Kaalaadhan saga: IT unearths a possible Five Million Euro investment by Karti Chidambaram in Hotel Mozart in Croatia

April 11, 2017, 7:27 pm

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IT unearths a possible Five Million Euro investment by Karti Chidambaram in Hotel Mozart in Croatia

Circumstantial evidence suggests that Karti Chidambaram may have invested 5 million Euros in Hotel Mozart

By Team PGurus -

April 12, 2017

Did Karti Chidambaram invest 5 million Euros into the iconic Hotel Mozart?

Did Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s son Karti linked firm Advantage Strategic Consulting invest in Hotel Mozart in Croatia? The Income Tax (IT) department’s Chennai Unit’s report suggests that this matter needs to be investigated further.

Hotel Mozart is a famous hotel in Croatia and the hotel building has historical importance. This building was the Headquarters of the Yugoslavian Army during Second World War.

The IT and Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials’ joint raid found an investment proposal of Five Million Euros from a computer in Karti’s company. “As per the proposal unearthed from the computing device, Advantage Strategic Consulting Singapore Pte Ltd has proposed to invest Euro 5 Million in Hotel Mozart at Opatijia in Croatia. The details of investment need to be ascertained,” said the Income Tax Report.

The report also says one Bhaskararaman of Karti’s companies who deposed before Income Tax officials said that they have not made any investments. But Income Tax officials do not believe Bhaskararaman and noted that this fact needs to be ascertained by conducting a full probe. “Otherwise how come the specific investment proposal from their computers,” said a senior Income Tax official.

Hotel Mozart is a famous hotel in Croatia and the hotel building has historical importance. This building was the Headquarters of the Yugoslavian Army during Second World War. In 1994 the hotel was bought by Veljko Barbieri and the following year opened after being completely renovated with a new name, Mozart. Another major shareholder of this hotel is Ivan Ljubicic, one of the best Croatian Tennis players of all time and son in law of the latest owner of the Hotel, Abi Shalabi.

Meanwhile Karti’s Advantage has a subsidiary company in Spain, which owns a big Tennis Academy. Even though Karti’s staffers tried to fool IT officials, they believe that they got clinching evidence of his investment in Hotel Mozart.

The clinching evidence Income Tax got is that Karti’s company Advantage entered into an agreement with a company in Monaco called Sporting Advantage Monaco SARL. In this Monaco based company, the Hotel Mozart owner and Tennis player Ivan Ljubicic has 40000 shares and Karti’s another London based company Totus Tennis Ltd. has 9500 shares. In this agreement, Totus Tennis is represented by Karti Chidambaram. Why would there be an agreement unless there was a follow up investment? The numbers certainly seem to add up.

The big question is why despite clinching evidence, IT officials are not allowed to interrogate the corrupt Chidambaram family.

So Income Tax sleuths believe, Karti’s controversial company Advantage has invested Five Million Euro worth shares in Hotel Mozart and is getting huge revenues for the past seven years from this iconic hotel in Croatia’s tourist spot of Opatijia.

The facts can be ascertained perhaps by doing a custodial interrogation. The big question is why despite clinching evidence, IT officials are not allowed to interrogate the corrupt Chidambaram family.

Now after BJP leader Subramanian Swamy’s complaint Prime Minister Narendra Modi has directed the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) to probe into Chidambaram family’s illegal assets. How long will it take for CBDT to act?

https://www.pgurus.com/it-unearths-a-possible-five-million-euro-investment-by-karti-chidambaram-in-hotel-mozart-in-croatia/

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Musings on Hinduism by Nithin Sridhar - Book review by Shrinivas Tilak

April 11, 2017, 8:18 pm

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Musings on Hinduism by Nithin Sridhar can indeed serve as a useful introduction to the multiple ways through which a lay Hindu can approach and understand his/her dharma.

Dr Shrinivas Tilak
Indology | 08-04-2017

Musings on Hinduism by Nithin Sridhar, Chennai: Rare Publications, 2016. The book can be purchased from Amazon and Flipkart.
Musings on Hinduism by Nithin Sridhar is a compact work (188 pp) comprising of independent articles and blogposts written by the author from 2007 to 2013. This handy volume can indeed serve as a useful introduction to the multiple ways through which a lay Hindu can approach and understand his/her dharma. It is possible, for instance, to teach/learn about Hindu dharma (I prefer this expression to ‘Hinduism’) with reference to select concepts and ideas that begin with the sound of (ga = ग), viz: Gayatri, Gita, Ganga, Guru, and Ganita. Hindus living in the diaspora can learn about their dharma in terms of the five topics that begin with the letter F in English: Festivals, Food, Fairs, Fables, and Films.
Musings on Hinduism (hereafter Musings), however, is packaged along more traditional lines being divided as it is into five topical sections: ‘Hindu Religion and Philosophy,’ ‘Vedanta,’ ‘Hindu Society,’ ‘Translations of Hymns,’ and ‘Miscellaneous.’ On face value, these section titles naturally indicate the theme that unifies the essays contained within each of them. But Nithin Sridhar’s (hereafter NS) deeper knowledge of Hindu philosophy, sampardayas, and myths bolstered by his inquisitive mind, allows him to see connections that others might overlook. Ideas and motifs, therefore, overlap or cross over from one section to the next. For this reason, Musings is not a ‘read cover-to-cover’ kind of book to read. Rather, it may be taken as a stream of consciousness book—you can pick an idea, say Karma, Tantra/Agama, or Advaita and learn more about it through the essays appearing in different sections.
The provision of cross-references, leads/links supplied at the bottom of the relevant page, and a good index render the book reader-friendly. As a result, a perceptive reader is likely to agree with NS on most points; including this one: “the claims that Advaita reduces the World to an unreal illusion and hence leads to immorality and idleness or that it is against the Vedic thought are rooted in improper understanding.” Because the fundamental ideas of Hindu dharma (hereafter dharma) are not presented chronologically, the reader is free to wander or saunter rather than march through the sections, pausing at one, browsing through another, skipping a third, but all the while ‘musing’ on dharma.

Maya and Zero

Because Musings carries the exuberance of wonder and the weight of experience, it is likely to provoke, startle, and even challenge the reader in many possible ways. When readers engage with the author seriously (and on his terms rather than on readers’), they are bound to ask questions, not only of him but of themselves and of their received knowledge. This reviewer, for one, was startled to read in Musings the connection that NS sets up between the Vedantic concept of maya and mathematical symbol of zero in a section entitled ‘Infinity and Zero.’ ‘Infinity denotes Brahman and Zero denotes Maya’ announces NS and then hastens to ask ‘Why does the Zero denote Maya?’ His answer is:
…Maya by definition means “That which does not exist” from the standpoint of Brahman but whose effects can be seen in the world. Maya is the Upadhi or Limiting principle that brings about the manifestation of various finite objects from the Infinite Brahman. Similarly, “Zero” is that which does not have existence from standpoint of Infinity as Infinity includes everything. But, its effect in the form of finite numerals and finite sets can be perceived (p. 99).
Being mathematically challenged, I discussed the claim of maya = zero with Professor Avinash Sathaye, who teaches at the University of Kentucky, Lexington (KY). It depends on, he explained,
[W]hat zero you are thinking of. If it is a mathematical object, then it cannot be equated to “maya.” Its existence is not in doubt or subject to annihilation due to further enlightenment. You may, if you like, describe the maya as zero in the sense of emptiness [शून्य]. There are suggestions that zero arose out of this…(Personal communication; see also Sathaye 2015).
It would seem that NS conceives of maya as zero in the sense of emptiness. Readers, of course, are free to draw their own conclusions.

Rituals and stotras

NS discusses the role of rituals (i.e., Karmakanda that includes performance of homa, havan, puja, and other actions prescribed by dharma) in the section ‘Religion and Philosophy.’ He explains that a steady and concentrated performance of prescribed rituals in the spirit of sadhana stimulates their internal corresponding forms that will eventually lead the practitioner to involve him/herself wholly in internal form of sadhana. If an aspirant persists in this sadhana, it will eventually burn away the burden of past karmas that block one’s journey towards the realization of ‘Truth.’ After thus explaining rituals, NS suddenly poses this question to the unsuspecting reader: ‘Are Hindu rituals still relevant today?’ His answer is: ‘[Hindu ritual] is more relevant today than it had been any time in recent history. Today, it is relevant not only to Hindus but to whole humanity’ (p. 36).
In the section ‘Translations of Sanskrit Hymns’ NS provides English translations of influential stotras dedicated to Ganesha, Shiva, and Sarasvati. Stotras are short devotional prayers (or hymns) that may be recited/chanted as Hindus engage in darshan (seeing one’s chosen deity or be seen by it). Since stotras address a deity such as Ganesha or Sarasvati with direct, devotional, and poetic language, their inclusion (in translation) in Musings is felicitous because it is likely to offer readers (many of whom might be unfamiliar with Sanskrit) a particularly fruitful avenue for exploring one of the oldest and most predominant features of religious life of a Hindu (see Edelmann 2017 for more information on stotras).

Veda and Tantra/Agama

NS assures his readers that, contrary to the general view that the system of Tantra is opposed to Vedas, the Tantra texts place themselves on the same platform as the Vedas calling themselves a ‘special branch of the Vedas (Shruti-shakha-vishesha).’ Pingalamata, an old tantric text, declares that the Tantras are Agamas with characteristics of Chandas (i.e., the Vedas). “The Tantrika system developed,” informs NS to his readers, “through two different paths–the exoteric, which continued as pure Shaivism and Esoteric, which continued as Shaktism.” He then describes how the landmass of India was organized in the Tantra system: The Sammohana Tantra divides Tantras into four classes: Kerala, Kashmira, Gauda and Vilasa. The Kerala class is said to prevail in countries from Anga to Malava, the Kashmira from Madra to Nepala, Gauda from Silahatta to Sindhu; while Vilasa is found everywhere.
Mahasidhashastra Tantra, on its part, divides Bharatavarsha into three zones: Vishnu kranta, Ratha kranta, and Ashwa kranta. According to Shaktimangala tantra, land east of Vindhyas up to Java is Vishnu kranta, land north of Vindyas upto Maha-china is Ratha kranta, and rest of the land in the west is Ashva kranta (P. 51).
Whereas the goal of Shaivism was only Liberation,” informs NS, “the goal of the Shaktas was not just Liberation. They wanted to gain ascendancy over the forces of nature and to carry on the experiments (pp 45-48).
Alarmed by the popular conception of Tantras as encouraging only carnal sex, NS explains that Tantra Agamas are practical manuals for meditation and are divided into the Shaiva, Shakta, and Pancharatra Agamas. Using sex for meditation is prescribed in only a few of the Agamas. The aim here is essentially to turn sexual union into meditation, a spiritual union that would ultimately result in Samadhi; not sexual gratification.
It is Victorian puritanical authoritarianism which condemns any mention or depiction of sex. Hinduism on the other hand, recognizes the role of sexual desires in human lives. The sexual depictions in some of the temples were meant to not only educate the people about role sex in householder’s life, but also to help those who were involved in sexual sadhanas (penance) for enlightenment (p. 59).
Concluding his discussion of the Tantra and Agama, NS insists that “sex is neither a taboo nor pornography in Hinduism. Instead it is recognized as a very basic block of life, which must be harnessed in a proper way so that it would lead to both sensual happiness and spiritual fulfillment” (P. 59).
NS’s stance on the Tantra and Agama is justifiable and finds support in the definition of Agama that Vacaspatimisra provides in his Tattvavaisaradi: Agama is the art, science, and technology that is necessary to attain prosperity in this world and liberation (moksa) in the next. When properly applied (viniyoga) by a qualified person, legitimate and appropriate means of attaining moksa dawn in that person (see Tilak n.d.). Harmony between Agama and the Veda (Nigama) is established by recognizing that they are dependent on one another or penetrate one another. A popular adage puts it thus: Vishnu is Shiva’s heart and Shiva Vishnu’s (śivasya hŗdayam vişņuḩ vişņoḩ hŗdayam śivaḩ) (see Tilak N.d.).

History or Itihasa?

NS engages in a lively discussion over the Western concept of history and its Indian counterpart—itihasa, which is more inclusive and wide ranging. Hindu scriptures speak of many immortal yogis and rishis, and munis. Hence, a person like Veda Vyasa who lived in Dwapara Yuga was also able to meet Shankaracharya in Kali Yuga. A Rishi like Vashistha or Vishvamitra could have been alive for thousands of years. Patanjali could reincarnate as Govinda Pada.
The present scholarship hesitates, reminds NS to his readers, to accept these instances as legitimate historical occurrences because it relies only on empirical evidence (P. 40). But, Hindu scriptures insist that the gross, manifest universe is not ‘Ultimate Truth.’ And then they lay down the path by which each person can realize that ‘Truth’ and its various layers directly. Whereas modern history speaks only about tangible history, i.e., ‘Human History’ recorded over a few thousand years, the Hindu tradition speaks of many layers of history spanning over many Yugas (P. 41).
Ramayana and Mahabharata are called as “Itihasa” i.e. History or human history. But, there are many characters like vanaras and rakshasas in them who are not humans. The Purunas not only speak about history of human kings but also about happenings in the various realms of existence. Hence, in the Hindu tradition, we find the presence of both allegorical stories and the history of various realms of existence’ (P. 41).
Hence, instead of rejecting all that is available to us in the tradition as a metaphor or as a story, NS invites us to inquire into them on case by case basis. There may be debates and discussions about which stories allude to ‘real events’ and which stories are only metaphorical and which are about events that happened in the physical realm. The outright rejection of everything as mere metaphorical would result in improper understanding and misconceptions. (pp. 40-43).
The above distinction that NS draws between ‘history’ and ‘itihasa’ is crucial and warrants further scrutiny. In his commentaries on major Upanişads, Śańkarācārya analyzes and brings out salient facts about itihāsa from the various episodes featured in them. The Kaţha upanişad, for instance, contains an episode involving Vājaśravas and his son Naciketas who received instruction from Yama. Śańkarācārya explains that this episode functions as arthavāda, that is, it pertains to an event that may actually have happened or not. The first part of the proposition—‘an event that may actually have happened’ refers to the bhūtārthavāda component of arthavāda. Itihāsa is therefore instructive, observes Śańkarācārya, in that there is something to learn from the behavior or actions of characters involved (Naciketas, for instance) (see Tilak 2017).
It may be argued that the bhūtārthavāda component comes closest to the Western notion of history because it (i) occurs in time that is measurable, (ii) is connected to a probable causal factor, and (iii) is verifiable against an empirical criterion such as an inscription or a written record. The second part of the proposition (an event that may not have happened) is closer to what in the West is known as myth, legend, or fiction (see Tilak 2017).
In light of the above discussion, it should come as no surprise that instead of dividing the sections on Hindu religion and philosophy or Vedanta into ‘historical periods,’ NS arranges them thematically. He devotes brief individual segments to Shaivism, Shaktism, Tantra, and to other expressions of dharma. This approach has advantages. First, by focusing on one tradition at a time, he reduces the confusion that can arise from the complex, intertwining nature of dharma, allowing the reader to grasp the immediate influences on a particular tradition. Also, because the thought patterns or chronologies of these traditions are interrelated, the segments often overlap in their coverage putting the material in a new light. For example, in explaining the intricate and complex Tantra/Agama system, the author shows how some of the techniques from that system have been used for different purposes in different traditions.

Narrativity and dharma

Speaking methodologically, the primary compass that guides the exploration of dharma in Musings is the narrative. The ideas that shape the contours of the Hindu universe and the Hindu aspiration for moksha are accordingly mapped in terms of narrativity, rendering dharma a lot more readable and accessible to seekers across the globe. What better example of the perils of not following dharma (or not engaging in prescribed karmas) could there be than the Mahabharata and the Ramayana?
In a section aptly entitled ‘The Need for Indian Narrative,’ NS comments that the issue of withdrawal of Wendy Doniger’s book “The Hindu” (because of the demonization of Hindus therein) demonstrates the need for creating the ‘Indian Narrative.’ There is a lack of Indian scholars, writes NS, who are well versed in modern methodology as well as rooted in Indian culture and philosophy and who can refute the distorted and vulgar opinions being passed as scholarship. Such research and narrative, he cautions, should not be based on examination of Indian life through the lens of western scholarship; it should not be grounded in western concepts and perspective. Instead, it should be focused on bringing out the Indian perspective, the Indian view of art, religion, philosophy etc. The root cause of all these problems, concludes NS, is not just a lack of Indian Narrative. Rather, it is rooted in a lack of sense of Dharma among the masses (pp. 113-114, 117).
“The fall of Hindus or even Indians is rooted in this abandonment of Dharma. And a rise will result only from a revival of Dharma” (P.118).
A quibble or two
This reviewer did not find anything substantial to criticize in Musings in terms of its contents; the only concern (a couple of quibbles really) being transliteration of Sanskrit words in English. In Musings, nitya, for instance, becomes nithya and Gayatri becomes Gayathri. One suggested reason for this practice is that speakers/writers of Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu, and Tamil add ‘h’ to such words to differentiate between the pronunciations of ‘त’ and ‘ट’ (in this scheme of transliteration ‘t’ stands for ‘ट’ while ‘th’ stands for ‘त’). In other parts of India, however, ‘th’ stands for ‘थ’ while ‘t’ stands both for ‘त’ and ‘ट’ (presumably, the reader is expected to discern whether a ‘त’ or ‘ट’ is meant by resort to the context). I therefore wonder if it would be possible to adhere to the standardized convention of transliterating Sanskrit words into English. Another quibble with Musings that must be recorded here is the presence of a large number of typos. Hopefully, a good copy editor will take care of these two quibbles before Musings goes to the press for the next edition.

Concluding remarks

Musings is held together by a strong and distinctive authorial voice and vision of NS, a patriotic Hindu, who sincerely wants his beloved dharma not only to survive but to flourish. He laments that despite the size and growing affluence of the Hindu community in India and in the diaspora today and despite the enduring appeal of Hindu religiosity beyond India, Hindus in India (or in the diaspora) have not created a forum for tradition-based reflection.
There is no guidance for Hindus of today to study, teach, and write about their tradition within a context that is supported by Hindu scholars, Hindu rituals, and contemplative practices such as yoga and dhyana. “More important than protesting against a book or creating a narrative to counter, is to practice the tenets of dharma that one wants to protect,” concludes NS (p. 117). Inclusivism, a value that is repeatedly advocated in dharma, must be treasured:
Even if one does not agree with Vidyaranya’s conclusion that Advaita Vedanta is at the zenith, his work demonstrates beyond doubt that various Dharmic philosophies are inter-connected and are not exclusive” (pp. 120-121).
In the end, however, as Jonathan Edelmann has observed, seats of Hindu study and practice can develop (and should develop) by creating places for Hindu scholars to teach young Hindus how to think faithfully and critically about their tradition with the intellectual resources—this will require the financial support of Hindus themselves (Edelmann personal communication).
References
Edelmann, Jonathan. 2017. Introduction to Special Issue: Stotra, Hymns of Praise in Indian Literature. International Journal of Hindu Studies. DOI 10.1007/s11407-016-9201-x; accessed on March 22, 2017.
Sathaye, Avinash. 2015. Bhāskarācārya’s Treatment of the Concept of Infinity. Gaņita Bhāratī vol 37, nos 1-2 (2015): 55-67.
Tilak, Shrinivas. 2017. Professor Sheldon Pollock on history in ancient India: A critique from the perspective of Mimamsa. Paper presented at the Swadeshi Indology Conference II, Delhi: February 17-19, 2017.
Tilak, Shrinivas. N.d. Harmonizing Nigama and Agama. Unpublished paper.
Disclaimer: The facts and opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. IndiaFacts does not assume any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity of any information in this article.
Dr Shrinivas Tilak
Dr Shrinivas Tilak (Ph.D. History of religions, McGill University, Montreal, Canada) is an independent researcher based in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. His publications include The Myth of Sarvodaya: A study in Vinoba’s concept (New Delhi: Breakthrough Communications 1984); Religion and Aging in the Indian Tradition (Albany, N. Y.: State University of New York Press, 1989), Understanding karma in light of Paul Ricoeur’s philosophical anthropology and hermeneutics (Charleston, SC: BookSurge, revised, paperback edition, 2007), and Reawakening to a secular Hindu nation: M. S. Golwalkar’s vision of a Dharmasāpekşa Hindurāşţra (Charleston, SC: BookSurge, 2009).
http://indiafacts.org/book-review-musings-hinduism-nithin-sridhar/

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AAP -- An obituary by Yogendra Yadav

April 11, 2017, 9:02 pm

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Posted at: Apr 12, 2017, 12:38 AM; last updated: Apr 12, 2017, 12:38 AM (IST)

The writing on the wall

Yogendra Yadav
AAP is cornered — and has itself to blame

WE are witnessing a bizarre and tragic spectacle in democratic politics. The BJP is waging an all-out war to finish the AAP. But it may not succeed. The AAP leadership is out on a self-destruction mode. We do not know which comes first, the murder or the suicide. We cannot say which one is worse for democracy.

Tables turn: The AAP leadership is out on a self-destruction mode.

The BJP leadership had identified the AAP as a potential challenger in 2013. The stunning performance of the new party had captured national imagination and had pushed Mr Modi, then a PM aspirant, out from media headlines. They could see that the Congress under Rahul Gandhi's leadership posed no long-term threat to them, but a new party representing idealism could. Following its victory in the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP has used every legal and extra-legal power at its command to hunt down the AAP. This violates basic democratic norms of relationship between the ruling party and the Opposition. This also violates federal norms of the relationship between the state and the Central government. It reminds us of how Indira Gandhi treated opposition parties and opposition-led governments.

There is no doubt that Delhi's LG has played a role, less as a constitutional head and more as an agent of the Central government, and often as an arm of the ruling party at the Centre. Mr Najeeb Jung obstructed many routine initiatives of the Delhi Government. The Delhi Police got after every real and imagined crime of AAP legislators like no other state police has done to any ruling party. If the same standards were applied uniformly, dozens of BJP's own MPs and hundreds of MLAs all over the country should have been in jail. The repeated efforts by the income tax authorities to dig some dirt in AAP accounts reek of witch-hunt, not to mention the sheer hypocrisy of the BJP, held guilty of taking illegal foreign funds in its accounts, pointing fingers at someone else. The committee that recommended Rs 87 crore fine on the AAP for misusing government funds for party propaganda was hardly neutral. And it must be stated that the defamation case filed by Mr Arun Jaitley against Mr Arvind Kejriwal and associates is proceeding at a rather unusual pace. A section of the media is more than happy to amplify this one-sided campaign against the AAP, orchestrated by the ruling party.

Now we are moving into the final act. There are strong indications that the BJP might tighten the noose. The release of the Shunglu Committee report points to the possibility of a series of legal actions. Cancellation of the party office allocation is a small step. It might be followed up with a series of criminal cases against some ministers and key functionaries in the Delhi Government. This may coincide with a near-certain defeat of the party in a crucial byelection held in the Rajouri Garden constituency in Delhi (result is expected on April 13) and a defeat in the MCD elections scheduled for April 23. A disqualification of 21 AAP MLAs by the Election Commission in the Office of Profit case is expected any day. If things work out as per the script laid out by the BJP, it might consider dislodging the AAP government in Delhi.

Normally, all this should be enough to induce sympathy and support for this new party, being done in by the ruling giant. This is how the dwindling band of die-hard AAP supporters continues to present the case. But this story of a David taking on a Goliath has few takers now. The AAP was three promises rolled into one —ethical politics, good governance and strong electoral force. For the discerning citizen, it lost the plank of ethical politics long ago, induction of dubious candidates, disregard of the party constitution, unceremonious removal of the party’s own Lokpal had already signalled the death of the AAP as an immoral project.

The promise of good governance has also been belied completely. While the BJP has worked overtime to highlight the misdeeds of the AAP, the harsh truth is that there are just too many misdeeds waiting to be exposed. It has come out, again and again, that the AAP government does not understand the basic grammar of governance. The Delhi High Court judgment has already highlighted how the AAP government violated the constitutional scheme of things for Delhi’s governance. The Office of Profit case pending before the EC brought out how this government disregarded the law governing the appointment of parliamentary secretaries. Now, the Shunglu Committee, comprising three retired officers (known for their integrity), brings out several instances of brazen disregard of rules and norms that any government is expected to follow. The fact remains that there was a serious discrepancy between the party donation list on the website and the one submitted to the EC. The party has stopped disclosing its donations to the public.

These are not just procedural lapses. The Shunglu Committee brings out instances of favouritism and misuse of office that one normally associates with corrupt regimes. The Health Minister has appointed his architect-daughter to his own department to oversee a health project. The CM violates all rules to appoint his close relative, first as a resident doctor, then as OSD to the Health Minister. A number of party workers are handed over plum government posts, often with backdated orders. Add to this, the fact that three of the party ministers have had to resign on charges of corruption, forgery and moral turpitude. The fact is that the government grossly misused public money for party propaganda, and wanted to pay an obscene amount of money for legal defence in the political battle against Mr Jaitley.

Bereft of its plank of moral politics and good governance, the AAP is now left only with its game of electoral viability. Its claim of being the only party that could take on the BJP was blown up by the Punjab and Goa verdicts. Hence the ridiculous attempt to blame the EVMs for its failure. This also explains the desperate promise of the abolition of house tax for the Delhi MC elections. The party leadership can see the writing on the wall. We do not know how long the election machine of the AAP may survive the death of the AAP as a moral and political project. We do not know whether it would be murder or suicide. But we do know in either case, it's not good for democracy.

yogendra.yadav@gmail.com

http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/the-writing-on-the-wall/390566.html

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Unmasking 'Kashmiriyat' facade, making Kashmir a state of Indian nation -- Sanjay Dixit

April 12, 2017, 4:02 am

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The Facade That Is 'Kashmiriyat'

Sanjay Dixit

- Apr 11, 2017, 5:22 pm

SNAPSHOT

Absurd political correctness stops Indians from calling ‘Kashmiriyat’ what it really is — facade for unabashed Islamism.

Contrary to the popular belief, communal politics in Kashmir Valley is not a recent phenomenon. It was around the turn of the century that fundamentalist maulanas started preaching jihad against the Hindu Dogra ruler. Plenty of justification was available under Shari’a law against an infidel king ruling the faithful and the indoctrination was accordingly taken up. The political correctness emanating from Delhi often talks about Kashmiriyat and the syncretic Sufi culture of Kashmir Valley. Nothing is farther from truth.

