Palash Speaks

Mahasweta Devi claims that we have Resources to Feed our People and No One should Starve!
She emphasised that the guilty Police Officials involved in Rizwanur case must be punished! She says that the Ration Revolt opens the Doors for Change in West Bengal!
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
Mahasweta Devi claims that we have resources to feed our people and no one should starve! She emphasised that the guilty Police Officials involved in Rizwanur case must be punished! She says that the Ration Revolt opens the Doors for Change in West Bengal! She told all these things to me on phone while setting a task most important!
The West Bengal chief minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has assured action to ensure protection of the dealers.
The Trinamool Congress chief, Mamta Banerjee, has demanded an enquiry by the CBI in the matter. She has also called for immediate start of the second “Food Movement” in the state.
Though the West Bengal Congress has demanded a CBI probe into the mysterious death of Rizwan-ur-Rahman, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee tonight declined to make any comment on the issue.
"I can't make any comment as the matter is pending before the court," Mukherjee, also the WBPCC president, told reporters on the sidelines of a programme on the eve of the launch of Air India Express here.
Kishwar Jahan’s eyes are moist but not weak. She has lost sleep but not strength. Rizwanur Rahman’s mother will fight for justice till the last breath in her frail body.
“I have lost all meaning in life after my son’s murder. My last wish is that those responsible for his death be punished. We are too weak to fight a long legal battle but I will sell my house and even beg on the streets to ensure that my son gets justice,” says the 55-year-old in a voice feeble but firm.
The West Bengal government today told the Calcutta High Court that a petition demanding a CBI probe into the death of Rizwanur Rahman, who was threatened by senior police officials for marrying the daughter of a Hindu industrialist, was not maintainable. Appearing for the state, Advocate General Balai Roy submitted before Justice Soumitra Pal that apart from making allegations that Rizwanur had been threatened and pressured by officers of Kolkata police to send his wife Priyanka to his parents' house, the petitioners could not provide any proof that the senior officers had made such demands from the youth. He claimed that even if it is assumed that the threats had indeed been given, it was a non-cognizable offence. Further, unnatural death of an individual could not invite a CBI inquiry, Roy argued. He said there are two parts in the.

I talked to Mahashweta Devi after so many years! She called our friend Kripa Shankar Chaube at jansansar where we gathered to meet our friend Pankaj Bisht, the editor of Samayantar. Pankaj was with us this evening as he visited Kolkata enroute Andman and nicobar Islands. Jyotsna Bhabhi is on LTC and Pankaj has to accompany with the children. It was raining. I had to come over by train and Metro. It was already raining in Sodepur. But Pankajda has been so nice to me since my GIC days in Nainital that I could not stay home. He had clled me from Delhi erlier but iforgot. He reached Kolkata last day and failed to contact me. This morning as the phone was free from Net, I got the call. The day was all bright that time. When I reached Esplaned and came overground from the Tube, it was raining. The Metro and Grand Hotel campus was flooded with shopping people as Durga Puja and ID coincide. The streets were waterlogged. And it was near Stampede situation whereever there have been a shed. I made my way and reached to Jansansar behind Tiger. But Jyotsna Bhabhi and children could not cross the streams in flow. Kripa , Amitabh Chakrabarti, Prem Kapoor and Kusum Jain, and me with Pankaj Da, we had a heated discussion on National, International scenerio and the Nationality problems along with West Bengal. The focus was on Brahminical hegemony and current political set up.
This was the drop scene as mahashweta Devi got us.
As it has been since 1980, my dhanbad days, she is full of enthusiasm. She was not angry with my comments on her stance on Dalits and Refugees as I had been afraid of. But she as a worth leader aged Eighty four set up agenda for me immediately. She also talked to Pankaj Da. Well, Didi has accepted Nandigram and Singur phenomenon as Dalit Muslim Insurrection. She decalred that despite the subversive game the National International focus remains on Nandigram, the launching pad for Anti Imperialist Movement. What she told was rather amazing as I personally know that she does not use Computor, she is well aware of whtaever I do write on blogs. She said that so called main stream Media is quite detached with the real issues and People`s Movement, We should use the Blogs! She adviced me to circulate the documents relevant via Blogs and whenever possible, in the Print Media!
Mahashweta Didi once again invited me to her resisdence to get all the feedbacks. She spoke on Right for Food and Right for Employment. I inforemd her taht I will be meeting her Next Week since I will be in Karnataka from 10 th Oct and will be returning on 13th.

Veteran Marxist leader Jyoti Basu on Monday said West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had told him that no police officer, allegedly involved in the mysterious death of computer graphics teacher Rizwanur Rehman, who had married a Hindu girl, would be spared. Basu on Friday had severely criticised the police for its interference in the case and came out strongly in support of punishing guilty police officers.
"No police officer, involved in the Rizwanur death case, will be spared. That is what the chief minister has told me," Basu told reporters in Kolkata. The former Chief Minister said that he had never heard policemen getting involved in such affairs of couples.
Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee is expected to set in motion a “clean-up” of Calcutta police with the removal of two deputy commissioners linked to the Rizwanur Rahman case.Reports the Telegraph.The “sweeping changes” could eventually ensure the easing out of Prasun Mukherjee as police commissioner, sources said.Deputy commissioners Gyanwant Singh and Ajoy Kumar, accused of threatening Rizwanur and wife Priyanka Todi, could be shunted out as early as this week, the sources said.The government is waiting for the report of the CID, which “examined” the two officers yesterday. The two are learnt to have fumbled several times and some of their answers were at variance with the depositions of others.The CID report will give the government the administrative excuse it is looking for to initiate action against the officers. If the CID submits a report on Monday, the transfers will follow immediately. The government will also closely follow the developments in the high court, which is expected to hear a petition for a CBI probe tomorrow. Home secretary Prasad Ranjan Ray, who was in Delhi yesterday, is likely to get the necessary clearance from the Union home ministry for action against the IPS officers.The chief minister had last week told Jyoti Basu that two officers would be removed but did not want to rush into administrative actions vulnerable to legal scrutiny.

Six persons were injured and a policeman suffered bullet wounds in intermittent exchange of fire between activists of CPI(M) and a Trinamool Congress-backed outfit protesting acquisition of farmland in troubled Nandigram in West Bengal on Monday. Clashes were continuing since Sunday at Ranichak and Hatengabari in Nandigram amid claims and counter-claims of abduction, police sources said. While a Nandigram report said a policeman, identified as Ajoy Das, suffered bullet injuries, IGP (law and order) Raj Kanojia said six persons were injured in the clashes at Tekhalibazar and Hatengabari areas of Khejuri. Kanojia said the police was yet to confirm if any one was killed in the firing.

The scene is the same as it was in the late sixties, with several incidences of people deprived of ration supply attacking ration dealers’ shops and houses and the police resorting to lathi-charge and firing to disperse the violent mob.
"Food Movement" has been the key to CPI(M)'s political success in West Bengal during the late sixties and early seventies.But after 30 years of uninterrupted Left Front rule in West Bengal, the same movement has boomeranged for the party. CPI(M)’s success mantra, the Food Movement, may now backfire on at it.

Can't eliminate Blueline buses
NDTV.com - 6 hours ago
After seven people were crushed under the wheels of a Blueline bus in Delhi on Sunday, the state government has announced a compensation of Rs 1 lakh each for the families of the deceased.
Blueline buses: Killers on roads, who will stop them? Merinews
HC expresses anguish over Blueline accident Hindu
Aljazeera.net Bengal to clear way for steel cos
Economic Times, India - 16 hours ago
KOLKATA: With a majority of its special economic zones (SEZs) stalled due to land acquisition problems, the West Bengal government has decided to tone up ...
One killed as farmers, communists clash over land takeover for ... International Herald Tribune
Indian farmers protest land seizure Aljazeera.net
Vodafone to connect all West Bengal villages by 2009
Economic Times, India - 5 hours ago
8 Oct, 2007, 1550 hrs IST, PTI KOLKATA: Vodafone Essar East would connect all villages in West Bengal by 2009, a top company official said on Monday. ...
NANDIGRAM: After an uneasy calm for a few weeks, Nandigram again erupted in violence on Sunday afternoon. Gunmen shot dead a 65-year-old woman and injured a child. The firing started around 1 pm from Khejuri. Villagers said masked attackers entered Simulkundu village after crossing the Bhangabhera canal through the Tekhali bridge - the scene of the March 14 bloodbath. They stormed into Parbati Mitra's hut as she slept and pumped five bullets into her at point-blank range. No one else was present in the house at the time.
Another band of masked gunmen entered Gokulnagar village and began firing indiscriminately. Ten-year-old Mano Mitra, who was playing in the courtyard of her house, fell after a bullet hit her on the chest. She has been admitted to the Tamluk sub-divisional hospital where her condition is said to be critical. Firing was also reported from other trouble-torn areas of Nandigram, like Bhangabhera, Tekhali, Brindabanchak and Ranichar.
Villagers alleged that policemen at the camp near Bhangabhera bridge fled on seeing the armed men. However, East Midnapore SP G A Srinivas denied this. "Policemen are still present in the area," he said. The Trinamul Congress-backed Bhumi Uchchhed Pratirodh Committee members blamed CPM goons for the attacks, saying the bullets were fired from Khejuri.
However, CPM East Midnapore district leaders denied the charges and claimed two of their supporters were injured in the shooting. BUPC leaders said they were "not prepared for the attack".
"This was a sudden assault. There had been no firing for the last few days. We were hoping that peace would return to the villages but today's attack has put a spanner on the peace process," said Swadesh Das, a BUPC leader. No arrests have been made so far.

a flat, 21 km strip of land in the middle of the Haldi river, three metres above sea level and accessible only by motorised boats, is the West Bengal government’s alternative to Nandigram for a chemical hub. The state cabinet on September 17 endorsed a plan to locate the Indonesia-based Salim group’s chemical complex on the strip of land, called Nayachar (new sandbank). The proposal, first aired in early September, stands mired in controversy.
The land bar (geologists say Nayachar doesn’t qualify for island status) lies about three km east of Haldia in East Midnapore district and 11 km from Nandigram.Conservationists say strong tides around Nayachar could spread effluents from chemical factories located upstream and downstream, polluting the delta and affecting marine life. Scientists have found presence of heavy metals like lead and zinc in the waters at Ganga Sagar, where the Hooghly merges with the Indian Ocean.

The Nandigram proposal had to be shelved in March after police fired on villagers protesting acquisition of their farmland, killing at least 14.
State officials say the new site is feasible because the government has around 4,450 hectares (ha) at Nayachar, while the project requires around 4,045 ha.

The state, however, hasn’t discussed rehabilitation of 3,000 fisherfolk living there (see box: Local lifestyle). Mostly squatters, though some were moved there by the government in the 1980s to promote fishing, these people have no legal rights over the land. Residents like Kajal Guri and her family who have been living in a tiny mud hut by the riverbank for 19 years hope they’ll get jobs in the factories that they hear will raze their homes.

