Indian Interests

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 26 Mar 2014 20:51

Please read and get familiar with S.N. Balagangadhara's works:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._N._Balagangadhara

Sulekha has quite a few of his articles.
Rajiv Malhotra and S.N Balu have reversed the gaze on the West. Halting steps in de-Macaulyzing the Indian mind.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 26 Mar 2014 20:56

http://www.firstpost.com/india/why-the- ... 88751.html

...To put it bluntly, Wendy Doniger is a syndrome that dates back to the colonial era where entire departments of Indology, Sanskrit, and Oriental studies were liberally funded by the British colonial administration. They were liberally funded because the British Government needed these Indologists to interpret the Hindu traditions, customs and laws that in turn helped them shape policies to rule over the "natives". And so from the time of, say, William Jones right up to Wendy Doniger, the research, narrative, and interpretation was, unsurprisingly, colonial in both colour and flavour. In other words, Eurocentric. This trend continues till date where new scholarly papers and books are written purporting to "reinterpret" or provide an "alternative interpretation" of Hindu mythology, the Vedas, Puranas, symbolism, sages, Gods, Goddesses, and so on. It is, therefore, no coincidence that almost all of these scholarly works meet with such intense criticism by not just scholars but even by practicing Hindus. Indeed, when Aurobindo encountered such flawed (and motivated) scholarship in his own time, he cautioned that these scholars lacked the background necessary to properly understand core Hindu texts. In Doniger’s case, it has been repeatedly shown that she frequently mistranslates Sanskrit in order to arrive at the conclusion/thesis she has in mind. This apart, her selective use of primary texts, and an almost single-minded focus of eroticising every aspect of Hinduism are other serious lapses pointed out by the critics of her scholarship.
...

Its Fraudian scholarship. Or Distortianism at its best

Jarita · Post by **Jarita** » 26 Mar 2014 22:08

More about AAP
AAP website shows parts of Kashmir in Pakistan

http://zeenews.india.com/news/nation/aa ... 17198.html

sunnyP · Post by **sunnyP** » 27 Mar 2014 18:10

If they cannot find 10,000 crore to free their supremo, then how was Sahara going to pay 20,000 crores to the investors? Sounds like they are just one big ponzi scheme.

Wonder how much black money was invested in Sahara through the years - especially in their land and property deals. Seems like the chickens are coming home to roost for them.

Subrata Roy to stay in jail till April 3, Sahara says can't pay Rs 10,000cr for bail

NEW DELHI: Sahara chief Subrata Roy's lawyer on Thursday told the Supreme court that the company could not deposit the Rs 10,000 crore as surety for bail.

This means Subrata Roy will have to stay in jail till the next hearing which is on April 3.

The lawyer told the top court that it was impossible to deposit Rs 5,000 crore in cash and Rs 5,000 crore in bank guarantees as surety for his release.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 787788.cms

uddu · Post by **uddu** » 27 Mar 2014 19:13

Need a Seperate thread for Modi, the leader, The PM. This is the person who has created or inspired many leaders in India. His contribution to Indian nation is immense. Hope many such leaders are born.

Virupaksha · Post by **Virupaksha** » 27 Mar 2014 22:30

sunnyP wrote:If they cannot find 10,000 crore to free their supremo, then how was Sahara going to pay 20,000 crores to the investors? Sounds like they are just one big ponzi scheme.

Wonder how much black money was invested in Sahara through the years - especially in their land and property deals. Seems like the chickens are coming home to roost for them.

sunnyP,

wrong thread.

PS: Where are those mythical investors? It was a money laundering scheme not a ponzi one.

harbans · Post by **harbans** » 27 Mar 2014 22:38

Disappointed with Nirmala Seetharamans Presser taking on AAP on their website. Sorry, it's not just J&K that was shown missing, but Arunachal Pradesh also. She should have mentioned that categorically. To have missed it indicates a massive blindspot.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 28 Mar 2014 06:20

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2 ... -economist
Wanted in India: The World's Toughest Economist

All undertakings presuppose the treasury. Before anything, therefore, he should attend to the treasury.”These words of advice come from the "Arthashastra," a famous treatise on statecraft written around the end of the fourth century BC by the ruthlessly pragmatic Indian courtier Kautilya (“The Crooked One”) and described recently by one scholar as “the world’s first manual on political economy.”Kautilya’s words were taken very seriously across the many centuries and empires of classical and medieval India, even as India's share of the world economy grew (see a history of world GDP here). Waves of colonization between the 17th and 20th century then drained the Indian economy of much of its strength, as did the disparities in technological capability created by the Industrial Revolution. The democracy that replaced the British Raj in 1947 turned India into a nation-state with its own economic ideology. Sadly, following the intellectual fashion of the time, it chose socialism.India's myopic interpretation of socialism as a means to lift several hundred million people out of poverty meant that the materialist conception of life and fiscal rigor articulated by Kautilya largely got short shrift. It finally took a balance-of-payments crisis for India to open its doors to the world economy in 1991.
India has been one of the world’s fastest growing economies over the last two decades. Its growth slowed recently, though, as the ruling center-left coalition government focused on ambitious expenditure plans (especially on giant social-security programs) rather than economic growth, which is needed to create jobs for a country that's adding 1 million new people every month to its workforce.Given India’s transitional place in the world economy, the most important person in the next government, which will be elected in May, won't be the prime minister but the finance minister. What’s more, India probably has the most demanding economic policy post in the world, involving the management of the economic well-being, expectations and security for almost a fifth of world's population.
When considering the protection and expanding power of India’s treasury, every finance minister must take into account the country's vast agricultural base, heavily dependent on the vagaries of India’s monsoon season; its burgeoning industrial and real estate sector, hobbled by poor infrastructure and crony capitalism; the many millions of its citizens still desperately below the poverty line and in need of carefully targeted assistance from the state; the steadily growing foreign investment and susceptibility to shocks in the world economy and currency volatility that come with it; a large current account deficit rooted in India’s dependence on expensive petroleum imports; a minuscule tax base in which less than 1 percent of the workforce pays income-tax; an informal economy that is larger than its formal economy; the development of large industrial projects and their impact on the subsistence economies linked to India’s rivers and forests that continue to sustain millions of people; and an electorate (along with influential voices in his or her own party) that still reflexively craves the security of a government job and subsidies for food, power, cooking gas and petroleum.Each time the finance minister makes a decision he or she can expect accusations of incompetence, naivete, delusion, wickedness, or of being a slave to foreign paymasters and the neoliberal order. Let’s just say that it isn't a job that, for all his pragmatism and ambition, even Kautilya would have wanted.
Still we should make a short list of candidates.Opinion polls suggest that the principal opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, and its allies may win a narrow majority in the coming elections. So the first place to look would be within the rank-and-file of the BJP. The only time the BJP has been in power was from 1998-2004, and for four of those years the Finance Ministry was entrusted to Yashwant Sinha.Sinha displayed a shrewd understanding of India’s economic opportunities and bottlenecks in a globalizing world. His 2007 account of his time as finance minister, Confessions of a Swadeshi Reformer (“swadeshi” is a word associated with Gandhian thought, and subsequently with the economic propositions of the Indian right, emphasizing economic self-reliance) is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the Indian economy. The economist Surjit Bhalla said Sinha is “among the top two finance ministers this country has produced.” I see no reason to disagree.There’s a catch, though, for someone like Sinha becoming finance minister again. He represents the most progressive faction of a party that heeds the advice of a Hindu-nationalist parent organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which, at least in the field of economics, can be so antediluvian as to be ridiculous. (When I went to the BJP’s national convention early in 2010, there was an elaborate demonstration of how India could become a superpower through cow power.)A forward-thinking BJP finance minister would need to be protected by a strong prime minister from the economic nuts and nationalists of his own party. But Narendra Modi, the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate is an RSS man at heart. That may be the reason that Sinha, the best man for the job, might not want it.Then again, there’s a small chance that a BJP-led government might not come to power in May. Perhaps a “Third Front” coalition India's smaller political parties, including several parties representing the left, could pip it to the post with support from the Congress. In that case, the resident economist of the Indian left, Sitaram Yechury of the Communist Party of India, could become the next finance minister.In a recent interview in the business newspaper Mint, Yechury laid out the road map for “a more inclusive, sustainable growth trajectory,” essentially ending tax breaks to corporations and spending the “legitimate tax” on public infrastructure projects to provide a stimulus to the economy. This sounds like a recipe for returning India to the dreaded “Hindu rate of growth,” about 3.5 percent, that it experienced from the 1950s through the 1970s.Of course, the finance minister’s job is one for a specialist who doesn't necessarily need to be an elected politician. That means we can cast our net a bit wider and sift through India’s large cast of professional economists. Jagdish Bhagwati, who recently sparred with Amartya Sen over the subject of economic growth, may be one possibility. Raghuram Rajan has one of the highest profiles of any Indian economist. But last year he became governor of India’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India, and it may be too early for him to leave.
Of all the Indian economists, though, I most admire Kaushik Basu, currently chief economist of the World Bank. Basu’s book "Beyond the Invisible Hand: Groundwork for a New Economics," is a masterly, if necessarily dense, examination of the assumptions and fallacies of Adam Smith’s economic theories. Not only has he published a large body of work on the economic realities in India, he also served briefly as the chief economic adviser to the current government -- unfortunately not a position with a lot of power.He’s strongly in favor of foreign direct investment in retail, which will please the country's next wave of foreign investors, and he understands that more economic power gives India a stronger negotiating position globally, from foreign policy to international trade treaties to the arts. India in the 21st century needs a new Kautilya to head its treasury, and his modern avatar might well be a man named Kaushik.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 30 Mar 2014 07:03

