Hello world,

Delhi is witnessing some of the most remarkable climate shift in the world.  What used to happen in Eastern India in every monsoon, the same is happening in Northern India. In September, Delhi has seen rainfall in excess of a whooping 90% than the average rainfall !

In my known memory, I have never seen such deluge in Delhi.  Th last time Delhi saw this rain was in 1978 (the year of my birth !). Since, then it never happened this way. ]

This was the park opposite to my house this morning. You can see the water is on street too.

Heavy Rain

It was almost unbelievable  to say that this year Delhi will get more rainfall than Kolkata, the Eastern India metro. However, this time, Kolkata has received lesser rainfall than Delhi !. My mother who lives in Kolkata confirm this recently.

This is the first time in many many years that people have got bored with rain and want to get rid of it.

As the date for Commonwealth Games is approaching fast, the heavy rain has added to the already delayed schedule. As a citizen of India, I want the games to be successful, but given the condition here, I am afraid to say that Delhi is not prepared.

It has been a very rough monsoon for India. There has been unprecedented floods in Rajasthan, Haryana & Punjab whereas the natural gainer of rain like Bihar and West Bengal are facing a severe water crunch !

I wish the rain God ‘ Indra’ will show some sympathy to plights of Delhi.

The website of DDA  (www.dda.org.in) and Urban India are down because of huge rush of traffic.  However, there is an easy way to visit the result of DDA Housing Schemes 2008 for the much awated 5000 flats right now.

Here is a pdf file which contains all the 5000 names of those lucky persons who have secured their names in the lucky draw. The file is in pdf format, has 310 pages and contains entire details about all the lucky winners like their name, flat allotted, category with full address of the flat.

Download the entire results of DDA Housing Scheme 2008 now by clicking on the following two links :

Rapidshare Link :

http://rs226.rapidshare.com/files/173869331/DRW_RSLT_DDA08.pdf

Mediafire Link

http://www.mediafire.com/file/ezieegnmtqn/DRW_RSLT_DDA08.pdf

One more Rapid Upload Link

http://www.rapid-upload.org/PZ4AX8IHQMK5/DRW_RSLT_DDA08.pdf.html

My name is not in the list but ….

My best wishes to all of you !

Just like everybody in India, I feel sad, angry and frustrated. Never ever before, we see this amount of anger and sadness on the face of people.  There is pain and tears in the eyes of people.  After 61 years of freedom, if we can’t feel ourselves safe in India, then it is a matter of collective shame for us.  Is India fast turning into a failed state? Wel, it is an issue in which I intend to write in detail in future posts.

As of now, here is excellent editorial by the editor of Times of India published a few days ago. This article brilliantly explains the feeling of common man in India.

WHAT A WONDERFUL ARTICLE BY AN EDITOR OF TIMES OF INDIA

LETTER TO PRIMEMINISTER

Dear Mr. Prime minister,

I am a typical mouse from Mumbai. In the local train compartment which has capacity of 100 persons, I travel with 500 more mouse. Mouse at least squeak but we don’t even do that.

Today I heard your speech. In which you said ‘NO BODY WOULD BE SPARED’. I would like to remind you that fourteen years has passed since serial bomb blast in Mumbai took place. Dawood was the main conspirator. Till today he is not caught. All our bolywood actors, our builders, our Gutka king meets him but your Government can not catch him. Reason is simple; all your ministers are hand in glove with him. If any attempt is made to catch him everybody will be exposed. Your statement ‘NOBODY WOULD BE SPARED’ is nothing but a cruel joke on this unfortunate people of India.

Enough is enough. As such after seeing terrorist attack carried out by about a dozen young boys I realize that if same thing continues days are not away when terrorist will attack by air, destroy our nuclear reactor and there will be one more Hiroshima.

We the people are left with only one mantra. Womb to Bomb to Tomb. You promised Mumbaikar Shanghai what you have given us is Jalianwala Baug.

Today only your home minister resigned. What took you so long to kick out this joker? Only reason was that he was loyal to Gandhi family. Loyalty to Gandhi family is more important than blood of innocent people, isn’t it?

