Taslima Attacked as She Asserts:Come what may, I will never be silenced
Hyderabad Event is the logical result of the policies adopted by Indian statepower banning her books and then, rejecting her legitimate pleas for Indian Citizenship!
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551Email: palashbiswaskl@gmail.comhttp://ibnlive.com/videos/46513/andhra-mlas-lead-mob-attack-on-taslima.html
Friends, it is not so shocking that protesters attacked Taslima Nasrin.It is more shocking that the brahminical classses in India, posing as Intellectual and democratic, provoke fundamentalism just to enhance more strngth to their equation of Enslavement eternal and supremacy in the divided geopolitics. Hyderabad Event is the logical result of the policies adopted by Indian statepower banning her books and then, rejecting her legitimate pleas for Indian Citizenship!
Indian protesters manhandle exiled Bangladeshi Muslim writer Taslima Nasrin Angry Muslim protesters on Thursday manhandled exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin while she was attending the release of her book in southern India and asked her to go back to her country. Nasrin escaped unhurt as organizers shielded her from nearly 100 protesters, led by three local lawmakers, in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad. In the melee, one of the protesters slapped her, according to eyewitnesses.
An uneasy-looking Nasreen backed into a corner as several middle-aged men threw a leather case, bunches of flowers and other objects at her head and threatened her with a chair, according to a Reuters witness and television pictures.Taslima Nasreen who has applied for an Indian citizenship, later said the incident had not shaken her belief in this country and its democracy.
''I believe in democracy.I hope to live safe in this country as a democrat.
''The people who attacked me are a minority .I got support and sympathy from majority of people. I thank them,'' she said while speaking to NDTV.
Another guest, journalist Innaih Narisetti was injured in the attack.
Meanwhile I&B Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi has condemned the incident.
''It's a very shameful thing if any person is attacked. We criticise this incident in the strongest of terms,'' he said.
Since the 1990s, Nasreen has faced numerous threats from Islamic groups for her writings.
She has been living in exile for more than ten years now.
Some of the mob shouted for her death.
Some radical Muslims hate Nasreen for saying Islam and other religions oppress women.On Thursday, lawmakers and members of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen party attacked her at the press club in Hyderabad at the launch of a Telugu translation of one of her novels.Other men tried to shield her and catch the projectiles. She ended up with a bruised forehead, and described the attack as barbaric before being taken to safety by police.
'If any religion allows the persecution of the people of different faiths, if any religion keeps women in slavery, if any religion keeps people in ignorance, then I can't accept that religion.'
'Humankind is facing an uncertain future. The probability of new kinds of rivalry and conflict looms large. In particular, the conflict is between two different ideas, secularism and fundamentalism. I don't agree with those who think the conflict is between two religions, namely Christianity and Islam, or Judaism and Islam. After all there are fundamentalists in every religious community. I don't agree with those people who think that the crusades of the Middle Ages are going to be repeated soon. Nor do I think that this is a conflict between the East and the West. To me, this conflict is basically between modern, rational, logical thinking and irrational, blind faith. To me, this is a conflict between modernity and anti-modernism. While some strive to go forward, others strive to go backward. It is a conflict between the future and the past, between innovation and tradition, between those who value freedom and those who do not.'
'Freedom of expression for some is not enough.We must work for freedom of expression for all.Human rights for some is not enough.We must work for the human rights for all. Peace for some is not enough.We must work for peace for all.I, come what may, will not be silenced.Come what may, I will continue my fight for equality and justice without any compromise until my death.Come what may, I will never be silenced.'
Official Home Page of Taslima NasrinArticles About Taslima ... TASLIMA NASRIN'S WEBSITE. Taslima, a physician, a writer, a radical feminist, human rights activist and a secular humanist. ... http://taslimanasrin.com/index2.html
About 12 million people, Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus, fled for their lives during partition. Almost a million died. Entire trainloads of dead bodies crossed the border in both directions. We suffer fro dimentia as we ignore the plight of the victims of partition! We are proud of India`s role in Bangladesh Liberation and boast to bear the buredn of continuous refugee influx, but the Ruling classes never accept the responsibility of partition. rather they deprive the partition victim resettled bengali dalit refugees of Citizenship, human rights, mother tongue, reservation and civil rights!
In 1931, Winston Churchill had warned that if the British left India, majority Hindus would gain "the armed ascendancy", public services would collapse and the country would fall back rapidly "into the barbarism and privations of the Middle Ages".
And yet, 60 years later, despite the violent orgy of its birth, India has survived and even begun to prosper, as the world's largest democracy and a broadly secular state. Now , the daughter of Lord and Lady mountbatten teaches us the partition history highlighting the Romance of Nehru and Lady Mountbatten. She, though, exposes the Truth that Gandhi was kept in Dark and Muslim League as well as The Secular Congress also ensured that Power must be handed over the Brahminical system accross the border!
It is shocking! We must stand united to cpndemn this fascist attack.As I know the person, named Taslima Nasrin, she is not going to be scared. She would not stop writing or change her clearcut stand against Religion whatsoever it may be. She is an athiest. She considers religion the base of persecution of Woman, Dalits, Tribals and underprevileged including black. She holds the opinion that until the Religion is not wiped out, human and civil rights stand irrelevant!I had an opportunity to interview taslima nasrin some years back when she visited Kolkata from france. Now she is staying in Kolkata with extended VISA and government of India is rejecting her plea for Indian Citizenship for so many years to appease Muslim Vote Bank. West Bengal goverment also banned her book and promoted the fundamental forces in opposition. As the Left vote bank consists of enblock Muslim support!I never thought that Taslim wrote naything classical in comparison to other bangladeshi or bengali writers. But she dared to challange the Brahminical system accross the border holding state power and supremacy in everysphere of life. She voiced the Universal woman. she was the first bangladeshi writer to highlight Minority Persecution with her banned Novel, LAJJA! Though I never considered this novel any worth of it as it fails to highlight the democratic and secular movement in and within Bangladesh.As the so called mainstream Bengali literature accross the border has turned into prostitution, I don`t hold taslima alone responsible for the softporn, a regular imput in her writing.We, the Indian writers and intellectual in general, always have supported her fight for the liberty of expression!What she writes on religion and society, may be very very controversial, but these elements have deeprooted base in the system itself. The Reality! And she is exposing the rot with her falavour and style.
I always disliked this style, not the content! Her commercialisation of art and literature made me detached with all afairs relating Taslima Nasrin. Neverthe less, the issues remain. The plight of minorities in Bangladesh with continuous refugee influx go on and go on! Her questions on Woman Lib always remain very genuine. We may not deny if we are honest enough.
The democratic system always allows dissent, discussion, diolgue! What kind of Democracy is this that the system rather provokes an attack on a writer?
Political analysts feel this is attack has been planned given that Assembly elections are scheduled in a few months time, while Sajan George, National president of the Global Council of Indian Christians said: "It is a shame because this is not the way to treat a guest and it is also an attack on a women. We should hang our heads in shame at this treatment meted out to her. India in her 60th year of Independence prided herself that she has a woman President, which we hoped heralded improved status and treatment for our women. India is a secular democracy. Does India believe in Secular traditions? In a democracy we are ensured our freedom of speech and expression. There is a climate of intolerance gaining ground in the country and especially in Andhra Pradesh".
The author, who lives in Kolkata, now describes herself as a secular humanist, and criticises religion as an oppressive force.
In 2004, a Muslim cleric offered a $440 reward to anyone who was able to successfully humiliate Nasreen by blackening her face with shoe polish or ink or by garlanding her with shoes.
She worked as a doctor before turning to writing, and several of her books have been banned in India and Bangladesh because they upset hardline Muslims.
The European Parliament awarded her the Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought in 1994.
Nasrin fled Bangladesh in 1994 when Islamic extremists threatened to kill her after an Indian newspaper quoted her as saying changes must be made to the Islamic holy book, the Quran, to give women more rights.
The protesters, belonging to the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, a political party in Andhra Pradesh state, burst into the local Press Club on Thursday shouting slogans describing her as "anti-Muslim" and "anti-Islam." They ransacked the venue, throwing chairs in the air and overturning the tables. Nasrin came to Hyderabad to attend the release of her book "Shodh" (Getting Even) in the local Telugu language. The writer faces death threats from Islamic hard-liners at home.
Taslima nasrinBirth : 25th. August. 1962 Place of birth : Mymensigh, Bangladesh.Education : MBBS , 1984Work : as a doctor in different public hospitals including Mitford and Dhaka Medical College Hospital (1986-1993)
Quit : Quit job in 1993 as a protest of government's decisions. Government confiscated passport and asked to stop writing.
Fatwa : The price was set for Taslima Nasreen's head by Bangladeshi Muslim Fundamentalists in 1993 and 1994.
Court cases : Trials are still going on for Blasphemy against Taslima Nasreen in Bangladesh court. One case was filed by Bangladesh Government.
Exile: Taslima Nasreen has been living in exile for 5 years. She lived in Sweden, Germany and United States. Now she is living in France. In Defence of Taslima Nasreen
View Current Signatures - Sign the Petition
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To: Indian Government We, the undersigned, are writing to register our strongest protest at yet more death threats made against writer, humanist, secularist and human rights activist Taslima Nasreen. This time, Taqi Raza Khan the president of an Islamic group, the All-India Ibtehad Council, has offered a bounty of about ?8,000 for her beheading. This and other clear threats to her life require that the Indian government bring the full force of the law to bear on him and those who threaten and incite murder and terror.
Taqi Raza Khan has warned the Indian government that if she is not driven out of India within ten days ?all hell will break loose?. In fact, it is the other way around.
Taslima has every right to freely express her views on Islam and Sharia law and in favour of women?s rights and equality. The Indian government is duty bound to protect her from these threats and grant her the citizenship she requires so that she may live without fear of expulsion.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
View Current Signatures
http://www.petitiononline.com/taslima/petition.htmlNasreen - sometimes spelled "Nasrin" - was born into a Muslim family in Bangladesh, a conservative, predominantly Islamic country.
Taslima NasrinFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, searchTaslima NasrinTaslima Nasrin (Bangla: ?????? ??????), also known as Taslima Nasreen, (born 25 August 1962 in Mymensingh, Bangladesh) is a Bengali Bangladeshi physician, author, feminist human rights activist and secular humanist. She was awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 1994 , and a Humanist Award (from the International Humanist and Ethical Union) in 1996 . Since 1993 , Nasrin has faced numerous death threats from Islamic fundamentalists. Recently, in March 2007, an Indian Muslim group offered a bounty of 500,000 rupees for her beheading.[1] A former Muslim, Nasrin says she has become an atheist.[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taslima_Nasrin
My attackers are minority, majority is with me: Taslima
New Delhi: Controversial exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, who was attacked by Muslim activists in Hyderabad on Thursday, said that she believed in democracy and hoped to live safely in this country.
" I believe in democracy. I hope to live safely in this country as a democrat. The people who attacked me are in a minority. I get support and sympathy from a majority of people. I thank them," she said.
Speaking about the incident, Nasreen, who was being escorted by police, said the MIM activists stormed in and started abusing her for her writing.
She said the protestors attempted to throw a chair at her and she could have been seriously injured had those present not rushed her to an adjacent room.
"I was rescued by police who escorted me to the airport," she said.
Several of Taslima's books have been banned, both in Bangladesh and in West Bengal.
The following books in the People's Republic of Bangladesh have been banned. Therefore, people in that people's republic are not allowed to read these books. If you click on the book cover of Amar Meyebela, below, you can download it in Bengali. Even in India it has been partly censored, Now, wherever you are you can read the entirely uncensored version of the book.
1. Lajja 1993 Lajja(Shame)
Lajja is banned by the Government of Bangladesh
2.Amar Meyebela 1999 Amar Meyebela (My girlhood)
Banned by the Government of Bangladesh
"Bangladesh bans new Taslima book," BBC News, 13 August 1999
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina declared Amar Meyebela pornography
"L'ffaire Taslima Nareen ou la parole à la Censeure," 1 October 1999
3.Utal Hawa 2002 utal hawa(Gusty Wind)
Utal Hawa is banned by the Government of Bangladesh
Book Bans
Bangladesh Bans Third Taslima Book BBC news, 27 August 2002Book banned for attack on Islam
Utal Hawa banned
Taslima's new book also goes Lajja wayBook Banned"Nasreen contre l'islam" 31 August 20
Ko (Speak up) 4. Ko 2003
Ko is banned by the High Court of Bangladesh.
Suit against Taslima Nasreen
Injunction on selling of Taslima's book
Ko ( ka) is banned
Taslima's Ka erupts sexual controversy
Split wide closed
Book banned at behest of Islamic bigots
Taslima's opinion
dwikhandita (split in two)
5. Dwikhandita 2003
The book was banned by the 'Communist' Government of West Bengal of India on the charges of hurting religious feelings of the people. The book was also banned by the High Court of West Bengal.
Ban on Taslima's Dwikhandita
Ban On Dwikhandita Justified
Dwikhandita banned
Hypocrisy split wide open
Protest book ban
Ban on Taslima
Bengal Bans Taslima's book
Brickbats for Ban
WB Govt Bans Taslima's Book
Banning Taslima's Book
Opinions
Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen releases her latest book at Kolkata Book Fair.(28k, 56k)
sei sob ondhokar (Those dark days)
6. Sei Sob Ondhokar 2004
Banned by the Government of Bangladesh
The fourth part of the autobiography was banned on the 20th of February, one day before Language Day, a big national day for Bengali language and literature. No one protested the ban, according to several news sources:
Another Taslima Book Banned Daily Star, 20 February 2004
Book banned at behest of Islamic bigots
Pak Tribune News
Taslima Nasrin's column
Articles:
No Progress Without a Secular Society
Religion is the best way to fool the poor
Why I am a Secular Humanist
Ending Silence
Banned Books (Bangla):
Dwikhandita
Amar Meyebela
Book Review by Taslima Nasrin:
Why I am not A Muslim
Bangla Articles of/on Taslima:
"Outlawed" Taslima - A few words to ponder Manish Paul
Taslima Nasreen: The fine line between Private and Public Maqsoodul Haque (Mac)
1.Sayed Shamsul Haq wins the first round 2. Taslima Nasrin faces Sayed Haq Dr. Ajoy Roy
A Statement from Mukto-mona : Stop Muzzling Taslima Nasrin a la Bangladeshi style
Bangladesh's judiciary proved it again that they are not free. Mukto-Mona, an assembly of freethinkers mostly from Bangalee descent in the Internet, strongly denounces the recent verdict of an obscure court located in the backwater of Bangladesh vis-à-vis the feminist writer Ms. Taslima Nasrin. The suddenness of the court verdict surprised most freedom-loving Bangalees. And worst of all, no attorney had represented Ms. Taslima Nasrin at the court. Therefore, it was a one-sided affair. ... (Read more)http://www.mukto-mona.com/Articles/taslima/index.htm
Taslima's other books are not so easy to find in the bookshops in Bangladesh. The once best-selling author's works are now taboo in her own country.
Indo-Bangladeshi relationsFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia(Redirected from India-Bangladesh relations)Jump to: navigation, searchDuring the partition of India after independence in 1947, the Bengal region was divided into two territories: East Bengal (present-day Bangladesh) and West Bengal. East Bengal was made a part of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan due its overwhelmingly large Muslim population (then more than 85%). In 1955, the government of Pakistan changed its name from East Bengal to East Pakistan.
However confrontations between East and West Pakistan started soon after. In 1948, Jinnah declared that only Urdu would be the official language of the entire nation while more than 95% of the population in East Pakistan spoke Bengali. When protests broke out in East Pakistan on February 21, 1952, Pakistani police fired on the protestors, killing hundreds of people. East Pakistan was also given an inferior treatment by the federal government of Pakistan (situated in West Pakistan) and small funds were allocated for the development of the region, despite of it being significant contributor in the revenue generation. Therefore, a separatist movement started to grow in present day Bangladesh. When in 1970 elections, the main separatist party, the Awami League, headed by Mujibur Rehman won 167 of the 169 seats and got the right to form the government, the President of Pakistan under Yahya Khan refused to recognize the elections and arrested Mujibur Rehman. This led to widespread protests in East Pakistan and in 1971, the Bangladesh Liberation War started.
India under then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi fully supported the cause of the Bangladeshis and its troops and equipment were used to fight the Pakistani forces. India also provided support and training to the main Bangladeshi guerilla force, the Mukti Bahini. Finally, on 26 March 1971, Bangladesh emerged as an independent state. Since then, there have been several issues of agreement as well as of contention between two India and Bangladesh.
[edit] Areas of agreementIndia, because of its central role in the independence of Bangladesh initially had very cordial relations with the country. India was also the first country to recognize Bangladesh as an independent nation. It also had a sense of obligation and thankfulness towards India[citation needed]. Both India and Bangladesh acknowledge the genocide of Bengalis perpetrated by Pakistan in the 1971 Bangladesh atrocities. Moreover, Bangladesh was faced with an economic crisis after independence and its population was 8th largest in the world at that time. India gave large amounts of aid to Bangladesh and thousands of Bangladeshi refugees immigrated to India.[citation needed] Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s first foreign visit as Prime Minister was to India and it was then decided Indo-Bangladesh relations would be guided by principles of democracy, socialism, nonalignment and opposition to colonialism and racism. Indira Gandhi too visited Bangladesh in 1972 and assured that India would never interfere in the internal affairs of the country. In 1972, both the countries signed a 'Treaty of Friendship and Peace'. An Indo-Bangladesh Trade Pact was also signed.
[edit] Areas of disputeA major bone of contention has been the construction of the Farakkha Barrage by India to increase water supply in the Hoogli river. Bangladesh contends that it does not receive a fair share of the Ganga waters. Bangladesh considers it to be a violation of the international convention that prohibits unilateral withdrawal of water from an international water body. There have also been disputes regarding the transfer of Teen Bigha Corridor to Bangladesh. It is an area of Bangladesh in West Bengal which is surrounded by Indian land. After Bangladesh's independence, several enclaves were exchanged between the then government of India and Bangladesh. As Bangladesh's newly received enclaves were inside Indian territory, the agreement included giving Bangladesh a small piece of land, the Teen Bigha Corridor, to connect the mainland with the encalves in exchange of a token of 1 Taka. After the exchange of the enclaves took place, the Teen Bigha Corridor was not handed over to Bangladesh until decades later when it was formally leased to bangladesh on June 26, 1992. There is ongoing claims by the Indian authorities regarding use of this land by anti-India forces and illegal immigrants to cross over into India which Bangladesh denies. Another issue which continues to be a major part of Indian politics is the issue of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in India, especially in nearby states like West Bengal, Assam and Tripura. India allege that continued illegal immigration changed in the border area demography of India resulting in ethnic imbalance, electoral irregularity and loss of employment opportunities. The rise of Islamic fundamentalist forces in Pakistan and use of these forces by Inter-Services Intelligence to carry out anti-India activates has also aggravated India. India complains that ISI is using Bangladesh to carry out terrorists operations in India and blames Bangladeshi government of not doing enough to prevent such activities.
CPM has left W. Bengal in the throes of turmoilBy Prafull Goradia
Unlike the Punjab in the early years of Partition, there was very little of a population exchange in Bengal. It was a one way traffic which has made the state also over populated, one of the compulsions of which is a shift from agriculture to manufacture. More than one out of every four Bengalis being Muslim, Jamiat-e-Ulema is likely to have a large following in its endeavour to resist the setting up of large factories.
Bengal is getting in the throes of turmoil. On this side of the border, there is a struggle to prevent the industrialisation of the state. Nandigram is only the first symptom of the resistance. Uncannily, although Singur was a similar issue, the impact did not go far. Was it not because the Jamiat-e-Ulma-e-Hind led by Janab Siddiquallah Chowdhury did not have a popular base in that area? Whereas Nandigram is a majority area for him. Incensed by the Marxist contempt towards religion, Chief Minister Bhattacharjee is unable to empathise with the compulsions of Islam. Prophet Mohammed wanted his followers to achieve a majority in the world’s population by doomsday. In order to fulfill this wish, procreation must be prolific which in turn needs an obedient womanhood; preferably uneducated and unquestioning. Such a woman cannot appreciate the value of education for her children. Without secular studies, the offspring cannot grow up to compete for modern jobs. Hence industrialisation is undesirable for Islam. Not all the oil wealth of Arabia and Iran has been able to fuel any great manufacture in West Asia.
Remarkably Bangladesh has also remained substantially without large industries. In the first flush of Partition, a number of jute mills were set up to process all the golden jute that Dhaka and Narayanganj districts produced. For a country with a severely adverse land man ratio, industrialisation should have been a continual process. Perhaps the popularity of Islam has been a significant stumbling block. It is to be seen what kind of government will emerge from the current crisis created by the military takeover. But Islam will continue to be the state religion. So far Bangladesh, and it’s predecessor East Pakistan has, either pushed out Hindu refugees or sent out Muslim infiltrators. West Bengal has been unfortunate in being at the receiving end of both the inflows.
Unlike the Punjab in the early years of Partition, there was very little of a population exchange in Bengal. It was a one-way traffic that has made the state also over populated, one of the compulsions of which is a shift from agriculture to manufacture. More than one out of every four Bengalis being Muslim, Jamiat-e-Ulema is likely to have a large following in its endeavour to resist the setting up of large factories.
Chowdhury means business; he has gone to the extent of declaring that the CPM is anti-Muslim behind the veneer of secularism. Shri Narendra Modi has given more rights to Muslims than Bhattacharjee in Bengal. Muslims are by far safer in Gujarat where they enjoy more rights and privileges. What is the future Chief Minister Bhattacharya’s dream of industrialisation a la China? His dream is not unrealistic; his State was the Ruhr of India at the time of Independence. The two Bengals juxtaposed make an interesting paradox. One side with 90 per cent Muslims who are happy to be agrarian and the other side with 75 per cent Hindus raring to modernise. In the absence of progress, the cream of Bengal talent is emigrating to other parts of India as well as overseas. If the current trend continues, West Bengal would lose the bulk of its elite.
