Viswanathan K's Thoughts

After the emphatic Modi (BJP?) win of 2014, some fear that Hindu fanaticism is now in the driver’s seat. Some of the events fueling that feeling/fear are ghar vapasi (re-converting back to Hinduism), the campaign against love jihad, ban on beef in a few states, introduction of the Gita in curriculum, appointment of Sangh-linked people in educational bodies and attacks against churches. Are these events real? Absolutely. But do they mean that we are getting Talibanized or becoming similar to the Islamic countries? That’s highly debatable. (It is one thing to say that we are heading down that road; but it’s nonsense to say that we are already very similar to them). In fact, such gross exaggeration actually has a negative impact. Here’s why. The folks who don’t believe we are anything even remotely like the Islamic countries (not yet anyway) then wonder why even a small to moderate bad act of the Hindu is treated at par with the worst of Islam. From there, it’s a short drive to ...

I was reading this book on Facebook and it described Mark Zuckerberg’s first attempt at building a social networking site at Harvard. In order to get all the student data to fill on his site, he either hacked into the university servers or asked his friends’ with access to that data to give it to him. When the complaints came in, the university hauled Zuckerberg and his friends in. The university felt that Zuckerberg hadn’t tried to use that data for personal gain, just to build a university wide network. So it decided that they were just young and foolish and let them off with a rap on the knuckles. While Zuckerberg was celebrating the fact that he hadn’t got suspended, the father of one of his friends (Joe Green) who had helped get the data illegally was in the campus. He was shocked to see that Zuckerberg didn’t seem to realize he had just had a close shave with being suspended. And so the father told his son that Zuckerberg was nothing but trouble and that the son should avoid hi...