The Next US president

Being an Indian citizen, I always look for what is good for India and living in the USA and being a keen observer, I will also look at what is good for America. Sometimes what is good for India is good for US but not always. Bush was good for India, so will be McCain. Bill was bad for India, so will be Obama. If you want an indication, from today onwards look for how many times, Obama uses the following words in his speeches in a good way, India and Bangalore.

Obama will be good for America, McCain would not be. I interact with lot of republicans and democrats on a daily basis, when politics makes its way in the discussions all I hear from republicans is how obama's faith can be an issue and how obama's color might be an issue for him to get elected. When I talk to many democrats I always hear about losing jobs, disparity between rich and poor, Iraq war, gas price and so on and so forth.

Now many republicans believe that the party cannot win if they fight on the basis of performance of the Bush administration, ala state of the economy and Iraq war, so lets talk about Obama being a convert (a former muslim), a black candidate and how far away he is from conservative values.

One of the ludicrous things I ever heard is how obama is vulnerable to being assassinated, why because many maniacs live in this country. All assassinations do is make bad people good, good people great and great people Gods. So republicans should pray for Obama's victory and hope he screws up, maybe then republicans will command the white house for next 20-30 years.

Anyway I am here to say that Barack Obama will be the next president of United States. Why? its simple, He is Black ( so all blacks will vote for him ), He is young ( many women will vote for him ) He can talk ( many liberals would vote for him ) he is a democrat ( many blue collar workers will vote for him ) He is young ( many youngsters will vote for him ) He is a convert ( many converts will vote for him ). The only thing standing in between Obama and the oval office are Hispanics. What can he do for brown? from now and November will decide this race.

Three years ago, at a casual business dinner, we were talking about the next US president, ala Hillary Clinton. I made a statement back then that Hillary might not even be a presidential nominee. This became the truth this last weekend. Back then I did not make any calculations or had any inside knowledge of anything including obama. I was basing my conclusion on one simple fact and my experiences in America. The fact was good enough for me to say what I said back then. The fact is men usually do not like being dominated by women and alarmingly many woman do not like other women. There is a bigger struggle between women than it is visible. If Hillary cannot get the full support from women, she never had a chance and that was the case here. Sorry Hillary, you would not have been that bad of a president.

I will conclude by saying a Obama - Hillary Candidacy will seal the deal and there is a high probability for this to happen, just wait and see.

"Quota System"

Supreme Court of India ruled for reservation of seats for higher education for Other Backward Classes. It is an unfortunate situation. I belong to the OBC. How do I feel that I am labeled socially and educationally backward? I feel like crap from the get go. I do not see myself socially and educationally backward. It is determined at birth. So somebody decided that I belong to a class at birth, it is discriminatory at the least.

There are pros and cons of reservation. The cons outnumber the pros. It is not evident and nobody has conducted any kind of study to determine that reservations help the cause of people who used reservation more than people who do not. Reservation is nothing less than a charity and I do not believe charity helps in many cases.

How can we say that reservation helps or not? Just look at who is getting rich and who is not. Almost all of our Prime Ministers came from the forward class. Many of the intellectuals came from the forward class. Many of the leaders in the private industry are from forward class. Reservations just does not make sense. It is actually working against the reserved classes. The motivation to be best is not encouraged within the reserved classes. If you are so-so you will get in, because the so-so is working for you to get in an IIT or an IIM. Fortunately when somebody is taking an exam in physics at IIT, that exam is same for a student from OBC or SC or ST or from FC. Only the best get out of that class with flying colors. Reservation in India just makes the people more divisive. The FC people are crying on this verdict. They should be the ones jumping up and down, because they are held to higher standards in society by the highest judicial authority in India. Everybody else in OBC and SC/ST classes are held to lower standards. What else is left to say other than "it is a sad day for India and myself"

The basic reservation which nobody talks about is within ourselves. We put ourself in a class all the time. Be it based on caste, race or religion or something else. We should start looking within ourselves to find answers to this very important question of reservation.

We should stop being hypocrites about this and free our minds of this act of discrimination. Then only we will see self progress and our mother lands progress.

Me No.1 and Me No.1 what about the rest of them.....

Bollywood is buzzing with No.1 chants. For years Amitabh has been on that spot without anybody being close, now the latest polls put Shahrukh at that spot and Amir is pissed off. He says he is No.1 and the media is playing along. Well if two guys say they are No.1 it leaves no room for others. It means everybody else starts at No.3.

How does one become No.1 in Bollywood? Is it determined by how much money they make? How much money their movies make? or How much influence they have in the industry? or How chics respond to these guys? its a difficult question and the answer might lie in a combination of these things, does it?

I think this number one crap is all media creation and maybe these two contenders are playing along just to make sure nobody else sniffs this seat.

Well if I were to vote for No.1 it will be Salman.....just kidding.

It seems like Akshay kumar had a great year and he is having fun out there. So may be he should be No.1.

