CHINA NEWS JULY 19, 2011

China Reports Clash in Muslim Area

Action Follows Attack on Police Station That Killed Four During Demonstrations by Uigher Minority in Xinjiang Region
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240527023036619045764535110 12413464.html?mod=wsj_share_twitter
By JEREMY PAGE

BEIJINGChinese police "gunned down" several rioters after four people were killed in an attack on a police station in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, the state media reported, in what appeared to one of the most violent incidents in the mostly Muslim area since it was shaken by ethnic rioting in 2009.
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Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Uighur women grab a policeman at a protest in Urumqi in July 2009.

Two security personnel and two hostages were killed, and one other security officer was injured in the attack, which began around midday Monday in Hotan, a small, remote oasis city on the edge of the Taklamakan desert, the state-run Xinhua news agency said. The agency gave no details of how many attackers were killed or injured. Armed police rescued six other hostages and regained control of the situation by around 1:30 p.m. local time, Xinhua said. It added that China's National Counter-Terrorism Office had taken charge of the operation in the city, which is not far from the border with Pakistan and has a population of about 115,000. Xinjiang is home to the predominantly Muslim and Turkic-speaking Uighur ethnic minority, many members of which complain that China's government has plundered the oil-rich region's resources, swamped it with ethnic Han Chinese migrants, and restricted religious freedom.
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Associated Press

Demonstrators set fire to motorcycles and bicycles in Lhasa, Tibet, in March 2008.

China denies those charges and has for decades battled Uighur groups waging a sporadic and sometimes violent struggle for independence. Beijing sees such groups as part of a terrorist organization with links to al Qaeda, and has sought international support for its campaign against them. When Adm. Mike Mullen, the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited China last week, he was taken to an army base to view an exercise based on a scenario in which counter-terrorist forces take on

international terrorists who have killed several government officials in northwestern China. The Germany-based World Uyghur Congress, said that it had been in contact with locals in Hotan who it quoted saying that about 100 people there had protested Monday over a land dispute, and because police had raided several homes and detained several young men over the past two weeks. "Today, some of their friends and family members got angry and asked the government to respond and to release those people, but the police did not want to respond and attacked that gathering," said Dolkun Isa, the General Secretary of the World Uyghur Congress. He quoted local people saying that at least "a couple" of civilians had been killed.
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Southern Mongolian Human Rights/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

A photo distributed by Southern Mongolian Human Rights shows a protester's arrest in Inner Mongolia in May.

"People are either too afraid to say any more or our conversations have been disconnected," he added. Police contacted by The Wall Street Journal declined to comment, and attempts to reach local witnesses there were unsuccessful. After 2001, when U.S.-led forces invaded neighboring Afghanistan, there was a relative lull in violence in Xinjiang. But there was a spate of attacks by Uighurs on government and other targets in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Nearly 200 people died in Urumqi, the regional capital, in 2009, in rioting between Uighurs and Han Chinese, prompting rare public criticism of the Chinese government's inability to maintain ethnic harmony and security in the region. In August, at least six more people were killed in a bombing in Xinjiang, according to state media. Over the past two years, Chinese authorities have carried out a major security operation across the region, where state media say 376 people were tried last year alone for "crimes against national security" and their role in the August bombing.

Monday's attack throws a fresh spotlight on China's enduring ethnic tensions, which also have been highlighted in two more of its largest minority regionsInner Mongolia and Tibetin recent weeks. In May, ethnic Mongolians in Inner Mongolia, which borders Xinjiang to the east, staged rare protests over the hit-and-run killing of a Mongolian herder by a Han Chinese truck driver, who was swiftly tried and sentenced to death.

Ethnic Violence
Some major incidents in recent years March 2008: Chinese state media say Tibetan rioters killed at least 19 people. Tibetan exiles say that more than 200 Tibetans were killed in a subsequent crackdown. July 2009: Rioting between Uighurs and Han Chinese results in nearly 200 dead in the regional capital of Urumqi. August 2010: A bomb kills at least six in Aksu, Xinjiang. May 2011: Ethnic Mongolians protest in Inner Mongolia after an ethnic Han Chinese truck driver hits and kills a Mongolian herder. The driver was quickly put on trial, and was sentenced to death. July: At least four people die in clashes between police and local ethnic Uighurs in Hotan, Xinjiang, and state media say police 'gunned down' several rioters.

The Chinese government also is in the midst of a major security clampdown and propaganda drive in Tibet, which lies just to the south of Xinjiang, to ensure stability for official celebrations to mark the 60th anniversary of what Beijing refers to as the "peaceful liberation" of the Himalayan region by Communist forces in 1951. Soon after the Xinhua report on Hotan was published Monday, Internet censors began blocking word searches for "Hotan" on popular search engines and Twitter-like micro-blogging sites. The Hotan unrest comes just two days after a private meeting at the White House on Saturday between the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, and U.S. President Barack Obama, who expressed his

support for Tibetans' cultural, linguistic and religious traditions, and underscored the importance of protecting their human rights. China says Tibet has been part of its territory for centuries and regards the Dalai Lama, who fled into exile in India in 1959, as a separatist, although he says he is campaigning peacefully for greater autonomy and cultural and religious freedoms, rather than independence. China lodged official protests with the U.S. government Sunday, saying the meeting had "grossly" interfered in its internal affairs and done serious damage to bilateral relations. The Dalai Lama said in an interview broadcast on NBC's Today Show Monday that he believes "a lot of resentment" is building toward the government in China, which he didn't think could back a trend toward democracy around the world, according to the Associated Press. "China cannot go against that trend," he was quoted as saying. Write to Jeremy Page at jeremy.page@wsj.com

A sham called preparing sketches

Posted on July 18, 2011 by Vicky Nanjappa http://vickynanjapa.wordpress.com/2011/07/18/a-sham-called-preparing-sketches/

The police say that they have prepared a sketch and once released it would set the ball rolling and the investigations into the serial blasts case will take a new shape. Now what is the success rate of nabbing a culprit on the basis of a sketch prepared- hardly 1 per cent. Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore, IISC attack, Jaipur and Ajmer just to name a few. After terror struck all these places, the police were quick to prepare a sketch of the suspects and plaster them all over town. While in some cases the suspect was never found, in others

the police always managed to pick up the wrong person based on the sketch. During the IISC attack case, the police never got to the person in the sketch and in the case of the Hyderabad twin blasts, the police did manage to pick someone but at the end of it he turned out to be an innocent man travelling out of Hyderabad. A police officer from Bangalore who has relied on this concept to nab culprits say that the rate of nabbing a person based on this is less than a per cent. Sketches are based on human memory and it is basically addition and deletion based on some one elses description. In my experience it has never found to be useful and appears to be more of an exercise to satisfy the people. So when the police say that the sketches would help them nab the culprit, it appears more of a joke. Preparing sketches always fail since it is based very heavily on a human element. Tell me, you have seen me over 20 times. Can u describe my eyes when you are not in front of me perfectly? The answer is no. When this being the case how can you expect a passer by to describe the face of a terrorist who they would have been seeing for the first time and for less than 2 minutes? As far as my experience goes no one has been detected based on these sketches. There may be many who may try and counter this argument. However what I would like to say is that the only times when persons have been found is because the police have a previous record on these persons which would mean that there is a photograph of the person. However in major cases where a criminal is committing a crime for the first time he has never been tracked on the basis of a sketch.

Sketches are prepared on reasonable suspicion of a person. A face is devised into multiple component parts. An eye witness tells the police about what he has seen. He describes the chin and the data base picks up a variety of chins and attaches it to the face. The case is similar for the other components of the face and once all the details are given the face emerges. Then they go back to the eye witness and show the face to him who on most ocassions agrees with the police. He just agrees for the sake of it since he is always trying to get out of the police station and does not want to spend more time over there since this is a time consuming process. The biggest problem is that terrorist groups have never found to repeat a foot soldier for the second time. Each and every time there is a brand new face which makes the job only harder since no proper record is ever created on that person. The other questions that one could ask while police continue to rely on sketches are. What if the terrorist is wearing goggles? What if he has a wig? What if he has got a face mask on? When a terrorist wears goggles or a wig, then the description can never be right. His eyes are covered and his hairline too is not clear and hence the picture that emerges at the end of it is always wrong. The case gets even worse if the foot soldier appears on the crime scene with a beard since it would cover most of his facial features. Experts say that instead of relying on sketches the national coverage under the CCTV surviellience should be increased. The entire nations coverage under CCTV is just .3 per cent and what is worse is that these cameras have limited resolution capacity. Take the case on hand and one would get the idea that the image

qualities were very poor. The solution would be to increase the resolution and also bring inter connectivity among the CCTVs across the country apart from increasing the number of these cameras.
JULY 18, 2011, 2:58 PM IST

Indias First Slut Walk Takes Place in Bhopal

http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2011/07/18/indias-first-slut-walk-takes-place-inbhopal/?mod=WSJBlog&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter By Nikita Garia

Women in Bhopal, in Indias state of Madhya Pradesh, on Sunday staged the countrys first-ever Slut Walk, a rally aimed at denouncing the attitude of blaming sexual harassment on womens attire.

Courtesy Radhika Shingwekar

People carried placards at Bhopals walk against sexual harassment.

The numbers, however, fell below expectations with organizers estimating that between 60-70 people turned up. Yes, we were expecting more peoplewe were expecting at least 150 people, said Radhika Shingwekar, the main organizer of Bhopals Slut Walk. Their Facebook page shows that about 450 people wanted to attend it. She feels that Sundays heavy rains put many off the idea of participating in the rally. Among those who attended, there were more boys than girls. I was disappointed to see few girls but, on the other hand, it was good to see so many boys. And they were not there just to waste time. They actually supported the cause, said Ms. Shingwekar. The walk ended with an open discussion with members of the judiciary, police and psychiatrists

on womens rights, said Ms. Shingwekar, a 20-year old who studies law in Delhis National Law University. Ms. Shingwekar came up with the idea of organizing a Slut Walk shortly after women activists inNew Delhi announced similar plans. Delhis walk is slated for July 31. The march dubbed Slut Walk by Toronto activists, where the first such protest took place is likely to also take place in Mumbai, though a date is yet to be set. The Slut Walk, a term some may find offensive, in Bhopal was renamed Besharmi Morcha, Bhopal The PrideStride for Women. To avoid hurting the sensibilities of the citys residents, Ms. Shingwekar said she asked those who were planning to attend the march not to dress in a way that would grab unnecessary attention. In other Slut Walks, such as Torontos, women typically turn up scantily-clad as an act of provocation. This was not the case in Bhopal. It was a normal and peaceful walk. No one wore provocative clothes, said Ms. Shingwekar. Ms. Shingwekar felt organizing such a march in Bhopal was necessary: Bhopal is my hometown. I have been here since childhood and I know what girls here go through. According to the National Crime Records Bureaus latest Crime in India report, Madhya Pradesh is the Indian state where the highest number of rape cases are recorded. Ms. Shingwekar said she had heard about Torontos Slut Walk but was more inspired by the initiative in Delhi: I saw the Delhi page on Facebook and since I knew I wouldnt be able to attend the walk I thought Why cant we start something like this in Bhopal?. She started the Facebook page for the Bhopal event shortly after. The law student plans to organize such a march every year to raise awareness against the harassment women face on a regular basis. She also hopes to publicize the next march more vigorously. We couldnt publicize it much this time due to time constraints. It was mainly through Facebook and media reports. Next time, we hope to go to women colleges and spread it by word of mouth.

