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Finally the NSG approved the waiver for India for civilian nuclear cooperation and the reactions have been usual. Now I can go an try to analyse if it was good for India or not but I thought let’s look at the reactions and probably that would give the indication on whether it was good or bad for India.
Worldwide most of the countries have welcomed the deal. There have been some countries like Austria and some other countries that have been less enthusiastic about the deal but that probably has more to do with ideology of not supplying the fuel to not NPT countries.
Most notable country that at the last moment was against the deal was China. I would not be surprised at that reaction of China. They have lot to lose with India being able to buy fuel from market. I read somewhere that the price of nuclear fuel has gone up few fold since the year 2000, India joining that club of buyers would put further pressure in that market. Also I always believed that China just doesn’t like India.
Who else is against the deal, not surprisingly BJP and Communists. Now if you look at the groups that area gainst the deal for non idelogical reasons, it is BJP, Communists and China and ofcourse pakistan. I don’t really know what is the common interest there.

Here is an interesting story. An airbus from Air India had an unlikely passenger on board. A snake was having fun in plane below one of the seats. The best part is the interesting statement from Air India spokesman.

“There was commotion which scared the snake and it went further inside,” an airport official quoted.

Reports that the snake was a venomous cobra were denied by an Air India spokesman.

“The aircraft was parked at Delhi airport for maintenance purposes. There was a snake but not a cobra,” he told.

“We have no details of what kind of a snake it was, or where it is now. We have taken up this matter with Delhi airport authorities.”

The interesting part is that Air India denies that the snake was a cobra but then claims that they have no idea which snake was it. Really funny if you are reading about it but must be bizarre for passengers.

Here is an interesting story, Vladimir Putin actually tranquilized a tiger who charged at a TV crew.

Just as Putin was arriving with a group of wildlife specialists to see a trapped Amur tiger, it escaped and ran towards a nearby camera crew, the country’s main television station said. Putin quickly shot the beast and sedated it with a tranquilizer gun.

Recently on my visit to one top technology MNC in Bangalore, I came across following notice board in cafeteria.

I find two things funny with this notice.

1. This is a technology MNC and is counting spoons. I am sure the cost of the spoon is not really much and if they think it is a big issues, just tell the employees to get their own spoons.
2. If you really decide to count the spoons, atleast count them right.

I suppose nobody cares.

So, our cricket captain has come up with another gem. No I am not talking about the good innings that he played in the last match against Sri Lanka. I am talking about his new excuse on why we are dropping catches. See here. He claims it is because of the crowd’s wardrobe.

Since Sri Lanka had a colourful crowd it becomes difficult to spot the ball in the night specially after it (ball) becomes a bit dirty,

Other teams, are you listening. Just request your fans to wear colorful clothes to defeat India. Indian fans, please wear all black attire for day-night matches and all white attire for day matches.

Finally the iPhone was launched in India and it seems it pretty much failed to impress users.

The stage was set for a grand launch, complete with confetti and cheerleaders, but at the stroke of midnight, there were just 10 people who actually bought the high-end device.

At a Vodafone store in Connaught Place, Central Delhi, journalists outnumbered customers by a huge margin. Only about 15 customers turned up to buy the phone. The Airtel retail store nearby wore a deserted look on Friday afternoon, with not a single customer buying the iPhone.

May be things will look as time passes by but I would really be surprised if it is really a block buster. It is priced same as an N96 and is no comparison to the features that it offers.

It seems like the disease is spreading. First it was ICICI bank and now Tata Teleservices who have started threatening their customers.

Later, the company announced a change of plan which did not suit Nandwani, so he asked for the connection to be cancelled. Instead, he received a bill amounting to Rs 2,000 and his outgoing calls were suddenly barred. When he complained against this, he started receiving threatening calls from people claiming to be advocates and recovery agents of the company. He also filed police complaints. The company’s plea that on surrender of the handset the customer was required to pay Rs 2,000, did not find favour with the commission.

One more company black listed. But I am really running out of decent service providers right from banking to telephony.

I finally watched the Olympic boxing 54 Kg match between Indian Akhil Kumar and Moldovan Gojan Veaceslav. I have to say that I don’t understand boxing much but it seemed like that Moldovan just went with a strategy of all out defense with precision attack. I think almost everytime Gojan went for attack, he scored the point while Akhil was relentless in his attack but just did not find the righ spot where he gets the point. The only option that he had was to go for a knock out but he could not do that.
I always believed that boxing is a game of raw power, but I think I was wrong. It was as much about strategy and tactics as much it is about power and Akhil lost the game in strategy part.
If only bouts were decided on the basis of “energy” in the court, Akhil must have won. Looking forward to other two guys..Technorati Tags: Olympic, India, Sports

Here is an interesting essay. It just is not interesting enough in english, so I am re-producing it in Hindi.

एक गरीब अमीर लड़की को स्कूल में गरीब परिवार पर निबंध लिखने को कहा गया। उसने निबंध कुछ इस तरह से लिखा।

एक गरीब परिवार था। पिता गरीब, माता गरीब, बच्चे गरीब। परिवार में चार नौकर थे, वह भी गरीब थे। एक कार थी वह भी टूटी हुई टाटा सफ़ारी थी। उनका गरीब ड्राइवर बच्चों को टूटी कार में स्कूल छोड़ कर आता था। बच्चों के पास भी पुराने N-95 मोबाइल फोन थे। घर में सिर्फ़ चार सेकेंड-हैंड एसी थे। सारा परिवार बड़ी मुश्किल से ऐश कर रहा था।

Let me take a stab at translating this one, just not as interesting as the hindi version.

The teacher asked a rich girl to write an essay on “A poor family”. Here is how she went.

Once upon a time there was a poor family. The father was poor, mother was poor and children were also poor. The family had four servants and all of them were poor. The car was a old broken Tata Safari. Their driver used to drive the children to school in the old safari. Children also had old N-95 phones. The house had only four second hand ACs. The whole family was finding very hard to enjoy life.

Shabana Azmi is a strange character. Every now and then she will come out with a statement that completely does not make sense. When she talks about some discrimination against muslims she will blame the state but she will either not talk about discrimination against “other groups” or be unwilling to place the blame on muslims.

I think Indian state does not discriminate against anybody. The laws are very clear. Groups and individuals may be discriminating against and that is definitely bad but one can not blame Indian State for it. Everywhere a community which has a significant presence, discriminates against other, in Kashmir muslims are doing it, in other places other groups are doing it. Both the discriminated and discriminator are responsible for it. Why take a holier than thou approach and only blame government.