Fasting along with his supporters, numbering in the ten thousands, at the Ramlila grounds in Delhi, he’s been putting up certain demands to the Congress-led government. Most demands are the usual, tougher stand on corruption, get back Indian money stashed away in Swiss banks. But some of his demands are ridiculous. Take for example, he demanded withdrawing all 500 and 1000 denomination notes from circulation. WHAT? Where does he come from? He’s apparently a millionaire, with a very successful yoga industry going on, and asks for this? He is, in effect, reducing the worth of his demands. He even asks for death penalty for the corrupt. Again, our judicial system awards the death penalty only to “rarest of rare” cases, and as is obvious, corruption is not remotely rare.

But then again, Ramdev is a formidable opponent for the government for a number of reasons. First off, he’s a “Hindu” leader. The Congress is usually seen as anti-Hindu and it can’t afford to be seen as being against this Hindu agitation. Second, Ramdev is popular, with many followers all across India, particularly the north. So, the government couldn’t possibly ignore him for a second, explains why 4 ministers went to the airport to receive him, to persuade him not to undertake the fast. Yeah right.

Well, it’s common sense that a “fast unto death” for a guy like him will never reach that point of death. But, what made this undertaking so dangerous was, he wasn’t planning on doing it alone. He made huge arrangements for his followers to join him in the fast.

Effectively, the government had a knife to its neck all day. How can a government function like that? Reportedly, some ministers called off foreign trips just so that they can deal with this situation. The government felt crippled. The Baba has been calling the shots.

The problem is, satyagraha and the like, have to be used very cleverly. Fasting for unrealistic demands will get you nowhere. All of his demands were highly resource intensive and need time to get the ball rolling.

Late night on Saturday, the Police arrived on scene requesting him to leave as they had intelligence reports of a possible attempt on the Baba’s life. Well, he refused, led to a pandemonium at the grounds at night with his supporters reportedly throwing flower pots and stones at the police. They even had baseball bats! (In a country where nobody plays baseball) Left with no choice, the police used tear gas shells. The crowd cleared away eventually and Baba Ramdev was caught trying to pass off as an injured woman. He was wearing a salwar kameez. (Go Ramdev! That’s real leadership!)

Baseball bats? At night? In India? They’d stored them earlier obviously, prepared for a showdown. Credibility is in question here. I can’t comment on the Police’s “attempt on life” theory, but they do get the benefit of doubt. I mean, if it were Gandhiji, he’d have let him be arrested and shown the world how wrong the government was. But, nooo, Baba had to refuse and act like a woman. Shame on you! This brings shame on to the entire Sanyasi clan.

Whatever it is, I’m sure his supporters will support him and his antics no matter what. After all, the government is in the back-foot. Everyone wants a piece of the cake.

On the 1st of July 2002, Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937 and DHL Flight 611 collided mid-air over German airspace. Apparently this part of German airspace was monitored by a Swiss private company, Skyguide, without any government authorisation. This was found as a result of the investigation that followed the accident.

The investigation found out that maintenance work was going on at the ATC at Zurich and as a result, some of the critical devices were turned off. For example, the ground-based collision warning system was off. What transpired was a combination of human error at multiple instances that lead to the collision. That night, Peter Nielson was manning 2 workstations, while the other controller was resting in another room. As a result, Peter was shuffling between 2 workstations. Over-worked, and caught-up with another flight’s landing procedures, he didn’t see the two aircraft on a collision course. When he did notice, he ordered Flight 2937 to descend immediately, in an attempt to avoid a collision.

Before I continue, modern aircrafts are fitted with a device called the TCAS(Traffic Collision Avoidance System). Basically, the TCAS is a transponder that talks to nearby aircraft and sends and receives positional and directional information. It determines whether a collision is imminent and gives visual and aural warnings. So, if two aircrafts are on collision course, the TCAS on one aircraft orders the pilot to climb, while the TCAS on the other asks the pilot to descend.

As it should, the TCAS on both the Bashkirian Airlines and the DHL Flight kicked into action. The TCAS on the DHL ordered a descent and on the Bashkirian to climb. However, Peter was unaware of this TCAS warning and asked the Bashkirian aircraft to descend, contradicting the TCAS order. The Russian pilots applied common sense and followed the ATC controller’s order. So, what we have is, both aircraft descended, the DHL’s vertical stabiliser clipped the Bashkirian’s fuselage which exploded immediately. The DHL fell to the ground some distance away.

