How To Use Guava Leaves To Stop Hair Loss

When it comes to hair loss, you have tried out everything. From getting expensive hair rituals at the salon to home remedies, and still nothing works for you. There are various contributing factors to hair loss we can never eliminate, but what we can certainly do away with is the condition. The answer lies in the leaves of the super fruit ‘guava’.

Why guava leaves for your hair

Growing in abundance at your friendly neighbourhood park, guava leaves have a miraculous ability to stop hair loss and make it grow back with vigour, believe scientists. Owing to their richness in vitamin B, an important vitamin for hair growth, guava leaves are a boon for those suffering year round hair loss. Also, the guava leaves are most effective in improving the platelet count of a Dengue patient.

How to use guava leaves on your hair

Growing aplenty in your colony, a guava leaf potion is actually even simpler to make. Take about a handful of guava leaves and boil them in a litre of water for about 20 minutes, till the benefits of the guava leaves have been soaked up by the water.

Allow the potion to cool down completely at room temperature. Strain the leaves and bottle the decoction you can use from time to time on the scalp and roots of your hair like a tonic.

You can take a palm full of it and massage on your scalp. Keep it on for a few hours before washing it off. You can even massage it to your hair and let it stay overnight. Wear a shower cap or a towel when you go to sleep, and then rinse off first thing in the morning. The vitamin B component in guava leaves helps strengthen the roots and hair follicles, and checks hair fall.

Kiss hair loss a final goodbye. Grow back a shiny mane with the brilliant guava leaves!

TOP 10 Inventions That Changed the World

1. INTERNET

The Internet, a network of computers covering the entire planet, allows people to access almost any information located anywhere in the world at any time. Its effects on business, communication, economy, entertainment and even politics are profound. The Internet may not have changed the world as much as the plow, but it's probably on par with the steam engine or automobile.

DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), the research and development arm of the U.S. military, created ARPANET in the late 1960s. This network of computer-to-computer connections was intended for military and academic research. Other computer networks began to cross the globe in the next few years, and by the late 1970s computer scientists had created a single protocol, TCP/IP, that would allow computers on any network to communicate with computers on other networks. This was, essentially, the birth of the Internet, but it took 10 or so years for various other networks in the world to adopt the new protocol, making the Internet truly global.

The Internet is such a powerful invention that we've probably only begun to see the effects it will have on the world. The ability to diffuse and recombine information with such efficiency could accelerate the rate at which further world-changing inventions are created. At the same time, some fear that our ability to communicate, work, play and do business via the Internet breaks down our ties to local communities and causes us to become socially isolated. Like any invention, the good or ill it accomplishes will come from how we choose to use it.

2. COMPUTER

A computer is a machine that takes information in, is able to manipulate it in some way, and outputs new information. There is no single inventor of the modern computer, although the ideas of British mathematician Alan Turing are considered eminently influential in the field of computing. Mechanical computing devices were in existence in the 1800s (there were even rare devices that could be considered computers in ancient eras), but electronic computers were invented in the 20th century.

Computers are able to make complicated mathematical calculations at an incredible rate of speed. When they operate under the instructions of skilled programmers, computers can accomplish amazing feats. Some high-performance military aircraft wouldn't be able to fly without constant computerised adjustments to flight control surfaces. Computers performed the sequencing of the human genome, let us put spacecraft into orbit, control medical testing equipment, and create the complex visual imagery used in films and video games.

If we only examine these grandiose uses of computers, we overlook how much we rely on them from day to day. Computers let us store vast amounts of information and retrieve a given piece of it almost instantly. Many of the things we take for granted in the world wouldn't function without computers, from cars to power plants to phones.

3. LIGHT BULB

If there's a common theme to this list, it's that no major invention came from a single stroke of genius from a single inventor. Every invention is built by incrementally improving earlier designs, and the person usually associated with an invention is the first person to make it commercially viable. Such is the case with the light bulb. We immediately think of Thomas Edison as the electric light bulb's inventor, but dozens of people were working on similar ideas in the 1870s, when Edison developed his incandescent bulb. Joseph Swan did similar work in Britain at the time, and eventually the two merged their ideas into a single company, Ediswan.