The year 1931 marks a watershed in the history of communalisation of the Valley. It was in July 1931 that the first major riot in the Valley occurred. It was aimed at the Kashmiri Pandits and was well orchestrated from the mosques. It started with a meeting by Sheikh Abdullah, and fanned into violence by an invited Ahmadi. A research paper on the 1931 riots can be read here. Kashmiri Pandit activist Sushil Pandit has also given a detailed account of the truth behind the riots. Hindus were set upon, killed, maimed, thrown into river, their properties burnt, some forcibly converted to Islam, and were subjected to every kind of unimaginable atrocity. All this happened in the kingdom of a Hindu King with absolute powers.

Around the same time as the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) was founded by Abul Ala Mawdoodi who later teamed with Sayyid Qutb of Muslim Brotherhood to fashion a completely new narrative, the seeds of Jamaat-e-Islami Jammu Kashmir (JEIJK) was established in J&K. JEI as well as JEIJK had the establishment of an Islamic State as its avowed goal. JEIJK’s establishment was formalised in the Indian J&K in 1953 with its seat in Shopian in South Kashmir. The JEIJK has spread these ideals, principally the establishment of Shari’a Law in J&K on the basis of it being a Muslim majority country. (They do treat it as a country). The Hizb-ul-Mujahideen was only a militant arm of the JEIJK, which has now taken an independent route as it accused the JEIJK of moderating it stance on the issue of taking part in elections.

Why I am giving this background is because there is an overwhelming opinion in mainstream India that Kashmir always had a great tolerant Sufi tradition and was governed by a culture of Kashmiriyat. This is only as true as the fake narrative of Kashmiris being secular in outlook. The opinion in mainland India blames the militancy on what it calls the growth of Salafism in the Valley without understanding what is meant by Salafism.

India was partitioned on the basis of a two-nation theory. Muslim League was not a Salafi organisation. The principal force behind radicalisation of the Valley has been the Muslim Conference led by Sheikh Abdullah in the early 1930s (Sheikh Abdullah later quit to form his own National Conference) and JEIJK till the turn of the century. After that the reins have gone into the hands of Hurriyat Conference, which is also not a Salafi organisation. Armed jihad in the cause of Islam, in the Islamic doctrine, is not a monopoly of the Salafis. It is part and parcel of the Qur’an and the Shari’a trilogy.

There is a great confusion in the minds of Indians that Sufis are a tolerant people. They do follow singing and dancing traditions, but along with Shias they were in the forefront of India’s Partition, as also in various blasphemy riots in the sub-continent. Killers of Swami Shraddhanand, MahashayRajpal, and Salman Taseer for blasphemy were all Barelvi Sufis, as were the rioters protesting persecution of Rohingyas in Bombay, or creating ruckus on Kamlesh Tiwari. Sufis are as much for Dar-ul-Islam as the Salafis or the Muslim Brotherhood. Salafism is an ideology whereas Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islami are organisations.

Be that as it may. Let me point out that Abul Ala Mawdoodi, the founder of JEI actually opposed Partition of India along with the Deobandis. Both were as much a Hanafi school follower as the Barelvi Sufis. Mawdoodi opposed Pakistan as Muslim League did not guarantee a Shari’a ruled state and opposed Partition as his goal was Islamisation of the entire sub-continent, a goal which would be thwarted if Partition took place along religious lines. Abul Ala Mawdoodi went on to found Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan even as the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind went on the moderate path and accepted democracy after Partition. JEIH pursues the goal of Dar-ul-Islam by teaching its followers the principles of tactical voting to grab power. JEIJK, on the other hand, radicalised Kashmiris on the Shari’a principle until recently. The Hurriyat is the successor of JEIJK in Kashmir and follows the JEIP line.

An additional problem is related to the fiqh divisions in Islam. Indians follow the Hanafifiqh (school) in which religious interpretation can only be given by authorised clerics. The principle is called Taqlid. Followers are called Muqallid. Salafis are typically “ghairmuqallid”. (Indian maulanas criticised and issued fatwas against ZakirNaik for being a ghairmuqallid, and not for the content of what he was preaching). However, Salafism being an ideology can always influence clerics of all Taqlidifiqhs, who do use it to radicalise their followers. Salafis can be found across all the main schools of Sunni Islam (Shafii, Maliki, Hanafi and Hanbali) but are most pervasive among Hanbalis, whose sub-continental branch is called Ahl-e-Hadis. Taqlid does act as a barrier to Salafism in India. Saudi Arabia follows the Hanbalifiqh, which does not follow the principle of Taqlid. That makes it easier for the Saudi Muslims to self radicalise and fan out to preach the Salafi ideology. This ideology preaches literalism and puritanism, holding only the first three generations of Islam as the true model to follow. That results in dubbing any talk of reform as haram.

Now let us look as what the Jamaat and others have been teaching the Kashmiris since the 1930s, based on Shari’a:

Muslims are obliged to live under Allah’s law, i.e., Shari’a

Shirk (idolatry), Kuffr (unbelief), irtidad (apostasy), and gustakhi (blasphemy) are serious offences punishable by death.

A Muslim is supposed to submit only to Allah’s nominee on earth, i.e. a Caliph Democracy (equal rights and votes) is haram, as there can be no equality between a Muslim and a non-Muslim, a man and a woman, and a master and a slave under Islam Nation State is an un-Islamic concept, so India as a democratic nation is unacceptable. It is the duty of Muslims to capture power and impose Shari’a over entire J&K, starting with the Valley.

That being the case, any solution for tackling Kashmir militancy will fail unless it targets this long-standing indoctrination. As a matter of fact, Islamists regard establishment of a Shari’a State in Kashmir as only the first stop towards the ultimate goal of establishment of Dar-ul-Islam in the whole of India. Jammu is going to be the next stop. Assam and Bengal would be the next on radar. The whole philosophy finds resonance with the two-nation theory of Pakistan’s establishment. Two-Nation Theory had two components. First, Hindus and Muslims were separate nations; and second, Hindus and Muslims were equal nations. Its first target was achieved with Partition. The second target could not be achieved because India turned out to be much bigger and got its economics right since the 1990s. Hence the asymmetric warfare by the Pakistanis concentrates on strengthening the Shari’a ideology in Kashmir and the rest of India. Separatism and integration of Pakistan is not the main issue, but simply an adjunct of this quest for equality.

The violence in Kashmir is only incidental as armed jihad is a valid means under Shari’a. Indians have often wondered why the Indian Muslim Clerics oppose abolition of Article 370 and remain silent over the ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits. This is because no Islamic cleric worth his salt can place Shari’a above democracy. To recall Christine Fair in her much acclaimed book Pakistan Army’s way of war, “Even if India were to gift Kashmir to Pakistan, its hostility to India will not end”. An unstated part of the two-nation theory has always been that “It is Islam’s destiny to rule the world, and therefore the whole of Indian sub-continent”. Politically correct analysts call it a fool’s talk only that it isn’t. It is the philosophy of Shari’a.

The problem in Kashmir is compounded because of India’s inability to rise beyond political correctness. Very few commentators and politicians are willing to catch the bull by the horn. Even politicians from Jammu are not willing to call a spade a spade. This prevents correct diagnosis of the problem, thereby defeating any chance of a solution. Blaming Pakistan has become the standard prescription. Reality is that Pakistan is only exploiting a situation that has always existed in the Valley, at least since 1931.

This is my diagnosis of the Kashmir militancy. I will deal with the solution to the Kashmir problem in the next part.

Going Beyond Mere Geographic Integration: Ten Steps That Must Be Taken For The Kashmir Valley

Sanjay Dixit

- Apr 11, 2017, 10:12 pm

Going Beyond Mere Geographic Integration: Ten Steps That Must Be Taken For The Kashmir Valley

SNAPSHOT

It is high time that the Kashmir Valley is made as normal a part of Indian nation as it is of the Indian state

Article 370 is India’s tribute to the two-nation theory propounded by Allama Iqbal and his disciple, Mohammad Ali Jinnah. It is an implicit recognition of Pakistan’s position.

For the sake of form, India and Sheikh Abdullah told the International audience including the United Nations that Kashmir was evidence that India did not believe in the two-nation theory. This is what Sheikh Abdullah said in the UN Security Council on 5 February 1948:

“I and my organization never believed in the formula that Muslims and Hindus form separate nations. We do not believe in the two-nation theory, nor in communal hatred or communalism itself. We believed that religion had no place in politics.”

If you told this to a Kashmiri today, he would probably laugh at you in your face, if not call you a downright fool. He would be justified in doing so, because this is exactly how India has behaved over 70 years. Jawaharlal Nehru succumbed to the wily designs of Sheikh Abdullah. He conceded Article 370 to Sheikh against the better judgment of Constituent Assembly. A history of how Article 370 came into being can be read here.

In the context of part 1 of this article, Article 370 only serves to strengthen the separate character of J&K in terms of the Islamic Shari’a ideology. Ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits is direct result of Article 370 and Article 35A of the Constitution. Therefore, no permanent solution for Kashmir can even be thought of before the abrogation of Article 370. India cannot honour the separate character of J&K in terms of Shari’a on the one hand and seek to integrate Kashmir into the mainstream on the other. This is where the game has to begin.

Second, the artificial artifice of Article 35A has to be taken out of the Statute book – this can be done even before repealing Article 370. This is a fraud on the Constitution of India and requires nothing more than a declaration that it was never made a part of the Constitution through due procedure.

Next, Jammu and Ladakh ought to be separated from the Valley and be constituted into an independent state or Union Territory. The politicians of the Valley have been ruling these two areas with the zeal of an Islamic majoritarian for the last 70 years, denying the greater area of Jammu and Kashmir (more than 80 per cent of the present area of Jammu and Kashmir under India) its due share in employment and economic opportunities. Jammu in particular has a great potential in industrial and agricultural development. Ladakh has the greatest potential as a tourism destination.

After these three steps have been taken, we can deal with the Islamic jihad of the Valley with a much greater focus and on a firm ideological footing. Once it is made clear to the Islamists and Jihadists that the Constitution of India shall reign supreme, the following Ten Commandments should logically follow:

One, the Kashmir Valley ought to be made a Union Territory with the Governor enjoying complete authority over law and order. The Valley elites have run with the hare and hunted with the hounds for far too long. India has to absolutely finish their divisive impact on the police and magistracy.

Two, having recognised the Taqlidi nature of Islam in the Valley (as in the rest of India), the Indian State can defeat the militancy if it concentrates on the clerics and mosques. Throughout the period of indoctrination, these two have been instrumental in fanning the flames in the Valley in league with the local politicians. Once the politicians are detached from law and order, it should not be difficult to target the clerics and mosques that are in the forefront of militancy. They have to be isolated by rigorous surveillance and exercise of legal options. These elements must fear the Indian State even as the public at large should feel that the State is just and fair. My impression is that the troublemakers are in a minority of less than 5 per cent, but occupy the vantage points.

Three, reoccupy the security grids which have gone soft over the last 10 years. Indian Army brought the Valley back from the brink in the nineties when the situation was much worse with thousands of mercenaries and local terrorists roaming not only the Valley, but also the upper reaches of the Chenab Valley. Today, there are fewer than 150 terrorists of the homegrown variety in the Kashmir Valley, and none in the Chenab Valley.

Four, end the endemic corruption in the Valley. A strong Governor to govern Union Territory of Kashmir would be required. A person with a military background may be advisable initially.

Five, resettle the Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley after creating fool proof security conditions. Panun Kashmir has been a long-standing demand of Kashmiri Pandits. Though it fortifies the two-nation theory, yet an autonomous region for the Pandits within the Union Territory of Kashmir may be worth looking at.

Six, put the occupation of infiltration routes as a tactical priority for the military once the local militancy is under control. Occupation of the Haji Pir bulge and other Neelam Valley infiltration routes should be prioritised subject to operational feasibility.

Seven, development of tunnels and transmission lines into the valley must be given priority over all other infrastructure projects. Winters are the best period for building trust with the general population without interference from the clerics and militants. Power situation in the winters and road blockages have been a sore point with the Valley. An investment of national will and resources would strengthen a belief that rest of India cares. In any case, any solution to resolving the crisis in the Valley has to ultimately isolate the jihad merchants from the lay population.

Eight, India must attempt the final resolution of the long pending dispute with Pakistan and China. With Pakistan, it has to be on the basis of the Accession Treaty of 1947. The UN Resolution is nearly defunct, and would be formally buried if Pakistan incorporates Gilgit-Baltistan into itself. A Ladakh type Union Terriotry with a legislative assembly would be an attractive solution to Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) and Gilgit-Baltistan as well. India will have to use a hybrid approach of saam-daam-danda-bheda to win them over. With China, a climb down on the Johnson Line could yield results in the foreseeable future if the Indian economy keeps growing at 7-8 per cent for another decade or so.

Nine, India has to bring all political parties on board to resolve the Kashmir issue. This may be possible in the near future if the same party gets majority in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.

And last but not the least, there has to be absolute enforcement of Rule of Law.

With these Ten Commandments, we can expect that the territories of Maharaja Hari Singh would finally become an integral part of the Union of India de facto, rather than be so just de jure.

Sanjay Dixit

Sanjay Dixit is presently Principal Secretary, Ayush, Rajasthan.

https://swarajyamag.com/politics/going-beyond-mere-geographic-integration-ten-steps-that-must-be-taken-for-the-kashmir-valley

https://swarajyamag.com/politics/the-facade-that-is-kashmiriyat

↧

One Info and Communication Technology Platform for Indian Railways -- Suresh Prabhu

April 12, 2017, 4:20 am

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≪ Previous: Unmasking 'Kashmiriyat' facade, making Kashmir a state of Indian nation -- Sanjay Dixit

Transforming Indian Railways with the OneICT Programme

This is the type of report, vision statement that the Railway Task Force Team should have written when Railways pioneered the introduction of IT through IBM 1401s.

‏ @kalyan97

@sureshpprabhu@narendramodi Brilliant vision statement. You have to succeed. Namaskaram. Jeevema s'aradah s'atam

Kudos to NaMo's and Suresh Prabhu's team for technology breakthrough bringing Bharatiya Rail into the 21st century.

Kalyanaraman

Transforming Indian Railways with the OneICT Programme

The Indian Railways have come a long way since the chugging of the first train on Indian soil in April of 1853. ...

Suresh Prabhu

The Indian Railways have come a long way since the chugging of the first train on Indian soil in April of 1853. India has always looked at the Railways as a vital infrastructure enabling it to deliver goods and services for the growing economy. However, meeting the requirements of fast growing economy is a challenge.

The main issue is creation of the needed logistics and transport capacity in an affordable and achievable manner. The fact is that the traditional way of building additional infrastructure is too slow, too cumbersome and likely to fall short of the growing requirements and expectations. The challenge is to find a solution with adequate level of investments that shall leverage and optimize both the available and future resources.

We need a smarter way to connect people with jobs and goods with market. Digital Technology offers the solution. By going digital we can unlock far more than currently utilized capacity of the available infrastructure. We can run more trains where they are most needed. Going digital shall help the Indian Railways build and run better, provide more trains and better services with greater reliability.

Indian Railways aims to deliver services to meet the demands of the citizens of Digital India via the Digital Railway Platform: IR-OneICT or Indian Railways One Information and Communication Technology Platform. IR-OneICT is a vision to create a data-driven Indian Railways.

IR-OneICT is a strategic initiative for meeting the Business Objectives of: Improved Customer Satisfaction; Safe, Effective and Efficient Operations and Improved Revenues.

This shall be done by the following the principles of:

Data collection at source with minimum human handling
Single source of validated information
Timely availability of actionable information to authorised person at place of use
Improved data analysis and usage

Use of best in class technology for data analytics, simulation software, network optimization and decision support systems shall enable and ensure real time availability and usage of information leading to agile and efficient working. Thus, managers can spend more time on execution.

IR-OneICT aims for service delivery on an easily accessible Digital Platform for an enhanced customer experience. End to End Journey Management, Real-time consignment tracking, Door to Door value added deliveries, Co-branded services such as onboard dining and entertainment would be available to customers on easy to use mobile apps.

IR-OneICT shall also enable the Indian Railways to improve utilization of assets, maximize load-factors, discover new business opportunities and plan smart investments. The impact of these interventions is described briefly in the following paragraphs.

Data-driven network optimization on other major railway systems such as Britain’s Network Rail and Canadian National has unlocked 30 to 40% of hitherto unutilized capacity. Similar results could be expected on Indian Railways.

Real time asset management systems would enable managers to not only plan efficient operations & maintenance but also optimize asset acquisition for enhanced capacity. Financial data would assist the managers to dynamically plan and optimize cash flows.

Every year Indian Railway uses about 3 million litres of diesel and 16 billion units of electricity. Smart sensors and networks coupled with real-time analytics can predict and optimize energy consumption for substantial savings and significantly reduce our carbon footprint.

An informed workforce is an empowered workforce. Employee management dashboards would help managers stay in sync with their teams anywhere, anytime. IR-OneICT would enable a 24 by 7 workforce.

Digital enablement of Indian Railway hospitals would assist in optimal use of resources through appointment scheduling and other linked activities. Tele-medicine services shall help connect experts and patients located in different parts of the country with ease.

Seamless delivery of services shall be powered by a robust ICT infrastructure supported by Server Clouds, Managed Networks and optimized Systems Architecture ensuring Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability.

IR-OneICT shall engender a paradigm shift in Indian Railways to create a Digital Railways for Digital India. This initiative shall truly revolutionize Indian Railways.

(Suresh Prabhu is Union Cabinet Minister for Railways, Government of India.)

The views expressed above belong to the author(s) and the Narendra Modi website and Narendra Modi App does not necessarily endorse the views expressed.

↧

ECI thows 'open challenge' to hack EVMs

April 12, 2017, 7:40 am

≫ Next: Is China warning because Bharat, India is coming out of 'finlandisation' asks Ram Madhav

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ECI throws ‘open challenge’ to hack EVMs

PTI

NEW DELHI APRIL 12, 2017 18:51 IST

Anyone can come for a week or 10 days and try to hack them and the challenge will have various levels, says official source.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Wednesday threw an “open challenge” to people to hack its electronic voting machines (EVMs).

This comes after Opposition parties urged it to revert to the paper ballot system, raising doubts over infallibility of the machines.

“From first week of May, experts, scientists, technocrats can come for a week or 10 days and try to hack the machines,” an official source said, adding that the challenge would have various levels.

The Commission had announced a similar challenge in 2009 and it claimed no one could hack its EVMs.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/ec-issues-open-challenge-to-hack-evms/article17954709.ece?homepage=true

Press Information Bureau
Government of India
Election Commission
09-April-2017 09:50 IST

FAQs on Security Features of The ECI-EVMs

In the recent past, there have been some queries in the minds of common people about the security features of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) of Election Commission of India (ECI). The Election Commission has, time and again, stated that ECI-EVMs and its systems are robust, secure and tamper-proof.

The following FAQs give a detailed view of security features including latest technological features of EVMs and stringent administrative measures taken at every step of its usage from manufacturing to storage.

1. What is meant by Tampering of EVM?

Tampering means alteration in the software program written either on existing microchips of Control Unit (CU) or introducing malicious software program by inserting new microchips in CU and also making keys - pressed in Ballot Unit (BU) not record faithfully in the Control Unit.

2. Are the ECI- EVMs hackable?

NO.

M1 (model one) of EVM machines were manufactured till 2006 and had all necessary technical features making M1 non-hackable contrary to claims made by some activists.

On the recommendations of the Technical Evaluation Committee in 2006, M2 model of EVMs produced after 2006 and upto 2012 incorporated dynamic coding of key codes thereby enabling transfer of the key – press message from Ballot Unit (BUs) to Control Unit (CUs), in an encrypted form as an additional security feature. It also contains Real time setting of each key press so that sequencing of key presses including so called malicious sequenced key presses can be detected and wrapped.

Further, the ECI- EVMs are not computer controlled, are stand alone machines and not connected to the internet and /or any other network at any point of time. Hence, there is no chance of hacking by remote devices.

The ECI-EVMs do not have any frequency receiver or decoder for data for wireless or any external hardware port for connection to any other non-EVM accessory or device. Hence no tampering is possible either through hardware port or through Wireless, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth device because CU accepts only encrypted and dynamically coded data from BU. No other kind of data can be accepted by CU.

3. Can ECI-EVMs be manipulated by Manufacturers?

Not Possible.

There is very stringent security protocol at manufacturer level regarding security of software. The Machines have been manufactured in different years starting from 2006. After manufacturing, EVMs are sent to State and district to district within a State. The manufacturers are in no position to know several years ahead which candidate will be contesting from a particular constituency and what will be the sequence of the candidates on the BU. Also, each ECI-EVM has a serial number and the Election Commission by use of EVM – tracking software can find out from its database which machine is located where. So, any manipulation at manufacturing stage is ruled out.

4. Can Trojan Horse be incorporated into the chip in CU?

Sequence of voting in EVM eliminates the possibility of injection of Trojan Horse as mentioned below. The stringent security measures by ECI make it impossible to introduce Trojan Horse in the field.

Once a ballot key is pressed in CU, the CU enables BU for registering the vote and waits for the key pressing in the BU. During this period, all keys in the CU become Inactive till the entire sequence of casting of that vote is complete. Once any of the keys (candidates vote button) is pressed by a voter in BU, the BU transmits the key information to CU. The CU gets the data and acknowledges it by glowing the corresponding LED lamps in BU. After the enabling of ballot in CU, only the ‘first key press’ is sensed and accepted by CU. After this, even if a voter keeps on pressing the other buttons that is of no use as there will not be any communication between CU and BU as the result of those subsequent key presses, nor will BU register any key press. To put it in other words, there can be only one valid key press (the first key press) for every ballot enabled using CU. Once a valid key press (voting process) is complete, until another ballot enabling key press is made there will not be any activity between the CU and the BU. Hence, sending of any malicious signal, by way of so called ‘sequenced key presses’, is impossible in the Electronic Voting Machines being used in the country.

5. Are Old model ECI- EVMs still in use?

M1 model of EVM machines were produced up to 2006 and were last used in 2014 General Elections. In 2014, EVM machines which completed 15 years of economic life and also because M1 were not compatible with VVPAT (voter-verified paper audit trail) , ECI decided to discontinue use of all M1 EVMs manufactured upto 2006. There is a Standard Operating Procedure laid down by ECI to discard EVMs. The process of destruction of EVM & its chip is carried out in the presence of Chief Electoral Officer of the state or his representatives inside the factory of manufacturers.

6. Can ECI-EVMs be Physically Tampered with/ their components be changed without anyone noticing?

In addition to the existing security features in earlier models M1 & M2 of ECI-EVMs, the new M3 EVM produced after 2013 have additional features like Tamper Detection and Self Diagnostics. The tamper detection feature makes an EVM inoperative the moment anyone tries to open the machine. The Self diagnostic feature checks the EVM fully every time it is switched on. Any change in its hardware or software will be detected.

A prototype of a new model M3 with above features is going to be ready shortly. A Technical Experts Committee will examine it and then production will commence. About Rs. 2,000 crores have been released by the Government to procure M3 EVMs with above additional features and new technological advancements.

7. What are the latest technological features to make ECI-EVMs tamper proof?

The ECI-EVMs use some of the most sophisticated technological features like one time programmable (OTP) microcontrollers, dynamic coding of key codes, date and time stamping of each and every key press, advanced encryption technology and EVM-tracking software to handle EVM logistics, among others to make the machine 100% tamper proof. In addition to these, new model M3 EVMs also have tamper detection and self-diagnostics as added features. Since, software is based on OTP the program cannot be altered, re-written or Re-read. Thus, making EVM tamper proof. If anyone make, attempt, the machine will become in operative.

8. Do the ECI-EVMs use foreign technology?

Contrary to misinformation and as alleged by some, India do not use any EVMs produced abroad. EVMs are produced indigenously by 2 PSUs viz. Bharat Electronics Ltd., Bengaluru and Electronics Corporation of India Ltd., Hyderabad. The Software Programme Code is written in-house, by these two companies, not outsourced, and subjected to security procedures at factory level to maintain the highest levels of integrity. The programme is converted into machine code and only then given to the chip manufacturer abroad because we don’t have the capability of producing semi-conductor microchips within the country.

Every microchip has an identification number embedded into memory and the producers have their digital signatures on them. So, the question of their replacement does not arise at all because microchips are subjected to functional tests with regard to the software. Any attempt to replace microchip is detectable and can make EVM in-operative. Thus, both changing existing programme or introducing new one are detectable making EVM in-operative.

9. What are the possibilities of manipulation at the place of storage?

At the district headquarters, EVMs are kept in a double-lock system under appropriate security. Their safety is periodically checked. The officers do not open the strong room, but they check whether it’s fully protected and whether the lock is in proper condition or not. No Unauthorized person can get access to the EVMs at any point of time. During non election period, Annual Physical Verification of all EVMs is done by DEOs and report sent to ECI. Inspection & checking have recently been completed.

10. To what extent are allegations of EVM tampering in local body polls true?

There is a misunderstanding in this regard due to lack of knowledge about jurisdiction. In case of elections to Municipal bodies or Rural bodies like Panchayat Elections, the EVMs used do not belong to the Election Commission of India. Above local bodies elections come under the jurisdiction of State Election Commission/s (SECs), which procure their own machines and have their own handling system. ECI is not responsible for functioning of EVMs used by SECs in above elections.

11. What are the different levels of checks and balances ensuring tamper proofing of ECI-EVMs?

• First Level Checking: BEL/ECIL engineers certify originality of components after technical and physical examination of each EVM, undertaken in front of representatives of political parties. Defective EVMs are sent back to factory. The FLC Hall is sanitized, entry is restricted and no camera, mobile phone or spy pen is allowed inside. Mock poll of at least 1000 votes is conducted on 5% EVMs selected randomly by reps of political parties and the result shown to them. The entire process is video graphed.

• Randomization: EVMs are randomized twice while being allocated to an Assembly and then to a polling booth ruling out any fixed allocation. Mock Poll at polling station is conducted in front of polling agents of candidates on the poll day, before polls begin.

After Poll, EVMs are sealed and polling agents put their signature on the seal. Polling agents can travel upto strong room during transportations.

• Strong Rooms: Candidates or their representatives can put their own seals on the strong rooms where polled EVMs are stored after the poll and also camp in front of strong room. These strong rooms are guarded 24x7 in multilayers.

