<b>Change or perish</b>
<i>The party and government leaderships are sealing up the future of Congress politicians</i>.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->But whatever this does to this crazy, bizarre spectacle called the UPA government, the fact that nobody is going to be moved up, sideways, down or out is not in itself a healthy thing. Revolts there may not be. Not in the Congress end. Because Sonia Gandhi and probably the PM don't want change, the efficient ministers and ministers-in-waiting would just have to accept the unacceptable. There will be no rewards, no reshuffles. And the non-performers will also get the message. There will be no punishment.
<b>What is at the centre of this no-change policy? Fear. When Sonia Gandhi crafted the government together, her primary requirement may or may not have been efficiency. It was certainly loyalty. Without a political base, she was certain Manmohan Singh wouldn't backstab her. From all the others from the Congress she made ministers, she expected the same. Loyalty. Loyalty at all cost. Where she had residual suspicions about some ministers, who were not all without a political base like Manmohan Singh, she balanced off rivalries. Pranab was pitted against Arjun for the number two slot, although Pranab has retained the edge. Natwar was brought into foreign because he was a family loyalist. Volcker was a foreign machination Sonia Gandhi couldn't control. P.Chidambaram against Kamal Nath. Jairam Ramesh against Kamal Nath. The leg pulling was built into the whole arrangement.</b>
Something new is happening. The establishment is striking back at the PM who it perceives of selling out on Indian interests. It is taking the course of the nuke deal opposition, but it could get a lot more vicious. Putting a stopper on dissent will only increase the pressure in the cooker. Cookers burst. We all know that.
In lovely, cool Nainital, all this may have escaped the Congress and Central government leaderships. If it hasn't, they may be sanguine about controlling it. Not easy. Before long, Congress Central ministers are going to challenge their denied futures. The challenge could take the form of internal sabotage. The same goes for those who have been denied inductance either in the government or in the party. <b>The younger Congress politicians feel outraged. They reckon their careers are limited because of the limitations of Rahul Gandhi</b>.
This is truly a pressure cooker situation building up. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://www.newkerala.com/news4.php?action=fullnews&id=25600
http://newstodaynet.com/2006sud/06sep/3009ss1.htm
Who is the enemy of Sanatana Dharma?
V SUNDARAM
    When Napolean lay on his death bed, he said: 'May my son study history, for it is the only true philosophy.' History is indeed philosophy teaching by example, and also by warning; its four eyes are geography and chronology, culture and civilization.
    The History of India constitutes the Philosophy of RSS said the Vedic seer Dr Hedgewar, the epoch-maker and founder of the RSS in 1925. 'This land is the mother and I am her son.' The Puranas say: 'That land is called Bharat that lies north of the seas and south of the snowy mountains and those are Bharatiyas who consider this land as their motherland and live in it as the sons of the soil.'
    Whether Sonia Gandhi and her divided Congress party like it or not, the Hindu culture is the life-breath of Hindustan. It should therefore be clear that if Hindustan is to be protected, we should nourish the Hindu culture. If the Hindu culture perishes in Hindustan itself, and if the Hindu society ceases to exist, it would hardly be appropriate to refer to the merely inert geographical entity that would remain as Hindustan. Mere geographical lumps wedded to the perniciously divisive Congress/ Communist/ all other political parties' gimmick and shibboleth of paralyzing pseudo secularism will never make a nation. These were also the views of Anne Besant.
    These sacred thoughts, passions and emotions are totally irrelevant to a Roman Catholic individual like Sonia Gandhi even as the lives and sayings of great Catholic Saints of Italy are not part of my inherited consciousness. Sonia Gandhi, rooted in her Roman Catholicism, would dismiss the following observations of Swami Vivekananda with contempt: 'True human feelings, passions and emotions are indeed the gastric juices of the soul'.
    I am amused by Sonia Gandhi's infantile letter to President Abdul Kalam in which she has urged the President to reverse the Madhya Predesh Government's decision to lift the ban on government employees for participating in RSS shakhas and its other activities.
    As a petty politician steeped in self-chosen Himalayan pseudo-secular ignorance, she has described the decision as 'illegal' and a 'dangerous move'. She has described the RSS as a rightist organization with a long track record of 'stoking the religious prejudices, inflaming religious passions and polarizing the Indian society'. As President of the disgraceful Congress Party today, she has mislead the President by stating that the State Governor was kept completely in the dark by the State Government while it took this policy decision that has 'far reaching implications and repercussions. I am drawing this inference from the reported statement in the press of Madhya Pradesh Governor Balram Jakhar on 21 September, 2006 when he took a dig at imposition of ban on State government employees in participating in RSS activities and its subsequent withdrawal saying 'it resembled the game of kabaddi wherein one government imposes the ban and the other lifts it'.