I am born and bought up in Mumbai for last fifty eight years. Believe me corruption in Maharashtra is worse than that in Bihar. Look at all the politician, Sharad Pawar, Chagan Bhujbal, Narayan Rane, Bal Thackray , Gopinath Munde, Raj Thackray, Vilasrao Deshmukh all are rolling in money. Vilasrao Deshmukh is one of the worst Chief minister I have seen. His only business is to increase the FSI every other day, make money and send it to Delhiso Congress can fight next election. Now the clown has found new way and will increase FSI for fisherman so they can build concrete house right on sea shore. Next time terrorist can comfortably live in those house , enjoy the beauty of sea and then attack the Mumbai at their will.

Recently I had to purchase house in Mumbai. I met about two dozen builders. Everybody wanted about 30% in black. A common person like me knows this and with all your intelligent agency & CBI you and your finance minister are not aware of it. Where all the black money goes? To the underworld isn’t it? Our politicians take help of these goondas to vacate people by force. I myself was victim of it. If you have time please come to me, I will tell you everything.

If this has been land of fools, idiots then I would not have ever cared to write you this letter. Just see the tragedy, on one side we are reaching moon, people are so intelligent and on other side you politician has converted nectar into deadly poison. I am everything Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Schedule caste, OBC, Muslim OBC, Christian Schedule caste, Creamy Schedule caste only what I am not is INDIAN. You politician have raped every part of mother Indiaby your policy of divide and rule.

Take example of former president Abdul Kalam. Such a intelligent person, such a fine human being. You politician didn’t even spare him. Your party along with opposition joined the hands, because politician feels they are supreme and there is no place for good person.

Dear Mr Prime minister you are one of the most intelligent person, most learned person. Just wake up, be a real SARDAR. First and foremost expose all selfish politician. Ask Swiss bank to give name of all Indian account holder. Give reins of CBI to independent agency. Let them find wolf among us. There will be political upheaval but that will better than dance of death which we are witnessing every day. Just give us ambient where we can work honestly and without fear. Let there be rule of law. Everything else will be taken care of.
Choice is yours Mr. Prime Minister. Do you want to be lead by one person or you want to lead the nation of 100 Crore people?

Thanks to Saurabh (maggo.saurabh@….) for suggesting this article.

Today as I wrote this I feel ashamed to call my self Indian. I feel really disappointed, helpless and above all hopeless to think as to why my desitiny decides to give me a birth in India.

We have just witnessed the biggest terrorist attack in the history of India. More than 125 people have killed for the past 24 hours and nobody knows when this ordeal will end and how much more lives it will take.

Do you know what is more tragic than the brutal killings of innocents on the streets of Mumbai? More tragic  than the death of some of our finest police officers? More tragic than the devastation of our premium hotels? More tragic than the fear on the face of a common Indian?

The most tragic thing than all the above is the fact that all of us will forget about this just after a few weeks. Period.

You can see for yourself as I write this. Just after a few weeks this tragic and the most devastating terrorist attack on the soil of India will be conveniently forgotten by our media, our politicians and our people. The life will go on as usual.

We Indians have become the biggest idiots in the world. A matter of joke for the entire world. We have developed an uncanny habit of not learning from our mistakes. We are so happy with our stupid TV serials, our senseless movies, our mindless reality shows that we have even forgotten what ‘SELF RESPECT’ means. We are the biggest nincompoop people in the world.

Those who don’t take a lesson from history are condemned to repeat it.

India has not learned any lesson from history. Let us admit it now. We are a nation of most selfish people on earth. We are senseless, emotionless and the least patriotic people on earth. Just about anybody can come here and humiliate us. Anybody can kill our loved ones and can destroy our properties. But we are so short of any self respect that we will not even raise an objection. We will discuss about this, we will write about this (just as I, an idiot myself, is doing right now), but we shall never take any action against those who challenge our sovereignty.

With all the talk about our so called great democratic system, let us admit that Indian democracy is world’s biggest hypocrisy. Our constitution has all the safeguard to protect the basic right of common man. Yet, here the only person who suffers  at every point of his life is the common man. He is humiliated by police, harassed by corrupt officials, forced to wait in queue, killed in bomb blasts and forced to live a life of uncertainty.

Our politicians always think in terms of vote banks. There every statement is a calculated one with only one aim – to appease one community or other. Our corrupt, selfish and impotent politicians have no concern for the image of India in world’s eyes. They are more concern about their vote banks than to do something meaningful and decisive to fight terrorism.