• Counting Centres: The polled EVMs are brought to the Counting Centres and Unique IDs of the seals and CU are shown to reps of candidates before start of counting.

12. Can a manipulated ECI- EVM be re-inducted in the polling process without anyone coming to know?

Question does not arise.

Looking at the above series of fool-proof checks and balances that are undertaken by the ECI to make EVMs tamper proof, it is evident that neither the machines can be tampered-with nor defective machines can get re-inducted into the polling process at any point of time because Non ECI -EVMs will get detected by the above process and mismatch of BU & CU. Due to different level of stringent checks and balances neither ECI-EVMs can leave the ECI system nor any outside machine (Non-ECI –EVM) can be inducted into the system.

13. Why have Developed Nations like the US and European Union not adopted EVMs and some have discontinued?

Some countries have experimented with electronic voting in the past. The problem faced with the machines in these countries was that they were computer controlled and connected to the network, which in turn, made them prone to hacking and hence totally defeating the purpose. Moreover, there were not adequate security measures and safeguards in their corresponding laws regulations for security, safety and protection. In some countries, Courts struck down the use of EVMs on these legal grounds only.

Indian EVM is stand-alone whereas, USA, The Netherlands, Ireland & Germany had direct recording machines. India has introduced paper audit trail, though partly. Others did not have audit trail. Source code is closed during polling in all of the above countries. India also has closed source burnt into memory and is OTP.

ECI-EVMs, on the other hand, are stand-alone devices not connected to any network, thus making it impossible for anyone to tamper with over 1.4 million machines in India individually. EVMs are most suited for India, looking at the country’s past poll violence and other electoral malpractices like rigging, booth capturing etc. during the polls.

It is worth mentioning that in contrast with countries like Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands. Indian Laws & ECI regulations have in-built adequate safeguards for security & safety of EVMs Besides, Indian EVMs are far superior on account of secured technological features. Indian EVMs also stand apart because VVPATs going to be used with EVMs in phases to make entire process transparent for voters.

In case of The Netherlands, rules regarding storage, transport and security of machine were lacking. Machines produced in The Netherlands were also used in Ireland & Germany. In a judgment in 2005, German Court found voting device ordnance unconstitutional on the ground of violation of the privilege of the public nature of election& the basic law. So, these countries discontinued the use of machines produced in The Netherlands. Even, today many countries including USA are using machines for voting

ECI – EVMs are fundamentally different from the voting machines and processes adopted in foreign countries. Any comparison based on computer controlled, operating system based machines elsewhere will be erroneous and ECI – EVM cannot be compared with.

14. What is the status of VVPAT enabled machines?

The ECI has conducted elections in 255 assembly constituencies and nine Lok Sabha constituencies using Voters Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT). The use of M2 and new-generation M3 EVMs along with VVPAT is the way forward for further confidence and transparency of the voters.

http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=160754

↧

Is China warning because Bharat, India is coming out of 'finlandisation' asks Ram Madhav

April 12, 2017, 7:12 pm

≫ Next: Why Trump may be about to decapitate North Korea: James Robbins

≪ Previous: ECI thows 'open challenge' to hack EVMs

New India, different China

Chinese reaction to the Dalai Lama visit to Tawang this time varied in tone and tenor from previous occasions. There are reasons for that

Written by Ram Madhav | Published:April 13, 2017 12:06 am

Global Times, one of the most influential media organs in China, carried a provocative editorial on India last week in which it asked the rhetorical question: Is India capable of withstanding a “geopolitical” onslaught from an economically and militarily stronger China?

“With a GDP several times higher than that of India, military capabilities that can reach the Indian Ocean and having good relations with India’s peripheral nations, coupled with the fact that India’s turbulent northern state borders China, if China engages in a geopolitical game with India, will Beijing lose to New Delhi?” it asked mockingly.

The provocation was the visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh. The Dalai Lama’s visit was purely religious and spiritual. He has himself clarified that the visit was a routine one like the ones he had undertaken to that state on six earlier occasions. He restricts himself to preaching and sermons most of the time during such visits and occasionally participates in other events. Even in such secular programmes, the Dalai Lama’s discourses are usually on universal wisdom and the greatness of the ancient Indian knowledge systems, etc. He hardly raises political issues, much less the happenings in Tibet or China.

Yet, every time he has visited Arunachal Pradesh, the Chinese media has reacted. Even the visits of other Indian leaders have attracted the umbrage of the Chinese. Whether it was President Pratibha Patil’s visit or that of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh subsequently, they attracted criticism of varying degrees from the Chinese side. The Indian side also routinely rubbished the criticism as unwarranted interference in the internal affairs of our country.

But there is a difference in the Chinese reaction this time round. It was more aggressive; almost bordering on an open threat. It not only talked about the superior military and economic strength of China, but also issued a veiled warning about the situation in J&K.

One important reason could be the tussle over who the next Dalai Lama would be. The Chinese have already installed their own Panchen Lama, who is regarded as next only to the Dalai Lama in the Tibetan spiritual hierarchy. His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama is at an advanced age. As per the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, indications about the next Dalai Lama would be left behind by the present one. The 14th Dalai Lama has so far not given any clear indication about the next one. He has fleetingly made statements like “the next Dalai Lama could be a woman” or “the Tibetans have to decide about the future of this institution of Dalai Lama”.

But the Chinese seem to have their own worries about the matter. They seem to especially suspect that the Holiness might choose someone from India, or even from Arunachal Pradesh, as his successor, thus leaving the movement for Tibetan independence with another leader. There were occasional suggestions that China is contemplating declaring the next Dalai Lama, which have been rubbished by the Holiness himself. He has categorically stated that China can’t do another Panchen Lama with the Dalai Lama.

The other reason could be its territorial claims over Arunachal Pradesh. Here, it needs to be mentioned that Chinese territorial claims over Arunachal Pradesh are of recent origin. During the 1962 war, Chinese troops had annexed half of what used to be called NEFA in those days. Their troops had reached up to Tezpur. New Delhi had almost concluded that Assam fell to them. Nehru infamously delivered a radio address to the people of Assam, bidding farewell to them.

But then the Chinese side announced unilateral ceasefire on November 21, 1962. Surprisingly, they decided to stay put in the areas they had annexed in the western sector in Ladakh, but withdrew to the pre-1962 positions in the eastern sector. Thus, instead of annexing Assam, the Chinese troops vacated all of western Arunachal Pradesh, including Tawang. This decision of Mao became controversial in China; many believed that Mao was wrong.

Arunachal Pradesh became disputed in Chinese eyes only after the formal joining of Sikkim in the Indian Union in 1975. The Chinese side started raising the status of Arunachal Pradesh regularly since 1978. They have invented claims as far-fetched and fantastic as the Chinese people having the graves of their forefathers in Arunachal Pradesh and they would wish to have that territory as part of their motherland.

But the Chinese reaction in 2017 is markedly different in tone from previous occasions. I am reminded of the term “Finlandisation”, coined by the German political scientist Richard Lowenthal in 1961. In the aftermath of the Second World War, Finland chose to follow a policy of not standing up to the Soviet Union militarily or economically, even while the country had remained a part of Allied Western Europe. “Finlandisation” has become a pejorative of sorts that entails a gloomy prospect of a future “when West European nations may discover themselves militarily surrounded, economically beleaguered and psychologically isolated, having to draw the consequences”, as Walter Hahn put it.

The Indian response thus far has been on the lines of Finlandisation, a classic example narrated by a senior Indian columnist recently: “In 2009, largely unnoticed by the Indian media, China and India had drifted close to war over the Dalai Lama’s proposed visit to open a hospital in Tawang town. Conflict was averted when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh readily acceded to a request by Premier Wen Jiabao at an APEC meeting in Hua Hin, Thailand, to keep the international media out of Tawang and prevent it from giving the visit international significance.”

Probably the Chinese feel that India is coming out of this Finlandisation under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and hence, the serious warning.

The writer is National General Secretary, BJP, and Director, India Foundation

http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/new-india-different-china-dalai-lama-tawang-arunachal-visit-4610892/

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Why Trump may be about to decapitate North Korea: James Robbins

April 12, 2017, 8:52 pm

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Why Trump may be about to decapitate North Korea: James Robbins

James S. RobbinsPublished 2:30 p.m. ET April 12, 2017 | Updated 8 hours ago

It isn't safe to wait until a dictator can strike America.

Imagine a world without communist North Korea. For the Trump administration, it’s easy if you try.

President Trump tweeted that Pyongyang is “looking for trouble” and that he would “solve the problem” with or without North Korea’s neighbor and patron China. This was the latest in an escalating exchange of threats in which the Kim Jong Un regime threatened nuclear retaliation if “even a single bullet” was fired at the Hermit Kingdom. Meanwhile, the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group is headed towards the peninsula, and China has deployed 150,000 troops to the Korean border, possibly to mitigate the flood of refugees that would follow military action.

The crisis is long in coming. Successive generations of policymakers have kicked the North Korea can down the road since the 1953 armistice. The Kim dynasty was allowed to maintain its totalitarian dystopia because the threat was mostly contained, and there was no solution that did not involve a general war that would devastate our prosperous democratic ally in South Korea. Instead, the world awaited the expected collapse of the nightmarish North Korean dictatorship. The collapse has yet to come.

Now the calculus has changed. North Korea has an active nuclear weapons program and is rapidly developing the capability to deliver these weapons to the United States mainland. Kim Jong Un, the communist state’s third dynastic ruler, is determined to have a seat at the strategic nuclear table. If the United States waits, one of the most bellicose, seemingly least rational regimes in modern history will have the capability to kill millions of Americans at a stroke.

How Trump's celebrity might solve the North Korea problem: Column

What about Trump's 2nd month? He'll stick to his agenda: James Robbins

The Trump administration has reportedly been drawing up contingency plans for solving the problem before millions of American lives are at stake. National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster said Sunday that deploying forces in the region was prudent and that President Trump has asked for “a full range of options to remove that threat to the American people and to our allies and partners in the region.” The Trump administration isn't the first to consider preemptive military action against North Korea. Defense secretaries from the Obama and Clinton administrations made the case in 2006. But active counterproliferation against North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs — which is to say, destroying them — has always been risky because of the threat of millions of North Korea troops swarming south.

However, there may be a solution that at least lowers the risk. During last month’s combined exercises in South Korea, U.S. forces participated in a simulated decapitation strike to take out North Korea’s leadership. The decapitation option is attractive because all power in the totalitarian state is focused in Kim Jong Un. If he vanished, the state apparatus could well be paralyzed. North Korean generals would hesitate to take action because initiative has been bred out of the power structure; anyone with ideas and ambition has probably already been fed to the dogs.

Kim could well have sought to deter such a strike by issuing standing orders to initiate a spasmodic military strike in case of his death. But his underlings may not execute it. The model would be Adolf Hitler’s last-ditch “Nero Decree” to reduce Germany to scorched earth, which his staff chose to ignore. Senior North Korean leaders may recognize how much better life would be with the Kim regime gone; no more living under threat of being executed by anti-aircraft weapon for accidentally nodding off at a meeting, for example.

POLICING THE USA: A look at race, justice, media

50 years after RFK, hunger and poverty in Mississippi and beyond: Column

The problem, of course, is how to get Kim. The dictator is highly paranoid, and for good reason, since many people are out to get him. He can employ elaborate means of avoiding detection, and went underground for more than a month in 2014. Pyongyang is honeycombed with tunnels and underground bunkers, no doubt able to sustain Kim and his core group of aides and commanders for an extended period. But the solution may come from the inside. How can Kim fully trust those around him, those most likely to be on the receiving end of his irrational impulses, made worse by being holed up? Putting his personal protective system under constant pressure — such as through threats of imminent U.S. military action, and spreading information about suspected disloyal elements in the North Korean hierarchy — could lead to an internal breakdown, or flush the quarry.

Kim may also be shamed into showing himself above ground. The dictator is overly sensitive; North Korean state media responded scathingly to John McCain’s offhand comment about Kim being a “crazy fat kid.” Kim fancies himself an evil genius, but he has only mastered the first half of that equation. The burrowing gopher may have to show himself just to prove he is the godlike hero his regime has portrayed him as. Maybe he could be goaded into making another visit to People’s Army Goat Breeding Station 621. Hopefully, when the resulting strike rains down the livestock will be spared.

James S. Robbins, a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors, has taught at the National Defense University and the Marine Corps University and served as a special assistant to the secretary of defense in the George W. Bush administration. He is author of This Time We Win: Revisiting the Tet Offensive.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/04/12/decapitate-north-korea-nuclear-srike-james-robbins-column/100340508/

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अरुन्धती Arundhatī who keeps वसिष्ठः on her back and binary star (Alcor-Mizar) part of कृत्तिका Krittikā in Mahābhārata

April 13, 2017, 8:57 am

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Arundhatī is Alcor.

Vasishtha is Mizar.

Both Alcor and Mizar are binary stars, stay together. Krittikā rising on the east (a skymap event dated to ca. 2900 BCE) is the ketu for the performance of a yajña. In later days, each nakshatra within Pleiades (6 or 7) gets a specific name.

This skymap is sourced from http://hubblesite.org/image/1562/news_release/2004-20

Hubble Refines Distance to the Pleiades Star Cluster

"The brilliant stars seen in this image are members of the popular open star cluster known as the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters. The Hubble Space Telescope's Fine Guidance Sensors refined the distance to the Pleiades at about 440 light-years. The Fine Guidance Sensors are at the periphery of Hubble's field-of-view. They trace a circumference that is approximately the angular size of the Moon on the sky. They are overlaid on this image to give a scale to Hubble's very narrow view on the heavens."

कृत्तिका [p= 304,3] f. pl. (rarely sg. MBh. iii , 14464 BhP. vi , 14 , 30), N. of a constellation (the Pleiads , originally the first , but in later times the third lunar mansion , having अग्नि as its regent ; this constellation , containing six stars , is sometimes represented as a flame or as a kind of razor or knife ; for their oldest names » TS. iv , 4 , 5 , 1 ; in mythol. the six कृत्तिकाs are nymphs who became the nurses of the god of war , कार्त्तिकेय) AV. TS. S3Br. &c (Monier-Williams)

Arundhatī pativrata and her jealousy

अरुन्धती arundhatī the wife of वसिष्ठ R. &c the little and scarcely visible star Alcor (belonging to the Great Bear , and personified as the wife of one of its seven chief stars , वसिष्ठ , or of all the seven , the so-called seven ऋषिs ; at marriage ceremonies अरुन्धती is invoked as a pattern of conjugal excellence by the bridegroom) A1s3vGr2. &c (Apte)

The Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute [Mahabharata Critical Edition]:

06002031a या चैषा विश्रुता राजंस्त्रैलोक्ये साधुसंमता

06002031c अरुन्धती तयाप्येष वसिष्ठः पृष्ठतः कृतः

She, O king, who is celebrated over the three worlds and is applauded by the righteous, even that constellation Arundhati keepeth her lord Vasistha on her back.(Mbh.6.2.88) (Note: Alternate translation uses the expressions 'left Visishtha behind''put Vasishtha behind her back', 'put Vasishtha behind herself'.)

Gita press translation:

राजन्! जो अरून्धती तीनों लोकोंमें पतिव्रताओंकी मुकुटमणिके रूपमें प्रसिध हैं, उन्‍होनें वसिष्ठको अपने पीछे कर दिया है||३१||

[Source: तृतीयखंड, भीष्मपर्वणि, जॅंबूखंडविनिर्माणपर्व, द्वितीयोध्याय:, ३१

(Book 3, Page 2547, Chapter 2, Number 31)]

On the famous binary of Alcor and Mizar A/B, see the observations in https://manasataramgini.wordpress.com/2014/02/18/a-mysterious-verse-of-a-siddha/. Excerpts below:

The beautiful ghee-cup that is likened to vasiShTha’s lady: why should a woman be likened to ghee cup? We suggest that vasiShTha’s wife arundhati is the name of Alcor (80 Ursae Majoris) the binary companion of Zeta Ursae Majoris (vasiShTha). This association is an old and undisputed one. The Adiparvan of the mahAbhArata states:

suvratA.api hi kalyANI sarva-loka-parishrutA |
arundhatI paryasha~Nkad vasiShTham R^iShi-sattamam ||
Even though arundhati was well-known in the world as being well-mannered and auspicious she had doubted vasiShTha, the great R^iShi.

vishuddha-bhAvam atyantaM sadA priyahite ratam |
saptarShi-madhyagaM vIram avamene cha taM munim ||

Though [vasiShTha was] of highest purity in conduct and and delighting in pleasing his wife, she insulted him, the muni who stood in the midst of the seven R^iShi-s.

apadhyAnena sA tena dhUmaaruNa-samaprabhA |
lakShyAlakShyA nAbhirUpA nimittam iva lakShyate || (“Critical” 1.224.27-29)

Due to her jealousy [towards vasiShTha] her luminosity became low (like smoke obscuring light) [Footnote 1]: sometimes visible and sometimes not, like and inauspicious omen

Footnote 1: We were for long puzzled by this legend and wondered if it meant that at some point in the historical past Alcor underwent a loss of brightness. Interestingly, in 2001 a paper was published Polcaro and Viotti in which they suggested that the Sumerian/Babylonian records suggest that Alcor was probably brighter than what it is now around 2000 BCE, perhaps being as bright as Mizar itself. Their main reason to suggest this is because the Sumerian/Babylonian records place Alcor as a separate constellation apart from the rest of the core Ursa Major, which is termed the constellation of the great wain. So they reason that the Sumerians might have done this only if Alcor was much brighter then. The Hindu legend is, to our knowledge, the most explicit reference to Alcor having become fainter in human memory. Another point of interest is the connection between Alcor and the so called lost Pleiad in multiple traditions. In several traditions there is the legend of one of the 7 Pleiades being lost and the number becoming 6. Of these, in Mongol, Greek and Hindu tradition there is the legend that the lost one was/became Alcor. In Mongol tradition the 7 stars of Ursa Major are considered 7 thieves who kidnapped one of the 7 maidens, the lost Pleiad, and kept her with them, where she is the Cold star, Huitung Ot. This raises the question if this connection is merely a consequence of numerology and shape (Pleiades and Ursa Major) or it the variability of Alcor and the lost Pleiad happened roughly around the same time.

Thou hast, therefore, by thy jealousy behaved towards me like Arundhatī of old towards Vasishtha.(Mbh.1.234.11476)

Even the auspicious and well-behaved Arundhatī, celebrated amongst all creatures, had been jealous of the illustrious Vasishtha of great purity of mind and always devoted to the good of his wife. (Mbh.1.234.11471)

But on account of the great ascetic merit of Arundhatīand her devotion to her husband Vasishtha, she was unable to assume her form. (Mbh.3.224.11333)

That woman who with concentrated attention, adheres to this path of duty, becomes the recipient of considerable honours in heaven like a second Arundhatī' (Mbh.13.123.10738)

Arundhatī's link with Pleiades (Krttika, Saptarishi)

It is here that the seven Rishis with Arundhatī may be seen.(Mbh.5.111.5084)

And those seven Rishis, when they heard that a son of great power had been born to them, divorced their six wives with the exception of the adorable Arundhatī, because all the dwellers of that forest protested that those six persons had been instrumental in bringing forth the child.(Mbh.3.225.11371)

"And in accordance with Sakra's advice, Krittika was assigned a place in the heavens, and that star presided over by Agni shines as if with seven heads." (Mbh.3.229.11511)

Arundhatī insulted even the wise Muni amongst the celestial seven.(Mbh.1.234.11472)

Notes

Given the metaphoical nature of references to Arundhati in the Great Epic, it is unclear if Arundhati should be recognized as an astronomical constant on the Skymaps as observed by Krishna Dwaiapāyana (Black Ganga-island dweller) Veda Vyāsa, the compiler of the Great Epic.

S. Kalyanaraman

Sarasvati Research Center

April 13, 2017

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Indus Script Corpora &अरुन्धती Arundhatī who keeps वसिष्ठः on her back and binary star (Alcor-Mizar) part of कृत्तिका Krittikā in Mahābhārata

April 13, 2017, 6:57 pm

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http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2017/04/arundhati-who-keeps-on-her-back-and.html अरुन्धती Arundhatī who keeps वसिष्ठः on her back and binary star (Alcor-Mizar) part of कृत्तिका Krittikā in Mahābhārata

The Binjor fire-altar and seal inscription evidence establish Sarasvati-Sindhu civilization as a Veda culture continuum.

This monograph elaborates the proposition of कृत्तिका Krittikā in the context of evidence of Indus (Sindhu-Sarasvati) Script inscriptions. The indications are that the Mahābhārata events recorded in astronomical observations and inscriptions may indicate the identification of Arundhati during the Bronze Age of the civilization (ca. 4th millennium BCE, given the fact that the earliest inscription on a potsherd has been reported by HARP Harvard team to be dated to ca. 3300 BCE)

tagaraka 'tabernae montana' rebus: tagara 'tin' kolmo 'three' rebus: kolimi 'smithy, forge', kole.l 'temple'.

.
అరుంధతి (p. 81) arundhati. [Skt.] n. The wife of the sage Vasishtha, celebrated for her virtue వసిష్ఠుని భార్య. A star in the Pleiades. A marriage ceremonies అరుంధతి is invoked by the bridegroom as a pattern of conjugal excellence and the star in the Pleiades which represents the wife of Vasishtha is pointed out to the bridal pair.

In the context of decipherment of Indus (Sindhu-Sarasvati Script), Pleiades are also recognised as a hieroglyph/hypertext expression. Briefly, the entire Script Corpora of over 8000 inscriptions are Meluhha (mleccha) metalwork catalogues by artisans/seafaring merchants along the Maritime Tin Route between Hanoi (Vietnam) and Haifa (Israel). The language based Meluhha cipher is hypertext transfer protocol, that is mlecchita vikalpa (mleccha 'copper worker' substitution hence read rebus as plain texts of words sounding similar to the words which signify hypertexts/hieroglyphs).

The hieroglyphs/hypertexts signifying Pleiades may have an astronomical signifier कृत्तिका Krittikā as in Mahābhārata (cognate Marathi काथ्या (p. 88) kāthyā f pl R The pleiades), while on Mlecchita vikalpa (meluhha cipher) Script seals/tablets/inscriptions, the six or seven Pleiades may have a metallurgical signifier: bagala, 'pleiades'.

I suggest that the vernacular (Bhāratiya sprachbund) tended to signify Pleiades by the word bahula (and pronunciation variants in dialects) and hence the creation of hypertext expressions on Sindhu-Sarasvati (Indus) Seal inscription corpora.

The most significant finding from the examples of inscriptions is that both six or seven Pleiades are signified. This means that during the period when the inscriptions were written down (ca. 3rd millennium BCE, the mature phase of the civilization), the seventh star of the Pleiades cluster had not been firmly accepted and expressed in the lingua franca (Bhāratiya sprachbund).

It is possible that, two significant cultural markers: 1. the naming of Arundhati as a binary star within Pleiades cluster and 2. the determination of seven Pleiade stars -- both signifiers occurred at the same time, ca. 3rd millennium BCE, given the evidence of Script Corpora discussed in this monograph.

Hypertext (hieroglyphs)/Plaintext (rebus):

1.bagala ‘pleiades’ Rebus: bagalo = an Arabian merchant vessel (G.) bagala = an Arab boat of a particular description (Ka.); bagalā (M.); bagarige, bagarage = a kind of vessel (Ka.) बगला (p. 322) bagalā m An Arab boat of a particular description (Marathi).

2. bahulā 'Pleiadesʼ rebus: bāhula बाहुल Manifold. bāhuḷa ʻarmour for the arms'

See: http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2012/06/lady-of-spiked-throne-massimo-vidale.html Could the entire narrative be a boat-journey, journey on a bagalo -- across cosmic sea -- अन्तरिक्षम् -- of Suryā and bagaḷā - The sun (feminine) and Pleiades?

Lady of the spiked throne (Massimo Vidale 2011). Celebration of a smiths' guild. The seated person in the centre may be uṣā उषा f. morning light , dawn , morning RV. AV. xii , 2 , 45 VS. &c

कृत्तिका [p= 304,3] a vehicle , cart S3Br. xiii Sch.

A group of six or seven women wearing twigs may represent Pleiades, bagaḷā). The groups of such glyphs occur on four inscribed objects of Indus writing. (See four pictorial compositions on: m1186A, h097, m0442At m0442Bt). Glyph (seven women): bahula_ = Pleiades (Skt.)bagaḷā = name of a certain godess (Te.) bagaḷā ,bagaḷe, vagalā (Ka.); baka , bagaḷlā , vagaḷā (Te.) bakkula = a demon, uttering horrible cries, a form assumed by the Yakkha Ajakalāpaka, to terrify the Buddha (Pali.lex.) bahulā f. pl. the Pleiades VarBr̥S., likā -- f. pl. lex. [bahulá -- ] Kal. bahul the Pleiades , Kho. ból, (Lor.) boul, bolh, Sh. (Lor.) b*lle (CDIAL 9195) bahulegal. = the Pleiades or Kṛittikā-s (Ka.lex.) bahula_ (VarBr.S.); bahul (Kal.) six presiding female deities: vahulā the six presiding female deities of the Pleiades (Skt.); vākulai id. (Ta.)(Ta.lex.) Pleiades: bahulikā pl. pleiades; bahula born under the pleiades; the pleiades (Skt.lex.) bahule, bahulegal. the pleiades or kr.ttikās (Ka.)(Ka.lex.) Image: female deities of the pleiades: vākulēyan- < va_kulēya Skanda (Ta.lex.) பாகுளி pākuḷi, n. perh. bāhulī. Full moon in the month of Puraṭṭāci; புரட்டாசி மாதத்துப் பெளர்ணமி. அதைப் பாகுளி யென்று (விநாயகபு. 37, 81). Glyph (twig on head on seven women): adaru ‘twig’; rebus: aduru ‘native metal’. Thus, the seven women ligatured with twigs on their heads can be read as: bahulā + adaru; rebus: bangala ‘goldsmith’s portable furnace’ + aduru ‘native metal’. bāhulēya Kārttikēya, son of S'iva; bāhula the month kārttika (Skt.Ka.)(Ka.lex.) வாகுலை vākulai, n. < Vahulā. The six presiding female deities of the Pleiades. Rebus: bagalo = an Arabian merchant vessel (G.lex.) bagala = an Arab boat of a particular description (Ka.); bagalā (M.); bagarige, bagarage = a kind of vessel (Ka.) bagalo = an Arabian merchant vessel (G.lex.) cf. m1429 seal. बहुल Born under the Pleiades; P.IV.3.33. An epithet of fire. -ला 1 A cow; कस्मात् समाने बहुलाप्रदाने सद्भिः प्रशस्तं कपिलाप्रदानम् Mb.13.77.9. The Pleiades (pl.) -लम् 1 The sky. बहुलिका (pl.) The Pleiades. बाहुल a. Manifold. -लः Fire; शीतरुजं समये च परस्मिन् बाहुलतो रसिका शमयन्ती Rām. Ch.4.99. -2 The month Kārtika. -लम् 1 Manifoldness. बाहुलेयः An epithet of Kārtikeya.बाहुल्यम् 1 Abundance, plenty, copiousness. -2 Manifoldness, multiplicity, variety. -3 The usual course or common order of things. (बाहुल्यात्, -ल्येन 1 usually, commonly. -2 in all probability.) बाह्लिः N. of a country (Balkh). -Comp. -ज, -जात a. bred in the Balkh country, of the Balkh breed.बाह्लकाः बाह्लिकाः बाह्लीकाः m. (pl.) N. of a people.-कम् 1 Saffron; ... प्रियाङ्गसंगव्यालुप्तस्तनतटबाह्लिक- श्रियो$पि दृश्यन्ते बहिरबलाः Rām. Ch.7.64. Amarakosha makes references to the Saffron of Bahlika and Kashmira countries (Amarkosha, p 159, Amarsimha.)

