SHED NO TEARS...the aftermath

Shed no tears for 26/11 because the resilient spirit of Mumbai will soon forget all the horrific incidents. The victims and martyrs will suffer no less. The news channels that now glaringly show the funerals of the brave heroes will soon switch over to Rahul Mahajan's latest love interest or to Abu Salem's love life or even some equally insignificant happening in some rotten saas bahu serial. Mumbaifolk will carry on with their daily chores and dreary lives maybe with a hint of fright stored at the back of their minds , ready to pounce at the earliest rumour. Our ministers (who never did anything rather than fight amongst themselves) will continue to do what they do best....all those things that i need not mention. Soon we will all go back to fight over casteism, regionalism and religion , thereby forgetting that the terrorists took advantage of this very situation. Bloggers will blog , newspapers will print, tv channels will broadcast and it will all be stored away in some archives either hard copy or in our memories deep down.

Unless...... unless.....we shed no tears....Coz this is not the time to shed tears, for they will take away the pain and anguish of the recent happenings and make you feel better. It is not the time to heal. It is not the time to recuperate. It is the time to fight back. It is time to fight the system which we ourselves are corrupting. It is time to hold back those tears and channel the anguish towards a better tomorrow. It is time to lead from the front and work our way out of this mess if we dont want our children to point out to us and ask why...why didnt we act?..why?


This is what you should do :

1. Dont accept OR GIVE any bribes. Corruption begins from the very grass root level and that is what is eating away into our moral and social fabric.
2. Dont spread rumours (however jocular) especially in times of crisis.
3. Be alert. Keep a watch for antisocial elements, any strange happenings or people in your neighbourhood.
4. DO NOT , I REPEAT DO NOT GIVE IN TO INFLAMMATORY SPEECHES GIVEN BY POWER HUNGRY POLITICIANS. HOW MANY MORE YEARS OF HISTORY LESSONS WILL IT TAKE TO MAKE YOU UNDERSTAND THAT THESE PEOPLE ARE TAKING YOU FOR A RIDE?.
5. Develop a sense of intellect and participate more in discussions and debates. Read, listen, look, understand, research before you comment or act.
6. Respect the environment. Do what you can to save water electricity, paper and everything else that need not be wasted.
7. DONT REITERATE THE STATEMENT OF " WHAT CAN I DO AS A SINGLE PERSON?"
Believe in your individuality and develop a sense of confidence and pride in what you are. At the same time develop a feeling of love for the Nation that you belong.

And then....when we accomplish all this.....then cry your heart out. Then you can weep tears of remorse, for had we acted earlier , we would not have faced this tragedy

Such a Waste!

The biggest disease that this planet suffers from is religion. Soft!.. I’m not saying that everyone should become atheists.. please worship in the way you see fit.. what I am saying is that everyone should realise that religion does not exist. What exists is one God, and religion is nothing but the different ways in which humans express their sense of faith, belief and perception of the higher power. They assume that God will look kindly upon them if they worship in a certain way. What they do not realise is that God, when he/she made this universe established one very simple rule in nature, one which even he/she cannot break and that is balance. Nature consists only of balance; for every bad there good, for every action there is a reaction and for every deed the doer is either rewarded or punished in a way no one can foretell. So even if you do use the various religions to show your devotion to God, he does not look kindly upon you as he cannot do anything to release you from what you are to reap because of your actions. The worst part of this is that Humans know and realise that there is one God but they still keep on squabbling in the name of religion. What happened to the Christians in India is deplorable, Hindu terrorism is stupidity by some fanatical leaders who can’t see beyond their nose and Jihad carried out by Islamic terrorists is nothing but madness. This kind of incessant squabbling does nothing but prove how stupid humans are and prove that our mental capacities can go beyond madness into a realm not discovered yet.

Terrorism is nothing but a mutated strain of the religion virus where the diseased have been afflicted by a madness unheard of as yet. A madness which brainwashes them into believing that there is only one way of life in this multi-faceted universe. Will they just stop at humans and go beyond into terrorising animals too? Who knows if this madness will end.

