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Posts archive for: 26 September, 2007
  • What is this Mr Karunanidhi? You oppose Rama and surrender to a new avtar of Gandi Nehru Dynasty, the base of the brahminical Imperialism in India?

    What is this Mr Karunanidhi? You oppose Rama and surrender to a new avtar of Gandi Nehru Dynasty, the base of the brahminical Imperialism in India?
    Saga of Bloody Vigilante Justice Continues
    Palash Biswas
    Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
    Email: alashbiswaskl@gmail.com">palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
    The congress went into election mode on Monday as party president Sonia Gandhi named her war team with her son and Amethi MP Rahul Gandhi positioned to play a major role.Hindu extremist groups have actively been campaigning against Christians in India for close to a decade yet there is little the Indian Government has done to check what continues to fuel the countrys worst incidents of religious persecution.Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi on Tuesday welcomed Congress president Sonia Gandhi giving higher responsibilities to youngsters. Karunanidhi boasts to represent Dramuk Culture and poses as a leader of Anti Brahminical Hegemony as he expressed well with his comments on Rama to defend Setu Samudram Project. What is this Mr Karunanidhi? You oppose rama and surrender to a new avtar of Gandi Nehru Dynasty, the base of the brahminical Imperialism in India? See the skin exposed as Arunachal Pradesh government on Tuesday denied allegations of a nexus between the ULFA and the state Congress leaders and said it was ready to face any investigation in this regard!The outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) may witness a split with internecine clashes on the upswing coupled with growing disenchantment among cadres who are either sick or dying in the jungles due to lack of medication, a top army commander Wednesday said.

    Special Economic Zones had only helped global monopolies to create their colonies in independent India, CPI leader and AITUC General Secretary Gurudas Das Gupta said today.
    Dismissing the contention of the Centre that it has done tremendous work in spreading elementary literacy in the country, the Supreme Court today held that educational development is not due to any Governmental efforts but communities' own incentives.
    Elected representatives from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes fail to speak up for the cause of their communities because their political survival depends on “upper caste” votes, said Bojja Tarakam, Dalit leader from Andhra Pradesh and President of the South India cell of the Republican Party of India.

    Five more lynched in Bihar
    Wednesday, September 26, 2007
    Patna:At least eleven people have died in Bihar as incessant rains continued to lash the state for the second day Wednesday.Meanwhile, Bihar's saga of bloody vigilante justice continues with five people being beaten to death at various places for various reasons, ranging from property disputes to petty theft.All five, including one woman, were lynched by mobs on Monday and Tuesday. The woman was killed on suspicion of practicing witchcraft. One man lost his life because he was suspected to be a thief, another over a dispute on drainage and two over property issues.

    In a savage irony, Sanichri Devi, 60, a poor woman in Kaimur district's Kotamdag Kolhuan village, was beaten to death with bamboo sticks for allegedly practicing witchcraft after a witchcraft practitioner said she was the one responsible for the ills of the village.

    "She was first humiliated and hot water poured on her body to force her to accept that she was practicing witchcraft. When she refused, she was thrashed and beaten to death by bamboo sticks," police said.

    Police have lodged a case against six villagers under the Prevention of Witchcraft Practices Act.

    In the second incident, Bikram Ram, 22, was lynched in Lohkhara village of Gopalgunj district on Monday night when he was caught after allegedly stealing something from the house of Kariman Manjhi. Police have registered a case against Manjhi.

    Parmanand Prasad, 35, was beaten to death with bamboo sticks and rods in Dumri village in Siwan district over a property dispute.

    Similar was the case of 27-year-old Lal Babu Sahni who was killed in Laxmipur village of Muzaffarpur district over a land dispute.

    A dispute over drainage claimed the life of 45-year-old Shiv Narayan Sah in Hakpara village of Saharsa district.

    Before this, several cases of lynching in the state have come to light in the last 15 days.

    The worst of these was the brutal killing of 10 men from the underprivileged Kueri community in Vaishali district on September 13. A high-level probe conducted after the incident found that the men were not thieves as suspected earlier.

    Chief Minister Nitish Kumar imposed a fine against the residents of the village where the men were lynched.

    Two suspected thieves were beaten to death by a mob in a Patna locality last week. The same week a young man in Sitamarhi was murdered by a mob on suspicion that he had stolen a statue.

    WITH THE National Scheduled Castes Commission headed by Buta Singh accusing the Mayawati government of ignoring the interest of the community, principal secretary (Law) SMA Abdi today said that fast track courts (FTCs) had been set up in 56 districts to take up cases of atrocities against Dalits.THE MAYAWATI government on Friday locked horns with the chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) Buta Singh over his allegations of rising atrocities on Dalits in the State.
    Christian Solidarity Worldwide, the organisation supporting persecuted Christians worldwide, is embarking on a two week trek to India from 13-26 October. The majority of CSW’s work in India focuses on the Dalit population (formerly known as the ‘untouchables’), the lowest level of India’s caste system. Although they make up around a third of the entire population, 70 percent of Dalits live below the poverty line. Often viewed as subhuman, they are forced into filthy, degrading jobs, have poor living conditions and are denied access to basic medical services and education. In addition, many of the Dalit women are sold into bonded prostitution. The 20 participants will spend 13 days visiting the sights of India, beginning in the Himalayan foothills and leading through the mountains, snow-capped ridges and forests, as well as a Dalit Education Centre and church. Felicity North, one of the trekkers who also works at CSW, said: “This is our first ever fundraising and awareness trek and we’re really excited about it. It has the potential to change both the lives of the participants and the Dalit people.”

    The Amethi MP walked into the AICC compound, led by his mother, through a side gate on the wall separating the 24, Akbar Road party headquarters and the 10, Janpath residence of Ms Gandhi.The central government asserted before the Supreme Court Wednesday that there cannot be any time limit on reservation. World Bank officials have refused to be held accountable for their policy and project interventions in India as highlighted by the four-day meeting of the Independent Peoples Tribunal (IPT) in the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus in New Delhi. On the other hand, Authorities in the All India Institute of Medical Services (AIIMS) have set up a high-level committee to look into the alleged charges of caste harassment raised by an assistant professor of the radiotherapy department.
    Actor Shilpa Shetty faced some unpleasant and embarrassing moments at the international airport in Mumbai early on Wednesday when an immigration official allegedly spoke rudely to her just before she was to leave for Germany for West End ...
    Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee president J. P. Agarwal on Tuesday said that Dalits had always extended unstinting support to the Congress and expressed confidence that the party would win the upcoming Delhi Assembly elections next year for the third time in a row riding on their support.Addressing a convention at Rajiv Bhavan in New delhi, Mr. Agarwal said his party had always protected the interests of the Dalits and the community in return had reposed full faith in the party for its efforts towards their growth and uplift.He said the Delhi Government had been taking new initiatives for their welfare and the efforts had helped a great deal in protecting the interests of the community.
    “The future of Dalits is safe under the dynamic leadership of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and the dreams of Father of the Nation Mahatama Gandhi and Bharat Ratna B. R. Ambedkar will be realised under her stewardship,” said Mr. Agarwal.
    Hailing the appointment of Rahul Gandhi as All-India Congress Committee general secretary, Mr. Agarwal hoped that his young and dynamic leadership would help the Congress grow. Senior party leader Yogendra Makwana exhorted the Dalits to unite under the Congress flag and fight for their own uplift and betterment of the country as a whole.

    Tamil Nadu's opposition AIADMK Wednesday filed a petition in the Madras High Court seeking to declare as unconstitutional a strike called by the ruling DMK on Oct 1 to press for the continuation of the controversial Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Rajnath Singh today demanded protection for his party workers from the Central Government for the October 1 shutdown called by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK).
    And this is equally amusing as another prominent Tamil leader sings well in Hindutva Tune!

    Accusing Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi of hurting religious sentiments by his anti-Ram remarks, AIADMK Chief Jayalalithaa today asked the Centre to dismiss the DMK government, as it was "functioning against the Indian Constitution."

    Talking to reporters here, Jayalalithaa said Karunanidhi, forgetting his constitutional responsibility, was making derogatory remarks against Ram, who was revered by crores of Hindus across the world.

    The Centre should therefore dismiss the Tamil Nadu government immediately and remove DMK ministers from the union cabinet, she demanded.
    Jayalalithaa, who led a party demonstration seeking the resignation of Karunanidhi and also the dismissal of his government, said her party was not against the implementation of the Sethusamudram project.

    However, the DMK was campaigning and making it seem as if the AIADMK was working against the project, she said.

    On the proposed Tamil Nadu bandh on October one called by the DMK and its allies to press for speedy implementation of the Sethusamudram project, Jayalalithaa described it as 'anti-people and anti-constitutional'. The party would approach the High Court against the bandh, she said.

