away from me

United States President Barack Obama has said if given a chance he would like to have a meal with his “real hero” Mahatma Gandhi, although the apostle of peace did not eat a lot. Mr. Obama’s response
came to a question from a ninth grade student at the Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia, who asked
him if he could have dinner with anyone, dead or alive, who it would be. “Dinner with anyone dead or alive? Well, you know, dead or alive, that’s a pretty big list,” he said amidst laughter. “You know, I think that it
might be Gandhi, who is a real hero of mine,” Mr. Obama said. “Now, it would probably be a really small meal because he didn’t eat a lot.” He said Gandhiji was someone who has inspired people across the world for the past several generations. “He [Gandhiji] is somebody whom I find a lot of inspiration in. He inspired Dr. King [Martin Luther], so if it hadn’t been for the non-violent movement in India, you might not have seen the same non-violent movement for civil rights here in the United States,” he said. Gandhiji, Mr. Obama said, ended up changing the world just by the power of his ethics. “I am always interested in
people who are able to bring about change, not through violence, not through money, but through the force of their personality and their ethical and moral stances. That is somebody that I would love to
sit down and talk to.” — PTI

The above is the news that came in The Hindu of 10th September, 2009 which moved my heart very much. Mr.Obama is a down to earth President and he wants peace on earth at any cost. He resembles a lot with our Mahatma in his charm, in his patience, in his speech delivery etc etc. We can find lot of his principles seemingly drawn from great spiritual leaders and he is becoming more and more popular amongst many a country in the world. Let God give him that strength to fulfil his vows to the nation and the world!!

And in the same page of The Hindu came this news also!!! The above article is beyond values while the article below has value, of course!!!
LONDON: A bronze statue of a seated Buddhist deity presented by Mahatma Gandhi to his Irish friend Emma
Harker has fetched Rs.5.47 lakh (£6,840) at a sale here.

It is a pleasant news to hear that during the centenery celebrations of Dr.C.N.Annadurai, the founder of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, a postal stamp with his picture is going to be released by the Centre. As a man who lived during Annadurai’s effortful days to snatch the Government from the hands of Congress, I recall those days.

Dr. Annadurai, fondly called as Anna, was a well educated economist of those days with an MA degree in Economics. He understood that the Dravidian people wanted a change from the routine Congress regime which was for rich people, according to him. His vision was for the poor and downtrodden and thus he launched the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, detaching himself from E.V.Ramasamy Periyar, an aethist of those days. Dr.Annadurai knew that oneness amongst Tamilians only would fetch the result and so against the principles of EVR, he embraced even Brahmins and thus came DMK. I can remember the day when, in early 60s, when DMK snatched the power from the Congress, the entire stretch from Island Grounds to Gemini Circle wore a festive look. Annadurai was coming in an open jeep while Dr.MGR and MR Radha were accompanying him on horses. Dr.Karunanidhi, the present Chief Minister and right hand to Annadurai was seated next to him and crackers and fireworks filled the air with maximum thrill. And after that, Congress could never get back to power in Tamilnadu and it was a fight between the two Dravidian parties, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, another split-away party for principle-difference.

In those days, Annadurai was the most educated leader in that party and rowdism or goondaism took back seat. His way of dealing things in the Government, let it be policy matters or political matters, was extraordinarily appreciable. His patience was his great asset and I could remember the reaction he gave when he was defeated by Dr.Natesa Mudaliar in his own constituency, Kancheepuram after serving as Chief Minister for more than two terms. Till his death, there could never be a split in the party and after that only due to difference of opinion, ADMK came out lead by Dr.M.G.Ramachandran.

Annadurai was an addict to snuff and was famous for his drinking coffee very hot. These things anyone could see on the stages and he made very good friends with Rajaji and Kamaraj, a powerful head of Congress in those days. It was all due his diplomacy that he could win the hearts of even enemies. He was a great scholar and I can remember a sentence in one of his speeches delivered to college students once. He was telling about grammar:

“Students! Can anyone tell me a sentence with 3 ‘because’ in one place?” and he himself gave the reply:
“Do not begin sentence with ‘because’ because ‘because’ is a conjunction.”

And there are many occasions and instances to remember and still to many people even today, he is a great man!!!

