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Rabble Rousing Random Ramblings by S Jagadish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
How the collective wisdom of our leaders gets exhibited
In the past 2-3 weeks alone, there've been 3 instances where the wisdom of our political leaders has been exhibited in all its glory.
- DMK demands that Sri Lankan Tamil refugees be made permanent residents of India.
- Spend nearly Rs. 10 crores to sterilize 70% of all stray dogs in Delhi ahead of the Delhi Commonwealth Games.
- Karnataka government decides that the best way to send out an environment-conscious message is to force auto-rickshaw owners to paint their autos green!
Labels: commonwealth games, karnataka, politics, refugees, sri lanka, tamil
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An austerity suggestion for the Indian government
There's a well-publicized 'austerity' drive initiated by the government of India, and it involves having ministers travel economy class by air and third a/c by train.
Now, there are no well-publicized target figures on how much the government aims to save through these acts. It's perhaps too naive to believe that ministers will continue to chant about austerity once the economy is on a recovery path. It's odd that a government which engages elite security personnel, at the tax-payer's cost, to protect two-bit politicians, talks about cost-cutting measures.
In any case, cost-cutting, like charity, does begin at home. There is a much easier way to cut costs. Governments, and this one is no exception, have a very useful employment programme to accomodate 'senior' politicians and those from parties that have enough seats to impact the functioning of the government (including through toppling it). It's called the National Politician Employment Guarantee Scheme.
Take a look at the list of ministries - those headed by Cabinet Ministers and those headed by Ministers of State with independent charge.
Here are some ministries that really shouldn't even exist.
- Ministry of Culture (currently held by the PM) - Why do we need the government to handle 'culture'? Is there something that can be defined as Indian culture? Besides, even if we do need that ministry, why isn't it part of the Ministry of Tourism? That's what it's typically been part of!
- Ministry of Information and Broadcasting - Why should the government be in the 'business' of Information & Broadcasting?
- Either "Ministry of Urban Development" or "Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation" - Is the minister in charge of Urban Development not supposed to bother about alleviating poverty in urban India, or is (s)he expected to aggravate poverty in those regions?
- Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports - Why is the government involved with affairs of the youth? Why does a 73-year old head a ministry dedicated to the youth? Did someone mistake MS Gill for KPS Gill, hoping that by moving him out of the IHF, India's hockey would improve?
- Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment - Are the rest of the ministries not supposed to bother about social justice and empowering those who fall under the umbrella of social justice?
- Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation - By its own admission, the ministry facilitates, collects, promotes & co-ordinates data gathering & dissemination across multiple ministries. Why do we need a separate ministry for this? Why do we need a ministry for programme implementation? Are the other ministries expected to just come up with grandiose plans and not implement them?
- Ministry of Minority Affairs - What minority does this ministry take care of? Linguistic minorities? Religious minorities? Sexual minorities? Women, considering an adverse sex ratio? Social minorities? Educational minorities? Would Biharis in Mumbai constitute a minority (perhaps not, according to Raj Thackeray!) that needs to be taken care of? What about Sikhs - they'd be a minority in India, but a majority in Punjab? What about men in Kerala (1058 females for every 1000 males as per the 2001 census)? Why isn't it the Home Ministry's job to take care of minorities (across whatever parameters)?
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Amazing phishing attempt for PayPal
A short while ago, I got an email which read
PayPal is constantly working to ensure security by regularly screening the accounts in our system. We recently reviewed your account, and we need more information to help us provide you with a secure service. Until we can collect this information, your access to sensitive account features will be limited. We would like to restore your access as soon as possible, and we apologize for the inconvenience.I had the gut feeling that this was a phishing attempt.
Why is my account access limited?
Your account access has been limited for the following reason(s):
We determined that someone may have tried to access your PayPal account without your permission. For your protection, we have limited your account access. To lift this limitation, log in to your PayPal account and follow the steps in the Resolution Centre.
How can I restore my account access?
Please visit the Resolution Centre and complete the "Steps to Remove Limitations."
