Mylapore autos and Manhattan Cabbies

What is the striking similarity between Manhattan and Mylapore, Kennedy International Airport and Chennai Central Station? Any guesses? Well it is the same haggle, fleecing passengers, rude behavior, and heated exchanges between the driver and passenger.

There is also another striking similarity between India and NYC. Surprised? The Asian culture of picketing lines, calling for a strike, taking taxies off the road spreads to the streets of NYC. NYC cabbies are no different than our auto guys protest here for fare revision and electronic meters and. They have opposed installation of GPS and provision for credit card transactions in their cabs. The cabs that decided to ply on the roads charged a premium and passengers went on a ride-share basis. Doesn’t this sound like our share auto concept?

Who is supporting and front ending this strike? Well It is an Indian…

“Bhairavi Desai, the executive director of the taxi workers’ alliance, called the job action a “resounding success,” as did Edward F. Ott, the executive director of the New York City Central Labor Council, an A.F.L.-C.I.O. umbrella group for the city’s unions.”

Habits die hard and is this what Thomas Friedman means “ The world is flat”?

Did someone say life is same everywhere?

For detailed reading on this visit: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/06/nyregion/06taxi.html?ref=nyregion&pagewanted=all

Ratatouille - A riotous combo....

Hare and tortoise, Golden goose, Ugly duckling how many moral stories have we read from our childhood but we seem to have forgotten the message. For those of you who are gluttonous for money, power fame and fortune get to the theatres to see your blind spot. Pixar has become the Grandmother of the world coming up with wonderful Moral stories for adults and children. A must watch for all adults and the child in them.

Ratatouille is a movie for adults who've forgotten how to live it right and finish it happy.
A rat's (Remy)strong sense of smell changes the course of his life. His ideas of becoming a chef were opposed by his family and friends, but isn't that the case with many of us? But unlike us, he decides to risk and part way with his clan to live his passion. He now abhors thieving food from homes and living out of garbage cans and sewerlines. Destiny brings him to the world above the sewer lines and leads him to his guru Gusteau's restaurant in Paris.

Remy and Linguini (garbage cleaner) at the crossroads of life meet each other at Gusteau's restaurant. Survival is a problem for Linguini, while living passion is the mantra for the little rodent Remy. This explains why some people make it to the top unnoticed and stay there forever, and why people stay at the bottom, feed on crumbs and complain life is unfair.

The friendship with the garbage cleaner at the restaurant brings about a change in both their lives and to A cooking fiasco brings Linguini to the limelight and the friendship chord with the Remy makes the rest of the story move without much effort. It is tough to maintain balance when one has it all. Linguini and the rat go through typical struggles of life, love, power, and ego. But they soon realize it is honesty and humbleness that matters in the long run while recognition, fame and fortune follows. Villians like Anton Ego they get killed by their own action - what goes around comes around.

The movie ends with the dah!! moment. The rodent and Linguini has it all in the end. The formula is simple "It all comes to you when you live your dream without any pretense and arrogance."

1. The magic in the simple script and lessons through the little rodent attracts more adults than kids to the cinema hall.
2. Life is all about living your passion even if it means parting ways with your family and friends. When you are sucessful people will come back to you.
3. Values in life ensure sucess in the long run.
4. The constant struggle between the ego and alter ego makes the movie earthy and interesting. We all have such struggles in our life,
but we seldom listen to the inner voice.
5. Villians get taken care by their own action - what goes around comes around.
6. There is no shortcut to sucess. Honesty, hard work, and humbleness is the formula for lasting sucess.
8. Tough times and tough people don't last forever.
7. Anyone can cook - Life is simple and it is easy to get what you want provided you listen to your heart.
9. Life is all about receipes and flavors- the one with prejudice misses the flavor of life.

Did someone say Angels take themselves lightly and hence they fly?

Menakes & Sabeels in the making....

It was Poothna, Bakasur, Banasur, Chatakasur and many more in the days of Dwapara yuga set out to kill Lord Krishna. Today their equivalents Sivarasan, Dhanu, Sabeel, Menake and many more as human bombs aka suicide bombers have taken many lives and many are on the loose to take innocent lives for a cause that they claim to be noble.

