flute202020 Posted July 24, 2007 Share Posted July 24, 2007 don't you guys feel we bungled up by not giving kalam another term? A guy who can be a catalyst for a national dialog and inspiration is exactly the right person to be in rashtrapathi bhavan. http://www.hindu.com/2007/07/25/stories/2007072555641400.htm 30,000 answers to Kalam poser Anand Parthasarathy Query on terrorism elicited responses from 15,000 children Bangalore: A.P.J. Abdul Kalam’s last day as President was marked by final proof of the charismatic hold he has on ordinary Indians, especially children. He announced the best answer he received to a question he had posed six months ago on “Yahoo! India Answers,†a service of the Indian edition of the Web portal where any one can ask a question and seek answers from other surfers. The President’s poser was: What should we do to free our planet from terrorism? The answers kept pouring in from concerned Indians for weeks on end... totalling over 30,000 from India and many from countries such as Brazil and Spain, where the question was featured after translation. It was one of the highest responses Yahoo received to the Answers service. A Yahoo team drew up a list of a few dozens, from among the responses. Mr. Kalam went through them in the last few days to select two as providing, in combination, the best solution “based on their thinking and action-oriented suggestions.†The two persons were Sugato Mitra and Karthik Durairajan in that order. Interestingly, the Kalam query elicited responses from over 15,000 children — and he selected the 10 best. Rishi Behal, director, Yahoo India, told The Hindu on Tuesday that the children would be flown to the U.S. for an educa tional tour of the original Silicon Valley in California. Answers came from people of all walks of life and included thoughtful responses from top police official Kiran Bedi, sportsperson Leander Paes and spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. The President was also keen on posing another question to fellow Indians — on fossil fuels. He might ask that question after demitting office... and continue his dialogue with ordinary Indians. The Kalam questions and the answers can be seen at http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gator Posted July 24, 2007 Share Posted July 24, 2007 so what is the winning answer.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Tendulkar Posted July 25, 2007 Share Posted July 25, 2007 Patil being sworn in as president now. 1st female president. Powerless position yes, poodle of ghandi family yes. But good luck to her:regular_smile: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beetle Posted July 25, 2007 Share Posted July 25, 2007 It's a sad day.The first woman president(even though powerless ) and I don't even want to hear her address the nation.This makes women look bad.As if we don't have a better woman around to do the job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Tendulkar Posted July 25, 2007 Share Posted July 25, 2007 A lot of people hate her. What are your reasons radhs? Never really knew her till being talked about as president. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beetle Posted July 25, 2007 Share Posted July 25, 2007 Too many skeletons in her cupboard dsr.....every relative she has seems to have some criminal charge against him.....and the fact that they are all out can only be with the help of the politician in the family. Besides she was the Founder-Chairperson of the Pratibha Mahila Sahakari Bank which gave loans to many of her relatives who are defaulters.One of her brother is accused in murder case and she is accused of protecting him.Her husband also has some alleged criminal case going on. In such a huge country ....these slimeball politician couldn't find on clean woman. Besides ,she is known to talk to the dead. I don't think a country that sees a large %age of it's daughters go missing needs a president who covers her head for whatever reason.She can do whatever and dress however in her free time. She is supposedly an inspiration for the women of India...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beetle Posted July 25, 2007 Share Posted July 25, 2007 And the worst part is that some people just expect us to overlook all this and rejoice in the fact that we have our first woman president.Like there is no one better than her available.I am shocked that even after being the most controversial candidate ever...she won so easily. What makes it worse is that she is taking over from the most popular president ever. The most popular President being replaced by the most controversial...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Tendulkar Posted July 25, 2007 Share Posted July 25, 2007 Kalam was pure class. Top bloke and man. Unfortuatley the new president shows the rewards of constant ar#e licking to the ghandhi clan! And how corruption etc is completley over looked in India. Look at Mayawati. Corrupt and massivley wealthy now due to this abuse of power and yet people still flock to vote for her. Crazy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest dada_rocks Posted July 25, 2007 Share Posted July 25, 2007 See backward caste votes be it obc or dalit is deeply-rooted in its places no leader can effect any shift in that votebank entrenchment.. Now winner and loser will be decided by socalled upper caste votes becaue they remain the only swing vote. Smart politicians have sensed it and playing their cards accordingly. Take for instance UP election (1) Mulayan singh has not lost even a fraciton of percentage of votes since last assembly election but finds himself out of power (2) BJP has lost big chunk of its brahmin votes and it has shifted to mayawati who very smartly has shed his past animosity with this section (3) Congress although was already deep in hole and I thought there was no room for further ebbing of vote share has sruprised everyone by losing few vote share. Fast forward to Bihar (1) Laloojee seeing one after another assembly fall into hands of NDa even after all his nauanki in railway minstry now is applying tricks of MAywati. Recently he has extended olive branch to upper caste by promising (you guessed it) reservation:giggle: first resort of intellectually bankrupt politicians. Same laloojee who used to go around spreading catch-phrase like BHRABAL (Bhumihaar , rajput brahmin lala) saaf karo. So expect some senseless sops for upper caste too in near future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gator Posted July 25, 2007 Share Posted July 25, 2007 so what is the winning answer.