The Brave Pedestrian

Ever wondered how cigarette and bidi adverts would look if genuine users endorsed them? Well here are some specimens. These are adverts made with real people -- real tobacco users who were, not surprisingly, patients at Tata Memorial Hospital back in 2012. Some of these people are alive, while others have passed on. Image: http://tinyurl.com/Malegaon-ka-superrman In October 2012, I interviewed almost all of the people in these ads -- with the sole exception of "Malegaon Ka Superrman" lead actor Shafique Shaikh (who had already died). And these guys told me, up close and personal, how much they had enjoyed chewing and smoking tobacco -- up until the point that it ravaged their bodies. Image: http://tinyurl.com/Gutka-barons Some of these people are still alive, but their bodies have been ravaged by radiation-therapy, surgery and chemotherapy. Some who were diagnosed with oral cancer have had half their lower or upper jaw removed, along wit...

Amazing how easily our courts grant stay orders, even to known criminals and offenders. if the right senior counsels appear, stay orders may be had for the asking! In this way, higher judiciary plays a big role in OBSTRUCTING IMPLEMENTATION of laws, rules etc, and enabling offenders to evade law enforcement agencies, "under cover of the judiciary's robe". Bravo, Milords! Why does Indian judges have such lax moral standards for granting a stay? Crooks take advantage of it!

30th May, 2015 Dear Shri Narendra Modi, Pranaam. Advance greetings from the widows of five former smokers and tobacco users on the occasion of World No Tobacco Day (31st May). We feel it is apt to greet you on this great occasion as the government is a major shareholder in the tobacco industry. Our late husbands have contributed considerable amounts to your government's massive tax income from the tobacco industries, and also to the profits of Life Insurance Corporation, financial institutions, mutual funds etc, who hold about 35% shares in ITC and other tobacco companies. We are writing to you also because, although state after state has banned chewing-tobacco Gutka, there is only one state where gutka is manufactured: Gujarat. It is the only state in entire India that continues to manufacture gutka. From there, it is smuggled to all other states of India, in violation of the bans. Surely you know this? Mr Prime Minister, Sir, we beg to introduce ourselves and ...

Indian judiciary is NOT acting like a justice delivery system of a democratic country. It is acting like a colonial ruler, an absolute power over Indian citizens. Whatever our courts are delivering cannot be called JUSTICE --    they can only be called "orders" or "judgments". For there to be justice, there must necessarily be timeliness, uniform application of laws and availability to all sections of society. http://tinyurl.com/Indian-judge-scales Krishnaraj Rao 9821588114

Our nation is in the midst of judiciary's summer vacation -- an entire organ of State closed for five to seven weeks (except for a tiny number of vacation-judges -- a loincloth-like shred of judiciary). Because of these summer vacations, courts give long dates to undertrials -- even those who are being held in judicial custody. Dates are not always given given immediately after summer vacations, so the delay is not only of a few weeks. With lakhs of people being held in judicial custody without a trial for months and even years, doesn't this make our judiciary the biggest human-rights violator in India and abroad? Think about the needless suffering that common people and their families undergo, while our judges and lawyers insist on their right to take it easy. Judges don't think it is a big deal to hold an accused in prison for a few extra weeks or months. For them, it is just business-as-usual!  http://tinyurl.com/Courts-Summer-Vacation Regards, ...

Do you & I have anything to do with FARMER SUICIDES? Are we responsible in any way? I would say a firm NO. Still, think about the question a little. The commoners and even Lords and ladies of Britain one century ago would have believed that they were not responsible the enslavement of cotton farmers in India. They would have said that they had nothing to do with the pricing policy for cotton imported from India and the textiles manufactured in the mills of Manchester. The British soldiers would have said exactly the same thing... because they were not the policymakers. Even individual MPs and who knows, the British Prime Minister and even King George or Queen Victoria might have said that they were not responsible for the chronic poverty and exploitation of Indian farmers. http://tinyurl.com/farmer-suicide Today, with the benefit of hindsight, I feel that all the people in Britain benefited from the Indian farmers' helplessness... and therefore, they were responsibl...

If pendency of cases were under control and appellants got a fair hearing, Supreme Court's six-week summer vacations could possibly have been justified. But such is emphatically not the case. Supreme Court judges dismiss a majority of the appeals instantly, not even giving a few second to appellants -- although appellants struggle for months, travel thousands of kilometres many times, and suffer great financial hardships to get a hearing in supreme court. Many of the Supreme Court judges are known to contemptuously THROW THE APPELLANT'S FILES on the floor after a couple of seconds of inattentive hearing, showing callous disregard for the litigants and the appeal process! Despite such hurried methods, the queue of pending cases before SC is growing longer every year. And, year after year, these high-and-mighty Supreme Court judges have the shamelessness to go on lengthy vacations, en masse! If this is not contempt of court by them, I don't know what is. ...