National Issues

[Guest]

Apparently from OutlookIndia.com, March 11, 2007 and it gets into more details...


<b>An Epic Narrative</b>

<i><b>Genetics, business, online learning</b>—the New Linguistic Survey will have a huge impact</i>

Sugata Srinivasaraju

India is on the threshold of a monumental project—one that will define us as a
people with far greater insight than ever before. The New Linguistic Survey of India
(NLSI), scheduled to take off in April 2007, is, in terms of operational imagination, as big as the census, <b>but will be far more complex, nuanced and sensitive in content.</b>

Nowhere in the world has a project of this scale been conceived to track a nation's
linguistic diversity. At the end of its 10-year cycle, the truth about the state of our
languages will be out. It will be one of the most significant statements, in a century, on a prime <b>identity-marker.</b>

The results of the survey may unleash a new dynamics and could generate a new
politics. Given the linguistic reorganistion of India after Independence, and
the large-scale migrations since then, the new linguistic atlas of India is bound to throw up relevant questions about the boundaries we created 50 years ago. But Udaya Narayana Singh, director of the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL) in Mysore and one of the moving forces behind the survey, says: "The survey may emphasise that each Indian state is now a multilingual state, but we are not surveying to sort out boundary disputes. There are far greater issues involved.

<b>India will be divided into convenient grids for the purposes of the survey." Yet, the project report says the results are expected to form the "basis of social engineering".</b>

What are the objectives of the NLSI? It will primarily profile the Indian
linguistic space by describing each language and speech variety, its structure, socio-cultural role and demographics. The survey will make possible a reasonable lexicon and grammatical sketch for each language. It will also record the interactions between various linguistic communities, which involves tracking bilingualism and multilingualism. There will also be a massive audio-visual documentation of speech varieties. Linguistic maps, charts, graphs and atlases of languages will be created.

The knowledge base generated by the NLSI will be used to develop language
technologies, and may help future software and online learning. <b>The survey has
also been designed to help research in genetics, physical and cultural anthropology,
sociology and psychology</b>. To popularise the contents of the survey, two web
portals will be created, one in the secured network domain and the other in the public domain. The public domain site will be an interactive linguistic observatory of
sorts.

Apart from these, the massive data collected and digitised by the survey will be
put to other uses. Prof Singh says there's a plan to develop a Linguistic Data
Consortium for Indian Languages (LDCIL) <b>on the lines of the Linguistic Data Consortium at the University of Pennsylvania—a hugely successful consortium of 100 companies, universities and government agencies that aids research in linguistic technologies.</b>

"We have a strong business model for LDCIL and will be funded by the government
for only six years; we expect to break even after that. <b>There is a big market for
linguistic data in India</b>. A very simple example is making possible text-messaging in Indian languages," says Prof Singh.

If this is reason enough to feel upbeat about the survey, it also has an elegiac
aspect, in the recording of dead and endangered languages. The 2001 census, it is
reliably learnt, threw up a list of endangered languages unlikely to be made public for the simple reason that it would create political havoc. "Not many Indian languages have died. The Indian situation is not bad, but we cannot be satisfied with it. In the wake of the tsunami, people said some speech varieties in the Nicobar Islands were wiped out, but the CIIL in its field study found they had survived.What has killed or clipped many small languages is the inflow of mainland money," says Prof Singh.

The NLSI will make recommendations on protecting endangered languages, <b>pay
special attention to the description and analyses of tribal languages</b>, and accord sign languages their rightful place in our linguistic mosaic. It also hopes to reduce the list of languages in the 'unclassified' list.

The 300-odd page project report indicates that the NLSI will be an exhaustive
and authentic project. It will tackle 114 populous languages in the first five years
(spoken by more than 10,000 speakers) and, in the next term, 325 languages and 25 scripts that the Archaeological Survey of India's People of India project mentions.

