Scavenging, A Spiritual Experience

In the list of bizarre statements that Modi has made, this must rank right at the top:

In a recent book written by him and published by the state information department Modi says, “Scavenging must have been a spiritual experience for the Valmiki caste”.

The book titled Karmayog is yet to hit the stands.

In the book he goes on to say, “At some point in time somebody must have got enlightenment in scavenging. They must have thought that it is their duty to work for the happiness of the entire society and the Gods”.

It is amazing how Modi could delude himself into believing that cleaning sewers could be any body's idea of fun. Or probably we shouldn't be surprised; some ideas are exceptionally sticky.

It's not as if Modi had any real morality, but he was a wonderfully shrewd politician. No right thinking individual can ever condone the Gujarat pogrom or his irresponsible statements after the riots, but nor can they deny that it helped him win the elections. Even if the act was reprehensible, it delivered the results.

This particular statement is just plain stupid, nobody is going to come out in his support. Why loose a votebank and gain nothing in return?

(Via CNN-IBN)

Links

A frequently updated list of blogs that I love. If you want to see your blog here, then just leave it's url in the comments. Inclusion will be easier if you have already sent some link love my way. ;)

Desi Blogs

• A walk in the clouds..
• Amitava Kumar
• An Unquiet Mind
• Cynical Nerd
• Dateline Bombay
• Delhibelly
• Doing Jalsa And Showing Jilpa
• Domain Maximus
• INI Signal
• Jabberwock
• Mostly Thoughtless

Videsi Blogs

• 10 Zen Monkeys
• Bad Science
• Ben Casnocha
• BPS Research Digest
• Cafe Hayek
• Econlog
• Freakonomics
• Kottke
• Marginal Revolution
• Oddee
• Weird News Asia

Singing Sand Dunes

We have all grown up hearing about the wierd singing noises sand dunes make. Science never offerred very convincing answers for this phenomena. But now recent research promises to solve this mystery.
Interest in them is bound to rise when u get to know how good these dunes are at singing:The dunes at sand mountain in nevada sing a note of low C, two octaves below middle C. In the desert of Mar de Dunas in Chile,the dunes sing slightly higher, an F, while the sands of Ghord Lahmar in Morocco are higher yet, a G sharp.
Since atleast the time of Marco Polo, desert travellers have heard the songs of the dunes, a loud upto 115 decibels-deep hum that can last several minutes. While the somgs are steady in frequency,the dunes donot have a perfect pitch. Scientists already knew that the sounds were caused by avalanches, but they were not sure how.
Now after 5 years of research, visiting sand dunes in morocco, chile, china and oman, a team of scientists from the United states, France and Morocco say they have the answer. In a paper that will appear in Physical Review Letters, the scientists say that collisions between sand grains cause the motions of the grains to become synchronised. The outer cone of the dunes vibrate like the cone of a loudspeaker. The particular note depends primarily on the size of the grains. Indeed no dune was required at all. The scientists shipped sand from a Morrocan desert to a Paris lab and reproduced the singing by pushing the sand around with a metal blade. "Its not at all like any other instrument we know", said one of the scientists, Stephane Douady of the National Centre for Scientific Research in Paris. The most beautiful dune tune comes from the sands of Oman. "Very pure sound," Douady said, "this one is really singing." The least musical bits of silicon were from China. They hardly sang at all.

Down in the Ditch

The media hype that was created around the "boy who lived",Prince really set me thinking. The media made it out to be a case of india uniting for the sake of a child in distress. One of them probably deciding that in this general atmosphere of madness anything goes, compared the atmosphere in the country to the atmosphere of the country during the Kargil war!!!!!!
Now now dont start calling me a cruel brute. If it wasnt for the media attraction the event attracted the boy wouldnt have been alive. But thats where everything that was good about the coverage. The incident reveals the levels to which our sympathy levels have fallen. Prince's was not actually the worst condition a child in india suffers. There are thousands out there who live in conditions which are worse than anything death could offer them. But there was something we could do about such children, but nobody wants any responsibility thrust upon them. So we diverted our sympathies to somebody who was in distress but for whom we could do nothing. Thus we conviniently massaged our conscience while at the same time doing nothing. NULL. VOID. TRPs thats all this media coverage was all about.
P.S. On the reservations issue: If the institutes have to maintain the quality as well as go ahead with the reservation policy, they will have to have high cut-offs for the sc sts and obcs as well. If no students can clear the cutoffs then it will have to accept mediocore students which will do no good for the institute. If students clear the cutoffs then there is no need for cutoffs they are good enough to get there without reservations.

Blog Bans And My Right To Express

The recent banning of blogs by the indian government has been justifiably criticized by the community of bloggers as well as the traditional media. But it seems as if most of the criticism was against the fact that a large number of so called innoscent bloggers were being punished for no fault of theirs. Sympathy if any of it at all for the banned blogs was limited to rightist newspapers and media. The fundamental issue with freedom of speech has reared its head again and it would be better if we could address it now. Maybe the sites did have material that might be offensive to certain communities, but trying to please everybody is the height of syupidity. Also the right to free speech doesnt mean the right to express what the gov feels is right, dictatorships and despots allow that; so how is democracy any better than them? This is a question we need to ask ourselves: are we mature enough to listen to people who are different from us? If the answer is no then we better get rid of the illusion that we call freedom of expression.

Bush Gropes Merkel

Got to see this

A recent article in the indian express quotes the DEO as saying that it was necessary that a pass percent close to 60 percent must be maintained for the SSc board exams. This figure doesnot depend on how the children write their papers but on the fact that all seats in schools must be filled. So called grace marks are awarded each year on a purely arbitary basis. One year it is 25 and the next its 35. Seeing this it becomes obvious that for students who are just passing it is a matter of luck. If they are lucky enough to be in the 60 percent then they get through,else they dont. And what happens to the meritorious, sample this: 29000 students passed this year due to grace marks. Hows that for a statistic? Hows that for the shit hole called education?

My Blog

This is not my first blog. And no there is no sudden inspiration behind this, all that there is, is a nintense desire to write and hence the name:wordflu. That i suppose is a fancy name for the disease which forces you to write about totally insane stuff, which probably nobody will read but nevertheless must be written for your sake. And if somebody is reading it, then I won't be the one complaining. ;)