Mumbai Mayhem - A Slur on India!

Consider a wonderful day, which has a significant importance in your life and you want to celebrate it with your loved ones. You think the day deserves a special treat and lightening your wallet a bit wouldn’t hurt. Inside a posh restaurant, you happily order the delicacies of your choice and the ambience feels heavenly. Suddenly in a split second, you hear a bullet shot. BANG! For someone on a nearby table that could be the end of their existence.

The first question that pops your mind is, “What the hell is going on? What just happened?” Bang, another bullet shot’s sound brings you to your senses reaffirming that there is no illusion and the tragedy is for real. You spring to first thing you find that can cover you and duck behind it. The thought that rings your mind is, “Will I live? What about my ____?” Suddenly your entire life gushes through in a moment and you suddenly feel happy about some good times of your past. You think, IF I stay alive, I’ll do ____. Bang! Another gunshot and you are back in the gory environment and there is nothing you can do about it except hope that you will somehow miss coming in front of the nozzle of the guns of the tormentors.

After the 60 hours of terror of Mumbai have passed and since now the dust has settled a bit, there are some things related to the entire episode of merciless killing spree that we need to give ourselves an answer of :
ARE WE REALLY READY FOR THIS?

The answer presumably is “NO”! This post is not to answer or make a snapshot of the entire saga of 26/11, because the truth shown on TV sets maybe far from the reality. But the idea is to look back at the crisis and raise a few questions.

What was the exact intent of this attack?

Like any other terror activity, the idea would be to cause maximum causalities, gain attention and of course cause terror, right? But from the limited knowledge that I got about these attacks from the print and video media, I realize that there is something EERIE about the whole incident. Somehow, somewhere something is wrong and that something is pinching me.

When the terrorists attacked Taj, why did they directly head to 6th Floor?

They could have killed a lot of people in the different restaurants on the Ground and the First Floor before heading to the 3 rooms on the 6th Floor and killing the inmates there. Were there more weapons on that floor? Or as the media now speculates, one or two of them lived there as tourists since a few days. I believe that there was ammunition stored in those rooms, because considering that there were just 3 terrorists in Taj, for them to carry so many guns, ammunition, grenades and RDX is not humanly possible.

Whatever be the truth, had the terrorists started from ground floor killing people floor by floor from the gate itself and making this another “Jallianwala Bagh” massacre. Were the terrorists so dumb, or is there some other reason for this behavior?

Also, the terrorist who was caught coughed up all the information in just one day. Apparently the coast guard and the other sources also reconfirm his tale till the parts it can be traced. Now knowing the nature of terrorists, they prefer to die before getting caught, and even when the army captures them like was done with due valor in this case, getting information from them is impossible. So, was some special way used to get the information from him and how was it actually commissioned is a question that baffles me.

All in all, though I am happy that the terrorists failed in their mission to kill 5000 people, I feel something is really strange!

Now the main question,
“When are we going to learn to RETALIATE?”

This is the first time when we see such events happen in posh places where the rich and famous are bound to be present. From the media, it was heard that the terrorists were keener on killing the British and American nationals and the Jews. It was also mentioned that they spared the Muslims. For a fact, Indian Muslim is as Indian as any other Indian and I hope our people make that point reach across by not rioting on the name of communities anymore. The enemy comes from outside and tries to divide us. By “US”, I mean, the Indians, and we forget that there are no differences amongst Indians; and terrorists bear no caste, no creed and no color.

Yet, we Indians form probably the most defensive nation in the world today. So tuned are we to following the “Gandhian” mode of thought that we forget that the ideology holds true only till a certain point and after that the only thing counts is cleaning up the problem. Since a long time, we have been continuously disturbed by terrorists who blow our buses and trains, hijack our planes and make our public places unsafe for public. If that was not it, they even reached the Parliament and the latest Mumbai massacre is addition of another chapter to their array of achievements.

In return, India has revoked the POTA, which was a way to counter the Terrorism. Our army and police force is made lame-duck in the politics that follows. The true martyrs, the Policemen, the Army and the Fire-fighters who lose their lives trying to help others live yet-another-day are just given a tribute of false prayers and a small medal. I believe the way to pay them worthy homage is by cleaning up the system. We need our Politicians to do something more than just make false promises, meet the patients for 2 minutes and condemn the incidents. We need them to sit in the Parliament, discuss and plan better and stringent laws against terrorism, as we spend 15 Lakh rupees per minute of their discussion. Instead we get the mud-slinging by Politicians of different parties.

