Indian Interests

[RajeshA]

There are different levels of cultural colonization.

The Portuguese and the Spanish were into large scale conversions by force.
The French were adamant of getting others to speak their language and create a Francophone community.
The British were adamant of teaching English to the natives and coopting a section of them so that they could better administer the colony.
The Dutch were mostly interested only in the commercial aspects.

None had any respect for the native.

[Prem]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robschwartz ... e-journey/
A Passage To India: A BRICS Creative Journey

Please don’t judge the advertising creativity of India by the recent Ford Figo fiasco. Have you seen these ads? The Kardashians thrown in the back of a hatchback, bound and gagged, with Paris Hilton snickering up front. The headline? “Leave Your Worries Behind.”Not only was this ad a scam, the joke was cheap and ill-timed considering all the violence against women that is happening in the streets of New Dehli. This is not Indian creativity.No the India I have seen in my research is creating real work for real clients with real business challenges.Fact is, India is the most populous democracy with some 1.2 billion people living in the republic.It’s the 10th largest economy, newly industrialized, and one of the world’s fastest growing.India is equal parts creativity and chaos. Wealth and poverty. Smart and illiterate.Multi-lingual, multi-ethnic and yes, multi-talented.First things first, have a look at this film. It’s a compilation of images from a wonderful crowd-sourced campaign for India’s biggest newspaper, The Times of India. This piece will show you the country in all of its amazing chaotic beauty.
Honey Bunny” The “Wasssup?” of India
Speaking of phones, recent data reveals there are some 929 million wireless subscribers in India, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. And this number will grow as the country upgrades to 4G. In the meantime, the battle for mobile subscribers has resulted in more good advertising. Here’s a film that has become something of a “Wassup”-like phenomenon in India for cell carrier Idea Cellular.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN6Gh4QX ... edded#t=2s
Lifebuoy soap saw an opportunity to promote basic hygiene – the simple benefit of washing your hands. And the team was smart to capitalize on a venue with a mass audience – a religious festival. How did they do this? They stamped their message on an innovative piece of media – roti bread. Have a look.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_2tQekU ... dded#t=14s
Take a look at this watch campaign from Timex that promotes the value of “wasting time.” It’s for a young audience, of course.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... ViXl8#t=4s

[Prem]

TV Linked with Falling Birth Rates
http://www.livescience.com/31959-tv-wor ... lling.html

Birth rates have declined significantly in many areas of the world, to a degree that is perhaps overlooked.This is particularly true in India, where the fertility rate is 2.5 children born per woman. Compare that to America's, estimated at 2.1 births per woman in 2011. "I find it extraordinary that the massive global drop in human fertility has been so little noticed by the media, escaping the attention of even highly educated Americans," writes Stanford University geographer Martin Lewis in a post at the Breakthrough Institute.
In his post (as summarized by the Washington Post's WonkBlog), Lewis suggests this drop could be due to a number of factors, including rising incomes and increasing female literacy. But no single factor correlates with birth rates better than TV ownership and media exposure, he said.
What's the connection? According to a study Lewis cites, "cable television is associated with significant decreases in the reported acceptability of domestic violence towards women and son preference, as well as increases in women's autonomy and decreases in fertility." Lewis continues: "Television depresses fertility because many of its offerings provide a model of middle class families successfully grappling with the transition from tradition to modernity, helped by the fact that they have few children to support."

[RajeshA]

[RajeshA]

It is really pathetic when Indian Parliament's websites (e.g. Rajya Sabha -> Business) do not function properly and a citizen cannot look at what is happening there. Really pathetic!

[brihaspati]

[quote="RajeshA"][/quote]
Isnt it interesting that suddenly in case of J&K the "assailants" shift from being "Muslims" to "Islamic terrorists"?

[Prem]

X-Leg Post
Arctic states open council to China, India, SKorea
http://news.yahoo.com/arctic-states-ope ... 26578.html

KIRUNA, Sweden (AP) — Arctic states agreed Wednesday to let nations that are located nowhere near the Earth's north to become observers to their diplomatic council, boosting rising superpowers China, India and South Korea that are seeking to mine the region for its untapped energy and other natural resources.
Widespread thawing of Arctic ice, which keeps the rest of the world cooler, has alarmed environmentalists but has become an economic lure to nations seeking to ship cargo across once-frozen seas. The global warming is making the Arctic's elusive supply of oil, gas, minerals and precious metals available — in some areas, for the first time ever — as ever-expanding counties like China and India hunt for additional energy supplies.Officials estimate the Arctic holds 13 percent of the world's undiscovered oil reserves, and 30 percent of undiscovered gas deposits.Ministers suggested the inclusion of the energy-hungry nations at the Arctic Council will force them to uphold the diplomatic panel's core goals of safeguarding the region."There is no such thing as a free lunch," said Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide. "By becoming an observer you're also signing up to the principles embodied by this organization, and that is why we have been working hard to make that happen."In all, six nations — China, India, Italy, Japan, Korea and Singapore — were granted observer status to the council, joining several previously-accepted counties from Europe. The eight states that are permanent members of the non-binding panel all touch the Arctic Circle, including the United States, through Alaska. Denmark is connected to the Arctic Circle through its relationship with Greenland, which is a semi-autonomous territory.Canada's minister to the council, Leona Aglukkaq, voiced mild but restrained discomfort with the new observers to the council, which she said was created "by northerners, for northerners, before the Arctic was of interest to the rest of the world." Canada will chair of the council for the next two years.The ministers' short meeting, which is held only every two years, also attracted a scattering of protesters form the environmental group Greenpeace, who held banners outside Kiruna's small city hall urging "No Arctic oil." A hulking black mountain, from which iron ore is mined, served as the backdrop for the meeting in the small Arctic town where snow had melted to slush.U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, sporting a blue suit coat amid the ski sweaters and tribal costumes at the meeting, said the world must crack down on polluting emissions that endanger the Arctic. He said the U.S. and China are two of the globe's largest contributors to emissions."No one nation can solve this," Kerry said. "No one is doing enough. The problem is that everything we do, or everything that another nation does, is going to be wiped out by China or another nation if they continue with coal-fired power at the rate we are seeing. So the warning signals are there."

[abhishek_sharma]

View from the right

CAGED UPA
Both Sangh Parivar journals have used the resignations of two Union ministers, Pawan Bansal and Ashwani Kumar, as vindication of their misgivings about the UPA government. The cover story and editorial in the Organiser recount the events leading to the resignations to highlight the "total collapse of governance", which has become a "national shame" because the UPA has turned into a "government of dealers and brokers". Panchjanya also has a cover story and editorial, and paints Congress president Sonia Gandhi's attempt to project a brave front as "arrogance" akin to that of the "Godfather" from Mario Puzo's novel.

