Prabhakaran a Terrorist - Who Isnt??

Pro LTTE Indian (tamil) leaders on many ocassions openly supported Prabhakaran; They argue saying, In the case of leaders who practiced violent methods to free India from the British, we proudly glorify them as freedom fighters but when it comes to Prabhakaran & LTTE, fighting for a tamil eelam to protect the millions of discriminated tamil civilians in Srilanka; he/they are tagged as a terrorist group. Isn’t this double standard...?

Over the years both the Srilankan Government and the LTTE have often been accused for human rights violation by the U.N. The LTTE for recruiting children to their group, training suicide bombers and killing of innocent civilians in their fight against the government authorities, who over the many years abducted, tortured and disappeared hundreds of tamils.

In a recent interview to NDTV Priyanka Gandhi talks about her meet with Nalini, the lone survivor in the 5 member team who assassinated Rajiv Gandhi. She says she has no personal grudges against the killers of her father, and added by saying she felt sympathetic for the pain and trauma they underwent from the Srilankan Government authorities (police) prior to the assassination. But why was Rajiv Gandhi targeted by the LTTE over the Srilankan head of state?? That’s still a mystery to us and raises serious doubts on the LTTE and their motive.
In a later press conference the LTTE spokesperson admitted it a big blunder to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi. But the Congress and the family are not someone who' although carry a Gandhi surname will ever forgive or forget Prabhakaran.

Now the politics of Tamil Nadu, the vote bank politics (in this case tamils) that the congress loves to play to win over the tamils in India delayed the aide/ammunition to Srilanka in turn adjourning the attack on the LTTE. But what forced congress/Indian Govt in the recent past go against their political compulsions and assist Srilankan Government to go all offensive against Prabhakaran? The answer to which apparently not reported by the media is China.
China in the past year has been making all attempts to aide the Srilankan Govt to eradicate the LTTE in order to set up their huge military and air base in the eastern province of Lanka. This will mean a huge disadvantage to India in the defense arena resulting them to take this tough and swift action against the tamil tigers

Result - Loss of poor tamil civilians (nearly 5000 killed in the latest war against LTTE), crushed between the various players hungry for more power, pride and position. LTTE chief may have died but what happens to the hundreds of civilians trapped in Srilanka. Today, its a thin line that separates a terrorist group from a state player and the line’s getting finer day by day.

My take on BJP's Loss

Hours before the results were formally declared, the BJP headquarters at the Ashoka road in New Delhi and L.K Advani's residence were deserted , they knew they lost it. BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said that probably the choice of candidates was wrong, but is there more to it...

If we go through the results, the BJP did not face as big a loss as perceived, last time they had 132 seats in the parilament and now 122, it's only a loss of only 10 seats. so the congress' gain of 60 odd seats from last time isnt from the BJP's loss. Congress ate a chunk of seats from the Third front's pie; especially with left losing more than 40 seats in the states of West Bengal and Kerala. With no seat split in these states, affected BJP enormously.

May 16, 2009 BJP announced their exit poll results, it read 166 seats for BJP and NDA's tally of 212 seats india wide; a gain of 45 seats from the last time. But the three states that disappointed L.K Advani from becoming the next prime minister of India were Rajasthan, Maharashtra and the big state of U.P.

The infighting among Vasundhara Raje Scindia co and Jaswant Singh in Rajasthan was key to this dismal performance of 4/29 in the state. The 26/11 attacks, poor industrial development and rising farmer suicides; there was so much against the Congress NCP led government in Maharashtra that BJP SS could not capitalize, primiarly due to their poor campaigning.

And now, the big state of Uttar Pradesh that occupies more than 15% of LoK Sabha. Narendra Modi, often represented as the poster boy by the electronic media ( the media also played a imp role in the loss of BJP in the urban metros by flashing the hate speeches and by mis representing the ideology of the party** the media ll in another note) played a key role in restricting the BJP's tally in the state to mere 11 . Modi campaigned in 33 constituences in U.P out of which only 3 constituencies went to BJP. The biggest lesson forthe BJP from this is that the Modi factor is only confined to Gujarat and he has no appeal nationally.

