Fallen, like the petals of the flower
Withered and faded with time
And all the smiles are sold to the unerring winds

Dreams, in myriad hues
Dreams, in delusional dimensions
Dreams, in shattered reality
Dreams, momentarily foregone forever
Dreams, always a happy hallucination
Dreams, in lovely pretense
Dreams, in fantasy wedlock
Dreams, always a dream

Faith is fickle

Forever is a myth

And they are here to stay

Heavens ! What is wrong with these girls? They are on a honeymoon and they still miss India ?! Worse, they even post it on FB ! Wth ! neither her honeymoon is going right nor her missing India part is completely true ! Who the hell is gonna miss India on their honeymoon :-|

Seriously…..girl…stop posting all your crap updates on FB ! I can’t stand reading your cute cute feelings for your mother and the fight that you had with your hubby ! And nobody is cared about where you go for honeymoon and your stupid feelings about it ! Go get a life…..

The most horrible and frustrating day eva !

Beautiful song from the movie 'Sitaramayyagari Manavaralu'

You were inside me like a pearl

Preparing yourself for the new world

You trusted me for life

But I was disturbed about you for death

How much my heart bled, every time I bled

I will never hold you in my arms

And put you to sleep

I’m sorry for letting you go

For, I had to do this for your own good

Please forgive me....

I just flipped to the month of April in my calendar and guess who greets me?
Take a look at the stunning pic of Sujatha Mohan....FYI...she is a very famous singer from down south...remember the beautiful hum at the start of kadhal rojave from the movie 'Roja' that drains your soul??
What a perfect South Indian beauty ! She is stunningly awesome...!!!
The flash in my cam has spoilt the pic....

 

I tried without flash and see how it looks :| My room is probably not the right place to click.....

P.S. If you wondering what calendar this is...it's the calendar from A R Rahman Foundation :-D

Wanna see Mani Shankar Aiyar faltering?
Here's the devil nailing an evasive Aiyar...
Ok...I knw the interview happened a month ago...still !! 

She says

 

He is the gentle waft of air hugging you

Harmonizing the cacophony around

What a perfect world of Utopia it is

To be in his arms, safe and secure

And here I sleep to eternity

For he is within me, in every nuclei

Cross posted from The Hindu - Magazine 


If mothers and wives were paid 
 

KALPANA SHARMA

With the burden of domestic work on their shoulders, women spend more time doing unpaid work than men around the world…

Photo: H. Vibhu

Unrecognised contribution to the economy...   
It would be fascinating if someone were to calculate the number of person-hours lost on the days that India played a crucial match during the just-concluded World Cup Cricket series. And especially on March 30, the day of the not-to-be-missed India-Pakistan semi-final at Mohali.
 
Of course, even if we were to undertake such an exercise, we would only look at those with jobs in the formal sector, who get monthly salaries and various benefits. But millions of Indians, the majority, work in the informal sector, with no job security, living each day as if it was the first and the last. For them, missing a day at work, whether for a match, or for illness, is simply not an option.

All in a day's work The same goes for millions of women in this country who do unpaid work. Match or no match, most women will have to cook and feed their families, clean their homes, wash the clothes and look after children and elders. Such work has never been given a monetary value. No one knows what they contribute as they do a range of unpaid work — from household chores in the home, to strenuous work in agricultural fields, to helping out in small businesses, to home-based work (that is not always paid), to helping out in a variety of tasks that they are expected to do only because they are women. Only in a few countries has a monetary value been placed on such unpaid work.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has recently come out with an important study that looks precisely at this issue: women's unpaid work. Titled “Cooking, caring and volunteering: Unpaid work around the world”, the report by Veerle Miranda looks at the amount of time women spend on unpaid work as compared to men.

Miranda found that in each of the countries studied, 26 countries belonging to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and three emerging economies, India, China and South Africa, women spend more time doing unpaid work than men. This is not surprising given that in practically all societies, women are expected to bear the maximum burden of domestic work with men helping out if and when they can. This holds true even in households where women go out of the house for paid work. Yet at the end of the working day, when both the man and the woman return home, it is the woman who is automatically expected to do the household chores.

A current TV advertisement for hot meals served on a low-cost airline sums this up rather well. It shows a housewife, obviously exhausted, preparing a hot meal for her husband who returns from a late flight. He takes it for granted that the meal will be waiting for him. There is nothing in the ad to indicate what the woman's day was like but given the way she thumps the plate down in front of the husband, one can well imagine. It would never have occurred to the man to figure out a way of relieving his wife of this particular chore.

