Live: TOI Hangout with Anushka Sharma

The author has posted comments on this articleTNN | Mar 12, 2015, 05.06AM IST

Page 1 of 4

WATCH THE VIDEO OF THE HANGOUT WITH ANUSHKA SHARMA - AS IT HAPPENED

Anushka Sharma's suspense-thriller, NH10 is all set to hit screens on March 13, 2015. The film is a gripping tale of Meera (Anushka Sharma) and Arjun (Neil Bhoopalam) who sign up for a road trip but end up battered and bruised.

When Meera walks out of a party late one night, she is attacked by a group of unknown men. Although she escapes, the encounter leaves her traumatised. Arjun, partly blaming himself for not being there that night, tries to make up for it by treating her to a luxurious desert holiday. As they stop on a highway dhaba for dinner, they witness a young girl being picked up by a bunch of hoodlums. Arjun chooses to step in, unaware of the danger ahead.

Not the one to shy away from action sequences, Anushka has herself performed the stunts for the film. The gutsy actress, who has also co-produced NH10, was a part of the Google hangout with TOI.com.

Article continues

Stay updated on the go with Times of India News App. Click here to download it for your device.

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In pics: Kejriwal's detox at Bangalore

/kejriwals-detox-at-bangalore/eventshow/46564475.cms

01

Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal has to change his food habits and practice yogic treatment even amidst the political crisis he is expected to dive into from Monday night when he lands in the national capital. (ANI photo) 

Kejriwal's detox at Bangalore

/kejriwals-detox-at-bangalore/eventshow/46564508.cms

02

Delhi CM Arvind Kejrwal's 'Naturopathy' treatment underway in Bangalore. (ANI photo) 

Kejriwal's detox at Bangalore

/kejriwals-detox-at-bangalore/eventshow/46564506.cms

03

His cough has been completely cured and his diabetes is under control, said doctors in Jindal Naturecure Institute in Bengaluru.(ANI photo) 

Kejriwal's detox at Bangalore

/kejriwals-detox-at-bangalore/eventshow/46564501.cms

04

At the institute, Kejriwal has undergone hydrotherapy, mud therapy, nature cure and massages and packs in combination with yoga and dietary regulations. (ANI photo) 

Kejriwal's detox at Bangalore

/kejriwals-detox-at-bangalore/eventshow/46564499.cms

05

Kejriwal at the Jindal Naturecure Institute in Bengaluru. (ANI photo) 

Kejriwal's detox at Bangalore

/kejriwals-detox-at-bangalore/eventshow/46564485.cms

06

Kejriwal's chronic cough has been treated along with detoxification of his body and addressing the diabetes. (ANI photo) 

Kejriwal's detox at Bangalore

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Blog: The globality of Hinduism

One of the attempted follies of our times is the conflation of Hinduism, essentially an eclectic way of life, into a codified belief system that seeks to mirror the major faiths it has interacted with; for instance, Islam and Christianity. Indeed, since the May 2014 electoral thrashing of Congress by the self-professed Hindutva party, BJP, this gross and distorted projection of Hinduism by fringe groups has grown.

Fortunately, the cultural mainstream that voted BJP to power with its first clear majority understands what is happening. For, the Upanishadic ethic that informs our poetry and philosophies is deeply ingrained in 'layers upon layers' of the proverbial Hindu consciousness.

A good Hindu, by the limited definition of the fringe, must shun 'alien' influences – whether of language, dress or events identified with the Western world, including a certain date in the Gregorian calendar identified with going on dates. This definition is then disingenuously sought to be extended into private spheres and personal freedoms.

Such a worldview seeks to put the Hindu creative brilliance in jail as it were, a central prison that attempts to shape Hindu uniformity to assume the uniformity of the other, to prove its ultimate superiority by beating 'rival' faiths at their own game.

The political class that is the fountainhead of this vocal fringe – just as it is at the helm of the cultural mainstream – must stop to reflect why such a constricted world view will not find expansion of space, and sooner rather than later prove self-defeating. And if the political class pauses long enough, it will find a certain subtlety – the Hindu's famed capacity to draw in and hold on to soft distinctions that carry multitudes in harmony – and civilisational creativity are far more
definitive markers of India, that is Bharat, than any attempts to redefine it.

The Hindu concerns himself with questions far subtler than the manner of his dressing, his language, his eating preferences – he knows relishing kebabs doesn't make him some sort of a Hindu kafir.

He doesn't or wouldn't shun say the English language to think only in Hindi, but would be deeply interested in learning Sanskrit to read the Upanishads and absorb from the source. Just as he would be wanting to learn French or Latin to collect and assimilate other wisdoms from their sources. Hinduism absorbs from multiple sources; in its search for verities, it stops at nothing. As S Radhakrishnan said, what is built forever is forever building.

Pushed to its logical extreme, as Arvind Sharma writes, a Hindu can claim that one is most a Hindu when least a Hindu. That is to say, one is most a Hindu when one has dissolved one's Hindu particularity into Hinduism's all-embracing inclusiveness and universality.

For such a Hindu, everything goes but not everybody arrives – all gods can be worshipped but god-consciousness – the realisation of impersonal energy as the source of creation – isn't for those who can't or don't outgrow the infantilism of their minds. For such a Hindu, existence is akshara or indestructible, just as existence is soul.

The Hindu's quest is what Svetaketu asks in the Chandogya Upanishad: What is immortal in this mortal world? What is that by knowing which one can know everything? Kasmin vigyaate sarvamidam vigyatam bhavateeti. The answers to this cannot be explained in words as the realisation is beyond definition, it can only be experienced.

And what's for experiencing is the state of Turiya which is consciousness of pure, primordial energy, unrepresented by human imagination that sometimes so bitterly divides humanity. That energy is what creates us, and that energy is what one dissolves in. Those who know one as the self become the self, say the Upanishads, and the Universe is its witness.

As a philosophy Hinduism even encompasses the atheism of Chaarvak, another name of Acharya Brihaspati – not to be mistaken for the guru of the devas, but another profound teacher.
According to his view – which is possibly the first of all materialist philosophies – consciousness too is part of matter, and it's the collision or fusion of matter in the right proportion that gives rise to
super-consciousness. It proffers that creation of the world is an outcome of certain cosmic events and that there's no purpose behind creation.

In fact Kapil Muni, whom Lord Krishna refers to in the Bhagwad Gita, expounds through Sankhya that the two forces, purush and prakruti, being their own guides, do not require any external intelligence or energy to give them direction; they behave as self-fulfilling prophecies.

Over centuries, Semitic themes and traditions have become our touchstones, our stock-in-trade. God-giving-religion-to-humankind has become a cultural universal. Indian traditions absorb all these and more, and for a direct experience of such assimilative processes, all one has to do is experience the Kumbh. This great tradition reveals best, Hinduism's containing contradictions and carrying multitudes.

Hinduism is grand unification of knowledge, which is fundamentally
beyond logic or any configuration of god; it can't be defined if it can't be given a form; and, therefore, Vivekananda said that he is a voice without a form, which made him describe the Upanishads as Vedanta, which is the end of knowledge itself, leaving one only with stirrings of an awareness of what needs to be done with that knowledge: to serve humanity as one's larger self.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

08.20 | 0 komentar | Read More

Prime Ministers in court crosshairs

1.

Indira Gandhi: First indian PM to appear before court

Indira Gandhi appeared before Allahabad HC on a petition filed by socialist leader Raj Narain (who in 1977 would defeat her from the same seat) alleging Indira misused official machinery during her election campaign Allahabad HC on June 12, 1975, struck down her election to LS from Rae Bareli on grounds of electoral malpractices.

The court order declared her election to LS void and also ruled she couldn't contest any election for next 6 years. Since a PM cannot continue in office beyond six months without being elected to either House, this effectively meant Indira would have to step down. She appealed against the order in Supreme Court, which stayed the order.

SC said she could be part of parliamentary proceedings but not vote. Emergency was declared within two weeks of the HC order During trial, Indira was in the witness box for five hours on March 18, 1975, 90 minutes next day Petitioner's counsel who cross-examined her was Shanti Bhushan.

2.

Rajiv Gandhi: Accused eight years after assassination

In October 1999, the CBI filed the first chargesheet in the Bofors case.

