Sunday, June 28, 2009

Movie Review - New York - (Hindi, 2009)


Director: Kabir Khan
Cast: John Abraham, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Katrina Kaif, Irrfan Khan

A little bit here, a little bit there. This is the phrase which comes to the mind after watching the much awaited Yash Raj movie, New York. After more than 2 long months of a draught of hindi movies, surely a lot was expected from New York, a much hyped big banner movie which it is.

Going by the trailors (dissappearing twin towers), if you thought, just as I did, that the movie would be about the plot of 9/11, then you would be highly dissappointed. Director, Kabir Khan, chooses a subject which is surely relevant in the post 9/11 era, but is not something, which has not been shown on the big screen. Case in point, 'Shoot on sight', and the Pakistani movie 'Khuda Kay Liye' did touch upon the topic with much success, and also appreciation thereafter. New York tries to focus only on that subject (the torture of innocent muslims after 9/11), but with prettier faces and locales, and guess what, it falls flat!

While watching the movie, at one point, you would feel for the innocent muslims who went through all the torture post 9/11, but the director, for god knows what reason, also shows a good 3-4 times, about how the same American system is also the most liberal and free in the world. The director forces his own confusion upon the viewers mind as well, with much finesse. Surely, something which he did not plan to do, as the message which he wanted to give through the movie, is not hard hitting at all.

Talking about the performances of the pretty starcast, they did full justice to the camera by looking great, and that's about it.
Katrina Kaif (Maya) is in the movie only because she is eye tonic with an original english accent (required as the character is set in America). Not much scope for a real performance, and she is at her best by not performing. Sab Moh Maya hain.

John Abraham (Sameer), with his unoriginal english accent (take note of how he pronouces the name Omar - 'Omaaar'), tries to deliver a good performance, but the director/script really does not let him do that. Most of the intense scenes are just inside the jail while he is tortured by the FBI, with a lot of shouting and also mute scenes.

Neil Nitin Mukesh (Omar), by far, had the most scope to deliver a great performance, given the way his character was written, and does remotely do justice to the role. Though, his acting is not without faults, and needs a lot of experience before he gets into the great category. Again, the script and director really does not help the actors anyway.

Irrfan Khan (Roshan), without doubt is the best actor out of all the starcast in the movie, and is remarkable in his character of the desi FBI officer. Though, he almost does a slumdog again. May be for the benefit of his bank account.

Watch New York for the subject which it is about, but do not go with a hope of a hard hitting performance oriented movie. It could have been a fantastic movie if exploited well by the director, but the end product only just dissappoints.

**/ *****
Average.

Sidharth Mehta
Dubai


Thursday, June 25, 2009

Disclaimer





This is a personal blog. The opinions expressed here are my own and not of my employer, or those who have a link to this blog, or of my mom, dad, brother, uncle, aunt, grandparents, and any other blood relations. Also, since I am a normal human being, having an open mind, my opinions and thoughts change time to time. The intent of this blog is to provide a temporary snapshot and overview of various thoughts running around in my brain, and therefore a lot of written stuff on the blog which is of a past date or time, may not be the same, or even similar to what I might think today or at present.

You are free to challenge or disagree with me, or tell me I’m completely insane, by posting on the comments section of each blog entry, but I, and only I, keep the right to delete any comment for any reason whatsoever. The reason for deletion,if done so, shall be posted on the comments section where the comment was posted originally.

This blog might also knowingly or unknowingly link to content that could be obscene, useless, useful, hate-filled, scary, wonderful, harmful, bad, good, etc. In no way, Sidharth Mehta or his blog condemn, is responsible, or endorses such content.

This work by Sidharth is also licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.

The Top of Burj Dubai

I live right opposite the Burj Dubai, the tallest building in the World. Rather, each resident of Dubai, lives opposite the Burj Dubai, since it is visible from each small little corner of the city! Thought to share this really amazing amateur video taken from the peak of Burj Dubai. Do not forget to carry your oxygen masks while at the top!!! :)

Though it is sad, to create a man made marvel like this, a lot of people have lost their lives while constructing it. The authorities need to introspect, was it even required to build this?. Other than the tallest building in the world, Dubai is also home to the Largest Shopping Mall in the world, the Dubai Mall, which also has the biggest fish acquarium in the world, and also the tallest luxury hotel in the world, the Burj Al Arab. Seems like, it is participating in a 'construction competition', building the tallest,largest,biggest, etc... I wonder what could they construct, which shall be the smallest in the world!

