I haven’t had much time to follow the Amarnath shrine trust land controversy so I quickly went to Google news to check what’s going on. The shrine trust was allocated the forest land to build the premises, and I thought the Kashmiris were against that particular point; the forest land must be protected at all costs and no religious activity should interfere with that. How secular and progressive, I thought.
I discovered they give two hoots about the destruction of their forests; they are agitated over the Indian government’s "conspiracy" to settle Hindu population in Kashmir.
Fair enough; Raj Thakare wants Maharashtra for the Marathas and the Kasmiris want their land just for the Kashmiris (even the local dog population manifests similar proclivities). But do they remember that millions of pundits who had to become refugees in their own country were Kashmiris too? Why didn’t their heart bleed when their fellow Kashmiris had to leave the valley? They are outraged at the very thought of outsider Hindus coming to the valley and settling there, but they didn’t even bat an eyelid when millions of Hindus who had been living in the valley for 100s of years had to abandon their homes and move to other parts of India; talk of blatant double standards.
And this is when the trust premises is just being built to create a resting place for the pilgrims heading to the Amarnath cave. Height of religious intolerance. Move the same people (OK, well, Muslims I mean) to some other democracy and even slightest incidents infringe upon their fundamental human rights.
The Hindu reactionary parties like the VHP, the Bajrang Dal and to an extent the BJP too are not doing what they should be doing, and as always are doing something that they should avoid. I call them reactionary parties because they only react, they never really do something good for the country. Isn’t it simply insane to burn down and destroy local properties for whatever is happening in Kashmir? If the government is giving forest lands to various trusts, irrespective of what religion the trusts represent, shouldn’t their main worry be that the forest land of the country is being destroyed? Instead of asking for the same piece of land, shouldn’t they ask for a place that does not belong to the forest? Forget about Kashmiris Muslims, aren’t they too fighting against the interests of the country?
Solution? Instead of the piece of land that belongs to the forest, the trust should be allotted another piece, of course somewhere in Kashmir, and at a place that should be convenient to the pilgrims. If the Kashmiris still protest? Well, too bad, the government will have to deal with it just like Putin deals with such problems and shows a finger if the other countries protest. And if the Hindus still protest, demanding for the same piece of the forest land? They should be treated in the same manner.
Oh! This is wishful thinking. The buggers in the government rarely do something that is good for the country as a whole; they are more worried about vote bank politics.
This is the first-page scan of our Hindi newspaper:
And this is the first page scan of our English newspaper – unless you look careful you won’t even notice the news:
India’s first Field Marshal Sam Hormusji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw, whose military victory in the 1971 Indo-Pak war led to the creation of Bangladesh, died yesterday. What caught my attention was the way both the newspapers carried the news. In the Hindi newspaper scan you’ll notice that Sehwag (he’s a cricket player) gets more exposure due to his performance against some match again Pakistan, and in The Pioneer the news is so small that it’s embarrassing. Contrary to this, Aishwarya Roy gets front-page coverage even if she sneezes.
In such details lie the values and ethics of the society, but is it really? This is how it seems media alters our perception. Both Alka and I found the way our newspapers have covered the news infuriating. There must be thousands of others feeling the same thing, but you ask the representatives of these newspapers and they will very cutely say, “Our public is more interested in Sehwag than Field Marshal Manekshaw.” I don’t think so.
Without being rude to Sehwag, does it make a difference if tomorrow Sehwag stops playing? But Manekshaw did help re-orient the boundaries of the Indian sub-continent and even the thankless Bangladeshi’s silently agree to that.
This is what this Hindu links says of Field Marshal Manekshaw:
A soldier’s General, Field Marshal Sam Hormusji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw crafted India’s greatest military victory in the 1971 Indo-Pak war that created just not history but also a new nation.
Affectionately called "Sam Bahadur", Manekshaw (94) was the architect of many a military triumph but his finest hour came when Pakistani forces were vanquished in 14 days flat. And Bangladesh was born.
Handsome, witty and sporting his trademark handlebar moustache, Manekshaw had the rare distinction of being honoured for his bravery - Military Cross - right on the battle front itself during the Second World War. He was also the first Indian officer to command the Gorkhas after India got Independence.
Manekshaw, who got a second life after the young Captain survived near fatal wounds during the Second World War in Burma, is the first of only two Indian military officers to hold the highest rank of Field Marshal of the Indian Army (The other being Field Marshal K M Cariappa).
