Rahman to score stage version of LoTR

AR Rehman has been chosen, alongwith a Finnish folk troupe, to score the music for the musical stage version of The Lord of the Rings

"We are recreating Middle Earth and we needed the music that goes with it to be unique," said Kevin Wallace, who is producing the West End show.

"Rahman writes brilliant melodies with an exotic quality and we know he will write something which audiences will adore," he added.

Another feather in Rehman's already much-feathered cap!!

Kindergarten for Men

For ladies who would like to shop in peace without their husbands grumbling and nagging them about it, comes the Männergarten!

Women in Hamburg who want to shop without dragging along grumbling male partners can leave them at the nation's first kindergarten for men. This adult daycare center has plenty of amenities to keep the big boys occupied.

What next, I wonder!!

[link via Metafilter]

Weasel Awards

The second annual Weasel Awards poll results are out!!

The weaseliest organization is Recording Industry Association of America while the weaseliest company is Microsoft.

Politics continues to be the weaseliest profession while George Bush has the honour (by a long long way) of being the weaseliest individual in the world. Interestingly, one of his bete noires, Michael Moore is close on his heels in the second place.

Blaming fast food restaurants for making you fat, deservedly, bags the honour (??) of being the weaseliest of all behaviours!

[link via slashdot]

Weblogs and Journalism - 10 differences

What's Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism?

Good insightful points of difference between Weblogs and Journalism. The comments that this article has managed to get are quite interesting too!

[link via blogdex]

At last!

At long last Dawood Ibrahim has been recognized globally for what he is!

Its petition signing time, folks!

Go through An Open Letter against gender-discrimination in India on Jivha's blog and please sign the petition if you agree with the contents of that letter.

This post on this blog started it all! :-)

Pawar strikes yet again

An excellent analysis of why Sharad Pawar is trying to rock the political boat by reviving the issue of Sonia Gandhi's "foreign nationality".

The Terminator wins

Its Hasta La Vista to Davis as Arnie wins in California.

Let us make our presence felt!

I think this is an excellent idea!

Go check it out!

Worms in chocolates... but don't worry!!

They've found worms in two samples of Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolates.

So FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has ordered the seizure of these chocolates all over Mumbai. But I don't agree with this step taken by the FDA. I mean... it'll be a logistical nightmare to collect all the Dairy Milk chocolates from every nook and cranny of Mumbai, won't it?!

The FDA should've made a public announcement that went somewhat like... "People in Mumbai are hereby instructed to consume Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolates only with Pepsi or Coke. The pesticides in the colas will be put to good use by using them to kill off the worms found in the Dairy milk chocolates!!"

Since when have the police become sticklers to high court orders?!

Police have asked Shiv Sena not to use loudspeakers at their annual Dussera rally.. Now, I fail to understand how the police expect a massive rally to be held without the use of loudspeakers. Every year, tens of thousands of people turn up at Shivaji Park for the annual Dussera rally by Shiv Sena. This rally is used by the Sena to talk about party policies and future plans. And this has been an annual feature for the past 38 years. I wonder how the police expect the speakers to address the huge crowd without loudspeakers.

As per the court order, the use of loudspeakers is prohibited within 100 metres of a place of worship. The venue of the rally - Shivaji Park in central Mumbai - falls within the 100 metre periphery of a Ganesh temple.

The temple that is being referred to here is the Udyan Ganesh temple which lies at the periphery of the ground. Knowing the temple and the ground, I'm certain that this police activism is purely poilitically motivated!!

No weapons found!

US finds no banned weapons in Iraq

"United States forces and Central Intelligence Agency experts have found no proof of banned weapons in Iraq and have determined that that country's nuclear weapons programme was in the
'very most rudimentary state', the US Congress was told on Thursday."

So all that firepower... all that "shock and awe"... all that bluster... what was that for?

All they managed to do was to separate the men (Saddam, Chemical Ali) from the boys (Uday, Kusay) and then killed the boys!

The men still live on...

There's a saying in Hindi for this... Khoda pahaad, nikla chuha!! which roughly translates into... "Dug up a mountain... and found a mouse!"