The Sumerians were also aware of the importance of Pleiades, showing it in several seals and images.

(E. Douglas van Buren. The Seven Dots in Mesopotamian Art and Their Meaning. AfO 13 (1939-41), 227 ff.)

Alternative readings of Sumerian hieroglyphs:

koThAri 'crucible' Rebus: koThAri 'warehouse, treasurer'

arka 'sun' Rebus: arka, eraka 'copper, gold, moltencast'

7 numerals: four + three: gaNDa 'four' Rebus: khaNDa 'metal implements'; kolmo 'three' Rebus: kolimi 'smithy, forge' sangaDa 'portable furnace, standard' Rebus: sangar 'fortification'; sanghAta 'adamantine glue' (Varahamihira) सांगडणी [ sāṅgaḍaṇī ] f (Verbal of सांगडणें) Linking or joining together. Pali: Sanghāṭa [fr. saŋ+ghaṭeti, lit. "binding together"miṇḍāl 'markhor' (Tōrwālī) meḍho 'ram' Rebus: meD 'iron' kola 'jackal' Rebus: kol 'working in iron' kaNDa 'arrow' Rebus: khaNDa 'metal implements'.

This seal shows only 6 star Pleiades, while other inscriptions show 7 star Pleiades.

Seal m 1186 Mohenjo-daro (DK 6847)Excavation No. HR 4161, National Museum of India, New Delhi.

https://www.harappa.com/blog/pleiades-seal [quote] This seal from Mohenjo-daro contains, perhaps more compactly than any other, what we can tell of ancient Indus beliefs and traditions. Several script signs are interspersed with the figures along the top of the seal and a single sign is placed at the base of the tree. This scene may represent a special ritual sacrifice to a deity with seven figures in procession. The seal has a grooved and perforated boss and the edges are worn and rounded from repeated use. It shows a deity with horned headdress and bangles on both arms, standing in a pipal (sacred fig) tree and looking down on a kneeling worshiper. A human head rests on a small stool. A giant ram and seven figures in procession complete the narrative. The figures wear a single plumed headdress, bangles on both arms and long skirts. Parpola writes of these: "The Pleiades hold a prominent place as the mothers or wet nurses of the newborn infant in one of the most ancient and central Hindu myths, that of the birth of the war-god Rudra/Skanda, who evidently represents, among other things, the victorious rising sun (and as vernal sun the new year). The Pleiades are said to have been the wives of the seven sages, who are identified with the seven stars of the Great Bear."[unquote]
m0448 (Framework, tiger, scarfed-horned person with bracelets on arms, worshipper, twig, horn, markhor, stool, ladle) The offering on the offering platform is:

muka ‘ladle’ (Tamil)(DEDR 4887) Rebus: mū̃h ‘ingot’ (Santali) PLUS dula 'pair' Rebus: dul 'cast metal'. (See two ladles). Thus, the offering on the stool denotes: a metal ingot. (See embedded image enhancement and interpretation of Huntington).

Detail of the seal.(Framework, ficus religiosa, scarfed person, twig, horn)http://huntingtonarchive.osu.edu/resources/downloads/webPresentations/harappanSeals.pdf
Detail of the seal. (ladles, rimless pot, worshipper, kneeling) http://huntingtonarchive.osu.edu/resources/downloads/webPresentations/harappanSeals.pdf

Brief memoranda:
baṭa = rimless pot (Kannada) Rebus: baṭa = a kind of iron (Gujarati)

muka ‘ladle’ (Tamil)(DEDR 4887) Rebus: mū̃h ‘ingot’ (Santali) PLUS dula 'pair' Rebus: dul 'cast metal'. (See two ladles). Thus, the offering on the stool denotes: a metal ingot.

The ‘offering’ (and production of metal ingot) is on a fire-altar: kaṇḍo ‘stool, seat’ Rebus: kāṇḍa ‘metalware’kaṇḍa ‘fire-altar’
h097 Text 4251 h097 Pict-95: Seven robed figures (with stylized twigs on their head and pig-tails) standing in a row.

Annex A
[Pleiades, scarfed, framework, scarfed person, worshipper, markhor, ficus religiosa] Brief memoranda:

The bottom register has hieroglyphs of: worshipper, ram, ficus, buffal-horned person: bhaTa 'worshipper' Rebus: bhaTa 'furnace' meDha 'ram' Rebus: meD 'iron', loa 'ficus' Rebus: loh 'copper, metal' taTThAr 'buffalo horn'

Rebus: ṭhaṭherā 'brass worker' (Punjabi) Thus, the message of this portion of the epigraph is: brass worker furnaces of loh 'copper' and meD 'iron'

The top register has scarfed, pleiades: Hieroglyph: dhatu 'scarf' Rebus: dhatu 'mineral ore' bahulA 'Pleiades' Rebus 1:bagalo 'Arab merchant vessel, boat' Rebus 2: bāhula 'armour for the arms'

Hieroglyph: worshipper: bhaṭā G. bhuvɔ m. ʻ worshipper in a temple ʼ rather < bhr̥ta --(CDIAL 9554) Yājñ.com., Rebus: bhaṭā ‘kiln, furnace’

Hieroglyph: ram, markhor: Dm. mraṅ m. ‘markhor’ Wkh. merg f. ‘ibex’ (CDIAL 9885) Tor. miṇḍ ‘ram’, miṇḍā́l ‘markhor’ (CDIAL 10310) Rebus: meḍ(Ho.); mẽṛhet ‘iron’ (Munda.Ho.)

Hieroglyph: standing person with buffalo horn: taTThAr 'buffalo horn' Rebus: taTTAr 'brass worker' Ta. taṭṭāṉ gold or silver smith; fem. **taṭṭātti. Ma. taṭṭu a blow, knock; taṭṭuka to tap, dash, hit, strike against, knock; taṭṭān** goldsmith; fem. taṭṭātti; taṭṭāranwasherma(DEDR 3039) ṭhaṭṭhakāra- brassworker;(CDIAL 5490) ṭhaṭṭh ʻ strike ʼ. [Onom.?]
N. ṭhaṭāunu ʻ to strike, beat ʼ, ṭhaṭāi ʻ striking ʼ, ṭhaṭāk -- ṭhuṭuk ʻ noise of beating ʼ; H. ṭhaṭhānā ʻ to beat ʼ, ṭhaṭhāī f. ʻ noise of beating ʼ. ṭhaṭṭhakāra ʻ brass worker ʼ. 2. ṭhaṭṭhakara -- . [ṭhaṭṭha -- 1, kāra -- 1] 1. Pk. ṭhaṭṭhāra -- m., K. ṭhö̃ṭhur m., S. ṭhã̄ṭhāro m., P. ṭhaṭhiār, °rā m.
2. P. ludh. ṭhaṭherā m., Ku. ṭhaṭhero m., N. ṭhaṭero, Bi. ṭhaṭherā, Mth. ṭhaṭheri, H. ṭhaṭherā m.(CDIAL 5490, 5493).

Hieroglyph: loa ‘ficus’ Rebus: lo ‘copper’ Hieroglyph: loa 'ficus religiosa' Rebus: lo, loh 'copper, metal' (Samskritam)Rebus: lo 'copper' lōhá ʻ red, copper -- coloured ʼ ŚrS., ʻ made of copper ʼ ŚBr., m.n. ʻ copper ʼ VS., ʻ iron ʼ MBh. [rudh -- ] Pa. lōha* -- m. ʻ metal, esp. copper or bronze ʼ; Pk. lōha -- m. ʻ iron ʼ, Gy. pal. li°, lihi, obl. elhás, as. loa JGLS new ser. ii 258; Wg. (Lumsden) "loa"ʻ steel ʼ; Kho. loh ʻ copper ʼ; S. lohu m. ʻ iron ʼ, L. lohā m., awāṇ. lōˋā, P. lohā m. (→ K.rām. ḍoḍ. lohā), WPah.bhad. lɔ̃un., bhal. lòtilde; n., pāḍ. jaun. lōh, paṅ. luhā, cur. cam. lohā, Ku. luwā, N. lohu, °hā, A. lo, B. lo, no, Or. lohā, luhā, Mth. loh, Bhoj. lohā, Aw.lakh. lōh, H. loh, lohā m., G. M. loh n.; Si. loho, lō ʻ metal, ore, iron ʼ; Md. ratu -- lō ʻ copper ʼ. WPah.kṭg. (kc.) lóɔ ʻ iron ʼ, J. lohā m., Garh. loho; Md. lō ʻ metal ʼ.(CDIAL 11158)

Hieroglyph: Te. pilaka a tuft or knot of hair. Konḍa pilka, pilika pigtail, dangling ends of hair. Kuwi (F.) pilka lovelock (worn curled under the ear by males).(DEDR 4179) Rebus: pĩṛulo ʻ calf of leg, thigh ʼ; A. pirā ʻ severed leg of an animal with flesh still attached ʼ, pīri ʻ lump of earth taken with a plant for transplanting ʼ;pī˜ṛī ʻ platform of lingam ʼ; Mth. pĩṛ, pĩṛā ʻ lump ʼ(CDIAL 8168)

Brief memoranda:

baṭa = rimless pot (Kannada) Rebus: baṭa = a kind of iron (Gujarati)
muka ‘ladle’ (Tamil)(DEDR 4887) Rebus: mū̃h ‘ingot’ (Santali) PLUS dula 'pair' Rebus: dul 'cast metal'. (See two ladles). Thus, the offering on the stool denotes: a metal ingot.

http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2015/08/indus-script-hieroglyphs-metalwork.html

Annex B

Seal m 1186 Mohenjo-daro

See decipherment at: http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2012/04/what-is-offering-on-seal-m1186-it-is.html

Decipherment:
kole.l 'temple' Rebu: kole.l 'smithy' (Kota) baTa 'rimless pot' Rebus: bhaTa 'furnace, kiln'.

dhatu + bhaTa 'scarf + worshipper, bard' Rebus: dhatu bhaTa 'iron ore smelter'

Offering hieroglyph-multiplex: worshipper, scarfed + human face+ markhor: cast iron ingots

Hieroglyph: miṇḍāl markhor (Tor.wali) meḍho a ram, a sheep (G.) Rebus: meḍ (Ho.); mẽṛhet‘iron’ (Munda.Ho.)

Hieroglyph: mũhe ‘face’ (Santali) Rebus: mũh opening or hole (in a stove for stoking (Bi.); ingot (Santali) mũh metal ingot (Santali) mũhã̄ = the quantity of iron produced at one time in a native smelting furnace of the Kolhes; iron produced by the Kolhes and formed like a four-cornered piece a little pointed at each end; mūhā mẽṛhẽt = iron smelted by the Kolhes and formed into an equilateral lump a little pointed at each of four ends; kolhe tehen mẽṛhẽt ko mūhā akata = the Kolhes have to-day produced pig iron (Santali)

m1186 (DK6847) [Pleiades, scarfed, framework, ficus religiosa , scarfed person, worshipper, twigs (on head), horn, markhor, human face ligatured to markhor, stool, ladle, frame of a building] Brief memoranda:
baTa 'ficus benghalensis, banyan' Rebus: bhaTa 'furnace, kiln, smelter' dhatu 'scar' Rebus: dhatu 'iron mineral'. koD 'horn' Rebus: koD 'workshop' kuTi 'twig' Rebus: kuThi 'smelter'. karã̄ n. pl. wristlets, banglesRebus: khAr 'blacksmith, iron worker'
Ficus benghalensis

The hieroglyph-multiplex denotes: iron smelter, iron worker.

Hieroglyph: karã̄ n. pl. wristlets, bangles: kará1 ʻ doing, causing ʼ AV., m. ʻ hand ʼ RV. [√kr̥1]Pa. Pk. kara -- m. ʻ hand ʼ; S. karu m. ʻ arm ʼ; Mth. kar m. ʻ hand ʼ (prob. ← Sk.); Si. kara ʻ hand, shoulder ʼ, inscr. karā ʻ to ʼ < karāya. -- Deriv. S. karāī f. ʻ wrist ʼ; G. karã̄ n. pl. ʻ wristlets, bangles ʼ.(CDIAL 2779)

Hieroglyph: dhatu 'scarf' Rebus: dhatu 'mineral ore' Thus, dhatu + karã̄ Rebus: dhatu khār ' iron ore (mineral) worker'.

Hieroglyph: scarf: dhaṭa2, dhaṭī* -- f. ʻ old cloth, loincloth ʼ lex. [Drav., Kan. daṭṭi ʻ waistband ʼ etc., DED 2465]Ku. dhaṛo ʻ piece of cloth ʼ, N. dharo, B. dhaṛā; Or. dhaṛā ʻ rag, loincloth ʼ, dhaṛi ʻ rag ʼ; Mth. dhariā ʻ child's narrow loincloth ʼ.dhaṭavastra -- .Addenda: dhaṭa -- 2. 2. †dhaṭṭa -- : WPah.kṭg. dhàṭṭu* m. ʻ woman's headgear, kerchief ʼ, kc. dhaṭu m. (also dhaṭhu m. ʻ scarf ʼ, J. dhāṭ(h)u m. Him.I 105).(CDIAL 6707)

Rebus: dhā̆vaḍ iron smelter: dhāˊtu n. ʻ substance ʼ RV., m. ʻ element ʼ MBh., ʻ metal, mineral, ore (esp. of a red colour) ʼ Mn., ʻ ashes of the dead ʼ lex., ʻ strand of rope ʼ (cf. tridhāˊtu* -- ʻ threefold ʼ RV.,ayugdhātu -- ʻ having an uneven number of strands ʼ KātyŚr.). [√dhā]
Pa. dhātu -- m. ʻ element, ashes of the dead, relic ʼ; KharI. dhatu ʻ relic ʼ; Pk. dhāu -- m. ʻ metal, red chalk ʼ; N. dhāu ʻ ore (esp. of copper) ʼ; Or. ḍhāu ʻ red chalk, red ochre ʼ (whence ḍhāuā ʻ reddish ʼ; M. dhāū, dhāv m.f. ʻ a partic. soft red stone ʼ (whence dhā̆vaḍ m. ʻ a caste of iron -- smelters ʼ, dhāvḍī ʻ composed of or relating to iron ʼ); -- Si. dā ʻ relic ʼ; -- S. dhāī f. ʻ wisp of fibres added from time to time to a rope that is being twisted ʼ, L. dhāī˜ f.(CDIAL 6773)

khār 1 खार् । लोहकारः m. (sg. abl. khāra 1 खार; the pl. dat. of this word is khāran 1 खारन्, which is to be distinguished from khāran 2, q.v., s.v.), a blacksmith, an iron worker (cf. bandūka-khār, p. 111b, l. 46; K.Pr. 46; H. xi, 17); a farrier (El.). This word is often a part of a name, and in such case comes at the end (W. 118) as in Wahab khār, Wahab the smith (H. ii, 12; vi, 17).
khāra-basta खार-बस््त । चर्मप्रसेविका f. the skin bellows of a blacksmith. -büṭhü -ब&above;ठू&below; । लोहकारभित्तिः f. the wall of a blacksmith's furnace or hearth. -bāy -बाय् । लोहकारपत्नी f. a blacksmith's wife (Gr.Gr. 34). -dŏkuru -। लोहकारायोघनः m. a blacksmith's hammer, a sledge-hammer. -gȧji -ग&above;जि&below; or -güjü - । लोहकारचुल्लिः f. a blacksmith's furnace or hearth. -hāl -हाल् । लोहकारकन्दुः f. (sg. dat. -höjü -), a blacksmith's smelting furnace; cf. hāl 5. -kūrü - । लोहकारकन्या f. a blacksmith's daughter. -koṭu । लोहकारपुत्रः m. the son of a blacksmith, esp. a skilful son, who can work at the same profession. -küṭü -। लोहकारकन्या f. a blacksmith's daughter, esp. one who has the virtues and qualities properly belonging to her father's profession or caste. -më˘ʦü 1 -म्य&above;च&dotbelow;ू&below; । लोहकारमृत्तिका f. (for 2, see [khāra 3] ), 'blacksmith's earth,' i.e. iron-ore. -nĕcyuwu -न्यचिवु&below; । लोहकारात्मजः m. a blacksmith's son. -nay -नय् । लोहकारनालिका f. (for khāranay 2, see [khārun] ), the trough into which the blacksmith allows melted iron to flow after smelting. -ʦañĕ -च्&dotbelow;ञ । लोहकारशान्ताङ्गाराः f.pl. charcoal used by blacksmiths in their furnaces. -wān वान् । लोहकारापणः m. a blacksmith's shop, a forge, smithy (K.Pr. 3). -waṭh -वठ् । आघाताधारशिला m. (sg. dat. -waṭas -वटि), the large stone used by a blacksmith as an anvil.(Kashmiri)

Hieroglyph: vaṭa1 m. ʻ the banyan Ficus indica ʼ MBh.Pa. vaṭa -- m. ʻ banyan ʼ, Pk. vaḍa -- , °aga -- m., K. war in war -- kulu m., S. baṛu m. (← E); P. vaṛ, baṛ m., vohṛ, bohṛ f. ʻ banyan ʼ, vaṛoṭā, ba° m. ʻ young banyan ʼ (+?); N. A. bar ʻ banyan ʼ, B. baṛ, Bi. bar (→ Or. bara), H. baṛ m. (→ Bhoj. Mth. baṛ), G. vaṛ m., M. vaḍ m., Ko. *vaḍu.**vaṭapadra -- , vaṭapātikā -- .Addenda: vaṭa -- 1: Garh. baṛ* ʻ fig tree ʼ.(CDIAL 11211) vaṭapadra ʻ a place -- name ʼ. [vaṭa -- 1, padrá -- ?] Pk. vaḍavadda* -- n. ʻ name of a town in Gujarat ʼ, G. vaṛod ʻ Baroda ʼ ODBL 497. (CDIAL 11214) vaṭapātikā ʻ falling from banyan ʼ. [vaṭa -- 1, pāta -- ]G. vaṛvāī* f. ʻ hanging root of banyan tree ʼ.(CDIAL 11215) Rebus: bhaṭṭhā 'kiln' bhaṭhī 'furnace'.

bhráṣṭra n. ʻ frying pan, gridiron ʼ MaitrS. [√bhrajj]Pk. bhaṭṭha -- m.n. ʻ gridiron ʼ; K. büṭhü f. ʻ level surface by kitchen fireplace on which vessels are put when taken off fire ʼ; S. baṭhu m. ʻ large pot in which grain is parched, large cooking fire ʼ, baṭhī f. ʻ distilling furnace ʼ; L. bhaṭṭh m. ʻ grain -- parcher's oven ʼ, bhaṭṭhī f. ʻ kiln, distillery ʼ, awāṇ. bhaṭh; P. bhaṭṭh m., °ṭhī f. ʻ furnace ʼ, bhaṭṭhā m. ʻ kiln ʼ; N. bhāṭi ʻ oven or vessel in which clothes are steamed for washing ʼ; A. bhaṭā ʻ brick -- or lime -- kiln ʼ; B. bhāṭi ʻ kiln ʼ; Or. bhāṭi ʻ brick -- kiln, distilling pot ʼ; Mth. bhaṭhī, bhaṭṭī ʻ brick -- kiln, furnace, still ʼ; Aw.lakh.bhāṭhā ʻ kiln ʼ; H. bhaṭṭhā m. ʻ kiln ʼ, bhaṭ f. ʻ kiln, oven, fireplace ʼ; M. bhaṭṭā m. ʻ pot of fire ʼ, bhaṭṭī f. ʻ forge ʼ. -- X bhástrā -- q.v.
bhrāṣṭra -- ; bhraṣṭrapūra -- , bhraṣṭrāgāra -- .Addenda: bhráṣṭra -- : S.kcch. bhaṭṭhī keṇī ʻ distil (spirits) ʼ.bhraṣṭrapūra ʻ gridiron -- cake ʼ. [Cf. bhrāṣṭraja* -- ʻ pro- duced on a gridiron ʼ lex. -- bhráṣṭra -- , pūra -- 2]P. bhaṭhūhar, °hrā, bhaṭhūrā, °ṭhorū m. ʻ cake of leavened bread ʼ; -- or < **bhr̥ṣṭapūra* -- .bhraṣṭrāgāra ʻ grain parching house ʼ. [bhráṣṭra -- , agāra -- ]
P. bhaṭhiār, °ālā* m. ʻ grainparcher's shop ʼ.(CDIAL 9656-9658)

kuṭire bica duljad.ko talkena, they were feeding the furnace with ore. In this Santali sentence bica denotes the hematite ore. For example, samṛobica, 'stones containing gold' (Mundari) meṛed-bica 'iron stone-ore' ; bali-bica, iron sand ore (Munda). mẽṛhẽt, meḍ ‘iron’(Munda. Ho.)

Meluhha rebus representations are: bica ‘scorpion’ bica ‘stone ore’.

Santali glosses

Hieroglyph: 'human face': mũhe ‘face’ (Santali)

Rebus: mũh opening or hole (in a stove for stoking (Bi.); ingot (Santali) mũh metal ingot (Santali) mũhã̄ = the quantity of iron produced at one time in a native smelting furnace of the Kolhes; iron produced by the Kolhes and formed like a four-cornered piece a little pointed at each end; mūhā mẽṛhẽt = iron smelted by the Kolhes and formed into an equilateral lump a little pointed at each of four ends; kolhe tehen mẽṛhẽt ko mūhā akata = the Kolhes have to-day produced pig iron (Santali)

ḍabu ‘an iron spoon’ (Santali) Rebus: ḍab, ḍhimba, ḍhompo ‘lump (ingot?)’, clot, make a lump or clot, coagulate, fuse, melt together (Santali) ḍabe, ḍabea wide horns (Santali) Rebus: ḍhābā workplace (P.)

The stool on which the bowl is placed is also a hieroglyph read rebus:

Hieroglyphs: legs of stool: kuṭhe = leg of bedstead or chair (Santali.lex.) Rebus: kuṭhi 'a furnace for smelting iron ore, to smelt iron'; koṭe 'forged (metal)(Santali).

Kur. kaṇḍō a stool. Malt. Kanḍo stool, seat. (DEDR 1179) Rebus: kaṇḍ 'stone (ore)' as in: ayaskāṇḍ 'excellent iron' (Panini)

dhaṭu m. (also dhaṭhu) m. ‘scarf’ (WPah.) (CDIAL 6707) Allograph: ḍato = claws of crab (Santali) Rebus: dhātu = mineral (Skt.), dhatu id. (Santali)

See the human face ligatured to a ram's body (an indication of the hieroglyphic nature of the orthographic composition):

mũh 'face' (Santali). Rebus: mũh metal ingot (Santali) mũhã̄ = the quantity of iron produced at one time in a native smelting furnace of the Kolhes; iron produced by the Kolhes and formed like a four-cornered piece a little pointed at each end; mūhā mẽṛhẽt = iron smelted by the Kolhes and formed into an equilateral lump a little pointed at each end; kolhe tehen mẽṛhẽtko mūhā akata = the Kolhes have to-day produced pig iron (Santali.lex.)

miṇḍāl 'markhor' (Tor.wali) meḍho 'a ram, a sheep' (G.)(CDIAL 10120)mēṇḍhaʻramʼ(CDIAL 9606).मेंढा [mēṇḍhā] m (मेष S through H) A male sheep, a ram or tup. मेंढका or क्या [ mēṇḍhakā or kyā ] a (मेंढा) A shepherd (Marathi) Rebus: meḍ 'iron' (Ho.) mēṇḍh 'gold' as in: मेंढसर [ mēṇḍhasara ] m A bracelet of gold thread. (Marathi)मेढ [mēḍha] f A forked stake. Used as a post. Hence a short post generally whether forked or not. Pr. हातीं लागली चेड आणि धर मांडवाची मेढ.

m1186 (DK6847) [Pleiades, scarfed, framework, ficus religiosa , scarfed person, worshipper, twigs (on head), horn, markhor, human face ligatured to markhor, stool, ladle, frame of a building]
Brief memoranda:

bhaṭā G. bhuvɔ m. ʻ worshipper in a temple ʼ rather < bhr̥ta --(CDIAL 9554) Yājñ.com., Rebus: bhaṭā ‘kiln, furnace’
bhaṭā G. bhuvɔ m. ʻ worshipper in a temple ʼ rather < bhr̥ta --(CDIAL 9554) Yājñ.com., Rebus: bhaṭā ‘kiln, furnace’
mū̃h ‘human face’ Rebus: mū̃h ‘ingot’ (See human face ligatured to a markhor: Seal m1186) PLUS Dm. mraṅ m. ‘markhor’ Wkh. merg f. ‘ibex’ (CDIAL 9885) Tor. miṇḍ ‘ram’, miṇḍā́l ‘markhor’ (CDIAL 10310) Rebus: meḍ(Ho.); mẽṛhet ‘iron’ (Munda.Ho.)
lo, no ‘nine’ phonetic reinforcement of: loa ‘ficus’ Rebus: lo ‘copper’
dhaṭu m. (also dhaṭhu) m. ‘scarf’ (Western Pahari) (CDIAL 6707) Rebus: dhatu ‘minerals’ (Santali)

maṇḍa m. ʻ ornament ʼ Rebus: meḍ (Ho.); mẽṛhet ‘iron’ (Munda.Ho.)

