Chowrangi

The cyclone, code name Nargis, that slammed into Myanmar (formerly Burma) has claimed 22,000 lives so far with more than 40,000 people still missing, making this worst calamity since 2004 Tsunami. Initially targeting Bangladesh, Cyclone Nargis smashed with shores of Myanmar in wee hours of Saturday, May 03, 2008.

Myanmar is under Military rule which first tried to stop news of cyclone being leaked out however, they now feel helpless against massive devastation and are allowing international rescue and relief agencies as well as governments to come and support in relief and rehabilitation.

The twists and turns have not ceased and though they haven’t released yet but the reports are that Yahoo! has asked Microsoft to not to withdraw the bid and the acquire could be done at $35 per share, though now Microsoft is not that much interested and is bidding it’s time.

Microsoft is learning from the AOL bid fiasco, who later teamed up with the Microsoft’s real and formidable rival Google. Microsoft now wants Yahoo to fall in its lap like a ripe fruit which is about to go rotten.

Pundits in the business are predicting that Yahoo isn’t likely to get such a lucrative bid by Microsoft or anyone else in the future, and it would soon be pleading with the Microsoft from the back channels to acquire her at the less price.

To refuse the offer of Microsoft and to delay it was a bad move by Yahoo. This near-death experience will not change the fact that the company long ago lost their edge and best talent or suddenly turn it into a high-growth company in a way that would support a valuation equivalent to what MSFT was willing to pay. Desire does not magically confer ability.

I always knew George W. Bush was a moron, and what he said about Indians being responsible for the current food crisis proves it. Of all people, he at least should have known that almost half of all Indians go to bed hungry every night. So how can the poor Indians be responsible for the prices of food going through the roof? In fact, India has been exporting food for many years now, despite all those hungry Indians who don’t earn enough to eat three meals every day.

All over the world, food prices are going through the roof. Pretty soon, we may see food riots breaking out in the poorer countries. There are various reasons for the food shortage, the most obvious being the use of land for growing plants to produce bio-diesel instead of food crops. Unfortunately, food and energy prices have both spiraled just when the poor people in India and China were finally earning enough to buy motorcycles, cars and meat.

Practically everyone I know is involved in the mad rush to buy a piece of Dubai, even if it’s a small studio apartment which can’t accommodate more than two people. So much money has flowed out of Pakistan in recent months to Dubai that the property market in the country has declined by upto 30%. Somehow, everyone seems to be under the impression that property prices in Dubai will escalate rapidly in the coming two or three months.

Two soldiers from an Indian Army contingent engaged in a joint military exercise with US soldiers in California have gone missing since last week.

Times Of India reports that the hunt for two soldiers, riflemen Sanjay Mahato and Santosh Thapa, was launched by Indian and US Army officials at Camp Pendleton, where the exercise called ‘Shatrujeet’ was being held, after they failed to turn up for the morning parade on March 21.

Rifleman Sanjay Mahato, who has been with the army for seven years, and Rifleman Santosh Thapa, with four years of experience, were part of the 119-strong company based in Camp Pendleton on the US west coast for Exercise Shatrujeet from March 10 to March 20.

According to Indian Express said on Tuesday, Three Indian Army officers deputed to the United Nations peacekeeping force in Congo have been accused of rape.

According to the newspaper report, a lieutenant colonel and two majors of the Indian Army, seconded to the North Kivu brigade of the Mission of the UN in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Monuc), were detained last Wednesday by South African police after a woman resident of Plettenberg Bay in Pretoria charged them with rape.

Imad Mughniyeh, top military leader of Lebanease Hezbollah and labelled as Osama Bin Laden of 1980’s, was killed on Tuesday night by a car bomb blast in Damascus, Syria.

Imad Mughniyeh’s Profile (from IHT):

AGE: 45. Born Dec. 7, 1962 in Tair Debba, Lebanon.

MILITANT HISTORY: As a high-school dropout, he first took up arms as a teenager when he joined the Palestine Liberation Organization in Beirut. He left the PLO in 1982 and joined Hezbollah, which was founded that year. He rose in the ranks of the group to become the Hezbollah’s chief security officer and is accused of being involved in several deadly hijackings and car bombings. He is also suspected of masterminding the attacks on the U.S. Embassy and U.S. Marine barracks that killed hundreds of Americans in Lebanon in the 1980s. He is believed to have undergone plastic surgery and spent his last years moving between Lebanon, Iran, Syria and Turkey using fake passports.

Desires, sins and Pakistan’s problems are on the rise simultaneously.

Instead of chasing Allah people are hell bent on chasing desires. Instead of Allah, desires have become the purpose of life.

What is the reality of desire. First there is great excitement. And then you have what you wanted and suddenly it is meaningless.

That’s how one moves from one desire to another desire. That’s how one remains a beggar. Your whole life proves it again and again — every desire frustrates. Again you have to create another desire to escape this pain. And the emptiness is there, ready to eat you up.