Rumi Nations

A recent survey shows that China is home to nearly half a million millionaires … I don’t know but presume that these folks are dollar millionaires … I wonder how many similar millionaires are there in India … On a different note, lots of folks got married yesterday including an accidental celebrity who goes by the name of Shilpa Shetty. I don’t know how much the rituals and customs that are associated with marriage really mean to these folks … It’s good to see people choosing to live life on their terms like Kareena and Saif Ali Khan. Also, Lara Dutta saying that she’s ‘seeing’ Mahesh Bhupati but not only him … Sushmita Sen has always taken the road less traveled … So also Nandita Das. When you learn about what Amelia Earhart had written when she got married … some 80 odd years ago, you realize how backwardish Indian mentalities are …

Notable sufferers from Parkinson's Disease include: Muhammad Ali, Michael J. Fox, Pope John Paul II, Eugene O'Neill, Salvador Dali, , Billy Graham, Janet Reno, Adolf Hitler, Francisco Franco, Deng Xiaoping, Mao Zedong, and Doborah Kerr. Notable sufferers from Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia include: Kareem Abdul-Jabber. Notable sufferers from Alzheimer's disease include: Ronald Reagan, Iris Murdoch, Charlton Heston, Rita Hayworth, Notable sufferers from AIDS include: Rock Hudson, Freddie Mercury, Arthur Ashe, Magic Johnson, Greg Louganis, and Isaac Asimov. A more exhaustive list of people with AIDS is available here ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HIV-positive_people

As we approach the one year mark of the attacks in Mumbai, quite predictably my prediction that nothing much will happen has come true. I don't blame the government. There is really not much that the government could have done. Pakistan is a semi-failed state and the terrorists who attacked Mumbai might have originated in Pakistan but one can't consider the Pakistan state to be an accomplice in the attacks. Pakistan is suffering copiously from terrorism on its own soil as terrorists mount ever more daring attacks against the Establishment, the ISI, etc. The U.S. continues its drone attacks in the border regions between Pakistan and Afghanistan which shows how much Pakistan has ceded its sovereignity to that country ...

Well, smoking, it seems, does have some benefits — it helps reduce weight gain. Well, unfortunately, it seems women don't want to quit smoking as they fear that they will gain weight once they quit smoking!!! And so researchers want to reassure them that it ain't so ... Well, things are pretty bad for smokers in the Big Apple. In some aprtment complexes, you are not even allowed to smoke inside your own darned home!!! Things haven't gotten that strident in my own country — they eventually might, but I should be 'old and dying' and dead by then. So, no worries ... This also offers one more reason why I don't want to migrate to the U.S. — just admire them from afar ... also, one is not allowed to hang one's dirty linen outside which one can do perfectly legitimately here in India.

I was wondering what would happen when rice sells for a 100 rupees per kilo. Same goes for floud. We have seen a steep rise in the prices of dal, vegetables, cooking oil, sugar, etc. People can cut back on their consumption of these cooking inputs. But what will happen when food staples become expensive themselves? Will people skimp on rice and rotis? Which is the same as going hungry. I think that is inevitable. The lack of foresight of Indians will come to haunt them.

The United Nations Population Fund has projected that India's population will be overtaking that of China by 2050 and then INDIA WILL BE NUMBER ONE IN THE WORLD in population. Certainly, this calls for celebration!!! Even as other nations struggle with declining birth rates and shrinking populations, India continues to hold the fort on behalf of mankind quite valiantly ... I say: Keep it up guys!!! The current reproductive generation has a challenge to live up to ... as our ancestors and forefathers were far more fecund in making babies than our generation. We must take pledges to raise India's population figure to 200 crores as soon as possible. A hundred years ago, India's population would have been around 20 crores. So, a ten-fold increase would be a nice achievement.

Well, India's FIRST female prez. is going flying in a Sukhoi ... smacks of "me too" after Abdul Kalam did so some years ago. Anyways, good for the 'morale' of the ladies in India, I guess ... Meanwhile, in the 'personal' opinion of a senior Indian Air Force officer, it would be a bad 'investment' to train female fighter pilots as they will inevitably go on their 'maternity' leaves and the Govt. will be left holding the baby!!! Seems quite a reasonable thing to say to me ... but the statement has created some controversy quite expectedly ... plain speaking is not quite appreciated in these politically correct times ...