Black Wednesday

It was a very normal day at work ... till i watched the late night news in one of the leading tamil channels - the violent student clash in the law college
when i saw the video footage for the first time, i was speechless. the amount of violence, the enemity, among the student community. the beatings were inhuman, beastly - to be on the conservative side. but, when the TV channels started showing it again and again, i started feeling otherwise.
student's riot is common. i have witnessed it in my school and also in college. but, those are the days, when the media were not this powerful.
there is no dispute that the student's were violent and they beat a weaker kid near to death. but, showing it repeatedly in TV - what do these channels achieve? all they wanted is to increase their viewer rating - business and nothing else.
the police force were taken for a toss. i do agree that it was unacceptable that the police force was actionless when such an incident was "orchestrated" in front of their own eyes. But, leaving the emotions apart, let us look at the other side of it. What would have happened if the police force had charged the students? the same media that are accusing the force would have taken a different footage and made money out of it. All the people convicting the policement would have again blamed them that they have crossed their boundary, misused the human rights and got involved in a student affair without proper authority.
the question stands - who is to be blamed? my opinion is, till we stop looking at someone to blame and start acting, nothing is going to change.
Almost a month gone - what do we hear about the incident? i don't even think anyone remembers such thing happened. we have other things to worry about - be it Antulay's comment on the death of ATS head or the release of Ghajini...
Note:The day after the black wednesday, i was traveling in a bus and the conductor was expressing his feeling with great upset. he was telling that such things should not have happened at all. Just within few minutes, one college student got off the bus in motion, and his immediate comment was this [translated to english] "... you should be beaten like what they showed in the TV yesterday. only then, you will learn a lesson ... ".
this is what the medias had achieved finally :(

CenVAT - What?

Mr. Common Man:I am a common man. I work for food, shelter and clothes. I don't understand why some bank going bankrupt in some part of the world should impact the price of my day to day commodity to increase. I get the rice supplied in ration shop @ Re.1/- per kg. However, the other ingredients that go with rice are sky rocketing.
When the crude oil prices were high, the petrol / diesel / LPG cylinder prices were increased, in order to control the lossess of the petroleum companies. When the crude oil prices went down to one third of their peak price, the petroleum companies stopped their productivity because they do not get enough profit margin. The prices were reduced, but, very minimal. There is an acute scarcity and restrictions on the availability of the domestic LPG cylinder.
Mr. Nut Case:Come on, Mr. Common Man - don't you know, the government had slashed the cenvat? Due to this the car prices will go down. The airlines will reduce their ticket price. Air India offers one free trip for every eight trips you make to selected cities. See, the government is giving you so many benefits and you still keep cribbing.
Mr. Common Man:Cenvat - What? Reduction in car price and air fare ... what does it mean to me?
Anybody ... any help ?
BTW, French Revolution was a history, isn't it?

Happy Holiday Season

A warm greetings from me to you for a happy holiday season.
Merry Christmas and
A joyous and happy new year 2009
...bright [back in the game]