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The WTF clarification of the day comes from L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper:
The pope, therefore, does not wear Prada, but Christ.
Well, he’s certainly picked the more powerful brand.
(Link via email from Sanjeev.)
The WTF generalisation of the month comes from the formidable Malavika Sanghhvi, who writes that “if one goes by present trends ... [t]oday’s India is indicating that the best way to end an affair is murder!”
Everyone seems to be doing it: MBA students, BPO employees, private airline crew, TV actors, defence personnel, politicians, middle class housewives… I can’t remember a time when we have woken up each morning to so many crimes of passion.
[...]
Today, urban murder for matters of the heart seems to be one more facet of reform India — like multiplexes and caramelised pop corn.
And there are corpses strewn everywhere. Attractive, upwardly mobile, Japanese car-driving, Macdonald’s burger-eating, mobile phone-using corpses, who all lived the middle class Indian dream… until an ex-lover’s ire caught up with them.
The emphasis is mine, because I’m super-impressed that corpses can drive Japanese cars and use mobile phones. The next time you’re at McDonald’s and the gentleman besides you seems to be walking stiffly, watch out. And if the attractive lady besides him behaves coldly with you, well, there you go.
I really hope P Sainath writes an article responding to Sanghhvi’s piece. There are two approaches he could take: One, he could agree with her wholeheartedly and blame it on India’s liberalisation, because of which rich corpses use Japanese cars and mobile phones while corpses of farmers committing suicide in Vidarbha do not have access to such facilities. Two, he could berate her for writing about deaths in the city and ignoring rural affairs, like the rest of our middle-class obsessed media. Either way, fun would come.
PS: While on Sainath…
Posted by Amit Varma on 26 June, 2008 in
India |
Journalism |
Media |
WTF
The Times of India reports the WTF news of the day:
An Air India Jaipur-Mumbai flight flew well past its destination with both its pilots fatigued and fast asleep in the cockpit. When the pilots were finally woken up by anxious Mumbai air traffic controllers, the plane was about half way to Goa.
Well, I suppose the pilots in question did need a holiday.
... then his own family should catch the first train out from Mumbai Central. After all, as a scholar in Pune has revealed, the Thackerays “are not original inhabitants of Mumbai, [and] came to this city in search of livelihood.”
So there.
(Link via email from Sumant.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 25 June, 2008 in
Politics
This is an awesome exchange. Such delight comes.
(Link via email from Gautam.)
PS: I especially love the PSs!
Posted by Amit Varma on 25 June, 2008 in
Science and Technology
Regular readers of India Uncut will know that I keep ranting about how giving offense has effectively become a crime in India because of some of our silly laws. Well, Rediff informs us:
Amid high drama, the editor and two journalists of a leading Telugu daily Andhra Jyothi were arrested on Tuesday night for publishing an allegedly offensive story on Dalit organisations and its leaders.
[...]
The police said the arrests were made by invoking the provisions of the stringent Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act following publication of a lead story in the second largest circulated daily of Andhra Pradesh last month that criticised unnamed Dalit leaders and their organisations.
While I’ve often written about section 295(a) of the Indian Penal Code, (Don’t Insult Pasta, for example), this law is new to me. For your reading pleasure, here’s the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
The only part of that law that could have been applied in this case, as far as I can tell, is put forth in section 1 (3) (x) of the act, which recommends punishment for “[w]hoever, not being a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe, intentionally insults or intimidates with intent to humiliate a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe in any place within public view.”
Firstly, doing a story on Dalit organisations and their leaders obviously should not fall within the purview of this clause. Secondly, should insulting someone be a criminal matter at all? Should the state get involved if some random person calls me names? If your answer is ‘no’, does that answer change if I happen to be a Dalit? Why?
Most of the other clauses in that act seem perfectly fair to me. But those things—taking away somebody’s land, coercing someone into forced labour etc—are criminal acts regardless of the caste of the victim. What does it say about our country, the state of our legal machinery and our politics that we have a separate act to protect Dalits from things that all of us should be protected from anyway?
Update: Krishna Prasad has more details and analysis.
And BV Harish Kumar writes in:
This law is (ab)used a lot in Government offices where people keep threatening their bosses and other colleagues with this Act. IIRC all one needs to do is send a postcard to the SC or someone that ‘atrocities’ are being committed and there will be an enquiry and I think the person in question (the offender) can be suspended from duty till the completion of the enquiry.
(Churumuri link via email from Gautam.)
Update 2: Elaborating on Harish’s letter, quoted above, Harish’s dad, B Phani Babu, writes in:
I know one such case—When a charge sheet was filed against a person on charges of forgery and tampering of records, he (he belonged to the Reserved Category) took an offensive step of complaining to the SC/ST commissioner that he was being harassed. It was my signature and my documents that were tampered with and we almost became the defendants in the case. Fortunately we had a written statement from this person admitting his guilt. Otherwise our heads would have rolled!
It took almost two years to sentence the chap. It was a very mild punishment - just an increment down. He continued ‘serving’ and enjoying all monetary benefits like Overtime etc.
This is the most powerful weapon for an ‘SC/ST’ employee in Government Service. He can get away with anything! I can vouch for the above incident as I myself almost became an affected party!
Posted by Amit Varma on 25 June, 2008 in
Freedom |
India |
Journalism |
Media |
News |
Politics
We helpless men are always being treated as nothing but chunks of meat by the women out there. Just check out this headline:
College girls banned from whistling at builders
There’s a Savita Bhabhi storyline in there.
(Link via email from Tony.)
But do read the small print first.
(Link via email from Gautam John.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 24 June, 2008 in
Freedom
Now that Mayawati runs the state, upper castes in UP have trouble getting water.
What worries me is that a couple of generations from now, upper caste leaders will demand that a large percentage of the water supply be reserved for them to compensate for past inequities. This will never end.
(Link via email from Arun John.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 24 June, 2008 in
India |
News |
Politics |
WTF
Astrologer Bejan Daruwala has some advice for Roger Federer:
He should come more often to the net, because he has the reach, the agility, and the dexterity to volley for an outright winner, or to make a strong opening for it, and with the next volley, finish it. The Sun and versatile Mercury in Leo, is the key to it.
I dispute Daruwala’s contention that Mercury is versatile: it cannot play guitar. It’s mercurial, that’s all.
More Daruwala on India Uncut: 1, 2, 3, 4.
Posted by Amit Varma on 23 June, 2008 in
Old memes |
Astrology etc |
Sport |
WTF
Soul up for auction. Update: Its found a home - Hell Pizza.
By Sanjeev Naik in Oddball
He’s back in the Ian Fleming “centenary novel”: Devil May Care
Pablo Bartholomew's latest exhibition offers intimate recall of the 70s and 80s
Read more...
Loins of Punjab Presents is a declaration of independence by the desi diaspora
Read more...
Sample clues
9 across: Van Morrison classic from Moondance (7)
6 down: Order beginning with ‘A’ (12)
