Thursday, March 30, 2006

travel around the south

mar 30th

all this talk about the south reminded me of my plans to travel around and visit temples and other important places in south india. one of these days...

maybe some of you folks can advise me.

1. karnataka. this is my favorite state in the union, for its diverse tourist attractions: the temples, coorg, the karavalli coastline, the game sanctuaries, etc.

i have been to belur/halebid and i enjoyed the beauty of the temples even though they were desecrated by mohammedans.

i really liked the kollur mookambika temple in the western ghats near mangalore.

i have been to hampi/vijayanagar and i had tears in my eyes about the wanton destruction visited upon what was the largest and richest city in the world.

i have been planning to go to badami/pattadakkal/aihole but i guess the only good time to go is in the winter, is that true? i went to hampi in december and it was still quite hot then. what is a good time to go to that part of karnataka?

one of these days i think i'll drive up the malabar coast to the konkan coast to goa, or maybe take the konkan railroad.

2. tamil nadu. i have been to a number of temples, and my favorite temple of all is chidambaram. liked srirangam and tiruvannamalai and kanchipuram and madurai meenakshi, but chidambaram -- that's special. also liked kodaikanal and auroville. i have enjoyed driving in the southern districtsnear madurai, off the beaten tracks, on the smaller highways.

3. andhra. i have only been to hyderabad and tirupati, but would like to go to the buddhist ruins in amaravati as well as to kalahasti for the (water?) lingam. any other suggestions?

happy yugadi

mar 30th

if i am not mistaken, this is the beginning of the kali era year 5108.

yuga adi or ugadi

today it is also one year since ov vijayan passed away.

eu to microsoft: you better watch it, boy!

mar 29th

i wonder if the eu can do what the us regulators were not able to do: scare microsoft into being good little boys.

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/14213617.htm

saudis' attempt to deter (and possibly pre-empt) nuclear strikes

mar 29th

i have mentioned american plans to nuke mohammedan holy sites in saudi arabia that have been hinted at by military planners, and they run war game scenarios at the us army college of war using this assumption.

here is how the saudis would like to deter such attacks.

the chinese are laughing all the way to the bank: they have sold the saudis long-range nuclear capable missiles, which now endanger europe, india and possibly even the us. i mean why wouldnt china sell the saudis their longest-range ICBMs? they get to endanger europe and america, and get paid for it. and a lid is kept on their potentially restive uighur mohammedans by a word from their saudi pals. i mean, that's a sweet deal

the true axis of evil: saudi arabia, pakistan and china.

iraq, iran and north korea are small fry compared to these villains: respectively,
the paymasters of terrorism and nuclear proliferation,
the operational footsoldiers for the same,
the suppliers of material and technology for the same.

the us overestimates itself: it thinks running with the hare and hunting with the hound is something they can manage. sorry, they can't.

also, the us thinks pakistan will go back to its usual role of 'international condom': to be used and then flushed down the toilet. sorry, musharraf has other ideas.

and of course the us thinks it's being clever with the saudis. wrong, the saudis are the ones hoodwinking them. who has sleepers in whose country?

finally the chinese. the americans had better be damned scared of the inscrutable chinese. they are relentless, and the sino-islamist alliance is their brainchild. they give the pakistanis (and soon the bangladeshis) a few screw-driver assembly missiles and nuclear weapons, and they happily proliferate them all over the place. this gives china plausible deniability, not that china cares about deniability anyway, they will simply deny and win by the principle of 'truth by repeated assertion'. and then the us opens itself up to all sorts of industrial espionage by chinese 'students'. boy, the yanks are being taken to the cleaners by the chinese! talk of large numbers of sleepers! every chinese-origin person in the us is a potential sleeper.

the us is basically screwed. and these are the geniuses that manmohan singh is hitching india's star to! very smart indeed.


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Srinivasan Kalyanaraman
Date: Mar 29, 2006 6:53 AM
Subject:

 

Nuclear Bombs

Saudi n-bomb via Pak

'Saudi secretly working with Pak experts'

AGENCIES
Posted online: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 at 1557 hours IST
Updated: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 at 1608 hours IST


BERLIN, MARCH 29 : Saudi Arabia is working secretly on a nuclear programme, with help from Pakistani experts, the German magazine Cicero reports in its latest edition, citing western security sources.

It says that during the Haj pilgrimages to Mecca in 2003 through 2005, Pakistani scientists posed as pilgrims to come to Saudi Arabia in aircraft laid on by the oil-rich kingdom.

Between October 2004 and January 2005, some of them took the opportunity to "disappear" from their hotel rooms, sometimes for up to three weeks, it quoted German security expert Udo Ulfkotte as saying.

According to western security services, the magazine added, Saudi scientists have been working since the mid-1990s in Pakistan, a nuclear power since 1998 thanks to the work of the now-disgraced Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

Cicero, which will appear on newsstands tomorrow, also quoted a US military analyst, John Pike, as saying that Saudi bar codes can be found on half of Pakistan's nuclear weapons "because it is Saudi Arabia which ultimately co-financed the Pakistani atomic nuclear programme".

The magazine also said satellite images prove that Saudi Arabia has set up in al-Sulaiyil, South of Riyadh, a secret underground city and dozens of underground silos for missiles.

According to some western security services, long-range Ghauri-type missiles of Pakistani-origin are housed inside the silos.

http://www.financialexpress.com/latest_full_story.php?content_id=122015

http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=65139

 

Saudi Arabia's Secret Missile City in the Middle of the Desert
http://israelbehindthenews.com/Archives/Mar-29-02.htm#Riyadh ^ | This piece ran in Yediot Aharonot on March 27, 2002 | Ronen Bergman.Senior Investigative Journalist, Yediot Aharonot

Posted on 04/09/2002 7:30:37 PM PDT by Bad~Rodeo

The computer at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia chooses random names for topics and operations it deals with. "Deep Blue" is the name given to an aggregate of troubling information received by the agency at the beginning of 1988. The source of most of the reports is the NSA's monitoring of communications by the Chinese administration and military. According to these, Saudi Arabia was conducting advanced negotiations with China about the acquisition of dozens of surface-to-surface missiles built to carry nuclear weapons.