KARNATAKA LOSS

While both weeklies have consigned the BJP's defeat in Karnataka to the inside pages, they are unanimous in their admission that it was the state BJP's infighting that led to the debacle. A report in the Organiser has blamed "serious infighting" and the "ouster of people like former Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa" from the party. An analysis in Panchjanya acknowledges the importance of Yeddyurappa's ouster, but claims that it was people's frustration with the "infighting" that alienated the electorate from the BJP.

While Panchjanya opines that the Congress's victory didn't diminish corruption as an issue in elections, the Organiser projects the verdict as a "warning" to the BJP to set its house in order, given that the "BJP lost in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh also for the same reason". The journals, however, suggest the need to bring Yeddyurappa back to the BJP fold. The Organiser report advises the BJP that "it must try to bring under its fold all such mass leaders who have either left the party or [been] expelled" in the manner Kalyan Singh was brought back in Uttar Pradesh. As an aside, Panchjanya is critical of attempts to run down Narendra Modi's political charisma after the party's defeat in Karnataka.

MEEK INDIA

The Chinese incursion in Ladakh and its handling by the Union government has come in for serious criticism from both journals, with both blaming the UPA for being meek against China. A two-page report on the incursion in Panchjanya, with graphics, expresses apprehensions that India might have retreated from its position in order to make China pull back. It also criticises External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid's "silence" on this issue during his recent Beijing visit.

A two-page report in the Organiser calls the development and the Indian handling of it a "surrender before China" and cautions the government about the "mistakes of 1962". RSS functionary Ram Madhav, in an accompanying article, advises India to treat China as it treats other neighbours on issues that concern its national sentiments. Madhav, in fact, suggests India to "unilaterally call off" the forthcoming visit of the Chinese premier.

Compiled by Ravish Tiwari

[abhishek_sharma]

The PM's sabha: Inder Malhotra

The next head of government should be a member of the directly elected House
LAST week, the Rajya Sabha bid a fond farewell to eight of its members who are retiring next month, when the House will be in recess. In reply, most of them made speeches that were full of nostalgia and sentiment. Strictly speaking, the emotional bye-bye was meant for only seven of them. For, the eighth member whose tenure also ends in June is Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and everybody knows that his timely re-election is a certainty. Surely, the Congress party wouldn't deny him the ticket in Assam, where it has a comfortable majority in the legislature. The remaining seven, belonging to various parties, alas have no such assurance.

This would undoubtedly take care of the procedural problem, but is this an ideal situation? Unfortunately not. For, it is odd, to put it most mildly, that someone should be prime minister of the world's largest democracy for a full 10 years on the strength of his membership to the Upper, indirectly elected House dating back to 1991 when, migrating from technocracy to politics, he had become finance minister.

It is undoubtedly arguable that in 2004, nobody had a clue that Sonia Gandhi would refuse to accept the exalted office that was hers by right, and virtually nominate Singh for the job. But six years thereafter has been a long period. No one has ever explained why, in 2009, the good doctor, then at the height of his popularity, did not seek election to the Lok Sabha.

To be sure, it is not mandatory under the letter of the Constitution that the prime minister must be a member of the Lok Sabha. But then there is such a thing as the spirit of the Constitution, or conventions, not only in this country, but also in other parliamentary democracies. Everywhere, the accepted practice is that the head of the government should be a member of the directly elected House. A look back at what has happened in India so far should be instructive.

Both Jawaharlal Nehru and Lal Bahadur Shastri were members of the Lok Sabha from the first day of their political careers to the last. During her father's lifetime, Indira Gandhi wasn't a member of either House. When Shastri asked her to be his minister for information and broadcasting she chose the Rajya Sabha route for the duration. And then, suddenly, the burden of being prime minister fell on her shoulders.

At that time, the more sensible of her advisors urged her to seek election to the Lok Sabha right away. Any number of party MPs, they assured her, would happily vacate their seats. But she opted for the contrary counsel that since the next general election was due in 13 months, status quo should continue until then. The real reason for this decision, regrettably, was that neither Indira Gandhi nor her colleagues wanted to lift the emergency proclaimed at the time of the Chinese invasion in 1962. Under the election law, it was necessary to do so even if a single by-election was to be held. For the rest of the 15 years (in two instalments) when Indira Gandhi was prime minister, she was a member of the Lok Sabha.

So was her son, Rajiv Gandhi, who was prime minister for five years and then leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha. Although they were prime ministers for short periods, both V.P. Singh and Chandra Shekhar were veteran members of the Lower House.

When, in 1991, P.V. Narasimha Rao became prime minister to everybody's surprise, including his own, he was a member of neither House, because he had decided to retire from politics. But the Andhra Pradhesh Congressmen saw to it that he won a by-election to the Lok Sabha hands down within the requisite period of six months.

In 1996-97, H.D. Deve Gowda was prime minister only for a few months. But he had the good sense to get himself elected to the Lok Sabha from the Hassan constituency in Karnataka. His successor, I.K. Gujral, knowing that he was a bird of passage, remained a Rajya Sabha member.

Only the other day, there was a flurry in the country when the word went round that Singh might have a third term as prime minister. The media's excitement reached a crescendo when he, in answer to a volley of questions, refused to either confirm or rule out the possibility. This was, of course, premature speculation. But it is as good an occasion as any to emphasise that after the 2014 election, at least, the office of prime minister should go to a member of the Lok Sabha.

The writer is a Delhi-based political commentator

[Sushupti]

[JE Menon]

"Don't forget to come in my swearing in ceremony" - That will be a sight to behold

is this cartoon originally from a magazine or something?

[rkirankr]

^^ may be true

Read Operation Red Lotus by Parag Tope

[Philip]

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/2 ... what-waste

Angry young Indians
What a waste
How India is throwing away the world’s biggest economic opportunity

IN THE past 35 years, hundreds of millions of Chinese have found productive, if often exhausting, work in the country’s growing cities. This extraordinary mobilisation of labour is the biggest economic event of the past half-century. The world has seen nothing on such scale before. Will it see anything like it again? The answer lies across the Himalayas in India.

India is an ancient civilisation but a youthful country. Its working-age population is rising by about 12m people a year, even as China’s shrank last year by 3m. Within a decade India will have the biggest potential workforce in the world.
In this section

India

Optimists look forward to a bumper “demographic dividend”, the result of more workers per dependant and more saving out of income. This combination accounted for perhaps a third of the East Asian miracle. India “has time on its side, literally,” boasted one prominent politician, Kamal Nath, in a 2008 book entitled “India’s Century”.

