Roller-coaster Day for Salman Khan

Roller-coaster Day for Salman Khan

Representational image. (Photo: businessofcinema.com)

We all know that Salman Khan rocked the show on Wednesday, He was everywhere on the news channels and social media. The case goes back to 2002-hit and run case where Khan under the influence of alcohol had killed one person sleeping on the footpath of Bandra in Mumbai suburban.

Salman Khan is on bail from almost 14-years after the hearing in secession court is been ruling in his favour. It was on today, when the final verdict on hit and run case was to be given and Khan with his family members was present in the court. The secession court sentenced Khan with 5-years of imprisonment under various sections the law.

Maybe it was possible that Khan’s defence team was ready for the worst to be coming their way with the verdict of secession court and therefore immediately after an hour filed a bail appeal in the Bombay High Court for Khan. The HC further around 4pm came with a decision of interim relief (bail) for Khan till Friday.

The defence included Former Solicitor General of India Harish Salve, who within no time appealed on behalf of his client Khan in the HC for bail. The bail order had to further present in the secession court for the court to order the police officials to set Khan free, on bail.

The clerics and the Judges of the secession court in Bandra were almost waiting for Harish Slave till 7.30pm who was on his way from the Bombay HC to get the bail orders to the court in Bandra.

Senior lawyers said that such a thing of judiciary waiting for a criminals bail order, was very unusual and it’s seen in very rarest of rare case.

I was taken into police custody back in October 2013, by the Dahisar Police Station, after a false complain of threatening and rioting and molesting modesty of a woman were charged on me. False FIR was lodged and was taken into custody and was to be presented in the secession court on the same day. I was given a chance to apply for appealing bail in the court and was denied the bail on the same day because it was already 4.30pm and the court clerics said “they don’t work this late and this in spite of the official timing till 5pm.

The court at that time didn’t wait nor did work in their official timings for accepting the bail plea of an ordinary citizen. It was a denial of justice for me and resulted me spending the night in judicial custody.

The court that time didn’t wait for an ordinary citizen, so, what’s the point, logic or reason behind them (court) waiting for a convicted criminal?

Why does India needs gender neutral laws?

Representational picture.

A woman can go and file a case against her husband, if, he asks her to go out and work, but a man cannot file a case against his wife, if, he’s mentally tortured for not making money up to the expectations of her wife.

Today, I thought of coming out to the world about a false molestation case filed against me at a police station in Mumbai, by a 45 year-old woman for taking revenge on behalf someone’s orders.

 The reason behind is because; I was opposed to my area’s former MLA (Member of Legislative Assembly) idea of redeveloping the land which was owned by my late grandfather, and later it was transferred into my father’s name. I refuse to reveal the name because, I am scared of one more additional false complaint could be file on me for defamation.

My father because of his business purpose and health issues isn’t able to handle each and every issue concerning our family, so, I handle all the matters related to our ancestral land.

In February 2014, I was called up by our MLA and he proposed me an idea of redeveloping it, to which I somehow, was not convinced. I was warned of paying heavy prices for rejecting the offer.

My rejection resulted in a false molestation case filed against me, by the woman hired by the former MLA. It is very shameful that such human-being exist in our society. The people in our society in my surroundings tend to judge me of being a molester. The media reports about the complaint being filed but unfortunately doesn’t reports the trials or my version of the story, where it’s sometimes very clear that the case is fabricated for personal vendetta.

I cannot do anything until the case is in court; I can only experience the mental harassment and judgemental society judging me of molesting a woman that of my mother’s age.

 I’ll fight the case and I’m sure the truth will get the justice. But will the society accept me and stop judging me and my family after the truth comes out? ‘Will the media report my acquittal?

 How do I make the HR, of any given company, understand each time, I go for an interview and is asked about any criminal cases? How many more times, I’ll have to go to the police station, in a police patrolling jeep for giving statements and help them to get investigations to its conclusions.

The Delhi High Court, recently said, “Time has come for courts to deal firmly with women filing false rape complaints as they are tormentors warranting punishment, false rape & molestation cases makes the crime graph shoot up, play havoc with the crime statistics and tend to trivialize the offence of rape and, "no sooner that the news of a person having been accused of rape spreads in the society, he is looked down upon by all and sundry," it observed.

While the act of rape & molestation causes intense emotional distress and immense humiliation to the victim, at the same time one cannot lose sight of the fact that false implication in a rape case causes equal humiliation, disgrace and mental agony to the accused, the court further said.

Deepika Bharadwaj, from TEDx Talks recently came with a video, which talks about, the Indian Penal Code which is made for the protection of women but ignores men and their issues.

