Hi all, thank you for stopping by, taking the time to read the letter from FAOW, and leaving your thoughts. There are a couple of issues I'd like to quickly clarify so that we can, if necessary, take this discussion further.

First, Mayuresh, thank you for your insights. You haven't been rude at all, so don't let that be a worry. I haven't visited the link you directed me to as I can respond immediately to your points. You're right, the SMS itself cannot be classified as communal, perhaps jingoistic. I do think however, that sending that SMS to a Muslim Indian may be perceived of as communal.

Dijo points out, quite rightly I think, that the SMS could have been sent to everyone or several people in the reporter's phone book. It's possible that he didn't target one Muslim, but a group of people whose religion was irrelevant to him. In that case we can either say that he's thoughtless to have included a Muslim name or secular because he sees no difference between Muslims, Hindus, Christians etc. when making an India versus Pakistan joke. Fair enough.

Then too, for a reporter at a national daily to do so is at best unprofessional, at worst irresponsible. He clearly didn't know the activist at FAOW well enough for her reaction and decision to approach his Editor, rather than him directly, proves so.

We can certainly give the reporter the benefit of doubt unless one knows that he has sent or tends to send similar SMS's only to Muslims.

However: I've received so many similar messages, vitriolic and unarguably anti Muslim in the India-Pakistan context, that I have begun to feel that this is a subject which we must all deal with, with some care and sensitivity towards others. I felt, and tell me if you agree, that the behavior of the media and of the crowds at the match was perhaps the best I have ever seen at an India-Pakistan match. Spirit like this embodies what sport is truly about, while SMSs as sent by the TOI reporter do quite the opposite.Pointing out that Shoaib Malik makes pro Islamic comments is in my mind rather childish and illogical. He did it and therefore so can we? I'd rather it be he did it, but we certainly won't. [link]

1. the SMS itself cannot be classified as communal, perhaps jingoistic
2. the SMS could have been sent to everyone or several people in the reporter's phone book
3. sent to a group of people whose religion was irrelevant to him
4. we can either say that he's thoughtless [..] or secular
   
5. We can certainly give the reporter the benefit of doubt

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posted by barbarindian at 8:07 AM Permalink 6 comments

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posted by barbarindian at 7:42 PM Permalink 5 comments

Let's take a trip back down the memory lane.

Imagine this is 2003. India has just defeated the formidable Australia in the World Cup finals. The Indian Team has come back home amid wild jubilations. Posters such as the one above are seen on billboards all across Bombay.

Imagine also that you are a socially responsible journalist who really believes in secularism and social justice.

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posted by barbarindian at 11:03 PM Permalink 7 comments

The Centre on Monday compared its legislation granting 27% quota to OBCs in admission to educational institutions to Caesar's wife and stressed before the Supreme Court that it was, like her, above suspicion.

"It was not brought in to subserve votebank politics, but to help those who genuinely needed help to shrug off backwardness caused by centuries of oppression," solicitor-general G E Vahanvati argued before a five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan. Vahanvati attempted to answer the flurry of questions that were put to him on Tuesday by the bench, which also comprised Justices Arijit Pasayat, C K Thakker, R V Raveendran and Dalveer Bhandari. [link]

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posted by barbarindian at 7:35 PM Permalink 0 comments

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posted by barbarindian at 7:30 PM Permalink 1 comments

Two Years of the UPA
Ila Patnaik
The good, the bad and the ugly


The good


Nuclear deal

For decades, India had a principled stance that it would not give up nuclear weapons. In return, the world strangled India's ability to import Uranium and thus make nuclear energy. Suddenly, that is history. The US and India have entered into a historic deal, whereby Indian nuclear weapons will be accepted by the world, and the world will be willing to sell fuel and reactors to India. This is great news for low cost electricity generation in India. It also removes a long-standing irritant that was holding back deeper friendship between India and the US, two natural allies on the global stage.

Railways

What happens when you mix the worst piece of Indian infrastructure (railways) with the politician from whom people expect the least (Lalu Prasad Yadav)? Magical results! The performance of the railways has been simply astounding. A far reaching reforms process has begun, by permitting the entry of the private sector into container transportation. Someday, the railways will be like roads:

the government will own the rails but multiple private companies will compete in offering trains. And we will remember Lalu Prasad Yadav for having started it all.