The intelligence communities of both the US and Israel were totally stunned, as until then they did not know anything about this. Officials from the CIA and the research department of IDF Intelligence sat with a compass and drew the ranges. The missiles that the Saudis planned to buy, CSS-2 as they are called in professional terminology, or Dong-Feng 3 in the Chinese version, have a range of between 2,500 to 3,500 kilometers. Such a range encompasses all of the Middle East, including parts of what was once the USSR, and, of course, all of Israel.

Officials in Israel and the US did not understand why the Saudis, who in public take a moderate and pragmatic diplomatic line, had to buy the missiles, which at the time constituted China's central nuclear attack force. Concern increased when these reports were added to reports of the great financial support given by Saudi Arabia to the development of the "first Islamic bomb," as Pakistan's atomic enterprise was called.

Israeli and American intelligence began a wide-scale campaign with a double purpose: To gather details about the deal, and an attempt to learn what the Saudis were really planning to do with the missiles. The campaign was partially successful. It turned out that 120 missiles were to be acquired, as well as 12 launchers. The Americans were especially surprised when it turned out that the person conducting the dialogue on the part of the Saudis was none other than the State Department favorite, Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, the charming ambassador to Washington.

The Saudis paid a fortune for the missiles. The Chinese got the feeling from them that money was no object, and that Prince Bandar would pay any price to get his country into the prestigious club.

They're Planting the Desert with Missiles

The first CSS-2 missiles arrived in June, 1990, and were deployed in two places south of Riyadh: Most of them in the huge complex built north of the El-Suleil desert, about 500 kilometers from the capital, and a minority of them in El-Jofer, 100 kilometers from the city. The rest of the missiles arrived during the following years.

About two weeks ago, the satellite Iconus, the best civilian photographic satellite in the world, took special photos for Yediot Aharonot over El-Suleil. The photos prove that over the last few years the Saudis have invested huge resources in the development of a secret military city, "King Khaled."

In comparison to previously accessible photos of the region, photographed by the French satellite Spot in 1995, the intensive construction in the region, spread over hundreds of square kilometers in the heart of the desert, is clearly recognizable. The Saudis have added missile launching pads, access roads, command headquarters, a huge residential area, a mosque for the engineers and crews, as well as a huge new area, spread over 1400 square kilometers, dotted with numerous bunkers for conventional and non-conventional weapons, with a capacity of more than 60,000 cubic meters. East of El-Suleil, outside of the photographed area, is a Saudi air force base, with two Tornado squadrons.

The huge missile base is made up of a support area and two launching areas, six kilometers apart, and are located in narrow hidden ravines.

In the support area, more than 33 buildings are visible. Eight of them are large enough to store the CSS-2 missiles, which are 24 meters long. The launching areas have a scattering of buildings, and a concrete launching pad.

In each of the two launching areas, an unidentified building can be seen, covered with dust, about 50 meters long, two underground storerooms for the missiles, two large support buildings, and garages.

In comparison to the photos from 1995, a sizable expansion can be seen in the administrative and residential areas. Command headquarters installations, residential areas, a large mosque, a soccer field, a large park, parking lots, etc., can be clearly seen. The take-off area of the local airport was increased to more than three kilometers.

The weapons storage area, spread over more than 1,400 kilometers, is too big to be connected only to a CSS-2 missile base, and apparently has other secret purposes. More than 60 fortified buildings for weapons storage can clearly be identified.

For a long time it was not clear to American intelligence where the Saudis were hiding their missiles. At first they thought that they were to be found at the El Haraj air force base complex, about 50 kilometers south of Riyadh. Only through intelligence information on the ground, and careful monitoring via satellites, led the CIA to the secret military city in El-Suleil. The photos from Iconus were received according to the coordinates located previously by American intelligence.

This updated information, which Israeli and American intelligence has had for a long time, is the cause of no little headache. All this became even more relevant after 9/11, when it became clear that anything, absolutely anything, could happen, and there are those who today regret the docile line Israel adopted towards Saudi Arabia under American pressure. Buying Up Every Adversary and All Opposition

The acquisition of missiles was part of a general Saudi military build-up, which at the beginning of the nineties turned it into the number one buyer of arms among third world countries, after Iraq.

The Washington administration felt betrayed. Only several years after the huge efforts made by President Reagan to approve the sale of AWACS warning planes to the Saudis, this deal suddenly appeared, in contrast to Riyadh's declared policy, apparently without any practical need.

The angry Americans asked for explanations. The Saudis said that they needed missiles to defend themselves from Iran (which was then considered to be the most serious regional threat), and that they had decided to acquire them from China, after the US refused to sell them F-15s in 1985. In the end they were sold 24 airplanes, but the missile project, said the Saudis, was already underway.

King Fahd made a commitment not to arm the missiles with chemical or nuclear warheads, and not to use them in an initial attack. In order to allay their concerns even more, Saudi Arabia signed a nuclear non-proliferation treaty. The king made a commitment not to take part in developing a nuclear bomb, and also promised that after the missiles were in place, all military activity would be stopped in the El-Suleil region.

Fahd, to put it nicely, did not exactly keep his word. The Saudis promised to allow American supervision of the site in El-Suleil, if Washington would promise that Israel would not attack them, but in the end refused to allow visits to the site.

Following the Gulf War, the Saudis became a kind of underdog, and succeeded in directing anger to other places, mainly Iran and Iraq. Even Israel, in conversations with other countries, did not raise the Saudi issue.

In 1990, when the missiles began to arrive in El-Suleil, Israel wanted to arouse a commotion, but the US was satisfied with Fahd's promises and instructed Israel to keep a low profile. Israel in turn sufficed with registering a protest, which was a drop in the ocean in contrast to the campaigns it led against countries such as Syria and Iraq.

In the case of Saudi Arabia, even when the details of its involvement in the Pakistan nuclear project became clear, even when it was obvious that it was financing terror organizations, even when it was proven without any doubt that the Saudi family was tainted to its roots with corruption and an unstoppable desire to rule, by buying up, in essence, every enemy and all opposition, the US remained silent and compelled Israel to do the same.

