Thank god, there is no guided shoe 'weapon' yet!

Name: Muntadar al-Zaidi; Profession: Journalist: Target: George W. Bush; Weapon: A pair of shoes. Result: Two failed attempts. Date: 14 December 2008. That shocked the world, shamed the US Secret Service and made a hero of a little known journalist who had the audacity to throw a pair of shoes at the then US President. Seen as a courageous, novel and telling way to protest and vent anger against the state or party or any individual, the trend was an instant hit in India. Even though the ethicality of the method is highly debatable, it is no doubt an instant ticket to transient fame. Many Indian copycats emerged in a few years and incidentally many are journalists and awful at hitting the target. [caption id=“attachment_21404” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Not for fun all the time. Thierry Roge/Reuters”]  [/caption] The first Indian minister to get a taste of being a shoe thrower’s target was Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on 7 April 2009. Jarnal Singh, a Dainik Jagran reporter, hurled a shoe at the minister protesting the acquittal of Jagdish Tytler, an accused in the anti-Sikh riots in 1984. Unlike Bush who ducked twice to save himself, Chidambaram was lucky as the missile missed him by a whisker. Industrialist and member of Parliament Navin Jindal was subjected to a shoe attack by a retired school teacher on 10 April 2009. Although the ‘weapon’ missed the intended target it did manage hurt another person sharing the dais with Jindal. After the Chidambaram and Jindal episodes, senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani was attacked in a similar fashion by an ex-party member in Madhya Pradesh on 19 April 2009. The result was same though. Target not hit. Even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh found his name on this list. In an Ahmedabad rally on 26 April 2009, a man attempted to throw a shoe at the prime minister. The throw was wayward though. Next it was the turn of Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah. It was on 15 August 2010 when Abdullah was delivering his Independence Day speech in Srinagar. This time too, it was a wild throw that saved the target from being hit. The attacker was a suspended policeman who had a criminal case registered against him. In the 23rd day of the same month, Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda faced a similar situation as a shoe hurled at him by an unemployed youth Shakti Singh landed quite close to the dais. The latest victim in this misfire of shoes turned out to be Janardhan Dwivedi who was almost hit with a shoe on 6 June 2011 at a press conference in New Delhi by a journalist from a Rajasthan-based New Delhi. The angry man did not approve of the treatment the government meted out to yoga guru Baba Ramdev recently.