Fiscal revolution

For decades, we used to bemoan the Indian crisis on the fiscal deficit. Then came the rescue in the form of the FRBM Act, initiated by Yashwant Sinha, supported by Jaswant Singh, and seen through by P. Chidambaram. Far-reaching tax reforms were initiated, including the VAT and and an attack on the "exemption raj" highlighted by Kelkar. The deficit is now down to just 3.7%. A lower deficit means the government is grabbing less resources, and more money is available for investment.

Airports & civil aviation

Aviation has been revolutionised, first by the entry of new airlines. In a moribund sector that was trapped in the business interests of Indian Airlines, Air India, Jet Airways and Sahara, suddenly, we have competition! Prices have crashed and the middle class is flying. Tourism has prospered like never before. The second revolution has been unleashed, even though results are not on the table yet - that of privatisation of the airport. Now we can dream that the Delhi and Bombay airports will look as wonderful as the Delhi Metro. Praful Patel did what a Congress minister would never have been able to do.

Capital account convertibility

After years of a deadlock, the PM and the FM are ready to move on to the next big milestone of an India that is growing up: opening up the capital account. The RBI is still dragging its feet, having setup a committee for "fuller" convertibility as opposed to "full" convertibility. But it will be hard for the RBI to hoodwink this PM and this FM, and within 10 years, the Indian Rupee could be one of the great hard currencies of the world.

The bad

Wrong taxes

A great part of the "fiscal revolution" described above was rationality in taxation. We have slashed customs, shifted to VAT, lowered rates, and removed exemptions. But in the UPA years, a series of wrong taxes have crept back. The education cess, the securities transaction tax and the cash withdrawal tax -- all these are flat wrong. One expects better when an economist is the prime minister! The reformers have to now settle in for a ten-year fight to get rid of these.

Mindless expenditure on Education

The government is pouring huge money into its "flagship program" - the Sarkari Shiksha Ahiyan (SSA). But there is no evidence that SSA works. Independent tests show that our children continue to learn little at government schools - e.g. ONE HORRIBLE FACT: ONLY HALF THE STUDENTS IN CLASSES II TO V CAN SUBTRACT TWO DIGIT NUMBERS. What is needed is fundamental educational reform - not a more bloated government that spends more and more on dysfunctional institutional mechanisms.

Crippled Oil policy

The world price of petrol goes up. India imports petrol. The Indian price of petrol should go up. Obvious? Not if you are Mani Shankar Aiyer or Murli Deora. Both these ministers have derailed the effort at getting the government out of price controls in the oil sector. We are doing this exactly wrong: subsidising consumers to use more scarce oil. Men and nations will only do the right thing after exhausting every reasonable alternative.

6th pay commission

As Yashwant Sinha is reported to have said, the 5th Pay Commision "nuked Indian public finance". Now, in a shallow attempt at manipulating the next general elections, Manmohan Singh has embarked on the 6th Pay Commission. He did not need to do this. Now, the devil is in the details. If he finds good economists to drive the 6th pay commission, it can even do some good. More likely, he won't get fiscal hawks, and the 6th Pay Commission will nuke Indian public finance again. We learn from history that we learn nothing from history.

NREGA : Unbounded expenditures?

This is one way of generating employement that even Communist China did not think of. Let people dig holes and the government pay them. We have also discovered a new way of redistribution. The better off you are, the bigger the transfer to you. So a worker in a poor state will get Rs 60 and a worker in a rich state Rs 120. And, as to how much will be spent after all State governments have finished competing with each other to make the centre pay whatever minimum wage they fix, even the finance ministry has no decent estimates.

Stalled PFRDA Bill

India is on the cusp of a demographic transition. Waves of young people are coming into the labour force. This is the perfect time to catch them into a modern pension system, where each person can build up a personal hoard of pension wealth to shelter himself in old age. The New Pension System was a fundamental reform, initiated through extensive public discussion from 1998 to 2002. The UPA has been hijacked by the trade unions - who represent 2% of India - and has completely stalled the pension reform. We are losing valuable years. Years from now, starving old people will remember the UPA for this.

