Few observations from Mr. Kejriwal’s interview

If one starts to write about AAP there is no end, they are just too colorful and wonderful. Mr. Kejriwal, I appreciate you for your dedication, your logical arguments and the way you stand up for your colleagues and defend them at all costs.

I am one of the those who saw your interview on CNN-IBN and also a similar toned one on NDTV (I know, I am jobless). All hail your achievements in the last 3 weeks and lets see what documents you now have in hand against congress that you didn’t get with RTI before and how you will make them sorry for their act.

That said, you kept saying “people will decide what to do, people will run the government and they will decide where the money to be spent and you won’t contest the parliament election but the people will”, in case you are not aware there is an English word for it called “Refrendum” and your esteemed colleague Mr. Bhushan said the same thing but you said what ever Mr. Bhushan said is his personal opinion, you totally disagree with the same and not that’s not the stance of you or the party. Now, I am confused what do you stand for?

Second, we need accountability, suspend the few police who did not do the duty and all these crimes will stop. I agree on the accountability but do you believe we have enough police officers for the population and enough resources with them to prevent all this kind of crimes?

Third, you vehemently defended your colleague Mr. Bharati’s act. Fine that shows you stand by your troops. But few simple things arise in my mind, what was the intent in going there in the middle of the night? was that the only time your minister had? mind you he has been receiving complaints for last few months (before he became minister). if your minister only took the PCR van with him, who called the media?, if according to your comment there were lot of women and drugs in the plain sight, why didn’t any of the folks who complained recorded the same on their camera phone or some such device? Your argument of “they refused blood test”, even in USA to make employment decisions all they need is urine test and not blood test.

Fourth, the drug and prostitution rings cannot run without police help. Agreed on this point, but in the same breath, I for one find it hard to believe that a bunch of Nigerians are able to run such a racket without the help of the local people (Indians, Aam Aadmi), do you agree?.

Fifth, you are now the chief minister of Delhi and please respect the post and stop making allegations like “local police pay bribes to the Union Home Minister”, you even named him by name. If you have proof please come out and publish the same and defame the guy but not without proof. 

Sixth, you comment on police ran away from Mr. Bharati and anything could have happened to him. Last I remember it was you who said no security needed and want to be accessible to people and so on. So, are you saying your government needs police protection now? 

AAP is wonderful, they keep my blog active

Is AAP making a joke of itself

I know I know, I am the one who wrote the post that said “Case in Favor of Mr. Kejriwal”. But in the last few days the acts that the AAP has done seems to make me think otherwise. Here are the incidents

No FDI in retail because people will lose jobs if this happens. Really, do you really believe in this crap Mr. Kejriwal. Please don’t compare US and Mexico to India to make your case for this.

Law minister ordering the police to raid a place which he claims to be a brothel and a drug peddlers place, and he is angry that police did not act according to his whims and fancy to top this Mr. K supports and defends his ministers actions. Really, I am pinching myself to see if I am not dreaming.

The comment from Mr. Prashant Bhushan on referendum in Maoist infected areas about removing the paramilitary forces, again who are we kidding.

The comment by one Mr. Binny for not being offered a ministry in the AAP government in Delhi. Mr. K please keep a tight leash on your party and its members, just because you are Aam Aadmi doesn’t mean there should be anarchy within. 

A foreign woman tourist gets attacked and raped in Delhi and the AAP just like its predecessor/supporter congress blames the way Delhi police is organized (central vs state). Really, don’t you have some other original ideas other than aping your predecessors?

The AAP reminds me of a line from the book Freedom at Midnight in which our esteemed Prime Minister Nehru requests Lord Mount Batten to take control of India and see the violence during partition is quelled, the reason being Mr. Nehru says that he and his fellow colleagues have been freedom fighters and half their life went in fighting and don’t have any experience in governance. 

So, I think AAP may prove to be a revolution that had all wonderful aims and life looked lot rosier when being on other side of the fence and blaming the system. But when you are in the seat of power and have the authority to change, it seems to fizzle out.

