What the clerics said??

"The clerics had said that if Nazma wanted to live with her husband, she must perform 'halala' (she must marry another man and the marriage must be consummated, after which she can get a divorce and then re-marry her first husband)."

Ridiculous. Such clerics need to be brought to book!! Link to Supreme Court judgement on the case.

Grief?

Grief? Or was it a perfect occasion to vent out all that was pent up. All I can say is that people need to engage themselves in more interesting pursuits. Maybe there aren't enough opportunities to satisfy one and all. Maybe these people who seem to be caught up in a time warp need to be utilized better? The need to "save culture" is a tool that is used with great proficiency to deviate from important issues that stare us in the eye. It is an easy way out. Save culture, stop progress? I am not sure what save culture means. Cultures need to evolve else they won't survive or will end up in isolation. Also, the heart of the issue is lack of jobs. It is jobs and job worthy that need to be created not an anti-other culture sentiment.

"In fact there is a lurking suspicion that the violence is not entirely a product of angst at the death of an icon. The support base of a celluloid icon often comes from the things he stands for and Rajkumar was unabashedly Kannadiga, espousing support for local culture and values against much reviled others. In an earlier era, those outsiders were Tamilians and Telugus who came and took away jobs. Today, apart from the familiar villains, the wrath is also directed at multinational companies who are recruiters from outside the state." [link].

Dowry

“Dowry is a symptom of a deeper disease that relates to how our society values women. The original concept of streedhan was based on providing a newly wed girl with some things that she could cherish and call her own. Today this concept has been vulgarized to symbolize all the things that not even the bridegroom, but his family want to have as their own.”

 

Read the article [Why dowry will not die?].

Barcelona in pictures (Updated)

Updated the collage with the link to flickr! I thought I had done it earlier... but I guess I had not.

Introspection

Beautifully put, the best poetic description of introspection I have come across.

Jaga hua Zameer woh Aaina hai "Qateel"
Sone se pehle roz jise dekhta hun main - Qateel Shifai

Zamir meaning Conscience.

The best I can do at translating into English... (no poetry though)

"I look into the mirror of my conscience everyday before I retire for the night"

Finally!!

And finally the spring has sprung from the deathly trap of winter! Spring time is back in New Jersey!!

Civilization?

How recent is the semblance of it, if any at all. I shudder in fear at the thought of how recent! "Comfort Women!", rather use them for comfort! [Found link on India Uncut].

She is hope indeed!

Farah Aziz Khanum and her fight for her right to wear what she wants! Her fight for individual freedom.

U

The problem is not A, not B, not C. The problem is U. It is THE most important problem!!

What excites?

What excites the senses? That that is visible or that that is hidden. [Inception: NegarKhan - TOI]

Gudiya

She was married to a soldier named Arif who didn't return from the battlefield. It was assumed that the soldier had become a victim of war. She was remarried to Taufeeq. Five years passed and Arif returned. He had not been killed but had become a prisoner of war. What should Gudia do now? Does she stay with Taufeeq or does she go back to Arif? What happens to the child in her womb which was part Taufeeq? No, I am not asking for answers because the only one who can answer the above questions is Gudia. Was Gudia allowed to answer the above questions? Well, no she was not. The panchayat (village governing body) thought that she should go back to Arif. Not sure what was the reasoning. Anyway, Gudia and her unborn are no more. It is said she died due to complications in her pregnancy. I wonder how relieved she would have been having left a world that didn't allow her some very fundamental rights. A world that treated her like an object and continues to treat women like objects. Gudiya and how the media exploited her! I guess she didn't want to lead a doll's life.

Heathrow

Three planes hover over the runway. Well there are four. Four that I can see. All four at seemingly different heights eager to make it to the ground. As I await the first landing two planes take off. I had not accounted for these planes that were waiting to reach the skies. Everything moves from motion to rest or vice-versa but for the workaholic Radar that keeps rotating tirelessly. The skies are cloudy but only at the horizons. The runway is wet. It must have rained earlier. Has not rained since I landed at Heathrow which was around seven hours ago. As the place recedes into darkness, the Sun is replaced by the thousands of stars that stick to the galaxies of planes that move in and out of my bird'’s eye view. A Boeing 777 is dragged to the hanger. It does no’t get bigger than this! All others without the humps look a tad emaciated.