Stalled disinvestment

Arun Shourie did yeoman service exposing the massive scale of theft from PSUs by the political class - whether it is cronies of ministers consuming free rooms at ITDC hotels or it is cronies of bureaucrats selling expensive chicken to ITDC hotels. His jihad on privatisation stirred up this hornets nest of various crooks feeding on PSUs. But his accomplishments - such as the sale of VSNL or TCS - were major victories of the NDA. The UPA has killed off privatisation / disinvestment at the central level. West Bengal continues to powerfully move forward with privatisation. Remember Great Eastern. But the UPA behaves asif what is good enough for West Bengal is not good enough for India. Think BHEL.

Divide and Conquer: Higher education

There must be something wrong with higher education - the NDA had Murli Manohar Joshi and the Congress has Arjun Singh. Top universities in the world are begging to be permitted to setup campuses in India. Instead of a mere 3,000 seats at IIT, we could have 30,000 seats at university campuses in India run by Harvard and Stanford. Foreign producers have transformed our TVs and our cellphones, but clearly higher education is not important enough to benefit from the same reforms, and we are stuck in a Stalinist model of education. All we get is a tiny increase to accomodate quotas.

Rebuilding the planning commission

Modern market economies do not have planning commissions. The NDA was making progress on driving down the importance of the planning commission. A few more years of that, and it would have been possible to close down the planning commission. Now the UPA has done damage by putting a key player in cabinet into the planning commission, and resurrecting the role of the planning commision.


The ugly


SEZs: The mother of all exemptions

Cost: Rs 1,000,000,000,000.
Biggest benefit: Tax exemptions to real estate developers. Exports will get some tax breaks too, but nothing compared to what the developers will get. Land acquisition will displace ordinary people on a scale that will make the Narmada dam look like small change. With tax havens inside India, Caymen Islands will pale into insignificance. The country does not benefit. The real estate buyer does not benefit. The government does not benefit. A huge benefit goes to the real estate developers. Why this giant gift to real estate developers. One can only wonder how much election funding will flow out of this trillion rupee handout.

UPA versus FRBM

Indian fiscal was in a nightmarish state by the late 1980s. Manmohan Singh began India's fiscal recovery in the early 1990s. After him, every finance minister has fought on this question - P. Chidambaram, Yashwant Sinha and Jaswant Singh. Getting the central fiscal deficit down to 3.7% of GDP has been a great achievement, and is already generating results through a higher investment rate. And the FRBM promises us the nirvana of a fiscal deficit of no worse than 3% by 2008-09, and that too only for the purpose of capital expenditure. Alas, this glorious achievement is under extreme attack from the UPA. The SEZ Act - the mother of all exemptions - will contaminate growth of tax revenues. The NREG and the 6th pay commission will contaminate expenditures. The UPA is in a mood to roll out more and more foolish welfare programs. By 2009-10, the entire 15-year effort of fighting India's fiscal crisis could have been undone. The UPA could be remembered for having destroyed a marvellous 15-year piece of work. It won't be long when Moody's and S&P catch on and the FDI-FII numbers start dwindling.

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posted by barbarindian at 5:56 PM Permalink 1 comments

From the photograher, Dean Shaddock:

This was captured as I collected my things from airport security (Detroit Metro Concourse A). I think of it as something like a Rorschach test. Is an elderly Catholic nun being frisked by a Muslim security agent the celebration of blind justice? Or is it simply an admission of absurdity? [link via MichelleMalkin.com]

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posted by barbarindian at 1:50 AM Permalink 1 comments

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posted by barbarindian at 6:39 PM Permalink 1 comments

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posted by barbarindian at 12:44 PM Permalink 1 comments

Yogendra Yadav: This being a very crucial occasion and mid-term elections increasingly almost certain , we wanted to make sure that we wanted to do a poll which is almost a mock mid-term poll ..... here it is then we spread it out this is truly representative..... rural urban the same proportion as in country. 73% rural, 11 - 12% Muslim, 18% Dalits, 45% Women - this is microcosm of India.

Ravi Shankar Prasad: Rajdeep, we have also learned a little experience of watching your surveys. In 2004 these projections gave us a big lead and there was no hostility against the NDA Govt. And what the results came about? I very acutely recollect one comment from Yogendra that a party in power initially gets a big boost in these surveys but when the concrete election campaign starts ...

