Nice.

BJP deserves praise for this :

BJP backs Chidambaram, says no need to quit.

Terrorism is religious.

The BJP recently objected to the use of the phrase ‘Hindu terrorism’ in the Parliament by P.Chidambaram :

While talking about government approach towards any form of terrorism cause by any group irrespective of its religious colour, Chidambram said: “The government maintains zero tolerance for terrorism inspired by religion, may it be Islam or may it be Hindu.”

Chidambaram was immediately pointed out by BJP’s Prakash Javadekar and SS Ahluwalia and other BJP members for his repeated usage of the word of “Hindu terrorists” during his statement on internal security issue.

“When the investigation is on how could you say it would reveal the Hindu terrorists”, Javdekar asked Chidambaram over his Hindu terrorist remark.

Another BJP leader Ahluwalia questioned Chidambaram how could he generalize the entire community over an alleged act of a few individuals.

I am with the BJP on this one; I believe the correct neologism is Saffron terror. But that’s okay. We are going to take a while adjusting to such new words. It would be too obvious an irony to mention the BJP’s use of the ‘Islamic terrorism’, so I’ll skip past that.

One thing we can agree upon : if one form of terrorism is always termed religious, we have a right to call any other form that uses religion as its basis with its associated religion. Else we should agree that terrorism has no religion.

Which brings me to the oft-repeated sentence, ‘Terrorism has no religion’. I disagree. Whenever terrorism is inspired by religious ideas or in defense of a religion, it makes perfect sense to associate it with the corresponding religion. When they call themselves religious terrorists, who are we to disagree ? And let’s face it, every religion today has violent fundamentalists. Period.

The only difference in my association : I’d put together the religion, terrorism and the perpetrators in the association. That would just be fair on the innocent fellow followers.

If that is confusing, the gist is thus : We cannot decouple religion from terrorism, else we’re not looking at the larger problem.

Protest, Delhites !

If I were a Delhite, I’d be really annoyed at this speech by P. Chidambaram :

“We should seize the opportunity of the Commonwealth Games to change our behavioural pattern. We must behave as (residents of) an international city,” he said in New Delhi after inaugurating a police station.

Mr. Home Minister, for them to behave as residents of an international city, shouldn’t the city be of international standards first ? I do hope Delhites take offence to this, and file a PIL.

If you observe carefully, many of the suggestions he gives have got to do with lack of infrastructure, something Mr. Chidambaram should be tackling without wasting time in speeches.

Chidu joins elite league.

Tum Itna Jo Muskura Rahe Ho …

In the month of April, our very own P.C. Chidambaram (fondly referred to as Chidu by everyone except his wife) joined the august company of legends like George W. Bush and Chinese PM Wen Jiabao, which explains the beaming face he has in the above snap.

While the earlier episodes of shoe throwing were known for the backlash suffered by the throwers (George W. Bush’s nemesis was beaten badly while the Chinese PM’s nemesis .. well him, his relatives and all his friends on Orkut, Facebook and Twitter are missing), this episode will be known for the “Be gentle” directive given by Chidu to the security guards, a message that reflects the Congress’ stand of being tough on terror.

Meanwhile, the attacker Jarnail Singh who has no regrets about the incident has successfully entered the Guiness Book of World Records for the stupidest and lamest miss ever in a close range shoe throw.

And yes, the red circle makes an appearance again on TV channels.

The only thing that scores more on the WTF scale than the whole incident was Jagdish Tytler being given a clean chit by the CBI in the 1984 Anti-Sikh riots case some days ago.

P.S. : Seriously, can we have an asli mard who doesn’t miss the target for once !!!

The exchange of pink.

I know that Valentine’s Day is a day for exchanging gifts between loved ones, but this might be taking it a bit too far.

The Pink Chaddi Campaign will be sending pink chaddis to the SRS.

The SRS will return the gesture by sending back saris to the Pink Chaddi Campaign.

A newer Pink Condom Campaign will be sending pink condoms to the Pink Chaddi Campaign.

Now that we have resorted to barter system, can Mr. P. Chidambaram please stop saying that we are not in recession !

Link via Salil B.

Anbu and creams.

If IBNLive can affectionately refer to P.Chidambaram as Chidu, I think  I can do the same with Anbumani Ramadoss.

Meet Health and Beauty Minister Anbumani Ramadoss’ latest muse :

NEW DELHI: After smoking, alcohol and fast foods, union health minister Anbumani Ramadoss has now trained his guns on fairness creams flooding the market saying they have to provide scientific evidence of their claims.

“This needs to stop. They cannot say within one week you will be white and all this…,” Ramadoss said on Wednesday.

I agree. After all it is a consumer product, not an election manifesto.

On a more serious note, once again he misses the issue by a margin thicker than his moustache. The issue is not whether a cream can make one fair but a far deeper national obsession with fairness.