Action against hoarding or action against food security?

Another short sighted and intrusive decision by the government -

New Delhi, Aug 8 (PTI)Observing that the country was facing a "difficult situation" following delayed and deficient rainfall, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said the Centre has adequate foodgrains and would not hesitate to take strong measures and intervene in the market if the need arose."Agricultural operations have been adversely affected in several parts of the country causing distress to farmers. A deficit of more than 6 million hectares has been reported in paddy, which is the worst affected crop," he said addressing the Conference of Chief Secretaries on the monsoon situation here.The government has enough cushion on account of bumper production in the previous two years, Singh said."We are in a position to ensure adequate availability of foodgrains in drought affected areas.

http://www.ptinews.com/news/218820_Take-action-against-hoarders-and-blackmarketers--says-PM


MY ANALYSIS -

Contrary to what we have been taught since our child hood days - hoarding and blackmarketing are not the same things and are 2 different situation resulting from different conditions.Blackmarketing - It is the phenomena that involves large scale commercial exchange without paying taxes to the government. Or it may be exchange of illegal goods such as imported products or banned products. Blackmarketing has a very nebulous definition and can be stretched to suit the need of the present day government. Importantly, blackmarketing is largest in the economies that are most restricted and least in the most liberal economies. Blackmarket exists because there is a need for those goods that the government has banned.

Now if there is a need for cereals and rice that the government cannot fulfill a blackmarket is created where people are willing to pay more to acquire those goods that are not available in the open market controlled by the government. Blackmarketing was rampant in the times of ration shops, but has reduced since then due to more liberal economy and market driven distribution system. But the present government is trying to kill the blackmarket which is supplying a legitimate need. This action will make it harder to find those productss (food in this case) not easier as the government is stating. The food will simply flow to the area where it commands a better price which may be another state in india or another country altogether.

Conclusion -
1. Blackmarket cannot be termeed bad just because the tyrranical government says it is bad.
2. Blackmarket is a government creation due to repressive policies and undersupply of goods in demand.
3. Banning the blackmarket will not make it go away.
4. Banning will make prices go up, the exacct opposite of what government claims will happen.


Hoarding -
I remember that in my 7th standard economics propaganda class (also known as Economics class) , i was taught that hoarding is bad and the people who do it a vile criminals who have no scruples. That these are people who feed off the soiety without giving anything in return and are basically leaches and parasites. I accepted this version happily since i afterall needed good marks in the tests and my horizon was only till my annual exams.

But upon further thinking, here is what "hoarders" really function. They purchase goods from a supplier by paying cash in full or part. The supplier who might be a farmer or usually a tier one supplier who has purchased from a farmer and processed the grains to a sellable condition, then takes the money and continues his commercial business, feeding his family etc. Anyhow, the "hoarder" now studies the current economic, social, weather conditions and predicts demand for this year and next year. He studies the available stock with him and tries to understand how much food grain he might be able to sell this year for a price so that he can make his payments and make a return on the enormous investmeents he has made in the product, infrastructure for storing it and administrative costs of running the setup.

To understand this better take an example of this year. With poor monsoons he knows that this years product is going to be lower in quantity. But he has some goods left from last year to cover for part of the shortage. But he also knows that a large percentage of the impact of poor monsoons will be felt not this year but next year. So the real shortages will be next year and keeping this in mind he keeps away some of the goods for selling next year wwhere they will not only fetch a better return on investment but also fulfill a need in the market. With this in mind he has now "hoarded" the goods. Keep in mind that the goods arent going to go waste, it is in his best interest to sell it as it costs him money to buy, store and sell the goods.

His actions have actually acted to smoothen out the vagaries in demand and supply. By keeping away good for the future he has done what every one of us do everyday, save for the unknown circumstances of future. The ""hoarder" is doing us a favor! Without his presense, we will eat our fill today and even throw away food but we will have severe shortages next year. so the Toor daal that costs 75 per Kg might go down to 65 a Kg this year but will be 120 per kg next year. and from whom will the government steal the next year??

There are lakhs of such "hoarder" taking risks, making profits, sometimes losses but are an essential part of the system of the economy that supplies is products. He workss not for the greater good of humanity or some vague things like that but for profit, just like me and many others in our respective jobs. By killing this system the government believes that it is smarter than the combined intelligence and local knowledge of these "hoarders". Who decides where the grain goes? Some fat beuracrat sitting in delhi who does know a thing about local needs in Kunigal town in Karnataka or a similar village in the North east.This short sighted action by the government will seriously jeapordise the food security next year but of course government is going to reap benefits in the short term in terms of vote.

Revitalising higher education

His next class act

While our army of the unemployable increases we suffer from crippling shortages of not just engineers, doctors and managers, but also of nurses, welders, electricians, plumbers, masons, carpenters, teachers and of course social scientists. Engineering, management and medicine at least have their IITs, IIMs and AIIMS. What brand name can Indian social sciences and the liberal arts boast of? They, in fact, have a bigger problem than lack of resources: lack of intellectual freedom, diversity of thought and opinion. The few social science centres that we have, therefore, produce clones. Usually these are clones of professors steeped in the heady ideologies of the ’70s incapable or unwilling to notice that the “revolution” has passed them by. JNU is a perfect example.

Excellent four part article by Radha Ranjan - must read

The articles dissect why the BJP lost and the current situation of the BJP. Also discussed are the relations of BJP with the RSS and the idealogy that inspires millions of SwayemSevaks of the RSS including yours truly.

Part 1 - When ambition overrode ideology

Part 2 - On parasites and spitting partners

Part 3 - Abandoning Kurukshetra before the war is won

Part 4 - RSS - unwilling parent

WHAT TRULY unites Zionism and Hindu nationalism

India and Israel: Diverse in a homogeneous world

There is a connection between the contempt for Hindu nationalism and the disdain for Zionism that exists in many circles. They are widely condemned for similar things. Both are accused of inventing a history for their people and religion. Both are accused of inventing and perverting archeology. Both are accused of being anachronisms in a world that is supposedly multicultural. Both are seen as militant and anti-Muslim.
But there is another connection that is often overlooked. Both were unlikely victims of Gandhi's sometimes misplaced pacifism. Gandhi condemned not only Zionism but also encouraged the Jews of Europe to voluntarily submit to Nazism and throw "themselves into the sea from cliffs" to please Hitler. Gandhi, a Hindu, penned an introduction to the Koran, a book that is deeply prejudiced against pagan Hinduism, and during the partition of India he excused the ethnic cleansing of Sikhs and Hindus in Pakistan, while encouraging India to protect her Muslim minority.

Existential struggle of the condemned Hindu continues

‘Revive Nepal as a Hindu State’

“A country with more than 80 per cent Hindus should not be declared a secular state”, the participants opined.
The participants also said that a nation-wide campaign needs to be organized to create awareness among the population to re-declare the country a Hindu state.

Pope visit stirs emotions in Israel

Pope’s visit upsets more than it pleases

Vaticans attempt at global hegemony continues..