The bulb itself works by transmitting electricity through a wire with high resistance known as a filament. The waste energy created by the resistance is expelled as heat and light. The glass bulb encases the filament in a vacuum or in inert gas, preventing combustion.

You might think the light bulb changed the world by allowing people to work at night or in dark places (it did, to some extent), but we already had relatively cheap and efficient gas lamps and other light sources at the time. It was actually the infrastructure that was built to provide electricity to every home and business that changed the world. Today, our world is filled with powered devices than we can plug in pretty much anywhere. We have the light bulb to thank for it.

4. AUTOMOBILE

If the steam engine mobilised industry, the automobile mobilised people. While ideas for personal vehicles had been around for years, Karl Benz's 1885 Motorwagen, powered by an internal combustion engine of his own design, is widely considered the first automobile. Henry Ford's improvements in the production process -- and effective marketing -- brought the price and the desire for owning an auto into the reach of most Americans. Europe soon followed.

The automobile's effect on commerce, society and culture is hard to overestimate. Most of us can jump in our car and go wherever we want whenever we want, effectively expanding the size of any community to the distance we're willing to drive to shop or visit friends. Our cities are largely designed and built around automobile access, with paved roads and parking lots taking up huge amounts of space and a big chunk of our governments' budgets. The auto industry has fueled enormous economic growth worldwide, but it's also generated a lot of pollution.

5.STEAM ENGINE

Prior to the invention of the steam engine, most products were made by hand. Water wheels and draft animals provided the only 'industrial' power available, which clearly had its limits. The Industrial Revolution, which is perhaps the greatest change over the shortest period of time in the history of civilisation, was carried forward by the steam engine.

The concept of using steam to power machines had been around for thousands of years, but Thomas Newcomen's creation in 1712 was the first to harness that power for useful work (pumping water out of mines, for the most part). In 1769, James Watt modified a Newcomen engine by adding a separate condenser, which vastly increased the steam engine's power and made it a far more practical way to do work. He also developed a way for the engine to produce rotary motion, which may be just as important as the efficiency gains. Thus, Watt is often considered the inventor of the steam engine.

Newcomen's and Watt's engines actually used the vacuum of condensing steam to drive the pistons, not the pressure of steam expansion. This made the engines bulky. It was the high-pressure steam engine developed by Richard Trevithick and others that allowed for steam engines small enough to power a train. Not only did steam engines power factories that made the rapid production of goods possible, they powered the trains and steamships that carried those goods across the globe.

While the steam engine has been eclipsed by electric and internal combustion engines in the areas of transport and factory power, they're still incredibly important. Most power plants in the world actually generate electricity using steam turbines, whether the steam is heated by burning coal, natural gas or a nuclear reactor.

6. COMMUNICATION

Maybe it's cheating to lump the telegraph, telephone, radio and television into one 'invention,' but the development of communication technology has been a continuum of increased utility and flexibility since Samuel Morse invented the electric telegraph in 1836 (building on the prior work of others, of course). The telephone simply refined the idea by allowing actual voice communications to be sent over copper wires, instead of just beeps that spelled out the plain text in Morse code. These communication methods were point-to-point, and required an extensive infrastructure of wires to function.

Transmitting signals wirelessly using electromagnetic waves was a concept worked on by many inventors around the world, but Guglielmo Marconi and Nikola Tesla popularised it in the early 20th century. Eventually, sound could be transmitted wirelessly, while engineers gradually perfected the transmission of images. Radio and television were new landmarks in communications because they allowed a single broadcaster to send messages to thousands or even millions of recipients as long as they were equipped with receivers.

These developments in communications technology effectively shrank the world. In the span of about 120 years, we went from a world where it might take weeks to hear news from across the country to one where we can watch events occurring on the other side of the globe as they happen. The advent of mass communications put more information within our grasp and altered how we interact with each other.

