India-US Relations : News and Discussion

panduranghari · Post by **panduranghari** » 26 Apr 2015 04:27

That's not the point.

GDP itself is an inaccurate measure of national productivity and innovation. Savings are a means by which innovation can be implemented. The common complaint heard from Nehruvian times is the paucity of funding to implement projects which was the explanation for 'Hindu rate of growth'.

BTW rising stock market =/= increasing prosperity in India. It is true for the west though.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 26 Apr 2015 08:31

FWIW, drones cause far less collateral damage than manned airplane sorties do. In the case of drones, I think a ground operator sipping a Straberry shake on the other side of the world sits back, does a casual identification of the Pest, and then hits the button to launch the Pest-e-Sha'eed. True, those around the Pest also get collateralized, but that beats the heck out of sending a B-52 or B-2 or a flight of F/A-18s to 'take out' the entire village.

In GOAT Phase 1, GOAT forces used to send out some 100 sorties per day, and many came back disasppointed because it was so hard to find the Pakis. Our estimate was that each sortie with 8 250-pound bombs would pest-e-shaeed about 32 pests. But they also had a huge collateral damage: error probability used to be worse than 5 percent.

The loud whining about the Drone program is precisely because if its utter effectiveness and utter terror.

The terrorists who have used their "strategic depth" of FATA etc are the ones now running in terror because they don't know when they are being seen by the Drone Eyes. Sleep on terrace in hot weather? Invite even hotter welcome from Drone. Drive on a lonely road in a jeep? Invitation to a nice isolated inflation.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 27 Apr 2015 05:35

Indian-origin scientist at MIT wins US$ 250,000 Heinz Award

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/art ... aign=cppst

WASHINGTON: An Indian-origin scientist at MIT, who has developed artificial human
microlivers for drug testing, has won a prestigious USD 250,000 Heinz award for
her work in tissue engineering and disease detection.Sangeeta Bhatia at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has been named the recipient of the 2015 Heinz Award for Technology, the Economy, and Employment.Bhatia's team has pioneered the fabrication of artificial human microlivers, which are being used by many biopharmaceutical companies to test the toxicity of drug candidates.Bhatia is also using microlivers in the lab to model malaria infection and test drugs that can eradicate malaria
parasites completely - even the parasite reservoirs that remain in the liver after a patient's symptoms subside.She hopes to eventually develop implanta She hopes to eventually develop implantable liver tissue as a complement or substitute for whole-organ transplant.In her study of cancer and the tumour microenvironment, Bhatia's team has developed synthetic biomarkers that are paving the way for simple, low-cost cancer diagnostics.Their engineered nanoparticles interact with tumour proteins in the body and release hundreds of these biomarkers, which can be detected in urine.

< ..

Kashi · Post by **Kashi** » 27 Apr 2015 16:52

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2015/04/241069.htm

QUESTION: I had asked yesterday about this India Government ordering all these funds coming from – going from Ford Foundation and then earlier this thing --

MS HARF: Mm-hmm.

QUESTION: -- on Greenpeace. Do you have anything on that?

MS HARF: Well, we are aware that the Ministry of Home Affairs suspended the registration of Green Peace India and has placed the Ford Foundation on a prior permission watch list. We remain concerned about the difficulties caused to civil society organizations by the manner in which the Foreign Contributions Regulations Act has been applied. We are concerned that this recent ruling limits a necessary and critical debate within Indian society, and we are seeking a clarification on this issue with the appropriate Indian authorities.

...
The same guy chimes in with this question
QUESTION: Second, as far as Prime Minister Modi is concerned, he has been traveling after the U.S. great visit to a number of countries – Germany, France, and Canada next door – and for, of course, the making India and other issues – nuclear issues, civil nuclear and all that. Is this – if U.S. knew about his visits and whether he’s going to help the U.S.? Because he’s getting the same businesses and talking about the same thing what he had been talking here in the U.S. and all the agreements with the U.S.