His distinguished military career spanned four decades from the British era and through five wars, including the Second World War.
Flamboyant by nature, Manekshaw always had his way with people, including his seniors and even the country’s Head of Government.
Just before the Bangladesh operations in December 1971, the then prime minister Indira Gandhi asked Manekshaw ,who was the Army Chief then, "General are you ready" (for the war). Pat came the reply from the dapper officer, "I am always ready sweetie." Gandhi was not unpleased, nor offended.
On another occasion, Gandhi asked him whether he was planning to take over the country. Pointing to his long nose, the General replied: "I don’t use it to poke into other’s affairs."
When Gandhi asked him to go to Dhaka and accept the surrender of Pakistani forces, Manekshaw declined, magnanimously saying that honour should go to his army commander in the East (Lt Gen Jagjit Singh Aurora).
Manekshaw said he would only go if it were to accept the surrender of the entire Pakistani army.
A shrewd tactician, Manekshaw meticulously planned the Indian attack on Pakistan on both fronts — East and West. While the Indian forces captured the then East Pakistan in the eastern sector, the army made heavy inroads in the western sector going up to Lahore.
Adopting a mature war strategy, he masterminded the rout of the Pakistan Army in one of the quickest victories in the recent military history to liberate Bangladesh.
The Indian government, as is normally the norm during the various Congress governments, made a highly costly strategical blunder by sidelining him during the Indo-China war just because he didn’t wag his tail:
In 1961, his outspoken frankness got him into trouble with Defence Minister V K Krishna Menon and his protege of the time Lt Gen B M Kaul. He refused to toe Menon’s line and was sidelined.
Manekshaw was vindicated soon after when the Indian army suffered a humiliating defeat in North East Frontier Agency (NEFA), now Arunachal Pradesh, the next year, at the hands of the Chinese that led to Menon’s resignation. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru rushed Manekshaw to NEFA to command the retreating Indian forces. This had an electrifying effect on the demoralised officers.
In no time, Manekshaw convinced the troops that the Chinese soldier was not "10 feet tall". His first order of the day said, "There will be no withdrawal without written orders and these orders shall never be issued." The soldiers showed faith in their new commander and successfully checked further ingress by the Chinese.
Here’s a nice link on Manekshaw. This link contains a very beautiful line:
When I die I would rather have people say why there is no monument to me than why there is.
Arjun Singh has really gone bonkers. After the recent gaffe in which he claimed that the Congress party was freer during the days of emergency, he has been desperate to placate the miffed chairperson by claiming his loyalty in ridiculous proportions. And during the function organized to commemorate the 17th death anniversary of Rajiv Gandhi, he said:
Rajiv Gandhi itne mahan vyakti the ki unhone apni ma ke hatyaron ko bhi rashtra ki mukhya dhaara mein shamil karne ka prayas kiya (Rajiv Gandhi was such a great man that he even tried to bring the killers of his mother into the mainstream). Link.
What killers was he talking about? Because if he was talking about Beant Singh and Satwant Singh (the bodyguards who assassinated Indira Gandhi) they were both hanged for the crime a long time back, and even the other conspirators were not spared. If he is not talking about them, does he mean that the entire Sikh community was to blame, and despite that Rajiv Gandhi helped the entire "murderous" community to come into the mainstream? Were the Sikhs an insolated, marginalized community before the blessing of RG fell upon it like a bolt?
Interestingly, the views of both Rajiv Gandhi and Arjun Singh cannot be disputed and if his recent statement repulses you you run the risk if negating the dastardly pogrom the party unleashed upon the community. Of course Rajiv Gandhi was so "mahan" (great) that he thought the entire community was blamable and that’s why the Congress party organized the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in which thousands of Sikhs were massacred by the Congress-instigated goons. Of course nobody was punished for the riots and in fact the ministers who actively instigated the crowds are occupying high posts in the current cabinet as a reward for their "loyalty" to the family (it sounds like the Godfather family).
Arjun’s attitude towards the Sikh community only gets re-affirmed with this statement. When I say he has gone bonkers I don’t mean he is going mad because he is making such statements, he is going mad because he is spilling the beans, he has given us a glimpse of the evil side of the party, he is showing the true nature of the party and if he is not expelled from the party for this gaffe, he really must have some strong hold over something in the party.
