PIB Press Release

PIB Press Release

Money Laundering - Treachery of Jethmalani, Advani, Vajpayee & Modi

We see Jethmalani everyday on TV on $1500b leakage of Indian money but he doesn’t tell us he made the BIG HOLE to let money flow out of India – on June01, 2000 he was Law Minister when FERA was repealed and replaced by Toothless FEMA.

For over five years there was no law to check even outflow of money by Hardened Criminals.

These four Scoundrels soon realized there is no check on outflow of money from India so devised another - law Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.

But four scoundrels didn’t dare to Notify it – it was UPA government that Notified the PMLA in 2005.

PMLA only cover Drug Money or such crimes not Economic Offences like Anil Ambani transferred $500m to Singapore in to private companies that is the real source of Flood Gate of leakage.

Ravinder Singh

January027, 2011

http://mpcyberpolice.nic.in/pdf/PMLA20022.pdf

http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=39397

The Union Cabinet today gave its approval for introduction of a Bill, namely the Prevention of Money-laundering (Amendment) Bill, 2008 in the Parliament.

The Amendment Bill will enable the Government of India to meet certain domestic needs and international obligations.

Background

The Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PML Act) ( 15 of 2003) was enacted in 2002 and enforced in 2005 to prevent money laundering and to provide for attachment, seizure and confiscation of proceeds of crime obtained or derived, directly or indirectly from money laundering and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.

http://www.cityunionbank.com/home/forex_overview.htm

The Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 has come into force with effect from the 1st June 2000. As from the same date (1.6.2000) the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act 1973 (FERA 1973), which was in operation for about 27 years, stands repealed.

All foreign exchange transactions which take place from the 1st June 2000 onwards will be governed by the provisions of the new law Foreign Exchange Management Act 1999, (FEMA 1999) and the Rules, Regulations, Notifications, Directions and Orders issued/ framed under the new Act.

http://www.india-today.com/itoday/20000807/cover.html

The Wrath of Ram

August 07, 2000

Sacked as law minister to avert an impending executive -judiciary confrontation, a furious Ram Jethmalani blames his dismissal on Attorney-General Soli Sorabjee and also accuses CJI. As the government tries to paper over the cracks, Jethmalani complicates matters by releasing correspondence that shows India's legal establishment in a very poor light.

By Sumit Mitra

It was a cold but a very predictable parting for a cabinet member so full of vitality, flamboyance and colour. On July 22, as law minister Ram Jethmalani was driving from Mumbai to Pune to address the Symbiosis Law College, his cell phone rang. The voice of External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh was unmistakable in its deep baritone. Before Singh could end his formal prologue -- "I have been given the unpleasant task ..." -- Jethmalani cut him short. "I know the prime minister wants my resignation, but I can't send it now as I am driving. I shall fax it from Pune."

On reaching Pune, the 77-year-old minister, ace criminal lawyer and a man of the world wrote by hand a three-line letter which said that he was stepping down "as desired". He didn't have the Race Course Road fax number, so called Singh to get it. His ministerial innings behind him, Jethmalani began his address by telling the students he'd speak to them not as a minister but as "a lawyer, like what all of you would soon become".

In Delhi, outside Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's inner circle, there was only one person who was probably in the know: Attorney-General of India Soli Sorabjee. And he wasn't unhappy. Nor for that matter was Chief Justice of India Adarsh Sein Anand when he learnt of the development. It was Anand's stated displeasure with Jethmalani that ultimately forced Vajpayee's hand.

Between Jethmalani and Sorabjee, however, it was the unhappiest silver jubilee of a relationship. Following the 1975 Emergency, Sorabjee toiled in a team led by Nani Palkhivala to save Jethmalani from the long arm of the notorious MISA. The team obtained a stay, with Sorabjee's forceful advocacy leaving a mark on the proceedings.

When the two came together 23 years later in Vajpayee's Government, there was little of the old camaraderie left. Last Thursday, addressing the press after Parliament was rocked by a controversy over his proposed personal statement, Jethmalani made it clear that he could not coexist with Sorabjee in the same dispensation. "My being law minister is certainly not congenial to the attorney-general."

http://india.gov.in/govt/rajyasabhampbiodata.php?mpcode=29

2, Akbar Road, New Delhi. 110011
Telephone : 23792287, 23794651, 23010944

1977-80 Member, Sixth Lok Sabha 1980-84 Member, Seventh Lok Sabha April 1988 Elected to Rajya Sabha April 1994 Re-elected to Rajya Sabha 1996 and Oct. 1999 - 23 July 2000 Union Minister of Law, Justice and Company Affairs 19 March 1998-14 June 1999 Union Minister of Urban Affairs and Employment April 2000 Re-elected to Rajya Sabha Jan. 2002-Feb. 2004 Member, Committee on Home Affairs Aug. 2004 onwards Member, Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice April 2006 Nominated to Rajya Sabha Aug. 2006 onwards Member, Joint Committee to examine the Constitutional & Legal position relating to Office of Profit Sept. 2006 onwards Member, Committee on Rules Member, Consultative Committee for the Ministry of External Affairs

Transcript: Obama's State Of The Union Address : NPR

Transcript: Obama's State Of The Union Address : NPR

Brng Telangana Bill in Budget Session: Gaddar

news.outlookindia.com | Bring Telangana Bill in Budget Session: Gaddar

Bring Telangana Bill in Budget Session: Gaddar Guntur (AP) | Jan 24, 2011 Revolutionary balladeer Gaddar today appealed to the Centre to introduce a Bill in the upcoming Budget session of Parliament for the formation of a separate Telangana state. The Centre should introduce the Bill in pursuance of Union Home Minister P Chidambaram's December 2009 statement about initiating the process for creation of separate Telangana, he told reporters here. Gaddar lashed at the Justice B N Srikrishna Committee report, saying the six recommendations made by the Centre appointed panel were not practical.

Tamil connection in Japanese

Researchers find Tamil connection in Japanese

M T Saju, TNN, Jan 18, 2011, 06.37am IST

CHENNAI: Many Tamil and Japanese words bear phonetic and semantic resemblances, claim researchers.

"There are more than 500 Tamil words in Japanese," Tsutomu Kambe, a retired Japanese professor, said. He used his name to illustrate this claim. He wrote down his name on a paper and then separated the second part using a vertical line.

"See, you can find the relation between Tamil and Japanese even in my name. Kam means Kama in Tamil," the professor said. (Kama is god of desire in Hindu mythology).

To support Kambe's argument, Chennai-based Institute of Asian studies (IAS), with the help of a professor couple from Sri Lanka, recently brought out a resource guide called 'Tamil-Japanese Relationship' as part of its silver jubilee celebrations. The book has hundreds of Tamil and Japanese words that bear phonetic and semantic resemblances.

A Shanmugadas, emeritus professor, University of Jaffna, and his wife Manonmani, retired lecturer in Gakushuin University, Japan, who compiled the book, said they got the idea way back in 1981 when they attended a lecture on Japanese-Dravidian languages in Madurai by veteran professor and linguist Susumu Ohnu from Tokyo.

