Friday, April 30, 2010

An ad that shows you don't need a 3D TV



That is supposed to be a video commercial for a 3D LED TV by Samsung. It shows the "possibilities" that a third dimension adds to our visual experience. Fair enough.

Now the only hitch is that I am able to see and feel all of that on a plain 2D LED screen of my laptop. So I ask -- do we really need a 3D TV?

[I have had the same question every time I saw an HD-TV ad on a normal TV!]

Friday, April 09, 2010

The Business of Killing and Getting killed

The tribals are forced to shoot the easy prey -- the poor jawans from Bihar or Orissa who hardly had any choice but to join the forces.

The poor armymen and the police in turn are forced to kill the poor tribals.

Because they are the people who come face to face.

I am tired of the reasonings of why the tribals side with the Maosists -- I know they have incentives to offer, like an alternative goverment, a justice system in place as opposed to a corrupt and failed state judiciary.. I'm also tired of the 'success stories' of Salva Judum -- the state also has incentives to offer in getting the tribals to fight among themselves.

Both the 'Naxalite' thinktanks and the 'state', with all their good or bad intentions (be it the money in the mines, the social justice they read in books, sheer existential dilemma, an urge to save the tribals from the goverment and Multinationals or a similar urge to save the same people from the Maoists' hands..) live "happily ever after". This happiness includes the pride in giving up the silver spoon for a social cause.

Then there are cleansing methods like areal strikes, in which big guns can operate themselves without the fear of getting hurt.

A third party who makes hay in this mess is the 'Parivar', who want to take the Adivasis into their army and prepare them for other types of genocides.

I am sure the days are coming when the people realize they are being taken for a ride, and kick all these outsiders out. I mean, if any of them remain.

Friday, April 02, 2010

Where the women and cattle are kept



I don't think all opposition to women's bill can be equated with the male fear of 'women taking over'. Wrote about it here.

[Image: Cartoon by Ravi Shankar in Hindustan Times, 2010 March 16]

Copy Left, Right and Centre

Sharat said that in the end titles of his film on Chengara. Salutes to the committed filmmaker who I never met.



[Photo: Irom Sharmila, Sharatchandran's profile photo on facebook.]