It’s stupid to wonder how the PM thinks of this thing.
Technorati Tags: 84 riots, anti sikh riots
A 14-year-old girl named Arushi was murdered day-before-yesterday and yesterday’s newspapers screamed that the Nepali servant, who had been employed 8 months ago by the family (both the parents are doctors), had murdered the girl.
A team of policemen was quickly dispatched to Nepal to locate the "absconding" servant.
Then a neighbor, a formal cop, who had come to pay his condolences, spotted blood stains going to the roof, and found the partially decomposed body of the servant, murdered in the same manner as the girl.
When the news reporters asked the senior police officer present at the scene of the crime why they didn’t check the roof even when the blood stains were so apparently visible on the stairs, he very innocently replied, "The door to the roof was locked and we didn’t have the keys."
most of its members are "loyal" to the Gandhi family and not to the party, or the country. Yesterday I was watching Arjun Singh’s (he is the HRD minister in the current cabinet) statement on TV where he said that back in 1960 or something he had pledged his loyalty to Jawaharlal Nehru and his family, the scion of the current Congress party, and the illustrious architect of most the economic woes India faces today.
What’s this business of being "loyal to the family"? Does he mean even if some Nehru-Gandhi family-member turns out to be a traitor, or joins the underworld, he will remain loyal to that person? If this is the psychology of an average congressman, then we can easily deduct what sort of people rule the country and formulate policies that define our lives.
For congressmen, it seems India is still ruled by a dynasty, and not by a democracy.
Dr. Venugopal
It is heartening to see Dr. Venugopal re-instated by the Supreme Court; he shouldn’t have been removed in the first place. There is still hope for India it seems and justice does exist, even if for a selected few.
The Pioneer has published a trenchant commentary on the utter lack of conscience in Ramadoss, the union (unhealthy) health minister. Ever since he joined the office all he has done is bother people with his nonsensical egotism. You won’t find even a single constructive step he has taken in the area of health.
This affair is also a statement on our public consciousness. Such an eminent cardiologist is harassed by an imbecile politician and no large-scale protests take place. It was a lone battle for the doctor, although high-profiled attorneys like Arun Jaitley fought for him. I wonder if there was even a PIL filed again the infamous ouster. Millions of people throng at the gates of AIIMS every year for treatment, and none of them spoke up for Dr. Venugopal.
Government hospitals like AIIMS and Safdarjung, although world-class, are known for their unhygienic conditions and shabby treatment to the patients. This was the right time for the patients to show that they could put up a joint front with the doctors.
Millions face death and starvation in Mayanmar
Repressive regimes never stop their games. For a long time Alka has been urging me to read "Reading Lolita in Tehran" in which the author has written how the government men used to surround the site where a bomb had dropped, during the Iran-Iraq war so that people couldn’t help each other and consequently, develop a bonding for each other and an opposition to the ongoing war.
The military junta in Mayanmar is not allowing foreign aid workers to come and help their own people. How diabolical can a government become? During natural calamities of such humongous proportions every single hour counts. The international aid that could have reached the flooded regions is being stopped by the authorities that are supposed to help their own people. These are the times when such countries should be taken over by an international agency. Just a thought, because I know realistically this is not possible.
In my previous post I talked about the food becoming scarce and dear. The thought of food became a catalyst to another thought that has been coming to my mind for a few weeks, and that thought is, why don’t we feed those who don’t have food? This is no social work, this is nation-building.
I’ll talk from India’s point of view; we desperately need a thinking revamp when it comes to feeding ourselves and the others. Yesterday Alka and I were sitting in the balcony observing kids going to their schools, followed by mothers-teachers (in our building most of the mothers are teachers because this building was constructed by the society of teachers from a particular school). The children seemed to have no spirits. It was morning, and ideally they should have been full of vigor and enthusiasm; where was that charm of greeting a new day? We attributed this to food.
In India we stuff our bellies (those who can) but never give a second thought to the kind of food we are eating. We equate eating lots of food with nourishment. This misconception must be changed. We don’t need to eat lots of food, we need to eat good food.
