So this note is likely to piss off many of you, but still. Can someone tell me why exactly Jiah Khan's ex-boyfriend is being blamed for her suicide?
So it's the usual story. Boy meets girl, they fall in love, they are happy, then they break up. Then he sees someone else.
At which point over-wrought girl decides her life isn't worth living. Seriously - this is a 25-year old who co-starred with Aamir Khan in a hit film and then later thinks her life is value-less without the continuing attention of some unemployed star-kid?! How the heck was she brought up? What kind of foolish adult mind thinks that someone else's attention is so important that her own life pales in comparison? How dare her parents blame her ex for this ridiculous state of mind? Who gave her these values where "death before losing in love" is a virtue?
So she writes a latter saying she had an abortion when she got pregnant, presumably by him - again, no one told her about contraception? And even if they decided to forswear protection - it's his fault she got pregnant? Wasn't she equally part of it?
So yes, she had an abortion, she set her mind to have him, but he moved on after they mutually broke up - but she wanted him back, and he said no, so she took her life?
Of course we mourn for her.
But why would we - and the police - blame the idiot star kid who was her ex-boyfriend? I hear it's on the charge of abetting suicide. Really? You mean if two people are together, and one wants to marry the other, and the other refuses, and then the first one commits suicide, then the other has abetted it? What rot.
So now after seeing this news play out, we have a nation of unstable 25-year olds going around forcing their partners into matrimony at the gunpoint of "do it or I'll commit suicide and you'll go to jail like Aditya Pancholi's son"?
What about it being the other way around? Perhaps more like blackmail - "Marry me, or I'll commit suicide?" And would that not be equally valid a crime?
So what's a guy to do if he doesn't want to marry a girl? Or vice versa actually. Report to the cops when he's been proposed to? Take anticipatory bail before he says "No, I don't want to marry you"? Call the counselling lines so they make outbound calls to the partner in advance of him saying no? Or in this case, even involve a bigger star, Salman Khan, who oversees their apparently amicable separation? And even then go to jail after all these precautionary measures?
Look, there's no escaping the fact that a life lost is a terrible, terrible thing. But blaming the ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend for one's lack of motivation to live when a relationship breaks is not the other's fault. It's your own.
No one grows up with a right to be loved. It's a privilege you earn for yourself. It doesn't come naturally. You earn it. And very often, love comes. And love goes. And love comes back. And goes again. And so on.
And, yes, sorry to break it to you but there is no one-man-one-woman-walking-into-the-sunset-together-forever Mills & Boon bullshit that happens either. If your parents or your convent schools or some M&B you read or a chick flick or a YashRaj or KJo film told you that it is the way and it will happen to you - please understand that those are pretty unreliable sources. For starters, it didn't happen to the authors of such propaganda: the nuns and KJo are still single. The apparent importance of marriage is just propaganda - and you're better off not depending on it. If it happens, cool. And if it doesn't, that should be cool too.
Perhaps the best thing we can do as individuals and parents is tell the kids around that marriage isn't the ultimate goal. It isn't even an intermediate goal. Or even a tiny goal. Screw the TBZ ads and the whitening cream commercials. Ignore Chetan Bhagat and Shaadi.com. Marriage is downright unimportant in the overall course of things.
In India, you don't need to be married to have a child legally. Or even to inherit and pass on property. Marriage is just a social custom where a bunch of old people shower rice on your head and believe they're giving you their permission (or direction, in some cases) to sleep with someone. As you can imagine, it has little or no legal necessity or significance.
What is important is planning to live a full life for yourself, and working to make all your dreams come true - regardless of whether you have a partner with you for the course.
Sure, it's more fun when you have a lover around. But not having one around isn't a show-stopper. Life is compulsory. Marriage is an optional extra. Let's tell the kids that.
Oh, and while we're at it, can we please stop blaming that poor Pancholi kid for Jiah Khan's suicide? Let's stop the witch hunt. Get him out of jail.
And let's stop glorifying suicide in the name of unrequited love.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Friends forever...
Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colors seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon. You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Why do we need close Friends..?
Honestly Speaking..!
.
.
