<!--QuoteBegin-Husky+May 26 2007, 08:29 PM-->QUOTE(Husky @ May 26 2007, 08:29 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin--> horrible misfortune that's been inflicted on the world. But it's not incurable.
[right][snapback]69360[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I agnowledge this.Gladly there are many sites today,i dont know if in english.Comunists play whit hopes of the poor ones.
May economic growth can be the solution against comunism?
The last day of the Budget session in Parliament saw heated debates in both Houses on the Sethusamudram Project. This controversy merits a revisit as the debate drifted towards replacing historical inquiry and evidence with mythology and replacing philosophy with theology. While on this issue and in the larger Indian context, it is the RSS and the BJP that has been seeking such a metamorphosis, other persuasions of faith could be equally guilty in different circumstances and dispensations.
Before discussing this, it is necessary to note certain aspects of this project. The Sethusamudram Ship Channel Project, inaugurated by the Prime Minister, envisages the dredging of a shipping channel across the Palk Straits between India and Sri Lanka. The project undertaken jointly by various shipping public sector corporations with an initial equity from the Centre is designed to deepen the channel to permit modern ships to navigate from the west and east of India. Currently, ships have to navigate around the Sri Lankan coast to reach destinations in the east of India. Once completed, this project will reduce the distance by as much as 424 nautical miles and save 36 hours of sailing time. This will not only boost maritime trade but also provide considerable economic activity in the region, saving crucial time and money.Â
The singular thrust of the BJPâs objections to this project is that this would destroy the chain of islets and shallows known as the Adamâs Bridge linking India with Sri Lanka. Adamâs Bridge is claimed by the BJP to have been constructed 1.7 million years ago and is the famous bridge built by Lord Rama in the Ramayana for the purpose of launching his assault on Lanka to rescue Sita.
Despite the thunderings of the shipping minister that there is no proof that this is a man-made bridge and that a 1987 Nasa statement quoted by the BJP had no scientific validity, the BJP stuck to its guns. What is strange is the fact that under the BJP-led NDA government, the Geological Survey of India was asked to conduct a test that proved that the Adamâs Bridge alignment is a palaeographical formation dating back to several hundreds of thousands of years and disproved that it was a man-made construction. In fact, the NDA government allocated nearly Rs 5 crore for a feasibility study to implement this project in the 2000-01 Budget.
Geological studies and scientific advances now permit us to fairly accurately map the movement of land mass on our planet through shifts of tectonic plates. Such scientific studies have also fairly accurately mapped the geological ages of our planet along with corresponding organic life that inhabited it at that point of time. This scientific classification, going back to 4,000 million years, has divided this period into various aeons, eras and epochs. These have also mapped the physical changes that have occurred over this period. Accordingly, it has been shown that âin India, as all over the world, a major result of glaciations in each Ice Age, was the great fall in sea level since enormous bodies of water were kept frozen in large ice sheets in north-western Europe and northern Americaâ.
It is believed that in the last Ice Age, in the late Pleistocene (an epoch that began 1.8 million years ago and ended 10,000 years ago with the advent of the current epoch, Holocene), the sea level was between 100 and 150 metres below the present mean sea level. Such a retreat of the sea in the Ice Age meant that both the Gulf of Kutch and the Gulf of Cambay became stretches of dry land; Sri Lanka was joined to South India by a broad belt of land around Adamâs Bridge; and the north, middle and south Andaman Islands formed a single island.
Given the current debate on global warming, when the reverse is estimated to occur with the submerging of large tracts of land mass, the above scientific evidence should not come as a surprise. However, seeking to communalise every issue for political benefit, the BJP takes recourse to faith to authenticate mythology as history.
Faith is a matter of individual choice. A right that a democratic system will assiduously protect. What we are discussing here are not matters of faith. These are matters of historical inquiry and reality. By protecting the right of the individual choice of faith, the Indian Constitution also seeks to encourage scientific inquiry and spirit. These cannot and should not be counterpoised.