BJP to file FIR against Digvijay Singh

http://expressbuzz.com/topnews/bjp-to-file-fir-against-digvijaysingh/295721.html#.TiT32fWYBVw.twitter
PTI Last Updated : 19 Jul 2011

BHOPAL: Ruling BJP in Madhya Pradesh will file an FIR against Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh and others for allegedly carrying iron rods, sticks in Ujjain yesterday when saffron workers were showing him black flags protesting his anti-RSS remarks. "The Congress General Secretary was leading armed men, including Ujjain MP, Prem Chand Guddu, who was carrying a stick with him and the District President who was carrying iron rod and followed Singh when he was chasing protesting BJP/RSS workers," State BJP President Prabhat Jha told a press conference here. Jha also showed photographs to mediapersons in which Singh was seen chasing saffron workers. However, Singh himself was not carrying anything. Asked whether BJP will file an FIR against Singh on the issue, he said "BJP will file an FIR against him in this regard." Jha said it appears that Singh in a conspiracy to defame BJP Government one day may get himself attacked by his own men and asked the state government to keep an eye on this possibility. He also said what was the need for him to make such a controversial remark on the Mumbai blasts (involving RSS) when the probe has just begun. Obviously, the intention was to divert the attention of the probe agencies, Jha added. The BJP leader challenged Singh to prove his allegations that RSS was involved in terror acts and added that if he proved it then he would leave the organisation and in case Singh was unable to do so, then he should apologise to the nation. Jha said Madhya Pradesh has no place for violence as it is not the culture of the state but Singh, by indulging in such acts, is taking the state in that direction. The BJP leader said he would provide these photographs not only to the Chief Minister but also to the party leaders at Delhi. He alleged Congress, after losing three by-polls and realising that its defeat is certain in 2013 assembly polls, has chosen the path of bullet over ballot to fulfil its designs.

It was an attempt to disrupt the communal harmony in the state as a large number of Muslims were getting attracted towards BJP in the state, he claimed.

How rude reality set in at Thagla

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/how-rude-reality-set-in-at-thagla/818799/0
Inder MalhotraTags : inder malhotra, columnist, indian express,indian express oped, How rude reality set in at ThaglaPosted: Mon Jul 18 2011, 01:07 hrs

It took the government leadership some time to respond to the objections raised by Lieutenant-General Umrao Singh, General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the Siliguri-based XXXIII Corps to its still-secret directive to the army to evict the Chinese that had intruded well south of the McMahon Line at Thagla ridge (Grave Mistakes after Galwan, IE, July 4). The reason was that Nehru was away at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers Conference in London and the more directly concerned defence minister Krishna Menon was at the UN General Assembly. This clearly indicated that they did not expect any big bust-up with China. At the same time, both were anxious that their government must be seen to be acting against the expanding Chinese encroachments. So it was on October 3 that Menon in consultation with the chief of the army staff, General P. N. Thapar, and Lt Gen L. P. Sen, GOC-in-C of the Eastern Army Command decided that Umrao Singh had to be replaced. Ironically, Thapar had earlier shared Umraos misgiving that the Indian army was in no position to take on the Chinese with their superiority in numbers, equipment and logistics. But in the third week of September, after Menons instructions by phone from New York, the defence ministry had overruled the army chief, in a note

signed by H.C. Sarin, then joint secretary in the ministry, later defence secretary and always a confidant of Menon. Who was to succeed Umrao Singh was the next question. Thapar recommended Lt Gen Sam Manekshaw, and received a mouthful from an enraged defence minister. Strangely, the army chief seemed not to be aware that Sam was Menons bete noire. Menons own choice was Lt Gen B.M. Kaul, his favourite, then serving as the Chief of General Staff (CGS) at the army headquarters. Another source of Kauls immense influence was he was distantly related to the prime minister. As the future trajectory of tragic events cruelly showed, Kauls choice as the battlefield commander was a mistake of monumental proportions for the country as well as for himself. It is worth adding that Kauls appointment in 1959 as the CGS by superseding some of his seniors was one of the reasons for the row between Menon and Gen K.S. Thimayya, arguably Indias most popular army chief so far. This said, let me not be unfair to Kaul and ignore his many qualities. He was an excellent, indeed outstanding, military bureaucrat. He was also a man of phenomenal energy, drive and dynamism, exceeded only by his ambition. No matter how difficult the task assigned to him, his response was can do. Actually, he tended to overdo it. Unfortunately, he had hardly any combat experience and this turned out to be a fatal flaw. Characteristically, Kaul left to assume his new responsibility the very next day after making sure that this landmark in his career would be reported adequately in both The Times of India and The Statesman. The Times story was under the byline of G. K. Reddy (though Kaul had personally tipped off Prem Bhatia, then the papers resident editor and later Delhi editor of Indian

Express). I wrote the item in the Statesman on the basis of information conveyed by a trusted aide of Kaul. Both Reddy and I made one mistake. We reported that Kaul had been appointed commander of the task force formed to evict the Chinese from Thagla. The reality was different, complex and somewhat phony. As the ministry of defence (MoD) clarified, Kaul was to head the newly raised IV Corps based at Tezpur. In fact, Kauls Corps was a phantom. No new troops except for the Corps headquarters staff were sent to it. He had to make do with the meagre forces already deployed. At the same time, Umrao Singh was not sacked. He continued to command the Siliguri Corps but his jurisdiction was confined to Sikkim, Nagaland and the East Pakistan Front. The whole of North East Frontier Agency (NEFA), now Arunachal Pradesh, threatened by the Chinese, was made Kauls exclusive domain. True to his style, on his very first day at Tezpur, Kaul flew to Lumpu and then trekked to Namkachu valley where Brigadier John Dalvis 7 Infantry Brigade faced the more numerous Chinese occupying the commanding heights. No general officer had ever before visited Namkachu. Despite his gung-ho personality, Kaul was shaken by what he saw of the terrain and the enemy. After this brush with harsh reality, he sent from the spot a string of top priority signals that had a sobering, not to mention dismaying, impact on the army and the (defence) ministry, in the words of Maj Gen D.K. Palit, then Director of Military Operations at the Army Headquarters in the rank of a brigadier. However, such was Kauls make-up that despite having discerned the grave vulnerability of Indian positions, he ended his dispatch reassuringly, telling New Delhi that he would take the first step to implement its directive before October 10. Ironically, it was

exactly on that day that the Chinese delivered a far more shattering blow. On October 9, in keeping with his promise to initiate some action, Kaul sent a platoon-strong patrol to take control of Tseng Jong, a small knoll somewhat to the northwest of the Chinese positions that they hadnt occupied. Kaul calculated that once the Indian patrol got there, the knoll could be used as a jumping point. In launching this operation, Kaul had brushed aside warnings by Brigadier Dalvi and the divisional commander in the area, Maj Gen Niranjan Prasad. Surprisingly, the Chinese did nothing to stop the Indian patrol. But the platoon reported late in the evening that the Chinese were massing a whole battalion against it, and he therefore expected an attack at dawn. Nothing happened at first light on October 10. An hour later, however, nearly 800 Chinese soldiers, supported by mortar fire, threw an assault and wiped out the Indian patrol at Tse Jong. According to Prasad, Kaul was too stunned for an hour or so to speak coherently. All he said later was that Delhi would have to do a complete rethink. The writer is a Delhi-based political commentator

Explosive nailed, investigators yet to decipher timer device

Last updated on: July 18, 2011 15:13 IST

http://m.rediff.com/news/report/mumbai-bomb-blast-explosive-nailed-investigators-yetto-decipher-timer-device/20110718.htm
Forensic experts struggle to determine the exact make of the timer device, reports Toral Varia The forensics team analysing samples collected from the three blast sites in Mumbai [ Images ] is struggling to decipher the exact make of the timer device or the trigger used by the bombers to detonate the explosion. While provisional forensic reports have clearly established the use of ammonium nitrate as the explosive, it's the determination of the detonator or the timer device that's proving to be a

challenge for the forensic officials. "Most of the time remnants of the timer device are recovered from the blast site, but if the temperature is too high then it's possible that the timer device may have been destroyed," said Dr Rukmani Krishnamurthy, former director of the Forensic Science Laboratory of Maharashtra [ Images ]. The other possibility is that the timer device was destroyed either in the rains during the blasts or the chaos that followed at the site of the blasts. The forensic report also pegs the weight of each bomb to be anything between four and six kg. In addition to ball bearings, forensic experts have collected one inch long cylindrical sharpened iron rods or shrapnel from the blast sites. All metal used is approximately one inch thick. Traces of ammonium nitrate / fuel oil have also been conclusively established. Even before the forensic reports were ready, it was the witness statements recorded immediately after the explosions that gave investigators their first initial confirmation on the usage of ammonium nitrate in the blasts. Most of the witnesses informed the police that they saw white gas emitting from the area of explosion, symptom of ammonium nitrate combustion. Also, the National Security Guard's vapour detectors helped them get initial confirmation of the use of ammonium nitrate in the blasts. Forensic experts working on the investigations feel that given the precision of the time between the three blasts, one thing is clear, that a digital timer device was used. But efforts are still underway to conclusively figure out the exact nature of the timer device. In most cases the timing mechanism is an improvised ordinary household object such as a wind-up alarm clock, wrist watch, a mobile phone etc. A timer device can be chemical, mechanical, digital or even analog in nature. Identifying the timer device is crucial as it will help the investigators to match the mechanism with the pervious records of the blasts where timers have been used. In the past, terrorists have used timer devices to trigger dozens of blasts across India [ Images ] including 7/11 in Mumbai, the Ahmedabad [ Images ] serial blasts, and as recently as the low intensity blast at the Delhi [ Images ] high court in May this year. Further analysis suggests that the bomb at Dadar's Kabutarkhana seems to have been thrown in haste inside the electric box of the bus stand panel. The haphazard position of the blast considerably contained the impact of the explosion, restricting it to 60 degrees as against the expected 180 degrees impact. Due to the height, the majority of the impact was absorbed by a tree and a car that was parked near the bus stop, resulting in minimum number of injuries and zero casualty. At Zaveri Bazaar, initial assessments suggest that the explosive was placed inside a scooter in an improper position. The bomb had a high quantity of ammonium nitrate. Due to the presence of adjoining scooters, the explosion resulted in leakage of petrol which in turn led to fire in the area.

However, an even massive disaster was averted because the scooter was parked under an open sky. And because the explosive was kept in an improper position, the direction of the blast was toward the open space. At Opera House, too, the bomb was kept in a ditch at a 60-degree angle. Primary reports suggest that had the angle been 30 degrees, far more people would have been injured. As of today a total of 19 deaths and over 134 injuries have been confirmed. However, after the immediate assessment of the blast sites, officials feared the number could have been much higher. According Dr Rukmani Krishnamurthy, ammonium nitrate, a high intensity explosive, coupled with the population density in the area, could have been far more disastrous. "More importantly, there are a number of factors that come into play to create damage." The direction of wind, velocity of the secondary missiles (metals in the surrounding area that get blown away), quantity of explosive, quantity of the primary missile (eg, iron filing, ball bearings etc), containers, placement or the position of the bombs, obstructions during the explosion, time of the day, etc all determine the intensity of the explosion and the damage it can cause.

Toral Varia in Mumbai

Antony gags Army, Navy, Air Force

Rajat Pandit, TNN | Jul 19, 2011, 02.29am IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Antony-gags-Army-Navy-AirForce/articleshow/9277734.cms

NEW DELHI: The defence ministry has directed the Army, Navy and IAF to restrict their interactions with the media to the bare minimum, in what is being interpreted in military circles as a gag order. Sources said defence minister A K Antony in a confidential communication earlier this month to the three Service chiefs Air Chief Marshal P V Naik, Admiral Nirmal Verma and General V K Singh virtually asked them to scale down the interface with journalists across all ranks.

While refusing to "divulge the contents of the communication" in question, MoD officials said the aim was to curb "loose comments" that create "needless problems" for the government. "No one in the military should speak out-of-turn on contentious issues or policies which are still being formulated," said an official. Despite repeated attempts, Antony himself could not be contacted to explain the rationale or the immediate provocation for the directive. The diktat, however, comes in the backdrop of the military leadership in recent days speaking about the Indian armed forces also being capable of launching an Abbottabad-like operation as well as the need for New Delhi to remove the existing 5,000-km cap on strategic missiles and develop ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) with strike ranges of 10,000 km and beyond. For instance, Pakistan had torn into Gen Singh's remark that the Indian armed forces were "competent" to carry out an operation similar to the one conducted by US SEALS to take out Osama bin Laden at Abbottabad in early May. While Army was quick to clarify that Gen Singh had merely responded, without naming Pakistan, to a query about whether India too had surgical strike capabilities, Islamabad had sharply warned New Delhi that any such "misadventure" would lead to a "terrible catastrophe". MoD's directive to the armed forces, of course, once again brings to fore the sheer disconnect between its civilian and military wings despite all the big talk about "integration" between them.