September 11 upset the applecart for the Saudis. Many in the US, both within and outside the administration, felt free to express what they had been keeping inside. About four months ago, chief Pentagon strategist Richard Perl said here: In my opinion, the Saudis are not part of the solution, but part of the problem… We had all the reasons to assume that they were grateful that we saved them in the Gulf War, and we were wrong.

 

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/662874/posts

on temples and on cholas -- and on the south in general

mar 29th

kapidhwaja, thanks for the materials. i didnt see the whole discovery film, it was too big to download. also thanks for the pointer to bharat rakshak and the great military heroes

the wikipedia article on cholas was very good. i liked it except for the stray reference to the 'aryans'

i have great respect for ancient tamils. the sangam era, karikala chola, rajaraja chola, the bhakti saints, the great thanjavur delta manufacturing center.

just look at the following:
0. sangam literature: some of the most beautiful indian poetry comes from this period. read ak ramanujan's translations; i remember in particular "red earth and pouring rain" -- absolute masterpieces
1. chola bronzes: the epitome of indian art, superlative pieces that have no equal
2. rajaraja/rajendra chola: the epitome of indian imperialism, with their naval armada that was the biggest ever assembled before the era of the steamship
3. karikala chola: his grand anicut across the kaveri is the *oldest* waterworks in the world, and it is *still* working after 2000 years
4. bhakti saints of tamil country: they (and sankara) revived hinduism. what we all know of as hinduism today was created by the nayanmars and azhvars such as manikyavachakar and avvaiyyar

however, modern tamils do not deserve any particular respect. they are loud (they dont believe in speaking, they only shout) and sort of imperialistic. ev ramaswamy naicker was trying to create 'dravidianism' as a new religion whereby tamils would dominate southern india. his goal probably was to have everyone in south india (which of course would secede from the north) bow 5 times daily and pray in the direction of chennai, which would be the imperial capital of 'dravidian' india which would be everything south of the vindhyas.

christism = expression of white imperialism
mohammedanism = expression of arab imperialism
marxism = formerly expression of russian imperialism, now expression of chinese imperialism

naicker was hoping to add

'dravidianism' = expression of tamil imperialism

alas, other south indians found this business hilarious. in fact, they have made a conscious decision to tolerate hindi (bihari ? :-) imperialism rather than go with the evr plan of tamil imperialism.

i also think a classical language needs a classical civilization. for the tamils, there was the sangam civilization and also the chola era. for telugu, there was the vijayanagar empire. kannada, i am not sure. but malayalam did not have a classical civilization other than the sangam civilization: in fact, two of the greatest tamil works were written in kerala -- silappadikaram and manimekhala. this is why i believe tamil is clearly a classical language, perhaps telugu is; i am willing to be educated about kannada, but i dont think malayalam is.

however, interestingly enough, as *modern* languages, kannada and malayalam are streets ahead of telugu and tamil. both have produced many world-class works, more so than tamil and telugu. in modern tamil, in my opinion it's only the epic works that are remarkable, such as ponniyin selvan and sivakamiyin shapatham. kannada has its karanth, ananthamurthy et al. malayalam has its thakazhi, vijayan, pottekkat, bashir et al. someone knowledgeable about telugu is welcome to correct me.

here are my tongue in cheek opinions on various southern languages:
1. telugu, sweet language, lots of sanskrit, but it also has a predilection for 'g' and 'nta', both harsh sounds. look at place names: gudur, guntur, gooty, guntakal, guntur, gummidipoodi.
2. kannada, also a sweet language, very sanskritized, it is mellifluous and easy on the ear
3. tamil, i would be able to tell if it is sweet or harsh if only they stopped shouting! i once had the misfortune to travel by bus from bangalore to trivandrum through tamil nadu in a bus which had a blaring tamil movie video. i almost died.
4. malayalam, a nasal and rapid-fire language, the most sanskritized of the lot, about 80% of malayalam is pure sanskrit. it was explicitly created from tamil to be able to express sanskrit characters and sounds

ok, i said semi-serious, so don't get your knickers in a twist, all right?

indian history needs to be rewritten to give the south its due. after all, the south is pretty much where the action is: a per capita income map of india shows a distinct southern/western advantage except for punjab.

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

j r d tata on his strategy for the company

mar 29th

worth reading. insightful.

http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/article_page.aspx?ar=1688&L2=21&L3=114

larry summers on the cost of excess foreign exchange reserves

mar 29th

fresh from being in effect fired at harvard (the stanford of the east coast), here's larry summers talking about why too much by way of foreign reserves are not good.

in effect, india and others are giving unacknowledged 'aid' to americans. so spend the excess reserves on research! put in place a crash program on energy, earmarked for oil substitutes and solar energy!

http://rbidocs.rbi.org.in/rdocs/Publications/PDFs/69527.pdf

the kanchi sankaracharya's continuing public humiliation

mar 29th

ask yourself why you have not rioted in the streets over the humiliation of this saintly man.

if we are all waiting for someone to tell us what to do, we are doomed. all of us who did nothing deserve condemnation. a lot of it has to do with our being brainwashed by all the media images of the pious, do-gooding padre, whereas the sanyasi is always shown as a dubious character. is this fair?

in that vein, there is news in the malayalam media (kaumudi online in malayalam) that a police SP in the sister abhaya case has been penalized. one michael, SP, has been fined rs. 25,000 and given six months' imprisonment for saying that abhaya and her family were insane. sister abhaya was a catholic nun found floating in a well in a nunnery.

fair enough. but it further says, to my complete astonishment, the following (my translation):

"local police and the crime branch investigated sister abhaya's death and ruled it a suicide. however, subsequent CBI investigation showed that it was a murder. But the report submitted before the court said, unusually, that IT WOULD NOT BE POSSIBLE TO ARREST THE CULPRITS".

note the part in capitals. the suspects must have included the local padre, the bishop and the archbishop. but even the CBI says these people cannot be touched!

conclusion: a hindu saint can be humiliated and destroyed without a shred of evidence. but even a puny little archibishop or someone other church functionary cannot be investigated or caught. and it is not as though christist priests havent been caught with their hand in the till. hundreds have been convicted for sexual crimes. one old pope godman was accused of being a nazi collaborator. yet, in india, it is clear that no christist will ever go to jail.

this is apartheid, pure and simple.