There are other problems as well. The High Commission is not effective except reportedly in conveying donations to the Rama Krishna Mission at Dhaka that in turn heals more Muslims than Hindus. Dhaka humiliated India in 2002 by killing several of its BSF jawans and returning their bodies hanging on poles as if they were animal carcasses. The Indian government was helpless and its foreign minister exclaimed: do you expect us to go to war with Bangladesh? The government of Kolkata is equally indifferent; it is yet to recommend the granting of citizenship to Taslima Nasrin.
It was hoped that after the secession of Bangladesh in 1971, ethnic cleansing would come to an end. At Partition, there were 29 per cent Hindus in East Bengal. By 1974 they had come down to 13.5 per cent. With the advent of General Zia-ur-Rahman and subsequently General H.M. Ershad, the cleansing was resumed. Today the figure hovers around 9. There are dozens of incidents every month in different parts of Bangladesh; in the course of May, 55 such occurrences were reported in the local press. Land in the villages and houses of Hindus in the urban areas are forcibly occupied and most often the police does not even register the complaints of the disposed. Temples are also targets and even the writ of the High Court does not always run. For example, in Sherpur of Bogra district, Ma Bhawani Moyee mandir lost one of its sections to marauders last year despite a Court injunction. This oppression would cease if the Muslims of Bengal were enabled to gather in Bangladesh while all the Hindus from there were allowed to cross over to West Bengal. In other words, an organised exchange of population should be negotiated between New Delhi and Dhaka with Kolkata being equally involved.
The technique of such an exchange between two countries was authored by the League of Nations soon after World War I ended. A detailed scheme, how to value respective properties, when which batch of people would move to where and how they should be compensated with land or property etc. was worked out under the leadership of no other than the legendary Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon. The exchange scheme was formalised by the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923. Nearly all Christians, mainly Greek, residing in Turkey were transferred to Greece while Muslims of Greece were asked to migrate to Turkey. However difficult and painful the exchange of populations was, it brought to an end religious strifes in Greece and Turkey, reminiscent of communal riots in India. http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=194&page=11
Taslima, who is against all censorship anywhere, has chosen an inspiring solution. On 16 December 2003 (appropriately the anniversary of Bangladesh's independence in 1971) she has put Dwikhandito in Bengali as well as Amar Meyebela. Amar Meyebela in Bengali on the worldwide web for everyone to read, whether they live in a country that does not respect freedom of expression or in a country that does.
Latest News : High Court lifted the ban on Dwikhandito in September 2005. The book would not be available on the net.
Taslima's Reaction after Dwikhandito ban
Indian Communist party defends the banning of the book
Communists statement for banning the book
Vajira, who is also a painter, poet and lyricist, has previously come into conflict with the Sinhala Buddhist hierarchy over his artistic work. The Peoples Alliance government has also banned one of his songs from state radio broadcasts. The song, which calls for freedom of artistic expression, is about Taslima Nasrin, the exiled Bangladeshi writer whose award-winning book has been banned in Bangladesh and in Sri Lanka. Muslim fundamentalists in Bangladesh have issued a fatwa or death sentence against Nasrin.
Not the first to be accused of blasphemyBy Bashir Goth - posted Monday, 9 July 2007 Sign Up for free e-mail updates!
Britain knighted Salman Rushdie like many British citizens before him, honoured for their service to Britain. To honour Rushdie as a writer for his contribution to literature is a commendable initiative. This is purely a British affair and has nothing to do with any other people or creed.
To protest against what the UK does or doesn’t do for its own citizens is a flagrant interference in its internal affairs. It is like protesting against granting British citizenship to Rushdie, or to any other individual for that matter.
Salman Rushdie is considered to be one of the most illustrious and creative writers of the late 20th century. The fact that some people loathe him for insulting their sentiments or faith is beside the point. Rushdie is not the first and will definitely not be the last writer with a Muslim name to be accused of blasphemy.The blasphemy sword of Islam has been hanging over Muslim writers, thinkers and poets since the dawn of Islam when the first fatwa was issued against the poet Ka’b bin Zuhair who was accused of insulting the Prophet of Islam in some of his poems. Zuhair had to convert to Islam and beg the Prophet for forgiveness in his famous poem titled The Cloak - as the narrative says, Mohammed removed his own cloak and placed it over the shoulders of Ka’b as a sign of pardon.
Ka’b’s poem s
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Monday, August 6, 2007
We Indian citizens have alredy reserved a Guided sniper bullet for everyone of Us!
Bush Decides the Fate of Great Asian People,Ha!
We Indian citizens have alredy reserved a Guided sniper bullet for everyone of Us!
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551Email: palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
" We shall continue to target you, at home and abroad, just as you target us, at home and abroad, and these spy dens and military command and control centres from which you plotted your aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq. "
- Adam Gadahn, al-Qaida leader
India, Israel seek to strengthen economic cooperationDaily News & Analysis - 3 hours agoPTI The two leaders said efforts should be made to fully utilise the potential for enhanced economic cooperation. Solar energy, water technology, nanotechnology, agriculture, including organic farming, and medicine were outlined as some of the key ...
'A Double-Edged Sword'Pakistan's banished prime minister on talks with Musharraf that could pave her way back to power.
Toby Melville / ReutersTroubled Twosome: Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf needs the support of exiled former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto to be reelected, but she needs his help to return to the countryBy Ron MoreauNewsweek InternationalAug. 13, 2007 issue - Benazir Bhutto, the exiled, two-time Pakistani prime minister, is now negotiating a political comeback with President Pervez Musharraf. Last week they reportedly met face to face in Abu Dhabi after months of back-channel talks. The two need each other. Bhutto wants to return to Pakistan to run in next year's elections—without having to face the corruption charges that drove her into exile. She also needs a repeal of the two-term limit for elected prime ministers. Musharraf, meanwhile, is grasping at straws: last month the Supreme Court overturned his suspension of the chief justice; his approval rating is an anemic 34 percent, and Islamic militants have launched a spate of attacks against his security forces, including two suicide bombings in Islamabad. He thus needs the support of Bhutto and her Pakistan People's Party—arguably the most popular political force in the country—if he hopes to be re-elected president. From her London home, Bhutto, 54, discussed Pakistan's political melodrama in a telephone interview with NEWSWEEK's Ron Moreau. Excerpts:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20123386/site/newsweek/
Guided sniper bullets which can slightly change its course during flight to target. If this technology founded even an inexperienced soldier can kill an enemy several kilometers away. Now Indian Ocean captuered, Indian sky flat open and the Land , sieged we Indian citizens have alredy reserved a Guided sniper bullet for everyone of Us!Washington with its military as well as monetary hands dragged succesfully India and Indian People in War Against Terrorism!Ever since it was released on August 3, the much-awaited text of the India-United States nuclear deal has been profusely commented upon and covered in the media. It is obvious the text has tried to accommodate diverging interests and constraints of both the parties by clever use of language -- to give an illusory impression that the concerns are duly reflected. In fact, our case was compromised to a large extent when this American act was passed, our prime minister's assurances to the contrary notwithstanding. For the sake of public comfort, both parties are saying loudly that they are free to hold on to their respective rights and legal positions. It means hardly anything as far as India is concerned. Up against the Hyde Act standing like a Rock of Gibraltar, India has no leverage to force any of the issues during the innumerable consultations suggested in the text.
Strike Risk is higher now from within as well as omnipresent galaxy US strikepower has the last word to decide our destiny!Though,India on Monday sought to play down the latest Al-Qaeda threat warning that diplomatic missions in India are the terror network's new targets.
"There is no confirmed news of any such threat till now. However, our forces and the state machinery are always ready to face such threats," said Minister Of State For Home Sriprakash Jaiswal.
A new Al-Qaeda video compiled by the outfit's production arm, As-Sahab, and released on Sunday proclaims that "the targeting of Tel Aviv, Moscow and Delhi" is its "legitimate right". "Our forces are alert to avert any such attempt. I want to appeal to the people that they need not worry about such threats."
A new Al-Qaeda video compiled by the outfit's production arm, As-Sahab, and released on Sunday proclaims that "the targeting of Tel Aviv, Moscow and Delhi" is its "legitimate right". It also accuses India of "killing more than 100,000 Muslims in Kashmir with US blessings".
On the other hand, Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, today gave a vote of confidence in the booming Indian economy with plans to roll out a network of cash-and-carry superstores across the country.The venture, with Indian conglomerate Bharti, will see 10 to 15 wholesale stores in the next seven years beginning in 2008. The companies will each have an equal stake in the venture, which will be branded Bharti Wal-Mart and will employ at least 5,000 people. Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, today gave a vote of confidence in the booming Indian economy with plans to roll out a network of cash-and-carry superstores across the country.
The venture, with Indian conglomerate Bharti, will see 10 to 15 wholesale stores in the next seven years beginning in 2008. The companies will each have an equal stake in the venture, which will be branded Bharti Wal-Mart and will employ at least 5,000 people. Rather than targeting Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai or Chennai - India's four main cities - the joint venture is placing its bets on fast-growing smaller urban centres.
Meanwhile,Indian air force helicopters swept low over the flooded plains of northern India on Monday, dropping desperately needed aid to some 2 million people marooned by some of the worst flooding to hit the area in 30 years, officials said.
The flood situation continued to remain grim in Orissa Monday as a storm, accompanied by torrential rains and strong winds, inundated many more areas of the state including Cuttack and capital Bhubaneswar.
For a unwanted Nuke deal the Ruling Class in India made the Indian Ocean a Free US military zone and the resultant chaos just begins. Bush sounds security alert all over and al-Qaida sets its targets in India! US war game is going to be very very dangerous for Nation India. We have so many problems already. The Post Modern Manusmriti agenda has made this country a US colony. World Bank slaves and comradors of Zionist Hindu US Imprialism have already destroyed Indigenous production system and handed over freedom and sovereignity to Butcher Bush! We have invited more calamities to serve the interests of US interests. Mncs have taken over everything. The Nature, environment and Man endangered as land of Law is being changed to accomodate forein agenda. India's agriculture ministry said on Monday it was still assessing the impact on crops of massive monsoon floods in the country's east, but state officials said vast areas of rice and corn had been damaged. But agriculture is not the agenda of the rotten Brahminical system which is the basic source of biotic sustenance of the enslaved fifty percent masses in day today life and livelihood. False satastical jugglery and baseless growth rate accompanied by a propelled Sensex create a Shining Brand India which has to evict Rural India from the word, Beginning.
Hasina files 2 writ petitions Noor Ali extortion case, ACC notice challenged
Detained former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday filed two writ petitions challenging the legality of government action incorporating another extortion case against her under the stringent Emergency Power Rules (EPR) and the Anti-Corruption Commission notice asking her to submit wealth statement, reports UNB. • FULL STORY http://www.bangladesh-web.com/Army saved country, says President
President Professor Dr Iajuddin Ahmed on Sunday said army had saved the country from an anarchic situation on January 11 and now they appeared as the driving force in the ongoing anti-graft campaign earning global appreciation, reports BSS. • FULL STORY http://www.bangladesh-web.com/
India RisingMessy, raucous, democratic India is growing fast, and now may partner up with the world's richest democracy—America.
Juan Manuel Castro Prieto / Agence VuVisitors outside the Taj Mahal
COVER: THE NEW INDIA India: Asia's Other Superpower Breaks OutNEWSWEEK ON AIR India—Rising GiantGuest: Fareed Zakaria, Editor, NEWSWEEK International Editions
Talk Transcript: India Rising NEWSWEEK International Editor Fareed Zakaria joined us for a Live Talk about India’s growing power in the world, on Thursday, March 2, at 12:30 p.m. ET. By Fareed ZakariaNewsweekMarch 6, 2006 issue - Every year at the World Economic Forum in Davos, there's a star. Not a person but a country. One country impresses the gathering of global leaders because of a particularly smart Finance minister or a compelling tale of reform or even a glamorous gala. This year there was no contest. In the decade that I've been going to Davos, no country has captured the imagination of the conference and dominated the conversation as India in 2006.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11571348/site/newsweek/Taking It EasyIndian leaders are enjoying the boom times by putting off more painful reforms. The mistake could cost them.By Ruchir SharmaNewsweek InternationalMarch 6, 2006 issue - The buzz in the financial circles a few months ago was that every man and his dog could raise money to invest in India. Now the thinking is that a man is no longer required.http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11568880/site/newsweek/
No foreign direct investment is allowed in the retail sector, except for single-brand stores such as Nike. By entering the wholesale market, Wal-Mart will gain a foothold ahead of its many competitors should the government allow foreign retailers to expand. But it is years behind German retailer Metro, which has a presence in five Indian states and last month offered to spend 6.5bn rupees (£82m) on a wholesale operation in north India.
Bin Laden, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, is believed to be living in the tribal border region of Pakistan. His ability to avoid capture remains a political sore spot for Bush.
But Musharraf has objected to any unilateral action by Washington.
Over the weekend, Defense Secretary Robert Gates was equally careful in describing how U.S. officials would handle such a situation.
A fresh al-Qaida video has warned that the United States and India are among the terror networks primary targets worldwide, according to agency reports.A wanted American member of al-Qaida has in a new video warned that US and Indian interests and diplomatic missions are ''legitimate targets''. The warning was posted on Lauramansfield.com, an American website that monitors terrorist groups and says that al-Qaida's primary objective is to target Israel, Russia and India, apart from the US.The video also features clips from speeches by al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden and his right hand man Ayman Al Zawahiri.
On the other hand, President Bush said Monday that with the right intelligence U.S. and Pakistan governments can take out al-Qaida leaders, and wouldn't say whether he would consult first with Pakistan before ordering U.S. forces to act on their own. "With real actionable intelligence, we will get the job done," Bush said.
He was asked whether he would wait on permission from Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf before committing the U.S. military to move on "actionable intelligence" on the whereabouts of terrorist leaders in Pakistan. He did not answer directly.
Bush was at the presidential retreat at Camp David for two days of meetings with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The two held talks on a rash of crises confronting Afghanistan: civilian killings, a booming drug trade and the brazen resurgence of the Taliban.
The deteriorating security there has been underscored by the ongoing captivity of 21 South Korean volunteers kidnapped in Afghanistan. The crisis has put considerable pressure on Karzai.
The Taliban took 23 people hostage and have killed two of them. It is seeking the release of prisoners, but the Afghan government has refused. The United States also adamantly opposes any concessions to such demands.
Bush and Karzai agreed during their meeting that "there should be no quid pro quo" that could embolden the Taliban, said Gordon Johndroe, a Bush spokesman.
On another matter, Karzai said Bush heard and shared his concerns about the mounting number of Afghan casualties as the war there rages on. Militants often wear civilian dress and seek shelter in villagers' homes, making it hard to differentiate the enemy from the innocent.
The one-hour and 17 minute-long video also featured a computer-animated recreation of a March 2006 suicide attack that killed US diplomat David Foy in Karachi and testimony from a man who claimed to be the bomber.
''We shall continue to target you, at home and abroad, just as you target us, at home and abroad, and these spy dens and military command and control centres from which you plotted your aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq,'' said Adam Gadahn, also known as Azzan al-Amriki.
The California-born Gadahn was charged with treason in the US last autumn and has been wanted since 2004 by the FBI, which is offering a $1 million reward for information leading to his arrest or conviction.
He last appeared in a video in May threatening the United States with an attack worse than September 11, 2001.
'Expel by force'
It was not known when his footage was filmed, because he did not describe any recent specific events.
''Years of bitter trial and experience have revealed the danger they (referring to embassies) pose and shown that the only way to deal with them when they refuse to leave of their own accord is to expel them by force,'' Gadahn said.
The al-Qaida message also focussed on the testimony of suicide bomber Abu Othman, who was purportedly shown sitting in a leafy shaded garden explaining how he had once fought in Afghanistan and his reasons for going on jihad, or holy war, against the United States.
Othman was purportedly shown helping to wire his white compact car with explosives and at the end of the video, hugging his friends goodbye before driving off into the night to carry out his mission. (With AP inputs)
Stop Wal-Mart's 'backdoor entry': Vandana Shiva
By IANS Monday August 6, 10:03 PM New Delhi, Aug 6 (IANS) The entry into India of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. through its tie up with Bharti Enterprises will pose a threat to millions of small traders and farmers and destroy India's retail democracy, renowned green campaigner Vandana Shiva said Monday.
'The assumption that Wal-Mart brings skills to the retail sector that will benefit Indian farmers and consumers is totally false. Wal-Mart specialises in long-distance supply and large volumes of purchase from single producers at predatory prices,' she said in a statement.
'The Bharti Wal-Mart announcement is a threat to the livelihood security of millions and a threat to the food sovereignty of our farmers and retail democracy. This partnership will increase corporate concentration over agriculture production; push our diverse and decentralized systems of production to uniformity and thousands of food miles,' she added.
On the 60th anniversary of India's independence, Shiva said small and marginal farmers, hawkers, tiny shopkeepers and consumers, 'have declared 9th August, 2007, Quit India Day - as a day for freedom from corporate retail with the slogan Corporations Quit Retail.'
'Bharti Wal Mart Private Ltd is not needed by the people of India... We demand the backdoor entry also be stopped,' she said, adding that protests and mass meetings would be organised all over the country.
Home Ministry reviews Assam situation after ULFA violence
By PTI
New Delhi: The Centre is constantly reviewing the situation in Assam in the wake of ULFA violence yesterday which left 33 persons injured.Union Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta has spoken to state's Chief Secretary P C Sarma to take stock of the situation, MHA sources today said.
"The Home Ministry is keeping a close watch on the situation," they said.
Three incidents izations, Aslam said, "The parameters of this cooperation are well-known and these were recently acknowledged by the US Vice President Dick Cheney in an interview with CNN and reiterated by President George Bush during telephonic conversation with President Pervez Musharraf." While reiterating support for President Musharraf as an anti-terror ally, Bush administration officials have not ruled out US military strikes in Pakistan against Al-Qaeda.
At the same time Pakistan has received billions in US aid since joining it in the war on terror in late 2001 and has deployed about 90,000 troops to the border region near Afghanistan.
However, Washington has strongly criticised a September 2006 peace deal with pro-Taliban militants that reduced the Pakistan army's presence in the restive North Waziristan.
affects life partially in Nandigram Life was partially affected in Nandigram, site of the face-off between the West Bengal government and anti-displacement Bhumi Uched Pratirodh Committee (BUPC), during a 12-hour bandh by ruling CPI-M today.
The bandh called to press for the safe return of CPI-M supporters allegedly ousted from the area after the March 14 police firing, passed off peacefully with a large number of policemen deployed.
In Nandigram block I, a BUPC stronghold and site of the clash with the police, majority of the shops were open though schools and colleges were closed and vehicles kept off the roads. Government offices, banks and post offices were open.
At Nandigram II block, the situation was normal, while life was paralysed at neighbouring Khejuri, considered a CPI-M turf.
The bandh had been called by the CPI-M's Krishak Sabha and its East Midnapore district leader Ashok Guria said it was called to press its demand for the safe return of its 1500 supporters ousted from here after the police firing on May 14 which claimed 14 lives.
The party is, however, yet to submit its list of its supporters it claims were forced to flee from Nandigram.
Campaign against quota to converted DalitsMonday August 6 2007 12:15 IST DAVANAGERE: BJPs National Scheduled Caste Morcha plans to start a nationwide signature campaign, to collect ten lakh signatures against the Union Government move to provide Constitutional reservation to converted Christians and Muslims with in the quota for SC community, said Sathyanarayan Jatia, former union minister and national president of BJP SC Morcha here on Sunday.
Addressing media persons here, Jatia set a target of two lakh signatures for the State of Karnataka.
This is to bring awareness among the SCs on the vote bank politics of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi to woo converted Christians and Muslims from the SC community, providing them free education, social status, financial aid etc. This Abhiyan is to tour the entire nation. We would campaign among the people that conversion to Christianity or Islam is not a panacea for their problems.
Manipur, another Nandigram in making?6 Aug 2007, 1519 hrs IST,PTIIMPHAL: Manipur government's decision to set up the National Institute of Technology (NIT) at Lamphelpat has run into rough weather with local residents opposing the site.
Lamphelpat is the second choice of the NIT after Kiyamgei Loukol, near Manipur University, where thousands of local residents strongly resisted the proposed acquisition of the land there in Imphal west district.
'We will oppose the construction of the NIT at Lamphelpat area for preservation of the arable fertile land for agriculture,' said the memorandum submitted to Chief Minister O Ibobi Singh by Joint Action Committee for Preservation of Lamphelpat (JACFPL).
Kim Gangte, chairperson of JACFPL and a former member of Parliament, said JACFPL would launch a series of agitation till the shifting of the NIT site from Lamphelpat and nearby Langol area.
When contacted, some members of the JACFPL said the government should not invite Nandigram-type stir in Manipur over the proposed acquisition of land at Lamphelpat.
Ibobi Singh at a public function recently appealed to the people not to oppose the government's decision to establish the NIT at Lamphelpat area and sought co-operation of the people in government's effort to develop the state.
'If there is peace, we can get huge amount of funds from the centre for bringing all round development of the state,' said the Chief Minister asserting that officials hampering the development work would be punished.
Official sources said Manipur cabinet in July had decided to acquire 620 acres of lands at Lamphelpat and nearby Langol area for various purposes including construction of the NIT.
Of the 620 acres of land, 95 acres belongs to private land owners and the rest was government land, sources said.
Sources admitted that the part of the land was 'cultivable' but the government viewed it 'necessary' the construction of the NIT and other offices at the place which was not far from state capital complex.
They said Manipur government had first decided to set the NIT complex by acquiring private cultivable land at Kiyamgei Loukol area on the ground that the place was at a stone's throw from Manipur University.
Sources said authorities surveyed the land at Kiyamgei Loukol area amid protests by hundreds of farmers and local residents in April last.
Several persons who resisted the survey were injured when police made a lathicharge during the protests.
A Joint Action Committee (JAC) was formed by local residents and farmers of the area to launch a agitation against the proposal to construct the NIT.
The JAC had urged the government to shift the NIT on the ground that 'cultivable lands in the state have been sinking at a fast rate and taking over of land at Kiyamgei area is similar to cutting the livelihood of the people settled in the surrounding areas.' CPI-M observes peaceful shutdown in NandigramA 12-hour shutdown in Nandigram called by the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) in West Bengal ended peacefully Monday evening.