-To pick us from the airport at 2 am..!
-To kick us at midnight on our birthday..!
-To make fun of our new outfits..!
-To get the latest prints of movies..!
-To call at 3 am just to say goodnight..!
-To listen to us when everyone else is yelling at us..!
-To just walk without any reason..!
-For the endless treats..!
-To irritate us with missed calls when we are sleeping..!
.
.
-To pick us from the airport at 2 am..!
-To kick us at midnight on our birthday..!
-To make fun of our new outfits..!
-To get the latest prints of movies..!
-To call at 3 am just to say goodnight..!
-To listen to us when everyone else is yelling at us..!
-To just walk without any reason..!
-For the endless treats..!
-To irritate us with missed calls when we are sleeping..!
Monday, March 5, 2012
My Dream Team to lead India(Utopian thoughts)
Prime Minister: Narendra Modi
Home Minister: Kiran Bedi
Finance Minister: Manmohan Singh
Rural Affairs: Palagummi Sainath
Telecom: Shyam Pitroda
IT : Narayan Murthy
Foreign Affairs: Shashi Tharoor
Defence: Pranab Mukarjee
HRD,Science and Tech: Nilekani
Railways: Sreedharan(delhi Metro)
Women Welfare: Sushma Swaraj
Agriculture:Dr.Swaminathan
Parliamentary Affairs: Dr.Jayaprakash Narayan
Industries: Rahul Bajaj
Sports: Kapil Dev
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Nice article abt Productivity levels in India
The possible alibis for Indian poverty make a long list: Corruption, weather, infrastructure, subsidies, goofy politicians, greedy private sector, sleepy bureaucrats, myopic entrepreneurs, Mughals, British and much else. But an interesting usual omission is agriculture.
I submit that the biggest source of our poverty is 58 percent of our population working on farms that produce 15 percent of our GDP. Our agricultural productivity is dismal—75 million Indians produced 110 million tonnes of milk while 100,000 Americans produced 70 million tonnes of milk—and condemns people to poverty. India will not put poverty in the museum it belongs to till we get farm employment down to 15 percent of our labour force.
Over the next 20 years, effectiveness in four labour market transitions—rural to urban, unorganised to organised, subsistence self-employment to decent wage employment and farm to non-farm— could save 163 million Indians from poverty. But instead of accelerating these four transitions, policymaking in the last few years has been focussing on ‘rights’—education, work, food, service, healthcare, and much else. This ‘Diet Coke’ approach to poverty reduction—the sweetness without the calories—was always dangerous because of unknown side effects.
But now our fiscal deficit, food inflation and rupee devaluation remind us that policy entrepreneurship, like all entrepreneurship, is not exempt from the rule that big ideas without execution are ineffective, inefficient and sometimes dangerous.
Outlays don’t lead to outcomes because poetry is useless without plumbing. Getting people off farms means fixing our weak 3E regime: Employment, education and employability.
India’s failing farm to non-farm transition is the child of a fragmented human capital regulatory regime (state vs. Centre, 19 ministries vs. 2 human capital ministries), the dead-end view of vocational training (the lack of vertical mobility between certificates, diplomas and degrees), a broken apprenticeship regime (we only have 2.5 lakh apprentices relative to 6 million and 10 million in Germany and Japan), lack of higher education footprint (60 percent of our districts have lower enrolment than the national average), no model of effective PPPs (public private partnerships) in human capital (using government money for private delivery in education and skills), dysfunctional employment exchanges (1,200 of them gave 3 lakh jobs to the 4 crore people registered last year) and labour laws that encourage the sub-scale enterprises and the substitution of labour by capital.
Reforming the employment regime is the most obvious, but most controversial. Few disagree about the shame in four employment statistics being exactly where they were in 1991: 92 percent informal employment, 12 percent manufacturing employment, 50 percent self-employment and 58 percent agricultural employment. Economists don’t fully understand how jobs are created or why they cluster where they do. But the broad contours of fertile soil for job creation are obvious: A flexible labour market, skilled employees, robust infrastructure and predictable legislation.
