freebird

The Indian Doc Mohd. Haneef while leaving England, left a sim card with his cousins because of some residual talk time balance. The cousins tried to blow up the Glasgow airport. Now Haneef has been arrested although the courts in Australia have set him free. Homegrown critics are saying that it is the right-winger Prime Minister’s ploy in an electoral year. Haneef’s wife in Bangalore, India is pregnant.

What a MESS? Haneef was almost guilty before the courts realized that having a SIM card is probably essential in 21^st century. Leaving your SIM card with a relative is no SIN at all. And they basically accepted after the days of detention that there is no proof – so the courts gave the judgement – set him free.

But paranoia got the better of everybody. Zenophobia in an election year is welcome said the campaign managers. So in goes Haneef and…

Back in India people were aghast. They said Indian Muslims are different and the spotless record speaks volumes for itself etc etc. They all forgot about the homegrown militants of different religions and ethnicities that have plagued the nation and still do.

Anyways what’s terror got to do with education. In fact it’s better if the terrorist is educated. Increasingly they will be at par with the mean men that we see in slick, high-end Hollywood flicks where they will write complex programs on their laptops ensconced in a tent anywhere on the planet and issue threats while sipping on Starbucks or kawah whatever takes his or her fancy. Technological democracy will empower them.

Coming back to Haneef - how will he integrate back into society and his fraternity?

!– @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } –>Kashiwazaki, Niigata, Japan

Kashiwazaki was hit by an earthquake of 6.8 magnitude.

Kashiwazaki is MESS.

Kashiwazaki. How big is the threat? Is it going to affect the people long after the obvious declarations of no-harm done? Has the great debate begun again? Is there anything called a safe nuclear reactor? Should they exist even for the general benefit of large numbers of the human population? Is it the fuel of the future? Be better prepared to live with collateral damage. Make it a part and parcel of normal existence and you will have less of grief.

But imagine the harm to the same country that has suffered the worst historically. What should Japan do? What does the nation’s conscience say when it comes to all thing nuclear? Is nuclear all that important?

Are the authorities hiding information that should be released to the general public. Should outside regulators go and assess independently the damage caused to the site and reactors. Tepco president has said that it is ‘MESS’. So what is the extent of this mess? How to contain this mess? And more importantly can we start talking about it so that it never happens again.