Blueprint for the end of India?....

The events of recent weeks provide what could be a possible blueprint as to how India will cease to be in existence. All that is needed is retaliation by other states. So when Maharashtra goes after NorthIndians, they could in turn go after South Indians who could in turn go after the North Indians. During stray violence, Maharashtrians and Tamilians get killed in Karnataka, causing South Indian violence on each others. Sikhs start attacking nonSikhs in Punjab due to the attacks on them all over the country, causing an exodus there. Every state gets tired of "Mera Bharat Mahaan" and set up their own countries. Belgaum ethnic Maharashtrians and Bangalore ethnic Tamilians are sent packing, setting the stage for future border wars.

All this requires is the presence of three powerful jokers. We are dangerously close to such a scenario now, the two jokers in the pack right now are Raj Thackeray and Lalu Yadav. Firm government intervention is needed to address this threat to national integrity.

India is the cake that everyone takes for granted. There is a lesson to be learned from Yugoslavia here.

Let the backtracking begin...

Now the medical students would not have to do six months extra work.

The country that does the best job of extracting its pound of flesh from the medical students is the US. Countries like US and UK also strip off the dignity of foreign medical graduates in the name of training them to meet the high medical standards of their own country. While the US and the UK merely protect high paying jobs and immigration possibilities respectively, the case in India seems to be one of exploitation of the economically privileged. The six month rotation in rural areas mainly comprises of passing time in various "departments" of a rural hospital that has never seen a staff doctor.

States like Kansas in the US sponsor education of their state residents in exchange for a couple of years work in rural areas. Maybe that is the way to go in case rural participation needs to be encouraged for medical doctors.

Politicians will be politicians. I will leave it at that as far as motivation for this move is concerned.

नवीन बकरे आहेत...त्यांना पाठ्वा गावखेड़यात..

That is what the Maharashtra government thinks about the new medical graduates. Easy pickings for postings to remote locations. It is a not a fair idea as there is no point for new graduates to be sitting around doing nothing and having no learning opportunities at these postings. Typically these are unstaffed outposts and the students are mostly private college students that have shelled out gazillions and have social/professional/education plans in the works. A lot of them are from out of state.

If this rule is enforced, it just means the guys handing out the future "No Objection Certificates" will become quite rich and content. Rather than forcing all to serve in rural areas, how about allowing a choice for medical students and subsidizing their education for guaranteed service for a few years in rural areas?

maharashtrian cuisines and recipes

Here is the link to the page that describes Maharashtrian recipes. Click on the links provided therein if a particular recipe is to your liking.

Cuisine of Maharashtra

Or visit the Mumbai Masala website directly.

Why did I post this? The images on this blog are landing you on this पेज. I am sure you are visiting the blog to figure out how to make it! बग्ण्यात काय मज़ा आहे?

मराठी लेखन!

गूगल कंपनी ने आत्त्ता एक नविन संधि उपलब्ध केलेली आहे। इंग्लिश मध्ये आपण जेहि टाईप करणार, ते आपले आप हिंदी लिपि मध्ये परिवर्तित होते मराठी लिपि आणि हिंदी लिपि मध्ये भरपूर संबंध आहे, आणि हे माझ pratham marathi blog आइटम आहे! तुम्ही पण ट्राय करु शकता!

India search engine surprisingly good...

Here is the India search engine

For example, type in Republic Day. The search results are good and clean and very Indian oriented.

Customized search engine for Maharashtra...

The search engine shown below provides a higher priority to Official Maharashtra sites. So you can find relevant results faster. I especially hate private sites that throw pop up windows without permission. With this search engine, you will typically get good website matches if you are focused on Maharashtra based information. Let me know if you want to bump up the priority of any particular official Maharashtra website.

Speaking of Search Engines, I have created one such search engine for each of the states of India. Plus one for India itself. You can try any of those out at this link.

http://www.maharashtraweb.com/search%20engines/searchengines.htm

I have also created interactive maps related to Indian history, geography, cuisine, wildlife, festival, culture, tourism and adventures. You will find the links at the bottom of each Maharashtraweb page. Here is one to get you started, it is the history map of each of the individual states of India.

http://www.maharashtraweb.com/indiaindex.htm

Happy exploring!

Search Engine

HCL coming to Nagpur...

HCL is coming to Nagpur in search of relatively lower cost labor. I believe HCL is making a right now and this will be the move that will get additional companies into Nagpur.

Speak Marathi and keep out other ethnic groups?...

That is what Balasaheb Thackeray implied in a recent editorial. I agree with this article that it is not the case. The British have been speaking English for a long time and have not been able to keep out Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. It is not the opportunity to speak a language, but opportunity to live a peaceful life, earn a living and do business that gets people to Maharashtra or Karnataka or Andhra Pradesh.

There are many kinds of migrations into a city or area. There is the low level migration of unskilled labor, which mainly happens to escape poverty, lack of opportunities and degradation in small villages. This migration happens with Maharashtrians too. Then there is semi skilled labor that are looking for specific opportunities in construction, manufacturing or even driving auto rickshaws, cars. Then comes the skilled variety which typically nobody minds.

The issue is mainly about the unskilled and semi-skilled labor. Thanks to good governance and overall logistical and political history, Maharashtra is a well to do state. Biharis and Keralites alike end up here for jobs and opportunities.