    "No comments and the question is not necessary now," she said when asked about the 'third front'.
    Bojja Tarakam, Dalit leader from Andhra Pradesh and President of the South India cell of the Republican Party of India has said that elected representatives from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes fail to speak up for the cause of their communities because their political survival depends on ‘upper caste’ votes. He was speaking at a function organised by the Federation of SC / ST Employees Welfare Associations to mark the 75th anniversary of the Poona Pact.
    (About the Poona Pact: To draft a new Constitution involving self-rule for the native Indians, the British invited various leaders for Round Table conferences in 1930-32. Mahatma Gandhi did not attend the first Round Table conference but attended the subsequent conferences. The concept of separate electorates for the untouchables was raised by Dr B. R. Ambedkar; such a provision was already available to minorities such as Muslims, Sikhs etc, at the time. The British government agreed with Dr Ambedkar's contention. But Gandhi strongly opposed it on the grounds that the move would disintegrate Hindu society. He went on an indefinite hunger strike from September 20, 1932 while he was lodged in the Yerawada Jail in Pune, against the decision of the British Prime Minister J. Ramsay MacDonald's Communal Award to the depressed classes (untouchables) in the constitution for the governance of British India. The nation was deeply concerned about the health of the Mahatma. Dr Ambedkar came under tremendous pressure to save the life of Mahatma Gandhi and a compromise between the leaders of caste Hindus and Ambedkar was worked out on September 24, 1932; this is the Poona Pact).
    According to Tarakam, Dalit MLAs and MPs being at the mercy of upper caste Hindu votes is a sad legacy of the agreement between Gandhiji and B R Ambedkar in 1932. While I agree that most of the Dalit MLAs and MPs have become stooges of politicians, I wonder why Dalit leaders like Tarakam do not do some soul-searching. What Tarakam has said of Dalit MLAs and MPs is true of MLAs and MPs belonging to the minority communities too.
    It takes two hands to clap. It is the lure of filthy lucre that leads the Dalit MLAs / MPs astray as it does the non-Dalit MLAs / MPs. Some such Dalit MLAs / MPs manage to bag ministerial berths and the vested interests that have ‘purchased’ them project them as the leaders of the Dalit community. Which politician would like to let go of an assured vote bank, particularly when it can be bought, courtesy the ‘projected’ leaders? Thus the Dalits stagnate, barring those ‘leaders’ who have been ‘trapped’ and ‘projected’ by vested interests in the manner I have explained. I would even say that it is naďve to believe that a community will be best served only if it is led by one belonging to the community. I can cite the case of Kanshi Ram, a Brahmin, who fought relentlessly for the cause of the oppressed classes until the end. He had also antagonized his own relatives and friends in the process. Undeterred he went ahead since he had the courage of his own convictions. Brahmins these days have more faith in Mayawati’s party than in the so-called Brahminical BJP!
    Even amongst the Dalits, some have fared better than the others. If you compare the progress made by the Dalits of Kerala and Tamilnadu with the progress made by the Dalits from the rest of the country, you will definitely agree with my argument. How and why this has been possible only amongst the Dalits of Kerala and Tamilnadu? The explanation is simple: they went to the root of the problem.
    In Kerala and Tamilnadu (in that order) from the very beginning, the anti-upper caste movement was based on the deep-rooted conviction that education is the only vehicle that can ensure the success of the movement. It is this conviction that is lacking in the Dalit communities of other States of India. It is the duty of Dalit leaders like Mr Bojja Tarakam that this gap in education is bridged. It is education which ensured that Dalits like Dr Narayanan became the President of India. It is education that led many Dalits from the States of Kerala and Tamilnadu to become judges of High Courts and the Supreme Court. (It is a different matter that the media almost gave the impression that they occupied such coveted posts because of the caste factor). Eventually, this will also en-sure that those Dalits ‘projected’ as Dalit leaders by vested interests are exposed for what they are and isolated. It is high time people like Tarakam persuaded the Dalits to take this cost-effective and surefire route to prosperity.

    Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan today lamented that it was the country's ''misfortune'' that the Congress actually felt proud about its tendency to encourage dynastic politics.
    Mumbai: Six indigenously made bombs were found on Wednesday in the Andheri area of Mumbai. Currently the police are investigating the possibility of a terror attack. Fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim's brother, Iqbal Kaskar, has surrendered before a special court in Mumbai in connection with a case relating to the illegal construction of Sara-Sahara shopping malls. The Society of Friends of Sassoon Hospital (SOFOSH) and Bhartiya Samaj Seva Kendra (BSSK), the two orphanages in Pune, have come up with a novel way of maintaining records of their children by using video technology. Amid beats of drums and cymbals, chants of "Ganapati bappa mouraya", people of Maharashtra Tuesday bid adieu to Lord Ganapati - as the 10-day-long festival drew to a close.
    New delhi:President Pratibha Patil, VP Mohd Hamid Ansari, LS Speaker Somnath Chatterjee and a host of other leaders greeted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who turned 75 on Wednesday.The CBI arrested on Tuesday former Uttar Pradesh (UP) chief secretary Akhand Pratap Singh for misusing his office. “He was nabbed while trying to flee a farmhouse in south Delhi,” an officer of the agency said.

    Agartala:Tension was mounting over construction of a shopping mall in north Tripura as some local people accused the Tripura Government of occupying a Wakf land near a mosque bordering Assam.
    Thiruvananthapuram : The Kerala Government today decided to lodge a strong protest with the Centre regarding the criteria for identifying Below Poverty Line (BPL) families. Kerala Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan today said a Security Commission will be formed for modernisation of the police force in the state.

    Doctor critical six days after rape, none arrested
    Wednesday, September 26, 2007

    New Delhi: The condition of the woman doctor who was raped and left seriously injured at the Employees' State Insurance Scheme (ESIS) hospital in west Delhi six days ago, remains critical. However, the police are yet to make any arrests for the crime.The 24-year-old victim, who has been admitted to the privately-run Balaji Healthcare Hospital in Pashchim Vihar area, is said to be unfit to make a statement to the police.

    "We are waiting for her official statement. Doctors at the Balaji Hospital have declared her unfit to give a statement as she continues to be in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU)," said a police official investigating the case.

    "We have no other option but to wait till her statement is recorded. We have identified a suspect, a hospital employee, and will make the arrest soon," the official told IANS, adding that they were also waiting for the forensic reports.

    The resident doctor was found lying unconscious and injured in her hostel room at the hospital on September 21 when her sister went to check on her. The doctor earlier neither responded to her sister's telephone calls nor turned up at their home.

    Authorities of the state-run ESIS hospital told the police that the woman doctor, a general physician of their hospital, hailing from Punjab, was found unconscious and brutally injured in her hostel room. She was admitted to the emergency ward of the same hospital.

    The police said a special team has been formed to probe the case.

    Punjab is known as California of India. The food grains are not only sufficient for its use but are also exported to the other states. The back bone of the agriculture of the State is agriculture labour. Local dalit’s(untouchables) , most backward castes, oppressed Muslims, converted Christians and migrant labourers are generally work as farm labourers. As a tradition almost all landowners keeps bonded labourers. The petty cash advances are made at the time of first employment later on due to heavy rate of interest, fines and false accounts they burdened by heavy debts. Women bonded labourers in Punjab works without any wages. The bonded labourers are on call and beck. They do not get any rests, even during their sickness they are to work. It is estimated that there are 500,000 bonded labourers in the state in agriculture sector only. Though the Parliament of India has passed a law to eradicate this evil practice known as ‘The Bonded labour System (Abolition) Act1976 but in the last 31years it has not been of much use to provide relief to the victims of serfdom.

    Dalit Dasta virodhi Andolan started a foot march from 14th August to 6th December2007 with the fowling objects
    (1) to aware the bonded labourers, bonded keepers and the State machinery.
    (2) To stop the caste based discriminations.
    (3) To raise voice against the non implementation of land reforms.
    (4) To protect the livelihood of agricultural workers by reducing mechanization in farm sector and ensure Minimum Wages.
    (for details see attachment)
    Dalit Dasta Virodhi Andolan informed the State and district authorities well in advance about the foot march, The march remained peaceful up till last. On the other hand the land lords turned violent, the came out heavily with lethal weapons to stop the march. The landlords made announcements from the Sikh shrines(gurudawara) to oppose the demands of lowers caste. Though the majority of lower caste agrarians in the march were also belonged to Sikh religion. On 9th September 2007 the march was stopped by the Police of Lehra in District Sangrur and all the marchers were taken in to custody under 188I.P.C and 107/151Cr.P.C. Law broke out heavily on the peaceful marchers instead of upper caste unlawful landlord. The marchers are released on bail on 20-9-2007. In the meanwhile the march was restarted from district Mansa with the assurance of District administration, but the upper caste landlords assembled in a Gurudawara of village Kahangarh and started pelting stones and attack was made with bamboo sticks resulting the marchers injured. Seventeen of the marcher were able to get admission in Civil and many of them flee away as the administration was openly favouring the upper caste landlords.

    In Punjab the low caste landless labourers have lost the fundamental rights granted by the Constitution of India and the United Nation’s Human Rights Declarations. The poor lower caste are under the repression of Landlords and State to continue their lives as slave like conditions, to accept caste discriminations as their fate. Due to failure to control the violent mob and arresting the peaceful marchers on false and flimsy charges we have lost our freedom of expression and freedom of movement. We appeal the human rights defenders support us and protect our human rights.For details please see media highlights on this issue in attachments. Please write to The Prime Minister of India and Chief Minister of Punjab on the following addresses.
    LONDON (Reuters) - Farmers are gearing up for legal action against the government to recover losses incurred during the current outbreak of foot and mouth disease, the National Farmers Union said on Wednesday.
    "When I hear stories of milk having to be poured away, calves assembled for export having to be slaughtered and high quality breeding pigs unable to be shipped, I am not just dismayed, I am furious," said NFU president Peter Kendall.
    An investigation into the outbreak highlighted biosecurity breaches at a government-funded laboratory. The first case, declared on August 3, was traced back to the Pirbright research centre in Surrey.
    Britain imposed livestock movement restrictions in a bid to control the spread of the disease. Some of those controls were lifted on Tuesday. The European Union has also banned all British exports of fresh meat, live animals and milk products.
    So far cases of foot and mouth have been confirmed at seven farms, all within a few miles of the initial outbreak.
    "I am relieved the government has eased movement restrictions this week, but the fact remains that they would not have been needed in the first place if the proper biosecurity and containment measures had been in place at Pirbright," Kendall said in a statement.
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    source: http://www.mukto- mona.com/ human_rights/ Alpin_cartoon. htm

    caste discrimination incidents occured in the Farwestern region of nepal
    Submission of memorandum to different ministires and parliament head on the caste discrimination incidents occured in the Farwestern region
    Report by
    Suman Poudel
    Dalit NGO Federation has seriously drawn attention on the two incidents of caste discrimination in which two ladies in different districts of Far-western regional namely Baitadi and Doti are severely beaten by local non datis.
    In the incident of Baitadi that occurred on 27 Bhadra 2064, the 18 years old Dalit girl named Manisha Nepali was severely beaten while she was bathing in the public tap by local non dalits. The reason was only that she belonged to Dalit. Surprisingly, it has come in the national daily news papers that there was direct involvement of Parliament member of Nepali Congress (Democratic) Mr. Narendra Bam in this incident. It is also mentioned that this incident was happened under his leadership. However, it is yet to be proved. The fact ... More click here
    Regards