The Pope's latest crusade

Spam the world with the Christian message


FORMER MEMBER of the Hitler Youth and now infallible Pope, Benedict XVI thinks it is a nifty idea for the yoof of today to spam others with Christian messages.
The Pope, who has offended right wing Jews by forgiving right wing non-Jews who don't believe that Hitler killed many of their relatives, and Muslims by quoting a 15th century Catholic saint, is now having a go at network managers who will have to unclog their networks from shedloads of Catholic spam.
Speaking at the Roman Catholic Church's World Communications Day, the Pope told young people to bear witness to their faith through the digital world. They should employ new technologies to make the Christian Gospel known, he said.
A Vatican website, www.pope2you.net, will be linked to the social network Facebook so that young people can send the Pope's message to their friends. This is assuming that they will still be their friends after getting a message from the Pope.
Fortunately few Catholics under the age of 40 listen to the Pope much any more as his doctrinal stances are increasingly less relevant to the problems of today's world. This means there will probably be few modern yoof willing to take part in the children's spam crusade. µ

Religion of Love might be loving a little too much

Thousands beaten, raped in Irish Catholic reform schools

The report found that molestation and rape were "endemic" in boys' facilities, chiefly run by the Christian Brothers order, and supervisors pursued policies that increased the danger. Girls supervised by orders of nuns, chiefly the Sisters of Mercy, suffered much less sexual abuse but frequent assaults and humiliation designed to make them feel worthless.
"In some schools a high level of ritualized beating was routine. ... Girls were struck with implements designed to maximize pain and were struck on all parts of the body," the report said. "Personal and family denigration was widespread."
Victims of the system have long demanded that the truth of their experiences be documented and made public, so that children in Ireland never endure such suffering again.
But most leaders of religious orders have rejected the allegations as exaggerations and lies, and testified to the commission that any abuses were the responsibility of often long-dead individuals.

SuryaPrakash analyses BJPs election defeat

BJP failed due to problems within

Why did the BJP fare so badly? The reasons are many, but here are a few. The first of these is that there is no indication that the party has learnt even a single lesson from its crushing defeat in 2004. There was no credibility in anything that the party said, be it on terrorism, corruption or relations with the US. Having released dreaded terrorists during the Kandahar crisis, it did not lie in the BJP’s mouth to attack the Manmohan Singh Government on 26/11. That is why the party could not convert even 26/11 into votes.Nor could the BJP encash the corruption of UPA Ministers: Of the 15 scamster MPs caught on tape taking cash to ask questions or sanction projects under the MPLADS Scheme, eight were from the BJP. This party also has the distinction of having an MP who was found involved in human trafficking. He was smuggling people into Canada on passports given to members of his family! The list is endlessIndiscipline at the top, with many leaders pursuing their own personal agendas at the cost of the party and the larger movement to which they belong, is yet another factor. Fourth, some of the most arrogant and conceited politicians can be found in this party. They lack the humility to listen to others and they are beyond learning. Last, there is no party high command, as in the Congress or the CPI(M), and therefore many party leaders are answerable to no one and are beyond party discipline. Is the BJP capable of sincere introspection and course correction? Given the party’s track record post-2004, I would not put my money on this.

BJP abandons idealogy and get a swift rebuke

BJP apes Congress, fails

During the latest campaign, the BJP downplayed ideology (except erratically in the Varun Gandhi incident) and betted all on ‘good governance’. Some BJP State Governments have provided that, to be sure, and in these States the BJP has been rewarded. But it could never be a decisive election-winner because Congress hasn’t done too bad in that regard either. Ever since Mr Manmohan Singh read out the 1992 Budget, the world sees his signature written all over India’s economic success. Even BJP contributors to that success, like erstwhile Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie, won’t deny him that honour. In these circumstances, only a clear ideological profile, mature but distinct, could have won the election for the BJP. If it didn’t want that ideological distinctness and was content to remain the Congress’s B-team, the party could have learned from Mr Sarkozy to show this only after the election. Before, it should at least have kept up the pretence of being a party with a difference.

Provocation for Chickmangalur church attacks

‘Hurt sentiments led to attack on church’

Janakriram, a coffee grower, said that the hillock known as Rashi Gudda had a cave with a small opening. Hindus used to visit the spot, drop stones into the cave and listen the echoing sound.Later, Christian coffee growers bought the entire hillock and helped a church come up right at the place. The opening to the cave was closed and the hillock rechristened as ‘Shilibe Gudda, which hurt Hindu sentiments. This resentment led to attack on a church at Maagud near Aldoor, Janakiram told the Commission. The Commission also accepted the statement of N Shetroji Rao, a retired government employee.

Prabhakarans Death - something fishy

Prabhakaran`s final hours

It was upon investigating the ambulance that 3 bodies, one of which resembled Prabhakaran`s body structure was discovered. The body was blackened and beyond facial/physical recognition. But the Army knew it may very well be Prabhakaran. There was no other way for him to escape.

But major Indian newspapers and some across the world have published what seems like a perfectly intact though lifeless body of Prabhakaran. So what am i missing? But whatever is the case, peace in the region at last. Click the links below for some of the photos,

http://www.itn.lk/news_03_20090519.html

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Prabhakarans-body-found-Lanka-army-chief/articleshow/4551107.cms

BharatRight Opinion - Bengal elections

http://www.bharatright.com/indexOrange.php?zftemplate=sidOrange

One of the few good parts about this extra-ordinary elections has been the loss of the leftists in West Bengal. But, has the country traded one evil for another? Will lives of people of West Bengal really improve? Mamata Banerjee has fought on a platform which is basically anti-development. In their opinion, industrial development of a major state of India is less important than orderly displacement of a few farmers. Therefore, while most left policies are regressive, Mamata has won this election on an even worse policy platform.Secondly, we believe that the Congress/Trinamul performance is mainly due to a religious factor, which has long-term security implications. Singur issue became bigger mainly because most affected farmers were Muslims. If you look at the map of voting pattern of West Bengal (simply click on West Bengal area on India's map to see details of voting pattern in West Bengal), you will notice that all the seats won by UPA are contiguous to Bangladesh's borders. There are the areas where illegal Muslim immigration from Bangladesh has a deep-rooted impact. These are the voters that deserted the leftists this time, as some of their co-religionists, even if upto 200 kms away, were being asked to vacate their land for a compensation! Muslims voted en-masse for the UPA, and that is the real reason leftists lost in W. Bengal. Is this a good development? In our opinion - NO.

Swati Parashar on the Election Verdict

Elections 2009: The Myth of ‘Secular’ Verdict

The single most important outcome of this election verdict has been the defeat of the Leftist brigade along with other staunch and ‘committed’ champions of ‘fanatic secularism’, such as Lalu Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan. In UP too, ‘secular’ Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav have incurred losses, owing to the gains made by the Congress Party. The importance of this verdict cannot be overlooked. Lalu Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan have never hesitated to claim their alpsankhyak (minority) Muslim vote banks in their capacity as upholders of real secular values. The same vote bank could not come to their rescue as Bihar gave a decisive mandate to Nitish Kumar for the development work he has been doing as also for the personal image Nitish enjoys among the electorate. It was interesting to note that not one media report was keen to portray Nitish Kumar’s victory as the victory of the ‘communal’ forces considering he is officially still with NDA. Those who have memories of Lalu’s Bihar and his rise to ‘absolute power which corrupted him absolutely’ will heave a sigh of relief. Similarly, Mulayam’s Muslim vote bank could not do much for him and in fact sufficiently lowered his bargaining power because of the gains made by the Congress. Mayawati, who was being projected in the Indian and Western media as the possible first Dalit Prime Minister of India, is now blaming the Muslims for her defeat. She also has a few political lessons to learn. People vote for progress and that identity politics (of either caste or religion) does not always yield the best results in a democracy.

