The Ugly
We pride ourselves in being the largest democracy in the modern world. The foundation of this democracy is the sharing of power between the legislative, executive and judiciary institutions. The legislative institution in India comprises of the Rajya Sabha (elected by the state legislators), and the Lok Sabha. The people of India through regular elections directly elect the Lok Sabha. Facts regarding the current Lok Sabha are highly disturbing. The Lok Sabha has about 545 members. Twenty-nine of these have been accused of spousal abuse. Seven have been arrested for fraud. Nineteen have more than three pending criminal cases against them. One hundred and seventeen have been charged with crimes including murder, rape, assault, extortion and robbery. Seventy-one have defaulted on their debts. Twenty-one are defendants on various lawsuits. Eighty-four have been involved in offenses and have paid fines. This is the same group that is responsible for crafting our laws, which will keep the law and order in the nation. How can we trust them? What can we do about this? Legislation to prevent citizens with criminal records or lawsuits to contest elections was (obviously) not passed by this parliament! Even when our President re-sent the legislation to the Prime Minister, it was returned and there was nothing (constitutionally) that our President could do! Sad, very sad with no solution in sight!

The Amazing
I just received this e-mail from an Indian friend of mine. I am still trying to research the accuracy of this report; but would like to share it with you, even prior to verification. If true, it is amazing. If not, very creative. But imagine the jewelry in all the Indian households- I am sure its value is greater then our national debt!

It seems that Mr. G. Vaidyaraj a descendent of Raja Krishnadeva Rai from Mysore District recently found an amazing bit of wealth in his home. From the last 300 years or so, three stones were worshiped in his house, but nobody tried to see what they were. One day, Mr. Vaidyaraj took the stones out to see what it is that his family worshipped. Due to the dust deposited on them from many years, they looked like simple stones... but when he touched one, some portion of the stone glittered, and he saw a bright ray of light. He was amazed when he cleaned all of them. He discovered the diamonds of over 4,000 carats each. He informed the Government of India and the news was censored due to a need for security. They are now deposited in a Swiss Bank. The value of a single diamond could vastly exceed the GDP of India. This was reported in Times of India, Star TV and The Hindu. I obviously missed it.

The Good
Another good news is that in the Desert of Thar, a new deposit of oil and natural gas has been found, which is supposed to be greater than the oil deposits in Kuwait!

More of the Good
An Indian boy in his 12th standard has disproved Einstein's ‘Theory of Relativity’. Sudarshan Reddy has theoretically proven the existence of a sub-atomic particle, which can travel at speeds greater than that of light, thereby challenging one of the fundamental postulates of the ‘Theory of Relativity’. Sudarshan has proved the existence of a class of sub-atomic particles called "leptons", which can travel faster than light. His work builds substantially on the work of Einstein and others in the field of relativity. Sudarshan, incidentally, is the brother of Madhu Reddy, the Indian whiz kid who developed an operating system superior to Microsoft Windows. Let us hope and pray that these kids continue to pursue their research and win Nobel prizes in the near future.

This is Apna Bharat! Let us all be proud of our motherland. Let us work on removing the 'ugliness', and harnessing the amazing and good within us, and our nation.

Jai Sri Hanuman!