The plight of an Indian Muslim in australia

The title being self explanatory, i will get straight to the point. Mohd Haneef innocent or guilty is currently caught in the dirtiest of the three party political games ever played. Australia, India and UK have suddenly become key tormentors of this individual whose every known right as a human being has been violated. He has been pronounced guilty without a fair trial, his status has been declared illegal, his professional career as a doctor is as good as over and well in the medias of these three nations his trial is over one way or the other and verdict already given. He has been made the new poster boy of terror around the globe. Educated, professional and indistinguishable from the crowd; a common man. Thats the new face of terror for you. Do not believe in anyone, anyone can be a terrorist; a doctor, an engineer a lawyer anybody. Thats what being promulgated.
I am not against punishing the guilty, but in the case has the guilt been established? From where I see it, Dr haneef was an honest upright doctor who believed in the goodness of human character and was in turn betrayed by his own cousin. Many of us have had similar experiences, though not so harsh. It is really sickening to be betrayed by someone close to you. But well this is 20th century and like they say, shit happens!!
The situation as it stands right now is that there was a failed attack on a airport in uk, The attackers brother was arrested in Australia for giving his sim card to his brother( no direct connection to plot has been credited to him neither has been the very knowledge of its occurrence) . So instead of being bailed, he is held on some flimsy charges of abetting terrorism, then after being bailed he is rearrested on some other cooked up immigration charges and on top of that his work permit has been canceled and icing on the cake being his landlord has him evicted for non payment of rent. All this so that Australia gets some political leverage with UK. Indian government on the other hand choses not to side with its own citizen and prefers being a mute spectator instead!! And on top of that our very own mumbai police claims that they had forewarned UK that student enrolling in aeronautical, civil and such allied courses six years ago can be a threat to their security. I feel like asking these bozos were they sleeping during kargil or better the last two bombay blasts?? Or they have recently recruited desi Cassandra in their ranks?
Whatever the political compulsions of India UK and Australia an innocent man(till proven otherwise) is currently facing trial by fire and all we can do is pray for him.

Aap Ka Suroor: my take on bhai himesh

this being a democracy and everyone has the right to express his/her opinion. When bhai himesh has the guts to challange the singing style of pancham da i will exercise my right here and well have a pot shot on himesh bhai now that his movie aap ka suroor has gone on the floors. Well those who were into soaps like in mid 1990s(pre sas bahu era) would remember a soap by the name of andaz which in its time ran 175 episodes and was a hit by the standards of that time. Now of course noone can compete with 1000 odd episoded daily soapy syrupy sas bahu intrigue stuff of modern times but in that time, it ws a big hit and i personally liked it too. Bhai himesh gave the title playback of that serial. Then came amar prem another zee tv telecast. Bhai himesh gave music for this too and well that time his main contribution to these two serials wasnt just music but they were produced by him as well. My take is that had bhai himesh stuck with production he might just have given ekta kapoor a sleepless night or two.
Not that i dont like his singing style or anything. I mean he is an okish singer cum producer and has musician genes. But if any of you have heard the sound track of either amar prem or andaz you would know his initial tracks in pyar kiya to darna kya and humraaz are direct rip offs from those and not only that most of his music is unidimensional and his on screen presence shabby. The thing is its just like food. You can have a dish once, twice or thrice but on the forth fifth or sixth occasion you will start looking somewhere else. I frankly have had enough of himesh over the last decade odd and would want him to where he is the best behind the cameras. The reason i am writing this blog today is that today his movie aap ka suroor's trailer was launched. Though the ads were on air for sometime but i thought maybe he is outta his mind, maybe it will all go away or maybe he will shed his trademark beard, cap and worst that constipated look. But i saw this trailer today and well behold himesh bhai is living his fantasy and showing it off on silver screen!! Same old constipated look, cap on hasnt shaved extra couple of days for that extra effect , one side extra hotness in mallika sherawat and on the other a twenty something pure cuteness whom i couldnt get neither can bother.

I am like himesh bhai we know you are imperial music moughul and girls dance to your tunes and everything but please spare the cinema owners the plight of going house empty, the lovey dovy couples who might go in the hall(some guys and gals have wierd notions of dating) and well poor souls like me who do respect you but frankly have had enough of you!!

conference mania!!

the reservation discussion will continue soon!! I am taking a bit of detour to talk about conferences. Well for the uninitiated, conferences are meetings/coglomeration where scientists working on a particular area present their latest work/ findings. I recently joined a research group to do my phd in fiber optics. My advisor also has some interest in quantum stuff so there was this quantum conference in my university and my advisor was to put up a poster. Its a sunday and asks me that he might be late and can i put the poster up on his behalf?? I am a new student willing to create an impression so i say why not?? I willingly reach there one hour early and put the poster up. That was the easy part but my advisor was 15 min late so i had to fend off advances of 3-4 big shots interested in that work that well i dont know jack about it. Then i ran off to find my advisor. lucikly he was coming in so that was that
A general comment about conferences in case you get to visit them!!. A conference audience is generally very focussed. So ou would find grey/white haired big shots+not so big shots. Then there would be young dynamic professors all too excited and well very forthcoming and nice to talk to. Then there would be graduate students. Well these are the best to talk to. They dont know jack, you dont know jack and thats a basis of a very interesting conversation.Once in while(if you are lucky) there are good looking females on the house!! that kinda spices up the show a bit. But they are not very inclined on the non science part of things especially during the conference. So the best way to strike a conversation would be to know the group she is working in or atleast a jack about her poster/ talk. In todays physicsy conference, I an engineer didnt know anything so was at a loss for words.A physicsy friend of mine got into a conversation with this girl and that was that for me!! Now i hate microprocessors more than i did in my undergrad and wish i knew what bell inequalities!!
Final concluding remarks about food. Well food is very essential commodity in any grad students life. Food in conferences is generally of the highest quality and in abundance!! there might be occasions where you get good quality wine. The idea i guess behind conferences is for the new age einstiens to unwind relax and talk science, something they cant do in their day to day laboratory based existence

