Tongue Of Steel

Sameer imitating his grandpa

2010-08-22T21:52:00.002-04:00

Its hilarious to watch him dancing like his grandpa!

Office-Office

2009-12-27T22:32:00.004-05:00

Finally got one, ACURA MDX

2009-04-27T09:02:00.004-04:00

Mathematics class going on...

2009-03-20T09:42:00.000-04:00

This was total fun! Watch for yourself.

Sam is having fun

2009-03-20T09:38:00.001-04:00

This is the video i posted on facebook. so for people who do not have a facebook account, here's the video.

Obama’s Worst Pakistan Nightmare

2009-01-14T15:39:00.003-05:00

This is an article which came in New York Times on Jan-08-2009. Very interesting article, so I thought I'll share with all of you.

(The article is written by David E. Sanger who is chief Washington correspondent for The New York Times. His book “The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power,” from which this article is adapted, will be published this week by Harmony Books.)

TO GET TO THE HEADQUARTERS of the Strategic Plans Division, the branch of the Pakistani government charged with keeping the country’s growing arsenal of nuclear weapons away from insurgents trying to overrun the country, you must drive down a rutted, debris-strewn road at the edge of the Islamabad airport, dodging stray dogs and piles of uncollected garbage. Just past a small traffic circle, a tan stone gateway is manned by a lone, bored-looking guard loosely holding a rusting rifle. The gateway marks the entry to Chaklala Garrison, an old British cantonment from the days when officers of the Raj escaped the heat of Delhi for the cooler hills on the approaches to Afghanistan. Pass under the archway, and the poverty and clamor of modern Pakistan disappear.

Chaklala is a comfortable enclave for the country’s military and intelligence services. Inside the gates, officers in the army and the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, known as the ISI, live in trim houses with well-tended lawns. Business is conducted in long, low office buildings, with a bevy of well-pressed adjutants buzzing around. Deep inside the garrison lies the small compound for Strategic Plans, where Khalid Kidwai keeps the country’s nuclear keys. Now 58, Kidwai is a compact man who hides his arch sense of humor beneath a veil of caution, as if he were previewing each sentence to decide if it revealed too much. In the chaos of Pakistan, where the military, the intelligence services and an unstable collection of civilian leaders uneasily share power, he oversees a security structure intended to protect Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal from outsiders — Islamic militants, Qaeda scientists, Indian saboteurs and those American commando teams that Pakistanis imagine, with good reason, are waiting just over the horizon in Afghanistan, ready to seize their nuclear treasure if a national meltdown seems imminent.

In the second nuclear age, what happens or fails to happen in Kidwai’s modest compound may prove far more likely to save or lose an American city than the billions of dollars the United States spends each year maintaining a nuclear arsenal that will almost certainly never be used, or the thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars we have spent in Iraq and Afghanistan to close down sanctuaries for terrorists.

Just last month in Washington, members of the federally appointed bipartisan Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism made it clear that for sheer scariness, nothing could compete with what they had heard in a series of high-level intelligence briefings about the dangers of Pakistan’s nuclear technology going awry. “When you map W.M.D. and terrorism, all roads intersect in Pakistan,” Graham Allison, a Harvard professor and a leading nuclear expert on the commission, told me. “The nuclear security of the arsenal is now a lot better than it was. But the unknown variable here is the future of Pakistan itself, because it’s not hard to envision a situation in which the state’s authority falls apart and you’re not sure who’s in control of the weapons, the nuclear labs, the materials.”

For Kidwai, there is something both tiresome and deeply suspicious about the constant stream of warnings out of Washington that Pakistan is the epicenter of a post-cold-war Armageddon. “This is all overblown rhetoric,” Kidwai told me on a rainy Saturday morning not long ago when I went to visit him in his office, which is comfortably outfitted with oversize white leather chairs and models of the Pakistani missiles that can deliver a nuclear weapon to the farthest corners of India. Even if the country’s leadership were to be incapacitated, he insisted, Pakistan’s protections are so strong that the arsenal could never slip from the hands of the country’s National Command Authority, a mix of hardened generals (including Kidwai) and newly elected politicians. Kidwai has spent the past five years making the same case to American officials: just because a savvy metallurgist named Abdul Qadeer Khan, a national hero for his role in turning Pakistan into a nuclear-weapons power, managed to smuggle nuclear secrets and materials to the likes of Iran, North Korea and Libya for profit in the 1980s and 1990s, it doesn’t mean that such a horrendous breach of security could happen again.

“Please grant to Pakistan that if we can make nuclear weapons and the delivery systems,” Kidwai said, gesturing to the models and a photo of Pakistan’s first nuclear test, a decade ago, “we can also make them safe. Our security systems are foolproof.”

“FOOLPROOF” IS MOST likely not the word Barack Obama would use to describe the status of Pakistan’s nuclear safety following the briefings he has been receiving since Nov. 6, which is when J. Michael McConnell, the director of national intelligence, showed up in Chicago to give the president- elect his first full presidential daily brief. For obvious reasons, neither Obama nor McConnell will talk about the contents of those highly classified briefings. But interviews over the past year with senior intelligence officials and with nuclear experts in Washington and South Asia and at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna provide strong indications of what Obama has probably heard.

By now Obama has almost surely been briefed about an alarming stream of intelligence that began circulating early last year to the top tier of George W. Bush’s national-security leadership in Washington. The highly restricted reports described how foreign-trained Pakistani scientists, including some suspected of harboring sympathy for radical Islamic causes, were returning to Pakistan to seek jobs within the country’s nuclear infrastructure — presumably trying to burrow in among the 2,000 or so people who have what Kidwai calls “critical knowledge” of the Pakistani nuclear infrastructure.

“I have two worries,” one of the most senior officials in the Bush administration, who had read all of the intelligence with care, told me one day last spring. One is what happens “when they move the weapons,” he said, explaining that the United States feared that some groups could try to provoke a confrontation between Pakistan and India in the hope that the Pakistani military would transport tactical nuclear weapons closer to the front lines, where they would be more vulnerable to seizure. Indeed, when the deadly terror attacks occurred in Mumbai in late November, officials told me they feared that one of the attackers’ motives might have been to trigger exactly that series of events.

“And the second,” the official said, choosing his words carefully, “is what I believe are steadfast efforts of different extremist groups to infiltrate the labs and put sleepers and so on in there.” As Obama’s team of nuclear experts have discovered in their recent briefings, it is Pakistan’s laboratories — one of which still bears A. Q. Khan’s name — that still pose the greatest worries for American intelligence officials. It is relatively easy to teach Kidwai’s security personnel how to lock down warheads and store them separately from trigger devices and missiles — training that the United States has conducted, largely in secret, at a cost of almost $100 million. It is a lot harder for the Americans to keep track of nuclear material being produced inside laboratories, where it is easier for the Pakistanis to underreport how much nuclear material has been produced, how much is in storage or how much might be “stuck in the pipes” during the laborious enrichment process. And it is nearly impossible to stop engineers from walking out the door with the knowledge of how to produce fuel, which Khan provided to Iran, and bomb designs.

After more than four years, no one in Washington has a clear sense of whether the small, covert American program to help Pakistan secure its weapons and laboratories is actually working. Kidwai has been happy to take the cash and send in progress reports, but auditors from Washington have been rebuffed whenever they have asked to see how, exactly, the money was being spent. Kidwai, when pressed, says that the Americans shouldn’t offer lectures about nuclear security, not after the U.S. Air Force lost track of some of its own weapons in 2007 for 36 hours, flying them around unguarded to air bases and leaving them by the side of the tarmac. He makes use of another argument as well, a legacy of the Bush era that will last for many years: how can an intelligence apparatus in the United States that got Iraq’s nuclear progress so wrong in 2003 be so certain today that Pakistan’s arsenal is at risk?

Pakistani officials are understandably suspicious that the real intent of the American program is to gather the information needed to snatch, or neutralize, the country’s arsenal. So they have met most requests with the same answer they gave the C.I.A. when it wanted to interview Khan: Don’t waste your time submitting a formal request. “It is a matter of national sovereignty,” Kidwai says, “and a matter of our honor.”

Khalid Kidwai is only a few years younger than Pakistan itself, and he has spent much of his life trying to create pockets of order in a nation to which order does not come naturally. His father, Jalil Ahmed Kidwai, was one of the country’s best-known authors and critics; his mother founded a school in Karachi. Kidwai was born into an era in which the overriding question on the minds of most Muslims in Pakistan was whether the country could withstand India’s onslaughts, and it did not take long for the young Khalid to settle on his dream: to fly with the Pakistani Air Force, the most romantic branch of the armed forces in a new nation that believed it needed to be able to strike deep into India if it was to survive. At age 12, he passed the exam for the air-force-sponsored school in Sargodha, the site of the country’s largest air base, but when he graduated, Kidwai received the disheartening news that he would never become a pilot: a mild eye disorder disqualified him. “My next obvious choice was the army,” he told me, and like many in his generation of military men in Pakistan, he never fully left it, even after his retirement, or lost the professional pride and the security blanket it provides.

In 1971, Kidwai was captured during a war with India and held as a prisoner of war for two years in the north Indian city of Allahabad — an experience he is still reluctant to discuss. After returning to the Pakistani officer corps, he was posted in 1979 to the artillery training school at Fort Sill, Okla., as part of a program that allowed the American military to get to know a rising generation of Pakistani officers. Kidwai recalls that whenever the fort’s brass turned to nuclear-weapons training, they found something else for the foreign officers to do. “We’d be sent off for trips to Washington or someplace,” Kidwai recalled with a laugh, “so that we were out of earshot.”

