Blackwill acted as India's spokesman: Pakistan

Pakistan on Monday described outgoing United States envoy to India, Robert Blackwill, as a 'spokesman of the Indian external affairs ministry'.
Foreign Office spokesman Aziz Ahmad Khan said Kashmiris would be delighted to see the back of Blackwill, who recently announced that he would go back to teaching at the Harvard University.

Ok, if Blackwill is Indian MEA spokesman, then who is Aziz Ahmad Khan?... spokesman for the Kashmiri people??

Moreover this "spokesman" haughtily announces that Pakistan would not accept Farooq Abdullah in an Indian delegation that wishes to travel to Pakistan.

"... It was during the tenure of Farooq Abdullah that maximum atrocities were committed against the Kashmiri people," he said.

"He has blood of Kashmiri people on his hands and he should first apologise to Kashmiri people and apologise to the [All Parties] Hurriyat Conference.

"If they forgive him, perhaps a delegation led by APHC leaders, in which others can be included, would be welcomed to Pakistan."

God!! if Farooq Abdullah has Kashmiri blood on his hands, then you Mr. Aziz Ahmad Khan, and your country, has Indian blood on your hands, legs, body and face. You're splattered with it!!

You know what this is called?? ... It's a classic case of pot calling the kettle black!!

PETA wants Pennsylvania borough to be renamed Veggieburg

An animal rights group says it will donate $15,000 worth of vegetarian patties to area schools if officials change the borough's name to Veggieburg.

Are these PETA people serious?? Or has advocating too much of veggies turned these people into vegetables, incapable of thought!

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals says the name Hamburg conjures up images of slaughtered cows and unhealthy meals.

Really??! So, what would they like the towns to be named instead?... Cabbageville??... or perhaps Broccoliburg??!

Idiots!!
[link via Metafilter]

Give your hard drive a dose of proteins! Proteins produce nano-magnetic computer memory

Computer hard drive capacity could be increased a hundredfold by using a common protein to fabricate nano-scale magnetic particles, claims UK company Nanomagnetics
It uses the protein apoferritin, the main molecule in which iron is stored in the body, to create a material consisting of magnetic particles each just a few nanometres in diameter.
Each particle can store a bit of information and together they can be packed onto a disk drive at much greater density than is possible using existing hard disk manufacturing methods.

Interesting!... very interesting! We'll soon see the day when we go to out local chemist's shop with two prescriptions... one for your flu and one for your computer's memory! ;-)

Music finally comes on the Net... legally! EMI posts 140,000 songs for sale online

EMI Group has signed deals to put the bulk of its music catalog on the Web in Europe, in its boldest bid yet to exploit the medium that has threatened to bring the record industry to its knees.

EMI said on Wednesday it was supplying 140,000 songs for download through 20 European digital music distributors including Microsoft's MSN, music channel MTV and retailer HMV. [link via OnlineBlog]

Hmmm... having brought Napster down to its knees, it was inevitable that the big daddies of the music industry would themselves jump into the fray.

The big players are going to do the same thing as Napster did... although the downloads would cost around £1 per song (which is a stiff price to say the least!). Then an album (which has about 14-15 songs) would cost an exorbitant £15!!

Gee!! these people think they can get away with murder!

The Two Towers DVD Release Dates

Mark these dates on your Calendar: 8/28/03 & 11/18/03

These are the (US) DVD release dates for The Two Towers. Like Fellowship, the first date is the release of the DVD, and the November date is the release of the special edition (with rumored extra 48 minutes of footage).

Another good link is provided by theonering.net and has some more info about the actual footage. [link via Slashdot]

This news is like sweet music for all LoTR fans! And the icing on the cake is the fact that the final part of the LoTR trilogy, The Return of the King is slated for worldwide release less than a month after the Special Edition DVD of The Two Towers comes out, i.e. on 17th December 2003. So, mark down that date on your calendars too! :-)

Groom Shot in Head During Wedding

An Indian groom is in a coma in hospital after he was accidentally shot in the head by a friend who was celebrating the wedding by firing into the air, police said on Tuesday. [link via Yahoo]

Just goes to show that stupidity is the most abundantly available element in the universe!

