What do you Like?

Roll over wheel, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is now the Facebook's humble "Like" button. The creators of this button would never have thought that it would lead to such mind-boggling revenue and precious data generation for Facebook. Nor would they have thought that it would be used for anything else other than showing your approval for somebody's status message or link.

The Like button now encompasses all the colors of emotions; love, jealousy, anger, frustration; you name it. There are various websites urging you to "Like A Like" completely oblivious of Shakespeare turning in his grave on hearing this. The Like button enables you to deconstruct a person's entire psyche if you go through his/her likes. It has served as tool for flattery (in case of your boss) or impressing (a boy/girl). 

Some likes are philosophical - "I want my lyf 2 b a book so dat i can tear those pages whch i dnt want". Never mind the fact that no one would in their right mind would consider anything written in such SMS language to be serious. Nevertheless, an entire industry has spawned around these likes with people flocking there to pour their hearts out. In a sense, Facebook thrives on human misery, which is cool for any website to do!

Facebook's Like still has a long journey ahead with the clamor for a "Dislike" button. With Facebook setting up its shop in India, it seems India will now be seriously "liked" by Facebook.

India's Finest

In the backdrop of US arm-twisting India on the Dow issue, it becomes extremely important that the government remains much more careful while passing the Nuclear Liability bill. Alas, this is not the case. Manmohan Singh and Co. seem determined to sell Indian lives at throwaway prices for benefit of US companies.

India has an ambitious and indigenous nuclear power program to achieve the goal of 20,000 MW electricity produced by nuclear energy by 2020 which will be further increased to 60,000 MW by 2032. Thus India will produce 25 percent of its electricity from nuclear power plants by 2050. To meet these projections, India would need a major FDI in nuclear energy. This would be provided by US companies like General Electric and Westinghouse by way of supplying and building the nuclear power plants while the operator will be government controlled Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL).

All over the world, the Nuclear Liability bill (or its variation) caps the financial damages to be paid in a case of nuclear accident to victims without any legal tussles. In India, it was merely Rs. 500 crores. After much opposition by Left and other parties, it is now raised to Rs. 1500 crores (nearly 300 million dollars). This is still a pittance if we compare it to other major nations.

Country	Nuclear Liability
United States	10 billion dollars (plus up to 5% if required for legal costs.)
United Kingdom	1 billion dollars
Switzerland	1.3 billion dollars
Japan	1.2 billion dollars

(Source - http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf67.html)

It becomes more interesting if you look at the fine print. This liability is only limited to the operator, in this case the Indian government. Thus in spirit if there is any disaster due to defective equipment or faulty construction by the supplier. it would go scott-free while the Indian government would be left footing the bill.

The extent to which government has gone to shield the US companies is evident by their changing of clause 17 .

Clause 17 of the bill allowed the operator of the plant to seek damages from the supplier if: 

A) There's a pre-existing contract on liability between them

B) Or if there's gross negligence or willful act by the supplier

But in the final draft, the word "and" was added between Part A and B. This, the BJP and Left say, makes supplier liable only if there's a pre-existing contract with the government.

It makes me wonder whose interest is this government serving - India's or US? If these are the India's finest leaders, even God will not be able to save India.

Waka Waka... No Way!

Now that the FIFA World Cup is over, I finally summoned up the courage to write this article. If it offends sentiments of any of my readers, let me be clear, I was not talking about you. ;)

"Who are you supporting - Spain or Netherlands?", I was inundated by numerous chat messages when I logged into my laptop on the eve of the FIFA World Cup finals. I had a tough time convincing my friends that I was not supporting anyone (gasp!) and that I do not even watch football (more gasp!). My only knowledge of football is at most limited to Paul, the octopus or Larissa Riquelme promise. Before you fall off your chair unconscious by my brazen honesty, I will explain you my reasons.

I was not born in any of these two countries (or for that matter any nation playing in the world cup) and also I have never visited them even once. I do not identify with their culture, food or language. I don't have any friends or family in those two countries. This makes it kind of hard for me to have any passion for them. Also, I have options other than football when it comes to the matter of entertainment.

Now I have many many friends who pretend to be absolute lovers of football. They were going nuts about it and in the process spamming every social networking site that they had their profile on. If that was not enough, every celebrity, big or small, was spamming Twitter about their love for the "beautiful game". Hell, even my uncle who knew nothing about football was complaining how the referee was being partial in a particular game.

I don't want to sound cynical but most of these so-called passions seem fake and just for scoring some brownie points, "most" being the keyword. (I understand that some people truly love football but they are far and few). I fail to understand how can one have such heated passions for a country that's not his own. When I quizzed a friend about this, he said that since India was a long way off playing in the world cup, so he had to support someone. Now, that's a ridiculous excuse. It sounds more like out of peer pressure than out of true love for football.

The feeling was best summed up by one of my friend's mom when I went to their house during the world cup. My friend as usual was going nuts about some match that was in progress. 

Excitedly, his mom asked, "What? Is India winning?" 