"We were curious and soon I applied for a senior fellowship grant. We went to Gakushuin University in March 1983. By the time Ohnu had already published his 'Sound Correspondences between Tamil and Japanese', a thesis analysing in detail the 500 corresponding words in both languages. But some Japanese scholars severely criticised Ohnu's theory. This is where we stepped in. We wanted to know whether it was true and worked with Ohnu for long years. And this book stands testimony to Ohnu's findings," says Shanmugadas.

killers escape death sentence

Christian Missionaries killers escape death sentence
21.01.2011 | 22:01 New Delhi
The Supreme Court today upheld the life sentence awarded to Dara Singh and Mahendra Hembram by the Orrisa High Court for killing a Christian Missionary and his two minor sons in 1999. Dara Singh and Mahendra Hembram were convicted by the Orrisa High Court of burning Graham Stuart Staines and his two minor sons, Philip Staines (10) and Timothy Staines (6) alive while they were sleeping in a van. In 2003, a trial court in Khurda convicted all 13 accused in the case. While Dara Singh was awarded death sentence, the others were sentenced to life in prison. In 2005, the Orissa High Court commuted Singh's sentence to life and acquitted 11 accused persons on the ground that identification by the eye-witnesses was doubtful. The convicts had approached the Supreme Court challenging the High Court order. The apex court while dismissing the appeal said “The analysis of entire materials clearly shows that the High Court is right in arriving at its conclusion. In the case on hand, there is no material to prove conspiracy charge against any of the accused.” “In a country like ours where discrimination on the ground of caste or religion is a taboo, taking lives of persons belonging to another caste or religion is bound to have a dangerous and reactive effect on the society at large. It strikes at the very root of the orderly society which the founding fathers of our Constitution dreamt of. Our concept of secularism is that the State will have no religion. The state shall treat all religions and religious groups equally and with equal respect without in any manner interfering with their individual right of religion, faith” the division bench of Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice BS Chauhan held.

The most drunken State in India

Musings on Article 47, Prohibition and Trade in liquor by State

10.01.2010

Justice VR Krishna Iyer

The most drunken State in India is Kerala, each year aggrandising consumption of liquor. The State benefits by its monopolistic business of the beverages corporation. It gains reverence, gives jobs and makes the young ones taste the rare delight of drink. To set the record straight, we must state, right here, that no frontal attack is made on the power of the State to regulate any trade (even a trade where the turn-over turns on tempting the customer to take reeling rolling trips into the realm of the jocose, lachrymose and comatose). Who is the ultimate criminal? The State which generates, grants licenses, rarely investigates and violates the fundamental right of the citizen to have travel, associative friendly and live in fraternity? Why do Marxist Governments bankrupt its workers and peasants by club’s easy licenses? Kerala in monopolizing manufacture of beverages is in good company of Tamil Nadu State which not only manufactures but vends liquor as a monopoly. No one will dismiss the Government for violating Article 47 of the Constitution because the centre depends for its survival on the Tamil Nadu ruling party. It is fair to note that Tamil Nadu is selling life’s essentials through ration shops at half the market price effectively. So the poor can live through this measure. Kerala alcoholism and market prices go without control!! President Pratibha Patil said at a large public meeting that Kerala is plagued by alcoholism. I would add - the State will perish by alcoholism, Marxism, free from the plague of alcoholism will survive the Marxists unless they are allergic to intoxicating liquor and ideas. Alcoholism is an unmitigated evil and if it becomes habitual, plural pathological consequences follow and no pharmacopoeia is yet available whereby alcoholism can become innocent. Criminals and goondas with violent habits have a vested interest in liquor and now our Governments have become dealers in alcohol which is becoming a State-run big business. The one politician above and against this vice was Morarji Desai who introduced dry days on wage payment days and on festivals. Recently, the Collector of Calicut on the eve of a big festival stopped sale of alcohol in all liquor shops and this proved successful and peaceful to the people of the city. Within a few days the Collector was transferred as his action went against the abkari revenue of the State. This terrible curse has ruined the nation and Morarji’s wisdom must be enforced as sternly as he did particularly vis a vis judges and higher bureaucrats. Wedding celebrations and religious festivals, Diwali and Onam should be declared dry days. So far as liquor consumption is concerned the centre if it believes in the Constitution (Article 47) should force the State to practice prohibition. It can succeed as Rajaji and Omandur Madras State did and Gujarat does. Political parties in their election manifestoes must seriously promise dry days to save the working class and domestic peace. Alcoholism is a national enemy and our import policy must ban foreign liquors. Before every crime, terrorism and every festival we can trace consumption of alcohol. All great men were free from alcoholism from Bernard Shaw to Mahatma Gandhi - from Vedanta to Islam and every faith which is committed to dignity, decency and sobriety. Some artists like musicians and poets have violated this virtue and drunk themselves to death. Byron for instance wrote: Man, being reasonable, must get drunk; The best of life is but intoxication. If elimination of poverty and bankruptcy is patriotism the highest priority should be attributed to implement absolute ban on alcoholism. The issue of dry days read in the light of Article 47 arose before the Supreme Court at the instance of the liquor lobby and the case was decided by the court in support of abolition of alcoholism in 1978 3 SCC 558. I quote briefly from that ruling which exhaustively deals with negatives alcoholism as a national disaster: “33. In India some genteel socialities have argued for the diplomatic pay-off from drinks and Nehru has negatived it: Not only does the health of a nation suffer from this (alcoholism), but there is a tendency to increase conflicts both in the national and the international sphere. I must say that I do not agree with the statement that is sometimes made - even by our ambassadors - that drinks attract people to parties and if there are no drinks served people will not come. I have quite frankly told them that if people are only attracted by drinks, you had better keep away such people from our missions….. I do not believe in this kind of diplomacy which depends on drinking…..and, if we have to indulge in that kind of diplomacy, others have had more training in it and are likely to win. 34. Of course, the struggle for Swaraj went beyond political liberation and demanded social transformation. Redemption from drink evil was woven into this militant movement and Gandhiji was the expression of this mission: I hold drink to be more damnable than thieving and perhaps even prostitution. Is it not often the parent to both? I ask you to join the country in sweeping out of existence the drink revenue and abolishing the liquor shops. Let me therefore, re-declare my faith in undiluted prohibition before I land myself in deeper water. If I was appointed dictator for one hour for all India, the first thing I would do would be to close without compensation all the liquor shops, destroy all the toddy palms such as I know them in Gujarat, compel factory owners to produce humane conditions for their workmen would get innocent drinks and equally innocent amusements. I would close down the factories if the owners pleaded for want of funds.” This nation shall perish with the drinking bowl with atrabilious liquor because the powerful lobby can purchase the politician at any price to do away with dry days.

History of Nanyang Primary Singapore | See if you qualify for minority scholarships

History of Nanyang Primary Singapore

Singapore Nanyang Primary school Story

Let us review and study the History of Nanyang Primary School so that we know the difficulties the chinese had creating education.

The founder Tan Chu Nan and co-founder Teo Eng Hock established the Nanyang Primary School in Singapore in 1917. The Nanyang Primary history started off as an extension of the Nanyang Girl’s High School. The school began the school at the Dhoby Ghaut shophouse located right near the Cathay Cineplex. The school followed the Singapore regulations for primary education.. The Nanyang Primary history adapted the six full years of primary education. Considering that Singapore maintains mixed Chinese and Singapore Chinese languages, the government was flexible enough to know that they need to have English as the other language that children should know in their primary education.