One could arguably call NLSI the first authentic linguistic survey of India
because the one conducted by Sir George Abraham Grierson 100 years ago left out languages spoken in South India. There are also question marks over the reliability of the data, said to have been collected by "untrained manpower". <b>The NLSI, by comparison, will be put together by thousands of linguists and trained researchers across 100 Indian universities.</b>

The government will release Rs 200 crore to the University Grants Commission
during the 11th five-year plan for this huge project. During the same plan period, CIIL will get Rs 80 crore separately to coordinate activities and build computational and other infrastructure. It may also get another Rs 50 crore under the endangered
languages project. If the 12th five-year plan outlay for the project is also taken into
account, the entire NLSI project cost may hover around Rs 600 crore.

The survey will be managed by a consortium of institutions under the general
direction of CIIL. "We will need about Rs 28 crore just to build a computational facility to process the data on Linux and MS SQL server. The network we will create will be four times bigger than an ICICI bank network. <b>The money that will come directly to CIIL will also help us engage ngos working in the area</b>. Official networks will not help us get data in places like the Northeast or Jammu and Kashmir, independent groups working there will be helpful," says Prof Singh.

What happens to English in the NLSI? How will it deal with a foreign tongue that
has had such a pervasive influence in the last couple of decades? That's where
tracking bilingualism becomes important. "In the West, bilingualism is the exception; in India it is the rule... Recognising convergence in India's history is not so much an ironing out of differences of identity as the emergence of a fresh all-India linguistic identity," says the report. So expect a chapter in the NLIS on the techies who have converged in Bangalore!

[Guest]

<!--emo&:argue--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/argue.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='argue.gif' /><!--endemo--> and the CEC wants winner to get ‘50% plus one’ vote
Posted online: Friday, May 11, 2007 at 0000 hrs Print Email
NEW DELHI, MAY 10: In what could spark off a heated political debate, Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami said today that in the current first-past-the-post system, candidates are winning elections with marginal, not majority votes, “fragmenting” the polity and undermining the very principle of representation.


Related Stories Chawla case: Centre will submit views in writing
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Making it clear that this was his “personal opinion,” not that of the EC, he said that a way out was a radical revamp where candidates should have to poll a minimum of “50% plus one” votes. If that doesn’t happen, a second-round run-off between the first two candidates should be held.

Speaking to Shekhar Gupta, The Indian Express Editor-in-Chief, on NDTV’s Walk The Talk show, Gopalaswami said: “More than 30% of the persons (members) elected to Lok Sabha polled less than 40% of the votes which in any case is 50% of the (voting) population. It does not reflect the majority view of the electorate.”

Drawing attention to the divide-and-poll syndrome that runs caste-based politics in the Hindi heartland, he said there is usually a three-way split of the voters in which “each person (candidate) addresses a certain caste... Candidates more and more win appealing to a certain community or caste...We cannot (continue have political parties) calculating caste composition (of constituencies) and selecting candidates.”

He said it was time there was a debate on having a different model of elections where the winner needs to get a minimum of “50 per cent vote plus one vote in two-way contest in a second round of polling, held within a gap of one-and-a-half months.”

editor@expressindia.com

[Guest]

Very good article by TAVLEEN SINGH -

<b>Indian economy in dilemma</b>!

[Guest]

<!--emo&:cool--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/specool.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='specool.gif' /><!--endemo--> Why no work, no pay rule for MPs?’Ads By Google
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www.mpingi.comChetan Chauhan, Hindustan Times
Email Author
New Delhi, June 17, 2007
First Published: 01:33 IST(17/6/2007)
Last Updated: 01:39 IST(17/6/2007)


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Few questions like how can members of Parliament (MPs) decide their own salaries and why are paid for the day when the house is adjourned without transacting business will now be put forth Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, courtesy a right to information (RTI) applicant CP Rai.

The government has also informed Rai that there would be an independent permanent mechanism for revising salaries, allowances and pension of MPs. "Details of the mechanism is being worked out," the Parliamentary Affairs Ministry officials said.

Rai wanted to know that why there is no commission of secretaries to decide salaries and allowances of MPs, similar to the one for the Central Government employees. As of now, Parliament decides on the salaries and allowances of its members.

He had also sought a reply from Lok Sabha Secretariat on why ‘no work no pay’ rule is applied for MPs for the days when the house is adjourned for the day.

Rai also wanted to know what steps the secretariat has taken to recover the amount paid to MPs for such days.