The chemical hub is to be a 50:50 joint venture between the New Kolkata International Development, a company promoted by the Salim group, and the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation. The state wants to make the hub part of a petroleum, chemical, petrochemical investment region that would include existing petrochemical plants such as hpl, Mitsubishi and South Asian Petrochem in Haldia. Nayachar will be connected to the petrochemical hub, Haldia, by a bridge. It is expected the region will attract investments worth Rs 440 billion. The state will now send a proposal to the centre for approval.

CID to scan Rizwan's last calls, reports Times of India.

Rizwanur Rahman had made desperate calls to Priyanka and her father, businessman Ashok Todi, the day he was killed. All the calls were disconnected and the phone finally switched off by the Todis. These calls in the last moments of Rizwanur's life will now be the focus of the CID investigation.
CID will interrogate Ashok and his wife, pointedly on these calls and SMSes. The agency hopes that it will shed some light on the motive for Rizwanur's ‘suicide' (the CID's interim report hints that the Todis' son-in-law killed himself). "The calls and SMSes are very crucial evidence in court," said a CID officer.
CID investigators would also want to know from Priyanka and her parents why Rizwanur was denied any communication with his legally married wife. The officers have come to know that Priyanka's cellphone was not with her --her parents had taken it.
As Rizwanur desperately kept calling Priyanka, no one responded.
Then, the mobile was switched off. "This is clearly a case of breach of trust. Ashok Todi's cousin Anil Saraogi gave a written undertaking in front of police that Priyanka would go back to Rizwanur after a week, but the Todis ensured that Priyanka could never be in touch with Rizwanur," said an officer.
After he failed to gain access to Priyanka, Rizwanur kept calling both Ashok and his wife, but in vain. Rizwanur then sent them a number of SMSes --one of them said ‘ek bar uski awaz suna dena' (Please let me hear her voice once) --pleading with them but all requests fell on deaf ears.
Then, Ashok Todi and his wife switched off their mobiles, too. It was very frustrating for Rizwanur to face a situation where every channel of communication with his wife was ruthlessly blocked.
Rizwanur, a graphic designer, then tried to impress his father-in-law by designing an advertisement for Todi's hosiery brand. He tried to win their hearts and earn their faith by proving his worth.
"He tried to call Ashok to tell him about the advertisements, but did not get any response. Evidently, his hopelessness was mounting," said an officer.
But even after questioning 56 persons, including four Kolkata Police officers, investigators could not unravel the motive behind the 'suicide'.
Many doubt the CID's suicide theory, especially because Rizwanur had called up APDR's Sujato Bhadra, just minutes before his death, to fix up an appointment with senior officers at Lalbazar police headquarters. He was determined to get back his wife through legal means. This doesn't indicate the psyche of a suicidal mind.

Jail Bharo In October

CPI(M) Cuddapah district secretary and Party town secretary being paraded with handcuffs by the police for participating in the land struggle
M Venugopala Rao
http://pd.cpim.org/2007/0930/09302007_ap_1.htm
A ROUND-TABLE meeting of different political parties on “Government’s repression on people’s movement” organised by CPI(M) state committee and CPI state council at Sundarayya Vignana Kendram in Hyderabad on September 23, 2007, strongly condemned the dictatorial attitude of the Congress government towards the land movement of the poor that has been going on for more than four months and demanded it to stop the repression forthwith. Leaders of various political parties announced their complete support to the land struggle led by the Left parties. Leaders of the CPI(M), CPI, Telugu Desam Party, Telangana Rashtra Samithi, Majlis Bachao Tehreek and Lok Satta participated in the meeting. The meeting decided to write letters to the chief minister, Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, and the governor of the state, N D Tiwari, to this effect. B V Raghavulu, Polit Bureau member and CPI(M) state secretary and K Narayana, CPI state secretary said a delegation of leaders of political parties would meet the chief minister and the governor and future programme of action would be prepared based on their response.
Addressing the meeting, Raghavulu said the Congress government in the state was not only trying to suppress the land movement with an iron hand, but also continuing its repressive measures on other movements as well. The police beat up the people participating in different struggles in such a way that no signs of injuries were visible on their bodies. The police were tormenting the agitators by pushing needles into their skin and subjecting women to mental torture by abusing them, Raghavulu stated. He expressed anguish at the beating up of even old people by the police. He strongly condemned the incredibly atrocious propaganda that the CPI(M) and CPI leaders were molesting women and committing atrocities on people of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes and made it clear that the Left parties were committed to certain values.
Lashing out at the government for handcuffing and parading the leaders of the CPI(M) in Cuddapah district, Raghavulu questioned whether the police were also handcuffing the leaders of the Congress party when they committed offences. He referred to the police beating up TDP workers when they were agitating on the issue of leasing of mines at Obulapuram in Anantapur district, the inhuman treatment of tribal women by the police at Vakapalli in Visakhapatnam district and harassing innocent people in old city of Hyderabad in the name of tackling terrorist activities. He found fault with the government for its dictatorial attitude towards the media, including newspapers, which had exposed its corruption. Raghavulu said though all these misdeeds appeared to be the acts of the police, they were resorting to such acts only because they were provoked by the government itself. He underlined the need for all political parties to conduct a movement collectively against all repressive measures of the government. Making it clear that they would not keep quiet if civil liberties were endangered, Raghavulu asked leaders of associations of civil liberties also to respond and launch a movement for protection of civil liberties.
Narayana found fault with the chief minister for directing the police to suppress the land movement with an iron hand. He appealed to all the political parties to extend their support to the people’s movements launched by the Left parties and intensify the land movement in a coordinated way. Kadiam Srihari, a member of TDP Polit Bureau announced his party’s full cooperation to the future decisions taken by the Left parties on the land movement. He criticised the government for trying to suppress the land movement by treating it as an anti-government movement. Nayani Narsimha Reddy, TRS MLA said that it was foolish on the part of the government to think of suppressing the land movement, instead of finding a solution to it. Amjadullah Khan, MBT leader and P Satyanarayana of Lok Satta announced their support to the land movement of the poor for house sites and arable land.
CPI(M) DECIDES TO INTENSIFY STRUGGLE
The CPI(M) state committee held on September 16 decided to further intensify the land movement and extend it to more number of centres. The state committee of the Party resolved to continue the struggle till all the eligible poor get house sites, houses and arable land and congratulated the people for participating in a big way without being afraid of the repression. Narrating the repressive measures being adopted by the police to suppress the movement and foisting a large number of cases on the leaders and the people under sections of law applicable to serious offences, the state committee members pointed out that the police were trying to keep them in jail for more number of days. The meeting cited the example of bringing the CPI(M) leaders with handcuffs to a court in Cuddapah and foisting a case of attempt to rape on them and strongly condemned such repression. G Nagayya presided over the meeting.
JAIL BHARO IN OCTOBER
A meeting of CPI(M) and CPI leaders held on September 22 at M B Bhavan in Hyderabad decided to organise jail bharo programme as a part of intensifying the land movement in October. It strongly condemned the announcement of the chief minister to suppress the land movement going on in the state with an iron hand. The CPI(M) and CPI felt it was reprehensible that the government was forcibly removing and burning the huts raised by the poor and foisting cases on them and sending them to jails. The meeting also demanded the government to reduce the prices of essential commodities which are increasing day by day. It decided to conduct protest programmes on October 8 on this demand. B V Raghavulu, Y Venkateswara Rao and G Ramulu of the CPI(M), K Narayana, K Ramakrishna and S Venkateswarlu of the CPI participated in the meeting.
Protesting the government’s repression on the land movement, CPI(M) and CPI held a massive dharna at Indira park in Hyderabad on the September 22. Addressing the dharna, B V Raghavulu warned the government that the people would not bother about the repression and that the land movement would be intensified if the government did not solve their demands. He challenged the chief minister to come to any village of his choice and asserted to prove corruption in the implementation of Indiramma housing programme. Raghavulu found fault with the government for not taking necessary action on the report of Ramachandra Samal, former vigilance commissioner, on corruption in the administrative machinery and for resorting to counter attack on the opposition. K Narayana announced that jail bharo programme would be organised on a large scale on October 20.
CPI(M) Central secretariat member Hannan Mollah and Central Commitee member Suneet Chopra, Vijayaraghavan, general secretary of All India Agricultural Workers’ Union, K Raghavan, vice president and several other leaders of the union from different states participated in the land movement at various places in Visakhapatnam, Srikakulam, Kurnool, Khammam, Krishna, Guntur, Prakasam, West Godavari, East Godavari, Vijayanagaram, Chittoor, Ranga Reddy, Warangal and Adilabad districts. They pitched Red flags on the land occupied by the poor and ploughed it. Suneet Chopra and several other leaders were arrested by the police at Markapuram and they were released after the people took out a procession and staged a sit-in at the police station. Addressing meetings organised on the occasion, CPI(M) and AIAWU leaders demanded the government to distribute land to the poor. They explained the struggles of the poor in different states and the kind of repression they were facing in the hands of the respective governments led by bourgeois-landlord parties. Suneet Chopra congratulated the movement saying that Andhra Pradesh also was moving in the way of West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. Vijayaraghavan announced that the people of Kerala donated a sum of Rs 68 lakhs to the land movement in Andhra Pradesh.