Radha Rajan - When ambition overrode ideology

Election 2009 - The BJP got what it deserved

Karan Thapar accurately summed up the election results in a telling one-liner – while both the Congress and the BJP faced a host of problems until 3 weeks ago; the Congress’ problems dissolved into nothingness while the BJP tripped over them. A truer thing was never said. What Karan Thapar did not say was that while all of the Congress’ problems were external to the party, the BJP’s problems were all from within. Behind Karan Thapar’s one line summary lurked a sordid tale of epic proportions.
The BJP suffers from seven problems – Advani, Jaswant Singh, Murli Manohar Joshi, Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Narendra Modi and Rajnath Singh; each one’s coterie expanding their personal agendas in an oceanic circle, some of them expanding across the Atlantic and the Pacific and then coming back to Indian shores as returning currents with ambitious jetsam and flotsam riding on their crests. Venkaiah Naidu for some reason opted out of the race in 2004. They all think they are Prime Ministerial matter; after Vajpayee, Advani thought he had the automatic right of inheritance while the remaining six think they have automatic right of inheritance after Advani. The Problem Seven, in the last 10 years have done two things – they have ruthlessly decimated or kept at bay other challengers to the throne in the states and in Delhi, while simultaneously doing everything to make sure that the other six in the group do not take even half a step in the direction of becoming party president which is the penultimate chair before the throne; and that is why, despite losing the elections in 2004 and now in 2009, Advani continues to remain at the top. Advani’s continuation is the only way to prevent the others from getting there. The top leadership is therefore septuagenarian or octogenarian, the second rung leadership is already aged and the third rung is aging fast and frustrated. This group has held the BJP hostage through their coteries, each coterie more cut-throat than the others. These cut-throat operators have rivals in the camp even in the states; the results are there for all to see in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan where an ascendant Congress is pushing the BJP out. Cut-throat coteries and destructive overarching ambitions have destroyed the BJP beyond salvage in Uttar Pradesh, in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu where local cut-throats with personal patrons in Delhi have over-run the party; going by the fact that there are cut-throats waiting on the sidelines in Karnataka and Gujarat, these two states may well go that way, sooner than later. The degeneration of the BJP from the vibrant Hindu movement that it was in the 1990s, as a party with a vision and an agenda, to what it has become today – a vehicle for individual ambitions - can be best gauged by those whom the BJP has chosen as its face and voice, as its power-brokers, as its point-persons, and as its strategists. Ask any ordinary political minded Hindu on the street what he/she thinks the BJP stands for and we will have the answer to why the BJP’s downward slide is unstoppable. The BJP’s descent was accelerated with Advani’s public pronouncement that good governance does not need ideology. This was as good as saying that a family is only an involuntary collective of individuals and can function efficiently without family values. For all that the BJP claims it is different from the Congress, any one who has studied the freedom movement, not as insipid history in school text books but as a real drama unfolding through its dramatis personae, would realize that the BJP today finds itself in the same position that the INC found itself repeatedly, first in 1908 when the Hindu nationalist leadership Tilak, Aurobindo and Savarkar had been decimated and the Congress floundered leaderless and clueless and without an identity until Gandhi began to use it as a vehicle for his agenda; then in the late 1930s decade when Gandhi had failed on all fronts but refused to relinquish control of the INC and again in 1948 when after Gandhi, Nehru thought he had automatic right of inheritance. From 1947, the Congress party was not driven by ideology; it was driven only by cult worship of individuals – first Gandhi, then Nehru, his daughter Indira Gandhi, her sons Sanjay Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, his wife and widow, Sonia Gandhi and now her son Rahul Gandhi. His sister Priyanka Gandhi, like Narendra Modi, is watchfully biding her time. Closet spouses of unknown nationality and grand-children are already positioned as future heirs to the mantle. The Congress today, manipulated by an Italian and her Italian/Indian children, has come full circle and is once again a creature of colonial intent. The Gandhi family is willing to throw crumbs from their high table to those who they consider share the same pedigree lineage and who have therefore been allowed to come close to the table and sit at their feet, with smaller crumbs thrown to those waiting outside the gates, and have thus managed to silence murmurs of discontent. Undeserving and unworthy individuals have been placed after careful calculations, at the head of high national institutions, and invitations to periodic high-teas served on the lawns has subordinated the highest pillars of democracy to serve family interests. The Gandhi family has used the crumbs of totalitarian power as an effective silencer within the Congress. The Congress party has been transformed into a willing mechasnism of slave labour to oil the ambitions of one family. The role of the English electronic media and the leading English print media with regard to this usurper family and its steamrolling methods raises serious questions about the media’s integrity and nationalism. The BJP began with the pious intention of positioning itself as a contrast to the Congress. It chose ideology to define its self-identity because it had no dynasty to define it. When the BJP stepped into the national political arena, it was still carrying memories of its previous nationalist incarnation the Jana Sangh and was driven by a Hindu nationalist ideology as embodied in Tilak, Aurobindo, Savarkar and then in the RSS as conceived of by Dr. Hedgewar. The BJP’s political agenda was determined by Hindu nationalism and there was convergence of intent between the two most prominent of the RSS siblings – the BJP and the VHP. The first steps in turning the BJP around on a deviant path, away from its defining ideology was taken by Atal Behari Vajpayee when he privileged coalition partners over party ideology. The slide was perceptible then and the writer used the platform offered by Vigil Public Opinion Forum to voice this concern. “Coalition Politics and the Death of Ideology” was a landmark public meeting in those times and the writer still remembers the anguish of a senior RSS pracharak over the choice of title. He refused to accept the possibility that the RSS (he, like many even today did not make a distinction between the BJP and the RSS) could ever compromise or give up on ideology. The Vajpayee years saw the rise of two or three individuals who influenced and later controlled not only the leadership within the BJP but also within the RSS. Nothing could be thought, said or done without their approval. No decision could be made and no action executed without being micro-managed by these individuals. Ideology was what these individuals said it was and it was during these years that the BJP began to package rank opportunism as some kind of brilliant Kautiliya strategy and this lemon was sold to the RSS leaders and the rank and file down the line by these two or three individuals. One sold the lemon in the North while another sold it in the South. The RSS was convinced into accepting the argument that the BJP must be allowed to place its defining and exceptional agenda for the nation on the back-burner to keep its coalition partners. This was no Kautilya, Rasputin was more like it. The BJP’s slide acquired momentum with the rise of these individuals.

Christian aggression in Bangalore

Swapan Dasgupta - Post Election Analysis

Congress won conclusively

The NDA has not merely fallen significantly below its own psephological expectations; it has been rejected by the electorate. Perhaps the rejection is not quite so categorical as that suffered by the Left and the partners of the Third Front (with the honourable exception of Naveen Patnaik). But this is really a debate about whether a 80 run defeat is worse than an innings defeat. After the 1991 election, The Economist had a report entitled, “The winner came second”, testifying to the BJP’s surge and its ability to dominate the agenda. This time there is not even pretence of a moral victory. The winner has taken it all.

Church asks congregation to vote for Christians

DMK may have the last laugh in Kumari

But then, the Sunday service in the various churches across the district seemed to have turned voters in favour of the DMK. While most Catholic churches
have openly declared Helen Davidson, who is also a Catholic, as their favoured candidate - not the other Catholic, Bellarmine - to clear the doubts of the community, some pentecostal congregations were told by preachers to vote for her.

Hindus attacked in Pakistan

http://www.cctv.com/program/worldwidewatch/20090515/105365.shtml

As the Taliban aims to gain a stronger foothold in Pakistan, increasingly violent assaults against religious minorities are further evidence of what many perceive to be the militants' growing power and influence in the volatile country.
These attacks add to the instability of an already highly unstable country. In dozens of interviews from Karachi to Peshawar, Christians, Sikhs and Hindus told of attacks and threats and expressed an overwhelming sense of fear.
Amarnath Motunal, President of Hindu Community, Karachi, said, "We are more in risk, we were in risk, but this present situation has put us in further risk. We are looking for shelter where we can save our families if anything bad happens in Pakistan."

