If you have not read the modestly titled Huffington Post piece — The Future of God: A New Theory of the Divine — by Dee-Quack Deepak Chopra, you have missed out on world-class intellectual nonsense.

There is a very famous woman in India who is a Roman Catholic. Roman Catholics take as their undisputed leader the Bishop of Rome, aka the Pope, or Papa. You’d have thought that in this day and age, people would have given up on medieval superstitions. Most have but some — even some very powerful people — are superstitious. How superstitious?

When someone reads out an email address and reads “@” as “at the rate of.” That reveals a marked inability to deal with symbols.

I am an internet Hindu. The wannabe part refers to the card-carrying bit. What we Internet Hindus(tm) chiefly need are genuine laminated identity cards. Commies and pseudo-secularists no doubt have their official authorized genuine cards. So I too want one. I am sure that among the hordes of Internet Hindus(tm), there must be some who are good at creative graphic design. You may ask, “How do you know there are hordes of Internet Hindus(tm)?” Here’s how.

I have often wondered where the pseudo-seculars of the Indian main stream media — the Burkhas, Sataricas, Amendhatis — got their education. One conjecture I have is that they got bussed to school — on the Samjhauta Bus — to Pakistan’s Punjab province.

One of the tools that I use quite frequently comes from Arc90.com.

In a 11 March rediff article titled “Mediocrity has become the norm“, the transcript of an interview of Arun Shourie makes interesting reading. I especially like his views on how Indian education has to change.

My friend Rajan Parrikar’s photo feature on Ganesh — the One with the Broken Tusk, the One with the Huge Body, the One with the Brilliance of a Million suns.

As I am wont to do, I pick up newspapers while travelling. It is not good for my mental health but what can I do — sometimes newspapers hold the sort of fascination for me that rubberneckers have for gruesome road accidents. An item in yesterday’s Times of India (ok, ok, bad move I know) caught my eye: “Just a bottle of water can power your home.”

I am off to Delhi and will be on the road much of the time. Often comments are held in moderation — so if your comment does not show up immediately, please be patient. I will have internet access but not all the time.
Bye for now.

This should not require any clarification but one has little choice but to live in the world as it is, not in an imaginary world where people are reasonable. One anonymous person posted a pretty needless question on my post “The Land of Retards and Hypocrites.” He, or she, wrote, “Are you unhappy about Husain’s depictions? Are you okay (or sort of okay) with cases slapped on him?”

The power of ideas has been a constant underlying theme of this blog. All transformations, good and bad alike, are fueled by adoption of ideas by people. Allow me to quote from a book that I am currently reading.

Pharyngula must be banned.

It is time to get back to the basics. It is time for this blog to get back to what its primary concern is: to discuss matters that relate to India’s development. It is entertaining and diverting to once in a while engage with jholawalas like rajkamal and expose their hollow Islamic ideology but eventually we have to focus on the principal issues.

This is a temporary post. I will delete it as soon as it serves the purpose. Dear Mr Oldtimer: Please reply to the comment by Rajkamal on the post Open Thread: Comment Policy. Mr Rajkamal charges that I am adding comments under the pseudonym “Oldtimer”. Please do show that you are a real person. Thank you.

A item in the Times of India reports on “Retail loot: Mandi prices are a fraction of retail prices. What explains the wedge in prices?

The open thread on comment policy post generated a bunch of thoughtful comments. I think it would be nice to haul some of them out and put them in a post for consideration. Here are some.

This is simply intolerable. The site FaithFreedom.org is a terrible site. It has all kinds of information about Islam and its prophet. That is completely unacceptable as Muslims do not like it. When Muslims read it, many get very upset. Which is not a good thing. The government of India must take immediate action and block the site just like it banned “The Satanic Verses” and other things that Muslims find offensive. It will lead to communal violence. For peace and harmony, the government of India must ban FaithFreedom.org. That …

This is not a rhetorical question. Have you ever seen any Indian leader weep for the misery and hardship that millions of Indians endure throughout their lives and often die prematurely from natural but preventable causes? Have you ever seen any Indian leader weep for the thousands killed and mutilated by Islamic terrorism in India? If they do, they must do so in private and is not reported by the press.