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Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
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Vol. 12
Issue 19
October 15, 2014
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Clean
Clean Ganga
Ganga Project
Project
Indian Supreme Court Says Heads Must Roll
Published Weekly
India Fashion
Week
(Agencies) The Indian Supreme
Court strongly rebuked the Centre for being unable to articulate to
the court what its vision for cleaning the Ganga river is. The court
said corruption was stalling the project
and "heads must roll for this."
"You are unable to tell us
your vision stage-wise on cleaning
the holy river Ganga and your ultimate aim," the Supreme Court
said, also asking why the post of
Central Pollution Control Board or
CPCB chairperson had been vacant for the past six months.
(Contd on page 23)
Death sentence for murder
of baby, grandmother
Indian Real Estate major DLF
barred from capital markets
(Agencies) Mumbai: In a major blow
to DLF Ltd, the Securities and Exchange
Board of India (Sebi) has barred the realty
major as well as its six top executives including chairman and main promoter K P
Singh from the capital market for 3 years for
"active and deliberate suppression" of material information at the time of its IPO in 2007.
Besides K P Singh, those barred
from the markets include his son Rajiv Singh
(vice chairman), daughter Pia Singh (wholetime director), managing director T C Goyal,
former CFO Ramesh Sanka and Kameshwar
Swarup,
(Contd on page 23)
Kebabs, burgers and more
BJP front runner in Haryana, Maharashtra, say exit polls
How the Robin Hoods of new
India are feeding the poor
Raghunandan Yandamuri's attorney said the life of his client might
have been spared had he expressed remorse for the slaying of a 10month-old girl and her grandmother. He was trying to kidnap the child
to get random money for his gambling debts, according to authorities.
(Agencies) A Pennsylvania man
who said he would rather be executed than
sit through arguments in court over his fate
was sentenced to death Tuesday.
Raghunandan Yandamuri, 28, was convicted
Thursday of first degree-murder in the 2012
deaths of Satayrathi Venna, 61, and her
granddaughter, 10-month-old Saanvi Venna,
in King of Prussia, a village in eastern
Pennsylvania.(Contd on page 24)
(Agencies)
At least three exit polls
put the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
ahead but short of a clear majority in
Maharashtra and Haryana on Wednes-
day, a ringing endorsement of the so-called
'Modi magic' that may have helped the party
come into its own in the two politically crucial states.A fourth survey by Today's
Story
ON P a g e
29
(Agencies) Did you know that the biggest
wasters of food are those who profit from it:
restaurants and food retailers? And even
as you stuff yourself with grub at the
neighbourhood joint, more than one billion
across the world will go to bed hungry tonight. But here's the good news: two 26year olds from New Delhi have taken an initiative to ensure that neither the food goes to
waste and nor do the homeless go hungry.
Meet Neel Ghose and Anand
Sinha, the netizens behind the Robin
Hood Army, which takes to the streets
Chanakya, which correctly predicted the every Sunday night to distribute food to
results of the Lok Sabha polls this year, the homeless, neediest, poorest and the
gave the party a clear majority in both eldest on the streets.
states. (Contd on page 24)
(Contd on page 26)
TRI-STATE/COMMUNITY
Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
AIA Deepavali Mela
(Press Release) The Association of Indians in America, NY
Chapter (AIA-NY) hosted its27th
Annual Deepavali Festival at
theSouth Street Seaport on October 5thfrom 12 noon till 8pm.
The festivities was a fun-filled
event for the entire family that
concluded with a grand display
of live fireworks on the East River
overlooking the NYC bridges and
skyline. The event was one of the
largest of its kind attracting tens
of thousands of people from all
walks
of
life
and
communities.South Street Seaport of NYC celebrated the Indian
Festival of Deepavali meaning 'A
row of lamps' which is also popularly known as Diwali, or the 'Festival of Lights'. It signifies the triumph of 'Good over the Evil'. The
festival was attended by the
Mayor of New York; Mr. Bill de
Blasio along with members of the
congress such as Grace
2
Meng&Carolyn Maloney, New
York
City
Comptroller,
ScottStringer and Manhattan Borough president, GailBrewer. Nu-
such as Life OK, Moneygram,
Moneydart, Statefarm just to
name a few.
Deepavali was a full day celebration with numerous cultural
booths, food & music
vendors.The festival comprised of
ter-collegiate dance competition,
Naach Inferno. Participating
dance teams were from colleges
and universities such as Stony
Brook, Adelphi and Columbia.
Drexel University Jhalak and City
Chaahat from City College of
also present for interaction with
the guests. Unforgettabledance
performances ranging from
Bollywood to semi-classical and
fusion graced both the Main
Stage &AajaNachle Stage
throughout the day. Splendor
merous other political dignitaries
and community leaders also
graced the occasion.Continued
support from over the years was
generously provided by sponsors
performances and activities for
the whole family including a holistic health fair and children's fair.
One of the latest attractions to
the festival this year wasthe in-
New York took first and second
place respectively. Naach Inferno
was supported by one of India's
leading entertainment channel's
Life OK. The Indian culture was
showcased at its peak where two
popular and traditional folk
dances; Bhangra&Garba were
performed with the help of the
participation
of
the
audience.SarinaJain, creator of
"Masala Bhangra," also known
as the 'Jane Fonda of India'
rocked the stage along with her
troupe.To engage the attendees
further a Live Garbawas organized
on the Pier 16 deck led by none
other than renownedGujrati
singer,PrafulDave. As always,
AIA-NY had a mouth-watering
food fair serving an authentic Indian as well as fusion cuisine. A
Holistic Health Fair where free
information on various medical
issues was also set up.Dental
screening courtesy of the Indian
Dental Association, free blood
pressure checkup and many
other services were also provided. Dr. Pankaj Naram, a very
well-known Ayurvedic doctor was
showcase of Indian culture, arts
and crafts, jewelry, traditional
clothes and an evening of music
and dance were onlysome of the
other highlights that AIA-NY’s
27th Deepavalibrought to New
York City this year. “We owe it
to the community that has shown
us their support along with the
NYPD, FDNY and the city that
we can put on such a festival
continuously for the past 3 decades and will so for many
more years to come,” mentions Sunil Modi, the current
president of the AIA-NY chapter. The Association of Indians
in America (AIA) is the oldest
not-for-profit organization of
Asian Indians in America
founded in 1967. It is the
grassroots national organization of Asian Indian immigrants
to the United States. With chapters and membership spread
across the US, AIA represents
the hopes and aspirations of
those immigrants who are united
by their common bond of Indian
Heritage and American Commitment.
Five Indian-Americans in
Forbes list of America's richest
(Agencies) Five Indian-Americans have been named among the
400 richest people in the US by Forbes, a list topped by Microsoft
co-founder Bill Gates for the 21st year in a row with a net worth of
$81 billion.
Founder of outsourcing firm Syntel Bharat Desai, entrepreneur John Kapoor, Symphony Technology founder
RomeshWadhwani, Silicon Valley angel investor Kavitark Ram
Shriram and venture capitalist VinodKhosla are among 'The Richest People In America 2014' list by Forbes.
Forbes said 2014 was another record year for American
wealth, when the aggregate net worth of the richest 400 Americans
was $2.29 trillion, up $270 billion from a year ago.
"Thanks to a buoyant stock market, the richest people in
the US just keep getting richer," Forbes said.
COMMUNITY
Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
Cars Vs. Cancer Cruise
(By a Staff Writer) New York:
October is national breast
cancer awareness month.
Research shows one in eight
women in the United States is
affected by Breast Cancer. In
addition to wearing pink clothing, people across America
donate and participate in cancer awareness events.
One of the events was
organized this Sunday by the
Kundan & Santosh Jasuja
Foundation in "Little India"
area of Hicksville. Long Islanders gathered Sunday
morning to support the first
"Cars vs. Cancer Cruise."
Cars slowly began arriving at 8 a.m. flooding the
Apna Bazar parking lot that
was turned into meeting &
starting point for cars and
cruising to Bear Mountain upstate New York. The event
was a successful turnout with
vehicles including Maseratis,
GTR's, Lexus's, BMW's,
Infinity's, FRS's, Mustang's,
Corvette and many others.
Registration fee of $25 per vehicle were donated to 'Making
Strides Against Breast Cancer' organization. Founder
President of KSJ Foundation,
Mr. Shudh Parkash Singh
flagged off the cruise. The organizing committee Chairman
Arjun Vir Singh was thrilled to
announce the event raised
hundreds of dollars and will
now be held annually.
Sukhmani Kaur Jasuja a
director of KSJ foundation
said this cruise is specially
important because it was organized by all youngsters representing the 2nd or 3rd generation of Indian Americans.
"We must carry on the Indian
culture of helping others. A lot
of participants shared with me
that their Indian parents and
grand parents raised them with
family values and importance
of philanthropy " Sukhmani
added.
The cruise covered
over 137 miles and the participants were jubilant. 'Making
Strides Against Breast Cancer' distributed the pink and
grey jerseys to all drivers.
"We feel so good. Cruising
along in a carvan of cars on a
nice day like this is not only
fun but also gives me satisfaction for making a small contribution towards cancer research." expressed Vikram
Singh a participant.
"We got to spend time
with friends and made new
friends. I think more & more
people should support charities like KSJ Foundation for organizing events like these."
Said Michael Gill, one of the
drivers participated in the Car
vs. Cancer cruise.
3
OP-ED
Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
4
Dear PM Modi, India needs a full-time defence minister, not overworked Jaitley
For any ruling party at the
Centre it is a given that India will
have a defence minister – fullfledged, not part time. It is also a
given that in these times when
India is facing unprecedented
heat from two of its neighbours it
has fought wars with – border firing from Pakistan and incursions
from China – India will have a fullfledged defence minister to take
a call on such national security
challenges.
And when a nationalist party
like the BJP is at the helm of affairs, one expects this even more.
But unfortunately it has not happened.
It has been more than four
and a half months since Prime
Minister Narendra Modi gave
Arun Jaitley additional charge of
the defence ministry, though his
primary portfolio was meant to be
finance. More than 140 days
since the Modi government’s installation, Jaitley still continues
to be the cabinet minister for
three important portfolios, finance, defence and corporate
affairs – the first two being the
CCS (Cabinet Committee on Security portfolios).This is a critical
time for the nation’s three armed
forces – the army, the navy and
the air force. All three have been
waiting for years and looking up
to the defence minister for keeping fighting fit. To do this, each of
the three armed forces has a
shopping list, a genuine demand
for refurbishment of their respective arsenals after years of neglect.
AK Antony was the longest
serving defence minister of India
who held this crucial portfolio
uninterruptedly from 24 October
2006 to 26 May 2014.
It is an open secret that
during Antony’s tenure the Indian
armed forces’ dream of modernization and beefing up their
strength by way of inducting stateof-the-art weaponry remained a
pipe dream only.
The Indian armed forces as
well as the nation justifiably
looked towards Narendra Modi
when he became the Prime Min-
ister on 26 May, 2014.
But thus far, PM Modi too
has disappointed in this context.
Not a single new weaponry system has been added to their arsenal.
One expected that Arun
Jaitley would do it after he was
given additional charge of the
defence ministry. But then the
62-year-old Jaitley has been
bogged down with acute health
issues and has been in and out
of hospitals, eventually missing
on the PM’s various foreign trips
where he was supposed to go.
The Prime Minister has undertaken many foreign trips, particularly to Japan and the United
States where the defence component of the Indian diplomacy
with regard to these countries
was crucial and prominent on the
agenda of talks.
But now the delay on announcement of a full-fledged defence minister is hurting the Indian military establishment.
There are several pressing
issues with regard to the three
armed forces which the defence
minister needs to take a call on
but that has not been done yet.
For example, India needs to
urgently take a call on hiking the
FDI in defence from the existing
49 per cent to 100 per cent, a
case amply argued by this writer
here.
The Indian Army has a longstanding demand for guns as it
has not got a single new gun
since past 28 years. The artillery
programme of the Indian Army
has been neglected for long and
requires at least a $4 billion
makeover at the earliest.
The Indian Air Force has
been going around the circles for
beefing up its strength of fighter
aircraft. The IAF’s current fighter
squadron strength is just 34
whereas the minimum benchmark is set at 42 squadrons. Two
major projects – Medium Multi
Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA)
with France and Fifth Generation
Fighter Aircraft (FGFA) with Russia – which are potential game
changers are currently nowhere
in the implementation stage. The
two projects put together require
at least $20 billion.
The Indian Navy badly
needs to augment its inventory
of submarines which is currently
at an abysmal 13, as against over
50 in case of China. India requires
to plough in around $10 billion for
bringing the strength of submarines to a level where it can
counter China and Pakistan
effectively.Technology and
money are the two major problems being faced by the Indian
armed forces’ modernization.
These are not insurmountable
problems. Plenty of solutions are
available.India currently is spoilt
for choice when it comes to offthe-shelf purchases but India,
very wisely, has been focusing on
self-reliance. This makes sense
because in the event of war, offthe-shelf purchases would mean
nothing as the exporting countries
like the US and other western nations would dilly-dally in meeting their
contractual obligations.
By Rajeev Sharma
Corruption Is Still Our Biggest Problem BJP Appears Set to Take Maharashtra
By Shashi Tharoor
One of the questions people
keep asking me since my entry
into politics is what we can do
about corruption. What would I
do, one citizen recently asked
me in an on-line chat, if I became
the "concerned authority" to deal
with corruption? No such prospect - the Lokpal isn't a Member
of Parliament! - but in fact corruption is a national malaise and
a social ill, not just one that a
"concerned authority" can solve.
We are all complicit - those who
demand bribes and those who
give them.
As one who has long urged
an end to public apathy about
politics, I was inspired by seeing
the passion of Anna Hazare's followers against corruption, which
I share, and I have no doubt that
during his mass movement, he
touched a chord amongst millions of Indians. But we must remember that the supporters of his
Jan Lokpal Bill were not the only
Indians who are disgusted by
corruption. So are many who
were never part of his movement.
When many of his followers constituted the Aam Aadmi Party
against his wishes, they could
never quite come to terms with
the fact that there are patriotic
and principled Indians amongst
their critics too, and that we must
reach out to each other in good
faith. Anna Hazare's movement
persuaded Indians in general,
and the political class eventually,
that a strong Lokpal is a key part
of the answer. Parliament finally
legislated the creation of a strong
anti-corruption ombudsman, with
genuine autonomy and authority
and substantial powers of action.
It is too early to judge how well it
will work, or indeed whether the
unintended consequence many
feared -- of creating a large, omnipotent and unaccountable supra-institution that could not be
challenged, reformed or removedhas been belied. If the current
governmental bodies tasked with
investigation, vigilance, and audit are deemed to be insufficiently
impervious to corruption, it is
worth asking what guarantee
there is that the new institution
of Lokpal could not be infected
by the same virus -- and if so,
what could be done about it, since
it would literally be a law unto
itself.A number of related steps
need to be taken to tackle corruption at its source. Campaign
finance reform, simplification of
laws and regulations, administrative transparency, and the reduction of discretionary powers enjoyed by officials and ministers,
are all of the highest priority too.
The Right to Information Act (RTI)
enacted by the first UPA Government was in fact the first step in
this direction. A credible Lokpal
will be another.
But one of the things that
was highlighted by the Anna
Hazare phenomenon is the extent to which corruption is a
middle-class preoccupation,
when in fact the biggest victims
of corruption in our country are in
fact the poor. For the affluent,
corruption is at worst a nuisance;
for the salaried middle-class, it
can be an indignity and a burden;
but for the poor, it is often a tragedy.
The saddest corruption stories I have heard are those where
corruption literally transforms
lives for the worse. There are stories about the pregnant woman
turned away from a government
hospital because she couldn't
bribe her way to a bed; the
labourer denied an allotment of
land that was his due because
someone else bribed the patwari
to change the land records; the
pensioner denied the rightful fruits
of decades of toil because he
couldn't or wouldn't bribe the petty
clerk to process his paperwork;
the wretchedly poor unable to
procure the BPL ["Below Poverty
Line"] cards that certify their entitlement to various government
schemes and subsidies because
they couldn't afford to bribe the
issuing officer; the poor widow
cheated of an insurance settlement because she couldn't
grease the right palms ... the
examples are endless. Each of
these represents not just an injustice, but a crime, and yet the
officials responsible get away
with their exactions all the time.
And all their victims are people
living at or near a poverty line
that's been drawn just this side
of the funeral pyre.
(Contd on page 20)
By Kumar Ketkar
If the BJP, on its own, or
with its four small allies, wins
around 145 seats in the
assembly election, as is being
projected by some well-known
pollsters, then it would be a
tectonic transformation of the
politics of Maharashtra. Though
the discontent among the
people was palpable for the last
two years, nobody could have
anticipated the 8-point Richter
quake that polls are predicting.
Some polls have given the
BJP fewer seats - between 90
and 110 of a total of 288 seats.
The general consensus among
the polling agencies and the
media appears to be that the
BJP will be the single-largest
party. The nearest ideological
partner is the Shiv Sena,
because of their shared
"Hindutva bond". But of late, the
hostility between the BJP and
Sena, once political spouses,
has been intense.
The Lok Sabha election
apparently "proved" the popular
theory that whoever registers
such early leads in opinion polls
just a week before voting,
benefits from the so called
"bandwagon" effect. So one can
merely say that the probability
of the BJP forming the
government cannot be ruled
out.
However, it is not merely
a question of defeat of the ruling
Congress Front. That has
happened in the past. In 1995,
the Shiv Sena-BJP Alliance
came to power defeating
Congress (the NCP had not
been formed). The Prime
Minister was Narsimha Rao and
he had virtually handed over the
state to Sharad Pawar. There
was no Sonia Gandhi on the
political horizon. Hence Chief
Minister Pawar, Prime Minister
Rao and the undivided
Maharashtra Congress were on
the same page.
Yet the party lost and
Balasaheb
Thackreay
nominated Manohar Joshi to
become Maharashtra's Chief
Minister. The BJP, which used
to play second fiddle to Shiv
Sena, accepted the Deputy
Chief Ministership. Nobody
questioned the supremacy and
seniority of the Shiv Sena.
The r e
were
circumstantial reasons for
the defeat of the Congress.
