Bharat Rakshak

kish wrote: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?

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

Millionaires' exodus: Two thirds of Britain's top earners 'deserted the UK' after 50p top tax rate was introduced

The number of people declaring incomes of more than £1m slumped from 16,000 to 6,000 after Gordon Brown introduced the new tax rules in 2010
The amount of tax paid by top earners fell from £13.4billion to £6.5billion as a result
TopTories describe the tax hike as 'ideological' and claimed that the rich will now pay a greater share of the tax burden under the Coalition

By Jason Groves

PUBLISHED: 00:41 GMT, 28 November 2012 | UPDATED: 09:43 GMT, 28 November 2012


Around two thirds of Britain's highest earners deserted the UK after the 50p top rate of tax was introduced, according to figures.

While some 16,000 workers declared an income in excess of £1million in the 2009/10 tax year to HM Revenue and Customs, that number dropped to just 6,000 after then Prime Minister Gordon Brown brought in the new tax rules.

Tax paid by the top earners fell from £13.4billion before the top tax rate came in to £6.5billion in 2010/11.

It is thought that many of the highest earners moved abroad or reduced their taxable incomes to avoid paying the new levy.

Many are said to have avoided paying the new rate either by bringing forward payments or delaying them, by moving earnings abroad or by choosing to work less.


Many now appear to be returning to the UK, with the number of £1million plus earners rising again to 10,000 since Chancellor George Osborne announced that the top tax rate would be reduced to 45p from next April as part of the Budget earlier this year.

But while Conservatives used the figures to claim that Labour's decision to increase the highest rate of tax actually lost Government revenue, Ed Miliband highlighted separate figures to accuse ministers of handing Britain’s rich a tax break worth more than £100,000 yesterday.

Mr Miliband claimed that new figures showed that 8,000 people earning more than £1 million this year would gain an average £107,000 each as a result of George Osborne’s budget decision to cut the top rate to 45p for those earning more than £150,000.
THE WOMAN BEHIND THE TORY TOP TAX RATE ATTACK

West Worcestershire MP Harriet Baldwin hit out at Labour's 50p top tax rate claiming that it has cost the country billions of pounds. But who is she?

Elected at the 2010 General Election following the retirement of Michael Spicer, Harriet Baldwin was Managing Director and Head of Currency Management at the London office of investment bank JP Morgan Chase.

She left the company in 2008 with more than 20 years service at the bank under her belt.

The 52-year-old mother-of-three has been on the Work and Pensions Select Committee since 2010 and was a member of David Cameron's so-called 'A List' aimed at increasing the number of ethnic minority and female Conservative MPs particularly in safe seats.

She made headlines in November last year after saying that jobless families should be banned from claiming benefits for more than four children.


Labour had previously said that earners on more than £1 million stood to gain £40,000 a year as from the Chancellor’s decision Addressing workers at a sheet metal factory in Stevenage ahead of next week’s autumn statement on the economy, Mr Miliband said they were paying the price for the Government’s decision to stand up for the 'wrong people'.

‘David Cameron and George Osborne believe the only way to persuade millionaires to make work harder is to give them more money.

But they also seem to believe that the only way to make you work harder is to take money away,’ he said.

‘Cut your tax credits, squeeze your living standards, get rid of some of the services on which you rely, and put up VAT. That’s where the money is coming from for the millionaires’ tax cut.’

Mr Miliband faced embarrassment earlier this year after wrongly claiming that all millionaires would receive a £40,000 tax cut.

In fact the tax cut relates to earnings, not wealth - and critics pointed out that the Labour leader has assets worth well over £1 million.

Tory sources hit back strongly at Mr Miliband’s latest claim, suggesting that the introduction of the 50p rate was an ‘ideological move’, which had cost the country billions of pounds.

Tory MP Harriet Baldwin, who uncovered the figures suggesting that the 50p tax rate had seen the number of those claiming to earn more than £1million drop, said: ‘Labour’s ideological tax hike led to a tax cull of millionaires. Far from raising funds, it actually cost the UK £7 billion in lost tax revenue.

‘We have taken tough action to clamp down on tax avoidance and make sure those with the broadest shoulders bear the biggest burden.

'That’s why in every single year of this Government the rich will pay a greater share of our nation’s tax revenues than in any one of the 13 years that Labour were in office.’