7. REFRIGERATION

Refrigerators cool things down by taking advantage of the way substances absorb and unload heat as their pressure points and phases of matter change (usually from gas to liquid and back). It's difficult to pinpoint a single inventor of the refrigerator, because the concept was widely known and gradually improved over the course of about 200 years. Some credit Oliver Evans' 1805 unproduced design of a vapor-compression unit, while others point to Carl von Linde's 1876 design as the actual precursor of the modern refrigerator in your kitchen. Dozens of inventors, including Albert Einstein, would refine or improve refrigerator designs over the decades.

In the early 20th century, harvested natural ice was still common, but large industries such as breweries were beginning to use ice-making machines. Harvested ice for industrial use was rare by World War I. However, it wasn't until the development of safer refrigerant chemicals in the 1920s that home refrigerators became the norm.

The ability to keep food cold for prolonged periods (and even during shipping, once refrigerated trucks were developed) drastically changed the food production industry and the eating habits of people around the world. Now, we have easy access to fresh meats and dairy products even in the hottest summer months, and we're no longer tied to the expense of harvesting and shipping natural ice -- which never could have kept pace with the world's growing population in any case.

8. PRINTING PRESS

Like many of the inventions on this list, the man we believe invented the printing press (Johann Gutenberg in the 1430s) actually improved on pre-existing technologies and made them useful and efficient enough to become popular. The world already had paper and block printing -- the Chinese had them as early as the 11th century -- but the complexity of their language limited popularity. Marco Polo brought the idea to Europe in 1295.

Gutenberg combined the idea of block printing with a screw press (used for olive oil and wine production). He also developed metal printing blocks that were far more durable and easier to make than the hand-carved wooden letters in use previously. Finally, his advances in ink and paper production helped revolutionise the whole process of mass printing.

The printing press allowed enormous quantities of information to be recorded and spread throughout the world. Books had previously been items only the extremely rich could afford, but mass production brought the price down tremendously. The printing press is probably responsible for many other inventions, but in a more subtle way than the wheel. The diffusion of knowledge it created gave billions of humans the education they needed to create their own inventions in the centuries since.

9. WHEEL

The wheel is another invention so ancient that we have no way of knowing who first developed it. The oldest wheel and axle mechanism we've found was near Ljubljana, Slovenia, and dates to roughly 3100 B.C.

The wheel made the transportation of goods much faster and more efficient, especially when affixed to horse-drawn chariots and carts. However, if it had been used only for transportation, the wheel wouldn't have been as much of a world-changer as it was. In fact, a lack of quality roads limited its usefulness in this regard for thousands of years.

A wheel can be used for a lot of things other than sticking them on a cart to carry grain, though. Tens of thousands of other inventions require wheels to function, from water wheels that power mills to gears and cogs that allowed even ancient cultures to create complex machines. Cranks and pulleys need wheels to work. A huge amount of modern technology still depends on the wheel, like centrifuges used in chemistry and medical research, electric motors and combustion engines, jet engines, power plants and countless others.

10. THE PLOW  

Compared to some of the gleaming, electronic inventions that fill our lives today, the plow doesn't seem very exciting. It's a simple cutting tool used to carve a furrow into the soil, churning it up to expose nutrients and prepare it for planting. Yet the plow is probably the one invention that made all others possible.

No one knows who invented the plow, or exactly when it came to be. It probably developed independently in a number of regions, and there is evidence of its use in prehistoric eras. Prior to the plow, humans were subsistence farmers or hunter/gatherers. Their lives were devoted solely to finding enough food to survive from one season to the next. Growing food added some stability to life, but doing it by hand was labour intensive and took a long time. The plow changed all that.

Plows made the work easier and faster. Improvements in the plow's design made farming so efficient that people could harvest far more food than they needed to survive. They could trade the surplus for goods or services. And if you could get food by trading, then you could devote your day-to-day existence to something other than growing food, such as producing the goods and services that were suddenly in demand.