In 1998, Pakistan responded to a round of Indian nuclear tests by exploding its own bombs. Like the rest of the country, Kidwai watched on television as the Chagai hills shook from Pakistan’s underground tests. His nation had done more than answer India’s challenge; it had built the ultimate deterrent. Along the way, Pakistan had overcome a series of halfhearted efforts, led by the United States, to cut off its nuclear supplies. Year after year, Pakistan lied to Washington when confronted with all-but-definitive evidence that it was constructing a weapon. Pakistan simply endured the resulting economic sanctions. It all seemed worth it, Pakistani officials have told me, after India detonated five test bombs and Pakistan came back with six.

“That was one-upmanship,” Kidwai said, smiling proudly as we looked at a photograph of one test, which was hanging on his office wall. “India had conducted only five.” Below the photographs, Kidwai keeps a small fragment of the Chagai mountain under glass, displayed like a moon rock at the Smithsonian. The explosion had turned it bright white.

NO SOONER HAD THE radioactive and diplomatic dust settled from the test site than Kidwai was called in by his army superiors, and ultimately, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and told that he would now head an urgent project: to come up with a system to protect Pakistan’s new weapon from all of its enemies — the Indians, Western Europeans and the angry Americans. Kidwai knew speed was of the essence. Pakistan’s leaders feared that if the West thought that Pakistan had just a few weapons in its inventory, and no system to assure their safety, they would come under even more pressure to roll back the program and give up the handful they had manufactured. The only way to resist that pressure, they knew, was to create a large arsenal quickly and to hide it in underground facilities where neither the Indians nor the Americans could seize or destroy the warheads. Then they needed to convince the world that Pakistan could become a responsible nuclear power, one capable of securing its weapons as well as the Russians, the Chinese or the Israelis did. That meant Kidwai had to learn the arts of nuclear safety from the Americans, but without teaching his teachers how to neutralize Pakistan’s arsenal.

Kidwai got off to a rocky start. The Pakistani nuclear program owes its very existence to the government-endorsed and government-financed subterfuges of A. Q. Khan, who then turned the country into the biggest source of nuclear-weapons proliferation in atomic history. And while Khan may be the most famous nuclear renegade in Pakistan, he is not the only one. Soon after Kidwai took office, he also faced the case of the eccentric nuclear scientist Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, who helped build gas centrifuges for the Pakistani nuclear program, using blueprints Khan had stolen from the Netherlands. Mahmood then moved on to the country’s next huge project: designing the reactor at Khushab that was to produce the fuel Pakistan needed to move to the next level — a plutonium bomb.

An autodidact intellectual with grand aspirations, Mahmood was fascinated by the links between science and the Koran. He wrote a peculiar treatise arguing that when morals degrade, disaster cannot be far behind. Over time, his colleagues began to wonder if Mahmood was mentally sound. They were half amused and half horrified by his fascination with the role sunspots played in triggering the French and Russian Revolutions, World War II and assorted anticolonial uprisings. “This guy was our ultimate nightmare,” an American intelligence official told me in late 2001, when The New York Times first reported on Mahmood. “He had access to the entire Pakistani program. He knew what he was doing. And he was completely out of his mind.”

While Khan appeared to be in the nuclear-proliferation business chiefly for the money, Mahmood made it clear to friends that his interest was religious: Pakistan’s bomb, he told associates, was “the property of a whole Ummah,” referring to the worldwide Muslim community. He wanted to share it with those who might speed “the end of days” and lead the way for Islam to rise as the dominant religious force in the world.

Eventually Mahmood’s religious intensity, combined with his sympathy for Islamic extremism, scared his colleagues. In 1999, just as Kidwai was beginning to examine the staff of the nuclear enterprise, Mahmood was forced to take an early retirement. At a loss for what to do, Mahmood set up a nonprofit charity, Ummah Tameer-e-Nau, which was ostensibly designed to send relief to fellow Muslims in Afghanistan. In August 2001, as the Sept. 11 plotters were making their last preparations in the United States, Mahmood and one of his colleagues at the charity met with Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, over the course of several days in Afghanistan. There is little doubt that Mahmood talked to the two Qaeda leaders about nuclear weapons, or that Al Qaeda desperately wanted the bomb. George Tenet, the C.I.A. chief, wrote later that intelligence reports of the meeting were “frustratingly vague.” They included an account that there was talk of how to design a simple firing mechanism, and that a senior Qaeda leader displayed a canister that may have contained some nuclear material (though almost certainly not bomb-grade).

In the weeks after 9/11, the tales of the meeting were enough to set off panic. Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a longtime C.I.A. nuclear expert, was given perhaps the most daunting job at the agency in the aftermath of 9/11: to make sure that Al Qaeda did not have a weapon of mass destruction at its disposal. “The worst nightmare we had at that time was that A. Q. Khan and Osama bin Laden were somehow working together,” Mowatt-Larssen told me one day last winter in his basement office in a secure vault at the Energy Department, where he moved after his time at the C.I.A. to head up the department’s intelligence unit. As if to drive home the point to visitors to his underground lair, Mowatt-Larssen, who is leaving the government this month to become a senior fellow at Harvard, keeps a floor-to-ceiling centrifuge in the corner of his office, where most people might put a potted plant. The gleaming silver device, which is meant to spin at terrifying speed to enrich uranium, was seized in Libya — part of the cache that Muammar el-Qaddaffi bought from Khan.

Musharraf tried to tamp down American alarm. He told Tenet and Mowatt-Larssen that “men in caves can’t do this.” He had Mahmood and his colleague rearrested, though they were never prosecuted. Pakistan did not want to risk a trial in which the country’s own nuclear secrets came out. Today, Mahmood, like Khan, is back home, under tight surveillance that seems intended primarily to keep him a safe distance from reporters.

Kidwai insists that the Mahmood incident was overblown, raised time and again by Americans to create the image that Pakistan is a nuclear sieve. “Nothing went anywhere,” he assured me. “It’s over.” But what’s terrifying about Mahmood’s story is not what happened around the campfire, but rather that the meetings happened at all. They took place three years after Kidwai and his team started their work and demonstrated the huge vulnerabilities in the Pakistani nuclear infrastructure at the time.

Kidwai says he has not received any specific intelligence from the United States about “sleeper” scientists trying to infiltrate Pakistan’s facilities. Moreover, he says, there is now also a far more effective screening process in place. When we met, Kidwai spent considerable time describing the extensive “personal-reliability program” that he has created to screen existing employees and applicants to the program. Kidwai’s intelligence agency monitors nuclear employees’ private bank accounts, foreign trips and meetings with anyone who might be considered an extremist. But Americans have their doubts. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates noted to me that “there is no human vetting system that is entirely reliable,” pointing out that lie detector tests and other screening techniques that C.I.A. em ployees regularly undergo have, at times, failed to identify spies. In Pakistan, the problem is made worse by the fact that the universities — where the nuclear program draws its young talent — are now more radicalized than at any time in memory, and the nuclear program itself has greatly expanded. Kidwai estimated that there are roughly 70,000 people who work in the nuclear complex in Pakistan, including 7,000 to 8,000 scientists and the 2,000 or so with “critical knowledge.” If even 1 percent of those employees are willing to spread Pakistan’s nuclear knowledge to outsiders with a cause, Kidwai — and the United States — have a problem.

JUST AS KIDWAI FEARS, every few months someone in Washington — either at the Pentagon, or the Energy Department, or on the campus of the National Defense University — runs a simulation of how the United States should respond if a terrorist group infiltrates the Pakistani nuclear program or manages to take over one or two of its weapons. In these exercises, everyone plays to type: the State Department urges negotiations, while the Joint Special Operations Command loads its soldiers and nuclear teams into airplanes. The results of these simulations are highly classified, for fear of tipping off the Pakistanis about what the United States knows and doesn’t know about the location of the country’s weapons. But most of these war games conclude in a sea of ambiguity, with the participants who are playing top officials in Islamabad and Washington unable to get a clear picture of what happened and, if something is missing, the Pakistanis unwilling to admit it. As one frequent participant in these tabletop exercises put it to me, “Most of them don’t end well.”

The Pakistanis insist that these American fears are exaggerated and that it would be next to impossible for someone to steal all the elements of a weapon. As Kidwai paced me through PowerPoints and diagrams, his message was that Pakistan’s nuclear-weapons-safety program is up to “international standards.” But back in Washington, military and nuclear experts told me that the bottom line is that if a real-life crisis broke out, it is unlikely that anyone would be able to assure an American president, with confidence, that he knew where all of Pakistan’s weapons were — or that none were in the hands of Islamic extremists. “It’s worse than that,” the participant in the simulations told me. “We can’t even certify exactly how many weapons the Pakistanis have — which makes it difficult to sound convincing that there’s nothing to worry about.”

Over time, it appears that the deep mutual suspicions have impeded the effort to ensure the safety of Pakistan’s arsenal. One of America’s key nuclear-safety technologies — PALs, or “permissive action links” — is a series of codes and hardware protections that make sure only a very small group of authorized users can arm and detonate a nuclear weapon. It is a cold-war leftover, designed to make sure some rogue sergeant in a silo didn’t wing a weapon toward Moscow. But it may be more important in the second nuclear age than it was in the first. When countries that have little or no experience with nuclear weapons suddenly find themselves stacking their arsenal up in tunnels and caves, it would be nice to know that a terrorist who procured a weapon could not simply set the timer and walk away.