In 1992, the Babri Masjid was
demolished by the Sangh
Parivar and that generated
such communal heat, that for
the first time, Maharashtra
experienced considerable
polarization of votes. While the
BJP leadership expressed
remorse, the Sangh karyakartas went to town w i t h
victory drums. Balasaheb
publicly said that he was proud
if the Sainiks had joined the
demolition squad.
(Contd on page 20)
EDITORIAL
Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
5
Malala, despite Pakistan The Worsening Ebola Crisis
A girl from picturesque Swat Valley — once visited by the Chinese traveller,
Hsuan Tsang, in search of ancient Buddhist scriptures — has won the Nobel Peace
Prize for 2014. At 15, Malala Yousafzai, who had openly objected to the Taliban’s
policy of destroying girls’ schools, was shot in the head at close range by a Taliban
terrorist. The Taliban’s psychopath chief, Mullah Fazlullah, had ordered her execution from his hideout in next-door Afghanistan. Unfortunately, a popular TV channel
in Islamabad aired a “morning view” on October 13, saying Malala’s Nobel was a
Great Game conspiracy aimed at Pakistan.
Pakistan has, by and large, welcomed the award but many who denounced
her as an American agent are silent. For its part, the state has honoured her with
all kinds of medals and awards, in the face of a rising storm of opinion which
wanted Malala set aside in favour of Aafia Siddiqui, an al-Qaeda agent doing 86
years in an American prison, whose release has been demanded by the Islamic
State. Pakistan’s then army chief, General Kayani, saved Malala from death by
dispatching her post haste to the UK, where permanent damage to her brain could
be prevented.
After her departure for the UK, a pro-Taliban Pakistan went crazy. Some
expat Pakistanis in the UK announced that they had recognised Malala for what
she was: a renegade from the Muslim cause. A Britain-based Islamic group decided to meet at the infamous Lal Masjid in Islamabad to issue a religious decree
against her, accusing her of supporting the “occupying” US forces in Afghanistan.
Most people in Pakistan did not believe she had been shot in the head.
“There will be a fatwa issued regarding Malala Yousafzai, taking into account
the full story of her injury, including her public statements in support of the occupying US army in the region and mocking of key symbols of Islam such as hijab and
jihad,” said Abu Baraa, a senior member of Shariah4Pakistan.
You guessed it. This was a cell linked to Anjem Choudhary, a BritishPakistani currently in trouble for abetting terrorism, and with a reputation that stinks
a mile, because of his association with Arab cleric Omar Bakri, now ousted from
the UK, and the latter’s radical outfit, al-Muhajiroun, as well as for his links with the
Britain-based al-Ghurabaa, whose leader has been hiding in Karachi, where Daniel
Pearl was killed trying to meet him. Abu Baraa had further stated: “Malala is one of
the issues we are going to be addressing because she is being used as a propaganda tool by the enemies of Muslims”. Malala was guilty of defying a warlord
possessing unopposed power. Swat was at his feet, honourable men were humbled
and women made to surrender their jewellery to the mullahs. The Taliban
governedthrough the spectacle of death in a district known for its soft tribal identity,
welcoming tourists as guests. Swat suffered the destruction of schools but there
was more that left a deep wound: floggings of alleged thieves and fornicators,
beheadings, suicide attacks and target-killings while the local administration stood
aside and watched.
Objecting to this Islamic governance was akin to signing your own death
warrant. And the state of Pakistan was going through its rabidly anti-American
phase, which looked like an abject surrender to al-Qaeda and the Taliban. An antiMalala wave gripped the middle class and families were split over whether she was
a good Pakistani or a renegade who deserved to be killed. Facebook was full of
incredibly filthy charges against her and her father, a schoolteacher who had
recognised the genius in her quite early. Politician Imran Khan, leading his party
Tehreek-e-Insaf, which rules in the province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, did the right
thing by welcoming the Nobel to Malala.
It was understandable because he is also an educationist funding a
university in his native city, Mianwali. But it should not be forgotten that his
government has banned Malala’s book from the premises of Peshawar University. The director of the Area Study Centre at the university, Sarfraz Khan,
was made to stop the book launch that he was organising. He told the
press: “I have received a message from Imran Khan through someone that
whatever happened should not have happened.” People retreat in the face of
threat of violence. Malala was the victim of this mass pathology. She is only the
second Pakistani to have got the Nobel. (Contd on page 20)
Recent days have brought two alarming developments in the struggle to
contain Ebola. The campaign against the epidemic in West Africa, the only sure
way to prevent the spread of the virus to the United States and other countries,
fell even further behind. And the discovery that a nurse treating an Ebola patient
in Dallas had herself become infected despite wearing protective gear raised
questions about the readiness of American hospitals to deal with Ebola patients.
Reassuring statements by health officials that virtually any hospital with
an isolation unit could treat such patients now look rashly optimistic. That said,
the risk that the Ebola virus might cause outbreaks in this country remains
small. By far the greater danger lies in the very real possibility that the virus will
continue to spiral out of control in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone and spread
from there to other parts of Africa or other continents, opening a wider range of
pathways for infected people to reach the United States.
Many countries and international organizations, led by the United States,
have pledged money, equipment and manpower to fight the epidemic in West
Africa. But the aid has been slow to reach the front lines, leaving health care
workers with too few treatment beds to accommodate the sick.
In Sierra Leone, on Friday, health officials — facing just such a shortage of
beds — adopted a new policy of having families treat patients in their homes by
distributing painkillers, rehydrating solutions and gloves to hundreds of Ebolaafflicted households. But if a nurse in Dallas, clothed in protective garments,
could not escape infection, it is hard to believe that less well-equipped households in Sierra Leone will be able to escape contamination from an Ebola patient in their midst.The pace of international aid needs to be stepped up dramatically. This is not a task that can be left to such nongovernmental organizations
as Doctors Without Borders, which has heroically provided much, if not most, of
the care in the stricken countries. The United States has taken the lead in
providing aid to Liberia, a country with long ties to the United States.
The Army has started deploying thousands of troops to the area to help
build new treatment centers, perform laboratory tests and train health care workers
in how to treat patients, but most of that help has yet to arrive. It was thus
disheartening to hear Maj. Gen. Darryl Williams, the commander of the United
States Army Africa, dismiss criticism that American aid had been “too little, too
late” with the excuse that the Pentagon was simply filling a “small gap” left by
other health organizations.
(Contd on page 21)
ISSN No. 1554 06X
Editor In Chief : Karam Singh Thind
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OPINION
Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
6
The appropriation of Gandhi
When Prime Minister
Narendra Modi made statements
eulogising Mahatma Gandhi at the
Madison Square Garden in New
York, I was struck by his audacity and confidence. One can interpret the event in two ways.
One, the RSS has formally surrendered to the man whose
memory it has tried to erase from
the minds of Indians; and second,
this is another attempt by the
Sangh to appropriate Gandhi and
his legacy to gain legitimacy for
its ideology and occupy the space
vacated by a demoralised Congress. The RSS has always had
a complicated relationship with
Gandhi. Its leadership has hated
Gandhi from the core, but has had
no option but to praise him in the
public domain, especially after his
assassination. The RSS, in its
thought and action, is the opposite of Gandhi, who espoused
non-violence as a way of life and
used it as a political tool to earn
freedom from Britain. Ahimsa was
so close to his heart that when
Congress workers burnt a police
thana in Chauri Chaura, he called
off the movement, despite strong
protests by Jawaharlal Nehru and
prophecies by others that Gandhi
would be finished. The RSS detests ahimsa and calls it “impotency” and, in its convoluted
sense of history, blames non-violence for “foreign invaders” ruling
the Indian subcontinent. Ahimsa,
according to the RSS, has made
this country weak. The RSS chief,
M.S. Golwalkar, has termed
Gandhi’s ahimsa as a “great betrayal” perpetrated over Indians.
“They have committed the most
heinous sin of killing the life spirit
of great and ancient people,” he
wrote in Bunch of Thoughts. Violence is part of the RSS ideology.
It formally worships arms. Modi
has continuously been talking
about Gandhi, but he has not mentioned a word about Gandhi’s biggest political experiment, ahimsa.
Gandhi was the undisputed leader
of the freedom struggle and Modi
praises him no end. It is ironic that
the ideology he represents has no
respect for the independence
movement led by Gandhi. In
Golwalkar’s words, “The movement led by the Congress has had
more disastrous and degrading
effects on the country. Most of the
tragedies and evils that have overtaken our country during the last
few decades and are even today
corroding our national life are its
direct outcome.” Golwalkar wrote
the said words in 1966, so one
can’t blame him for writing in a
huff. Golwalkar, who was the longest-serving sarsanghchalak of the
RSS, was loathe to accept that
Gandhi wanted Hindu-Muslim
unity as the fundamental element
in his struggle to attain freedom.
The evil Golwalkar refers to is
Muslim influence in society. The
RSS was born as a reaction to
Gandhi’s call to support the
Khilafat movement in 1919, which
the conservative Hindutva forces
saw as an attempt to appease
Muslims. The truth was that
Gandhi saw in the Khilafat movement an opportunity to unite Hindus and Muslims and resist the
divisive politics of the British empire. The RSS viewed the riots that
took place in Pune in 1923 as a
direct result of Muslims being
emboldened by Gandhi’s support. It was convinced that a
strong,
militant
Hindu
organisation was needed to
counter the resurgence of Muslims. A bitter Golwalkar wrote:
“Those who declared no Swaraj
without Hindu-Muslim unity
have perpetrated the greatest
treason on our society.” The
use of the word “treason” was
no accident. The emergence of
Jinnah had sharpened his logic;
the division of India and the
birth of Pakistan in the name
of Islam gave credence to the
RSS narrative in the eyes of its
supporters.
(Contd on page 21)
'Haider' in the time of hashtag nationalism
This week's National Interest is about two
things I am least qualified to write about: cinema and the insurgency in Kashmir. Cinema,
because I have zero knowledge in an area in
which India has the second largest number
of experts after cricket. Kashmir insurgency,
because by the time it peaked, I had become too old, senior and regrettably, but inevitably, too editorial to go out and report. If I
am nevertheless persuaded now to wade into
the storm over Vishal Bhardwaj's Haider, it
is as much a tribute to the mainstreaming of
mature political cinema in India as to the
growing maturity of our people. A robust campaign has been running in the social media
to boycott Haider as it has been condemned
as all kinds of awful things-anti-India, antiArmy, anti-Hindu and, even more specifically,
anti-Lord Shiva (a key dancing sequence has
been shot amid the ruins of the old Martand
Temple). Yet, Haider has done quite well, so
many people have paid to watch it, defying
the boycott calls. It tells you how we are
growing up as a society even in these times
of illiberal hyper-nationalism and are now
more willing to look within and at least acknowledge that there might be another side
to a partisan story, however deep a shade of
grey it may be. I say this also because just
a year ago, another significant political film,
Madras Cafe, had commercial and critical
success. That, even more than Haider,
scripted a story of the Indian Army and
intelligence's failures in Sri Lanka. Sure, there
were protests in Tamil Nadu, but it did better
than any other political film in that genre,
without either Haqeeqat-ising or Border-ising
it.
The last two references are to two of the
most successful "war" movies in our history.
I pick these two also because one was the
story of a debacle (1962, Ladakh) and the
other of a victory (1971, Longewala). Both
had more crucial elements in common. Heroism of the Indian soldier, perfidy, even incompetence, of the adversary and, for the record,
a dash of the Deol hyper. Chetan Anand had
Dharmendra dying fighting at Rezang La to
the heart-wrenching notes of Kaifi Azmi's "kar
chale hum fida jan-o-tan saathiyo...", J.P.
Dutta's Border, 30 years later, featured Sunny
Deol as the victorious Sikh major who could
bust a Patton with bare hands.Haqeeqat,
though bold for its times, gave the Army its
best defence possible, and cemented the
belief that the timidity of Indian leaders and
the betrayal of the Chinese were responsible
for the defeat, and not our generals.
That mythology has survived three
generations and is the reason why no government wants to declassify the Henderson
Brooks-Bhagat report.
Dutta's sillier Border, on the other
hand, launched an entirely new fiction, of
India's total military superiority over Pakistan,
dovetailed nicely into the Pokharan-II and
Kargil fervour which followed, and unleashed
a genre of so-called war movies that had either Deol or some pretender similarly
pulverising the silly Pakistanis. Until even
Indian audiences got tired, and every single
post-Kargil film bombed. Partly also because
people had already seen that "movie" on news
TV, with real soldiers.
(Contd on page 12)
TRI-STATE/COMMUNITY
Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
7
Indian American food activist wins prestigious US award
(Bidisha Roy) Indian American food and agriculture expert
Navina Khanna has been honored by the James Beard Foun-
dation for her work as a 'food
justice activist organizing
across communities for equitable and ecological food systems on local, regional, and
national levels.'
Leadership Awards recognize specific outstanding initiatives as well as bodies of work
and lifetime achievement. Excellence of work, innovation in
approach, and scale of impact
either within acommunity or
across the nation were among
the criteria used to select this
year's honorees.
Founded in 1986, the
James Beard Foundation's mission is to celebrate, nurture,
and honor America's diverse
culinary heritage through programs that educate and inspire.
A cookbook author and teacher
with an encyclopedic knowledge about food, James Beard,
whodied in 1985, was a champion of American cuisine. He
helped educate and mentor
generations of professional
chefs and foodenthusiasts, instilling in them the value of
wholesome, healthful and delicious food. Today the Beard
Foundation continues in the
samespirit by administering a
number of diverse programs
that include educational initiatives, food industry awards,
scholarships forculinary students, publications, chef advo-
cacy training, and thoughtleader convening. The Foundation also maintains the
historicJames Beard House in
New York City's Greenwich Village as a "performance space"
for visiting chefs. In September
of 2012, theFoundation
launched the Diplomatic Culinary Partnership with the U.S.
Department of State's Office of
Protocol and helped create the
American Chef Corps as a way
to champion American chefs
abroad, promote American food
products and foster an interest
inAmerican culinary culture
and history through international programs and initiatives.
Khanna, Fellow, Movement
Strategy Centeris a community
organizer committed to transforming the food system into
one that is ecologically and
socially just. She has spent
over ten years working toward
food systems reform as an educator, organizer, and advocate,
and has trained dozens of parents, teachers, and teenagers
to organize their own communities for food justice. Her work
has included implementing programs to increase low-income
families' access to affordable,
fresh, healthy foods, working
and teaching on traditional and
organic farms in India and the
US, teaching youth about ecology and ecological restoration
(By a staff writer)Rockford University announced the creation of the
Puri Business School, in recognition of a $5 million contribution
to the University by First Rockford Group Founder and President
Sunil Puri, 1982 alumnus and
2013 recipient of an honorary
Doctor of Humane Letters from
the University.
The Puri Business
School (PBS) commemorates
Mr. Puri's lifetime commitment to
Rockford University. It is the first
named school at the University
and will include the Economics,
Business and Accounting (EBA)
programs, along with ancillary
business related activities of the
University. Mr. Puri is also noted
for donating the 28,ooo square
foot building located just to the
east of the main campus entrance (5100 East State Street)
which will serve as the hub for all
related PBS programming at both
the undergraduate and graduate
level. The Puri Business School
will be housed under the
University's College of Social
Sciences, Commerce and Education, led by Dean Debra Dew,
Ph.D. Associate Professor of
Economics, Business and Accounting Bob Evans serves as
Department Chair.
Mr. Puri was born in
Bombay, India and immigrated to
the United States in 1979 to attend what was then called Rockford College, where he graduated
in 1982 with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting. Mr. Puri
takes pride in the fact that he can
give back to the school to which
he attributes much of his success. "From the minute he
stepped on this campus as an
undergrad more than 35 years
ago, a fire sparked inside him that
still burns bright," stated President Robert L. Head. "As a dedicated Trustee and tireless advocate for Rockford University, he
has had occasion to and has
proudly promoted and protected
the interests of our university; for
that we are most grateful."
"It is important to my
family and me, that the Puri Business School offers not only an
exemplary space where students, faculty and the community
can interact and innovate, but
where significant programmatic
and curricular advances that will
deepen the University's commitment to advance the university
and partner in the economic revival of this region," says Mr. Puri.
"The liberal arts education I received at Rockford College sig-
nificantly contributed to my success and the Puri Business
School is my way of paying it forward." The students enrolled in
the Puri Business School will
benefit from expanded academic
and practical application experiences that incorporate opportunities like student experiential
learning, internships, travel
courses, service learning and
conference presentations.
Rockford University names Business School after Indian American
After PM, RBI Governor wants Indian diaspora to get involved in economic reform
(By a staff writer) Just after Prime
Minister NarendraModi's US visit, the
Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, RaghuramRajan addressed the
Indian American community in New
York City last week where he said
"time to deliver begins now" and encouraged the audience to get involved
in the "Nitti gritty of the implementation process of Indian economy" and
that it was not difficult, especially
given the Indian government has the
political will to reform.
The Consulate General of India, New York, in collaboration with
the India-America Chamber of Commerce, held an informative discussion with Rajan on Wednesday, October 8, 2014 at the Consulate's Ballroom. In attendance were several
prominent and influential IndianAmerican businessmen, engaged in
finance and investment banking.
Consul General of India,
New
York,
Ambassador
Dnyaneshwar M Mulay, and President of India-America Chamber of
Commerce Rajiv Khanna, gave brief
introductions about the Governor
before MrRajan spoke to the eager
audience for thirty minutes, followed
by an extensive Q&A session.
"Over the years, India has
outgrown its institutions," Mr. Rajan
said. "Such institutions only worked
well when we had the practice of resource allocation, which was a
source of revenue. This was a time
when coal could be extracted from
the ground with your bare hands".
Our economy can no longer work with
this model, he said, and just as there
were drastic democratic changes
that reacted to the economic slump
in the past decade, institutions also
have reacted. MrRajan emphasized
on the need to convert talk about
change into delivering and implementing reforms.
Mr. Rajan made three cru-
cial recommendations to creating a
more investment-friendly market in
India: (1) stalled projects needed to
get back on track, and that clearance granted at the capital should
be effective on the ground; (2) the
complex labor laws needed to be improved to benefit both employers and
workers; and (3) promotion of selfcertification to eliminate the stressful and cumbersome process of inspections.
