India to reduce emission intensity by 20-25%

Four days ahead of the Copenhagen Climate Summit, India announced that it will reduce its emission intensity by 20-25% by year 2020. The question remains: Is this achievable, given that India has a growing growing economy, which translates into greater demands from aspiration driven ever growing population?

The world's first elected communist givernment

5th April 1957
Kerala ushered into power the first democratically elected communist government in the world. Headed by the redoubtable E.M.S. Namboodiripad, it served only 28 months of its 60 month mandate and on July 31, 1959 was dismissed by the President of India invoking Article 356 on the recommendation of the governor of Kerala

Manu Sharma - killer at large

Manu Sharma still thinks he is above the law. Had he remained out of sight and enjoyed a quiet time with his friends in their homes or his, he may have got away and his parole extended - perhaps indefinitely. Fortunately for justice, the fellow was stupid enough to go partying and now is back where he belongs.
http://topics.ibnlive.com/Manu+Sharma.html

The original bikini girl

Can anyone other than Brigitte Bardot get the claim for popularising the bikini?

Who decreed that vehicles should drive on the right in Europe?

Could the answer hark back to Pope Boniface VIII who ordered pilgrims on the Bridge of St. Angelo en route to and from St. Peter's Basilica in the jubilee year of 1300 to keep to the right?

Formula One's first superstar

4th August 1957
Juan Manuel Fangio, driving for Maserati, wins the Formula One German Grand Prix, and with four wins for the season, clinched his record 5th world drivers championship, including his 4th consecutive world championship. Both these records would endure for almost half a century – till Michael Schumacher broke them in the new millennium.

© Paul Chenard

Baby brothers can't count

11th February 1953 marked the birth of Jeb Bush, younger brother to G.W.Bush. Although unheralded, his birth would have far reaching consequences on America and the world, especially Afghanistan and Iraq. That baby eventually taught Americans something they should have known all along – baby brothers can't count

Britain's last hurrah

Falklands War 2nd April 1982
Perhaps the last occasion when Britain waged war on her own - without being the USA's poodle, that is.

Argentine President General Leopoldo Galtieri and Margaret Thatcher [who was soon parodied as Maggot Scratcher in Steven Berkoff's Sink the Belgrano] could have done better by launching this war, which Borges described as "a fight between two bald men over a comb", a day before - on April Fools Day! After all what were they fighting for? Two isolated islands - The East Falklands and the West Falklands - 776 unnamed ones and a lot of sheep. Most people in Britain knew of these islands only after Britain sent troops 8000 miles down the Atlantic. That explains why the Falklanders have been trying to raise the money to put up a statue to Galtieri!

When this stupid and inconsequential war ended 74 days later, Galtieri was woken up from his nap, and while dressed only in his underwear, told that he was no longer President of Argentina.

Goes abroad and returns a broad

13th February 1953
Transsexual Christine Jorgenson went to Sweden and returned to New York after surgery to become the first person in the world to change her/his sex.

A pain in the ass?

4th January 2006 - Ariel Sharon suffered a stroke and went into a coma. A few days later the Israeli Prime Minister regained some brain function. Pat Robertson, however, seemed to have no brain function at all. When Sharon had the stroke Robertson had said that the Israeli PM had a stroke because God was punishing him for dividing Israel. A couple of years ago Robertson announced he had prostate cancer? Jay Leno asked whether God punishing Pat for being a pain in the ass?

The 1949 ceasefire

1949 began with a ceasefire. Can you believe that! Perhaps a good way to begin. India and Pakistan having gone hammer and tongs at each other for eight months, were compelled by the United Nations Security Council to effect a ceasefire in Kashmir. They were thereafter consigned forever to spend millions of dollars and mass tens of thousands of troops on either side of the border and maintain a sustainable ceasefire with, of course, the US stirring the pot every now and then. That border situation now running into its sixth decade, has ensured that it's not just the Americans who have war veterans; India and Pakistan have had their share, too.

Welcome, readers.

This blog has been established in an attempt to pen all the significant events that have occurred from the time I was born. I hope that these anecdotes will inspire others to contribute to the blog with related and similar incidents, viewed from humorous, irreverent or thought provoking angles.