Yogendra Yadav: Absolutely and it's a fair point and this particularly operates in those states where UPA is in power at the center and also at the state level so there may be built an element of bias, so we have tried to correct it, we have carefully tried to eliminate but we can not give guarantee that this will not happen..

Rajdeep Sardesai: One man, and this is another significant finding of our poll, seems to be bucking the trend of anti-incumbency. Remember he faces dissidence within his party almost since the time he came to power... severely criticized by many political analysts for his roll during Gujarat 2002, now as Gujarat prepares to go to the polls look at what our figures are saying.... Narendra Modi is holding firm, he is likely to get we believe 54% votes as against Congress' 43% if elections in Gujarat assembly are held tomorrow. Yogendra, any riders here?

Yogendra Yadav: One rider is one given already by Mr. Ravi Shankar Prasad very important one, that in any pre-election poll, the ruling party, there is a bias in favor of the ruling party which we need to be careful about and second we must not underestimate [] what is happning to BJP at the national level .... its inability to form an alternative in presence of problems in the Congress, is happening to Congress in Gujarat.

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posted by barbarindian at 12:01 AM Permalink 3 comments

Assisted by a Mayawati-like lady, Shah Rukh takes the talented, scrappy bunch of girls and moulds them into a killer team. The usual happens — tough training schedules, few players rebel, camps form, Coach resigns, then a killer moment of realisation and team spirit emerges. The crucial hockey sequences are shot beautifully and edited crisply. [link]

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posted by barbarindian at 11:01 PM Permalink 7 comments

Bitterness between two warring factions of the Roman Catholic Church in Delhi seems to have disrupted the Christian spirit of brotherhood and harmony.

"On that day, people from the Latin parish started provoking us. They said we had no right to be there and that they were the only legitimate worshippers in that church. A heated argument followed and some of us were pushed and hit. It seemed to be a pre-planned job as the police had been stationed there from 6 am," said Sunil John, an SM follower. [link]

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posted by barbarindian at 12:08 AM Permalink 0 comments

Laloo has been claiming that the railways made a profit of Rs 21,578 crore in 2006-07. But the actual figure was Rs 11,000 crore. Here's the secret of Laloo's added profits:

• Rs 9,000 crore pension funds shown as cash surplus
  
• Miscellaneous funds-Rs 2,500 crore-included in earnings
  
• Rs 1,700 crore due to the Indian Railway Finance Commission as dividend for lease of wagons put in the profit account
  
• Profits shored up by showing advance earnings for 2007-2008 in last year's balance-sheet
  
• Monies in the suspense account-funds promised but not yet transferred-reflected in the earnings/profits
  
• Tonnage carried by freight trains raised despite repeated objections and safety concerns. This brought in Rs 5,000 crore.
  
• Hidden costs to passenger tickets earned the railways Rs 325 crore [link]

The IIM study did make Laloo the man of the moment. So much so, visiting students from the Harvard Business School, Wharton and MIT were queuing up to study the miracle he had wrought. Or so it was projected. Now it seems that the visit by the students of the Harvard Business School in December 2006 was not to study any railway turnaround; they had merely called on the rail minister as part of their Camp India programme. Outlook contacted Seth Cohen, one of those students who had attended Camp India. He had this to say: "The visit was informal," he said, "arranged by our Indian hosts. It was not connected to any academic project." Ditto the MIT students toasted and hosted by Laloo.They came to India during their spring break in April 2007; the railways was another diversion during their eight-day break.

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posted by barbarindian at 9:38 PM Permalink 4 comments

In India, 'Untouchables' Convert To Christianity -- and Face Extra Bias
By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV
September 19, 2007; Page A1

MEDIPALLY, India -- Every Sunday, women and children gather to pray in a tiny, whitewashed church on the edge of this southern Indian village, sitting cross-legged on blue plastic sheets as they sing Christian hymns.