Such terrorism initially begins with religion when a person becomes so blind that he cannot see that other people are worshipping the same God he does but in a form which is different than his. He thinks that any person who doesn’t think in the way he does should be eliminated. The terrorists think that that inflicting fear will get them somewhere; on the contrary it will only strengthen people’s resolve into fighting till they die. Unfortunately these terrorists can see even less than the aforementioned leaders of Hindu terrorism which is in its early stages of this disease.

A common bully is usually a coward who thinks he can fear people into respecting him but shies away when he sees resistance. Terrorists are such bullies except they don’t fear resistance. They only have one answer to every problem: Violence and killings. They have become so blind and so diseased that they see violence as the only way and have reached a stage where it is incurable.

You are going to say that now these terrorism attacks are beyond religion. Yes now it has reached a stage which goes beyond religion. It now concerns objectives which include revenge (1 cause is: the tragedy which occurred during the partition of India), getting their way where all else fails (ISI’s thinking of getting Kashmir), disagreements on moot points (disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favouring Israel – 9/11 attacks [see WIKI 9/11]) et al. So you can see that terrorists are beyond madness. They do not even see their religion as it should be seen. You still don’t believe me?

Bin Laden’s "Letter to America", October 2002: "you are the worst civilization witnessed by the history of mankind: You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. You separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms Absolute Authority to the Lord and your Creator."

If this doesn’t convince you then nothing will.

Like any other bully the main aim of terrorists is to strike fear and grief into the hearts of people. As we have seen from the Mumbai events, they succeeded in doing this. People lost whole families in the event and many loved ones. While it has been tragic, heartbreaking and so sad that no words can describe it, we should realise that we are in fact helping the terrorists reach their aim. If we grieve their deaths we are fulfilling the terrorist’s aims. Yes, we are filled with unimaginable grief that we will not see our loved ones again, but we should now resolve not to grieve for the people who have died and will die in terrorist attacks. We should celebrate their deaths that they have become Shahid and Martyrs in the war against terrorism. We call the commandos and the policemen who fought terrorists Martyrs; I call every one of the 160 odd people who died a martyr. They died in a noble cause. They died fighting terrorism even though they did not put up a resistance. They were prisoners of war and are war heroes.

>>I salute everyone who has died in terrorist attacks and everyone who has fought to save the people caught in such acts of senseless human waste and violence.

>>Terrorists I call on you to take a moment to look at the destruction you have caused and realise the utter waste of it all, while your planning capabilities could have been used in other ways to make humans more humane.

"Violence begets violence and hurts the soul of the victimizer as well as the victim."

--> SJ

And There Was Blood On The Streets...

And there was blood on the streets.... yet again. Yet again, Mumbai bleeds. Yet again, politicians pass the blame, yet again innocent people lose their lives. Yet again. Yet again, there is gonna be an avalanche of blog posts being posted, numerous articles, TV shows, debates etc on terrorism, but then after a week, this night will remain in history books and statistics as yet another terror attack. We, the common people can make a difference.... by voicing our exasperation and choosing the next government that will do what US did post 9/11. I don't want Indian govt. to ruin another country, but nab and curb terrorists and terrorism. Or at least, just prosecute them quickly.



First when the news of some firing was reported, I assumed it was a gang war, as not much was known about it then. After 10 minutes, while I was talking on the phone, I heard a huge sound but dismissed it as someone shutting the door rather loudly. After some time, there was a news flash that a taxi exploded near the airport. It was a low intensity blast. Nobody had shut the door, it was a low intensity explosion that took place in Vile Parle East, which I heard clearly in West. I can only imagine what a high intensity blast would be like. Could see smoke of the blast from my terrace. The entire feeling of having heard a blast was ghoulish.




But then the what the city faced was above what I went through. Indiscriminate firings, bomb blasts, hostage situations.... urghhh. The terrorists targeted posh hotels in South Mumbai at peak business time, of course to maximise the intensity of their attack. Two terrorists opened blind fire at CST on anyone they set their sight upon. Very much like the Virginia Tech incident last year in USA. Before people could get a grip of what was happening, it was all over. Either they were dead, or some miracle happened and they remained alive. Similar kind attacks took place at Taj Hotel and Oberoi Hotel.