A flexible labour market is important: Most economists agree that our labour law regime is poisonous— particularly for manufacturing. Labour-intensive industries probably account for only 13 percent of gross value add in organised manufacturing. Ninety percent of Indian textile employment is in firms with less than 10 employees while 90 percent of Chinese textile employers have more than 50 employees. India’s labour laws—our employment contracts are marriage without divorce—need a radical rethink if we want more formal, more competitive, more productive and larger employers.
The employability and education reform agenda is facing an idea surplus, but execution deficit. Employment Exchanges need to become public private partnership career centres that offer counselling, assessment, training, apprenticeships and job matching. The Apprenticeship Act of 1961 must be amended to view an apprenticeship as a classroom rather than a job and shift the regulatory world from push (employers under the threat of jail) to pull (make them volunteers).
The National Vocational Educational Qualification Framework must be agreed by the states and the ministries of Labour and HRD as the unifying open architecture tool for recognition of prior learning and vertical mobility between school leavers, certificates, diplomas and degrees.
Delivery systems are in the hands of states and every state must create a skill mission or vocational training corporation tasked with building capacity and quality. States should also create asset banks to make existing government real estate available for skill delivery. All schools must teach English because English is like Windows; an operating system that creates geographic mobility and improves employment outcomes by 300 percent. Finally, we must create skill vouchers that will allow financially disadvantaged students to get trained wherever they want at government expense. Such vouchers would shift the system to funding students. Institutions should be funded by money carved out of the MNREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) budget. The regulatory cholesterol around national distance education (mail order, e-learning and satellite) must be reviewed to offer flexible options for workers already in the workforce and the geographically disadvantaged.
We must create a national network of community colleges offering two-year associate degrees. These community colleges are what rural India needs because they are part ITI, part college, part employment exchange. Our current education regulators have tried to control quality by controlling quantity and we have ended up with neither. The biggest challenge in replacing institutions like the Medical Council of India, the All India Council for Technical Education and the University Grants Commission is not in renaming them, but architecting the new regulator so it does not become the old regulator.
In 1900, 41 percent of Americans worked on farms. Today there are less than 2 percent. China has moved 400 million people into non-farm jobs since Mao died and his madness died with him. India must make a new appointment for her tryst with destiny because she missed her last appointment; there are 300 million Indians who will never read the newspaper that they deliver, sit in the car they clean or send their child to the school they help build. Democracy is a fake alibi for India’s poverty and our labour markets’ ‘missing middle’. Getting people off farms gets India to 5 percent poverty 20 years faster than the status quo. All we need to do is fix our 3Es.
India must make a new appointment for her tryst with destiny because she missed her last appointment
I submit that the biggest source of our poverty is 58 percent of our population working on farms that produce 15 percent of our GDP. Our agricultural productivity is dismal—75 million Indians produced 110 million tonnes of milk while 100,000 Americans produced 70 million tonnes of milk—and condemns people to poverty. India will not put poverty in the museum it belongs to till we get farm employment down to 15 percent of our labour force.
Over the next 20 years, effectiveness in four labour market transitions—rural to urban, unorganised to organised, subsistence self-employment to decent wage employment and farm to non-farm— could save 163 million Indians from poverty. But instead of accelerating these four transitions, policymaking in the last few years has been focussing on ‘rights’—education, work, food, service, healthcare, and much else. This ‘Diet Coke’ approach to poverty reduction—the sweetness without the calories—was always dangerous because of unknown side effects.
But now our fiscal deficit, food inflation and rupee devaluation remind us that policy entrepreneurship, like all entrepreneurship, is not exempt from the rule that big ideas without execution are ineffective, inefficient and sometimes dangerous.
Outlays don’t lead to outcomes because poetry is useless without plumbing. Getting people off farms means fixing our weak 3E regime: Employment, education and employability.