Hieroglyph: మండ [ maṇḍa ] manḍa. [Tel.] n. A twig with leaves on it. Rebus: mã̄ḍ m. ʻ array of instruments &c. (CDIAL 9736) maṇḍa 'iron dross, slag' Sa. mE~R~hE~'d `iron'. ! mE~RhE~d(M). Ma. mErhE'd `iron'.Mu. mERE'd `iron'. ~ mE~R~E~'d `iron'. ! mENhEd(M).Ho meD `iron'.Bj. merhd(Hunter) `iron'.KW mENhEd (Munda)

bahulā f. pl. ʻ the Pleiades ʼ VarBr̥S., °likā -- f. pl. lex. [bahulá -- ]Kal. bahul ʻ the Pleiades ʼ, Kho. ból, (Lor.) boul, bolh, Sh. (Lor.) blle.(CDIAL 9195) பாகுலம் pākulam , n. < bāhula. The month of Kārttikai = November-December; கார்த்திகை மாதம். (W.) పావడము [ pāvaḍamu ] pāvaḍamu. [Tel.] n. A present, gift. కానుక. बाहुल्य [ bāhulya ] n (S) Abundance, copiousness, plenty.

Rebus: Manifold: bāhula बाहुल a. Manifold. -लः Fire; शीतरुजं समये च परस्मिन् बाहुलतो रसिका शमयन्ती Rām. Ch.4.99. -2 The month Kārtika. -लम् 1 Manifoldness. -2 An armour for the arms, vantbrass. -ली The day of full moon in the month of Kārtika.

Rebus: பாகுடம் pākuṭam, n. < Pkt. pāuḍa* < prābhṛta. [K. pāvuḍa.] 1. Gift, present; கையுறை. நரிப் படைக்கொரு பாகுடம்போலே (திவ். பெரியாழ். 4, 5, 8). 2. Royal revenue, impost, tribute; அரசிறை. (சூடா.)

Hieroglyph: bagala 'Pleiades' Rebus: బంగల [ baṅgala ] bangala. [Tel.] n. An oven. కుంపటి.(Telugu) பங்காரு paṅkāru
, n. < T. baṅgāru. [K. baṅgāra.] Gold; பொன். Loc.
Pa. Pk. bahala-- ʻ dense, thick ʼ(CDIAL 9182)

bhaṭā 'brick kiln' (Assamese) بټ baṯṯ, s.m. (2nd) A large iron pan or cauldron for roasting grain, a furnace, a kiln.(Pashto)

bhuvɔ m. ʻ worshipper in a temple ʼ (Gujarati) rather < bhr̥ta --(CDIAL 9554) Yājñ.com., Rebus: bhaṭā‘kiln, furnace’ Pk. bhuaga -- m. ʻ worshipper in a temple ʼPk. bhayaga -- m. ʻ servant ʼ, bhaḍa -- m. ʻ soldier ʼ(CDIAL 9558)
bhr̥tagātu ʻ hero song ʼ. [bhr̥ta -- , gātú -- 2] Ku. bhaṛau* ʻ song about the prowess of ancient heroes ʼ.(CDIAL 9590)

अरुन्धती Arundhatī who keeps वसिष्ठः on her back and binary star (Alcor-Mizar) part of कृत्तिका Krittikā in Mahābhārata

Arundhatī is Alcor.

Vasishtha is Mizar.

This skymap is sourced from http://hubblesite.org/image/1562/news_release/2004-20

Hubble Refines Distance to the Pleiades Star Cluster

Arundhatī pativrata and her jealousy

The Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute [Mahabharata Critical Edition]:

06002031a या चैषा विश्रुता राजंस्त्रैलोक्ये साधुसंमता

06002031c अरुन्धती तयाप्येष वसिष्ठः पृष्ठतः कृतः

Gita press translation:

राजन्! जो अरून्धती तीनों लोकोंमें पतिव्रताओंकी मुकुटमणिके रूपमें प्रसिध हैं, उन्‍होनें वसिष्ठको अपने पीछे कर दिया है||३१||

[Source: तृतीयखंड, भीष्मपर्वणि, जॅंबूखंडविनिर्माणपर्व, द्वितीयोध्याय:, ३१

vishuddha-bhAvam atyantaM sadA priyahite ratam |
saptarShi-madhyagaM vIram avamene cha taM munim ||

Though [vasiShTha was] of highest purity in conduct and and delighting in pleasing his wife, she insulted him, the muni who stood in the midst of the seven R^iShi-s.

apadhyAnena sA tena dhUmaaruNa-samaprabhA |
lakShyAlakShyA nAbhirUpA nimittam iva lakShyate || (“Critical” 1.224.27-29)

Due to her jealousy [towards vasiShTha] her luminosity became low (like smoke obscuring light) [Footnote 1]: sometimes visible and sometimes not, like and inauspicious omen

Thou hast, therefore, by thy jealousy behaved towards me like Arundhatī of old towards Vasishtha.(Mbh.1.234.11476)

But on account of the great ascetic merit of Arundhatīand her devotion to her husband Vasishtha, she was unable to assume her form. (Mbh.3.224.11333)

That woman who with concentrated attention, adheres to this path of duty, becomes the recipient of considerable honours in heaven like a second Arundhatī' (Mbh.13.123.10738)

Arundhatī's link with Pleiades (Krttika, Saptarishi)

It is here that the seven Rishis with Arundhatī may be seen.(Mbh.5.111.5084)

"And in accordance with Sakra's advice, Krittika was assigned a place in the heavens, and that star presided over by Agni shines as if with seven heads." (Mbh.3.229.11511)

Arundhatī insulted even the wise Muni amongst the celestial seven.(Mbh.1.234.11472)

Notes

http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2017/04/arundhati-who-keeps-on-her-back-and.html

S. Kalyanaraman
Sarasvati Research Center
April 14, 2017

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Justice Karnan vs. CJIKhehar + 6 SC justices of the bench. Justice on trial.

April 14, 2017, 12:11 am

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Justice Karnan asks CJI Khehar, six judges to appear before him

"Justice Karnan claimed that the judges of the bench have insulted him “wantonly and deliberately and with malafide intention”

By: Express News Service | Kolkata | Updated: April 14, 2017 9:30 am

Justice C S Karnan, Justice Karnan, Calcutta High Court Judge, latest news, latest india news, indian express

Justice C S Karnan in Kolkata on Friday. Subham
Dutta

Calcutta High Court Judge Justice C S Karnan on Thursday issued a “suo motu judicial order” against Chief Justice of India (CJI) J S Khehar and six other Supreme Court judges and directed them to appear before him on April 28 for “violating” the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. Justice Karnan, who has been facing a contempt charge from the apex court and has been barred from discharging his duties, said that all the seven judges — CJI Khehar, Justices Dipak Misra, J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur, Pinaki Chandra Ghose and Kurian Joseph — were “offenders” under the Act. Justice Karnan claimed that the judges of the bench have insulted him “wantonly and deliberately and with malafide intention”.

READ: Contempt case in SC: Justice C S Karnan gets 4 weeks to respond

Addressing journalists at his residence in Kolkata, Justice Karnan said, “I am directing the Hon’ble seven judges to give your replies in person or through your counsel regarding declaration of guilt and quantum of punishment by 28.04.2017 at 11.30 am at my residence, which has now become my make-shift court at Rosedale, New Town, Kolkata.” He passed the “suo motu judicial order” from his residence. However, since the apex court had taken away his administrative and judicial powers, it was not clear if the order has any legal validity.

“They should give their views regarding quantum of punishment for the violation of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Atrocities Act,” Justice Karnan told reporters. He added that he was being targeted for being a Dalit. In his order, Justice Karnan has also directed the Airports Authority of India’s Delhi in-charge to not allow these seven judges to travel abroad. He has also ordered that they must surrender their passports to the Director General of Delhi Police within 15 days.

The order also bars the judges from moving any court against it. “The Hon’ble 7 Judges as mentioned above are not permitted to move any court against this Court’s order since the first accused, namely the CJI, is controlling all courts in India,” the order read. In Thursday’s order, Justice Karnan said that CJI Khehar had on March 31 raised a question as to how his mental health was. The question was “endorsed” by the six other judges of the bench, Justice Karnan, said, adding it amounted to insulting him in the open court.

The seven-judge bench headed by Khehar had issued a suo motu contempt notice against Justice Karnan in February after he had in January named 20 “corrupt judges”, seeking a probe against them to curb “high corruption” in the Indian judiciary.

Subsequently, Justice Karnan appeared before the apex court on March 31 following a bailable warrant issued against him by the Supreme Court. The seven judges gave the Calcutta High Court judge four weeks to respond to the contempt notice. Even as he presented himself before the Supreme Court, Justice Karnan told them that he would not respond to the notice.

http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/kolkata/justice-karnan-asks-cji-six-judges-to-appear-before-him-4612253/

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Nature in Indian and Western Traditions -- Michel Danino

April 14, 2017, 6:28 am

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Nature in Indian and Western Traditions

Nature loving Indic traditions should not tread the path of western materialism which is enforced by a greedy god and his urge to consume the earth's resources.

by Michel Danino 14 April 2017 Nature in Indian and Western Traditions

Born in 1956 at Honfleur (France) into a Jewish family recently emigrated from Morocco, from the age of fifteen Michel Danino was drawn to India, some of her great yogis, and soon to Sri Aurobindo and Mother and their view of evolution which gives a new meaning to our existence on this earth. In 1977, dissatisfied after four years of higher scientific studies, he left France for India, where he has since been living. A writer of numerous books including the bestseller, The Lost River: On The Trail of the Sarasvati, he is currently a member of ICHR and a visiting professor at IIT Gandhinagar. The Government of India awarded him the Padmashri (India's fourth highest civilian award) for his contribution towards Literature & Education. -

I lived in the Nilgiri hills of western Tamil Nadu for over two decades, and as a beautiful tropical rainforest—a Shola, as it is called—was getting ruthlessly destroyed at our doorstep, I could not help getting dragged into forest conservation. The unrelenting sound of machetes and axes chopping down young trees while the appointed ‘guards’ were busy collecting bribes was not something I was capable of putting up with. As a result, in the early 1980s I launched into a sustained campaign, first applying considerable pressure on a Forest Department unwilling to act, unwilling even to acknowledge that the situation was serious. The pressure grew to such heights that when a sincere officer happened to be in charge of our area—a white sheep among the black—a lot could be achieved in a short time, including the creation of a ‘watchdog committee’ made up of local citizens, to whom the charge of protecting the forest was promptly devolved.

Our motivation made up for our lack of resources, and in a few years we had spread awareness among the local communities to an extent we could only have dreamed of earlier. This success story, which no official organ ever highlighted, as it sprang from a severe critique of the Forest Department’s disabilities and blind policies, got diluted when newer officials silently resisted our work, forcing me to resign in protest—a classic tale in India’s official mythology. Shortly afterwards, in 2003, I left the Nilgiris to settle near Coimbatore, and the watchdog committee survived in name only.

While it was active, we used to be sent high officials so we would show them around the forest and explain our work to them. I invariably observed how most of them were unaware of what constitutes a forest, even though they were supposed to have some academic learning and a considerable field experience; if they saw tall standing trees and some greenery around, they decided that the forest was in good shape. No one noticed the wide gaps in the canopy, the missing generations of younger adult trees, or the rapid spread of exotic weeds in the undergrowth. This inability to grasp reality is probably the privilege of every bureaucracy on the planet, but it is particularly acute in India.

Sometime in the late 1990s, it was the turn of a retired Principal Chief Conservator of Forests of the Tamil Nadu government, on a private visit to ‘our’ forest. While a few of us walked him around the main bridle path (no such visitor ever asked to be taken deeper inside the forest), we engaged in a conversation about forest preservation, in the course of which he made a few startling statements. ‘Overprotection’, as he called it, could be undesirable, and some degree of woodcutting was not necessarily bad; also, forests sometimes needed fires to induce regeneration, sprouting of new seeds, clearing of undergrowth, etc. When I politely expressed scepticism, he revealed the source of his information: he had seen this explained in a programme of Discovery Channel.

This calls for two kinds of comment.

The first is that the programme the retired PCCF had watched must have been referring to coniferous forests such as those of North America’s west coast, which are dominated by pine, fir, spruce, etc. In the course of ages, those forests have adapted to natural fires caused by lightning (although not to the now far more frequent and destructive man-made fires). However, that has no bearing on tropical evergreen rainforests such as those of the Western Ghats, which thrive in a perpetually moist milieu (provided their canopy is in good shape); here, any forest fire would be irreversibly destructive. As for ‘overprotection’, anyone familiar with forest conservation in India will be hard put to show where that is taking place. Was the retired PCCF sending us a not-so-subtle message that we were not really needed? However that may be, the fact is that rainforests of the Western Ghats, including the Shola forests of the Nilgiris, have evolved over millions of years, and till the last century or so, had to suffer almost no human interference—which is the same as absolute protection. It would be standing reality on its head to assert that illicit cutting, the kind of which has led many of our forests to their present degraded condition, especially near densely populated areas, has done them any good.

Discovery or Rediscovery?

My second reflection is of a deeper nature. No one will deny the quality of some programmes on Discovery or other such channels, the beauty of the images, their informative and educational value. But no amount of such programmes will help us cultivate a real contact with nature: you cannot ‘learn’ nature the way you learn English or science or the latest news. Moreover, such programmes can only, at best, reflect the minds of Western environmentalists of scientific bent. They have no doubt done a remarkable and often courageous work in the last few decades, but they do not have the monopoly of an understanding of nature. In fact, they often forget that science is not necessarily the best tool to understand nature—if it were, why should it have wreaked so much destruction on this earth in the span of just two centuries, a mere flash in the planet’s life?

If we are to understand the roots of this phenomenon, we must study how the Judeo-Christian tradition broke away from nature and began regarding her as so much inanimate matter to be exploited (a polite word for plunder). That unfortunate attitude, which has resulted in much of the ruthless abuse we see all over the world, can be traced all the way to the Old Testament and to Genesis. On that fateful sixth day, Jehovah (or Yahweh) proclaims, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let him rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’ And he said to newborn man, ‘Fill the earth and subdue it’.¹ Jehovah does not stop there; for some mysterious reason, he seems to hold the earth responsible for man’s sins. After generously cursing various nations through a succession of fire-spewing prophets, he turns his wrath to our poor planet: ‘Say to the southern forest: “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am about to set fire to you, and it will consume all your trees, both green and dry. The blazing flame will not be quenched.” ² ‘I will make the land of Egypt a ruin and a desolate waste among devastated lands.’³ ‘See, the Lord is going to lay waste the earth and devastate it; he will ruin its face and scatter its inhabitants. ... The earth will be completely laid waste and totally plundered.’⁴ ‘Cursed is the ground because of you.’⁵ And so on, Book after ranting Book.

The contrast with the ancient Indian attitude is as stark as could be. Indian tradition regards the earth as a goddess, Bhúdeví; her consort, Vishnu, the supreme divinity, incarnates from age to age to relieve her of the burden of demonic forces—sometimes of humanity itself. This he does out of love for the earth, his companion. Sítá, as his wife when he is Ráma, means ‘furrow’, and she returned to the earth whence she came. Shiva, too, is bound to the earth through Párvatí, daughter of Himavat or the Himalayas. Earth and Heaven are therefore inseparable: ‘Heaven is my father; my mother is this vast earth, my close kin,’ says the Rig Veda.⁶ Earth is as sacred as Heaven, since she is our mother—not a dead heap of ‘natural resources’. Nature, rather than an adversary to be conquered and despoiled, is our best defence: ‘Blue water, open space, hills and thick forests constitute a fortress,’ proclaims Valluvar in the Kural (742). Rivers from Gangá to Sarasvatí and Káverí are goddesses (the Brahmaputra, of course, is a rare god among them), mountains from the Himalayas to the Vindhyas are god. Many trees are regarded as sacred (the pipal and the neem have been so since the Indus Valley civilization at least); so are many smaller plants and flowers too, such as those used in rituals, and although all animals are in principle sacred, some, from the cow to the peacock, are more so than others. The whole of nature is seen as pervaded with the divine Spirit.

Such, of course, was the view of most of the ancient world, from the Greeks (for whom the earth was Gaia and Demeter) to the Norsemen, the Mayas and Aztecs, and the Red Indians. But all those cultures were wiped out by the steamroller of the Christian advance, to which any worship of nature was ‘Pagan idolatry’ (which is also the attitude of Islam).

Strangely, even in India the sages of old had foreseen a waning of this communion with nature. During the Kaliyuga, our present Dark Age, one of the many signs of growing chaos, according to the Shiva Purána, is that the merchant class ‘have abandoned holy rites such as digging wells and tanks, and planting trees and parks.’⁷ Note how such simple acts of nature conservation were regarded as a ‘holy rite’, a sacred activity. The new religion of utilitarianism is the cause of this steep decline, yet we can see something of that reverence subsist in some aspects of Indian life, from the ‘sacred groves’ still found near some villages to the bhúmi pújá conducted at the start of any construction. Even borewell contractors often perform a brief ceremony or prayer before drilling the earth (though they perhaps pray for their money not to go waste).

So if to Westerners nature is a ‘discovery’, we Indians only need to rediscover and revive the old spirit and infuse it into modern methods, including scientific ones. In doing so, we should remember that science is no more than a tool, and a dangerous one as we now know—dangerous when its awesome power is harnessed to our endless greed. We will be able to use it rightly only if we keep alive in our hearts and minds our true relationship with our material mother. And if we must certainly take a leaf out of Western ecologists’ book as regards their sense of commitment and their effectiveness in getting a number of measures adopted, on the other hand, they could also—and a few do—imbibe with benefit something of the ancient Indian approach. The two together would work wonders.

Subduing the Earth

Our facile misconception that ‘all religions teach the same truths’ makes it necessary to repeat how, in the Old Testament, Jehovah explicitly makes man the master of all other species and asks him to ‘rule over all creatures’. This mandate was the seed of the Judeo-Christian ‘smash-and-grab’ attitude towards other species, something regarded as a God-given right (except that we should call it ‘Jehovah-given’ to avoid confusion).

Jehovah, always prompt to cursing humanity for its supposed sins, seems to hold the earth responsible for them—else, why should he so constantly threaten to bring desolation and ravage upon it? This fury at the earth, which he claims to be his own creation, is inexplicable. Or those who try to justify it often repeat the old story of the original sin: man’s rebellion against Jehovah fully justified the latter’s divine ‘wrath’. But why should poor Earth suffer for man’s supposed sins? Moreover, the very notion of original sin admits of a gulf between the creator and the creation. In the Indian Vedic conception, which is older than the Bible even by the most conservative estimate, there is no ‘original sin’, no fall, no rebellion against the creator, no cursing of humanity or of the earth; there is only one divine universe: ‘Truth is the base that bears the Earth,’ says the Rig Veda.⁸

Enlightened Western thinkers have condemned this notion of a fatal divorce brought about by the Bible between God on one side and his creation on the other. From Voltaire to Jefferson, from Thomas Paine to Gore Vidal, many have pointed out that no such divorce existed in ‘Pagan’ or pre-Christian conceptions. Let me quote just one recent instance, that of Pierre Thuillier, who writes in 1995:

Christian theology defined a conception of nature perfectly adapted to technicist ambitions. As a matter of fact, in Paganism, natural realities were perceived to be living, inhabited by ‘souls’. ... A spring (or a tree) was not reduced to a physical reality, a material reality. It was something more, an entity with a life of its own. It was therefore perfectly natural for a spring to be respected and even revered. It was seen as a marvellous manifestation of Nature, herself regarded as living. The Earth, let us recall, was also perceived as one great organism; the Greeks called her ‘Mother Earth’. Even minerals appeared endowed with a certain life, and all individual existences mysteriously associated with one another amidst the Whole, of which humanity itself was but one fragment.

With Christianity, a supposedly ‘superior’ religion, that attitude towards nature was totally disqualified. Henceforth, it was forbidden to revere springs as if they had a dignity of their own. People’s whole adoration had to be turned to the Christian God and to him alone. ... It is true that nature, created by God, retained a certain spiritual value. But a radical transformation had taken place: earth, air, water and fire, now theologically stripped of all ‘soul’, were no more than objects which Homo technicus was free to manipulate as he wished. ... Through its doctrine, the Judeo-Christian tradition somehow legitimized officially the most daring technical enterprises.⁹

Another recent example is Edward Goldsmith, founder-editor of the famous magazine The Ecologist. In an interview, he explained:

The Bible makes man the centre of the universe, since it assigns to him the role of ‘subduing’ the Earth. ... The religions of the Book went astray the moment they allowed a bipolar relationship to be established between God and men, then between men and Nature. ... I believe we should go back to forms of cosmic religiosity as they existed before the advent of the great monotheistic religions.¹⁰

Indeed, we shall not find in the whole Bible or the whole Koran a single passage echoing the pre-Christian world’s reverence for the Earth as a sacred, divine being of which we are all a part. Moving away from India, let us turn to the Native Americans, with a few sentences from Chief Seattle’s 1855 speech to a White governor who had come to ‘purchase’ (in reality to grab) huge tracts of his clan’s lands:

What is it that the White Man wants to buy, my people will ask. It is difficult for us to understand.

How can one buy or sell the air, the warmth of the land? That is difficult for us to imagine. If we don’t own the sweet air and the bubbling water, how can you buy it from us? Each pine tree shining in the sun, each sandy beach, the mist hanging in the dark woods, every space, each humming bee is holy in the thoughts and memory of our people. ... Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. ...

We are part of the earth, and the earth is part of us. The fragrant flowers are our sisters, the reindeer, the horse, the great eagle our brothers. ...

We know that the White Man does not understand our way of life. To him, one piece of land is much like the other. He is a stranger coming in the night taking from the land what he needs. The earth is not his brother but his enemy, and when he has conquered it, he moves on. ... He treats his mother the Earth and his Brother the sky like merchandise. His hunger will eat the earth bare and leave only a desert. ...

Your God is not our God! ... Our people are ebbing away like a rapidly receding tide that will never return. The White Man’s God cannot love our people, or he would protect them.
...
But why should I mourn at the untimely fate of my people? Tribe follows tribe, and nation follows nation, like the waves of the sea. It is the order of Nature, and regret is useless. Your time of decay may be distant, but it will certainly come, for even the White Man ... cannot be exempt from the common destiny.

We may be brothers after all. We will see.¹¹

‘Your God is not our God’ is a statement that calls for deep reflection. Should we invoke an earth-cursing, self-confessed jealous and angry god, or an earth-loving and earth-saving one? For the moment, let me hope that Mother Earth will not, in turn, curse us too harshly, deserved though her curse would be.

***

References

1. Genesis, 1: 26 & 1: 28.

2. Ezekiel, 20: 47.

3. Ibid., 29: 10, 12.

4. Isaiah, 24: 1, 3.

5. Genesis, 3: 17.

6. Rig-Veda, 1.164.33.

7. Shiva Purána, II.1.24, The Shiva Purana, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1970-86, vol. 1, p. 37.

8. Rig-Veda, 10.85.1.

9. Pierre Thuillier, La Grande Implosion: Rapport sur l’effondrement de l’Occident 1999–2002, Fayard, Paris, 1995, p. 251.

10. Edward Goldsmith in Krisis, Paris, no. 20–21, November 1997, p. 29. (Translation from the French is mine.)

11. Chief Seattle’s 1855 speech, available in many publications and websites. (Note that while there is disagreement on the authenticity of some of the statements, there is no dispute that Chief Seattle’s message had a profound ecological importance.)

- See more at: http://www.pragyata.com/mag/nature-in-indian-and-western-traditions-346#sthash.TGweQxzt.dpuf

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Device pulls water from dry air, powered only by the sun

April 14, 2017, 6:50 am

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Device pulls water from dry air, powered only by the sun

Metal-organic framework sucks up water from air with humidity as low as 20 percent

Date:: April 13, 2017
Source:: University of California - Berkeley
Summary:: While it's easy to condense water from humid air, machines that harvest water from drier air require energy. Researchers have created the first water harvester that uses only ambient sunlight. The key component is an extremely porous material called a metal-organic framework that absorbs 20 percent of its weight in water from low-humidity air. Sunlight heats the MOF, releasing the water vapor, which condenses to produce liters of water per day.

This is the water harvester built at MIT with MOFs from UC Berkeley. Using only sunlight, the harvester can pull liters of water from low-humidity air over a 12-hour period.

Credit: MIT photo from laboratory of Evelyn Wang

Imagine a future in which every home has an appliance that pulls all the water the household needs out of the air, even in dry or desert climates, using only the power of the sun.

That future may be around the corner, with the demonstration this week of a water harvester that uses only ambient sunlight to pull liters of water out of the air each day in conditions as low as 20 percent humidity, a level common in arid areas.

The solar-powered harvester, reported in the journal Science, was constructed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology using a special material -- a metal-organic framework, or MOF -- produced at the University of California, Berkeley.

"This is a major breakthrough in the long-standing challenge of harvesting water from the air at low humidity," said Omar Yaghi, one of two senior authors of the paper, who holds the James and Neeltje Tretter chair in chemistry at UC Berkeley and is a faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. "There is no other way to do that right now, except by using extra energy. Your electric dehumidifier at home 'produces' very expensive water."

The prototype, under conditions of 20-30 percent humidity, was able to pull 2.8 liters (3 quarts) of water from the air over a 12-hour period, using one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of MOF. Rooftop tests at MIT confirmed that the device works in real-world conditions.

"One vision for the future is to have water off-grid, where you have a device at home running on ambient solar for delivering water that satisfies the needs of a household," said Yaghi, who is the founding director of the Berkeley Global Science Institute, a co-director of the Kavli Energy NanoSciences Institute and the California Research Alliance by BASF. "To me, that will be made possible because of this experiment. I call it personalized water."

Yaghi invented metal-organic frameworks more than 20 years ago, combining metals like magnesium or aluminum with organic molecules in a tinker-toy arrangement to create rigid, porous structures ideal for storing gases and liquids. Since then, more than 20,000 different MOFs have been created by researchers worldwide. Some hold chemicals such as hydrogen or methane: the chemical company BASF is testing one of Yaghi's MOFs in natural gas-fueled trucks, since MOF-filled tanks hold three times the methane that can be pumped under pressure into an empty tank.

