A recent study has revealed a glaring digital-divide. Respondents from North-Indian cities seem to have better access to internet infrastructure than their south Indian counterparts (see chart). Even more startling, this Online Poll revealed that 100% of the respondents had used the internet at least once.

anything a man can do, a woman can do on his behalf

NEW DELHI: In response to the dissatisfaction expressed by irate female MPs, NDA insiders have pointed out that though the bill may not have been tabled, it certainly has been printed, spiral-bound and repeatedly dusted.

Speaking on the condition of ambiguity, Mr. Arun Jaitly (name changed) explained: “A number of MPs have expressed strong reservations regarding the womens reservation bill. So we are setting up a committee to figure out what exactly their reservations are. The bill will be tabled once all the reservations disappear.” The minister however declined to comment on the wee-mens reservation bill forwarded by Mr. PA Sangma.

"what bill?"

RELATED NEWS: Womens’s Bill Declared Lesbian
LUCKNOW: In a related development, Members of RUMP (Rashtriya United Moral Police) blasted the Womens bill, calling it “positively lesbian” adding, “This bill reflects nothing but an unhealthy obsession that these feminists seem to have with womens issues. Through subversive ideas like egalitarianism and gender equality, these agents of western imperialism are bent on corrupting the Indian ethos.”

UNRELATED NEWS: Women’s Bill Not Paid In Full
CHENNAI: In an almost related development, a prominent Mount Road jeweller has claimed that that the womens bill still has some pending balance. A spokesman of a leading political party was quick to dismiss the jeweller’s claims. “All instalments of the womens bill have been paid, and we have the receipts to prove it. This is a cheap, pusillanimous gimmick by the DMK calculated to obfuscate the issue and perplex the populace with extraneous irrelevancies,” the press release said.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS: Women’s Bill Leaves Office
WASHINGTON D.C: After eight years of repeated tabling, President Bill Clinton bid a tearful farewell to the American people. Dubya, the new occupant of the oval office is widely believed to be more morally-upstanding, though somewhat a Texan. Throughout his campaign Dubya insisted that he would not waste his time screwing around in the White house, but focus on the nation instead.

A scientist verifies that the test-tube is indeed half-full

KOLKOTA: Speaking excitedly at the Institute for the Pathologically Upbeat, well known optimist Mr. B.S Pande allayed the fears of the general public on sundry issues like global warming, earthquakes, asteroid hits and the dot-com meltdown. “Don’t worry, its just not going to happen,” he said amidst cheerful applause and much rejoicing. Says a new convert at the archaeological survey of India: “Mr. Pande is cleaning the Augean stables of probabilistic science with his breezy optimism. People like him are generally sneered at by the scientific community, which is dominated by nitpicking marxists and nosepicking nihilists. But mark my words, Pande will usher in a new era of feel-good science.”

OPTIMISM: A THEORETICAL BASIS
(abstracted from Mr. Pande’s paper on Advanced Circular Logic)

The optimist starts with the axiom “X will not happen,” where X belongs to the set of conceivable calamities.

Theorem:
For all S belonging to the set of random trouble-mongers who claim that a specific event e is equal to X, there exists a Y such that the optimist can exclaim:”You call this an X? why, this is nothing but a Y!” where Y is a comically attenuated version of X.

For example, if S=subramanyam swamy, e=Chernobyl and X=Nuclear Fallout, the optimist will lazily substitue Y=Sunburn. A tone of gentle, patronising astonishment is recommended for the optimist. As for the infallibility of the theory, Scientists at TIFR were in jubilant agreement, some even calling it a “SeXY theorem”.

NEW DELHI: In a landmark ruling, the Supreme court has directed the Indian cricket team to create fresh email-IDs with immediate effect. This comes after IYER, the”Indian Yassociation for Email Regulation,” filed a petition claiming that Indian email IDs were vague and misleading. IYER wants all email IDs to begin with a ‘descriptive special character.’
In a tersely worded two-volume judgement, the court has directed the cricketers to use the character “_” (underscore). For example,
YuvrajS@bcci.con will change to _YuvrajS@bcci.con
Assuring the media that the changes would be “minimal, but significant,” IYER chairman Mr. Iyengar gave examples of special characters that had worked for other professionals:

|    Plumbers
^   Vegetable Vendors
}    Florists
%  Civil Engineers & Govt Auditors
;    Haemorrhoid Physicians

KOHIMA: Intrepid inventor Ramar Pillai stunned the scientific community yet again as he unveiled a gadget which is clearly the holy grail of Computer Science. Called #okia, the compact 8’x3’x1′ gadget easily outsmarted human interrogators in the initial trials. To activate the machine, the user simply punches in a 10 digit numerical code and waits for the question answer session to begin. The gadget employs voice recognition technology and delivers clear audio responses to the questions posed.

Background: Mathematical genius Alan Turing had predicted that by the turn of the century, scientists would build a machine so intelligent that people would think it was actually a human being. For decades, computer scientists struggled with the design, and finally in the 70s, two promising prototypes emerged. Sadly, one consumed large amounts of alcohol, developed a memory leak and became a born-again Christian. The other ran on a polymorphic personality algorithm and took donations from Chinese Buddhists. Both were treated as embarrassing failures.