The extent to which malnourishment and death from starvation still pervades human society is made clear by statistics, such as the following:
In 1994, the United Nations estimated that one eighth of people were actually starving.(1) "Millions are constantly hungry; while others suffer from deficiency diseases and from infections they would be able to resist on a better diet."(2)
In the year 200, the World Bank estimated that 840 million people do not have enough food to eat. An estimated 2 billion people lack sufficient iron in their diets, with 1.2 billion suffering from iron-deficiency anemia.(22)
The 2001 Human Development Report includes figures from the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (F.A.O.) showing that, in the world's least developed countries, 38% of the population were undernourished in the 1996–8 period. (See http://www.undp.org/ and http://www.fao.org/.)
In terms of sheer numbers, there are more chronically hungry people in Asia and the Pacific, but the depth of hunger is clearly the greatest in sub-Saharan Africa. There, in 46 percent of the countries, the undernourished have an average deficit of more than 300 kilocalories per person per day.(3)
As has been written in The Observer newspaper in London, if 100 jumbo jets crashed tomorrow, killing all on board, the world would be united in mourning, but every day, a similar number of people die of hunger-related diseases, almost without mention.
Such statistics are widely available. Many see them as evidence that the planet is overpopulated. The sheer, undiminishing size of these statistics leaves them as something that is 'accepted' as part of life in the modern world. The problem is simply too huge for us to do anything about, it seems, and reflection on the subject often ends here.
Yet there are other, undeniably significant statistics to suggest that malnutrition and starvation are far from inevitable, given the resources and productive capacity we have available. These are the statistics which are slightly less widely disseminated:
It is a fact that enough food to feed the world is currently produced. 300 kg of grain per head is currently produced worldwide each year. 200 kg of grain contains the calories needed by an adult per year. (Grain is widely used as a measure of food production as it supplies more than half humanity's calories.)
The 5.8 billion people in the world today have, on average, 15 percent more food per person than the global population, of 4 billion people, had 20 years ago.(4)
The world today produces enough grain to provide 3500 calories per person (this estimate does not include vegetables, beans, nuts, root crops, fruits, grass-fed meets, fish.)(23)
It is the poverty of millions of people who cannot afford to buy food that causes starvation. This conclusion has been reached by Vaclav Smil in a recent study entitled Feeding the World(29). An F.A.O. study by Nikos Alexandratos confirms this point. He writes
Food availabilities for the world as a whole are today equivalent to some 2700 kilocalories per person per day …., up from 2300 calories 30 years ago.(28)
It has been recognised by a wide range of other commentators:
food is not fairly shared; it goes to those who can afford it or have the means to grow it.(5)
Famine exists largely because the hungry cannot afford to buy food, not because there is insufficient food produced.(6)
In none of the twentieth century famines has there been an absolute shortage of food; the problem has been unequal access due to poverty, a problem that resort to food aid has not solved. In Bengal in 1943–1944 about three million people died after rice prices quadrupled in two years. Worst affected were the rural areas, where wages had not kept pace with wartime inflation, and some towns where workers were unemployed because of the dislocation caused by the war. People without money were unable to buy food and the British imperial authorities took little action (apart from moving food to Calcutta because they feared mass civil unrest). One of the worst famines of modern times therefore took place when the amount of food per head in Bengal was actually 7% higher than in 1941 and food stocks were at record levels. In Ethiopia, in 1972–1974, about 200,000 people died in the provinces of Wollo and Tigre even though the country's food production only fell by just over 5%—during this period food was still being exported from the affected provinces and from the country as a whole. In Bangladesh in 1974 when rice prices doubled in three months after severe flooding, those who were out of work because of the disruption caused by the floods could not afford to buy food. As a result one and a half million people died of starvation. But there was no absolute shortage of food—production of rice in Bangladesh, both in total and per head terms, was the highest ever in 1974—once again it was a problem of who had the resources to buy food at higher prices.(7)
In South Africa around 50,000 black children starve to death each year—136 every day. Yet South Africa is a net exporter of agricultural products.(8)
There are many more examples. In 1983, the value of food exported by countries in the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda) exceeded their imports by $1 billion. Yet hunger in these countries increased.(25)
Much food is currently stored or destroyed when 'too much' food is produced. This means too much for the market as it is only the demands of those with purchasing power that counts. Restricting the food supply in this way keeps prices high enough for producers to maximise their profits:
in one season, French peasant co-ops were paid to destroy fruit and vegetables the weight of 17 Arcs de Triomph(9)
Around 240 million tonnes of grain are stored worldwide in order to keep the price high. That would provide every human being with 3600 calories a day(10)
So what are the prospects for the future? If grain production continues to increase at the current rate of 12 million tonnes per year then by 2020 the world harvest will be 2.1 billion tones. Population is expected to be 8.5 billion in 2020. That gives a figure of 247 kilogrammes per person. In 2050, if production grows at the same rate and population grows to only 10 billion, we will still have 244 kilogrammes per person.(11) However, the rate of growth in world food production is starting to fall. Before 1984, total production climbed 3 per cent per year; now this averages 1 per cent per year.(12) This leaves open the question as to whether enough food will always be produced to feed everyone.
Some commentators have viewed such statistics as pointing to an inevitable world food shortage occurring during the next century. They cite examples such as China where it is expected that grain imports will need to rise from the current 12 million tonnes per year at present to 100 million tonnes by the year 2000.(13)
It has often been suggested that reducing the scale of meat production is one particular measure that will be necessary to provide enough food for the increasing population. It is indeed the case that growing crops for use as animal feed in order to produce meat requires a relatively large area of land for each unit of energy in the food produced. It is a well established fact that crops that are grown directly for human consumption yield more energy for a given area of land than meat production. Vaclav Smil at M.I.T. has recently studied the question of how much potential there is to expand global food production. According to Smil, the best possible estimate of the land area currently in use for food production is approximately 1.5 Gha (i.e. one thousand thousand hectares—a hectare is 10,000 square metres.) With a global population of 10 million, this would be 1500 square metres per person. This, he points out is enough for a daily supply of 2500 kilocalories per capita, based upon what he describes as "moderately intensive" single crop farming with products composed largely of dairy products, poultry and

War on Terror is Fueling al Qaeda
Cuba remembers Che Guevara 40 years after death
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
Transfer Pak prisoners in other states to J&K: SC
The Supreme Court today directed that all Pakistani prisoners languishing in jails in different parts of northern India be transferred to the jails in Jammu and Kashmir where cases were initially registered against them.

France opens Diana’s car crash site
France has opened the Paris underpass, in which princess Diana was killed alongside her boyfriend Dodi al-Fayed and their chauffeur Henri Paul in a car crash ten years back, to the public.

China catches up with India in corruption perceptions index
Chinese media seems to be happy that Transparency International (TI) has improved the country`s ranking to 72nd position which is at par with India, in the recently released corruption perceptions index.
SANTA CLARA, Cuba (Reuters) - Communist Cuba paid tribute on Monday to its poster boy, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, 40 years after the guerrilla fighter was captured and executed in BoliviaThe man he helped to power in Cuba's 1959 revolution, Fidel Castro, was too ill to attend a memorial rally at the mausoleum where Guevara's remains were placed when they were dug up from an unmarked Bolivian grave in 1997.
Castro marked the anniversary in a newspaper column that was read out at the rally, saying the Argentine-born doctor sowed the seeds of social conscience in Latin America and the world.
"I make a halt in day-to-day combat to bow my head, with respect and gratitude, before the exceptional fighter who fell 40 years ago," Castro wrote.
Guevara was captured by CIA-backed Bolivian soldiers on October 8, 1967, and was shot the next day in a schoolhouse. His bullet-riddled body, eyes wide open, was put on display in a hospital laundry room and later buried in an unmarked grave. He was 39.
About 10,000 Cuban workers and students gathered on Monday before a bronze statue of Guevara carrying a rifle in Santa Clara, the city in central Cuba that Guevara "liberated" in 1958 in the decisive battle of the Cuban revolution.
Guevara remains a national hero in Cuba where he is remembered for promoting unpaid voluntary work by toiling shirtless on building sites or hauling sacks of sugar. He still appears on banknotes cutting sugar cane in the fields.
He was central bank governor and industry minister in the early years of Castro's rule. He advocated nationalizing private businesses and dreamed of a classless society where money would be abolished and wages unnecessary.
'MANY VIETNAMS'
But he left Cuba in 1966 to start a new anti-U.S. guerrilla movement in the jungle of eastern Bolivia, hoping to create "two, three, many Vietnams" in Latin America.
Posters of the long-haired Guevara wearing a soldier's beret with a single star turned the revolutionary outlaw into an international folk hero and symbol of rebellion.
The image, based on a picture taken by Cuban photographer Alberto Korda, has been massively reproduced on T-shirts, mugs, baseball caps, Swatch watches, bikinis and other products of the capitalist consumer society he fought against.
Guevara's tearful daughter Aleida Guevara, 46, said the recent leftward shift in Latin American nations, brought about through the ballot box instead of armed struggle, had vindicated her father.
"Today Latin America begins to awaken and their dreams are coming true," she said in the mausoleum where the remains of Guevara and other guerrillas who died with him in Bolivia lie.
Fidel Castro, 81, has not appeared in public since an intestinal illness forced him to hand over power to his brother Raul 14 months ago. As Castro fades from the political stage and Cubans debate reforms to an inefficient state-run economy, no one is advocating Guevara's economic policies anymore.
In a speech at the memorial rally, Communications Minister Ramiro Valdes said Castro "is recovering" and urged Cubans to unite around Raul and the ruling Communist Party.
"We will never renounce our Communist ideals," said Valdes, a former guerrilla commander in the Sierra Maestra mountains.
Citing Guevara's call to resist U.S. imperialism wherever it exists, Valdes said Cuba would make no concessions to Washington's demands for political change on the island. Cuba would never come "under the Yankee boot," Valdes said.
Cuba stopped exporting armed revolution to Latin America in the 1980s. One of the last shipments of weapons was used in Chile to ambush military dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1986. Pinochet survived the attack.
The one-party state built by Castro with Guevara's help 90 miles away from the United States has endured CIA-backed invasion plans and assassination plots, and the hostility of 10 U.S. administrations.
"In almost five decades of extensive covert efforts to roll back the Cuban revolution, the capture and death of Che stands as really the only CIA success story," said Peter Kornbluh, an expert on Latin America at the National Security Archives, a public interest documentation center in Washington.
Report says war on terror is fueling al Qaeda
By Kate Kelland Mon Oct 8, 8:29 AM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - Six years after the September 11 attacks in the United States, the "war on terror" is failing and instead fueling an increase in support for extremist Islamist movements, a British think-tank said on Monday.
A report by the Oxford Research Group (ORG) said a "fundamental re-think is required" if the global terrorist network is to be rendered ineffective.
"If the al Qaeda movement is to be countered, then the roots of its support must be understood and systematically undercut," said Paul Rogers, the report's author and professor of global peace studies at Bradford University in northern England.
"Combined with conventional policing and security measures, al Qaeda can be contained and minimized but this will require a change in policy at every level."
He described the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq as a "disastrous mistake" which had helped establish a "most valued jihadist combat training zone" for al Qaeda supporters.
The report -- Alternatives to the War on Terror -- recommended the immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops from Iraq coupled with intensive diplomatic engagement in the region, including with Iran and Syria.
In Afghanistan, Rogers also called for an immediate scaling down of military activities, an injection of more civil aid and negotiations with militia groups aimed at bringing them into the political process.
If such measures were adopted it would still take "at least 10 years to make up for the mistakes made since 9/11."
"Failure to make the necessary changes could result in the war on terror lasting decades," the report added.
Rogers also warned of a drift toward conflict with Iran.
"Going to war with Iran," he said, "will make matters far worse, playing directly into the hands of extreme elements and adding greatly to the violence across the region. Whatever the problems with Iran, war should be avoided at all costs."
Myanmar junta names negotiator for Suu Kyi talks
By Aung Hla Tun 2 hours, 20 minutes ago
YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's military junta has appointed a deputy minister to negotiate with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on the regime's offer of direct talks, state television said on Monday. Aung Kyi, a major general who became deputy labor minister last year, would "make contact and deal with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in the future," MRTV said, without giving further details.
After the largest anti-junta protests in nearly 20 years, Senior General Than Shwe, whose loathing for Suu Kyi is well known, offered direct talks if she abandoned "confrontation" and support for sanctions and "utter devastation."
There was no reaction from Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy to Aung Kyi's appointment. But NLD spokesman Nyan Win has said Than Shwe's offer could lead to talks about talks.
Analysts caution against optimism as hopes of change in the past have been dashed so often.
"It's too early to assess this gambit by the regime," a retired professor said. "It comes at a time of mounting pressure from the international community. We need to wait for further movement."
There has been no word from Suu Kyi, 62, who has spent 12 of the past 18 years in detention and is confined to her house in Yangon without a telephone and requiring official permission, granted rarely, to receive visitors.
The New Light of Myanmar, the general's official mouthpiece, suggested on Monday that Suu Kyi would remain under house arrest until a new constitution was approved -- a dim and distant prospect, according to most analysts.
It also gave short shrift to the demands of the thousands who joined last month's protests crushed by the regime.
"The three demands of the protesters -- lowering consumer prices, release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and political prisoners, and national reconciliation -- cannot be satisfied through protest," the paper said in a commentary.
"Now, those responsible are making arrangements to draft the state constitution and collect the list of voters," it added. "When the state constitution is approved, the fulfillment of the three demands will be within reach."
DISCIPLINED DEMOCRACY
Holding a referendum on a new constitution is the fourth stage in a seven-step "roadmap to democracy."
For Suu Kyi, the omens are not good.
Stage One of the roadmap -- a National Convention to draw up the "detailed basic principles" of the charter -- took 14 years.
Furthermore, Stage Two -- "step-by-step implementation of the process necessary for the emergence of a genuine and disciplined democratic state" -- is so unclear few know what it means, let alone when it can be completed.
Stage Three is drafting the constitution, a process that many thought the National Convention was meant to have been doing for the last 14 years of on-off meetings, most of which have been boycotted by Suu Kyi's party.
The NLD won a massive election victory in 1990 only to be denied power by the army, which first seized power in 1962.
Most Western governments dismissed the convention as a sham to cement the generals' grip on power.
Snippets of the "detailed basic principles" of the charter appearing in state media point to little transfer of power to a civilian administration or autonomy for the former Burma's 100-plus ethnic minorities.
The commander-in-chief of the army will be the most powerful man in the country under the constitutional guidelines agreed at the national convention, with the power to appoint the ministers of defense, interior and border affairs.
He will also be able to assume power "in times of emergency."
The junta has cut security in Yangon steadily since it sent in soldiers 10 days ago to end to the biggest pro-democracy protests since 1988. Official media say 10 people were killed, although Western governments say the toll is likely to have been higher.
In 1988, up to 3,000 people are thought to have died in a crackdown over several weeks on protests led by students, as well as the Buddhist monks who spearheaded last month's marches which filled five city blocks at their height.
The United Jehad Council, an amalgam of 13 Pakistan-based militant groups, announced on Monday that its operations will remain suspended in the state for three days beginning October 12 on the occasion of Eid-ul-Fitr.
Senior Israeli officials expressed support Monday for the transfer of Arab parts of Jerusalem to Palestinian control, offering a concession on one of the most contentious issues in the conflict. The offer appeared to fall short of Palestinian calls for a full Israeli withdrawal from key areas of the holy city.
More than 100 students scuffled with police and hardline supporters of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday on Tehran University campus and chanted "Death to the dictator" outside a hall where the Iranian president spoke.

