Lead My Ass!

I was out in Dadar a couple of days back, catching up with my friends from college, who had just completed their exams in Bombay University. It felt nice to be with them again after so long. I have only had Vinita from among them for company every week because of our astronomy class. Sitting on one of the benches at Shivaji Park, we saw many 'rallies' of political parties. These were just a bunch of vehicles and bikes zipping by, carrying party workers, most of them looking like escaped convicts. I was told that this happens everyday. I do not know what they manage to achieve by this 'show of strength' as they put it. It is more of a 'see how much of a nuisance I can be even before you elect me' show that they put up. Most of the workers and bikers are unemployed youth attracted to such rallies by the carrots of money and free food, and the hope that some day they'll be someone important in the ranks and have the same show orchestrated for them. I do not know how many of them are even aware of what the duties of a Member of Parliament are. I was looking at a couple making out on the street across and not really listening to the conversation between my college mates. But when I was done with being voyeuristic, I turned to tune into what they were talking about. What caught my attention was, "This is Shivaji Park, don't say such things here..."

The argument was basically centred around which political party their sympathies lay with; and soon the Congress got kicked out. Those remaining in the fray were; the BJP, Shiv Sena, and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. I do not remember exactly what happened, but suddenly I found myself at the receiving end from their supporters. What pricked everyone was the issue of migrants into Bombay and how they have been eating up jobs of locals. Raj Thackeray was being hailed as the new saviour of Maharashtra. What saddened me was not the fact that I was being panned as someone who is not connected with ground realities of job losses, but the barrage against me was laced with all the propaganda Raj Thackeray had dished out since he had formed his outfit.

What I was trying to put forth was my belief that people such as Raj Thackeray and his ilk including the North Indian politicians, cannot be leaders in any sense of the term. There is a distinction between being the leader of a party and a leader of the Nation. One of the points was that North Indian politicians have not done anything in Bihar and they should not talk about Maharashtrians in Maharashtra and the migrants should be subservient to the natives of the state. Now even the killing of migrant labourers from Bihar in Assam was a point in example of what should be done to migrants in Maharashtra. Obviously Vini did not know the killings were carried out by ULFA which has a secessionist agenda and not by native Assamese people. Migrants provide cheap labour and by earning wages also help their kin back home come out of poverty and deprivation. Hence migration plays an important role in economic development of the country.

Now coming back to politicians, not one seems to be capable of leading anything besides their own unquenchable thirst for power. The MNS leader, Bal Thackeray, Sharad Pawar, LK Advani and Sonia Gandhi cannot be our leaders. Sharad Pawar did a lot for the development of Baramati, his constituency in Maharashtra but was nowhere to be seen when the Kosi unleashed its wrath in Bihar. The plummeting food stocks in our granaries have endangered our food security, we had to import rice and wheat of all things, the Public Distribution System is probably the most exploitative system in the world; and he has done nothing to address it. And now he wants to be the Prime Minister!

This brings us to the point of the post. Is there a leader in the politicos? A leader is not someone who will give a call to beat up migrants, but someone who will gather support and pressurise MPs from the backward regions to be more involved in opportunity creation in those regions. When Vini parroted every single line Raj Thackeray must have said in his speeches, I was amazed at how little people do to equip themselves with the correct information. I am sure she has no idea of the migration pattern in the country. This happens because there is no effort to be an informed participant in the development of the country. This creates very impressionable minds, easily fooled and made to believe words blindly. This is exactly what the netas want, and this feeds the greed for power for decades to come. Educated youth does not necessarily mean informed and discerning youth.

Maybe the migration has not affected me. But the netas are far from being the solution for my problems. Or anyone's for that matter. These are no leaders for sure. They are into votes and not into nation building. And they complain that the nation is not strong! How will it be, when they keep parochialism on the top of their agenda? With the 'Who wants to be Prime Minister?' being the most talked about election issue, one can sense where we are headed. Tomorrow Bombay votes. Let's see which bunch of rotten turnips get to suck on our lives for the next five years. We'll only know on May 16.

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Class of 2009- Farewell Pics

We gave a farewell to our seniors in the Math Department on April 10, 2009. The newly elected Association office bearers, Bankim, Govind and Ashish worked hard to make it a success. Even the girls; Uma and Bakul with the Rangoli, Arundhati with her compering for the evening, Neha with her version of Nickelback's 'Rockstar' rechristened 'Class-Star' and not to forget Tanmay with his wonderful guitar riffs made the evening a memorable one for everyone to remember. If only the food had come off well...