BBC withdraws Offending Article on Shankaracharya
http://indiacause.com/columns/OL_060318.htm

By: Dr Farokh Merat

March 18, 2006

On 11th November 2004 His Holiness Sri Jayendra Saraswathi, the
Shankaracharya of Kanchipuram was arrested by the Tamil Nadu police allegedly
for having
conspired to murder Sankararaman, an employee at a temple unconnected to the

Kanchi Mutt.

The very day after the Shankaracharya's arrest a vast character assassination
campaign was launched throughout India, portraying the Pontiff not only as a
murderer but also as an embezzler and a womanizer. Among the English journals

the most virulent attacks against Sri Jayendra Saraswathi came from Outlook
magazine. The titles of some of the articles by Mr. S. Anand, Outlook's
correspondent in Chennai, are eloquently self-explanatory: "How the Gods Fall,"

"Swami
and Fiends" (sic), "A Sting in the Tail," "The Baton Awaits," "Prison Diaries
of a Pontiff." These articles are compilations almost exclusively of
slanderous back alley innuendos, invariably attributed to vague police contacts

and
other faceless sources.

But Outlook did not stop there. The demonization of Sri Jayendra Saraswathi
was to be internationalized on 28th January 2005 by no other than the editor of
the magazine himself, Mr. Vinod Mehta. In a talk titled "A View from India,"

the Outlook editor went on BBC Radio Four to inform English and European
audiences about the "Jayendra affair." The talk was rebroadcast two days later,
on
Sunday 30th January, immediately after a program of Christian church services.

To Hindus who happened to be listening to BBC Radio Four on that Sunday
morning, the contrast between the dignified church services and the vicious
slander
heaped on one of their foremost religious leaders must have been

excruciatingly painful.

Two days later the talk was published as an article on the BBC website with
the title of "Murder, Mystery and Politics in India." Straight away Mr. Mehta
set the tone. "The charges are a tabloid journalist"s dream - murder, sleaze,

debauchery, greed and sex," he said. The story he went on to recount was meant
to illustrate each of these "charges." But it was overwhelmingly fictitious
and certain crucial details stood in contradiction with the findings of the

Supreme Court of India, made public some three weeks before Mr. Mehta delivered
his talk on BBC Radio Four. His tabloid dream was of his own making.

The Outlook editor did not merely indulge in fibs. His entire article was a

colossal lie - by omission. On granting bail to the Shankaracharya on 10th
January 2005, the Supreme Court had stated that the Tamil Nadu authorities and
police had failed to submit the least prima facie evidence connecting the

Pontiff
to the Sankararaman killing; they had also been unable to submit any grounds
of motive for the Shankaracharya to commit such an act. But Mr. Mehta passed
over the Supreme Court findings as if they had never existed. The reason is

obvious: the pronouncements of the Apex Court would have demolished his
viciously
fictitious story.

Immediately devotees of the Shankaracharya throughout the world began writing
letters of complaint to the BBC. After some seven months of repeated

complaints the BBC Editorial Complaints Unit authorities admitted that Mr.
Mehta's
text contained "serious error and inaccuracies." They tacitly acknowledged that
apart from the alleged conspiracy to murder, none of the "charges" mentioned by

Mr. Mehta were to be found in the charge sheet. On being questioned about the
matter, Mr. Mehta had apparently told them that the charges of personal
misconduct were listed not in the charge sheet but in the FIR (First Information

Report), filed by the police shortly after the Pontiff's arrest - another lie.

The BBC remained adamant about keeping the offensive article on their
website, purged of the "errors and inaccuracies." Thanks to
www.kanchiforum.org,
the
devotees of the Shankaracharya organized themselves and engaged lawyers in
London. Finally, the threat of legal action compelled the BBC to remove the

article, apologize and reimburse the greater part of the legal costs incurred by
the Acharya's devotees.

Two questions come to mind. Why did the BBC believe Mehta's version of the
events and refuse for a full year to remove the article from their website? And

the second and far more fundamental question is: why did the mainstream media
defame and demonize the revered Shankaracharya instead of investigating the
facts and exposing the real culprits?

The first question can be readily answered. The BBC believed Vinod Mehta's

groundless accusations because large sectors of the media in India were mouthing
the same unfounded charges against the Pontiff. The media are by and large
conformist copycats. Why, after all, should the BBC send a journalist of world

rank to Tamil Nadu to investigate the case - as we repeatedly urged them to do
- when most of the national press in India was babbling the same lies? We
battled against the BBC - a minuscule David against a gigantic Goliath - for a

full year. Nevertheless, I must say a word in defence of the BBC: they were not
the real culprits. They got hoodwinked not just by Vinod Mehta but by the
Indian media as a whole. Having accorded them the benefit of a doubt, one can't

help wondering why the British, after having plundered, divided and departed,
still feel a pathological need to humiliate the Hindus. Would the BBC have dared
to allow similar calumnies against a Muslim religious leader of even the

lowest ranks? No, they wouldn't, for obvious reasons. But the gentlemen and
ladies
at the BBC have retained from their readings at school that devout Hindus are
a peaceful and peace-loving people. They knew that calumniations against the

revered Shankaracharya of Kanchi would not bring them bombs and sundry forms of
violence. Hence the platform given so nonchalantly to the pseudo-secularist
Vinod Mehta.

As to the second question, several explanations have been given: clever

orchestration of lies and manipulation by the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and
police;
collusion of the Centre for fear that Hindu-oriented parties may regain power
in the next elections; money generously and secretly disbursed by the

Evangelists to eliminate a Hindu religious leader actively opposing conversions.

But all this does not explain why the media engaged in such wholesale slander
and why the public did not object. The media and the public are partners. It

is said of a nation that it has the rulers it deserves. In the same vein it
can be said that the public has the media it deserves. There is a constant give
and take between the two. To be successful and survive in a competitive

context, each player in the media and the press has to cater to and please its
own
audience. At the same time the media and the press form and educate the public
- for the better or for the worse. In the end, the two are one. So the

question becomes: why was a considerable portion of the population of India, and
of
the Hindu population itself, receptive to lies and unfounded accusations
against one of the foremost religious leaders of the land, a Saint who had spent

more than fifty years of his life helping the downtrodden, building and running
schools, hospitals, homes for the disabled and the aged, charity organizations,
and doing everything he could to maintain communal peace and harmony, notably

in the grave Ayodhya issue? His profile was reversed by the media overnight,
between 11/11 and 11/12 2004. Why, one wonders, did not the public demand
serious journalistic investigation, evidence instead of innuendos?


