Curious case of Edward Snowden

A man of conscience is paying the price for being a truth seeker. If only, life could have been like movies. Unfortunately, the real is very different from reel and so Edward Snowden has been stuck in the transit area of Sheremetyevo International Airport (Moscow), something like the character Viktor Navorski  (played by Tom Hanks), who gets stuck in the New York City airport for several months in the movie Terminal.

US intelligence services snoops on their European allies, a man of conscience spills the beans and he instantly becomes a political criminal. I wonder what would have happened if Snowden like, many others, would have 

just sealed his lips, killed his conscience and would have been a silent spectator. He would have been a happy man, living a normal life in some posh locality in the United States. Today, he is a hero for some, while a 

villain in his own country.

Snowden has written to 21 countries, including India, for asylum. A country which have given asylum to the Holiness Dalai Lama, Sri Lankan Tamil leader V Perumal and many others, India refused Snowden's request 

with record speed. Of course, India would eventually have to give him up someday even if it would have granted him asylum as it has an extradition treated with the US but what strikes one is the spontaneity with which the 

decision was taken, which clearly stinks of India's reluctance to not offend Uncle Sam.

It is funny that a country which considers itself much superior to any other nation and vows to uphold International laws, is violating all such laws blatantly. They talk of acting against 'cyber terrorism' 

but themselves hacks our computers, they talk of privacy and individual rights but then taps phones, they swear by friendship and then break trust. Clearly, Mr O is no better than Mr B.

Soon, it would be all over for Snowden. He will be either forced to return back to the US or extradited to his country, arrested and punished for speaking the truth and the world will go on. Directors will make films on his life, which will go on to win Oscars and Golden Globe awards and everything will be just like before. But in all this 

hoopla, truth and conscience will die a silent death once again.

The Great Indian Political drama award

The Great Indian Political drama is gearing up with the Lok
Sabha elections just a whisker away and as a kick off ceremony
we want to present before you the 'best of the best' awards
which would motivate and inspire our politician to carry on the
juggernaut for another five years (or less) to come.

Here it goes:

1. Most original idea award: Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam
Singh for his out-of-the-box (Out of the universe) party
manifesto of banning English in education and computers in new
projects.

2. Best villian with a great escape award: Congress leader
Jagdish Tytler for escaping the sword after the CBI gave him a
clean chit in the 1984 anti-sikh riot case.

3. Best debutant and critics award: Dainik Jagran journalist
Jarnail Singh for lobbing his shoe at Home Minister PC
Chidambaram during a press Conference.

4. Life time achievement award: Former Prime Minister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee for emerging as the longest serving politician
that the nation has ever produced. Recently he was discharged
from AIIMS as doctors declared him fit to go home after 26 days
of stay at the Intensive Care Unit. 84-year-old Vajpayee piped L
K Advani by a whisker as Advani is three years younger and alive
and kicking. Advani need not worry as he is assured of his life
time achievement award next year if everything goes unwell.

5. Best MQ (Melodramatic quotient) award: To the two Ms of Indian
politics, BSP chief Mayawati and 'mother India' Maneka gandhi for
their melodramatic drama over Mother Teresa (she must be tossing
in her grave).

6. Best Actor, Script writer and Best Director: New kid in the
block BJP colt Varun Gandhi for dishing out the best seller,
most heartrendering performance in his potboiling Muslim bashing
episode in a public rally in Pilibhit which threatened the
national security as it broke lose a war of words in the cyber
world between India and Pakistan.