Trimps ban on Immigrants from Islamic countries - A country by country Analysis

If we analyze Trump's Immigration ban on Muslim countries on Individual Basis, there is lot more than we can see now at micro level. Here you go....

The Unaffected Nations : 

INDIA and INDONESIA : Two nations with the largest Muslim populations but negligible terror provider are Unaffected.

EGYPT - Mohammed Atta, the person who orchestrated 9/11 attack was from Egypt. But its military is known to treat their fundamentalists well. ( When Ahmed Al Zawahari, the current leader of Al Qaida was inside an Egyptian jail, his both hands were fed to rabid Dogs to chew and play on them). Besides that, Egypt is a good ally of Israel, the blue eyed boy America.

JORDAN, KUWAIT, QATAR, UAE and OMAN - Valuable allies of USA with way too much business and strategic interest are left untouched.

The Semi Affected Countries, with more stringent vetting process :

SAUDI ARABIA - A major exporter of terrorism but American Business interests with them won't make them go too far with a blanket ban.

PAKISTAN - Another breeding ground of Islamic terrorism. Being a non NATO ally it escaped with vetting process for now. It may not last long once the Americans are out of Afghanistan

AFGHANISTAN - Americans are still there with military base and personnels. Vetting process will continue, but its longevity isn't guaranteed.

The impacted Ones :

IRAQ and SYRIA - Both are part of the acronym ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria). Need I say more ?

IRAN - No surprise here. The State is already officially a Terrorist state declared by United States for long time. Both countries have no overt diplomatic relationship, no embassies in each other nation, not to mention the Shia majority nation is a scourge to Israel. Easy pick by

Trump.

LIBYA - Another easy pick as post Gaddafi (add it to the list of another American screw up after Iraq) it is a major breeding ground of terror.

SOMALIA and YEMEN - The easiest of the picks. Both are poorest of the poor nations with no business or interest utility for Uncle Sam, also sanctuary of terror elements. No one drops a shed of tear or cares about these impoverished nations, especially Yemen which is currently a proxy war zone between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

My first day of tax preparation 2017 season

Taxing time again. My first day of volunteering this tax season at the local VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance) center wasn't so uneventful. After 7 long years, IRS has upgraded to a new Software which is more user friendly. I filed taxes for 6 persons today in a 3 hours, while I could do at most 4 using the old software during the prior years in the same time frame.

Define irony - encounting a marriage counsellor who filed for divorced last year. now filing tax as the head of the house hold as single parent.

Getting divorced or separated isn't not something new, but what I found was oxymoron, a marriage councilor getting divorced, another fodder to my blog.

It is said, the ex Prime minister of India, Indira Gandhi's intervention was often solicited in her social circle to mediate broken marriages. It is a well known fact that she didn't make anything great out of her own marriage. 

A brilliant astrolger, a lot of things he predicted about me way back in 1985 turned out to be true, couldn't control his own fotune and turned himself into a megalomaniac. 

Often I wonder about the vagaries of life. A doctor who cures others from many incurable disease, falls pray to mundane ailments. Many mefics I personally know who give lengthy lectures on bad effects of tobacco and alcohol are themselves champion chain smokers, chewers of ZARDA (scented tobacco) and frequently douse themselves in liberal dosage of sundowners.

Famous bowlers in cricket, who take the wickets of great batsmen often get out to ordinary balls from average bowlers. Burglaries in policemen's home are neither uncommon, nor unheard of.

It yet reinforces my belief that humans are the biggest elements of contradiction. It probably apt for my blog site to be titled "Oxymoron"  (I came up with this name for my blog site, juxtaposing the words "Ox and moron", for I see myself as an Ox, a no brainer animal and self proclaimed moron). And oxymorons we all are.

Trump's Inaguration as 45th President of the United States

Exactly a year ago, Donald Trump was in the middle of a mudslinging battle with his rivals Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio in the Republican Primaries. He edged them out eventually against all odds and yet proved wrong most of the pollsters and political pundits to crush Hillary Clinton's dream to get elected for arguably the most powerful position on earth. Today the President Elect Trump finally graduated to the 45th President of the United States of America.

As the winter Washington rains washed off the dust as it settled down, the hype and hyper associated with Inaguration Ceremony slowly boils down to reality, the new Commander in Chief will have his hands full. Luxury of insurmountable power he has, the unflinching loyalty of his supporters he has, but time is the luxury he doesn't have. As the world holds it breath, struggling to predict the future of an uncertain world order under an equally unpredictable Trump, here is my take on the years ahead of him at the helm of affairs.

Protectionism and insourcing will be the flavor of the time in a world of rising population and automation, when Drones and Robots have started replacing the humans but can't replace the human ethos. When America sneezes, the world catches cold. It has sneezed and a trend has begun to make and hire things at home - very soon the whole world is going to catch this fever.

