A Rational Mind

The polls are nearing.
I do not think I have a chance to vote because the voter’s card hasn’t come yet.
But for all those who get to vote I have one suggestion (or advice if you may call it that!)

Think only about the candidate in your constituency.

Do not vote for a particular party just because you like their prime ministerial candidate.
After all who you vote in your constituency will ultimately matter to you. Not the head dude/dudette in the PM’s chair.
Check the records of the candidates running for the LS polls. Make sure they have good records, that they are not criminals and that they keep the promises they have made.

www.mumbaivotes.com is an excellent site to check on your candidates credibility (although limited to Mumbai). I would like to thank Mr. Satish VijayKumar of Bombaylives! for this great information.

Start thinking from the grass root levels. Remember one thing ” Drops make an ocean”

When you select good candidates at constituency level, in my opinion, the whole nation will be benefited.

Pranjal Wagh

This work by Pranjal A. Wagh is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License

Witnessing a head-on collision between a bike and a bus at high speed at midnight………

(Map gives approx location of accident)

Me and my friend were standing near HDFC Bank, Prabhadevi (Opp. Siddhivinayak Temple), chatting, when we heard a loud crash. Turning around we find a huge cloud of dust and flying human bodies, a bus speeding away and a bike thrown away!

My instant reaction was to phone the emergency ambulance helpline and call for the ambulance. The helpline guy assured me that the ambulance would soon arrive.

By now the police near the Siddhivinayak Temple had got to the spot. The bus driver had fled. The two bikers were lying stone-still knocked completely senseless by the speeding bus.

The Police and the “extremely” helpful public first tried putting the two injured bikers into a Taxi. But when attempts failed they were put in a police wireless van and sent off to the hospital.

Luckily for the two injured guys that they were involved in an accident at a busy junction with good police presence that they got immediate and prompt help. Due credit must be given to our police for being ever so helpful! And we must not forget the ever awake Mumbaikar! We are the city that never sleeps…the city that is always ahead in offering a helping hand!

Kudos to the public and the police!

When all the crowd cleared and normal traffic resumed, we moved towards the smashed bike that was parked on the roadside to do a little investigation of our own.

The entire bike was in good condition except the front part. The headlight of the bike was gone, so was the fancy ‘face’ of the bike. The handle was twisted and the key was still in the bike! From the looks of the bike, we drew the following conclusions about the nature of the collision:

1. The Bus and the bike collided head-on! The bike was obviously no match for the monstrous bus.
2. The bikers never wore any helmets. There weren’t any helmets lying nearby nor did we see any on the biker’s heads when the accident happened.
3. The bikers nor the bus driver ever must’ve thought of slowing down. Even though they saw each other approaching. I wonder why?
4. The impact was of such great magnitude that the chappals that one of the biker wore were found atleast 20 ft apart,the front portion of the bike was smashed beyond recognition and the human bodies were thrown with such violence that when they hit the ground they lay like the dead on the road.

The bikers never wore any helmets!! That was one thing that could have reduced their injuries! Its by sheer luck that they have survived a head-on collision with a speeding bus but what they should have done was worn helmets and slowed down when they did see the bus approaching at
high speed!!

The bus driver could have also slowed down. Why the bus drivers drive like their rear is on fire only they know!!

A little traffic discipline can go a long way in saving lives!

Regards,

Pranjal Wagh

PS: And all this time the “Emergency” Ambulance hadn’t even arrived!!It was approx 0022 Hrs when we left the accident spot and the ambulance was not even there! Emergency ambulance, my foot!

This work by Pranjal A. Wagh is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License

The results are out!

Hi Friends,

The ‘Janta’ has spoken! The results for the “Are you going yo vote this year poll?” are out!

See for yourself!

Out of a total of 22 voters, a whopping 81% voted for voting in the Loksabha elections this year!
Only a mere 4 guys were against voting for the elections!
That’s really nice guys!

By conducting this poll, I have once again confirmed to myself that the people of the country are keen on exercising their fundamental rights and want to select good leaders who will make India advance on the path of progress!

Let us hope that the elected representatives do the same thing!

19 yr old blogger faces criminal proceedings as case is filed against him for hate content

(Pic Courtesy : iStockphoto)

I am really pissed off and angry too!

I recently read this article in a reputed daily ( I dare not write the name lest I be sued!)
It talks about how a young blogger from Kerala was made to face legal action and made to appear in court and explain his actions.

Click here to read the entire report

To quote from the report, it all boils down to one conclusion now :
“Bloggers may no longer express their uninhibited views on everything under the sun, for the Supreme Court said they may face libel and even prosecution for the blog content.”