Huge differences The ILO study found a range of difference in the amount of time women in the different countries spent on unpaid work as compared to men. For instance, women in India, Mexico and Turkey spent 4.3 to 5 hours more than men on unpaid work as compared to a difference of just one hour between women and men in the Nordic countries. And while the women cooked, cleaned and fed the children, Indian fathers, husbands and sons spent time sleeping, eating, talking to friends, watching television and relaxing.

Apart from the gender difference in time spent, the value of such unpaid work was not factored into economic calculations that assess a country's development. Miranda concludes, “Our calculations suggest that between one-third and half of all valuable economic activity in OECD countries is not accounted for in the traditional measure of well-being, such as GDP per capita.”

To many, this would appear to be a non-issue given the gravity of issues that women face in terms of violence, inside and outside the home, many forms of discrimination, sexual harassment and assault etc. Yet, there is a good reason for assessing the extent of unpaid work women do, the gender gap between women and men on this count, and the value of their labour.

Quantifying the value In fact as far back as 1985, women's groups advocated assessing the value of unpaid work. At the Third World Conference of Women in Nairobi that year, it was recommended that the value of household goods and services be included in a country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP): “Concrete steps should be taken to quantify the unremunerated contribution of women to agriculture, food production, reproduction and household activities.”

Another strong reason for putting a value to such work is that it makes us value better those who do such work for money — domestic helps. In India, such women — and they are mostly women — are grossly underpaid. There is no standard set for the amount they should be paid for the kind of work they are expected to do. What is even more disappointing is that women, who earn well in the formal sector, and who realise that they are better equipped to concentrate on their careers because they have such paid domestic help, also do not put a high enough value on this work. If unpaid work was given a voluntary value, all such women could benefit.

Gender assumptions Ultimately, the issue is not the amount of time spent on unpaid work, or whether women should be paid for such work, but the expectation that they will do it unquestioningly and for all time to come. Surely, with so much changing around us, this is yet another arena where gender roles must be questioned, where the drudgery and burden of household work must be shared by men and women, and where those who work silently to hold up millions of homes around the world should be given the recognition and appreciation that they deserve.

Ok...This is what you call is starting your day with a bad news ! My user in one of the development systems has expired and all my developments are in there ! I haven't taken a back up or copied it into our original development systems ! By the time I get back my user, it would be afternoon or worse evening ! And all my work has come to a standstill. Man, this is so not working today ! I had planned to reduce my workload significantly today. Don't tell me I have to work this weekend :-|
Besides, such things are not supposed to happen today. Of all days, why April 1 !??? It's my 1st service anniversary today :-|

This is utter crap ! I am not even able to finish half the Minesweeper board today ! :-|
This is so not working out today....its pissing !
Moreover, I hate the Windows 7 version of the game...the board looks gaudy or more precisely, it reminds me of those super flashy dressed telugu actors and actresses :-|

                                           I am deciding the fate of a person today  :-|
                                                           Wish me luck  :-(

Update: Ok...not in my hands now...Decision-making lies elsewhere...my job done !

Too late to have seen the interview...but I think Shyam Saran handled Karan's questions pretty well....he sounded pretty much prepared as the questions were also obvious...And woww...Karan seemed to be convinced with his answers too !! And I just checked Shyam's profile....he joined the Wipro board last year ! Interesting.....

Check out Karan playing the not-so-devilish advocate here.

Here's something interesting for you...

A First Lady divorces her husband to run for the Presidential race ! And she says, she is sacrificing her marriage life for the people of Guatemala !!! Ok...is that Guatemala sinkhole closed or still open?

http://newspepper.su/news/2011/3/9/the-first-lady-of-guatemala-go-to-the-polls-in-violation-of-the-constitution/

Over the last few days, the ongoing Wikileaks saga seems to have jostled the Parliament and the entire nation. Our Indian political system has become a laughing stock to its people and to the world ! The cash-for-votes scam was brought into light by CNN-IBN’s sting operation soon after the 2008 elections, but then later it seems to have dissolved into thin air. So this comes as no surprise to any of us. But what comes as a surprise element is the heavy involvement of the US in minute political details of our country and most importantly, our politicians finding American diplomats their confidants. What is so appalling is the fact that nobody around stands up to his/her conviction. Jaitley goes around saying to this American diplomat that the BJP is ‘opportunistic’ about the Hindu nationalism (which is very true by the way !). Chidambaram is alleged to have said that the NIA is legally weak and ironically, he was involved in the core formation of the NIA ! Manmohan delivered a bad speech soon after the cash-for-votes scam resurfaced with the Wikileaks. The Government is now reeling under too many scams – the 2G, Wikileaks, CVC, cash deals, CWG and many others that we have all lost track of !!Thanks to the World Cup and the India-Pakistan semis ! Man, this is so much not like the United Progressive Alliance. It’s the the United Tainted Colors of UPA ! 

