Indo-UK News & Discussion 9th Aug 2011

[member_23677]

In UK, Twitter, Facebook rants land some in jail

One teenager made offensive comments about a murdered child on Twitter. Another young man wrote on Facebook that British soldiers should "go to hell." A third posted a picture of a burning paper poppy, symbol of remembrance of war dead.

All were arrested, two convicted, and one jailed — and they're not the only ones. In Britain, hundreds of people are prosecuted each year for posts, tweets, texts and emails deemed menacing, indecent, offensive or obscene, and the number is growing as our online lives expand.

there's goes the crap of "free" west and it's freedom of speech. Apparently freedom of speech should only be respected when a white supremacist makes a demeaning statement towards other races.

[member_23677]

They want to feel miserable at and drag the rest with them.

There is a British saying (I don't know whether it s a modern one or old) "British are not happy unless they are miserable"

and then they whine about queendom's peanuts to us

[Chinmayanand]

George Orwell , " The English are not happy unless they are miserable, the Irish are not at peace unless they are at war, and the Scots are not at home unless they are abroad. "

- Courtesy Google

[member_23677]

George Orwell , " The English are not happy unless they are miserable, the Irish are not at peace unless they are at war, and the Scots are not at home unless they are abroad. "

- Courtesy Google

britards are becoming poorer ,so check, Ireland doesn't have much to speak of, so check, and scotland is trying to become free so they technically will be abroad,so check to that too.

[RajeshA]

Published on Nov 23, 2012
By Magnus Gardham
Salmond tells Bill Clinton: independence is best way for Scottish identity: Herald Scotland

Mr Salmond welcomed support for the SNP from Asian Scots in the 2011 election and added: "That strikes me as an indication we are not going to ask people to choose between identities.People have a complex, fascinating tapestry of identities, a tartan of identities."

In a wide-ranging discussion at Strathclyde University's Barony Hall, the First Minister also defended SNP claims that an independent Scotland would automatically remain a member of the EU.

He claimed the Edinburgh Agreement, signed with the UK government to allow the referendum, confirmed that Scotland would not be seceding from the UK if Scots voted Yes, but that the UK would be dissolved, leaving both parts with the same, ongoing relationship with the EU.

UK will be dissolved!

For reference:

Edinburgh, 15 October 2012
EDINBURGH AGREEMENT between the United Kingdom Government and the Scottish Government on a referendum on independence for Scotland

[chetak]

Unbelievable, the hypocrisy of the bloody brits never ceases to amaze. For a bunch of crooks who are always in the forefront of any financial scandal, sermonizing always comes easy....

In bid to curb scandals, HSBC urges bankers to swear an oath

Douglas Flint, the chairman of HSBC, is pushing for bankers to take an oath similar to that sworn by doctors as part of radical plans to overhaul the way the profession is viewed in the wake of the financial crisis and successive banking scandals. He is calling for the oath to be administered by an independent body designed to police the banking industry and is understood to have discussed the prospect with his counterparts at the UK's other big banks.

[brihaspati]

Unbelievable, the hypocrisy of the bloody brits never ceases to amaze. For a bunch of crooks who are always in the forefront of any financial scandal, sermonizing always comes easy....

In bid to curb scandals, HSBC urges bankers to swear an oath

Douglas Flint, the chairman of HSBC, is pushing for bankers to take an oath similar to that sworn by doctors as part of radical plans to overhaul the way the profession is viewed in the wake of the financial crisis and successive banking scandals. He is calling for the oath to be administered by an independent body designed to police the banking industry and is understood to have discussed the prospect with his counterparts at the UK's other big banks.

Not a very dumb move - from the British legalistic viewpoint. If it eventually gets recognized legally, it could come under their notorious 18th century innovation of legal perjury. [The Church used it before to bind people, typically on bones of saints, and many a Church deception has taken place over this stratagem. Breaking would lead to excommunication and therefore fair game for opponents to hunt you down without any consequences.]

[Johann]

Bankers have become very unpopular in the UK. That unpopularity has much to do with the culture of excess in the financial services industry - the bonuses, the risk taking, the disregard for the average consumer/tax-payer/citizen, and their disproportionate share of the political economy.

Bankers used to be seen as sober, serious, quiet, boring, and risk averse, the definition of responsible. The Thatcher-Reagan years of deregulation changed all of that. Financialisation made the market king and rewarded those who aggressively betted bigger and bigger. What we're seeing is an attempt to turn back the hands of time to the banking culture of those days without bringing back all of the attendant state regulation. Its a start, but it almost certainly will not be enough on its own.