http://www.newindianexpress.com/opinion ... zd7SqhdWuI
Time to Look Beyond GDP

The economic growth rate for the first three quarters of the current fiscal now works out to a dismal 4.6 per cent which means the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growth would have to jump by 5.7 per cent in the last quarter to achieve even the CSO’s (Central Statistical Organisation) scaled down estimate of 4.9 per cent for the current financial year. Thus reads a recent report in a leading business daily. Do such numbers mean that we are all better off with the achievement of 4.9 per cent growth rate and worse off if we don’t achieve that? Is the GDP a clear indicator of the level of well-being in a country?The basic measure of national output is the GDP. It is the value of all final goods and services produced in the country within a given period, usually one year. It includes the value of goods produced, such as houses and cars, and value of services, such as airplane rides and a physician’s services. The output of each of these is valued at its market price, and the values are added to get the GDP. In 2013, the value of India’s GDP was about USD 1,841.7 billion. Since our population was about 1.27 billion the per capita GDP was roughly $1,106 at constant prices since 2000.
While constructing an early measure of GDP and NDP (Net Domestic Product) Kuznets, chief architect of the GDP metrics, had warned against equating GDP growth with well-being. To him national income accounts only very imperfectly measure what is produced each year. As Megan McArdle says, GDP “counts the money value of our output, but not the actual improvement in our lives, or even in our economic condition”. The GDP does not adequately capture the development dimensions of societies. It measures mainly market transactions, ignores social costs, environmental impacts and income inequality.Conventional GDP accounts do not capture the changes in the flow of services from ecosystems like bio-remediation by wetlands, pollination of crops; prevention of soil erosion by forests etc. When a country depletes its natural capital, this is ignored in the national accounts, although depreciation in man-made capital is accounted for. Depreciation in man-made (physical) capital is deducted from GDP to arrive at NDP, which is a better indicator of the performance of the economy. Now, economists strongly argue that a mere estimation of NDP does not demonstrate the real strength of the economy. They now want GNDP (Green Net Domestic Product) to be estimated to serve as a still better and real indicator of the performance of the economy.In GDP estimation, some outputs are poorly measured because they are not traded in the market. If we bake homemade cake, the value of our labour is not counted in official GDP statistics. If we buy a cake, the baker’s labour is counted. We officially measure the value of commercial day care, but taking care of one’s own kids is valued at zero. Services performed for love, kindness and mercy and not for money have an economic value but no money value. The difficulty is whether these services should be included in national income and how to measure their money value. GDP and other output measures do not include work in the household. Household works demand much more of the time of women than men, and GDP accounts exclude very important production mainly by women.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 31 Mar 2014 21:25

xx post

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/03/ ... e-gujarat/
Goldman: If Only India Were More Like Gujarat

If only India were more like its state of Gujarat: Tens of millions of Indians could get nice, new jobs.That’s one of the lessons from a Goldman Sachs report released Friday.Despite India’s red-hot growth streak for most of the past decade, the country has not been creating enough jobs for its people. Most of the world’s second-largest population in what has become Asia’s second-largest economy is still stuck doing relatively unproductive jobs in agriculture.The rapid urbanization of former farmers flocking to factories–which powered growth spurts and societal change in China, Japan and elsewhere across Asia—is not happening in India.
“India’s well-known demographic dividend is yet to be reaped,” the Goldman report said. “Migration from rural agriculture to urban manufacturing is slow, thus reducing productivity gains.”Goldman, like many economists and executives, says that one of the main reasons India’s economic growth isn’t generating jobs is that companies get punished for hiring people. After growing to a certain number of employees—usually 50 or 100–Indian law makes it difficult to lay them off or even shut down a money-losing factory. The result is that entrepreneurs try to stay small, stay away from labor-intensive industries and use machines rather than hire people.

The upshot is that job growth has been anemic compared to the country’s economic expansion and most of the jobs created are in the informal sector—tiny businesses with fewer than a handful of employees.When India should be creating more factory jobs, it is actually creating fewer. Five million manufacturing jobs disappeared in India between the fiscal year ending March 2005 and the fiscal year ending 2010, the Goldman report says.“The industries which are losing jobs are the most labor-intensive ones—textiles, electronics, and apparel,” says the report. “Firms are substituting capital for labor.”According to Goldman’s estimates, India’s employment growth has slowed to only about two million new jobs a year in the seven years ended March 2012 compared to 12 million a year from March 2002 to 2005. While there has been better growth in jobs in the services sector, the labor-intensive manufacturing slice of the economy has been largely stuck.So what does that have to do with Gujarat?The relatively affluent western state has done away with, or been more flexible in its interpretation of, some of the most stifling labor laws, says Goldman. By giving companies more freedom to hire and fire as they please, Gujarat has been able to create more manufacturing jobs than other states, such as West Bengal, with restrictive labor laws, the report says.If the rest of India brought its restrictions down to the same level as Gujarat, the country could create 40 million new manufacturing jobs in the next 10 years, the report said. If it went even further and did more to revamp the regulations, India could add 110 million jobs during that period.

Virupaksha · Post by **Virupaksha** » 31 Mar 2014 22:01

Jhujar wrote:http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2 ... -economist
Wanted in India: The World's Toughest Economist

Basically the west want another World bank and IMF economist.