    DalitMediaHome
    www.DalitOnlineNews .tk (Online Dalit News Collection)
    www.dalitmediahome. com (in Nepali language)
    dalitblog@gmail. com
    More info call +977-9841687136
    NATIONAL CAMPAIGN ON DALIT HUMAN RIGHTS is an Advocacy Platform committed for Dalit Human Rights at the Grass root, National and International levels. Dalits In News aims at sensitizing Civil societies, HR Mechanisms and providing updates of HR violations on Dalits for their Intervention.
    NATIONAL CAMPAIGN ON DALIT HUMAN RIGHTS
    NCDHR
    Dalits In News
    September 25, 2007
    Youths clash in police station- The Times Of India
    http://timesofindia .indiatimes. com/Chandigarh/ Youths_clash_ in_police_ station/articles how/2399959. cms
    'Dalit MLAs, MPs stooges of politicians' - Hindu.com http://www.hindu. com/2007/ 09/25/stories/ 2007092555190500 .htm
    'Pune pact should be re-examined' - Hindu.com http://www.hindu. com/2007/ 09/25/stories/ 2007092561650800 .htm
    The Times Of India
    Youths clash in police station
    http://timesofindia .indiatimes. com/Chandigarh/ Youths_clash_ in_police_ station/articles how/2399959. cms
    25 Sep 2007, 0224 hrs IST ,TNN
    JALANDHAR: With clashes, that shook Haryana's Gohana district after Dalit youth Rakesh was allegedly killed by Jat youth after being acquitted in the murder of a Jat youth, still fresh in mind, 12 persons were booked on Sunday for attempt to murder after a violent clash between the two communities in Punjab's Jamsher village. Five were reportedly injured, including four from the Jat community.
    According to the police, Sukha of Jamsher village and Deepa of Bhode Sarpai village were at logger heads and following a dispute, they were called to Jamsher police chowki for a compromise, where they again had an altercation.
    "When Dalit sarpanch Bujha Ram's driver was driving back the Dalit community to the village to avoid further tension, the other group attacked the vehicle near the police post gate and they clashed within chowki premises," said a police official.
    The youths reportedly attacked each other with swords and other sharp-edged weapons. Chowki in-charge Om Parkash was transferred for failing to control the situation.
    Hindu.com
    'Dalit MLAs, MPs stooges of politicians'

    http://www.hindu. com/2007/ 09/25/stories/ 2007092555190500 .htm
    Special Correspondent
    'Those amenable to 'upper caste' interests
    have been given tickets'
    'Budget allocation to SC/STs is regularly diverted'
    Bangalore: Elected representatives from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes fail to speak up for the cause of their communities because their political survival depends on "upper caste" votes, said Bojja Tarakam, Dalit leader from Andhra Pradesh and President of the South India cell of the Republican Party of India.
    Speaking at a function organised by the Federation of SC/STs Employees Welfare Associations to mark the 75th anniversary of the Poona Pact, he said MLAs and MPs being "at the mercy of upper caste Hindu" votes was the sad legacy of the agreement between Gandhiji and B.R. Ambedkar in 1932. Ambedkar had demanded separate electorates for Dalits, a demand rejected by Gandhiji. Ambedkar, he added, was "forced" to sign it because Gandhiji had threatened a fast unto death if a separate electorate was given to Dalits, arguing that the depressed classes were not a minority, but part of the larger Hindu fold.
    Though there are reserved constituencies for SCs and STs, only those "amenable" to "upper caste" interests have historically been given tickets by all political parties since the first election, argued Mr. Tarakam. This was the reason why MLAs and MPs had never spoken up for the rights of Dalits even when people of their communities were massacred, as in Karamchedu in Andhra Pradesh and Kambalapalli in Karnataka, he added.
    Elected representatives do not speak up even though money allotted for SCs and STs is regularly siphoned off, pointed out Mr. Tarakam. Though 15 per cent of budget allocation is reserved for SCs under Special Component Plan and six per cent for STs under Tribal Sub-Plan since 1975, the money is always diverted.
    MLAs and MPs from reserved constituencies were reduced to being "stooges of political parties" as a result of the electoral equation drawn up by the Poona Pact, said Mr. Tarakam.
    Hindu.com
    'Pune pact should be re-examined'

    http://www.hindu. com/2007/ 09/25/stories/ 2007092561650800 .htm
    HYDERABAD: A majority of leaders from various political parties on Monday felt that the Pune pact between B.R. Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi in 1932 on providing political reservations for Dalits should be re-examined.
    The leaders were participating in a round table conference to discuss the topic of '75-years of Pune pact - Experiences and Lessons' organised by the Centre for Dalit Studies at Madina Educational Centre, Nampally, on Monday.
    Drawing parallels with current times and the opposition of Mahatma Gandhi towards reservation for Dalits during the signing of the Pune pact, Dalit intellectual U. Rajasekhar observed that opposition to the Pune pact by Mahatma Gandhi and other Hindu leaders still troubles the present-day Dalit leaders.
    "I feel because of this, the Dalit leaders of today are unable to perform to their potential," he said.
    Associate Professor of Osmania University, G. Krishna Reddy, felt that apart from voting rights, the general public should also be given an opportunity to elect the person who belongs to their own community.
    State BJP President Bandaru Dattatreya, TDP leader T. Devender Goud, CPI (M) State Secretary B.V. Raghavulu, CPI general secretary K. Narayana, BSP leader Vidyasagar Reddy, Congress leader P. Venkat Rao and others were present at the round table conference.
    ARUN KHOTE
    Secretary- Media
    National Campaign On Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR)
    8/1, 2nd Floor, South Patel Nagar,
    New Delhi-110008
    Ph: 011- 25842249 /25842250
    0- 9350183802
    email: arun@ncdhr.org
    arun.khote@gmail. com
    ncdhr@vsnl.net
    Website: www.ncdhr.org
    Christian Jehad of Congress aganist Ram
    Sonia Gandhi in joyous mood to know the attack on Ram by DMK. In happy
    mood she has telephonic talked to Baallu," "We will not be cowed down
    by threats and continue to work for the people." Atonce there after
    press release of DMK says, "Everybody should fight untidily against
    communal forces," who is more communal in India than Sonia, her Congress and
    her ally DMK Left? Can still media say that Sonia is innocent?
    Is still doubt about the main conspirator behind the Ramdrohi
    Affidavit? Target Soni Sonia instead of pawn DMK:
    http://www.newsanalysisindia.com/sep_07.htm

    Britons came India to celebrate 1857 as a victory of British rule
    Who encourage Britons to celebrate British victory of 1857 in the land
    of independent Bharat? My dear friends this is the gift of Italian born
    leaders. Italian origin and born with Italian citizenship are not one
    and two only. There are many including Quattrocchi. Are we not slave to
    accept these types of gifts? I am happy to see the protest of thsee
    invaders, which is done by Muslims and Hindus unitedly. Can this move not
    be larger in the present atomospehere to follow 1857 first freedom
    fight?
    News of today: BJP- Muslim clerics hum the same tune on Britons' entry
    to Lucknow:
    http://www.newstrackindia.com/newsdetails/978

    Why should Congress not see beyond Gandhi dynasty
    Kamal & Roti are the 1857 symbols. Now gandhigiri is videshi roti &
    rose of Nehru Jacket. Sawarkar's IITian kin is spending life on road.
    Mughal begum, Lives in penury in a slum. Complete discussion in my article
    titled '1857 First War of Indian Independence Vs Gandhigiri' at:
    http://www.newsanalysisindia.com/114012007.htm
    Why videshi roti to import poisonous wheat?
    Who import of videshi bahus?
    http://www.newsanalysisindia.com/112092007.htm
    Is newly appointed general secretary of Congress still not with
    Italisan citizenship?
    http://www.newsanalysisindia.com/121122006.htm

    Britons attacked in

  • Biggest Anti-Junta Protests in 20 Years as Sensex stock index bursts through the 17,000 mark

    Biggest Anti-Junta Protests in 20 Years as Sensex stock index bursts through the 17,000 mark
    India today said it was not aimed at "provoking anybody"
    Palash Biswas
    Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
    Email: alashbiswaskl@gmail.com">palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
    The Bhartiya Janata Party lauded Irfan and Yusuf Pathan's mother, Shamim Bano, for taking on Pakistani captain Shoaib Malik. Malik, in a statement after returning to Pakistan following the loss to India in the final of the Twenty20 World Cup, ...
    India has expressed concern at the situation in Myanmar as reports from the military-run nation said at least three monks had been killed in a crackdown on protesters.Energy-hungry India and China, besides other Asian countries, have been jockeying for a share of Myanmar's vast energy resources -- weakening US and European economic sanctions. India has been slow to break its silence over street protests across Burma this month even though it has strong geographical, political and strategic links with its eastern neighbour.But Delhi's unease over the protests was clearly illustrated when Petroleum Minister Murli Deora left for the troubled south-east Asian country at the weekend. Before leaving, he ran into a protest by Burmese pro-democracy activists in Delhi. India's reticence over developments in Burma dates back as least as far as 1988, when the military brutally crushed student protests. Myanmar was named the world's most corrupt nation, along with Somalia, by a watchdog group on Wednesday - ratcheting up the pressure on the Southeast Asian country's military regime as it faces the biggest anti-government protests in ...
    A gathering of international scientists in India is highlighting the new capabilities of Asian nations to reach outer space. As Anjana Pasricha reports, more than 2,000 aerospace experts are debating the future direction of space exploration.By Anjana Pasricha reports for Voice of America from New Delhi.Scientists from 45 countries are meeting in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad - 50 years after the former Soviet Union launched the first man-made satellite, and ushered in the space age.

    In the following years, the United States and the Soviet Union were the primary space-faring nations. They were eventually followed by Japan and the European Union.

    But the week-long conference underlines that much has changed since the Soviet's Sputnik satellite launch. India and China now have big space programs and are the emerging players in the space industry.

    B.N. Suresh, head of India's Vikram Sarabhai Space Center, says India is using the conference to showcase its capabilities in producing and launching satellites.

    "India has already established in the space arena, and we are now considered one of the six big space powers," Suresh said. "Particularly this year we have done very well, number of spacecraft we have launched, then we had one commercial launch…. I am sure this would go well with the world space community."