The military, on its part, feels slighted that "civilian control" has come to mean "bureaucratic" rather than "political" over the years. "Indian armed forces have always been avowedly apolitical, recognizing civilian supremacy as a fundamental core principle. Top military leaders, rarely if ever, act as loose canons...but there is always this tendency to dub them just that," said a senior Army officer. "If a mike is thrust in the face of a Service chief at a public function, should he duck the question to act completely unlike a military leader? Or, speak in a professional manner about his force, its capabilities and concerns?" he asked.

UN court orders Cambodia and Thailand to remove troops from around temple site
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=39065&Cr=cambodia&Cr1=

The Temple of Preah Vihear

18 July 2011 A United Nations court today ordered Cambodia and Thailand to withdraw their military personnel from around a disputed temple site near their joint border and to agree not to engage in any further fighting in the immediate area. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a series of provisional measures in the dispute between the South-East Asian neighbours over Preah Vihear, an 11th century Hindu temple complex located on the Cambodian side of the border. The site is inscribed on the UN World Heritage List. Cambodia and Thailand have repeatedly clashed over the area in recent years and earlier this year there were fatal skirmishes that forced thousands of people to flee. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and other top UN officials have urged the two countries to engage in dialogue to resolve the dispute. Cambodia had applied for provisional measures as part of its request to the ICJ for an interpretation clarifying the meaning or scope of a 1962 judgement that it made in the dispute. Today the courts 16-member panel found unanimously that the matter was urgent enough, and the potential risk of damage and renewed clashes sufficiently serious, that provisional measures were necessary. Thailand had requested that the case be removed from the ICJs general list, but the court rejected that. By a vote of 11 to five, the judges then ruled that the two sides should immediately withdrew their military personnel from a provisional demilitarized zone around the temple which the tribunal has defined, and that they should refrain from having any military presence within the zone or directing any armed activity at the zone. In a vote of 15 to one, the ICJ also stated that: Thailand should not obstruct Cambodias free access to Preah Vihear, or prevent it from providing fresh supplies to its non-military personnel;

 Cambodia and Thailand should continue their cooperation within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in relation to the dispute, particularly by allowing the ASEAN observers to have access to the provisional demilitarized zone; The two countries should refrain from any actions which could aggravate or extend the dispute or make it more difficult to resolve.

Subramanian Swamy courts trouble over hate article

HT Correspondent, Hindustan Times

New Delhi, July 18, 2011

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Swamy-courts-trouble-over-hate-article/H1-Article1722734.aspx
First Published: 23:17 IST(18/7/2011) Last Updated: 09:00 IST(19/7/2011)

The ICJ, also known as the World Court, is the principal judicial organ of the UN and is based in The Hague in the Netherlands. One of its tasks is to settle legal disputes between countries.

Janata Party president Dr Subramanian Swamy has courted trouble over his "irresponsible, inflammatory and most condemnable" article that seeks to "whip up passions and destroy the country's social fabric". "At a time when communities need to bond together to fight terrorism, Dr Swamy is engaged in the reprehensible task of dividing the country. He should be immediately arrested under Section 153 A of the Indian Penal Code," said Dr Abraham Mathai, vice chairman of the Minorities Commission of Maharashtra. Two days after Dr Swamy's article appeared in the DNA newspaper, 24-year-old law student Shehzad Poonawala sought to lodge an FIR in New Delhi on July 18 for his "hate-filled article that seeks to spread the ideology of lies, hatred and divisiveness".

Disallowing the FIR plea, the station house officer at Defence Colony told Poonawala that they would need to conduct a preliminary inquiry before proceeding. "If the police fail to set in motion an investigation, I will take up the alternative legal recourse in the matter," Poonawala said. Writing in the aftermath of the serial bomb blasts in Mumbai, Dr Swamy spewed venom against the "Islamists", speculating that the Taliban takeover of Pakistan would become complete by 2012. "Terrorist organisations would then focus on the unfinished chapter of Islamic conquests of India," Swamy wrote. Calling for a "collective mindset of Hindus against the Islamic terrorists", the former Union minister propagated the theory of denying the right to vote to all Indians who (while being Muslims) do not acknowledge with pride that their ancestors were Hindus.

ALL NON-AFRICANS PART NEANDERTHAL, GENETICS CONFIRM

http://news.discovery.com/human/genetics-neanderthal-110718.html Analysis by Jennifer Viegas Mon Jul 18, 2011 10:25 AM ET (241) Comments |

If your heritage is non-African, you are part Neanderthal, according to a new study in the July issue ofMolecular Biology and Evolution. Discovery News has been reporting on human/Neanderthal interbreeding for some time now, so this latest research confirms earlier findings. Damian Labuda of the University of Montreal's Department of Pediatrics and the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center conducted the study with his colleagues. They determined some of the human X

chromosome originates from Neanderthals, but only in people of nonAfrican heritage. "This confirms recent findings suggesting that the two populations interbred," Labuda was quoted as saying in a press release. His team believes most, if not all, of the interbreeding took place in the Middle East, while modern humans were migrating out of Africa and spreading to other regions. The ancestors of Neanderthals left Africa about 400,000 to 800,000 years ago. They evolved over the millennia mostly in what are now France, Spain, Germany and Russia. They went extinct, or were simply absorbed into the modern human population, about 30,000 years ago. Neanderthals possessed the gene for language and had sophisticated music, art and tool craftsmanship skills, so they must have not been all that unattractive to modern humans at the time. "In addition, because our methods were totally independent of Neanderthal material, we can also conclude that previous results were not influenced by contaminating artifacts," Labuda said. This work goes back to nearly a decade ago, when Labuda and his colleagues identified a piece of DNA, called a haplotype, in the human X chromosome that seemed different. They questioned its origins. Fast forward to 2010, when the Neanderthal genome was sequenced. The researchers could then compare the haplotype to the Neanderthal genome as well as to the DNA of existing humans. The scientists found that the sequence was present in people across all continents, except for subSaharan Africa, and including Australia. "There is little doubt that this haplotype is present because of mating with our ancestors and Neanderthals," said Nick Patterson of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University. Patterson did not participate in the latest research. He added, "This is a very nice result, and further analysis may help determine more details." David Reich, a Harvard Medical School geneticist, added, "Dr. Labuda and his colleagues were the first to identify a genetic variation in non-Africans that was likely to have come from an archaic population. This was done entirely without the Neanderthal genome sequence, but in light of the Neanderthal sequence, it is now clear that they were absolutely right!"

The modern human/Neanderthal combo likely benefitted our species, enabling it to survive in harsh, cold regions that Neanderthals previously had adapted to. "Variability is very important for long-term survival of a species," Labuda concluded. "Every addition to the genome can be enriching."

Can Hindu Vegetarians Recover From Restaurant For Alleged Spiritual Injuries Caused By Eating Meat-Filled Snacks When They Had Ordered Vegetarian Snacks?
http://porzioappeallaw.pbnlaw.com/2011/07/can-hindu-vegetarians-recover-fromrestaurant-for-alleged-spiritual-injuries-caused-by-eating-meat-filled-snacks-when-theyha.html

The plaintiffs in Gupta v. Asha Enterprises, L.L.C., ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2011), were sixteen Hindu vegetarians. Two of the plaintiffs ordered vegetarian samosas (a fried or baked stuffed pastry) from defendant Asha Enterprises (Moghul Express), an Indian restaurant. However, defendant filled the order with meat-filled samosas, which the plaintiffs ate. The plaintiffs sued defendant, asserting negligence, negligent infliction of emotional distress, consumer fraud, product liability, and express and implied warranty claims against the defendant. In their complaint, the plaintiffs outlined their injuries and damages in the following manner: Hindu vegetarians believe that if they eat meat, they become involved in the sinful cycle of inflicting pain, injury and death on God's creatures, and that it affects the karma and dharma, or purity of the soul. Hindu scriptures teach that the souls of those who eat meat can never go to God after death, which is the ultimate goal for Hindus. The Hindu religion does not excuse accidental consumption of meat products. One who commits the religious violation of eating meat, knowingly or unknowingly, is required to participate in a religious ceremony at a site located along the Ganges River in Haridwar,

Uttranchal, India, to purify himself. The damages sought by plaintiffs included compensation for the emotional distress they suffered, as well as economic damages they would incur by virtue of having to participate in the required religious cleansing ceremony in India. The trial court dismissed the plaintiffs claims. The Appellate Division affirmed as to the dismissal of all of the claims with the exception of the plaintiffs express warranty claims. On August 10, 2009, two of the plaintiffs placed an order for vegetarian samosas with Moghul Express. In placing the order, those plaintiffs explained to the Moghul Express employee that they needed vegetarian samosas because they were going to be given to a group of strict vegetarians. The employee assured them that was not a problem because the restaurant did not make meat samosas. Thirty minutes later the plaintiffs picked up their order and were given a tray that was labeled VEG samosas. At that time they were again told that they were receiving vegetarian samosas. Upon eating some of the samosas, the plaintiffs started to worry that they contained meat. They contacted Moghul Express confirm the content of the samosas and were again told that the restaurant did not make meat samosas. The plaintiffs then continued to eat the snacks but later decided to return them to the restaurant. At the restaurant, an employee told the plaintiffs that the snacks contained meat. In opposing the defendants motion to dismiss, the plaintiffs provided the trial court with a copy of the defendants menu that separately listed vegetarian and non-vegetarian appetizers; there was a listing for vegetarian samosas but not for meat samosas. The defendant submitted a certification from one of its partners that stated that at approximately the same time that the plaintiffs placed their order, the restaurant received an order for meat samosas. Apparently, the orders were switched and the plaintiffs received the meat samosas. The other customer realized the mix-up and returned the order to the restaurant. Upon realizing that the mix-up had occurred, the defendant made up an order of vegetarian samosas and delivered it to plaintiffs, who accepted it without payment. With respect to the plaintiffs product liability claims, the Appellate Division explained that the New Jersey Products Liability Act (PLA) created one unified, statutory theory of recovery for harm caused by a product that subsumed all possible causes of action relating to harms caused by a product. Although recognizing that the PLA applied to food cooked and sold by restaurants, the Appellate Division concluded that

the PLA is inapplicable as grounds for recovery in the present case because plaintiffs claims are not related to a defect in the samosas themselves, which were safe, edible and fit for human consumption, but rather to allegations they were supplied the wrong product. Accordingly, the Appellate Division affirmed the trial courts grant of summary judgment on the plaintiffs product liability claims and implied warranty claims (which were subsumed by the PLA). For their Consumer Fraud Act (CFA) claims, the plaintiffs alleged that the defendant violated the CFA by fraudulently and/or deceptively advertising the sale of vegetarian food to the Plaintiff and instead, provid[ed] Plaintiffs with non-vegetarian food containing meat products. The Appellate Division reviewed the relevant provisions of the CFA, including those involving misrepresentation of the identity of food, N.J.S.A. 56:8-2.10, and the elements for such a claim: 1) unlawful conduct by the defendant; 2) ascertainable loss by the plaintiff; and 3) a causal relationship between the conduct and loss. The court found that the plaintiffs could establish misrepresentation by the defendant to satisfy the first element, but that they could not prove ascertainable loss. In that regard, the CFA requires that the plaintiff prove a loss of moneys or property[,] and the court determined that the plaintiffs could not meet that burden. Although the plaintiffs argued that they could because they were seeking damages in the amount it would cost to travel to India for a purification ritual, the court disagreed, noting that what they are seeking is the cost of cure for an alleged spiritual injury that cannot be categorized as either a loss of moneys or property. Stressing that there was no supporting precedent for the plaintiffs claims, the Appellate Division refused to expand the definition of ascertainable loss and affirmed the dismissal of the plaintiffs CFA claims. The court then reviewed the plaintiffs two negligence claims negligence leading to spiritual injury and negligence infliction of emotional distress together. As to the latter claim, the court emphasized that such a claim had only been recognized in limited circumstances. After reviewing relevant precedent, the court concluded that [e]ven if we were to find plaintiffs negligence claims cognizable, they have offered no proof in connection with Moghul Expresss motion for summary judgment that would satisfy the relevant damages standard, despite the fact that such proof, if it exists, lies within their control and does not require the opportunity to conduct discovery.