PALs depend on what is essentially a switch in the firing circuit that requires the would-be user to enter a numeric code to start a timer for the weapon’s arming and detonation. If the sequence of numbers entered turns out to be incorrect in a fixed number of tries, the whole system disables itself. It is pretty similar to what happens when you repeatedly type the wrong password into an A.T.M., and the machine eats your bank card. But in this case, imagine that someone trying to use your stolen card entered the wrong code one time too many, and a series of small explosions was set off to wreck the innards of the bank machine. That’s what happens to an American warhead — it is rendered useless.

Pakistan would clearly benefit from a PALs system of its own. But under U. S. law, Washington cannot transfer nuclear technology to the Pakistanis, even technology to make their weapons safer, because the country is a rogue nuclear state. By all accounts, the Bush administration has abided by the law. Nuclear experts like Harold M. Agnew, the former director of the Los Alamos weapons laboratory, view the restriction as ridiculous. “Anybody who joins the club should be helped to get this,” he told my colleague Bill Broad. “Whether it’s India or Pakistan or China or Iran, the most important thing is that you want to make sure there is no unauthorized use. You want to make sure that the guys who have their hands on the weapons can’t use them without proper authorization.”

Even if Washington had made PALs available, it’s doubtful that the Pakistanis would have trusted the United States enough to accept them. Any PALs devices delivered in a FedEx box from Washington, they would have figured, would come with a secret “kill switch” allowing someone deep inside the bowels of the Pentagon to track or disable Pakistan’s nuclear assets. They would have undoubtedly been right.

Kidwai insists that he solved this problem by sending Pakistani engineers off to develop what you might call “Pak-PALs,” a domestic version of the American system. He told me that it was every bit as safe as the American version. No one will talk about what role, if any, the United States played in helping design this system. But history provides a possible guide. Back in the early 1970s, the United States sought to help France protect its own arsenal without directly divulging its own methods. American nuclear scientists began highly secretive discussions with their French counterparts that amounted to a game of 20 Questions, though in Washington-speak it was termed “negative guidance.”

IN BUSH’S LAST YEAR in office, Pakistan’s downward spiral came to dominate the meetings of the principals down in the Situation Room of the White House. First came the assassination in late December 2007 of Benazir Bhutto, which resulted in a secret trip by McConnell, the intelligence chief, and the director of the C.I.A., Michael V. Hayden, to Islamabad. It was the first of a series of secret missions to convince Musharraf and his handpicked successor as the chief of the army, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, that the militants in the tribal areas were now aiming to bring down the government in Islamabad. The message was simple and direct: The Pakistani leadership needed to forget about India and focus on the threat from within.

But with each successive trip it became clearer and clearer, particularly to McConnell, that the gap between how Washington viewed the threat and how the Pakistanis viewed it was as yawning as ever. Even worse, suspicions grew that Inter-Services Intelligence was directly aiding the Taliban and other jihadist militants, seeing them as a useful counterweight to India’s influence in the region.

Washington’s sanguinity was not increased when Pakistan’s new prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, arrived in Washington over the summer for what turned out to be a disastrous first visit. Gilani, as the country’s first civilian leader in more than a decade, was under huge pressure to show he could bring the intelligence agency, and the country, under control. He couldn’t — a brief effort to force the ISI to report to the civilian leadership was quashed — but he thought he had better show up with a gift for President Bush.

Gilani wanted to tell Bush that he had sent forces into the tribal areas to clean out a major madrassa where hard-line ideology and intolerance were part of the daily curriculum. There were roughly 25,000 such private Islamic schools around Pakistan, though only a small number of them regularly bred young terrorists. The one he decided to target was run by the Haqqani faction of Islamic militants, one of the most powerful in the tribal areas.

Though Gilani never knew it, Bush was aware of this gift in advance. The National Security Agency had picked up intercepts indicating that a Pakistani unit warned the leadership of the school about what was coming before carrying out its raid. “They must have called 1-800-HAQQANI,” said one person who was familiar with the intercepted conversation. According to another, the account of the warning sent to the school was almost comic. “It was something like, ‘Hey, we’re going to hit your place in a few days, so if anyone important is there, you might want to tell them to scram.’ ”

When the “attack” on the madrassa came, the Pakistani forces grabbed a few guns and hauled away a few teenagers. Sure enough, a few days later Gilani showed up in the Oval Office and conveyed the wonderful news to Bush: the great crackdown on the madrassas had begun. The officials in the room — Bush; his national security adviser, Stephen Hadley; and others — did not want to confront Gilani with the evidence that the school had been warned. That would have required revealing sensitive intercepts, and they judged, according to participants in the discussion, that Gilani was both incapable of keeping a secret and incapable of cracking down on his military and intelligence units. Indeed, Gilani may not even have been aware that his gift was a charade: Bush and Hadley may well have known more about the military’s actions than the prime minister himself.

WHAT OBAMA NOW inherits in Pakistan is a fully dysfunctional relationship between that country and the United States. Last summer, Bush signed secret orders allowing American special forces to run ground raids into Pakistani territory to root out not only Al Qaeda but also a list of other militants who could be targeted by either the C.I.A. or American military commandos. The first such raid, in September, provoked such a firefight and outrage in Pakistan that most other raids were suspended. But the reasons for the Pakistani government’s anger went beyond the concern that Bush was publicly violating Pakistani sovereignty. If American special forces were now authorized to come into the country to snatch or kill a range of militants, several Pakistani officials said to me, would it be very long before they tried to get the country’s nuclear weapons as well?

Though few in Washington will admit it, it is the right question. At the end of Bush’s term, his aides handed over to Obama’s transition team a lengthy review of policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan, concluding that in the end, the United States has far more at stake in preventing Pakistan’s collapse than it does in stabilizing Afghanistan or Iraq.

“Only one of those countries has a hundred nuclear weapons,” a primary author of the report said to me. For Al Qaeda and the other Islamists, he went on to say, “this is the home game.” He paused, before offering up the next thought: For anyone trying to keep a nuclear weapon from going off in the United States, it’s our home game, too.

Few More Collage

2009-01-02T12:02:00.005-05:00

So as I said earlier, I was into creating collage for my family. Here are few more of them. Its fun creating them and then looking at different moods of Sameer.

Hope all you really like these pictures.

The Next World Order

2009-01-02T11:57:00.003-05:00

This is the article in New York Times "The Next world Order" by Gurucharan Das. Its nice to read what he has written -

CHINA and India are in a struggle for a top rung on the ladder of world power, but their approaches to the state and to power could not be more different.
Two days after last month’s terrorist attack on Mumbai, I met with a Chinese friend who was visiting India on business. He was shocked as much by the transparent and competitive minute-by-minute reporting of the attack by India’s dozens of news channels as by the ineffectual response of the government. He had seen a middle-class housewife on national television tell a reporter that the Indian commandos delayed in engaging the terrorists because they were too busy guarding political big shots. He asked how the woman could get away with such a statement.
I explained sarcasm resonates in a nation that is angry and disappointed with its politicians. My friend switched the subject to the poor condition of India’s roads, its dilapidated cities and the constant blackouts. Suddenly, he stopped and asked: “With all this, how did you become the second-fastest growing economy in the world? China’s leaders fear the day when India’s government will get its act together.”
The answer to his question may lie in a common saying among Indians that “our economy grows at night when the government is asleep.” As if to illustrate this, the Mumbai stock market rose in the period after the terrorist attacks. Two weeks later, in several state elections, incumbents were ousted over economic issues, not security.
All this baffled my Chinese friend, and undoubtedly many of his countrymen, whose own success story has been scripted by an efficient state. They are uneasy because their chief ally, Pakistan, is consistently linked to terrorism while across the border India’s economy keeps rising disdainfully. It puzzles them that the anger in India over the Mumbai attacks is directed against Indian politicians rather than Muslims or Pakistan.
The global financial crisis has definitely affected India’s growth, and it will be down to perhaps 7 percent this year from 8.7 percent in 2007. According to my friend, China is hurting even more. What really perplexes the Chinese, he said, is that scores of nations have engaged in the same sorts of economic reforms as India, so why is it that it’s the Indian economy that has become the developing world’s second best? The speed with which India is creating world-class companies is also a shock to the Chinese, whose corporate structure is based on state-owned and foreign companies.
I have no satisfactory explanation for all this, but I think it may have something to do with India’s much-reviled caste system. Vaishyas, members of the merchant caste, who have learned over generations how to accumulate capital, give the nation a competitive advantage. Classical liberals may be right in thinking that commerce is a natural trait, but it helps if there is a devoted group of risk-taking entrepreneurs around to take advantage of the opportunity. Not surprisingly, Vaishyas still dominate the Forbes list of Indian billionaires.
In a much-discussed magazine article last year, Lee Kwan Yew, the former prime minister of Singapore, raised an important question: Why does the rest of the world view China’s rise as a threat but India’s as a wonderful success story? The answer is that India is a vast, unwieldy, open democracy ruled by a coalition of 20 parties. It is evolving through a daily flow of ideas among the conservative forces of caste and religion, the liberals who dominate intellectual life, and the new forces of global capitalism.
The idea of becoming a military power in the 21st century embarrasses many Indians. This ambivalence goes beyond Mahatma Gandhi’s nonviolent struggle for India’s freedom, or even the Buddha’s message of peace. The skeptical Indian temper goes back to the 3,500-year-old “Nasadiya” verse of the Rig Veda, which meditates on the creation of the universe: “Who knows and who can say, whence it was born and whence came this creation? The gods are later than this world’s creation. Who knows then whence it first came into being?” When you have millions of gods, you cannot afford to be theologically narcissistic. It also makes you suspect power.
Both the Chinese and the Indians are convinced that their prosperity will only increase in the 21st century. In China it will be induced by the state; in India’s case, it may well happen despite the state. Indians expect to continue their relentless march toward a modern, democratic, market-based future. In this, terrorist attacks are a noisy, tragic, but ultimately futile sideshow.
However, Indians are painfully aware that they must reform their government bureaucracy, police and judiciary — institutions, paradoxically, they were so proud of a generation ago. When that happens, India may become formidable, a thought that undoubtedly worries China’s leaders.
Gurcharan Das is the author of “India Unbound.”

