In these prosaic times, Barack Obama seems to have decided to add a bit of flight of fancy. “This is only the fourth time in our history that a President has featured a poet at his inaugural. I hope that this portends well for the future of the arts in our everyday and civic life,” says Elizabeth Alexander, the Yale professor who has ben invited to deliver her poem after president-elect Barack Obama’s inaugural address on January 20. Elizabeth, who was born in 1962 in Harlem, New York,...

Wikipedia’s founder, Jimmy Wales’s gambit has paid off. He made a direct appeal to the users of this free online encyclopaedia to help him raise $6m (£4.1m) to cover its running costs for 2009 or be prepared to see advertisements splashed all over this pioneering, innovative and valuable referral website. And, boy, what a response Wikipedia got from its viewers/wellwishers! This story would have delighted Mahatma Gandhi who most of his life propagated that newspapers should be ad-free....

Gaza crisis has been described as a recurring Middle Eastern nightmare. I can understand why US president-elect has decided to keep quiet. He has inherited a tragedy/madness whose history dates back to almost 100 years of political skulduggery of the powerful Western nations in that part of the world dividing the Jews and Arabs who once lived there peacefully. But Obama will have to break his silence when he wears the “crown” later this month. Meanwhile Ehud Barak, the Defence Minister...

What is common between Barack Obama and all these guys and gal…Monica Lewinsky, Napoleon Bonaparte, Oscar Peterson, Russell Baker, Dustin Hoffman, Louis Armstrong, Menachem Begin and Robert Redford? In Chinese astrology, as interpreted by my favourite Suzanne White, all of them are “Ox & Leo”. (In my earlier posts I had mentioned about Suzanne’s apt/fun descriptions about G.W. Bush and General David Petraeus.) In a horoscope for 2009 especially prepared for president-elect...

Mawlana Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balkhi, whose 801st birth anniversary was celebrated last month, has for many years now remained the most popular poet in America. The translations of this 13th-century mystical Muslim scholar’s – better known as Rumi – verse are hugely popular and have been used by Western pop stars such as Madonna. More here… A 13th-century Persian poet, Sunni Islamic jurist, and theologian, Rumi was born in 1207 in Balkh in present-day Afghanistan. “Increasing...

Sydney’s Bondy Beach is among a few designated beaches in Australia where top-less bathers are permitted to enjoy the sun, sand and the sea. In fact such beaches are a major draw for tourists too!!! But as Australians begin their long summer holidays this year, a campaign is on to tighten nudity laws. A Christian fundamentalist politician, the Rev Fred Nile, is calling for topless sunbathing to be outlawed, and he has received backing from several mainstream MPs, reports The Independent. “While...

Shawn Goldsmith, a Long Island teenager, has earned a place of pride in the history of Scouting. The Associated Press reports that the young lad has earned all 121 merit badges offered by the Boy Scouts of America. “It’s an accomplishment the local arm of the organization calls ‘an almost unheard-of feat’.” Being an avid follower of the Scout movement worldwide and an old Scout myself, I feel happy that the movement is as popular as it was when I was in my teens. The...

South Asia, especially India, has reasons to celebrate the return of secular and democratic government in Bangladesh. Former Prime Minister Ms Sheikh Hasina’s (photo above) Awami League has won a landslide victory in Bangladesh’s election, reports the BBC. It is heartening that democracy has also returned to India’s immediate neighbourhood, including Nepal, Bhutan and Pakistan. Myanmar or Burma remains a sad exception. “Election officials say the Awami League alliance has...

What is common between the legendary Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi and the creator of the iconic cartoon character Popeye the Sailor? All the copyright material related to them would end on January 1, 2009 when these fall into the public domain. The statutory law restricts the rights of authors to 60/70 years after their death. The copyright expiry means that, from Thursday, anyone can print and sell Gandhi or Popeye posters, T-shirts and even create new comic strips, books without the need for...

A large majority of voters in the Indian-part of Kashmir have sent a clear message to the world that they want democracy and will not bow to the diktats of militants/separatists. London’s Financial Times reports: “Separatists who want an independent state. or a merger with Pakistan, had urged Kashmiris to boycott the election (to the State assembly). Yet the turnout was about 60 per cent and voting was largely peaceful. “The Indian government on Sunday proclaimed the result...

News reports indicate that CIA has discovered a lethal weapon to subdue ageing Afghan tribals — Viagra. However, just a little warning to the over-enthusiastic CIA guys distributing blue pills in the remote areas. The Afghan tribal lords have a known weakness for the fair young men too, apart from performing the ritual with their spouses. So after distributing the Viagra pills, the CIA guys (as a precautionary measure) should avoid turning their posteriors towards the tribals!!! …Just...

Pakistan media is paying tributes to two of its leaders this month — Benazir Bhutto who was killed this day last year, and Mohammad Ali Jinnah – described as ‘Father of Pakistan’ – who was born on December 25, 1876. Both these secular leaders gradually turned champions of peaceful co-existence with India. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan’s most internationally recognised politician, shocked the country and the world, and devastated her supporters,...