    "The government of India is concerned at, and is closely monitoring, the situation in Myanmar," said a statement from India's Ministry of External Affairs.
    "It is our hope that all sides will resolve their issues peacefully through dialogue. India has always believed that Myanmar's process of political reform and national reconciliation should be more inclusive and broad-based." The statement came as officials in Myanmar told Agence France-Presse that three monks protesting against the military government had died in clashes with security forces, including two who were beaten to death.
    Political watchdog International Crisis Group yesterday urged UN chief Ban Ki-moon to push Myanmar allies China and India into talks with the junta amid mounting anti-government protests.
    Pl See:
    Bush, at U.N., Announces Stricter Burmese Sanctions at The New York Times (reg. req'd) - Wed, Sep 26, 2007
    Myanmar crackdown: 'Monks killed' at CNN.com - Wed, Sep 26, 2007
    Burmese riot police attack monks at BBC - Wed, Sep 26, 2007
    Burma is world's most corrupt country, says report at The Guardian (UK). - Wed, Sep 26, 2007
    Bush Asks UN to Help End Myanmar's `Reign of Fear' Bloomberg via Yahoo! News - Wed, Sep 26, 2007
    From Their Nation-Turned-Bunker, Burmese Generals Peer Out, and In at The New York Times (reg. req'd) - Wed, Sep 26, 2007
    Burma's saffron army at BBC - Wed, Sep 26, 2007
    West 'complicit' in Third World corruption at Financial Times - Wed, Sep 26, 2007
    Accounts from inside Burma at BBC - Wed, Sep 26, 2007
    Buddha vs the barrel of a gun at Asia Times Online - Wed, Sep 26, 2007
    UK-based exiles seek Burma change at BBC - Wed, Sep 26, 2007
    Burma's 'Saffron Revolution' USATODAY.com via Yahoo! News - Wed, Sep 26, 2007
    Monks vs military at Hindustan Times - Wed, Sep 26, 2007
    Demands for democracy in Burma at San Francisco Chronicle - Wed, Sep 26, 2007
    Monk Power at Monsoon Blogging - Tue, Sep 25, 2007
    is the Myanmar Bloodshed inevitable? at Simple is the Reason of My Heart - Tue, Sep 25, 2007
    The Buddhism bomb at The Los Angeles Times (reg. req'd) - Tue, Sep 25, 2007
    » More Opinion & Editorials
    Myanmar Ministry of Foreign Affairs - site includes a profile of the country.
    Myanmar Information Committee - government site that includes annual 'information sheets' with updates on the political situation in the country.
    Daw Aung San Suu Kyi - site created to honor the Burmese resistance leader and Nobel laureate. Includes speeches and interviews, a biography, and more.
    Aung San Suu Kyi - profile of the Burmese opposition leader and 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, from the BBC.
    Nobel Peace Prize: Aung San Suu Kyi - features her profile and the 1991 acceptance speech in her honor.
    Permanent Mission of the Union of Myanmar to the United Nations -
    Rupee opened at 39.70/72 per US Dollar as compared to the previous close of 39.7350/7450 per Dollar on good inflows in an active trade in Inter-Bank Foreign Exchange (Forex) market today. India's Sensex stock index bursts through the 17,000 mark to a new record after huge foreign fund inflows. Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani has overtaken NRI steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal to become the richest Indian in the world, thanks to the unprecedented boom in the domestic stock market. Ambani's net worth has soared past 50 billion dollars, making him the first Indian and only the fourth person in the world to have a wealth higher than this amount.The RIL chief is now believed to be next only to software czar Bill Gates of the US, Mexican business baron Carlos Slim Helu and Warren Buffett, regarded as the world's greatest investor. Based on the closing share prices of various group companies such as RIL, Reliance Petroleum, IPCL and Reliance Industrial Infrastructure, Mukesh Ambani is estimated to hold shares worth 50.1 billion dollars (about Rs 2,00,000 crore) through promoter holdings in these companies.
    US Defense Secretary Robert Gates will ask Congress Wednesday to approve nearly $190 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2008, increasing initial projections by more than a third. In remarks prepared for a Senate hearing, Gates says the extra money is necessary to buy vehicles that can protect troops against roadside bombs, refurbish equipment worn down by combat and consolidate U.S. bases in Iraq. A copy of the remarks was obtained by The Associated Press.In that prepared testimony, Gates said, "I know that Iraq and other difficult choices America faces in the war on terror will continue to be a source of friction within the Congress, between the Congress and the president and in the wider public debate."
    "Considering this, I would like to close with a word about something I know we can all agree on — the honor, courage and great sense of duty we have witnessed in our troops since September 11th," his testimony said.
    Truckloads of troops and riot police arrived outside six big Yangon monasteries in an apparent attempt to stop monks leading new protest marches against Myanmar's junta.The government of Myanmar began a violent crackdown Wednesday after tolerating more than a month of ever-larger protests in cities around the country, clubbing and tear-gassing protesters, firing shots into the air and arresting hundreds of the monks who are at the heart of the demonstrations.Despite threats and warnings and despite the beginnings of a violent response, witnesses reported tens of thousands of chanting, cheering protesters flooding the streets. Monks were in the lead, "like religious storm troopers," as one foreign observer put it.
    The Reuters news agency quoted a hospital source as saying two people were killed and five wounded in the shootings.Though the crowds were large and energetic, they were smaller than on previous days, apparently in part because of the deployment of armed soldiers to prevent monks from leaving some of the main temples.It appeared that an attempt by the military to halt the protests through warnings, troop deployments and initial bursts of violence had not succeeded. Analysts said that the next steps in the crackdown might be more aggressive and widespread.
    More precisely, globalization - or the integration of two billion more people into the world economy since the early 1990s - is clawing back some of the benefits it gave Europe and the United States over the past decade, and higher prices are an increasingly likely result.That development, in turn, is sowing the seeds for sharper conflicts between politicians and the central banks charged with keeping prices stable.China's emergence in the early 1990s as the low-cost workshop of the world furnished global markets with an endless supply of cheap goods, creating stiff competition that kept down prices everywhere. For a time, that effect more than offset costs for raw materials, notably oil, which also began to rise as China, India and other emerging economies began to develop.Now, however, these populations can increasingly afford to live a little better, driving a new spiral of demand for building materials to accommodate expanding infrastructure; foodstuffs to feed cattle as more meat is put on the table; and oil to fuel new cars and more manufacturing.Over the past five years alone, oil prices have risen 158 percent, to around $80, while the price of wheat has soared 126 percent. Costs for nickel, used to build Alno's sinks, have shot up 415 percent.
    In February, President Bush requested $141.7 billion for the wars; officials said at the time the figure was only a rough estimate and could climb. In July, the Defense Department asked Congress for another $5.3 billion to buy 1,500 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles.
    Gates says another $42 billion is needed to cover additional requirements. The extra money includes:
    • $11 billion to field another 7,000 MRAP vehicles in addition to the 8,000 already planned;
    • $9 billion to reconstitute equipment and technology;
    • $6 billion for training and equipment of troops;
    • $1 billion to improve U.S. facilities in the region and consolidate bases in Iraq; and
    • $1 billion to train and equip Iraqi security forces.
    The $190 billion total would cover war costs for the 2008 budget year, which begins Monday. Congress was on track this week to pass a stopgap spending bill that would keep the war afloat for several more weeks, giving Democrats time to figure out their next step on the war.

    Reliance Fresh set to shut in UP, faces trouble in Orissa
    Rohini Singh / CNN-IBN

    Reliance Fresh is downing shutters in Uttar Pradesh all together. With the state government backing the closure of Reliance Fresh stores in Varanasi and Lucknow, sources say it has decided to pull the plug on its proposed Rs 9000 crore investment plan for Uttar Pradesh. As the first step, it has handed out termination letters to 850 employees in the state. The company has also shut its 20 outlets in Ghaziabad and Noida. [2016 hrs IST]

    Another defence scam waiting to explode
    The MoD's decision to source 80 per cent of electronic fuses for artillery guns from a Hyderabad-based PSU, ECIL, which reportedly uses SA technology, is being criticised as being “dubious”
    http://content.msn.co.in/News/National/Default
    How to Spot a Corrupt Nation
    New York Times
    By Mike Nizza Love the smell of corruption in the morning? Well, the news gods are smiling on you today. A global ranking on the subject was released today, just in time to catch news currents that are unusually chock full of the stuff.
    Mumbai: Mutual funds can now invest in foreign securities within an overall limit of $5 billion, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) said on Wednesday. State-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp on Wednesday became the third company to join the elite club of companies with a market capitalisation of over Rs 2,00000 crore on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
    Kolkata:Going bullish with its industrialisation drive, the West Bengal Government today cleared investment proposals worth about Rs 18,000 crore requiring around 6,000 acres of land.
    The government came a step closer to abolishing the monarchy that has ruled this Himalayan nation for centuries on Wednesday when the leading party announced its support for declaring Nepal a republic, officials said.President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may have faced ridicule in the United States by suggesting there were no homosexuals in Iran, but he won praise at home on Wednesday for taking his country's case to "the Lion's Den".Ahmedinejad wraps up his third visit to the United States Wednesday after using his platform at the United Nations to downplay Tehran's nuclear ambitions and attack Washington.
    Terming the ongoing Indo-British army exercises in Ladakh as a "legitmate military activity", India today said it was not aimed at "provoking anybody". Meanwhile,President of Nepali Congress (NC) Girija Prasad Koirala and president of Nepali Congress (Democratic) Sher Bahadur Deuba signed an accord for the party unification in Nepali capital Kathmandu Tuesday. Meanwhile,Special representatives of China and India held their 11th meeting on border issue in Beijing, according to the Chinese foreign ministry. Expressing concern over the rising value of the Indian rupee, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said this had posed a major challenge to the country's exports and tax revenue and hoped the central bank would intervene if the movement gets disorderly. A four-member European Union delegation, led by Portuguese Ambassador Louis Filipe Castro Mendes , called on Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad here last evening and discussed the prevailing scenario, both political and developmental, in the state, official sources today said.
    "Such military interaction has been going on for a number of years and even in Ladakh, we have held joint exercises with other nations," Defence Minister A K Antony said on the sidelines of an army function here.