Collage

2008-12-23T11:17:00.003-05:00

I was soo facinated with all the x-mas pictures that I thought I should create a collage for it. So this is my first attempt to create collage, forgive me if you don't like it.

Also the date on pictures is all messed up, because I never bothered myself to set date/time on my camera. :)

Finally Santa Clause is coming....

2008-12-23T10:10:00.001-05:00

Jingle bells....jingle bells...jingle all the way...

2008-12-23T09:56:00.001-05:00

Santa Clause is coming..... to town

2008-12-23T09:39:00.002-05:00

This is soo cute.

safari browser or iPhone?

2008-11-04T20:14:00.003-05:00

Well did some research on safari browser on iPhone, and it was an eye opener. I'm not alone!!! There are like million other users cursing safari browser on iPhone. So while reading different kind of discussion forums, guess what's the solution? "reboot!!!" Yes gentlemen, iPhone requires a reboot to fix this problem.

So who was talking about Microsoft, that all its application needs reboot when they behave funky? :)

annoying features of iPhone

2008-11-04T10:01:00.004-05:00

Here I go again.

It has been now almost a month, that i have been using my iPhone. Overall user interface is very good, but there are few things which annoy me a lot. There is no way that i can open two applications in iPhone. I was so stuck few days back. I had open a demo account of forex on Saxo web. Once registration was done, they send me a user name and password in an email. the user name was 8 digit number and password was a 10 character alpha numeric string. Now there is NO F%$%#%#$% way to 'copy' and 'paste' stuff in iPhone. Also I have to remember my user name and then go to the Saxo application, but to open Saxo application, i have to close my mail client (how stupid is that...). by the time i reached saxo web client, i forgot my user name, so i went back to my mails, for which of course i had to close the saxo web client. so this went on for couple of minutes, after which i gave up. How frustrating can that be?

Now i understand why Apple is not Microsoft. These are very small features, which are always taken care by Microsoft, but we only appreciate them once we move to some other platform.

Other major problem which i face is the 'Safari' browser in iPhone. Somehow it tends to crash on every other website. I tried using it for browsing Internet and after every few seconds it crashes without any reason. Then finally after digging into settings and all, I found that i can open a debug console window for Safari, to see the errors. Now imagine, I went to www.gmail.com, and my debug console is showing three errors, and all of them are that Safari cannot parse the HTML. How stupid is that? This means, safari is not even a proper browser and they launched it to market as there production version.

Well will write more, if i find something else. Till then enjoy the 'user interface' of iPhone.

my new toy

2008-10-24T15:29:00.004-04:00

Well finally I bought myself a toy. It feels like I'm a kid again. my wife always tells me, that you're like a kid, playing around with your iphone. Well the thing is, its addictive. Once you start using it, you cannot get your hands off it. Its like good old days, when dad use to get us a toy and we use to play with it whole day, and for first 2-3 days, we just don't want to sleep even. I remember, i was in high school, and we got a 6 CD changer 'Sansui' system. My brother and I went crazy and were not ready to sleep that night. So i guess same is happening to me again with this iPhone. I keep on downloading some games and try playing around with it, until I realise that its too late and i should sleep, unless I wanna get late for office next day :)

The best i like about this phone is the interface it has, and the easy of using it. It was surprising to see, my son got hold of this phone and less than a minute he knew how to use it.

Random Thoughts

2008-10-20T16:07:00.004-04:00

Just sitting in office gave me a random thought on how we indians celebrate festivals here and how tough is it for our kids to cope with two very different cultures. Last friday was 'karwachauth', so in the evening there is a pooja ceremony, so my wife was getting ready and she put 'sindoor', so my 3 year old kid ask her "What's that?". So it took her quite a time to explain, why she's putting this and what all it means. I'm sure, he doesn't care right now, but was just curious to know. Same happens when we have diwali or something else, we make sure that sameer wears traditional indian dress. atleast he should be aware of what our culture is.

I'm pretty sure when he grows up, he's gonna ask million questions, on why we do certain things. Like why don't we eat meat on tuesday. Or why cannot I eat beef? I don't know how I'm gonna make him understand these things, but I'm sure, he will understand :) {at least i can hope for right now}

Fun filled weekend

2008-10-13T16:39:00.003-04:00

Well my last weekend was horrible as well as very exciting. You guys might be thinking how's that possible. Well it can be because, according to me, weekend starts at Friday 5:00 p.m. But because i had to stay back till 8:00 in the evening, that's why it was shitty. Don't wanna explain why i was here till 8 because then I'll be all agitated again.

Anyway, the best part was that it was KC's [one of my friend] b'day. So we guys met to celebrate his b'day. The evening started with 3 vodka shots within a span of 5 minutes. [that's crazy...RIGHT!!!!]. well as soon as we finished that, we went to a bar at Metuchun. That's one place where we guys like it, because the guy there makes one of the best Irish Car bomb*. So finally had 2 shots of it. believe me, i was totally high by that time. But then someone [i know who, but will not name it :)] said, "lets try a patron shot". Pheeeew... i was NOT in for that, but then i was told, "COME ON .... PUNJABI...!!!". Now you guys know, why punjabi's are like heavy drinkers (but c'mon you also know they are the ones who ROCK the party). anyways we had one more drink, and finally planned to play pool. The intensity of these drinks can be weighed on the fact that KC started his game by picking up a broom rather than stick for pool. that made us crack a lot. Anyway, as we were about to come back, someone said, "KC is to be surprised at home, so we cannot leave for another 1/2 hr." So what guys had a chance for another drink :). All were again inside the bar and we had couple of Irish Car Bomb again. I don't think, anyone was in a condition to drive back, but somehow Tarun (the brave soul) volunteered himself, and took us to Quick check for coffee, because we were in no condition to face girls at home and spl. to KC's parents and in-laws. Anyhow, we got little bit sober, and finally went home. It was a great experience where KC was greeted with everyone dancing and all.

After cake cutting and all, we finally went upstairs to play poker. not to mention, i lost badly and still have to pay to Sahil and Munshi (which i plan to pay them in next game). So this was on friday night, came back around 5:00 in the morning. But was real fun.

It was more fun on Saturday as well as Sunday, but will write about that later.

*Recipe of Irish Car Bomb

3/4 pint Guinness® stout
1/2 shot Bailey's® Irish cream
1/2 shot Jameson® Irish whiskey

Add the Bailey's and Jameson to a shot glass, layering the Bailey's on the bottom. Pour the Guinness into a pint glass or beer mug 3/4 of the way full and let settle. Drop the shot glass into the Guinness and chug. If you don't drink it fast enough it will curdle and increasingly taste worse.

The Wheels of Life

2008-09-30T11:54:00.000-04:00

Battle at Kruger

2008-08-28T09:18:00.002-04:00

This is the batter at Kruger. Filmed at Kruger National Park in South Africa. Wonderful video, amazingly showing the old saying, 'United we stand'

End of story?

2008-08-18T10:28:00.005-04:00

So finally, whatever that rises, is due to fall. It might take a little while, but it does FALL!
Now the real test begins, for the two mainstream parties, how they will maintain this coalition together. Till now the only binding force for them was a united opposition to Musharaf. Now when musharaf is gone, what will keep them together is the main issue.

hoping for the best for the people of pakistan.

Happy Independence Day

2008-08-15T08:24:00.003-04:00

So once again, we're celebrating independence of India. Indians seem to be happy all over the world. Truly its a day to celebrate, but what are we celebrating for?

When i thought this for a while, I got optimistic as well as pessimistic. Optimistic, because to see India grow economically. We see the economy growing, people all over the world taking about India's economy. India becoming as a back office of the world. that makes me proud.

But when i think more deeply, i become pessimistic, to see how my country is ripped apart today. Things are beyond anybody's control. Bombs are going everywhere, people are dying. even today, after such a growth in economy our farmers are ending there own life just to get rid of there loans. Our politicians have no class, corruption is all time high. There is no basic infrastructure in the whole country.

It seems we still have a long way to go...

House warming party!