The recent revelation by Prof.Vaidyanathan of IIM, Bangalore that around 1.5 trillion dollars of Indian wealth is struck in Swiss Banks evading Indian Taxation is a shocking news.  More shockingly he has informed the audience during the Palkhiwala Memorial lecture on “Tax havens and illegal wealth of India” in Chennai that due to the absent-mindedness of their original account holders who have not informed their heirs about their deposits, many deposit amounts have been swallowed by these Swiss Banks.  According to him, the International Narcotics Control Strategy Report says that 40 per cent of all Indian transactions abroad are hawala, and he has urged the Prime Minister’s Office to insist upon accountability with regard to Ministerial trips abroad, as many of them are clubbed with personal trips to nearby tax havens.

When the common man is struggling to pay his taxes regularly, these big cats are enjoying without any worry.  Started as an election stunt, this Swiss issue has blown beyond proportion and the time has come for the Government to act urgently since these huge amounts could solve a portion of the annual financial budget deficit of the Government and give relief to common man.  But here are some questions:

How these huge amounts escaped the shrewd eyes of the Airport authorities or any such officials and found way into Swiss Banks?

Are there flaws in the rules allowing VIPs to travel unfrisked at the Airports?

Can there be any mechanism to check online transfers of huge amounts?

Let us wait and see the outcome of this Swiss episode!!!

The following is the shocking news in The Hindu which tells about an ICICI Bank client having been cheated by phishing mail using ICICI networking facility.  Earlier also there were rumours about such cheatings and I wonder how ICICI is not able to sort out such things in its network banking system!!

CHENNAI: A top official of Southern Railway, who entered the username and password of his net-banking account in response to a ‘phishing’ mail, has been cheated of Rs.53,000.

Phishing refers to the act of acquiring confidential information such as bank account details and passwords electronically by posing as a trusted entity.  The Madurai Police on Sunday registered a cheating case against unknown persons.

On August 23, Divisional Railway Manager, Madurai Division, Anil Singhal, received an e-mail from the ‘customer care division’ of ICICI Bank. It asked him to enter the username and password as part of a security upgrade. “When I clicked on the link, the login page popped up. It looked similar to the usual login page of ICICI Net banking… After I entered my username and password, there was a message that the site will be closed till August 29 for maintenance,” he told The Hindu. The Net banking account of Mr. Singhal was found deactivated when he accessed it on Sunday.  “When I tried to take some money through the ATM, I came to know that there was only Rs.83 left in the account. Enquiries with the bank authorities revealed that the suspect had withdrawn Rs.53,000 in two parts through Net banking.”  “Looked so original” Though there was Rs.70,000 balance in another ICICI account of the official, which was also linked tothe main account, the suspect did not touch that money. “I had one account in Allahabad and another in New Delhi…both linked to Net banking. The login page in the phishing mail looked so original,” recalled Mr. Singhal, who has been using the online banking facility for three years now.  Ironically, the mail had stated that many online frauds were taking place and hence the security upgrade.  When the matter was taken up with the bank officials, he said they had told him that he should not have given his net-banking details without ascertaining the authenticity of the email.

The Bharathiya Janatha Party has started dying and its leaders have started queueing before RSS headquarters. No doubt, BJP is the brainchild of castebased RSS but; it had the maturity of handling things neutrally when it became to power as a national party. Things have come to a standstill when it ousted its great activist Jashwant Singh simply on the ground that he spoke high of Md Ali Zinnah, the national father of Pakistan. Similar thing happened when BJP’s founder-leader L.K.Advani did such thing while in Pakistan.

There are two things we have to keep in mind. One is neither Pakistan nor Muslims are our enemies. Though Pakistan got the partition from India and is living as a separate neighbouring country, we have lot of common interests between us. By religion, we may differ but we both struggle for a very good co-ordination in all things, say sports or trade or cultural events. Every year, our religious leaders and great politicians participate in their Ramzan Iftaar parties wearing their caps and having their fast-breaking ‘kanji’ along with them (let us forget that no muslim person would participate in our religious functions and share our formalities with us). We have great Muslim patriots in our country who love India to a very great extent. Both Nehruji and Zinnah were great friends and they struggled for Hindu-Muslim unity. Secondly, after all, it is like parents and married children living separately for convenience purposes. So praising our neighbour must be taken with all diplomacy. Are the countries after world wars live as enemies? Even today, Japan is a good friend of USA and they share things in lot of areas.

