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Sounds like that movie title.. what was it? Right Ya Left or something?!
I am always conflicted about this division though. In my experience the best masala lovers are sometimes on the right while the liberals turn out to be fans of Johar!
This thread will not work. Because of the title. And also the week’s releases will have more visitors than this thread which will disappear and finding it will be work! So we can bury this thread with honour and dishonour. Died after birth!
I support kangress because other parties are worse. Choosing the lesser evil option I wish for another Vajpayee so that I can have an alternative.
I think Modi is not a fundamentalist or hinduvadi. He is forced to take this stand. I think he is as secular as Javed akhtar. His ambition is to become the prime minister of India and for this he will not mind leaving hardcore hindutva if the need arises. He is rather cynical than emotional.
The failure of midday meal scheme to lure poor kids to attend schools. Nitish should concentrate on good administration than empty rhetoric. Blaming RJD does not wash everytime. It is a horror story that insecticide container was being used to cook food for the poor kids. Just imagine the condition of orphanages?
I think the credit goes to our constitution and courts.
Our people are struggling to eke out a decent living and where is the time to indulge in riots fulltime? Delhi cant afford sikh riots every year or gujarat can afford riots on a yearly basis. Even after those deadly attacks in mumbai allegedly by Kasab and his gang, mumbai people were not ready to go for counter attacks. Even after those azad maidan thing.
People are too tired and political parties should stop provoking the people. It works. Now mumbai has achieved peace without losing its rajdharma. Hyderabad has lesser communal riots.
If it was not for that Ayodhya temple issue, godhra and gujarat riots would never have happened. The ultimate blame does not go to Modi as he was new and he was surrounded by the likes of Togadia. And then Modi has distanced himself from hardcore hindutva brigade and also incurred their wrath.
Now the problem facing Modi is the same the congress is facing. Modi just cant shakeoff his base of hardcore hindus and congress cant shakeoff Gandhis.
When logic snaps, rational discourse stumbles. Why is it perfectly acceptable to applaud a Muslim nationalist, but denigrate a Hindu nationalist? Either both terms are right, or both wrong.
Faith does not make us communal, human nature does. A politician has as much right to be a Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Christian as any other citizen. Any doubt about an aspirant to power can be cleared by a simple question: is he committed tosarva dharma sambhav or not? If the answer is unclear, vote for someone else.
Let those Indians who want to pray, do so; let those who want to watch television instead, switch on. Faith is a freedom. Let us celebrate this freedom with a smile, not a snarl.
M J Akbar’s own terms are problematic. There’s a difference between a ‘Hindu Nationalist’ and an ‘Indian nationalist’ who happens to be Hindu. The same goes for a ‘Muslim Nationalist’. And the distinction is that in one case your nationalism is accented by faith whereas in the other it’s your personal affair. I reject all groupings that fall in the former category while with the latter I have a problem. Which is why I reject the concept of a nation founded on the ‘two-nation’ theory because these two nations (following this notion) are premised on religion. And not just as a theoretical, ideological matter but also a pragmatic one. To divide a rich shared heritage only on the basis of religion does great violence to it. Similarly the Hindutvaa vision of India is that of a ‘Hindu India’ in certain precise ways. It seems to me that if we like this idea we should all be fans of the Pakistan idea as well! Where Akbar is upto a point right about Gandhi is that the latter always displayed a certain ambivalence in these matters much as he did the same on caste. The Gandhi problem was on the one hand the desire to be progressive, to remove certain social ills and so forth but then secretly let all of this in through a backdoor because he was also on the other hand very devoted to the tradition he was brought up in. Which is fine, it’s a human impulse, but politically and sometimes even ethically there is much in tradition that has to be argued against or rejected. getting back to Gandhi I wouldn’t go as far as Akbar because while there was something unresolved in Gandhi’s mind in this matter I certainly don’t believe he was advancing ‘Hindu Nationalism’. If he had he wouldn’t have been murdered by one! But this is why the Nehru compact has always appealed to me beyond all else. It does’t stop anyone from being Hindu or Muslim or whatever. But it refuses to ally the state with any one community. On this note I should add that certain shenanigans that the Right regularly engages in about Muslim having special status and being allowed special privileges is actually inaccurate in the sense that the same Constitution also allows many Hindu beliefs special status too. They just happen to be different things. Amartya Sen has talked about this elsewhere (and he’s been criticized for it too!), I can’t get into all of it now but for instance the Marriage Act allows certain privileges to Hindu men in matters of inheritance and so on. Similarly Sikhs are allowed other privileges. The point being that the Constitution allows certain ‘rights’ if you will based on the religious pre-dispensations of communities. But note what the Right really objects to — four marriages! There are other privileges for Muslims too but this is what offends more than anything else. It’s the classic psychoanalytic fantasy of the neighbor being allowed to have more fun than you! If Hindus had the same ‘scriptural’ right to multiple marriages the Constitution would have granted them this! In any case I’ve ranged across a number of points here but as always the problem in a lot of these discussions exists at a basic factual level. people are simply not aware of things.
Of course the amusing thing here is that many who want Hindu Nationalism or Muslim Nationalism or what have you in their native countries suddenly expect the most secular and unbiased (in any sense) Republics when they migrate to the West! So if one is in a majority one reserves the right to be discriminating along these lines or expects others to toe the line but when one is in the minority suddenly it’s about having the most post-nationalistic nation-state imaginable!
Is it really fun to take care of 4 wives? It is rare to find a muslim with 4 wives. Maybe 2 in some cases. Even hindus have access to this bliss if it can be called so. Our Karunanidhi is one famous example but he is a non believer. Though his wives love to go to temples and perform important rituals.
Partition was a necessary evil. Indians have sizable muslim population and thus we are still able to enjoy hindu muslim sikh bonhomie. While Pakistan is swinging between democracy and dictatorship with only one religion dominating.
Both muslims and hindus want no discrimination when they migrate to western countries while making little effort to assimilate. Because the compulsions of aligning is not there any more. I think they enjoy the freedom a neutral country provides them with.
Jokes aside this is the one example that people bring up more often than anything else. But to repeat that psychoanalytic point again one always dislikes the minority if one thinks they secretly have all the fun that one cannot. And so this whole structure of minority appeasement and so forth is a perfect example. I used the African-American example earlier too. The black guys who don’t have to support their children, who create broken families, who don’t have to work because they get welfare from the State, so on and so forth. All of this constitutes the Right-wing claim in the US. Note how you can change the terms a little bit to adapt to local contexts but otherwise the formula completely holds. The claims one makes about the minority in this sense form a narrative that is about fantasy much more about reality. And here the psychoanalytic point isn’t that one imagines things that are not there but that (and more profoundly) one wishes to imagine things that are not there. This space of fantasy exists in every culture. Across religious lines or ethnic lines or whatever the case might be. In each case if you just do a cold analysis of the facts, I mean really look up the numbers, a very different reality emerges.
In life the hardest bias to shed is not about one specific belief or another, one particular value or another but that larger narrative within which such beliefs operate. Everything that we consider ‘factual’ then gets embedded in these narratives and is only seen through that prism. To be able to understand that such a narrative is just arbitrary is the hardest thing. It’s like those old Bachchan-SRK debates on NG. Though the facts here were completely on one side, no one reasonably looking at the evidence could ever believe there was any comparison between Bachchan and SRK in any sense imaginable those on the other side weren’t just morons (oh alright that too! at least in some cases) who couldn’t understand the facts but those who operated with a very different narrative. And of course what always helped their case was the obvious truth that they were unaware of the facts. And so when those like ourselves on the other side provided the facts about Bachchan it wasn’t just that they were totally pig-headed but that they couldn’t make sense of those facts within their narratives. The same holds for every other situation in life and for all of us. Sometimes we don’t know the facts and sometimes we can’t make sense of them even when we know them because to do so would be to deconstruct a life-long narrative that we’ve grown up with and consider ‘natural’. It seems completely obvious to me that religion though obviously an important fault-line in the Indian subcontinent isn’t the most definitive one. There are caste facts or ethnic ones that in many contexts are much more important (I myself would nominate caste as the most important one for a variety of reasons… in some ways even the Hindu-Muslim tensions can often be read through the prism of caste..). But all of this isn’t at all obvious to someone who considers this same fault-line to be the most natural thing in the world.
On minority ‘appeasement’ I’d frame it differently I think the test for any important democracy lies in (along with all the obvious factors) the degree to which the security and the rights of minorities are guaranteed. The better the democracy the more it veers in this direction. And for a very good reason. Even in the most secular state the institutional frameworks of the system automatically get biased towards the majority. It’s just natural that this happens. In the US being black is not like being white but even leaving aside this special example being Asian or hispanic is also not like being white. This might change someday. perhaps we are living through that change but we’re not there yet. The same applies to a vastly greater degree in every European democracy. The State must err more in the direction of the minority than less because the majority is always in a dominant position in every important sense.
four wives , Big B vs. SRK……what can I say now. LOL!!
aside- even the gun lobby is in minority ( in terms of numbers), so what is your opinion on their rights ??
“degree to which the security and the rights of minorities are guaranteed…”
I would rather give rights to women. If empowerment of women is not possible, I would make income as criteria.
I think satyam is fascinated by the 4 wives thing.
Just imagine a man’s plight in these days of inflation, going for 4 wives. He should be getting a salary of atleast 4 lakh per month to give a decent living to his wives and their kids. There should be some incometax relief too for lower income groups. What about the time he may have to give them? He will be a wreck after a few months once the euphoria wears out. It is another thing if his wives are working.
Munna,
Haddi naam ki bhi koi cheez hoti hai!
Believe in something, stand up for it and that is the right thing for you. Who cares what someone else thinks!
Rajen sir talks about pantys all the time , lekin jab unsey sirf 5 -7 saal senior becharey Rishi Kapoor ney mazaak kiya toh Rajen sir ko bada bura laga !!
now who is right and who is wrong ??
P.S.- Just pulling your leg Rajen !!
Munna is from the beech kee ( Aap Party ) ..LOL!!
Munna,
You are like the judge in the following joke
One lawyer argues his case. The Judje tells him – You are right
The opposing lawyer then presents his arguments. The Judge tells him- You are right.
A spectator in the court gets up and asks the judge- How can both of them be right? Impossible!
The Judge says- You are also right!
Re: Then you are assuming whatever you think/believe is right?
Koi shaq??
But, I also dont mind the right of others to have wrong and uninformed opinions. Problem does not arise from differing opinions but from intolerance. One should not stop having views/opinions because of fear that someone will disagree!
LOL! Generally only talk about panties of SRK fans or guys who get theirs in a bunch over minor things.
To be serious, what Rishi said was shameless and unneccessary boasting- detrimental to his son and insulting to the girls!
It may not be appropriate , but was just a Mazaak. Also he is a star in his own right and is currently riding on his own success, Usska dimaag Ranbir key success kee wajah sey nahee kharab hua !!
Lets talk about Rishi’s comments a bit more! I think it is quite CLEAR from his comments that he doesn’t want Katrina to be his bahu. He is telling her indirectly that “you are not the only one my son is dating…and he is not serious about his multiple flings…that A doesn’t know B…so you may not know about the others”. I think the message to her is quite clear!! Katrina at this point wants to settle down and have kids and Rishi doesn’t want his son to take such decision so early in his career! And/or doesn’t approve of Katrina.
The commies as usual are so predictable ….with blatant pandering of the terrorists ( Indians and Pakistanis) by the Congress, and weakening of the IB and CBI just to get Muslim votes….and not a word from these so called intellectuals !! Disfuckingusting !!!!
Ib people have commented they are watching appeasement politics….terrorists should have never been fed and this propaganda of ayodhya to cover governance has only backfired the same dispute which has been around for 150 years given light by certain rajiv Gandhi
Inflation and bad governance will not be hidden by price thrown around to cover poverty angle just saw digvijay commented on supreme court judgement on batla house which sc said was correct and now this contempt of court by someone who happens to be official mentor of Rahul Gandhi says alot and its touched a new low even when this guy was claiming around to receive karkare’s call
To many, Smriti Irani is still Tulsi – a character that remains one of Indian soap television’s most memorable & loved. But it is to Smriti’s credit, that she has now managed to carve out a distinct identity as a politician who has gone beyond the popularity of her on-screen character. As the National Vice President of the Bhartiya Janata Party, Smriti is now one of the party’s youngest and most vocal faces. Her feisty brand of plainspeak has ensured her daily prime time appearances on many a heated television debate – a job she seems to relish. On The A List, Smriti Irani talks to Naomi Datta about being a woman politician and says that she sees no glass ceilings for women who want a political career.
LUCKNOW: A day after chief minister Akhilesh Yadav justified the suspension of IAS Durga Shakti Nagpal saying her orders had triggered communal tension in Rabupura, the local police in Gautum Budh Nagar on Monday deflated the CM’s contention by stating that there was no communal flare-up in the area.
Adding credibility to the police claims is the fact that the government had not received any field report regarding communal tension in GB Nagar on Saturday. Sources in the state home department said such serious action is initiated against an officer only on the basis of a field report which outlines the need for urgency in such actions.
The government claimed Nagpal was suspended for demolishing an under-construction boundary wall of a mosque in Qadalpura village under Rabupura police circle on Saturday afternoon. Station Officer of Rabupura police station, senior sub inspector (SSI) Ajay Kumar, told TOI on Monday that all was well in the area.
‘No communal tension in the area’
“There was no tension at all. You can verify it from mediapersons who were present here in GB Nagar. I have reasons to believe that not one of them was even aware of the demolition till Sunday night,” Ajay Kumar said. Asked if there had been police deployment at the demolition site and if any criminal case had been lodged against mischief-mongers trying to fuel communal passions, the officer replied: “Jab kuchh hua hi nahi to case kis liye (Why would we lodge a case when nothing of this sort happened),”
Nagpal is widely perceived to have been suspended because she had gone after the sand mafia in GB Nagar in the last few months. During her drive against illegal mining, Nagpal had got 15 people arrested and arrest warrants issued against 22 others who went missing after raids. As many as 297 trucks and tractor-trolleys were found carrying loads from illegal mining. Rs 82.43 lakh had been collected as fine and challans.
Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday had described Nagpal’s suspension as an “administrative compulsion to ease communal tension” in Rabupura.
Sources at Rabupura police station said the demolition of the wall in question was so quiet an affair that the local police decided not even to mention it in the general diary (GD) of the police station — till Sunday afternoon at least. The GD happens to be one official document that records the minute-to-minute happenings within a police circle.
Meanwhile, sources in Lucknow said the suspension orders were issued at the instance of a senior Samajwadi Party leader. The politician got two secretaries to the chief minister to get the department of appointments opened around midnight on Saturday and issue suspension orders on their verbal directions. The CM, said sources, was also informed about the action being initiated against the IAS.
why they are hiding behind mullah excuse or as usual secularism rheotric
burqa comment was very apt for situation though the guy knew with that he was cutting down the votes in u.p and bihar and they themselves fight among loyal psuedo secularism for votes
The suspension of IAS officer Durga Shakti Nagpal purportedly on the grounds of communal tension is looking flimsier every day.
Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav said that she had been penalised for the demolition of a wall at a disputed place of worship. “She had been suspended because she ordered the demolition of a religious place (read mosque), especially in the month of Ramzan. This is a sensitive issue and could have caused communal tension,” said Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.
The excuse of communal tension has been flayed by opposition parties and other IAS officers, and now so have the local police.
Akhilesh is under increasing pressure: PTI image
Akhilesh is under increasing pressure: PTI image
According to this report in The Times of India:
The local police in Gautum Budh Nagar on Monday deflated the CM’s contention by stating that there was no communal flare-up in the area.
Adding credibility to the police claims is the fact that the government had not received any field report regarding communal tension in GB Nagar on Saturday. Sources in the state home department said such serious action is initiated against an officer only on the basis of a field report which outlines the need for urgency in such actions.
The demolition was done following the Supreme Court order which restricts the construction of any religious structure without the permission of the local administration”, Nagpal had told the local media.
And according to this Firstpost report, accounts from various quarters confirm that the suspension was the result of her aggressive approach to curb the sand mafia active in the western UP.
A month ago, she had got cases registered against more than 20 people involved in illegal quarrying and over 10 had been arrested in less than a fortnight. She also ensured about two dozen JCB machines involved in illegal quarrying were seized. She had also threatened that there would be no let-up in the fight against unauthorized dredgers.
The contractors are known for their alliances with and affinities to the high and mighty of the ruling parties, irrespective of who is in power.
“The government is giving a lame excuse for Nagpal’s suspension. The reality is that the government is trying to save the mafia and it had been waiting for some excuse to shift the officer from the site,” said LK Bajpai, the state president BJP.
“If maintaining communal harmony is the reason for the suspension then why has the government not suspended all those senior officials who failed to check the series of riots that has taken place in the state since the SP government came to power,” he added.
Meanwhile with the UP Chief Minister under increasing pressure to revoke the suspension, Yadav has said that he will review the decision on Wednesday.
This didn’t make headlines in India. I’m posting it here for some publicity for these deserving girls who wouldn’t have made it if it wasn’t for an American helping them.
If u think that your Dad, Mom, and ur Teacher are strict and harassing you……..
Wait for a wife…. then u will love them all !!!=))
International customs for Apology:
Japan Tokyo:
A man accidentally tore a girl’s short miniskirt in Tokyo. Before he had a chance to apologize, the girl did a 90 degree bow, and said: “I am sorry to give you trouble! The quality of my skirt is not good.” Then she took out a pin, put the skirt back together and left.
New York, Time Square:
A man accidentally tore a girl’s miniskirt. Before he had a chance to react, the woman pulled out a business card and gave it to him saying : “This is my lawyer’s card. He will contact you about this sexual harassment. Better you prepare yourself, then we will see you in court.”
Paris, France:
A French man accidentally tore a girls’ miniskirt. Before he opened his mouth, the young girl said with a smile: “If you do not mind, a red rose can represent your apology.” The French man bought her a rose, then they went to a bar, and lastly went to a hotel discussing what was in the miniskirt .
Thames, England:
In the Church Square by Thames, an English man accidently tore the mini skirt of a young lady. Before he could open his mouth, the young lady covered her torn spot, then said with a blush on her face: “Do you mind taking me home sir? I live very close by…” The English man took his jacket off, put it on her shoulders, called a cab and took her home safely.
China, Chong Qing, China:
A man accidentally cut open the miniskirt of a young lady. Before the man could say anything, the young lady slapped the guy and shouted. “You, sex maniac. Dare to take advantage of me, I will make sure you go to the labor camp…”
Taiwan Shimending:
A man accidentally tore a girl’s short miniskirt. Before the guy could say a word, the girl smiled and said: “We have not settled on the price yet, and you want to inspect the merchandise?”
Korea:
On the street of Yinchong, a man accidentally tore a girl’s miniskirt. Before the man could speak, the girl gave him a round kick, then said: “Don’t you know that I have a second degree black belt in Tai Kwan Dao.”
Bangkok, Thailand:
A man accidentally tore the miniskirt of an 18 years old girl. Before the man could apologize, the girl said with a Buddha hand gesture: “No worries honey, ……we are all men .”
And in India:
A man accidentally tore the miniskirt of a girl. Before he could say anything, Barkha Datt, Rajdeep Sardesai and Arnab Goswami pounced on him and accused him of attempted rape and started panel discussion on what to do with him… ………………………
The commies and the Congress are so silent on Durga Nagpaal matter ( bechari ka naam Durga hai shayad issliye) !!!
Rana Ayyub has even hinted that the IAS association remained silent when a Muslim IPS was killed by Raja Bhaiyya’s men !!!! how much more obvious can she be !!
The real conclusion from Durga Shakti Nagpal: the IAS is dead!!!!!
The only person who has solidly stood behind Nagpal through her ordeal is her immediate superior, the District Magistrate. The absence of support from the top bureaucracy, in both Uttar Pradesh and in New Delhi, is shameful. In an era gone by, the state’s Chief Secretary Alok Ranjan, an IAS officer of the 1978 batch, would have put his foot down with his political masters and refused to permit any order that suspended a bureaucrat for doing what is right. In an era past, the Union Cabinet Secretary, Ajit Kumar Seth, who is the head of the civil service, and who also happens to be an Uttar Pradesh cadre officer would have pulled the considerable weight of his office to prevent any victimisation of a bureaucrat. Both Ranjan and Seth have sufficient statutory power to come to Nagpal’s rescue. But it would require standing up to powerful politicians. In an era sadly forgotten, senior IAS officers did just that. They were not sold out to the system of patronage instituted by politicians to undermine an independent bureaucracy. Now it is left to the IAS Officers’ Association. A union body without much power, to try and lobby for Nagpal. http://www.firstpost.com/india/the-real-conclusion-from-durga-shakti-nagpal-the-ias-is-dead-1003125.html
I sometime think that PVN Rao was prophetic when he said, ” Time will come when nehru, IG and RG will be dumped in Indian ocean” . Hope these remarks are not scissored from his book in later editions.
Yet, what is surprising is the muted reaction of the news media and the intellectual class, who seem to murmur only when it is too in your face; for instance, how many mainstream reactions have we heard/seen to a dozen odd riots in Bareilly, Mathura, Kanpur or Ghaziabad? Zilch! Till now, there have been more than a 100 official deaths in various riots across the State, but where are the media’s OB vans? The same news media which spends hours on end debating various connotations of an innocuous Ram temple statement of an Amit Shah in Ayodhya has no time to discuss the actual loss of lives in real riots!
! A group of Muslims went on a rampage in Meerut and killed two people, including a Hindu woman, on July 26. The reason: Muslims were angry that Hindus had the temerity to play devotional songs in the temple during the holy month of Ramzan.
This is the state of India today, where a terrorist, Ishrat Jahan, is martyred, but Parveen Azad or Durga Shakti will never get even basic justice. Secularism is a tiger that demands to be fed and anti-corruption crusaders or widowed wives of politically murdered police officers are just the right prey for it. If the secular tiger is not fed, then we are told the lion from Gujarat may devour us all. Meanwhile in Meerut, Hindu temples have to worship in silence in the auspicious month of Saawan. Welcome to the secular-socialist, Left-liberal beehive known as India! http://www.niticentral.com/2013/08/01/akhilesh-yadavs-jungle-raj-in-up-112675.html
As Jaya Bachchan belongs to SP Party, she can drill some sense into Akhilesh Yadav. Even Bachchan can talk to his good friend Akhilesh Yadav to be reasonable. They should not be silent now.
Reader’s digest Indian edition august 2013 issue has a very good article about awareness of Banking frauds committed by bank officials on unwary customers. Especially private banks I read about how an NRI woman’s 15 lakh which she asked to be made into an Fd was misused to make insurance. Beware of Relationship Managers who regularly phone you in their sweetest voices. Check all the entries. Just read the article carefully and also alert your near and dear ones.
It is not only politicians who cheat us, it is even unscrupulous banks and financial institutions and chitfunds.
I am a regular reader of RD and the way they entertain, educate, thrill with their articles is really commendable.
Watching Independence day celebrations on Doordarshan better than watching on commercial channels.There was a recount of Indian history narrated by Om Puri. Glimpses of prime Ministers, Presidents from Rajendra Prasad to Kalam, film personalities. AR Rahman outshone the others. There were brief glimpses of Dilip Kumar, Bachchan and also a smiling Mani ratnam.
NEW DELHI: Late Wednesday night Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan distanced himself from a YouTube video that gave an impression that he endorsed BJP leader Narendra Modi as the next Prime Minister of India.
Bachchan, who regularly tweets, posted on his Twitter account, “FAKE !! FAKE !! FAKE !!! APPALLED AND ANGERED BY THIS ILLEGAL ACT ON ME .. PUTTING IT UP NOW, DO READ AND SEE AND CONDEMN .. !!!”
In his next tweet, which was made using TwitLonger to bypass Twitter’s 140-character limit, he explained the issue.
Bachchan said that someone had taken the voiceover he provided for a video in 2007 and used it with a different set of images to create a clip where it seemed that he was endorsing Modi. The video was uploaded from a YouTube account named ‘Jitega Bharat’. There is only one video that has been uploaded from this account.
“DEAR ALL … FAKE VIDEO CIRCULATION … In the year 2007, I did a Lead India campaign for The Times of India, where we talked of the glorification of the country and India,” he wrote. “SOMEBODY has made a fake video by using my voice and text of what I spoke in the original, and falsely and mischievously, interspersed it with visuals which indicate a campaign for the promotion of the Hon Chief Minister of Gujarat, Shri Narendra Modi!!”
The actor added that he had alerted authorities about the video and would initiate action against the person who had created the fake and uploaded it on YouTube.
“I wish to state that this is an illegal act, inviting strong action, one that I am appalled by, and one that has no concurrence from me at all… I have brought this to the notice of the concerned authorities, and asked my Digital Team to find out its origin so that we can initiate action against the perpetrator. This is a blatant misuse and infringement of the Copyright Act, and needs to be condemned by all those that become a part of this platform,” he wrote. “(I am) infuriated and angered.”
The actor got support from his fans on Twitter as well as YouTube after he slammed the fake video. His tweets about the video were retweeted several hundred times. The digital team of Bachchan also singled out tweets condemning the video and retweeted them.
On YouTube, the video has been down-voted by fans of Bachchan and many users wrote in comments that the video should be removed by YouTube.
The actor seemed pleased with response. In the last tweet for the day Bachchan wrote, “Thank you all my Ef Sena !! Off to bed .. travel tomorrow !!”
Riding 2 horses at the same time is dangerous. Modi and Mulayam.
Mulayam and akhilesh may spit fire against congress but they support it conditionally as in the case of food bill.
Our cinema has 100 crores and now 200 to 300 crores as benchmark for success and the opportunity comes every friday. But in politics the opportunity comes once in 5 years and even 100 crores is a highly difficult proposition for one single party. Both are trying marketing mantra quite furiously.
What Hema said, is what every mother tells to her daughters. But that absolves home ministry of its responsibility to protect every citizen. Tomorrow someone say avoid nightshift. Women have to be under curfews which will be very stifling.
Police are doing their duty. It is the judiciary which is taking things lightly when it comes to these cases. The rapists are getting bails too easily. Rapists are also let off if they marry the victims. How ridiculous!
NEW DELHI: The punishment of a three-year stay in a reform home given on Saturday to the lone minor accused in the December 16, 2012 gang rape here left the victim’s family angry and sparked a minor protest by those seeking death for the guilty.
The open space outside the juvenile justice board near the Feroz Shah Kotla cricket ground in central Delhi was abuzz since 10am, the scheduled time for giving the verdict, but the huge contingent of media persons broke into a frenzy only around 3.30pm when a lawyer came out of the board and shared information about the in camera proceeding.
The defence lawyer was the first to come out of the board and tell reporters that the juvenile accused had been convicted under gang rape and murder charges and sent to a three-year stay in a reform home.
The maximum punishment that can be awarded under the Juvenile Justice Act is three years.
The security was tightened in and around the board and the accused was brought in a van and his face was muffled. After the delivery of verdict, the juvenile was sent to a special home in a van guarded by police.
The mother of the victim, who died after the gang rape, came out of the board with her two sons and husband and said she was “not satisfied” with the punishment given to the minor accused, indicating that they wanted harsher punishment for him.
With tears in her eyes, she said, “We are not satisfied with the verdict.”
“If minors do such things and get away so easily, how will the law work? It cannot be done like this. Law needs to be changed. We will move the higher court against the judgment,” she said.
The father of gang-raped woman also expressed dissatisfaction over the verdict.
“Our daughter has died and now after listening to this verdict we also have virtually died. This will only encourage crime,” the father said.
As the news of the judgment spread, some protesters started shouting slogans outside the board and sought death penalty for the juvenile.
Shouting “Hang the rapist”, the protesters expressed displeasure over the “light punishment” given to the minor.
Pihu Sharma, an undergraduate student of Delhi University, who was protesting outside the board, told IANS, “If a minor can rape or has the courage to rape then why give a different punishment to him?”
“He was not a kid when he was raping the girl, he knew what he was doing. So why light punishment for him? We want justice for the girl and three years of (special home stay) is not justice.”
Arun Kumar, another protester, said, “This verdict will only encourage minors to do such crimes. They will have no fear in their minds while committing such crimes because they know they can get off easily.”
“Something is needed to be done to stop such crimes in the country,” he said.
The accused, who was a minor at the time of the gang rape but turned 18 in June, was not named.
The board’s decision in the minor’s case is the first judgment in the horrific incident when the 23-year-old woman physiotherapy intern was brutally gang raped in a bus that she and her male companion had boarded in Munirka in south Delhi.
As the gang rape had hit international headlines and raised concerns about women’s safety in the country, the area around the board was packed with media persons, onlookers and activists.
More than 150 media persons from national and international newspapers and television channels started gathered in the morning to cover the case.
The prosecution called the minor accused, as the “most brutal of the six” accused.
He was the one who had lured the victim and her male friend into the bus by giving them wrong information about its route.
The minor accused along with five other men gang-raped the girl in the moving bus and then threw both of them out — without clothes — on the streets in the cold December night.
Police said that apart from sexually assaulting the 23-year-old woman, the minor also ripped out her internal organs with a rod. The girl died 13 days later in a Singapore hospital, where she was flown for treatment.
The brutal gang rape sparked massive protests in New Delhi and other cities, with people demanding death for the accused.
A native of Uttar Pradesh, the minor had moved to Delhi at the age of 11 and was doing odd jobs. He was arrested after the gang rape from Anand Vihar in east Delhi.
Wonderful. Now the minors can get their birth certificates ready and start raping every woman. The punishment is very light and they will get free board and lodging.
Make hay while the sun shines.
The minor rule which is there in the constitution is for compassionate treatment of victimised minors not for rapist minors.
Women, hide and dont venture out. Dont wear anything less than a saree or salwar kameez. If possible buy burkhas.
he writes well infact dam well right from things on politics to life of iit…remember once posting his article of air india here on satyamshot…much beyond the standup comedian as they say
On the occasion of teachers Day
After a brief truce, Karan Johar and Ram Gopal Varma were engaged in a war of tweets again all of yesterday. RGV took on Karan Johar’s Student Of the Year saying: “If someone takes off from Karan johar’s Student of the year and makes Teacher of the year it will become the Disaster of the year.”
Touched to the quick about the film that he evidently holds dear, the normally unflappable KJo responded: “@RGVzoomin ….Disaster of the year is your territory Ramu…no one can ever replace the comfortable place you have made for yourself there.”
RGV swung in with some damage control: “@ karanjohar hey karan my tweet was in a series I put on teachers day nd that tweet was about some1 taking off from u meaning it a compliment.” We don’t know if RGV actually meant what he said, but it was enough to assuage KJo who deleted his tweet and went on about his life. Time to grow up boys!
NEW DELHI: The rules of the game have changed for the political class, with the Supreme Court asking the government on Friday to enforce its order for immediate disqualification of sitting MPs, MLAs and MLCs convicted for an offence attracting a sentence of two years.
“Sitting Members of Parliament and state legislators are no longer protected by clause 4 of Section 8 of the Representation of People Act,” a decree issued by the SC said, spelling the extinction of the law which allowed convicted lawmakers to hold on to their seats during pendency of their appeals. The Centre was in the process of relaying the new reality to all state capitals.
The blow to tainted legislators was compounded as the anticipated antidote through a change in law to allow convicted MPs and MLAs to retain their membership pending an appeal failed to materialize in the face of BJP’s last-minute resistance in Parliament.
This means that any lawmaker convicted from now for an offence punishable with a sentence of two years or more will be immediately unseated, and will be barred from contesting elections for at least six years. This could be longer, depending on the term of the sentence awarded.
In fact, the sting could be sharper for convicted MPs, MLAs and MLCs. For, while they lose their elected post on conviction, they will be no compensation for the years lost if they are acquitted. Further, those who get convicted closer to election may have to sit out more than one election, given the slow pace of judiciary.
Public censure made parties change tune
The scuttling of the RP Act amendment is a second setback to the political class in as many days. On Thursday, amendments to the Right to Information Act designed to exclude political parties from the ambit of the transparency law had to be referred to a standing committee in the face of similar political opposition.
Just as in the case of the amendment to the RP Act crafted to nullify the SC order for disqualification of convicted lawmakers, the amendment to the RTI Act had seemed set to go through when the fear of popular opprobrium unravelled the consensus for preserving the status quo. Congress circles claimed that besides resistance from the opposition, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s reservations were also a factor.
The re-think 24 hours ago and the reluctance on Friday to pursue the RP Act amendments reflect a new sensitivity to concerns that political parties have often dismissed as elitist, and limited to activists, the commentariat or a slice of middle-class India that they did not see as a significant or enthusiastic vote bank. Political circles wondered whether the developments over the last 48 hours marked a recognition, if grudging, among a section of the political class that there is a political cost attached to going against the grain of public opinion.
The proposed amendment to the RP Act fell through on Friday morning amid considerable drama as BJP said the proposal was bad in law and constitutionally invalid.
BJP leaders said the party — which fancies its prospects among the urbanized classes — does did not think it prudent to support amendments that risked being seen as a self-centred effort of the political class to protect criminals in its ranks.
The party stuck to its position despite feverish lobbying by at least one senior politician who is apprehensive of the outcome of his trial in a famous graft case.
BJP leader Arun Jaitley argued that disqualification of a legislator was provided for under Article 102 of the Constitution and any move to merely change the RP Act would not do.
Law minister Kapil Sibal said the BJP decision introduced a new calculus in arguments dealing with the SC order that went against a broad agreement that prevailed in Parliament.
But faced with BJP’s determined opposition, with other parties like BJD also expressing doubts, the government had no option but to put aside its plans to move the amendment to the RP Act.
The government’s decision reflects a hesitation to push against both the political opposition and the wider perceptio
n that UPA-2 has been lethargic in acting against corruption. Congress managers are wary of seeming impervious to popular sentiment at a time when the party is combating the fallout of a series of scams ranging from Commonwealth, 2G and Coalgate.
The special treatment was doled out with the intention preventing fans from ‘disturbing’ the actor (‘Cops barricade road to Bandra Fair so that SRK is not disturbed’ September 7, 2012). In the wake of MiD DAY’s sustained coverage, the road was partially opened to pilgrims, with the promise that the path would be made fully accessible from 2013. A year later, the barricades are back at the spot, and pilgrims yet again have to go out of their way, quite literally, for King Khan.
Special treatment
Cops claim that barricading Cement Road, which connects Mount Mary Road with Bandstand, is part of their traffic management plan for the fair. They have repeatedly offered the justification that the road, if kept open, could pose a security risk, and cause a law and order situation owing to the problems owing to the presence of the high-profile resident. Local residents, organisations and even the fair organisers have sent letters to the Bandra police and the BMC, pleading that the road be made accessible, as the church is a short five-minute-walk away from it. Keeping it open would facilitate ingress and egress from the church, they plead.
Unhappy residents
Founder member of Catholic Residents Organisation for Social Service (CROSS), John Fernandes said, “With the pressure put on them by the media, all the senior cops promised us that the road will be used for entry or exit from this year. The police have not kept their promise. To add to that, heavy police bandobast has been organised close to the barricades. It is very disappointing to see the cops acting this way.”
He added, “We obeyed the cops and respected their decision last year. Now we have lost hope in the police and the judiciary.” According to residents, Cement Road is one of the oldest existing roads in Bandra. Earlier, pilgrims coming from places as far as Vasai and Virar for the fair used Cement Road to reach the church earlier.
Not just the pilgrims and residents, several stall owners who would sell candles and other articles on the sloping stretch have been robbed of income by the barricades. The church authorities too have submitted a letter to the authorities declaring that they have no objections to the road being thrown open – in fact, they have encouraged it.
Judith Monteiro, a member of the Association of Concerned Catholics (AOCC) said, “We have received mixed versions about barricades on Cement Road. We are getting our facts right first. As this is the traffic department’s responsibility, we have already had a word with DCP Dighavkar. He assured us that he would help sort out the issue. He was the previous DCP of Bandra, and is aware of the promises he made last year. We look forward to the police department keeping its promise and helping devotees have a feast devoid of any difficulties.”
Locals plan to stage a massive demonstration at Cement Road tomorrow. The demonstration will be supported by organisations like Watchdog Foundation, Wake up Bandra, CROSS, Mobia Gaothan Panchayat, Perry Cross Road Resident’s Association, Save Our Land [SOUL], and thousands of devotees. “We have garnered the support of all the Catholic organisations in the city.
The pilgrims too have come forward to extend their support. We have given the cops and BMC a whole year, and yet the issue has not been resolved. On Saturday, we will carry a demonstration and protest at the Mount Mary Church in Bandra,” said Anil Joseph, president of Perry Cross Road Association.
Copspeak
A senior level officer from Bandra police station said, on condition of anonymity, “Security to SRK is one of the aspects, but the road is barricaded also for the convenience and safety of pilgrims. The road has a great slope and gets very narrow on the upper side. Thousands of people come to the fair, and the incline could give rise to a stampede-like situation. It has nothing to do with the presence of the celebrity. In fact, if there is a pregnant or senior citizen, we allow them to pass by the barricades into the road, but don’t allow everyone.”
Voices
I was born here. We have been using the Cement Road since then. It is only after Shah Rukh came here that the road was barricaded. I am suffering heavy losses every year due to this. – Michael D’Souza, owner of a stall on Cement Road
Just 15 days back we were assured that pilgrims could use the road, and now it is barricaded. The fair is conducted in a very disciplined manner. – George Miranda, resident
A bus stop was made by BMC at the Bandstand end of the Cement Road to allow pilgrims to alight and go up to the church. This was before Shah Rukh came to live here. The cement stairs were specially made to ease the climb, leading to the church entrance. The road was the church’s property that the BMC had acquired. Now, the number of people visiting the fair has dropped, as senior citizens find the climb along Kane Road and Mount Mary Road tough. As a result, the fair is being killed. – Anil Joseph, president of Perry Cross Road Association
Narendra Modi, a staunch proponent of Hinduvta, was on Friday anointed BJP’s prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, ending months of suspense over his elevation amid
stiff opposition by party patriarch L K Advani.
The announcement was made by BJP chief Rajnath Singh after a meeting of the party’s parliamentary board which was skipped by Advani who expressed “anguish” over the way the party was functioning. Except Advani, the meeting of the 12-member board was attended by other leaders like Sushma
Swaraj, Murli Manohar Joshi, Arun Jaitley and Nitin Gadkari.
The decision on Modi came on a day of fast-paced developments and back-to-back meetings and last minute efforts to bring around Advani,Joshi and Swaraj.
Making the announcement, Rajnath Singh said the decision had been taken by the parliamentary board as per the party’s tradition.
The party had announced its prime ministerial candidate in 2009 elections also, he noted at a press conference here.
Modi, who will turn 63 next Tuesday, said he will work tirelessly to ensure that BJP wins the 2014 elections.
pv narsimbha rao was the last cm to be pm and as well as pm candidate but not this early ironically his dead body was not even allowed to enter into congress headquarters and that all in compulsion of dynasty
Appropriately for the capital of a country that has witnessed the death of hope so often, Delhi is a city of tombs. To the many built to encase the remains of numerous emperors of the Mughal era and their successors has been added those from post-1947: Mohandas Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Sanjay Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Charan Singh and Jagjivan Ram.
Neither Mohandas Gandhi nor Sanjay Gandhi was ever the holder of any public office, although some may claim that the contribution to Indian history of the second son of Indira Priyadarshini may not entirely be on the same scale as that of the Mahatma. However, Sanjay too was granted the same privilege of a samadhi in New Delhi.
Both Rajiv Gandhi and Charan Singh died while they were out of office, while Jagjivan Ram — who never made it to the prime ministership — was cremated outside of New Delhi, but had his ashes brought back and re-interred in New Delhi
Four of the eight post-1947 tombs have been created to honour members of the Nehru family, whose names are etched on airports, ports, roads, townships, public conveniences and much else in a country that is presumably grateful that such a brood chose to be born in their midst.
As some are aware, Pamulaparthy Venkata Narasimha Rao was not a member of the Nehru family. He was, however, the first prime minister from south of the Vindhyas, lasted a full term in office, and began the transformation of India through the economic reforms initiated by him.
Most would say that Rao’s remains had at least the same right to a slice of prime New Delhi land as did Charan Singh’s or Sanjay Gandhi’s. The newspapers, who are extremely deferential to the actual powers-that-be, have been told and have reported that Rao was cremated in Hyderabad ‘as per the wishes of his family members.’
This statement contains the same measure of truth as the comment that the former prime minister was ‘regularly consulted on all important matters’ by the current Congress president, Sonia Gandhi.
In fact, despite being a former AICC president and a prime minister, Narasimha Rao was not just excluded from the Congress Working Commitee since the current heir to the Nehru dynasty took charge of the party in 1998, he was not even allowed to become one of the numerous ‘special invitees’, most of whom get selected for their cheerleader skills rather than any other contribution.
Given that former prime ministers Rajiv Gandhi, Charan Singh and the non-prime minister Sanjay Gandhi were given state funerals and a final resting place in what may be termed the National Capital’s ‘Zone of the Dead,’ the reasons why such a privilege was denied to Narasimha Rao are obscure.
They, however, are depressingly in line with a pattern that dogged Rao since 1992, when he refused to accept that he was not a public servant, but a Nehru Family retainer. In what follows, an account is given of the circumstances behind the final humiliation of Pamulaparthy Venkata Narasimha Rao.
A short while before he got hospitalised, Narasimha Rao — whose antennae were always active in picking up signals, especially from the many former and current officials who were admirers of his policies — was informed of a plan by senior politicians in his own party to implicate him and another former prime minister, Chandra Shekhar, in the assasination of Rajiv Gandhi.
For eight years, Rao had been the only former prime minister to have endured the torture of a series of cases filed against him. These had been masterminded — and the legwork for them funded — by the very same individuals who, he was now credibly told, were plotting to implicate him in one of the most heinous crimes of the century. The motive presented for Chandra Shekhar would be revenge — Rajiv made his life a misery and finally made it impossible for him to remain dependent on Congress support with dignity. That for Narasimha Rao would be the job that he stepped into after the 1991 Lok Sabha election.
To those scripting such Stalin-style show trials, it did not matter that Narasimha Rao had himself asked Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 for permission to retire, and was looking forward during and after the election that year only to writing and to music, and to the company of friends. Or that Rao was the sort of individual who was incapable of violence or vengeance, even against those who were his enemies, which was why — for example — the CBI permitted Ottavio Quatrocchi to leave the country.
In Narasimha Rao, forbearance grew to the level of a vice. It was as absurd to imagine him plotting to see Rajiv Gandhi dead as it was to believe that Rajinder Kumar Dhawan planned the demise of the only person he worshipped, Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi.
However, to the Stalinist scriptwriters within the Congress party who hated Rao for his perceived lese majeste, truth and logic were never allowed to remain in the way of a slur.
Shortly before he fell so ill that he had to be taken to hospital for the first time before the final crisis, Narasimha Rao told the writer that it had been a very ugly past few years, thanks to the constant threat of imprisonment hanging over his head. He saw these legal entanglements as a way of paralysing him, removing his capacity to emerge as a player once again, and said that because of their fear of what he could do — whether justified or not — they would keep immobilising him through more such stratagems.
PV was calm, he was cynical in his humorous way, but far from resigned. The old fox, whom his father had hoped would become the patwari of his village, felt he had another innings left at the crease, one in which he would once again score a double century. Indeed, he had begun the process of re-entry into active politics by giving me a lengthy interview during the 2004 Lok Sabha election on just why it was wrong to place the destruction of the Babri Masjid at his door, that was carried across a page by The Asian Age.
This was to be followed up by another interview, in which he would explain the conditions in which he and an individual he loved and respected, Manmohan Singh, rescued the Indian economy from collapse, in the process setting it almost free. I would remind him off and on about this second interview, till almost the final days.
Was it the knowledge that yet another conspiracy against him was on the way towards execution that pushed his body beyond the borderline of viable capability? For years, Narasimha Rao had been tended by Sreenath Reddy, one of the finest heart specialists in the world, the son of a close friend — Raghunatha Reddy — who was himself as idealistic as his boy. Ever watchful, this surrogate son had monitored PV’s health and made sure that the body worked well enough to keep that superb mind working at Concorde speed.
What goes on in the human mind, what short-circuit in the synapses causes a sudden collapse, is impossible to tell. Perhaps it was not this terrible information that pushed him across the red line. Perhaps it was something else. Perhaps it was nothing except perhaps a sudden onset of the common cold.
Even in hospital, even in his final days, PV exuded confidence. The doctors — and they included many who had grown to love PV the man, if not P V Narasimha Rao the prime minister — were grim-faced, as were the others clustered outside his room in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. Not so PV.
Strangely, his physical collapse had led to a toughening of his will. The voice was low, one did not have the will to respond and thus force him to expend energy by replying to the reply, but PV was determined to keep on talking about what would be.
This time, he would not make the mistake of not reacting to the torment, he would resist his inbuilt aversion towards his friends fighting back on his behalf and allow them to. There had been something aloof and patrician about the man from Vangara village, that made any effort at self-defense seem a contemptible display of weakness. But he was aloof no more. The eyes were tired but fierce, the voice was often unable to reach the level of becoming audible, but there was a hardening in the timbre that had not always been present during the years in office.
But this fresh dawn never took place. Sometime after noon on December 23, 13 days after he had been brought to the hospital early in the morning following a cardiac incident, PV decided to call it quits. It was more than an hour before the doctors finally did.
Strangely — or perhaps entirely expectedly — despite a special Union Cabinet meeting at 3 pm on the subject of his funeral, at his 9 Motilal Nehru Marg home there were no arrangements made to receive the body and place it on a platform, nor flowers, nor any laying out of carpets by the administration for the mourning crowds to sit down on, nor even a shamiana on the lawns.
Finally, Kishore, a friend of PV’s, made arrangements for both. The shamiana could get erected only by 8.15 pm. Carpets and flowers too were provided by family and friends and not by what seemed to be a totally bankrupt Government of India. As if to atone for his visible helplessness, the prime minister, Sardar Manmohan Singh, looked visibly moved as he quietly remained by the side of the body, which had been brought in from the hospital a little before 5 pm. As a gesture of supreme graciousness, Sonia Gandhi turned up and even stayed for a few minutes.
While some of those present then may be made to deny this later, the fact is that the family members — as well as the crowd of mourners — would have been happy to see the father of economic reform and the first prime minister from the south in the history of Free India be given the same honours as Sanjay Gandhi and Charan Singh, a State funeral in New Delhi and an appropriate memorial. Home Minister Shivraj Patil was clearly the emissary of some Unseen Power, for he came several times to the Rao home from some other place where he had apparently gone for consultations, to insist in his own courteous way on a funeral in Hyderabad.
It was clear to observers that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was not being consulted on this matter, there was not even a pretence of that on the part of the emissaries of the Unseen Power. A few such as Ahmed Patel could be observed giving regular updates via cellphone to Somebody about the situation in 9 Motilal Nehru Marg. A very useful man, Ahmed Patel.
It was decided Somewhere that PV’s body would be sent back to his home state. Ironically, PV had spent the previous 30 years in New Delhi, as a Cabinet minister, as an AICC general secretary and as prime minister. Even when he had been the prime minister, no member of his family lived with him, they would come on (infrequent) visits.
In his last years to, he lived alone. Thus the attempt to justify a shift to Hyderabad on the grounds that “he was not a Delhi resident” was somewhat of a stretch. Another argument used to justify the move to Hyderabad for the final obsequies was that the Vajpayee Cabinet had passed a resolution against any more samadhis. Again, for a regime that has been talking of ‘detoxifying’ the country from the misdeeds of the Vajpayee Parivar era, this was somewhat ingenious.
The family behaved with quiet dignity throughout. They said that as their father had been a Congressman, a freedom fighter, a prime minister, they would leave it to the Congress party and the government as to what was to be done.
The only moment of friction came when a high official suggested that if the sentiment was so overwhelming within the circle of those who loved PV that the cremation take place in the national capital, then very well, it would take place, but in the Delhi cantonment, as though PV were some bacillus that the refined gentry living in the Lutyens Zone did not want to see contaminate their environment.
The response to this suggestion on the part of those close to PV was that they would then cremate him at the Nigambodh Ghat, along with the other common men, which after all was all that he seemed to be to the powers-that-be.
It was at this stage that a Heavy Hitter arrived, in the person of Y S Rajshekhar Reddy, chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, who ‘cajoled’ those close to PV into ‘agreeing’ that it would be best to cremate him in Hyderabad. Around this time, those who looked like Intelligence Bureau sleuths began nosing around the rooms. It had been known that PV had kept voluminous records, including the draft of a book on the Emergency. It is unlikely that any of this will ever emerge into the daylight, except in a very sanitised way.
The next day, December 24, the body of the former Congress prime minister was brought to the gates of the AICC office at 24, Akbar Road and kept there for 20 minutes, ‘to pay homage.’ Apparently, the body was so heavy that it would not have been possible to lift what was left of PV from the gun carriage into the Congress headquarters, which would have been the civilised thing to do.
After this final humiliation, P V Narasimha Rao left New Delhi for Hyderabad, this time for good.
seems we are between the devil and the deep blue sea. We need to be saved both from corrupt congress and also power hungry modi. Can Kejriwal be the third alternative?
He sounds genuine. But I am not sure are they ready to govern. Some people are good at being disruptive but they have no clue when asked to be constructive.
Hindus fashion themselves as secular by criticizing modi and muslims hate him with ignorance without knowing anything led by congress propoganda via. media.
Btw 30% muslims from gujarat voted for modi last year. That states reality.
Asifa khan , who was congress spokesperson one year back , joined bjp last year after monitoring. Hear truth straight from her.
Can anyone explain why teesta setalvad and shajia’s cooked up incident claims were declared bogus by SIT committee and supreme court. Their statements kept changing and later they were exposed. Whose behest were they working on? These ladies were no where in social activism front, but suddenly one NGO is created at behest of congress to gain politically at the cost of widening gap between communities by their fake affidavit. Later, riot victims found themselves used by these organization and blamed teesta sitalvad.
If someone is still blaming modi, that means he has no faith in indian supreme court. See video below. Any other leader comes with such clarity of thoughts and talking about various problems. What is wrong with his thoughts?
btw nothing is more damaging than a fake prime minister. a power hungry arrogant lady who is ruling without any accountability always ready to take credit and divert thing which are precisely called spin off basically
What people have problem with Modi here? I hate it when people criticize anyone without reasoning. Such a selfless guy he is. He leads such a simple life like a common man, just last year his brothers went against him as he didn’t allow any special benefit/treatment to any family member. He is karmayogi in true sense who wakes up at 5 am , gets in touch with all administration online each day from 7 am to 10 am. He comes forward and gets in touch with public on daily basis. He takes full responsibility instead of depending on decisions of his ministers and takes best out of them giving them least possible.
Too good if sanjana and Satyam are Nri. They wont be voting in india. They seem to be blinded by congress propaganda in media continued for last years. While modi was given clean by every court in spite of every attempt by congress dragging him to delhi courts and replacing one judge by another.
Please, read supreme court’s full verdict that was eye opener for me. I started monitoring him closely and his speech. He is most secular leader i have come across never referring to any community or cast/creed. He is best thing happened to india since atal bihari vajpai.
Meanwhile 25 congress leaders are convicted and in jail currently for gujarat riots. Some are absconding to pakistan. Supreme court final verdict report discloses all how congress leaders conspired godhra train massacre where 2500 muslims were led by congress leaders which instigated riots later. Media never talks about it.
It is same congress who refused to send additional force deployment in gujarat when modi demanded so.
Meanwhile, Bachchan gets an award from International Broadcasters Conference: Actor Amitabh Bachchan has received an award from the International Broadcasters Conference in Amsterdam.
Bachchan tweeted on Saturday evening, “The International Broadcasters Conference in Amsterdam confers an Award .. !! I am humbled and grateful !!”
I’m not sure where I read it… but this little story is important for chronic haters… A married couple had the college going cousin sister of the wife move in with them as she starts college. Soon the small town cousin starts dressing and moving around like a regular city girl. Hubby and wife can’t stop talking about her skirts and how short they have become. Every evening hubby comes home and says “Honey, I’m home what did the girl do today”? The wife would then tell him how she changed her boyfriend again and got her nose pierced. They would gossip about the girl every evening on the dinner table and right up to bed-time. Sometimes it was the cousin’s hairstyle, her revealing tops, her boyfriends, her long phone calls, her sex life, her taste of books, blah blah. This gossiping and hateful bitching went on happily for years. The hubby and wife had nothing to discuss but the activities and behaviour of the cousin. They had nothing but contempt and disgust for her. One fine day the cousin announced she was getting married and moving out. She did! A day after the wedding when the hubby came home from work the couple had a very silent dinner and went to sleep quietly. They had absolutely nothing to discuss. The focus of all their gossip had gone and they realised they had spent all those years discussing nothing but the cousin and now had nothing to talk about. They had spent their days gossiping about the girl and now hardly knew each other or what to talk about.
People taik of congress and compare it to – Modi. Why not BJP? Modi comes with his burden which includes the party he belongs to. He doesn’t support RTI. Why?
I believe Kejriwal when he says congress aur BJP mein pati patni ka rishta hai. One pujari getting them married is of course Ambani.
I’m praying for Arvind Kejriwal to come from behind and kick all these people out.
Lots more columns from the conservative ranks where this came from..! Not to say there hasn’t been criticism on the left as well but this whole ‘it’s Armageddon for US foreign policy’ attitude is just silly. Also whatever one things of some of bungling on messaging and so forth the fact is that without that threat of force one wouldn’t be here:
Interestingly Putin seems to have taken the Obama threat of force more seriously than many in the US. Even without any public support or any kind in Congress on either side Putin threw out a lifeline. Syria for the first time ever admitted it had chemical weapons after denying this just a week ago, there is now this agreement which at least in the initial rounds seems better than many previous ones. And since the strike would have been largely symbolic anyway this would appear to be still a better solution. Which doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a better way to get here but the whole crude idea in the American media and in many more elevated circles that Putin simply exists to taunt the US is unfortunately not very accurate either. He of course has that impulse but there is a larger Russian geo-political strategy here as well. The Russians weren’t playing ball for two years on Syria in even the most minimal sense. Suddenly all of this happens. If Putin simply wanted to play ‘hero’ he could have done so at any point over the last two years! Again not justifying some of the sequencing over the last two weeks or so but I’d think the result is more important than anything else here. As for those who feel they’ve never seen this sort of thing from a President well they don’t know their history. Not for the first time. And again the almost wholly negative reviews of the Administration over this period (and some critiques I agree with) will give way probably to a far more positive appraisal depending on how this deal holds up.
The more important point here has been missed by many except for one commentator I came across (don’t remember who). Which is that for the very first time a US president insisted on such a strike but also admitted at the same time there was no imminent threat to the US and nor was it a retaliatory strike for anything done to the US in any sense. Now of course there are national security justifications that become pretend reasons in a lot of these episodes but there was none offered here and the larger idea that was defended was that if you use this stuff we reserve the right to attack you even if we are not threatened in the slightest and also if we have to go it alone. the UN wasn’t on board, the Congress wasn’t, public opinion wasn’t but this was the ‘idea’ behind it.
Incidentally people are forgetting some of the greater disasters that Obama has avoided for himself through all the ‘bungling’. The vote in Congress for one, going to Congress in the first place when he realized he was out on a limb with zero support from anyone (presidents in these situations usually don’t do anything or are forced not to even if they want to.. for instance FDR wanted to get into WWII long before he did but public opinion and politics didn’t allow him to.. until of course Pearl Harbor happened) and pretended he was throwing it open for public debate (!), then he said he was asking for a delay in the Congress (on the vote) when he gave his speech. The point is that even as many have been upset about this he’s cannily situated himself with the majority of the nation (a CNN instant poll found 61% agreed with his speech!). And his very reluctance to go to war serves him well with these folks. Whether it’s taking the riskiest option on getting Osama, whether it’s joining a coalition on Libya, whether it’s staying out of Syria at every point only to suddenly decide to strike to pursue a larger ‘idea’ and not necessary an immediate goal, it’s clear that there isn’t an obvious script here. Of course we know where the cowboy attitude gets one! You can feel good about it and feel you’ve projected strength and then you end up in quagmires that give your enemies the very strategic gifts they wouldn’t have had otherwise!
The problem which Congress now faces is to actually prove Modi’s pro-Hindu credentials post 2002. For the Congress, Modi’s history stops at 2002. But for everyone else, his actions post 2002 are what make him attractive. Consider for example a small piece of info tucked away in all this “Hindutva posterboy” sloganeering: Modi had ordered the demoition of 200+ temples in Gujarat, as part of the State Govts anti-encroachment drive. No CM in the history of India has gotten that many religious structures demolished. Would a Muslim CM have ever demolished 200 mosques for anti-encroahment of land? The entire DurgaShakti episode in UP was an example of how other politicians have exploited religious sentiments when it comes to land encroachment by religious institutes.
Another blatant lie: Modi is a follower of Asaram Bapu. In fact, Modi slapped a Rs 18 crore fine on Asaram Bapu for land encroachment by his ashram in Gujarat!
Let the blogosphere light up, the more debates there are, the more Modi’s work of the past 10 yrs gets highlighted. Time does not stop in 2002. He has done a lot in the past 10 yrs to deserve this nomination and the trust of the people to get him elected as PM.
He is secular and he uses hindu card when it suits him and discards when it does not. I think in Pakistan Musharraf also stood up against islamists. When a person wants to rule, he wants to become god. He will not save hindus or muslims, but will save his power at any cost. Regarding corruption also, he has a very practical approach, not holistic approach. This thing sounds somewhat coldblooded, doesn’t it? Use and throw approach. That is what Vanjara is saying.
I could give you an extraordinary list of Hitlers economic achievements in Germany. In fact there cannot be a greater or more dramatic example than the economic miracle of Germany from where it was in the 20s to what it became in the 30s. The reason I always come up with this seemingly ‘extreme’ example is to make the obvious point. Certain kinds of ‘crimes’ cannot simply be placed on a spectrum where these ‘negatives’ are then balanced out with positives (‘what highways and flyovers in Ahmedabad!’). The counter-argument seems to run two ways — a)that he didn’t do whatever he’s accused of b)even if he did consider how well-managed his state is. I don’t wish to rake up old debates here but the second justification crops up quite often and it seems to me that this ought to be morally unacceptable.
I actually believe that if Modi were PM he has every interest not to have acts of religious violence occur, let alone with his aid. For a number of political reasons this wouldn’t serve his interests and he has the independent authority not to be simply subservient to the Hindutva ideological brigade. However this idea doesn’t comfort me precisely because of the dismaying reality behind it — that in contemporary India you can be a great fascist and get away with it as long as you build good roads the next day!
Will say though that Modi doesn’t translate that well outside of a ‘Shining India’ crowd. Part of it is ethnic but part of it is the suspicion surrounding 2002 not just among religious minorities but also lower castes. He might still win of course and it would be a pretty black day for India.
“He might still win of course and it would be a pretty black day for India.”
And once again, the counter to your argument will be: By your logic, you will have a Black day anyhow, whether you give the Congress or the BJP a chance. We have already had 3 Black Days in India, ie whenever the Congress had formed a govt at the center since 1984. You can very easily compare Modi to Hitler. But why not compare Rajiv Gandhi to Mao or Stalin? He must be begging from his grave to be compared, he himself has the blood of 5000 Sikhs on his hands!!
Yes, 2 wrongs do not make a right. But it seems that we have given one wrongful party 3 full terms (ie 1984, 2004, 2009) to do something worthwhile. Unfrotunately, all 3 chances were squandered away in a mindnumbing/mindboggling array of scams and corruption. So now, are you still going to give them a 4th chance? Or are you going to give a 1st chance to the other wrongful party? You decide.
Indians do not have a spotfree Shining Knight in Armor. There are the 2 choices you have. Pick Wisely this time. The Black Day by your definition will happen anyhow.
Though I find the anti-Sikh pogroms of ’84 horrendous and I have talked about them in every such context I think it’s stretching things quite a bit to assign Rajiv the same responsibility for them that Modi has for 2002. Which doesn’t mean Rajeev bears no responsibility but let’s put it this way. I don’t think Rajiv was an anti-minority political figure who was looking for the right opportunity to cause such a massacre! On Narasimha Rao’s watch a pogrom was launched in Bombay by Thackeray. Whatever one might think of him I doubt he was actively for it! There are lots of CMs in the history of India on whose watches riots have happened and they too have sometimes been responsible. But there’s a difference between them and Bal Thackeray. So I actually don’t believe there’s some grey area here where we simply cannot decide who’s worse so either we don’t mark out the Modis of the world or we attack everyone. That’s a bit like saying Obama must be as bad as Hitler since his Drones have killed many too. Mao or Stalin would be a serious problem if there ‘were’ any such figure in India causing violence on such a scale. But there isn’t. So this is just a phantom fear that is invoked to justify violence on the Right. This too is an old move. Even the Nazis (along with every other fascist outfit in history) pretended that the threat from Communists was so great that they had to do this. I am the last person to excuse violence on the left but fascism remains a problem of the contemporary in ways that Stalinism it’s safe to say generally isn’t (outside of N Korea!).