It is fashionable, after the American model, to laud in flowery terms the
four pillars of democracy: the executive, the legislative, the judiciary and for
the last fifty-or-so years, the media/press. This is to forget the most

essential component of all: the civil society. Wherever the civil society is
awake,
healthy and coherent, the fourfold power system works smoothly. Otherwise it
does not. It is for the civil society to constantly watch the four "powers" and

take them to task whenever there is injustice, abuse of power, corruption,
falsehood.

Let us take an example. On New Year's Day 2006 the Calcutta Telegraph
published a cartoon of Sri Jayendra Saraswathi with a dagger sticking out from

under
his attire dripping with blood. Just a few days before, the Prime Minister and
President of India had expressed their great indignation at the offending
cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad published in Europe. But about the cartoon

published in their own country ridiculing one of the foremost religious leaders
of
the Hindus, they expressed no opinion at all. Was it because of the unfounded
murder allegations against the Shankaracharya? But surely the leaders of the

country must have taken note of the verdict of the Supreme Court of India I
have already referred to, as well as a second verdict, dated 26th October 2005,
in which the Apex Court ordered the transfer of the murder trial out of Tamil

Nadu and chastised the State Government machinery for attempting to deprive the
Shankaracharya and co-accused of proper legal defense, launching persecution
against journalists, lawyers and members of the civil society "merely because

they expressed some dissent against the arrest of the Seer, and creating "a
fear psychosis in the minds of the people," thus discouraging witnesses from
testifying objectively. About all this, too, the President, the Prime Minister

and the Super-Prime Minister remained deafeningly silent.

But they alone are not to blame. It is for the civil society to inundate them
with letters asking: "Why such double standards?" And it is again for the

civil society to flood the Telegraph and other unfair media with letters of
vigorous protest demanding immediate apologies.

The sad truth is that peaceful and civilised protests are not given serious
consideration by the Government, while there is immediate response to agitation

and aggressive protests. This tendency on the part of the rulers, of whatever
hue, leads to violence and erodes civilised values. Had the Shankaracharya's
followers taken to the streets, it would no doubt have risen both the

Government and society at large from their slumber. But it is to the
incalculable
credit of Sri Jayendra Saraswathi that he did not veer a millimeter from the
path
of the holy lineage of Adi Shankara. He urged his followers to hold their

peace and promised that Dharma would prevail, thus avoiding violence and
bloodshed.

When a Saint of the stature of Sri Jayendra Saraswathi is slandered, it is
the sacred tradition of Advaita Vedanta, the highest light of humanity, that is

slandered. When the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham is attacked, Sanatana Dharma, the
root religion of all that deserves to be called religion, is attacked.
In South Africa they have a beautiful saying: People are people because of

other people. Transposed to the context we are concerned with, the proverb is
laden with hope. It means that if a few start taking the responsibility to act
rightly, even in little ways, their action is bound to ripple and influence

others, making the entire world a little more just, humane and peaceful - a
return to the primeval and pristine religion: Sanatana Dharma.

Dr Farokh Merat

nytimes: what ails young black men? (and young mohammedan men too)

mar 29th

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/26/opinion/26patterson.html?incamp=article_popular&pagewanted=all

the same question can be asked, what ails young mohammedan men?

why are they so violent, why do they create so many babies, why are they so predatory towards non-mohammedan women?

in the case of mohammedans, (unlike in the case of blacks) we know the answer to a  significant extent: because their mullahs tell them to. because it's in their book to do these things. because this is the way to capture territory through demographic warfare.

there is also the element of machismo. mohammedans want to intimidate through violence. however, correspondingly, they are also respectful of violence, so that if it is imposed on them, they act as rational economic beings: they behave. therefore it is not mindless violence, it is violence based on a strategy of keeping the other side off balance all the time. as has been said by the pakistanis, low-grade violence/rioting and terrorism is not an end, it is the condition of fear they wish to impose upon others as a means of psychological warfare to wear them down.

if mohammedans are sure they will lose, they become docile. this is why (apart from the little understanding between the chinese and the pakistani ISI) that the uighur mohammedans of east turkestan (sinkiang) are rather quiet despite harsh chinese repression.

in india, they think they can win through demographic, and real, warfare. they have done this for centuries, so why not into the future? incidentally, mohammedans in india have the best lives of any mohammedans in the world, because they are pampered by the state in all sorts of ways, and given preferential treatment that they dont get in mohammedan states or in the west. eg. name one country where mohammedans get hajj subsidies. answer: none other than india.

in chechnya and in palestine, they think they can win, this is why they are hyperactive. this is also why i believe they will not piss off the americans beyond a certain limit (the little understandings between the saudis and the bushies is also there). this is why i dont expect another serious terrorist attack on the us. because they know the americans will nuke mecca and medina. and it will damage mohammedanism beyond repair if their black cube is turned into a radioactive cinder.

deterrence apparently works; mohammedan youths are not irrational; they are doing what they do because they can get away with it.

black youth, on the other hand, have become a permanent underclass that no amount of handholding can save.

while the 'dalitstan' types will claim for sympathy generation purposes this is the case with SC/ST as well, that's not true, mostly because they are not visible minorities. an SC/ST person looks exactly the same as any other hindu, so there is no issue of casual racism.

Saudi & Paki engineers helped destroy Bamiyan Buddhas

mar 29th

why is this not a shocker?

after all, the taliban = the pakistani army. i have been saying this for years. see my old column 'what happened at kunduz?'. how else could one explain the taliban (supposedly madrasa students) suddenly driving tanks and flying planes? they teach them that in the madrasas? no, they were pakistani army men who grew beards.

but i am surprised that there are actually qualified engineers of saudi origin. no, i take that back: weren't some of the 9/11 bombers qualified engineers of saudi origin?