There are organizations like, Men’s right association of India” and ‘Save the Indian family’ who are working for the cause of gender neutral laws and Men’s commission of  India.

While all this remains to be unjust for the men, I continue thinking ‘will they all return me my dignity?’

Hey there, stranger

Source: www.theguardian.com

It’s been a very long time, which I’m sure you’re aware of. I’d like to say that it was your decision alone to keep this distance, but I think we both know it was for the best. I’d like to say that I’m glad you are well, but as we both know I have absolutely no idea how you are.

The one thing that can definitely be said is that when we cut ties, we leave no strand behind, but slice right through until we no longer remember how to find each other. It’s amazing to think that once we were so close, the best of two person.

I sometimes find myself wondering why we couldn’t stay in touch. Would it be so bad if we got together for coffee from time to time? Or if we gave each other a ring to see how the other was doing?

Using the phone to make calls has become archaic, but surely we could send a text to wish each other a happy birthday? Or a happy New Year? I mean, we’ve been through so much. You were a part of my life and there is nothing I can do to ever change that.

You can’t be forgotten because forgetting you would be like forgetting myself — impossible. But then again, maybe you are right. Maybe we are better off as far apart as possible.

We know we aren’t right for each other. We know it would never work, and we know the relationship we have — we had — created a bond that would make slipping back into romance too easy.

It would make repeating the same mistakes too likely, repeating the same heartbreak certain.

So all that I can do is wish you the best. Wish you a great, bright, loving future. Wish you to find the lover of your dreams and to create a lifetime of your fantasies.

I wish for you to find a person as great as me, but a much better partner. One who won’t drag you through the mud. One who you won’t feel the need to bury with guilt.

I wish you all the best and although you will never read this, although we will never speak to each other again, and although you are out of my life forever, I wish you nothing short of happiness.

Never again to be yours,

Your Forever Lost Lover,

Why Kiran Bedi? and not Narendra Modi?

Arvind Kejriwal, led AAP government, resigned from Delhi assembly on 14 February, 2014, after governing for 49 days. Since February 2014, the state of Delhi is under Presidential rule, and now the Delhi voters are all set to vote and elect a new government of which polling day is February 07, 2014 and its results will be announced on February 10, 2014, respectively.

There’s so called ‘Modi wave’ all over the country and the    Bharatiya Janta Party is ruling at the centre, after winning the general elections with thumping  majority, and with that the BJP also got majority voting percentage in almost five out of four states where assembly elections were held in 2013 and 2014.

The BJP is dreaming about to win the Delhi elections under the leadership of social-activist, turned politician, Kiran Bedi, who is the projected face of the BJP for Delhi.

On the other hand, AAP after getting almost eight months of period to energize their party-cadre and after re-working on the Mohalla level is all set to challenge the BJP.

The reason behind Kiran Bedi, projected as the face of Delhi elections and not Narendra Modi, like he previously was the face for Maharashtra, Haryana, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan for the assembly elections is quite simple, BJP is not quite sure of winning majority of the 35 seats which are required to form government in Delhi.

Kiran Bedi as reported by the media and also alleged by the AAP is the real scapegoat in the whole scenario, because if BJP doesn’t win majority seats in Delhi, it will be Kiran Bedi who will be seen as the person who lost and not Narendra Modi.

The BJP wants Modi, for the upcoming assembly elections which are to be held in Bihar and West Bengal in 2016. It doesn’t want the ‘Modi wave’ to be diminished and is in no mood to allow voters to have a second negative thought about Modi while they cast their vote in Bihar and West Bengal.

But after all the failed attempts by Kiran Bedi, to woo the voters of  Delhi and also after few opinion polls indicating AAP getting majority seats the BJP started with its campaign of printing offensive newspaper advertisements about Kejriwal and the AAP.

This advertisement mocks Kejriwal for taking Congress support to form Delhi government in 2013, after swearing on his kids of not taking any party’s support to form government, and also alleged Kejriwal of going against Anna’s principle.

This advertisement mocks Kejriwal for promising to not using luxury bungalow but accepting a luxurious flat in the civil lines, area of Delhi.

This advertisement mocks Kejriwal for disrespecting the country by staging a Dharna last year, and now asking for V.I.P pass to attend the Republic Day, ceremony held at Rajpath, in which Barack Obama was the chief guest.

This advertisement depicts Kejriwal and AAP as the one who are aiding people who are willing to launder their money.

Such personal attacks on AAP chief and the party have become frequent nowadays and makes it clear about the fear of BJP, which isn’t sure even after having Kiran Bedi, as a saviour of their party in Delhi assembly elections.

For now, Just wait and watch!