Now as for the rest I’ve already said this. Scams no matter how great do not bother me as much as pogroms. They’re serious issues but simply not the same on any sort of moral scale. Lots of things damage the nation in all sorts of ways without threatening a community in particular. But even if it’s scams you’re concerned about do you really believe that such institutional problems can be resolved by one party or the other? I prefer the Dems to the Republicans but not because I think they’re the most honest guys around or are somehow not responsible for the institutional corruption of American politics in similar ways. Getting back to the example I started out with I like many others have lots of problems with Bush 43 but one of them isn’t that I confused him with the likes of Modi!
Finally a thing must be called by its proper name. It can’t be an all of the above approach where either Modi hasn’t done anything wrong but even if he has ‘look at Rajiv’! Or even if he has ‘consider how corrupt the Congress is’ or whatever. by the same token every time Hitler is blamed for something perhaps one should say ‘look at Stalin’! And again no one could seriously place Rajiv in the company of such pogrom-organizers or what have you!
Satyam, the pogrom of 1992 happened under a Congress govt in Maharashtra. Everyone seems to conveniently forget that fact. Why is it that Modi is blamed for inaction or active conniving with rioters in 2002, but Congress CM in 1992 is not? There was a Congress Central Govt, a Congress Maharashtra Govt, and yet Thackrey was able to run a pogrom for 10 continuous days?? In reality, it was Pawar/Thackrey/Underworld all together committing heinous crimes against Muslims. There were more Muslims killed in 1992 Mumbai, than in 2002 Gujurat. More than 400K Muslims ran out of Mumbai, never to return, while all their properties were usurped by the said parties. It was a STATE POGROM, not just a Hindi rightwing pogrom. The secular press seems to go to blind when pogroms are committed under the watch of Congress Govts.
I already mentioned Narasimha Rao. As for Pawar he’s not running for PM. But this was a Sena effort, the Congress govt could have done more to stop it, they didn’t, no question. But the state bureaucracy had its Sena sympathies, much more than is sometimes reflected in the election results. The Sena was able to tap into this and it certainly led the pogrom.
But notice the contradiction in your position. You refuse to hold the central actors who openly issued offensive statements about how minorities had to be taught a lesson and what not responsible, those who have been held responsible by just about every responsible body of opinion inside and outside India from human rights groups to academic organizations (hope you will not call all of this a vast Communist conspiracy!), but your claim is that somehow people who are more indirectly responsible should first be taken to task! In other words before getting to Hitler let’s get those who profited by him or who might have stopped him but did not! Or let’s not arrest any Mafia bosses before we get the police commissioners who winked and nodded at points! That’s a strange logic to pursue.
Let’s make it simpler. Let’s say that anyone who’s been tainted by a pogrom or this kind of instigated violence ought not to be taken seriously as a PM candidate. So Modi shouldn’t be in the running! Let me accept all your claims for the moment. But those folks aren’t running! The problem with your position is an evasion of moral responsibility. If you think I am letting off the Congress too easily (though I am hardly a Congress fan) the right response on your part should be ‘I agree with the Modi condemnation, however I think some Congress leaders also deserve a great deal of blame’. Your argument as it stands seems to be ‘pogroms are horrible things but let Modi run because many Congress types didn’t get into trouble!’. That’s like Hitler protesting that some others before him didn’t get into any trouble for doing similar things! Surely a moral calculus doesn’t depend on account for everyone else first! Though I always found Thackeray repulsive I didn’t comment on him as much in these contexts because he wasn’t running for higher office. He wasn’t relevant to the discussion in the same way. But also because not too many were defending him in these contexts.
The most disappointing thing in these debates is the inability on the part of many like yourself to just condemn these crimes without getting into this relativistic game. In many discussions involving Modi in the past I have brought up the anti-Sikh riots unprompted. Those Congress leaders who organized them are as bad as Modi in my book much as those who do such things on the Muslim side of the equation or any other ethnic or political divide are equally blameworthy. We can discuss all of those contexts here as well. Every such leader is equally responsible. But it’s a stretch to say that Rajiv Gandhi was somehow like Modi because it happened on his watch (though he of course has some responsibility). Again your logic is either condemn even those who have the slightest responsibility in these matters or else let the biggest infractions go scot-free! By this logic Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot and whoever would always have blanket immunity! But again why is it so hard to condemn these things without viewing them through that left-right political prism? Doesn’t this structure become convenient to evade responsibility? When Obama launches Drone attacks I find them problematic. I don’t say ‘it’s better than Bush’! or ‘first talk about Bush, then we’ll get to Obama’! These are always easy ways to protect a leader one likes. One keeps all the distinctions in mind, one has to be precise in these matters, which in turn allows one to hold everyone responsible but not in the very same ways.
Finally the really dismaying thing about the Modi support, though completely and boringly predictable given the history of fascist discourses anywhere in the world, is that were he not such a dynamic leader he wouldn’t be defended half as much! Of course even the ‘competence’ question puzzles me sometimes. Either he completely deserves his reputation in which case he deliberately did nothing to stop the violence and/or actively aided it. This takes away the partisan defense that he did nothing. or else he really tried but could do nothing but this then damages the competence veneer! One can’t have it both ways. Modi himself recently said that he was like someone seated in a car that he wasn’t driving (odd thing for a CM to say!) and that ran over a puppy (notice the callous analogy, language always betrays us!). he would feel bad but not responsible! So I guess he’s taking the ‘I couldn’t help it’ excuse. I suppose he’s super-competent when it comes to building super-highways but grossly incompetent when it comes to ensuring the security of every resident of his state!
No one can commit large-scale violent transgressions in a state without the active connivance of the people in power. In 1992, Thackrey was not in power. He had been barking against Muslims since 1975. But why is it that only in Jan of 1992, he was able to actually put words into action? For all those years he had no active support from the State Govt. Thackrey was the head-gunda of a militia which could not dare to act without law enforcement letting it do so. The Congress CM/PM gave him free rein to run a pogrom for 10 days. Similarly, the Sikh riots would not have been continuing for a whole week if Rajiv had not wanted it. If you think that Rajiv was only a driver in charge of an out-of-control vehicle, then Modi was no different. If you feel Modi indeed actively managed the riots (which has not been proven by any court of law until now), then you have to assign the same proportion of blame to Rajiv as well as PVN/Pawar. Rajiv was the acting PM, who despite the terrible blot of Sikh riots, did get re-elected to the largest majority ever acquired in independent India.
All I want to say is that there is not a single blotfree party or politician in India today. You can assign varying degrees of blame to Rajiv, PVN/Pawar, Modi etc on the relativistic scale that you have mentioned. But you can never completely clear their names. Being that it is so, no one can disregard Modi’s candidacy on the question of 2002, as that would be completely hypocritical.
Must say that I find it a bit odd that someone who had pretty much nothing to do with politics and was suddenly thrust into this role is assumed to have been in total control from day 1 and somehow shares the very same responsibility for the anti-Sikh violence that a seasoned politician like Modi does for 2002! This wasn’t like Sanjay Gandhi who was always deeply embedded in politics. The Pawar case is more persuasive though he was never his party’s candidate for PM, was he?
But forget what I think. What do you think? So according to you Rajiv Gandhi shouldn’t have served at all? Alright that history is done. What about Modi? Or should another Hitler be allowed to serve in Germany because the first Hitler also got a chance? I’m hypocritical. What about you? Or do you simply give people free reign because there have been others before them? I just don’t follow your logic at all! You seem to be in total agreement with me that these events were pogroms. But your point seems to be that if some got away scot-free everyone else should too! Or that if some were allowed to have prosperous careers others should too! By this logic why were those rapists sentenced to death recently? Isn’t this hypocritical? So many get away so easily..! On what basis is any criminal punished? the law is always hypocritical because of course everyone engaging in a similar crime is either not punished or not even convicted.
And again Thackray was never close to being a PM candidate. Pawar was talked about once but he never became his party’s candidate not least because his gangland connections stained him as well. And on Rajiv must say I doubt anyone on the planet would be willing to equate him with Modi on this score.
No, I am not saying that Modi shud go scotfree because Rajiv did. There are only 2 national parties (Cong and BJP), and neither of them is taintfree. So in essence, neither you nor I have any choice in trying to elect a taintfree party. My issue is that the media gives a blank check to Congress to go scotfree, but does not do the same to the BJP. That is my point, which you do not want to agree, because you feel that Rajiv was not involved in the same degree.
Also, Rajiv had been in politics since 1981 (after the death of Sanjay). He was being groomed for the top job, and was already a minister when Indira was killed. Modi had been made a compromise CM barely a few months before the riots, he was not even in the administration. Neither of them were seasoned in any sort of disaster management (or riots management). So once again, you have to give the same proportion of blame to both.
Modi was instrumental in the state for a long time before he became CM. he was integrally part of their election campaigns and strategy and so on. Rajiv was pretty green when he became PM (not even CM!) and it showed in all sorts of ways relatively soon. As I’ve said a number of times this is not to excuse Rajiv but let’s say most people would be hard-pressed to believe he was a guy with a communal agenda on his mind. On Modi I believe the opposite. Beyond this I do think there’s general slippage here. This is a move that often comes about when people try to defend the infractions of the Right. So either everyone becomes equally responsible, facts lose all precision, and everyone can be painted with the same brush of abstraction or else one is simply biased. There never seems to be a way to account for horrors that come about on the Right without resorting to this schema which in a sense leaves people blameless. Because if ‘everyone’ is doing it it doesn’t seem so bad! Even otherwise I would be surprised if 99% of the people who invoke the anti-Sikh pogroms in this context ever gave a thought to this before they were asked to defend Modi! This entire logic sets up a frame where either no one blames Modi or if they do they blame him along with 10 others and with the result that he is allowed to proceed in his ambitions because many of the others did too. One rather interesting recuses oneself from any kind of moral judgment with the astonishingly weak excuse that in a two party system one has to vote for someone. But no one running for PM in the current Congress was responsible for the anti-Sikh pogroms right? So there’s more slippage here. Somehow that event stains everyone in the Congress to this day! I wouldn’t have said the same thing if Advani had been the PM candidate or someone else. I still wouldn’t have liked the BJP but I wouldn’t have had this specific objection against a different PM candidate. why is a 30 year old charge sticking on the Congress when a whole generation has gone by in between? Were Manmohan Singh or sonia Gandhi or Rahul gandhi or whoever engaging in pogroms?
It’s not about proportion for me because I don’t see all these events in exactly the same light. The Rajiv Gandhi-Modi equation seems bizarre to me and I think would to most people whether or not they supported Modi. Nonetheless if you see proportion I’m not sure how the rest of your argument follows. So you’re saying you’d vote for Hitler knowing his record if you felt you’d already tried out Stalin? If these were the choices given to me I’d abstain from voting! You have a certain Swiftian logic here where if one guy has been given the chance to massacre a 1000 people and hold office the other guy should be too! By this logic we could keep having candidates who had the same histories! It’s even stranger to rely on something as banal as a two party system to explain this course of action! Again I bring back my other example. Why should the law go after these rapists and not others? So these guys should go free too? And while there are many rapes in India every single day are all of them as horrendous in their violence as this event (or some others like it)?
Forget the media. Forget the left. Once again it’s what you think. One can’t keep bringing up these excuses.
Additionally, you just cannot compare the political experience of Rajiv with Modi.
Rajiv was born a few years earlier than Modi, into the ruling political family of India, and from his first breath to his last, was part of the highest echelons of power. There is no way that you can assign ‘political inexperience’ as an excuse to Rajiv. Naive he was, but no way was he unaware of the levers of politics.
Modi is an OBC, born to a tea-stall owner, who helped his father run the tea-stall until he was 17. He was a peon for the Delhi RSS office in his late 20s. He became the CM by consensus between warring political factions, who regret their decision to this day. He was always efficient and shrewd, but it is a stretch to call him a seasoned politician when he became CM.
Satyam, You dont put any facts but only long comments bereft of facts. You need to read more on 1984 and RG involvement.
Yes, In your Eyes its Secular riots.
Who said, ” When big tree falls, earth is bound to shake” ??
Who didnt allowed army in delhi for 3 days??? ( Delhi has Cantonment)
Read Julius Raberio and Ved Marwah and also Tavleen singh.
You are so far unable to put one fact but your own perceptions which you are entitled to but before spreading lies and canards, show empirical evidence. If perception is only thing thn Nehru right now is most Cursed and hated figure in India
Partition Happened due to Modi
Assam Neelie riots ( Killing 4000 Muslims) by Modi.
1984 Sikh Genocide also by Modi
Bhagalpur Riots also by Modi
pre 2002 Guj riots also by Modi
Emergency was Imposed by Modi in 1975
It was not Indira but Modi who wanted to change the consititution for ever in India but for SC ( Keshave nanada Bharti Case)
Sterlization was also done by Modi.
Turkman Gate was also done by Modi
Muzzafarnagar forced sterilisation, leading to riots was also done by Modi.
Recent 35 riots incl Muzzafar nagar riots is also by Modi.
Middle east problem is also by Modi.
Recent Syria problem is also coz of Modi.
Long comments dont count, any argument can be twisted in both ways, so better come with Facts and Empirical evidences. Perception matters in Mind not on public space.
10 K uslims have been killed by Congress Govt but they are not anti Minority, but 742 unfortunate deaths in Guj is Anti Minority.
Plz List out Facts not long essays which contain nothing. Show me Facts and let me also have chance to refute this Fact. If you win. I will say Sorry but dont spread lies.
Actually hitler was democratically elected. Whatever he did later he still for the longest time had the total support of his people and probably would have won bigger a second time around or more. For the longest time he was ‘god’ in Germany. Once again the very same reasons that people now support Hitler. Down to the last detail. The bogeyman of the left, the minority in control of the majority, the economic miracle etc etc. In every country at every point in history over the last century or so you’d find the very same factors at play in these fascist outfits. exactly the same. The consequences often vary because all leaders in this sense don’t face the very same situations.
Of course you had terrifying Communist experiments too but even in the most left-leaning states of India and whether these folks have been in power in Kerala or in W Bengal (specially here) there has been nothing remotely close to that sort of Communist governance. And even the Communists of W Bengal have move far far away from their traditional discourse in the previous decades. So the idea that anyone in India is being equated with that sort of communist is just a rather miserable joke.
Will say though that Modi doesn’t translate that well outside of a ‘Shining India’ crowd. Part of it is ethnic but part of it is the suspicion surrounding 2002 not just among religious minorities but also lower castes. He might still win of course and it would be a pretty black day for India.”
educated muslims like satyam have to be rational rather than repeat same rheotric time and again for e.g hitler
on thought process let me remind modi himself belong to lower caste rather than upper strata and to rest most of india shining brigade media that is media where hostile to him..thats what mayawati or karunanidhi missed and today the bigest irony is a man of lower caste is a big poster boy and a pan india figure because he never carried caste identity(thats why someone like nitish opposes him more )
“Of course you had terrifying Communist experiments too but even in the most left-leaning states of India and whether these folks have been in power in Kerala or in W Bengal (specially here) there has been nothing remotely close to that sort of Communist governance. And even the Communists of W Bengal have move far far away from their traditional discourse in the previous decades. So the idea that anyone in India is being equated with that sort of communist is just a rather miserable joke.”
you mean to say white paper issued against cpi m in 1962 right after china war or repeated guerelling voilence in bengal during election
communist where the single sole reason for destroying bengal and kerala especially industries
have ever heard of emergency when democratic law where stopped …the true hitler type atmosphere
in 84:
“when big tree falls earth shakes”
in 89 when pandits where masscared and cleansed
this sort of actual propaganda to do name calling (like hitler)and congress knows it better than most after burning there hands repeately by calling the same to modi for a decade
Modi wants to be the PM that’s why one talks more of him and Gujarat riots and not the sikh riots etc.
If someone directly related to the sikh riots wants to be the PM he’ll be dealt with with equal severity and dislike.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, Who is elevated to BJP PM Candidate for Lok Sabha elections, has broken record of most searched person on Google.
Modi, who has emerged as most popular political icon in India, entered the record book after his name received maximum number of search on Google in a day.
Around 1000077332 (Over one billion) people searched the keyword Narendra Modi on search engine giant Google.
Earlier, this record was named after US President Barack Obama. During the US presidential elections, Barack Obama received 9877532 number of search in a single day.
On Friday, BJP top brass named Modi as its Prime Ministerial Candidate, ignoring veteran LK Advani’s opposition.
At the outset, you must be wondering if we Indians have anything better to do with our time than faxing you letters of our grievances, sending chain mails and writing open letters to you. And, yes, you are absolutely right. We have no regard for our time, your time, or anybody else’s time and neither do we know how to manage our internal affairs internally. This is an inherent trait and try however hard to shrug it off, we cannot, and we will be taking this quality to our graves. I am not quite sure how seriously you would be taking the contents of the letter that has been faxed to you by 65 Honorable Members of our Parliament, especially after certain signatories to the letter like Mr. Sitaram Yechuri, KP Ramalingam and Mr. Shantaram Naik now claim that they have never signed the letter in the first place. Well, that’s how the system in our side of the world works; it reeks of confusion, offers very little pellucidity and usually accepts forgery as a norm. The letter was signed more than seven months back and faxed to you a few days ago. Well, it has taken seven months to get a letter across to you, again this is exactly how our system is, as slow as a paralyzed snail. I am quite sure you have done all your research on the workings of the great Indian democracy, lucidly put; the wheels of the great Indian democracy are stuck in a rut.
I am rather embarrassed with the actions of 65 Members of Parliament of my country. Our Parliamentarians work very hard Mr. President. They work hard at projecting my country in the poorest of light on the world stage. This is not new to us. Our administration took it upon them to do exactly this even when we were gearing up a few years back to host the Commonwealth games, it was our greatest chance to show the world once and for all, how our qualified politicians acquired their Masters degree in corruption and inefficiency. I am sure you arched your eyebrows and stifled a chuckle when CNN kept playing those shameful footages of ‘paan’ stained toilets, crumbling infrastructure and how the President of the Indian Olympic Association was peddling toilet paper rolls for an astronomical amount. Our country today is better known for corrupt practices, inefficient systems, slowest economic growth in a decade, crumbling rupee and even for the biggest religious divide in its post independence history. Gone are the days when we were famous for snake charmers, yogis smoking pot and for holding the world record for longest fingernails. Our politicians are now performing the great Indian rope trick instead. We have nobody but our Parliamentarians to blame for this mess, the same ones who sent that fax to you requesting you not to grant a visa for a democratically elected head of a state. “It is almost unthinkable that Indian lawmakers would appeal to the United States to take a stand on an internal matter. ” The Washington Post reported. Well Mr. President, this what our politicians do best, they do the unthinkable, amply enough to make us hang our heads in collective shame.
Why could the 65 MPs not try to take action here in India to curb Mr. Modi’s travels? Would they even try to pass a resolution in Parliament to confiscate Mr. Modi’s passport? Could they even attempt this? No. This is why; they have come running to you Mr. President. And if you consider Mr. Modi to be as dangerous and as sinister as these 65 Parliamentarians make him to be, it is rather surprising that your country would engage in business ties with his state. In fact, as recently as March 2013 Members of Congress from Illinois, Wyoming and Washington state visited Gujarat, visibly attracted by Modi’s ‘business friendly policies”. The high level delegation went one step further; they invited Modi to the United States of America. “We were impressed with what we have seen . . . and we extended an invitation to the chief minister to come to United States and share with our colleagues some of what he has done here in the state,” Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.), who led a delegation of U.S. lawmakers and business leaders, told reporters in Gujarat. Precisely the reason again why American companies like Ford and General Motors, hallmarks of the great American pride have set shop in Gujarat. Surely Mr. President, the great American pride would not allow you to separate business opportunities from democratic values?
A true democracy like the United States would find little use in entertaining a letter that reeks of communalistic intent. Your great country has allowed free travel for our notable politicians who have had more blood in their hands than all the blood that a city’s blood bank can hold. And yet, it is rather surprising why your immigration laws are not allowing a man who has received a clean chit from the highest court’s appointed SIT of our country into yours. This is certainly not an appeal that Mr. Modi be granted a visa to travel to the United States. It really does not matter whether the United States grants Mr. Modi a visa or not, I do not believe his political career in India is dependent on it. But, that majestic lady in New York harbor wears a smirk on her face; it might help to wipe it.
As the political scene heats up, this thread would see more activity. This thread would be better served if we do things in civil manner. As we see people have different opinions and probably more passionate on the their positions than movie star views. Please note than in blogosphere you can not convince the other that you are the right person. So if we keep airing our opinion rather than imposing we would be fine!
The whole thing including the clip is not sophisticated since it’s made by unprofessional volunteers, of his speech. But what he says is far more worthy than all those sophisticated clips.
I think it’s more the middle class, not the educated (I believe he himself is not very highly educated) who support him because he’s looking after their consumerist greed and tendencies very well.
I’m happy that the uneducated have got someone to look up to, and Arving Kejriwal is better educated.
Love the irony – educated man is hero of uneducated (whose fault is that?) and not so well educated is hero of the so called educated.
actually to trap undeucated only the propaganda business continues because for them mahatma gandhi is related to dynasty or even lolipop of food security bill can be served or for that matter liquor and food to give votes or other free bees
namo and arvind’s base came from educated lower and upper middle class but again they have to vote
tavleen on governance:
uch an ominous sense of bad times and foreboding hangs over political Delhi today that it is hard to remember that Sonia Gandhi took power in a happy, hopeful time 10 years ago. When she first chose Manmohan Singh to govern India on her behalf, the economy was booming, foreign investors were flocking to our shores and young Indians were coming home from studies abroad instead of staying on. Remember? Remember how economic analysts predicted that by 2050, at the latest, India would enter the ranks of middle-income countries and would become able to offer all her citizens a release from the unrelenting horror of poverty?
This dream of prosperity is what Sonia has killed in the decade that she has been India’s de facto prime minister. She has killed it by changing our economic direction and taking us back to the times when Indira Gandhi sold us a more diminished dream—’Garibi hatao’. With the passage of the food security and land Bills in the Lok Sabha last week, Sonia has made it clear that this is all she wants for India. Not prosperity but just the removal of poverty. She seems uninterested in India becoming a rich and prosperous country with fine, modern cities and a growing middle class. Could it be because such things threaten dynastic democracy?
It is easier to persuade Indians mired in poverty and marginal farming that dynastic democracy is in their best interests because like in feudal times, they will be looked after. They will be given cheap food grain and they will be given the right not to sell their land so that they can continue being subsistence farmers forever and ever. Of course they will have to do without roads, electricity, clean water, modern health care and sanitation, but so what? They can go to the ration shop and get their cheap food grain. And they can go to court and demand that their children be allowed to attend Delhi’s Sanskriti School, currently filled with the children of politicians and bureaucrats, because they have the right to education.
Sonia’s ‘rights-based governance’ and her vaunted ‘concern for the poor’ has brought the Indian economy to its knees. And there is no chance of it reviving because who is going to invest in a country in which the new land law makes buying land almost impossible? Under the new law you would need the consent of 80 per cent of the local population to acquire land for a road or an airport and then you would need to spend years ‘rehabilitating’ the affected families. Sonia’s acolytes went public after the land Bill was passed to declare that the law would make up for ‘centuries of injustice done to Indian farmers’. Incidentally, when farmers discover that they cannot sell irrigated land as easily as before, the proverbial you-know-what could really hit the ceiling. But by then there will be a new government in Delhi.
After the damage done by this one, we must hope that it will be a government with a happier economic vision. But since our leading opposition party has supported two of the most retrogressive laws ever made, the BJP does not deserve this chance. Narendra Modi is the only political leader, since Jawaharlal Nehru, who has articulated an economic vision that is new and definitely not socialist but how can he implement it with the Congress party’s B team as his A team? He needs to ask himself this question.
There were ways to oppose both the very flawed new laws that Sonia and Rahul have taken proud credit for. Why did the BJP not try and find them? Why did they not point out that if we spent the Rs 125,000 crore we will be spending by next year on food security on sanitation, better school meals and rural health care, we would end malnutrition and create desperately needed public services? Why did they not oppose the land Bill on the grounds that it would make it impossible to build the modern infrastructure without which India cannot move forward? These are questions that will be asked over and over again in the years to come. Meanwhile, we must reconcile ourselves to the sad reality that Sonia Gandhi’s socialism has ensured that India becomes the sick man of South Asia.
This is a terrifying thought in the week that we caught Yasin Bhatkal, allegedly responsible for nearly every jihadi terrorist act in the past decade. What does jihadi terrorism have to do with our economic collapse? Everything. In the 21st century, a country’s strength is measured as much by its economic might as it is by its military prowess. So an economically weak India is easy prey. Is it any wonder that the pall of gloom that hangs over India gets darker every day?
isn’t us was behind the rise of anna or arvind to create anarchy or isn’t they where rss face ….this is what fed by ruiing elite cum congrss and its media associates .. what an irony that they need these name to save face against competent
This is india inflation rate in last 20 years.
CPI India 2013 11.14 % CPI India 2003 3.81 % (Bjp)
CPI India 2012 9.30 % CPI India 2002 4.31 % (Bjp)
CPI India 2011 8.87 % CPI India 2001 3.77 % (Bjp)
CPI India 2010 12.11 % CPI India 2000 4.02 % (Bjp)
CPI India 2009 10.83 % CPI India 1999 4.84 % (Bjp)
CPI India 2008 8.32 % CPI India 1998 13.17 %
CPI India 2007 6.39 % CPI India 1997 7.25 %
CPI India 2006 5.79 % CPI India 1996 8.98 %
CPI India 2005 4.25 % CPI India 1995 10.22 %
CPI India 2004 3.77 % (Bjp) CPI India 1994 10.24 %
I don’t know if such low inflation rate during Bjp was only for hindus. Satyam and sanjana can possible describe if muslims suffered high inflation rate during that time. Possibly, they would like to credit Shri Abdul kalam if muslims also faced low inflation that time. But, don’t forget Abdul kalam was nominated and selected during Bjp. Even this time, Only bjp nominated Abdul kalam and supported while all sickular parties Congress, SP, Bsp, Rjd supported and nominated their own political party leader Pranab Mukherjee.
If anyone heard president’s speech on independence eve this year. One can see difference in pranab mukherjee’s crammed meaningless sentences and old speeches of Abdul kalam.
Hitler carried out a sustained campaign of economic marginalization of Jews, followed by their eventual extermination. All this happened while Germany ascended economically and militarily. If Modi were doing this like Hitler, we would not be seeing Muslims get richer in Gujurat. Muslims have participated equally in the economic boom over there, had they not, they would not vote for him in the last elections. Why have Muslim constituencies ditched Congress and voted for BJP in 2012?
If he were running sustained violent campaigns against Muslims, why is it that there has not been a single riot after 2002? There have been more than 100 communal riots/incidents in UP in the past 18 months alone (ie since the Muslim-leaning SP came to power). How do you explain these facts?
Back in the 80s and 90s, when Congress ruled Gujurat continuously, one could not travel through the heart of Ahmedabad without fear of getting stuck in a communal disturbance. The Relief Road and Kalupur areas were notorious for violence. During one stretch in the 80s, there was a permanent presence of army there, to prevent skirmishes. Today, these areas are totally peaceful,and have been violence free for more than a decade. This had never happened in the history of Gujurat since independence. How do you account for this fact?
One just cannot throw crap at the wall and hope some of it will stick. The ‘secular’ media has created a bogeyman which they love to beat everyday. But the ground situation of Gujurat is far removed from the grotesque image painted by the media. Now that masses in other states have figured out the reality, the ‘secular’ media has gone into a tizzy, unable to put one fact on paper, while continuously diminishing their own credibility.
How can Modi carry out a sustained campaign against muslims like Hitler did in these modern times? Vajpayee would have kicked him out.
And Hyderabad which has more muslims, does not have a permanent military post anywhere near old Hyderabad or other muslim pockets. Hyderabadi hindus are better than ahmedabadi hindus, it seems.
Kaviji, think it over.
anyway we’re really beating a dead horse. I say this again! I am not interested in what the left is saying or whether Rajiv Gandhi’s ghost visits the Congress daily and smears them anew with the blood of those Sikh victims. I am strangely enough much more interested in the present gentleman who hopes to become PM with the willing support of those who seem to think that in balance of justice you have horrible human atrocities on one side and spanking new highways on the other. And if anyone questions this one can blame the lefties in the media for not agreeing to this. But wait, let’s get Modi elected PM quickly before those 11% completely overrun the country and dominate it even more totally. We know what the Jews did to germany after all.
anyway this will be it from my side on this debate. I still operate under the rather quaint notion that if someone is subjected to such violence one should not be entering political debates about who is responsible for as much or worse. Similarly if one responsible for this can be prevented one should hope for this without entering into a similar calculus about how many got away. I would say the very same, have said the very same, in every such context irrespective of the ethnic or religious or national identity of the victims,
” If these were the choices given to me I’d abstain from voting! You have a certain Swiftian logic here where if one guy has been given the chance to massacre a 1000 people and hold office the other guy should be too! By this logic we could keep having candidates who had the same histories! ”
And again, as I asked you. What choice do you have in a country where not a single party is untainted? Everyone has had their pet-pogrom. Now, are you going to abstain, or vote for the party which showed some semblance of economic development and delivery of prosperity to the masses in the past decade? If you keep bringing back the same corrupt party to power, it will be like the definition of insanity, ie keep doing the same wrong thing hoping that it would become right the next time.
What pogrom is Sonia Gandhi or Manmohan Singh or Rahul Gandhi responsible for? Very conveniently you have Modi on one side and the Congress on the other. I’ve never said anything against Vajpayee. I’ve not even said anything against the far more hardline Advani in this context. And we’re not here to discuss corruption. The Nazis though were pretty corruption-free! You could run down the list. every single thing you’re saying in support of Modi I could apply to Hitler and Nazi Germany on the economic front. Except that Hitler’s turnaround was a lot more impressive. Perhaps when a pogrom is organized the community being subjected to such should be impressed by the organizer’s relative honesty — hey at least he’s not corrupt. Not I’ll submit my wife to gang-rape and myself to a burning tire with some relief.
I wish I could say that these statements were caricatures but given some of the things you’re saying I don’t even have to try to come up with these Swiftian responses!
You’re comparing two different things. First off ‘riots’ or ‘communal violence’ isn’t the same as a ‘pogrom’. On your ‘peace’ comment I am reminded of this great Tacitus comment about Roman tactics (sometimes) with respect to particularly belligerent tribes who put up great resistance when faced with the prospect of domination:
“they made it a desert and called it peace.”
So yes in a desert there is peace. When a community has been terrorized certain things follow.
On the rest one doesn’t have to rise to Hitler’s precise level. One can be in the same genealogy.
Finally excuse me if I laugh a bit at this representation of the virtuous right constantly big bad wolf of the secular left! hitler would approve though. He relentlessly attacked the left in Germany for being part of the Communist threat. As did every other fascist leader in similar circumstances. The script in this sense is boringly overdetermined!
but I notice that throughout this exchange you are still not willing to put your own moral sense on the line. As I said forget the left and the media and whatever. What is your own sense in these matters? Because once more following your logic these Delhi rapists should not be getting any kind of sentence. perhaps they should run for office! There have undoubtedly been rapist politicians!
Off course, morally, I do not approve of any violence. Loss of innocent lives is deplorable, especially when it occurs in mob frenzies. The mobs who killed the 59 Hindu pilgrims were wrong, the mobs who killed the Muslims in retaliation were even worse. Or the mobs who killed Sikhs in 1984, and all throughout our history since independence. Nothing can justify loss of lives, there can be no moral shirking away.
In my youth, and having been brainwashed on the standard CBSE textbooks glorifying Congress, I was unmoved by the violence that befell Sikhs in 1984. Only in university in Karnataka, when I befriended Sikhs from Delhi, did I realize what a mob frenzy can do. I even saw the burning embers of Mumbai on the 7th day of riots in 1992. We were all going back for our winter break in a bus from Bangalore to Mumbai. The roads into Mumbai had opened on that day, and our bus was one of the first ones to go in. It was horrific.
If I act on my moral compass, then yes, I cannot consciously vote for any party in India. They are all a bunch of manipulators, who ignite passions for votes. You cannot separate Sonia/Rahul from Rajiv. They have shielded the perpetrators such as Jagdish Tytler/Sajjan Kumar from any justice. (In contrast, Maya Kodnani who incited the worst violence at Naroda Patia was sentenced to life imprisonment). Since Sonia/Rahul have continued on the legacy of denying justice to victims, how can their hands be washed off that blood?
So, my question remains, what are you going to do come election time?
And just came across this article, which encapsulates much of our own argument here:
Gujarat 2002 vs Delhi 1984: Which genocide should we vote against?
Yes but the piece you’ve pointed out reveals the secret politics of such opinion. No one, yes NO ONE, was talking about the anti-Sikh pogroms for the longest time. people happily voted (or not) for the Congress but this wasn’t a defining issue. Rather conveniently it suddenly becomes a defining issue now, 30 years after the original event. Why? This is called giving the ‘liberal’ Modi voter a permission slip. Hey they’re all equally bad, since we can’t vote against all of them, we have to vote for someone we shall do so for Modi with clean consciences! This is all it amounts to. I am completely dubious about such good consciences only when they arise at such opportune moments! Speaking for myself I had huge problems when this happened in Bombay in 1993, I was rather too young to take in the anti-Sikh violence for what it was and not least because they never talked about it much at the time (is this a media failure? absolutely! But the media also totally failed when it came to covering the Bomaby violence. Thackeray never got the press that Modi got), it’s not a personal thing against Modi, it is what he represents. But your idea that ‘everyone’ in Congress is responsible because they didn’t bring the ’84 perpetrators to justice and even Rahul Gandhi is personably responsible seems to be a very high standard. What next? We’re going to find old stalwarts who were complicit in the Partition violence? Do we start hunting for BJP figures who might have condoned Gandhi’s assassination or at least were in bed with the same groups? This is not a reasonable standard by any stretch and once again it simply gives you a permission slip to vote for Modi! Because either one of your arguments depends not on holding Modi accountable for his guilt (which you accept) but rather bizarrely holding others for their own episodes first. So we never quite get to Modi. His turn never comes! Don’t you think there’s some very specious logic involved here? In other words a black voter in the US shouldn’t vote for Dems because once upon a time the Dems were like the Republicans of today on some of these issues and vice versa. The Democrats until very recently even had segregationists in their ranks. Well advanced in age but there nonetheless. What society or human being functions like this? Even accepting the parity you’ve proposed between Rajiv Gandhi and Modi which I absolutely do not. the defense of Modi rests on there being absolute purity on the other side otherwise everything will be muddied up by you and Modi rescued this way! That’s like saying that those who engaged in 500 crore telecom scams are more or less the same as those who bribe someone a certain amount to take care of their electricity bills. And until these latter are accounted for the guy who gets into that scam should be allowed to run for higher office. And it’s also puzzling why using that very same logic why you’re objecting to Congress corruption at all? Everyone’s corrupt. Even if those in the Congress are moreso (let’s accept this for the moment) we should account for all the BJP corruption first and then decide. So no matter which way you slice and dice it, whether it’s about the corruption or about these pogroms the BJP always gets the benefit of the doubt!
Let me say this and using standards that are far more reasonable. If any of the Congress leadership, reasonably in line to become PM, were guilty of such a pogrom I would not vote for them. And if Modi’s on the other side? I would vote for neither. Yes one of them would still be in power but not with my vote. I can’t control the outcome of an entire election but I certainly would find it unconscionable to vote for any such leader. Nothing forces one to vote in these circumstances. Does one side win anyway? Sure! But not with one’s signature on it. This is not a bland Gore v Bush kind of deal where you vote for Nader and enable the side you might not have wished for. In that scenario you already have a side. In this case however I would have none.
People think Modi can be voted to power like Obama.
Does one even know how the PM is elected in India?
People won’t be voting for corrupt Modi(who’s so afraid of RTI) but for corrupt BJP.
So to get one corrupt Modi (who’s so afraid of RTI) up there as the PM, all over India at least 250 constituencies would have to vote for any Tom Dick and Harry or Donkey who gets the BJP ticket – all to get one corrupt man(who’s so afraid of RTI) up there.
What about these 250+ corrupt people spread all over India?
Basically it’s corrupt BJP not corrupt Modi(who’s so afraid of RTI) alone.
LMAO !! the comments above reinforce my belief that left are lies and right is Right !!
RTI, Hitler, Pogrom, autocratic, Democracy, development , ..sab kuch chod do..kuch toh lagega !!
Lekin ho kuch aur hee raha hai- Godhra realization ( finally),Burqa’s lies, Teesta’s lies, Sriniwas jain’s lies, Sagrika Ghost’s lies, all getting caught by the social media, Batala, Azad Maidaan, Muzaaffarnagar, SIT report, Ishrat confirmed to be a terrorist, Congress minister claiming no home grown terror only to deny the next day, Gujrati muslims supporting Modi, biggest rally of ex servicemen ( coming soon statement by Commies- Indian Military is also communal ),and so many othe lies getting busted !!!!
becharey commies kee dukaan bad honey wali hai !!!!
lol biggest one was ib itself when they said about appeasement policy that to asif ibrahim the muslic chief loggerhead with cbi
more gems just gone through:
btw who will implement rti …the most corrupt government in history…lokayukta to banaengi nahi yeh
ahmdabadi hindu cheap than hyderabadi…
certainly one sardar patel showed his cheapness when nizam threatened to kill 1.5 lakhs hindus in hyd with operation polo…stil don’t understood why there is army cantonment in secuenderabad and why frequent problem comes in old city
paid slaves which remind me of a not so pure kushwant sigh once describing current english media as paid prostitute
n December of 2007, Karan Thapar wrote a column in the Hindustan Times with hateful rhetoric against Narendra Modi, using phrases like “sudden removal of Narendra Modi”. In July of 2010, Vir Sanghvi, writing in a column, called Narendra Modi a Serbian war criminal. This, after routinely slandering Modi as a “mass murderer” and likening him to Hitler.
In fact, one has lost count of the number of hate-filled columns written by assorted Left-liberal and Muslim commentators repeating the Hitler slur. Leave alone the amount of abuse and personal slander, including explicit threats, that come Modi’s way across social media on a daily basis.
Hence it was amusing to see celebrity television anchors and assorted voices in social media cry hypocrisy over Modi’s decision to protest the Sonia Gandhi-led UPA’s clumsy attempt at political censorship of the Internet. Narendra Modi protests censorship by UPA
Slandering Modi has been a matter of habit for many so-called ‘liberal’ commentators. In July of 2011, historian Ramachandra Guha got his history abysmally wrong when he sought to inject Modi into a column on free speech with false claims of a ban on a Aamir Khan movie. This was after another column by Guha in April of 2011 that reeked of class prejudice against Modi. One can count at least three editorials in the Indian Express over the past many years making false claims on Modi. Leave alone the manner in which clips from the movie Parzania were interlaced with Tehelka’s sting-op on the 2002 riots back in 2007 ahead of a key State election.
The sum total of the hatred and slander expressed towards Modi should make many sit up and wonder how many defamation suits, criminal complaints and content removal requests were filed?
In stark contrast to the thin-skinned celebrity anchors and the Sonia Gandhi-led Congress, not even one complaint was filed.
Apart from independent MPs like Rajeev Chandrashekhar, Modi is the only major politician who has been steadfast in speaking up on attempts to censor the Internet. Not even the other rockstar politician in social media, Shashi Tharoor, has been unequivocal in speaking out on social media freedom.
Those ‘liberals’ who bring up the two book bans by Modi’s Government in Gujarat should look within for having failed the Evelyn Beatrice Hall test on free speech themselves on Subramanian Swamy’s column in DNA. As despicable and bigoted that column was it did not issue a call for violence while seeking to accomplish the bigoted agenda by the most constitutional of means — a two thirds majority in Parliament.
Those who could not find within themselves to defend Swamy’s right to free but bigoted speech have no credibility in judging others’ record on free speech. The two book bans while unfortunate pale in significance when compared to the extent of tolerance Modi has shown towards his most vicious critics in social media and mainstream media.
The reality of free speech in India is there is none given the spate of laws and court judgements. Rather than getting into a lose-lose debate of one upmanship over free speech credentials, all digitally active Indian citizens must recognise that this was an attempt at political censorship by the Sonia Gandhi-led UPA. Instead of getting sanctimonious over free speech credentials every digitally active citizen should join in to speak up against this political censorship lest a wrong precedent be set that will come back to haunt them in future.
So who is Satya Harishchndra amidst all these liers according to you? The one and only Modiji, the epitome of innocence, the epitome of truth, the epitome of tolerance, the epitome of non violence, the epitome of all the goodness etc. etc. Have I missed anything? The commies and Ndtv, IBN folks are exact opposite of what Mr. Satyaharishchandra is. Congress is the most corrupt party and it is responsible for the storms, earthquakes, undisciplined kids, runaway wives, cranky boss, quarrelsome neighbour, sickness, failed love affairs, barking dogs, mother in law problems, flop films etc. Have I missed anything else?
Modi is sent by god himself personally while Congress is sent personally by the devil. All Modi needs is a halo and 4 hands and a golden throne to join the legion of gods. All the right people are on the right side and all the others are on the left side.
n an opinion poll conducted by LensOnNews in ten cities across the country, a majority (58 per cent) of the respondents in the poll have described the incumbent Manmohan Singh led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre as the “most corrupt government ever.” Only 30 per cent of the respondents thought otherwise, while 12 per cent had no opinion in this regard.
The succession of scams and scandals that have come to light during the reign of the UPA government have shaken the faith of the people in the UPA government at the Centre. After all, many of the serial scams (Commonwealth Games, 2G spectrum allocation, Adarsh Housing Society, the scandalous appointment of P.J. Thomas as CVC) have been carried on brazenly in the public eye, with the media reporting the happenings in real time. The perpetrators carried on regardless; the rot in the system was too far gone, there were no checks and balances. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, when he was not clueless, pleaded that he was helpless.
The voters in the poll were asked, “If you were to name one state government that is the least corrupt in the country today, which would that state be?” No options were given and the respondents were free to mention whichever state they liked. As many as 40 per cent of the respondents to the poll named Narendra Modi’s Gujarat, evidently for its record of performance in providing responsive and corruption-free government in the state.
Nitish Kumar’s Bihar was a distant second with 17 per cent naming it as the state with least corruption. Communist ruled Kerala emerged at the third position with 8 per cent. The UPA ruled states of Maharashtra, Delhi and Rajasthan figured low down in the order with barely four to five per cent of respondents mentioning them as states with least corruption.
The positive appreciation of some state governments shows that the governance is not uniformly bleak, despite the big-time corruption at the Centre. Aam aadmi at the state and local levels, it seems, has been spared from the menace of corruption at least in select non-Congress ruled states.
Asked if they are hopeful that the movement initiated by Anna Hazare will help reduce corruption in the country, 55 per cent of the respondents answered in the affirmative. Only half that number (27 per cent) was skeptical of achieving positive results in eliminating corruption. Most people thus seem to think that the institution of an independent Lokpal as proposed by him, with substantive powers to investigate complaints against the highest leaders and officials of government, will at last lead to real and meaningful action against high-level corruption.
Anna Hazare’s fast, and the spontaneous surge of support it evoked across the nation, did not quite amount to our own “Tahrir Square”, but nevertheless it shook Manmohan Singh’s government at the Centre and forced it to respond positively to the popular demand to bring forward a Lokpal bill with real teeth.
A chorus of pro-establishment voices have been raised in panic that this is succumbing to ‘blackmail’ and would undermine parliamentary democracy, and dirty tricks have been employed in trying to smear the leading anti-corruption activists including the Bhushans (father and son) and Anna Hazare himself, but the popular support for the movement has endured.
It is no one’s contention that the institution of a Jan Lokpal will, by itself, end corruption in India. But it will be huge first step. By bringing accountability to the top levels of the government, it will make further systemic reforms at middle and lower levels much easier.
Baba Ramdev, the yoga guru with millions of followers across the country has been a prominent crusader against governmental corruption, and was seen prominently by Anna Hazare’s side at the demonstrations in Jantar Mantar. He had announced that he would be launching a political party later this summer to carry forward his ideas. Asked whether in their opinion launching of a political party would be the right thing for Baba Ramdev to do, 55 per cent of the respondents to our poll gave an emphatic ‘No’ for an answer, while only 26 per cent supported the initiative. Clearly, most people feel that leaders of civil society like Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev should lead the movement for change, but should themselves stay away from the taint of politics.
Anna Hazare seems to have had a clear grasp of this reality from early on, and forswore any desire to enter electoral politics. Even Ramdev seems to have changed his mind; while announcing his decision to go on an indefinite fast from June 4 in support of immediate action on corruption and black money, he said he has no political ambitions.
The LensOnNews poll was conducted in 10 cities, namely Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Cochin, Jaipur and Bhubaneshwar among a representative sample of nearly 2,000 respondents, mostly drawn from the middle classes and with exposure to the mass media. The poll was conducted between April 20 and 29 and the findings carry a margin of error of three per cent.
Kyon Khisiya Rahe ho Sanjana jee….
They tried to blame the Mujjaffar Nagar riots on Amit Shah ..toh aap key above examples are pretty reasonable!!
hota hai !!
Blaming Muzaffarnagar on Modi was the icing on the cake!! The loss of credibility of the media gathers ever more pace with such ridiculous claims.
IMO, Just like in the West, because of the advent of the internet, the English media in India is going through a rapid decline in readership/viewership. But unlike the west, the target audience of the English (leftist) media has traditionally been educated conservatives. We were the ones who, in a bygone era, religiously started our mornings by reading the TOI/IE, etc. Now we are all turned off by this media’s constant pandering of the Congress, and their absolute disdain of an alternative. The target English viewership has become totally frustrated with the likes of Sanghvi/Thapar/Barkha et al. With their credibility having breen reduced to zilch, these liberals are blaring out into a vacuum, with hardly any takers to their claims. Because the people who should be listening to this pack of lies generally do not converse/read English!! And this very segment of the population now watches in disbelief as an OBC son of a tea vendor, who himself does not speak much English is challenging them.
well your answer (and that of others on the Right) to the media’s ‘they’re always blameworthy’ seems to be ‘they’re always blameless’! There’s a perfect symmetry here! One absolutist position deserves another!
Speaking of all the different pogroms, there is one leader who has never taken a passive (or supportive!) approach to terror in her state, instead working aggressively to rid TN of the LTTE. And she is an able administrator, too. It’s a shame that she’ll never be Prime Minister:
P.S. I don’t want to get into an argument about Jayalalitha, I just wanted to distract from the Modi-centric nature of this thread, and to share one of my favourite Indian political interviews with an incredibly eloquent speaker.
You have brought up an interesting angle. But Jayalalitha is too regionalistic to head a nation. In that Modi scores over her. And there is Mayavati too who can become prime minister.
Please go see UP. I have lived many years in different parts of UP and it hasn’t changed much (last trip was 3-4 years back). I haven’t been to Bihar for last 8-9 year and UP was a tad better. I hear Bihar has improved. But basic issue is law and order. If you don’t have law and order, people won’t invest and there would be migration of people where they can find jobs. So In some sense I agree with likes of Thackeray that politicians in this backward states need to be responsible for development.
I think one of the important things in this context is that terms like ‘law and order’, ‘development’ and other such bureaucratic-technocratic vocabulary is not quite as neutral in the Indian context as it might seem. Of course many states are worse offenders than others even with similar problems but (and you know this far more than I do) there is no ‘law and order’ or ‘development’ or what have you in places like UP or Bihar that is not seen through the prism of caste (primarily) and then other social fault-lines (religious, ethnic etc). And so when someone like Mayawati is CM she is not likely to insist on exactly the same law for everyone in the state because she defines law as a body of rules that serves upper caste interests or at least has done so historically. From her perspective unless you bend the rules to favor certain lower castes you actually cannot restore the balance or hope to do so. Because if she applied it neutrally many lower castes would be at a disadvantage for structural reasons. Much as in the US once there was a certain degree of basic emancipation for blacks the playing field still wasn’t leveled. If you grow up in an inner city you’re not very likely to partake of that economic progress but also you’re much more likely to fall on the wrong side of the law and so on. The law as it is written isn’t biased in any obvious ways (though there is a case to be made that it is.. when minimal sentencing guidelines for first time drug pushers exceed those for rape and murder and bank robbery and other such very serious crimes) but structurally it serves some more than others. Of course Mayawati feeds her vote bank much like any politician in any democracy and these things are much more rigidly organized in India. Nor am I saying that law and order couldn’t be bettered or that more economic opportunity could not be created. But I think we sometimes assume that these terms are as neutral in India as these are say in the UK (relatively speaking). Or at least our arguments depend on such assumptions. But a lot of times there are these problems because politically and sociologically a lot of these societies/communities are still very unsettled. And so across the field the apparatus of the state has to account for this. Which of course creates reservations controversies and so on. Again the specifics can be debated in each case. But these terms ought not to be used so matter-of-factly as might be warranted in many other environments. These are still places where even when communal violence breaks out the law is selectively used to serve one side or the other. Politicians then have very different narratives depending on their vote banks. Even left to their own devices the ‘law’ is simply not equipped to deal with these situations in the most fair ways. How many policeman in the interiors of UP and Bihar and even elsewhere do their jobs with no thought given to religion or caste? Not many. And so depending on where you are and who you are your encounter with the ‘law’ can more often than not be a coercive one. Much as once again in America’s inner cities there’s a general hostility among African-Americans towards the law whether they’re engaging in criminal activity or not. The same holds for economic development. When you have instances (and there are far too many in India) where people are dispossessed in the name of some great national project and are sent to places where they have no hopes of getting work, where they are in an alien environment, where they’re not even self-sufficient in the old ways (the rice farmer asked to grow wheat somewhere is not likely to be able to manage it!), where they never see the benefits of such a project, cannot then be blamed for seeing development as a tool of oppression meant to serve others at their expense. Politics then feeds on all of this. It’s not easy to get through such a tangled web of competing interests and great historical mistrust and so forth.
I am talking about dacoity, local gundagardi(rang-daari in local lingo), kidnapping. It is not driven by caste or religion.
I do not agree with your position in general. We can be victim (read color, caste, religion) for many more years and cry from rooftop. I agree that some of the drug sentences are ridiculous and kids are born in that environment would turn up like that only. If an African American comes and say they are differentiated and there is bias against them, I will say it is there. But there are opportunities for them to come out of that hole. But if you keep on insisting that you are in hole and don’t dig yourself out of hole and keep on hollering for blame; you will be in hole for a much longer time.
ps – During partition many refugees came to Delhi from Pakistan, but most of them have prospered without much help.
Yes but crime sometimes fills a vacuum created by other kinds of unrest. So yes there’s a lot of drug activity in the inner cities but it’s not unrelated to that larger environment. This doesn’t mean I’m denying individual responsibility. Just that given a certain set of factors certain consequences are far more likely to follow than others. Also I think you might underestimate the impact of certain kinds of traumatic histories. There are certain kinds from which humans don’t emerge easily at a personal level. There are similarly traumas from which communities don’t emerge easily. Those scars last for generations. But also it’s a question of ‘where’ one starts. So for example many immigrant communities do very well in the US and then they wonder why African-Americans haven’t done the same. However struggling economically in a new country is quite different from being heir to a history of slavery and severe discrimination and moreover living in an inner city. These are parts of the country where many social and economic indices make them comparable to various parts of Africa. It’s shocking but true. We can’t have the same set of expectations. There are of course communities that even after suffering great traumas very quickly turned things around. The Jews in israel, the Germans or Japanese in devastated countries after WWII. But these were ‘educated’ communities with all kinds of things working in their favor. They had to make their way back from national tragedies. But they had the tools at their disposal to do so. African-Americans in inner cities by and large do not. How can one expect them to get out of it given the awful state of their schools where they start falling behind very early in life? They can never make up this difference. Again this doesn’t mean there isn’t individual responsibility. But to do well in that environment is an incomparably higher bar than doing well in many other communities. Again on your refugee example, typically what classes did those people whom we would consider as having made a successful transition represent? Once more I am not disagreeing with you except on this point — there cannot be universal standards when situations are radically different. On a related law and order point consider how even here the stop and frisk policy of NY city became controversial. these questions are never divorced from political ones. And in turn those traumatic histories feed into them. So it’s not just that African-Americans can’t get over those traumas but that they are constantly put in positions where those traumas are re-triggered for them. The same with IDs and so on. Individual responsibility can never be evaded, you re absolutely right, but the contexts in which this comes about can be very different. And yes it does become a self-destructive cycle to keep playing the victim. But this too happens rather ‘naturally’ in a variety of contexts. Again sometimes I might have more sympathy with the argument, sometimes less. For instance when there is victimization on the part of Muslims in many contexts in India I have very little sympathy because I think in many cases (not all of course) these communities have kept themselves in certain kinds of time warps and refused ‘modernity’ and hence a certain kind of progress and then blamed it on the majority. In other contexts I might have total sympathy and feel that there has been real victimization. It all depends. More generally there has been a problem in India where Muslims have in a variety of instances never quite adjusted to the loss of conqueror status or alternatively all classes of Muslims rather conveniently identify themselves with conquerors and so forth which is laughable. Those were very small minorities. It’s a way of keeping oneself apart but which then has certain consequences. So here every Muslim who screams victimization wouldn’t automatically get my sympathy the way most African-Americans might. In the former instance there are often serious challenges that they face, in the latter case though there is (and still) a very deep structural advantage even if things are dramatically better than they were.
What are your thoughts on Jayalalitha, Satyam? I find her the best politicial leader in India today (by which I mean that she is the lesser of all the evils, and not that she is ideal in anyway); I also think that she is unparalleled in Indian politics today, in terms of being an insightful and erudite speaker.
WASHINGTON: The tiara had barely been placed on her head and the customary tears of joy had just emerged when racist taunts erupted on social media, marring the moment of triumph for the first ever Miss America of Indian origin.
“And the Arab wins Miss America. Classic,” tweeted @Granvil_Colt minutes after the usual final flourish ended in the crowning of Indian-American Nina Davuluri, the current Miss New York, as the new Miss America. ”Ummm wtf? Have we forgotten 9/11?” asked @anthonytkr, associating her with the terrorist attack on the United States. Some called her Miss Al Qaida and others dubbed her Miss Terrorist. ”How the f*** does a foreigner win miss America? She is a Arab!” followed up @jakeamick5.
Davuluri, for the record, is very much American, but of Indian origin, just as sundry racist tweeple are of European and Caucasian extract. Daughter of Indian immigrants from Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh, she was born in Syracuse, New York, and grew up in Oklahoma and Michigan.
But in a flaming demonstration that an egalitarian, non-discriminatory United States, like with India, is a work in progress, bigotry and bias kept popping up on social media for hours after the event. Mindless racist stereotyping raced ahead of the ideals professed by many Americans.
”Miss America? You mean Miss 7-11,” sneered racist individual, referring to the widespread ownership and management of convenience stores by people of Indian-origin. ”Miss America is brought to by their sponsors PF Changs and 7-11,” jeered another.
It’s another matter that the Davuluris fit the Indian-American profile of what the U.S Census says is the academically most-accomplished and highest-earning ethnic group in the United States, ”native” white Americans included. Nina’s father Davuluri Koteshwara Choudhary, who migrated to the US in 1981, is a gynecologist in Fayetteville, New York; Nina herself has a degree in Brain Behaviour and Cognitive Science from the University of Michigan, and aspires to be a cardiologist, a goal for which she pledged the $50,000 prize money she won with her crown.
Such accomplishments were lost on a bigoted minority that, as usual, raked up US President Obama’s background, calling both him and the new Miss America Muslims, questioning their ”American-ness” and loyalty to the US.
The attacks embarrassed many Americans. ”Wow the hate that has come out since an Indian American won #MissAmerica is sad. Guess we haven’t come that far after all,” someone tweeted apologetically. Some Indians lashed back. ”Dear America, be the racist you want to be but at least get your geography right,” read one tweet, mocking the inability of bigots to distinguish between countries and regions.
Miss Davuluri herself preferred to stay above the muck, telling the Associated Press that she always viewed herself as first and foremost American.
”I’m so happy this organization has embraced diversity… I’m thankful there are children watching at home who can finally relate to a new Miss America,” she said during her victory press conference.
In fact, two of the runners-up this year, Crystal Lee and Rebecca Yeh, boast of Asian roots, in keeping with the growing number of minority children being born in the US. ”Thankfully the days of peroxide blonde Barbie dolls dominating the pageant are long gone,” Time magazine observed in its report.
The controversy is also a godsend for the Miss America pageant, which returned to its original home in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and television home on ABC, after it had been sidelined in the US in recent years. Davuluri, competing under the platform ”celebrating diversity through cultural competency,” is the first Indian-American to win the crown since the pageant began in 1921.
Contestants were judged on the basis of evening gowns, lifestyle/fitness, talent, a personal interview and an live on-stage question. Davuluri was asked about the wisdom of a TV anchor getting plastic surgery on her eyes to alter her appearance. She said she’s against plastic surgery, but people should make their own choice and be confident in their appearances.
TOI
For the talent part, she chose a classical Bollywood fusion dance piece, capitalizing on her formal training in Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi.
Congrats nina –so is she a Michigan medic? Psychiatry ? Hmm..
Ps : overheard some racist creeps as well…that’s so wrong!
Having said that, think her ‘Bollywood’ perfomance got her the title since there’s an instant ‘connect’ with that –she seems to have carried herself well.. Haven’t seen the video though…
Well, Indians *ARE* like Americans in their way of thinking. Especially this obsession and importance given to these Misses (of whichever place).
These are all politically motivated choices anyway – most of the time.
So now they want to demonstrate – “we are changing the game. No more tall, white blondes as representatives of beauty (which is basically a good decision), and we also have a coloured President – See?”
I think we cannot blame all the white americans because of a few blacksheep(pun intended) among them.
As far as I recollect, no one taunted Indira Nooyi or Vikram Pandit when they headed huge corporates.
As this is a beauty pageant, some must have expected an american beauty with fair skin, blonde hair to win and watching Davuluri must have shocked them. Davuluri is not a typical beauty even in the Indian context but she won because of personality and intelligence which an average blonde maybe lacking(especially brains).
I find some Indians still dont accept black americans or Mexicans.
And we Indians have double standards if we see those matrimonial columns where we specify skin color as wheatish, fair, very fair etc.
So if you are a political party and most likely going to lose in area, you probably could go with agenda of disenfranchising the voter.
Only way to stop violence is that most people have no time to think apart from their work. If you are idle, you are prone to sways.
There will always be a positive and negative effect. But the political parties atleast will not exploit the situation and no one can predict who will win and who will lose.
The Defence lawyer in Delhi gang-rape case AP Singh has been asked by Bar Council of Delhi to explain his remarks that he would burn his daughter alive if she had premarital sex.
Mr Singh made the remarks after his clients – Akshay Thakur and Vinay Sharma – were handed the death sentence last Friday over the gang-rape of a 23-year-old student in New Delhi that took place on December 16 last year.
“We have issued a show cause notice to Mr Singh asking him why action should not be taken against him for the misogynist comments made by him,” Surya Prakash Khatri, chairman of Bar Council of Delhi, told AFP.
“His remarks were highly objectionable,” Mr Khatri added.
Akshay Thakur and Vinay Sharma were among four men handed the death penalty by a fast-track court after a seven-month trial in the case that sparked widespread anger at the treatment of women in India.
Mr Singh told local media he would have “burned my daughter alive” if she was having “premarital sex and moving around at night with her boyfriend”.
He was apparently referring to the victim, who died of massive internal injuries after being lured on to the private bus by a gang of six following a cinema trip with her male companion.
Mr Singh’s comments were widely slammed as disparaging.
Mr Singh has been asked to reply by October 11 when the Council will take up the matter for a final hearing, Mr Khatri said.
The fifth suspect in the case, bus driver Ram Singh, died in prison in March in an apparent suicide. A sixth member of the gang, who was a minor at the time of the assault, was sentenced last month to three years in a reformatory.
Mr Singh risks losing his licence to practise law with the Bar Council stating that his comments amounted to “professional misconduct”.
He could not be reached immediately by AFP for comment.