In short, they seem like bunch of novices and Delhi is their learning ground. Hope it doesn’t become costly for Delhi and India in general. 

Solar Panel on a Canal

Back in the days when I was young, naïve and inquisitive I remember visiting our native village in Karnataka and looking at the big canals that were dug to carry water from the dams to villages and reservoirs hundreds of KMs away. I remember asking some of the elders around me in those days, why can’t we do something to cover the canals won’t the open canal lead to lot of evaporation and sorry I remember vaguely that the cost would be exorbitant to cover the same.

But the new initiative taken up by Mr. Modi of having Solar Panels on the river canals has solved that problem, a cover that pays for itself. I am not sure of all the claims in the article but this is definitely a way forward and progressive thinking.  

 

Enjoy the slide show here

IMessaging/Text Messaging problem with IOS 7

Over last few of months 2 things happened with some of my friends in terms of their cell phone handsets.

1. Some of them got fed up with IOS and switched to Android
2. Some of them got fed up with Android and switched to IOS specifically Iphone 5s

So, what is the significance of these 2 events. For those who do not know, Apple supports something called Imessage between IOS devices (Iphone, Ipad or Ipod) and it introduced this with IOS 5 and it is free. For people like me who refuse to sign up for a text plan it was a good deal. Now we have alternatives like whatsapp and all so it is not so big a deal, but not everybody in my contact list are on whatsapp either.

Now back to the events, because of event 1 I was unable to text message my friends any more and it always came up with “Imessage delivery failed”. In event 2 I wasn’t able to send my friends Imessages, no reason it should not work as according to Apple any IOS 5 or higher devices should be able to use Imessage.

I was hoping Dr. Google would provide answers but they said “Sorry, you are on your own”.  I tried deleting phone numbers of these specific friends and re-entering the same but no use either.

On a final try I deleted the contact of the friend who switched to Android completely and recreated the contact again. And the miracle happened, I was able to send text messages to this new Android friend and at the same time was able to send Imessages to friends who had switched to Iphone 5s.

If you were encountering problems like me and if the above solution works in your case too, will you please let me know?

Case for Mr. Kejriwal

I resisted myself from writing this article but some how I couldn’t resist putting my points across.

To Mr. Kejriwal’s credit, he is the champion of Right to Information Act (RTI) and he along with Anna Hazare started a campaign against corruption and in some sense the whole country united behind the cause. When the political parties did not heed much he took the most democratic way possible and launched his own party called the Aam Admi Party (AAP). In the process he is accused of delineating Anna Hazare and other activists whose charisma he is accused of using for his benefits. On his launching the party, I think the choice was simple, either be on the sidelines and keep protesting and hope someday our elected leaders would listen or become the leader and show how its done. Most everybody was with him till then.

Now after Delhi elections where in which his party won majority of the seats but not enough to form a government and he formed a government with the external support from Congress (against whose corruption he rallied against). Here many people believe he betrayed, I take a different view.

If AAP hadn’t agreed to form a party then it would have been a hung government in Delhi and a set of re-elections. Considering the inflation and cost of re-election is it really justified to do the same? Now that he has become the CM I think the first priority would be the good transparent governance with no corruption, that’s where I believe we need to give him some time to see how it will work. Life looks lot different when you are in seat of power vs being an activist, the best example I can quote is of President Obama, if people remember he ran first time in 2008 on the notion of “closing Guantanamo prison within a year”, now its been  5 years and we are still struggling to find out how to go about it.

On the other hand I am not ready to give national reins to his hand, for one he and his cadre haven’t proved a thing about anything and Delhi is like their learning ground, will wait 5 or so years before I take that decision. Also, I am worried about his cronies like Prashant Bhushan and his take on Kashmir.

In closing, my take is lets not pit him and Mr. Modi against each other as that’s what the congress government wants and lets wait and watch to see what wonders he can do in Delhi. On a related note, back in 2011 Mr. Kejriwal along with others once shared the podium with Sri Sri and if Sri Sri has faith in him then I for sure am willing to wait and see.