Finally, the Appellate Division examined the plaintiffs breach of express warranty claims, which were controlled by the Uniform Commercial Code. First, the court determined that the plaintiffs had establish sufficient evidence to demonstrate a warranty by the defendant that the samosas it provided were vegetarian. However, [a] more difficult issue was posed by the plaintiffs claims of consequential damages, i.e., emotional/spiritual injury requiring purification of their souls in India. The Appellate Division noted that to prevail, the plaintiffs had to prove that those damages were reasonably foreseeable. Ultimately, the Appellate Division reasoned that [b]ecause discovery has not commenced in this matter, we cannot determine what consequential damages were foreseen at the time of the sale of the samosas in the event of a breach. We thus reverse summary judgment on plaintiffs breach of express warranty claim and remand for further proceedings.

Indian guests for ISI-funded Kashmir cell

http://in.news.yahoo.com/indian-guests-isi-funded-kashmir-cell-221023825.html By OUR BUREAU | www.telegraphindia.com 7 hours ago

July 20: A prominent Washington-based Kashmir group, accused by the FBI of being funded by Pakistan's ISI in a covert attempt to tilt American policy against India's control of the state, has hosted several Indian commentators and activists. Kashmiri separatist leader and US citizen Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai, the head of the Kashmiri American Council (KAC), was arrested in Virginia on Tuesday. Sources suggested the Americans were aware of the roots of the group for some time but chose to act now as a message to Pakistan, which has been making matters difficult for CIA operatives there. The Washington-based group ' also called also called the Kashmiri Centre ' lobbies and holds conferences and media events to promote the cause of self-determination for Kashmir. According to an FBI

affidavit, the activities of the group are largely financed by Pakistan's spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, along with $100,000 (Rs 45 lakh) a year in related donations to political campaigns in the US. The ISI is suspected to have funnelled as much as $4 million (Rs 18 crore) into the US through the group. Foreign governments are prohibited from making donations to American political candidates. Jammu and Kashmir police said the 62-year-old Fai's name figured in several cases in India but did not give details. The group's strategy was to offset the Indian lobby by targeting members of the Congressional committees that focus on foreign affairs with private briefings and events, staging activities that would draw media attention and otherwise to elevate the issue of Kashmir in Washington. However, the FBI said that there was no evidence that any of the lawmakers who received campaign funds from the group were aware of its origins. Several Indian journalists and activists had also accepted the invitation from the group to take part in seminars in the US, which involved business class travel and "some luxury". However, there is no evidence yet that they were aware of the KAC's alleged connection with the ISI. Some journalists had also turned down the invitations. Sources said journalists such as Kuldip Nayar, Dileep Padgaonkar, Harinder Baweja, Ved Bhasin, Rajmohan Gandhi and activists Rita Manchanda and Gautam Navlakha and politician Subramanian Swamy had attended some of these seminars.

Bharat Bhushan, who writes on India-Pakistan relations and is a former journalist with The Telegraph, declined to deny or confirm if he participated in any event organised by the group. Siddharth Varadarajan, national bureau chief of The Hindu, said Fai invited him to attend a seminar in 2009. "But I declined," Varadarajan said, adding that he made enquiries and decided "it was best not to attend". "But my decision to not attend isn't a judgement or commentary on people who did attend as they could have had different assessments (of the KAC and Fai's activities)," he said. What aroused Varadarajan's suspicion was Fai having listed India's envoy to Washington Meera Shankar as one of the speakers at the event. "I checked with my sources on how come she was attending? They told me she wasn't," Varadarajan said. Veteran journalist Dileep Padgaonkar attended a KAC seminar "several years back". Padgaonkar said he did not remember the year now but he "quite liked the meeting and did not suspect any hankypanky". The journalist said he felt there was a need to put forward the Indian point of view even if the outfit was pro-Pakistan. "This was a time before Google searches or deep background searches. There were leading journalists from Pakistan attending the seminar. We had no idea about Fai's connections. I wouldn't have gone had I known or had there been even the faintest of suspicions (about the source of the KAC funds)," Padgaonkar added. Padgaonkar said he declined a few months back "a similar invite from a London-based Kashmiri barrister (Abdul Majeed) Tramboo to

attend a seminar on Kashmir in Brussels after my sources told me the outfit was dubious". But not everybody is apologetic about engaging with the KAC or Fai. Activist Gautam Navlakha felt that Fai could not be vilified as an ISI agent on mere allegations. Navlakha, who attended at least two KACorganised meetings in the last few years, cautioned about jumping to conclusions even before Fai was convicted. "I know Fai. I have enjoyed his hospitality and my conversations with him. Whatever the nature of funding may be, in my eyes his conviction as a Kashmiri remains impeccable," Navlakha said. New Delhi and its mission in Washington kept away from the KAC, knowing it was an India-bashing outfit. But there weren't any express instructions to Indians from outside the government not to attend KAC-organised events. "Some Indian journalists and activists did put forth very strongly the Indian position on Kashmir in these seminars," a source said.

Release of New Logo for Kendriya Vidyalaya Schools

http://dooneducation.com/blog/logokv

New Delhi: Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Arjun Singh has suggested the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) to remove the Lotus from the logo used by Kendriya Vidyalayas (KVs) since it is also used by the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) in its symbol.The KVS had earlier changed the logo after its 79th meeting held on June 26 this year.

The old logo was being used by the Kendriya Vidyalayas (KVs) since its inception.

The old logo has been replaced with a globe showing children reaching out and a satellite in the sky.

The basic motive to change the logo was that, now we work at an international level and the old logo was being used by us from the last 40 years, an official said.

The new logo has been designed by Sudhir Kumar, an art teacher at Delhi Cants KV no. 3. KVs in Tehran, Moscow and Kathmandu have also been informed about the changed logo. We have retained the Sanskrit motto taken from the Upanishads and that is very much reflective of the Indian culture. The new logo was decided upon after several deliberations and keeping in mind the present spirit of education and the scientific temper and globalization of education besides the changed National Curriculum Framework (NCF) that has broadened horizons and also focused on

computer education said Dr. U.N. Singh, Joint Commissioner (Academics) KVs NAPOLEON AND LOKPAL BILL By Rajinder Puri http://udayindia.org/content_02july2011/my_word.html After the French Revolution Napoleon Bonaparte became Emperor of France. He introduced in 1804 new civil and criminal legal codes that came to be known as the Napoleonic Code. As a soldier and administrator he had clear ideas about what was required. He gave explicit instructions to a commission of four jurists who rapidly translated his wishes into laws. It was the first modern legal code which strongly influenced the law of many countries. It was a major departure from prevalent feudal laws. Historians regard it as one of the few documents to have influenced the whole world. Till today it survives in France without change. Napoleon accomplished this because he understood the architecture of governance. Jurists may quibble about words and meaning. They seldom appreciate the practical challenge of providing sound administration. Had Napoleon been alive today what would he have thought of the Lokpal Bill? The politicians and lawyers of the government and civil society engaged in fierce debate regarding the drafting of the Bill reveal pathetic ignorance about the architecture of governance. In a newspaper interview Mr Prashant Bhushan supporting the Lokpal's power to oversee the judiciary was asked about the Lokpal's accountability. He said that the Lokpal should be under judicial purview. So he wants the Lokpal to oversee the judiciary and the judiciary to oversee the Lokpal! Even the manager of any small firm would tell him how daft this arrangement would be. It would lead to conflict, hostility and deadlock. Digvijay Singh, Mr Arvind Kejriwal and several others are also demanding that the Prime Minister and the judiciary should be under the purview of the proposed Lokpal. Mr Kejriwal wrote that since the CBI functioned under the PMO there should be an independent agency to probe the PM. Fair enough. But how would the Lokpal be accountable? Mr Digvijay Singh provided this profound

piece of wisdom. He said: There should be a system to ensure that the Lokpal does not misuse his powers. Exactly! But what might that system be? There is only deafening silence with regard to that. Indeed, addressing that question should have been the starting point of the Lokpal exercise. It might be recalled that I had petitioned former President Zail Singh for permission to prosecute Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi after it was confirmed that he had lied to Parliament and to senior military commanders regarding payments made in the Bofors deal. The President was surrounded by mindless advisers loyal to the Dynasty who warned him about his arrest if he granted permission. Therefore a pre-emptive action to dismiss the PM was touted. After mulling over this wholly unnecessary option Zail Singh chickened out and refused to grant me permission although prima facie evidence against the PM was ironclad. All that the President was required to do was to grant me permission and allow the courts to decide the case. If the courts had admitted the case the matter would have been resolved by Parliament after deciding how to deal with a PM facing a corruption case in court. That is how the system should have worked. It didn't because it was not allowed to. If the proposed Lokpal sees the light of day and a similar situation recurs, who will grant permission to prosecute the PM? Apparently the Lokpal would not need anyone's permission to investigate and prosecute the PM. The Lokpal would either control the CBI or create a new independent investigative agency under its command. By acquiring the power to prosecute the Lokpal would poach on the powers of the President. By controlling the CBI or a similar agency the Lokpal would poach on the powers of the Prime Minister and the Home Ministry. And who would appoint this monstrously conceived entity that could probe and prosecute all and sundry with accountability to none? The proposed Lokpal surely would not be accountable to Parliament because all the MPs in or outside the House would also be under its purview. The view has been expressed that the responsibilities of the Lokpal and the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) would overlap. No problem. Veteran journalist Mr Kuldip Nayar in an article has suggested that because the CVC has not delivered satisfactory results it should be scrapped and replaced by the Lokpal. The option of creating new undefined posts seems to be very popular in

India. Why cannot the CVC be reformed to provide adequate results? For that we would have to analyse its functioning to determine why governance and administration are failing. That is a hard work. It is much more exciting to create a new wonder post that would with the wave of a wand banish all corruption So if Napoleon were alive today how would he have reacted to the Lokpal Bill? I venture to opine that in the light of the Constitution and prevalent laws he would have thrown the Lokpal Bill in the waste paper basket. He would have made the CBI and a newly created Judicial Reforms Commission into constitutional bodies accountable to the President. He would have allowed the President as the elective post with the widest mandate in the country, as the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, as the single office holder under oath with the responsibility to preserve and protect the Constitution and laws, and as the office bearer who appoints, transfers, promotes and demotes all government officials, to oversee all the constitutional bodies made accountable to him. The President would act as the Super Lokpal to address corruption and restore governance. If the President despite the widest mandate for the post misbehaves, Parliament can remove him through impeachment. That is how our Constitution was supposed to work. That is what the architecture of governance suggests. That is how I think Napoleon, were he alive today would have decided.

WHAT IS SONIA GANDHI HIDING?

On Monday Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa visited Delhi. She met with her Delhi counterpart Sheila Dikshit. India's biggest TV channel blared: Will Jaya also meet Sonia? Was the channel unprofessionally ignorant or was it colluding with the exercise to hide the furtive movements of Mrs Sonia Gandhi? Earlier on the same day there was a statement issued by Mrs Gandhi deploring the murder of a prominent journalist in Mumbai. Was all this being done to create the illusion in the public mind that Mrs Gandhi was in India while she was not? This is not the first time that Mrs Gandhi has silently gone abroad in a manner best described as being furtive. Why the secrecy? What is the purpose of Mrs Gandhi's undisclosed visits abroad?