Sidharth Mehta

Monday, June 22, 2009

Think Beyond the IIM's!.. Yeah Rit! Time to think beyond IIPM! - The Fraud of IIPM

http://www.ezinemart.com/careers360/01062009/pdf/page21.pdf



http://www.ezinemart.com/careers360/01062009/pdf/page24.pdf

Arindam Chaudhuri, calls himself a management guru.... For me, he is a conman duping people all around by playing a game of words.... His target is 90% people stayin in tier 2- tier 3 cities, where the student wants to move to a tier-1 city, and wants to cash in of the big city syndrome... and he plays with the emotion of the parents of these students who very proudly tell their neighbors that 'my son/daugther is doing an MBA in delhi/bombay from the IIPM which they see each day on the back page of the morning newspaper'. He simply exploited that emotion in a parent wanting his son/daughter to get some good education from a big city, and the student just blindly says yeah i want to go IIPM , go to Europe for a week, get a laptop along, get all d freedom, and last but not the least also think beyond the IIM's.... Even though Arindam is sure shot Fraudster....the people who got duped are equally responsible.... This investigation should have been done long long, long ago!...

Disclaimer: Nothing Personal! - Just to make everyone aware so that they could take informed decisions in future!..... Two of my best friends and a cousin are from this institute... and so are many other bright students.......
I wish the above was not true.

Having said so, I come from an institute which runs a private diploma course too (not recognized)... the only difference is that they sold me the program which they really ran... there were no bogus claims and baseless partnerships to attract students .... Arindam Chaudhuri, it seems did not count his chickens before they hatched!!!!!

Key Tags - Fraud Of IIPM, Fraud of Arindam Chaudhuri, Fraud of Arindam Chaudhury, Fraud of Arindam Chowdhuri, Fraud of Arindam IIPM, IIPM Fraud, Education Fraud IIPM, IIPM SCAM, JAM Magazine IIPM Fraud, Investigation on IIPM, Truth of IIPM, IIPM Alumni, IIPM Students Body, IIPM Students Speak of Fraud, Biggest fraud India IIPM, IIPM India, Indian Institute of Planning & Management Fraud, The Great Indian Nightmare, Fraud India, Education Fraud, Sidharth Mehta, Sidharth, Sid Mehta, Siddharth Mehta, Sid Mehta Inbuss, Siddharth Mehta Inbuss, Infinity Business School, New Delhi, India, Sid Mehta Dubai, Identity Crysys, Full Start.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

West Bank Settlements and the Future of U.S.-Israeli Relations

By George Friedman

Amid the rhetoric of U.S. President Barack Obama’s speech June 4 in Cairo, there was one substantial indication of change, not in the U.S. relationship to the Islamic world but in the U.S. relationship to Israel. This shift actually emerged prior to the speech, and the speech merely touched on it. But it is not a minor change and it must not be underestimated. It has every opportunity of growing into a major breach between Israel and the United States.

The immediate issue concerns Israeli settlements on the West Bank. The United States has long expressed opposition to increasing settlements but has not moved much beyond rhetoric. Certainly the continued expansion and development of new settlements on the West Bank did not cause prior administrations to shift their policies toward Israel. And while the Israelis have occasionally modified their policies, they have continued to build settlements. The basic understanding between the two sides has been that the United States would oppose settlements formally but that this would not evolve into a fundamental disagreement.

The United States has clearly decided to change the game. Obama has said that, “The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to stop building new settlements, but not to halt what he called the “natural growth” of existing settlements.

Obama has positioned the settlement issue in such a way that it would be difficult for him to back down. He has repeated it several times, including in his speech to the Islamic world. It is an issue on which he is simply following the formal positions of prior administrations. It is an issue on which prior Israeli governments made commitments. What Obama has done is restated formal U.S. policy, on which there are prior Israeli agreements, and demanded Israeli compliance. Given his initiative in the Islamic world, Obama, having elevated the issue to this level, is going to have problems backing off.

Obama is also aware that Netanyahu is not in a political position to comply with the demand, even if he were inclined to. Netanyahu is leading a patchwork coalition in which support from the right is critical. For the Israeli right, settling in what it calls Samaria and Judea is a fundamental principle on which it cannot bend. Unlike Ariel Sharon, a man of the right who was politically powerful, Netanyahu is a man of the right who is politically weak. Netanyahu gave all he could give on this issue when he said there would be no new settlements created. Netanyahu doesn’t have the political ability to give Obama what he is demanding. Netanyahu is locked into place, unless he wants to try to restructure his Cabinet or persuade people like Avigdor Lieberman, his right-wing foreign minister, to change their fundamental view of the world.