'The shutdown was peaceful and no violent incident was reported,' West Bengal Home Secretary Prasad Ranjan Roy told reporters at the state secretariat Writers' Buildings here.
According to sources, the shutdown received a mixed response, partially disrupting life in Nandigram, Khejuri, Bhangabera and Tekhali areas of the trouble-torn East Midnapore constituency, about 150 km from here.
Amidst suppressed tension, both the warring groups - CPI-M supporters and Bhumi Uchched Pratirodh Committee members - took out rallies in Garhchakraberia and Reyapara respectively in the violence-torn region.
West Bengal Inspector General (law and Order) Raj Kanojia also confirmed that the shutdown went without any violence amid heavy police deployment.
The CPI-M called the shutdown to protest the death of two party workers on July 29 in a clash with Bhumi Uchched Partirodh Committee - the anti-land acquisition group.
At least 23 people have died in Nandigram since January this year when the region erupted in protest over proposed land acquisition for a special economic zone (SEZ) in collaboration with Indonesia's Salim group for developing a chemical hub.
No student in 32,000 schools: Report Quote " People come to the school premises to relieve themselves as it always remains closed. "
- Student http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070021611
Monday, August 6, 2007 (New Delhi)While many in India speak about the need for 100 per cent literacy and crores are pumped into schemes like the Sarv Shiksha Abhiyaan, a government survey has unearthed some disturbing new facts and figures.
According to Elementary Education in India 2005-06, a report prepared by the National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA), over 32,000 schools or almost 3 per cent schools do not have a single student.
Forty-eight per cent of these schools, mostly at the primary level, are in rural areas.
The survey covered over 11 lakh schools in 35 states and union territories and found that Karnataka was the worst with almost 8,000 schools without a single student.
The survey also found 6 per cent schools had less than 25 students, mostly in Bihar, Delhi, Kerala and Uttar Pradesh.
The low enrollment is not surprising.
A school in Rewai village in Mahoba district of Uttar Pradesh has been closed ever since it was built. The village has a school, but no students and since there are no students, there are no teachers either.
''People come to the school premises to relieve themselves as it always remains closed,'' complained a student.
Twenty-three thousand schools don't have a single teacher and more than a lakh schools had just one teacher.
Schools also end up being without any students because they are set up in inaccessible areas.
International Investments: Is Policy Pendulum Swinging Back?
By Kavaljit Singh
25 July, 2007Countercurrents.org
In the last five decades, there have been dramatic swings in the policy pendulum governing foreign investments at various levels in response to changing global political context. In the 1960s and 70s, the dominant thinking was foreign investments should be restricted as it interferes in the domestic economic policy making besides posing a threat to national sovereignty. The 1980s and 90s witnessed major swings in the investment policy pendulum towards greater liberalization of the regulatory framework at the national level. The swing was more pronounced in developing countries, particularly in Asia, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe. Countries unilaterally (sometimes voluntarily) undertook liberalization measures such as lifting their controls on foreign ownership, removing performance requirements, and liberalizing their capital account. An increasing trend towards privatizing public sector companies in developing and transition countries added momentum to investment liberalization processes. Several countries also offered various guarantees and subsidies to foreign investors.
The extent of these swings in policy can be measured in several ways. For instance, expropriations had increased in the 1960s and early 1970s, but almost disappeared in the 1990s. According to UNCTAD, a total of 1,393 regulatory changes were introduced in national investment regimes during 1991-2001, out of which 1,315 (almost 95 per cent) were meant to create a favorable investment environment. In 2001 alone, as many as 208 regulatory changes were made by 71 countries, of which only 16 changes were less favorable for foreign investors.
The 1990s witnessed a surge in the number of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) as more and more countries started adopting liberalized investment policies. The highest number of BITs were negotiated and concluded during this decade. Regional initiatives on investment liberalization also emerged in the 1990s. In 1991, negotiations took place between the US, Canada, and Mexico to launch the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. In many aspects, NAFTA was simply an extension to Mexico of the existing Canada-US Free Trade Agreementhttp://www.countercurrents.org/singh250707.htm
Environment, Sustainable Development And Globalisation:A Plea To Indian Legislatures
By Dr.Zafar Mahfooz Nomani
31 July, 2007Countercurrents.org
The impact of globalization on environment and sustainable development needs to be continuously addressed in Indian context which profoundly remains in the transition. In spite of the potential of globalization to economic convergence it paved for an increase in inequality resulting in increased environmental impacts such as climate change, protection of the ozone layer, biodiversity and desertification. These international trade arrangements and environmental agreements contain very few provision for harmonizing trade and environment trade and development. The increasing tendency of tram national corporations to establish global standards for environmental performance enhances the contribution of FDI to sustainable development. The Commission on Sustainable Development urged creditor countries and international financial institutions to implement speedily the enhanced heavily indebted poor countries (HIPC) initiative. It also urged HIPC countries to develop national poverty strategies in a participatory way so that debt relief would be linked with poverty eradication. The Agenda 21 refers to national sustainable development strategies as important mechanisms for enhancing and linking national capacity so as to bring together priorities in social, economic and environmental policies. National sustainable development strategies provide an opportunity to put into practice common principles of strategic planning for sustainable development. The substantial human and institutional resources required for the formulation of national sustainable development strategies may impose a burden on India.
The United Nation’s Global Compact initiative, as a partnership between the United Nations, the business community, international, labour and civil society organizations commit to open markets while meeting the socio-economic needs of the world’s people and contributing to a more humane world. The main principles promoted by the Global Compact are taken from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Labour Organization’s fundamental principles on rights at work, and the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development all of which enjoy universal political support and a strong international legal foundation. Understanding the links between globalization and sustainable development is essential to more integrated and strategically focused Indian legal policy making. It allows Governments, International organizations and other stakeholders in the development process to make proactive adjustments to changing conditions in the enabling environment for sustainable development at the national level and through international cooperation.
The new economic policies and the structural adjustment programme often predict environmental impact without accuracy because of the complex interplay of various economic, social, political and ecological factors. These are put into effect in an effort to meet India’s severe balance of payments crisis, and to propel its economy into quicker growth and global integration. A part from direct fiscal policies, the major components of the new package include boosting exports to earn foreign exchange, liberalizing industrial production, dropping barriers to the entry of foreign companies and goods expanding privatization and cutting government spending. The drastic nature of the NEP package has understandably underscored natural environment conventional economists advocates an exploitable resource, and sink into which the effluents of affluence can be thrown.
http://www.countercurrents.org/nomani310707.htm
The Annual Flood Drama in Bihar
by Dr. Sudhir Ranjan, USAAug. 4, 2007
I still remember 1975 flood, condition and worsening life in northern parts of Bihar. In 1984, myself had taken shelter at Dighwara (Saran district) railway station. I can understand the pain as well fun in the form of malaise of the victims of swelling rivers (due to excessive rains). We saw helicopters hovering in the sky and a few days later bags of food dropped from the sky. Many of us said "Bhagwaan sun le le baaran, bada bhookh laagal rahe bada zor ke". We didn't ask for the caste and ate food together to see the world another day. Couple of weeks later receded water brought our lives back to normal and soon we erased our agony of life spent at the railway station and joined the same bandwagon (castes) we belonged to. In 1986, 1987 and 1989 we faced the similar situation and then I started living outside Bihar. In 2002 or 2003 I read one statement for flood victims in Darbhanga district made by none other than former Chief Minister Lalu Pd Yadav "KHOOB KHAAO MACHHLI (Fish), ARREE! EE BAARH (Flood) KE SAMAY MEIN HI DOOSRE KE TALAAB SE KOOD KE
We Indian citizens have alredy reserved a Guided sniper bullet for everyone of Us!
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551Email: palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
" We shall continue to target you, at home and abroad, just as you target us, at home and abroad, and these spy dens and military command and control centres from which you plotted your aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq. "
- Adam Gadahn, al-Qaida leader
India, Israel seek to strengthen economic cooperationDaily News & Analysis - 3 hours agoPTI The two leaders said efforts should be made to fully utilise the potential for enhanced economic cooperation. Solar energy, water technology, nanotechnology, agriculture, including organic farming, and medicine were outlined as some of the key ...
'A Double-Edged Sword'Pakistan's banished prime minister on talks with Musharraf that could pave her way back to power.
Toby Melville / ReutersTroubled Twosome: Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf needs the support of exiled former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto to be reelected, but she needs his help to return to the countryBy Ron MoreauNewsweek InternationalAug. 13, 2007 issue - Benazir Bhutto, the exiled, two-time Pakistani prime minister, is now negotiating a political comeback with President Pervez Musharraf. Last week they reportedly met face to face in Abu Dhabi after months of back-channel talks. The two need each other. Bhutto wants to return to Pakistan to run in next year's elections—without having to face the corruption charges that drove her into exile. She also needs a repeal of the two-term limit for elected prime ministers. Musharraf, meanwhile, is grasping at straws: last month the Supreme Court overturned his suspension of the chief justice; his approval rating is an anemic 34 percent, and Islamic militants have launched a spate of attacks against his security forces, including two suicide bombings in Islamabad. He thus needs the support of Bhutto and her Pakistan People's Party—arguably the most popular political force in the country—if he hopes to be re-elected president. From her London home, Bhutto, 54, discussed Pakistan's political melodrama in a telephone interview with NEWSWEEK's Ron Moreau. Excerpts:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20123386/site/newsweek/
Guided sniper bullets which can slightly change its course during flight to target. If this technology founded even an inexperienced soldier can kill an enemy several kilometers away. Now Indian Ocean captuered, Indian sky flat open and the Land , sieged we Indian citizens have alredy reserved a Guided sniper bullet for everyone of Us!Washington with its military as well as monetary hands dragged succesfully India and Indian People in War Against Terrorism!Ever since it was released on August 3, the much-awaited text of the India-United States nuclear deal has been profusely commented upon and covered in the media. It is obvious the text has tried to accommodate diverging interests and constraints of both the parties by clever use of language -- to give an illusory impression that the concerns are duly reflected. In fact, our case was compromised to a large extent when this American act was passed, our prime minister's assurances to the contrary notwithstanding. For the sake of public comfort, both parties are saying loudly that they are free to hold on to their respective rights and legal positions. It means hardly anything as far as India is concerned. Up against the Hyde Act standing like a Rock of Gibraltar, India has no leverage to force any of the issues during the innumerable consultations suggested in the text.
Strike Risk is higher now from within as well as omnipresent galaxy US strikepower has the last word to decide our destiny!Though,India on Monday sought to play down the latest Al-Qaeda threat warning that diplomatic missions in India are the terror network's new targets.
"There is no confirmed news of any such threat till now. However, our forces and the state machinery are always ready to face such threats," said Minister Of State For Home Sriprakash Jaiswal.
A new Al-Qaeda video compiled by the outfit's production arm, As-Sahab, and released on Sunday proclaims that "the targeting of Tel Aviv, Moscow and Delhi" is its "legitimate right". "Our forces are alert to avert any such attempt. I want to appeal to the people that they need not worry about such threats."
A new Al-Qaeda video compiled by the outfit's production arm, As-Sahab, and released on Sunday proclaims that "the targeting of Tel Aviv, Moscow and Delhi" is its "legitimate right". It also accuses India of "killing more than 100,000 Muslims in Kashmir with US blessings".
On the other hand, Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, today gave a vote of confidence in the booming Indian economy with plans to roll out a network of cash-and-carry superstores across the country.The venture, with Indian conglomerate Bharti, will see 10 to 15 wholesale stores in the next seven years beginning in 2008. The companies will each have an equal stake in the venture, which will be branded Bharti Wal-Mart and will employ at least 5,000 people. Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, today gave a vote of confidence in the booming Indian economy with plans to roll out a network of cash-and-carry superstores across the country.
The venture, with Indian conglomerate Bharti, will see 10 to 15 wholesale stores in the next seven years beginning in 2008. The companies will each have an equal stake in the venture, which will be branded Bharti Wal-Mart and will employ at least 5,000 people. Rather than targeting Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai or Chennai - India's four main cities - the joint venture is placing its bets on fast-growing smaller urban centres.
Meanwhile,Indian air force helicopters swept low over the flooded plains of northern India on Monday, dropping desperately needed aid to some 2 million people marooned by some of the worst flooding to hit the area in 30 years, officials said.
The flood situation continued to remain grim in Orissa Monday as a storm, accompanied by torrential rains and strong winds, inundated many more areas of the state including Cuttack and capital Bhubaneswar.
For a unwanted Nuke deal the Ruling Class in India made the Indian Ocean a Free US military zone and the resultant chaos just begins. Bush sounds security alert all over and al-Qaida sets its targets in India! US war game is going to be very very dangerous for Nation India. We have so many problems already. The Post Modern Manusmriti agenda has made this country a US colony. World Bank slaves and comradors of Zionist Hindu US Imprialism have already destroyed Indigenous production system and handed over freedom and sovereignity to Butcher Bush! We have invited more calamities to serve the interests of US interests. Mncs have taken over everything. The Nature, environment and Man endangered as land of Law is being changed to accomodate forein agenda. India's agriculture ministry said on Monday it was still assessing the impact on crops of massive monsoon floods in the country's east, but state officials said vast areas of rice and corn had been damaged. But agriculture is not the agenda of the rotten Brahminical system which is the basic source of biotic sustenance of the enslaved fifty percent masses in day today life and livelihood. False satastical jugglery and baseless growth rate accompanied by a propelled Sensex create a Shining Brand India which has to evict Rural India from the word, Beginning.
Hasina files 2 writ petitions Noor Ali extortion case, ACC notice challenged
Detained former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday filed two writ petitions challenging the legality of government action incorporating another extortion case against her under the stringent Emergency Power Rules (EPR) and the Anti-Corruption Commission notice asking her to submit wealth statement, reports UNB. • FULL STORY http://www.bangladesh-web.com/Army saved country, says President
President Professor Dr Iajuddin Ahmed on Sunday said army had saved the country from an anarchic situation on January 11 and now they appeared as the driving force in the ongoing anti-graft campaign earning global appreciation, reports BSS. • FULL STORY http://www.bangladesh-web.com/
India RisingMessy, raucous, democratic India is growing fast, and now may partner up with the world's richest democracy—America.
Juan Manuel Castro Prieto / Agence VuVisitors outside the Taj Mahal
COVER: THE NEW INDIA India: Asia's Other Superpower Breaks OutNEWSWEEK ON AIR India—Rising GiantGuest: Fareed Zakaria, Editor, NEWSWEEK International Editions
Talk Transcript: India Rising NEWSWEEK International Editor Fareed Zakaria joined us for a Live Talk about India’s growing power in the world, on Thursday, March 2, at 12:30 p.m. ET. By Fareed ZakariaNewsweekMarch 6, 2006 issue - Every year at the World Economic Forum in Davos, there's a star. Not a person but a country. One country impresses the gathering of global leaders because of a particularly smart Finance minister or a compelling tale of reform or even a glamorous gala. This year there was no contest. In the decade that I've been going to Davos, no country has captured the imagination of the conference and dominated the conversation as India in 2006.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11571348/site/newsweek/Taking It EasyIndian leaders are enjoying the boom times by putting off more painful reforms. The mistake could cost them.By Ruchir SharmaNewsweek InternationalMarch 6, 2006 issue - The buzz in the financial circles a few months ago was that every man and his dog could raise money to invest in India. Now the thinking is that a man is no longer required.http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11568880/site/newsweek/
No foreign direct investment is allowed in the retail sector, except for single-brand stores such as Nike. By entering the wholesale market, Wal-Mart will gain a foothold ahead of its many competitors should the government allow foreign retailers to expand. But it is years behind German retailer Metro, which has a presence in five Indian states and last month offered to spend 6.5bn rupees (£82m) on a wholesale operation in north India.
Bin Laden, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, is believed to be living in the tribal border region of Pakistan. His ability to avoid capture remains a political sore spot for Bush.
But Musharraf has objected to any unilateral action by Washington.
Over the weekend, Defense Secretary Robert Gates was equally careful in describing how U.S. officials would handle such a situation.
A fresh al-Qaida video has warned that the United States and India are among the terror networks primary targets worldwide, according to agency reports.A wanted American member of al-Qaida has in a new video warned that US and Indian interests and diplomatic missions are ''legitimate targets''. The warning was posted on Lauramansfield.com, an American website that monitors terrorist groups and says that al-Qaida's primary objective is to target Israel, Russia and India, apart from the US.The video also features clips from speeches by al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden and his right hand man Ayman Al Zawahiri.
On the other hand, President Bush said Monday that with the right intelligence U.S. and Pakistan governments can take out al-Qaida leaders, and wouldn't say whether he would consult first with Pakistan before ordering U.S. forces to act on their own. "With real actionable intelligence, we will get the job done," Bush said.
He was asked whether he would wait on permission from Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf before committing the U.S. military to move on "actionable intelligence" on the whereabouts of terrorist leaders in Pakistan. He did not answer directly.
Bush was at the presidential retreat at Camp David for two days of meetings with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The two held talks on a rash of crises confronting Afghanistan: civilian killings, a booming drug trade and the brazen resurgence of the Taliban.
The deteriorating security there has been underscored by the ongoing captivity of 21 South Korean volunteers kidnapped in Afghanistan. The crisis has put considerable pressure on Karzai.
The Taliban took 23 people hostage and have killed two of them. It is seeking the release of prisoners, but the Afghan government has refused. The United States also adamantly opposes any concessions to such demands.
Bush and Karzai agreed during their meeting that "there should be no quid pro quo" that could embolden the Taliban, said Gordon Johndroe, a Bush spokesman.
On another matter, Karzai said Bush heard and shared his concerns about the mounting number of Afghan casualties as the war there rages on. Militants often wear civilian dress and seek shelter in villagers' homes, making it hard to differentiate the enemy from the innocent.
The one-hour and 17 minute-long video also featured a computer-animated recreation of a March 2006 suicide attack that killed US diplomat David Foy in Karachi and testimony from a man who claimed to be the bomber.
''We shall continue to target you, at home and abroad, just as you target us, at home and abroad, and these spy dens and military command and control centres from which you plotted your aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq,'' said Adam Gadahn, also known as Azzan al-Amriki.
The California-born Gadahn was charged with treason in the US last autumn and has been wanted since 2004 by the FBI, which is offering a $1 million reward for information leading to his arrest or conviction.
He last appeared in a video in May threatening the United States with an attack worse than September 11, 2001.
'Expel by force'
It was not known when his footage was filmed, because he did not describe any recent specific events.
''Years of bitter trial and experience have revealed the danger they (referring to embassies) pose and shown that the only way to deal with them when they refuse to leave of their own accord is to expel them by force,'' Gadahn said.
The al-Qaida message also focussed on the testimony of suicide bomber Abu Othman, who was purportedly shown sitting in a leafy shaded garden explaining how he had once fought in Afghanistan and his reasons for going on jihad, or holy war, against the United States.
Othman was purportedly shown helping to wire his white compact car with explosives and at the end of the video, hugging his friends goodbye before driving off into the night to carry out his mission. (With AP inputs)
Stop Wal-Mart's 'backdoor entry': Vandana Shiva
By IANS Monday August 6, 10:03 PM New Delhi, Aug 6 (IANS) The entry into India of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. through its tie up with Bharti Enterprises will pose a threat to millions of small traders and farmers and destroy India's retail democracy, renowned green campaigner Vandana Shiva said Monday.
'The assumption that Wal-Mart brings skills to the retail sector that will benefit Indian farmers and consumers is totally false. Wal-Mart specialises in long-distance supply and large volumes of purchase from single producers at predatory prices,' she said in a statement.
'The Bharti Wal-Mart announcement is a threat to the livelihood security of millions and a threat to the food sovereignty of our farmers and retail democracy. This partnership will increase corporate concentration over agriculture production; push our diverse and decentralized systems of production to uniformity and thousands of food miles,' she added.
On the 60th anniversary of India's independence, Shiva said small and marginal farmers, hawkers, tiny shopkeepers and consumers, 'have declared 9th August, 2007, Quit India Day - as a day for freedom from corporate retail with the slogan Corporations Quit Retail.'
'Bharti Wal Mart Private Ltd is not needed by the people of India... We demand the backdoor entry also be stopped,' she said, adding that protests and mass meetings would be organised all over the country.
Home Ministry reviews Assam situation after ULFA violence
By PTI
New Delhi: The Centre is constantly reviewing the situation in Assam in the wake of ULFA violence yesterday which left 33 persons injured.Union Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta has spoken to state's Chief Secretary P C Sarma to take stock of the situation, MHA sources today said.
"The Home Ministry is keeping a close watch on the situation," they said.
Three incidents izations, Aslam said, "The parameters of this cooperation are well-known and these were recently acknowledged by the US Vice President Dick Cheney in an interview with CNN and reiterated by President George Bush during telephonic conversation with President Pervez Musharraf." While reiterating support for President Musharraf as an anti-terror ally, Bush administration officials have not ruled out US military strikes in Pakistan against Al-Qaeda.
At the same time Pakistan has received billions in US aid since joining it in the war on terror in late 2001 and has deployed about 90,000 troops to the border region near Afghanistan.
However, Washington has strongly criticised a September 2006 peace deal with pro-Taliban militants that reduced the Pakistan army's presence in the restive North Waziristan.
affects life partially in Nandigram Life was partially affected in Nandigram, site of the face-off between the West Bengal government and anti-displacement Bhumi Uched Pratirodh Committee (BUPC), during a 12-hour bandh by ruling CPI-M today.
The bandh called to press for the safe return of CPI-M supporters allegedly ousted from the area after the March 14 police firing, passed off peacefully with a large number of policemen deployed.
In Nandigram block I, a BUPC stronghold and site of the clash with the police, majority of the shops were open though schools and colleges were closed and vehicles kept off the roads. Government offices, banks and post offices were open.
At Nandigram II block, the situation was normal, while life was paralysed at neighbouring Khejuri, considered a CPI-M turf.
The bandh had been called by the CPI-M's Krishak Sabha and its East Midnapore district leader Ashok Guria said it was called to press its demand for the safe return of its 1500 supporters ousted from here after the police firing on May 14 which claimed 14 lives.
The party is, however, yet to submit its list of its supporters it claims were forced to flee from Nandigram.