In this very spirit, consider the following interpretation of the mythological Das Avataras. We are told in the Mahabharata that in every yuga (epoch), God descends on Earth to uphold dharma and to cleanse it. At the end of the present yuga, God is supposed to appear in the form of the tenth avatar, Kalki.
The first avatar is in the form of a fish. Science has now confirmed that the first life forms evolved underwater. The second is the tortoise, an amphibious creature capable of living both on land and in water. The third is the boar, able to live only on land. The transition of life from underwater to land marks this stage. Next in line is the Narasimha avatar reflecting the transition from the animal to the human form. This is followed by the Vaman avatar, representing the evolution of the human form in its dwarf size. This is followed by Parasuram, who wields the axe as his weapon. This represents the stage of the clearing of forests for human settlement. Rama who follows wields the bow and arrow as his weapon, i.e. a weapon that can protect human settlements by attacking the enemy from a distance.
Balaram, who comes next, wields the plough. This is the stage of evolution of human civilisation to the levels of an agrarian economy. Krishna represents the further advance of human civilisation in the stage of domestication of the cow and the development of the dairy economy. <span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>Farther down the line, Kalki, who is yet to arrive, is portrayed as riding a horse representing the stage of the domestication of the horse.
The Das Avataras can, thus, be seen as a remarkable recording of the evolution of human life and its civilisational advance till the Aryans mastered the horse and majestically moved across lands.</span>
Thus, without entering into any disputes on matters of faith, this remarkable materialist interpretation of the Das Avataras, surely, merits attention. Faith, in its final form, is the pursuit of truth and acquiring the ability to recognise the truth. Chinese civilisational wisdom, as equally old and ancient as ours, tells us to let a hundred flowers bloom, a thousand thoughts contend, so that finally we can seek truth from the facts. While truth is a fact, all facts are not whole truths. This is the difference between philosophy and theology.
Faith must encourage the adventure of ideas and promote scientific inquiry and not reduce itself to fanning communal passions for petty political and electoral benefits.
Sitaram Yechury is a Rajya Sabha MP and Member, CPI(M) Politburo.
Yechury's ripped off this from avatar and evolution of human civilization from a some book (probabily Ed Vishwanathan's 'Am I Hindu"?) - can confirm if any here needs it.
And it's news to me that Balram is another avaatar in the series of 10, maybe the word Ram in the Balram threw him off. Also, he conveniently omitting Buddha, one wonders why?
In that stuti, ten avatAra of "keshava" are mentioned. But curiously the krishna avtar is missing from the list! Instead he lists "balarAma" or "haladhara" as the avatAra between rAma and buddha.
Only explanation I can give is that instead of considering the 10 avatAra's as those of vishNu, the writer claims them to be avatAra's of kR^ishNa. Therefore listing him as his own avatAra becomes superfluous. Henec balarAma as an avatAra.
I guess someone more conversant with gaudIya vaishnavism could clarify this issue better.
Thanks Ashok. It's very interesting, I didn't know about existing texts which referred to Balram rather than Krishna as the avatar. Can other gurus chime in?
06-14-2007, 03:19 AM (This post was last modified: 06-14-2007, 03:23 AM by Bodhi.)
<!--QuoteBegin-Ashok Kumar+Jun 12 2007, 10:38 AM-->QUOTE(Ashok Kumar @ Jun 12 2007, 10:38 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->In that stuti, ten avatAra of "keshava" are mentioned. But curiously the krishna avtar is missing from the list! Instead he lists "balarAma" or "haladhara" as the avatAra between rAma and buddha.
....
....
Only explanation I can give is that instead of considering the 10 avatAra's as those of vishNu, the writer claims them to be avatAra's of kR^ishNa. Therefore listing him as his own avatAra becomes superfluous. Henec balarAma as an avatAra.
This is very interesting indeed. But I have seen another explanation too.
Babu Harsha Chandra was a famous Bangali-Marwari Seth of Varanasi (also father of Bharatendu Harishchandra, but more known because of his own deeds). Even today, there are some old buildings in Banaras, like Saraswati Sadan Library etc constructed by him. He was a Krishna-Vaishnava (Gaudiya?), and a good poet himself. He had compiled a series of poetries, one of which was 'Dashavatara Kathamrit', which Harishchandra later published.