"Mom! This is football. India is not playing." 

"Then what are you getting so hysterical about? Now, give me the remote. I have to watch Pavitra Rishta."

The expression on my friend's face clearly made my day.

The War Within

(Thus is my first attempt at writing fiction. Hope you like it.)

“But what if there are civilians inside the bus?” Charu hesitatingly asked. “They will be martyrs in our freedom struggle. You should not worry about them. That’s a price every one of has to pay if we are to end the years of injustice and oppression by the Indian government”, Krishnaji thundered. “Don’t you remember the day when you first joined our movement?” How could Charu forget that fateful day!

Charu was the elder of the two brothers that lived in a sleepy village of West Bengal with his widowed mother. They were very poor just like everyone else in the village. However the only thing that separated them from other children in the locality was the fact that his mother made sure that they attended the neighbourhood government school every day. From childhood it became clear that Sona, his younger brother, excelled at academics while Charu struggled through even the basics. Even the school’s only pan-chewing teacher called him useless. Sona went to the city to attend college while Charu dropped out of school. He went through his days gambling and drinking, much to his mother’s and everyone else’s disgust. 

A few years earlier he heard that Sona has found some job in the city. Charu didn’t care, except for the month’s beginning when his brother would send money order and he would take his share. One such day when the money order came and he asked for his share, his mother snapped. “Can’t you earn some money yourself? This money barely covers our food expenses. What do you do all day long anyways? Just gambling, drinking and bringing shame to the family. Sometimes I wish I just had only one son.” 

“Fine! Keep your money. I don’t need it. And by the way, if you had only one son, you would be here all alone clutching onto that money while your only son never bothered to visit.”, Charu banged the door shut behind him.

I Hate Textese

When I came across this poster for a new Hindi movie, the title of the movie confused me. Now I know that ‘Luv’ is clearly misspelt, but ‘Storys’ got me thinking. It took me over a minute to clarify my doubt. This brings me to the point - what were the producers/directors thinking when the named this movie? Is normal, correctly spelt English just not cool enough? Or were they having a space crunch trying to fit in all the words in 160 characters? This SMSing of English leaves me baffled as it just not stops here but has percolated into our schools and offices.

We all know about email signatures – the “Thanks & Regards” ones which no one really means but writes anyways. It is just standard practice. But there is a senior manager in my office who abbreviates ‘Regards’ with just ‘R’. Now if you don’t have the courtesy to even type out the entire word, then why insult the recipient of your mail with that letter ‘R’. It’s like saying “Oh! I don’t really regard you but I am going to make you feel like an insect and show my superiority by just typing ‘R’”. Come on; use your brain or even that facility in your email program that automatically inserts the signature.

Hindi Hain Hum!

Have you ever got your ears, nose or throat examined through a दूरबीन (Telescope)? The more important question is whether you want to see a doctor who claims to do exactly the same! I had the pleasure of meeting such a doctor whose clinic proudly proclaimed the following:

Looking at the poster, I was surprised as well as disturbed to know how little we know about our national language. Oh wait a minute, Hindi is not our national language but the official language. There is no national language of India. No wonder, we have people displaying such gems in their mastery of the language.

Sleepless in Gurgaon

The transition is complete. Say hello to my not-so-little friend - Gurgaon.

When I first arrived at the Delhi airport from Pune, I was about to be blown away on dust storms after being vaporized by the intense heat of Delhi, but the taxi arrived in the nick of time. Able to breathe again in the air-conditioned environment of the taxi (which also seemed to be complaining about the heat), I looked outside. All I could see were gigantic concrete and glass structures, thumbing their air-conditioned noses at the people who coined the term "greenhouse effect". Gurgaon didn't seem to be belonging to the state where Khap panchayats still rule the roost. I guess this is the price we have to pay for pretending to be democracy.

Soon I arrived at the guesthouse and prepared for induction in my new company and the struggles of life ahead. Sporting an uncombed, Harry Potter like hair I was sure that I would not make a first good impression. So I decided to go for a hair cut at the nearest market whose name itself was the "Shopping Mall". After shelling out 90 rupees for a simple hair cut, I wondered out aloud whether my entire hair was worth that amount, much to the delight of the barber. I consoled myself by assuming that this was their revenge for the movie to be named "Billu Barber".

Up In The Air

Nothing can be a better example of "India Shining" than the fact that today I was on an airplane for the first time in my life - flying from Pune to Delhi. Low-cost airlines have made it really affordable for poor people like me to have enough moolah in the pocket to buy an air-ticket. Like first love, first job and various other firsts (which are left to the reader's fertile imagination), this was a special occassion for me.

The event was made even more special by the admiring looks that people gave me when I told them I was flying to Delhi. It was like having a mobile phone in  1995. The first reaction of people when they hear about someone's flight details is like "Oh! You are flying X airline. Y airline is much better. You know when I flew,.... blah.. blah.. blah". You just want to scream out, "Look I get it. You probably own an airline. Just let me enjoy my moment." So let's get on with my story.