    "None of our moves or actions is to provoke anybody," he said asserting that quite to the contrary, India was making attempts to further improve relations with Pakistan.

    Pakistan had protested the joint Indo-British exercises in Ladakh, describing them as "illegitimate activity" in a "disputed" area.

    Antony said the current military exercises with British forces being held just 100 kms northwest of Leh were part of efforts to build understanding with forces from other countries and had been planned a long time before.

    "We are exercising with forces of a country, which is friendly to Pakistan," the Defence Minister said when asked about objections raised by Islamabad to the war games.

    Special forces from India and UK would undertake 25 days of joint exercises in the Ladakh Himalayas from tomorrow aimed at fine tuning tactics on commando style hit-and-run raids against terrorist mountain hideouts.

    Corporates from India are ready to take the agenda of inclusive growth. During the press conference held by the Conference of Indian Industry (CII), Sunil Bharti Mittal, CII President and Chairman of Bharti Enterprises, asks for skill development of socially disadvantaged classes.India’s Reliance Retail has put in place plans to lay off 1,000 workers in the state of Uttar Pradesh after protests from small shopkeepers forced the closure of ten stores. Reliance, which plans to spend US$6bn on expansion over the next four years, has seen its ambitions take a hit from opposition from local traders wary of competition in India’s fast-growing retail sector. India's Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) said it has won a turnkey order worth 7.65 bln rupees from Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) to set up a captive power plant at the company's IISCO steel plant at Burnpur in the eastern state of West Bengal.Work at an upcoming small car plant at Singur in West Bengal has been badly hit following water logging due to incessant rains. The toll in the heavy rains that lashed south Bengal for the past three days shot up to 22 today with vast areas of Kolkata and the adjoining places still remaining under water.

    Iran has the right to proceed with peaceful nuclear research and should not be punished just because of Western suspicions it wants to make an atomic bomb, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Tuesday.
    "So far, Iran has committed no crime regarding the U.N. guidelines on nuclear weapons," Lula told reporters as he prepared to return to Brazil after delivering a speech at the United Nations General Assembly.
    "Nobody should be punished in advance," said Lula, whose country started enriching uranium for its nuclear power plants last year, causing only limited international attention.
    Meanwhile, concerns about Iran's nuclear ambitions are among the hottest topics on the agenda of the U.N. assembly. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said failure to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons could destabilize the world.
    Tehran insists it seeks to master technology to generate atomic power although Western nations believe it is running a covert bomb program.
    The United Nations has demanded Iran halt its nuclear enrichment program, and has slapped two rounds of sanctions on Tehran for refusing. The United States is pressing for a third round of sanctions.

    China's giant Three Gorges Dam project could lead to an ecological "catastrophe", Chinese experts warned in comments published Wednesday.Environmental problems triggered by the dam began to emerge at the world's largest hydropower project after it started operations last year, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
    "If no preventive measures are taken, the project could lead to catastrophe," the report quoted experts as saying at a conference on the dam.
    The head of the office in charge of constructing the dam, Wang Xiaofeng, warned of a plethora of problems sparked by the construction of the dam, including landslides, soil erosion and water pollution.
    "We cannot relax our guard against ecological and environmental security problems brought on by the Three Gorges project," Wang was quoted as saying.
    "We absolutely cannot sacrifice our environment in exchange for temporary economic prosperity."
    The huge weight of the water behind the dam had started to erode the Yangtze's banks in many places, which, together with frequent fluctuations in water levels, had triggered a series of landslides, they said.
    Farmers set to sue over foot and mouth
    LONDON (Reuters) - Farmers are gearing up for legal action against the government to recover losses incurred during the current outbreak of foot and mouth disease, the National Farmers Union said on Wednesday.
    "When I hear stories of milk having to be poured away, calves assembled for export having to be slaughtered and high quality breeding pigs unable to be shipped, I am not just dismayed, I am furious," said NFU president Peter Kendall.An investigation into the outbreak highlighted biosecurity breaches at a government-funded laboratory. The first case, declared on August 3, was traced back to the Pirbright research centre in Surrey.Britain imposed livestock movement restrictions in a bid to control the spread of the disease. Some of those controls were lifted on Tuesday. The European Union has also banned all British exports of fresh meat, live animals and milk products.So far cases of foot and mouth have been confirmed at seven farms, all within a few miles of the initial outbreak.
    "I am relieved the government has eased movement restrictions this week, but the fact remains that they would not have been needed in the first place if the proper biosecurity and containment measures had been in place at Pirbright," Kendall said in a statement.
    Darfur peace talks face "tremendous challenge"
    KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Darfur peace talks will be a "tremendous challenge" requiring all sides to make compromises to settle the conflict in Sudan's remote west, the top U.S. diplomat in Sudan said on Wednesday.
    27 killed in spate of bombings across Iraq
    BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraq was rocked by powerful car and suicide bombings for a third straight day on Wednesday, with blasts and shootings in the north of the country killing at least 27 people and wounding dozens, officials said
    Terror: Al Qaeda's Feuds and Fears
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    By Sami Yousafzai and Ron Moreau
    Newsweek
    Oct. 1, 2007 issue - Lonely, marginalized and suddenly suspicious that he was losing his grip over the organization he helped create, Osama bin Laden finally decided that enough was enough. At least that's the explanation sources close to him are giving for why, after three long years of silence, the Qaeda leader has released one video and two audiotapes in the past month, including last week's audio message calling for a jihad against Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. According to Omar Farooqi, a Taliban liaison officer with Al Qaeda, bin Laden recently learned that a faction within his own organization had been conspiring to sideline him, insisting—unnecessarily, bin Laden now believes—that he remain secluded for security reasons. CIA officials told NEWSWEEK they could neither confirm nor reject the theory.
    Many environmentalists fear this separate U.S. “track,” which will involve China and India, may undercut the global U.N. negotiating process. But some hope it eventually helps draw those two big developing nations and others into a new, U.N ...
    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20951571/
    On top of this major defeat for the US and the degradation of the US defense capability against potential enemies in East Asia etc. is the crime of not informing the American people of these tremendous losses -- of fathers and husbands, of young labor, of our real future from this younger generation. And those not wounded are scared mentally -- and they already are bringing it back home to our crumbling sabotaged society. All I have to do is extrapolate from all the dead from little Yakima, Washington to know that these figures must be close to the actual number of combat dead.
    -- Dick Eastman
    see:
    http://www.veterans today.com/ modules.php? name=News& file=article& sid=

