India's Bloggers Ban and Modi's Searching Questions!

Last updated on: July 18, 2006 at 4:51 pm By Desh Kapoor

Dr. Singh's government is the most despicable in its manner of fighting the enemy outside! Singh not only downplayed Pak's role.. he actually went on to under-rate the seriousness of the attacks and their effect on Indo-Pak dialog! Now, the government has done - what I thought was unthinkable in India, a democracy!! Banned URLs and blogs to be viewed in India - at least some of the major domain names like blogger.com. It is indeed a sad day because it was Mumbaihelp.blogspot.com which was instrumental in getting the information to the people at the toughest time after the blasts! Here is Narendra Modi - I aint a great fan of him but here he asks very relevant and important questions - speaking out in Mumbai. He is asking very pointed and direct questions that Dr. Singh has to give an answer to!!! If he does not or cannot.. then he really has no business to be sitting up there as a lame duck.. while the common man pays for his pliable spine!! Read more

Why is Guru Nanak so Sacred for Tibetan Buddhist?

Last updated on: July 18, 2006 at 4:00 am By Desh Kapoor

This piece is interesting. Was Guru Nanak Dev linked to Buddhism in any way? How is Sikhism and Buddhism linked? Or is it all just speculation? If you go to the Golden Temple one of the most interesting things you will observe are some Tibetan pilgrims who come to pray there, bowing down at each of their steps. These people are Buddhists who may belong to one of the numerous sects of Tibetan Buddhism, who regard Guru Nanak as Guru Rinpoche. Guru Padmasambhava brought Buddhism to Tibet and they regard the Guru as a reincarnation of the precious one, 'Rinpoche'.There are many teachings in common? the middle path of living, the importance of congregation called sangam/sangat, the importance of meditation, the individual's responsibility for their destiny, even the archetypal images of the warrior monk, in Gurmat the saint-soldier tradition. Sikhs equally have great reverence for Buddhist teachers. It is a matter of no small pride that a Sikh escorted the Dalai Lama to India when he exiled Tibet. Indeed, Punjab, the Sikh homeland, was formerly called Gandhara, the home of Mahayana Buddhism. This goes back to a period when the Dhamma was revered by almost half the people of the world. Read more

links for 2006-07-18

Last updated on: July 18, 2006 at 2:33 am By Desh Kapoor

Photojojo » Panographies: Panoramas on Steroids Do you ever look up at the sky, a towering office building, or an expansive landscape and wish your photos could capture everything you can see with your eyes? We do. (tags: art cool Pictures photos photo howto) Read more

Charity and the Power of Appropriation

Last updated on: July 17, 2006 at 4:58 pm By Desh Kapoor

"To give is to receive" or "What goes around comes around" Why is every action in the altruistic domain geared towards a selfish motive? Why can't something be just done for the sake of doing? If the raison d'etre for giving is because you have to receive some day then isn't this a flawed sense of giving? Worse still, can anyone really give? I cannot give a Taj Mahal away in charity can I? Why? Because I do not own it? From a larger picture - say 100,000 feet - what do we own? If Buffett is giving away $33 billion that he has generated from the use of his brain... then what does he own? When we really do not own anything in a more permanent sense then the act of giving is simply moving the objects on this planet from one hand to another. Read more

Bush: Syria got to stop this shit!

Last updated on: July 17, 2006 at 3:37 pm By Desh Kapoor

Bush has a problem with his English conversation - that everyone knows.. here is a new nail in his bed!! 🙂 By the way, anyone of us would have had similar reactions! A microphone picked up an unaware President Bush saying on Monday Syria should press Hezbollah to "stop doing this shit" and that his secretary of state may go to the Middle East soon. Bush was talking privately to British Prime Minister Tony Blair during a lunch at the Group of Eight summit in St Petersburg about an upsurge of violence in the Middle East, not realizing a microphone was recording what he said. Read more

Same Terror script: The Mumbai Blasts Terrorists were sent by Pak Intelligence!!

Last updated on: July 17, 2006 at 1:45 pm By Desh Kapoor

As I said in my last post the script is so sickeningly similar that it makes me angry!! The entire scenario insults my intelligence! And the worst thing is that the rulers of India got to understand the basics and foundational premises in our relationship with Pakistan. That they will never .. never look for peace in an honest manner. For the top brass in ISI and the Army - war is the only option. They may stay quiet for a while but that is just about all. Whenever Musharraf comes out with the comment on the lines that either talk Kashmir or else.. it is an outright threat! And then his Jehadi bastards carry out the crime! I just think Dr. Singh was being a real smart-ass when he tried to put down the 'handling of Pakistan and Kashmir" by Vajpayee when Dr. Singh initially came to power. Vajpayee's government was at least very clear that if such an incident happens they will exert enough pressure on the border to drain their damn military out of money!! We need to make the Paki military and intelligence impotent and penniless short of waging a full fledged war.... and that aint happening in a hurry!! Read more

The Familiar Pattern of Islamic Violence and Timid Voices Announcing a "Peaceful Islam"!

Last updated on: July 17, 2006 at 12:11 am By Desh Kapoor

The script is so similar and repeatable that it is sickening after a while. There are a bunch of people who proud to be Muslims and follow Islamic preachings and feel it is kosher to kill and maim anyone they can. They move around in a clandestine manner using people - often co-religionists and plan their goals. The normal population goes around in a normal and careless manner and suddenly the bombs go off. Everything is finished! For the person who dies, his family will never see her back! The very next morning, there is a huge reaction. The Muslim world - mostly peaceful human beings - come out saying the same things that follow these three main points: Read more

MySpace Disaster by Google

Last updated on: July 16, 2006 at 2:49 pm By Desh Kapoor

There are blunders and then there are disasters! Last year Google could have bought MySpace for USD 290 mn but they didnt think much of that site. So they let it go. Here is the story: In the latest (July) issue of Wired magazine, Rupert Murdoch claims that Google… "…could have bought MySpace three months before we did for half the price. They thought, 'It's nothing special. We can do that.'" So that means Google could have acquired MySpace a year ago for about $290 million. Talk about a strategic blunder… the thought of Google and MySpace, combined, boggles the mind. Instead, Google is left thinking of what could have been. And to add insult to injury, it may turn out that not acquiring MySpace may end up being more expensive for Google! As widely reported, MySpace is now the largest source of search traffic for Google, accounting for over 8% of their inbound traffic as of early May. That essentially means that MySpace is responsible for about $400 million of Google's annual revenues. Knowing this, MySpace is trying to capitalize by holding an auction for its search business. If Google wins, it will end up sharing a significant percentage of that $400 million with MySpace… John Battelle thinks the split to MySpace will be close to 90%. And Google would need to pay it every year. Needless to say, had Google acquired MySpace, no such payments would have to be made. Read more

Free 10 week online course in AJAX

Last updated on: July 16, 2006 at 2:33 pm By Desh Kapoor

Here is a link for a free 10-week course in AJAX from an employee of SUN Microsystem. It is about to start from August 4th, 2006. This course is for anyone who wants to learn AJAX for the first time or increase their knowledge on AJAX. In this 10-week course, students learn basic concept of AJAX as well as how to use various AJAX frameworks and toolkits. And remember it is online! Enjoy and learn. Read more

How a Dress Chance with a Camera on a Bridge Changes the Cops reactions?

Last updated on: July 16, 2006 at 6:30 am By Desh Kapoor

Is racial profiling an established phenomenon? Well, a few Australian kids wanted to find that out. And here is a video of their little experiment: What you do think? Read more

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