Other MOFs are able to capture carbon dioxide from flue gases, catalyze the reaction of adsorbed chemicals or separate petrochemicals in processing plants.

In 2014, Yaghi and his UC Berkeley team synthesized a MOF -- a combination of zirconium metal and adipic acid -- that binds water vapor, and he suggested to Evelyn Wang, a mechanical engineer at MIT, that they join forces to turn the MOF into a water-collecting system.

The system Wang and her students designed consisted of more than two pounds of dust-sized MOF crystals compressed between a solar absorber and a condenser plate, placed inside a chamber open to the air. As ambient air diffuses through the porous MOF, water molecules preferentially attach to the interior surfaces. X-ray diffraction studies have shown that the water vapor molecules often gather in groups of eight to form cubes.

Sunlight entering through a window heats up the MOF and drives the bound water toward the condenser, which is at the temperature of the outside air. The vapor condenses as liquid water and drips into a collector.

"This work offers a new way to harvest water from air that does not require high relative humidity conditions and is much more energy efficient than other existing technologies," Wang said.

This proof of concept harvester leaves much room for improvement, Yaghi said. The current MOF can absorb only 20 percent of its weight in water, but other MOF materials could possibly absorb 40 percent or more. The material can also be tweaked to be more effective at higher or lower humidity levels.

"It's not just that we made a passive device that sits there collecting water; we have now laid both the experimental and theoretical foundations so that we can screen other MOFs, thousands of which could be made, to find even better materials," he said. "There is a lot of potential for scaling up the amount of water that is being harvested. It is just a matter of further engineering now."

Yaghi and his team are at work improving their MOFs, while Wang continues to improve the harvesting system to produce more water.

"To have water running all the time, you could design a system that absorbs the humidity during the night and evolves it during the day," he said. "Or design the solar collector to allow for this at a much faster rate, where more air is pushed in. We wanted to demonstrate that if you are cut off somewhere in the desert, you could survive because of this device. A person needs about a Coke can of water per day. That is something one could collect in less than an hour with this system."

Story Source:

Materials provided by University of California - Berkeley. Original written by Robert Sanders. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference:

Hyunho Kim et al. Water harvesting from air with metal-organic frameworks powered by natural sunlight. Science, April 2017 DOI: 10.1126/science.aam8743

Cite This Page:

University of California - Berkeley. "Device pulls water from dry air, powered only by the sun: Metal-organic framework sucks up water from air with humidity as low as 20 percent." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 13 April 2017.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170413141104.htm

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Right to pelt stones against law enforcers in a democracy? Vile or shield?

April 14, 2017, 3:57 pm

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| Saturday , April 15 , 2017 |

Vile tactic in Valley backfires

- Footage shows 'human shield' strapped to jeep on Srinagar polling day

MUZAFFAR RAINA

(Top) A screenshot tweeted by Omar Abdullah shows a youth resembling Farooq Ahmad Dar tied to the army jeep. (Above) Dar with his mother Fazi Begum on Friday

Chill, central Kashmir, April 14: The token election in Kashmir has been yoked to the worst possible symbol: a young man, trussed up and plonked atop a spare tyre mounted in front of an army jeep, allegedly being driven around as a "human shield" on polling day.
The tactic was apparently devised to warn residents and deter stone-throwers who had clashed with security forces on Sunday when polling was held for the Srinagar Lok Sabha by-election, which clocked a mere 7 per cent turnout.

The army allegedly picked up the man from near the "trouble spot" in Budgam, from where as many as seven of the eight deaths of the day were reported.

"This young man was TIED to the front of an army jeep to make sure no stones were thrown at the jeep. This is just so shocking!" Omar Abdullah, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister, tweeted and shared screenshots of the purported video.
The army said it was probing the incident. Till late tonight, the authenticity of the video had not been questioned. The sole dispute appeared to be about the distance the "human shield" was driven around.
The footage could not have surfaced at a more inopportune time for the security forces. Earlier this week, another video clip had shown youths punching and heckling CRPF jawans who exercised remarkable restraint in the face of provocation.
Several television channels had then projected the footage as evidence of the exemplary manner in which the security forces were discharging their responsibilities in the Valley.
Another tweet by Abdullah today touched upon the subject: "I understand the outrage the CRPF video generated. I'm also outraged that the video of the youth on the jeep won't generate the same anger."
The "human shield" the army allegedly used against stone missiles has been identified as Farooq Ahmad Dar, 26, an embroidery artist.
Sitting in his modest home today in Budgam's Chill, 35km from Srinagar, Dar said he was going to a deceased relative's house on Sunday after casting his vote when soldiers forced him off his bike.
They assaulted him, tied him up, strapped him to the front of a jeep between the headlights and he was driven through a dozen villages, warning residents against stone-throwing.
"The jeep travelled no less than 27km from Utligam village, from where I was picked up, through Gonipoh, Najan, Chakpora, Honjigor, Rawalpora, Khospora, Arizal and Hardi Panzo villages," said Dar, who shivered while speaking to The Telegraph.
(PTI, the news agency, quoted army sources as claiming he was tied up for barely 100 metres before being released. In what way the distance he was driven around has a bearing on the way Dar was treated was not clear.)
"All along, they kept daring people to throw stones at them and warning them of a similar fate if they did," Dar said.
The embroidery artist said he did not expect to survive. "The road was full of potholes and I was trembling. People on the road fled seeing my condition but nobody threw stones at us," he added.
His mother Fazi Begum said Dar was still in shock and had not stepped out of home since the alleged atrocity.
Like many others, Dar believes the army personnel either projected him as an example to "terrorise" residents or used him as a "human shield" against stone-throwers.
The video shows the jeep to which Dar was tied, followed by a mine-proof vehicle and a bus carrying security personnel.
"At Utligam, a little ahead of Gampora village, I was stopped by armymen. They thrashed me and then tied me to their jeep," Dar said.
"I was picked up at 11am and paraded on the vehicle till 4pm. I was kept at a CRPF camp somewhere for over an hour after that. In the evening, they (the army personnel) took me to their camp at Rayyar village."
Villagers accompanied by a former sarpanch approached the troopers at Rayyar and pleaded for Dar's release. "They released me late in the evening," he said.
The defence spokesperson in Srinagar, Col Rajesh Kalia, said the contents of the video were being verified and investigated.
Dar said the army snatched his cellphone and he was yet to bring his bike home.
Chief minister Mehbooba Mufti expressed concern and anguish at the "surfacing of a few videos reportedly from Budgam" and sought a detailed report from police.
Union home minister Rajnath Singh said in Calcutta: "Whatever takes place, wherever, we look into it. But as of now, I do not have any information on the video you speak of. I have already instructed that an FIR be lodged for the attack on CRPF jawans carrying EVMs."
Asked what he thought of the state of democracy in Jammu and Kashmir after the low turnout in the by-election, Rajnath said he found it "serious".
"It is serious. It is something to think about. We have thought about it and will act on it. That decision has been taken.... I cannot tell you what that decision is," he said.

https://www.telegraphindia.com/1170415/jsp/frontpage/story_146511.jsp#.WPFSTtJ97IU

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Indus Script hypertext transfer protocol, contribution to cryptography

April 14, 2017, 5:29 pm

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Mirror: http://tinyurl.com/mg2jwf5

https://www.facebook.com/srini.kalyanaraman/posts/10156128737224625

Horapollon (4^th cent CE) called Egyptian writing hieroglyphic, claiming that baboon hieroglyph indicated the moon, priest etc. He was proved wrong after Rosetta Stone was discovered.

Jean-François Champollion (1824) proved that the Egyptian hieroglyphs were words read rebus. One simple explanation is provided by the name of an Emperor Nar-Mer. The syllable Nar is signified by a cuttle-fish and the syllable Mer is signified by an awl in Coptic language. Such a combination of cuttle-fish PLUS awl appeared on a palette, validating Champollion’s correct readings. The moral of the story is that the Egyptian hieroglyphs were based on language.

Experts on early writing systems of China, Egypt and Europe gathered in a semester of lecture series in Harvard University organized, in 2010, by Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. In this seminar, Zender, an anthropology lecturer at Harvard reportedly said, quoting linguist Archibald A. Hill “All writing represents speech, either audible or silent, and can never represent ideas which have not been embodied in speech.” See a newsreport at http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2010/09/language-made-visible/4/

This means that even if we view ‘road signs’ as non-linguistic, the underlying speech provides the cognitive frame for identifying the ‘meanings’ of the ‘road signs’ as signifiers for travelers on the road.

Foe example, look at the following road signs.

1. Elders crossing 2. No left-turn

Are these really ‘illiterate’ or ‘languageless’ symbol systems? A traveler confronted by a red triangle or a red circle with a diagonal slash on the roadside flagpost, immediately recognizes ‘mentally’ a ‘NO’ or ‘ALERT’. Even if communication systems did NOT have full-fledged ‘writing systems’, the meanings of such symbols are learnt through the medium of spoken language. A true writing system evolves when sounds of a language are substituted by symbols or signs.

Such a substitution is the key cipher for Indus (Sindhu-Sarasvati) Script. This substitution is mentioned in an ancient text by Vatsyayana as ‘mlecchita vikalpa’, that is, Meluhha cipher. Study of cipher was included in the list of three language-related arts out of 64 arts prescribed for learning by youth in Vatsyayana’s time (ca. 6^th century BCE). This means that ‘meaning’ of ‘written language’ was taught through the medium of speech.

Decipherment of Indus Script is a contribution to cryptography because the cipher explains a hypertext transfer protocol. A hypertext inscription of Indus Script is composed of ‘pictures’ comparable to the road signs. Combinations of pictures result in curious constructions such as a composite animal with a bovine body and three heads of a young bull, an antelope and an ox. What Is such a ‘composition’ supposed to signify? In the sounds of a particular language called Mleccha or Meluhha, spoken word sangaḍa signifies ‘joined animals’. A similar sounding word sangara signifies ‘trade’. Thus, the ‘composite animal’ is ‘trade’ of three items which are signified by the three animal signifiers. In the same language, kõdar signifies ‘young bull’, ranku ‘antelope’, poḷa ‘bos indicus, zebu’. The sounds of these three words alsos signify by substitution: kōnda 'engraver, lapidary', ranku ‘tin’ poḷa ‘magnetite, ferrite ore’. Together, the composite of three animals signify an engraver (trade in) tin and ferrite ore.

Dwaraka seal of turbinella pyrum, śankha, composite animal hypertext

The cipher code which is called rebus is consistenly applied to all hypertexts of about 8000 inscriptions of Indus Script Corpora. Decoded hypertexts seem to indicate that the inscriptions are metalwork catalogues recording wealth-creating activities of ancient metalworkers and seafaring merchants like the Meluhhan merchant shown on an Akkadian cylinder seal (ca. 2500 BCE).

The cuneiform inscription reads: Shu-Ilishu EME.BAL.ME.LUH.HA.KI (interpreter of Meluhha language). On the seal, Shu-ilishu is shown sitting on the lap of the seated person in audience with a Meluhhan carrying an antelope, followed by a lady carrying a liquid measure. In Meluhha language ranku signifies ‘antelope’ ‘liquid measure’ (pictures) and also ranku‘tin’ a similar sounding word meaningful in the context of trade.

This decoding of the script as mlecchita vikalpa or Meluhha substitution cipher, has a lesson for cryptography. A hypertext transfer protocol is simply defined as word substitution with similar sounding words to convey ‘meanings’ of life-activities related to wealth creation of a nation of artificers and traders including seafaring merchants of the Bronze Age..

S. Kalyanaraman

Sarasvati Research Center

April 15, 2017

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श्यामन्तक मणि-- dispeller of darkness or Kohinoor जुगाड़ 'hacks' ? PM, UK, return the मणि of Sri Krishna to Bhārat.

April 14, 2017, 7:16 pm

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The curse of `Koh-i-Noor` and the secret admirer

MAJID SHEIKHPUBLISHED SEP 14, 2010 12:00AM

When Maharajah Ranjit Singh took possession of the 'Koh-i-Noor' diamond on June 1, 1813, a remarkable story, till now little known, was being weaved. A Hindu 'pandit' approached the maharajah and told him that if he kept the 'Samantik Mani' diamond of Golconda, nothing but bad luck and ruin would come his way.

The place was the Lahore Fort, and on June 1, 1813, Maharajah Ranjit Singh had visited the exiled Afghan king Shah Shuja and his wife Begum Wafa at their residence Mubarak Haveli near Kucha Chabaksawaran inside Mochi Gate. Sikh officials had threatened Wafa Begum that if she did not yield the diamond to the maharajah, the entire family would be butchered. But if she presented the diamond to the maharajah as a gift, he promised to help restore him to the Afghan throne. It was what is known as a 'Hobson's Choice'. So it was that the maharajah went in a huge procession to visit his 'guest' and in a simple ceremony “gifted” him the Koh-e-Noor diamond. Legally, the diamond belongs to the 'toshakhana' of the Lahore Fort. That legal claim is another very interesting story.

But the Hindu 'pandit' was not wrong when he claimed that the 'Samantik Mani' was lucky only for women. For men it was fatal. This is where the genius of Fakir Azizuddin comes into play. The fakir was known as having a fair idea of the world of the occult. He called on a leading Sikh occult master and the Hindu 'pandit' to join them in his house to devise a way to keep bad luck away from the maharajah. Thus the story of the Hindu 'pandit' was first heard. Since then the diamond was kept in the name of a wife of the maharajah.

The original name of the Koh-i-Noor diamond was 'Samantik Mani'â€“ the prince and leader of all diamonds â€“ and its first mention comes as belonging to Lord Krishna and the great battle of Mahabharata which was fought in 3102 BC. Its origins are disputed. One view, forwarded by the historian N.B. Sen, claims that this diamond was found in the ancient mine of Kolar, on the right bank of the Kistna â€“ Krishna - river of Karnataka. Another view is that it was discovered over 5,000 years ago in the bed of the lower Godavari River, near Machlipatnam in Central India. Lastly, and the most popular version is that it was found in Golconda mines in Andhra Pradesh.

I have no idea, or preference, as to which claim is the strongest. What I do know is that the diamond's name was changed in 1739 AD by the Iranian invader Nadir Shah, who invaded India and defeated Mughal Emperor Muhammad Shah Rangila (1719-1748) and occupied the fort of Delhi on March 9, 1739. Nadir Shah had definite intelligence that the Mughal Emperor always carried this precious diamond with him in his turban. Before returning to Kabul on May 1, 1739, Nadir Shah exchanged turbans with Muhammad Shah as a sign of friendship and fraternal ties in the Darbar Hall, and took possession of this diamond. This event is known among historians as the 'Turban trick'.

When Nadir Shah first saw the 'Samantik Mani' diamond, he was dazzled by its size, beauty and brilliance, and he named it “Koh-i-Noor”, which in Persian means “Mountain of Light”. What Nadir Shah did not know was that Emperor Muhammad Shah had actually gifted it to his wife, and kept it as an 'amanat'â€“ safe possession â€“ of his wife. He believed, or so history told him, it brought nothing but bad luck to men.

The loot that the Iranians took from India was so huge, that Nadir Shah eliminated all taxes in Iran for three years. But in a mysterious happening, his health took a turn for the worst. Also he became more despotic and very soon his family began to disintegrate. In anger he imposed penal taxes on his own people. His daughter-in-law committed suicide. In June 1747 he was assassinated by his own bodyguards. The prediction that when a man steals the diamond, in 2,929 days his end is violent came true.

After him any king who possessed the diamond met a fatal end. For this reason when Shah Shuja came to Lahore, the diamond was gifted to his wife Wafa Begum. It so happened that Wafa insisted that she keep the diamond that belonged to her, and so the rumour goes that she kept it near her chest all the time, even when sleeping.

Maharajah Ranjit Singh tried his best to find out where the famous diamond was, but could not find any clue. He then decided to ask a handsome Muslim soldier on guard duty to try to win over Wafa Begum's favourite maid. For six long months the guard tried, finally promising her a 'jagir' near Lahore. Finally she succumbed to the inducement and within a week the diamond was located. My research tells me that her family still live on those lands near Chung.

We now learn from the 'toshakhana' records that the diamond was gifted to his wives, and after performing an intricate Hindu ceremony he left a will that the diamond be returned to the Krishna Temple of Golconda. Even at his death bed, he wished that this be done so that his ancestors are protected. This the greedy ancestors ignored and set off on a bloody path of self-destruction.

In the book by Garrett and Chopra: “Events of the Court of Ranjit Singh 1810-1817”, the following is reproduced: 'The following official communique dated June 8, 1813 was issued from the court of Maharaja Ranjit Singh in the Royal Fort, Lahore: “Yesterday (7-6-1813), the Noble Sarkar kept showing the Kohinoor which had been very kindly given to him by Hazrat Shah Shujaul Mulk, to the jewellers from whom he asked its price. It was found in weight equal to three hundred and a few more “Surakhs”, and in value it was declared priceless as no other similar jewel existed anywhere else.”

Maharaja Ranjit Singh (1799-1839 A.D.) had eight sons — Kharak Singh (1801-1840 A.D.), Ishar Singh (1804-1805 A.D.), Sher Singh (1807-1843 A.D.), Tara Singh (1807-1859 A.D.), Kashmira Singh (1819-1844 A.D), Peshaura Singh (1823-1845 A.D), Multana Singh (1819-1846 A.D), Duleep Singh (1838-1893 A.D), whose mother was Jind Kaur, popularly known as Rani Jindan. We all know that the entire family died fighting among themselves, and within nine years they all died violent deaths. In 1849 the East India Company took over Lahore and the diamond was removed from the 'toshakhana' of the Lahore Fort.

After the death of Maharaja Ranjit Singh on June 27, 1839, legally the Koh-e-Noor passed on to his successors. The Governor-General of India, however, took possession of the Koh-e-Noor from Dr John Login, in-charge of the 'toshakhana', Royal Fort, Lahore, under a receipt dated Dec 7, 1849, in the presence of the members of the Board of Administration, namely H.M. Lawrence, C. C. Mansel, John Lawrence and Sir Henry Elliot, Secretary to the Government of India. The ruling maharajah did not sign the receipt.

The diamond was brought to England under the Treaty of Lahore of March 29, 1849, and handed over to Queen Victoria in a ceremony held on July 3, 1850, at Buckingham Palace by Sir J.W.Logg, Deputy Chairman of the East India Company, in the presence of Sir John Hobhouse. At that time the weight of the diamond was 186-116 of the old carats (191.10 metric carats). Queen Victoria thought the diamond was too big for her to handle and she ordered it cut by Garrett's, London, in 1852. The weight was reduced to 108.93 carats. Even today its price is beyond estimate.

The deposed Maharaja Duleep Singh was removed from Lahore on Dec 21, 1849 and then to England in May, 1854, to live there in exile for the rest of his life. He died in Paris, France, on Oct 22, 1893, and was buried in the little church at Elveden on Oct 29, 1893. He left behind three sons and three daughters from his wife Bamba Muller, whom he married at Alexandria in Egypt at the British Consulate on June 7, 1864. The Maharani died in London on Sept 18, 1887. The maharaja took Ada Douglas Wetherill as his second wife. He married her in the mayor's office at Paris, France, on May 21, 1889. The couple had two daughters, Paulina and Ada. His second wife Ada died on 1930.

Maharaja Duleep Singh's eight children were Prince Victor Albert Jay Duleep Singh (1866-1918), Prince Fredrick Victor Duleep Singh (1868-1926), Prince Edward Alexander Duleep Singh (1879-1893), Princess Bamba Sofia Jindan Duleep Singh (1869-1957), Princess Catherine Hilda Duleep Singh (1871-unknown), Princess Sophia Alexandra Duleep Singh (1876-1948), Princess Alexandra Duleep Singh (1887-unknown), and Princess Ada Irene Helen Benyl Duleep Singh (1889-1926). Not a single grandchild of Maharajah Ranjit Singh had any children. Many ascribe this as the curse of the 'Koh-i-Noor'.

The very last ancestor of Maharajah Ranjit Singh was princess Bamba, who lived in Lahore after 1947. She claimed she was the Rani of Punjab, and often was seen quarrelling with the bus conductors of the Model Town Bus Service who wanted her to pay her bus fare. “How dare you ask the Rani of Punjab for bus fare”? Ultimately, the old residents of Model Town prevailed on the MTS administrators not to ask her for her bus fare. She died in 1957 and was buried in the Christian Graveyard on Jail Road. Her grave can still be seen, for a secret admirer still leaves roses on her grave every day. Who is that person? We will dwell on that in another piece.

https://www.dawn.com/news/562551

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Three years from 2014, BJP only national party -- Ram Madhav

April 14, 2017, 10:20 pm

≫ Next: The case for impeaching President Donald J. Trump. (Too soon?) Carlos Lozada reviews Lichtman's book

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Three years down the line from 2014 Lok Sabha elections, BJP has emerged as the only true pan-national party

April 15, 2017, 2:00 AM IST Ram Madhav in TOI Edit Page | Edit Page, India | TOI

BJP is riding high on its recent successes, both in elections to state assemblies in February-March 2017 and in by-elections held this week to 10 assembly seats in eight states. Generally speaking, except for the three states of Bihar, Delhi and Punjab, BJP has been on a winning spree in almost all elections it has faced in the last three years. At a time when party leaders gather for the national executive at Bhubaneswar, exactly three years after the resounding victory in Lok Sabha elections, there is a palpable ‘feel good’ factor among leaders and cadres across the country.

In terms of governance the Modi government has been able to win laurels from people cutting across demographies. One of the significant achievements for the party under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a conspicuous change in the character of its support base. BJP has been able unshackle itself from the long-time stereotype image of a Brahmin, Bania and urban middle class party. Its support base has expanded significantly into poorer sections of society, thanks to poor-friendly policies and programmes of Modi.

Three years down the line, BJP has emerged as the only truly pan-Indian party in terms not only of electoral successes but also social demographics.

In a country long identified with corruption – growthlessness, violence, caste and communal divisions, politics of opportunism and opacity – Modi symbolised hope. It is the politics of hope that propelled people towards Modi. People see in him a leader who can usher in a fundamental transformation not only in the lives of individual Indians but in the life of the nation as well.

The average Indian is honest, hardworking, patriotic and socially conscious. If he has become otherwise, it is because of the flawed national culture perpetuated by selfish political leadership in all these years. In the last three years the PM has been able to convince the people about his conviction and also capacity to undo that culture. In his own inimitable style, he has connected directly with the people and made them partners in his grand national restructuring project.

The successes that BJP secured in the last three years are partly also due to the excellent team work and organisational hierarchy that party president Amit Shah has built up assiduously, resulting in exponential growth of the party membership.

However, these successes have brought important challenges as well. BJP has to now reinvent itself to suit the changing grassroots character of its support base. Large sections of the masses that identify with Modi need to be won over to the party side. That calls for an organisational overhaul. A voter in a remote village connecting with Modi should also be able to connect with the local BJP leadership. In other words BJP has to think about providing representation to the newly won over sections of the society in its organisational and ideological establishment.

Electoral successes in different states have brought BJP to power in 16 out of 31 states. BJP has 13 chief ministers and one deputy CM. The challenge before the party is to ensure that governments in all these states replicate the change that the Modi government represents. To put it differently, whether it is a Trivendra in Uttarakhand or a Birendra in Manipur or a Yogindra in UP – all have to follow Narendra in Delhi. Leaders in all these states should share and implement the vision of PM Modi.

In the fight against pseudo-liberalism that has become synonymous with decrying everything that is truly Indian, we must not allow pseudo-conservatism to run amok. The quintessential culture of this country has been liberal, pluralistic and catholic. Efforts at Semitisation of Indian cultural behaviour, in an over-zealous reaction to the pseudo-liberal establishment, will be an antithesis to Modi’s vision and needs to be checked firmly and effectively. It is the hopes and aspirations of the people that should guide the priorities of all our governments.

While the government faces various other challenges on economic, security and foreign policy fronts the party’s main challenge at this transformative phase seems to be to reinvent itself to represent the hopes and aspirations of the vast masses that have aligned strongly with the PM.

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-edit-page/three-years-down-the-line-from-2014-lok-sabha-elections-bjp-has-emerged-as-the-only-true-pan-national-party/

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The case for impeaching President Donald J. Trump. (Too soon?) Carlos Lozada reviews Lichtman's book

April 15, 2017, 7:43 pm

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≪ Previous: Three years from 2014, BJP only national party -- Ram Madhav

The case for impeaching President Donald J. Trump. (Too soon?)

The historian who predicted Trump's 2016 victory has now written a book suggesting this presidency may be cut short.

President Trump walks to board Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House, March. 20, 2017. (Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

THE CASE FOR IMPEACHMENT

by Allan J. Lichtman. Dey St. Books. 290 pp. $24.99

Too soon?

By Carlos Lozada

Any discussion of presidential impeachment that arrives before journalists have even embarked on their ritualistic “first hundred days” coverage could rightly be deemed premature, and to publish an entire book arguing the case, the height of partisanship. Yet, given our new president’s disdain for constitutional checks and balances, the investigations already underway, and the turmoil knifing through this White House, it doesn’t seem entirely unrealistic, either.

This is a young administration that at times feels not just exhausting but exhausted. Airstrikes may give it a quick boost of pundit-powered presidentialism, but that high doesn’t last.

Allan J. Lichtman, the American University historian who in September predicted Donald Trump’s electoral victory (earning a “Professor — Congrats — good call” note from the candidate) is issuing another bold forecast: Trump will be impeached. Unlike his election pick, which was based on a systematic evaluation of 13 political indicators that have helped Lichtman call every presidential contest since 1984, the professor’s views on impeachment are more impressionistic. He bases his conclusion on Trump’s questionable practices throughout his real estate and entertainment career, his early overreach in office, the conflicts between his financial interests and public obligations, and his soft spot for verifiable falsehoods. “A president who seems to have learned nothing from history is abusing and violating the public trust and setting the stage for a myriad of impeachable offenses,” the author writes.

Much of what Lichtman compiles in these pages is by now excruciatingly familiar — a one-stop shop for #NeverTrump diehards and resistance marchers — and there are moments when he stretches his rationalizations so far that they snap back and smack him. But it is still striking to see the full argument unfold and realize that you don’t have to be a zealot to imagine some version of it happening.