   <span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'> Digvijay Singh (former Chief Minister of Congress) imposed the ban and Shivraj Singh Chouhan (current Chief Minister of BJP) lifted it. When another Chief Minister will take over charge, he will take his own decision'. </span>He was dishing out these well-known and worn-out words of distilled Congress wisdom founded on hypocrisy and expediency at a meeting of Vice Chancellors where Congress Party politics was given precedence by the politically anti-Hindu Governor over crucial issues of higher education.
    Raj Nath Singh, BJP President, has not let down the silent Hindus in numerical majority in India by giving a rejoinder to Sonia Gandhi: <b>'The Madhya Pradesh government has carried out this move after a careful thought. There can be a ban on government employees from becoming members of political parties but so far as RSS is concerned, it is the world's largest socio-cultural organisation and there should be no ban on participating in its activities'.</b> These comments of Raj Nath Singh came in the wake of Sonia Gandhi's petition to Kalam seeking his intervention to restore the bar on the State government employees on participating in Sangh activities.
    <b>Sonia Gandhi and her degenerate Congress party have contempt for the following ruling given by the Supreme Court and all the High Courts in India on the nature, mission and ideology of the RSS in innumerable cases during the last sixty years: 'The RSS is a purely socio-cultural organization. It has never claimed to be political party and never declared by the government or any competent authority to be political party</b>. Its constitution was submitted by Guruji Golwalkar, the second Sarsangchalak of the RSS to the Government of India (to Sardar Vallabai Patel!!) in 1949 which was duly accepted'. Sonia Gandhi, as a petty party politician interested only in the loaves and spoils of known and hidden power, is mischievously endeavouring to use the exalted office of the President of India to unsettle this settled fact with evangelical fervour duly backed by the Pope in Rome. We should not forget that when he came to India some years ago, in a shameless way he declared that Asia and more particularly India is going to be the golden land for maximising 'the rich harvest of faith'.
    Whether Sonia Gandhi and her Congress Party like it or not, our Nation is celebrating the birth centenary of Sri Guruji Golwalkar on a grand scale in all parts of India. Thousands of Hindus in England, America, Europe, Africa, Australia and Asia are also celebrating this event to pay their tribute to a man of God who had no axe to grind, a man who in the pursuit of his timeless ideals had no languor in his heart, no weakness in his word and no weariness on his brow. He was clear and categorical in his declaration of India as a Hindu Nation. This will be clear from his inspiring exhortation in 1951: 'Today we find everywhere attempts to recast our life pattern in the mould of American, English or Russian way of life. How can we call it Swathantra (freedom) which has no Swa (our genius) in it? Then it is only Para-thantra. If Lenin is kept as the ideal, it becomes Lenin-thantra and not Swathantra. In fact, preservation and propagation of our national life-values i.e, our Dharma and Sanskriti, have always been held in our historical tradition as the raison d'etre of Swathantra'. Does not Sonia's letter to our President clearly bring out the fact that she is interested only in converting India into Sonia-thantra to serve the long range commercial interest of the Private Limited Company called the Congress Party today?
    When the Chief Minister of the central provinces, E Gordon, issued an order on December 15,1932 in which he said,<b> 'the RSS in the opinion of the Government is undoubtedly of a communal nature and its participation in political movements is increasing, participation of the Government servants in such an organization is likely to become a hindrance to imperial discharge of their duties etc'</b>.
    Dr Hedgewar confronted him in these words: 'I challenge you to prove it. Will you care to reply to these questions?In which political movement has the RSS taken part? Against which non-Hindu community has the Sagh taken up cudgels? If 'European Association', 'European Chamber of Commerce' and such other bodies are not 'communal', and if Government officers are allowed to participate in their activities, how could this organization established for organizing the Hindu society be viewed as 'communal'? And how could Government servants be prevented from participating in it? If any community acts against another, then its actions could be called 'communal'. But if there is an organization or a group of people who hate none and are interested in working for the welfare of their own society, how would it be justifiable to call it 'communal'?...May be the Government is worried about the activities of the RSS, and would like to suppress it. I SHOULD LIKE TO SUBMIT IN ALL HUMILITY, THAT IT WOULD NOT BE POSSIBLE FOR THE GOVERNMENT TO DO SO. We have undertaken this task trusting in God in utmost sincerity. What ever the obstacles in our way, we shall resolutely overcome them and achieve our goal.
    E Gordon, is dead and forgotten and the RSS has grown from strength to strength, even making the BBC acknowledge the fact that the RSS is the largest Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) which is not Leftist. Following the lead of Dr.Hegdewar, I would like to ask Sonia Gandhi whether she would raise the same objections to the Muslim and Christian Government Servants being members of several Islamic and Church groups functioning as cultural organizations throughout the country.