[Neela]

Neela ji,

I have noticed that the Brits often use both ridicule and humanitarianism to put others down. Even when some know that the empire is long gone, they are not willing to let go of their cultural empire, which is supposed to keep them always on the throne. In fact they have sold this cultural superiority really well, even to their cousins in USA. Americans still look for British actors to portray some depth of culture in the various characters of their films. Until some time ago, Indians used to look up to Britain to comment on what is morally right and what is not, what is fair and what is not. The empire lives on in the minds, both in the minds of the lords of the empire as well as in the minds of the subjects the world over!

So when they see Indians raising their heads above the water, the Brits get all crazy and start lashing around. India was the the jewel of the crown, so the British Empire and its standing is always measured by the relative placement of Brits and Indians. If the subjects overtake the Queendom, then their own arrogance about themselves gets hit! So while Pakis, Indian Marxists and Macaulayists are willing to suck up to them, rest of the Indians are showing them moonshine (Can SDRE butts do that?) the middle finger!

Rajesh Sir
Some time back, there was an article sermon in FT from a Shri James Crabtree .The gentleman made a sweeping statement about India's financial institutions in the wake of the Rajat Gupta's inside trading case.
I think I understand what you mean.

[Neela]

Neela ji,

Here is a link on Amartya Sen's - what amounts to virtually a panegyric - on David Hume, the much touted British philosopher of "enlightened" "universal humanism" and precursor of "modern non-theistic/ anti-Calvinistic/ secular" ethics of the "west".
http://www.partiallyexaminedlife.com/20 ... on-ethics/
The comment goes as

This video records Nobel laureate Amartya Sen’s somewhat rambling lecture, wherein he discusses a few themes in Hume’s ethical work which he deems relevant today. Specifically, Sen wants to advocate for Hume’s argument that society’s globalization tends to expand its moral sensitivities. We hear that Hume was among the first to argue that a society’s mores were a function of its culture rather than physical circumstances. Hume was also an early critic of then-nascent British imperialism, arguing that it demeaned the conquerers as much as the conquered.

Many of the Humean insights to which Sen refers seem so obviously true today as to be unworthy of further discussion. But perhaps that says as much of Hume’s foresight and intellectual victory as the tepid nature of Sen’s summary. To be honest, I couldn’t tease out any great insights from the lecture, but I’ll let Sen’s intellectual cred justify the post, and anyway it may prove interesting to those trying to assess Hume’s contributions, if not his continued relevance.
-Daniel Horne

The roots of such gushing depends on a selective highlighting of the so-called 17th-18th century "British moralist" school, and none whatsoever based on a complete reading of their works - or if read, on highly selective editing of their works to suit a particular political and moral agenda to prove that sort of "humanism" actually ever lay behind the British "moralists". Here is a sample of what the hagiographers go for :

It is universally acknowledged that there is a great uniformity among the actions of men, in all nations and ages, and that human nature remains still the same, in its principles and operations. The same motives always produce the same actions: the same events follow the same causes. Ambition, avarice, self-love, vanity, friendship, generosity, public spirit: these passions, mixed in various degrees, and distributed through society, have been, from the beginning of the world, and still are, the source of all the actions and enterprises, which have ever been observed among mankind. Would you know the sentiments, inclinations, and course of life of the Greeks and Romans? Study well the temper and actions of the French and English. - David Hume

However, what is typcially suppressed belongs to cases like that in 1753, when Hume wrote an essay, “Of National Characters,” with the footnote:

I am apt to suspect the negroes and in general all the other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to the whites. There never was a civilized nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation. No ingenious manufactures amongst them, no arts, no sciences. On the other hand, the most rude and barbarous of the whites, such as the ancient Germans, the present Tartars, have still something eminent about them, in their valour, form of government, or some other particular. Such a uniform and constant difference could not happen, in so many countries and ages, if nature had not made an original distinction betwixt these breeds of men. Not to mention our colonies, there are Negroe slaves dispersed all over Europe, of which none ever discovered any symptoms of ingenuity; tho’ low people, without education, will start up amongst us, and distinguish themselves in every profession. In Jamaica indeed they talk of one negroe as a man of parts and learning; but ‘tis likely he is admired for very slender accomplishments, like a parrot, who speaks a few words plainly.

When Sen and others speak of Hume's contention about globalization "increasing" human sensitivity to moral/ethical questions - and that he was against "imperialism" because it "demeans" conquerors too - a real reading of Hume would have shown that Hume was taking it in the context of the non-white supposed capacity to corrupt the morally ascendant "white". This "insight" of Hume has been turned around by non-British cultural origin intellects - from their own respective tradidtions of the "liberal" model to claaim that British "moralism" has something similar in "humanism" terms.

Brihaspati-Sir,
I am amazed how your post and a comment to an article I posted earlier reach the same conclusion . You talked of David Hume. The comment ( quoted below )is for the article here.