While I was watching the News, Arnab Goswami,Times Now, mentioned that one woman from Taj messaged them at Taj, there were no lights and the terrorists were indiscriminately shooting. We, sitting in our living rooms cannot even imagine that scene, of staring death right in its fate, actually not even being able to stare. Worse even for the people from the forces who're going in to fight terrorists.... fighting for people whom they don't know....and at the behest of people who don't care for anything besides their 'kursi'. RIP all the people who left for their heavenly abode.



Mumbai Mirror, the next day carried a picture of a terrorist who wreaked havoc at CST. He didn't look more than 20, wearing jeans and t-shirt, and looking from a very well-to-do family. Must be educated as well. Looking at this I was just marvelling at the convincing powers of these terrorists who can convince these young educated guys to renounce everything to kill themselves and others.



I know, I may sound uninformed, but I really don't get what jehad is for. I mean what are jehadis fighting for? Money, land, love, religion? Religion, I presume. I have no clue about what exactly is in Quran, but I'm sure that it doesn't preach killing others even to protect Itself. My friend said, they do this for "Aman", peace... peace?! You've gotta be kidding me! You don't cause cancer only because you want to cure it. But then in a way, they may be doing it for peace. If everyone's dead.... there'll be peace... isn't it? At least then, after that there won't be anyone who'd have to die again, only because of someone's fanaticism. Once again people will start hating Muslims. And Muslims will hate non-Muslims for generalizing them. And the hate game will continue and the main reason behind it will be forgotten. Why can't we just see terrorism as a human v/s human game? Why categorise people as Muslims, Hindus, Pakistanis, Americans, Afghanis, Iraqis, Indians, or Brits? They're all human beings at the end of the day who are suffering. I think this should be the bottomline regardless of the name on their passports. This point was very poignantly shown in A Wednesday, when Anupam Kher never asked Naseerudin Shah's name.



Morning papers mentioned Advani blaming the Government for being soft on terrorists.Raj Thackeray, again blamed 'outsiders' for everything. Can't these people for once stop snowballing every event into a political opportunity for one-up manship. Learn something from John McCain who accepted defeat so graciously and pledged to lend support to Obama resurrect US from the crisis it is in. I don't see this happening in India anytime soon. I hope and vehemently wish I'm proved wrong. I think, I'm beginning to be proven wrong, just saw on TV, Narendra Modi offering all kind of help without indulging in cheap politics. I really feel that BJP should've had him as their PM candidate.



Barkha Dutt very rightly said that the modus operandi of this attack belonged to the old school fidayeen attacks, seen rampantly in Jammu and Kashmir, where fidayeens use grenades and hold people hostages. Counter attacks go on for hours, eventually culminating in days and the building down in ashes. I don't want the entry point of Mumbai down in ashes. I just refuse to even think of this possibility. Hope we don't have to come to a time where the entrance to Mumbai is a dry, barren land marred by blood stains and remnants of weapons. Mumbai is the city that never sleeps..... yesterday, for the first time, She was scared to sleep.

Political talks

I was watch voteding the news the other day,in many parts of Kashmir voting for the assembly elections , more then 65% of the voters voted.This was under threats of militancy,the call of the separatists, of boycotting the polls, the weather so harsh and unbearable, yet the public voted.
Such a shame i feel, for the urban class of India,who seldom come out of their cosy homes to vote.
To vote, is the biggest benefit of a democracy, but now i feel the whole days of democracy may be over.Consider this.
The intelligentsia in India, the world's largest democracy seldom votes.
In the whole economic meltdown scenario, 2 countries are largely unaffected.
China, being ruled by the communists since years.It has one party rule.
Saudi Arabia, being ruled by the Monarchs.
It was their political structures and not the economic ones that helped them survive this huge economic crisis which has engulfed the whole world.
Lets hear what you people have to say on this

Polls

The most well written Post/posts In the month Of August was/were???
Perfect Moment of pride [Alvia] 2 (8%)

Independence etc [Tamanna] 2 (8%)

