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Today we asked our Facebook community to help us headline a story featuring an interview with Omar Abdullah, the Chief minister of Kashmir. Thank you Prasanna Venkatesh Srinivasan for the great suggestion, and everyone else for the overwhelming response! Apart from this, readers had a lot to say on Omar Abdullah, Baba Ramdev and the death of traditional language. This is our selection of the comments that caught our eye: Via @firstpostin @ethicalme @abdullah_omar @firstpostin This SHOULD shut your critics up! But if that ever happens, they’ll be left with no job at all. @surekhapillai @firstpostin i read that as shave. which might make a far more interesting story. @halwa RT remember Raja sued Pioneer PRT @firstpostin Dayanidhi Maran issues legal notice to @tehelkadotcom in response to telecom swindle expose   Via Facebook:

Posted on Afridi ‘quits’ international cricket; slams PCB On Articles xtacie Just because Anna Hazare is the hero of the season, does not mean that everyone who has a different viewpoint is a villain. Baba Ramdev has a point when he says “If people will start making comments on Prime Minister and the Chief Justice of India then how can we assume that a person appointed as the Lokpal will remain honest and committed to his duties?”. And why is the news media highlighting this as a RIFT. Two individuals have different opinion on certain issues, does not mean there is a rift between them. Posted on: Rift between Anna and Ramdev? Yoga guru says Lokpal can’t probe PM twanoo I have been a part of India Against Corruption (IAC) movement since last year. Therefore, I have been participating and observing the goings-on in the movement for some time now. I am getting increasingly disillusioned with the movement now. First of all, Anna Hazare has outlived his utility. Anna Hazare is no Gandhi. Hazare maybe an honest and clean guy standing up for a good and just cause but he is not a clever strategist which is what this movement desperately needs to tackle the cunning old foxes sitting in Delhi. A month ago Hazare was praising Narendra Modi. Under pressure from certain quarters later he sort of backtracked. Last week in Gujarat, sitting next to Modi’s old bete noire, Mallika Sarabhai, he denounced Gujarat as a corrupt state where its only “Ghotala hi Ghotala”. It was astonishing how Hazare reached this conclusion within 4 hours of reaching Ahmedabad. Later that week, landing in Karnataka, which is arguably the most corrupt state in the country today, he was asked what he thought of corruption there to which he meekly replied that he has just landed and its not ok to make a comment so soon. Pray, tell me why 2 different yard sticks for Karnataka and Gujarat? Or is that the man is used to shooting his mouth off and after a couple of PR disasters his “advisers” (M/s Kiran Bedi and company) are now tutoring him the art of public speak? Its important therefore to remove the spotlight from Anna and make this more of a people to people movement. One bungling leader can discredit the whole movement. Secondly, the unexpected Jantar Mantar success has gone to heads of the IAC’s chieftains. They smell power, are getting arrogant. And they are going for the kill (Lokpal Bill). I am beginning to sense that if the Lokpal Bill gets passed we would have replaced a democratically elected governing authority with another equally power hungry bunch. You have rightly pointed out in your article what worked in Jantar Mantar then may not work now. But this is something which is beyond the comprehension of most at IAC. Lastly, we already have the necessary wings such as bureaucracy, judiciary, law and order etc to tackle the corrupt. The need of the hour is to strengthen these wings, bring in more transparency and accountability and not to create a super government through Jan Lokpal. I am getting apprehensive about what our movement may ultimately achieve and maybe we would have ended up undermining our own cause, eventually……. Posted on Lokpal bill debate now a war of egos Sanjay I have absolutely no ’liberal’ pretensions. Some crimes deserve nothing but the death penalty, but while each individual’s definition of such crimes may be subjective, I’ll go with the Supreme Court’s directive about death penalty to be awarded for the ‘rarest of the rare’ cases. The question here is how to prevent political parties from playing politics. Can there be a law that binds the President to give a ‘pardon / deny pardon’ verdict within 365 days of a pardon clemency being filed? Why do multiple Governments need to offer their comments, because somewhere elections are always in the offing. This should be resolved between the President and the MHA. There are many such things that can be done, but the moot question is, ‘Does the Govt in power want to do anything at all’? Posted on Politicians: Stop playing politics with the death sentence Elangovan Deshpande Don’t see what the fuss is about. Language changes all the time. Once upon a time, most N. Indians spoke Sanskrit/Prakrit. That was ‘our’ mother tongue then. But we know what happened. A language that doesn’t keep up with the times, dies - just like anything else. A language