The big bad Reservation Divide

Part 1

Not so long ago, 'Hindu,Muslim,Sikh, Isayee aapas mein hain bhai bhai' and since time immemorial 'vasudhaev kutumbakam'. Humanity has been taught to us since our scriptures were first composed. Other religions, castes and creed I am sure follow a similar code.Religion tends to define an individual.Beliefs, eating habits, clothes, deportment, thoughts, actions and community, all are defined by the religion a person follows. Its like an all pervasive shroud a person is born with carries with him for the rest of life and even in death is not parted with it. In a way religion gives a sense of belonging to something, a sense of security, a sense of brotherhood. But the irony here is that already by preaching and practicing different religions, we are sowing the first seeds of seggregation between people.
Skirmishes and clash of interests between people of different religion is now less of a problem. The current world order means that round the globe there are countries where politics are dominated by a particuar religion. The larger problem at hand now is how the to stop in infighting between people belonging to different religious sects. The sword of religion that mrked the melon of humanity never really stopped at just marking. The chasm it created was too deep. Its just that the damage that was subcutaneous is now beginning to show. The fault lines are widening threatening to swallow entire humanity.
The world has its own share of problems along similar lines. Without going into them i will concentrate on things at home. India holds the distinction of housing the the greatest religious diversity. We have hindus dominating, followed by muslims and then sikhs, christians, parasis, buddhists, jains and various other cults and sects following an amalgamation of beliefs.

brain drain and reverse brain drain

In not such distant past, our elders used to fret about brain drain, indian talent going abroad leaving behind the motherland the place that nurtured us etc etc. Now circa 2000 onwards we laud the resolve of our expirate brethern for coming back to india, investing here, and giving back to their motherland what they owe.
Since time immemorial, our scripture ascribe motherly attributes to the place we are born in(hindu scriptures). we are taught that the place where we are born is our janamboomi, matribhoomi, karmabhoomi and maransthala (place of birth, place of nourishment, place of work and place of death).
However true this may be in the times of Mahabharata and Ramayana, In the preseant times where we can go around the globe in a day tops, how much of these beliefs are valid?
Looking at the phenomenon of brain drain and reverse brain drain in this light let us see why the former happened and is the latter and different from it
In circa 1960s 1970s and 1980s india was shaping up as a nation. We were rebuilding the tatters left behind by the british raj. We needed a stable economy, dependable infrastructure and a powerful army(courtesy our neighbours). These 30 years were the years nation was being built. A lot of young ones left at this time due to the lack of opportunities(read no infrastructure or economy and constant b0rder skirmishes did not help matters either). They went abroad, lived their american dreams and their descendents got to call america, europe et all their homes.
In 1990s when internet and IT happened, the whole world took notice of the fact that this third world country has a potential; its vast researves of educated manpower.Soon indian economy started to grow at unparalled rates,then came bpo and then post bust things are looking good again. The expirates who were now well settled abroad saw this as a golden opportunity to invest in india and decided to come back. What has ensued and been called reverse brain drain is nothing but a classic example of herd mentality where people are following the footsteps of others. Of course polititcans have been quick to pounce on this opportunity to bring in the dollars with the last government claiming the slogans of India Shining and this one going ga ga over Bhartiya Pravasi Divas
So in totality brain drain and reverse brain drain can be seen as a same phenomenon; the very basic human instinct of following opportunities.

IIT-JEE a cakewalk for Bihar boys

this news item appeared an www.ibnlive.com. although it si a reflection of victory of the underprivilaged against all odds and a story of triumph of a david over golaith, scaling of mt everest et all, there is another issue here which needs to be looked at from different perspective.
IIT-JEE is supposed to be a very tough examination, 2 lakh odd students give it only 2500 odd stand a chance to get a seat of their choice in the institute of their choice. It requires dedicated harwork, focus and perseverence on the part of the candidate taking the exam. So why is that nearly 10 per cent of all iit entrant are from bihar a supposedly backward and rural part of india??how the national capital region fare in this regard?? what about the rest of the nation??
Having myself given iit jee and not suceeding at it, my take is that how very hard we city boys/gals may work, the distractions we have to deal with make it impossible for us to keep up the focus for the duration of two years. we may work hard equally but the lack of hardships mean we end up failing when the litmus test comes. elite schools employ play way methods and claim to focus on holistic development of children. how can you expect a 16 year old to be as fit as micheal jordan, as agile as micheal johnson, an einstein for physicist, an arya bhatta in mathematics and a bigger computer geek than bill gates?? i mean at the end of the day do the holistic curriculums advocated by delhi schools and cbse actually end up making a child any of these?? in the world of cut thoat competition you need master of one trade not jack of all. In my opinion the education system in its present form is clearly missing the point. instead of classes of 50-100 odd students,however prtically difficult it may be, it is imperitive that individuals with individual talents be identified and trained accordingly.
This is how we will have a trained work force suited for particular task. This will even out the distribution of engineers, doctors, scientists, sportsmen etc from all parts of india