He even quoted a letter written by the former Lok Sabha speaker Manohar Joshi stating that there should be rule of procedure for MPs of
‘no work no allowance’.

"By this way there will be public opinion that when MPs don’ take allowance for not doing any work, the employees will also not go to strike in future, and if they do so then they will have to accept no work no allowance," Joshi said in the letter.

"Allowances are paid according to the provisions of Salary, Allowances and Pension of members of Parliament Act 1954," Additional Secretary in Lok Sabha Secretary SK Sharma told Rai.

[Guest]

<b>India needs another Vivekananda</b>

His birthday falls on January 12
By Jagmohan

Whenever I think of the sad conditions prevailing in the country, and apprehensions of 'coming anarchy' cross my mind, I am driven to believe that India needs another Vivekananda. His birthday, January 12, is a fit occasion to delineate the contours of this belief.

<b>New Cultural Stream</b>

Few realise that Vivekananda was one of the principal architects to cut a new cultural stream that watered the parched soil of India and produced a rich harvest of men and women who brought her freedom. In a voice ringing with 'passionate intensity', he declared: "Here is the same India whose soil has been trodden by the feet of the greatest sages that ever lived. Here first arose the doctrines of the immortality of the soul, the existence of a supervising God, an immanent God in nature and in man… We are the children of such a country."

These inspiring words removed the spell of diffidence caused by the colonial rule and created a wave of self-respect and self-confidence which brought men of sterling eminence like Gandhi and Tilak to the scene.

It is pertinent to recall what Sri Aurobindo said: "British rule has been the record success in history in the hypnosis of a nation. It persuaded us to live in a 'death of will', creating in ourselves the condition of morbid weakness the hypnotist desired, until the Master of a mightier hypnosis laid his finger on India's eyes and cried, "Awake". Then only the spell was broken, the slumbering mind realised itself and the dead soul lived again."

Do we not now need another Vivekananda to arrest the increasing desertification of Indian mind and break the spell that is being cast by the emerging 'new masters'?

<b>Pale shadow </b>

India today is a pale shadow of what it should have been. She should have led the world in life-nurturing ideas; instead, she is being led by the crass materialism of others. Her economy should have been the care and culture of her people; instead, it has been dehumanised by reckless consumerism of rich and degrading passiveness of poor. She should have recreated and strengthened her tradition of unities in diversities—unity in the diversity of man, unity in the diversity of religion, unity in the diversity of nature; instead, she has been torn asunder by conflicts and confusion. Who has brought all this about?

<b>Degeneration </b>

In the second half of the 19th century, when dense clouds of social and cultural degeneration appeared to have engulfed the Indian horizon, almost in perpetuity, there arose Vivekananda with a dynamic mission to purge the Indian soul. Pointing to the main culprits, he thundered: "You, the upper classes of India, do you think you are alive? You are but mummies ten thousand years old…In the world of maya, you are the real illusion. You merge yourself in the void and disappear. Let a new India arise in your place."

If another Vivekananda were to appear on the scene today, I am sure he would speak to the present-day ruling elites in the same tenor and tone. He would tell them: "You have betrayed the country. You have stifled the underlying inspiration for constitutional goals. You proceeded to set up political and administrative institutions, but failed to create the mind and motivation that would have given life and meaning to them. You built bodies without souls. You ignored 'the ancient nobility of temper' engendered in tyaga and tapasya and started worshipping the new gods of power and pelf. From the great storehouse of the past, you should have picked up the gems and thrown out the stones. You did exactly the opposite. You threw out the gems and picked up the stones. And they now hang around the country's neck like a dead albatross. You have done enough damage. Go; in the name of Mother India, go."

<b>Central Vitality </b>

Vivekananda knew that, in building a healthy India, spiritual traditions had to play a crucial role. He said: "Each nation, like each individual, has one theme in life, which is at its centre. If any nation attempts to throw off its national vitality, that nation dies."

Unfortunately, while ushering in new era after Independence, this central vitality of Indian culture was ignored. But for occasional lip service, nothing was done to construct the nation from within. The decision-makers paid no heed to Vivekananda's sane advice that "a nation in India must be the union of those whose heart beat to the same spiritual tune."