Though initially suicide bombers were restricted to LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam) in Srilanka, we are increasingly witnessing this cult adopted as a best practice by all terrorist outfits around the world.

Srilanka, once a peaceful country and home to Buddhist faith that abhors any harmto even animals is today a forerunner and breeding ground when it comes to terrorism school. Innocent kids are taken into guerilla camps trained and released back into thepublic for their mission.

Weekly LTTE suicide bombs cause heavy casualties. They are cheap and efficient: On average, suicide bombings kill four times as many people as other acts of terrorism. Up to 40 percent of these attacks are carried out by women.

The LTTE is considered one of the most ruthless terrorist organizations in the world, using extortion to raise upwards of $30 million a month from Sri Lankan expatriates.

Here is Menake's story, a suicide bomber who was recently arrested when her mission to strike down Srilankan Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake was foiled. She lives inisolation at Anti-Terrorism Division Headquarters in Colombo.

Menake explains her traumatic childhood, her life in the camp and her decision to turn intoa suicide bomber. Today she pleads for atonement an opportunity to live the life she mighthave had before, if she wasn't going to kill herself. Vist the link below to read how Menake became a victim of circumstances.....

http://www.asiantribune.com/index.php?q=node/7021

Remember there are many more Menakes' and Sabeels' out there.

Mouse trap plays havoc in India

The land that once upon a time lived by Manu Shastra, a book of rules for the society, today has books on how to deal and cope with with Divorce. These are the changing times, You tubes are more productive than fillopian tubes and seminal vesicles.

There was the time when divorce was considered a stigma in the society and only the upper classin the society had the guts and gumption to break away from the marriages. There was also a time whendowry harrasment and in-laws wars were cited as reasons for seperation. But the scene today iscompletely different. More than the upper class the Middle and lower middle families taking to familycourts. Multiple incomes, over ambitious and career oriented youth, nuclear families and fast paced lifestyle among many other personality traits and ego wars seem to threaten the institution of marriage in India.

Apart from Diabetes, AIDS,and Cardiac problems, Divorce has also been added to the list of diseases threatening the Indian population. Our Minister for Health has a lot of work to do in the IT field.

Metros lead the pack with Delhi and Mumbai topping the list. Conservative Chennai and Kolkotta are not far behind in the race to family court. Punjab, Haryana among agricultural states inIndia has seen a sharp increase in divorce rates.

When we thought that literacy and education can bring about change in individuals and rewrite their fate, yes, theirfate was doomed. Kerala, a state with the highest literacy rate in India are also leading the bandwagon.

Which professionals top the divorcee list?
Dr S Nambi, former President of Indian Psychiatrists' Association, feels that software professionals are paying a heavy price for the hefty pay packets and lavish lifestyle that their jobs offer.

As IT field is a brain-taxing competitive job, the professionals get into emotional problems, which reflect on their marital life. Due to mental fatigue, many develop difficulties in sexual activities which also result in broken marriages, he says.

"Around the age of 28, they become hyper sensitive. By 35 they are mentally tired and worn out," remarks Nambi, whose clinic is thronged by several such couples for counselling.

Geetha Ramaseshan, an activist-advocate, says the IT revolution has changed the way in which the younger generation looks at the institution of marriage. Influenced by western culture, they perceive marriage only as a matter of convenience, she feels.

Mouse replaced spouse:

Computer jobs have wrecked bedrooms.Stress, pressure cooker job and fast paced lifestyle has turned software professionals asexual.Lack of libido and impotence among IT professionalis also stated as one of the main reasons for divorce by women. Has Vastsyayana got any fix for this?

The west has not only outsourced the business process but also their lifestyle and problems.Nasscom,an industry body that boasts about Indian IT exports must also look at whatadd ons come with the dirty dollar. When the econimic engine in India started the divorce engine also got started.

What is the scene in Chennai?

Have you heard about Chennai being the diabetes capital of India. 16% of adults areblessed with diabetes and it has more Diabetics than in New York city? Well just wait, Chennai has more reasons to feel proud.