MS HARF: Well, I think these are separate bilateral conversations he’s having. We certainly thought we had a very good visit here, but I don’t have much more for you on his other visits.

Gus · Post by **Gus** » 27 Apr 2015 17:23

What a dumba$$. Where do these idiots come from. Guess we should be happy he did not ask 'modi is working for hindoo male. What is US going to do'

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 27 Apr 2015 17:46

Kashi wrote:http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2015/04/241069.htm

[quote>>]QUESTION: Second, as far as Prime Minister Modi is concerned, he has been traveling after the U.S. great visit to a number of countries – Germany, France, and Canada next door – and for, of course, the making India and other issues – nuclear issues, civil nuclear and all that. Is this – if U.S. knew about his visits and whether he’s going to help the U.S.? Because he’s getting the same businesses and talking about the same thing what he had been talking here in the U.S. and all the agreements with the U.S.[<</quote]

Eh Eh Eh ... Ignore the pinprick and focus on the positive for now just as Modi has done after winning the elections. That question is why I believe Modi's understanding of *strategic autonomy* as equi-embrace of everyone is so critical. It prevents any one country from acquiring leverage in its dealings with India.

Assuming there are just 2 other partners of India, the moment you distance yourself from China it increases the US leverage with India and vice-versa. So it makes sense for India to engage with both China and US simultaneously on issues that are of common interest even while we have disagreements in other areas. Now expand that thought to include all countries in the world from the largest to the smallest. If US is hesitant about supplying uranium we will deal with others and the same wrt reactors. The same wrt other materials, technologies and FDIs.

This also makes US, the sole super power, wary of pushing India and Modi *overtly* too hard on FF, GP, Human blight, daleet rights, religious freedom, kasab rights, walmart rights, intellectual rights, etc. The same is true for China of a different set of issues like border, etc. Why should we reject overtures from any source without doing a cost/benefit analysis just based on historical or ideological positions?

See how much khujli it is causing already when Modi doesn't have much to show on the ground. Once the Indian economy kicks into high gear and the rush into India picks up his bargaining position is going to increase substantially.

shravanp · Post by **shravanp** » 27 Apr 2015 18:13

Gus wrote:What a dumba$$. Where do these idiots come from. Guess we should be happy he did not ask 'modi is working for hindoo male. What is US going to do'

Add to that 'political economy' (spring out a new term just like rabbit outta hat)

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 27 Apr 2015 19:32

pankajs, Our Muppalla has written an article on the Strategic autonomy aspect of Modi's frequent visits aboard. Its linked on twitter.

krisna · Post by **krisna** » 27 Apr 2015 21:11

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 7#p1781937

[youtube]=dZCZp5udJeI[/youtube]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZCZp5udJeI
CRams and to many others interested, please check this video in its entirety- will find lots of information.
at least hear RM speech from 12 minutes onwards to 48 minutes. talsk about pollock and his agenda.
This is the first time,he has revealed the true face of pollock.RM is racing against time to publish the book before this year end on these folks. he also has another book in the wings in the short term.

-> pollocks is wrong on many things-
- says sanksrit is oppressive language, brahmins brought sanskrit to oppose Buddhism. Ramayan is after christ was born.
sanskrit was not opposed by mughals/muslims and british but british actively supported its revival. Hindus thmselves oppressed it due to dalits hooman rights issue etc. Also did not know much about kaavya/rasa etc in sanskrit.wrote inaccuartely about it.RM had discussed the issue with polock at his princteon home for over 3 hrs,and over plenty of emails etc but he did not have much answers.

some other nuggets-
IHRC chief saying that there will be collaboration between Infinity foundation of RM and their dept to work on ancient India/sanskrit chronology something like that.

part of the speech in Hindi- people can correct me about the above.