2008-08-10T22:21:00.008-04:00

finally yesterday we did our house warming party. It was fun, because we did a bar-b-q party. I got a new grill (3 burner gas grill). was fun watching all that chicken being cooked on it. Also for vegetarian people we did 'paneer tikka' {grilled cottage cheese}. hopefully people enjoyed a lot. the fun part was the cricket match played later on. It was funny to hit shots after having couple of beers and soo much chicken.

will upload more pictures soon...

Laloo and Maya

2008-08-07T10:26:00.004-04:00

These are 2 jokers in our Indian politics. Both are well known for there corruption and uncounted wealth. One became famous because he ate 'chaara' and other came to fame, because of her dirty remarks made on Hindus

(picture send by dipankar deb roy)

Trend of breaking news!

2008-08-06T15:24:00.006-04:00

Recently my parents were visiting us in US and for them I got them Hindi channel package, so that they can entertain themselves, or at least see Indian news channels (as my parents are always watching news).

Watching with them all these news channels, I realized, that nowadays every news channels has a 'Breaking News'. It can be from anywhere to anything. Just that they have to give a rubbish news but print it as 'BREAKING NEWS'. Anyway, here are few samples, but I won't say them as breaking news but they should be called as 'BARKING NEWS'

Sam in Pool

2008-07-26T10:24:00.002-04:00

Home Sweet Home!!!

2008-05-04T21:19:00.005-04:00

Well here I'm after a long time. Will not lie, I was lazy for quite some time. Never felt like writing anything. Also we were busy in house hunting. And FINALLY, got the dream house!!!!!

Few old pictures!

2007-12-26T16:05:00.000-05:00

Well in my last post, I tried creating an album on my blog, which was pretty cool. So i thought why not create another one, with the old pictures of Sameer what I have. So here it is...

X-mas Party

2007-12-26T09:19:00.000-05:00

Well it was really fun having a x-mas party at friend's place. It was awesome party, and offcourse we drank a lot. so here are few pictures for you guys to enjoy :)

Finnland Airport!

2007-12-23T17:10:00.000-05:00

Here's Sameer enjoying his India trip. While going to India, we had a stop over at Helsinke airport, so he was all set to drive his car, which had 2 steering wheels :)

Back in US!

2007-12-20T09:56:00.000-05:00

Well here I'm back in US again. Went to India for my brother's marriage. Will be posting pictures of marriage soon. But till then enjoy this video of Sameer, dancing on his chacha's sagan party. :)

Jai Sri Ram!

2007-10-26T14:05:00.001-04:00

A good friend of mine(Mukesh Kachroo), just send me this funny thing, so thought of sharing with you all.

Sri Rama surveyed the Ramsetu and said, "Hanuman, how diligently you and your vanara sena built this bridge. How remarkable that it has withstood the ravages of time, considering that a bridge at Hyderabad built by Gammon using the latest technology collapsed the other day even before they could stick posters on its pillars."

Hanuman said humbly, "Lord, it is because of your grace. We just wrote your name on the rocks and threw them into the sea and they held up. No steel or cement was used. But Lord, why rake it up now?"Said Rama, "Well, Hanuman, some people down there want to demolish your bridge and construct a canal. The contract involves lots of money They will make money on demolition and more money on construction."

Hanuman asked, "Why don't we go down and present our case?"

"No," said Rama, "Times have changed. Historians will ask us to submit proof of our existence. Do we have a birth certificate, a school-leaving certificate or a driving license? As for address proof, the fact that I was born at Ayodhya is itself under litigation for over half a century. If I go dressed as usual, the ordi- nary people may recognise me but politicians will take me to be a lost Ramlila actor."

"But I built it! I'll swear on oath!"

"My dear Anjaniputra, it will not work. They will ask you to produce the layout plan, the project details like financial outlay, how the project cost was met and the completion certificate. They may even want to see your engineering college degree."

"Lord, I don't understand. You have given darshan regularly to 'historical' figures like Surdas, Thyagaraja, Jayadeva and Tukaram, yet people disbelieve your existence? Should we replay the Ramayana on earth to set the government record straight?"

The Lord smiled. "It won't happen. Ravana is terrified that Karunanidhi will make a saint of him. And his mama Mareecha, who appeared as the golden deer to tempt Sita, refuses to step on earth for fear of Bollywood hunters. Let it be."

deal is DEAD

2007-10-16T12:49:00.000-04:00

finally the ball has been dropped. Its now a fact that Indo-US nuclear will not go ahead. after showing all the courage, congress party finally gave in. this makes me think that after all, personal greed gets so high that people forget about nation at all. today we're riding on 8-9% growth rate, which means future is good, but how are we gonna survive at this rate without the energy security. Or are we (oooopsss... i mean the left parties of India) thinking about to repeat china mistake and blacken our skies overnight by using coal based energy.

frankly speaking, i have never been a congress supporter. I have always experienced that congress party is one of the most corrupt parties in India (which doesn't mean other parties are not) and also one of the parties which has always landed India into mess. but for some reason, i started developing some respect for Manmohan Singh and Congress party as how they made a stand against left. but in the end, its the same story repeated again and again.

Left parties are still day dreaming that one day they gonna see a red flags everywhere, and communism is the way forward, but they need to look around and see, China (whom they follow blindly) has also embraced capitalism. the only problem with left is that how can they align with US. these guys have rejected US even in there sleep. And now the govt. whom they support, is aligning or shall i say tilting towards US. So its an ideological question for them. (without any thought process involved)

As far as I can see, deal is DEAD. And so is India's energy security. The best option would be that Congress party should negotiate with BJP to support the deal. (after all some credit goes to Vajpayee govt. too, to get this deal done)

On second thought Congress asking for help from BJP!! (am i day dreaming now...?)

Sameer talking

2007-10-14T09:11:00.000-04:00

Sameer's first music video

2007-09-30T23:28:00.000-04:00

Please enjoy Sameer's first music video. This is my first try, hope you guys like it :)

Sameer at Arkin's Birthday

2007-09-21T15:10:00.000-04:00

enough is enough!

2007-08-21T13:02:00.000-04:00

Well left is again up in arms with Congress over nuclear deal issue. Seems like left is always there to commit blunders in the history of India (details were in my previous post). I'm surprised the way they're opposing the deal. There are only 2 parties which seems to be benefited if this deal gets scrapped, Pakistan & China. And its well know from past that Communists still seems to follow China, and consider them as there masters. From there actions it has always been that CPI wants India to be a secondary power in Asia, and not be as powerful as China. Is this in national interest? But who thinks about nation anyway, they're busy doing there pity politics.

Was also surprised to read the comments from Mr. B Raman (former Additional Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India). He was describing that how Mr. Sitaram Yechury, raised hue & cry over the visa issue. He was describing that before Chinese president visit to India, a Chinese company won a contract for construction of gas pipeline and wanted to bring 1000 engineers from China. They requested visa for them, but home ministry & Intelligence Bureau was not clearing the matter. Indian govt. queried the Chinese company, that why can't they hire Indian Engg. here in India. On this Mr. Yechury pressurized the govt. so much, that in the end, they had to clear those 1000 visas. Would he have done the same thing, if US company wanted to bring those many people? I doubt! So basically there integrity is with China, not with India.

I think time has come when we need to decide who's with India and who's not. If someone is not, like the Left parties, they should better get visas for China and leave this place. We're bound to become a world power and no 'left' & 'right' can stop us.

Sameer calling wildlife!

2007-07-16T23:34:00.000-04:00

Sameer feeding ducks!

2007-07-16T23:15:00.000-04:00

Sameer having fun!

2007-07-16T23:08:00.000-04:00

a day at johnson park

2007-07-14T19:25:00.000-04:00

First of all I would like to thank my colleague (Dipankar Roy), who told me about Johnson Park. This is a park near our place in Piscataway. And the most wonderful part is, that it has a small petting zoo inside it. So we finally decided to take sameer to this park. It was really fun, as sameer was so happy to see all those animals, and fun part was that he starting feeding those ducks there & was actually chasing them later, in hope of catching one of them and giving them a hug. Over all it was quality time spent with family.

one more feather in cap!

2007-07-11T20:34:00.000-04:00

So one more feather in his cap. The current president of India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam has been chosen for King Charles II medal. He'll be the second head of state getting this award, after Emperor of Japan. Moreover person like Kalam doesn't need any recognition, but truly he's the best president India had so far. He's one person who has put India on the world map, as he has always said "Strength respects Strength". He's the person behind India's strength today, specially if we're talking about military strength. Also he has a major role in igniting minds, I think the kind of interaction he has done with people of India during his tenure, no other president has done so far.

The only sad part is that he's not getting a second term as president of India.

doctor's oath

2007-07-06T13:47:00.002-04:00

today's bhasmasur

2007-07-06T09:10:00.000-04:00

Today it reminds of a story which I guess my grandparents as well as my parents use to tell me. It was a mythological story about 'Bhasmasur'. The story goes as following: -

Bhasmasur was a wicked devil who worshipped Lord Shiva for a long time. Lord was moved by his Tapasya and had to appear before him and grant him his wish. Bhasmasur asked for the ability that whenever he would put his hands on somebody’s head, the person should get burned off and turned into ashes. Lord Shiva did not realize the consequences and granted him the wish. As soon as he got the power, Mahisasur started off to test it on no one else but Lord Shiva himself. He started chasing him. Lord Shiva ran away from him, but Bhasmasur won’t give up. While running, Lord Shiva also appealed to Lord Vishnu. Lord Vishnu realized the disaster that was facing the universe. He thought of a trick. He took the form of a very beautiful woman, called Mohini and went to Bhasmasur. Bhasmasur immediately fell for Mohini. He would do anything Mohini would do or say. She started dancing and Bhasmasur followed. In the course of dancing Mohini made a posture in which she put her hand on her head. Bhasmasur followed and turned himself into ashes due to the power he had recently gained.