[ Note to Admins: FT disallows cut and paste from the article. Quote below is not from article but a comment ]

John Ly | June 21 5:21am | Permalink
Another point: Crabtree says there has been little 'public criticism' of Gupta. I suspect this is not because Indian journalists morally deficient but that no one in their right minds would think of finance capitalism today as an enterprise that has anything to do with morality. The corruption of the system, including economic theories of market fundamentalism, is so complete that it is a little absurd for those who are not descendants of missionaries to feel self-righteous indignation at the sight of malfeasance. From this viewpoint, Crabtree's covertly culturalist analysis strikes me as a sign of an older historical problem about the way Europeans are (still) hardwired to think themselves more moral and advanced than others.

-----

I have to read about the MaoMao uprising. I know there is an American lady who is highlighting the Kenyan suffering ....seen some on Youtube.
Do not know much about organized British brothels. Any references would be helpful.

[RajeshA]

Neela ji,

I have noticed that the Brits often use both ridicule and humanitarianism to put others down. Even when some know that the empire is long gone, they are not willing to let go of their cultural empire, which is supposed to keep them always on the throne. In fact they have sold this cultural superiority really well, even to their cousins in USA. Americans still look for British actors to portray some depth of culture in the various characters of their films. Until some time ago, Indians used to look up to Britain to comment on what is morally right and what is not, what is fair and what is not. The empire lives on in the minds, both in the minds of the lords of the empire as well as in the minds of the subjects the world over!

So when they see Indians raising their heads above the water, the Brits get all crazy and start lashing around. India was the the jewel of the crown, so the British Empire and its standing is always measured by the relative placement of Brits and Indians. If the subjects overtake the Queendom, then their own arrogance about themselves gets hit! So while Pakis, Indian Marxists and Macaulayists are willing to suck up to them, rest of the Indians are showing them moonshine (Can SDRE butts do that?) the middle finger!

Rajesh Sir
Some time back, there was an article sermon in FT from a Shri James Crabtree .The gentleman made a sweeping statement about India's financial institutions in the wake of the Rajat Gupta's inside trading case.
I think I understand what you mean.

Neela ji,

The still prevalent narrative in Britain is that they ruled over half of the world and the sun never set on their empire. Of course in today's world, everything of the past is looked at from the prism of today's moral values. So in their stories colonization of settled lands (Americas, Australia, and even in the "old world") would be shown as discovery; subjugation of the others would be shown as bringing civilization to the others; robbery of cultural artifacts is shown as exploration and scientific inquiry; industrialized slavery is muffled with proactive humanitarianism in the "third world" and "oppressive regimes"; economic exploitation of others is reformulated as spirit of free enterprise; deceit and lies of the past are explained away with higher goals of chivalry; occupation of others is sold under labels like propriety, fairness, due process, law and order!

A resurgent Dharmic India embracing fully our very very long and comprehensive history undoes the whole mirage, the whole labyrinth of smoke and mirrors that the Anglos have successfully created. It proves that rather than they bringing any civilization and scientific disposition to India, the British did a great injustice onto Indians, and all that what makes the British feel proud of themselves is simply a big mountain of shit covered by cream and cherries! It is the Indians who will have to blow away the top layer and push every English nose deep into that shit, so that they can smell their true selves.

[vishvak]

link

In the early 30s, the British government in India had taken over their land on nominal rent to grow sugarcane for privately owned mills.
..
Nearly 85,000 acres in various parts in western Maharashtra were used for this project.
..
At Loni Vyanknath, however, almost all the subsequent generations of farmers have been landless.
..
But Kakde says, “This land here is marked as fully irrigated land. But do you see any pipes or any sign of cultivation?” he says, waving at the vast, barren expanse. “How can we cultivate in these conditions even if we want?” he says in frustration.

Taking over lands by British deprived thousands of farmers in Maharashtra over generations to the benefit of privately owned mills which in turn quickly ran into losses post-Independence during formation of cooperative mills.

[Philip]

Boris Johnson,Mayor of London and a future challenger to Cameron for the leadership of the Tories,is a far-sighted man ,a maverick no doubt,but a visionary.Enjoy his paen of praise for India.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/colu ... poils.html