Furthermore, outlining the
major areas that require change
and immediate implementation,
MrRajan said now was a good
time to invest in the Indian
economy. Developing infrastructure, improving the quality of human capital, optimum regulation
for good business, and extensive
financial sector reform should be
the next steps for improvement
and development of the Indian
economy.
INDIA
Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
8
Indian Consulate conducts cleanliness drive
(By a staff writer) In sync with the
launch of Hon'ble Prime Minister
of India, Mr. Narendra Modi's
Swachh Bharat campaign, the
Consulate General of India, New
York, took a cleanliness pledge
on October 2nd, 2014, on the
birth anniversary of Mahatma
Gandhi, at Union Square Park,
along with a large number of Indian Americans. Consul General
Ambassador Dnyaneshwar
Mulay informed the gathering of
the Swachh Bharat Campaign
launched by the Hon'ble Prime
Minister of India, Mr. Narendra
Modi and administered the
"Swachhata Pledge" (Pledge for
cleanliness) to all Indians
present.
The Consulate had already been conducting an extensive cleanliness drive, since April
2013, of its historic Upper East
Side building. Paperwork dated
older than three decades, decrepit equipment and potential bio-hazards, which were
occupying precious space in
the pre-war era building, were
weeded out and destroyed.
Roughly 90,000
documents were scanned and
digitalized daily in the first few
months, to salvage paperwork
that was still required for ref-
erence. Incidentally, a long lost
life-size portrait of Sardar Patel
was also unearthed in this drive,
in addition to precious glassware
and cutlery.
At the end of the cleaning phase of the drive, the Consulate is now looking into restoration and renovation of the building to bring it back to its former
glory.
Over $2 million raised for Pratham at art gala USINPAC thanks PM Modi for
(By a staff writer) The New York Chapter of
Pratham USA welcomed more than 600 guests to its
annual gala held last month at The Museum of Modern
Art. A "who's who" of prominent Indian Americans, philanthropists, corporate executive and Wall
Street elite turned out for this year's festivities. The evening raised over $2 million for Pratham's programs to educate
underprivileged children and youth in India. Washington Post journalist, CNN
host and New York Times best-selling
author Fareed Zakaria delivered the night's
keynote address and spoke on India's
recent election and his hope for India's
ability to instigate change. "The most heartening part
of this last election is that for the first time in many,
many years, an election was held on issues, on substance, on policy," said Zakaria. "This election was
about the idea of development. It provides a framework
that India has not had in a generation."
"There's never been a better opportunity for
India to take advantage of current momentum," he added,
closing out the speech with a call to support Pratham.
"The Ministry of Education is not going to solve India's
education problem. Pratham is."
Asia Society President and CEO Josette Sheeran also
gave remarks, congratulating Pratham CEO and CoFounder Dr. Madhav Chavan on his recent Asia Game
Changer Award for "bringing the gift of literacy to millions of Indians."
Gala guests, including Manish Dayal from the
celebrated film "The Hundred-Foot Journey," and Ali
Velshi, host of "Real Money with Ali Velshi," who served
as the night's emcee, enjoyed cocktails in the Sculpture Garden under a beautiful September
night sky, followed by a sumptuous dinner in the main hall and dancing to Indian
Bhangra music. Attendees were also
treated to private gallery tours of The Museum of Modern Art's exquisite collection.
This was one of my most anticipated
events of the year, not only because of
the beautiful venue, but more importantly,
because of the good work Pratham does,"
said longtime supporter Rekha Kumar. "I'm particularly
impressed by Pratham's record of leveraging its resources in an efficient manner to provide education in
the far reaches of India." To raise awareness outside
the event, this year's gala also highlighted
#WHYPRATHAM, a social media campaign encouraging attendees to share messages about their personal connection to the organization. "We are immensely grateful to our sponsors, supporters and
volunteers for the tremendous success of this
year's gala," said Deepak Raj, President of the
New York Tri-State Chapter. "The funds we raised
reflect our community's commitment to widening
access to education in India and our belief in
Pratham's unique vision and ability to enact change.
We hope we can raise even more next year."
swift action on PIO cards
(By a staff writer) The US India Political Action Committee
(USINPAC) has thanked
Prime Minister Narendra Modi
for swift action in fulfilling assurances on the PIO cards.
PM Modi had announced, to a rousing applause, key simplification in
the PIO (Person of Indian Origin) and OCI (Overseas Citizen of India) schemes for the
Indian Diasporas during his
address to the Indian American community at Madison
Square Garden in New York
City, on September 28.
The PM's announcement has now been officially
notified in the Gazette, and all
PIO cards are now valid for the
lifetime of the cardholder, instead of the 15 years so far. It
is also reported that the Home
Ministry has issued instructions that PIO cardholders will
not be required to report to a
'The Daily Show' adds Bangladeshi-American comedian Hasan Minhaj
(By a staff writer) Comedian, storyteller and writer HasanMinhaj is to
join the cast of'The Daily Show' as
a correspondent in November.
HasanMinhaj is a comedian,
writer, and actor in Los Angeles. A
2014 Just For Laughs 'New Face',
he was recently selected by the
Sundance Institute to develop his
solo show and feature film at the
prestigious New Frontier Storytelling
Lab. A featured storyteller for The
Moth Mainstage Company his work
has garnered acclaim in film, web,
and television. He hosted the documentary special 'Stand Up Planet'
produced by The Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation. His viral web
series
'The
Truth
with
HasanMinhaj' has been featured
in countless publications including The Huffington Post, Gawker,
a n d N e w Yo r k Ti m e s . H e h a s
been seen on a variety of other television programs including Arrested
Development on Netflix, HBO's Getting On, and @Midnight on Comedy
Central.
police station even if their stay in
India exceeds 180 days. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Home Affairs is working on a new scheme
that will merge the PIO and OCI
schemes.
"Swift action on this issue by the Prime Minister is indeed heartening and sends a very
strong signal to the Indian
Diasporas that the Indian government is attuned to the issues
faced by the community. This also
sends a signal to the wider global audiences that the message
of come and make in India is being whole heartedly supported by
necessary policy reform in India",
said Sanjay Puri, chairman of the
US India Political Action Committee (USINPAC). USINPAC was
founded in 2002 by Democrat and
Republican founding members to
represent the voice of Indian
American grassroots in Washington. USINPAC is the voice of over
3.2 million Indian- Americans and
works on issues that concern the
community. It supports candidates for local, state and federal
office and encourages political
participation by the Indian- American community. Over the last
decade, USINPAC has a successful track record of educating
lawmakers on a range of issues;
supporting and opposing legislation independently as well as
working with issue-based coalitions. USINPAC's primary role
is to serve as a resource for Indian Americans visiting Capitol
Hill and a variety of Federal Agencies in addition to serving as a resource for lawmakers and their staff.
INDIA
Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
9
India seeks edge in Arctic race with President Pranab Mukherjee’s Norway trip
(Agencies) OSLO: India is marking its
presence in the ongoing Great Arctic Rush
with President Pranab Mukherjee becoming the first Indian head of state to visit
Norway, as also being all set to cross the
famed Arctic Circle when he visits
Rovaniemi in Finland on Thursday.
After Mukherjee received a ceremonial reception at the Royal Palace in
Oslo on Monday morning, he held talks
with King Harald V and the top Norwegian
political leadership. The President will
oversee the inking of a dozen bilateral
agreements on Tuesday to reaffirm India's
long-standing "friendly ties" with Nordic
countries.
India has gained a strategic toehold in the Arctic region, which is fast
emerging as the new arena for geopolitical jostling, after getting permanent observer status in May 2013 in the Arctic
Council. The council has US, Canada,
Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Russia and Finland as its member states.
"India's interests in the Arctic region are
scientific, environmental, commercial as
well as strategic," said an official.
While there is widespread environmental concern over global warming
leading to the melting of the thick ice fields
in the Arctic, India also does not want to
be left out in the cold in the ongoing race
among different countries to explore and
exploit the vast reservoirs of oil and gas
present in the region.oreover, new deep
sea shipping routes are also opening up
by the melting of the polar ice caps in the
Arctic waters, connecting the Atlantic and
Pacific Oceans to bypass traditional
routes through the Suez and Panama
Canals. India could, for instance, join
hands with a member state like Russia
for both navigation and exploration of hydrocarbons, even though its present policy
is largely geared towards scientific research. "Without ruling out anything, I
would like to underline that our focus at
the moment is scientific and technological and earth sciences-oriented ...
I certainly would not foreclose any possibilities in regard to whatever benefits
the Arctic might offer to the world. At
the same time, we really do not believe
in entering organizations or situations
like this with an avowed objective of
exploiting resources," said secretary
(west) in the external affairs ministry,
Navtej Sarna.
It was in 2007 that India
launched its first scientific expedition
to the Arctic Ocean and then a year
later set up the Himadri research station at Ny-Alesund, Svalbard in Norway.
From the Fram Museum in Oslo on
Monday, Mukherjee spoke through a
video link to Indian scientists at Himadri.
The Arctic is different from Antarctica that the southern polar region
has for long been "a global commons"
with a treaty in place to preserve its
ecologically-pristine environs. The Arctic member states, however, claim territorial jurisdiction and sovereign rights
over the northern polar region.
You can now send money to your Facebook friends real time for free AAP MLA Rakhi Birla
(Agencies) Mumbai :Private sector lender
Kotak Mahindra Bank (KMB) today
launched a Facebook-based instant fund
transfer service wherein one can send
money to friends on the social media network real time, for free.
"This is a bank agnostic product,
the sender and the receiver may not be
our account holders. We have used the
IMPS platform on the National Payments
Corporation of India (NPCI) network to
make this possible," KMB's executive vice
president and head of digital initiatives,
Deepak Sharma said.
At present, a sender can initiate
fund transfer to any person through mobile phone, courtesy the IMPS infrastructure. The IMPS platform has 28 banks
under it and account holders of any of
these banks can use the newly launched
service, Sharma said, adding that there
will be no charges for either sending or
receiving the money.KMB has worked
closely with the Reserve Bank and the
National Payments Corporation of India for
it, he said.The sender will have to register
on a dedicated website for the initiative
called 'KayPay' wherein he will have to give
bank account details and the bank's
MMID, apart from personal credentials,
Sharma said. Once registered, the sender
can initiate transactions and if the beneficiary is not registered on KayPay, he will
be directed to a page to register for completed a transaction.
If the beneficiary is registered on
KayPay, the transaction will be executed
faster. On the security front, Sharma
claimed it is fully secure, even in the event
of the Facebook account getting compromised as it uses two-factor authentication to complete a transaction. Additionally, there is also an expiry time for a transaction, he said. KKMB has set a limit of
attacked by BJP
supporters in Rohini
Rs 2,500 per transaction and a total of Rs
25,000 a month for sending, while a beneficiary may also not get more than Rs
25,000 a month, Sharma said. "We
wanted to make fund transfers for small
amounts as less cumbersome as possible," Sharma said.
It can be noted that at present,
some lenders like ICICI Bank allow fund
transfers for their own account holders
using Facebook. Sharma declined to give
any target of the transactions which the
bank is targeting, but said that the scope
is vast as there are at least 250 million
Facebook users in the country having a
bank account, who can benefit from it.
Modi card: BJP uses it deftly in Maharashtra, Haryana
(Agencies) Despite the ending of the BJPShiv Sena alliance in Maharashtra right
before the Assembly polls, the BJP has
managed to gain control of the situation
by relying on the Modi card right after its
resounding success in the Lok Sabha
elections held in May 2014.Not just in
Maharashtra, the party has gone ahead
with the Chalo Chalein Modi ke Saath
campaign in Haryana as well to cash in
on the Modi wave. The party turned out
an impressive T20-like performance by
roping in the RSS given the looming proximity of the polls. While Prime Minister
Narendra Modi held 27 rallies in
Maharashtra and 10 in Haryana, BJP
president Amit Shah addressed 20 in each
state. Union Home Minsiter Rajnath
Singh, a former BJP chief himself, also
didn't lag behind and held around 12 ral-
lies in Maharashtra. In total, the BJP addressed
715
meetings
in
Maharashtra.That was not all. The party
strategically kept local leaders on stage even
when national leaders like Modi and others
held forth. A cluster of 8, 10 and 12 Assembly
seats were made in Maharashtra and each of
the cluster was assigned to a veteran leader.
In Maharashtra, 50 such clusters were formed
and Haryana had 10 clusters.Various leaders and party workers from across the
country were deployed in the two states.
Along with BJP and RSS workers, the
party roped in its union ministers for
campaigning.The presence of a veteran
Cabinet minister or someone from Modi's
government was ensured at all these Assembly seats. Union ministers were kept
with the local leaders in the state to ensure
successful fool-proof campaigning.Digital
raths used for campaigning by the BJP
were equipped with GPS to ensure there
wasn't any misuse. In Maharashtra, 86
digital raths covered at least 10 regions in
a day and in total, covered around 8000 regions. According to sources, BJP
Maharashtra leaders have wanted to break
the alliance with the Shiv Sena for a long
time. And when the split did happen, the
local party workers were ready for the
battle.
(Agencies) Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)
MLA and former Delhi minister Rakhi
Birla was allegedly beaten up by the
husband of a local BJP councillor
Sanjana Singh in Rohini in New Delhi
on Monday.
"AAP's Rakhi Birla and party
volunteer Ram Pratap Goyal were
beaten up by the husband of local BJP
councillor Sanjana Singh when they
were hearing about the problems of local sanitation workers in a park," a
party statement said. "The goons entered Goyal's office and beat up everyone present there. They did not even
spare the women, including Rakhi," it
added. "Not only did the BJP councillor Sanjana Singh try to disrupt the
meeting, but called her husband, who
along with other goons followed Rakhi
and AAP volunteers till Ram Pratap
Goyal's office," it added.
"We have received
complaints from both the parties
against each other. We have filed the
First Information Report against both
the sides," said a police official.
INDIA
Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
10
Shashi Tharoor removed as Congress spokesperson
(Agencies)
The Congress
on Monday removed Shashi
Tharoor as the party's spokesperson after the party's Kerala
unit reprimanded him for praising
Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
"Congress President
Sonia Gandhi has accepted the
recommendation of the AICC disciplinary committee to remove
Shashi Tharoor from the list of
spokespersons of the AICC with
immediate effect.
"The Kerala Pradesh
Congress Committee had submitted a complaint in this regard
to the disciplinary committee,"
Congress General Secretary
(Organisation) Janardan Dwivedi
said in a press release.
Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee had prepared
a report against Tharoor, which
was referred to AICC's disciplinary action committee a few days
ago, reported PTI.
The report of the Kerala
unit had held that Tharoor's adulatory statements about Modi had
hurt Congress workers in Kerala,
who had worked sincerely and
tirelessly for his victory from
Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha
seat. KPCC sends complaint
against Tharoor to high command
Tharoor had earlier reacted sarcastically to the Kerala
unit's move, saying this would
mean the state leadership would
finally read what he actually
wrote instead of oral summaries.
The complaint by the
Kerala Congress Committee had
come at a time when Tharoor had
accepted the invite by the Prime
Minister to be a brand ambassador of "Swachch Bharat" mission
of the NDA government.
Tharoor had also gone to
the US during the time the Prime
Minister was in that country and
had appeared on various television channels. Party sources say
that nobody was assigned from
Congress to the US during Modi's
visit and speak on the party's
behalf.
Tharoor has not been
briefing media at the AICC from
June 4 after his piece in
Huffington Post praising Modi
kicked up a big row in Congress.
The Congress leader had
said that it would be "churlish" if
his party did not take note of
Modi's efforts to sound gracious
and accommodative and reinvent
himself from a "hate figure into
an avatar of modernity and
progress".
Congress had snubbed
him immediately, describing it as
his "personal view". Since then
Tharoor did not brief the media
from AICC podium. .The view in
the AICC is that Tharoor should
have kept in mind that he holds a
responsible position in the party
and party interests should come
first.
The three-member disciplinary action committee of AICC,
which looked into the complaint
of the Kerala Congress, com-
prised Motilal Vora, AK Antony
and Sushilkumar Shinde.
Taking strong exception
to his repeated praise of Modi
and his initiatives like "Swachh
Bharat" mission, Congress in
Kerala had sought appropriate
action by the high command
against Tharoor.
Incidentally, Tharoor's
press conference at the AICC
were not uploaded on the party
website beyond May 7 this year
while the site is updated on AICC
briefings till October 10.
A senior party functionary said that despite the fact that
Tharoor's books in past had been
"very critical" of late Indira Gandhi
and Rajiv Gandhi, the party made
him a minister even when he was
the first time MP.
The only other first time
MP to become a minister in the
UPA government was Manish
Tewari.
The leader said that despite his controversial utterances
with which the party had to dis-
tance from time time, the party
gave him an opportunity to head
the Parliament Standing Committee on External Affairs in September when the government reconstituted Parliamentary panels after the new Lok Sabha came into
being.
Tharoor has so far rejected suggestions that he was
moving closer to the BJP by asserting that he was a "proud Congressman" and never endorsed
the "Hindutva agenda" of the BJP.
In a massive rejig of the
AICC media department ahead of
Lok Sabha elections, Tharoor was
made a national spokesperson in
the AICC in January while he was
still in the thick of a controversy
over his wife Sunanda Pushkar's
sudden death.
A number of faces included in the list of spokespersons and television panelists that
time were close aides of the Congress vice president and had
Youth Congress or NSUI background.
(Agencies) New Delhi : Right to
life outweighed right to do business with the Supreme Court on
Monday rejecting State Bank of
India's petition challenging an
Allahabad high court order directing sugar mills in Uttar Pradesh
to sell the sugar stock hypothecated to SBI against loans to
pay sugarcane farmers' dues.
Sugar mills had taken loans totaling Rs 3,000 crore from SBI by
hypothecating their sugar stock.
Under law, the creditor bank has
the first right on the hypothecated
sugar to realize its dues if the
mills default on repayment of
loans. Acting on a PIL filed by
Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor, the HC
had invoked Section 17(5) of UP
Sugarcane (Regulation of Supply
and Purchase) Act, 1953 and extinguished the right of secured
creditors and directed collectors
to grant permission to sugar mills
to sell the sugar stock for payment of dues to cane growers.