Reasons to be cheerless

But although India’s dreamers have faith in its youth, the country’s youngsters have growing reason to doubt India. The economy raised aspirations that it has subsequently failed to meet. From 2005 to 2007 it grew by about 9% a year. In 2010 it even grew faster than China (if the two economies are measured consistently). But growth has since halved. India’s impressive savings rate, the other side of the demographic dividend, has also slipped. Worryingly, a growing share of household saving is bypassing the financial system altogether, seeking refuge from inflation in gold, bricks and mortar.

The last time a Congress-led government liberalised the economy in earnest—in 1991—over 40% of today’s Indians had yet to be born. Their anxieties must seem remote to India’s elderly politicians. The average age of cabinet ministers is 65. The country has never had a prime minister born in independent India. One man who might buck that trend, Rahul Gandhi, is the son, grandson and great-grandson of former prime ministers. India is run by gerontocrats and epigones: grey hairs and groomed heirs. The apparent indifference of the police to the way young women in particular are treated has underlined the way that old India fails to protect new India.

The list of necessary reforms is familiar. It includes measures to streamline decision-making and curb corruption, fiscal discipline that would free the central bank to tame inflation, and banking reforms to recapture the saving now lost to the financial system. The government needs to rethink its approach to the acquisition of land, on which flawed legislation is pending, to ease investment. And it needs to unclog the energy sector: India’s new power stations are worth little without enough domestic coal and gas to feed them.

Such reforms would benefit all Indians and all areas of the economy. But there is one particular industrial shift that should concentrate minds (see article). As China’s workforce shrinks and its wages rise, up to 85m manufacturing jobs might migrate elsewhere, according to Justin Lin, a former chief economist at the World Bank and now at Peking University. Here surely is an opportunity for India’s underemployed young hands. Why shouldn’t those jobs come to India?

The answer is that, set alongside other fast-emerging Asian countries, India has too few of the right sort of firms or workers and too many of the wrong rules. There are certainly some impressive Indian manufacturers, especially in carmaking. But the likes of Bharat Forge and Mahindra & Mahindra prefer to employ sophisticated machinery rather than abundant labour. At the other end of the spectrum are innumerable tinpot workshops, employing handfuls of people and outdated methods. What India lacks is a Mittelstand of midsized, labour-hungry firms. Even during the boom years, it created many more jobs in construction than in manufacturing. It is hard for India’s young to raise their sights when they are carrying bricks on their heads.

To fill this “missing middle” the government should remove some of the bureaucratic bricks that now weigh on the heads of India’s entrepreneurs. These include India’s notorious labour laws which, on paper, prevent factories firing anyone without the state’s permission. It is true that by hiring labour from third parties the country’s employers have blunted the law’s effect. But in so doing they have also blunted their own incentive to train their workers—and lead to more abuse.

And a lot of training is required. Many of India’s young leave school ill-prepared even for rudimentary jobs. Standards are stagnant, even slipping. By their fifth year of schooling, only half of rural pupils can solve a calculation like 43 minus 24, according to the Annual Status of Education Report. Barely a quarter can read an English sentence like “What is the time?”

Anthem for foiled youth

A focus on capturing the manufacturing jobs fleeing China is not an excuse for industrial policy, let alone a return to a Licence Raj picking favoured factories. Most of the reforms that would help young factory workers would help the whole economy as well. Less bureaucracy, better schools and decent electricity would give a boost to India’s services industry and to older workers too. But at the moment it is India’s young who bear the brunt of their elders’ complacency.

“Why are the youth angry?” the young Gandhi asked earlier this year. The real wonder is why they are not even angrier. In the rural districts the government has bought social peace with public works and subsidised food. In the cities the young have taken to the streets only sporadically. In 2011 they rallied to the banner of an eccentric anti-corruption campaigner. In December they expressed their outrage at the brutal gang-rape of a young woman whose aspirations mirrored their own. In India great hardship is often suffered in silence. However bad things get, someone nearby is enduring worse, and even the poor are acutely aware of how much they have to lose.

Social peace is no bad thing. But India could do with a sense of urgency about the reforms needed to generate jobs and rejuvenate politics. “India’s century” is not an inevitability. It is a giant opportunity that India is in danger of squandering.

[Yayavar]

..baby PM..

Good one..good laugh.

[abhishek_sharma]

From the Urdu Press

Pakistan Votes

Applauding the men and women of Pakistan — and not its political parties — for the triumph of democracy in the recent elections in the face of the Pakistani Taliban's threats, Rashtriya Sahara, in its editorial on May 13, congratulates voters for rejecting right-wing religious parties. "It can be said that Pakistanis have rejected the Sangh Parivar of Pakistan", it remarks. The paper writes: "Expecting too much from Nawaz Sharif would mean inviting great disappointment. Sharif is not considered to have much vision as a politician, and even his supporters have doubts about his ability to deliver good governance... But since he has attained his position after winning an election through democratic means, it is necessary to sincerely offer him our best wishes."
The editor of Inquilab, Shakeel Shamsi, in his signed column on May 13, writes: "In this election, a new face of Pakistan has emerged, which shows that the people in that country are divided along linguistic lines. In Punjab, the party of Punjabi-speaking Nawaz Sharif was triumphant, whereas in Sindh, the Pakistan Peoples Party... has won in the state assembly and in the state assembly of Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa, the party of Imran Khan — who belongs to a Pushto-speaking Pathan dynasty — has won... This shows that the idea of Pakistan is lost in the crowd of languages and dialects, and linguistic and regional prejudice is present." Sahafat (May 13) observes: "A visible aspect of the Pakistan National Assembly election has been that the charisma of the Bhutto family has disappeared. Those with luxurious and glamorous lifestyles have raised the slogan of socialism and won the people over."

Change in Karnataka

Siasat in its editorial on May 9, writes: "The Congress's victory in Karnataka, despite it being submerged in various scams at the national level, has been due to a desire for change among the people and the anti-incumbency sentiment... the BJP... will find that its loss was because of internal squabbles and its bad image due to corruption... The communal viewpoint could not cut much ice and therefore, the BJP was undone by its own ideology."

Writer and lyricist Hasan Kamal, in his column in Rashtriya Sahara on May 11, writes that the Karnataka election has demolished many myths. The first is the common belief in the effectiveness of social media in political campaigns. "The second myth demolished was that the youth of the urban middle class is with the BJP. Vast numbers of urban youth voted in Karnataka. Seventy per cent polling could not have been possible without their participation, but it seems that their majority did not vote for the BJP. Another myth that was demolished was that people are angry with the Congress because of scams like 2G and Coalgate. Not that people are not agitated about corruption, but the corruption they are worried about is not on such a scale... Their grievance is against the corruption faced by them in their daily lives... The greatest myth demolished is that Narendra Modi has captured the minds of the country's youth... Wherever Modi canvassed, the BJP candidate lost; wherever Rahul Gandhi went, the Congress candidate won. This 'schoolboy' has won the bet."

