Lal Bahadur.  Source: Peeplilivethefilm.com

This is not intended to be a review.
*spoiler alert* Some points give away the story line of the movie.
Peepli Live is a slap fest. It’s a slap across the face, for today’s politicians, the government, it’s babus, their yojanas, and above all, the MEDIA and us, it’s viewers.
Live television has long crossed the boundaries of absurdity. An year ago, the CM of Andhra Pradesh (YS Rajashekar Reddy) passed away in a chopper crash, and the media created a mass hysteria among people …

Joel Stein laments the Indian takeover of his hometown Edison, NJ. But is he really complaining? Is he being racist? Are we missing the sarcasm?

And are you a celebrity? Or for that matter even an average person somewhat considerate of unwarranted exposure of your body.
Conspiracy theorist – Alex Jones on his website prisonplanet.com has this to say:
Claims on behalf of authorities that naked body scanner images are immediately destroyed after passengers pass through new x-ray backscatter devices have been proven fraudulent after it was revealed that naked images of Indian film star Shahrukh Khan were printed out and circulated by airport staff at Heathrow in London.
The report is related to a yahoo news article …

I don’t really #follow celeb tweeple, well maybe a few but you get the idea, and this is perhaps out of boredom from being stuck home on a stormy Friday evening. I was reading this particular quote in this story about Shiv Sena v/s Bollywood stars (yaaaaawn) and came across this particular quote. [IBN]
“We will be back to Mumbai. I hope the Bandar Sena won’t stop us. Shiv Sena has become a joke to the nation. They’re instilling hatred. I guess they didn’t learn any lesson from the election debacle. …

Prof. Ravi Shankar is a published poet, and a faculty member at the Central Connecticut State University. On July 10th this year, he was arrested on false charges, and detained for more than 30 hrs in a NY detention facility while being hurled with racial epithets. His record only had an unpaid speeding ticket, but he was being arrested as he ‘fit’ the description of a 140 pound caucasian male, while being a 200 pound, East Indian male.
After being produced before a magistrate after 30 hrs of detention and being …

In recent days, there has been increased chatter in desi media about Walter Semkiw’s books. [HT]
Did you know that Mahatma Gandhi has been reincarnated as Van Jones, the celebrated American civil rights and environmental activist who was named Time magazine’s “environmental hero” in the US in 2008?
“Objective evidence that forms the basis of past life studies prove that Jones is the reincarnation of Gandhi,” world’s leading past life researcher and best-selling author from the US Walter Semkiw told IANS in an interview.
World’s leading past life researcher? He certainly seems …

In the wake of the mysterious Air France plane crash off the coast on Brazil, TOI online asks profound questions like “Did the Bermuda triangle cause this crash?”.

An Indian student at the University of Southern Mississippi was seriously injured in a robbery at the gas station he was working at. The Indian media seems to be falling over themselves to sensationalize this incident and each news source has conflicting reports on the same story.

Rediff reports (desinole via Über Desi Twitter) that the heartbeat of Malayalam cinema masses, Mammootty, (with all due respect to Mohanlal fans) was subjected to ethnic stereotyping at New York’s JFK airport.
Was it because of moustache envy? Perhaps, but Mammootty’s real name seems to be the more likely cause.
Mammootty’s real name, which appears in his passport as Muhammad Kutty Ismail. When the immigration official saw the last name Ismail, he sent the actor to a separate room for questioning. Mammootty has visited the US 22 times, once after the 9/11 …

More American Workers Outsourcing Own Jobs Overseas
I know its from The Onion, but I don’t see why it could not become a real thing. Srsly.

“What race…ummm….ethnicity are you?”
“Indian”
“Oh, Cherokee?”
“Huh? No. As in from India, the country.”
A natural confusion that comes with the widespread use of the word “Indians”. Some of us have experienced the opportunity to hand out this little tidbit of information to some less traveled souls in the US. However, educating the most reputed Indian (the country) newspaper somehow is something we would rather not do. [TOI]
The Times of India’s Indians Abroad section continues to dazzle us with their ever evolving definition of Indian-Americans.
Obama nominates American Indian to head Indian Affairs
WASHINGTON: An …

The shoe tossing trend seems to be catching on. First George W. Bush, then Wen Jiabao, now P.C. A Sikh journalist tosses his shoe in the general direction of the Home Minister in a press conference on the recent CBI report on the anti-Sikh riots. Better aimed he could’ve easily hit him square on the face but since the gesture was more symbolic, probably chose not to.
Soon worldwide leaders will be insisting on barefoot press conferences.