The ability to trade and store materials drove the invention of written language, number systems, fortifications and militarise. As populations gathered to engage in these activities, cities grew. It's not a stretch to say that the plow is responsible for the creation of human civilisation.

Important inventions of the 21st Century

1. Bluetooth (2000) Bluetooth technology was unveiled in 1999, but it wasn't until the start of the 21st century that manufacturers began to adopt it in mobile phones and computers. Now, with more connected gadgets than ever, Bluetooth has become an important part of our daily lives, and is set to be more so as the internet of things takes off.

2.

iPod (2001) Portable MP3 players had been around for many years before Apple launched its version in 2001, but the iPod – together with Apple's iTunes software – was the technology that really transformed the way people listened to music. The device's large internal storage capacity meant it was no longer necessary to carry around CDs or cassette tapes, and the sleek design made it a desirable item to own.

3.

Artificial Heart (2001) The AbioCor artificial heart was first used to replace a human heart in an operation in 2001. It powers itself, unlike previous attempts at artificial hearts, meaning that it doesn't need intrusive wires that heighten the risk of infection. However, very few operations to date have used the hearts.

4.

Mozilla Firefox (2002) Firefox was the first web browser to challenge the dominance of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, after Netscape Navigator was killed off in the 'First browser war'. It was free and open-source, so it appealed to Windows users who did not want to be locked into Microsoft's software ecosystem. However, it has since been left in the dust by Google's Chrome browser.

5.

Skype (2003) Skype has transformed the way people communicate across borders. It used to cost an arm and a leg to call family or friends abroad, but Skype made it possible to speak to them – and even video chat – for free over WiFi. Initially Skype was only available as a desktop client, but over time it launched on mobile, and many people now use it to talk to friends and colleagues at home as well.

6.

Facebook (2004) Facebook was not the first social network – it built on the success of earlier sites like MySpace and Bebo. However, it quickly overtook its predecessors thanks to its simplicity, ease of use and exclusivity (users initially had to have a registered university email address to become a member). Today the website connects over 1.6 billion people worldwide, with users from a vast array of backgrounds, nationalities and ages.

7.

YouTube (2005) Created by three former PayPal employees in 2005, YouTube has grown to become the world's most popular video-sharing website. Key to its success is the ability for anyone from anywhere in the world to broadcast themselves for free. As a result, YouTube is a melting pot of news events, political messages, music clips, hilarious blunders, adverts and cat videos.

8.

Nintendo Wii (2006) Amid fierce rivalry in the games console industry between Sony's PlayStation and Microsoft's Xbox during the early 2000s, Nintendo went off-piste and created a console that allowed gamers to get physically involved in the virtual games they were playing. The Wii controller detects movement in three dimensions, and can be used as a fitness device. It went on to inspire a number of other motion controllers including Microsoft's Kinect.

9.

Apple iPhone (2007) Apple's iPhone was the first touchscreen smartphone to gain mass-market adoption. Part of the reason for its appeal was the fact that it could be controlled using a finger rather than requiring a stylus. The iPhone went on to spawn an entire industry, with electronics manufacturers all over the world developing their own versions of the device. Apple has now sold over 900 million iPhones globally. 

10.

BBC iPlayer (2007) The BBC's internet TV service, iPlayer, arrived at a time when streaming full-length films and TV programmes was still a fairly niche hobby, but it kickstarted the trend – in the UK at least – allowing users to catch up on TV shows at their convenience. ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 all now offer their own on-demand services, and video streaming apps like Netflix and Amazon Prime Instant Video have leapt in popularity over the past few years.

11.

Amazon Kindle (2007) The Kindle was not the first e-reader on the market, nor the most elegant when it launched in 2007, but Amazon ended up stomping all over its main rival Sony by offering the device cheaply, and providing seamless integration with its online e-book store. Amazon now controls around 80 per cent of the e-book market in the UK, and Sony ended up pulling out of the e-reader market altogether earlier this year.

12.