Leaders of a major coalition partner in Nepal's interim government are seeking the resignation of Prime Minister G P Koirala for his inability to resolve the political stalemate that led to the postponement of the November Constituent Assembly polls.
Nepal`s interim government on Monday approved a high-level ministerial report seeking to nationalise the properties of King Gyanendra and his family. It has also decided to speed up the process by framing laws to legalise the anti-monarchy initiative. With the political parties set to debate this week the abolition of the monarchy at a special session of the interim Parliament, the government today approved the report prepared by a ministerial-level committee to nationalise the King’s properties. The government decided to speed up the process for nationalising the properties of the King Gyanendra and his family. During the first cabinet meeting following the postponement of the November constituent assembly elections, the government decided to establish a trust for the nationalised properties and spend the fund for welfare measures. The government committee had nationalised the Narayanhiti Royal Palace, Lamjung Durbar, Gorkha Durbar and Hanumandhoka Durbar on August 23. Likewise, the Nagarjuna and Gokarna palaces in the capital, Ratna palace in the tourist city of Pokhara, Kanti Ishwari palace in Hetauda and Diyalo palace in Chitwan and forests spread across 3,500 square kilometers in Nagarjuna, Gokarna, Balaju, Thanksen of Nuwakot and Bharatpur of Chitwan were also nationalised. Altogether 11 plots of land - 754 ropanis in Narayanhiti and 779 ropanis in other palaces were also nationalised.
On August 20, the government had constituted a five-member committee led by Home Minister Krishna Prasad Sitaula to nationalise the properties belonging to late King Birendra and the properties inherited by King Gyanendra.
Meanwhile,Pakistani militants with links to al-Qaeda and the Taliban have extended their territory beyond their stronghold in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan, while the political elite continues to squabble over who will govern the country. According to a report in The Telegraph, the militants have overrun security outposts, established "parallel" local governments and recruited suicide bombers from secular schools in areas nominally under government control in the North West Frontier Province. It has also been reported that the daily attacks on security forces have been intensified not only in the tribal belt on the Afghan-Pakistan border where US intelligence officials claim that al-Qaeda has rebuilt, but also in adjacent "settled areas". "This is happening in Swat and Dera Ismail Khan and Bannu. Where the police are intimidated the militants have greater freedom to roam," a Western diplomat was quoted, as saying.
Meanwhile,A helicopter carrying officials accompanying President Pervez Musharraf crashed in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on Monday, killing four persons, including three armymen, onboard and injuring his spokesman. Musharraf, who was in another helicopter flying ahead, reached his destination safely, military spokesman Maj Gen Waheed Arshad said. The medium-lift Puma helicopter, which was carrying the President's spokesman, Maj Gen (retired) Rashid Qureshi, and other officials, crashlanded at Majohi near Garhi Dupatta in the Jhelum valley after catching fire. An army brigadier, two soldiers and a PTV cameraman were killed, while Qureshi received some injuries, officials said. Qureshi and four others who were injured were taken to a hospital in Muzaffarabad in PoK. Arshad, who blamed a "technical fault" for the crash, said the presidential spokesman is out of danger.
The President and his team were leaving Muzaffarabad when a fire broke out in one of the three helicopters escorting Musharraf, forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing.
Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz are both visiting parts of PoK and the North Western Frontier Province that were hit by the devastating earthquake two years ago. The temblor killed over 75,000 people.
Tank, a town on the edge of the tribal area of South Waziristan,has fallen under the sway of a pro-Taliban commander from South Waziristan, Baitullah Mehsud, whose men last week killed three soldiers from a group of 248 they had captured last month.
An army division was deployed to the district two months ago to stem Baitullah's influence expanding into the neighbouring town of Dera Ismail Khan.
A senior government official said that traditional councils had been undermined by military action and Gen Musharraf's reforms had taken away the power of administrators in the settled areas.
The government control over the district is tenuous. Last week a teenager, Sohail Zeb, was sentenced to 24 years in jail after being found in Tank with two suicide belts. Now Baitullah has demanded his release as part of negotiations over the fate of the 200 captured soldiers.
More alarming for Tank's prospects is that militants, who belong to the hardline Sunni Deobandi sect, have reignited vicious sectarianism.
Baitullah's powerful right-hand man, Qari Hussain, belongs to Sipah-i-Sahaba, a sectarian group with links to intelligence agencies that targets Shia Muslims.
A paramilitary soldier who had been captured by Baitullah's men was beheaded after he was singled out as a Shia.
Pakistani soldiers backed by helicopter gunships killed 48 pro-Taliban militants but lost 20 of their men during fierce fighting near Mir Ali, North Waziristan, on Saturday.

Dhaka: The interim government in Bangladesh plans to constitute a truth commission to reduce punishment of corrupt businessmen through a "plea bargain".
"The proposed plea bargain system will suggest reduced jail term for corruption convicts and suspended sentences specially for businessmen while the truth commission would settle the complains out of the court separately," law adviser Mainul Hosein said yesterday.
He, however, did not give any deadline for the launching of the proposed bargain plea system but said the government had no plan to announce any general amnesty for the corruption suspects or convicts while the proposed law would not be "officially meant for businessmen alone".
Hosein`s comments came days after the central Bangladesh bank advised commercial banks to allow smooth transaction of business firms owned by businessmen facing corruption charges as "the economy would suffer if the slump in businesses lingers".
Leading chamber leaders in recent days repeatedly urged the authorities to win businessmen`s confidence to face the growing challenges in the economic sector which was troubled by rising inflation and growing prices of essentials.
Hosein said a large number of big businessmen went into hiding or took temporary refuge abroad fearing harassment for "minor corruptions" exposing their enterprises as well as thousands of their employees to uncertainty and the economy to a stalemate.
Asked if the proposed initiative would be a double standard as it intended not to give any relief to the politicians, Hosein said "politicians corruption are seen seriously in every country other than Bangladesh as it involves the statecraft".

Israeli Official Suggests Deal on Jerusalem, Aircraft Strikes Gaza
Voice of America - 1 hour ago
By VOA News A top official in the Israeli government has suggested a deal in which Israel turns over control of some Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem to the Palestinians, in exchange for international recognition of Israel's annexation of Jewish ...
Blackwater guards shot Iraqis without provocation, report says
Guardian Unlimited - 5 hours ago
Guards from the US security firm Blackwater had not been shot at before they opened fire last month on Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, killing 17 people, according to an official Iraqi investigation into the deaths.
UK plans Iraq troop cut to 2500
LONDON, England (CNN) -- British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said the number of UK troops in Iraq will fall from the current level of 5500 to 2500 by next spring.
Iraq shows confessions after January Najaf battle
Mon Oct 8, 10:41 AM ET
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The Iraqi government on Monday released video confessions from followers of a Shi'ite cult arrested after a major battle with U.S. and Iraqi forces in January near the holy city of Najaf.
One of the confessions said the cult leader slain in the battle had met critics of the Iraqi government, including the country's first post-war prime minister Iyad Allawi.
The fierce battle in the area of Zarga, north of Najaf, left 220 militants dead, including spiritual leader Dhia al-Garrawi. Iraq said the heavily-armed group planned to assassinate top Shi'ite scholars to destabilize the country.
Riyadh al-Garrawi, who was captured after the fighting, said on the video confession that his brother, Dhia, had met both Allawi and Sunni cleric Harith al-Dari outside Iraq.
Dhia al-Garrawi had proclaimed himself the Mahdi, a messiah-like figure in Islam, and had a cult following.
Allawi and Dari, both of whom spend most of their time abroad, are very critical of the Iraqi government and Dari has often accused it of forcing confessions from detainees for political ends.
"(Dhia) requested me to arrange an interview with Allawi and (an intermediary) arranged a meeting with Allawi in Jordan," Riyadh al-Garrawi said on the video, shown at an Interior Ministry news conference.
He said Dhia also met Sunni cleric Dari at least twice to discuss political issues, in Syria's capital Damascus and the Gulf emirate of Dubai.
"He told me they debated politics and agreed they were against federalism and favored a secular state," he said.
Usama al-Nujeyfi, a lawmaker from Allawi's bloc, called the investigation results a sham.
"It's not a proper investigation, it's all politicized. Dr. Allawi is a national leader who rejects violence in all its forms," he told Reuters.
Dari was not immediately available for comment on the video confession.

