Post your views..

Last time I had checked Indian portal and found some interesting things and thought of searching its counterpart, which you all must have guessed right..yes Pakistan portal. This time I won't discuss about the political picture but will tell you the best part i found. When i checked the map of Pakistan which was claimed as correct map(pasted here) contains almost whole of Kashmir, you can see Srinagar as a part of it !
The map of Kashmir, I have checked in Indian portal which has the correct picture as of today which you can check here http://india.gov.in/maps/jammu.php.
Why there is much of difference in these two? If both the countries are so much concerned about the people of Kashmir and they can do anything to get hold of this place, then people of J&K must be living king size ;isn't it ? They must be sweetie pie of both the nations ? But is it true?
Are they really concerned about the people or their pride/ego ?
Everyone knows how much safe are their country is; how much happy their citizens are; how much developed these countries are; how much problems they are facing..you just name them they have it...with all these they are busy in justifying themselves about this place ...so cool !
We live here, and we are proud of the contrasting decisions made regarding this by our so called caretakers, the politicians ! This is because we are proud to be Indian/Pakistani !!!
But is this our thought ?And is this what we want ?

National portal of India : just post an opinion

Today I was going thru the site ‘National portal of India’ http://india.gov.in/ . If anyone needs genuine information about India should visit this site, as this is what the site claims (http://india.gov.in/abouttheportal.php). I was just randomly surfing and finally landed up in checking our chief ministers’ profiles which are under “who’s who” section of the Government. You can see the names and profiles of them, where most of the profile links are not loading( e.g. Narendra Modi). And some profiles are not there at all (e.g Mayawati). When I checked qualifications of them, for some I couldn’t able to find. You will unfortunately see that some are under matric and some are matriculate and most are simple graduates(BA) and very few are more qualified than this. Yes, most common thing is that all are above the age of 50. These things are reflecting conditions of our states well. Anyways leave our conditions apart, after seeing all the details I thought I will put some comments about the site so that we will get as much information as we want, yes only specific to above section. I typed in my comments and pressed submit it leads me to this(will add link) page. You believe it or not I have tried 7-8 times then I gave up. I asked few of my friends to try, no luck, they too got the same page. Best part is even if you don’t write anything on the comments; you will get this page which says without mentioning which fields :"Invalid characters are found in the following fields
Please try again with valid characters. "


So this is the status of our so called genuine site of India!!!
Don’t know this one is a technical error or they don’t want any opinion on their beautiful creation.
I have tried posting this fact to ‘Times of India’ but couldn’t. If anyone can, please do so.

Tibet ...

I have seen so many articles in news/magazines about Tibet but I ignored going deep into the issue. Recently I thought of searching and finding out what exactly happening there. So I browsed thru net and found some interesting facts which I am posting here. Neither I have been to Tibet nor I have got any friends/relatives there, the content is entirely based on my search on net which are genuine as per my knowledge.
Tibet lies on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau of the southwest border of China. The average height of the whole region is more than 4,000 meters above sea level, for which Tibet is known as "Roof of the World".
Although a part of China now, Tibet has a unique culture of all there own. Majorities are the followers of Tibetan Buddhism, it was similar to Indian Buddhism but consequently Tibetan Buddhism evolved and followed practices of their own, believe in Living Buddha (reincarnation of Buddha as Dalai Lama). As well as being one of the most influential spiritual leaders of Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama by tradition is also Tibet's absolute political ruler. For many years Dalai Lamas were the rulers of this place until it was occupied by PRC (People’s Republic of China).
The Tibetan language being phonetic has alphabets, its source being Brahmi/Sanskrit and is written horizontally i.e. left to right. The Chinese language not being phonetic has no alphabets but an ideographic script or pictograms and is written vertically i.e. from top to bottom.

Few facts:
Dalai Lama fled Tibet at 1959 and set up the Government of Tibet in Exile in Dharamsala, India, which is often referred to as "Little Lhasa". The Indian Government offered the Dalai Lama a home in Dharamsala, a small town in the foothills of the Himalayas in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. From here the Tibetan Government-in-Exile has drafted a constitution for an autonomous and democratic Tibet and holds elections for the Tibetan Parliament. In 1989, the Dalai Lama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his peaceful struggle for the liberation of Tibet. But China claims the dirty political motives of Dalai Lama.

There are so many clauses/points to which PRC is not agreeing to form elected Govt in Tibet as a part of China. Like our Kashmir issue, this is ongoing and is continuing as a political issue in China. While searching, I found so many sites for saving Tibet, free Tibet, friends of Tibet, Tibet online etc which are claiming they are under colonial rule of PRC which is destroying their identity, rupturing their culture and they want genuine autonomy though not full freedom. While some sites shows a developing Tibet under China.

Its only Tibetan can tell about the real fact and what they want. But what we see somewhat more than what exactly it is. Support of Western countries to Tibetans while China is denying for talks is totally confusing. What China says is western countries along with US support Dalai Lama and freedom of Tibet, as they want to suppress China as uprising power in east and want to divide what they call one China (See PRC and ROC).You must have heard about the recent threat from China to France president Nicolas Sarkozy for his meeting with Dalai Lama. China had threatened Paris with consequences if a meeting with the French government were to take place with Dalai Lama. Ties between the French government and China were damaged after Sarkozy initially threatened to boycott the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing. Following pressure from China, he later reversed his announcement and attended the ceremony.