Campaign against quota to converted DalitsMonday August 6 2007 12:15 IST DAVANAGERE: BJPs National Scheduled Caste Morcha plans to start a nationwide signature campaign, to collect ten lakh signatures against the Union Government move to provide Constitutional reservation to converted Christians and Muslims with in the quota for SC community, said Sathyanarayan Jatia, former union minister and national president of BJP SC Morcha here on Sunday.
Addressing media persons here, Jatia set a target of two lakh signatures for the State of Karnataka.
This is to bring awareness among the SCs on the vote bank politics of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi to woo converted Christians and Muslims from the SC community, providing them free education, social status, financial aid etc. This Abhiyan is to tour the entire nation. We would campaign among the people that conversion to Christianity or Islam is not a panacea for their problems.
Manipur, another Nandigram in making?6 Aug 2007, 1519 hrs IST,PTIIMPHAL: Manipur government's decision to set up the National Institute of Technology (NIT) at Lamphelpat has run into rough weather with local residents opposing the site.
Lamphelpat is the second choice of the NIT after Kiyamgei Loukol, near Manipur University, where thousands of local residents strongly resisted the proposed acquisition of the land there in Imphal west district.
'We will oppose the construction of the NIT at Lamphelpat area for preservation of the arable fertile land for agriculture,' said the memorandum submitted to Chief Minister O Ibobi Singh by Joint Action Committee for Preservation of Lamphelpat (JACFPL).
Kim Gangte, chairperson of JACFPL and a former member of Parliament, said JACFPL would launch a series of agitation till the shifting of the NIT site from Lamphelpat and nearby Langol area.
When contacted, some members of the JACFPL said the government should not invite Nandigram-type stir in Manipur over the proposed acquisition of land at Lamphelpat.
Ibobi Singh at a public function recently appealed to the people not to oppose the government's decision to establish the NIT at Lamphelpat area and sought co-operation of the people in government's effort to develop the state.
'If there is peace, we can get huge amount of funds from the centre for bringing all round development of the state,' said the Chief Minister asserting that officials hampering the development work would be punished.
Official sources said Manipur cabinet in July had decided to acquire 620 acres of lands at Lamphelpat and nearby Langol area for various purposes including construction of the NIT.
Of the 620 acres of land, 95 acres belongs to private land owners and the rest was government land, sources said.
Sources admitted that the part of the land was 'cultivable' but the government viewed it 'necessary' the construction of the NIT and other offices at the place which was not far from state capital complex.
They said Manipur government had first decided to set the NIT complex by acquiring private cultivable land at Kiyamgei Loukol area on the ground that the place was at a stone's throw from Manipur University.
Sources said authorities surveyed the land at Kiyamgei Loukol area amid protests by hundreds of farmers and local residents in April last.
Several persons who resisted the survey were injured when police made a lathicharge during the protests.
A Joint Action Committee (JAC) was formed by local residents and farmers of the area to launch a agitation against the proposal to construct the NIT.
The JAC had urged the government to shift the NIT on the ground that 'cultivable lands in the state have been sinking at a fast rate and taking over of land at Kiyamgei area is similar to cutting the livelihood of the people settled in the surrounding areas.' CPI-M observes peaceful shutdown in NandigramA 12-hour shutdown in Nandigram called by the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) in West Bengal ended peacefully Monday evening.
'The shutdown was peaceful and no violent incident was reported,' West Bengal Home Secretary Prasad Ranjan Roy told reporters at the state secretariat Writers' Buildings here.
According to sources, the shutdown received a mixed response, partially disrupting life in Nandigram, Khejuri, Bhangabera and Tekhali areas of the trouble-torn East Midnapore constituency, about 150 km from here.
Amidst suppressed tension, both the warring groups - CPI-M supporters and Bhumi Uchched Pratirodh Committee members - took out rallies in Garhchakraberia and Reyapara respectively in the violence-torn region.
West Bengal Inspector General (law and Order) Raj Kanojia also confirmed that the shutdown went without any violence amid heavy police deployment.
The CPI-M called the shutdown to protest the death of two party workers on July 29 in a clash with Bhumi Uchched Partirodh Committee - the anti-land acquisition group.
At least 23 people have died in Nandigram since January this year when the region erupted in protest over proposed land acquisition for a special economic zone (SEZ) in collaboration with Indonesia's Salim group for developing a chemical hub.
No student in 32,000 schools: Report Quote " People come to the school premises to relieve themselves as it always remains closed. "
- Student http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070021611
Monday, August 6, 2007 (New Delhi)While many in India speak about the need for 100 per cent literacy and crores are pumped into schemes like the Sarv Shiksha Abhiyaan, a government survey has unearthed some disturbing new facts and figures.
According to Elementary Education in India 2005-06, a report prepared by the National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA), over 32,000 schools or almost 3 per cent schools do not have a single student.
Forty-eight per cent of these schools, mostly at the primary level, are in rural areas.
The survey covered over 11 lakh schools in 35 states and union territories and found that Karnataka was the worst with almost 8,000 schools without a single student.
The survey also found 6 per cent schools had less than 25 students, mostly in Bihar, Delhi, Kerala and Uttar Pradesh.
The low enrollment is not surprising.
A school in Rewai village in Mahoba district of Uttar Pradesh has been closed ever since it was built. The village has a school, but no students and since there are no students, there are no teachers either.
''People come to the school premises to relieve themselves as it always remains closed,'' complained a student.
Twenty-three thousand schools don't have a single teacher and more than a lakh schools had just one teacher.
Schools also end up being without any students because they are set up in inaccessible areas.
International Investments: Is Policy Pendulum Swinging Back?
By Kavaljit Singh
25 July, 2007Countercurrents.org
In the last five decades, there have been dramatic swings in the policy pendulum governing foreign investments at various levels in response to changing global political context. In the 1960s and 70s, the dominant thinking was foreign investments should be restricted as it interferes in the domestic economic policy making besides posing a threat to national sovereignty. The 1980s and 90s witnessed major swings in the investment policy pendulum towards greater liberalization of the regulatory framework at the national level. The swing was more pronounced in developing countries, particularly in Asia, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe. Countries unilaterally (sometimes voluntarily) undertook liberalization measures such as lifting their controls on foreign ownership, removing performance requirements, and liberalizing their capital account. An increasing trend towards privatizing public sector companies in developing and transition countries added momentum to investment liberalization processes. Several countries also offered various guarantees and subsidies to foreign investors.
The extent of these swings in policy can be measured in several ways. For instance, expropriations had increased in the 1960s and early 1970s, but almost disappeared in the 1990s. According to UNCTAD, a total of 1,393 regulatory changes were introduced in national investment regimes during 1991-2001, out of which 1,315 (almost 95 per cent) were meant to create a favorable investment environment. In 2001 alone, as many as 208 regulatory changes were made by 71 countries, of which only 16 changes were less favorable for foreign investors.
The 1990s witnessed a surge in the number of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) as more and more countries started adopting liberalized investment policies. The highest number of BITs were negotiated and concluded during this decade. Regional initiatives on investment liberalization also emerged in the 1990s. In 1991, negotiations took place between the US, Canada, and Mexico to launch the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. In many aspects, NAFTA was simply an extension to Mexico of the existing Canada-US Free Trade Agreementhttp://www.countercurrents.org/singh250707.htm
Environment, Sustainable Development And Globalisation:A Plea To Indian Legislatures
By Dr.Zafar Mahfooz Nomani
31 July, 2007Countercurrents.org
The impact of globalization on environment and sustainable development needs to be continuously addressed in Indian context which profoundly remains in the transition. In spite of the potential of globalization to economic convergence it paved for an increase in inequality resulting in increased environmental impacts such as climate change, protection of the ozone layer, biodiversity and desertification. These international trade arrangements and environmental agreements contain very few provision for harmonizing trade and environment trade and development. The increasing tendency of tram national corporations to establish global standards for environmental performance enhances the contribution of FDI to sustainable development. The Commission on Sustainable Development urged creditor countries and international financial institutions to implement speedily the enhanced heavily indebted poor countries (HIPC) initiative. It also urged HIPC countries to develop national poverty strategies in a participatory way so that debt relief would be linked with poverty eradication. The Agenda 21 refers to national sustainable development strategies as important mechanisms for enhancing and linking national capacity so as to bring together priorities in social, economic and environmental policies. National sustainable development strategies provide an opportunity to put into practice common principles of strategic planning for sustainable development. The substantial human and institutional resources required for the formulation of national sustainable development strategies may impose a burden on India.
The United Nation’s Global Compact initiative, as a partnership between the United Nations, the business community, international, labour and civil society organizations commit to open markets while meeting the socio-economic needs of the world’s people and contributing to a more humane world. The main principles promoted by the Global Compact are taken from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Labour Organization’s fundamental principles on rights at work, and the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development all of which enjoy universal political support and a strong international legal foundation. Understanding the links between globalization and sustainable development is essential to more integrated and strategically focused Indian legal policy making. It allows Governments, International organizations and other stakeholders in the development process to make proactive adjustments to changing conditions in the enabling environment for sustainable development at the national level and through international cooperation.
The new economic policies and the structural adjustment programme often predict environmental impact without accuracy because of the complex interplay of various economic, social, political and ecological factors. These are put into effect in an effort to meet India’s severe balance of payments crisis, and to propel its economy into quicker growth and global integration. A part from direct fiscal policies, the major components of the new package include boosting exports to earn foreign exchange, liberalizing industrial production, dropping barriers to the entry of foreign companies and goods expanding privatization and cutting government spending. The drastic nature of the NEP package has understandably underscored natural environment conventional economists advocates an exploitable resource, and sink into which the effluents of affluence can be thrown.
http://www.countercurrents.org/nomani310707.htm
The Annual Flood Drama in Bihar
by Dr. Sudhir Ranjan, USAAug. 4, 2007
I still remember 1975 flood, condition and worsening life in northern parts of Bihar. In 1984, myself had taken shelter at Dighwara (Saran district) railway station. I can understand the pain as well fun in the form of malaise of the victims of swelling rivers (due to excessive rains). We saw helicopters hovering in the sky and a few days later bags of food dropped from the sky. Many of us said "Bhagwaan sun le le baaran, bada bhookh laagal rahe bada zor ke". We didn't ask for the caste and ate food together to see the world another day. Couple of weeks later receded water brought our lives back to normal and soon we erased our agony of life spent at the railway station and joined the same bandwagon (castes) we belonged to. In 1986, 1987 and 1989 we faced the similar situation and then I started living outside Bihar. In 2002 or 2003 I read one statement for flood victims in Darbhanga district made by none other than former Chief Minister Lalu Pd Yadav "KHOOB KHAAO MACHHLI (Fish), ARREE! EE BAARH (Flood) KE SAMAY MEIN HI DOOSRE KE TALAAB SE KOOD KE
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Blessed are those who are awakened
Hidden Apartheid : Dalit meaning oppressed or ground down
Blessed are those who are awakened
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551Email: palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
"You must have firm belief in the sacredness of your mission. Noble is your aim and sublime and glorious is your mission. Blessed are those who are awakened to their duty to among those whom they are born."
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar
For 3,500 years, Hinduism's caste system has enslaved a majority of its people calling them "untouchables." Today, these nearly 300 million are calling themselves by another name - Dalit meaning oppressed or ground down.
Despite Nandigram Singur Uprising, there in virtually no breakthrough for a real initiatve of dalit movement in West Bengal. Mahashweta Devi was the first among the Intelligentsia who rcognised Nandigram Insurrection as Dalit Movement. Ironically, the Intelligentsia Bengal is more than cooperative to close all those windows for National Dalit Movement opend during Dalit Muslim United Revolt. CPIM Brahmincal mechanism has covered all doors of the dalits, minorities and OBC for coming out. Thus, Nandigram remains in Nandigram and singur in Singur. These zones have become separated and seem to have no impact on rest of the Bengal. WWF show in beteen Ruling and Opposition Brahmincal forces supported by FDI fed Media and MNC sponsered Intelligentsia, continues. The Dalit and Muslim masses happen to be the integral part of helpless, entertaing audiance. Reading daily Newspapers, indulging in pseodo intellectual debate, seminaring and lunch dinner parties go on Economy, society and Politics.
Little mags publish special issues, mind blowing literature. Political parties are busy to mobilise respective Vote Bank.But no one seems to be interested to toe the historical line of Dalit Muslim unity to enforce Social Change in West Bengal! British Rulers left India only after transferring the statepower to merciless Brahmins. If, hypothetically we visulise the near impossible overthrow of the Marxist Regime In West bengal, the question remains unanswered what next! The Left has , at least an ideological historical background which emerged as dominating State Power only after a series of pro people mass movements! What record Mamta Bannerjee has? And other Brahmins. They never recognise either Class or Caste! You have to chose on among different tools of Hindu Zionist Galaxy Manusmriti Order!
I am isolated from rest of Bengali Intelligentsia and Dalits in particular as I am continuously writing and talking about the dream of a National dalit movement to be initiated from Bengal. Brhminical opposition is understood. But the dalit detachment should be only explained as seer opportunism or terror of Gestapo culture. Nothing else!
Thus, I am focusing on Dalit and Refugee issues these days. nandigram and singutr updates remain irrelevent until there is a positive initiative to launch a real mass movement.I am afraid that neither mahasheta Devi nor Medha patekar would agree!
By Hindu tradition, Dalits are the lowest of the low. The only jobs available to them are as sewage and sanitation workers and other menial tasks. The public educational system has ignored them.
Yet they have never rebelled against their poverty and oppression because Hindu teaching held them in bondage: they were taught from birth that God hated them and had doomed them to suffering. If they tried to better themselves, they were inviting more punishment from God!
Across India, Dalit leaders are urging their people to quit Hinduism and the culture of oppression that enslaves them!Dalit leader Udit Raj has galvanized the Dalits by courageously telling them that they are free to abandon Hinduism and the horrible birthright of the untouchables.He organized a public demonstration to personally renounce Hinduism, and the response was overwhelming! Two hundred thousand Dalits converged on the scene, over 400 bus and trainloads were turned away by government forces.
Maoists blow up forest office in West BengalHindustan Times, India - 6 hours agoMaoist guerrillas blew up a forest office on Saturday in West Bengal's West Midnapur district to apparently avenge the destruction of a "martyrs' memorial" ...Maoists blow off police beat office in a West Bengal district Times of IndiaMaoists blow up police office in West Bengal DailyIndia.comMaoists blow up forest office in West Bengal Monsters and Critics.com
'Bengal should focus on branding'Times of India, India - 2 hours agoKOLKATA: West Bengal should focus on branding and its core competence to draw investments to the state, a US official said on Saturday. ...
West Bengal tea workers demand reopening of gardensDailyIndia.com, FL - 3 Aug 2007Kumargram (West Bengal), Aug 3: Tea workers in West Bengal have called for the reopening of tea gardens, and said their protests will go on till August 9. ...
Farmers would’ve benefited more from direct selling’ Express News Service Kolkata, August 3: Advocate Arunava Ghosh today alleged that the government has not disclosed the details of the agreement signed between the Tata group and the state regarding the small-car project at Singur. Ghosh made the comment before a Division Bench of Chief Justice S S Nijjar and Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose of the Calcutta High Court.
Appearing for the Food First Information Action Network, West Bengal, Ghosh submitted before the bench that West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation had taken a loan of Rs 200 crore from West Bengal Financial Corporation at ten per cent annual interest for financing the small car project of Tata. As a result, the WBIDC would have to pay Rs 20 crore as interest and Tata, a company worth Rs 56,000 crore would enjoy the financial benefit. He added that the petitioner was entitled to the information about the deal according to the Right to Information Act.
Bride Groom18 - 24 25 - 30 31 - 35 36 - 45 46 - 50 50+India USA United Kingdom UAE Canada Australia Pakistan Saudi Arabia Kuwait South Africa On the other hand, he submitted before the bench that DLF, a real estate company, purchased land at Dankuni from the land-owners shelling out Rs 54 lakh for an acre of land. But the state government offered only Rs 9 lakh for one acre of land to owners at Singur which was just 15 km away from Dankuni. He argued that the land-owners of Singur should have got at least Rs 29 lakh against an acre of land. The land owners, he said, had been deprived as the state acquired land on behalf of Tata. He added that if Tata purchased land directly from the farmers the latter would have enjoyed the benefits they are entitled to.
Mainstream, Vol XLV, No 30
Social Justice for the Muslim Community—Panacea for Upliftmentby Syed Shahabuddin
Saturday 14 July 2007
COMMUNICATIONTHROUGH EMPOWERMENT, PARTICIPATION AND INVOLVEMENT Shri Chaturanan Mishra, in his article "Basic Causes of Muslim Backwardness" (Mainstream, June 2, 2007), has failed both to diagnose the social malaise of which the Muslim Indians are the prime victims, the communal bias, and suggest appropriate remedial measures.
A noteworthy conclusion of the Sachar Report is that the Muslim community as a whole, with regional and intra-community variations, normal in any country of continental dimensions, is more or less at the same level of backwardness as the SC/ST. It is no use, nor the appropriate approach, trying to inspire the revival of the community by recalling memories of Muslim contribution to the expansion of human knowledge and its movement from one end of the earth to another, while, at the same time, demoralising it by reference to the contemporary backwardness of the Muslim world as a whole. Both are irrelevant to the objective in view, that is, to uplift the Muslim Indians who form 15 per cent of the national population and also of the world Muslim population, educationally, economically, politically and socially within the framework of the democratic and secular state, committed to equality and justice among various social groups who profess different religions, speak different languages, have different ways of life and freely assert their ethnic or cultural identity as communities and sub-communities, castes and sub-castes. The Indian society is not only hierchical but segmented. So is the Muslim Indian society.http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article216.html
But then UCH elite have long used their domination of the judiciary and the bureaucracy as mechanisms of passive resistance in their continuing battle to retain control over socio-economic levers of power. Consider two examples of radical public policy initiatives, the successful implementation of which might have altered the trajectory of India's socio-economic growth: the implementation of land reform and the SC/ST quota both of which were a part of the socio-economic compact that led to the birth of the Indian republic in 1950. Whereas zamindari was successfully abolished, the distribution of land declared surplus (beyond legally permissible holdings) was effectively stymied as land transfer got caught up a maze of litigation, bureaucratic obfuscation and lack of political will.
Similarly as a response to Ambedkar's mobilization and Gandhi's insistence, the UCH elite acceded to constitutionally guaranteed quotas for SCs and STs. However by ensuring that these quotas did not get filled, particularly in the higher echelons of the bureaucracy, judiciary and the public sector (including colleges and universities), the UCH elite ensured that any transformative potential was snuffed out. And rather than a debate why quotas remain unfilled, UCH elites, under the garb of equality, removed the 'creamy layer' from within the purview of the quota, effectively snuffing out the possibility of the formation of a countervailing elite.
OBC quotas have been resisted much more strenuously, in part because UCH elites have always seen OBCs, as compared with the SCs and STs, as being a much more serious threat to the continued control over the socio-economic levers of power. UCH elites have been successful in using passive resistance as a blocking strategy because there was insufficient grass-roots political mobilization around these issues. It can hardly be a coincidence that the states where land reforms (e.g., Kerala and West Bengal) or SC/ST/OBC quotas (e.g., Tamil Nadu) have been successfully implemented are states where there has been political mobilization around these issues.A Passive Resistance To Equality
By Mritiunjoy Mohanty
13 July, 2007Economic Times
Officials told to restore peace in Surpur http://www.hindu.com/2007/08/03/stories/2007080358220400.htm
BANGALORE: The State Government has issued strict instructions to the Deputy Commissioner and the Superintendent of Police of Gulbarga district to take measures to restore peace in Surpur taluk where Dalits are living in fear because of frequent atrocities against them.
Primary and Secondary Education Minister Basavaraj S. Horatti, who replied on behalf of Home Minister M.P. Prakash, told the Legislative Assembly on Thursday that the Government had taken the matter seriously. It had directed the Deputy Commissioner and the Superintendent of Police to take measures to restore normality and also to ensure that such incidents did not recur.
Earlier, raising the issue during zero hour, G.V. Sriram Reddy (CPI-M) said the district in-charge Minister had not visited the affected village though a large number of Dalits were gripped by fear. He urged the Government to organise peace meetings in the taluk to restore normality.
Now, Bharti to train SC/ST engineersNEW DELHI: Bharti Enterprises is set to train and employ engineers from the SC/ST bracket on preferential basis, in the process becoming the second big player embracing a voluntary affirmative action plan.
The social justice ministry and Bharti Enterprises are joining hands in an endeavour that was set rolling by Infosys last year. The IT giant had trained 88 engineers at its Bangalore premises of which 79 have found work in top industrial houses. The social justice ministry has sent a list of 170 SC/ST unemployed engineers to Bharti after its CEO Sunil Bharti Mittal wrote that his business house be given names of persons who could be trained for absorption. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Now_Bharti_to_train_SCST_engineers/articleshow/2249684.cms
CII to sponsor 50 pc fees of SC/ST candidatesTuesday July 31 2007 13:14 IST BHUBANESWAR: In keeping with its commitment to the development of the SC & ST community under its affirmative action plan, Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), would be sponsoring 50 per cent of the tuition fees of SC and ST candidates preparing for the competitive examinations in the State.
The programme would pick up 20 meritorious students from the community who have secured over 60 per cent,?? said CII State-coordinator Suparna Nanda. Talking to this paper here on Monday, she said the part funding would be subject to the evaluation of the students every three months. The body has tied up with NM Tutorial for the purpose.
According to the coaching centre, SC & ST students usually constitute 25 per cent of a batch.
Nanda was participating at the valedictory session of a month-long training programme on ?micro enterprise development? for SC & ST candidates. About 27 candidates underwent the training. It was implemented by Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDII), regional centre, in association with CII.
The objective was to introduce them into the nuances of entrepreneurship and infuse an entrepreneurial spirit in them. It was hosted by the Institute of Hotel Management, ITER.http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEQ20070731025324&Page=Q&Title=ORISSA&Topic=0
Nodal agency for SC, ST sub-plans soon
HYDERABAD: A nodal agency headed by the Chief Minister will be constituted shortly to monitor the implementation of the sub-plans of the Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes.
