And You Call Us Third World Dumbnuts?

OK, I will start by giving you the reason for this post. Basically we have a guest staying at our place who believes that it is India and the other developing economies' fault that the North American economy is in deep shit. He is American (duh!) (no offence). Now his argument is that countries like India and China are infringing on copyright laws and making boot-legged technological products for cheap that result in the originals not being sold. He claims that all the jobs that have been outsourced to such countries can easily be done in America by Americans and soon that shall happen. All I could say to him was, "How is it their fault that you do not want to give up the luxuries of life while they want to obtain the necessities of life?"

That question was not answered. A major reason for that is that I walked away with disgust in my stride, although the bigger reason was that he would not have been able to answer that question. Not with his closed mentality. The arguments that he put forth are grounded in reality, no doubt, but how can he miss facts like America lending out more money than it had, and America spending more than it had, Americans electing horrible president after horrible president (no Obama's "change" revolution is not very flattering so far) or even the fact that Americans do not possess the ability to distinguish between needs and wants.

Yes, the purpose of this post is to prove that the Americans, who are supposedly one of the most developed nations on the face of this planet, still possess a rudimentary mindset.

To Americans, India is a third world country with little scope of development. They believe that the only jobs India creates are jobs it has "stolen" from Americans. Of course not all Americans possess this thought. The educated Americans are exempted, but then they are greatly outnumbered by the ignoramuses. It is conveniently ignored that India and all other developing nations have had to battle the bias of the WTO, an organisation that seems to be an agent to the pompous asses like the U.S. and Co. It is quite evident that WTO is a whore owned by the developed nations when it has hardly done anything to prevent, and later penalize, the U.S move to protectionism. The basic aim of the WTO is to promote free trade (common sense), well, it forced developing nations (India being a strong example) to shed quotas on imports and exports and allow all products to be freely traded to and from developed countries. This is fine as long as a level playing field is maintained by imposing the same on developed nations, but the trend is then broken as the "rich countries" are permitted to impose high quotas on and in some cases completely block trade of certain commodities in order to promote their own local goods. This was exactly the case with U.S. protectionism.

The same gentleman commented that, "...capitalism is all about taking advantage of the small guy...". He is referring to the developing nations being screwed over by the developed nations. Well, to put it into perspective, what India has done with call centers is take advantage of the U.S and effectively made them the "small guy". How come the definition of capitalism differs from nation to nation? Or is this just American hypocrisy?

To comment on their stupidity, they have patented the medicinal use of herbs and plants like turmeric (now revoked), bitter-gourd, etc. These are things that Indians have been using since times B.C (before Christ). To patent items like these is not just mere stupidity, but also an indication of American ignorance of other cultures. In that case, Indians should obtain legal copyrights for plastic surgeries, cosmetic surgeries, caesarian section births, etc. since Sushruta performed all of these sometime between the 6th and 4th century B.C. He authored the Sushruta Samhita, the book describes over 120 surgical instruments, 300 surgical procedures, classifies human surgery in 8 different categories, descriptions of 1120 illnesses, 700 medicinal plants, a detailed study on anatomy, 64 preparations from mineral sources and 57 preparations from animal sources. Well, let the Indians copyright that under the Trade-Related aspects of Intellectual Property Rights and let them collect a royalty on every operation that is listed in that book.

In 1997 an American company RiceTec. was granted rights to call aromatic rice grown outside of India "basmati". This came after they tried marketing the same rice with names like "kasmati" and "texmati". First of all, why is the U.S. patent office handing out patents for something that originated in India (common sense)!? Anyways I will spare you the pains of reading anymore proof of American ignorance. If, though, you are interested in learning what happened of the patent visit http://www1.american.edu/projects/mandala/TED/basmati.htm

Albert Einstein has said for India, "We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made!" So all I ask for is a little respect. Not only for India, but also for every other developing nation, because today you maybe higher, but tomorrow your fall is inevitable, for in the words of Shakespeare, "...uneasy lies the head on which rests the crown."

this post first appeared on www.kidinwhitecountry.blogspot.com

Shamelessness at its best or worst

I came across an article about Meghalaya getting 2 Chief Ministers and could not hold it any longer. The utter shamelessness that has settled in our political circles has reached astounding levels. 60 years after becoming 'Republic' India seems to be scaling new heights where corruption is concerned. Those who framed our world famed constitution must be feeling insulted, or would have had they been alive, and it would have been rightly so. Seeing the way the constitution which was supposed to have a government by the people, for the people and of the people to have democratic government is nominally by the people (lack of choice takes away freedom of choice), definitely not for the people,but yes it is of the people if you call power struggle between few elite people as government of the people. Perhaps we should invent a new word to define government forced on the people(you could call it dictatorship, but it has absolutely no choice), by few power hungry politicians, for only the leisure of these politicians.