Francois Gautier asks Why do Indians put religion before nationality?. He does not restrict himself to this question only as he puts forth arguments that are valid and that beg to be answered by the pseudo-secularists. He fisks the press - both western as well as Indian, for being selectively secular.

I remember a few days after Graham Staines was killed, 14 Hindu labourers were murdered in Himachal Pradesh by Muslims separatists. The entire English speaking Indian press devoted page after page of outrage on the killing of Staines, but the murder of the Hindus in HP only warranted a few lines in most newspapers without condemnation. I can understand that Western correspondents based in India show such a slant – even if it does not speak much for their fairness – but Indian journalists, most of them Hindus at that!

What to do?! ... we're like this only!! Hindu killings are not news. Simply because they cannot be painted as communal, can they?!.

Recently, French President Jacques Chirac asked every Frenchman, specially the French Muslims, ‘to be French first and Muslims second’. In India, one often finds that people put their religion before their nationality, particularly the Muslims and to a lesser degree the Christians.

Ohh! ... just imagine Vajpayee making such an announcement!! He would be slaughtered... in the media... in the parliament... in the streets!! And every "secular" politician worth his salt would start rubbing his hands in glee and start dreaming of laughing his way to the [vote] bank!!
And by the way, whatever may be his faults (and he has many of them!), Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray has been trying to say the same thing for years... Be an Indian first... and then a muslim... or a hindu... or a christian... whatever!

The Return of the King

Be still my heart!! ... I just downloaded the official The Return Of the King trailer. And boy!!... does it look good or what!! Its awesome!!

I had goosebumps on my arms as I saw the trailer! I just can't wait for the movie to be released!!

Check it out here or here. [warning: 9 MB]

You could also check out the Frame by Frame view of the trailer here.

Women and business

Videocon MD Venugopal Dhoot brazenly declares that businesses can't be run by women. He said this on being asked about the future of his daughter Surabhi, who has passed her MBA with distinction from University of Wales.

"Our community does not allow that. So, she is back at home," he explains, adding "Anyway, businesses can't be run by women, especially in India. She can do professional managerial work from home if she wants but she will not come to the office," he says emphatically.

"Show me one woman who is running a business successfully," he challenges.

Such sexist attitude! And that too from a person who is about the enter Rajya Sabha, supported by Congress, a party headed by a woman, who, among other things, aims to run the country one day!!

And ohh... by the way... in a completely unrelated piece of news, for the first time ever, women on Forbes’ list of the 400 Richest People in America topped men in average net worth, with $2.8 billion vs $2.4 billion for men.

Featured on that list at number 224 is Meg Whitman who's the President and CEO (and has been since 1998) of eBay which is a $32 billion business today.

Any views on this, Mr. Dhoot?

Couldn't agree more!

Swapan Dasgupta, in his column in Rediff believes that India and Pakistan belong to different civilisations.

We love to believe that the kindness shown to a Pakistani child with a heart ailment will melt even the most hardened souls across the border. We love to believe that the overpowering strength of the hospitality we experience during casual visits to Lahore means that politics is the only hurdle to rapprochement. And we love to believe, as Rajiv Gandhi once put it, that the Taj Mahal is as much theirs as Mohenjodaro is ours.

The time for such romantic piffle is over. Actually, there was never any basis for it.

Exactly!!

Likewise it is too naive to think that cricket or any other socio-cultural exchange will thaw the frozen attitudes on both sides. Pakistan's proclaimed strategic objective is to bleed India through a thousand cuts. With this larger strategic intent in mind, Pakistan may shift tactics and postures, but it will never walk the path of peace with India. Any Pakistani government who tries to take this path will be hounded at home and branded traitors. I wonder why successive governments in India have ignored this simple fact.

For too long India has allowed its responses to be guided by the sanctimoniousness of a professional peace lobby. It is time we ignored these appeasers of jihad. Let the prime minister's pronouncement that India cannot negotiate with terrorists be the final word on Pakistan.

Amen!