Announcing this in the Assembly on Tuesday in response to a consistent demand made by the CPI (M), CPI, Telangana Rashtra Samiti and BSP, Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy said the agency will meet once in six months to ensure that the funds earmarked for these sections in various departments were spent.
Earlier, the CPI (M), CPI, TRS and BSP members squatted in the podium in support of their demand. They alleged that the Government had failed to implement the Special component plan for SCs and STs.
Replying to a query by Paturu Ramaiah (CPI M), Social Welfare Minister P. Subash Chandra Bose said a high-powered committee comprising legislators and officials had been constituted to study the implementation of welfare programmes for the weaker sections. It would visit Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh before submitting its report. Not convinced with the Minister’s reply, the Opposition members raised slogans demanding constitution of nodal agency. On Monday, 22 SC/ST legislators belonging to the Congress, CPI (M), CPI and TRS resolved to seek the establishment of the nodal agency. Convened by Dara Sambaiah, Congress MLA from Santanutalapadu (Prakasam district), the meeting called for separate enactment on the plans. http://www.hindu.com/2007/07/25/stories/2007072560880500.htm
Norms violated to deny SC/ST techies Government jobs?Monday July 30 2007 13:11 IST BHUBANESWAR: The Unemployed SC/ST Degree Engineers? Forum (USDEF) has alleged that many government departments are violating the selection norms and adopting stringent procedures to deny the community members government jobs.
Citing the 2005-?06 employment notification of the Orissa Public Service Commission (OPSC) for the post of assistant engineers in Water Resources, Works, Urban Development, Industries and Agriculture departments, they alleged that there were strategies to ?dereserve? posts for general candidates through clauses like written examination, minus marking and cut-off marks.
Even in the past, candidates from general categories were unable to meet such strict criteria, said USDEF convenor Lankeswar Laguri and advisor Haladhar Sethi. They even alleged that at present the OPSC has no member from the SC/ST community hence the grievances of the candidates are not being addressed properly.
http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEQ20070730025005&Page=Q&Title=ORISSA&Topic=0
India Inc assures preference for SC/ST BS Reporter / New Delhi July 15, 2007 Indian Inc today agreed to follow the principle of ?positive discrimination? in employing scheduled caste and scheduled tribe candidates in their companies. Other things being equal, SC/ST candidates will be given preference in employment, an approach that industry representatives say, should result in sizeable increase in employment of these persons in the organised sector. This was the general agreement at the second meeting of the Coordination Committee to promote Affirmative Action in Indian Industry chaired by Prime Minister?s Principal Secretary T K A Nair. India Inc was represented by the heads of CII, Ficci, Assocham and other senior representatives of industry. The steps agreed to today would be reviewed after two months. Industry also reiterated that it was opposed to any move to legislate job reservations in the private sector. ?The discussion revolved around affirmative action. The government did not press for reservation either,? CII President Sunil Mittal told reporters after the meeting. India Inc also agreed to include reporting of data on the new employment for SC/ST persons created during the year in the Code of Conduct being prescribed for their members. However, FICCI Secretary General Amit Mitra told Business Standard that reporting such data should be made voluntary. ?Forcing companies to disclose such data bears the risk of making it inaccurate,? he said. A government release said that FICCI has agreed to soon evolve a Code of Conduct on Affirmative Action for its members, after CII and Assocham said that they have already put such regulation in place. It was also agreed that that an Ombudsman with regional benches would be set up by each apex chamber to monitor the compliance of the voluntary Code of Conduct by its members. Industry chambers also agreed to top up financial incentives to ensure that the seats for SC/ST candidates in Industrial Training Institutes do not remain unfilled. In a presentation, Ficci said that it would adopt 50 ITIs in the current year and graduate 5000 SC/ST students in equal partnership with the government. ?We told the government that it should continue with its stipend and we will top it up with an additional Rs 500 so that the loss of wage of the SC/ST students could be compensated,? Mitra added. Another element of affirmative action was to develop entrepreneurial abilities amongst SC/ST persons. However, we have urged the government to bring out a legislation following the US model so as to allow banks to offer loans to SC/ST entrepreneurs. As such loans will come under high risk capital, so government has to give loan guarantee to banks,? Mitra said. Assocham President Venugopal N. Dhoot proposed a 1 per cent education cess on corporate annual profits to provide elementary education for SCs/STs and other backward classes and sought incentives to set up industrial clusters in backward districts to provide them employment opportunities. The suggested 1 per cent education levy should be disbursed to relevant institutions following recommendations from Chambers of Commerce,? he added. http://www.business-standard.com/compindustry/storypage.php?leftnm=lmnu1&subLeft=1&autono=291171&tab=r
Letter to Prime Minister Singh of India from the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice and Human Rights WatchRe: India?s submission to the Committee reviewing India?s compliance with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial DiscriminationFebruary 14, 2007 Dr. Manmohan Singh Prime Minister's Office Government of India South Block New Delhi 110001 IndiaDear Prime Minister Singh: Enclosed is a copy of Hidden Apartheid: Caste Discrimination against India?s ?Untouchables,? a report produced by the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice and Human Rights Watch. It is a shadow report in response to India?s recent submission to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (the Committee) which monitors implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (the Convention). The Committee will review India?s compliance with the Convention during hearings in Geneva on February 23 and February 26, 2007. Despite your recent strong and welcome condemnation of the plight of Dalits in India, official actions to address caste-based discrimination and violence have been wholly inadequate. For example, a 2005 government report found that a crime is committed against a Dalit every 20 minutes. This failure is also exemplified by India?s recent submission to the Committee, which does not contain any reference to caste-based abuses in India. This omission contradicts the Committee?s 1996 determination that caste falls within the Convention?s prohibition on descent-based discrimination. A lack of reporting on this pervasive problem, along with a lack of attention to the limited impact of laws in place to address caste-discrimination, are two key gaps that need to be addressed with urgency by the government to ensure that it is in compliance with its international human rights obligations. We believe that unless this issue is taken up with strong leadership at the highest levels of government, the more than 165 million Dalits in India will remain condemned to a lifetime of abuse simply because of the caste into which they are born. We hope that you will take up the matter urgently. Specifically, we urge your government to:
Take steps to ensure appropriate reforms to eliminate police abuses against Dalits and other marginalized communities.
Provide concrete plans to implement laws and government policies to secure the protection of Dalits, and of Dalit women in particular, from physical and sexual violence.
Take steps to eradicate caste-based segregation in residential areas and schools, and in access to public services.
Outline plans to ensure the effective eradication of exploitative labor arrangements and effective implementation of rehabilitation schemes for Dalit bonded and child laborers, manual scavengers, and for Dalit women forced into prostitution.
Ensure proper implementation and monitoring of Dalit development programs which have largely failed to reach target groups.
Combat hate speech and other actions inciting caste or religion based discrimination and violence.
Implement the recommendations of the 2004 National Human Rights Commission report on atrocities against Dalits.Thank you for your consideration. We look forward to learning what steps you have taken to address these important issues. Yours truly, Smita Narula Faculty Director Center for Human Rights and Global Justice NYU School of Law Brad Adams Executive Director Asia Division Human Rights Watch
Reservation Debate: A Great Opportunity To Restrengthen Dalit Bahujan Alliance
By V.B.Rawat
08 May, 2006Countercurrents.org
One need to give due credit to V.T.Rajshekar, editor of Dalit Voice, Banglore, for wonderfully explaining the issue of merit and reservation. Rajshekar himself faced threat when he was in Delhi during those heydays of anti Mandal agitation of the upper caste youths 1990-91. Mr Rajshekar has a sharp mind who understand well the brahmanical crookedness and has been really well ahead of his contemporaries in analyzing caste system in India.
He is quoted two excellent judgment of Justice Krishna Iyer and Justice Chinappa Reddy in his thought provoking article " The Myth of Merit and Efficiency Dalit Voice January 16th, 1987. I take liberty in quoting the wonderful judgment of Justice Krishna Iyer and Justice Chinnapa Reddy from the article for the benefit of readers.
Justice Krishna Iyer of the Supreme Court says in the ABSK Sangh case 1981)
"Trite arguments about efficiency are a trifle phoney. ... We are not impressed with the misfortune about the governmental personnel being manned by morons, merely because a sprinkling of harijans and Girijans happened to find their way into the service. The malady of modern India lies elsewhere, and the merit monger are greater risks in many respects than the native tribals, and slightly better off lower caste. .. The fundamental question arises, as to what's 'merit' and 'suitability'? Elitists, whose sympathies with the masses have dried up, are from standards of Indian people, least suitable to run the government and least meritorious to handle the state business. ... A sensitized heart and vibrant head tuned to the tears of the people, will speedily quicken the developmental needs of the country... Sincere dedication and intellectual integrity - these are some of the components of merit and suitability- not a degree from Oxford or Cambridge, Harvard or Simian. Unfortunately, the very orientation of our selection process is distorted and those like the candidates from Scheduled Castes whom from their birth, have a traumatic understanding of the conditions of agrestic India, have in one sense more capability than those who lived under affluent circumstances and are callous to the human lot of the sorrowing masses."
According to Justice Chinnappa Reddy of the Supreme Court :
"There is no statistical basis or expert evidence to support the assumption that efficiency will be impaired if reservation is continued or if reservation exceeds a certain percentage or reservation is extended to promotional posts."
Justice Chinnappa Reddy of Supreme Court said (in the Railways case 1881) "Therefore, we see that when the posts ... are reserved ... to members of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other socially and economically Backward Classes it is not a concession or privilege extended to them, it is in the recognition of their undoubted fundamental right to equality of opportunity and ...and to secure to all its citizens, justice, social, economic and political and equality of status and opportunity ... to ensure their participation on an equal basis in the administration of the country ... Every lawful method is permissible to secure the duerepresentation of SCs and STs in the public services."
(The Myth of Merit and Efficiency- Dalit Voice January 16, 1987: the entire text is available on www.ambedkar.org)
What is merit?
Perhaps those campaigning against reservation may not even know that Justice Krishna Iyer, one of India's most illustrious judicial reformists made such a scathing remark on the issue of merit. The fact of the matter is that upper Hindus, their masters in the media and business rarely read books. They are not bothered about human rights. Rarely would they feel apologetic about what their forefathers have done to the Dalits. The violence against Dalits, Adivasis and backward communities is still rampant. None of our brothers want to discuss on this and carry a campaign against the same.
They are equally not bothered about getting a seat through money and muscle power. Watch at any railway station they would like to book reserve seat for them. Why cannot they go in general category if they are so enamored with General. You oppose reservation where you feel others will damage your 5000 years hegemony. You support it where you can buy it.
The same upper caste Hindus are back in action after a long wait of useless sitting. They did not come in the street when Gujarat was burning. No doctor boycotted Praveen Togadia, a shame on medical profession who warned doctors not to treat the Muslims. They did not come to the street when Ayodhya's Babari Mosque was demolished 1992. They cannot come to the street when Hindus in Kashmir are massacred. They do not cry against the Sharmas who are involved in a majority of criminal cases for the last ten years. Beginning from the tandoor famous Sushil Sharma to Shivani murder case R.K.Sharma and then onwards hundreds of Sharmas are behind the bar facing criminal charges. No upper caste in the street come forward to condemn Sharmaisation of crime. During the British period the same upper castes with the help of their British bosses declared some of the Dalits and backward communities as criminal tribe. If one Mushhar was caught for stealing a piece of bread, the entire Mushhar community was branded as thief. Similarly, Gujars were declared as criminal tribes. Upper castes have no time to think over it, for they think it is not their issue. They are born to rule the country and therefore when the political system is Mandalised, they still feel they can still rule the country through media and bureaucracy. Sorry, their time has gone.
Debate on Merit therefore is gaining ground. We are hearing Trivedis, Chaturvedis, Malhotras, Guptas, Sanghvis, Chawalas on the virtue of a 'meritorious' society. One does not know what do they mean by meritorious society. Let us start to unravel some facts of merit. http://www.countercurrents.org/dalit-rawat080506.htm
India: ?Hidden Apartheid? of Discrimination Against DalitsGovernment Fails to End Caste-Based Segregation and Attacks(New York, February 13, 2007) ? India has systematically failed to uphold its international legal obligations to ensure the fundamental human rights of Dalits, or so-called untouchables, despite laws and policies against caste discrimination, the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice and Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. More than 165 million Dalits in India are condemned to a lifetime of abuse simply because of their caste.
Prime Minister Singh has rightly compared ?untouchability? to apartheid, and he should now turn his words into action to protect the rights of Dalits. The Indian government can no longer deny its collusion in maintaining a system of entrenched social and economic segregation.
Professor Smita Narula, faculty director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) at New York University School of Law, and co-author of the report. http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/02/13/india15303.htm
India's Dalits: between atrocity and protest By Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch
Published in openDemocracy
Surekha Bhotmange, a Dalit (or so-called "untouchable") member of the Hindu caste system in Maharashtra, was cooking the family evening meal on 29 September 2006 when a group of upper-caste men surrounded her home. Surekha, her 17-year-old daughter Priyanka, and two sons, 23-year-old Roshan and 21-year-old Sudhir, were dragged out of the hut. The two women were stripped, beaten and paraded through the village. The young men were beaten up so badly their faces were disfigured. All four died. Almost all of Khairlanji village witnessed this spectacle of caste vengeance. No one did much to stop it.
Contribute to Human Rights WatchThe attack was a retribution for previous activism. The upper-caste farmers from the area were using the Bhotmanges' land as a throughway for their tractors. The family resisted, with the help of a Dalit rights activist. Siddharth Gajbhiye. Gajbhiye himself was beaten up. Surekha Bhotmange was a witness, identifying twelve perpetrators who were then arrested. On the day that the Bhotmange family was attacked, all twelve had been released on bail. They took their ghastly revenge. http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/01/12/india15058.htm
Dalits and their future M V Kamath
The claim has been made that in the last seventy years, three 'great leaders' made dalits conscious of their rights in India's caste-ridden society, namely, Dr Bhimarao Ambedkar, Babu Jagjivan Ram and in more recent years, Kanshi Ram.
This is a poor tribute to Mahatma Gandhi and to many others like Jyotiba Phule (1827-1890), a Mali and Vithalrao Shinde (1973-1944) a kshatriya Maratha, both caste Hindus who in their own way fought for the rights of the dalits with just as much if not more, zeal. This is not to say that Ambedkar, Jagjivan Ram and Kanshi Ram did not serve dalits as much as many of our social refor
Blessed are those who are awakened
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551Email: palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
"You must have firm belief in the sacredness of your mission. Noble is your aim and sublime and glorious is your mission. Blessed are those who are awakened to their duty to among those whom they are born."
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar
For 3,500 years, Hinduism's caste system has enslaved a majority of its people calling them "untouchables." Today, these nearly 300 million are calling themselves by another name - Dalit meaning oppressed or ground down.
Despite Nandigram Singur Uprising, there in virtually no breakthrough for a real initiatve of dalit movement in West Bengal. Mahashweta Devi was the first among the Intelligentsia who rcognised Nandigram Insurrection as Dalit Movement. Ironically, the Intelligentsia Bengal is more than cooperative to close all those windows for National Dalit Movement opend during Dalit Muslim United Revolt. CPIM Brahmincal mechanism has covered all doors of the dalits, minorities and OBC for coming out. Thus, Nandigram remains in Nandigram and singur in Singur. These zones have become separated and seem to have no impact on rest of the Bengal. WWF show in beteen Ruling and Opposition Brahmincal forces supported by FDI fed Media and MNC sponsered Intelligentsia, continues. The Dalit and Muslim masses happen to be the integral part of helpless, entertaing audiance. Reading daily Newspapers, indulging in pseodo intellectual debate, seminaring and lunch dinner parties go on Economy, society and Politics.
Little mags publish special issues, mind blowing literature. Political parties are busy to mobilise respective Vote Bank.But no one seems to be interested to toe the historical line of Dalit Muslim unity to enforce Social Change in West Bengal! British Rulers left India only after transferring the statepower to merciless Brahmins. If, hypothetically we visulise the near impossible overthrow of the Marxist Regime In West bengal, the question remains unanswered what next! The Left has , at least an ideological historical background which emerged as dominating State Power only after a series of pro people mass movements! What record Mamta Bannerjee has? And other Brahmins. They never recognise either Class or Caste! You have to chose on among different tools of Hindu Zionist Galaxy Manusmriti Order!
I am isolated from rest of Bengali Intelligentsia and Dalits in particular as I am continuously writing and talking about the dream of a National dalit movement to be initiated from Bengal. Brhminical opposition is understood. But the dalit detachment should be only explained as seer opportunism or terror of Gestapo culture. Nothing else!
Thus, I am focusing on Dalit and Refugee issues these days. nandigram and singutr updates remain irrelevent until there is a positive initiative to launch a real mass movement.I am afraid that neither mahasheta Devi nor Medha patekar would agree!
By Hindu tradition, Dalits are the lowest of the low. The only jobs available to them are as sewage and sanitation workers and other menial tasks. The public educational system has ignored them.
Yet they have never rebelled against their poverty and oppression because Hindu teaching held them in bondage: they were taught from birth that God hated them and had doomed them to suffering. If they tried to better themselves, they were inviting more punishment from God!
Across India, Dalit leaders are urging their people to quit Hinduism and the culture of oppression that enslaves them!Dalit leader Udit Raj has galvanized the Dalits by courageously telling them that they are free to abandon Hinduism and the horrible birthright of the untouchables.He organized a public demonstration to personally renounce Hinduism, and the response was overwhelming! Two hundred thousand Dalits converged on the scene, over 400 bus and trainloads were turned away by government forces.
Maoists blow up forest office in West BengalHindustan Times, India - 6 hours agoMaoist guerrillas blew up a forest office on Saturday in West Bengal's West Midnapur district to apparently avenge the destruction of a "martyrs' memorial" ...Maoists blow off police beat office in a West Bengal district Times of IndiaMaoists blow up police office in West Bengal DailyIndia.comMaoists blow up forest office in West Bengal Monsters and Critics.com
'Bengal should focus on branding'Times of India, India - 2 hours agoKOLKATA: West Bengal should focus on branding and its core competence to draw investments to the state, a US official said on Saturday. ...
West Bengal tea workers demand reopening of gardensDailyIndia.com, FL - 3 Aug 2007Kumargram (West Bengal), Aug 3: Tea workers in West Bengal have called for the reopening of tea gardens, and said their protests will go on till August 9. ...
Farmers would’ve benefited more from direct selling’ Express News Service Kolkata, August 3: Advocate Arunava Ghosh today alleged that the government has not disclosed the details of the agreement signed between the Tata group and the state regarding the small-car project at Singur. Ghosh made the comment before a Division Bench of Chief Justice S S Nijjar and Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose of the Calcutta High Court.
Appearing for the Food First Information Action Network, West Bengal, Ghosh submitted before the bench that West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation had taken a loan of Rs 200 crore from West Bengal Financial Corporation at ten per cent annual interest for financing the small car project of Tata. As a result, the WBIDC would have to pay Rs 20 crore as interest and Tata, a company worth Rs 56,000 crore would enjoy the financial benefit. He added that the petitioner was entitled to the information about the deal according to the Right to Information Act.
Bride Groom18 - 24 25 - 30 31 - 35 36 - 45 46 - 50 50+India USA United Kingdom UAE Canada Australia Pakistan Saudi Arabia Kuwait South Africa On the other hand, he submitted before the bench that DLF, a real estate company, purchased land at Dankuni from the land-owners shelling out Rs 54 lakh for an acre of land. But the state government offered only Rs 9 lakh for one acre of land to owners at Singur which was just 15 km away from Dankuni. He argued that the land-owners of Singur should have got at least Rs 29 lakh against an acre of land. The land owners, he said, had been deprived as the state acquired land on behalf of Tata. He added that if Tata purchased land directly from the farmers the latter would have enjoyed the benefits they are entitled to.
Mainstream, Vol XLV, No 30
Social Justice for the Muslim Community—Panacea for Upliftmentby Syed Shahabuddin
Saturday 14 July 2007
COMMUNICATIONTHROUGH EMPOWERMENT, PARTICIPATION AND INVOLVEMENT Shri Chaturanan Mishra, in his article "Basic Causes of Muslim Backwardness" (Mainstream, June 2, 2007), has failed both to diagnose the social malaise of which the Muslim Indians are the prime victims, the communal bias, and suggest appropriate remedial measures.
A noteworthy conclusion of the Sachar Report is that the Muslim community as a whole, with regional and intra-community variations, normal in any country of continental dimensions, is more or less at the same level of backwardness as the SC/ST. It is no use, nor the appropriate approach, trying to inspire the revival of the community by recalling memories of Muslim contribution to the expansion of human knowledge and its movement from one end of the earth to another, while, at the same time, demoralising it by reference to the contemporary backwardness of the Muslim world as a whole. Both are irrelevant to the objective in view, that is, to uplift the Muslim Indians who form 15 per cent of the national population and also of the world Muslim population, educationally, economically, politically and socially within the framework of the democratic and secular state, committed to equality and justice among various social groups who profess different religions, speak different languages, have different ways of life and freely assert their ethnic or cultural identity as communities and sub-communities, castes and sub-castes. The Indian society is not only hierchical but segmented. So is the Muslim Indian society.http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article216.html
But then UCH elite have long used their domination of the judiciary and the bureaucracy as mechanisms of passive resistance in their continuing battle to retain control over socio-economic levers of power. Consider two examples of radical public policy initiatives, the successful implementation of which might have altered the trajectory of India's socio-economic growth: the implementation of land reform and the SC/ST quota both of which were a part of the socio-economic compact that led to the birth of the Indian republic in 1950. Whereas zamindari was successfully abolished, the distribution of land declared surplus (beyond legally permissible holdings) was effectively stymied as land transfer got caught up a maze of litigation, bureaucratic obfuscation and lack of political will.
Similarly as a response to Ambedkar's mobilization and Gandhi's insistence, the UCH elite acceded to constitutionally guaranteed quotas for SCs and STs. However by ensuring that these quotas did not get filled, particularly in the higher echelons of the bureaucracy, judiciary and the public sector (including colleges and universities), the UCH elite ensured that any transformative potential was snuffed out. And rather than a debate why quotas remain unfilled, UCH elites, under the garb of equality, removed the 'creamy layer' from within the purview of the quota, effectively snuffing out the possibility of the formation of a countervailing elite.