Corruption has been integral part of Indian politics and governance since I remember, but it was something behind the closet. Now it seems they are no more afraid to do it all in open.As katrina says in NewYork movie, she is well aware that John is involved in terrorsism but as long as he himself does not inform her of it, there is a hope that he could be turned back.The day that he acknowledges to her that he is a terrorist he would be truly lost. It seems that they are acknowledging their corrupt practices out in open and stating that they shall continue doing so. These people have lost every sense of decency and shame. They are no more afraid to make outrageous demand, because they know that these can be fulfilled. No longer do they have to fear the people, because no more are the people the boss. They are the boss and they can do as they like. Anyone who has watched the movie 'A Wednessday' may recall Naseerudeen Shah stating 'they have challenged us. The asked us a question. Ki bhai humlog to aise hi karte rahenge. Tum kya karoge.' The same way the government has been asking us the same question.They too are challenging us. We shall continue doing this.What are you the people going to do. We may be few but we can will take you all for granted.We shall use you for our own purposes. We are not there to serve you.You are there to serve us by giving us you hard earned money for our enjoyment. We are no longer public servants.The public is our servants. The only devlopment we are bothered about is our own. The country could go to dogs for all we care. This the attitude persistent amongst the governing circles.

Considering the current attitude it should not come as a surprise that a state has two Chief Minister.It is no longer a de-facto position. The second Chief Minster has been declared so by official notice. While the original Chief Minister shall wield the actual executive powers, the second one shall stay in advisory role to the first CM. That gives rise to a question why officially make him the CM if he is going to hold advisory role? Why not appoint him the advisor to the CM? That my friends is because as a CM he becomes entitled to various advantages without having any work. As a CM he shall be able to draw the salary of a CM, have the security and motorcade, free of cost five star housing, hell lot of servants and the perks all from the public treasury. The public treasury is supposed to be used to fulfill their whims not for public welfare. Next we shall have two Prime Ministers, Presidents and cabinets. Shall we have more Chief Justice of India too? Let us call everyone of the supposed public servant category as the President of India.Why not officially allocate 95% of the budget to serve the whims of these blood suckers?

This does not occur as an isolated incidence.The recent controversy with appointment of Justice Balakrishnan as the Cheif Justice of India, the attempt by the same Justice Balakrishnan to keep himself out of the purview of Right To Information Act.Justice Balakrishnan seems so desperate to remain out of the purview of RTI Act that he filed an appeal against the order of Delhi High Court stating that the Supreme Court is subject to RTI Act as well, in the Supreme Court. The Supreme court files an appeal against the High Court order, with the Supreme Court. It would have been hilarious had it not been a glaring example of the rampant corruption within the system.I would like to ask the CJI what is it that he is trying to hide. Why is it that he is so desperate to be excluded from the RTI Act?

What could be more shamless than insulting those who died during the 26/11 terror attacks. The then CM of Maharashtra who was removed from his post currently is cabinet Minister with the central government. The Home Minister is back to his old position, the then CP of Mumbai Mr. Hasan Gafoor too is enjoying himself. None of them showed even and ounce of shame, and ounce is used to measure the rare and highly expensive metal like gold. The shame in these people seems much more rarer than the rarest of metals.

I do not think any such acts should surprise us anymore. They know what the people think about them and they have become insensitive to such thoughts of people because they know whatever they do, they will be the ones elected anyways, so there is nothing to fear. Everyone knows what is happening, so they could as well do it in the open. If you think this is the height of shamelessness, think again. They are hell bent on proving you wrong about your negative thoughts concerning them.They can and will sink much lower than this while we watch on helplessly, wondering where did we loose it all, how could it all come down to this?


Welcome to the new changing India, where Corruption is the supreme law and pleasure of 'Public Servants' is the new discipline and supreme law.

Jaago Rey.