That piece was a hack job for koushik basu.

That guy, Koushik basu was the chief economic advisor for MMS from 2009 to 2012.

somebody like r vaidya might be a better bet.

chaanakya · Post by **chaanakya** » 31 Mar 2014 22:30

I think it would be much better bet to get rid of all such advisers and not appoint any. mostly they turn moles for US and IMF and subvert economy for their benefits.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 31 Mar 2014 23:57

What moon is Ban Ki Moon seeing?

kish wrote:Bizarre, what is the reason for United Nations to follow Indian elections "closely"?

India is an important partner, will follow its elections closely: UN

United Nations: Terming India as a "very important partner" of the United Nations, a spokesperson for UN chief Ban Ki-moon has said that the Secretary General and the world body will closely follow the country's crucial general elections scheduled to begin on 7 April.

"We obviously follow all national elections closely and India is a very important partner of the UN," and the UN and the Secretary General would "closely" follow the general elections as well, Ban's spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told PTI when asked about the upcoming elections in the world's largest democracy

Has UN said this of elections anywhere?

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 01 Apr 2014 09:31

Income Inequality (30): A Primer on Inequality and Economic Growth

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 03 Apr 2014 05:31

http://www.business-standard.com/articl ... 255_1.html
Shankar Sharma & Devina Mehra: The strange case for India's macroeconomic exceptionalism
( Kitna Paisa Milla hai reh ?)

We have saved China for the end. In early 2012, when we peeled off layers from the Chinese onion to show that far from being a low debt-to-GDP economy as was commonly believed then, China was leveraged to its eyeballs with debt-to-GDP at 150 per cent then. That number is well over 200 per cent now. Then, China needed 1.4 units of debt to generate one unit of GDP growth. It now needs two units of debt. From 2008, China has added $14 trillion to its bank credit! Its railway ministry has run up debt of $500 billion. Corporate debt is 150 per cent of GDP. Its inflexible exchange rates and soaring labour costs are making China uncompetitive in trade. Its money supply growth is twice its GDP, a major red flag. Bank non-performing loans could be 20 per cent of GDP easily: its fifth such crisis in 20 years.Note how easily the previously impregnable mark of 8.5 per cent GDP growth has now shifted down to seven per cent. Debt-fuelled booms end terribly, and we are pretty close to a protracted, painful endgame in China.
How does all of the above make you feel about India? Ten years of off-the-charts growth, while reducing debt-to-GDP sharply to 67 per cent from a near-bankruptcy level of 85 per cent under the NDA (all with seven per cent wholesale price inflation) and moderate current account deficit and external indebtedness? India has slowed? Well, compared to the precipitous drop every country has seen since 2008, a five per cent growth with near-zero debt risk is top-drawer performance.
It is puerile to expect India to be in macroeconomic nirvana, growing at eight per cent, with little fiscal or current account deficits and moderate inflation when the country is the world's third-largest economy (measured in terms of purchasing power parity), and, hence can't escape unscathed from the ravages of the global crisis. There is a collective cry for India's macroeconomic exceptionalism: that India should adhere to no global trends. And this leads to the under-analysed Panglossian view that we need Modi's nostrum, because he, single-handedly, can turn gale-force headwinds into tailwinds. It is most amusing how fund managers conveniently forget the meaning of "relative performance" and "risk-adjusted growth" when it comes to analysing India.
But, the ineluctable fact is that what India has achieved, particularly under UPA-II, is an outstanding economic performance. Sure, we have problems. But compared to what the rest of the world has, we will take ours any day. There is no absolute measure of greatness. It is always relative. And India's smartness lies in the fact that it saw from 2008 that it was no longer a 500-run wicket but a 200-run one. Almost no other country saw that.And lastly, one has to shake one's head at the media's superficial (deliberate?) view that we are witnessing a Modi-based market rally.This is utter nonsense. The world has woken up to the fact that India has arguably had the best growth-risk profile of any major country in the world over 10 years, a negligible CAD, a competitive currency, with no intractable bubbles in the economy (the banks' bad loan problem is still just one per cent of GDP). We challenge N K Singh and Arvind Panagariya to show us any other economy that matches India on this matrix. Hence, our markets are reflecting this relative solidity of India's growth model.Is it anybody's case that we would still been at highs had we still been running a 4.5 per cent CAD?

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 03 Apr 2014 10:02

Suraj, boss, what's your take on the above? In my only moderately-informed economic opinion, the above seems to be a very interesting, even intriguing, perspective. Political commentary aside, the economic view seems fairly solid right? Or not?

kish · Post by **kish** » 03 Apr 2014 18:56

This is as shameful as it can get. Billboards of Arab monarchs are being displayed in malappuram constituency of Union minister of state for external affairs E Ahamed. Is this India or Middle east??

Another term for CONgress, islamization of the country would be complete.

Ahmadinejad 'pitches in' for E Ahamed

You could be forgiven for momentarily mistaking this place as the venue for an OIC summit. Democracy is a mirage in the Middle East but Muslim world leaders are holding centre stage in Malappuram this election.

Billboards of Saudi monarch King Abdullah, Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifah and Dubai's ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum stare down at you, urging you to vote for Union minister of state for external affairs E Ahamed, the IUML candidate from the Muslim-dominated constituency.

Former Iran president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is another familiar face. Even Pakistan's former military ruler General Pervez Musharraf , who had been barred from contesting elections and voting in his home country, puts in an appearance to garner votes for Ahamed.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 04 Apr 2014 01:17

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/02/opini ... india.html
Testing the Ideas of India
(Lady has not heard the boys of UP Chaupal: Will Bjorn Bigglund pay Visit To this Small Frystahjärn )

NEW DELHI — As India’s leaders bicker in the run-up to one of the country’s most polarizing general elections yet, posters of Narendra Modi are multiplying. Like early spring hailstorms, images of the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party’s leader and controversial candidate for prime minister seem to be everywhere you turn: on Delhi’s street corners, outside Varanasi’s temples, lining the roads of eastern Uttar Pradesh.Mr. Modi’s supporters have multiplied the effect by touting Modi T-shirts, Modi masks, Modi bobble-headed dolls. In a departure from traditional electoral practice, few of the B.J.P.’s posters show any of the party’s old guard; there is only Mr. Modi, unsmiling and ubiquitous. His face easily eclipses that of the Congress Party leader Rahul Gandhi, as well as the broom that symbolizes the populist Aam Aadmi Party, whose energetic supporters have run effective door-to-door campaigns across Delhi and many northern states.On March 23, the B.J.P. stalwart Rajnath Singh tweeted the party slogan, “Ab ki baar B.J.P. sarkar” (“This time is the B.J.P.’s turn”) — and then hastily changed it to “Ab ki baar Modi sarkar” (“This time is Modi’s turn”). The edit caused a small stir. When Mr. Modi’s closest aide, Amit Shah, tried to clarify matters (“There is no confusion — there is no difference between Modi government and B.J.P. government”), he brought back echoes of another Indian leader known for authoritarianism, Indira Gandhi, and the slogan chanted by her sycophants: “India is Indira. Indira is India.” It was a reminder that this campaign is a crucible in which India’s ideas of itself are being tested.
The rise of the Indian right wing has accelerated with Mr. Modi’s manly-man campaign and its boasts that it takes a leader with a 56-inch chest to bring about change. Some fear that Mr. Modi’s strong links with the extreme right-wing Hindutva nationalist group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh mean that he’ll give a new life to the divisive dreams of extremists — most worryingly, a hatred of secularism and a drive to recover India’s glorious past. Concerns that human rights groups and activists will be targeted under a right-wing government are valid, judging by how they’ve been treated in the state of Gujarat, where Mr. Modi has been chief minister since 2001.
And yet the emergence of an articulate, and rapidly maturing, right wing is not necessarily a bad thing for India. Many supporters of Mr. Modi and the B.J.P. are betting on the party’s ability to deliver on economic policies, like easier land acquisition and various sops to investors. Even within the right wing, there are relatively few takers for the idea of India as a religious Hindu republic. And fears of a right-wing takeover of India’s cultural institutions, for example, are exaggerated. The steady decline in artistic freedoms over the last 20 years is the result of bad laws, the refusal of politicians across all parties — right, left and center — to take those freedoms seriously and the willingness of art galleries, publishing houses and festivals to compromise on them. It cannot be blamed solely on the rise of the right fringe.