In this collection of 10 granthas, each dedicated to one of the 10 avataras, the biggest is Balram Kathamrit. Although the name is Balram Kathamrit, the whole book is about Sri Krishna. It is explained in this that in their tradition, the name is being given in respect to Balram, being the elder brother of Krishna, and for no other reason, while the meaning is none other than Krishna himself.
Actually balarAma being considered an avatAra by himself is not inconsistent with balarAma-kathAmR^ita being filled with stories of kR^ishNa. Because in this stream of devotion, kR^ishNa is supreme God himself, and balarAma is one avatAra or aspect of him, although coeval in time.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In this text, the eighth incarnation is Balaraama, the elder brother of Sri Krishna.
We must note that to Jayadeva and all the vaishnavas, Sri Krishna is not an
incarnation; He is Lord Himself. Therefore Krishna is addressed here as Hari and
Keshava in each stanza. He is the Entity who appeared in these ten forms.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I mentioned gauDIya vaishNavism, since poet jayadeva was from Bengal. And you mention that "Babu Harsha Chandra was a famous Bangali-Marwari Seth". So may be this is a peculiarity of gauDIya vaisNavism.
The hunter Jara who shot Krishna was supposedly himself an avatar of Vali who was shot by Rama. True/False? (I'm just asking - would like to more myself)
Dr. Marx Mohammad Shame, in his speech in parliament on the eve of 150th year of the War of 1857, had quoted from Karl Marx while not even mentioned Mangal Pandey.
This ongoing series of research articles By Prof. Devendra Swarup in Organiser examins the true Marxist views on the whole affaire of 1857, which CPI(atoz) are trying to bury in the rubble of the past now.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->âThis passive sort of existence evoked the other part, in contradistinction wild, aimless, unbounded forces of destruction and rendered murder itself a religious rite in Hindostan.â
âKarl Marx
âI share not the opinion of those who believe in a golden age of Hindustan.â
âKarl Marx
Endorsing the Macaulayan policy in the field of education and employment, it says: âThe failure of the Mutiny proved conclusively that the people of India were not united by the old social institutions and religious traditionsâthat the future of India was to be secured not by the impossible revival of the old order of things but by the birth of a new force arising upon the ruins of the oldâ (p. 161).
âThis objectively reactionary character was the reason of its failure. It could not have been suppressed had it been a progressive national movement, led by the native bourgeoisie with advanced social ideas and political programme. But such a movement was impossible in that epoch.â
âNo Indian nationalist who stands for the social progress of his people and who struggles for political independence as a step towards that goal, would be treading the right path by clanging to the sentiments that lay behind the revolt of 1857.â âM.N. Roy
âThe Revolution of 1857 was nothing but the last effort of the dethroned feudal potentates to regain their power. It was a struggle between the worn-out feudal system and the newly introduced commercial capitalism for political supremacyâ and therefore âthe last vestiges of feudal power were shattered by the failure of the Revolution of 1857, which is known as the Sepoy Mutiny.â (Reprint, Bombay, 1971, p 20). To be more explicit, it says, âThe revolt of 1857 was the first serious attempt to overthrow the British domination; but by no means could it be looked upon as a national movement. It was nothing more than the last spasm of the dying feudalism⦠socially it was a reactionary movement because it wanted to replace British rule by revived feudal imperialism, either of the Moghals or the Marathas."
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Well, that is one way to make WB on level with other indian states, the better way is ofcourse to throw out the commies from WB!
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> Replicate West Bengal model at Centre, says Karat
Special Correspondent
NEW DELHI: <b>Leaders of the Left parties on Thursday asserted that efforts to replicate the West Bengal model on a national scale would emerge through concerted and united efforts.
</b>
âWe cannot leave with West Bengal. Democratic and progressive parties would have to work together and the Left has to work unitedly. Through joint struggles and agitations we have to work â¦â Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat said at a function here to mark the completion of 30 years of the Left Front Government in West Bengal.
