Ravi S. Iyer: Worldly

FB post: https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/2426496810900215 , 27th Feb. 2019 According to Indian Ministry of External Affairs, https://www.mea.gov.in/media-briefings.htm?dtl/31098/Statement_by_Official_Spokesperson_on_27_February_2019 , Indian Air Force (IAF) fighter jets engaged with some Pakistan Air Force intruding fighter jets and shot down one of them, today (27th Feb. 2019) morning. India, unfortunately, lost one MIG-21 fighter plane and its pilot is missing in action. Pakistan claims that it has one IAF pilot in its custody (and some Pakistani reports claim that another person is in a Pakistani hospital). A video from Pakistan purportedly showing this pilot is also circulating in social media. But as I don't see any major Indian news channel carrying it, I don't want to share that link. My prayers to God for the well being of the Missing In Action Indian Air Force pilot as well as any other person from Indian armed forces who may be missing as a consequ...

Readers may want to read my recent post on another blog: Terror camps in Pakistan launching terror attacks in India are the problem,  https://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/2019/02/terror-camps-in-pakistan-launching.html .

Last updated on 25th Feb. 2019 Dec. 2017 video by PBS on Yazidis with their reporter visiting the Yazidis. The reporter is accompanied by a Yazidi lady who is fluent in English and frankly answers difficult questions about her relatives who faced ISIS attack with some probably being killed and some being enslaved. This is pretty rough stuff and so only those readers who want to know about such matters should view the video. Hats off to PBS, USA for documenting the horrific human rights abuse and war crimes that happened to the Yazidis in the past few years! Not some centuries ago but in our early 21st century! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rC7u2QMmfXg , 9 min. 32 secs. For me this is a valuable video report as it shows how these things would have been normal in past centuries when kingdoms or tribes warred against each other not only in West Asia (Arabian peninsula, Iraq, Iran etc.) but also in the many other parts of rest of Asia. In the past centuries, war was a horri...

Warning: This post covers very evil and very disturbing actions of Nazi Germans towards the Polish people during World War II. Readers who don't like reading about such unpleasant matters should skip reading the rest of this post. Note further that this post is a very long one. I would like to first mention about my very friendly interactions with a few Polish people in Brussels. In my stay in Brussels, Belgium for around 15 months in 1985-86, I frequented a Polish run pub near to the studio flat (with cleaning service and so somewhat like a hotel) provided by my customer company Wang International Telecommunications Research Centre, on Avenue Louise, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avenue_Louise . The pub was on one of the side streets off Avenue Louise opposite to my studio flat building. I tried to quickly go through Google Map of the area to spot a similar pub in it but did not get one in my quick search. I guess, in all probability, they would have moved on. Two Polish ...

Interesting interview of Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir by NDTV, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6lolKKm2LU , around 18 mins, published on 20th Feb. 2019 Over the past few days as I followed this visit by the Saudi Crown Prince and his team, I have been surprised to hear how close Saudi and India relationship has become. There is a plan for joint naval exercises and a defense manufacturing tie-up! And, of course, there is a lot of investment and trade relationship. As an Indian citizen and resident, I am supportive of close India - Saudi Arabia ties, and I am quite impressed by what I have heard from both the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir about this relationship. Al-Jubeir speaks excellent English and is very articulate. He says that our relationship is a relationship between civilizations over thousands of years before we became modern nations (Saudi Arabia and India). That's the truth. India, especially the Western coastline...

UN Security Council Names Masood Azhar’s JeM in Pulwama Statement, China On Board This Time, https://www.news18.com/news/world/big-win-for-india-as-un-security-council-names-masood-azhars-jem-in-pulwama-statement-china-too-on-board-2044661.html , 22nd Feb. 2019. Relevant parts of the UN Security Council (UNSC) statement as reported by above article are as follows: The members of the Security Council condemned in the strongest terms the heinous and cowardly suicide bombing in Jammu and Kashmir, which resulted in over 40 Indian paramilitary forces dead and dozens wounded on February 14, 2019, for which Jaish-e-Mohammed has claimed responsibility(.) ... The members of the Security Council underlined the need to hold perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism accountable and bring them to justice, and urged all States, in accordance with their obligations under international law and relevant Security Council resolutions, to cooperate a...

Warning: This post covers very disturbing white nationalist violence stuff and so readers who prefer not to read such matters should skip reading rest of this post. Please note that I have a PUBLICLY (POLITICALLY) NEUTRAL informal-student-observer role in these posts that I put up about USA politics. Of course, as I am an Indian citizen living in India, there is no question of me having voted in USA elections. I am a well-wisher of the people of the USA. I was debating whether I should put up this public post or not. I felt that putting it up would be appropriate as it would be my little contribution on social media to oppose white nationalist terror in the USA and to support law-abiding people in the USA of various skin colours, ethnic background and religion. In this post, I have omitted mentioning some scary details which may be too much for my readers to handle. But those who want to know about them may please visit the links given below. Coast Guard officer wanted to kill...