The men don't dare to come. "If they are seen in the church, the officials will be informed," says Vatipally Aharon, Medipally's Baptist pastor. [link]

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posted by barbarindian at 7:54 PM Permalink 0 comments

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posted by barbarindian at 8:08 PM Permalink 0 comments

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posted by barbarindian at 7:41 PM Permalink 2 comments

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posted by barbarindian at 2:41 AM Permalink 0 comments

• we are importing wheat in large quantities
• at a much higher price compared to domestic farmers
• massive loot going on within the PDS system
• fake currency has flooded the country
• industrial growth is slowing down
• no clear policy direction for growth in the face of rising rupee
• no significant progress in infrastructure projects
• our cities are bursting at the seams
• our children go hungry
• we have many intellectuals and rational people

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posted by barbarindian at 2:03 AM Permalink 2 comments

NEW DELHI: In the last three years, Rs 31,585.98 crore worth of wheat and rice meant for the poorest of the poor was siphoned off from the public distribution system.

Last year alone, Rs 11,336.98 crore worth of foodgrain that the government is supposed to distribute to the needy at subsidised prices found its way into the market illegally.

Every year, India's poor are cheated out of 53.3% of wheat and 39% of rice meant for them. With the exception of 11 states and Union Territories, there is largescale diversion of PDS grain across India. And, these 11 states and UTs seem to be faring better only because the others are so far ahead in the dirty business. [link]

Spotting the difference, especially in the Rs 1000 notes, is a tough ask. The only visible difference between a real and a fake note seems to be the image of Mahatma Gandhi on the watermark that doesn’t seem clear in a fake one. "The quality of these notes is very good. They are made in a bank note press and even experts can't tell them apart,” says Deputy Commissioner of Police, Mumbai, Brijesh Singh.

The Mumbai police have nabbed four Bangladeshis travelling on genuine tourist visas for carrying Rs 1.28 lakh in fake, right into the heart of India’s financial capital. These notes are so perfect that they even pass the ultraviolet test and a discerning banker in a hurry wouldn't spot the difference. [link]

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posted by barbarindian at 1:27 AM Permalink 3 comments

NEW DELHI: Amidst speculation about mid-term polls, the Congress appears to be examining the possibility of expanding the UPA experiment by taking even arch-rivals Samajwadi Party and BSP on board. Uttar Pradesh PCC president Salman Khurshid insists that the approach to face future challenges is to take forward the spirit that brought the party to the centrestage via the coalition route.

In an interview to PTI, Khurshid sought to extend the olive branch to the Samajwadi Party, saying the Mulayam Singh Yadav-led party "became allergic to us and we were never allergic to them". Seeking to go the extra mile to woo the Mayawati-led BSP, he said that party can be a "very valued passenger" in the "big train that is going to travel fast with a powerful engine". [link]

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posted by barbarindian at 12:08 AM Permalink 0 comments

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posted by barbarindian at 10:42 PM Permalink 0 comments

Local fishermen say the Vishwa Hindu Parishad has hijacked the real issue - the livelihood of the thousands of fishermen settled there – to meet political ends.

They say the dredging of sand from the seabed and the limestone blasting – required for the construction to get underway – will affect fish populations and wreck the fragile marine ecology.

“The break the rocks here using big ships. When all this (debris) is thrown in the fishing area, it affects our livelihood. Our fishing nets are torn due to these broken rocks,” says a fisherman. [link]

1. Local fishermen say there is another, more real issue.
2. CNN-IBN thinks local fishermen think that VHP hijacked the issue, but did not say it. It was assumed anyway.
3. CNN-IBN thought it would be cool to have local fishermen say there is another, more important real issue and CNN-IBN thinks VHP hijacked it.
4. CNN-IBN thinks that it would be cool if local fishermen actually said "VHP hijacked the real issue".

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posted by barbarindian at 12:48 AM Permalink 3 comments

American space agency NASA has said that the structure of sand bars and rocks situated in the Palk Strait between India and Sri Lanka, known as Ram Setu or Adam's Bridge in maps, is a natural phenomenon and not a man-made structure.

This was announced Saturday by N.K. Raghupathy, CEO, Sethusamudram Corp Ltd, at a press conference here when he revealed the contents of an email received in this regard from NASA's Johnson Space Centre. A few days back, the company sent an email to NASA to know whether Ram Setu was a made-made structure.

"This evidence contradicts claims that said it (Ram Setu) was created out of human activity," Raghupathy told reporters. [link]

US space agency NASA says pictures taken by its astronauts do not prove the existence or otherwise of a manmade Ram Setu bridge as mentioned in the Hindu epic Ramayana.