He said the Left Front Government was the target of all-round attack and disclosed that when the coalition first came to power in 1977, the CPI (M) did not think it could last so long, primarily on account of the historical role of the Congress Governments at the Centre that dismissed the E.M.S. Namboodiripad-led communist Government in Kerala.
He said as early as this year, the Bharatiya Janata Party had demanded the dismissal of the West Bengal Government following developments in Nandigram. âWe have to be cautious and we know the character of the Trinamool Congress, the Congress and the BJP. All of them joined hands against us recently in panchayat, local bodies elections,â Mr. Karat said.
The CPI (M) general secretary said the State Government would pursue the policy of balanced development by attracting investments from big industrial houses like the Tatas and also strengthen the working class movement. Both would go together.
CPI general secretary A.B. Bardhan too felt it was time for West Bengal to industrialise and conceded that the Government did make some mistakes. He, however, said the Left Front has to learn from the mistakes and move ahead since it had reached the maximum growth on the basis of agriculture. âDuring one phase there was de-industrialisation in West Bengal, now it is time to industrialise,â he said adding that Kolkata and its surrounds was ranked second after Mumbai for having industries five decades ago.
That the people of the State voted back the Left Front Government for the last three decades clearly discounts the âanti-incumbencyâ theory because of which it continues to work for the welfare of the toiling classes.
All India Forward Bloc general secretary Debabrata Biswas said it was time the Left parties worked for a national alternative and said united struggle would be required to turn this into a reality.
He criticised some Left intellectuals and others for pouring scorn on the Left Frontâs functioning and charged that the aim was to destabilise the Government.
Revolutionary Socialist Party leader and MP Abani Roy too felt that the Left parties should take responsibility and lead in forming a Government at the Centre and elsewhere and these parties alone represented the working class and were committed to upholding their interest.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->CPI-M red-faced over Singur murderÂ
Sumon Chakrabarti & Sukarno Sen / CNN-IBN
Kolkata: The red is getting the blues in West Bengal. First a CPI-M sympathiser, Debu Malik, confessed to raping and killing Tapasi Malik, a teenager who was protesting Tata's acquisition of land in Singur.
Then based on Malik's statement, the CBI arrested Singur's Zonal Committee Secretary, Suhrid Dutta, for his role in the murder case.
The two are now in CBI custody for 15 days, and the CPI-M finds itself a target of a concerted opposition campaign across the state.
Says Trinamool Congress leader, Kakali Ghosh Dastidar, "The CBI enquiry has proved today that the CPI-M cadres and leaders have been involved in the rape and murder of Tapasi Malik."
In a surprise move, the CPI-M, which has been caught on the wrong foot, has called a 12-hour bandh in Singur on Saturday.
However, senior party leader and former chief minister Jyoti Basu says the entire controversy is an Opposition conspiracy.
With public anger on the rise after the recent turn of events, the state government is taking no chance. It has tightened security around Tata's site in Singur, where construction work is on.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Left leaders fuel unrest on JNU campus </b>
Durgesh Nandan Jha | New Delhi
Attempts are being made by the Left leaders to fuel embarrass on Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus. The left leaders including Sitaram Yechury visited the campus on Saturday night to show solidarity with the punished students and demanded the revocation of the punishments within 48 hours, failing which the issue would have to become a question in Parliament. The students in question have been punished for their indecent behaviour with the university registrar Avais Ahmed and their continuous defiance of university orders.
<b>"A massive protest public meeting took place at JNU last night which was addressed by former JNUSU office bearers including CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP Sitaram Yechury, senior journalist Amit Sengupta, NCP leader DP Tripathi and Liberation editor Kavita Krishnan. The former office-bearers advised the JNU Vice-Chancellor to revoke the punishments within 48 hours, failing which the issue would have to become a question in Parliament,"</b> read a press note issued by the JNU Students' Union (JNUSU) on Sunday. The JNUSU has also decided to stage a mass hunger strike on Sunday night to protest against the punishment by the Vice-Chancellor (VC). Meanwhile, the hunger strike of the punished students that includes the president, vice-president and joint secretary of JNUSU entered the ninth day on Sunday.