I’ve seen the future in India, and Britain can share the spoils
Indian dynamism puts the eurozone to shame. This is where we need to be doing business, says Boris Johnson.
By Boris Johnson6:22AM GMT 26 Nov 2012
Pssht, I said to Barry from the High Commission. Look, there, I pointed. There it was, slap bang in the middle of the road. It was a giant cat – as black as Bagheera from The Jungle Book, and if anything a bit bigger. We’d only been in India for about half an hour, and we’d already seen kites circling in the blood-red sun of dawn. We’d seen dewlapped cows grazing on patches of grass by the expressways, and elephants waiting for their mahouts to finish their ablutions in the fields. But this was something else.
We drew nearer. Still it didn’t move. “Are you sure it is?” I asked Barry. He leaned over and put the question to the driver. “Is that a Jaguar?” “Yes, sir, it is a Jaguar.”
My friends, it was indeed. Within a few miles of Indira Gandhi Airport, we had found a genuine British Jaguar, waiting at the traffic lights. It was designed at Whitley near Coventry and at Gaydon near Warwick, and assembled into the mighty black beast before us by the workforce of Castle Bromwich near Birmingham. Here, in one of the biggest and fastest-growing markets in the world, I am proud to say that we had found evidence of market penetration by one of this country’s proudest motoring marques.
We drew level at the lights, and I could see a chauffeur in a slightly wonky peaked cap, his face glowing from the posh dials of the XJ saloon. His passenger appeared to be a young and beautiful woman; a film star, perhaps, or a bestselling novelist – someone, at any rate, who had reason to be ferried around Delhi before breakfast in a top British car – and I felt a surging sense of hope.
As soon as you arrive in India, you are overwhelmed by the sheer reproductive energy of the place. You stand in New Delhi by Lutyens’s pink India Gate and look at the vast crowds of young people – walking, courting, playing cricket until they dissolve in the haze. If you go to the courtyards of the Akshardham temple – the largest Hindu temple in the world – you will observe swarms of couples preparing for the joys of matrimony, and everywhere there are the marigold awnings and wedding processions that are the prelude to fecundity.
RELATED ARTICLES
Boris: we are losing India to the Americans 25 Nov 2012

This is a country of 1.2 billion, set to overtake China as the most populous place on earth – and unlike China, they are all so young. Half the population is under 25. In fact, one in 11 of the entire global population is an Indian under 25. Think of the size of that market, the things they can buy now, the things they will want in the future.
India may have slowed in its frantic growth rate of three years ago – down to a mere 5 per cent from 8 per cent per year. But that is still about five times faster than us or any other EU country. The Indians are young, aspirational, dynamic, democratic, with a gloriously uninhibited press. With the eurozone seemingly heading for a permafrost of gloom, India is the place we should be doing business.
We need to act fast, because we have ground to make up, and we cannot take anything for granted. Young Indians these days are like any other global population that finds itself in the throes of embourgeoisement: they are gripped and excited by America and American brands – Google, Coke, Nike, Starbucks, you name it. The biggest foreign food supplier in India is Domino’s Pizza, an American firm.
Forty years ago – perhaps even 30 years ago – bright young Indians might have thought first of finding a first-rate university education in London; and they still do. But we are facing stiff competition from the US. It is time – humbly but sincerely – to remind young Indian brainboxes and investors of the advantages of the UK.
In the postcolonial epoch, I am afraid trade between our countries had sunk – by 2010 we were doing more business with Sweden! But it is growing again, fast, and the opportunities are immense. Of course we can’t trade on sentiment, or the concept of a “shared history” (a history that will mean little to many Indians under 25); and yet it is still true that there is a natural fit between Britain and India, a cultural and commercial fusion that is growing the whole time.
You can see it in cuisine, where restaurants serving Indian food employ more people in the UK than coal, steelmaking and shipbuilding combined. You can see it in literature, where British publishers introduced such talents as Vikram Seth and Arundhati Roy to the world. There is a fusion in film, where it is not entirely clear whether films like Slumdog Millionaire or Bend It Like Beckham are British or Indian or Brindian. We have more Bollywood films made in London than anywhere else outside India. We have seen the fusion in music, where the bhangra sound was taken from India to Southall, given a bit more of a beat and re-exported to India.
Above all, we can see the fusion in business. Look at the alliance between BP and Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance, or at Vodafone’s takeover of Hutchinson. Or look at that very Jaguar, product of an Indian-owned firm that is made by Brits and exported to China; or look at the JCB 3DX backhoe loader, a British machine made by Indians and exported to Africa.
As India expands, we need to build these partnerships. In the next 20 years, there are perhaps 30 Indian cities that will be putting in metro systems – think of the opportunities for the dozens of British engineering firms currently engaged on Crossrail, the largest such operation in Europe. We have services from law to health care to planning that could be of use to India in its amazing programme of urbanisation.
India should be one of this country’s key partners for all sorts of geostrategic reasons, and David Cameron was dead right to make this his first port of call in 2010. But it is the economic partnerships that offer the most extraordinary prospects. Imagine selling a Jag to one in every 100,000 Indians. That’s a lot of Jags, and a lot of jobs.
[quote][/quote]

[Neela]

The question is not about abusing the British or their language or culture. At least my point was more about turning the searchlight on ourselves - looking at ourselves. Introspection and self-analysis as to how our tastes and admiration in English literature or civilizational elements have grown up.

