Dis n dat

Making fresh efforts to win back the estranged ally, PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari requested PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif to rejoin Pakistan's ruling coalition, but the former premier said it is not possible in the “near future”.

Zardari had apologised to Sharif on Monday itself for hurting his feelings and hinted that certain powers within and outside Pakistan, which had played a role in the ouster of Musharraf, were opposed to the restoration of the deposed judges.

The puppetry continues. And do note that Zardari is accusing the powers that were responsible for Musharraf’s removal for not restoring the judges. Wasn’t it Musharraf who threw out the judges?

I suspect that Nawaz Sharif is going all lawyer love because he knows this will be his trump card, not to be in power but to create problems for Zardari. He joined forces only to get Musharraf out. An effective Opposition is always good, but this will most likely be a disruptive one.

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Barack Hussein Obama, a freshman senator who defeated the first family of Democratic Party politics with a call for a fundamentally new course in politics, was nominated by his party on Wednesday to be the 44th president of the United States.

Huh? I thought it was all decided. These Americans have a really long foreplay. Hillary was out of the running, so what was left? And “first family”? And these fools dance and do high-fives as though they are hearing this for the first time? And why is the Hussein name being reported so prominently? And does not the United States of America feel one bit of shame when it is announced that Obama is the “first African-American to become a major party nominee for president”?

And on what grounds does Bill Clinton declare, “I say to you: Barack Obama is ready to lead America and restore American leadership in the world”? You fight your elections, run your country. Do NOT try to lead the world. Whether your candidate is Black, White, Yellow or Green.

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End note:

I was wrong.

When I wrote supporting the use of Marathi for McDonald’s outlet in Mumbai, it had a narrow and limited reason.

I realise now that it comes with a package that is reprehensible. Raj Thackeray and the rest have been forcing this down people's throats and it does not stop at signboards. They are trying to bulldoze immigrants by targeting hawkers, cable operators and even educational institutions.

This is not on at all.

However, this sign board law exists in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.

The BMC has the power to prosecute shopowners who do not display their shops’ names in Marathi also; they can be hauled to a magistrate’s court and can be fined between Rs 1,000 and Rs 5,000.

Ironically, one of the restaurants targeted by the MNS was Cross Café. Some of you will recall how it had to be renamed. Here is part of what I had written then:

“Have you been to Hitler’s Cross?”

This text message flashed on my cellphone. What surprised me is that it came from Pakistan. What the heck was the big deal? The restaurant was tucked away in Navi Mumbai but it was making waves all across the globe.

I had not thought it important enough till I got that SMS. I would not patronise the eatery only because it is too darned way out for me to travel to. The name, the symbol of the swastika (which incidentally is almost identical to the Hindu symbol, Om – it is reversed) or a poster of Adolf would not have any bearing on my decision.

Fine, the restaurant owners wanted to be gimmicky…so what? Only some half-wit would imagine that people would go there for their Italian muttar-paneer or Punjabi hakka noodles because they were hungry Indian Nazis. Oh come on, we need to get a life.

I understand political correctness, but there are a few real political undercurrents going on here. Browbeating seems to have become the order of the day and our so-called tolerance is showing chinks, more obviously now. The eatery was not a hotspot and yet it resulted in international protests with the Mumbai-based consulates of both Israel and Germany joining in. The owners have now been forced to change the name of the restaurant.

This is ludicrous because no one had protested when Bal Thackeray and Narendra Modi openly expressed their admiration for the Fuhrer’s ideology, which is far more dangerous coming as it does from our leaders.

If this name-changing has to set a precedent, then perhaps the Jewish community might like to approach the Tamil Nadu chief minister’s son Stalin, named after the Russian dictator who too was responsible for the persecution of Jews.

Some of us might like to change the names of places commemorating our own leaders for excesses like the Emergency, riots and complete disregard for law and order.