Daawat (May 13) says that "Modi's show was a flop, and Rahul too could not make any impression in the areas he visited. The southern state was not favourable to the BJP and the party could not pass the test of the Southerners."

Congress and corruption

Rashtriya Sahara on May 12 states that despite coming under fire for corruption, the Central government's actions have other dimensions. "It is also being realised... that the UPA government is serious about acting with full responsibility against those involved in acts of corruption... For the first time action has been taken against two ministers who belong to the Congress party. This step of the Congress should be welcomed."

Jadeed Khabar, in its editorial on May 10, writes: "The government and the opposition have different views on giving complete autonomy to the CBI. The silence of the Central government on this issue makes it obvious that the Supreme Court has rightly described the CBI as a parrot, repeating what it is taught by its master." Sahafat, in its editorial on May 12, writes: "The allegations made by the BJP have been proved right. But what is the record of this party in such matters? One of its presidents was caught red-handed accepting a bribe. The case of another, Nitin Gadkari, is still fresh in our minds."

Compiled by Seema Chishti

[RamaY]

An informative and calm debate on post retirement jobs for Judges and Babus.

Almost all the panelists call for a "systemic" change.

Watch video: http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/the-bu ... ets/275482

[abhishek_sharma]

I could not access the reviews of these new books in the New York Review of Books.
-----------
Wonder of the Age: Master Painters of India, 1100–1900
by John Guy and Jorrit Britschgi
Metropolitan Museum of Art/ Yale University Press, 224 pp., $45.00

Masters of Indian Painting, 1100–1900
edited by Milo C. Beach, Eberhard Fischer, and B.N. Goswamy
Artibus Asiae, two volumes, 839 pp., $200.00

[RamaY]

A fair debate on Food Security bill

Watch video: http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/we-the ... ger/275900

The SAD part is that GoI plans to spend Rs1,00,000 crore/yr on this bill (~30% of planned expenditure) yet there is no concrete plan, infrastructure and police on the ground to implement it even after they debated this plan for more than 2 years

[Sanku]

Ambani intervened with Clinton in 2000 to save Sharif's life, claims Gadkari

Gadkari said Ambani made the request at a meeting in Mumbai [ Images ] during Clinton’s visit to India [ Images ] in March 2000, when Atal Bihari Vajpayee [ Images ] was the prime minister. Clinton and his delegation also had a formal event at the Mumbai Stock Exchange, at which Gadkari was present as the leader of opposition in the Maharashtra [ Images ] legislative council.

"Before that programme, Dhirubhai met Clinton and requested him to use his good relations with Musharraf to save Sharif's life, for it was feared that Musharraf would get rid of Sharif like how Zia-ul-Haq got rid of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Dhirubhai said Sharif was his friend and that he should be allowed to live. He also told Clinton that Sharif was as good as his own countrymen because India and Pakistan were one before partition. Both his sons, Mukesh and Anil, were present then,” Gadkari said at a book release function on Sunday.

[Austin]

Sharif got saved on behest of Saudi who intervened and cut out a deal with Musharraf and then he was exiled to Saudi .....No Paki leadership even Military can afford to refuse Saudis request.

Gadkari is just adding a new twist to the story.

[Sanku]

Rajasthan's former civil engineer revives dried-up water bodies bringing relief to locals

So, how exactly does the trick work? "There is no major technique involved. One has to understand the basic rules regarding recharging water bodies. The surface and rainwater seepage, as also the underground streams, have to be connected to them through rock veins," he explained.

His expertise has proved to be a boon of sorts for villages in the area. Take for example Chandoli, where he helped revive a community well that had fallen into disuse, thanks to a lowering water table, and begun to be used as a garbage dump.

With the help of the villagers and some volunteers, Sharma took out the garbage and silt, and unblocked the veins of the rocks that earlier brought water to the well. And lo and behold, all was swell again!

[Prem]

.Freedom of Speech in Hinduism .He makes interesting point quoting Indra and Asuras

[Prem]

Plan Now: A Royal Festival In India That You Shouldn't Miss

http://www.forbes.com/sites/lauriewerne ... ldnt-miss/

I know very little about Sufi music so when friends urged me to come to the World Sufi Spirit Festival in Rajasthan, I said yes–more for the chance to go back to Jodhpur and Nagaur, the sites of the event, than for the music itself. As I learned a few minutes into the first performance, though, you don’t need to know anything or follow the spirituality or mysticism to be drawn into the hypnotic rhythms and soulful music. I completely understood why my friends were determined to come to this festival in late February every year.Of course, the settings , both majestic and dramatically lit, didn’t hurt. The first two days of the festival this year were held in the intricate 15th-20th century red sandstone Mehrangarh Fort, one of the largest in India, which looms four hundred feet above the blue city of Jodhpur. The festival then moved for three days to the sprawling collection of palaces in Ahhichatragarh Fortin Nagaur, both properties of the Maharaja of Jodhpur, who created the festival and is very much a presence. (Not so his friend Sting, the Festival Patron, who was on tour elsewhere this year…but did turn up in Jodhpur to sing at a benefit held by the Maharaja several days after the festival ended. Perhaps he’ll make it to next year’s: February 17-20 in Nagaur and 21-23 in Jodhpur.)In Jodhpur, part of the allure is simply being in this fort at night, meandering up and down stairs, through a warren of hallways and into different galleries, some intimate, some vast, with a background of this haunting singing. In the larger complex in Nagaur, performances are set on stages in open courtyards flanked by the aristocratic buildings or on terraces or pavilions overlooking the complex. At night, they’re lit by thousands of candles–a completely magical effect. And that’s before you watch the Whirling Dervishes from Turkey or listen to the octave stretching Qawwalli songs by Raza Khan of India’s Gujarat region, the enticing music of Homayoun Sakhi and Seiar Hashemi of Afghanistan, or the enthralling tutorials/singing of Dr. Madan Gopal Singh. You can break for ayurvedic massages and everyone breaks for elaborate lunch and dinner buffets. But the music is everywhere. In the open air restaurant of Ranvas, the 18th century former residence of the Maharanis, now a 33 room hotel within the Nagaur fort, there is WiFi access so everyone gathers there during the day. Across the path, a musician plays a Nepalses string instrument, a sarangi, from a small window in a tower. Even picking up your email is magical.Where to Stay: In Nagaur, the rooms at Ranvas, decorated in spare but elegant style by another Maharaja friend, Lady Helen Hamlyn whose foundation also contributed mightily to the restoration of the fort, are the best option. But since there are only 33, most people stay in Royal Tents set out on the property.In Jodhpur—you can’t get closer to the festival than to stay at Raas, the chic, contemporary hotel created by brothers Dhananjaya and Nikhilendra Singh, cousins of the Maharaja. A composite of historic sandstone buildings seamlessly blended with new construction, it has one of the best views in all of India–MehrangarhFort just above. As the only elite hotel located within the Old City, it also gives guests the option of exploring the narrow lanes and markets just outside of the towering doors but also provides a tranquil respite from that chaos inside.Jodhpur's 347 room Umaid Bhawan Palace is still the home of the Maharaja and family but is also open to guests.Completely different is Taj’s Umaid Bhawan Palace , still the home of the Maharaja (he and his family occupy one wing of the massive 347 room part Art Deco,part Rajput palace) but the other 64 bedrooms are open to guests. Everything about this palace is grand,from the 105 foot high circular marble main hall to the sweeping lawns and gardens that are your view from the veranda at breakfast.
About three miles away, another of the Maharaja’s properties Bal Samand is still impressive but in a subtler way than Umaid Bhawan. Fronting a man made lake that was created as a reservoir in the 13thcentury, the red sandstone Palace, originally intended as a summer residence for the Jodhpur maharajas, is distinguished by intricate marble carving and Raj era antiques. And, like Umaid Bhawan, there are peacocks strolling around the manicured grounds

