Thursday, January 18, 2007

Bloody shame really

The Noida serial killings have illustrated several points (Police apathy, politicians taking advantage of the situation, that sort of thing), but one point that I observed was that the media was abysmal at handling the issue. Report were rife with idle speculation, wild theories and outright false facts. We sure seem to catching up with our western counterparts.

Oh and apparently, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav will be offering the victims' families plots of land as 'compensation'.

"While our tangled bureaucracy and outmoded policies may have indirectly led the murder of your loved ones, we feel obligated to replace their lives with a parcel of land (which you may or may not actually get). In case you're wondering, Yes, we are trying to buy you off."

Now there's a politician who knows his bees-knees.

Hurrah! Fake moral outrage is in vogue.

The 'Righteous' Indian Government has come down heavily on the TV channel AXN for broadcasting vile and corrupting programming on our so holier-than-thou airwaves. Sony Entertainment (Who own AXN) are promptly closing down the channel while muttering "I didn't do nuffing!" but we know those weasels are guilty don't we. I heartily agree with the government's decision, we don't need no stinking western entertainment, specially since we have chaste and socially acceptable entertainment of our own i.e. music videos, item numbers and celebrity kissing controversies.

In related news (Who am I kidding?) the Shilpa Shetty/racial comment controversy still rages. Gotta love it when a PR exercise is mistaken for a racial attack. I would like to point out this story for your perusal. Well at least now our Shilpa seems to be a shoe-in to win, that will increase the prestige of the nation I'm sure.

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Rant on state of medical care

Many of you know that the Winter Flu had struck me down over Christmas and New Year. I'm recovering now and the higher brain functions are starting to come back online. So I visited wikipedia for the lowdown on Influenza (Known as viral fever in India, don't ask me why) and what I read there is really pissing me off. Seems that there is a vaccine for this little bug. What the frak? I've suffered this darn disease for most of my life during every single winter and somehow no one in the medical fraternity informed me of this vaccine. Ever. Is the state of medicine in India really so bad that we can't get around to vaccine for a virus that infects a large percentage of the population every year? Maybe i'm missing something....someone tell me that i'm off target about this.