An HMRC report into the tax concluded there was ‘a considerable behavioural response to the rate change, including a substantial amount of forestalling (deferring income to avoid the tax).’


Mr Osborne insisted on slashing the 50p rate, arguing that it made Britain uncompetitive and deterred entrepreneurs from coming to the UK.

He had wanted to scrap the top rate entirely for anyone earning more than £150,000 a year, but that move was blocked by the Liberal Democrats.

Many Tories believe the cut will lead to higher tax receipts in future, arguing that the wealthy will have less incentive to avoid the lower rate.

The Lib Dems also blocked his plan to reduce the top tax rate to its previous level of 40p, claiming that it would send out the wrong signal at a time when the less well off were being asked to contribute more to paying off the deficit.

Labour will hold a Parliamentry debate today to criticise the reduction of the top rate with senior coalition figures thrashing out next week's Autumn Statement which sets out Government tax policy for next year.

A veteran BBC TV and radio presenter was charged with three counts of indecent assault by British police on Wednesday, the latest high-profile figure to be questioned since a sex scandal erupted at Britain's publicly funded broadcaster.

Stuart Hall, 82, best known for hosting the popular TV program "It's a Knockout" in the 1970s and 80s and who still appears on radio, was not charged with rape, police said.

"The offences are alleged to have been committed between 1974 and 1984 and to involve three girls aged between 9 and 16 years," police said in a statement.

By Laura Donnelly, Patrick Sawer, Robert Mendick and Roya Nikkhah
08 Dec 2012

Lord Glenarthur, the chairman of King Edward VII Hospital, accused the Australian radio station that made the call of causing the “humiliation of two dedicated and caring nurses”.

One of them, Jacintha Saldanha, was found dead on Friday, three days after the stunt call in which two DJs posed as the Queen and the Prince of Wales to fool her into passing the call to a colleague. Mrs Saldanha’s colleague gave out details of the pregnant Duchess’s condition as she was treated for severe morning sickness.

The 46-year-old nurse’s husband, Benedict Barboza, said he was “devastated” while her family in India described the mother of two as “a beautiful person”. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge published a statement on their website to add their condolences, saying they were “deeply saddened”.

Mrs Saldanha was working a night shift when she took a call at 5.30am on Tuesday from the two presenters, Mel Greig and Michael Christian, claiming to be from the Queen. Mrs Saldanha transferred it to the Duchess’s ward, where another nurse spent two minutes discussing her condition and treatment.

A recording of the prank call was vetted by lawyers before being broadcast in Sydney, and around the world on the internet. Mrs Saldanha was found unconscious on Friday morning close to the hospital. She died later. Last night there was a growing row over the broadcast as the radio station was excoriated by the hospital after it launched a provocative defence, saying prank calls were “a craft”.

Rhys Holleran, the chief executive of Southern Cross Austereo, said: “Prank calls as a craft in radio have been going for decades and decades. They are not just part of one radio station, or one network or one country, they are done worldwide.”

His failure to apologise fully prompted an angry response from hospital chiefs already grieving Mrs Saldanha’s loss.

In a damning letter to Max Moore-Wilton, the chairman of Southern Cross Austereo, Lord Glenarthur wrote: “King Edward VII’s Hospital cares for sick people, and it was extremely foolish of your presenters even to consider trying to lie their way through to one of our patients, let alone actually make the call.

“Then to discover that, not only had this happened, but that the call had been pre-recorded and the decision to transmit approved by your station’s management, was truly appalling.

“The immediate consequence of these premeditated and ill-considered actions was the humiliation of two dedicated and caring nurses who were simply doing their job tending to their patients.”

The Australian Communications and Media Authority, which regulates radio broadcasting, said it had received many complaints about the stunt and there were calls for the presenters to be sacked.

Advertisers have already withdrawn support from the station following the prank.

Julia Gillard, the Australian prime minister, called Mrs Saldanha’s death a terrible tragedy, saying: “Our thoughts are with her family and friends

at this time.” Mrs Saldanha’s family, both in Bristol where she lived with her husband and two teenage children, and in India, where she trained as a nurse, were said to be shocked and devastated.