<b>Lapse </b>

For this lapse, India is paying a heavy price. In the absence of spiritual underpinnings, things are truly falling apart and the country is witnessing, besides the rising blood-soaked tide of terrorism and subversion, one molestation every 15 minutes, one rape every 29 minutes, one dowry death every 74 minutes and one incident of sexual harassment every 53 minutes. The disparities of income have increased to such an extent that, while millions go to bed hungry, the combined wealth of 36 richest Indians have touched $191 billion. The institutions are tottering, and the constitutional goals are being rendered meaningless.

'We, the people' are sovereign says the Constitution. But how do we give expression to this sovereignty? By electing representatives to legislatures who have criminal records, who obtain money for tabling questions in Parliament, receive bribes for voting in the House in a particular manner, indulge in human trafficking and take oaths and other pledges only to break them with impunity, who are too deficient in intellect to understand the complex problems of India and of the world?

Equally spurious is our democracy. Can we legitimately call a system democratic, when 99 per cent of the members get into the Lok Sabha, as it happened in 2004, with less than half the electors voting for them? What type of democratic temper has been nursed when an election to a single State Assembly is held in seven phases, spread over a month and that, too, with the help of para-military forces? And where is the question of free exercise of 'will' when that 'will' itself has been imprisoned by the prejudices of caste, creed and community?

Clearly, every ideal enshrined in the Constitution and every aspiration expressed in the national symbols has remained on paper. The spark that was needed to ignite inner passions and galvanise the nation to build a noble India on the noble ideals and aspirations has not been generated.

India, 'the sleeping giant', as Vivekananda called her, has woken up. But unfortunately, after a few correct steps, she has started moving on the wrong course. Another Vivekananda is now very much needed; a Vivekananda who could hold the errant 'giant' by the scruff of her neck, point to her the right path and make her move towards her true goal.

India could then present a new design for life, a model of contentment, compassion, balance and harmony; and also a nation that could teach to the world, as Will Durant believed, "tolerance and gentleness of the mature mind, the quite content of the un-acquisitive soul, the calm of the understanding spirit, and a unifying, pacifying love for all living things.

(The writer is former Governor of Jammu & Kashmir and a former Union Minister.)

http://tinyurl.com/29bgsy

[Guest]

Pioneer.com
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>But for Communists India would have been a superpower</b>
Had there been no Communist party in India, the country may have been a developed country, though not like France, Britain or the US but quite close.

<b>The Communists are fundamentalists like Islamic jihadis in the economic sense of the word. By propaganda they create illusory truth, utopian reality and manufactured consent, thereby bringing a state of apathy in general public. Even Jawaharlal Nehru was carried away by their ideology, and adopted a part of it.</b>

<b>The slogan 'socialism' halted constructive thinking for 45 years</b>. The Marxist variety of scientific socialism destroyed the natural course of economic development of the country for 50 years and of West Bengal for 30 years. Seventy to 80 per cent of the Communist movement history published by the CPM is either in praise of scientific socialism or against capitalism.

One can hardly forget that they destroyed the fourth industrially developed State resulting in migration of industries to other States. Obviously, they destroyed employment opportunities for Bengalis who went searching for jobs wherever these were available.

Up to the late 80s and even now, the slogan-shouting comrades ranting Tata-Birla murdabad while conducting gate meetings of factory employees and abusing owner and managers of the factories, was a regular feature. They instigate employees for work to rule, where work to rule was not prevalent. A friend of mine posted in West Bengal, often complained that the blue collar Bengali hardly ever do their duties and leave work incomplete which has to be done by managers. When the edifice of socialism crumbled and reforms came into being, generally our economy improved, more so during the BJP led NDA regime.

In West Bengal, two of its stalwarts have started praising capitalism in superlative terms. Recently, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said, "Socialism is not possible now. You want capital both from foreign and domestic. After all, we are working in the capitalist system. Socialism is our political agenda and was mentioned in our party documents. But capitalism would continue to be compulsion for the future."

