Skip to main content

Padma Chee!!

Saif Ali Khan is in bed with Padma while Kareena, standing at the bedroom door, happily looks on. Spotting Kareena, Saif doesn't flinch. If you think that I am talking dirty then you are thinking correct. I am talking about the award which has recently gathered a lot of mud - the Padma Shree - the fourth highest honour to be given to an Indian citizen after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan.

Meanwhile in the bedroom, Kareena points at the head of the Black Buck adorning the walls and complains, "I told you if you had killed a tiger, may be you would have got Bharat Ratna. Who knows! After all there are only 1411 tigers left in India". Saif hangs his head in shame - for recieving the award or killing the Black Buck or not killing the tiger - we will never know.

There is another recipient of this award who is worth mentioning. Sant Singh Chatwal, with a brief stint in jail in 1997, two charge-sheets, bank fraud cases etc., got Padma Bhushan. I wonder why they forgot Ramalinga Raju.

Just like Shiv Sena attacking Sachin has a reason, there is a "reason" behind Chatwal getting the award. Home Ministry has clarified that Chatwal has been given this honour because he was instrumental in getting the nuclear deal signed with the US. We can brush aside the little fact that Chatwal is supporter of the Clintons who are bitter political opponents of Bush, the president who pushed this deal in the American Senate.

OK let's stop complaining. Let's look at the fool-proof and interesting way of selecting the winners. A "secret" committee is formed which is given a list of nominations and asked to choose. The committee is given a few hours to choose from thousands of names with only very little information provided to it. Under such pressure, I think that the committee would have devised even more secret method of selection - choose every 10th name. Simple, isn't it!

My only humble request to the Government of India is not to make the dozens of genuine winners of the Padmas feel any smaller by giving away awards to people like the Chatwals. Please don't make us call it the Padma Chee.

P.S. - If Obama can get the Nobel Peace Prize, don't complain about the Padmas!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

As far as possible, please refrain from posting Anonymous comments. I would really love to know who is interested in my blog! Also check out the FAQs section for the comment policy followed on this site.

Popular posts from this blog

Integrating React with SonarQube using Azure DevOps Pipelines

In the world of automation, code quality is of paramount importance. SonarQube and Azure DevOps are two tools which solve this problem in a continuous and automated way. They play well for a majority of languages and frameworks. However, to make the integration work for React applications still remains a challenge. In this post we will explore how we can integrate a React application to SonarQube using Azure DevOps pipelines to continuously build and assess code quality. Creating the React Application Let's start at the beginning. We will use npx to create a Typescript based React app. Why Typescript? I find it easier to work and more maintainable owing to its strongly-typed behavior. You can very well follow this guide for jsx based applications too. We will use the fantastic Create-React-App (CRA) tool to create a React application called ' sonar-azuredevops-app '. > npx create-react-app sonar-azuredevops-app --template typescript Once the project creation is done, we ...
1 comment
Continue Reading >>

Add Git Commit Hash and Build Number to a Static React Website using Azure DevOps

While working on a React based static website recently, there was a need to see exactly what was deployed in the Dev/Test environments to reduce confusion amongst teams. I wanted to show something like this: A quick look at the site's footer should show the Git Commit Hash and Build Number which was deployed and click through to actual commits and build results. Let's see how we achieved this using Azure DevOps. Git Commit Hash Azure DevOps exposes a variable called  $(Build.SourceVersion) which contains the hash of the commit. So I defined a variable in the Build Pipeline using it. Build Id and Build Number Azure DevOps also exposes two release time variables  $(Build.BuildId) and  $(Build.BuildNumber) which can be used to define custom variables in the pipeline. So we have a total of 3 variables defined: Next we use these variables in our React App. I created 3 global variables in index.html and assigned a token value to them. < script   type = "text/JavaScri...
Post a Comment
Continue Reading >>

Use AI to build your house!

When a new housing society emerges, residents inevitably create chat groups to connect and share information using various chat apps like WhatsApp and Telegram. In India, Telegram seems to be the favorite as it provides generous group limits, admin tools, among other features. These virtual communities become treasure troves of invaluable insights. But whatever app you use, there is always a problem of finding the right information at right time. Sure, the apps have a "Search" button, but they are pretty much limited to keyword search and are useless when you have to search through thousands of messages. I found myself in this situation when it was my turn to start on an interior design project for my home. Despite being part of a vibrant Telegram group, where countless residents had shared their experiences with various interior designers and companies, I struggled to unearth the pearls of wisdom buried within the chat's depths. I remembered that I could take advantage o...
Post a Comment
Continue Reading >>