Just saw this damning expose about Muzzafarnagar on HT. So basically, SP’s appeasement caused the riots. Plus, Azam Khan asked UP police to go slow and not provide protection to Jats.
Oops..something went wrong here..Satyam, the first part about Chennai studios doesn’t belong here..you can delete that entire comment – I am posting the right one here..
I wouldn’t want to live in India if Modi becomes PM, author Ananthamurthy says
BANGALORE: Jnanpith awardee and acclaimed Kannada writer Dr UR Ananthamurthy has said he will not live in a country with Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister, triggering angry reactions from BJP which said he was free to leave India.
As a controversy broke out over his strident anti-Modi remark, Ananthamurthy on Thursday stood his ground and said the Gujarat chief minister would create fear among people if he becomes Prime Minister.
“I would not want to live in a country where Modi is the Prime Minister,” he said at an event here recently.
Against the backdrop of vitriolic attacks against him from the BJP and its sympathizers for his remarks, Ananthamurthy said, “He (Modi) will create fear and if a fearsome man is sitting there, people will just bow down to him because a bully creates cowards.”
The country needs to build a citizenry who are not afraid and a governance where people do not follow a leader slavishly, he told reporters.
Furious at Ananthamurthy’s remarks, BJP and supporters of the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate dubbed him “parasite like” alleging he swayed according to political climate, having supported Congress and JDS in the past and “currying” favours with the government of the day.
BJP MP Ananthkumar Hegde and several local party leaders said he was free to leave the country.
Several writers, including Baragur Ramachandrappa and K Marulasiddappa, have come out in support of Ananthamurthy while some others such as noted scholar Dr Chidananda Murthy flayed him.
Ananthamurthy — who lost the Man Booker International Prize to American writer Lydia Davis in May this year — said there was dignity attached to Prime Minister’s post when Pandit Nehru and Narasimha Rao assumed the charge, but this will wane away if Modi becomes PM.
“We had people like Nehru who could write a book in jail — Discovery of India, a great book even today. Rao was a great scholar too. There was some dignity for the Prime Minister’s post, but that dignity will go (if Modi becomes PM), he said.
On BJP leaders’ attacks on him, Ananthamurthy said he had been critical of Indira Gandhi and Nehru in the past but was never abused as much as the saffron party did. “If I say something and I am abused so much by a gang of people, imagine when they are in power what will happen,” he said.
Ananthamurthy said the BJP has always criticized him because he did not buy the RSS Hindu philosophy. “They are a fascist party and don’t understand Hinduism. It is a great religion,” he said.
On UPA government, he said it is not anti-people but was corrupt and should be punished. “But the way out is not choosing a man like Modi,” he said.
The literary and film circle is also curiously observing the Prime Ministerial candidate from Bharatiya Janata Party Narendra Modi.
Here is one example of next day of announcement of Narendra Modi name. Jnanapth Award winner Dr UR Ananthamurthy at a book release function in Bangalore unconnected to the event hit back at Narendra Modi and said ‘I would not wish to live in case Narendra Modi becomes Prime Minister’. There was pin drop of silence at this announcement of legendary writer of Kannada literature.
On Monday afternoon versatile actor Ananthnag who acted in ‘Mouni’ Kannada film based on Dr UR Ananthmurthy reacted very sharply to the senior writer by saying ‘In India suicide is not crime but murder is a crime’ stated Ananthnag. In fact some of the top novels of Dr UR Ananthamurthy ‘Samskara, Bara, Avasthe, Mouni, Diksha’ were made as films. Ananthnag had acted in Bara, Avasthe and Mouni top rated films.
When Ananthnag reacted very sharply a few of the media friends were baffled for a few seconds. Immediately Ananthnag said this is another high level of sycophancy. What option is left for Anantha Murthy in that case? Ananthnag further explained suicide cases are closed after two or three months but not the murderous crimes.
A thinker, philosopher, brilliant actor, voracious reader Ananthnag sees Narendra Modi in a positive note. For me Narendra Modi is like Lal Bahaddur Shastri of 1965. Like how Shastriji said ‘Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’ in the similar pattern Narendra Modi is moving felt Ananthnag.
Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan has been selected for a US award for his television show ‘Satyamev Jayate’ along with eminent American director Kathryn Bigelow and the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC).
They will be honoured at the inaugural awards dinner by the America Abroad Media (AAM) in Washington DC on October 28.
“Their work exemplifies the power of media to inform, educate and empower citizens about the critical social and public policy issues of our time,” America Abroad Media said in a statement.
America Abroad Media said Aamir’s TV series, ‘Satyamev Jayate’, explores India’s biggest social challenges and has been seen by hundreds of millions of people in his country and across Asia.
Khan was also recently selected as one of TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people.
Bigelow is the director of films like “Zero Dark Thirty” and “The Hurt Locker”, which have received widespread acclaim for their honest portrayal of war and counter-terrorism. In 2010, Bigelow became the first and only woman to date to win the Academy Award for Best Director.
Founded by Peter Ackerman, the ICNC produces award-winning documentaries on the role of non-violent resistance in promoting democratic change.
The ICNC – which was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2013 – will release a new documentary on the Arab Spring and uprising in Egypt later this year.
The launch of 24 in India makes COLORS the first-ever network to produce and air the local adaptation of the international series outside the United States. The Indian adaptation of ’24’, retains all the elements of the international series , the real-time, pulse-pounding, fast-paced format with split screens and complex interweaving storylines, with 24 episodes capturing 24 hours. The premiere episode will follow the exploits of heroic Anti Terrorist Unit agent Jai Singh Rathod played by Anil Kapoor.
Racing against time with the clock ticking, Jai Singh Rathod, is suddenly thrust into a chaotic and exhausting 24 hour marathon, of death, deceit, terror as he struggles to prevent the assassination of prime ministerial candidate Aditya Singhania. To support Jai Singh Rathod in this mammoth task is a spectacular cast comprising of industry veterans and actors like Anupam Kher, Shabana Azmi, Mandira Bedi, Tisca Chopra, Anita Raaj, Neil Bhoopalam, Ajinkya Deo, Richa Chadda and Rahul Khanna who deliver spell-binding performances to make 24 play out like clockwork.
Speaking about 24, Manisha Sharma, Weekend Programming Head – COLORS, said, “With 24, we introduce the Indian audiences to a new hybrid genre of entertainment that sees an interesting amalgamation of fiction and reality. Well on its way to become a cultural lexicon, 24 will offer the audiences never-seen-before action, thrill, suspense, drama and the exhilaration of solving complex cases real-time within a span of 24 hours.”
t is disheartening to see Nobel laureate Amartya Sen drifting so far to the Left that he cannot see the obvious benefits of growth and jobs. He desires to lend intellectual legitimacy to UPA’s disastrous economic policies, designed solely for narrow electoral gains.
Sen is hardly a neutral observer, since his old ties with the Congress and with Jean Dreze, who was involved with UPA’s policymaking by being a founding member of the NAC, are well-documented. Intellectuals of this predisposition are largely responsible for, among other devastating economic policies, the ill-conceived NREG: it’s riddled with corruption and inefficiencies and, on average, hardly giving 43 days of employment per year. Considering that a mere 2.7 million jobs were created during 2005-10 under UPA, against 60.7 million jobs created under the NDA (as per Planning Commission), the NREG beneficiaries are no better today off than they were before.
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The Rs 2 lakh crore spent on NREG could have created warehouses for grain and better rural schools and health centres, and focused on skill development to make poor Indians employable. UPA believes in institutionalising poverty and keeping people dependent on doles, in the hope that they’ll keep getting voted back to power. It is amazing that Sen bemoans the collapse of the economy, but does not recognise the policies that have led to its collapse in the first place.
Plus, Sen should have rather given us an objective assessment of Rahul Gandhi, beyond saying he’s a “likeable young man”. But he obviously cannot since there is no vision or world view ever articulated by Mr Gandhi beyond deriding all that has happened in India over the last several decades, most of which were under governments run by his party and led by his family. Sen also doesn’t seem to be in favour of open debates with his intellectual adversaries. Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya, with whom Sen is now seen to be locked in an argument, have issued such invitations.
On secularism, allow me to quote from an article written by commentator Swapan Dasgupta in 1998. Dasgupta had talked of Sen’s “embarrassingly pedestrian interventions on secularism”. That’s part. Sen cannot understand the BJP perspective of secularism articulated by L K Advani, “justice for all, appeasement of none”.
Nobody suggests that the Gujarat model is a one-size-fits-all. But is Sen opposed to good governance and growth that the Gujarat model is synonymous with? Also, is he opposed to zero tolerance for corruption, empowerment over entitlement, minimum government and maximum governance, skill development, training teachers and attracting entrepreneurs? Can Sen ignore this data from the Director General for Employment and Training: 80% of employment-exchange jobs were created in Gujarat? Also, is he aware that the Labour Bureau of India says Gujarat has the lowest unemployment rate in India at 1%? That’s why I suspect Sen’s opposition to the Gujarat model is not economic but political. This will also explain his deafening silence on the corruption scandals presided over by the UPA. Sen has rightly criticised the Food Security Bill for “not doing enough”.
PTI recently reported a food ministry official saying all 35 states and UTs have been asked to follow the Gujarat and Chhattisgarh model of computerised PDS. These BJP-ruled states have devised a food security system that has come in for praise from courts monitoring public policy, from the Planning Commission and the World Bank.
Why didn’t Sen, who was critical of the UPA’s food security Bill for not doing enough, give the examples of the BJP-ruled states? If that’s not politics, what is? Also, does Sen not agree that UPA should have built a consensus rather than foisting the Bill through the Ordinance route since Parliament was in any case due to be convened? I wish Sen could occasionally influence government in the right direction.
By that token, even many Amitabh’s movies have rape. Is he popularizing rape? It is a vicious circle we blame movies and movie people say they are reflection of society.
Article by Amartya Sen has data but it is not well argued. Like, does the map which shows male female ratio corresponds with female literacy? I think No. It is more to do with cultural aspects. Is there a scientific basis for even 935 female per 1000 male in World as normal? Law and order is one aspect of curbing rapes (if it was the most important then in West rapes would be less) but more needs to be done wrt changing the attitude of people.
Yes, its a pity that Amartya Sen is such an idiot; if only he had your intelligence and class he could have launched a cheap campaign against one of Modi’s female relatives in order to discount his arguments.
qualification:diploma in english having no administrative experience or precisely administrative role and who first job in india was that of homemaker
rahul gandhi:so called m.phil in cambridge having no administative experience or administrative role ever
narendra modi: master in political science and the one who rose from being in staff canteen of gujrat state road transport corporation to now three time c.m
Modi: so called master in Political Science, whose first job was that of working in a canteen, without any administrative experience before becoming politician.
Sonia Gandhi: Diploma in English, rose from being a homemaker. Has been leading the UPA as their chairperson since 2004.
So you agree and accept that Sonia Gandhi is not the shadow …everything.. going on in the name of governement in India? Administrative, the shadow PM etc etc ?
“You could vote for the party I support. AAP”
What’s ‘aap’– that means ‘you’ in hindi..
So u support me 🙂
Ps: sorry- that was a poor joke (even by my standards)..
LOL! So Modi’s degree in Political Science from Gujarat University gives him enormous authority to talk on governance, but an intellectual giant like Amartya Sen who has risen so steeply through the ranks of international academia deserves no respect when he voices his economic opinions, and his articles can be crudely and irrelevantly dismissed with salacious pictures of his daughter?! Have degrees issued by Gujarat University suddenly become more valuable than the Nobel Prize?!
And you seem to have conveniently forgotten that several Congress leaders like MMS and Chidambaram have expotentially more impressive qualifications than Modi, and have proven themselves most impressively in finance/ law before stepping into politics.
There is nothing wrong with preferring one PM candidate to another, but there has to be a limit to delusional Modi-worshipping and your logic need to maintain some kind of consistency!
BTW- this is not to say that I support the politics of either MMS or Chidambaram- I do not. Just pointing out that even the most impressive academic qualifications from the best Universities in the world do not necessarily guarantee a good political leader, much less so an MA from Gujarat University! And if qualifications and career trajectory alone are a key criteria for respect, it is then very odd that you do not extend the same respect to a far more qualified Amartya Sen!
its basic common sense that he is talking governance because he ruled for a much longer time and is future pm ground
talking about qualification and more specififically chidambaram and mms neither has the capability to win a lok sabha election of their own and where this qualifiication is being used frankly:…what is the performance on ground and that to for a long …the same name has become joke frankly
(the same chidambaram is accused of vote rigging and is fighting cases to)
kudus for chidambaram for being corporate lawyer and mms for keep on failing on economics matter….if the talk is on just personal front let me remind you of guys like arun shourie and jaitley and for next time time try to be logical in grab of worshipping some other
personal attack instead of content indicates just indicates immaturity
just like amartya sen has the right to express his view similarly others has right to criticize him …
an economist who say narendra modi can’t be pm and rahul is likable shown his political colour anyways and what is the fuss on criticism he has only backed out while arguing with fellow economist and criticism strictly is on his political stance and economic data which he has given.. is he above anything or what
“personal attack instead of content indicates just indicates immaturity”
LOL! I was not attacking you, I was attacking your inconsistent logic; but then again, what do I know about maturity? Clearly true maturity is displayed when you dismiss a man’s arguments by conjuring up raunchy photos of his daughter!
And I never said that you should not criticize Sen; I was simply pointing out the inconsistencies in your argument when you said that Modi is much better qualified to talk on governance than the Gandhis, simply because of his MA, but at the same time you paid no heed to the far more impressive qualifications of Sen to talk about economics.
Basically, (as I mentioned in a previous comment which you clearly haven’t read):
This is is not to say that I support the politics of either MMS or Chidambaram- I do not. Just pointing out that even the most impressive academic qualifications from the best Universities in the world do not necessarily guarantee a good political leader, much less so an MA from Gujarat University!
Read Arvind Panagariya and Prof Bhagwati critique on Sen. They have publicly refuted Sen theories with Empirical evidence and called for open debate and Sen chickened out as he has no data to counter them. Sen pops out in India when Sonia has to build narrative for doles, entitlements. He is hitman of Sonia.
Rest about N Prize, Except Science every other Nobel is Political decision.
When you make Pol statement thn one cant hide behind prizes or victimhood which commies often do.
One is running govt with terrific record and output other is just Theory.
An ounce of experience is thousand times better than thousand volumes of theory.
“Rest about N Prize, Except Science every other Nobel is Political decision”
I agree: the Nobel prize is useless and unworthy of respect or prestige; only MA degrees awarded by Gujarat University should be taken seriously.
“One is running govt with terrific record and output other is just Theory. An ounce of experience is thousand times better than thousand volumes of theory.”
Yes, absolutely; all philosophers, economists and historians are worthless theory-spouting fools; only politicians and businesspeople are experientially validated and to be respected.
*groan* How does one even argue with such utterly delusion?
Re.-and they want us to be part of that delusion
the jholawalas can choose to be part of their own delusion and wait for your turn to live in an Aurangzeb rule where all the N Prize, engliss speaking , sophisticated jhola walas can work as the many “Ratnaas”, since by the time Congress and Akhilesh are done there will be NO Institution to talk about .
The media has made a lot of people delusional for almost 20 years now..but now slowly the truth is coming out !!!
P.S.-for some Shahsi Tharoor is the best politician, ( engliss speaking, Sauvé sophisticated, Foreign returned, )
P.S.1- Rockstar and Bliss, jane do yaaron !!!
LOL! Thanks for informing me that I am a ‘liberal fundamentalist’!For the record: I am not liberal, I subscribe mostly to progressive conservative policies! And I’m neither a supporter of Amratya Sen’s views on the food security bill, nor am I a fan of the Congress.
However, I am equally against the dangerous deification of Modi as some kind of a mythical, omnipotent superhero who should never be criticized, which is completely contrary to the ideas of a parliamentary democracy; so yes, I do find some of his supporters delusional, but that doesn’t automatically make me a congress-worshiping Marxist, contrary to your blinkered, binary world-view!
My objection to Rockstar’s statement was merely that he is inconsistent in the manner that he glorifies Modi’s extremely mediocre educational qualifications, whilst at the same time paying little heed to the far superior qualifications of those whom he dismisses in the most idiotic manner (i.e. countering Sen by linking to a video of his daughter!).
And I brought up philosophers since you mentioned that theorists were useless and only those who make empirical changes were valuable.
Omrocky- LOL! If you want to use reverse-snobbery to build a straw-(wo)man of an Anglophile jhola-whallah who only respects “engliss speaking, Sauvé sophisticated, Foreign returned” politicians, I can’t really help you! Enjoy demonizing your imaginary friends, but I am certainly not one of them!
In a major security lapse, Afzal Usmani, an Indian Mujahideen operative accused in the 2008 Ahmedabad bombings, onn Friday escaped from a special MCOCA court when he was brought there for framing of charges.
Usmani was also allegedly involved in attempts to bomb various targets in Surat.
The IM operative, who was brought to the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act court along with 18 others from Taloja Central Jail in Navi Mumbai, gave police the slip on the pretext of going to toilet, sources said, adding that a manhunt has been launched to track him down.
Four other accused in the case, who were out on bail, also appeared before the court, which deferred framing of the charges till September 25 after Usmani’s escape and issued an arrest warrant against him.
Police personnel escorting Usmani informed the court about his disappearance at 3 pm, following which special public prosecutor Raja Thakre prayed for an arrest warrant, which was granted.
“This is a serious offence. It is negligence on the part of the escort team which brought the accused to court. This (his escape) will have impact on other cases also. It is a very unfortunate incident,” Special judge A L Pansare said, voicing displeasure over the incident.
Vicky Nanjappa adds:
The escape of Afzal Usmani is going to prove very costly for the Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad whose carelessness let this Indian Mujahideen operative slip out. Interestingly this is the second time he is giving the police the slip.
The first time he gave the slip was in 1999. A ganglord at that time, Usmani was released on bail. However, he jumped the bail and fled to Rawalpindi in Pakistan on a fake passport. He stayed on in Pakistan and met with operatives engaged in the Kashmir battle.
Usmani returned to India after associating with the Jaish-e-Mohammad and assured them to transport arms and ammunition through his contacts in the underworld.
His first association with the Indian Mujahideen was during the abduction of Khadim shoes boss Partha Roy Burman in 2001.
Later he became closely associated with the IM and later during his questioning he told the interrogators that he was providing them with logistical support. The ATS said that through his help, the IM was able to set up its Maharashtra modules.
Usmani was also involved in the theft of four cars that were used to plant bombs during the Gujarat serial blasts in 2008. The cars were stolen and handed over to Mohammad Atif who used them in the serial blasts.
A resident of Mhow in Madhya Pradesh, Usmani continued to help the IM. First he helped them with extortions and then laundered the money which funded the terror outfit.
Apart from this investigations have also shown that he had coordinated with ganglords in Bangladesh to help with infiltrations.
Sources in the Intelligence Bureau say that this loss is costly.
“He was no ordinary operative and had information regarding the funding of the IM. Moreover the locals involved in setting up the modules were under his control. His escape was at a bad time especially when the police have Yasin Bhatkal in their custody. This was the time to cross-verify the statements of both and ensure that the case ended in a conviction. If the ATS is unable to trace him then they would need to try him in absentia which is not a joyful excercise for any investigator,’ an officer pointed out.
the polint was there to put intentionally so that counterargument of his administrative experience cames up before 2002 a case ignored compleately and how selectively media played this card and so do some prominent lal jhola makers glorifying some shahid as saheed
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi is facing relentless criticism from media not only in his own country India but in all prominent media world over for the last almost ten years for anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat in February 2002. These riots erupted after burning of a railway coach of Sabarmati Express near Godhra Railway Station in Gujarat by Muslim mob in which Hindu pilgrims (karsevaks) were returning after visiting Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. In this mob attack 59 men, women and children were burnt alive. The local court has recently convicted the culprits with death penalty and prison.
India has a long history of communal riots but never any head of the state or Prime Minister of the country has been held personally responsible for riots and had to undergo police investigation. But Modi is facing that situation. Probably anti-minority particularly anti-Muslim image of RSS and BJP leads to acceptance of wild allegations and Modi is also suffering from this inherent deficiency.
As per the media allegations (1) Modi deliberately did not take steps to halt the anti-Muslim riots and some have even alleged that (2) he gave three days to Hindu mobs to commit murders and arson. Some have also alleged that (3) the riots were planned by Modi. Till date no concrete proof has surfaced to substantiate these media allegations of political nature. The Supreme Court is monitoring many court cases related to the riots.
It may also be mentioned here that before these anti-Muslim riots, less violent anti-Christian riots also took place in Dang district of Gujarat prior to Modi became Chief Minister. This has also led to continuous criticism of Gujarat Government by western media. The western media apparently raise the issue of anti-Muslim riots but naturally they are motivated by the anti-Christian riots and that is why US visa was denied to Modi.
It is an accepted fact that riots or mob violence, of any type, is a sure sign of administrative failure. If the administrative machinery is vigilant such incidents cannot take place. But riots do take place because of multiple factors and are considered administrative systematic failure.
But why media took on Modi relentlessly and is continuing with the tirade without any concrete proof to substantiate the allegations? On the contrary evidence has been produced in court recently to the effect that NGO of Teesta Setalvad had facilitated forged affidavits to malign Modi and Gujarat Government, many witnesses have turned hostile and statements of many officials have not been corroborated with facts.
Before becoming Chief Minister Modi had never contested any election for any public office and had always worked on the party posts. So he did not have any administrative experience when he took over as Chief Minister. The senior administrative and police officials should be blamed for mishandling the riots because in law and order situations officials are not suppose to take or await instructions from above or political masters as per administrative and legal provisions. Maintenance of law and order is the sole responsibility of the administration.
Narendra Modi became Chief Minister of Gujarat on October 7, 2001 after party decided to replace Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel. Modi had to contest by-election of the state assembly within six months. Election process takes about 45 days and we should count minimum 15 more days for Election Commission preparations before the by-election was announced. The result for the Rajkot assembly seat was declared on February 24, 2002 from where Modi was declared elected. So the new Chief Minister Modi was practically busy in this all important by-election of his political career during January-February 2002. Three days after the declaration of this result the communal riots started in Gujarat on February 27, 2002. It is a point to be noted that riots took place just three days after the by-election.
So was there any plan to involve Modi in riots and unseat him? There must be some purpose behind organising heinous crime of burning rail passengers in a coach. Suppose Hindus burn Haj passengers in Pakistan or Muslims burn church-going Christians in Britain or USA, what will be the fallout? After 9/11 there is a feeling of discrimination among Muslims in many western countries including US and Britain. There is no justification of riots anywhere or of any nature but when extraordinary incident takes place than one should take the context of the incidents.
For a person who had earlier never contested any election and did not have any administrative experience, riots must have been quite unsettling. When a Chief Minister is changed, the top administration of the state is in total flux. Normally under the situation Chief Secretary, Director General of Police and senior administrative and police officers in the field are summarily changed or they are under the process of shifting. All this takes few months to settle the administrative machinery. Under the circumstances a new Chief Minister cannot plan riots as is being alleged. In India, administrative machinery at all levels involves so many personnel including Muslim and Christian officials that nobody, not even a head of state, can secretly plan such things. It has never happened anywhere.
And the all important question is why the newly appointed Chief Minister will plan or encourage riots or plan to murder Muslims that too in a part of the State? How he will benefit from this? These riots took place in less than half the districts of the Gujarat State. For argument sake, even if he had succeeded in killing all the Muslims in ten districts of Gujarat then how he would have been benefited? What benefit he would have derived?
It may be recalled that at the time of riots in Gujarat National Democratic Alliance Government, under the leadership of Prime Minister AB Vajpayee, was in power at the Centre in which Modi’s party BJP was major partner.
Shri Vajpayee is considered ‘secular’ and it seems that the then Union Cabinet Ministers Arun Shourie and Jaswant Singh, who were privy to PM’s thinking, were sure that Shri Vajpayee will seek Modi’s resignation as per Indian political tradition to close the chapter of Gujarat riots and to ward off national and international criticism. Arun Shourie had given sufficient hint about this in his writings on the issue. It seems that the media got the hint of impeding removal of Modi and it became more vocal against Modi. After few days the BJP was holding its National Meet in Goa where the media expected Shri Vajpayee to publicly call for Modi’s resignation in his address. During this crucial gap of few days the opinion of national and international media had crystallised. Probably RSS leadership and Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani were able to ward off the announcement by Shri Vajpayee and Modi continued as Chief Minister. But in the mean time the media was already committed and had openly blamed Modi for riots expecting his impeding departure from the scene. But ultimately it did not materialise. So it seems that the sulky media and defiant Modi resulted in the present situation. From the very beginning the Congress is trying to derive political benefit out of the situation but all its efforts are resulting in strengthening Modi.
In the past almost ten years, despite continued aggressive media campaign, Modi has succeeded in winning series of assembly, parliament and urban and rural local body elections in Gujarat. His development agenda is also being acclaimed within country and outside. On top of this he has won over the support of sizeable sections of Muslim voters in Gujarat as is clear from the by-election in a Muslim dominated Kaithal assembly seat and rural and urban body elections. So Modi’s stock has gone up at the national level also.
We will have to wait for about two more years to see end of this unique media-led political drama by which time major Gujarat riots court cases would have been finalised and BJP would have decided its Prime Ministerial candidate for the next (Parliament) Lok Sabha elections scheduled to be held in 2014.
New York: A Sikh professor at Columbia University was allegedly attacked by a group of men in an assault which the police are investigating as a hate crime.
School of International and Public Affairs professor Prabhjot Singh was assaulted on Saturday night while walking in the Harlem neighbourhood near New York.
In an online post, Mr Singh’s friend Simran Jeet Singh, who is a doctoral candidate in religion at Columbia, said Mr Singh had been “brutally attacked” on the street and had been rushed to the hospital “bloody and bruised, his face swollen from a fractured jaw.”
The young professor could not speak because his teeth had been displaced, Jeet Singh said in the post ‘Hate Hits Home: When My Friend Became A Target’ published on the HuffPost website.
“Last night, I received the kind of phone call that everyone dreads: a close friend was hurt, and on his way to the hospital. But the news got worse, as I learned that my friend, Dr. Prabhjot Singh, a young Sikh American professor at Columbia University, had been brutally attacked on a public street, the victim of a violent hate crime,” the post said.
While in hospital, Mr Singh communicated to the police that his assailants taunted him and beat him, calling him “Osama” and “terrorist” as they pulled at his long beard. He was repeatedly punched in the face and head as he lay on the sidewalk.
Mr Singh had returned from dinner and after dropping his wife and one-year-old son at home, had gone for a walk.
Mr Singh was unable to provide any descriptions about his assailants.
Jeet Singh described the young professor as someone who has “dedicated his life to serving the underserved.”
Mr Singh is also a resident physician at a leading New York hospital. “Unfortunately his assailants did not see Prabhjot Singh, the professor, the community health expert or the local doctor. They saw a man wearing a beard and a turban – his articles of faith – and saw a target. Sadly, for many other Sikh Americans like Prabhjot, this is a story they have heard and experienced before,” Jeet Singh said in his online post.
Mr Singh has been discharged from hospital and had met with officials from the New York Police Department Hate Crime Task Force, who are investigating the incident as a hate crime.
Following the attack on Mr Singh, the New York chapter of the civil rights group Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called on state political and religious leaders to speak out against bias-motivated crimes.
“New York’s religious and political leaders must speak out forcefully against the type of bigotry that leads to hate attacks on people of all faiths and backgrounds,” said CAIR-NY Operations Coordinator Sadyia Khalique in a statement.
Why was he walking near Harlem which is known for certain elements?People should think of following the dictum.While in Rome, be a roman. While in america, try to become one. Look in the mirror whether you resemble Osama by any chance before stepping out.
1) Dr. Prabhjot Singh was not “in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
This statement is one that often gets mentioned in times of violent attack and hate crimes. No, Dr. Singh was in Harlem because that is his community. He was in Harlem because he lives there, because he works there. He is a physician who works in East Harlem. His specialization is community-based health care delivery there.
Not all of Harlem is bad. Also, with rising RE, people are getting paid to move out of their old buildings, so that they can be renovated for wealthier folks to move in. The Harlem of old will be totally changed in a few years.
Yeah huge swaths of the neighborhood are pretty deeply gentrified, for (mostly) better, although as with every other inch of the island low-income residents are getting priced out here. Not much room left in the city!
AHMEDABAD: The number of Indians, mainly Gujaratis, killed in Nairobi may be higher than reported.
“The toll has been put at 70 so far. At least 100 bodies are lying inside the mall, which have not yet been accounted for. Many of these are Indians,” said Gujarati real estate developer Ravi Vekhariya, who has been inside the mall twice as part of a rescue team. “We estimate 30 to 40 may have been killed.”
Seven Gujaratis, including four women, have been so far been confirmed to have been killed in the strike.
They include Mitul Shah, the owner of an oil exporting firm which organized a cooking competition at the mall.
Jigisha Samani (40), from Baroda, was wounded when she was shot at from the fourth floor of the mall, where she had gone for shopping with her son and father-in-law.
The three were sitting in a coffee shop when terrorists barged into the mall and started shooting indiscriminately. They hid behind a sofa and were fired upon after over an hour when they tried to rush out.
Four women from Kutch had a lucky escape though. “We got to know the four were rescued safely from the mall on Sunday evening,” said Ravji Patel of Naranpar village.
Dr Kirtida Acharya of the MP Shah Hospital said the wounded included children. “Over 20 Gujaratis are among injured. We suspect death of around 20 Gujaratis,” she said. “The number might rise as identification of the victims is going on.”
Apart from the MP Shah Hospital, Agha Khan Hospital was getting maximum number of victims.
The mall is located in an Asian and Indian dominated area and the community members frequented the mall.
“Many families visited it at least twice a week to buy stuff and for get-togethers. On the day of the attack, a cooking competition was held for the Asian community,” said Vasant Patel, a local resident.
Oswal community hall, located next to the mall, has been converted into intermediate paramedical facility.
“We have collaborated with the Red Cross to extend all help to the volunteers and security forces,” said Hindu Council of Africa chairman Mulji Pindariya,.
Chetan Shah, a volunteer, said control rooms had been established to ascertain the real picture.
“We have asked various communities to compile a list of the members who have been injured, dead or missing. At the moment, there are mass prayers going,” he said.
Large number of Gujaratis had gone to eastern Africa in 1896 for the construction of Uganda railway line between Mombassa and Kisumu.
! what on earth u’ve been drinking sanju???
sarcastic or serious – this comment makes absolutely no sense nor it evokes any laughter…..or u’ve been beaten by the congress-bug? anything happens – bring modi in picture!!!
There is a lot going on on internet. Many are comparing Israeli action to Modi’s pro activeness.As Modi thinks he is prime ministerial stuff, he can also send a stern warning to the Kenyan government and for that he needs no permission.
Because this incident maybe a beginning and emboldened by their success, the islamists may strike once more.
I dont think that Sanjana has been drinking anything; Superman Modi has decided to fly to the rescue of the Gujaratis in Kenya:
“Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to use his good offices to ensure safety of Indian victims in the Nairobi terror attack, which has left 69 people dead so far.
In a letter to the PM, Mr Modi said, “I stressfully urge that the central government should use all the resources available to it to provide safety and security to families of those Indians and Gujaratis who are victims of the terror attack…”I would like to draw your attention to the fact that large number of Indians and mostly Gujaratis have settled in Kenya,” he said in the letter.”
How exceedingly thoughtful of Modi to ‘stressfully urge’ the Prime Minister to help the Indian *especially the Gujaratis* in Kenya, what would India ever do without him?
“I dont think that Sanjana has been drinking anything”–
Hehe Amy..u dont know
Sanju is ‘drowning’ in my ‘sweet nectar’ aka koffee
C’mon sanju–‘addiction’ ain’t gud 🙂
Ps: what’s interesting is though that modi distinguishes ‘Indians’ & ‘Gujaratis’ as as mutually exclusive groups..
Somehow I’ve lost interest in such politics ..
why foregn minister is no more or indian embassy has closed down actually these are cheap shots much like in desperation now akilesh to resorting to amit shah
NAIROBI, Kenya: The militant group that attacked a Nairobi mall and killed at least 60 people says it is still holding hostages alive inside and that its fighters are “still holding their ground.”
The Twitter messages posted on Tuesday by the al-Qaida-linked rebel group al-Shabaab came after Kenyan government assurances of success in the fourth-day of the standoff.
Al-Shabaab says the hostages “are still alive, looking quite disconcerted but, nevertheless, alive.”
A security expert with contacts inside said Monday night there were at least 30 hostages when the assault began Saturday and at least 10 were believed to be still inside the upscale mall. Officials did not give a figure, saying only that “most” hostages had been released.
Sporadic gunfire could be heard from the building on Tuesday as government forces pressed on inside.
These Islamist killings around the globe are absolutely sickening. Around the same time they attacked a historic church in Peshawar and killed 85 or so in suicide attacks. Christians there are now demanding protection from the govt. lots of luck with that! But leaving aside the politics (and there are different motivations here.. the group that did it in Nairobi, and that makes the Taliban seem moderate (Al-Shabab), was responding to Kenya’s sending of troops to Somalia) but at a human level it’s utterly revolting. Not to say that the politics is defensible either but one has this intense reaction of nausea to this constant killing of people in all kinds of situations around the globe by these Islamists. And constantly.
but sanatan dharma existed and it is the oldest on planet and in subcontinent history to be fair 90% of converts have there ancesstory goes back to them except from malabar one
I think its a stretch to force ‘Sanatan Dharma’ on erstwhile converts. How do you even know that they belonged to so called Sanatan Dharma? The Brahmins of that age enthusiastically wielded the power of excommunication on huge swathes of the populace, or forced them to move lower on the caste ladder. This left the affected with no choice but to seek other religions. Unfortunately it is too late in the day to be trying to spin this Sanatan Dharma web on present day India. The best course for every Indian is to respect one another, let everyone follow whichever/whatever religion they like, and work towards educating/enlightening the masses in scientific thought, so that true scalable progress/mobilization can be attained.
Having said all that, it our true misfortune that the political parties who ought to be following these actions are mired in dynastic corruption of humongous proportions, leaving people with no choice but to elect the purveyors of Sanatan Dharma. I really wish that RSS/BJP toned down on all this and tried to change its philosophy. It should be actively trying to embrace every community of Indians, and giving them a reason to elect them. Because if the ‘secular’ dynastic dogs come back, we are done for, and done for BIGGG!!
bacause there have been case studies on them and many historians habe put in on paper and if you want i can share many url there(mughals period showed the maximum by sword and forced one and some due to inherint misuse of caste system initially designed on basis of work distribution)
reform movemenrt have been started a century back and there have been many
I still don’t get it, how people are brainwashed in name of religion so that they go and fight in far away lands(In Kenya attacks there are some Americans and UK citizens[allegedly]).
It’s really become a cancer in our age. Just this incessant slaughter in every other country in the name of all kinds of political ends. Many of them totally absurd. But even the ones that aren’t have no chance of being achieved. Yet these guys keep bringing it on. With technology of course they’re not just a nuisance but a serious problem. No matter how much one tries to understand these things at a theoretical and/or sociological level or what have you there is a sense of revulsion beyond a point at this kind of completely fanaticism where one kills and keeps killing.
one of the reasons these kinds of Islamist excesses become possible is because they feed on a bedrock of bourgeois opinion that is secretly complicit with them. What I mean by this is not of course that ordinary bourgeois Muslims condone this kind of violence but they often lack the religious framework to combat it in an intellectual sense. In other words they might say that ‘such acts are horrible’ but then seek to place them within some larger set of contexts, usually ones involving all kinds of political grievances ‘the West did it’, ‘the Hindus did it’ and so on. Which is not to say that there isn’t a place for debates on Western colonialism or what have you. One can certainly do all kinds of sociological or historical analyses in this regard. But there is no contradiction in trying to understand things at this higher level if you will but also condemning these acts individually in the most absolute sense. So to quote a favorite example whatever one considers the US to have done it does not excuse or condone acts like 9/11 (of course the irony here is that if you were on the Towers on that day it wouldn’t matter if you were Christian or Muslim or Jewish or whatever.. Muslims weren’t exactly being asked for their opinions on this! The theory here is that if you die this way agreeing with the Islamist cause as defined by one extremist group or another you are a ‘shaheed’. If however you don’t agree you deserve to die the infidel’s death anyway!). I’ve also pointed this out in the context of Modi debates and so forth. First off one cannot hide behind the crutch of evidence. So for instance there are Mulsims who believe there is no proof that other Muslims were involved in the 9/11 attacks (incidentally this is why I had a problem with MNIK, it is a film that plays cynically on the history of such grievances and then presents the US as Nazi Germany of a kind without at any point considering what happens on the other side). Or that even if they were let’s look at the other side. One must be willing to condemn certain kinds of things absolutely without reducing them to these debates. Because this is way of avoiding responsibility. This in some minimal way but also justifying certain kinds of atrocities by pretending it’s never a level playing field when it comes to such opinion and therefore one will only accept things once others accept other things. Since that day never comes one is free to keep pretending! But the point in any case is that certain crimes should not be open to debate EVEN IF one thinks there is a point to be made in the larger historical or political contexts. This is one part of it.
The second part however involves the degree to which one has already been hijacked by such Islamist thinking even when one might not agree with the radical results, even when one might not be playing the game of evidence. One them condemns these acts as excessive but one is intellectually on the same spectrum somewhere at the moderate end. The point should be to reject the entire spectrum! Much as in a different context I don’t just argue with Hindutva. I reject their definition of what constitutes a Hindu! This by the way was the debate in Dev. People often miss that Bachchan is shown as a normative Hindu very invested in the traditional religiosity. It is Om Puri who’s the political radical and who in fact is not at all interested in the particular religious practices. For him being Hindu simply means adopting a nationalistic identity. And so getting back to the Muslim contexts the problem is that even very many well-meaning people simply don’t have the tools to argue with these dangerous Islamisms. They have been convinced or seduced long ago. You can’t argue with the RSS if you already believe their definitions. You have to reject the latter to truly make a plausible case for being Hindu in ways that does not depend on the same sorts of definitions. For all these reasons Muslims find it very hard to condemn these acts. They fall in one of these two categories. Sometimes both. Ironically, though not surprisingly, the world of Osama bin Laden and others like him is a million light years removed from those peaks of Islamic-Arab civilization that these guys then delude themselves into believing they’re emulating! So Osama and gang wish (or wished!) to get to Islamic Spain. Well they would have been denied entry at the gates! Much like sadly many bourgeois Muslims today would also have felt totally out of place in those contexts.
My issue with common Muslim population is that there is not enough critical mass to oppose the thought process. So if you see there are rabid supporters of Modi but you see many Hindus opposing him. I see Muslim opposing Modi but I rarely find them opposing all these activities in name of religion (and they may be opposing them in silence but that doesn’t help) .
I agree completely. I would only complicate the question in this way — 99% of Islamic countries don’t really have democratic institutions. Hence you’re not likely to see a vibrant culture of critique in them if at all. On the other hand there is below the surface often more criticism of things than one might think but it isn’t usually represented by either side in the debate. Whether by the US (or Western) media side or the dominant political forces in those Islamic countries. This does not however contradict my earlier argument because a lot of the positive critique in this sense is also generational. A younger generation is far more skeptical about received wisdom in political or religious matters. With the others however they are much more comfortable launching the former than the latter. Or their religiosity has already been hijacked by extremists but they don’t realize it. But yes I agree completely. either way when there is the most senseless kind of killing there is no excuse for not saying anything and/or pretending there’s something on the other side which excuses this.
I am sick and tired of Muslims having to defend themselves every time there is a terrorist attack. I’ve seen on Fox News and other media outlets and now here from a blog member that Muslims need to oppose these acts. Well if you dig a little deeper and look beyond the headlines…Muslims ARE indeed outraged at these kind of acts.
ISNA Condemns Terrorist Attacks Against Pakistani Christians and Innocent Civilians in Kenya
People have to understand that Islam not a freaking cult or membership where we have control and we are responsible of every Muslim. Every Muslim is responsible for their own action…just like any other freakin person.
These recent attacks in the name of Islam are pathetic and they do not understand what the religion is about or what it conveys. I believe in the past 20 or so years, major clerics of Islam and most scholars in Islam have made a huge leap as far as teaching the religion with the right intention. IMO, these terrorist attacks have to do more with political gains rather than Islamic gains. Using Islam is just a easy way to ‘rally’ against the west for the terrorist groups.
I can’t say I agree with this. You are of course right in that there is always a blanket targeting of a community when these things happen and which is unfortunate. There are all kinds of cynical (and sometimes genuine) reasons why this happens. At the same I think many tend to walk away from a proper critique because they feel that a) they’re give ammunition to the other side b) they feel as you have stated that there is nothing wrong with the religion itself, it’s just some bad apples. My problem with this is that
a) one cannot risk speaking about these things because of such defensive fears. Such a risk must be run in the interests of creating a space where many positive developments might take place. For instance there are very many who do not like any Islamism but who are also unable to formulate their discontent in coherent ways. Why? Because even from their families and so forth they might hear condemnations of the violence but hardly ever a rejection of a brand of thinking that becomes vulnerable to such a hijacking.
b) yes it is a very small percentage of the Muslim population that commits itself to such radical agendas. But the numbers are in a sense deceptive. Because again those sympathetic to them exist in much greater numbers. To be clear those who are sympathetic are not so in terms of the violence but they do not offer any kind of intellectual resistance (let alone of the more pragmatic sort) because they don’t necessarily disagree with the list of grievances or the way faith is enunciated. At a practical level the fanatics are quite happy with this kind of passivity. Anything that does not constitute active resistance is a win for them. When the Saudis (or the Iranis) fund madrasas from Pakistan to Bosnia in this global competition they’ve had for so long it is this sort of ‘unthinking’ interpretation or one that does not invite any kind of rational debate that becomes part of the ether. It’s a kind of extremism on its own. It’s not meant to incite violence but such a position also cannot argue convincingly against those who do this sort of thing. And it’s not enough to say that it’s about individuals. It of course is but there are also larger ideological currents more powerful than the sheer numbers they represent.
c) I always start with the assumption, in fact it is completely obvious to me, that whether it’s Islam or Hinduism or Christianity or whatever that no such great tradition can ever be reduced to one extremist position or the other. So to my mind it does not at all ‘stain’ the religion or faith in question when the practitioners behave in certain ways. At the same time there is a responsibility on other practitioners to formulate better responses. If one thinks one’s faith has been hijacked by some or is being represented as a cult well then all the more reason for one to launch that alternate critique. Very often religions have to be saved from their followers! These are difficult questions, these are complicated questions but it’s surely a start to begin by criticizing what are completely atrocious acts of violence. With all due respect Islamic groups in N America who issue bland politically correct statements after such events (and one of course supports this) about how the attacks are wrong and how we must love each other and respect each other and whatever don’t matter very much. They are not recognized as very influential by anybody. One is glad they do so but it would for instance be hard to find Islamic groups in Pakistan or Kenya doing the same. where these things happened!
I’d finally say this. It’s hard to know whether that dividing line is where one leaves the bounds of religion and enters the bounds of religious politics. Religion is always fused with politics. Unless one is a mystic on a mountain somewhere! There are always political decisions taken. Yes ‘Islamism’ is about various political strands of Islam in the modern and/or contemporary world. But it’s too much to say these have nothing to do with religion since they authorize themselves using religious doctrine. It’s not enough to call them cynics or whatever. They might or might not be this. But it’s important to combat the doctrine itself or those sets of beliefs which they use to authorize themselves. This doesn’t mean I am unsympathetic to those who constantly feel they have to answer for the actions of others. I am not at all insensitive to the politics surrounding all of this. But again it’s a case of all of these things being true. So there is a politics that blames the Muslim for a great deal but then there is also a politics that prevents the Muslim from accepting a great deal within the community.
Picture the scene if you can bear to. A bustling shopping precinct where a group of men, women and children are surrounded by armed men. As one of the terrorists moves among them, he demands that the person quailing in front of him names the mother of Jesus or recites the Lord’s Prayer. “Our Father which art in Heaven,” says one woman. She is spared. Her neighbour, a Muslim boy, racks his brain for any line of the Bible, anything he has heard in school or on TV. But it’s too late. The boy is shot through the head; put to death for not being Christian.
Imagine the uproar if that ethnic and religious cleansing had taken place this week. Picture the hollering human-rights activists, the emergency session at the United Nations, the promise of action against the perpetrators who had singled out non-Christians for execution.
Yet this is a hellish mirror image of what took place in the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi. Islamic fundamentalists murdered scores of innocent shoppers for failing to name the mother of the Prophet Mohammed or recite from the Koran – sufficient proof that they were despised “kafirs” or unbelievers.
Radio presenter Saadia Ahmed said she saw people say something in Arabic “and the gunmen let them go. A colleague of mine said he was Muslim and they let him go as well.” But she added: “I saw a lot of children and elderly people being shot dead. I don’t understand why you would shoot a five-year-old child.”
In Western news-making and opinion-forming circles, there’s a palpable reluctance to talk about the most noteworthy thing about modern Islamist violence: its barbarism, its graphic lack of moral restraint. This goes beyond the BBC’s yellow reluctance to deploy the T-word – terrorism – in relation to the bloody assault on the Westgate shopping mall in Kenya at the weekend. Across the commentating board, people are sheepish about pointing out the historically unique lunacy of Islamist violence and its utter detachment from any recognisable moral universe or human values. We have to talk about this barbarism; we have to appreciate how new and unusual it is, how different it is even from the terrorism of the 1970s or of the early twentieth century. We owe it to the victims of these assaults, and to the principle of honest and frank political debate, to face up to the unhinged, morally unanchored nature of Islamist violence in the 21st century.
Maybe it’s because we have become so inured to Islamist terrorism in the 12 years since 9/11 that even something like the blowing-up of 85 Christians outside a church in Pakistan no longer shocks us or even makes it on to many newspaper front pages. But consider what happened: two men strapped with explosives walked into a group of men, women and children who were queuing for food and blew up themselves and the innocents gathered around them. Who does that? How far must a person have drifted from any basic system of moral values to behave in such an unrestrained and wicked fashion? Yet the Guardian tells us it is “moral masturbation” to express outrage over this attack, and it would be better to give into a “sober recognition that there are many bad things we can’t as a matter of fact do much about”. This is a demand that we further acclimatise to the peculiar and perverse bloody Islamist attacks around the world, shrug our shoulders, put away our moral compasses, and say: “Ah well, this kind of thing happens.”
Even if I might agree with many of the points made in such pieces (and I of course started out in this thread expressing the same sense of digest) what makes me uncomfortable is a certain ‘essentialism’ that creeps into them. Which is to say that one must be careful to separate the historically singular (if indeed it is singular) from that which is in turn defined as particular to a religion or culture. This particular writer uses the word ‘Islamist’ throughout. Many are not even as careful. But this is what often invites a certain defensiveness on the part of Muslims. They are of course wrong not to be more vocal at very many levels. However they think that ‘Islam’ is being put under the microscope rather than ‘Islamism’ and there is some truth to this (the irony is that they are themselves often ill-equipped to make the distinction between one and the other, something I got into earlier). Having said that it is also the case that a certain stereotyping always takes place in these and many other situations. And it is also true that many who are upset with this sort of thinking when their own identities are questioned are quite happy to do this with others. It’s the old racism thing. People from the subcontinent are usually up in arms when they perceive this in Western contexts. On the other hand they’re happy to be racists within their own!
Sachin Tendulkar, Deepika Padukone, Kareena Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan, all queued up to become brand ambassadors for Goa but the state does not need any star power to promote itself, Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar told reporters on Wednesday.
Parulekar said Goa was already a celebrity in its own right and there was no need to hunt for brand ambassadors for publicity.
“We have received proposals from marketing agencies that represent actress Deepika Padukone, Sachin Tendulkar or Kareena Kapoor and her husband Saif (Ali Khan), to sign them up as Brand Ambassadors for Goa,” Parulekar said.
But he said the state government was not keen on roping in any celebrity as a brand ambassador to promote Goa.
“Our image is such that any tourist will choose Goa over other destinations,” Parulekar said.
Goa had experimented with hiring brand ambassadors for the tourist destination when they roped in starlet Prachi Desai as brand ambassador a couple of years back.
Muslim organizations in Kerala root for under-18 marriage
In a throwback to the sectarian sentiments of the Shah Bano case, on Friday, Muslim organizations in Kerala, many of whom couldn’t see eye to eye till the other day, have decided to bury their differences and launch a joint platform called Muslim Vyakthi Niyama Samrkshana Samithi (Muslim Personal Law Protection Committee).
The new outfit apparently enjoys the patronage of Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), with MC Mayin Haji, IUML state secretary and close confidante of industries minister PK Kunhalikutty, the convener of the committee. “Mohammadan law states that any girl who attains puberty can be married off. The Muslim personal law has not fixed specific age for the marriage of Muslim girls. So any law that fixes 18 years as the age for the marriage is an infringement upon the constitutional rights of Muslims,” Mayin Haji said.
Though MK Muneer, minister for social welfare and panchayats, claimed that IUML leaders were part of the new organization only in their capacity as representatives of their respective religious organizations, the IUML has clearly initiated this with a view to the 2014 general elections. It has in fact threatened to go alone in all 20 constituencies, something it could be forced to resort to if push within the UDF comes to shove.
Representatives of Samastha Kerala Jam-Iyyathul Ulema, Kerala Nadvathul Mujahideen, its rival Nadvathul Mujahideen, Jamaat-e-Islami, Dakshina Kerala Jam-Iyyathul Ulema, Samsthana Kerala Jam-Iyyathul Ulema, Muslim Education Society and Muslim Service Society attended the meeting. Samastha Kerala Jam-Iyyathul Ulema secretary Kottumala Bappu Musaliayar has been elected the chairman and SKSSF leader Musthafa Mundoopara co-ordinator of the committee.
Though the Sunni faction led by Kanthapuram AP Aboobacker Musaliyar didn’t attend the meeting, it is learned that he will also extend support to the new committee. The immediate provocation for the move is the case filed against the office-bearers of the Ciesco Orphanage for marrying off an underage Muslim girl to a foreigner.
But the IUML’s attempt to bring all the Muslim organisations under one umbrella, and that too on a reactionary agenda, ahead of Lok Sabha elections suffered a jolt with Muslim Students’ Federation, the student wing of the party, openly coming out against the move to bring down the marriageable age of Muslim girls. “The decision is not in the right direction. We should create an atmosphere for the girls to pursue their education rather than marrying them off at a younger age,’ MSF state president T P Ashraf Ali said. “As an organisation working on the campuses, we know that majority of the girls is against getting married before completing education,” he said. Muslim Youth League state president P M Sadiqali also struck a discordant note. “Our stand is that child marriages should not be allowed. But we would not like to comment on today’s development,” he said.
The Muslim Souhruda Vedi, which ceased to exist a few years ago, was the most recent attempt by the IUML to bring all the Muslim organisations under one roof. But at a meeting at Kottakkal in 2009 the IUML decided not to have any association with the Jamaat-e-Islami, a member of the Souhruda Vedi, because the party found ‘extremist leanings’ in Jamaat. After that IUML took a strong position against the organisation but, interestingly, Jamaat-e-Islami is now a member of the Muslim Personal Law Protection Committee.
Mayin Haji said the committee would explore all avenues, including approaching the Supreme Court, to protect the community’s constitutional rights. “We need to get clarity in the issue because there are contradictory verdicts from different courts,” he said.
Thanks Nykavi. That is good news. But, fear also arise from here. How can you expect anyone to listen to these groups? Our nations’ institution could be vulnerable to such demands if power goes in hands of such people. Shall people invest all the time and energy spending fighting against such wild law demands. Which direction this world is going! And this fear is not in just one country or another. It is all over the world , we see raising demands of sharia law in western countries on similar lines.
I have two muslim colleagues working so closely with me, but i don’t have courage to talk on any political issue. People are understandably very sensitive and feel offended easily. I like when some discussion happen on some talk show in west about such things in Islam or say wrong interpretation. But, india has yet not woken up to this threat.
I think solution lies with muslim intellectuals, they hold responsibility to come up with solution to stop Emotional exploitation by extreme groups like this. Of course they won’t like criticism from outsider which is understandable but where is strong opposition from islamic society. They just condemn it only under pressure or to justify their stand. But, condemnation is not enough, peoblem is getting wide with each day passing. There is no strong step from them to convince such people/groups. It is time muslim intellectual groups take accountability and put brave face which ll bring more respect and harmony between comminities.
Whole world is suffering and muslims are suffering no less than others because of that.
New Delhi: The Raghuram Rajan panel report has made a case for ending the ‘special category’ criteria for providing additional assistance to poorer states, as it ranked Goa and Kerala as the most advanced state and Odisha and Bihar the least.
The committee, headed by the then Chief Economic Advisor Raghuram Rajan who’s now the Reserve Bank of India Governor was set up by the government amid demand for ‘special category’ status by Bihar, suggested a new methodology for devolving funds on states based on a ‘Multi Dimensional Index (MDI)’.
Giving details of the report Finance Minister P Chidambaram today said the committee has suggested that the 28 states be split into three categories — least developed, less developed and relatively developed — depending upon their MDI scores.
On the allocation of funds, the report suggested that each state should get a basic fixed allocation and an additional allocation depending on its development needs and development performance.
The demand for funds and special attention to different states, Mr Chidambaram said, “would be more than adequately met by the twin recommendations of the basic allocation of 0.3 per cent of overall funds to each state and the categorisation of states that scores 0.6 and above as least developed states.”
According to the committee, these two recommendations, along with the allocation methodology, will effectively subsume what is now “Special Category” status.
Bihar, along with some other states, has been demanding ‘special category’ status to get more funds from the centre.
Based on the MDI scores, the 10 least developed states are Odisha, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.
The seven most developed states are Goa, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Maharashtra, Uttrakhand and Haryana.
According to the report, the eleven less developed states are Manipur, West Bengal, Nagaland, Andhra Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Mizoram, Gujarat, Tripura, Karnataka, Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh.
The report is likely to be implemented from the next financial year, Mr Chidambaram said, adding “Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has directed that the recommendations of the committee may be examined and necessary action in this behalf may be taken”.
The Department of Economic Affairs, he added, will soon examine the report and take necessary action.
The Rajan Committee was asked to suggest methods for identifying backwardness of states using a variety of criteria and also to recommend how the criteria may be reflected in future planning and devolution of funds from the central government to the states.
The committee has proposed a general method for allocating funds from the Centre to the states based on both the state’s development needs as well as its development performance.
Each state, as per the new criteria, will get a fixed basic allocation of 0.3 per cent of overall funds, to which will be added its share stemming from need and performance to get its overall share.
Multi Dimensional Index of backwardness, it said, is based on per capita consumption as measured by the NSSO or National Sample Survey Organisation, the poverty ratio, and a number of other measures which correspond to the multi dimensional approach to defining poverty outlined in the Twelfth Plan.
As per the report, the states with scores of 0.6 and above on the index have been classified as ‘Least Developed’; states with scores below 0.6 and above 0.4 as ‘Less Developed’; and states with scores below 0.4 as ‘relatively developed’.
The reasons why Good road is selected instead of The Lunch Box.
To snub the Oscars Committee.
They tend to ignore all our good films that were carefully selected and sent.
This time India selects a film which will make them run for cover after trying to watch an incoherent film.
These foreigners are appalled of our bad roads full of potholes.
The Good Road will delude them into thinking that India started to have good roads.
Afterall, The Lunch box may not make it to the last five. And that would have disappointed us big time. To avoid big time disappointment, it was not selected.
I think TLB has no gay sex and slums strewn allover which would have drawn the required attention.
Last but not least, it will make Anurag Kashyap not to tweet too much.
Remember hare and tortoise race? Indians love tortoise to win, not the hare.
The Congress has now entered a scorched earth mode. Any person, object, entity, etc standing against it has become fair game for the Congress to target. The country be damned. Security of the country be damned. Future of the country be damned. They will ensure that by the time the elections are over, India as a country will be totally compromised in every aspect. Just to keep the Dynasty in power. Pappu Zindabad.
Congress is going to extremes to retain power. Cabinet just passed an ordinance to allow convicted politicians to keep their seats. They passed food security bill without making any attempt to find the money for it. They decided to split AP into two which would create so many new problems just to win a few seats in telangana. I think they should just give up beyond a point.
They have enjoyed unquestioned power for 8 long years, filled up their coffers with untold billions. The lust for power only grows stronger. The Chinese too have systemic ingrained corruption. But dynastic rule is the one thing they have never allowed. It ensures the trickling down of prosperity, however undemocratic their system might be. India is a dictatorship in the guise of a democracy. Nothing else can explain a single family ruling it for more than 80% of its independent existence.
In India, we are recreating the feudal system in the guise of democracy. Not just at the national level but at all levels. Several states already have second generation politicians as the key leaders. Whenever an MP or MLA dies, his wife or son invariably get the ticket. The voting public is really to blame here. As long as people continue to patronise these folks, politicians will continue to exploit them.
This dynasty thing is not just restricted to politics, it is a big part of the film industry as well.
Congress is losing it. Disappointed that a personally honest person like MMSinghis not averse to stick to power at any cost. Sonia Gandhi maybe a vote gatherer but she will simply destroy the economy by bringing this food security bill. Aadhar card is seen as legalising illegal immigrants and Nandan Nilekeni contesting on a congress ticket puts a big question mark. The ordinance to negate SC judgment about criminals in politics will be another blot. The way army secrets are leaked out just to score points against ex army chief smacks of vendetta politics. How Jagan is incarcerated while his late father got away scot free.
The list is growing and Congress party is losing big time due too much dependency on a foreign born indiividual who wants to be eulogised as Mother Theresa than a sound administrator.
Aadhaar is Biggest fraud and loot on poor nation by congress. it will surpass all scams coz all this was done to fill in coffers for next election.
There was vertical divide in cabinet on following aadhaar or NTPR. Chiddu favoured NTPR and Pranab Aadhaar ( There is personaal war btwn them) and Moron Rahul G came and said Aadhaar and see how fraud and dishonest this congress govt is how they tried to link aadhar compulsory with everything from bank a/c to gas connections to govt doles w/o any constitutional backing and guarantee. Privacy of Citizen is on raods seeing how much data aadhar has from personal to bio-metrics.
The left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing.
Sharad Pawar wanted onions to be exported during price rice, and govt was forced to import onions!
Now Pappu slams ordinance while MMS/Sibal/Chidu et al promoted it.
Its a clever way. Actually congress party does not want the Ordinance but to appease lalu, it is doing so. Lalu will think that congress is doing this for him while cleverly the others in the party are condemning it and giving a hint to Pranab to reject it.
Congress party does not need lalu as it is cosying upto Nitish in a big way.
Not sure how clever that was, in any other organization this would be gross insubordination. But since its the Prince here, the Vazir bows down with folded hands. MMS ki bachi-bachai izzat bhi aaj lut gayi.
Btw, Lalu is not the only one. Verdict on Another congress minister Rashid masood is also coming out next month. And there are 44 MPs in criminal charges.
and bjp is also entertaining many criminals who have left congress party. So is every party. A political party without criminals is impossible to find. It is like pot calling kettle black.
If they don’t want to favor lalu, then why to bring ordinance at ugency. First understand what an ordinance is. Ordinance is brought by Cabinet of ruling party in extraordinary situation otherwise there was already a bill for this in parliament going on. But, it was supposed to take time due to discussion in parliament..
Feku looks like amrishpuri.
Supreme court ruling that right to reject is a very good one. it will send signals to the political class.
Right to rejects all the fekus.
seems you woke up to right to reject only now…..who has filed up the case and whose demand was it…heard of anna hazare when he demanded that the current ruling what they said about it including chamchas
what next pappu was responsible for right to reject
and since talk is on law why feku and so many others are talking about uniform civil code
let me remind you(content is not mine but taken from elsewhere ):
India has two sets of Laws, General law and Personal Law.
General law is applicable to all the persons who approach the Courts like the Criminal laws including the Indian Penal Code and procedural laws like the Civil Procedure Code, the Criminal Procedure Code and the Indian Evidence Act.
Personal laws are special laws applicable to the persons in their private family affairs like Marriage, Divorce, Adoption, Inheritance, Wills, Guardianship etc.
The Legislature has not interfered in the personal laws applicable to persons following their religion or the established customs and traditions.
No wonder why people in India indulge in corruption, making money or becoming something big and high up. Who wants to be a mere lowly waiter or wiatress.
