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15 May 2010 - 21 May 2010
small world
Prayer
After Death Sentence No 38
Haima Deshpande

When Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam was travelling to court on the day of the sentencing of Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, his convoy made a detour to the famous Siddhivinayak Temple. Nikam who had got 37 death sentences in his career (which he claims is a record) and 608 life sentences was praying that the judge would order Kasab to be hanged.

Lord Ganesha obliged and Nikam walked out of the trial, securing his 38th number. Life has been busy since, with TV appearances and media interactions, and the lawyer has been unable to go back to the deity. He plans to do so shortly, but it has nothing to do with the deaths on his conscience.

Nikam, who is also a disciple of Satya Sai Baba, is unrepentant when a criminal’s life is forfeited by the state. “I am a God-fearing person. I visit the temple after every success, particularly death sentence. This is not to ask for forgiveness, but to pray for strength. Why should I ask for forgiveness when I have done nothing wrong. It is the action of the criminal that dictates their fate,” says Nikam.

The argument of forgiveness means nothing to him. Nor is he bothered by the Hindu idea of karma, which says that every action of man has repercussions. “What is karma? Am I doing anything wrong by getting justice for people who cannot do it for themselves? I am not scared of karma,” he says.

His wife is, however, still to deal with him getting death sentences for so many people. She is more spiritual and regularly visits temples. “She makes up for what I lack and prays for me. Though she is happy about my success, she is still unable to deal with the death sentence. So I am sure she includes all this in her prayers,” says Nikam.

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Take Two
How ICC Killed the World T20 Hen
No sooner is one championship over, the next edition begins—why would anyone be interested in who wins?
Akshay Sawai

World Twenty20, a hen that lays golden eggs, is in a serious condition, latest reports from the West Indies say. In the past a life-saving drug called India saved several members of the ICC family. Without India, in fact, there would be no ICC. But this time, there is no India anymore to save the hen.

The police has charged the ICC (Inter-national Cricket Council) and its accomplices in television and advertising for extreme cruelty to animals. “It is an open and shut case of near murder of an innocent animal,” the police statement said. “The motive of the offenders was greed. They overburdened the hen, making it work at whimsical intervals.”

The ICC genetically created World Twenty20 in 2007 in South Africa. It delivered a record number of golden eggs, thanks to India. The tournament captured the imagination of fans (and chicken). India played electrifying cricket to defeat, among others, England, South Africa, Australia and Pakistan. Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his team was honoured with a parade through the streets of Mumbai. Thousands of humans and some feathered friends lined the roads. 

But instead of being thankful to the kind, productive hen, the ICC and its allies allowed themselves to be overcome by greed. With the ongoing World Twenty20, it has forced the hen to deliver eggs just nine months after the second edition, held in England last June. Shahid Afridi, who captained Pakistan to the title, said that they had hardly enjoyed the trophy when it was time to defend it. 

One reason for this is genuine. The 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai led to the cancellation of the Champions Trophy in Pakistan, which in turn triggered far-reaching changes in international cricket itineraries. But equally true is the fact that the ICC’s billion-dollar deal with ESPN Star Sports makes it mandatory to conduct one of the following three events every year: the 50-over World Cup, the Champions Trophy or the World Twenty20. Place has to be made for a tournament even when it is not in the interest of the game to do so. 

The tepid response to the second edition in England could be blamed entirely on India’s loss. This time, even when India was still in contention, interest was lukewarm. With the IPL still a recent memory, people are suffering from cricket indigestion. 

Pronouncing the ICC guilty of attempting to kill the hen, the judge stressed the need to maintain the prestige of tournaments by conducting them at long intervals. He gave the example of the Olympics and the football World Cup, which are held every four years. 

Standing in the witness box, the ICC showed no remorse.

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Research
Prosaic Prozac
Pramila N. Phatarphekar

There’s disturbing news brewing on the psychiatric front. Pills for the disturbed are fast losing their potency, say a slew of reports. A study published this January showed that placebos and drugs had the same effect on severe depression. Award-winning science writer Robert Whitaker’s new book, An Anatomy of an Epidemic, has posited a simple question. If Prozac, the blockbuster anti-depressant, is so good, how come the number of Americans claiming disability due to mental illness soared from 1.25 million in 1987 to over 4 million currently?  He believes that children who take pills for Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder are ‘more likely to suffer from mania and bipolar disorder than those who’re unmedicated’ and that schizophrenia patients without medication in India do better than those in developed countries. With results like this, it’s time to hold the mind-meds.

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Pioneer
Divorcee at 12 Years
Shubhangi Swarup

Some change the world really young. In 2008, a Saudi court had rejected a plea to divorce an eight-year-old girl married off to a man who was 58, saying the case should wait until the girl reaches puberty. Notwithstanding that absurd order, recently a 12-year-old successfully managed to get a divorce from an 80-year-old man. In exchange for a hefty dowry, the girl, then 11, was married to her father’s cousin last year. After she protested against her marriage, the case got tremendous attention in the international media, and the state-run Human Rights Commission agreed to represent her in court proceedings. It has now been reported that that the girl and her family have come to an agreement, allowing for a privately settled divorce. The Human Rights Commission in Saudi Arabia is attempting to use the case to establish a minimum marriage age of 16. “The main aim is to not allow cases like this to happen again,” Alanoud al-Hejailan, a lawyer with Human Rights Commission, told a British newspaper. “There will be some opposition, of course, but we feel that public opinion has changed on this issue.”

