Price Hike By Maruti and Hyundai

Read the news that Leading Auto Makers Maruti and Hyundai have increased the rates of their respective brands by few thousands for the increase in Custom duty to 10%. I was a bit shocked, as for the hike of 2% has been just proposed on February 26, 2010 and would be effective only from April 1, 2010.

I mean I find is ridiculous for the price hike as announced by Maruti and Hyundai with Midnight Feb 26 itself as this is nothing but fooling the customer. If the hiked Customs duty would not be effective for next one month or so, then why the automakers are increasing the rates immediately? what is the urgency in that?? Its not like that they are incurring losses even as of now, then why this dirty trick???

Movement Marathi Manoos - A Mislead Movement

When the midnight struck today, I happen to receive an email forward that turned out to be a nicely drafted mail / letter to a Common Shiv Sainik from Mumbai / Maharashtra. The letter went from highlighting the way the Marathi Manoos concept has been mistreated by Shiv Sena to the level of misleading the sentiments of a common Maharashtrian. Salute to the author who wrote such a thought provoking letter. Hope it reaches the expected destination and brings some sanity in the minds where required.

The letter certainly made me think on the front of the plight of Mumbai in Particular. The plight of Mumbai is not just the North Indians, but the heavy influx of migrants from across India. This influx is coupled because of the Lack of Space, Infrastructure and availability of the Basic facilities for the Common Man. We do see a lot of development happening off late, but again not as good as other cities. Certainly it is for the lack of political focus and lack of responsibility towards own city. I would like to see the movement “Marathi Manoos” turning to betterment of Mumbai, we need to make a movement “Aamchi Mumbai” to particularly focus towards upliftment of the living standards in Mumbai. The “Aamchi Mumbai movement needs to address following concerns -

1. The political influence of certain builder lobby has grown so big that when the state govt seeks sanctions for development of Mumbai’s Infrastructure the Central Govt. seeks cut down on Urban Land Ceiling Act and giving more land to builders. Mangroves are being reclaimed and the wildlife that used to thrive on these is getting extinct. We need to work on this side.
2. Encroachment of public land is another problem that needs to be addressed. Such encroachments lead to occupancy by migrants on lands earmarked for parks or may be parking or say something similar. Off recently I heard that one such piece of land was given to the builder to develop residential space in place of the hutments and also some real expensive apartments will be constructed there. That means the builder will use say around 30% of land to build residential complex for the hutment dwellers, 50% land for the apartments and rest 20% will be open space for park or something like that. However the original plan for the community park at that land went to I guess waste basket and the BMC officials seems to have got paid for throwing away the original plan. This is just one off case, there are many such cases.
3. Growing number of Footpath / Traffic Signal Hawkers, leading chaos on traffic signal and at times turning nightmare for the drivers. The Occupancy of Footpath by these illegal sellers forces pedestrians on roads and thus creates a traffic hazard.
4. Illegal Migrants from other countries obtain fake Ration Cards and other required papers to be the citizens of Mumbai and thus Citizens of India. In certain cases it is the influence of Shiv Sena leaders that works in favor of these illegal migrants (Cases have been recorded in Chembur and allied areas in Mumbai)

These are some of the major things that hit my mind at this hr of the night. There are many other areas that I am sure need more focus from the Mumbiites. I guess if Shiv Sena would focus on the constructive way for development of Mumbai, it would be in much better a situation rather than the current way its dealing with and projecting the issues as.

The high influx of people to Mumbai must be checked and that is for sure as otherwise there would be no space left in Mumbai to even drive a cycle. But we surely don’t need a destructive way to fall in pits and lose the shine of “Aamchi Mumbai”.

Rare wild cats caught on camera - NDTV

I want you to take a look at: Rare wild cats caught on camera

This is really News to cheer about, with the endangered species still being traced, I guess we all need to join hands and work towards ensuring a Safe Heaven for these Wild Cats. After all they are Our National Pride...

Racism and India

Of recently there has been a lot of news on racist attacks on Indians in Australia and there has been a lot of hue and cry over the racism by the Australians. The impact has gone to the tune that there has been a demand by certain influential leader against participation of Australian Players in IPL3.

I was aghast to actually see the reaction going this far and that sent me on an introspection of Indian Societies ties with Racism. I was astonished at the result that was in front of me when I sought answer to the question - Are We the Indians Racist? The answer was a BIG YES. YES we are racists, racists of highest order. Racist to the tune of being mad after Fair Color. Why, you don't agree??? Well check this out -

1. The first criteria for marriage in so called decent and well to do families (सभ्रांत परिवार as we call them in Hindi) - The girl needs to be fair (लड़की गोरी होनी चाहिए)
2. Girls are mad after fairness creams - they want to look fair to look attractive and as if that was not enough, now there are fairness cream for men too....funny
3. We are mad for Whites and we consider Blacks below dignity
4. Our influential political leaders make their bread and butter on the name of Religion, Caste, Creed and Race.
5. What happened in Mumbai for the way it has been publicized tht Mumbai is for Marathi Manus (Marathi People) is one of the biggest example of racism
6. The issue of Telangana is another clear sight of Racism, though there are other issues involved in it

The list may run endless as there are many such cases that can be highlighted across the Indian Society.