[Paul]

Gadkari is just adding a new twist to the story.

Mukesh Ambani may have put up Gadkari to relay the incident to NS through the press as NS is back in power and Mukesh wants to to cash in on the goodwill.

Shows the extent of influence the Ambanis hold in both UPA and NDA. No way can the Rafale negotiations fail with them as the JV partner for Dassault.

[ramana]

I could not access the reviews of these new books in the New York Review of Books.
-----------
Wonder of the Age: Master Painters of India, 1100–1900
by John Guy and Jorrit Britschgi
Metropolitan Museum of Art/ Yale University Press, 224 pp., $45.00

Masters of Indian Painting, 1100–1900
edited by Milo C. Beach, Eberhard Fischer, and B.N. Goswamy
Artibus Asiae, two volumes, 839 pp., $200.00

I ahve a book on Indian painting in that era by C. Sivaramamurti, the doyen of art critics.

A comparison of the hill area paintings and so called Mughal school(themes, brush strokes and big picture narratives) shows the latter is a court patronage of Indian paintings in rural areas which is mostly Hindu.

[abhishek_sharma]

Views from the Right

SHARIF CAN WAIT

Both Sangh Parivar weeklies have carried cover stories on Pakistan's historic democratic transfer of power. But their common message is one of caution with regard to Nawaz Sharif's overtures. "Any haste dealing (sic) with Pakistan can again prove costly. Nawaz Sharif should be waited (sic) till he takes some concrete steps on the ground. It has to be seen whether he reins in the radicals and ISI or continues to follow their anti-India agenda," the Organiser argues, while expressing surprise at the "haste" demonstrated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in extending an invitation to Sharif even before he formally took charge. The Organiser suggests the Indian government communicate to the new Pakistani government in "clear words" that "talks and terrorism cannot go together".
The cover story in Panchjanya suggests that "entire Kashmir including PoK is an integral part of India" must be one of the many preconditions before setting off a process of normalisation of relations with Pakistan. The editorial in Panchjanya highlights the mismatch between "words and deeds" of the Pakistani establishment and cites A.B. Vajpayee's initiative versus Pakistan's Kargil misadventure. It warns the Indian government against making hasty moves and suggests weighing developments within Pakistan carefully and extracting commitments on terror before extending the hand of friendship.

CBI-ED AGAIN

A number of recent developments — the CBI chargesheet linking Rajasthan BJP leader G.C. Kataria to the Sohrabuddin encounter case, the CBI director's remarks claiming no evidence against Pawan Bansal, and the constitution of a GoM on CBI autonomy — has once again stoked the Parivar's anger. The Organiser expresses serious apprehensions about the CBI's impartiality in the Kataria case: "The Congress-led UPA Government seems to have taken no lesson. Instead of showing in deeds that it really wants to free the 'parrot' from the 'cage', the Congress misses no chance to misuse the country's premier investigative agency for political gains. Its latest victim is senior BJP leader of Rajasthan Gulab Chand Kataria," argues the cover story. The editorial in the Organiser alleges that the CBI's move against Kataria, ahead of the Rajasthan assembly elections, was a "well-planned" attempt by the ruling Congress "in a bid to impress that the BJP leaders are also equally tainted". CBI director Ranjit Sinha's reported remarks denying direct evidence against Bansal, even as the investigation goes on, has added to the Organiser's criticism of the CBI.

Both the Organiser and Panchjanya express doubts about the UPA's intentions regarding the CBI's autonomy. "If they are serious they need not to (sic) start from the scratch. There are nine parliamentary committee reports on improving the agency's functioning and granting it autonomy," points out the editorial in the Organiser, adding that "the Government so far is only moving one step forward and two steps backward".

BURDENS OF UP

Although the BJP has been out in the dumps in UP's political battlefield, the Sangh Parivar appears to be keeping an eye on developments in the politically crucial state in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections. The Organiser has focused its spotlight on recent attempts by Mayawati's BSP and Mulayam Singh's SP to woo the Brahmins in the state. A report belittles their attempts claiming that the "SP and BSP [are] playing gimmicks by holding Brahmin sammelan". A report in Panchjanya highlights the SP's alleged minority appeasement to project the Akhilesh Yadav government as "pro-Muslim". It expresses satisfaction over a local court's dismissal of the state government's plea seeking the withdrawal of charges against a Muslim youth charged in a 2007 serial blasts case.

Compiled by Ravish Tiwari

[RajeshA]

[brihaspati]

People have this wonderful idea that INC invented the "Indian National Movement" and were the sole custodians of it as wonderfully illustrated through their "resolutions" showing the depth of their detailed planning about the future rashtra, foreign policy, ityadi. Some even know the exact percent of their contribution - say 80%.

From a list in the GDF - the second blazing trail has been cited to be the 1920 "Non-cooperation" resolution [the first one being the 1917 one on "untouchability", which the sole-custodian on such issues, Baba-saheb has commented on, and I have quoted in GDF, off-topic.]

What is mesmerizing is the perhaps deliberate ignorance of the background of most of these so-called Congress initiatives, and therefore the complete obliteration from public consciousness of the parallel, or as in most cases, completely local/regional/societal and independent-of-INC anti-British rebellions that were going on before the INC latched on to them or in some cases penetrated in order to control and selectively channelize them to its own elite interests.

