are Goa CM Digambar Kamat and Congress MP Shantaram Naik for their views that the Russian rape victim was — for lack of better words — ‘asking for it’.

Goa CM Digambar Kamat :

Do you believe that Goa’s image has taken a beating by this incident? This is not the first such case. Do you believe Goa will be seen as an unsafe place?

I don’t agree. First, you should go to the root cause of this case. What was this lady doing so late in the night with some people? Why did she accompany this man in this car? These are some of the questions which have to be answered.

Congress MP Shantaram Naik :

Rape is a heinous crime but “an alleged rape of a lady who moves with strangers for days together even beyond the middle of the night is to be treated on different footings,” said Naik.

You know what, millions of other think likewise, so I’ll just bundle them together and present this Dude of the Week to all those men and women. Go enjoy.

I’ve been religiously following the third season of Bigg Boss as my only form of guilty pleasure. Today, I came across this immensely WTF bit where the openly gay inmate Rohit Verma explains the concept of homosexuality. Don’t want to spoil your fun, here it is :

What concerns me is that he might be the first gay person that a majority of the audience might be seeing, the first male who claims to have a boyfriend. Such gibberish coming from him can only be harmful to the issue of homosexuality in India.

Add to that the bit where he says everyone goes through a one-week period between the ages of 5 and 32 where they feel same-sex attraction. If that isn’t a load of rubbish, most readers here (including me) need to be very concerned that we still have a few years to cross !

Atleast one person is sure to vote for him — Baba Ramdev, who agrees that homosexuality is a psychological problem.

After hearing him, I suspect he might not be gay after all, he might be bisexual or metrosexual or just an effeminate dude. Another dudette is Bobby Darling, who has undergone a sex-change operation, is now a female, but calls herself a gay man. How tough is it to log on to Wikipedia and find out what you are ?

I think Rohit Verma deserves to be the Dude of the Week, although I can’t decide between Dude and Dudette, so let’s just put that on hold.

The government has decided to hike the subsidized air-fare for Haj pilgrims from Rs. 12,000 to Rs. 16,000. Naturally, clerics are not happy :

Terming the increase in air-fare as “illegal”, national president of Jamiat-e-Ulema Hind demanded that the decision should be withdrawn with immediate effect.

I think this guy deserves to be the Dude of the Week, although I can’t promise anything yet. We have a lot of competition, you see.

Stating the obvious, but it is unfair that your tax money goes into funding such projects.

I feel especially bad for the Muslim haters. Now why would you want to take their tax money and fund such things. That’s just mean.

**

Likewise, Hindus (except MNS) should get subsidized tickets to Ayodhya (U.P.), Jews to the Holy Land, Scientologists to an asylum and frequent flier miles for atheists.

is Salman Khurshid, India’s Corporate Affairs Minister.

First, for suggesting that CEO’s should not get ‘vulgar’ salaries.

In India, the government has so far refrained from talking about controlling corporate salaries, but corporate affairs minister Salman Khursheed’s advice to companies on Sunday to refrain from “vulgar” salaries is sure to spark a debate on how much is too much.

(With the Mahatma’s picture on our currency, we can give up hopes of any kind of money ever being vulgar.)

Second, for his statement after Mukesh Ambani took a pay cut :

“Whatever voluntarily a person like Mukesh Ambani has done shows remarkable sensibility to the prevailing thought process in the entire country,” the minister said.

For those curious, Mukesh Ambani’s salary is down to 15 crores from 44 crores, apart from the fact that he owns a few companies here and there.

In Mr. Khurshid’s defence, he’s having a tough time as the Corporate Affairs Minister. Little did he know that he’d have to deal with the slowdown; he thought all he had to do was hook up with corporate women.

Continuing his dominance over the Dude of the Week title, Baba Ramdev has displayed exceptional WTFness and praiseworthy nonsense :

First, for suggesting that Sach ka Saamna is against .. wait for it .. Indian culture :

Joining the corus(sic) of voices criticising the reality show ‘Sach ka Saamna’, yoga guru Baba Ramdev today said there was no need to promote people who were “characterless”.

“By giving the impression that promiscuous behaviour and infidelity was common, such programmes are promoting these tendencies. In reality, a majority of the people of our country are not the kind that appear on the show,” he said.

Secondly, and more importantly and WTFly, for claiming that yoga can protect you from swine flu. A classic case of piggybacking (pun ?) on a current issue to further one’s agenda.

In honour of Baba Ramdev, who has been consistently maintaining his title here for a few weeks, I present some really bad jokes I came up with :

Q : Why did Baba Ramdev cross the road ?
A : Not crossing wouldn’t give him any media attention.

Baba Ramdev once walked into a bar. He then walked out as it was against Indian culture.

Q : How many Baba Ramdevs does it take to screw a bulb ?
A : None. He doesn’t use a bulb as yoga has a cure for darkness.

I am sure the readers can do better than this. Put your Himesh cap on and feel free to add your own.

So does anyone in Pune know about this Abhinav Bhatt ? If yes, kindly convey to him that he is the Dude of this Week.

Abhinav Bhatt, a law student based in Pune, filed a complaint with a magistrate’s court in June 2000, saying rediff.com has committed an offence under section 292 of the Indian Penal Code (selling and distributing obscene material).

His contention was that if one were to type words such as “sexual intercourse” in the search window on rediff.com’s homepage, it threw up links to pornographic websites.

I demand that his PC be confiscated and searched for folders named Project, Study, Homework or Source code.

