Indian languages in roman alphabets

Have you ever paid attention to a Hindi sentence written using Roman alphabets? We see examples of them every day, in Hindi movie titles, in advertisements, SMS texts, news articles...

But I wonder, does anyone pay attention to the correctness of spellings when one writes, lets say Hindi using Roman alphabets? I guess not, and perhaps rightly so, since there is no defined standard or dictionary of such spellings.

Moreover, many regional variables too come into the picture. For example, the South Indian usage of 'th', for ex, 'Devatha', or the rural North's inability to say 'z', thus replacing it with 'j', for ex, 'Jahaaj'. And the now famous Eastern usage of 'b' instead of 'v', for ex, 'Bidya'.

Despite this, I am still for some semblance of  correctness in spelling while writing Indian languages using Roman alphabets.

I wish someone came up with a dictionary of starting with, all Hindi words. I read about the Romanlipi, but my basic issue with such scripts is that they use non-standard symbols and alphabets, for ex, 'ña', 'üs°', etc...which will require a great deal of training.

Use existing alphabets and keep it simple.

Koi meri sunega?

Vidya Balan and The Dirty Picture

Well, Ms. B must be on top of the moon, awash with awards and all. Heralded as the new Rekha, she certainly deserves all the accolades.

But my vote for the best actress of the year goes to  Priyanka Chopra. Her portrayal(s) in 7 Khoon Maaf were a lesson in acting. Such variety of emotions and looks. Outstanding performance. Priyanka somewhat shines in these multi-hued roles. Remember What's Your Rashee? I loved that movie, btw.

But Bollywood awards are not merely doled out on acting merit, are they? To win, you need three things. To win, you need entertainment, entertainment and entertainment. And you need it 500 times.

21st Century India

How long does it take the Karnataka Government to provide electricity to a farmer? 3 years.

And how much is provided? 2 hours per day.

Pathetic, really pathetic. But will this ever change?

Chemical castration

Came across this phrase in yesterday's newspaper. Apparently, this is an alternative 'humane' method of castration. Wikipedia says that it's a chemical treatment that reduces sexual drive or libido.

I have two issues with this - 1)' Treatment' - which means that once stopped, the recipient gains his lost glory and b) 'Reduces' - Means not zero. So there's still some lust leftover.

The intention of castration is to penalize monsters who have taken advantage of minors and babies - and fully deserve a punishment that renders them incapable of ever trying to do anything so horrendous.

I think the contention by human rights groups is that if capital punishment can be made more humane (injections instead of electric shocks), then why not apply the same analogy to castration?

But since the intention of capital punishment is 'removal' and not 'restraint', then by the same measure, we should stick to the good old method of castration.