Kiran narrates the horrifying tale of how he escaped yesterday’s fire at Carlton Towers. Hats off to this guy.

Being thus forced to the windows, we turned outwards to look down on the growing crowd. Someone jumped from the floor above. Someone else too. Bizarrely, this was like watching a high voltage action movie in immersive 3D, except we may not be going home at the end of it.

Or you could look at it as a giant fumigation operation. Smoke the building out and watch the humans flee through any exit available, however high off the ground it is.

So, it is likely that many revolutionaires, initially motivated only by love of India and freedom, turned to Marxism not because of this ideology’s intrinsic strengths, but for lack of a native ideological alternative. Revolution-minded people obviously could not reconcile with Gandhian nonsense, anymore than the moderate constitutionalists (including the young Jinnah) could.

Koenraad Elst explains why Communism has been successful in India.

Dr. Manmohan Singh’s daughter Prof. Upinder Singh won an Infosys Prize. Churumuri digs through in search of propriety in the episode, a missing element.

While all that is commendable and unquestionable, the question remains: was only Upinder Singh worthy of this singular honour in this, the first year of the Infosys Prize?

That Hindi is our national language seems to be one of the most successful rumors spread in our country – The rumor with the widest reach – that probably gave birth to this Hindi arrogance. I wish these leaders and crores Indians realize the fact that India does not have a National language. There is no such thing in our constitution.

Bharath Ganesh writes about the recent incident in Maharashtra Assembly

Things at The Wall Project, a citizen initiative organized by BMC to beautify Mumbai took a strange turn when less than 24 hours later, Bollywood movie posters were pasted over completed paintings.

I’ve called for a boycott of the movies Aladin, Canvas, Gair and London Dreams whose posters caused the uproar. Asfaq writes an open letter to the producers of the same movies asking them to educate the distributors in question. Twitter is also abuzz with outrage and various suggestions to respond.

In each of these ways, the social media community is asking for a response from the citizens in order to prevent such apathy and insensitivity in the future.

TJ : I call zis meeting to order.

KK5 : Ja, Ja. It ees time we start.

TJ : Ladees & me, we are gathered here to choose ze Nobel Peez Prize. As you all know it ees very prestigious and carries a heck-of-a-lot-of money. So let us choose carefully and wisely.

IMY : Yess. Yess. I agree. Peace is precious. War is bad. I have been reading a book by Tolstoy on thees subject for the last 4 years. It really helps me sleep peacefully.

Ramesh Srivats was an invisible spectator at the meeting where they selected Pres. Obama as the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize [hat tip: Rambo No.5].

Kunal has a better candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize. And it even makes sense.

Gaurav Sabnis takes it further and suggests way how Obama could in fact have won all the Nobels at stake.

On a serious note, Shefaly lists some lessons for business based on this Nobel brouhaha.

The travellers were just focused on the joy of the ride and no hardly ever complained. At one point when at the end of the trip, there were elephants on one side ( haaaa… some “wild life” after such a long wait), people did crowd to one side and our boat “Vanajyotsna” did tilt to one side a bit , but I kind of said aloud semi-jokingly ( the other half with the intention that people notice) that the boat is tilted to one side… – ours did not reach a danger level tilt at any point.

A recent boat tragedy in Kerala killed 45 tourists in Thekkady. drisyadrisya was there a month back and he has photos of the boat Jalakanyaka tilting to one side when tourists moved to watch the elephants.

But for Mr Arif Shahid Khan’s pro-active involvement — most Ambassadors tend to stay aloof from community affairs — this year too there would have been no Durga Puja in Rome. Indians in Italy owe him a debt of gratitude.

Kanchan Gupta writes about the events that followed after Municipal authorities of Rome withdrew permission to celebrate Durga Puja.

In response to Manoj Joshi’s post criticizing Dr. Abdul Kalam, Chandra Dulam writes:

That Kalam was the stumbling block for development of missile weapons systems doesn’t hold water to reality. And that somehow we should use the delays in development and deployment of missiles to point out the failing of Kalam holds even less water. Those were purely political decisions. Kalam’s call for indigenous development of missile weapon systems was the right call and it enhanced, rather than imperiled, national security. In fact, he prodded his scientists to think outside the conventional box such as, for example, thinking about reusable missiles.

The list of Kalam’s failures is long, but some stand out. In the late 1980s, when the Aeronautical Development Establishment which was developing the Pilotless Target Aircraft, wanted to launch a cruise missile programme, Kalam, a ballistic missile man, put his foot down. In the 1980s, India could have accessed any Soviet technology it wanted, but Kalam’s ballistic missile obsession obscured his vision. The result is that today India has no cruise missile of its own while Pakistan is on the verge of deploying its 800-km range Babur and another Air Launched Cruise Missile called Ra’ad

The recent revelations about the intensity of thermonuclear test has created a controversy and the Prime Minister, in response, announced faith in the scientists. This faith is misplaced, says Manoj Joshi.