I mean it is seriously a BIG Joke when I see this hue and cry on Racism and our political leaders speak so loud about the way we need to react to the issue of Racism. However, in my opinion, the first and foremost thing to be tackled is to change the mindset of general public (the aam janta or the Mango People) towards the way they practice Racism in their daily lives.

I mean the two really Wonderful examples of tackling Racism is - Oprah Winfrey - Tommy Hilfiger case and the British Airways Case. In the former case, Oprah Winfrey openly asked Tommy Hilfiger about his racist comment on designing cloths for whites and not for the blacks, asians etc, to which he said yes he did make that remark and Oprah Winfrey told him to leave her show immediately. In the case of British Airways, a White Woman created hue and cry to be seated next to a Black Man, to which the reaction by the Crew was to shift the Black Man to First Class stating that it was ridiculous that he is seated to someone so ridiculous.

When today I am writing this post, the old saying "दिया तले अँधियारा" (Its always Dark Below the Lamp) is echoing in my mind. Yes - before making hue and cry and before Reacting to any racism stuff, we need to look at ourselves and we need to first change ourselves...else I don't think we have any right to call others as racism

Urgent need to ban porn websites: Chief Justice of India

Another Article and another set of mixed responses on Banning or Blocking Pornography – “Urgent need to ban porn websites: Chief Justice of India”.

I sort of Agree with what CJI has opined for. If people say that there are ways to circumvent the ban, they are forgetting that there are ways to plug the loops that people might use to circumvent them. Technology today helps us banning and blocking anything that we want to ban and block. My question to those opposing it is - if you are accessing porn on a regular basis, aren't you habituated to it?? Porn is something that in a way might be related to this country and as I have already pointed out in another comment regarding the amendment to Indian IT Act, stiff resistance would be faced for banning and blocking these sites. There have been arguments that have poured in that the parents need to take ownership to ensure that their kids do not have access to porn sites. Well yes there are many tools for this matter including Net Nanny and other similar products that may be bought and subscribed for to be deployed on one's computer for blocking the porn / hate etc. But would someone come ahead and tell me on how many parents in India are technology and net savvy??? Bestowing only them with this responsibility (certainly they would be responsible for their kids any which ways)would mean regular counseling for them regarding this and to ensure that they are made acquainted to the issue of Pornography on the net. This will directly lead to more friction between the teenage kids and parents as kids would see it as another disciplinary control by parents. I would say the community needs to come out with a more comprehensive and better thought on this by way of evaluating the pros and cons of various steps / controls that can be put to effect.

Mayank Trivedi

E-mail - mayank.a.trivedi@gmail.com

Blog - http://www.myopinions.name

Tech Blog - http://matricsindia.net.in

Govt can't ban porn websites for obscenity

Just happened to read the Article “ - Govt can’t ban porn websites for obscenity

I was more shocked than surprised. Though this sort of inaction can very much be expected from the Govt, we certainly could not accept it. When the Indian IT Act amendments were being discussed and the amendment to the act were being looked at in 2008, it was a strong feeling and the Cyber Security Professionals were of the idea that the amendments would be making law bit more stringent in nature. Its exact reverse of what had been expected. I had numerous discussions with the various Cyber Security Professionals and Cyber Law experts and each one of them was expecting a drastic change in the way issue of Porn sites is dealt with. It was opined that the Govt would empower Cyber Tribunal or similar organization and convert it as a watch dog to govern the display, access and transmission of Porn material. Alas, it didn’t happen. Govt more so has cleared itself off from the responsibility on this front. Amendments to the section 69A are something that certainly have weakened the power as it was earlier identified for it. Moreover with assigning the power to block the Porn sites has been granted to the Courts and that too if a petition is filed in the Court for jurisdiction. Apparently, the govt has indirectly let Porn be prevalent in the Cyber Society, without giving a thought that this very porn is at times the cause to create nuisance in the society and leading to molestations, child abuses etc. Yeah it would be countered that how can we create the correlation between the two things. Incidentally some bright mind came up with a pretty Creative Thought – “May be Government Machinery and Think Tank would have thought as to when the Country has Given KAMASUTRA to the world, how can we stop Porn that is nothing but an extension to KAMASUTRA. They might have thought that if they block / ban porn in cyber world, the cyber community might come up with an argument that similar things are depicted as Artifacts and Artistic at various temples in Khajuraho.” Well may be, who knows.

But all said and done, don’t we think that too much of Porn is circulating around on the net and is unnecessarily leading to the situation of unrest and creating an atmosphere that would affect law and order negatively?

I am unable to understand as to Why govt can’t Enforce a Blanket Block at ISP Gateway levels? I guess rather than going with an approach of Law and Order, the Govt. can simply go ahead with issuing a notification to the ISPs to go ahead and Block all the Porn Sites right at the ISP Gateway Level itself. I don't understand what is stopping the Govt. from doing that? or do we take it this way that the Govt. machinery is pretty happy to let Pornography be prevalent till it affects the Public Order???