Black? White? Wheatish? Brown? Yellow?

"I am going to stop calling you a white man and I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a black man" - Morgan Freeman [Link – Got via Link]. My views on Color! Also, the darn thing responsible for it!

Fox5News and the thuggish transit workers

The Fox5News has been calling the transit workers strike as illegal transit workers strike (By the way, it is illegal by law). What other options do these workers have? Not that they are on strike every now and then. It is after 25 years that they are on a strike. Will the MTA listen otherwise? Now what the Mayor had to say was funny indeed.

"New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg lashed out at union leaders for "thuggishly" turning their backs on the city [ link]"

Thuggishly! What is he trying to do? Get the commoner against the transit workers. The commoner can any day be in the shoes of the transit worker. But for all the inconvenience the commoner needs to stay in support of the strike.

How Intelligent Design Works

HowStuffWorks discusses without any bias the concept of Intelligent Design. A few interesting snippets from the article. The main grouse that the scientific community supporting natural selection has against the proponents of intelligent design is that much of intelligent design is proof by elimination. That means, at the risk of being too simplistic (but then you can read the article), if a certain process cannot be explained by current science there is intelligent design behind the process. I wonder what the world would have looked like had we explained everything by intelligent design. We would be inhabiting the jungles and I guess I wouldn't have been blogging this from home!

Intelligent design (ID) states that the universe and its inhabitants could not have evolved by the "blind chance" set forth in Darwinism. Its arguments are mostly concerned with what it considers to be holes in the theory of evolution, and it claims that these holes scientifically prove the presence of an "intelligent designer" in nature.

Unlike creationism, ID does not state that God is the intelligent designer. It only says that there is clear evidence in nature of intelligent design. The designer in ID could be God, but it could also be an extraterrestrial race or some other supernatural force. Also, ID does not draw its arguments directly from the Christian Bible.

The scientific community sees this argument as inherently flawed. It points out that Dembski sets forth a negative hypothesis: Anything not created by chance or law must be designed. But scientists claim that chance, law and design are not mutually exclusive, and they are not the only possibilities. So the process of elimination cannot be applied. And in any event, they say, science does not accept the process of elimination as proof of anything. The scientific method requires a positive hypotheses -- you cannot prove one thing simply by disproving another.

There are also widespread claims that the majority of the Discovery Institute's funding comes from Christian fundamentalist organizations and individuals, noting especially the millions of dollars donated by philanthropist Howard Ahmanson, an evangelical Christian, and hundreds of thousands of dollars provided by the Maclellan Foundation, which seeks to "serve strategic international and national organizations committed to furthering the Kingdom of Christ ... by providing financial and leadership resources to extend the Kingdom of God to every tribe, nation, people, and tongue"

Anyway, I was quite happy to read about this court ruling.

The malaise remains as suicides continue

A moving coverage of farmer suicides in Vidharba [link, written by Sonia Faleiro] . There are many reasons for the plight of the people. Govt. apathy, policies etc. This [link], at the Indian Economy Blog, discusses various possible solutions to the problem in the comments section. What shocks me most is the mention of wedding expenses of Rs 60,000 and dowry of Rs 100000 in the article by Sonia Faleiro. Even in such desperate circumstances the society hangs on to the malaise of dowry. There is no letting go on what in the first place shouldn't exist. The 1,60,000 could be used for betterment of the family and may prevent a suicide or two had our society been a bit more mature. I guess over a period of time female foeticide will rise in the region. Not sure whether it has already started.

Freedom of Speech

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" -- Voltaire

Excellent quote at [link]. Got it via [ link].

Left? Libertarian? Right? Authoritarian?

Who are u? A simple test at [link - courtesy Rahul].

Here are my results:
--------------------
Economic Left/Right: 2.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.36

I cannot gaurantee the efficacy of the test. So check out for your own self.

No analogies please

High time the criminals are booked. These demented politicians need to go. They keep playing the blame game and in the process no one is convicted.

Madrid Masters spices up!

Nice.