Going further: The B.J.P.’s dominance during this election campaign has had unexpected benefits, including reviving the belief that secularism is a value — even if it’s a value that needs reviving, and redefining. In rambunctious Twitter arguments, “sickular” is often used as a pejorative term, along with “libtard,” a composite for “liberal ********.” This language, however extreme, is a sign that between the small but noisy groups of Hindu supremacists and the small but equally vociferous groups of committed left-liberals lies a vast middle ground.The Delhi-based journalist G. Sampath has suggested that what India really needs is a “Hindu Left”: a formation of intellectuals who display a genuinely Hindu religiosity marked by pluralism and a respect for minorities. The seeds for it may already exist. After a minority right-wing group challenged Wendy Doniger’s book “The Hindus: An Alternative History” for interpreting Hindu scriptures in ways that offended some believers, the most persuasive defenses of the book did not come from left-liberals. They came from practicing Hindus who disagreed with Ms. Doniger’s views but also felt that Hinduism can accommodate many readings. As the right wing strengthens, in other words, so do calls for creating a space where people of any faith — or none at all — can claim their beliefs, rituals and practices without pushing any dogmatic or supremacist line.
But even these revived aspirations to create a truly secular India do not go far enough: They do not address how caste continues to hold back the country. Politicians from all parties are campaigning largely on the assumption that caste determines political preference. They are not asking whether waves of migration from the countryside to cities and various economic shifts — like the recent boom in less traditional job opportunities in malls or call-centers in small-town India — are reasons to rethink traditional notions of community.In a recent essay, Arundhati Roy asked if Indians could move beyond the limitations of caste, beyond the hierarchies “implanted in everybody’s imagination, including those at the bottom of the hierarchy.” Like B.R. Ambedkar, the dalit philosopher and politician, did more than half a century ago, Ms. Roy argued that caste must be annihilated if India is to grow.Only Ms. Roy is not a dalit; she was born upper caste. And the debate her essay provoked soon sheered away from the realities of caste to become a long wrangle over the politics of appropriation. It was, sadly, typical of India. Although the time for a caste revolution is overdue, talking about banishing caste is still too radical an idea, even for the 2014 election.

Nilanjana S. Roy is an essayist and critic, and author of the novel “The Wildings.”

Vamsee · Post by **Vamsee** » 04 Apr 2014 02:27

Even before reading the article let me say this.
Shankar Sharma is an angel investor in Tehelka.com and claimed that NDA "persecuted" him. He hates BJP and strongly supports Congress

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 06 Apr 2014 12:20

Video documentary:
Ishrat Jahan conspiracy
http://vimeo.com/90870480

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 06 Apr 2014 14:17

shiv wrote:Video documentary:
Ishrat Jahan conspiracy
http://vimeo.com/90870480

"Up" the thread.

At a time when Sonia Gandhi goes to Shahi Imam to ask for Muslim votes in a brazen act of trying to polarize the electorate on Muslim-non Muslim grounds; at a time when a mysterious "Cobragate" news report arrives - both clearly conveniently timed by the Congress party, it is essential that balance be restored.

Please watch the video and cross post elsewhere.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 08 Apr 2014 08:19

http://worldhindunews.com/2014040421075 ... avad-gita/

While GOI cancels Yoga for IAS officers upon advise of idiots like yehchuri*.

British Army Given a talk on the Bhagavad Gita

Posted on 2:04 pm, April 4, 2014 by WHN Reporter

British Army Given a talk on the Bhagavad Gita

On this auspicious and historic occasion, Acharya Dhruv Chhatralia gives a 3.5 hour non-stop talk on the Bhagavad Gita to seven different regiments of the British Army without taking a single break.

Over 5,000 years ago ShreeKrushna spoke the Bhagavad Gita to Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. On 15 March 2014, Acharya Dhruv Chhatralia made history by teaching the very same scripture to the British Army during a 3.5 hour ‘super talk’. Dhruv Chhatralia spoke non-stop for 3.5 hours without a break to seven different audiences of regiments from the British Army.

He spoke on the key concepts of the Bhagavad Gita including the immortality of the soul and the mortality of the body, the concept of Svadharma and our duty, the importance of Lokasamgrahan (the maintenance of the world), practical methods to attain self-mastery and to control the mind, how we can discriminate between right and wrong, meditation, battle strategies from the Mahabharata and why we worship different forms of God and cows. During the discourse, Acharya Dhruv Chhatralia also answered the questions of the soldiers and was able to change the topic of his talk based on any one question by a soldier.
He told the soldiers that the Bhagavad Gita is a guide as to how to make decisions in difficult situations, when the decision is often not clear cut and when we do not know what is right and what is wrong.

He said it was not a religious scripture but a book of psychology where ShreeKrushna removes Arjuna’s delusion and makes him stand ready to perform his duty.

He said that the soldiers should meditate upon the fact that their essence was Atman, not matter, that we are not our physical bodies, and therefore we do not need to worry about death because we know that we will continue to exist and we know where we are going to go.

The soldiers took a lot of interest in the leadership qualities we can learn from Lord Ganesh including: intelligence (elephant’s head); foresight (small eyes); discrimination of the right and wrong (ears shaped like a winnowing basket); stability and database (large stomach); the ability to do both small and large tasks (the elephant’s trunk); accepting the limited intellect (half-tusk); and 100% faith (full tusk).

Acharya Dhruv Chhatralia also explained the ten fundamental principles that define a Hindu: belief in the varna system; belief in the ashram system; we worship cows are our mother; we worship the Vedas as our mother; we do not undermine any form of God; we give equal respect to all ways of thinking and ways of life; we believe in rebirth; we believe that we can be liberated from the cycle of birth and death; our heart melts at the thought of violence; and we wish well for all living-beings (even animals and plants).

This was an incredibly inspirational day that generated a lot of interest from the British Army on Sanatana Dharma and was a day that we will forever cherish in our hearts. Thank you to all of our team and sevaks who worked hard to organise this talk for their love, passion and dedication.
The Bhagavad Gita is not just a scripture that is worshipped or to be placed in a holy place. It is a book of life, it is the science of life and it is a book of psychology. There is not a single problem in life of which the solution is not given in the Bhagavad Gita. We are currently going on a journey through our Tuesday talks of finding the Truths of life through the Bhagavad Gita and through the preaching of ShreeKrushna.