Hawaiian Islands are Contaminated with Ballistic Uranium
For Immediate Release
Contact: Lindafaye Kroll
tenfingers10toes@ protecthawaii. ws
Note: The US Army admitted the radiological contamination of Hawaii in the summer of 2007. The contamination was later confirmed by the senior US Senator from Hawaii, The Honorable Daniel Inouye. The first 2007 Army air born radiological contamination survey identified 45 locations with dangerous levels of Gamma Ray radiation from US Army uranium munitions. Satellite radiation observations have not been released by the Pentagon.
Bob Nichols
Project Censored Award Winner
San Francisco Bay View Correspondent
Hawaiian Islands are Contaminated with Ballistic Uranium
by Lindafaye Kroll RN BSN
tenfingers10toes@ protecthawaii. ws
Army admits to the contamination of Hawaiian islands with depleted uranium spotting rounds on Schofield Barracks, O'ahu and Pohakuloa Training Area, Hawai'i Island. Help us save paradise from this most toxic substance.
Public comment to U.S. Army SEIS deadline Oct. 30, 2007
Email Army at PublicComments@ aec.apgea. army.mil
Hawaii Tourism Authority at info@hawaiitourisma uthority. org
(Hawaii) Depleted uranium (DU) is stored in Hawai'i under the Naval Radioactive Materials Permit. The Navy accidentally fired two DU rounds from Pearl Harbor in 1994. The rounds landed somewhere above Aiea and were never recovered. The Environmental Impact Statement of the 25th Infantry Transformation to the Stryker Brigade Combat Team published in 2004 states emphatically that depleted uranium munitions were never part of the Army's arsenal.

Despite this claim spent DU spotting rounds were found at Schofield Barracks, (An army base and live-fire training range on O'ahu), in August 2005. This discovery was not disclosed by the military but through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) instigated by concerned residents of Hawai'i.
In August 2007 the army admits the Pohakuloa Training Area (An army base and live-fire training range on Hawai'i Island) is also contaminated with depleted uranium spotting rounds. There are hundreds and hundreds of these spent DU rounds on these two live-fire training ranges.
Any uranium product used as munitions becomes ballistic once it is fired, launched or dropped. Ballistic depleted uranium contamination is a serious problem in Hawai'i.
Depleted uranium is a toxic radioactive waste product of the nuclear industry that has a half life of over 4 billion years. In other words, DU is radioactive forever.
The military claims that depleted uranium munitions are low level radioactivity and are not harmful to health and environment. The military's claims are false.
The military's talking points are about the solid form depleted uranium, the military never addresses Hawai'i residents' concerns, which is the ballistic form of depleted uranium. When depleted uranium munitions are used in war or artillery practices, these munitions have a devastating effect on public health and the environment.
Once DU munitions are launched, they become ballistic. They catch fire, and on impact they can punch through anything with tremendous force causing trillions of tiny radioactive particles of DU dust to be scattered in the environment and carried in the air.
This is when the real public health problem begins. Once airborne, these vaporized radioactive heavy metal particles can be inhaled or ingested because of radioactive contamination of air, food or water supply.
Many of our U.S. Veterans, serving in combat areas that use DU munitions, are getting sick. Support legislation to test our troops returning from Iraq for depleted uranium.
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/Virginia9- 11Truth/message/ 849
"Americans see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear"
~ Ali Mohammed

Two documentaries on FBI and CIA harboring 1993 and 2001 WTC terrorist perpetrators.
Next time you watch "The Bourne Identity" films all you have to do is to substitute the name Jason Bourne with Ali Mohammed or Mohammed Atta.

Ali Mohammed has one hell of a resume. A sergeant in the Egyptian Army, a sergeant in the U.S. Special Forces, and a member of al Qaeda who served as Osama bin Laden's chief of security. Along the way, he did a stint as an FBI informant and a CIA agent.

National Geographic Channel's Whitewash of the Ali Mohamed Story

Ali Mohammed's story is one of the most obvious tales of US cooperation with so called Al-Qaeda operatives and really quite an incredible tale that would be discarded as too far fetched if someone tried to write it as a fictional spy story, but unfortunately it's the real deal.
Mohammed was not a Bin Laden spy as this article suggests but rather an American agent used to create muslim guerilla groups, a liaison between the US and various radical muslim groups. His job was to get muslims to fight the american fight against the soviets in Afghanistan and then to create the "al-Qaeda" myth by supervising terrorist acts that could be blamed on his his underlings. I recommend reading more about him as it is a great way to understand the way the connections between the US and muslim terror groups operate and to learn more about the origins of ''al-Qaeda'' .
History Channel - The 9/11 Hijackers: Inside the Hamburg Cell - DVD
Mohamed Atta, Ziad Jarrah, Ramzi Binalshibh, and Marwan al-Shehhi--collecti vely known as the Hamburg cell--are profiled on this program from the History Channel. The four men were key players in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and this show takes a look at their lives leading up to that fateful day.
Mohamed Atta, Ziad Jarrah, Ramzi Binalshibh, and Marwan al-Shehhi--collecti vely known as the Hamburg cell--are profiled on this program from the History Channel. The four men were key players in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and this show takes a look at their lives leading up to that fateful day.

The Life and Times of Dick Cheney?

By DAVE MARSH
CounterPunch
"Last night I had the strangest dream.
Dick Cheney died and I was asked to deliver his eulogy. As far as I can remember this is what I said:
How shall we live without him? Without Dick Cheney, who will lie to us? Who will hide from us? Who will shoot without looking? Who will start the needless wars and instruct the President to tap the endless phone calls? Ah, the nation mourns.
To whom else should we turn in the future when we need someone to express true contempt forwell, not just for common people, but for all of humanity. Dick Cheney was a man of powerful beliefs: He believed himself better than anyone else on this planet. He believed he had the right to steal elections, pollute the environment 'til it was as tainted and gruesome as his own face, to conduct himself like a pasha and to impoverish every man woman and child to whom he did not personally bow and scrape. If you believe that God is merciful, we shall not see his like again.....
And yet, at the end, I am still convinced of this: Dick Cheney is today in the place he wanted and deserved to be. A place where no one can find him, no one can hold him accountable. Oh shrink back in fear, ye demons of hell. And get the fuck out of the way. Whoever was the biggest, most selfish, most fascistic prick among you just stepped down a notch......"
"Hospitals specialising in cancer treatment have urged the Iraq authorities to replenish supplies because they say a shortage of essential medicines is putting the lives of thousands of patients at risk.
Patients are dying from cancer because of a lack of medicines in public hospitals. Private pharmacies are selling the products but at very high prices, which cannot be afforded by poor families, said Ibraheem Muhammad, a senior official at the Cancer Research Centre at the Ministry of Health.
Indispensable drugs like methotrexate, largely used in breast [cancer], bone [cancer] and in certain cases of leukaemia; cyclophosphamide used in lung and breast cancer and lymphomas, as well as vindesine, used in all those cases, are seriously short in all hospitals in Iraq, Muhammad added. To make the situation worse for patients, some machines used for radiotherapy are broken, waiting for repairs.
According to Muhammad, some wealthier patients are going abroad for treatment when they can get the visas but poor families are desperate as they cannot afford to be treated privately.
Based on information received at our centre, at least 60 people have died from cancer in Iraq due to a lack of medicines in the past two months. Cancer in some patients can develop very fast if treatment isnt available and if the situation continues, more cases are going to be reported in the coming weeks, he noted.
Black-market dealers
Fuaad Abdel-Razaq, an oncologist at Cancer Studies Hospital, in the capital, Baghdad, said black-market dealers can be found at hospital doors selling drugs for cancer treatment.
In addition to the high prices, many of the drugs [sold illicitly] have already expired and desperate families buy them in an attempt to save the lives of their loved ones but thereby put the patients at high risk, Abdel-Razaq added.
Based on information received at our centre, at least 60 people have died from cancer in Iraq due to a lack of medicines in the past two months.
The oncologist went on to say that in the past few months some local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) delivered many medicines to his hospital but none was suitable for cancer treatment.
"We were forced to send all the drugs to other public hospitals because they are not for treating cancer. For example, paracetamol cannot treat the pain of a cancer patient but morphine can, but it isnt available, said Abdel-Razaq.
Doctors at Basras Maternity and Child Hospital said about 20 new cancer and leukaemia cases are reported among children each month. It pains us to see so many children appearing in our clinics suffering from cancer and especially as we know they will die because theyll not be treated, said Dr Ali Hashimy, an oncologist at the hospital. If medicines are available we could save at least 70 percent of them.
I bet you thought that was an article from the sanctions years. Wrong.
This IRIN article appeared yesterday and is dated 4th october 2007.
Every single Iraqi I meet tells me that the sanctions years appear like the "golden years" compared to what is now. The golden years. Can you imagine !?
The sanctions years were horrible years, but today's reality in Iraq is even more horrific. The above article attests to it. And this is nothing. T

Ayodhya-type backlash And the Dalit Scenerio
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
Stem cell research earns scientists Nobel Medicine prize
STOCKHOLM (AFP) - Mario Capecchi and Oliver Smithies of the United States and Martin Evans of Britain won the Nobel Prize for Medicine on Monday for their work in creating "knockout mice," the 21st-century testbed for biomedical research.

Ram Sethu: Togadia warns of Ayodhya-type backlash
Pune: Vishwa Hindu Parishad's International General Secretary Praveen Togadia on Monday said that the destruction of Ram Setu would trigger a major Hindu backlash similar to the one witnessed during the "Ayodhya mass movement" in 1992.
Addressing a public meeting here organised on the occasion of VHP's anniversary yesterday, Togadia termed the Sethusamudram project as an "international conspiracy" aimed at depriving India of the Thorium deposits.
The elements which did not want the country to emerge as an economic power were behind the implementation of the project, he said.
He further said that the Central government was behaving as an "agent of the US" and the controversial nuclear power agreement was an indication of this servility.
The VHP leader felicitated city historian Pandurang Balkawde and presented him the 'Dharmaraksha' award on the occasion.
Mob thrashes pregnant lady on suspicion of theft
Naveen Nair / CNN-IBN
Malappuram (Kerala): Two women and a five-year-old child were beaten up by a mob at Edappal in the Malappuram district. Locals took the trio for thieves and attacked them, after they were found wandering suspiciously near a shop from which a gold anklet had gone missing.

All three were gypsies and one of them — 38-year-old Kavita, is reportedly pregnant.