In a statement posted on a social networking site yesterday, her husband, Mr Barboza, 49, who works for the NHS, wrote: “I am devastated with the tragic loss of my beloved wife Jacintha in tragic circumstances, she will be laid to rest in Shirva, India.”

A family friend in Bristol said: “Ben is utterly devastated. He cannot believe it. They used to speak most days on the phone when she was away working. They were very close, but he cannot understand what’s happened.”

Mrs Saldanha had a son, 16, and a daughter, 14.

In her home town of Shirva, near Mangalore on India’s south-west coast, Mrs Saldanha’s mother-in-law, Carmine Barboza, told how her son struggled to speak through his tears when he broke the news of his wife’s death to his family.

Mrs Barboza, 69, said: “We got a call last night from Benedict saying she is no more. More than that we do not know, what actually happened. She is dead, that’s all. He was crying and couldn’t speak much. Jacintha was a very caring woman.”

Parishioners at the family’s Catholic church in Bristol, where Mrs Saldanha and her family are regular worshippers, will remember her in prayers today.

She lived in hospital accommodation while working in London.

Flowers were left there yesterday by her colleagues. The way in which the hoax call was able to get through was described by royal sources as a one-off lapse of strict security protocols.

At night, the hospital’s reception is closed, and nurses are expected to accept calls that come in but only to pass on messages and not transfer calls. Royal sources said they did not hold the hospital responsible for the lapse.

“The procedures are in place, they have always worked. In this case, very sadly, they didn’t,” a source said.

Royal aides said the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge maintained “complete confidence” in the hospital. The Duchess would return there should she require any further treatment during her pregnancy.

“There is no doubt about that,” said an aide. “At no point during the process did the Duke and Duchess lay any blame on anyone there. They only offered their sympathy and support at the time, and even more so now.”

To emphasise the point, a statement from the Duke and Duchess, in which they spoke of their sadness at Mrs Saldanha’s death and which was made available to the media, was published on their website. Police said the cause of Mrs Saldanha’s death was “unexplained” but they were not treating it as suspicious. An inquest is expected to open tomorrow.

Reporting team:

Roya Nikkhah, Andy Chapman, Ben Leach and David Barrett

Each day, up to 30 people are caught on CCTV urinating in public in Chester, which was founded by the Romans and attracts eight million visitors a year.While students, soldiers and the unemployed are the primary culprits, accountants, solicitors and teachers have also been caught.

Rony wrote:Dont forget to read the comments.

A family friend in Bristol said: “Ben is utterly devastated. He cannot believe it. They used to speak most days on the phone when she was away working. They were very close, but he cannot understand what’s happened.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... urses.html

pgbhat wrote:^who knows, the security must have come down on her like a tonne of bricks.

Hari Seldon wrote:^+1 RajeshA garu. Agree totally. The Brit crown deserves only Pawkis around them, to show a mirror to their pawkiness.

"Jacintha's grieving family is anxiously waiting for the postmortem report and the outcome of the inquest by the Scotland Yard, because they suspect foul play in her tragic death as she was a strong woman and would not have resorted to such an act (suicide)," her family's close friend Ivan D'Souza told IANS Tuesday from Mangalore, about 350 km from Bangalore. ...

The family members are also mulling over seeking a second postmortem in India if they and Benedict are not satisfied with the inquest outcome in London.

So, now we have the census figures and, as expected, there has been a huge drop in the number of people declaring themselves Christian in Britain - from 72% to 59%. The rise in those declaring they have no religion has risen from 15% to 25%.

Widow who campaigned for public inquiry into murder of Pat Finucane describes De Silva report as 'hurtful and insulting'

The Finucane family, who have campaigned for a public inquiry into the murder of Pat Finucane, have described the report as a "sham" and a "whitewash".

Geraldine Finucane, the widow of the murdered lawyer, watched the debate on Sir Desmond de Silva's report (video) in the House of Commons before addressing a press conference in Westminster.

The Rt Hon Sir Desmond de Silva,QC is of Sri Lankan and Anglo-Scottish origins and comes from a family of lawyers.

Rony wrote:What Has Caused This Massive Flight From Christianity?

So, now we have the census figures and, as expected, there has been a huge drop in the number of people declaring themselves Christian in Britain - from 72% to 59%. The rise in those declaring they have no religion has risen from 15% to 25%.