An RTI applicant Mr Ramesh Verma had sought from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) details about the foreign visits of the Chairperson of the National Advisory Council (NAC) and Congress President Mrs Sonia Gandhi. The Central Information Commission (CIC) forwarded the application to the PMO. It seems the Parliamentary Affairs Ministry had informed that the Central government had incurred no expenditure on the foreign visits of Sonia Gandhi during the last ten years, CIC Commissioner Satyananda Mishra has stated. The application to the PMO was received on February 26, 2010, transferred to the External Affairs Ministry on March 16, 2010 and then forwarded to the Parliamentary Affairs Ministry on March 26, 2010. However, it was not known by the Cabinet Secretariat whether the RTI applicant had been provided with the information that was sought. The CIC Commissioner criticized the PMO for its casual approach. The PMO did not obtain the information from the appropriate ministry after the query was specifically directed to it. Congress leaders are frothing at the mouth demanding total transparency from members of the civil society. Probes have been launched against some of them. Should not the government display equal transparency pertaining to India's most powerful politician who is the Chairperson of the ruling UPA coalition as well as the Chairperson of the government's NAC? They need to answer the following questions: Did Mrs Gandhi travel abroad on an airline or by a private jet? If the latter, whose jet was it? What was the purpose of the foreign visit made by the Chairperson of the NAC and the UPA? What is the itinerary of the NAC Chairperson? Which countries and cities did she, or will she, visit? And while they are at it, our worthy Congress leaders may as well also address these ancient and perennial questions: Why does not the government refute the allegation made by a former

member of the Soviet government's official KGB Commission, confirmed by the official spokesman of the Russian government addressing the media, that the KGB had been donating funds to Mrs Sonia Gandhi's family, including her mother, since 1978? Why does the government not demand an apology from the author of the allegation and failing its receipt launch a defamation case against the author and the Russian government? Why do the government and the Congress party not explain the purpose of the meeting between accused money launderer Hasan Ali and the Political Secretary of the Congress President, Mr Ahmed Patel, which meeting was investigated and confirmed by the Maharashtra police? The public awaits from Congress leaders Mr Pranab Mukherjee, Mr Digvijay Singh, Mr Kapil Sibal, Mr Chidambaram and the rest, answers to these questions. Transparency, like charity, should begin at home. (RP)

THE DAYS OF COMMUNISM IN INDIA ARE NUMBERED KP Joseph http://udayindia.org/content_02july2011/straight_talk.html Mr KP Joseph is a former Civil Servant and a consultant to the United Nations who had served in India and abroad in many positions. He is the Director of INSIST (Institute of Studies in Social Transformation) and the author of a number of books. He spoke at length to Uday India Correspondent, Pradeep Krishnan about communism, Marxism, etc. Excerpts: Sir, you have done an extensive study of Marxism and emancipation of the underclass in Kerala. Could you please share some of your thoughts with us? I am happy that you raised this question. The Kerala experience shows that the rise of the underclass can be brought about by education rather than by militant Marxist activism. Sree Narayana Guru, who attained samadhi after a decade of the October revolution, focused only on education to emancipate the poor and under-privileged. He had no good word on Marxist Revolution as a tool to emancipate the underclass. Chattambi Swamigal, Ayyan Kali, Vakkom

Maulavi, Shunbhananda Guru and many other social reformers also emphasised the role of education in emancipation rather than violent revolution. In Kerala, Marxism provided opportunity to the scions of feudal families to extend exploitation and domination of the underclass feeding the latter with visions of Utopia. Instead of seeking emancipation through education, large numbers of youth of the underclass became followers of Marxist upper crust feudal leaders and perished in the flames of Calcutta thesis uprisings. In your book Marxisathinte Kanappurangal you have severely criticised communism/Marxism. Dont you think communism at least brought in the concept of equality, fraternity and socialism among the masses? To think that the concept of equality and fraternity was brought by communists is absurd. The equality and fraternity concept had been given to Kerala much earlier by Sree Narayana Guru, Chattambi Swamigal, Ayyankali and other social reformers .We also know that the concept of socialism is embedded in the concept of equality and fraternity. But let us think of the concept of socialism. Can we give the credit to the communists? Here also, the answer is in the negative. No credit can be given to the communists, followers of Marx for inventing socialism, which is an English word derived from socialisme, a French word. In fact, the originator of the concept of socialisme was not Karl Marx (1818-1883) but Saint Simon (1760-1825); Robert Owen (1771-1858) of England, Charles Fourier (1772-1837) of France; David Ricardo (1772-1823) of England; Charles Hall (1740-1825) Proudhon (1809-1865) of France; Louis Blanc (1811-1882) and many others. Was the socialism preached by Marx different? Of course. The socialism his predecessors preached was derided by Karl Marx as Utopian Socialism. He gave his product the brand name of scientific socialism. There was very little scientific about it. He tried to simplify the complex socio- economic progress and history, belittling the role of human consciousness. He conceived human consciousness as the product of material conditions, although his consciousness itself was not formed by his material conditions. He belonged to the Newtonian School of Science which thought that the key to the running of the universe could be discovered by scientists and the future could be predicted in precise terms.

The Uncertainty Principle of Werner Heisenberg was known only in 1927. Strangely the uncertainty principle in human affairs was at the core of poetry of Kumaran Asan (1873-1924). The uncertainty principle in human affairs was known to poets, philosophers and common people through out history. On the other hand, the certainty principle in human affairs was the product of Newtonian Science that boasted that science had all the answers to all the questions up its sleeve and Marxism was a child of this world view. The immateriality of matter (that can be linked to Indian Maya concept, Christian bubble concept of life) also blasts the materialistic foundation of Marxism. Is it not clear as crystal that concepts of equality, fraternity, socialism are not of Marxist origin whether in Kerala, India or the world. It is only the clever Goebbelsian propaganda has contributed to this mistaken belief. Does not the average Malayali still believe that the holocaust of Hitler (2.5 crore human victims) was more than the victims (12.5 crore) of Stalin, Mao and other Marxist rulers? Noam Chomsky, critic of US policies, was paraded some years ago in Kerala by the Marxist Party as its supporter although he was the man who was as happy when Soviet Union collapsed as he was when Nazism collapsed. Communists, the world over, have always claimed that their ideology is the only one that is scientific and progressive. Your comments. All fundamentalist religions claim that their religion is the only true religion. Communists belong to the fundamentalist religion of Marxism-Leninism. The religious belief of communists is Godless, but all the same a religion. There is nothing scientific about it. If there was anything scientific, they would have been able to deliver the goods they promised. They promised paradise but created hell for people in Soviet Union and elsewhere. China is progressing in economic terms only after dumping Marxism (Maoism) Marx predicted proletarian revolution in countries where capitalism matured viz Germany, Britain, etc. No proletarian revolution came up in these countries. In fact no proletarian revolution has ever taken place in any country as predicted by Marx. In Kerala, in spite of heavy infighting, the party (CPM) has a wide mass base. In fact, the party had been instrumental in bringing in land

reforms. Would you not acknowledge the good work done by the Marxists of Kerala? The land reforms in Kerala and West Bengal is not Marxian, but Congress policy implemented by CPM. Private landed property is anathema to Marxism. In Kerala/Bengal the CPM implemented the Congress policy believing that a time would come when all the land will belong to government headed by the Party on successful completion of the dictatorship of the proletariat (read CPM Constitution). Marxist/Maoist policy was for collective farms where the farm lands did not have private ownership. The CPM was out of power and the nonCPI/CPM governments had only taken further steps to deepen the impact of the land reforms on the poor. One also has to remember that EMS had retained control over his landed property by creation of trust in the name of the Party over which he had control. This he did before the land reforms to take optimum advantage to himself and his family so his lands were not distributed to his tenants/tillers. In West Bengal CPM implemented the land reforms in a dubious manner so that the ownership records were all kept by the CPM offices. The farm workers would lose their land ownership records through party manipulation if they ever voted against the CPM. This is how the Left were able to manipulate to continue in power in West Bengal. In Kerala this did not happen. What is the basis of your argument that Communism/Marxism is responsible for retarding the progress of West bengal and Kerala? The party was against all types of mechanisation and application of technology to lighten labour increase productivityin every field, viz in coir production, cashew industry, rice cultivation, abolition of manual rickshaw pulling and use of computer. The party acted as if it had a vested interest in poverty. They were afraid of improvement of the standard of living of the common man lest they lose support. Use of new technology is the driving force of productivity in every field and therefore of economic development. They could not understand this simple truth or having understood it, opposed the move to serve the primitive interest of the Party. What is the future of Communism/Marxism in India? As you are aware, Communists were the main opposition during the fifties. But the party has hold only in one state. What could be the reason for Marxists not

getting any support in the rest of India? The days of communism/Marxism in India are numbered. Even though they got few seats in the recent elections, their impact on the masses in elections will continue to decline. But because of the huge corporate funds that the Party has been able to accumulate through good and bad means,the party has enough funds. What will be the future of Communism in the rest of the world? Decline leading to collapse, caving in, disintegration, even of its last ramparts Cuba (paradise for prostitution) and North Korea (21st century slave society). What could be the reason for Communist leaders becoming intolerant towards persons who hold a different view, their blatant abuse of leaders of other parties and faiths? As I pointed out the CPM is not a political party that can freely function in modern civil society, but a medieval fundamentalist religion (irreligion) cum political party like the Catholic Church in middle ages. The Catholic Church has moved with the times, but not the CPM.

Monday, July 18, 2011

A Report on the Cloyne Report: Tommorow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow--Ongoing Cover-Up in the Catholic Church
http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2011/07/report-on-cloyne-report-tommorow-and.html

I have now read the Cloyne report. At one level, I feel ambivalence in writing about it. The ambivalence stems from the strong sense of dja vu anyone who has followed the abuse crisis for some years now will undoubtedly feel in reading the report. The same elements seemingly perennial and intractableones that appear in each new breaking story about the ongoing abuse crisis in the Catholic church and its cover-upare there. This is Philadelphia is Kansas City is Boston is Belgium is Munich, etc., ad nauseam. Hence my ambivalence about telling the story again, mustering moral outrage all over again: nothing seems to be happening to change the situation. Nothing substantial is happening. And lay Catholics continue putting up with the situation, shrugging their shoulders and carrying on, even, in many cases, defending the leaders of the church and accusing anyone who calls for continued scrutiny of the situation of attacking the church and seeking to tear it apart. People tire of hearing stories of this sort over and over, when those with the power to make the stories stop happening seem either oblivious or unconcerned. People tire of mustering moral outrage all over again. People begin to suffer compassion fatigue, particularly when those with the power to make a differenceand that power lies exclusively in the hands of lay Catholics, when the hierarchal leaders of the church are determined to do nothing but lie, obfuscate, and protect their own powerappear either too stupid or too vicious to lift a finger and do something to change the situation producing the repeated expressions of moral outrage. Yet, as the Cloyne report frequently reminds readers, at the heart of each of these breaking new stories about the ongoing cover-up, there are real human livesthe lives of children exposed to harm by the reckless and callous indifference of Catholic pastoral officials who put the churchs image, power, and assets above anything else in their response to the abuse crisis. Above even the protection of innocent children . . . . And how can one remain indifferent about that fact? How can one not speak out when the vulnerable are being subjected to harm, and

ones voice might still make a difference somewhere, in someones life? What Ive decided to do in response to the Cloyne report is the following: I want first to describe briefly the situation to which the report is respondingthe seemingly perennial and intractable situation in the ongoing abuse crisis in the Catholic church. Anyone familiar with that situation will see in this report about an Irish diocese the same elements that have characterized the response of church officials to the abuse crisis everywhere in the world, over and over again, to the extent that we ever learn what is really going on behind the scenes. As many of those commenting on the Cloyne report are rightly noting, this is Philadelphia all over again. And it is beyond disgusting to those of us who have called for, worked for, hoped for substantive change for some years now to see the cover-up, the evasions, the lies still going on, and children still exposed to harm by church officials who claim that they have tightened the reins and are addressing the situations that place children in harms way. Second, I want to excerpt sections of the report to illustrate the points Im making in this description of the Cloyne situation. My goal with these excerpts will be to provide anyone who might want a CliffNotes version of the report with a manageable set of excerpts that will summarize the primary findings of the report. The Cloyne Report: A Brief Overview The report itself contains a valuable summary of its chief findings in sections 1.74 through 1.76. This summary reads as follows: The principal feature of this report can be simply expressed. The Diocese of Cloyne ostensibly accepted the Framework Document and promised to implement it. It did not do so. On the contrary, Bishop Magee appears to have taken little real interest in its implementation for 12 years. He allowed the authority of the diocese in this regard to be exercised for that period by others, in particular Monsignor OCallaghan . . . (1.74).