Completing all the checklist items will automatically restore your account access.
Sincerely,
PayPal Account Review Department
I clicked on the link in the email and I was taken to a site that looks identical to the PayPal login page.
There were 3 things I noticed:
- The PayPal logo showed up near the URL bar
- This wasn't a HTTPS URL
- My email address was pre-filled in the username field (the URL I clicked on had the username hashed)
So I provided my PayPal password but with an extra suffix "1" at the end. The reasoning was that if it was really PayPal, it would not authenticate me. As I suspected, it authenticated me and then took me to a screen where I was asked to fill out stuff like my name, address, social security number, etc. All this confirmed that this was a phishing attempt.
That's when it hit me. I had a re-look at the URL (http://www.paypal.com.login-session-7t0ukr34oim.database.xq039.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run&id=c19qYWdhZGlzaEB5YWhvby5jb20=) and I then realized that even though I was alert enough to confirm the URL before filling in the (wrong) password, my mind had assumed that since there was www.paypal.com immediately after the http://, this was trustworthy. I didn't realize that the part after paypal.com was actually ".login-session". Mentally, I probably thought it was "/login-session".
So, the domain was actually xq039.com, which is (as expected) a Chinese IP (121.11.165.165).
Then, when I re-read the email, I noticed that it said "Resolution Centre". PayPal, a USA-based company, would have used "Resolution Center". Further, the From address was service-jwxo5m8hwh3@6985.paypal-update.database.xq039.com.
All said and done, I think this is an amazing phishing attempt. One that perhaps at least 99% of the folks clicking on the link in the email would fall for.
PS: I did go and change my PayPal password immediately!
Labels: internet, internet security, paypal, phishing, security
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A few days ago, I read a news report in 'The Hindu' about serious differences between India's defence forces and various other agencies, including the Urban Development Ministry, over construction of a dedicated war memorial for Indian soldiers.
Keep in mind that India Gate was built to commemorate martyrs of the British Indian Army. So really there's no memorial to honour soldiers who died fighting for independent India. The difference of opinion essentially centres around where the monument should be located.
The first thing that struck me after reading the report was why everyone was assuming that the monument needed to be in Delhi in the first place! It's not as though a majority of the martyrs were born in Delhi. Why couldn't the memorial be constructed in any other place in India? What's the need to be so Delhi-centric.
It's certainly not something new. With a few exceptions (the only two that come to mind are the Calcutta Metro and the frequency with which Delhi hosts international cricket), most events are Delhi-centric. Television in India started off in Delhi. The only 2 Asian Games in India (the inaugural one in 1951 & the 1982 one) have been held in Delhi. Ceremonies & parades during Independence day & Republic day are always held only in Delhi. In the last decade, India has played 11 Davis Cup ties at home, and 6 of these have been in Delhi when there are [probably] much better venues at other places, including Chennai & Bangalore.
The 2010 Commonwealth Games is in Delhi, and I shudder to think of infrastructure lying waste like it was after 1982. The first Formula One Grand Prix race in India will be in Delhi in 2011. India's venue proposed for the 2020 Olympics is Delhi.
Why can't we spread the love? Why should the Supreme Court only be in Delhi? Why should the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha sessions only be held in Delhi?
That said, sometimes it is useful. Imagine if, as an extension of this extreme Delhi-focus, the netas and the babus insisted on INS Arihant being rolled out from Delhi on the grounds that the submarine could go take a dip in the Yamuna!
Labels: commonwealth games, delhi, ins arihant, kargil, memorial, sports
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China's national newspaper took a while, didn't it?
A week ago, fierce riots erupted in Urumqi (or Urumchi or however you want to pronounce it), forcing Hu Jintao to return home from the G8 summit in Italy. Perhaps the President wasn't too sure if the various administrative, governance, police & riot control mechanisms would work. Or maybe he just wanted to send a strong message across ...
