2008-04-26 – 2:06 am ::
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Reuters reports:-
Criminals are enjoying such a life of luxury in British jails that they don’t bother trying to escape, a senior prison union official said on Friday.
Dangerous prisoners enjoy satellite television, free telephone calls and breakfast in bed in the country’s “cushy” jails, Prison Officers’ Association General Secretary Glyn Travis added.
Cheap drugs are readily available, he said, and some prisoners enjoy visits from prostitutes while in other jails inmates had “control” over staff.
Travis said that in some cases, overstretched staff were powerless to impose order because they were frightened of breaching prisoners’ human rights.
In comments published by several newspapers on Friday, Travis gave an example of a breach at Everthorpe Prison in East Yorkshire, where a dealer regularly used a ladder to scale the fence and supply inmates with drugs and mobile phones.
Inmates at an unnamed top security prison recently told Justice Secretary Jack Straw that conditions were like a “holiday camp”, the media reports said.
All such luxuries on the taxpayers’ expense. Pretty good bargain indeed. With such a life in jails, who would want live outside!
But are we really aware of what is happening in various Indian jails, I wonder!
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2008-04-21 – 2:20 am ::
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Two news items appeared in the Times of India newspaper, Chennai edition on 18th April, 2008. Both are about the image of police in the state of Tamil Nadu, India.
Here is the first one:-
LEGAL NOTICE TO FILM-MAKERS
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Chennai: A senior police officer in the city has slapped a legal notice on the producer and director of the film ‘Nepali’, starring actors Bharath and Meera Jasmine, demanding the removal of certain objectionable portions in the film which portray the police department in bad light.
After watching the flick, Joint Commissioner of Police (North Chennai) M Ravi on Thursday slapped a legal notice on the film’s director V Z Durai and producer Rama Saravanan through his lawyer P Chandrasekharan. The notice alleged that the movie had portrayed the police, prisons and judiciary departments in bad light and warned both the director and producer of appropriate legal action both civil and criminal if they fail to delete the objectionable parts from the film. The notice also asked them to stop screening the movie till deletion. It alleged that in the very beginning of the movie, the National Flag was shown without due respect. The prison jailer was shown walking down the stairs without saluting the Flag, while his subordinates were shown saluting the flag.
The movie also shows a police inspector in uniform attempting to rape the heroine. “The same inspector has been shown stripping his uniform in two scenes. The movie is shot with the intention of creating ill feelings, disharmony and hatred between the police and public which per se is defamatory”, it alleged. The scenes where the hero takes the law into his hand and the comments he makes against the judiciary are also intended to damage the reputation and dignity of the judiciary, the notice said.
In one scene the jailer is shown drinking in jail premises and asking the female jail warden to supply women. “This would create wrong impression in the minds of the public,’’ the notice said.
Ok, according to the police department, certain portions of the film portray the police department in bad light.
Now pray tell me, does the alleged conduct of a member of the police force of the state in real life as reported in the paper of the same day, enhance the image of police in the eyes of public?
Read this and form your own conclusions:-
Read More »
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2008-04-20 – 5:59 am ::
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It is castestan aka Indian Union of castes - “IUC”, pronounced Yuck, avers Manas Chakravarty, in Hindustan Times.
Here is his eminently witty parody on the highly casteist 27% reservation for OBCs in India. (For folks from another part of the globe, India is a funny country where each group would perennially be clamouring for something special for themselves, at the cost of the country).
The Supreme Court’s judgment on the OBC reservation issue has left many people feeling hurt and insecure. The creamy layer among the OBCs feels sad and neglected. Non-creamy layer folks are scared that pay hikes may make them creamy. Advertisers in matrimonial columns are wondering whether they should add the words “Non-creamy layer” before “OBC Groom Wanted”. A smart creamy layer individual wanted to know if he would qualify for non-creamy status if he was paid Rs 2.4 lakh in cash (within the Rs 2.5 lakh annual income limit) with the rest of his salary being paid in wheat, rice, veggies and soap. And that’s apart from the slighted feeling that forward castes have because they haven’t been allotted a quota, or the angst that a Gujjar feels on sighting a Meena.
In order to solve all these problems and to heal the deep divisions within society, the best solution would be to have reservations for as many castes as possible. We could then have quotas for, say, the Deeply Scheduled Castes, the Not-so-Scheduled Castes, the Extremely Backward, the Most Backward, the Other Backward, the Most Backward among the Forward, those Neither Backward nor Forward and so on. We could also have a separate quota for the creamy layer among each one of these castes. And just so they don’t feel left out, we must also have a milky quota, a chocolatey quota, a plain vanilla quota and a frothy quota (this will include all beer-drinkers in each caste). In fact, the plan has already been well received by the media, which has dubbed it Mandal 76501, the figures representing the number of new caste quotas that have been recommended.
