Honour Killings: What a Shame!

‘Chandigarh: A father kills her 17 years old daughter and her 21 years old lover in a fit of rage after seeing them together in a room, talking.’
‘Bhojpur, Bihar: A 16-year-old girl, Imrana, is set on fire inside her house in a case of what the police call ‘moral vigilantism’. The victim screams for help for about 20 minutes before neighbors arrive, only to find her still smoldering. She is admitted to a local hospital, where she later succumbs to her burns.’
‘The Times of India Report: More than 1,000 young people in India have been done to death every year owing to 'Honour Killings' linked to marriages and love affairs that do not get acceptance from the society.’

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My tryst with slavery

Date: August 14 2010

“Every independent country is independent in one way however, every independent country is a slave in more than one way.”

Its 64th Indian Independence Day tomorrow, I am sitting in front of my desktop in the office and sulking. I am trying to concentrate and my inbox is getting filled with patriotic forwards. Neither can I ignore the vibration of my mobile nor can I get my bugging boss out of my mind. It is true that tomorrow is an important day but how many of us really think of independence as a gift? Being born as a free Indian with a plenty of fundamental rights in a platter and the fundamental duties on the backburner, we take our independence for granted. We were born in free India, introduced to Maruti 800 and humara bajaj at the age of 3-4, given a treat in Mc Donalds at an age of 15, encouraged to blog our views and vote our favourite politician at the age of 18- why would not we take our independence for granted just like we take the oxygen we inhale, the water we drink for granted?

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Freedom from Regionalism.

““Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -how passionately I hate them!” ~ Albert Einstein
( I wonder what Einstein must have to say about regional patriotism: the worst putrefaction a pure feeling can ever suffer from.) 

Hello my Indian friends. Within an hour, our country, India will have completed its 63 year of being Independent. This must have been a long journey (given, I joined only 21 years ago.) We, the children of free India, are often accused of having taken the independence for granted.
We have been accused of having the privilege of being born in a free India.

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Shantaram:A review

A "Classic" among novels perhaps is a book that everyone talks about,but nobody bothers to read.

So this one day when I was wandering around in hostel,I found the book with one of my friends.Already fed with too much of hue and cry about this classic called “Shantaram” from the VA faculty at my CAT prep insti,involuntarily I went through the epilogue of the book and this is what I read.

"In the early 80’s Gregory David Roberts,an armed robber and heroin addict,escaped from an Australian prison to India,where he lived in a Bombay slum.There he establishes a free health clinic and also joined the mafia,working as a money launderer and street soldier.He found time to learn Hindi and Marathi,fall in love,and spend time being worked over in an Indian jail.Then,in any case he thought he was slacking,he acted in Bollywood and fought with the Mujahedeen in Afganistan…Amazingly Roberts wrote Shantaram three times after prison guards trashed the first two versions.It’s a profound tribute to his willpower..A high kicking,eye gouging adventure,a love saga and a savage yet tenderly lyrical fugitive’s vision."

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Donate Blood this Red-Lettered August Day.

Our freedom fighters knew the vitality of blood. That’s what made leaders like Bose to demand blood in return of freedom and the Indian youth to reciprocate to the call in thousands.
Time comes to full circle, with an N.G.O. named  GO INDIA FOUNDATION taking the initiative to set nationwide blood donation camps, on the very red letter day of India: 15th August.

The target: 63,000 units of safe blood from all over the country, to meet the ever increasing blood needs in case of medical emergencies and other medical cases.

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