    Pope Benedict XVI, on 17 September, 2006, sought to extinguish days of anger and protest among Muslims by issuing an extraordinary personal apology for having caused offense with a speech last week that cited a reference to Islam as 'evil and inhuman.' By her continued recent political pronouncements in favour of only minorities at all costs to our sacred nation, Sonia Gandhi has clearly wounded the feelings, susceptibilities, hopes, urges and aspirations of the Hindus in numerical majority in India. On behalf of the Hindus of India, I would appeal to her to apologize to them in the same manner in which non-safforinized, non-communal, secular, cosmopolitan and international Pope Benedict XVI has apologized to the Muslims.
    Mahatma Gandhi, Vinoba Bhave, Achyut Parwardan, Dr Zakir Hussyan, General Cariappa and Jayaprakash Narayan, who have served our nation with as much dedication as our global leader Sonia Gandhi, have paid their unreserved tributes to the RSS as a non-communal, non-political and patriotic organization. Sonia Gandhi can afford to ignore them only at her own peril and that of her Private Limited Company. Bharat Mata Ki Jai! Vande Mataram!
    (The writer is a retired IAS officer)
    e-mail the writer at vsundaram@newstodaynet.com
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Congress retro </b>
The Pioneer Edit Desk
Twenty points for nostalgia
In re-invoking the 20-Point Programme and the "Garibi Hatao" slogan - used so effectively in the 1971 election - the Congress may or may not quicken the pulse of voters, but, certainly, it has given nostalgia buffs their moment of the year. The 20-Point Programme - never mind if the Manmohan Singh version actually enumerates 64 points - was a product of the Emergency, announced to the nation and the world in 1975 by a regime determined to re-order India in the image of the Supreme Leader, the Son of Supreme Leader and an unending series of Soviet-style shibboleths. Not that it could always escape Indian humour. Apocryphal legend has it that the 20-Point Programme was actually a 21-Point Programme but, by day two, the final point mysteriously vanished. The rumour went that the 21st point was actually a commitment to implement the previous 20; horrified at its implications, the Emergency regime quickly, if belatedly, withdrew it. "Garibi Hatao" or "Banish Poverty" was a decidedly more successful political gimmick. It was used potently in the 1971 Lok Sabha election, the high noon of Indira Gandhi's pernicious socialism, and helped the Congress to a thumping majority. Those two words did more than just make an empty promise. They encapsulated, to political analysts, social scientists and, of course, ordinary citizens, the populism and crass symbolism, the nationalisation binge and the security hysteria that achieved little - What did the abolition of Privy Purses save? A few million rupees? - but were politically expedient, even if they unhinged key institutions in the long run. The 20-Point Programme belongs to a strange chapter in India's past. It can be summed in a pity phrase: "Unbridled statism." India has moved on since then, but not the Congress, not its mindset, not the high priests and priestesses its Government appointed to the National Advisory Council.
The party's intellectuals still believe - contrary to all empirical evidence - that poverty can be removed and garibi can be hatao-ed not by economic growth spurred by deregulation, but by Government fiat, by state subsidy, by throwing tax-payer money into profligate schemes that involve, as the old line goes, paying one set of people to dig holes and another to fill these up. Obviously nobody seriously believes the all new 20-Point Programme will transform India into the land of condensed milk and honey. It makes no specific promises, introduces no targeted schemes. It talks loosely of "poverty eradication", "child welfare", "slum improvement", "housing for all". It commits itself to "food security", without stating whether this can be better achieved by buying wheat cheaply from producers abroad, or subsidising wasteful, low-productivity, water-depleting agriculture on land that could probably be better used as SEZs. Aside from its philosophical vacuousness, the revised 20-Point Programme points to a stunting of the Congress's political instincts. Ever since it accidentally found its way into Government in 2004, the party has been searching for a big idea to capture public imagination, particularly in Uttar Pradesh, where Assembly election is due next February. If harking back to Mrs Gandhi and a 30-year-old pamphlet is the best it can do, its rivals must be grinning. The 20-Point Programme mentality is completely out of tune with contemporary India and its aspirations. It cannot win elections anymore. Tomorrow's wars cannot be won by yesterday's warriors.
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Joke of 21st century
10-10-2006, 04:48 AM
(This post was last modified: 10-10-2006, 04:52 AM by acharya.)
PROPAGANDA BIG TIME
http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodna...F%29&sid=1&pn=1
T. Narayan
PROFILE
The Quiet Italian
From a non-entity to a skilful manager of power and responsibility, the Gandhi bahu has come into her own
VIR SANGHVI on Sonia Gandhi
Think back if you can to that week in 1995 when the first issue of Outlook appeared. The big story of the dayâan Outlook exclusiveâwas that India's prime minister, Narasimha Rao, wrote dirty books in his spare time. The magazine had procured a manuscript of Narasimha Rao's novel and proceeded to carry the more salacious bits.