The second resolution on "non-cooperation" as MKG proposed and led the 1920 resolution at the special meeting came after and not before the already growing peasant movement in UP. This had started off from towards the end of the war, and surprise-surprise seems to have been foundationally started off or linked to "babas", of specific "Hindu" colouring - so distasteful to modern communists and their linked up Congressites.

One such "baba" was a certain "Rama chandra" (Rao) [which was in turn an adopted name over his Marathi real name] who toured the villages organizing peasants against taluqdari/zamindari repression, with a Tulsidasi Ramayana in his arms. He had been an indentured labourer in Fiji - from which he probably got his inspiration - and what could be worse, apparently a "Brahmin" too.

Ramachandra and others like him created the model of "Hindu political sannyasi" "before" MKG really adopted it. The peasant movements were already so strong that they often clashed with local admin and forced them to change decisions.

From what transpired later - it is obvious that the Congress leaders saw a twin motivation in penetrating the peasant movements, and adopt their "mass line". First was to create a support base that would help the faction then struggling to gain control of INC around MKG against "old-timers" and "constitutionalists". If we look at the legalism adopted in arguments by both MKG and the pre-existing dominant factions - there is not much that was different between them in their relative approach to the British gov. However because the faction that was in in power at the time was not that happy with MKG - his group saw an advantage in diluting the entrenched groups powers by broadening the "base" so to speak.

MKG 's declared primary motivation to start the non-coop was making first cause the "Khilafat demand" and second the "Punjab" demand [both Khilfatis and the Akali's]. In order to pass this resolution he needed support against the faction with whom even one previously he had practically speaking all legalistic convergence. The only base that was available at hand was that of the more radicalized student and peasant movements - the latter having come into increasing conflicts with Indian and British landlords in cahoots with the colonial admin, and the swarajya faction which often overlapped and dominated radicalized educated youth.

Any honest student of the INC movement will be able to own up to the history Bihar and Bihar PCC at the time - how it had mainly opposed "non-cooperation" and were strongly against the "peasant" movements, but the "non-cooperation" faction could pass the resolution onlee by expanding the voting "committees" including the peasant and student delegates and forcing the "nay-sayers" to leave in "disgust" [we can imagine the peaceful and civil tactics that must have been involved].

But the second and twin objective as it appears long term, was to prevent discomfort to the landlords too - and over time many of the latter became top-regional functionaries of the INC an often candidates in the first general elections on INC tickets.

The casualty - apart from facts - seems to be a total silence on the people like Baba Ramachandra - who are embarrassing for both communists and the INC in their pseudo-secular rant against "Hindutva".

[Prem]

Desh bech Diya Mill ke UPA Walo Ney,Corrput ,Maan Ke Lalo Ney


India names Goldman to manage ETF of state firms

NEW DELHI--India has appointed Goldman Sachs Asset Management (India) Pvt. Ltd. to create and launch an exchange-traded fund that will raise money from investors and invest in state-run companies, a senior finance ministry official said Friday."The finance minister [P. Chidambaram] has cleared the appointment. We have issued a letter to Goldman Sachs," the finance ministry official told the Wall Street Journal.The government has also named Luthra and Luthra as the legal advisor for the proposed exchange-traded fund, or ETF, the official said.Initially, the government plans to have 15-20 top state-run companies in the basket of ETFs, the official said, adding that the first ETF may be launched within three to four months.May 1, a panel of India's cabinet ministers cleared a proposal from the finance ministry to launch the ETF, which is expected to help the government's efforts to raise billions of dollars by selling stakes in the companies it manages.Selling shares in state-run companies is a key part of the government's program to raise money to narrow its fiscal deficit, which is expected to have reached 5.2% of gross domestic product in the last fiscal year ended March 31.

[ramana]

Two sites:

http://urdupoetry.com/

and

http://smriti.com/urdu/ghalib/

[Prem]

Indian Ruling on Vedanta Mining Plans Favours Tribal Rights
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2013/05/2 ... al-rights/

On April 18, 2013 India's Supreme Court ruled that village councils should make the final decision as to whether controversial British company Vedanta Resources can mine for bauxite in the eastern state of Odisha. Vedanta wants to mine on land that the local Dongria Kondh people hold sacred.The controversy over the proposed bauxite mine dates back to 2004, and an international campaign has been waged against Vedanta's plans. The Supreme Court rejected a request from the company to end a ban on mining, and ruled that two local councils, or gram sabhas, should respond within three months on whether or not they want it to proceed.The Dongria Kondh live in the upper reaches of the Niyamgiri hills and regard the hills and forests as deities. The highest hill, which is in the proposed mining area, is the home of their most revered god, Niyam Raja.On the environmental news site Down To Earth, Richard Mahapatra wrote a blog post called My god v. your resource:
Is a village council qualified to deal with religious beliefs? The answer lies in a recent order by the Supreme Court in the Vedanta case. Gram sabhas (village councils consisting of all voters in a village) in Odisha’s Rayagada and Kalahandi districts will decide whether the industrial activities of Vedanta violate the constitutional right of tribal communities to worship. Translated into practice, the order means voters in a few villages will decide the fate of the multi-billion-rupee project based on their religious beliefs. Though parroted often that religious belief is a private concern, the apex court’s order is exceptional in making religious decision a community one.

He continued:

There are a few reasons that make this case interesting. First, it is a perfect case where the government’s power to acquire land for public purpose and having right over minerals are in direct conflict with religious rights of local communities. Secondly, the religious belief in question is that of tribal communities. Unlike many religions, tribal religious beliefs are manifested in tangible living forms like forest, land and water. In this case, the direct conflict between religious belief and public purpose becomes intense as the public purpose acquisitions are the gods and goddesses of the tribals. For the Dongria Kondhs in Odisha, the Niyamgiri hill is the Niyam Raja or god. Thirdly, tribals do not have any supreme religious head or bodies to protect and interpret beliefs. Tribal beliefs are pure functional codes for maintaining the fragile ecology-economy equation that sustains them. This is where the court’s order to assign the village council, that enjoys constitutional powers, to take a call on the religious rights comes as an acknowledgement of the fact that the standard law and religion approach to tribal areas will not work.

[abhishek_sharma]

Coomi Kapoor's column

Summer junkets

At a Cabinet meeting last week, there were only 11 ministers present out of the total 29 expected. Cabinet Secretary Ajit Seth hesitated before starting the proceedings since he assumed more ministers would be arriving. Finally, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh indicated to him that he should begin. A large number of the missing contingent had left Delhi for cooler climes. A dozen or so were on official trips abroad.