Hindus discriminated against in Trinidad

Students vow to stand guard after school orders Hindu flag removed


"It was not the first time something like this happened. Over the past two years, efforts were made by a small group to destroy the Indo-Trinidadian cultural practices that formed part of the school's activities," one pupil said.
Devant Maharaj, spokesperson for the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha, said students have reported the incident. He said a large number of students attending the school belonged to the Hindu religion and while a decision was made to remove the jhandis, symbols of other religions remained. "The school is a part of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious community. It is where we teach children the pluralism of Trinidad and Tobago. If the authorities allow the jhandis to be removed, they would be creating a breeding ground for intolerance among the children," he said.

Jews criticize Interfaith commission for ignoring non-Semitic sysstems

Jews condemn European Commission & Parliament for snubbing Hindus


Rabbi Jonathan B. Freirich, prominent Jewish leader in Nevada and California, supporting the cause spearheaded by acclaimed Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement said that Commission and Parliament leaders should study their constitutions carefully to find the words "equality" and "fairness" written somewhere and grasp their meaning.Rabbi Freirich argued that it was not the job of Commission and Parliament to prefer one religion over the other or ignore some of those completely in interreligious gatherings. Commission and Parliament officials needed to go back to school to take "Comparative Religion 101" and "Interfaith Relations" classes.The Jewish leader further said, "How could one ignore Hinduism, which is one of the oldest religions of the world with about one billion followers and a presence in every country of Europe? Hindus have made many positive contributions to the European community and believe in peaceful coexistence."

Post Election analysis - BJP forgot Delhi often comes via Lucknow

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/clicklit/entry/bjp-forgot-the-roadmap-delhi

We all know that the road to Delhi is via Lucknow”, Atal Bihari Vajpayee reminded the national council of the BJP in December 2006. Even if he does usually speak a tad softly, a point as basic as that mustn’t have been that difficult to catch. A pity, then, they didn’t pay him much heed.
Contrary to the widely shared opinion, going by television debates, that the BJP’s primary error was its sustained campaign against Manmohan Singh, I don’t think the BJP really made an gigantic electoral blunder by picking a ‘negative campaign’. Or by attacking Manmohan. Or in its choice of alliances, or the lack of them. The BJP got the plot fundamentally wrong the day it got so enamoured of its own success in social experimentation, that it began to equate its electoral epicentre with Gujarat — forgetting the fact that it had been steadily, irretrievably, losing it completely in its actual epicentre, UP.

Death Knell for Indias world aspirations

After the counting and other stories

India would have had a chance, but not with the UPA in power. An old gentleman, whom I have no reason to disbelieve, once told me of an incident with a Communist leader in Kerala [Images], who opposed prohibition. In a private conversation, this person questioned the minister about the obvious fact that the consumption of liquor by men was impoverishing their families and preventing them from rising up to the middle class. Whereupon the leader told him, in effect: "We don't want to end poverty. If there is no poverty, who needs us?" This accurately reflects the UPA's beliefs as well. Their slogans will have no takers unless there is a large, hopeless underclass.
The UPA has demonstrated that it can only think of India as a vassal state throughout the last five years of craven behaviour towards the US ('India loves you, Mr Bush,' said the PM). The opaque manner in which the nuclear deal was rammed through was preposterous. India will pay tens of billions of dollars for nuclear fission reactors from the US and its allies, and will go into 'cap, rollback and eliminate' mode as it is blackmailed into the NPT, CTBT and FMCT.

Delhi entangled in the Dragon's String of Pearls

India is losing out to China

"We don't have a grand strategy," admits retired admiral Arun Prakash, among India's finest strategic analysts. As navy chief, he had initiated several steps to increase India's influence in the Indian Ocean.
"We are aware of China's efforts in the neighbourhood. But the question is whether we have a comprehensive strategy to counter them and to secure our interests," says a senior official who looks after the region for his agency. The official, who is not from the external affairs ministry, is clear whom to blame: the ministry and its diplomats.

EVMs lack transparency?

a post that is doing the rounds -

Hi All,
The outcome of the election is completely shocking. And the more shocking news is the possibility of tampering of EVMs to manipulate the results through out india. And now there was a PIL filed in supreme court over the possibility of tampering of the EVMs by one of the technologists.
Please see the link below.
http://www.indianexpress.com/storyOld.php?storyId=45296
"Computer chips that control the EVMs can be easily programmed to do all kinds of improper manipulations. For example, after a certain number of people (perhaps hundreds) have voted, the rest of the votes may be channeled to a chosen candidate. This is just one among many mischievous tricks possible."
Also, a similar news appeared at a technical magazine called Linux Journal, citing that the hardware and the software used in the EVMs are not open sourced and hence the functioning of the EVMs are still not clear.
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7561
More over, there is large possibility that the EVM can be programmed, reprogrammed at anytime of the election process, and the data can be altered even at the last minute.
In my home constituency Namakkal, a new caste based party was formed few months before, and this party contested in around 11 places. Since my constituency has majority population of that particular caste, the new party was expecting around 2 lakh votes. But after the results, they got only 52,000 votes, which is unbelievable.
They had successfully got the wide support of their caste but, in many of the booths, where their caste people were 90%, the votes polled to them was just 10-20 votes. This is yet again another proof of manipulation of results.
I believe, this has been done in most of the places in Tamilnadu. and it has been done in all other states.
IF we could analyse the statistics further, we can arrive at lot of things. For example, in Andhra pradesh, TDP got around 105 MLA seats, but only 9 MP seats. This is unbelievable. The 105 MLA seats convert around 15 MP seats.
Also in telengana, its hard to believe that congress won over TRS, TDP and the communists combine.
I request you all to pass on the information to the party people in your contacts.
Regards,
xxxxxx

1,00, 000 Crore telecom spectrum scam by UPA

A scam, a yawning deficit



Facts that have recently come to light indicate that the telecom spectrum scam is the biggest financial scandal in the history of Independent India, involving an amount not less than Rs 50,000 crore and possibly as high as Rs 1,00,000 crore — as much as one-fortieth of the country’s national income. This sum is certainly more than the total amount spent by the Central government in a year on health-care and roughly three-fourths of the fiscal deficit indicated in the Union budget for the current financial year.
The scam acquired a new dimension when promoters of three Indian companies holding telecom licences decided to offload a hefty part of their equity stakes in these firms. Swan Telecom sold 45 per cent of its shares to Etisalat (of the United Arab Emirates) for Rs 4,100 crore; Unitech Wireless offloaded 60 per cent of its stake to Telenor (of Norway) for Rs 6,200 crore; and Tata Teleservices sold 26 per cent of its shares to NTT DoCoMo of Japan for Rs 13,230 crore.

"Poor Gentleman" Quattrochi?

PM’s concert in ‘Q’ major

As a grand finale to its subservient five years in office and as a tribute to its benefactor and mentor, the Manmohan Orchestra is now playing ‘Concerto Quattrocchi’ at the Delhi Opera. Members of this orchestra — who constitute the biggest ensemble of Italy-trained political musicians — are playing their hearts out to impress the presiding deity at 10, Janpath. Beginning with the conductor, everyone is hoping for renewal of their contracts after May 16, smug in the belief that the people of India will reward them for their unstinted sycophancy.The Prime Minister, Mr Manmohan Singh, has surely established himself as a conductor par excellence in the eyes of his benefactor by defending the withdrawal of the ‘Red Corner Notice’ against Ottavio Quattrocchi. He has declared that the Quattrocchi case is an “embarrassment” for the Government because the world sees this Italian fugitive and friend of Mr Sonia Gandhi as someone who is being “harassed” by us.