Nothing less than being the owner of the restaurant, or at least the manager. Manager – ah, the management institutes are being flooded with hopefuls.
actually its bartender not even waitress and taling about feku as they say here is one exchange before he became the c.m of gujrat in late 90’s much before he had any gujrati identity ….host is one rajiv shukla who is minister today and heads ipl(kingpin of corruption and one of his biggest criticizer) and here is what many congress minister saw a decade and half ago when he was nobody
its all coming through hierchy and excelling everywhere rather than empty talks
so called feku is twitter name given by congressi to a certain gentleman called narendra modi(courtesy one diggi raja) and there have attempts to malign his humble back ground with names likes chaiwallah but how many know there chairperson from italy at once happened to be a bartender cum waitress(just to show mirror)
Oh, OK:
But it only proves how similar BJP and congress are in their thinking, if BJP thought by calling her waitress/bar tender they were giving an equally ‘low’ hitting response.
AAP is the only saviour, when chaiwalas, bartenders and waitresses will feel important , and worth something.
seems you woke upto bartenders now only when told not when defacto she rule for ten years without any accountability
from chaiwallah the guy finished studied on merit moved on and ruled and now the front contender for pm all on skills…what on worrld meand throwing around
son of a fisherman ( so called thrown around) went on to be father of indian nuclear bomb and later president )…one of the greatest scientist kalam
its not prejudice but its inability to be logically coherent and know things on ground which is evident
Haha Oldgold..-Actually ‘waitresses’ & ‘bartenders’ aren’t bad..
As u know, in the west, these are some of the popular part-time jobs taken up by (some hot n capable) students ..
Am not aware of the intricacies of the various parties and whose upto what–but the bottomline is that nobody is ‘clean’..
Voters have no real choice.
Instead of concentrating on ‘background’ and who did what, the only feasible criteria should be ‘results’ and ‘recent performance’ predominantly (besides good education)
“do you hold indian passport”—c’mon Oldgold … Declare it 🙂
The question is;
would he have remained a proud chaiwala…. as a chaiwala.
Or does the pride come only after becoming CM, and hoping to become PM.
Why should Sonia Gandhi declare her waitress/ bartender past ‘proudly’?
One does that only when one is conscious that it is something to feel small about.
I’m glad that she doesn’t go about being so stupid.
WASHINGTON: In a rarest of the rare gesture, US President Barack Obama personally walked down to the White House portico to see off Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after a meeting with him at the Oval Office.
Those familiar with the strict White House protocol said that this was the ‘rarest of the rare’ gesture by the president, which they have not seen in the recent past.
Officials in the past have noted that Obama has great respect for the Prime Minister not only as a great leader and a statesman but also as an economist. The two leaders have enjoyed a great personal equation.
Obama had hosted his presidency’s first state dinner for the Prime Minister in November 2009 and has described India and US as the indispensable partners of the 21st century.
In his remarks, Obama praised the Prime Minister.
“He has been a great friend and partner to the United States and to me personally during his tenure as Prime Minister of India,” Obama said after meeting Singh on Friday.
“Across the board, Prime Minister Singh has been an outstanding partner,” he added.
“Thank you so much for all your efforts to continue to strengthen ties between our two countries,” Obama told Singh.
Singh too praised Obama for his commitment to the India-US relationship.
“During the time that I have been Prime Minister, and particularly during the time that President Obama and I have worked together, I think President Obama has made an outstanding contribution to strengthening, widening and deepening of our cooperation in diverse fields,” Singh said.
“In the president, the United States has a leader who realises and recognises the contribution that a resurgent India can make not only to fighting poverty, but also to global peace and prosperity,” Singh said.
5 billion dollors defence deal is on card and obama has to wag his tail btw mms speech in u.n especially on jammu and kashmir and islamic terrorism was good ….seems away from india and a embarrassment called rahul gandhi woken up mms especially in his last few days as p.m
So is mms in America ?
And the Obama juggernaut continues…
Economic (under)performance notwithstanding ..
“that this was the ‘rarest of the rare’ gesture by the president”—hahaa
The chaiwallah took a 35 yearlong meritorious route to graduate from his teastall and become a CM. The waitress/bartender/aupair did not need 35 yrs. She just married an airline pilot and overnight became the elder daughter-in-law of the First Family. And now her progeny takes ample advantage of the Dynasty, and their son-in-law mints billions from insider-land-deals. On the other hand, the chaiwallah’s mother sleeps on a cot in a 10 X 10 hut. His brother still runs the tea stall. Yes, he gets rides on private jets from the industrialists whom he gives full support. But he still does not have billions lying in swiss banks.
If people still think the chaiwallah and waitress are in the same league, they are sadly mistaken. It is pure naivete to put the two on the same plane of corruption.
BTW, the Congress has labeled the AAP as TeamB of the BJP. Why would they not do so? To them, anyone who opposes their ruthless raj is to be grouped together in a common enemy camp. Any Cong spokesperson on TV has never failed to say that AAP is BJP’s ‘mukhota’ (ie facemask). Well, if the Congress says so, then whoever supports AAP is actually supporting BJP!!
The chaiwallah is a megalomaniac. And also has a nice 2002 record.
And Emperor Aurangzeb also led a very simple life, no corruption. Incidantally he was also born in gujarat.
There are many forms of corruption. One is personal corruption which Vadra is being accused of.
The other is bestowing favours on select industrialists for staying in power. There wont be any bank account in this but the corruption takes place. The reward is stupendous. The select industrialists will launch a multi billion PR exercise so that the person bestowing favours will get elected again and again.
Chaiwallah’s mother sleeps in a hut but not the chaiwallah himself. He lives life king size in a fortress, getting highest security(a popular figure needing so much security), enjoys luxuries of super rich.
Whether you eat with your right hand or left hand, you are eating.
AAP’s true colors will be out. Whether they are genuine or a front. So far they have kept up the neutrality.
‘Emperor Aurangzeb also led a very simple life, no corruption. ‘
Aurangzeb, babar, Humayun LOL
These dacoits are your idols. I have seen many debates on Pakistani news channel. They consider them as idols. They discuss them more than anyone else. What a Pity!
Why not? and you are not getting my point.
Simplicity and non corruption in themselves cannot absolve a person if he or she indulges or encourages violence, corruption by backdoor.
LOL ‘Why not?’
So you approve them as their idols. These people were just merchants of death who dont think a minute otherwise before slaying their own siblings and parents. Wake Up.
Who calls? It was shahzada rahul gandhi who just insulted PM 2 days ago in uncivil and unconstitutional manner. Criticizing in civilized manner is india. But, Please dont talk like barkha dutt. You will never criticize or report a protest to pakistan instead pointing towards india. Baseless arguments and diluting whole argument is what you are doing.Our so called ndtv reporters including barkha dutt were eating sweets offered by pakistani team and joined them in mocking our PM. Btw, dont call India our own country. It seems worst form of betrayal.
None of the news channel even mentioned about this incident until Narendrer modi mentioned this in his speech. This shows how our media has sold selfrespect and india’s respect.
LoL. What happens inside our country is our internal issue. Pakistan has no right to make any derogatory remark on our PM. That was the point Narendra modi made. You will never criticize Nawaj sharif or any one pakistani even a terrorist. Moreover, you will support another guy Rahul gandhi who just bashed PM publicly in media while PM had said a week back he would work under the guidance of Rahul Gandhi.
Why should he publicly snub Manmohan when he could have directly ask him no go with ordinance. Why cant rahul gandhi meet president and ask not to pass the ordinance. While BJP leaders led by Sushma swaraj first met with president opposing the ordinance and then AAP led by kejriwal did the same. But, shahzada will no do that instead he will not take any step but publicly snub prime minister working who readily works as per his guidance.
raghav, I dont care what Nawaz Sharief says about our prime minister as he is an outsider. What pains me our own countrymen making fun of our prime minister on every occasion. As for rahul snubbing PM, rahul snubbed Ordinance not the PM. I think he indirectly snubbed his mother too. Because without her nod, the Ordinance would not have been promulgated. I can sense some dichotomy between mother and son which may be out sooner.
this is as ridiculous …why in domestic front people will not ridicule faulty policies and inactivy last heard it happens in all countries that to with objectivity
a gentleman called atal bihari vajpayee was called with worst name (though one rate him as mong top 3 pm ever along with shastri, indira)
have one ever seen heated presidential debate in u.s or electroral scene in u.k
Btw, Nawaj Sharif who is grown with the background of terrorism breeding culture, shows his aukat. He calls PM Manmohan singh dehati aurat. While he may be acting like robot throughout his tenure. He has no comparison with Indian PM in terms of education, international exposure, reputation as an economist.
It is notable that she finds herself in the Top5 of the world 3 of which are monarchs, and 1 is a businessman. So she is the only one in the Top5 who has undeclared assets!! The only other to give her company in the Top10 is Putin!!
But such stats do not matter to Cong fans. They are ostrichs with their heads firmly stuck in sand.
First the information has no basis. Where are the asset classification details? You cannot simply say something and think others will believe. There is RTI which one can use to get the details. Also incometax declarations. If it is true, the BJP would have stalled the parliament session after session. Will theBJP let go of such a golden opportunity to hit at Sonia?
BJP raised the issue in Parliament at right time, Miss Sanjana. But, paid media never raise concern or publish this in india. It proves how paid media works.
Another Worst thing happened yesterday when Nawaj sharif mocked Manmohan singh. Media had not reported it. I was watching speech of Narendra modi. When he told so i thought how could it be true when no one reported here. Then, within an hour, media realized and ibnlive.com first published Narendra modi’s quote. Later, indian media started verifying this matter. Moreover, barkha dutt who is in new york interviewing Nawaj sharif even denied when asked about it.
If i am not wrong , she must be your idol from media world 🙂 Anyone who is really indian or has any concern for india, would have woken up by now.
The same media highlighted all the scams like 2G, coalgate, Robert Vadra’s land deals for weeks. This issue was raised by BJP but why it did not persist with it as usual? Because there is no truth in it.
it was ashok khemka who went public with vadra and even today they are reluctant….also tumbling of dlf stock cheated investors
on international front:
it was hidden for so many years 60 odd members of parliament signed petition to u.s for not getting his visa which these people later denied but they where caught when bjp leaders have visited u.s
These were not hushed up by media. Without media support either Swamy or Khemka would not have got publicity.
About Forbes list, they have the responsibility to show details of properties owned also. Powerful is different from the richest list. Forbes focussed on the most powerful list.
I am finding it amusing that Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sharad Pawar, Karunanidhi, Vasundhara raje etc. are not on the richest politicians list
The turbaned gunmen who infiltrated Nairobi’s Westgate mall arrived with a set of religious trivia questions: As terrified civilians hid in toilet stalls, behind mannequins, in ventilation shafts and underneath food court tables, the assailants began a high-stakes game of 20 Questions to separate Muslims from those they consider infidels.
A 14-year-old boy saved himself by jumping off the mall’s roof, after learning from friends inside that they were quizzed on names of the Prophet Muhammad’s relatives. A Jewish man scribbled a Quranic scripture on his hand to memorize, after hearing the terrorists were asking captives to recite specific verses. Numerous survivors described how the attackers from Al Shabab, a Somali cell which recently joined Al Qaeda, shot people who failed to provide the correct answers.
Their chilling accounts, combined with internal Al Shabab documents discovered earlier this year by The Associated Press, mark the final notch in a transformation within the global terror network, which began to rethink its approach after its setbacks in Iraq. Al Qaeda has since realized that the indiscriminate killing of Muslims is a strategic liability, and hopes instead to create a schism between Muslims and everyone else, whom they consider “kuffar,” or apostates.
For cancelling mutation of land Robert Vadra sold to DLF
A little more than a month after Ashok Khemka submitted his 100-page note to the Haryana government, in which he alleged that Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra “falsified documents and conducted sham transactions” in the State, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has ordered that the IAS officer be charge-sheeted for administrative misconduct.
On the recommendations of the administrative department committee, Mr. Hooda has approved action against Mr. Khemka under Rule 8 of the All India Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules for cancelling the mutation of 3.5 acres of land at Shikohpur in Gurgaon district, which Mr. Vadra sold to real estate giant DLF Universal Ltd. Charges also relate to Mr. Khemka’s criticism of the government in the media.
Confirming the orders to charge-sheet Mr. Khemka, Chief Secretary P.K. Chaudhary, however, declined comment, saying: “It is a personnel matter.”
Mr. Khemka, who has not been served the charge sheet yet (it is being legally vetted), reacted to the development on his hugely popular twitter account. “Media reports Haryana CM chargesheeting me for action on Robert Vadra — DLF deal. Do not know what was my duty otherwise,” he tweeted. Another tweet quoted Edmund Burke’s “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” Within minutes, both tweets were re-tweeted more than a hundred times.
Official sources associated with the process of determining action against Mr. Khemka told The Hindu that exercise of power became a misdemeanour when it was coloured.
“Exceeded jurisdiction”
Holding that Mr. Khemka exceeded his jurisdiction in cancelling Mr. Vadra’s land deal mutation, the sources said a close scrutiny of his orders and the rules and laws in force showed that Mr. Khemka’s exercise of his powers fell under the ambit of administrative misconduct that would attract major penalties.
The penalties he could face if he is found guilty are reduction to a lower stage in the time scale of pay for a specific period; demotion to a lower grade or post, which is also a bar on promotion; and compulsory retirement and removal from service, which will not be a disqualification for future employment, the sources said.
Mr. Khemka was transferred from the post of Director-General, Consolidation and Holdings, and Inspector-General, Registration, on October 11, after he initiated inquiries into the Robert Vadra-DLF land deal. The very next day, he cancelled the Shikohpur land mutation of 3.5 acres and ordered an inquiry into an alleged undervaluation of property owned by Mr. Vadra and his companies in Gurgaon, Palwal, Faridabad and Mewat. A committee the Haryana government set up to probe these orders concluded that they were “inappropriate and without jurisdiction.”
Mr. Khemka was not invited to present his defence before the committee, but was later asked to give his comments on the report. The 100 pages of his well- researched reply, reported first by The Hindu on August 10, further embarrassed the government as he not only raised questions of bias in the composition of the three-member committee but also alleged that Mr. Vadra was indulging in sham land transactions in Haryana to make money as a middleman on the premium from colony development land licences.
Read on FB
“Don’t worry Americans, If you need any comfort – There is a country called India where government is shut down 365 days a year for common public.”
hey its the same here…not like these idiots in washington have done anything worthwile for the “common public” in the past decade or so. its all about the elite on both sides and their interests.
this shutdown will be forgotten by next year when the mid-term elections come up and all the big corporates will continue to pour in money for their candidates. washington is corrupt as ever, just like in india, just like in pakistan.
Nothing wrong in such videos or your position but it will prompt people to post opposing video and why they hate Modi. You can post videos to buttress your position in argument. But if you post like this, it is useless.
**Finally, we have a leader that can appeal across the length and breadth of India – NONE OF THE ABOVE!!**
Poll dates in five states announced, NOTA option introduced
Bharti Jain, TNN | Oct 4, 2013, 06.07 PM IST
NEW DELHI: The Election Commission of India on Friday announced assembly polls in five states between November 11 and December 4, setting the ball rolling for what promises to be the semi-final between Congress and BJP before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
While Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Mizoram will have a single-day poll on December 4, November 25, December 1 and December 4 respectively, Chhattisgarh will have two-phased polling on November 11 and November 19.
As many as 18 Naxal-infested constituencies in Bastar region of south Chhattisgarh and Kanker and Ranjnandgaon in north Chhattisgarh will go to polls in the first phase, facilitating maximum deployment of the nearly 50,000 troops provided to the EC for poll security. The remaining 72 constituencies of Chhattisgarh will elect their representatives on November 19.
Counting for all the states will be held on December 8, and the poll process completed by December 11. Incidentally, the term of the Madhya Pradesh assembly is expiring a day later on December 12.
“The model code of conduct comes into force from this very moment, with the polls having been declared,” Chief Election Commissioner V S Sampath, who was flanked by election commissioners H S Brahma and S N A Zaidi, told newspersons while announcing the poll schedule.
The outcome of the year-end match up is expected to have a bearing on the outcome of the Lok Sabha battles, by providing tail wind to whoever comes up trumps in the first round.
For the first time, the EC will provide “none of the above” (NOTA) button on electronic voting machines (EVMs). “On the balloting unit, below the name of the last candidate, there will now be a button for NOTA option so that electors who do not want to vote for any of the candidates can exercise this option by pressing the button against NOTA.
The CEC Sampath said the Commission would be spreading awareness among the voters about this new option, through field-level officials to be especially trained for the purpose.
It may be recalled that a September 27 judgment of the Supreme Court had directed the EC to provide NOTA option on the ballot papers and EVMs.
Another recent Supreme Court judgment that will be implemented in the upcoming polls is the requirement of having all columns filled in affidavits to be filed by the candidate. A September 13 order of the apex court had made it obligatory for the returning officer “to check whether the information required is fully furnished at the time of filing of affidavit with nomination paper”. If a candidate leaves any column blank, the returning officer will issue a notice to him to file the affidavit with all columns filled. If the candidate still fails to fall the columns, the nomination paper will be liable to be rejected.
Another first in these state polls is the deployment of central awareness observers, over and above the general observers, expenditure observers, police observers and micro-observers. They will oversee the efficient and effective management of the electoral process…mainly in the field of voter awareness and facilitation. “Awareness observers will be deployed in two phases of seven days each and shall observe the interventions undertaken by the election machinery to bridge the gap in people’s participation in the electoral process, particularly in voters’ turnout,” said a press note issued by the EC.
A proposed Islamic University is threatening to disturb the peace and tranquility in the temple town of Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh, says Vicky Nanjappa
History shows that the land on which the proposed university is coming originally was part of a temple pond. It belonged to the Venkateshwara temple which was built in 1542. This temple which housed the Lord Venkateshwara statue was destroyed by Hyder Ali in 1782.
While this has been part of the history books for several generations, it is ironic to note that the same land was handed over to a university which the authorities today claim has no permission to function. No official is able to state with confidence or give correct details about how the temple land was handed over to this university which is under construction.
The protests against the setting up of this mystery university are gaining momentum, and interestingly, even the Muslims in the temple town too have come out openly against the setting up of this university.
The local authorities have made it clear that no permission has been granted for this institution. An official said that what he hears is that the university aims at propagating Islamic culture, but also adds that it cannot function as there is no permission.
The university in question is the Heera International Islamic College, founded by a woman known only as Nowhera Shaikh.
The website of this university gives no concrete information about the institution. Most of the webpages have garbled messages on them. With regards to the founder, all the information the website has is that she is the chancellor of the university.
Shaikh is from a family which dealt in wholesale business of vegetables, fruits and textile products. She claims to have started an Islamic School for girls at Tirupati in the name of ‘Madrasa Niswan’ in 1998, (under a society registered with the Registration of Societies Act, AP, India, No: 386), with around 150 students, who she claims she provided with free education and lodging facilities.
She also claims that she has been nominated for the Indira Gandhi Priyadarshini Award in December 2012.
Several organisations are doing everything that they can to stop the university from coming up. Although the construction is on in full flow, there is no explanation about when the college would commence its activities. Several Hindu organisations have taken up the issue and are protesting the setting up of this university. Interestingly, they have been receiving a lot of support from the local Muslims who say that this university is bad news. The Muslims who pray at the Tirupati temple feel that the town was peaceful and now with this university there is a good chance of peace being disrupted. They feel that this is the doing of the ‘West’ who are trying to ‘worsen relationships between Hindus and Muslims’. Shaikh who had met with a couple of Muslims before the project commenced, and had claimed to be a resident of Tirupati, but no one remembers seeing her before.
Although Shaikh, during a recent press conference, claimed that she had the permission to run a college, there was nothing concrete shown to this effect. She had taken part in the press conference with around 300 burqa-clad women and had claimed that those would be the students in the university.
Several Muslim organisations in Tirupati have decided to fight against the university now. They say that they want no trouble whatsoever and are happy that at least 400 Muslims worship at Lord Balaji’s shrine everyday.
Perhaps one should stop with all this nonsense and pay attention to this. I have news for such people (fighting over temples) – India is one of the worst countries along with Pakistan. Bonded slaves still exist here.
Middle east is not as bad as portrayed. America is not far behind it.
Please study *both* the maps.
I think intention is alright but methods I have serious doubts. It takes monumental effort to do census in any country and then categorize that some one is slave is even more tougher. So a small organization claiming it has data sounds too good to be true.
ps – I read some portions; so an illegal immigrant may be termed slave because he or she is not free to choose in new country. By that definition there are many marriages where people want to get out but they can not, because of multiple reasons. Are they slave? May be.. But these things are difficult to quantify qualitatively.
So you want to say there’s no problem at all? Or not much?
The biggest problem with Indians is the one concerning ego.
Why not just accept that there is this *bonded* labour that has existed for years?
Why give excuses supposedly as reasons?
It’s India that one is concerned about, where even after a law passed against bonded labour, it continues. It is widespread especially among farmers.
You may not have been affected by the *very dark* situation, but I am. That’s why I posted it.
non muslims are not allowed to enter into mecca and madina and there comes lecture on middle east..what is the significancee of ayodhya and tirupati does one know first
“its the arabs who marries children and early age girls (especially among muslims)in your so called exotic destination”
The problem of child marraige in India is incredibly acute, with almost 45% of girls being married under 18!
Patriotism is commendable, but blind jingoism is dangerous and countr-productive to a nation’s well-being.
It’s futile and hypocritical for us to keep pretending to be scandalized by the human rights situation in the Middle-East, when the truth is that our own country fares dismally on every single metric related to human development be it child nutrition, maternal health, women’s right and education, or poverty.
This is like an Ethiopian crictizing India for malnutrition, or a South African passing judgement on India’s crime situation!
“Patriotism is commendable, but blind jingoism is dangerous and countr-productive to a nation’s well-being.”
couldn’t agree more. And the larger problem of course in all of these debates ranging from this sort of subject to Bollywood matters is the tendency to cherry-pick from the historical record or to offer de-contextualized nuggets. Of course history is always a matter of selecting a narrative but once one selects the subject one has to be true to it in the most comprehensive sense. and not everything in history is ‘convenient’ for one’s ideological ends.
I follow – Patriotism when you talk with someone from other country (or keep quiet when position is not tenable). Within country, being critical is good, especially when we are a developing country with so much corruption.
Precisely this is where I have issue with Arundhati Roy when she goes to international Arena and bad mouths India. If I have issues at home, I am not going out and tell everyone (right or wrong).
That’s a pretty reductive metaphor for serious political issues. This is not about Arundhati Roy or anything but it doesn’t strike me as right to suggest that one should censor oneself on a broader stage simply out of some sense of national loyalty. There’s certainly the risk of endorsing superficial criticism that skirts systemic issues to serve specific needs (not that this is always wrong, but there it does run the risk of being self-aggrandizing) but if one doesn’t necessarily see institutional support for a cause one believes in it’s only natural to seek that out elsewhere. Again not speaking about anything specific here, I just resist that idea that one ought to keep quiet about these things on a world stage.
If you speak at international forums you typically won’t get proper resistance for your position and your comments would be construed as true. If there is a proper forum then you could be critical. To me it seems such people want to self promote because they get more currency for their utterances.
As I said I don’t dispute that there’s a self-aggrandizing angle to some of this but again, (and this is not about international forums alone, but even within smaller context, smaller dialogues) this does not mean there should be radio silence on important issues. Then again I’m not as committed to the idea of patriotism, at least as it’s being described here, so I suspect therein lies the gulf.
I don’t dispute your idea of presenting a patriotic front to outsiders, since they don’t live in India and their knowledge about India’s poverty/ corruption/ crime against women is not going to help change things.
However, I think that stubbornly refusing to face our faults as a nation (as some comments are doing here) is an incredibly harmful excercise, and far, far worse than being brutally honest about the country to outsiders who could always read about how badly we fare in terms of human development, poverty, gender equality etc on the internet or in the newspaper, even if an Indian citizen does not tell them about it.
I also think that there is a danger of taking this attitude of ‘patriotism in front of foriegners’ to an extreme i.e. suppressing genuine evidence of corruption/ crime etc simply so that the ‘national honour’ is not tarnished, and the country is not shamed on an itnernational stage.
Basically, I think that bieng self-critical (without being self-loathing) is the healthiest attitude to adopt, and that for any civilization to truly progress and develop, it is necessary to have an atmosphere of intellectual freedom where one can contemplate on the nation’s failings without being savaged by jingoists who accuse one of being a marxist, islamist, anglophile etc.
There is no logical rational to censoring onself on the international stage, but this is an act of purely emotional self-defensiveness rather than patriotism IMO (and I’ve been guilt of it as well).
It’s not about pride in the nation (misrepresenting or omtting harsher realities indicates shame more than any sort of pride or patriotism) but simply not wanting to make onself look bad in front of others, even if only by association.
Ami – Agree mostly. Everything that comes out of international press is not reality. When Govt. can not do proper census, I don’t see anybody can say with surety. I am not suggesting issues or numbers are less, it could be more actually. I disagree on the confidence with which numbers are blurted out. Should we turn our face away from issues? No.
If child marriage is discussion here , then let me brought a recent dangerous development. just last month, there was demand in kerala state by Islmic political parties to abandon eligibility restriction from girls of 18 yrs to be eligible to get married, but high court rejected it. It will be legal then, thus no case will be registered and problem will be solved. That is what happen in most countries, but these things are not illegal or go unnoticed.
and similarly slavery is abolished in india and all this is talk of blind jingoinism is amusing to say the least when indians are there best critics( you have to be thick skinned in india to survive and not face hostility)
criticism as long it is constructive and fruitful but not well it is destructive just to score a point
Rockstar, let me repeat this: FORTY FIVE PERCENT OF INDIAN WOMEN ARE MARRIED BEFORE THEY ARE EIGHTEEN.
To deny that this is a problem does smack of blind jingosim; when this denial is done in conjunction with berating muslims and the middle east for the same crime, then it also indicates blind hatred and hypocrisy.
Raghav: that was my point: why berate Islam for this crime of child marraige, when it is very highly prevalent amongst Hindus as well?
This is NOT to say that Hinduism is inferior/ superior/ equal to Islam (I’m a practising Hindu myself) but to say that such crimes are NOTpractised by followers of one religion alone, as much as delusional bigots (from both religions) would like to believe so!
don’t forge your own interpretation with terms like blind jingoism
let me tell you things from root rather than interpretation:
the root cause is poverty because of which in rural india girl child is liability and dowry makes it more difficult …a major portion thinks money spend on education will be saved by dowry
these things will only be curbed by education and emancipation not by saying what this is and what this is not…question to be asked why this much status after this long after independence when lots of money spent on nrega ….
Rockstar, stop skirting the issue. I am not asking you for your what is the root cause of child marraige, I’m asking why you were so quick to berate Islam and the Middle-East for child marraige when in fact it is so highly prevalent in India, and amongst Hindus?
And the idea that poverty alone is the root cause of misogyny is nonsense, plain and simple. Why is it then that the relatively well-off urban dwellers are more likely to abort female feoutses than the rural poor? Why is it that other poor countries in South America or Saharan Africa do not suffer from widely prevalent social evils such as dowry or female feoticide?
two most populous state u.p and bihar contribute bulk to it due to social condition not religius and you are mixing it with dangerous cocktail with religion someone who is defending this wrong cause with religious interpretation
its not late india where mahatma gandhi the father of nation married at child age its the today’s time…even heard of raja ram mohan roy who started to abolish it a century back why in backward state it is prevalent
and data is as bull shit as one shit
as per census of india done by government of india in 2011 dats of child marriage was 3 to 8 % s how on earth 40% of child brides come into play when goi hasn’t had census
LOLOLOL! There is so much that is problematic about your writing that I do not even knwow ehre to begin.
Theissue is NOT in anyway contained in UP and Bhiar alone, problems like child marraige and female feoticide happen even in the most forward Indian states such as TN or Maharashtra.
I didn’t bring religion into this, it is you who does so with your constant hateful rants against Islam.
The idea that just because something is illegal in India and the criminal can be jailed, it is therefore not widely prevalent is so utterly delusional that I do not even know what to say!
In any case, India is actually not as anti-child-marraige as you seem to beleive it is: it is actually one of the very few coutnries in the world that has not signed the anti-child-marraige UN resolution!
There are umpteen surveys conducted by reputable bodies that establish the true extent of child marraige in India, and if you have ever tried working for the cause of education of rural girls in India (as I have) and persuading parents to send their teenage duaghters to school instead of marrying them off , then it will be obvious to you exactly how widely spread it is.
Anyway, I have no wish to continue in such an unrewarding discussion and I am going to discontinue any futher interaction with you.
Feel free to exist in your delusional alternative universe, where Islam is the sole root cause of all evil, and where India is the most developed nation int he world!
Rockstar, do you even understand the meaning of the words you use?!
I disputed your points one by one, and mentioned various facts such as India’s reluctance to sign the UN resolution, the prevalence of female feoticide across income groups and states and my own personal encoutners with such regressive attidues, whereas you made no attempt to discredit the points I made and instead simply accused me of being irrational. How ironic then, that YOU should accuse ME of making unsubstaniated personal attacks!
In any case, you don’t have to worry about my comments any more; I’m not going to continue this discussion any further, I just couldn’t let your last comment slide, given how (typically) hypocritical it was!
there is nothing problem in writing but problem is when one is unable to take counter view:
up and bihar leads in child marriage(social condition) and haryana and punjab the different emphasis of female foeticide becauses of emphasis given to male child with belief and agricultural economy mostly
the most to most reputable survey can come up with a sample survey( can be anything depending on small sample crowd) not concensus for a diverse and complex country like india which takes times time, money by going from door to door with government machinery
india hasn’t signed anti marriage child resolution because there is no uniform civil code it has ( and it has a big political controversy on it) but it has strict age as per law
feel free to interact with everyone but don’t start taking naking names and say you are this or you are that and expect others to not respond
Rockstar, I do not mean to be spiteful about you, but if you are going to make constant attacks about the culture and customs of one religion alone, whilst vigorously defending another religion from even the slighest suggestion of imperfection, then you need to be prepared for people to call a kettle a kettle and highlight the fact that you are, in fact, being highyl negatively biased.
in order to sound liberal its you who is associated it with religion….do you even know how practices like child marriage came into india in which era and why women did sati
other religion are not advocating something like child marriage but some are demanding it as per religion and filing cases on it (as per sharia)…this is wrong and one will say if one is wrong whether you like it or not
If demand for allowing child marriage in Kerala by muslim political parties wasn’t enough, then dubai comes with ban on women drving. http://news.rediff.com/commentary/2013/oct/23/saudi-clerics-protest-women-driving-blame-us/146d657e9527c34dc29228453dbce1d7
Saudi clerics protest women driving, blame US:
Around 150 clerics and religious scholars held a rare protest outside the Saudi king’s palace today against fresh efforts by women seeking the right to drive, highlighting the struggle faced by reformers in the ultraconservative kingdom.
Some of the senior religious leaders who protested outside the palace in the Red Sea port of Jiddah said the United States was behind a campaign calling for women to drive on October 26 that claims to have garnered 16,000 signatures.
The government has not cracked down on the driving campaign, and King Abdullah is believed to favor some social reforms. The protest by clerics, who are among the most influential voices in Saudi Arabia, shows the challenge he faces in pushing gently for change without antagonising conservative segments of the population.
The hard-line Saudi religious establishment has sway over the courts and oversees the often zealous religious police, run by the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which enforces strict segregation of the sexes and other restrictive interpretations of Islamic Shariah laws.
When one doesnt has any answer, then he just divert the topic from tirupati temple land occupied to slavery. Moreover, generalizing india, pakistan, middle east and USA keeping all of them n same boat.
Without going into details, one thing can clearly say. Difference is very simple if one is not biased. Slavery and child marriage are not legal in india and USA. While middle east and pakistan hardly care for that as majority religion doesnt see anything wrong in it. As for india, there are grave problems of law and order implementation in likes of Akhilesh and Congress regime but one can stand and legally fight for it and he will get support in his fight against all of these evils from each corner of society. But, pakistan society will not bother about it and hardly anyone can fight for it until some USA support come for the victim. Malaya yousuf is the latest instance.
“As for india, there are grave problems of law and order implementation in likes of Akhilesh and Congress regime but one can stand and legally fight for it and he will get support in his fight against all of these evils from each corner of society.”
And this is what is known as delusion! Female feoticide and child marraige are social evils, not legal pitfalls. It is society that practises and implements them, not the congress! Forget support from social evils, there isn’t even support against crimes happening in public! There are countless cases of women being eve-teased, molested,and stripped in public without a single bit of support from any corner of society in this country. Nirbhaya’s body lay unattended on the road for hours before it was picked up, where was your great, flawless and perfect society then?!
Obviously when social evils are fought against, problems come to surface. But, Since when is the solution is to legalize them. Final word is India wont allow legalization of any social evil. Though, i am afraid muslim appeasement by parties like SP, Congress can lead them to these level aswell as we saw in Congress governed kerala, it was only after high court’s interference that the matter was dumped. Pakistan and Middle east can do whatever they want in their states.
I agree that legalisation of social evils is obviously wrong. I also agree that the Middle-East and Islam do have some very serious problems that need to be looked into, not the least of which are terrorism and treatment of women.
What I do not, however, agree with, is the selective highlighting of the social evils of the middle-east alone, whilst at the same time rigorously defending regressive customs and practises that of India.
I hope the ‘slavery’ been mentioned here is not the fetishistic type lol
Some ace comments by oldgold & Amy
And yea Amy –‘child marriage’ should be banned
Infact ‘marriage’ should also be banned lol
another Comrade bites the dust !! Yehhh !!
Malini Parthasarathy @MaliniP 21 Oct
@rvaidya2000 Thanks. Yes, this is a priority for us, we want to restore lost credibility by making clear distinction between news and views
I don;t renumber now. Either there was a fight of some kind there or too many comments.. not sure.. actually even this thread will have to be closed soon. Too many comments. Hopefully Munna can start a new one!
SATYAMSHOT 
July 20, 2013 at 1:51 PM
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July 20, 2013 at 2:00 PM
Sounds like that movie title.. what was it? Right Ya Left or something?!
I am always conflicted about this division though. In my experience the best masala lovers are sometimes on the right while the liberals turn out to be fans of Johar!
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July 20, 2013 at 2:07 PM
ha ha touché !!!
now you know- right is real whereas Left is make believe garbage !!!! LOL!!
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July 21, 2013 at 1:09 AM
This looks like a blockbuster thread, you will be fed with sequels 🙂
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July 21, 2013 at 1:33 AM
This thread will not work. Because of the title. And also the week’s releases will have more visitors than this thread which will disappear and finding it will be work! So we can bury this thread with honour and dishonour. Died after birth!
RIP.
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July 20, 2013 at 3:18 PM
Is the sleeping man Deve gowda?
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July 20, 2013 at 2:12 PM
wow Di , you met Dr Swami….
He is kind of a loose cannon though !!
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July 20, 2013 at 2:18 PM
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July 20, 2013 at 2:26 PM
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July 20, 2013 at 2:26 PM
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July 20, 2013 at 3:10 PM
Left or right? I am neither right nor left.
Sometimes right, sometimes left.
I support kangress because other parties are worse. Choosing the lesser evil option I wish for another Vajpayee so that I can have an alternative.
I think Modi is not a fundamentalist or hinduvadi. He is forced to take this stand. I think he is as secular as Javed akhtar. His ambition is to become the prime minister of India and for this he will not mind leaving hardcore hindutva if the need arises. He is rather cynical than emotional.
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July 20, 2013 at 5:11 PM
Shubh Muhraat 🙂
http://www.newslaundry.com/2013/07/clothesline-episode-10/
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July 20, 2013 at 9:00 PM
The failure of midday meal scheme to lure poor kids to attend schools. Nitish should concentrate on good administration than empty rhetoric. Blaming RJD does not wash everytime. It is a horror story that insecticide container was being used to cook food for the poor kids. Just imagine the condition of orphanages?
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July 21, 2013 at 3:27 AM
http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/TheSiegeWithin/entry/mahatma-versus-modi-tale-of-two-nationalists
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July 21, 2013 at 3:46 AM
what is surprising in that…
india is secular and there is feeling of co-existeence is only because of its majority
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July 21, 2013 at 4:55 AM
I think the credit goes to our constitution and courts.
Our people are struggling to eke out a decent living and where is the time to indulge in riots fulltime? Delhi cant afford sikh riots every year or gujarat can afford riots on a yearly basis. Even after those deadly attacks in mumbai allegedly by Kasab and his gang, mumbai people were not ready to go for counter attacks. Even after those azad maidan thing.
People are too tired and political parties should stop provoking the people. It works. Now mumbai has achieved peace without losing its rajdharma. Hyderabad has lesser communal riots.
If it was not for that Ayodhya temple issue, godhra and gujarat riots would never have happened. The ultimate blame does not go to Modi as he was new and he was surrounded by the likes of Togadia. And then Modi has distanced himself from hardcore hindutva brigade and also incurred their wrath.
Now the problem facing Modi is the same the congress is facing. Modi just cant shakeoff his base of hardcore hindus and congress cant shakeoff Gandhis.
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July 21, 2013 at 4:59 AM
http://www.hindustantimes.com/editorial-views-on/KaranThapar/Error-in-judgment/Article1-1095790.aspx
I would have agreed with views but our election winners typically get 30% vote.
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July 21, 2013 at 10:25 AM
Mahatma Gandhi was a Hindu nationalist- MJ Akbar
When logic snaps, rational discourse stumbles. Why is it perfectly acceptable to applaud a Muslim nationalist, but denigrate a Hindu nationalist? Either both terms are right, or both wrong.
Faith does not make us communal, human nature does. A politician has as much right to be a Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Christian as any other citizen. Any doubt about an aspirant to power can be cleared by a simple question: is he committed tosarva dharma sambhav or not? If the answer is unclear, vote for someone else.
Let those Indians who want to pray, do so; let those who want to watch television instead, switch on. Faith is a freedom. Let us celebrate this freedom with a smile, not a snarl.
http://mjakbarblog.blogspot.in/
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July 21, 2013 at 10:59 AM
Already Posted above 🙂
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July 22, 2013 at 9:49 AM
oops , galtee sey mistake ho gaya !!
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July 21, 2013 at 12:01 PM
M J Akbar’s own terms are problematic. There’s a difference between a ‘Hindu Nationalist’ and an ‘Indian nationalist’ who happens to be Hindu. The same goes for a ‘Muslim Nationalist’. And the distinction is that in one case your nationalism is accented by faith whereas in the other it’s your personal affair. I reject all groupings that fall in the former category while with the latter I have a problem. Which is why I reject the concept of a nation founded on the ‘two-nation’ theory because these two nations (following this notion) are premised on religion. And not just as a theoretical, ideological matter but also a pragmatic one. To divide a rich shared heritage only on the basis of religion does great violence to it. Similarly the Hindutvaa vision of India is that of a ‘Hindu India’ in certain precise ways. It seems to me that if we like this idea we should all be fans of the Pakistan idea as well! Where Akbar is upto a point right about Gandhi is that the latter always displayed a certain ambivalence in these matters much as he did the same on caste. The Gandhi problem was on the one hand the desire to be progressive, to remove certain social ills and so forth but then secretly let all of this in through a backdoor because he was also on the other hand very devoted to the tradition he was brought up in. Which is fine, it’s a human impulse, but politically and sometimes even ethically there is much in tradition that has to be argued against or rejected. getting back to Gandhi I wouldn’t go as far as Akbar because while there was something unresolved in Gandhi’s mind in this matter I certainly don’t believe he was advancing ‘Hindu Nationalism’. If he had he wouldn’t have been murdered by one! But this is why the Nehru compact has always appealed to me beyond all else. It does’t stop anyone from being Hindu or Muslim or whatever. But it refuses to ally the state with any one community. On this note I should add that certain shenanigans that the Right regularly engages in about Muslim having special status and being allowed special privileges is actually inaccurate in the sense that the same Constitution also allows many Hindu beliefs special status too. They just happen to be different things. Amartya Sen has talked about this elsewhere (and he’s been criticized for it too!), I can’t get into all of it now but for instance the Marriage Act allows certain privileges to Hindu men in matters of inheritance and so on. Similarly Sikhs are allowed other privileges. The point being that the Constitution allows certain ‘rights’ if you will based on the religious pre-dispensations of communities. But note what the Right really objects to — four marriages! There are other privileges for Muslims too but this is what offends more than anything else. It’s the classic psychoanalytic fantasy of the neighbor being allowed to have more fun than you! If Hindus had the same ‘scriptural’ right to multiple marriages the Constitution would have granted them this! In any case I’ve ranged across a number of points here but as always the problem in a lot of these discussions exists at a basic factual level. people are simply not aware of things.
Of course the amusing thing here is that many who want Hindu Nationalism or Muslim Nationalism or what have you in their native countries suddenly expect the most secular and unbiased (in any sense) Republics when they migrate to the West! So if one is in a majority one reserves the right to be discriminating along these lines or expects others to toe the line but when one is in the minority suddenly it’s about having the most post-nationalistic nation-state imaginable!
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July 21, 2013 at 2:29 PM
Is it really fun to take care of 4 wives? It is rare to find a muslim with 4 wives. Maybe 2 in some cases. Even hindus have access to this bliss if it can be called so. Our Karunanidhi is one famous example but he is a non believer. Though his wives love to go to temples and perform important rituals.
Partition was a necessary evil. Indians have sizable muslim population and thus we are still able to enjoy hindu muslim sikh bonhomie. While Pakistan is swinging between democracy and dictatorship with only one religion dominating.
Both muslims and hindus want no discrimination when they migrate to western countries while making little effort to assimilate. Because the compulsions of aligning is not there any more. I think they enjoy the freedom a neutral country provides them with.
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July 22, 2013 at 9:55 AM
Four wives is the least of concern for people who are against appeasement.
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July 22, 2013 at 11:07 AM
Hey it’s ok to be jealous!
Jokes aside this is the one example that people bring up more often than anything else. But to repeat that psychoanalytic point again one always dislikes the minority if one thinks they secretly have all the fun that one cannot. And so this whole structure of minority appeasement and so forth is a perfect example. I used the African-American example earlier too. The black guys who don’t have to support their children, who create broken families, who don’t have to work because they get welfare from the State, so on and so forth. All of this constitutes the Right-wing claim in the US. Note how you can change the terms a little bit to adapt to local contexts but otherwise the formula completely holds. The claims one makes about the minority in this sense form a narrative that is about fantasy much more about reality. And here the psychoanalytic point isn’t that one imagines things that are not there but that (and more profoundly) one wishes to imagine things that are not there. This space of fantasy exists in every culture. Across religious lines or ethnic lines or whatever the case might be. In each case if you just do a cold analysis of the facts, I mean really look up the numbers, a very different reality emerges.
In life the hardest bias to shed is not about one specific belief or another, one particular value or another but that larger narrative within which such beliefs operate. Everything that we consider ‘factual’ then gets embedded in these narratives and is only seen through that prism. To be able to understand that such a narrative is just arbitrary is the hardest thing. It’s like those old Bachchan-SRK debates on NG. Though the facts here were completely on one side, no one reasonably looking at the evidence could ever believe there was any comparison between Bachchan and SRK in any sense imaginable those on the other side weren’t just morons (oh alright that too! at least in some cases) who couldn’t understand the facts but those who operated with a very different narrative. And of course what always helped their case was the obvious truth that they were unaware of the facts. And so when those like ourselves on the other side provided the facts about Bachchan it wasn’t just that they were totally pig-headed but that they couldn’t make sense of those facts within their narratives. The same holds for every other situation in life and for all of us. Sometimes we don’t know the facts and sometimes we can’t make sense of them even when we know them because to do so would be to deconstruct a life-long narrative that we’ve grown up with and consider ‘natural’. It seems completely obvious to me that religion though obviously an important fault-line in the Indian subcontinent isn’t the most definitive one. There are caste facts or ethnic ones that in many contexts are much more important (I myself would nominate caste as the most important one for a variety of reasons… in some ways even the Hindu-Muslim tensions can often be read through the prism of caste..). But all of this isn’t at all obvious to someone who considers this same fault-line to be the most natural thing in the world.
On minority ‘appeasement’ I’d frame it differently I think the test for any important democracy lies in (along with all the obvious factors) the degree to which the security and the rights of minorities are guaranteed. The better the democracy the more it veers in this direction. And for a very good reason. Even in the most secular state the institutional frameworks of the system automatically get biased towards the majority. It’s just natural that this happens. In the US being black is not like being white but even leaving aside this special example being Asian or hispanic is also not like being white. This might change someday. perhaps we are living through that change but we’re not there yet. The same applies to a vastly greater degree in every European democracy. The State must err more in the direction of the minority than less because the majority is always in a dominant position in every important sense.
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July 22, 2013 at 1:36 PM
four wives , Big B vs. SRK……what can I say now. LOL!!
aside- even the gun lobby is in minority ( in terms of numbers), so what is your opinion on their rights ??
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July 22, 2013 at 2:39 PM
“degree to which the security and the rights of minorities are guaranteed…”
I would rather give rights to women. If empowerment of women is not possible, I would make income as criteria.
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July 22, 2013 at 11:47 PM
I think satyam is fascinated by the 4 wives thing.
Just imagine a man’s plight in these days of inflation, going for 4 wives. He should be getting a salary of atleast 4 lakh per month to give a decent living to his wives and their kids. There should be some incometax relief too for lower income groups. What about the time he may have to give them? He will be a wreck after a few months once the euphoria wears out. It is another thing if his wives are working.
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August 1, 2013 at 9:21 AM
You should see Paresh Rawal’s Road to Sangam to understand what ‘minority’ community should think of Gandhi and his contributions towards them.
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August 1, 2013 at 10:15 AM
dekhni padegee….
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July 21, 2013 at 10:32 AM
I tend to agree a lot with Tavleen here, Modi should stick to Rozi-Roti issues !!!
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/what-happened-to-modi-/1144446/0
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July 21, 2013 at 10:42 AM
I think it is not a question of left or right but a question of right or wrong!
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August 1, 2013 at 1:19 PM
There is nothing like right or wrong. What is right (abortion, gun control, entitlement programs ….) for one set is wrong for other.
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August 1, 2013 at 1:22 PM
Munna,
Haddi naam ki bhi koi cheez hoti hai!
Believe in something, stand up for it and that is the right thing for you. Who cares what someone else thinks!
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August 1, 2013 at 1:25 PM
Then you are assuming whatever you think/believe is right? Everybody thinks like that. That is where we have the issues.
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August 1, 2013 at 1:30 PM
Rajen sir talks about pantys all the time , lekin jab unsey sirf 5 -7 saal senior becharey Rishi Kapoor ney mazaak kiya toh Rajen sir ko bada bura laga !!
now who is right and who is wrong ??
P.S.- Just pulling your leg Rajen !!
Munna is from the beech kee ( Aap Party ) ..LOL!!
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August 1, 2013 at 1:36 PM
Munna,
You are like the judge in the following joke
One lawyer argues his case. The Judje tells him – You are right
The opposing lawyer then presents his arguments. The Judge tells him- You are right.
A spectator in the court gets up and asks the judge- How can both of them be right? Impossible!
The Judge says- You are also right!
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August 1, 2013 at 1:36 PM
There is lot of strategery (to use dubya’s lingo) in Rishi’s comment. Hathi kay daat khaney wale or dikhaney wale.
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August 1, 2013 at 1:40 PM
Re: Then you are assuming whatever you think/believe is right?
Koi shaq??
But, I also dont mind the right of others to have wrong and uninformed opinions. Problem does not arise from differing opinions but from intolerance. One should not stop having views/opinions because of fear that someone will disagree!
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August 1, 2013 at 1:42 PM
Re: Rajen sir talks about pantys all the time ,
LOL! Generally only talk about panties of SRK fans or guys who get theirs in a bunch over minor things.
To be serious, what Rishi said was shameless and unneccessary boasting- detrimental to his son and insulting to the girls!
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August 1, 2013 at 1:51 PM
It may not be appropriate , but was just a Mazaak. Also he is a star in his own right and is currently riding on his own success, Usska dimaag Ranbir key success kee wajah sey nahee kharab hua !!
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August 1, 2013 at 2:12 PM
Lets talk about Rishi’s comments a bit more! I think it is quite CLEAR from his comments that he doesn’t want Katrina to be his bahu. He is telling her indirectly that “you are not the only one my son is dating…and he is not serious about his multiple flings…that A doesn’t know B…so you may not know about the others”. I think the message to her is quite clear!! Katrina at this point wants to settle down and have kids and Rishi doesn’t want his son to take such decision so early in his career! And/or doesn’t approve of Katrina.
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August 1, 2013 at 3:23 PM
Probably right,Di but a cheap way of going about it!
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August 1, 2013 at 3:45 PM
Seems di is rite…
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-07-29/news-interviews/40871375_1_neetu-kapoor-ranbir-kapoor-katrina-kaif
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July 22, 2013 at 11:41 PM
The political scene has become a comedy circus rather than serious debate.
That is why nobody takes politicians seriously.
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July 27, 2013 at 12:05 AM
http://www.hindustantimes.com/Books/Chunk-HT-UI-BooksSectionPage-AuthorsCorner/The-Argumentative-Indian/Article1-1099090.aspx
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July 27, 2013 at 12:08 AM
Some interesting debates about Detroit and its economic woes.
The debate between Amartya Sen and Jagdish Bhagwati.
Raj babbar’s Rs.12 full meal joke.
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July 27, 2013 at 12:06 PM
The commies as usual are so predictable ….with blatant pandering of the terrorists ( Indians and Pakistanis) by the Congress, and weakening of the IB and CBI just to get Muslim votes….and not a word from these so called intellectuals !! Disfuckingusting !!!!
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July 28, 2013 at 4:06 AM
Ib people have commented they are watching appeasement politics….terrorists should have never been fed and this propaganda of ayodhya to cover governance has only backfired the same dispute which has been around for 150 years given light by certain rajiv Gandhi
Inflation and bad governance will not be hidden by price thrown around to cover poverty angle just saw digvijay commented on supreme court judgement on batla house which sc said was correct and now this contempt of court by someone who happens to be official mentor of Rahul Gandhi says alot and its touched a new low even when this guy was claiming around to receive karkare’s call
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July 27, 2013 at 12:47 PM
Atlast Telengana is going to be formed. Now Osmania University students dont have an excuse to go on strikes. It is a good decision.
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July 28, 2013 at 6:29 AM
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/mps-letters-to-barack-obama-on-narendra-modi-visa-original-and-authentic-expert/410048-37-64.html
the signatures are original. Seems some of them have developed cold feet after signing.
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July 29, 2013 at 12:55 PM
To many, Smriti Irani is still Tulsi – a character that remains one of Indian soap television’s most memorable & loved. But it is to Smriti’s credit, that she has now managed to carve out a distinct identity as a politician who has gone beyond the popularity of her on-screen character. As the National Vice President of the Bhartiya Janata Party, Smriti is now one of the party’s youngest and most vocal faces. Her feisty brand of plainspeak has ensured her daily prime time appearances on many a heated television debate – a job she seems to relish. On The A List, Smriti Irani talks to Naomi Datta about being a woman politician and says that she sees no glass ceilings for women who want a political career.
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July 29, 2013 at 11:39 PM
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Local-police-nail-Akhileshs-lie-on-IAS-officer-Durga-Shaktis-suspension/articleshow/21471176.cms
LUCKNOW: A day after chief minister Akhilesh Yadav justified the suspension of IAS Durga Shakti Nagpal saying her orders had triggered communal tension in Rabupura, the local police in Gautum Budh Nagar on Monday deflated the CM’s contention by stating that there was no communal flare-up in the area.
Adding credibility to the police claims is the fact that the government had not received any field report regarding communal tension in GB Nagar on Saturday. Sources in the state home department said such serious action is initiated against an officer only on the basis of a field report which outlines the need for urgency in such actions.
The government claimed Nagpal was suspended for demolishing an under-construction boundary wall of a mosque in Qadalpura village under Rabupura police circle on Saturday afternoon. Station Officer of Rabupura police station, senior sub inspector (SSI) Ajay Kumar, told TOI on Monday that all was well in the area.
‘No communal tension in the area’
“There was no tension at all. You can verify it from mediapersons who were present here in GB Nagar. I have reasons to believe that not one of them was even aware of the demolition till Sunday night,” Ajay Kumar said. Asked if there had been police deployment at the demolition site and if any criminal case had been lodged against mischief-mongers trying to fuel communal passions, the officer replied: “Jab kuchh hua hi nahi to case kis liye (Why would we lodge a case when nothing of this sort happened),”
Nagpal is widely perceived to have been suspended because she had gone after the sand mafia in GB Nagar in the last few months. During her drive against illegal mining, Nagpal had got 15 people arrested and arrest warrants issued against 22 others who went missing after raids. As many as 297 trucks and tractor-trolleys were found carrying loads from illegal mining. Rs 82.43 lakh had been collected as fine and challans.
Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday had described Nagpal’s suspension as an “administrative compulsion to ease communal tension” in Rabupura.
Sources at Rabupura police station said the demolition of the wall in question was so quiet an affair that the local police decided not even to mention it in the general diary (GD) of the police station — till Sunday afternoon at least. The GD happens to be one official document that records the minute-to-minute happenings within a police circle.
Meanwhile, sources in Lucknow said the suspension orders were issued at the instance of a senior Samajwadi Party leader. The politician got two secretaries to the chief minister to get the department of appointments opened around midnight on Saturday and issue suspension orders on their verbal directions. The CM, said sources, was also informed about the action being initiated against the IAS.
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July 29, 2013 at 11:49 PM
Notice the complete silence of Javed Akhtar, Rana Ayub, Jholawallahs and Barkha dutt…..
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July 29, 2013 at 11:52 PM
Also silence from divijay singh and other congresswallahs who want support from SP.
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July 29, 2013 at 11:56 PM
There is a DA case which could be opened or closed based on circumstances!
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July 30, 2013 at 12:00 AM
It is a Brahmaastra.
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July 30, 2013 at 12:54 PM
But to be fair, DA can be applied to most of the politicians.
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July 30, 2013 at 1:48 AM
why they are hiding behind mullah excuse or as usual secularism rheotric
burqa comment was very apt for situation though the guy knew with that he was cutting down the votes in u.p and bihar and they themselves fight among loyal psuedo secularism for votes
http://www.firstpost.com/india/up-cops-destroy-akhileshs-communal-excuse-to-suspend-ias-officer-995973.html
The suspension of IAS officer Durga Shakti Nagpal purportedly on the grounds of communal tension is looking flimsier every day.
Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav said that she had been penalised for the demolition of a wall at a disputed place of worship. “She had been suspended because she ordered the demolition of a religious place (read mosque), especially in the month of Ramzan. This is a sensitive issue and could have caused communal tension,” said Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.
The excuse of communal tension has been flayed by opposition parties and other IAS officers, and now so have the local police.
Akhilesh is under increasing pressure: PTI image
Akhilesh is under increasing pressure: PTI image
According to this report in The Times of India:
The local police in Gautum Budh Nagar on Monday deflated the CM’s contention by stating that there was no communal flare-up in the area.
Adding credibility to the police claims is the fact that the government had not received any field report regarding communal tension in GB Nagar on Saturday. Sources in the state home department said such serious action is initiated against an officer only on the basis of a field report which outlines the need for urgency in such actions.
The demolition was done following the Supreme Court order which restricts the construction of any religious structure without the permission of the local administration”, Nagpal had told the local media.
And according to this Firstpost report, accounts from various quarters confirm that the suspension was the result of her aggressive approach to curb the sand mafia active in the western UP.
A month ago, she had got cases registered against more than 20 people involved in illegal quarrying and over 10 had been arrested in less than a fortnight. She also ensured about two dozen JCB machines involved in illegal quarrying were seized. She had also threatened that there would be no let-up in the fight against unauthorized dredgers.
The contractors are known for their alliances with and affinities to the high and mighty of the ruling parties, irrespective of who is in power.
“The government is giving a lame excuse for Nagpal’s suspension. The reality is that the government is trying to save the mafia and it had been waiting for some excuse to shift the officer from the site,” said LK Bajpai, the state president BJP.
“If maintaining communal harmony is the reason for the suspension then why has the government not suspended all those senior officials who failed to check the series of riots that has taken place in the state since the SP government came to power,” he added.
Meanwhile with the UP Chief Minister under increasing pressure to revoke the suspension, Yadav has said that he will review the decision on Wednesday.
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July 30, 2013 at 3:32 AM
This didn’t make headlines in India. I’m posting it here for some publicity for these deserving girls who wouldn’t have made it if it wasn’t for an American helping them.
http://www.dayofbangalore.com/news/culture-education/yuwa-india-edges-third-gasteiz-cup-spain
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July 30, 2013 at 8:37 AM
had no idea.. thanks for the link..
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July 30, 2013 at 8:59 AM
yeah ‘deserving girls’ should always be supported…
good 2 see oldgold also safe n sound–seems shes now in bang alore–any movies u caught recently?…
anyhow–interesting bits on 3d printing–just done one
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23499822
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July 30, 2013 at 10:33 AM
A good un here:
Touching words by a Father….!!!!!
Dear son,
If u think that your Dad, Mom, and ur Teacher are strict and harassing you……..
Wait for a wife…. then u will love them all !!!=))
International customs for Apology:
Japan Tokyo:
A man accidentally tore a girl’s short miniskirt in Tokyo. Before he had a chance to apologize, the girl did a 90 degree bow, and said: “I am sorry to give you trouble! The quality of my skirt is not good.” Then she took out a pin, put the skirt back together and left.
New York, Time Square:
A man accidentally tore a girl’s miniskirt. Before he had a chance to react, the woman pulled out a business card and gave it to him saying : “This is my lawyer’s card. He will contact you about this sexual harassment. Better you prepare yourself, then we will see you in court.”
Paris, France:
A French man accidentally tore a girls’ miniskirt. Before he opened his mouth, the young girl said with a smile: “If you do not mind, a red rose can represent your apology.” The French man bought her a rose, then they went to a bar, and lastly went to a hotel discussing what was in the miniskirt .
Thames, England:
In the Church Square by Thames, an English man accidently tore the mini skirt of a young lady. Before he could open his mouth, the young lady covered her torn spot, then said with a blush on her face: “Do you mind taking me home sir? I live very close by…” The English man took his jacket off, put it on her shoulders, called a cab and took her home safely.
China, Chong Qing, China:
A man accidentally cut open the miniskirt of a young lady. Before the man could say anything, the young lady slapped the guy and shouted. “You, sex maniac. Dare to take advantage of me, I will make sure you go to the labor camp…”
Taiwan Shimending:
A man accidentally tore a girl’s short miniskirt. Before the guy could say a word, the girl smiled and said: “We have not settled on the price yet, and you want to inspect the merchandise?”
Korea:
On the street of Yinchong, a man accidentally tore a girl’s miniskirt. Before the man could speak, the girl gave him a round kick, then said: “Don’t you know that I have a second degree black belt in Tai Kwan Dao.”
Bangkok, Thailand:
A man accidentally tore the miniskirt of an 18 years old girl. Before the man could apologize, the girl said with a Buddha hand gesture: “No worries honey, ……we are all men .”
And in India:
A man accidentally tore the miniskirt of a girl. Before he could say anything, Barkha Datt, Rajdeep Sardesai and Arnab Goswami pounced on him and accused him of attempted rape and started panel discussion on what to do with him… ………………………
………………..and blamed MODI for that!!!!!!!!!!
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July 30, 2013 at 11:28 AM
too much victim syndrome, Rajen. actually the social media would have blamed Sonia and Italian mafia for that.
The jokes are hilarious. especially the US one.
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July 30, 2013 at 1:31 PM
LOL
http://rahulbabadoingthings.tumblr.com/
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July 30, 2013 at 1:41 PM
ROFLOL….The Taiwan one was bit (de)mean(ing) one. Nice jokes Rajenbhai.
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August 1, 2013 at 12:48 AM
Will Shobhaa’s tweet affect Quatima?
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August 1, 2013 at 1:32 PM
The commies and the Congress are so silent on Durga Nagpaal matter ( bechari ka naam Durga hai shayad issliye) !!!
Rana Ayyub has even hinted that the IAS association remained silent when a Muslim IPS was killed by Raja Bhaiyya’s men !!!! how much more obvious can she be !!
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August 1, 2013 at 1:38 PM
The real conclusion from Durga Shakti Nagpal: the IAS is dead!!!!!