CBI named Rajiv Gandhi as one among several people who had a role in the scandal, but his name was put in column two. This meant there would be no trial against him, since he was no more. The case pertained to allegation that the Swedish arms manufacturer had bribed Indians in high office through middlemen to secure a contract for its howitzer field guns.

3.

Charges against Narasimha Rao

P V Narasimha Rao, whose tenure as PM will be better known for ushering in economic reforms and for the demolition of Babri Masjid, faced several judicial hurdles once he ceased to be PM in 1996 JMM Bribery Case. Most serious of cases was when a special court convicted him in 2000, along with Cabinet colleague Buta Singh, for conspiring to bribe MPs from JMM, among others, to vote for his government in a no-confidence motion in 1993.

Duo sentenced to three years' RI; fine of Rs1 lakh Delhi HC subsequently struck down trial court's verdict, acquitting Rao and Singh Lakhubai Pathak Cheating Case UK-based `pickle king'. Pathak accused Rao of having promised - in a New York hotel in 1983 - to ensure he would get a contract for supply of paper pulp and newsprint in India in return for payoffs to Rao, godman Chandraswami and his associated Mamaji. Alleged that while Chandraswami was paid $100,000, Rao did not keep his end of the bargain Original complaint filed in 1987 named only Chandraswami as accused. In July 1996 Pathak named Rao too as accused Chief metropolitan magistrate concluded there was enough evidence to proceed against Rao. Delhi HC upheld the view Supreme Court shifted the case to another court on Rao's petition Charges were framed against him.

In December 2003, over six years after Pathak's death, Rao, Chandraswami and Mamaji acquitted St Kitts Forgery Rao chargesheeted in September 1996 by CBI in St Kitts case in which documents were allegedly forged to make it appear as if former PM V P Singh and his son Ajeya Singh had an account in a bank in the Caribbean island Trial court discharged Rao in June 1997, saying there was no evidence of his involvement in the frame-up.

08.20 | 0 komentar | Read More

Blog: The globality of Hinduism

One of the attempted follies of our times is the conflation of Hinduism, essentially an eclectic way of life, into a codified belief system that seeks to mirror the major faiths it has interacted with; for instance, Islam and Christianity. Indeed, since the May 2014 electoral thrashing of Congress by the self-professed Hindutva party, BJP, this gross and distorted projection of Hinduism by fringe groups has grown.

Fortunately, the cultural mainstream that voted BJP to power with its first clear majority understands what is happening. For, the Upanishadic ethic that informs our poetry and philosophies is deeply ingrained in 'layers upon layers' of the proverbial Hindu consciousness.

A good Hindu, by the limited definition of the fringe, must shun 'alien' influences – whether of language, dress or events identified with the Western world, including a certain date in the Gregorian calendar identified with going on dates. This definition is then disingenuously sought to be extended into private spheres and personal freedoms.

Such a worldview seeks to put the Hindu creative brilliance in jail as it were, a central prison that attempts to shape Hindu uniformity to assume the uniformity of the other, to prove its ultimate superiority by beating 'rival' faiths at their own game.

The political class that is the fountainhead of this vocal fringe – just as it is at the helm of the cultural mainstream – must stop to reflect why such a constricted world view will not find expansion of space, and sooner rather than later prove self-defeating. And if the political class pauses long enough, it will find a certain subtlety – the Hindu's famed capacity to draw in and hold on to soft distinctions that carry multitudes in harmony – and civilisational creativity are far more
definitive markers of India, that is Bharat, than any attempts to redefine it.

The Hindu concerns himself with questions far subtler than the manner of his dressing, his language, his eating preferences – he knows relishing kebabs doesn't make him some sort of a Hindu kafir.

He doesn't or wouldn't shun say the English language to think only in Hindi, but would be deeply interested in learning Sanskrit to read the Upanishads and absorb from the source. Just as he would be wanting to learn French or Latin to collect and assimilate other wisdoms from their sources. Hinduism absorbs from multiple sources; in its search for verities, it stops at nothing. As S Radhakrishnan said, what is built forever is forever building.

Pushed to its logical extreme, as Arvind Sharma writes, a Hindu can claim that one is most a Hindu when least a Hindu. That is to say, one is most a Hindu when one has dissolved one's Hindu particularity into Hinduism's all-embracing inclusiveness and universality.

For such a Hindu, everything goes but not everybody arrives – all gods can be worshipped but god-consciousness – the realisation of impersonal energy as the source of creation – isn't for those who can't or don't outgrow the infantilism of their minds. For such a Hindu, existence is akshara or indestructible, just as existence is soul.

The Hindu's quest is what Svetaketu asks in the Chandogya Upanishad: What is immortal in this mortal world? What is that by knowing which one can know everything? Kasmin vigyaate sarvamidam vigyatam bhavateeti. The answers to this cannot be explained in words as the realisation is beyond definition, it can only be experienced.

And what's for experiencing is the state of Turiya which is consciousness of pure, primordial energy, unrepresented by human imagination that sometimes so bitterly divides humanity. That energy is what creates us, and that energy is what one dissolves in. Those who know one as the self become the self, say the Upanishads, and the Universe is its witness.

As a philosophy Hinduism even encompasses the atheism of Chaarvak, another name of Acharya Brihaspati – not to be mistaken for the guru of the devas, but another profound teacher.
According to his view – which is possibly the first of all materialist philosophies – consciousness too is part of matter, and it's the collision or fusion of matter in the right proportion that gives rise to
super-consciousness. It proffers that creation of the world is an outcome of certain cosmic events and that there's no purpose behind creation.

In fact Kapil Muni, whom Lord Krishna refers to in the Bhagwad Gita, expounds through Sankhya that the two forces, purush and prakruti, being their own guides, do not require any external intelligence or energy to give them direction; they behave as self-fulfilling prophecies.

Over centuries, Semitic themes and traditions have become our touchstones, our stock-in-trade. God-giving-religion-to-humankind has become a cultural universal. Indian traditions absorb all these and more, and for a direct experience of such assimilative processes, all one has to do is experience the Kumbh. This great tradition reveals best, Hinduism's containing contradictions and carrying multitudes.

Hinduism is grand unification of knowledge, which is fundamentally
beyond logic or any configuration of god; it can't be defined if it can't be given a form; and, therefore, Vivekananda said that he is a voice without a form, which made him describe the Upanishads as Vedanta, which is the end of knowledge itself, leaving one only with stirrings of an awareness of what needs to be done with that knowledge: to serve humanity as one's larger self.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

08.20 | 0 komentar | Read More

Prime Ministers in court crosshairs

1.

Indira Gandhi: First indian PM to appear before court

Indira Gandhi appeared before Allahabad HC on a petition filed by socialist leader Raj Narain (who in 1977 would defeat her from the same seat) alleging Indira misused official machinery during her election campaign Allahabad HC on June 12, 1975, struck down her election to LS from Rae Bareli on grounds of electoral malpractices.

The court order declared her election to LS void and also ruled she couldn't contest any election for next 6 years. Since a PM cannot continue in office beyond six months without being elected to either House, this effectively meant Indira would have to step down. She appealed against the order in Supreme Court, which stayed the order.

SC said she could be part of parliamentary proceedings but not vote. Emergency was declared within two weeks of the HC order During trial, Indira was in the witness box for five hours on March 18, 1975, 90 minutes next day Petitioner's counsel who cross-examined her was Shanti Bhushan.

2.

Rajiv Gandhi: Accused eight years after assassination

In October 1999, the CBI filed the first chargesheet in the Bofors case.

CBI named Rajiv Gandhi as one among several people who had a role in the scandal, but his name was put in column two. This meant there would be no trial against him, since he was no more. The case pertained to allegation that the Swedish arms manufacturer had bribed Indians in high office through middlemen to secure a contract for its howitzer field guns.

3.

Charges against Narasimha Rao

P V Narasimha Rao, whose tenure as PM will be better known for ushering in economic reforms and for the demolition of Babri Masjid, faced several judicial hurdles once he ceased to be PM in 1996 JMM Bribery Case. Most serious of cases was when a special court convicted him in 2000, along with Cabinet colleague Buta Singh, for conspiring to bribe MPs from JMM, among others, to vote for his government in a no-confidence motion in 1993.