The BJP also acknowledged that its campaign based on the two issues (1) personal remarks on the PM Manmohan Singh calling him a 'weak prime minister" (2) price rise issue; did not resonate with the voter.
Inflation was down to less than 2% by the time we went to vote and the party's effort to play the L.K Advani as a decisive strong leader with full page newspaper advertisements, posters & links on major websites didn't pay off either. The largest question that needs to be asked here is; how badly is BJP missing their stalwart leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

However, the three states that saved the BJP from a bigger disappointment was the states of Karnataka, Gujarat and ofcourse Bihar (alliance with Nithish's JDU).

Its time for introspection within the party's top cadre on the issues of leadership, strategy and campaigning techniques before they chart out their path/plan ahead.
Hope BJP bounces back in the next elections; this may not be your personal wish but at least for the sake of a healthy democracy in this diverse nation.

dull cover is not always a dull movie

It was raining cats dogs rats n elephants that day and i don't usually carry an umbrella or a rain coat when am out and why should i? I live in Chennai!! we don't see rain much often here...thankfully i was just few metres away from my video library and i quickly got in.

Every other time i enter the library I'm in such a hurry that i just pick a movie that's got the best cover label.. but this time i had time to kill,I kept running through the shelves to and fro for several minutes, saw many striking movie covers with attractive people on them but decided to test my will and kept telling myself the famous saying 'don't judge a book by its cover'.

Then I see this movie. it read " The Bicycle Thief' the cover was the most boring & dull of the lot; on it sketched was a middle aged man and a small boy, and some italian wordings. I decided to rent the movie just to prove myself i can watch dull movies too, I come out off the library to see clear skies and ride back home.

Back at home I put on the disk thinking why did i have get this old movie based on a bicycle theft (atleast thats what the title clearly suggested) but again i had to prove myself.

But after ninety minutes, I realized what got me glued to the film was not the lead actor losing his bicycle although thats what the story revolved around but a sense of compassion that flows like a smooth sailing river throughout the movie more like a poetry just blows you away. A story that talks about the very basic human nature, that’s is simply why i think i could relate to the film in todays age. The film was simple,very gripping and ageless. I felt really happy to have watched the movie which i later discoverd was a masterpiece; one of the all time top movies.

So next time you're at a video library, dont go by the cover ;)

roadies burning out....

I love Roadies; I really do which is why I continue to watch it despite a series of uncharecterizing episodes in season 6 of India’s longest lasting reality show.

Saturday 7 PM was the only time I switch on my TV set for a purpose else I treat it as an idiot box. Now am wondering do i need to give those 90 minutes of price to Television…

Episode 1 – Elimination of undeserving roadies
I know you had to begin the season with a bang but don’t you think you are getting a little too carried away by that fact or is it to do with recession I clearly don’t know why you had to eliminate them; whatever it is the episode got more complicated and unreasonable!!

Episodes 2, 3 &Moving on...

Poor training of the roadies is very evident: their bad presentation and immature behavior is very irritating. I just wanted to switch it off but something held me back; probably it’s the history of this memorable show going way back to the camaraderie & team spirit showcased by Ran Vijay & Co in season 1 to the roadies’ spirit by Nihal in the last season.

And what is it with the prolongation of the episode to the next week?? Do I have to wait for 15 days to watch one of them getting eliminated, just ‘cause somebody was celebrating his b’day party. That’s very sad!! I may be wrong there but that’s exactly what 15 days can do to one.

Later Episodes:
I see the same trend continuing… and also no difference whatsoever with the so called roadies’ attitudes and thoughts or to me a bunch of kids with loose talks, dismal task performances, irritating attitudes, poor chemistry between one and another and to put it all in one word and quoting Ranvijay “SPINELESS”.
Adding to it, the tasks were not great as well!

I know Raghu’s strong observational power, ability to analyze and judge human behavior played a huge factor in casting the right people so far, But looks like that’s not enough, at least in the 6th year into running.

The only ROADIE for me on the show is your crew member who limped back to work after that gory injury.

Finally the big respite at the end of the episode not cause it ended but cause we see Raghu’s comeback; hoping that’s the same with the show too.

--A True Roadies Fan