World-Me-My viewpoint

Murchison Falls is a famous african safari park in Uganda. Located around 300 - 350 KM from the capital city Kampala, the safari is accessible by a good road. one can take the car into the park and can move around the safari in a town car also though a four wheel drive is more preferable. The Albert Nile flows through the park and there is a cruise almost upto the rapids / water falls. The is a large variety of wild life like Lion, Giraffe, Elephants, Hippos to smaller animals. I have taken some photos though I lost more because of the bad quality and low battery charge of my mobile.

Mr Rajiv Gandhi, a former Prime Minister of India was killed by a human bomb in 1991 during an election campaign in Sriperambudur in Tamil Nadu. The group of killers were sent by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE of Mr Velupillai Prabhakaran who was killed recently by Sri Lankan Government in an internal war). The reason being dispatch of Indian Peace Keeping Force to Sri Lanka for restoration of peace as a part of the accord with the then Sri Lankan President. In fact the Indian government was short charged by both LTTE and Sri Lankan government resulting in large scale killing of Indian soldiers and ultimate withdrawal of the forces by the next Indian government. It is also to be said that initially there was tacit support by the Indian government to LTTE and the then Tamil Nadu governments allowed them to run militant camps in their state. On the fateful day Mr Rajiv Gandhi was killed by a human bomb Thanu alongwith several others. There was a man hunt for the remaining mem

News came out yesterday evening that the Prime Minister has saluted Mr Hazare during his speech in the Indian Parliament and also that the government has agreed for a debate on the bill today ie 26th August 2011. There is a lot of media frenzy on this issue showing that Mr Hazare scored a victory over the government and this is a victory for the anti-corruption movement. Also there was news that he may break his fast on 26th which may or may not happen. Though this appears to be a positive development from the side of Mr Hazare's camp, this sets a very bad precedent.It can happen now that anybody who has some following can now hold the country's administration for a ransom to get their demands passed. Also will he go back and start the fast again, if the Parliament does not pass the bill in the format he wanted them to pass? Though the fight to end corruption is laudable, this kind of pressures will lead to bad decisions which will impact the country for a long time.

India is in frenzy for the last 10 days with the anti-corruption rhetoric of Mr Anna Hazare. This is similar to the one witnessed sometime back over the issue of bringing back the black money from Swiss banks. The black money issue was first coined by Bharatiya Janata Party and later taken up by Mr Anna Hazare and Mr Ramdev Baba apart from sundry others. What we are witnessing now is not dissimilar to the earlier issue. Anti-corruption rhetoric is not new either in India or abroad. It was Mr Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India who declared that a corrupt person should be hanged from the nearest lamp post around 100 years ago. We are yet to see a single hanging. It was taken up by the successive prime ministers but nothing has happened. In fact, all the governments starting from the first government post-independence have seen some scandal or other. The lamentable fact is nothing has happened in any of these cases be it the Jeeps scandal (of the first government) of th

Please see below my post on 5th June 2011 captioned "Why Baba Ramdev quest for eradication of black money fail? Here is an article by Mr Swaminathan Iyer in Economic Times today which says the money is in the system. Read the article here http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/8908974.cms

Of late the most favourite and hottest topic among several bloggers from Andhra Pradesh, India is the demand for the separate Telangana state. Some of these bloggers started sounding similar to the political leaders from the region they are from like either Telangana or Seemandhra. This nomenclature again is from the political leaders of Telangana. But those leaders themselves are not exactly clear who will be the people of Telangana and the outsiders. Mr. KCR uses one way of identification one day and something else another day. Some other leaders use the sons of the soil concept. But again there is no clarity among them as to who constitute the people of Telangana. It is a fact that after the betrayal of the separate state movement by Mr. Chenna Reddy in 60s, many people from the erstwhile state of Hyderabad (whose districts form Telangana) started moving to other parts of Andhra Pradesh or had family relations through marriages to other parts of the state. Many of the leaders of Tel

In general when we talk about stock markets and market indices, we mainly talk about those belonging to the matured markets like USA, UK, Germany, France, Singapore and Dubai apart from those of China, India and to certain extent Australia. However there are still some more markets which are at the nascent and developing stages like those in Africa which may give good returns over the period. One such market is located in Uganda. The Uganda Stock Exchange has started full fledged operations in a screen based environment recently. Though the exchange currently has only 7 stocks listed on it plus several cross listings from Nairobi Stock Exchange there is a good opportunity for its further growth with the creation of East African Trade Block consisting of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi. The stock markets are functional in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. There was one IPO so far from Rwanda and one more is expected during this year. Though these markets appear to be very

Don't treat me as a pessimist or a supporter of Black Money. However in my opinion this fast of Baba Ramdev may not succeed though it may show some promise like the earlier quest Mr Anna Hazare's fast for brining in ministers and prime minister under the purview of Jan Lokpal Bill. This bill is now mired in the political double speak and unless Mr Hazare has the power to fight again will have a natural death or will not be introduced in the parliament in the coming few years. Coming back to the quest of Baba Ramdev, last night the Delhi police arrested him. Now the reasons according to me why this quest will fail unless concrete steps are taken by people and the government. First of all let us recall the famous words of Mr Jawaharlal Nehru around 60 years back stating that the corrupt people should be hanged from the nearest lamp post. Corruption is the first step for amassing the black money. The government has created several organisations like anti corruption bureau

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The main article in Eenadu today (6th May) is about the atrocities / irregularities of Mr Jagan and his followers with a title "Kanda (muscle).. Kasu (money).. Khakhi (police)" indicating that they are using all possible means to get elected and Jagan followers have distributed money to the voters twice already and are going to distribute once again. Also the police are implicitly helping him by not checking the vehicles of Jagan's group and even turning blind eye to the manhandling / atrocities of his group. As an outsider, I understand the following from various news sources - Jagan is not a member of ruling party now. In fact he came out of the party after fighting with the top leadership. The Congress party has put a sitting minister against him and his own uncle against his mother. All the ministers of the government are camping in Kadapa and Pulivendula canvassing agaist them. Mr Chiranjeevi and Chief Minister have also canvassed vigorously against him. Mr Chand