We always feel that the day on which each youth of the world, each individual of the world and each educated person of the world will have the Bhagavad Gita in their hands, the world will not have any problems. This is because ShreeKrushna says that the situation may be adverse but it is entirely our choice to be unhappy or not. We unnecessarily draw unhappiness and sorrows towards us in adverse situations and even in favourable situations. We are the masters of our happiness and we are the masters of our sorrow.

The Bhagavad Gita preaches to us the key, the science, the process, and a Divine Journey towards our own happiness, towards our own success in life and towards our own fulfilment in life. We welcome you all my dear friends to join in our Divine Endeavour. Each week on Tuesday we will continue to share thoughts of the Bhagavad Gita, we will think about the verses of the Bhagavad Gita and of course you are more than welcome to ask questions. The more that you ask then the more that ShreeKrushna will resonate with our soul. Our very best wishes to you all.

__________________________________________________________________

* I an qualified to call him an idiot for I know him since Pre Uty College!!!!

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 13 Apr 2014 19:32

http://www.storypick.com/man-made-commu ... oosebumps/

a statement was made that the soldiers who fought and won the war of Kargil were Muslims and not Hindus.

SRoy · Post by **SRoy** » 13 Apr 2014 23:52

The person who made that statement is cut off from the world, who thinks like 1962, 1999 is also an official secret and one can get away with wild claims.

The Kargil was our generations war, in the sense, the juniors officers were of our age group. Personally, being from that background know many of them.
And it was also India's first televised war, even lay persons are familiar with names. Defence enthusiasts probably know the OOB and gallantry award winners by heart.

However, such fine details may be too much to know for madarsaa educated turds.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 15 Apr 2014 02:04

NPR public radio in US had a special on India today 4/14/2014. Julie McCarthy reporting.

A Gold Obsession pays dividends for Indian women
Has nice color pictures. Be careful as family might get ideas!!!

A Gold Obsession Pays Dividends For Indian Women
by Julie McCarthy
April 14, 2014 3:20 AM ET i
The R.C. Jewelry Store in New Delhi.

Indian women have always treasured gold for its beauty and for providing a measure of social security. Today it is also being used to give them a larger say in the family's finances.

Julie McCarthy/NPR

The R.C. Jewelry Store in New Delhi. Indian women have always treasured gold for its beauty and for providing a measure of social security. Today it is also being used to give them a larger say in the family's finances.

Julie McCarthy/NPR It's indestructible. It's fungible. It's beautiful. And for Indians, gold – whether it's 18-, 22- or 24-carat — is semi-sacred.
The late distinguished Indian economist I.G. Patel observed, "In prosperity as in the hour of need, the thoughts of most Indians turn to gold."

No marriage takes place without gold ornaments presented to the bride. Even the poorest Indian outfits girls in the family with a simple nose ring of gold.

The India of old was known as "sone ki chidiya" or "golden sparrow," so opulent were the jewels of its rulers from the Moghul dynasty to the princely states.

For Indian women who were not formally educated, gifting them gold was their social security. Today, whether Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, or Muslim, bedecking the bride in gold invests her with good fortune, according to anthropologist Nilika Mehrotra.

When Planning For The Future, Women Have Been Hands Of f"A married woman is supposed to be an auspicious woman. She represents Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth. She produces the progeny for the family, the food. She takes care of the family," Mehrotra says. "It's very important. It's central to the way Indians think."
Mehrotra notes that in India today land is stolen from women. Women have been disfigured in acid attacks attempting to assert a claim to family property. But gold seems to be the one asset that everyone agrees a woman can rightfully possess.

"For sure," says 38-year-old Anshu Srivastava. "That is my property. That is considered to be [a] lady's right."

The living room of this New Delhi homemaker, like Ali Baba's cave, leaves no doubt about her obsession. Every inch of décor — from her couches to the pillows on the couches to the drapes on the windows — is the color gold.

Discreetly hidden beneath the Srivastava's sleeve is an eye-popping array of gold jewelry. A diamond-crusted gold watch peeks out alongside gold bracelets or "bangles" that are studded with rubies and more diamonds.

Asked if she leaves the house with all those treasures on her wrist, Srivastava says, "I always wear this. It's always with me."
And if she's robbed?
"It's my destiny," she says with a shrug.

Srivastava has gold stashed in bank vaults for her teenage daughter one day. She has her own personal jeweler.
Srivastava opens up for us her vast collection of jewelry boxes, revealing exquisite gold from her in-laws and her husband. But the most precious are the heirlooms from her mother who began collecting jewelry for her from the time she was 8.
Her stockpile of gold earrings, rings, necklaces, and hairpins is lavish but also reflects the centrality of gold in an Indian woman's life. It's given for pregnancies; at births; when a baby first eats solid food. It's engrained in the cultural lexicon.

Indian bride at a mass wedding. Whether Hindu, Christian, Buddhist or Muslim, bedecking an Indian bride in gold is believed to invest her with good fortune.

Sam Panthaky/AFP/Getty Images

An Indian bride at a mass wedding. Whether Hindu, Christian, Buddhist or Muslim, bedecking an Indian bride in gold is believed to invest her with good fortune.
Sam Panthaky/AFP/Getty Images 'My Bangles Sing'

The temptress in the star-studded, high-wattage dance number from the 2001 Hindi blockbuster Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham (translated, Sometimes Happiness, Sometimes Sadness) croons, "My bangles sing, 'I'm all yours.'"
The old Bollywood classic Mother India tells the story of how gold redeems the family's honor. The heroine in this 1957 melodrama is reduced to pawning her gold bangles with the cunning village money lender to save the family farm. Music swelling, she slips off her jewels but never lets go her dignity.

So enthralled is India with gold that Indian households control an estimated $600 to $800 billion worth of it, mostly in women's jewelry. That's four times the U.S. reserves in Fort Knox.
A women's right to use her gold as she sees fit can vary in India. Anthropologist Mehrotra says women, especially some in the conservative north, require family permission to dispose of their gold.
"This kind of limitation, this restriction on her right I think suits the patriarchy, so she is not totally free," Mehrotra says. "Her choice is limited by the nature of the structure of which she is a part."
“ Indian households control an estimated $600 to $800 billion worth of (gold). That's four times the U.S. reserves in Fort Knox.
When Delhi resident Pooja Sharma walked away from her marriage, her husband kept the mother lode of her gold. With the little jewelry she had left, she secured a $400 gold loan, her first, to pay her ailing father's medical bills.
Sharma, a financial adviser accustomed to dealing with banks, laughs recalling how she agonized over pledging her jewels with the lender who exchanged her gold for cash and safekeeping until the loan was paid off.
"Twice I went to them for clarity, one branch, second branch, different branches," she says, "and then I decided, 'OK, I'll invest.'"

Thousands just like Sharma walk each day through the guarded branch doors of Muthoot Finance. With 4,000 branches nationwide, the firm transacts the equivalent of more $50 million in gold loans per day, with interest rates from 12 to 24 percent. At Muthoot, all it takes is 15 minutes for gold to be assessed and cash dispensed — a speed no bank could match.

Couple Snigdha Paul and Sanjeev Dey have a new business thanks to their $500 loan, using her and his jewelry as collateral. They are proud owners of a new flower boutique in South Delhi, which Dey calls, "A dream come true."
Dey stands before his stall adorned with yellow lilies and pink carnations and chuckles at his good fortune. "That gold has helped me," he says. "I am also part of this economy." He admits his venture is small but says he is able to hire employees.