I'm back! After a brief and a somewhat forced hiatus of 5 days, I'm back!

Spent the last five days in Pune. What started off as an intensely hectic trip to Pune, ended as a very relaxed and rejeuvenating sojourn. I'm glad I stayed back in Pune after my official work got over in the first two days.

Here are the answers and scores to the Supersam's Challenge

1. Why was Wg. Cdr. (retd.) S P Pendharkar in the news recently?
Ans: His daughter Dr. Vijeta Pendharkar is supposed to be marry Rahul Dravid.

2. In children's fiction, which character was created by Geppetto?
Ans: Geppetto created the most famous puppet of them all... Pinocchio.

3. Which is the first Indian courier company to have its own aviation facility?
Ans: Blue Dart

4. Which modern day country in the Middle East is the site of the world's earliest known civilization, the Sumerian civilization?
Ans: Iraq (Rohini says both Iraq and Iran. Logically speaking, I agree with her)

5. In cricket, a score of 111 is often referred to as 'Nelson'. Why so?
Ans: Lord Nelson had one eye, one arm and one leg. That's why. No points for only "one eye" answers. ;-)

6. Which song by the Rolling Stones was used as the theme song for the launch of Windows 95?
Ans: Start Me Up.

7. If you are a misocapnist, then what would you be allergic to?
Ans: Tobacco Smoke.

8. Which promotional character has Pepsi planned to revive in India during this summer?
Ans: Fido Dido, the promotional character for Pepsico's drink, 7UP.

9. In the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, an Indian game was demonstrated for the first time. Which game was it?
Ans: Kabaddi.

10. Complete this line, taken from a 20th Century Classic. “You can shoot all the blue jays you want if you can hit 'em, but remember it’s a sin __ ____ _ ___________."
Ans: To Kill a Mockingbird.

And now the scores!

Rohini - 7
Sarika - 8

So, that's it folks! The winner of this Supersam's Challenge is Sarika!! Congratulations! :-)

YES, all four wars

Some poor idiot named (??) Robert Price apparently posted comments to one of Varsha Bhosle's articles. And in doing so, all but invited Varsha to slam his feet into his own mouth.

This Robert Price person tried to indicate how Pakistan has "won" all the four wars that it has fought against India and how Pakistan's brilliant military strategies (ahem!) have had India begging to the world asking its help to rein in Pakistan.

Varsha Bhosle delivers a point-by-point rebuttal buttressed with references that no one can refute. And thus, she blasts Robert Price's argument into nothingness. I am tempted to quote some of Varsha's best (and sweet-sounding to my Indian ears) arguments, but I'll just quote the final remarks that she makes. I urge you to go and read the full article.

I'm sooo tired of gloating now. Maybe another day I'll tell you what the Indian Army was up against in Kargil... NO! I don't mean Paki "valour"; I refer to terrain and climate. But this article's been long. But, that's the nature of Indian Defence: We may take long, but we make a comprehensive kill in one stroke -- like the kukri to the NLI throat.
NLI refers to Pakistan's Northern Light Infantry which was wiped out completely during their foolhardy adventure atop the mountain peaks in Kargil and Drass.

Woohooo!!... Way to go Varsha!!

Final human genome sequence released

This time it is the real thing, scientists promise - the complete sequence of human DNA, as perfectly rendered as it ever will be.

...

"What we've got now is what we'll have for all eternity," says Francis Collins, director of the US National Human Genome Research Institute and the head of the consortium of 16 international institutions that collaborated to sequence the code. [link via Slashdot]

But as they've already observed, humans have significantly lesser number of genes than was earlier thought.

While past estimates varied up to 140,000, two international scientific teams have now shown the true number is between 27,000 and 40,000.

...

"The small number of genes is significant [because it means] we're not hard-wired," says Craig Venter, head of one team at the private company Celera.