In a recent news discussion, one of our news channel asked an Israeli expert about  what can be done to fight terrorism in  India. The expert’s answer was simple and straightforward – “Nobody will come to rescue India. It has to fight it’s own battle.”

However, the biggest irony is that though India is capable of fighting its own battle, the politicians of India will never allow that to happen. We are condemned to be lead by a bunch of idiot jokers who don’t give a damn about their country. For them the entire issue is to secure, maintain and enhance their votebanks so as to ensure the control of power in their hand. Nobody is concerned about giving a final blow to the terrorist.

Dr. Manmohan Singh is one the most intelligent economists of the world. However, he is not a person we can look forward to in such time of distress. He is too soft to become Prime Minister of India. He is a very good academic but has turned out to be a very bad Prime Minister. Nobody takes him seriously. His presence does not instill any confidence in us.

In a recent interview, International terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna said about India’s terrorism problem :

“The only way to prevent that, the only way to reduce the threat is to develop high-quality, high-grade intelligence on these groups, on the individuals, and to detect and disrupt those organisations – either to incarcerate or kill those individual leaders.

“Unless that is done, the threat of terrorism will grow in India. So India must rethink, must totally revise its counter terrorism policy and strategy as a result of this attack.”

But let me tell you in advance, don’t expect any rethink on India’s strategy to fight terrorism. Unfortunately, we Indians are not made up of that stuff. We are the most selfish people in the world. For us our castes, our communities, our religion and our voters comes first. There is no nationalism left in us. It has died long ago. The kind of people you see in today’s India are not the ones who used to be here once. Now you’ll only find stupid people who can blame each other, who can give money to terrorist so that they can fight a legal battle, who will blame Hindu sages for  terrorism, who will shamelessly support the minorities and reject every finger that points towards them, who will very conveniently forget all attacks on mother India.

I am really ashamed to be a citizen under this coward leadership who have lost all sense of purpose.

My dear India, you are great….

but my heart weeps as…..

your leaders have failed you.

Images Courtesy: Reuters

Just came across this excellent explanation of credit crunch in India . It is written by Mr Anshuman Tiwari for today’s Dainik Jagran (20th October). So full credit to him for writing this excellent article.

The article is in Hindi. I hope most of you will be able to grasp it.

 Gafalat Se Nikali Bazar ki Afat…

Yesterday was one of the darkest days for Delhi. In 5 massive Bomb explosion more than 25 died and hundreds got seriously injured. The bomb blasts in some of the busiest market place of Delhi- Connaught Place, Gaffar Market and GK-II shocked India.

Those who died are innocent ordinary citizens of India like you and me. They were the son, daughter, father, mother or brother of somebody. For a newspaper or a TV Channel, they are just part of a number who died, but for their family they meant the whole world.

And those who are responsible for this, the terrorist from Indian Muzahiddin are sitting somewhere right inside India and they must be congratulating themselves for their cowardly act. It is deeply disturbing to see that how such heinous acts of cowardliness are perpetrated in the name of Allah.

With the exception of war ravaging countries of Africa, India is the only country in the world where the life of citizens has become so cheap. No matter who you are, where you live and what you do for a living, unless you are a politician (or their kin) or a big celebrity, you can die in a terrorist attack any time. This country which has a population of 1.2 Billions and contains one sixth of  all humanity is the safest heaven for terrorists. It is the most soft nation of all. Every terrorist organization in the word knows that Indians cannot strike back. They are a soft nation of morally corrupt and utter selfish politicians who have no strong will to fight. India is neither America nor Israel who can go at any length to take revenge.

In 2001, just one 9/11 attack changed America forever. The whole perception of America towards fighting terrorism has changed since then. There is unprecedented security  and unparallel vigilance on all activities there. It is next to impossible to again attack America easily.

And look at India. Here every month we see a repetition of 9/11 . Here it is next to impossible not to again bomb an Indian city. The terrorists look just like us; they belong to the same ethnic group, speak the same language, have the same physical appearance and practice the same religion which 20% of India follows. They assimilate within us easily, have a considerable number of sympathizers here, got all kinds of help from across the border and, after the attack, easily get mixed up in the crowds.