The way to keep out other groups is to regress in humanity and be the incarnation of Rakshasas (Think of some of the desert nations). People migrate to Maharashtra because it is closer to the Gods mentioned by Tukaram and Namdeo and revels in prosperity. The day people leave Maharashtra will mean something not necessarily good. Notice that when it is time to leave, Lebanese leave Lebanon, Iraqis leave Iraq and so on. When it comes time to leave, everybody leaves and the lights go off.

If we firmly believe that Good always triumphs over Evil, migration of people into Maharashtra will eventually result in more Maharashtrian values. That will reduce non-Maharashtrians in the state. A Bangladeshi on a fake ration card living in Maharashtra eventually becomes a Maharashtrian as he embodies Maharashtrian values. So it is really not about the language you speak, but who you become when you live among the good folks in Maharashtra. So be a Maharashtrian and imbibe Maharashtrian values. That is how Ganesh Chaturti gets celebrated all over India.

Customized Google Web Search Engine for Maharashtra

I have created a customized Google web search engine for Maharashtra and all the other states of India. If you are looking for serious information, this will be helpful as government sites are given the highest priority. This allows complete control over a search. Now the searches are even more guaranteed to block out a pop up rich websites that have somehow managed to crawl it's way up Google preferences.

Maharashtrian rulers of the old...How good were they?

As I posted information related to other states on the web, I could not help noticing the fact that other ethnicities were not very happy about the period of Maratha rule. How good were the Marathas and the peshwas? I do not recollect good leadership mentioned for any of the rulers other than Shivajiraje and Ahilyabai. Plus there is a lot of historical angst about what could have been related to Shivaji's son.

So I am guessing that some of the other rulers were not very visionary and that led to the eventual erosion of their hold over the empire. Your thoughts on the issue?

Marathi Couple Celebrating Ganesh Utsav

Excellent one hour video that helped me relive my own Ganesh Chaturti day. Informative too. Ganeshotsava or Ganpati Festival is emotionally very close to the heart of all Mumbaikars. We have fond memories of this festival.As Expatriates in dubai we did not get all the requisite things to celebrate the festival . But That was the real fun when we all couples came together, took a day off from the Office and under the supervision of our Bhatji Mr Mandar Damle we prepared all the delicacies like ukadiche modak,Aluwadi etc . The Main Families Involved were The Damles from Dombivali, The Pardeshis from Pune, Dighes from Thane, and off course the Kothares from Goregaon(shifted) all settled in Dubai. We have included the Mehta Family recently. This is the first part of the video, It shows complete picturisation of day one of the Ganpati festival. You feel as if you are there, please listen to Mr Damles detail explanation of all the Vidhis . Thanks and enjoy the one hour journey.

Harry Potter and the marathi connection...

Has anyone noticed the connections between Harry Potter and marathi last names? . Patil twins are characters in the books. The death curse is "Avada Kedarva".

Leave our village...you are not good....

People in a village near Dehu are being asked to leave a village for alleged crimes. In this day and age, this is not a good way to solve a problem. Even if the allegations were true.

Chaturthi celebrations

Ganesh Chaturthi is a global festival now. Here is a PBS story about Ganesh Chaturthi being celebrated in New York. And if you have a broadband connection, you can watch some of the clips of celebration at Google Video.

The Des Moines celebration was great. A lot of money was raised for the temple and everybody had a lot of fun. As the temple is next to the river, the visarjan procession was a trek from the temple to the river. Next year, we will have some sort of music during the procession so that people can dance.

Ganesh Chaturti

There is a terrorist advisory for the upcoming Ganesh Chaturti. This will mean less women and children accompanying men during Visarjan. Security should be up to the mark in Pune and Mumbai.

Our Ganesh Chaturti here in Des Moines has Pratisthapana and Visarjan on the same day as the function is being organised in the local temple. I will be celebrating the event after 11 years.

Disaster relief and disaster creation

A safe place to send in your relief money is the Prime Minister's relief fund. Other relief funds seem to open and close during more dramatic disasters. Ofcourse, you never know which state gets hit, but the money is in reasonably good hands with the PM relief fund.

Speaking of disasters, illegal extraction of India's natural resources are one of the easiest ways the ruling parties makes easy money. It's easy to find the illegal activities. Anything that goes on 24 hours a day and without any questions asked is usually blessed from the top or the middle.

I do not know if that is happening in Maharashtra, so you can comment on that. But it is apparently happening in Andhra Pradesh and the reason we know is that it is causing damage in Karnataka. Here is another instance of sand quarrying in Tamil Nadu.

Our history books teach us that the British exploited our natural resources. But we may our own worst enemy in this regard. Ofcourse, we eventually love to blame those foreigners for using our bad river water.

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

The rain has got Maharashtra real good this time around. All low lying areas are in trouble now. Thankfully, evacuation and help activities are moving along well. This will be a hugely disruptive event in the lives of lakhs of people. I remember my uncle incurring thousands of rupees of damage in his shop due to rain. Insurance is not a poor man's tool in India. So most of these folks have the misfortune of absorbing their own losses.

Maharashtra photographs on Flickr

Flickr has this feature called tags. Go to this page and you can potentially see thousands of pictures taken in Maharashtra or having some sort of Maharashtra connections. You can jump around to other related tags like Mumbai, Pune or Aurangabad.