OBC quotas have been resisted much more strenuously, in part because UCH elites have always seen OBCs, as compared with the SCs and STs, as being a much more serious threat to the continued control over the socio-economic levers of power. UCH elites have been successful in using passive resistance as a blocking strategy because there was insufficient grass-roots political mobilization around these issues. It can hardly be a coincidence that the states where land reforms (e.g., Kerala and West Bengal) or SC/ST/OBC quotas (e.g., Tamil Nadu) have been successfully implemented are states where there has been political mobilization around these issues.A Passive Resistance To Equality
By Mritiunjoy Mohanty
13 July, 2007Economic Times
Officials told to restore peace in Surpur http://www.hindu.com/2007/08/03/stories/2007080358220400.htm
BANGALORE: The State Government has issued strict instructions to the Deputy Commissioner and the Superintendent of Police of Gulbarga district to take measures to restore peace in Surpur taluk where Dalits are living in fear because of frequent atrocities against them.
Primary and Secondary Education Minister Basavaraj S. Horatti, who replied on behalf of Home Minister M.P. Prakash, told the Legislative Assembly on Thursday that the Government had taken the matter seriously. It had directed the Deputy Commissioner and the Superintendent of Police to take measures to restore normality and also to ensure that such incidents did not recur.
Earlier, raising the issue during zero hour, G.V. Sriram Reddy (CPI-M) said the district in-charge Minister had not visited the affected village though a large number of Dalits were gripped by fear. He urged the Government to organise peace meetings in the taluk to restore normality.
Now, Bharti to train SC/ST engineersNEW DELHI: Bharti Enterprises is set to train and employ engineers from the SC/ST bracket on preferential basis, in the process becoming the second big player embracing a voluntary affirmative action plan.
The social justice ministry and Bharti Enterprises are joining hands in an endeavour that was set rolling by Infosys last year. The IT giant had trained 88 engineers at its Bangalore premises of which 79 have found work in top industrial houses. The social justice ministry has sent a list of 170 SC/ST unemployed engineers to Bharti after its CEO Sunil Bharti Mittal wrote that his business house be given names of persons who could be trained for absorption. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Now_Bharti_to_train_SCST_engineers/articleshow/2249684.cms
CII to sponsor 50 pc fees of SC/ST candidatesTuesday July 31 2007 13:14 IST BHUBANESWAR: In keeping with its commitment to the development of the SC & ST community under its affirmative action plan, Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), would be sponsoring 50 per cent of the tuition fees of SC and ST candidates preparing for the competitive examinations in the State.
The programme would pick up 20 meritorious students from the community who have secured over 60 per cent,?? said CII State-coordinator Suparna Nanda. Talking to this paper here on Monday, she said the part funding would be subject to the evaluation of the students every three months. The body has tied up with NM Tutorial for the purpose.
According to the coaching centre, SC & ST students usually constitute 25 per cent of a batch.
Nanda was participating at the valedictory session of a month-long training programme on ?micro enterprise development? for SC & ST candidates. About 27 candidates underwent the training. It was implemented by Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDII), regional centre, in association with CII.
The objective was to introduce them into the nuances of entrepreneurship and infuse an entrepreneurial spirit in them. It was hosted by the Institute of Hotel Management, ITER.http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEQ20070731025324&Page=Q&Title=ORISSA&Topic=0
Nodal agency for SC, ST sub-plans soon
HYDERABAD: A nodal agency headed by the Chief Minister will be constituted shortly to monitor the implementation of the sub-plans of the Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes.
Announcing this in the Assembly on Tuesday in response to a consistent demand made by the CPI (M), CPI, Telangana Rashtra Samiti and BSP, Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy said the agency will meet once in six months to ensure that the funds earmarked for these sections in various departments were spent.
Earlier, the CPI (M), CPI, TRS and BSP members squatted in the podium in support of their demand. They alleged that the Government had failed to implement the Special component plan for SCs and STs.
Replying to a query by Paturu Ramaiah (CPI M), Social Welfare Minister P. Subash Chandra Bose said a high-powered committee comprising legislators and officials had been constituted to study the implementation of welfare programmes for the weaker sections. It would visit Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh before submitting its report. Not convinced with the Minister’s reply, the Opposition members raised slogans demanding constitution of nodal agency. On Monday, 22 SC/ST legislators belonging to the Congress, CPI (M), CPI and TRS resolved to seek the establishment of the nodal agency. Convened by Dara Sambaiah, Congress MLA from Santanutalapadu (Prakasam district), the meeting called for separate enactment on the plans. http://www.hindu.com/2007/07/25/stories/2007072560880500.htm
Norms violated to deny SC/ST techies Government jobs?Monday July 30 2007 13:11 IST BHUBANESWAR: The Unemployed SC/ST Degree Engineers? Forum (USDEF) has alleged that many government departments are violating the selection norms and adopting stringent procedures to deny the community members government jobs.
Citing the 2005-?06 employment notification of the Orissa Public Service Commission (OPSC) for the post of assistant engineers in Water Resources, Works, Urban Development, Industries and Agriculture departments, they alleged that there were strategies to ?dereserve? posts for general candidates through clauses like written examination, minus marking and cut-off marks.
Even in the past, candidates from general categories were unable to meet such strict criteria, said USDEF convenor Lankeswar Laguri and advisor Haladhar Sethi. They even alleged that at present the OPSC has no member from the SC/ST community hence the grievances of the candidates are not being addressed properly.
http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEQ20070730025005&Page=Q&Title=ORISSA&Topic=0
India Inc assures preference for SC/ST BS Reporter / New Delhi July 15, 2007 Indian Inc today agreed to follow the principle of ?positive discrimination? in employing scheduled caste and scheduled tribe candidates in their companies. Other things being equal, SC/ST candidates will be given preference in employment, an approach that industry representatives say, should result in sizeable increase in employment of these persons in the organised sector. This was the general agreement at the second meeting of the Coordination Committee to promote Affirmative Action in Indian Industry chaired by Prime Minister?s Principal Secretary T K A Nair. India Inc was represented by the heads of CII, Ficci, Assocham and other senior representatives of industry. The steps agreed to today would be reviewed after two months. Industry also reiterated that it was opposed to any move to legislate job reservations in the private sector. ?The discussion revolved around affirmative action. The government did not press for reservation either,? CII President Sunil Mittal told reporters after the meeting. India Inc also agreed to include reporting of data on the new employment for SC/ST persons created during the year in the Code of Conduct being prescribed for their members. However, FICCI Secretary General Amit Mitra told Business Standard that reporting such data should be made voluntary. ?Forcing companies to disclose such data bears the risk of making it inaccurate,? he said. A government release said that FICCI has agreed to soon evolve a Code of Conduct on Affirmative Action for its members, after CII and Assocham said that they have already put such regulation in place. It was also agreed that that an Ombudsman with regional benches would be set up by each apex chamber to monitor the compliance of the voluntary Code of Conduct by its members. Industry chambers also agreed to top up financial incentives to ensure that the seats for SC/ST candidates in Industrial Training Institutes do not remain unfilled. In a presentation, Ficci said that it would adopt 50 ITIs in the current year and graduate 5000 SC/ST students in equal partnership with the government. ?We told the government that it should continue with its stipend and we will top it up with an additional Rs 500 so that the loss of wage of the SC/ST students could be compensated,? Mitra added. Another element of affirmative action was to develop entrepreneurial abilities amongst SC/ST persons. However, we have urged the government to bring out a legislation following the US model so as to allow banks to offer loans to SC/ST entrepreneurs. As such loans will come under high risk capital, so government has to give loan guarantee to banks,? Mitra said. Assocham President Venugopal N. Dhoot proposed a 1 per cent education cess on corporate annual profits to provide elementary education for SCs/STs and other backward classes and sought incentives to set up industrial clusters in backward districts to provide them employment opportunities. The suggested 1 per cent education levy should be disbursed to relevant institutions following recommendations from Chambers of Commerce,? he added. http://www.business-standard.com/compindustry/storypage.php?leftnm=lmnu1&subLeft=1&autono=291171&tab=r
Letter to Prime Minister Singh of India from the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice and Human Rights WatchRe: India?s submission to the Committee reviewing India?s compliance with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial DiscriminationFebruary 14, 2007 Dr. Manmohan Singh Prime Minister's Office Government of India South Block New Delhi 110001 IndiaDear Prime Minister Singh: Enclosed is a copy of Hidden Apartheid: Caste Discrimination against India?s ?Untouchables,? a report produced by the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice and Human Rights Watch. It is a shadow report in response to India?s recent submission to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (the Committee) which monitors implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (the Convention). The Committee will review India?s compliance with the Convention during hearings in Geneva on February 23 and February 26, 2007. Despite your recent strong and welcome condemnation of the plight of Dalits in India, official actions to address caste-based discrimination and violence have been wholly inadequate. For example, a 2005 government report found that a crime is committed against a Dalit every 20 minutes. This failure is also exemplified by India?s recent submission to the Committee, which does not contain any reference to caste-based abuses in India. This omission contradicts the Committee?s 1996 determination that caste falls within the Convention?s prohibition on descent-based discrimination. A lack of reporting on this pervasive problem, along with a lack of attention to the limited impact of laws in place to address caste-discrimination, are two key gaps that need to be addressed with urgency by the government to ensure that it is in compliance with its international human rights obligations. We believe that unless this issue is taken up with strong leadership at the highest levels of government, the more than 165 million Dalits in India will remain condemned to a lifetime of abuse simply because of the caste into which they are born. We hope that you will take up the matter urgently. Specifically, we urge your government to:
Take steps to ensure appropriate reforms to eliminate police abuses against Dalits and other marginalized communities.
Provide concrete plans to implement laws and government policies to secure the protection of Dalits, and of Dalit women in particular, from physical and sexual violence.
Take steps to eradicate caste-based segregation in residential areas and schools, and in access to public services.
Outline plans to ensure the effective eradication of exploitative labor arrangements and effective implementation of rehabilitation schemes for Dalit bonded and child laborers, manual scavengers, and for Dalit women forced into prostitution.
Ensure proper implementation and monitoring of Dalit development programs which have largely failed to reach target groups.
Combat hate speech and other actions inciting caste or religion based discrimination and violence.
Implement the recommendations of the 2004 National Human Rights Commission report on atrocities against Dalits.Thank you for your consideration. We look forward to learning what steps you have taken to address these important issues. Yours truly, Smita Narula Faculty Director Center for Human Rights and Global Justice NYU School of Law Brad Adams Executive Director Asia Division Human Rights Watch
Reservation Debate: A Great Opportunity To Restrengthen Dalit Bahujan Alliance
By V.B.Rawat
08 May, 2006Countercurrents.org
One need to give due credit to V.T.Rajshekar, editor of Dalit Voice, Banglore, for wonderfully explaining the issue of merit and reservation. Rajshekar himself faced threat when he was in Delhi during those heydays of anti Mandal agitation of the upper caste youths 1990-91. Mr Rajshekar has a sharp mind who understand well the brahmanical crookedness and has been really well ahead of his contemporaries in analyzing caste system in India.
He is quoted two excellent judgment of Justice Krishna Iyer and Justice Chinappa Reddy in his thought provoking article " The Myth of Merit and Efficiency Dalit Voice January 16th, 1987. I take liberty in quoting the wonderful judgment of Justice Krishna Iyer and Justice Chinnapa Reddy from the article for the benefit of readers.
Justice Krishna Iyer of the Supreme Court says in the ABSK Sangh case 1981)
"Trite arguments about efficiency are a trifle phoney. ... We are not impressed with the misfortune about the governmental personnel being manned by morons, merely because a sprinkling of harijans and Girijans happened to find their way into the service. The malady of modern India lies elsewhere, and the merit monger are greater risks in many respects than the native tribals, and slightly better off lower caste. .. The fundamental question arises, as to what's 'merit' and 'suitability'? Elitists, whose sympathies with the masses have dried up, are from standards of Indian people, least suitable to run the government and least meritorious to handle the state business. ... A sensitized heart and vibrant head tuned to the tears of the people, will speedily quicken the developmental needs of the country... Sincere dedication and intellectual integrity - these are some of the components of merit and suitability- not a degree from Oxford or Cambridge, Harvard or Simian. Unfortunately, the very orientation of our selection process is distorted and those like the candidates from Scheduled Castes whom from their birth, have a traumatic understanding of the conditions of agrestic India, have in one sense more capability than those who lived under affluent circumstances and are callous to the human lot of the sorrowing masses."
According to Justice Chinnappa Reddy of the Supreme Court :
"There is no statistical basis or expert evidence to support the assumption that efficiency will be impaired if reservation is continued or if reservation exceeds a certain percentage or reservation is extended to promotional posts."
Justice Chinnappa Reddy of Supreme Court said (in the Railways case 1881) "Therefore, we see that when the posts ... are reserved ... to members of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other socially and economically Backward Classes it is not a concession or privilege extended to them, it is in the recognition of their undoubted fundamental right to equality of opportunity and ...and to secure to all its citizens, justice, social, economic and political and equality of status and opportunity ... to ensure their participation on an equal basis in the administration of the country ... Every lawful method is permissible to secure the duerepresentation of SCs and STs in the public services."
(The Myth of Merit and Efficiency- Dalit Voice January 16, 1987: the entire text is available on www.ambedkar.org)
What is merit?
Perhaps those campaigning against reservation may not even know that Justice Krishna Iyer, one of India's most illustrious judicial reformists made such a scathing remark on the issue of merit. The fact of the matter is that upper Hindus, their masters in the media and business rarely read books. They are not bothered about human rights. Rarely would they feel apologetic about what their forefathers have done to the Dalits. The violence against Dalits, Adivasis and backward communities is still rampant. None of our brothers want to discuss on this and carry a campaign against the same.
They are equally not bothered about getting a seat through money and muscle power. Watch at any railway station they would like to book reserve seat for them. Why cannot they go in general category if they are so enamored with General. You oppose reservation where you feel others will damage your 5000 years hegemony. You support it where you can buy it.
The same upper caste Hindus are back in action after a long wait of useless sitting. They did not come in the street when Gujarat was burning. No doctor boycotted Praveen Togadia, a shame on medical profession who warned doctors not to treat the Muslims. They did not come to the street when Ayodhya's Babari Mosque was demolished 1992. They cannot come to the street when Hindus in Kashmir are massacred. They do not cry against the Sharmas who are involved in a majority of criminal cases for the last ten years. Beginning from the tandoor famous Sushil Sharma to Shivani murder case R.K.Sharma and then onwards hundreds of Sharmas are behind the bar facing criminal charges. No upper caste in the street come forward to condemn Sharmaisation of crime. During the British period the same upper castes with the help of their British bosses declared some of the Dalits and backward communities as criminal tribe. If one Mushhar was caught for stealing a piece of bread, the entire Mushhar community was branded as thief. Similarly, Gujars were declared as criminal tribes. Upper castes have no time to think over it, for they think it is not their issue. They are born to rule the country and therefore when the political system is Mandalised, they still feel they can still rule the country through media and bureaucracy. Sorry, their time has gone.
Debate on Merit therefore is gaining ground. We are hearing Trivedis, Chaturvedis, Malhotras, Guptas, Sanghvis, Chawalas on the virtue of a 'meritorious' society. One does not know what do they mean by meritorious society. Let us start to unravel some facts of merit. http://www.countercurrents.org/dalit-rawat080506.htm
India: ?Hidden Apartheid? of Discrimination Against DalitsGovernment Fails to End Caste-Based Segregation and Attacks(New York, February 13, 2007) ? India has systematically failed to uphold its international legal obligations to ensure the fundamental human rights of Dalits, or so-called untouchables, despite laws and policies against caste discrimination, the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice and Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. More than 165 million Dalits in India are condemned to a lifetime of abuse simply because of their caste.
Prime Minister Singh has rightly compared ?untouchability? to apartheid, and he should now turn his words into action to protect the rights of Dalits. The Indian government can no longer deny its collusion in maintaining a system of entrenched social and economic segregation.
Professor Smita Narula, faculty director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) at New York University School of Law, and co-author of the report. http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/02/13/india15303.htm
India's Dalits: between atrocity and protest By Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch
Published in openDemocracy
Surekha Bhotmange, a Dalit (or so-called "untouchable") member of the Hindu caste system in Maharashtra, was cooking the family evening meal on 29 September 2006 when a group of upper-caste men surrounded her home. Surekha, her 17-year-old daughter Priyanka, and two sons, 23-year-old Roshan and 21-year-old Sudhir, were dragged out of the hut. The two women were stripped, beaten and paraded through the village. The young men were beaten up so badly their faces were disfigured. All four died. Almost all of Khairlanji village witnessed this spectacle of caste vengeance. No one did much to stop it.
Contribute to Human Rights WatchThe attack was a retribution for previous activism. The upper-caste farmers from the area were using the Bhotmanges' land as a throughway for their tractors. The family resisted, with the help of a Dalit rights activist. Siddharth Gajbhiye. Gajbhiye himself was beaten up. Surekha Bhotmange was a witness, identifying twelve perpetrators who were then arrested. On the day that the Bhotmange family was attacked, all twelve had been released on bail. They took their ghastly revenge. http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/01/12/india15058.htm
Dalits and their future M V Kamath
The claim has been made that in the last seventy years, three 'great leaders' made dalits conscious of their rights in India's caste-ridden society, namely, Dr Bhimarao Ambedkar, Babu Jagjivan Ram and in more recent years, Kanshi Ram.
This is a poor tribute to Mahatma Gandhi and to many others like Jyotiba Phule (1827-1890), a Mali and Vithalrao Shinde (1973-1944) a kshatriya Maratha, both caste Hindus who in their own way fought for the rights of the dalits with just as much if not more, zeal. This is not to say that Ambedkar, Jagjivan Ram and Kanshi Ram did not serve dalits as much as many of our social refor
Friday, August 3, 2007
Indian communists have to be remebered with Red Letters in Historyn as they finally annihilite Marxism!
South Asia: An Infinite US MNC Hunting Ground! US-India deal conforms to Hyde Act
Indian communists have to be remebered with Red Letters in Historyn as they finally annihilite Marxism!
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551Email: palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
LEFT TURN IN AP
Is a new national alliance taking shape around the Khammam agitation?
Sankarshan Thakur
NANDIGRAM HAS come up repeatedly in the context of the Khammam land agitation and the response of YS Rajasekhara Reddy’s Congress government to it. A protracted, and often angry, struggle by the landless backed by political groups in volatile Telangana. Sustained lack of response from the government in Hyderabad. Last week, a clash between agitators and the police. Eight dead. Thousands enraged. A cry that the Chief Minister, no less, quit owning moral responsibility. The CPM leading that cry. Here is where Nandigram comes in. Buddhadeb Bhattacharya never quit over Nandigram. Much worse happened there. So how is the CPM in a position to demand the resignation of Rajasekhara Reddy? Perhaps there is a point to be made here — the CPM is inconsistent, it should mind its mess in West Bengal in Kerala, it has no legs to stand on when it makes common cause with the landless in Khammam because it has been trying to grab land away from the people in Nandigram and Singur. That’s good rhetoric, but only rhetoric. The Congress in Andhra Pradesh can play that argument against the CPM but it cannot wish away problems that the Khammam agitation — and the police action — has created for the government. Those will follow a dynamic independent of what happened in West Bengal.
With the CPM aligning with Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam, the Andhra government has its task cut out. And it is not unlikely that the Congress, as a political entity, could also begin to feel the heat of such an alliance. The CPM-TDP partnership is fairly localised and issue-based, of course, but there are sections in the CPM hinting at possible realignments if the distance between them and the Reddy government continues to widen. And who knows, Andhra could become the platform for a new national experiment two years from now.http://www.tehelka.com/story_main33.asp?filename=Ne110807left_turn_in_PRO.asp
Indian PM warns agriculture is in crisis despite booming economy. Indian shares fell sharply in opening trade, tracking a sell-off in other Asian markets, which slipped on concerns of subprime mortgage woes taking a toll on the US economy. At 0441 GMT, the Bombay Stock Exchange's benchmark Sensex was down 440.55 points or 2.83 pct, at 15,110.44. The National Stock Exchange's S&P CNX Nifty was down 3.01 pct at 4,392.55 points.
All 30 Sensex components were in the red. In the broader market, 436 shares advanced, 1,041 declined and 28 remained unchanged. Shares across sectors were razed and yesterday's gains were undone within the first few minutes of trading.
As India and the United States released the text of the accord to implement their civil nuclear deal, Washington's point man on the issue Nicholas Burns dismissed suggestions that it violates the spirit of the Hyde Act.The two countries had struggled to sew up the agreement because India had wanted the United States to allow it to reprocess spent nuclear fuel, assure permanent fuel supplies and not penalise India by ending nuclear trade if it conducts another nuclear test.The text of the agreement showed that the first two demands had largely been met, while there was no direct mention of the consequences of another Indian test.
Political parties were today sharply divided on the Indo-US nuclear deal with Opposition BJP saying it will impact on the country's right to conduct atomic tests while the Congress terming it as a historic pact that recognises India as a nuclear power.
The Left parties, however, reserved their comments saying they will have to analyse it "thoroughly" and indicated that they would like to hold another round of discussions with the government on the issue. They are expected to come out with a reaction tomorrow.
Senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha told PTI "the reservations that we expressed earlier are still outstanding. We have serious reservations with regard to the agreement.... I can say that our fears remain in place. They, in fact, have multiplied.
Top BJP leaders, including A B Vajpayee, who had earlier expressed reservation on the deal, met here later to discuss the 123 pact but did not come out with a formal reaction. They said the party will give a detailed reaction tomorrow after indepth study of the text.
Besides Vajpayee, the meeting was attended by senior party leaders L K Advani, Jaswant Singh, Sinha and former National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra.
The Hyde Act, passed in December last year, provides that US President will have discretionary powers to terminate the civil nuclear cooperation if India conducts a nuclear test. "The agreement is derived from the Hyde Act," he remarked.