Appealing against the
HC order through advocate
Sanjay Kapur, SBI told the SC
on Monday that the mills were
now disposing of sugar stock,
which was a security against
loans. SBI apprehended that the
Rs 3,000 crore loans it had advanced to mills would turn nonperforming assets. SBI also said
the HC order for disposal of sugar
stock could potentially turn sugar
mills sick as it would proceed
under the coercive Securitization
and Reconstruction of Financial
Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest (Sarfaesi) Act to
sell the mills' assets to recover
its dues.It also said no bank
would come forward to grant any
advance/loan to these sugar mills
in case it was held that first
charge on sugar stock would be
in favour of cane growers and not
banks, as held by the HC. A
bench headed by Chief Justice
H L Dattu felt the cane growers'
right to life was more important
than the bank's right to carry on
business, especially in the face
of hardships faced by farmers
leading to many suicides.
"In view of the suicides
among farmers, let us put a quietus to this," the bench observed
before dismissing SBI's appeal.
Similar considerations
had weighed with the court in dismissing the appeals filed by four
public sector insurance companies on settlement of claims filed
by ?Jammu & Kashmir flood victims. The court had refused the
insurance companies' plea to
conduct preliminary survey be-
fore settling claims.The SC asked
them to implement the HC order,
which had directed them to pay
up 95% of the claim amount if the
insurance cover was below Rs 25
lakh and 50% for those with insurance cover exceeding Rs 50
lakh.In the recent past, SBI has
been at the receiving end also
due to scams. Close on the heels
of NPAs after cancellation of 2G
spectrum licences by the apex
court, it suffered a jolt when the
SC cancelled all coal block allocations to private companies,
which had taken huge loans from
SBI The Coal Producers Association had informed the court
that loans worth Rs 2.5 lakh crore
advanced by banks and financial
institutions would become nonperforming assets because of en
masse cancellation of coal
blocks.
Right to life overrides right to do business, Supreme Court rules
INDIA
Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
11
(Agencies) Two months ago, when a
20-year-old Hindu woman alleged she was
kidnapped, gangraped and forcibly converted to Islam, it had all of Uttar Pradesh
on the boil. Her story became grist for
the mill in the run-up to the state bypolls,
fuelling a BJP campaign against what it
calls “love-jihad in which Muslim men trick
Hindu women into marriage and force
them to convert”.
Ten persons, including the man she
accused of tricking her, were arrested.
On Sunday, that story collapsed. The
woman landed at a police station and retracted her statement, admitting she had
eloped with the Muslim man she loved.
In a statement to city magistrate
Satya Prakash Rai, she said she now
feared for her life. Since she refused to
return home or stay with any of her relatives, she was sent to a Nari Niketan. The
centrepiece of their campaign in tatters,
Hindu outfits refuse to give up. They see
a “conspiracy” in the U-turn by the woman.
Ajay Tyagi, convenor of the Hindu Behen
Beti Bachao Sangarsh Samiti, claimed
that “the district police are operating at
Their ‘love jihad’ centre piece in tatters,
Hindu outfits see plot in Meerut U-turn
the behest of the ruling party to save
the culprits”.
They want to spare them charges
for serious offences. This is why the
woman was forced to make such a
statement. A Muslim man had been
threatening her and her family that her
brother would be killed if she did not
make such a statement,” Tyagi alleged.
On Monday, the woman’s father turned
up with his younger daughter at the Nari
Niketan but they were not allowed to
meet her. The father demanded security cover for her saying she may be
killed and that he would be accused of
honour killing. “My daughter was forced
to give such a baseless statement. We apprehend that she may be killed, and I could
be booked for honour killing. The police are
working to to weaken the case of my
daughter’s abduction, forcible conversion and
gangrape. A complaint was lodged against
ten persons on August 2,” he said.
The Hindu Behen Beti Bachao Sangarsh
Samiti is backing the father. “Hum Hindu beti
ko kisi keemat par police ke dabao mein
doosre dharm ke logon ko nahin saunp sakte
(We cannot hand over a Hindu girl to members of the other community under pressure
from police),” Tyagi said. “It was our samiti
that moved court to seek police cover for the
family. The local police were directed to provide them security,” Tyagi said. He alleged
that two policemen, who stood guard, were
withdrawn on Sunday morning to let the
woman leave the home with a Muslim man.
SP (Rural) M M Baig, however, said that the
security cover was withdrawn after the family made a request in writing to police.
Sharad Pawar likely to play kingmaker, opinion polls show
(Agencies) Mumbai : With most
opinion polls projecting a hung assembly, the field will be ripe for the
smaller parties to play kingmaker
and, observers feel, Sharad Pawar's
NCP could play a crucial role.
The BJP may not be able
to secure a clear majority, but will
emerge as the single largest party,
predict most surveys by leading
agencies in collaboration with private
television channels. It will be followed
by the Congress, Shiv Sena, NCP
and the Raj Thackeray-led MNS.
According to the latest such
survey, the BJP is expected to secure 110 seats, followed by Congress (68), Sena (52), NCP (39),
MNS (7) and independents (12).
In this scenario, experts
say Pawar, who has never stayed
too far from power, is likely to
come into his own. Since Congress can't support the BJP and
the Sena is unlikely to join hands
with its former ally after a bitter
break-up and the MNS numbers
insignificant, the only option before BJP will be to secure the
support of the NCP to form the
government, said a former Congress minister. "We are sure
Pawar will oblige the BJP," he
said.
The BJP, which conducted
at least three internal surveys after the saffron rift, found it was
likely to secure between 130 and
145 seats. "In view of the highpowered campaign led by PM
Narendra Modi, we are confident
of a clear majority,'' said party
leader Eknath Khadse.
He ruled out the possibility of the BJP knocking on the
doors of the NCP in case it did
not secure a clear majority. "I
don't think we will require support
of NCP or any other party for formation of the government. During the
Lok Sabha polls, there was a similar debate. Then we had secured a
clear majority. In the assembly polls
too, we'll repeat the performance,''
he said.
Pawar, on his part, told TOI
in an interview he hoped the NCP
would be able to form the government on its own and on Sunday, said
at a public meeting in Mumbai that
his party will cooperate on an antiBJP front.
Notwithstanding the observations, Congress and NCP leaders
believe that once the results are out,
Pawar will not hesitate to join hands
with the BJP. "If BJP is short of 25
to 30 legislators, the NCP may join
thegovernment or extend support
from outside," a Congress leader
said. Soon after the NCP broke with
the Congress, former CM Prithviraj
Chavan had said that there was a
conspiracy between the BJP and the
NCP.
Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
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12
INDIA/
Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
13
Dhaula Kuan gangrape case: Delhi court convicts all five accused
(Agencies) New Delhi: A
Delhi court today held all the five
accused guilty in 2010 Dhaula
Kuan gangrape case involving a
30-year-old victim from northeast, saying the DNA report
clearly demonstrates that she
was raped by them.
The court also relied on the
testimony of the victim, who had
identified two of the accused after the first arrest was made and
later helped in apprehending rest
of them.
Usman
alias
Kale,
Shamshad alias Khutkan, Shahid
alias Chhota Billi, Iqbal alias
Bada Billi and Kamruddin alias
Mobile, all residents of Mewat
region in Haryana, were convicted
by Additional Sessions Judge
Virender Kumar Bhat, who will
hear the argument on awarding
sentence to them on October
17.The judge said the case
against them has been proved by
the evidence including DNA report that the victim was abducted
and gangraped on the moving
vehicle as well as on a secluded
place.
While convicting the accused,
the court also noted that the victim, who was a BPO employee,
has not faltered at any point and
stood her ground throughout the
entire cross examination.
The court said she reiterated
that she identified the two accused Usman and Shamshad
correctly during the Test Identification Parade (TIP), the procedure in law in which accused are
brought for identification by the
victim in the court, jail or police
station.
"The scrutiny of the evidence
led by the parties as discussed
hereinabove inevitably demonstrates that the prosecution has
succeeded in proving the charges
under section 365 (abduction), 34
(common
intention),
376(2)(g)(gangrape) and 506
(criminal intimidation) with 34 of
IPC against all the five accused,"
the judge said.
"Resultantly, all the five ac-
UN snubs Pakistan on Kashmir plea
(Agencies) NEW DELHI:
Pakistan's latest efforts to internationalize the Kashmir issue by
seeking UN intervention have
failed to draw any response from
the world body, which reiterated
that New Delhi and Islamabad
need to resolve all differences
bilaterally through dialogue.
India also reacted strongly on
Tuesday. With it continuing to
internationalize the J&K issue —
the latest in the form of a briefing for P5 envoys over the LoC
situation — India said Pakistan
needed to understand the road
to peaceful ties with India runs
from Islamabad to Delhi via
Lahore and not through New
York or any other "third party".
Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif's
foreign affairs adviser Sartaj Aziz
had on Monday briefed envoys
of the five permanent UNSC
members asking them to urge
India to respect the ceasefire
pact. Earlier, Aziz had also writ-
ten to the secretary general Ban
Ki-Moon demanding an intervention by the UN in J&K.
Ban's deputy spokesperson
Farhan Haq, when asked to comment on the letter seeking UN
intervention, said he would refer
to last week's statement by
Ban's spokesperson in which the
UN chief encouraged India and
Pakistan to resolve differences
through dialogue and engage
construc- tively to find a longterm solution for peace and stability in Kashmir.
"The road to a peaceful
and co-operative relationship between India and Pakistan runs
from Islamabad via Lahore to New
Delhi. If you divert that road to
New York or elsewhere, it will not
serve any purpose, because
there is no place for third party
in India-Pakistan relations,"
foreign ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said on
Tuesday.
cused are hereby convicted for
the offences," he said in his 131page judgement.
Police had claimed that absconding top LeT commander
Javed Baluchi, who is based in
Pakistan, was the "kingpin" of the
entire conspiracy while Pakistani
national Arshad Khan, co-accused in the case, was in touch
with him.
Arshad was arrested on August 13 after being produced before the court here from Kolkata
jail where he was lodged in connection with Burman kidnapping
case.A chargesheet was filed
against Rashid and Shahid on
May 8 and they were charged
with offences of criminal conspiracy under IPC and provisions
of Unlawful Activities (Prevention)
Act. Rashid and Shahid are now
in judicial custody.
Regarding Baluchi, police had
said intelligence agencies had
provided information in November
last year that he was contacted
on his Pakistani mobile number
from Rajasthan and there were
conversations regarding a conspiracy to carry out a terror strike
in India.
WORLD
Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
(Agencies) North Korean Leader Kim
Jong-Un has made his first public appearance in five weeks, ending a prolonged
absence that fuelled speculation about
his health and control over the country.
The country's official news agency
said Kim ‘gave field guidance’ yesterday
at the newly-built Wisong Scientists Residential District.
A Korean Central News Agency report
added that earlier in the day he had ‘visited the newly built Natural Energy Institute of the State Academy of
Sciences.’Kim had last been seen in the
state media five weeks ago at a concert
on September 3, and he missed several
high-profile events that he normally attends.
An official documentary released late
last month then made a single reference
to Kim's ‘discomfort’ and showed video
footage from August of him overweight
and limping.The KCNA report today made
no mention of Kim's health, only detailing his comments about the construction
projects.
At the tour of the residential district,
Kim praised the North's scientists as ‘patriots who are devoting all their lives to
building a rich and powerful nation, convinced that though there is no frontier in
science, they have a socialist motherland
and are under the care of the mother
party.’
Many analysts believe that while Kim
may have some health issues, he is probably not in serious trouble. But many other
people wonder.
At a South Korean parliamentary
hearing Monday, Choi Yoon-hee, head of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Kim's health
problems ‘are not severe enough to disrupt his status as the ruler of the country.’
There are many reasons to believe
that. No unusual troop movements or
other signs of a possible coup emerged
14
North Korea Says Leader
Reappears in Public
during his absence.And diplomacy at the
highest level continues: Three members
of his inner circle made a surprise visit to
the South, something analysts say would
be impossible without the leader's blessing.
Foreign tourists and aid workers still
travel to the North, and there have been
no reports of new restrictions or warnings
for diplomats.
There's also nothing particularly unusual about North Korean leaders laying
low for extended periods.
Kim's late father, Kim Jong-Il, no fan
of the limelight in his later years, would
disappear at times; Kim Jong-Un, who
seems to genuinely like being at the centre of things, took off without a word for
three weeks in 2012.
But the apparent vanishing act of a
man long seen in foreign media as a
cartoonish, all-powerful overlord sitting on
a nuclear arsenal while his people starve
proved endlessly fascinating. And while
there is plenty of informed analysis from
experts and frequent visitors to
Pyongyang, there seems to be even more
thinly sourced speculation. Kim is, by
turns, reported to be suffering from gout,
from diabetes, from a brain haemorrhage,
from a heart ailment, from a leg injury that
required surgery from a French doctor,
from mental illness or, according to a headturning British report, from a cheese
addiction.Kim Jong-Un emerged as the
anointed successor after Kim Jong-Il disappeared from public view in 2008 - by
most accounts because of a stroke. The
elder Kim died in late 2011.
Was Kim receiving weight loss treatment in China?
(Agencies) The mystery over Kim
Jong-un’s whereabouts had deepened as
a surprise new claim emerged suggesting he was receiving drastic weight loss
treatment in China. The North Korean
Ambassador in London, Hyon Hak Bong,
told the BBC yesterday that there was
‘no doubt about it’ that Kim was healthy.
But his comments came as a source
told the Daily Mail that the 31-year-old
leader was in hospital in Beijing having
his stomach tied, or ‘banded’, to help him
fight his burgeoning weight. The reputable
source, who has connections with intelligence agencies in the West, said Kim’s
stay in hospital in China was the reason
for his no-show at the recent 69th anniversary celebrations of the ruling Korean
Workers’ Party.
He has also been treated in recent
weeks for sprains or fractures, to his
ankles - a problem that developed after
he injured a leg while joining troops in a
military exercise in August.It has since limp around his weight added to the pres- ing medical treatment for both that inbeen speculated that as he continued to sure on both legs, resulting in him seek- jury and the kilos he was piling on.
WORLD
Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
Is this the sickest uncle ever?
15
Mexican man posts horrific photos of
him pointing a 'gun' at his nephew's head
(Agencies) A Mexican car
park attendant who posted
shocking pictures on Facebook
of him holding what appeared
to be a real gun at the head of
his two-year-old nephew has
been forced to apologize after
the images went viral.
Luis Martin Perez Rocha,
26, took the two images of him
with his nephew at home in
Cuajimalpa de Morelos, a borough of Mexico City, and then
decided it would be amusing to
upload them when he got to
work.
But neither social media
users nor his bosses were impressed when the photos went
viral, causing a storm of protest
and forcing the man to issue a
YouTube video apologizing for
the act a few days later.
The photos caused so much
anger that for a short while on
Twitter the hashtag from his employer #LordValetParking was
a trending topic in Mexico as
people signed in to find out as
much as they could about the
gunman.
‘Have you seen these images? Check his Facebook profile out, this is not a man, it is a
monster,’ wrote one of the many
critical posters.
Another wrote: ‘The true
face of a coward.’
Online users also quickly
discovered that this wasn't the
first time Rocha had done
something like this.Last sum-
mer he had uploaded a similar
photograph in which he was
aiming the same apparent toy
gun at a woman.
‘Taking and uploading those
images was a mistake. And I
can confirm that it was only a
toy gun and there were no consequences for the child as a result of the pictures,’ said Rocha
in his apology video.
‘The young boy is my
nephew who lives in the same
house as me and we were playing. But I accept they were
open to misinterpretation and I
want to apologize through social networks to the netizens
and also the authorities for my
foolish action.
police and told them that the gun is vide it if needed as proof of my
‘I have already contacted a toy gun and I have offered to pro- claim.’
The group that could help defeat the ISIS behemoth
(Agencies) - Despite facing
a punishing air bombing campaign, the Islamic State in Iraq
and Syria continues to march
across Syria. This week, it tightened its siege on the Syrian
Kurdish town of Kobani. Though
it is too soon to write off the
American strategy to "degrade
and ultimately destroy" ISIS by
relying on air power and Syrian
rebels, the opening week was a
box office flop.
For the operation to be a success, Washington should enlist
the support of a group it has
spurned: the Syrian Kurds.
To explain: ISIS is the most
powerful fighting force across
northern and eastern Syria. Its
main Islamist competitors have
all been weakened in recent
months. The Salafi brigade Ahrar
al-Sham has seen its stock
plummet after Qatar curtailed its
funding and its leader died. ISIS
chased the al Qaeda affiliate
Jabhat al-Nusra out of its eastern strongholds of Deir al-Zour.
And the Tawhid Brigade has been
adrift ever since the death of its
leader last year.But Washington
is not pinning its hopes on these
politically unsavory groups to dislodge ISIS. Instead, it has armed
smaller and less powerful brigades from the loose umbrella organization known as the Free
Syrian Army and has announced
a program to train 5,000 rebels
in Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Equipping the Free Syrian
Army got off to a rocky start.
Sources in Turkey told me this
summer that one brigade tried
selling American-supplied TOW
anti-tank missiles to Jabhat alNusra for $25,000 this year.
Throwing money, arms and
training at Free Syrian Army units
will not defeat ISIS.
Instead, it will require a fundamental shift in the Free Syrian
Army's thinking. One of ISIS' chief
strengths is its unit cohesion. Its
cadres are ideologically bound,
fighting for the cause of Islam.
These doctrinal bonds ensure that
units stick together when they
come under fire.
In contrast, Free Syrian Army
brigades often battle for material
gain and social status. In combat, their forces frequently disintegrate, no longer acting as a
team. I witnessed this myself
while spending time with them on
the front in 2012 and 2013.
There are also more mundane
challenges. There are no rebel
outfits that can confront ISIS in
its Syrian bastion of Raqqa. In the
summer of 2013, the city's strongest Free Syrian Army contingent, a loose alliance known as
the 11th Brigade, mostly folded
into Jabhat al-Nusra.
When fighting erupted between ISIS and other organizations at the end of 2013, ISIS
ejected Ahrar al-Sham from the
town. it reigns supreme in Raqqa.