India’s failing farm to non-farm transition is the child of a fragmented human capital regulatory regime (state vs. Centre, 19 ministries vs. 2 human capital ministries), the dead-end view of vocational training (the lack of vertical mobility between certificates, diplomas and degrees), a broken apprenticeship regime (we only have 2.5 lakh apprentices relative to 6 million and 10 million in Germany and Japan), lack of higher education footprint (60 percent of our districts have lower enrolment than the national average), no model of effective PPPs (public private partnerships) in human capital (using government money for private delivery in education and skills), dysfunctional employment exchanges (1,200 of them gave 3 lakh jobs to the 4 crore people registered last year) and labour laws that encourage the sub-scale enterprises and the substitution of labour by capital.
Reforming the employment regime is the most obvious, but most controversial. Few disagree about the shame in four employment statistics being exactly where they were in 1991: 92 percent informal employment, 12 percent manufacturing employment, 50 percent self-employment and 58 percent agricultural employment. Economists don’t fully understand how jobs are created or why they cluster where they do. But the broad contours of fertile soil for job creation are obvious: A flexible labour market, skilled employees, robust infrastructure and predictable legislation.
A flexible labour market is important: Most economists agree that our labour law regime is poisonous— particularly for manufacturing. Labour-intensive industries probably account for only 13 percent of gross value add in organised manufacturing. Ninety percent of Indian textile employment is in firms with less than 10 employees while 90 percent of Chinese textile employers have more than 50 employees. India’s labour laws—our employment contracts are marriage without divorce—need a radical rethink if we want more formal, more competitive, more productive and larger employers.
The employability and education reform agenda is facing an idea surplus, but execution deficit. Employment Exchanges need to become public private partnership career centres that offer counselling, assessment, training, apprenticeships and job matching. The Apprenticeship Act of 1961 must be amended to view an apprenticeship as a classroom rather than a job and shift the regulatory world from push (employers under the threat of jail) to pull (make them volunteers).
The National Vocational Educational Qualification Framework must be agreed by the states and the ministries of Labour and HRD as the unifying open architecture tool for recognition of prior learning and vertical mobility between school leavers, certificates, diplomas and degrees.
Delivery systems are in the hands of states and every state must create a skill mission or vocational training corporation tasked with building capacity and quality. States should also create asset banks to make existing government real estate available for skill delivery. All schools must teach English because English is like Windows; an operating system that creates geographic mobility and improves employment outcomes by 300 percent. Finally, we must create skill vouchers that will allow financially disadvantaged students to get trained wherever they want at government expense. Such vouchers would shift the system to funding students. Institutions should be funded by money carved out of the MNREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) budget. The regulatory cholesterol around national distance education (mail order, e-learning and satellite) must be reviewed to offer flexible options for workers already in the workforce and the geographically disadvantaged.
We must create a national network of community colleges offering two-year associate degrees. These community colleges are what rural India needs because they are part ITI, part college, part employment exchange. Our current education regulators have tried to control quality by controlling quantity and we have ended up with neither. The biggest challenge in replacing institutions like the Medical Council of India, the All India Council for Technical Education and the University Grants Commission is not in renaming them, but architecting the new regulator so it does not become the old regulator.
In 1900, 41 percent of Americans worked on farms. Today there are less than 2 percent. China has moved 400 million people into non-farm jobs since Mao died and his madness died with him. India must make a new appointment for her tryst with destiny because she missed her last appointment; there are 300 million Indians who will never read the newspaper that they deliver, sit in the car they clean or send their child to the school they help build. Democracy is a fake alibi for India’s poverty and our labour markets’ ‘missing middle’. Getting people off farms gets India to 5 percent poverty 20 years faster than the status quo. All we need to do is fix our 3Es.
India must make a new appointment for her tryst with destiny because she missed her last appointment
Monday, January 23, 2012
SAM PITRODA...the visionary
How do you compare social innovation in India with that in developed nations?
The problem is the best brains globally are busy solving the problems of the rich who really don't have problems. And problems of the poor don't really get the attention they deserve. Most modern innovations that have taken place over the last 50 to 60 years have come only out of the US. Now, all US innovations focus on the top of the pyramid and they are primarily from areas such as biotech, genetics or laser technology.
Inherently they are expensive. A few days back, I was told that 60 million people in India have liver ailments. The number is higher than those battling AIDS. But AIDS gets more money and attention because it is a rich man's disease. Look at all the global institutions in the world - the United Nations, the World Bank or the IMF. All these institutions were set up by America for America after the Second World War. We need institutions for tomorrow. That's where innovation comes in.