"Yes we can" con them Indians again

U.S.-India nuclear deal: Bereft of transformative power

Today, while India gropes for strategic benefits from the nuclear deal, the U.S. is set to reap non-proliferation and economic benefits once international inspections begin and contracts are signed. It is unfortunate that intense partisan rancour was kicked up in India over an oversold deal, which was pushed through with no public scrutiny, although it thrusts an uneconomical energy choice and carries long-term implications.

Arunachal disputed terrotory says China

China escalates Arunachal dispute with India, blocking an ADB loan

China has blocked an Indian application for loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) because it contained a $60 million project for Arunachal Pradesh, which it claims is a disputed territory, reported The Indian Express newspaper Apr 14. It said China held back its approval at the ADB Board, saying it could not clear a plan containing a programme in a “disputed territory”.

At ADB, Beijing blocks India’s $60-m project for Arunachal

Congress in a bind over its black money

Unquestioned Loot

Jairam Ramesh fumes that Advani has got the numbers wrong and it might not be 70lakh crore but a few lakh crores less.


Manish Tiwari refuses to answer calling the demand for return of Indian money a election stunt.

PM of course keeps his "dignified silence", seen as he is a poor orator. Of course he had said that his actions speak for themselves, and true to his words he has done nothing about the black money either.

“we must work together and at the centre of the problem, which is Pakistan”

Pakistan slips into anarchy

No Shi*, Sherlock!

Naidu and Chiranjeevi get their kneepads out

Naidu promises separate corporation for Christians

Will set up board to protect Christian properties: Chiranjeevi

GUNTUR: A separate corporation will be opened in the State to provide protection to all the Christian properties, renovate churches, and provide amounts to larger number of Christians to travel to Bethlehem, said Telugu Desam Party President Nara Chandrababu Naidu.
Addressing a gathering of more than a lakh of people on the inaugural day of the Bible Mission Annual Conventions opposite Acharya Nagarjuna University, the TDP leader said that the attacks on Christians all over the country had increased multi-fold and were never seen during his regime.
Promising to scrap the new Government Orders 746 and 747 amid loud cheers, as the GOs were allegedly being used to attack Christians, Mr. Naidu promised to provide additional land for the burial grounds.
Thanking the organising secretary Jerripothula Samuel Kiran for making efforts to help people have faith in the Jesus, who had only promoted peace in the world, he said conversions were not the route for reaching out to the disadvantaged.
Asking the devotees and the preachers gathered at the massive Bible Mission Convention venue at 4.30 p.m., he asked them to continue to pray for the world peace and end of terrorism.
All TDP leaders including party district president Prattipati Pulla Rao, Kodela Siva Prasada Rao, former Mayor Yesuratnam, and Mangalagiri in-charge Madala Rajendra received him at the Helipad arranged at Kantheru.

Same ol same ol

For Barack Obama, ignorance is bliss when it comes to the Afpak region

Despite America’s broken policy on Pakistan, President Barack Obama has unveiled the largest-ever US aid package for that country. Indeed, Islamabad is being made the biggest recipient of US aid in the world. If military, non-military and counterinsurgency aid and reimbursements to the Pakistani military were totalled, Pakistan — under Obama’s latest proposals — would overtake Israel and Egypt as the single largest recipient of American aid.
To supposedly mend a wrecked policy, Obama is doing more of what helped create the failure — dispensing rewards upfront. He has decided to shower billions of dollars in additional aid on Pakistan without even defining benchmarks for judging progress.
Worse yet, the Obama administration has neither acknowledged Pakistan’s role in staging terrorist strikes in India nor made the slightest effort to help bring the Pakistan-based planners of the unparalleled Mumbai attacks to justice. In the detailed, inter-agency “Afpak” policy unveiled by Obama, there is not even a passing mention of Pakistan’s use of proxies to wage a terror war against India. In other words, when Washington refuses to even recognize the problem, can New Delhi really expect the US to be of any help?

Obama policy reflects in Kashmir

Kupwara again: 2 para commandos, 2 militants killed in forest gunbattle

Two para commandos and two militants were killed in gunbattles in the Maidanpora forests of Lolab in Kupwara as operations spread over six days ended today. While the Army said they were still trying to establish the identity of the militants, police named them as Abu Zarar and Abu Mawiah of the Lashkar-e-Toiba.

Security forces are trying to find out if the militants belonged to a Lashkar team in the area or were from a group that had managed to evade troops after infiltrating in Gurez. A group of infiltrators, numbering between 15 and 25, had been intercepted by the Army near the Hajibal forests close to the Line of Control. While one militant was killed in a firefight, the rest melted into the forests.

Bramha Chellaney had exactly this to say about Obamas AfPak policy. He had said this would be the consequence.

The unfolding cut-and-run strategy

Shoe Rage- PC gets a whiff of Sikh anger

"The CBI has never been as misused ever before"

COUNTERVIEW Weak PM lived in denial

The CBI was misused to get Mayawati's vote for presidential elections but when it was over the noose tightened around her. When Mulayam went with the UPA, his trail went cold according to the CBI. When he moved away from the UPA, the CBI was back on his trail. The entire Quattrocchi episode showed how the government lost the case by colluding with the crown prosecution authorities in London to defreeze his account. A weak prime minister was compelled to offer infrastructural ministries like surface transport involving national highways construction to tainted ministers.

Swapan Dasgupta on Manmohans 5 years

Man leaves no footprints

The special circumstances of Manmohan’s rise to the top job should warn against describing his term as the “Singh era”. The PM, as a British magazine observed, was in office but not in power. The levers of power were always held by Sonia Gandhi and individual Cabinet Ministers were given unprecedented autonomy. The all-important PMO was reduced to a cipher, its role limited to periodic expressions of unhappiness. Till the “office of profit” issue forced Sonia to be more careful, even crucial policy making was vested in the National Advisory Council headed by her.Manmohan’s unique contribution lay in transforming the Central Government into a confederal arrangement. Lalu Yadav did his own thing in Rail Bhawan; Praful Patel forged his own policy of favouritism; Anbumani Ramadoss carried out his personal witch-hunt at AIIMS; and crony capitalism became the norm in DMK-run Ministries. Nor were Congress Cabinet Ministers more disciplined. Arjun Singh was on his own pseudo-radical trip; Mani Shankar Aiyar crafted his own foreign policy during his short stint as Petroleum Minister; and P Chidambaram never took kindly to even the gentlest hint of criticism. Meanwhile, political management was left to Ahmed Patel and Pranab Mukherjee.

Major incident ignored by English media

Prohibitory orders imposed following clash between two groups

Four temples were damaged. The miscreants also attacked the house of the former Mayor H N Srikantiah and ransacked furnitures

Doubts about the success of President Barack Obama's strategy offering Pakistan a partnership to defeat insurgency

Pakistan could collapse within six months: report

Such dire prediction was given by David Kilcullen, a former adviser to top US military commander General David H. Petraeus.
Petraeus also echoed the same thought when he told a Congressional testimony last week that insurgency was one which could "take down" Pakistan, which is home to nuclear arms and al Qaeda.
Kilcullen's comments come as Pakistan is witnessing an unprecedented upswing in terrorists strikes and now some analysts in Pakistan and Washington are putting forward apocalyptic timetables for the country.