Therefore, Obama has decided to create a crisis with Israel. He has chosen a subject on which Republican and Democratic administrations have had the same formal position. He has also picked a subject that does not affect Israeli national security in any immediate sense (he has not made demands for changes of policy toward Gaza, for example). Obama struck at an issue where he had precedent on his side, and where Israel’s immediate safety is not at stake. He also picked an issue on which he would have substantial support in the United States, and he has done this to have a symbolic showdown with Israel. The more Netanyahu resists, the more Obama gets what he wants.

Obama’s read of the Arab-Israeli situation is that it is not insoluble. He believes in the two-state solution, for better or worse. In order to institute the two-state solution, Obama must establish the principle that the West Bank is Palestinian territory by right and not Israeli territory on which the Israelis might make concessions. The settlements issue is fundamental to establishing this principle. Israel has previously agreed both to the two-state solution and to not expanding settlements. If Obama can force Netanyahu to concede on the settlements issue, then he will break the back of the Israeli right and open the door to a rightist-negotiated settlement of the two-state solution.

In the course of all of this, Obama is opening doors in the Islamic world a little wider by demonstrating that the United States is prepared to force Israel to make concessions. By subtext, he wants to drive home the idea that Israel does not control U.S. policy but that, in fact, Israel and the United States are two separate countries with different and sometimes conflicting views. Obama wouldn’t mind an open battle on the settlements one bit.

For Netanyahu, this is the worst terrain on which to fight. If he could have gotten Obama to attack by demanding that Israel not respond to missiles launched from Gaza or Lebanon, Netanyahu would have had the upper hand in the United States. Israel has support in the United States and in Congress, and any action that would appear to leave Israel’s security at risk would trigger an instant strengthening of that support.

But there is not much support in the United States for settlements on the West Bank. This is not a subject around which Israel’s supporters are going to rally very intensely, in large part because there is substantial support for a two-state solution and very little understanding or sympathy for the historic claim of Jews to Judea and Samaria. Obama has picked a topic on which he has political room for maneuver and on which Netanyahu is politically locked in.

Given that, the question is where Obama is going with this. From Obama’s point of view, he wins no matter what Netanyahu decides to do. If Netanyahu gives in, then he has established the principle that the United States can demand concessions from a Likud-controlled government in Israel and get them. There will be more demands. If Netanyahu doesn’t give in, Obama can create a split with Israel over the one issue he can get public support for in the United States (a halt to settlement expansion in the West Bank), and use that split as a lever with Islamic states.

Thus, the question is what Netanyahu is going to do. His best move is to say that this is just a disagreement between friends and assume that the rest of the U.S.-Israeli relationship is intact, from aid to technology transfer to intelligence sharing. That’s where Obama is going to have to make his decision. He has elevated the issue to the forefront of U.S.-Israeli relations. The Israelis have refused to comply. If Obama proceeds with the relationship as if nothing has happened, then he is back where he began.

Obama did not start this confrontation to wind up there. He calculated carefully when he raised this issue and knew perfectly well that Netanyahu couldn’t make concessions on it, so he had to have known that he was going to come to this point. Obviously, he could have made this confrontation as a part of his initiative to the Islamic world. But it is unlikely that he saw that initiative as ending with the speech, and he understands that, for the Islamic world, his relation to Israel is important. Even Islamic countries not warmly inclined toward Palestinians, like Jordan or Egypt, don’t want the United States to back off on this issue.

Netanyahu has argued in the past that Israel’s relationship to the United States was not as important to Israel as it once was. U.S. aid as a percentage of Israel’s gross domestic product has plunged. Israel is not facing powerful states, and it is not facing a situation like 1973, when Israeli survival depended on aid being rushed in from the United States. The technology transfer now runs both ways, and the United States relies on Israeli intelligence quite a bit. In other words, over the past generation, Israel has moved from a dependent relationship with the United States to one of mutual dependence.

This is very much Netanyahu’s point of view, and from this point of view follows the idea that he might simply say no to the United States on the settlements issue and live easily with the consequences. The weakness in this argument is that, while Israel does not now face strategic issues it can’t handle, it could in the future. Indeed, while Netanyahu is urging action on Iran, he knows that action is impossible without U.S. involvement.

This leads to a political problem. As much as the right would like to blow off the United States, the center and the left would be appalled. For Israel, the United States has been the centerpiece of the national psyche since 1967. A breach with the United States would create a massive crisis on the left and could well bring the government down if Ehud Barak and his Labor Party, for example, bolted from the ruling coalition. Netanyahu’s problem is the problem Israel has continually had. It is a politically fragmented country, and there is never an Israeli government that does not consist of fragments. A government that contains Lieberman and Barak is not one likely to be able to make bold moves.