Now cut to today's world, it seems like US is Lord Shiva who created a menace of Pakistan with the terror network, which turned against him itself, creating 9/11, and this 'bhasmasur' is still running after 'lord shiva' to destroy it. Lets see when 'lord vishnu' comes in form of 'mohini' to dismantle this terror network.

'Nation being taken for a ride'

2007-07-04T22:41:00.000-04:00

I have been quite amazed that for so many years 'Abhishek Singhvi' (official spokesperson of Congress Party) has managed to remain at same position, despite his non-sense articles in media. Just few minutes back i have read his article in Hindustan Times, and i have been wondering to what level Congress party gone down.

Mr Singhvi pointed out that they rejected Kalam's second term because BJP never accepted congress offer for K.R. Naraynan. Are we talking about constructive politics or are we talking about some hooligans deciding on country's future? because this seems to be the case of hooligans or school going kids fighting for a candy. but basic question has still not been answered, that why Kalam's name was rejected? that too despite of fact that 90% people of this country wanted him as our president for second term. Congress party can right now ignore all polls conducted by media, but they gonna face the music very soon in 2009.

Second charge answered by Mr. Singhvi was about Ranji Patel who blamed that Pratibha Patil's brother is an accuse in murder case. The explanation given is that courts do not have the same view and now CBI is doing its job. Well for god sake Mr. Singhvi, we know how CBI works, the prime example is Bofor's case, and we have seen CBI & this govt. doing its best. Also why is it that now you remember to explain this to nation, why not when these charges were levelled?

Third, Mr. Singhvi has explained about the bank loan case. The first thing he tells this nation is that it was not 12 relatives but 6. Yeah!!.... like that makes any difference to us? The fact is that there were relatives involved in this whole scandal. Then with quite enthusiasm he tells nation that its nor 2.4 crore but just 32 lakh Rs. to be recovered, so he's telling the nation, that you cannot rob tax payers money if its 2.4 crore but its ok to rob nation for meager 32 Lacs. What a shameful explanation.

Fourth, he's trying to tell this nation that L.K Advani is also tainted and was holding an office of Deputy Prime Minister in Vajpayee Govt. So this again amounts to same hooliganism, that you had a tainted person, so we'll also do the same. When will congress party understand that what they're doing is insulting this nation. Its not a game between Congress & BJP or UPA & NDA, its a joke being played on nation by Congress party & specifically Sonia Gandhi.

In the end, Mr. Singhvi has given a long list of what all positions Ms. Pratibha Patil had worked till date. and then he has tried to compare it with B.S Shekhawat. Well all i can say and whole nation knows about it, that she was not congress's first choice. The choices for president were good old leaders of congress party who were rejected by Left. She was not even second or third choice by congress. Its just a luck or shall i say, ugly face of coalition politics that she's becoming the president of India. Because as such 80-90% of this country didn't even know about her few weeks back. And moreover please stop saying that you're empowering women, because if that was the case then women's bill would have been passed a decade earlier, so don't bull shit about this. She's just there because she can play as a puppet in the hands of Sonia Gandhi, like Mr. Manmohan Singh is doing.

I'll stop now, nothing to write, its a sad state of a nation being taken for a ride by these politicians. :(

'bapu' back in business

2007-07-02T22:45:00.000-04:00

So again 'bapu' is back in business. Our politicians are very clever to play along with the sentiments of poor people. Everyone started screaming because so called letter written by gandhi was up for sale. This letter written by gandhi is a seven page original manuscript, which was about to be auctioned. But because govt. of India feels that gandhi only belongs to them so there were loud noises coming all way along. But what a hypocrisy! We're fighting for a letter just because it was written by gandhi, but what about the teaching of gandhi, which are not written anywhere but gandhi himself taught to world. Are we really following them? moreover the very politicians who came to power by naming gandhi, are the ones who are most corrupt.

Today govt. of India twisted an arm or two to make sure the letter is not for auction. How very ironical, that govt. machinery runs full swing for a piece of paper, but if it was to rescue some ordinary Indian citizen from some crisis, this govt. doesn't even bother to do anything. Imagine the level our politicians have gone, they can do everything to make sure the piece of crap comes back to India to rotten in some govt. files as 'archives' but when some brave men working in Afghanistan are kidnapped by terrorists, this govt. does nothing and let them die. Later on they are termed as 'shaheed'. This govt. can run pillar to post to save that paper (which might be useful in my toilet) but does nothing to take revenge of people who died in Mumbai train blasts, despite of knowing all the locations of terror camps across the border. I can give number of examples, but no use. all will fell on deaf ears.

And what else can i say, rest is to the people of this nation to decide, whom to give power, but the saddest part is that in the end, polling will be again done on basis of caste & religion.

nothing left for 'Left'

2007-06-26T09:30:00.000-04:00

With all the smoke & confusion going on with presidential elections in India, I was thinking about something else. In all the newspapers, there was no news on what the Left parties (CPI, CPM and don't know how many more) are thinking about. Old documents have come out from the closet to show, how Pratibha Patil played a major role in establishing a bank and then gave loans to her own relatives which were later not even recovered. The bank licence was revoked by RBI later. But in all this chaos, where are the left parties, are they still supporting the candidature of Pratibha Patil? Well seems like they are, which in turn means that Left is again due to make another historic blunder. I'm so sick & tired of there blunders. Lets take a historic tour to see what all they have done till now and I'm afraid after regaining these thoughts, all of you will agree with me that left has nothing left with them.

In 1939 the Communists deserted Subhash Chandra Bose's Left Consolidation Committee and later, after he formed the Indian National Army, called him a "Quisling". The nationalists in Bengal were greatly offended. To make amends Jyoti Basu admitted, long after in 1970 at a Netaji Exhibition in Calcutta that his party was wrong in its assessment of the leader. That is what is known as eating crow.
In 1942 when Gandhiji called upon the British to Quit India, the Communists betrayed the Congress and the country. When Hitler attacked Poland, the CPI had called it an Imperialist War. But when the Fuehrer attacked the Soviet Union, the same CPI decided the war had become a People's War. Between 1942 and 1944, the CPI betrayed several Congress underground workers to the police for which it was liberally paid by the British Government.
When India became free, that freedom was dismissed as false and Jawaharlal Nehru was dismissed as a lackey - the phrase used was 'running dog' - of Anglo-American imperialism. This went on for a long time until the party found itself out of national alignment. It had to change tracks to gain respectability.
When China attacked India in 1962, followers of the Mao line within the CPI called India the aggressor to form the CPI(M). The CPI(M) shamelessly and traitorously criticised its own country. Mao Tse-tung was raised to sainthood in Calcutta. To this day there is a Mao Tse-tung Sarani in Calcutta. Mao has been practically disowned in his own country but not by the CPM
It was the CPM again which spawned the Naxalite movement of 'annihilating' the class enemy. The CPM is accountable to the nation for the number of murders committed by the Naxalites. It was only after the death of Charu Mazumdar in 1972 that the CPM saw the light.
It was the CPI, under S A Dange. that supported the Emergency in 1975. Three years later the party again had to admit that it had committed a blunder. No doubt another historic blunder.

Throughout its turbulent history the Communist Party has been anti-national and when it has not been pro-Soviet Union it has been pro-Communist China but never pro-India. The Communist Party
abounds in disgrace. Time and time again the party has been on the wrong side of the fence. And now again, by supporting a corrupt person for the highest post in country, they're yet to do another historic blunder in there life.

Might be this is one event which will trigger the chain reaction and 'Left' will be left no more.

summer time

2007-06-22T10:02:00.001-04:00

Its becoming hot day by day here, and even sameer wants to stay cool for what he wears :)

playing around

2007-06-22T09:51:00.000-04:00

It has been such a wonderful experience playing around with sameer. few days back, we went to Woodbridge Mall, which is like 8-9 miles form our place. These are few pictures of him playing in the children play area inside the Mall.

a wild thought

2007-06-21T22:32:00.000-04:00

I was sitting at home, reading newspapers online, and somewhere i read a news that Mr. Narendra Modi (CM Gujrat) has asked the presidential nominee of Congress to promise that she will never allow any person of foreign origin to become prime minister of India. This gave such a wild shock to me, because the game plan what i have been trying to understand was now so much clear in my mind. I have been banging my head all over to think, that what's the matter with congress, why the hell they don't want A.P.J Abdul Kalam to run for second term? but now the picture became soo much clear, its all because 'madam' wants to be the next prime minister of India, and the only person who could have stopped this was Kalam. So under a bigger game plan, he's being removed from the scene. If my reading is correct, after Pratibha bai becomes president, something dramatic is gone happen on Indian political scene and Manmohan Singh will be asked to resign, so that 'madam' can take his place.

All I can think of right now is -
GOD PLEASE SAVE MY COUNTRY!!!

search for a rubber stamp!