To lay siege to the city, Free
Syrian Army groups would have
to travel approximately 100 miles
from their northwestern strongholds in Aleppo and Idlib. Logistical constraints -- these brigades
rarely fight beyond their home
regions -- would make resupplying forward units with ammunition, food and fuel unfeasible.
And if Washington is hoping
for a civilian uprising to topple ISIS
in Raqqa, it might have to wait
until the Armageddon jihadists
are predicting will occur in Syria.
The Western media have depicted ISIS-controlled areas as
slave markets where a terrorized
civilian population lives in constant
fear. But there's evidence that
many do not harbor such trepidation. Raqqans I spoke to via
Skype and in Turkey said that
many in the city support ISIS.
And why would Syrians acquiesce to a group that seeks to
control most facets of their lives?
Because, as President Bill
Clinton famously quipped, "It's
the economy, stupid."In a wartorn country where civilians wait
in line for hours to get bread,
where they endure constant
power outages and are hardpressed to obtain fuel, Raqqans
live on a paradise island of commodities. ISIS' oil fields provide
gas, its dams deliver electricity,
and its efficient bureaucracy ensures that groceries are stocked
with sufficient supplies of basic
staples. President Barack
Obama may believe that ISIS "is
certainly not a state," but the
Syrians under its control are
grateful for its state services.
Most important, the group
ensures security in a country
where there is none. The chaos
and plunder that characterize
Free Syrian Army-controlled areas are a distant nightmare.
While the partially rebel-controlled city of Aleppo could be a
stage set for a "Mad Max" sequel, ISIS' Raqqa is a field of
dreams.
The only other rebel-held areas that have a modicum of order are those under the control of the Kurdish Democratic
Union Party (PYD). The group
rules the northern city of
Qamishli and the villages surrounding it. Unlike Aleppo, the
economy has not collapsed,
and residents do not cut down
trees for warmth. And in contrast to Raqqa, the secular
Kurds have not driven out
Qamishli's Christians but instead have protected them.
Moreover, Turkish fears that a
Kurdish enclave would provide a
safe haven for Turkish Kurds from
the Kurdistan Workers Party
(PKK) have proved unfounded.
The Democratic Union Party has
ensured calm on the border, and
a grateful Turkish government has
reciprocated by meeting with its
leaders.
Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
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16
Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
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17
INDIA
Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
18
Prime Cuts
An air thick with innuendo
and contempt produces a new
stigma: meat-eating
T
wo days before Id-ulZuha, Baroda-based
businessman Yusuf
Sheikh went for a meeting at the
Swaminarayan temple in the
city, to meet with the chief
mahant and other religious leaders of both communities.
The idea behind the
meeting was to maintain communal peace during the Id, traditionally observed with the
qurbani of an animal and the distribution of the meat. He
showed the Hindu religious leaders pamphlets that had been
distributed for the past two years
in Muslim localities across
Gujarat, saying that cow sacrifice was now illegal and would
bring troubles on the community. He says that no one in
Gujarat would be foolish enough
to invite violence on themselves
by slaughtering cows and if they
did so should be punished.
He felt that such efforts
were necessary in an atmosphere where there had been
tensions during the preceding
Navratra festivities when images
of the Mother Goddess were superimposed on that of Mecca
and distributed on WhatsApp
and Face-b-ook. There had been
curfews and small clashes in
quite a few Gujarat towns,
inc-l-uding Ahmedabad, during
the festive sea-son.
There was, indeed, fear
in the air.Yet the efforts of indi-
viduals from both communities to reports of harassment came in.
keep the peace were finally fu- Now even eating bakra (goat)
tile. This Id was a nightmare for meat during Id can land somemany in Gujarat. Trucks carrying one in trouble. Even during Modi’s
goats and buffaloes were stopped rule in Gujarat, in the post-riot
at many places by the police, years, it was not like this.”
often accompanied by Bajrang
By SABAAchyut
NAQVIYagnik, author of The
Dal activists.
Making of Modern Gujarat, comThis happened particu- ments: “Ironically, the VHP and
larly in Dahod and Panchmahal Bajr-ang Dal, once sidelined within
districts, where there is an eco- Gujarat by Modi, are asserting
nomic link between tribals and themselves now.” He says it is
Muslims, both consumers of an old pattern in the state, stopmeat. Often people were falsely ping and harassing people as they
harassed for ‘carrying cows for drive livestock from one place to
slaughter’. Yusuf says, “I don’t another. In Gujarat, besides the
remember an Id when so many Brahmins there are two powerful
communities who are strict vegetarians: Patels and Jains. So
the attempt to create a taboo
around consuming meat is more
successful. Ahmedabad-based
activist Gagan Sethi says the
idea is to hit communities involved in livestock sale economically. “At the minimum, the idea
is harassment, at the maximum,
it is impoverishment.”
In
neighbouring
Rajasthan, meanwhile, the camel
was declared a protected animal
by the Vasundhararaje government, hence the practice of sacrificing camels in a state with
large swathes of desert also
came to an end this Id. The national capital too had a small
dose of animal-induced human
troubles during the festival season.
There was tension in
Bawana in Outer Delhi that has
a population of 1.5 lakh, 70 per
cent of whom are Muslims. On
October 2, Gandhi Jayanti, 200
youths invaded the colony with
three constables as they
claimed some stolen cows were
hidden there. They found none.
They found a man called Mahesh
with a cow. He was bashed up
but it turned out that he was a
milkman. According to a citizen’s
fact-finding committee, the next
night a man tried to smuggle in
two cows into the colony. He was
handed over to the police.
A group called the
Hindu Krantikari Sena had put
up posters in a slum cluster in
the locality and was gathering
people from nearby villa-ges to
congregate in Bawana. One of
the main organisers was the
nephew of BJP MLA Pawan
Sharma. The political linkages
are not difficult to spot. The
masterplan appears to be to harass meat-eaters by declaring
them cow-eaters. India is a nation with the second largest
population of human beings in
the world and the single largest
of cattle. (Contd on page 20)
SOUTH ASIA
Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
19
SC decides to indict TV channel’s chief executive, anchor
Islamabad : The Supreme Court
(Media Reports) finally made up
its mind on Monday to prosecute
Salman Iqbal, chief executive of
a private television network and
anchorperson Mubashir Lucman
and decided to indict them for
airing scandalous and defamatory programmes against the judiciary.
“After going through the
transcript of a talk show on ARY
‘Khara Such’ aired on May 29,
2014 and the reply submitted by
the respondents we prima facie
are of the view that a case for initiating contempt proceedings
under Article 204 of the Constitution read with the Contempt of
Court Ordinance 5 of 2003 is
made out,” observed Justice Ejaz
Afzal who is heading a threejudge Supreme Court bench.
The court also decided
to frame charge against the respondents on Oct 30.
The court was hearing
the case relating to the Khara
Such hosted by anchorperson
Mubashir Lucman on May 29, in
which a number of defamatory
allegations were levelled against
Justice Jawwad. S Khawaja -- his
close relationship with Mir
Shakeelur Rehman, the owner of
Geo TV network and the sale of
a property in Lahore to the Punjab
government by the wife of the
judge.
The allegations were
raised after Justice Jawwad
Khawaja’s hearing of a petition
moved by Geo TV network for
immediate intervention to halt
what they called ‘hate campaign’
against the channel.
Both the respondents
have to appear before the court
in person to hear the charges,
though under Section 19 of the
contempt law they can move an
intra court appeal before a larger
bench of the court against the
decision of framing a charge.
Under Section 2 of the
same law a contemnor can tender apology at any stage and the
court if satisfied may discharge
the proceedings. But if convicted,
the maximum punishment the respondents could get for committing contempt of the court will be
six-month imprisonment.
Under the law, the office
of the Attorney General always
acts as prosecutor in a contempt
of court trial before a Supreme
Court bench.
“The decision to indict
the contemnors for committing
contempt of the judiciary at the
end of the current month would
help discourage the tendency of
ridiculing the judiciary in the eyes
of the public, commented Advocate Sheikh Ehsanuddin who is
representing former chief justice
Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry in
the defamation notice to PTI chief
Imran Khan.
The court decided to indict the respondents ignoring a
request by Advocate Irfan Qadir
to exercise restraint arguing that
such a decision would not augur
well for the higher position of the
judiciary which has to dispense
justice to the people.
He said that both the respondents had filed their replies
in line with the Sept 29 direction
to submit their justification and
claimed that they did nothing to
ridicule or defame any judge.
He also reminded the
court that a defamation suit was
pending somewhere in a relevant
court which was moved by wife
of Justice Khawaja. Any order by
the Supreme Court would influence the defamation case since
the issue was almost the same,
the counsel said.But the court
observed that the suit for dam-
ages had its own consequences
and pendency of such a case
before a trial court never came in
the way of contempt proceedings. “The court will proceed to
determine whether the judge
(Justice Khawaja) had been ridiculed or defamed,” Justice Afzal
observed.The counsel also submitted a June 19 order of Chief
Justice Nasir-ul-Mulk who chose
not to initiate contempt proceedings against the same contemnor despite the fact that objectionable material had been aired
against him and the entire judiciary in the same programme.
seeking
peace
in
the
neighbourhood and expressed
his concern at the current security situation along the Line of
Control," the statement said.
The Senators appreciated Pakistan's efforts to curb terrorism, it said, adding they agreed
that the root causes of terrorism
must also be addressed.
Aziz last week wrote a
letter to the UN urging the world
body to interfere to calm down
the ongoing tension with India
along the border.
Nawaz Sharif raises Kashmir issue with US Senators
Why Emperor Akbar haunts Hindutva
(Media Reports) Pakistan Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif on Monday raised the Kashmir issue
during his meeting with a delegation of US Senators, saying it
should be resolved in accordance
with the UN resolutions.
Sharif, who met Senators Tim Kaine, Member of the
Senate Armed Services Committee, and Angus King, Member of
the Senate Armed Services Committee, underlined that dialogue
is the only way forward between
India and Pakistan.
A statement issued by
the Prime Minister's Office here
said that Sharif told the two Senators that the "UN resolutions
must form the basis for any solution for Kashmir and people of
Kashmir be made part of it."
"He asked the UN to
honour its own resolutions on this
matter. He said the only acceptable solution of Kashmir will be
the one which is endorsed by all
parties including Pakistan, India
and Kashmiris," the statement
said.
Sharif expressed his disappointment on the cancellation
of Foreign Secretary-level talks
between India and Pakistan.
He also appreciated US
support on Bhasha and Dasu
dams.
He informed the US
Senators that Pakistan has seen
improvement in its economic indicators and asked for better
market access for Pakistani
products in the US.
He said that enhancing
mutual trade is Pakistan's priority area in bilateral relations.
Earlier, Foreign Office
said the Senators met Adviser to
the Prime Minister on National
Security and Foreign Affairs
Sartaj Aziz and discussed a number of issues including Pakistan's
relations with the US and the regional situation.
Aziz
expressed
Pakistan's concern over tensions
with India due to situation at the
LoC.
"He (Aziz) underscored
the government's approach of
(Media Reports) It was Dussehra
the other day, and now it will be
Diwali. Both occasions, like other
Hindu festivals, are celebrated in
different ways in different regions
of India and are also known by
different names. Dussehra in north
India more or less coincides with
Durga Puja in Bengal.
Many Buddhists in India
mark Emperor Ashoka’s conversion to the faith around the time
of Diwali. For people like me the
festival heralds foggy winters when
mothballed woollies are hung out
in the fading sun before being
ready to be reused.
A lot of Indians celebrate
Hindu festivals for similar reasons,
which increasingly find Muslims
in Pakistan observing Hindu customs. They go for the cultural and
aesthetic appeal, and not always
for the belief associated with them.
I know Pakistani women
who ask their husbands when
they visit India to fetch them
sindoor, the vermillion mark worn
by married Hindu women in the
parting of the hair. Partly this
could be the influence of Hindi
movies. There are Pakistani
women who also want their husbands to give them the
mangalsutra, a special necklace
that symbolises matrimony for
Hindu women. Quite a number of
my contemporaries don’t go to
these celebrations any longer,
partly because Hindutva has hijacked the festivals.The flipside
offers another compelling reason
why Hindutva-run schools would
never risk teaching Ghalib or Mir
or so many other Urdu poets who
challenge their stereotype of
Hindu-hating Indian Muslims. Not
surprisingly, these cultural mascots from our past are shunned
equally in Muslim seminaries of
Pakistan for just as valid or invalid
a reason. How else would either
of them whip up the required mistrust of the ‘other’ if their cadre
were to be exposed to, say, Mir
Taqi Mir’s couplet from the 19thcentury cultural ambience?
Chhor ker sab deenoimaa’n Mir jiske waastey/ Hum
huey kaafir to wo kaafir
Musalma’n ho gaya (I forsook my
faith to become a kafir like the
beloved/ The beloved betrayed me
and turned a Muslim instead)
For Muslim extremists,
Mir would be deserving of the ultimate punishment for deserting his
religion. For Hindutva, the farsighted poet posed a more contemporary threat — an artificially
induced enemy, a ‘love-jihadi’ who
they imagined or claimed was
preying on their daughters.
There has been a traditional affinity, even bonding, be-
tween Hindu and Muslim extremists of the subcontinent. They
have both mistrusted the liberals
within their respective folds. It was
natural, therefore, for Hindutva in
India to emulate its narrow-minded
Muslim counterparts in Pakistan
to jointly target the genial Emperor
Akbar, otherwise considered a
symbol of enlightenment and religious tolerance.
The Indian Express reported last week the feverish work
being done by Hindutva historians
to rob Akbar of his secular halo.
They want to project Hemu, a
Hindu chieftain who briefly gave
Akbar a hard time, as the last
grand emperor of Hindu India.
Goebbelsian mythmaking can
succeed in the short run but it
would not be able to completely
airbrush the hard evidence produced by Prof Sharif Husain
Qasemi on Akbar’s behalf.
As India’s leading Persian scholar, Prof Qasemi published an amazing book recently
— A descriptive catalogue of Persian translations of Indian works.
Sanskrit work related to Hindu
religion, philosophy, mysticism,
medicine, mathematics, astronomy, music, history, romance,
historical and semi-historical tales
and “moral fables” together with
some works on the Sikh religion
have been catalogued.
CONTD.
Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
Corruption Is Still Our Biggest Problem
(Contd from page 4)One of
the reasons that I was an early
supporter of economic liberalization in India was that I hoped it
would reduce corruption by denying officialdom the opportunity
(afforded routinely by our licensequota-permit raj) to profit from the
power to permit. That has happened to some degree, especially
at the big-business level. I am,
similarly, a strong supporter of
computerizing government
records and applying e-governance to transactions that currently require paperwork, queues
- and bribes to expedite their processing. But I underestimated the
creativity of petty corruption in
India that leeches blood from the
veins of the poorest and most
downtrodden in our society.
But the problem of corruption runs far broader and deeper
than the headlines suggest. Corruption isn't only high-level governmental malfeasance as typified by the 2G and CWG scandals. Overcoming it requires nothing short of a change in our
society's mindset.
Everyone claims to be
against corruption; the debate is
on the means to be used to
tackle it. For it would be dangerous to reduce the entire issue to
a simplistic solution which won't
end corruption by itself. Inspectors and prosecutors can only
catch some criminals; we need
to change the system so that
fewer crimes are committed, and
that means changing attitudes
too.
For ultimately, corruption
flourishes because society enables it. Every time we agree to
pay part of the cost of a flat in
"black", negotiate a discount from
a store in exchange for not insisting on a bill, or offer "speed
money" to jump a queue, we are
complicit in corruption. Every
businessman who rationalizes an
illicit payment as a "facilitation
fee," or airily dismisses a lavish
gift in cash or kind as part of "the
price of doing business", is
complicit in corruption. When I
expostulate with such friends
they tell me, "if we don't do it,
our work won't get done". Or even
more tellingly, "if we don't do it,
someone else will, and he'll get
the business, we won't." Corruption is spawned by the human
desire to get ahead of the competition; self-righteousness alone
won't end it.
Once, at the end of yet another argument about corruption,
a friend challenged my suggestion that the corrupt only survive
because the non-corrupt pay
them. If we all stopped offering
bribes, I argued, people couldn't
demand them, since no one
would pay them. That's impossible, my friend replied; there
would always be someone looking to get an advantage for himself by paying someone off. "You
can't change India," he sighed.
But we must. Mahatma
Gandhi did. It will take a similar
mass movement - abetted by efficient systems of e-governance
and firm executive action - to deliver India its second freedom:
freedom from corruption.
Malala, despite Pakistan
(Contd from page 5) The first was Abdus Salam, who got it
for physics in 1979, for his work on characterising what is now
known as “the Higgs boson particle”. American scholar Ziad Haider
wrote: “For just as Malala’s mistake was being a girl, Salam’s was
being a member of the Ahmadi sect — a religious group declared
to be non-Muslims in a 1974 constitutional amendment.” After
Salam’s death, the word “Muslim” in the “first Muslim Nobel laureate” engraved on his tombstone was painted over by a posse of
semi-literate policemen enforcing the law, rendering the inscription
absurdly as “First Nobel Laureate”. Haider added: “To be sure, many
Pakistanis are ambivalent about Yousafzai. In an environment rampant with anti-American sentiment and conspiracy theories, some
view praise for her a way of shaming Pakistan”. TV anchors scared
of getting bumped off by terrorists if they praised Malala or supported the way the West was lionising her, staged discussions to
find fault with her. One TV talkshow trapped Pakistan’s nuclear
physicist, Pervez Hoodbhoy, into praising her book and then attacked him for condoning her for not writing “Peace be Upon Him”
after the name of the Holy Prophet. They called him “jahil (illiterate)”. Hoodbhoy got an MSc in solid-state physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1973 and a DPhil in nuclear
physics in 1978 from the same institution. The discussants, primed
with questions without reading Malala’s book, chided Hoodbhoy on
two other scores -
Prime Cuts
(Contd from page 18) We are also an impoverished nation where many people are
malnourished. We are also the country
that occasioned the English phrase holy
cow and one that has a history of agitations and politics over cow slaughter (it’s
now banned in most Indian states). Yet
we return to the horns of an old dilemma
because a BJP majority regime in New
Delhi emboldens the entire Sangh parivar
and its outfits to push their agenda with a
great bullishness. Mostly, it is fuelled by
hatred and stereotyping of the minority
community as bearded, bloodthirsty
meat-eaters. As historian Jyotirmaya
Sharma says: “Sav-arkar used the term
‘goat with 32 teeth’ to describe Muslims.”