Stop Modi campaign

Rajnath Singh's appointment of Narendra Modi's lieutenant Amit Shah as the general secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh was done in the hope that the Gujarat Chief Minister would concentrate on UP during the general elections. If the BJP is to emerge as a front-runner in the 2014 elections, a major improvement in its electoral performance in UP is crucial. But the badly divided local leadership is unable to provide any direction. Singh is banking on Modi's development agenda giving a fillip to the BJP campaign and Modi's OBC caste (Ghanchi) proving an asset among OBC voters. Modi, meanwhile, is keen to be declared the party's official prime ministerial candidate before the polls and, if that is not possible, he wants to be appointed chairperson of the campaign committee. However, L K Advani is doing his best to scuttle this move. Advani is pushing for Nitin Gadkari to be made chairperson. Although Advani was among the first to demand that Gadkari step down as party chief, he is now making overtures towards him. He is aware that Gadkari remains close to the RSS and is one of the few persons who might be able to stop Modi in his tracks.

Making it official

Shakeel Ahmed, Mohan Prakash, Bhakta Charan Das, Raj Babbar and Meem Afzal were recently appointed spokespersons of the Congress. This is in addition to the existing team, which includes Renuka Chowdhury and Sandeep Dikshit. All the spokespersons get their official briefing on the party line from Janardhan Dwivedi, who heads the media cell. But the unauthorised party spokespersons continue to hog centrestage on TV, much to the chagrin of the official media team. Most prominent among them is Sanjay Jha, who lists his occupation as executive director of the Dale Carnegie Training operations. Jha had no locus standi except for running a portal titled hamaracongress.com. Realising that it was unable to prevent the unofficial spokespersons from having their say on TV, the AICC has now caved in. It has added the names of more spokespersons who are entitled to participate in debates and discussions in the media. Jha and several others who are considered part of the Rahul Gandhi brigade are on the list.

Tweeting his goodbye

Former senior RAW official and security analyst B Raman is suffering from cancer that has spread from his blood to his liver. Despite the pain and disability, Raman has been tweeting about the disease: "Sinking slowly but steadily, a losing battle.'' "Unbearable pain, trying to sleep sans morphine.'' "I no longer have the courage to live longer, planning to formalise my will''. Amidst his suffering, Raman even endorsed Narendra Modi for prime minister, "Back NaMo for PM. He may not live up to expectations but he will be refreshingly different,'' he tweeted. The tweet has elicited a grateful acknowledgment from the Gujarat government.

Mulayam missing

At the dinner hosted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for Chinese premiere Li Keqiang, Mulayam Singh Yadav did not show up. Yadav did not inform in advance that he would be skipping the dinner. The government should, however, have recalled Yadav's anti-China statements in Parliament recently. He had warned the government it should not trust the Chinese. He claimed that the Chinese would attack India at some stage.

Not just the stars

BJP president Rajnath Singh took five months to allocate organisational duties to party office-bearers. Singh vacillated for so long before announcing the names of his new team that it was assumed that he was waiting for his in-house astrologer, Sudhanshu Trivedi, to give the green signal. There was an equally long wait before the office- bearers were informed of their responsibilities. The delay is not just because of the stars, as is being whispered in a section of the party. Singh is caught between pulls and pressures from different factions. General secretary (organisation) Ram Lal, who is the RSS's nominee, had a major say in several appointments

[SSridhar]

Antony to visit Australia to boost military ties

To forge stronger military ties, defence minister AK Antony will be on a four-day visit to Australia where he is expected to discuss cooperation between the navies of the two countries.

In his maiden visit to Australia beginning June 3, Antony would be accompanied by a high-level delegation, including new Defence Secretary Radha Krishna Mathur.

During the visit, the two sides would discuss cooperation in counter terrorism and bilateral naval exercises, Ministry sources said.

Antony is also likely to make stopovers in Singapore and Thailand.

The visit by the defence minister to Australia was earlier scheduled to be held in January this year, but it was postponed by the government.

The two countries are in the process of having regular bilateral naval exercise and issue of cooperation in maritime security in the Indian Ocean Region is expected to come up for discussion during talks between Antony and his counterpart Stephen Smith in Canberra.

In 2011, Smith had visited India when the two countries had agreed upon ensuring freedom of navigation in international waters against the backdrop of the controversy over the South China Sea.

The two ministers had also agreed to examine the possibility of undertaking a full-fledged bilateral naval exercise in future and institute a Track 1.5 dialogue (at semi-government level) on defence matters.

In a recently released "Defence White Paper", Australia has mentioned the rise of India in the global framework and said, "India is emerging as an important strategic, diplomatic and economic actor, 'looking East', and becoming more engaged in regional frameworks."

[Prem]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/27/world ... .html?_r=0
For New Breed of Rustlers, Nothing Is Sacred