Wanna get your hands dirty??? Join the UPA :-|

Wanna get your penchant for religion totally screwed and play politics with it? Join the BJP :-|

Welcome to the world of Indian politics !

The only best and sane thing that the Congress seems to have done in the recent times is abstaining from voting for the no-fly zone in Libya !!! God, at least they weren't so moronic with the Arab matters ! And please, before you point fingers at somebody, please put a check on that damn Chinease insurgence into Eastern India !

And yes, the election manifesto of DMK and AIADMK looks stunning !!! We got a receipt for the free TV drive by the DMK, but the EC interfered when the distribution was in its fifth phase ! So my idea of getting the TV to Bangalore is down in the drains ! So I am now expecting a mixer grinder or a lappie ! They better do as they promised. 

By the way, I have an excellent idea for the election manifesto. It will drive people crazy ! How about going on a ‘free Chennai from mosquito-menace’ drive??? I am sure we would be more than glad !

He says

She is the silver lining in the dark cloud

The mild breeze that caresses your face

With a guileless smile that drives you insane

My ego is shred and its embers burn bright

The divinity is sacrosanct with her presence

I stand there experiencing a tremor

Deprived of obstinacy and arrogance

She chose me, a lousy beggar

All of a sudden, I feel like God

 Birds sing melancholic tunes

Of a sorrow that is unholy

The trees mourn the pain

Of a lament in vain

The sea rose in fury

From the very summit of hell

A sudden shriek was heard

And thereafter, gloom prevailed

Time frantically searches for itself

To Heal from the pits of oblivion

An excellent op-ed by Siddharth Varadarajan....cross-posted from The Hindu....

The Embassy cable suggests a serious crime was committed on Indian soil to which U.S. diplomatswere privy. The Prime Minister cannot cite lame arguments to justify inaction.

Since politics is a distraction, consider the following retelling of the WikiLeaks tale. An activist dies in a traffic accident. CCTV footage from a bank nearby suggests he might have been murdered but the case is never investigated properly. Three years later, a newspaper publishes what it says is an American Embassy cable sent a few days before that suspicious accident. In the cable, a U.S. diplomat quotes a multinational company executive talking loosely about how he paid money to some criminals to convince the activist to get out of his way.

How would a civilised country which values the rule of law react to such a disclosure? Would the government cite technicalities about the “unverified and unverifiable” nature of the “purported” cable and the executive's protestation of innocence and not even bother to ask the police to look into the matter? Or would it reassure the nation that even though the information is unverified, it will do its best to find out the truth?

In the face of the political firestorm that The Hindu's publication of a secret U.S. Embassy cable about payoffs to MPs has generated, all that the people of India needed was an assurance from the UPA government that the serious crime of bribery, if established by a proper investigation, would not go unpunished. What they got instead was cynical obfuscation.

Speaking in Parliament on the subject, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have mounted a ‘technical' and wholly ineffective defence of the government.

The July 17, 2008 cable sent by U.S. Charge d'Affaires Steven White stated that a Congress politician named Nachiketa Kapur — described as a “political aide” to Captain Satish Sharma, M.P. — showed an Embassy staff member “two chests containing cash and said that around Rupees 50crore-60 crore (about $25 million) was lying around the house for use as pay-offs” to MPs to ensure that the Manmohan Singh government won the confidence vote that was set for July 22. The cable, which was accessed by The Hindu from WikiLeaks, also quotes Mr. Kapur saying Ajit Singh's Rashtriya Lok Dal was paid Rs.10 crore for each of its MPs.

That the RLD was actively being wooed can be seen from the Union Cabinet's July 17, 2008 decision to rename Lucknow airport ‘Chaudhry Charan Singh Airport' after Mr. Ajit Singh's father. Other inducements were also on offer but in the end, the RLD voted against the government. Here Nachiketa Kapur turned out to have been remarkably prescient. After claiming the RLD MPs had been paid off, the Embassy cable notes: “Kapur mentioned that money was not an issue at all, but the crucial thing was to ensure that those who took the money would vote for the government.”

In the face of this damaging information which is contained in a secret cable that was never meant to be publicly circulated (that too in a redacted form) till at least 2018, Mr. Mukherjee and Dr. Singh made five lame points.

First, the Finance Minister told Parliament on Thursday that since the allegation of bribery applies to the 14th Lok Sabha which has since been dissolved, the 15th Lok Sabha had no locus standi to discuss the issue.