There are Countries where a Country level Proxy is set-up and that blocks all the Porn sites from being accessed. An argument may come up that the countries where this sort of set-up has been deployed are smaller countries with lesser Internet traffic, where in case of India the traffic is humungous to be managed by a central Proxy. So, let me clarify that I am not saying so. What my point is – If the Govt. wants to really act in this direction, it can instruct the ISPs to deploy measures at their levels to ensure that porn sites are completely Blocked out. Govt may also conduct periodic surprise audits of the ISPs to this effect and ensure that the directive as published is well followed by the ISPs.

Mayank Trivedi

Blog - http://www.myopinions.name

Tech Blog - http://matricsindia.net.in

आमची मुंबई, अने मी मुम्बईकर (Mumbai is mine and I am Mumbaiker)

Reading the ongoing debate rather Political Drama over Mumbai where someone says Mumbai belongs to Marathi मानुस (people) and someone says it belongs to entire India, I just think its another gimmick to create another rift on the linguistic basis or between the regions. I am totally unable to understand as to why is this being dragged on this far??? This is nothing but sounds like a Dog Fight for a piece of meat. I mean just for power how low can we go???

And it is more surprising that the आमची मुंबई that we used to say with Pride is being dragged to the level of being called मराठी मुंबई. This is not just astonishing, but sad that for one's political mileage they are targeting the weaker and poorer section of the inhabitants, the North Indians and that too specifically UPiites and Biharies.

Interestingly Mumbai's composition today is in actual a true cosmopolitan. You find people from all over India and foreign nations, plus illegal migrants from some neighboring nations. Ah and our politicians do not target them per say, as these very illegal migrants from the neighboring country are provided with forged / fake Ration Cards, they get enrolled in Voters List, or they are pooled in during the voting process to go and vote in name of some other legitimate voter.

Hell Yeah, the problem with this very आमची मुंबई campaign from certain fractions can be termed as racist in totality. You must be thinking as to "Why the heck am I saying that?" So please consider the following points -

1. If we would look at the distribution of Who's Who in the Corporate World, we will find that out of Top Ten Corporate Houses in Mumbai almost all are from non-marathi sect. They are either Parsis, Gujaratis, or Rajasthanis but they are certainly not Marathis....... They indeed are मुम्बईकर (Mumbaiite).
2. If we look at the Majority of Food Joints, specifically popular snack / coffee houses, most of them we would find are from Kannadigas / Shettys or Iranis. They are not Marathi for sure, but yes they are मुम्बईकर (Mumbaiite).
3. Go to the the grocery shop next door, 60% of them are operated by Non-Marathis, but yeah they all are मुम्बईकर (Mumbaiite).

Then what is it that मराठी मानुस (Marathi People) are specifically afraid of, they are certainly not in the holding position of Mumbai's Business Section, and hell yeah it would be real tough for them to rise so high in such a less time. I am not saying that आम मराठी मानुस (Common Marathi Person) is against North Indians. It is specifically the Political Agenda that is driving this over because someone just wants to score over other.

As if the death of innocents couple years ago when Railway Entrance Exam was conducted in Mumbai was not enough for them to learn, they went out and over this time to even Drag the Martyrs of 26/11 in this Controversial Dog War. WHAT A SHAME!!!!! Indeed they (both sides included) must understand that the overall effort was a join effort by both Marathi and non Marathi Speaking Sons of this Great Country India. But hell no each side went on to make a statement for their own men and in the twist just created a mess out of nothing.

I was thinking would it be a good Idea to Convert Mumbai to a Union Territory with Governers Rule and no State legislative Assembly there. Move the Capital of Maharashtra to Pune and resolve the problem. But somehow if that would be done, I guess there would be more resistance and there might even be bloodshed there. More over the idiocy might spill over to the rest of Maharashtra....who knows.....Politicians stoop to any level for their political mileage
_____________________
1:29AM Feb 4, 2010
Just read an interesting article on Rediff - "An open letter to Balasaheb from a Marathi Manoos" Indeed, The State of Maharashtra means the Great Nation.....something that was Shivaji's Dream, but seems some hardliners are just spoiling the name. Maratha is one clan the warrior clan from that region and thus Maharashtra just does not restrict to existence of Maratha or Marathi Manus......I guess Bala Thackrey needs to acknowledge this loud and clear before messing with Mumbai

Our National Animal Tiger and We

Today I happen to visit the site - "Save Our Tigers" and well from there I was led to the Official Site of Project Tiger. Happen to read certain facts about the way poaching and illegal killing has lead to the the specie listed as endangered specie. From almost 40000 to what they say today the count is 4000 something. Really a bog shame on us and to our National Pride.

I was like aghast. Just yesterday I wrote to a friend on my Facebook profile about the way Lions and Tigers are the Pride of India and today I read about the way the numbers have gone down drastically. The way we are on the run to see the count going down day by day.

I would call for all of you to stand with me to support the cause of "Save Our Tigers" and the Project Tiger. We need to save this Specie which had been always our pride. We need to ensure that we stand united against the Poaching and at the same time saving their habitat from encroachment.

Please register on the "Save Our Tigers" and extend all possible help you can.

Please Stand for the Support of Tigers.....