Basu's comments in praise of capitalism are even more surprising. "We welcomed private capital for industrialisation. Socialism is a far cry. It will continue to be compulsion for future. We have learnt from the failure of socialism, we have learnt from the miracle of China. The same Basus and Bhattacharjees have used the word 'miracle of Soviet Union' in the past. Miracle of China, too, is a mixed bag. Western China suffers from abject poverty. Only the eastern coast can be described as a miracle, that, too with the help of Chinese from abroad and the US.

Hardcore fundamentalist Communist leadership of India has apparently become permissive capitalist. If only they could have woken up half a century earlier. But the Communist rhetoric had a tendency to live in the past. Take for example their negative attitude to disinvestments. It is a well known fact that if best public sector companies are allowed to disinvest without loosing control over the company, they could have gathered Rs 8 lakh crore, enough to take care of all infrastructure requirements, lack of which has a decelerative impact on our economy today. They want India to follow the same old confusing path. But for West Bengal, they are ready to welcome total capitalism leaving Marx behind. Not that this wisdom was not available to the first generation politicians; Chakravorty Rajgopalachari, Minoo Masani, Piloo Mody were ardent pleaders for doing away with quota, permit and licence-raj and confused concept of mixed economy.

The ideological dilemma of CPM and the Left is far more deep rooted than what meets the eye. In West Bengal the Forward Bloc and RSP have raised some fundamental questions towards the changed altitude of CPM stalwarts. Kerala Chief Minister VS Achyutanandan has diagonally opposed views on these issues openly. It is also a well known fact that the CITU continues to stick to ideological dogma as they are violently opposed to the red-carpet welcome to Tatas and other Indian companies.

The inhumanity has been perpetuated by party leaders in Nandigram and Singur with the help Government constabulary. Still the whole truth is yet to come out. Every now and then corpses are unearthered. There is no count as to how many persons lost their lives to this barbarism. Only an year back Bhattacharjee was at the peak of popularity. Today is he at the bottom.<b> Notwithstanding continuous propaganda engineered against Narendra Modi the number of journalists from West Bengal praised the multifarious development of one term of Modi Government and hinted at its comparison to six-term rule of Communist Government in West Bengal.</b>
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->From: R.K. Ohri
Date: 01/16/2008 10:24:33 PM
Subject: Hearing in the PIL filed by Patriots' Forum against implementation of Sachar Report in Delhi High Court

You will be glad to know that the PIL filed by Patriots' Forum in Delhi High Court against implementation of Sachar Report ( including Justice Sachar's blatant recourse to suppressio veri, suggestio falsi) was heard today by the Division Bench of  Hon'ble Chief Justice M.K. Sharma and Justice Ms. Reva Khetrapal.  Senior Advocate Sri  P.N. Lekhi appeared for our Forum, while Central Govt was represented by the Addl. Solicitor General, Sri Gopal Subramaniam.

After hearing the evasive pleas of Addl. Solicitory General and arguments of the Counsel for the Petitioner, Sri Lekhi, the Hon'ble Chief Justice brushed aside the objections brought up  by Addl. Solicitor General and directed that Central Govt should file an Affidavit in response to  the points raised in the petition. The next hearing has been fixed on 20th February.

Addl Solicitor General's efforts to foreclose further hearings of the PIL was thwarted by the Sr. Advocate Sri Lekhi who drew attention of the Hon'ble Court to serious flaws in Sachar Report and the disastrous long term consequences of implementing the Committee's divisive communal agenda. 

I had signed and filed this important Writ Petition on behalf of  Patriots' Forum. So I remained present during the hearing of our PIL.

We shall be grateful if this news is conveyed through the medium of your powerful pen to all friends and well wishers of  the Indian nation. 