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Death
Lioness with Parkinson’s
Rahul Bhatia

If you thought only humans suffered from Parkison’s Disease or bedsores, think again. Rani, the only lioness at Indore’s Kamla Nehru Zoo, died in April after a four-year battle with Parkinson’s.  She was 22. Six months earlier, the zoo’s sole lion, Akbar, died at 21. The lion, the zoo superintendant said, “was paralytic and suffering from bedsores for the last 4-5 months”, and had to be kept away from crowds in the recent past, ANI reports. A doctor who examined Akbar said the animal had cirrhosis and cysts in the liver. The lifespan of both was in keeping with the average for captive lions.

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Bestseller
Freebies Rule on Kindle
Elizabeth Kuruvilla

The list of top reads on Amazon’s e-reader Kindle is quite revealing: most people will read practically anything as long as it comes for free. The price of the top eight books on this list: $0.00 (the list is updated on an hourly basis, and this time last week, the top 14 Kindle books were going free). The momentum is only broken, at No 9, by Stieg Larsson’s bestselling The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, selling at a comparatively low ebook price of $5.50. Leading the pack in a list dominated by thrillers, romance and Christian literature, is a thriller by DiAnn Mills called Breach of Trust. Really, it would be difficult to call this a list of ‘bestsellers’.

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Arrest
Dotcom Bust

The CEO and senior executives of guruji.com, an Indian search engine, were arrested last week for running the site too efficiently. An FIR filed by T-Series, the music company, said it was ‘for infringement and displaying in guruji.com  film songs of 1) Om Shanti Om 2) All The Best 3) Bhool Bhulaiya 4) Apka Suroor 5) Aashiq Banaya Apne…’ (reported by medianama.com). A search for, say, Raavan mp3 on the search engine guides users to a separate page where the movie’s song streams from across the web are collated for download or instant listening. This goes a step beyond most engines, which throw up sites that claim to carry film songs, rather than link the songs themselves. However, the arrests raised eyebrows because the detained did not host pirated content, only links to it.

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Right
Legal In-law Jokes
Ruhani Kaur

A stand-up comedian in the US has won the right to crack jokes on her in-laws. Sunda Croonquist was sued two years ago after her mother-in-law, sister-in-law and brother-in-law said her jokes were holding them up to public ridicule. A mother-in-law joke she cracked goes like this: “My husband decides to introduce me to my mother-in-law in the car, he leans over and says we are not going tell mommy you are black. I say that’s smart, she’ll never notice. Which she noticed and that’s when I noticed that Jews can’t whisper, have you noticed, ladies and gentlemen?” The US district judge of New Jersey said her jokes fell in the category of protected speech.

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Initiative
Church for Dogs
Ruhani Kaur

Everyone deserves a chance to go to heaven. So the Calvary Episcopal Church of Massachusetts is scheduled to launch a ‘perfect paws pet ministry’ that will hold a monthly worship service for dogs. They have invited well-mannered, leashed dogs for the service on the third Sunday of every month to get special blessings. For dogs who are unwell or don’t enjoy being around other animals, owners can put up a paper prayer. Reverend Thea Keith-Lucas told The Salem News that dogs will have a say during service because barking won’t be banned.

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Turnaround
Teeing off in Communist Cuba
Kabeer Sharma

For tourists flying to Cuba looking for a slice of La Revolucion—the Cuban government is keen to disappoint. Following a lifting of travel restrictions on American citizens last year, the Cuban government is now angling only for rich tourists. To which end, it is now clearing the way to allow foreigners to develop luxury golf courses. The tourism minister was perturbed that the 2.4 million tourists who visited Cuba last year did not stay long or spend too much money. They are already in talks with ‘several potential foreign partners’.

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Wealth
Crorepati Gods Get Richer
Pallavi Polanki

Forbes magazine might want to rethink its richest people list. According to the Andhra Pradesh government, the state now has 42 temples that fall in the crorepati bracket. How’s that for a power statement?

Andhra is, after all, the land of the super duper rich. Lord Venkateshwara, who resides in the hill town of Tirumala raked in no less than Rs 555 crore in direct income for the year 2009-10, says the Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanams Trust. A power unto itself, it is the only temple that does not fall under the administration of the endowment department of the government, that maintains records of the remaining 33, 375 charitable and religious (Hindu institutions) in the state. Shall we say a prayer?

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stopover
Hurriedly Seeking Taj

Some passengers on international cruise liners go to extreme lengths to see the Taj Mahal. The ships generally make short stops at ports like Mumbai. Usually they resume their voyage within 24 hours. “It is quite common for a group of about 100 passengers to fly to Agra and back,” says Keki Master of JM Baxi and Co, a shipping firm that works with many cruise companies. “They charter a plane from one of the domestic airlines like Kingfisher or Jet.”

The expense varies as charter rates are per hour. Pressed for an estimate, Master says, “A round-trip to Delhi or Agra would cost in the region of $100,000.”

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15 May 2010 - 21 May 2010