Second, he said the cable was a sovereign communication between different branches of the U.S. government, was covered by diplomatic immunity and that the information it contained could neither be confirmed nor denied by India. Despite the U.S. State Department saying publicly last year that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had spoken to External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna to warn him of the impending publication of confidential cables by WikiLeaks, Dr. Singh told Parliament: “The Government of India cannot confirm the veracity, contents or even the existence of such communications.”

Third, the Finance Minister said the information about bribery in the cable would not be considered admissible evidence in any court of law. The Prime Minister added that “many of the persons referred to in those reports have stoutly denied the veracity of the contents,” as if the country ought to be satisfied by mere protestations of innocence by the accused.

The government's fourth argument was that a Parliamentary committee had probed the matter and concluded that there was “insufficient evidence.” Finally, the Prime Minister took refuge behind the “court of the people,” declaring that since the Congress got re-elected in 2009 the charge of bribery had been “rejected by the people.” By this logic, the Congress has no right to accuse Narendra Modi of complicity in the 2002 massacres since this allegation has been “rejected by the people” not once but twice.

Instead of hiding behind technicalities and dubious political arguments, government managers could have defused the crisis by promising that the information contained in the cable would be probed. It is nobody's claim that the contents of a U.S. Embassy cable should be treated as gospel truth. Of course, the reason the cable struck a wider chord is because there is corroborating evidence of bribery having taken place in the run-up to the confidence vote. There are video recordings from a sting operation conducted by CNN-IBN and a Parliamentary committee tasked with probing the matter in 2008 felt there was enough material for the appropriate investigative agencies to conduct a probe. That said, the Embassy cable's contents still need to be verified.

Captain Satish Sharma, Nachiketa Kapur and Ajit Singh have all said the allegations against them are false. Captain Sharma has denied Mr. Kapur was ever his political aide and the latter has said he had only passing contact with the Congress MP and with U.S. Embassy officials. Are they lying? Or was the U.S. Embassy staff member being economical with the truth when he told the Charge d'Affaires he had been shown the cash?

A proper police investigation conducted by an agency like the CBI under the supervision of the Supreme Court can certainly make a fair attempt to establish where the burden of truth lies.

Mr. Mukherjee is right that the cable is sovereign diplomatic communication but India can surely request its “strategic partner” to help probe an allegation that has diminished the country's democratic institutions in the eyes of its people and the world. For starters, the U.S. can be asked to identify the unnamed Embassy staff member. If he was an Indian employee or an American without diplomatic status, there would be absolutely no problem in the CBI recording his statement and asking him to join a criminal investigation. He could tell us, for example, where his conversation with Mr. Kapur took place. The staffer reported back to Mr. White that he was told Rs.50 crore or Rs.60 crore was “lying around the house.” Which house was he referring to? Even if the Embassy “staff member” was a diplomat — one theory is that it was the Political Counsellor himself who dropped his descriptor because he had inadvertently become party to a criminal act — diplomatic immunity would not come in the way of him informally helping the police in their investigation. India can also ask the U.S. to waive his immunity. Moreover, the call records of Captain Sharma and Mr. Kapur can be examined to fix their physical locations and ascertain the nature of their relationship, especially on the day the meetings mentioned in the cable took place. This can then be triangulated with the telephone number of the U.S. Political Counsellor, whose number is known to the Indian authorities. These are the minimum steps that any self-respecting democracy would want to take in the face of such a serious charge.

On the eve of the July 22, 2008 vote of confidence, I wrote an op-ed in The Hindu where I said: “Even if the government wins the trust vote on Tuesday, the Prime Minister and the Congress will not be able to live down the taint of impropriety surrounding their victory.” The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that the listlessness, drift and corruption that so many commentators have indicted the Manmohan Singh government for in its second innings have their origins in the manner in which that trust vote was won. The UPA lost its moral centre that day, and with it, its political bearings.

In a hideous coincidence, the taint of bribery has come back to haunt the government at a time when the nuclear dream which was supposed to make it all worth it is slowly evaporating in plumes of deadly radioactive steam above Japan. “If implemented in the way it is promised, [the nuclear deal] would increase the country's energy options in the long-run,” I wrote in the same op-ed. “But no deal is so good that it merits the short-circuiting of democratic propriety through horse-trading or worse.”

The Opposition is wrong to insist that the Prime Minister must resign because of the leaked cable. But he has a moral obligation to ensure the cable's contents are investigated properly. Refusing to do so would be an act of immense political folly, especially in the light of all the scam allegations that have buffeted his government.