World-Me-My viewpoint

  Last week saw the announcement of discovery of the body of Malli Mastan Babu, one of India's top mountaineer. He is unique in a way that very few of the Indian mountaineers were solo climbers and he is one of them. He has the distinction of conquering the summits of the tallest peaks in each of the 7 continents in 2006 in a short span of 172 days and made to the Guinness Book of World Records. Apart from this he has several achievements like, In 2007, he accomplished through trekking and climbing a high-altitude traverse of the four major Hindu dhams of Uttarakhand. During the same year, he had run 8 full Marathons and 3 half marathons in 13 days, spanning 10 Indian States. In 2008, he completed a 75 day High altitude trek from the Mt. Everest region to Kanchenjunga, climbing all the high passes between them, covering a total of approximately 1100km of Himalayan terrain.   He was an alumnus of IIT and a motivational speaker. He lost his life after sum...

Opinion Polls Latest opinion poll by NDTV shows BJP and its allies is expected to get around 275 with the ruling Congress led front getting around 111 and rest by all the other parties together. This appears to be a far cry from the initial euphoria when Modi came into picture as BJP's prime ministerial candidate. The expectations were that BJP on its own will get the simple majority. Is there some weakening in the BJP's strength over the period? May be I am stretching my imagination too far, but I feel the final tally could be around 250 for BJP, 130-140 for Congress for the rest. If BJP and its current allies together get only this kind of a tally they will be in for a trouble in the long run as they may have to depend on one of the three ladies viz., Didi (Mamata Banerjee), Amma (Jayalalitha) or Mayavathi (behenji). If this happens we can again see the same state of policy inaction in future also. Alliances & Campaigning All the pre-poll alliances are set now ...

Indian Cricket Well according to me this is not even a great subject to write about as it is following and churned on all formats of the media and literally 95% people in India follow the same. I used to be one of the 95% earlier (prior to the first scam where Azharuddin & Co were suspended). I lost my interest after the successive scandals. I remember President of BCCI was asked to step down last year itself at the time of controversy regarding the spot fixing (or whatever name it was called) but he came back through back door once again. Now the highest court in India has ordered him to step down and asked Mr Sunil Gavaskar to takeover as a President in the interim along with Mr Shivlal Yadav as the second president. With due respects to the honourable court and the justices who delivered the judgement, the first part of the judgement is ok as the one being ordered to step down is perceived to be the corrupting influence. My grouse is only with the second part, why Mr Gav...

Alliances and More Looks like the main opposition party is a real hurry to get into power. The party which terms itself as “A party with a difference” is proving itself to be really different this time. They are ready to enter into an alliance with whatever and whoever ready to join them like the yet to be born party like Jana Sena started by Mr Pawan Kalyan (brother of Mr Chiranjeevi a Tollywood matinee idol). Pawan Kalyan himself is one of the leading actors in Tollywood which is dominated by the Mega family (Mega Star was / is an petname for Chiranjeevi). Jana Sena Party has been only announced days back and does not even have a proper office of its own. However the country's main opposition party is ready to join in an alliance with them. Similarly they went and allied themselves with 4-5 minor parties in Tamil Nadu as both the ruling AIADMK and opposition DMK have at the moment not allied with anybody now. Infact people in Tamil Nadu thinks now that great lady of AIAD...

There are several temples in India in several states with exotic architecture, carvings etc. One such is located at Palampet which is around 70 KM from Warangal (via Mulugu) in the newly formed state of Telangana (part of Erstwhile Andhra Pradesh). This is a heritage monument recognised by the Archeological Survey of India. https://www.google.co.in/maps/dir/Warangal,+Andhra+Pradesh/Ramappa+Temple,+Palampet,+Andhra+Pradesh+506345/@18.2529547,80.0323757,112045m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x3a33450bd75e4be7:0x9c51d70cf1a16b09!2m2!1d79.9192702!2d17.9744395!1m5!1m1!1s0x3a330e7519eefc6f:0xacc2bee174187d8a!2m2!1d79.942776!2d18.259285?hl=en   Warangal was the captial of the Kakatiya Dynasty which ruled areas from Telangana, Andhra. Some of the famouns rulers were Ganapathideva, Rudrama Devi and Prataparudra. Rudrama Devi was one of the few women rulers in the Indian History and she ruled for around 25-30 years. The rule of Kakatiyas ended after Prataparudra.  Ramappa...

A spate of major events happened in India during the last 15-20 days. The first one is the sad event of cloudburst in the state of Uttarakhand leaving thousands dead and thousands more were stranded over treacherous hills for days on end with hardly anything to sustain till the rescue happened. In the temple town of Kedarnath, except for the temple (which can be termed as a miracle) almost all was swept away by the rampaging Alaknanda river. The event had become a major tragedy main due to being the in peak pilgrim season and this being the most important pilgrim circuit for the Hindus. The rescue efforts could not be started immediately due to roads getting washed away, land slides and extremely bad weather. The rescue efforts have almost come to a close with respect to the pilgrims by now. However the state government of Uttarakhand to rehabilitate the local population which plight has not been highlighted by the Indian Media so far. With heroic efforts of ITBP, Indian Air Force...

The Shiva Temple at Mitavali, located around 35 - 40 km from Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh

The continuing occurrences of rapes in national capital of India is alarming. Looks like a lot of psychos roaming around. The state government needs to beef up the security further. However the public behavior is also nothing great to write home about. If one looks at the infamous gang rape case or the latest case of rape of a 7 year old girl, agitation is ok but destroying the public transport buses, or lynching of a police officer by the crowd during the earlier agitation are really reprehensible. Seems the youth are reverting to the days of 70s to 90s when for any and every thing people used to attack the public transport. It seems the Gen Y are becoming more and more restless and needs a constructive direction. Are political parties listening or or they using them as pawns in their games?

Khajhuraho temples are famous for their erotic sculptures. They are a set of 4 temples located in a single compound. Khajhuraho is around 400 km from Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. Here is another view of Khajhuraho which is different from the normal photos of erotic sculptures.

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...

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...

నేను ఉద్యోగ మారటం వలన ఉగాండా వచ్చాను. నేను ఇక్కడ కంపాలా లో ఉంటాను. ఈ దసరా మూడు రోజులుగా మా ఏరియా లో బాగా సందడిగా ఉంది. మాకు ఒక వైపు ఇండియన్ అసోసియేషన్, ఇంకొకవైపు పతిదర్ సమాజ్ ఉన్నాయి. ఇండియన్ అసోసియేషన్ లో బెంగాలివారు దుర్గామాత విగ్రహం పెట్టి చాల వైభవంగా దసరా జరుపుతున్నారు. అలాగే పతిదర్ సమాజ్ లో గుజరాతి వారి గర్భ జరుగుతోంది. ఇండియన్ అసోసియేషన్ లో పెట్ట్టిన దుర్గామాత ఫోటో క్రింద ఇస్తున్నాను.

Around 35 km from Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh there is a village named Padavali around which ruins of some temples were discovered around 5-6 years ago. These group of temples are known as Bateswar group of temples which are temples dedicated to Lord Shiva. Just before the turnoff to Bateswar, there is a small fort known as Ghadi with a dancing hall / hall of ceremonies with exquisite carvings.

The Shiva Temple at Mitavali, located around 35 - 40 km from Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh has an incredible design. This is a 500 year old temple but very little is known about this beyond the state of Madhya Pradesh. The temple is situated on a Hill with a small village at the foot of the hill. The steps to the temples were carved out of the hill. The temple architecture is totally different from any other temple in India. In fact the design of Indian Parliament is based on this temple. The sanctum sanctorum