The Pope fell down and broke his arm

He broke his wrist actually. I guess even the Holy Ones are not beyond "normal person/ye sinners" accidents ...

Can you imagine how hard it is going to be for all 'em collective Holiness'es to justify themselves the day the first Green Men show up on our planet from outer space ... yes I'm talking about "aliens" - oo oo oooooh!

Can you imagine the Divine Conundrum ... of explaining how *ALMOST ALL* the holy scriptures conveniently omit all of God's grand plans outside of this tiny Planet ... and of course the conveniently accepted fact that every act of God, child of God, messenger of God or even God person himself/herself is based on a physical location on Earth or above it ... be it the holy land, some mountain in the Himalayan range or some rock on our Blue Planet ... all conveniently within geographical constraints!!

Boy I simply can not wait for the Green Men to show up ... that will be the day I tell you ... that will be the day ...
and my chance to tell all y'all "I told you so"!

for now I will simply refrain from all shubh activities until the solar eclipse season is over ... bad times you know ... See!!! even the Pope got hurt!


Disclaimer: Before you sign off on that fatwa, please remember that I DO believe in God in the general sense ... but not in any specific form/size/shape/color/location/ethnicity/religious orientation!

Less than 7%

According to this article, less than 7% of the Indian population is registered to pay income tax! No wonder our infrastructure is crumbling - we're not paying enough taxes!!!and since we are a democracy and all that we really have no one to blame but me and you ... and you too!
Get off the roads the rest of you ... that's 1.1 billion of you!!!
7%!!!!!!!!!!!!! ... un-friggin-believable!!!

Agreed that a huge percent of the populace is below the poverty line - but even if I peg that number at 43% of India, that means about 50% of India is just getting a free ride. that's 500 MILLION people . The 7% is basically supporting an whole extra country plus 3 European nations ... food, water, electricity, roads and all that jazz ... just like that.
... and then we dream of becoming the next super-power! hah!
disgusting. depressing.

Nandan ... Please come thru with the project for the future of India.

Unique Id's in India ... about time

This is the best news I have heard all day ... While browsing thru the myriad of news snippets on the 09-10 Budget, I bumped into this wonderful piece of information that India is taking Unique Identification seriously ... about time I say!!

For years I have had this pet peeve against the Indian Governance process where less than a quarter of the country pays taxes, people have multiple "jaali" bank accounts to avoid taxes and a plethora what nots ... all because we can not uniquely identify citizens in India.
Heck I could get multiple passports/driving licenses in different cities in India!!!

After seeing the gazillion benefits of the SSN in the US, it was mind-numbing to see people/parties in India protesting against id cards and unique id's ...
This is a new chapter for India - if executed correctly ... a HUUUUGE new chapter in Indian governance.

and Nandan is going to spearhead this process ... super I say! 'cause this is not going to be easy to do for a billion people ... but it is a start ... and if we could create something as complex as the Indian Railways Ticket Reservation System then this can be done for sure.
Oh I am excited!

Laal - Ummed-e-sehar

super song from a promising desi band.

Now I'm not sure how I stumbled across the song or the band but I'm glad I did.

The first song I heard from the band Laal was titled "Maine Usse Yeh Kaha" - .very. intriguing lyrics - based on politics and governance - that piqued my curiosity and after some research I discovered that the band Laal is made up of a couple of Marxists (one is a Political Science lecturer and the other is an Economics grad student! ... ergo Laal!)

And then the second song "Umeed-e-Sahar" ... Wow.

I must admit that the first captivation was all about the composition and vocals - the lyrics were a bit too urdu-heavy for me to follow ... and now thanks to the Youtube video with translation - the song is much, much, much more enjoyable. (the U-tube has a bunch of other stuff from the band as well - worth a look)

Laal - promising band,

Umeed-e-Sahar - Good album, good songs

... worth a listen. Once again another wonderful Pakistani band rises and produces a gem of an album ... Bollywood - how I hate you for this!

And this is what I was able to fish out from the dredges of the internet - interesting read on the band