He [Msgr. O'Callaghan] refused to accept the Framework Document as a proper ecclesiastical policy. He preferred a pastoral approach and felt that the relatively rigid procedures of the Framework Document interfered with this approach. He did not appear to accept that the Framework Document expressed the standard that the Irish Church had set for itself in relation to child sexual abuse. He frustrated its implementation and was primarily responsible for the limited and incomplete compliance with it described in the report (1.75). Those who thought like Monsignor OCallaghan had their positions greatly strengthened by the Vaticans reaction to theFramework Document. This response, discussed in Chapter 4, can only be described as unsupportive especially in relation to reporting to the civil authorities. The effect was to strengthen the position of those who dissented from the official stated Irish Church policy (1.76). And so these findings lead the judicial commission charged by the Irish government with reviewing the situation in the Cloyne diocese in March 2009 to the following conclusion: It seems to the Commission that continuing external scrutiny is required to ensure that the improvements which the diocese has made and continues to make will remain in place (1.78). In other words, the Catholic church cannot be counted on to police itself in the abuse crisis. Its leaders will, over and over again, lie, stonewall, obfuscate, spin excuses, engage in meaningless p-r gestures, and continue all the while to expose innocent minors to harm. Left to their own devices, they have proven that they will do this and that they intend to keep doing this,as long as they are permitted to do so. And so continuing external scrutiny by legal, judicial, and criminal authorities is required to resolve the abuse crisis in the Catholic church. We cannot count on the leaders of the Catholic church to resolve the crisis. The Framework Document to which the preceding summary of the main findings of the Cloyne Report points is the document Child

Sexual Abuse: Framework for a Church Response, issued by the Irish bishops in 1996. As the report notes, The Commissions main task was to consider whether the response of the Church and State authorities to complaints and allegations of clerical child sexual abuse was adequate or appropriate and to establish the response to suspicions and concerns about clerical child sexual abuse. In assessing how the diocesan and other Church authorities dealt with complaints, the Commission has judged them by the standards set in their own documents--the Framework Document and Our Children, Our Church. The Framework Document was issued in 1996. Our Children, Our Church was issued in 2005 (1.15). The commission was charged, in other words, to investigate whether the Cloyne diocese was abiding by the procedures established by the Irish bishops in 1996 (and reinforced in 2005), and so the scope of its inquiry focused on the response of diocesan officials to sexual abuse of minors in the period 1996 to the presenti.e., to 2009, when the investigation did its work. As the Cloyne report states, the 1996 Framework Document contained detailed, easy-to-implement procedures for handling allegations or suspicions of child clerical abuse, and early in 1996, Bishop Magee of the Cloyne diocese wrote to his clergy, telling them he had adopted those procedures and they would be in place in the diocese (1.16). But then this is the situation that actually resulted when the Cloyne diocese implemented the Framework Document: Despite Bishop Magees stated position on the implementation of the Framework Document, the reality is that the guidelines set out in that document were not fully or consistently implemented in the Diocese of Cloyne in the period 1996 to 2009. The primary responsibility for the failure to implement the agreed procedures lies with Bishop Magee. It is a remarkable Fact that Bishop Magee took little or no active interest in the management of clerical child sexual abuse cases until 2008, 12 years after theFramework Document was adopted. As a result of this vacuum, the dioceses functions in the matter of clerical child sexual abuse were, by default, exercised by others. The principal person involved was Monsignor OCallaghan.

He did not approve of the procedures set out in the Framework Document. In particular, he did not approve of the requirement to report to the civil authorities. He was totally familiar with the reporting requirements set out in the document and he implemented them in the Fr Corin case (see Chapter 10). He did not do so in many other cases (1.17). To repeat: Bishop Magee informs his clergy (and the public) in 1996 that he has implemented the procedures mandated by the Irish bishops for handling allegations and suspicions of child clerical abuse, including notification of the police and child health services when credible allegations have been made. He then hands over the actual details of the implementation process to Msgr. Denis OCallaghan, who does not approve of the procedures of theFramework Document, and, in particular, of the requirement to report to civil authorities. And the Vatican is right in the thick of the problems, as the commission unsparingly notes over and over. It is right at the heart of the resistance to reporting to secular authorities, of the obfuscation, of the smokescreen. It is right at the heart of the attempt to undermine and evade the procedures the Irish bishops have set in place for resolving the abuse crisis. The Vatican is, to say the least, not part of the solution. It is a big part of the problem. As the commission notes, The reaction of the Vatican to the Framework Document was entirely unhelpful to any bishop who wanted to implement the agreed procedures (see Chapter 4). The Congregation for the Clergy told the bishops of Ireland that the document was not an official document of the Episcopal Conference but merely a study document. The Congregation further stated that it contained: procedures and dispositions which appear contrary to canonical discipline and which, if applied, could invalidate the acts of the same Bishops who are attempting to put a stop to these problems. If such procedures were to be followed by the Bishops and there were cases of eventual hierarchical recourse lodged at the Holy See, the results could be highly embarrassing and detrimental to those same Diocesan authorities. In particular, the situation of mandatory reporting gives

rise to serious reservations of both a moral and a canonical nature. This effectively gave individual Irish bishops the freedom to ignore the procedures which they had agreed and gave comfort and support to those who, like Monsignor OCallaghan, dissented from the stated official Irish Church policy (1.18). And so heres a summary, in a nutshell, of what the Cloyne investigation uncovered. This is what makes many of those who have followed the abuse crisis in the Catholic church for some years now want to tear their hair out, because there is absolutely nothing new in this sorry, predictable picture. And that means that nothing is being done by Catholic officials, effectively and with any proactive intent to address the situation, even today, after years of repeated broken promises, pretend-apologies and pretendexpressions of sorrow, assurances that effective procedures are in place and are being followed. The Cloyne report suggests that, if Cloyne is any way typical, the following continues to go on in one Catholic diocese after another: 1. The cover-up of cases of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy is still going on, and the evasion of established procedures for handling credible allegations of such abuse is still going on, while a smokescreen is in place to pretend otherwise to the public. 2. Bishops, who have ultimate responsibility in each diocese, continue to evade their responsibility to address the abuse situation in their dioceses, and continue to hide behind those to whom they delegate the handling of abuse cases, who may actually thwart the very procedures bishops assure the public they are implementing. 3. There is ongoing evasion of the requirements in both(selected) church documents and civil law to report abuse cases to the civil authorities. 4. Advisory boards and lay panels set up per church documents to oversee diocesan handling of abuse cases are often a sham; they are dominated by clerics, who do not permit disagreement with their judgment about cases; boards often do not meet when scheduled, do not function effectively, do not keep proper notes, lack all

independence, and are not given pertinent information by diocesan authorities. 5. Catholic officials lie boldly to the public, and/or are grossly negligent in exercising pastoral responsibility, particularly when it comes to protecting minors from abuse. 6. Important (and, presumably, damning) personnel files containing information about priests abusing minors are either kept secret or held off the premises of diocesan chanceries, and their contents are not shared with those trying to monitor or resolve the abuse situations within dioceses. 7. The Vatican is undermining the efforts of those in some bishops conferences who seek to address the abuse situation honestly and proactively, is seeking to divide bishops conferences, and is working secretly behind the scenes to thwart reporting of abuse cases to civil authorities. 8. The predominant concern of most Catholic pastoral leaders in the abuse crisis remains to protect and behave pastorally towards priests accused of abusing children; there is little to no concern about children sexually abused by clerics. 9. The handling of abuse cases remains highly centralized at the top level of dioceses, whose leaders jealously guard information and their own power, refuse to rely on support of people outside the chancery (above all, of the laity), and resist outside scrutiny of their handling of abuse cases. 10. When this way of handling abuse cases leads to moments of crisis as new stories about abuse break open in a particular area, diocesan officials predictably bring in outside consultants (who are paid for their work and lack independence) to issue window-dressing p-r reports; these consultants are not given full information and their recommendations are ignored by diocesan officials and not shared widely, when those recommendations are inconvenient for bishops to follow. 11. The system of audits is a shell game, since the audits

conducted in various dioceses to assure that dioceses are adhering to procedures established by bishops conferences are nothing at all like the independent audits of any other corporation, which have access to all information under audit, no matter how sensitive. The Catholic church is, in short, seriously broken. And it remains seriously broken. Its not fixing itselfnot even when the lives of innocent children are at stake. The Cloyne report concludes that it will not fix itself. And so the only possible fix to the morality-driven institutional brokenness exhibited by the abuse crisis and its cover-up is intervention of secular laws, secular supervisory agencies, and the criminal justice system. Tomorrow, Ill continue this reporting on the Cloyne report, by offering more excerpts showing how each dramatis persona in this sorry morality tale has distinguished himself (not!) in helping to craft the tale told by an idiot summarized above. The graphic is from the gallery of Tony B at the Picasa web albums site.
FRONT PAGE | Wednesday, July 20, 2011 | Email | Print |
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FBI arrests Kashmir Councils Fai for being ISI man

July 20, 2011 1:01:39 AM

http://www.dailypioneer.com/354553/FBI-arrests-Kashmir-Councils-Fai-for-being-ISIman.html
S Rajagopalan | Washington In a dramatic development, the FBI on Tuesday arrested Ghulam Nabi Fai, executive director of the pro-separatist Kashmiri American Council for being on the payroll of ISI and lobbying for the Pakistani Government as part of a long-term conspiracy to influence US officials on Kashmir. I believe that Fai has received approximately $500,000 to $700,000 per year from the Government of Pakistan, the FBI said in an affidavit filed in federal court, adding that Fai and his organisation has received at least $4 million from the Pakistani Government since the mid-1990s.

Fai is accused of a decades-long scheme with one purpose to hide Pakistans involvement behind his efforts to influence the US Governments position on Kashmir, said US Attorney Neil MacBride. His handlers in Pakistan allegedly funneled millions through the Kashmir Centre to contribute to US elected officials, fund high-profile conferences, and pay for other efforts that promoted the Kashmiri cause to decision-makers in Washington. In a thinly-disguised attack on Pakistan, FBI Assistant Director in Charge James McJunkin said: Foreign Governments who try to influence the United States by using unregistered agents threaten our national security. A US citizen living in the Fairfax, Virginia suburb of the Washington metro area, the 62-year-old Fai has been charged with acting as an agent of the Pakistani Government in the US without making the requisite official disclosures. Also charged but not yet arrested is Zaheer Ahmad, 63, a US citizen currently believed to be living in Pakistan. Fai and Ahmad, if convicted, face a potential sentence of five years in prison, the FBI said. Fai was to be produced in a Virginia court later in the day. The FBI complaint alleges that that Fai and Ahmad conspired to act as an agent of a foreign principal without registering with the Attorney General in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and falsify, conceal, and cover up material facts they had a duty to disclose in matters within the jurisdiction of Executive Branch agencies of the US Government. Fais alleged conduct illustrates the risk to our fair and open Government. The charges underscore the dedication of special agents who enforce laws like the FARA violations charged here that are designed to detect and defeat those who attempt to surreptitiously exert foreign influence on our Government by using agents who conceal their foreign affiliations, McJunkin said. FARA, according to Assistant Attorney General Lisa Monaco, is designed to ensure that the US Government and American public know the underlying

source of information and identity of persons attempting to influence US policy and laws. The two defendants are accused of thwarting this process by concealing the fact that a foreign Government was funding and directing their lobbying and public relations efforts in America, Monaco said. The Washington-based Kashmiri American Council (KAC), founded in 1990, claims to be a non-governmental and not-for-profit organization dedicated to raising the level of knowledge in the United States about the struggle of the Kashmiri people for self-determination. The affidavit has gone on to allege that the KACs so-called Kashmir Centres are actually run by elements of the Pakistani government, including Pakistans military intelligence service, the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI). Two other Kashmir Centres are located in London and Brussels. According to the affidavit, a confidential witness told investigators that he participated in a scheme to obscure the origin of money transferred by Pakistans ISI to Fai to use as a lobbyist for the KAC in furtherance of Pakistani government interests. The witness explained that the money was transferred to Fai through Ahmad, who is living in Pakistan. A second confidential witness told investigators that the ISI created the KAC to propagandize on behalf of the government of Pakistan with the goal of uniting Kashmir. This witness said ISIs sponsorship and control of KAC were secret and that ISI had been directing Fais activities for the past 25 years. FBI investigators questioned Fai about these relationships back in March 2007, when he took the stand that he had never met anyone who identified himself as being affiliated with the ISI. In March 2010, the Justice Department sent Fai a letter notifying him of his possible obligation to register as a foreign agent with the Justice Department. In his written response, Fai asserted that neither he nor KAC had ever engaged in any activities for or provided any services to Pakistan or any

foreign entity. In a March 2011 interview with the FBI, Fai again denied having any relationship with anyone in the Pakistani government. The affidavit alleges that Fai has acted at the direction of and with the financial support of the Pakistani government for more than 20 years. The affidavit alleges that four Pakistani government handlers have directed Fais U.S. activities and that Fai has been in touch with his handlers more than 4,000 times since June 2008. Fais handlers have also allegedly communicated with Ahmad regularly.