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rajan
Date: Mar 28, 2006 9:16 PM
Subject: Saudi & Paki engineers helped destroy Bamiyan Buddhas
To: Rajeev Srinivasan < rajeev.srinivasan@gmail.com>


http://arunsmusings.blogspot.com/2006/03/bamiyan-buddhas.html



__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

behind microsoft's product delays

mar 28th

the bottom line is the windows OS has become 'the Thing from outer space'. it sucks big time.

i am a laggard in os, i have never once upgraded a machine to a new windows os (i have installed new unix versions though). because, there is no reason to upgrade to a new windows version other than feeling the urgent need to enrich microsoft and intel.

microsoft is probably a good buy at $27, though. they have underperformed over the last 3 years and when vista comes out, a lot of sheeple will upgrade. and of course vista will come out. eventually, that is. note that they trashed longhorn completely a couple of years ago. at some point they'll take whatever crap is there, half-baked, and call it 'vista' and ship it out for the public to debug. and they'll declare victory in the usual american way.

i would like to buy one of those gorgeous mac intel ibooks. i used to be a fanatical mac user until i wanted to buy a laptop (in 1990?), and the windows laptops were much cheaper. now i think i'll return if apple can lower the price tag to below $1500. and then run dual booted mac os x and windows and maybe linux as well.

btw, apple just lost avadias tevanian (formerly of CMU and next), their OS guru, who i think did the multithreaded unix-derived NeXT OS, the basis for apple's OS X. that sounds like bad news.

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/14204912.htm

the whole windows os trap reminds me of the eagles, hotel california:

"they stab it with their steely knives
but they just cant kill the beast
last thing i remember
i was running for the door
i had to find the passage back to the place I was before
Relax, said the nightman
We are programed to be nice
You can check out any time you like
But you can never leave"

CTBT, NPT, Indian acquiescence

mar 28th

kapidhwaja, san and others,

it looks like india has burnt its bridges and is on the way to a permanent nuclear second-class-hood. as to what we can do about it, i am not so sure. one possibility is to unilaterally abrogate the treaties at some future point, assuming someone will have the guts to do so. otherwise, it looks like we are basically screwed. the chinese and pakistanis must be celebrating. it's a mirror image of the way the americans seem to have imposed a deal on pakistan: "we'll control your nukes, but allow you to play all the terrorism games you want".

india gets a different deal: "we'll control your nukes, and we damn you with faint praise, nothing more; and oh, we'll send lots of evangelists to 'save' you, too. isn't that a good deal? see, sonia says it is, so it must be true."


protect your laptop in the silicon valley

mar 28th

may be a good idea to leave it in your hotel room, attached with a kensington-type lock to some immovable object. another option: don't take your laptop to the customer,site bring a large-capacity thumb drive (say 2 GB, which goes for only couple of hundred dollars) with your stuff on it. and use a machine the customer can provide. and remember to not copy much stuff on to the customer machine (duh!)

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/14204912.htm

Hon'ble President : Please stop imminent sale of 3000 acres of temple lands in East Godavari district

mar 28th

meanwhile, back at the ranch, the christist fundamentalist samuel reddy is preparing to destroy hinduism in andhra just as it has been destroyed by christists in kerala.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Naresh Khanna <nkk1113@gmail.com>
Date: Mar 28, 2006 10:54 AM
Subject: Fwd: Hon'ble President : Please stop imminent sale of 3000 acres of temple lands in East Godavari district
To: nkk1113@hotmail.com



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Krishan Bhatnagar <krishan.kb@verizon.net>
Date: Mar 28, 2006 8:47 AM
Subject: Hon'ble President : Please stop imminent sale of 3000 acres of temple lands in East Godavari district
To: Undisclosed-Recipient

Please circulate the attached appeal to  Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, President of India :
You may send your comments to the following 
 
President of India                      presidentofindia@rb.nic.in
Prime Minister, New Delhi          manmohan@sansad.nic.in
 
CM, Andhra Pradesh                 cmap@ap.nic.in ; drysr@ap.gov.in;
 
Shri L.K . Advani, BJP               advanilk@sansad.nic.in
Shri Rajnath Singh ,                   rajnath@sansad.nic.in
President BJP
 
BJP head office, New Delhi        bjpco@del3.vsnl.net.in
VHP, New Delhi                         jaishriram@vsnl.in
 
Thanks
Krishan Bhatnagar
Hindu Jagran Forum (Maryland, USA)
March 28, 2006
======================================================
 
Letter to Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, President of India
 
Subject: Please intervene to stop imminent sale of 3000 acres of temple lands in East Godavari district against the wishes of the Hindu Community.  AP Govt. as trustees, must be accountable to Hindu "samaj"
 
 Hon'ble President Kalam,
 
The Andhra Pradesh Govt., in continuation of its deliberate crusade against the Hindu religious establishments, has decided to sell the remaining 3,000 acres of temple endowment lands in East Godavari district on a war footing (attachment A). This expeditious measure, being taken without public debate and approval of the Hindu community, on whose behalf the Govt. acts as trustees is highly distressing. The statement by the Endowments assistant Commissioner that "they could fulfill the ideals of donors by doing so" is untenable. Only the community could decide it. The Govt. management of temples is arbitrary and discretionary without transparency or community involvement. It seems that there exists an anti Hindu zeal in the state administration – therefore, rather than modifying the state laws to protect the endowments, they are using a Supreme Court judgment as a tool for demolishing the Hindu religious infrastructure.  Mr. President, your immediate intervention is needed to direct the Govt. to freeze the sale of all lands and properties till the temples are reverted to the community and rescind the previous sales.
 
Flagrantly trampling upon the very basic principles of secularism requiring separation of state and religion - a worldwide norm in all democratic and open societies, Hindu temples and endowments were nationalized in Andhra Pradesh and many parts of India with the promise and premise of an open, transparent and an efficient management. But alas, the Govt. performance fundamentally defied that claim. The sweeping nationalization of temples is also squarely discriminatory against Hindus, while the minorities such as Muslims and Christians govern their places of worship.
 
