A letter to the NRA

Dear NRA,

Your recent ad criticizing the president “are presidents kids more important . . . . “, I think is fairly foolish. Yes the president and his family are more important to America as a whole. You know history better, if not just re-visit the way President Lincoln was assassinated and the formation of the secret service.

That said, I am not following your argument of armed guard at every school. I want to send my daughter to a school and not a jail. Besides, your short sightedness on this issue is pretty remarkable. Here is why, every day I pass by a school near my neighborhood and almost everyday I see a bunch of kids (20 to 30 of them) playing in the play scape/park and the play scape is visible from the road, what do you think prevents someone to open fire from a moving car and kill a bunch of kids and get away even before your armed guard posted at the front door can make his way back to the play scape area. Or for that matter what about all the daycares and private pre-schools that operate in the country, do we need armed guards for them too?.

Ok, even if I buy your argument for school security guard, what is your solution for the Virginia Tech problem, one in front of every single department and for Aurora problem, one in front of every theater and a public place where there is a possibility of more than 8-10 people gathering? Oh wait, that would mean increased government everywhere, which is antithesis for the republican party you all support.

But I agree with you on one thing, banning assault weapons is just an eye candy thing that the president has done. For I do agree the assault weapons constitute less than 10% of the total gun violence in the USA.

So, please drop these ridiculous ads and focus on promoting responsible gun ownership and having fun with guns. Please do not keep quoting the second amendment again and again, for as I have indicated in my previous post that argument is also borderline foolish. Have faith in America and people of America to keep democracy going for it has been strong for last 200 years.

Hope you enjoy the read 

Delhi case–my thoughts

A heinous act was committed in New Delhi, capital of India on the night of December 16th. It managed to create an outrage in many parts of the country and now the wave seems to be shifting towards Pakistan crossing the LOC (The politicians must be saying, thanks Pakistan). Some questions have been bothering me for a while now.

• I am wondering if the outrage is against the act itself or the heinous nature of the act had everything to do with the outrage. I would go with the nature of the act.
• If the victim hadn’t been that severely wounded and succumbed to her injuries, would the police had acted as swiftly as they did and would the government had pretended to act as they did by setting up swift courts and all.
• If by chance the victim were not a medical student working at a call center to fund her education but were in questionable employment, would we have had the same reaction? or would we have said, she got what she deserved? 
• If there is a supreme court order that prevents any bus with tinted windows and curtains to be operated on Delhi roads. Why was this bus never stopped for almost 2-2.5hrs of its drive time. All it would have taken was 1 police constable to stop the illegal bus. It was not middle of the night, it was between 8:30/9:00PM to lets say 11:30PM.
• In the light of the above comment, why did I not hear a bunch of suspensions in the Delhi Police pay roll?
• The male victims account of the events is also questionable, after being beaten badly (it appears he appeared on a wheel chair for the interview) where did he find strength to pull the woman victim from being mowed down. The bus did not go for a second try in mowing them? I believe they were robbed of everything, so where did he time the 45mins of the police discussions.
• The comments from the spiritual leaders like Asram Bapu and our so called political leaders including the son of our present president is sending chills down my spine. Not because of their comments but because nobody managed to throw a shoe at their face (Yeah, yeah it is a democracy and people have the right to speak).
• In terms of the lawyers representing the case, I think they have picked the case just be in the lime light. I don’t even want to talk about the comment made by one the defense lawyers.
• Regarding the so called minor accused in the case, assuming he did most of the carnage as has been reported why not just try him as an adult and hang the damn thing.
• That day will be sad when the accused are awarded lighter sentences because of the so-called torture they endured during the police custody.

