Three basic questions

There are people claiming that elections and change of guard will take care of everything that is wrong with the economy. All economists and business people are stating that Land Acquisition bill in the current state will cause more harm.. Why is it that their they cannot push their favorite candidate for PM to push for amendments in the bill?

Every time there is a Hindu saint/leader under the radar why does BJP comes all out supporting them? Why do they find a need to support Asaram Bapu? What was the need for Pinky Anand/Subramaniam Swamy to support him?

Every time there is a muslim arrested on terrorism charges why does Congress & SP comes all out supporting them? I was shocked when Mani Shankar Aiyar claims that he doesn't know what IM is.

Utter Craziness all around..

Syria - What should the West think before they start their new adventure

West are about start their next adventure of attacking Syria, they should think about the following before they start this

1) Syria is not a party to the Chemicals weapons convention, so is it right to attack Syria for the use of chemical weapons (even if they have done that)?

2)  Syrian government is fighting the Al-Qaeda backed internal groups. Is the West ready to side with Al-Qaeda in their new adventure?

3) How a war hating President became so interested in war mongering now? He even won a Nobel peace prize for just stating that he will stop the wars

4) What did the west achieve in the Afghanistan - They are now trying to talk to Taliban and want to hand over the power to them. These are the same guys who they wanted to throw out.

5) What did the west achieve in Iraq - Except obviously getting rid of Saddam Hussain? There is still daily bombings

6) The civilian casualties in both the above wars is more than 125 thousand. Is it really worth the effort?

7) Even if they want to go ahead with the adventure(which they claim is a 2-3 day exercise), what will they try to achieve? Bomb a few critical infrastructure like bridges & communications and maybe try to take out Assad, they will end up killing a few civilians.

8) UN has become a huge joke, no one bothers about it. Why spend money on such an organization? Every member state is forced to give money to run this organization, if there is scant regard of what it does, why have such an organization?

9) When the US and UK have scant regard of human rights as was evident in the recent case of David Miranda and Edward Snowden, what right do they have to preach others?

10) Syria produces only 0.4% of world's total oil production, is that also important? I thought with the shale gas, the dependency on crude will reduce.

Why the secrecy about the health of our leaders?

Every US presidential candidate has to release their medical records before the elections. This is done primarily to ensure that the people are confident that the President is in a healthy condition and will be able to govern the country for the full term without any issues.

We in India, don't get any information about the health of our leaders. Why is that? There are multiple rumors that go around the country about the health of our leaders. The CM of Tamil Nadu, goes to Kodanad to get treated for some ailment every often. She claims that she goes there for rest but when Advani came calling she had informed that she was under treatment in Kodanat. Why?

Stalin the former Deputy CM goes to London often for treatment. There are rumors that he is suffering from some life threatening decease.

Sonia Gandhi, the leader of UPA goes to US for treatment for what was rumored to be Cancer/pneumonia infection. No one knows what it is.

Only exception in the recent past was when PM underwent bypass and was out of action for nearly a month.

Agreed that we don't vote in presidential style elections but we also need to know whether our leaders are in good health.

Media also don't want to talk about the health of our leaders. Media generally avoids personal side of any leader but that ended when they reported about what ND Tiwari did in the governor's house.

Can we get to know our leaders health through RTI if they are not transparent about their health? I think we should.

Politics at its best - VHP 84 Kosh Yatra

The moment Amit Shah was made the UP in-charge of BJP, one thing became clear. The BJP is keen to win the maximum number of seats from UP which was essential for them to form the government at the center.

Their assumption was that they can do this only by communalizing. Immediately after his appointment Amit Shah said he wants to have the Ram Mandir built at Ayodhya. Modi clearly has a two prong strategy for the 2014 elections, he personally will talk about Development, investments, etc which will attract the middle class and Amit Shah's of the BJP will talk about mandir, 370, uniform civil code, etc which they believe will get them the Hindu votes in bulk. There is some truth to this argument also, as the best performances of BJP in UP were in the 90's when the Ram Mandir movement was very active.

Now coming to the VHP yatra, it seems that the 84 kosh parikrama is held every year in April/May and this year also it has been completed during the same time. Once their original plans were criticized VHP changed this to a padayatra. The parikrama route and the padayatra routes were also different. The padayatra route which was planned was through the sensitive muslim localities.