Questions on Fai-gate
Posted By Sudhir on July 21, 2011 in Columns & Reviews, Featured | 1 Comment

http://centreright.in/2011/07/questions-on-fai-gate/

As someone who has spent the last sixteen years reporting kashmir. The second part of that tweet has not been reproduced above because it is not relevant to our discussion now. This was tweeted by NDTV Group Editor, Barkha Dutt, last year during the violence in Jammu and Kashmir. She made every attempt to enlighten us about her long drawn experience in Kashmir. Ok, now lets come to the present. Kashmiri American Council, with the tagline (Freedom for all, Freedom for Kashmir) is a US based organisation. Basically it is a think-tank that organises seminars, meetings, etc to try and influence the US

position on Kashmir. From their tagline, it is pretty much evident what their ideology is. In a shocking development, the FBI arrested the Director of Kashmiri American Council, Mr. Ghulam Nabi Fai because it was revealed that all along, this KAC has been funded by, lo and behold, the ISI !! This Pioneer report quotes the US attorney as saying that ISI funded Mr. Fai to even contribute funds to elected officials, organise high profile conference, seminars etc. And amongst those who have been invited (and have attended too) are multiple Indian left-liberals. Before we are accused of hyping up a non-person and non-story, heres what Praveen Swami, the foremost expert on security issues in India has to say about Mr. Fai For decades, Dr. Fai was the most visible face of Kashmiri secessionism in the West: presiding over a succession of high-profile conferences for which delegates were flown in from across the world and flying from one world capital to the next rallying support for his cause. Now, for someone like Barkha who has been covering Kashmir for the last sixteen years (well, seventeen this year), shouldnt this story be one of the highest priority to report? The most visible face of Kashmiri secessionism in the West getting arrested doesnt even warrant a tweet from her? Prominent amongst those who enjoyed Fais hospitality is Dileep Padgaonkar. Dileep Padgaonkar is the one of the three interlocutors appointed by GoI to discuss the J&K problem. Now, how do we trust if Mr. Dileep is not influenced by KACs position? Another prominent person whose trips were funded is Rajinder Sachar. Remember the Sachar committee report? I am only citing two names here (some other names in this report here), which are enough to ring alarm bells and yet NDTV does NOT percieve this to be newsworthy enough? Should we not be grilling these eminent personalities on the details of their discussions? Should they not come out and openly declare the nature of their association with this ISI funded initiative?

Even if they did not know this earlier, isnt this a good enough reason to come out fully in the open? Before you pounce on us saying English TV media did cover the arrest the debate here is about the amount of coverage. Hillary Clintons visit, British PMs reply to parliament, Cash for votes, illegal mining in Karnataka (yes, believe it or not, news channels still have breaking news on that!), the yet-to-begin Lords test (with images of Sachin Tendulkars son bowling to Suresh Raina) these occupied most the coverage. Fais arrest was buried somewhere amongst these. Only TIMES NOW had a full fledged discussion last night (and unfortunately I couldnt get to watch it). Fais arrest also brings into focus the multiple Track-2 diplomacy efforts that take place, from time to time. And again, most of the invitees from both sides of the border are either retired officials or current journalists. Who pays for them? What topics are discussed at these track-2 meetings? Why dont all those who attend write about these meetings? What are the conclusions reached? Who decides on the way forward? And if at all any decisions are taken, or any messages are passed who goes and gives it to the government? How can we be now sure that these efforts are not funded by nefarious elements? Why do journalists shy away (no, actually when I asked them the above questions, most of them never bothered to reply also) from putting all these out in the open? What qualifications do they have to run diplomacy between the two countries? Fais arrest happened some 36 hours ago. The Pioneer and Times of India were the only ones to report and front page it yesterday. Others like The Hindu front paged it today. About the TV channels well, we discussed them above . Why is the Indian media so reluctant to discuss this and the above asked questions in detail? Is it because there is a conflict of interest? Is it because those who fund their

junkets disapprove of threadbare discussions that will paint them in bad light? Or is it because they are so incompetent to get their priorities so wrong? Either way, most of these channels stand exposed, yet again, of their double standards. PS: Special thanks to fellow tweeter CodedVirus for pulling out that old tweet (he has this superb knack of finding them in minutes ).

PS2: Shameless plug: If you are interested in the second part of that tweet and all that happened during the summer of 2010 some blogs here that detail them . Dont miss this one gives the

number of people dead day-wise breakup Image (C) : The Investigative Project on Terrorism

Mining licence applications.

http://www.hindu.com/2004/10/13/stories/2004101305510400.htm

By Our Special Correspondent Bangalore Oct. 12. The Chief Minister's Office today received over 350 applications for mining licences in two blocks in the State, according to the Chief Minister's Principal Secretary, S.V. Ranganath. He told presspersons here that the applications were for iron ore mining in Bellary and manganese mining in Tumkur. The applications would be sent within the next 20 days to the Centre for approval. He said normally the approvals took six months. He said as there was no minister to take care of the Mines portfolio, the Chief Minister's Office took the responsibility of collecting and forwarding the applications.

Congress Nadige interrupts functioning of school

TNN | Jun 15, 2011, 10.46PM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hubli/Congress-Nadige-interrupts-functioning-ofschool/articleshow/8866972.cms

HUBLI: The 'Congress Nadige Janara Balige,' campaign organized by the district unit of the party here on Wednesday meant a loss of three hours of classes for the students of Rajiv Gandhi Urdu and Kannada Medium School located in S M Krishna Nagar in city. The organizers of the campaign had chosen the premises of the private school for the event. Barely an hour after the school reopened for the day, the organizers started erecting pendal and fixing and testing the mikes much to the inconvenience of the students and teachers. Then the students had no choice but to bear the speeches of the netas till the school broke for lunch at 12 noon. Former minister and Hubli-Dharwad congress president A M Hindasageri, party's district observer Lohit Nayak, KPCC members Prasad Abbayya and Rajashekar Menasinakai were some of the Congressmen who made speeches during the event.
You are here: Home District Mixed reaction to Gita Abhiyaan

Mixed reaction to Gita Abhiyaan

Kolar, July 14, DHNS :
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/176415/mixed-reaction-gita-abhiyaan.html

Even as Bhagavad Gita Abhiyaana was being held in the City, leaders of various organisations staged a protest demanding arrest of Sonda Swarnavalli Mutt seer Gangadhareshwara swami and Nanjundaiah Shetty who delivered lecture on Bhagvad Gita on Thursday.

The Bhagavad Gita Abhiyaana, being simultaneously held in 25 districts in the State, has so far not received any objections. But there is objection only in Kolar and Chikkaballapur districts. This is enough to indicate that the Abhiyaan has the support of the majority. And in Democracy, the opinion of the majority counts, opined Gangadharendra, seer of Sonda Swarnavalli Mutt in Sirsi. He was speaking at the Bhagavad Gita Abhiyaan Samarpane programme organised on the Basaveshwara Temple grounds at Aralepet in Kolar on Thursday. The seer said, We have nothing against the opposition expressed against the Abhiyaan. We are ready for a philosophical debate. We are open for discussion on why the Bhagavad Gita should and not be included in the curriculum. Some of the minorities-run education institutions have submitted a petition in the High Court against the Abhiyaan being held in other institutes. They have petitioned that the Bhagavad Gita should be not be taught in any schools. Only moral education? In that case, then how to ease the mental pressure on the children? How to avoid them from turning into anti-socials and terrorists? Can this be achieved only through moral education?, the seer questioned. How can the morals take roots in society without education in philosophy. How can morals stand firm with the foundation of philosophy. Hence, the need for lessons on Bhagavad Gita, he said. Speaking on the occasion, Pejawar Mutt seer of Udupi Visvesateertha, Vidyashankar Bharathi of Avani and Vidyasagar Madhava Teertha of Tambihalli Mutt proposed that the Bhagavad Gita was a means for achieving peace and harmony among the members of the society. It served as excellent guidelines to the young minds to emulate good values, they said. District In-charge Minister A Narayanswamy, Minister for Education

Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri, district Congress Committee member K V Ramprasad, Jayanagar MLA from Bangalore Vijaykumar, Vice-Chairman of Swarnavalli Mutt Shantharam Hegde, Sarvajnendra Saraswathi Foundation Chairman G N Hegde, Ananth Hegde, Ananth Kumar Hegde, Dr Shivanna, Manjunath Dikshit and K Prahlad Rao were on the dais. Nanjundaiah Shetty welcomed the guests. Shivakumar read out the Abhiyaana report, on the occasion. Arrest Swarnavalli seer The protesters took out a rally from Nachiketha Students Hostel to the Gandhivana demanding arrest of the Gangadharendra seer. The protesters condemned that despite complaining to the police against the district committee hosting the campaign, the police had not initiated any action. While the police took SFI leader into custody when the Abhiyaan committee complained against him. Police are being partial, they alleged. Gandhinagar Narayanswami, Manighatta Ramaiah, V Ambarish, Vakkaleri Rajappa and others participated in the protest. Bhagavad Gita recital Hundreds of children recited the slokas from the 14th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, during the programme. Shri Bhagawatpada Prakashana organised a book exhibition on the occasion. Thousands of people from various parts of the district took part in the programme.

Seizure of iron ore at Sandur is only the beginning, says Kumaraswamy

Special Correspondent
http://www.hindu.com/2006/11/17/stories/2006111720310100.htm

`Nobody is above the law, and officials are only doing their duty' `D.K. Shivakumar owns eight mining companies in Bellary' `False information given to High Court by advocates'

IN NO MOOD TO RELENT: Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy addressing the press on illegal mining in Bellary district, in Bangalore on Thursday. Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy BANGALORE: Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy said on Thursday that the seizure of a huge quantity of iron ore estimated at Rs. 28 crore at Sandur on Tuesday was only the beginning of the action being taken by the Government to prevent illegal mining in the iron-ore rich Bellary district. He did not give a direct reply to a question on whether the former Minister and Congress leader D.K. Shivakumar and several members of his family would be arrested in connection with the case. "I am here to only state that there is no political vendetta as made out by some Congress leaders. Nobody is above the law, and it is the foremost duty of the officials concerned to take action against any unlawful activity within their jurisdiction. The matter pertaining to illegal mining in Bellary district has been under investigation for nearly three months, and the culprits are now being booked."
Strict instructions

Mr. Kumaraswamy told presspersons that the Government had issued strict instructions to officials in the departments of Forest, Mines and Geology, and Revenue and the police to take action against illegal and unauthorised iron ore mines in the State. The instructions of the Government had a bearing on the repeated submission of memoranda by Congress leaders to President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil, he said.

With reference to incidents of violence on Thursday in several parts of Bangalore Rural district, including Kanakapura, which is the hometown of Mr. Shivakumar, and at Mandya and Channapatna, the Chief Minister said the police had been directed to take stern action against the culprits and ensure the maintenance of law and order. "The violence is an indication of the Congress culture. It is for the Congress leaders to decide whether to safeguard the interests of the State or that of Mr. Shivakumar and his family members," he said.
Cases against women

The Chief Minister said the officials had been directed to investigate and take action even against his (Chief Minister's) family members too should there be a prima facie case relating to any kind of illegal mining operations. "The Congress has been making a string of allegations against women of my family and even published their names in newspapers. Today, when the authorities have booked cases against some women, they have demanded that action should not be taken." Mr. Kumaraswamy produced documents to show that Mr. Shivakumar was the owner of eight iron-ore companies: Victory Exports, Indian Rocks, Vallish, Suvi Granites, Skanda Enterprises, Sai Trading Company, Net Project Solution and S. Pradeep Exports, and how, in the name of iron-ore waste, they had obtained quality iron ore for export from Mysore Minerals Ltd., which was a State Government undertaking. This trading had been on since the time Mr. Shivakumar was the Urban Development Minister in the S.M. Krishna government. While other companies were given iron ore fines and iron ore mud at Rs. 1,200 a tonne, the companies of Mr. Shivakumar were given the same at Rs. 300 to Rs. 500 a tonne, Mr. Kumaraswamy said.