Duo sentenced to three years' RI; fine of Rs1 lakh Delhi HC subsequently struck down trial court's verdict, acquitting Rao and Singh Lakhubai Pathak Cheating Case UK-based `pickle king'. Pathak accused Rao of having promised - in a New York hotel in 1983 - to ensure he would get a contract for supply of paper pulp and newsprint in India in return for payoffs to Rao, godman Chandraswami and his associated Mamaji. Alleged that while Chandraswami was paid $100,000, Rao did not keep his end of the bargain Original complaint filed in 1987 named only Chandraswami as accused. In July 1996 Pathak named Rao too as accused Chief metropolitan magistrate concluded there was enough evidence to proceed against Rao. Delhi HC upheld the view Supreme Court shifted the case to another court on Rao's petition Charges were framed against him.

In December 2003, over six years after Pathak's death, Rao, Chandraswami and Mamaji acquitted St Kitts Forgery Rao chargesheeted in September 1996 by CBI in St Kitts case in which documents were allegedly forged to make it appear as if former PM V P Singh and his son Ajeya Singh had an account in a bank in the Caribbean island Trial court discharged Rao in June 1997, saying there was no evidence of his involvement in the frame-up.

08.20 | 0 komentar | Read More

Live: TOI Hangout with Anushka Sharma

The author has posted comments on this articleTNN | Mar 12, 2015, 05.06AM IST

Page 1 of 4

WATCH THE VIDEO OF THE HANGOUT WITH ANUSHKA SHARMA - AS IT HAPPENED

Anushka Sharma's suspense-thriller, NH10 is all set to hit screens on March 13, 2015. The film is a gripping tale of Meera (Anushka Sharma) and Arjun (Neil Bhoopalam) who sign up for a road trip but end up battered and bruised.

When Meera walks out of a party late one night, she is attacked by a group of unknown men. Although she escapes, the encounter leaves her traumatised. Arjun, partly blaming himself for not being there that night, tries to make up for it by treating her to a luxurious desert holiday. As they stop on a highway dhaba for dinner, they witness a young girl being picked up by a bunch of hoodlums. Arjun chooses to step in, unaware of the danger ahead.

Not the one to shy away from action sequences, Anushka has herself performed the stunts for the film. The gutsy actress, who has also co-produced NH10, was a part of the Google hangout with TOI.com.

Article continues

Stay updated on the go with Times of India News App. Click here to download it for your device.

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Blog: Wanted — A new Hindu party

Let's be frank: India needs a new Hindu political party. Liberals will think that's bad news. 'Hindu' extremists will think that's good news. Actually, it's the opposite: good news for liberals, bad news for 'Hindu' extremists. Here's why.

BJP, now that it governs India, believes that it articulates the 'Hindu' voice with greater authority than ever before. That it doesn't is becoming increasingly obvious.

Most of Bharatiya Janata Party seems unable or unwilling to accept that much of the Bharatiya janata – 80%-plus of it Hindu – wants a happy plurality of personal, cultural and lifestyle choices. And this political constituency wants a party that understands this.

Hindus who voted for Narendra Modi in 2014 didn't do so because they wanted school syllabi to be 'Hinduised' or Gita to be given the status of a rigid and exclusionary religious text. Nor did they want some silly notions of 'Hindu' dress code – kurta/pajama/dhoti/vermillion for men and sari/sindoor for women – to be foisted on them, or proscriptions on what they can eat or drink and who they should love or marry.

What it means to be a Hindu is this: it's up to you. A Hindu way of life, if there's such a thing, revels in inclusiveness, in polychromatic diversity unencumbered by imagined or imposed boundaries. Its true marker is inner spirituality, not morality dictated from outside. Unsurprisingly, there's little evidence that India's Hindus are aching for a bunch of guys to tell them what it means to be 'Hindu'.

Pundits will say this in many complicated ways. But take a simple yet powerful example from Indian life that illustrates how un-Hindu India's supposedly Hindu party is. If an Indian Hindu likes, say, Italian cuisine, American films, English novels, Sufi hip hop music, and has a partner who isn't Hindu or Indian – is he or she not a true Hindu? Says who? To countless Indians born Hindu, eclectic preferences come naturally.

That holds true up and down the social-income scale. Poorer Hindus are no more massed flag-bearers of some restrictive, regressive notion of Hindu-ness than their more prosperous counterparts are. Everyone who can afford cheap denim likes to wear it. Everyone who can buy a cheap smartphone accesses a world of choices that are far from 'traditional'. Everyone lucky enough to get affordable, functional English language education grabs the opportunity.

Hindus are like this only. They don't really take well to what pundits call cultural nationalism. They are, to borrow a term from technology, an open source people. Ideas from everywhere cross-fertilize in their minds.

BJP, in contrast, appears to be a closed system. It claims its proprietary software – 'Hindu' nationalism – is what Hindus need. But that software doesn't fit into Hindus' operating system, their way of life. 'Hindu' nationalists think power yoga is a Western perversion. Many Hindus think it's cool. Just as they think indigenization of Western ideas is cool.

So, either BJP reinvents itself or Hindus could get themselves a new party that offers something other than stentorian and shallow sermonizing on religious and nationalist dos and don'ts. Such a party, offering choice, would welcome even a born-Hindu turned atheist.

Can Modi take BJP away from 'Hindu' nationalism towards liberal Hinduism? On that question, skepticism is in order. Yet, here's a man who achieved an electoral landslide with a passionately articulated promise of material betterment, not cultural nationalism.

If Modi can't – or won't – do it, someone else will. That's the dynamics of politics. There's a demand for a different kind of party for Hindus, and it appears strong enough for supply to emerge.

That's how AAP was born. As a political organization, AAP still has plenty wrong with it. But there's no denying it rose by tapping into a strong enough wish for a political formation that was for the growing urban underclass. A new liberal Hindu party may emerge in a similar fashion, squeezing out the old 'Hindu' party.

A question remains that liberals might ask. Why want a new Hindu party to supplant BJP or BJP to morph into a new Hindu party, instead of calling for a completely new and therefore 'truly' liberal party?

That question presupposes that political outfits that speak for particular social groups are necessarily illiberal. That's intellectually lazy liberalism. Christian Democrats evolved as sensible, socially liberal political actors in much of continental Europe. No one accuses them of religious extremism or theocratic fantasies. The same can't be said of some of America's Bible Belt Christian Conservatives.

In fast-globalizing aspirational India, a new Hindu outfit could go even further than Europe's Christian Democrats. Being truly open-minded, it could outmaneuver fanatics in whose lexicon change is a dirty word.

That, as we said, would be good news for liberals and bad news for extremists.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

08.20 | 0 komentar | Read More

Blog: The globality of Hinduism

One of the attempted follies of our times is the conflation of Hinduism, essentially an eclectic way of life, into a codified belief system that seeks to mirror the major faiths it has interacted with; for instance, Islam and Christianity. Indeed, since the May 2014 electoral thrashing of Congress by the self-professed Hindutva party, BJP, this gross and distorted projection of Hinduism by fringe groups has grown.

Fortunately, the cultural mainstream that voted BJP to power with its first clear majority understands what is happening. For, the Upanishadic ethic that informs our poetry and philosophies is deeply ingrained in 'layers upon layers' of the proverbial Hindu consciousness.

A good Hindu, by the limited definition of the fringe, must shun 'alien' influences – whether of language, dress or events identified with the Western world, including a certain date in the Gregorian calendar identified with going on dates. This definition is then disingenuously sought to be extended into private spheres and personal freedoms.

Such a worldview seeks to put the Hindu creative brilliance in jail as it were, a central prison that attempts to shape Hindu uniformity to assume the uniformity of the other, to prove its ultimate superiority by beating 'rival' faiths at their own game.

The political class that is the fountainhead of this vocal fringe – just as it is at the helm of the cultural mainstream – must stop to reflect why such a constricted world view will not find expansion of space, and sooner rather than later prove self-defeating. And if the political class pauses long enough, it will find a certain subtlety – the Hindu's famed capacity to draw in and hold on to soft distinctions that carry multitudes in harmony – and civilisational creativity are far more
definitive markers of India, that is Bharat, than any attempts to redefine it.

The Hindu concerns himself with questions far subtler than the manner of his dressing, his language, his eating preferences – he knows relishing kebabs doesn't make him some sort of a Hindu kafir.

