October 2010
Monthly Archive
October 27, 2010
Union Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily must be out of his mind.
He is defying his Prime Minister who, not long ago, categorically asserted that the (religious) minorities, particularly Muslims must have first claim on national resources.
Not only that, he is even daring to taunt the Congress Dynasty by describing Sardar Patel as “arguably” the most important individual who helped to lay the foundations of modern India. Not Jawaharlal, not Indira, not Rajiv not even Sonia Mai(no).
Watch out my friend! You could be in serious trouble.
NEW DELHI: Stressing the need to promote secularism “if the country is to survive as a nation,” Union Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily said on Wednesday that it was crucial to give equal importance to every faith and religion and uphold the rule of law.
Delivering the Sardar Patel Memorial Lecture under the aegis of the AIR here, Mr. Moily said: “All must enjoy equal rights, and no privileges, prescriptive rights or special claims should be allowed for any group on the basis of religion.” The threats of terrorism and extremism facing the country needed to be tackled with both tact and force. “Adopt a middle path — be polite when required, and be braver when the situation demands it.” In many ways, development and internal security were two sides of the same coin, he said. “Each is critically dependent on the other. Often, lack of development and the lack of any prospects for improving one’s lot provide a fertile ground for extremist ideologies to flourish.” Referring to the issue of economic inclusion, he said: “While advocating a strong free market, the policy of the government must veer towards inclusion and commitment to improve the lives of the common being — real persons.” Paying rich tributes to Sardar Patel, Mr. Moily said he was “arguably” the most important individual who helped to lay the foundations of modern India.
October 24, 2010
Recently the Gujarat government’s statewide Attention on Grievances with Application of Technology (SWAGAT) programme has won United Nations Public Service Award (UNPSA). The SWAGAT initiative of the state government has been awarded second place in the category ‘Improving Transparency, Accountability and Responsiveness in Public Service’ by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs which facilitates the search for innovations in governance and public administration.
Modi and his government gets its biggest reward from the people of Gujarat.
People of Gujarat win. Rest of india misses. And the biased Indian Media sulks. Hardly any coverage. Imagine if Congress won in Gujarat. There would be glories of Sonia Mai(no) and Raul Baba literally oozing out of news media and our TV anchors would have been out with their fangs and nails exposed, frothing to present the latest edition of vivisection of the ‘demonic Narendra Modi’ and his ‘Gujarat pogrom’.
Alas Indians have missed the fun this time.
But the bigger fun is Congress whining against EVM fraud, literally endorsing the suspicion that the 2004 and 2009 Loksabha elections were won by managing and manipulating EVMs with the help of Election Commission and its puppet Commissioners, and the Congress lost repeatedly in Gujarat and in other recent elections because the same things could not be repeated.
Ahmedabad, October 23, DHNS:’
Establishing his complete supremacy over Gujarat’s political spectrum, Chief Minister Narendra Modi swept the state panchayat elections, the counting of which was concluded on Saturday.
The win comes after Modi’s BJP tasted victory a fortnight back in the state’s civic polls, where, too, the Congress got a drubbing. The party asserted its dominance by winning 22 of the 24 district panchayats in the state.
Worse for the Congress, Modi managed to wrest control over the Anand district panchayat, which has been under Congress control for years. The party even lost the tribal-dominated Dahod panchayat in the Central Gujarat region, another Congress bastion.
Significantly, a good number of 60-odd Muslim candidates put up by Modi won the elections and the chief minister stressed this fact during his victory rally in Ahmedabad.
During the rally, Modi attributed the party’s success to the development mantra of his government. “It has been an inclusive victory. Even Muslims have voted for the party. Be it Muslims, poor, tribals. All have reposed their faith in our developmental politics,” he said. The opposition Congress, which found itself in an embarrassing position following its allegations of tampered EVMs, faced more trouble following the debacle.
Taking moral responsibility for the defeat, Gujarat Congress president Siddarth Patel resigned from the post. “I have resigned taking moral responsibility but I still believe its not Modi magic but EVM magic,” said Patel reiterating his allegation that EVMs had been tampered during the polls.
CLP leader Shakti Sinh Gohil has also tendered his resignation. But Modi refuted the charges saying the Congress was acting as a poor looser.
New Delhi : The Congress, which had 15 months ago scoffed at L K Advani’s apprehensions about electronic voting machines (EVMs) saying it hoped the BJP leader’s fears “do not betray a lack of grace over the loss of elections”, today complained to the Gujarat State Election Commission that the BJP is “tampering” with EVMs to “manipulate” results of panchayat polls.