Narasimha Rao was embarrassed, the nation amused, and when the book finally did appear (as The Insider), the naughty passages had been excised. But even as Delhi's political circles giggled at the thought of the apparently erudite prime minister hitching up his dhoti and proceeding to churn out porn, nobody thought of the woman who had installed Rao at Race Course Road.
By 1995, Sonia Gandhi was something of a political non-entity.
Why did Sonia change her mind? Cynics say she couldn't see her fiefdom slipping away. But her own version...
In just four years, she had gone from being kingmaker to being regarded as a holdover from another era.
It could have been different, of course. In 1991, when Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated, the Congress party's Pavlovian reflex was to offer the leadership to his widow.
But Sonia was in no mood for politics. She had been opposed to Indira Gandhi's decision to induct Rajiv into the Congress and when in 1984, he told her that he was going to accept the prime ministership, she begged him to refuse. "They will kill you," she said. "They will kill me anyway," he responded.
Now, her worst fears had come true. There was no way she was going to follow her husband into the world that had taken his life, just as it had taken his mother's. As Congressmen begged and pleaded, she first suggested vice-president Shankar Dayal Sharma as prime minister and then, when he turned the job down, advised the party to select the elderly Narasimha Rao, a man so evidently frail that he had refused to contest the election on grounds of ill-health.
As Rao settled into Race Course Road, Sonia withdrew from the political world.
"I went through a very bad patch emotionally after my husband's death," she told me in an interview in 1998. She concentrated on producing a picture book about Rajiv and worked hard for the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation.
This suited Rao just fine. He had, it soon emerged,
...She didn't want it said that a party her family had served went down because she thought she was too refined for it.
never liked Rajiv much anyway. He preferred to see himself as successor to Indira Gandhi, airbrushing the last seven years out of history. His aides made it clear that even if Sonia had played some role in his selection, Rao was now his own man, content to live by his wits and free of the shadow of dynasty.
Oddly enough, Sonia didn't seem to mind. She had no interest in politics, still saw it as the cause of the two greatest tragedies in her life, and didn't really care that, by 1995, she had become a political irrelevance, content to stick to a small circle of very close friends and to make virtually no public appearances.
My guess is that things would have remained that way had Sonia and Rao not clashed over the only thing that mattered to her. After Rajiv's assassination, Sonia became increasingly bitter about the government's cold-blooded decision to scale down his security. When the report of the Verma Commission concluded that Rajiv could have been saved had adequate security been provided, she framed the pages of the report, highlighted the significant bits and put them up on the walls of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation.
The next step was to find out who was behind the assassination and why. She took an almost obsessive interest in the investigation and was familiar with the minute details of the case. It was not, she said, that she necessarily suspected a conspiracy; more that she felt that India had a duty to posterity to discover the complete truth about the assassination of a former prime minister.
Rao didn't see it that way.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> http://www.newstodaynet.com/2006sud/06oct/1310ss1.htm
<b>A Congress convict versus the Indian Constitution </b>
V SUNDARAM
    'Lying has a kind of respect and reverence with it. We pay a Congress Minister the compliment of acknowledging a superiority whenever we lie to him'.
                                                 Â
- A <b>Congress Commandment</b>
    'Without carefully contrived 'Secular Lies', Congress would perish of despair and boredom'                                                           Â
<b> - A Congress Catechism </b>
    Walter Scott said that an hour of crowded glory is worth an age without a name. Such a moment of crowded glory for the Supreme Court of India was achieved by two great judges Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice S H Kapadia when they held on Wednesday that the power of pardon, clemency, reprieve or remission of sentence to a convict exercised by the President under Article 72 of the Constitution and by the Governor under Article 161 of the Constitution, is subject to judicial review. Setting aside a decision of the former Andhra Pradesh Governor Sushil Kumar Shinde, remitting the sentence of a Congress activist Gouru Venkata Reddy who was undergoing a 10-year prison sentence in connection with the killing of two persons including a TDP activist, the SC bench of Justices S H Kapadia and Arijit Pasayat warned that the exercise of the clemency power would be tested by the court against the maintenance of Rule of Law. Fortunately for the innocent, law-abiding citizens of India, these two great Judges have overturned an order of that Sonia-servile, ever-puerile, ever-tepid and non-descript former Governor of Andhra Pradesh Shinde who allowed himself to be led by the partisan political considerations of the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Y Samuel Rajasekar Reddy.