Have we ever analyzed that process? Have we looked at whether or not our admiration/appreciation/appropriation of English values - is a natural outgrowth of independent thinking, or is a guided tour - shaped directly or indirectly, in a myriad ways - consciously and deliberately first by the colonial regime and then the continuation of the structure in a formally independent cover? Do we keep the contexts of these sources of our admiration in mind? Do we become aware of how or whether these myriad cues affect our value-systems, or the way we look at even India or the Indian? That consciousness leads to freedom. What we have now is mere independence of external form- and that too quasi politically or superficially.

What surprised me slightly, was the fact that people can even rationalize their admiration for blatantly racist and imperialist authors - by actually decontextualizing their literary works from the context of what these authors represented as persons and mindsets. I was waiting to hear some appreciation of English literature by say Naipaul, here - but no one mentioned him and no one mentioned him as superior to Kipling - for example. The very fact that some of us are oblivious to the fact of what they are doing when they rationalize their admiration of Kipling by formally detaching his imperialism from his literature - shows how much the British regime has succeeded in establishing their philosophical and value-system hold. Moreover that value-system is itself not followed by the British critiques - that is they do not appreciate Indian authors, not writing in English - or classical works - without analyzing or highlighting the Indic connection to what they portray as "casteism", or all that they shout about the "evils of Hinduism" and "eastern mysticism".

So those of us appreciating while decontextualizing from imperialism - Kipling - are actually following the script laid out for colonized mind by the British Raj, and whoever they saw through to power after transition [the most anglophone and anglophile leader among the creme-de-la-creme of congrez left after Brit and congrez purges of the more anglo-loathing types became the supreme leader]. It is a one-way street of admiration and self-delusion.

I wanted to respond to this post for some time.
There are a few posts and threads (Out of India, Indian sense of ...) that dramatically alter perspectives. I will leave it at that.

[anmol]

Indian and Italian firms battle for stake in Aston Martin

Investindustrial is understood to have made a bid of around £250m for the luxury carmaker, famous as the vehicle of choice of James Bond. The private equity house faces competition from Indian manufacturer Mahindra & Mahindra, which is understood to have made a higher offer.

The Italian firm is optimistic that Aston Martin’s Kuwaiti owners, The Investment Dar, will favour its plans to invest in new technology.

Investindustrial is planning to make AMG, the Mercedes subsidiary a technical partner on the deal, enabling it to bring high-performance engineering expertise to the table.

The bids from both Investindustrial and Mahindra & Mahindra are thought to include plans to keep production at Aston Martin’s headquarters and plant in Gaydon, Warwickshire.

The Investment Dar, a Kuwaiti finance firm, will retain the remaining stake

More than the article, i find the comments on this article very interesting.. :-

I'd rather it was India. We've got historical and cultural ties with the Indians - they're family and we understand each other.

My father was posted there towards the end of he war and he thought they were the finest people on earth - although I suppose having a punkawallah might have influenced his view somewhat.

In contrast; an Italian stole his motorcycle at Anzio and (like all Europeans) they're just bloody foreigners, pure and simple.

Indians hate us. You know how UKIP supporters feel about the EU that is how Indians feel about us but about a million times worse.

You are so correct, they are nice in yoru face but once your not there they'll stab you in the back, then when they have used you they'll have no more use for you and your toast.

This typifies everything thats wrong with globalisation.

India didn't invent, develop and establish this company as a world class brand - we did, and it must be bought out away from Arabs who develop nothing.

Plundering English assets has to cease.

The Indians will buy it.

Using the money from the aid budget.

If the UK hadn't given India all the foreign aid, they could then have invested in Aston Martin but not our totally incompetent government. Not a brain among the whole lot of them!

[Advait]

The reason Britards continue to lecture us is simple - we do not make them pay for it.

And how do we make them pay? By doing what Libya did to Italy.

Italy's economy is 28 times larger than Libya's but still it was Italy who apologized. Why? because Libya dangled deals in front of Italy. But here we have our PM saying Briturd rule was good for us. So obviously they are also not going to apologize.

If our political leaders raised their rhetoric against UK and made sure UK did not get any juicy deal, Briturd academic-business community will start saying how bad Briturd rule was for India.

[lakshmikanth]

^^^ Given the amount of contextualizing and explaining of Briturd behavior by the Indian narrative of its history, which is reflected even on this thread, I think the day we make UK 'pay' is far far away. It is highly likely that you and I will have departed long before that.

While it is discouraging, we must, in any small way we can, lay the foundations for that day. That is the least of what we can do.