As you know, the main points highlighted in our PIL were as follows which might be discussed during further hearings:

i)      That constitution of Sachar Committee by the P.M. solely for a religious group, namely the Muslims, was an act violative of the Constitution which does not permit any discrimination on the basis of religion. It was thus a clear violation of the Right to Equality.

ii)  That Sachar Committee did not formulate any rational criterion for assessing the relative socio-economic status of different communities and made highly discriminatory recommendations merely on the assumption that Muslims were generallly poor, etc. 

iii) That Sachar Committee deliberately concealed the fact that in four globally recognised Human Development Indicators, namely Infant Mortality, Child Mortality, Degree of Urbanisation and Life Expectancy at Birth the Muslims were better placed than the Hindus. Then how can Muslims be considered more dis-advantaged or backward.

iv) There were 2 main reasons for lower per capita income of Muslims. First, according to Census 2001 every Muslim woman is giving birth to at least one more child than her Hindu counterpart because of non-acceptance of smally family norm. Second, as revealed by Census 2001 the work participation of Muslim women was abysmally low, i.e., barely 50% of the work particdipation by Hindu and Christian women. The pathetically low work participation of Muslim women was caused by the diktats of  the clergy/ community leaders for staying indoors / burqa. These important facts have been deliberately concealed by Sachar Committee.

v) That the Constitution does not allow any special benefits/ concessions to a minority group beyond what has been expressly granted under Articles 29 and 30, i.e., the cultural and educational rights for establishing their own institutions.

vi) That a domineering religious group, having nearly 15% of  the country's total population, cannot be deemed to be a minority community. According to international norms only a non-dominant ethnic or religious group can claim to be a 'minority'. The Muslims are certainly not a non-dominant religious graup because they have ruled over India for nearly 1100 years and now suddenly  they cannot claim to be backward. They have always been a very demanding and domineering group even during British rule. The Sachar Committee Report aims at bestowing unmerited benefits on the Muslim community, without evolving a rational criterion to assess 'backwardness' because of vote-bank politics.

Warm regards

Ram
                     

rkohri@patriotsforum.org
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Capt M Kumar]

<img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> http://www.politicsparty.com/ramdev.php

Baba Ramdev to start a pan national political party.

Any guesses as to what effect this will have on current parties like BJP and Cong.

[ramana]

http://www.dailypioneer.com/357586/On-th...h-ISI.html

On the same page with ISI



August 01, 2011 10:54:06 PM



Sandhya Jain



Following the Fai exposé, the ISI, pro-Pakistan Western nations, the UPA and India's anti-national elite have been found to be on the same page. Shame!



America’s startling political decision to arrest US citizen-cum-ISI lobbyist Ghulam Nabi Fai last month, almost coinciding with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to India, follows a string of continuing face-offs between Washington, DC and Islamabad, and suggests that the US may have decided to dismount the Pakistani tiger. Tensions peaked with Islamabad closing Nato supply routes to Afghanistan; the arrest of CIA agent Raymond Davis and subsequent expulsion of many CIA agents from Pakistan; the May Day midnight murder of Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad; and the continuing Drone attacks on the western frontier, which ISI chief Shuja Pasha’s fence-mending visit to Washington could not fix.



New Delhi’s muted reaction is understandable. Fai’s arrest exposes UPA appointees, Justice Rajinder Sachar and journalist Dileep Padgaonkar, for hobnobbing with the ISI and other anti-India agents abroad and later accepting positions to empower the Muslim minority and Kashmiri separatists respectively, at the cost of the Hindu community and the nation. This raises larger questions regarding the reasons why the Union Government found jobs for persons with anti-India and anti-Hindu proclivities, and why the nation should accept their so-called reports which stand tainted by association.



Going by the FBI’s revelations, Islamabad covertly funnelled more than $4 million to Fai’s Kashmiri American Council over two decades to influence American and international opinion against India’s claim to Jammu & Kashmir. The FBI’s main charge is that Fai and his associate, Zaheer Ahmed, failed to register with the Department of Justice as Pakistan lobbyists. Of course, the FBI knew this and was monitoring the duo for many years; it refrained from acting against them while Pakistan was perceived as useful in the war against terrorism. Now, the knives are out; hence the naming of Fai’s handlers — Major General Mumtaz Ahmad Bajwa; Brigadier Javed Aziz Khan, Brigadier Sohail Mehmood, Lt Colonel Tauqeer Butt and a man codenamed ‘Abdullah’.



Fai’s job included getting Pakistani and Indian eminences to attend conferences on human rights violations in the Kashmir Valley and escorting men like Mirwaiz Omer Farooq to meet White House staff. Recently, the Mirwaiz and Hurriyat leader SAS Geelani met Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar at the High Commission of Pakistan in New Delhi on the eve of her talks with Minister for External Affairs SM Krishna, a move which reduced the official talks to a formality.