Google Android (2008) Following the ecstatic response to Apple's iPhone in 2007, other mobile phone manufacturers were desperate to get in on the action, but they needed an operating system that could compete with iOS. Android was originally created as an open source OS for cameras, but was bought by Google in 2005 and launched as a mobile OS in 2008. It is now the primary operating system for Samsung, Sony, LG and HTC phones, among others, and boasts over 80 per cent marketshare worldwide. It has also spawned a new wave of cheaper smartphone companies, such as Xiaomi and Micromax, in China and India.

13.

Spotify (2008) Music streaming service Spotify arrived at a time when music piracy was at its height, offering a free and legal alternative. Users could choose whether to stream music for free with intermittent adverts, or pay a subscription for ad-free music streaming. The number of subscribers surged following the release of the Spotify mobile service, which allowed users to stream music on the go. It now has 100 million active users with 30 million subscribers.

14.

4G (2008) In 2008, the International Telecommunications Union specified a set of requirements for fourth generation (4G) standards. 4G provided significantly faster mobile broadband internet access than 3G, with a much higher data capacity, supporting IP telephony, gaming services, HD mobile TV, video conferencing, and cloud computing. 4G services are now available to around 93 per cent of the UK's population.

15.

Apple iPad (2010) Apple did it again in 2010 with the launch of its tablet PC, the iPad. It was by no means the first device of its kind, but it succeeded in capturing the public's imagination, and kick started a new trend. It has remained the single most popular tablet PC ever since, but Android overtook Apple iOS to become the number one tablet operating system in terms of user numbers earlier this year, thanks to a wide variety of cheap alternatives. Apple's new iPad Pro is aimed at enterprises as a replacement for computers

16.

Nissan Leaf (2010) Electric cars are still considered a bit of a fad, and there are only around 30 mass production highway-capable all-electric passenger cars on the market today, but the environmental benefits continue to make them an attractive option for many. The world's top selling highway-capable electric car is the Nissan Leaf, with global sales of over 200,000 units in 35 countries.

17.

IBM Watson winning Jeopardy (2011) IBM Watson is an artificially intelligent computer system capable of answering questions posed in natural language. In 2011, it competed on the American quiz show Jeopardy and beat the two all-time greatest champions at their own game. It represented an important milestone in the development of artificial intelligence – a field that has been progressing rapidly with innovations like Microsoft Kinect and Apple Siri. In 2016 Google's DeepMind beat the world champion at Go in another breakthrough for AI. 

18.

Google driverless car (2012) Google is yet to launch its driverless cars, but it began testing the vehicles in California earlier in 2012, and has indicated that it wants to roll them out broadly by 2017. The cars have a top speed of 25mph and are designed to be perpetually in motion, powered by Google’s detailed knowledge of traffic flow. If the concept takes off, it is thought that driverless cars could transform the way we move around cities in the future.

19. 

Tinder (2012) The dating app that has changed the way young people meet, Tinder introduced a swiping motion to the decision-making process. Users of the app choose between potential dates by swiping right for a yes and left for a no. By 2014 the app was registering one billion swipes per day. 

Above mentioned inventions aren't exactly the most important but yes they were ranked no1. These are my opinion yours may vary. Thanks
Source - Internet

VOICE OF MY HEART- DEDICATED TO ALL MY DEAREST FRIENDS

Aaj Mulaqat Hogi Ye Akhiri Hamari 

Fir Na Jane Tum Kaha Aur Hum Kaha Honge Kal

Hame Mili Hain Ye Khubsurat Yaden Jo Aap se 

Ye Yadon Ke Jharokhe Ban Jayenge Kal

Yaad Ayenge Aap Ke Sath Bitaye Ye Lamhe Jindagi Me

Fir Num Ankhon Se In Lamhon Ko Yad Kar Muskurayenge Kal 

Puri Ho Har Tamanna Aur Bhar Jaye Khushiyon Se Daman Apki 

Meri Bas Yahi Hai Dua, Rang Layegi Kal

Aaj Mulaqat Hogi Ye Akhiri Hamari 

Fir Na Jane Tum Kaha Aur Hum Kaha Honge Kal.