“It is learnt from some reliable sources that… BJP is trying to manipulate the results once again in taluka/district panchayat election to be held today. To manipulate the result there by tampering electronic voting machine by usage of laptop, some technocrats along with laptops have been sent by the BJP,” Gujarat Congress general secretary Girish Parmar said in a memorandum to the CEC of the Gujarat Election Commission.
Parmar said that since “EPROM (erasable programmable read-only memory) can be easily intercepted through bluetooth or RS-232 port serial data cable…, no laptop or computer should be permitted… within 100-metre radius” of polling booths.
In July 2009, Advani had told The Sunday Express that India should revert to ballot papers for Assembly elections later that year unless the Election Commission could ensure that EVMs were foolproof. Congress spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi had then said, “I hope and trust that (Advani’s comments) do not betray a lack of grace over the loss of elections. We hope that Advani will not take the country back to the dark ages.”
The Congress had also cited (the then) Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi’s statement that an expert committee had looked into whether EVMs could be rigged, and concluded that they could not.
Today, Congress spokesman Mohan Prakash defended his party’s U-turn on EVMs saying that the BJP allegation was “negative without evidence”, whereas the Congress has “evidence”. According to Prakash, at one polling booth the EVM registered 111 votes for BJP, whereas only 44 people had voted. At another booth, when a voter pressed a button to vote, the light in front of the other candidate’s name came on, he said.
The BJP swept the municipal corporation polls in Gujarat earlier this month. Elections for panchayats and municipalities were held today.
October 24, 2010
For those who preach ‘there is no fraudulent conversion’ and ‘Christianity is only interested in spreading love and peace’, here is some interesting news.
Just a few days ago our premium news media, not unexpectedly, was going ‘ga-ga’ over a Jammu based NGO, Youth Movement for Peace.
Rebuilding lives in Ladakh
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/rebuilding-lives-in-ladakh-60339
NDTV Correspondent, Updated: October 17, 2010 10:12 IST
Jammu: The devastating cloud burst killed more than 200 people and orphaned scores of children in Ladakh. Now, for the first time, a Jammu based NGO, Youth Movement for Peace, has adopted 27 of these orphaned children who will get free education and a place to stay in Jammu.
“I want to become a doctor, it was my desire to get education, I want to make a mark in life,” said a child Tsewang Stanzin.
With dreams in their eyes the Ladakhi children want to build their lives afresh.
“I want to become an aeronautical engineer, it was not possible there, because there weren’t any facilities,” added another child Stanzin Chotak.
The NGO has come as a ray of hope after despair for the children who are so traumatized that even a mild shower scares them.
“Winter is approaching, there has been snowfall in Ladakh, and just a bit of a rain is enough to scare the people. The children are in shock. They are really not sure what’s going to happen next,” said Vikas Sharma the chairman of Youth Movement For Peace.
But, the NGO believes that it will be able to provide the children with a home away from home and giving them with a healing touch.
Now it seems that the NGO vultures were at what they do best – prey on the needy and unfortunates. No prize in guessing what these kids were being abducted for – conversion, selling for adoption, pedophilia – your choice.
NGO men held for kidnapping Leh orphans
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/ngo-men-held-for-kidnapping-leh-orphans-61938
Updated: October 24, 2010 09:22 IST
Jammu: Seems like there is no end to distress for the children who lost everything during the Ladakh flash floods. It was just a week ago when an NGO, Youth movement for peace, had claimed it adopted 28 children and would take care of them.
Now, the Police say they were kidnapped by the NGO and brought to Jammu.
“Five people have been arrested and they had kidnapped the children in the garb of an NGO. There are 28 children and when we investigated, we found all the children were missing from Ladakh after the flash floods,” said SS Sambiyal the DSP of North Jammu.
The police claim that the NGO didn’t follow proper procedures nor was the local administration informed before the children were relocated. Some sources also say the NGO wanted to collect donations in the name of rehabilitating the children.
Also, there are allegations that some of the NGO members have a controversial past.
“The members have a controversial background. In 2009 an FIR had been lodged against them and the allegation was that they were converting people into Christianity,” said PP Kunzang, the general secretary of Ladakh Buddhist Association.
But, the NGO denied all charges saying it’s an attempt to discredit them.
“If 28 children would have been kidnapped from Ladkah on 5 October, then the ripples would have been felt across the country,” said Meenakshi the Manager of Youth Movement for Peace.
