Month: November 2008

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Mumbai Terrorist Attacks:

I do not want to say much about this as I think I am very much affected by whatever that went on in Mumbai. Being of Indian origin and a former Indian citizen my heart goes out to those who have lost loved ones and to all those brave soldiers and policeman who risked their lives and died to protect their citizens.

Terrorist attacks keep happening in various parts of India, but no one really gives it much attention. Even I seemed to care less about them, but this recent one in Mumbai has really left me shaken. I don’t know whether it was the wide media coverage or the sheer manner in which these terrorists carried out their massacre that really affected me. I do have extended family in India, and I feel it could have been anyone of them. I was in India in 2006 for summer holidays when there were multiple bomb blasts in Mumbai trains just few days before I was supposed to board a plane from Mumbai airport coming back to Canada Рeven that did not affect me as much as this recent attacks have.

Let’s just assume for argument sake that sometimes wars may be needed so that a few lives are taken to save the lives of many, or let’s say that it is justifiable that we have soldiers on borders protecting their respected countries and that they be ready to kill to protect their land, but can this or any other thing justify what happened in Mumbai? How can killing innocent people who have nothing to do with anything be justified? In fact not just in Mumbai, but anywhere in the world where innocent lives are taken; how can any of that be justified?

I was not able to sleep well for a few days following the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. This may well be called the ‘911’ of India.

Doesn’t it make you think what we really are doing to us? It really does not matter whether the ones who are killing and the ones who are killed are Hindus or Muslims or Christians or Jewish or white or black or brown, or American or Afghani or India – the bottom line is that a human is killing another human.

There is no alibi for what we’ve done to us!

Categories
Politics

Canadian Politics : Part One

Canadians went to the polls just two years after they went to the polls and elected the Stephen Harper led Conservative Party who formed a minority government. I still really don’t get why there was another election in the first place. This time Canadians again elected the Stephen Harper led Conservative Party and yet again Canadians had to witness a minority government. So the question on every Canadian’s (or at least some Canadians like me) mind was, “What was really the point of this election?”.

This time was the first time I voted. Last time around, I had a chance but didn‚Äôt vote, but I thought this time I should; it is my right and I must exercise my right and also because you know what they say, “Every vote counts”.

I didn‚Äôt want to vote for the Liberals because I really doubted Dion‚Äôs capabilities as a leader and to be honest the Liberals were all over the place with their campaign, and what‚Äôs up with the carbon tax? Dion doesn‚Äôt really look or sounds like a prime minister, Harper looks like a crook (joke, please don’t take that seriously; I didn‚Äôt quite buy all their policies), and Duceppe (leader of the Quebec Bloc) is a separatist. Jack Layton, the leader of the NDP was the only guy who seemed consistent and well,‚Ķ the only other party left. Although, there is also the Green party, if anyone even wants to consider them a real political party. In times like this when the country is facing a recession, making the environment our first priority isn‚Äôt really a very smart thing to do, and thankfully Canadians realize that and it is evident from the fact that not even one member of the Green party got elected. Don‚Äôt get me wrong! I am all for the environment, I try the little things that I can to make a difference, but looking at the current economic situation, the environment can wait.

So now the new government is sworn in and Canada again witnesses Harper Led Conservative minority government.

Stephen Harper faces a tough challenge with the receding economy and 1000‚Äôs or job losses across Canada. What does he do? He proposes to do something, but nothing which would throw in life jackets for the sinking economy like some sort of an economic stimulus package. Instead, what the Conservatives propose is to sell off crown assets, and on top of that, they wanted to cut back on government funding for political parties, which was their way of showing that “Hey, we know that Canadians are feeling the pinch and we want to show that we understand so we‚Äôre going to tone down our piggy bank (a very large piggy bank)”. But what does that do for the economy? Nothing!

This is just like that ridiculous tax reduction that Harper put in place the last time he was elected prime minister. Are Canadians really buying this non-sense? An average Canadian does not buy a house or a car every month or buy expensive things or buy things in large quantities. It’s only the rich ones that will be really benefiting from this tax reduction. The average Canadian hardly saves enough to make any difference in their bank balance or life style. And just to remind my readers that there is no tax on basic items anyway! This only reduced millions of dollars in revenue for the government without affecting the middle class and low income Canadian households in a positive way.

Oh and I am not done yet. Stay tuned for more!

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Uncategorized

Back after almost a year….

Waow. It has been such a long time since I last updated my blog, its almost a year. I guess I didn’t quite follow up with my new years resolution…lol. There have been many times when I wanted to update my blog but just could not (couldn’t get myself to that is). Today I actually made it mandatory for myself to update my blog.

Quite a few things I will talk about in the next few blogs to come. Open source and why I’m loving it, Google’s browser, chrome, US election, the global economy…etc etc.. Oh Man! So many things are going on in this world.

Another major thing to note is that it has been a while since I started work on Kesario.com, in fact it has take much longer than it should have, but nonetheless the beta version is almost complete and the target launch date is roughly set to some time in December 08 or early Jan 09. Not many people know about Kesario.com – only a few close family members and friends. Hopefully people will get to know about it once the beta version is out and hopefully people like it. It will be very, very simple (but that is just for now), lots of cool ideas and other subprojects spawning from it in 2009 Р2010.