The Chennai city and its suburbs are home to over two lakh IT professionals and BPO employees.

The total number of divorce cases filed in the city last year was about 3,000. However, the 3,000-mark has been crossed this year by the end of June itself, she adds.

40% of the divroce cases filed in Chennai are by professionals in the IT/ITES sector.
There is a sharp increase in women who file for divorce.

75% of divorce cases are filed byyouth in the 25-35 age group.

Who is cashing in on the divorces?

As always it is the market demand that drives innovation.

Certainly family counsellors are busy patching up crumbling marriages, and lawyers are busy running up and down the steps of court.

The internet millionaires are again winning sweepstakes with second innings portals for divorcees,widowers and widows.

Astrologers in street corners have come up with special service offerings for second marriagehoroscopes.

Music companies had sucessfully cashed in marketing music for heart, diabetes, expectingmothers will soon cash in on impotence "Music for the divorced".

References:

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070520/asp/7days/story_7803038.asp

http://content.msn.co.in/News/National/NationalIANS_160707_1217.htm#top

http://content.msn.co.in/News/National/NationalPTI_220707_2100.htm#top

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/10/01/wwide01.xml

Passage to India

We have history of being spineless and servile. How many times have we been invaded in the past? Should I lend my fingers for you to count? It happens again….not a surprise huh?

In today’s world Money and power can erase sins, tears and blood. You can walk into India, kill people and walk away without being reprimanded. Well atleast that is the message we get from the letter sent by Dow Chemical chairman to Indian Ambassador.

Dow Chemicals has a history of killing people with their chemicals and silently filing for bankruptcy. It was asbestos poisoning, Union carbide tragedy, silicone breast implants – I just can’t imagine what more catastrophes are in the pipeline?

This is one of the obstacles that Dow Chemical wants removed before it re-enters India to do business, a move which the Indian government has been quietly encouraging.

When Jihadi’s and Ladens walked into US and brought the American economy on it knees Bush waged a war against them in the Middle East. Union Carbide tragedy killed 22,000 people but we let Dow walk away scotch free – Is it Gandhigiri?

Killing innocent Indians with Made in USA knives - Is it Gandhigiri?

Government of Gujarat signing a JV with Dow - Silently inviting Dow to start another disaster in India – Is it Gandhigiri?

The Chairman of Dow in his letter has shown no sense of shame or regret or commitment, but meekly seeking the Indian Government for a come back in the Indian soil?

Indian software companies take pride in announcing their client lists “45 of Fortune 500” aren’t these MNCs’ 45 of Evil 500? Should we maintain their IT system when they have killed 22,000 people and mutated innocent lives for life and paid no price to remediate? Should our IT engineers not exercise their social responsibility?

Where is social responsibility that our Corporations are talking about? Just lip service, huh?

Indian PM Manmohan Singh talks about social responsibility of corporations, where is the responsibility of Indian government?

America walked into Iraq on the pretext that Iraq had WMD and wiped peace and prosperity in their country. These MNCs are walking into Indian in a similar fashion to dump their waste and obliterate India.

The Capitalistic West is behaving like terrorist. When will India and Indians learn to stand up for their own safety and security?

Prudence or Providence – when will it work, when will we wake up?

Dow Chem tries to avoid paying Rs 100cr
By Olga Tellis
Mumbai, July 18: Dow Chemical chairman Andrew Liveris has in a letter to Indian ambassador to the United States Ronen Sen tried to enlist his support to get the Union ministry of chemicals and fertilisers to drop its demand for the payment of Rs 100 crores as a deposit for environmental remediation costs in Bhopal.

Dow Chemical plans India plant; ties up with India's GACL - report
MUMBAI (Thomson Financial) - Dow Chemical Co's European unit has signed a joint venture agreement with India's Gujarat Alkalies and Chemicals Ltd to manufacture chlorine-based products at the latter's Dahej project site in the western state of Gujarat, local dailies Business Standard and The Economic Times reported.

