You think you know how to respond?

Supreme Court: Hey Centre! Distribute food grains for free to the poorest instead of allowing it to rot due to lack of storage facility.

Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar: Oops! We cannot distribute them freely.

That was the response!!! What about the rot? What about the storage facility? What about issues in managing it? Oh! let's watch cricket, Pawar.

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Quota generations!!

The Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur was secretly — and illegally — keeping aside a discretionary admission quota for children of its teachers and staff for over four decades, admitting dozens of students to seats they failed to secure through the IIT-Joint Entrance Examination - Read further here at Hindustan Times.

That is what has happened, of all places, at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur. For over 40 years now, it has now been discovered, the faculty at IIT-Kharagpur have been giving special preference to their own children in admissions to the prestigious institution. They did not have to compete with the rest — more privileged or less. While at one level the faculty has fought caste quotas in higher studies, they have been quietly using quotas for their own children. (From Business Standard)

Got the above links from here (Thanks Ram)

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Shakespeare told and retold

National Gallery of Modern Art, Bengaluru, in association with The British Council and Bangalore Film Society presents Shakespeare told and retold (Film festival of Shakespeare's films) from 24th July to 18th September, 2010

(National Gallery of Modern Art, Manekyavelu Mansion, 49, Palace Road, Bengaluru – 560 052, Tel: 91-080-2234 2338, Tele Fax: 91-080-22201027, Email: ngma.bengaluru@gmail.com)

24July Saturday 3pm
Macbeth, 146 min
Directed by Jack Gold

25July Sunday 11.30am
Serbian Lady Macbeth, 93 min
Directed by Andrzej Wajda

31July Saturday 3pm
Throne of Blood,110 min
Directed by Kurosawa

1August Sunday 11.30am
As You Like It, 150 min
Directed by Basil Coleman

7August Saturday 3pm
Romeo and Juliet, 168 min
Directed by Alvin Rakoff

8August Sunday 11.30am
Romeo Juliet and Darkness, 92 min
Directed by Jiri Weiss

21August Saturday 3pm
Othello, 205 min
Directed by Jonathan Miller

22August Sunday 11.30am
Othello, 91 min
Directed by Orson Welles

29August Sunday 11.30am
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 116 min
Directed by Elijah Moshinsky

4September Saturday 3pm
Hamlet, 212 min
Directed by Rodney Bennet

5September Sunday 11.30am
Hamlet Does Business, 86 min
Directed by Aki Kaurismaki

12September Sunday 11.30am
Rosencratz & Guildenstern are Dead, 117 min
Directed by Tom Stoppard
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Symbol for Indian Rupee

I do not like this symbol. It lacks creativity, representativeness, and innovation. Please do not ask me to design one with all and more qualities. Congrats, Udaya Kumar. He has designed this, and played a nice joke unwittingly.

Like many other ugly things, I know I have to use this too irrespective of what I feel. Who cares, anyway? How does it matter when the reality shows a heavy skew in development, distribution, management, allocation, sharing, standard of life across the country.
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Vidya's dance programme

Ms. Vidya Dinakaran is performing at M O P Vaishnav College, Nungambakkam High Road, Nungambakkam, Chennai under the auspices of V D S Arts Academy on 28th May, 2010 at 6.30pm.

Chola inscriptions found

The Hindu reports about the findings of chola inscriptions (10th century) near Kaveripakkam.

It is quite interesting to note Kaveripakkam is originally known as Kavidhipakkam, Kavidhi is the title conferred on an army commander.

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Vishy Anand retains the crown

Anand defeated Topalov in the World Championship Title match 2010.

You can read a nice piece on Anand here.
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Feeling positive is not enough ...

Chomsky in one of his 1993 interviews was asked "Do you feel positive about the future?".

His answer:

Whether a person feels positive or not is kind of a comment on their personality and of no great interest. You can find positive signs or you can find negative signs. How you evaluate them depends on what happened in your life recently or something like that. There's no objective way to do it. The important thing is to try to commit yourself to making the positive signs more real. Suppose that you felt that there's 99 percent of a probability that human civilization is going to be destroyed in the next hundred years, but one percent chance that it won't be, and that one percent offers some opportunities to do something. Well, you commit yourself to that one percent.

(from Chomsky for beginners by David Cogswell)

Bharatanatyam Programme by Vidya

Ms. Vidya Dinakaran is performing at R. K. Swamy Hall, 5, Sundareswarar Street, Mylapore, Chennai-4 under the auspices of Sri Parthasarathy Swamy Sabha on 9th February. She also blogs: http://natyavidya.blogspot.com/ and http://natyavidya.wordpress.com/

Image Courtesy: From her blog post

Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda

The entire collection is available here at Advaita Ashrama website.

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