I believe that it has now become necessary for Universities around the world to have a ‘Shoe Throwing 101′ class for Journalism majors. Recently, a reporter called Jarnail Singh threw his shoe at Indian Home Minister, P. Chidambaram, only to miss his intended target. While reading an article about this incident on the BBC website¹, I came across this gem: “Correspondents say that the minister is the latest in a prominent line of world leaders who have been subjected to a shoe attack - considered an insult in India.”

Yes, as opposed to England, where throwing a shoe at someone is equivalent to saying “Jolly good!”

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Prime Ministerial Candidate, Mr. L.K. Advani, has challenged the current Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, to a debate ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. Dr. Singh had this to say in response, “I am the candidate from the Congress party. Why should I confer the status of an alternative Prime Minister on Advani?”²

So that we can figure out which candidate is bad and which one is worse.

Head of the AIADMK³, Ms. Jayalalitha, when asked about which parties she would align with, said “A good politician never rules out anything”⁴.

And I thought ‘good politician’ was an oxymoron.

Speaking of morons, a self acclaimed ’social worker’ called Anil Nair filed a police complaint against actor Akshay Kumar and his wife Twinkle Khanna following Kumar’s stint at the Lakme Fashion Week. As a part of the act on the ramp, Twinkle Khanna had unbuttoned Kumar’s jeans and Nair felt that this act was obscene and vulgar.⁵

Why are there so many Indian social workers with an inner ‘Muthalik’ in them?

Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi party, while explaining the reason his party had included ‘non-compulsion of English’ in its manifesto, said, “Decades ago, children used to call their mother ‘Amma’, which later changed to just ‘Maa’. However with influence of English increasing in our daily life, today kids prefer calling their mothers as ‘Mum’ or ‘Mom’. What kind of culture we are getting into? It is because of this cultural degeneration that we emphasised not to make English compulsory.”⁶

Thanks for the clarification, Mulayam. Henceforth, I’ll just call you an idiot, in a regional language.

Arjun Singh, a veteran Congress politician, was upset when he found out that his children were denied tickets by the Congress party to contest in the Lok Sabha elections. When he was asked if he was slighted by this move by his party, his response was, “I am not slighted. Slighted is a word that somehow does not appeal to me”⁷.

Slighted doesn’t sound nearly as appealing as nepotism.

Recently, the shooting of a Malayalam movie called ‘Daddy Cool’ was disrupted.⁸

I was disappointed to find out that the movie’s title had nothing to do with it.

To read more ‘India, This Past Fortnight’, click here.

Footnotes:
1 - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7987201.stm
2 - http://www.hindu.com/2009/04/14/stories/2009041458040100.htm
3 - AIADMK is a political party in Tamil Nadu
4 - http://www.hindu.com/2009/04/15/stories/2009041556021300.htm
5 - http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/entertainment/view/420384/1/.html
6 - http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/no-ban-on-english-nothing-compulsory-either-mulayam/446713/
7 - http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/PoliticsNation/Congress-advises-Arjun-Singh-to-read-Gita/articleshow/4427786.cms
8 - http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/009200904202021.htm

Photo Courtesy: Al Jazeera English, Wikipedia

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