Alaska to Virginia on a ....

Imagine driving from Alaska to Virginia on a ....hmmm.... lawn mower. Good luck to this guy attempting just that along with his dog. Do you call him crazy or a guy with great perseverence ? In any case I just wish that he reaches his destination safely.

The great citizenship conundrum

When we R2I next year my family will face a very unique problem. The parents are Indian Citizens but the kids are US citizens. Citizenship rules in India and US are structured in a way that such dichotomy in Indian families working in USA will become more common. Here's how it works.

US Side:
Anyone who was born in US soil is a US citizen. USA allows you to hold multiple citizenry. Anyone born in USA is not eligible for any type of visas as by default they are citizens. One must be atleast 18 years of age to renounce US citizenry. So those are the basic ground rules as for as US citizenship is concerned.

India Side:
India does not recognize dual citizenship. Either you are an Indian citizen or not. Ofcourse there's the usual mayajal type of schemes like OCI(Overseas citizens of India) and PIO(Person of Indian Origin). If you have parents who are Indian citizens and your citizenship is acquired involuntarily (which is the case for all Indian kids born in USA) then you can claim Indian citizenship after living in India for 5 years continuously. Those are the ground rules for Indian citizenship.

While these rules are structured in a way that makes sense for their national interest, it really doesn't work well in today's flat world. There are hundreds of thousands of Indians working in USA. If they are going to bite the bullet and go through the horrendous employment based immigration process (which is hopelessly broken) and finally get US Citizenship then they are fine. But if you are like me who is frustrated with this process to such an extent that we are R2I-ing early next year you face the interesting problem of parents being ICs and kids being USCs.

The problem arises because neither India nor USA have taken in to account the changed scenario in international travel where people visit other countries on temporary purposes and such temporary purposes can be even for a decade or more.

So a child born to ICs in USA automatically and involuntarily assumes USC. But if the parents decide to relocate to India, due to any reason, neither the parents nor the child can officially renounce the kids US citizenship in order to acquire Indian citizenship because the child needs to be atleast 18 years to make a conscientious choice. Very good thought behind this rule but another case of practical realities leapfrogging those ancient laws.

Celebrating Fidel's death ?

MSNBC reports here that Miami officials are going to celebrate Fidel Castro's death. Now this is not a plan by Cuban people settled in Miami but by the City itself. The celebrations are being planned by City officials. I think this is part of a new "Shock and Awe" tactic against, well, commoners like me. I mean Fidel Castro might be your sworn enemy but the way things are going Fidel is being treated as an Infidel and America is behaving like Al-Qaeda. But having survived innumerous attempts on his life and his rule I think Fidel has the last laugh. Even in death all that the narrow minded officialdom can do is celebrate his death outside of Cuba.

Such official sanction of macabre celebrations is a new low for civilized society which is something that Americans really claim themselves to be.

I know too many posts for today but this will be the last one...

This post is on the concept of money management. A 3bdrm flat in Ashoknagar costs 65L. The same flat can be rented for 12K per month. I'm struggling to convey to my father why one should rent that flat rather than buy it. But I guess the concept of owning a property and the thought that property prices will always go up has been ingrained in people psyche (and this is not just in India but also in good old USA) that people want to buy it inspite of cold money management logic advising against it. God only knows where this real estate bubble is going to land people in India.

Our old Friend USSR

Recent visit to India by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was also bestowed the honor of being the chief guest at the Republic Day parade, was marked with a stark sense of pragmatism from both ends. With recent overtures between India and US over nuclear issues, I did expect some kind of expression of dissatisfaction from the Russians but the Russians seem to have outdone the Americans by actually signing up a memorandum for 4 more nuclear reactors at Koodankulam.

After the breakup of Soviet Union, Russia has gained pre-eminence only now under the leadership of Putin. Putin has had a long and historic friendly relationship with India, right from his days of being a major public figure in St.Petersburg (known as Leningrad at that time). While Boris Yeltsin did not have much use for India and infact I.K.Gujral and Yeltsin had some worldly spats when they were the premiers, Putin understands the strategic importance of India.

Putin has also used Russia's energy abundance to chilling effects including threatening European Union as well as other central asian countries like Georgia and Ukraine. If there's a nation on earth that would be the envy of every other nation it has to be India. Forget the internal strife we have and the lack of infrastructure, the image of India in the minds of both US and Russia is one of a responsible nuclear state with a functioning democracy. The last piece of information is of no relevance to Putin and ofcourse US only pays lip service to democracy but those two words really speak a lot in international relations.

Sometimes it seems like India and Russia probably played the Americans by signing up a nuclear agreement with America but handing over a majority of nuclear work to Russia in exchange for energy resources in Russia. Who could fault either country if it really comes to this. America is not couring India without it's national interest in mind. It needs a good counter measure to the rising dragon. The year 2007 appears to be very promising for some interesting events in the foreign policy frontier for India. Let's watch and enjoy.