NEW DELHI — When night falls in this gritty capital, gangs troll the darkened streets looking for easy prey among a portion of the city’s vast homeless population; thousands have been rounded up and carried off in trucks in recent years.Many cows are being stolen from the streets of India. Often, those that are rescued and taken to the shelter are in poor condition.The police say they have increased patrols and set up roadblocks in an effort to stop the trafficking. In some cases, officers have infiltrated gangs in hopes of catching them in the act. But the brutal kidnappings continue, and the victims — scrawny cows, which are slowly losing their sacred status among some in India — are slaughtered and sold for meat and leather.Cattle rustling, called “lifting” here, is a growing scourge in New Delhi, as increasingly affluent Indians develop a taste for meat, even the flesh of cows, which are considered sacred in Hinduism. Criminals round up some of the roughly 40,000 cattle that wander the streets of this megacity and sell them to illegal slaughterhouses located in villages not far away.
Many of the cattle in Delhi are part of dairy operations and their owners have neither the land nor the money to keep them penned. So the animals graze on grassy medians or ubiquitous piles of trash. Others too old to be milked are often abandoned and left to wander the streets until they die — or get picked up by the rustlers.
Posses of police officers give chase to the outlaws, but the desperados — driving souped-up dump trucks — think little of ramming police cars and breaking through barricades. They have even pushed cows into the pathways of their pursuers, forcing horrified officers to swerve out of the way to avoid what for many is still a grievous sin.“These gangs mostly go after stray cattle, but they will also steal motorcycles and scooters,” one police officer, Bhisham Singh, said in an interview. “They kidnapped a woman recently and gang-raped her.”Behind the cattle rustling is a profound shift in Indian society. Meat consumption — chicken, primarily — is becoming acceptable even among Hindus. India is now the world’s largest dairy producer, its largest cattle producer and its largest beef exporter, having surpassed Brazil last year, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.Much of that exported beef is from buffalo (India has half of the world’s buffalo population), which are not considered holy. But officials in Andhra Pradesh recently estimated that there are 3,100 illegal slaughterhouses in the state compared with just six licensed ones, and a recent newspaper investigation found that tens of thousands of cattle are sold annually for slaughter from a market in just one of that state’s 64 districts. Killing cows is illegal in much of India, and some states outlaw the possession of cow meat.Much of the illicit beef is probably sold as buffalo, an easy way to hide a sacrilegious act. But sometimes it makes its way to meat sellers in Delhi whose cellphone numbers are passed around in whispers. Steaks can be ordered from these illicit vendors in transactions that are carried out like drug deals.Beef from cattle is also widely consumed by Muslims and Dalits, among India’s most marginalized citizens. Indeed, meat consumption is growing the most among the poor, government statistics show, with overall meat eating growing 14 percent from 2010 to 2012.Anuj Agrawal, 28, said he grew up in a strictly vegetarian Hindu household but tried chicken for the first time in his teens when he was at a restaurant with friends. He now eats every kind of meat, including beef steaks and burgers. “Once you taste meat, you’re not going back to just fruits and vegetables,” Mr. Agrawal said.He says many of his friends have made similar transitions. But he never eats meat with his grandparents: “I would be excommunicated if I did, so I go pure ‘veg’ when I’m with them. I want to inherit something.”
To some extent, the growing acceptance of beef is a result of the government’s intense focus on increasing milk production, which has led to a proliferation of foreign cattle breeds that do not elicit the same reverence as indigenous ones, said Clementien Pauws, president of Karuna Society for Animals and Nature, an animal welfare agency in Andhra Pradesh.“Cows are all about business and money now, not religion,” Ms. Pauws said. “They’re all taken to slaughterhouses. It’s terrible.”
This is not to say that eating beef from cattle is widely accepted. The vast majority of Hindus still revere cows, and the Bharatiya Janata Party, one of the country’s two major political parties, has demanded that laws against cow slaughter be strengthened.Some landlords even refuse to rent to those who confess to a taste for meat.
But the demand for beef keeps rising, many here say, and with it the prevalence of cattle rustling. Last year, the police in Delhi arrested 150 rustlers, a record number. This year, arrests have continued to surge, Mr. Singh said.Typically, the rustlers creep into the city at night. When the criminals spot stray cattle and few onlookers they stop the truck, push out a ramp and use a rope to lead the cow to its doom.The thieves can usually fit about 10 cows on a truck, and each fetches 5,000 rupees — about $94. In a country where more than 800 million people live on less than $2 a day, a single night’s haul of more than $900 represents serious temptation.One man who has helped the police in neighboring Uttar Pradesh said the rustlers were often able to bribe their way to freedom. “Even if they’re sent to jail, they come out in 10 to 15 days and commit the same crimes again,” said the man, who did not want his name used for fear of reprisals.The unfortunate fate of some of Delhi’s cattle has led some Hindus to establish cattle shelters on the fringes of the metropolitan region. One of the largest is Shri Mataji Gaushala, where thousands of cattle live on about 42 acres.
Sometimes, the rescue comes too late. Brijinder Sharma, the shelter manager, whose office walls are decorated with drawings of Lord Krishna hugging a calf, showed a video of a truck packed with cattle that was seized on its way to an illegal slaughterhouse. Many of the cows had already died of heat exhaustion.“The social and religious status of cows has been under attack in India,” Mr. Sharma said. He hopes that his shelter, which has an annual budget of $5.4 million, underwritten almost entirely by wealthy Indians who have emigrated to the United States, will help reverse that trend.The afternoon feeding at the shelter attracted a crowd of happy onlookers. Abhishek, a one-named cowhand, called out among the lowing throng: “Sakhi! Sakhi!” A large cow with huge horns rushed to the front of the herd, and Mr. Abhishek kissed her on the nose. The cow responded by licking one entire side of his face, and Mr. Abhishek beamed.

[SSridhar]

American nations fo working with BRICS - Sandeep Dikshit, The Hindu

A 33-nation block of American countries has expressed the desire to open communications with the five-country BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa), Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Eduardo Rodríguez Parrilla told newspersons here on Monday.

India has the distinction of being the first dialogue partner of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), followed by China. Formed in late 2011, CELAC groups together all states in the Americas, barring the United States and Canada.

In August last year, Chile, the pro-tem Chairman of CELAC, along with Cuba and Venezuela, had held talks here with the then External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna for a “strategic alliance” that would include annual meetings, working together in regional organisations, and increasing commercial exchange. The troika then went to China and struck a similar alliance.

As the Cuban Foreign Minister pointed out, CELAC was planning its next engagement with India on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in September.

At the second CELAC-India meeting in September, the two sides will work on the creation of a business economic development forum, an agricultural working group and an energy forum.

Earlier, at a talk at the Indian Council of World Affairs, the Minister pointed out that CELAC consisted of 600 million people, it was free from wars and had abundant energy and water resources.

“We see an opportunity for mutually beneficial economic relations with India,” he said.

[brihaspati]

Every pet theme of MKG is being unraveled one by one since from his death.

(1) Dissolution of the Congress after independence
(2) cottage industries and local environment tied self-sufficiency
(3) humility and non-pride for sacrifices made for the nation - and not claiming every privilege and power under the sun with full arrogance for having some remote dynastic connection to someone who did something in the past
(4) protection of the cow, among many other animals
(5) avoidance and if possible giving up on meat
(6) doing one's dirty work on one's own
(7) pride in wearing one's indigenous clothes
and many many more.

There are folks around who shout repeatedly about how supposedly saffron linked Hindu terror "assassinated him", but their pet Congress has presided over killing MKG slowly and surely - in a more insidious and total way than Godse ever managed, who had actually helped complete the halo of the Christian sacrificial lamb around MKG's head.

[member_23629]

^^^ Gandhi was a failure in his own lifetime -- all his pet schemes came crashing down in front of his own eyes. He promised "Pakistan over my dead body" but couldn't prevent its creation. Many people had begun to realise how ineffective, irrational and self-destructive his ideology was, but his assassination saved him from irrelevance and ridicule. 'Gandhi: A Sublime Failure" by SS Gill is a good book to read for this.

[Prem]

This Mantra, few lines shrinks many War religion Qitabs to Decimal level.

Tina Turner - Sarvesham Svastir Bhavatu -

[RajeshA]

Chhatisgarh Naxalite Attack is MKG Assassination redux.

Just as Nathuram Godse had a nominal Hindu Mahasabha and RSS membership, similarly these Naxalites did the killing in a BJP ruled state.

Otherwise it is the same script.

Congress would be able to claim all the good work done by Mahendra Karma for themselves and as such the whole platform of Adivasi Vikas for themselves. But at the same time this is Congress working with the Naxalites together, just as Nehru and the British worked together.

[Sushupti]