What is the solution : I don’t know. I am not at the helm of affairs who can change things. However, it is my observation that it is India’s sorry misfortune to be ruled by coward, selfish and foolish leaders throughout the last 60 years. They created a mess of Kashmir, allowed China to grab our land, lost the winning edge of 1971 on table, criminally ignored the increasing influx of Bangladeshi in India (In Delhi only they are 4 lakhs in number), kept ignoring the interference of Pakistan in our affair and all in all adopted an attitude of peace loving idiot who can be fooled by anybody.

Enough of this peace loving nation status. Unless we develop a mind set of taking the death of every ordinary citizen as a national loss and taking revenge of his or her death by chasing, grabbing and punishing the culprits no matter what does it take, we should  not expect to curb this menace of terrorism. We need a leadership which makes us proud to be Indian. Just singing songs about India in mindless reality shows is not going to do anything. Every Indian should be ready to die for his country’s cause. We should take revenge – a strong and befitting revenge. A strong nationalism in the blood and heart of every Indian is the need of the hour. Unless India reform its image from a soft nation -  who will not strike back -  to a hardliner country – who will take revenge at all costs – the menace of terrorism will keep haunting us.

The American President Nixon has said in his book “The Real War”

“Nations live or die by the way they respond to the particular challenges they face”

Time has come for India to change its entire strategy in dealing with terrorism. If India is to survive, it should strike back.

Suggested Reading : India — A Soft State And National Will

The 6th Pay commission, which was recently officially announced by Indian Government through a notification, has made all the Government employees very busy these days. No matter where you go in a Government setup,  the only discussion going on there will be the calculation of Salary structure and Arrears which Government employees are going to get from this month.

Though there are many calculators available online which will help you calculating your salary/arrears based on the recommendations of Sixth Pay Commission, not all of them are accurate and a majority of them are programmed for calculating the Pay/arrears of only those Government emplooyees who have not got any promotion between Jan 2006 and Aug 2008 or for those who have not get any change in Grade Pay during this period.

Therefore, all those Government employees, who have got either a promotion or a change in Grade Pay between Jan 2006 and Aug 2008 are finding it difficult to calculate their exact pay/arrears.

If you are a Government employee, let me tell you about one website which is having Pay calculators for all such people, who have got either a promotion or a change in Grade Pay between Jan 2006 and Aug 2008, and who are finding it difficult to calculate their exact pay/arrears. This website has been designed by the people of IIT Madras and you can be 100% sure of the accuracy of their Pay calculators.

The site is : http://gate.iitm.ac.in/6pc/

When you click on the above link, you’ll be taken to a calculator where you can calculate your new salary/arrears if your grade pay has not been revised between Jan 2006 and Aug 2008. Just below this calculator, you will find links for other calculators which are for :

• Pay Scale Revised Between Jan-2006 and Aug-2008
• Joined the Service After 01-01-2006
• Stagnation Reached or Maximum Pay Reached on 01-01-2006
• Pre-2006 Pensioners
• Post-2006 Pensioners
• Doctors

I hope the above calculators will help you to accurately calculate your salaries/arrears. Enjoy !

UPDATE : Dear friend please don’t ask your pay, arrears or pension related questions here. I am not an expert in calculating salary. The above suggested calculator was for your personal calculation only. It is not intended to replace the actual salary/pension that will be created by your Admin Section. Your actual salary/pension can only be calculated by the persons responsible for fixing pay in your office. If you still want to ask any question, please ask on the real site (http://gate.iitm.ac.in/6pc/). Not here. I am afraid I’ll not be able to answer your questions on this issue. – Eklavya

After taking a break of almost 22 days, I am here again to one of my favorite online activities – blogging. As mentioned in my earlier post, I had taken a break to proceed on the holy pilgrimage of Shri Sai Baba at Shirdi, Maharashtra. It was a long cherished wish  of my wife ( who is a ferver devotee of Sai Baba) to take our one year old son to Shirdi for the blessing of baba. So We proceeded on 16th morning for Manmad (the near by Rly Station to Shirdi) and reach there on 17t morning. Apart for a darshan at Shirdi, we also visited Shani Singnapur, Nasik (Tryambkeswar & Panchwati), Aurangabad (Ellora and Ajanta). We caught the return train from Jalgaon on 21st and reach Delhi on 22nd. I shall soon write a detailed post of journey.