Tuvaluan · Post by **Tuvaluan** » 27 Apr 2015 21:25

Isn't this pollock the same person the cretin Rohan Murty handed 33M$ to translate sanskrit texts recently...sheesh. Stupefying behavior from the ultra-rich.

arshyam · Post by **arshyam** » 28 Apr 2015 00:01

^^ Yup. Precisely why we need to understand and document things RM-ji is saying, as Pollock will not get instant credibility in desh due to association with the Murty foundation.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 28 Apr 2015 01:28

UlanBatori wrote:Sleep on terrace in hot weather? Invite even hotter welcome from Drone.

succinctly put which has turned me into into a believer in the efficacy of drone strikes.

krithivas · Post by **krithivas** » 28 Apr 2015 02:15

A bit of Ford Foundation watch not sure if this knowledge already exists within BR -
http://www.fordfoundation.org/regions/i ... ita-ramdas
Ford Foundation lists Kavita Ramdas, Srinivasan Iyer, Vanita Nayak Mukherjee and Shruti Pandey as its team members based in India.

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 28 Apr 2015 07:01

#BaltimoreRiots is trending at no 1 in India. Folks what's up?

Ok ... the update
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/ ... reddieGray
David Simon to Baltimore Rioters: "Turn Around. Go Home. Please."

Simon's voice is, of course, only one in a chorus calling for an end to the rioting and looting that broke out following an afternoon funeral service for Gray, the 25-year-old black man who died while in police custody nine days ago. But his comments carry a little more weight given his strong ties to the city—he was a longtime crime reporter for the Baltimore Sun before going on to HBO fame—and his previous critiques of the city's police force and how it does business. "If you can’t seek redress and demand reform without a brick in your hand, you risk losing this moment for all of us in Baltimore," Simon wrote. "Turn around. Go home. Please."

Is this the famed *First world* justice?

Ok am seeing quite a few FTFA hastags now

Agustin Aguirre ‏@ssalvatiere 8m8 minutes ago

#Baltimore #BaltimoreRiots #NoJusticeNoPeace #StopPoliceBrutality

Why doesn't Ford foundation focus all at the issues at home first before trying to civilize us thirdworlders?

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 28 Apr 2015 07:13

Harvey Pitnik ‏@HarveyPitnik 14m14 minutes ago

#BaltimoreRiots Thugs tearing Baltimore apart. Why are blacks so disgusting?

I didn't say that ....

Dave Eckert ‏@flyers3410 17m17 minutes ago

@flyers3410: How much government assistance money was used for gas masks used in "protests"? #baltimoreriots

Heather Blair ‏@HeatherAnKeith 18m18 minutes ago Alabama, USA

You want to be treated better, then act like you deserve to be treated better. Act like trash get treated like trash. #BaltimoreRiots

Keller Anderson ‏@Kanderson97 15m15 minutes ago

I'm 30 min from Baltimore but it's ok because my house is protected by shotguns, M16s and reenforced gates #BaltimoreRiots

There is too much ~~good~~ stuff out there if only one had a way to capture and mine the whole twitterverse.

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 28 Apr 2015 07:23

Mike K ‏@MikeRumbo66 8m8 minutes ago

Only in #obamasamerica our cities look like the 3rd world. #BaltimoreRiots

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 28 Apr 2015 08:20

The last time Baltimore burned was by the Brits a couple of centuries ago, now Americans are burning the city themselves. The blacks are burning their own neighborhoods. Rioters are the same types, first or third world does not matter.

Yagnasri · Post by **Yagnasri** » 28 Apr 2015 08:29

May be time for India and other "third world counties" to start a race watch authority to conduct 'investigation" into US police conduct and call few witnesses to Delhi to testify.

Militarization of police has to be reversed first. It will not happen. Present US leaders will do nothing to bring Black community out of the serious poverty, lack of proper education, youth crime, addiction and breakdown of social structure. I fear things can only go bad now.

vishvak · Post by **vishvak** » 28 Apr 2015 17:16

May be India can cancel some VISA, such as religious preaching (or similar) VISA, considering that good services of EJs are needed within USA to 'pacify' population in USA. It will help to channel energy for right causes in case such people are interested to do good within USA.

schinnas · Post by **schinnas** » 28 Apr 2015 18:32

Tuvaluan wrote:Isn't this pollock the same person the cretin Rohan Murty handed 33M$ to translate sanskrit texts recently...sheesh. Stupefying behavior from the ultra-rich.