"People think genes are an absolute cause of traits. But the notion that the genome is the blueprint for humanity is a very bad metaphor," he says. If you think we're hard-wired and deterministic, there should indeed be a lot more genes."

SYRIA MAY BE NEXT

Syria may become an American military target if it was found to be harbouring Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, according to a senior Pentagon adviser.

He said that if such weapons were found on Syrian soil: "I'm quite sure we would have to respond to that".[link via Metafilter]

Mr. Richard Perle, I think you and your idiot pretzel-fearing boss could do better by using all your resources to try and find any proof of those WMDs in Iraq first. Warheads with traces of nerve agent don't count if you are trying to justify invasion of a country.

So, before you talk about doing an Iraq on Syria, first attend to the business that you've left unfinished in the last year or so... viz. finiding Osama, finding WMDs in Iraq, etc.

And if anyone thinks this is an anti-American view... think again! This is just an anti-idiotarian view!

Read Between the Lines as a young budding journo Rohini tries to analyse news that catch her eye, on her brand new media blog.

What is this blog all about? Read the FAQs :-)
In short, as the byline of her blog announces, it is "a weblog on the media- from news to movies, sportspersons to journalists, advertising to war reporting.... "

Great work, Rohini!! :-)

SARS was born in weapons lab: Russian scientist

The virus of atypical pneumonia, better known as SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, was created artificially, possibly as a bacteriological weapon, Sergei Kolesnikov, academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, told a press conference in the Siberian town of Irkutsk on Thursday, the Russian RIA Novosti news agency reported.

According to Kolesnikov, the virus of atypical pneumonia is a synthesis of the viruses of measles and infectious parotiditis or mumps, the natural compound of which is impossible. This can be done only in a laboratory, he said.

Now, much before SARS became a global threat and when it was just a disturbing problem in South East Asia, I had this chat with a friend. And I, being a conspiracy theorist that I am, had hypothesized that SARS could be lab-created virus that was let loose as a smokescreen. Geez! my brain thinks up such weird stuff these days!!... and when it comes true, it just feels so smug!! ;-)

Here it is once more... a chance to take on Supersam's Challenge!!

Send in your answers to me at webmaster at opti-mystic dot net. Please do not post answers in the comments.

So here are 10 questions for you...

1. Why was Wg. Cdr. (retd.) S P Pendharkar in the news recently?

2. In children's fiction, which character was created by Geppetto?

3. Which is the first Indian courier company to have its own aviation facility?

4. Which modern day country in the Middle East is the site of the world's earliest known civilization, the Sumerian civilization?

5. In cricket, a score of 111 is often referred to as 'Nelson'. Why so?

6. Which song by the Rolling Stones was used as the theme song for the launch of Windows 95?

7. If you are a misocapnist, then what would you be allergic to?

8. Which promotional character has Pepsi planned to revive in India during this summer?

9. In the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, an Indian game was demonstrated for the first time. Which game was it?

10. Complete this line, taken from a 20th Century Classic. “You can shoot all the blue jays you want if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin __ ____ _ ___________."

I know I did not send the answers to the last Supersam's Challenge, but I promise I'll be a good boy this time and post the answers and the scores this time around! :-)

So, go ahead and take up the challenge!

Speed of sound is silenced

Concorde, the world's first supersonic passenger jet, will be grounded in the autumn after a plunge in passenger numbers and a string of high-profile technical problems.
British Airways and Air France will announce the decision today, following months of deliberation with technical advisers from Airbus.[link via Metafilter]

Well, I've never travelled in a Concorde, but I'm a wee bit sad to note that it'll no more take to the skies!

By the way, a trivia question. Do you know why the Concorde's nose is crooked (or bent, pointing towards the ground)?

Iraq's UN ambassador says 'game is over'

In the first admission by an Iraqi official that US-led forces have seized control of Baghdad, the country's ambassador to the United Nations said, "The game is over" and hoped Iraqis would have a peaceful life.

Amen to that! Lets hope that we have seen/heard the last of Saddam Hussein.

