The BBC News asked the public, in an informal poll this week, who the greatest South Asian leader ever, has been. The results surprised me, and the phrase “vote early and often” came to mind.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah 1876-1948
Lawyer and politician who fought for the cause of India’s independence from Britain, then moved on to found a Muslim state in Pakistan in 1947. In Pakistan, Jinnah is revered as Quaid-e-Azam, or ‘Great Leader.’

Up until the very end, Jinnah was a runaway winner. It looks like Gandhi made a late inning push however, when looking at the final 39% to 36% margin of victory. The Hindustan Times picks up the story:

Jinnah has relegated Mahatma to the second spot, emerging as the South Asia’s greatest ever leader in an online poll conducted by the BBC. While Jinnah has polled 39 per cent votes, the ‘Sabarmati’s Sant’ could garner only 36 per cent votes.

While some surfers have raised objections over the inclusion of Zia ul Haq, that Ahmed Shah Masood has also made it to the list of the greats flummoxes one and all.

What is more intriguing is the near-annihilation of almost all the stalwarts – such as Nehru, Chandrika, Jayawardene who failed to gather a single percentage of votes – save Subhash Chandra Bose who polled an alarming 21 per cent of the popular votes.

Well come on. The Bose result should not be surprising at all. We all love our audio speakers. I myself would have voted for the controvercial Mujahideen leader Ahmed Shah Masood, but thats mostly because his nickname was “The Lion of the Panjshir.” Someday I would like to be remembered as “The Lion of the Blogosphere.”

Anyways, the bottom line is that web polls are pointless.

PV Narasimha Rao, who served as Prime Minister of India from 1991-1996 after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, had a heart attack two weeks ago; He died today at age 83.

PV Narasimha Rao was the first Indian leader outside the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty to complete a full five-year term.

But his tenure was marred by the destruction of an ancient mosque in the city of Ayodhya by Hindu nationalists in 1992.

The demolition of the mosque led to widespread riots between Hindus and Muslims across India in which several thousand people were killed. Bitter religious divisions exist to this day.

Mr Rao also has the unwelcome distinction of being the first Indian prime minister to be convicted of corruption.

His conviction was later overturned. Rao is also remembered for his economic policies;

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who served as Mr Rao’s finance minister, said he would be remembered as the father of India’s economic reforms.

Mr Singh, an economist, was brought into politics by Mr Rao to tackle a balance of payments crisis.

They are credited with opening up the Indian economy, now one of the world’s fastest growing, after years of socialist controls.

BBC NEWS: Ex-Indian PM Narasimha Rao dies

CNN International: Former India PM Rao dead at 83

Perhaps the only thing more murderous than the commute in Los Angeles may be the daily trek that workers in Gosaba, India have to deal with:

Between 150-200 people from Gosaba have been killed going about their daily work — fishing and cutting wood on the edge of the park or gathering honey deep in the jungle.

The impoverished villagers say they have little choice but to risk their lives in order to eke out an existence in a hostile environment ill-suited to farming.

Every year, 20 to 30 people are carried off by tigers in the Sunderbans, home to 270 of the big cats, according to regional forestry department figures.

Such tragedies have earned Gosaba the unfortunate monicker of “island of widows.”

AFP/Yahoo!: Man-eating tigers wreak havoc on India’s island of widows

Continue reading →

the fuzzy images of the 17-year-old girl having oral sex [NSFW] with her high school boyfriend has sent shock waves through urban India, exposing the growing friction between the conservative middle class, its increasingly Westernized children and modern technology. [Chicago Sun Times]

The boy got off (as it were) with a slap on the wrist, despite cries for his blood. Meanwhile, the girl got sent off to Canada, as if enceinte.

Magistrate Santosh Snehi Mann released the boy on bail after his parents put up 25,000 rupees ($570) and surrendered the minor’s passport. The judge called his actions a “misadventure”. The court ordered the boy, who cannot be named, to undergo a month of counselling and told his parents to supply weekly behavioural reports. However, police and prosecutors had called for the boy to be kept in juvenile detention. A police petition said: “The act of the boy was obscene, depraved and showed his animal instincts and he should undergo psychiatric treatment and counselling. The girl involved has reportedly been sent to Canada by her parents. The teenagers were both expelled from their school. [BBC]

Meanwhile, in a charmingly quaint attempt to grab the limelight, Kareena Kapoor is suing a newspaper for having had the audacity to print photographs of her canoodling with co-star Shahid Kapoor in a restaurant.

An Indian Bollywood film star has begun legal proceedings against a tabloid newspaper that published photos of her passionately kissing her co-star. Kareena Kapoor – one of Bollywood’s most famous actors – is seeking an unconditional apology from the paper. She and her co-star Shahid Kapoor say the photos were doctored, and were not of them. The poor-quality photographs appeared to suggest that the two stars were kissing intimately in a restaurant. The BBC’s Zubair Ahmed says that the photographs and film clip of the two actors – who are not related – were apparently taken by someone with a video-enabled mobile phone. On Thursday, some news channels ran the entire clip. [BBC]

Previous Posts: The next M. Knight Shyamalan? Baazee.com CEO arrested over sex clip Continue reading →