The only person who has solidly stood behind Nagpal through her ordeal is her immediate superior, the District Magistrate. The absence of support from the top bureaucracy, in both Uttar Pradesh and in New Delhi, is shameful. In an era gone by, the state’s Chief Secretary Alok Ranjan, an IAS officer of the 1978 batch, would have put his foot down with his political masters and refused to permit any order that suspended a bureaucrat for doing what is right. In an era past, the Union Cabinet Secretary, Ajit Kumar Seth, who is the head of the civil service, and who also happens to be an Uttar Pradesh cadre officer would have pulled the considerable weight of his office to prevent any victimisation of a bureaucrat. Both Ranjan and Seth have sufficient statutory power to come to Nagpal’s rescue. But it would require standing up to powerful politicians. In an era sadly forgotten, senior IAS officers did just that. They were not sold out to the system of patronage instituted by politicians to undermine an independent bureaucracy. Now it is left to the IAS Officers’ Association. A union body without much power, to try and lobby for Nagpal.
http://www.firstpost.com/india/the-real-conclusion-from-durga-shakti-nagpal-the-ias-is-dead-1003125.html
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August 1, 2013 at 1:44 PM
Jai Nehruvian Secularism Ki …
I sometime think that PVN Rao was prophetic when he said, ” Time will come when nehru, IG and RG will be dumped in Indian ocean” . Hope these remarks are not scissored from his book in later editions.
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August 1, 2013 at 1:51 PM
well said Bliss…. Nehru kee ######
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August 1, 2013 at 1:57 PM
Yet, what is surprising is the muted reaction of the news media and the intellectual class, who seem to murmur only when it is too in your face; for instance, how many mainstream reactions have we heard/seen to a dozen odd riots in Bareilly, Mathura, Kanpur or Ghaziabad? Zilch! Till now, there have been more than a 100 official deaths in various riots across the State, but where are the media’s OB vans? The same news media which spends hours on end debating various connotations of an innocuous Ram temple statement of an Amit Shah in Ayodhya has no time to discuss the actual loss of lives in real riots!
! A group of Muslims went on a rampage in Meerut and killed two people, including a Hindu woman, on July 26. The reason: Muslims were angry that Hindus had the temerity to play devotional songs in the temple during the holy month of Ramzan.
This is the state of India today, where a terrorist, Ishrat Jahan, is martyred, but Parveen Azad or Durga Shakti will never get even basic justice. Secularism is a tiger that demands to be fed and anti-corruption crusaders or widowed wives of politically murdered police officers are just the right prey for it. If the secular tiger is not fed, then we are told the lion from Gujarat may devour us all. Meanwhile in Meerut, Hindu temples have to worship in silence in the auspicious month of Saawan. Welcome to the secular-socialist, Left-liberal beehive known as India!
http://www.niticentral.com/2013/08/01/akhilesh-yadavs-jungle-raj-in-up-112675.html
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August 2, 2013 at 2:26 AM
Nehru the Big C######
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August 1, 2013 at 3:00 PM
too much thinking about politicians will damage our brains.
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August 2, 2013 at 12:40 AM
As Jaya Bachchan belongs to SP Party, she can drill some sense into Akhilesh Yadav. Even Bachchan can talk to his good friend Akhilesh Yadav to be reasonable. They should not be silent now.
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August 2, 2013 at 12:42 AM
Salman has been denied UK Visa. They are thinking of reapplying . According to Midday.
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August 2, 2013 at 9:57 AM
Max Rice Pranks Fox News –
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August 3, 2013 at 4:40 AM
Reader’s digest Indian edition august 2013 issue has a very good article about awareness of Banking frauds committed by bank officials on unwary customers. Especially private banks I read about how an NRI woman’s 15 lakh which she asked to be made into an Fd was misused to make insurance. Beware of Relationship Managers who regularly phone you in their sweetest voices. Check all the entries. Just read the article carefully and also alert your near and dear ones.
It is not only politicians who cheat us, it is even unscrupulous banks and financial institutions and chitfunds.
I am a regular reader of RD and the way they entertain, educate, thrill with their articles is really commendable.
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August 5, 2013 at 1:18 PM
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/MP-govts-order-to-introduce-Gita-in-madrassas-triggers-storm-in-Muslim-community/articleshow/21629091.cms
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August 10, 2013 at 9:05 PM
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Fake-deals-false-papers-helped-Vadra-make-crores-Khemka/articleshow/21753560.cms
Seems Durga Shakti has inspired Khemkha to speakout again.
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August 14, 2013 at 5:08 AM
Very sad day for India. INS Sindhurakshak destroyed in fire and many precious lives lost. And tomoroow is our Independence Day.
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August 18, 2013 at 6:07 PM
it is case of life imitating art…RDB moment…those Russian subs are/were known to catch fire.:-(
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August 14, 2013 at 5:15 AM
http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/Mumbai/INS-Sindhurakshak-lost-in-fire-sailors-feared-dead/Article1-1107807.aspx
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August 15, 2013 at 2:52 AM
Watching Independence day celebrations on Doordarshan better than watching on commercial channels.There was a recount of Indian history narrated by Om Puri. Glimpses of prime Ministers, Presidents from Rajendra Prasad to Kalam, film personalities. AR Rahman outshone the others. There were brief glimpses of Dilip Kumar, Bachchan and also a smiling Mani ratnam.
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August 18, 2013 at 4:11 PM
Apex: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/assault-on-elderly-sikh-a-shameful-example-of-hate-crime-shiromani-akali-dal/1156819/
http://news.yahoo.com/look-federal-role-civil-rights-cases-124845477.html
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August 22, 2013 at 2:09 AM
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/social-media/Amitabh-Bachchan-slams-fake-video-says-he-did-not-endorse-Modi/articleshow/21966784.cms
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August 22, 2013 at 2:10 AM
NEW DELHI: Late Wednesday night Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan distanced himself from a YouTube video that gave an impression that he endorsed BJP leader Narendra Modi as the next Prime Minister of India.
Bachchan, who regularly tweets, posted on his Twitter account, “FAKE !! FAKE !! FAKE !!! APPALLED AND ANGERED BY THIS ILLEGAL ACT ON ME .. PUTTING IT UP NOW, DO READ AND SEE AND CONDEMN .. !!!”
In his next tweet, which was made using TwitLonger to bypass Twitter’s 140-character limit, he explained the issue.
Bachchan said that someone had taken the voiceover he provided for a video in 2007 and used it with a different set of images to create a clip where it seemed that he was endorsing Modi. The video was uploaded from a YouTube account named ‘Jitega Bharat’. There is only one video that has been uploaded from this account.
“DEAR ALL … FAKE VIDEO CIRCULATION … In the year 2007, I did a Lead India campaign for The Times of India, where we talked of the glorification of the country and India,” he wrote. “SOMEBODY has made a fake video by using my voice and text of what I spoke in the original, and falsely and mischievously, interspersed it with visuals which indicate a campaign for the promotion of the Hon Chief Minister of Gujarat, Shri Narendra Modi!!”
The actor added that he had alerted authorities about the video and would initiate action against the person who had created the fake and uploaded it on YouTube.
“I wish to state that this is an illegal act, inviting strong action, one that I am appalled by, and one that has no concurrence from me at all… I have brought this to the notice of the concerned authorities, and asked my Digital Team to find out its origin so that we can initiate action against the perpetrator. This is a blatant misuse and infringement of the Copyright Act, and needs to be condemned by all those that become a part of this platform,” he wrote. “(I am) infuriated and angered.”
The actor got support from his fans on Twitter as well as YouTube after he slammed the fake video. His tweets about the video were retweeted several hundred times. The digital team of Bachchan also singled out tweets condemning the video and retweeted them.
On YouTube, the video has been down-voted by fans of Bachchan and many users wrote in comments that the video should be removed by YouTube.
The actor seemed pleased with response. In the last tweet for the day Bachchan wrote, “Thank you all my Ef Sena !! Off to bed .. travel tomorrow !!”
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August 22, 2013 at 3:01 AM
Riding 2 horses at the same time is dangerous. Modi and Mulayam.
Mulayam and akhilesh may spit fire against congress but they support it conditionally as in the case of food bill.
Our cinema has 100 crores and now 200 to 300 crores as benchmark for success and the opportunity comes every friday. But in politics the opportunity comes once in 5 years and even 100 crores is a highly difficult proposition for one single party. Both are trying marketing mantra quite furiously.
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August 24, 2013 at 2:41 PM
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Mumbai-gang-rape-3rd-accused-held-survivor-says-this-is-not-end-of-life/articleshow/22032864.cms
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August 27, 2013 at 11:32 PM
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Mumbai-gang-rape-case-Rapists-assaulted-4-other-women-in-past-6-months/articleshow/22110082.cms
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August 28, 2013 at 7:41 PM
http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/new-york-police-designate-mosques-as-terrorist-organisations-411605?pfrom=home-lateststories
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August 28, 2013 at 7:43 PM
This can be renamed as Sanjana’s corner or Sanjana’s thread because only I am commenting here!
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August 28, 2013 at 8:38 PM
better than some star fans talking to themselves!
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August 28, 2013 at 8:56 PM
What did you think of Hema Malini’s comments today?
PS: just contributing so you don’t feel lonely 🙂
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August 28, 2013 at 9:54 PM
Thanks. I feel the food bill is irresponsible. I just cant understand how it got passed. I think no one wants to like anti poor.
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August 29, 2013 at 10:30 AM
What Hema said, is what every mother tells to her daughters. But that absolves home ministry of its responsibility to protect every citizen. Tomorrow someone say avoid nightshift. Women have to be under curfews which will be very stifling.
Police are doing their duty. It is the judiciary which is taking things lightly when it comes to these cases. The rapists are getting bails too easily. Rapists are also let off if they marry the victims. How ridiculous!
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August 31, 2013 at 2:22 PM
NEW DELHI: The punishment of a three-year stay in a reform home given on Saturday to the lone minor accused in the December 16, 2012 gang rape here left the victim’s family angry and sparked a minor protest by those seeking death for the guilty.
The open space outside the juvenile justice board near the Feroz Shah Kotla cricket ground in central Delhi was abuzz since 10am, the scheduled time for giving the verdict, but the huge contingent of media persons broke into a frenzy only around 3.30pm when a lawyer came out of the board and shared information about the in camera proceeding.
The defence lawyer was the first to come out of the board and tell reporters that the juvenile accused had been convicted under gang rape and murder charges and sent to a three-year stay in a reform home.
The maximum punishment that can be awarded under the Juvenile Justice Act is three years.
The security was tightened in and around the board and the accused was brought in a van and his face was muffled. After the delivery of verdict, the juvenile was sent to a special home in a van guarded by police.
The mother of the victim, who died after the gang rape, came out of the board with her two sons and husband and said she was “not satisfied” with the punishment given to the minor accused, indicating that they wanted harsher punishment for him.
With tears in her eyes, she said, “We are not satisfied with the verdict.”
“If minors do such things and get away so easily, how will the law work? It cannot be done like this. Law needs to be changed. We will move the higher court against the judgment,” she said.
The father of gang-raped woman also expressed dissatisfaction over the verdict.
“Our daughter has died and now after listening to this verdict we also have virtually died. This will only encourage crime,” the father said.
As the news of the judgment spread, some protesters started shouting slogans outside the board and sought death penalty for the juvenile.
Shouting “Hang the rapist”, the protesters expressed displeasure over the “light punishment” given to the minor.
Pihu Sharma, an undergraduate student of Delhi University, who was protesting outside the board, told IANS, “If a minor can rape or has the courage to rape then why give a different punishment to him?”
“He was not a kid when he was raping the girl, he knew what he was doing. So why light punishment for him? We want justice for the girl and three years of (special home stay) is not justice.”
Arun Kumar, another protester, said, “This verdict will only encourage minors to do such crimes. They will have no fear in their minds while committing such crimes because they know they can get off easily.”
“Something is needed to be done to stop such crimes in the country,” he said.
The accused, who was a minor at the time of the gang rape but turned 18 in June, was not named.
The board’s decision in the minor’s case is the first judgment in the horrific incident when the 23-year-old woman physiotherapy intern was brutally gang raped in a bus that she and her male companion had boarded in Munirka in south Delhi.
As the gang rape had hit international headlines and raised concerns about women’s safety in the country, the area around the board was packed with media persons, onlookers and activists.
More than 150 media persons from national and international newspapers and television channels started gathered in the morning to cover the case.
The prosecution called the minor accused, as the “most brutal of the six” accused.
He was the one who had lured the victim and her male friend into the bus by giving them wrong information about its route.
The minor accused along with five other men gang-raped the girl in the moving bus and then threw both of them out — without clothes — on the streets in the cold December night.
Police said that apart from sexually assaulting the 23-year-old woman, the minor also ripped out her internal organs with a rod. The girl died 13 days later in a Singapore hospital, where she was flown for treatment.
The brutal gang rape sparked massive protests in New Delhi and other cities, with people demanding death for the accused.
A native of Uttar Pradesh, the minor had moved to Delhi at the age of 11 and was doing odd jobs. He was arrested after the gang rape from Anand Vihar in east Delhi.
Toi
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August 31, 2013 at 2:30 PM
Wonderful. Now the minors can get their birth certificates ready and start raping every woman. The punishment is very light and they will get free board and lodging.
Make hay while the sun shines.
The minor rule which is there in the constitution is for compassionate treatment of victimised minors not for rapist minors.
Women, hide and dont venture out. Dont wear anything less than a saree or salwar kameez. If possible buy burkhas.
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September 6, 2013 at 2:10 AM
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September 14, 2013 at 3:24 PM
he writes well infact dam well right from things on politics to life of iit…remember once posting his article of air india here on satyamshot…much beyond the standup comedian as they say
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September 5, 2013 at 7:42 PM
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Indian-author-Sushmita-Banerjee-executed-in-Afghanistan-by-Taliban/articleshow/22349517.cms
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September 6, 2013 at 2:03 AM
I am back.
On the occasion of teachers Day
After a brief truce, Karan Johar and Ram Gopal Varma were engaged in a war of tweets again all of yesterday. RGV took on Karan Johar’s Student Of the Year saying: “If someone takes off from Karan johar’s Student of the year and makes Teacher of the year it will become the Disaster of the year.”
Touched to the quick about the film that he evidently holds dear, the normally unflappable KJo responded: “@RGVzoomin ….Disaster of the year is your territory Ramu…no one can ever replace the comfortable place you have made for yourself there.”
RGV swung in with some damage control: “@ karanjohar hey karan my tweet was in a series I put on teachers day nd that tweet was about some1 taking off from u meaning it a compliment.” We don’t know if RGV actually meant what he said, but it was enough to assuage KJo who deleted his tweet and went on about his life. Time to grow up boys!
Toi
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September 6, 2013 at 4:46 AM
http://cooks.ndtv.com/article/show/a-month-s-food-to-be-cheaper-than-movie-ticket-delhi-minister-415166?pfrom=home-otherstories
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September 6, 2013 at 8:06 PM
NEW DELHI: The rules of the game have changed for the political class, with the Supreme Court asking the government on Friday to enforce its order for immediate disqualification of sitting MPs, MLAs and MLCs convicted for an offence attracting a sentence of two years.
“Sitting Members of Parliament and state legislators are no longer protected by clause 4 of Section 8 of the Representation of People Act,” a decree issued by the SC said, spelling the extinction of the law which allowed convicted lawmakers to hold on to their seats during pendency of their appeals. The Centre was in the process of relaying the new reality to all state capitals.
The blow to tainted legislators was compounded as the anticipated antidote through a change in law to allow convicted MPs and MLAs to retain their membership pending an appeal failed to materialize in the face of BJP’s last-minute resistance in Parliament.
This means that any lawmaker convicted from now for an offence punishable with a sentence of two years or more will be immediately unseated, and will be barred from contesting elections for at least six years. This could be longer, depending on the term of the sentence awarded.
In fact, the sting could be sharper for convicted MPs, MLAs and MLCs. For, while they lose their elected post on conviction, they will be no compensation for the years lost if they are acquitted. Further, those who get convicted closer to election may have to sit out more than one election, given the slow pace of judiciary.
Public censure made parties change tune
The scuttling of the RP Act amendment is a second setback to the political class in as many days. On Thursday, amendments to the Right to Information Act designed to exclude political parties from the ambit of the transparency law had to be referred to a standing committee in the face of similar political opposition.
Just as in the case of the amendment to the RP Act crafted to nullify the SC order for disqualification of convicted lawmakers, the amendment to the RTI Act had seemed set to go through when the fear of popular opprobrium unravelled the consensus for preserving the status quo. Congress circles claimed that besides resistance from the opposition, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s reservations were also a factor.
The re-think 24 hours ago and the reluctance on Friday to pursue the RP Act amendments reflect a new sensitivity to concerns that political parties have often dismissed as elitist, and limited to activists, the commentariat or a slice of middle-class India that they did not see as a significant or enthusiastic vote bank. Political circles wondered whether the developments over the last 48 hours marked a recognition, if grudging, among a section of the political class that there is a political cost attached to going against the grain of public opinion.
The proposed amendment to the RP Act fell through on Friday morning amid considerable drama as BJP said the proposal was bad in law and constitutionally invalid.
BJP leaders said the party — which fancies its prospects among the urbanized classes — does did not think it prudent to support amendments that risked being seen as a self-centred effort of the political class to protect criminals in its ranks.
The party stuck to its position despite feverish lobbying by at least one senior politician who is apprehensive of the outcome of his trial in a famous graft case.
BJP leader Arun Jaitley argued that disqualification of a legislator was provided for under Article 102 of the Constitution and any move to merely change the RP Act would not do.
Law minister Kapil Sibal said the BJP decision introduced a new calculus in arguments dealing with the SC order that went against a broad agreement that prevailed in Parliament.
But faced with BJP’s determined opposition, with other parties like BJD also expressing doubts, the government had no option but to put aside its plans to move the amendment to the RP Act.
The government’s decision reflects a hesitation to push against both the political opposition and the wider perceptio
n that UPA-2 has been lethargic in acting against corruption. Congress managers are wary of seeming impervious to popular sentiment at a time when the party is combating the fallout of a series of scams ranging from Commonwealth, 2G and Coalgate.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/From-now-lawmakers-who-get-two-years-in-jail-will-lose-seats/articleshow/22379224.cms
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September 6, 2013 at 8:08 PM
This is quite heartening and it is good that BJP has done something applaudable.
There are some criminal parties which will now be on the backfoot.
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September 9, 2013 at 6:27 AM
I was wondering what Muzzafarpur riots were about. it is a social problem which turned into religious mayhem.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/UttarPradesh/Stalker-s-death-triggered-sectarian-violence-in-Muzaffarnagar/Article1-1119594.aspx
As usual opposition parties of all hues are trying to fish in troubled waters.
Even AAP will fail when confronted with this sort of thing which will not be the last one in this multicultural country.
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September 9, 2013 at 6:30 AM
It is Muzaffarnagar not Muzaffarpur.
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September 10, 2013 at 7:51 AM
An interesting take on Harvard Business School.
http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/class-is-seen-dividing-harvard-business-school-416647?pfrom=home-topstories
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September 11, 2013 at 7:17 AM
http://shobhaade.blogspot.in/
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September 13, 2013 at 12:11 AM
http://www.mid-day.com/news/2013/sep/130913-one-year-later-cops-stop-pilgrims-again-at-mannat.htm
The special treatment was doled out with the intention preventing fans from ‘disturbing’ the actor (‘Cops barricade road to Bandra Fair so that SRK is not disturbed’ September 7, 2012). In the wake of MiD DAY’s sustained coverage, the road was partially opened to pilgrims, with the promise that the path would be made fully accessible from 2013. A year later, the barricades are back at the spot, and pilgrims yet again have to go out of their way, quite literally, for King Khan.
Special treatment
Cops claim that barricading Cement Road, which connects Mount Mary Road with Bandstand, is part of their traffic management plan for the fair. They have repeatedly offered the justification that the road, if kept open, could pose a security risk, and cause a law and order situation owing to the problems owing to the presence of the high-profile resident. Local residents, organisations and even the fair organisers have sent letters to the Bandra police and the BMC, pleading that the road be made accessible, as the church is a short five-minute-walk away from it. Keeping it open would facilitate ingress and egress from the church, they plead.
Unhappy residents
Founder member of Catholic Residents Organisation for Social Service (CROSS), John Fernandes said, “With the pressure put on them by the media, all the senior cops promised us that the road will be used for entry or exit from this year. The police have not kept their promise. To add to that, heavy police bandobast has been organised close to the barricades. It is very disappointing to see the cops acting this way.”
He added, “We obeyed the cops and respected their decision last year. Now we have lost hope in the police and the judiciary.” According to residents, Cement Road is one of the oldest existing roads in Bandra. Earlier, pilgrims coming from places as far as Vasai and Virar for the fair used Cement Road to reach the church earlier.
Not just the pilgrims and residents, several stall owners who would sell candles and other articles on the sloping stretch have been robbed of income by the barricades. The church authorities too have submitted a letter to the authorities declaring that they have no objections to the road being thrown open – in fact, they have encouraged it.
Judith Monteiro, a member of the Association of Concerned Catholics (AOCC) said, “We have received mixed versions about barricades on Cement Road. We are getting our facts right first. As this is the traffic department’s responsibility, we have already had a word with DCP Dighavkar. He assured us that he would help sort out the issue. He was the previous DCP of Bandra, and is aware of the promises he made last year. We look forward to the police department keeping its promise and helping devotees have a feast devoid of any difficulties.”
Locals plan to stage a massive demonstration at Cement Road tomorrow. The demonstration will be supported by organisations like Watchdog Foundation, Wake up Bandra, CROSS, Mobia Gaothan Panchayat, Perry Cross Road Resident’s Association, Save Our Land [SOUL], and thousands of devotees. “We have garnered the support of all the Catholic organisations in the city.
The pilgrims too have come forward to extend their support. We have given the cops and BMC a whole year, and yet the issue has not been resolved. On Saturday, we will carry a demonstration and protest at the Mount Mary Church in Bandra,” said Anil Joseph, president of Perry Cross Road Association.
Copspeak
A senior level officer from Bandra police station said, on condition of anonymity, “Security to SRK is one of the aspects, but the road is barricaded also for the convenience and safety of pilgrims. The road has a great slope and gets very narrow on the upper side. Thousands of people come to the fair, and the incline could give rise to a stampede-like situation. It has nothing to do with the presence of the celebrity. In fact, if there is a pregnant or senior citizen, we allow them to pass by the barricades into the road, but don’t allow everyone.”
Voices
I was born here. We have been using the Cement Road since then. It is only after Shah Rukh came here that the road was barricaded. I am suffering heavy losses every year due to this. – Michael D’Souza, owner of a stall on Cement Road
Just 15 days back we were assured that pilgrims could use the road, and now it is barricaded. The fair is conducted in a very disciplined manner. – George Miranda, resident
A bus stop was made by BMC at the Bandstand end of the Cement Road to allow pilgrims to alight and go up to the church. This was before Shah Rukh came to live here. The cement stairs were specially made to ease the climb, leading to the church entrance. The road was the church’s property that the BMC had acquired. Now, the number of people visiting the fair has dropped, as senior citizens find the climb along Kane Road and Mount Mary Road tough. As a result, the fair is being killed. – Anil Joseph, president of Perry Cross Road Association
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September 13, 2013 at 12:00 PM
So it finally happened; Satyam – LEFT or RIGHT is now going to be blogging hot-bed..
9/13/13 Narendra Modi anointed BJP PM candidate, Advani disappointed – TheTimes of India
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Narendra-Modi-anointed-BJP-PM-candidate-Advani-disappointed/articleshow/22554959.cms?prtpage=1 1/2
NEW DELHI:
Narendra Modi, a staunch proponent of Hinduvta, was on Friday anointed BJP’s prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, ending months of suspense over his elevation amid
stiff opposition by party patriarch L K Advani.
The announcement was made by BJP chief Rajnath Singh after a meeting of the party’s parliamentary board which was skipped by Advani who expressed “anguish” over the way the party was functioning. Except Advani, the meeting of the 12-member board was attended by other leaders like Sushma
Swaraj, Murli Manohar Joshi, Arun Jaitley and Nitin Gadkari.
The decision on Modi came on a day of fast-paced developments and back-to-back meetings and last minute efforts to bring around Advani,Joshi and Swaraj.
Making the announcement, Rajnath Singh said the decision had been taken by the parliamentary board as per the party’s tradition.
The party had announced its prime ministerial candidate in 2009 elections also, he noted at a press conference here.
Modi, who will turn 63 next Tuesday, said he will work tirelessly to ensure that BJP wins the 2014 elections.
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September 13, 2013 at 12:23 PM
Well, the drama will start now.
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September 13, 2013 at 12:28 PM
In era of twitter and Facebook, we will be bombarded with all kind of missiles 🙂
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September 13, 2013 at 12:43 PM
hopefully it won’t be Muzaffarnagar on the blog!
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September 13, 2013 at 7:05 PM
I think it will be worse with more things online.
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September 13, 2013 at 12:31 PM
yeah can’t say I’m surprised. Hope he doesn’t actually win though some recent polls seem to point in this direction.
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September 13, 2013 at 2:05 PM
pv narsimbha rao was the last cm to be pm and as well as pm candidate but not this early ironically his dead body was not even allowed to enter into congress headquarters and that all in compulsion of dynasty
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September 13, 2013 at 2:46 PM
Dont forget how Sitaram kesari was locked in toilet for hours till Sonia was declared new Congress chief.
Dynasty must be decimated.
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September 13, 2013 at 2:21 PM
ya found something in net
http://www.rediff.in/news/2004/dec/28monu.htm
Appropriately for the capital of a country that has witnessed the death of hope so often, Delhi is a city of tombs. To the many built to encase the remains of numerous emperors of the Mughal era and their successors has been added those from post-1947: Mohandas Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Sanjay Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Charan Singh and Jagjivan Ram.
Neither Mohandas Gandhi nor Sanjay Gandhi was ever the holder of any public office, although some may claim that the contribution to Indian history of the second son of Indira Priyadarshini may not entirely be on the same scale as that of the Mahatma. However, Sanjay too was granted the same privilege of a samadhi in New Delhi.
Both Rajiv Gandhi and Charan Singh died while they were out of office, while Jagjivan Ram — who never made it to the prime ministership — was cremated outside of New Delhi, but had his ashes brought back and re-interred in New Delhi
Four of the eight post-1947 tombs have been created to honour members of the Nehru family, whose names are etched on airports, ports, roads, townships, public conveniences and much else in a country that is presumably grateful that such a brood chose to be born in their midst.
As some are aware, Pamulaparthy Venkata Narasimha Rao was not a member of the Nehru family. He was, however, the first prime minister from south of the Vindhyas, lasted a full term in office, and began the transformation of India through the economic reforms initiated by him.
Most would say that Rao’s remains had at least the same right to a slice of prime New Delhi land as did Charan Singh’s or Sanjay Gandhi’s. The newspapers, who are extremely deferential to the actual powers-that-be, have been told and have reported that Rao was cremated in Hyderabad ‘as per the wishes of his family members.’
This statement contains the same measure of truth as the comment that the former prime minister was ‘regularly consulted on all important matters’ by the current Congress president, Sonia Gandhi.
In fact, despite being a former AICC president and a prime minister, Narasimha Rao was not just excluded from the Congress Working Commitee since the current heir to the Nehru dynasty took charge of the party in 1998, he was not even allowed to become one of the numerous ‘special invitees’, most of whom get selected for their cheerleader skills rather than any other contribution.
Given that former prime ministers Rajiv Gandhi, Charan Singh and the non-prime minister Sanjay Gandhi were given state funerals and a final resting place in what may be termed the National Capital’s ‘Zone of the Dead,’ the reasons why such a privilege was denied to Narasimha Rao are obscure.
They, however, are depressingly in line with a pattern that dogged Rao since 1992, when he refused to accept that he was not a public servant, but a Nehru Family retainer. In what follows, an account is given of the circumstances behind the final humiliation of Pamulaparthy Venkata Narasimha Rao.
A short while before he got hospitalised, Narasimha Rao — whose antennae were always active in picking up signals, especially from the many former and current officials who were admirers of his policies — was informed of a plan by senior politicians in his own party to implicate him and another former prime minister, Chandra Shekhar, in the assasination of Rajiv Gandhi.
For eight years, Rao had been the only former prime minister to have endured the torture of a series of cases filed against him. These had been masterminded — and the legwork for them funded — by the very same individuals who, he was now credibly told, were plotting to implicate him in one of the most heinous crimes of the century. The motive presented for Chandra Shekhar would be revenge — Rajiv made his life a misery and finally made it impossible for him to remain dependent on Congress support with dignity. That for Narasimha Rao would be the job that he stepped into after the 1991 Lok Sabha election.
To those scripting such Stalin-style show trials, it did not matter that Narasimha Rao had himself asked Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 for permission to retire, and was looking forward during and after the election that year only to writing and to music, and to the company of friends. Or that Rao was the sort of individual who was incapable of violence or vengeance, even against those who were his enemies, which was why — for example — the CBI permitted Ottavio Quatrocchi to leave the country.
In Narasimha Rao, forbearance grew to the level of a vice. It was as absurd to imagine him plotting to see Rajiv Gandhi dead as it was to believe that Rajinder Kumar Dhawan planned the demise of the only person he worshipped, Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi.
However, to the Stalinist scriptwriters within the Congress party who hated Rao for his perceived lese majeste, truth and logic were never allowed to remain in the way of a slur.
Shortly before he fell so ill that he had to be taken to hospital for the first time before the final crisis, Narasimha Rao told the writer that it had been a very ugly past few years, thanks to the constant threat of imprisonment hanging over his head. He saw these legal entanglements as a way of paralysing him, removing his capacity to emerge as a player once again, and said that because of their fear of what he could do — whether justified or not — they would keep immobilising him through more such stratagems.
PV was calm, he was cynical in his humorous way, but far from resigned. The old fox, whom his father had hoped would become the patwari of his village, felt he had another innings left at the crease, one in which he would once again score a double century. Indeed, he had begun the process of re-entry into active politics by giving me a lengthy interview during the 2004 Lok Sabha election on just why it was wrong to place the destruction of the Babri Masjid at his door, that was carried across a page by The Asian Age.
This was to be followed up by another interview, in which he would explain the conditions in which he and an individual he loved and respected, Manmohan Singh, rescued the Indian economy from collapse, in the process setting it almost free. I would remind him off and on about this second interview, till almost the final days.
Was it the knowledge that yet another conspiracy against him was on the way towards execution that pushed his body beyond the borderline of viable capability? For years, Narasimha Rao had been tended by Sreenath Reddy, one of the finest heart specialists in the world, the son of a close friend — Raghunatha Reddy — who was himself as idealistic as his boy. Ever watchful, this surrogate son had monitored PV’s health and made sure that the body worked well enough to keep that superb mind working at Concorde speed.
What goes on in the human mind, what short-circuit in the synapses causes a sudden collapse, is impossible to tell. Perhaps it was not this terrible information that pushed him across the red line. Perhaps it was something else. Perhaps it was nothing except perhaps a sudden onset of the common cold.
Even in hospital, even in his final days, PV exuded confidence. The doctors — and they included many who had grown to love PV the man, if not P V Narasimha Rao the prime minister — were grim-faced, as were the others clustered outside his room in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. Not so PV.
Strangely, his physical collapse had led to a toughening of his will. The voice was low, one did not have the will to respond and thus force him to expend energy by replying to the reply, but PV was determined to keep on talking about what would be.
This time, he would not make the mistake of not reacting to the torment, he would resist his inbuilt aversion towards his friends fighting back on his behalf and allow them to. There had been something aloof and patrician about the man from Vangara village, that made any effort at self-defense seem a contemptible display of weakness. But he was aloof no more. The eyes were tired but fierce, the voice was often unable to reach the level of becoming audible, but there was a hardening in the timbre that had not always been present during the years in office.
But this fresh dawn never took place. Sometime after noon on December 23, 13 days after he had been brought to the hospital early in the morning following a cardiac incident, PV decided to call it quits. It was more than an hour before the doctors finally did.
Strangely — or perhaps entirely expectedly — despite a special Union Cabinet meeting at 3 pm on the subject of his funeral, at his 9 Motilal Nehru Marg home there were no arrangements made to receive the body and place it on a platform, nor flowers, nor any laying out of carpets by the administration for the mourning crowds to sit down on, nor even a shamiana on the lawns.
Finally, Kishore, a friend of PV’s, made arrangements for both. The shamiana could get erected only by 8.15 pm. Carpets and flowers too were provided by family and friends and not by what seemed to be a totally bankrupt Government of India. As if to atone for his visible helplessness, the prime minister, Sardar Manmohan Singh, looked visibly moved as he quietly remained by the side of the body, which had been brought in from the hospital a little before 5 pm. As a gesture of supreme graciousness, Sonia Gandhi turned up and even stayed for a few minutes.
While some of those present then may be made to deny this later, the fact is that the family members — as well as the crowd of mourners — would have been happy to see the father of economic reform and the first prime minister from the south in the history of Free India be given the same honours as Sanjay Gandhi and Charan Singh, a State funeral in New Delhi and an appropriate memorial. Home Minister Shivraj Patil was clearly the emissary of some Unseen Power, for he came several times to the Rao home from some other place where he had apparently gone for consultations, to insist in his own courteous way on a funeral in Hyderabad.
It was clear to observers that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was not being consulted on this matter, there was not even a pretence of that on the part of the emissaries of the Unseen Power. A few such as Ahmed Patel could be observed giving regular updates via cellphone to Somebody about the situation in 9 Motilal Nehru Marg. A very useful man, Ahmed Patel.
It was decided Somewhere that PV’s body would be sent back to his home state. Ironically, PV had spent the previous 30 years in New Delhi, as a Cabinet minister, as an AICC general secretary and as prime minister. Even when he had been the prime minister, no member of his family lived with him, they would come on (infrequent) visits.
In his last years to, he lived alone. Thus the attempt to justify a shift to Hyderabad on the grounds that “he was not a Delhi resident” was somewhat of a stretch. Another argument used to justify the move to Hyderabad for the final obsequies was that the Vajpayee Cabinet had passed a resolution against any more samadhis. Again, for a regime that has been talking of ‘detoxifying’ the country from the misdeeds of the Vajpayee Parivar era, this was somewhat ingenious.
The family behaved with quiet dignity throughout. They said that as their father had been a Congressman, a freedom fighter, a prime minister, they would leave it to the Congress party and the government as to what was to be done.
The only moment of friction came when a high official suggested that if the sentiment was so overwhelming within the circle of those who loved PV that the cremation take place in the national capital, then very well, it would take place, but in the Delhi cantonment, as though PV were some bacillus that the refined gentry living in the Lutyens Zone did not want to see contaminate their environment.
The response to this suggestion on the part of those close to PV was that they would then cremate him at the Nigambodh Ghat, along with the other common men, which after all was all that he seemed to be to the powers-that-be.
It was at this stage that a Heavy Hitter arrived, in the person of Y S Rajshekhar Reddy, chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, who ‘cajoled’ those close to PV into ‘agreeing’ that it would be best to cremate him in Hyderabad. Around this time, those who looked like Intelligence Bureau sleuths began nosing around the rooms. It had been known that PV had kept voluminous records, including the draft of a book on the Emergency. It is unlikely that any of this will ever emerge into the daylight, except in a very sanitised way.
The next day, December 24, the body of the former Congress prime minister was brought to the gates of the AICC office at 24, Akbar Road and kept there for 20 minutes, ‘to pay homage.’ Apparently, the body was so heavy that it would not have been possible to lift what was left of PV from the gun carriage into the Congress headquarters, which would have been the civilised thing to do.
After this final humiliation, P V Narasimha Rao left New Delhi for Hyderabad, this time for good.
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September 13, 2013 at 8:01 PM
seems we are between the devil and the deep blue sea. We need to be saved both from corrupt congress and also power hungry modi. Can Kejriwal be the third alternative?
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September 13, 2013 at 8:17 PM
He sounds genuine. But I am not sure are they ready to govern. Some people are good at being disruptive but they have no clue when asked to be constructive.
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September 13, 2013 at 8:45 PM
Just look at Prachanda who belongs to maoist party in Nepal. Once they get power, they try to govern.
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September 13, 2013 at 11:27 PM
so now he is maoist and power hungry should have the power first ..thats what one called desperate criticism
kejriwal needs time to be in shoes of modi
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September 13, 2013 at 11:45 PM
I did not call modi maoist. I called Prachanda maoist. Modi is power hungry, arrogant, spins a lot and also fake.
Kejriwal should be different from others.
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September 14, 2013 at 1:11 AM
Hindus fashion themselves as secular by criticizing modi and muslims hate him with ignorance without knowing anything led by congress propoganda via. media.
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September 14, 2013 at 1:21 AM
Btw 30% muslims from gujarat voted for modi last year. That states reality.
Asifa khan , who was congress spokesperson one year back , joined bjp last year after monitoring. Hear truth straight from her.
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September 14, 2013 at 1:49 AM
Can anyone explain why teesta setalvad and shajia’s cooked up incident claims were declared bogus by SIT committee and supreme court. Their statements kept changing and later they were exposed. Whose behest were they working on? These ladies were no where in social activism front, but suddenly one NGO is created at behest of congress to gain politically at the cost of widening gap between communities by their fake affidavit. Later, riot victims found themselves used by these organization and blamed teesta sitalvad.
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September 14, 2013 at 1:53 AM
If someone is still blaming modi, that means he has no faith in indian supreme court. See video below. Any other leader comes with such clarity of thoughts and talking about various problems. What is wrong with his thoughts?
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September 14, 2013 at 1:55 AM
what is wrong with these thoughts below?
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September 14, 2013 at 12:23 AM
seems damage has been done very badly
btw nothing is more damaging than a fake prime minister. a power hungry arrogant lady who is ruling without any accountability always ready to take credit and divert thing which are precisely called spin off basically
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September 14, 2013 at 12:58 AM
What people have problem with Modi here? I hate it when people criticize anyone without reasoning. Such a selfless guy he is. He leads such a simple life like a common man, just last year his brothers went against him as he didn’t allow any special benefit/treatment to any family member. He is karmayogi in true sense who wakes up at 5 am , gets in touch with all administration online each day from 7 am to 10 am. He comes forward and gets in touch with public on daily basis. He takes full responsibility instead of depending on decisions of his ministers and takes best out of them giving them least possible.
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September 14, 2013 at 1:08 AM
Too good if sanjana and Satyam are Nri. They wont be voting in india. They seem to be blinded by congress propaganda in media continued for last years. While modi was given clean by every court in spite of every attempt by congress dragging him to delhi courts and replacing one judge by another.
Please, read supreme court’s full verdict that was eye opener for me. I started monitoring him closely and his speech. He is most secular leader i have come across never referring to any community or cast/creed. He is best thing happened to india since atal bihari vajpai.
Meanwhile 25 congress leaders are convicted and in jail currently for gujarat riots. Some are absconding to pakistan. Supreme court final verdict report discloses all how congress leaders conspired godhra train massacre where 2500 muslims were led by congress leaders which instigated riots later. Media never talks about it.
It is same congress who refused to send additional force deployment in gujarat when modi demanded so.
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September 14, 2013 at 1:13 AM
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September 14, 2013 at 1:14 AM
For satyam and sanjana. Please, Watch it.
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September 14, 2013 at 2:07 AM
Meanwhile, Bachchan gets an award from International Broadcasters Conference: Actor Amitabh Bachchan has received an award from the International Broadcasters Conference in Amsterdam.
Bachchan tweeted on Saturday evening, “The International Broadcasters Conference in Amsterdam confers an Award .. !! I am humbled and grateful !!”
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September 14, 2013 at 5:56 AM
Apt for so many here 🙂
I’m not sure where I read it… but this little story is important for chronic haters… A married couple had the college going cousin sister of the wife move in with them as she starts college. Soon the small town cousin starts dressing and moving around like a regular city girl. Hubby and wife can’t stop talking about her skirts and how short they have become. Every evening hubby comes home and says “Honey, I’m home what did the girl do today”? The wife would then tell him how she changed her boyfriend again and got her nose pierced. They would gossip about the girl every evening on the dinner table and right up to bed-time. Sometimes it was the cousin’s hairstyle, her revealing tops, her boyfriends, her long phone calls, her sex life, her taste of books, blah blah. This gossiping and hateful bitching went on happily for years. The hubby and wife had nothing to discuss but the activities and behaviour of the cousin. They had nothing but contempt and disgust for her. One fine day the cousin announced she was getting married and moving out. She did! A day after the wedding when the hubby came home from work the couple had a very silent dinner and went to sleep quietly. They had absolutely nothing to discuss. The focus of all their gossip had gone and they realised they had spent all those years discussing nothing but the cousin and now had nothing to talk about. They had spent their days gossiping about the girl and now hardly knew each other or what to talk about.
http://www.mediacrooks.com/2013/09/editors-can-sue-narendra-modi-for.html#.UjQRT8ZkNOg
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September 14, 2013 at 7:43 AM
People taik of congress and compare it to – Modi. Why not BJP? Modi comes with his burden which includes the party he belongs to. He doesn’t support RTI. Why?
I believe Kejriwal when he says congress aur BJP mein pati patni ka rishta hai. One pujari getting them married is of course Ambani.
I’m praying for Arvind Kejriwal to come from behind and kick all these people out.
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September 14, 2013 at 7:59 AM
How Putin showed Finger to clueless Obama 🙂
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/358480/american-ineffectualism-mark-steyn
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September 14, 2013 at 8:28 AM
Lots more columns from the conservative ranks where this came from..! Not to say there hasn’t been criticism on the left as well but this whole ‘it’s Armageddon for US foreign policy’ attitude is just silly. Also whatever one things of some of bungling on messaging and so forth the fact is that without that threat of force one wouldn’t be here:
Interestingly Putin seems to have taken the Obama threat of force more seriously than many in the US. Even without any public support or any kind in Congress on either side Putin threw out a lifeline. Syria for the first time ever admitted it had chemical weapons after denying this just a week ago, there is now this agreement which at least in the initial rounds seems better than many previous ones. And since the strike would have been largely symbolic anyway this would appear to be still a better solution. Which doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a better way to get here but the whole crude idea in the American media and in many more elevated circles that Putin simply exists to taunt the US is unfortunately not very accurate either. He of course has that impulse but there is a larger Russian geo-political strategy here as well. The Russians weren’t playing ball for two years on Syria in even the most minimal sense. Suddenly all of this happens. If Putin simply wanted to play ‘hero’ he could have done so at any point over the last two years! Again not justifying some of the sequencing over the last two weeks or so but I’d think the result is more important than anything else here. As for those who feel they’ve never seen this sort of thing from a President well they don’t know their history. Not for the first time. And again the almost wholly negative reviews of the Administration over this period (and some critiques I agree with) will give way probably to a far more positive appraisal depending on how this deal holds up.
The more important point here has been missed by many except for one commentator I came across (don’t remember who). Which is that for the very first time a US president insisted on such a strike but also admitted at the same time there was no imminent threat to the US and nor was it a retaliatory strike for anything done to the US in any sense. Now of course there are national security justifications that become pretend reasons in a lot of these episodes but there was none offered here and the larger idea that was defended was that if you use this stuff we reserve the right to attack you even if we are not threatened in the slightest and also if we have to go it alone. the UN wasn’t on board, the Congress wasn’t, public opinion wasn’t but this was the ‘idea’ behind it.
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September 14, 2013 at 8:35 AM
Incidentally people are forgetting some of the greater disasters that Obama has avoided for himself through all the ‘bungling’. The vote in Congress for one, going to Congress in the first place when he realized he was out on a limb with zero support from anyone (presidents in these situations usually don’t do anything or are forced not to even if they want to.. for instance FDR wanted to get into WWII long before he did but public opinion and politics didn’t allow him to.. until of course Pearl Harbor happened) and pretended he was throwing it open for public debate (!), then he said he was asking for a delay in the Congress (on the vote) when he gave his speech. The point is that even as many have been upset about this he’s cannily situated himself with the majority of the nation (a CNN instant poll found 61% agreed with his speech!). And his very reluctance to go to war serves him well with these folks. Whether it’s taking the riskiest option on getting Osama, whether it’s joining a coalition on Libya, whether it’s staying out of Syria at every point only to suddenly decide to strike to pursue a larger ‘idea’ and not necessary an immediate goal, it’s clear that there isn’t an obvious script here. Of course we know where the cowboy attitude gets one! You can feel good about it and feel you’ve projected strength and then you end up in quagmires that give your enemies the very strategic gifts they wouldn’t have had otherwise!
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September 14, 2013 at 11:30 AM
The problem which Congress now faces is to actually prove Modi’s pro-Hindu credentials post 2002. For the Congress, Modi’s history stops at 2002. But for everyone else, his actions post 2002 are what make him attractive. Consider for example a small piece of info tucked away in all this “Hindutva posterboy” sloganeering: Modi had ordered the demoition of 200+ temples in Gujarat, as part of the State Govts anti-encroachment drive. No CM in the history of India has gotten that many religious structures demolished. Would a Muslim CM have ever demolished 200 mosques for anti-encroahment of land? The entire DurgaShakti episode in UP was an example of how other politicians have exploited religious sentiments when it comes to land encroachment by religious institutes.
Another blatant lie: Modi is a follower of Asaram Bapu. In fact, Modi slapped a Rs 18 crore fine on Asaram Bapu for land encroachment by his ashram in Gujarat!
Let the blogosphere light up, the more debates there are, the more Modi’s work of the past 10 yrs gets highlighted. Time does not stop in 2002. He has done a lot in the past 10 yrs to deserve this nomination and the trust of the people to get him elected as PM.
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September 14, 2013 at 11:50 AM
He is secular and he uses hindu card when it suits him and discards when it does not. I think in Pakistan Musharraf also stood up against islamists. When a person wants to rule, he wants to become god. He will not save hindus or muslims, but will save his power at any cost. Regarding corruption also, he has a very practical approach, not holistic approach. This thing sounds somewhat coldblooded, doesn’t it? Use and throw approach. That is what Vanjara is saying.
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September 14, 2013 at 12:08 PM
I could give you an extraordinary list of Hitlers economic achievements in Germany. In fact there cannot be a greater or more dramatic example than the economic miracle of Germany from where it was in the 20s to what it became in the 30s. The reason I always come up with this seemingly ‘extreme’ example is to make the obvious point. Certain kinds of ‘crimes’ cannot simply be placed on a spectrum where these ‘negatives’ are then balanced out with positives (‘what highways and flyovers in Ahmedabad!’). The counter-argument seems to run two ways — a)that he didn’t do whatever he’s accused of b)even if he did consider how well-managed his state is. I don’t wish to rake up old debates here but the second justification crops up quite often and it seems to me that this ought to be morally unacceptable.
I actually believe that if Modi were PM he has every interest not to have acts of religious violence occur, let alone with his aid. For a number of political reasons this wouldn’t serve his interests and he has the independent authority not to be simply subservient to the Hindutva ideological brigade. However this idea doesn’t comfort me precisely because of the dismaying reality behind it — that in contemporary India you can be a great fascist and get away with it as long as you build good roads the next day!
Will say though that Modi doesn’t translate that well outside of a ‘Shining India’ crowd. Part of it is ethnic but part of it is the suspicion surrounding 2002 not just among religious minorities but also lower castes. He might still win of course and it would be a pretty black day for India.
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September 14, 2013 at 4:42 PM
“He might still win of course and it would be a pretty black day for India.”
And once again, the counter to your argument will be: By your logic, you will have a Black day anyhow, whether you give the Congress or the BJP a chance. We have already had 3 Black Days in India, ie whenever the Congress had formed a govt at the center since 1984. You can very easily compare Modi to Hitler. But why not compare Rajiv Gandhi to Mao or Stalin? He must be begging from his grave to be compared, he himself has the blood of 5000 Sikhs on his hands!!
Yes, 2 wrongs do not make a right. But it seems that we have given one wrongful party 3 full terms (ie 1984, 2004, 2009) to do something worthwhile. Unfrotunately, all 3 chances were squandered away in a mindnumbing/mindboggling array of scams and corruption. So now, are you still going to give them a 4th chance? Or are you going to give a 1st chance to the other wrongful party? You decide.
Indians do not have a spotfree Shining Knight in Armor. There are the 2 choices you have. Pick Wisely this time. The Black Day by your definition will happen anyhow.
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September 14, 2013 at 5:50 PM
Though I find the anti-Sikh pogroms of ’84 horrendous and I have talked about them in every such context I think it’s stretching things quite a bit to assign Rajiv the same responsibility for them that Modi has for 2002. Which doesn’t mean Rajeev bears no responsibility but let’s put it this way. I don’t think Rajiv was an anti-minority political figure who was looking for the right opportunity to cause such a massacre! On Narasimha Rao’s watch a pogrom was launched in Bombay by Thackeray. Whatever one might think of him I doubt he was actively for it! There are lots of CMs in the history of India on whose watches riots have happened and they too have sometimes been responsible. But there’s a difference between them and Bal Thackeray. So I actually don’t believe there’s some grey area here where we simply cannot decide who’s worse so either we don’t mark out the Modis of the world or we attack everyone. That’s a bit like saying Obama must be as bad as Hitler since his Drones have killed many too. Mao or Stalin would be a serious problem if there ‘were’ any such figure in India causing violence on such a scale. But there isn’t. So this is just a phantom fear that is invoked to justify violence on the Right. This too is an old move. Even the Nazis (along with every other fascist outfit in history) pretended that the threat from Communists was so great that they had to do this. I am the last person to excuse violence on the left but fascism remains a problem of the contemporary in ways that Stalinism it’s safe to say generally isn’t (outside of N Korea!).
Now as for the rest I’ve already said this. Scams no matter how great do not bother me as much as pogroms. They’re serious issues but simply not the same on any sort of moral scale. Lots of things damage the nation in all sorts of ways without threatening a community in particular. But even if it’s scams you’re concerned about do you really believe that such institutional problems can be resolved by one party or the other? I prefer the Dems to the Republicans but not because I think they’re the most honest guys around or are somehow not responsible for the institutional corruption of American politics in similar ways. Getting back to the example I started out with I like many others have lots of problems with Bush 43 but one of them isn’t that I confused him with the likes of Modi!
Finally a thing must be called by its proper name. It can’t be an all of the above approach where either Modi hasn’t done anything wrong but even if he has ‘look at Rajiv’! Or even if he has ‘consider how corrupt the Congress is’ or whatever. by the same token every time Hitler is blamed for something perhaps one should say ‘look at Stalin’! And again no one could seriously place Rajiv in the company of such pogrom-organizers or what have you!
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September 14, 2013 at 6:02 PM
Satyam, the pogrom of 1992 happened under a Congress govt in Maharashtra. Everyone seems to conveniently forget that fact. Why is it that Modi is blamed for inaction or active conniving with rioters in 2002, but Congress CM in 1992 is not? There was a Congress Central Govt, a Congress Maharashtra Govt, and yet Thackrey was able to run a pogrom for 10 continuous days?? In reality, it was Pawar/Thackrey/Underworld all together committing heinous crimes against Muslims. There were more Muslims killed in 1992 Mumbai, than in 2002 Gujurat. More than 400K Muslims ran out of Mumbai, never to return, while all their properties were usurped by the said parties. It was a STATE POGROM, not just a Hindi rightwing pogrom. The secular press seems to go to blind when pogroms are committed under the watch of Congress Govts.
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September 14, 2013 at 7:51 PM
I already mentioned Narasimha Rao. As for Pawar he’s not running for PM. But this was a Sena effort, the Congress govt could have done more to stop it, they didn’t, no question. But the state bureaucracy had its Sena sympathies, much more than is sometimes reflected in the election results. The Sena was able to tap into this and it certainly led the pogrom.
But notice the contradiction in your position. You refuse to hold the central actors who openly issued offensive statements about how minorities had to be taught a lesson and what not responsible, those who have been held responsible by just about every responsible body of opinion inside and outside India from human rights groups to academic organizations (hope you will not call all of this a vast Communist conspiracy!), but your claim is that somehow people who are more indirectly responsible should first be taken to task! In other words before getting to Hitler let’s get those who profited by him or who might have stopped him but did not! Or let’s not arrest any Mafia bosses before we get the police commissioners who winked and nodded at points! That’s a strange logic to pursue.
Let’s make it simpler. Let’s say that anyone who’s been tainted by a pogrom or this kind of instigated violence ought not to be taken seriously as a PM candidate. So Modi shouldn’t be in the running! Let me accept all your claims for the moment. But those folks aren’t running! The problem with your position is an evasion of moral responsibility. If you think I am letting off the Congress too easily (though I am hardly a Congress fan) the right response on your part should be ‘I agree with the Modi condemnation, however I think some Congress leaders also deserve a great deal of blame’. Your argument as it stands seems to be ‘pogroms are horrible things but let Modi run because many Congress types didn’t get into trouble!’. That’s like Hitler protesting that some others before him didn’t get into any trouble for doing similar things! Surely a moral calculus doesn’t depend on account for everyone else first! Though I always found Thackeray repulsive I didn’t comment on him as much in these contexts because he wasn’t running for higher office. He wasn’t relevant to the discussion in the same way. But also because not too many were defending him in these contexts.
The most disappointing thing in these debates is the inability on the part of many like yourself to just condemn these crimes without getting into this relativistic game. In many discussions involving Modi in the past I have brought up the anti-Sikh riots unprompted. Those Congress leaders who organized them are as bad as Modi in my book much as those who do such things on the Muslim side of the equation or any other ethnic or political divide are equally blameworthy. We can discuss all of those contexts here as well. Every such leader is equally responsible. But it’s a stretch to say that Rajiv Gandhi was somehow like Modi because it happened on his watch (though he of course has some responsibility). Again your logic is either condemn even those who have the slightest responsibility in these matters or else let the biggest infractions go scot-free! By this logic Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot and whoever would always have blanket immunity! But again why is it so hard to condemn these things without viewing them through that left-right political prism? Doesn’t this structure become convenient to evade responsibility? When Obama launches Drone attacks I find them problematic. I don’t say ‘it’s better than Bush’! or ‘first talk about Bush, then we’ll get to Obama’! These are always easy ways to protect a leader one likes. One keeps all the distinctions in mind, one has to be precise in these matters, which in turn allows one to hold everyone responsible but not in the very same ways.
Finally the really dismaying thing about the Modi support, though completely and boringly predictable given the history of fascist discourses anywhere in the world, is that were he not such a dynamic leader he wouldn’t be defended half as much! Of course even the ‘competence’ question puzzles me sometimes. Either he completely deserves his reputation in which case he deliberately did nothing to stop the violence and/or actively aided it. This takes away the partisan defense that he did nothing. or else he really tried but could do nothing but this then damages the competence veneer! One can’t have it both ways. Modi himself recently said that he was like someone seated in a car that he wasn’t driving (odd thing for a CM to say!) and that ran over a puppy (notice the callous analogy, language always betrays us!). he would feel bad but not responsible! So I guess he’s taking the ‘I couldn’t help it’ excuse. I suppose he’s super-competent when it comes to building super-highways but grossly incompetent when it comes to ensuring the security of every resident of his state!
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September 15, 2013 at 12:12 AM
No one can commit large-scale violent transgressions in a state without the active connivance of the people in power. In 1992, Thackrey was not in power. He had been barking against Muslims since 1975. But why is it that only in Jan of 1992, he was able to actually put words into action? For all those years he had no active support from the State Govt. Thackrey was the head-gunda of a militia which could not dare to act without law enforcement letting it do so. The Congress CM/PM gave him free rein to run a pogrom for 10 days. Similarly, the Sikh riots would not have been continuing for a whole week if Rajiv had not wanted it. If you think that Rajiv was only a driver in charge of an out-of-control vehicle, then Modi was no different. If you feel Modi indeed actively managed the riots (which has not been proven by any court of law until now), then you have to assign the same proportion of blame to Rajiv as well as PVN/Pawar. Rajiv was the acting PM, who despite the terrible blot of Sikh riots, did get re-elected to the largest majority ever acquired in independent India.
All I want to say is that there is not a single blotfree party or politician in India today. You can assign varying degrees of blame to Rajiv, PVN/Pawar, Modi etc on the relativistic scale that you have mentioned. But you can never completely clear their names. Being that it is so, no one can disregard Modi’s candidacy on the question of 2002, as that would be completely hypocritical.
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September 15, 2013 at 12:39 AM
Must say that I find it a bit odd that someone who had pretty much nothing to do with politics and was suddenly thrust into this role is assumed to have been in total control from day 1 and somehow shares the very same responsibility for the anti-Sikh violence that a seasoned politician like Modi does for 2002! This wasn’t like Sanjay Gandhi who was always deeply embedded in politics. The Pawar case is more persuasive though he was never his party’s candidate for PM, was he?
But forget what I think. What do you think? So according to you Rajiv Gandhi shouldn’t have served at all? Alright that history is done. What about Modi? Or should another Hitler be allowed to serve in Germany because the first Hitler also got a chance? I’m hypocritical. What about you? Or do you simply give people free reign because there have been others before them? I just don’t follow your logic at all! You seem to be in total agreement with me that these events were pogroms. But your point seems to be that if some got away scot-free everyone else should too! Or that if some were allowed to have prosperous careers others should too! By this logic why were those rapists sentenced to death recently? Isn’t this hypocritical? So many get away so easily..! On what basis is any criminal punished? the law is always hypocritical because of course everyone engaging in a similar crime is either not punished or not even convicted.
And again Thackray was never close to being a PM candidate. Pawar was talked about once but he never became his party’s candidate not least because his gangland connections stained him as well. And on Rajiv must say I doubt anyone on the planet would be willing to equate him with Modi on this score.
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September 15, 2013 at 12:54 AM
No, I am not saying that Modi shud go scotfree because Rajiv did. There are only 2 national parties (Cong and BJP), and neither of them is taintfree. So in essence, neither you nor I have any choice in trying to elect a taintfree party. My issue is that the media gives a blank check to Congress to go scotfree, but does not do the same to the BJP. That is my point, which you do not want to agree, because you feel that Rajiv was not involved in the same degree.
Also, Rajiv had been in politics since 1981 (after the death of Sanjay). He was being groomed for the top job, and was already a minister when Indira was killed. Modi had been made a compromise CM barely a few months before the riots, he was not even in the administration. Neither of them were seasoned in any sort of disaster management (or riots management). So once again, you have to give the same proportion of blame to both.
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September 15, 2013 at 9:09 AM
Modi was instrumental in the state for a long time before he became CM. he was integrally part of their election campaigns and strategy and so on. Rajiv was pretty green when he became PM (not even CM!) and it showed in all sorts of ways relatively soon. As I’ve said a number of times this is not to excuse Rajiv but let’s say most people would be hard-pressed to believe he was a guy with a communal agenda on his mind. On Modi I believe the opposite. Beyond this I do think there’s general slippage here. This is a move that often comes about when people try to defend the infractions of the Right. So either everyone becomes equally responsible, facts lose all precision, and everyone can be painted with the same brush of abstraction or else one is simply biased. There never seems to be a way to account for horrors that come about on the Right without resorting to this schema which in a sense leaves people blameless. Because if ‘everyone’ is doing it it doesn’t seem so bad! Even otherwise I would be surprised if 99% of the people who invoke the anti-Sikh pogroms in this context ever gave a thought to this before they were asked to defend Modi! This entire logic sets up a frame where either no one blames Modi or if they do they blame him along with 10 others and with the result that he is allowed to proceed in his ambitions because many of the others did too. One rather interesting recuses oneself from any kind of moral judgment with the astonishingly weak excuse that in a two party system one has to vote for someone. But no one running for PM in the current Congress was responsible for the anti-Sikh pogroms right? So there’s more slippage here. Somehow that event stains everyone in the Congress to this day! I wouldn’t have said the same thing if Advani had been the PM candidate or someone else. I still wouldn’t have liked the BJP but I wouldn’t have had this specific objection against a different PM candidate. why is a 30 year old charge sticking on the Congress when a whole generation has gone by in between? Were Manmohan Singh or sonia Gandhi or Rahul gandhi or whoever engaging in pogroms?
It’s not about proportion for me because I don’t see all these events in exactly the same light. The Rajiv Gandhi-Modi equation seems bizarre to me and I think would to most people whether or not they supported Modi. Nonetheless if you see proportion I’m not sure how the rest of your argument follows. So you’re saying you’d vote for Hitler knowing his record if you felt you’d already tried out Stalin? If these were the choices given to me I’d abstain from voting! You have a certain Swiftian logic here where if one guy has been given the chance to massacre a 1000 people and hold office the other guy should be too! By this logic we could keep having candidates who had the same histories! It’s even stranger to rely on something as banal as a two party system to explain this course of action! Again I bring back my other example. Why should the law go after these rapists and not others? So these guys should go free too? And while there are many rapes in India every single day are all of them as horrendous in their violence as this event (or some others like it)?
Forget the media. Forget the left. Once again it’s what you think. One can’t keep bringing up these excuses.