Says an eyewitness, Basheer, "It's such an inhuman act. How can you beat up someone just on suspicion of theft? Nobody even cared that one of the women was pregnant. If the police had not turned up in time, the mob would have killed them."

While thefts have increased in Kerala, this is perhaps the first time that its largely literate society has taken law into its own hands.

And the authorities are not amused. Police were quick to crackdown on those involved. Five people are already in custody.

Says the SP of Malappuram, P Viajan, "More arrests will surely follow. We believe some seven more persons were directly involved in this inhuman act. We have given the women and children the necessary medical attention. They are fine now."

The incident has also prompted the State Human Rights Commission to summon the Malappuram SP. The Chief Minister says action will be taken against policemen who failed to prevent the assault.

But what's worrying is that amidst the hue and cry, the victims themselves seem to have disappeared.

UP to prepare fresh BPL list
Lucknow: Taking cognisance of complaints of discrepancies in the BPL list, the Uttar Pradesh government on Sunday decided to conduct a fresh survey to prepare a new list.
"The exercise aims at ensuring that benefits of the scheme are availed of only by eligible families," Chief Minister, Mayawati, told reporters here.
The decision was taken at a meeting of the state cabinet held on Sunday, she said.
The fresh survey would be undertaken jointly by the departments of Rural Development, Food and Civil Supplies and Revenue, Mayawati said.
She said it would be conducted by a committee to be headed by concerned district magistrates and would be completed within a period of three months.
Mayawati said several discrepancies had been reported in the existing list as the Rural Development and Food and Civil Supplies departments had identified BPL families separately.
"The government has been receiving a large number of complaints that a large number of eligible families were left out, while ineligible families are getting the benefits," the chief minister said.
She said the new list would be displayed in public places and also put forth at the open meeting of the gram sabha so that transparency could be maintained in the identification of BPL families.
A 13-point assessment format has been fixed under each head and a family can get a maximum of 52 marks as a standard.
This re-survey would be conducted for all families in the State. Thereafter, a cut-off would be fixed according to the number of BPL families sanctioned by the Centre.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mayawati launches bloodless revolution via UP
DR. V.D. CHANDANSHIVE, COTTAGE VAISHALI, SHAHU NAGAR, NANDED - 431 602
http://www.dalitvoice.org/Templates/oct2007/articles.htm
Though overtly it appears as a political change in UP, brought about by an “iron lady”, covertly it has all the ingredients of a silent, neat, bloodless revolution envisaged by the icons of the Bahujan Samaj beginning with the Budha, Asoka in the ancient times and dreamt of by Jyotirao Phule, Shahu, Dr. Ambedkar and Periyar.
This is so because the sweeping political change in UP is based solely on the ideology of the above-cited great personalities who always stood for justice and equality in political, social and economic spheres irrespective of caste, creed and religion.
This is the first time in post-independent India that a remarkable political transformation has materialized founded on the core ideology of Bahujanism, the ideology which has been staring through the preamble of the Indian constitution waiting to be implemented by the rulers but whose Manuwadi mind-set has converted it into more or less a dead letter. In the very first press conference, after swearing in as CM, Mayawati said:
Yeh hamari vichardhara ki vijay hai (this is the victory for our ideology).
Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar’s definition of democracy — a system of governance in which change is brought without shedding a single drop of blood — has been actually demonstrated by Mayawati at the hustings in UP. Hats off to her indomitable courage and her managerial skills.
Our Editor has very rightly commented on the greatness of Kanshi Ram:
The country has not so far seen a political strategist like Kanshi Ram. He is an expert on caste and had all the caste arithmetic on the tip of his fingers. His experiments in UP, using the caste to kill casteism proved a great success. Kanshi Ram has been not only a dedicated and selfless leader but perhaps a rare leader who loved his people... If Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar gave us those deadly philosophical weapons to fight the Brahminical forces, the credit goes to Kanshi Ram for effectively using those weapons and producing magical results... (Dr. V.D. Chandanshive, Kanshi Ram The Crusader, Blue Dawn Books, 2005 p.5).
No Dalit leader after Babasaheb stood the test of time as Kanshi Ram did. And the novel strategy which he applied to the Bahujan movement paid him great dividends. While at Poona he happened to read Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste and he read it several times. When he found that Babasaheb had put the onus of destroying caste on the Brahmins and other upper castes who were just 15% in the Indian society, what was left for Kanshi Ram to do? But there was a section in Babasaheb’s writings about an ideal, casteless Indian society based on the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity practising social endosmosis. (Dr. B.R. Ambedkar W&S, Vol.1, p.57).
U.P. ACCEPTS BAHUJAN IDEOLOGY
He thought that the percentage of upper castes was just 15% but the deprived a whopping 85%. Why not organise and unite them on the basis of their victimisation? If Manu could divide the castes by empowering the 15% micro minority, he could unite the 85% majority (bahujans) by making them aware of their victimisation. And fraternity was the weapon he used to unite them. Kanshi Ram got the clues to do this from the writings of Phule, Shahu, Dr. Ambedkar, Periyar and also from the writings of his contemporary thinker and friend, V.T. Rajshekar our Editor.
Kanshi Ram never looked back since then conquering one target after another with the help of his organs —BAMCEF, DS-4 and BSP. Renouncing his home, relatives and adopting a life-style of a hermit, he journeyed through the nook and corner of the country selling dreams and awakening different Bahujan castes. Sleeping or awake, he devoted his entire life to the Bahujan mission. He became an ideal missionary for his cadre. A compassionate and saintly leader as he was, he wanted a better successor to the movement which he found in Sister Mayawati who has proved her mettle in UP by installing the first ever Bahujan government in clear majority and asserting herself as a Sarwajan Dalit leader.
MEANING OF “CASTE IDENTITY”
Looking at the entire demographic scenario of UP, one can claim that the steady walk of BSP’s elephant has not left any area untrampled. The Indian media has concealed the fact that apart from winning 208-10 seats in an Assembly of 403, BSP stood second in 111 constituencies and in 60 segments it lost by a margin less than 5,000 votes. The vote share reveals that it was a massive sweep for BSP. That means the UP electorate of all castes and creed had accepted the Bahujan idealogy of justice to all castes and communities.
But to make the UP electorate accept Bahujan ideology, Kanshi Ram and Mayawati had to put in their non-stop efforts for nearly 25-30 years. They have tested the thesis successfully that castes and communities of different shades can be constructively awakened to achieve their human rights and to get justice. Another significant fall-out of UP elections which has come to the fore is:
If the 85% deprived Bahujans is united, the remaining 15% upper castes will follow to safeguard their own security and rights. In this way Bahujans can be converted into sarvajans. So the fraternity of 85% Bahujans results in the fraternity of sarvajans. This is the only meaning of the thesis of “caste identity”, caste awakening or caste consolidation or to use caste unity to kill casteism.
VICTORY ONLY DUE TO BRAHMIN VOTE IS JOKE
Fraternity is a unique instrument to unite the victimised castes after caste awakening. This thesis can purge the Bahujan Samaj of the caste hatred and also superiority, inferiority feeling inducted in the caste system by Manu. This has been demonstrated perfectly by what is now termed as “social engineering” which Dr. Ambedkar called “social endosmosis” by Mayawati in UP.
In the heated UP elections the Indian media did not stop playing its old Manuwadi mischief by projecting Mayawati victory as a result of Brahmins voting for BSP. Looking at the entire electoral politics in India even a blind man can tell that due only to the Bahujan castes and communities voting for upper caste political parties a mere 15-20% upper caste rulers have been ruling India since “independence”. The media attempt to tell the people that a small river is bigger than a vast ocean is really a joke. It is true that the upper casts — Brahmins, Jains, Jats, Thakurs and even Bhumihars — did vote for the BSP. But what is their total percentage in the total population of UP? And moreover BSP had distributed tickets to these caste groups as per their percentage in the population of UP which no other party had done. Obviously the percentage of upper castes in UP is much less than SC,BC and Muslims put together. The OBC caste groups, Yadavs and Lodhs, did not vote for the BSP. But about 30% OBCs other than Yadavs and Lodhs preferred BSP. Why? The answer lies in an altogether different political representation the UP electorate expected and BSP was successful in generating this model.
“LARGEST DEMOCRACY” IS ANTI-DEMOCRATIC
Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, while criticizing the nature of the body of elected representatives in parliament and assemblies, often described them as communal majorities. This meant that either the elected representatives belonged to one dominant caste numerically much stronger than other caste groups in the area or at the most all elected members belonged to the upper castes riding rough shod over the lower caste groups.
This again meant numerically much greater “lower caste” groups remained completely unrepresented which turned out to be anti-democratic in the “largest democracy of the world”. To our dismay OBC leaders Mulayam and Lalu and others have also imitated this upper caste-generated model creating Yadav monopoly in their respective states. We can now witness what the non-Yadav electorate has done with these leaders. In Maharashtra also the Maratha communal majority has been ruling the state for so many years monopolising not only political power but the entire co-operative and agricultural sector leaving the non-Maratha electorate and the communities unrepresented. But in UP, a fully democratic representation model has been generated awakening and educating the Indian electorate which has been creating ripples throughout the country. In UP, the old model of communal majority has been killed by the electorate.
MEANING OF SECULARISM
Congressmen are claiming to be secular but the BJP and Hindu terrorists are calling them pseudo-secularists striving to appease Muslims. But both of them are playing the game of phobia-generating politics — a technique that kept the Congress in power for half a century. Hindu terrorists intimidating, abusing the Muslims and the Congress pretending to be their saviour just for their votes. Both the Hindu terrorist party and the Congress engineering riots between Muslims and Backward Castes (bundling them Hindus) but focussing the riot as “Hindu versus Muslims” just to garner votes in elections and still claiming as secularists. This reached a climax when the “secularist” Congress Prime Minister Narasimha Rao silently allowed the dismantling of Babri Mosque in UP then ruled by BJP in 1992. Here the two parties proved to be two sides of the same coin. The anti-Muslim stance of upper castes in all upper caste parties was perfected with the genocide of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002. This much for the secularism of upper castes.
WELFARE ECONOMY
Mayawati has added another vital meaning to the Indian secularism. Apart from the “religious secularism” they have added “social secularism” in a caste-ridden India. The principle of secularism cannot be implemented without “social secularism” or call it secularism of castes apart from secularism of religions.
Unless each caste is managed, awakened and empowered the principle of secularism cannot be brought to its logical end.
But the upper caste rulers have been using secularism as a disruptive weapon to disturb the peace of the society with which the electorate is disgusted. The Indian society along with the “poor” of the upper castes wants security, justice, development and progress which have been denied to them by the upper caste ruling clique throwing secularism to the winds.
Political power for BSP is not an end in itself. But it is an effective means to be used for social and economic democracy or transformation. Otherwise, mere political democracy (right to vote), without creating social and economic equality will be a fiasco. And it has been made a fiasco by the 15% upper caste rulers in terms of 85% deprived Bahujans. The upper caste rulers have been using the country’s economy for the welfare of their own jati people who are just 15-20% leaving out a gigantic chunk of 85% high and dry. (Read V.T. Rajshekar’s book, Development Redefined, DSA-2006).
DR. AMBEDKAR CHEATED
A core part-IV of the Indian constitution which puts forth the developmental agenda — the directive principles of state policy — still remains un-implemented even after 6 years of “independence” simply because it is not made obligatory by the constitution-makers as they have done with the fundamental rights. In fact, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar wanted to induct an economic policy, namely state socialism, in the basic structure of the constitution and wanted to make it obligatory on every government to implement it. In the constitutional debates he had pointed out that in the world constitutions there was a lacuna of non-inclusion of definite economic policy and we Indians should remove this drawback in the making of our constitution. But our great upper caste lovers of democracy opposed his proposal and refused to make economic policy of state socialism obligatory by law. Since then the upper caste rulers have been playing hide and seek with part-IV of the constitution.
But in UP, Mayawati cannot afford to drift away from the welfare economy of the dynamic Bahujan icon. For this dynamic iron lady, Mayawati, must become the PM to materialize the benefits of welfare economy.
Indian rulers have blindly imitated the Western economic model which pushed the country to extreme poles of marxism or capitalist or market economy. Those countries which sought equilibrium between these two poles have prospered. Nothing that goes to the extreme succeeds. Under marxism, liberty is crushed and under capitalism equality is thrown to the winds. So justice is denied in both the systems.
Both the economic systems (socialism and capitalism) have been created by international Jewry (read Protocols of Learned Elders of Zion, copies available with Dalit Voice, Rs. 50). Marx was a Jew and the champions of globalisation (WTO, World Bank and IMF) are all Jew. They have invented these economic systems to disrupt peace in different countries to push the zionist agenda. They think that they have been chosen by god to rule the entire world. But they cannot fool the entire world all the time. They should also remember that human mind is capable of innovations and it has the capacity to invent a novel economic system which would establish world peace once again. They should also remember that if they are bent upon destroying world peace, they too will remain unsafe. Mayawati is capable of reviewing the economic world scenario to apply Dr. Ambedkar’s indigenous brand of state socialism.