I even found many news sites, which says:
“Tibetan Buddhism is controlled by China: it is illegal to own a photograph of the Dalai Lama. Tibetans who support the Dalai Lama are arrested and tortured. The Chinese leadership accuses the Dalai Lama of being a dangerous separatist whose agenda it is to destabilize the one family of China. He has been referred to as "a wolf in a monk's robe; a monster with a human face but the heart of a beast". What he wants for his people is genuine autonomy, and he gave up the issue of independence in 1979.”

One more interesting fact is about Panchen Lama ,the second highest ranking of Lama after Dalai Lama, who is also believed to be reincarnating and to be chosen finally by Dalai Lama and vice versa. Current Panchen Lama chosen by Dalai Lama is missing after PRC chosen one rival Panchen Lama. Chinese authorities state that Gedhun Choekyi Nyima(11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama chosen by current Dalai Lama on 14th may 1995) has been taken into protective custody, but there is no reference to what, or whom he must be protected from. With this PRC wants a religious control of Tibetan Buddhism in future.

I found in so many blogs/sites that Internet facility in Tibet is limited, China restricts/manages the search/sites while accessing net, even found that if people from Tibet/china search for Dalai Lama in Google they wont find any result !!!

Bangkok: one popular warning/danger..experienced

I saw one post in one of the site like this ...
"2) As you make your way to your destination (e.g. a temple complex), someone will stop you and ask if you are going to your destination. When you say, yes, they will tell you it's closed for the holiday. Then they will tell you that instead you should go to some shopping complex where there is a one-day sale (today!) where you can get bargains galore. Don't believe them - just carry on to your destination."

I am writing this because we had similar experience while we were in Bangkok. On our 1st day in Bangkok, we got 3/4 detailed maps of Bangkok, we pointed places which we are going to visit and planned. That day evening, we thought we will visit temple(wat) near river. We took a taxi till the point and we visited that, again by seeing the map we found there is one more temple nearby. This time we thought we will find it out by our own with the help of directions given in map. We were about to turn on the lane where the temple was, suddenly someone called me saying if we are searching something. We told the temple's name, he said this is already 5pm, that would be closed and asked us to visit one gems factory where he will give us good discounts.
We simply denied and we went to the temple and was open !!!

The same words, as that stranger said were written in one of travel guide to Bangkok which we both read before going there.

These things are common there,even common in other places of South Asia.

A visit to Ayutthaya…

Have you ever heard of this place? Don’t confuse with Ayodhya,India. Ayutthaya known as Ayudhya is situated in Thailand (80-90kms south of Bangkok), almost an hour journey from Bangkok by taxi. After visiting Bangkok, we thought of visiting some other places. We have to come back on same day as we have to catch the flight on next day morning, so we took a taxi and went to visit old capital of Bangkok.

Ayutthaya kingdom(2nd Siamese capital) was founded after Sukhothai kingdom, and was capital of Thailand for many years. It used to be one of the richest cities in Asia by the 1600s, The Ayudhya kingdom lasted from 1350 to 1767, when the city was conquered and destroyed by the invading Burmese. The Burmese were the great rivals of the Thais of Ayudhya and sacked the city also a first time about 200 years earlier. Today you can see the ruins of the temples, palaces etc. Remains of temples called chedis are main attraction in this city. You can see many Buddha’s statues which were beheaded by Burmese and some are destroyed by others (by thieves/smugglers as local guides say).

We watched Buddhist monks lifestyle there and celebration of a festival called songkran(Thai traditional new year,13th Apr) while we were there. Thais value the religion by means of merits acquisition, offerings alms to monks, Dhamma(‘Dharma’) Practice, listening to sermon and monks-bathing during this time.While visiting one of the ruins, we saw people dancing around the ruined Buddha temple along with monks. People were carrying gifts/offerings for monks. In the afternoon, after performing a bathing rite for Buddha images and the monks, the celebrants both young and old, joyfully splash water on each other. Besides the throwing of water, people celebrating Songkran also go to a wat (Buddhist monastery) to pray and give food to monks.

Luckily we were there at afternoon and was very hot at that time, but these things were worth watching, it’s more joyful to watch similar rituals in other country as yours:) In the same ruin, we saw one small shed like temple, where baby Buddha was placed with so many gifts (toys etc.) along with a bicycle !!! Have you ever seen offerings to God like this ?

The term Songkran comes from Sanskrit "Sankranta" and means "a move or change" - in this case the move of the sun into the Aries zodiac. Originally this happened at the vernal equinox, but, as the Thai astrology did not observe precession, the date moved from March to April. There is a similar named Indian Festival called as Sankrant or Makar Sankranti, celebrated on 14 January every year. Songkran as such has similarity to Indian festival of Holi.

