This post is straight from the heart…It has been a very long time since I have felt so overwhelmed with rage, anger, frustration and a feeling of helplessness…
But something tipped over today…
Something tipped over that brought tears in my eyes even before I had my first cup of tea this morning…
Something tipped over that made me type these words even before I had brushed my teeth…
Something tipped over that made my forget all my pending emails and important calls…
Something tipped over today…

Was that something the news about Rs 44crore (almost …

Dear All: I am opening this thread to carry forward the discussion generated on the guest post by Sh Krishen Kak. Please use this thread for all comments that may not be directly related to the post. Thank you.
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1. Comment by Bhagwad Jal Park:
@Sid
Come – this should be obvious. When parents kill their adult children from marrying whomever they please, is that not a violation of the principle “Do what you want as long as you harm no one?”
When the crazy “darul ul uloom” tells women …

Thanks to Jay Paudyal for this great effort to develop a font for the new Rupee symbol.

As Jay mentions, it will (typically) “…take around two years to get this symbol to be included in ‘Unicode Standard‘…but his firm developed this font just hours after the new symbol was finalised!
Download the font here, copy it in your fonts folder and you are ready to go (you may need to assign a “short-cut key” to it – click the picture below to see how).

Click picture to enlarge

Courtesy PsyBlog, here is how cognition can be accelerated by just 4 x 20 minutes Meditation:
…In a new study reported in the journal Consciousness and Cognition…researchers found significant benefits for novice meditators from only 80 minutes of meditation over 4 days (Zeidan et al., 2010).
Despite their very brief period of practice — and compared with a control group who listened to an audiobook of Tolkein’s The Hobbit— meditators improved on measures of working memory, executive functioning and visuo-spatial processing.

An ascetic, in the Yogasana pose. dated from 8th century.
Image Source: Museum …

The first link leads here and the second news-story is here.
Source: Google News screenshot at ~630pm IST

Amidst the depressing & gloomy dose of my daily news, it is rare to come across a truly cheerful story. This one lifted my spirits…Read on for an extraordinary story of grit and determination…(emphasis mine)
*** Excerpts from Rewriting fate ***
June 17 morning, Rajesh Laxman Pille was a tad nervous. The monsoon had arrived in Mumbai. Just a day ago Rajesh, like all soccer-crazy kids in Mumbai, had played a match of soccer with his friends, knowing that life after June 17 may not be the same again.
Like thousands of students …

Dear All: It is my pleasure to invite you to a Live Chat on CoverItLive on 4th July, Sunday between 430pm – 630pm IST (11am – 1pm GMT; 7am – 9am EST). The chat will be a relatively free-flowing discussion covering news-reports, Mainstream Media (mainly English MSM) and perceived biases and prejudices in news-stories. We will also discuss ways in which we can help raise awareness about this offline and help improve standards in reporting.

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Mainstream Media and Prejudices
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Two recent examples of worrying news-coverage (or …

Post triggered by a notice-board I spotted at Guwahati airport (pl click below to enlarge; take note of the last name on the list)

I wonder why Sh Robert Vadra is exempted from pre-embarkation security checks when he is with “SPG Protectees”? Would it be embarrassing to Priyanka to see her husband being frisked by “ordinary” security personnel? Would it embarrass the children to see their father being “security checked” in public? Or would it embarrass the other “SPG Protectees” he may be travelling with to see him being so checked?
Or …

In a few hours time, I will be on my way to the North-east part of India. I will be offline for the major part of next 48 hours but hope to have some connectivity after that (fingers crossed).
Please expect some delay in responding to (and moderating) comments.
I expect to do a lot of “tweeting” during this visit as (I think) I’ve finally managed to set this up on my phone. The easiest way to follow the tweets (and the blog) is to join the Satyameva Jayate Facebook group …

|| Satyameva Jayate || – The Blog is now in Top India News on Alltop…along with Gurcharan Das, Atanu Dey, Rajesh Jain and many others!  Here is the link.