From BBC:
The reporter was identified by local television channels as Jarnail Singh, a veteran correspondent …

Image source: Rediff.com
Also, here is a (better) picture of Ajit Jain on Flickr
Speculations are rife that, Orissa born Ajit Jain (wiki) may succeed Warren Buffett, the second richest person in the world and often touted as the greatest investment guru ever. In Warren Buffett’s own words, while showering praise on Ajit Jain – he wrote thus:
“Ajit came to Berkshire in 1986. Very quickly, I realised that we had acquired an extraordinary talent. So I did the logical thing: I wrote his parents in New Delhi and asked if they had …

That didn’t take long. Someone had to take a dig at Jindal’s Indian origin sooner or later.

MSNBC talking head Chris Matthews, also known for his pro-Obama bias perhaps went overboard defending Obama against Jindal’s criticism.
Says Matthews:
They had to outsource the response tonight, the Republican party.
Then he quickly realizes the implication of what he’s trying to say and tries to make a halfhearted attempt at qualifying it.
They had to outsource it to someone who had nothing to do with Congress because the Republicans in Congress had nothing to do with the …

Martin Luther King III, the eldest son of the civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., is in India retracing the footsteps of his father, who made a similar trip to India 50 years ago.
King Jr., who arrived in India on on February 9th, 1959 along with his wife, spent a month understanding Gandhi’s mode of non-violent protests and his teachings, nearly 10 years after Gandhi’s death.

MLK Jr., Image source: pace.edu
MLK 3 with Mahatma’s grand daughter.Image source: LA Times

Earlier this week, the U.S. senate passed a resolution comfirming Gandhi’s …

According to TOI, any ethnic group classified as Indians should have a tie to India. [Exhibit 1]
BRASILIA: Police in Brazil’s Amazon rain forest are investigating three native Indians suspected of murdering and eating a 21-year-old handicapped man in a rare case of cannibalism, local authorities said on Tuesday.
This story is probably a Brazilian equivalent of man marries dog stories from India, meaning it probably never happens and when it does the international media jumps on it like it was a common thing in Brazil. But I digress.
Apparently the good …

Growing up in India, I was a big fan of “a media outlet” that rhymes with MBCV and its leading journalists at that time – a bearded guy, a handsome young man and a woman reporter, who all shall stay unnamed. The news coverage by “a media outlet” that rhymes with MBCV was a welcome break from decades of stale news coverage that the government channels subjected us to. As more news channels stepped in, we’ve slowly watched the demise of quality coverage by private news channels. Understandably some of …

With the Bush era drawing to a close, the world may soon be bereft of bushisms (Bush misspeaks), in terms of entertainment. But do not despair, for the Times Of India Online is going nowhere and will continue to provide entertainment with their misworded headlines and articles, hereby christened TOIism.
Case in point: Bush holds a press conference in which he remarks (paraphrasing) “frozen credit markets are starting to thaw”, a reference to credit markets starting to open up, which is a positive for the global economy. Some genius at TOI, …

President-elect Barack Obama has apparently offered the post of Surgeon General to famous CNN medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. [WaPo] [via]
Dr. Gupta treading new waters?img: via WaPo
Gupta has told administration officials that he wants the job, and the final vetting process is under way. He has asked for a few days to figure out the financial and logistical details of moving his family from Atlanta to Washington but is expected to accept the offer.
Dr. Gupta, of course, needs no introduction to the readers of this blog and if selected, will …

Close on the heels of the media debacle of the 60 hour Mumbai attacks, India’s News Broadcasters Association, a conglomeration of India’s leading news agencies has come together to (hopefully) prevent a repeat performance in the future. [TOI]
The guidelines direct members of the media:
not to disclose details of hostages and withholding sensitive information on rescue operations
to avoid live contact with victims and with security personnel engaged in security operations
to exercise their judgment by not airing details of identity and number of hostages and refrain from reporting or commentary that gives …