[Lalmohan]

what has the mayor of london been saying in dilli? curious to know from reporters on ground

[vishvak]

Briturds will not straighten their tail. An example is how arrests of two for online comments were reported in BBC while more than thousand arrested within UK is not even reported in BBC - meaning BBC, the state broadcast corporation, has no such standards.

Dangling work for British will not work for the British have no such standards to begin with. In fact it may give the Briturds more fillip to their own uppity no-standard behavior.

[Prem]

We need to assimilate BrieTain and teach righteousness to perfidious people. The freedom of Varnashram allows even a Mlecca to develop Manushyta.

[Neela]

We still have not reached a stage where outsourcing will be blamed for bad weather in London. Until then, see how despite official conclusions finding out that outsourcing was not to be blamed for UBS scandal, outsourcing will be blamed nevertheless.

hxxp://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/27/indian ... implicated ( change xx to tt )

Britain - the land of sad losers!

[DevD]

I wonder if anyone has come accross this article on the BBC website- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20500312..

Some notable gems from the article:

Hindi, the official language of central government, is an artificial and largely unspoken 20th Century construct.

English remains the country's only lingua franca

I remember our resentment when new government decrees imposed both Hindi and Marathi (the regional majority language) as compulsory subjects.

There is also a rather positive and admiring writeup of MaCauley, stating that he is reviled by Indian nationalists, but much loved by the Dalits, who have taken to worshipping at the altar of "English Goddess", a "statue of liberty in a sari"- One cannot help but notice the surreptitious usurpation of Saraswati.

On the plus side, the article mentions the words that modern English owes to the Indic languages, and faintly suggests that we might evolve our own Indian hybrids.
The negatives are too many to mention- Please do read it. I specially cringed at the quote "Oh Devi Ma, please let us learn English! Even the dogs understand English."

Overall, a top class ego massage for the Brits- no wonder it's in the top 3 of the most read articles on the site.

[lakshmikanth]

I know I am beating a dead horse, but.......

The negatives are too many to mention- Please do read it. I specially cringed at the quote "Oh Devi Ma, please let us learn English! Even the dogs understand English.

I will just leave this here.

Finally - If it was Nehru who foisted english on India - many here should be thanking him on their bended knees instead of abusing him - because this regional language focus has been tried in India and Pakistan (before it became bakistan).

[arnab]

I know I am beating a dead horse, but.......

The negatives are too many to mention- Please do read it. I specially cringed at the quote "Oh Devi Ma, please let us learn English! Even the dogs understand English.

I will just leave this here.

Finally - If it was Nehru who foisted english on India - many here should be thanking him on their bended knees instead of abusing him - because this regional language focus has been tried in India and Pakistan (before it became bakistan).

arrey Lakshmikanth ji - you are flogging a dead horse I have given you the educational statistics and have given you details of the occassions when an alternative was attempted and why it failed. If you are 'cringing' at the thought that some indians genuflect to the english language - then it is a personal issue that you have to sort out in your own mind.

Since you haven't attempted to 'unlearn' english (as a brotest) - why deny the desperation of others to learn english and perhaps use it as a passport to better their lives (as you yourself have)?

[lakshmikanth]

arrey Lakshmikanth ji - you are flogging a dead horse I have given you the educational statistics and have given you details of the occassions when an alternative was attempted and why it failed. If you are 'cringing' at the thought that some indians genuflect to the english language - then it is a personal issue that you have to sort out in your own mind.

I did ask whether ALL possible alternatives were tried or not. People smart enough to liberate India from the Pritish should be smart enough to find common ground onlee, no?

Since you haven't attempted to 'unlearn' english (as a brotest) - why deny the desperation of others to learn english and perhaps use it as a passport to better their lives (as you yourself have)?

Where have I said we should unlearn yinglish as a brotest? I always maintain that yinglish should be used at as a weapon, and for it to be used as a weapon we need a narrative that is an alternative narrative than what the west is peddling. This should be taken up by the powers to be on an urgent basis. So I do 'cringe' when I see MMS thanking the pricks for giving us yinglish, because it shows me that the king himself has accepted the 'yinglish==gift from white man' narrative.

You and I know (beating a dead horse again), that yinglish == upward mobility is saying that prits destroyed Indian industry in a different way.

I have said this before, and saying it here again: yinglish was unintended consequence, it can be a potent two sided sword. We have two choices, play or get played. To beat that horse one last time, I only see the latter happening not the former.

I hope I am clear, as this will be the last thing on the topic from me.

[Vayutuvan]

Hope I am not spraying oil onto a fire - here is a free audiobook (for free) of Lost World which is a perfect trifecta of Doyle, SF, and British reading

Code: Select all

http://www.audioville.co.uk/store/product/view_productcategory.php?Id=47

[Advait]

lakshmikanthji, +1000 to you.

btw, why don't some patriots hack and deface al-bbc. aren't we supposed to be it-vity superpower.