Though that may just be wishful thinking. If the question that haunted people all over the world in the past few weeks was "Where is Raed?" then the one that'll certainly haunt the people in the coming weeks would be "Where is Saddam?"

Appearing on 60 Minutes on CBS, Said Aburish, one of Saddam Hussein's biographers said (when asked if Saddam could have escaped before Baghdad fell),

“I don’t think that’s ever a consideration for Saddam Hussein,” says Aburish. “That would have given away everything he ever stood for. He had this preoccupation from the time he was in his 20s: ‘I belong in this page of Arab history.’ Going down with Baghdad, going down with the ship completes him.”

According to Aburish, who has studied Saddam for decades, the most important thing in life for this Iraqi leader is to be remembered by the Arabs as another Saladin, the Muslim warrior who triumphed over the Crusaders 800 years ago.[Read more]

Sources in the British intelligence have been quoted saying that though Saddam was almost certainly in the targeted building at some point, he was "probably" not there when the bombs were dropped.

So that means, just like Elvis, Saddam has left the building!

Amidst drumrolls and blowing trumpets and the clash of cymballs, let me announce the unveiling of this week's Blog Mela which is in its seventh edition this time around.

Jayakrishnan Nair clinically dissects Arundhati Roy's arguments on the war, US and Saddam. Easily the most-nominated post of this Blog Mela.
And in another of his posts, Jayakrishnan argues why we could have reasons to suspect the motives of an organization that supposedly represents the interests of Indo-Americans in the US.

Niraj lays bare the hypocrisy of some of the students of Stanford University who want to disassociate the University's name from the Hoover Institution under the pretext that Hoover Institution is composed of war-mongers and the association stifles "academic freedom".

Jyotsna Kamat talks about Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya on the occasion of her birth centennial, giving us an informative insight into the life and work of this multi-faceted lady who was a trade-unionist, a revolutionary, a reformer, a great patron of arts, an accomplished writer (she has authored twelve books), an orator, and a freedom fighter - a truly amazing Indian woman.

Kingsley makes a profound discovery as he has iron and dates on his mind (to know what that means, you ought to read the post!) ;-)

Swami (April 7 post. Permalinks not working.) makes an interesting point about how conflict, disagreement, argument and even war are essentially parts of an equilibrium.

Sankar Narayan (April 3 post. Permalinks not working) has an interesting insight into the impacts of the Iraq war on the Indian IT industry.

Vikas Kamat traces the history of the Khilafat Movement and its place in the Indian freedom movement in an insightful post. As the person who nominated this post pointed out, "More people should be aware of the story."

Rohini (April 8 post, titled "Your name in the Headlines". Permalinks not working.) attacks the concept of "news-selling" that has been embraced by some newspapers recently, notably The Times of India.

Anita (April 5 and April 8 posts. Permalinks not working.) posts some of her delightful memories of her trip, as she talks about her long walks at Auroville or when she bemoans the "efficiency" of the Railways booking system at the Howrah Railway Station in Kolkata.

Dina Mehta observes the importance of colour in the way it is a reflection of our emotional states, moods, attitudes, personality, society - in short, any form of human existence.

Yazad (April 2 post. Permalinks not working.) discovers a deep philosophical insight while watching a TV serial.

And that folks, was a roundup of some of this week's hand-picked blogs from the Indian Blogworld!!

This list is mirrored at Realwomenonline.com.

Bharateeya Blog Mela. Well folks, its Monday again... and a start to yet another week. Just a couple of days to go for the seventh edition of Bharateeya Blog Mela. Please send in your nominations for the Mela. For details on how to submit your nominations, click here. Alternatively, you could even leave your nominations as comments on this post.

C'mon people, lets see the cream of the Indian blogscape on the Blog Mela!!

PS: Shanti has created some really cool buttons for linking to the Blog Mela. They are available here.

Tornadoes to drop 'concrete bombs'

After using the ultimate in hi-technology in the form of accurate, precision-guided missiles, the Allies are now turning to another piece of innovation in a bid to reduce civilian deaths resulting from explosions due to the bombs and missile.