He doesn't or wouldn't shun say the English language to think only in Hindi, but would be deeply interested in learning Sanskrit to read the Upanishads and absorb from the source. Just as he would be wanting to learn French or Latin to collect and assimilate other wisdoms from their sources. Hinduism absorbs from multiple sources; in its search for verities, it stops at nothing. As S Radhakrishnan said, what is built forever is forever building.

Pushed to its logical extreme, as Arvind Sharma writes, a Hindu can claim that one is most a Hindu when least a Hindu. That is to say, one is most a Hindu when one has dissolved one's Hindu particularity into Hinduism's all-embracing inclusiveness and universality.

For such a Hindu, everything goes but not everybody arrives – all gods can be worshipped but god-consciousness – the realisation of impersonal energy as the source of creation – isn't for those who can't or don't outgrow the infantilism of their minds. For such a Hindu, existence is akshara or indestructible, just as existence is soul.

The Hindu's quest is what Svetaketu asks in the Chandogya Upanishad: What is immortal in this mortal world? What is that by knowing which one can know everything? Kasmin vigyaate sarvamidam vigyatam bhavateeti. The answers to this cannot be explained in words as the realisation is beyond definition, it can only be experienced.

And what's for experiencing is the state of Turiya which is consciousness of pure, primordial energy, unrepresented by human imagination that sometimes so bitterly divides humanity. That energy is what creates us, and that energy is what one dissolves in. Those who know one as the self become the self, say the Upanishads, and the Universe is its witness.

As a philosophy Hinduism even encompasses the atheism of Chaarvak, another name of Acharya Brihaspati – not to be mistaken for the guru of the devas, but another profound teacher.
According to his view – which is possibly the first of all materialist philosophies – consciousness too is part of matter, and it's the collision or fusion of matter in the right proportion that gives rise to
super-consciousness. It proffers that creation of the world is an outcome of certain cosmic events and that there's no purpose behind creation.

In fact Kapil Muni, whom Lord Krishna refers to in the Bhagwad Gita, expounds through Sankhya that the two forces, purush and prakruti, being their own guides, do not require any external intelligence or energy to give them direction; they behave as self-fulfilling prophecies.

Over centuries, Semitic themes and traditions have become our touchstones, our stock-in-trade. God-giving-religion-to-humankind has become a cultural universal. Indian traditions absorb all these and more, and for a direct experience of such assimilative processes, all one has to do is experience the Kumbh. This great tradition reveals best, Hinduism's containing contradictions and carrying multitudes.

Hinduism is grand unification of knowledge, which is fundamentally
beyond logic or any configuration of god; it can't be defined if it can't be given a form; and, therefore, Vivekananda said that he is a voice without a form, which made him describe the Upanishads as Vedanta, which is the end of knowledge itself, leaving one only with stirrings of an awareness of what needs to be done with that knowledge: to serve humanity as one's larger self.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

08.20 | 0 komentar | Read More

Prime Ministers in court crosshairs

1.

Indira Gandhi: First indian PM to appear before court

Indira Gandhi appeared before Allahabad HC on a petition filed by socialist leader Raj Narain (who in 1977 would defeat her from the same seat) alleging Indira misused official machinery during her election campaign Allahabad HC on June 12, 1975, struck down her election to LS from Rae Bareli on grounds of electoral malpractices.

The court order declared her election to LS void and also ruled she couldn't contest any election for next 6 years. Since a PM cannot continue in office beyond six months without being elected to either House, this effectively meant Indira would have to step down. She appealed against the order in Supreme Court, which stayed the order.

SC said she could be part of parliamentary proceedings but not vote. Emergency was declared within two weeks of the HC order During trial, Indira was in the witness box for five hours on March 18, 1975, 90 minutes next day Petitioner's counsel who cross-examined her was Shanti Bhushan.

2.

Rajiv Gandhi: Accused eight years after assassination

In October 1999, the CBI filed the first chargesheet in the Bofors case.

CBI named Rajiv Gandhi as one among several people who had a role in the scandal, but his name was put in column two. This meant there would be no trial against him, since he was no more. The case pertained to allegation that the Swedish arms manufacturer had bribed Indians in high office through middlemen to secure a contract for its howitzer field guns.

3.

Charges against Narasimha Rao

P V Narasimha Rao, whose tenure as PM will be better known for ushering in economic reforms and for the demolition of Babri Masjid, faced several judicial hurdles once he ceased to be PM in 1996 JMM Bribery Case. Most serious of cases was when a special court convicted him in 2000, along with Cabinet colleague Buta Singh, for conspiring to bribe MPs from JMM, among others, to vote for his government in a no-confidence motion in 1993.

Duo sentenced to three years' RI; fine of Rs1 lakh Delhi HC subsequently struck down trial court's verdict, acquitting Rao and Singh Lakhubai Pathak Cheating Case UK-based `pickle king'. Pathak accused Rao of having promised - in a New York hotel in 1983 - to ensure he would get a contract for supply of paper pulp and newsprint in India in return for payoffs to Rao, godman Chandraswami and his associated Mamaji. Alleged that while Chandraswami was paid $100,000, Rao did not keep his end of the bargain Original complaint filed in 1987 named only Chandraswami as accused. In July 1996 Pathak named Rao too as accused Chief metropolitan magistrate concluded there was enough evidence to proceed against Rao. Delhi HC upheld the view Supreme Court shifted the case to another court on Rao's petition Charges were framed against him.

In December 2003, over six years after Pathak's death, Rao, Chandraswami and Mamaji acquitted St Kitts Forgery Rao chargesheeted in September 1996 by CBI in St Kitts case in which documents were allegedly forged to make it appear as if former PM V P Singh and his son Ajeya Singh had an account in a bank in the Caribbean island Trial court discharged Rao in June 1997, saying there was no evidence of his involvement in the frame-up.

08.20 | 0 komentar | Read More

Live: TOI Hangout with Anushka Sharma

WATCH THIS SPACE FOR THE VIDEO OF THE HANGOUT TODAY AT 12 NOON

Anushka Sharma's suspense-thriller, NH10 is all set to hit screens on March 13, 2015. The film is a gripping tale of Meera (Anushka Sharma) and Arjun (Neil Bhoopalam) who sign up for a road trip but end up battered and bruised.

When Meera walks out of a party late one night, she is attacked by a group of unknown men. Although she escapes, the encounter leaves her traumatised. Arjun, partly blaming himself for not being there that night, tries to make up for it by treating her to a luxurious desert holiday. As they stop on a highway dhaba for dinner, they witness a young girl being picked up by a bunch of hoodlums. Arjun chooses to step in, unaware of the danger ahead.

Not the one to shy away from action sequences, Anushka has herself performed the stunts for the film. The gutsy actress, who has also co-produced NH10, will be part of a Google hangout with TOI.com. The Face-off will be streamed on March 12 at 12 noon.

Click here to post questions for Anushka Sharma for the Hangout

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/followceleb.cms?alias=NH10,Google Hangout,Anushka Sharma

Stay updated on the go with Times of India News App. Click here to download it for your device.

08.20 | 0 komentar | Read More

Live Blog: Apple smartwatch launch

12:08 AM

And this concludes the event!

It's a wrap! Thank you for joining us! For detailed coverage on the Apple Watch, log on to The Times Of India Tech.

12:05 AM

And that's what everyone at Apple is focused on — pushing forward and creating the future.

Tim Cook

12:05 AM

The Apple Watch will come to other markets at a later stage

12:04 AM

Apple Watch will be available on April 24 in nine countries. The list doesn't include India

12:03 AM

Apple Watch will be available for pre-order starting April 10

Also on April 10, consumers will be able to try on and learn more about Apple Watch at select Apple Retail Stores.

12:03 AM

Apple Watch Edition will start at $10,000 and will be available in select stores

12:01 AM

Apple Watch collection starts at $549

12:00 AM

With stainless steel, we've given a traditional material a new expression.

Jony Ive

12:00 AM

The stainless steel used to make the cases becomes up to 80% harder through a specialized cold-forging process

Jony Ive

11:59 PM

The Apple Watch collection features stainless steel cases in two finishes — traditional and space black.

11:58 PM

Apple Watch Sport starts at $349

11:57 PM

Apple Watch Sport has cases made from anodized aluminum in either silver or space gray. A video on the making of the watch!

11:56 PM

Apple Watch is available in three collections - Apple Watch Sport, Apple Watch and Apple Watch Edition.

