Victory of the people against corruption - A true democracy

Let this day be etched in the History of india as yet another day of Independence. Freedom from corruption and against politicians as no movement in independent India is driven by peoples power. Let us hope this transforms to a reality which seemed to be doomed so far.. thanks Anna Hazare for showing us a shaft of light inside the cave...

India Under Siege .. And The Traitors Within

Arundhati Roy joins the rally held by terrorists and Paksitani supporters and calls for India to give “azaadi” to Kashmir. Of course Kashmir’s separation will lead to the balkanization of India and that’s what this maoist activist eventually wants.

Here’s an article by Dr. Gautam Sen about the Islamic and Maoist Seige of India:

India is undergoing outright warfare, with its cities bombed at will and massive infiltration across its borders. The Pakistani rationale for cutting India down to size has rarely faltered since 1947 and echoes a much older Islamic tradition. It stretches back a millennium and reasserted itself the moment British usurpers of Islamic rule were expelled by Hindus. Of course the Anglo-American imperialists and cold warriors actively incited this diabolical outcome because they assumed Islam would be an ally against Soviet communism and Nehru’s India would not. The Arabs in general and the Saudis in particular eventually become co-conspirators in the project to restore Islamic primacy in the Indian subcontinent even if Hindus were to continue ruling it nominally as vassals. They correctly perceive that the ability to control and deploy India’s economic and demographic assets will allow them to challenge the Christian West. The Saudis are the main source of the catalytic funding for the jihad that is threatening to break India’s political will and evidently succeeding. The Chinese also became active after the mid-1950s in arming Pakistan and, more recently, encouraging its bombing campaign of Indian cities to curb the economic advance of India, which it regards as an irritating, lowly rival.

Within India, some mosques and madrasas are the fifth column that provides critical support for the aggression that it is encountering. Their role is to cultivate passive and active support for the Islamic onslaught. It entails ensuring that most Muslims refuse to co-operate in efforts to interdict Islamic terrorists by remaining silent spectators while the murderous bombings continue, provide safe havens in impenetrable Muslim areas for terrorists and a vital element of local manpower to the Pakistani and Saudi agencies engaged in terrorist activities. The deployment of Muslim votes strategically is also an important aspect of their overall goals in order to make it impossible for important Hindu families (rather than the nominal political organisations that they preside over) to survive politically without their consent. The economic sabotage of counterfeit currency produced by Pakistani government agencies is another aspect of the Islamic onslaught that has the virtue of making Indians themselves defray the cost of jihad.
Indian themselves are profoundly complicit in the project that seems destined to destroy their country and their civilisation. Two underlying factors that have facilitated the rapid expansion of the Islamic onslaught against India are its political culture and constitutional arrangements. The first is the product of the bumbling imbecility of the Gandhian project that de-legitimised the whole notion of self-defence, on which all societies are founded and to which the most important Hindu text is almost exclusively addressed. And it was Pandit Nehru whose arrogance and intellectual mediocrity accentuated and institutionalised this Gandhian self-destructiveness in India’s constitutional arrangements, again the product of the wilful ignorance of its leaders, created a parliamentary democracy after independence that guaranteed to highlight and deepen every division among its citizens. In a presidential system, by contrast, Indians would have been compelled to begin overcoming their multiple identities and the potential divisions they incubated because the constituency for president would have been a national one.

India now exhibits all the political and psychological symptoms of a defeated society. The unprecedented protests in Jammu have been greeted with surprise across the board precisely because they are exceptional. But the overall situation in India is dismaying, with virtually its entire political class overawed by the intimidatory truculence of Islam, anxious not to provoke even if it entails conceding the most fundamental norms of Indian society. The ascendant media, harbouring crude Western aspirations and their concomitant political interests, and elite higher education institutions dominated by Christians are gleefully nurturing a deracinated Indian establishment. Their purpose is to exercise influence over India by completely dominating its intellectual life and of course continue saving souls in the way it has done successfully by Christianising South Korea. The Islamic onslaught against India provides them with a window of opportunity, by keeping India off balance and preventing the emergence of a self-confident indigenous elite that might resist its imperialist designs. This is why Islam and Christianity co-operate cynically over what is becoming the spoils of a broken-backed India, postponing their own competition with each other until they have destroyed all traces of the civilisation of the Hindus first.

