What is so honourable about 'Honour' Killing....???

As I sit down to pen my feelings about the 'honour' killings in parts of India, news just came in that another couple has been massacred in some part of rural Haryana for the so called honour of their caste, family and village. So after their killings, has the family restored its dignity or have they lost it completely.
Wasn't dividing the humans into castes a reason enough for us to hate each other that we have advocates of sub-castes, gotras and what not coming in to divide us even more? I wonder why even forward-looking politicians (like Naveen Jindal, though he has hardly done anything to justify his forwardness) fall in line with khap panchayats and bow their heads before them. What is it that must have made them support the Khaps in full public view when they knew that the media is going to make a mockrey of their image. May be they feel that they can win over the hearts of people (read votebank) by supporting the khaps. The argument of their sympathiser politicians and khap leaders is simple: khaps don't order honour killings. It's true in many of the cases that they don't openly order honour killings. But the problem is that they create such an atmosphere that the brother kills his sister and the father is forced to kill the daughter just to save the "honour" of the family.
As far as i remember, some of the Jat community's highest ranking leaders have had no control over their children getting married to a person of the same gotra/caste/village. There is more bad news for the 'love birds' in Haryana. Arya Samaj under whom they were taking refuge for quite sometime when they were in the 'hitlist' of their own family members has issued a statement stating that it will no longer facilitate love marriages without the consent of the couple's parents, relatives and the entire village. Now getting the consent of them all will be a herculean task for them. Aab yeh bichare kaha jaayenge. :(
The solution lies in making them understand why their opinion is outdated. People who wield respect and influence need to address this issue logically rather than emotionally. If the Khaps understand why the Gotra's wont matter now, then they would relent.
Let us all join hands and say 'No to Barbarism in the name of traditions'.

An incident in an engineer's life...

A Day in the life of an engineer. Somehow i feel everyday is an eventful one but this is something which many will agree that no matter how many years pass by after your engineering, the engineer stays in you forever.

With the joining of the new company comes its own set of challenges. Adjusting to the people around you, the new policies (an important one since 'policy' being one of the reason i was suffocating in my previous company) and most importantly coming out of your comfort zone. How can I forget the new sets of complainces and ethics i need to remember and the abide by them not only consiously but also by passing set of exams.

A strange incident happened with me today. We (a set of four new joinees) were asked to complete a set of trainings which included business ethics, security at the campus, basics of communication etc by our manager. To which my immediate reaction was distribute the 4 trainings amongst ourselves with each one preparing for one of them and then sitting together to appear for all of the them together at the same desk. This didn't seem to impress my manager too much (Atleast it reflected in her response, when she laid out some idealistic benefits of these trainings). When i introspected later, i found that it was not me who responded in that way, it was the engineer within me who took that step.

Aren't the engineers 'jugaadu' types....????