Money in the hands of a fool causes the most damage. This Narayan Murthy character is very suspect. his Catamaran ventures has entered into a partnership with Amazon.in that helped Amazon.in subvert Indian government restrictions on FDI in multi brand retail. Per government regulations, no FDI over 49% is allowed in multi brand retail. Narayan Murthy entered into partnership with Amazon.in where he holds 51% stake but gave practical authority to run the company to Amazon in return for 16 or 18% returns on his investment. So Amazon pays him an "interest" while allowing itself to set the prices to below cost if needed to under cut the competition (which may not be fully kosher per law). This enabled Amazon to sell items below cost to undercut Indian run startups and establish itself in the market which government FDI restrictions tried to avoid. On top of that Amazon has structured its company as a technology marketplace platform and fails to pay several taxes.

None of what Narayana Murthy has done recently - his association with Ford Foundation, shady dealing with Amazon.in, Murthy family giving tens of millions to fellows like Pollock with limited and slanted Sanskrit scholarship and anti-Hindu bias do not showcase him as a genuine well wisher of the Nation. He should be watched closely.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 28 Apr 2015 18:52

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-us ... al-2081415

US today praised India's leadership role in helping earthquake-hit Nepal and persons of different nationalities stranded in war-ravaged Yemen.

"India has demonstrated its global leadership in recent weeks, first in Yemen and now in Nepal. We are grateful; we are impressed; we are inspired.

"And because our cooperation is expanding, India is using C-17s and C-130s on the front lines of its response," US Ambassador to India Richard Verma said here at the Amcham function.

KLNMurthy · Post by **KLNMurthy** » 28 Apr 2015 19:46

A_Gupta wrote:http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-us ... al-2081415
US today praised India's leadership role in helping earthquake-hit Nepal and persons of different nationalities stranded in war-ravaged Yemen.

"India has demonstrated its global leadership in recent weeks, first in Yemen and now in Nepal. We are grateful; we are impressed; we are inspired.

"And because our cooperation is expanding, India is using C-17s and C-130s on the front lines of its response," US Ambassador to India Richard Verma said here at the Amcham function.

US ambassador to India saying flattering things about India in an Indian function, things that no one outside India will ever notice, is being spun by Indians as American acknowledgement of India's greatness.

OK then.

KLNMurthy · Post by **KLNMurthy** » 28 Apr 2015 19:51

schinnas wrote:
Tuvaluan wrote:Isn't this pollock the same person the cretin Rohan Murty handed 33M$ to translate sanskrit texts recently...sheesh. Stupefying behavior from the ultra-rich.
Money in the hands of a fool causes the most damage. This Narayan Murthy character is very suspect. his Catamaran ventures has entered into a partnership with Amazon.in that helped Amazon.in subvert Indian government restrictions on FDI in multi brand retail. Per government regulations, no FDI over 49% is allowed in multi brand retail. Narayan Murthy entered into partnership with Amazon.in where he holds 51% stake but gave practical authority to run the company to Amazon in return for 16 or 18% returns on his investment. This enabled Amazon to sell items below cost to undercut Indian run startups and establish itself in the market which government FDI restrictions tried to avoid. On top of that Amazon has structured its company as a technology marketplace platform and fails to pay several taxes.

None of what Narayana Murthy has done recently - his association with Ford Foundation, shady dealing with Amazon.in, Murthy family giving tens of millions to fellows like Pollock with limited and slanted Sanskrit scholarship and anti-Hindu bias do not showcase him as a genuine well wisher of the Nation. He should be watched closely.

Narayana Murty is an old communist. Communists have their own version of taqiya. Let's not be confused by his success in business. By way of context, Engels was a businessman, Stalin was a priest, and most naxalite leaders are feudal kulaks or come from a colonial comprador-bourgeoisie background.