But now the crews operating over Iraq from the Ali Al Salem airbase in northern Kuwait are about to go to the opposite extreme and use "inert bombs".
These are basically blocks of concrete shaped as bombs and painted blue to identify them as non-explosive if they are discovered still intact after the war.
But they will be laser-guided 1,000lb blocks of concrete, capable of destroying a tank or artillery piece, but without causing a devastating explosion that would put civilians at risk and shatter surrounding buildings.[link via WarFilter]

Interesting! :-)

A legend turns 90

In the company of generals, children, politicians, journalists and illustrious members of the global Parsi community and with traditional Zoroastrian rituals, Field Marshal Sam Hormusji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw, India's first and only living field marshal, celebrated his 90th birthday in New Delhi on Thursday.

Manekshaw, his legendary wit and charm intact, cut his birthday cake with a silver khukri, the favourite dagger of the legendary Gurkha soldiers, as the large gathering sang Happy Birthday to You.

Yesterday, I was watching some footage of this birthday party on TV and I was struck by how active and sprightly FM (retd.) Sam Manekshaw (Sam Bahadur to his troops) looked and acted, even at the age of 90. He looked dapper in a smart suit and he answered questions with enthusiasm.

One journalist asked him about his views on the war.
"War?! What war are you talking about??!... I don't know of any war!", he shot back almost immediately, "I'm a peace-loving man. The only fighting I did was with my wife. And she died two years ago!".

We could really do with men like him in the Army and politics right now. Belated Birthday Wishes to you, Sam!!

Attention citizens of Mumbai! A non-governmental organization (NGO), Praja has just launched an Online Complaint Management System (OCMS) in close association with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). OCMS was launched at the BMC headquarters yesterday (3 April 2003) by Mumbai's mayor, Mahadeo Deole and B G Deshmukh, the chairman of the board of trustees of PRAJA foundation

According to the press release by PRAJA,

The Online Complaint Monitoring System (OCMS) is designed to enable citizens of Mumbai register complaints and receive information on the complaint status quickly and easily, without the need to visit or call the Brihan-Mumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC) ward offices at restricted timings.
All you need to do is to go to www.praja.org and fill in a simple form with the complaint details. On submission, you will be given a unique complaint tracking number, which helps you check the status of your complaint on the internet - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Anonymous complaints are accepted.
What if you don't have connectivity to the internet? Not to worry, the OCMS is a cohesive system. Complaints filed from any source - the net, phone calls and letters to the BMC - will be entered into the OCMS database. The BMC has a 24/7 complaint hotline telephone "1916." And, regardless from where the complaint is fed into the system, you will get a similar complaint tracking number.

Citizens can post their civic complaints online through the OCMS on PRAJA's website. Be it water shortage, encroachment, garbage pile-up or any other civic concern, people of Mumbai no longer will need to run to their area's municipal office to lodge a complaint. They can post their complaint through OCMS and be assured that it will be taken care of soon. A complaint officer in each of the 24 wards of BMC will monitor the complaints for his/her area and forward the complaints to the concerned departments in the BMC. If a particular complaint is not resolved within a stipulated time-frame, then it gets routed to a higher official, thus ensuring redressal. This stipulated time-frame is decided in a Citizen's Charter, a comprehensive document prepared jointly by the BMC and PRAJA. e.g. the Charter sets a time-frame of 24 hours for the redressal of issues like "Overflowing drains or manholes" or "Garbage not lifted from authorised collection spot".

The OCMS is also a complaint monitoring system. Higher officials in BMC can keep track and monitor the progress of grievance redressal by accessing the system.