Two for Two & More.......

In my last post I made some comments about the recent setbacks to the Bush Administration. Within a short period a lot has occurred including the election losses by the ruling congress party in India and recent assassination of former Pakistan PM Benazir Bhutto, who was considered a favorite to win the upcoming national elections in that country.

I mentioned that US - India Nuclear deal is dead, I rushed to conclusions on this one. Looks like the election results in India and Bush administrations reinforcement of the deal might lead to deal being approved by the Indian polity. With the Lok Sabha elections looming, ruling party would like to have this on its resume. So we should watch and wait for the official word on this deal.

As for the situation in Pakistan, I was cent pertain right about America's ill advised trust in the Pakistani president parvez musharraf. He is and will do everything to stay in power. This does not mean that he carried the attack on Bhutto but he is certainly responsible and happy to see her go. People around the world including Indians and Pakistanis are expressing their shock on the incident, but for me it was a sad happening but certainly not shocking. I have not seen any intelligence report suggesting that the intelligence community was not expecting another attack on her, I wish she survived this attack, but what is done is done. Now she is a martyr to everybody. Instead this might turn out to be a historic moment for Pakistan and maybe Americans realize what a big blow it is to their interests in the region.

I think the incident marks as a testament to the unspoken favor to musharraf by al-qaida, people forget that there was an incident back in the mountains of Afghanistan when Americans came close to getting bin laden, it was widely reported that Pakistani army rescued several of the taliban, by air lifting them when they were surrounded by US forces, without any exit. We also need to look at the treaty between the north west tribals and the current Pakistani Govt. These seem to be favors by musharraf to extremists in Pakistan and Bhutto's assassination is a favor to musharraf by al-qaida, it does not change the fact that Bhutto represented the biggest threat to extremism in Pakistan. I can only hope this incident is the beginning of good things for Pakistan. We Indians cannot have an unstable neighbor.

Benazir Bhutto was a brave woman. The world needs more of them.

Two for two.....

The Bush Administration has received two setbacks in South Asia in a one month span. The much touted Nuclear deal fell through because of the Democracy in India and the chance of return to Democracy dropped by the general in Pakistan.

What does the good old US lose? US lost billions of dollars in business if the Nuclear deal went through, it lost a chance to reduce Global warming, it lost a chance to reduce economic Inflation and above all it lost a chance to become India's #1 friend.

Even though India was to gain much from the deal, the process of democracy was upheld and that should be applauded. Who knows maybe we were compromising our National Security, instead we compromised National prosperity. Only future will tell us, Even after the deal's downfall, India is not far away from getting all the nuclear power. The pollution we generate in future will make the world request us to take up Nuclear power, maybe then we do not have communists, who count.

Compared to this the emergency in Pakistan is a bigger blow. No dictator in history has ever embraced democracy. You would think Bush administration would know this, after all nobody brought down more dictators than uncle Sam. On top of that, this same administration will be remembered as the reason for Saddam's downfall. When you count a dictator as your number one ally in the fight against terrorism, something is fundamentally wrong in the thinking itself.

What does Bush Administration lose in this, it lost its face.

Difficulty Breeders....

Oct 15th, 2007, last day to file for tax returns for people who took filing extension in April, 2007. I was one of them and waited until the last minute to file my taxes. At first I waited until last minute in April and due to not completing the paperwork in time, got an extension for Oct. How lazy of me. There was only one good thing in the whole process, my attorney was busy both times leading me to believe that there are more people in this world like me. Well this is just one more of such things where I had company. But this time I thought about it and here I am writing about what I thought.

Why do all of us make things difficult for us? its so easy if we just do it the first time and not wait until the last minute. If you just take a moment and think about what is happening around us and see how many people do what we do, u will be surprised. We people in general make things difficult for ourselves. It is not just individuals, its group of individuals and even governments, including the best there are.

Here is one example... Why is Manmohan Singh embarrassed about the N-Deal episode? Does not he get it, that he needs the parliament to approve any deal? does not he get it that before that he should get his coalition to approve it? I can go on with more examples...no need though...I think I made my point.

so "Just Do It" Damn it.

Economics of Obesity

I see a lot of ridiculous surveys come up in the news on a daily basis. I see them and always come up with better ideas for surveys. Well I came up with one today. I was reading somewhere about the rising prices of wheat, corn and milk etc., because of increasing demand from Asia and use of these things for other purposes (eg. Ethanol production). Also a number human beings are gaining weight and of course the world population growth. All this brings in more demand and when demand rises non-proportional to supply, prices go up (Basic Economics). Well Population growth will be taken care of by the superpowers when things get ugly on the third rock or we are introduced to aliens, but what does the over weight people doing to the demand? why does we have to pay a dollar for a Big Mac? why not 50 cents? anyway somebody should find out. I do not know if somebody has already found out but if not this might be helpful information, this might be a good project for an MBA or an Economics student class.