KLNMurthy · Post by **KLNMurthy** » 28 Apr 2015 20:06

vishvak wrote:May be India can cancel some VISA, such as religious preaching (or similar) VISA, considering that good services of EJs are needed within USA to 'pacify' population in USA. It will help to channel energy for right causes in case such people are interested to do good within USA.

Developing the policy mindset to be able to do such things would be good for India but it would mean throwing away the current attitude of strict non-interference.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 28 Apr 2015 20:10

KLNMurthy wrote: US ambassador to India saying flattering things about India in an Indian function, things that no one outside India will ever notice, is being spun by Indians as American acknowledgement of India's greatness.

OK then.

In a private conversation I said this!

"As Bharat resurges, the world will start taking notice of this. Some vested interests try to acknowledge Bharat's power and some others try to use this acknowledgement as a trap-of-flattery. Bharat on the other hand must acknowledge other's acknowledgement of its growing power and just stop at that. No need to go on defensive or offensive. Just be Bharatiya natural self".

Tuvaluan · Post by **Tuvaluan** » 28 Apr 2015 20:15

KLNMurthy wrote:Narayana Murty is an old communist.

Don't see how he managed to reconcile being a committed communist given that he is one of the most successful capitalists in the country...but people are complicated. From the description of others who are not blinded by his uber-richness, he seems to be more a toadie for "west is best" rather than a communist, given his open admiration for how the british managed to build India into the shining city on the hill (in his view), even given the brit colonial history's depradations, which he overlooks.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 28 Apr 2015 20:48

A request - can we take Baltimore riots to either understanding US or +ve news thread? It needs to get eyeballs for sure. Those two threads are also visible to unregistered guests just like this thread.

vishvak · Post by **vishvak** » 28 Apr 2015 22:28

KLNMurthy wrote:
vishvak wrote:May be India can cancel some VISA, such as religious preaching (or similar) VISA, considering that good services of EJs are needed within USA to 'pacify' population in USA. It will help to channel energy for right causes in case such people are interested to do good within USA.
Developing the policy mindset to be able to do such things would be good for India but it would mean throwing away the current attitude of strict non-interference.

Strict non-interference outside India or strict non-interference within India by our own policy mindset? An aspect of world govt / global governance may be! It is difficult to import such politics from a country with sorry state of affairs, probably.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 28 Apr 2015 22:53

This is exactly the case with "Academia", Wendy"s Love for Behndi and Witzel "s Pretzl'e spreading their scent on certain markers.

http://yourstory.com/2015/02/shiva-ayyadurai/
‘This curry stained Indian should be beaten and hanged': Shiva Ayyadurai on inventing email and the backlash that followed

Huffington Post ran an article about myths surrounding the invention of email that has since been taken down. For purposes of posterity, can you give a rundown of some of those myths?

The first myth was that the ARPANET created email. Absolutely false. What they did was electronic text messaging. The ARPANET was working on battlefield communications via telegraph. It was a very rudimentary system. David Crocker himself, in December 1977, wrote an article saying, “No attempt is being made to emulate a full-scale, inter-organizational mail system.”

The second myth was that Ray Tomlinson invented email and that he sent the first email message. Ray Tomlinson did not write fifty thousand lines of code. He wrote may be fifteen twenty lines of code. He took an old program, manipulated it a little bit and he used the ‘@’ symbol to designate two computers. That’s not email. That’s not inbox outbox folders. But BBN and Raytheon launched a massive PR campaign to discredit my work. They wanted to build their brand. Being known as the inventors of email would give them tremendous advantage towards winning billions of dollars of security contract.The frankly racist articles put up at Gizmodo and Techdirt claim that RFCs were emails. RFC’s are meeting notes. It meant Request for Comment. In those days you had a meeting, a bunch of guys were at the table and they would write out the meeting notes. They would send the meeting notes to everyone involved. RFCs are not a computer program. They are not any type of a specification for user interface.It’s also claimed that the CTSS was email. CTSS was the system that was developed at MIT and it was essentially an early blog or wall post at best. They called it mail because in those days they would have a file and you could tack on another post to it. That’s not email. Email by definition (I am the one who defined it, I am the one who came up with the word and I am the one who created it) is a system of interlocking parts- inbox, outbox, folders and all those things.
It was in 2012, after Washington Post carried an article about your work being honoured by the Smithsonian, that the avalanche of backlash begun and peaked. Can you elaborate on that?