11:55 PM

Apple Watch has all-day battery life

Apple says during a typical day, you can expect up to 18 hours of battery life.

11:54 PM

Apple Watch users will be able to connect their watch with the iPhone via the Apple Watch app available for download today in iOS 8.2.

11:52 PM

Users can even open their garage with an Apple Watch app!

11:51 PM

Lynch showcased the Shazam app for recognizing music and a hotel app that lets users check in and unlock their hotel room!

11:48 PM

Apple Watch will pull users' boarding pass from Passbook when they're near the airport.

11:47 PM

Lynch just demoed a phone call. It also supports Wi-Fi connectivity for iPhone connectivity!

11:45 PM

Kevin Lynch, VP Technology at Apple, shows some of the apps on Apple Watch.

11:44 PM

Users can raise their wrist and say "Hey Siri" to perform all kind of tasks with Apple Watch - open an app, get directions, make a phone call, and more.

11:42 PM

Third-party Apple Watch apps are being demoed

The WatchKit SDK enables developers to design new app experiences specifically for Apple Watch. Kevin Lynch is on stage to talk about these apps.

11:40 PM

Notifications you receive on iPhone can automatically appear on Apple Watch.

11:39 PM

Christy will train for the Virgin Money London Marathon with Apple Watch. Users can follow her progress on apple.com.

11:37 PM

Christy Turlington Burns takes the stage!

11:35 PM

In the short time I've been using it, I can already see how this is going to be an important part of my life.

Christy Turlington Burns

11:35 PM

Christy Turlington Burns ran a half marathon with the Apple Watch

Burns is a model, mother, and maternal health advocate. Tim Cook now plays a film about Christy Turlington Burns running a half-marathon in Tanzania with Apple Watch.

11:34 PM

Apple Watch's fitness features

11:33 PM

Tim Cook is detailing the Apple Watch's fitness features

Apple Watch encourages users to sit less. Move more. And get some exercise. Each Monday, Apple Watch suggests a new daily Move goal based on the users' previous week's activity. The Workout app provides more detailed measurement during specific activities like a fitness coach.

11:32 PM

Phone calls on Apple Watch

11:31 PM

Digital Touch

Apple Watch comes with Digital Touch that lets users send a sketch, a tap, or even one's heartbeat to other people wearing Apple Watch.

11:29 PM

Answer calls on Apple Watch

You can answer calls right on Apple Watch using the built-in speaker and mic — and make phone calls, too.

11:28 PM

Users can customize watch faces with useful information — like the weather or the next calendar event.

11:27 PM

Apple Watch is super accurate

Apple Watch has many different faces that users can change and customize and is very accurate, says Cook.

11:26 PM

Time for Apple Watch!

Tim Cook is back and he's talking about the Apple Watch!

11:25 PM

Apple is also upgrading existing MacBooks

MacBook Air is getting a performance boost. It now has fifth-generation Intel Core processors and Thunderbolt 2. The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display now features the Force Touch trackpad. The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display now has fifth-generation Intel Core processors. 2x faster flash storage. And up to 10 hours of battery life. All start shipping today!

11:24 PM

The new MacBook starts at $1299. Starts shipping April 10.

11:22 PM

The new MacBook is just 13.1mm thick and weighs just 0.9KG!

11:21 PM

The new MacBook is the first all-metal MacBook

11:20 PM

Apple says the full-size keyboard on the new MacBook was reengineered from corner to corner.

11:19 PM

And we have a product video featuring Apple's senior vice president of design, Jonathan Ive

11:17 PM

USB-C gives five ports in one.This new connectivity standard gives power, USB data transfer, DisplayPort, HDMI, and VGA capabilities.

11:16 PM

New MacBook comes with a USB-C port

Apple says the new MacBook was designed for a wireless world. It just features one connector USB-C, a new industry standard.

11:15 PM

New Battery

The new MacBook features a new, custom-shaped battery that maximizes every millimeter of space. The enclosure and the terraced, contoured battery were designed together for the perfect fit, says Schiller.

11:13 PM

The logic board on the new MacBook is 67% smaller than the one in the 11-inch MacBook Air.

11:12 PM

The harder you press on the trackpad, the faster you can fast-forward through a Quicktime movie.

11:12 PM

MacBook's trackpad introduces force click for additional actions!

11:11 PM

The Force Touch trackpad has force sensors that detect how much pressure you apply on its surface.

11:10 PM

MacBook has a new, pressure-sensitive Force Touch trackpad like the Apple Watch.

11:09 PM

Apple says the Retina display uses 30% less energy to produce the same brightness as other Mac Retina displays.

11:09 PM

The new MacBook has a 12-inch Retina display. It packs over 3 million pixels into the thinnest Mac Retina display yet.

11:08 PM

The new MacBook has an all-new, full-size keyboard that's been reengineered from the ground up, says Phil Schiller

11:06 PM

The new MacBook is 24% thinner than the 11-inch MacBook Air.

11:05 PM

The new MacBook will be available in silver, space gray and gold! At only 2 pounds, this is the lightest MacBook ever. The new MacBook is 24% thinner than the 11-inch MacBook Air.

11:05 PM

The new MacBook!

11:03 PM

Cook says everything Apple has learned from designing iPhone and iPad has led to something very ambitious — reinventing the notebook.

11:03 PM

And Apple is announcing a new notebook!

11:02 PM

Cook says Mac notebook sales have grown 21% over the last year, while total industry sales have fallen.

11:02 PM

Tim Cook is back on stage to talk about Macs! Are we getting a new MacBook Air?

11:01 PM

ResearchKit apps

11:00 PM

ReasearchKit will be open source!

Apple is making big strides in healthcare and medical research with ResearchKit. ReasearchKit will be open source! Will be released next month. First five apps will be available today.

10:58 PM

Apple says ResearchKit puts people at the centre of research and gives them the insights and tools to live healthier lives.

10:57 PM

Apple assures privacy

Apple assures that it's the users who decide how their health data is shared. Users can see the data they're sharing. Williams introduces a film about the work already being done with ResearchKit.

10:55 PM

An app for breast cancer treatment

10:54 PM

An app that caters to heart health developed with University of Oxford

10:51 PM

Research Kit is announced

10:51 PM

Research kit

Williams is announcing Research Kit that turns iPhones to diagnostic tools

10:50 PM

Jeff Williams, Senior VP of Operations now talking about health and medical research

10:49 PM

Apple's health apps

10:48 PM

There are more than 900 health and fitness apps on iOS.

10:47 PM

Now on to Car Play - Tim Cook says every major car maker is adopting the technology

10:46 PM

There are now hundreds of thousands of vending machines accepting Apple Pay, including more than 40,000 Coca-Cola vending machines.

10:46 PM

And we have some Apple Pay related announcements - Apple Pay is being accepted at nearly 700,000 locations. With more locations and apps every day.

10:45 PM

Apple has sold 700 million iPhones so far!

10:44 PM

Apple TV gets a big price cut!

10:43 PM

Apple has reduced the price of Apple TV to $69!

10:43 PM

Apple has sold 25 million Apple TV units so far. More of a hobby product!

10:42 PM

That was one amazing trailer!

10:41 PM

HBO NOW is HBO on Apple TV without a cable or satellite subscription.

10:40 PM

And we have a new Game Of Thrones trailer!

10:40 PM

Coming this April, HBO NOW will be available exclusively in the US on Apple TV and the App Store.

10:39 PM

HBO is announcing its stand-alone service HBO Now with Apple is exclusive partner

10:37 PM

Tim Cook is announcing a tie up with HBO

10:37 PM

Tim Cook is now talking about the Apple TV.

10:36 PM

Apple has 453 stores in 16 countries. 120 million customers visited the stores!

10:34 PM

And it's showtime!

10:33 PM

All set!

Apple says last-minute adjustments are fine-tuned behind the screen backstage. And they're playing Latch by Disclosure!

10:25 PM

We were just kidding! This was among the cheeky tweets we spotted online! The real thing is now just five minutes away!

10:03 PM

Here's an Apple Watch!

09:46 PM

Apple is also live streaming the event on its website

09:35 PM

Apple CEO Tim Cook is all geared up!

09:32 PM

We're just an hour away from Apple's Spring forward event at Yerba Buena in San Francisco where it's expected to reveal pricing and availability details for its first smartwatch. Stay tuned for live updates!