"But what you could not so readily believe upon my Affirmation, was that there are Persons who are stimulated to Venery by strokes of Rods, and worked up into a Flame of Lust by Blows; and that the part that distinguishes us to be Men, should be raised by the charm of invigorating Lashes... y the Force of a Vicious habit gaining ground upon him, he practic'd a Vice he disapprov'd. But it grew more obstinate and rooted in his Nature... A strange Instance what a Power the force of Education has in grafting inveterate ill habits on our Morals." (Meibom, 1629)
....
The adult flagellant fantasy, in short, always derives from the infantile one. As with all sexual perversions, we are dealing with a form of arrested development, with a 'prephallic' fixation that puberty and subsequent experience have been unable to dislodge; and before we can hope to explain the tenacity of the fixation itself we need to examine its roots in childhood.

....
"The experience of shame," writes Helen Merrell Lynd, "is itself isolating, alienating, incommunicable" (On Shame and the Search for Identity, 1958, p. 67); and there can be no doubt, given what we know of the genesis and development of the flagellant fantasy, that anyone unfortunate enough to be afflicted with the English Vice is bound to feel extremely ill-at-ease in his relationships with other people. Not only is he sexually impotent without having recourse to a fantasy which places him in the position of a naughty child of six or seven, but he has to live with the shame of knowing that he is unable to reveal his true self to other people.

....
"The phenomenon of the person who can only have sexual intercourse with the aid of a phantasy is a schiziod phenomenon," writes Anthony Storr in The Dynamics of Creation (1972, p. 64). If that is so, then the person in thraldom to obstinate flagellant fantasies must surely qualify for the schizoid category. Forever forced to have recourse to a childhood fantasy in order to achieve erection in an adult situation, the flagellant cannot avoid the constant awareness that he has never matured sexually, has never achieved adequate 'genitality'. He knows that he is sexually fixated at an early age. And he is angry, and ashamed, about it. The position of the passive flagellant -- and the evidence we have been considering in this book suggests strongly that the addicts of the English Vice are predominantly passive rather than active, although both tendencies are doubtless present in all flagellants -- is particularly humiliating. For not only must this victim summon up a fantasy in order to become potent, but in that fantasy he must perforce imagine himself in a submissive, 'unmanly' role. Paradoxically, as it might seem, he must deny his virility in the fantasy in order to achieve erection in relation to his flesh-and-blood partner.

Now, is it conceivable that any parent or teacher would, consciously, wish such sexual unhappiness, frustration and confusion on a child? Surely not. Yet many British parents still appear to believe in the virtues of beating their children into good behaviour, and many still confide their sons to establishments where beating of the buttocks is practised. We have it on the authority of no less a person than the present headmaster of Eton, for example, that boys are even today liable to 'lower discipline' at that most famous of English schools; and there seems little reason to believe that in the last few years the other public schools up and down the country, let alone the preparatory schools, have hurriedly abolished the cane. Moreover, the evidence collected by STOPP (The Society of Teachers Opposed to Physical Punishment), as we have seen, suggests that in State schools beating is far more common than might be believed.

Is all this not, to say the least, extremely odd? How are we to explain the extraordinary adherence of the British to the belief that children are spoiled when the rod, or the threat of the rod, is spared?

It could be maintained, no doubt, that the supporters of beating have simply not been, and are still not, aware of the sexual factors at work in the beating system. This lack of awareness could then be explained as the result of ignorance, or of sexual repression, or of both at the same time. But it is difficult to accept that the more educated upholders of the cane (particularly the teachers themselves) can have been, or are, completely insensitive to the dangers involved. Or of the pleasures -- for I believe that 'Y', whose testimony we have seen, is right when he asserts that 'If any man habitually canes without some stirrings of sexual desire, he is not full a man' (p. 85). The evidence suggests, I think, that most men would learn without difficulty to appreciate the joys of administering 'lower discipline', and it could be maintained that only hypocricy, shame and fear of exposure prevent this likelihood from appearing self-evident.