Sanjeev Dey and his wife bought their flower boutique after using their gold jewelry as collateral to get a $500 loan. Because half the population has no access to credit, millions of dollars in loans using gold are dispensed every day in India.

Julie McCarthy/NPR

Sanjeev Dey and his wife bought their flower boutique after using their gold jewelry as collateral to get a $500 loan. Because half the population has no access to credit, millions of dollars in loans using gold are dispensed every day in India.
Julie McCarthy/NPR "I am eradicating unemployment," he says proudly.
An Idle Asset?

The couple's story is repeated throughout India: The assets of a wife put to work to build small businesses, often for the husband. Avinav Chaubey, head of marketing for Muthoot Finance, says an earlier television ad campaign run by the company featured crafty wives urging their husbands to put their gold to good use, maneuvering around the taboo of men asking women for money.
The loans challenge the traditional view of gold as an idle asset.
Yet economist Jayati Ghosh insists that obsessive buying of gold deprives India of genuine investment.
"Gold is a pure leakage out of the system. It basically is the same as putting your money under a mattress. Well, it's really putting gold bars under the mattress," Ghosh says, "So it's a huge waste especially for a poor economy that needs investment."

The Reserve Bank of India, which is akin to the U.S. Federal Reserve, has been struggling to limit gold imports to stop depleting India's foreign reserves and to cut the current account deficit. It has had some success.

But with hundreds of millions of Indians without a bank account or access to formal credit, using gold to secure their dreams is not about to stop.

[Shows why Jayati Ghosh is a retard for not understanding Indian conditions and repeating like a parrot recieved wisdom!Its the economy stupid}

Back at Muthoot Finance, Sanjeev Dey's wife, Snigdha Paul, says she'd put her gold ring up as security again if the couple decides to expand their flower stall.
"Actually, if I'm getting some benefit in return, then why would I say no," she asks. Her husband interjects that she is now vested. "That money is earning more money. Money begets money," he declares.
His petite wife confidently adds, "After all, it's mine: the business and gold and cash – everything is mine. So in return, I'm getting more benefit."
Snighda is reminded that the lender has already returned her gold ring and that the couple's loan is now secured exclusively by her husband's gold. Snighda smiles. "His jewelry is my jewelry," she says.
The sentiment is symbolic of a "new India," where traditional adornments of the old India are producing a new form of wealth — for women.
Julie McCarthy is NPR's New Delhi correspondent. You can follow her on Twitter at @JulieMcCarthyJM.

AbhiJ · Post by **AbhiJ** » 15 Apr 2014 16:34

Justice Sachar says secularism means religious equality

PATNA: Justice (retd) Rajinder Sachar has hit out at his critics who spread wrong propaganda about the famous comparative report on the condition of Muslims submitted by a panel headed by him, and said Muslims and Christians in India are not outsiders but an integral part of the country.

"Secularism and socialism are fundamental elements of the preamble of the Constitution, without which no government can run, and those against these fundamentals can be tried for treason," said the 90-year-old legal luminary while addressing a seminar on 'Educational, economic and social uplift of Muslim minority in Bihar'. The seminar was organized by Tauheed Educational Trust here on Monday.

The former chief justice of Delhi high court said secularism is wrongly defined by some people, but the fact remains that it is not against any religion. Secularism means religious equality and that no religion is superior to others, he added. Justice Sachar said all persons are equal before law and there can't be any discrimination on the basis of religion, race, colour and region. The Indian constitution also accepted this position.

He also quoted Swami Vivekanand, who had asked Hindus not to treat themselves as superior, and said all religions are one and Vedantism was incomplete without Islam. "The country can't progress without equal rights and participation of Muslims and Christians. Discrimination on the basis of majority and minority is sheer foolishness. The governments should examine conflict as a result of discrimination and inequality in society," he said.

Justice Sachar said his report, which he submitted in 2006, is a comparative study of the condition of Muslims and other religious groups and so far nobody could prove his findings wrong.

Lauding the work done by the Bihar government for Muslims, he said the state government made good schemes in 19 districts where Muslim population is 25 to 30% and above. "Targeted schemes should be made for minorities and implemented at block level," he said quoting his recommendations.

Justice Sachar also lauded the teachings of Islam and said no other religion gave so much stress on education, equal rights to women and right of inheritance. He also condemned the attitude to see Muslims with suspicion in the wake of terrorism.

He referred to the December 6, 1992 demolition of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya and said the Lucknow high court had observed that those involved in this act were not suited to run government.

Justice Sachar should convert to Islam.

SanjayC · Post by **SanjayC** » 15 Apr 2014 16:53

"Secularism and socialism are fundamental elements of the preamble of the Constitution, without which no government can run, and those against these fundamentals can be tried for treason,"

The idiot has gone senile. Neither secularism nor socialism were a part of the constitution. These two words were inserted by Indira Gandhi in 1976 by 42nd Amendment - the most controversial constitutional amendment in Indian history -- in return for support of communists to enable her to run the Government. These changes she did casually without any reference to the wishes of the Indian people, nor could she comprehend that communists wanted these two words inserted as a way to oppress the Hindus. This amendment is in fact mocked as the "Indira Constitution."

Forty-second Amendment of the Constitution of India

How can socialism and secularism be an integral part of the constitution when the constitutional assembly did not see it to fit to include these in the original constitution? Jokers like this Sacchar are terrified refugees from Pakistan and suffer from the Stockholm Syndrome. The good news is that this creature is already 90 years of age, and we don't have to wait for long to get rid of him and his generation of pissing-in-the-pants refugees.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 15 Apr 2014 19:08

Wonder how he became a Justice when he is so biased?

Anyway X_post...

RamaY wrote:Yesterdin's Baru interview with Sardesai is interesting.

MMS stood his ground only on three issues. Everything else, he deferred to the real power center, Smt Sonia Gandhi!

1. Nuke 1-2-3 deal
2. FDI in Retail
3. Peace with Pakis

Interestingly all these deals have one key element; these deals give lot of financial benefit, partial economic control and geopolitical control over India to Anglo-Saxon West! All these deals were pushed by successive GOTUS.

In his defense, one can argue that Nuke deal removed the long standing one-sided and illegal constraints on India' nuclear program by the West. Perhaps MMS did his copyright Chanikiyaness on Massas and got India out of this nuklear dog house. But is MMS the real chanakya or the patriotic babudom that put all kinds of obstacles in implementing this deal giving $10s of Billion orders to Massa as soon as India walked out of the dog house? One has to make his own mind.

On the FDI in retail, we are yet to have a clear debate on what the benefits to indian consumers and farmers are that can only come from FDI in retail and no other way.

We on BRF better know the intricacies of MMS-ki-Asha deals. So I will not go further on this.

On a scale of 1-10 where 1 being traitor and 10 being nationalist, I will give MMS a 2.5. What others think?

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 16 Apr 2014 00:13

Very good post....

abhijitm wrote:
shiv wrote:There is no entity that can help India. No Pakistani entity can make peace. No Pakistan entity can export anything worthwhile. No Pakistan entity can negotiate anything. No Pakistani entity han endorse and hold up an agreement. What the fuk were people like Manmohan Singh, Sushil Shinde, Mani Shankar Aiyar etc talking about when they said uninterrupted and uninterruptible dialog with "Pakistan"? What or who is Pakistan can give us anything useful?

Why are we not asking our government these questions?
This is my understanding and I may be wrong.

