Women reservation bill in India

The Congress led coalition government recently managed to get the Women's reservation bill passed in the 'Rajya Sabha' (upper house of the Indian Parliament) recently. As things go in India, this was not without the usual hungama - thanks to a bunch of illiterate goons masquerading as honorable MPs. But that aside, we should poise to think about what this bill is about. According to this bill, 1/3 of the seats in the parliament (drawn by lottery) will be reserved for women. So consider the following scenarios:

A. A male career politician spends 15-20 years of his life in winning the confidence of the voters from a certain constituency (less if your mother is the Congress president or if you dad or uncle died as chief minister) and gets elected to the parliament. Now once his term is over, he wont be able to contest that seat for the next 2 terms (by laws of statistics) - which means his political career is doomed. So what would he do in that situation, he will field a proxy woman candidate - conveniently, the wife. And our voters - timid cows as they are, will go and happily vote for the wife. So the letter of the law if obeyed - but does it really solve the problem for which this law is being proposed?

B. A second situation: suppose a woman candidate wins from a seat - not a proxy candidate as mentioned in Case 'A' above, but a real candidate who has worked hard in that area for development. Once her term is over, she won't be able to contest an election from the very seat that she has worked hard for - in the next 2 terms - which is 10 years! Who would remember her after 10 years - our collective memories are very short. We remember things until the next big tamasha. So, how does this bill emancipate women.

For some time, I thought a better thing (and harder thing) would be to make it mandatory for political parties to field 1/3 women candidates in the election at every level. So if the Congress party fields 450 candidates all over India in the general elections in a year, make it compulsory that at least 150 of them are women. This is fairer than drawing lotteries every time and ending up with Case A or B.

But all this begs a even more fundamental question - do we really need to reserve seats for women? I think this is a very patronizing attitude. We should strive to create equality at lower levels - at the grassroots level - at the level of political parties and organizations. This would be immediately be seen and felt by the common man. We don't need reservation for women or for any minorities at the highest level. But creating a level playing field is a much harder problem - and you will find hazaar kurta-clad buddhi jeevis speaking dime to a dozen in any number of TV channels how this bill will solve all our problems.

Shame on the Indian politicians. And shame on the Indian people - who don't and won't care who they elect to the Parliament. I think they deserve it.

As for the bill, my only hope is those 7 MPs who make hulla gulla in the parliament - I hope they make some more noise when the bill is placed in front of the Lok Sabha. If they cannot stop it - at least they can stall the process - albeit for all the wrong reasons.

Good bye Linux

After 10 years of love hate (mostly love) relationship with Linux, I finally bid good bye. Like any affair, I occasionally feel the pangs and hear 'baby come back' in my head. But I think I have outgrown it. I started using Linux on the desktop in 1999 as a student in IIT Kanpur when a fresh lot of Slackware loaded PCs arrived one fine morning at the computer center. It was love at first sight. I have stood by Linux through thick and thin, wrote my Ph.D thesis on it. The high point was of course Ubuntu and how (like dellusioned flower children) I hoped that this would surely be the thing. Sadly, Ubuntu too disappointed me - too many papercuts, no baseline, blah blah. I am a little sad - and I do have a little partition on my home computer with Jaunty (which only my wife uses every once in a while). But also I feel a huge load has lifted from my shoulders. I have now embraced OSX with both arms and its a good feeling when everything works without having to break things apart. Well goodbye my love - I really thought it would work out. Well maybe some day Linux will become a popular desktop but there are too many broken bits to make it even remotely useful. Maybe I'm getting old :)

Example in logical thought

Watch O'Reilley argue in this video - now you know how some people haven't evolved beyond some point. Nature can be quite cruel sometimes.

Realplayer 11 for Linux: New deb package

Like countless other people, I use Realplayer 11.0 on my Ubuntu Linux. Traditionally, one has two routes for installation - either download and install the deb file from http://www.real.com/linux or use the medibuntu repository.

The problem with using the "official" deb is that it has countless (31 actually) dependencies - many of which are just not needed. The medibuntu version is plagued with (a) no progress bar (b) crashes in Jaunty.

So, here is a new deb file which is a repackaged form of the official deb with the right dependencies put in. If you have a deb based Linux (Ubuntu, Debian, Mint etc), you will be prompted to start installation using the gDebi installer. BUT - I suggest that before taking the leap, you (a) uninstall any realplayer installation using synaptic (b) close your browser.

http://uploading.com/files/IWLOP9XX/RealPlayer11GOLD.modified.deb.html

It works for me - I hope it's useful for you too.