Some salient features of OCMS... (taken from the PRAJA press release)
1. First of its kind anywhere in the world.
2. All the complaints - from whichever source - will be put in one cohesive system, making it easier to respond, maintain, and evaluate.
3. Each complaint will have a unique tracking number. The complainant can at any time of day or night check the status of the complaint online.
4. If the complaint is not heeded, it will be escalated to the higher officer automatically - up to the Municipal Commissioner. There is no human involvement in this process and it removes the scope for delays in dealing with citizens' complaints.
5. It will revolutionize the use of Information Technology in governance. E-governance is much more that simply computerization of government offices and better communications. This is an interactive system.
6. The OCMS will bring about transparency in governance thus improving governance tremendously.
7. For the first time an NGO is partnering the government in such an initiative.

I think OCMS is an excellent step towards creating an accountable and functional civic administration. BMC and PRAJA have taken the first step. Now it is upto the citizens of Mumbai to step forward and make this effort a success.

Finally... an applause for the people behind PRAJA for their wonderful initiative.

Bharateeya Blog Mela #7

The next Bharateeya Blog Mela will be hosted here on this blog

Directions for submitting entries
* Please submit your nominations for the Mela at webmaster @ opti-mystic dot net
* You can also submit your nominations as comments to this post

Other Rules
* You can submit any type of posts except that it should not be a personal journal entry.
* You can nominate either your own or someone else's posts.
* Please send URLs (permalinks) of the individual posts (not the blog URLs themselves)
* Only the posts dated between 02 April 2003 and 08 April 2003 will be considered for Bharateeya Blog Mela #7.
* Entries should reach me by 12 noon IST on April 09 2003 (that makes it roughly end of Tuesday for people in the US)

If you want to know what this Blog Mela is all about read this and this. Go here if you want to see some examples.

Announcement: If you would like to host the Blog Mela on your blog, slots are open for the following dates -
April 16th
April 23rd
April 30th.

Send an email via this form or leave a message in the comment box saying that you wish to host the Mela.

US forces use Daisy Cutters

As American forces encounter stiffer resistance on the road to Baghdad, military commanders say they have been authorised to use still greater firepower.

And by greater firepower, they mean Daisy Cutters. These 15,000 pound hulks are quite dumb. They don't have any precision-guided technology. They're just slid off the ramp from the aircraft flying around 6,000 feet or higher and they use parachutes to float towards their target. Once they explode, an area of several hundred yards is completely obliterated.

If the Cruise missiles are as precise as a surgeon's scalpel, the Daisy Cutters are as subtle as an ironsmith's hammer-blow.

Click here for a good, concise pictorial description of these monsters. Or if you prefer Flash, then click here.

Bharateeya Blog Mela #6

The sixth edition of the Bharateeya Blog Mela is up at The Examined Life - Ravikiran Rao's weblog. Click here to go and check some of the choicest blogs of the week in the Indian Blogosphere!

The Blog Mela is also mirrored here.

Note: Next week's Bharateeya Blog Mela will be hosted here at Supersam Blogs. Details about how to submit your entries for the same will be put up shortly (within the next 24 hours)

I didn't expect any of my posts to figure in it this week. But then... there is one! *LOL*

BBC reports that Al-Jazeera site tackles hackers

"Fingers crossed that it is back up and running properly in the next few days," Newsroom coordinator Susie Sirri told BBC News Online.

"We don't anticipate farther hacking as we have put in enough security barriers," she added.

So they say!! But have you gone to the english Al-Jazeera site lately?
No??! Then hop over to their site right now!

Whoa!! you're it!! You are the hacker!! I'm not saying that. The site says so. Dear reader, your IP address is in the list of IP addresses banned by Al-Jazeera.

Not a very bright team of web-site security they have, do they?!

[link via WarFilter]

India reacts sharply to Powell's remarks

"No other issue is as central in Jammu and Kashmir as cross-border terrorism," the minister (External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha) emphasised adding, "To the extent to which any other country would pressure Pakistan as part of the global war on terrorism, it is fine, but it is our war."

Well said Mr. Sinha!! India's war is its own to fight.

And well... for some people who feel "Why again should the US/UK give a shit about India's terrorist problems?", go ask this question to your good old Mr. Colin Powell. Perhaps he has some answers as to why US likes to give a shit!