Loving Rascal

The Reserve Bank of India is Bharatiya Reserve Bank on every currency note. Madras became Chennai, Bangalore became Bengaluru, Bombay we now call Mumbai, and Kerala is Keralam. However, if India becomes Bharat, we have a problem. It should be Bharata “m.” We need a Dravidian touch also. Don't we?  What is the use of such naming fights? Look at the price rise and rupee decline in the past ten years. Focus on real issues, not on non-issues.  Hindutva will distract you from the reality. Your opponents want you to fight against Hindi. It is a trap. You cannot win if you challenge Hindi —the language of 600+ million Indians (2011 census). Instead of Bharat and India fight, focus on that which matters. People need jobs, fairness, poverty alleviation, and relief from rising oil and food prices, not cultural conflicts. People below India’s poverty line (BPL) are more than a hundred and fifty million. We reached this figure after repeatedly revising the benchmark to make us look “devel...

Islam is the religion of peace. Peaceful Muslim people kill friendly Muslim people everywhere. The West is no different. Peaceful Protestants massacred quiet Catholics. Now, peaceful Orthodox Christians of Russia slaughter peaceful Ukranian Christians. May Abraham's peace be upon all of them. (And, I am a Christian still —a miracle of God).   Many people in the West think the Indian government played a part in killing Indian rebels placed elsewhere. Ask the USA what they did to Saddam and Osama –people who challenged them. India would be happy if their opponents died naturally or someone else killed them by mistake. Still, our government has no guts to claim what it did not do.    Further, suppose people in a poverty-stricken country want to join our neighboring nations. In that case, they can do so without much hassle. Pakistan is a great nation. It is our neighbor. We have never witnessed a mass immigration of Indian Muslims to Pakistan. However, many Muslims living in ...

Canada has only 60 million people, and Australia has only 23 million. People below India's poverty line (BPL) are more than a hundred and fifty million. And after repeated revision of the benchmark to make us look "developing" on the paper. Ten years ago, a BPL person in India needed around one dollar. Now, they need only half a dollar to live. The prices have tripled, and the rupee has halved, but we say, "It is well for the poor of India."    The authorities have revised the poverty line such that they will need to help fewer poor people with daily rations. The income disparity is so high that we have more millionaires and billionaires than other SEAN countries. Also, we have a record number of poor people, as always. Even after the revised poverty line, India still has more poor people than other countries.    However, our government is busy making people poorer. Prices of essential commodities have tripled, and the dollar value has doubled in the last ten ye...

BBC News:  For the first time ever, more than one in 10 people in Japan are now aged 80 or older. My comment:  Japan is old, India is young. Oric_Atmos:  Japanese are a noble people, [Indians are] not the same. My reply:  No people are nobler than others. If you come to India, we will treat you hospitably, too. India has accommodated more refugees since immemorial than your honorable yet unaccommodating Japanese. Persians, Syrians, Jews, and Moslems tortured in their homelands took refuge in India. And, unlike the Middle East, we did not treat them as second-class citizens. A Persian family could become the ruling class only in India. Many Muslim and Syrian Christians also became ruling-class people.  Oric_Atmos : Why does India have a caste system then? It is because the Brahmin are your noble people, just as in England, the Normans were ours. There is a definite hierarchy in all people groups; we are all different, and trying to equalize people only leads to g...

Lord Jesus Christ, I believe America will be great again if it says no to illegal immigration, same-sex marriage, drug abuse, and abortion clinics. A country without walls is no country. Every cell, every human, and every plant has a border. I pray for America to understand the significance of guarding their territory. Open borders will lead to drug peddling and help criminals to infiltrate.  Let them not kill unborn and newborn babies. A commonsense conservative approach to abortion allows women to abort their babies if the mother’s life is in danger. However, only if there is free, irresponsible sex will people need a pro-abortion approach. Kindly help them to repent of the murders they have committed, for from the moment a zygote is formed, it has the right to life.   America will be great again if it uses its fossil fuels wisely. Lord, global warming has to do with usage, not oil production. Whether Americans use it or not, the rest of the world will continue to use fossil...

Many people think that there is no racism happening in the USA right now. They may be correct from their perspective. However, we need to ponder the following ethical questions. Is racism just about slavery, or does it include the effects of slavery on the conscience of those enslaved? And, as a consequence, are they forced to lead a less-than-ideal life? I agree that some forms of affirmative action to help ethnic minorities have a detrimental effect on the rest of society. I am all for meritocracy and fairness. However, I think the community is morally obligated to help uplift the downtrodden, perhaps not through freebies but through other means.    Affirmative actions are policy decisions of the governments people elect. I may not endorse them because of the evident side-effects on people's desire to improve their lives. Even so, we could choose better alternatives. We must find new ways to reach out to the vulnerable and discouraged. The wealthy people in society need to g...

The world is a funny place. Nobody questions whether they must take IELTS or TOEFL to study in English-speaking countries. People never ask about the need to learn Russian, German, or Japanese if they want to work in these countries. However, in India, every Indian is forced to do everything in Angrezi. How long will this Angrezi hegemony continue? Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, and Marathi cannot breathe. Soon, these languages may die. Who cares?   The first language of England is English. The first language of Russia is Russian. But in India, everything reverses. The first language is English. Hindi and regional languages only have second-class citizenship. Will any PM of India have the courage to make NRI babies who want to study MBBS for cheap in India take a local Indian language test?    See, our forefathers never took an English proficiency test to get admission to the best European colleges. They are degrading and disparaging our school and college system by demandin...

As currency, it is just a medium of exchange. But in the sense of its sociological impact, it ascribes values to commodities or services based on their demand and supply. To ordinary folks like me, it is a means to buy food, clothes, education, and other things. To the affluent, it is like a badge of honor that increases their societal value just by possessing it. A wealthy person may lack many other things, traits, or abilities. Still, their wealth alone makes them more honorable than others.     To people experiencing poverty, money is a means of sustenance or survival. It means food, clothes, shelter, and primary education. I sometimes feel that the poor are prone to be miserly and greedy. Strangely, however, they are more generous and kind than the rich. Perhaps they do not see it as something that increases or decreases their value. But as something that can lessen their pains and the sufferings of their fellow beings. Unlike the affluent, who use it to obtain and sustain...

The Bible often calls leaders as Shepherds. They can be evil or good. The traits of power-hungry human leaders are still the same, be it the Stone Age, Iron Age, Bronze Age, Medieval, Modern Age, or the Age of Technology. The earlier ones were brute beasts, the latest ones sophisticated, learned beasts. The driving forces of greed, lust, and pride remain the same. The only thing that has changed is they know how to hide them behind sweet and sophisticated speech.  What a good leader needs to do is not rocket science. They all know it in theory but know how not to do it. They are all words and no action. They promise paradise and deliver disaster. If they choose to listen to people and help others selflessly, they can solve many problems. But they do not do it, do they? Unfortunately, their love of money, sex, and fame always comes in the way. Such leaders need not lessons on technology but ethics and a clean conscience. I have studied many Indian leaders over the p...