The other thing is, we must routinely feed poor families that cannot afford food. As I mentioned above, this is not social work. There are lots of disparities in our country and that is why we are not progressing the way we should have. The poor family you try to feed might turn out to be a pack of assholes but that’s not the point. Feeding poor families will achieve two things that our country desperately needs:
- To a tiny extent it will bridge the gap between the haves and the havenots. It will sensitize us towards each other. There is lots of animosity: the rich dislike the poor and the poor dislike the rich and I see this everywhere. Someday this feeling is going to explode and nobody will be able to control the ensuing catastrophe. Knowing the ratio of haves and havenots you can easily make out who will suffer the most at the hands of whom. Feeding will at least initiate a contact.
- It will improve the health of people around you. With better health they will be able to work more. Take for instance your sweeper, or your maid. If you feed them, even twice a week, it will significantly improve their health and they will do their jobs better. Gradually, may be in the next 5 to 10 years, a small portion (because we cannot reach every nook and corner of the country) of the population will be healthier, happier.
From unhealthy food, and the lack of basic food, stem most of the problems India faces today. I think good food gives rise to good thoughts and good principals.
Sharing food is not as difficult as it seems. Small lifestyle changes can enable you to give food to the poor. If you eat 3 pizzas every month, eat two. If you go to a restaurant 5 times in a month, go 3 times. Don’t throw away the food after parties and marriages: let the poor have it. Be innovative and reduce your electricity bill and use that money for the extra food you need to purchase. Similarly, there are many cost-cuttings you can carry out to arrange enough money to feed a poor family.
I was going through Time’s The World’s Most Influential people of 2008 and among The Dalai Lama, Miley Cyrus, Vladimir Putin and Aung San Suu Kyi I noticed our very own Soniaji ebulliently smiling at number 16. Incidentally, Aung San Suu Kyi appears at number 37. Mercifully, The Dalai Lama appears at the first spot.
I was wondering what our own madam ji was doing in the list and what feat she has achieved but then I thought of Paris Hilton and said, "Well, why not?!" If she can become a celebrity without doing anything, why can’t Sonia Gandhi appear in the list of top hundred influential people of the world? After all she wields lots of influence among the army of sycophants she has gathered around her. By the way I don’t loath Paris Hilton so much that I’d compare her to Sonia Gandhi.
Due to work I don’t get to watch TV these days, not even news channels, but Alka was telling me that NDTV was hosting a debate on whether LK Advani has the ability to become the prime minister of the country. These "secular" (tedious sarcasm, I know) channels never hold debates on the capabilities of Sonia ji and Rahul baba and the inabilities of Man(?)mohan Singh. Even our lazy maid will do a better job than him.
More than 50% of the wheat that we consume is imported. According to the 2006-7 data the share of agriculture in our GDP is 18.5% and 52% of the country’s workforce is engaged in agriculture. So I wonder how a loan cushion of Rs. 60,000 crores, declared in yesterday’s budget for the year, is going to help the farmers in particular and the country’s agriculture in general. The problem is, most of the farming population is extremely poor and has no means to approach banks and other lending institutions. They mostly depend upon local moneylenders. So this waiver, what a business standard article terms as “the mother of all loan waivers” is only going to make the rich farmers richer. There is nothing theoretically or ideologically wrong in making the rich farmers richer but when the exchequer has to pay for them in the name of helping the poor farmers it becomes a bit of a nag.
There are estimated to be 40 million farmers in the country and with Rs. 60,000 crores every farmer should ideally get Rs. 15,000. Is it really going to help? Even a child who has no basic knowledge of economics (I’m not trying to underestimate a child’s intelligence, it is just a hypothesis) would tell you that it would have really benefited the farmers if this amount of money could be used to build better infrastructure for the farmers, to make better, environment-friendly farming technologies available, and help them pay back the loans whether they had taken them from institutions or local moneylenders. Remember that Chinese proverb that give a fish to a man and you have fed him for a day and teach him how to fish and you have fed him for life?
Instead of loan waivers the farmers need better roads, telecommunications, enough water to irrigate their fields, uninterrupted power supply, and health and education for their loved ones. A one-time waiver doesn’t really solve the problem; it just creates a psychological mirage.
Anyway, this is a political move and no party in its right mind is going to oppose it. In fact the BJP is terming this gargantuan waiver as “too little too late”.
Some people are definitely going to be happy along with the farmers. Excise duty and customs have been reduced to curb the inflation. The tax limit too has been increased; people earning Rs. 500,000 per year will be able to save Rs. 50,000 per year now and that means some extra cash to buy things and this may spur the sluggish industrial growth.