    The facts of this case read like an Agatha Christie novel. Gouru Venkata Reddy was sentenced by the Supreme Court for 10 years for his criminal murder of TDP worker Epuru Chinna Ramasubbaiah. The sons of the deceased had taken the matter to the Supreme Court alleging that a pardon was granted by Governor Shinde to Gouru Venkata Reddy purely on 'narrow party-based Congress political considerations and not on grounds of rule of law and the Constitution.' They had also alleged that the Governor had passed the order of pardon after a simple note was sent to him by the Y S Rajasekar Reddy government without even placing before the Governor the records of the case. A Bench consisting of Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice S H Kapadia, while taking note of the allegations in the petition made by the sons of the deceased TDP worker, had directed the State government to place the entire record on the process of granting pardon to Gouru Venkata Reddy, whose wife is a sitting Congress MLA, before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court had also appointed former Attorney-General Soli J Sorabjee amicas curiae to assist it in the matter. The most unfortunate aspect of this case is that the Andhra Pradesh government, without any regard for legal or constitutional considerations, advised Governor Sushil Kumar Shinde to grant pardon to a criminally indicted Congressman, whose case according to them stood solidly 'fortified' only by virtue of the fact that his wife is a sitting Congress MLA. In this planned criminal process of subversion of the Constitution, something akin to the disrobement of Draupadi in the court of the Kauravas in the Mahabaratha, was enacted in Andhra Pradesh, with Governor Shinde and Chief Minister Y Samuel Rajasekar Reddy colluding together like Dushasana and Duryodana. For these two Congress Kauravas, the private interest of a secular Congress convict seemed more important than the Indian Constitution; the political welfare of the criminal Congress party more sacred than public welfare. According to this wicked duo, Gouru Venkata Reddy, the shameless Congress criminal, was only guilty of a private murder of a TDP worker Epuru Chinna Ramasubbaiah. These two disgusting and disgraceful Congress men in high authority are guilty of the unpardonable public murder of the Indian Constitution and The Rule of Law.
    I would like to quote extensively from this historic and landmark judgement of the Supreme Court by Justices S H Kapadia and Arijit Pasayat: 'Rule of Law is the basis for evaluation of all decisions (by the court)... The supreme quality of the Rule of Law is fairness and legal certainty. Every prerogative has to be subject to the Rule of Law. The Rule of Law cannot be compromised on grounds of political expediency. To go by such considerations would be subversive of the fundamental principles of the Rule of Law and it would amount to setting a dangerous precedent.'
    'The President and the Governor are the sole judges of the sufficiency of facts and of the appropriating of granting the pardons and reprieves. However, this power is an enumerated power in the Constitution itself. The principle of exclusive cognisance would not apply when and if the decision impugned is in derogation of a Constitutional provision. This is the basic working test to be applied while granting pardons, reprieves, remissions and commutations.'
    'These are not acts of grace. They are part of the Constitutional scheme. When a pardon is granted, it is the determination of the ultimate authority that public welfare will be better served by inflicting less than what the judgement has fixed. Granting pardon is in no sense an overturning of a conviction, but is rather an executive action that would mitigate or set aside the punishment of a crime. It eliminates the effect of conviction without addressing the defendant's guilt or innocence. The exercise of executive clemency is a matter of discretion and yet subject to certain standards. It is not a matter of privilege. It is a matter of official duty - the power of executive clemency is not only for the benefit of the convict, but while exercising such a power the President or the Governor as the case may be, has to keep in mind the effect of his decision on the family of the victims, the society as a whole and the precedent it sets for the future. It is vested in the President or the Governor, not for the benefit of the convict only but for the welfare of the people who may insist on the performance of the duty. THE CONTROLLING FACTOR IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EXERCISE OF PREROGATIVE POWER IS SUBJECT TO JUDICIAL REVIEW IS NOT ITS SOURCE BUT ITS SUBJECT MATTER.'
    Finally the Supreme Court has made a supreme contribution to the existing corpus of defined and substantive Constitutional Law when it has declared with courage, conviction, clarity and candour: 'It can no longer be said that prerogative power is ipso facto immune from judicial review. An undue exercise of this power is to be deplored. Considerations of religion, caste or political loyalty are irrelevant and fraught with discrimination. These are prohibited grounds. Rule of law is the basis for evaluation of all decisions.'
    When I see the callous political behaviour of so called senior Congress men of the slavish Servants of Sonia Congress party today, I cannot help quoting the words of Walt Whitman, the great poet of American democracy, who wrote about the politicians of his time in 1880:
    'The members who composed it were, seven-eighths of them, the meanest kind of bawling and blowing officeholders, office-seekers, pimps, malignants, conspirators, murderers, fancy-men, custom-house clerks, contractors, kept-editors, spaniels well-trained to carry and fetch, jobbers, infidels, disunionists, terrorists, mail-riflers, slave-catchers, pushers of slavery, creatures of the Presidents, creatures of would-be Presidents, spies, bribers, compromisers, lobbyers, sponges, ruined sports, expelled gamblers, policy-backers, monte-dealers, duelists, carriers of concealed weapons, deaf men, pimpled men, scarred inside with vile disease, gaudy outside with gold chains made from the people's money and harlots' money twisted together; crawling, serpentine men, the lousy combining's and born freedom-sellers of the earth.' ? (WALT WHITMAN: Origins of Attempted Secession,1880)
    Leo Tolstoy, perhaps, had mean and unscrupulous men like supine Governor Shinde, servile Chief Minister Y S Rajasekar Reddy and the Imperious Super Sonia, the de facto Prime Minister, in his view when he penned the following immortal lines in his Anna Karenina:
    'Hypocrisy is anything whatever may deceive the cleverest and the most penetrating man, but the least wide-awake of children recognises it, and is revolted by it, however ingeniously it may be disguised.'