Dow distances from Bhopal gas tragedy
Sunday, July 1, 2007 (New York):In 2001, Dow Chemical bought Union Carbide for $9.3 billion, despite this, Dow has refused to accept moral responsibility or be held accountable for the Bhopal gas tragedy.

Pamela Mountbatten on the Jawaharlal-Edwina relationship

It was very interesting to see the script of Karan Thapar’s interview with Pamela Mountbatten in today’s Hindu.

The read the following questions and interesting replies. It silenced by brain and emotions for a second. Never judge a book by its cover. It also needs guts and gumption to talk about ones’ family, especially a mother’s relationships in the public.

Love has no reasons or seasons!!

There was no tinge of jealousy or perhaps of hurt emotion?
No, because I think he trusted them both. And also, my mother was so happy with Jawaharlal, she knew she was helping him at a time when it’s very lonely at the pinnacle of power. It really is. And if she could help, and my father knew that it helped her, because a woman can, after a long marriage, and they’d been over twenty five years together, a woman can feel perhaps frustrated, and perhaps neglected if somebody’s working terribly hard. And so if a new affection comes into her life, a new admiration, she blossoms and she’s happy.

But Panditji was a widower, he needed female affection. Your mother was alluring and beautiful. They were so close to each other. It would be natural for the emotional to become sexual.
It could be, and maybe everybody will think I’m being very naive, but the fact that she had had lovers in the past, somehow this was so different, it really was. And the letters, I mean if you were deeply, physically in love, your whole letter would be about the other person and your need of them physically, and it would be that kind of love letter. These letters had an\nopening paragraph of tenderness, and the end would be also tender and romantic and nice like that, but three quarters of the letter was unburdening himself of all his worries and his disappointments or his hopes and all his idealism coming out for the extraordinary time of India at her rebirth in history and it is the history of India as an independent nation.

For more visit the website
http://www.hindu.com/2007/07/18/stories/2007071862131300.htm or scroll down.....

Never Insult Rats again - They are better than Humans

Have you watched the movie Ratatouille? You just can discount the animation movie to be a fiction anymore.In this world filled with voilence, hate, prejudice and lack of compassion, we have a lesson to be learnt from Rats. Ramayana talks about how squirells and monkey helped Lord Rama to lay the bridge to Lanka. For some this could be a myth, but when you read this article below you can extrapolate the same logic.

Scientist have discovered from experiments that the rats had developed what they call generalized reciprocity — that is, they were generous even with an unknown partner because another rat had just been kind to them.

Here is the extract from NY TIMES - http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/10/science/10rat.html

Swiss researchers put pairs of female rats — they were littermates — in a cage, separating them with a wire mesh. In one half of the cage, a rat could pull a lever attached to a baited tray that would deliver food to her sister, but not to herself. Each rat was trained in alternate sessions, first as a recipient of food, then as a provider. The sisters learned to cooperate, and they pulled significantly more often when their littermate was present than when the other half of the cage was empty.

Then the researchers put rats who had recently been assisted by their partners, and rats who had not recently been helped, in with unfamiliar and unrelated rats. Those who had recently been helped were about 21 percent more likely to pull the lever for the new partner.
This was not just ordinary operant conditioning or reinforcement, the researchers maintain, because the rats were never rewarded for their own behavior, only that of others. Because the rats were unfamiliar and unrelated, there was no family interaction involved. The only plausible explanation, they believe, is that the rats had developed what they call generalized reciprocity — that is, they were generous even with an unknown partner because another rat had just been kind to them.

The study’s lead author, Claudia Rutte, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Bern in Switzerland, warned against drawing conclusions about humans from work with rats. "We’re interested in the evolution of cooperation," she said, "but our research is about animals, really, not people."

Still, the paper, published in the July issue of PLoS Biology, cites previous research showing that humans act the same way — people who have been helped in some way are more likely to help others immediately afterward.

Incidentally, these rats were not the usual cute, pink-eyed white lab rats. They were bred from wild Rattus norvegicus — the brown or gray Norway rat depressingly familiar to residents of many American cities.

Is it time to stop using the word "rat" as an insult? Maybe. Apparently even a nasty-looking rat can be possessed of sterling character.