08.20 | 0 komentar | Read More

Blog: Wanted — A new Hindu party

Let's be frank: India needs a new Hindu political party. Liberals will think that's bad news. 'Hindu' extremists will think that's good news. Actually, it's the opposite: good news for liberals, bad news for 'Hindu' extremists. Here's why.

BJP, now that it governs India, believes that it articulates the 'Hindu' voice with greater authority than ever before. That it doesn't is becoming increasingly obvious.

Most of Bharatiya Janata Party seems unable or unwilling to accept that much of the Bharatiya janata – 80%-plus of it Hindu – wants a happy plurality of personal, cultural and lifestyle choices. And this political constituency wants a party that understands this.

Hindus who voted for Narendra Modi in 2014 didn't do so because they wanted school syllabi to be 'Hinduised' or Gita to be given the status of a rigid and exclusionary religious text. Nor did they want some silly notions of 'Hindu' dress code – kurta/pajama/dhoti/vermillion for men and sari/sindoor for women – to be foisted on them, or proscriptions on what they can eat or drink and who they should love or marry.

What it means to be a Hindu is this: it's up to you. A Hindu way of life, if there's such a thing, revels in inclusiveness, in polychromatic diversity unencumbered by imagined or imposed boundaries. Its true marker is inner spirituality, not morality dictated from outside. Unsurprisingly, there's little evidence that India's Hindus are aching for a bunch of guys to tell them what it means to be 'Hindu'.

Pundits will say this in many complicated ways. But take a simple yet powerful example from Indian life that illustrates how un-Hindu India's supposedly Hindu party is. If an Indian Hindu likes, say, Italian cuisine, American films, English novels, Sufi hip hop music, and has a partner who isn't Hindu or Indian – is he or she not a true Hindu? Says who? To countless Indians born Hindu, eclectic preferences come naturally.

That holds true up and down the social-income scale. Poorer Hindus are no more massed flag-bearers of some restrictive, regressive notion of Hindu-ness than their more prosperous counterparts are. Everyone who can afford cheap denim likes to wear it. Everyone who can buy a cheap smartphone accesses a world of choices that are far from 'traditional'. Everyone lucky enough to get affordable, functional English language education grabs the opportunity.

Hindus are like this only. They don't really take well to what pundits call cultural nationalism. They are, to borrow a term from technology, an open source people. Ideas from everywhere cross-fertilize in their minds.

BJP, in contrast, appears to be a closed system. It claims its proprietary software – 'Hindu' nationalism – is what Hindus need. But that software doesn't fit into Hindus' operating system, their way of life. 'Hindu' nationalists think power yoga is a Western perversion. Many Hindus think it's cool. Just as they think indigenization of Western ideas is cool.

So, either BJP reinvents itself or Hindus could get themselves a new party that offers something other than stentorian and shallow sermonizing on religious and nationalist dos and don'ts. Such a party, offering choice, would welcome even a born-Hindu turned atheist.

Can Modi take BJP away from 'Hindu' nationalism towards liberal Hinduism? On that question, skepticism is in order. Yet, here's a man who achieved an electoral landslide with a passionately articulated promise of material betterment, not cultural nationalism.

If Modi can't – or won't – do it, someone else will. That's the dynamics of politics. There's a demand for a different kind of party for Hindus, and it appears strong enough for supply to emerge.

That's how AAP was born. As a political organization, AAP still has plenty wrong with it. But there's no denying it rose by tapping into a strong enough wish for a political formation that was for the growing urban underclass. A new liberal Hindu party may emerge in a similar fashion, squeezing out the old 'Hindu' party.

A question remains that liberals might ask. Why want a new Hindu party to supplant BJP or BJP to morph into a new Hindu party, instead of calling for a completely new and therefore 'truly' liberal party?

That question presupposes that political outfits that speak for particular social groups are necessarily illiberal. That's intellectually lazy liberalism. Christian Democrats evolved as sensible, socially liberal political actors in much of continental Europe. No one accuses them of religious extremism or theocratic fantasies. The same can't be said of some of America's Bible Belt Christian Conservatives.

In fast-globalizing aspirational India, a new Hindu outfit could go even further than Europe's Christian Democrats. Being truly open-minded, it could outmaneuver fanatics in whose lexicon change is a dirty word.

That, as we said, would be good news for liberals and bad news for extremists.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

08.20 | 0 komentar | Read More

Blog: Farmers' interests only one part of land bill

The high-decibel debate on land acquisition, playing out in Parliament and media since the opening of the budget session, is asking the wrong question. Asking whether the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Ordinance 2014 promulgated by the president is anti-farmer or not is simplistic and misleading. It forgets that the issue under consideration is establishing a workable mechanism for acquiring land, not laying down the contours of a successful kisan vikas patra scheme.

To understand the genesis of this mischaracterisation, go back to 2013 when the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act was passed. At that time a view was formed that the Act was a revolutionary pro-farmer legislation, whose noble intentions are now said to have been undone by the ordinance.

This assertion concerns clauses that require consent of 70% of affected families in PPP projects and 80% of affected families in private projects prior to acquisition and a mandatory social impact assessment (SIA) of all acquisitions. These clauses, present in the Act, have been exempted from applying to five types of projects in the ordinance.

The rationale for providing for consent was to give the citizenry a say in how the state would deal with their land. As a statement of principle, this is difficult to dispute. However, when the letter of the law is at such variance with the principle, the inference that consent was used to capture a moral high ground with little attention to actual benefits to farmers on the ground is inescapable.

As an illustration, according to Section 2(2) of the Act, consent will have to be sought simultaneously with the SIA process. But whom will consent be sought from? At the stage of conducting SIA, it is neither clear who owns the land, nor whose livelihoods depend on it. Seeking consent without having conclusively identified whom to seek consent from is an inexplicable instance of putting the cart before the horse.

Equally importantly, the incorporation of consent suffers from a fundamental conceptual confusion. If as a polity we have taken a decision that the power of eminent domain is necessary in certain instances, as is evident from both the Act and the ordinance, it implies that we have assented to a core feature of its exercise – the involuntary nature of acquisition.

While the involuntariness of the acquisition must be mitigated by setting certain minimum requirements for compensation and rehabilitation, as both the Act and the ordinance do, to flip the concept on its head entirely, incorporate consent and still call it an instance of 'acquisition' demonstrates befuddled thinking. If a transfer of land is wholly consensual, it is a purchase; if it is compulsory, it is an acquisition. There is no halfway house between the two.

Several other provisions in the Act similarly protect farmers' interests symbolically and not substantively. But this is the wrong lens to be viewing a land acquisition law through. Farmers' interests are only one, albeit significant, part of designing a workable land acquisition legislation. Since there is a larger social consensus that acquisition for public purpose projects by government and the private sector is necessary, then the law reflecting such consensus must optimally protect the interests of all stakeholders – farmers, other land-losers, industry and government itself.

It is in everybody's interest that a workable process of land acquisition is established. This will undoubtedly involve tradeoffs, some which will benefit farmers, some of which won't. To assess each tradeoff solely from the perspective of the farmer, as the public discourse is currently doing, is bound to lead to a misguided assessment of issues. Instead, the key question that ought to be debated now is this: How do we establish an efficient, fair and workable process of land acquisition?

As it stands, any land acquisition process under the Act is estimated to take a minimum of 50 months from the initiation of SIA to payment and possession, with multiple layers of review. There is an SIA team, an independent expert group for appraisal, the collector to oversee compensation, an administrator, the R&R project committee, and national and state monitoring committees for rehabilitation and resettlement. This is nothing short of a bureaucratic nightmare that benefits no one other than those occupying the multiple offices created.

Unfortunately this bureaucratic nightmare has been seen in public discourse as a problem only for private companies who are keen on acquiring land quickly. However, as experience under the 1894 Act shows, lengthy acquisition procedures benefit no one. The old Act originally had no timelines – they were introduced after multiple court interventions pointing out that delays in acquisition cause immense hardship to land-losers. Taking away one's land and making one wait interminably for compensation is a severe double whammy.