    As many as five people — including Buddhist monks — were shot and killed in Myanmar’s main city on Wednesday when security forces moved in to disperse the biggest anti-junta demonstrations in 20 years, a monastery official, exile media and activists said. The military government banned assemblies of more than five people and imposed curfews in Myanmar’s two largest cities on Tuesday, after thousands of Buddhist monks and sympathizers defied orders to stay out of politics and protested once again. On the other hand,Two battles killed more than 165 Taliban fighters and a U.S.-led coalition soldier in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday as President Hamid Karzai prepared to discuss the escalating violence with President Bush in New York.
    One of the clashes began Tuesday when several dozen insurgents attacked a joint coalition-Afghan patrol with machine guns, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades near the Taliban-controlled town of Musa Qala in Helmand province, with Taliban reinforcements flowing in all day, a coalition statement said.The coalition said it returned artillery fire and called in fighter aircraft, killing more than 100 of the Taliban fighters. One coalition soldier was killed and four wounded.
    On a day President Bush announced new U.S. sanctions against the junta, truckloads of soldiers converged on Yangon after the monks, cheered on by supporters, marched out for an eighth day of peaceful protest from Yangon’s soaring Shwedagon Pagoda, while some 700 others staged a similar show of defiance in the country’s second largest city of Mandalay.
    “The protest is not merely for the well being of people but also for monks struggling for democracy and for people to have an opportunity to determine their own future,” one monk told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity fearing reprisals from officials. “People do not tolerate the military government any longer.”
    PS: The government has just threatened the
    monks--here' s an Associated Press article:
    http://ap.google. com/article/ ALeqM5iy- MfhLN9Q7MwtQ1Vlr vexLjr2dA
    And we've just heard this from the international Burma
    Campaign: the military has reportedly ordered a
    battalion of soldiers to shave their heads, pose as
    monks and operate as agents provocateurs. This might
    be the first first step towards a bloody crackdown.
    See http://www.uscampai gnforburma. org/ for more
    background.
    http://www.nytimes. com/2007/ 09/21/opinion/ 21kaplan. html?ref= opinion&pagewant ed=all
    September 21, 2007
    Op-Ed Contributor
    Lost at Sea
    By ROBERT D. KAPLAN
    THE ultimate strategic effect of the Iraq war has been
    to hasten the arrival of the Asian Century.
    While the American government has been occupied in
    Mesopotamia, and our European allies continue to
    starve their defense programs, Asian militaries — in
    particular those of China, India, Japan and South
    Korea — have been quietly modernizing and in some
    cases enlarging. Asian dynamism is now military as
    well as economic.
    The military trend that is hiding in plain sight is
    the loss of the Pacific Ocean as an American lake
    after 60 years of near-total dominance. A few years
    down the road, according to the security analysts at
    the private policy group Strategic Forecasting,
    Americans will not to the same extent be the prime
    deliverers of disaster relief in a place like the
    Indonesian archipelago, as we were in 2005. Our ships
    will share the waters (and the prestige) with new “big
    decks” from Australia, Japan and South Korea.
    Then there is China, whose production and acquisition
    of submarines is now five times that of America’s.
    Many military analysts feel it is mounting a
    quantitative advantage in naval technology that could
    erode our qualitative one. Yet the Chinese have been
    buying smart rather than across the board.
    In addition to submarines, Beijing has focused on
    naval mines, ballistic missiles that can hit moving
    objects at sea, and technology that blocks G.P.S.
    satellites. The goal is “sea denial”: dissuading
    American carrier strike groups from closing in on the
    Asian mainland wherever and whenever we like. Such
    dissuasion is the subtle, high-tech end of military
    asymmetry, as opposed to the crude, low-tech end that
    we’ve seen with homemade bombs in Iraq. Whether or not
    China ever has a motive to challenge America, it will
    increasingly have the capacity to do so.
    Certainly, the billions of dollars spent on Iraq (a
    war I supported) would not have gone for the expensive
    new air, naval and space systems necessary to retain
    our relative edge against a future peer competitor
    like China. But some of it would have.
    China’s military expansion, with a defense budget
    growing by double digits for the 19th consecutive
    year, is part of a broader, regional trend. Russia — a
    Pacific as well as a European nation, we should
    remember — is right behind the United States and China
    as the world’s biggest military spender. Japan, with
    119 warships, including 20 diesel-electric submarines,
    boasts a naval force nearly three times larger than
    Britain’s. (It is soon to be four times larger: 13 to
    19 of Britain’s 44 remaining large ships are set to be
    mothballed by the Labor government.)
    India’s Navy could be the third-largest in the world
    in a few years as it becomes more active throughout
    the Indian Ocean, from the Mozambique Channel to the
    Strait of Malacca between Indonesia and Malaysia.
    South Korea, Singapore and Pakistan all spend higher
    percentages of their gross domestic products on
    defense than do Britain and France — which are by far
    Europe’s most serious military-minded nations.
    The twin trends of a rising Asia and a politically
    crumbling Middle East will most likely lead to a naval
    emphasis on the Indian Ocean and its surrounding seas,
    the sites of the “brown water” choke points of world
    commerce — the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf,
    the Bab el Mandeb at the mouth of the Red Sea, and
    Malacca. These narrow bodies of water will become
    increasingly susceptible to terrorism, even as they
    become more and more clogged with tankers bringing
    Middle Eastern oil to the growing middle classes of
    India and China. The surrounding seas will then become
    home territory to Indian and Chinese warships,
    protecting their own tanker routes.
    To wit, China is giving Pakistan $200 million to build
    a deep-water port at Gwadar, just 390 nautical miles
    from the Strait of Hormuz. Beijing is also trying to
    work with the military junta in Myanmar to create
    another deep-water port on the Bay of Bengal. It has
    even hinted at financing a canal across the 30-mile
    Isthmus of Kra in Thailand that would open a new
    connection between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific.
    Oddly enough, the Pacific, as an organizing principle
    in world military affairs, will also encroach upon
    Africa. It’s no secret that a major reason for the
    Pentagon’s decision to establish its new Africa
    Command is to contain and keep an eye on China’s
    growing web of development projects across the
    sub-Saharan regions.
    Still, measuring budgets, deployments, and sea and air
    “platforms” does not quite indicate just how much the
    ground is shifting beneath our feet. Military power
    rests substantially on the willingness to use it:
    perhaps less so in war than in peacetime as a means of
    leverage and coercion.
    That, in turn, requires a vigorous nationalism —
    something that is far more noticeable right now in
    Asia than in parts of an increasingly post-national
    West. As the Yale political scientist Paul Bracken
    notes in his book “Fire in the East: The Rise of Asian
    Military Power and the Second Nuclear Age,” the
    Indians, Pakistanis and Chinese have great pride in
    possessing nuclear weapons, unlike the Western powers
    that seem almost ashamed of needing them. Likewise,
    the right to produce nuclear arms is something that
    unites Iranians, regardless of their views of the
    clerical regime.
    Mending relations with Europe is only a partial answer
    to America’s problems in the Pacific and Indian
    Oceans, since Europe itself continues to turn away
    from military power. This trend was quickened by the
    Iraq war, which has helped legitimize nascent European
    pacifism. People in countries like Germany, Italy and
    Spain see their own militaries not so much as soldiers
    but as civil servants in uniform: there for soft
    peacekeeping and humanitarian missions.
    Meanwhile, Asia is marked by rivalries that encourage
    traditional arms races. Despite warming economic ties
    between Japan and China, and between Japa

  • Orphaned Indian Hockey is deprived of Chak De!

    Would Pawar Save Some Money for the Starving Indian Peasantry?
    Have Some Tears for Other Performers as Sensex Shining India is celebtrtaing Cricket Carnivals!
    Entire national Hockey Squad May Not Go on a Hunger Strike But Orphaned Indian Hockey is deprived of Chak De!
    Palash Biswas
    Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
    Email: alashbiswaskl@gmail.com">palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
    Sensex Shining India is celebtrtaing Cricket Carnivals. All tears are spent to defend the Zionist Brahminical blind Hindu Nationality. Have some tears for other performers!Chak de has become the theme song for victory but while the cricket team is basking in its glory the hockey team feels orphaned.NDTV reports.One can understand why the hockey team is so angry, in fact some of the players and staff have threatened to go on a hunger strike.While the entire squad may not go on a hunger strike, it's clear that hockey is tired of being treated as the poor cousin of cricket. Cricket has become the best expression of Brand India Nationality and it pays heavily! Apart from being ignored by the (Indian Hockey Federation) IHF, the state associations and state governments alike the hockey squad is also upset that even the sponsors have not acknowledged their achievements.Sahara who sponsors both the cricket and hockey team, were quick to hand out houses to the twenty20 team but the hockey team didn't get anything.The hockey squad says they are thrilled for the twenty20 win but they feel the time is right for all non-cricket sports to launch their protest against this step motherly treatment.India has improved its position in the comity of nations in terms of integrity as it is ranked 72 among 180 countries in the Corruption Index this year, Transparency International (TI) has said.
    Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni on Wednesday thanked the countrymen for their overwhelming support and for gathering for the felicitation ceremony for Team India at the Wankhede Stadium. Addressing the teeming thousands who had braved the rains, he said it seemed Mumbai had come to a standstill.
    Reports Zeenews.To honour the men-in-blue, who ended a 24-year wait by bringing back home the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup crown, several state governments, political parties, the central government and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) have announced incentives and monetary rewards for the Indian cricketers. Meanwhile, Civil Aviation Minister Prafful Patel has announced that the Team India would now be entitled for a free travel in the country?s flagship career Air India for five years. Six Indian cricketers, also the employees of Air India, would be promoted out-of-turn in recognition of their achievement.
    Why Hockey only? Recently Indian Footballers won the Nehru Cup! Who paid them incentives? Was there any corporate sponsership to boost Football. Waht about our atheletes? It is quite amusing that Newly appointed Congress general secretary, Rahul Gandhi, met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday.He asked the UPA government to extend its flagship programme - the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme - to the entire country.The scheme that guarantees a minimum of 100 days of employment to at least one member of every family is being implemented in 330 rural districts right now.
    But the 11-member Congress delegation, led by Rahul Gandhi, wants it extended over 600 districts as it is in the interest of the aam admi.
    Who cares for the Common masses?

    They claim so well: Hindi, Hindu Hindustan!
    Hindi Officers, diplomates and politicians may be the ingrdients of Creamy Layers. What about Hindi writers and journalists starving while the Engish writers and journalist always have the cake walk. See the discrimination in the same house publishing English as well as Hindi publications!
    Artists like Somnath Hore die unnoticed. Celebraties in Bollywood live Cat`s life hundred times.
    Eleven scientists selected for Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar award
    Eleven scientists have been selected for this year`s Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar award for their outstanding contribution to various disciplines of science.
    What do these scientists get for their lifelong research and inventions? The age of self-reliance in space programmes has gone, says former Chairman of ISRO K Kasturirangan, who suggests that countries should cooperate with each other to cut down time and developmental costs.
    You have to struggle so much to survive and avoid starvation. But in Indian Cricket, it is altogether a different story. A twenty Over match may change your destiny and you may win corores!
    Whose money is it afterall which is reserved only for the Indian Idols of the National team. While the taxpayers toil so hard to sustain livelihood. This govetrnment has no money to save the starving people!
    Sharad Pawar is BCCI chairman. At the same time he happens to be the cabinet minister in GOI, responsible for Agriculture. Pawar remains always a Nero while peasant in his homestate Maharashtra commit suicide enmasse! Has Pawar some money for the starving peasants of Maharastra? Praising the feat achieved by the skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his men, the BCCI chief Sharad Pawar had declared an award of USD 3 million for the whole team. Besides, he has also announced a whopping Rs 1 crore for the dashing left-hander Yuvraj Singh, who enthralled the spectators by smashing six consecutives sixes in an over. The ?prince of sixers? will also get an expensive Porsche 919 luxury car for becoming the first batsman to hit six sixes in the Twenty20 format of the game.

    While the BCCI and state governments and local cricket associations have been showering the twenty20 champions with cash awards, cars and 'surprise' gifts, the men's hockey team has lodged a strong protest against what they call step motherly treatment by the government and the sponsors.The Indian twenty20 squad has been awarded around Rs 80 lakh per head by the Indian cricket board for winning the world cup, and very well deserved too, but compare that to the Rs 50,000 the entire hockey squad earned for their Asia Cup win earlier this month. Chief Coach of the national hockey team Joaquim Carvalho was peeved that while title victory of his wards in the Asia Cup was ignored, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel and the state governments of Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and Karnataka announced cash awards for the cricketers for winning the Twenty20 World Cup.