The government believes that the permission to use a bilingual Chinese language will be sufficient to preserve some of the Chinese culture of their constituents, which the Nanyang Primary history showed by means of their greatly accepted campaign for English as one of the dominant language in their bilingual system of education. The Nanyang Primary history displays a refinement of the Chinese culture in their mixed languages of mother tongue, Chinese, and English to reinforce a multiracial society in preserving cultural values while learning the English language for its competitive practical solutions. The transmission of the traditional Chinese education in a bilingual education system marked the progress of the Chinese vs.. English educated communities in Singapore.

The Nanyang Primary School å—æ´‹å°å­¦ changed to its present area at King’s Road during the year 1927. In the Nanyang Primary history, the compulsory education age of children for primary education is six years old. The primary education system has two stages namely the foundation and the orientation stage. The Chairman and the Principal, Mr. Lee Chin Tien and Mrs. Liew Yuen Sien, upgraded the curriculum of the school, standards, and directions including the tutors teaching styles to enhance the learning environment of the students. This made the Nanyang Primary School a dependable school that generates graduate students who have the capability and the skills to pass the Chinese middle school examinations for admission specifically the Nanyang University college entrance test.

The primary education is every child’s foundation for skills and knowledge development. In the Nanyang Primary history, the orientation stage provided individuals the flexibility to build learning ability with the match of custom Chinese education streaming system that exposes the children to their linguistic history of Chinese, Mandarin, English, and Singaporean Chinese. The Nanyang Primary history gained reputation and recognition for its progressive inclusion of both Chinese stream and English stream.The British Army occupied the Nanyang Primary School as a field office during WWII followed by the Japanese army, which ruined some of the school’s amenities. The Nanyang Primary history reflects the joint efforts of the administration and students including the alumni to regain the school’s operations when the British colonized Singapore again after the Japanese surrendered in 1945. Singapore highly valued the concept of education and the Nanyang Primary history supported its native language of Malaya, Tamil, or Chinese through its bilingual education of English and Chinese stream. The Nanyang Primary School became the fourth school in Singapore history to offer the Center for Primary Gifted Education Programme or GEP.

Over the years, Chinese language education in Nanyang Primary school has deteriorated and is no longer the bastion of chinese language education due to Singapore government’s deliberate policy of diluting the Chinese language mother tongue. Chinese A and B courses (is a divide and conquer tactic) has further diluted the ecology of Chinese language speaking students. As a result, many SIngaporean of Chinese origin can no longer speak proper chinese language.

Casteism Is Racism And India Should Stop Interfering In ‘Internal Affairs’ Of Britain!

Casteism Is Racism And India Should Stop
Interfering In ‘Internal Affairs’ Of Britain!

By Avinash Pandey Samar

10 September, 2010

Britain, in a major victory for the movement against caste based discrimination and atrocities, can soon declare caste prejudice unlawful under laws against racial discrimination becoming the first country of the world to do so. The development was imminent in the wake of the fact that the House of Lords had already passed the Equality Bill empowering the government to treat caste as ‘an aspect of race’ in March this year leaving just one more step of getting it passed by the House of Commons to be enacted as law.

The victory has come as a result of the valiant struggle of the Dalit groups along with members of the broader civil society against the exploitative and oppressive system of caste, amidst tremendous opposition of the Indian government and the right wing Hindu groups based in Britain.

The significance of the development lies in the fact that it has taken almost a decade to come since 2001 when the Government of India had succeeded in botching up the attempt of the Dalit Rights Group together with the broader civil society to make caste based discrimination an aspect of racial discrimination at the Durban World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. The Government of India claimed the caste issues as ‘internal matter of India’ and asserted that they were making all attempts to put an end to caste based discrimination.

What it forgot in doing that was its own, and glorious, role in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. If caste issues are an internal matter of India, would not apartheid be an internal issue of the governments of apartheid-era South Africa? So why did India play a crucial role in mobilising the world opinion against apartheid?

The government of India tried to further substantiate its claim by asserting the caste issues as intra-racial and intra-cultural even while conceding the existence of discrimination. Soli Sorabjee, the then Attorney General of India, maintained that the only reason behind India’s attempt to keep caste discrimination off the agenda of Durban Conference was that “it will distract participants from the main topic: racism”. Even while conceding that caste discrimination in India is ‘undeniable’ he stressed that ‘caste and race are entirely different’.

It could very well be. After all, no two systems of social stratification in this world are absolutely similar to each other. A lot of factors, from culture to economy, intercede with the systems of stratification to produce the division of power and hierarchy in the society and make the systems, in the process, absolutely distinct from one another in internal structure. The crucial question, however, is not about their distinctiveness but their efficacy in maintaining and safeguarding social hierarchies.

Sadly, Indian caste system has proved itself to be one of the worst, if not the worst, system of social stratification for maintaining and perpetuating social hierarchies. Most probably, humankind has never devised a more comprehensive system of keeping a section of society under perpetual subjugation amidst inhuman conditions. It has never devised a worse way of dehumanising fellow human beings and reducing them to being mere labour force devoid of any dignity leave aside rights. Everything said and done, when it comes to committing atrocities on people, the caste system has proved itself to be far more clinical in brutalising its victims than race and not less.

The argument of the Indian government that caste based discrimination should not be included under the category of racial discrimination because it is making serious progress in the issue by having protective laws and positive discrimination fails miserable in the wake of data produced by its own agencies.

For example, the number of crimes against people belonging to the Scheduled Castes as per records of the National Crime Records Bureau of India, a body of ministry of Home Affairs, went up to 33615, an increase of more than 2 percent from the preceding year. Or the fact that the provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act does not get applied even in such ghoulish cases of caste based atrocities as in the killing of a Dalit family in Khairlanji while committing brutal rapes on the women speaks volumes about the seriousness of the efforts of the government

The second argument of Indian government, unfortunately backed by a few leading sociologists, was that since ‘race’ is a not a meaningful biological category in India and all attempts of profiling different castes along racial lines have fallen flat. Their claim is that even if caste is based on descent it is entirely different from race.
Even if the discrimination against the Dalits is intra-racial, the consequences for them are no less brutal than that in racism. On a more fundamental level, the lack of ‘scientific’ evidence may prove the absence of ‘race’ in India but not the absence of ‘racism’, an ideological structure based on the belief of superiority of some people because of birth and inferiority of others because of the same! And there is no doubt that this ideology is becoming stronger day by day despite all the attempts of Indian government to put an end to this ‘evil’ practice.

The seriousness of the government on the issue speaks for itself in its acts. After all, the government’s dogged opposition to the inclusion of caste based discrimination does not come out of some failure to understand the ground realities out of sheer ignorance. It reflects the mindset and the psyche of the government and the people manning it. The stand of the government emanates from that pre-modern, barbaric and regressive social structure of caste that rules the country under its democratic façade. A facade that gets exposed more often than not by the deeds of all organs of the state, including its judiciary.