We have been bossed around for years from hostile elements and all we do in return is “talk”. Bangladesh, a country which gained its independence due to Indian army, today threatens the Eastern states due to its issues of refugees and terrorism. Even the tiny state of Sri Lanka with its issues of LTTE pesters India’s diplomatic ties. The blame-game wars with China and Pakistan have been going on since ages and the so-called decades of “talks” have not yielded any progress.

By the above, I am not saying that we should resort to war between nations for an issue that can be tackled by proper diplomatic ties, but India definitely needs to tighten its stand on the “War against Terror”. We Indians revere our nation as “Mother India”, then why do we act as silent bystanders when people come and insult our mother. The latest blow is more like a spit on the face of our self-dignity. The Indian media called the 26/11 Mumbai Attack as “9/11 of India”.

We know how the Americans reacted after the 9/11,
Are we going to even try something similar?

Atlas Shrugged - A Review

Overall Rating: 7.5/10.0
Value for Money: 7.0/10.0

Writing a review about a 900+ page book and also not revealing anything about the plot is a daunting task. The fact that it is Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” does not make this task any easier. The Atlas Shrugged too, just like the FountainHead is much more than the pages that make the book. It almost comprises a mode of life and a figment of an imaginary society, remnants of which are visible in various examples in the real world.

The Atlas Shrugged has a plot which though is completely woven into economy and finances, yet is not a typical debate of capitalism versus socialism. The story is about the creative people who drive the others, bearing the burden of their fellowmen, just like Atlas stands, bearing the burden of the Earth. The name itself signifies that Atlas Shrugged and hence the plot revolves around a dramatic story of a society which is suddenly devoid of its driver, the innovators and the chaos that would follow. Ideally, I would like to remain non-political, but the story moves very closely to the various political aspects like equality of opportunity and financial aid among people of even the weaker sections of the society. Now I fundamentally believe that though equality is good, completely forced equality is harmful. I read in a book somewhere, that if all the sand of Mount Blanc (the highest mountain of France) is spread in entire France, the entire France will only rise by 6 inches. Similar to this thought is the fact that if everyone is a millionaire, what is a million’s worth anymore. The book echoes this ideology when it says, if everyone is paid equally; why would one work hard? This concept is shown so strongly, that saying you like this book in itself is a political statement.

Moving more clearly to the plot, it is the story of an ambitious and dynamic woman, who wishes to head the Biggest Railway Locomotive Empire which was created by her father. At every point of her life, she faces challenges, because the society is not mature enough to understand that a woman would run the railways. Her, not-so-competent brother makes an absolute fool of himself and the organization with his limited array of thoughts, narrow mindset, inability to understand any of what’s going on coupled with his intent to find profit in others, creating an oddly evil character.

Though the story does not show any visibility at first, as the book moves on, we realize that the Government keeps preaching various policies for giving “equal benefits to all” at the cost of making the ones with higher capability to take an extra load to “help” their not-so-privileged brothers. What follows these regulations is that the men of industry, the greatest people that the society needs to fix things, are disappearing. For the heroine above, just went she needs them the most, they drop everything they are doing, abandon their factories and their businesses and disappear.

The story also has a highly-successful person, who character confuses the reader unless read and followed very carefully. Various twists and turns of the tale make him look like a rich brat or a wonderful strategist. The tale also encompasses another hero, a person with all the self-motivation and power to actually fuel the story and the society in the tale for years with his metallurgical innovations. The at times brotherly and at times rivalry relations of the above mentioned characters is also a thing that holds the readers in awe. The series of suspense leads to another mystery being solved which change the entire course of the story for the better or the worse.

The story-line, like the Fountainhead is slow and at times difficult to comprehend. The sheer size of the book (looks almost like a dictionary) is enough to discourage people from taking it up. The lack of sense behind the Financial policies that the Government and Leaders enforced on the characters in the book was a definite turn-off for me. I could not really digest the fact that people who have spent their lives making financial policies can overlook such a fundamental aspect. But then, looking at the real world made me realize that votes are actually the thing that drives such initiatives.

The entire book is a tussle between “the Innovators” and “the Looters”. It sets a very high standard of what is right and correct in the world today, though it is a bit heartless and cold. It ultimately boils down to the same aspects as the FountainHead: high self-esteem and selfless altruism. The book has a lot of pages with discussions and speeches which are way-beyond the book itself. Looking at them over and over again, not only make for a great reading, but that reading will also give you more insight on life.