Once we have quotas for all of these castes, the next step would be to extend them to every sphere. Why should we have quotas only in educational institutions and government jobs? The government is already talking of reservations in private sector employment. But why limit it to employment? We need extremely backward entrepreneurs, completely scheduled cricketers, backwardly forward movie stars and even a Miss Non-creamy layer India.
The solution: introduce reservations for each of these professions. There is also no reason why we shouldn’t have quotas for politicians. As a matter of fact, it’s absolutely important to drive home the change in thinking by making a big bang statement.
For example, Read More »
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2008-04-19 – 4:29 am ::
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This is a sequel to my earlier post captioned “Less is More” dwelling on reductionism, brevity and KISS.
This is what Dilbert (Scott Adams) muses in his blog about being brief:
The Day You Became A Better Writer
I went from being a bad writer to a good writer after taking a one-day course in “business writing.†I couldn’t believe how simple it was. I’ll tell you the main tricks here so you don’t have to waste a day in class.
Business writing is about clarity and persuasion. The main technique is keeping things simple. Simple writing is persuasive. A good argument in five sentences will sway more people than a brilliant argument in a hundred sentences. Don’t fight it.
Simple means getting rid of extra words. Don’t write, “He was very happy†when you can write “He was happy.†You think the word “very†adds something. It doesn’t. Prune your sentences.
Humor writing is a lot like business writing. It needs to be simple. The main difference is in the choice of words. For humor, don’t say “drink†when you can say “swill.â€
Your first sentence needs to grab the reader. Go back and read my first sentence to this post. I rewrote it a dozen times. It makes you curious. That’s the key.
Write short sentences. Avoid putting multiple thoughts in one sentence. Readers aren’t as smart as you’d think.
Learn how brains organize ideas. Readers comprehend “the boy hit the ball†quicker than “the ball was hit by the boy.†Both sentences mean the same, but it’s easier to imagine the object (the boy) before the action (the hitting). All brains work that way. (Notice I didn’t say, “That is the way all brains work�)
That’s it. You just learned 80% of the rules of good writing. You’re welcome
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2008-04-17 – 9:39 pm ::
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There is an all round increase in the price of essentials in India. But the Members of Parliament who are elected to represent the problems of the masses in parliament and try to alleviate their sufferings have shown scant interest in discussing the price rise.
The following is the excerpt from the editorial of Times of India, Chennai edition dated 2008-04-18:
Missing in Action
MPs’ absenteeism subverts Indian democracy
Inflation is a burning issue because it eats into the already meager incomes of the poor, and our politicians are concerned. Right? Wrong. MPs revealed how much they really care about rising prices of essential commodities — as opposed to how much they would like us to believe that they care — by largely playing truant when the matter came up for discussion in both Houses of Parliament. In the Lok Sabha, even among the few MPs who bothered to turn up, many staged a quiet exit soon after. The lack of quorum in the House was dealt with simply by not drawing attention to the inconvenient fact.
What is intriguing is the absence of MPs belonging to BJP and other opposition parties, who are expected to make some noise at least!
But they are sure to take keen interest in debates on the privileges of MPs.
This is the citadel of democracy for you!
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2008-04-17 – 8:33 am ::
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Fujitsu has come with a prototype of Laptop PC with its case manufactured from wood rather than the more traditional plastic or metal. It may usher in an era of environment-friendly notebooks.
Infoworld reports further:-
The laptop, which is only a prototype, uses cedar wood for the case and also makes use of bio-plastics for parts. Bio-plastics are plastics produced from renewable sources such as vegetable oil rather than petroleum used in traditional plastics.
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2008-04-13 – 10:09 pm ::
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Yes. It is adieus to The (non)Hindu!
The time has come to part with an association which had assumed a second nature for me. The typical morning routine of a steaming cup of “ticoction” coffee in one hand and the The Hindu on the other. But it is all history.
There was a time The Hindu represented everything that was representative of educated middle class culture in Tamil Nadu. The completeness of the information, the classy and impeccable English (many of the past generation had averred that they got autodidacted with the English language solely by reading The Hindu), uniqueness of authentic reporting, earnestness of the delivery and clear identity with the south Indian culture and tradition. But all this is past glory.
The Hindu, especially after its take-over by the current management, has undergone a total shift from its traditions for which it has acquired a loyal clientèle built assiduously over a century plus. To be precise, it has let down the loyalists by converting the newspaper almost like an official mouthpiece of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), if the recent front-page coverage given to the party’s conference is any indication.
In addition to the major shift in allegiance from the centrism to partisan, the quality also had gone down considerably. Inaccurate reporting galore, prompting the paper to dedicate a big column for publishing corrections. The language too deteriorated considerably. There was nothing left except the name. And name, God, “Hindu” is a misnomer, with the reporting slant being consistently anti-hindu.
WEll, Times of India has launched its Chennai edition and has hit my doorway today. Let me see how it fares.
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I am S.K!, ok, what's the big deal!