It is hard to believe that even judiciary can do that but even a cursory glance on its track records bear out the fact. Be it the highly misogynist and casteist verdict in Mathura rape case ((Tukaram V. State of Maharshtra, AIR 1979 SC 185) when the Supreme Court overruled the decision of the Bombay High Court convicting two policemen for raping Mathura, a 16-year-old girl because of the fact that the girl was an ‘illiterate and orphaned tribal girl’ and was of loose character by implication to the recent verdict of Maharashtra High Court in Khairlanji massacre, the judiciary has proved itself complicit in letting the government off its responsibility of abolishing caste based discrimination.
At times, ubfortunately, it has went all the distance to be part of the perpetuators ad not only accomplices of caste discrimination. Like in the infamous and stinking observation of the trial judge in the Bhanwari Devi rape case in 1995 that because Hindu scriptures do not allow upper caste men to touch a low caste woman, the accused could not have raped the Dalit victim. This case and many others have put our constitution to shame.

And that is why, compartmentalising the issue of caste into the ‘scientific’ and ‘cultural’ aspects and then prioritising the scientific ones to assert that caste is not race is not only incorrect but in fact a deceitful attempt to violate the spirit of the constitution of India if not the letters itself, and should be fought against from within and outside.
As a matter of fact, the meaning of the term ‘descent’ has been expanded to include ‘discrimination based on caste’ ,by the general recommendation number 29, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) 1969. Indian government will do well to remember that it is a signatory to that convention along with more than 170 other countries.

It will also do well to take note of the fact that the lives of more than 165 million citizens is not a question of intellectual theorising over whether race is caste or not before putting its act together and cracking down on all forms of caste atrocities decisively. By then, it can begin with accepting that caste is a form of racial discrimination, at least of racism if not of the ‘pure’ (in the Brahiminical sense) biological category of race!

Meanwhile, lets us all support the British Dalits in safeguarding their hard won victory against the demon of caste, threatened by the right wing Hindu organisation in Britain as well as Indian government which is, reportedly, trying to arm-twist the British government into not intervening in its ‘internal’ matter. Making that absurd claim amounts to appropriating anything relating to Hindu religion as ‘internal’ and caste serious aspersions on the secular credentials of Indian state. Does Indian government want to claim that all issues concerning Hindus are its ‘internal’ issues, throwing all its secular pretensions away?

After all, caste based atrocities have long ceased to confine themselves in Indian subcontinent. If the gory facts about honour killings taking place in Britain and Canada among other places were not proof enough, the recent killing of a Sikh religious leader belong to the Ravidasi sect (a Dalit sect) in Vienna leaves no scope for doubts about the same.

We can begin by standing by the policy and reminding the Indian government not to meddle in the internal issues of Britain, as it is dealing with an issue concerning its citizens and has nothing to do with a ‘secular’ India. Further, no government can sit idle when caste issues lead to illegal confinements, abductions, forced marriages, and even killings. It is the Indian state which has failed to contain the demon of caste, leave aside killing it, and it has no right to demand the same indifference and disdain for human life from a sovereign state for such a pressing issue.

The article was first published by the Asian Human Rights Commission and The Sri Lanka Guardian.

Avinash Pandey Samar is Research Scholar, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Currently in Hong Kong working with the Asian Human Rights Commission.

Working Women Right

YouTube - VTS 01 100h10m06s 00h20m12s

Gaddar Annan" Jai Bolo Telangana (2011) Podusthunna Poddumeeda GADDAR Song - Jagapathi Babu, N Shankar, CHAKRI

Gaddar Annan: Jai Bolo Telangana

Gaddar Annan speech

Gaddar Annan speach

YouTube - TPF stand on Sri Krishna Committee Report on Telangana

YouTube - TPF stand on Sri Krishna Committee Report on Telangana

Telangana

KCR Preparing Action Plan On Gaddar

KCR Preparing Action Plan On Gaddar

Hyderabad, Oct. 11: The Telangana Rashtra Samiti chief, Mr K. Chandrasekhar Rao, has called an urgent meeting of the party’s politburo on October 13 to plan a new strategy to counter the Telangana Praja Front formed by balladeer Gaddar.
Though the TRS is relieved that Gaddar’s outfit is not going to contest elections, the party wants to ensure that there is no exodus from the TRS to the TPF.
KCR, who has refused to comment on the launch of the TPF, discussed the new outfit’s agenda with senior leaders and has decided to take steps to ensure that the TRS does not get eclipsed.
Immediately after launch of Gaddar’s TPF, the TRS chief announced that he would not hesitate to launch another fast-unto-death if the Centre fails to make a favourable announcement on Telangana. He wants the TRS to be the spearhead of the Telangana agitation.
“We have no differences with any party or group on Telangana issue and welcome everyone,” said Mr Etala Rajender, TRS floor leader.
Mr Chandrasekhar Rao has also planned to speed up the pallebata programme to counter Gaddar.
The TRS chief welcomed Congress and Praja Rajyam activists from Patancheru, Champapet and LB Nagar divisions who joined the TRS.
Meanwhile, some leaders who participated in the delegates’ meeting called by Gaddar were disappointed at his announcement that the TPF will not take part in elections.
Source :- DC

Da original Six of BP

கருஞ்சிறுத்தைகள் இயக்கத்தின் முன்னோடி நிறுவன உறுப்பினர்கள்...

November 1966, one month after founding. First 6 members - Top Left to Right: Elbert "Big Man" Howard; Huey P. Newton, Sherman Forte, Chairman, Bobby Seale. Bottom: Reggie Forte and Little Bobby Hutton.

Swami Asimananda

Tehelka - India's Independent Weekly News Magazine


The Muslim boy Kaleem pierced my conscience. I understood that love between two human beings is more powerful than the hatred between two communities’

Swami Asimananda did not just confess his terror conspiracy before a magistrate. He wrote to the President of India and the President of Pakistan, admitting his crimes and seeking penance. ASHISH KHETAN scoops the astonishing documents

Surprise reform Copies of the two letters Asimananda wrote to the President of India and the President of Pakistan PHOTO: INDIAN EXPRESS ARCHIVES

ON 16 DECEMBER, when Swami Asimananda first appeared before a Delhi Metropolitan Magistrate at Tis Hazari with a request to record his confession, the magistrate was a bit incredulous. He asked the Swami if the CBIwas threatening or coercing him into giving a confession. The Swami smiled back and replied, “You really think these cops could force me into doing something I don’t want to do? When even Atal and Advani could never dare to put pressure on me, then what chance in the world do these poor fellows have.”

‘Who are Atal and Advani?’ asked the magistrate. For a moment, he was disoriented by the names uttered with such easy, almost scornful, familiarity by this elderly, shabbily dressed man produced before him as a terror suspect.

“The former prime minister and deputy prime minister,” the Swami replied in the same measured tone.

This conversation, which TEHELKA has learned from highly placed sources, provides a rare insight into the man who was once a formidable and doctrinaire ideologue of the Rashtriya Swyamsevak Sangh and inspired both fear and awe even among senior BJP functionaries.