Fai’s Indian friend, Justice Rajinder Sachar, was in 2005 appointed by the UPA to head a high powered committee with a mandate to ‘prove’ the backwardness of the Indian Muslim community, and attribute this alleged backwardness to ‘institutional discrimination’ at the social, political and economic levels. Though completely lacking empirical data, Mr Sachar strove to entrench a Muslim communal identity in India by pressing for an ‘Equal Opportunity Commission’ and paving the way for unmanageable communal discord.



The Union Ministry of Minority Affairs, egged on by the National Minorities Commission, is working overtime to secure for Muslims an undeclared religion-based reservation in the public and private sectors. Mr Salman Khurshid, as Minister for Minority Affairs, strove through 2009 to get reservations for all Muslims under the ‘Backward Communities’ category, and to persuade the corporate sector to give minorities reservation in lieu of tax rebates. Mr Sachar stressed proportional reservation for Muslims in the police, administrative services, armed forces and public sector. For a nation divided by the impetus created by separate electorates under the British Raj, this is truly macabre.



A discriminated community suffers in terms of parameters like health (IMR, lifespan, growth rate), education (literacy, mean years of schooling, female literacy), general living conditions (absence of overcrowding, access to potable water, toilet facilities) and economic status (participation in work force, per capita income). But most of these human development indicators are favourable for Muslims as compared to Hindus, and in certain instances they are even better than the Hindu community (eg, Infant Mortality Rate for Muslims is 59, as compared to 77 for Hindus). No variation can be attributed to state or institutional discrimination.



Mr Sachar’s most dangerous move, however, was to rectify the low participation of Muslims in politics by proposing de-reservation of Scheduled Caste constituencies where Muslim population is greater through ‘rational delimitation’. The idea is that Muslim voters will polarise themselves into voting for a Muslim candidate or one compelled to exclusively pander to Muslim interests. This crude cynicism is matched only by his attempt to force the armed forces to submit to a Muslim head count, which was robustly resisted by the then Army chief, General JJ Singh.



Fai’s other friend and Union Ministry for Home Affairs-appointed chief interlocutor on Jammu & Kashmir is currently under fire from his own colleague Mr MM Ansari, as the untimely exposé has blighted their report which was only awaiting the end of the Amarnath Yatra before being submitted to the Government so as not to incite Hindu sentiments. Mr P Chidambaram fears that the report may now meet the same fate as the Justice Saghir Ahmed-led Working Group’s report, and has tried to downplay Mr Padgaonkar enjoying Fai-ISI hospitality and legitimising the Pakistan-sponsored hate and break India campaign.



But as Mr Ansari has pointed out, one cannot join a conference without knowing the credibility of the individuals and the institution. Indeed, if the UPA regime wishes to have even an ounce of public credibility, it must crack down on the Kashmiri separatists who attended the conferences organised by Fai and other seminars and defamed the nation abroad. The Minister for Home Affairs must explain if he was aware of Mr Padgaonkar attending these seminars and his biases before appointing him as chief interlocutor on Jammu & Kashmir. If not, what kind of vetting does the Ministry do before making sensitive appointments?



Mr Chidambaram must urgently bring out a paper listing all Indian nationals who have travelled abroad at the invitation of known India-baiters like Fai, Farooq Kathwari and their ilk, with details of the presentations they made there on Kashmir and other alleged human rights violations by Indian security and armed forces. These fifth columnists must be named and shamed, and asked to tender an unconditional apology to the nation for eating its salt, enjoying all the prestige and privileges it bestows upon its unworthy children, and then playing footsie with its enemies.



Above all, we must be told how the ISI, the pro-Pakistan Western nations, the ruling UPA and the anti-national elite have been found to be on the same page. Shame!

[rhytha]

Must Watch, i believe this can also be connected to FDI in retail issues.



[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4q6m5NgrCJs[/media]

[Guest]

Very difficult to watch, I agree FDI will have same outcome.

FDI will make Congree Party and Babus rich other will suffer.