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Showing posts from February, 2016

I have problems with 'Pakistan Murdabad' slogans yet I'm proud to be an Indian!

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Yesterday, while I was having dinner with my mum, a sudden sound, loud one that was only a whisper a while ago startled us. It was from our neighbors, the middle-aged couple just next to our home who daily bad mouthed one or the other living being had zeroed on my dad today. They were doing all sort of gaali-galauz to my father over a piece of land that lay between our homes. Every fortnight there will be quarrels over who owns it. In fact it will be fueled when someone places some thing on that piece of land; history will be evoked, dead forefathers will be brought from the grave, the battle will be on. But now they had crossed the line (did they?) by foul mouthing my dad... And thus began a battle at night that will end past midnight with a hoard of spectators around! Pause a bit. Now imagine if something similar happens to you, that your neighbor starts to bad mouth about your home, your people. Won't you be agitated? Won't you go fight them? Or will you keep quite?

JNU Crackdown and Sedition: I'm worried over what is happening in India, are you?

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Can I ask you something? Will you listen to me without any prejudice or malice or a quick label for me? Will you? I'm feared where we are heading. Are you? Just tell me what sort of protests are allowed? What pranks are allowed? Can I make fun of the ruling class? I ask this for I'm feared and worried. If a student leader in JNU can be arrested, I too can and you too. Everyone one of us is potentially at risk. Do you realize this? Do you realize where we are heading? Do you know what differentiates a India from Pakistan or Arab countries? Is whats happening today point to that difference or are we becoming one of them? Everyday someone or the other comes with, if you had done/said it there, they would have done like that! Now, have we scooped such low to compare ourselves with them? Are they our yardsticks now? I'm worried. I'm worried for you and me. I'm worried for this nation of ours! Leave everything aside, think. Think what is going wrong. JNU has always b

What TRAI passed is an ORDER not LAW that enforces Net Neutrality - The Battle has not Finished but just Begun!

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The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (TRAI's) much awaited Prohibition of  Discriminatory  Tariffs for Data Services Regulation, 2016, is being hailed for its support of Net Neutrality. In fact, some have gone on to christen it as the law that is all powerful than what the FCC passed in the US. The order comes nearly two months after TRAI floated a paper asking whether differential tariffs should be allowed for data services linked to specific content. This paper was linked to one of the key principles of Net Neutrality - that all data should be treated equally, with no preference in speed of pricing to any particular set of contact. But does it achieve all that, and is it really that strong a law as few want us to believe it to be? First and foremost, sorry, hold your horses, it is just an order not law and in the absence of law the aggrieved parties (read telcos) can question the order in High Court under section 227 of the Constitution. And for it to