US has for way too long been burdened with NATO and UN. It's now the time for some reality check, especially on NATO. Let Germans, British, French et all stand on their own legs, rather than staying forever young after World War II for US to cradle them. Trump's anathema towards United Nations, a bloated bureaucracy which should be dumped into Atlantic has the unstinting support of many.

On fighting Terrorism, Trump is going to be stern and clamp down on the selective entities like ISIS, while hardly bothering to bother those terror bodies who haunt others, aka India. Sorry Trump's fans back home who feel that the Right leaning Republican President is going to be a natural ally to the BJP led government. The American brand of Conservatism isn't exactly the same as the RSS brand of Conservatism practiced back home. 

Here are some examples which may not sound so musical as they don't align with the leitmotif of the Right Wing forces back home. First, American Conservatism is Church centric, where as our RSS is no fan of Christians or Christianity. 

Secondly, the Conservatives in Coke Land are staunch believers in American Exceptionalism which has nothing to do with our own brand of Conservatism back home. 

Thirdly, Guns are the sine qua non American Conservatives are big supporters of Guns, whereas our RSS folks could never graduate beyond Lathis (Sticks). Trump is a die hard advocate of all the above three.

The curtain comes down on a long day of celebration, with the Inaguration Ball Orchestra continuing late into the evening. A new day approaches, a new era commences, the future of which only time will bear testimony.

Jallikattu Controversy

Tamil Nadu is one of the few well governed states of India. Tamilians in general are disciplined, law abiding and hardworking citizens, making their state one of the topmost 5 states in India based on various development indices. Most of the Nobel Laurates in Science from India are from this Southern state. And they certainly don't condone cruelty to animals.

The growing Jallikattu agitation there has less to do with cruelty towards animals, more to do with those North of the Vindyas (the mountain chain in Central India, known as a natural divider between North and South) who don't understand the sensitivity of South and are often found lacking sensibility in handling touchy, cultural matters. The end result, some big screw ups.

Once during my stay in Delhi a local colleague asked a guy from Andhra, GHAR KAHA HAI TERA (Where is your house) ? He replied - "Srikakulam". TOH TU MADRASI HAI (Oh, you're a Madrasi). In fact Srikakulam as close to Madras as Belgaum in Karnataka is. Yet everyone South of the Vindyas is a Madrasi in Delhi. (It's no coincidence that many in our nation's Capital think Odisha a part of BANGAAL or Bengal and Jagannath Puri is some Punjabi BAI***OD or sister slammer).

Bollywood movies are known to mock at Southern culture, especially the Tamilians. In one such movie I saw a while ago, a guy wearing spotless white DHOTI (loincloth wound around the waist), with BIBHUTI (Sacred white ash) smeared on his forehead arrives at a DHABA (a North Indian Eaterery), scanning for SAMBAR (A typical South Indian dish) on the menu. 

Now walks in the popular Hindi movie comedian Johny Walker, dressed as a Sardar (Sikh) uttering - OEE MADRASI. KYA SAMBHAR KE SAATH NAAN KHAEGA (Will you eat flatbread dipped in Sambhar, an unlikely combo) to the cacophonic bursts of laughter around him.

From Mehmood in movie PADOSAN doing "AIYO, CHATURA NAAR" to "Chennai Express" for its Lungi dance song sequence, there are many instances of South Indians being mocked on Bollywood screen. More conspicuous was Mithun Chakraborty for his Bharat Natyam dance to the tune of Tamil accented "YUM KRISHNA AIYYAAR YEMME (Hum Krishna Aiyar MA) in Amitabh's movie "AGNEEPATH". 

The list is endless. 

India is a loosely tied Federation, where a lot of cultures and languages conglomerate to form an Union. It needs a glue to bind them for sustainability. That glue is not Bollywood or Cricket, but mutual trust and respect, based on a good understanding of different cultural aspects from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, from Dwarka to Dibrugarh. A knee jerk judgement by those at position of power without looking at regional sensitivities can only fuel antipathy towards the center, nothing else.

N D Tiwari joins - An asset or liability ?

Not sure about the outcome of BJP adding the wily, old fox N D Tiwari to its fold at his young age of 91, there will never be a dull moment with him around. Only time will tell the efficacy of the move by the decision makers in BJP.

N D Tiwari represents the slowly exinct old school of Congress, whose secret source of survival is doing GHULAMI (slavery) picture perfect to the Nehru - Gandhi clan. The sycophantic culture in Congress was best depicted by Debakant Baruah, a Congressman from Assam, who once said in 1970s that "INDIA IS INDIRA and INDIRA is INDIA. 

At same time a Hindi couplet was ascribed to N D Tiwari.