Manmohan Singh and his government, instead of celebrating, seem to be worried at the success of eliminating banking secrecy

A deafening silence on funny money

It was unthinkable six months ago. Switzerland, once a pet of Western capitalism, is now its hate object. During World War II, the tiny nation was the common love of both the Allied and Axis powers, at war with each other. But neutral Switzerland, a friend of all since Napoleonic days, is friendless today. Its prime attraction, financial secrecy secured by law, has become its nemesis.
Germany first, France next, the US later, with the UK joining last, have, individually and together, declared a war against secret banking and tax havens like Switzerland.
It is a crusade by the West against the Swiss, says the media. Tax havens ask for no income tax from non-citizens and their banks ask no questions about their money. Modern capitalism had all along winked at secret banks and tax shelters; even nicknamed secret money ‘funny money’. But now the West chases secret money like it targets al-Qaeda.
Why this miraculous shift? The short answer: ‘financial crisis’. The Guardian of UK wrote (March 4), “European leaders grew increasingly agitated at how tax havens have fostered secrecy that has contributed to the collapse of banks the world over”. The newspaper’s Tax Gap Series estimated the unaccounted global wealth held in secret havens, including Switzerland, at $13 trillion. The annual tax evasion on the dirty fund, estimated at $255 billion was, the newspaper said, twice the global budget for poor nations. Der Spiegel, a German magazine, reported (March 3) that “Cash strapped governments around the world see the opportunity to finally put an end to bank secrecy” to access the money concealed by their nationals. It added “British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicholas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are now joining forces” and “they have set their sights on Switzerland”.
The crusade against Swiss banks was started by Germany in early 2008 when its intelligence bribed — bribed? Yes — an informant in LGT Bank in Liechtenstein and got a CD containing the names of some 1,500 tax dodgers, and raided half of them, who were its citizens. It also offered, free of cost, the names of citizens of other countries. Many accepted the offer gratefully.
Thereafter, in the third quarter of 2008, Germany pressed the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to blacklist Switzerland for protecting tax dodgers.
Switzerland is an OECD member and twothirds of the Swiss speak German. Yet Germany couldn’t care less. Soon, France joined Germany.
“We want to put a stop to tax havens”, thundered Sarkozy.
At the preparatory G20 summit in Berlin early February, European leaders vowed to launch a global crusade against tax havens at the G20 meet in London, said the Irish Financial News. Europe’s anger was explicit in its refusal to allow the Swiss plea to be presented before the G20 in London.
The US moved even more menacingly. On February 18, the US Inland Revenue threatened the largest Swiss bank, UBS, with a lawsuit — that would have bankrupted it — unless the bank disclosed the names and accounts of some 300 American tax dodgers. A frightened UBS forthwith surrendered the secret data to the US before the account holders could stall it by a Swiss court order. Later, the Obama administration told the US Senate that it would bring laws to prise open the world’s most secretive tax havens.
At this point the UK joined the crusade.
Switzerland wilted under the pressure. Spiegel wrote that, for generations, the Swiss had held bank secrecy as “not negotiable”, and added that it was “no longer” so. The magazine quoted Swiss finance minister Merz as saying that they would have “to compromise”. The Swiss justice and foreign ministers, the magazine reported, had hinted that the country might have to stop protecting tax dodgers. Subsequently, a nervous Merz met Gordon Brown on March 14 with a deal to prevent any move in G20 to blacklist his country. The deal was that Swiss banks would adopt the bank transparency rules of OECD countries. Brown claimed that it was “the beginning of the end of banking secrecy”. Yet, the US is pressing ahead with a law to punish banking secrecy.
When the crusade of the West against Swiss banks is succeeding, here Dr Manmohan Singh and his government, instead of celebrating, seem to be worried at their success. Three bits of evidence expose the Congress-led government’s not-so-well-hidden worry. First, when Germany’s finance ministry offered the LTG bank secret data to any country that needed it, the government would not ask for it despite reports that it contained some 100 Indian names. When in April last year, L K Advani wrote to Manmohan, requesting to him to ask Germany for the data, the then finance minister responded evasively. Transparency International noted India’s “stoic silence over the issue” and that it “has not approached the German government for the data’’ (Economic Times, May 25 2008]. More, the revenue secretary in Delhi has reportedly advised the Indian ambassador in Berlin not to push Germany for the details as Germany might not like it – clear proof that the government is scuttling, not getting, the details.
Second, when, in the G20 preparatory meeting at Berlin, Germany and France were threatening to blacklist Swiss and other secret tax shelters, India’s silence at Berlin was deafening.
Montek Singh Ahluwalia, the PM’s righthand who, along with Dr Rakesh Mohan, represented India at Berlin, did not utter a word in support of Germany and France. India, a principal victim of banking secrecy, should have been leading the war cry against it. But it did not even morally support those waging the war.
Third, when on Sunday last L K Advani told Manmohan Singh that India should join in the G20 effort to break banking secrecy, the PM did not respond. The spokesperson of the Congress Abhishek Singhvi responded that G20 was not the forum for that, being blissfully ignorant of the fact that it was a main agenda of G20 meet.
In fact just ahead of the meeting, Sarkozy had threatened to walk out unless the G20 decisively acted against secret banks and tax havens.
No need to strain further to understand Manmohan’s compulsions. The fear that drove the ruling family to abort the 1987 probe into Indian monies secreted abroad is still evident. But Advani’s threat to turn the recovery of Indian wealth secreted abroad an election issue has got the PM and his party off guard. The party has blundered, saying G20 is not the forum, when it is precisely that. Now the prime minister cannot remain silent. He has to do something. At least make a show of doing. But can he? QED: Dr Manmohan Singh stands between the devil and the deep sea — between his party and L K Advani.