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September 15, 2013 at 9:26 AM
anyway this is beating a dead horse by this point.
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September 15, 2013 at 1:22 AM
Additionally, you just cannot compare the political experience of Rajiv with Modi.
Rajiv was born a few years earlier than Modi, into the ruling political family of India, and from his first breath to his last, was part of the highest echelons of power. There is no way that you can assign ‘political inexperience’ as an excuse to Rajiv. Naive he was, but no way was he unaware of the levers of politics.
Modi is an OBC, born to a tea-stall owner, who helped his father run the tea-stall until he was 17. He was a peon for the Delhi RSS office in his late 20s. He became the CM by consensus between warring political factions, who regret their decision to this day. He was always efficient and shrewd, but it is a stretch to call him a seasoned politician when he became CM.
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September 15, 2013 at 2:45 AM
Satyam, You dont put any facts but only long comments bereft of facts. You need to read more on 1984 and RG involvement.
Yes, In your Eyes its Secular riots.
Who said, ” When big tree falls, earth is bound to shake” ??
Who didnt allowed army in delhi for 3 days??? ( Delhi has Cantonment)
Read Julius Raberio and Ved Marwah and also Tavleen singh.
You are so far unable to put one fact but your own perceptions which you are entitled to but before spreading lies and canards, show empirical evidence. If perception is only thing thn Nehru right now is most Cursed and hated figure in India
Partition Happened due to Modi
Assam Neelie riots ( Killing 4000 Muslims) by Modi.
1984 Sikh Genocide also by Modi
Bhagalpur Riots also by Modi
pre 2002 Guj riots also by Modi
Emergency was Imposed by Modi in 1975
It was not Indira but Modi who wanted to change the consititution for ever in India but for SC ( Keshave nanada Bharti Case)
Sterlization was also done by Modi.
Turkman Gate was also done by Modi
Muzzafarnagar forced sterilisation, leading to riots was also done by Modi.
Recent 35 riots incl Muzzafar nagar riots is also by Modi.
Middle east problem is also by Modi.
Recent Syria problem is also coz of Modi.
Long comments dont count, any argument can be twisted in both ways, so better come with Facts and Empirical evidences. Perception matters in Mind not on public space.
10 K uslims have been killed by Congress Govt but they are not anti Minority, but 742 unfortunate deaths in Guj is Anti Minority.
Plz List out Facts not long essays which contain nothing. Show me Facts and let me also have chance to refute this Fact. If you win. I will say Sorry but dont spread lies.
Thanks
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September 15, 2013 at 9:11 AM
“Show me Facts and let me also have chance to refute this Fact. ”
I don’t wish to confuse you..!
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September 15, 2013 at 9:23 AM
“I don’t wish to confuse you..!”
This is lame defeatist argument one usually comes up with when one has no FACTS to substantiate save Rhetoric ….!
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September 15, 2013 at 9:29 AM
whatever makes you happy..
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September 14, 2013 at 5:42 PM
Hilter was not democratic leader. Modi is chosen 3 times with record majority and unparalleled success in each election.
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September 14, 2013 at 5:57 PM
Actually hitler was democratically elected. Whatever he did later he still for the longest time had the total support of his people and probably would have won bigger a second time around or more. For the longest time he was ‘god’ in Germany. Once again the very same reasons that people now support Hitler. Down to the last detail. The bogeyman of the left, the minority in control of the majority, the economic miracle etc etc. In every country at every point in history over the last century or so you’d find the very same factors at play in these fascist outfits. exactly the same. The consequences often vary because all leaders in this sense don’t face the very same situations.
Of course you had terrifying Communist experiments too but even in the most left-leaning states of India and whether these folks have been in power in Kerala or in W Bengal (specially here) there has been nothing remotely close to that sort of Communist governance. And even the Communists of W Bengal have move far far away from their traditional discourse in the previous decades. So the idea that anyone in India is being equated with that sort of communist is just a rather miserable joke.
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September 14, 2013 at 6:08 PM
Will say though that Modi doesn’t translate that well outside of a ‘Shining India’ crowd. Part of it is ethnic but part of it is the suspicion surrounding 2002 not just among religious minorities but also lower castes. He might still win of course and it would be a pretty black day for India.”
educated muslims like satyam have to be rational rather than repeat same rheotric time and again for e.g hitler
on thought process let me remind modi himself belong to lower caste rather than upper strata and to rest most of india shining brigade media that is media where hostile to him..thats what mayawati or karunanidhi missed and today the bigest irony is a man of lower caste is a big poster boy and a pan india figure because he never carried caste identity(thats why someone like nitish opposes him more )
rest all came strictly by performance
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September 14, 2013 at 6:12 PM
“Of course you had terrifying Communist experiments too but even in the most left-leaning states of India and whether these folks have been in power in Kerala or in W Bengal (specially here) there has been nothing remotely close to that sort of Communist governance. And even the Communists of W Bengal have move far far away from their traditional discourse in the previous decades. So the idea that anyone in India is being equated with that sort of communist is just a rather miserable joke.”
you mean to say white paper issued against cpi m in 1962 right after china war or repeated guerelling voilence in bengal during election
communist where the single sole reason for destroying bengal and kerala especially industries
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September 14, 2013 at 6:37 PM
ground reality:
have ever heard of emergency when democratic law where stopped …the true hitler type atmosphere
in 84:
“when big tree falls earth shakes”
in 89 when pandits where masscared and cleansed
this sort of actual propaganda to do name calling (like hitler)and congress knows it better than most after burning there hands repeately by calling the same to modi for a decade
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September 14, 2013 at 7:17 PM
Modi wants to be the PM that’s why one talks more of him and Gujarat riots and not the sikh riots etc.
If someone directly related to the sikh riots wants to be the PM he’ll be dealt with with equal severity and dislike.
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September 15, 2013 at 3:41 AM
son of that guy aspires to be pm and current cabinet has minister pandering to that
how azam khan is minister then in up
how madani the man responsible for plootting of advani is poster boy for muslims in kerala
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September 15, 2013 at 3:45 AM
you mean to say supreme court the highest rule of land is joke
you mean to say sit and cbi headed by congress is joke(read judgement)
where are the ngo’s who plotted case, who funds teesta and why she go ticket from congress
you mean to say people of gujrat who elects him thrice is joke and before gujrat riots godhra happened ….burning of 59 hindus in broad daylight ….
sorry not convincing but a rheotric
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September 15, 2013 at 9:31 AM
Of course. It’s all a big joke and the politicians are laughing hard.
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September 14, 2013 at 12:26 PM
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/12-year-old-girl-commits-suicide-after-being-cyberbullied-for-months/articleshow/22585209.cms
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September 14, 2013 at 2:46 PM
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, Who is elevated to BJP PM Candidate for Lok Sabha elections, has broken record of most searched person on Google.
Modi, who has emerged as most popular political icon in India, entered the record book after his name received maximum number of search on Google in a day.
Around 1000077332 (Over one billion) people searched the keyword Narendra Modi on search engine giant Google.
Earlier, this record was named after US President Barack Obama. During the US presidential elections, Barack Obama received 9877532 number of search in a single day.
On Friday, BJP top brass named Modi as its Prime Ministerial Candidate, ignoring veteran LK Advani’s opposition.
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September 14, 2013 at 3:17 PM
An open letter to Obama
Dear Mr. President,
At the outset, you must be wondering if we Indians have anything better to do with our time than faxing you letters of our grievances, sending chain mails and writing open letters to you. And, yes, you are absolutely right. We have no regard for our time, your time, or anybody else’s time and neither do we know how to manage our internal affairs internally. This is an inherent trait and try however hard to shrug it off, we cannot, and we will be taking this quality to our graves. I am not quite sure how seriously you would be taking the contents of the letter that has been faxed to you by 65 Honorable Members of our Parliament, especially after certain signatories to the letter like Mr. Sitaram Yechuri, KP Ramalingam and Mr. Shantaram Naik now claim that they have never signed the letter in the first place. Well, that’s how the system in our side of the world works; it reeks of confusion, offers very little pellucidity and usually accepts forgery as a norm. The letter was signed more than seven months back and faxed to you a few days ago. Well, it has taken seven months to get a letter across to you, again this is exactly how our system is, as slow as a paralyzed snail. I am quite sure you have done all your research on the workings of the great Indian democracy, lucidly put; the wheels of the great Indian democracy are stuck in a rut.
I am rather embarrassed with the actions of 65 Members of Parliament of my country. Our Parliamentarians work very hard Mr. President. They work hard at projecting my country in the poorest of light on the world stage. This is not new to us. Our administration took it upon them to do exactly this even when we were gearing up a few years back to host the Commonwealth games, it was our greatest chance to show the world once and for all, how our qualified politicians acquired their Masters degree in corruption and inefficiency. I am sure you arched your eyebrows and stifled a chuckle when CNN kept playing those shameful footages of ‘paan’ stained toilets, crumbling infrastructure and how the President of the Indian Olympic Association was peddling toilet paper rolls for an astronomical amount. Our country today is better known for corrupt practices, inefficient systems, slowest economic growth in a decade, crumbling rupee and even for the biggest religious divide in its post independence history. Gone are the days when we were famous for snake charmers, yogis smoking pot and for holding the world record for longest fingernails. Our politicians are now performing the great Indian rope trick instead. We have nobody but our Parliamentarians to blame for this mess, the same ones who sent that fax to you requesting you not to grant a visa for a democratically elected head of a state. “It is almost unthinkable that Indian lawmakers would appeal to the United States to take a stand on an internal matter. ” The Washington Post reported. Well Mr. President, this what our politicians do best, they do the unthinkable, amply enough to make us hang our heads in collective shame.
Why could the 65 MPs not try to take action here in India to curb Mr. Modi’s travels? Would they even try to pass a resolution in Parliament to confiscate Mr. Modi’s passport? Could they even attempt this? No. This is why; they have come running to you Mr. President. And if you consider Mr. Modi to be as dangerous and as sinister as these 65 Parliamentarians make him to be, it is rather surprising that your country would engage in business ties with his state. In fact, as recently as March 2013 Members of Congress from Illinois, Wyoming and Washington state visited Gujarat, visibly attracted by Modi’s ‘business friendly policies”. The high level delegation went one step further; they invited Modi to the United States of America. “We were impressed with what we have seen . . . and we extended an invitation to the chief minister to come to United States and share with our colleagues some of what he has done here in the state,” Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.), who led a delegation of U.S. lawmakers and business leaders, told reporters in Gujarat. Precisely the reason again why American companies like Ford and General Motors, hallmarks of the great American pride have set shop in Gujarat. Surely Mr. President, the great American pride would not allow you to separate business opportunities from democratic values?
A true democracy like the United States would find little use in entertaining a letter that reeks of communalistic intent. Your great country has allowed free travel for our notable politicians who have had more blood in their hands than all the blood that a city’s blood bank can hold. And yet, it is rather surprising why your immigration laws are not allowing a man who has received a clean chit from the highest court’s appointed SIT of our country into yours. This is certainly not an appeal that Mr. Modi be granted a visa to travel to the United States. It really does not matter whether the United States grants Mr. Modi a visa or not, I do not believe his political career in India is dependent on it. But, that majestic lady in New York harbor wears a smirk on her face; it might help to wipe it.
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September 14, 2013 at 4:26 PM
As the political scene heats up, this thread would see more activity. This thread would be better served if we do things in civil manner. As we see people have different opinions and probably more passionate on the their positions than movie star views. Please note than in blogosphere you can not convince the other that you are the right person. So if we keep airing our opinion rather than imposing we would be fine!
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September 14, 2013 at 5:51 PM
agreed.. your reasoning is incontestable.. now all we need to do is find more reasonable people like you!
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September 14, 2013 at 6:11 PM
Since nobody speaks how Modi is expected to be separate from BJP I thought of posting this. It speaks of BJP/congress.
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September 14, 2013 at 6:13 PM
The whole thing including the clip is not sophisticated since it’s made by unprofessional volunteers, of his speech. But what he says is far more worthy than all those sophisticated clips.
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September 14, 2013 at 6:17 PM
I’m posting these to dilute the Modi intensification.
http://www.electionnewsindia.com/news-450-iit-delhi-students-join-aap-to-support-iit-alumni.html
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September 14, 2013 at 6:17 PM
and what does mr sophiscated anna thinks of arvind kejriwal …and why he has stopped talking about vadra or reliance or even modi
arvind has support but still he is a small fish comparatively namo is shark …time lagega abhi
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September 14, 2013 at 6:20 PM
He talks of them in every speech. Satyam might get annoyed if I post all his speeches here.
He’s concentrating on water and electricity mafia for the moment.
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September 14, 2013 at 6:50 PM
that is why educated india thinks very highly of narendra modi, subramaniam swamy or even kejriwal
for record other prime minister candidate is not them but pappu sorry i mean rahul gandhi
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September 14, 2013 at 6:54 PM
I think it’s more the middle class, not the educated (I believe he himself is not very highly educated) who support him because he’s looking after their consumerist greed and tendencies very well.
I’m happy that the uneducated have got someone to look up to, and Arving Kejriwal is better educated.
Love the irony – educated man is hero of uneducated (whose fault is that?) and not so well educated is hero of the so called educated.
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September 14, 2013 at 7:00 PM
actually to trap undeucated only the propaganda business continues because for them mahatma gandhi is related to dynasty or even lolipop of food security bill can be served or for that matter liquor and food to give votes or other free bees
namo and arvind’s base came from educated lower and upper middle class but again they have to vote
tavleen on governance:
uch an ominous sense of bad times and foreboding hangs over political Delhi today that it is hard to remember that Sonia Gandhi took power in a happy, hopeful time 10 years ago. When she first chose Manmohan Singh to govern India on her behalf, the economy was booming, foreign investors were flocking to our shores and young Indians were coming home from studies abroad instead of staying on. Remember? Remember how economic analysts predicted that by 2050, at the latest, India would enter the ranks of middle-income countries and would become able to offer all her citizens a release from the unrelenting horror of poverty?
This dream of prosperity is what Sonia has killed in the decade that she has been India’s de facto prime minister. She has killed it by changing our economic direction and taking us back to the times when Indira Gandhi sold us a more diminished dream—’Garibi hatao’. With the passage of the food security and land Bills in the Lok Sabha last week, Sonia has made it clear that this is all she wants for India. Not prosperity but just the removal of poverty. She seems uninterested in India becoming a rich and prosperous country with fine, modern cities and a growing middle class. Could it be because such things threaten dynastic democracy?
It is easier to persuade Indians mired in poverty and marginal farming that dynastic democracy is in their best interests because like in feudal times, they will be looked after. They will be given cheap food grain and they will be given the right not to sell their land so that they can continue being subsistence farmers forever and ever. Of course they will have to do without roads, electricity, clean water, modern health care and sanitation, but so what? They can go to the ration shop and get their cheap food grain. And they can go to court and demand that their children be allowed to attend Delhi’s Sanskriti School, currently filled with the children of politicians and bureaucrats, because they have the right to education.
Sonia’s ‘rights-based governance’ and her vaunted ‘concern for the poor’ has brought the Indian economy to its knees. And there is no chance of it reviving because who is going to invest in a country in which the new land law makes buying land almost impossible? Under the new law you would need the consent of 80 per cent of the local population to acquire land for a road or an airport and then you would need to spend years ‘rehabilitating’ the affected families. Sonia’s acolytes went public after the land Bill was passed to declare that the law would make up for ‘centuries of injustice done to Indian farmers’. Incidentally, when farmers discover that they cannot sell irrigated land as easily as before, the proverbial you-know-what could really hit the ceiling. But by then there will be a new government in Delhi.
After the damage done by this one, we must hope that it will be a government with a happier economic vision. But since our leading opposition party has supported two of the most retrogressive laws ever made, the BJP does not deserve this chance. Narendra Modi is the only political leader, since Jawaharlal Nehru, who has articulated an economic vision that is new and definitely not socialist but how can he implement it with the Congress party’s B team as his A team? He needs to ask himself this question.
There were ways to oppose both the very flawed new laws that Sonia and Rahul have taken proud credit for. Why did the BJP not try and find them? Why did they not point out that if we spent the Rs 125,000 crore we will be spending by next year on food security on sanitation, better school meals and rural health care, we would end malnutrition and create desperately needed public services? Why did they not oppose the land Bill on the grounds that it would make it impossible to build the modern infrastructure without which India cannot move forward? These are questions that will be asked over and over again in the years to come. Meanwhile, we must reconcile ourselves to the sad reality that Sonia Gandhi’s socialism has ensured that India becomes the sick man of South Asia.
This is a terrifying thought in the week that we caught Yasin Bhatkal, allegedly responsible for nearly every jihadi terrorist act in the past decade. What does jihadi terrorism have to do with our economic collapse? Everything. In the 21st century, a country’s strength is measured as much by its economic might as it is by its military prowess. So an economically weak India is easy prey. Is it any wonder that the pall of gloom that hangs over India gets darker every day?
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September 14, 2013 at 7:08 PM
Please, Please stop bracketing Kejriwal and Modi together.
I’m a great admirer of the former and even looking at the face of the latter repulses me.
Modi is as corrupt as any other politician at present. Why is he not supporting RTI – it makes him poles apart from AK.
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September 14, 2013 at 6:23 PM
Anna’s opinion shouldn’t worry one. He’ll ultimately get what he wants once Kejriwal and AAP get in.
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September 14, 2013 at 6:25 PM
can certainly see bjp and aap coming together and form government in delhi
i am here on this forum only
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September 14, 2013 at 6:31 PM
I think AAP will win DElhi.
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September 14, 2013 at 6:23 PM
its funny how things changes
isn’t us was behind the rise of anna or arvind to create anarchy or isn’t they where rss face ….this is what fed by ruiing elite cum congrss and its media associates .. what an irony that they need these name to save face against competent
its funny how time is a big leveller
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September 14, 2013 at 6:30 PM
If US support gets rid out the corruption, by anarchy what does it matter?
Not that I believe one bit of this.
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September 14, 2013 at 8:08 PM
Some good points Oldgold–think u should stand for indian elections -u will do a good job 🙂
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September 15, 2013 at 12:20 AM
This is india inflation rate in last 20 years.
CPI India 2013 11.14 % CPI India 2003 3.81 % (Bjp)
CPI India 2012 9.30 % CPI India 2002 4.31 % (Bjp)
CPI India 2011 8.87 % CPI India 2001 3.77 % (Bjp)
CPI India 2010 12.11 % CPI India 2000 4.02 % (Bjp)
CPI India 2009 10.83 % CPI India 1999 4.84 % (Bjp)
CPI India 2008 8.32 % CPI India 1998 13.17 %
CPI India 2007 6.39 % CPI India 1997 7.25 %
CPI India 2006 5.79 % CPI India 1996 8.98 %
CPI India 2005 4.25 % CPI India 1995 10.22 %
CPI India 2004 3.77 % (Bjp) CPI India 1994 10.24 %
– See more at: http://www.inflation.eu/inflation-rates/india/historic-inflation/cpi-inflation-india.aspx#sthash.SHc8LOAB.dpuf
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September 15, 2013 at 12:28 AM
I don’t know if such low inflation rate during Bjp was only for hindus. Satyam and sanjana can possible describe if muslims suffered high inflation rate during that time. Possibly, they would like to credit Shri Abdul kalam if muslims also faced low inflation that time. But, don’t forget Abdul kalam was nominated and selected during Bjp. Even this time, Only bjp nominated Abdul kalam and supported while all sickular parties Congress, SP, Bsp, Rjd supported and nominated their own political party leader Pranab Mukherjee.
If anyone heard president’s speech on independence eve this year. One can see difference in pranab mukherjee’s crammed meaningless sentences and old speeches of Abdul kalam.
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September 15, 2013 at 10:23 AM
Hitler carried out a sustained campaign of economic marginalization of Jews, followed by their eventual extermination. All this happened while Germany ascended economically and militarily. If Modi were doing this like Hitler, we would not be seeing Muslims get richer in Gujurat. Muslims have participated equally in the economic boom over there, had they not, they would not vote for him in the last elections. Why have Muslim constituencies ditched Congress and voted for BJP in 2012?
If he were running sustained violent campaigns against Muslims, why is it that there has not been a single riot after 2002? There have been more than 100 communal riots/incidents in UP in the past 18 months alone (ie since the Muslim-leaning SP came to power). How do you explain these facts?
Back in the 80s and 90s, when Congress ruled Gujurat continuously, one could not travel through the heart of Ahmedabad without fear of getting stuck in a communal disturbance. The Relief Road and Kalupur areas were notorious for violence. During one stretch in the 80s, there was a permanent presence of army there, to prevent skirmishes. Today, these areas are totally peaceful,and have been violence free for more than a decade. This had never happened in the history of Gujurat since independence. How do you account for this fact?
One just cannot throw crap at the wall and hope some of it will stick. The ‘secular’ media has created a bogeyman which they love to beat everyday. But the ground situation of Gujurat is far removed from the grotesque image painted by the media. Now that masses in other states have figured out the reality, the ‘secular’ media has gone into a tizzy, unable to put one fact on paper, while continuously diminishing their own credibility.
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September 15, 2013 at 10:31 AM
How can Modi carry out a sustained campaign against muslims like Hitler did in these modern times? Vajpayee would have kicked him out.
And Hyderabad which has more muslims, does not have a permanent military post anywhere near old Hyderabad or other muslim pockets. Hyderabadi hindus are better than ahmedabadi hindus, it seems.
Kaviji, think it over.
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September 15, 2013 at 10:39 AM
Taali ek haath se kabhi nahi bajti.
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September 15, 2013 at 10:49 AM
Yes, someone should have told this to the Jews! Or the Sikhs of ’84? Or the Pandits of Jammu in the 90s and beyond?
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September 15, 2013 at 10:55 AM
anyway we’re really beating a dead horse. I say this again! I am not interested in what the left is saying or whether Rajiv Gandhi’s ghost visits the Congress daily and smears them anew with the blood of those Sikh victims. I am strangely enough much more interested in the present gentleman who hopes to become PM with the willing support of those who seem to think that in balance of justice you have horrible human atrocities on one side and spanking new highways on the other. And if anyone questions this one can blame the lefties in the media for not agreeing to this. But wait, let’s get Modi elected PM quickly before those 11% completely overrun the country and dominate it even more totally. We know what the Jews did to germany after all.
anyway this will be it from my side on this debate. I still operate under the rather quaint notion that if someone is subjected to such violence one should not be entering political debates about who is responsible for as much or worse. Similarly if one responsible for this can be prevented one should hope for this without entering into a similar calculus about how many got away. I would say the very same, have said the very same, in every such context irrespective of the ethnic or religious or national identity of the victims,
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September 15, 2013 at 10:33 AM
” If these were the choices given to me I’d abstain from voting! You have a certain Swiftian logic here where if one guy has been given the chance to massacre a 1000 people and hold office the other guy should be too! By this logic we could keep having candidates who had the same histories! ”
And again, as I asked you. What choice do you have in a country where not a single party is untainted? Everyone has had their pet-pogrom. Now, are you going to abstain, or vote for the party which showed some semblance of economic development and delivery of prosperity to the masses in the past decade? If you keep bringing back the same corrupt party to power, it will be like the definition of insanity, ie keep doing the same wrong thing hoping that it would become right the next time.
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September 15, 2013 at 10:48 AM
What pogrom is Sonia Gandhi or Manmohan Singh or Rahul Gandhi responsible for? Very conveniently you have Modi on one side and the Congress on the other. I’ve never said anything against Vajpayee. I’ve not even said anything against the far more hardline Advani in this context. And we’re not here to discuss corruption. The Nazis though were pretty corruption-free! You could run down the list. every single thing you’re saying in support of Modi I could apply to Hitler and Nazi Germany on the economic front. Except that Hitler’s turnaround was a lot more impressive. Perhaps when a pogrom is organized the community being subjected to such should be impressed by the organizer’s relative honesty — hey at least he’s not corrupt. Not I’ll submit my wife to gang-rape and myself to a burning tire with some relief.
I wish I could say that these statements were caricatures but given some of the things you’re saying I don’t even have to try to come up with these Swiftian responses!
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September 15, 2013 at 10:41 AM
You’re comparing two different things. First off ‘riots’ or ‘communal violence’ isn’t the same as a ‘pogrom’. On your ‘peace’ comment I am reminded of this great Tacitus comment about Roman tactics (sometimes) with respect to particularly belligerent tribes who put up great resistance when faced with the prospect of domination:
“they made it a desert and called it peace.”
So yes in a desert there is peace. When a community has been terrorized certain things follow.
On the rest one doesn’t have to rise to Hitler’s precise level. One can be in the same genealogy.
Finally excuse me if I laugh a bit at this representation of the virtuous right constantly big bad wolf of the secular left! hitler would approve though. He relentlessly attacked the left in Germany for being part of the Communist threat. As did every other fascist leader in similar circumstances. The script in this sense is boringly overdetermined!
but I notice that throughout this exchange you are still not willing to put your own moral sense on the line. As I said forget the left and the media and whatever. What is your own sense in these matters? Because once more following your logic these Delhi rapists should not be getting any kind of sentence. perhaps they should run for office! There have undoubtedly been rapist politicians!
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September 15, 2013 at 12:15 PM
Off course, morally, I do not approve of any violence. Loss of innocent lives is deplorable, especially when it occurs in mob frenzies. The mobs who killed the 59 Hindu pilgrims were wrong, the mobs who killed the Muslims in retaliation were even worse. Or the mobs who killed Sikhs in 1984, and all throughout our history since independence. Nothing can justify loss of lives, there can be no moral shirking away.
In my youth, and having been brainwashed on the standard CBSE textbooks glorifying Congress, I was unmoved by the violence that befell Sikhs in 1984. Only in university in Karnataka, when I befriended Sikhs from Delhi, did I realize what a mob frenzy can do. I even saw the burning embers of Mumbai on the 7th day of riots in 1992. We were all going back for our winter break in a bus from Bangalore to Mumbai. The roads into Mumbai had opened on that day, and our bus was one of the first ones to go in. It was horrific.
If I act on my moral compass, then yes, I cannot consciously vote for any party in India. They are all a bunch of manipulators, who ignite passions for votes. You cannot separate Sonia/Rahul from Rajiv. They have shielded the perpetrators such as Jagdish Tytler/Sajjan Kumar from any justice. (In contrast, Maya Kodnani who incited the worst violence at Naroda Patia was sentenced to life imprisonment). Since Sonia/Rahul have continued on the legacy of denying justice to victims, how can their hands be washed off that blood?
So, my question remains, what are you going to do come election time?
And just came across this article, which encapsulates much of our own argument here:
Gujarat 2002 vs Delhi 1984: Which genocide should we vote against?
http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/point-and-shoot/entry/gujarat-2002-vs-delhi-1984-which-genocide-should-we-vote-against
Read the comments section to get an idea of how people across India are thinking.
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September 15, 2013 at 12:49 PM
We all know that comments section is being captured by paid slaves.
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September 15, 2013 at 12:55 PM
Oh cmon! So that makes me a paid slave?? Pls, be a bit balanced.
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September 15, 2013 at 12:56 PM
Not you.
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September 15, 2013 at 2:02 PM
Yes but the piece you’ve pointed out reveals the secret politics of such opinion. No one, yes NO ONE, was talking about the anti-Sikh pogroms for the longest time. people happily voted (or not) for the Congress but this wasn’t a defining issue. Rather conveniently it suddenly becomes a defining issue now, 30 years after the original event. Why? This is called giving the ‘liberal’ Modi voter a permission slip. Hey they’re all equally bad, since we can’t vote against all of them, we have to vote for someone we shall do so for Modi with clean consciences! This is all it amounts to. I am completely dubious about such good consciences only when they arise at such opportune moments! Speaking for myself I had huge problems when this happened in Bombay in 1993, I was rather too young to take in the anti-Sikh violence for what it was and not least because they never talked about it much at the time (is this a media failure? absolutely! But the media also totally failed when it came to covering the Bomaby violence. Thackeray never got the press that Modi got), it’s not a personal thing against Modi, it is what he represents. But your idea that ‘everyone’ in Congress is responsible because they didn’t bring the ’84 perpetrators to justice and even Rahul Gandhi is personably responsible seems to be a very high standard. What next? We’re going to find old stalwarts who were complicit in the Partition violence? Do we start hunting for BJP figures who might have condoned Gandhi’s assassination or at least were in bed with the same groups? This is not a reasonable standard by any stretch and once again it simply gives you a permission slip to vote for Modi! Because either one of your arguments depends not on holding Modi accountable for his guilt (which you accept) but rather bizarrely holding others for their own episodes first. So we never quite get to Modi. His turn never comes! Don’t you think there’s some very specious logic involved here? In other words a black voter in the US shouldn’t vote for Dems because once upon a time the Dems were like the Republicans of today on some of these issues and vice versa. The Democrats until very recently even had segregationists in their ranks. Well advanced in age but there nonetheless. What society or human being functions like this? Even accepting the parity you’ve proposed between Rajiv Gandhi and Modi which I absolutely do not. the defense of Modi rests on there being absolute purity on the other side otherwise everything will be muddied up by you and Modi rescued this way! That’s like saying that those who engaged in 500 crore telecom scams are more or less the same as those who bribe someone a certain amount to take care of their electricity bills. And until these latter are accounted for the guy who gets into that scam should be allowed to run for higher office. And it’s also puzzling why using that very same logic why you’re objecting to Congress corruption at all? Everyone’s corrupt. Even if those in the Congress are moreso (let’s accept this for the moment) we should account for all the BJP corruption first and then decide. So no matter which way you slice and dice it, whether it’s about the corruption or about these pogroms the BJP always gets the benefit of the doubt!
Let me say this and using standards that are far more reasonable. If any of the Congress leadership, reasonably in line to become PM, were guilty of such a pogrom I would not vote for them. And if Modi’s on the other side? I would vote for neither. Yes one of them would still be in power but not with my vote. I can’t control the outcome of an entire election but I certainly would find it unconscionable to vote for any such leader. Nothing forces one to vote in these circumstances. Does one side win anyway? Sure! But not with one’s signature on it. This is not a bland Gore v Bush kind of deal where you vote for Nader and enable the side you might not have wished for. In that scenario you already have a side. In this case however I would have none.
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September 15, 2013 at 3:13 PM
People think Modi can be voted to power like Obama.
Does one even know how the PM is elected in India?
People won’t be voting for corrupt Modi(who’s so afraid of RTI) but for corrupt BJP.
So to get one corrupt Modi (who’s so afraid of RTI) up there as the PM, all over India at least 250 constituencies would have to vote for any Tom Dick and Harry or Donkey who gets the BJP ticket – all to get one corrupt man(who’s so afraid of RTI) up there.
What about these 250+ corrupt people spread all over India?
Basically it’s corrupt BJP not corrupt Modi(who’s so afraid of RTI) alone.
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September 15, 2013 at 6:43 PM
LMAO !! the comments above reinforce my belief that left are lies and right is Right !!
RTI, Hitler, Pogrom, autocratic, Democracy, development , ..sab kuch chod do..kuch toh lagega !!
Lekin ho kuch aur hee raha hai- Godhra realization ( finally),Burqa’s lies, Teesta’s lies, Sriniwas jain’s lies, Sagrika Ghost’s lies, all getting caught by the social media, Batala, Azad Maidaan, Muzaaffarnagar, SIT report, Ishrat confirmed to be a terrorist, Congress minister claiming no home grown terror only to deny the next day, Gujrati muslims supporting Modi, biggest rally of ex servicemen ( coming soon statement by Commies- Indian Military is also communal ),and so many othe lies getting busted !!!!
becharey commies kee dukaan bad honey wali hai !!!!
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September 15, 2013 at 6:47 PM
It’s not happened yet! Let’s see…
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September 16, 2013 at 12:12 AM
lol biggest one was ib itself when they said about appeasement policy that to asif ibrahim the muslic chief loggerhead with cbi
more gems just gone through:
btw who will implement rti …the most corrupt government in history…lokayukta to banaengi nahi yeh
ahmdabadi hindu cheap than hyderabadi…
certainly one sardar patel showed his cheapness when nizam threatened to kill 1.5 lakhs hindus in hyd with operation polo…stil don’t understood why there is army cantonment in secuenderabad and why frequent problem comes in old city
paid slaves which remind me of a not so pure kushwant sigh once describing current english media as paid prostitute
hitler hitler hitler roflmao
kuch bhi
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September 16, 2013 at 12:20 AM
http://www.niticentral.com/2012/08/27/namos-stand-more-credible-than-liberal-rage-5003.html
n December of 2007, Karan Thapar wrote a column in the Hindustan Times with hateful rhetoric against Narendra Modi, using phrases like “sudden removal of Narendra Modi”. In July of 2010, Vir Sanghvi, writing in a column, called Narendra Modi a Serbian war criminal. This, after routinely slandering Modi as a “mass murderer” and likening him to Hitler.
In fact, one has lost count of the number of hate-filled columns written by assorted Left-liberal and Muslim commentators repeating the Hitler slur. Leave alone the amount of abuse and personal slander, including explicit threats, that come Modi’s way across social media on a daily basis.
Hence it was amusing to see celebrity television anchors and assorted voices in social media cry hypocrisy over Modi’s decision to protest the Sonia Gandhi-led UPA’s clumsy attempt at political censorship of the Internet. Narendra Modi protests censorship by UPA
Slandering Modi has been a matter of habit for many so-called ‘liberal’ commentators. In July of 2011, historian Ramachandra Guha got his history abysmally wrong when he sought to inject Modi into a column on free speech with false claims of a ban on a Aamir Khan movie. This was after another column by Guha in April of 2011 that reeked of class prejudice against Modi. One can count at least three editorials in the Indian Express over the past many years making false claims on Modi. Leave alone the manner in which clips from the movie Parzania were interlaced with Tehelka’s sting-op on the 2002 riots back in 2007 ahead of a key State election.
The sum total of the hatred and slander expressed towards Modi should make many sit up and wonder how many defamation suits, criminal complaints and content removal requests were filed?
In stark contrast to the thin-skinned celebrity anchors and the Sonia Gandhi-led Congress, not even one complaint was filed.
Apart from independent MPs like Rajeev Chandrashekhar, Modi is the only major politician who has been steadfast in speaking up on attempts to censor the Internet. Not even the other rockstar politician in social media, Shashi Tharoor, has been unequivocal in speaking out on social media freedom.
Those ‘liberals’ who bring up the two book bans by Modi’s Government in Gujarat should look within for having failed the Evelyn Beatrice Hall test on free speech themselves on Subramanian Swamy’s column in DNA. As despicable and bigoted that column was it did not issue a call for violence while seeking to accomplish the bigoted agenda by the most constitutional of means — a two thirds majority in Parliament.
Those who could not find within themselves to defend Swamy’s right to free but bigoted speech have no credibility in judging others’ record on free speech. The two book bans while unfortunate pale in significance when compared to the extent of tolerance Modi has shown towards his most vicious critics in social media and mainstream media.
The reality of free speech in India is there is none given the spate of laws and court judgements. Rather than getting into a lose-lose debate of one upmanship over free speech credentials, all digitally active Indian citizens must recognise that this was an attempt at political censorship by the Sonia Gandhi-led UPA. Instead of getting sanctimonious over free speech credentials every digitally active citizen should join in to speak up against this political censorship lest a wrong precedent be set that will come back to haunt them in future.
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September 16, 2013 at 12:47 AM
So who is Satya Harishchndra amidst all these liers according to you? The one and only Modiji, the epitome of innocence, the epitome of truth, the epitome of tolerance, the epitome of non violence, the epitome of all the goodness etc. etc. Have I missed anything? The commies and Ndtv, IBN folks are exact opposite of what Mr. Satyaharishchandra is. Congress is the most corrupt party and it is responsible for the storms, earthquakes, undisciplined kids, runaway wives, cranky boss, quarrelsome neighbour, sickness, failed love affairs, barking dogs, mother in law problems, flop films etc. Have I missed anything else?
Modi is sent by god himself personally while Congress is sent personally by the devil. All Modi needs is a halo and 4 hands and a golden throne to join the legion of gods. All the right people are on the right side and all the others are on the left side.
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September 16, 2013 at 12:51 AM
this is kalyug there is no harishchandra
most corrupt party is not said by me but reflected on governance …when has one seen this much loot
http://www.lensonnews.com/news_detail.php?cID=2&nID=43&aID=1816
n an opinion poll conducted by LensOnNews in ten cities across the country, a majority (58 per cent) of the respondents in the poll have described the incumbent Manmohan Singh led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre as the “most corrupt government ever.” Only 30 per cent of the respondents thought otherwise, while 12 per cent had no opinion in this regard.
The succession of scams and scandals that have come to light during the reign of the UPA government have shaken the faith of the people in the UPA government at the Centre. After all, many of the serial scams (Commonwealth Games, 2G spectrum allocation, Adarsh Housing Society, the scandalous appointment of P.J. Thomas as CVC) have been carried on brazenly in the public eye, with the media reporting the happenings in real time. The perpetrators carried on regardless; the rot in the system was too far gone, there were no checks and balances. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, when he was not clueless, pleaded that he was helpless.
The voters in the poll were asked, “If you were to name one state government that is the least corrupt in the country today, which would that state be?” No options were given and the respondents were free to mention whichever state they liked. As many as 40 per cent of the respondents to the poll named Narendra Modi’s Gujarat, evidently for its record of performance in providing responsive and corruption-free government in the state.
Nitish Kumar’s Bihar was a distant second with 17 per cent naming it as the state with least corruption. Communist ruled Kerala emerged at the third position with 8 per cent. The UPA ruled states of Maharashtra, Delhi and Rajasthan figured low down in the order with barely four to five per cent of respondents mentioning them as states with least corruption.
The positive appreciation of some state governments shows that the governance is not uniformly bleak, despite the big-time corruption at the Centre. Aam aadmi at the state and local levels, it seems, has been spared from the menace of corruption at least in select non-Congress ruled states.
Asked if they are hopeful that the movement initiated by Anna Hazare will help reduce corruption in the country, 55 per cent of the respondents answered in the affirmative. Only half that number (27 per cent) was skeptical of achieving positive results in eliminating corruption. Most people thus seem to think that the institution of an independent Lokpal as proposed by him, with substantive powers to investigate complaints against the highest leaders and officials of government, will at last lead to real and meaningful action against high-level corruption.
Anna Hazare’s fast, and the spontaneous surge of support it evoked across the nation, did not quite amount to our own “Tahrir Square”, but nevertheless it shook Manmohan Singh’s government at the Centre and forced it to respond positively to the popular demand to bring forward a Lokpal bill with real teeth.
A chorus of pro-establishment voices have been raised in panic that this is succumbing to ‘blackmail’ and would undermine parliamentary democracy, and dirty tricks have been employed in trying to smear the leading anti-corruption activists including the Bhushans (father and son) and Anna Hazare himself, but the popular support for the movement has endured.
It is no one’s contention that the institution of a Jan Lokpal will, by itself, end corruption in India. But it will be huge first step. By bringing accountability to the top levels of the government, it will make further systemic reforms at middle and lower levels much easier.
Baba Ramdev, the yoga guru with millions of followers across the country has been a prominent crusader against governmental corruption, and was seen prominently by Anna Hazare’s side at the demonstrations in Jantar Mantar. He had announced that he would be launching a political party later this summer to carry forward his ideas. Asked whether in their opinion launching of a political party would be the right thing for Baba Ramdev to do, 55 per cent of the respondents to our poll gave an emphatic ‘No’ for an answer, while only 26 per cent supported the initiative. Clearly, most people feel that leaders of civil society like Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev should lead the movement for change, but should themselves stay away from the taint of politics.
Anna Hazare seems to have had a clear grasp of this reality from early on, and forswore any desire to enter electoral politics. Even Ramdev seems to have changed his mind; while announcing his decision to go on an indefinite fast from June 4 in support of immediate action on corruption and black money, he said he has no political ambitions.
The LensOnNews poll was conducted in 10 cities, namely Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Cochin, Jaipur and Bhubaneshwar among a representative sample of nearly 2,000 respondents, mostly drawn from the middle classes and with exposure to the mass media. The poll was conducted between April 20 and 29 and the findings carry a margin of error of three per cent.
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September 16, 2013 at 12:55 AM
I have replied to Omrocky, not you. Because Omrocky said certain things about lies and I have reacted.
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September 16, 2013 at 6:41 AM
Kyon Khisiya Rahe ho Sanjana jee….
They tried to blame the Mujjaffar Nagar riots on Amit Shah ..toh aap key above examples are pretty reasonable!!
hota hai !!
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September 16, 2013 at 8:08 AM
Blaming Muzaffarnagar on Modi was the icing on the cake!! The loss of credibility of the media gathers ever more pace with such ridiculous claims.
IMO, Just like in the West, because of the advent of the internet, the English media in India is going through a rapid decline in readership/viewership. But unlike the west, the target audience of the English (leftist) media has traditionally been educated conservatives. We were the ones who, in a bygone era, religiously started our mornings by reading the TOI/IE, etc. Now we are all turned off by this media’s constant pandering of the Congress, and their absolute disdain of an alternative. The target English viewership has become totally frustrated with the likes of Sanghvi/Thapar/Barkha et al. With their credibility having breen reduced to zilch, these liberals are blaring out into a vacuum, with hardly any takers to their claims. Because the people who should be listening to this pack of lies generally do not converse/read English!! And this very segment of the population now watches in disbelief as an OBC son of a tea vendor, who himself does not speak much English is challenging them.
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September 16, 2013 at 9:21 AM
well your answer (and that of others on the Right) to the media’s ‘they’re always blameworthy’ seems to be ‘they’re always blameless’! There’s a perfect symmetry here! One absolutist position deserves another!
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September 15, 2013 at 6:45 PM
This is a must must watch !! specially The Halka one (Thelka
)
works better on the computer than the Phone !!
http://greatbong.net/2013/09/13/reactions-on-modi-becoming-bjps-pm-candidate/
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September 16, 2013 at 4:24 AM
Superlative piece by Jaggi on ‘Agency Problem’…
http://www.firstpost.com/india/why-muslims-will-gain-more-from-modi-than-congress-1111333.html
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September 16, 2013 at 10:32 PM
Thanks Bliss, great read ….
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September 16, 2013 at 10:03 AM
Congress seems more corrupt because it is at the centre and has been for years.
Anyway, here is a clear picture of who’s more corrupt BJP or Congress.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2380988/Its-official–crime-pays-politics-Study-shows-candidates-facing-criminal-charges-likely-win-elections.html
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September 16, 2013 at 11:56 AM
Speaking of all the different pogroms, there is one leader who has never taken a passive (or supportive!) approach to terror in her state, instead working aggressively to rid TN of the LTTE. And she is an able administrator, too. It’s a shame that she’ll never be Prime Minister:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DzqLo_1SPZg
P.S. I don’t want to get into an argument about Jayalalitha, I just wanted to distract from the Modi-centric nature of this thread, and to share one of my favourite Indian political interviews with an incredibly eloquent speaker.
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September 16, 2013 at 11:58 AM
Part 2 of the interview: http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwrel&v=Cf2bU9xD-3E
Do watch, this easily one of the most graceful and candid interviews of an Indian politician that you will come across…
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September 16, 2013 at 12:00 PM
You have brought up an interesting angle. But Jayalalitha is too regionalistic to head a nation. In that Modi scores over her. And there is Mayavati too who can become prime minister.
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September 16, 2013 at 12:03 PM
Do you want an elephant statue in Parliament? 🙂
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September 16, 2013 at 12:06 PM
I have a sneaking admiration for Mayavati minus her elephant fetish.
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September 16, 2013 at 12:11 PM
Please go see UP. I have lived many years in different parts of UP and it hasn’t changed much (last trip was 3-4 years back). I haven’t been to Bihar for last 8-9 year and UP was a tad better. I hear Bihar has improved. But basic issue is law and order. If you don’t have law and order, people won’t invest and there would be migration of people where they can find jobs. So In some sense I agree with likes of Thackeray that politicians in this backward states need to be responsible for development.
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September 16, 2013 at 12:58 PM
I think one of the important things in this context is that terms like ‘law and order’, ‘development’ and other such bureaucratic-technocratic vocabulary is not quite as neutral in the Indian context as it might seem. Of course many states are worse offenders than others even with similar problems but (and you know this far more than I do) there is no ‘law and order’ or ‘development’ or what have you in places like UP or Bihar that is not seen through the prism of caste (primarily) and then other social fault-lines (religious, ethnic etc). And so when someone like Mayawati is CM she is not likely to insist on exactly the same law for everyone in the state because she defines law as a body of rules that serves upper caste interests or at least has done so historically. From her perspective unless you bend the rules to favor certain lower castes you actually cannot restore the balance or hope to do so. Because if she applied it neutrally many lower castes would be at a disadvantage for structural reasons. Much as in the US once there was a certain degree of basic emancipation for blacks the playing field still wasn’t leveled. If you grow up in an inner city you’re not very likely to partake of that economic progress but also you’re much more likely to fall on the wrong side of the law and so on. The law as it is written isn’t biased in any obvious ways (though there is a case to be made that it is.. when minimal sentencing guidelines for first time drug pushers exceed those for rape and murder and bank robbery and other such very serious crimes) but structurally it serves some more than others. Of course Mayawati feeds her vote bank much like any politician in any democracy and these things are much more rigidly organized in India. Nor am I saying that law and order couldn’t be bettered or that more economic opportunity could not be created. But I think we sometimes assume that these terms are as neutral in India as these are say in the UK (relatively speaking). Or at least our arguments depend on such assumptions. But a lot of times there are these problems because politically and sociologically a lot of these societies/communities are still very unsettled. And so across the field the apparatus of the state has to account for this. Which of course creates reservations controversies and so on. Again the specifics can be debated in each case. But these terms ought not to be used so matter-of-factly as might be warranted in many other environments. These are still places where even when communal violence breaks out the law is selectively used to serve one side or the other. Politicians then have very different narratives depending on their vote banks. Even left to their own devices the ‘law’ is simply not equipped to deal with these situations in the most fair ways. How many policeman in the interiors of UP and Bihar and even elsewhere do their jobs with no thought given to religion or caste? Not many. And so depending on where you are and who you are your encounter with the ‘law’ can more often than not be a coercive one. Much as once again in America’s inner cities there’s a general hostility among African-Americans towards the law whether they’re engaging in criminal activity or not. The same holds for economic development. When you have instances (and there are far too many in India) where people are dispossessed in the name of some great national project and are sent to places where they have no hopes of getting work, where they are in an alien environment, where they’re not even self-sufficient in the old ways (the rice farmer asked to grow wheat somewhere is not likely to be able to manage it!), where they never see the benefits of such a project, cannot then be blamed for seeing development as a tool of oppression meant to serve others at their expense. Politics then feeds on all of this. It’s not easy to get through such a tangled web of competing interests and great historical mistrust and so forth.
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September 16, 2013 at 3:52 PM
I am talking about dacoity, local gundagardi(rang-daari in local lingo), kidnapping. It is not driven by caste or religion.
I do not agree with your position in general. We can be victim (read color, caste, religion) for many more years and cry from rooftop. I agree that some of the drug sentences are ridiculous and kids are born in that environment would turn up like that only. If an African American comes and say they are differentiated and there is bias against them, I will say it is there. But there are opportunities for them to come out of that hole. But if you keep on insisting that you are in hole and don’t dig yourself out of hole and keep on hollering for blame; you will be in hole for a much longer time.
ps – During partition many refugees came to Delhi from Pakistan, but most of them have prospered without much help.
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September 16, 2013 at 4:56 PM
Yes but crime sometimes fills a vacuum created by other kinds of unrest. So yes there’s a lot of drug activity in the inner cities but it’s not unrelated to that larger environment. This doesn’t mean I’m denying individual responsibility. Just that given a certain set of factors certain consequences are far more likely to follow than others. Also I think you might underestimate the impact of certain kinds of traumatic histories. There are certain kinds from which humans don’t emerge easily at a personal level. There are similarly traumas from which communities don’t emerge easily. Those scars last for generations. But also it’s a question of ‘where’ one starts. So for example many immigrant communities do very well in the US and then they wonder why African-Americans haven’t done the same. However struggling economically in a new country is quite different from being heir to a history of slavery and severe discrimination and moreover living in an inner city. These are parts of the country where many social and economic indices make them comparable to various parts of Africa. It’s shocking but true. We can’t have the same set of expectations. There are of course communities that even after suffering great traumas very quickly turned things around. The Jews in israel, the Germans or Japanese in devastated countries after WWII. But these were ‘educated’ communities with all kinds of things working in their favor. They had to make their way back from national tragedies. But they had the tools at their disposal to do so. African-Americans in inner cities by and large do not. How can one expect them to get out of it given the awful state of their schools where they start falling behind very early in life? They can never make up this difference. Again this doesn’t mean there isn’t individual responsibility. But to do well in that environment is an incomparably higher bar than doing well in many other communities. Again on your refugee example, typically what classes did those people whom we would consider as having made a successful transition represent? Once more I am not disagreeing with you except on this point — there cannot be universal standards when situations are radically different. On a related law and order point consider how even here the stop and frisk policy of NY city became controversial. these questions are never divorced from political ones. And in turn those traumatic histories feed into them. So it’s not just that African-Americans can’t get over those traumas but that they are constantly put in positions where those traumas are re-triggered for them. The same with IDs and so on. Individual responsibility can never be evaded, you re absolutely right, but the contexts in which this comes about can be very different. And yes it does become a self-destructive cycle to keep playing the victim. But this too happens rather ‘naturally’ in a variety of contexts. Again sometimes I might have more sympathy with the argument, sometimes less. For instance when there is victimization on the part of Muslims in many contexts in India I have very little sympathy because I think in many cases (not all of course) these communities have kept themselves in certain kinds of time warps and refused ‘modernity’ and hence a certain kind of progress and then blamed it on the majority. In other contexts I might have total sympathy and feel that there has been real victimization. It all depends. More generally there has been a problem in India where Muslims have in a variety of instances never quite adjusted to the loss of conqueror status or alternatively all classes of Muslims rather conveniently identify themselves with conquerors and so forth which is laughable. Those were very small minorities. It’s a way of keeping oneself apart but which then has certain consequences. So here every Muslim who screams victimization wouldn’t automatically get my sympathy the way most African-Americans might. In the former instance there are often serious challenges that they face, in the latter case though there is (and still) a very deep structural advantage even if things are dramatically better than they were.
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September 16, 2013 at 12:52 PM
UP is ungovernable. As Mayavati suggested it should be broken into 4 parts. People will decide which one of the 4 is the best among the worst!
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September 16, 2013 at 1:20 PM
What are your thoughts on Jayalalitha, Satyam? I find her the best politicial leader in India today (by which I mean that she is the lesser of all the evils, and not that she is ideal in anyway); I also think that she is unparalleled in Indian politics today, in terms of being an insightful and erudite speaker.
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September 16, 2013 at 1:38 PM
Can’t say I’m a fan of the AIADMK.. find them regressive on certain issues. No denying Jayalalitha’s political acumen though.
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September 16, 2013 at 3:40 PM
In her first stint she was atrocious. But I think she has been fine since her second stint.
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September 16, 2013 at 3:13 PM
WASHINGTON: The tiara had barely been placed on her head and the customary tears of joy had just emerged when racist taunts erupted on social media, marring the moment of triumph for the first ever Miss America of Indian origin.
“And the Arab wins Miss America. Classic,” tweeted @Granvil_Colt minutes after the usual final flourish ended in the crowning of Indian-American Nina Davuluri, the current Miss New York, as the new Miss America. ”Ummm wtf? Have we forgotten 9/11?” asked @anthonytkr, associating her with the terrorist attack on the United States. Some called her Miss Al Qaida and others dubbed her Miss Terrorist. ”How the f*** does a foreigner win miss America? She is a Arab!” followed up @jakeamick5.
Davuluri, for the record, is very much American, but of Indian origin, just as sundry racist tweeple are of European and Caucasian extract. Daughter of Indian immigrants from Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh, she was born in Syracuse, New York, and grew up in Oklahoma and Michigan.
But in a flaming demonstration that an egalitarian, non-discriminatory United States, like with India, is a work in progress, bigotry and bias kept popping up on social media for hours after the event. Mindless racist stereotyping raced ahead of the ideals professed by many Americans.
”Miss America? You mean Miss 7-11,” sneered racist individual, referring to the widespread ownership and management of convenience stores by people of Indian-origin. ”Miss America is brought to by their sponsors PF Changs and 7-11,” jeered another.
It’s another matter that the Davuluris fit the Indian-American profile of what the U.S Census says is the academically most-accomplished and highest-earning ethnic group in the United States, ”native” white Americans included. Nina’s father Davuluri Koteshwara Choudhary, who migrated to the US in 1981, is a gynecologist in Fayetteville, New York; Nina herself has a degree in Brain Behaviour and Cognitive Science from the University of Michigan, and aspires to be a cardiologist, a goal for which she pledged the $50,000 prize money she won with her crown.
Such accomplishments were lost on a bigoted minority that, as usual, raked up US President Obama’s background, calling both him and the new Miss America Muslims, questioning their ”American-ness” and loyalty to the US.
The attacks embarrassed many Americans. ”Wow the hate that has come out since an Indian American won #MissAmerica is sad. Guess we haven’t come that far after all,” someone tweeted apologetically. Some Indians lashed back. ”Dear America, be the racist you want to be but at least get your geography right,” read one tweet, mocking the inability of bigots to distinguish between countries and regions.
Miss Davuluri herself preferred to stay above the muck, telling the Associated Press that she always viewed herself as first and foremost American.
”I’m so happy this organization has embraced diversity… I’m thankful there are children watching at home who can finally relate to a new Miss America,” she said during her victory press conference.
In fact, two of the runners-up this year, Crystal Lee and Rebecca Yeh, boast of Asian roots, in keeping with the growing number of minority children being born in the US. ”Thankfully the days of peroxide blonde Barbie dolls dominating the pageant are long gone,” Time magazine observed in its report.
The controversy is also a godsend for the Miss America pageant, which returned to its original home in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and television home on ABC, after it had been sidelined in the US in recent years. Davuluri, competing under the platform ”celebrating diversity through cultural competency,” is the first Indian-American to win the crown since the pageant began in 1921.
Contestants were judged on the basis of evening gowns, lifestyle/fitness, talent, a personal interview and an live on-stage question. Davuluri was asked about the wisdom of a TV anchor getting plastic surgery on her eyes to alter her appearance. She said she’s against plastic surgery, but people should make their own choice and be confident in their appearances.
TOI
For the talent part, she chose a classical Bollywood fusion dance piece, capitalizing on her formal training in Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi.
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September 16, 2013 at 4:24 PM
Woohoo.. There was a video showing her dance to “Dhoom Tana” from OSO, which was taken down. Here is another one with clips of the event:
But off course, the hicks from deep south could not resist commenting on her race, or even thinking that she is Arab.
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September 16, 2013 at 5:19 PM
Congrats nina –so is she a Michigan medic? Psychiatry ? Hmm..
Ps : overheard some racist creeps as well…that’s so wrong!
Having said that, think her ‘Bollywood’ perfomance got her the title since there’s an instant ‘connect’ with that –she seems to have carried herself well.. Haven’t seen the video though…
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September 18, 2013 at 4:26 AM
Well, Indians *ARE* like Americans in their way of thinking. Especially this obsession and importance given to these Misses (of whichever place).
These are all politically motivated choices anyway – most of the time.
So now they want to demonstrate – “we are changing the game. No more tall, white blondes as representatives of beauty (which is basically a good decision), and we also have a coloured President – See?”
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September 16, 2013 at 4:15 PM
Fake Pakistani video used by BJP MLA and hindutva forces to fan Muzaffarnagar riots.
http://twocircles.net/2013sep08/fake_pakistani_video_used_bjp_mla_and_hindutva_forces_fan_communal_riots_muzaffarnagar.htm#.UizEBgfLzWY.facebook
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September 16, 2013 at 6:53 PM
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/muzaffarnagar-riots-started-with-this-teen-s-harassment-say-some-419436
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September 16, 2013 at 7:03 PM
http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/slide-show-1-target-ajit-singhs-vote-bank-result-muzaffarnagar-riots/20130913.htm#1
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September 17, 2013 at 12:34 AM
again so called right winger gave danda there is so much coverage…
can you imagine last yesr bareilly there was carnage for 18 days and silence
http://www.google.co.in/imgres?imgurl=http://i368.photobucket.com/albums/oo123/eyesonyouu/0024473f.jpg&imgrefurl=http://vu-point.blogspot.com/2010/04/what-happened-in-bareilly.html&h=390&w=492&sz=47&tbnid=77aX7mSOgNudDM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=114&zoom=1&usg=__GnOGRpwUt1f32t5k-gvloCm4wh4=&docid=-1LkTKyHuXsL4M&sa=X&ei=x9s3UuHBMYXliAez3YD4Cw&sqi=2&ved=0CDIQ9QEwAg&dur=661
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September 17, 2013 at 4:06 AM
I think we cannot blame all the white americans because of a few blacksheep(pun intended) among them.
As far as I recollect, no one taunted Indira Nooyi or Vikram Pandit when they headed huge corporates.
As this is a beauty pageant, some must have expected an american beauty with fair skin, blonde hair to win and watching Davuluri must have shocked them. Davuluri is not a typical beauty even in the Indian context but she won because of personality and intelligence which an average blonde maybe lacking(especially brains).
I find some Indians still dont accept black americans or Mexicans.
And we Indians have double standards if we see those matrimonial columns where we specify skin color as wheatish, fair, very fair etc.
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September 17, 2013 at 4:08 AM
As for communal riots, people in those particular places must lose voting rights for 5 years so that politicians will stop fomenting trouble.
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September 17, 2013 at 4:39 AM
So if you are a political party and most likely going to lose in area, you probably could go with agenda of disenfranchising the voter.
Only way to stop violence is that most people have no time to think apart from their work. If you are idle, you are prone to sways.
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September 17, 2013 at 4:51 AM
There will always be a positive and negative effect. But the political parties atleast will not exploit the situation and no one can predict who will win and who will lose.
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September 18, 2013 at 3:42 AM
Shocking
The Defence lawyer in Delhi gang-rape case AP Singh has been asked by Bar Council of Delhi to explain his remarks that he would burn his daughter alive if she had premarital sex.
Mr Singh made the remarks after his clients – Akshay Thakur and Vinay Sharma – were handed the death sentence last Friday over the gang-rape of a 23-year-old student in New Delhi that took place on December 16 last year.
“We have issued a show cause notice to Mr Singh asking him why action should not be taken against him for the misogynist comments made by him,” Surya Prakash Khatri, chairman of Bar Council of Delhi, told AFP.
“His remarks were highly objectionable,” Mr Khatri added.
Akshay Thakur and Vinay Sharma were among four men handed the death penalty by a fast-track court after a seven-month trial in the case that sparked widespread anger at the treatment of women in India.
Mr Singh told local media he would have “burned my daughter alive” if she was having “premarital sex and moving around at night with her boyfriend”.
He was apparently referring to the victim, who died of massive internal injuries after being lured on to the private bus by a gang of six following a cinema trip with her male companion.
Mr Singh’s comments were widely slammed as disparaging.
Mr Singh has been asked to reply by October 11 when the Council will take up the matter for a final hearing, Mr Khatri said.
The fifth suspect in the case, bus driver Ram Singh, died in prison in March in an apparent suicide. A sixth member of the gang, who was a minor at the time of the assault, was sentenced last month to three years in a reformatory.
Mr Singh risks losing his licence to practise law with the Bar Council stating that his comments amounted to “professional misconduct”.
He could not be reached immediately by AFP for comment.
http://www.ndtv.com/article/cities/lawyer-for-delhi-gang-rape-convicts-told-to-explain-conduct-420078?pfrom=home-lateststories
And also Ram Jethmalani’s comments about the unfortunate girl and Asaram Bapu.
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September 18, 2013 at 8:26 AM
Just saw this damning expose about Muzzafarnagar on HT. So basically, SP’s appeasement caused the riots. Plus, Azam Khan asked UP police to go slow and not provide protection to Jats.
The 2 police officers in the expose got immediately transferred today:
http://zeenews.india.com/news/uttar-pradesh/muzaffarnagar-riots-two-police-officers-shifted_877274.html
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September 18, 2013 at 8:42 AM
Not sure why this link did not get posted, trying it again:
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/muzaffarnagar-headlines-today-sting-riots-for-votes-up-cops-admit-pressure/1/310303.html
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September 19, 2013 at 7:17 AM
what a superb piece on Nehru, Sardar Patel and Modi !!!
http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/DCrr6B9v1MvR6QTEMGDcJM/Narendra-Modi-as-the-antiNehru.html?ref=also_read
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September 19, 2013 at 9:59 AM
Oops..something went wrong here..Satyam, the first part about Chennai studios doesn’t belong here..you can delete that entire comment – I am posting the right one here..
