Month: June 2008

Domain names

General, World
Comments

Today, 26/6/2008, the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will vote on two key proposals.

The first would allow domains that do not use Latin characters, meaning domain names using Chinese, Arabic or Cyrillic letters.

The other proposal would allow domains to use nearly any letter or number combination, up to 64 characters.

Why Greek letters were left out is not known.

Perhaps the board members forgot about them.

ICANN can also allow Latin letters with diacritical marks.

India has many languages and scripts.

India can set up Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers in Indian languages (CANNIL).

This can allow Assamese, Bengali, Brahmi, Devanagari, Gujarati, Gurumukhi, Kannada, Kharoshti, Malayalam, Oriya, Tamil, Telugu and other letters as domain names.

Bengali is also spoken in Bangladesh and an understanding could be reached.

Urdu letters have 28 Arabic letters so it will be difficult for CANNIL to allow domain names in Urdu.

Besides India can have many domain names in Latin (Roman) letters.

Every state, union territory, district, taluk, city and village can have a domain name of its own.

Every association, company, firm, society, trust etc can have a domain name of its own.

It is unlikely that many will opt for domain names of 64 characters.

The shorter the domain name the better.

Typing 64 characters will take a long time compared to typing three characters.

Rioting in Mulund

India
Comments

On Saturday, 21/6/2008, Sikhs demanding arrest of Gurmeet Singh Ram Rahim rioted in Mulund.

They brandished swords, damaged buses, blocked trains and threw stones at trains.

Many commuters ducked.

The culprits must be arrested.

Cost of damage must be recovered from them.

TV channels have shown the people who blocked trains and threw stones on trains.

It is not difficult to arrest them.

If it is not known who damaged buses the cost must be recovered from the leaders.

It looks like we live in dark ages.

Riots take place.

Rioters go unpunished.

This emboldens others.

Why is Gurmeet Singh Ram Rahim provided with Z+ security? He is an accused in rape and murder cases.

Is it because he supported Congress? R. R. Patil, Home Minister of Maharashtra, must state that rioters will have to pay for their crimes.

Whether their demand was legitimate or not is a separate issue.

They have broken the law, caused hardship to people who have nothing to do with Gurmeet Singh Ram Rahim, endangered the lives of people and damaged property.

They must pay for their crimes.

Mobocracy triumphs in Rajasthan

India
Comments

The Gujjars got what they wanted through violent means.

They blocked roads, destroyed public and private property, uprooted railway tracks, put people to hardships.

Central and State Governments did nothing to confront them.

The Rajasthan Government by agreeing to the demands of Gujjars allowed mobocracy to triumph and has sent a message that violence pays.

Laws can be broken with impunity.

This will be a signal to many people in India including those who want creation of States of Gorkhaland, Telengana etc that they will succeed if they resort to violence.

While granting 5% reservation to Gujjars the Rajasthan Government also announced 14% reservation to EBCs.

This puts the total reservation to 68%.

Supreme Court has limited reservation to 50% except for exceptional circumstances where the population of SCs/STs in a State is more than 50%.

In Rajasthan there are no exceptional circumstances.

What will happen if women will also want reservation in government jobs and educational institutions? Nothing will be left for men in general category.

Some women want 33% reservation in Parliament and Legislative Assemblies.

The bill for that has been introduced in the Rajya Sabha.

Some parties instead of opposing it directly want reservation for OBCs in that 33%.

Soon Gujjars and others will demand a share in that 33%.

What will happen if some people demand reservation on the basis of regional identity? What if they want to drive out people from their states? These apprehensions are not far fetched.

They are a reality.

Strangely Gujjar agitation was led by a man who was once Colonel.

The man who was once ready to kill and die for India now is a leader of a group that broke laws.

In any country, more so in a democracy, rule of law has to prevail.

When mobs resort to vandalism and get what they want that is mobocracy.

That is the end of rule of law, democracy and civil society.

Let all leaders of political parties join together and take a stand to abolish reservations.

Otherwise India will disappear from the world map.

The States will turn into countries.