Congratulations, P sainath for Magsaysay Award, who reportedly spends three hundred days of the year in villages and is the greatest supporter of Buddha`s Capitalist Development and Evict Rural India for US interests with his eminent editor! I remeber his rebel role as a coordinator of Mumabai resistance. he called me that he could not include the dalit Bengali refugee issue in the agenda and was kind enough to hear my briefing with patience!As the economy surges, matters that call for the urgent attention of the public and government are ignored in favor of film starlets and beauty queens, the stock market, and India's famed IT boom. Sainath has taken a different path. Believing that "journalism is for people, not for shareholders," he has doggedly covered the lives of those who have been left behind. Sainath discovered that the acute misery of India's poorest districts was not caused by drought, as the government said. It was rooted in India's enduring structural inequalities-in poverty, illiteracy, and caste discrimination-and exacerbated by recent economic reforms favoring foreign investment and privatization. Indeed, these sweeping changes combined with endemic corruption had led small farmers and landless laborers into evermore crippling debt-with devastating consequences.
In electing Palagummi Sainath to receive the 2007 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communication Arts, the board of trustees recognizes his passionate commitment as a journalist to restore the rural poor to India's consciousness, moving the nation to action.
But , the Sainath, we used to know has changed to save the interest of his class, the ruling Brahmins!
US Indo Nuclear Deal is final. Leftistsor Rightist protest whatevermay it be, is not serios enough or intended to stall the legislation work. Indian sovereignty is now vested in US President as he is empoered to enforce Hyde Act against India! This is a century for most wanted galaxy manusmriti Order which destroys ideology as well as history. Political borders are irrelevent and Zionist Hindu US Post Modern galaxy Order rules all over. India is aspiring to be a Hindu super power which may not deal with day today problems of the suffering people. Rather a war is launched against rural India! Eviction drive is on. Riverlink project continues despite the fact that the nation is unable to manage gignatic dams. Penansular India is at the stake. Dandakar based dalit bengali refugees and tribals have to be wiped out. Coast line security Act, Environment Act, Mining Act, Labour Acts - everything is violated to serve US as well as MNC interests! Citizenship, human rights, civil rights, life and livlihood of the enslaved people of south asia is now dependent on Neo Liberal colonial rule enacted by the new strategic grouping of US, India, Japan and Australia. chemical Hubs have become the need of the hour as Asian Brown cloud envelops Indian Ocean! It is a free military zone. It is a free War Zone. An infinite Hunting ground!
Buddh Deb Bhattacharya is in Lead in charge for the Capitalist Development. However, this century will initially be rather one of capitalism than socialism. Indian communists have to be remebered with Red Letters in Historyn as they finally annihilite Marxism!"That's absolutely false," said Burns, US Under Secretary of State, addressing concerns that US assurances to help India find other sources of fuel in the event of it conducting a nuclear weapons test would violate the spirit of the Hyde Act that approved the deal in principle.
The agreement preserved intact the responsibility of the president under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 that if India or any other country conducts a nuclear test, the president will have the right to ask for the return of the nuclear fuel or nuclear technologies that have been transferred by American firms, he said.
Suspect burned in Glasgow airport attack diesAn Indian man who took part in a suspected bomb plot in Britain has died in hospital after suffering horrific burns in a botched attack on a Scottish airport nearly five weeks ago, police said on Friday.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh warned Friday against complacency over India's booming economy, saying the dividends of growth are yet to trickle down to the rural poor and farmers are in crisis. On the other hand,India and the United States unveiled the much-awaited text outlining their landmark civilian nuclear cooperation deal Friday, and analysts said it appeared to have met New Delhi's key demands.The deal aims to give India access to U.S. nuclear fuel and equipment, overturning a three-decade ban imposed after New Delhi, which has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, conducted a nuclear test in 1974.Although the framework deal was approved by the U.S. Congress last December, talks over a bilateral pact, called the 123 agreement after a section of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act, had run into trouble over Indian objections to "new conditions" in it.It was finalised last month at what were seen as make-or-break talks between top officials of the two sides in Washington and is expected to be formally signed this month.
Singh, whose party came to power in 2004 on the promise of improving rural lives, is presiding over an economy that is growing at around nine percent, the fastest after China. The investment and savings rate is as high as 35 percent of national economic output, Singh said at a meeting of his Congress party in this southern Indian city,BANGALORE ,the hub of a 50-billion-dollar IT industry at the vanguard of the country's economic resurgence.
"But we cannot be complacent till the growth becomes inclusive and socio-economic development benefits more than half the population, especially in rural areas," Singh said.
India's rain-dependent agriculture, which contributes about a fifth of economic output but is a direct or indirect source of livelihood for two-thirds of its billion-plus population, is growing at less than a quarter the pace of the overall economy.
Annual per capita foodgrain production declined from 207 kilograms (455 pounds) in 1995 to 186 kilos last year. The rate of agricultural growth fell from five percent in the mid-1980s to less than two percent in the past five years.
India, the world's second-largest wheat producer, exported no wheat last year after shortages forced it to import the commodity for the first time in six years. Despite the Indian economy growing at a sizzling pace, thousands of debt-ridden farmers have committed suicide after crop failures.
Prosperity and crisis alternate constantly in capitalism, but behind this up-and-down process are tendencies towards an extension and further development of capitalism, which is nowhere near its end. Overstretched British troops face escalating mental problems the longer they stay on frontline duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, a study showed on Friday.Those deployed for 13 months or more in a three-year period were more likely to have symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, The King's College London research revealed.
US President George W. Bush has invited major world economies to a multinational climate change conference in Washington on September 27-28, the White House announced Friday.
The death toll from a collapsed U.S. highway bridge rose to at least five and was expected to climb more as divers felt their way through murky Mississippi waters to victims, authorities said on Friday. Rescuers spent an entire day extracting the fifth fatality from under mounds of debris, Minneapolis Fire Chief Jim Clack said. He said another victim had died in a hospital, but the local coroner did not confirm either death.
The cost to the taxpayer of Labour's special leadership conference in Manchester in June must be investigated, a Liberal Democrat MP has said.Paul Rowen is demanding a parliamentary watchdog inquiry claiming the "publicity stunt" at which Gordon Brown was formally appointed as party leader should have been paid for from party funds.
"Agriculture in many parts of the country is in a state of crisis," said Singh, an economist who in 1991 introduced reforms that ended four decades of socialist-style insulation by opening the doors to foreign investors.
"The fact that farmers are compelled to resort to suicides is a matter of deep concern for all," he said.
In May, Singh announced a six billion US dollar package to try and help poor farmers. The funds for investment in technology and infrastructure to bring crops to market more efficiently will be made available to India's 29 states over a four-year period.
On Friday, the premier pledged to improve living standards in the countryside by building state-of-the art power plants, roads, telecommunications, housing, healthcare and education facilities.
More than 200 people have died in monsoon flooding in South Asia in the last 10 days while more than 10 million remained marooned in their villages or homeless on Friday, with many having no access to health care.The threat of water-borne diseases is rising, with many villages cut off for days. Some people have been bitten by snakes flooded out of their pits, others crushed under the rubble of their houses, and many drowned by rising flood waters.
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said the floods were causing "havoc" and "chaos" in the region, with around 20 million affected and could be the worst in living memory in some areas.
The South Korean government has told Taliban insurgents holding 21 Koreans there is a limit to what it can do to resolve the hostage standoff that has stretched into a third week, an official said on Friday.
"That right is preserved wholly in the agreement. We're releasing the agreement on our website on Friday afternoon and people will see that when they cite the text," Burns said in an interview with Council on Foreign Relations, a leading US think tank.
Asked if he saw enough movement in the US Congress that there might be a vote this autumn to approve the deal, Burns said, "We hope so." But noted that two things have to happen before it goes back for a final vote in Congress.
"First, India has to conclude a safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which I expect will happen in the next 30 to 35 days.
"Secondly, the Indians will need to convince the Nuclear Suppliers Group, this is the group of 45 nuclear energy powers in the world, that it should give the same kind of international treatment in terms of civil nuclear trade to India that the United States would have just given bilaterally.
"Once those two steps are taken, then perhaps by November or December we'll be ready to formally send this agreement to Capitol Hill for a final vote. We hope that vote will mirror the Hyde Act vote which was, of course, an overwhelming vote in favour of India and the United States by Congress," Burns said.
Asked what safeguards had been provided to ensure that India would reprocess nuclear material only for civilian use, he said Washington had agreed to confer reprocessing consent rights, as it's called, on the Indians because of two factors.
"Number one, the Indians offered and have now agreed to construct a state-of-the-art processing facility and all the foreign fuel shipped into India will go through that plant to be reprocessed. It will be fully safeguarded by the IAEA, fully transparent and monitored by the IAEA. That will give the entire international community an abundance of reassurance that there is no diversion to the weapons programme.
"Secondly, US law states that while we can promise reprocessing consent rights, we have to negotiate a subsequent agreement. We will do that and Congress will have the right to review that agreement," the official said.
The deal would end India's nuclear isolation and bring it more securely in line with global safeguards, said Burns. "I think it speaks to the modern-day needs of the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) as well as what we need to do to strengthen it in the years ahead."
Asked if the deal addressed US concerns that India would support efforts to press Iran to abandon its suspected nuclear weapons programme, Burns said it doesn't speak of political issues in the text of the agreement as it was a technical agreement of the type that US has done with Japan, Russia, China, and the European Union in the past.
"But apart from that, we have been very actively involved in counselling the Indian government that they should remain with the rest of the international community in arguing to the Iranians that they should not become a nuclear weapons power, number one. And number two, we hope very much that India will not conclude any long-term oil and gas agreements with Iran," Burns said.
"And so I trust the Indians will maintain this policy of not in any way, shape, or form assisting the Iranian government in its nuclear plans, and in giving the right advice to the Iranian government that we would expect any democratic country to give" he said, noting that the Indians had voted with US at the IAEA board of governors against Iran on two occasions.
The once-estranged democracies had agreed that nuclear cooperation would be "on the basis of mutual respect for sovereignty, non-interference in each other's internal affairs ... and with due respect for each other's nuclear programs," it said.
"This agreement shall remain in force for a period of 40 years," the text said. "It shall continue in force thereafter for additional periods of 10 years each."
In Washington, where some lawmakers and disarmament experts oppose the pact, State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey called it "a win for everyone" because it brought India's program into the international non-proliferation system.
"MATURE DEAL"
The pact has to be approved by Congress, while India needs to get clearances from the Nuclear Suppliers Group of nations that govern global civilian nuclear trade and also conclude an agreement to place its civilian reactors under U.N. safeguards.
"The United States will support an Indian effort to develop a strategic reserve of nuclear fuel to guard against any disruption of supply over the lifetime of India's reactors," the text said.
If despite these arrangements fuel supply is disrupted, the two countries would jointly convene a group of friendly supplier countries such as Russia, France and Britain to restore supplies to India, it said.
While both countries would have the right to end the pact with a year's advance notice and demand the return of fuel and equipment transferred, "the two parties recognize that exercising the right of return would have profound implications for their relations," the agreement said.
In what Indian officials said was an indirect reference to a future Indian nuclear test, the pact said the two sides had agreed to take into account whether "circumstances that may lead to termination" resulted from a "changed security environment" or "a response to similar actions by other states."
In other words, if Pakistan or China conducted nuclear tests, the U.S. would take that into account if Indian responded.
Indian officials had last week said they were satisfied with the pact and analysts and lobby groups echoed that on Friday.
"On the face of it, it's all there. It's a very mature deal," said Robinder Sachdev of lobby group U.S. Indian Political Action Committee.
"It covers very clearly the basis for moving ahead. It shows both governments want to engage in a mature and sophisticated manner with each other in the next half a century," he said.
Randeep Ramesh writes well. Pl read:But Nehru pursued a strategy that would build up the country's technological capacity, not employ people. He set about institutionalising innovation and spent money on a network of world-class science universities rather than universal primary education. Nehru built huge dams. He took pains to create an atomic industry and cultivate brilliant scientists.
In a sense, he laid the foundations for an idiot savant economy that can do the impossible but fumbles the mundane. India turns out more scientists than far wealthier China, but cannot get all its children to school. While the country's business houses prowl the world picking off weaker western companies, they cannot acquire land at home because villagers protest violently against forcible takeovers.
This disparity in productivity is India's greatest asset and liability. Workers in the private organised sector are ten times more productive than those in the "unorganised sector". The emphasis on capital-intensive growth has helped India achieve impressive results with fewer resources. It is estimated that in 2007, India will grow at 9 per cent - a fraction behind its larger northern neighbour. Remarkable, given that India is achieving this growth with just 50 per cent of China's investments and 10 per cent of China's foreign direct investment.
Hoping for a miracle
But the flipside is that while new management graduates in India are offered 10,000 rupees (£120) a day in salaries, cotton farmers struggle to make 10,000 rupees in a whole season. Crossing between these two worlds rarely happens because it requires workers with skills, education and opportunity. India will have to pour more money into health and education as well as create the kinds of industries that can offer the rural poor a chance out of poverty. It needs to change its labour laws - at the moment you need government permission to shut down a factory with 100 workers in it. Clearly this is a deterrent to setting up shop in India.
For the first 1,500 years of the past two millennia, India and China dominated the world economy. Then came the western industrial revolution, which propelled smaller and less populous nations to wealth and power. The Asian giants were overtaken first by Britain, then by the rest of Europe, and finally by the United States. But in the same way as commentators refer to the 1900s as the "American century", the 21st century is forecast to be Asian. If the scale and speed of growth can be maintained on both sides of the Himalayas, by 2050 Beijing and Delhi will be the capitals of the two richest nations on the planet.
It is worth being sceptical about such claims. Historically there is no precedent for such a transformation. Britain and America took a century each to achieve primacy and had far fewer people to deal with. India and China have a billion-plus people each. Both nations expect to maintain growth rates of near 10 per cent. "What these two countries propose," wrote Willem Buiter of the London School of Economics, "is growth on a scale that is more than 200 times larger than what the UK and US managed." Such events are not beyond the bounds of possibility, but they have never happened before. Growing painsRandeep Ramesh
Published 02 August 2007http://www.newstatesman.com/200708020028
And see this LEADER ARTICLE published in Times of India: Buddha Can Show The Way3 Aug 2007, 0054 hrs IST,Kaushik BasuI had argued in these columns last week that changes in the states of Bihar, Orissa and Bengal raise the possibility of an industrial resurgence in the eastern region of the nation.
The source of West Bengal's change is the CPM's recent realisation of what the Chinese realised in 1978 — that good economic policy has nothing to do with one's fondness for or dislike of big companies and capitalists.
In today's world, with free-floating capital and footloose corporations, if you are in charge of just a region, or even a country, and want your workers to be employed and paid decent wages, you have no choice but to welcome capital. In an interview in 2005, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said, "I want investment. Money has no colour or nationality... We cannot dwell in the past. Look at China. Does it have any problems accepting investments from capitalist countries? Does Vietnam not want American capital?"
From the manner in which re-industrialisation is being attempted in West Bengal, there are signs that the government is trying to take a page out of China's book of "capitalism by fiat". The state government is using its party power and proximity to the unions to forcibly acquire rural land and other rights for big business houses to start up large industrial projects.
The state has struck deals on steel, port development, hydro-chemicals, and food processing with large corporations — all in the last two or three years. It had earlier persuaded IBM and Wipro to start operations in the state; and has received investment from Pepsi and Mitsubishi. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Editorial/LEADER_ARTICLE_Buddha_Can_Show_The_Way/articleshow/2251758.cms
Pl Read this Article also to understand the mechanism:
Profit without End: Capitalism Is Just Getting Startedby Michael Heinrich
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/heinrich280707.html
After two World Wars, a global economic crisis which eclipsed all previous crises, and after National Socialism and the Holocaust, the USA established itself as the hegemonic capitalist power with the Soviet Union as its antagonist. Exceptional economic and political circumstances in Western Europe and North America led to a prosperity without precedent in the years between 1955 and 1974, which also contributed to the capitalist development of Japan. During the period of this "economic miracle," real income increased dramatically, and welfare state expenditures were expanded. Capitalism, at least in the metropolis, seemed to have transcended crisis and poverty.
However, in the late seventies and eighties it became clear that the global economic crisis of 1974/75 did not merely constitute an interruption of this economic miracle. Capitalist development remained prone to crisis, and as usual escape was sought in increased exports and accelerated technological development, above all in an increased exploitation of the forces of labor. Real income stagnated or declined, welfare state expenditures were continually reduced.The period of the economic miracle was merely an episode in the development of capitalism. However, its influence dug deep into the collective subconsciousness, above all in Germany. Within the rather leftist part of the political spectrum there still exists the belief that, with the "correct" economic policies, full employment can be conjured up; "unchained" capitalism must simply be properly regulated again. But the period of the economic miracle also dominates the perceptions of the more radical left, as the development of capitalism since the miracle is perceived as a plunge towards a final crisis, or at least as a period of decline for capitalism -- as if it were ever the purpose of capitalism to spread full employment and welfare among the people. Crisis and unemployment are in no way a sign of capitalist decline; they are capitalist normality.
The expansion of capitalism continued vigorously, above all in East Asia. The rise of the four "little Tigers" (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea) in the seventies and eighties was followed at the beginning of the nineties by the four "little dragons" (Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines).
With the collapse of the Soviet Unionthe geopolitical system of coordinates was altered. On the one hand, western capital now had direct access to Eastern Europe and Russia. On the other hand, the East Asian emerging economies were no longer useful as bulwarks against "Communism." As a massive speculative bubble burst in 1997/98 and substantial industrial overcapacities were evident, the crash of these economies did not disturb the leading capitalist countries. There no longer existed a geopolitical opponent into whose hands the crash could play.
Against this background, a global competitive capitalism emerged in the nineties, which was spurred by an internationalized financial system that had developed in the seventies and had continuously grown ever since. Not only were new markets opened up globally; possibilities for increased profit were exploited via international valorization chains.
At the same time, the neo-liberal credo of a lean state without debt reached the high point of its effectiveness. In constant tax-cut rounds, business and upper income groups were relieved and state budgets subject to a permanent imperative of austerity which demanded the cutting of social services and the privatization of state firms.
For capital, the conditions of valorization improved, and new spheres of investment opened up: not only privatized state businesses, but also privatized care industries (health insurance, elderly care). The "individual responsibility" constantly demanded of citizens ultimately meant that they had to pay more, so profit could be made in new sectors. The further development of capitalism, the subsumption of new spheres of existence under the logic of profit maximization, is already underway in the developed capitalist countries.Global Competitive Capitalism
Poverty Capitalism in the 21st Century
With China and India, two new capitalist powers became clearly noticeable in the 1990s which, with 1.3 and 1.1 billion residents respectively, comprised more than a third of the global population. Both countries had experienced enormously high rates of economic growth over the years. Whereas in China the mass of the forces of labor were exploited under conditions resembling those of early capitalism so that the world market could be flooded with cheap products, India has managed to bring about, via enormous investments in the educational system, a great deal of highly qualified and nonetheless cheap forces of labor (engineers, software developers, pharmacists) which are particularly attractive for foreign investors. At the same time, income disparity as well as differences in regional development in both countries has increased sharply.
The capitalist development of India and China is at its very beginning; it may have a substantial influence upon global economy and politics in the future. If in the course of the next few decades a middle class with purchasing power emerges -- albeit comprising merely 20 to 30 percent of the population, with the rest living in poverty -- in them, that alone would constitute a market of 600 to 700 million people, far larger than the expanded European Union. At the same time, the massive army of poor people ensures a stream of cheap labor for the decades ahead. For capital, all manner of things might become scarce in the 21st century, but cheap labor will not be among them. The rate of surplus value will increase worldwide -- relative surplus value increases with technological development, absolute surplus value with the extension of the working day and the sinking of real wages.
That even in the midst of economic upswings workers will be forced to accept a lengthening of the working day and cuts in wages, as is currently the case with employees at Deutsche Telekom, will no longer be an exception in the future. It will simply not be noticed as much. In Germany, the largest growth of jobs has occurred in the temporary labor sector. In order to impose deteriorations in working conditions, one no longer has to change collective bargaining agreements and fire workers. It's enough simply to not renew employment relationships.
Insecure employment conditions are expanding, but the talk of a "precariat" presumes a non-existing commonality of interests. A non-skilled woman who commutes between a "mini
Indian communists have to be remebered with Red Letters in Historyn as they finally annihilite Marxism!
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551Email: palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
LEFT TURN IN AP
Is a new national alliance taking shape around the Khammam agitation?
Sankarshan Thakur
NANDIGRAM HAS come up repeatedly in the context of the Khammam land agitation and the response of YS Rajasekhara Reddy’s Congress government to it. A protracted, and often angry, struggle by the landless backed by political groups in volatile Telangana. Sustained lack of response from the government in Hyderabad. Last week, a clash between agitators and the police. Eight dead. Thousands enraged. A cry that the Chief Minister, no less, quit owning moral responsibility. The CPM leading that cry. Here is where Nandigram comes in. Buddhadeb Bhattacharya never quit over Nandigram. Much worse happened there. So how is the CPM in a position to demand the resignation of Rajasekhara Reddy? Perhaps there is a point to be made here — the CPM is inconsistent, it should mind its mess in West Bengal in Kerala, it has no legs to stand on when it makes common cause with the landless in Khammam because it has been trying to grab land away from the people in Nandigram and Singur. That’s good rhetoric, but only rhetoric. The Congress in Andhra Pradesh can play that argument against the CPM but it cannot wish away problems that the Khammam agitation — and the police action — has created for the government. Those will follow a dynamic independent of what happened in West Bengal.
With the CPM aligning with Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam, the Andhra government has its task cut out. And it is not unlikely that the Congress, as a political entity, could also begin to feel the heat of such an alliance. The CPM-TDP partnership is fairly localised and issue-based, of course, but there are sections in the CPM hinting at possible realignments if the distance between them and the Reddy government continues to widen. And who knows, Andhra could become the platform for a new national experiment two years from now.http://www.tehelka.com/story_main33.asp?filename=Ne110807left_turn_in_PRO.asp
Indian PM warns agriculture is in crisis despite booming economy. Indian shares fell sharply in opening trade, tracking a sell-off in other Asian markets, which slipped on concerns of subprime mortgage woes taking a toll on the US economy. At 0441 GMT, the Bombay Stock Exchange's benchmark Sensex was down 440.55 points or 2.83 pct, at 15,110.44. The National Stock Exchange's S&P CNX Nifty was down 3.01 pct at 4,392.55 points.