Unfortunately the ordinance has done little to undo this core flaw in the Act. By seeking to exempt certain projects from certain stages of the procedure, it has taken resort to a shortcut that solves part of the problem for a few, but leaves a bulk of land-losers and acquirers subject to the onerous procedures that the Act sets up. If the country agrees that a land acquisition law is necessary, let it debate how to make such a law efficient, fair and workable without being sidetracked into rhetorical grandstanding using the guise of farmers' interests.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

08.20 | 0 komentar | Read More

Blog: The globality of Hinduism

One of the attempted follies of our times is the conflation of Hinduism, essentially an eclectic way of life, into a codified belief system that seeks to mirror the major faiths it has interacted with; for instance, Islam and Christianity. Indeed, since the May 2014 electoral thrashing of Congress by the self-professed Hindutva party, BJP, this gross and distorted projection of Hinduism by fringe groups has grown.

Fortunately, the cultural mainstream that voted BJP to power with its first clear majority understands what is happening. For, the Upanishadic ethic that informs our poetry and philosophies is deeply ingrained in 'layers upon layers' of the proverbial Hindu consciousness.

A good Hindu, by the limited definition of the fringe, must shun 'alien' influences – whether of language, dress or events identified with the Western world, including a certain date in the Gregorian calendar identified with going on dates. This definition is then disingenuously sought to be extended into private spheres and personal freedoms.

Such a worldview seeks to put the Hindu creative brilliance in jail as it were, a central prison that attempts to shape Hindu uniformity to assume the uniformity of the other, to prove its ultimate superiority by beating 'rival' faiths at their own game.

The political class that is the fountainhead of this vocal fringe – just as it is at the helm of the cultural mainstream – must stop to reflect why such a constricted world view will not find expansion of space, and sooner rather than later prove self-defeating. And if the political class pauses long enough, it will find a certain subtlety – the Hindu's famed capacity to draw in and hold on to soft distinctions that carry multitudes in harmony – and civilisational creativity are far more
definitive markers of India, that is Bharat, than any attempts to redefine it.

The Hindu concerns himself with questions far subtler than the manner of his dressing, his language, his eating preferences – he knows relishing kebabs doesn't make him some sort of a Hindu kafir.

He doesn't or wouldn't shun say the English language to think only in Hindi, but would be deeply interested in learning Sanskrit to read the Upanishads and absorb from the source. Just as he would be wanting to learn French or Latin to collect and assimilate other wisdoms from their sources. Hinduism absorbs from multiple sources; in its search for verities, it stops at nothing. As S Radhakrishnan said, what is built forever is forever building.

Pushed to its logical extreme, as Arvind Sharma writes, a Hindu can claim that one is most a Hindu when least a Hindu. That is to say, one is most a Hindu when one has dissolved one's Hindu particularity into Hinduism's all-embracing inclusiveness and universality.

For such a Hindu, everything goes but not everybody arrives – all gods can be worshipped but god-consciousness – the realisation of impersonal energy as the source of creation – isn't for those who can't or don't outgrow the infantilism of their minds. For such a Hindu, existence is akshara or indestructible, just as existence is soul.

The Hindu's quest is what Svetaketu asks in the Chandogya Upanishad: What is immortal in this mortal world? What is that by knowing which one can know everything? Kasmin vigyaate sarvamidam vigyatam bhavateeti. The answers to this cannot be explained in words as the realisation is beyond definition, it can only be experienced.

And what's for experiencing is the state of Turiya which is consciousness of pure, primordial energy, unrepresented by human imagination that sometimes so bitterly divides humanity. That energy is what creates us, and that energy is what one dissolves in. Those who know one as the self become the self, say the Upanishads, and the Universe is its witness.

As a philosophy Hinduism even encompasses the atheism of Chaarvak, another name of Acharya Brihaspati – not to be mistaken for the guru of the devas, but another profound teacher.
According to his view – which is possibly the first of all materialist philosophies – consciousness too is part of matter, and it's the collision or fusion of matter in the right proportion that gives rise to
super-consciousness. It proffers that creation of the world is an outcome of certain cosmic events and that there's no purpose behind creation.

In fact Kapil Muni, whom Lord Krishna refers to in the Bhagwad Gita, expounds through Sankhya that the two forces, purush and prakruti, being their own guides, do not require any external intelligence or energy to give them direction; they behave as self-fulfilling prophecies.

Over centuries, Semitic themes and traditions have become our touchstones, our stock-in-trade. God-giving-religion-to-humankind has become a cultural universal. Indian traditions absorb all these and more, and for a direct experience of such assimilative processes, all one has to do is experience the Kumbh. This great tradition reveals best, Hinduism's containing contradictions and carrying multitudes.

Hinduism is grand unification of knowledge, which is fundamentally
beyond logic or any configuration of god; it can't be defined if it can't be given a form; and, therefore, Vivekananda said that he is a voice without a form, which made him describe the Upanishads as Vedanta, which is the end of knowledge itself, leaving one only with stirrings of an awareness of what needs to be done with that knowledge: to serve humanity as one's larger self.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

08.20 | 0 komentar | Read More

Blog: Will we one day ban democracy itself?

Want to eat tenderloin in Maharashtra? Sorry, it's banned.

Never mind that beef is widely eaten by many Indian citizens, particularly those from the Northeast. Like to read Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses to see what the fuss is about? Sorry, it's banned. Living in Gujarat and want to read Great Soul by Joseph Lelyveld? Sorry, it's banned. Want to see the movie Fifty Shades of Grey? Sorry, it's banned. Wanted to see the film Fanaa in Ahmedabad? Sorry, that was also banned in Gujarat. Want to see the play Mee Nathuram Godse Boltoy? Sorry, that was once banned too. Don't want Priya Pillai of Greenpeace to voice views in London? Ban her from travelling. And want to see a documentary on the Nirbhaya rape case that has become a turning point for gender justice in India – India's Daughter – sorry, that's banned from TV telecast.

We ban because we want to protect minorities, we ban because we want to protect women, we ban because we want to protect society from western culture, in fact we ban because we want to protect ourselves from ourselves.

Netas are always eager to ban, it gives them the delusion or illusion of strength. The film Kissa Kursi Ka was banned for making fun of the Emergency, certain periodicals were banned from public libraries by Trinamool Congress, CPM routinely banned material not sympathetic to the party line, Congress encouraged an 'informal' ban on Javier Moro's book The Red Sari, ABVP activists have forced a ban on A K Ramanujan's essay Three Hundred Ramayans, Rohinton Mistry's book has been banned by Shiv Sena, and of course in the list of those holding banners to banning, who can forget Dina Nath Batra and his attack on Wendy Doniger's The Hindus.

The list of cuss words to be banned by the film censor board has been withdrawn but apparently those words are being removed anyway. Anyone can call for a ban, be it a TV channel, a religious group, a feminist group, the ban band includes anyone who can shout loud enough. Ban all conversions! Ban Hindu Muslim marriages! Ban women from wearing jeans or using cellphones! Since the ban bank is growing larger every day we should rename the PM's slogan Make in India as Banned in India. Or maybe we need to tape our mouths with Ban-d-aid to stop forbidden messages from being ban-died about. When it comes to Indian democracy, it's safe to say, uska banned baj gaya.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

08.20 | 0 komentar | Read More

As it happened: Apple smartwatch launch

12:08 AM

And this concludes the event!

It's a wrap! Thank you for joining us! For detailed coverage on the Apple Watch, log on to The Times Of India Tech.

12:05 AM

And that's what everyone at Apple is focused on — pushing forward and creating the future.

Tim Cook

12:05 AM

The Apple Watch will come to other markets at a later stage

12:04 AM

Apple Watch will be available on April 24 in nine countries. The list doesn't include India

12:03 AM

Apple Watch will be available for pre-order starting April 10

Also on April 10, consumers will be able to try on and learn more about Apple Watch at select Apple Retail Stores.

12:03 AM

Apple Watch Edition will start at $10,000 and will be available in select stores

12:01 AM

Apple Watch collection starts at $549

12:00 AM

With stainless steel, we've given a traditional material a new expression.

Jony Ive

12:00 AM

The stainless steel used to make the cases becomes up to 80% harder through a specialized cold-forging process

Jony Ive

11:59 PM

The Apple Watch collection features stainless steel cases in two finishes — traditional and space black.

11:58 PM

Apple Watch Sport starts at $349

11:57 PM

Apple Watch Sport has cases made from anodized aluminum in either silver or space gray. A video on the making of the watch!

11:56 PM

Apple Watch is available in three collections - Apple Watch Sport, Apple Watch and Apple Watch Edition.