    I know that some of the top political criminals of the Congress Party would love to overturn this Supreme Court verdict by proposing an amendment to the Constitution with the willing connivance of other political parties in the UPA coalition. The bold and heroic judgement given by Justice Pasayat and Justice S H Kapadia is very reminiscent of an immortal judgement given by Lord Mansfield in England in the famous John Wilkes case in 1780: 'I wish popularity: But it is that popularity that follows, not that which is run after. It is that popularity which, sooner or later, never fails to do justice to the pursuit of noble ends, by noble means. I will not do that which conscience tells me is wrong, upon this occasion, to gain the huzzas of thousands, or the daily praise of all the papers which come from the Press. I will not avoid doing what I think is right, though it should draw on me the whole artillery of libels; all that falsehood and malice can invent, or the credulity of a deluded populace can follow.'
    Two hundred years later, in a more modern context, Justice Hiller B Zobel in USA declared in a judgement: 'Elected officials may consider popular urging and sway to public opinion polls. Judges must follow their oaths and do their duty, heedless of editorials, letters, telegrams, picketers, threats, petitions, panelists and talk shows.<b> In this country, we do not administer justice by plebiscite.' </b>  Â
(The writer is a retired IAS officer)
P.S. If Indian Judiciary has any conscience, it should follow it.
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Populism gone overboard </b>
Pioneer.com
<b>Mulayam Singh Yadav has opened the doors of Hardwar to Islamic festivities, showing utter disregard for Hindu sentiments, says Anuradha Dutt </b>
In Malaysia, Islamic clerics and scholars have criticised joint celebrations of two impending festivals, one Hindu and the other Muslim. Diwali and Id-ul Fitr, which marks the end of fasting during Ramzan, fall within three days of each other. The Government has refrained from interfering in such observances so far though the outcry against them is getting shriller by the day.
Some rabid Muslims have forbidden their community from extending traditional greetings to Hindus, who are a significant minority group in this multi-cultural society. These include an influential scholar, Fauzi Mustaffar, head of the Islamic law department at Takaful Malaysia as well as Harussani Zakaria, a top cleric, who is the mufti in Perak state and a member of the National Fatwa Council. Non Muslims have understandably come out against this show of fundamentalism
Here, in Hardwar, one of the most important Hindu pilgrimages, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav organised an Iftar party at Har ki Paudi on the banks of the Ganga on October 14. The event is being seen as a gimmick to woo Muslims, hitherto considered out of bounds for them for religious purposes. <b>Hardwar is reported to be officially a Hindu holy site, with activities that offend religious sentiments being prohibited under city bylaws</b>.
Though about 30,000 Muslims live in the town, it has no mosque. The nearest one is eight-km away at Jwalapur. Violations invite penalty, either a fine or imprisonment, or both. In fact, the municipal bylaws instituted by the colonial administrators in 1940 forbade Muslims from living in Hardwar and building a mosque. Nor can meat and liquor be sold and consumed.
The Samajwadi Party chief's opponents in the Congress and the BJP view his choice of venue for the function as a calculated move to consolidate his Muslim vote-bank. He has consistently played to the minority gallery over the years, ignoring Hindu concerns. Now, by attempting to open the doors of Hardwar to Islamic festivities, a sacrilege for many, <b>he appears to have taken on the onus of extending the frontiers of Islam into Hinduism's most sacred precincts</b>.
And the town's strategic location at the foot of the Himalayas, along the Ganga, but adjacent to the Muslim-dominated Muzaffarnagar and Bijnor, makes Mr Yadav's sharing of kebabs and the like with the faithful more than simply a gesture of camaraderie. <b>For, to the town's west is Saharanpur, which harbours Deoband, the seat of Islamic learning. Nearby is Bareilly, another centre of Islamic theology, that of the Barelvis. His eye is clearly on the Muslim electorate that comprises 15 per cent of the total voters in UP</b>.
Soon after the party, <b>Mr Yadav visited Malegaon to commiserate with victims of the blasts. He is not alone in kow-towing to the minority community, with appeals to spare Parliament attack mastermind, Mohammed Afzal Guru, the death sentence marking minorityism of the most sinister kind. Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, by first raising this demand, has betrayed the trust reposed in him by the Indian state.</b>
Since Parliament building symbolises the very edifice of democracy, any assault on it is really a plan to subvert the nation. Any ruling politician, who lobbies for clemency for the perpetrators of such an attack on the plea that capital punishment is inhuman, should be removed from office. Sadly, the UPA Government remains mute witnesses to these shenanigans, which makes them suspect too for the electorate.