<b>"Long before the gherao, JNU V-C Prof BB Bhattacharya has had the agenda of ridding JNU of politics - and especially of leftist politics, and the punishments are part of that agenda,"</b> the JNUSU General Secretary Sandeep Singh said. He said that fact the JNU VC's vision is biased: biased in favour of AC classrooms and against scholarships for the needy; biased in favour of marble floors and against workers' minimum wages. Pointing out a speech made by Bhattacharya to the bankers in Chandigarh in October 2006, where he allegedly advocated the marginalisation of student politics, Sandeep said that the V-C's sole aim behind all these punishments is to end campus politics. "The spectre of Leftism is haunting the JNU V-C and he wants to ends this forever," he said.
A few days before the JNU V-C had called a press conference to clarify that the punishment to the 10 students was because of their protests against violation of worker's rights in the campus but because of their indecent and shameful behaviour with the registrar. The registrar was forced by the students to remain inside his car for more than six hours.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>Commies put premium on watching TV</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Govt mulls Rs 500/year fee on every colour TV
10 Jul 2007, 0309 hrs IST ,Himanshi Dhawan , TNN
NEW DELHI: Television viewing could soon be a more expensive affair. The government is considering imposing a recurring annual 'licence fee' of Rs 500 for each colour television set, and Rs 200 for a black & white TV, owned by consumers as a bailout measure for the cash-strapped Prasar Bharati.
Sources in the information and broadcasting ministry said imposing the licence fee on consumers is among a slew of options before the government - others include making TV manufacturers and broadcasters pay up - all or some of which could be implemented.
Part of the money raised will go into providing government pay scales and other benefits for the 38,000-odd Prasar Bharati employees. Sources said the licence fee plan alone could raise an estimated Rs 23,871 crore.
The government can, in fact, impose such a fee by invoking section 17 of the Prasar Bharati Act as recommended by the Sengupta Committee report. A final decision on the issue is expected to be taken at the Group of Ministers' meeting on Wednesday.
The GoM is also likely to consider levying a 10% licence fee on television and radio manufacturers to raise an additional sum of Rs 896 crore as recommended by the Financial Restructuring Committee in 2005. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->HK Surjeet influenced by Russia to setup an underground organization
CPI did proceed to recruit a secret organization within the Indian Army
China Russia insisted that the CPI must develop a standby apparatus capable of armed resistance, while intensifying penetration of Indian Military forces.
With the PLA now present along the Indian Border the Indian Party had a channel of support for Armed Operations and a potential liberator in the event of mass uprisings - 13 Sept 1959
4 powerful radio sets had been installed in the office of the China Review in Calcutta to listen to broadcasts from Peking
Chinese Financial Subsidies to sections of the CPI particularly the left faction strongholds in West Bengal
a foreign supply base was now available for the underground organizations with Chinese occupation of Tibet and other frontier areas
letter asking for collaboration in Indian underground organization work aimed at an eventual revolution, because China has a border with India and can provide arms and supplies
Also Jaipal Singh, head of the illegal organization within the Indian Army decided to reactivate his organization in May 1961 following the hard left faction gaining control of the party
<b>Lal fortress</b>
Posted online: Thursday, July 12, 2007 at 0000 hrs Print Email
<i>State must impose its writ on those intent on subverting law and order. Musharraf did it. Can UPA? </i>
Wrangling will go on for a while over the manner in which Pervez Musharraf ordered the final assault on the radical clerics and militants defiantly lodged in Islamabadâs Lal Masjid. The political opposition has predictably made it a point to highlight the delay in taking action and demands to know why the mosque complex was allowed to be fortified in the first place. It is a valid point. It puts Musharraf on the spot for courting the acquiescence of radical elements to his rule. Musharrafâs detractors, however, miss the larger point. If his regime had indeed been â there is ample evidence for this â turning a blind eye to activities of Talibanised forces in the hope of political returns, those hopes should have evaporated with the action in Islamabad this week. To contain the consequences, his government will have no choice but to extend the writ of the state.
