Cool Websites

Here is a list of cool websites...

1. Of course, www.youtube.com

2. www.jango.com

3. www.snapfish.com

4. www.orkut.com

5. www.wolfgangsvault.com

6. www.time.com

7. www.timesofindia.com

8. www.in.com

9. www.thefreedictionary.com

10. www.newsweek.com

I found them as the coolest websites on the web. But this is just my favourites and tastes differ. Do check them out.

Cheers. :)

The traffic conditions in India

This is from another blog and I found it interesting. It shows from the view point of a foreigner, but my opinions are the same. The drivers own the road and the pedestrians are supposed to move according to their whim and fancy. The pedestrians are second rate citizens according to the drivers of the cars and bikes.

____________________________________________________________________

For the benefit of every Tom, Dick and Harry visiting India and daring to drive on Indian roads, I am offering a few hints for survival. They are applicable to every place in India except Bihar, where life outside a vehicle is only marginally safer..

Indian road rules broadly operate within the domain of 'karma' where you do your best, and leave the results to your insurance company. The hints are as follows: Do we drive on the left or right of road? The answer is 'both'. Basically you start on the left of the road, unless it is occupied. In that case, go to the right, unless that is also occupied. Then proceed by occupying the next available gap, as in chess. Just trust your instincts, ascertain the direction, and proceed. Adherence to road rules leads to much misery and occasional fatality. Most drivers don't drive, but just aim their vehicles in the generally intended direction.

Don't you get discouraged or underestimate yourself except for a belief in reincarnation; the other drivers are not in any better position. Don't stop at pedestrian crossings just because some fool wants to cross the road. You may do so only if you enjoy being bumped in the back. Pedestrians have been strictly instructed to cross only when traffic is moving slowly or has come to a dead stop because some minister is in town. Still some idiot may try to wade across, but then, let us not talk ill of the dead.

Blowing your horn is not a sign of protest as in some countries. We horn to express joy, resentment, frustration, romance and bare lust (two brisk blasts), or just mobilize a dozing cow in the middle of the bazaar. Keep informative books in the glove compartment. You may read them during traffic jams, while awaiting the chief minister's motorcade, or waiting for the rainwater to recede when over ground traffic meets underground drainage. Occasionally you might see what looks like a UFO with blinking colored lights and weird sounds emanating from within. This is an illuminated bus, full of happy pilgrims singing bhajans. These pilgrims go at breakneck speed, seeking contact with the Almighty,often meeting with success.

Auto Rickshaw (Baby Taxi): The result of a collision between a rickshaw and an automobile, this three-wheeled vehicle works on an external combustion engine that runs on a mixture of kerosene oil and creosote. This triangular vehicle carries iron rods, gas cylinders or passengers three times its weight and dimension, at an unspecified fare. After careful geometric calculations, children are folded and packed into these auto rickshaws until some children in the periphery are not in contact with the vehicle at all. Then their school bags are pushed into the microscopic gaps all round so those minor collisions with other vehicles on the road cause no permanent damage. Of course, the peripheral children are charged half the fare and also learn Newton 's laws of motion enroute to school. Auto-rickshaw drivers follow the road rules depicted in the film Ben Hur, and are licensed to irritate.

Mopeds: The moped looks like an oil tin on wheels and makes noise like an electric shaver. It runs 30 miles on a teaspoon of petrol and travels at break-bottom speed. As the sides of the road are too rough for a ride, the moped drivers tend to drive in the middle of the road; they would rather drive under heavier vehicles instead of around them and are often 'mopped' off the tarmac.

Leaning Tower of Passes: Most bus passengers(students) are given free passes and during rush hours, there is absolute mayhem. There are passengers hanging off other passengers, who in turn hang off the railings and the overloaded bus leans dangerously, defying laws of gravity but obeying laws of surface tension. As drivers get paid for overload (so many Rupees per kg of passenger), no questions are ever asked. Steer clear of these buses by a width of three passengers.

One-way Street: These boards are put up by traffic people to add jest in their otherwise drab lives. Don't stick to the literal meaning and proceed in one direction. In metaphysical terms, it means that you cannot proceed in two directions at once. So drive as you like, in reverse throughout, if you are the fussy type. Least I sound hypercritical, I must add a positive point also. Rash and fast driving in residential areas has been prevented by providing a 'speed breaker'; two for each house. This mound, incidentally, covers the water and drainage pipes for that residence and is left untarred for easy identification by the corporation authorities, should they want to recover the pipe for year-end accounting.Night driving on Indian roads can be an exhilarating experience for those with the mental make up of Genghis Khan. In a way, it is like playing Russian roulette, because you do not know who amongst the drivers is loaded. What looks like premature dawn on the horizon turns out to be a truck attempting a speed record. On encountering it, just pull partly into the field adjoining the road until the phenomenon passes.

Our roads do not have shoulders, but occasional boulders. Do not blink your lights expecting reciprocation. The only dim thing in the truck is the driver, and with the peg of illicit arrack (alcohol) he has had at the last stop, his total cerebral functions add up to little more than a naught. Truck drivers are the James Bonds of India, and are licensed to kill. Often you may encounter a single powerful beam of light about six feet above the ground. This is not a super motorbike, but a truck approaching you with a single light on,usually the left one. It could be the right one, but never get too close to investigate. You may prove your point posthumously.

____________________________________________________________________

The list does not end here, it is better not to repair the roads. When you have big craters in the road the traffic slows down and people can cross the road at ease. The one ways are created in abundance, this makes the pedestrian's life more miserable. No one stops and the traffic is endless and you have to walk more than half a kilometer to find a traffic intersection to cross. The other thing is the two wheelers jostle with the pedestrians in a traffic light to come in front and occupy the entire road. Don't ask me if there are sidewalks, there are sidewalks, you can proceed with taking the risk of spraining your ankle.