The Supreme Court, which bestowed the sentence, finds itself defied by the political class at every turn. Whether it is the issue of the proposed quota for OBCs or safeguarding India's interests by awarding the harshest penalty to adversaries, the court's actions and orders are constantly being stymied by politicians, driven by ulterior motives. Such defiance serves to weaken the judiciary and makes the nation vulnerable to outside interference. It is for this reason perhaps that Pakistan has been trying to get Afzal Guru a pardon.
Since<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'> so many Indian leaders are similarly inclined and they fear a Muslim backlash, the neighbouring country has dared to influence a domestic matter. By constantly bending backwards in a bid to please Muslims, a section of our ruling class may irrevocably barter our interests for votes.</span>
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Under this government rule, they arrested Seer on Diwali eve, now Muslim part at Har-ki-Pauri.
No words for these digusted ruling party of India.
http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14316718
<b>Soniaism is at work</b>
P Raman
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was rather blunt when he had cautioned his listeners in the UK about the ââ¬Ëconstraintsââ¬â¢ imposed by his coalition allies on further liberalisation in India. Every one knew what and whom he had in mind. But what perhaps went unnoticed was that it applied equally to his own party establishment as much as the supporting Left. The latter's responses are measured and well predictable. <b>But the slap from the Sonia establishment can come when it is least expected. </b>
And when the veto comes, none can question it. All defences, foreign or domestic, crumble and prompt compliance follows. This was what had happened in the case of SEZs. A couple of sentences from Sonia Gandhi at Nainital, the whole government put a sudden break on the seizures under the Land Acquisition Act.
Even the chambers and business bodies went silent. If the Left or regional allies make a point, you can lampoon it and push it forward through the back door (as in the case of Neyveli Lignite). But not when the party establishment strikes.
This political phenomenon of post-2004 India has not come in for proper dissection. If the UPA arrangement is working, it is partly due to the Left pledge to keep it going and equally due to Sonia establishment's skillful balancing act. The other aspect of this intricate arrangement has been that while 10 Janpath has a very cordial relationship with the Prime Minister, it also has had all reservations about many aspects of his reform agenda. To draw a parallel, Narasimha Rao had given a totally free hand to finance minister Manmohan Singh. He desired minor adjustments only after the party's poll routs in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
It is not so under the present Congress dispensation. The present leadership displays a highly pragmatic approach to politics, economics and statecraft. It is committed to reform and globalisation but if any aspects of their implementation go against its political (vested) interests, that alone will weigh high for the party. This crucial difference between the doctrinaire mindset of the PM camp and practical approach of the party establishment was emphasized to this writer by an important party manager.
The argument is simple. Coalitions under democracy survive on compromises. To sustain a government, the ruling party should keep on cultivating the popular support. Any strategy, economic or political, that ignores the voter interest and falls for the elite's praise, will eventually fall into another `shine-India' trap. The party is ever conscious of this harsh political truth.
This is the basis of all its responses from the flagship programmes like the NREP, NRHM and Bharat Nirman and now the 20-programme.
This motive acted when the Sonia establishment had deftly put its weight with the Left on certain points while drafting of the NCMP.
This was to make it more palatable to the voting masses. Every intervention by Sonia Gandhi from the resource guzzler rural programmes and PSU sales to silent disapproval of workers' `hire and fire' have this `aam aadmi' syndrome in mind. If they can have `French exception' and "Blairism," why not the middle path of Soniaism'?
<b>Truth of such claims apart, a sort of `Soniaism' is clearly at work.</b> The resuscitation of Indira Gandhi's 20-pont programme is a case in point. Even if it may not have any major additional financial commitment, this is not the kind of development the GDP-obsessed liberalisers desire. Branded as populism, the reform establishment took it as a distraction from the productive path. In classical reform lexicon, many heads under the new programme like garibi hatao, housing, drinking water, health and education for all, social security and labour welfare fall under the category of populist profligacy. In this case all resistance waned only when the source of the move came to be known.
The 20-point programme belonged to the genre of national rural schemes in which the Congress establishment puts heavy political stake. <b>These are aimed at countering both 2003's `bijli-sadak-paani' missile against the Congress state governments and to improve the party's pro-poor image. </b>A new set of ministers and leaders close to both the PM's reform establishment and the party leadership seems to have emerged to do the work. <b>Apparently, 20-point plan is another image enhancer for Sonia Gandhi.</b>
Many see such invisible hands in the appointment of Dr M S Swaminathan, who has never been a darling of the reform lobby, as chairman of the National Commission on Farmers (NCF). His recommendations are perfectly in tune with Sonia Gandhi's three prestigious rural programmes. and the new 20-point programme.