During these 22 days, many events of national importance happened. India won 3 Medals at the Olympic (which includes its first ever individual Gold Medal), Parvej Musshraff resigned from the post of President of Pakistan, the Northern part of Bihar witnessed one of the worst and savaged floods of India ever, the Government announced 6th Pay Commission for its millions of employees and India finally broke the nuclear aparthied and was entered into the group of Nuclear Supplier Clubs without signing CTBT ot NPT (a great achievment by any standards).

I would surely liked to blog on these interesting issues. However, owing to some very busy personal work, I could not start my blogging activities early. I hope to cover these topics in my subsequent posts.

I also got an invitation from Indiblogger.in for a blogger meet which was held in Delhi yesterday. Though initially I planned to go there to mingle with fellow Indian (and especially Delhi/NCR) bloggers, I could not find the time for this meeting. Probably next time, I will attend this meeting.

This is a photo of Aditya Mohan. How cute he is na ?

Sadly, Aditya is no more. Unfortunately this cute baby of just 4.5 months died on 17 June 2008 in a Jet Airways Plane during its landing at IGI Airport Delhi. The baby was being breast-fed by his mother during the landing and he suddenly stopped sucking. His parents alerted the plane crew and sought help from others. A fellow passenger who was a doctor checked the baby but could not help much. When the plane landed at the Airport, a doctor examined him and declared the baby dead on arrival.

The autopsy of the baby states the cause of death as “asphyxiation due to chocking.” The parents have been told that this is a rarest of rare case. However, the parents and many other people (including me) feel  that the fact that the baby suddenly died in the aircraft during descent, warrants an investigation into circumstances inside the aircraft that may results into his death.

Aditya’s parents, who are in state of deep grief, have raised many questions relating to the conditions of the plane that might have lead to their baby’s death. They have started a blog where this entire issue has been explained in detail. They want that the points raised by them should be investigated thoroughly by the Jet Airways so as to ensure that no parents of an infant ever undergoes such an ordeal. An online petition has also been made so as to ensure that Jet Airways’ safety and security practices can be investigated by the authorities.

I know that this sad incident has shattered the life of Aditya’s parents. No amount of further investigations can ever bring Aditya back to them. However, I am deeply moved by their relentless pursuit to ensure that in future no other infant died in the same way as their lovely child.

Regarding the death of Aditya, I searched the internet to find any similar incident where a child had died during landing of the plane. However, I could not find any similar case. It is possible that the overall condition on the plane were not congenial for an infant like Aditya. When a plane lands or take off, it makes too much noise. These audible sounds are not considered suitable for very small infants and may affect their ears. However, only in very rare cases they may prove fatal to a child.

One more theory which I found that it is also a possibility that the child might have suffocated while feeding his mother’s milk owing to the wrong posture of Brest feeding of his mother. The infants are very small and delicate and they can’t bear the pressure of the breasts of their mother. Therefore, all women are advised to be extra careful while breast-feeding their baby. However, in the instant case of Aditya this theory does not appear to be convincing. Aditya’s mother is a educated woman who lives in Canada and it can be assumed that she must have known about the basic techniques of breast feeding.

I can only say that it was the bad luck of Aditya’s parents that they lost him in such an unfortunate way.

The law of natural justice says that nobody should be declared guilty unless giving him a reasonable opportunity to defend himself. In this case, it will to too early to play the blame game and accusing Jet Airways straightaway. However, given their brand image as an excellent service provider, it would be befitting for the Jet Airways to initiate a suo moto inquiry in the matter. I think that will be the best way to ensure justice to the bereaved parents of Aditya Mohan.

Being the father of a one year old kid, I can understand how much affection we develop with our children and how painful it is for the parents when their children face any difficulty.

May God give Aditya’s parents courage to bear his loss. May Aditya’s soul rest in peace.

You can sign the online petition to help Aditya’s parents here.

My post on Raj Thackeray is the one that invites maximum comments from readers. It touched the right strings for many and initiate a sort of debate in the comment section itself. Today, one participant Meenakshi has posted a comment there which again draws our attention to the rowdy behaviour of MNS. Read about their latest act.

Read Meenakshi’s comments here