[Neela]

Lakshmikanth-ji
7 pages later, the same calcified lines. Move on.

[lakshmikanth]

Neelaji,

Like I said, I am past the 'high' the horse is dead and rotting. Not going to flog it anymore on this thread.

As another horse related proverb goes: You can only take a horse to the water.......

[Neela]

Neelaji,

Like I said, I am past the 'high' the horse is dead and rotting. Not going to flog it anymore on this thread.
As another horse related proverb goes: You can only take a horse to the water.......

Intransigence is generally not attributed to horses...

[lakshmikanth]

^^^^ OT but True . Need to pick the right battles and keep itches in control.

[kish]

Slightly dated article about the same old ASIAN sex gangs.

Why as a Muslim and a mother I believe it's so damaging to hide from the truth about Asian sex gangs

A bleak, stomach-turning report on child sex abuse by gangs was published yesterday by the Office of the Children’s Commission.

It recounts how, between 2010 and 2011, more than 2,500 children — mostly girls — were groomed, repeatedly violated, sold, beaten and terrorised.

2500 children in 1 year, pakistanis are the most productive and overworked group in Britanistan. Who said they are unproductive?

[Rony]

Why won’t the Government get serious about caste discrimination?

Predictably, its the Evelangical and Church supported Dalit Freedom Network which is behind it. Interesting that secular british groups who (either dont know the history and activities of DFN or in cohoots with it) dont see the irony in it

Campaigners have accused the Government of dragging its heels on the issue. The Dalit Solidarity Network has now launched a petition calling on Home Secretary Theresa May to activate the aforementioned clause in the Equality Act, and ensure that caste discrimination is outlawed in the UK.

Both the Hindu Forum of Britain and Hindu Council UK oppose legislation to outlaw caste discrimination. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, they claim that there is either no or very little caste discrimination in the UK. Anil Bhanot, General Secretary, Hindu Council UK has said that UK born Hindus are "hardly aware of the old hierarchies of the caste system". The heart-rending testimonies in the NIESR research paint a very different picture.

I would love to read these testimonies !

[devesh]

even if they don't exist, or are not sufficiently "heart wrenching", they will suddenly appear out of thin air with appropriate photo-ops for the testimony-givers. it's a nautanki. for Indians, first step is to insulate the mind from this cynical game of the Christians. insulate the mind, and then simply tune out whatever BS is served. let it not in anyway affect how you perceive your people and your country. whatever you want to learn, do so from reliable sources or from your own personal experiences, not from vested interests.

[Hari Seldon]

UKstan deserves every packee it has x10.

Meanwhile... from twitter

Sikhs produce Awareness Film against Love Jihad in UK: http://bit.ly/X5BEW3

[Rony]

English Is a Scandinavian Language ?

Jan Terje Faarlund, professor of linguistics at the University of Oslo and his colleague Joseph Emmonds, visiting professor from Palacký University in the Czech Republic, now believe they can prove that English is in reality a Scandinavian language, in other words it belongs to the Northern Germanic language group, just like Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic and Faroese. This is totally new and breaks with what other language researchers and the rest of the world believe, namely that English descends directly from Old English. Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, is a West Germanic language, which the Angles and Saxons brought with them from Northern Germany and Southern Jylland when they settled in the British Isles in the fifth century.

Old English died out

"Modern English is a direct descendant of the language of Scandinavians who settled in the British Isles in the course of many centuries, before the French-speaking Normans conquered the country in 1066," says Faarlund. He points out that Old English and Modern English are two very different languages. Why? "We believe it is because Old English quite simply died out while Scandinavian survived, albeit strongly influenced of course by Old English," he says.

The 'cohabitation' between the British and the Scandinavians was largely hostile. Both fought for political hegemony. The descendants of the Vikings gained control of the eastern and northern parts of the country. The Danelaw was under the control of Scandinavian chiefs for half a century.

Like most colonists, the Scandinavian-speaking inhabitants found no reason to switch to the language of the country they had arrived in. "One especially important, geographic point in our study is that the East Midlands region, where the spoken language later developed into Modern English, coincides almost exactly with the densely populated, southern part of the Danelaw," says the professor.

The language changed a great deal in the period after the Normans arrived. The miserable conditions people lived in at the time resulted in a complete merger of the two previously separate groups of people -- the Old English speakers and the Scandinavian speakers -- and out of this came Middle English -- the predecessor of Modern English.

The language adopted many words from the Danelaw's inhabitants who were of Norwegian and Danish descent....

"What is particularly interesting is that Old English adopted words for day-to-day things that were already in the language. Usually one borrows words and concepts for new things. In English almost the reverse is true -- the day-to-day words are Scandinavian, and there are many of them," says Faarlund.