(pl click image below to enlarge)

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???
Perhaps…
Actually, no – they don’t!  I did not pay anyone anything to put this blog up there…the blog owes this position SOLELY to you – and your continued loyalty, encouragement and support.
A BIG Thank You, धन्यवाद, ধন্যবাদ, ધન્યવાદ, ਮੇਹੇਰਬਾਨੀ, ಧನ್ಯವಾದಳು… Sorry, this is a poor and incomplete attempt but I hope you get the general idea …

Last week, I spent some time at a very unusual small company in Bengaluru. It was one of the most uplifting experiences I have had in a very long time.
The company is called Vindhya E-Infomedia.
What makes it unusual is that almost 95% of its staff of 200 youngsters comprises differently-abled and physically challenged youngsters. What makes it special is their team-spirit, their dedication, their sincerity and commitment to their work. What made the experience uplifting was the palpable feeling of pride, dignity and achievement I sensed that day.
In their …

Friends who know me well sometimes wonder how I manage to keep up with developments in spite of not reading any newspaper (in print) or watching any TV.
I stopped relying on the TV as a source of news more than 15 years ago (my monthly TV viewing these days averages between 2-4 hours at most).
I stopped reading news in print since 2005. At first, this was a reaction to my intense travel schedule and attendant jet lag. But as I began to  spend more time online for news, I discovered …

Dear All: In the next few hours, I will be leaving on a short vacation with the family. I cannot easily remember the last time I took a break…so I am looking forward to this one.

Soon after we get back, I will be on the road once again – for another 10 days or so. The blog will be a bit quiter than usual during this entire period (from now until last week of April).
I will be auto-scheduling some posts and excerpts from various articles (some *very* controversial) during this …

Snapped in Bengaluru, 930pm on 13th Feb 2010. Pl. click on the image to see in full size.

The banner reads:
Sri Brahmatantra Swatantra Parakala Swamy Mutt
Homam for Students Success in Examinations
On Feb 28-2010 @ 8.00am
…
As most of you would know, a “Homam” (also referred to as Havan, Yagya, Yagna, Homa) is a ritual involving offerings into a consecrated fire.
Behind the ritual is the spirit of sacrifice and the thought of well-being of the entire society and all forms of life. “Homam” constitutes an important part of most Sanskaras in Hindu belief …

…unfortunately not on the rail-road
Travelling over the next 10 days. Please expect some delay in responding to (and moderating) comments.

I will be posting excerpts from various articles during this period and hope to find time to write at least a couple of blog posts…So keep visiting!
Those of you who are reading this from Bengaluru, please try and see if you can make it to a panel discussion that I will be participating in on the 15th Feb (Mon). More details on the Facebook page.
Jai Hind, Jai Bharat!

This post has been pending for awhile. But I felt today was a very appropriate day to reflect back on five years of blogging that has generated more than 1000 posts.
As you will notice from the screenshot below, the blog had the highest number of daily hits yesterday (by a wide margin) following the “Open Letter” post that went live on Rediff.

At one point, the site was pulling in hundreds of comments every hour. As I noted elsewhere, although I was overwhelmed, I should not have been surprised since this …

|| गणतंत्र दिवस की शुभकामनाएं ||
Happy Republic Day !

Image courtesy: http://india.gov.in/spotlight/spotlight.php

On Wed evening, as the chaos at Heathrow was unfoldoing in front of me, the “still calm” part of my brain was thinking about what might have triggered the seeming breakdown of the entire system…
Not that the snow or the severe weather was a surprise…
And not that things were somehow smooth until 7pm before suddenly unravelling…
As early as 11am on that day, flights were being cancelled and rescheduled. Even while this was happening, online departure schedules were blithely showing “Scheduled” for flights later in the day; albeit with a disclaimer: …

Start your weekend with this ruling by Judge William Young while sentencing Richard C. Reid, the “Shoe Bomber” (Thanks to Sh Krishen-ji for alerting me to this)…
Next read, They Killed My Lawyer – a horrifying story from Russia by William Browder
Move on to Aroon Raman’s sketch of Subramania Bharati…
and finally dwell on Tavleen Singh’s tutorial for Rahul baba.
Excerpts from all the four links below, as always.
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*** Excerpts from “Ruling by Judge William Young: Sentencing of Richard C. Reid” ***
…We are not afraid of you or your terrorist conspirators, Mr. Reid. …

*** CAUTION: Long Post. Not Funny ***
I rarely write posts about personal matters on this blog but I think what happened with me on 6th Jan deserves a blog post…
Those of you who live and/or have visited the “developed world” know that it is rare to come across instances of complete meltdown in such a “system”.
Yet, when they do happen, the failure can be “spectacular”. I have always been fascinated by what causes such breakdowns and how can they be averted. Yesterday, I got a glimpse of one.  Here is …