Ah! BMM

I can go on and on writing about three years in BMM, these three years I learned many things from projects to festivals & short-films. I should not forget it taught me how to stay awake all night for weeks, and still work all day long.

As some BMM student, said, “Those who always think nothing good happens after mid-night never studied BMM.”

In these three years, you tell me the time and I might have taken a local-train. The short-film locations, and I still remember my trip to Lonavala, where our group was broke, and we all decided to travel in a jam-packed general compartment of our very own Indian Railways to reach our destination. It taught me, how to be economical and still get done with things.

The most important thing these three years taught me and which will be useful for my whole life, is something we expect everyone to be, ‘Objectivity’. I always now look things with a thought that there will surely be other-side to a particular aspect or subject. Be it politics or any simple discussion.  There are two sides of every aspect, that’s what our Journalism faculty taught us too!

I could tell you no matter I practise journalism or not, there’ll always be a thing called as observation, eagerness, curiosity, hunger for news. I’m now addicted to not following news. There are days when, I’ll prefer sleeping less but not missing reading my favourite columnists.

These three years has made me more aware, awaken and also smart up to a certain extent to tackle the capitalist world outside, which is waiting outside for Journalism graduates to come and join them for moving the pen on the issues they want me to move. I was always a person full with idealistic thoughts, and after reading, studying and listening from our faculty that, the world doesn’t value ideals, but respect how much practical you’re. I’m now stronger to fight with the world with my objective ideas, views and most importantly my ideals.

During these three years, I lost many things which landed me to hospital for operating my fractured hand to me giving statement in the court of law for doing nothing to my argument with the Railway Police Force (RPF) for not monitoring the Railway staff for not cleaning the station premises, which almost landed me to a trouble and resulted, me to stay in custody of the RPF for three hours.

All experience which I gained in my three years resulted in me learning something and which I can say has made me very tough. Tomorrow no-one can come and dominate me to work according to their ideas and opinions.

If I sit to write every single thing which happened with me in last three years, I guess not even Microsoft Word will not accept that.

I would conclude it by saying, may your children and grand-children’s end up studying something like BMM.

OH MYSORE!

Credits-mysore,ind.in

Mumbai-Mangalore-Madikeri-Mysore-Madikeri-Mangalore-Mumbai or the other way round. We had gone to the last Industrial Visit of our college, I was thrilled about it because for me South-India was not much explored.

Out of all the destinations the one which was my favourite was Mysore, and I shall try to inform my readers as much I can about Mysore and its culture, people and lifestyle.

To start with Mysore is small city situated in Karnataka which is also known as Palace city of India.This was probably the last bus ride with my classmates I was able to complete from Madikeri, Karnataka to Mysore which is approximately 117 Kilometres via State Highway -88.

We started from Madikeri at around 10 a.m. and reached Mysore at around 1.30p.m. The climate was sticky and it felt like summer in December. After reaching our Hotel, We had lunch which was a mixture of North and South maybe because everyone cannot have only Rice,Sambhar & Rasam for lunch. (I’m not being racist).

Soon after lunch we were allotted rooms which was all surrounded by coconut trees. The Hotel in which we were staying is named Regalis which had well-maintained rooms with a swimming-pool view which seem was designed to welcome the travellers. The bathrooms were large enough for at least a toddler to play football.

 The rooms had the mandatory television, safety-lockers and intercom. The interiors of room were mixture of old and modern world. The lobby was dark and warm, with a balcony view of the garden inside the premises of hotel.

After getting fresh, we headed towards Brindavan Garden, which is across Kaveri River. While travelling on the streets of Mysore which had light traffic and also most of the signboards were only in Kannada which could be a barrier for an outsider driving on the streets of Mysore.

Brindavan Garden.

The habit of using of public transport which is usually practiced in cities like Mumbai and Delhi was missing in Mysore because everyone had their swanky cars and bikes and the Karnataka State Road Tansport Corporation (KSRTC) buses ran less crowded or maybe I have the habit of living in highly populated city which is why I tend to generalize every cities population with Mumbai.

Coming back to the garden which was 25 minutes’ drive from my HOTEL after  reaching visitors are supposed to pay a nominal amount as entry fees. The garden is full with water fountains and one should visit there for peaceful atmosphere. Every evening the garden has a music concert which is viewed by hundreds of tourists coming from around the world. Brindavan Garden is like you should not miss, if you’re in Mysore.

It was 7p.m. by which we started to get back to our buses in order to back to our hotel. The weather again in the evening time became pleasant when it started to rain. It was a tiring day after travelling all the way from Madikeri to Mysore and the visit to garden in the evening. It took me two small pegs of rum with hot dinner of chicken with tandoori roti’s to calm my nerves and sleep peacefully.