Yet he adds that the RSS attitude to vegetarianism is complex as the third
sarsanghchalak Balasa-heb Deoras was
a non-vegetarian and it is said that he was
allowed to go out of the Sangh headquar-
ters once a week to eat meat. “The RSS
is not asking everyone to become vegetarians, they are saying that Muslims
eat cows and should not do so.”Indeed,
in his latest Vijayadashami address, telecast by Doordarshan, the current RSS
chief Mohan Bhagwat said that “we feel it
necessary to put a ban on meat exports,
beef in particular and cow smuggling in
the immediate future”. RSS national executive member Seshadri Chari (formerly
editor of RSS mouthpiece Organiser) says
Bhagwat has given his advice that even
buffalo slaughter should be stopped. “It is
not just cow but gau vansha, all progenies
of cow,” he says. Yet, as eminent scientist P.M. Bhargava says (see interview)
cow and buffalo are different species so
the entire argument is unscientific, rooted
merely in prejudice. The BJP itself, meanwhile, says it has no position on ending
buffalo slaughter and it is not in their manifesto. Indeed, reports sourced to the commerce ministry say that as a sensible economic decision to balance the trade with
China, the NDA government is even pushing for more meat exports to that country. Asked whether they intend to act on
20
BJP Appears Set to
Take Maharashtra
(Contd from page 4) In December 1992 and the following
January, Mumbai burnt following the destruction of Babri
Mosque, as Muslims became the target. If that was Hindu
vendetta against "Islam", then soon came a backlash. In March
1993, there were serial bomb blasts as a revenge, in Mumbai
which later were linked with Dawood Ibrahim.
This was the violent and divisive backdrop of 1995, which
brought the Hindu front to power. Since then the BJP and Sena
distributed their responsibilities equitably. The BJP, with its
sophisticated image and middle class-educated-white collar
base, would work essentially to cultivate support in the urban
region and the Shiv Sena would provide the muscle power of
the Hindutva ideology. In "class" terms, the BJP and Sena
were never united. The BJP used to often get embarrassed by
the street vandalism of the Sainiks. But without the Sena, the
BJP could not come to power.
That changed decisively after the BJP came to power in
Delhi on its own under the leadership of Narendra Modi and
the party decided to snap ties with the Shiv Sena.
Their relationship had been getting more and more
uncomfortable, with the BJP making inroads even in rural
areas. In the last few years, the hold of the Congress, and
later the NCP, was weakening on the cooperative sugar
industry, rural banks, the chain of educational institutions
and farmers' associations. The farmers' associations had
turned against the Congress-NCP government when the state
could not bail out farmers and sugar factories, which had
become chronically sick. The internecine rivalry and constant
bickering between the Congress and NCP further dented their
credibility among their support base.
In fact, the split in the Congress-NCP front was only the
formalization of a broken marriage. As a result, the fight in
this election is mainly between the BJP and Sena. The
Congress and the NCP have been driven to the margins. The
reason the BJP has become the main force within the saffron
front is because Narendra Modi has established his
unchallenged leadership in the party and in the central
government. The Shiv Sena, without the charismatic
Balasaheb, looks sort of orphaned.
The tectonic shift in Maharashtra is also because the
Congress plates under the earth have begun to move!
the RSS chief’s “advice” in any way, i&b
minister Prakash Javadekar said the party
and government have no position on the
issue.
Even within the Sangh, there is
some ambiguity on the issue. Dilip
Deodhar, a one-time member of the RSS
who has written 42 booklets on the Sangh,
has this to say: “The RSS has a section
that sees everything from a religious perspective and is influenced by Jainism.
Every now and then, Sangh leaders make
statements to please the Jain lobby. But
in my personal opinion this line is not viable or correct. Indeed, let me say that
the oldest texts on Ayurveda talk of the
benefit of eating gau maas (cow meat).”
The point about Jainism possibly has
some merit: recently the Gujarat government declared Palitana, a Jain pilgrimage
centre near Bhavnagar, a strict vegetarian zone although 60 per of the population are non-vegetarians—not just Muslims, but even the Kolis, Siddis and Dalits.
Still, Gujarat has its own particular dynamics and banning the consumption of a particular meat is a state subject. At the national level, it is in fact un-
likely that any further meat bans would
be imposed (ultimately the Sangh parivar
knows that a vast number of Hindus—
Dalits, tribals, OBCs, several upper
castes, including many Brahmin communities—are also consumers of non-vegetarian eatables and these are communities the parivar does not want to alienate;
indeed many, like the Ezhavas of Kerala,
are seen as “potential growth areas”). It
is also important to highlight that buffalo
within India is the poor man’s meat at just
Rs 150 a kilo, far cheaper than mutton
that costs Rs 400-plus.
And buffalo sacrifice has also traditionally been common among the
castes that go under the category of
Kshatriya. Besides, in eastern India, animal sacrifice is part of the ritual at many
temples, such as the Kalibari in Calcutta
and the Kamakhya shrine in Assam. Indeed, let it not be forgotten that Swami
Vivekananda himself had said: “You will
be astonished if I tell you that, according
to the old ceremonials, he is not a good
Hindu who does not eat beef. On certain
occasions, he must sacrifice a bull and
eat it.”
CONTD.
Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
'Haider' in the time of hashtag nationalism
means only one thing, Pakistan". Militants, who fight for
Pakistan, never mind how
many Kashmiri lives are lost.
And Kashmiris themselves,
crushed "like the grass when
two elephants fight". They are
a test case for two viciously
contradictory national ideologies, India's secularism versus
Pakistan's two-nation theory.
See also how differently even
the state agencies view a militant, from the Army major ordering the blowing up of the
Kashmiri doctor's house rather
than storming it because "no
militant, dead or alive, is worth
more than my soldier's life"-to
the cynical cop who shoots
three captured suspects, because "even a dead militant is
worth a lakh of rupees".
Rather than malign the
Army, Haider shows it in very
fair light. No army likes to fight
its own people, and that too for
decades. There is no military
victory in such a war. The dilemma, on this impossible
military, ethical and psychological challenge, is portrayed
brilliantly. Interrogation chambers, torture, disappearances,
marauding, killer militias
raised by the intelligence
agencies (remember the infamous Kuka Parray, Ikhwan
chieftain?) are well documented. Talking about them
now is cathartic for both sides,
armed forces and Kashmiris. In
a mature and confident democracy, you expect popular culture
to create the space for truth-telling and reconciliation. That's the
role Hollywood has played in
America, portraying, for example,
the pain and dilemma of the
American soldier in Vietnam and
recently Clint Eastwood's examination of Iwo Jima from both sides,
American and Japanese (Flags
of Our Fathers and Letters from
Iwo Jima). These haven't weakened America, or defamed its soldiers.
India has suffered from an
excess of the opposite. Even in
the hands of someone as talented
as my friend Vidhu Vinod Chopra
(himself a Kashmiri). His muscularly "patriotic" Mission Kashmir
launched a genre that had
Kashmiri Muslims proving their
"Indian" patriotism by collaborating with the Army. His bubbly
Preity Zinta as Sufiya Pervez (remember that silly "BumbroBumbro") is a fantasy stereotype
now challenged by the tragic,
confused, sincere but helpless
Arshia Lone (Shraddha Kapoor)
in Haider.
She leads an ensemble that
portrays the dilemma of the
Kashmiri, Army soldier, local cop
and, ultimately, Indian filmmaker.
Kashmir lends itself easily to
comparisons with Hamlet and his
unending tragedies. Acknowledging these, rather than burying
them under propaganda, does
credit to a great democracy. Particularly at a time when the mili-
The appropriation of Gandhi
(Contd from page 5) The
United States’ obligation is
greater than that; President
Obama needs personally to ramp
up the urgency of the American
response and the level and speed
of
the
resources
provided.Perhaps the Dallas
case will add urgency to those
efforts to control the epidemic
abroad. The case is not cause
for domestic panic, but it is cause
for greater vigilance among health
care workers. Even without knowing fully what happened with the
nurse, the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention is exploring ways to make it easier to don
protective gear, wear it while treating a patient and take it off afterward without infecting oneself.
The task of treating Ebola
patients can clearly be carried out
by experienced personnel. Five
Ebola patients were flown back
to the United States from West
Africa and have been treated
safely at specially designated
hospitals in Atlanta and Omaha.
But the Dallas hospital made
(Contd from page 6)
Vishal has broken new ground
in that Haider is probably the first
time mainstream cinema has
locked horns creatively with internal conflict, and that too something as polarising as Kashmir.
From what I can recollect, the
only other attempt in this area
was Atma Ram's 1972 Yeh
Gulistan Hamara, starring Dev
Anand and Sharmila Tagore and
set amid the Naga insurgency.
The film was as idiotic as your
usual Sunny Deol hyper, and cinema halls got vandalised in
Calcutta for running it because it
demonised the Chinese! Three
decades have passed since Operation Bluestar and the death of
Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, and
two since the death and burial of
the Khalistan insurgency, but
Bollywood has pretended it never
happened. Except Gulzar's brave
Maachis-even though, having covered that story in detail, I have
differences with it, and he lets me
argue with him. So are many entitled to disagree with Haider and
its treatment of Kashmir. But a
ban or boycott, no.
It takes a special Indian filmmaker to explore Kashmir as if
the "other" side also had a story.
It is, similarly, a compliment to
the Indian censors, the Army and,
most of all, paying public that
Haider has been released in this
form, torture chambers and all,
and is a commercial success,
defying hashtag McCarthyism.
Commercial films carry risk to
investments, reputations and
physical safety, particularly at a
time when blind nationalism has
overwhelmed rational, self-questioning patriotism. You have to be
a brave and particularly patriotic
Indian to explore if the other side,
in this case the indigenous
Kashmiri, also has a storyline, a
point of view or, to flog that much
misused word these days, narrative. Watch also how shamelessly cautious even I, with my
skin thickened after nearly four
decades in journalism, prefer "indigenous" for our Kashmiris
rather than Indian. No, I do not
mean they are not Indian. But if I
called Haider, his father and
mother and uncle and girlfriend
"Indian" Kashmiris, what would
you like me to call their cousins
on the other side of the LoC?
Pakistani Kashmiris? It is just a
small illustration of how complex
and sensitive this issue is.
The film has its flourishes. As
you would expect from a talent
powerhouse that includes, besides Vishal, Gulzar, Tabu, Irrfan
Khan, Kulbhushan Kharbanda
and, not to forget, Basharat Peer,
who is one of our most talented
Kashmiri writers (besides writing the script with Vishal, he
also features briefly as the silent Kashmiri, scared to enter
even his own home without
somebody first checking his
antecedents). But the most
important one is how each side
sees the issue, the Army major who says he knows that
Islamabad is also a name for
Anantnag but adds, looking
over the horizon, "for us, it
(Contd from page 6) And this narrative reached
its logical ascendency when Gandhi sat on fast
unto death raising the demand that Rs 55 million,
which was due on India, be handed over to Pakistan, despite Pakistan’s military attack in Kashmir. The government of India finally succumbed to
this pressure. According to Christophe Jaffrelot,
this was the immediate reason for Gandhi’s murder. Nathuram Godse pulled the trigger, but the
RSS has always denied any involvement. However, it always refers to the ghastly act as “Gandhi
vadh” in its internal communication, which is a
sacred act like Raavan vadh or Meghnad vadh in
the Ramayan. Gandhi’s secretary Pyarelal has
written in his memoirs, “Members of the RSS at
some places had been instructed beforehand to
tune in their radio sets on the fateful day, Friday,
for the good news and sweets were distributed by
members at many places”. The RSS claimed that
though Godse had been its member, he had quit
the organisation long before the assassination. The
RSS claim was based on Godse’s statement in
court, where he said he had not been in the RSS
since 1934. But his brother and co-accused, Gopal
Godse, had a different story to tell. In an interview
to Frontline in 1994, he said, “Nathuram Godse
had become the intellectual chief in the
organisation. He said he had left the RSS. He said
it because after the assassination of Gandhi,
Golwalkar and the RSS, both were in deep trouble.
But he never quit the RSS.” The RSS has no membership record and it is impossible to verify Godse’s
claim. After the Gandhi assassination, the RSS
was banned, Golwalkar was arrested and the RSS
continues to face questions about its role in the
murder. So, with Modi praising Gandhi, it will be
pertinent to ask him and the RSS a few questions: one, has the RSS shunned violence and
accepted ahimsa as a core value? Two, has the
RSS discarded Golwalker’s words and accepted
Gandhi’s formulation of Hindu-Muslim unity? Three,
has it forgiven Gandhi for accepting the division of
India? Four, has the RSS accepted that the killing
of Gandhi was not a vadh but a criminal act and
Godse was rightly sent to the gallows? I am convinced that the RSS will not have affirmative answers for any of the above, as that will be against
the basic premise for its existence. Politics is a
different ballgame and Modi is a master in the
game of politics.
21
tary challenge within the Valley
is over, there's been no combat
against indigenous Kashmiri militants for a decade, and problems
exist only on the LoC and across
it. My last reporting visit to Kashmir was in 1990, for India Today.
Edward (Ned) Desmond of Time
magazine and I set up a visit to
the LoC hoping to catch an Army
ambush of infiltrators. The Army,
home ministry, intelligence agencies were all helping. Naresh
Chandra was then home secretary, his brother G.C. "Gary"
Saxena (former RAW chief) was
now Kashmir governor, and we
were all set. We spent several
nights in Uri on the LoC waiting,
but nothing happened. Till a day
after we had left, empty-handed,
when the Army carried out a big
ambush. One evening at a lonely
outpost, Ned asked the commander how he explained India's
case on Kashmir to his soldiers.
Were they not confused by rival
propaganda, Kashmiri hostility?
The officer said, don't ask me,
ask my troops. So we did.
This was a platoon of Grenadiers and our interlocutor, a Gujjar
from deep Rajasthan, and still a
young jawan yet to earn his first
stripe.
"Hum toh kisaan ke bete hain,
sir (we are sons of farmers)," he
said. "It is no business of ours to
check how our forefathers got the
land we have inherited. If you
want it, either you kill me, or I
will kill you. Bahas kya karni hai,
sir (what's the point arguing?)"
The Worsening Ebola Crisis
mistakes in handling this case
from the start, and the infected
nurse was reportedly a young
graduate of a nursing program
with little experience in infectious
diseases. It seems possible that
additional health care workers
who cared for the patient will
come down sick as well.
The C.D.C. is urging all hospitals, no matter how small, to
take travel histories to identify any
patients who have been in West
Africa within the past 21 days,
and immediately place those with
Ebola-like symptoms in isolation.
The C.D.C. plans to increase its
training efforts for hospital personnel, a vital need given that a survey of nurses found a vast majority had received no instructions
from their hospitals on how to
deal with Ebola. Smaller hospitals will probably have to transfer
any Ebola patients to more specialized centers for treatment. But
all of these efforts, however useful, pale against this country’s
much larger responsibility to help
defeat the disease at its source.
US
Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
22
What to tell your kid about Christopher Columbus
(Agencies) In October 2013, my daughter came home from school excited about
Christopher Columbus. He had come to
visit her class! During his visit, he told the
children that he had figured out the world
was round and then bravely led his crew
to discover America. Then they all made
telescopes.
As a father and history professor, I was
caught off-guard. Columbus actually didn't
figure out the world was round. He didn't
really discover America, either. And telescopes weren't around until about a century after Columbus died. But what do you
tell a 5-year-old who has bought into a
myth? And how do you do it without constructing an anti-myth, pegging the explorer as one of the most evil people to
walk the Earth? What should we tell our
children about Columbus?
I asked that question of William Phillips,
professor of history at the University of
Minnesota and co-author of "The Worlds
of Christopher Columbus," and of LeAnne
Howe, the Eidson Professor in American
Literature at the University of Georgia and
an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation. In both cases, professors started from
the same principle: Tell the kids the truth.
The story goes that Columbus
(Agencies) During the past decade, the Confucius Institute has established itself at
nearly 500 universities and K-12 schools in the United States and another roughly
500 around the world.
This year, several high-profile schools, like the University of Chicago and
Penn State, jettisoned the program. But other large schools like Columbia University,
UCLA, Colorado State University and the University of Oklahoma still have Confucius
Institutes on their campuses, according to the CI website.
University of Chicago professor Bruce Lincoln said the Institute doesn’t honor
academic freedom and its governing board is filled with Chinese Communist Politburo members. “They have a story they want told, and that is to not be seen as a
military and economic giant, but they want to persuade people (China is) a lovely
place,” said Lincoln, who teaches the history of religion. “And they’ve been enormously successful.”
(Agencies) The auditorium at the National Museum, in the heart of Delhi, is
packed to capacity on the afternoon of
the 5th of October. There is standing room
only, and that too, barely.
The draw is a symposium to commemorate Hemu, a medieval era king, in
an event organized by the Akhil Bhartiya
Itihas Sankalan Yojana (ABISY), a historical research organization affiliated with
the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and
run out of their office in Jhandewalan,
Delhi.
The panel consists of Satish Chandra
Mittal, President of ABISY, Bal Mukund
Pandey, General Secretary of ABISY, Dr
Subramanian Swamy, BJP leader,
Vinayakrao Deshpande, VHP Joint Secretary, Dr Santosh Kumar Shukla, Associate Professor at the Centre of Sanskrit
Studies, JNU and Dr Harish Chandra
Verma, member of ABISY and author of
Hindu Dharma Aur Devlok. Union Minister of Culture, Shripad Naik was supposed
to be present but “had to go to Goa last
minute”, says one of the organisers.
A couple of days ago Satish Mittal,
former professor at Kurukshetra University and author of “40 books and 400 articles”, had helpfully explained the purpose of this event to me.