It’s a sad irony for the children who dreamt of a better future after losing all that they had. Now, if the charges on the NGO are proved, their future will hang in balance.
This is what CNN-IBN also adds, “The NGO office was attacked by local Shiv Sena over two weeks alleging that they were involved into conversions. Even as those charges are yet to proved, initial investigations have revealed that the NGO had no legal consent of parents or the administration. Also, the infrastructure promised by them was completely missing.”
Will there be a ‘sting operation’ to reveal the true nature of these vulture organizations?
Will the media at least, for once, acknowledge and elaborate the role of Hindus (and Buddhists) trying to fight fraudulent conversions?
October 23, 2010
First they choose a puppet Election Commissioner. Then they manipulate EVM to win elections. The puppet Commissioner vouches that EVM are not tamperable. That is despite the known fact that many countries including Germany, Netherlands and several US states have banned EVM use. Then when independent scientists prove that EVM can indeed be tampered they arrest him on flimsy grounds. That’s the level of corruption , nepotism and ‘demonocracy’ of the dynastic CONgress party.
India needs another revolution to gain independence from this ‘rulers’.
Ironically the same CONgress, when they lose in Gujarat cry fowl that EVMs are tampered
Hari Prasad Vemuru, a jailed Indian e-voting researcher, is one of the four winners of the 2010 Pioneer Awards of San Francisco headquartered Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a leading civil liberties group.
The three other winners are transparency activist Steven Aftergood; public domain scholar James Boyle; and legal blogger Pamela Jones and the website Groklaw.
Vemuru, who was recently released on bail after being imprisoned for his security work in India, is a security researcher who recently revealed security flaws in India’s paperless electronic voting machines.
“He has endured jail time, repeated interrogations, and ongoing political harassment to protect an anonymous source that enabled him to conduct the first independent security review of India’s electronic voting system,” EFF said.
“Prasad spent a year trying to convince election officials to complete such a review, but they insisted that the government-made machines were ‘perfect’ and ‘tamperproof.'”
“Instead of blindly accepting the government’s claims, Prasad’s international team discovered serious flaws that could alter national election results. Months of hot debate have produced a growing consensus that India’s electronic voting machines should be scrapped, and Prasad hopes to help his country build a transparent and verifiable voting system,” EFF said.
“These winners have all worked tirelessly to give critical insight and context to the tough questions that arise in our evolving digital world,” said EFF Executive Director Shari Steele.
“We need strong advocates, educators, and researchers like these to protect our digital rights, and we’re proud to honor these four Pioneer Award winners for their important contributions.”
Awarded every year since 1992, EFF’s Pioneer Awards recognize leaders who are extending freedom and innovation on the electronic frontier.
Past honourees include World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, security expert Bruce Schneier, and the Mozilla Foundation and its chairman Mitchell Baker.
Also read:
Lok Sabha Election, Congress and EVM fraud
October 19, 2010
Secularism in a muslim majority country? That too in Bangladesh! That is like trying to straighten a dog’s tail!!
Hindus comprised nearly 30% of the total population in Bangladesh in 1947 and since then the Hindu population has dwindled from 22% in 1951 census to 15 per cent in 1991 and less than 10% in 2009. About 2.5 million Hindus were slaughtered in the war in 1971. In 2009 the population of Bangladesh was estimated at 156 million. About 90% of Bangladeshis are Muslims and the remainder are mostly Hindus.
In contrast, according to the 2001 census the Muslim population has increased to over 28% of the total in West Bengal and 31% in the state of Assam. At partition, only Murshidabad district was dominated by Muslims in West Bengal. But at present, two other districts, Maldah and North Dinajpur, have been added to the list.
Thus the riot and subsequent abandonment of Durga Puja by 42 Puja Committee in Deganga is not an isolated event nor is it the last atrocity.
Dhaka, Oct 17 (IANS) Attacks by drunken mobs and even policemen on Hindu devotees and Durga Puja marquees in many parts of Bangladesh marred the festivities of the country’s minority community even as Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina stressed on the virtues of secularism.
Reports of violence came from across the country as the biggest religious festival of the minority Hindu community ended Sunday.
The authorities withdrew policemen and closed down a police station after cops were found attacking Puja Mandaps, the makeshift bamboo-and-cloth marquees erected for the festival at some places, bdnews24.com, a newspaper website reported.
In Narayanganj, just outside Dhaka, two people were arrested for vandalism, loot and attack on a Puja pavillion at Tanbazaar.