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CLOSING DOWN D.V. : EDITOR MUST LAUNCH R.S.S.-LIKE BODY
Socio-cultural revolution alone can make political power permanent
NAGESH CHOUDHARY, EDITOR, BAHUJAN SANGHARSH, RAHATE COLONY, WARDHA ROAD, NAGPUR - 440 022
I fully understand the agony of Editor V.T. Rajshekar. Many including myself are shocked to hear his decision to “close down DV” (DV Edit May 16, 2007). If not today, DV will soon stop if somebody capable does not come to forward. So what and who after VTR? He is 76 years young. His energy and intellect are still youthful as they were before.
I am reacting to what Com. Ayyankali has written, “Brahmins will rejoice if DV is closed but India can see no revolution” (DV June 16, 2007 p.11).
What I understood from many years of contact with VTR and studying his writings is that he is striving for a cultural revolution rather than political power. He has deliberately kept aloof from politics, joined no party but supported certain parties especially the Dalit ones.
Ayyankali wants an “RSS-like non-political organisation” and adds:
DV can no longer be run only by one man. It has to be run by a trust backed by an RSS-like non-political organisation.
BRAHMINIC THOUGHT CONTROLLED BY RSS
But he does not know that RSS is not just a trust but controls almost all political parties, besides directly controlling BJP. Today, RSS is the biggest organisation in India. It has solid assets in all major cities of India. Its wealth cannot be matched by any political party including the ruling Congress Party. I am saying this with my close watch on RSS which has its headquarters right here in Nagpur.
RSS has a definite aim — to keep India a Hindu nation. All Brahmins and most non-Brahmins in political or social organisations are controlled by the RSS. Besides, there are scores of outfits controlled by the RSS. The “Hindu nation” is a system. After the British left they have strengthened the Brahminic system with an all-pervading bondage.
Political power, according to the RSS, is not the master key. It is part of the system, the “nation”. M.S. Golwalkar says:
We stand for national regeneration and not for that half-hazard bundle of (politics) — the state. (We or Our Nationhood Defined, 1939, p.3. Photocopy available with DV).
PHULE-AMBEDKAR-PERIYAR PRODUCT OF BRITISH
We consider our great liberators as our guide today. Mahatma Phule and Dr. Ambedkar were born in Maharashtra. Phule was born (1827) just nine years after the Peshwa rule was defeated by the British. Dr. Ambedkar was born under the British Raj. Phule wrote all his books when British were ruling. Had there been a Peshwa rule — India’s last Brahminic rule run as per Manu’s law — how could Phule criticise Brahmins as he did? He would have been nipped in the bud.
In Pune, Mahars and other Untouchables were not allowed to walk on the streets. Even cats and dogs had that freedom but not Dalits. This inhuman practice was stopped by the British.
The British introduced a new administrative system. No single personality was important under that system. Had there been no British rule neither Dr. Ambedkar nor Periyar or Shahu Maharaja would have come up.
Brahmin rule would not have tolerated Phule, Periyar or Dr. Ambedkar. So, we should accept the bitter truth that it was the British who were responsible for the rise of our great saviours like Phule, Dr. Ambedkar and Periyar.
“HINDU NATION” CONFINED TO 15% ARYANS
A great personality alone cannot create a system. Phule-Periyar-Dr. Ambedkar could not have created an anti-Brahmin or non-Brahmin system. They could attack the Brahminic system only because of the protection they enjoyed under the British rule. That is why all the Brahmin marxists as well reactionaries call Phule, Dr. Ambedkar, Periyar as stooges of British.
Ayyankali’s call for an RSS-like body needs to be examined in the light of my above observation. The Brahminic system, meaning the “the Hindu nation”, as a whole has to be countered and defeated in totality. That is why they call RSS a cultural body. The “Hindu nation” concept does not indicate the majority Hindu population. What they mean by “Hindu nation” is the mere 15% Aryan nation.
Golwalkar’s concept of “Hindu nation” is a racial one. If we read the book, We or Our Nationhood Defined, the overall domination of Aryan Brahmins is what Golwalkar means by “Hindu nation”. He considered such aspects as race, language, culture and religion in the context of Aryans only. In the foreword to his book, M.S. Aney, ex-Governor and a Congressman then, supporting Golwalkars theory says:
The state is an essentially political unity while the nationality is primarily cultural and incidentally political.
Quoting Prof. Hayes, Golwalkar says:
“...the idea contained in the word nation is a compound of five distinct factors fused into one indissoluble whole, the famous five units — geographical (country) and racial (race), religious (religion), cultural (culture) and linguistic (language). (Ibid p.18).
INDIAN GOVT. FOLLOWS BRAHMINIC SYSTEM
RSS never aspires for political power. At least they say so and there is lot of truth in that statement. They stand for “nation” meaning Brahminical control or domination over the country i.e. geographical entity under their control.
Aryans are culturally superior because the people are under the influence of Brahminic or vedic culture.
Even the Indian state (the Govt. of India) follows Brahminic culture, It respects the Vedas, Ramayana, Gita more than any scripture. The state respects the Sanskrit language the most. No other language has such respect as Sanskrit. There are Sanskrit universities all over India for a few hundred Sanskrit learning Brahmins. On the contrary there is not even a single department to learn the languages of Adivasis who constitute 10% of our population.
Gonds speaking Gondi language number lakhs but they have to learn in Brahminic language. And above all the masses are insulted by calling their speech, language as impure, rustic. They are not only socially downgraded but linguistically and culturally insulted. The people’s languages are inferior just like their castes are.
It is said that if you kill the language you kill the nation. Aryans have to a large extent killed the languages of Bahujans. They have labelled Urdu as anti-national. Another way of side- tracking or killing it. Language contains cultural traits and social relations. Brahminism by killing the languages of Bahujans killed the Bahujan culture and nation.
Golwalkar says Sanskrit is the national language of “Hindu nation”. Hindi is sponsored by the Central Govt. as our national language but RSS considers that declaration is done by the state and not by the “nation”. This speaks how they are particular about the “Hindu nation”.
HINDUS EQUATED WITH ARYAN
They say their religion is Hindu. But Hindu is equated with Aryan and hence religion and race are synonymous. The other Hindu (non-Brahmins) are not Hindus in the minds of the Brahmins. They are shudras i.e. slaves.
RSS is run according to the thesis propounded by Golwalkar even to this day. But where are we? Com. Ayyankali is perfectly right in proposing that DV should be run like the RSS.
The readers of DV should give thought to his idea. Then not only DV will survive but also you will be able to counter the “Hindu nation”. RSS leaders say India is a “Hindu nation” because very thing including the Indian state is being run as per their wishes whichever political party runs the Indian state. Even Dalit political parties dare not challenge them culturally. We are fooling ourselves calling “political power as the master key”.
*****
Brother Nagesh Chaudhary is our good old friend at Nagpur and a great admirer of our work for about three decades. As the Editor of a Marathi journal, he too is struggling like us. We thank him for pointing out that socio-cultural revolution alone can lead to political revolution. We have endorsed his point and elaborated it in the Editorial (see p.3) — EDITOR.

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Iran attack underway?
U. KHALID, 3-BLACKLAND DR., HAYES, MDDX 8B4 8 EU, UK
Reports say President Bush told a meeting in Reno he has “authorized the military commanders in Iraq to confront Teheran’s murderous activities”. Those words come close to saying not that a war is coming but that it is already here. Equipped with 97-0 resolution in the Senate to confront Iran, the President may unleash a surprise assault on Iran very soon. John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s book, Israel Lobby, released here is under attack and dubbed anti-semite.

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American protest meetings to expose Gandhi
PIETER FREDRICH, SAN FRANSCISCO
We are glad to hear Dalit Voice is arranging a protest in Bombay on Oct.2 to expose the mischief of M.K. Gandhi through the “Poona Pact”. What time of day does your protest in Bombay start? Is there a phone number or email we can use publicly for interested parties to contact? We would like to list a schedule of Oct.2 protests on our website, www.gandhism.net. We will include the details of your scheduled protest on our list. We have also put together an online petition protesting the UN resolution honoring Gandhi. You can view this here:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/stop-honoring-gandhi-with-un-international-day-of-non-violence.html
Please pass this around to increase awareness of the problems with Mohandas Gandhi. Please make sure that any interested parties receive an opportunity to view our website at http://www.gandhism.net. This website has a great many details about the problems surrounding Gandhi and is very informative. We are currently working on a “Gandhi and Dalits” section which should be completed within two to three weeks. (jjamesf@gmail.com).