Of course, I have also reserved some of my ire for Rediff. When given “sexual intercourse” as a search term, they should only throw up images of Khajuraho and meanwhile, send a letter to the parents of the individual, Mr. Abhinav Bhatt in this case.

This person makes the Rajya Sabha MP, who demanded a ban on Sach ka Saamna, look like Aristotle. That MP, by the way, should be invited to the show.

The Dudette of the Week is UP Chief Minister Kumari Mayawati, and not just because of the spotlight on her for spending Rs. 1000 cr. on statues of herself, but for this quote from a BSP old-timer :

“Mayawati is putting up bronze statues because she thinks that a couple of hundred years from now, people will worship her as a deity.”  The solid metal statues are protected with elaborate canopies for this reason, he said.

It would be funny if he weren’t serious. Sadly, serious he was. The article goes on to add that Mayawati has often described herself as “zinda devi” (living goddess) at BSP rallies.

Apart from caring for pigeons, I fail to understand what the statues are achieving, but I don’t think she cares about such trivialities.

Instead of ranting further, I present a photo I captured at Jaipur.

Someday, I hope to get one such of Mayawati.

Just days after I predicted no female was good enough for Dudette of the Week title, Miss J. Jayalalithaa proves me wrong. And how :

“If a (party or alliance) that heeds our demands comes to power at the centre, I assure you that I shall take steps to create a Tamil Eelam in the same way as Indira Gandhi liberated Bangladesh,” she said at an election rally in Vellore.

And then you’ll go home, have a sumptuous meal, then another meal, sit back on your chair, take up a book on the Bangladesh war and realize that it was in fact very different.

The former Tamil Nadu chief minister also accused Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of turning India into a “banana republic” by aligning with the US.

The biggest problem with being a banana republic is not that there would be anarchy. I am scared that Miss Jaya. would have it for breakfast.

Amidst fears that I was a sexist bloke, there was a recent comment urging me to also have a Dudette of the Week title. This has prompted me to come out with a defense for not doing so until now, lest I might alienate the female readership.

First, let us analyze the women in Indian politics. There are essentially three major players. Since all of them are accomplished politicians, it would be unfair to list them by seniority. So in decreasing order of weight, they are J. Jayalalitha, Mayawati and Mamta Bannerjee. Oh and before we proceed, a wag of three of my fingers to them for not marrying until now. With an already skewed sex ratio in the country, such gem of women marrying can only help the cause.

With J. Jayalalitha, no one really cares about her right now. She isn’t in power, no one knows whether she is in the NDA or UPA and her weight trainer is yet to be fired for negligence of duty. Mayawati doesn’t make stupid statements; they mostly fall into the dangerous category (only Raj Thackeray has the dubious distinction of maintaining a fine balance between the two categories).

About Mamta Bannerjee, well, what fun is it in calling a spade a spade ? Apparently, earlier sonograms show her foot in her mouth when she was a foetus.

Then there is the eternal beti Priyanka Gandhi, whose only real claim to infame seems to be wanting to prove in any way possible (ah .. the engineering memories) that Rahul Gandhi is qualified to be PM. Since the qualifications are a measly soundness of mind, we don’t really need you … oh … wait … sorry .. yeah we still need proof.

Lastly, there is Pratibha Patil who I prefer to think doesn’t exist just like ghosts. Incidentally, she thinks otherwise, both about herself and ghosts.

Hence, for want of deserving candidates, the Dudette of the Week title is at present unclaimed and up for grabs (I always wanted to use this cliché).

But in this analysis we are also missing a basic point. When there are men out there making far more funnier and WTF statements, to quote Deepikaji from the Nirma Super ad, “To koi yeh kyun le, woh na le ?”.

So just admit it women, men are better than you !

Disclaimer.

Also check out this post about the top 10 women politicians of India.

Unknown to most Indians, a worthy leader has achieved the record for the fastest indefinite hunger strike in history for an even worthier cause.

The leader in question, who incidentally is also the Dude of this week, is Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, who went on a hunger strike for 6 ….. hours.

In a sudden move, Chief Minister M Karunanidhi drove to the Anna Samadhi at 5.50 am on Monday and went on an indefinite fast, which he later called off past noon.

“Due to heavy pressure by the UPA government, the Sri Lankan security council met today and has decided to stop all offensive operations. Now the Lankan army will be used only for humanitarian purposes. The fast ends now, come and celebrate with me,” he said.

Meanwhile, Sri Lankan President claims that only hostages are being freed and the operation against the LTTE would continue.

With this development, can we please urge Mr. Karunanidhi to resume the fast ?

The whole reaction of the political arena in Tamil Nadu to the Sri Lankan crisis has been a big joke, and by that definition, the aforementioned leader emerges as the biggest joker. I am more interested in finding how many people actually buy into the phony arguments and sentiments of the DMK and AIADMK. Not to forget that open condoning of the LTTE and Prabhakaran should ideally invite legal action.

The Sri Lankan crisis is, at this moment, a humanitarian crisis. The LTTE, while fighting for a cause (which might be worthy or not is not the point), had become a nuisance for the entire South Asia and every country has a right to get rid of its troublemakers; the fact that we do not do it is no ground for expecting the same from others.

If the Dalai Lama is still treated as a guest of India, it is for a reason. I quite hope any government stops pandering to the needs of political jokers; unfortunately, it is election time so I cannot blame the government either.

Which brings me to the earlier question.

How many people in Tamil Nadu actually care about the Lankan crisis over their already troubled lives with an economic depression that is looming overhead ? The answer can be found in this recent article and isn’t too unexpected.