It is definitely a sad day to see one of football’s greats call it a day - Figo was an icon in his prime. We lived through so many of his triumphs and failures  – and the megamove from Barca to Real  – Who can forget the Barcelona fans chanting “We hate you because we love you”. ?

His silky dribbling skills down the right flank will always be etched in memory.

A salute to to the original king of Portuguese football -  Luis Figo. Football will definitely be lesser without you.

Extraordinary events always make one think of the bounds of possibility that challenge the principles of probability

1.16 Billion people is where most people start out when talking about a diverse,complex,convoluted yet surprisingly cohesive unit we call India. I am pleasantly surprised with the successfully executed 2009 Indian election. Barring the result, in which the masses chose “secular” over any other adjective(Thank you very much), the sheer magnitude of planning and execution of getting all eligible indians to electronically vote cannot be ignored. e.g.: Of the over 1Million electronic voting machines , there were 3 constituencies where there was only 1 registered voter, which meant that the election commission had to stand by its principle that “every vote counts” and provide a voting machine for those constituencies as well. There is so much that one cannot even imagine to ensure that the election of this magnitude is even possible, let alone succesful. i leave you with some interesting data from the BBC and CIA

Indian election in numbers

# Electorate World’s largest democracy
# Has increased by 41 million since 2004
# 24% are under 35
# 48% are women
# 82% will be identified by photos on the electoral roll
# Lok Sabha Lower house of parliament
# 543 constituencies each elect one member
# The president can appoint 2 extra Anglo-Indian members

# 131 seats reserved for poor castes and tribespeople

CIA BRIEF ON INDIA

Mera Bharat Mahan!

Ever wonder from time to time, how a suicide bomber can get themselves to kill innocent people – read this article below and imagine you were amongst the people being referenced in the news article…The world will pay for its mollycoddling of israel some day….soon. Even if these kids were not killed point blank, that a kid or any innocent being can knowingly be killed as collateral damage is pretty cold blooded..An excerpt below.

“There is no disputing the scale of the suffering in Gaza, or its heavy impact on the young. The United Nations has counted 346 Palestinian children killed since the Israeli assault began, while Hamas, the radical Islamic movement that Israel has been trying to dislodge, says there are 410 children among the 1,201 Palestinian dead.

An even larger number of children have been wounded – 1,630, according to Hamas – and a disturbing number of them have suffered serious injuries to the head.”

Hundreds of victims of Israel’s three-week campaign in Gaza have been transferred across the Egyptian border at Rafah for urgent treatment. They are seen first at El-Arish, nearly 40 miles from the border. For patients who are often on ventilators it is a hazardous journey across a war zone.

One of the medical team leaders at the hospital, Dr Ayman Abd al-Hadi, said that this was the worst conflict he had experienced. “We’ve had one child with two bullets in the head and nowhere else,” he said. “We think that this shows something.”

Without irony, the Bush administration and the media charge that Iran is “meddling” in Iraq, otherwise presumably free from foreign interference. It is instructive that Washington’s propaganda framework is reflexively accepted in US and other Western commentary and reporting, apart from the marginal fringe of what is called ‘the loony left.”

read more | digg story

Alan Weisman theorizes what would happen to the planet if humans suddenly disappeared. Roll over each block to see more details.

read more | digg story

According to the Treasury Department, from 1776-2000, the first 224 years of U.S. history, 42 U.S. presidents borrowed a combined $1.01 trillion from foreign governments and financial institutions, but in the past four years alone, the Bush administration borrowed $1.05 trillion.

read more | digg story

Is the concept of indian secularism tainted by subtle supression of  non hindu religion

An interesting article on Indian muslims 60 years after independence

A Palestinian man looks on as an Israeli soldier welds shut his shop in the West Bank city of Hebron. The shops were closed because they are adjacent to the homes of Jewish settlers.  – bbc.co.uk