In New Delhi, this should serve as a cautionary tale for the UPA in its sustained refusal to take law and order threats seriously. On Tuesday, Maoists killed more than twenty security personnel in their stronghold in Chhattisgarhâs Dantewada district. This is not a stray incident. And to show the width of their operational capacity, they had struck less than a fortnight ago on consecutive days in Jharkhand and West Bengal, destroying police stations and railway tracks. In the three years the UPA has had a government at the Centre, there has been a wilful resistance to considering Naxal strikes as a law and order problem. Estimates with the government show that as many security personnel are lost to Naxal violence as to terrorist strikes. But the Centreâs response still echoes with its initial attribution of Naxal violence to social problems. Remember key Naxalite leaders were allowed to walk out of the ambit of police operations and come to peace talks, while carrying their guns. That farce in Andhra has extracted a terrible toll on the country.
<b>The Naxalitesâ literature and rhetoric make it abundantly clear that their main purpose is to wipe out the writ of the state in their areas of operation</b>. The Congress, with a long-term stake in Indiaâs political stability, must know that any political returns from averting action against Naxalites will impose massive costs at a later date. India canât have red fortresses impervious to the rule of law.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Amartya Sen and Nalanda
It is headed by Amartya Sen, known for his communist slant. His Argumentative Indian wholly ignores the rich tradition of debate that existed in Hindu philosophical schools of thought and instead, concentrates on the Buddhist tradition of argumentation. The latter pales in comparison in terms of breadth, scope, modes, style, and techniques of debate. Senâs essays and speeches condemning Indian nuclear tests, and his support of the Chinese Cultural Revolution also blunt his credentials in heading a project of this magnitude.
The Nalanda university did not offer only Buddhist subjects. It taught all Darshanas (Hindu systems of Philosophy), phoentics, grammar, nyaya/rhetoric, and fine arts apart from the list that Sudha Ramachandran mentions. Kumarila Bhatta is a good example to illustrate how Nalanda worked. A powerful exponent of Vedanta, he enrolled at Nalanda, when he was about 80 years old, to learn Buddhism inside out so he could defeat Buddhists in argument and establish the supremacy of Vedanta. His life illustrates the spirit of the University where learning was imparted regardless of age or the studentâs previous educational/philosophical background.
If the sole aim of this revival project is boosting Indiaâs esteem or scoring any sort of political goal, it is the antithesis of everything that Nalanda stood originally for. The various dynasties that patronized Nalanda had encouragement and promotion of learning as their goal. They selected the best men to accomplish that. The revival project must proceed in the same spirit. If Nalanda needs to reclaim its rightful status as the worldâs foremost center of learning, it should offer every conceivable branch of learning taught by the most eminent people in their fields. A Nobel Laureate in todayâs world does not exactly define eminence if that is the reason Sen has been selectedâapart from being a person born in India. At the least, an academic should be shorn of political leanings. Sen does not qualify on this count either. http://www.sandeepweb.com/2007/07/08/rec...ng-nalanda<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The petty matter I am posting on:
Maybe I imagined it, but there appeared to have been a post by a new or thus far unknown-to-me poster - a communiracist - somewhere in this thread. The one where he called Martin Luther King a so-and-so, like communiracists always do (further proving the old communist adage of 'equality, but some more equal than others'). As I recall, the comedian also appeared to be advertising for how communism was always for 'equality' and against militarism and the like - you know, the same claims always made for the <i>other</i> Abrahamic heresies of christianism and islamism.
Did someone direct him to the correct forums for him (to 'communalist combat' or whatever). Or maybe he crept back to st*rmfront? Good.
(Or maybe he simply doesn't exist. There's a first. The comedian who never was. <!--emo&:blink:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo--> So much the better.)