UPA refuses to get back Indian tax money stashed abroad

Secret wealth abroad

Switzerland has been accused of giving shelter to black money
and there has been a lot of inflow of such wealth from India and other countries of the world.” This is not L K Advani, on election mode, speaking last Sunday, but the Swiss ambassador to India briefing the media in Delhi last year.
The occasion was the 60th anniversary of Indo-Swiss Friendship Treaty. Admitting that Indian black money gets hoarded in his country, he added that the new law in Switzerland would, not stop it, but control it “up to a certain limit”.
The Swiss diplomat authentically answers the first of the FAQs, that is, whether a lot of Indian money is really stashed away in Swiss banks. Swiss banks are not the only secret destination. There are 37 such shelters in the world, says US Inland Revenue. The secret owners of the secreted monies operate in secrecy — venal businessmen, corrupt politicians, public servants, drug lords, and criminal gangs like the D-company. The slush monies are the financial RDX for terror, besides weapons of mass destruction of national and global finance. That there is secret money is no more a secret. Only the amounts and persons are secret. But how much of India’s stolen wealth could be stashed in Switzerland? Specific estimates of this later. Before that, here is a sideshow, but a relevant one.
In the late 1980s, at the behest of The Indian Express, while investigating the Reliance scam, I had attempted to trail the Indian monies secreted abroad. In the course of the probe, I had contacted Fairfax, a US investigative firm, to uncover the Indian wealth stashed abroad. Impressed by their skills, I persuaded the Government of India to engage the firm for the task. Fairfax agreed to work for a slice of the black wealth uncovered by them as fee.
According to Swiss sources then, the Indian money secreted in Swiss banks was some $300 billion. That was enough to excite Fairfax to go for the kill. But, soon my efforts landed me in jail on March 13, 1987, when the CBI arrested me on charges that later turned out to be bogus, but were enough to stop the probe. The whole nation knew then that the real reason why rulers struck was their fear that the probe had targeted the Bofors payoff and secret money of the ruling family abroad. Rajiv Gandhi, who was the prime minister then, moved honest and bold civil servants like Vinod Pandey and Bhure Lal out of the probe and eventually sacked V P Singh who, as finance minister then, had authorised the efforts.
The chain of events that followed led to corruption emerging as the major issue in the 1989 polls in which Rajiv Gandhi, who had wiped out the opposition in 1984 elections, was defeated, and V P Singh became the prime minister. But there is a great lesson in these developments that often goes unnoticed. And that is, the way the bold national interest initiative to unearth the Indian black wealth abroad was aborted clearly confirmed that the ruling family was mortally afraid of any probe into secret money abroad. This fear haunts the family-led Congress party even today. That is why the 1987 episode is relevant now.
Now back to the main story.
Illicit money is the dirty outcome of modern capitalism. But, after 9/11, the US realised that not just the buccaneers in business, but Osama bin Laden could also hide his funds in secret havens and use them to bomb the world. Campaigns against dirty money as high security risk commenced with the path-breaking research done by Raymond W Baker, a Harvard MBA and a Brookings scholar. He published his research as a book Capitalism’s Achilles Heel: Dirty Money and How to Renew the Free- Market System. The book was published in 2005. This set off intense debate in the US as the exposure linked dirty business and dirty money with terror and national security.
Raymond Baker had estimated, using authentic data, tools and reasons, the dirty wealth secreted in banks at $11.5 trillion to which, he found, one more trillion was being added annually. He added that in the process the West was getting an annual bounty of $500 billion from the developing countries, India included.
Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a global watchdog headed by Baker to curtail illicit money flows, has recently brought out detailed estimates of the black wealth hoarded in secret havens from different countries. GFI research shows that during the period 2002 to 2006, annually $27.3 billion was stashed away from India, making a total of $137.5 billion for the five-year period. That is, in just five years, Indian wealth amounting to Rs 6.88 lakh crore has been smuggled out of India. This gives a clue as to how much Indian money would have slipped out of India in the last 62 years, particularly during the Nehruvian socialist regime when the income tax (97.5 per cent) and wealth tax (almost equal to the income earned on investments) together constituted double the income earned.
It is undisputed that the Nehruvian socialist model forced huge sums out of India. So the amount of Indian black wealth secreted away in the last 60 years — estimated at from $500 billion (Rs 25 lakh crore) to $1400 billion (Rs 70 lakh crore) — does not seem to be wide off the mark. Economists call it flight of capital. This is the people’s money stolen from them.
See the consequence even if part of it is brought back. A portion of it would make India free from all external debts which is now over $220 billion; India will transform into an economic superpower; some 10 or 15 Indian rupees could buy a US dollar which today 50 Indian rupees cannot; a litre of petrol on our roadside would cost Rs 15 or even less, against today’s 50 plus; the cost of imports in rupee terms would be down to a third or half; India’s entire infrastructure needs can be funded; India will become so energy efficient and costcompetitive that exporters may need no sops at all; India will lend to — not, as it does now, borrow from — the world; Indian housing can be funded at affordable cost; rural poverty can be wiped out... The list is endless. But, then, is it possible to bring back the secreted monies? What are the roadblocks to such efforts?
comment@gurumurthy.net
About the author:
S Gurumurthy is a well-known commentator on political and economic issues

BJP Manifesto

BJP releases election manifesto

National Identity Card for all Indians

Bid to strength party's pro-jawan image

Conversion issue raised

Uniform civil code for gender equality

'Parl nod for internat treaties to be mandatory'

Convict Sanjaay Dutt talks morality

Sanjay Dutt: Pawn-who-would-be-Queen

Cine star Sanjay Dutt, convicted in the 1993 serial bomb blasts in Mumbai and now general secretary of the Samajwadi Party, crossed the limits of normal and political decency by insinuating that Law Minister Hansraj Bharadwaj was responsible for the Supreme Court decision to deny him permission to contest the Lok Sabha elections.

So grave are the implications of his virtual challenge to the ruling dispensation and judicial independence, that Chief Justice of India, Mr. KG Balakrishnan, had to take the utterly unprecedented step of formally and personally denying the allegations.

While it is debatable if the Chief Justice of India should himself have issued the denial, the fact that the Supreme Court as an institution felt pained and compelled to do so, has taken us to a new low in public life. Possibly the Honourable Court felt that the Law Minister’s admission that he received Sanjay Dutt at his residence on 30 March after Dutt alleged that he had a ‘sting’ CD, cast a shadow over judicial probity and independence. Whichever way one looks at it – a convict on bail has thrown mud at one of the high institutions of the land, and he has dared to do so only because he is politically well-connected and well-heeled.

Bhikkuni Ma Dhammananda - Colonisation through faith

Conversion: Colonization through Faith

"Looking at the unethical conversions that Christian missionaries have been working very hard for, they can offer only material support. We should not trade material comfort with our spiritual liberation. The message is direct and strong. We will not be shaken by the unethical and evil approach, trying to look down upon Buddhist belief and practices.

Our Sri Lankan sisters told us what Christian missionaries do. They made the Buddha into a culprit by picking on the fact that he left his new born baby and responsibility to his family. Buddhists must realize that the Prince chose to leave his family only to return to deliver them spiritually. The spiritual deliverance is much more long lasting and he not only brought about spiritual freedom for himself, his family, but also humankind. The Buddha’s message was the greatest achievement of the human era.

When a Buddhist has not studied Buddhist teaching properly, how can he or she put it into practice? How can he or she defend the teaching? How can he/she differentiate the false accusation bombarded against the Buddha and his teaching through unethical conversion?

The so-called Buddhists would choose material support as offered by the missionary readily, as it is direct material gain. They do not have spiritual value which would enable them to have a happy life. It will take them a long while to realize that life with material wealth as offered by a Christian missionary can support them only temporarily. On the other hand, they are uprooted from their own culture which comes with all the social values as the foundation of the society of our forefathers.

While we are affirming that Buddhism can withstand the storm of conversion, Buddhism is definitely relevant to modern society; it is only Buddhists who can prove that such belief can become a reality in their own commitment, in their own lives.

The change must happen now. They cannot keep Buddhism alive and active for the future generation if Buddhism is not lived in this generation.

Dhammo have rakkhati, Dhamma carim
Dhamma protects one who practices dhamma

But we must also protect dhamma by making it real in our lives and not only on our lips."