<b>Incidentally, both were revealed the same week with much glee in the Sonia camp. </b>
Swaminathan's remedies will go well with the farmers, and are expected to help the ruling party in rural areas.
As for reform lobby in the government, Swaminathan has already become an embarrassment. His recommendations go contrary to the government's official policy for rural growth. A few months ago, the PM had prescribed his own prescriptions for rural India's what he had described second green revolution in which he had provided multinational seed producers an important role. Some of these firms were to be on important official panels. Contract farming for the retail chains and huge corporate farms were the other ingredients of the second green revolution.
The NCF does not visualise any such role for the corporates. On the contrary, it strongly objects to the UPA policy of reduced procurement by the government agencies and privatisation of food grain purchases. The government had recently introduced the system of futures trading in agricultural produces which has badly contributed to the price rise. The Swaminathan panel wants remunerative prices for agricultural products by way of higher minimum support price, prompt procurement and a greater state intervention in favour of the farmers. In the coming days, this is going to be another bone of contention between the government side and party establishment.
<b>The question now is not whether the Sonia establishment will impose its ideas on the government. That is a settled matter. </b>The issue is the kind of instrument it uses for the purpose through a curt remark by the party chief or using its invisible hands within the government. <b>For the party, the main criterion is voter friendliness</b>. If the FDI in retail displeases a numerically powerful section, <b>you can expect a sudden slap from the party establishment</b>.
<b>Another interesting trend, yet to be confirmed, is that the PM himself is trying to adjust to the new reality.</b> His private-public participation programme, though not wholly welcomed by the chamber bodies, and his `inclusive globalisation' remarks at Cambridge are straws in the wind.
I think Queen is reading Indira Gandhiâs Autobiography; her decisions are based on book. Here is small blip; she still thinks we are living in 20th century. Yes, for waitress it is a small blip.
Look at her cabinet choice. Foreign minister will touch 80 soon. Antulay, Indira corrupt slipper licker stooge is back after 35 years.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Minorities panel working as Cong agent, says BJP </b>
Pioneer News Service | New Delhi
NCM biased against BJP-ruled States: Venkaiah
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday took exception to the observations of the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) which alleged that the Narendra Modi Government had failed to provide relief and rehabilitation to the riot-affected families in Gujarat; and accused the commission of being biased towards the BJP-ruled States.
Senior BJP leader M Venkaiah Naidu on Wednesday said that NCM report on the rehabilitation of riot victims was the outcome of the Congress' vote bank politics and nothing else. <b>"Is the NCM meant only for the BJP ruled States? Are the minority interests effectively protected in the Congress-ruled States," </b>Naidu questioned.
Alleging that the NCM was targeting the BJP-ruled States at the behest of the Congress, Naidu said the Gujarat Government made all-out efforts to provide facilities to the riot victims and their family.<b> "It is a baseless charge that the riot victims have not been provided with basic amenities like potable water, health care, schools, and roads," </b>Naidu said.
"Instead of talking of the welfare of minorities in totality, the NCM is acting as an agent of the Congress.<span style='color:red'> Has the Commission taken note of the plight of Kashmiri Pandits, who have been forced to live as refugees in their own country," </span>Prakash Javadekar, BJP spokesperson, said.
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The party has also criticised the re-induction of tainted RJD MP from Bihar Jai Prakash Narain Yadav as the Minister of State for Water Resources in the Union Cabinet. "It is the criminalisation of the Government. The party would decide the next move on the matter in the meeting on Thursday," Naidu said.
<b>"The re-induction of Yadav is indicative of the fact that the UPA has scant regard for probity in the public life. The Government is working under influence of various pressure groups. The Government has now lost moral right to talk about values in politics,"</b> he said.
Commenting on the alleged mismanagement of internal security, the BJP accused the Manmohan Singh Government of adopting 'a sectarian and myopic' approach in dealing with the issues of internal security. "The conflicting statements from different levels show how lackadaisical the UPA Government is about internal security in view of ISI-driven terrorist attacks in the country," Ravishankar Prasad, party spokesperson, said at the party's daily press briefing.
Prasad cited statements of the Prime Minister, national security advisor MK Narayanan, Home Minister Shivraj Patil, home secretary VK Duggal and then Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, to claim that the UPA Government lacked a unanimous view on Pakistan's role in Mumbai blasts.
"Such a comical ambivalence highlights a serious malaise ---ad hoc sectarian and myopic management of our internal security --- which has caused a great deal of discomfort to our security forces.
The UPA must learn to speak in one voice. This creepy uncertainty at the highest level continues to give leverage to Pakistan to indulge in their design to foment, encourage and sponsor cross-border terrorism at great risk to our national security," Prasad added.
A set of Government comments that the BJP leader listed out, included the PM's remarks during his Havana trip that Pakistan too had been victim of terror and the NSA's remarks that India had 'pretty good' though not possibly 'clinching evidence' about ISI's involvement in Mumbai train bombings.
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