Let us continue this train of thought for a moment. That those who enjoy active beating, in deed or in fantasy, should be loath to admit to their proclivity is quite natural. Nobody wants to be branded as a sadist, and I have yet to hear of a schoolmaster who had admitted publicly that he enjoys caning boys. It is equally understandable that those who are sexually aroused by the idea of being beaten should be resistant to making their private desires known to other people; and one is not surprised to learn from psychiatrists that passive flagellants are intensely reluctant to speak freely of their problem, even in the secrecy of a consulting room. For shame, as Helen Merell Lynd has pointed out, is essentially an 'isolating' emotion, and anyone deeply ashamed of the subject of beating is likely to find it impossible to admit what he really thinks and feels deep down about the practice.

And so it is that, in Britain -- until recently a very sexually repressed society -- few people have been able to bring themselves to tell the truth about the beating system, even its opponents. One only has to read the Hansard reports of the corporal punishment debates that have taken place in both Houses of Parliament during the last fifty years to see what massive resistances are at work. Nor is it any wonder that, when someone actually dares to suggest that sexual factors are at work in beating, he is attacked as a 'sentimental fool' talking a lot of 'rubbish'.

And here a word should be said about the 'hardening process' whereby boys subject to beating have learnt, and doubtless are still learning, to cope with their feelings of anxiety, outraged modesty and desire for revenge. During the nineteenth century, as we have seen, floggings were often inflicted on children in public, and this made the exposure and shame all the greater. It also meant that the victims felt constrained not to show any semblance of weakness or cowardice while under the rod, for fear of being 'chaffed' afterwards by their schoolmates. As Swinburne put it in the Prologue to The Flogging Block, 'Pain bids cry out but Honour bids be dumb'. As a defence against the inevitable feeling of humiliation involved in being publicly stripped and whipped, the victims were bound to keep that stiff upper lip for which the British ruling class has for so long been famous, bound to affect a lofty indifference. But can we doubt that, beneath the surface, most children forced to undergo such treatment would inevitably feel deep resentment? Or that they would murder their tormentors if they could do so with impunity?

The public schools have traditionally given this desire for revenge opportunity for expression by allowing senior boys, who themselves have been victims lower down the school, to administer corporal punishment to their juniors; and it is not surprising, as The Edinburgh Review pointed out as far back as 1830, that these boys have been only too happy to take full advantage of this licence for sadism. Such licence being granted at puberty, we should not wonder that the sexual element has often asserted itself strongly during such proceedings.

I should like to make a further point. It is that, in a child-beating society, it is often the children who are never beaten who suffer most. In flagellomania, as we have seen repeatedly, it is the fantasy that is all-important; and the fantasy, we know, may as easily arise from seeing, reading or hearing about beating as from experiencing it. Thus it is that the very existence of beating as a potential punishment creates a climate in which flagellant fantasies are encouraged. And as well as the overtly sexual dangers of the practice, the threat of beating may have the effect of terrifying children into mindless submission. As a mother explained to STOPP:

"None of my four children have ever been struck. They are extremely conforming timid children and all four would never have done anything wrong. They love school, but especially as infants, take the threats of caning seriously and are in TERROR (and disgust) of it. It is ironic that it should be for such naturally law-abiding children that the cane looms so large. No one can estimate the harm done to the children who NEVER RECEIVE the cane, but no actual caning could cause my children to suffer more. They've never seen a cane used and none of them are sure that anyone is really caned. It's just the threat that worries them. (A Last Resort?, p.138)"

In the same publication, a child psychologist comments perceptively on the ways in which the beating system may undermine children's natural urge to independence and self-expression. These words are deserving of attention:

"Studies of family rearing patterns show that when people become parents they deal with (or fail to deal with) their own children in the very same way that their parents dealt with them. Teachers who hit and cane should remember that they will be reinforcing the urge to resort to corporal punishment for generations to come. The child who says he would prefer to be caned may be not only identifying with a caning teacher but also abrogating responsibility for his own self-control. Thus an oppressive regime in a school tends to encourage dependence of a child on adults and stifle the development of self-reliance. (p.102)"

We shall never know how many people have been crushed and rendered impotent by the flogging system of which the British preparatory and public school Establishment has been so proud, for the victims have not gone round proclaiming themselves in public. But we can be certain that their name is legion.