But the Scandinavian element was not limited to the vocabulary, which is normal when languages come into contact with each other. Even though a massive number of new words are on their way into a language, it nevertheless retains its own grammar. This is almost a universal law.
"But in England grammatical words and morphemes -- in other words the smallest abstract, meaningful linguistic unit -- were also adopted from Scandinavian and survive in English to this day."

[krishnan]

http://in.news.yahoo.com/london-mayor-c ... 17440.html

As the French Government presses steel giant ArcelorMittal to avert the closure of two blast furnaces in north-eastern France, London Mayor Boris Johnson has called for greater Indian investment in the United Kingdom.

[Lalmohan]

rony - that article is splitting hairs. to my way of thinking - northern german/dutch/scandinavian/anglians all share the same roots and their society and language are very closely related. to try and distinguish between northern germany and southern scandinavia is fairly pointless. english is very clearly the language derived from this larger group. it is clearly not celtic or latin - but has strong influences from both to become modern english

[Anindya]

UK: Blasphemy laws in Europe

Britain, for example, abolished the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel in England and Wales in 2008. But in 2006 the British government enacted the Racial and Religious Hatred Act, which created a new crime of intentionally stirring up religious hatred against people on religious grounds. The new law has led to zealousness bordering on the irrational.

In Nottingham, for example, the Greenwood Primary School cancelled a Christmas nativity play because it interfered with the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha. In Scarborough, the Yorkshire Coast College removed the words Christmas and Easter from their calendar not to offend Muslims. In Scotland, the Tayside Police Department apologized for featuring a German shepherd puppy as part of a campaign to publicize its new non-emergency telephone number. As Islamic legal tradition holds that dogs are impure, the postcards used in the campaign were potentially offensive to the city's 3,000-strong Muslim community;

In Glasgow, a Christian radio talk show host was fired after a debate between a Muslim and a Christian on whether Jesus is "the way, the truth and the life." In Birmingham, two Christians were told by police "you cannot preach here, this is a Muslim area." In Cheshire, two students at the Alsager High School were punished by their teacher for refusing to pray to Allah as part of their religious education class. Also in Cheshire, a 14-year-old Roman Catholic girl who attends Ellesmere Port Catholic High School was branded a truant by teachers for refusing to dress like a Muslim and visit a mosque.

In Liverpool, a Christian couple was forced to sell their hotel after a female Muslim guest accused the pair of insulting her during a debate about Islam. In London, Rory Bremner, a political comedian, said that every time he writes a sketch about Islam, he fears that he is signing his own death warrant. At the same time, Scotland Yard says that Muslims who launch a shoe at another person are not committing a crime because the practice is Islamic symbolism.

In recent months, however, Muslims have been lobbying to reinstate blasphemy laws in Britain. A petition reportedly sent to British Prime Minister David Cameron reads: "It is axiomatic that Great Britain is a key player in global harmony. British parliamentarians have made outstanding progress in eradicating racism, anti-Semitism, discrimination, inequalities and other factors causing hurt to all citizens. The trust and hope of millions of British Muslims is placed in yourselves as representatives and Members of Parliament to call for changes in the law to protect the honor of Faith Symbols of Islam and other faiths."

In February 2012, it emerged that a Muslim activist group with links to the Muslim Brotherhood had asked the British government to restrict the way the British media reports about Muslims and Islam.

More recently, a Muslim lobbying group called ENGAGE launched an exhibition and a month-long campaign "Islamophobia Awareness Month," highlighting the spread of "Islamophobia" in Britain. The exhibition was held in the British Parliament and ENGAGE activists pressed Members of Parliament to strengthen the existing religious hatred law to provide more protections for Muslims.

In Ireland, a new blasphemy law went into effect in January 2010. The Irish Defamation Act, which created the crime of blasphemous libel, makes "publication or utterance of blasphemous matter" punishable by a fine of up to €25,000 ($32,500).

According to the Irish Times, Ireland's blasphemy law is being cited by Islamic states "as justification" for persecuting religious dissidents. Pakistan, for example, has cited the Irish statute at the United Nations to support its own blasphemy laws.

[kish]

Indian woman in UK kills son for failing to memorise Quran

An Indian-origin mother who beat her son "like a dog" for not being able to memorise passages of the Quran, has been found guilty by a British court of murdering him and setting his body on fire to hide evidence.

Sara Ege, 33, a mathematics graduate from India, was found guilty at Cardiff Crown Court yesterday of beating her son Yaseen Ege to death at their home in Pontcanna, Cardiff, in July 2010 and setting fire to his body.

During the hour-long harrowing footage, university graduate Ege described how the young boy collapsed after she had beaten him while still murmuring extracts of the Quran.

This is insane. How can a mother do such a cruel thing to her own son?