I am looking over the terms of my company’s medical insurance policy and there is an exclusion for venereal diseases. This seems to be standard for all providers. Any idea why? Of course, this is “self-inflicted” in the sense that you choose to have the risky sex that causes this, but then, there is no lung cancer exclusion for smokers. Is it a moral issue or is there some other reason I am missing?
How Corrupt is the Government? How Deep is the Ocean?
I am astonished to find that Amit Varma has a less cynical view of government than I have, at least going by this post.
See, the thing is, in a corrupt Indian government organization (pardon my redundancy) there are no half measures. It is not like only Jothikumaran was corrupt. Usually, the entire organization, right from the chaprasi level to the very top, has a stake in the corruption. It is usually an open secret as to how much one has to pay whom for what. So, it is not like the organizers of the sting operation would have any reason to doubt whether Jothikumaran was corrupt or not. It would be just a case of finding the evidence. Of course, there are many ethical issues in investigative journalism and there are more when sting operations are involved, but the possibility that the person being stung is actually honest ought not to be one of them.[1]
In Which I Avoid a Trap Set By Nilu
Nilu says that I do not address a certain argument in favour of government schools. The argument has something to do with poor people having the vote. If that is supposed to mean that the poor can vote themselves better schools, Nilu should know that it is nonsense. One vote every five years is simply inadequate as an attention-getting tactic, when citizens have a hundred issues on which to draw their rulers’ attention. Presumably Nilu does know that, so he modifies the argument with something else that is still nonsensical.
These Turkish Are Crazy
Via my cousin-in-law’s twitter feed, I came across an awesome story of misunderstanding, stupidity, revenge and true love made possible only by the magic of technology.
Update: A helpful comment on the above story tells me that the innocent word in question “s?k???nca” literally means “in a squeeze”. The word reminds me of the Hindi word “shikhanja” which has a similar meaning. It is entirely possible that Hindi borrowed the word from Turkish. In that case, our failure to borrow the other word represents a huge missed opportunity to tackle our population problem.
The Real Lesson of Kendriya Vidyalayas
A couple of years back, at a blog meet, I was having a discussion with Anand, who used to blog at locana. He was trying to defend government schools. His defence went: “Not all government schools are bad. I went to one myself. Ok, it was a government school at a campus that was filled with professors, but still…”
I sputtered a bit but never got a chance to complete my response in the din of the meet. This post at Nanopolitan reminded me of that conversation. This is as good a time as any for a response, I suppose.
People argue that private schools will serve only the rich and never provide the same quality to the poor. When faced with evidence that government schools also provide good quality only to the rich and neglect to serve the poor, their views undergo a fascinating inversion. The success of private schools for the rich is evidence that they will serve only the rich. The success of government schools for the rich is evidence that hope is on the way for the poor.
Help Needed
Where does the disclaimer to this divine post by the Jagadguru end?
What’s New in Karnataka
About the elections in Karnataka, Neel asks: “Once again. So whats new? Nothing much.”
Ah, but there is something new this time. Over 30 years back, a constitutional amendment had frozen the map of India’s parliamentary and legislative constituencies to reflect the India of 1971. The moratorium has now ended, and the picture has moved forward to reflect the India of 2001, an India that is much more urban than it was in 1971. I have reflected briefly on what urbanization means for India’s politics in the January 2008 Pragati
Karnataka is the first state to go to the polls after the delimitation. Of course, both voters and politicians will take time to adjust to the new situation, but if I am right, this will be the beginning of one of the most significant changes in India’s politics, rivalling the change brought about by VP Singh in 1991.
Unnecessary Redundancy
Fark.com, that indespensible source of news, has brought to my attention the troubling case of Nancy Kissel , an American resident of Hong Kong who murdered her husband. She first laced her husband’s milkshake with sedatives and then bludgeoned him to death with a lead ornament.
This modus operandi upsets my aesthetic sense. One should either poison one’s husband and make a clean killing or one should bash him up and see him die in pain. This innovation achieved neither purpose. I hope it does not become a trend.
Betrayed Trust of India
UTI Mutual Fund is running an ad campaign where it is claiming credit for the education of Indian investors. I am glad to see UTI being man enough and owning up responsibility for the abysmal financial knowledge of the average Indian investor. I suppose they think that five years is enough for investors to forget the saga of US-64 and the time when they used to get their agents to “promise” guaranteed returns on mutual funds.
To Be Fair to Gults
My previous post has elicited angry accusations of stereotyping. I accept the accusation. On the controversial issue of whether Triple-X is an appropriate name for a family restaurant, I too need to concede defeat, for it turns out that there is a Triple X Family restaurant in Indiana.
These Gults are Crazy
Some genius has introduced a detergent branded Triple-X in the local market. I keep hearing ads for it on FM, invariably in Telugu. I have not been able to divine if this is an elaborate spoof.
If This is Wrong, I Don’t Want to be Right -II
Someone in the Obama campaign had to quit because she called her neighbour’s children who had climbed up a tree “monkeys”.