‘Before the criminal legal system hangs me, I want an opportunity to transform Hafiz Saeed, Mullah Omar and other jihadi terrorists,’ wrote Asimananda

In 2006, when the Swami organised the Shabri Kumbh Mela at his ashram in Dangs, Gujarat, the who’s who of the BJP and the RSS congregated to mark their presence. Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan and then RSS chief KS Sudarshan were part of the jamboree.

The Swami had devoted his life to the cause of ‘Hindutva.’ After setting up the Shabri Dham Ashram in 1997, he worked zealously at reconverting tribal Christians into Hinduism. He regularly mobilised violent mobs, attacked Christian missionaries and captured their churches. According to reports, Asimananda had forcibly occupied over two dozen churches in Dangs. At one point he had even refused to listen to the pleas of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who had reportedly asked him to refrain from violence and coercion while carrying out the anti-conversion work.

But in a curious twist of fate — and in a development that no investigative agency could ever have anticipated or imagined — this intractable zealot was profoundly transformed by a chance encounter in prison with a courteous young Muslim man, wrongly arrested and tortured for the Mecca Masjid blast — a blast, which in truth, the Swami and his co-conspirators had committed. (See TEHELKA story In the Words of a Zealot, 15 January).

Intensely moved and gripped by a desire for penance, Swami Asimananda apparently requested a confession before a magistrate. “I know I may be served a death sentence for this, but I still want to confess,” he told the magistrate. Published by TEHELKA last week, this confession, which is the first legal evidence to show the involvement of RSS pracharaks in the Malegaon 2006 and Samjhauta Express blasts, has had wideranging political and diplomatic impact. But this was not all.

IN AN astonishing gesture, apart from his confession before the magistrate, Swami Asimananda also wrote to the President of India and the President of Pakistan, admitting to his crimes and detailing the encounter with the Muslim boy that changed his heart. “Abdul Kaleem pierced my conscience,” he wrote. “After all, he had been made to suffer for my wrong work. I understood that love between two human beings is more powerful than the hatred between two communities.”

In a development no investigative agency could ever have anticipated, this intractable zealot was transformed by an encounter with a courteous Muslim man in prison

In these two letters, written in his own handwriting — copies of which are in exclusive possession of TEHELKA—the Swami then goes on to express a desire to meet Lashkar-e- Toiba chief Hafiz Saeed and Taliban leader Mullah Omar and other jihadi terrorists and urges the two presidents to help him get an “opportunity” to transform the jihadis as he himself has been transformed.

The Swami says he had taken to terrorism in retaliation to Islamist terror attacks on temples, but having realised the futility of mindless violence, he would now like to persuade terrorists like Hafiz Saeed to renounce this path as well. He requests “the good office” of the President of India to help him go to Pakistan to do this.

After TEHELKA published Asimananda’s confession last week, several Hindutva apologists asserted the confession was coerced out of him. His counsel also belatedly asserted — 20 days after the event had taken place — that the confession was false and would be retracted. But the letters to the Presidents of India and Pakistan give the lie to all that. Swami Asimananda wrote them two days after he made the confession under Section 164 of CRPC. He had given these letters on a jail visit to his brother to post. TEHELKA procured them from him. The tone and tenor of these letters exactly match his confession. However, his lawyer did not mention them last week as part of the CBI’s alleged coercion.

These letters present a fresh challenge to those who would deny all that Swami Asimananda has confessed to. TEHELKA wrote to the office of the President of India seeking a confirmation that they had received the letter. At the time of going to press, the President’s office had yet not responded.

Terror, it seems, has finally fallen prey to something mightier than it: the power of human conscience.

To THE PRESIDENT, Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi - 110001, Dec 20,2010 Madam President, 1. I am Swami Asimananda. I am the one who had organised and motivated persons to blast Samjhauta Express and other places because I was angry about jihadi attacks on Hindu temples. 2. After my arrest, when I was in jail, one Muslim boy Kaleem was very kind to me in Hyderabad. After some time, I asked him why he was inside here in jail, and he told me that he was earlier wrongly arrested and tortured by Hyderabad Police in connection with Mecca Masjid bomb blast. This pierced my conscience. It transformed me. The man who had every reason to hate me, showed me love. After all, he had been made to suffer for my wrong work. I understood that love between two human beings is more powerful than the hatred between two communities. I decided on prayaschith, and told this to CBI, when they took me in their custody. They told me that we cannot do anything about prayaschith, only court can, and so I told them to take me to the court in that case. After that, I told the judge the truth. 3. I have also addressed a letter to the Pakistan President telling him about myself and requested him to grant me an opportunity to transform or reform jihadi terrorist leaders and other jihadi footsoldiers in Pakistan (copy enclosed). 4. I request you to use your good office to help me to go there and meet these jihadi leaders and transform them or you can ask the Pakistan President to send them to me in jail. Thank You. Swami Asimananda Yours truly Chanchalaguda Central Jail WSurprise reform Hyderabad Download this letter (PDF, 4.14MB)

The President, Islamabad, Pakistan Dec 20,2010 SUB Request for chance to reform Hafiz Saeed and other terrorists in Pakistan -- re, Dear Sir, 1. I am Swami Asimananda. I am the one who had organised and motivated persons to blast Samjhauta Express and other places because I was angry about jihadi attacks on Hindu temples. 2. After my arrest, when I was in jail, one Muslim boy Kaleem was very kind to me in Hyderabad. After some time, I asked him why he was inside jail, and he told me that he was earlier wrongly arrested and tortured by Hyderabad Police in connection with Mecca Masjid Bomb blast. This pierced my conscience. It transformed me. The man who has very reason to hate me, showed me love. After all, he had been made to suffer for my work. I understood that love between two human beings is more powerful than the hatred between two communities. I decided on prayaschith and told this to the CBI when they took me in their custody. They told me that we cannot do anything about prayaschith, only court can. So, I told them to take me to the court in that case. After that, I told the judge the truth. 3. Before the criminal legal system hangs me, I want an opportunity to transform/reform Hafiz Saeed, Mullah Omar and other jihadi terrorist leaders and jihadi terrorist in Pakistan. Either you can send them to me, or you can ask the Indian government to send me to you. Yours truly Swami Asimananda Chanchalaguda Jail Hyderabad Download this letter (PDF, 4.73MB)

---

ashish.khetan@tehelka.com

Harpers Ferry & John Brown

Harpers Ferry: Courage and clarity changed history once
and will do so again...

October 16, 2009 will mark exactly 150 years since 21 brave revolutionaries
launched an attempt to seize the federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, and
spark a slave uprising in the United States.

After 36 hours of hard fighting, most of the raiders were killed or
captured. The raid failed in the military and tactical sense. In the moral and
strategic sense, it was ultimately a resounding success.

The raid and the subsequent execution of John Brown and six of his
comrades deepened the split between the North and the South, a situation
which led directly to the Civil War. Given this, it is important that we ponder
the lessons of Harpers Ferry for today.

Harpers Ferry was a signal of the impending collision of two very different
economic systems, chattel slavery in the South and the industrial system
in the North.

This split had been growing since the introduction of steam power into
small New England textile mills in the very first days of the 19th century.