    India's cricket triumph in the Twenty20 World Championship caps one of the most successful 30 days in sport for the country, coming after the Nehru Cup win in football and Asia Cup victory in hockey. 'Ranchi conquers Karachi', screams Dhoni's hometown daily.Headline writers across the country had a field day following India's five-run win over Pakistan in the final of the Twenty20 World Championships in Johannesburg. Pakistan captain Shoaib Malik on Wednesday described his team's close defeats against India as sheer bad luck and said the players were high on morale as they were not lacking in cricketing terms.The victorious Indian Twenty20 World Cup squad spent more time in traversing the 30-km distance from the airport and the Wankhede Stadium on Wednesday than in defeating arch-rivals Pakistan to clinch the inaugural chamionship in Johannesburg, DNA comments.Lending support to victorious Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, his deputy Yuvraj Singh said the Jharkhand player, who led the team to Twenty20 World Cup win, is the best possible skipper under present circumstances. Yuvraj said he was not bothered about captaincy and tried to cooperate with Dhoni during the Twenty20 tournament in South Africa.
    The rain could not dampen the spirits of thousands of fans, who waited for their heroes outside the CSI airport. Maharashtra Chief Minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh, Deputy Chief Minister, R R Patil, top brass of the Cricket Board, including president Sharad Pawar, Vice Presidents Lalit Modi and Rajeev Shukla, Secretary Niranjan Shah and chief selector Dilip Vengsarkar were present at the airport to receive the players. It was the kind of welcome the Indian team had earlier received after Kapil Dev led the country to the 1983 ODI World Cup, and prior to that in 1971 when Ajit Wadekar's team had won the Test series in the West Indies.
    DNA reports:
    A Twenty20 game lasts around three hours, including a break of 20 minutes between the innnings, but triumphant skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his team members, who were taken in a 30-km long motorcade, took an extra hour to reach the Wankhede Stadium where they were feliciated by the Cricket Board and the Maharashtra government.
    The extra long (in terms of time taken) journey for the team members, seated in an open-topped BEST bus, was because of the sea of humanity through which the vehicle had to pass right through the route from the airport in northwest Mumbai and the stadium in the southern part of the metropolis.
    It was an amazing show of glee and enthusiasm shown by the Mumbaikars in greeting the team that was given very little chance to win the crown by the same cricket fans before the tournament began on September 11.

    Dhoni made an apt comment at the felicitation function later by saying that Mumbai was a city that never stops moving but on Wednesday it had come to a standstill to welcome the team.

    The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is trying to reduce the failure rate in launch of space vehicles to less than 5% in the near future and to less than 1% in the next 10 years, its Chairman G Madhavan Nair said.
    Eklavya - The Royal Guard by Vidhu Vinod Chopra has been selected as the as India's official entry for the Oscars. With Amitabh Bachchan in the lead role as Eklavya, the multi-starrer film was released on 16th February this year.

    Besides congratulatory messages and accolades, money is raining heavy on Team India from different corners for their glorious feat at the Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa. R P Singh, one of the stars of Indian victory in Twenty20 World Cup at Johannesburg last night, will be the first recepient of coveted 'Kanshiram International Sports Award' instituted by the Uttar Pradesh government. Former India captain Kapil Dev today opined that the senior trio of Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid should support the newly-selected Team India ODI captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni in the forthcoming series against Australia.
    Jalandhar/Ernakulam (Kerala)/Vadodara /Mumbai/New Delhi: Relatives of Indian cricketers joined in nation-wide celebrations following the team's thrilling five-run win over Pakistan in the inaugural Twenty20 World Championship.
    It was a ceremony meant to facilitate Team India for winning the Twenty20 World Championship, but cricket virtually took a 'back seat' at the Wankhede Stadium here today, as no cricketer except skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni was given a seat in the front row at the dais. It will be a surprise gift for Mahendra Singh Dhoni when the victorious Indian skipper arrives home, and just what the surprise is to be the Jharkhand government isn't telling. The Wankhede Stadium was packed to the rafters as the triumphant Indian cricket team completed the ticker tape celebrating their success at the Twenty20 World Championships in South Africa.Thousands of wildly cheering fans lined the roads despite the rain and repeatedly threatened to surge over police barricades as the triumphant Indian cricket team rode in an open-top double-decker bus from Mumbai airport to Wankhede stadium Wednesday morning. Irked by the "step-motherly treatment" meted out to the Indian hockey players by the central and four state governments, the team members have decided to go on a 'hunger strike'.Chief Coach of the national team Joaquim Carvalho was peeved that while the title victory of his wards in the Asia Cup was ignored, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel and the state governments of Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and Karnataka had announced cash awards for the cricketers for winning the Twenty20 World Cup.Sahara India Pariwar, the main sponsor of the Indian Cricket Team, has announced an award of over Rs 4 crore for the players, gifting them a home each in their mega infrastructure project ' Sahara City Homes'. The Australians will be spoiling for revenge when they begin their seven-match tour in Bangalore Saturday after being knocked out of the Twenty20 World Championships by the Indians. On the other hand, Pakistan cricketers have less than a week to switch to Test mode after the just-concluded Twenty20 World Championships, with the opening game against South Africa to be played here from Oct 1.
    The triumphant Indian team that won the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup in Johannesburg last evening, will arrive in Bangalore in batches from tomorrow night, since cricket fever has gripped the city with just four days left for the first One Day International(ODI) between India and Australia at M Chinnaswamy stadium here on September 29.
    Anguish caused by burning of effigy of their son and ''so called'' cricket lovers' ire expressed following the World Cup debacle in West Indies is yet to be forgotten by India's Twenty 20 Captain Mahindra Singh Dhoni's parents.

    "Why are our hockey players are being treated like orphans and why are our politicians biased against hockey, the national game?" Carvalho asked.

    Carvalho said, "We are grateful ever to the President of India for her sending individual letters congratulating the hockey players for their Asia Cup win, without losing a match." He said a coach and four players had planned to go on a hunger strike before the Karnataka Chief Minister's house to protest the announcment of Rs five lakh cash award each for the members of the cricket team, while "treating the State hockey players like dust".

    Carvalho said: "The Karnataka CM till date has not congratulated hockey players from the state for the Asia Cup win".

    "Coach Ramesh Parameswaran, manager R K Shetty and four players namely Vikram Kanth, V R Rahunath, S V Sunil and Ignace Tirkey) are to go on a hunger strike before the Chief Minister's house," he said.
    Twenty20 Cricket World Cup hero Yuvraj Singh is the highest earner among his teammates off the field with his endorsement value shooting over Rs 1 crore each and his fellow players' value will also go up after India's historic win, advertising professionals said on Tuesday.

    Yuvraj, endorsing nine brands, including Hero Honda, Pepsi, Reebok and Donear, appears to be slightly ahead of his captain MS Dhoni, who endorses around a dozen brands such as Pepsi, Videocon, Exide and Reebok, among others, with an estimated value of Rs 1 crore per brand.

    However, the trio of Indian cricket —Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid — are still ahead of Yuvraj and Dhoni in their endorsement values.

    Industry pundits feel the T20 success has catapulted Dhoni's brand equity and already some new companies are trying to rope him in, saying he along with Yuvraj would be in maximum demand.

    Other players, who were not much popular prior to the South African outing, are also expected to rake in big bucks with the Johannesburg victory washing away the bitter memories of India's early exit from the ODI World Cup in the West Indies earlier, prompting many advertisers and corporates to change their ad campaigns and brand ambassadors.
    “There are a few companies which have contacted us and shown keen interest,” Jeet Banerjee, CEO of Gameplan Sports, which manages Dhoni's account, said. However, he said nothing changes overnight but the cricketers' endorsement value should go up if the team continues to play well.

    Similarly, Collage Sports Management Director Latika Khaneja, who manages the accounts of Virendra Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir, said, “I expect more endorsements for Sehwag, who is engaged with Adidas, if he is able to maintain his form. But it will be decided ones he gets back to ODIs.”

    Experts say India's win in the Twenty20 World Cup has boosted the brand value of cricketers, raising expectations of media planners and broadcasters that the upcoming home series against Australia will spell good business.

    Not only are the media planners bullish on the increased brand value of cricketers, including star performers Dhoni and Yuvraj, but official broadcaster for the India-Australia series Nimbus is also expecting it to be a sell-out in terms of advertisement spots.

    The seven-match series starts on September 29.

    According to some market observers, there is going to be a big change in Indian cricket in terms of brand endorsements with new and young players making their mark.

    “I think there is a new lease of life in cricket with the new generation players in the game. The Yuvraj and Dhoni of today will become Sachin and Ganguly of tomorrow, while players like RP Singh, Robin Uthappa and Dinesh Karthik will become Yuvraj and Dhoni of yesterday,” Globosport India Vice-President Anirban Das Blah said.

    Nimbus is expecting the series against Australia to be a sell-out as advertisers are showing interest in cricket again, after the early exit in the ODI World Cup in West Indies.

    “We expect the up-coming India-Australia series to be a sell-out,” Nimbus Managing Director Harish Thawani said, adding, T20 had a positive impact on cricket. Whenever India has done well, there has always been a good response to cricket both from viewers and advertisers, he said.
    India's triumph in the inaugural Twenty20 World Championships was just what the International Cricket Council (ICC) needed, coming as it did like manna for the beleaguered body, according to the Afrikaans daily Beeld.Somewhat ironically, the victory by India in an ICC tournament will give the opposition ICL an unexpected boost.After the fiasco of the World Cup in the Caribbean, with its many accompanying controversies, ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed had every reason to smile and hail the tournament a roaring success. India's triumphant Twenty20 World Cup squad arrived home on Wednesday to a massive victory parade with hundreds of thousands of joyous fans braving rain to cheer their heroes.Indian and British troops are going ahead with their high-altitude wargames in disputed Kashmir despite protests from Pakistan and separatist groups, an Indian defence official said on Wednesday. India is celebrating a surprise victory in the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup on Tuesday, six months after the team's ignominious first-round exit in the 50-over version of the tournament.
    The 'Space Shuttle' programme will be completed by September 10, 2010, National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) Associate Administrator of the Space Operation Missions Directorate William Gerstenmaier said today. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) must help bring about synergy between science and society so as to bridge the urban-rural divide, eminent scientist M.S. Swaminathan said in New Delhi Wednesday. On tyhe other hand, the devastation caused by floods in northeast and east India has left thousands of people with psychological problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder, health officials said.Millions across South Asia are struggling to rebuild their homes as receding floodwaters reveal the massive devastation caused by heavy monsoon flooding, some of the worst in years.
    While flood waters recede, many victims still live in temporary shelters with no idea of when they will return home and with little or no government help to rebuild their houses.
    A slow government response has worsened conditions for victims, health workers say, amid criticism of affected local states seen as rife with inefficiency and corruption.
    Flood victims are spending sleepless nights in dozens of temporary shelters and are refusing to go back to their villages, officials say.
    "We found a large number of victims trembling with recurrent nightmares of losing all their near ones in fresh flooding," said Rajeshwar Thakur, a senior health official, after treating dozens of victims in the eastern Indian state of Bihar.
    Floods damaged hundreds of thousands of hectares of farmland and destroyed roads and bridges across the region.
    More than 2,000 people in northeastern and eastern India as well as Bangladesh were killed by landslides, drowning, snake bites, diarrhoea and collapsed homes after swollen rivers burst their banks, inundating huge areas since July.
    At least 5,000 people had already been treated for mental illnesses in the eastern states of Bihar and West Bengal caused by prolonged misery and suffering during this year's floods.
    India's most ambitious scheme ever to lift people out of poverty has met with largely disappointing results in its first year, studies suggest. Reports BBC.The $2.2bn scheme, which was launched by the Congress-led government in 200 districts, guarantees 100 days of work a year for every rural home. It has been described as India's New Deal for the poor in a country where 70% of its people live in villages. Critics say the scheme squanders public money and builds wasteful assets. The National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme was launched in February last year to provide employment to millions of people in India's poorest villages to work on building local infrastructure like village roads, small dams, ponds and buildings.
    On the other hand,INDIAN authorities have warned Britons visiting India to pay homage to British soldiers who died in the 1857 revolt against colonial rule, to stay away from a historic site following protests. A group of British historians and retired soldiers visiting India have ditched their plans to visit a historic site in the 1857 revolt against colonial rule after protests from Indian nationalists.A small band of protesters had pelted their bus with garbage when they arrived in Lucknow in north India on Monday. The local government warned the Britons to stay inside their hotel for fear of further attacks, and posted policemen outside.Some of the group left for Kolkata on Wednesday morning. The rest plan to leave later in the day. Reuters reports. Stuck inside their hotel rooms, none of them got to see the Residency of Lucknow, the site of the Siege of Lucknow -- a key event in what is known in India as the First War of Independence and in Britain as the Sepoy Mutiny.The group, which includes descendants of the British soldiers who fought and died during the uprising by Indian soldiers, said they had planned to commemorate both the British and Indian dead in a battle which they said saw savagery on both sides.The small band of protesters -- sometimes outnumbered by the journalists and cameramen covering them -- were led by a local leader of the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, India's main opposition party.Some activists forced their way into the Residency on Tuesday and attempted to deface the graves of the British soldiers and their family members, who were among the 3,000 killed during the 1857 siege.