In any case, I kept monitoring "The Hindu"'s editorial section for any mention of the rioting, including the events that led to the rioting involving Uighurs and Han Chinese, the Chinese government's response, etc. But of course, there was no word. Maybe the text of the editorial had been sent to the Chinese government for approval and they were too busy dealing with the problem on hand - just as it happened in March 2008 when there was rioting in Tibet.
Then again, I really didn't expect a mouthpiece to do much better than publish [perhaps verbatim] what the Chinese Embassy's Press Officer had to say.
Interestingly enough, there is a Pakistani angle to this as well. The Xinjiang province (of which Urumqi is the capital) borders Afghanistan & Pakistan. Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and other Pakistan-based terror organizations have provided training to Uyghur organizations which have been opposing the Chinese government's policies in Xinjiang, including the mass influx of Han Chinese in the area. Further, Pakistan's Dawn newspaper reported that in 2001, thousands of Uighurs were trained and recruited by the Lashkar-e-Toiba and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen in order to fight in Kashmir.
China has, for a while now, been stepping up pressure on Pakistan to do something about the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement and Eastern Turkestan Liberation Organization and had in fact sent Pakistan a list of terrorists from those organizations that it wanted to be investigated & prosecuted.
Perhaps some Pakistani government officer, who saw the words 'list', 'investigate', 'prosecute' & 'terrorism', thought that this was in fact India's list of 20, and immediately forwarded it to the department head with the note 'Most urgent' where it sat collecting dust until Asif Ali Zardari got a polite call from Hu Jintao last week.
Labels: china, pakistan, riots, terrorism, the hindu, uighurs, urumqi, xinjiang
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Can North Korea withdraw from the United Nations?
Over the weekend, North Korea launched missile tests with the aim of sending out a message to the USA, Japan and South Korea. The United Nations Security Council promptly condemned the tests but there hasn't yet been any threat of sanctions, etc.
In 2003, North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and in 2006, announced that it had conducted a nuclear test.
It is quite well known that China comes to North Korea's aid everytime Pyongyang shoots itself in the foot. There probably are economic sanctions imposed against North Korea under UN rules. So if North Korea withdraws from the United Nations, would the sanctions apply any longer? If North Korea had been receiving aid under some UN programme, that aid would be cancelled. But again, surely China would help out in some way or the other.
But the larger question is "Does a country have the right to withdraw from the UN treaty?" According to the entry on Wikipedia, there is no such provision.
But really what stops any country from doing so? Articles 3 and 4 of Chapter II of the UN charter only reference the original member states and how membership of the UN is open to "all other peace-loving states" which accept the obligations etc. etc. So if North Korea declared that it was not a peace-loving state, is that reason enough to withdraw from the UN?
Labels: china, missile test, north korea, united nations
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Too early to cheer for 'queer'?
Yesterday, in a judgment that undoubtedly was significant, the Delhi High Court de-criminalized consensual sexual acts of adults in private
We declare that Section 377 IPC, insofar it criminalisesThere are two implications from this ruling:
consensual sexual acts of adults in private, is violative of Articles 21, 14 and 15 of the Constitution.
The provisions of Section 377 IPC will continue to govern non-consensual penile non-vaginal sex and penile non-vaginal sex involving minors.
- Homosexual acts between consenting adults are no longer criminal acts and the parties involved cannot be booked under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code.
- Non-vaginal sex (oral, anal, masturbation, etc.) is also not criminal as long as it is between consenting adults.
The decision could still be appealed in the Supreme Court. The government could in all likelihood not appeal against the decision. However, when morons and mobs belonging to various 'religious' and 'cultural' groups/political parties decide to take matters into their own hands as part of protesting in the name of "Indian culture and values", and if the judiciary asks the government what it's going to do to stop the violence, the government could easily point out that this was all because of the court's decision taken without factoring in the implications.
Further, all that the judgment does is to de-criminalize private homosexual activity between consenting adults. Does that necessarily make it legal? For e.g., "Not guilty" doesn't mean "innocent".
The last word on this is probably a few years away. Was it Lao-Tzu or Confucious who said "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step"?
Labels: homosexuality, ipc, judgement, landmark, queer, section 377
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