When the United States was created, the representatives of the slave power
completely dominated the Union. The federal Constitution agreed to in 1787
was a compromise between the North and the South. When that Constitution
went into effect, the representatives of the slave power controlled the U.S.
House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, the presidency, and the Supreme
Court. This domination of national politics continued for decades. It led
to a stunning arrogance on the part of the political representatives of
slavery.

But once the steam engine was introduced into production, a qualitatively
new economy began to develop in the North. This economy ceased to be simply
an extension of the slave system.

As the population of the North grew, the North gained control of the U.S.
House of Representatives. Desperate for new territory to bring more slave
states into the Union, the South?s political representatives helped provoke a
war which ended with the United States seizing half of Mexico?s territory
in 1848. Then the South insisted on a Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 which
forced the entire population of the North to become what amounted to
slave-catchers. In 1854, slavery?s defenders in Congress rammed through the
Kansas-Nebraska Act, a measure which undid the previous agreement to ban
slavery in the territories north of Missouri?s southern border. And, finally, in 1857,
a Supreme Court dominated by Southerners ruled that slavery was legal
throughout the entire United States (the infamous Dred Scott decision.)

Faced with these attacks, the North struggled to assert itself, weighed
down by the terrible dead weight of the compromises made to form the Union
and by the presence within the North of economic forces allied with the South
such as the merchants who traded extensively with the slave owners.

The role of new ideas

At moments of crisis like this, an important role can be played by even a
small number of people, provided that they have the moral courage to fight
for what is right and the clarity to know what is needed to push history
forward. That is why, in the history of the struggle against slavery, a
special place of honor will always be reserved for the 21 men who attacked
Harpers Ferry and especially for their leader, John Brown.

In a time of confusion and cowardice, John Brown?s stance was unwavering:
Slavery was wrong. It would have to be abolished by force, and God had
chosen him to lead that fight.

John Brown understood that the key to ending slavery was to 'take the war
to Africa,' that is, to arm the slaves.

Activity and propaganda

The Harpers Ferry raid vividly illustrates the dialectical relationship
between activity and propaganda.

Initially, most of the North opposed the raid. But during the 60 days from
the time that the shooting stopped until the execution of John Brown, the
attitude of people in the North changed markedly.

When he was captured, Browns rifle was taken from him. The New England
essayist Henry David Thoreau remarked that Brown could afford to lose his
Sharpe's rifles, while he retained his faculty of speech, a Sharpe's rifle of
infinitely surer and longer range.?

After the shooting stopped, the country was transfixed by the spectacle of
the state of Virginia rushing with obscene haste through the trial of a
wounded old man (who lay on a cot, barely able to stand, during most of the
proceedings.)

The Virginia authorities made two serious blunders during this period.
First, they allowed reporters to interview Brown. Second, prison officials
allowed Brown to write and answer letters.

Here is how in his book, To Purge This Land With Blood: A Biography of John
Brown, historian Stephen B. Oates described the consequences of that
second decision:

[T]he old man, taking advantage of this God-sent opportunity, sent out
from that Charlestown jail some of the most eloquent statements ever to come
from the pen of a condemned man. Even the sheriff, who examined Brown?s
letters as a matter of duty, frequently had to wipe tears from his eyes.?

On Nov. 2, 1859, the judge asked Brown if he had anything to say before
sentence was pronounced. Caught off guard because he had not expected to be
sentenced before the other prisoners, Brown still responded with a defense of
his actions so eloquent that Ralph Waldo Emerson later compared it to
Lincoln?s Gettysburg Address.

Pointing out a Bible being used in the courtroom, Brown declared that
everything that he had done had been in accord with that book, and had been in
defense of God's ?despised poor.?

Dedicated propagandists speak out

In addition to Brown himself, a core of dedicated propagandists also spoke
up immediately in defense of the Harpers Ferry raid, often at great
personal risk.

On the Sunday following the raid, Boston abolitionist Wendell Phillips ?
the most dynamic public speaker of the time ? stood before an initially
unsympathetic audience in Reverend Henry Ward Beecher?s church in Brooklyn and
delivered one of the many speeches he would give defending the raid on
Harpers Ferry.

In those speeches, Phillips mocked the idea that a state government which
permitted children to be sold on auction blocks could presume to judge
anyone. He referred to Virginia contemptuously as ?a pirate ship on the ocean of
the nineteenth century? and described John Brown as ?a Lord High Admiral
of the Almighty, with his commission to sink every pirate he meets on God's
ocean.? Phillips also declared that John Brown has twice as much right
to hang Governor Wise, as Governor Wise has to hang him.?

On October 30, 1859, Thoreau gave a lecture in Concord in support of John
Brown. When town officials refused to ring the bell summoning the
townspeople to the lecture, Thoreau rang it himself.

Thoreau's address "A Plea for Captain John Brown" was widely
reprinted in the newspapers. Thoreau?s boldness encouraged his friend
Ralph Waldo Emerson -- the most prominent literary figure in the country
to speak out.

On Nov. 8, 1859, Emerson gave his lecture ?Courage? before a large crowd
at the Music Hall in Boston. Emerson called Brown "that new saint" whose
hanging will make the gallows glorious like the cross.?

On Dec. 2, 1859, as John Brown was being executed, church bells were
ringing and protest meetings being held from New England to Kansas.

So, it was only after the bold attempt to seize the arsenal that there
could be a nationwide debate over whether that action was right. But it was
that weeks-long war of words ? including the interviews, letters, speeches,
sermons, newspaper articles, and public meetings ? which turned opinion in
the North to the raiders? side, hardened Southern support for slavery, and
paved the way for the Civil War. The battle of Harpers Ferry continued after
the shooting stopped, and it was won not with the firearms of slavery?s
opponents, but with their propaganda weapons.

Lessons for today

The crisis of the Union before the Civil War demonstrates that nothing
can change in a crisis until there is a pole of clarity. This pole has to be
formed around an idea, a cause.

The Harpers Ferry raid also shows that a cause has to be taken to the
section of society whose interests the cause represents in order for it to be
effective.

One hundred and fifty years after the attack on Harpers Ferry, we too need
to establish a pole of clarity. Just as John Brown and his compatriots took
an uncompromising stand that a system which sold children on auction
blocks had to be overthrown, revolutionaries today need to take an
uncompromising stand that a system which makes millions of children hungry
and homeless needs to be overthrown.

John Brown's last act of propaganda was to march up the steps of a scaffold
on a spring-like December morning, his brisk footsteps and unflinching
firmness announcing to the world that he was ready to die, undaunted and
unafraid. Today, we toll the bell in his honor best by continuing to bring the
weapon of clarity to the 'despised poor' that he and the other heroes of
1859 fought so valiantly to mobilize.
_________________________________


September.2009.Vol20.Ed5 This article originated in Rally,
P.O.Box 477113 Chicago, IL 60647
Free to reproduce unless otherwise marked.
Please include this message with any reproduction.

Justice for Aasia Bibi

STATEMENT FROM NEW SOCIALIST INITIATIVE (NSI), DELHI

Justice for Aasia Bibi; Speedy Trial of Salman Taseer's Killers

History is said to be made when humanity has tried to break asunder forces of unreason, irrationality, bigotry, intolerance and reaction which keep reappearing in newer forms in its onward journey. But what can one say when it tries to do the exact opposite, or prefer to go back on the path undertaken.