Kannada rhymes DVD by infobells

If you were born in Karnataka in the 80's or 90's and your parents were not too sold out on “convent” culture, you probably grew up hearing some of these Kannada rhymes 

• ನಮ್ಮ ಮನೆಯಲೊಂದು ಚಿಕ್ಕ ಪಾಪ 
• ನಾಯಿ ಮರಿ ನಾಯಿ ಮರಿ ತಿಂಡಿ ಬೇಕೇ
• ರೊಟ್ಟಿ ಅಂಗಡಿ ಕಿಟ್ಟಪ್ಪ 
• ಆನೆ ಬನ್ತ್ಹೊಂದ್ ಆನೆ

Now imagine these rhymes and much more like this being beautifully animated and made into a DVD. That's what infobells has done. I must say, they have done a wonderful job. The DVD flows as a musical narration of songs and is captured as an interaction between a small girl “Chinnu” and her pet dog “Pappu”.  

Thanks to my sister-in-law for introducing us to this. My 2 year old daughter just loves this DVD. Its one of her favorites and she calls it “Chinna – Aane”, referring to the pictures on the DVD.

The company Infobells seems to have a YouTube page and looking at the same, looks like they have translated the rhymes to multiple languages (Tamil and Telugu).

I do consider buying more DVDs from the company and will keep you posted on those when time permits.     

USA and Gun Control

The recent shooting in Newtown, CT shook me to the core and this is the first time in my recent memory of mass shootings and deaths I was shaken, needless to say fatherhood has its side effects.

Anyways, as any other person living in the USA I spent my weekend on gun control laws and the NRA and so on. Here is my take on the topic.

The NRA claim is that owning a gun is a constitutional right and it is intended to “have the ability to raise a private militia” in case the government decides to take over. In short one needs to own the gun to keep democracy in place. But wasn’t this statement made over 100 years ago when the government and the citizens had similar weapons. There were no missiles, invisible drones carrying missiles, hangars of F-16, F-18 and F-22’s and not to mention the nuclear warheads. Do we really believe that a citizen militia does stand a chance against the mighty armies armed to the teeth with way more sophisticated technology in terms of communications and weapons? In short if Obama decides to become the dictator and the American military decides to cooperate with him then I doubt if the free floating guns have any chance. 

That said, I am all for owning a gun and gun rights. For better or worse human beings in general are tending to be more private and believe in having their own space (big and wide) and its tough to be dependent on the 911 call to help always. As they analyze in the book “Freakonomics”, a gun changes the equation, it will make the contender likely to loose a fight more likely to win the fight. As much as I love to believe, we do not live in a very civilized world. So, I believe one should have the right to own a gun for self protection. The other reason to own a gun is for sport (target shooting) and (as much as I dislike it) hunting.

While reading the article on Mother Jones website, it occurred to me that most of the mass gun shootings are carried out by semi automatic pistols or handguns. The so called assault rifles contribute to less than half of the shootings. So, if the law makers do not want to pick up the battle and want to ban all the assault rifles and want to face an opposition from the NRA and its likes, here is my advice, just focus on banning all the large capacity magazines. Set the max limit to 8 or 10, let the rifle lovers have their rifles, For it is my understanding that for both the scenarios I mentioned one would not need a 30-40 bullet magazine. To be more effective the ban should be retroactive and make an effort to eliminate these methodically.           

FDI in retail in India

Last few days I have been hearing a big hue and cry about India allowing FDI (foreign direct investment) into retail sector. I don’t think it is worth the hype it is given. Here are my reasons as to why