I wouldn’t want to live in India if Modi becomes PM, author Ananthamurthy says
BANGALORE: Jnanpith awardee and acclaimed Kannada writer Dr UR Ananthamurthy has said he will not live in a country with Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister, triggering angry reactions from BJP which said he was free to leave India.
As a controversy broke out over his strident anti-Modi remark, Ananthamurthy on Thursday stood his ground and said the Gujarat chief minister would create fear among people if he becomes Prime Minister.
“I would not want to live in a country where Modi is the Prime Minister,” he said at an event here recently.
Against the backdrop of vitriolic attacks against him from the BJP and its sympathizers for his remarks, Ananthamurthy said, “He (Modi) will create fear and if a fearsome man is sitting there, people will just bow down to him because a bully creates cowards.”
The country needs to build a citizenry who are not afraid and a governance where people do not follow a leader slavishly, he told reporters.
Furious at Ananthamurthy’s remarks, BJP and supporters of the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate dubbed him “parasite like” alleging he swayed according to political climate, having supported Congress and JDS in the past and “currying” favours with the government of the day.
BJP MP Ananthkumar Hegde and several local party leaders said he was free to leave the country.
Several writers, including Baragur Ramachandrappa and K Marulasiddappa, have come out in support of Ananthamurthy while some others such as noted scholar Dr Chidananda Murthy flayed him.
Ananthamurthy — who lost the Man Booker International Prize to American writer Lydia Davis in May this year — said there was dignity attached to Prime Minister’s post when Pandit Nehru and Narasimha Rao assumed the charge, but this will wane away if Modi becomes PM.
“We had people like Nehru who could write a book in jail — Discovery of India, a great book even today. Rao was a great scholar too. There was some dignity for the Prime Minister’s post, but that dignity will go (if Modi becomes PM), he said.
On BJP leaders’ attacks on him, Ananthamurthy said he had been critical of Indira Gandhi and Nehru in the past but was never abused as much as the saffron party did. “If I say something and I am abused so much by a gang of people, imagine when they are in power what will happen,” he said.
Ananthamurthy said the BJP has always criticized him because he did not buy the RSS Hindu philosophy. “They are a fascist party and don’t understand Hinduism. It is a great religion,” he said.
On UPA government, he said it is not anti-people but was corrupt and should be punished. “But the way out is not choosing a man like Modi,” he said.
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September 19, 2013 at 10:17 AM
Crying Wolf !
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September 19, 2013 at 10:19 AM
Ananthnag on Ananthmurthy! :
The literary and film circle is also curiously observing the Prime Ministerial candidate from Bharatiya Janata Party Narendra Modi.
Here is one example of next day of announcement of Narendra Modi name. Jnanapth Award winner Dr UR Ananthamurthy at a book release function in Bangalore unconnected to the event hit back at Narendra Modi and said ‘I would not wish to live in case Narendra Modi becomes Prime Minister’. There was pin drop of silence at this announcement of legendary writer of Kannada literature.
On Monday afternoon versatile actor Ananthnag who acted in ‘Mouni’ Kannada film based on Dr UR Ananthmurthy reacted very sharply to the senior writer by saying ‘In India suicide is not crime but murder is a crime’ stated Ananthnag. In fact some of the top novels of Dr UR Ananthamurthy ‘Samskara, Bara, Avasthe, Mouni, Diksha’ were made as films. Ananthnag had acted in Bara, Avasthe and Mouni top rated films.
When Ananthnag reacted very sharply a few of the media friends were baffled for a few seconds. Immediately Ananthnag said this is another high level of sycophancy. What option is left for Anantha Murthy in that case? Ananthnag further explained suicide cases are closed after two or three months but not the murderous crimes.
A thinker, philosopher, brilliant actor, voracious reader Ananthnag sees Narendra Modi in a positive note. For me Narendra Modi is like Lal Bahaddur Shastri of 1965. Like how Shastriji said ‘Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’ in the similar pattern Narendra Modi is moving felt Ananthnag.
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September 19, 2013 at 11:23 AM
done.
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September 19, 2013 at 10:52 AM
Some really objectionable disgusting twitter reactions ‘compiled’ for quick reference on various websites !!!!
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/09/16/20-racist-tweets-about-new-miss-america-151294
Pathetic..
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September 19, 2013 at 12:09 PM
Hindu left!
http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/jyzFxtxjd2iGQPqA3mgOfN/Narendra-Modi-and-the-mystery-of-the-Hindu-Left.html
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September 20, 2013 at 3:23 AM
Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan has been selected for a US award for his television show ‘Satyamev Jayate’ along with eminent American director Kathryn Bigelow and the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC).
They will be honoured at the inaugural awards dinner by the America Abroad Media (AAM) in Washington DC on October 28.
“Their work exemplifies the power of media to inform, educate and empower citizens about the critical social and public policy issues of our time,” America Abroad Media said in a statement.
America Abroad Media said Aamir’s TV series, ‘Satyamev Jayate’, explores India’s biggest social challenges and has been seen by hundreds of millions of people in his country and across Asia.
Khan was also recently selected as one of TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people.
Bigelow is the director of films like “Zero Dark Thirty” and “The Hurt Locker”, which have received widespread acclaim for their honest portrayal of war and counter-terrorism. In 2010, Bigelow became the first and only woman to date to win the Academy Award for Best Director.
Founded by Peter Ackerman, the ICNC produces award-winning documentaries on the role of non-violent resistance in promoting democratic change.
The ICNC – which was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2013 – will release a new documentary on the Arab Spring and uprising in Egypt later this year.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/tv/news-and-gossip/Aamir-Khan-to-get-award-for-Satyamev-Jayate/articleshow/22796793.cms?
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September 20, 2013 at 3:35 AM
The launch of 24 in India makes COLORS the first-ever network to produce and air the local adaptation of the international series outside the United States. The Indian adaptation of ’24’, retains all the elements of the international series , the real-time, pulse-pounding, fast-paced format with split screens and complex interweaving storylines, with 24 episodes capturing 24 hours. The premiere episode will follow the exploits of heroic Anti Terrorist Unit agent Jai Singh Rathod played by Anil Kapoor.
Racing against time with the clock ticking, Jai Singh Rathod, is suddenly thrust into a chaotic and exhausting 24 hour marathon, of death, deceit, terror as he struggles to prevent the assassination of prime ministerial candidate Aditya Singhania. To support Jai Singh Rathod in this mammoth task is a spectacular cast comprising of industry veterans and actors like Anupam Kher, Shabana Azmi, Mandira Bedi, Tisca Chopra, Anita Raaj, Neil Bhoopalam, Ajinkya Deo, Richa Chadda and Rahul Khanna who deliver spell-binding performances to make 24 play out like clockwork.
Speaking about 24, Manisha Sharma, Weekend Programming Head – COLORS, said, “With 24, we introduce the Indian audiences to a new hybrid genre of entertainment that sees an interesting amalgamation of fiction and reality. Well on its way to become a cultural lexicon, 24 will offer the audiences never-seen-before action, thrill, suspense, drama and the exhilaration of solving complex cases real-time within a span of 24 hours.”
http://www.india-forums.com/tellybuzz/news-releases/16821-colors-kickstarts-october-with-24.htm
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September 20, 2013 at 9:10 AM
U. R. Anantmurthy on Modi..(aside, making trains run on time seems to the favorite punching bag of everyone on the left!)
http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/news/bjp-noted-kannada-writer-in-war-of-words-over-narendra-modi/291221
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September 22, 2013 at 3:21 PM
Amartya Sen with an extremely lucid take on the recent Delhi rape and the politics of gender in India:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/oct/10/indias-women-mixed-truth/?pagination=false
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September 22, 2013 at 3:37 PM
his daughter nandana sen during her failed career in bollywood was famous more for shedding clothes and raunchy scene though
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September 22, 2013 at 4:33 PM
what does this have to do with the father’s views?!
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September 22, 2013 at 4:43 PM
because of word rape and same intellectual media equating it with item number and sking show….isn’t charity begins at home
sen today is more a political figure colliding with congress
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-08-26/news/41455357_1_economic-growth-3-5-growth-amartya-sen
for record: another so called great economics as pm has virtually destroyed the econmy and put it on icu
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September 22, 2013 at 4:46 PM
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-07-24/news/40771858_1_gujarat-model-skill-development-nreg
t is disheartening to see Nobel laureate Amartya Sen drifting so far to the Left that he cannot see the obvious benefits of growth and jobs. He desires to lend intellectual legitimacy to UPA’s disastrous economic policies, designed solely for narrow electoral gains.
Sen is hardly a neutral observer, since his old ties with the Congress and with Jean Dreze, who was involved with UPA’s policymaking by being a founding member of the NAC, are well-documented. Intellectuals of this predisposition are largely responsible for, among other devastating economic policies, the ill-conceived NREG: it’s riddled with corruption and inefficiencies and, on average, hardly giving 43 days of employment per year. Considering that a mere 2.7 million jobs were created during 2005-10 under UPA, against 60.7 million jobs created under the NDA (as per Planning Commission), the NREG beneficiaries are no better today off than they were before.
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The Rs 2 lakh crore spent on NREG could have created warehouses for grain and better rural schools and health centres, and focused on skill development to make poor Indians employable. UPA believes in institutionalising poverty and keeping people dependent on doles, in the hope that they’ll keep getting voted back to power. It is amazing that Sen bemoans the collapse of the economy, but does not recognise the policies that have led to its collapse in the first place.
Plus, Sen should have rather given us an objective assessment of Rahul Gandhi, beyond saying he’s a “likeable young man”. But he obviously cannot since there is no vision or world view ever articulated by Mr Gandhi beyond deriding all that has happened in India over the last several decades, most of which were under governments run by his party and led by his family. Sen also doesn’t seem to be in favour of open debates with his intellectual adversaries. Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya, with whom Sen is now seen to be locked in an argument, have issued such invitations.
On secularism, allow me to quote from an article written by commentator Swapan Dasgupta in 1998. Dasgupta had talked of Sen’s “embarrassingly pedestrian interventions on secularism”. That’s part. Sen cannot understand the BJP perspective of secularism articulated by L K Advani, “justice for all, appeasement of none”.
Nobody suggests that the Gujarat model is a one-size-fits-all. But is Sen opposed to good governance and growth that the Gujarat model is synonymous with? Also, is he opposed to zero tolerance for corruption, empowerment over entitlement, minimum government and maximum governance, skill development, training teachers and attracting entrepreneurs? Can Sen ignore this data from the Director General for Employment and Training: 80% of employment-exchange jobs were created in Gujarat? Also, is he aware that the Labour Bureau of India says Gujarat has the lowest unemployment rate in India at 1%? That’s why I suspect Sen’s opposition to the Gujarat model is not economic but political. This will also explain his deafening silence on the corruption scandals presided over by the UPA. Sen has rightly criticised the Food Security Bill for “not doing enough”.
PTI recently reported a food ministry official saying all 35 states and UTs have been asked to follow the Gujarat and Chhattisgarh model of computerised PDS. These BJP-ruled states have devised a food security system that has come in for praise from courts monitoring public policy, from the Planning Commission and the World Bank.
Why didn’t Sen, who was critical of the UPA’s food security Bill for not doing enough, give the examples of the BJP-ruled states? If that’s not politics, what is? Also, does Sen not agree that UPA should have built a consensus rather than foisting the Bill through the Ordinance route since Parliament was in any case due to be convened? I wish Sen could occasionally influence government in the right direction.
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September 22, 2013 at 8:15 PM
By that token, even many Amitabh’s movies have rape. Is he popularizing rape? It is a vicious circle we blame movies and movie people say they are reflection of society.
Article by Amartya Sen has data but it is not well argued. Like, does the map which shows male female ratio corresponds with female literacy? I think No. It is more to do with cultural aspects. Is there a scientific basis for even 935 female per 1000 male in World as normal? Law and order is one aspect of curbing rapes (if it was the most important then in West rapes would be less) but more needs to be done wrt changing the attitude of people.
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September 24, 2013 at 6:04 AM
actually its as idiotic as people suggesting being in non administrative job and ruling is very much like ruling without any accountabality
he has no data that is why he is scared to argue all these hypothesis with fellow economist and all these posturing during election time
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September 24, 2013 at 2:43 PM
Yes, its a pity that Amartya Sen is such an idiot; if only he had your intelligence and class he could have launched a cheap campaign against one of Modi’s female relatives in order to discount his arguments.
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September 22, 2013 at 3:32 PM
scared to talk on governance and merit:
sonia gandhi
qualification:diploma in english having no administrative experience or precisely administrative role and who first job in india was that of homemaker
rahul gandhi:so called m.phil in cambridge having no administative experience or administrative role ever
narendra modi: master in political science and the one who rose from being in staff canteen of gujrat state road transport corporation to now three time c.m
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September 22, 2013 at 3:42 PM
Modi: so called master in Political Science, whose first job was that of working in a canteen, without any administrative experience before becoming politician.
Sonia Gandhi: Diploma in English, rose from being a homemaker. Has been leading the UPA as their chairperson since 2004.
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September 22, 2013 at 4:56 PM
chairperson of upa is not an administrative role …
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September 23, 2013 at 5:01 AM
So you agree and accept that Sonia Gandhi is not the shadow …everything.. going on in the name of governement in India? Administrative, the shadow PM etc etc ?
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September 22, 2013 at 5:58 PM
@ Oldgold -plz join politics
Will ‘vote’ for u 🙂
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September 23, 2013 at 5:02 AM
You could vote for the party I support. AAP.
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September 24, 2013 at 2:45 PM
“You could vote for the party I support. AAP”
What’s ‘aap’– that means ‘you’ in hindi..
So u support me 🙂
Ps: sorry- that was a poor joke (even by my standards)..
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September 24, 2013 at 2:37 PM
LOL! So Modi’s degree in Political Science from Gujarat University gives him enormous authority to talk on governance, but an intellectual giant like Amartya Sen who has risen so steeply through the ranks of international academia deserves no respect when he voices his economic opinions, and his articles can be crudely and irrelevantly dismissed with salacious pictures of his daughter?! Have degrees issued by Gujarat University suddenly become more valuable than the Nobel Prize?!
And you seem to have conveniently forgotten that several Congress leaders like MMS and Chidambaram have expotentially more impressive qualifications than Modi, and have proven themselves most impressively in finance/ law before stepping into politics.
There is nothing wrong with preferring one PM candidate to another, but there has to be a limit to delusional Modi-worshipping and your logic need to maintain some kind of consistency!
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September 24, 2013 at 2:40 PM
BTW- this is not to say that I support the politics of either MMS or Chidambaram- I do not. Just pointing out that even the most impressive academic qualifications from the best Universities in the world do not necessarily guarantee a good political leader, much less so an MA from Gujarat University! And if qualifications and career trajectory alone are a key criteria for respect, it is then very odd that you do not extend the same respect to a far more qualified Amartya Sen!
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September 24, 2013 at 2:43 PM
Wow Amy ..a brilliant comment!
Ps : such intelligence means that u are studying the course book prescribed my me aka FSoG well (& ‘cover to cover’!) 😉
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September 24, 2013 at 2:55 PM
Holy Moses–
C’mon Amy 😉
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September 24, 2013 at 11:30 PM
its basic common sense that he is talking governance because he ruled for a much longer time and is future pm ground
talking about qualification and more specififically chidambaram and mms neither has the capability to win a lok sabha election of their own and where this qualifiication is being used frankly:…what is the performance on ground and that to for a long …the same name has become joke frankly
(the same chidambaram is accused of vote rigging and is fighting cases to)
kudus for chidambaram for being corporate lawyer and mms for keep on failing on economics matter….if the talk is on just personal front let me remind you of guys like arun shourie and jaitley and for next time time try to be logical in grab of worshipping some other
personal attack instead of content indicates just indicates immaturity
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September 24, 2013 at 11:37 PM
just like amartya sen has the right to express his view similarly others has right to criticize him …
an economist who say narendra modi can’t be pm and rahul is likable shown his political colour anyways and what is the fuss on criticism he has only backed out while arguing with fellow economist and criticism strictly is on his political stance and economic data which he has given.. is he above anything or what
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September 25, 2013 at 1:51 AM
“personal attack instead of content indicates just indicates immaturity”
LOL! I was not attacking you, I was attacking your inconsistent logic; but then again, what do I know about maturity? Clearly true maturity is displayed when you dismiss a man’s arguments by conjuring up raunchy photos of his daughter!
And I never said that you should not criticize Sen; I was simply pointing out the inconsistencies in your argument when you said that Modi is much better qualified to talk on governance than the Gandhis, simply because of his MA, but at the same time you paid no heed to the far more impressive qualifications of Sen to talk about economics.
Basically, (as I mentioned in a previous comment which you clearly haven’t read):
This is is not to say that I support the politics of either MMS or Chidambaram- I do not. Just pointing out that even the most impressive academic qualifications from the best Universities in the world do not necessarily guarantee a good political leader, much less so an MA from Gujarat University!
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September 25, 2013 at 1:53 AM
Read Arvind Panagariya and Prof Bhagwati critique on Sen. They have publicly refuted Sen theories with Empirical evidence and called for open debate and Sen chickened out as he has no data to counter them. Sen pops out in India when Sonia has to build narrative for doles, entitlements. He is hitman of Sonia.
Rest about N Prize, Except Science every other Nobel is Political decision.
When you make Pol statement thn one cant hide behind prizes or victimhood which commies often do.
One is running govt with terrific record and output other is just Theory.
An ounce of experience is thousand times better than thousand volumes of theory.
Be it any field, Love, Pol or …..
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September 25, 2013 at 5:25 AM
“Rest about N Prize, Except Science every other Nobel is Political decision”
I agree: the Nobel prize is useless and unworthy of respect or prestige; only MA degrees awarded by Gujarat University should be taken seriously.
“One is running govt with terrific record and output other is just Theory. An ounce of experience is thousand times better than thousand volumes of theory.”
Yes, absolutely; all philosophers, economists and historians are worthless theory-spouting fools; only politicians and businesspeople are experientially validated and to be respected.
*groan* How does one even argue with such utterly delusion?
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September 25, 2013 at 5:26 AM
*with such utter delusion
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September 25, 2013 at 6:09 AM
and they want us to be part of that delusion!
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September 25, 2013 at 7:56 AM
Yes only You don’t have delusions. Read your comments again hope you see delusions and hallucinations…
Did I say N prize is unworthy??? I said more of Pol decisions. Read more on it and you will know.
There are many Economists who have been given N and who proved bad so does it mean I take theory just coz someone gave it.
You are showing typical ‘Liberal Fundamentalism’. Where Philosophers came, never used word.
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September 25, 2013 at 7:59 AM
Re.-and they want us to be part of that delusion
the jholawalas can choose to be part of their own delusion and wait for your turn to live in an Aurangzeb rule where all the N Prize, engliss speaking , sophisticated jhola walas can work as the many “Ratnaas”, since by the time Congress and Akhilesh are done there will be NO Institution to talk about .
The media has made a lot of people delusional for almost 20 years now..but now slowly the truth is coming out !!!
P.S.-for some Shahsi Tharoor is the best politician, ( engliss speaking, Sauvé sophisticated, Foreign returned, )
P.S.1- Rockstar and Bliss, jane do yaaron !!!
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September 25, 2013 at 8:32 AM
LOL! Thanks for informing me that I am a ‘liberal fundamentalist’!For the record: I am not liberal, I subscribe mostly to progressive conservative policies! And I’m neither a supporter of Amratya Sen’s views on the food security bill, nor am I a fan of the Congress.
However, I am equally against the dangerous deification of Modi as some kind of a mythical, omnipotent superhero who should never be criticized, which is completely contrary to the ideas of a parliamentary democracy; so yes, I do find some of his supporters delusional, but that doesn’t automatically make me a congress-worshiping Marxist, contrary to your blinkered, binary world-view!
My objection to Rockstar’s statement was merely that he is inconsistent in the manner that he glorifies Modi’s extremely mediocre educational qualifications, whilst at the same time paying little heed to the far superior qualifications of those whom he dismisses in the most idiotic manner (i.e. countering Sen by linking to a video of his daughter!).
And I brought up philosophers since you mentioned that theorists were useless and only those who make empirical changes were valuable.
Omrocky- LOL! If you want to use reverse-snobbery to build a straw-(wo)man of an Anglophile jhola-whallah who only respects “engliss speaking, Sauvé sophisticated, Foreign returned” politicians, I can’t really help you! Enjoy demonizing your imaginary friends, but I am certainly not one of them!
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September 26, 2013 at 9:41 AM
lol rocky saheb chod diya …pakadne ke liye pehle kuch hona to chahiye apart from muttering
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September 22, 2013 at 3:44 PM
there is a thing called hierchy and having things on platter :
playing politicson anti india stuff is highly dengerous:
http://www.rediff.com/news/report/im-terror-accused-escapes-from-police-custody-in-mumbai/20130920.htm
In a major security lapse, Afzal Usmani, an Indian Mujahideen operative accused in the 2008 Ahmedabad bombings, onn Friday escaped from a special MCOCA court when he was brought there for framing of charges.
Usmani was also allegedly involved in attempts to bomb various targets in Surat.
The IM operative, who was brought to the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act court along with 18 others from Taloja Central Jail in Navi Mumbai, gave police the slip on the pretext of going to toilet, sources said, adding that a manhunt has been launched to track him down.
Four other accused in the case, who were out on bail, also appeared before the court, which deferred framing of the charges till September 25 after Usmani’s escape and issued an arrest warrant against him.
Police personnel escorting Usmani informed the court about his disappearance at 3 pm, following which special public prosecutor Raja Thakre prayed for an arrest warrant, which was granted.
“This is a serious offence. It is negligence on the part of the escort team which brought the accused to court. This (his escape) will have impact on other cases also. It is a very unfortunate incident,” Special judge A L Pansare said, voicing displeasure over the incident.
Vicky Nanjappa adds:
The escape of Afzal Usmani is going to prove very costly for the Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad whose carelessness let this Indian Mujahideen operative slip out. Interestingly this is the second time he is giving the police the slip.
The first time he gave the slip was in 1999. A ganglord at that time, Usmani was released on bail. However, he jumped the bail and fled to Rawalpindi in Pakistan on a fake passport. He stayed on in Pakistan and met with operatives engaged in the Kashmir battle.
Usmani returned to India after associating with the Jaish-e-Mohammad and assured them to transport arms and ammunition through his contacts in the underworld.
His first association with the Indian Mujahideen was during the abduction of Khadim shoes boss Partha Roy Burman in 2001.
Later he became closely associated with the IM and later during his questioning he told the interrogators that he was providing them with logistical support. The ATS said that through his help, the IM was able to set up its Maharashtra modules.
Usmani was also involved in the theft of four cars that were used to plant bombs during the Gujarat serial blasts in 2008. The cars were stolen and handed over to Mohammad Atif who used them in the serial blasts.
A resident of Mhow in Madhya Pradesh, Usmani continued to help the IM. First he helped them with extortions and then laundered the money which funded the terror outfit.
Apart from this investigations have also shown that he had coordinated with ganglords in Bangladesh to help with infiltrations.
Sources in the Intelligence Bureau say that this loss is costly.
“He was no ordinary operative and had information regarding the funding of the IM. Moreover the locals involved in setting up the modules were under his control. His escape was at a bad time especially when the police have Yasin Bhatkal in their custody. This was the time to cross-verify the statements of both and ensure that the case ended in a conviction. If the ATS is unable to trace him then they would need to try him in absentia which is not a joyful excercise for any investigator,’ an officer pointed out.
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September 22, 2013 at 4:24 PM
the polint was there to put intentionally so that counterargument of his administrative experience cames up before 2002 a case ignored compleately and how selectively media played this card and so do some prominent lal jhola makers glorifying some shahid as saheed
ground reality:
http://leagueofindia.com/article/case-study-media-and-narendra-modi
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi is facing relentless criticism from media not only in his own country India but in all prominent media world over for the last almost ten years for anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat in February 2002. These riots erupted after burning of a railway coach of Sabarmati Express near Godhra Railway Station in Gujarat by Muslim mob in which Hindu pilgrims (karsevaks) were returning after visiting Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. In this mob attack 59 men, women and children were burnt alive. The local court has recently convicted the culprits with death penalty and prison.
India has a long history of communal riots but never any head of the state or Prime Minister of the country has been held personally responsible for riots and had to undergo police investigation. But Modi is facing that situation. Probably anti-minority particularly anti-Muslim image of RSS and BJP leads to acceptance of wild allegations and Modi is also suffering from this inherent deficiency.
As per the media allegations (1) Modi deliberately did not take steps to halt the anti-Muslim riots and some have even alleged that (2) he gave three days to Hindu mobs to commit murders and arson. Some have also alleged that (3) the riots were planned by Modi. Till date no concrete proof has surfaced to substantiate these media allegations of political nature. The Supreme Court is monitoring many court cases related to the riots.
It may also be mentioned here that before these anti-Muslim riots, less violent anti-Christian riots also took place in Dang district of Gujarat prior to Modi became Chief Minister. This has also led to continuous criticism of Gujarat Government by western media. The western media apparently raise the issue of anti-Muslim riots but naturally they are motivated by the anti-Christian riots and that is why US visa was denied to Modi.
It is an accepted fact that riots or mob violence, of any type, is a sure sign of administrative failure. If the administrative machinery is vigilant such incidents cannot take place. But riots do take place because of multiple factors and are considered administrative systematic failure.
But why media took on Modi relentlessly and is continuing with the tirade without any concrete proof to substantiate the allegations? On the contrary evidence has been produced in court recently to the effect that NGO of Teesta Setalvad had facilitated forged affidavits to malign Modi and Gujarat Government, many witnesses have turned hostile and statements of many officials have not been corroborated with facts.
Before becoming Chief Minister Modi had never contested any election for any public office and had always worked on the party posts. So he did not have any administrative experience when he took over as Chief Minister. The senior administrative and police officials should be blamed for mishandling the riots because in law and order situations officials are not suppose to take or await instructions from above or political masters as per administrative and legal provisions. Maintenance of law and order is the sole responsibility of the administration.
Narendra Modi became Chief Minister of Gujarat on October 7, 2001 after party decided to replace Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel. Modi had to contest by-election of the state assembly within six months. Election process takes about 45 days and we should count minimum 15 more days for Election Commission preparations before the by-election was announced. The result for the Rajkot assembly seat was declared on February 24, 2002 from where Modi was declared elected. So the new Chief Minister Modi was practically busy in this all important by-election of his political career during January-February 2002. Three days after the declaration of this result the communal riots started in Gujarat on February 27, 2002. It is a point to be noted that riots took place just three days after the by-election.
So was there any plan to involve Modi in riots and unseat him? There must be some purpose behind organising heinous crime of burning rail passengers in a coach. Suppose Hindus burn Haj passengers in Pakistan or Muslims burn church-going Christians in Britain or USA, what will be the fallout? After 9/11 there is a feeling of discrimination among Muslims in many western countries including US and Britain. There is no justification of riots anywhere or of any nature but when extraordinary incident takes place than one should take the context of the incidents.
For a person who had earlier never contested any election and did not have any administrative experience, riots must have been quite unsettling. When a Chief Minister is changed, the top administration of the state is in total flux. Normally under the situation Chief Secretary, Director General of Police and senior administrative and police officers in the field are summarily changed or they are under the process of shifting. All this takes few months to settle the administrative machinery. Under the circumstances a new Chief Minister cannot plan riots as is being alleged. In India, administrative machinery at all levels involves so many personnel including Muslim and Christian officials that nobody, not even a head of state, can secretly plan such things. It has never happened anywhere.
And the all important question is why the newly appointed Chief Minister will plan or encourage riots or plan to murder Muslims that too in a part of the State? How he will benefit from this? These riots took place in less than half the districts of the Gujarat State. For argument sake, even if he had succeeded in killing all the Muslims in ten districts of Gujarat then how he would have been benefited? What benefit he would have derived?
It may be recalled that at the time of riots in Gujarat National Democratic Alliance Government, under the leadership of Prime Minister AB Vajpayee, was in power at the Centre in which Modi’s party BJP was major partner.
Shri Vajpayee is considered ‘secular’ and it seems that the then Union Cabinet Ministers Arun Shourie and Jaswant Singh, who were privy to PM’s thinking, were sure that Shri Vajpayee will seek Modi’s resignation as per Indian political tradition to close the chapter of Gujarat riots and to ward off national and international criticism. Arun Shourie had given sufficient hint about this in his writings on the issue. It seems that the media got the hint of impeding removal of Modi and it became more vocal against Modi. After few days the BJP was holding its National Meet in Goa where the media expected Shri Vajpayee to publicly call for Modi’s resignation in his address. During this crucial gap of few days the opinion of national and international media had crystallised. Probably RSS leadership and Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani were able to ward off the announcement by Shri Vajpayee and Modi continued as Chief Minister. But in the mean time the media was already committed and had openly blamed Modi for riots expecting his impeding departure from the scene. But ultimately it did not materialise. So it seems that the sulky media and defiant Modi resulted in the present situation. From the very beginning the Congress is trying to derive political benefit out of the situation but all its efforts are resulting in strengthening Modi.
In the past almost ten years, despite continued aggressive media campaign, Modi has succeeded in winning series of assembly, parliament and urban and rural local body elections in Gujarat. His development agenda is also being acclaimed within country and outside. On top of this he has won over the support of sizeable sections of Muslim voters in Gujarat as is clear from the by-election in a Muslim dominated Kaithal assembly seat and rural and urban body elections. So Modi’s stock has gone up at the national level also.
We will have to wait for about two more years to see end of this unique media-led political drama by which time major Gujarat riots court cases would have been finalised and BJP would have decided its Prime Ministerial candidate for the next (Parliament) Lok Sabha elections scheduled to be held in 2014.
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September 23, 2013 at 10:46 PM
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/sikh-professor-attacked-in-possible-hate-crime-in-us-422359?pfrom=home-topstories
New York: A Sikh professor at Columbia University was allegedly attacked by a group of men in an assault which the police are investigating as a hate crime.
School of International and Public Affairs professor Prabhjot Singh was assaulted on Saturday night while walking in the Harlem neighbourhood near New York.
In an online post, Mr Singh’s friend Simran Jeet Singh, who is a doctoral candidate in religion at Columbia, said Mr Singh had been “brutally attacked” on the street and had been rushed to the hospital “bloody and bruised, his face swollen from a fractured jaw.”
The young professor could not speak because his teeth had been displaced, Jeet Singh said in the post ‘Hate Hits Home: When My Friend Became A Target’ published on the HuffPost website.
“Last night, I received the kind of phone call that everyone dreads: a close friend was hurt, and on his way to the hospital. But the news got worse, as I learned that my friend, Dr. Prabhjot Singh, a young Sikh American professor at Columbia University, had been brutally attacked on a public street, the victim of a violent hate crime,” the post said.
While in hospital, Mr Singh communicated to the police that his assailants taunted him and beat him, calling him “Osama” and “terrorist” as they pulled at his long beard. He was repeatedly punched in the face and head as he lay on the sidewalk.
Mr Singh had returned from dinner and after dropping his wife and one-year-old son at home, had gone for a walk.
Mr Singh was unable to provide any descriptions about his assailants.
Jeet Singh described the young professor as someone who has “dedicated his life to serving the underserved.”
Mr Singh is also a resident physician at a leading New York hospital. “Unfortunately his assailants did not see Prabhjot Singh, the professor, the community health expert or the local doctor. They saw a man wearing a beard and a turban – his articles of faith – and saw a target. Sadly, for many other Sikh Americans like Prabhjot, this is a story they have heard and experienced before,” Jeet Singh said in his online post.
Mr Singh has been discharged from hospital and had met with officials from the New York Police Department Hate Crime Task Force, who are investigating the incident as a hate crime.
Following the attack on Mr Singh, the New York chapter of the civil rights group Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called on state political and religious leaders to speak out against bias-motivated crimes.
“New York’s religious and political leaders must speak out forcefully against the type of bigotry that leads to hate attacks on people of all faiths and backgrounds,” said CAIR-NY Operations Coordinator Sadyia Khalique in a statement.
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September 24, 2013 at 12:39 AM
wow, had no idea!
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September 24, 2013 at 1:48 AM
Why was he walking near Harlem which is known for certain elements?People should think of following the dictum.While in Rome, be a roman. While in america, try to become one. Look in the mirror whether you resemble Osama by any chance before stepping out.
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September 24, 2013 at 3:58 AM
why should he not be there ?
1) Dr. Prabhjot Singh was not “in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
This statement is one that often gets mentioned in times of violent attack and hate crimes. No, Dr. Singh was in Harlem because that is his community. He was in Harlem because he lives there, because he works there. He is a physician who works in East Harlem. His specialization is community-based health care delivery there.
– See more at: http://omidsafi.religionnews.com/2013/09/23/singh/#sthash.hTs6RHUH.dpuf
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September 24, 2013 at 9:52 AM
Not all of Harlem is bad. Also, with rising RE, people are getting paid to move out of their old buildings, so that they can be renovated for wealthier folks to move in. The Harlem of old will be totally changed in a few years.
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September 24, 2013 at 10:55 AM
Harlem is already very different from what it once was. Much larger parts are now accessible than they were twenty years ago for a casual visitor.
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September 24, 2013 at 11:08 AM
Yeah huge swaths of the neighborhood are pretty deeply gentrified, for (mostly) better, although as with every other inch of the island low-income residents are getting priced out here. Not much room left in the city!
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September 24, 2013 at 11:17 AM
True.. the same thing is happening at a different level in both Brooklyn and Queens.
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September 24, 2013 at 2:24 AM
AHMEDABAD: The number of Indians, mainly Gujaratis, killed in Nairobi may be higher than reported.
“The toll has been put at 70 so far. At least 100 bodies are lying inside the mall, which have not yet been accounted for. Many of these are Indians,” said Gujarati real estate developer Ravi Vekhariya, who has been inside the mall twice as part of a rescue team. “We estimate 30 to 40 may have been killed.”
Seven Gujaratis, including four women, have been so far been confirmed to have been killed in the strike.
They include Mitul Shah, the owner of an oil exporting firm which organized a cooking competition at the mall.
Jigisha Samani (40), from Baroda, was wounded when she was shot at from the fourth floor of the mall, where she had gone for shopping with her son and father-in-law.
The three were sitting in a coffee shop when terrorists barged into the mall and started shooting indiscriminately. They hid behind a sofa and were fired upon after over an hour when they tried to rush out.
Four women from Kutch had a lucky escape though. “We got to know the four were rescued safely from the mall on Sunday evening,” said Ravji Patel of Naranpar village.
Dr Kirtida Acharya of the MP Shah Hospital said the wounded included children. “Over 20 Gujaratis are among injured. We suspect death of around 20 Gujaratis,” she said. “The number might rise as identification of the victims is going on.”
Apart from the MP Shah Hospital, Agha Khan Hospital was getting maximum number of victims.
The mall is located in an Asian and Indian dominated area and the community members frequented the mall.
“Many families visited it at least twice a week to buy stuff and for get-togethers. On the day of the attack, a cooking competition was held for the Asian community,” said Vasant Patel, a local resident.
Oswal community hall, located next to the mall, has been converted into intermediate paramedical facility.
“We have collaborated with the Red Cross to extend all help to the volunteers and security forces,” said Hindu Council of Africa chairman Mulji Pindariya,.
Chetan Shah, a volunteer, said control rooms had been established to ascertain the real picture.
“We have asked various communities to compile a list of the members who have been injured, dead or missing. At the moment, there are mass prayers going,” he said.
Large number of Gujaratis had gone to eastern Africa in 1896 for the construction of Uganda railway line between Mombassa and Kisumu.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/40-Indians-may-have-been-killed-Survivor/articleshow/22957011.cms
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September 24, 2013 at 2:25 AM
Hope Modi visits Kenya. He could have rescued them if he had taken a private plane like he did in Kedarnath.
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September 24, 2013 at 10:05 AM
! what on earth u’ve been drinking sanju???
sarcastic or serious – this comment makes absolutely no sense nor it evokes any laughter…..or u’ve been beaten by the congress-bug? anything happens – bring modi in picture!!!
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September 24, 2013 at 10:54 AM
There is a lot going on on internet. Many are comparing Israeli action to Modi’s pro activeness.As Modi thinks he is prime ministerial stuff, he can also send a stern warning to the Kenyan government and for that he needs no permission.
Because this incident maybe a beginning and emboldened by their success, the islamists may strike once more.
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September 24, 2013 at 11:49 AM
no he can’t send any warning to any other counry’s govt. That wud be against the protocol countries follow.
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September 24, 2013 at 2:25 PM
I dont think that Sanjana has been drinking anything; Superman Modi has decided to fly to the rescue of the Gujaratis in Kenya:
“Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to use his good offices to ensure safety of Indian victims in the Nairobi terror attack, which has left 69 people dead so far.
In a letter to the PM, Mr Modi said, “I stressfully urge that the central government should use all the resources available to it to provide safety and security to families of those Indians and Gujaratis who are victims of the terror attack…”I would like to draw your attention to the fact that large number of Indians and mostly Gujaratis have settled in Kenya,” he said in the letter.”
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/narendra-modi-urges-pm-to-help-indian-victims-of-nairobi-terror-attack-422742
How exceedingly thoughtful of Modi to ‘stressfully urge’ the Prime Minister to help the Indian *especially the Gujaratis* in Kenya, what would India ever do without him?
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September 24, 2013 at 2:33 PM
“I dont think that Sanjana has been drinking anything”–
Hehe Amy..u dont know
Sanju is ‘drowning’ in my ‘sweet nectar’ aka koffee
C’mon sanju–‘addiction’ ain’t gud 🙂
Ps: what’s interesting is though that modi distinguishes ‘Indians’ & ‘Gujaratis’ as as mutually exclusive groups..
Somehow I’ve lost interest in such politics ..
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September 24, 2013 at 9:28 PM
vow! that means sanju is right. I take back my words dear 🙂
Sanju knows the future PM more than us..
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September 24, 2013 at 5:51 AM
why foregn minister is no more or indian embassy has closed down actually these are cheap shots much like in desperation now akilesh to resorting to amit shah
http://www.fireandreamitchell.com/2013/09/21/muslims-kenya-tell-victims-name-muhammads-mother-couldnt-answer-got-shot/
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September 24, 2013 at 6:08 AM
and this is not jinigiostic full of hatred indian stuff but so called liberal media of the land of obama
and yours truly new york times:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/kenya-forces-closing-besieged-mall-article-1.1464634
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September 24, 2013 at 6:57 AM
NAIROBI, Kenya: The militant group that attacked a Nairobi mall and killed at least 60 people says it is still holding hostages alive inside and that its fighters are “still holding their ground.”
The Twitter messages posted on Tuesday by the al-Qaida-linked rebel group al-Shabaab came after Kenyan government assurances of success in the fourth-day of the standoff.
Al-Shabaab says the hostages “are still alive, looking quite disconcerted but, nevertheless, alive.”
A security expert with contacts inside said Monday night there were at least 30 hostages when the assault began Saturday and at least 10 were believed to be still inside the upscale mall. Officials did not give a figure, saying only that “most” hostages had been released.
Sporadic gunfire could be heard from the building on Tuesday as government forces pressed on inside.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/Somalia-militant-group-says-hostages-in-Kenya-mall-alive/articleshow/22990341.cms
The nightmare still is not over.
This is like those days when Mumbai was held to ransom for 3 days.
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September 24, 2013 at 9:02 AM
These Islamist killings around the globe are absolutely sickening. Around the same time they attacked a historic church in Peshawar and killed 85 or so in suicide attacks. Christians there are now demanding protection from the govt. lots of luck with that! But leaving aside the politics (and there are different motivations here.. the group that did it in Nairobi, and that makes the Taliban seem moderate (Al-Shabab), was responding to Kenya’s sending of troops to Somalia) but at a human level it’s utterly revolting. Not to say that the politics is defensible either but one has this intense reaction of nausea to this constant killing of people in all kinds of situations around the globe by these Islamists. And constantly.
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September 26, 2013 at 2:48 PM
Thanks for saying that Satyam…now you know why I was so heavily promoting the Hindu way (at least in India).
🙂
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September 26, 2013 at 4:26 PM
LOL, but my critique of Islamists does not lead me into the arms of Hindutva!
Of course my definition of a Hindu is very different from yours anyway! Not least because your ‘Hindu’ has never existed in history!
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September 26, 2013 at 4:44 PM
but sanatan dharma existed and it is the oldest on planet and in subcontinent history to be fair 90% of converts have there ancesstory goes back to them except from malabar one
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September 29, 2013 at 7:41 PM
I think its a stretch to force ‘Sanatan Dharma’ on erstwhile converts. How do you even know that they belonged to so called Sanatan Dharma? The Brahmins of that age enthusiastically wielded the power of excommunication on huge swathes of the populace, or forced them to move lower on the caste ladder. This left the affected with no choice but to seek other religions. Unfortunately it is too late in the day to be trying to spin this Sanatan Dharma web on present day India. The best course for every Indian is to respect one another, let everyone follow whichever/whatever religion they like, and work towards educating/enlightening the masses in scientific thought, so that true scalable progress/mobilization can be attained.
Having said all that, it our true misfortune that the political parties who ought to be following these actions are mired in dynastic corruption of humongous proportions, leaving people with no choice but to elect the purveyors of Sanatan Dharma. I really wish that RSS/BJP toned down on all this and tried to change its philosophy. It should be actively trying to embrace every community of Indians, and giving them a reason to elect them. Because if the ‘secular’ dynastic dogs come back, we are done for, and done for BIGGG!!
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September 30, 2013 at 4:36 AM
bacause there have been case studies on them and many historians habe put in on paper and if you want i can share many url there(mughals period showed the maximum by sword and forced one and some due to inherint misuse of caste system initially designed on basis of work distribution)
reform movemenrt have been started a century back and there have been many
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September 26, 2013 at 4:32 PM
I still don’t get it, how people are brainwashed in name of religion so that they go and fight in far away lands(In Kenya attacks there are some Americans and UK citizens[allegedly]).
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September 26, 2013 at 4:39 PM
It’s really become a cancer in our age. Just this incessant slaughter in every other country in the name of all kinds of political ends. Many of them totally absurd. But even the ones that aren’t have no chance of being achieved. Yet these guys keep bringing it on. With technology of course they’re not just a nuisance but a serious problem. No matter how much one tries to understand these things at a theoretical and/or sociological level or what have you there is a sense of revulsion beyond a point at this kind of completely fanaticism where one kills and keeps killing.
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September 29, 2013 at 5:59 PM
Another one:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/29/world/africa/nigeria-college-attack
Things like these are going to increase prejudices:
http://news.msn.com/world/kenya-mall-gunmen-used-religious-quiz-to-spare-muslims
More prominent Muslims need to come out in open and disown these acts.
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September 29, 2013 at 6:31 PM
one of the reasons these kinds of Islamist excesses become possible is because they feed on a bedrock of bourgeois opinion that is secretly complicit with them. What I mean by this is not of course that ordinary bourgeois Muslims condone this kind of violence but they often lack the religious framework to combat it in an intellectual sense. In other words they might say that ‘such acts are horrible’ but then seek to place them within some larger set of contexts, usually ones involving all kinds of political grievances ‘the West did it’, ‘the Hindus did it’ and so on. Which is not to say that there isn’t a place for debates on Western colonialism or what have you. One can certainly do all kinds of sociological or historical analyses in this regard. But there is no contradiction in trying to understand things at this higher level if you will but also condemning these acts individually in the most absolute sense. So to quote a favorite example whatever one considers the US to have done it does not excuse or condone acts like 9/11 (of course the irony here is that if you were on the Towers on that day it wouldn’t matter if you were Christian or Muslim or Jewish or whatever.. Muslims weren’t exactly being asked for their opinions on this! The theory here is that if you die this way agreeing with the Islamist cause as defined by one extremist group or another you are a ‘shaheed’. If however you don’t agree you deserve to die the infidel’s death anyway!). I’ve also pointed this out in the context of Modi debates and so forth. First off one cannot hide behind the crutch of evidence. So for instance there are Mulsims who believe there is no proof that other Muslims were involved in the 9/11 attacks (incidentally this is why I had a problem with MNIK, it is a film that plays cynically on the history of such grievances and then presents the US as Nazi Germany of a kind without at any point considering what happens on the other side). Or that even if they were let’s look at the other side. One must be willing to condemn certain kinds of things absolutely without reducing them to these debates. Because this is way of avoiding responsibility. This in some minimal way but also justifying certain kinds of atrocities by pretending it’s never a level playing field when it comes to such opinion and therefore one will only accept things once others accept other things. Since that day never comes one is free to keep pretending! But the point in any case is that certain crimes should not be open to debate EVEN IF one thinks there is a point to be made in the larger historical or political contexts. This is one part of it.
The second part however involves the degree to which one has already been hijacked by such Islamist thinking even when one might not agree with the radical results, even when one might not be playing the game of evidence. One them condemns these acts as excessive but one is intellectually on the same spectrum somewhere at the moderate end. The point should be to reject the entire spectrum! Much as in a different context I don’t just argue with Hindutva. I reject their definition of what constitutes a Hindu! This by the way was the debate in Dev. People often miss that Bachchan is shown as a normative Hindu very invested in the traditional religiosity. It is Om Puri who’s the political radical and who in fact is not at all interested in the particular religious practices. For him being Hindu simply means adopting a nationalistic identity. And so getting back to the Muslim contexts the problem is that even very many well-meaning people simply don’t have the tools to argue with these dangerous Islamisms. They have been convinced or seduced long ago. You can’t argue with the RSS if you already believe their definitions. You have to reject the latter to truly make a plausible case for being Hindu in ways that does not depend on the same sorts of definitions. For all these reasons Muslims find it very hard to condemn these acts. They fall in one of these two categories. Sometimes both. Ironically, though not surprisingly, the world of Osama bin Laden and others like him is a million light years removed from those peaks of Islamic-Arab civilization that these guys then delude themselves into believing they’re emulating! So Osama and gang wish (or wished!) to get to Islamic Spain. Well they would have been denied entry at the gates! Much like sadly many bourgeois Muslims today would also have felt totally out of place in those contexts.
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September 29, 2013 at 8:03 PM
My issue with common Muslim population is that there is not enough critical mass to oppose the thought process. So if you see there are rabid supporters of Modi but you see many Hindus opposing him. I see Muslim opposing Modi but I rarely find them opposing all these activities in name of religion (and they may be opposing them in silence but that doesn’t help) .
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September 29, 2013 at 8:39 PM
I agree completely. I would only complicate the question in this way — 99% of Islamic countries don’t really have democratic institutions. Hence you’re not likely to see a vibrant culture of critique in them if at all. On the other hand there is below the surface often more criticism of things than one might think but it isn’t usually represented by either side in the debate. Whether by the US (or Western) media side or the dominant political forces in those Islamic countries. This does not however contradict my earlier argument because a lot of the positive critique in this sense is also generational. A younger generation is far more skeptical about received wisdom in political or religious matters. With the others however they are much more comfortable launching the former than the latter. Or their religiosity has already been hijacked by extremists but they don’t realize it. But yes I agree completely. either way when there is the most senseless kind of killing there is no excuse for not saying anything and/or pretending there’s something on the other side which excuses this.
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September 29, 2013 at 8:31 PM
I am sick and tired of Muslims having to defend themselves every time there is a terrorist attack. I’ve seen on Fox News and other media outlets and now here from a blog member that Muslims need to oppose these acts. Well if you dig a little deeper and look beyond the headlines…Muslims ARE indeed outraged at these kind of acts.
ISNA Condemns Terrorist Attacks Against Pakistani Christians and Innocent Civilians in Kenya
http://www.isna.net/isna-condemns-terrorist-attacks-against-pakistani-christians-and-innocent-civilian-in-kenya.html
ICNA Condemns Suicide Attack on Church in Peshawar
http://www.icna.org/icna-condemns-suicide-attack-on-church-in-peshawar/#more-15000
People have to understand that Islam not a freaking cult or membership where we have control and we are responsible of every Muslim. Every Muslim is responsible for their own action…just like any other freakin person.
These recent attacks in the name of Islam are pathetic and they do not understand what the religion is about or what it conveys. I believe in the past 20 or so years, major clerics of Islam and most scholars in Islam have made a huge leap as far as teaching the religion with the right intention. IMO, these terrorist attacks have to do more with political gains rather than Islamic gains. Using Islam is just a easy way to ‘rally’ against the west for the terrorist groups.
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September 29, 2013 at 8:57 PM
I can’t say I agree with this. You are of course right in that there is always a blanket targeting of a community when these things happen and which is unfortunate. There are all kinds of cynical (and sometimes genuine) reasons why this happens. At the same I think many tend to walk away from a proper critique because they feel that a) they’re give ammunition to the other side b) they feel as you have stated that there is nothing wrong with the religion itself, it’s just some bad apples. My problem with this is that
a) one cannot risk speaking about these things because of such defensive fears. Such a risk must be run in the interests of creating a space where many positive developments might take place. For instance there are very many who do not like any Islamism but who are also unable to formulate their discontent in coherent ways. Why? Because even from their families and so forth they might hear condemnations of the violence but hardly ever a rejection of a brand of thinking that becomes vulnerable to such a hijacking.
b) yes it is a very small percentage of the Muslim population that commits itself to such radical agendas. But the numbers are in a sense deceptive. Because again those sympathetic to them exist in much greater numbers. To be clear those who are sympathetic are not so in terms of the violence but they do not offer any kind of intellectual resistance (let alone of the more pragmatic sort) because they don’t necessarily disagree with the list of grievances or the way faith is enunciated. At a practical level the fanatics are quite happy with this kind of passivity. Anything that does not constitute active resistance is a win for them. When the Saudis (or the Iranis) fund madrasas from Pakistan to Bosnia in this global competition they’ve had for so long it is this sort of ‘unthinking’ interpretation or one that does not invite any kind of rational debate that becomes part of the ether. It’s a kind of extremism on its own. It’s not meant to incite violence but such a position also cannot argue convincingly against those who do this sort of thing. And it’s not enough to say that it’s about individuals. It of course is but there are also larger ideological currents more powerful than the sheer numbers they represent.
c) I always start with the assumption, in fact it is completely obvious to me, that whether it’s Islam or Hinduism or Christianity or whatever that no such great tradition can ever be reduced to one extremist position or the other. So to my mind it does not at all ‘stain’ the religion or faith in question when the practitioners behave in certain ways. At the same time there is a responsibility on other practitioners to formulate better responses. If one thinks one’s faith has been hijacked by some or is being represented as a cult well then all the more reason for one to launch that alternate critique. Very often religions have to be saved from their followers! These are difficult questions, these are complicated questions but it’s surely a start to begin by criticizing what are completely atrocious acts of violence. With all due respect Islamic groups in N America who issue bland politically correct statements after such events (and one of course supports this) about how the attacks are wrong and how we must love each other and respect each other and whatever don’t matter very much. They are not recognized as very influential by anybody. One is glad they do so but it would for instance be hard to find Islamic groups in Pakistan or Kenya doing the same. where these things happened!
I’d finally say this. It’s hard to know whether that dividing line is where one leaves the bounds of religion and enters the bounds of religious politics. Religion is always fused with politics. Unless one is a mystic on a mountain somewhere! There are always political decisions taken. Yes ‘Islamism’ is about various political strands of Islam in the modern and/or contemporary world. But it’s too much to say these have nothing to do with religion since they authorize themselves using religious doctrine. It’s not enough to call them cynics or whatever. They might or might not be this. But it’s important to combat the doctrine itself or those sets of beliefs which they use to authorize themselves. This doesn’t mean I am unsympathetic to those who constantly feel they have to answer for the actions of others. I am not at all insensitive to the politics surrounding all of this. But again it’s a case of all of these things being true. So there is a politics that blames the Muslim for a great deal but then there is also a politics that prevents the Muslim from accepting a great deal within the community.
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September 30, 2013 at 3:19 AM
Picture the scene if you can bear to. A bustling shopping precinct where a group of men, women and children are surrounded by armed men. As one of the terrorists moves among them, he demands that the person quailing in front of him names the mother of Jesus or recites the Lord’s Prayer. “Our Father which art in Heaven,” says one woman. She is spared. Her neighbour, a Muslim boy, racks his brain for any line of the Bible, anything he has heard in school or on TV. But it’s too late. The boy is shot through the head; put to death for not being Christian.
Imagine the uproar if that ethnic and religious cleansing had taken place this week. Picture the hollering human-rights activists, the emergency session at the United Nations, the promise of action against the perpetrators who had singled out non-Christians for execution.
Yet this is a hellish mirror image of what took place in the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi. Islamic fundamentalists murdered scores of innocent shoppers for failing to name the mother of the Prophet Mohammed or recite from the Koran – sufficient proof that they were despised “kafirs” or unbelievers.
Radio presenter Saadia Ahmed said she saw people say something in Arabic “and the gunmen let them go. A colleague of mine said he was Muslim and they let him go as well.” But she added: “I saw a lot of children and elderly people being shot dead. I don’t understand why you would shoot a five-year-old child.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/kenya/10333477/After-Kenya-no-more-turning-the-other-cheek-to-those-who-hate-us.html?fb
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September 30, 2013 at 3:20 AM
In Western news-making and opinion-forming circles, there’s a palpable reluctance to talk about the most noteworthy thing about modern Islamist violence: its barbarism, its graphic lack of moral restraint. This goes beyond the BBC’s yellow reluctance to deploy the T-word – terrorism – in relation to the bloody assault on the Westgate shopping mall in Kenya at the weekend. Across the commentating board, people are sheepish about pointing out the historically unique lunacy of Islamist violence and its utter detachment from any recognisable moral universe or human values. We have to talk about this barbarism; we have to appreciate how new and unusual it is, how different it is even from the terrorism of the 1970s or of the early twentieth century. We owe it to the victims of these assaults, and to the principle of honest and frank political debate, to face up to the unhinged, morally unanchored nature of Islamist violence in the 21st century.
Maybe it’s because we have become so inured to Islamist terrorism in the 12 years since 9/11 that even something like the blowing-up of 85 Christians outside a church in Pakistan no longer shocks us or even makes it on to many newspaper front pages. But consider what happened: two men strapped with explosives walked into a group of men, women and children who were queuing for food and blew up themselves and the innocents gathered around them. Who does that? How far must a person have drifted from any basic system of moral values to behave in such an unrestrained and wicked fashion? Yet the Guardian tells us it is “moral masturbation” to express outrage over this attack, and it would be better to give into a “sober recognition that there are many bad things we can’t as a matter of fact do much about”. This is a demand that we further acclimatise to the peculiar and perverse bloody Islamist attacks around the world, shrug our shoulders, put away our moral compasses, and say: “Ah well, this kind of thing happens.”
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/brendanoneill2/100238080/im-sorry-but-we-have-to-talk-about-the-barbarism-of-modern-islamist-terrorism/?fb
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September 30, 2013 at 6:47 AM
Even if I might agree with many of the points made in such pieces (and I of course started out in this thread expressing the same sense of digest) what makes me uncomfortable is a certain ‘essentialism’ that creeps into them. Which is to say that one must be careful to separate the historically singular (if indeed it is singular) from that which is in turn defined as particular to a religion or culture. This particular writer uses the word ‘Islamist’ throughout. Many are not even as careful. But this is what often invites a certain defensiveness on the part of Muslims. They are of course wrong not to be more vocal at very many levels. However they think that ‘Islam’ is being put under the microscope rather than ‘Islamism’ and there is some truth to this (the irony is that they are themselves often ill-equipped to make the distinction between one and the other, something I got into earlier). Having said that it is also the case that a certain stereotyping always takes place in these and many other situations. And it is also true that many who are upset with this sort of thinking when their own identities are questioned are quite happy to do this with others. It’s the old racism thing. People from the subcontinent are usually up in arms when they perceive this in Western contexts. On the other hand they’re happy to be racists within their own!
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September 24, 2013 at 11:06 AM
Sad state of politics:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Cabinet-clears-ordinance-to-shield-convicted-lawmakers/articleshow/23004340.cms
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September 25, 2013 at 3:48 PM
Sachin Tendulkar, Deepika Padukone, Kareena Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan, all queued up to become brand ambassadors for Goa but the state does not need any star power to promote itself, Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar told reporters on Wednesday.
Parulekar said Goa was already a celebrity in its own right and there was no need to hunt for brand ambassadors for publicity.
“We have received proposals from marketing agencies that represent actress Deepika Padukone, Sachin Tendulkar or Kareena Kapoor and her husband Saif (Ali Khan), to sign them up as Brand Ambassadors for Goa,” Parulekar said.
But he said the state government was not keen on roping in any celebrity as a brand ambassador to promote Goa.
“Our image is such that any tourist will choose Goa over other destinations,” Parulekar said.
Goa had experimented with hiring brand ambassadors for the tourist destination when they roped in starlet Prachi Desai as brand ambassador a couple of years back.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/bollywood/news-interviews/Goa-says-no-to-Sachin-Deepika-and-Kareena/articleshow/23049614.cms?
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September 25, 2013 at 7:35 PM
Muslim organizations in Kerala root for under-18 marriage
In a throwback to the sectarian sentiments of the Shah Bano case, on Friday, Muslim organizations in Kerala, many of whom couldn’t see eye to eye till the other day, have decided to bury their differences and launch a joint platform called Muslim Vyakthi Niyama Samrkshana Samithi (Muslim Personal Law Protection Committee).
The new outfit apparently enjoys the patronage of Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), with MC Mayin Haji, IUML state secretary and close confidante of industries minister PK Kunhalikutty, the convener of the committee. “Mohammadan law states that any girl who attains puberty can be married off. The Muslim personal law has not fixed specific age for the marriage of Muslim girls. So any law that fixes 18 years as the age for the marriage is an infringement upon the constitutional rights of Muslims,” Mayin Haji said.
Though MK Muneer, minister for social welfare and panchayats, claimed that IUML leaders were part of the new organization only in their capacity as representatives of their respective religious organizations, the IUML has clearly initiated this with a view to the 2014 general elections. It has in fact threatened to go alone in all 20 constituencies, something it could be forced to resort to if push within the UDF comes to shove.
Representatives of Samastha Kerala Jam-Iyyathul Ulema, Kerala Nadvathul Mujahideen, its rival Nadvathul Mujahideen, Jamaat-e-Islami, Dakshina Kerala Jam-Iyyathul Ulema, Samsthana Kerala Jam-Iyyathul Ulema, Muslim Education Society and Muslim Service Society attended the meeting. Samastha Kerala Jam-Iyyathul Ulema secretary Kottumala Bappu Musaliayar has been elected the chairman and SKSSF leader Musthafa Mundoopara co-ordinator of the committee.
Though the Sunni faction led by Kanthapuram AP Aboobacker Musaliyar didn’t attend the meeting, it is learned that he will also extend support to the new committee. The immediate provocation for the move is the case filed against the office-bearers of the Ciesco Orphanage for marrying off an underage Muslim girl to a foreigner.
But the IUML’s attempt to bring all the Muslim organisations under one umbrella, and that too on a reactionary agenda, ahead of Lok Sabha elections suffered a jolt with Muslim Students’ Federation, the student wing of the party, openly coming out against the move to bring down the marriageable age of Muslim girls. “The decision is not in the right direction. We should create an atmosphere for the girls to pursue their education rather than marrying them off at a younger age,’ MSF state president T P Ashraf Ali said. “As an organisation working on the campuses, we know that majority of the girls is against getting married before completing education,” he said. Muslim Youth League state president P M Sadiqali also struck a discordant note. “Our stand is that child marriages should not be allowed. But we would not like to comment on today’s development,” he said.
The Muslim Souhruda Vedi, which ceased to exist a few years ago, was the most recent attempt by the IUML to bring all the Muslim organisations under one roof. But at a meeting at Kottakkal in 2009 the IUML decided not to have any association with the Jamaat-e-Islami, a member of the Souhruda Vedi, because the party found ‘extremist leanings’ in Jamaat. After that IUML took a strong position against the organisation but, interestingly, Jamaat-e-Islami is now a member of the Muslim Personal Law Protection Committee.
Mayin Haji said the committee would explore all avenues, including approaching the Supreme Court, to protect the community’s constitutional rights. “We need to get clarity in the issue because there are contradictory verdicts from different courts,” he said.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kochi/Muslim-organizations-in-Kerala-root-for-under-18-marriage/articleshow/22873559.cms
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September 25, 2013 at 8:24 PM
Well just today a Delhi Court passed a judgement stating that Muslim Personal Law cannot override Constitutional Law in cases of underage marriage or rape.
http://www.samachar.com/Muslim-Personal-Law-cant-override-criminal-law-Court-njzrMBbddbi.html
Even though a similar case in 2012 went in favor of the defendant, when the judge cited Muslim Law as allowing the defendant to marry a 15yr old girl.