Pakistan, a country of 170 millions, stands at a similar juncture today.

A woman has been sentenced to death, for the first time in Pakistan’s sixty year old history, for an alleged act of blasphemy against Islam, an act which itself abhors modern sensibilities. All attempts by justice loving persons in Pakistan to stop the impending execution of this agricultural labourer, Aasia Bibi, who is a mother of five children and belongs to Christian minority community, seems to have reached a dead end. Whether she would ever be able to get glimpses of the outside world, free from the shackles which bind her today, remains uncertain. The story of her conviction under the infamous blasphemy law has been told umpteen times. We know how her troubles started when she had a fight with her fellow workers on some petty issue which culminated in their charging her under this law. She has been languishing in jail for around one and a half year now.

Under this law, which was introduced under the Zia Ul Haque regime in mid-eighties, anyone can be charged claiming that s/he showed disrespect towards founder of Islam or Quranic scriptures. Although nobody has faced judicial execution under this law till date, many have been killed by reactionary forces after their acquittal by the court. The act has been freely used to terrorise minorities or used to settle personal scores. Recently one Doctor Naushad had to spend few days behind bars as he had an argument with a medical representative and had thrown the said persons visiting card on the ground. The representative, whose first name happened to be Mohammad, went to the police and got the innocent man arrested under this law.

It is to the credit of the vibrancy of the civil society and presence of liberal voices in Pakistan that they not only opposed the judicial verdict in Aasia Bibi's case but also demanded that the infamous law is either repealed or amended. Sherry Rehman, a former minister in the Cabinet has even moved a bill in the senate to that effect. Apart from sporadic protests and demonstrations there was a large meeting of civil society groups and political formations in December where they had planned joint actions in this month for its repeal / revision. As things stand today, these efforts to save Aasia Bibi’s life and seek repeal/revisions in the controversial law have received a tremendous setback with the assassination of Salman Taseer, the Governor of Punjab Province, Pakistan, scion of the progressive intellectual/activist Dr M.O. Taseer and nephew of one of the legendary voices in this part of South Asia, Faiz Ahmad Faiz.

Salman Taseer had felt perturbed over the judicial verdict in Aasia Bibi's case and had even demanded that she be immediately freed. To show his solidarity with the hapless woman, he even personally went to meet her in jail with his wife and daughter and even demanded repeal of the law.

There is no denying the fact with growing belligerence of the fundamentalist forces in Pakistan, with few of the Mullahs even declaring Salman Taseer Wajib Ul Katl (worth to be killed) over his stand on the blasphemy law, few from the ruling dispensation gathered courage to support him. Despite his growing isolation within the party he refused to budge from his voice of conscience.

As already mentioned Pakistan stands at very crucial juncture in its journey. The manner in which his killer Malik Qadri was declared a 'Gazi of Islam' (warrior for Islam) by some fundoos or the jubilation which awaited him when he was presented in the Islamabad court, with someone from the crowd even showering rose petals on him, just goes to show growing hold of extremism in the society.

The only silver lining to the otherwise grim scenario in Pakistan is that voices of sanity, voices of tolerance, voices of reason and protest have not given up their fight; they have held candlelight marches, organised rallies in different parts of Pakistan in memory of Salman Taseer, and declared their solidarity towards the cause celibre for which he faced martyrdom.

The developments in Pakistan have been witnessed with glee by Talibans of a different kind, namely the Hindutva Supremacists in India, which have similarly tried to pursue their very own agenda of majoritarianism. As the maxim goes, reactionaries / bigots grow together, any turn towards further Talibanisation of Pakistan would further augment the strength of these fanatics here in India. We should not forget that the ascendance of these forces in India at the fag end of 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century was also the period when for the first time in Pakistan's history fundamentalist forces gained dominant position even at electoral level in two of its states.

Question naturally arises what needs to be done in this case?

It is of utmost importance at this juncture to declare our unconditional, unflinching support to voices of sanity, voices of tolerance in Pakistan. We should not forget that after Salman Taseer's assassination, Sherry Rehman is on their target and her life is in imminent danger.

We, at the New Socialist Initiative, sincerely feel that it may well be a very symbolic move but:

It is time to raise our voice for justice to Aasia Bibi.

It is time to demand that the infamous blasphemy law be repealed.

It is time to ask for speedy trial in the assassination of Salman Taseer and also bring to justice all those people who helped the killer Qadri.

Perhaps Martin Luther King' exhortation to the ordinary populace in one of his famous speeches is worth quoting here :

There comes a time comes when silence is betrayal… History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.

In Solidarity with progressive voices of freedom, justice and equality of Pakistan,

New Socialist Initiative, Delhi Chapter.