2007-06-20T16:26:00.000-04:00

here we're again, discussing another political joke played on Indian citizens by Congress. This time its the Presidential elections. I still don't understand, what prompted the name of 'Pratibha Patil'? Let me guess, our beloved Prime minister must be feeling quite lonely, being as a single rubber stamp of 'madam', and getting the beating every time something goes wrong. So he thought, lets increase the club by one more member.

As far as I can see, every Indian citizen must look at the bigger picture. currently India is run by 'madam', the prime minister is just a puppet in her hands. even so much that he doesn't even dare to get himself elected in lok sabha (lower house), because then he has to face public, rather than that, he prefers to get elected from Rajya Sabha. this is for the first time in the history of this country, that prime minister has never been elected 'by the people'. Now if we analyze the whole situation, there is only post left which doesn't come under the preview of 'madam', that's the 'President of India'. So 'madam' again played her game by selecting someone, who will be a puppet in her hands.

Last time in Indian history it happened was when Zail singh was made president. He was the worse president India can ever had, but seems like Congress party or shall I say 'Madam' wants to break this record. (After all a person (party) holding some record wants to break his own record.)

The real tragedy in this whole issue is that when some one tries to raise there voices against the presidential nominee, congress party's spokesperson start barking on media that these people are against women liberation. B*** SHIT!! Before first claiming that, anyone from congress party can tell us, what were Pratibha's achievements in life, and when i say achievements, i mean real one, more than just licking the feet of Indira or Sonia Gandhi. Lets come on facts, face the truth, no one knew her before some people announced her name for president. She has no history, whatsoever of public service. she was living her retired life as governor of Rajisthan, rewarded for her loyalty to 'madam'. but now because 'madam' needs a rubber stamp on top, so that she can do whatsoever she wants with this country, she has been selected.

Its a shame that no one else looks at this game plan.

Why clemency?

2006-10-14T08:35:00.000-04:00

Mohd. Afzal!! while this name is repeated all over the media, what does a common man like me thinks about it? I think ( and almost 99% will agree), the first thing which comes into mind is the day when our nation was under attack. He is the person who supported those who were behind this attack. But today after justice being done and a death penality given to him, our beloved politicians have started their dirty game. Now they are asking for clemency. And on the forefront are the left parties covertly supported by congress party( as they need muslim votes in there next election)

Well i was thinking, that lets imagine the day of 13th Dec. Lets imagine, that our security forces were too relaxed and the people who laid there life that day for the nation were too coward to rise to the occasion. Lets imagine the terrorists would have successfully entered the parliament and would have taken few of the politicians as hostage! Now lets imagine that in those politicians were mr. gulam nabi azad, few of left leaders. So what would have been the response of govt. to these terroists? I'm 100% sure that the govt. of india would have been on its knees and agreed to demands of the terrorists. But because these politicians have not lost even a single family member in terror attacks, that's the reason they're talking about clemency. I even wonder why Sonia gandhi is even allowing mr. azad to put forward such demands!

Are the people who lost there lives to safe the political class of this nation have no right to get justice? why are we even tolerating such kind of discussions about clemency? The guy is an enemy of state and he deserves to be hanged.

Even people like farukh abdullah are coming forward and telling the nation that if Afzal is hanged the peace process between india and pakistan will get damaged & India will be in flames. but shall i ask mr. farukh abdullah, that why should we care about that peace process when pakistan is still sponsering terrorism across our country. And moreover are we now talking about giving justice related to our national foreign policy? Tomorrow if someone kills a person and claims himself as a kashmiri then will you again say that "ooh this is a kashmiri, don't give him any sentence because then he'll be a hero in kashmir and peace process will get damaged". Bull shit! What i think, right now, people of india don't care about peace process (spl. after mumbai train blasts) . What we care is that how soon we can punish the people by law.

When some security personal is killed in kashmir in some terror attack, does Mr. Abdullah go to pakistan to those terror camps to tell those guys that now again peace process will get damaged. Mr. abdullah, you cannot do that, you can only do this in India because we have given you the freedom to speak on anything (even if that means hurting sentiments of 98% of indian population, as you only care about Kashmir).

All i can say is that all these discussions are useless, lets repect the people who laid there life for our nation. The justice must be delivered and Afzal must be hanged to death.

Irony of a 'Bharat Ratan'

2006-08-21T21:59:00.000-04:00

The country mourns at the death of Ustad Bismillah Khan. The whole country is sad, flags are half-mast. I believe all Indians were proud of this man, as he represented India to an international stage, at the time when you didn't find any Indian presence on the world map.

But irony of this man is that despite receiving the highest civilian award of this country, he was not even able to meet his ends. Our politicians are now giving there views about Ustad, but what's the use now? He was not provided with any financial aid whatsoever when he was alive, but now when he's dead, the PM office sends a cheque of 2.5 lakh to his house. That's how the govt. of india behaves. There is never an 'action' from their part, its always a 'reaction'.

Even the Indian press is the same. The are now coming up with the stories that Bismillah Khan was not able to feed his family and was still roaming on the streets of Varanasi on a cycle-rickshaw. Where was this press before he died? Why is that we always hear such stories after the person is deceased? If this story would have been out around an year back, then might be govt. would have provided some kind of financial assistance to Ustad. But sad, our politicians are busy filling in there pockets, why would they ever try to help someone needy.

Over all the moral of the story is that even if you're a 'Bharat Ratan', you are still going to die in misery in this country, and our beloved politicians are going to become rich day by day.

National Pride?

2006-07-16T17:59:00.000-04:00

I'm very impressed by bigfatman's comments: -

bigfatman said...

you should be ashamed of criticizing a country that so firmly believes in following the principles of Mr. Gandhi. You, of all people, should know that we as a people have now evolved to firmly and surely showing the other cheek. In fact, we have evolved the principle to a new level, instead of showing the other cheek, we now pull our pants down and stick our ass out - do it again!

some people will make some money in the higher echelons of police and government... And the people will then be forgotten. National pride is something that is non-existent in our country, save for a miniscule double precision decimal percentage.

By reading these comments, I'm forced to write this blog. It made me think a lot of what national pride is and do we Indians really have any national pride?

Just have a look at Indian history, its all full with facts that there never existed a national pride. We have been dealing with our problems by closing our eyes and believing that there was never a problem. Imagine the time when Alam shah use to rule India, don't know why he went crazy that he invited Bahlul Khan Lodi to take his throne, so was there any national pride in him, that he just gifted away his country to an Afghan ruler? So there came the Lodi Empire to India. Now when these chaps settled down and started thinking that this is their country, they too lost the national pride :) They knew Babar was to attack India, as he was coming with his forces by crossing Satluj river, but they all conveniently sit in there palace and waited for him to come till Panipat. So how much crazy can one become? You have to fight a war at no man's land, not at your own homeland and no one allows the enemy to penerate till such extend that if you loose, you have no choice. Isn't it the same thing happening again? Aren't we allowing our enemies to penerate so much deep in our own territory? Will we ever learn anything from our past mistakes?

Then came the mighty british, they came here as businessmen, but because of our foolishness they rule us for more than 200 years. So people thought because of the national pride and Gandhi we got freedom. But then why it took 200 years? Nobody in this country thinks rationally, that it was the time when World War-II has ended and Great Britain was in no position to maintain its colony, so they were force to free us. Otherwise we would have been still there slaves.

I think there were only few people who managed to generate some amount of national pride in Indians, people like Chatrapati Shivaji, Bhagat Singh, Sardar Patel etc. But if we see in detail, these were the people who used the same weapon what enemy is using nowadays. Kill and run! So over all, our enemies did learn from our past, but we are bunch of idiots who cannot learn.

Did we ever thought, that why still people don't reply that "I'm an Indian" if you ask them "Who are you?" We're still divided on basis of caste, creed and color. All the basic rights what constitution gives, we're divided on those fundamentals rights itself.

On top of all this, the political class is much ahead of us, they're the first ones to tell that see you vote for us, because the candidate we have chosen for you belongs to same caste of yours. So in the end you have your caste people in the parliament, but those are the most unprofessional, unethical bunch of coward crooks.

Bottom line, nation is at loss.

Yet another Bomb Blast

2006-07-15T21:48:00.000-04:00

Here we are! Yet another bomb(s) ripping off the finacial capital of this country. We Indians are again taken for a ride. But frankly speaking we're a bunch of stupid idiots who actually are meant to die in these kind of bomb blasts. Because we as people choose cowards to rule us. That's the downside of so called 'democracy'. My belief is now more strong that India as country and we as indians do not deserve democracy, we need a chap on our head who can blow out anyone with one single shot. Imagine a country of more than a billion people, and still anyone can come, place bombs and just hide away. The worse part in this whole episode is that after these bombs went off, our beloved prime minister gave a historic statement "this is done by terrorists". F***g shit! everybody knows this Mr. PM, or were u revealing some dark secret to the world?

Our response to terrorism is the most pathetic one. Mr. PM, please learn something from US, it was just one incident and they bombed the whole country, rather they're ready to bomb whole world. And for us, despite knowing all locations of terror camps, we just sit and watch those bastards cross the LOC, come here, rip us apart then make congratulating phone calls to Pakistan.

Mr. PM, please stop playing with people! We know that all politicians are a bunch of crooks, which we have accepted, because we understand, now politics is a business, so u along with all ur fellow crooks are there to make money, but atleast show some respect of that money. Today if a person takes a hooker for 100 bucks, atleast she sleeps with her customer but you politicians..........