It is now 350 years since the publication of Meibom's treatise on the sexual element in flagellation, and nearly 100 since the appearance of Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis. We know that beating is sexually dangerous. Yet in Britain the beating of schoolchildren continues, unhampered by government restrictions. In this, Britain (and the countries she has influenced with her flagellomania - see Appendix B ) is out of step with almost the whole of the so-called civilised world. An Act of Parliament making beating illegal in all British schools without exception is long overdue. If the decision continues to be left to individual Local Education Authorities, we can be certain that the process of abolition will be at best protracted.

We can also be certain that the purveyors of flagellant ***** will continue to make a good living at the expense of new victims of the English Vice.

Sushupti wrote:Opium War Memories in China and India: A Study in Contrasts

http://www.thechinabeat.org/?p=3845

In China, then, the opium trade and the wars that Britain fought to defend it in the mid-nineteenth century are a festering national wound.

modern India’s relationship with opium, he has complained, is enveloped in an “extraordinary silence…In any Western country,” he has observed, “by now you’d have had 200 books about it. There are books about sugarcane, about indigo, about cotton, but [opium] was the most important sector of the economy and the only person writing about it is [historian] Amar Farooqui!” Ghosh has equated a general Indian indifference to the opium trade with a broader lack of concern over the legacies of imperialism. “A consequence of Indians’ lack of interest in history is that the colonial experience begins to look more benign than it was.”

igures from the 2011 census show that the Muslim population in the UK has substantially risen between 2001 and 2011 from 1.5 million to almost 3 million. This now takes the proportion of Muslims from 2% of the population to 5%. In some towns, Muslims make up almost 50% of the population, and in large cities like London and Manchester they make up around 14% of the population. But why has the number of Muslims risen so much and what are the implications?

There are several reasons why the number of Muslims has doubled. Some of these are more obvious than others. For example, it is widely known that Muslims have a higher birth rate than people of other faiths meaning younger generations are made up of higher proportions of Muslims. It is also apparent that many Muslim societies are dominated by conflict which has led to a significant number of Muslims seeking more secure prospects in the UK from Muslim nations like Somalia and Afghanistan.

The presence of an existing Muslim population has also played a role in encouraging Muslims to come to the UK. Prospective migrants know they will find relatives, friends or a prospective community well established here. One could go even further back and consider the colonial relationship that Britain had with many Muslim countries that triggered the mass chain migration of Muslims and others more than 50 years ago that has led to the steady flow of migrants coming to the UK.

One of the little understood reasons for the growth in the number of Muslims in the UK relates to the growing number of Britons who are choosing to convert to Islam. There are estimations that hundreds of Britons convert to Islam every month which certainly contributes to the steadily increasing number of Muslims. These conversions are triggered by a combination of increasing missionary activity by Muslims but also by a seemingly widened disaffection with Christianity. It comes as no surprise then that while the number of Muslims are rising, the number of Christians are declining. Quite simply, some Christians are converting to Islam.

The final significant reason for the growth in the number of Muslims relates to identity politics. During the last decade, following 9/11 and during the 'War on Terror', Muslims have increasingly felt under pressure to defend themselves and be proactive in defining themselves. There has been a widespread sentiment that extremists have been allowed to hijack Islam.

Muslims often express a feeling that the media and politicians have been complicit in allowing Muslim identity to be connected to extremism. As a result, in 2011 compared to 2001, there are many more Muslims who take pride in labelling themselves as Muslims because they want to resist the Islamophobic discourses which have surrounded Muslim identities in recent years. Perhaps unexpectedly, when an identity is attacked, those who are categorised as belonging to that group are often likely to assert themselves as part of that group, rather than shy away from it.

Yet, the prevalence of Islamophobia in the post-9/11 world may mean some people who filled in the 2011 census were still reluctant to identify as Muslims. There is therefore a possibility that the number of Muslims is notably higher than the 5%, especially when it is recognised that 7% of the population abstained from stating their religious belief. How many of these 7% are Muslim is impossible to know, but there is a chance that many of them are, who avoided declaring themselves as Muslims due to fear of discrimination.

So what does the growth in the number of Muslims mean? Inevitably, the Far Right will claim we are witnessing the 'Islamification of Britain'. More sober minded people will rightfully recognise that this is not occurring whatsoever. Muslims are still a small minority in British society, but a noticeable one. The large number of Muslim residents, most of whom are citizens who hold a British passport, are entitled to vote and pay their taxes, should be respected as a significant part of the nation who may have unique needs, but who also have a unique contribution to make to the nation.

