Saw the Yashwant Sinha interview on Devil’s Advocate. Karan Thapar brought out the BJP’s inconsistencies on the nuclear deal, the Karnataka fiasco and the Tehelka expose of the Gujarat riots. And YS was trying to explain the same, quite unsatisfactorily at that.
I am irritated at the Indian government’s handling of the entire issue. If the deal falls through, it will be the diplomatic disaster of the decade. When everybody including the Left and BJP knew what was going on (the deal has been in the making since 2005) and are more or less aware of the renegotiated agreement, the current position of both formations borders on the irrational. The Left’s position was expected because America, for it, represents everything wrong with the world – a capitalist country, and a successful one at that, which kicked socialist-communist-marxist-leninist USSR and its proletariat vs. bourgeois ideology in the b***s. But the BJP which calls itself a nationalist party is playing a deadly game of doublespeak. It was the BJP which set the ball rolling as far as close Indo-US relations are concerned, which in turn laid the foundation for the deal. And now it is involved in sour grapes politics.
Manmohan Singh has laid his reputation on the line for the deal. And if the present situation is anything to go by, he might turn out to be the sacrificial lamb. The Congress is notorious when it comes to the reputation of anybody beyond the Gandhi-Nehru family (they simply left Narasimha Rao out to hang).
Henry Kissinger is in town and is meeting the high and the mighty to try to explain the consequences of their actions. I do hope things turn out for the better.
All The Lost Souls is James Blunt’s second album………and it is goooooooood. I got the first one a few months back (Back To Bedlam – will write about it sometime) and liked it. So I decided to pick this one up after hearing the track 1973 on VH1. The album has 10 tracks, and there are no duds in this one. This time around, Blunt has ditched the high pitched singing, and it is apparently for the better since the songs are soft, melodious and easy on the ears.
Among the tracks, my favourites are One Of The Brightest Stars and Carry You Home. Other good ones include 1973, Same Mistake, Give Me Some Love and Annie. A good addition to your collection if you like soft rock.
Aristotle Says: 7.6 / 10
This is a book by Fatherland author Robert Harris. It is a fictional account of espionage and deception happening in Bletchley Park, England during WW2. The protagonist Thomas Jericho is an ace mathematician and cryptographer who has suffered a nervous breakdown immediately after helping break the notorious Shark cipher used by German u-boats. And he has to go back and break it again because the Germans have shut off Bletchley’s only way into the cipher.
What is unique about this book is the fact that the author has used actual message intercepts and woven them neatly into the storyline. The book has been made into a movie of the same name (Enigma (2001) – starring Dougray Scott and Kate Winslet).
Want to know more about Enigma – the cipher machine? Visit Enigma.
This is a great episode centering around ace musician John Henry Giles. He comes into the hospital with one condition. But House wants to diagnose and fix another condition, one which has already been diagnosed, and is being treated by another famous doctor. And in doing so, he ends up in court, facing a charge of assault.
Dr. James Wilson is the one friend House has. And he knows House better than most people; that Giles is a puzzle and nothing more. And he points out this fact to House in the courtroom.
Houseism from the episode – DNR (Season 1, Episode 9).
Kaash is an album by ghazal and playback singer Hariharan. It was released way back in 2000 by the now defunct Magnasound. It is now available through Bayshore Records. The album falls in a genre invented by Hariharan himself (he calls it Urdu Blues).
The album has 8 tracks with Kaash (the title track), Jhoom Le, Hum Ne Ek Shaam, Aandhiyaan and Ab Ke Baras being the best of the lot. It is an excellent album and is definitely worth buying.
Aristotle says : 7.25 / 10
Aristotle The Geek 