In my opinion every other person is concerned about his own welfare and no one gives even an ounce of consideration to others. Now the roads have become a place for venting your rage and give a damn to others.

This country is not a place for you, if you are disabled, considerate, softhearted, cultured and not intrusive.

Smokers stand up for your right of personal choice.

The present trend to ban smokers from all the office areas, campuses and in public areas is infringing on the right of one's personal choice. This has taken to alarming proportions. Who are they to decide where I should smoke and where I should not. When the government permits cigarettes to be sold, then they should allow us to smoke as well. I am a very responsible smoker, smoking only in private and in places where I do not disturb people and put off my cigarette when finished.

This is a global phenomenon. The facts and figures are all fabricated, blown out of propositions and magnified. There are no real surveys and do not have conclusive results. The trend of the lobbyists and activism is come to India. You will find one day, the same hypocritical zealot Bambodoss will say ban the booze as well, which he has already recommended to the government of Tamil Nadu.

The govt. should issue clear instructions where a person can smoke and where he should not smoke. Clearly demarcate the smoking areas. Provide a space for smokers in huge office complexes and public area. We have our rights and we are not to be treated as some sort of untouchables.

If someone comes up to me and say don't smoke here, I will say "fuck off" and I am waiting for a fine day for this to happen and I will take this fight to every extent possible. FYI, it did happen and I gave my knowledge of the smoking ban to the police inspector, he just walked away.

Before leaving this subject of propaganda, mention should be made of the oft-repeated canard that smoking imposes costs upon society, which must be paid by non-smokers...

Bullshit!

I say fuck off to everyone who tries to impose this ban on me, even to that Bambodoss who has no clue of the primary health care is in doldrums in India. Go to my village PHC, there is no doctor and the other staff whiling away their time and turning off anyone coming there say there is no doctor for the past nine months.

Hey, they say we are polluting the environment, have you gone to one of the traffic signals in Chennai, you will get choked. The government is doing nothing to check the pollution in the vehicles, the sound pollution has reached alarming proportions.

And how successful has the government has been in implementing any ban, they are hopeless bunch of jokers and have no clue how to run this country and their priorities lie in winning the next election and they will do any shit to achieve that goal.

This country is not friendly to the pedestrians, the disabled, the differently abled and the list goes on and on and on...

Aping the west is not going to solve any problem faced by the common people. Hey Mr Anbumani Ramdoss get real and come in terms with realty. I know you are a doctor from a prestigious college and put in rural service and things like that and I do respect you for that. I feel that is where it ends. Nothing can be achieved by creating any sort of propaganda, do a good job and you will be recognised and not by picking up fights with seasoned doctors who have seen the stark realities of governing a public institution and by picking up on an innocent bidi smoker who has to pay a fine of more that 2000% of the cost of a bidi, when he violates the ban.

Get real and do not ape the west.

In response to the article Indians Question Police Response

Dear Sir \ Ma'am,

This article is one of the shallow and the most inconclusive I have ever read. These kind of stories are running amok in India after the entry of poor imitators of the western media in India, that means sensationalizing every event that happens in India. There is a lot of serious flaws in this article.

India is a very big country with a population of more than 1 billion and the police to the population ratio is one of the worst in the world. In spite of this wide gap the police in India is doing a great job in policing, giving assistance during crisis, anti naxal operations, border patrolling, containing the frequent communal clashes and fighting insurgency. The police has done commendable job in identifying the culprits in this dastardly acts of bombing, which is done by cowards who do not have the guts to fight the army or the police in equal terms. Any form of terrorizing the country should not be accepted and try to discredit the police for their sincere efforts is not the solution or answer for these activities.

These writers are concerned about the so called perpetrators of these cowardly act, but I don't even see one article about the state of the victims, the injured, the families of the killed or any rehabilitation work. Even they do not mention this in passing breath. This misguided sense of sympathy or coming to conclusions about the police excesses are on the raise in India does not augur well for the over worked police force in India.

It is better not to mention about the Muslim community in India. They are given more than equal chance in every field of Indian society, they have a very strong lobby in the centre for their well being, their welfare, and the get enough and more reservations in higher education, free Haj travel and government jobs. But this community wants to have a different identity and do not consider themselves as Indian as a collective word. There is a department in India called the Minorities affairs, they provide all types of assistance to these so called minorities, like scholarships, job reservations, take up exploitation issues, abuses and racial belittling cases seriously and give them enough protection in form of taking up criminal cases against the abusers or exploiters of these communities.

The government and its machinery is taking every effort to provide parity with the majority community and the political parties have exploited enough in the name of secularism and so called exploitation of the minorities. The Muslim dominated area of Kashmir is given enough exemptions and provisions, but have they come with a good solution to this simmering problem for more than 60 years? This dilly dallying by successive governments have complicated this issue to a point of no return. The majority is in the feeling that enough money, lives and time has being spend and there is no going back. The social activists and the media are in the favour of giving full Independence to Kashmir. This is a vicious circle and there is no end to this.

I would conclude by saying the Muslims should be more Indians than be Muslims and this mistrust by the majority and the suspicion of them being abettors of terrorism will stop. Or they can continue being salesmen of fake foreign goods and selling footwear for more than 300% margin. They should come to the forefront of Indian politics, have more representations in the armed forces and get themselves to serve the nation. I am not saying this as a concerned Indian but as a fellow lover of human kind and do ask that writer to come up with something more substantial and conclusive.

Thank you,

Best regards,
Sastha Prakash.