Blog@GraceJunction

My eyes saw spreadsheets everywhere and I just wanted to get rid of it. I put aside my plans to paint for a while and yearned to finish dinner in a jiffy and plunge onto my bed the very next min. It would have been just another evening but for the phone call. The urgency in the tone of my sister at the other end made all my other-wise lousy senses alert.

Half a minute was all it took. O Boy! If times were to snatch the sweet memories, I would cling onto them tightly…cuz it is all that is left with me now. The songs we sung together at Sunday school, breaking the file we were asked to stand in, rolling with laughter at senseless things, pulling each others leg and all those stupid talks during the drama rehearsals which would go on and on much to the Sunday school teacher’s dismay. (more…)

Tuesday, July 22, 2008, 8:00pm

The Manmohan Singh led UPA government finally did win the trust vote by a margin of 19 votes amidst the mudslinging and all the hoopla in House of the People (Lok Sabha). The victory they said was sure. They described it as a ‘convincing win’. Meanwhile the battered opposition almost predictably termed it as ‘corrupt victory’.

Over the past few days, the nation woke up to numerous stories about MPs switching loyalty for payoffs ranging from rupees 3 to 25 crores. Charges of horsetrading were doing the rounds since the past three days but the countrymen did not expect MPs to suddenly start disgorging wads of currency on the table of the House, allegedly given to them as a ‘bribe’ for abstaining from voting in the confidence motion moved by UPA government. The MPs also claim to have videographic evidence (Rajdeep Sardesai trying to earn some brownie points over Tehelka and Pranoy Roy’s NDTV, with a stunning sting operation) of the whole bribery deal. India was stunned (perhaps more by the flashing of the wads, in the sanctum sanctorum of world’s largest democracy, than by the allegation per se). This cash-on-table was the first for the Lok Sabha! (more…)

The Manmohan Singh government seeks a trust vote in the Lok Sabha today and the political drama in India has managed to attract widespread attention worldwide, as it will decide the fate of the Indo-US civil nuclear deal. Under this bilateral pact, the United States will provide India access to civilian nuclear technology and fuel in exchange for IAEA-safeguards on India’s civilian nuclear reactors.

A lot of time and energy was spent behind the passage of the Hyde Act in 2006. The leading opposition party BJP which laid the groundwork for the deal criticized the deal and does not want the government to accept the deal without a vote in the legislature. The Left too had withdrawn its support. The nuke deal has been scripted by Manmohan Singh but the political risk is almost that of Mrs. Gandhi. The possible UPA meltdown will be a hard blow for the party to bear. The loss could be terrible and a win might have a few downsides. (more…)

Friday saw rioting Palestinian Arabs torch the wheat fields of Israel and later on, pelting stones at the local fire brigade personnel – exactly a day after a recorded message purportedly from Osama bin Laden called on Muslims to break the Israeli-led embargo on Gaza. He also declared Iraq to be the perfect base to set up the Jihad to liberate Palestine.

Bin Laden, who was behind the terrorist network’s 09/11 attacks, has been in hiding since the U.S. assault on Afghanistan that followed those strikes. His last public statement was an audio message issued in December, when he urged his followers in Iraq to continue battling U.S. troops there. But he has his eyes trained on Israel too.

Now if you thought that Laden was the only guy who eyed Israel, then you need to know that there is also an ambitious leader in the present Iranian President! His eyes too are trained on Israel! (more…)

“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression….” States the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a declaration that was later adopted by the United Nations General Assembly.

Also known as Article 19 of UDHR, it permits freedom to hold opinion without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. It extends not only to books, theatrical works and paintings, but also to posters, television, music videos and comic books - whatever the human creative impulse produces.

A Yale art major, Aliza Schvarts wants to make a statement. Beginning today i.e. 22nd April 2008, Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself “as often as possible” while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process. (more…)

And God created man in his own image; male and female he created them and blessed them saying,” Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it”….

Well, that is exactly what man has been implementing till date – multiply (so much such that there arises a need to develop organizations which are worried about controlling the ever increasing population) and at the same time exercise dominion over all the earth. Nevertheless, the human race is pretty adaptive and has managed to accommodate one and all.

Apart from doing what man was asked to do, he realized the need to expand his intellectual initiatives and designs. One of them was woman’s advancement!! They also gave it a beautiful synonym – Feminism!! (more…)