becomes ‘ours’ only when we make it ‘ours’ - not because our ancestors spoke it. “Our” language is the one that we speak/dream in. Same goes with culture. If we lived exactly the way our ancestors did - in the name of preserving tradition - we would still be living in caves, or worse. That is the difference between tradition and culture. Tradition is the way our ancestors lived - culture is the way we live. The two need not, should not be the same. Posted on Forget Marathi, Tamil, Bengali: your kid is English only JinJinJin I would have loved to see Anna Hazare act in a more professional and mature manner.I feel it’s kind of sick to keep threatening the government every now and then with the “not so violent " fasts.What else did Anna Hazare expect????It was well known that government would not accept to all the issues raised in Lokpal Bill.This is not a simple bill which can be passed in a day…And look at the attitude of BJP which has not raised its voice either way…So i feel the government has to be given bit more time to come up with a final draft before thinking of the fast plan Posted on Rift between Anna and Ramdev? Yoga guru says Lokpal can’t probe PM Ankur Tripathi Very Sad indeed, when many were facing ‘fixing’ problems and again everyone was guessing that they’ll end up losing before the quarter-finals just like in 07, then he united this team and made them one of the favourites of winning the cup, and now he’s sacked for no reason…. Not good. Just when i thought pakistan cricket is going back to normal, this hapeed… It makes me laugh, LOL Posted on Afridi ‘quits’ international cricket; slams PCB @LijukThomas I don’t think that tweeting can distract one from work. What happens while you are working and your colleague barge in and ask you about your last vacation. You won’t just say that it was good. You will add something more than that and finish the conversation and get back to work. But that was only him who know about your vacation. But what if you have a tool were you can post everything about it. Then you do not have to talk about it to all your colleague in the office. Twitter/Facebook does just that… Technically you are saving time more with these tools than losing. By the way, you can also view your friends whereabout as well… Wonderful. Rit?? Posted on Why Omar Abdullah tweets, every day Anbuchezhian Its an excellent initiative by Omar to reach out. Atleast you know that the CM can be accessed through twitter directly and that the fact that important issues get a first hand look into rather than a hierarchical approach. I think CM’s, Chief Secretary and heads of various departments should be on twitter and use it as a tool to reach out and to the common man. Not only that more awareness should be made about their twitter handle and that people can reach out to them must be amplified. Posted on Why Omar Abdullah tweets, every day Raj This was expected. It’s impossible for one man to fight the entire lot of politicians and corrupt system. Not only the Government led by Congress but all the political parties, the bureaucrats, the local Government administration are trying to kill this anti-corruption movement. The media played a good role initially however, it doesn’t seem to be that committed at this moment. If this anti-corruption movement has to succeed, it’s entirely depends on how the honest media drive this. We should also not forget to ask the question here… is the Media biased?. Remember Radia/Barkha Dutt episode etc.? While Mr. Hazare fights at the national and macro level, we common people have to take some initiatives in fighting with local administration and at micro level - don’t pay bribe to municipal authorities, traffic cop and so on to get our work done. In my view this top-down and bottom-up approach will help. But do we have the courage and are we prepared for it? Though very difficult as we are also used to paying bribes for getting our work done fast and smooth, we need to take a call for the better furture of our country. The anti-corruption thought process has to start from the school as well, where the kids are taught about the evils of corruption. Earlier I had a view that it was a social problem, but it no longer is as the corrupt offcials/politicians are spread across all the income groups - rich/middle/lower and and across all the religions and castes. Let us hope our country is corruption free very soon. Jai Hind!!   Posted on Death by a thousand cuts for Anna Hazare’s movement   Sunil rathi The real problem is low productivity coupled with economic rewards to BPL people without commensurate productive work i.e. subsidised food, assured wages under NREGA, modst of the works carried out under NREGA not adding to such infrastructure with increases the earning capacity of people below poverty line. The curruption in NREGA leading to huge amount coming to people without sweating. It is also difficult to understand that inspite of higher wages in rural and urbon areas, the people below poverty line are increasing. hence the govt. spending needs to be reduced in non productive areas to see that the benefits of welfare schemes goes to the real poors.   Posted on Indian economy is caught in the classic wage-price spiral