The next day we visited the Mysore palace for which the city is called the city of palace. It is situated in the centre of the city and was the official residence of the royal family of Mysore, and also had royal offices inside it.

Mysore Palace.

The place is open 365 days from nine in the morning to six in the evening which is surrounded by foreigners as well as Indian tourists.

The evening was kept for our industrial visit after which we went back to the hotel had our dinner with excitement of visiting the Mysore Zoo, the other day.

The next morning we all had typical South-Indian breakfast which had Idli, Dosa, Sambhar, Chutney and also Chole-Bhaturas for those who had a different taste

.

Next destination was Mysore Zoo, which was half hour drive from Regalis and also located in the outskirts of Mysore city. It is one of the  oldest and popular zoos in India which was built during the royal paronage in 1892 which sounds one the oldest zoo in  India.

Sri Chamarajendra Zoological Gardens, also knownas Mysore Zoo.

After paying a nominal amount for the entry you’re free to enjoy looking at the types of wild-life species inside the zoo. Animals like Elephant, Zebras, Gorilla, Giraffe and Tiger are spread all around two kilometres of the zoo which is its total length.

After spending four hours at the zoo we headed straight to the hotel and were out for exploring the city in the evening. And after roaming around as much as possible I would not suggest you to buy silk because that’s something we all know.

Here is my observation after my visit there.

--- The people around are kind to help you guide the way but they always speak in Kannada and the only way to communicated with them is usage of broken English which even a auto-driver will understand.

---The city people live a lazy and calm life as their day starts around 10 am and almost everything is shut by 7-8 p.m.

---Every street corner has a stall selling  Dosa, Idli or Medu-Vada in green leafs.

--- Don’t just buy silk and sandalwood from there because there’s also cheap coconut water and alcohol to drink.

The Route

---The Madikeri route to Mysore via SH-88 is better because directly from Mangalore to Mysore may take more time so a visit to Madikeri also becomes must.

---Mysore is also well connected via road,rail and airways.

Where to Stay

--- There are many hotels in the city of palace but Hotel Regalis is something I would suggest to be best for families. For more information (www.HotelRegalis.com)

While I plan my next trip it’s time for you to explore Mysore.

Municipal bodies in Maharashtra will decide the quality of governance by BJP.

Enough of Modi chants like; ‘Chalo Chale Modi Ke Sath’ and Kuthe Neun Thevla Maharashtra Majha’ (Look where did they led My Maharashtra).

With the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) forming minority government in Maharashtra which is going to be challenging, as they will be governing the state which is highly aspirational and is urbanizing at a greater rate than any other state of India.

Maharashtra in the coming years is to become India’s ‘most urbanized state’.

All eyeballs, in Maharashtra set on the BJP which ruling at centre and now going to be in state as well and in-case of Mumbai the BMC too.

The expectations of the voters are obviously going to be high, which is going to be a shaky way ahead for the BJP, looking at the economic condition of the state, which is something we can safely assume to be ‘Agni-Pariksha’ for the BJP.

Over the last decade Maharashtra’s urban population increased nearly by 25%.

According to research reports, Maharashtra’s urban population is expected to grow from 50.8 million in2011, to 84.1 million by 2031, which is more than 50% of the state’s population looking for urbanization.

Looking at Maharashtra’s speedy urbanizing pattern the state government cannot afford to remain apathetic towards the municipal bodies governance unlike the previous government. The challenges are not only limited to municipal bodies of Mumbai (BMC) or Pune (PMC) but also municipal bodies that will emerge with the urbanization process.

Already with Mumbai taking more than half of the state sponsored revenue for the Urban Local Bodies (ULB’s) the state’s other ULB’s are short of adequate capital.

With the previous government failing in getting rid of the distress among state’s ULB’s and failure in collecting taxes; property tax which was collected only 37% and water charges which collection was only 46% out of the total. The new state government cannot afford to govern in the same manner.

The CAG report, also observed that municipal bodies in Maharashtra spends 42%-50% of their revenue on establishment salaries. Such inefficiencies and operational hurdles leave the municipal bodies in Maharashtra with little left for capital works and public service.

The practical problems are leakages within state government, inflation and delays in clearance of projects with extrapolating the requirement of urbanizing Maharashtra goes beyond calculations.

It’s clear that the municipal bodies are going to decide the fate on the quality of governance by the new state government. The new government has to make sure the revenues for municipal bodies increase and regular upgrades on accounting and management of funds is done.

This all will go long way in monitoring outcomes, attracting corporates and providing aspirational governance to citizens.

( The research data mentioned here is taken from Janaagraha a non-profit organization based in Bangalore.)