What would I do were I given Rs. 7,50,884 crores to spend on the country? There are three areas of major concern: defense, infrastructure and human resources. The expenditure on defense and defense-related R&D cannot be underestimated. With Pakistan ready to create mischief perpetually and China comes knocking at our doors at the drop of a hat; defense is something we cannot ignore. So I would spend around 20% and not 14%. You can see for yourself how serious the government is for the safety of the country that it is waiving Rs. 60,000 (around $15 billion) crores and is allocating Rs 1,05,600 ($26.4 billion) to defense.
Then I would allocate 25% to education and health. Our country needs proper education both in terms of human resources as well as infrastructure, and we need healthy people. People in India are extremely weak and that is the major reason why as the country we don’t perform the way we should. There is some problem with our dieting habits because even economically well-off people in India don’t seem fit and healthy. Elementary health services would be totally free and foods that give us nourishment would be dirt cheap.
Our current education system might be producing better scientists and computer programmers but it is definitely not producing better and healthier citizens; something drastically lacks. This allocation would include world-class facilities to both students and teachers. We need more schools and higher pays for teachers so that just like management and technology teaching too becomes a financially satisfying career. Most of the people become teachers because either they are too lazy to do anything else or they don’t get a job anywhere else. I would also like the adult population to get educated or at least literate so I would provide financial incentives to the grown-ups for joining evening classes.
What are we left with now? 55%. 30% would go into developing countrywide infrastructure. This should include roads and railways, and other structures that make life easy as well as productive. This will not only improve quality of life in general it will also provide long-term employment to millions of people. I would invest more on technologies and methodologies that don’t screw up with environment and flora and fauna. Power and electricity and telecommunications are the backbone of any growing economy so they deserve more focus and investment.
5% would go towards improving internal security and 10% would go towards improving the law and order. In my economy people won’t need loan waivers and subsidies, not even as incentives.
The remaining 10% could go towards things that got left above. Seems like a silly list. Well, I’m not an economist.
Technorati Tags: budget 2008, indian budget
Mob justice in Bihar
Watching a crowd of people practically killing a prisoner was shocking. They had smashed the guy’s face and the news channel had to blur that part of the body. Barbarindian says that the secular news channels over-hype every kind of big and small mob violence occurring in the non-Congress states and very conveniently overlook whatever happens in the Congress-ruled states. Although this is true it does not mitigate the gravity of the situation. I won’t jump to a conclusion and brand the people of a particular region barbaric and subhuman; this is all an indication of utter lawlessness in the country. Such incidents of mob justice happen because people
- don’t have faith in the law of the land
- don’t have fear of the law of the land
This is not a Bihar-specific problem; mobs are running amok all over the country. See what is happening in Maharashtra where people are being threatened by goons and the police is claiming totally contradictory facts. Even in Delhi people openly flaunt laws and then brag about their deeds to their friends and family.
Such acts also manifest a deep sense of frustration and anger against the state of affairs. Very rarely things are right for the common man. Even affording food is becoming uphill by the day. This is all due to corruption. I read in the newspaper that although India is an agriculture-based economy, most of the food we eat is being imported. Our very own production rots in the go-downs. When there is no electricity, no food, no shelter, no health, no education, no clean drinking water, no justice and opportunity, and no means to live a decent life it comes out as mad anger, bordering savagery.
Raj Thackeray
The problem of Raj Thackeray is not social it is political. As Alok mentioned in the comment section of a previous post that it is all being done to break the Shiv Sena and the greatest beneficiary of this anti-north Indian wave is going to be Sharad Pawar because his is the only party who has little stake currently. If the Shiv Sena keeps mum Raj Thackeray will become the hero of the Marathi population. If it joins cause with him it will have to antagonize the BJP because the BJP understandably has national aspirations. If the Congress supports Raj Thackeray it will help to bear the consequences all over India and if it tries to lock horns with him it antagonizes the Marathi votes. Actually it has become a political comedy (with due respect and sympathy to the people who are the targets).
Had the government been really serious about finding a solution it would have quietly dispatched this socio-political villain to some undisclosed location and would have kept him there for a few months until things had cooled down. But then who wants that?
RSS Feeds
My Social Media Links