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Showing posts from December, 2013

Stop-question-and-frisk

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The recent spat over frisking of an Indian diplomat in the United States was uncalled for. What difference does it make if she is a diplomat. Stop-question-and-frisk is certainly a tough policy on New Yorkers but then what is law for one is law for everyone else. What makes India’s deputy consul general, Mrs. Devyani Khobragade different? Stop and Frisk is not a regular thing in other cities in the United States but in New York City it is a policing strategy where an individual can be stopped, questioned and frisked without any warrant. The practice was enforced in New York way back in the 1990s to reduce crime rate and is still active. Many New Yorkers have expressed discontent with the law and there have been many complaints of harassment of the minority community. Besides New York’s stop-and-frisk practices has been criticized over racial profiling and privacy rights. So if Mrs. Khobragade is upset about the way she was treated, she should join these protestors and make her voi

Drone on

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The Merriam dictionary defines a drone as a stingless male bee that has the role of mating with the queen and does not gather nectar or pollen. That one lucky guy who gets all the good things in life without slogging his butt. If you ask me to define a drone, I would rather describe it as that unmanned aerial vehicle loaded with arms. I would go on to say that these unmanned armed flying objects are made in particular to kill terrorists. Why me, ask anyone today what a drone is, and they would give you a completely different definition that has nothing to do with bees. However controversial the use of drones will always be, these unmanned aerial vehicles only seem to find a wider and different usage. The CEO of the largest American international electronic commerce company Amazon.com recently spoke about his fantasy to deliver packages to customers using drones. Packages that ideally took a day-or-two to reach its destination will take only 30-minutes if the company’s vision becom