Arif Pathan, a 54-year-old aide of Maharashtra Congress spokesman and MLC Sanjay Dutt, is said to have been detained by police in connection with the German Bakery blast in Pune, his family and friends alleged today. While official sources confirmed that Pathan had been questioned — and that his name had come up during the probe into the 2008 Jaipur serial blasts — top police officers denied Pathan had been picked up for the attack. They also refused to comment on why the man was missing since being questioned by police on Wednesday as claimed by his family. Pathan and his brother Feroz own a ...

Phir dil do Hockey ko! And if the Indian Hockey is going to continue to play like it did today, there is no reason why Hockey would not once again rule Indian Hearts! In a classical fast flowing attacking display of sub-continent Hockey, mixed with the Western technique of going for penalty corners, India defeated Pakistan 4-1 to give a great start to Indian campaign in the World Cup Hockey in the Major Dhyan Chand Stadium. India took the lead in the 27th minute when Shivendra Singh converted off a rebound from a Pakistani save on India's second penalty corner. After this Pakistani team counte...

If you pick up the newspapers tomorrow and find that the Railway Budget has been consigned to some inside page, don't be surprised. It was an innings par excellence - the God of Cricket once again showed why he is loved so much by his fans. Sachin Tendulkar has become the first man ever to score a double century in an ODI innings ( well there has been a certain Belinda Clark from Australia who has done it earlier in women's ODI cricket) . Sachin Tendulkar chose one of the finest bowling attacks in business today - South Africa to break the 200 run barrier and in the process eclipsed the olde...

The Saudis rejected Pakistani diplomat Akbar Zib as Ambassador (at large?) on the grounds that his name translates to 'biggest dick.' I alternate from feeling sorry for the guy, to marveling at reading the words 'Pakistani', 'diplomat', and 'biggest dick' all in the same sentence. But yes, that's really what it translates as. Neal Ungerleider over at True/Slant helpfully tells us that Akbar is a common Muslim name that translates to "the greatest", and Zeb is a relatively common Urdu name  whose meaning in Arabic is a crude word for male genitals. These types of linguistic faux paus happen ...

A+ , B+ and AB+ Blood Needed : Donate Blood ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Indians deserve every bit of the blasts that rock our nation ever so often. A 26/11 happens , and for a few days some people carry out the drama of candle light vigils and what not , and when the news is no longer worthy of Headline space, they start signing a new tune "Aman Ki Asha" , without any concrete action on part of Pakistan to rectify the situation. The blast has targeted a very famous German Bakery located close to Osho Ashram and a Jewish Center. The  place is frequen...

  Our media has been reporting that the tickets of My Name is Khan at the Berlin Film Festival were sold for 6000 Euros a piece. Now, out of curosity, I decided to verify this claim ( actually I wanted to buy the ticket for 10,000 Euros ;) ) . I went to the Berlin Film Festival's official page of the movie ( Link: http://www.berlinale.de/en/programm/berlinale_programm/datenblatt.php?film_id=20100169 ) and I came to know that 4 shows of My Name is Khan is slotted till the 21st Feb 2010. So far so good, I decided to check the ticket price for the shows. The tickets have been priced in the ran...

Re-affirming once again its nationalist vision for India, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ( RSS) stepped in where even the Congress-led Maharashtra Government had failed. The RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat has directed the Sangh workers in Maharashtra to protect north Indians from attacks.In stark contrast to the Congress-led Government's recent directive to make Mumbai taxi licences available only to Marathis, the Sangh chief re-affirmed that whole of India is for all Indians and all Indians can earn livelihood anywhere in India. 'Language, caste, sub-castes, groups, tribes can be different, but all...

This is a splash coming from me after a long haitus, it is more a result of the continuous IPL rant about missing Paksitani players that I have been hearing on the television than a conscious attempt to write one. Now a lot , I really mean a lot, has been barked in the media about all the IPL franchises giving the Pakistani player a pass. If one were to go by the high voltage media reporting , one would wonder that it is only the Pakistani players have been given the miss while all the rest on the auction got picked up. However the fact is that out of 66 players on the auction list , only 11 g...

Above is the screenshot of CNN IBN website showing the vote share of various political parties in the recently concluded Maharashtra Assembly Polls. ( The live page on the CNN IBN website can be accessed here . )The figures might look innocuous but let us read the figures once again. They say that that Congress polled over 5 crore ( over 50 million, 50693202 to be precise ) votes, BJP over 4 crore votes ( over 40 million votes, 40881657 to be precuse ) while the rest combined polled over another 4.2 crore ( over 42 million votes). Now on summing this up, the CNN-IBN  total comes to ove...

Ok .. let us apply some coder logic and create a new discussion splash .... Now here's the plot .. If I create a perfect code , I would be jobless. If I leave no bugs what would I maintain? If I have already the perfect code that writes new code, I would be jobless. So, if God has already delivered the perfect code, does he want to go jobless? ( Recession and near God Experience creates cartoonists ;) ) P.S: why in cplash and not zc? 1) Recession word is there.- I worked hard to avoid layoff [;)] 2) God is there. 3) IT ethics involved 4) Some fundamentalism too ( How can i not be a fundament...

Watch the Police officer in blue in the first 15 seconds of the clip here handing over an Islamic flag to a guy and helping him get over the top of a police vehicle to wave the flag. Then go on to see what the crowd that the police so 'lovingly' brought to the pandals do in the last 30 seconds. When the situation goes out of control , finally the police has to go in for a lathi-charge Now 'Spot the similarity contest' : Is the same officer in blue who helped rioters raise Islamic flags on a police vehicle leading a police lathi-charge inside a Ganesha Pandal on the devotees in the video belo...

Saina Nehwal beat China's World No. 3 Wang Lin 12-21, 21-18, 21-9 to win the Indonesian Open Super Series final in Jakarta today. With this win Saina bagged her  first  Super Series title. Earlier, on Saturday in the semi-finals, she had stunned former World No. 2 Lu Lan of China 25-23, 21-19 to storm into the final of the Indonesia Super Series. After going down in the first set 12-21, Saina staged a comeback to win the closely contested second set 21-18. She completely dominated the final set winning 16 of the last 18 points to secure the title with a 21-9 victory in the final set. The Indi...

This series of splashes began in November 2008 as my attempt to track the effect of recession on some of the aspects of the Indian economy- mainly the trade deficit, inflation and the  oil pool deficit.Over the last eight months, India has gone through the 15th Lok Sabha General elections where in spite of all fears of a badly fractured mandate, the electorate has been wise enough to give a verdict that allowed the formation of a relatively stable government at the center. The Indian stock markets gave a thumbs up to the verdict with back to back upper circuits. Globally the recession seems ...

The elections are over and the new government under Mr. Manmohan Singh has got on with the task of 'governance'.  A few noises had been made in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections and they had the desired results. However, now that the results are out and the next elections probably five years away, it is time  for the government to get back to its old ways. The irony is that public memory is short-lived and with our front-line media houses scrambling to be seen on the right side of the new regime ( after all why does NDTV has to do a show on the Gandhi family probably every fortnite ? ) pro...

The results have started to trickle in, and it seems UPA is all set to return to power. Manmohan Singh emerges king once again. The best part is that Left has been cut down to size, so we can expect another term of stable governance. What are the factors that you think led to the UPA returning to power, in spite of the perceived weaknesses of the governance?...