Everyone attacks India to be the most corrupt country in the world. But it has nothing on American corruption. Here it is deep, entrenched and done in a very sophisticated manner.

The article in Washington Post was written by a young black reporter. She started getting trolled within an hour of the piece being published. She called me up and said that my editor has thrown me under the bus and asked me to write a rebuttal against two people who were leading the backlash against me- one was a historian in the pocket of Raytheon. I chose to co-write my rebuttal with Noam Chomsky.When they finally ran the article, they only went with David Crocker. Even then, they didn’t deny that I invented email. They said that electronic messaging existed before I came along. I am not saying I invented electronic messaging. Its existence goes back to the time of Morse code. But I did create email.

Within seven days of the Washington Post article going live, they created an internet hall of fame and gave an award to Ray Tomlinson for creating the email. This is how the system works.

Raytheon’s stock went up by $1 immediately after this announcement. There was a renewed flurry of hate campaigning against me. One blog said, “This curry stained Indian should be beaten and hanged.” If an Indian does great software coding, outsourcing or is the chairman of Microsoft, then that’s cool. But an Indian cannot be an innovator. I am labelled a fraud. Wikipedia calls me a scoundrel, a conman and a liarDo you grudge being denied prospective profits as a consequence of this patent issue not working out?
Walter Issacson’s new book ‘Innovators’, a book featuring solely white inventors, says that true innovation happens when the government, military and academia work together. Issacson says that the biggest motive for innovation is profit. The concept of money being the sole motive for innovation is bullshit. It is an idea promoted by those in power in order to manipulate humanity.
Today my fight is no longer about who invented email. The facts are in black and white and your readers are free to make an informed choice. I am more concerned with who controls innovation and how is humanity going to move forward.

Shreeman · Post by **Shreeman** » 28 Apr 2015 23:52

^^ Ah, the good old page 1 of the positive neuj. Wound, have some salt:
http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... f=1&t=6735

Do you grudge being denied prospective profits as a consequence of this patent issue not working out?

edit -- http://rajesh-kumar.org/wiki/index.php?title=5_Tweet

Note: VA S. never fought the copyright/patent battles and wants credit for his work. This guy did. VA S. is smart, and he saved his sanity. This guy is not. It wouldnt matter if copyright/patent documentation was there. It wouldnt matter if the so-called inventors never wrote one line.

jagga · Post by **jagga** » 30 Apr 2015 21:40

US panel questions RSS, VHP over attacks against minorities; slams "ghar wapsi"

The findings of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), largely based on the accounts of religious leaders of the minorities and non-government organisations in India, have led it to place India on its Tier 2 list of countries for the seventh year in a row.

Report is full of lies!

sanjaykumar · Post by **sanjaykumar** » 30 Apr 2015 21:52

United States Commission on International Colour Freedom

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 30 Apr 2015 21:55

International Conversion Freedom.

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 30 Apr 2015 21:58

Daydreaming >> but here is what I would love to see >> The US Gov or the US embassy in Delhi issuing a rebuttal while there is a radio silence on the part of Modi/GOI/BJP/RSS.

Later every query should politely be redirected to read that rebuttal coming out of USG or US embassy Delhi. That rebuttal should never be read to the media by any one of the above but just be referred. Something on the lines of " .... have you read the statement put out by the US embassy? It answers all your questions. I suggest you read that if you haven't already. We have nothing further to add."

arshyam · Post by **arshyam** » 30 Apr 2015 22:04

^^ This sort of stuff is expected, especially on BRF. They are not going to change. "Bhains ke aage bheen bajaye, bhains khade bahurai" (however much we beat drums in front of a buffalo, it's going to stand there ignoring us) (please excuse typos, but you get the idea).

