Opinionated...

# Indian General Elections have been announced. My prediction is that the same set of rulers, with a slightly different combination of political parties will come back to power. I can only think of this old adage for the electorate - "Insanity is, repeating the same thing and expecting different results"

# Malika Sarabhai is contesting elections against Mr. Advani. Ms Sarabhai has lived an ultra lavish, albeit socially visible life all these years. It's good to see her talk of "doing something about her city". Hope she also finds some issues that go past her Limousine-Liberal-romantic-idealism,

# Udhav Thackrey in one of the election speeches allegedly called, Manmohan Singh a eunuch. Quite honestly, even if this sounds indigestible and perverse, Kaaangress and it's media cohorts should really spare me the outrage. If I remember it right, in last elections, Gulam Nabi Azaad, secretary of Kaangress, had called Atal Bihari Vajpayee.. impotent .. Well, actually he said na-mard which really packs some punch in hindi language and also alluded to the fact that Vajpayee was a virgin (and hence namard in his opinion).
Talk of moral high ground!

# As I quipped in my "Chai Tapri" section, I was not impressed by Mr. O's press conference yesterday. He needs to take it a bit slow. He seems to be in a hurry to "reach out" to Americans. I'd say "Easy Tiger"!

# China has made a pitch for a new Universal currency... While the idea needs a serious thinking, coming from china that holds 2 trillion USD in deposits, makes my cynical mind wonder, what's it all about?

# The drug war has killed more people in Mexico than the combined war causality of US troops in Iraq-Afghanistan. In a similar analogy, purely in terms of absolute numbers, Darfur far outnumbers any war in Middle East. Another reminder that violence has many faces and names. Much more than what mainstream media chooses to cherry pick.