All the indicating factors suggest that the growth of the Muslim population is certainly not declining, is unlikely to be stabilising and if anything, is going to continue to grow in the future. By the next census Muslims may even double again and make up 10% of the population. These statistics encourage us to think more carefully about the provisions made for British Muslims and the ways in which they are an integral part of the nation.

Significantly, Gandhi’s connection withsports was related to football rather than cricket. In South Africa he used sports as avehicle to fight racism. He started two football clubs in Johannesburg and Pretoria, both named Passive Resisters with the intention of utilizing football as a means of social upliftand integration of the Indian community in South Africa. Inspired by Gandhi, a football team comprising of South African Indians, called Christopher Contingent sponsored byAlbert Christopher who had taken part in the labour strike of 1913 in South Africa, touredIndia from November1921 to March1922 and played 14 matches in Ahmedabad (whereGandhi himself spent time with the team), Mumbai, Benares, Allahabad and Agra, Delhi,Madras and Poona. C.F. Andrews corresponded with the promoters of the tournament.Mohun Bagan’s I.F.A Shield victory however had much more inspiring repercussions because it was not the embodiment of passive resistance but the symbol of the determination of a subject race to overpower their conquerors in the field of play which was the field of life where incessant struggle for supremacy was the watchword. Though July29, 1911 was the Red Letter Day of Indian football when Mohun Bagan lifted the I.F.A Shield, Mohun Bagan had captured public imagination long ago.

From the memoirs of the noted revolutionary Dr. Jadugopal Mukherjee it is known that in 1903, MohunBagan met the Medical Military team in the Trades Cup semifinal. The latter was notorious for rough play and so were its band of supporters who deliberately set on the Indians and thrashed them. Just before the match notices were circulated in schools that the military men were intent on demoralizing MohunBagan through the power of the muscle. Consequently a large band of students went to the ground prepared for retaliation. Trouble broke out when Sibdas Bhaduri was fouled by a military player near the goal line and hell was let loose. In this affray the military men were vanquished bywhat happened to be the first students movement of the age. After this Mohun Baganwent from strength to strength and in 1905, defeated the mighty Dalhousie club in the Gladstone Cup final by 6 goals to 1. Sadly this event has gone almost unnoticed though it coincided with the partition of Bengal and may be regarded as a rebuff to Lord Curzon. One should however note that while 1911 was the turning point in the history of Indian football it was in 1891 that Sovabazzar Club of Nagendra Prasad Sarbadhikari had won the Trades Cup against their military opponents which was the first defining moment in the history of football in Bengal. The shield final of 1911, created a wave of public enthusiasm. Tickets worth Rs 6, 914 were sold. According to ‘The Pioneer’, the crowd totaled 1 lakh while ‘The Reuter’ estimated it as 80,000. A conference of the BangiyaSahitya Parishad had to be postponed because of the match. The triumph of MohunBagan in this climacteric encounter was of portentous significance because it wasachieved against a military team and symbolized the victory of power over power.