    visit ,
    http://agri. aidindia. org/files/ Oct2nd_final. swf
    this is for indian farmers plz spend time and see this also
    http://agri. aidindia. org/node/ 20
    with regards,
    janagiraman.

    Celebrations over India clinching the inaugural Twenty20 Cricket World Cup after defeating Pakistan at Johannesburg turned into violent communal clashes at places in Jammu and Kashmir, Assam and Uttarakhand, leaving scores of people injured on Monday night. The police in all three states had to fire in the air to disperse the mobs. For millions of fans around the world, and India in particular, cricket itself is a religion -- the Twenty20 version being the latest denomination. So when Pakistani cricket team's skipper Shoaib Malik brought a communal hue to the gentleman's game with a gratuitous thanks to Muslims all over the world, ostensibly for supporting Pakistan, the blowback on the blogosphere was swift. The first reaction came from Pakistanis themselves. "How about Hindu and Christian Pakistanis in the US, Canada, and Gulf who supported the Pakistan cricket team? Don't we count?" wrote "ChristianPak" on
    the blog Pakistaniat. com . Others thought the remark was thoughtless and gratuitous considering the Pakistan team itself has had a token representation of a couple of Hindus and a Christian in the past. It also does not sit well with Pakistan's current attempt, arguably feeble, to present a face of "enlightened moderation" prescribed by its military ruler Pervez Musharraf.
    In Sapatgram, under Bogaribari police station in western Assam's Dhubri district, more than 20 persons, including two police officers, were injured when the police opened fire to bring under control a communal clash that broke out on Monday night after India's victory.
    In Uttarakhand, celebrations over the winning of the Twenty20 World Cup led to clashes between two communities in Udham Singh Nagar late on Monday night. The police fired in the air to disperse the warring groups and additional forces were deployed to prevent the violence from escalating. According to reports reaching here, tension began brewing between two communities in the Gadarpur area of Udham Singh Nagar after India lifted the Twenty20 World Cup. Members of one community burst crackers and took out a procession to celebrate the victory, which was objected to by members of another community. Soon the argument intensified and the clashes began, leaving five persons seriously injured. Four persons have been arrested in connection with the clashes and patrolling has been intensified. The situation in nearby towns, like Kitchha, was also stated to be tense but under control, the police said.
    Reports received in Srinagar said that soon after Pakistan lost the match, a large number of Hindu residents took to the streets in sensitive Rajouri, dancing to the tune of beating drums, chanting slogans and bursting fire crackers to celebrate the victory on Monday night. A jubilant crowd, while passing by a mosque, allegedly threw burning crackers into the place of worship where Muslims were offering special Ramzan taravih prayers. Enraged by the act, a group of Muslims came out and tried to chase the crowd away by throwing stones, witnesses said.
    Confirming the incident, IGP (Jammu range) S.P. Vaid said the Muslims alleged that they were attacked by a group of people who were out on the streets to celebrate India's victory over Pakistan. The officer said the local police, on learning about the incident, rushed to the spot along with the CRPF and quickly brought the situation under control. Witnesses said the policemen fired their rifles in the air to disperse the mobs after the use of batons failed to yield the desired result.

    But what rankled many Indians was Malik's attempt to own worldwide
    Muslim sentiment for Pakistan when India has as many Muslims who
    support their home team, which has always had a healthy
    representation of Muslims and other minorities and has been a
    showcase for India's secular society.
    The same holds true of Sri Lanka and England, whose teams are also
    multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and secular.
    Yet a new group is emerging at the very top. They're CEOs and CFOs of global corporations, and partners and executives in global investment banks, law firms and consultancies. Unlike most national symbolic analysts, these global symbolic analysts conduct almost all their work in English, and share with one another an increasingly similar cosmopolitan culture.There's a good economic reason that this group of global symbolic analysts emerged. Global commerce is now occurring on a scale and with a complexity that no commercial contract can adequately cover and no single legal system can sufficiently enforce. Hence, global dealmakers must rely to an ever greater extent on an extended network of people whom they trust.
    The wealthy class is splitting into two elites, one national and threatened by outsourcing, the other international and profiting wildly from globalization.
    The heady days of globalization, when it was the latest buzzword on business people’s tongues, now seem naive. These days the word elicits caution, tempered by new awareness of just how complex it is to do business on a global scale . In their new book, “The Kimchi Matters: Global Business and Local Politics in a Crisis-Driven World , ” Marvin Zonis, a professor of international political economy at the University of Chicago, and his co-authors Dan Lefkovitz and Sam Wilkin, take a hard look at how to make globalization work. What businesses often lack, they argue, is a clear understanding of local cultures and local politics. NEWSWEEK’s Laura Fording asked Zonis for his take on the current state of globalization.

    India's call centers provide cheap English-speaking workers and high-speed telecoms to provide customer service helplines for companies around the world. They're a boon for India's army of job-hunting youth, but there is a murkier side to the industry.Governments across the globe, especially in China and India, are pouring unprecedented sums into building and improving their universities, and are spending millions more selling them abroad. Europe is unifying its fractured system to make it more ... Two different groups of symbolic analysts are emerging: national and global. Most symbolic analysts still work within a national economy, manipulating various kinds of symbols with the aid of computers. They're at the core of their nations' middle class— accountants, engineers, lawyers, journalists and other university-trained professionals.
    SHOAIB MALIK'S BOO-BOO
    Mike Ghouse, September 25, 2007
    Sachin Tendulkar, the Master Cricketer is liked by one and all,
    whoever understands and loves cricket loves him. He is simply the
    best that there is and a legend to emulate for generations to come.
    His religion does not matter to any one, his play does.
    Shoaib Malik, Captain of Pakistan Cricket team has all the potentials
    to be one of the best on the field, and he is equally liked by all.
    However he has annoyed many a Cricket fans by singling out his fans,
    rather shamelessly.
    He should have thanked the people of Pakistan for getting him up
    there that is the norm for any player to thank his nation. However
    thanking Muslims of the world is dead wrong for many reasons, three
    among them:
    1)By appreciating his fans on the basis of religion is wrong. That
    simply excludes all other fans who are not Muslims. That is not
    sportsmanship.
    2)Most of the Muslims around the world may not even know Cricket, let
    alone him.
    3)Like all other Cricket fans of India or the world, he may be
    appreciated by Indian Muslims also for his skills, but they are no
    fan of him when they have their own national team they cherish and
    support.
    I lost respect for yet another Cricketer, former skipper of India 's
    team Azharuddin. He was corrupt and got caught, instead of being
    ashamed of his own acts; he claimed he was singled out because he was
    a Muslim. That is a total abuse of one's religion to earn sympathies;
    he did not get any from Muslims or others.
    The act of Shoaib Malik is his own and he should bear responsibility
    for that. Cricket and Religion don't go together. We ask all the
    Cricketers to play a good game, they can thank God and their nation
    for it, but they should never exclude any fan from appreciation.
    http://mikeghouse. sulekha.com/ blog/post/ 2007/09/shoaib- malik-s-boo-
    boo.htm
    [It's an undeniable fact that the Indian team included
    Muslims, one became the "man of the match", and the
    VVIP gallery had the leading film actor from India,
    who's also a Muslim.
    But it is also equally true that sporadic violence
    between Hindus and Muslims broke out in different
    corners of India, mercifully only a handful this time,
    in the wake of the nail biting game.
    But then, another interesting question the blogger did
    not engage with. Whom did the South Africans of Indian
    origin with Islamic faith/names support?
    Was it Pakistan, or India?
    Muslims from elsewhere, having no connection with
    South Asia, perhaps hardly noticed.]
    http://thecountervi ew.blogspot. com/2007/ 09/slip-of- tongue-or. html
    Slip of the tongue or ...
    ".... I want to thank all people in Pakistan and
    Muslims all over the world for their support..."
    So said Shoaib Malik, Pakistan cricket team captain as
    he expressed regret for letting down supporters in the
    T20 World Cup last night.
    In the euphoria of India lifting the first T20
    championship and the well-deserved celebrations that
    followed in India, Malik's statement may have got less
    attention than it deserves. As

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