In simple words,

Our Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Speech is being taken from us!

The boy in the above mentioned report was made to face legal action just because he had started a community on Orkut against a certain political party and the comments on his community/blog indicated that the actions of the party were dividing the nation on the basis of region and caste! (What I really wonder is if one would start filing cases against these political parties on the basis of ‘hate speech’, ‘hate content’, ‘violence’ and so on…would all the courts of law of the world put together be able to give justice or keep the cases pending? )

In this country of ours, which is the largest ‘DEMOCRACY’ of the world, its citizens are not allowed to exercise their basic rights without being afraid of facing legal proceedings. This is the democracy that our great freedom fighters and leaders dreamt of!

A place where the common people would be forced to remain silent and adjust and adapt to the amazing bullshit thrown around by a bunch of imbeciles who label themselves as leaders of the nation and weave false dreams of ” a stronger, taller and secure India”.

The only right that the leaders/politicians want the common man of India to exercise is the Right to Vote. They say, choose responsibly the person you think is right. Choose a candidate who will take the nation ahead on the path of progress. (Now that the elections are near you will listen to this being thrown around by all politicos a dozen times a day!)

But then to speak of selecting a good candidate, we as citizens are given a choice from a select few. We do not select who stands for elections. It is like going to a stock clearance sale where your options are limited. You either buy the goods or you walk out without buying goods.

Coming back to the main topic of this post, these so-called protectors of culture and Indianness are now after us bloggers. I think they got bored of bashing up valentine couples and ‘indecent’ ladies in pubs. Now its the turn of the vile bloggers because it is they who still express their thoughts freely and write what they feel. Such people are potentially dangerous to their ‘noble’ activities of ‘saving the nation’ (what they really are after is saving and growing their vote banks).

I agree that indecent and abusive language should be restricted and not used against others on a blog. That should be curbed.
But what are we suppoesd to do when a blogger is booked under a certain section of the law while politicians and other big-wigs go scot-free in this land of ours.
Personaly, I think the complaint filed got much attention and fast response because it was done so by a member of a political party.

What should a common man do when these courts of law fail to punish our tainted politicians and other criminals while innocents are brought to book very quickly?
They say ‘Justice delayed is Justice denied’ . I do not think this holds true in India where people who file a case in their youth get the results on their death-bed. (or even after they are long dead). What do you expect if the courts waste their valuable time on such trivial matters?

( One of my friends had gone to a court to apply for his Domicile certificate. He saw a case being heard before one of the judges. It was filed by one man on his neighbour and both were arguing furiously and the judge was listening intently before doling out scoops of justice. Want to know what the case was all about? One man accused the other of stealing his plastic tumbler! You tell me if this is trivial or not!)

If you ask my opinion, the Supreme Court should have better work to do. I think it should set up a Quality Check Counter. Only those cases that the court deems fit to dedicate its time to should pass this counter.

While the culture-protectors and the language-protectors go on rightfully beating/killing fellow country-men the courts are busy punishing violators of law such as this young blogger from Kerala.

What will probably happen is that the young boy’s spirit has been crushed after going through such proceedings at a tender age of 19. Or if he is a fighter and a tough one he will stand up and still continue to do what he believes in!

Today they have quashed attempts of one blogger tomorrow it could be all of us!

Rise blogger brothers, Rise!!

Pranjal Wagh

This work by Pranjal A. Wagh is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License

Malcolm-X once quoted ‘The Media’s the most powerful entity on the earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of masses’

Think over the above quote and it seems so true in the present scenario. The daily reports that we read in the news paper all abuzz about crime, extortion, ransom demand, forgery, cheating and many more, are all and all shaped by the media. Here media in particular refers to the print, television in primary and so on.

So our Indian media is capricious and at the same time can be intimidating at times. Indeed many do run away from it and at the same time many do run after it. To cut a long story short, the media especially the print and television have a great impact on the minds of people both in rural as well as urban India. A conspiracy, mishap, ‘kaand’ and so forth are the adjectives which would give a gleam of what exactly happens. It can educate the masses and at the same time it can corrupt the masses. It can make stand a Government to rule and it can make it defame to pieces. And in a democratic nation like India where there is a freedom of Speech and thought, media forms a vital role in the overall development. But do our media stand on its terms to shoulder the responsibility? Well this answer has a number of sub-branches and various aspects but to integrate and answer as a whole we have a sad but true answer and that’s ‘NO’