The more important thing is to build a counter narrative and set our agenda, rather than responding to some jobless senators holding a hearing a few miles away from cities under lockdown from racial violence

member_28911 · Post by **member_28911** » 30 Apr 2015 22:29

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar @SriSri
Met with community leaders of Baltimore & heard their issues. Our team will continue to build bridges.#BaltimoreRiots

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 30 Apr 2015 22:39

Saurav Jha ‏@SJha1618 13m13 minutes ago New Delhi, Delhi

I must congratulate @SriSri on his initiative to meet those affected by the #BaltimoreRiots. Minority rights in the US are a global concern.

Saurav Jha ‏@SJha1618 13m13 minutes ago New Delhi, Delhi

As the world's largest democracy, India must bring out an annual report on the status of democratic rights in America and Europe.

Madhu Kishwar ‏@madhukishwar 10m10 minutes ago

Good that Indian govt has snubbed US on its minority persecution report & ghar wapsi.Clear indication US backs conversion drives in India1/2

Madhu Kishwar ‏@madhukishwar 10m10 minutes ago

2/2 The most apt snub to US govt would be to enact anti conversion law- no conversions, no need for ghar wapsi!

arshyam · Post by **arshyam** » 30 Apr 2015 22:48

For the record:

India rejects US report on religious freedom, says it’s based on limited understanding
- PTI, Indian Express

India on Thursday strongly reacted to a report by a US Congress-established panel claiming that minorities in the country have been subjected to “violent attacks” and “forced conversions” after the Modi government assumed power in 2014, saying it does not take cognizance of such reports.

External Affairs Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said, “Our attention has been drawn to a report of the USCIRF which has passed judgement on religious freedom in India.

“The report appears to be based on limited understanding of India, its Constitution and its society.”

He further said, “We take no cognisance of the report.”

In its 2015 annual report, USCIRF (US Commission on International Religious Freedom) said, “Since the election, religious minority communities have been subject to derogatory comments by politicians linked to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and numerous violent attacks and forced conversions by Hindu nationalist groups, such as Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP).”

It also said that despite the country’s status as a pluralistic, secular democracy, India has long struggled to protect minority religious communities or provide justice when crimes occur, which perpetuates a climate of impunity.

USCIRF said in December 2014, Hindu groups announced plans to forcibly “reconvert” at least 4,000 Christian families and 1,000 Muslim families to Hinduism in Uttar Pradesh on Christmas day as part of a so-called ‘Ghar Wapsi’ (returning home) programme.

It may be mentioned here that US President Barack Obama had twice made a strong pitch for religious tolerance in India.

The bolded part says it all.

member_22733 · Post by **member_22733** » 30 Apr 2015 22:57

Ankar wrote:

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar @SriSri
Met with community leaders of Baltimore & heard their issues. Our team will continue to build bridges.#BaltimoreRiots

Would request SriSri to watch his back. Empire will strike back.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 01 May 2015 02:06

Well done guru SriSri Ravishankar ji (and I am not talking about political point scoring) in building sabhavana between warring communities. There is enormous mistrust between blacks and whites in the US. They need saner voices like yours to bring them to their good senses.

---

Please also take help from the many Nobel peace prize winners who might be globe-trotting on gas-guzzling jumbo jets, people like Ex presidents Carter and Gore, Ex SOS Kissinger. They have a lot of experience in building bridges across communities all over the world except in their own backyard

. I am sure, President Obama, a Nobel laureate himself, is busy calming the frayed nerves going the extra mile of taking time out from his Democratic Party (DNC) fund raising engagements for $1000/plate dinners, visiting Silicon Valley Businesswomen! and the African-American! dominated Hollywood circuit.