US doctors overprescribed deadly drug fentanyl to patients, https://news.abs-cbn.com/overseas/02/20/19/us-doctors-overprescribed-deadly-drug-fentanyl-to-patients , 20th Feb. 2019 A small quote from above article: "Fentanyl, a highly dangerous painkiller at the heart of the US opioid epidemic, has been overprescribed by doctors, according to a report Tuesday that accused health authorities and manufacturers of being too lax in their oversight." Ravi: This seems to be the unpleasant truth about, at least, a significant part of the USA opioid epidemic. One of the main reasons why I am following this USA opioid epidemic tragedy is due to my concern about how it has impacted people in New Hampshire, USA. I have very happy memories of my stay in Nashua, New Hampshire in the second half of the 1980s, across two assignment stints for perhaps 18 months or so (for a short time I lived in Massachusetts and for the entire two stints I was working in Wang Labs, Lowell, Massachuset...

Readers may want to visit my recent post on another blog of mine: Good to see the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia being received warmly by President and Prime Minister of India,  https://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/2019/02/good-to-see-crown-prince-of-saudi.html .

Wife of Aurora massacre victim got text from husband: ‘I love you, I’ve been shot at work’, https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/aurora-beacon-news/news/ct-met-aurora-shooting-victims-families-20190217-story.html , 17th Feb. 2019 My prayers to God for those who died at the tragic event. My prayers to God to give strength and courage to the family and friends of those who died and were seriously injured. My prayers to God for quick healing of the injured. The killer probably knew he was going to get fired and so carried a gun with him to the meeting which turned out to be his termination meeting. On being told his job was terminated he opened fire with his gun on those in the meeting and killed some (or perhaps all) of them! Source: https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/aurora-beacon-news/news/ct-met-cb-aurora-illinois-shooting-updates-20190216-story.html The first link above gives the heart-breaking account of the wife of one of the killed victims who received a text message ...

I was recently passed on this Facebook video of a train supposedly in an Asian country (not India) that had people crowded on the roof of the train as well as in its front, https://www.facebook.com/NATIONALVIDEOTHEWORLD/videos/338739253563056/ . I was asked whether I have seen such a thing in India. My response was that I have not seen something like this myself in Bombay/Mumbai and surrounding areas, and in my many train travel visits to South India (mainly Puttaparthi) from Mumbai, and back. However, I have seen some pics of such trains with people packed on the roof of the train, supposedly from some parts of North India (or perhaps East India as well). I think South India (Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu) and West(ern) part of India (states of Gujarat and Maharashtra) are far more well developed than other parts of India. So I would say that such sights are not seen, at least on a regular basis, in the above mentioned states of South and West India....

This post reproduces Govt. of India, Press Information Bureau (PIB) article, "Union Home Minister chairs meeting of floor leaders of political parties in both the houses of parliament in the wake of Thursday’s Pulwama attack; Meeting adopts unanimous resolution condemning support to terrorism from across the border", http://www.pib.nic.in/PressReleseDetail.aspx?PRID=1564859 dated 16th Feb. 2019 --- Start above PIB article contents --- The Union Home Minister Shri Rajnath Singh chaired a meeting of floor leaders of political parties in both the houses of parliament, here today in the wake of Thursday’s Pulwama attack. The Union Home Minister briefed them about his visit to Srinagar yesterday and said that the morale of the Security Forces is high and they expressed resolve to continue the fight against terrorism till its logical conclusion. He said the Government has given a freehand to the Security Forces to deal with terrorists and their perpetrators. The Government has...

IN CONVERSATION - J. R. D. TATA, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68otfg601HI , around 45 mins The interviewer is Rajiv Mehrotra and the interview is a Doordarshan (govt. owned TV channel) produced one. I could not spot a date for the interview. As JRD Tata refers to Rajiv Gandhi as PM in the interview, this would be between 1984 and 1989, which were the years when Rajiv Gandhi was PM I found this to be a very interesting interview. I think this is the first time I am seeing a video interview of JRD Tata. JRD Tata was a legend in Bombay/Mumbai during my childhood and youth of 70s and 80s. And my mother's brother Mr. R.L. Narasimhan, who worked as a Cost Accountant for Tata Mills in Bombay, would tell me and my cousins and others, stories about JRD Tata showing how he was a good person as well as an efficient and ethical business leader. So during my childhood and youth, JRD Tata was surely the Indian business leader that I admired the most. But I have never seen him in real...

When author of post or comment is not mentioned, it should be assumed that it is me (Ravi S. Iyer). FB post:  https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/2424661054417124 , dated 25th Feb. 2019 Miscarriage of justice is a horrible thing but being imprisoned in USA for 39 years for murders that were committed by somebody else is mind-blowing level of injustice https://edition.cnn.com/2019/02/24/us/craig-coley-simi-valley-21-million-wrongful-conviction/index.html The guy (Craig Coley) was in the process of breaking up with the lady who was murdered in 1978 (her child was also murdered). I guess that the police then would have felt that he had the motive for the murder. And as they could not get anybody else, they pinned the blame for the murder on this guy! Coley seems to be a white man and so racial bias against non-whites (which unfortunately has been part of the history of USA justice system) does not seem to be the issue here. I must say here that I have read about som...