• The biggest fears is like companies like Walmart will take over mom and pops stores.When ever I visited Walmart or similar retail stores here in US, the first thing that amazes me is the size of these damn things. In India we can build a multi story complex housing 30 to 40 stores in the size of 1 Walmart. So, if Walmart were to truly open in India, I doubt if they can be located in prime locations in the heart of the city.
• One big thing I miss in US is the ability to try out new products for everything from cookies to soaps and are sold in in bulk. Growing up in India that was not the case.
• The mom and pop stores have established a customer base to themselves, there are advantages to buying from these stores on a regular basis, Like free home delivery, credit for the purchases and so on. I am sure the foreign retailers won’t offer such things anyway.
• The arrival of Mcdonalds and other Pizza-Burger places back in 2000 or so were considered a threat to the local fast food chains. I didn’t see that happen either. From what I can see the Pizza-Burger places seem to have found a balance with the local fast food places and have found a way to co-exist peacefully.
• One more example from my early child hood days were the introduction of Hopcoms (neighborhood stores selling veggies and fruits only) in Karnataka, if I remember right, they are government sponsored and I still don’t see them having eliminated the street vegetable vendors in any part of the Karnataka state. Another such example is the Janata Bazaar.
• On the other hand, I see the foreign retailers with their huge supply chain as a plus point. They can probably figure out a way around the incidents where the farmers were dumping tomatoes on the streets for the lack of better market. I personally doubt this though, it might go the other way completely.
• Last but not the least, I prefer my neighborhood Iyengar Bakery’s fresh bread and cake any day anytime over the stale and frozen ones from big retails. 

Republican platform analyzed - my 2 cents

Why do I get the feeling that Republicans this time are running on a very weak platform. I think I know and here it is

• Their energy policy unveiled by Mitt Romney, only talks about drilling and more drilling and oil and more oil. What about natural gas?, what about renewable sources? or for that matter Nuclear energy?. For me the focus is too narrow and drilling more and more is not the only solution.
• They talk doing the economy more good but don’t highlight what they would be doing differently then what it is right now, lower taxes and reduced borrowing costs, do you have anything else to offer?
• Reduced government spending by cutting more welfare programs and schools but increase in military spending is it?, because last I checked the latest 3 wars were started by republican presidents (father and son duo).
• I am sick and tired of the abortion debate and I am also sick of what is considered forced pregnancy vs other forms. I wonder what part of government spending does this account for. Why not let states choose what they want to implement and be done with it.
• Their platform of “we built it” and  rallying around for a whole day in the convention sounds like “Joe the plumber” deal from last elections. Grow up guys, context or no context of what the president said, one can only flourish when there is a stable government, good infrastructure and security in the society. If all it took was hard work to be prosperous then why not invest in countries like Sudan or Somalia?
• The health care reform, this is one thing I am not sure. But again, I heard the owner of Papa Johns Pizza said it would cost him an average of $0.14/pizza to implement health care. Will I as a customer notice a $0.14 increase in my pizza cost?
• Immigration policy is one other area, where I do not have a clear opinion towards one way or the other.  

India and the reservation policies

Reservation or Affirmative action for the lower caste (specially SC/ST) has been there since the time of independence and what started off as a 10-15 year policy has extended and became bigger and bigger as the years gone by.

It was hard growing up with these policies and was the hardest to endure when we were in 12th grade. Students who were with us (our good friends), whose parents had the same or higher education than ours and who were to an extent more affluent than us and lastly in terms of grades scored equal to us managed to get into much better colleges and branches than us. Why, because they had the reserved quota.

Coming out of the professional colleges, we knew the public sector had its reservations and bureaucracy, hence most of us were interested in the private sector where the field was open to play. But some of my friends wanted to try their hand in the Indian administrative services for they believed once you are in, then the promotions and all are based on your seniority and performance. I have huge respects for those guys.

The latest is the amendment by the congress seems to undermine this and want to inject caste as the basis for promotions also. The reason being there is less representation of the lower caste people in the upper echelons of the government and that needs to be fixed.

This I think is ridiculous, here is why. Last I heard India was still a democracy and the upper most echelons of the government is the elected representatives, we definitely have reservations there. Coming to the secretaries and joint secretaries, who are responsible to advice our some what dumb and some times illiterate elected representatives, shouldn’t they be the smartest of the smartest in the country and not based upon caste or creed or color. Up to what level does an IAS or IPS need to carry the identity of his caste?, from the day he joined the service till he retires?, if that is the case then where does the society free from caste creed and color stand. Reminds me of the quote from George Orwell’s Animal Farm, “All are equal but some are more equal than others”. 

What next, the esteemed Indian cricket team will have reservations and the next time we send a contestant to the world wide beauty pageant we will have reservations there also?