11:55 PM

Apple Watch has all-day battery life

Apple says during a typical day, you can expect up to 18 hours of battery life.

11:54 PM

Apple Watch users will be able to connect their watch with the iPhone via the Apple Watch app available for download today in iOS 8.2.

11:52 PM

Users can even open their garage with an Apple Watch app!

11:51 PM

Lynch showcased the Shazam app for recognizing music and a hotel app that lets users check in and unlock their hotel room!

11:48 PM

Apple Watch will pull users' boarding pass from Passbook when they're near the airport.

11:47 PM

Lynch just demoed a phone call. It also supports Wi-Fi connectivity for iPhone connectivity!

11:45 PM

Kevin Lynch, VP Technology at Apple, shows some of the apps on Apple Watch.

11:44 PM

Users can raise their wrist and say "Hey Siri" to perform all kind of tasks with Apple Watch - open an app, get directions, make a phone call, and more.

11:42 PM

Third-party Apple Watch apps are being demoed

The WatchKit SDK enables developers to design new app experiences specifically for Apple Watch. Kevin Lynch is on stage to talk about these apps.

11:40 PM

Notifications you receive on iPhone can automatically appear on Apple Watch.

11:39 PM

Christy will train for the Virgin Money London Marathon with Apple Watch. Users can follow her progress on apple.com.

11:37 PM

Christy Turlington Burns takes the stage!

11:35 PM

In the short time I've been using it, I can already see how this is going to be an important part of my life.

Christy Turlington Burns

11:35 PM

Christy Turlington Burns ran a half marathon with the Apple Watch

Burns is a model, mother, and maternal health advocate. Tim Cook now plays a film about Christy Turlington Burns running a half-marathon in Tanzania with Apple Watch.

11:34 PM

Apple Watch's fitness features

11:33 PM

Tim Cook is detailing the Apple Watch's fitness features

Apple Watch encourages users to sit less. Move more. And get some exercise. Each Monday, Apple Watch suggests a new daily Move goal based on the users' previous week's activity. The Workout app provides more detailed measurement during specific activities like a fitness coach.

11:32 PM

Phone calls on Apple Watch

11:31 PM

Digital Touch

Apple Watch comes with Digital Touch that lets users send a sketch, a tap, or even one's heartbeat to other people wearing Apple Watch.

11:29 PM

Answer calls on Apple Watch

You can answer calls right on Apple Watch using the built-in speaker and mic — and make phone calls, too.

11:28 PM

Users can customize watch faces with useful information — like the weather or the next calendar event.

11:27 PM

Apple Watch is super accurate

Apple Watch has many different faces that users can change and customize and is very accurate, says Cook.

11:26 PM

Time for Apple Watch!

Tim Cook is back and he's talking about the Apple Watch!

11:25 PM

Apple is also upgrading existing MacBooks

MacBook Air is getting a performance boost. It now has fifth-generation Intel Core processors and Thunderbolt 2. The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display now features the Force Touch trackpad. The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display now has fifth-generation Intel Core processors. 2x faster flash storage. And up to 10 hours of battery life. All start shipping today!

11:24 PM

The new MacBook starts at $1299. Starts shipping April 10.

11:22 PM

The new MacBook is just 13.1mm thick and weighs just 0.9KG!

11:21 PM

The new MacBook is the first all-metal MacBook

11:20 PM

Apple says the full-size keyboard on the new MacBook was reengineered from corner to corner.

11:19 PM

And we have a product video featuring Apple's senior vice president of design, Jonathan Ive

11:17 PM

USB-C gives five ports in one.This new connectivity standard gives power, USB data transfer, DisplayPort, HDMI, and VGA capabilities.

11:16 PM

New MacBook comes with a USB-C port

Apple says the new MacBook was designed for a wireless world. It just features one connector USB-C, a new industry standard.

11:15 PM

New Battery

The new MacBook features a new, custom-shaped battery that maximizes every millimeter of space. The enclosure and the terraced, contoured battery were designed together for the perfect fit, says Schiller.

11:13 PM

The logic board on the new MacBook is 67% smaller than the one in the 11-inch MacBook Air.

11:12 PM

The harder you press on the trackpad, the faster you can fast-forward through a Quicktime movie.

11:12 PM

MacBook's trackpad introduces force click for additional actions!

11:11 PM

The Force Touch trackpad has force sensors that detect how much pressure you apply on its surface.

11:10 PM

MacBook has a new, pressure-sensitive Force Touch trackpad like the Apple Watch.

11:09 PM

Apple says the Retina display uses 30% less energy to produce the same brightness as other Mac Retina displays.

11:09 PM

The new MacBook has a 12-inch Retina display. It packs over 3 million pixels into the thinnest Mac Retina display yet.

11:08 PM

The new MacBook has an all-new, full-size keyboard that's been reengineered from the ground up, says Phil Schiller

11:06 PM

The new MacBook is 24% thinner than the 11-inch MacBook Air.

11:05 PM

The new MacBook will be available in silver, space gray and gold! At only 2 pounds, this is the lightest MacBook ever. The new MacBook is 24% thinner than the 11-inch MacBook Air.

11:05 PM

The new MacBook!

11:03 PM

Cook says everything Apple has learned from designing iPhone and iPad has led to something very ambitious — reinventing the notebook.

11:03 PM

And Apple is announcing a new notebook!

11:02 PM

Cook says Mac notebook sales have grown 21% over the last year, while total industry sales have fallen.

11:02 PM

Tim Cook is back on stage to talk about Macs! Are we getting a new MacBook Air?

11:01 PM

ResearchKit apps

11:00 PM

ReasearchKit will be open source!

Apple is making big strides in healthcare and medical research with ResearchKit. ReasearchKit will be open source! Will be released next month. First five apps will be available today.

10:58 PM

Apple says ResearchKit puts people at the centre of research and gives them the insights and tools to live healthier lives.

10:57 PM

Apple assures privacy

Apple assures that it's the users who decide how their health data is shared. Users can see the data they're sharing. Williams introduces a film about the work already being done with ResearchKit.

10:55 PM

An app for breast cancer treatment

10:54 PM

An app that caters to heart health developed with University of Oxford

10:51 PM

Research Kit is announced

10:51 PM

Research kit

Williams is announcing Research Kit that turns iPhones to diagnostic tools

10:50 PM

Jeff Williams, Senior VP of Operations now talking about health and medical research

10:49 PM

Apple's health apps

10:48 PM

There are more than 900 health and fitness apps on iOS.

10:47 PM

Now on to Car Play - Tim Cook says every major car maker is adopting the technology

10:46 PM

There are now hundreds of thousands of vending machines accepting Apple Pay, including more than 40,000 Coca-Cola vending machines.

10:46 PM

And we have some Apple Pay related announcements - Apple Pay is being accepted at nearly 700,000 locations. With more locations and apps every day.

10:45 PM

Apple has sold 700 million iPhones so far!

10:44 PM

Apple TV gets a big price cut!

10:43 PM

Apple has reduced the price of Apple TV to $69!

10:43 PM

Apple has sold 25 million Apple TV units so far. More of a hobby product!

10:42 PM

That was one amazing trailer!

10:41 PM

HBO NOW is HBO on Apple TV without a cable or satellite subscription.

10:40 PM

And we have a new Game Of Thrones trailer!

10:40 PM

Coming this April, HBO NOW will be available exclusively in the US on Apple TV and the App Store.

10:39 PM

HBO is announcing its stand-alone service HBO Now with Apple is exclusive partner

10:37 PM

Tim Cook is announcing a tie up with HBO

10:37 PM

Tim Cook is now talking about the Apple TV.

10:36 PM

Apple has 453 stores in 16 countries. 120 million customers visited the stores!

10:34 PM

And it's showtime!

10:33 PM

All set!

Apple says last-minute adjustments are fine-tuned behind the screen backstage. And they're playing Latch by Disclosure!

10:25 PM

We were just kidding! This was among the cheeky tweets we spotted online! The real thing is now just five minutes away!

10:03 PM

Here's an Apple Watch!

09:46 PM

Apple is also live streaming the event on its website

09:35 PM

Apple CEO Tim Cook is all geared up!

09:32 PM

We're just an hour away from Apple's Spring forward event at Yerba Buena in San Francisco where it's expected to reveal pricing and availability details for its first smartwatch. Stay tuned for live updates!

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