We come across many channels and many news papers which we refer daily to get into groove on the current happenings. The more recent matters have focused more on youth to channelize thoughts. They say young minds are the future of our society. I always failed to understand this. Over this the youth complains that the seniors have intertwined the system so badly and at the root level it’s unimaginable to refine and re-erect. I am of the opinion that our ‘smart’ and ‘intelligent’ media has all that what it takes on to bring our system on the right tracks. Take the case of a much acclaimed channel ‘The Aaj Tak’. I would refer to this as an entertainment channel rather than a news channel. The channel is a recipient of 6 awards for excellence, really wondering how, and yes it leads the charts in creating the cheapest news. The crew has that set of news which no one can ever think off. Amitabh Bhachan ko hua Julab and then Cheetah ko hua pyar, kya ban payegi inki jodi such kinds of titles just make it absurd and here they gain their fame. Rather than showcasing the proceedings of Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha they are keener on knowing where M.S Dhoni is celebrating his valentine or when is Aishwarya planning for a baby?? This might seem silly for most of us residing in Urban India but the rural India does not take it that way and watches it ebulliently. For them the news is a matter of concern and a very factual content. Over this they (news-channel) have the capability to delineate and club the ideas with a hi-tech IT department, that one fails to appreciate the news and start enjoying it as an entertainment. This is where our media tends to divert minds from sense to non-sense, the priorities tend to fade away and on the whole fails to serve the purpose.

The bottom line is the channel keeps the people tuned to the TV and if not all, many people can change their inception and might go under a wrong influence. I always recall one incident which had made people affix in front of the TV, it was about our charming young fellow ‘Mr Prince’, who fell down in the pit. The Star News crew got to reach the destination first and the cameraman pulled down his camera and every inch of his movement was calculated. Was this all really needed? At such a painstaking situation for his parents, they interviewed his mother ‘What do you feel now?’ It was broadcasted and millions are watching them, yet his mother answered with broken courage. Surrounding village cited a commotion and everyone enjoyed the scenario. The authorities engaged in rescuing the boy must have had a good test for their patience. This is the potential of our media to create such hype and furore. This is not just one incidence; there are plenty to goad on.

‘Aaj Tak- Sabse Tej’, Star News, Zee News and many more which are show casted for 24hours wobble around the same bunch of news. Media is indeed our backbone and so can’t be given up completely. When we stroll around newspapers and news channels we always tend to keep a follow up on certain set of news, that is say sports or box-office reviews etc. Most of significant changes that took place in the law, amending of the bills, changes in policies, and reviews of fraudulent companies are brought to light by this media only. Our pace of development can be enhanced provided our media fulfils its duties and works in the vested interests.

One of the crucial changes was brought about by Times of India. They initiated the ‘Teach India’ program which was inclined to educating the masses dwelling in the slums. The management called up for working professionals from various backgrounds and setup a platform for those who are motivated to work for poor. Educated class stepped out of the doors, apart from their offices and workplaces and came forward to give a helping hand. Also one more spectrum of our intelligent media came to light when they collected funds for Tsunami victims, the Bhuj earthquake victims, the floods hitting Mumbai and many more to their credit.

In short we form a perspective, form our opinion, get biased and we are made to think on by this media. Commercials by Jago Grahak, jaagore.com, insisting people to be alert on fraudsters, insisting them to cast their vote etc, are a boon to our rural development. The media at one node testifies and also panders, covering a wide range of people, politicos, bollywood stardom, industrialists, organisations and many more. Media is a buttress to the stratum of our society, provided it works and accomplishes its responsibilities.

I do not criticize any particular agency, any form of channel but it should be stressed and taken in to account the importance of our media, for the media personnel themselves, for the governing party, and lastly for the common man.

Hi All,

The Lok Sabha elections are around the corner.
What? You haven’t noticed it?
The stench of politicians preparing for their “Prachaar” (And our atyaachaar!) is already strong in the air! Petrol prices are coming down! The Sixth Pay commission has been announced and what not!

Many campaigns have been undertaken by student bodies and corporates which call for the people to ‘wake up’, drink a cup of tea and register for voting! (Actually voting toh sirf bahana hai…assal mein tumko sirf Chaai pilana hai!).

So, what I really want to know is how many of you are really planning to go voting this year round? How do you tell me that?
See that sidebar? To the right of this page? A Poll has been created in that sidebar. Vote in that poll.Do that at least, even if you are not going to vote for our ‘responsible’ and ‘dutiful’ political leaders.

Come on vote people!

Regards,

Pranjal Wagh

This work by Pranjal A. Wagh is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.