The economic success of India in recent years and the resulting additional resources at the disposal of the Indian State are not relevant to the grievous outcome threatening it. These huge resources are actually being used for electoral bribery or stolen and to purchase arms that have little relevance for the prosecution of the deadly internal war against Islamic and other forms of terror. Some of the terrorists have clearly formed a seamless political alliance among themselves, with the Naxalites publicly declaring support for Pakistani terrorists and no doubt benefiting from Pakistani largesse. It may also be hazarded that many individuals, media outlets and alleged human rights organisations are mere fronts for terrorists and the evidence is in the public realm in some important instances. The armaments being purchased with uncharacteristic purposiveness by the entire political class has some bearing on potential external threats to Indian security, but one suspects that the alacrity with which they are undertaken has much to do with spin-offs that result from bribes. But most relevant of all is the failure of India’s politicians to engage with conviction against internal terror by deploying appropriate resources and motivating trained personnel instead of hobbling them in the performance of their duties because of apprehensions about losing Muslim votes.

The end is not necessarily going to take the shape of an invasion by the rapist Pakistan army across the Punjab towards Delhi. In fact, India’s demise and the retreat of Hindus will express itself as an accentuation of trends and processes already underway, with occasional dramatic departures that underline the calamity unfolding. The expulsion of the Pandits, which failed to truly exercise even India’s official nationalists, is a harbinger of the shape of things to come. Hindus are likely to face expulsion from areas dominated by Islam though some of it will occur and is occurring in a huge swathe of eastern India because Hindus are voluntarily abandoning Muslim areas for fear of consequences if riots occur. These areas then come under implicit Pakistani rule under the guise of the autonomy of Sharia practices and constitute bases for militant activity against adjacent areas outside the immediate control of Islam. As the political balance changes in favour of Islam, the Indian political class will behave even more supinely, in a pattern that has already become well established, further sealing the fate of India. And with each success Islam will demand more, as it has increasingly begun to do dramatically in less than four years.

The first major Indian city likely to come under the total sway of Islam is Kolkata since its demographics are changing rapidly, with whole areas being abandoned by Hindus and becoming

Logitech launches Tri Color Mouse for this I Day

We share the feeling of patriotism. We don’t mind fighting against terrorism, standing in the theater for the national anthem or even hoisting a flag in our office but using a mouse to show how patriotic we are doesn’t seem to work for us. Logitech’s brainy marketing team decided to come up with something unique to appeal to the Indians and voila, here is a mouse with Indian tri colors sans the Ashoka Chakra.

Nothing extraordinary here except the visual appeal. And if it triggered your patriotic senses, head over to a retailer to grab one for Rs. 640 ($15).

Of files, handshakes and office table drawers.

199What seems – never is! Maybe that is why India has earned so many accolades as the corruption capital of the world – okay Transparency Internationals Global Corruption Barometer puts India as the 70th most corrupt nation. Not very encouraging when India is near the bottom half of this list while dreaming of becoming a global super power. But the good thing about this whole thing is that it not only indicates that Indians are very creative, but also very adaptable (look at the country's history) – Darwin would be proud.

Consider the situation of the office of an Indian File Pusher (IFP) – it has a large desk, a chair behind it which is draped with a towel. The wall behind the chair may have a photo of Mahatma Gandhi, the President and the politician in power. There will be a large calendar to keep the IFP up-to-date. The office may have a small shrine with the deity of the IFP.

The desk is unique, on one side two plastic trays (in and out) carry the hopes of millions, while the other has a pen stand with a myriad variety of pens. There may be paper weights on the desk, but these are going out of fashion as air conditioners become the norm. A lidded glass of water stands as a sentinel close by. The desk has drawers on the side where the IFP sits – usually empty.

The drawer serves another purpose. It’s the unofficial collection box. This is what happens - someone comes with an urgent file, the person stands at the side of the IFP in deference while the IFP peruses the file. Some questions are asked which are answered vaguely. As the file is signed the person puts his hand into his pocket and in one deft movement drops a packet of notes into the drawer. This happened in front of me.

Consider the same IFP in a similar office. A file is brought to him - he opens it and out slips a little packet of notes into his lap. The file is quickly dealt with and then the offending packet is delicately put into the draw for later retrieval.

The handshake was always been a form of communication, communicating a greeting, a promise- okay it was also a way to pass information, you know, a crowded station two men in trench courts pass each other under the benevolent eye of clueless cops and as the two men pass one hand slips the other a vital piece of information that saves the world and kills one of them.

In India this has been modified into an art that ensures both parties not only survive but thrive. The parties in such situation are the cops (traffic species in particular) on one side and erring drivers on the other.

