India Uncut

I'm madly busy today (like yesterday and tomorrow) running around in Delhi, so blogging has been light. To cover up for the lack of frequent posting, let me leave you with a few quick links.

First up, here's a succinct biography of Pramod Navalkar that dinosaurs, if they existed, would be profoundly disturbed and offended by. Neat. (Link via 'Indian Idiot' via email from Yazad.)

Meanwhile, bar owners in Mumbai are pissed because the president of the "Fight for Rights of Bar Owners' Association," Manjit Singh Sethi, has been sent to jail "for allegedly making disparaging remarks against ministers' wives."

I wonder if Mr Sethi was also in action at The War For News, where the comments are generating a fair bit of heat, notably from visualscribe. (Link via email from, um, a kind friend.)

One thing is for sure: Mr Sethi will get no Awadhi food in jail. Mmm.

Down South, J Jayalalitha has offered rice to her subjects at 25p a KG cheaper than her rival, M Karunanidhi. You do realise, don't you, that the promises of both these noble personalities will be subsidised by our hard-earned taxes?

Slightly less South, in Mumbai in fact, Gaurav Sabnis has pointed out that the real benefits of privatisation and liberalisation always go to the little guy. People who worry about big multinationals running amok are hereby urged to read and reflect on the third paragraph of his post.

Reader Ravneet, after reading my post about my flight from Mumbai to Delhi, shares with me his her first experience of flying:

I remember, my first time on a plane, I was 14 I think and my younger brother all of 6, and we were flying Delhi-Bombay. Much to my chagrin, and at the behest of my parents, I had to let him have the window seat. As the plane lifted above the clouds, and we were flying over them, my brother turned around and asked in the befuddlest(!) possible voice "How come I dont see God around anywhere?"

Yes, it manages to bring a smile to my face even today.

On an aside, in the same flight, when served chicken(living upto the reputation of airline food) by the airhostess, this punjabi-cuisine-pampered brat had remarked aloud "Ye aunty to sundar hai, par inko khana banana nahi aata."

Such fun. And having remarked thuslike, I can't resist the temptation of leaving you with these three fine headlines from, who else, Mid Day:

One month jail for blocking train doors
Parsi triplets offer hope to the community
'JJ docs have stomach upset, not gastro'

Ba now.