Shah Alam

THACKERAY- KNOW THESE MUMBAIKARS

The Shiv Sena, as is well known, is a creation of the Congress – Bal Thackeray could never have come as far as he has if in the initial years of his career he had not received active encouragement and funding from Congress stalwarts in Maharashtra who had a vested interest in boosting his pro-Marathi and anti-Communist agenda.

But the Sena soon tired of being the B team of the Congress and teamed up with the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 1980s only to prove the Congress's nemesis a decade later when it displaced the party from the government in Maharashtra for one term between 1995 and 1999.

But power brought with it its own headaches to the Shiv Sena and the biggest of these proved to be Thackeray's nephew, Raj Thackeray, who, even when the Sena was in government, could never understand the rules of the game that must be followed by a responsible party in power. Apart from getting embroiled in the Ramesh Kini murder case (Kini was the last man standing on a housing property who refused to sign over the building to Raj in 1997), Thackeray’s nephew was constantly in trouble over his wayward ways and put his uncle to a lot of grief each time.

It is not surprising, then, that Balasaheb showed him the door: Raj's supporters could not get tickets to any election, he was kept constantly on the road for some campaign or the other to get him away from the centre of power at Matoshree, Thackeray's residence. And, of course,  the most wounding of all to Raj was the fact that Thackeray declared his own son Uddhav his political heir, despite the fact that Raj was clearly the wilier politician of the two.

Formation of Maharashtra Navnirman SenaSoon, Uddhav was shutting Raj out of everything at Matoshree, so it was only a matter of time before Raj quit the Shiv Sena to form his own party, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (in 2006). It began, of course, on the secular side of the divide, trying to be all inclusive, but only ended up looking like a wannabe Congress. Seeing that moderation was taking him nowhere Raj soon changed tack – and tracks – to become a clone of the Shiv Sena: if anything, his party became more goonish, more militant and more troublesome to the authorities than the Shiv Sena had ever been.

Clearly, Raj is a chip of the old block and Shiv Sainiks who do not get along with Uddhav found in this clone of Bal Thackeray a reason to continue profiteering from their old ways. Uddhav, on the other hand, sensitive to the criticism that the Sena was just a party of goons, attempted to clean up the image of his party with a more mainstream agenda. But as the mainstream did not work for Raj Thackeray, it did not for Uddhav, either.

Now both the Senas are locked in a desperate battle for supremacy over each other, hampered by the tie of blood between them that does not allow either to go too far down the line in decimating each other once and for all. While Uddhav has the support and protection of his father, Raj is in desperate search of someone to watch his back ever since he broke away from the mother party. He has made several attempts to reach out to his uncle who snubbed him every time to make it clear that blood is far thicker than water and that he would not choose his nephew at the cost of his son’s affections, never mind that Raj was truer to his own philosophy and core strengths than Uddhav could ever be.

Uddhav vs Raj Thackeray
However, Uddhav's recent heart ailment has come in the way of these clearly divided lines within the Thackeray clan. Raj rushed to Uddhav’s bedside and his attentions clearly weakened Uddhav's combative stance against his younger cousin. However, Uddhav is convinced that allowing Raj to re-enter Matoshree or the affections of his father would hollow out his own leadership and lead to a swing of support towards Raj within the Shiv Sena. Hence, he adopts both a clever and cautious approach toward the same agenda.

So while, because of his recent angioplasty, he could not have led a morcha like Raj did last month against the vandalisation by some Muslim groups at Azad Maidan on August 11, Uddhav chose to downplay Raj's success by declaring that he is glad that at least one man is following in his footsteps and carrying the Sena agenda forward. At the same time he has made good use of his party mouthpiece, the Saamna, to mouth bizarre and unacceptable statements against Biharis: while Raj merely declared them 'infiltrators', Uddhav speaks of allowing them into Mumbai only on work permits, which is constitutionally quite impermissible.