'Some people have taken pictures taken by our astronauts to make their claim. No position can be taken on the basis of these photographs in any way,' Braukus said when asked to comment on the controversy surrounding the site of the proposed Rs.24 billion Sethusamudram canal project off India's southern tip.

'The age, substratum, geological structure or anthropological status of the ocean bed in Palk strait cannot be determined by the astronauts' photographs. So there is no basis for these claims,' Braukus said. [link]

That aside, projections have been made about the economic non-viability of Sethusamudram. It is possible that all of these are wrong, but the Government has not bothered to politically sell the issue. Instead, the overriding reasons for pushing ahead seem to be granting lucrative dredging contracts to flunkies of the DMK and its Ministers. [link via Sandeep]

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posted by barbarindian at 10:36 AM Permalink 1 comments

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posted by barbarindian at 10:38 PM Permalink 3 comments

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posted by barbarindian at 6:59 AM Permalink 0 comments

Reservation IIT IIM OBC SC ST Quota Arjun Singh Creamy Layer Merit JEE Mandal Commission Arpita Majumdar lathicharge medical strike nanopolitan Abinandanan Barbarianindian The Other India Affirmative Action

posted by barbarindian at 10:11 PM Permalink 0 comments

"Friends! My comrades in the War of Liberation! Today I demand of you one thing, above all. I demand of you blood. It is blood alone that can avenge the blood that the enemy has spilt. It is blood alone that can pay the price of freedom. Give me blood and I promise you freedom." (Burma, 1944, speech as Indian National Army commander)

"Boys, I want you to piss your pants, throw your rifles and run back to your mommas."
(England, 1944, General Patton)

As it happens, those who lost the political argument continue to have millions of followers and admirers. The chief architect of Indian freedom was Gandhi; the chief architect of Indian democracy, Jawaharlal Nehru. However, were a poll taken among middle-class men, Savarkar, Bhagat Singh and Bose would all garner more votes than Nehru and - in some states and among certain communities and classes - even more votes than Gandhi.

Many ordinary Indians also admire him, as witness his presence on posters and calendars in middle-class homes across the land. Bose’s appeal is enhanced by the fact that for the bulk of his career he operated within the mainstream of, indeed at the very top of, the national movement. He was twice elected President of the Indian National Congress. That he then broke away from Gandhi and company and forged an alternative path of his own places him in a different category from Savarkar and Bhagat Singh.

In nothing else have Western writers gone more wrong about Gandhi than in overlooking his insatiable love of power and implacability in its pursuit. In this he was no different than Stalin. Only, he did not have to kill because he could eliminate his opponents equally well by means of his non-violent Vaishnava method. (I need not repeat here that he was a devout Vaishnava.) A well-known Bengali tale illustrates non-violence as practiced by Vaishnavas. One day a renowned Vaishnava, who was passing near some men who were about to kill another man, their enemy, stopped in horror and cried out: 'Hold, hold! Don't kill a creature of of Krishna!. ' ' What then should we do?' asked the men. The Vaishnava replied: 'Tie him up in a sack and throw him into the river.' This according to the Vaishnavas was not killing, but the non-violent way of getting rid of enemies. This was done. In like manner, Gandhi had Bose put into a sack and thrown into a river. Bose succeeded in breaking out of the sack, but his swimming strength was insufficient for him to attain either bank of India's river of politics. He was carried downstream, out to sea, eventually to reach foreign shores - only to die. Trotsy was murdered in Mexico. Bose was killed in an air crash on Formosa. Their modes of death was different, but the end was the same; a necessity in both cases for the man in power. (reproduced from Thy Hand, Great Anarch!, Nirad C. Chaudhuri).

Reservation IIT IIM OBC SC ST Quota Arjun Singh Creamy Layer Merit JEE Mandal Commission Arpita Majumdar lathicharge medical strike nanopolitan Abinandanan Barbarianindian The Other India Affirmative Action

posted by barbarindian at 8:27 PM Permalink 6 comments

• The average wealth of Congress MPs is over 3 crores and this is merely what they publicly state. Meanwhile the PM criticizes CEOs for making too much dough
• Dangerous games are played with the constitution on a daily basis. Right now, several unelected members of the Left parties have gatecrashed into the parliamentary process.
• This should be a case study titled "How you can bypass the constitution". Ninth schedule anyone?
• Now that farmer suicides are causing widespread embarrassment, they are being elevated to the status of a "national crisis". Gee, where did I see that before?
• You don't have to be a citizen of this country to be a member of the parliament, as Congress MP Subba has demonstrated
• In Maharashtra, every politician has a cooperative, a sugar mill and a college.
• You don't really need a majority to grab powers, for instance Goa.
  