RIP OP Nayyar

May his soul rest in peace and his music continue to liven up our lives.....

Windows Vista clamp down

Reports from arstechnica seem to indicate that the old trick of clean install from an upgrade disc seems to be a thing of past with Windows Vista. This is a big bummer for people like me who buy the upgrade disc and use it for a complete and clean install. Ofcourse we have a legitimate copy of the previous windows operating system. Another instance of corporate greed and blatant use of monopolistic power ? Supporters would say that Microsoft is just asserting what should have been done long time ago. When you buy an upgrade it is implicit that you already have a version of the software installed. But Microsoft and all other software vendors are aware of how their upgrades work and how people actually use them, to do a clean install rather than a crappy upgrade that results in a bunch of odd files from previous OS still out there causing headaches in some obscure events.

Since I bought Windows XP Professional recently I'm eligible for Vista Premium (frankly I forget how many different variations of Vista is available) upgrade. I'm going to see if this report is indeed the truth and if so then Ubuntu will be the way to go for me.

Is India safe for kids or not ?

I have great admiration for Sundar and his blog. In the post titled "Dazed and Confused" he talks about his daughter sitting in an auto and the auto driver not realizing this (or did he know about it...) took off but others in the auto stand recognized the kid and brought the kid back. All's well that ends well right and one would have thought Sundar would have some nice words for the autodrivers who looked out for him. But no Sundar says and I quote
"India is nowhere safe for kids (most of you must be familiar with what is going on in the Capital)!"

This is in reference to Nithari Killings. I feel that his all encompassing verdict that India is nowhere safe is just too ridiculous. Of all nations India is still one of those where people are always on the look out for one another. Heck Sundar and his wife grew up in India, albeit safely right. Or is it that when one is accustomed to the heightened safety measures in America, life in the normal lane looks so unsafe ?

Reservation for Dalit Christians and Muslims

The national commission of Scheduled Castes in it's recent decision has declined to extend the benefits of reservation to those dalits who have converted to Christianity or Islam. Infact it's oxymoronic to call someone Dalit Christian or Dalit Muslim because those religions do not have such concepts. The rise of these religions in the subcontinent has been mainly based on universal brotherhood for Christianity and a similar concept called Al-Umma for Islam. Therefore a person who converts to Christianity sheds his earlier branding of Dalit. Well that's how the Dalits are brainwashed before they get converted. Christian agencies, with their foriegn donation, do such a wonderful job of brainwashing. But the reality is that once you are a dalit you are always a dalit in Indian society. It does not matter which religion you choose to practice. While the call of dalit christians and muslims is reasonable I still think it was a right decision by the commission. Rather than besieging the commission for such perks, the dalits who have converted and hence are no longer dalits, should try to work for their rights within their new setup. They should rather target those individuals and organizations who promised them heaven and earth after conversion and make them pay their dues.

If they still persist in wanting to have such a reservation then they should boldly declare that dalit is not confined to Hinduism alone. On the one hand the deride the religion for having instituted such an inhuman practice and at the same time they claim that their new religion also treats them at the same level. Such a declaration will throw the entire reservation in to question. No longer is reservation a bane of just one religion but is the bane of Indian society. Which questions the very notion as to whether Brahmins in Hinduism were the ones to have instituted this practice because there are no Brahmins in Christianity or Islam but the practice still continues. Which again will question the entire reservation on caste system because caste belongs to Hindu religion alone but there exists documented proof that part of non-casteist religions also suffer from discrimination. So if the dalits who converted to christianity or islam be considered for reservation then the entire reservation along caste line should be dismantled. Now who would want to do this.

Long Hiatus

Not that anyone noticed but it serves to help one rejuvenate a bit. Let's start the year 2007 with some news events worthy of my comments.

Ofcourse MK meeting SB and MA and sharing the dias with them has officially driven the last nail in the no-God, anti-hindu coffin in TN. In the traditional and famous tamil philosophy of no-sand-in-my-moustache-even-though-I-fell-down, MK asserted that
1. SB is a true God-man as opposed to so many other God-men.
2. his yellow shawl is more of a Buddhist tradition than a Hindu tradition.
3. there is nothing wrong in his close family from falling on the feet of Godmen.
and finally
4. Even though he doesn't believe in the existence of God, he does believe that service to manking is service to God. huh !!!

hmmmmm.....

Now here's an interesting news article about British MPs demanding 'justice' for Afzal. Afzal as we all know, well if you didn't know then know it now, is accused of planning the attack on Indian Parliament and has been tried in a court of law and is facing death sentence. The MPs belonging to Britain are still in a delusionary state of mind I think about Raj or they probably skipped their History class that talked about India's independence. Oh btw these MPs belong to a country where they shoot a person before asking him any questions (remember the Brazilian shot in front of scores of people in a train....)...

Well that's it for today..