The traffic police usually work in teams they operate either from a motorbike or a jeep. What happens is that the lackey does the scouting while the senior person finds a comfortable spot on the parked bike or jeep and waits. The flunky sifts the wheat from the chaff and the manna begins pouring in.

This is how – the lackey flags down an erring vehicle and the first thing that he does is grab the ignition keys. Then he asks for documents from the erring driver and then goes to his boss who is sitting noncommittally on his vehicle – salivating. The boss looks at the documents shakes his head and takes out a form and begins filling it in all seriousness. This performance gives him a black and white picture of what is coming next court visits, vehicle impounded, sheaves of notes flying from his wallet into the hands of the government. The lackey sees these thoughts in Eastman Colour. He takes the erring waif aside provides a solution which is simple and suits everyone. No court, no impounding, no sheaves of money entering government coffers, just a little private monetary transaction.

The erring driver moves a little away and then pulls out his purse takes and out the suggested amount. He folds it into a very tiny innocuous piece of paper that fits neatly in the palm of his hand. The lackey hands over the documents to the driver and in grateful thanks he shakes hands with the lackey and thus passes the money. The lackey puts his hand into his pocket and saunters back to his boss. This process is followed till its time to go home (or the closest bar).

And so that is how Indians have gone ahead and improved and even improvised on age old traditions, they have found new uses for things to ensure that there is a win-win situation.

Indians have added an addendum to Darwin's theory – a win-win situation ensures that everyone thrives.

The Threesome - A love story frozen in time.....

A photo Taken by the legendary Henri Cartier Bresson, this photograph of Mountbatten, Nehru and Edwina - a personal favourite - has been all over of late.

It has been pulled out to accompany reports on Pamela Mountbatten's (Mountbattens' daughter) book published recently `India Remembered: A Personal Account of the Mountbattens During The Transfer of Power.'

Who cares whether Nehru and Edwina's love was platonic or otherwise. How does it really matter to anyone beyond these three people frozen in time. What matters is when you see a man wear just the expression Nehru's wearing - the jester, desperate to catch the woman's eye, trying to impress her, waiting for validation - you will know a man loves a woman.





It was even being said that the knowledge of the more-than-close relationship between Lady Mountbatten and Nehru was in the public domain even in those days and is well documented. It was obvious that Lord Mountbatten was in a position to influence Nehru through his wife. Lady Pamela’s disclosure, therefore, only confirms what many believe. Sardar Patel tried his best to stop Nehru from referring the Kashmir issue to the U.N. but could not do so.


dont forget to read more on the topic published in the frontline.

Mahatma Gandhi, the Missing Laureate

Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) has become the strongest symbol of non-violence in the 20th century. It is widely held – in retrospect – that the Indian national leader should have been the very man to be selected for the Nobel Peace Prize. He was nominated several times, but was never awarded the prize. Why?

These questions have been asked frequently: Was the horizon of the Norwegian Nobel Committee too narrow? Were the committee members unable to appreciate the struggle for freedom among non-European peoples?" Or were the Norwegian committee members perhaps afraid to make a prize award which might be detrimental to the relationship between their own country and Great Britain?

When still alive, Mohandas Gandhi had many admirers, both in India and abroad. But his martyrdom in 1948 made him an even greater symbol of peace. Twenty-one years later, he was commemorated on this double-sized United Kingdom postage stamp.Photo: Copyright © Scanpix

Gandhi was nominated in 1937, 1938, 1939, 1947 and, finally, a few days before he was murdered in January 1948. The omission has been publicly regretted by later members of the Nobel Committee; when the Dalai Lama was awarded the Peace Prize in 1989, the chairman of the committee said that this was "in part a tribute to the memory of Mahatma Gandhi". However, the committee has never commented on the speculations as to why Gandhi was not awarded the prize, and until recently the sources which might shed some light on the matter were unavailable. Below is an abstract of that article in http://nobelprize.org/

Why Was Gandhi Never Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize?

Up to 1960, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded almost exclusively to Europeans and Americans. In retrospect, the horizon of the Norwegian Nobel Committee may seem too narrow. Gandhi was very different from earlier Laureates. He was no real politician or proponent of international law, not primarily a humanitarian relief worker and not an organiser of international peace congresses. He would have belonged to a new breed of Laureates.

There is no hint in the archives that the Norwegian Nobel Committee ever took into consideration the possibility of an adverse British reaction to an award to Gandhi. Thus it seems that the hypothesis that the Committee's omission of Gandhi was due to its members' not wanting to provoke British authorities, may be rejected.