Although Mumbai’s (or Bombay’s) 550-room luxury Trident Hotel (photo above) did not put up its usual festive Christmas tree this year, its loyal clients are returning. Much of the credit for this goes to Rattan Keswani, president of Trident Hotels in India, and his team for turning the bloody war zone into a normal hotel again…that too within three weeks of the dastardly terrorist attack. Gentle, soft spoken but thoroughly efficient Keswani, whom I have known for a few years, spoke...

“Why are you standing there with a donkey?” said an old Palestinian man. “This is a nice modern city, and you’re standing there with a donkey! What are you trying to say? What’s wrong with you?” With this quote BBC correspondent Aleem Maqbool begins his fascinating description of his walk from Nazareth to Bethlehem, retracing a journey made by Joseph and Mary in the Christmas story told by Luke in the New Testament. More here… And if you are intersted in...

The US administration’s doublespeak on India and Pakistan is legendary and has made it virtually impossible to end the so-called “war-on-terror”. The Mumbai barbarism last month again exposed this. Following the UN sanctions against certain militant-terrorist organizations in Pakistan, the US state department officials paid ritual visits to the two countries and mouthed the usual admonitions/concerns. Pakistan took the usual line: “Let India give us proof”, and then...

Objective/fair reporting and debate have been the biggest casualty in the mass media and elsewhere in the past decade. Jingoism and bullying have managed to suppress voices of professionalism and reason. Here is a voice of reason from Pakistan. (Unfortunately, in India and Pakistan the media/political discourse on Kashmir never takes into account the game plan, and geo-political stakes, of the world powers in Kashmir or even Afghanistan.) Writing in the well-known Pakistani newspaper, The Dawn,...

As we witness the dying embers of George W. Bush’s presidency, the American people’s anger at their country’s top executive is no less than that of the Iraqi journalist who hurled shoes and abuses at the US president. A recent PEW poll reveals how Americans describe Bush by different names — some of them a lot worse than “dog.” The Washington Post reports: “For his part, Bush has repeatedly claimed to be unbothered by his low popularity, and has pointed...

William Mark Felt, who died at age 95, was an unusual FBI man who made history. He helped reveal one of the biggest political scandals of the 20th century, which ended when Richard Nixon became the first US president to resign in disgrace, reports AFP. “Felt, the number-two official at the Federal Bureau of Investigation at the time, was the secret informant known as “Deep Throat”, who provided two Washington Post reporters with crucial information about the Watergate scandal. “For...

Americans are known the world over for their love affair with cars…the bigger, the better. But their long time symbol of freedom and romance — THE CAR or The AUTOMOBILE — is in trouble with the car making giants Chrysler, General Motors and Ford in convulsions struggling to survive the recession. The USA and Canada are far behind the European countries in providing mass rapid transportation within cities. North America seems to have left individuals to fend for themselves and encouraged...

Journalists seem to be shedding, with quite a vengeance, their post 9/11 image as subservient/embedded pen-pushers. The Iraqi TV journalist reached the other extreme by using shoes instead of pen. Now a British scribe has made a deadly attack on top British and US political leadership. Sample the ‘ballistic missile’ from Matthew Norman: “Throwing footwear at the front man for the perpetrator-in-chief, the limitlessly disgusting Dick Cheney, is a splendid way to express revulsion...

While President Bush takes the so-called “victory lap” in Iraq and Afghanistan, his country folks reel under recession. It is a sad story of a mighty nation that is now groaning under unemployment, vanishing jobs and mortgage defaults. The Reuters reports that “more and more Americans from all social classes are pawning their possessions to make ends meet. “Pawn shop owners see strong business across the country, even in unexpected locales like Beverly Hills, the mecca of...

During my recent longish stay in Australia, I have come to enjoy the wines there. Earlier, I preferred only French and Austrian wines. Now here comes a rather heartening/healthy news that would tempt me to make another visit to Australia asap!!! “Although the benefits of wine have been known for centuries, new bottles from (Australia’s) ‘Wine Doctor vineyard’ are loaded with up to 100 times more resveratrol, the antioxidant that prevents the build-up of fat in arteries,”...

Today South Africa seems to be competing with Iraq in providing sensational copy for different reasons. Associated Press takes note of the newly-crowned Miss World Kseniya Sukhinova from Russia. In the photo above Sukhinova stands with first princess Parvathy Omanakuttai from India and second princess Gabrielle Walcott from Trinidad and Tobago during the Miss World contest in Johannesburg.

It is not that the spy agencies of the USA, Pakistan and India have abolished their “dirty tricks” departments. The reason we should stop blaming CIA, ISI and RAW is simple. For too long we have blamed our “hands” for cutting someone else’s throat, while absolving the “heads”. The photo above is self explanatory. President Bush, or for that matter Pakistan’s Asif Zardari or India’s Manmohan Singh, stand right at the middle and must squarely bear...

Well done, President George W. Bush. As a sportsman, I admired your ducking capability and your witty response when, on receiving an Iraqi journalist’s shoes, you reacted by saying that “the shoe number is 10″. Why don’t you try these shoes for a change…and know if it pinches? You insisted on a “farewell” visit to your favorite destination — Iraq. It seems that “boots” were destined to be your last historic gift from your hosts. (Remember...