But there is nothing new about either Uddhav's thought or Raj's actions. Bal Thackeray had made similar statements in the past threatening to deny ration cards to north Indians wanting to settle in the city. Then, as now, the Bharatiya Janata Party came down heavily on the Shiv Sena, considering that the BJP’s core voter base is in the north and they cannot afford to have the relatives of their voters denied their constitutional rights to travel and work anywhere in the country by one of their own allies.

BJP, Congress and ThackeraysThe BJP is in a piquant situation today, torn between two allies, the Shiv Sena and the Janata Dal (United): it cannot afford to alienate either ally with clearly differing agendas on the opposite ends of the spectrum

However, Raj Thackeray is quite a different cup of tea. He has been seeking some sort of political protection from his uncle for several years but he seems to have now got from the Congress what Thackeray has denied him all this while.

In keeping with their 1960s' agenda, Congress chief ministers this century, too, have tried to play games with the two Senas, taking advantage of the family split to covertly back Raj as he went on a rampage against North Indians in Mumbai. No action was taken against him and no cases registered in Maharashtra, until the UPA I's allies – Lalu Prasad Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav – took serious objections. It was then that then chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh was told in no uncertain terms by his own party high command to shape up or ship out.

When, at the 2009 assembly elections, it proved that Raj might be eating into the Congress vote bank, too, apart from the Marathi manoos wooed by the Shiv Sena, the Congress-led government began to squeeze his business interests to shut him up. Six of his 13 MLAs were suspended from the Maharashtra Assembly for creating a ruckus and for manhandling the Samajwadi Party's Abu Asim Azmi in the House. Moreover, most of his party men -- who are builders -- found their licenses revoked and they could get no workers for their construction sites (most construction workers in Maharashta are from Bihar or Uttar Pradesh).

With his own party men choosing to protect their own business interests rather than building their political party, Raj found the ground slipping from under his feet. The MNS did not post as impressive a result as expected at the February 2012 municipal elections in the state and  by June this year the party could not even register enough voters among graduates and teachers to be able to contest elections to the Maharashtra legislative council. Raj, according to sources, was so sore that he virtually threatened to shut his party down.

Return of Raj Thackeray
However, the Shiv Sena has always benefitted more from the mistakes of other political parties, particularly the Congress, than it has ever gained from its own original programmes. So, when the Congress-led government in the state mishandled the aftermath of the Azad Maidan violence, Raj had reason to rise from the ashes like a phoenix, particularly as he now found backing from chief minister Prithviraj Chavan who, for reasons of his own, chose to allow Raj to hold a rally at Azad Maidan despite the denial of police permission. When Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar railed against Chavan's government for allowing Raj's unconstitutional agenda of threatening Biharis to go unchallenged, Chavan chose to accuse his Bihar counterpart of playing political games rather than order to file cases against Raj Thackeray for violation of the Constitution.

Assured of such protection, Raj clearly feels free to continue with the kind of rants that had cost at least two lives and damaged much property during his wild 2008 run (a fellow Maharashtrian died in MNS violence in Nasik and a Bihari youth was killed in Mumbai).

The Congress clearly hopes that the two Senas will cannibalise each other once again and that it could be the proverbial monkey who runs away with the cheese as the two cats fight over the spoils of war. The tragedy for the people of the state is that all the political formations in Maharashtra are in disarray and no one party is certain about how it may fare at the electoral hustings. The two Senas have not yet come to the realisation that their Marathi manoos is simply not interested in the kind of (Class 4) jobs that migrant workers are seeking in the state. Or even that the violence against these workers is damaging the Maharashtrian's own economic interests, compelling many local businesses to move base elsewhere. If Raj's twisted philosophy were to be adopted by other states, his own Marathi manoos would be an infiltrator in other parts of the country.

As for the Congress, one wonders if it has studied the statistics of Bihari workers shifting in hordes to neighbouring Gujarat which is welcoming them with open arms. These are potential voters it might be losing – those very voters whose support its seeks to gain by letting Raj on the loose.

And while it is busy watching Raj’s back, its own rear clearly stands exposed.

VIEW EXPRESSED WAS NOT MY PERSONAL