What's been the most important change since the telecom revolution?
A very important thing has happened over the last 20 years. It is the invention of the Internet. I would say nothing like this has happened in last 15,000 years, It is as big as the invention of languages.
Do you support the idea of controlling the internet? Are we going the China way?
Nobody can control the Internet. It is impossible. We cannot go the China way. Even China is not going the 'China way'. It is finding it difficult controlling the Net. The problem crops up because the older generation wants to impose its values on the younger generation. I always tell the youth not to listen to the stifling values of the old. If someone wants to want some content, who are we to control him or her. Instead, India should have its own locally relevant social networks.
Can the unique identity project be the basis of all financial inclusion programmes?
I was born in 1942 in a small little village, Titlagarh in Odisha. There were no doctors, no pharmacies, no running water, no electricity. Who is going to give you a birth certificate there? When I went to the school, I was told I was too young and I had to submit an affidavit. People are always quick to criticise.
If you have 1.2 billion people and want to build a 21st Century infrastructure, you need to build robust information systems. When you begin to organise databases of people, you realise the importance of Aadhaar.
Last year, about 7,50,000 people were released from Indian prisons. Many of them were undertrials without any identity. Aadhaar will give them an identity and allow them to say you better recognise me
The problem is the best brains globally are busy solving the problems of the rich who really don't have problems. And problems of the poor don't really get the attention they deserve. Most modern innovations that have taken place over the last 50 to 60 years have come only out of the US. Now, all US innovations focus on the top of the pyramid and they are primarily from areas such as biotech, genetics or laser technology.
Inherently they are expensive. A few days back, I was told that 60 million people in India have liver ailments. The number is higher than those battling AIDS. But AIDS gets more money and attention because it is a rich man's disease. Look at all the global institutions in the world - the United Nations, the World Bank or the IMF. All these institutions were set up by America for America after the Second World War. We need institutions for tomorrow. That's where innovation comes in.
What's been the most important change since the telecom revolution?
A very important thing has happened over the last 20 years. It is the invention of the Internet. I would say nothing like this has happened in last 15,000 years, It is as big as the invention of languages.
Do you support the idea of controlling the internet? Are we going the China way?
Nobody can control the Internet. It is impossible. We cannot go the China way. Even China is not going the 'China way'. It is finding it difficult controlling the Net. The problem crops up because the older generation wants to impose its values on the younger generation. I always tell the youth not to listen to the stifling values of the old. If someone wants to want some content, who are we to control him or her. Instead, India should have its own locally relevant social networks.
Can the unique identity project be the basis of all financial inclusion programmes?
I was born in 1942 in a small little village, Titlagarh in Odisha. There were no doctors, no pharmacies, no running water, no electricity. Who is going to give you a birth certificate there? When I went to the school, I was told I was too young and I had to submit an affidavit. People are always quick to criticise.
If you have 1.2 billion people and want to build a 21st Century infrastructure, you need to build robust information systems. When you begin to organise databases of people, you realise the importance of Aadhaar.
Last year, about 7,50,000 people were released from Indian prisons. Many of them were undertrials without any identity. Aadhaar will give them an identity and allow them to say you better recognise me
True...Lies
Life have never promised u anything nor have god.,But people did,.
Some said they will never leave u : lie..
Some said they will luv u till death :lie..
Some said u are the most precious thing in their lyf :lie..
Life is made of such sweet lies..!
In the end all that matters is how u faced the time when u finally realized those were just lies ..V may ask.."wouldnt lyf be much better if these lies were never told?"
But the fact ,is that the times u lived on those big lies were the best times of ur life..!!
Some said they will never leave u : lie..
Some said they will luv u till death :lie..
Some said u are the most precious thing in their lyf :lie..
Life is made of such sweet lies..!
In the end all that matters is how u faced the time when u finally realized those were just lies ..V may ask.."wouldnt lyf be much better if these lies were never told?"
But the fact ,is that the times u lived on those big lies were the best times of ur life..!!
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