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lurker Posted July 25, 2007 Share Posted July 25, 2007 See backward caste votes be it obc or dalit is deeply-rooted in its places no leader can effect any shift in that votebank entrenchment.. Now winner and loser will be decided by socalled upper caste votes becaue they remain the only swing vote. Smart politicians have sensed it and playing their cards accordingly. . Backward or forward, in India the voting system is based strictly on caste-system. As appaling as it sounds it is also true. Everytime there is a Election around the corner just pick the newspaper(and I am talking of national dailies here, not some halka fulka paper) and see how the election predictions go like this XYZ will win from Allahabad. He seems to have a firm grip of 2 lakh Kayastha votes. The Brahmin population is also supposed to go with him. There would be a division of Muslim voters as also backward votes due to candidates being of same background. It pi$$es me off no ends but sadly it is true, specially for Northern part of the country. xxx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest dada_rocks Posted July 25, 2007 Share Posted July 25, 2007 luker i still feel upper caste vote is not monolyth which goes for any party... for example a mayawati can give ticket to walking jombie and still her vote-bank will vote for her picked candidate.. same can't be said about those who rely on upper caset votes.. similarly for laloojee.. his yadav vote bank is not going anywhere it's intact.. same for mulayam.. these people don't lose their vote share might lose some seats but vote share remains intact Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lurker Posted July 26, 2007 Share Posted July 26, 2007 luker i still feel upper caste vote is not monolyth which goes for any party... for example a mayawati can give ticket to walking jombie and still her vote-bank will vote for her picked candidate.. same can't be said about those who rely on upper caset votes.. Well the reason for that is rather simple DR. The upper caste has been at the forefront of power. So there is rivalry going on all the time. If you take the example of Bihar you obviously know how Brahmins, Bhumihars, Rajputs, Kayasths etc. have taken turn at the leadership(circa 1980 and before). It was almost like Bhumihar would never support Rajput candidate lest he becomes the CM and then starts helping his own little community. Post 1980, specifically 1990 and thereabouts, has been this sea-change where "backward" caste came to power. At first the backward caste voted enmasse for someone like Mulayam or Lalloo. But then they have followed the same track and now you can see Yadavs making one vote banks, Koeris another, Kurmis another and so on. Today Laloo Yadav can only dream of Kurmi support, and Nitish Kumar would also get the same affection, or lack thereof, from Yadavs. xxx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lurker Posted July 26, 2007 Share Posted July 26, 2007 Back to the topic, it is heart warming to hear that Kalaam started on work the very next day after ending his term as President. And he has also asked the journalists to point to him as a "Professor" and not "ex-President". It is hard not to get greatly impressed by the man. Not only did he not get caught up in the world of power but also is energetic and determined enough to inspire people half, or quarter his age. How many senior Politician, Bureacrats, technocrats do you see take up teaching(or any other job) at such a latter stage of their life? If a senior Administrator(say Vice Chancellor) retires he would buy a house and play with his kids/grandkids. Rarely, if at all, would be take up teaching. And Kalaam has undertaken 4 such initiative, including one at the Nalanda University. We sure can all learn from him, and maybe in a moment of shame/embarassment one of these days we are gonna kick off that stooge who sits as President of India currently. xx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gator Posted July 26, 2007 Share Posted July 26, 2007 it is sad, tht he is not interested in politics.... i feel, he could be a little more selfless and contested somewhere... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fineleg Posted July 27, 2007 Share Posted July 27, 2007 it is sad' date=' tht he is not interested in politics.... i feel, he could be a little more selfless and contested somewhere...[/quote'] Gator, Thats what makes him great...he will not get into "shoddy" politics. In anycase, we were privileged he was a President - Hats off Dr. Kalam. Now super slim shady patel is president - Yuck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flute202020 Posted July 27, 2007 Author Share Posted July 27, 2007 Gator, Thats what makes him great...he will not get into "shoddy" politics. In anycase, we were privileged he was a President - Hats off Dr. Kalam. Now super slim shady patel is president - Yuck! fineleg, well what makes politics shoddy are the characters involved in them. people with clean history and good character should not shun politics because it is shoddy. we have this great tendency in India where a guy who is honest tends to resign at the slighest pretext to protect his reputation like the kerala's anthony. It should be the other way around , good people with good intentions should stay and kick out shady characters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
feverpitch Posted July 27, 2007 Share Posted July 27, 2007 What's so special about Kalam. He is a technocrat and a nook-scientist. Got elected due to his nook connexions and his religion, by a fundie party. Did OK during his reign. bas... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flute202020 Posted July 27, 2007 Author Share Posted July 27, 2007 What's so special about Kalam. He is a technocrat and a nook-scientist. Got elected due to his nook connexions and his religion' date=' by a fundie party. Did OK during his reign. bas...[/quote'] well Kalam was sure elected for wrong reasons but his presidency was really great. he brought certain vision and hope to indian youth. As for what did he do and your other questions, well, if we want to dumb down, we can say the same about anyone isn't it? for example, ganguly was brought in as a quota candidate, he was a good ODI player but a avg test player, had some onfield and offfield transgressions, did OK as captain, what's so special? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
feverpitch Posted July 27, 2007 Share Posted July 27, 2007 well Kalam was sure elected for wrong reasons but his presidency was really great. he brought certain vision and hope to indian youth. As for what did he do and your other questions, well, if we want to dumb down, we can say the same about anyone isn't it? for example, ganguly was brought in as a quota candidate, he was a good ODI player but a avg test player, had some onfield and offfield transgressions, did OK as captain, what's so special? hehe... still can't get over the ignominy of guru's exit, eh, flute? and yes, i do agree, we can say the same about any presidents of india, bar the first few. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts