Scam total: Rs. 910,603,234,300,000, which is equal to USD 20.23 trillion.

BANGALORE, May 4, 2013
‘UPA is 100 not out in scams’

Special Correspondent

The Bharatiya Janata Party ended its public campaign for the Assembly elections on Friday by trying to settle scores with the Congress whose national leaders have accused it of defaming Karnataka’s image by indulging in corruption.

The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government has defamed the entire country by indulging in several huge scams running into about Rs. 5.5 lakh crore, alleged BJP national general secretary and MP Ananth Kumar.
‘No moral right’

At a press conference here he released a book, 100 Still Not Out: UPA Scams, brought out by the BJP on 100 scams allegedly involving UPA government. He took serious exception to Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh and Rahul Gandhi accusing the BJP of indulging in corruption. “They don’t have any moral right to comment on us when the UPA itself has indulged in huge scams,” the MP maintained.

Mr. Ananth Kumar said the BJP had taken action against its leaders who had been indicted by the constitutionally appointed authorities. But the UPA was yet to take action against any of its leaders though several authorities, including the CAG, had indicted them, he said.

He said there was a sense of insecurity among the people of the country, both internally and externally, due to the failure of the UPA government to effectively handle several major issues, including the Chinese aggression and the fatal attack on Sarabjit Singh in a Pakistan jail. The economic crisis in the country had added to the woes of people who were already battered by the price rise, he said.

Referring to the trouble in the Congress over ticket distribution, failure by the UPA to check price rise, he claimed the situation was conducive for the BJP to retain power in the State.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/karnataka/upa-is-100-not-out-in-scams/article4681167.ece

100 Still Not Out UPA Scams

Posted May 4th, 2013 by BJP Karnataka & filed under Election 2013.


Source: http://www.bhaskar.com/article/NAT-summary-of-all-scams-since-independence-2254075.html
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2021562666400&set=a.1449784452302.59447.1463952464&type=1&theater
http://issuu.com/abhisheksingh25/docs/upa_scam_final_
http://www.facebook.com/bjpinkarnataka/app_205521576149308

 

Note: There is one problem with the suggested Non-banking Finanance Sector Development Authority. This will become another bureaucracy (under Finance Minister's control) adding to the strangulation of the unorganized non-corporate sector which is credit starved. The real solution lies in restructuring of the nation's financial-fiscal system itself to prioritise lending to the unorganized non-corporate sector (UNC Sector) through appropriate fiscal policies and directives to the financial institutions (banks, insurance companies etc.) as an integral support to the UNC Sector which is the real economic growth engine of the nation.

 

If RBI is incompetent to monitor the Non-banking Finance Sector, another Authority cannot be expected to gain more competence. One fiscal measure which can promote the growth of non-banking finance sector is recognizing the role of households which bear the burden of social security (care of the elderly), education of extended family members by mandating tax exemptions to such tax payees of extended families (including Hindu Undivided Families).

 

This means the government should be governed by the traditions of dharma which have stood the test of time through family-based and extended family-based institutions called s'reni which have traditionally been the economic bulwark of the nation for millennia. Such a move will certainly free the governments from having to undertake social security schemes of the type formulated in the so-called developed economies of Europe and America which are now in the doldrums.

 

Kalyanaraman

 

http://prof-vaidyanathan.com/2013/05/15/why-growth-has-stalled-and-its-not-what-the-fm-is-telling-us/  

   

Why growth has stalled – and it’s not what the FM is telling us  

May 15, 2013 · by First Post                                                                                                                                                                                   Prof Vaidyanathan ·  

The growth rate of our economy has declined from around 8 percent in the mid part of decade to nearly 5.5 percent and expected to be around 6.3 percent in this fiscal. Many an expert is breaking the head to find the reasons for the slowdown in growth. The government economists like Rangarajan and Raguram Rajan ascribe this to global slowdown as well as delayed decisions in acquiring land and providing clearances for major infrastructural projects. They are right but only to a very small extent.

The main growth in our economy has come about due to service sector whose share in GDP is around 65%. Whenever the term ‘service sector’ is mentioned, the immediate recall is IT and companies like Infosys or Wipro. Factually, all software related activities come under business services, which itself is less than 5% per cent of our National Income. The service sector covers a much larger canvas and this sector is the fastest growing sector in our economy, generating scope for large-scale employment. We have mentioned the activities, which constitute the service sector in Table-1. We observe that this sector encompasses diverse activities carried on by large multinationals as well as roadside entrepreneurs.  Normally construction is included in the secondary sector along with manufacturing in developed countries. But given the labor intensive construction and major single house construction by smaller contractors, we have included it in service sector; National statistical commission has included construction as part of service sector.  

  

   

Note: We have considered “Construction” as part of the service sector in our discussion even though sometimes, it is considered as part of the “Secondary sector”. See “Report of the National Statistical Commission”, [NSC] PP 186, Vol II August 2001. Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, New Delhi.

We find that the service sector had a share of 60% in 2004-05 which increased to nearly 65 % of the GDP and it has grown[CAGR]  by 17% during 2004/05 to 2011-12 (current prices) which is higher than that of industry at 15 % and overall growth rate of 16 % . We find that service sector has larger share as well as greater growth during the last seven years. See table-2.

  

Among the service sector we find that  1)construction 2) trade  3)hotels and restaurant 4) Non-Railway transport  5)business services and 6)other services  are major components and in each of them non-corporate sectors namely Partnership / Proprietorship and household  enterprises dominate. The share of what is called as “unorganized” sectors in these activities  is nearly 80 % in  non-railway transport in 2010-11 and 77% in trade hotels and restaurant .Real Estate and business services also have share of more than 65% and it has declined from around 74% in 2004-05—See table-3     We find that there is significant decline in the growth rate [CAGR] of unorganized manufacturing from 10 % during 04/05 to 07/08 to 4% in 07/08 to 11/12. Similar is the case of construction from 11 % to 7 % trade from 10 % to 8% and restaurants from 15% to 2%. Non-Railway transport fell from 9 to 7 percent and of Course total NDP growth rate itself fell from 9.4% to 7.4 %.—See table-4      Data on Bank credit categorizes “unorgansed” sector under household sector.. It consists of Partnership, Proprietorship concerns, joint families, associations, clubs, Societies, trusts, groups and individuals for all accounts. Their share of bank credit which was nearly 60% in the early nineties has become 33 % in 2010 showing a consistent decline. The share of corporate sector has gone up from around 30% to 49% and Government from 10% to 20%. As can be seen from table-5     It is interesting that the corporate sector which has less than 12 percent of our national income gobbles up nearly half of the bank credit. Even though the unorganized or non-corporate sector is fastest growing its credit needs are not met by the banking sector but by private money lenders etc. and the cost of borrowing us as high as 5 to 6 % per month-namely around 70 % per annum.  In other words the most productive and growing sectors of our economy are starved of bank credit so that they depend on money lenders and other such sources including Saradha type enterprises! We estimate that more than 70 percent of retail trade needs are met by money lenders /chits etc. in 2010/11.The crony capitalists who default bank loans get larger share for their wasteful expenditure. Also, our small entrepreneurs get credit from money lenders using Gold as collateral. Because of declining credit from Bank channels they have to depend more on gold whose demand have shot up. Instead of meeting the credit requirements of our Kirana stores we find that our Finance Minister is going around with a begging bowl to New York and Tokyo for FII funds.  An aura has been created that FII and FDI are the Anna Lakshmi for us even though in the last decade they have only been around 6 to 8 % of our investment needs. Our Kiranas and Udupi restaurants and one truck operators and barbers /plumbers/masons and small time contractors are crying for credit at reasonable rates. But we will not bother about them. . They are not the sophisticated to argue in CII and FICCI conferences They are pan chewing, dhoti clad and English illiterate entrepreneurs. They are the real engines of our economic growth. The slowdown is directly linked to the choking of these activities. The huge black money generated in our economy used to be partly financing them. Now that has also been dried up since that money is more in to real estate and gold. It is imperative we look at the credit starvation of these groups and the regulatory strangulation with concomitant bribes to understand the slowdown in our economy The solutions are not in New York or Paris but have to be found out from Kottayam to Kohima and Ahmedabad to Agartala about the credit starved productive sectors. We will find more Saradha institutions going through the cycle of rise and fall unless we understand our reality without the lens of Harvard and Wharton. The solution is to create a separate body to develop Non-banking Finance Sector [NBFS] and free it from RBI as well as the bureaucratic clutches of State Governments. RBI hands are full and so no point in complaining that it is not alert about millions of non-bank sources and uses and some time abuses. The NBFS developmental authority  should primarily focus on the development of partnership and proprietorship firms in the economy by appropriate credit and lesser strangulating regulations. Will our Mandarins and Minsters who are searching for solutions in salubrious climates abroad shift their focus to India inside?

 

 

The author is Professor IIMB-Views personal

	A Dravidian Etymological Dictionary (DEDR) (1984), Burrow, T., and Emeneau, M. B. (eds.), Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2nd ed.
	Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions (CISI) (1987), vol. 1, Joshi, Jagat Pati and Parpola, Asko (eds.), Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Helsinki.
	Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions (CISI) (1991), vol. 2, Shah, S. G. M., and Parpola, Asko (eds.), Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Helsinki.
	Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions (CISI) (2010), vol. 3.1, Parpola, Asko, Pande, B. M., and Koskikallio, Petteri (eds.), Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Helsinki.
	Englund, R. K., and Gregoire, J-P (1991), The Proto-Cuneiform Texts from Jamdet Nasr, Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin.
	Gardiner, A. H. (1927), Egyptian Grammar: Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
	Hultzsch, E. (ed.) (1991), Inscriptions of Asoka, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, vol. I, reprint, Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi.
	Lal, B. B. (1960), “From the Megalithic to the Harappa: Tracing Back the Graffiti on Pottery,” Ancient India, 16, pp. 4–24.
	Mahadevan, Iravatham (1977), The Indus Script: Texts, Concordance and Tables, Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi.
	Tamil Lexicon (1982), University of Madras, Madras.
	Wheeler, Mortimer (1960), The Indus Civilization, second edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2nd ed.

See: http://www.sanskrit.nic.in/SSOI/ssoi5.pdf Sanskrit studies in Italy by Prof. Oscar Botto

http://www.indologica.com/volumes/vol21-22/vol21-22_art04_BOTTO.pdfAbout the latest Sanskrit and Indological studies in Italy by Oscar Botto, in: Indologica Taurinensia, 1995-1996, vols 21-22pp. 27-76

journal.uwest.edu/index.php/hljhb/article/download/153/151The Turin Oriental tradition and the CESMEO's contribution to Indological studies by Irma Piovano in: Hsi Lai Journal of Humanistic Buddhism, pp.448 to 462

http://www.sjp.ac.lk/research/pdf/1003-Gangodawila-GermanFrenchSanskrit.pdfTo what extent German and French scholars contributed to Sanskrit studies by Ven. Gangodawila Chandima, Univ. of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka chandima1984@gmail.com

Professor Gorresio occupied the first Chair for Sanskrit in Italy at the University of Turin. It was to his credit that the Eastern version of Valmiki Ramayana was published in ten volumes, with Italian translation, Introduction and Notes as early as 1843-67. King Albert of Italy extended the necessary financial support for the great work. The edition by Gorresio has been unavailable for several decades and it is little known in India. India heritage Trust with painstaking effort has brought at the original ten volume set in eight volumes.

Most Indians have heard of the many English Orientalists like William Jones (responsible for the classification of the Indo-European language group) or Richard Burton who translated the One Thousand and One Nights. Few, however, would have heard of the Italian Prof. Gaspare Gorresio, who occupied the first chair of Sanskrit at the University of Torino (Turin). Neither would I have heard of him, if it hasn't been for the fact that a colleague handed me the collected Prefaces of each of the books, of Prof. Gorresio's definitive edition of the Valmiki Ramayana. The ever reliable Wikipedia fails miserably in this regard, though there is some more information in the Italian version of Wikipedia on this entry. The Italian Embassy, Delhi web page also contains some basic information about Gorresio.

The first complete printed edition of the Valmiki Ramayana (as well as a translation into Italian) was published in Paris during 1843-1867. After several years of study under the great French Sanskritist E. Burnouf, Gorresio undertook to compile a critical edition of the monumental Sanskrit poem, the Ramayana in the original Sanskrit, together with an Italian translation. Of the two existing collection of manuscripts, the Northern and the Bengali or Gauda, he chose the Gauda because it was believed to be more ancient and also considered superior in artistic merit. The first volume was published in 1843 and the remaining six volumes were completed by 1867. The critical edition along with the Italian translation formed an opus of 12 volumes which took Gorresio 30 years to finish. This edition was published by the Imprimerie Nationale in Paris, with Devanagari characters specially made for the occasion.

In the 1980's, The Indian Heritage Trust reprinted this edition of the Ramayana, along with the publication of the volume of Prefaces, which for the first time was translated into English by Prof. Oscar Botto, the present successor to Prof. Gorresio in the Sanskrit Chair at the University of Torino. This is the volume which is now lying on my table and from which I have gleaned these salient facts.

Unfortunately this volume of Prefaces is no longer easily available. The original Ramayana of Gorresio is however available from Samata Books though I have not tried to get it for myself. In a sense, the book of Prefaces provides a pleasant introduction to the origins, sources, historicity and mythological origins of the Valmiki Ramayana, (though his insistence on dating the historicity of the Ramayana to the 13th century BCE and claiming that Valmiki and Rama were contemporaries, are, I think no longer tenable). The only place I have found it is on Amazon where it is available at an exorbitant price.

http://www.valmikiresearch.com/Dr.G.Gorresio.htm

Book Description
Publication Date: 1986
Pages: 181

Foreword

Valmiki Ramayana, edited by Prof. Gaspare Gorresio, is as fascinating the its beautiful typography as it is scholarly in its Prefaces and Notes. Prof. Gorresio occupied the first chair for Sanskrit in Italy, at the University of Turin.

This, the first complete printed edition of the "Poem of India", was published at Paris during 1843-67. The Indian Heritage Trust completes its self-chosen task of reprinting this edition of Ramayana with the publication of this volume of Preface by Prof. Gorresio translated for the first time. We are grateful to Prof. Oscar Botto, the present successor of Prof. Gorresio in the Sanskrit Chair at the University of Turin, who has translated these prefaces from Italian into English at the request of the Trust.

The facsimile reprint of this edition of Valmiki Ramayana has been welcomed by scholars and laymen who have been charmed not only by the elegance of the edition buy by the different readings as well. The learned reviewer of the volumes in THE HINDU observed that this edition was based on an ancient text. It seems, that of all the recensions, this one reissued by the Trust is the closest to the original.

I take this opportunity to thank Dr. S.S. Janaki, Director, Kuppuswami Sastri Research Institute, Madras for her keen interest in the work of the Indian Heritage Trust. She has gone through this volume with care, offering her advice and suggestions, placing the Trust under a deep debt of gratitude.

Further, I wish to thank all those who have extended their generous help in this task as also the staff and management of All India Press for their wholehearted co-operation in undertaking this great work and completing it so superbly.
V.SADANAND

CONTENTS

Foreword v
Indian Heritage Trust vi
Acknowledgements ix
Gaspare Gorresio: A Biographical Note xiii

http://www.amazon.com/Valmiki-Ramayana-Gaspare-Gorresio-Oscar/dp/B008RXXQQ2

The Valmiki Ramayana Translation Project

Sunday, September 14, 1997, Los Angeles Times


The Curse of Valmiki
By Jefferey Moussaieff Mason


On a bright sunny morning about 3,000 years ago, an Indian holy man who went by the unusual name of Valmiki, "Son of the Termite Mound," set out through the woodlands for his morning bath on the banks of the Tamasa River in North Central India. As he approached the water, his attention was caught by the sight of a pair of Sarus cranes in the rapture of their
mating dance. But as the sage observed this charming scene, a tribal hunter, taking advantage of the birds' absorption in the joy of lovemaking, felled the male with his arrow.


Seeing the wounded creature writhing in its blood and hearing the piteous wailing of its bereaved mate, Valmiki, normally a paragon of emotional and sensual control, was suddenly swept away by a flood of emotions, by his rage at the hunter and, above all, his grief and compassion for the victims.


In the grip of these unfamiliar feelings, he cursed the hunter, crying: "Hunter! For killing the male of this pair of mating cranes while he was distracted at the height of sexual passion you will soon die!"


Curses of this kind, invoked by spiritual adepts against those who have annoyed them, are a commonplace of traditional Indian literature. But the curse of Valmiki was different. It differed not in substance but in form.

As the wonder-struck sage himself observed: "Fixed in metrical quarters, each with a like number of syllables, and fit for the accompaniment of stringed and percussion instruments, the utterance that I produced in this access of grief [Sanskrit shoka], shall be called poetry [Sanskrit shloka], and nothing else."


Returning to his ashram, still lost in grief and amazement over these events, Valmiki is visited by the great creator, Lord Brahma, for whom he sings once more his musical curse. The god tells him that it was through his divine inspiration that Valmiki has been able to create this poetry, and Brahma explains his purpose in granting it.


Brahma reminds Valmiki that earlier that morning, the holy man had heard from the lips of another sage a brief and dry narration of the tragic life and extraordinary virtues of Rama, ruler of the kingdom of Kosala, who is revered to this day by hundreds of millions as the ideal man and an earthly incarnation of the supreme divinity. The god then commissions the sage to compose a great epic poem to celebrate and popularize the history of Rama and his long-suffering wife, Sita.


The result, the monumental epic the "Ramayana" ("The History of Rama"), revered for millenniums in India as the "first poem" though unfamiliar to most Westerners, remains one of the oldest and most influential works the world has seen, forming the foundation of aesthetic, social, ethical and spiritual life in innumerable versions throughout the vast sweep of Southern Asia, from Afghanistan to Bali.


The story of Brahma and Valmiki, which constitutes the framing narrative of this vast composition that is four times the length of the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" combined, is not merely a charming and thematically syntonic preamble to this tale of love, struggle and loss. For it, and the "Ramayana" itself, together form the opening argument in an extraordinary theoretical conversation about the relationship between emotion and aesthetic experience, a conversation about what literature is and how and why it moves us as it does that engaged the best minds in pre-modern India for at least the first 15 centuries of the Common Era.


It is in the story of Valmiki and how he came to compose his great oral epic that we find one of the earliest displays of the notion that the artistic process can refine and sublimate raw human emotions so that experiencing a sorrowful poem like the "Ramayana" (or, for that matter, a sad novel or film) produces a kind of aesthetic rapture uniquely linked to, yet utterly different from, the experience of real loss.


It is, in fact, in the opening chapters of this poem that we first find reference to the specific emotive-aesthetic states, or rasas, that were the most sophisticated discourse on the experience of art in any pre-modern culture, dating from the time of the ancient treatise on dramaturgy by the legendary sage, Bharata, to the complex theories of medieval Kashmiri
aestheticians such as Anandavardhana and Abhinavagupta.


Despite its unparalleled importance in Asia and its significance for exploring the relationship between art and life, the "Ramayana" of Valmiki, the oldest surviving version of this immortal tale, is hardly known in this country, except in the large and growing communities of Americans of South and Southeast Asian origin and a few academics. Even within academia, the poem, in spite of the fascinating comparative light it sheds on epic poetry and religious literature of Europe, East Asia and the Middle East, is little known outside of a handful of specialists in South and Southeast Asian studies.


Surprisingly, however, this was not always the case. Europe's first acquaintance with Sanskrit language and literature, resulting from its colonizing push into India and elsewhere and coming as it did at the critical historical juncture between the Enlightenment and the Romantic age, led, in the closing decades of the 18th and the opening decades of the 19th century, to a sort of vogue in Britain, France and especially the German states for things Indian, a phenomenon beautifully outlined by Raymond Schwab in his "The Oriental Renaissance." Scholars of that period may be familiar with Sir William Jones' raptures over the copiousness and refinement of Sanskrit, Goethe's ecstasies over the recently translated "Sakuntala of Kalidasa" and philosophers' fascination with the "Bhagavad-Gita" or the texts of Theravada Buddhism. Few, however, may now realize that the Valmiki "Ramayana" too became a favorite subject of the early Orientalists.


The work was first translated into a European language (English) by William Carey and Joshua Marshman between 1806 and 1810 and then into Latin by August Wilhelm von Schlegel between 1829 and 1838. Then it was translated into Italian by Gaspare Gorresio between 1843 and 1858 and into French by Alfred Roussel between 1903 and 1909. Ralph Griffith prepared a translation in Longfellowesque English rhymed verse between 1870 and 1874, and M.N. Dutt supervised the production of an archaic English translation between 1891 and 1894. More recent complete English translations of the poem were prepared by Hari Prasad Shastri in 1957 and N. Raghunathan in 1982.

The problem with these older translations is that most are inaccessible and virtually unreadable. All are based on one or another of the printed versions of the two major regional recensions of the poem and are subject to the same textual problems of their originals. Finally, the existing translations have at best only a sketchy annotation and introduction,hopelessly inadequate to a work of such encyclopedic scope and cultural significance as the "Ramayana." Virtually none of them, for example, has made a serious attempt to read and weigh the learned opinions of more than, at most, one of the numerous and copious Sanskrit commentaries the poem has inspired.


Now, at last, we have access to a new collaborative translation. It is the first and only one to be based on the critically edited text prepared by scholars at the Oriental Institute at the University of Baroda, India, between 1960 and 1975, and one that, moreover, effectively addresses all of the defects of its predecessors listed above.


This massive project has been quietly carried on by a group of American and Canadian scholars under the direction of Robert Goldman, the Sarah Kailath
professor of Sanskrit and Indian studies at UC Berkeley, and his wife, Sally Sutherland Goldman, also a UC Berkeley Sanskrit scholar. Thus far, the translation consortium has completed five of the projected seven volumes of this monumental poem for a total of more than 2,300 pages of extraordinary reading. The Goldmans have prepared Volumes 1 and 5 (and will
do 7); Volumes 2 and 3 have been prepared by Sheldon Pollock, Bobrinskoy professor of Sanskrit at the University of Chicago; Volume 4 by Rosalind Lefeber of York University in Toronto; and Volume 6 by emeritus professor B.A. van Nooten of Berkeley. The recent publication of Volume 5, the "Sundarakanda," the heart of this great literary epic and the section dearest to millions in South and Southeast Asia, is an occasion for celebration.


An assessment of the significance of the "Ramayana," offered in 1919 by the literary historian A.A. Macdonell, is hardly an overstatement of the case:"Probably no work of world literature, secular in origin, has ever produced so profound an influence on the life and thought of a people as the 'Ramayana.' " It has inspired painting, film, sculpture, puppet shows, shadow plays, novels, poems, TV serials and plays. There are versions of the poem throughout Southeast Asia. It is not just a Hindu text either: There is a Buddhist retelling found in Thailand.


In fact, all Thai kings, down to this day, include Rama as one of their titles, and the ancient capital of the old Thai kings is Ayutthaya, which is named after the capital city of the Kosalan state, Ayodhya, where the poem is set. Even in East Asia, its impact, if somewhat more attenuated, is seen in a variety of texts ranging from Tibetan versions and a Chinese novel of the poem to a Japanese noh drama. Millions of people in India bear the names of the principal characters of the epic: Ram, Sita and Laksman among others. Indian legend says there are 10 million versions of the "Ramayana." That figure is not entirely hyperbole.


What is the "Ramayana"? It is a vast poem of 50,000 verses. A story of exile and self-sacrifice filled with miracles, flying monkeys, giant monsters, beings who change their shape at will, compassionate birds and
cosmic forces of good and evil, it tells the tale of Prince Rama, heir apparent to the imperial throne of the ancient kingdom of Kosala in Northern India. On the eve of his consecration as emperor, Rama is forced into exile by a wicked stepmother.


Accompanied by his faithful brother, Laksmana, and his devoted wife, Sita, he roams the forests of Central India. Just before being permitted to return to ascend the throne after 14 years of exile, he suffers yet another blow: His beloved wife is kidnapped by the 10-headed demon king of the fabled island kingdom of Lanka. Imprisoned there and tormented for her
faithfulness to Rama, she is sought out by the monkey hero Hanuman. Hanuman is a celibate talking monkey of immense physical strength, the messenger of Rama who is able to change his size from that of a small house cat to a large mountain at will. He leaps from South India to the island of Lanka. Here is how the "Ramayana" describes what he experienced there: "The sound of stringed instruments pleasing to the ear could be heard. Virtuous women slept next to their husbands, while rangers of the night whose deeds were marvelous and dreadful, set forth to take their pleasure. The wise monkey saw mansions--one after another--filled with amorous and intoxicated people, crowded with chariots, horses and golden seats, and filled with the splendor of warriors."


Then he sees the person he has come to find: "Sighing constantly, that timorous woman resembled a daughter-in-law of a serpent lord. By virtue of the vast net of sorrow spread over her, her radiance was dimmed like that of a flame of fire obscured by a shroud of smoke. She was like a blurred memory or a fortune lost." Hanuman informs Rama, and together they assemble a vast army of monkeys who build a bridge across the ocean to the island of Lanka. After a cataclysmic battle, Rama defeats Ravana and returns in triumph with his rescued bride.


In keeping with the epic theme of sorrow and separation, Rama submits to the pressure of public opinion, outraged that he has taken back a woman who has lived in another man's house. Although he knows her to be faithful, Rama exiles his queen, now pregnant with their twins, to the forest, where she is rescued by the sage Valmiki, the author of this poem, who teaches it to her twin sons. As young boys, they perform the poem before Rama, which leads to their recognition by him. He once more recalls Sita. She returns, but in a last tragic gesture, when she stands before the entire assembled population, Sita calls upon her mother, the earth goddess, to testify to her fidelity. The goddess appears and takes her long-suffering daughter into her bosom and Sita disappears, bringing the epic to its end. The readable introductions, which break new scholarly ground, are gripping and are bound to interest the ordinary reader. The translation is written in accessible contemporary English (with no thees and thous); the translation also includes portions of traditional commentaries for the first time ever and places footnotes in the back, where they will not bother the general reader. Each volume has on the cover a full-color illustration from the "Jagat Singh Ramayana," an exquisite 17th century unpublished manuscript.

In a literary universe in which the dozens of new translations of the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" that flow, uninterrupted, from the pens and word processors of scholars receive immediate and excited attention, one might assume that this far more ambitious and original undertaking, the translation of a vastly influential epic poem largely unknown in the West, would have aroused the interest of the literate public. Yet, so far as it can be determined, this translation, although it has been often praised in the scholarly journals, has barely been mentioned, let alone reviewed in any general circulation publication in spite of the fact that the first volume appeared 13 years ago.

That is a pity; but it should not be taken to suggest that this work has nothing to offer to the general reader. On the contrary, Goldman and his team of translators and the Princeton University Press have made accessible a work that offers a unique window into a rich and ancient civilization. They present a carefully contextualized and densely annotated literal translation of a text which, like the Bible or the Koran, has profoundly shaped the world we share.

The Valmiki "Ramayana" is at once a remarkable adventure story, a tale of love and war, a meditation on the conflict of emotion and duty, a mirror for kings, a model for traditional society and for hundreds of millions of Hindus in South Asia and the worldwide South Asian diaspora and a history of God made flesh. Beyond that, it is, if not literally the world's first poem, undoubtedly the first poem to speak seriously about the nature of poetry and the still unfathomed link between art and emotion. To work through this massive and haunting poem is to undertake a serious journey into another world. The translators and editors of Princeton's Library of Asian Translations are to be congratulated for opening the door for us.

- - -
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson Is the Author of "When Elephants Weep" and "Dogs Never Lie About Love." He Is a Former Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Toronto and UC Berkeley.

http://ramayana.berkeley.edu/content/latimesreview.html

IPL in crisis: Spot-fixing mastermind sitting abroad, Sreesanth likely to be booked under MCOCA

What makes Sonia Gandhi go unscathed from all the mainstream media torrent? PTI.Why this secrecy over Sonia Gandhi?
May 16, 2013

“Why is it that the mainstream media (MSM) displays, what can only be termed as pusillanimity bordering on the obsequious when it comes to Sonia Gandhi?” is the question that bounces around inside my head quite often. Occasionally it lights up my amygdala.

There is a certain docile, rebarbative and delightfully ludicrous air about the MSM each time Sonia Gandhi (or one of her family members) is in the middle of a controversy. I will not get into the impressive range of controversies that have cropped up over the years, but suffice to say that each time things came to such a pass, either the clouds blew over in wondrous haste or they rained elsewhere.

A dripping wet poodle Prime Minister is what you occasionally get, as evidenced by the recent developments surrounding Ashwani Kumar and Pawan Bansal.

After years of peddling the Our-PM-is-the-most-honest-of-them-all-in-the-entire-galaxy balderdash the MSM seems to be finally catching up with the meaning of words like integrity & accountability, as they get busy aiding and abetting – quite reflexively – some dark, unknown and easy-to-guess forces to bury the non-performing nightwatchman Prime Minister six feet under.

But the Queen continues to escapes their collective gaze. Blame Proxy-o-cracy!!

To give credit where it is due though, over the last few days, there has been a sprinkling of articles that at least attempt to ask – meekly so – a few pertinent questions along the lines of if-Sonia-is-the-fount-of-executive-power-then-should-the-buck-not-stop-with-her-on-India-becoming-a-Scamrashtra. Laying the axe to the root, if you will.

The most scathing commentary yet…

“Should Sonia Gandhi, ruler of the Congress party, be congratulated for finishing 15 years in Indian politics? It is not a sign of expertise if an heir becomes king. So why should it be different with her?” asked Surjit Bhalla in an The Indian Express piece titled‘Evaluating Sonia, the black box leader’ (March 23rd, 2013) before he drove the screw deeper: “Every political leader has been pilloried in India, and in most democracies. Pilloried for being stupid, unfit to rule and worse; yet, such questions are not raised with regard to Sonia. Our free press can make mincemeat of even decent politicians (Manmohan Singh has been variously described as spineless, a night-watchman following orders, Mumble Singh and worse) and yet the press has never even demanded that the chairperson of the Congress for 15 years hold a press conference in a language of her choosing — English, Hindi or Italian”.

Ouch! In his follow-up piece a week later ‘Message to Sonia: Reform of Perish’, he concluded his incisive commentary thus:

“Recall that Annie Besant became president of the Congress party in 1917. If Sonia Gandhi does not change, then she risks the following obituary of the party she heads: It took a white, European, socialist, woman to help create the Congress party — and it has taken a white, European, socialist, woman to destroy it more than a hundred years later.”

Ouch ouch ouch!

I acknowledge that the 7 aspects that I will now touch upon briefly – three in this Part, and four in Part 2 – are by no means either completely unknown, or constitute all that needs to be debated, discussed and perhaps put under the journalistic scanner. The purpose of this 2-part series is to act as a gentle reminder to the Indian MSM (especially TV) that the citizens are not fooled by their attempts at silence on issues surrounding Sonia Gandhi & family. Or as M.J.Akbar noted:

“That purr in the ear isn’t the music of your back being scratched, darling; it’s the crackle of your slim wallet being emptied of ethics”.

The poor little powerful Queen

Is it really true that Sonia Gandhi’s financial assets are a mere 1.37 Cr [2009 affidavit]? Let me strive for a little more exactitude, so that I am not accused of crude approximations. Take a look at the table below (source – myneta.info):

Table comparing assets of national leaders.
I leave you and your powers of incredulity – which I am certain are immense – to decide if this matter warrants further enquiry. You can access the affidavit details by clicking here. While we are on affidavits, it may well be worth your while spending a minute or two examining the affidavits of Rahul Gandhi, with special focus on the educational qualifications. The matter was discussed in greater detail by me a few months ago in a piece titled ‘Rahul Gandhi: PM-in- waiting despite all this?’

One set of rules for the slaves, another for the suzerainty

In August 2011, India Today ran a small report titled ‘What Gandhis don’t tell the Lok Sabha‘, and I quote:

It’s common courtesy for MPs to inform the secretariat about trips abroad, even if they are of a personal nature. But since June 2004, the month UPA came to power, the Congress president and her son have not bothered to inform the secretariat about any of their foreign trips.

Subsequently, two applications were filed under RTI seeking details on foreign travels of MPs and foreign travels of Sonia Gandhi – what followed was a merry-go-round involving the Lok Sabha Secretariat, Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Central Information Commission (CIC), Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and National Advisory Council’s (NAC) Central Public Information Officer.

“It is disturbing that institutions that run the government have no knowledge of the authority that can furnish details of Sonia Gandhi’s foreign travel,” noted an exasperated RTI activist. (You can read the full report here)

The curious case of Dr. Subramanian Swamy’s blog

Most of you would be familiar with the content of Dr. Swamy’s blog; those of you who have not made your acquaintance with it yet, please fire up your search engines. Whilst it is nobody’s case that every word in there is the gospel truth – and some of Dr. Swamy’s utterances on other issues may be a tad jarring to some of us – the following 2 points merit some thought:

1) If the matter presented in his blog-post(s) is untrue and borders on libel, why have the concerned parties not sued him?

2) On the other hand, if the matter holds some truth in its folds, why has the MSM never gone to town with it? Why the silence? Or is it a case of the unutterable refusing to chase the uneatable, with apologies to Oscar Wilde?
What gives?

… To be continued. Part 2 will be published here tomorrow.

shining.path.notperu@gmail.com

http://www.firstpost.com/blogs/why-this-secrecy-over-sonia-gandhi-787225.html?utm_source=mail&utm_medium=newsletter

55 comments

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Ramchi • an hour ago
Congress and Media house are hand in glove with each other. They have a convenient target called Hindus, BJP, RSS whenever they need attention. They can engineer massacre as they did in Godhra Train and ensure subsequent actions can keep their channels motivated for sometime.

Otherwise, they can provide live coverage for terrorists as they did during Kandhahar, Kargil and during Mumbai attack.
3 1 •Reply•Share ›

guest • an hour ago
You are an excellent writer but the language you use is quite complex.Please cut down those meta phrases which most dont understand and write in simple english
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aamabdul • an hour ago
OBOY!.. how can the writer be so NAIVE!! It is an unsaid fact that Sonia mummy holds all the balls in India in her white angelic palms!! Both in the alliance and the opposition. The ones without balls like the editors from CNN-IBN, NDTV, Headlines today etc. are given lollypops like Padma Bhushans, lands at cheap rates (does Raaburrt VadaPao ring any bells?), leaks from "anonymous" governments sources on the hot news items, exclusive interviews with the ministers of the Congress party etc. to keep their mouths shut. Free and Fair media my a$$!
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SachinT • an hour ago
I am convinced, that such silence in media is not due to money only but many fears interlinked & created ones. It will only take other strong leader of India to expose this family left right & centre. By heart some journos may even hate this family....all cant be sold out in this way. There is some type of fear, which is ensuring this silence.
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Raj • an hour ago
I am waiting to see if Part 2 will be published tomorrow or ........
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K Anil • an hour ago
This abnormal pusillanimity has also extended to other significant
institutions/organisations that matter.
NDA government in power tucked its tail under the hind legs when it came
to matters relating to the “Royalty”, and failed to chase quattrocchi with
grit. Even Sonia’s citizenship issue was treated with undue timidness by the
concerned institutions, particularly on the merit of holding a constitutional
office by one with no roots in Indian soil and culture (over and above the requirement
of technical citizenship). Flood lights are readily shifted off from the instances
of faux pas, mediocrities and the amateurish acts during those off guard step
outs; and instantly they are blacked out or glossed over. Even during her
rarest media interview Sonia was treated with utmost baby care.
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kalps1616 • 2 hours ago
bravo dude, please take good care of yourself!!!
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Tuzzzy • 2 hours ago
Shining buddy...just a tad blunt... but great work as always
3 •Reply•Share ›

Do_You _Mean • 2 hours ago
what about swiss bank account ?
what about Rahuls swiss bank account ?
what about other swiss bank account of in which she shse and baba is nomiee?
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tughlaq • 2 hours ago
As of 05/4/2009......
Movable Assets (only) 1.18 Cr Rs !
Immovable Assets (only) 0.2 Cr Rs !
Total (only) 1.38 Cr Rs !

For me, it is like.....kehta bhi deewana aur sunta bhi deewana.
2 •Reply•Share ›

kank • 2 hours ago
i guess she is benefiting from indian culture of not letting a bahu (the bride ) be defamed
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Raj • 2 hours ago
Shining path.....literally.....Hats off to you man....we need more articles like this......FP are you listening???
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Ajoe Samuel • 3 hours ago
bang on shinning path.... please do all thing possible to laylow and be under cover....atleast till read part 2 is published........

u cannot imagine the gore and extend SoGA can go to blanket herself n family as social defenderes of india and do-gooders...

i doubt anyone but Namo if bjp come to power, will be able to squeeze her out from the cocoon of lies and deceit and evil she has been living in and acting poor but cheating the poor
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Ravi • 3 hours ago
Good Work!
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Gs • 3 hours ago
BJP and Congress were all hand in gloves... Even as a common man we are all new this fact. The congress is the sole rich party with huge (unaccounted) money and they power to sign the cheque is solely owned by Mam and all the MPs know this fact.

And they can do any thing and go any extent to support her and protect her from anybody. Afterall "money is every thing in todays India".
2 1 •Reply•Share ›

The Comeback Kid • 3 hours ago
Unbelievable , another Banglorean trying to pass himself off as an intellectual do us a favour buddy next time, speak less vote more. Using big words is not a sign of intellect, it just signals you're trying too hard, are youovercompensating for the fact that you and you buddies messed up in Bangalore? And don't give me the whole aww shucks BJP had mis-governed , last I check those responsible were booted surely that should a good a reason as any to vote for the BJP . Unbelievable.

These type of articles do nothing, they are merely platitudes for a desperate citizenry which sits around and finds moral comfort in the low hanging fruit that is bashing a known corrupt family and part not to mention the article reeks of an attempt by the editors to draw back commentators who offered Firstpost far more than they realised.

Ego and arrogance the bane of Indian society , not to mention a lack of common sense.

Anyone who finds solace in this article is a fool. It's not as though what's written on it is news. Certainly not to me certainly not to most people
10 2 •Reply•Share ›

aamabdul The Comeback Kid • an hour ago
+10000000!!!
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Guest The Comeback Kid • 3 hours ago
Exactly my thoughts.

"There is a certain docile, rebarbative and delightfully ludicrous air..".

Try finding any of these words in any well-written blog or article. Please. You can do better.
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ViruS • 3 hours ago
There is no secrecy over Sonia Gandhi. She is really the cleanest and the poorest politician of India.

If you have any doubt you can get it investigated through CBI.
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Kumaran • 3 hours ago
This is what Gurumurthy says -

"Ironically it is Sonia’s family, not Manmohan’s, which was accused by
the popular Swiss magazine Schweizer Illustrierte [dated 19.11.1991] of
holding $2.5 billion in secret bank accounts [now worth four times that
amount]. Corporate Insider magazine in the US [dated 2.3.2012] has
listed Sonia, not Manmohan, as the world’s fourth richest politician
with estimated wealth between $2 to $19 billion."

Her assets in her legally filed affidavits are outright lies, just like what she wrote in her affidavits about her birth and education earlier. She is not secretive - she is a liar, a fraud. Rajiv Foundation or Swiss banks or Bofors or National Herald, she is a criminal by any standard. She is not prosecuted because the rowdies of congress and the govt authorities controlled by the rowdies like Chidambaram make sure complaints cannot be filed on her. If they can remove content from web which proves her criminal culpability, what can they not do?
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kaviverma Kumaran • 2 hours ago
Why doesn't BJP and the smart ar....e Swamy do some thing about it ? Gurumuthy's clean chit to Gadkari did get him some national recognition ...
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vamsi kaviverma • an hour ago
Caught with the hand in the cookie jar ain't it? You troll to death about Modi and a Single article critiquing Sonia will not be tolerated by you (Neither AAP nor BKP was in picture here) and you troll the author.
I have always suspected, there were no AAP supporters in the social media, its all Congi proxies like you from the start.
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Bogus gandhi Kumaran • 3 hours ago
Dr. Sonia goondi, double phd (corruption and lying)
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Ajoe Samuel Kumaran • 3 hours ago
i wanna do what the white folks do,
coz im white at the bottom of my feet....
i dont screw as the white folks do
i just do till what i can do.....
1 •Reply•Share ›

dinipc • 3 hours ago
You missed out on Robber Vadra's monetary affairs and clean chits offered due to Mata's presidency over the the CON party!
8 •Reply•Share ›

Indian • 3 hours ago
Oops. Rubbing eyes.
2 •Reply•Share ›

mukesh • 3 hours ago
"Part 2 will be published here tomorrow."-- hope u will there to continue the story ...
17 •Reply•Share ›

Omerta • 4 hours ago
Did you not see the movie "God Father"? A moment of mouth-opening by the elder son led to the Family being terribly neutralized.
"Omerta", they call it in Italian...."Law of Silence"...sshhhh
17 •Reply•Share ›

Moderate • 4 hours ago
On Swamy's blog--has it occured to you that maybe the Congress want to avoid giving his hysterical ravings the undue attention a lawsuit would bring?

Also, why do BJP followers like him at all? Don't you know that he viscerally hates Vajpayee, and has accused him of having several affairs etc.?
4 5 •Reply•Share ›

bulesha • 4 hours ago
"But the Queen continues to escapes their collective gaze" That's exactly the game plan, Rule the fools without any accountability. Recent website has valued her most 20 rich politician of the word worth asset of 2-5 billion & second indian featured Mrs Savita Jindal .
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anony • 4 hours ago
Paid trolls not doing their duty properly.. CONgress wasting its money..
14 •Reply•Share ›

priyabrata_tripathy • 4 hours ago
What a waste of time? The anonymous is curious to know about the fate of Swamy's blogs: I think it would be suffice to inform that nobody kicks a dead dog.
2 5 •Reply•Share ›

hitesh • 4 hours ago
you da man! super article!
13 •Reply•Share ›

VS • 4 hours ago
"A dripping wet poodle Prime Minister"....!! Hahaha...Awesome..!!
13 •Reply•Share ›

AR • 4 hours ago
Veil of secrecy is important to continue the charade. For most people in Congress, Gandhi name is very important to win votes. Hence the entire machinery would go to any lengths to keep the veil in place. BTW have you ever heard about the public/private lives of Mafiosi.....same traditions.
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Skeptic • 4 hours ago
Very daring, indeed!!
I hope it does not come to Manish Tewari's notice :-)
Btw, The Economist dated March 23,2013, has explained this secrecy surrounding "the family"in these terms:
"A mostly deferential press rarely asks tricky questions. An eminent journalist hints at why, describing how a Congress figure once tried to buy him off with a thick bundle of rupees placed in his car. He returned the cash; others presumably do not."
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Troll • 4 hours ago
that's what $30 billion can do... it can buy you spin, subterfuge & scapegoats...
19 •Reply•Share ›

sc • 4 hours ago
Great courage!! and thanks to FP for posting such articles!! every day there should be at least 5 such articles exposing this WICKED family and the party!!

Can you also write some more on the land holdings of National Herald and Young India ? People of India should know what this family is upto!!
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Neverwinter Nights • 4 hours ago
Mayawati ji ne sirf janata ke pyaar se 114 crores declare kiye?
CMs ki salary kitni hai?
IIT/IIM grads would be so jealous. CEOs would be jealous.
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Amaresh • 4 hours ago
Bravo!!.. This issue needs to be debated and must be in public domain. Hats off to you for bringing this up. Gandhi family's wealth has become a national secret. For every single deal, commission gets deposited in Swiss a/c.
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Neverwinter Nights • 4 hours ago
You brave columnist!

Reminds me of Ripley taking on the Queen mother in James Cameron's 1986 masterpiece.

You will need a flamethrower, a mechanical suit and a will of iron to take on the facehuggers that hatch out of the eggs.
24 1 •Reply•Share ›

sachin • 5 hours ago
After a very long long time,somebody wrote an article on Sonia Gandhi. I am thinking,how did it get published?
36 1 •Reply•Share ›

Guest sachin • 4 hours ago
@ shining path can i give u a big hug before u get ur ars$ee arrested and thrown in TIHAR ( ⌣́,⌣̀)\(^◡^ )
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shiningpath Guest • 4 hours ago
LOL :-(
On a serious note, there is nothing in there that is not in the public domain - just spent some time putting it all together. Links, sources cited. No speculation - just a little reminder to Barkha Winfrey and her ilk, that We The People and Face The Nation could do with some debates of a slightly different types. Am not entirely unsure that the TRP ratings will not be negatively impacted, if that is their poison!
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Neverwinter Nights sachin • 4 hours ago
I am afraid it also diminishes in entirety his chances of winning an award (for writing) in India in this life.

Or in 3000 AD where he is reborn only to find that India is still ruled by you know who.
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shiningpath • 5 hours ago
Since i wanted to save some space, i left this most fascinating "news report" out from the body of the article. A little report i read in Business Standard while in the midst of doing this 2-part series, the essence of which was:

Sonia G was wearing a light green saree when she met the Jamia students on the day she "bunked" office. She is reported to have said that late Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi was the most astute and charismatic cricket captain ever. We were also told that she arrived 10 minutes ahead of the scheduled time.

Great. That should provide guidance n leadership and take care of all social, economic, administrative and political ills that beset this country. Big thumbs-up to the MSM - punctuality, green sarees etc are indeed utterly relevant and potential gamechangers w.r.t the state of the nation :-)
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Troll shiningpath • 3 hours ago
Since you have posted the link to Surjit Bhalla's article, wonder why you don't post the link to Dr. Subramanian Swamy's blog or relevant articles in the blog? is it fear of libel from directly pedalling the uneatable?
•Reply•Share ›

Mithram shiningpath • 4 hours ago
@ shining path

Can i give u a big hug before u get ur ars$ee arrested and thrown in TIHAR
( ⌣́,⌣̀)\(^◡^ )
11 •Reply•Share ›

Troll Mithram • 3 hours ago
if Tihar is the punishment for writing against the Queen Bee then shouldn't Surjit Bhalla be in Tihar right now since he had written the article 2 months back?
1 •Reply•Share ›

Mithram Troll • 2 hours ago
it was a joke :)
•Reply•Share ›

HOW OLD IS OUR PM?
Friday, 17 May 2013 | Anup Sharma | Guwahati

By all indications, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh submitted a wrong affidavit before the Returning Officer for re-election to the Rajya Sabha in Assam on Wednesday.

In the affidavit, the Prime Minister mentioned his age as 82 years, but according to the Prime Minister’s website www.pmindia.nic.in, Singh’s date of birth is September 26, 1932. It means, the Prime Minister is 80 years and seven months old.

The Rajya Sabha website too has Manmohan Singh’s date of birth as September 26, 1932.

The first page of the affidavit the Prime Minister submitted to the returning officer along with his nomination papers for the Rajya Sabha polls reads as: “I Manmohan Singh, son of Late Shri Gurumukh Singh, aged 82 years, resident of House no 3989, Nandan Nagar, Village Sarumotoria, Guwahati 781006, a candidate at the above election, do hereby solemnly affirm and state an oath as under:”.

In contrast to the affidavit, the profile of the Prime Minister in the above mentioned website-the content of which is managed by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO)-mentioned the following: "Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was born on September 26, 1932, in a village in the Punjab province of undivided India. Dr. Singh completed his Matriculation examinations from the Punjab University in 1948…."

Incidentally, on May 7, 2007, when Singh filed his nomination papers seeking re-election to the Upper House for the fourth consecutive term, he had mentioned in his affidavit that he was "aged about 74 years". A PDF file of that affidavit is available in National Election Watch website www.myneta.info .

When the error was pointed out, Assam Legislative Assembly Secretary Gauranga Das refused to comment on the issue and only said: "The Prime Minister has submitted his papers and we have kept those. The scrutiny of the papers will take place on May 21 and we are going to check the papers on that day only."

Senior advocate of the Gauhati High Court Nekibur Zaman said: "The matter should be brought to the notice of the Election Commission of India. No one should furnish false information under the Peoples Representation Act. Singh's nomination papers may face rejection if there is false information in those."

http://www.dailypioneer.com/todays-newspaper/how-old-is-our-pm.html

Dual duties: Thu May 16 2013, 05:02 hrs

Holy Disorders

Journalists who went to meet Faridabad Archbishop Kuriakose Bharanikulangara on his invite were in for a surprise. After an 'informal' meeting, a lunch was served and before they left the venue, all of them were handed a plain white envelope. Curious, the journalists opened to find 'thank you' note, bearing the signature of the Archbishop, and a crisp Rs 1,000 note. Angered, the journalists confronted the priest who was distributing it and told him it was humiliating. All of them returned the envelopes. The Archbishop later clarified that the gesture had been misunderstood. The idea, he claimed, was to compensate the reporters, many of whom had not come in their official vehicle, for their conveyance.


http://www.indianexpress.com/news/dual-duties/1116362/0

What Cheek!

See: http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2013/05/rs-40000-cr-spot-fixing-ipl-scam-dawood.html Rs. 40,000 cr. spot-fixing IPL scam. Dawood link. PM, ban PNotes with immediate effect. Nationalise illicit wealth stashed abroad.
- Sree Shame: Police see three players fixing IPL spots, board sees little but bolt from blue
SAMYABRATA RAY GOSWAMI IN MUMBAI AND ANANYA SENGUPTA IN NEW DELHI

Santhakumaran Sreesanth, who was picked up by police on Wednesday night in Mumbai on spot-fixing charges, in tears on April 25, 2008, after he was slapped by Harbhajan Singh during an IPL match in Mohali. Sreesanth, then a Kings XI Punjab player, is now with the Rajasthan Royals

May 16: A “great comeback”, the TV commentator gushed. Hit for 14 off the first three balls of the over, Rajasthan Royals tweaker Ankeet Chavan had conceded just one from his last three.

But once the floodlit night of show and glitz passed, it all looked a little dubious in the glare of daylight. Delhi police alleged this afternoon that Chavan had deliberately bowled long hops and half-volleys to the Mumbai Indians’ Glenn Maxwell last night because bookies had paid him to concede at least 13 runs in his second over.

Job done in the first half of the over and the promised Rs 60 lakh in the bag — Delhi police commissioner Neeraj Kumar said — Chavan was free to tighten things up again, just as in his first over that had allowed only two runs.

If the commentator was fooled, not so apparently the hawk-eyed team from Delhi police’s special cell watching from the Wankhede stands. The cops didn’t miss Chavan’s alleged “signal” to the bookies before the start of the over — a discreet rotation of his wristband — Kumar said.

So, a little past midnight, began a chain of events that India’s cricket chief today described as a “bolt from the blue” — Delhi police arresting three Rajasthan Royals cricketers from Mumbai for alleged spot-fixing in three IPL matches.

Kerala pacer and Test player Santhakumaran Sreesanth, Haryana offie Ajit Chandila and Mumbai left-arm spinner Chavan are each accused of conceding a pre-determined number of runs (or more) in an over against bribes from bookies with underworld links. All of them have been remanded in police custody for five days.

Sreesanth is charged with taking Rs 40 lakh and Chavan Rs 60 lakh. Chandila, allegedly offered Rs 40 lakh, was asked to refund his Rs 20-lakh advance after failing to flash the agreed “signal”, which prevented the bookies from placing bets, the police said.

If found guilty, the trio could face jail terms of up to seven years and a life ban from cricket, police and cricket officials indicated. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has suspended the players pending an inquiry and promised the “strictest action”.

“Sreesanth was arrested from a friend’s home at Carter Road in Mumbai, Chandila outside hotel Intercontinental where some of the bookies were staying, and Ankeet was arrested from Hotel Trident (the Royals’ team hotel),” Kumar said.

A senior Mumbai police officer told The Telegraph that Rs 1.2 crore in cash was seized from the team hotel but Delhi police refused to confirm or deny this.

Name twist

Sreesanth was held with childhood buddy and alleged bookie Jiju Janardanan. Mumbai police officers who had helped Delhi police operation said the cricketer was uncharacteristically docile during the arrest.

“But he tried to be clever by giving his name as S.S. Nair to ensure that the FIR did not mention the name Sreesanth,” a Mumbai police source said. “It was meant to stave off the media and did appear to work initially.”

Nair is indeed Sreesanth’s surname. The police mistakenly put the name down as “S.S. Nayyar”, probably influenced by the spelling of a similar-sounding north Indian surname.

All three players were taken to the Marine Lines police station and an FIR was lodged around 2.30am. The trio were brought to Delhi on an early morning flight.

Their faces covered and heads lowered, the cricketers appeared one by one before Delhi chief metropolitan magistrate Lokesh Kumar to claim innocence, sources said. Sreesanth alleged he had been trapped by bookies.

The players have been charged under Indian Penal Code Sections 420 (cheating) and 120B (criminal conspiracy). They are also likely to be booked under the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, which could land them in jail without bail.

Kumar ruled out any other player’s involvement. He said 11 bookies had been held and the police were looking for three more.

The arrests are one more feather in the cap for Delhi police, who had in April 2000 ripped the veil off match-fixing in international cricket, nailing South Africa captain Hansie Cronje among others.

‘Towel’ signal

The police today provided purported audio-visual “proof” from the three IPL matches under the scanner to detail the accused bookies’ and cricketers’ modus operandi.

Kumar said the three matches were the Royals’ games of May 5, 9 and 15 against the Pune Warriors, Kings XI Punjab and the Mumbai Indians. He alleged the bookies had given the players specific “approval codes” that were used to signify a compromised over.

“In certain overs, they (the players) were supposed to give away a certain amount of runs. The bookies gave the players instructions that they have to indicate that they would give away these runs,” he said.

“The instructions were ‘put the towel in your trousers or take time setting the field or take out your locket or shirt or the vests that you are wearing’.”

Investigators say that besides phone records, they have evidence of messages passed through BBM and WhatsApp.

Sources said the police had stumbled on the spot-fixing racket while investigating an extortion case in Delhi. They then wiretapped the phones of some of the bookies, which allegedly led them to the three players.

Delhi police said they had been tracking the bookies and the three players for over two weeks.

“We had the three names but we had to get them to deliver on the promises they had made to the bookies. We got Chandila (May 5) and Sreesanth (May 9) and then were waiting for Chavan. Once we got his conversations with the bookies, we knew he would do the needful in the match against Mumbai,” Kumar said.

“Our officers were present during the matches at the stadium since the signals could have gone out during the commercial breaks,” Kumar said.

‘Underworld’ links

Mumbai officers claimed the spots were fixed at the behest of a Dawood Ibrahim-run syndicate operating from India’s betting hub of Bhavnagar in Gujarat, and was part of a bigger network spanning Mumbai, Karachi and Dubai.

Kumar, however, refused to name any particular underworld don though he confirmed an “overseas” mafia link. But some Delhi police sources indicated that at least two of the bookies arrested had worked with Dawood until recently.

Chandila was arrested from the same hotel as two alleged bookies — the Ahmedabad-based Amit Ramgivind Singh and Mannal Upendrakumar Bhatt, who were sharing Room No. 336. The other alleged bookies arrested in Mumbai are Chandresh Chandbhai Patel and Jiju.

Another Delhi police team arrested seven others from in and around the capital, including Patiala resident Deepak Kumar, Delhi-based Rakesh, and Mohinder Pal Oberoi.

Mumbai police sources said that around Rs 400 crore had been betted on every IPL match this year. “Everything, right from the match result to the number of sixes hit, was up for betting,” a source said.

Asked whether any other cricketer, Indian or foreign, was involved, Kumar said: “We have no such evidence.”

The Rajasthan Royals expressed shock.

“We are completely taken by surprise,” a statement from the franchise said. “We will fully cooperate with the authorities to ensure a thorough investigation.”

A Union sports ministry release said IPL chairman Rajeev Shukla had been asked “to take urgent steps to… ensure clean sports” and take deterrent action if the trio were found guilty.

BCCI president N. Srinivasan said a few “bad eggs” would not be allowed to “sully the game” and that the punishment, if the trio are found guilty, would be a “sufficient deterrent” for others.

The best-known case of spot-fixing involves former Pakistan captain Salman Butt and pacers Mohammed Asif and Mohammed Aamer, who were paid off to bowl three no-balls in the August 2010 Lord’s Test against England.

After the tabloid News of the World exposed the scandal through a sting, all three had to serve short prison terms in Britain. They are now serving bans of five to 10 years from cricket.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1130517/jsp/frontpage/story_16908852.jsp#.UZVj2KIwevc

Click on the following for links:

A fascinating map of the world’s most and least racially tolerant countries

When two Swedish economists set out to examine whether economic freedom made people any more or less racist, they knew how they would gauge economic freedom, but they needed to find a way to measure a country’s level of racial tolerance. So they turned to something called the World Values Survey, which has been measuring global attitudes and opinions for decades.

Among the dozens of questions that World Values asks, the Swedish economists found one that, they believe, could be a pretty good indicator of tolerance for other races. The survey asked respondents in more than 80 different countries to identify kinds of people they would not want as neighbors. Some respondents, picking from a list, chose “people of a different race.” The more frequently that people in a given country say they don’t want neighbors from other races, the economists reasoned, the less racially tolerant you could call that society. (The study concluded that economic freedom had no correlation with racial tolerance, but it does appear to correlate with tolerance toward homosexuals.)

Unfortunately, the Swedish economists did not include all of the World Values Survey data in their final research paper. So I went back to the source, compiled the original data and mapped it out on the infographic above. In the bluer countries, fewer people said they would not want neighbors of a different race; in red countries, more people did.

If we treat this data as indicative of racial tolerance, then we might conclude that people in the bluer countries are the least likely to express racist attitudes, while the people in red countries are the most likely.

Update: Compare the results to this map of the world’s most and least diverse countries.

Before we dive into the data, a couple of caveats. First, it’s entirely likely that some people lied when answering this question; it would be surprising if they hadn’t. But the operative question, unanswerable, is whether people in certain countries were more or less likely to answer the question honestly. For example, while the data suggest that Swedes are more racially tolerant than Finns, it’s possible that the two groups are equally tolerant but that Finns are just more honest. The willingness to state such a preference out loud, though, might be an indicator of racial attitudes in itself. Second, the survey is not conducted every year; some of the results are very recent and some are several years old, so we’re assuming the results are static, which might not be the case.

Here’s what the data show:

• Anglo and Latin countries most tolerant. People in the survey were most likely to embrace a racially diverse neighbor in the United Kingdom and its Anglo former colonies (the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) and in Latin America. The only real exceptions were oil-rich Venezuela, where income inequality sometimes breaks along racial lines, and the Dominican Republic, perhaps because of its adjacency to troubled Haiti. Scandinavian countries also scored high.

• India, Jordan, Bangladesh and Hong Kong by far the least tolerant. In only three of 81 surveyed countries, more than 40 percent of respondents said they would not want a neighbor of a different race. This included 43.5 percent of Indians, 51.4 percent of Jordanians and an astonishingly high 71.8 percent of Hong Kongers and 71.7 percent of Bangladeshis.

• Wide, interesting variation across Europe. Immigration and national identity are big, touchy issues in much of Europe, where racial make-ups are changing. Though you might expect the richer, better-educated Western European nations to be more tolerant than those in Eastern Europe, that’s not exactly the case. France appeared to be one of the least racially tolerant countries on the continent, with 22.7 percent saying they didn’t want a neighbor of another race. Former Soviet states such as Belarus and Latvia scored as more tolerant than much of Europe. Many in the Balkans, perhaps after years of ethnicity-tinged wars, expressed lower racial tolerance.

• The Middle East not so tolerant. Immigration is also a big issue in this region, particularly in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which often absorb economic migrants from poorer neighbors.

• Racial tolerance low in diverse Asian countries. Nations such as Indonesia and the Philippines, where many racial groups often jockey for influence and have complicated histories with one another, showed more skepticism of diversity. This was also true, to a lesser extent, in China and Kyrgyzstan. There were similar trends in parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

• South Korea, not very tolerant, is an outlier. Although the country is rich, well-educated, peaceful and ethnically homogenous – all trends that appear to coincide with racial tolerance – more than one in three South Koreans said they do not want a neighbor of a different race. This may have to do with Korea’s particular view of its own racial-national identity as unique – studied by scholars such as B.R. Myers – and with the influx of Southeast Asian neighbors and the nation’s long-held tensions with Japan.

• Pakistan, remarkably tolerant, also an outlier. Although the country has a number of factors that coincide with racial intolerance – sectarian violence, its location in the least-tolerant region of the world, low economic and human development indices – only 6.5 percent of Pakistanis objected to a neighbor of a different race. This would appear to suggest Pakistanis are more racially tolerant than even the Germans or the Dutch.

Update: I’ve heard some version of one question from an overwhelming number of readers: “I’ve met lots of Indians and Americans and found the former more racially tolerant than the latter. How can these results possibly be correct?” I’d suggest three possible explanations for this, some combination of which may or may not be true. First, both India and the U.S. are enormous countries; anecdotal interactions are not representative of the whole, particularly given that people who are wealthy enough to travel internationally may be likely to encounter some subsets of these respective populations more than others.

Second, the survey question gets to internal, personal preferences; what the respondents want. One person’s experiences hanging out with Americans or Indians, in addition to being anecdotal, only tell you about their outward behavior. Both of those ways of observing racial attitudes might suggest something about racial tolerance, but they’re different indicators that measure different things, which could help explain how one might contradict the other.

Third, the survey question is a way of judging racial tolerance but, like many social science metrics, is indirect and imperfect. I cited the hypothetical about Swedes and Finns at the top of this post, noting that perhaps some people are just more honest about their racial tolerance than others. It’s entirely possible that we’re seeing some version of this effect in the U.S.-India comparison; maybe, for example, Americans are conditioned by their education and media to keep these sorts of racial preferences private, i.e. to lie about them on surveys, in a way that Indians might not be. That difference would be interesting in itself, but alas there is no survey question for honesty.

Comments

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/05/15/a-fascinating-map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-racially-tolerant-countries/

 

Painting India red: Why the global racism map is wrong

May 16, 2013

By Lakshmi Chaudhry and Sandip Roy

Washington Post has put together “a fascinating map of the world’s most and least racially tolerant countries,” a nifty infographic that paints the world in hues ranging from deep blue tolerant to a dark red racist. India is swathed in crimson.

The underlying data was culled by WaPo writer Max Fisher from the World Values survey which measures public attitudes around the world across a staggeringly broad range of issues, ranging from family values to political beliefs, from thoughts on women as single parents to taking soft drugs. The polls were conducted at different times between 1981 and 2008, and a number of questions were tested across many countries, while others were only polled in a couple of nations.   In this case, Fisher drew his map on the basis of responses to a single query (inspired by Swedish researchers who published a study doing the same):

The survey asked respondents in more than 80 different countries to identify kinds of people they would not want as neighbors. Some respondents, picking from a list, that also included “drug addicts”, “homosexuals” , “unmarried couples living together” chose “people of a different race.” The more frequently that people in a given country say they don’t want neighbors from other races… the less racially tolerant you could call that society.

Fisher finds that more than 40 percent of respondents said they would not want a neighbour of a different race in only four of the 81 nations. These are India (43.5 percent), Jordan (51.4 percent), Hong Kong (71.8 percent) and Bangladesh (71.7 percent). And also this: Only 6.5 percent of Pakistanis objected to a neighbour of a different race, making them more racially tolerant than even the Germans or the Dutch.

The last is likely to prompt squawks of incredulity — Fisher dismisses it as an “outlier” — but it also points to the hazards of measuring a complex phenomenon such as racism in a cross-cultural context. Here are five reasons why we thinkWashington Post’s global map of racism doesn’t hold up to scrutiny — and why it is a fallacy to treat “racism” as a universal term.

One, what is ‘race’ anyway? In a nation where the chances of living next to someone of a different race is fairly remote, it is odd that we should hold such a strong opinion on the matter. This isn’t to say we are not bigoted, but the language employed by the survey question fails to capture the nature of our biases. For example, it is far more likely that Indians would prefer living next door to, say, a white expat than a person of a different religion. In fact, the presence of foreign tenants usually indicates a desirable neighbourhood. Unlike the West, ‘race’ is not a culturally charged term in India where differences of caste, ethnicity and religion are far more important. Indian respondents may have interpreted the term more broadly to include other categories of difference — but that still requires a leap of interpretation glossed over by the colourful map.

Moreover, both Fisher and the Swedes picked this particular measure of intolerance because of their own cultural bias. Influenced by the expression of white racism in the West, they assume that preferring a neighbour of your own race — i.e. not black, Latino, Asian et al — is an accurate barometer of prejudice.

Two, one size doesn’t fit all.  A question that merely looks at the kind of neighbours one might prefer is a rather clumsy and ill-fitting indicator of racism. India, for example, is full of housing societies of various persuasions. People who live in a Parsi housing society might prefer to have a Parsi as neighbour. Does that necessarily imply that everyone who lives in a Parsi housing society is ipso facto racist? Is a vegetarian housing society justified because it’s about a deeply-felt religious belief that cooking meat is polluting while an all-Brahmin housing society is not?  Is the Polish landlady in an old-style London house with poor ventilation being racist because she doesn’t want Indian tenants frying fish? But this matter of convenience could easily acquire a tinge of racism in a survey that just polled people’s preferences in tenants or housing association rules.

Three, to Chinatown or not to Chinatown? One man’s Chinatown might be another man’s ghetto, but the fact is people congregate with their own because it’s more comforting and just plain convenient thanks to little neighbourhood stores selling, say, little Mexican candies or Chinese flu medicines. Created by racist housing policies in many American cities, ethnic neighbourhoods, their Chinatowns and Koreatowns, are now flaunted with pride as bustling proof of their multicultural credentials, and touted as tourist stops, the  go-to places for an “authentic” taco or a bowl of ramen noodles.  And it’s a matter of regret when these neighbourhoods, whether its Brooklyn, New York or Japantown in San Francisco, become more integrated and therefore less “ethnic.” A city of many separate ethnic neighbourhoods could pride itself on its diversity but could well be viewed as a patchwork quilt of racism if its residents are polled in a survey like this.

Four, there’s race and there’s race. A catch-all option like “People of a different race” does not begin to capture the complexity of race relations and racism. It divides all races into two giant buckets – mine versus other. It has no way to measure what Indians think of a white neighbour as opposed to a black or Chinese neighbour. The real racism is revealed in our very different attitude towards different racial groups and the stereotypes we assign to them. As newly landed graduated students in the US, many desis are warned by perfectly well-meaning seniors in the Indian Students Association not to rent houses in the “black” parts of town — but no one ever warns them off predominantly white neighbourhoods. The survey does include immigrants/foreign workers as possibly undesirable neighbours, but fails to recognise that a “foreign worker” can be a diplomat or NGO worker in Afghanistan; Filipino maid or Indian labourer in the Middle East; a Latino farmhand in the United States.

Five, whatever happened to the Shias? If the ‘race’ option is problematic, so are the other options that were omitted. As we noted earlier, the choices offered to respondents often varied from one nation to another. The Indian version, for example, does not include caste as a criteria for exclusion. The survey does include specific groups as potentially undesirable neighbours but only in certain countries. For example, South Africans can pick blacks, Iranians can opt for Zoroastrians. Oddly, Slovaks, Spaniards, Czechs and Argentines along with Indians have the choice of nixing Hindu neighbours but Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans do not. More astonishingly, the options offered to Pakistanis do not include Shia neighbours — who only appear on the Iraq survey. Given the level of anti-Shia violence in Pakistan, and a historic Shia-Sunni divide, we can reasonably guess that the results would be less than heartening. Again, this does not mean that Pakistan is more racist than India. But its “outlier” status points to the need for culturally specific categories required to measure the level of tolerance in any given society.

A genuine cross-cultural survey of racism — or more precisely, intolerance — requires far more elaboration and care. Such a barometer would go beyond mere neighbour-preference and tap into active forms of bias. For example: questions linking violence to certain communities, be it in the form of riots or crime. The survey would take into account a nation’s specific racial, ethnic, or religious divisions, and the ways in which they find expression.

Until such a survey comes along, we can only assume what we already know about ourselves: India is a deeply biased society. We are notoriously racist toward black foreigners and our own fellow citizens from the North East. For instance, 43.9 percent of Indians are uncomfortable with neighbours of a different religion. But neither the World Survey nor Fisher’s map tells us whether we are more or less racist than the rest of the world. The so-called racism map is more egregious because it offers an alluring and misleading distillation of context-less data, painting entire nations as racist or liberal in one fell swoop. If we want to hand out scarlet letters for racism, we will need more than a paint-by-numbers palette.

http://www.firstpost.com/world/painting-india-red-why-the-global-racism-map-is-wrong-789019.html

A joint family of the South Indian Bunt community (circa 1900).1928 photo of the male members of the Roy Family of Behala, south of Calcutta, along with the children. The bearded patriarch is Hon’ble Surendra Nath Roy (1860-1929) the eldest son of Rai Bahadur Umbik Churn Rai (1827-1902).Members of a Hindu Joint Family. The Village of Nilkod, circa 1960
Portrait of a joint family on Diwali festival.
Temple festival is a uniting force supported by śreni-dharma.

Fiscal policies and financial institutions should promote family-, jaati-, sreni-based social security institutions

Dharma is inviolate. The nation is dharma sāpekṣa Rāṣṭram. The Constitution states that the state cannot be neutral as to dharma. Secular is defined in Hindi version of the Preamble as: sampradāya nirapekṣatā -- neutrality as to socio-religious traditions.

Family-based, extended family or jāti-based or śreni-based are institutions governed by dharma.

It is the duty of the state to support and promote such institutions and the initiatives of such institutions.

A monograph on how śreni-based corporate forms pre-dated the Roman corporations details how śreni, loosely translated as 'trade or artisan guilds', support their members in financial need and how the corporation śreni financed socio-cultural responsibilities such as maintenance of village tanks, temple functions, maintenance of roads and irrigation canals. Such institutions dramatically reduced the dependence on the state for fulfilling social and civic responsibilities. The Government was kept literally off the backs of citizens through the functioning of such institutions like śreni and other extended family support systems.

The institution of kartā in Hindu Undivided Family is recognized under Hindu law and the laws enacted and in vogue under the Constitution. A succint summary of this institution of Joint Family is provided in the following excerpt: "A Hindu Joint Family or Joint Family is an extended family arrangement prevalent among traditional Indians of the Indian subcontinent, consisting of many generations living under the same roof. All the male members are blood relatives and all the women are either mothers, wives, unmarried daughters, or widowed relatives, all bound by the common [sapiṇḍa] relationship. The joint family status being the result of birth, possession of joint cord that knits the members of the family together is not property but the relationship. The family is headed by a patriarch, usually the oldest male called "[Kartā]", who makes decisions on economic and social matters on behalf of the entire family. The patriarch's wife generally exerts control over the kitchen, child rearing and minor religious practices. All money goes to the common pool and all property is held jointly. There are several schools of Hindu Law, such as Mitakshara, the Dayabhaga, the Marumakkathayam, the Aliyasantana etc. Broadly, Mitakshara and Dayabhaga systems of laws are very common. Family ties are given more importance than marital ties. The arrangement provides a kind of social security in a familial atmosphere."

The rules which regulate the Family-based, extended family or jāti-based or śreni-based institutions should be respected by the State. To ensure this respect, fiscal policies should be so framed as to support AND promote the initiatives of these institutions. The financial institutions of the state -- insurance companies, private- and public-sector banking institutions, other corporate entities permitted to engaged in financial activities such as acceptance of deposits or payment of interest on such deposits or issuance of private loans should be ENJOINED to set apart a specified percentage of their financial turn-over to the promotion of the financial activities of amily-based, extended family or jāti-based or śreni-based institutions.

Fiscal policies can be so geared as to promote such institutions. One example can be the provision of tax rebates to kartā income tax computations for expenses incurred as grants or loans to the members of the family for their education, health-care expenses or business start-up costs.

Is GOI listening? Will the parties contesting the Lok Sabha elections to be held soon resolve to institute such fiscal policies?

Kalyanaraman

Hindu social corporate form and sreni dharma: cure for greed

S. Kalyanaraman (October 2012)

Abstract

For nearly 3000 years since 800 BCE and perhaps earlier,śreṇi has been the corporate form of Hindu industrial,arts, crafts, business and civic entities. This śreṇi corporate form pre-dates the earliest proto-Roman corporations; śreṇi was widespread in Ancient India in business, social and civic activities; this corporate form continues to exist even today in Independent India, despite the adoption of a written Constitution governed by principles of Roman jurisprudence and laissez-faire economic principles governing the wealth of the nation. Indian ethical pluralism is called dharma ; śreṇi dharma is dharma applicable to a corporation. The laws governing śreṇi are called śreṇi dharma , emphasizing social
responsibility of corporations. śreṇi dharma provides the mechanism to embed 'social ethic' enhancing the corporate model of capitalism or socialism either of which operates within the framework of 'rational, materialistic economic ethos'. Hindu society attaches importance to ethical values, atman (innate cosmic energy) as also to the creation of wealth of a nation. An ascetic is as respected in Hindu society as a just ruler of a state. This remarkable integration of materialistic ethos with the social ethic is unique in the story of human civilizations. śreṇi dharma as social capital can supply the missing element of trusteeship. This śreṇi dharma constitutes an impressive contribution of Hindu civilization to economic thought, adding spiritual value to materialistic ethos.

The monograph is presented in three sections:

http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.com/2012/10/hindu-social-corporate-form-and-sreni.html Mirror: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/98845220/Hindu-social-corporate-form-and-sreni-dharma-(October-2011)

Hindu social corporate form and sreni dharma (October 2011)

Imran Khan: Favourite of NATO & Taliban
Geopolitical notes from India
M D Nalapat

Friday, May 17, 2013 - It is the easiest task in the world to influence commentators in the NATO bloc. Any individual who socialises with them, breaks bread, quaffs wine and enjoys the company of the opposite sex is seen as a “liberal”, a “person like us (PLU)”, thereby deserving of support. Or, if the mannerisms and lifestyles of such favoured folk deviate from the NATO-bloc norm, all that is needed to win the favour of media in the military bloc is to endlessly repeat such catch phrases as “human rights”, “freedom” or “self-determination”. Libya is a recent example of the way in which groups whose core ideology is toxic to western precepts won the backing of a gullible and reckless Nicholas Sarkozy.

Sadly, there is no statue in Benghazi or Tripoli to commemorate the man who was instrumental in the downfall of Muammar Kadhafi, the leader who followed the advice of his son Saif to surrender his WMD and his secrets to the UK and the US in exchange for protection. That amnesty lasted for less than nine years. By 2011,Kaddafy’s 2003 surrender of his fighting capacity was forgotten, and money, training and weapons given to the groups warring against his regime. Paris was only responding to the cues tossed in their direction by big buyers of French armaments (as well as fripperies). Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE wanted Kadhafi to go, a desire shared by Turkey, which has under R T Erdogan adopted the same geopolitical vision as the GCC. Forgotten is the fact that the ruling families of the GCC have reached their eminence because they were willing to fight against Turkey during the time of the Ottoman Empire. As discussed, the reason why Francois Hollande backs the same groiups supported by the Ankara-Doha-Riyadh alliance (or ADR for short) is his anxiety to please some of the largest buyers of French defense equipment.

Now that India is paying out more than $20 billion to purchase French military aircraft, thereby saving the industry from closure at the expense of jobs in India, the other likely markets are mostly within the GCC and ASEAN, and Hollande is hoping that the lifting of the EU arms embargo on Syria will quickly be followed by orders for defense equipment from Doha, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh.

As for the UK, it is no secret that London is the destination of much of the moneys made by the GCC countries from the sale of oil. To ensure that these important customers of the high-cost and clearly risky UK financial markets continue to trust London with their immense capital hoard, it is vital that David Cameron fulfill the desire of these capitals to get the EU embargo lifted. Although Germany does sell defense equipment to the GCC, as well as act as a magnet for some GCC cash, it is to the credit of Chancellor Angela Merkel that this self-interest has not prevented her from being open about the risks involved in arming those who are visibly cannibalistic in their nature. Tragically, such fiends use the name of a great religion to boost their support base, when each of their actions is wholly contrary to the great faith of Islam.

France and the UK have joined US Secretary of State John Kerry (who has the same outlook as the Clintons when it comes to foreign policy, that only Europe counts and within the rest, only those with cash to spare matter). It was Hillary Clinton who caused the long-term disaster to US interests that is the “Arab Spring” and the Libya-Syria intervention, and it will be John Kerry who continues down the path blazed by Hillary Clinton, the spouse of the US President who enabled the Taliban to take power in Kabul in 1996.

It was, again, Hillary Clinton who ceaselessly weakened the civilian government of Asif Ali Zardari by her hidden and overt interventions in matters internal to Pakistan, and it was Hillary who had a distaste for Mian Nawaz Sharif, the new civilian leader of Pakistan. Had Hillary her say, it would have been Imran Khan and his party who would have got a majority in the Pakistan National Assembly. The handsome and articulate Niazi Pathan leader knows how to mix and mingle in NATO-bloc society, just as Benazir Bhutto did in the past. However, the fact is that Imran Khan has been assisted in his electoral quest by none other than the Taliban, which exempted his party from the murderous assaults to which it subjected the others.

Several million voters who favoured the ANP and the PPP in particular were afraid to come out and vote because of the fear that they would not return from the exercise alive. This, plus the boost given to Imran Khan’s party, ensured that they were hopelessly weakened, while the electoral victory of the Lion of the Punjab, Mian Nawaz Sharif, was a borderline triumph rather than the comfortable majority he would have won, had voters not been confused and intimidated by the Taliban and the groups supported by them. Watching the crowds of affluent youth waltzing along with Imran Khan, it is impossible not to be reminded of the way similar youth joined hands with Ayatollah Khomeini to throw out the Shah of Iran, only to find themselves in a worse position than before.

Those in the NATO bloc who are admirers of Imran Khan — and this columnist was recently in London, and noted that the English countryside is dotted with stately homes where boosters of the Niazi Pathan leader stay — will need to look at the way he manages Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, now that he has seized the province from the ANP. His well-wishers, the Taliban, will seek to enforce their own version of law in the province, and make it a safe haven for their fighters. Imran Khan will very soon come face to face with the reality that Pakistan has far more dangerous elements than those backing Asif Ali Zardari or Nawaz Sharif. In the view of this columnist, the former cricketer has entered into a Faustian bargain with groups that seek nothing less than the destruction of the Pakistan state.

It was telling that Imran was the only major politician specifically exempted from the Taliban’s vicious assault on democracy. Not that any of his NATO-bloc admirers bothered about such a choice of friends. Indeed, in his rush to come to power, Imran Khan has made compromises that will severely limit his freedom of action in the province that he now controls. Should he convert Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa into a Taliban stronghold, rather than join hands with the ANP to weaken and in time eliminate the militia, he will be doing a disservice to Pakistan.

Of course, guided as they are by the extremist-infiltrated intelligence agencies of some of the West Asian states, the NATO bloc is likely to turn as blind an eye to this development as they did to the steady and largely silent growth of the Taliban in Afghanistan during 2005-7. However, for the many well-intentioned people who supported him in the elections, the way he administers this crucial frontier state will be core in deciding whether, by dancing with wolves, Imran Khan has become a problem rather than a solution.

—The writer is Vice-Chair, Manipal Advanced Research Group, UNESCO Peace Chair & Professor of Geopolitics, Manipal University, Haryana State, India.

http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=207028#.UZWNogHKM60.gmail

	Hartosh Singh Bal turned from the difficulty of doing mathematics to the ease of writing on politics. Unlike mathematics all this requires is being less wrong than most others who dwell on the subject. He is the Political Editor of Open. EMAIL AUTHOR

Caste as social capital - Business Line

S. GURUMURTHY

Decades ago, an elderly gentleman speaking at the Gandhi Peace Foundation in Delhi, asked, “What is it that keeps the country down”? A young man responded: “Undoubtedly caste. It has kept society backward”. The speaker replied, “may be”. He paused for a moment and said “may not be”.

The young man angrily asked him to explain his “may-not-be” theory. The speaker calmly mentioned just one fact that shocked the audience. He said, “before British rule, over two-thirds — yes, two-thirds — of Indian kings belonged to what is today known as the Other Backward Castes (OBCs)” — meaning that the OBCs, who constitute two-thirds of the population, lost their power, wealth and status to colonists.

The young man changed for ever after the meeting. The speaker was Dharampal, a Gandhian, who, like his preceptor, was in ceaseless pursuit of truth, however unpopular it was. His assertion was backed by decades of painstaking study in India, England and Germany. But his lonely voice was lost in the stentorian chorus dismissing caste as total evil.

In the absence of rigorous, home-grown intellectual work, the contemporary Indian leadership, too, conveniently approved the received western scholarship on India. But decades after he spoke, is Dharampal proving right after all? Read on.

Weberians and Marxists

Studies have shown that two great thought leaders of the West, Karl Marx and Max Weber, neither of whom ever visited India, have and still continue to exert dominant influence on Indian thinking on sociology and economic development. Take Weber first. Modern West is rooted in Weber’s concept of methodological individualism that saw society as a collection of individuals, rather than individuals as components of the society.

This thought founded the concept of social engineering, which consisted of efforts by government or private groups to influence popular attitudes and social behaviour on a large scale. Just as the modern state rested on individualism, rational choice and efficient market theories of modern economics were premised on methodological individualism.

While communism believed in social engineering through revolution and state, capitalism trusted the efficient market hypothesis based on methodological individualism to achieve the very end. Scholars like Karl Popper said there was “no such thing as society”. Traditional society was seen as an impediment to individualism that produced entrepreneurs who disturbed static societies and turned them dynamic. Weber also believed that Catholic-Hindu-Buddhist cultures discouraged individualism and hence lacked entrepreneurial spirit, whereas Protestantism encouraged both. He added that belief in karma, rebirth and caste-base made Hindu-Buddhist culture inappropriate for modern capitalism.

Likewise, Marx, in his writings in 1853, considered India as semi-barbaric not so much on economic logic, but on what he considered as a frozen and immobile local society, for whose backwardness he cited the custom of worship of monkeys and cows! Marx lauded the British for bringing about social revolution in India by destroying the socio-economic bases of the changeless Indian society, even though he mercifully conceded that the destruction was painful. With the demise of the Soviet Union, Marxian prescriptions have lost their vitality, just as the global economic meltdown in 2008 had led to the questioning of the premises on which the modern economic theories are founded in the guild of economists in the West itself.

Proved wrong

But even earlier, the theories of both Marx and Weber were heavily questioned by studies into world economic history by Paul Bairoch in early 1980s and later by Angus Maddison (2001-2010). Both independently reached the same conclusion, namely, that till almost mid-18th century India and China were the world’s leading economic engines. In 1750, while India (24.5 per cent) and China (34 per cent) produced more than two-thirds of the global GDP, the combined share of the US and the UK was just two per cent.

But by 1900, the combined share of China (6.8 per cent) and India (1.8 per cent) had crashed to 8.6 per cent, while that of the US and the UK reached 42 per cent. Angus Maddison postulated that “much more of the backwardness of the third world — read China and India — has to be explained by colonial exploitation” and “much less of Europe’s advantage can be due to scientific precocity, centuries of slow accumulation, and organisational and financial superiority.”

That may be dismissed as history. But Weber has also been proved wrong by the contemporary rise of India and China. While he had concluded that Hindu-Buddhist cultures were unfriendly to entrepreneurs, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Executive Report 2002 of the London Business School placed India ahead of the US and the entire West. The Total Entrepreneurial Activity [TEA] Index measured by the study for India was 17.9, with China (12.3) coming second. Others, including the US (10.5), Canada (8), the UK (5.4), Germany (5.2) and France (3.2) were found way behind.

Only after this study, was Indian economic growth seen by the world as entrepreneur-led. Weber’s conclusion that Hindu-Buddhist culture does not generate entrepreneurial spirit has been proven to have no rationale.

Caste and entrepreneurship

But is entrepreneurial activity in India dominated by forward castes? No. According to Economic Census of India (2005) which covered 42 million non-farming enterprises employing 99 million people, the OBCs owned 43.5 per cent of all enterprises, as against their share of 41 per cent in total population; Scheduled Castes (SCs) owned 9.8 per cent of all enterprises, against their population of 16.4 per cent; Scheduled Tribes (STs) owned 3.7 per cent against their population of 7.7 per cent.

It is true that the SC/ST entrepreneurs are proportionately less. Yet, entrepreneurship among them is higher than that among African-Americans in the US, who, despite all the bounties given by the US government, have a self-employment ratio of 5.1 per cent, against their population of 13 per cent.

But considering that only 2.6 per cent of SC-owned units and 3.6 per cent of those belonging to STs have institutional finance, if more of it could be directed to them, entrepreneurship among them can improve vastly. Surprisingly, whether it is SC, ST or non-SC/ST entrepreneurs, more than 92 per cent of them are self-financed.

Studies show that competition within communities set off huge entrepreneurial movement within — as one OBC or SC or ST person sets up a business, it encourages and even compels others within their communities to copy him. This is the effect of relation-based lifestyle and explains the growth of community-driven industrial clusters in India.

According to UNIDO, there are 350 small-scale industrial clusters and over 2,000 rural artisan clusters, which contribute to 60 per cent of manufacture and 40 per cent of manufacturing employment. According to the Ministry of Small Industries, there are 2,042 clusters, of which 819 are unregistered. Most of them are community-driven and evolved on their own, with even education playing little role.

Take Tirupur, one of such clusters dominated by the Gounder community, which now exports close to $ 3 billion of knitwear.

A study by Boston Consulting scholars has shown more than two-thirds of the exporters to have studied not even till Std 12, with less than a tenth of them being graduates. Another example is the diamond business in India, which is entirely driven by the Palanpuri Jain and Patel communities. Nine out of ten diamonds in the world are cut today in Gujarat. Of the 35 leading diamond exporters of Surat, only two had completed higher secondary education and others even less.

Caste now seems to be emerging as social capital, as a vehicle for economic development. Social capital is the product of relations — as distinct from contracts — that creates kinship among people. Caste constitutes natural kinship. The idea of social capital entered the global economic development discourse in the early 1990s, thanks to Francis Fukuyama who expounded relation-based socio-economy.

Caste in politics has indeed done a lot of damage. But caste in economics seems to hold high potential for India’s growth. Will the policy makers move away from the current paradigm on caste and look at India from within – particularly after the IMF, World Bank and G-20 nations have noted that there is no single economic model for the world, and each country has to work out its own?

Caste in politics has done a lot of damage. But caste in economics can be a vehicle for India’s development.

(This article was published in the Business Line print edition dated May 17, 2013)

http://m.thehindubusinessline.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/caste-as-social-capital/article4721857.ece/?maneref=http%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2FdXlA8h8WOx

'Smart' cards: Jagjit Singh labourer in MP

 TNN | May 17, 2013, 02.56 AM IST

SATURDAY, MAY 11, 2013

Ranjit Sinha - Namak Haraam


King Henry II of England and Thomas Beckett were good friends. They were even “drinking club” friends. When Beckett was appointed Chancellor he did everything that the King desired, even taxed the Church. The King even had Beckett playing foster-father to his sons. The King was constantly in conflict with the Church and wanted the Royalty be supreme over the Church. To settle the conflict and gain supremacy he appointed his best friend Beckett as the Archbishop of Canterbury. That’s when things went wrong. Once he became Archbishop, Beckett turned pious and refused to oblige and sign any agreements that would establish the supremacy of the King over the Church. Beckett is reported to have started penance for his earlier sins. He refused to break with the Pope in Rome. Beckett was murdered in 1170, presumably under orders of Henry II, and was later bestowed Sainthood by the Pope. Beckett’s story became famous through T.S. Elliot’s “Murder in the cathedral” and partly referenced in Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Canterbury tales”.

When Ranjit Sinha (RS) was appointed CBI Director last year there were protests from the leaders of the Opposition, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley. They had apprehensions that he was another puppet who would do the bidding of Sonia Gandhi & Co. Their suspicion was justified considering RS had a record of being servantile and his record also had some minor blemishes. But when a person assumes a certain office he brings his own story and burden to bear on it. Not many newspapers or TV channels have narrated this story but OpenMagazine has found a genuine explanation for the twin stories that culminated in the destruction of Pawan Kumar Bansal and Ashwani Kumar. We’ll get to that. In the meantime, let’s hear some familiar nonsense about who’s to blame for the last Parliament session washout.


It has been a tradition now in our media to blame the Opposition, in particular the BJP, for the Parliament blockades and washout of sessions. The media morons believe, like they do on their TV channels, that everything can be sorted out with a debate. My answer is a clear NO. You cannot debate obvious crimes. When the Parliament was blocked for the 2G issue the same media cried themselves hoarse blaming the opposition. The end result was a farcical JPC whose chairman was in a rush to distribute clean chits. The tweets of the Numero Uno and Numero Unee are reflective of this culture on TV where they believe parliament sessions are the only way to sort out crimes. This is an argument the Congress offers to gain time and prevent action on crimes. Democracy exists far beyond the walls of parliament and we have seen time and again that parliament is incompetent in dealing with criminals. They can only make laws, nothing more. In this case too CNN-IBN and it’s govt foot-soldiers blamed the BJP only to turn turtle in the next few days.


What Ashwani Kumar did was a serious crime which is being played down by the Congress and the media. His role was one of obstruction of justice and protecting people who may have the potential of being indicted by a court in the massive Coalgate scam. The Opposition is right in stalling the parliament where the Congress sought to divert all the issues by bringing in some bogus Food Security Bill with elections in mind and then accused other parties of being “anti-poor” because they stalled parliament. This dubious conduct by the Congress is now familiar to all. All, except our specialists in the media. The Congress, as usual, claimed the SC had not pronounced any verdict and there was an inquiry against Bansal. Nonsense! The SC observations on the doctored Coalgate affidavit is enough for the PM to be sacked. And Bansal? He wasn’t sacked because Sonia Gandhi had an attack of conscience as we came to learn. But in just over a week, Pallavi Ghosh meekly tweets that Congress was to blame for Parliament washout which ridicules the propaganda of her own bosses.


SoniaG reportedly rushed to PM’s residence on May 10 to seek the sacking of Bansal and Kumar. She created all the drama for the media to show how strongly she acts against corruption. Her phones were probably so dead that she had to rush to 7RCR. Nonsense again! It turns out that the tapes in which Bansal was pimping for railway appointments and distributing the loot was out with some in the media and so possibly also with the Congress boss. Kanchan Gupta indicates what exactly could have been the contents of the bribery tapes. It’s like when you’re finally clean-bowled in Cricket and even the third umpire can’t save you if it isn’t a no-ball. That’s when it dawned upon Sonia Gandhi that the damage in retaining Bansal could be far more severe than the Congress anticipated. So while at it, the Congress made both ministers go since AshwaniK would have to go anyway at some point of time. Better hurt now than later. That’s a good choice. But if knowing all this the PM and SoniaG were against sacking Bansal earlier it speaks of monumental dishonesty. All the editors in the media who kept giving MMS a certificate of “honesty” must hang their heads in shame.

In all of this can the lady who is now haunting Pakistan be left out of her own 2 cents of special intelligence? Absolutely not! So there you go, there’s Barkha Dutt telling us about the “Punjabi” conspiracy of some sort. What Open Magazine, which is far more reliable than Barkha, tells us is that an aspirant to the post of Law Minister leaked out information of AshwaniK’s meddling with the CBI affidavit. I don’t think we need the CIA to infer that OpenMag is referring to zero loss. The leak being a done job, there was no way Ranjit Sinha could escape admitting the facts in the SC of the affidavit. He had an added incentive. OpenMag reports AshwaniK was harsh on him and even humiliated him with rude comments on Ranjit’s poor knowledge of English. You see, in India, it is better to be an English Laloo like Salman Khurshid or Shashi Tharoor than a desi CBI director. In short, AshwaniK and the PM’s cohorts gangraped the CBI affidavit and left it a poor survivor to be sent to a hospital.

In the case of Bansal, RS had an old score to settle. It seems Mahesh Kumar, the 10Crore briber who was in the Rail business earlier too, had shunted him out to unattractive posts in the past. So without anyone asking him or any govt advising the CBI, RS started a special watch on Mahesh Kumar and poor Pawan Bansal was caught with his monkey-hand grabbing peanuts from the trap, just like that lady in Radiagate. Conversations were taped over months and even the sacrificial Goat that Bansal used in a puja in the end couldn’t save him. Unwittingly, Ranjit Sinha has become the saviour of CBI and may finally be the man to save it from the evil clutches of the most corrupt govt ever in the history of India. Ranjit Sinha became Thomas Beckett. RS also finally managed to put some fear into the hearts of politicians. He also proved there is no need for the Jokepal, a strong, independent CBI and Judiciary is quite adequate to deal with corruption.

The Congress and some of its allies in the UPA have spawned such a culture of corruption and brazen loot that every joker has started believing he has a “Right To Loot”. Whether it’s Bansal, Ashwani, Marans, Kripashankars or the whole gang of UPA. This doesn’t happen if there is zero tolerance for corruption. This happens only when the whole gang gets a clear signal that looting is okay as long as the Mafia is paid its due. This is what the UPA has been reduced to. And this birthright to corruption doesn’t end with politicians it also extends to the news media who keep lying through their nose to protect their corrupt masters. SoniaG has given a clear signal through Shashi Tharoor and Abhishek Singhvi that if you’re tainted just take a chill-pill, spend some time taking a vacation. You will be back quite soon. If banks are money-laundering as Cobrapost suggests it is surely not without approval and a guarantee of protection.

The Congress appointed Ranjit Sinha with the belief he will be another puppet and be loyal to the Queen and her coterie. The story has gone terribly wrong. The Beckett story was made into a movie. The same movie was adapted and remade in Bollywood – it was called “Namak Haraam” (featuring Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan). In both movies the “namak haraam” dies. I have no doubts that Ranjit Sinha is going to be called a ‘namak haraam’ in Congress and media circles. One just hopes he doesn’t meet the same fate.

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Posted by Ravinar at 5/11/2013 09:00:00 AM
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Labels: Ashwani Kumar, Bribery, CBI, CNN-IBN, Indian Media Corruption, Indian Railways, Manmohan Singh, NDTV, Pawan Bansal, Ranjit Sinha, Sonia Gandhi, Times Now
59 comments:

shekMay 11, 2013 9:32 AM
i only hope that sinha does not suffer becket's fate. at canterbury cathedral becket's grave is still visited by many and his story told to all visitors.

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IPODOCTORMay 13, 2013 9:12 AM
History repeats & RS will meet the same fate as Becket, given the Indira legacy . Remember Nagarwala case ? 60 lakhs withdrawn from SBI & lone witness bumped off ? Or the Judge who unseated her ? these are just a few to name


Badari Narayanan V TMay 13, 2013 9:39 AM
In St Kitt's case, SC came to the rescue of the criminals. Congress has nothing to worry about as long as Modi does not come to power

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Prashant SinghMay 11, 2013 9:36 AM
Numero Uno and Numero Unee.... hahahahahah Great dear... ROFL..

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K SridharMay 11, 2013 2:53 PM
I second you, cream of the article: -
1. NUMERO UNO AND NUMERO UNEE
2. Pawan Bansal was caught with his monkey-hand grabbing peanuts from the trap, just like that lady in Radiagate.
3. Birthright to corruption doesn’t end with politicians it also extends to the news media who keep lying through their nose to protect their corrupt masters.

and many more.


SLCMay 11, 2013 4:15 PM
I second you


IPODOCTORMay 13, 2013 9:14 AM
Media is also dependant on favours from UPA and indulges in being the saviour for the party in power.

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Dr Satya SaraswatMay 11, 2013 9:45 AM
Too much credit is given to Sonia Gandhi for the moves. I think it is her consigliere (Ahmed Patel), doing all the dirty thinking.
P.S. Sir the posts have stopped appearing on Facebook.

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xiphoidMay 11, 2013 9:56 AM
Vinod Rai another Bihari (okay half -bihar from ghazipur )was made CAG head ,coz he was a pliant officer.look what they have done.

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VictoriaMay 14, 2013 8:44 AM
Rai is a Punjabi name, like Aiswarya Rai or Bina Rai.
Sinha can be a Bengali like Mala Sinha.


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Venky VenkateswaranMay 11, 2013 9:57 AM
Super post. When will the MSM learn that the job of the opposition is to demand accountability on behalf of the Public,(stupid, we couldn't even use the term Aam admi' now).
If only RS raises up to the occasion and clinches some more heads including the congotri of coorruption, he will be etched in the memory and history of India like APJ, CJ Kapadia, Vinod Rai and the like.

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AbhishekMay 11, 2013 9:58 AM
ravinar ji, sadhuvaad,aapke aviral prayaas ke liye. Vaise facebook par aapka update nahi dikhta hai,kuch upaay kijiye.

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anurag singhMay 11, 2013 10:08 AM
u r bjp chamcha. bjp never demanded an independent cbi.so what they wanted-only to blame and malign govt,and get power.they will use cbi too....

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xiphoidMay 11, 2013 10:24 AM
and ur a gandu


DevanGMay 11, 2013 10:49 AM
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.


Vivek gargMay 11, 2013 11:04 AM
U seem very ignorant. BJP gave full support in the India against corruption movement. And also debated for independent CBI. Jaitley was even invited on stage by those ppl and he extended full support. It was this traitor and back stabber AAP that split out and made joke of that movement.


RavinarMay 11, 2013 11:31 AM
@Devang

Please avoid profanities on this blog.. its not required to make a point..


mathurnitinMay 11, 2013 11:47 AM
I'd disagree with all the pro bjp comments.. AAP was formed because AK felt a need alternative to BJP, because BJP didn't provide for strong opposition. BJP never gave their nod for Lokpal.
BJP has its own leadership infighting problems... and thats why they lost in Karnataka.. they need to resolve it, otherwise they can forget 2014


punitMay 11, 2013 12:22 PM
and aap is like kjp,they just lack true politicians.one is a hasya kavi who occasionally writes romantic songs and sings it to college goers,nd all others are red.


rhnMay 11, 2013 1:11 PM
Why did they bring AAP here? Why are BJP Congress always talking about AAT? Don't they have anything better to do?


PPRMay 12, 2013 8:37 PM
AAP is a big game by Congress. In AP we already witnessed this drama by YSR and LokSatta in 2009 election. LokSatta took away precious 2% vote from TDP and helped YSR get thread-bare majority of 6 seats. Same will happen with APP, Congress and BJP. In the end congress will win urban seats with margins of 1000 to 5000 votes.

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glad indianMay 11, 2013 10:15 AM
i like the way you conjure analogies and parallels from else where to suit the case in point..kudos!! now RS has a choice to renounce the post retirement assignments or to get entry into elite league of SESHAN, VINOD RAI, GENERAL SINGH.....hope a life of penury is better than one of chagrin..fingers crossed!!!

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DevMay 11, 2013 10:23 AM
May god give hell to all Congis...!! Good one Ravi, seems this an important event....countdown of UPA-2...tick tock tick tock...

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animesh dubeyMay 11, 2013 11:02 AM
it will interesting when tapes come out in open and janata know cutting chai rate for waitress.

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Neil@WorkMay 11, 2013 11:14 AM
Vigilant CBI and judiciary is answer to Corruption. comparing authors last post with this post. In this post he says corruption should have zero tolerance. completely agrees.. now question is removing Bansal from his rail ministry post and bringing in more corrupt minister, it is ok?? In that case thinking that next person in more corrupt than Bansal, One shouldn't sack him at first place because he is less corrupt than next person in line.. logic behind this is author last post - which says corruption done by BJP can be shown tolerence by people of Karnataka just because congress is more corrupt. I guess people of Karnataka has shown zero tolerance to corruption in elections and Shunted out BJP and that is good signal for whole country that corrupt government is not accepted. RS should become next Vinod Rai and bring this govt(UPAII)to its knees.

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RavinarMay 11, 2013 11:30 AM
@Neil

I am truly surprised at the wrong inferences you and some others make. I actually find it shocking. My point in the previous post was that media tries to "balance" both Congress & BJP as equally corrupt which is a LIE. Nowhere does my post seek that people of Karnataka tolerate corruption in the slightest bit. On the contrary, I had stated that even Jesus & Moses couldnt have saved BJP in Karnataka and that their top management must not become "Saffron Gandhis" and quit for non-performance. So what makes you imply that it seeks to tolerate BJP corruption?

Secondly, who comes after Bansal is neither my business nor my concern. Dont apply your own twisted logic to what doesnt exist in the post. The simple point is if CBI continues to be vigilant and independent it can be a good deterrent. Your comments are being made with poor comprehension and understanding of the posts or the essence of it.

I can only suggest you read the posts a bit more carefully instead of drawing non-existent implications.


vijayraghav raoMay 11, 2013 2:04 PM
@Neil, @ravinar

This is a mandate of a confused , clueless , castiest and communal mandate. Certainly not against corruption nor against bad governance . It is a mandate of amnesic, shortsighted , hollow people. And is representative of entire India and not just Karnataka. If it was against corruption then why did yeddi and his party still get vote of his caste ? Why did Christians and Muslims vote for congress and why do their local leaders openly espouse the cause of voting for congress ? Is congress not corrupt ? Or is jdu any less corrupt ? Why do people of Tamil Nadu only vote for the parochial parties ?? Same across the length and bredth of this country . National interests take a back seat . If corruption was the issue then bjp should have won for sacking yeddi on hegde's indiction . Even nitin gwdkari resigned even before the investigation got complete. This is a country of people who lac
k clarity as also priority. Very short memories . And much shorter span of focus.
We need a change in our electoral system to enforce accountability.
W


AnandMay 11, 2013 3:44 PM
"Zero tolerance for corruption" by Karnataka voters.Where does terrorism figure in their priority list? The first task of the new govt is to free terrorist Abdul Nasser Madani with active participation of Jihadi Khanchris of Kerala.The efforts are already on to deliver on this.Corruption and development can wait.

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Manjesh HanawalMay 11, 2013 11:58 AM
I always wondered why there is no namak haraam for congress, and was expecting Raja or Kalmadi to go against congress. Anyway, situations are creating namak haraams for congress.
But, the congis are too smart, they know how to create puppets and manage them.

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Rishi BhardwajMay 11, 2013 12:28 PM
hi sir, this ranjit sinha reminds me of a character played by govinda in a lesser known movie called gambler. in this movie the lead character becomes a hero not by his actions but by the situations and circumstances which surround him.
the link to the open magazine was very useful and made interesting reading.

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Mousam BiswasMay 11, 2013 2:21 PM
hey moron AAP Khujliwala supporters .Khujliwal is nothing more than a Ford foundation(ILLUMINATI)funded organization whose sole purpose is to divide anti congress votes.I dont care what Khujliwals supporters think but TO PROVE CREDIBILITY JUST FIGHT ONE ELECTION AND WIN OTHERWISE U WILL REMAIN ONLY AS A BARKING BIG MOUTH.

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K SridharMay 11, 2013 3:12 PM
Great one Ravinar! Let us pray and hope more 'namak haraams' for congis and UPA-2 that would sound the death bell for this govt. How about an article on "MSM EXIT POLLS + EVMs = SURPRISE RESULTS" ? MSM is known to bend the minds of people with these 'Opinion Polls' and 'Exit Polls' that may enable tampering of EVMs by the planted ones. During earlier days it was rampant goondaism to loot the election booths and vote enmasse for their leaders, now a days what is the proof that EVMs are not tampered with?

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Vijeta DMay 11, 2013 6:13 PM
Mr. Ravinar,
Can't understand how you are bashing Congress top leadership i.e. SG. I have not seen even single BJP leader taking SG head on ('assuming' BJP is principal opposition). Other than Modi no one has spoken even a single word on Sonia, when its no secret she is the only power center.
The 'louh purush' of BJP, went down on his knees when Sonia wrote a letter as her name featured in black money list. In fact SG image is built by congress and helped duly by all BJP leaders. Is it because SG has enough material to keep people into submission. Remember, Vajpayee didn't give permission for Sonia's prosecution when Swamy submitted enough records. So much for the central leadership. I don't have any hope from these losers.
Media is just seeing a unipolar India (with SG only star), so how can they challenge the arrangement. They are just swimming along the stream. Don't be so fussy on media.


Shivaprasad m.v.May 11, 2013 7:11 PM
So ... BJP not bashing SG hence no one else should. What is this going down on knees ? As the author states elsewhere the inference drawn that bashing Congress automatically makes you a BJP apologist is both funny and shocking. Why everybody needs this " balancing" is funny


Vijeta DMay 11, 2013 7:23 PM
Mr. Shiva,
You still didn't get. What I am saying is, it was BJP which should have taken up the matter directly and not the Media. Indian media is just reflecting what congress wants as there is no voice other than that. Whoever else has a voice, there is no outlet for that.
For the author I feel 'lieutenant is more loyal than the king (BJP) himself'.
It would have been better if BJP was represented in Media by the author rather than the timid and confused crop of BJP men.


mathurnitinMay 11, 2013 8:46 PM
Point blank vijeta d...


ChakradharMay 12, 2013 12:29 PM
vijetha:) why katrina kaif? dont u have a face?


PPRMay 12, 2013 8:31 PM
@vijetha,

you and Nobel laureate Amrtya Sen share something common. Hate BJP. Simple reason it is fashion today. May even pay you well sometime in some form. PCI chairman is good example.

You also share something with George Bush Jr. "with us or against us". Is media supposed to reflect mood of the people or wishes of some political party or another? I Hope you are in your senses.

You are happy with twisted presentation of the Media? So be it. We are not and we have reason to make fuss. I personally made phone calls to interact with many of these media houses. I am never given a chance to talk to any of their anchors/editors. All messages posted on their websites did not see the light, dropped in the name of moderation.

Modi may or may not make it to center. But someone like him needed to counter these political ba***** and their media chamchaas.

Reg. Vajapayee. You may not have observed. He never raised SG nationality issue either. He is through gentleman unlike the crooked PM we have today. He would had gone down in history as most vindictive PM had he relied on Swamy's input and granted probe. Politics is not just the you watch on TV. Political brinkmanship is also an art. It is not played everyday. Otherwise you will end up having Ranjit Sinhas everyday.


Badari Narayanan V TMay 13, 2013 9:48 AM
Surprised by replies to Vijeta D's comments. She expects BJP to be proactive in exposing SG and is disappointed that it is not happening. Where is the issue of her being anti-BJP? Also, no matter what a PM may be, it is his / her duty to act against corruption. How does being gentleman absolve ABV from the guilt of protecting SG and her dumb kid?


PPRMay 13, 2013 12:53 PM
@Badari

Tone and language of Vijetha are hardly different from that of Sanjay Jha, Manish Tiwari, Mani Ayyer, Mungerkar we hear almost everyday.

Is BJP only entity and politics is the only way to fight corruption? And we all become armchair critics and eventually say "BJP is no different from congress, so let us vote for congress only".

If half of BJP thinks same way, the country will go "Agneepath" way.

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VenexMay 11, 2013 7:49 PM
Like I said in the last blog I did not like the smell....the CBI had Bansal's balls for sometime without the govt knowing they only squeezed when AK and PMO left them holding their own turning into brass ones in the SC. You can have my bottom dollar if the CBI does not have dirt on all these scumbags in the RS and the LS and will, now seeing the success of Bansal, use it from time to time irrespective of party lines. I hope they have dirt on the media as well HEHHEHE shall make for one hell of an IPL special edition. By the way on Karnataka I am a vindictive man by nature and I hope and pray their condition becomes worse than Somalia in the next five years.

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BALMUKUND THAKKARMay 11, 2013 8:17 PM
Dear Ravinar, according to one theory, Ranjit Sinha is doing exactly what was told to him. The information of the meeting and changes by the law minister was also leaked deliberately. Please read the whole theory that proves how CBI is used intentionally to create both issues involving MMS's loyal ministers.

"So our suspicion is unfolding to be correct gradually. Media is trying hard to create an impression as if Sonia wanted the ministers to resign earlier, but Mr. Manmohan Singh resisted. The reality is, it's all drama just to show Sonia Gandhi a holy cow, so that an impression can be created that Sonia and Rahul are not responsible for huge corruption by UPA.

DON'T FOOL YOURSELF BY BELIEVING THE IMPRESSION CREATED BY MEDIA... To know the real game, Consider the timeline :

Ashwani Kumar's case : The CBI was to file an affidavit in the Supreme Court and suddenly a newspaper publishes a story of the Law Minister interfering CBI's investigation status report, no Congress person denies it, the issue is deliberately allowed to get bigger by intentional suspicious remarks from Congress (remember "No changes", "grammatical mistakes" etc.). Then CBI exposes everything in Supreme Court and after 8th May remarks from Supreme courts, Ashwani Kumar is totally trapped, and is forced to resign eventually.

Bansal's case : CBI catches a Congress minister's relative for bribery. Even if the CBI has all the details of the case, the issue is only slowly and deliberately made bigger. The details of existence of tapes (even if being recorded many weeks ago) are released only Congress' drama on food security bill ends and parliament session is adjourned, which forces P. K. Bansal to resign.

Notice how CBI has been used to "create" the cases of both ministers who have been sacked. And don't forget that CBI is not independent of the government yet!! (As the SC described, even today it is merely a parrot, speaking its Master's voice, and government is yet to inform the plans to make CBI independent to the SC on 10th July) Then, how come government's dog CBI is biting the government itself??

Under Ahmed Patel's direction, a drama is being played to make Manmohan Singh the scapegoat for all miseries, corruptions and misgovernance during UPA tenure. (Anyhow Congress doesn't need Mr. Singh because his image has got tarnished so badly that Congress can't go to people having him the PM candidate) For the same, Manmohan Singh loyalists like Bansal and Ashwani Kumar have been targeted using CBI (directly under home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde - A well known Sonia-loyalist, who openly said that he can shoot anyone if ordered by Sonia). Eventually, the drama is also being made to show that it is Manmohan Singh who is protecting corrupts and Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are morally honest and against corruption, so that Congress can put a new face (mostly A. K. Antony for his clean record) for next election and get somehow rid of the charges of corruption and misgovernance.

Just ask some questions : If Sonia, Rahul and Congress party are so morally honest, why did they not take any action against Vadra? How could they promote Khurshid within 1 week of being exposed of siphoning off the money for the handicapped?? Only because Vadra is so-in-law and Khurshid is a loyal dog! (Remember what Khurshid said, he can lay his life for Sonia's family) Many others can also be counted same way.

Beware of Media! Dikhave pe Mat Jao, Apni Akkal Lagao..."

Ref. facebook page : https://www.facebook.com/AapKiAvaaj

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PraveenMay 14, 2013 11:29 AM
You are sooooooooo true and accurate !! I totally agree with you. Wondering even Ravinar fell to this trap laid by Sonia and co.

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shakspaceMay 12, 2013 1:41 AM
Good one. Well-written & on the spot! Keep writing such informative articles.

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dubbaMay 12, 2013 6:26 AM
MSM on SM the article on BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-22378366, and the reaction on Hindu http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/blogs/blog-hypertext/article4705358.ece, are these people trying to side-kick their readings of Indian political scenario to deviant mind game. To save Rajdeep from being stalked. The debauchery being committed by media-politico nexus is open to see in this blog / SM and some post commentators are sure on the SG & RS rolls to hijack the topic to oblivion and then pathetically dramatise "victim-hood". Good Ravinaar - all the points raised are sticking and twitching these MSM infamous "defend the GOI" journalism !!.

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sp-kkdeMay 12, 2013 8:50 AM
very true. Yeh congress ek mayavi rakshas hai. kab kaun sa roop dhar legi pata hi nahi. karnataka people fell into same trap.

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VineetMay 12, 2013 1:11 PM
Great Article Ravinar. Very nice analogy of Namak Haram.

Ranjit got caught on the wrong foot and decided to save his backside. Not a good pet.

Never knew that the phones lines between 10 Janpath and 7 Race Course Road do not function. What was the need for grand gesturing (apart for the pliant media) for SG to go to MMS, it could have been done over phone as well but effect would not have been created.

When this was happening and I was seeing on TimesNow. Could not help but remember your article on Flanking the Queen. Till it was not impacting the queen bee directly, everything was acceptable. The moment it reached queen bee's doorsteps, every one took action. Very interesting. Classic example of all power without accountability.

There is one news item which is not getting much prominence anywhere, uncle of Robert Vadera sold a Government funded hospital to Fortis. UP police not much inclined to take action. Imagine the ruckus that would have been created had it been a BJP chap's uncle.

Keep up the good work.

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Khara babaMay 12, 2013 1:57 PM
#BesharamCongress

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Khara babaMay 12, 2013 1:59 PM
#BesharamCongress

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Vivek gargMay 12, 2013 4:15 PM
Thomas Beckett
Simlar story i read in my childhood..actually my first big story in Second standard...
Algoo chaudhary and jummen sheikh two fast friend...
'Gaon wale unki dosti ki kasmein khaya kerte the' :)
and once one of these became SarPanch (Head of the village) and took decision against friend (when frnd was actual culprit)and they turned foe...
next time other frnd becme sarpanch and had to take decision for his old frnd (this time he being innocent) and took decision in his favour...
My first lesson when u r sitting at responsible position god speak out of you and take the right decision...
Grew up and saw today's politics now realize those lessons are only in book :(

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PPRMay 12, 2013 7:58 PM
I read Telugu translation of this story. I think Munshi Premchandji was the writer. I can never forget such great moral carried by a simple story. Hope sending a copy of this story to politicians may help a little.

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JaykumarMay 12, 2013 6:03 PM
Sholay Script also fits very much to this GUY-RS

"Mallik Mene Tho Aapka Namak Kaya Hai"

Aab Kaho Goli RSji

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Truth SpeaksMay 13, 2013 3:30 AM
Ranjit Sinha's story is very similar to T.N.Seshan's story who was insulted by Rajiv Gandhi Congress government and he made the Election Commission of India as an pro-attacking agency on corrupt political parties. Now, the Sonia Gandhi Congress has made the same mistake and Ranjit Sinha is making CBI another tiger, than a cat.

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BVSMay 14, 2013 8:27 PM
It was because of foresight of PVN that Seshan was able to make EC an institution to reckon with. If it was during the rule of dynasty members Seshan would been sent to a non descript department or even worse(bumped Off).

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sunil jaggiMay 14, 2013 11:53 PM
Media writing in favor of Ruling Party means they are hand in gloves in corruption and every wrong doing of the Ruling Party was covered by media. I take it as against the people of this country and media is a Traitor or boot licker of the ruling party. The people or media who equate BJp with Congress are wrong. Yes BJP is a party with difference. whether a kandhar or corruption they have not tolerated. Yes Kandahar was not popular decision but they brought 179 passengers alive from the enemy country. what about 26/11 terrorist killed more than 200 people on our land. Yes Yeddurrupa was dropped from the c.m. post. people are going by the MSM propaganda for Congress and MSM have already playing that drama about SG and RG that both are Honest and trying to change the image . Yes people of India shouldn't forgive ManMohan Singh that he led such a corrupt government. as far as MSM is concerned I don't watch and Read any of the Newspaper / News Channels because i know what kind of news coverage will be there.

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SPMay 16, 2013 7:59 AM
Who is there to save India and Indians when one reporter, married to a terrorist, was actively helping 26/11 killers? Who is there to save India when top leaders owe their allegiance to Vatican or Macca or Beijing or Washington.

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sunil jaggiMay 16, 2013 4:55 AM
Media never remember the courageous people of India like justice JagmohanLal Sinha who set aside election petition of Indira Gandhi and Later one the Judge from Supreme Court Justice HR. Khanna what they were looking for nothing just did their job honestly. And never look for all those Lucrative post after the Retirement. Stood by the second freedom struggle of Indian people.Media never talk about these kind people. why ? The people who have given teeth to the Constituitional bodies. CAG is not just a typist for the Government he has to keep a account of the government. Why there is a need for the CAG. Our Constituition founder must have felt the need so that somebody is there to check and fix the accountability of the Government. In last 9 Years of UPA ruling they try to finished every constituition Instituition of democracy. Why Media is not asking question to UPA chairperson and vice president of the ruling party and what is their knowledge about the subject. All these years India was ruled with the sentiments. Why people should watch or Read anti people, anti India Media and the Corrupt Journalist news.

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Santosh KumarMay 16, 2013 9:19 AM
It was a wishful thinking that CBI chief eo become Namak Haaram . However it just remained show . A caged parrot just came back to it's cage.

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PPRMay 16, 2013 11:15 AM
The entire game of "caged parrot" seems to save Vodafone. And of course warning to PM for showing interest in 3rd term.

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http://www.mediacrooks.com/2013/05/ranjit-sinha-namak-haraam.html#.UZXA8KIwevc

See: http://malayindians.blogspot.in/2008/10/waytha-slams-utusan-tv3-and-umno-linked.htmlHuman rights movement -- Malaysian Indians

Hindraf’s Waythamoorthy makes it to Malaysian Cabinet

By Sandhya Jain on May 17, 2013

Ten days after a narrow electoral victory for the ruling UMNO-Barisan Nasional combine, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak redeemed his election pledges and unveiled his ‘transformation agenda’ by appointing Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) chairman P Waythamoorthy as a Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department.

Waythamoorthy was also appointed to the Senate. The Prime Minister also elevated four others as Senators, viz., Maybank President and Chief Executive Officer Abdul Wahid Omar; Transparency International Malaysia President Paul Low Seng Kuan (Ministers, Prime Minister’s Department); Kedah Umno liaison committee chairman Ahmad Bashah Md Hanipah (deputy minister, domestic trade, cooperatives and consumerism); Penang PPP chairman Dr J Loga Bala Mohan (Deputy Minister, Federal Territories).

This startling development vindicates Waythamoorthy’s decision to renounce his asylum status in Britain and return to Malaysia in August 2012, risking the possibility of arrest on arrival. In a stopover at Delhi en route to Kuala Lumpur last year, the Hindraf leader who was returning after filing a class action suit against the British Government on behalf of the Malaysian Indians who were indentured labour under the Raj, told this writer that he was taking the risk because the 2013 Election was crucial to getting a fair deal for Malaysian Indians as their votes could swing the election in favour of either the ruling BN or the Opposition Pakatan combine. Waythamoorthy was in India when the surprise announcement was made in Kuala Lumpur, and refused to comment on his appointment.

