Tuesday, July 18, 2006

karkataka: the month of cancer; and censorship and emergency

july 17th, 2006

the month of karkataka, cancer, began in kerala today. this is traditionally the month of poverty, when there are rains and not much chance of agricultural work, and thus not much food. so people eat the kanji (cf. congee in chinese) -- rice gruel -- with special herbs and pulses, fast, and read the ramayana.

how appropriate that the UPA govt chose this very day to censor the blogosphere. i guess this will force me to create a website, something that i have been trying to avoid. too much work. if anyone can help me with information on how to set up a blog on, say, google's free web pages, that'd be great.

there is the inspiring story of 'ohmynews' in korea which grew from nothing to be an underground newspaper of significance, essentially toppling the military dictatorship (thanks to arindam for that pointer). looks like there is a need for something like that in india: i smell an Emergency only a short time in the future. those with foreign boltholes better start transferring money to their overseas accounts and getting their passports ready. this time, the Emergency is going to last. the congress has learnt from its mistakes the last time. this time, they'll make sure they'll never have to face another election again. george fernandes, you better watch your step. you are going to be a targeted, you know that.

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