It is therefore difficult to see how Netanyahu can both deal with Obama and hold his government together. It is even harder to see how Obama can reduce the pressure. Indeed, we would expect to see him increase the pressure by suspending minor exchanges and programs. Obama is playing to the Israeli center and left, who would oppose any breach with the United States.

Obama has the strong hand and the options. Netanyahu has the weak hand and fewer options. It is hard to see how he will solve the problem. And that’s what Obama wants. He wants Netanyahu struggling with the problem. In the end, he wants Netanyahu to fold on the settlements issue and keep on folding until he presides over a political settlement with the Palestinians. Obama wants Netanyahu and the right to be responsible for the agreement, as Menachem Begin was responsible for the treaty with Egypt and withdrawal from the Sinai.

We find it difficult to imagine how a two-state solution would work, but that concept is at the heart of U.S. policy and Obama wants the victory. He has put into motion processes to create that solution, first of all, by backing Netanyahu into a corner. Left out of Obama’s equation is the Palestinian interest, willingness and ability to reach a treaty with Israel, but from Obama’s point of view, if the Palestinians reject or undermine an agreement, he will still have leverage in the Islamic world. Right now, given Iraq and Afghanistan, that is where he wants leverage, and backing Netanyahu into a corner is more important than where it all leads in the end.

www.stratfor.com

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Life -- Thats the best way to put it !

Money has no memory. Experience has. You will never know what the total cost of your education was, but for a lifetime you will recall and relive the memories of schools and colleges. Few years from now, you will forget the amount you paid to settle the hospitalization bill, but will ever cherish having saved your mother's life or the life you get to live with the just born. You won't remember the cost of your honeymoon, but to the last breath remember the experiences of the bliss of togetherness. Money has no memory. Experience has.

Good times and bad times, times of prosperity and times of poverty, times when the future looked so secure and times when you didn't know from where the tomorrow will come... life has been in one way or the other a roller-coaster ride for everyone. Beyond all that abundance and beyond all that deprivation, what remains is the memory of experiences. Sometimes the wallet was full... sometimes even the pocket was empty. There was enough and you still had reasons to frown. There wasn't enough and you still had reasons to smile. Today, you can look back with tears of gratitude for all the times you had laughed together, and also look back with a smile at all the times you cried alone. All in all, life filled you with experiences to create a history of your own self, and you alone can remember them all.

The first time you balanced yourself on your cycle without support... The first time she said 'yes' and it was two years since you proposed... The first cry... the first steps... the first word... the first kiss... all of your child... The first gift you bought for your parents and the first gift your daughter gave you... The first award... the first public appreciation. .. the first stage performance. .. And the list is endless... Experiences, with timeless memory... No denying that anything that's material cost money, but the fact remains the cost of the experience will be forgotten, but the experience never.

So, what if it's economic recession? Let it be, but let there not be a recession to the quality of your life. You can still take your parents, if not on a pilgrimage, at least to the local temple. You can still play with your children, if not on an international holiday, at least in the local park. It doesn't cost money to lie down. Nice time to train the employees, create leadership availability and be ready for the wonderful times when they arrive. Hey! Aspects like your health, knowledge development and spiritual growth are not economy dependent.

Time will pass... economy will revive... currency will soon be in current.... and in all this; I don't want you to look back and realize you did nothing but stayed in gloom. Recession can make you lose out on money. Let it not make you lose out on experiences. .. If you are not happy with what you have, no matter how much more you have, you will still not be happy.

Make a statement with the way you live your life: How I feel has nothing to do with how much I have.
---
Source: Identity Crysys !(if you got what I mean; UNKNOWN)

Amazing Ad - Turkish Airlines

One of my favorite ads from this part of the world..... worth watching!!!.... Turkish Airlines starring Kevin Costner...

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Copyright Sidharth Mehta (This work by Sidharth is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License)

DISCLAIMER: This is a personal blog. The opinions expressed here are my own and not of my employer, or those who have a link to this blog, or of my mom, dad, brother, uncle, aunt, grandparents, and any other blood relations. Also, since I am a normal human being, having an open mind, my opinions and thoughts change time to time. The intent of this blog is to provide a temporary snapshot and overview of various thoughts running around in my brain, and therefore a lot of written stuff on the blog which is of a past date or time, may not be the same, or even similar to what I might think today or at present.

You are free to challenge or disagree with me, or tell me I’m completely insane, by posting on the comments section of each blog entry, but I, and only I, keep the right to delete any comment for any reason whatsoever. The reason for deletion,if done so, shall be posted on the comments section where the comment was posted originally.

This blog might also knowingly or unknowingly link to content that could be obscene, useless, useful, hate-filled, scary, wonderful, harmful, bad, good, etc. In no way, Sidharth Mehta or his blog condemn, is responsible, or endorses such content.