Waythamoorthy had courageously held talks with members of both combines in the run up to the General Elections. Bitter at Pakatan’s refusal to offer a fair deal to Indians, he decided to trust Barisan Nasional’s promise of post-election transformation. On April 18, the two groups signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with six key points aimed at bringing poor Indians into the mainstream of the country’s development. In return, Hindraf promised to help BN garner votes of the Indian community in the election.

With the Indian vote ensuring that BN survived in office, that gamble seems to have paid off. While in exile, Waythamoorthy fought doggedly for the release of the five Hindraf activists detained under the Internal Security Act after staging a staggeringly successful rally in Kuala Lumpur despite a ban, on November 25, 2007. The BN Prime Minister at that time was Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

Hindraf was banned after the rally held to protest against BN’s racist policies; its leading activists were arrested on December 13 the same year, and detained under the draconian ISA. Waythamoorthy avoided arrest by going into self-exile in London three days after the rally. This cost the coalition the votes of the Indian community in the elections of 2008.

This time, ahead of the May 5, 2013, General Elections, the Najib regime lifted the ban on the group. Accordingly, when the Opposition Pakatan Rakyat refused to concede even the minimum demands of the now-legal Hindraf, Waythamoorthy tilted the community votes towards the Barisan Nasional.

On April 18, he signed a MoU with the regime to improve the economic position of the Malaysian Indian community and bring them into the mainstream of development; BN signed the movement’s 18-point blueprint. But serious differences broke out within Hindraf ranks, though the Indian community now looks forward to a resolution of its outstanding grievances.

The Cabinet formation was delayed on account of efforts to coax Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) and the Malaysian People’s Movement Party (Gerakan) to join the Cabinet. The MCA may join at a later date according to observers, and the Transport Ministry has reportedly been reserved for them. But as of now, the absence of Gerakan and MCA means there are only two Chinese representatives in the cabinet – Senator Paul Low (Minister) and Mary Yap (Deputy Minister).

The Malaysian Indian Congress leader S Vell Paari welcomed Waythamoorthy’s appointment to the federal post saying it proves there are no “permanent enemies” in politics and “the more Indians in government posts, the merrier”. He said the Prime Minister had shrugged aside Waythamoorthy’s previous criticisms of Barisan Nasional in order to prioritise the development of the Indian community.

The MIC has won two Cabinet posts, with Deputy President Dr S Subramaniam (Health) and President G Palanivel (Natural Resources and Environment) respectively. The MIC Vice-President M Saravanan is Deputy Minister of Youth and Sports, and its Putera coordinator, P Kamalanathan, has been made Deputy Minister II in the Ministry of Education and Higher Learning, after the two Ministries were merged.

Tunku Abdul Aziz, who founded Transparency International-Malaysian Chapter, has been appointed Ethics Advisor to the Cabinet. He has previously served as Ethics Advisor to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Over 50 per cent of the Cabinet comprises members of the United Malays National Organisation, which dominates the 13-party coalition that has ruled Malaysia since independence in 1957.

Photo credit: www.themalaysianinsider.com

http://www.niticentral.com/2013/05/17/hindrafs-waythamoorthy-makes-it-to-malaysian-cabinet-78781.html

Tamil Brahmi script dating to 500 BC found near Erode

Author: Express News Service

Published Date: May 17, 2013 8:37 AM
Last Updated: May 17, 2013 9:07 AM

A research team of Pondicherry University found several pot shells containing Tamil Brahmi letters dating to 500 BC at Kodumanal near Chennimalai.

In a major find that throws evidence to Erode’s connection to Tamil Brahmi era, a research team of Pondicherry University found several pot shells containing Tamil Brahmi letters dating to 500 BC at Kodumanal near Chennimalai.

A team of students from Pondicherry University, led by Dr K Rajan and TN archaeological department assistant director Subramaniam, has been carrying out research for the past one month in the region. Recently, the team during its work in Kodumanal found several antiques, besides the pot shells.

Team members, while explaining about the Kodumanal find, said that Tamil Brahmi words like Adinthai, Madanthai, Kuviran, Sumanan, Samban, Vindaveli, Pannan, Bagan, Yadan, etc were found on the pot shells.

Detailing the Chennimalai’s connect to ancient days, the team pointed out that the area had 165 tombs and of these 17 were taken up for research.

While in one of the tombs, many precious stones were found, the team during its study in the region also stumbled upon shell bangles, roulette pottery and sword bit contained spheroidal graphite phase and forge welding of high carbon cutting edge, etc.

The present excavations were made in 8 points near Pandiyan Nagar and a burial ground. Many beads, high quality iron materials like arrow heads, spears, swords, megalithic tombs, iron and steel furnaces, several precious stones like garnet, carnelian, lapis lazuli, sapphire, quartz, etc., were found. The area also contains some objects made of tusks and other materials which could have been used for weaving cotton in those days.

http://newindianexpress.com/states/tamil_nadu/Tamil-Brahmi-script-dating-to-500-BC-found-near-Erode/2013/05/17/article1593552.ece1#

Published: May 28, 2012 02:37 IST | Updated: May 28, 2012 03:19 IST
Kodumanal excavation yields a bonanza again

T. S. Subramanian

One of the two cist burial sites excavated at Kodumanal in Erode district. Photo: K. Ananthan

"This is the transcript of the Tamil-Brahmi script reading "Samban Sumanan" that has been found on a big pot in the archaeological excavation at Kodumanal village. Photo: K. Rajan

A big pot bearing the Tamil-Brahmi inscription, ‘Samban Sumanan,’. Photo: K. Ananthan
The artefacts unearthed reveal an industrial complex that existed around fourth century BCE

Kodumanal in Erode district never stops yielding.

Renewed archaeological excavation in the village in April and May this year by the Department of History, Pondicherry University, has yielded a bonanza again. The artefacts unearthed from four trenches in the habitational mound have revealed an industrial complex that existed around fourth century BCE. The industries in the complex made iron and steel, textiles, bangles out of conch-shells and thousands of exquisite beads from semi-precious stones such as sapphire, beryl, quartz, lapis-lazuli, agate, onyx, carnelian and black-cat eye, and ivory.

Terracotta spindle whorls for spinning cotton and a thin gold wire were found in the complex, which has also thrown up 130 potsherds with Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions, including 30 with Tamil-Brahmi words.

All of them are personal names. They include ‘Saba Magadhai Bammadhan,' ‘Saathan,' ‘Visaki,' ‘Siligan,' ‘Uranan' and ‘Tissan.' A prized artefact is a big pot with a superbly etched Tamil-Brahmi script in big letters reading, ‘Samban Sumanan.'

Industrial site

K. Rajan, Professor of History, Pondicherry University, who was director of excavation at Kodumanal, said: “Nowhere else do we come across such an industrial complex. The uniqueness of Kodumanal is that it was entirely an industrial site with a minimum agricultural activity. Though several Tamil Sangam age sites such as Korkai, Poompuhar, Karur, Uraiyur, Azhagankulam and Porunthal have been excavated so far, none has yielded so much of Tamil-Brahmi-inscribed potsherds as Kodumanal.”

He estimated that these inscriptions, especially the ‘Samban Sumanan' script, belonged to the third century and second century BCE.

While the big pot with ‘Samban Sumanan' was found at the second level of one of the four trenches, the first level yielded a pot with the Tamil-Brahmi word ‘Samban.' Several potsherds had either the name ‘Samban' or ‘Sumanan.' Obviously, ‘Samban' was the father and ‘Sumanan' the son. The industrial complex could have belonged to Samban's family, Mr. Rajan said.

Dr. Rajan and his team also excavated two megalithic graves this season at Kodumanal, which revealed cist-burials. The first grave has a cairn circle (rocks placed in the form of a circle) on the surface, entombing a double cist below. The cists are box-like structures of granite slabs; these chambers have granite slabs as roofs. The first grave has an outer circle of stone slabs planted vertically in the earth. Some of these stone slabs were actually tall meinheirs, which have been destroyed. The inner circle is a wall-like structure. Below are two cists with trapezium-shaped port-holes scooped out of their front slabs. The two cists have a common passage. The cists contained disintegrated human bones. The funerary objects found inside are a four-legged jar, ring stand, dish-on-stand, iron objects and etched or plain carnelian beads. Broken pots and bowls lay outside the cists.

The second grave has a main cist, and two subsidiary cists. Each has a capstone roof. While the main cist was of a transepted variety, the others, erected on either side of the main cist, were simple ones. There was a cairn-circle on top to mark the graves below, but the stones are no longer there. Interestingly, one of the cists, facing south, has a port-hole in the shape of a key-hole. The other two cists have circular and trapezium-shaped portholes. Inside the cists were button and barrel-shaped carnelian beads and smoky quartz beads.

“Wherever there are a main cist and subsidiary cists, the south-facing cist will always have a port-hole looking like a key-hole. Inside the chamber of the key-holed cist, there will always be a bunch of arrow-heads. We do not know why,” Dr. Rajan said. True enough, there were arrow-heads in this cist.

What is remarkable about the industrial complex is that it has a water-channel in it. Water was used for wetting quartz, agate, lapis-lazuli, sapphire and beryl before they were cut and made into tiny beads with holes. Sapphire came from Sivanmalai and Perumalmalai, beryl from Padiyur and iron ore from Chennimalai, all located within 15 km from Kodumanal. A quartz mine exits five km from Kodumanal. While carnelian and agate came from Maharashtra, lapis-lazuli came from Afghanistan. “Kodumanal lies on the ancient trade route that connects the Chera capital of Karur [Vanji] in the east with the famous Chera port of Muciri (the present day Pattnam in Kerala where excavation is under way) in the west. Roman coins in hoards and singles have been found in several sites in this region. Beads made at Kodumanal were exported,” Dr. Rajan said.

Tamil University, Thanjavur, in collaboration with Madras University and the Tamil Nadu Department of Archaeology, dug 48 trenches and exposed 13 megalithic graves at Kodumanal in 1985, 1986, 1989 and 1990, with Y. Subbarayalu as director of excavation and Dr. Rajan actively associating himself with him. The Department of Archaeology dug 15 trenches and exposed three graves in 1998 and 1999.

Dr. Rajan said: “Kodumanal is one of the major horizontal excavations done so far in Tamil Nadu. It is one of the sites in India where the highest number of inscribed potsherds have been found. The highest number of graves was opened here. The presence of pit-burial with skeletons in different postures, urn burials and chamber tombs of different types suggests that multi-ethnic groups lived at Kodumanal. The availability of Prakrit words such as ‘Tissan' and ‘Visaki' in Tamil-Brahmi scripts suggests that this industrial-cum-trade centre had cultural and trade contacts with northern parts of India.”

http://www.thehindu.com/features/friday-review/history-and-culture/kodumanal-excavation-yields-a-bonanza-again/article3463120.ece?css=print

HC notice to police on Swamy’s plea to quash FIR on ‘inflammatory’ article
14 mins ago 17 May 2013 3:18 pm

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Friday sought response from the police on a plea of Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy seeking quashing of an FIR lodged against him for writing an “inflammatory” article in a Mumbai daily in 2011.

Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy.

Issuing notice to Delhi Police, Justice Kailash Gambhir sought its response by 26 August on Swamy’s plea for quashing of the FIR on the ground that “whatever investigation has been done by the police in past 21 months, no material has been found which would cause communal disharmony in society”.

A case was filed against Swamy in October 2011 by the Crime Branch of Delhi Police, on a complaint from the National Commission for Minorities, for writing in July 2011 the alleged inflammatory article which the complaint said was intended to spread communal enmity.

Appearing for Swamy, senior advocate KTS Tulsi submitted before the court that, “In 2005, Swamy had written a book on terrorism in India and the content of the book did not cause any sort of communal disturbance but writing an article, which is based on the book, became offensive.”

“The investigation is going on from past 21 months and no case has been made out so far,” the counsel also argued.

To this argument, Justice Gambhir said, “These kind of expressions cannot be expected from you as you are a political leader, economist and also an educationist,” and issued notice to police.

Swamy was granted anticipatory bail in January 2012 by the high court after he had given an undertaking in the court that he would refrain from writing such articles in future.

Earlier, Swamy’s counsel had argued that this case was lodged to harass his client as he (Swamy) had exposed the 2G scam against the government.

PTI


http://www.firstpost.com/india/hc-notice-to-police-on-swamys-plea-to-quash-fir-on-inflammatory-article-792129.html

Sonia Gandhi: The leader who never delivered?

8 mins ago 17 May 2013 6:39pm

Part 1 was published earlier – please click here to read. Continuing from where I left off……

When the going gets tough…..the tough are nowhere to be seen:

Where was Sonia Gandhi when outrage was boiling over rather disconcertingly on the streets of Delhi – June 2011 & December 2012 – and threatening to singe and rock the nation? Also, why was she conspicuous by her absence when the MPs where debating the Criminal Law Amendment Bill on 19 March 2013?

Why is it that the most powerful person in the country is nowhere to be seen when some soothing gentle words, the empathy of a concerned elder, the soft touch of someone who knows right from wrong – politics be damned – are most needed. Whilst it is true that she muttered a few platitudes after things had cooled down a tad, her absence and silence at the most crucial moments were staggeringly devoid of leadership qualities.

 The twin dynastic pocket boroughs:

Let us now turn our attention to the plight of citizens in the pocket boroughs of Amethi and Rae Bareli that are represented by the mother and son duo – the former, of course, being someone who was ranked the sixth most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine in 2012.

I point you to a hyperlink –click here to access details pertaining to some key human development indices [Hint: Amethi-Rae Bareli reportedly fare worse than a relatively underdeveloped district like Purulia, WB].

As an aside, were Sonia and Rahul not booed during a visit to the pocket boroughs by a section of the locals a few months ago? For more on that, please click here. Media follow-up? Zilch!

Lofty, high-minded & stunningly vacuous:

Sonia Gandhi has often hinted at some sweeping changes on issues such as criminality in politics, overall electoral landscape and the criminal justice system. However, inaction invariably follows – words, I suspect, have no meaning. This is an aspect that the MSM has stoically refused to debate, discuss and analyse – blame it on the gift for the tediously peripheral?

Perhaps the time has come for the MSM to stop paying obeisance at the high altar of suzerainty; asking some valid and probing questions to the host of Congress leaders who keep popping up on TV channels, would be a great place to start. While we are on them, why is it that the novel process of thinking before speaking eludes their flailing intellect not infrequently, and the few times it doesn’t, it reminds one of the misfiring of a defective carburetor? Take a look at the list below – it may not be exhaustive, but there is enough meat in there to ask Mrs. G a few tough, probing and honest questions:

Links: [ April, 2013, Jan 2013, Jan 2013, Jan 2013, April 2011, Jan 2010, March 2006 [or in the period leading up to March 2006] ]

When is the last time a news channel held a panel discussion on some of these promises made, statements uttered, and follow-up action not taken? Also, can someone please point out one column by one leading columnist that puts Mrs. G on the mat on issues such as these? And where are the opposition parties?

Ah, but then we all know that the opposition reverts to the mean mean, swerving close to the median of psychobabble which, in turn, is the preferred mode of conveying to the nation that they are playing their role as the opposition to perfection. Not much scope forstandard deviation there then, on the white noise that surrounds structural and systemic issues; after all, why put some of their flock in the dock as well?

And while we are on the opposition, which can be deemed to be a part of the establishment, let me bung in a quote from Plato’s Republic [545d]: Change in any society starts with civil strife among the ruling class; as long as the ruling class remains united, even if is quite small, no change is possible.

And finally….

“When extraordinary power is allotted to any individual in a Government, he becomes the centre, round which every kind of corruption generates and forms” noted Thomas Paine in Rights of Man in 1791. He then went on to state, “What is called splendour of the throne is no other than the corruption of the State. It is made up of a band of parasites living in luxurious indolence out of public taxes.

When once such a vicious system is established it becomes the guard and protection of all inferior abuses”. The fount of corruption, he goes on to note “is the last person to promote a spirit of reform, lest, in the event, it should reach to himself. It is always in his interest to defend inferior abuses, as so many outworks to protect the citadel; and on this species of political fortification, all the parts that have such a common dependence that it is never to be expected they will attack each other….it is the master-fraud which shelters all others. By admitting a participation of the spoil, it makes itself friends; and when it ceases to do this it will cease to be the idol of courtiers”.

What was applicable to a monarchy that compelled the populace to storm the Bastille, methinks, may well be applicable to other forms of Government.

I now sign out, leaving certain things unsaid – but then, things left unsaid often reveal what we truly wish to say fully.

Disclaimer: References to press clips/affidavits/documents, in good faith. Animal Farm? Ah, mere allegory!

Mail: shining.path.notperu@gmail.com

Twittering tittle-tattle: @ShiningPath1

http://www.firstpost.com/blogs/sonia-gandhi-the-leader-who-never-delivered-792021.html

The first part of the post mirrored at: http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2013/05/why-this-secrecy-over-sonia-gandhi.html