71 people died that day.

Peter was found not guilty by the investigation. He ended up needing medical attention for traumatic stress.

Enter the second character of the story, Vitaly Kaloyev.

An architect from Russia, had his wife and two children on the Bashkirian. Lost his entire family that night. The sorrow is unfathomable. Gripped by the horror, he faced a nervous break-down. He spent a lot of time around the graves of his family for a year on. He requested Skyguide for access to the ATC controller, Peter Nielson, but was turned down. He wanted an apology. He did later find Peter’s address in his hometown, Kloten. He stabbed Peter.

In front of his home.

Died in front of his wife and children.

Revenge.

Vitaly was caught soon after and sentenced to 8 years. This happened in 2006.

A year later, Vitaly Kolayev was freed on the grounds that his mental condition at the time of murder was not considered.

What do you say to that, huh? Wait, there’s more.

Vitaly returned to Russia, where he was welcomed as a “hero.” And now he is the deputy minister of construction. Yes, I know, he suffered severe grief. But, is that reason for murder? He murdered a man, whom an investigation had found not guilty. I’d have accepted this if the murderer in question had mental problems, but he is now a MINISTER?

Heck! This is not the ancient times where you can simply go killing people for revenge. Everyone talks of the loss he suffered, what about Peter’s family? Peter was doing his job, unfortunately for him and everyone, that day didn’t go so well. A combination of errors by a lot of people and errors inherent in the system itself lead to the crash. NOT ONE MAN.

This is just one of the instances where people doing their jobs are blamed for something that goes bad, doctors have this common problem. Everyone’s looking for a scapegoat.

Most of the facts above are sourced from Wikipedia. Well, I was inspired to at least blog about Peter Nielson after I saw a program on the Discovery channel. May his soul rest in peace. And the 71 others who died before him.

Skyguide’s memorial to the accident and murder of Peter Nielson.

One of the happiest news to come out in the recent times... Well, I can’t vouch for the first edition simply cuz I’ve not played it. But, SS 2 I’ve played, and I AM vouching for it. Truly an awesome time-burner... with the story mode... well... uh... the story is just an excuse to put you through level after level of blasting the enemy Mental’s creatures into smithereens... plus, the levels are very well designed. My favourite enemy was the beheaded kamikaze who charges towards you with dynamite in his hands. Finishing SS2 was also wonderful, the final level called ‘The Grand Cathedral’, with an awesome fight sequence towards the end. The fight turns to epic proportions with Mental’s minions all over the place, charging toward you from every direction. Lava monsters keep throwing blobs of lava frequently all over the place. The scene is quite dramatic with lightning (and rain I think) and music to fit.

The fight lasts till dawn (in the game), when finally the doors to the cathedral open and we face off with Mental. The usual follows (you kill the boss, dummy!) and it’s all over. Can’t wait to get my hands on SS3. This time the battle is on Earth, should be more fun.

http://vitarsi.com/Epic

Also, you’ll find a video of me playing one of the Random Maps.

Feedback would be much appreciated.

Some screenies...

http://vitarsi.com/ip

And for all those Chrome users, here’s an extension to help you find your IP address. :)

Chrome Extension

Enjoy!

PS: Thanks to Unnikrishnan for suggesting the Chrome extension.

For a start, I updated this blog with the “Tags” section on top of the page. It lists out all the tags used in my blog, along with their frequency. Pretty neat if you ask me. Yeah, and the coding in PHP was easy, not what I’d expected.

Hey, Barkha Dutt let her hair grow long. 0_o That’s new... the last time I saw her on TV, she’d short hair, the kind that I like.

And the new super secret stealth chopper that everyone’s been speculating about, the one that people say the Americans used to penetrate deep into Pakistani airspace, nobody seems to know anything solid about it. Bummer. The word is that it’s a modified Black Hawk. We’ve seen how different from regular helicopters the Commanche had to look for it to be stealth-capable, but how on earth can you mod a Black Hawk that much to be stealth capable. The picture below is an artist’s impression of how it might have looked. But, then again, it’s all speculation.