The Chief Minister referred to a writ petition in the Karnataka High Court filed by one of the companies wherein the advocates had submitted "false and misleading information". "It is sad that even the advocates dance to his tune. They should understand that they cannot hoodwink the High Court." The State Government is the respondent in this case

Why My Father Hated India

Aatish Taseer, the son of an assassinated Pakistani leader, explains the history and hysteria behind a deadly relationship
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304911104576445862242908294.html? mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read#articleTabs%3Darticle
JULY 16, 2011

Ten days before he was assassinated in January, my father, Salman Taseer, sent out a tweet about an Indian rocket that had come down over the Bay of Bengal: "Why does India make fools of themselves messing in space technology? Stick 2 bollywood my advice." My father was the governor of Punjab, Pakistan's largest province, and his tweet, with its taunt at India's misfortune, would have delighted his many thousands of followers. It fed straight into Pakistan's unhealthy obsession with India, the country from which it was carved in 1947.
View Full Image

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Mohandas Gandhi visits Muslim refugees in New Delhi as they prepare to depart to Pakistan on Sept. 22, 1947.

Though my father's attitude went down well in Pakistan, it had caused considerable tension between us. I am half-Indian, raised in Delhi by my Indian mother: India is a country that I consider my own. When my father was killed by one of his own bodyguards for defending a Christian woman accused of blasphemy, we had not spoken for three years. To understand the Pakistani obsession with India, to get a sense of its special edgeits hysteriait is necessary to understand the rejection of India, its culture and past, that lies at the heart of the idea of Pakistan. This is not merely an academic question. Pakistan's animus toward India is the cause of both its unwillingness to fight Islamic extremism and its active complicity in undermining the aims of its ostensible ally, the United States. The idea of Pakistan was first seriously formulated by neither a cleric nor a politician but by a poet. In 1930, Muhammad Iqbal, addressing the All-India Muslim league, made the case for a state in which India's Muslims would realize their "political and ethical essence." Though he was always vague about what the new state would be, he was quite clear about what it would not be: the old pluralistic society of India, with its composite culture. Iqbal's vision took concrete shape in August 1947. Despite the partition of British India, it had seemed at first that there would be no transfer of populations. But violence erupted, and it quickly became clear that in the new homeland for India's Muslims, there would be no place for its non-Muslim communities. Pakistan and India came into being at the cost of a million lives and the largest migration in history. This shared experience of carnage and loss is the foundation of the modern relationship between the two countries. In human terms, it meant that each of my parents, my father in Pakistan and my mother in India, grew up around symmetrically violent stories of uprooting and homelessness.

But in Pakistan, the partition had another, deeper meaning. It raised big questions, in cultural and civilizational terms, about what its separation from India would mean. In the absence of a true national identity, Pakistan defined itself by its opposition to India. It turned its back on all that had been common between Muslims and non-Muslims in the era before partition. Everything came under suspicion, from dress to customs to festivals, marriage rituals and literature. The new country set itself the task of erasing its association with the subcontinent, an association that many came to view as a contamination.
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Salman Taseer, governor of Pakistan's Punjab province, in May 2009. He was assassinated in January 2011.

Had this assertion of national identity meant the casting out of something alien or foreign in favor of an organic or homegrown identity, it might have had an empowering effect. What made it self-wounding, even nihilistic, was that Pakistan, by asserting a new Arabized Islamic identity, rejected its own local and regional culture. In trying to turn its back on its shared past with India, Pakistan turned its back on itself. But there was one problem: India was just across the border, and it was still its composite, pluralistic self, a place where nearly as many Muslims lived as in Pakistan. It was a daily reminder of the past that Pakistan had tried to erase. Pakistan's existential confusion made itself apparent in the political turmoil of the decades after partition. The state failed to perform a single

legal transfer of power; coups were commonplace. And yet, in 1980, my father would still have felt that the partition had not been a mistake, for one critical reason: India, for all its democracy and pluralism, was an economic disaster. Pakistan had better roads, better cars; Pakistani businesses were thriving; its citizens could take foreign currency abroad. Compared with starving, socialist India, they were on much surer ground. So what if India had democracy? It had brought nothing but drought and famine. But in the early 1990s, a reversal began to occur in the fortunes of the two countries. The advantage that Pakistan had seemed to enjoy in the years after independence evaporated, as it became clear that the quest to rid itself of its Indian identity had come at a price: the emergence of a new and dangerous brand of Islam. As India rose, thanks to economic liberalization, Pakistan withered. The country that had begun as a poet's utopia was reduced to ruin and insolvency. The primary agent of this decline has been the Pakistani army. The beneficiary of vast amounts of American assistance and money$11 billion since 9/11the military has diverted a significant amount of these resources to arming itself against India. In Afghanistan, it has sought neither security nor stability but rather a backyard, whichonce the Americans leavemight provide Pakistan with "strategic depth" against India. In order to realize these objectives, the Pakistani army has led the U.S. in a dance, in which it had to be seen to be fighting the war on terror, but never so much as to actually win it, for its extension meant the continuing flow of American money. All this time the army kept alive a double game, in which some terror was fought and somesuch as Laskhar-e-Tayyba's 2008 attack on Mumbaiactively supported. The army's duplicity was exposed decisively this May, with the killing of Osama bin Laden in the garrison town of Abbottabad. It was only the last and most incriminating charge against an institution whose activities

over the years have included the creation of the Taliban, the financing of international terrorism and the running of a lucrative trade in nuclear secrets. This army, whose might has always been justified by the imaginary threat from India, has been more harmful to Pakistan than to anybody else. It has consumed annually a quarter of the country's wealth, undermined one civilian government after another and enriched itself through a range of economic interests, from bakeries and shopping malls to huge property holdings. The reversal in the fortunes of the two countriesIndia's sudden prosperity and cultural power, seen next to the calamity of Muhammad Iqbal's unrealized utopiais what explains the bitterness of my father's tweet just days before he died. It captures the rage of being forced to reject a culture of which you feel effortlessly a parta culture that Pakistanis, via Bollywood, experience daily in their homes. This rage is what makes it impossible to reduce Pakistan's obsession with India to matters of security or a land dispute in Kashmir. It can heal only when the wounds of 1947 are healed. And it should provoke no triumphalism in India, for behind the bluster and the bravado, there is arid pain and sadness. Mr. Taseer is the author of "Stranger to History: A Son's Journey Through Islamic Lands." His second novel, "Noon," will be published in the U.S. in September

The global fiscal crisis

Is the world getting dangerously close to another Lehman moment?

Cafe Economics | Niranjan Rajadhyaksha

The rich economies seem to be slouching towards a full-blown fiscal crisis, as the costs of the huge bank bailouts and economic stimulus programmes since 2008 have upset government balance sheets in the West. Is the world economy getting dangerously close to another Lehman moment, some three years after the spectacular collapse of the Wall Street bank led to the biggest economic crisis in modern times? A debt crisis in Europe could unsettle financial markets all over again. The fiscal mess is evident. In Europe, embattled countries such as Ireland, Greece and Portugal have already been downgraded to junk status by the major credit rating agencies. In the US, political brinkmanship over raising the federal debt limit could force the government to default on its commitments after 2 August; Moodys and Standard and Poors have threatened to take the US off its triple-A list in case the political gridlock is not broken. Meanwhile, Japan is facing its own, albeit less dangerous, budget impasse, as opponents pile up pressure on Prime Minister Naoto Kan. Also Read | Niranjan Rajadhyakshas previous columns An apocalyptic Lehman-style moment seems unlikely right now, because US legislators will likely come to some sort of a deal that will allow the federal government to resume borrowing, while Europe has invested too much in the integration project to let things collapse in the first episode of stress. There is nothing like the threat of a meltdown to get various interest groups to come together to save their skins. The financial markets seem worried rather than panicky, though many global investment banks have been putting out sombre reports on the dangers posed by the sovereign debt crisis. The low probability of a spectacular bust in the coming months is a cause for temporary relief rather than a sign that the structural crisis in government finances in the US, Europe and Japan will soon come to an end. The rest of the world should worry in case some of the biggest

economies in the world slide into economic inertia, even if they do not default on their debts. It is interesting to see that the biggest budgetary stress is no longer in Asia and Latin America. Fourteen of the top 21 economies in America and Europe, plus Japan, have fiscal deficits in excess of 3% of gross domestic product (GDP). In contrast, only five of the top 21 economies in Asia, Latin America, Africa and Oceania have crossed this threshold. (India is one of the five, and a high fiscal deficit combined with a high current account deficit makes us particularly vulnerable in case we see a European country default any time soon.) Levels of public debt are also uncomfortably high in most rich economies. In a recent note, Deutsche Bank warned: Never before in observable economic history have so many countries had so much combined government and financial debt. Many, many countries have defaulted through history with much lower debt. Economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff have shown in their research that large financial crises are usually followed by an explosion in public debt, as money is spent to bail out banks and support aggregate demand during the downturn and early recovery. Countries can escape a crippling debt crisis through four options: high nominal GDP growth through either a robust economy recovery or high inflation, restructuring debts by forcing lenders to take losses, or pushing through policies that allow the government to compulsorily capture a part of domestic savings to finance the deficits. None of these four options seems realistic right now: the economic recovery in the West is anaemic; inflation is low; fiscal austerity could lead to a double-dip recession; the resurgent power of the finance industry makes debt restructuring a tough proposition; and financial repression could be unpopular. The problem can remain on slow burn for a long time. Japan has shown that nearly two decades of high fiscal deficits and rising public

debt can be funded if local savers continue to buy government debt in what can be called voluntary financial repression. However, the US and Europe may be less lucky. Their domestic savings rates are relatively modest. Foreign savings will be needed to buy their government debt, which means less capital could be available for countries such as India in the coming years. There is another effect that should be tracked. A fundamental rule of debt sustainability is that nominal GDP growth should be higher than the interest rates on public debt. The current mess means that Western central banks have an incentive to maintain loose monetary policies and keep interest rates low, even if these policies impose huge costs on economies in our part of the world through inflows of speculative capital and high commodity prices. The current sea of red ink could be far from transitorywhich means that the world economy has a long battle ahead. Niranjan Rajadhyaksha is executive editor of Mint. Comments are welcome at cafeeconomics@livemint.com

NEWS STATES OTHER STATES

NEW DELHI, February 1, 2011

No manpower for coastal patrol boats, says Maharashtra CM

PTIhttp://www.thehindu.com/news/states/other-states/article1146002.ece
The Maharashtra government today told the Centre that it is not able to get trained manpower for its coastal patrol boats which were sanctioned and deployed in the aftermath of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.

Mumbai being the financial capital of India is extremely vulnerable to terror attacks, Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan said at the internal security conference of Chief Ministers here. He also demanded funds from the Centre for appointment of Special Police Officers (SPOs) for coastal security related duties. Under security related expenditure of coastal districts, the Centre may provide funds for appointing special police officers. Members of gram suraksha and sagar rakshak dal can be engaged for this purpose. There are 887 coastal villages and there should be at least three SPOs for round-the-clock vigil along the coast. We are finding it difficult to get technically trained adequate manpower for these boats, he said. The State has also asked the government to sanction Rs 22 crore for creating a jungle warfare and counter-insurgency school at Nagpur and also sanction satellite phones and helicopters for the aid of security personnel deployed in naxal affected areas of the State. Mr. Chavan sought the Centres help to procure 20 mine protected vehicles priced at Rs 16 crore each and Under Barrel Grenade Launchers (UBGLs), an essential weapon for security forces. Since it (UBGL) is the product of the Ordnance Factory, we need the assistance of the Government of India to get delivery at the earliest, he said. Mr. Chavan also asked the government to make arrangements and send a helicopter, currently parked at Raipur in Chhattisgarh, to Nagpur for security and anti-naxal operations. He wanted mobile connectivity for Gadchiroli, a major naxal-affected district in the State.

Purely from business point of view, establishing mobile connectivity in this (Gadchiroli) area may not be a commercial viable proposition. I would request the Government of India to direct the BSNL to establish transmission towers in the entire district as per requirement to make mobile connectivity available throughout the district. Till such time, these towers are erected, satellite phones would be the only way to remain in touch with taluka sub-divisions and district headquarters. We plan installation of satellite phones in required locations after obtaining approval from the Government of India, he said. Mr. Chavan said in order to strengthen the State intelligence department, the government has given sanction to fill through direct recruitment 50 per cent posts of Assistant Intelligence Officer and Senior Intelligence Officer.