Celebrate, ye of little faith! The Indian woman is finally empowered! We made a woman our Prime Minister more than 40 years ago, we anointed a woman Super Prime Minister three years back, our States have had a succession of woman Chief Ministers starting with Sucheta Kriplani in the mid-50s - in fact, at this very moment, Mayawati and Vasundhara Raje preside over the destiny of two of our largest States. We have hundreds of women judges, legislators, administrators, bank chairpersons. India's information and biotech boom is largely propelled by women. But till one gets a woman President, we cannot claim India's women have been truly empowered. So, we must get together and jostle Pratibha Patil up the formidable steps of Rashtrapati Bhawan. In her person, we will have India's first empowered woman holding a distinguished office.
Indeed, Pratibha Patil is a perfect example of the empowered Indian woman politician. So it is in the fitness of things that we elevate her to the country's highest office. For those who doubt the extent of her empowerment, here are some clinching factoids:
# Unless she was an empowered woman, would she have succeeded in building an enviable monetary chest for her family?
# How many women can boast of setting up an entire bank as an extension counter to her family fortunes?
# Do we have many women leaders who can claim to have presided over her family's march to fabulous prosperity through such clever methods as pulling in money from farmers only to redistribute it among family members by way of loans, which were then waived?
# If Ms Patil were not an empowered woman, would her family cooperative been given Rs 17.7 crore by way of bank loans, which her kin blissfully refuse to return even after 12 long years?
# How many women politicians would have remained unscathed even after her family enterprises failed to hand over public contributions for Kargil War Widows' Fund and Tsunami Victims' Relief Fund to persons in whose name the money was collected?
# Could any non-empowered woman have managed to get Government funding to construct four working women's hostels and procure official waivers to circumvent the rules in order to make these lucrative money spinners?
# Had she not used her protective powers, would not the police have hounded her husband, charged with abetment to suicide by a teacher in one of the myriad educational businesses the family runs?
# Unless Pratibhatai were truly empowered, would fees collected for the education business have been effortlessly siphoned off to benefit the same family's sugar mills?
# Had she not extended her empowered umbrella to her brothers in Jalgaon would the investigators spare the one accused of masterminding the murder of the victorious candidate belonging to the rival faction in the District Congress Committee president's election?
# If she were not an empowered woman, would the inquiry into the murder have been dusted under the carpet and the main accused (the 'supari' killer) died a mysterious custodial death?
This...from The Sunday Pioneer...Columnist : Chandan Mitra
To bring things in perspective ... Chandan Mitra is a BJP supported Rajya Sabha MP so one wouldn't expect him to be politically neutral on this issue....But her illustrious profile establishes that Mrs Patil has all the makings of a wonderful puppet president. Her political stature has been thoroughly utilized by her family..as documented above,and the congress party now looks set to similarly use her presidency. To me she is a typical female caricature, who would be an emblem of pseudo female empowerment for the next five years of my life.
Courtesy India Today's 60th anniversary spl. (and a 24 hr train journey)...i gained ample insight about the times and ways of Mrs. Indira Gandhi and about what presidents she kept at her disposal. The similarities between then and now are not all that remarkable because Sonia Gandhi doesn't seem to be a potential threat. Yet it is disheartening to see an intellectually challenged ruling party which seems to be convinced that no one but the Gandhi Family is capable of fooling the masses and wresting power. Does Sonia Gandhi even have the intellect to govern 'the once upon a time' illustrious congress party...leave apart governing India.
It is indeed disgusting to hear of important national issues being packaged and tagged: "To be decided by Soniaji"...Does she have better credentials than an ox-bridge grad Manmohan singh or a political veteran Pranab Mukherjee. What makes these people stoop so low.
I hope Pratibha Patil's presidency proves congress' nemesis...to a layman like me there governance has been largely unimpressive ...though ofcourse there apparently are no worthier alternatives. It is also annoying to note that one section of the media [TOI] has completely blacked out these revelations while another[Pioneer] wants her dead or alive.
By the way one such lady who was supposed to be a dalit-female-caricature is playing Dennis the Menace at UP... thats Miss. Mayawati. I feel as humiliated, living next to her version of a dalit Taj Mahal [The Ambedkar Park], as are the thousands of bureaucrats who're getting the real sense of a life on the move[transfers at the rate of dozen a day are commonplace]. I'd pray she's not the next big thing in indian polity...as she's being touted[lucknow university recently started a course in social engineering!!]....
Hmmmm... discharged for now.
P.S....I hope none of the comments above sound racist, casteist or chauvinist though i hardly give a damn.
All's well that starts well??
Thats Alonso[overbraking]and this is the first corner of the race [Ahoy..the king of good starts] 
Kubica..."the most horrific accident in recent times"...he broke a leg!!
After the 10 second stop go penalty alonso takes on Kimi...for what..7th place!! 