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://www.socialcause.org/getarticlefromdb.php?id=917
 Continued whining
<b>Left undermines the nation</b>
It was, of course, only to be expected. Having tried to kick up a fuss over the goodwill visit to Chennai of the USS Nimitz earlier this month it was inevitable that the CPI-M would raise another whimper of protest over the coming five-nation naval exercises in the Bay of Bengal in which some 20 warships from the US, Japan, Australia, Singapore and India will test their mettle. With the Chinese querying the exercise as a bid at "encirclement" (which the Australian defence minister has flatly denied) the Politburo must have deemed itself duty-bound to echo the objection. More of the same is likely when India and US ink a logistics services agreement that will eliminate much of the paperwork now involved in some aspects of military interaction. Having been reared and sustained on a staple diet of anti-Americanism, the Left parties cannot help but smell danger in a hot dog. So be it. That is politics, and in a free country they are entitled to give vent to their ideologically-driven apprehensions. Even though there are few takers.
Yet what they are not entitled to do is to undermine the intelligence and capabilities of the defence leadership - which includes top bureaucratic and military minds - by suggesting that they, and the country, will get sucked into an American plot aimed at "containing" Chinese naval expansion. While it does fit in with the Left's reservations over the yet-to-be-finalised Indo-US nuclear agreement, what it betrays is a typically "third world" lack of self-confidence. India is today seen as an emerging global player, wooed by the traditional wielders of power. Alas, the import of that new status has yet to trickle down to Leftist-minds that remain prisoners of history, unable to unshackle themselves from a time-warp. What is conveniently overlooked is that a much weaker India, heavily dependent on Moscow for so much more than military hardware never really became a Soviet satellite - perhaps to the dismay of the comrades - so there is no reason to conclude that the country will inadvertently surrender its interests to Washington. Just because the UPA government displays its weakness by pandering to Leftist whims does not mean that India is incapable of holding its own.
(Editorial, The Statesman; July 17, 2007)
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>AMARTYA SEN FAVORS LAND ACQUISITION FOR INDUSTRIALIZATION</b>
Below is an interview of Nobel laureate Amartya Sen by Sambit Saha of The Telegraph on land acquisition for industrialization (http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070723/as...094453.asp <http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070723/asp/nation/story_8094453.asp> )
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Setback for CPM's woo-Muslim policy </b>
Pioneer News Service | Malappuram
4 Marxist party workers hacked; IUML behind attack, claims CPM
Clashes with CPM cadre have become order of the day in Tirur
The CPI(M) Kerala unit's efforts to woo the Muslims of the State suffered a setback on Friday with four Marxist party workers being hacked at Tirur in Malappuram, a Muslim-majority district, on Friday, during the holy month of Ramadan.
The condition of two of the four who suffered hack injuries was stated to be serious. Tirur, where violence had erupted in March-April last, has once again turned tense. Police personnel in large numbers have been deployed to prevent escalation of violence.
The CPI(M) said its workers were attacked by activists of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), the second largest constituent of the Congress-led Opposition United Democratic Front in the State.
The incident occurred near Velupuram Juma Masjid at Paravanna in Tirur at around 1:45 pm, just after the special Juma prayers on the second Friday of Ramadan. Sulaiman, one of the seriously injured, was admitted to the Medical College Hospital, Kozhikode, while the others were admitted to the Taluk Hospital, Tirur.
The recurrence of violence between the two powerful parties has led to tension in the area, where CPI(M)-Muslim League clashes have become the order of the day.
The incident occurred when Sulaiman was hacked by some people as he was coming out of the mosque after noon prayers. Sulaiman's brother Mohammed Ali and their uncle Kafimon and his son Bilal were also hurt when they tried to prevent the attack. Two of the persons received injuries in the head while the legs and hands of two others were slashed.
A local Muslim League worker, Pallath Nasser, was also admitted to the Taluk Hospital in Tirur, as he was allegedly attacked by Sulaiman and his accomplices.
The immediate provocation for the violence was not known. Police sources, however, said that this could have been a direct response to an attack on the Muslim League workers by the CPI(M) cadre in March-April last. There have been complaints from Muslim League workers that Sulaiman, who has been involved in several attacks against League workers, was not being arrested by the police as he belonged to the CPI(M). League workers alleged that he enjoyed the patronage of the local police and the senior district leaders of the CPI(M).
.................
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo--> 
