Anyway

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you have anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, It is between you and God;
It never was between you and them anyway.

This poem is used by Missionaries of Charity. It is a version of the original written by Dr. Kent M Keith. It is believed by many that the modification was done my Mother Teresa.

Censorship in Pakistani media

In my school, we were taught in 'civics' that it is duty of 'responsible citizens' to form conclusions only after listening to each side of the story.

The newspapers I read are The Hindu and Times Of India. The Hindu is a mature newspaper while Times of India is sensationalist. My favorite magazine is Tehelka. I regularly purchase a copy after reading it on the website! I think that every Indian should read it. But I am digressing...

A few months ago I decided that to get a balanced view, I need to read a Pakistani newspaper. I did a quick Google search for 'newspaper in Pakistan' and the Dawn came up on top.

I liked the website. Clean, simple look. Lots of in depth analysis. Serious comments sections. Specially if you compare it to filth and venom which overflows in ToI comments section.

But soon I began to see a pattern.

Imran Khan is a enigmatic figure in India. He was a cricketer before he became a politician. Instinctively, most Indians do not like him. He was the one who managed to steal an unlikely cricket world cup for Pakistan in 1992. He is not going to be forgiven easily. And yet, in spite of everything, we are impressed by his charisma and leadership skill.

I found his opinions to be reasonable. He looked like one person who could unite Pakistan across class and faith. He is also an honest person. India can deal with him - if he comes to power - without fear of back-stabbing. Agreed he is a green horn. He might not know much about how to run a government. But he does know how to inspire a team. As long as he remembers that he is not an expert in administration and does not become overconfident, I think he will manage.

And yet I realized that the Dawn newspaper is quite against him. Posts after posts criticized him, in my opinion quite unfairly. But everyone is entitled to his own opinion.

Finally yesterday I saw a blog about Imran Khan that actually praised him. The blog was written by Farah Zahidi Moazzam. I liked it. It was one of the few news full of hope coming out of Pakistan.

The blog was posted at 4:30 pm yesterday (23rd May). I posted a comment on it at around 5:30. At 6 I went back to check whether my comment was up. And the blog had disappeared from the front page!

But that might be OK. At the same time, news about attack at PNS Mehran was coming in. So it was quite likely that the blog was removed to accommodate more important news. I went into the dawn blog page, and the it had disappeared from there also!

I gave it up at that time. This morning I decided to investigate a bit more. All the links to the blog had disappeared. Even Farah Zahidi's author page did not list this blog. The blog is still on the server though. I was able to finally search it up with help of Google.

What I am wondering is, is the censorship in Pakistani media self-imposed. Or is it being done by the government.

Or maybe, I am just getting paranoid.

The Judgement of Mullah Nasruddin

While discussing the policies of Congress Party with a colleague, I was reminded of a Mullah Nasruddin story I had heard long ago... I am not sure if it is authentic one - but I am quoting it as I remember it.

Once, Mullah Nasruddin was appointed as Qazi (judge) so as to decide a case. Everybody assembled and the case started.

First the plaintiff presented his case. He showed that he had been wronged. He used logic and law. He organized his cases in several points - and beautifully elaborated each point.

Mullah Nasruddin listened attentively. He made his own notes. After going through all the evidence he said,

Yes, you are correct.

People were astonished. One person from the audience dared to ask

But sir, you are supposed to listen to both sides before you pronounce judgement.

Mullah Nasruddin immediately admitted...

Of course. You are correct. Let the defendant plead his case.

The defendant addressed each point to show how raised against him. He also gave a very emotional speech in which he said that he was a simple, honest and poor person who had been trapped and was being victimized by his more educated opponent.

Tears welled up in the eyes of Mullah Nasruddin. He managed to say,

You are speaking the truth. I agree completely with you.

Unfortunately everyone was confused. An elderly person objected.

Mullah Nasruddin, first you said that the plaintiff is correct. Then you said that the defendant was correct. However both of them are contradicting each other. So only one of them can be correct at a time. Both of them cannot be simultaneously correct.