Below is a slide-show of some of the photos from that day taken from Abhishek's and my cams...

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Erasing the Eelam

"War is a cowardly escape from the problems of peace." ~Thomas Mann

Lanka Burning...

Apart from the ensuing General Elections in our country, what is occupying the South Asian experts is the ongoing Civil War in Sri Lanka. The war in the strife torn country has caused heavy casualties in the region occupied by the LTTE, with Tamil sympathisers crying ethnic cleansing by the Sri Lankan government in the LTTE occupied territories. It was a much delayed response by Sri Lanka to the offensives in recent times by the LTTE which included an air raid over Colombo by its 'air force'. The security of its citizens being paramount, the Rajapaksa administration gave the war cry to wipe out the Tamil resistance once and for all. The turn of events in Sri Lanka has had a direct impact on Indian polity with every Tamil Nadu politician jumping onto the 'Tamil blood' bandwagon and trying to corner some votes by appearing to be pro-Tamilian and at the same time trying not to appear pro-LTTE. The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister went on a hunger strike today morning only to call it off by lunch time. The recent agitation by lawyers in Madras is still fresh in our minds as an example of how stupid some of the most educated people in our country can act for a cause not even remotely connected with our country and not be bothered about the pressing issues our own country faces. What's happening? Does what happens in Sri Lanka even matter to us? Do we not have more important things to look at?

Of domineering Lions...

The LTTE was born out of a series of Sri Lankan calisthenics after Ceylon's independence. These included not recognising voting rights of the migrant Tamilian plantation workers from India, who came there decades before, and their descendants who now stay in Sri Lanka. The other notable flop being recognising Sinhala as the only official language of the newly born nation. This was seen as alienation of the Tamil citizens and started a movement for autonomy for the Tamil dominated regions. Besides, educational and government job policies of the Lankan government caused further tensions among the Tamil youth. This has led to an international campaign for independence for the Tamil Eelam. The political struggle spawned the military movement now spear-headed by the rebel group called as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

Photo Courtesy: AFP

...and Wounded Tigers

The LTTE has grown to become a sophisticated terrorist outfit with many firsts, including its own air battalion. Over the years the bloody civil war in Lanka has taken a toll on the Tamilian community and it has been no better off under the LTTE than it was under Lankan government. The LTTE has now been reduced to a spent force after the Sri Lankan Army's latest offensive against the rebels. Now it has been cornered in a small strip of land. The unilateral truce called by it has been denounced by Lanka as a ploy to regroup. The LTTE chief, V Prabhakaran's exact where-abouts are still unknown. But the post is not about the LTTE.

Should we fret?

Should our citizens be overtly worried about the humanitarian crisis in Lanka following the recapture of LTTE territories by Lankan forces? Yes, they should be worried about the humanitarian crisis. But one should not feel any special grief just because the affected people are Tamilians, or ethnic Indians who are descendants of those migrated there over 200 years ago. Working in the opposite sense, we should not be too proud of achievements of PIOs either. The destruction of property in our own country helps neither us nor the Lankan people. And that is what they are. Though they are ethnic Tamilians, Lankan Tamils are Lankans, not Indians and the Lankan government is trying to secure its own citizens against a terrorist force that is credited with introducing suicide bombings and creating the idea of child soldiers. There are more important issues in our country that we need to wake up and mobilise for, than the plight of Lankan Tamils. We never see a protest against malnutrition, do we?

But why does this happen? Probably because the idea of the Indian nation has not taken strong roots in the minds of these people. Unity comes in adversity and Tamil Nadu always had a kind of discord with the rest of the country. Remember the linguistic agitation against introduction of Hindi in the state in the sixties? Now Hindi is widely spoken and accepted across South India. Though feeling sorry for Lankan Tamils is OK, destroying property and rioting in your own country is far from acting sensible. What can be done is that people can be associated with relief work by international agencies in the war torn areas to rehabilitate the affected people. If you have seen the visuals on TV, you will know how bad a war can be. We should be very thankful that we live in a country that gives us so much, in spite of being so diverse and multi-ethnic. India pumps the second fastest growth rate in the world even though it is straddled with every possible problem you can imagine, not to mention being in the 'most dangerous neighbourhood in the world'. More needs to be done to make the idea of India strong in everyone's minds. But this can only happen when each citizen sees an equal opportunity to be a part of its progress.

