Mayank's Blog

According to a study , it takes only 10% of the population to remain committed to an idea for it to become majority opinion. In India, we have for so long believed that the minority needs to be protected from the majority that we are now unable to see the majority being reduced to second-class citizens in their own country. India has a long history of minority appeasement or more correctly that of pseudo-secularism. Indian politicians from the Nehru-era believe in doling out gifts to Muslims at the cost of majority Hindu population. A shining example of this is the Shah Bano case in which the Indian parliament overturned the decision of the court to grant alimony to protect the so-called Muslim personal laws. In recent years, this appeasement has increased to nauseating proportions. In December 2012, the Samajwadi Party government in Uttar Pradesh launched a scheme to give Rs. 30,000 to 10th pass girls for further studies or marriage. But this scheme only applied to Muslim gi...

Few days ago I had a heated argument with my friend about religion. Still fresh from watching " Religulous ", I was countering his every argument. Fed up, he asked me to read Bhagavad Gita and then tell him if I find anything wrong with it. Faced with the prospect of reading a book running into hundreds of pages, I asked him to keep it cool and let it go. He anyways went ahead and gifted me the holy book. Now I don't have the patience or passion to read such a thick religious book (yeah go ahead, judge me), I was thinking of a shortcut. That's when the idea of Bhagavad Gita Reader came into my mind. Snapshot - (Click for a larger view) This application divides Bhagavad Gita into chapters and verses. Then each verse and its translation is shown. There are no extra "interpretations to clutter up your mind." This application is built on WPF/.NET 4.0 with MVVM Light framework - A great framework with a very small learning curve as compared to Prism  albeit ...

" Uska religion mere religion se jyada secular kaise! ", may well be the new punch line for ads for religions. Scientology, the religion practiced and promoted by the likes of Tom Cruise, has already started advertising itself. Soon other religions will follow suit resulting in an all-out war (like the Cola war) with each religion calling other names. Christianity may even throw in some free goodies for those convert, " Become a Christian and get a chance to touch the Pope! ( Warning : You are allowed to only touch the Pope. He should not be knocked down .) ". If you are wondering how dare I say such things, all this is courtesy the recent HC decision to allow individuals to criticize religions .