“The Case for Impeachment” is hardly airtight. I’d sooner bet on reelection than impeachment, and a full, single term seems likelier than either. Yet there is power in plausibility, especially when impeachment may hinge, more than anything, on Trump remaining true to himself.

***

Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton are the only presidents ever impeached by the House of Representatives — although both survived in the Senate — but Lichtman fixates on the parallels between Trump and President Richard Nixon, who opted to resign rather than be fired. “Even early in his presidency, Donald Trump exhibits the same tendencies that led Nixon to violate the most basic standards of morality and threaten the foundations of our democracy,” he writes. “They also shared a compulsion to deflect blame, and they were riddled with insecurities. They exploited the resentments of white working class Americans and split the world into enemies and loyalists. . . . Neither man allowed the law, the truth, the free press, or the potential for collateral damage to others to impede their personal agendas. . . . They obsessed over secrecy and thirsted for control without dissent.” Lichtman likens press secretary Sean Spicer’s M.O. to that of Nixon’s Ron Ziegler (“Deny. Lie. Threaten. And blame the messengers.”) and believes that Nixonian abuses of power will provoke Trump’s downfall.

Professor Allan J. Lichtman of American University was one of the few professional prognosticators to get President Trump's election win right. In his new book, he says Trump could be impeached. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

Under the premise that impeachment “need not be limited to violations that occur during the president’s term in office,” Lichtman devotes much space to Trump’s pre-presidential misdeeds, including alleged breaches of the Fair Housing Act in the 1970s, the scams of Trump University, the exploitation of undocumented immigrants in his construction business and modeling agency, and his decidedly uncharitable giving. Morally and legally, Lichtman may be right to cover this ground, but politically, his stronger case involves the clash between Trump’s vast business dealings — which the president has neither fully divulged nor relinquished — and his duties to the public.

“A president’s family should not be profiting from his public office, whether through a lawsuit or a branded enterprise,” Lichtman writes. “It’s impossible to disentangle Trump’s financial interests from those of his family.” He provides the obligatory tutorial on the emoluments clause of the Constitution, then delves into Trump’s licensing deals in the Philippines, trademark contracts in China, the debts his businesses have incurred — the sort of links that give foreign and commercial interests potential leverage over this president.

Lichtman spins some dubious scenarios, too. He imagines that Trump could be ousted, for instance, if the International Criminal Court charged him with crimes against humanity for opposing policies and accords that combat climate change. He admits the idea is “far-fetched” but contends that, though it would lack legal standing domestically, an ICC prosecution “would have the moral force to raise calls for President Trump’s impeachment.”

Hmm. Yes, other than the spread of nuclear weapons, there may be no graver long-term threat to the planet than climate change. But the notion that the House would impeach Trump because of the environmental concerns of some globocrats in The Hague . . . well, that’ll happen when the Arctic refreezes over.

[A conservative’s plan for Trump to win, win, win — or at least avoid impeachment]

The Trump administration’s Russia controversies offer a less-fanciful route to ruin. What began as revelations of interference by a foreign power in the 2016 U.S. election has become an exploration of ties between Russian officials and members of the Trump campaign. Lichtman does not hesitate to go there: Trump, he contends, “stands a chance of becoming the first American president charged with treason or the failure to report treason by agents and associates.” Investigations by the FBI and the House and Senate intelligence committees mean that “a Russian sword of Damocles hangs over Trump’s head,” Lichtman writes. “If it falls, his presidency is over. Neither Republicans nor Democrats in Congress will tolerate a compromised or treacherous president. Impeachment and trial will be quick and decisive.”

[Trump’s new Russia expert wrote a psychological profile of Vladimir Putin — and it should scare Trump]

Of course, quick and decisive are not what we’ve come to expect from the legislative branch of late. The author imagines a “wave of popular revulsion” against the president restoring Democratic control of the House in the 2018 midterm vote, though he acknowledges the tough odds. And when pondering whether a Republican House would move forward on impeachment — recall Gerald Ford’s definition of an impeachable offense as “whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment” — Lichtman posits, not quite convincingly, that Trump could prove vulnerable no matter what he accomplishes as president.

If the GOP manages to pass all the tax cuts, deregulation and reforms on its to-do list and feels it no longer needs Trump, lawmakers could drop the president should he become a liability, he writes. And if their agenda falters, House members could ditch the president in favor of the more conventional Vice President Pence, whom Lichtman considers a “dream president” for conservatives. Either way, he assumes, Trump is gone.

For Lichtman, Trump’s personality aggravates the risks to his presidency. He displays “extreme narcissism,” the author argues, and he lies compulsively, with deceit as “an ingrained way of life.” Lichtman suggests that these tendencies could lead to a Clinton-style “impeachment trap,” in which Trump is tempted to speak untruthfully while under oath in, say, a sexual harassment legal proceeding. He might also lie to cover up his campaign’s ties to Moscow. “The response of Trump and his team to allegations of communications with Russian officials fits the classic pattern of a cover-up,” Lichtman suggests. “First conceal and deny, then when outed by press claim that the communications were routine, innocuous, or incidental — kind of like a ‘third-rate burglary.’ ”

Lichtman points to the fiasco of the executive order banning entry into the United States by people from several Muslim-majority countries as exemplifying Trump’s impeachment-friendly impulses. “Through the drafting, implementation, and defense of his first travel ban, Trump trampled on core American traditions and principles,” he writes. “He has effectively claimed absolute presidential authority and breached the separation of powers that the framers established as a check against tyranny.” Trump’s knee-jerk disparagement of judges blocking the ban also “preemptively piled blame on the courts for any future terrorist attack against the United States,” Lichtman cautions, suggesting ominously that in the event of a major attack, Trump could blame the courts and other political enemies “as a pretext for taking charge under martial law.”

Lies. Abuse of power. Treason. Crimes against humanity. Martial law. Lichtman throws everything Trump’s way, and after a while, it is hard to tell when the historian is predicting, hoping, or just reprimanding.

***

It is possible that incompetence, more than malevolence, will prove this administration’s legacy. So in case the president just doesn’t know any better, Lichtman halfheartedly recommends some moves Trump could make to hang on: Divest yourself from all your business interests. Have all your speeches and tweets fact-checked beforehand. Treat women with respect. Stop demeaning immigrants and delegitimizing judges. Abandon your war on the press. Cut out the Mussolini act. He even urges Trump to hire an official White House shrink. All things, in other words, that involve President Trump ceasing to behave anything like President Trump. Lichtman also encourages Trump to fire chief strategist Steve Bannon — the most realistic item on this docket.

“Justice will be realized in today’s America not through revolution, but by the Constitution’s peaceful remedy of impeachment — but only if the people demand it,” Lichtman concludes. He seems to want them to, stoking fears of global annihilation, saying that Trump’s “hair-trigger outbursts are frightening in a man who controls a nuclear arsenal with the power to end civilization. . . . Americans have a right to ask whether the impulsive Trump would have the calm deliberation needed to respond to seemingly hostile blips on a radar screen.”

Yes, Americans absolutely have the right to ask that question and many others Lichtman raises — and they asked them plenty of times during an interminable 2016 race packed with revelations about Trump’s career, ideas and values. You can be disappointed, even horrified, by this president, but what you really can’t be is surprised. And impeachment is not a gift receipt for citizens suddenly feeling buyer’s remorse.

This book joins the campaign for Trump’s removal that started as early as Inauguration Day. Lichtman’s case for impeachment is plausible, certainly, but it is far stronger as an argument for why Americans never should have elected Trump in the first place. Yet we did.

So it may not be too soon for this book, after all. It may be too late.

Follow Carlos Lozada on Twitter and read his latest reviews, including:

Yes, Trump is a populist. But what does that mean?

A president who rarely reads has launched a book club for all of America

Inside the anger that gave us Trump — and that will long outlast him

Carlos Lozada is associate editor and nonfiction book critic of The Washington Post.

Follow @CarlosLozadaWP

http://tinyurl.com/n8pba9p

↧

karṇaka कर्णक, 'two legs spread out' signifies rebus karṇika 'helmsman''guild-master' on Indus Script Corpora inscriptions

April 16, 2017, 6:23 am

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Together with the hieroglyph which signifies 'fish' (ayo 'fish' rebus: aya 'alloy metal'), another vivid hieroglyph, 'standing person with two legs spread out' is frequently used in inscriptions of the metalwork catalogues. This monograph attempts to narrow down the semantics of this 'spread legs' hieroglyph in the context of hypertext expressions to document metalwork. At least 40 ligatured hypertexts are identified with the 'spread legs' hieroglyphs as the reference frame.

Harappa miniature tablet, two sides (size of a thumbnail)

Hieroglyph: mēd'body', standing person, कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs', kāṭi 'body stature'

Signs 3, 32, 41, 42, 43, 44 are hypertext expressions with ligatures on Sign 1. These six hypertexts (in particular, variants Sign 32 and Sign 44) seem to focus on the semantics 'spread legs' with Sign 44 showing the spread legs in a 'dancestep'. Other hypertexts are formed with the frame of Sign 1 as the base as shown on Signs 4 to 8 etc. (See table of Sign 1 based hypertexts) When the semantics of कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman'apply to the hypertext, the functionary may be a guild-master of cirular workers' platforms working with metals and alloys (like steersman or helmsman of a cargo ship). IT is possible that the two other alternative meanings of the same hieroglyph framework may be semantic determinants such mēd 'body',rebus: mēd 'iron' ORkāṭi 'body stature'

rebus: kāṭi 'fire-trench'.

Ligatures: water-carrier + notch

Sign 13: kuṭi ‘water-carrier’ Rebus: kuṭhi ‘smelter/furnace’+ कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman'[Alternative: kāṭi'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench]. + खांडा [ khāṇḍā] m A jag, notch, or indentation (as upon the edge of a tool or weapon)(Marathi). Rebus: kāṇḍa ‘tools, pots and pans and metal-ware’ (Marathi) + कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman' Alternative: kāṭi 'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench. + कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman'[Alternative: kāṭi 'body =stature; Rebus: fireplace trench.] Thus, smelter-metalware-steersman OR smelter-furnace metalware.

Ta. mēṉi body, shape, colour, beauty; mēl body. Ma. mēni body, shape, beauty, excellence; mēl body. Koḍ. me·lï body. Te. mēnu id.; mēni brilliancy, lustre; belonging to the body, bodily, personal. Kol. me·n (pl. me·nḍl) body. Nk. mēn (pl. mēnuḷ) id. Nk. (Ch.) mēn id. Pa. mēn (pl. mēnul) id. Ga. (S.) mēnu (pl. mēngil), (P.) mēn id. Go. (Tr.) mēndur (obl. mēnduḍ-), (A. Y. W. M.) mēndul, (L.) meṇḍū˘l, (SR.) meṇḍol id. (Voc. 2963). Konḍa mēndol human body. Kur. mē̃d, mēd body, womb, back. Malt. méth body. (DEDR 5099) mēthiṣṭhá ʻ standing at the post ʼ TS. [mēthí -- , stha -- ] Bi. (Patna) mĕhṭhā ʻ post on threshing floor ʼ, (Gaya) mehṭā, mẽhṭā ʻ the bullock next the post ʼ.(CDIAL 10319)

कर्णक karṇaka [p= 257,2] m. du. the two legs spread out AV. xx , 133 , 3

कर्णक [p= 257,2] m. (ifc. f(आ).) a prominence or handle or projection on the side or sides (of a vessel &c ) , a tendril S3Br. Ka1tyS3r. kárṇaka m. ʻ projection on the side of a vessel, handle ʼ ŚBr. [kárṇa -- ]Pa. kaṇṇaka -- ʻ having ears or corners ʼ; Wg. kaṇə ʻ ear -- ring ʼ NTS xvii 266; S. kano m. ʻ rim, border ʼ; P. kannā m. ʻ obtuse angle of a kite ʼ (→ H. kannā m. ʻ edge, rim, handle ʼ); N. kānu ʻ end of a rope for supporting a burden ʼ; B. kāṇā ʻ brim of a cup ʼ, G. kānɔ m.; M. kānā m. ʻ touch -- hole of a gun ʼ.(CDIAL 2831)

कर्णक [p= 257,2] a tendril S3Br. Ka1tyS3r.f. the pericarp of a lotus MBh. BhP. &c kárṇikā f. ʻ round protuberance ʼ Suśr., ʻ pericarp of a lotus ʼ MBh., ʻ ear -- ring ʼ Kathās. [kárṇa -- ] Pa. kaṇṇikā -- f. ʻ ear ornament, pericarp of lotus, corner of upper story, sheaf in form of a pinnacle ʼ; Pk. kaṇṇiā -- f. ʻ corner, pericarp of lotus ʼ; Paš. kanīˊ ʻ corner ʼ; S. kanī f. ʻ border ʼ, L. P. kannī f. (→ H. kannī f.); WPah. bhal. kanni f. ʻ yarn used for the border of cloth in weaving ʼ; B. kāṇī ʻ ornamental swelling out in a vessel ʼ, Or. kānī ʻ corner of a cloth ʼ; H. kaniyã̄ f. ʻ lap ʼ; G. kānī f. ʻ border of a garment tucked up ʼ; M. kānī f. ʻ loop of a tie -- rope ʼ; Si. käni, kän ʻ sheaf in the form of a pinnacle, housetop ʼ.(CDIAL 2849)

कर्णिक karṇika a.. Having a helm. -कः A steersman. కర్ణము (p. 253) karṇamu karṇamu. [Skt.] n. The helm of a ship చుక్కాని. కర్ణధారుడు karṇa-dhāruḍu. A helmsman or steers-man. ఓడనడుపువాడు.
karṇadhāra m. ʻ helmsman ʼ Suśr. [kárṇa -- , dhāra -- 1]
Pa. kaṇṇadhāra -- m. ʻ helmsman ʼ; Pk. kaṇṇahāra -- m. ʻ helmsman, sailor ʼ; H. kanahār m. ʻ helmsman, fisherman ʼ.(CDIAL 2836)
கர்ணம்² karṇam , n. < karaṇa. 1. Village accountantship; கிராமக்கணக்குவேலை. 2. Village accountant; கிராமக்கணக்கன். kāraṇika m. ʻ teacher ʼ MBh., ʻ judge ʼ Pañcat. [kā- raṇa -- ] Pa. usu -- kāraṇika -- m. ʻ arrow -- maker ʼ; Pk. kāraṇiya -- m. ʻ teacher of Nyāya ʼ; S. kāriṇī m. ʻ guardian, heir ʼ; N. kārani ʻ abettor in crime ʼ; M. kārṇī m. ʻ prime minister,supercargo of a ship ʼ, kul -- karṇī m. ʻ village accountant ʼ.(CDIAL 3058)

Table: Sign 1 PLUS Sign 1 based hypertexts

Ligature: Stool or plank/seat

Sign 43: Kur. kaṇḍō a stool. Malt. kanḍo stool, seat. (DEDR 1179) Rebus: kaṇḍ 'fire-altar' (SOR for metals in mint. Thus, fire-altar metalware furnace.

Ligature: crab, claws

Sign 36: कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman' OR kāṭi 'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench. Thus, steersman OR furnace for metals in mint + kamaḍha ‘crab’ Rebus: kammaṭa ‘mint, coiner’. ḍato = claws of crab (Santali) Rebus: dhātu ‘mineral ore’. Thus mineral ore mint, coiner.

Archer. Ligature one bow-and-arrow hieroglyph

kamaḍha ‘archer, bow’ Rebus: kammaṭa ‘mint, coiner’. + कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman' Alternative: kāṭi 'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench. Thus, steersman OR furnace for metals in mint.

Sign 29 Archer. Ligature two bow-and-arrow hieroglyphs

kamaḍha ‘archer, bow’ Rebus: kammaṭa ‘mint, coiner’. dula 'two' Rebu: dul 'cast metal'. Thus metal castings mint. + कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman' Alternative: kāṭi 'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench. Thus, steersman OR furnace for metal castings in mint.

Ligature hieroglyph: 'lid of pot'

aḍaren
‘lid of pot’ Rebus: aduru ‘unsmelted, native metal’ + कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman' Alternative: kāṭi 'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench. Thus steersman OR furnace for aduru, unsmelted, native metal.

Ligature 'two spoked wheels'

Spokes-of-wheel, nave-of-wheel āra 'spokes' Rebus: āra ‘brass’. cf. erka = ekke (Tbh. of arka) aka (Tbh. of arka) copper (metal); crystal (Kannada) Glyph: eraka’nave of wheel’ Rebus: eraka ‘copper’; cf. erka = ekke (Tbh. of arka) aka (Tbh. of arka) copper (metal); crystal (Kannada) dula 'two' Rebus: dul 'cast metal'. Thus, moltencast copper castings + कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman' Alternative kāṭi 'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench. Thus, steersman OR furnace for copper metal castings.

Ligature hieroglyph 'corner'

kanac ‘corner’ Rebus: kañcu ‘bronze’ + कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman' Alternative: kāṭi 'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench. Thus, steersman OR furnace for bronze castings.

Ligatures: corner + notch

Sign 31: kana, kanac = corner (Santali); Rebus: kañcu = bronze (Telugu) PLUS खांडा [ khāṇḍā ] m A jag, notch, or indentation (as upon the edge of a tool or weapon). Rebus: kāṇḍa ‘tools, pots and pans and metal-ware’ Thus, bronze metalware. + कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman' Alternative: kāṭi'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench. Thus, steersman OR furnace bronze metalware castings.

Ligature hieroglyph: 'stick' or 'one' M. meḍ(h), meḍhī f., meḍhā m. ʻ post, forked stake ʼ. This semantic cluster may be cognate with med 'body' as a semantic determinant

Sign1 Hieroglyph: Alternative: काठी [ kāṭhī ] f (काष्ट S) (or शरीराची काठी) The frame or structure of the body: also (viewed by some as arising from the preceding sense, Measuring rod) stature (Marathi) B. kāṭhā ʻ measure of length ʼ(CDIAL 3120) Alternative:कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman'
H. kāṭhī 'wood' f. G. kāṭh n. ʻ wood ʼ, °ṭhī f. ʻ stick, measure of 5 cubits ʼ(CDIAL 3120). + कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman' Alternative: kāṭi 'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench.The 'stick' hieroglyph is a phonetic reinforcement of 'body stature' hieroglyph. Alternatively, koḍ 'one' Rebus: koḍ 'workshop'+ कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman' Alternative: kāṭi 'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench.. Thus, workplace of steersman OR steerrsman OR furnace fire-trench.

Rebus: G. kāṭɔṛɔ m. ʻ dross left in the furnace after smelting iron ore ʼ.(CDIAL 2646)

Rebus: kāṭi , n. < U. ghāṭī. 1. Trench of a fort; அகழி. 2. A fireplace in the form of a long ditch; கோட்டையடுப்பு காடியடுப்பு kāṭi-y-aṭuppu , n. < காடி&sup6; +. A fireplace in the form of a long ditch used for cooking on a large scale; கோட்டையடுப்பு.

Rebus: S.kcch. kāṭhī f. ʻ wood ʼPa. Pk. kaṭṭha -- n. ʻ wood ʼ(CDIAL 3120).

Sign 37 Hieroglyph: WPah.kṭg. ṭōṭ ʻ mouth ʼ.WPah.kṭg. thótti f., thótthəṛ m. ʻ snout, mouth ʼ, A. ṭhõt(phonet. thõt) (CDIAL 5853).

Rebus:

tutthá n. (m. lex.), tutthaka -- n. ʻ blue vitriol (used as an eye ointment) ʼ Suśr., tūtaka -- lex. 2. *thōttha -- 4. 3. *tūtta -- . 4. *tōtta -- 2. [Prob. ← Drav. T. Burrow BSOAS xii 381; cf. dhūrta -- 2 n. ʻ iron filings ʼ lex.]1. N. tutho ʻ blue vitriol or sulphate of copper ʼ, B. tuth.2. K. thŏth, dat. °thas m., P. thothā m.3. S.tūtio m., A. tutiyā, B. tũte, Or. tutiā, H. tūtā, tūtiyā m., M. tutiyā m.

4. M. totā m.(CDIAL 5855) Ka. tukku rust of iron; tutta, tuttu, tutte blue vitriol. Tu. tukků rust; mair(ů)suttu, (Eng.-Tu. Dict.) mairůtuttu blue vitriol. Te. t(r)uppu rust; (SAN) trukku id., verdigris. / Cf. Skt. tuttha- blue vitriol (DEDR 3343).

Sign 2: dula 'pair' Rebus: dul 'cast metal' + कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman' Alternative: kāṭi 'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench. Thus furnace for metal casting. koḍ 'one' Rebus: koḍ 'workshop'. Thus, steersman OR furnace workshop.

Ligature: harrow

Ligatures: harrow + notch (between legs) Allographs: Signs 18, 39

Sign 18: खांडा [ khāṇḍā ] m A jag, notch, or indentation (as upon the edge of a tool or weapon)(Marathi). Rebus: kāṇḍa ‘tools, pots and pans and metal-ware’ (Marathi) + कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman' Alternative: kāṭi 'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench. Thus, steersman or furnace for metalware castings of unsmelted, native metal.

Ligature component in hieroglyph 'harrow'

Sign 19: aḍar 'harrow'; rebus: aduru 'native unsmelted metal’ (Kannada) + कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman' Alternative: kāṭi 'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench. Thus, steersman OR furnace for native metal.

Sign 20: खांडा [ khāṇḍā ] m A jag, notch, or indentation (as upon the edge of a tool or weapon)(Marathi). Rebus: kāṇḍa ‘tools, pots and pans and metal-ware’ (Marathi) + कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman' Alternative: kāṭi 'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench. Thus, steersman OR furnace for metalware castings of unsmelted, native metal.

Ligature hieroglyph 'currycomb'

kSign 38: hareḍo = a currycomb (Gujarati) खरारा [ kharārā ] m ( H) A currycomb. 2 Currying a horse. (Marathi) Rebus: करडा [karaḍā] Hard from alloy--iron, silver &c. (Marathi) kharādī ‘ turner’ (Gujarati) कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman' Alternative: kāṭi 'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench. Thus, steersman OR fireplace for hard alloy metal.

Ligature hieroglyph 'foot, anklet'

Sign 40: toṭi bracelet (Tamil)(DEDR 3682). Jaina Skt. (IL 20.193) toḍaka- an

anklet (Sanskrit) khuṭo ʻ leg, foot ʼ, °ṭī ʻ goat's leg ʼ Rebus: khōṭā ‘alloy’ (Marathi) Rebus: tuttha 'copper sulphate' + कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman' Alternative: kāṭi 'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench. Thus steersman (of) OR smelted copper sulphate alloy.

Ligature hieroglyph 'rimless pot + ladle'

Sign 34:

muka ‘ladle’ (Tamil)(DEDR 4887) Rebus: mū̃h ‘ingot’ (Santali) baṭa = a kind of iron (G.) baṭa = rimless pot (Kannada) Thus, iron ingot.+ कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman' Alternative: kāṭi 'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench. Thus, steersman OR iron ingot furnace.

Ligatures: rimless pot + hollow or ingot

Sign 32: baṭa = rimless pot (Kannada) Rebus: baṭa = a kind of iron (G.)+ कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman' Alternative: kāṭi 'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench. Thus, steersman OR iron furnace

Sign 33: As for Sign 32 + dulo 'hole' Rebus: dul 'cast metal' Thus, furnace iron castings.

Ligatures: rimless pot + dance step

Ligatures: rimless pot + wire mesh

Sign 44: meṭ sole of foot, footstep, footprint (Ko.); meṭṭu step, stair, treading, slipper (Te.)(DEDR 1557). Rebus: meḍ ‘iron’(Munda); मेढ meḍh‘merchant’s helper’(Pkt.) meḍ iron (Ho.) meṛed-bica = iron stone ore, in contrast to bali-bica, iron sand ore (Munda) + कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman' Alternative: kāṭi 'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench. Thus, steersman OR iron furnace.

Sign 35: baṭa = rimless pot (Kannada) Rebus: baṭa = a kind of iron (G.)+ कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman' Alternative: kāṭi 'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench + akho m. ʻmesh of a netʼ Rebus: L. P. akkhā m. ʻ one end of a bag or sack thrown over a beast of burden ʼ; Or. akhā ʻ gunny bag ʼ; Bi. ākhā, ã̄khā ʻ grain bag carried by pack animal ʼ; H. ākhā m. ʻ one of a pair of grain bags used as panniers ʼ; M. ã̄khā m. ʻ netting in which coco -- nuts, &c., are carried ʼ, ā̆khẽ n. ʻ half a bullock -- load ʼ (CDIAL 17) అంకెము [ aṅkemu ] ankemu. [Telugu] n. One pack or pannier, being half a bullock load. Thus, steersman OR a consignment or packload of furnace iron castings.

Ligature: warrior + ficus religiosa

Sign 17: loa ‘ficus religiosa’ Rebus: lo ‘iron’ (Sanskrit) PLUS unique ligatures: लोखंड [lōkhaṇḍa ] n (लोह S) Iron. लोखंडाचे चणे खावविणें or चारणें To oppress grievously.लोखंडकाम [ lōkhaṇḍakāma ] n Iron work; that portion (of a building, machine &c.) which consists of iron. 2 The business of an ironsmith.लोखंडी [ lōkhaṇḍī ] a (लोखंड) Composed of iron; relating to iron. (Marathi)bhaṭa ‘warrior’ (Sanskrit) Rebus: baṭa a kind of iron (Gujarati). Rebus: bhaṭa ‘furnace’ (Santali) Thus, together, th ligatured hieroglyph reads rebus: loa bhaṭa ‘iron furnace’

Ligature 'armed body stature' or 'horned body stature'

Sign 8:bhaṭa ‘warrior’ (Sanskrit) Rebus: baṭa a kind of iron (Gujarati). Rebus: bhaṭa ‘furnace’ (Santali) + कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman' Alternative: kāṭi 'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench. Thus, steersman OR furnace for a kind of iron.

Ligatures: two curved lines

Sign 9: Read rebus as for Sign 8 PLUS Ligature hieroglyphs of two curved lines

dula 'pair' Rebus: dul 'cast metal + ()kuṭila ‘bent’ CDIAL 3230 kuṭi— in cmpd. ‘curve’, kuṭika— ‘bent’ MBh. Rebus: kuṭila, katthīl = bronze (8 parts copper and 2 parts tin) [cf. āra-kūṭa, ‘brass’ (Sanskrit) +bhaṭa ‘warrior’ (Sanskrit) Rebus: baṭa a kind of iron (Gujarati). Rebus: bhaṭa ‘furnace’ (Santali) +कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman' Alternative: kāṭi 'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench. Thus, steersman OR furnace bronze castings.