The Last Word...

Tamil or not, the LTTE took the life of one of our PMs and we can break its back and unite Lanka and ensure a better future for Lankan Tamils only if we stop supporting secessionist movements in Sri Lanka. We have had bitter experiences of what separatist movements can do to a country. We do not want Lanka to disintegrate either. I hope Indian agencies are working over-time to nab Prabahakaran and extending all the support to the Lankan Army to reclaim LTTE areas and unite the country. There is no reason to suggest the future governments will turn out like the ones in the past, and Lankan Tamils can look forward to a better future in their own country. Let's hope the Lankan government works to integrate them into the Lankan society and does not repeat mistakes of the past.
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* Tailpiece *

The above AFP photo shows an LTTE trooper introducing weapons to children in the LTTE controlled areas to prepare them for war.

With the vacations kicking in, I have issued a lot of books on Astronomy from our library. Among those I am currently reading 'Modern Astrometry' by Jean Kovalevsky.
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Math 2010 Matheran Trip!

After the really gruelling end-sem exams, our Math class took off to the popular hill station, Matheran, some 100 km from Bombay. Everyone wanted a release, after the end of this term, as it was quite taxing on all of us. We took the Matheran Light Railway to the top and four-time visitor, and our Class Rep, Ojas served as the perfect guide around the place and the guy also took us to a restaurant that served some amazing food. We all missed Gappu and Maji, then the class would have been complete. Below is a slide-show from Photobucket with an assortment of photos of the trip taken from Abhishek's and my cams.

Photo for the Week #11

Abhishek captured this beautiful rainbow outside our Math Department in IIT Bombay, last week.


Here is another photo taken by him, with a different setting.


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Know your EVMs!

With the Election scene heating up, a lot of mud-slinging and muck-raking is being resorted to by the political parties to polarize the voters in whichever way they can. Hence we have hate-speeches, staged arrests, leaked conversations, tapped phones, shady CDs promising to 'reveal all at the opportune time' and Election Commission notices that nobody seems to care about, eating newsprint space. The real issues are lost in the battle for power. It reflects the immature nature of the Indian electorate that has still to wake up to the rot in the country's electoral process, even after sixty long years of Independence. But there is something about our Elections that we all should be proud of. Elections in India are fully electronic, and the introduction of the Electronic Voting Machines has decreased instances of booth capturing considerably.

The EVMs are really easy to use. They have been designed keeping in mind the large number of illiterate voters in India. The need for the EVMs was to improve transparency in the Election process and reliability. They are very difficult to tamper with. If you want to cast two votes, you will certainly not be able to. The EVMs are smart enough to identify double key presses made in very short intervals of time. The program for the software is written in assembly language code, and the software is customised. Every EVM is thoroughly tested before being literally pressed into service. EVMs have made very important statistics available to candidates and the Election Commission, that were not possible to have in the pre-EVM era. The votes from the EVMs are displayed by pressing the Results switch on the day of counting. The Results switch comes with a seal that cannot be broken before the counting day. If it is broken before the counting day, then the EC orders re-elections in that place. There is also a facility to print out the results from a printer. One EVM can manage 64 candidates from a place. The EVMs are the VVIPs of the election days and are carried around under a tight security blanket.


The EVMs have revolutionised the way elections are held in India. In the circus that is played out every time during the polls, the EVMs bring a certain sense of sanity and order to the voters.

How to vote with Electronic Voting Machine?

1. Know how to use EVM before going to cast the vote.

2. There is blue button across the Name & Symbol of each Candidate.

3. Press the blue button next to the symbol of the candidate for whom wish to cast.

4. On pressing the button, the red light next to the button will glow and there will be a "Beep" sound to indicate that the vote has been recorded.

Note: If this does not happen, Contact the Presiding Officer at the Polling booth.

5. Now "Your vote has been registered" and it can be cast only once.

(Source: website of the Kaimur district in Bihar, http://kaimur.bih.nic.in/ )

Please vote on Election Day in your town or city!

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