Mullah Nasruddin scratched his beard as he thought about it. And then he said...

Yes, you are correct.

Incidentally, I am a Congress supported. There are times when indecision is the best decision.

Geronimo - The last free Apache

When Navy seals assassinated Osama bin Laden, they sent a coded message back to their American handlers.

Geronimo EKIA

EKIA stands for enemy killed in action. But who was Geronimo?

Geronimo



Apache used to live in a America long ago. They were the original citizens.

When 'white man' set foot in America - Apache became a hunted community. Mexicans set 'scalps' on their head of their leaders. The Americans enclosed them in 'reservations'. Slowly but surely, this proud civilization began to die out.

Goyahkla aka Geronimo was born in 1829.

I was born on the prairies where the wind blew free and there was nothing to break the light of the sun. I was born where there were no enclosures

His mother, his wife and three little children and other member of the tribe were slaughtered by Spanish troops in 1857.

Late one afternoon when returning from town we were met by a few women and children who told us that Mexican troops from some other town had attacked our camp, killed all the warriors of the guard, captured all our ponies, secured our arms, destroyed our supplies, and killed many of our women and children. Quickly we separated, concealing ourselves as best we could until nightfall, when we assembled at our appointed place of rendezvous--a thicket by the river. Silently we stole in one by one: sentinels were placed, and, when all were counted, I found that my aged mother, my young wife, and my three small children were among the slain. There were no lights in camp, so without being noticed I silently turned away and stood by the river. How long I stood there I do not know, but when I saw the warriors arranging for a council I took my place.

He decided to take revenge. He conducted vicious raids against Mexicans and United Stated. With a small band, he evaded and terrorized the foreign settlers for more than 25 years. He surrendered in 1886.

When he surrendered, his group consisted of 16 men, 12 women and 6 children.

The final hunt to capture Geronimo required around 5000 US and 3000 Mexican army-men apart from roughly 500 scouts.

The next railway minister???

Governments have changed. The prime ministers have changed. But one this has remained constant in India. Since 1996, railway ministry has always been occupied by someone from Bihar or Bengal.

Ram Vilas Paswan was the railway minister under United Front government (96-98). NDA, which ruled from 1998 to 2004, alternated between Mamata Banerjee and Nitish Kumar. UPA government choose the colorful personality of Lalu Prasad Yadav for first term (2004-2009). For the second term it choose an even more temperamental Mamata Banerjee for the post (who earlier occupied the same post under NDA rule).

But reign of Mamata Didi is also over. She has attained the life long dream of dislodging left from Bengal and will be leaving the ministry soon to become chief minister.

So who is it going to be next?

Statistically Important

Nitin Kumar Reddy, 22, student of IIT Madras, committed suicide. He decided to take the extreme step after he came to know that he had failed. (Read details)

As usual the blame game started. The family protested. Staged a dharna. A police case was registered. Life moves on...

What was interesting was the statement by the dean of students. Govardhan M said:

Why are you always reporting negative news about IIT Madras? We also have the maximum number of patents but you didn't report that. But you would want to report the death of 3 out of 5000 students which is statistically not important. Why don't you go to other engineering institutes and find out how many died there. Why only IIT?

Several people protested the insensitive comments. Blogs were written...

Incidentally, Mr. Govardhan was lying. 3 out of 5,000 means 60 out of 100,000. India's overall suicide rate is 10.3 out of 100,000.

This is statistically important.

And speaking of patents, CII awarded IIT Madras for highest number of patents in last five year for any Indian University. The number of patents being 78. There are around 1500 faculties at IIT-Madras.

In contrast, BHEL got 240 patents. TATA steel 103 patents. An individual, Lalit Mahajan notched 23 patents all alone. (To be fair - he was an IIT-M alumnus).

Internationally IBM got 5000 patents in 2010 alone!

The patent claim is statistically insignificant.