News articles about Manoj Deka's death

1. Assaulted CPI leader battling for life, The Hindu,
2. Injured CPI leader dies, The Hindu,
   
3. CPI leader dies after police thrashing, Rediff.com ,
   
4. CPI leader dies after police assault, the Assam Tribune
5. Police brutality, Editorial in the Assam Tribune,
   
6. Assaulted CPI leader dies, The Telegraph,
7. Assam CPI leader dies after police assault, The Indian Express,
   
8. Rights probe on Deka death, The Telegraph,
9. AHRC move on Deka's death, The Assam Tribune,
   
10. The Tribune,
11. Judicial probe ordered, The Assam Tribune,
    
12. From webindia123.
13. CPI leaders' death rocks Assam House on day 1, The Indian Express.
    

Two old movies

We had some good rainfalls in Delhi during the weekend. I watched two old movies in the weekend: Do Bigha Zamin and Around the World in 80 Days. Both of these were made in 1950s. Do Bigha Zamin depics the struggle of a poor village farmer who has to save his land from the greedy zamindaar. It is one of the classics from Bimol Roy. Around the World in 80 days is adaptation of Jules Verne's novel with the same name. It was awarded 5 oscars .

I'm soooooooooo scared!

Last two days I was hiding in a bunker out-of-fear. Last Friday was Friday the 13th. I woke up and heard that every FM radio was discussing that it was not a good day. I heard the same thing from some friends too. Then yesterday was Saturday with amavasya (the new moon). Saturday is considered inauspicious; amavasya too is considered inauspicious. Yesterday it was a combo deal of inauspiciousness! News channels were showing programs talking to astrologers and discussing how bad was the day. Now tell me how could I lead a normal life in such bad times. So I decided to hide myself in a bunker away from all the evils. I've just come of the bunker and decided to write about the last two bad days in this blog. I'm soooooo happy to survive two consecutive bad days (that came in combo deals).

Jokes apart, I don't know why people in 21st century too believe in these superstitions. Media too helps in spreading these. Media should in fact create awareness that these are wrong. But rationalism has probably no market value. What drives the market is sensationalism.

Using 'i' as first person in place of 'I'

Have you read the articles that Shashi Tharoor has been writing in the Sunday Times these days? He has been recently writing on the US Presidential elections in the editorial page.

I've observed one thing in his articles. He uses 'i' in place of 'I' as first person whenever he has to use this in the middle of a sentence. (He uses 'I' if the sentence begins with it). Is it a new style? Is it some form of humble way of saying 'I'?

(Sometime I too don't feel good to use lot of 'I's in sentences. Many times I prefer to use 'we', specially if I'm working in a team.)

I discussed this in our lunch table group. (I'll write about our lunch table group sometime later in this blog). Yamini, one of the members of the group, googled on the humility front and found some interesting argument and counterargument to the same in a blog. I'm copying her findings below:

Someone wrote:
Personally i use small i's as a sign of humility...

Corey writes...
I think you will find only a very small part of the world will actually understand that a small "i" is a sign of humility - I know I didn't until just now. Most will just consider it a typo or a misunderstanding of convention, on your part.

Another response:

I don't consider the use of a small 'i' to be a sign of humility. As it breaks the convention in written English, it is actually a sign of a lack of humility, as it draws attention to the writer .

Indian song vs Assamese song!

One day a friend of mine was going with me in my car. He is a Hindi-speaking guy from north India. I was playing an Assamese music CD of Zubin Garg in my car audio system. I offered to change the Assamese song; but he said that he'd like to hear that. After a few minutes, he told me that Assamese songs are as good as Indian songs! I was a bit surprised. What did he mean by Indian songs? I asked him if he meant Hindi songs. He corrected himself and said that he meant Hindi songs. I wanted to argue with him whether he thought that Assam is out of India and in that case I'm a foreigner! I decided not to argue.

A painful moment

Yesterday evening I was driving to EDM mall at Kausambhi from Sector-62, Noida. My parents and Gitika were with me. I stopped at the traffic light after Ghazipur from where I'd take the right turn for EDM mall. Traffic was very chaotic. It was an auspicious day for weddings and wedding processions created these traffic-chaos. I saw some hugely decorated pandals being setup at a little distance away from the traffic light. I'm sure lakhs of rupees, or may be crores, must have been spent on all of these weddings in Delhi today.

All of a sudden, just to my right I saw two little girls trying to sleep on the divider in this busy highway. It was cold outside and they had a small piece of a torn blanket to share with them. The elder of the girls tried to cover the younger with that piece of the blanket; but she herself was shivering from the cold. There were noise, flash lights, cold winds, wedding processions around them. Then the green lights came and I had to drive away from the signal.

I know my country has seen lots of development in past one or two decades. There are new cars, new roads, new malls, apartments, and widespread use of mobile telephones etc etc. There are jobs in IT, ITES, retail, media etc. But at the same time, we've these street children who don't have the basic shelter in life! I always dream of seeing India as a developed country during my lifetime. But can we actually become a developed country when we still have many of our people who don't have a basic needs of life?

I don't know if any of our governments (central/states) is doing anything to help these street children. They might be; but I'm not aware of any such schemes. Our politicians are busy these days in discussions for giving more reservations for backward classes, religious minorities etc. But do these street children have any class or religion? Do any of our law-makers think of these little kids when they discuss about reservations?

We ourselves need to do something to alleviate these problems rather than waiting for actions from government. But I'm not sure how can I help them. I'd love to get involved with any agencies who work for the street children.

Amazing medicine for cough and cold!

A few months back, Gitika (my wife) had a cold. She recovered from the cold; but there was a cough which decided not to leave her. She suffered from it for a couple of days. Then one of her colleagues at Sahara told her about a medicine which Gitika could prepare herself at home. She recovered almost within a day or two after taking that medicine.

I had the same cough and cold this weekend. On 8th Dec night, I could hardly shut my mouth because of the cough. Gitika gave me the same medicine and I recovered very soon.

What is this medicine? Let me tell you about it now. There are just three ingredients:
1)Ginger
2)Jaggery
3)Ghee

Crush some small amount(e.g. 10gm) of ginger and mix it with small amount of jaggery. Then mix it with about half spoon of ghee. Then heat up the mixture for a few minutes and serve it hot.

I took it only once in a day before going to sleep at night. And I was cured of the cough. But you may eat it a few more times if your cough is severe.

I found it really amazing!