Dr Jadugopal Mukherjee has recalled that a newspaper went to the extent of describing it as the Revenge of Plassey. It also created a general impression that the British were notinvincible and had thrived on India’s weakness. In an editorial entitled ‘The Immortaleleven’, the Amrita Bazaar Patrika wrote that it was no mean achievement to register three successive victories against three best military teams. The hint was that the myth that the Bengalis were lacking in martial quality now stood exploded. This was unpalatable to The Statesman which wrote patronizingly on August 1 that ‘While the brilliant success of the Mohun Bagan football team has naturally caused much elation inthe Indian community, that has given hardly less satisfaction to Englishmen. No idea could be more absurd than to suppose that English people could possibly grudge thevictory, which an Indian team has so deservedly won. It is a cardinal article of belief withthe Englishmen that the great games are the most valuable feature of this civilization. Nothing pleases him more than that in some parts of the world discover pupils who beattheir masters.” Under the veneer of magnanimity was concealed, the wounded pride of the British Lion as evident from the hope expressed that “in future, Mohun Bagan wouldvisit England and discover that while the military teams in India can give a verycreditable exhibition of football they are far from being the best exponent of that gamewhich England can produce. A visit to the home of football would yield a rich experienceand enable the Bengali Team to set for itself, a higher standard than can be establishedfrom examples in India.” The editorial also debunked the contention that Bengalis possessed soldier like qualities and urged them to take to agriculture. In a fittingeditorialized reply entitled ‘No Mr. Statesman’ on August 3,1911, the Amrita Bazaar Patrika countered this with the question whether English youths who excelled on the playground took to agriculture. It asked further “And where will the millions of Indian peasants go to earn their bread if they are ousted from their occupation by superior menlike trained and educated Indian youths? No Mr. Statesman. They deserve a better career than that of hewers of wood and drawers of water.” The London Times reported onAugust31 that some of the Indian newspapers claimed that Mohun Bagan’s victory borethe mark of the courage and valour of the Bengali race.’ The Englishman’ which was atypical imperialist newspaper reacted with some itching in the skin saying that theEuropeans were acclimatized to playing football in the winter and were unable tofamiliarize themselves to the heat of the summer.’ The Daily Mail’ of London however wrote that ‘it was a notable victory and not even the sweltering heat to which the Bengalis better insured than the white man can discount it.’ The ‘Manchester Guardian’wrote on August 31,that ‘Victory of Association Football goes to the side with greatest physical fitness, the quickest eye and the keenest wit.’Premendra Mitra, the notednovelist has suggested that the victory of Mohun Bagan inspired Asian nationalism. This appears farfetched but it is nevertheless true that South East Asian countries wereimpressed by the event. ‘The Free Press’ of Singapore published a detailed account of thesame and complimented the Bengali spectators for being well behaved. The natives of Singapore were overjoyed at Mohun Bagan’s victory. Predictably ‘The Englishman’cautioned the natives about the sudden upshot of nationalistic feelings, which led someexuberant Bengalis to compare the event with Japan’s victory over Russia. This wasodious if not ridiculous but at the same time it alarmed the imperialistic rulers of India
[...]
But why did Mohan Bagan have to wait till1947 for its second victory? The reason is that the imperialist rulers despite alltheir show of magnanimity never reconciled to the victory of the natives and sought tocircumvent a repetition of the same in future by hook or by crook. Even in the I.F.Ashield of 1911 there was ample evidence of biased supervision by referees but MohunBagan still emerged with triumph. For the next 36 years the shield remained elusive though on occasions more than one Mohun Bagan was the moral victor. The late Prof Hiren Mukherjee has recalled with undisguised indignation that had not referee R.R.Clayton refused to call off the Shield final of 1923 and exposed Mohun Bagan to theCalcutta Football club on an unplayable rain soaked ground which was its Achilles’ heel,the shield would have gone to the former. The noted litterateur Achintya Kumar Senguptahas testified that the partiality of the referees was so shameless at times that once adiscountenanced English player deliberately shot out a penalty kick that had beenunjustly awarded. Pabitra Gangopadhyay also recalls how referees victimized MohunBagan. Prof Hiren Mukherjee has also recalled how the legendary Gostho Pal once calledoff a match in protest against Claytonian decisions which was ‘a truly great footballer’sresentment against the accumulated injustices of colonial age football.’ From the testimony of Kamal Kumar Basu, ex Mayor K.M.C, it is known that values of strict discipline were observed in Mohun Bagan and even when Mohun Bagan was unjustlydeprived of victory, no public display of resentment was tolerated. Gostho Pal of all persons had to face disciplinary measures. Sibdas Bhaduri the hero of 1911 however registered his silent protest by retiring prematurely.

brihaspati wrote:It was perhaps a deliberate tactic of pushing male bonding in war situations, and promote excessive violence.

Over the course of 2012 Alan Turing's life, work and legacy has been celebrated throughout the world. There is no doubt that he made many remarkable contributions in many fields of science. Is it Turing's reputation that blemished by this criminal conviction - or is it instead the reputation of the society that treated homosexuals in such a barbaric way that suffers?

brihaspati wrote: The other thing I wanted to point out - note that the Indian still took pride in "British" "values" - restraining themselves in their expressions. So even if the British were formally defeated - they had managed to score a much more significant victory - they had been able to impose their touted values - which they themselves dropped at the drop of pants or the hat - on Indians. They had been able to make Indians think and judge themselves based on British claimed "values".