My response to the article -

good analysis by author of the political proclivities of the Abrahamic religions and the purely spiritual dimension of the Eastern Dharmas. One must also add that conversions are colonialism through subtle means. The existing way of life and thought is suplanted with one that is foreign. Conversions everywhere has had a huge political and social impact on the people and land. Example is the north east of India where a war against the coutry is being fought in the name of Nagalim for Christ. Where Christians are in a majority the larger Christians nations are brought to bear pressure to effect a partition like in the case of East Timor. Conversions must be stopped and combated by all means possible. GopalKrishnaiah, you have swallowed the Christian propaganda hook, line, sinker and all. Caste system is the one thing that christists constantly beat the Hindus with. If you sincere about discussion and convincing anybody, you will also mention that each caste in India strives to maintain its caste identity irrespective of how much Christists shout from rooftops about how the "lower" castes are oppressed. the concept of hierarchy arose due to the European steeped in the eurocentric thinking, projecting his own social structure on to the Hindu way of life. I ask you to speak to a Kuruba or a Madiga and ask him if he wants to be a Brahmin, the loud and resounding answer will be a NO. Each caste/tribe is proud of its identity and beliefs. Violence that happens are due to struggles for increasingly scarce resources and the jockeying for political space by both groups. This is normal in any country including ones where there is no democracy. Hogwash is what Christists claim to be a utopian society. There are separate churches for different castes and there is no intermarriage. Now Christists are claiming reservation! Why do you need reservation when you are no the oppresssed class anymore?
	vijay
	03 Apr 2009

Clean Chit for killer of Sikhs, NSA for Varun Gandhi

Tytler gets clean chit in 1984 riots case, Sikhs protest

Reacting strongly to the CBI's clean chit, Phoolka, who has spearheaded one of the longest and most tortuous legal battles to gain justice for the victims of the 1984 riots, said the verdict was "upsetting".

"It is upsetting. Ever since the case went to the CBI, the agency has been eager to give Tytler a clean chit. We will not give up our fight yet. Money and political muscle will not last long," said Phoolka.

"It is sad to see that even before the seal of the final report was opened, Tytler knew that he had got a clean chit."

Religious conversion-‘is God’s work

A befitting rebuttal to Sister Prema, the Superior General of Missionaries of Charity

Sr Prema further explained that, ‘Every human being has the right to believe. Each person is born with dignity. Religious conversion is God’s work’. The contradictions galore within the two sentences are glaring. If every person has the right to believe then where is the need to initiate that person to something new and strange and in something in which that person is not born in? Should one god be exorcised out of the person and another god be installed to uphold the dignity with which this person was born with? This is actually what conversion is all about. Why this rupturing of the person from what he/she was .So what Sr Prema really means is that every person has a right to be converted and hence the right of the person to believe is conditioned and restricted to only believing in the god in whom Sr Prema and her whole church believes in. This is what Sr Prema articulated when she so naively asserted that every person has a right to believe and every person is born with dignity. That this god is only 2000 years old and somehow seems to be always in the company of those who invade the land of others is another dimension which needs a longer treatise.

Sr Prema has unwittingly exposed the bluff of the Congress and the UPA leaders. We are told that conversion is not taking place. Conversion takes different forms-globally, it is disguised as a military coup, violence and very often a deception of service and development is the sheen given to this violent conversion. Yes conversion is violence wrought on a person-to deprive the person of his/her dignity which according to Sr Prema every person is born with-to tear the person off his affinity, his religious heritage and made him/her an alien is a psychological bleeding to death. Christianity and conversion are two sides of the same coin. Where ever Christianity went it was bloodshed-destruction, and a hidden agenda of political power, economic aggrandizement, and pauperization of the victims. In the words of the Kenyatta (the Kenyan freedom fighter) ‘when the missionaries came they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, ‘Let us pray,’ We closed our eyes, when we opened them, they had our lands and we had the Bible’. This is true not only in Africa but all over the globe. Those countries which broke away from the stranglehold of Vatican became progressive-like Canada, Australia, England but those colonized by the catholic powers like Spain, Portugal Mexico, Argentina, Cuba, Italy are mired in military rule and church tyranny. Christianity today likes to be seen as a peace loving, compassionate religion of brotherhood. But far from it-the religion was born in blood and grew in bloodshed. Economic and political powers are its hidden agenda covered with service organizations, education institutions etc.

The bane of being Hindu

To kill a mocking bird Bane of being Hindu

The Congress is openly seeking the support of ulemas of Deoband, Jamaat-e-Islami and Maulavis of Bahralvi, Imam of Jama Masjid and Bangladeshi infiltrators on purely communal lines. But neither the Election Commission nor the media accuses it of communal politics. The media does not expose them either. In Mizoram, Nagaland and other North-eastern states, the Congress plays Christian card promising the land of the Bible, but it gets away in the name of secularism. Any number of Bishops have written to the Congress high command demanding tickets for their nominees and many of them were given ticket.

More blatant is the crass minorityism cynically being promoted by the CPI(M), Samajwadi Party, BSP and others. CPM’s closest ally in Kerala is Madani, a religious fanatic whose links with various terrorist incidents in the country is well-known. Another fanatic leader who wants to introduce shariat in the country, Kantapuram Musaliar is a bosom ally who is canvassing for the CPM. All these people are known for their communally charged vitriol.

A report from Uttar Pradesh said the Samajwadi Party and BSP together have fielded nearly fifty candidates with serious criminal record, mostly from the minority community and it is likely as many as two dozen of them would enter Lok Sabha. The Samajwadi Party which defended terrorists from Azamgarh who attacked Delhi and insulted the memory of the slain police officer MC Sharma by offering his widow a fake cheque has no qualms about its crass communal politics. All these go scot-free not only because the Constitutional authorities are biased, but also because the political milieu in the country is such that only the word “Hindu” is objectionable and communal.

Hindu children taken away from parents in New England

State faces suit over foster family placement

Imagine that the state took three children from an orthodox Jewish family and housed them with Christian foster families who brought them to church on Sundays and served them pork chops for dinner.

The state Division for Children Youth & Families has done just that, except that the three children are Hindu, according to a lawsuit their parents filed against the state earlier this month in U.S. District Court.

Hindutva movement is the product of this struggle against communalism

True colours of communalism

The true genesis of communalism lies in an obscure document called the Pirpur Report. This report was published in 1938 and lists Muslim “grievances” as under: 

• Being insulted by the singing of the idolatrous anthem Vande Mataram



• Not recognising Urdu as a national link-language



• Mahatma Gandhi’s appeals against cow slaughter

The main opposition to communalism ensued from the Hindu Mahasabha, and not the Congress Party. In several ways, the present-day Hindutva movement is the product of this struggle against communalism. The Hindu Mahasabha’s manifesto was to abolish communalism and make India a democracy without separate electorate or communal quotas. However, the Congress defended its compromise with communalism by assuming symmetry between the Muslim League and the Mahasabha. The irony can’t be harsher: While the Muslim League demanded — and got — separateness, the Hindu Mahasabha was reprimanded for fighting against this very demand for separatism. 

Organized religions are inherently POLITICAL organizations

Missionaries are Colonialists

Organized religions are inherently POLITICAL organizations. There is a fundamental difference between the financial enterprise and political machinations of an organized religion versus a mass of independent, unaffiliated believers, philosophers, and mystics who do not support any organized religion.

Christianity and Islam are known as proselytizing religions because they make an organized and systematic effort to gain converts, and they often provide services, products, or employment to attract converts. Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism show far less zeal about gaining converts, which is why you almost never hear about Jewish, Hindu, or Buddhist missionaries.

Friends of BJP - Bangalore

Secular state? Not in Christian Andhra Pradesh

YSR’s son-in-law threatens action against attackers

Please note that YSR's son in law does not hold any publicc position. So i wonder what action he is threatning to take?

He goes on to bash the Orissa and Karnataka governments for failing to protect minorities while the incident happened in AP.

Even as Kumar maintained that he is not into political Campaigning, other religious leaders present with him gave a call to Christians to vote for the Congress in the upcoming assembly and general elections this month.

A case was registered against him in Khammam district last week while Rs 10 lakh was seized from a group of pastors who organised a meeting with him in Karimnagar two days ago.

Seems like Anil Kumar is not just answering the call of the Christian Gods but also that of his political god and his father-in-law Samuel Rajashekara Reddy. EC scanner now on this incident.