The UP government did the right thing (even though the last 1 year of their rule has been pathetic in terms of law and order) by banning the rally/yatra/parikrama or whatever they want to call it. They also took the VHP leaders under preventive custody.

Questions

1) Why did the VHP plan this yatra now and try to do it under the guise of a yearly event (even though it got the timing wrong)?
2) Why is the BJP silently supporting this event?


I really hope the people of this country, move away from such communalization and vote on real issues.

Rabble Rousers - Be more sensitive

Couple of things that I wanted to add on to my earlier posts

1) On the posts about killing of 5 Jawans in the Poonch sector, I had mentioned that the army should be given authority to respond to such attacks. Apparently that is already there, which is visible from the protests that Pakistan is making about their Jawans are killed by Indian firing. My question to all the opposition and Mr Goswamis of the world, why are you not talking about such things ?

2) Second is about the Madras Café movie - the government has taken the easy route of washing off their hands stating that theatres are not willing to screen the movie. I had mentioned that the High court has declined to ban the movie. However, all main stream media shouting about no release in TN for Madras Café. I was shocked at seeing that and thought I had missed something in the verdict and was checking it again. All that the high court mentioned was a movie cannot release without the censor certificate. What is news in that? Why do we twist that to state that there is no release for the movie?

Summary

1) Diplomacy should be handled deftly. I am sure the tone that we hear from the current opposition will be entirely different if they are ruling and the ruling party will behave like the current opposition. That's the sad part of our democracy.

2) The media is more interested in sleazy headlines rather than content. This is a real shame.

Madras Cafe - Again no freedom of speech?

In my short blogging life, this is the third time I am writing about lack of freedom of speech. First it was about Amina Wadud and then Thalaivaa and now Madras Café.

There are many fringe elements and some political parties which are asking for a ban on this movie and rightfully the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court has rejected the request to ban this movie.

I don't know the story of the movie but what I hear is that it portrays is how LTTE killed the former Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi.

Everyone is jumping and saying that the movie portrays LTTE in bad light. First of all LTTE is a banned organization under the Unlawful activities prevention act (basically the terrorist act). The ban still continues even though most activities of LTTE stopped after the killing of Prabhakaran in 2009. LTTE and Prabhakaran are charged for Rajiv Gandhi's murder in the courts here.

The usual suspects like Thirumavalavan & Vaiko want to ban the movie and even Karunanidhi wants the government to check if the movie portrays the LTTE in bad light and then take action.

Funny thing is the students have also jumped into this and want the movie to be banned.

What is wrong in portraying a terrorist organization (as per Indian government) in bad light? That's one part of the story.

John Abraham, who is the hero of the movie, has been saying that the wont give into the bullying. And he is right in saying that. He has the right to act in a movie and this movie being censored should be released.

Summary

There is nothing wrong in portraying a terrorist organization(which they are) in bad light and nothing wrong in showing that LTTE killed Rajiv Gandhi(which they did). If the fringe elements have a problem with that, then they should get the ban on LTTE revoked(which they couldn't) and retry Rajiv Gandhi's case (which they cannot).

We definitely need to protect our freedom of speech right which is being abused more and more recently.

 

David Miranda - If this is not Human Rights violation, what is?

David Miranda, the Brazilian partner of Glenn Greenwald was held at the Heathrow airport for 9 hours on Monday morning. They were on the way from Berlin to Rio de Janeiro, where they live.

Glenn Greenwald along with Laura Poitras were instrumental in getting out the Edward Snowden story.

He was detained under the schedule 7 of UK terrorist act which allows people to be detained for full 9 hours before they have to be either arrested or released. This schedule specifically applies at the Airports, ports and at other entry points into the country.

He was released after the full 9 hours which the act allows and his belongings like Mobile Phone, laptop, camera, memory sticks, DVDs and games console were taken away by the authorities.

This is a clear case of intimidation for all journalists and use of terrorist acts on friends and families of journalists who have been critical of the west on their snooping of the individuals smokes of hypocrisy. On what basis was he identified as a terrorist to use this law?

There is more to this, White house was informed in advance about the detaining of David Miranda. Not just UK, US is also equally to be blamed for this incident.

What rights does these nations have on questioning third world countries about their human rights standards?