In 1947 the conflict between India and Pakistan and Gandhi's prayer-meeting statement, which made people wonder whether he was about to abandon his consistent pacifism, seem to have been the primary reasons why he was not selected by the committee's majority. Unlike the situation today, there was no tradition for the Norwegian Nobel Committee to try to use the Peace Prize as a stimulus for peaceful settlement of regional conflicts.

During the last months of his life, Gandhi worked hard to end the violence between Hindus and Muslims which followed the partition of India. We know little about the Norwegian Nobel Committee's discussions on Gandhi's candidature in 1948 – other than the above quoted entry of November 18 in Gunnar Jahn's diary – but it seems clear that they seriously considered a posthumous award. When the committee, for formal reasons, ended up not making such an award, they decided to reserve the prize, and then, one year later, not to spend the prize money for 1948 at all. What many thought should have been Mahatma Gandhi's place on the list of Laureates was silently but respectfully left open.

Read the Full article here http://nobelprize.org/peace/articles/gandhi/index.html

Tryst with Destiny !!!!!

Its the first time after so many years, i read the Tryst with Destiny speech by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964): Speech On the Granting of Indian Independence, August 14, 1947

Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long supressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of Inida and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity.

At the dawn of history India started on her unending quest, and trackless centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her success and her failures. Through good and ill fortune alike she has never lost sight of that quest or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength. We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again. The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?

Freedom and power bring responsibility. The responsibility rests upon this Assembly, a sovereign body representing the sovereign people of India. Before the birth of freedom we have endured all the pains of labour and our hearts are heavy with the memory of this sorrow. Some of those pains continue even now. Nevertheless, the past is over and it is the future that beckons to us now.

That future is not one of ease or resting but of incessant striving so that we may fulfil the pledges we have so often taken and the one we shall take today. The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity. The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.

And so we have to labour and to work, and work hard, to give reality to our dreams. Those dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any one of them to imagine that it can live apart Peace has been said to be indivisible; so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and so also is disaster in this One World that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.

To the people of India, whose representatives we are, we make an appeal to join us with faith and confidence in this great adventure. This is no time for petty and destructive criticism, no time for ill-will or blaming others. We have to build the noble mansion of free India where all her children may dwell.

II

The appointed day has come-the day appointed by destiny-and India stands forth again, after long slumber and struggle, awake, vital, free and independent. The past clings on to us still in some measure and we have to do much before we redeem the pledges we have so often taken. Yet the turning-point is past, and history begins anew for us, the history which we shall live and act and others will write about.

It is a fateful moment for us in India, for all Asia and for the world. A new star rises, the star of freedom in the East, a new hope comes into being, a vision long cherished materializes. May the star never set and that hope never be betrayed!

We rejoice in that freedom, even though clouds surround us, and many of our people are sorrowstricken and difficult problems encompass us. But freedom brings responsibilities and burdens and we have to face them in the spirit of a free and disciplined people.

On this day our first thoughts go to the architect of this freedom, the Father of our Nation [Gandhi], who, embodying the old spirit of India, held aloft the torch of freedom and lighted up the darkness that surrounded us. We have often been unworthy followers of his and have strayed from his message, but not only we but succeeding generations will remember this message and bear the imprint in their hearts of this great son of India, magnificent in his faith and strength and courage and humility. We shall never allow that torch of freedom to be blown out, however high the wind or stormy the tempest.

Our next thoughts must be of the unknown volunteers and soldiers of freedom who, without praise or reward, have served India even unto death.

We think also of our brothers and sisters who have been cut off from us by political boundaries and who unhappily cannot share at present in the freedom

that has come. They are of us and will remain of us whatever may happen, and we shall be sharers in their good [or] ill fortune alike.

The future beckons to us. Whither do we go and what shall be our endeavour? To bring freedom and opportunity to the common man, to the peasants and workers of India; to fight and end poverty and ignorance and disease; to build up a prosperous, democratic and progressive nation, and to create social, economic and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman.

We have hard work ahead. There is no resting for any one of us till we redeem our pledge in full, till we make all the people of India what destiny intended them to be. We are citizens of a great country on the verge of bold advance, and we have to live up to that high standard. All of us, to whatever religion we may belong, are equally the children of India with equal rights, privileges and obligations. We cannot encourage communalism or narrow-mindedness, for no nation can be great whose people are narrow in thought or in action.

To the nations and peoples of the world we send greetings and pledge ourselves to cooperate with them in furthering peace, freedom and democracy.

And to India, our much-loved motherland, the ancient, the eternal and the ever-new, we pay our reverent homage and we bind ourselves afresh to her service.

JAI HIND.