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RAW hand in Bangladesh student violence
MOHAMMAD ZAINAL ABEDIN, H.NO.9, ROAD-20, BLOCK-C, SECT.-10, DHAKA - 1216
The tempest that rocked Dhaka from Aug.20 to 22 under the cover of student protest was masterminded by India’s super intelligence agency, RAW (Research and Analysis Wing).
RAW was behind the recent upheaval in Dhaka University (DU) and other educational institutions when students attacked vehicles and business installations. The situation was so grave that the government was forced to impose curfew in Dhaka and five other divisional headquarters to control the students belonging to pro-India camp. They were joined by non-student hired hooligans and activists belonging to different political parties and their front organizations that enjoy RAW blessings.
The trouble started over a trifling matter — a football match at DU playground to teach a “lesson” to the caretaker government and undermine the image of Bangladesh armed forces. The tempest struck when the country was recovering from scars of India-created devastating floods.
The student riot spread to many other universities and even colleges which had no connection with the DU playground incident. Cash distribution was so open and enormous that the Army chief, Lt. Gen. Moeen U. Ahmed, said the “evil power (meaning India) poured crores of taka to instigate vandalism in the streets”.
RAW, they said, is engaged in disruptive activities in Bangladesh ever since it came into being in 1971. No other country in this region and beyond is against Bangladesh and no other intelligence agency maintains so many tentacles and toadies in Bangladesh other than the RAW.
A Bengali daily, Naya Diganta, of Dhaka said Indian diplomats based in Rajshahi caused release of the three teachers of Rajshahi University. Of these one was Prof. Moloy Kumar Bhowmic, a Hindu.
Indian High Commission officials were very active throughout the student violence. Rajshahi University did not experience such a violence in its 54-year existence.
Indian diplomats tried to influence the police not to prosecute the culprits. It also said that many teachers and student leaders of RU were on the payroll of RAW.
Barrister Mainul Hosen, the adviser for Law and Information, told the BBC the involvement of foreign hands. (noa@agni.com)

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If Ambedkarism has to survive DV must continue
R.R. GAWALI, C-2048, PATEL KUNJ, GAIL GAON, DIBIYAPUR 206 241
DV is the energy and inspiration for the survival of Ambedkarism, We are not having an all-India English media of our own except Dalit Voice. I am requesting you to please continue DV. As per my ability I am sending you a cheque of Rs. 5,000 as a contribution for your noble cause.

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COMMMUNICATION : “CASTE IDENITY”
In defence of Bojja Tarakam
NEERAV PATEL, 4-HEMANG PARK, VEJALPUR, AHMEDABAD 380 051
Thank you for publishing my Letter (DV, Aug, 16, 2007, p. 8) even though it carried some criticism. Again I find in the current issue that Bojja Tharakam criticised you at the Andhra Pradesh DVsilver Jubilee Celebrations on Aug 12 at Hyderabad. I must praise your democratic ethos when you allow such dissenting voices in DV.
But it does not go well with the champion of Dalit cause like you when equally respectable but dissenting Dalit activists/ideologues are attributed with practicing subtle casteism. You cannot necessarily perceive them as taking their caste’s interest uppermost just because they are born Mala or Madiga or Mahar or Chamar.
Dangerous evil: You deserve a lot more praise when you take the side of the weakest of the weak among the Dalits and advocate the principle of reservation to its logical end i.e. those who are yet to avail the benefits of the scheme must be given their due and, therefore, internal reservation (“categorisation”) is the only just solution. Great and fine. This is nothing but social justice. But I can’t understand how you can mix the two issues — “caste identity” and “categorisation” (i.e. extension of the principle of social justice and equality of opportunity, fraternity of all human beings including among Dalits themselves )?
I cannot take you as a petty propagandist, a pamphleteer involved in his myopic mission; I know you are a great scholar, a great philosopher, a great humanitarian, a great ideologue, a great revolutionary. I simply can’t understand how you got possessed of this dangerous evil called “caste ide

Basu Replies sonia Fire and the Great Operation Damage Control is in Full Swing

"In general there might be a discussion of where things stand. But the issue is still in a political realm and it is not for the IAEA to touch that."
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
"In general there might be a discussion of where things stand. But the issue is still in a political realm and it is not for the IAEA to touch that."
allavi Ghosh / CNN-IBN
New Delhi / Kolkata: The Left is still seeing red. Sonia Gandhi may have done an about-turn from her onslaught on the Left over the Indo-US Nuclear deal, but the Left is in no mood to be mollified.

They released a statement in which four parties — led by CPM — stopped short of calling the Congress anti-national.

The statement read: "Those who advocate the deal should know that India is capable of developing nuclear energy primarily on a self-reliant basis. We need not surrender our vital interests to America on this plea."

They have also accused the Government of taking the backdoor by holding informal talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Nuclear Suppliers Group — which the Left says which eventually lead to the operationlisation of the deal.

And the Left has reason to be worried because there is an IAEA session later this month, which is going to concentrate on the safeguards issue in the deal.

External Affairs Minister, Pranab Mukherjee met CPI-M General Secretary Prakash Karat on Monday evening in an effort to calm situations and brief him on what was going to be discussed in the nuclear panel meet on Tuesday.
A day she had made a veiled attack on Left parties on Indo-US nuclear deal, CPM leaders Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechury on Monday met Congress President Sonia Gandhi. The 30-minute meeting came on the eve of the next round of discussions of the UPA-Left committee set up to address the Left parties' concerns over the deal. Senior Congress leaders and Union Ministers Pranab Mukherjee and A K Antony as also Political Secretary to AICC President Ahmed Patel also joined the meeting at Gandhi's 10, Janpath residence on Monday evening.
CPI (M) general secretary Prakash Karat tonight warned the government that any discussion with IAEA is tantamount to operationalisation of the Indo-US nuclear deal. Conveying the Left stand to External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Karat along with Yechury later met UPA chief Sonia Gandhi where a compromise formula was deliberated upon, albeit without any definite outcome.Zeenews reports.The Left leaders called on Pranab in the evening before the arrival of IAEA chief Md ElBaradei amidst poll rhetoric emerging from both Congress party and CPI(M) camps.Sources said that Congress wanted further discussions with the Left before finalizing anything with IAEA. But no consequent compromise seems to have emerged out of the meet.
UPA chief troubleshooter Pranab put forth a proposal before the Left leaders to go ahead for informal talks with the IAEA chief on Tuesday, assuring them that no agreement would be finalised with the latter. However, Karat bluntly dismissed the proposal saying that it would amount to operationalisation of the nuclear deal and betrayal of the promise made to the Left.
Madurai : Describing as 'unfortunate' Congress President Sonia Gandhi's attack against opponents of Indo-US nuclear deal, All India Foward Bloc General Secretary Deabrata Biswas on Monday said her comments were directed against the Left. The Left parties were firm on opposing the deal and it was upto the Congress to choose between the Left and the United States, he told reporters here. He claimed the nuclear deal with the US would affect the sovereignty of the nation and the US was "trying to make India also their slave like Afghanistan and Iraq." The deal would affect India's education and agriculture sectors also.

New Delhi:UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi's speech in Haryana has ruffled feathers in the Left. Both sides are now on a damage control mode. CPI-M veteran Jyoti Basu says he has conveyed to party leaders Congress concerns on withdrawal of support. Talking to CNN-IBN, Jyoti Basu said panel chief Pranab Mukherjee had met him personally to seek Left's continued support.

“Pranab came and met me yesterday. He told me we shouldn't bring down the Government. “I've conveyed Pranab's message to Sitaram Yechury and Prakash Karat. I appreciate what Sonia Gandhi said at the UN but what she said on Sunday wasn't right. If need arises, we are ready for the polls,” Basu said.

CPI-M Polit Bureau Sitaram Yechury said, “We have already stated our opinion. Those who want to oppose it can oppose it. Eventually in a democracy it is the people who will decide.”

Meanwhile, there are differences in views on mid-term polls in UPA, in fact also within the Congress. Efforts are on both within the UPA and Left camps to avoid a showdown. Within the Congress itself, there are two approaches. One group is suggesting that there's no point taking a risk by going for a snap poll just now. It is the pressure from this group, which was behind Sonia going back on her all-out attack on the Left on Sunday. Even among the allies, not everybody is keen to face the electorate. The Rajya Sabha MPs who don't have to face the electorate are those who are pleading for polls.

The Lok Sabha MPs are obviously unhappy about not completing their term. Then there are others like Pranab Mukherjee who still wants to make a last-ditch effort and try and convince the Left. A section in the Congress believes that the government should table a people-friendly budget and then go for the polls. As for the allies, they are a worried lot. RJD supremo and the Railway Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav, doesn't want to go back to the voter when his successor Nitish Kumar is doing quite well. While DMK chief M Karunanidhi knows that he cannot repeat his 2004 performance and that J.Jayalalitha's party may wrest many of the DMK seats.

Only NCP chief Sharad Pawar doesn't have too much of a negative feeling about a possible poll. Pawar believes that his party might not fare too badly given the disarray in Shiv Sena and BJP and the factionalism in Congress.

Union Minister for Chemicals Ram Vilas Paswan doesn't want a mid-term poll because it doesn't suit him to go either with the UPA or the NDA.

The Left has problems both in West Bengal and Kerala. Nandigram and even the Rizwanur case have gone against the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government. There is too much disunity in the Kerala CPI-M.
"In general there might be a discussion of where things stand. But the issue is still in a political realm and it is not for the IAEA to touch that."
The IAEA says it is not a political visit.After negotiating with the IAEA, India must get clearance from the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) that control global civilian nuclear commerce. Then the deal goes back to the U.S. Congress for a final approval.Tensions in India over a civil nuclear pact with Washington that threatens the survival of the country's ruling coalition worsened ahead of a visit by the UN's atomic energy chief.The head of the ruling Congress party, Sonia Gandhi, said opponents of the deal were "enemies of progress," prompting a furious response from left-wing legislative allies who could bring down the government.India's Communists say it would also pull traditionally non-aligned India uncomfortably close to the United States and compromise New Delhi's military programme.The four-party Left bloc, which props up Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government in parliament, responded Monday with a statement repeating its view that Congress was going "against the interests of India."
"Those who advocate the deal should know that India is capable of developing nuclear energy primarily on a self reliant basis," the statement said.
"There is no expectation that the India-US agreement will be front and centre of his visit there," said a Vienna diplomat close to the IAEA.
"It just depends on India, when the timing is right, to make the essential approach about drafting a safeguards agreement. We don't have any indication that this is going to happen then."
But some experts say timing is everything when it comes to ElBaradei's visit and that government officials could meet with him, a move bound to anger the left.
"There is little doubt the Indian government has decided to go ahead with the deal and couldn't care less what the left has to say," R.R. Subramanian, an independent nuclear expert, said.
The Vienna-based diplomat said ElBaradei could discuss the deal informally.
"I know the US considers ElBaradei's trip extremely important at this time," the diplomat said. "But for the IAEA, it's a technical matter -- we get a list of facilities first and then we start moving."
A 15-member panel set up to iron out differences between the two sides has had little success despite a string of m