नटखट बैंगन NatKhat Baingan

Talking about dinner while sipping evening चाय, my wife and I were gripped with these sudden बैंगन (brinjal) pangs - and reminisced the way our neighbors in Dhanbad would dish out आलू बैंगन की सब्जी with रोटी and पराठा (flat bread). So, while another gloomy Tonga fish something dinner was looming large in the horizon, we decided to give it a go - it was decidedly tangy - so we named it नटखट बैंगन - hope you like the name . It is surprisingly easy and can be made within 15-20 minutes. Here is the recipe ...

1. Cube potatoes and brinjal, dice a little onion and tomatoes
2. Keep a few slit green chillies aside
3. Heat oil in a pan, add पाँच फोरन (paanch phoran) - when it begins to sputter, add the onions and a few chillies - saute until the onion turns translucent.
4. Now add potatoes and saute for a couple of minutes.
5. Add (half a teaspoon of each) cumin powder, dhaniya powder, turmeric powder and red chilli powder and fry for some more time.
6. Now add the brinjal - mix well with all the stuff in the pan, add some salt and cover and cook on low heat for 5-7 minutes.
7. Now bring the heat back up, add diced tomatoes, a little aamchur (well, a lot if you are in an experimenting mood) and - oh well, some beaten curd as well. Add a pinch of kasuri methi for added flavor.
8. Cover and cook again for a minute on low flame.
9. Enjoy with रोटी or नॉन which can be bought at your grocery store. Trader Joe's here in Pasadena stocks some whole wheat tortillas which taste exactly like चपाती.

A few poems by Nida Fazli

1. खट्टी चटनी जैसी माँ

बेसन की सोंधी रोटी पे खट्टी चटनी जैसी माँ

याद आती है चौका बेसन फुकनी जैसी माँ

बान की खुर्री खाट के ऊपर हर आहट पर कान धरे

आधी सोई आधी जागी थकी दोपहरी जैसी माँ

चिडियों कि चहकार गूँजे राधा मोहन अली अली

मुर्गे की आवाज़, घर की कुण्डी जैसी माँ

बीवी बेटी बहन पडोसन थोड़ी सी सब में

दिन भर एक रस्सी के ऊपर चलती नटनी जैसी माँ

बाँट के अपना चेहरा माथा आँखें जाने कहाँ गई

फटे पुराने एक एलबम में चंचल शोख लड़की सी माँ

Himan Mukhopadhyay - Adieu

Himan died a couple of months ago.

She had a website on geocities [http://www.geocities.com/ihar_cheye_hotem_jodi/] where I found a couple of her poems and some information about her. You can read them here in this PDF document.

Himan, rest in peace. You will always be in our heart. You were one of the most amazing persons I have ever met. And yes, I will always cherish fond memories of the 'Vanilla Biri' (Vanilla flavored tobacco).

The pitiable state of industrial development in Bengal

This is an editorial from Ananda Bazar Patrika (1st August, 2008). It laments the state of industrial development in the Indian state of West Bengal and in particular the foolish mentality of the people in the state who are opposed to the idea of industry in the state.

Here is a PDF version of the article. Reproduced from ABP.

Bangla Rhymes - বাংলা ছড়া

Bengali is an Indo-Aryan language possessing a history and tradition of at least a millennium, with a rich tradition of folklore and folk literature. Folk rhymes form an important part of this tradition.

Syed Mohammed Shahed from Dhaka University has written a fine article on this together with a nice collection of rhymes. Here is a collection of Bengali rhymes in PDF and txt format.

Don't forget to send me your own collection of Bangla rhymes - I will add it to the PDF file with proper credits. Also, my Bangla spelling is not what it used to be. If you spot any errors, please feel free to send in your corrections.

First, kill a medium sized dog :)

China, apparently, has banned all 'fragrant' (read DOG) meat in its Olympic restaurants. Strange are ways of Mao-land but that definitely piqued this armchair chef's curiosity. How would you cook a dog - wedding style, no less? Hmm - according to this article, you start by killing a medium sized dog. That did it for me. I can just about handle the thought of clammy testicles staring sadly behind the poor doggie's penis (yum!) - but kill a medium sized dog ? No way. Fuck off.



So much for cultural dogmas.

Don't let me keep you - so here is the recipe ...

1. First, kill a medium sized dog, then burn off the fur over a hot fire. 
2. Carefully remove the skin while still warm and set aside for later (may be used in other recpies) 
3. Cut meat into 1″ cubes. Marinade meat in mixture of vinegar, peppercorn, salt and garlic for 2 hours. 
4. Fry meat in oil using a large wok over an open fire, then add onions and chopped pineapple and suate until tender. 
5. Pour in tomato sauce and boiling water, add green peper, bay leaf and tabasco. 
6. Cover and simmer over warm coals until meat is tender. Blend in liver spread and cook for additional 5-7 minutes.