Witnesses said at least 10 people were injured when around 15 drunk men attacked Hindus devotees, who were dancing at a pavilion in Minabazar area of Tanbazar early Saturday.
They stabbed organising secretary of the Puja celebration committee of the area, Ankan Saha Rana, 35, and member Sumon Das, 24, when they attempted to stop the drunks.
In Sunamganj in northeastern Bangladesh, six policemen including a sub-inspector were withdrawn from a police station for attacking devotees at a temple in Tahirpur Upazila (sub-district).
A sub-inspector of Sherpur Sadar Police Station in central Bangladesh was withdrawn to the police lines for burning a festoon with the image of goddess Durga.
Acting Superintendent of Police (Sherpur) Mohammad Anisur Rahman said legal steps will be taken against Badruzzaman, the sub-inspector.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina stressed on virtues of secularism and said her country was ‘non-communal’ while speaking at a function hosted by Hindus in the national capital Saturday.
Hasina said that 27,000 Durga Puja mandaps or marquees were erected across the country this year, the highest ever. Similarly, 94,000 Muslims were proceeding on Haj to Saudi Arabia, which was also the highest, denoting freedom to practice different faiths.
‘Secularism is one of the four pillars of the country’s constitution and has no meaning if people cannot practice their religions,’ she said during her visit to the Dhakeshwari Temple Saturday, which marked the Mahanabami, a high point of the Hindu festival.
But the New Age newspaper said: ‘Even as the prime minister speaks of secularism and thanks her law enforcers for ensuring a peaceful environment, there are reports of attacks, even by cops, on puja mandaps across the country.’
Dhaka: Bangladesh will shortly restore the word ‘secularism’ in its constitution. However, it will remain an Islamic state , allowing functioning of religion-based parties, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said.
The government will reprint the constitution following a Supreme Court directive to restore ‘secularism’, but no political party bearing names of religions would be banned, a cabinet meeting chaired by Hasina decided Monday.
She told a weekly cabinet meeting that the reprinted constitution would restore secularism “as a fundamental state principle”, New Age newspaper said quoting a minister who attended the meeting.
Hasina asked her ministerial colleagues to “go to people and make sure they have no confusion about constitution amendments”, the minister said.
Her government would sit with the political parties named after Islam “to make them understand that secularism was not against religious faiths”.
The official cited many countries where Christianity was state religion but had secular polity, the Daily Star newspaper said.
A large majority of Bangladesh’s 156 million people are Sunni Muslims with Hindus, Buddhists and Christians forming less than ten percent of the population.
Religion-based political activity was banned in Bangladesh that separated from Pakistan in 1971 as these parties, including the Muslim League and the Jamaat-e-Islami , had opposed the freedom movement.
They were brought back to the political mainstream after the changes triggered by the assassination of the country’s founding leader and president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in August 1975.
October 14, 2010
Personally, I would have preferred a more active protest rather than this somewhat Gandhian variety of protest by not performing Durga Puja at all. Somehow I feel that this plays into the hands of the anti Hindu forces. However it is highly possible that ground conditions are very different for which the brave soldiers of Hindu Samhati and the Hindus of the area including the 42 Puja committees have taken this collective decision.
Another glaring example of the absence of the Hindu-hating and minority-appeasing media, the opportunistic activists and the pseudosecular politicains at the time of Hindu plight.
Kolkata, Oct 14 (IBNS).
Forty-two Durga Puja mandaps (marquees) across a West Bengal town have gone ’empty’…literally.
The biggest festival of the Bengalis, for which the populace excitedly waits the full year, has been sacrificed and boycotted by the Goddess’ followers.
Located in Barasat Subdivision of North 24 Parganas district, Deganga Hindus have decided not to bring Mother Durga and her 4 children (Lakshmi, Ganesha, Saraswati and Kartik) home and celebrate the Pujas this year.
The reason being attacks on locals by a Member of Parliament (MP), claimed Hindu Samhati, an organization working for rehabilitation of Hindus in West Bengal.
“Over 500 Hindu homes and 500 Hindu owned businesses have been attacked, multiple Hindu temples have been desecrated and defiled, all with synchronized orchestration by a planned well organized mob under the leadership of MP Haji Nurul Islam. All within a three day span in September,” claimed Hindu Samhati in a press statement.
The festival is being boycotted by all the Puja committees of the Deganga Puja Samanvay Committee.