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posted by barbarindian at 10:36 PM Permalink 3 comments

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posted by barbarindian at 1:53 PM Permalink 0 comments

Moni Kumar Subba, Congress MP from Tezpur in Assam, flashes his birth certificate when he is accused of being a foreigner who has faked his identity.A CNN-IBN investigation in March 2006 exposed Subba for lying about his place of birth and hiding his Nepalese identity. The birth certificate is the only document Subba has to prove his Indian citizenship, but a CNN-IBN investigation has again established that the certificate is a fake and that he is a foreign national. [link]

An LJP legislator from Bihar has been asked by the Election Commission to explain her position in response to the allegation that she was not a citizen of the country. Nagina Devi, MLA from Bathnaha, received a letter from the EC asking her to be present in person on September 17 to explain her position on the allegation that she was a Nepali citizen, official sources said on Tuesday. In the event of her not turning up, it would be deemed that she had nothing to say in her defence, the letter said. [link]

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posted by barbarindian at 10:42 PM Permalink 1 comments

Priyanka Vadera's four-bigha plus agriculture plot in downtown Shimla fills the void that makes the surroundings a VIP Enclave in the real sense of the term. [..]

"It was the best available land that we have got for the daughter of our leader Sonia Gandhi," KS Khacchi, a local Congress worker, said. "The best possible efforts would be made to ensure that the structure that comes up is unique and scenic in more ways than one," he added.

Khacchi played a key role in buying the land for around Rs 46 lakh at the Government rate. Otherwise the land would have cost much more, given the proximity of the plot to Kalyani Helipad, Kufri village [..] [link]

Badal said, "A company that wants to come to Punjab must buy land at market rates. The Congress government has given village and commercial land, like in Mohali. This is worth Rs 100 crore but it's been promised at Rs 2 crore. [..] We won't acquire land for anyone. Whoever needs to purchase land should do so at market prices."

"The SEZ policy is the decision of the Indian government and we are going to support it. We welcome SEZ in Punjab," Sukhbir Singh Badal said. Badal says his government has no problem with Reliance retail outlets. But he insists that the party buying the land must pay market prices. [link]

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posted by barbarindian at 10:07 PM Permalink 3 comments

No two persons appears to have the same understanding of the Nuclear Agreement.

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posted by barbarindian at 11:26 PM Permalink 0 comments

Monday, 27th August 2007. Two days after the incident, Telangana Rashtra Samithi MLA Nayini Narsimha Reddy, Chief Minister Y.S. Rajashekhar Reddy, Home Minister K. Jana Reddy and Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee President Dr. K. Keshava Rao share an ROTFL moment. [via acorn]

Police sources told TOI that in the last six months or so, the intelligence agencies were instructed to step up vigilance on the opposition political parties, especially the Telugu Desam, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi and the Left parties. [..] According to the sources, with both general and assembly elections due in 2009, the political bosses have instructed the intelligence department to assess the political strength and poll preparedness of the TDP, TRS and the two Left parties. [link]

Levelling allegations that about 50 Muslim youth were picked up by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) in the past five days, Civil Liberties Monitoring Committee (CLMC), India, on Tuesday put out names of 22 youth who were allegedly taken into custody by police.

"They are being tortured by police in torture cells in areas like Shamshabad, Uppal and Ramanthapur. Our sources said these interrogations are being carried out in resorts and hotels,'' Civil Liberties Monitoring Committee general secretary Lateef Mohd Khan said at a press conference here on Tuesday.

Khan said riots had broken out in the Old City in 1990 due to internal differences in Congress party. "Now, the blasts could have happened because of the same reason," he alleged. [link]

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posted by barbarindian at 8:15 PM Permalink 1 comments

To paraphrase Joseph Stalin, it does not matter how many farmers
commit suicide. It only matters who counts the deadbodies.