Pakistan was created by certain elites for elites and so was "India". Bharat was what bharatiyas were wanted. But two sides of elites denied them. Some leaders opposed this division but their voice was too weak. British nurtured this elitism for many decades under British Raj. The west kept them under their influence. Eventually those elites split. The Indian side of elites created a kingdom called New Delhi, a realm that will rule bharat for many decades to come. Even after frictions and wars New Delhi elites never really cut off from pakistani elites. They know each other very well and their sympathy for each other always remain. It was the unknown of bharat that paki elites feared of and that unknown was carefully kept away from the New Delhi empire. These elites of New Delhi rule bharat with help from the west, through their elite universities (JNU etc), elite media, through fear and through sticking together, hoping Bharat never wakes up and take over. Only elites fear military takeover and not deep rooted democratic infrastructure. That is the reason why New Delhi is paranoid about Indian Army. Are we bharatiyas paranoid about the Army? Absolutely not! ridiculous to even think of! GoI is New Delhi empire and it is not OUR government. They are our lords and we are their commoners. They will never do what we bharatiyas think that they should do wrt pakistan.....unless somebody from bharat takes over New Delhi. LBS tried and more recently PVNR attempted it. The elites chewed him and threw away. Vajpayee, Advani, sushma, jasvant and the gang was never bharatiyas IMHO. They pledged their alliance with New Delhi. They are one of THEM.

It is this time the New Delhi elite empire is truly being challenged by a truly Bharatiya and we are seeing the elite onslaught after onslaught, including their partners from the west. Here we have one Bhartiya standing against all odds. Nobody in reality gives any damn about secularism. It is his Bharatiya identity that is creating all this kolavari. Lets see what happens. Anyway, defeat of this elite empire is not possible by winning just one battle. There must be relentless march of Bharatiyas election after election. The day New Delhi's elite empire completely falls we will have our way of dealing with Pakistan.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 16 Apr 2014 00:26

X-Post...

RamaY wrote:SwamyG garu,

We need to look at this from multiple dimensions because this topic falls into Strategic Leadership.

Q1: How many power centers should India have?
Constitution says ONE and that is PMO. But Baru says MMS agreed that there were two contenders for this, PMO & SG, and he conceded that he would be subservient to SG because (a) there cannot be two power centers and (b) He cannot over rule SG.

Since independence we have very few such situations. Almost all PMs (JLN, LBS, IG, RG, PVNR, ABV etc) ensured that this cardinal rule (Rubicon of Indian soverginity ) is not compromised. If we look back in recent history few PMs got into this issue. PVNR was the first scenario and he made a choice to keep this power center in PMO and kept the 10JP at a distance. That is the main reason behind dynasty's hatred towards him. The temporary PMs like MD, IKG, DG and CS tried to keep the power center in PMO and resigned when it became untenable.

But MMS made a different choice from his predecessors. He made a conscious choice to let the center of Govt of India to move out of PMO to 10JP.

People can give different justifications for this reality but it is nothing but breach of constitution & treason IMHO. What next, move the GoI's center of Power to Ulan Bator; because there cant be two (conflicting) power centers in international relations? Isn't it the underlying rationale behind A-Paki-ki-Asha when people said 11/26 is a response to Babri/Gujarat issues (that Pakistan has a say in how Indian Muslims are treated or not and it can use 11/26 or even Nukes to correct law-and-order issues like Gujarat)

Q2: Who got the public mandate in 2004/2009?
Responding to Baru's book "Abhishek Manu Singhvi" tells us that MMS repeatedly mentioned that 2004 mandate was for Congress party and SG and not for him. So the question is who and how the PM of India should get the public mandate? He used this to justify the moving of GoI center of power from PMO to 10JP.

This questions the whole basis of Indian democracy. What if tomorrow a group of Indian Americans in Canada start a political party (Please note that INC was created by British MPs who wanted to contest British elections in one of its dominions, India; same as a UP party BSP fielding candidates in AP) and gets majority and puts a nominated candidate in India while the core power center remains in Canada away from Indian jurisdiction?

Mark my words we will see this transformation happen overtly in next 5-10 years with things like dual-citizenship and Greencards. Already 90+% of politicians have one of their close family members living or have business interests outside India.

Q3: What should be the Agenda of PM and GoI & in whose interests?
This is the second question Baru tried to answer. He clearly says that MMS put his foot down on only three issues (1) Nuke deal (2) FDI in Retail & (3) A-Paki-ki-Asha. If proven correct, using logic given in point 1 above, all other decisions of GoI between 2004-2014 can be called unconstitutional.

Now we need to go into Congress's 2004/2009 manifesto and see if any of these items are mentioned there and MMS/Congress got his mandate for them. But we all know that a political party cannot and will not put all its 5-yr action plan in the manifesto and get public mandate on that basis alone.

The political dispensation in power is expected to respond to changing internal and external environments and make a choice based on Indian Interests and Indian Interests alone. Now given Baru's revelations and Abhishek Singhvi's explanation above, can India be sure of that?

Agnimitra · Post by **Agnimitra** » 16 Apr 2014 04:52

X-post from NaMo thread:

Good to see that even Americans are noticing the Sepoy phenomenon in India:

DailyCaller:
Is India about to elect its Reagan? by David Cohen

India, the world’s largest democracy, is in the midst of a marathon five-week election that will result in the selection of its next prime minister. Although Nate Silver has yet to make it official, most pundits and prognosticators predict that Narendra Modi will be India’s next leader.

Modi bears striking similarities to a celebrated American president: one Ronald Wilson Reagan. Both men rose from humble origins. Modi, in particular, worked from childhood hawking tea in railway stations. Both were popular and successful state governors: Modi is the chief minister (equivalent to a governor) of Gujarat, an Indian state whose gift to the world was Mahatma Gandhi. Modi, like Reagan, is an unabashed proponent of free market economics: “Modinomics,” the term coined to describe Modi’s free market and anti-corruption reforms, is of course a nod to “Reaganomics”; it has unleashed an economic boom in Gujarat.

A major common denominator between the two men is the nature of their detractors. Like the U.S., India has cultural elitists who seem to desperately crave the approval of their former colonial masters in Europe. The Indian cultural elite despises Modi every bit as much as the American cultural elite despised Reagan. They look down their noses at Modi, cringing at the thought of being led by a common “tea seller” who can barely speak English. (Can you imagine Chinese or Russian citizens, proud of their own heritage, being ashamed that their leaders don’t speak English?)

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 16 Apr 2014 08:02

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Making-a ... ur-shampoo
New source of jobs for India's rural women (hint: it's in your shampoo)

People are used to seeing seaweed in miso soup or wrapped around a sushi roll. But many don't realize that the real drivers of the seaweed industry are byproducts extracted from the plants. These include substances known as alginates, agar, and carrageenan, which give a soft, jellylike consistency to products like skin care lotions, fertilizers, toothpastes, ice cream, soymilk, and fruit jellies.Analysts predict that the seaweed extract business will reach $7 billion by 2018.