“Our history has been distorted by
Western, Muslim, Communist and Secularist historians. The Western historians
wanted to spread Christianity and help
England to rule over us, the Muslims
wanted to spread Islam, the Communists
wanted Mao to come to India and turn us
into atheists.” He did not say what the
Secularists wanted but did add that all of
the above were mercenaries, writing falsehoods in exchange for power, property and
money.
“Stories of true patriots who fought for
India have been buried so that we don’t
find out what a glorious race we are and
think of ourselves as the vanquished. We
want to commemorate these patriots to
boost the morale of the young generation,”
he adds.
Mittal reiterates these ideas at the
symposium in between talks delivered by
other panelists. But there is little by way
of commemoration.
The story of Hemu, or Hemchandra
Vikramaditya, is summed up as follows He had humble beginnings but worked his
way up, becoming indispensible to a string
of Afghan rulers until he finally established
himself on the throne of Delhi on the 5th
of October, 1556 and set up a Hindu
Rashtra after hundreds of years.
We are told that he proved to be a stellar administrator in his 29 day rule. Also
that his first Ghoshana Patra (decree)
banned cow slaughter and declared that
anyone practicing it would be beheaded.
Further, (Contd page on 23)
had to persevere against the odds to get
support for his venture, because everyone
but him believed the Earth was flat. This
just isn't true. The ancient Greeks proved
that the Earth was round about 2,000
years ago, and one even used the shadow
of the Earth on the moon during an eclipse
to estimate its circumference. The problem for Columbus is that he was bad at
math and worse at geography, and everyone with an education knew it.
"He failed to get funding for a long time,"
Phillips wrote, "because his calculations
of the earth were on the small side, he
thought that dry land covered more of the
sphere than it does, and he believed Japan was some 1500 miles off the coast of
China." In other words, most people knew
roughly the distance between the west
coast of Europe and the east coast of Asia
but believed it was filled with a vast ocean
in which Columbus would surely die.
Instead of Columbus Day, cities celebrate
Indigenous People's Day
Chinese institute spreads across US, but
some say it also spreads propaganda
In praise of Hemu: Medieval king
reveals true intent of Hindutva history
Columbus was stubborn. Despite all the
evidence to the contrary, he refused to give
up his plan, and because he was so stubborn, he kept fighting for funding until he
finally broke through to the Queen of
Spain. His stubbornness also, as both
professors noted, kept him from ever admitting that he hadn't reached Asia. For
Columbus, the idea of a whole new continent and unknown peoples just didn't fit
his worldview. The indigenous peoples of
the Caribbean, however, were used to
hosting strange arrivals from all over the
Americas in their towns, according to
Howe. Their settlements were decades or
even centuries old, built in part on transcontinental trade, and Columbus did not
seem so outlandish. These were settled
lands with rich societies, not, as often
depicted, simple or primitive. That's one
of the real tragedies of the story of Columbus and probably the hardest part to
explain to children. The complex indigenous societies of the Americas were
decimated by exposure to Old World diseases, crumbling under the weight of epidemic. By the time later waves of settlers
arrived in North America, they often found
wilderness. It was a new wilderness, born
of drastic population decline.
CONTD.
Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
Indian Real Estate major DLF barred from capital markets
(Contd from page 1) who was EDLegal at the time of the IPO. On
its part, DLF said in a late night
statement the order dated October 10 came to its notice only on
Monday and that the same was
being reviewed by the company
and its legal advisors.
The company also said
it has not violated any laws and
it would defend its position
against any adverse findings in
the Sebi order. "DLF has full faith
in the judicial process and is confident of vindication of its stand
in the near future," the statement
said. After its over four-year-long
probe, Sebi found that a "case of
active and deliberate suppression
of any material information so as
to mislead and defraud the investors in the securities market in
connection with the issue of
shares of DLF in its IPO is clearly
made out in this case". In his 43page order, Sebi whole-time
member Rajeev Agarwal also said
that violations are grave and have
larger implications on safety and
integrity of the securities market.
(Read the full order here)
While the regulator has
not imposed any monetary penalty, the prohibition order would
bar DLF and the six persons from
any sale, purchase or any other
dealings in securities market for
a period of three years, including
for raising funds. DLF had debt
of more than Rs. 19,000 crore as
on June 30, 2014, while its already-proposed fund raising
plans include nearly Rs. 3,500
crore through issue of certain
bonds.
This is one of the rare
orders by the capital market regulator where it has barred a bluechip firm and its top promoter/
executives. DLF is the largest
real estate group in the country
with nearly Rs. 10,000 crore annual turnover and market value of
over Rs. 26,000 crore. Its market
cap had crossed Rs. 1 lakh crore
mark soon after its listing in 2007,
but fell later. DLF's initial public
offer in 2007 had fetched Rs.
9,187 crore - the biggest IPO in
the country at that time.
"DLF and its board wish
to reassure its investors and all
other stakeholders that it has not
acted in contravention of law either during its initial public offer
or otherwise," DLF said in its
statement. The company and its
board were guided by and acted
on the advice of eminent legal
advisors, merchant bankers and
audit firms while formulating its
offer documents, it said.
"DLF will defend itself to
the fullest extent against any
adverse findings and measures
contained in the order passed by
Sebi," it further said. In its order,
the capital market watchdog said
that all these six persons were
part of top management at the
time of filing IPO documents,
wherein the company was accused of non-disclosure of certain dealings with three subsidiaries through "sham transactions".
The company and its top
executives have been found to
have violated various regulations
including Sebi's Disclosure and
Investor Protection (DIP) Guidelines and the PFUTP (Prevention
of Fraudulent and Unfair Trade
Practices) norms. The Singh family and related entities are major
promoters with a 74.91 per cent
stake in DLF, which has been finding itself in regulatory crosshairs
often in recent times, including
action from the Competition Commission of India (CCI). The company has been slapped with a penalty of Rs. 630 crore by the fair
trade regulator.
Sebi began its probe after a Delhi High Court order in
April 2010 wherein the regulator
was asked to undertake an investigation into the complaints made
by one Kimsuk Krishna Sinha,
who had also filed complaints
with Sebi in 2007. The complaints
were mainly related to DLF's dealings with some of its allegedly
related entities.
Sebi said "the process
of share transfer of three subsidiaries of DLF in Sudipti, Shalika
and Felicite was through sham
transactions" and it employed "a
plan, scheme, design and device
to camouflage the association" of
the company with these three
entities. "In this case under such
plan, scheme, design and device,
the Noticees suppressed several
material information in the RHP/
Prospectus of DLF and actively
concealed the fact about filing of
FIR against Sudipti and others,"
Sebi said. "In my view, for the
serious contraventions as found
in the instant case, effective deterrent actions to safeguard the
market integrity. It, therefore, becomes incumbent to deal with
contraventions, digression and
demeanour of the erring Noticees
sternly and take appropriate actions for effective deterrence," Mr
Agarwal said in his order.
About G S Talwar, a nonexecutive director at that time,
Sebi said it could not be established whether he was involved in
day-to-day operations of the company and therefore it was giving
him "benefit of doubt"
In praise of Hemu: Medieval king reveals true intent of Hindutva history
he issued a list of corrupt officials and
took action against them, altered policy to
make his kingdom more business friendly
and made new appointments.
At this point Hemu’s life story is beginning to sound suspiciously like the ‘Myth of
Narendra Modi set in Medieval Times’. Every medieval era historian I speak with outside of ABISY tells me that very little is
known about Hemu.
None of them has come across any evidence or study that refers to the establishment of a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ or Ghoshana
Patras. “If they have these decrees let them
put it out. It will change the way we understand medieval Indian history,” says Sunil
Kumar, Professor of Medieval History at
Delhi University, calling the claim “astonishing” because “medieval documents were
not called ghoshana patras”.
“No king in that period would have put
out a plan for intrusive governance so soon
after taking control. Consolidation was always a slow process,” he adds.
The Ghoshana Patras are not shown at
the symposium but the organizers do
screen a “documentary” to prop up their
claims. Curiously it largely consists of
scenes from Ashutosh Gowariker’s 2008
Hindi film, Jodhaa Akbar. A film that was
initially either banned or not released in
some Indian states after sections of the
Rajput community alleged that it intends to
distort history.
Regardless the young man sitting in front
of me is visibly moved when Bairam Khan
(played by Yuri Suri) beheads Hemu (played
by Shehzor Ali).
This martyrdom of Hemu is what entrenches his credentials as a desh-bhakt
for ABISY. “The Hindu king led from the front
in the Second Battle of Panipat and was
close to defeating the foreign army of Bairam
Khan, regent to a very young Muslim ruler
Akbar, when an arrow hit him, changing the
course of India’s history forever. He was
captured and killed and his head was taken
to Kabul and exhibited,” says Mittal.
When I ask him why Akbar cannot
qualify as an ‘Indian’, Mittal gives me two
reasons.
One, that he always kept “dreaming of
Central Asia where his forefathers had come
from” and two, that he was an “illiterate man”
who “mixed alcohol and opium and consumed copious amounts of this cocktail”.
When I remind him of Akbar’s state
policy of Sulh-i-kuI (religious tolerance) and
equal patronage to all faiths that made him
unpopular with the Ulama of his time, Mittal
summarily says, “his secularism was a
political maneuver, not his conviction.” I am
not entirely sure what his sources are ,but
this conversation is beginning to sound
more like the BJP and its supporters’ slander campaign against political opponents
– be they Rahul Gandhi’s holidays abroad
or Priyanka Gandhi “drinking too much alcohol”- than anything we know about Akbar.
The narrative however is more problematic that that. The concepts of nationhood,
Hindutva, secularism being used to analyze
this episode from medieval times are in fact
constructs of modern history.
To call Hemu a patriot would be to
suggest that the idea of India as a political
state existed in 1556. “There were mentions
of Hindustan in that period but it meant different things to different people,” explains Farhat
Hasan, Professor of Medieval History at Delhi
University. “Identities were extremely parochial— limited to caste, kin and village.”
Which is also what makes the idea of Akbar
as a foreigner less than credible. “For most
people anyone outside their village would have
been a foreigner,” says Hasan. More problematic is the attempt to frame this as a story of
Hindu-Muslim conflict. “Merging of different
religious, cultural and social identities into one
homogenous identity of ‘Muslim’ is a later development,” says Bhairabi Prasad Sahu, Professor of Ancient History at Delhi University.
“There was a lot of borrowing- not conscious
but liminal - from each other’s cultural and
sacred traditions so it is anachronistic to talk
of Hindus and Muslims as well-entrenched or
uniform religious identities,” explains Hasan.
Hasan gives several examples to illustrate
this point, including that of Premakhyan- texts
in the Awadhi language written by writers patronized by Afghan rulers that used indigenous
religious mythology to explore Sufi thought
and were recited in public places. “New forms
of religious experience were being created,”
he says. “But even if one could make a case
for the presence of distinct religious identities, that does not automatically establish the
presence of religious strife. Most evidence
suggests people were either appreciative of
or indifferent to belief systems different from
their own,” adds Hasan.
23
Indian Supreme
Court Says Heads
Must Roll
(Contd from page 1) The
Centre has to explain that delay
by October 27. It suggested that
the project needs "an expert with
a vision" like E Sreedharan, the
man who built India's metros, for
the mammoth task. "This case
is pending here in court for the
last 29 years...nothing concrete
has been done. We don't want to
wait for another 29 years...we
also understand it can't be done
overnight...but you should have
an expert who has a vision like
Sreedharan," the court said.
The judges observed that
if the discharge of industrial pollutants into the river was
stopped, 30 per cent of the Ganga
would be clean. But pollution
boards in the states the Ganga
flows through were not stopping
this, they said, because of deeprooted corruption. "The pollution
control board has to stop industries polluting the Ganga. Those
supposed to prevent pollution are
not doing their work and are being bribed. Heads must roll," the
Supreme Court ordered. It directed the CPCB to explain what
action it had taken against 215
industries situated along the
Ganga, who have been charged
with polluting the river.
Solicitor
General
Ranjit Kumar, who appeared
for the Centre, accepted that
corruption was a huge hurdle
but said the government is
committed to cleaning the
river. The Centre also told the
court that a consortium of
seven IITs involved in the
project will give a report by
December and a roadmap will
emerge. The Solicitor General
also informed the court that the
government has issued notices to industries to implement zero pollution within
three months and sought till
December to report to the court
on this.
The Supreme Court is
hearing a public interest litigation
on the cleaning of the Ganga in
1985. This year, a Clean Ganga
Mission was high on the BJP's
election agenda. Prime Minister
Narendra Modi, who is the Lok
sabha member from Varanasi,
based on the banks of the river,
has pledged to clean the river and
also set up a separate ministry
headed by Uma Bharati. On a trip
to the US earlier this month, he
sought the help of NRIs in doing
this.
CONTD.
Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
24
BJP front runner in Haryana, Maharashtra, say exit polls
(Contd from page 1) The projections, if true, could touch off a
round of intense haggling between the party and its estranged
allies - the Shiv Sena in
Maharashtra and Haryana Janhit
Congress (HJC) - for control of
the two states that the Congress
has led for more than a decade,
either on its own or with its
partners.A BJP victory will reaffirm Modi's appeal among voters
and silence detractors of his new
party leadership, which was
blamed for a string of defeats in
recent by-elections that tempered the euphoria of his Lok
Sabha triumph. Modi campaigned extensively for the state
elections, addressing 27 rallies
in Maharashtra and 11 in
Haryana in a bid to prop up the
BJP's fortunes after the by-election losses.
A Times Now-C Voter
poll predicted the BJP would bag
129 of 288 seats in the politically
crucial state of Maharashtra despite the falling apart of its 25year-old association with the
Shiv Sena, which was projected
to win in 56 constituencies.
Times Now-C Voter predicted 37
seats for the BJP in the 90-mem-
ber Haryana assembly.An ABPNielsen poll predicted 144 seats
for the BJP and 77 for the Sena,
while an India Today-Cicero exit
poll saw the BJP winning 124
seats in Maharashtra. The poll
says the Shiv Sena will be the
second largest gainer in
Maharashtra with 71 seats.
The polls did not bring
any cheer to the Congress party,
already relegated to the political
sidelines since its bruising defeat in the Lok Sabha polls. The
Times Now-C Voter poll said the
Congress was likely to win 43
seats in Maharashtra while ABPNielsen said it will bag just 30
seats. In Haryana, Times NowC Voter gave the Congress 15
seats and ABP-Nielsen poll predicted the country's main opposition party will get 10 seats.
Today's Chanakya predicted a
clear majority of 151 seats for
the BJP in Maharashtra and 52
in Haryana. Today's Chanakya
was on the money when it predicted a 300-plus sweep for the
National Democratic Alliance
(NDA) in the Lok Sabha elections.
For the Congress, a
poor result will possibly stoke
further murmurs against Rahul
Gandhi's leadership. If the outcome on Sunday's judgement
day matches the predictions, it
would mean the Congress would
have to carry forward with its restructuring process to script a
turnaround in the face of a saffron surge. Haryana saw a high
turnout of 75.9%, while
Maharashtra registered a turnout
of 63.4% in the elections seen
as a test of Prime Minister
Narendra Modi's popularity
since he stormed to power in
May and the BJP's strategy to
abandon long-standing allies
in the states.
The elections were
mainly peaceful except for minor clashes between workers
of the Indian National Lok Dal
(INLD), BJP and others in
Haryana. Analysts said the
BJP had benefited from anger
towards the Congress party,
which has held power in
Maharashtra for 15 years and
Haryana for a decade. Both
chief ministers, Prithviraj
Chavan in Maharashtra and
Bhupinder Hooda in Haryana,
battled strong anti-incumbency with corruption being a
major poll issue. The BJP took
a big gamble on its popularity
and campaigned alone in both
states. It was in contention for
power for the first time in
Haryana, where it was a junior
partner in the Indian National Lok
Dal (INLD) government in 2000.
Similarly in Maharashtra, the
BJP had so far played second
fiddle to the Shiv Sena, which led
the coalition government in the
state from 1995 to 1999. The
Congress-NCP alliance ruled
the state for 15 years from 1999.
In case of a hung verdict, the
shaping up of new political alliances promises to be another interesting chapter following the
high-stakes elections.
Death sentence for murder
of baby, grandmother
(Contd from page 1)
Prosecutors say he killed the baby
and her grandmother during a
botched kidnapping attempt, in
which he intended to get ransom
money to pay off gambling debts.
"My intention was not to
kill anyone or not to harm anyone," he told police in a videotaped statement in 2012. "I only
tried to kidnap the baby."
Yandamuri said he knew the girl's
parents, Chenchu and and
Venkata Venna, from his apartment complex and figured they
would have money because they
were young tech professionals.
"They both are working,
so I thought maybe they have
some money," he saidYandamuri
said he killed the grandmother in
a panic during a struggle over the
kitchen knife after she opened the
door, according to authorities. The
baby's dead body was later found
in an unused basement sauna for
the apartment building.
Yandamuri's defense
attorney, Henry Hilles, said he
was disappointed by the verdict but not surprised. He said
his client might have received
a lesser sentence had he expressed remorse during the
trial. The Montgomery County
jury only deliberated for about
3 ½ hours before calling for the
death penalty.
HEALTH & FITNESS
Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
‘Set your girls free’: Monday is National No Bra Day
(Agencies) In the spirit of
October’s Breast Cancer
Awareness Month, women
across the country on Monday
are “setting their girls free.”
October 13 is National
No Bra Day, an annual holiday
reportedly created in 2011 by
breast cancer supporters
that’s now sweeping social
media.Breast cancer survivors
and supporters on Twitter and
Facebook are encouraging
women not to wear a bra for a
day to raise awareness and
support breast cancer survivors.
No current research
directly links wearing a bra to
a higher breast cancer risk.
According to the National Cancer Institute (NCI),
about 232,670 women and
2,360 men have been diagnosed with breast cancer and
about 40,000 women and 430
men have died of the disease
in 2014, so far. Based on
2009-2011 data, about 12.3
percent of women will get
breast cancer at some point in
their lifetime.
Men and women with
breast cancer have an 89.2 percent survival rate five years after being diagnosed, according
to the NCI.
Thanks to better
screening practices and the
development of new treatments, breast cancer death
rates have fallen by an average 1.9 percent each year over
2002 to 2011.