Half of the temple lands in the East Godavari District have already been sold, while the remaining 3,000 acres are awaiting auction "on a war footing" which will make all temples in the district totally devoid of any endowment lands for sustenance. Such a crash sale of the lands that have been there for decades and perhaps centuries makes the intent of the decision suspicious. Are the authorities trying to hide the incompetence in keeping lands from illegal occupation or disposing them for political, financial motivations, or by an anti- Hindu bias to encourage minority adversarial faiths and present the land disposal to the community as a fait accompli? Such actions give credence to the allegation that the Chief Minister, Dr. Samuel Reddy sees the Hindu infrastructure through the prism of his personal faith rather than a protector of all faiths.
 
These actions seriously jeopardize the preservation and propagation of Hindu cultural and spiritual values and therefore, call for the total withdrawal of the state from controlling the Hindu religious entities. The apparent argument that the dismantling of the fabric of the centuries old and time -tested structure of Hindu system of worship (by taking away temples' sustenance) is necessary for uplifting the poor, and the selling of the remaining 50% lands for a few crores of rupees will help the temples is flawed. Why have even half of lands been sold in a hurry without the community's approval who are the real owners of the endowments? The state has failed even to give any logical explanation in support of such illegal and unconstitutional activities. Under these circumstances not only should the present sale be stopped forthwith but the previous sale of half of the lands must be also rescinded.
 
It may be noted that AP has perhaps the largest ministry of  77,000 bureaucrats to manage some 33,000 temples. There are also allegations that the Govt. siphons away 85% of temple revenues to the state exchequer for the upkeep of the ministry, leaving pujaris to starve. Sometime ago it was reported in media that the Govt. had yet to reimburse Rs. 28 crores to the endowments department for lands they acquired for Police stations, bus stands, etc. The record of the state is highly anti- Hindu with seeming intent to demolish the Hindu religious infrastructure (attachment B). The management of temples is non- transparent. It aims at keeping the community in the dark about its assets as also about the financial and religious management of the temples and their estates.
 
The state has seriously violated the constitution : a) by denying Hindus  their fundamental "Religious Rights' guaranteed under Articles 25 and 26 of the Indian Constitution to establish, maintain religious institutions; to own and acquire movable and immovable property;  and to administer such property in accordance with law.; and b) by  gross misuse of state powers under Concurrent List (Article 246 (2) , Seventh Schedule, List 3 - item 28) on religious institutions by unwarranted acquisition of temples and squarely discriminating against Hindu religious institutions (attachments C1 and C2).
 
Further the Indian Parliament through an Act in 1991 legislated that –"the status of religious places, as on August 15, 1947 shall be retained".  A faithful implementation of these laws will require removal of govt. control upon Hindu temples which then could be transferred to the jurisdiction of an autonomous Hindu Board.  For any potential allegations of mismanagement, legal avenues are available to government e.g.  the administration could appoint auditors and make specific recommendations for transparency and accountability rather than usurping places of worship.
 
Sir, the state authorities seem oblivious that under the provisions of the Indian constitution, controlling, discriminating, managing, reforming or patronizing religions is completely and fully out side the parameters of government jurisdiction. Why not allow an autonomous Hindu board to govern temples under the guidance of religious leaders, just as it is permissible in the case of other religions?  The Waqf Board of Muslims and the management of Christian churches and religious institutions have vast funds, properties and endowments, in addition to the immense flow of foreign funds - yet their independence and autonomy is left intact!
 
It is baffling how the AP assembly could pass legislation which is violative of the Constitution and also against the accepted norms in all free and democratic societies. Most importantly it is applied discriminatively only to Hindu temples, and amounts to suppression of Hindus human rights of religious freedom. As proven by their injurious governance, the state legislature may have passed the measure to takeover temples on the basis of misinformed and biased voting or for political, financial and anti- Hindu interests in endowments. Our contention is corroborated by the passage of an illegal Bill in AP Assembly for religion based reservation for the Muslims in AP, which was declared unconstitutional and therefore, overturned by the Supreme Court
 
Sir, Govt. control is causing effective de- Hinduisation of the temples. The temple is not just for rituals by purohits and for tourist curiosity that the government wants to project but also the centre of community's socio-cultural life, a place of learning with Acharyas, for community sewa, dharma prachar and for character building. The grandeur of Hinduism - its Vedas, Upanishads, Ramayana,  Mahabharata, the Bhagwad Geeta - its glorious ancient culture, spirituality and values that the community would like to project and propagate can only be done under a devoted Hindu religious governance, without the interference by the state.
 
Given the Govt.'s mission of anti-Hinduism every place of Hindu worship and reverence is now under attack in Andhra Pradesh (attachment B):  The regressive state control has seriously interfered in the spiritual and cultural activities, violated religious sentiments, and suppressed Hindus human right of religious freedom. At the cost of the temple revenues the state has built and maintained a large endowments bureaucracy while the pujaris have been left to starve. All this violation and disrespect of Hinduism is taking place while its perpetrators hide behind the cover of secularism and democracy. Can the Indian authorities dare to formalize and enforce a similar takeover plan for Jama Masjid, Churches of India or Golden Temple and will the Muslims, Christians and Sikhs permit it?  Obviously the answer is an emphatic no.
 
The fury in the Islamic world over Prophet Mohammed's cartoons should serve as a serious warning against desecration and demolition of Hindu institutions by the state and against offensive acts like selling of endowment lands meant for temples sustenance in perpetuity. Further, terrorist attacks from Raghunath temple to Akshardham and from Ayodhya to Sankat Mochan at Varanasi and Govt's inability to safeguard them on the one hand and government's deep appeasement of minorities on the other, are causing deep resentment amongst the majority community.
 
Sir, some of the Indian rulers seem to have set out to achieve the goals that the tyrannical Muslim invaders could not i.e., the death and destruction of Hindu India. It is also ironic that the systematic campaign to demolish Hindu religion in India should progressively continue while the Hindu India popularly known as "Hindustan" is ruled by a Muslim President, a Christian Parliamentary and UPA Leader, a Sikh Prime Minister and Christian Chief Ministers whose own religions are assault free and therefore, they do not have sufficient incentives or need to intervene. Nonetheless, should they continue their utter disregard and indifference towards enforcing the principles of secularism in defense of the majority community's religion when they are at the top positions, such inaction would have the potential of triggering a massive backlash.
 