If you have a problem with taking an example of US, then atleast see how Isreal reacts to terrorism, atleast their political class has the guts to go and bomb terror camps.

Let me ask a question to this govt. for what are we testing Agni-I, II & III? To display them on 26th Jan parade? I don't think that the people of india want these missiles to be in parade anymore, they want them to be dropped in each & every city of Pakistan. They must face the same music, then they will understand what they were doing. Its shame on this country and to people like us, that having such huge armed forces, we still sit and see all this. And its true for this govt. that 'govern or get out'. If you cannot handle the situation, please let some one else come and handle it. Seems like you're more good in saying 'yes madam', so better sit with madam and eat 'pizza', because you have forgotten what 'punjabi parantha' is!

I personally feel, that this PM (Mr. Manmohan Singh) will be the worse one ever for India, and history will prove it.

Just analyze the whole situation, this PM cannot conrol his own HRD minister Mr. Arjun Singh. He's having his own agenda, on which he's firm. Then there is Mr. Ramadoss, who himself being a doctor needs immd. medical attention spl. in some mental asylum. He's also having his own agenda against a reputed sr. doctor of this country. Then comes angry 'Left' brothers, who are always pulling govt. from one side or another. They still dream a red flag everywhere, so they don't care about country's economy, they just want red flags everywhere (silly bunch of people). There also a joker in these crooks (Railway minister), who has nowadays stopped laughing, since he has lost bihar. So looking briefly, every ministry has its own agenda and they're working on it, so what's PM doing? Hmmm....let us guess, well what else eating 'pizza' ('yes madam')

Lets pray to god to save this counry, because now i feel no one else can!

Congress Party's dream of INDIA

2006-06-01T12:06:00.000-04:00

If this govt. is so sure of what they're doing, then this might be the future of India!

Govt. Gone Mad

2006-05-24T23:16:00.000-04:00

Seems like our beloved HRD Minister Mr. Arjun Singh feels he's much more intelligent than all the people who're running IIT's and IIM's. Or may be he feels like he's better than all those resident doctors who are fighting against this unjustice.

Personally I think that it was only Arjun singh, who has gone out of his brains, but now seems this govt. in whole has gone nuts. Just to increase there vote bank, they are now planning to increase seats in all higher level educational institutes. For which an additional burden of Rs. 8000 crores is expected. So from where will this money come from? Will these politicians be paying from there own pocket for all that bribes they have accumated in there whole life? Well obvious answer is that it will be taken from us, the common man will be shelling out from his own pocket.
It will be same what happend last time, the govt. falied to detect Kargil intrusion, and then later on common man was paying an additonal tax for it. And moreover the problem is not to pay tax, problem is that this additional 8000 crores which will come, 7999.9999999999 crores will go into the pockets of these crooks which shows there nice face in public but actually are eating this country in whole.

I still, personally admire the medicos students are single handedly fighting this war of injustice. Mr. Arjun Singh doesn't seem to budge, or infact no one in this govt. seems to care, because they all know when they need medical help, these crooks will be going to hospitals like Apollo or may be travelling to US for their treatment.

What I feel is that now the time has come that the President of India should stop acting like a rubber stamp. He must act now to push this govt. to back foot, otherwise Congress party is doing what its known do best. "DIVIDING THIS COUNTRY"

Mandal - II

2006-05-20T22:30:00.000-04:00

I was wondering where we’re heading to? Is this the same country of which we all have dreamed of? I was in school at the time of Mandal-I, and that time we use to wonder that what has really happened? It was nice all along and suddenly we were told that “Oh! You’re from general category, MAN! You don’t even get a job now, because of this Mandal commission” Those were the times that V.P. Singh was like devil for us(he's still for me), and now Arjun Singh (adding another one in the long list) must be the same. That’s a different story that I still managed to get a good job, but it gave us such a fear that our lives have been spoiled by these dirty politicians. Because over all my impression is that these people are bunch of crooks, who are not at all worried about the development of country, all they are worried about is how to make tons of money, consider the caste as a vote bank. Sometimes I do wonder, is the system in which we’re living, is good enough? Aren’t these politicians to be hanged on the road side for what they’re doing. These are the people who are filling in venom in common man, just by stating it off different caste, different religion etc. For me mandal doesn’t make any difference, but imagine a situation where there is a kid who belongs to a higher caste but doesn’t have enough resources that he can go to a good school or may be good college. But because he doesn’t belong to OBC/SC/ST he won’t get reservation. Shouldn’t we look at this problem by financial status of the person? And shouldn’t we give reservation to just 2 generations? I mean imagine a situation that I belong to a poor family and I got a reservation with which I get a job, so the system (govt.) fulfilled its part to get me a good job, which in turn means that my financial status will improve. Now considering that my son/daughter will need little assistance, so s/he too gets reservation, so 2 generations from family gets it which means they come at par or at some level to support there next kin. That’s it! The reservation should now stop for them and they must be considered under general category. So with this what I feel is that govt. will be able to eradicate the whole system within 50-70 years. Hopefully god gives some thought to our politicians too, and they stop dividing this country on caste and religion.

The Joy Of My Life

2006-04-23T12:21:00.000-04:00

My precious little baby boy is the joy of my life. He is now 8 months old and watching him grow day by day is no less of a miracle for me. I feel overwhelmed to see him laugh, to cry, to play and all I can think is that he is my blood, a part of me and my love. How can I not love someone who is a part of me.

It feels just like yesterday that he was born and the first time I saw him, there were tears of joy in my eyes, bec he seemed more beautiful to me than anything in this whole world. My heart was filled with pride and I was so happy that it is difficult for me to even express in words as to how immensly glad I was and how proud it felt to be a DAD. My much awaited little bundle of joy was finally here. Looking at him all bundled up in his blanket after coming out of the delivery room I could just imagine the future, and I started dreaming that soon he will be crawling, then walking and then talking and playing with me.

Well so far my dream has come true. I enjoy every moment of being with him and playing with him and making him laugh and teaching him to stand and walk. I am so exhilirated and delighted at being a proud father of such a wonderful baby that all the diaper changing and midnight feedings seem negligible in front of all that.

This my friends is the thrill of being a father, a feeling that cannot be fully expressed in words but is to be felt.
and about my precious little one I will keep you all updated on him and his new antics.

Foolish law makers

2006-04-01T06:59:00.000-05:00

I recently had the experience of purchasing a used car in the state of New Jersey (USA). At that time I was not having a NJ (or infact a US) driver's license (DL), but I did have an International driver's license (IDL) as well as my Indian DL confirming that I know how to drive and have been doing for a long time.

So before going to DMV, I called them up to confirm if I can buy the car on international driver's license, and they said YES. So there I was standing in a long queue, to get my car registered and thinking and dreaming that finally I'll own this car and go on a long drive with my family. Once I reached the counter, the lady behind the desk, politely handed me a form to fill. So I was excited and started filling in all the columns. And then I reached a column which said "NJ DL number", so I asked the lady if its necessary to fill this? She gave me a puzzled look as if I have done something wrong, or may be she was looking at me as if I resemble Osama bin laden! ( which I don't by the way :o))

Anyway even after such a look, I regained my guts to ask her again. She then frowned and sharply replied "You cannot buy a car without NJ DL". and gave me another look as if I had asked something very absurd. I again politely asked her, that why do I need to have a state license just to buy a car. License is needed when we drive a car not to buy a car, and for driving, I was already having an IDL, which should have been sufficient. But her reply was a standard one, that without a state license, I cannot buy a car, and then she refused to attend to me.

So now I was really pissed off on people who made these stupid laws. So my small and unintelligent brain asked her one last question. I again went up to her, and asked politely "Excuse me! I have a situation, I wish to buy a car (as I have the money to buy it) but I won't be driving it. I'll keep a chauffeur to drive it. So now what do u want? Shall I buy this car on my chauffeur's name? And let him enjoy the ownership of the car?" This was the last question from me and she was unimaginably speechless & confused. All her mouth could utter was "I'm sorry, but our rule book says you need to have a state license to buy a car" (a standard reply given by govt. employee, no matter even if its US)

Who the hell made this law? What a stupid law! As far I can think, does Bill Gates need a driver's license to buy a car in US? Or is that Donald Trump would be asked for a driver's license when he goes in to buy a car? But thinking all this actually makes me laugh, as this is the country where you cannot buy a car without DL, but yes you can buy guns off the shelf. Is this what's known as a 'developed nation'?

'Tongue Of Steel'

2006-03-31T11:52:00.000-05:00

Well here I am,sitting and writing down as 'tongue of steel'. Actually somehow I got inspired to open my own blog spot by the very man who gave me this title as 'tongue of steel'. The history of this name goes back to the summer of April 2004 when I joined a company and found a bunch of geeks doing some serious stuff in medical industry.

So there I was, and despite being into such serious stuff, we were a bunch of people who would laugh and crack jokes whole day (along with which we had a track record that we never missed a deadline). So while cracking all these jokes and leg pulling of each other, somehow I found that in few instances I didn't even spare the Vice President of the company (and ofcourse not to mention my boss was also not spared). So finally with all this fun and partying, I got this nick name as 'Tongue Of Steel'

However I would like to mention that as a team we were one of the best in the city, and I still miss those fun moments. Now it has been more than 6 months that this team has scattered to different companies and continents, but we are still in touch with each and I still admire the person who gave me this title, as he is a mentor to me.