Final Verdict:

This is one book, which only people who can handle long speeches and have time to invest will be able to truly enjoy. For the lovers of the book, the reality, taken with a pinch of salt is that most people I know, shrugged the book, before the Atlas shrug. In fact, one thing I have observed in these novels is that people believe in the childish ways in Rand’s books because they typically have no children and hence they can strive for the idealism. The high standards set by the characters are far from reality and the utter heartlessness is also not the idyllic way of life. All in all, it is a book that keeps shifting between Utopia and Perfection.


The Correlations of the Real World with this book:

On hindsight, I feel that presently we are almost living the Atlas Shrugged. The current Financial Crisis is an ideal situation of this very concept where the American Government tried to provide housing to the “common man”, even with sub-prime credits. The thought that those people would be able to “earn” those houses was in itself far-fetched. Now that mortgage defaults are skyrocketing, the government is working on mortgage bailout plans for needy borrowers who can't afford the homes they bought. Similarly in India, we have loans of farmers written off at the time of elections and reservations in even the most Premier organizations for the vote-banks of politicians. Such policies ruin the lives of hard-working people whose tax money is used to salvage the so-called victims of the crisis. But slowly we are seeing the truth now; the looters' philosophy has failed. The global economic crisis is a result of the doomed culture of consumption over production. Would we see the beginning of an "Atlas Shrugged" scenario with the election of the Third World Socialist Obama and a majority Democrat Congress or will Obama prove something otherwise? And if that “income redistribution” happens, would we see the inventors, industrialists, entrepreneurs and skilled workers revolt against the injustice or simply drop out and disappear once their patience runs out?

Only time will tell...

Destination Moon - The Race Begins, Again!!!

The Moon mission stories are phenomenons which always excite the child inside me completely. As a kid, I always aspired to be an astronaut and land on the moon. I dreamed about going in outer space and landing on different planets. Now, at an age of more realistic understanding, I am still amazed by the achievements and discoveries that are made in outer space.

The History

Going to the moon has always been an exciting venture for us humans. The sixties and seventies saw a huge bunch of missions from United States and the then U.S.S.R. in a bid to win the “Space Race”. The race kind of ended after a myriad of successful unmanned and manned missions to moon. The major ones that would be remembered are Apollo-11, when Neil Armstrong set his foot on the moon showing the human supremacy and Apollo-13, which had a series of failures and ultimately brought the crew back alive without reaching the moon.

During the decades there after, the excitement of winning over the Space has waned and the fact that the missions are very expensive has not helped in continuation of those. Yet, scientists spent years figuring out information from the moon rocks and data brought back by the older missions.


The New Moon Race???

After a span of almost 40 years, the human endeavor to reclaim the moon has suddenly gained impetus. The European Union (ESA) sent their moon mission in the year 2004. In the years 2007 and 2008 we see Japan, China and India planning to send their moon missions. George Bush also mentioned another manned-moon mission from the United States in the second decade of this century, but it seems to have been postponed as of now. And like the last Space Race, even this new “Space Age” has been darkened with suspicion and doubts instead of cooperation.

All the moon missions are designed to learn more about the lunar atmosphere and surface have no military purpose. But space technology is a field where civilian technological advances can easily be put to military use, nations closely scrutinize each of their neighbors' steps forward. More so, after tests from Technologies like anti-satellite missiles and inter-continental missiles. All said and done, a new “Technological Era” is about to begin.

Chandrayaan – 1 – India’s First Moon Mission

The idea of an Indian moon mission had been on the minds of ISRO ever since its inception, but the realistic mooting of the idea started happening in 1999-2000. A "National Lunar Task Force" was created, wherein leading Indian Scientists brainstormed and assessed the feasibilty of an Indian Moon mission. Subsequently, Government of India approved ISRO's proposal for the first Indian Moon Mission, called Chandrayaan-1 in November 2003. The fact that Indian economy had improved than before and the facts that ISRO has been very consistent with its technology added further impetus to this daunting task.

Chandrayaan – the name is derived from “Chandra” which means Moon and “Yaan” which means vehicle, thus it stands for “Lunar craft”. Chandrayan-1 was launched from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, SHAR, Sriharikota by PSLV-XL (PSLV-C11) on 22 October 2008. It used the same idea of sending the rocket to the moon using the Earth’s gravity to provide a boost to the rocket.

When the first orbit around the earth, the rocket just took 6.5 hours to complete the revolution, but over days as the ellipse started getting bigger, and before it entered the moon’s trajectory, it once reached a point where it would take 6 days to revolve around the earth. Finally on 4th November, the spacecraft entered the Lunar Trajectory. Then the craft was slowly moved towards the moon and on November 12, the spacecraft was at 100 km circular orbit to the moon.