During a recent trip to India, I witnessed this process firsthand. Many women in coastal villages have turned to seaweed farming, bringing them economic opportunities while contributing to their families' income—not an easy thing to do in a male-dominated society.And this is not just any income. Women earners are more likely than males to save their money or spend it on their families, according to government officials and seaweed industry insiders.Since the 1960s, agricultural crops cultivated by farmers in hard-to-reach villages in India have tended to go through a number of intermediaries, or “middlemen,” before getting to the market. Historically, farmers have struggled with middlemen taking advantage of their role and pocketing more than their fair share of earnings.
If rural women are benefiting from the seaweed industry, what's happening to make sure that money is secure? The answer, at least in India, is quite a lot.Engaging in contract farming ensures the entirety of a farmer’s harvest will be sold directly to a company at a prearranged price, without going through middlemen. According to a recent report by the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization, nearly 5,000 rural poor from a single southeastern district alone engage in farming, transporting, and selling seaweed through contract farming.Their efforts are supported by private investors, industries, NGOs, and financial institutions like the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development and the National Fisheries Development Board. The Indian government has also been proactive in encouraging environmentally sound and socially responsible seaweed farming.On the private industry side, the company AquAgri Processing has helped lead the effort to provide rural women with seaweed growing contracts. AquAgri was created when its current managing director, Abhiram Seth, left PepsiCo—which had initiated the contract farming model for seaweed farming in India in 2000—and started his own company in 2008. Currently, women comprise 75 percent of AquAgri's workforce.AquAgri also works directly with farmers to make sure the money it pays out goes into local hands and helps to build long-term livelihood. Through its "Growers Investment Program," the company deducts, saves, and matches 5 percent of each seaweed worker's pay. This is especially helpful for farmers during the monsoon season, when for three months the seas are too unpredictable for farming.Policymakers around the developing world are often stumped when asked how to ensure that rural women have access to income. As the demand for seaweed-based products increases, they might consider learning from what India has done with this industry.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 17 Apr 2014 03:18

Eric Hobsbawm the British Social Scientist in his book "On the Edge of the New Century" writes "India's great difficulty is that the state is considerably weak in its structure, administrative ability, and political system. But economically and culturally, I think India has a brilliant future, more than other countires inthe Far East." Page 56-57.

Namo's election and future reforms will change the weakness and help India reach its destiny.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 18 Apr 2014 08:28

5 Innovations That Will Transform India in the Next 5 Years
http://mashable.com/2014/04/17/india-fu ... novations/

MUMBAI, India — Following the United States and China, India is the world’s third largest Internet population. The country is projected to be home to 243 million Internet users by June 2014 -– but that’s still only a fraction of the country’s 1.2 billion population.As access to the Internet penetrates deeper into the Indian population, it is changing the ways politicians campaign, companies lead and people connect.. 4G is changing the game.
Can you imagine more than 1 billion people with access to the fastest possible mobile Internet? That will be the reality in India in a matter of years. India relies primarily on mobile devices for digital communications, and that’s certainly not going to change anytime soon. This February, Apple made a joint announcement with Bharti Airtel that it would bring 4G mobile service to users of Apple’s latest phones in Bangalore.Many +SocialGood community members expressed particular excitement about future opportunities for mobile commerce and peer-to-peer lending.
2. 100 million people connected on Facebook.On April 9, the same day as the event, Facebook reported it had crossed the 100 million users mark in India, making it the second largest country on the social network, behind only the United States, where the company started. However, 100 million users is still just a small percentage of India’s overall population, and the market still has potential for significant growth.What you hear and see in Mumbai is that, in many ways, Facebook is the gateway to the Internet. For instance, many small businesses have forgone original websites and sites such as Yelp, instead focusing on building out their company Facebook pages.India may also be the biggest reason that Facebook acquired the messaging service WhatsApp for $16 billion. It is an extremely popular service as it works across all smartphones using low amounts of data, unlike SMS/text messages, and is nearly free. It also offers several features such as group messaging and audio and video messaging using little data, making it by far the easiest and cheapest way to stay in touch and share information with others both domestically and internationally.
3. Social media as a political force
Social media is playing a major role in the Indian national elections for the first time.The Bharatiya Janata Party has largely adopted social media in this election cycle, creating several campaign activations for its candidate for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The candidate has a strong presence across platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and India’s own social media platform Vebbler.Holograms of Modi were shown at rallies, and Google+ Hangouts were used to interact with the movement’s supporters. Modi currently has 3.4 million Twitter followers and over 10.6 million “likes” on his Facebook page.As we’ve seen in other elections around the world, social media has the potential to play a big role. It is very unclear how this will shape the current election in India, as Rahul Gandhi, the incumbent National Congress Party’s candidate for Prime Minister, doesn’t yet have a verified Twitter account. Many are comparing the contrast of social media strategies in this election to the 2008 U.S. presidential race between Barack Obama and John McCain.But one thing is clear: With the rise of social networks in the country, more young people are getting involved in the election. As we have seen in the United States, this year’s race could be the tipping point that will never again allow an Indian national election to go without social media campaigns.
4. The new 2% giving mandate
The Companies Act was enacted April 1, the start of India’s fiscal year. The mandate requires that one-third of a company’s board is comprised of independent directors. This board committee must ensure the company spends “at least 2% of the average net profits of the company made during the three immediately preceding financial years” on corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. Conservative estimates calculate this will net $2.5 billion annually. If the company fails to spend this amount on CSR, the board must disclose why in its annual report.The act defines CSR as activities that promote poverty reduction, education, health, environmental sustainability, gender equality and vocational skills development. Companies can choose which area to invest in, or contribute the amount to central or state government funds earmarked for socioeconomic development.5. Women sitting on corporate boards, by law
Another part of “The Companies Act” mandates that corporations' boards of directors include at least one female member. Reports indicate fewer than 30% of India’s female population is active in the workforce, but the new legislation is a significant first step in incentivizing and rewarding professional women across India. While it can’t be known what the long-term effects of this mandate will be, in theory, the law will provide opportunities for millions of Indian women to take on high-level management and strategy positions across the nation’s top industries.By introducing the female board member mandate, India has the potential to not only grow its female working population, but to increase the value and importance of female leadership culturally and socially across the nation

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 18 Apr 2014 08:31

Atom Solar Suntrolley is here!

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 20 Apr 2014 05:38

Global warning.India could also be hit.
Wheat rust: The fungal disease that threatens to destroy the world crop
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho ... 71485.html

Scientists are warning that wheat is facing a serious threat from a fungal disease that could wipe out the world’s crop if not quickly contained. Wheat rust, a devastating disease known as the “polio of agriculture”, has spread from Africa to South and Central Asia, the Middle East and Europe, with calamitous losses for the world’s second most important grain crop, after rice. There is mounting concern at the dangers posed to global food security.

Jarita · Post by **Jarita** » 21 Apr 2014 09:16

Is Padmanabhaswamy temple gold getting pilfered? Fears of fake replacements

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 922978.cms

krithivas · Post by **krithivas** » 21 Apr 2014 10:14

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 016785.cms

The death of 254 Indian women from modest backgrounds in the course of a 15-year US-funded clinical trial has triggered a raging debate about its ethicality. The trial was for a cervical cancer screening method and the women who died were part of a control group kept without screening to study death rates in unscreened populations.

"Clearly these trials violated both international and national guidelines," said Sandhya Srinivasan of the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics (IJME), who in her editorial on the subject in April last year pointed out that "these studies would not have been permitted in the country of the funding organizations (US National Cancer Institute and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF)."

member_28352 · Post by **member_28352** » 21 Apr 2014 10:41

Can we not file criminal cases against all involved?

member_28440 · Post by **member_28440** » 21 Apr 2014 10:47

US UK Foreign Aid Tied to India’s Forced Sterilization Campaign

Agenda 21 in India – Bribery First, Blackmail Later, Bullets at Last