'Interestingly, the prime minister's visit along with the agriculture minister to the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra on June 30, 2006 was followed by an increase in the number of suicides in the region. Over 150 suicides occurred between July 2 and August 21,' the report says. [link]

Farmers in the killing fields of Vidarbha live on credits and die in installments. As many as 1,338 farmer have ended their lives till date. On Friday, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited the region and announced a new package, Vidharba was still grappling with the dark reality of farmer suicide.

The 3,750-crore- rupee package announced by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for cotton farmers in Vidharba hasn't touched many lives like that of 64-year-old Bhavrao Ingole, 74-year-old Sukdev Meshram and 26-year-old Sunita Lasankute.

Bhavrao received a cheque of a paltry Rs 350, which bounced twice

"Last year, the crop got damaged due to rains and I got a cheque of Rs 350 in the name of relief. Even that bounced twice," Bhavrao Ingole claims. [link]

Union agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said on Friday that the media were not doing justice to the issue of farmers’ suicides in Vidharbha. Briefing the press after a joint review of agriculture by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Mr. Pawar said he came to the conclusion after hearing the State government’s presentation on the package for farmers.

Mr. Pawar said the State’s presentation showed there was a substantial improvement in the situation. The State government figures showed a fall in the number of suicideshe said. He, however, said he did not want to comment on the statistics in response to questions. [link]

Q. Is it true that the suicides went up in July this year as opposed to last year despite the PM’s visit to Vidarbha?

There are two sets of figures, one is the official set, which is very recent, shaky and not reliable, then there are the Vidarbha's Jan Andolan Samiti's figures, which are more reliable. Both confirm this.

Q. Have there been any positives at all in the government’s actions?

There was a political benefit to the PM's visit; nothing in terms of the economy. [..] To find the positives in the government's actions, you would need a microscope.

[link]

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posted by barbarindian at 7:48 PM Permalink 0 comments

In a rebuff to Union health minister Anbumani Ramadoss, the Delhi High Court on Monday directed him to sign the degree certificates of AIIMS students within 24 hours - the very same certificates that the minister was refusing to sign as they bore the signature of Dr Sandeep Agarwala, the registrar whom the minister, as president of AIIMS, was not recognising.

Stung by the court directive, Ramadoss - according to agency reports - has agreed to sign the certificates. [link]

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posted by barbarindian at 1:38 PM Permalink 1 comments

ALLAHABAD: Curfew was relaxed on Sunday in Allahabad, which witnessed large scale rioting over alleged desecration of the Geeta on Saturday.

Scores of Hindus in Allahabad went on rampage on Saturday, pelting stones and destroying public property in the communally sensitive town after they found a torn and damaged Geeta in a Temple.

Police were forced to place certain areas under curfew to curb large-scale vandalism.

With tempers ebbing on Sunday, police lifted curfew in certain areas for two hours for locals to buy their daily essentials. [link]

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posted by barbarindian at 12:41 PM Permalink 0 comments

Caption: Vehicles pass through a water-logged street in New Delhi.
Parts of the Capital received moderate rainfall on Sunday evening.

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posted by barbarindian at 12:30 PM Permalink 1 comments

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posted by barbarindian at 12:47 AM Permalink 1 comments

a) Orissa
b) Kalahandi
c) Andhra Pradesh
d) Karnataka
e) Vidarbha
f) Kerala

Suicides by farmers are nothing new in AP. The issue first hit the headlines in 1987 when 20 cotton growers committed suicide. The problem assumed alarming proportions in 1997. In the last seven years, about 200 farmers have ended their lives each year. And these are conservative estimates.

During the TDP government's regime, farmers' suicides had become a regular occurrence. The Congress reckons over 3,000 farmers ended their lives under Naidu's rule. Farmers' organisations (kisan sabhas) place this figure at 1,800. Official records say 900 farmers have committed suicide since 1997. [link]

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posted by barbarindian at 5:04 PM Permalink 2 comments

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posted by barbarindian at 6:19 PM Permalink 0 comments

Reservation IIT IIM OBC SC ST Quota Arjun Singh Creamy Layer Merit JEE Mandal Commission Arpita Majumdar lathicharge medical strike nanopolitan Abinandanan Barbarianindian The Other India Affirmative Action

posted by barbarindian at 8:47 AM Permalink 0 comments