct that, the year of my birth is mentioned wrongly. The date and month are reflected with two crosses each and God alone knows what hides behind the crosses in the computer which is holding this data. My address on the reverse side is mentioned wrongly, unless it is normal to m...

There has been a lot of talk about the Facebook Privacy concerns. Most of it is ignorance on part of the users. You can't blame Facebook for that. Two issues which I came across on the net amongst my peers and otherwise while browsing were: (a) Photos of the user are visible to non-mutual friends of user's friends. (b) Third Party applications extracting data of users when a friend was allowing access to a third party. (c) Use of your Profile and photo in Social ads by Faceboo as well as third party applications. Here is the fact. Facebook has got measures in place to avoid both scenarios. However people are just not aware of them or are too lazy to do anything about protecting their own privacy. If you are really concerned here is what you need to do Issue 1: Photos of the user are visible to non-mutual friends of user's friends Go to the settings menu and select Privacy settings. In the basic settings select Friends only in all the options. This flaw existed because ther...

26/11, the date when Mumbai terror attacks took place. The date which changed the perspective of the people of this country about terror. The date when Mumbai was shaken out of it's slumber and shown how vulnerable she was. The date when the collective responsibility of various organizations was put to test and most came out failures. Did I hear someone say they succeeded? I am sorry, but it is like saying that since the ultimate aim of life is death, everyone succeeds. Had we left the terrorists to themselves, they would have probably run out of ammo and starved themselves to death. Would that also be treated as success? I mean, who takes three days to take charge of and decimate 4 terrorists? I am by no means trying to belittle the efforts of individuals, but as organizations, none of our esteemed ones succeeded. One year later things seem to be the same. Congress - NCP combine the incumbent government during the terror attacks continues to be in power. Vilasrao Deshmukh the Chi...

They say fiction is a precursor of things to happen. What happened in the Major Nidal Malik Hasan shooting case at Fort Hood, is what my novel, Enemy in the Ranks , talks about, Infiltration of anti-national elements in the important establishments of the country. It is yet to be seen whether Major Nidal Malik Hasan was connected with any of the extremist groups. However if indeed he was, imagine the damage he could have caused earlier while being a part of the Army, without actually being blamed for it. Sabotage, espionage anything is possible. Sooner or later, the terrorists are going to realize, they might even have already, that they can't be going loggerheads with an adversary who is much stronger than them. So the way out for them is to inflict damage while they are a part of the system. I am just thinking aloud, Why would Major Nidal Malik Hasan, if he was indeed an Enemy in the ranks resort to such an open shooting while he could have continued to achieve his aims silently...

All of us have dreams. All of us have some of them realized, some shattered. But the capacity to dream is everlasting. The wishes and desires are a pot that never gets filled. Dream jobs are those which provide you monetary, emotional, professional and social satisfaction. Have you ever seen the look on the face of a man who is in a dream job. The brilliance of the face, the happiness, the positive energy, it all seems like another place. A dream job will remain a dream if we do not work towards it. My dream job has always been to be a bestselling author. One who can rely on his writing alone to have the good life. Never having to work for someone else ever after again in my life. I always picture myself, in my dream, sitting on a beach sipping beer, having a choice of snacks on the table and typing away to glory on the laptop. There are times I think about writing while being on a world tour onboard a luxury liner. You see, writing is something you can do anywhere, be it a beach, moun...