pulling my hair out

Im pulling my hair out in frustration...ive been trying for months to get my picture up on the blog but there seems to be a problem with Hello Picasa and I cant do it!! And for those of you who havent seen me, trust me, its worth the effort. And for those of you who have, ahem...
Today, we had a Prof from France, who said India was not a secular country and in the same bretah said that secularism was the most important principle in France.Rajeev got pained at that.We passed notes, dont have the with me right now but it went something like this:

Rajeev: India is the most secular nation. How can she even say that? Has France ever had a President who belonged to the minority religion? Has the US ever had a non-catholic President?

Me: That is the general perception the western world has of India and to some extent it is justified. Do you remember the picture of the man begging for his life during the Gujarat riots? No country is secular when its citizens go through such pure fear just because of their religion. We would talk differently if we were Muslim.

Rajeev: It works both ways. What about the Kashmiri pundits who cant return home because of Muslim militancy?How would those in the Godhra train feel?Im not saying there is no room for improvement. Obviously there is. But it is hypocritical of her to say our country isnt secular but hers is.

And the conversation continued on these lines...about how most western countries, especially the US, were hypocritical and how they hadlaws different for themselves and for others.
About 2000 people died in the 9/11 WTC thing. 10000 people died during the Afghan war. So 1 American life equals 5 lives of people belonging to an underdeveloped country.What kind of a skewed world are we living in? Why is it that the life of a wealthy person is much more valuable than the life of a poor man?? What is worse about the whole thing is that Afghanistan went through much more turmoil than the US ever did through the whoel episode. People observe 9/11 as an anniversary...they call it ground 0...they are planning to build a memorial. And the rest of the world shakes its head in sorrow at the tragedy the US had to face 3 years ago.
The rest of the world has forgotten Afghanistan, which happened later. And the rest of the world is about to forget Iraq, which happened so recently.