Just thinking on a daily basis… | Just thinking

Just thinking on a daily basis… | Just thinking

Reforming the Hindus: Guha R

The Hindu : Reforming the Hindus

Reforming the Hindus RAMACHANDRA GUHA By contrast, the Nehru Ambedkar relationship has been consigned to obscurity. THREE men did most to make Hinduism a modern faith. Of these the first was not recognised as a Hindu by the Shankaracharyas; the second was not recognised as a Hindu by himself; the third was born a Hindu but made certain he would not die as one. These three great reformers were Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and B.R. Ambedkar. Gandhi and Nehru, working together, helped Hindus make their peace with modern ideas of democracy and secularism. Gandhi and Ambedkar, working by contrasting methods and in opposition to one another, made Hindus recognise the evils and horrors of the system of untouchability. Nehru and Ambedkar, working sometimes together, sometimes separately, forced Hindus to grant, in law if not always in practice, equal rights to their women. The Gandhi-Nehru relationship has been the subject of countless books down the years. Books on the Congress, which document how these two made the party the principal vehicle of Indian nationalism; books on Gandhi, which have to deal necessarily with the man he chose to succeed him; books on Nehru, which pay proper respect to the man who influenced him more than anyone else. Books too numerous to mention, among which I might be allowed to single out, as being worthy of special mention, Sarvepalli Gopal's Jawaharlal Nehru, B.R. Nanda's Mahatma Gandhi, and Rajmohan Gandhi's The Good Boatman. In recent years, the Gandhi-Ambedkar relationship has also attracted a fair share of attention. Some of this has been polemical and even petty; as in Arun Shourie's Worshipping False Gods (which is deeply unfair to Ambedkar), and Jabbar Patel's film "Ambedkar" (which is inexplicably hostile to Gandhi). But there have also been some sensitive studies of the troubled relationship between the upper caste Hindu who abhorred Untouchability and the greatest of Dalit reformers. These include, on the political side, the essays of Eleanor Zelliott and Denis Dalton; and on the moral and psychological side, D.R. Nagaraj's brilliant little book The Flaming Feet. By contrast, the Nehru-Ambedkar relationship has been consigned to obscurity. There is no book about it, nor, to my knowledge, even a decent scholarly article. That is a pity, because for several crucial years they worked together in the Government of India, as Prime Minister and Law Minister respectively. Weeks before India became independent, Nehru asked Ambedkar to join his Cabinet. This was apparently done at the instance of Gandhi, who thought that since freedom had come to India, rather than to the Congress, outstanding men of other political persuasions should also be asked to serve in Government. (Thus, apart from Ambedkar, the Tamil businessman R.K. Shanmukham Chetty, likewise a lifelong critic of the Congress, was made a member of the Cabinet, Finance Minister, no less.) Ambedkar's work on the Constitution is well known. Less well known are his labours on the reform of Hindu personal laws. Basing himself on a draft prepared by Sir B. N. Rau, Ambedkar sought to bring the varying interpretations and traditions of Hindu law into a single unified code. But this act of codification was also an act of radical reform, by which the distinctions of caste were made irrelevant, and the rights of women greatly enhanced. Those who want to explore the details of these changes are directed to Mulla's massive Principles of Hindu Law (now in its 18th edition), or to the works of the leading authority on the subject, Professor J.D.M. Derrett. For our purposes, it is enough to summarise the major changes as follows; (1) For the first time, the widow and daughter were awarded the same share of property as the son; (2) for the first time, women were allowed to divorce a cruel or negligent husband; (3) for the first time, the husband was prohibited from taking a second wife; (4) for the first time, a man and woman of different castes could be married under Hindu law; (5) for the first time, a Hindu couple could adopt a child of a different caste. These were truly revolutionary changes, which raised a storm of protest among the orthodox. As Professor Derrett remarked, "every argument that could be mustered against the protest was garnered, including many that cancelled each other out". Thus "the offer of divorce to all oppressed spouses became the chief target of attack, and the cry that religion was in danger was raised by many whose real objection to the Bill was that daughters were to have equal shares with sons, a proposition that aroused (curiously) fiercer jealousy among certain commercial than among agricultural classes". In the vanguard of the opposition was the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). In a single year, 1949, the RSS organised as many as 79 meetings in Delhi where effigies of Nehru and Ambedkar were burnt, and where the new Bill was denounced as an attack on Hindu culture and tradition. A major leader of the movement against the new Bill was a certain Swami Karpatri. In speeches in Delhi and elsewhere, he challenged Ambedkar to a public debate on the new Code. To the Law Minister's claim that the Shastras did not really favour polygamy, Swami Karpatri quoted Yagnavalkya: "If the wife is a habitual drunkard, a confirmed invalid, a cunning, a barren or a spendthrift woman, if she is bitter-tongued, if she has got only daughters and no son, if she hates her husband, (then) the husband can marry a second wife even while the first is living." The Swami supplied the precise citation for this injunction: the third verse of the third chapter of the third section of Yagnavalkya's Smriti on marriage. He did not however tell us whether the injunction also allowed the wife to take another husband if the existing one was a drunkard, bitter-tongued, a spendthrift, etc. But there were also some respectable opponents of the new Code, who included Rajendra Prasad, who in January 1950 became the President of India. In 1950 and 1951 several attempts were made to get the Bill passed. However, the opposition was so intense that it had to be dropped. Ambedkar resigned from the Cabinet in disgust, saying that Nehru had not the "earnestness and determination" required to back the Bill through to the end. In truth, Nehru was waiting for the first General Elections. When these gave him and the Congress a popular mandate, he re-introduced the new Code, not as a single Bill but as several separate ones dealing with Marriage and Divorce, Succession, Adoption, etc. Nehru actively canvassed for these reforms, making several major speeches in Parliament and bringing his fellow Congressmen to his side. In 1955 and 1956 these various Bills passed into law. Soon afterwards Ambedkar died. Speaking in the Lok Sabha, Nehru remarked that he would be remembered above all "as a symbol of the revolt against all the oppressive features of Hindu society". But Ambedkar, said Nehru, "will be remembered also for the great interest he took and the trouble he took over the question of Hindu law reform. I am happy that he saw that reform in a very large measure carried out, perhaps not in the form of that monumental tome that he had himself drafted, but in separate bits". As I have said, by the strict canons of orthodoxy, Gandhi and Nehru were lapsed Hindus; Ambedkar no Hindu at all. Yet, by force of conviction and strength of character, they did more good to Hindus and Hinduism than those who claimed to be the true defenders of the faith. Ramachandra Guha is a historian and writer based in Bangalore. Date:18/07/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/mag/2004/07/18/stories/2004071800120300.htm

Swami Aseemanand's Confessions: Its Time For An Apology By Jamia Teachers' Solidarity Association

Swami Aseemanand's Confessions: Its Time For An Apology By Jamia Teachers' Solidarity Association

Will RSS be banned for a fourth time? - India - DNA

Will RSS be banned for a fourth time?

DNA / Anil Anand / Saturday, January 8, 2011 1:20 IST

After Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leader Swami Aseemanand allegedly confessed before a magistrate that he and other Hindu leaders - Indresh Kumar, Pragya Singh and Sunil Joshi - were involved in the Samjhauta Express and other bombings at Muslim religious places, Congress demanded “strict action” against the outfit on Friday.

Stating that the confession exposed the “terror face” of RSS, party spokesman Shakeel Ahmed said the “government must act and take firm action against such organisations”.

He, however, skirted a direct reply when asked if RSS should be banned. The outfit has been banned thrice in the past for various reasons.

“Reports about Aseemanand’s confession have appeared in the media. This Sanghi terrorism poses a big threat to the country,” Ahmed said.

Aseemanand, who worked for Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram in Dangs, Gujarat, reportedly confessed to involvement in the Samjhauta Express blast that killed 68 people, mostly Pakistanis. The swami has been quoted as saying, “I told everyone that bomb must be responded with a bomb.”

The statement made under section 164 before a magistrate will be considered key evidence.

Interestingly, the Samjhauta blast is being probed by National Investigating Agency, while Aseemanand made the confession to CBI which is interrogating him for involvement in some other cases.

Gaddar calls for non-cooperation movement

Gaddar calls for non-cooperation movement

Thursday, 06 January 2011 18:39

Telangana Praja Front (TPF) chairman and revolutionary balladeer Mr Gaddar today expressed disappointment over the report of the Justice Sri Krishna Committee and said the report would provoke more hatred among the three regions of the state. He asked people to launch a non-cooperation movement to put pressure on the government for achieving Telangana. Describing the all party meeting convened by Chidambaram as a wasteful exercise, Gaddar called upon people to continue the agitation for achieving Telangana in a peaceful manner. “Let us launch a peaceful non-cooperation movement to achieve our aim,” he said in a media conference in Hyderabad. Hundreds of people have sacrificed their lives for the sake of Telangana but the all party meeting convened by Chidambaram has arranged a funeral for the demand of separate state of Telangana, he alleged and said only a concrete agitation could bring out the Telangana state. “We are only seeking our land and our water but they are denied to us,” he lamented. Comments Add New Search Write comment Name: Email: do not notifynotify Website: Title: UBBCode: -color-aquablackbluefuchsiagraygreenlimemaroonnavyolivepurpleredsilvertealwhiteyellow -size-tinysmallmediumlargehuge Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image. Powered by !JoomlaComment 3.26 3.26 Copyright (C) 2008 Compojoom.com / Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."