Horrifying Reality Of kashmir [Descrying the shadows] 6 (24%)

Beauty Cream for men [Shaista Dhanda] 3 (12%)

Adopt what is right [Priya Joyce] 12 (48%)

The Indian Education System [Kartz] 10 (40%)

Kashmir and some intellectual Blabber [Praveen] 2 (8%)

A note on independence Day [Sushant] 7 (28%)

So called benefits of the nuclear deal [Tshhar Mangal] 5 (20%)

Votes : 25

Need To Make consumer Cooperatives Go global

۩ सर्व शकितमते परमात्मने श्री रामाय नमः۩
The Following is the text of an entry I sent for an essay competition.
Read on.
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Need To Make consumer Cooperatives Go global

As India ushers into a new era of Globalization and we are witnessing a very height growth of industries and foreign direct investments lets not forget the very crucial consumer cooperatives. In the Indian growth story they are not getting the place they deserve, and this is therefore for this purpose I feel that there is a dire need to take the consumer cooperatives in the global arena.

But first let’s understand what a consumer cooperative is.

A consumers' cooperative is a cooperative business owned by its customers for their mutual benefit. It is a form of free enterprise that is oriented toward service rather than pecuniary profit. The customers or consumers of the goods and/or services the business provides are often also the individuals who have provided the capital required to launch or purchase that enterprise.

There are many types of consumers' cooperative. There are health care, insurance, and housing cooperatives as well as credit unions, agricultural and utility cooperatives. The major difference between consumers' cooperatives and other forms of business is that the purpose of a consumers' cooperative association is to provide quality goods and services at the lowest cost to the consumer/owners rather than to sell goods and services at the highest price above cost that the consumer is willing to pay. In practice consumers' cooperatives price goods and services at competitive market rates. The difference is that where a for-profit enterprise will treat the difference between cost (including labor, etc.) and selling price as financial gain, the consumer owned enterprise returns this sum to the consumer/owner as an over-payment.

Large consumers' co-ops are run much like any other business and require workers, managers, clerks, products, and customers to keep the doors open and the business running

As in any form of business, problems are bound to occur. Consumers' cooperatives are run democratically they are subject to some of the same problems experienced by democratic government: the selection of incompetent or dishonest management, poor business planning, deficit spending, etc. Consumers may prefer to vote with their feet than to do detailed supervisory work of an organization they do not work for, for example at The Equitable Life Assurance Society in the UK. Problems such as these can generally be avoided by providing member/owners with educational materials that inform often and honestly as regard to business conditions. Also In some cooperatives there is too much interference by the government which is harmful in its own way. Also there is stiff competition from multinational firms who generally have more advantages regarding management, more market access, and deep pockets.

All these problems can be partly or fully solved by expanding the cooperative into a wider area, taking it every possible region feasible. With wide access of internet, and cheap telephony and transport, it should be easier to manage various offices spread widely across the globe. Also with large number of people immigrating to other lands

And even opting fir dual citizenship I feel that the cooperative can find like minded members in foreign shores too .Thus widening the membership base can be a good idea

And will aid in better management and also will take care of funds problems. Also this will help in establishing the brand of the cooperative by popularizing it amongst the masses.

There is huge amount of activity going on in the export sector .There is a huge potential as demand is high worldwide especially for Indian goods. Now since cooperatives can provide low cost products and services large amount of money can be generated to achieve the social goals pursued by the consumer cooperative. Since cooperatives often have good relations with the government, it can demand tax incentives,

Or other benefits thus further giving boost to their expansion plans. Also various cooperatives should collaborate and join hands with their foreign counterparts to take the multinational companies head on. This way they can exchange technology and information, easy and cheap raw material access or ease in knowing the market.

India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. And there lies a huge untapped potential for the consumer’s cooperatives. It’s high time these cooperatives shed their regional tag and come out as stronger, more powerful Indian cooperatives, with a large membership base and which can represent India in the world of cooperatives.

This will indeed need a revolution of sorts but then we have to be prepared to take on

Global competitors. And strengthen the brand India in the world.

Written by Tshhar Mangal

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Jai Shri Ram !!!