Ligature hieroglyph: 'roof' Allograph: Sign 10

Sign 5: mūdh ʻ ridge of roof ʼ (Assamese)(CDIAL 10247) Rebus: mund 'iron' + कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman' Alternative: kāṭi 'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench. Thus, steersman OR furnace for iron.

Ligature hieroglyph 'flag'

Sign 4: koḍi ‘flag’ (Ta.)(DEDR 2049). Rebus 1: koḍ ‘workshop’ (Kuwi) Rebus 2: khŏḍ m. ‘pit’, khö̆ḍü f. ‘small pit’ (Kashmiri. CDIAL 3947). + कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman' Alternative: kāṭi 'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench. Thus, steersman OR furnace workshop.

Sign 16:dula 'two' Rebus: dul 'cast metal' + + कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman' Alternative: kāṭi 'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench +koḍi ‘summit of mountain' (Tamil). Thus, furnace for metal casting. mēḍu height, rising ground, hillock (Kannada) Rebus: mẽṛhẽt, meḍ ‘iron’ (Munda.Ho.) Thus,steersman OR iron metal casting. The ligaured hieroglyph of Sign 11 is a ligature with two mountain peaks. Hence dul meḍ ‘iron casting’

Ligature hieroglyph 'paddy plant' or 'sprout'

kolmo ‘paddy plant’ Rebus: kolami ‘smithy, forge’ Vikalpa: mogge ‘sprout, bud’ Rebus: mū̃h ‘ingot’ (Santali) dolu ‘plant of shoot height’ Rebus: dul ‘cast metal’ + कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman' Alternative: kāṭi 'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench. Thus steersman OR furnace smithy or ingot furnace.

Ligature hieroglyph: 'three short strokes on a slanted stroke'

Signs 23, 24: dula 'two' Rebus: dul 'cast metal' dhāḷ ‘a slope’; ‘inclination of a plane’ (G.); ḍhāḷiyum = adj. sloping, inclining (G.) Rebus: ḍhālako = a large metal ingot (G.) ḍhālakī = a metal heated and poured into a mould; a solid piece of metal; an ingot (Gujarati) + कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman' Alternative: kāṭi 'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench' Thus ingot furnace for castings. Three short strokes: kolom 'three' Rebus: kolami 'smithy, forge'. Thus it is a place where artisans work with steersman OR furnace for metal castings.

Ligatures: Worshipper + rimless pot + scarf (on pigtail)

Signs 45, 46: A variant of ‘adorant’ hieroglyph sign is shown with a ‘rimless, broad-mouthed pot’ which is baṭa read rebus:bhaṭa ‘furnace’. If the ‘pot’ ligature is a phonetic determinant, the gloss for the ‘adorant’ is bhaṭa ‘worshipper’. If the ‘kneeling’ posture is the key hieroglyphic representation, the gloss is eragu ‘bow’ Rebus: erako ‘moltencast copper’. Thus moltencast copper furnace. + dhaṭu m. (also dhaṭhu) m. ‘scarf’ (Western Pahari) (CDIAL 6707) Rebus: dhatu ‘minerals’ (Santali). Thus Sign 46 read rebus: moltencast copper minerals furnace.

Hieroglyphs: backbone + four short strokes

Signs 47, 48: baraḍo = spine; backbone (Tulu) Rebus: baran, bharat ‘mixed alloys’ (5 copper, 4 zinc and 1 tin) (Punjabi) +

gaṇḍa ‘four’ Rebus: kaṇḍ ‘fire-altar’. Thus, Sign 48 reads rebus: bharat kaṇḍ ‘fire-altar’, furnace for mixed alloy called bharat(copper, zinc, tin alloy),

‘Backbone, spine’ hieroglyph: baraḍo = spine; backbone; the back; baraḍo thābaḍavo = lit. to strike on the backbone or back; hence, to encourage; baraḍo bhāre thato = lit. to have a painful backbone, i.e. to do something which will call for a severe beating (Gujarati)bārṇe, bāraṇe = an offering of food to a demon; a meal after fasting, a breakfast (Tulu) barada, barda, birada = a vow (Gujarati)bharaḍo a devotee of S’iva; a man of the bharaḍā caste in the bra_hman.as (Gujarati) baraṛ = name of a caste of jat- around Bhaṭiṇḍa; bararaṇḍā melā = a special fair held in spring (Punjabi) bharāḍ = a religious service or entertainment performed by a bharāḍi_; consisting of singing the praises of some idol or god with playing on the d.aur (drum) and dancing; an order of aṭharā akhād.e = 18 gosāyi_ group; bharād. and bhāratī are two of the 18 orders of gosāyi_ (Marathi).

Division of responsibilities in a janapada: बलुतेदार or बलुता (p. 567) [ balutēdāra or balutā ] or त्या m (बलुतें &c.) A public servant of a village entitled to बलुतें. There are twelve distinct from the regular Governmentofficers पाटील, कुळकरणी &c.; viz. सुतार, लोहार, महार, मांग (These four constitute पहिली or थोरली कास or वळ the first division. Of three of them each is entitled to चार पाचुंदे, twenty bundles of Holcus or the thrashed corn, and the महार to आठ पाचुंदे); कुंभार, चाम्हार, परीट, न्हावी constitute दुसरी or मधली कास orवळ, and are entitled, each, to तीन पाचुंदे; भट, मुलाणा, गुरव, कोळी form तिसरी or धाकटी कास or वळ, and have, each, दोन पाचुंदे. Likewise there are twelve अलुते or supernumerary public claimants, viz. तेली, तांबोळी, साळी, माळी, जंगम, कळवांत, डवऱ्या, ठाकर, घडशी, तराळ, सोनार, चौगुला. Of these the allowance of corn is not settled. The learner must be prepared to meet with other enumerations of the बलुतेदार (e. g. पाटील, कुळ- करणी, चौधरी, पोतदार, देशपांड्या, न्हावी, परीट, गुरव, सुतार, कुंभार, वेसकर, जोशी; also सुतार, लोहार, चाम्हार, कुंभार as constituting the first-class and claiming the largest division of बलुतें; next न्हावी, परीट, कोळी, गुरव as constituting the middle class and claiming a subdivision of बलुतें; lastly, भट, मुलाणा, सोनार, मांग; and, in the Konkan̤, yet another list); and with other accounts of the assignments of corn; for this and many similar matters, originally determined diversely, have undergone the usual influence of time, place, and ignorance. Of the बलुतेदार in the Indápúr pergunnah the list and description stands thus:--First class, सुतार, लोहार, चाम्हार, महार; Second, परीट, कुंभार, न्हावी, मांग; Third, सोनार, मुलाणा, गुरव, जोशी, कोळी, रामोशी; in all fourteen, but in no one village are the whole fourteen to be found or traced. In the Panḍharpúr districts the order is:--पहिली or थोरली वळ (1st class); महार, सुतार, लोहार, चाम्हार, दुसरी or मधली वळ (2nd class); परीट, कुंभार, न्हावी, मांग, तिसरी or धाकटी वळ (3rd class); कुळकरणी, जोशी, गुरव, पोतदार; twelve बलुते and of अलुते there are eighteen. According to Grant Duff, the बलतेदार are सुतार, लोहार, चाम्हार, मांग, कुंभार, न्हावी, परीट, गुरव, जोशी, भाट, मुलाणा; and the अलुते are सोनार, जंगम, शिंपी, कोळी, तराळ or वेसकर, माळी, डवऱ्यागोसावी, घडशी, रामोशी, तेली, तांबोळी, गोंधळी. In many villages of Northern Dakhan̤ the महार receives the बलुतें of the first, second, and third classes; and, consequently, besides the महार, there are but nine बलुतेदार. The following are the only अलुतेदार or नारू now to be found;--सोनार, मांग, शिंपी, भट गोंधळी, कोर- गू, कोतवाल, तराळ, but of the अलुतेदार & बलुते- दार there is much confused intermixture, the अलुतेदार of one district being the बलुतेदार of another, and vice versâ. (The word कास used above, in पहिली कास, मध्यम कास, तिसरी कास requires explanation. It means Udder; and, as the बलुतेदार are, in the phraseology of endearment or fondling, termed वासरें (calves), their allotments or divisions are figured by successive bodies of calves drawing at the कास or under of the गांव under the figure of a गाय or cow.)

Ta. kōl stick, staff, branch, arrow. Ma. kōl staff, rod, stick, arrow. Ko. ko·l stick, story of funeral car. To. kw&idieresisside;s̱ stick. Ka. kōl, kōlu stick, staff, arrow. Koḍ. ko·lï stick. Tu. kōlů, kōlu stick, staff. Te. kōla id., arrow; long, oblong; kōlana elongatedness, elongation; kōlani elongated. Kol. (SR.) kolā, (Kin.) kōla stick. Nk. (Ch.) kōl pestle. Pa. kōl shaft of arrow. Go. (A.) kōla id.; kōlā (Tr.) a thin twig or stick, esp. for kindling a fire, (W. Ph.) stick, rod, a blade of grass, straw; (G. Mu. Ma. Ko.) kōla handle of plough, sickle, knife, etc. (Voc. 988); (ASu.) kōlā stick, arrow, slate-pencil; (LuS.) kola the handle of an implement. Konḍa kōl big wooden pestle. Pe. kōl pestle. Manḍ. kūl id. Kui kōḍu (pl. kōṭka) id. Kuwi (F.) kōlū (pl. kōlka), (S. Su.) kōlu (pl. kōlka) id. Cf. 2240 Ta. kōlam (Tu. Te. Go.). / Cf. OMar. (Master) kōla stick. (DEDR 2237)

Note: कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs',rebus: karṇika 'helmsman''guild-master' has to be distinguished from

Daimabad seal

कर्णक karṇaka'rim of jar' rebus: karaṇa. 1. Village accountantship; கிராமக்கணக்குவேலை. 2. Village accountant; கிராமக்கணக்கன். kāraṇika m. ʻ teacher ʼ MBh., M. kārṇī m. supercargo of a ship (a representative of the ship's owner on board a merchant ship, responsible for overseeing the cargo and its sale.)

Ligatures: water-carrier + lid of pot

Sign 14: kuṭi ‘water-carrier’ Rebus: kuṭhi

‘smelter/furnace’+ कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman' Alternative kāṭi 'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench + aḍaren ‘lid of pot’ Rebus: aduru ‘unsmelted, native metal’ + Alternative: kāṭi 'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench. Thus furnace for aduru, unsmelted, native metal. Thus, steersman OR furnace-smelter for unsmelted, native metal.

Ligature: water-carrier

Sign 12: kuṭi ‘water-carrier’ Rebus: kuṭhi ‘smelter/furnace’+ कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman' Alternative: kāṭi 'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench. Thus, steersman OR smelter furnace.

Ligatures: water-carrier (as in Sign 12) + rim of jar

Ligature: rim of jar Rebus: kanda kanka 'fire-trench account, karṇi supercargo' Tu. kandůka, kandaka ditch, trench. Te. kandakamu id. Konḍa kanda trench made as a fireplace during weddings. Pe.kanda fire trench. Kui kanda small trench for fireplace. Malt. kandri a pit. (DEDR 1214).

'rim-of-jar' hieroglyph Rebus: kanka (Santali) karṇika ‘scribe’(Sanskrit) kuṭi ‘water-carrier’ Rebus: kuṭhi ‘smelter/furnace’.+ कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman' Alternative: kāṭi'body stature; Rebus: fireplace trench. Thus, steersman OR smelter furnace account, supercargo.

Conclusion of a cryptographic excursus

Sign 15 is a hypertext composed of three semantics and provides a cryptographic explanation for the functions of a helmsman as well as a supercargo:

kuṭi 'water-arrier' rebus: kuṭhi 'smelter' PLUS कर्णक karṇaka 'spread legs' Rebus: karṇika 'steersman' PLUS कर्णक karṇaka 'rim of jar' rebus: kārṇī m. supercargo of a ship (a representative of the ship's owner on board a merchant ship, responsible for overseeing the cargo and its sale.) Thus, the hypertext is a combination of the roles of a supercargo AND a helmsman for smelter (metalwork).

Conclusion 1: karṇakaकर्णक, 'two legs spread out' signifies rebus karṇika'helmsman''guild-master' on Indus Script Corpora inscriptions’

Conclusion 2: karṇakaकर्णक, 'rim-of-jar’ signifies rebus karṇi‘supercargo’ on Indus Script Corpora inscriptions कुळकरणी (p. 100) kuḷakaraṇī m (कुल& कारणी S) An officer of a village under the पांटील. His business is to keep the accounts of the cultivators with Government and all the public records.

S. Kalyanaraman
Sarasvati Research Center

April 16, 2017

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अरुन्धती leaves behind bahula. बहुल Pleiades (cluster which includes A's friend वसिष्ठः)

April 16, 2017, 7:00 pm

≫ Next: Hazy visibility of Alcor and Mizar above a height of 7 degrees above the horizon, ca. 2400 BCE

≪ Previous: karṇaka कर्णक, 'two legs spread out' signifies rebus karṇika 'helmsman''guild-master' on Indus Script Corpora inscriptions

Mirror: http://tinyurl.com/l9m6u3k

https://www.facebook.com/srini.kalyanaraman/posts/10156136074639625

On the importance of heliacal rising of stars in Indian astronomy see: http://www.insa.nic.in/writereaddata/UpLoadedFiles/IJHS/Vol51_2016_1_Art10.pdf

Heliacal Rising of Canopus in Indian Astronomy - Indian Journal of History of

Science 51.1 (2016):83-91 by S. Balachandra Rao et al. Thus, 'leaving

behind Vasishtha' by Arundhati may mean the metaphorical reference to

dimension of time, a heliacal rising of Arundhati ahead -- in time -- of Vasishtha.

The most clearly identified constellation in hundreds of Skymaps of ancient times, by eyesight is Pleiades (Krittikā) constellation. This constellation includes वसिष्ठः as one of Seven Rishi-s.

अरुन्धती तयाप्य एष वसिष्ठः पृष्ठतः कृतः is a Mahābhārata Skymap observation. The metaphor is: अरुन्धती Arundhatī keeps वसिष्ठः on her back. This means that अरुन्धती Arundhatī, the faint star companion Alcor has a heliacal rising ahead of कृत्तिका Krittikā (Pleiades) (and hence, Vasishtha) in Mahābhārata days.

This simply means अरुन्धती is brightly visible -- thanks to the remarkable eyesight of ancient Rishi-s, who marked time and calendar by Skymaps) -- ahead of kritthika (which includes वसिष्ठः).

Normally, अरुन्धती the faint star appears together with वसिष्ठः, the brighter member of the Saptarshi or Kritthika or Pleiades constellation.

There could be a time when heliacal rising of अरुन्धती occurred ahead of Pleiades constellation (maybe, during those MBh times, अरुन्धती (Alcor) was a brighter binary star of Mizar, Vasishtha, one of the six or seven stars of Pleiades or Krittikā).

This is an attestation of the remarkable eyesight of the star-gazers of ancient times, particularly, Krishna Dwaipāyana Veda Vyāsa (Black Ganga-Island dweller Vyāsa) who expresses this in metaphoric terms: अरुन्धती तयाप्य एष वसिष्ठः पृष्ठतः कृतः ; again, this means, Arundhati arose ahead of Pleaides (including Vasishtha as one of the seven saptarishi-s).

I do not think there is any indication whatsoever in this MBh observation that अरुन्धती crossed the meridian ahead of वसिष्ठः as some astronomers like Nilesh Oak seem to aver. The only fact of significance is that ancient Bharatiya had recognized Alcor and Mizar as binary stars certainly in MBh days. It will be a stretch of imagination to read anything more than this inference from the textual reference.

This note is a continuation of http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2017/04/arundhati-who-keeps-on-her-back-and.html

A semantic expansion is recorded in Apte lexicon:पृष्ठतस् ind. 1 Behind, behind the back, from be- hind; गच्छतः पृष्ठतो$न्वियात् Ms.4.154;8.3; नमः पुरस्ता- दथ पृष्ठतस्ते Bg.11.4. -2 Towards the back, back- wards; गच्छ पृष्ठतः. -3 On the back. -4 Behind the back, secretly, covertly. (पृष्ठतः कृ means 1 to place on the back, leave behind. -2 to neglect, forsake, abandon. -3 to renounce, desist from, leave off, resign; येनाशाः पृष्ठतः कृत्वा नैराश्यमवलम्बितम् H.1.124; लज्जां पृष्टतः कृत्वा K.; पृष्ठतो गम् to follow; पृष्ठतो भू 1 to stand at the back. -2 to be disregarded.)

How to figure out what Veda Vyasa meant by the metaphorical expression: अरुन्धती तयाप्य एष वसिष्ठः पृष्ठतः कृतः ?

What does the metaphor mean by saying that Vasishtha is left behind by Arundhati? The key is provided by the expression तयाप्य, i.e. तय् [p= 438,3] cl.1. °यते (pf. तेये) , to go towards (acc.) or out of (abl.) Bhat2t2. xiv , 75 and 108 ; (= ताय्) to protect Dha1tup. xiv , 6. PLUS आप्य 1 [p= 142,2]mfn. to be reached , obtainable S3Br.; (also) friendly, kind, RV. iii, 2, 6.; n. a friend RV. vii , 15 , 1

To me, this expression तयाप्य, 'friendly' is the key because there could be a time when Arundhati (Alcor) was removed 'in distance' from Mizar (Vasishtha). Though Alcor and Mizar are binary stars, in motion together, the relative distance between Alcor and Mizar might have undergone some changes over time. It is for astronomers to figure out if the distance between Alcor and Mizar remained CONSTANT or became shorter or longer distance over time on the Pleiades constellation (Ursa Major).

Notice that on this Skymap, Ursa Major (Kritthika or Pleiades, 7 star) constellation appears tilted around in anti-clockwise motion on the sky. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizar_and_Alcor#/media/File:Dipper.jpg

Did Arundhati disregard V? Did she renounce V? Did she secretivey, covertly leave V behind the back? Back in relation to what? North or West, perhaps not far from Kritthika on Skymap assuming V is part of the Pleaides cluster?

A semantic expansion is recorded in Apte lexicon:

पृष्ठतस् ind. 1 Behind, behind the back, from be- hind; गच्छतः पृष्ठतो$न्वियात् Ms.4.154;8.3; नमः पुरस्ता- दथ पृष्ठतस्ते Bg.11.4. -2 Towards the back, back- wards; गच्छ पृष्ठतः. -3 On the back. -4 Behind the back, secretly, covertly. (पृष्ठतः कृ means 1 to place on the back, leave behind. -2 to neglect, forsake, abandon. -3 to renounce, desist from, leave off, resign; येनाशाः पृष्ठतः कृत्वा नैराश्यमवलम्बितम् H.1.124; लज्जां पृष्टतः कृत्वा K.; पृष्ठतो गम् to follow; पृष्ठतो भू 1 to stand at the back. -2 to be disregarded.)

पृष्ठ [p= 647,3] n. (prob. fr. प्र-स्थ , " standing forth prominently " ; ifc. f(आ). ) the back (as the prominent part of an animal) , the hinder part or rear of anything RV. &c (पृष्ठेन- √या , with gen. , to ride on ; °ठेन- √वह् , to carry on the back ; °ठं- √दा , to give the back , make a low obeisance ; °ठे ind. behind or from behind); the upper side , surface , top , height ib. (with दिव्/अः , or न्/आकस्य , the surface of the sky , vault of heaven ; cf. घृत-प्°); N. of partic. arrangement of सामन्s (employed at the midday libation and formed from the रथंतर , बृहत् , वैरूप , वैराज , शाक्वर , and रैवत शाक्वर) TS. Br. S3rS.

पृष्ठे ind. , »पृष्ठ , behind or from behind. घृत-पृष्ठ a ‘one whose back is brilliant with ghee (esp. Agni and his horses)', RV (cited in Page 378 Col. 3 in Monier-Williams).

What does Veda Vyasa mean by the expression: अरुन्धती तयाप्य एष वसिष्ठः पृष्ठतः कृतः ?

The metaphor of 'being left behind' in MBh reference to A and V, reference reproduced below for ready reference has to be explained to show how the binary stars moved together in relation to each other.

Alcor (Arundhati) was also originally Arabic سها suhā, meaning either the ‘forgotten’ or ‘neglected’ one.; notable as a faintly perceptible companion of Mizar. (Bohigian, George M. (2008). "An Ancient Eye Test—Using the Stars". Survey of Ophthalmology. 53 (5): 536–9. doi:10.1016/j.survophthal.2008.06.009. PMID 18929764.)...With normal eyesight Alcor appears at about 12 minutes of arc from Mizar (Vasishtha)...Mizar and Alcor's proper motions show they move together (along with the other stars of the Big Dipper...-- they are members of the Ursa Major Moving Group, a mostly dispersed group of stars sharing a common birth), but it has yet to be demonstrated conclusively that they are gravitationally bound. Recent studies indicate that the Alcor binary and Mizar quadruple are somewhat closer together than previously thought: approximately 74,000 ± 39,000 AU or 0.5–1.5 light years. (Mamajek, Eric E.; Kenworthy, Matthew A.; Hinz, Philip M.; Meyer, Michael R. (2009). "Discovery of a Faint Companion to Alcor Using MMT/AO 5 $\mu$m Imaging". The Astronomical Journal. 0911: 5028. arXiv:0911.5028 Freely accessible

[astro-ph.SR]. Bibcode:2010AJ....139..919M. doi:10.1088/0004-6256/139/3/919.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizar_and_Alcor

Alcor-Vasishtha are binary stars. Was Alcor, the faint companion of bright Vasishtha, the Los Pleiade Electra? When did Vasishtha get closer to Arundhati? Was Arundhati EVER identified as part of the Pleiades cluster?

Arabic Dubhe (Kratu), Merak (Pulaha), Phekda (Pulastya), Megrez (Atri), Benetnash (Marichi) and Mizar (Vasishta) seem to refer to the Pleaides as Saptarshi, NOT seven or six sisters.

What were the Pleiades cluster called? bahula. बहुल [p= 726,2] born under the Pleiades Pa1n2. 4-3 , 33 m. अग्नि or fire L. பகுளபட்சம் pakuḷa-paṭcam

, n. < bahula +. The dark or waning fortnight; கிருஷ்ண பக்ஷம்.

Note that the word bahula is identified as an expression in Bharatiya sprachbund by

Pāṇini (ca. 6th cent. BCE)

See: http://tinyurl.com/jwlp5sd

Indus Script Corpora & अरुन्धती Arundhatī who keeps वसिष्ठः on her back and binary star (Alcor-Mizar) part of कृत्तिका Krittikā in Mahābhārata

I have already referred to the Pleiades as बहुल bahula (six or seven sisters) in Bharatiya tradition recognized in Indus Script Corpora to signify rebus: बगला bagalā m An Arab boat of a particular description (Marathi). A baghlah, bagala or baggala (Arabic: بغلة‎‎) is a large deep-sea dhow, a traditional Arabic sailing vessel. Rebus 2: బంగల (p. 857) baṅgala bangala. [Tel.] n. An oven. కుంపటి. (Telugu)

வாகுலை vākulai , n. < Vahulā. The six presiding female deities of the Pleiades; அறு மீனாகிய கார்த்திகைப்பெண்கள். (யாழ். அக.) बहुला f. pl.= कृत्तिकास् , the Pleiades Var. L. bahulā f. pl. ʻ the Pleiades ʼ VarBr̥S., °likā -- f. pl. lex. [bahulá -- ]
Kal. bahul ʻ the Pleiades ʼ, Kho. ból, (Lor.) boul, bolh, Sh. (Lor.) b*lle.(CDIAL 9195)

This seal shows only 6 star Pleiades, while other inscriptions show 7 star Pleiades.

h097 Text 4251 h097 Pict-95: Seven robed figures (with stylized twigs on their head and pig-tails) standing in a row.

Seal m 1186 Mohenjo-daro (DK 6847)Excavation No. HR 4161, National Museum of India, New Delhi.
S. Kalyanaraman
Sarasvati Research Center
April 17, 2017

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Hypertext (hieroglyphs)/Plaintext (rebus):

2. bahulā 'Pleiadesʼ rebus: bāhula बाहुल Manifold. bāhuḷa ʻarmour for the arms'

Lady of the spiked throne (Massimo Vidale 2011). Celebration of a smiths' guild. The seated person in the centre may be uṣā उषा f. morning light , dawn , morning RV. AV. xii , 2 , 45 VS. &cकृत्तिका [p= 304,3] a vehicle , cart S3Br. xiii Sch.

This seal shows only 6 star Pleiades, while other inscriptions show 7 star Pleiades.

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Heliacal Rising of Canopus in Indian Astronomy - Indian Journal of History of

Science 51.1 (2016):83-91 by S. Balachandra Rao et al. Thus, 'leaving

behind Vasishtha' by Arundhati may mean the metaphorical reference to

dimension of time, a heliacal rising of Arundhati ahead -- in time -- of Vasishtha.

The most clearly identified constellation in hundreds of Skymaps of ancient times, by eyesight is Pleiades (Krittikā) constellation. This constellation includes वसिष्ठः as one of Seven Rishi-s.

This seal shows only 6 star Pleiades, while other inscriptions show 7 star Pleiades.h097 Text 4251 h097 Pict-95: Seven robed figures (with stylized twigs on their head and pig-tails) standing in a row.

Seal m 1186 Mohenjo-daro (DK 6847)Excavation No. HR 4161, National Museum of India, New Delhi.S. KalyanaramanSarasvati Research CenterApril 17, 2017

Lady of the spiked throne (Massimo Vidale 2011). Celebration of a smiths' guild. The seated person in the centre may be uṣā उषा f. morning light , dawn , morning RV. AV. xii , 2 , 45 VS. &c

कृत्तिका [p= 304,3] a vehicle , cart S3Br. xiii Sch.

This seal shows only 6 star Pleiades, while other inscriptions show 7 star Pleiades.

h097 Text 4251 h097 Pict-95: Seven robed figures (with stylized twigs on their head and pig-tails) standing in a row.

Seal m 1186 Mohenjo-daro (DK 6847)Excavation No. HR 4161, National Museum of India, New Delhi.
S. Kalyanaraman
Sarasvati Research Center
April 17, 2017