“They hope that this will catch the attention of the anti-Hindu media, anti-Hindu administration, anti-Hindu Police, and the anti-Hindu politicians of West Bengal,” said the organization.
Hindu Samhati said it endorses to the ‘fullest’ the decision by the Puja Samanvay Committee to boycott this Puja in protest of the anti Hindu stance of the West Bengal media, administration, police and politicians.
“We want to see that the situation is changed, so that we would be able to do the Pujas in full pristine form in 2011, or else, we have to expand our struggle beyond Deganga and North 24 Parganas,” said a spokesperson.
In October-November 1946 the whole of India, especially North and Central India observed a Black Diwali in protest against the horrific riots and Hindu genocide in Noakhali, in erstwhile East Bengal.
October 13, 2010
Congratulations Gujarat for seeing through the design of and defeating the ‘Delhi Sultanate’.
Narendra Modi, who had turned the civic elections into a referendum on himself, retained all six municipal corporations that voted on Sunday.
Of the total 558 seats in Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Bhavnagar, Jamnagar, Vadodara and Surat, 444 went to the BJP.
“Certainly the results do not match our expectations. We need to introspect,” senior Congress leader Arjun Modhwadia said.
In the run-up to the elections there was no evidence of a wave, and given the dissidence in the BJP and the arrest of junior home minister Amit Shah in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case, there was speculation that the party might not do well.
But it managed a repeat of its 2005 performance, when it had won 398 of the total 486 seats. The total number of seats has gone up after delimitation. The BJP’s share of the seats has slipped only 2 per cent since 2005.
Modhwadia admitted the results were a humiliating defeat for the Congress. “It was primarily because of organisational weakness at the city level,” he said. The Congress won only 101 seats, less than a quarter of the BJP’s tally.
In Ahmedabad, the BJP won 148 seats and the Congress 38; in Vadodara, the BJP got 61 and the Congress 11; in Bhavnagar, the BJP won 40 and the Congress 11; in Rajkot, the BJP won 58 and the Congress 11; in Surat, the BJP got 98 and the Congress 14; and in Jamnagar, the BJP won 35 and the Congress 16 seats.
Political analyst Hari Desai said the Congress lost because it has no effective leader who could match Modi’s efficiency and his manipulative skills. The chief minister succeeded in branding the Congress a “Muslim party”. He went around campaigning that the Congress was planning to install a statue of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, turning the embarrassment of the fake encounter case into an election advantage. He also branded Amit Shah’s arrest as “evidence of the misuse” of the CBI.
The Congress allowed Modi to set the agenda and could not challenge his brand of politics, said social scientist and Gandhian Tridip Suhurd. It only reacted, he said. The Congress was unable to engage in political dialogue with Modi although there were so many civic issues that could have been made election issues, he said.
Modi’s victory is a “colossal failure” of the Congress party as an organisation and as an electoral machine, Suhurd said.
October 11, 2010
Selling the country and sacrificing her security for petty politics.
In an apparent turn-around, National Investigation Agency (NIA)’s chargesheet is silent on American terrorist David Headley mentioning the name of Mumbai college student Ishrat Jehan, who was killed by Gujarat police in a controversial encounter, as a Lashker-e-Taiba terrorist.
Senior Home Ministry officials had claimed that Headley told NIA sleuths that Ishrat Jahan, a Mumbai girl killed in an encounter in Ahmedabad, was a suicide bomber of the outfit.
The officials had said Headley shared this information with the four-member team of National Investigation Agency and Law Department during their visit to Chicago in the US in June this year.
However, the 106-page chargesheet, on which NIA secured an Interpol worldwide arrest warrant against five Pakistani nationals, including two serving Army majors, does not speak about Ishrat Jahan.
The girl, whose death had sparked a major controversy, was alleged to be a member of Lashker’s suicide squad who had been inducted by top LeT operative Muzamil.
The controversy broke out after Jahan’s family claimed that she was just a student and filed an appeal in the court stating so. Gujarat Police had claimed that the terrorists were in the state to target Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
The NIA chargesheet had not even touched the June 15, 2004, encounter in which Jahan was killed along with Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai and two Pakistani nationals Amjad Ali and Jishan Johar Abdul Ghani.
As per police records, they were intercepted on the outskirts of Ahmedabad while travelling in a car. When they were confronted, an encounter erupted in which all were shot dead.
Ishrat’s mother Shamima Kausar, in her petition before the Gujarat High Court, had claimed that her daughter was working as a saleswoman for Sheikh’s perfumes business.
Hindu focus 