25
Stress affects male and female heart differently
(Agencies) While men have
more changes in blood pressure
and heart rate in response to
mental stress, more women experience myocardial ischemia decreased blood flow to the heart,
it found.
For the results, researchers from the Duke Heart
Centre at Duke University looked
at 56 women and 254 men diagnosed with heart disease induced
by mental stress."The findings
revealed that mental stress affects the cardio-vascular health
of men and women differently.
We need to recognise this difference when evaluating and treating patients for cardio-vascular
disease," said Zainab Samad,
study lead author and assistant
professor of medicine at the Duke
University in the US.
After
undergoing
baseline testing, participants carried out three mentally stressful
tasks - a mental arithmetic test,
a mirror tracing test, and an anger recall test followed by a treadmill exercise test.
During mental stress
tasks and rest periods between
tests, researchers conducted
echocardiography to study
changes in the heart, took blood
samples, and measured blood
pressure and heart rate.
Researchers also found
that women experienced a
greater platelet aggregation, the
precursor to the formation of
blood clots, than men.
"The women compared
with men also expressed a
greater increase in negative emotions and a greater decrease in
positive emotions during the mental stress tests," Samad informed.
The study appeared in
the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
IJNDIA
Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
(News Agencies) The wealth generated
by the Saradha chit fund scam was allegedly used to fuel terror activities in
India by a Bangladesh-based group after money was diverted to a bank account in Bangladesh, intelligence reports
have indicated.
Central intelligence
agencies
are exploring the terror nexus
as part of a
probe into
the explosion
at
Burdwan in
West Bengal on October 2 that
killed two suspected terrorists.
The money trail of the Saradha scam
leading to the Jamaat-Ul-Mujahideen
Bangladesh (JMB) has turned the spotlight on West Bengal-based politicians,
who are already under the scanner in the
Saradha scam, sources said.
The highly-placed sources said an intelligence report submitted to the Home
Ministry on the Burdwan blast states that
suspicions about some politicians in
West Bengal having links to the terror
network need to be investigated. During
its probe into the Saradha scam, the
Enforcement Directorate discovered that
money was sent to the Islami Bank
Bangladesh to be invested in real estate.
Sources said this was a modus operandi adopted for laundering money. Besides Bangladesh, money from the scam
was also allegedly sent to some West
Asian countries in the guise of investments. But with intelligence agencies
suspecting that the money was diverted
to the JMB for terror activities, sources
say it is essential to probe the terror
angle. Intelligence agencies believe that
Rs 60 crore was transferred to Islami
Bank through some politicians who were
allegedly involved in the multi-crore
Saradha chit fund scam that is being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement Directorate.
The role of some leaders of the Trinamool
Congress is also under scrutiny in the
scam. “The Islami Bank is known to have
close links with the radical group
Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami. The
money from the scam routed to the group
could have been used to fund JMB, which
is planning terror strikes in India and
Bangladesh,” said a government official.
The JMB, a group banned by Bangladesh
in 2005, is allegedly responsible for the
Burdwan explosion. It is said to be an
offshoot of the Jamaat-e-Islami and has
now set up a network in India. The
group’s aim is to replace Bangladesh’s
democratic set-up with an Islamic state
based on Shariah. The explosion at
Khagragarh in Burdwan district killed two
suspected terrorists, Shakil Ahmed and
Sorvan Mandal. Investigators are on the
lookout for Kausar and Abul Kalam, two
prime suspects suspected to be
Bangladeshis. The six persons arrested
so far by West Bengal Police include
two women, Rajira Bibi alias Rumi, the
widow of Ahmed, a Bangladeshi who is
26
Bangladesh terror group thought to be behind
Burdwan blast were 'funded by Saradha ponzi scam'
said to be a top commander of JMB, and
Amina Bibi, wife of Sheikh Hakim alias
Hasan Saheb, who was injured in the
blast. Besides the six persons arrested
in West Bengal, six more suspects were
arrested in Assam for allegedly being part
of the conspiracy hatched by the JMB to
carry out terror strikes. The Burdwan blast
case is now being investigated by the National Investigation Agency (NIA). The
Centre transferred the case despite reservations expressed by TMC, the ruling
party in West Bengal. The Home Ministry, in
its order transferring the case to the NIA, stated
that JMB was targeting states like Assam,
Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, West Bengal,
Jammu and Kashmir and UP. “Members of
the group are conspiring to commit terrorist
attacks in India and Bangladesh. In pursuance of the ongoing conspiracy several members of the outfit set up bases and hideouts in
several parts of India. These include training
camps that have trained large number of Indian youth,” the Home Ministry’s order said.
Kebabs, burgers and more How the Robin Hoods of new India are feeding the poor
(Contd from page 1) Food parcels are collected from restaurants once they are about
to shut shop and then distributed to the
needy. The heroic outlaw Robin Hood had
one motto: steal from the rich to give to
the poor. The Robin Hood Army drew inspiration from the much admired 'rebel hero'
and decided to feed the hungry Indians with
its 'Band of Youngsters. The initiative, however, is based on Portugal's "Refood", an
organization which has been helping the
needy get access to their daily meal."It
started as a one man show in 2011. Hunter
Halder would hop on his bicycle every night,
scout Lisbon restaurants to pick up each
restaurant's leftover food to distribute
among those hardest hit by the country’s
economic crisis.Today Halder has 1500
volunteers and Re-food feeds 50,000 people
daily in Portugal. That's my vision for India
too— feed as many people as possible ,"
says Ghose, who is currently the vice president of international operations at Zomato
and the co-founder of Robin Hood Army.
Started two months ago with only
five volunteers distributing food parcels to
to the needy living under the flyovers of
Outer Ring Road in New Delhi, the Robin
Hood Army today has a core team of 120
people spread across five cities— Calcutta,
Bangalore, Hyderabad, Delhi and Mumbai
who manage to feed at least 1600 people
every week. From Kichdi to alu parathas,
biryani, garlic bread and even vada pao,
the hungry have had a taste of a variety of
dishes with restaurants like Kebab Express, Hyderabad House, Midnight
Munchies jumping on the Robin Hood bandwagon. Even though RHA is at a nascent
stage, it eventually wants to be a scalabale
and self-sustainable model where in
smaller, nuclear communities of volunteers
will be responsible for serving the homeless and the needy in a specific locality
close to their respective residences. For
example, food will be collected from restaurants in Colaba in Mumbai and the work
will be divided between three people—one
will be responsible for collection, another
for packaging and a third for distribution.
"The three people will eventually spread
the word and form mini groups such
that each residential area becomes a
sustainable community itself and manages to reduce food insufficiency by obtaining massive amounts of food at
practically no cost daily," explains
Ghose."It's a team effort. Everyone coordinates, contributes and takes ownership. There's no one-man army here.
Without taking ownership the dream of
independent communities will not be
possible," says Chitvan Jaipuria, a 26
year old wedding planner, who recently
organised a distribution in Kolkata in
areas like Southern Avenue, Chetla and
Park Circus and fed over 300 people in
one night. But to grow bigger and faster,
Sinha and Ghose is soliciting the help
of students and companies too. As of
now, most of the volunteers at RHA are
young professionals.
"The next objective is to get as
many students involved as possible. The
Delhi team has already spoken to students
at Lady Shriram College and once they are
on board we will be one step closer to redirecting unserved left-over food at restaurants to the hungry on a daily basis," said
Ghose. "In the next year we want it completely volunteer driven serving people in
smaller clusters in the city. Hopefully we
will be serving 12-15 cities in the next 8-10
months. A lot more restaurants are on
board and different people are taking to
volunteering everyday," said Sinha. So far,
both Ghose and Sinha have spread the
word through social media alone. A
Facebook page which is constantly updated with pictures of each distribution in
every city has garnered over 1300 likes in
just 60 days.
" I have always wanted to give
back to society but was unsure how. This
is a great opportunity to do so. I saw the
pictures and what had been achieved in
Delhi and knew I wanted to be a part of it.
It doesn't take much. Calcutta is a small
city where we all know each other. A few
phone calls convincing restaurant owners
to give us their excess food is all it takes,"
says Surya Prakash, a resident in Kolkata.
FASHION
Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
(News Agencies) The last day of Wills
Lifestyle India Fashion Week Spring/
Summer 2015 could easily be said to
have gone by in anticipation of the grand
finale by couturier Rohit Bal.
Sunday’s off-site show, held at Quli
Khan’s Tomb in the Qutub Archaeological Park, was nothing short of a royal
spectacle with the moon throwing a spotlight on the runway and the Qutub Minar
in the background.
QUTUB MINAR
COMES ALIVE STYLE
Models emerged from the domed
monument and walked down the 50-feet
grand ramp. The collection comprised 90
garments inspired by ‘Gulbagh’ and featured exquisite embroidered and printed
peonies, chrysanthemums, wild roses,
Bal’s ubiquitous lotus and chintz prints.
Traditional designs included floor-length
angrakhas, peplum blouses, lehengas,
saris, capes and smart shrug jackets in
white, gold, black, maroon and multicoloured stripes. The men were treated
to well-fitted achkans in the same colour
palette.
Bal’s show was a treat to the senses,
and adding to the ambience was classical singer Shubha Mudgal's soulful raags.
Bal’s old friend and actor Arjun Rampal
walked as the showstopper in a smart back
velvet bandhgala jacket, with subtle black
roses embroidered on it, teamed with
black jodhpurs and leather shoes.
While the finale was what kept many
excited, a few shows during the day managed to sate the sartorial needs of
fashionistas.
Annaikka by Kanika Saluja questioned
the taboos surrounding women’s sexual
liberation through her strong collection
titled ‘Euphoria’.
With her trademark style of fluted
pleats and peplums with metallic studs,
rivets and embroidery, Saluja looked at
silhouettes including long capes,
jumpsuits, dresses and tops with fitted
skirts in shades of grey, orange, pink, and
gold. For the strong-headed bride with an
equally strong sense of personal style, the
designer presented a leather lehenga
teamed with a copper embellished blouse
that was worn by musician Monica Dogra.
Nida Mahmood returned with another
quirky line inspired by the Mad Hatter’s
chai party.
Models walked the ramp with
flowers sticking out of their hair, tea cup
hats, nerdy glasses and socks with psychedelic print teapot brooches. The range
comprised dresses, chiffon tops, and saris over jeans with prints of hot air balloons
and teapots. A show by Melbourne-based
Roopa Pemmaraju, presented by the Australian government, was another colourful
expression of indigenous prints for
daywear.
Her painterly prints on skirts,
dresses, coats and shirts and coats in neon
pop colours added a refreshing touch. Australian Commissioner Patrick Suckling’s
wife Natalie Daalder walked the ramp as
the showstopper. Others who impressed
were Rahul Singh and Rehane.
27
Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
FASHION
28
Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
Penelope Cruz, 40, smoulders in plunging
black bodysuit as she's named Sexiest
Woman Alive by Esquire magazine
(News Agencies) Penelope Cruz has been named
the Sexiest Woman Alive by Esquire magazine.
The Spanish bombshell - who has two children
with husband Javier Bardem - certainly lives up to
the title on the magazine cover, posing in just a
plunging black bathing suit with her hair in tousled
waves over her shoulders.
Penelope, 40, inherits the title from Scarlett
Johansson, who last year won the accolade for the
second time. Cruz has become the 11th woman to
be given the title by the magazine.
Previous honorees include Angelina Jolie, Halle
Berry, Rihanna and Charlize Theron.
The sexy cover shot shows Penelope gazing
seductively into the camera, showing exactly why
Esquire chose her for the coveted honour this year.
The Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Vanilla Sky
actress told Esquire she had 'an attraction to drama'
in her teens and 20s, but 'could not be less interested now'.But Penelope, 40, is keeping quiet about
her personal life. She declined to comment about
her actor husband Javier , as well as their two children. 'That is for us,' she said.
The Blow star gave birth to daughter Luna on July
22, 2013, in Madrid.
She and her 44-year-old Spanish actor husband
Javier Bardem also have a son Leonardo who was
born in 2011 in Los Angeles.Penelope and Javier
starred together in 2008's Vicky Cristina Barcelona
and were married in July 2010.
She will next be seen in the Spanish-language
film Ma Ma and in Grimsby, with Sacha Baron
Cohen.
SHOWBIZ
29
Bang Bang! racing to touch
Rs.300 crore worldwide
(News Agencies) Bang Bang! racing to touch Rs.300 crore worldwide Action-adventure "Bang
Bang!" is keeping the producers'
cash registers ringing. The Hrithik
Roshan and Katrina Kaif-starrer
is all set to touch the Rs.300 crore
mark. Siddharth Anand's directorial has raked in Rs.158.29 crore
nett (Rs.226.12 crore gross). In
the overseas territories "Bang
Bang!" has registered around
Rs.72 crore, taking the worldwide
box office collection to over
Rs.298 crore gross, read a statement. Produced by Fox Star Studios, the out-and-out masala
movie hit screens Oct 2. Made
on a budget of Rs.140 crore, the
movie also stars Danny
Denzongpa, Jaaved Jaaferi,
Deepti Naval, Kanwaljit Singh and
Jimmy Sheirgill.
Kareena is a blessing in my life: Karisma Kapoor Amitabh Bachchan urges support
(News Agencies) Actress Karisma Kapoor says
her actress sister Kareena is more like a friend to
her than a sibling.
The 40-year-old actress, who was last seen
in 2012 supernatural thriller film'Dangerous Ishq, said
she and Kareena share a strong bond.The Zubeidaa
actress, who had a successful career in 90s' and
2000, says it has been a rare instance when two
sisters have successfully worked in the same decade.
"I think there has never been a precedence
where two sisters in Bollywood have been successful working simultaneously as heroines in same
decade or same generation. I think we have been
lucky and fortunate to have had great careers," she
said.
Though they share a close bond as sisters personally, Karisma says professionally they
never interfere in each other's decision. Asked if she
is worried that Kareena is rejecting many film offers
after marriage, Karisma supported her sister."She
is married and wants to pick and choose the work
she is doing. It is completely her choice. She is
been that kind of person. I think, right from her first
film, she has done whatever she has wanted to do
in her life, and I think that is the kind of person she
is and we respect that." Karisma, who went against
her family to enter Bollywood, says she would never
enforce anything on her children, Samiera and Kiaan,
on what they want to be in life, including becoming
an actor. "I am a kind of parent who will let them do
whatever they want to do in life. Whether they want
to be an actor or not be an actor. I would never
enforce anything on them," she said here on the
sidelines of the NDTV-Diageo Road To Safety, a
campaign to make Indian roads safer.
for flood-hit Jammu and Kashmir
(News Agencies) On behalf of the Indian film fraternity, Bollywood
megastar Amitabh Bachchan appealed to all citizens to contribute
to the cause of rehabilitating the flood-ravaged Kashmir.
Big B is the front-runner of
the campaign “Hum
Hain…Umeed-e-Kashmir”,
an initiative of the entertainment industry, led by the
Event and Entertainment
Management Association
(EEMA), the Film and Television Producers Guild and
Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEE).
“When we see (the kind of
things that have happened in) Kashmir, Assam, Meghalaya or the
Andhra Pradesh cyclone… when we see these things, I feel that as
an Indian, whatever I am able to do for my nation, I must do,” the 72year-old said here at a press conference.Calling himself a “small
member” of the Indian film fraternity, the globally popular icon said
that whenever the country has witnessed a disaster, “the nation’s
film industry has, without hesitation, tried to help people, and share
their sorrows”. “During 45 years of my career, I have seen many
such times when some disaster has hit the country, and the film
industry has stood united for the cause and contributed towards it. I
dedicate myself for this cause. I will do as much as I can do for
Kashmir,” he said. He added that he feels “immense sorrow” to
see the post disaster photographs of the scenic land, which
was once Bollywood’s favourite destination to shoot. Film producer Mukesh Bhatt, president of Film and Television Producers Guild, too was present at the occasion, which was also
graced by Union Minister of State for Sports and Youth Affairs
Sarbananda Sonowal. Bhatt said it’s like “payback time” for
the film industry. “We feel emotionally committed to that land,
and we must come together to help in its hour of darkness,” Bhatt
said of Jammu and Kashmir, which was left devastated after floods
hit the region in September.
Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
Happy New Year is home
comingforme:DeepikaPadukone
(News Agencies) After starting her
career with Farah-Shah Rukh
Khan's joint production 'Om Shanti
Om' seven years ago, actress
Deepika Padukone feels her upcoming project 'Happy New Year'
is like a homecoming.
'Happy New Year', releasing this Diwali, is again co-produced
by Farah and Shah Rukh and the
actor will be seen romancing
Deepika in it.
"'Happy New Year' is a
homecoming for me. The way they
(Shah Rukh and Farah) made me
feel has brought back the memories of 'Om Shanti Om'. Even the
way she calls me 'Baby' and I call
her 'Maa'.
"Farah takes certain liberty with me and so do I. The way
we talk to each other is special. In
fact, a lot of time we would sit together and remember old times.
They are family," Deepika said in a
group interview.
The film is directed by
Farah and has ensemble cast of
Abhishek Bachchan, Sonu Sood,
Boman Irani and Viaan Shah apart
from Shah Rukh and Deepika.
Deepika says she feels
her career is safe in the hands of
the choreographer-filmmaker and
SRK, both 49.
"They gave me such a
beautiful launch in the industry and
presented me so well. They took
the responsibility and understood
that this girl's career is in our hand,"
she said.
Deepika, 28, said she was
the last one to join the multi-starrer.
"When I just finished
'Chennai Express' I got a call from
Farah Khan and she asked me for
'Happy New Year'. The film happened at the last moment and my
dates were free I am happy that I
fit because at that time even Imtiaz
Ali's film also shifted," she said,
adding that she is happy to be a
part of 'Happy New Year' even
though the role was initially not offered to her.
In the film, Deepika plays
a Marathi bar dancer in the
film."Mohini Joshi is the character's
name who is a bar dancer. She
enjoys dancing and she worships
dance. She and Abhishek's character Nandu have grown up together. I become the teacher of the
gang and I teach them to dance
once they come together. Mohini
is the only member of her family
who earns," she said.
SHOWBIZ
30
Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
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Wednesday, 15 October, 2014
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