BJP must analyse its weaknesses and must ‘generationally’ grow as otherwise, they will never be a strong opposition party in India and even if they come to power, no country would give them due place. Let Advaniji take stock of the situation and act.

The two legged horse, 1000+ cc American motorbike Harley Davidson is coming to Indian markets very shortly. According to its Company President Mathew Levatich, the Indian market has got a very good capability of selling these motorcycles which run at 200 kms per hour very easily. It is more or less a sports bike and I have seen American people flying in these giant machines.

Everything is okay, Mr. Mathew, but where is the road in Indian cities for your bike where even a 50 cc moped is struggling to pass a 5 kms stretch within half an hour?

Many people on earth missed this celestial phenomenon on the 27th of this month when the brightest planet Mars came within 34.65M miles off earth at 12.30 a.m and looked like 2 moons on earth. Since many newspapers did not come out with this news, stargazers did not have a chance. The next time Mars comes this close would be in 2287, according to space scientists.

While Chennai is celebrating Madras Day with lot of bigwigs recalling their Madras memoirs, I recall my days 55 years back in the then Madras.

It was a rushless city with very little traffic on the main roads especially in Mount Road, now Anna Saalai. Anyone can cross the road at any point even without turning his head for cars or buses and even horse-drawn carts occupied these roads. I used to cycle in Mount Road without any hurdle from Anna Flyover (earlier there was no flyover and there was a circle called Gemini Circle since Gemini Studios was there) to Central Station pleasantly. There were trams which could easily run on the main roads on the rails laid in the middle of the roads and I remember to have travelled in a tram with my uncle from Government General Hospital to Chintadripet. I could recall those memoirs some couple of years back in Calcutta (now Kolkata) and recently in San Francisco in USA. There was a wired fencing around Meenambakkam Airport which was like a shed then and I had seen Aeroplanes taking off or landing which was a rare sight in a day. People who came from planes used to come out through a small wooden door near the fencing.

Highly thickly populated Mint Street area was then a calm place. Ekambareswarar Agraharam near Chinna Kadai Amman temple used to host lot of spiritual activities. I had seen Paramacharya Sri Chandrasekharendra Swamigal of Kanchi Mutt very closely and I remember his vision which would be like seeing everybody personally. Then there were yearly Thyagaraja Aradhanas in that place where I had seen very great artists like Maharajapuram Viswanatha Iyer, Flute Mali, Veena Balachandar and other greats very closely. Even I remember to have seen the Bharathanatyam of great Kanaga- Choodamani sisters whom I have never seen for a long time. And those days, most of the kutcheris were free.

Cinema theatres like Regal, Padmanabha, Crown, Krishna and Murugan theatres for Tamil films and theatres like New Elphinston were some nice theatres which are no more today. The first Tamil film I saw was Chakravarthi Thirumagal in Tamil with MGR as hero in Crown theatre. Entry fee was as low as around 25 paise per head. Think of rice being sold at 9 annas, say 54 paise per 1.5 kgs.

I remember to have visited Mahabalipuram (now Mamallapuram) where rarely people could be seen. Unfinished rock structures would have been split throughout. Today, it is a tourists’ paradise with everything duly organized. And at that time the road to this spot was also a narrow one throughout.

During Independence day and Republic days, Ripon Building, Moore Market (now it is the new annexe of Central Station) and Central Station would be illuminated colourfully. The My Lady’s Park behind Moore Market was a very nice tourist spot with very beautiful greenery and a small pond in the middle. Behind that was the Zoological Park for which, I remember, the entry fee was 4 annas, say 25 paise.

If going to beach, it was only that Kannagi Statue beach and Elliots beach was a richman’s place. This old beach was very neat at that time and we used to visit it once in 15 days. Buying Sundal for 3 paise (equavalent) is still afresh in my mind.

Gone are the days and we have to cope up with the current days which are hi-tech!!! Elders can pull on with the current trend chewing those old golden days.