All 30 Sensex components were in the red. In the broader market, 436 shares advanced, 1,041 declined and 28 remained unchanged. Shares across sectors were razed and yesterday's gains were undone within the first few minutes of trading.
As India and the United States released the text of the accord to implement their civil nuclear deal, Washington's point man on the issue Nicholas Burns dismissed suggestions that it violates the spirit of the Hyde Act.The two countries had struggled to sew up the agreement because India had wanted the United States to allow it to reprocess spent nuclear fuel, assure permanent fuel supplies and not penalise India by ending nuclear trade if it conducts another nuclear test.The text of the agreement showed that the first two demands had largely been met, while there was no direct mention of the consequences of another Indian test.
Political parties were today sharply divided on the Indo-US nuclear deal with Opposition BJP saying it will impact on the country's right to conduct atomic tests while the Congress terming it as a historic pact that recognises India as a nuclear power.
The Left parties, however, reserved their comments saying they will have to analyse it "thoroughly" and indicated that they would like to hold another round of discussions with the government on the issue. They are expected to come out with a reaction tomorrow.
Senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha told PTI "the reservations that we expressed earlier are still outstanding. We have serious reservations with regard to the agreement.... I can say that our fears remain in place. They, in fact, have multiplied.
Top BJP leaders, including A B Vajpayee, who had earlier expressed reservation on the deal, met here later to discuss the 123 pact but did not come out with a formal reaction. They said the party will give a detailed reaction tomorrow after indepth study of the text.
Besides Vajpayee, the meeting was attended by senior party leaders L K Advani, Jaswant Singh, Sinha and former National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra.
The Hyde Act, passed in December last year, provides that US President will have discretionary powers to terminate the civil nuclear cooperation if India conducts a nuclear test. "The agreement is derived from the Hyde Act," he remarked.
Congratulations, P sainath for Magsaysay Award, who reportedly spends three hundred days of the year in villages and is the greatest supporter of Buddha`s Capitalist Development and Evict Rural India for US interests with his eminent editor! I remeber his rebel role as a coordinator of Mumabai resistance. he called me that he could not include the dalit Bengali refugee issue in the agenda and was kind enough to hear my briefing with patience!As the economy surges, matters that call for the urgent attention of the public and government are ignored in favor of film starlets and beauty queens, the stock market, and India's famed IT boom. Sainath has taken a different path. Believing that "journalism is for people, not for shareholders," he has doggedly covered the lives of those who have been left behind. Sainath discovered that the acute misery of India's poorest districts was not caused by drought, as the government said. It was rooted in India's enduring structural inequalities-in poverty, illiteracy, and caste discrimination-and exacerbated by recent economic reforms favoring foreign investment and privatization. Indeed, these sweeping changes combined with endemic corruption had led small farmers and landless laborers into evermore crippling debt-with devastating consequences.
In electing Palagummi Sainath to receive the 2007 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communication Arts, the board of trustees recognizes his passionate commitment as a journalist to restore the rural poor to India's consciousness, moving the nation to action.
But , the Sainath, we used to know has changed to save the interest of his class, the ruling Brahmins!
US Indo Nuclear Deal is final. Leftistsor Rightist protest whatevermay it be, is not serios enough or intended to stall the legislation work. Indian sovereignty is now vested in US President as he is empoered to enforce Hyde Act against India! This is a century for most wanted galaxy manusmriti Order which destroys ideology as well as history. Political borders are irrelevent and Zionist Hindu US Post Modern galaxy Order rules all over. India is aspiring to be a Hindu super power which may not deal with day today problems of the suffering people. Rather a war is launched against rural India! Eviction drive is on. Riverlink project continues despite the fact that the nation is unable to manage gignatic dams. Penansular India is at the stake. Dandakar based dalit bengali refugees and tribals have to be wiped out. Coast line security Act, Environment Act, Mining Act, Labour Acts - everything is violated to serve US as well as MNC interests! Citizenship, human rights, civil rights, life and livlihood of the enslaved people of south asia is now dependent on Neo Liberal colonial rule enacted by the new strategic grouping of US, India, Japan and Australia. chemical Hubs have become the need of the hour as Asian Brown cloud envelops Indian Ocean! It is a free military zone. It is a free War Zone. An infinite Hunting ground!
Buddh Deb Bhattacharya is in Lead in charge for the Capitalist Development. However, this century will initially be rather one of capitalism than socialism. Indian communists have to be remebered with Red Letters in Historyn as they finally annihilite Marxism!"That's absolutely false," said Burns, US Under Secretary of State, addressing concerns that US assurances to help India find other sources of fuel in the event of it conducting a nuclear weapons test would violate the spirit of the Hyde Act that approved the deal in principle.
The agreement preserved intact the responsibility of the president under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 that if India or any other country conducts a nuclear test, the president will have the right to ask for the return of the nuclear fuel or nuclear technologies that have been transferred by American firms, he said.
Suspect burned in Glasgow airport attack diesAn Indian man who took part in a suspected bomb plot in Britain has died in hospital after suffering horrific burns in a botched attack on a Scottish airport nearly five weeks ago, police said on Friday.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh warned Friday against complacency over India's booming economy, saying the dividends of growth are yet to trickle down to the rural poor and farmers are in crisis. On the other hand,India and the United States unveiled the much-awaited text outlining their landmark civilian nuclear cooperation deal Friday, and analysts said it appeared to have met New Delhi's key demands.The deal aims to give India access to U.S. nuclear fuel and equipment, overturning a three-decade ban imposed after New Delhi, which has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, conducted a nuclear test in 1974.Although the framework deal was approved by the U.S. Congress last December, talks over a bilateral pact, called the 123 agreement after a section of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act, had run into trouble over Indian objections to "new conditions" in it.It was finalised last month at what were seen as make-or-break talks between top officials of the two sides in Washington and is expected to be formally signed this month.
Singh, whose party came to power in 2004 on the promise of improving rural lives, is presiding over an economy that is growing at around nine percent, the fastest after China. The investment and savings rate is as high as 35 percent of national economic output, Singh said at a meeting of his Congress party in this southern Indian city,BANGALORE ,the hub of a 50-billion-dollar IT industry at the vanguard of the country's economic resurgence.
"But we cannot be complacent till the growth becomes inclusive and socio-economic development benefits more than half the population, especially in rural areas," Singh said.
India's rain-dependent agriculture, which contributes about a fifth of economic output but is a direct or indirect source of livelihood for two-thirds of its billion-plus population, is growing at less than a quarter the pace of the overall economy.
Annual per capita foodgrain production declined from 207 kilograms (455 pounds) in 1995 to 186 kilos last year. The rate of agricultural growth fell from five percent in the mid-1980s to less than two percent in the past five years.
India, the world's second-largest wheat producer, exported no wheat last year after shortages forced it to import the commodity for the first time in six years. Despite the Indian economy growing at a sizzling pace, thousands of debt-ridden farmers have committed suicide after crop failures.
Prosperity and crisis alternate constantly in capitalism, but behind this up-and-down process are tendencies towards an extension and further development of capitalism, which is nowhere near its end. Overstretched British troops face escalating mental problems the longer they stay on frontline duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, a study showed on Friday.Those deployed for 13 months or more in a three-year period were more likely to have symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, The King's College London research revealed.
US President George W. Bush has invited major world economies to a multinational climate change conference in Washington on September 27-28, the White House announced Friday.
The death toll from a collapsed U.S. highway bridge rose to at least five and was expected to climb more as divers felt their way through murky Mississippi waters to victims, authorities said on Friday. Rescuers spent an entire day extracting the fifth fatality from under mounds of debris, Minneapolis Fire Chief Jim Clack said. He said another victim had died in a hospital, but the local coroner did not confirm either death.
The cost to the taxpayer of Labour's special leadership conference in Manchester in June must be investigated, a Liberal Democrat MP has said.Paul Rowen is demanding a parliamentary watchdog inquiry claiming the "publicity stunt" at which Gordon Brown was formally appointed as party leader should have been paid for from party funds.
"Agriculture in many parts of the country is in a state of crisis," said Singh, an economist who in 1991 introduced reforms that ended four decades of socialist-style insulation by opening the doors to foreign investors.
"The fact that farmers are compelled to resort to suicides is a matter of deep concern for all," he said.
In May, Singh announced a six billion US dollar package to try and help poor farmers. The funds for investment in technology and infrastructure to bring crops to market more efficiently will be made available to India's 29 states over a four-year period.
On Friday, the premier pledged to improve living standards in the countryside by building state-of-the art power plants, roads, telecommunications, housing, healthcare and education facilities.
More than 200 people have died in monsoon flooding in South Asia in the last 10 days while more than 10 million remained marooned in their villages or homeless on Friday, with many having no access to health care.The threat of water-borne diseases is rising, with many villages cut off for days. Some people have been bitten by snakes flooded out of their pits, others crushed under the rubble of their houses, and many drowned by rising flood waters.
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said the floods were causing "havoc" and "chaos" in the region, with around 20 million affected and could be the worst in living memory in some areas.
The South Korean government has told Taliban insurgents holding 21 Koreans there is a limit to what it can do to resolve the hostage standoff that has stretched into a third week, an official said on Friday.
"That right is preserved wholly in the agreement. We're releasing the agreement on our website on Friday afternoon and people will see that when they cite the text," Burns said in an interview with Council on Foreign Relations, a leading US think tank.
Asked if he saw enough movement in the US Congress that there might be a vote this autumn to approve the deal, Burns said, "We hope so." But noted that two things have to happen before it goes back for a final vote in Congress.
"First, India has to conclude a safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which I expect will happen in the next 30 to 35 days.
"Secondly, the Indians will need to convince the Nuclear Suppliers Group, this is the group of 45 nuclear energy powers in the world, that it should give the same kind of international treatment in terms of civil nuclear trade to India that the United States would have just given bilaterally.
"Once those two steps are taken, then perhaps by November or December we'll be ready to formally send this agreement to Capitol Hill for a final vote. We hope that vote will mirror the Hyde Act vote which was, of course, an overwhelming vote in favour of India and the United States by Congress," Burns said.
Asked what safeguards had been provided to ensure that India would reprocess nuclear material only for civilian use, he said Washington had agreed to confer reprocessing consent rights, as it's called, on the Indians because of two factors.
"Number one, the Indians offered and have now agreed to construct a state-of-the-art processing facility and all the foreign fuel shipped into India will go through that plant to be reprocessed. It will be fully safeguarded by the IAEA, fully transparent and monitored by the IAEA. That will give the entire international community an abundance of reassurance that there is no diversion to the weapons programme.
"Secondly, US law states that while we can promise reprocessing consent rights, we have to negotiate a subsequent agreement. We will do that and Congress will have the right to review that agreement," the official said.
The deal would end India's nuclear isolation and bring it more securely in line with global safeguards, said Burns. "I think it speaks to the modern-day needs of the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) as well as what we need to do to strengthen it in the years ahead."
Asked if the deal addressed US concerns that India would support efforts to press Iran to abandon its suspected nuclear weapons programme, Burns said it doesn't speak of political issues in the text of the agreement as it was a technical agreement of the type that US has done with Japan, Russia, China, and the European Union in the past.
"But apart from that, we have been very actively involved in counselling the Indian government that they should remain with the rest of the international community in arguing to the Iranians that they should not become a nuclear weapons power, number one. And number two, we hope very much that India will not conclude any long-term oil and gas agreements with Iran," Burns said.
"And so I trust the Indians will maintain this policy of not in any way, shape, or form assisting the Iranian government in its nuclear plans, and in giving the right advice to the Iranian government that we would expect any democratic country to give" he said, noting that the Indians had voted with US at the IAEA board of governors against Iran on two occasions.
The once-estranged democracies had agreed that nuclear cooperation would be "on the basis of mutual respect for sovereignty, non-interference in each other's internal affairs ... and with due respect for each other's nuclear programs," it said.
"This agreement shall remain in force for a period of 40 years," the text said. "It shall continue in force thereafter for additional periods of 10 years each."
In Washington, where some lawmakers and disarmament experts oppose the pact, State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey called it "a win for everyone" because it brought India's program into the international non-proliferation system.
"MATURE DEAL"
The pact has to be approved by Congress, while India needs to get clearances from the Nuclear Suppliers Group of nations that govern global civilian nuclear trade and also conclude an agreement to place its civilian reactors under U.N. safeguards.
"The United States will support an Indian effort to develop a strategic reserve of nuclear fuel to guard against any disruption of supply over the lifetime of India's reactors," the text said.
If despite these arrangements fuel supply is disrupted, the two countries would jointly convene a group of friendly supplier countries such as Russia, France and Britain to restore supplies to India, it said.
While both countries would have the right to end the pact with a year's advance notice and demand the return of fuel and equipment transferred, "the two parties recognize that exercising the right of return would have profound implications for their relations," the agreement said.
In what Indian officials said was an indirect reference to a future Indian nuclear test, the pact said the two sides had agreed to take into account whether "circumstances that may lead to termination" resulted from a "changed security environment" or "a response to similar actions by other states."
In other words, if Pakistan or China conducted nuclear tests, the U.S. would take that into account if Indian responded.
Indian officials had last week said they were satisfied with the pact and analysts and lobby groups echoed that on Friday.
"On the face of it, it's all there. It's a very mature deal," said Robinder Sachdev of lobby group U.S. Indian Political Action Committee.
"It covers very clearly the basis for moving ahead. It shows both governments want to engage in a mature and sophisticated manner with each other in the next half a century," he said.
Randeep Ramesh writes well. Pl read:But Nehru pursued a strategy that would build up the country's technological capacity, not employ people. He set about institutionalising innovation and spent money on a network of world-class science universities rather than universal primary education. Nehru built huge dams. He took pains to create an atomic industry and cultivate brilliant scientists.
In a sense, he laid the foundations for an idiot savant economy that can do the impossible but fumbles the mundane. India turns out more scientists than far wealthier China, but cannot get all its children to school. While the country's business houses prowl the world picking off weaker western companies, they cannot acquire land at home because villagers protest violently against forcible takeovers.
This disparity in productivity is India's greatest asset and liability. Workers in the private organised sector are ten times more productive than those in the "unorganised sector". The emphasis on capital-intensive growth has helped India achieve impressive results with fewer resources. It is estimated that in 2007, India will grow at 9 per cent - a fraction behind its larger northern neighbour. Remarkable, given that India is achieving this growth with just 50 per cent of China's investments and 10 per cent of China's foreign direct investment.
Hoping for a miracle
But the flipside is that while new management graduates in India are offered 10,000 rupees (£120) a day in salaries, cotton farmers struggle to make 10,000 rupees in a whole season. Crossing between these two worlds rarely happens because it requires workers with skills, education and opportunity. India will have to pour more money into health and education as well as create the kinds of industries that can offer the rural poor a chance out of poverty. It needs to change its labour laws - at the moment you need government permission to shut down a factory with 100 workers in it. Clearly this is a deterrent to setting up shop in India.
For the first 1,500 years of the past two millennia, India and China dominated the world economy. Then came the western industrial revolution, which propelled smaller and less populous nations to wealth and power. The Asian giants were overtaken first by Britain, then by the rest of Europe, and finally by the United States. But in the same way as commentators refer to the 1900s as the "American century", the 21st century is forecast to be Asian. If the scale and speed of growth can be maintained on both sides of the Himalayas, by 2050 Beijing and Delhi will be the capitals of the two richest nations on the planet.
It is worth being sceptical about such claims. Historically there is no precedent for such a transformation. Britain and America took a century each to achieve primacy and had far fewer people to deal with. India and China have a billion-plus people each. Both nations expect to maintain growth rates of near 10 per cent. "What these two countries propose," wrote Willem Buiter of the London School of Economics, "is growth on a scale that is more than 200 times larger than what the UK and US managed." Such events are not beyond the bounds of possibility, but they have never happened before. Growing painsRandeep Ramesh
Published 02 August 2007http://www.newstatesman.com/200708020028
And see this LEADER ARTICLE published in Times of India: Buddha Can Show The Way3 Aug 2007, 0054 hrs IST,Kaushik BasuI had argued in these columns last week that changes in the states of Bihar, Orissa and Bengal raise the possibility of an industrial resurgence in the eastern region of the nation.
The source of West Bengal's change is the CPM's recent realisation of what the Chinese realised in 1978 — that good economic policy has nothing to do with one's fondness for or dislike of big companies and capitalists.
In today's world, with free-floating capital and footloose corporations, if you are in charge of just a region, or even a country, and want your workers to be employed and paid decent wages, you have no choice but to welcome capital. In an interview in 2005, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said, "I want investment. Money has no colour or nationality... We cannot dwell in the past. Look at China. Does it have any problems accepting investments from capitalist countries? Does Vietnam not want American capital?"
From the manner in which re-industrialisation is being attempted in West Bengal, there are signs that the government is trying to take a page out of China's book of "capitalism by fiat". The state government is using its party power and proximity to the unions to forcibly acquire rural land and other rights for big business houses to start up large industrial projects.
The state has struck deals on steel, port development, hydro-chemicals, and food processing with large corporations — all in the last two or three years. It had earlier persuaded IBM and Wipro to start operations in the state; and has received investment from Pepsi and Mitsubishi. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Editorial/LEADER_ARTICLE_Buddha_Can_Show_The_Way/articleshow/2251758.cms
Pl Read this Article also to understand the mechanism:
Profit without End: Capitalism Is Just Getting Startedby Michael Heinrich
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/heinrich280707.html
After two World Wars, a global economic crisis which eclipsed all previous crises, and after National Socialism and the Holocaust, the USA established itself as the hegemonic capitalist power with the Soviet Union as its antagonist. Exceptional economic and political circumstances in Western Europe and North America led to a prosperity without precedent in the years between 1955 and 1974, which also contributed to the capitalist development of Japan. During the period of this "economic miracle," real income increased dramatically, and welfare state expenditures were expanded. Capitalism, at least in the metropolis, seemed to have transcended crisis and poverty.
However, in the late seventies and eighties it became clear that the global economic crisis of 1974/75 did not merely constitute an interruption of this economic miracle. Capitalist development remained prone to crisis, and as usual escape was sought in increased exports and accelerated technological development, above all in an increased exploitation of the forces of labor. Real income stagnated or declined, welfare state expenditures were continually reduced.The period of the economic miracle was merely an episode in the development of capitalism. However, its influence dug deep into the collective subconsciousness, above all in Germany. Within the rather leftist part of the political spectrum there still exists the belief that, with the "correct" economic policies, full employment can be conjured up; "unchained" capitalism must simply be properly regulated again. But the period of the economic miracle also dominates the perceptions of the more radical left, as the development of capitalism since the miracle is perceived as a plunge towards a final crisis, or at least as a period of decline for capitalism -- as if it were ever the purpose of capitalism to spread full employment and welfare among the people. Crisis and unemployment are in no way a sign of capitalist decline; they are capitalist normality.
The expansion of capitalism continued vigorously, above all in East Asia. The rise of the four "little Tigers" (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea) in the seventies and eighties was followed at the beginning of the nineties by the four "little dragons" (Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines).
With the collapse of the Soviet Unionthe geopolitical system of coordinates was altered. On the one hand, western capital now had direct access to Eastern Europe and Russia. On the other hand, the East Asian emerging economies were no longer useful as bulwarks against "Communism." As a massive speculative bubble burst in 1997/98 and substantial industrial overcapacities were evident, the crash of these economies did not disturb the leading capitalist countries. There no longer existed a geopolitical opponent into whose hands the crash could play.
Against this background, a global competitive capitalism emerged in the nineties, which was spurred by an internationalized financial system that had developed in the seventies and had continuously grown ever since. Not only were new markets opened up globally; possibilities for increased profit were exploited via international valorization chains.
At the same time, the neo-liberal credo of a lean state without debt reached the high point of its effectiveness. In constant tax-cut rounds, business and upper income groups were relieved and state budgets subject to a permanent imperative of austerity which demanded the cutting of social services and the privatization of state firms.
For capital, the conditions of valorization improved, and new spheres of investment opened up: not only privatized state businesses, but also privatized care industries (health insurance, elderly care). The "individual responsibility" constantly demanded of citizens ultimately meant that they had to pay more, so profit could be made in new sectors. The further development of capitalism, the subsumption of new spheres of existence under the logic of profit maximization, is already underway in the developed capitalist countries.Global Competitive Capitalism
Poverty Capitalism in the 21st Century
With China and India, two new capitalist powers became clearly noticeable in the 1990s which, with 1.3 and 1.1 billion residents respectively, comprised more than a third of the global population. Both countries had experienced enormously high rates of economic growth over the years. Whereas in China the mass of the forces of labor were exploited under conditions resembling those of early capitalism so that the world market could be flooded with cheap products, India has managed to bring about, via enormous investments in the educational system, a great deal of highly qualified and nonetheless cheap forces of labor (engineers, software developers, pharmacists) which are particularly attractive for foreign investors. At the same time, income disparity as well as differences in regional development in both countries has increased sharply.
The capitalist development of India and China is at its very beginning; it may have a substantial influence upon global economy and politics in the future. If in the course of the next few decades a middle class with purchasing power emerges -- albeit comprising merely 20 to 30 percent of the population, with the rest living in poverty -- in them, that alone would constitute a market of 600 to 700 million people, far larger than the expanded European Union. At the same time, the massive army of poor people ensures a stream of cheap labor for the decades ahead. For capital, all manner of things might become scarce in the 21st century, but cheap labor will not be among them. The rate of surplus value will increase worldwide -- relative surplus value increases with technological development, absolute surplus value with the extension of the working day and the sinking of real wages.
That even in the midst of economic upswings workers will be forced to accept a lengthening of the working day and cuts in wages, as is currently the case with employees at Deutsche Telekom, will no longer be an exception in the future. It will simply not be noticed as much. In Germany, the largest growth of jobs has occurred in the temporary labor sector. In order to impose deteriorations in working conditions, one no longer has to change collective bargaining agreements and fire workers. It's enough simply to not renew employment relationships.
Insecure employment conditions are expanding, but the talk of a "precariat" presumes a non-existing commonality of interests. A non-skilled woman who commutes between a "mini
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