lok pal bill: if agnivesh supports it, it must automatically be bad

apr 6th, 2011 CE

i have paid no attention to the lok pal bill, because like 'right to food', 'right to education' etc., it is just another bit of eyewash by the congress.

here's an interesting blog post analyzing why it is dangerous. it is likely to bring unelectable people into positions of power: a bit like the supreme court, or the CVC, or CEC, all of which have been packed with their pals by the kkkangress. i imagine lokpal will have members such as:

amartya sen

susan arudhati roy

jean dreze

the asha fellow sandeep pandey

harsh mander

mallika sarabhai

shabana azmi

teesta setalvad

barkha dutt

in other words, the most dubious of indian society

http://realitycheck.wordpress.com/2011/04/06/jan-lok-pal-caveat-emptor/

interesting data on NRI gender selection, not quite sure what it means

apr 6th, 2011 CE

all this data does not add up to anything particularly meaningful.

among other things, so whites have fewer girl babies than blacks? whites are murdering their daughters too? 

i think, if i understand it correctl,y populations under stress automatically have more boy babies, who tend to be more fragile and die off more often. 

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/nri/news/NRIs-fare-no-better-on-sex-ratio-front/articleshow/7893770.cms

SpaceX Announces Biggest Rocket

SpaceX's Elon Musk has announced plans for its new Falcon Heavy rocket, the largest seen since the Saturn V. The rocket is scheduled to be rolled out to launchpad by end of 2012, and launched in 2013.



Capable of lifting 53 tons to Low Earth Orbit (half the payload capacity of Saturn V), the Falcon Heavy rocket will be composed of a Falcon-9 core first stage, with 2 flanking Falcon-9 first stages as boosters. A key noteable feature is that the vehicle uses propellant cross-feed to allow the boosters to top up the central core stage. In some ways, it looks a bit like GSLV-Mk3, except it has liquid-fueled boosters instead of Mk-3's solid rocket boosters.

Besides its huge lifting capacity, a key attraction is its resulting low cost-per-pound to orbit, which SpaceX touts as being $1000/pound.

Meanwhile, India's dreams of gaining a foothold in the launch market has been put in a tailspin with the successive failure of GSLV-D3, as well as ISRO's involvement in an ugly telecom corruption scandal.

Victor of Bangladesh Lt Gen JFR Jacob on "The Chinese are coming!"

apr 6th, 2011 CE

india's leaders are fiddling while the hans are plotting.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ram Narayanan

http://www.indiandefencereview.com/IDR-Updates/The-Chinese-are-coming.html 

The Chinese are coming! 

By Lt Gen JFR Jacob 

Issue: Net Edition | Date: 06 April, 2011

The Dragon has emerged from its lair with a vengeance. 

A senior Indian army officer was denied an official Chinese visa on the grounds that he was commanding in Jammu and Kashmir, a disputed territory according to the Chinese.

The Chinese occupy considerable amount of territory in Ladakh, which they captured in 1962. They are now slowly making inroads into the Indus Valley and other areas. In 1963, Pakistan had illegally ceded some 5,000 square km (2000 sq miles) in the area of the Karakoram to China.

Pakistan is now reported to have handed over control of the major part of the northern territories to China. Media reports indicate that there are some 10,000 Chinese soldiers based in Gilgit on the pretext of protecting the widening work on the Karakoram Highway and the construction of a railway line to link east Tibet with the Pakistani port of Gwadar in the Gulf of Oman.

The Russians in the 19th and 20th centuries dreamt of a getting warm water port on the Arabian Sea. The Chinese seem well on the way to fulfilling this Russian dream.

In a further move to encircle India by sea, the Chinese are establishing naval and air bases on Myanmar’s Ramree Island in the Bay of Bengal. (Incidentally, I took part in the amphibious assault on Ramree Island during World War II). These bases on Ramree Island will help the Chinese in their endeavors to control the upper Bay of Bengal and pose a threat to Kolkata, Vishakapatnam and the Andamans.

... deleted

Chinese Troops Stationed on POK Line of Control

An Indian general speaks out on China's stationing of troops on the POK "border" (Line of Control) with India.

interesting that no govt ever wants to take over a mosque or a church: no, no, they must be given pilgrimage subsidy to mecca or bethlehem

apr 6th, 2011 CE

now the govt has its eyes on the sai baba trust that's doing a lot of good, and has a lot of assets. ok, let's take it over, destroy it and steal its money -- standard govt tactic.

how about taking over some of the vast churches which own half the real estate in the country? the church is the 2nd biggest landowner in the country after the government. 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Kumar 

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/New-Article/articleshow/7880018.cms

 

I wonder who might be behind this??? things that make you go "hhmmmmmmm".

ah, the right to food: you can eat the 'right to food' bill if onions not available

apr 3rd, 2011

but india won the cricket world cup! so who cares about the starving?

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From:

     The Indian exception

Many Indians eat poorly. Would a “right to food” help?

Mar 31st 2011 | from the print edition

“LOOK at this muck,” says 35-year-old Pamlesh Yadav, holding up a tin-plate of bilious-yellow grains, a mixture of wheat, rice and mung beans. “It literally sticks in the throat. The children won’t eat it, so we take it home and feed it to the cows.”

... deleted

The nursery is part of India’s Integrated Child Development Services Scheme (ICDS), the largest child-nutrition programme in the world. Its woes in Rajasthan are part of a larger problem. India is an outlier. Its rate of malnutrition—nearly half the children under three weigh less than they should—is much higher than it should be given India’s level of income. And the burden has shifted more slowly than it ought to have done given Indian growth. Lawrence Haddad, the director of the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex University, reckons that every 3-4% increase in a developing country’s income per head should translate into a 1% fall in rates of underweight children.

In India the rate has barely shifted in two decades of growth. Per person, India eats less, and worse, than it used to. Mr Haddad calls the country the world’s Jekyll and Hyde: economic powerhouse, nutritional weakling. Over a third of the world’s malnourished children live there.

Related topics

• India

When India was poor, its failure to feed itself properly did not seem odd. Poverty was explanation enough. But after one of the most impressive growth spurts in history, the country’s inability to lift the curse of malnutrition has emerged as its greatest failure—and biggest puzzle. Nothing fully accounts for it. True, farming has not shared in the same dazzling success as the rest of the economy, lately rising by only a point or two per person per year. But some African countries have seen farm output per head actually fall—and they have still cut malnutrition more than India.

... deleted

So the most convincing explanations for India’s nutritional failures probably lie elsewhere. Women are the most important influences upon their children’s health—and the status of women in India is notoriously low. Brides are deemed to join their husband’s family on marriage and are often treated as unpaid skivvies. “The mothers aren’t allowed to look after themselves,” says Mrs Khan. “Their job is simply to have healthy babies.” But if mothers are unhealthy, their children frequently are, too.

... deleted

But that cannot be the whole story. Astonishingly, a third of the wealthiest 20% of Indian children are malnourished, too, and they are neither poor nor excluded. Bad practice plays some part—notably a reluctance to breastfeed babies. There may also be an element of choice. Long ago, a study in Maharashtra showed that people spend only two-thirds of their extra income on food—and this is true whether they are middle-income or dirt-poor. That may seem perverse. But a mobile phone may be more useful to the poor than better food, since the phone may generate income during the next harvest failure, and good food will not.

... deleted

Economist.com/blogs/banyan