On 14th November, ISRO and hence India created history by ejecting the Moon Impact Probe (MIP) and landing it successfully on the Lunar surface. This incident also colored the “Grey Moon” with the “Tricolor”. Currently the devices and sensors on board MIP are functioning and sending back huge amounts of data which will not only help us understand the moon better, but the experience will also help us in moving ahead on other missions.


Economic Effects to India

A lot of people claim that the Indian Moon Mission is a redundant exercise that could have been done away with especially considering the fact that it costed around $78 million. Though there seems to be no direct impact of this mission, there are key-economic benefits which this missions will bring.

ISRO proved that they reached the moon at a very low price. Though we cannot compare it to the amounts spent in 1960-70s because the valuation and needs were different, Chandrayan’s expenditure of $78 million as compared to Europe’s SMART-1 mission cost of about $180 million, Japan’s Kaguya lunar probe cost of $487 million and even China’s Change-1 that costed $180 million, is considerably less.

Not only is the Chandrayaan cost effective relative to similar missions by other nations, this relative low cost is itself a tremendous advertisement for Indian space services in a highly competitive launch industry, and will help generate enormous revenues for ISRO and its commercial arm, Antrix. Though there are a few countries that place orders with ISRO (like the 10-satellite launching mission few months back). The fact that ISRO has the positive moon mission will add a feather to the cap and ISRO will indirectly generate a lot of revenue from the launches for other countries.

Apart from this, an indirect gain (though not substantial or directly visible) is that such illustrious projects in some way encourage reverse-braindrain and this would bring some of the best minds back to India, which will in turn improve the situations for the better.


Political Effects to India

The positive Moon mission will surely help India win a lot of diplomatic votes in the current World situation. Very positive acknowledgements were received from various countries for the successful implanting of “Tri-colour” (as spelled in India) on the Lunar surface. India's quest for the envious "Superpower" tag just clinched another vote with this uninhibited 239,000 mile journey to our lone natural satellite. This moon mission will also help improve the relations with countries further after the “N-Deal Saga” and hence the mission has a lot of indirect diplomatic benefits.

In one single line: “India Shining Reinforced again!”

On a fun note, Moon is revered as “Chanda-mama” in India. This mission has made the first trip to “Mausal” (Maternal uncle’s place) a reality. And since a lot other Moon missions are pipelined with ISRO aiming for a second lunar mission by the end of 2010 or early 2011, carrying a Russian-made rover that will collect rock and soil samples from the moon’s surface for further analysis. By 2015, India hopes to send up two astronauts to study the moon and even land astronauts on the moon by 2020. The old Gujarati proverb seem apt.

“Mama nu gher kettle, deevo bale etle!” (How far is Maternal Uncle’s place, in this case the Moon, just as far as the lamp, who’s light is visible nearby!) Though the translation is loose, the idea is, the Moon will be a near-by place soon...

Just a song this time - But I am back!!!

I have not been able to blog since the last couple months because of the building work pressure and uuummmm, should I say, some personal work that’s kept me on my toes. I was down with some work and more importantly 2 vacations back to back which delayed my blogging schedules. But now since almost all of that pressure (he he he) has gotten relieved, I plan to start blogging again from tomorrow.

For today, I found a song which is very apt with my current situation and so I am putting it in a post. The song is “Show Me a Sign” from “Breaking Point”. (Click on the Play for the Youtube Video of this song)

Of course, the song is for my GF(s). The ones who know what I am talking about will just smile away, for the rest, well, keep guessing.

The Lyrics of the song are wonderful:

Could you give me just some kind of sign,
To let me know that I'm not wasting my time,
I just need a reason to believe...

I've lost all visibility, 'cause I can't see,
Just what you mean, by what you're telling me,
Should I stay or go, do you even know,
It's all a riddle to me.

Show me a sign and give me reason to believe,
Don't waste my time, just give me some kind of sign,
Show me a sign and give me reason to believe,
Before this all just fades away.

Would you tell me cause I can't read your mind,
I'm so lost but it's not that hard to find,
I know exactly what you need.

It's become quite evident, just what you meant,
I need to vent, well here's my two cents,
Don't leave me hanging on if you know its wrong,
It's all a riddle to me.

Show me a sign and give me reason to believe,
Don't waste my time, just give me some kind of sign,
Show me a sign and give me reason to believe,
Before this all just fades away.

Give me just some kind of sign,
Cause I know that everything is changing,
And I feel like you always leave me hanging,
Don't leave me hanging on,
If you know its wrong...