"INDIRA KI HOON MAIN PUJARI,
SANJAY KI HOON MAIN ABHARI,
NA MEIN NAR NAA MEIN NAARI
MAIN HOON N D TIWARI".
Roughly translated into English.
"Worshiper of Indira I am
Indebted to Sanjay I am,
Neither male or female is my fame
N D Tiwari is my name".
I have no idea how sagacious is the decision of BJP's top brass, but Tiwari jee has been in news of late for his salacious deeds. From getting sandwitched by babes at the age of 85 at Governor's mansion in Hyderabad to proudly going on honeymoon, smiling his gum and waving at the paparazzi from a car proudly proclaiming "JUST MARRIED", he has is the emblem of life begins at 90.
Good luck BJP. N D Tiwari is quite a NAR (Man) and hopefully the turncoat turns out to be an asset rather than liability to your Party.

Prelude to the UP elections -I

Election campaign heats up in the cold, dusty fiels of the politically vital state of Uttar Pradesh (known as UP), part of the cowbelt on the great gangetic plains. It is this heartland of Indian politics which sends the majority of MPs to our Parliament and is the state which has sent us the majority of Prime ministers.

A win in the state of UP can be make or break time for the fortune of a party -  a state where caste and communal factors factor in in deciding the winner. With Muslims solidly behind SP, the Upper castes behind BJP and the lower caste behind BSP,  they form the base of the respective parties. They need to scavenge out chunks from each other's base to carve out a winning formula.

I am reminded of my Engineering college days in REC (now NIT) where a sizable number of the students came from the cowbelt which includes the states of UP and Bihar (Both then had Uttarakhand and Jharkhand as part of them). They were great guys, but occasionally some of them would whisper around my ears ISKA JAAT KAA HAI (what's his caste), curious to know about the caste of few Odias, mostly their roommates, trying to connect their castes it to the caste of their Odia counterparts. 

For example, they linked our KARANA caste to KAYAST. The caste Brahmin was self explanatory, though they struggled a lot whether to align our KHANDAYAT caste to Rajputs or Bhumihars.

As a teenager, who had hardly travelled outside Odisha, I found it rather strange.

Odias might have tons of lacunae, but such rampant and naked casteism is not one of them. I found their behavior little weird and uncomfortable, not to mention noticing a few of the upper caste folks from the cowbelt would avoid sitting on the Mess Dining Table with certain guys, whom they perceived as from lower caste or strata of the society. The thought of not sharing a meal with someone never came to our mind, churning my stomach.

Caste is not just A factor, it is THE factor in UP politics, which can only be ignored by any political party at its own peril. No doubt the realpolitik in UP is laced with casteism (as well as communalism), a slight swing of votes can swing the elections in either direction.

(Last and the concluding part of the blog to be continued tomorrow)

Good bye Obama and his legacy

During the Democratic Convention in the year 2004 to declare John Kerry as the Party's nominee for the President of United States, one of the multiple speakers on the stage was a newly elected Senator from Abraham Lincoln's state of Illinois. There was two things special about this Senator - he was one of the rare African-American Senators and a charismatic communicator. His name was BARACK OBAMA.

With his famous "Skinny kid with a Funny name" speech, Obama catapulted into the  limelight during that Convention. A star was born. When I saw that speech, interrupted by standing ovations, I predicted a bright future for him.

Little anybody knew that in the subsequent Democratic Convention exactly 4 years later, the same person would be at the centre of the spotlight, being the Party's nominee for the President of United States of America.

No one would've predicted that another 4 years later as Obama walked into White House for his 2nd term, the Democrat nominee at 2004 Convention, John Kerry would be serving him as his Secretary of State. It yet vindicates that time define fortune and it's wheel.

Obama was the first African American in true sense - his father was an African (from Kenya) and mother an American. Economy was in a free fall when Obama took over. Bill Clinton left America's economy with a budget surplus, George Bush spectacularly squandered it, leaving with trillions of dollars deficit, mostly due to his Iraqi misadventure.

As Sanjeev Kumar said in the iconic Hindi movie SHOLAY, LOHA KO LOHA KAT TA HAI (only iron can cut iron), Sadadam Hussein was a ba***rd, but he was our ba**rd. He kept Iran under control and put a lid on a can of worms. But Bush went there and opened the lid for the worms to grow and form the core of ISIS today.

Obama was prudent to stay out of Middle East. At home his Auto bailout and Stimulus Package arrested the economic bloodbath, assuring him another term. Though many expected much more him, he did a pretty good job as he inherited a mess no President in the modern history of United States did. America is pretty stable now as he ends his tenure, compared to when he took over.

Barack Obama will be judged as the buffer between two political buffoons, George W Bush and Donald Trump, the later still untested. He will go down history as a President who not only prevented a sinking ship from going down, rather steadied it on its course. Adieu President Obama. America and world are going to miss you.