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September 25, 2013 at 9:08 PM
Thanks Nykavi. That is good news. But, fear also arise from here. How can you expect anyone to listen to these groups? Our nations’ institution could be vulnerable to such demands if power goes in hands of such people. Shall people invest all the time and energy spending fighting against such wild law demands. Which direction this world is going! And this fear is not in just one country or another. It is all over the world , we see raising demands of sharia law in western countries on similar lines.
I have two muslim colleagues working so closely with me, but i don’t have courage to talk on any political issue. People are understandably very sensitive and feel offended easily. I like when some discussion happen on some talk show in west about such things in Islam or say wrong interpretation. But, india has yet not woken up to this threat.
I think solution lies with muslim intellectuals, they hold responsibility to come up with solution to stop Emotional exploitation by extreme groups like this. Of course they won’t like criticism from outsider which is understandable but where is strong opposition from islamic society. They just condemn it only under pressure or to justify their stand. But, condemnation is not enough, peoblem is getting wide with each day passing. There is no strong step from them to convince such people/groups. It is time muslim intellectual groups take accountability and put brave face which ll bring more respect and harmony between comminities.
Whole world is suffering and muslims are suffering no less than others because of that.
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September 26, 2013 at 10:06 AM
from god’s own country to devil’s own country …it had been a systematic process though
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October 12, 2013 at 5:28 AM
http://www.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/viewer.aspx
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October 12, 2013 at 6:06 AM
reluctantly in a newspaper which publishes editorials like “what does left think”
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October 12, 2013 at 8:39 AM
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/rollback-nations/1180076/
sorry the original one ..which was on press display
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September 26, 2013 at 7:38 AM
New Delhi: The Raghuram Rajan panel report has made a case for ending the ‘special category’ criteria for providing additional assistance to poorer states, as it ranked Goa and Kerala as the most advanced state and Odisha and Bihar the least.
The committee, headed by the then Chief Economic Advisor Raghuram Rajan who’s now the Reserve Bank of India Governor was set up by the government amid demand for ‘special category’ status by Bihar, suggested a new methodology for devolving funds on states based on a ‘Multi Dimensional Index (MDI)’.
Giving details of the report Finance Minister P Chidambaram today said the committee has suggested that the 28 states be split into three categories — least developed, less developed and relatively developed — depending upon their MDI scores.
On the allocation of funds, the report suggested that each state should get a basic fixed allocation and an additional allocation depending on its development needs and development performance.
The demand for funds and special attention to different states, Mr Chidambaram said, “would be more than adequately met by the twin recommendations of the basic allocation of 0.3 per cent of overall funds to each state and the categorisation of states that scores 0.6 and above as least developed states.”
According to the committee, these two recommendations, along with the allocation methodology, will effectively subsume what is now “Special Category” status.
Bihar, along with some other states, has been demanding ‘special category’ status to get more funds from the centre.
Based on the MDI scores, the 10 least developed states are Odisha, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.
The seven most developed states are Goa, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Maharashtra, Uttrakhand and Haryana.
According to the report, the eleven less developed states are Manipur, West Bengal, Nagaland, Andhra Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Mizoram, Gujarat, Tripura, Karnataka, Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh.
The report is likely to be implemented from the next financial year, Mr Chidambaram said, adding “Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has directed that the recommendations of the committee may be examined and necessary action in this behalf may be taken”.
The Department of Economic Affairs, he added, will soon examine the report and take necessary action.
The Rajan Committee was asked to suggest methods for identifying backwardness of states using a variety of criteria and also to recommend how the criteria may be reflected in future planning and devolution of funds from the central government to the states.
The committee has proposed a general method for allocating funds from the Centre to the states based on both the state’s development needs as well as its development performance.
Each state, as per the new criteria, will get a fixed basic allocation of 0.3 per cent of overall funds, to which will be added its share stemming from need and performance to get its overall share.
Multi Dimensional Index of backwardness, it said, is based on per capita consumption as measured by the NSSO or National Sample Survey Organisation, the poverty ratio, and a number of other measures which correspond to the multi dimensional approach to defining poverty outlined in the Twelfth Plan.
As per the report, the states with scores of 0.6 and above on the index have been classified as ‘Least Developed’; states with scores below 0.6 and above 0.4 as ‘Less Developed’; and states with scores below 0.4 as ‘relatively developed’.
http://profit.ndtv.com/news/economy/article-rajan-report-odisha-bihar-least-developed-goa-kerala-on-top-327723?pfrom=home-topstories
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September 26, 2013 at 8:15 AM
The reasons why Good road is selected instead of The Lunch Box.
To snub the Oscars Committee.
They tend to ignore all our good films that were carefully selected and sent.
This time India selects a film which will make them run for cover after trying to watch an incoherent film.
These foreigners are appalled of our bad roads full of potholes.
The Good Road will delude them into thinking that India started to have good roads.
Afterall, The Lunch box may not make it to the last five. And that would have disappointed us big time. To avoid big time disappointment, it was not selected.
I think TLB has no gay sex and slums strewn allover which would have drawn the required attention.
Last but not least, it will make Anurag Kashyap not to tweet too much.
Remember hare and tortoise race? Indians love tortoise to win, not the hare.
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September 26, 2013 at 12:46 PM
http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/NewDelhi/Govt-compromised-India-s-security-by-leaking-vital-report-VK-Singh/Article1-1127538.aspx
Govt. leaked TSD report in Indian Express to get better of General. General hit them with a bouncer.
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September 26, 2013 at 4:35 PM
The Congress has now entered a scorched earth mode. Any person, object, entity, etc standing against it has become fair game for the Congress to target. The country be damned. Security of the country be damned. Future of the country be damned. They will ensure that by the time the elections are over, India as a country will be totally compromised in every aspect. Just to keep the Dynasty in power. Pappu Zindabad.
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September 26, 2013 at 4:43 PM
Congress is going to extremes to retain power. Cabinet just passed an ordinance to allow convicted politicians to keep their seats. They passed food security bill without making any attempt to find the money for it. They decided to split AP into two which would create so many new problems just to win a few seats in telangana. I think they should just give up beyond a point.
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September 26, 2013 at 4:53 PM
They have enjoyed unquestioned power for 8 long years, filled up their coffers with untold billions. The lust for power only grows stronger. The Chinese too have systemic ingrained corruption. But dynastic rule is the one thing they have never allowed. It ensures the trickling down of prosperity, however undemocratic their system might be. India is a dictatorship in the guise of a democracy. Nothing else can explain a single family ruling it for more than 80% of its independent existence.
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September 26, 2013 at 6:05 PM
In India, we are recreating the feudal system in the guise of democracy. Not just at the national level but at all levels. Several states already have second generation politicians as the key leaders. Whenever an MP or MLA dies, his wife or son invariably get the ticket. The voting public is really to blame here. As long as people continue to patronise these folks, politicians will continue to exploit them.
This dynasty thing is not just restricted to politics, it is a big part of the film industry as well.
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September 26, 2013 at 4:56 PM
that ordinance negetes the judgement of supereme court…even today the authority which even today is admired by evenl cynical…
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September 26, 2013 at 4:47 PM
ib chief …idiot and communal
ex army chief…idiot and communal
appointment of cec…idiotic
vk singh came out first in support of anna and now modi openly
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September 26, 2013 at 8:20 PM
Congress is losing it. Disappointed that a personally honest person like MMSinghis not averse to stick to power at any cost. Sonia Gandhi maybe a vote gatherer but she will simply destroy the economy by bringing this food security bill. Aadhar card is seen as legalising illegal immigrants and Nandan Nilekeni contesting on a congress ticket puts a big question mark. The ordinance to negate SC judgment about criminals in politics will be another blot. The way army secrets are leaked out just to score points against ex army chief smacks of vendetta politics. How Jagan is incarcerated while his late father got away scot free.
The list is growing and Congress party is losing big time due too much dependency on a foreign born indiividual who wants to be eulogised as Mother Theresa than a sound administrator.
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September 27, 2013 at 1:00 AM
others to feel pity on maun mohan singh …most refrained from criticizing(dynasty won’t be spared though) but there is a limit to anything
http://zeenews.india.com/news/nation/aadhar-cards-not-compulsory-supreme-court_878540.html
(question to be asked with so much expenditure another heavy loot was on card)
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September 27, 2013 at 3:02 AM
Aadhaar is Biggest fraud and loot on poor nation by congress. it will surpass all scams coz all this was done to fill in coffers for next election.
There was vertical divide in cabinet on following aadhaar or NTPR. Chiddu favoured NTPR and Pranab Aadhaar ( There is personaal war btwn them) and Moron Rahul G came and said Aadhaar and see how fraud and dishonest this congress govt is how they tried to link aadhar compulsory with everything from bank a/c to gas connections to govt doles w/o any constitutional backing and guarantee. Privacy of Citizen is on raods seeing how much data aadhar has from personal to bio-metrics.
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September 26, 2013 at 9:45 PM
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/manmohan-singh-turns-81-20-funniest-tweets-from-detractors-to-pm/424730-79.html
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September 27, 2013 at 2:59 AM
None Of The Above (NOTA)
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September 27, 2013 at 9:56 AM
So now Pappu slams the Ordinance:
http://www.samachar.com/Rahul-Gandhi-calls-ordinance-on-convicted-lawmakers-nonsense-huge-embarrassment-for-PM-nj1sLVifhcf.html
And rightly so, BJP calls Congress a big drama company:
http://www.samachar.com/Live-BJP-on-Rahuls-antiordinance-comment-Is-this-a-govt-or-drama-company-nj1pNXiffce.html
The left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing.
Sharad Pawar wanted onions to be exported during price rice, and govt was forced to import onions!
Now Pappu slams ordinance while MMS/Sibal/Chidu et al promoted it.
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September 27, 2013 at 10:24 AM
Its a clever way. Actually congress party does not want the Ordinance but to appease lalu, it is doing so. Lalu will think that congress is doing this for him while cleverly the others in the party are condemning it and giving a hint to Pranab to reject it.
Congress party does not need lalu as it is cosying upto Nitish in a big way.
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September 27, 2013 at 10:52 AM
Not sure how clever that was, in any other organization this would be gross insubordination. But since its the Prince here, the Vazir bows down with folded hands. MMS ki bachi-bachai izzat bhi aaj lut gayi.
http://www.samachar.com/PM-should-quit-Rahul-should-apologise-says-Baru-nj1sLMgahjg.html
http://www.samachar.com/Ordinance-on-convicted-lawmakers-Rahul-Gandhis-political-move-nj1tLIjghaf.html?source=recommended_news
and this hilarious link:
http://www.samachar.com/UDAYS-TAKE-When-Rahul-Gandhi-finally-arrived-nj1qOsicfeh.html
Manish Sishodia of AAP, in reference to Rahul, said: Phata Poster Nikla Joker
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September 27, 2013 at 12:36 PM
It can be said in other way also
Phata poster nikla feku.
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September 27, 2013 at 2:47 PM
Btw, Lalu is not the only one. Verdict on Another congress minister Rashid masood is also coming out next month. And there are 44 MPs in criminal charges.
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September 27, 2013 at 7:38 PM
and bjp is also entertaining many criminals who have left congress party. So is every party. A political party without criminals is impossible to find. It is like pot calling kettle black.
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September 27, 2013 at 2:09 PM
need lalu and nitish both and now when jagan may be ally taken out of jail ….yeh sab se kya ho ga
you can’t make everyone ch***ya forever
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September 27, 2013 at 2:45 PM
If they don’t want to favor lalu, then why to bring ordinance at ugency. First understand what an ordinance is. Ordinance is brought by Cabinet of ruling party in extraordinary situation otherwise there was already a bill for this in parliament going on. But, it was supposed to take time due to discussion in parliament..
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September 28, 2013 at 1:12 AM
exactly and look at basic intelligence and cheapshots …this only shows the calibre
you can’t make everyone chu***ya forever
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September 27, 2013 at 2:03 PM
feku cum chai wala looks better than these nautanki sali company
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September 27, 2013 at 8:00 PM
Feku looks like amrishpuri.
Supreme court ruling that right to reject is a very good one. it will send signals to the political class.
Right to rejects all the fekus.
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September 27, 2013 at 8:34 PM
right to reject all fekus.
This dramabaaz feku could have played villain easily. He slips into the part so easily.
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September 28, 2013 at 1:17 AM
seems you woke up to right to reject only now…..who has filed up the case and whose demand was it…heard of anna hazare when he demanded that the current ruling what they said about it including chamchas
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/right-to-reject-recall-will-destabilise-country-cec/article2543220.ece
http://zeenews.india.com/news/nation/right-to-reject-great-step-towards-future-electoral-reforms-says-narendra-modi_879648.html
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September 28, 2013 at 2:10 AM
I woke up along with others because supreme court validated it. Anna can say hundreds of things but he is not supreme court.
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September 28, 2013 at 2:24 AM
ironically the man who designed the term was unable to defend himself in public forum and was humiliated publicly that to politics in conclave
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September 28, 2013 at 1:56 AM
what next pappu was responsible for right to reject
and since talk is on law why feku and so many others are talking about uniform civil code
let me remind you(content is not mine but taken from elsewhere ):
India has two sets of Laws, General law and Personal Law.
General law is applicable to all the persons who approach the Courts like the Criminal laws including the Indian Penal Code and procedural laws like the Civil Procedure Code, the Criminal Procedure Code and the Indian Evidence Act.
Personal laws are special laws applicable to the persons in their private family affairs like Marriage, Divorce, Adoption, Inheritance, Wills, Guardianship etc.
The Legislature has not interfered in the personal laws applicable to persons following their religion or the established customs and traditions.
(why should it be continued in secular country)
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September 28, 2013 at 2:12 AM
feku will change colors easily. The burqa episode is proof.
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September 28, 2013 at 2:16 AM
don’t know about feku and others but as they say in your language trio of shikhandi,mandbuddi and waitress is only entitled to do so
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September 28, 2013 at 2:22 AM
Waitress. Ha. Shows your attitude towards dignity of labour.
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September 28, 2013 at 2:32 AM
who abused profession lol
stop giving spin and be concrete and keep on trying
and continue your trend of asking x,y or z
i am off for now enjoy
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September 28, 2013 at 2:37 AM
Even I am not interested to continue this. Have a nice day.
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September 28, 2013 at 2:23 AM
By the way one is chaiwalla and the other is waitress. Both have some meeting point.
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September 28, 2013 at 2:27 AM
really is cocktail and tea are same lol
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September 28, 2013 at 2:28 AM
Ask apex.
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September 28, 2013 at 6:54 AM
No wonder why people in India indulge in corruption, making money or becoming something big and high up. Who wants to be a mere lowly waiter or wiatress.
Nothing less than being the owner of the restaurant, or at least the manager. Manager – ah, the management institutes are being flooded with hopefuls.
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September 28, 2013 at 2:37 PM
actually its bartender not even waitress and taling about feku as they say here is one exchange before he became the c.m of gujrat in late 90’s much before he had any gujrati identity ….host is one rajiv shukla who is minister today and heads ipl(kingpin of corruption and one of his biggest criticizer) and here is what many congress minister saw a decade and half ago when he was nobody
its all coming through hierchy and excelling everywhere rather than empty talks
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September 28, 2013 at 2:47 PM
Don’t divert the attention from what has become clear.
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September 28, 2013 at 3:06 PM
>actually its bartender not even waitress
Oh dear yes, that is really too low. A bar.tender???!!! Ram ram.
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September 28, 2013 at 3:25 PM
is it addressed to me?
what has become clear …don’t you even know about whom one is talking
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September 28, 2013 at 3:34 PM
seems you tried to take potshot :
so called feku is twitter name given by congressi to a certain gentleman called narendra modi(courtesy one diggi raja) and there have attempts to malign his humble back ground with names likes chaiwallah but how many know there chairperson from italy at once happened to be a bartender cum waitress(just to show mirror)
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September 29, 2013 at 6:06 AM
Oh, OK:
But it only proves how similar BJP and congress are in their thinking, if BJP thought by calling her waitress/bar tender they were giving an equally ‘low’ hitting response.
AAP is the only saviour, when chaiwalas, bartenders and waitresses will feel important , and worth something.
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September 29, 2013 at 6:18 AM
do you hold indian passport…seemed delusional
kalam was the son of fisherman and risen and so haven been many …what has background have to do have with anything
one of the principle figure anna hazare(the mai baap saviour ala aap) is not even hugely qualified but he gave rti to india
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September 29, 2013 at 6:41 AM
repeatedly rising from hierchy and having things on platter isn’t same unless one intentionally want them to equate
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September 29, 2013 at 7:25 AM
>what has background have to do have with anything
Don’t ask me. Ask BJP and Congress who are throwing around chaiwalas, bartenders, and waitresses like rubbish.
>do you hold indian passport…seemed delusional
LOL. Prejudice is another *MAIN* cause of hindrance to ‘real’ development (I don’t mean multiplexes, shopping malls etc)
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September 29, 2013 at 7:36 AM
seems you woke upto bartenders now only when told not when defacto she rule for ten years without any accountability
from chaiwallah the guy finished studied on merit moved on and ruled and now the front contender for pm all on skills…what on worrld meand throwing around
son of a fisherman ( so called thrown around) went on to be father of indian nuclear bomb and later president )…one of the greatest scientist kalam
its not prejudice but its inability to be logically coherent and know things on ground which is evident
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September 29, 2013 at 7:41 AM
Haha Oldgold..-Actually ‘waitresses’ & ‘bartenders’ aren’t bad..
As u know, in the west, these are some of the popular part-time jobs taken up by (some hot n capable) students ..
Am not aware of the intricacies of the various parties and whose upto what–but the bottomline is that nobody is ‘clean’..
Voters have no real choice.
Instead of concentrating on ‘background’ and who did what, the only feasible criteria should be ‘results’ and ‘recent performance’ predominantly (besides good education)
“do you hold indian passport”—c’mon Oldgold … Declare it 🙂
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September 29, 2013 at 10:09 AM
Actually, Narendra modi proudly mentioned his background of ‘TeaServer in Trains’ in Delhi Rally. Can bartender Sonia do the same with proud?
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September 29, 2013 at 11:45 AM
The question is;
would he have remained a proud chaiwala…. as a chaiwala.
Or does the pride come only after becoming CM, and hoping to become PM.
Why should Sonia Gandhi declare her waitress/ bartender past ‘proudly’?
One does that only when one is conscious that it is something to feel small about.
I’m glad that she doesn’t go about being so stupid.
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September 28, 2013 at 10:27 AM
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Obama-comes-down-on-side-of-Singh-Sen-and-socialism-in-debate-about-poverty/articleshow/23212631.cms
Obama comes down on side of Singh, Sen and socialism in debate about poverty
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September 28, 2013 at 10:29 AM
WASHINGTON: In a rarest of the rare gesture, US President Barack Obama personally walked down to the White House portico to see off Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after a meeting with him at the Oval Office.
Those familiar with the strict White House protocol said that this was the ‘rarest of the rare’ gesture by the president, which they have not seen in the recent past.
Officials in the past have noted that Obama has great respect for the Prime Minister not only as a great leader and a statesman but also as an economist. The two leaders have enjoyed a great personal equation.
Obama had hosted his presidency’s first state dinner for the Prime Minister in November 2009 and has described India and US as the indispensable partners of the 21st century.
In his remarks, Obama praised the Prime Minister.
“He has been a great friend and partner to the United States and to me personally during his tenure as Prime Minister of India,” Obama said after meeting Singh on Friday.
“Across the board, Prime Minister Singh has been an outstanding partner,” he added.
“Thank you so much for all your efforts to continue to strengthen ties between our two countries,” Obama told Singh.
Singh too praised Obama for his commitment to the India-US relationship.
“During the time that I have been Prime Minister, and particularly during the time that President Obama and I have worked together, I think President Obama has made an outstanding contribution to strengthening, widening and deepening of our cooperation in diverse fields,” Singh said.
“In the president, the United States has a leader who realises and recognises the contribution that a resurgent India can make not only to fighting poverty, but also to global peace and prosperity,” Singh said.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Obama-extends-rarest-of-rare-gesture-for-PM/articleshow/23202406.cms?
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September 28, 2013 at 10:44 AM
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September 28, 2013 at 2:30 PM
5 billion dollors defence deal is on card and obama has to wag his tail btw mms speech in u.n especially on jammu and kashmir and islamic terrorism was good ….seems away from india and a embarrassment called rahul gandhi woken up mms especially in his last few days as p.m
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September 28, 2013 at 8:04 PM
So is mms in America ?
And the Obama juggernaut continues…
Economic (under)performance notwithstanding ..
“that this was the ‘rarest of the rare’ gesture by the president”—hahaa
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September 28, 2013 at 10:14 PM
The chaiwallah took a 35 yearlong meritorious route to graduate from his teastall and become a CM. The waitress/bartender/aupair did not need 35 yrs. She just married an airline pilot and overnight became the elder daughter-in-law of the First Family. And now her progeny takes ample advantage of the Dynasty, and their son-in-law mints billions from insider-land-deals. On the other hand, the chaiwallah’s mother sleeps on a cot in a 10 X 10 hut. His brother still runs the tea stall. Yes, he gets rides on private jets from the industrialists whom he gives full support. But he still does not have billions lying in swiss banks.
If people still think the chaiwallah and waitress are in the same league, they are sadly mistaken. It is pure naivete to put the two on the same plane of corruption.
BTW, the Congress has labeled the AAP as TeamB of the BJP. Why would they not do so? To them, anyone who opposes their ruthless raj is to be grouped together in a common enemy camp. Any Cong spokesperson on TV has never failed to say that AAP is BJP’s ‘mukhota’ (ie facemask). Well, if the Congress says so, then whoever supports AAP is actually supporting BJP!!
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September 28, 2013 at 11:44 PM
The chaiwallah is a megalomaniac. And also has a nice 2002 record.
And Emperor Aurangzeb also led a very simple life, no corruption. Incidantally he was also born in gujarat.
There are many forms of corruption. One is personal corruption which Vadra is being accused of.
The other is bestowing favours on select industrialists for staying in power. There wont be any bank account in this but the corruption takes place. The reward is stupendous. The select industrialists will launch a multi billion PR exercise so that the person bestowing favours will get elected again and again.
Chaiwallah’s mother sleeps in a hut but not the chaiwallah himself. He lives life king size in a fortress, getting highest security(a popular figure needing so much security), enjoys luxuries of super rich.
Whether you eat with your right hand or left hand, you are eating.
AAP’s true colors will be out. Whether they are genuine or a front. So far they have kept up the neutrality.
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September 29, 2013 at 10:26 AM
‘Emperor Aurangzeb also led a very simple life, no corruption. ‘
Aurangzeb, babar, Humayun LOL
These dacoits are your idols. I have seen many debates on Pakistani news channel. They consider them as idols. They discuss them more than anyone else. What a Pity!
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September 29, 2013 at 10:31 AM
Why not? and you are not getting my point.
Simplicity and non corruption in themselves cannot absolve a person if he or she indulges or encourages violence, corruption by backdoor.
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September 29, 2013 at 11:24 AM
LOL ‘Why not?’
So you approve them as their idols. These people were just merchants of death who dont think a minute otherwise before slaying their own siblings and parents. Wake Up.
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September 29, 2013 at 11:23 AM
When our own countrymen call our PM unmentionable names, it is but natural Pakistan will also do the same.
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September 29, 2013 at 11:37 AM
Who calls? It was shahzada rahul gandhi who just insulted PM 2 days ago in uncivil and unconstitutional manner. Criticizing in civilized manner is india. But, Please dont talk like barkha dutt. You will never criticize or report a protest to pakistan instead pointing towards india. Baseless arguments and diluting whole argument is what you are doing.Our so called ndtv reporters including barkha dutt were eating sweets offered by pakistani team and joined them in mocking our PM. Btw, dont call India our own country. It seems worst form of betrayal.
None of the news channel even mentioned about this incident until Narendrer modi mentioned this in his speech. This shows how our media has sold selfrespect and india’s respect.
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September 29, 2013 at 1:10 PM
LoL. What happens inside our country is our internal issue. Pakistan has no right to make any derogatory remark on our PM. That was the point Narendra modi made. You will never criticize Nawaj sharif or any one pakistani even a terrorist. Moreover, you will support another guy Rahul gandhi who just bashed PM publicly in media while PM had said a week back he would work under the guidance of Rahul Gandhi.
Why should he publicly snub Manmohan when he could have directly ask him no go with ordinance. Why cant rahul gandhi meet president and ask not to pass the ordinance. While BJP leaders led by Sushma swaraj first met with president opposing the ordinance and then AAP led by kejriwal did the same. But, shahzada will no do that instead he will not take any step but publicly snub prime minister working who readily works as per his guidance.
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September 29, 2013 at 3:11 PM
raghav, I dont care what Nawaz Sharief says about our prime minister as he is an outsider. What pains me our own countrymen making fun of our prime minister on every occasion. As for rahul snubbing PM, rahul snubbed Ordinance not the PM. I think he indirectly snubbed his mother too. Because without her nod, the Ordinance would not have been promulgated. I can sense some dichotomy between mother and son which may be out sooner.
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September 29, 2013 at 4:08 PM
this is as ridiculous …why in domestic front people will not ridicule faulty policies and inactivy last heard it happens in all countries that to with objectivity
a gentleman called atal bihari vajpayee was called with worst name (though one rate him as mong top 3 pm ever along with shastri, indira)
have one ever seen heated presidential debate in u.s or electroral scene in u.k
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September 29, 2013 at 7:32 PM
rockstar talking about objectivity. Ha.
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September 29, 2013 at 10:47 AM
Btw, Nawaj Sharif who is grown with the background of terrorism breeding culture, shows his aukat. He calls PM Manmohan singh dehati aurat. While he may be acting like robot throughout his tenure. He has no comparison with Indian PM in terms of education, international exposure, reputation as an economist.
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September 29, 2013 at 12:53 PM
ya raghav shown his aukat and more to with what zia -ul-haq done with tempered history book
simplicity with power ….examples are many
sardar patel -an asthma who went out to unify india with this and if he hadn’t been robbed of being first pm
lal bahadur shastri-again rising from hierchy
jp- a huge simple man who just with his roar destroyed emergency and went on to form first non congress government in india….examples are many
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September 29, 2013 at 1:49 PM
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September 29, 2013 at 4:40 AM
lo who is at number 4 and any idea about assets
http://www.clicktop10.com/2013/05/top-10-richest-politicians-in-2013/
these sort of things won’t work out (btw this is forbes list)
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September 29, 2013 at 10:59 AM
It is notable that she finds herself in the Top5 of the world 3 of which are monarchs, and 1 is a businessman. So she is the only one in the Top5 who has undeclared assets!! The only other to give her company in the Top10 is Putin!!
But such stats do not matter to Cong fans. They are ostrichs with their heads firmly stuck in sand.
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September 29, 2013 at 11:21 AM
First the information has no basis. Where are the asset classification details? You cannot simply say something and think others will believe. There is RTI which one can use to get the details. Also incometax declarations. If it is true, the BJP would have stalled the parliament session after session. Will theBJP let go of such a golden opportunity to hit at Sonia?
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September 29, 2013 at 1:38 PM
BJP raised the issue in Parliament at right time, Miss Sanjana. But, paid media never raise concern or publish this in india. It proves how paid media works.
Another Worst thing happened yesterday when Nawaj sharif mocked Manmohan singh. Media had not reported it. I was watching speech of Narendra modi. When he told so i thought how could it be true when no one reported here. Then, within an hour, media realized and ibnlive.com first published Narendra modi’s quote. Later, indian media started verifying this matter. Moreover, barkha dutt who is in new york interviewing Nawaj sharif even denied when asked about it.
If i am not wrong , she must be your idol from media world 🙂 Anyone who is really indian or has any concern for india, would have woken up by now.
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September 29, 2013 at 3:15 PM
The same media highlighted all the scams like 2G, coalgate, Robert Vadra’s land deals for weeks. This issue was raised by BJP but why it did not persist with it as usual? Because there is no truth in it.
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September 29, 2013 at 3:34 PM
entirely a false propaganda
2g was first raised by subramaniam swamy others merely followed it and first they ridiculed him
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/subramaniam-swamy-busted-the-2g-scam/1/153417.html
it was ashok khemka who went public with vadra and even today they are reluctant….also tumbling of dlf stock cheated investors
on international front:
it was hidden for so many years 60 odd members of parliament signed petition to u.s for not getting his visa which these people later denied but they where caught when bjp leaders have visited u.s
aadat hai inko ghar ki politics bahar khelne ki
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September 29, 2013 at 7:30 PM
These were not hushed up by media. Without media support either Swamy or Khemka would not have got publicity.
About Forbes list, they have the responsibility to show details of properties owned also. Powerful is different from the richest list. Forbes focussed on the most powerful list.
I am finding it amusing that Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sharad Pawar, Karunanidhi, Vasundhara raje etc. are not on the richest politicians list
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September 30, 2013 at 3:45 AM
really are thosde 4 are ruling defacto that to in central scenes in delhi without any accountability
sawmy won case in supreme country and proved them convict(though big fish went free) and they where forced to
if they had any conscience left they would have mercilessly gone after what happened to ias officer khemka much like durga
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September 29, 2013 at 11:39 AM
What site is this?
I’m planning to make a list myself. Anyone interested?
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September 29, 2013 at 12:16 PM
seemed you tried to take another post …this is u.s forbes list quoted by many international media
just google sonia gandhi forbes rich and get listed in each of them
http://www.businessinsider.com/richest-politicians-in-the-world-2012-2?op=1&IR=T
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September 29, 2013 at 12:18 PM
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September 29, 2013 at 12:21 PM
lol man saying in front of parliament and challenging anyone can sue him….anyone is free to sue forbes and jethmalani though
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September 29, 2013 at 2:26 AM
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September 29, 2013 at 2:50 AM
Favor to Satyamshot. Lets hear Modi together, LIVE from Delhi Rally
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September 29, 2013 at 3:20 AM
10,000+ watching live on youtube. WOW
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October 2, 2013 at 4:00 AM
They were luring people with Laddoos 😀
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October 2, 2013 at 9:52 AM
C’mon Oldgold –I’m also getting lured by laddoos. Can I have a laddoo pleez 🙂
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October 2, 2013 at 10:12 AM
Oops Oldgold –can I have two laddoos (instead of just one!) 🙂
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September 30, 2013 at 1:34 AM
http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/terrorists-in-kenya-mall-used-new-tactic-to-spare-some-muslims-425361?pfrom=home-topstories
The turbaned gunmen who infiltrated Nairobi’s Westgate mall arrived with a set of religious trivia questions: As terrified civilians hid in toilet stalls, behind mannequins, in ventilation shafts and underneath food court tables, the assailants began a high-stakes game of 20 Questions to separate Muslims from those they consider infidels.
A 14-year-old boy saved himself by jumping off the mall’s roof, after learning from friends inside that they were quizzed on names of the Prophet Muhammad’s relatives. A Jewish man scribbled a Quranic scripture on his hand to memorize, after hearing the terrorists were asking captives to recite specific verses. Numerous survivors described how the attackers from Al Shabab, a Somali cell which recently joined Al Qaeda, shot people who failed to provide the correct answers.
Their chilling accounts, combined with internal Al Shabab documents discovered earlier this year by The Associated Press, mark the final notch in a transformation within the global terror network, which began to rethink its approach after its setbacks in Iraq. Al Qaeda has since realized that the indiscriminate killing of Muslims is a strategic liability, and hopes instead to create a schism between Muslims and everyone else, whom they consider “kuffar,” or apostates.
Read on
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September 30, 2013 at 2:09 AM
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Lalu-Prasad-convicted-in-fodder-scam-case-sentencing-on-October-3/articleshow/23288593.cms
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September 30, 2013 at 6:27 AM
Rockstar, Sanjana.. I have deleted some comments but it’s best that you avoid each other. At least in these political debates.
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September 30, 2013 at 2:52 PM
As I said in past, this place should have mature discussion. If this becomes a place of personal attacks, this thread would be closed.
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September 30, 2013 at 2:54 PM
agree.. there’s a difference between intense political discussions and these sorts of attacks.
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September 30, 2013 at 6:47 AM
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/haryana-to-chargesheet-khemka/article5176604.ece
For cancelling mutation of land Robert Vadra sold to DLF
A little more than a month after Ashok Khemka submitted his 100-page note to the Haryana government, in which he alleged that Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra “falsified documents and conducted sham transactions” in the State, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has ordered that the IAS officer be charge-sheeted for administrative misconduct.
On the recommendations of the administrative department committee, Mr. Hooda has approved action against Mr. Khemka under Rule 8 of the All India Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules for cancelling the mutation of 3.5 acres of land at Shikohpur in Gurgaon district, which Mr. Vadra sold to real estate giant DLF Universal Ltd. Charges also relate to Mr. Khemka’s criticism of the government in the media.
Confirming the orders to charge-sheet Mr. Khemka, Chief Secretary P.K. Chaudhary, however, declined comment, saying: “It is a personnel matter.”
Mr. Khemka, who has not been served the charge sheet yet (it is being legally vetted), reacted to the development on his hugely popular twitter account. “Media reports Haryana CM chargesheeting me for action on Robert Vadra — DLF deal. Do not know what was my duty otherwise,” he tweeted. Another tweet quoted Edmund Burke’s “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” Within minutes, both tweets were re-tweeted more than a hundred times.
Official sources associated with the process of determining action against Mr. Khemka told The Hindu that exercise of power became a misdemeanour when it was coloured.
“Exceeded jurisdiction”
Holding that Mr. Khemka exceeded his jurisdiction in cancelling Mr. Vadra’s land deal mutation, the sources said a close scrutiny of his orders and the rules and laws in force showed that Mr. Khemka’s exercise of his powers fell under the ambit of administrative misconduct that would attract major penalties.
The penalties he could face if he is found guilty are reduction to a lower stage in the time scale of pay for a specific period; demotion to a lower grade or post, which is also a bar on promotion; and compulsory retirement and removal from service, which will not be a disqualification for future employment, the sources said.
Mr. Khemka was transferred from the post of Director-General, Consolidation and Holdings, and Inspector-General, Registration, on October 11, after he initiated inquiries into the Robert Vadra-DLF land deal. The very next day, he cancelled the Shikohpur land mutation of 3.5 acres and ordered an inquiry into an alleged undervaluation of property owned by Mr. Vadra and his companies in Gurgaon, Palwal, Faridabad and Mewat. A committee the Haryana government set up to probe these orders concluded that they were “inappropriate and without jurisdiction.”
Mr. Khemka was not invited to present his defence before the committee, but was later asked to give his comments on the report. The 100 pages of his well- researched reply, reported first by The Hindu on August 10, further embarrassed the government as he not only raised questions of bias in the composition of the three-member committee but also alleged that Mr. Vadra was indulging in sham land transactions in Haryana to make money as a middleman on the premium from colony development land licences.
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September 30, 2013 at 10:23 PM
Rahul Gandhi’s Political advisor and Congress General Secretary sets new low in fake claims for blame game. Very interesting video.
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September 30, 2013 at 11:34 PM
http://www.newslaundry.com/2013/09/clothesline-episode-16/
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October 1, 2013 at 11:37 AM
http://news.yahoo.com/government-shutdown-day-one-142635628.html
Read on FB
“Don’t worry Americans, If you need any comfort – There is a country called India where government is shut down 365 days a year for common public.”
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October 1, 2013 at 3:49 PM
Ha!
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October 1, 2013 at 4:10 PM
hey its the same here…not like these idiots in washington have done anything worthwile for the “common public” in the past decade or so. its all about the elite on both sides and their interests.
this shutdown will be forgotten by next year when the mid-term elections come up and all the big corporates will continue to pour in money for their candidates. washington is corrupt as ever, just like in india, just like in pakistan.
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October 1, 2013 at 9:02 PM
Such an honest and dedicated man! Love you Modiji.
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October 2, 2013 at 10:59 AM
Nothing wrong in such videos or your position but it will prompt people to post opposing video and why they hate Modi. You can post videos to buttress your position in argument. But if you post like this, it is useless.
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October 2, 2013 at 3:29 AM
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October 2, 2013 at 3:31 AM
Lest we forget!
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October 4, 2013 at 10:44 AM
**Finally, we have a leader that can appeal across the length and breadth of India – NONE OF THE ABOVE!!**
Poll dates in five states announced, NOTA option introduced
Bharti Jain, TNN | Oct 4, 2013, 06.07 PM IST
NEW DELHI: The Election Commission of India on Friday announced assembly polls in five states between November 11 and December 4, setting the ball rolling for what promises to be the semi-final between Congress and BJP before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
While Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Mizoram will have a single-day poll on December 4, November 25, December 1 and December 4 respectively, Chhattisgarh will have two-phased polling on November 11 and November 19.
As many as 18 Naxal-infested constituencies in Bastar region of south Chhattisgarh and Kanker and Ranjnandgaon in north Chhattisgarh will go to polls in the first phase, facilitating maximum deployment of the nearly 50,000 troops provided to the EC for poll security. The remaining 72 constituencies of Chhattisgarh will elect their representatives on November 19.
Counting for all the states will be held on December 8, and the poll process completed by December 11. Incidentally, the term of the Madhya Pradesh assembly is expiring a day later on December 12.
“The model code of conduct comes into force from this very moment, with the polls having been declared,” Chief Election Commissioner V S Sampath, who was flanked by election commissioners H S Brahma and S N A Zaidi, told newspersons while announcing the poll schedule.
The outcome of the year-end match up is expected to have a bearing on the outcome of the Lok Sabha battles, by providing tail wind to whoever comes up trumps in the first round.
For the first time, the EC will provide “none of the above” (NOTA) button on electronic voting machines (EVMs). “On the balloting unit, below the name of the last candidate, there will now be a button for NOTA option so that electors who do not want to vote for any of the candidates can exercise this option by pressing the button against NOTA.
The CEC Sampath said the Commission would be spreading awareness among the voters about this new option, through field-level officials to be especially trained for the purpose.
It may be recalled that a September 27 judgment of the Supreme Court had directed the EC to provide NOTA option on the ballot papers and EVMs.
Another recent Supreme Court judgment that will be implemented in the upcoming polls is the requirement of having all columns filled in affidavits to be filed by the candidate. A September 13 order of the apex court had made it obligatory for the returning officer “to check whether the information required is fully furnished at the time of filing of affidavit with nomination paper”. If a candidate leaves any column blank, the returning officer will issue a notice to him to file the affidavit with all columns filled. If the candidate still fails to fall the columns, the nomination paper will be liable to be rejected.
Another first in these state polls is the deployment of central awareness observers, over and above the general observers, expenditure observers, police observers and micro-observers. They will oversee the efficient and effective management of the electoral process…mainly in the field of voter awareness and facilitation. “Awareness observers will be deployed in two phases of seven days each and shall observe the interventions undertaken by the election machinery to bridge the gap in people’s participation in the electoral process, particularly in voters’ turnout,” said a press note issued by the EC.
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October 8, 2013 at 12:53 PM
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-forgotten-promise-of-1949/article5211026.ece
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October 21, 2013 at 10:43 AM
A proposed Islamic University is threatening to disturb the peace and tranquility in the temple town of Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh, says Vicky Nanjappa
History shows that the land on which the proposed university is coming originally was part of a temple pond. It belonged to the Venkateshwara temple which was built in 1542. This temple which housed the Lord Venkateshwara statue was destroyed by Hyder Ali in 1782.
While this has been part of the history books for several generations, it is ironic to note that the same land was handed over to a university which the authorities today claim has no permission to function. No official is able to state with confidence or give correct details about how the temple land was handed over to this university which is under construction.
The protests against the setting up of this mystery university are gaining momentum, and interestingly, even the Muslims in the temple town too have come out openly against the setting up of this university.
The local authorities have made it clear that no permission has been granted for this institution. An official said that what he hears is that the university aims at propagating Islamic culture, but also adds that it cannot function as there is no permission.
The university in question is the Heera International Islamic College, founded by a woman known only as Nowhera Shaikh.
The website of this university gives no concrete information about the institution. Most of the webpages have garbled messages on them. With regards to the founder, all the information the website has is that she is the chancellor of the university.
Shaikh is from a family which dealt in wholesale business of vegetables, fruits and textile products. She claims to have started an Islamic School for girls at Tirupati in the name of ‘Madrasa Niswan’ in 1998, (under a society registered with the Registration of Societies Act, AP, India, No: 386), with around 150 students, who she claims she provided with free education and lodging facilities.
She also claims that she has been nominated for the Indira Gandhi Priyadarshini Award in December 2012.
Several organisations are doing everything that they can to stop the university from coming up. Although the construction is on in full flow, there is no explanation about when the college would commence its activities. Several Hindu organisations have taken up the issue and are protesting the setting up of this university. Interestingly, they have been receiving a lot of support from the local Muslims who say that this university is bad news. The Muslims who pray at the Tirupati temple feel that the town was peaceful and now with this university there is a good chance of peace being disrupted. They feel that this is the doing of the ‘West’ who are trying to ‘worsen relationships between Hindus and Muslims’. Shaikh who had met with a couple of Muslims before the project commenced, and had claimed to be a resident of Tirupati, but no one remembers seeing her before.
Although Shaikh, during a recent press conference, claimed that she had the permission to run a college, there was nothing concrete shown to this effect. She had taken part in the press conference with around 300 burqa-clad women and had claimed that those would be the students in the university.
Several Muslim organisations in Tirupati have decided to fight against the university now. They say that they want no trouble whatsoever and are happy that at least 400 Muslims worship at Lord Balaji’s shrine everyday.
–Vicky Nanjappa
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October 21, 2013 at 11:14 AM
Perhaps one should stop with all this nonsense and pay attention to this. I have news for such people (fighting over temples) – India is one of the worst countries along with Pakistan. Bonded slaves still exist here.
Middle east is not as bad as portrayed. America is not far behind it.
Please study *both* the maps.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/10/17/this-map-shows-where-the-worlds-30-million-slaves-live-there-are-60000-in-the-u-s/?tid=sm_fb
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October 21, 2013 at 12:06 PM
I think intention is alright but methods I have serious doubts. It takes monumental effort to do census in any country and then categorize that some one is slave is even more tougher. So a small organization claiming it has data sounds too good to be true.
ps – I read some portions; so an illegal immigrant may be termed slave because he or she is not free to choose in new country. By that definition there are many marriages where people want to get out but they can not, because of multiple reasons. Are they slave? May be.. But these things are difficult to quantify qualitatively.
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October 22, 2013 at 5:54 AM
So you want to say there’s no problem at all? Or not much?
The biggest problem with Indians is the one concerning ego.
Why not just accept that there is this *bonded* labour that has existed for years?
Why give excuses supposedly as reasons?
It’s India that one is concerned about, where even after a law passed against bonded labour, it continues. It is widespread especially among farmers.
You may not have been affected by the *very dark* situation, but I am. That’s why I posted it.
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October 22, 2013 at 11:53 AM
Oldgold – “It is widespread especially among farmers.
You may not have been affected by the *very dark* situation, but I am. ”
Could you please elaborate the very dark situation?
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October 22, 2013 at 6:12 PM
The colour of India on both the maps 😉
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October 22, 2013 at 6:26 PM
“The colour of India on both the maps “–haha
Btw I’ve got sandwiched between Amy & Oldgold –actually it’s quite a ‘soft’ comfy place 😉
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October 22, 2013 at 1:14 AM
non muslims are not allowed to enter into mecca and madina and there comes lecture on middle east..what is the significancee of ayodhya and tirupati does one know first
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October 22, 2013 at 5:56 AM
muslims, ayodhya, Mecca, Tirupathi, Medina blah blah blah!
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October 22, 2013 at 7:03 AM
and slavery and middle east…for record for a long time in west middle east was known for slavery only from where it orginated
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_Slavery_in_the_Middle_East
and temple and mosque despute with reference to middle east whose record is there for itself
who says problem is there and people are not working but context and references itself says blah blah blah
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October 22, 2013 at 10:31 AM
>for record for a long time in west middle east was known for slavery only from where it orginated
And now India surpasses the originator – *That’s* the point.
What *is* the point of your comment?
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October 22, 2013 at 11:03 AM
and now india is the originator told by someone in timactu….
last heard india faced the problem of bandhua manager(in local lingo) in case of migrants whicch is just form of slavery which is just one form
its the arabs who marries children and early age girls (especially among muslims)in your so called exotic destination
where in camel children have to sit and runs in races…
ever heard of migrant nurses and sexual harassment which nevder got reported and the great female laws(sexual slavery)
even heard of new labour law in your exotic destination
i can understand something among least developed nation with poverty but this is not acceptable in modern development with oil money flowing around
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October 22, 2013 at 11:11 AM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_slavery
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October 22, 2013 at 11:43 AM
“its the arabs who marries children and early age girls (especially among muslims)in your so called exotic destination”
The problem of child marraige in India is incredibly acute, with almost 45% of girls being married under 18!
Patriotism is commendable, but blind jingoism is dangerous and countr-productive to a nation’s well-being.
It’s futile and hypocritical for us to keep pretending to be scandalized by the human rights situation in the Middle-East, when the truth is that our own country fares dismally on every single metric related to human development be it child nutrition, maternal health, women’s right and education, or poverty.
This is like an Ethiopian crictizing India for malnutrition, or a South African passing judgement on India’s crime situation!
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October 22, 2013 at 12:18 PM
“Patriotism is commendable, but blind jingoism is dangerous and countr-productive to a nation’s well-being.”
couldn’t agree more. And the larger problem of course in all of these debates ranging from this sort of subject to Bollywood matters is the tendency to cherry-pick from the historical record or to offer de-contextualized nuggets. Of course history is always a matter of selecting a narrative but once one selects the subject one has to be true to it in the most comprehensive sense. and not everything in history is ‘convenient’ for one’s ideological ends.
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October 22, 2013 at 12:41 PM
I follow – Patriotism when you talk with someone from other country (or keep quiet when position is not tenable). Within country, being critical is good, especially when we are a developing country with so much corruption.
Precisely this is where I have issue with Arundhati Roy when she goes to international Arena and bad mouths India. If I have issues at home, I am not going out and tell everyone (right or wrong).
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October 22, 2013 at 12:57 PM
That’s a pretty reductive metaphor for serious political issues. This is not about Arundhati Roy or anything but it doesn’t strike me as right to suggest that one should censor oneself on a broader stage simply out of some sense of national loyalty. There’s certainly the risk of endorsing superficial criticism that skirts systemic issues to serve specific needs (not that this is always wrong, but there it does run the risk of being self-aggrandizing) but if one doesn’t necessarily see institutional support for a cause one believes in it’s only natural to seek that out elsewhere. Again not speaking about anything specific here, I just resist that idea that one ought to keep quiet about these things on a world stage.
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October 22, 2013 at 1:51 PM
If you speak at international forums you typically won’t get proper resistance for your position and your comments would be construed as true. If there is a proper forum then you could be critical. To me it seems such people want to self promote because they get more currency for their utterances.
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October 22, 2013 at 2:04 PM
As I said I don’t dispute that there’s a self-aggrandizing angle to some of this but again, (and this is not about international forums alone, but even within smaller context, smaller dialogues) this does not mean there should be radio silence on important issues. Then again I’m not as committed to the idea of patriotism, at least as it’s being described here, so I suspect therein lies the gulf.
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October 22, 2013 at 11:44 AM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_marriage_in_India
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October 22, 2013 at 12:54 PM
I don’t dispute your idea of presenting a patriotic front to outsiders, since they don’t live in India and their knowledge about India’s poverty/ corruption/ crime against women is not going to help change things.
However, I think that stubbornly refusing to face our faults as a nation (as some comments are doing here) is an incredibly harmful excercise, and far, far worse than being brutally honest about the country to outsiders who could always read about how badly we fare in terms of human development, poverty, gender equality etc on the internet or in the newspaper, even if an Indian citizen does not tell them about it.
I also think that there is a danger of taking this attitude of ‘patriotism in front of foriegners’ to an extreme i.e. suppressing genuine evidence of corruption/ crime etc simply so that the ‘national honour’ is not tarnished, and the country is not shamed on an itnernational stage.
Basically, I think that bieng self-critical (without being self-loathing) is the healthiest attitude to adopt, and that for any civilization to truly progress and develop, it is necessary to have an atmosphere of intellectual freedom where one can contemplate on the nation’s failings without being savaged by jingoists who accuse one of being a marxist, islamist, anglophile etc.
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October 22, 2013 at 1:05 PM
There is no logical rational to censoring onself on the international stage, but this is an act of purely emotional self-defensiveness rather than patriotism IMO (and I’ve been guilt of it as well).
It’s not about pride in the nation (misrepresenting or omtting harsher realities indicates shame more than any sort of pride or patriotism) but simply not wanting to make onself look bad in front of others, even if only by association.
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October 22, 2013 at 1:06 PM
Ami – Agree mostly. Everything that comes out of international press is not reality. When Govt. can not do proper census, I don’t see anybody can say with surety. I am not suggesting issues or numbers are less, it could be more actually. I disagree on the confidence with which numbers are blurted out. Should we turn our face away from issues? No.
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October 22, 2013 at 1:13 PM
If child marriage is discussion here , then let me brought a recent dangerous development. just last month, there was demand in kerala state by Islmic political parties to abandon eligibility restriction from girls of 18 yrs to be eligible to get married, but high court rejected it. It will be legal then, thus no case will be registered and problem will be solved. That is what happen in most countries, but these things are not illegal or go unnoticed.
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/muslim-groups-want-minimum-marital-age-scrapped/1/311127.html
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October 22, 2013 at 2:07 PM
and similarly slavery is abolished in india and all this is talk of blind jingoinism is amusing to say the least when indians are there best critics( you have to be thick skinned in india to survive and not face hostility)
criticism as long it is constructive and fruitful but not well it is destructive just to score a point
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October 22, 2013 at 5:47 PM
Rockstar, let me repeat this: FORTY FIVE PERCENT OF INDIAN WOMEN ARE MARRIED BEFORE THEY ARE EIGHTEEN.
To deny that this is a problem does smack of blind jingosim; when this denial is done in conjunction with berating muslims and the middle east for the same crime, then it also indicates blind hatred and hypocrisy.
Raghav: that was my point: why berate Islam for this crime of child marraige, when it is very highly prevalent amongst Hindus as well?
This is NOT to say that Hinduism is inferior/ superior/ equal to Islam (I’m a practising Hindu myself) but to say that such crimes are NOTpractised by followers of one religion alone, as much as delusional bigots (from both religions) would like to believe so!
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October 22, 2013 at 6:00 PM
Well said– kudos amy
(Btw worried-hope u aren’t idolising kkk- Kareena kapoor ‘khan’! Lol)
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October 22, 2013 at 6:10 PM
*why berate Islam alone
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October 22, 2013 at 6:24 PM
don’t forge your own interpretation with terms like blind jingoism
let me tell you things from root rather than interpretation:
the root cause is poverty because of which in rural india girl child is liability and dowry makes it more difficult …a major portion thinks money spend on education will be saved by dowry
these things will only be curbed by education and emancipation not by saying what this is and what this is not…question to be asked why this much status after this long after independence when lots of money spent on nrega ….
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October 22, 2013 at 6:38 PM
Rockstar, stop skirting the issue. I am not asking you for your what is the root cause of child marraige, I’m asking why you were so quick to berate Islam and the Middle-East for child marraige when in fact it is so highly prevalent in India, and amongst Hindus?
And the idea that poverty alone is the root cause of misogyny is nonsense, plain and simple. Why is it then that the relatively well-off urban dwellers are more likely to abort female feoutses than the rural poor? Why is it that other poor countries in South America or Saharan Africa do not suffer from widely prevalent social evils such as dowry or female feoticide?
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October 22, 2013 at 6:45 PM
two most populous state u.p and bihar contribute bulk to it due to social condition not religius and you are mixing it with dangerous cocktail with religion someone who is defending this wrong cause with religious interpretation
its not late india where mahatma gandhi the father of nation married at child age its the today’s time…even heard of raja ram mohan roy who started to abolish it a century back why in backward state it is prevalent
and data is as bull shit as one shit
as per census of india done by government of india in 2011 dats of child marriage was 3 to 8 % s how on earth 40% of child brides come into play when goi hasn’t had census
https://standupforacause.wordpress.com/tag/child-marriage/
further as per law it is illegal and crime report it and people who are doing it will go to jail
further looking at this one clearly see how western view of inflating numbers with bleakness and perception
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October 22, 2013 at 7:03 PM
LOLOLOL! There is so much that is problematic about your writing that I do not even knwow ehre to begin.
Theissue is NOT in anyway contained in UP and Bhiar alone, problems like child marraige and female feoticide happen even in the most forward Indian states such as TN or Maharashtra.
I didn’t bring religion into this, it is you who does so with your constant hateful rants against Islam.
The idea that just because something is illegal in India and the criminal can be jailed, it is therefore not widely prevalent is so utterly delusional that I do not even know what to say!
In any case, India is actually not as anti-child-marraige as you seem to beleive it is: it is actually one of the very few coutnries in the world that has not signed the anti-child-marraige UN resolution!
There are umpteen surveys conducted by reputable bodies that establish the true extent of child marraige in India, and if you have ever tried working for the cause of education of rural girls in India (as I have) and persuading parents to send their teenage duaghters to school instead of marrying them off , then it will be obvious to you exactly how widely spread it is.
Anyway, I have no wish to continue in such an unrewarding discussion and I am going to discontinue any futher interaction with you.
Feel free to exist in your delusional alternative universe, where Islam is the sole root cause of all evil, and where India is the most developed nation int he world!
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October 22, 2013 at 7:12 PM
saying lol lol and the hateful run will not make you rational as personal attack is last form of retort when nothing on display
come up with something new if anything is left and for rest i think you can come up with something better
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October 22, 2013 at 7:25 PM
Rockstar, do you even understand the meaning of the words you use?!
I disputed your points one by one, and mentioned various facts such as India’s reluctance to sign the UN resolution, the prevalence of female feoticide across income groups and states and my own personal encoutners with such regressive attidues, whereas you made no attempt to discredit the points I made and instead simply accused me of being irrational. How ironic then, that YOU should accuse ME of making unsubstaniated personal attacks!
In any case, you don’t have to worry about my comments any more; I’m not going to continue this discussion any further, I just couldn’t let your last comment slide, given how (typically) hypocritical it was!
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October 22, 2013 at 7:31 PM
there is nothing problem in writing but problem is when one is unable to take counter view:
up and bihar leads in child marriage(social condition) and haryana and punjab the different emphasis of female foeticide becauses of emphasis given to male child with belief and agricultural economy mostly
the most to most reputable survey can come up with a sample survey( can be anything depending on small sample crowd) not concensus for a diverse and complex country like india which takes times time, money by going from door to door with government machinery
india hasn’t signed anti marriage child resolution because there is no uniform civil code it has ( and it has a big political controversy on it) but it has strict age as per law
feel free to interact with everyone but don’t start taking naking names and say you are this or you are that and expect others to not respond
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October 22, 2013 at 7:38 PM
Rockstar, I do not mean to be spiteful about you, but if you are going to make constant attacks about the culture and customs of one religion alone, whilst vigorously defending another religion from even the slighest suggestion of imperfection, then you need to be prepared for people to call a kettle a kettle and highlight the fact that you are, in fact, being highyl negatively biased.
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October 22, 2013 at 7:44 PM
i may understand or not what words i use according to you but check who refuted what ( a case of simple memory):
a liknk which shows how data and number is incorrect ,
social cause and your repeated points one after one
atleast one can expect some honesty here
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October 22, 2013 at 7:55 PM
in order to sound liberal its you who is associated it with religion….do you even know how practices like child marriage came into india in which era and why women did sati
other religion are not advocating something like child marriage but some are demanding it as per religion and filing cases on it (as per sharia)…this is wrong and one will say if one is wrong whether you like it or not
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October 22, 2013 at 10:23 PM
If demand for allowing child marriage in Kerala by muslim political parties wasn’t enough, then dubai comes with ban on women drving.
http://news.rediff.com/commentary/2013/oct/23/saudi-clerics-protest-women-driving-blame-us/146d657e9527c34dc29228453dbce1d7
Saudi clerics protest women driving, blame US:
Around 150 clerics and religious scholars held a rare protest outside the Saudi king’s palace today against fresh efforts by women seeking the right to drive, highlighting the struggle faced by reformers in the ultraconservative kingdom.
Some of the senior religious leaders who protested outside the palace in the Red Sea port of Jiddah said the United States was behind a campaign calling for women to drive on October 26 that claims to have garnered 16,000 signatures.
The government has not cracked down on the driving campaign, and King Abdullah is believed to favor some social reforms. The protest by clerics, who are among the most influential voices in Saudi Arabia, shows the challenge he faces in pushing gently for change without antagonising conservative segments of the population.
The hard-line Saudi religious establishment has sway over the courts and oversees the often zealous religious police, run by the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which enforces strict segregation of the sexes and other restrictive interpretations of Islamic Shariah laws.
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October 22, 2013 at 9:58 PM
When one doesnt has any answer, then he just divert the topic from tirupati temple land occupied to slavery. Moreover, generalizing india, pakistan, middle east and USA keeping all of them n same boat.
Without going into details, one thing can clearly say. Difference is very simple if one is not biased. Slavery and child marriage are not legal in india and USA. While middle east and pakistan hardly care for that as majority religion doesnt see anything wrong in it. As for india, there are grave problems of law and order implementation in likes of Akhilesh and Congress regime but one can stand and legally fight for it and he will get support in his fight against all of these evils from each corner of society. But, pakistan society will not bother about it and hardly anyone can fight for it until some USA support come for the victim. Malaya yousuf is the latest instance.
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October 23, 2013 at 2:43 PM
“As for india, there are grave problems of law and order implementation in likes of Akhilesh and Congress regime but one can stand and legally fight for it and he will get support in his fight against all of these evils from each corner of society.”
And this is what is known as delusion! Female feoticide and child marraige are social evils, not legal pitfalls. It is society that practises and implements them, not the congress! Forget support from social evils, there isn’t even support against crimes happening in public! There are countless cases of women being eve-teased, molested,and stripped in public without a single bit of support from any corner of society in this country. Nirbhaya’s body lay unattended on the road for hours before it was picked up, where was your great, flawless and perfect society then?!
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October 23, 2013 at 2:51 PM
Obviously when social evils are fought against, problems come to surface. But, Since when is the solution is to legalize them. Final word is India wont allow legalization of any social evil. Though, i am afraid muslim appeasement by parties like SP, Congress can lead them to these level aswell as we saw in Congress governed kerala, it was only after high court’s interference that the matter was dumped. Pakistan and Middle east can do whatever they want in their states.
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October 23, 2013 at 3:01 PM
I agree that legalisation of social evils is obviously wrong. I also agree that the Middle-East and Islam do have some very serious problems that need to be looked into, not the least of which are terrorism and treatment of women.
What I do not, however, agree with, is the selective highlighting of the social evils of the middle-east alone, whilst at the same time rigorously defending regressive customs and practises that of India.
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October 22, 2013 at 1:17 AM
one will never had any data on china where it is state controlled and sure many on next populous india..what % is 14 million off 130 cr..
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October 22, 2013 at 5:59 AM
>one will never had any data on china
And?
It shoud be enough if you have on India.
All that you got out of this news was that China isn’t shown as bad as India.
*groan*
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October 22, 2013 at 4:23 PM
I hope the ‘slavery’ been mentioned here is not the fetishistic type lol
Some ace comments by oldgold & Amy
And yea Amy –‘child marriage’ should be banned
Infact ‘marriage’ should also be banned lol
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October 24, 2013 at 7:35 AM
another Comrade bites the dust !! Yehhh !!
Malini Parthasarathy @MaliniP 21 Oct
@rvaidya2000 Thanks. Yes, this is a priority for us, we want to restore lost credibility by making clear distinction between news and views
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October 24, 2013 at 7:59 AM
Dirty war in public among Commie journos : N Ram and ‘Bob Ali’ like Sid Vardarajan on twitter aided by Malini P and Tunuku Vardarajan ( Bro) 😀
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October 26, 2013 at 9:09 AM
I don;t renumber now. Either there was a fight of some kind there or too many comments.. not sure.. actually even this thread will have to be closed soon. Too many comments. Hopefully Munna can start a new one!
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October 26, 2013 at 6:06 PM
Next week; two new threads with overlapping topics on a movie forum is too much 🙂
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