We saw one tree which has head of Buddha embedded called Buddhi tree. We saw statue of Buddha in all mudras(posture) made of bronze, stone etc. In one of the ruins we saw a large reclining Buddha made of stone, which is openly situated near road.

While coming back to Bangkok, we visited Bang-pa-in summer palace.


The place is worth visiting, if you like historical places.There are so many ruin spots, we visited few of them.I have added as many links to photos which i took there as i can, I will add those to my photoblog shortly.

Brain drain: Is this really an issue??

Consider an open area with few holes, when rain water falls, the largest hole will contain more water as compared to other holes. And it is natural, no explanation required for this. Similarly human beings need opportunities to grow; where they find it they too will gather there, this too is natural.

Baby grows to an adult, having some boundaries and then to a man where it seeks for independence, independent house, office etc, independent thoughts and independent decisions. To achieve all these, it requires an eligible environment, if he doesn’t get it here; obviously he will move to somewhere else where it is easier and convenient to get.

People move across the world, seeking for something or the other. And this is common thing now-a-days in shrinking earth. And one should not be restricted to his/her country for the sake of brain drain. There is something called globalization which fades the thought of brain drain. People move, deliver and grow, that’s how the world is moving now, no strict boundaries depicting countries.

We live in a country which is multiethnic/multilingual and democratic, but still we can’t see others coming and enjoying facilities in our state. We feel we are losing our jobs/opportunities because of migrants from other states. But we enjoy going abroad and settle there. This kind of thinking should be avoided by orthodox people like us.

For students who want to pursue more, there are no opportunities, no healthier environment for research. Growing lawlessness and politically-motivated violence are some of the push factors for many intellectuals and professionals. They move usually from poorer to less poorer or developed countries. Good students from several institutions move abroad for job/better opportunities. They send money back to us, that improves our economy but funds invested for their upbringing here is more and also we loss brilliant manpower. But this is not a right way to judge the things, the reasons explained earlier and if you can’t be the part of same consistent fall/crises then be the change…. Don’t ask how. You can check one thing before posting your comments [Celtic Tiger] .If you think these overcome above reasons, please post your thoughts as comments.

And yes, I don’t want postings saying the same old stories: - we don’t have infrastructure/atmosphere, system is not good blah blah, that’s why we move, and on other side -its inhuman to move from own country to other and serve there leaving your own country in unsafe economic crises.

Rice bowl of Asia(Burma)...

Rice bowl of Asia is now in a situation about which people across all over the world should be aware of. May be this is one of the reason why I am posting this blog. When I saw one program about Burma on CNN, thought of searching in detail about it in internet and other sources.

About history of Burma, you can all go thru different sites. From the golden age till the date, condition of Burmese changed a lot.

Very few places are accessible by international tourists, Govt is spending good attention for their safety.Aung San Suu Kyi has asked tourists not to visit Burma, as international tourism can be seen as a stamp of approval to the Myanmar government.

Till now people are deprived off basic human rights. They are isolated, having strict restrictions on them. Millions have been forced to flee due to military rule.Internet access is also restricted to some business groups who are having good relations with the Govt.

Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of independence hero Aung San,is the only imprisoned Nobel peace prize recipient has made significant move and emerged as a leader in military ruled Burma with a ray of hope in establishing Democracy in the country.

(Suu Kyi's father Aung San was one of the founding fathers of the Burmese nationalist movement as well as the Burmese Communist Party. Like Subhas Chandra Bose, Aung San went over to the Japanese side during their occupation of Southeast Asia, including Burma and undergone military training. In 1941, they fought alongside the Japanese who invaded Burma. The Japanese promised Aung San that if the British were defeated, they would grant Burma her freedom. When it became clear that the Japanese would not follow through with their promise, Aung San quickly negotiated an agreement with the British to help them defeat the Japanese. Aung San was able to negotiate an agreement in January 1947 with the British, under which Burma would be granted total independence from Britain. Aung San and members of his newly-formed cabinet were assasinated when an opposition group with machine guns burst into the room.)

She came back to Burma on 1988, she and like-minded colleagues founded the National League for Democracy (NLD). On May 27, 1990 in a multi-party elections, despite the SLORC(State Law and Order Restoration Council )'s severe repression against members of opposition parties (Aung San Suu Kyi was kept under house arrest) and the complete lack of freedom of expression throughout the country, Suu Kyi's NLD party swept to victory with 80-82% of the vote. Surprised and outraged, the SLORC refused to acknowledge the election results and has retained its repressive grip on power ever since.

Burma is making world headlines because of the courageous protests of hundreds of thousands of monks and civilians in at least 26 cities in Burma over the past few weeks is to get rid of current form of Govt. The NLD had little access to media and few resources compared to the SLORC-backed National Unity Party (NUP). But several organizations have come together to gather awareness about the situation there and to help NLD to form Govt, ending current military rule. Campaigns have persuaded hundreds of companies to either withdraw from Burma or to adopt policies not to source certain goods from the country. French oil giant TOTAL Oil is in business with Burma's brutal military dictatorship. Its joint venture in the Yadana gas project in southern Burma earns the military regime hundreds of millions of dollars every year.