It is a matter of serious concern that central and state governments have joined hands and launched an unprecedented assault on the founding and functional pillars of the national majority's religious heritage, because only the despotic, dictatorial, autocratic, colonial, imperialist, and inhuman regimes could act this way. Violation of majority's  freedom for managing its places of religious worship and continuing intrusion and imposition of  governmental dictates in an otherwise  autonomous domain, will justify the charge against the state of being anti- Hindu and anti-national for shackling and debilitating Hinduism -a faith that is the single most important unifying factor in India's body politic.
 
Hon'ble President, it is a matter of national shame that India boasting to be the largest secular democracy deprives its own majority community the human right for religious freedom. In view of the serious concerns on the future of temples by sale of endowment lands, may we request that the AP Govt. be directed: a) to freeze all sales of endowment properties and lands till their reversion to the community and to rescind the earlier sale of half of the lands;  b)  to modify the 1987 Act  in order to denationalize and allow autonomy of all Hindu temples in the state as is the case for other religious institutions, and enabling formation of a Hindu Board to oversee temples management; and c) .to co-opt a Hindu Council , nominated by Hindu organizations like Dharma Sansad and Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha for guidance of endowment department till denationalization to avoid such unconscionable and unconstitutional acts that will cause further resentment and inflame communal tensions.
 
Thanking for your time and requesting for your immediate intervention
 
Sincerely,
 
 
Dr. Jagan Kaul                                       March 21, 2006   
Krishan Bhatnagar
Hindu Jagran Forum (Maryland, USA)
email: krishan.kb@verizon.net
===================================================
 
Attachment A
Temple lands ready for sale
Deccan Chronicle
 http://www.deccan.com/

 Rajahmundry, March 14: The Endowments department will be going for an  open auction of its lands to the tune of 3,000 acre from April to June  in East Godavari district to safeguard temple lands and improve its  sources of revenue. Addressing a meeting of officials here on Tuesday,  Endowments assistant commissioner B. Venkatasw-amy said that they had  auctioned 50 per cent temple lands in the district, raising revenue to  the tune of Rs 2 crore, based on the Supreme Court's judgement with
regard to the Tenancy Act especially for the State.

 He directed the temple officials to make efforts on a war footing to  auction the remaining 50 per cent lands in the next three months and  said that they could fulfil the ideals of donors by doing so. He asked  the officials to give exemption to farmers who had taken about 2.5  acre land on lease in delta areas and those who had taken five acre of  land on lease in upland areas as they were landless poor. He directed  them to carry out open auction of lands which did not fall under these  categories.

 He asked them to maintain a property register without fail.  He warned of stern action against the officials if they resort to any  lapses while auctioning temple lands. Referring to the two bomb blasts
at Varanasi recently, he asked executive officers to maintain strict  security at temples by appointing security guards to keep round the  clock vigil. He advised them to take police help to ensure safety to
 devotees, especially at important temples in the district.
=================================================
 
 Attachment B
Hindu temples' disintegration under AP Govt. Control
 
 Under the Chief Ministership of Dr. Samuel Reddy, who seems to see the Hindu shrines through the prism of his personal faith, the pace of de- Hinduisation, desecration and demolition of Hindu religious infrastructure has accelerated .  The government, though trustees,  never give out the  financial and management reports mandated under norms of trusteeship to the owners of properties i.e . Hindu community. Politicians and bureaucrats consider the revenues and properties as discretionary.
 
Here is a sketchy description of the control of Hindu temples and religious endowments by AP state government, based on very infrequent media reports.  This shows gross mismanagement and making their urgent reversion to community governance imperative for survival.
 
There is reportedly: a)  a proposal under consideration for allowing the construction of a church atop "Tirumala"; and b) a proposal for a ropeway at Tirumala to convert the deeply religious place into a tourist hot spot, rather than preserving and enhancing its religious and cultural character, required of trustees . Any diversion of revenues, major changes in physical  structures, sale/ transfer of lands and properties e.g. the proposal for land for a Church atop Tirumala, religious practices or major projects like the "Master Plan" at TTD must take place only upon the approval by the community.
 
Mr. Dharma Reddy, the special officer, AP claims that only 10 1/3 Square miles of land belong to the Mandir and is administered by the TTD. The statement which is influenced by some religious and commercial interests is totally unacceptable to Hindus, who for sure know that the entire Seven Hills is the sacred land of Hindus. The government must take note of it and declare without any ambiguity that the entire Seven Hills is sacred and belongs to Bhagawan Venkateshwara Mandir and that NO structure of any other religion could be allowed to encroach upon of the Seven Hills. Any violation of this reality could be a source of an unending conflict like the Babri structure.
 
The unforgivable and unforgettable destruction of centuries old historic Mandapam at TTD (Tirupathi Tirumala Devasthanam) with official participation is a stark reminder of a deep malaise - the unwarranted government interference in Hindu places of worship. Due to the aggressive anti-Hindu policy pursued by the Govt. there is faster disintegration and de- Hinduisation of Hindu religious infrastructure in AP. To further improve their political fortunes the Naxals are unlawfully distributing the temple lands. The massive land scam in Hathiramji Mutt at Tirumala, and the infamous demolition of 1000 pillar mandapam at Tirumala represent the multiple strategies for inflicting irreparable injury upon Hinduism. And then there is the most indefensible, serious and controversial issue of siphoning the temple revenues and disposing off the temple lands. Furthermore, the government of AP has yet to reimburse 28 crores of rupees to the endowment department towards the value of the temple lands illegally acquired earlier for bus terminals, police stations, etc. reported in media a couple of years ago.  

 

There also prevail serious charges that 85% of temple revenues are illegally transferred to the state exchequer for funding a ministry with 77,000 bureaucrats to supposedly manage 33,000 temples while leaving many pujaris starving. Recently, AP Govt. ensured the entry of JRG Wealth Management Limited, an organization owned by Christians into the decision making and procurement process of "Prasadam" materials for use in Tirupati temple. And govt. controlled temple management has also brought in a tie- up of the TTD owned Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences with a missionary hospital. Placing the members of the competing religions at the center of Hindu religious decision making adds insult to the injury. How would Christians and Muslims like it if their religious decision making was processed and formalized through Hindu hands?

 

Recently there was a report of TTD executive officer, appointed by the state, barring hundreds of Sadhus from having a "darshan" of Lord Venkateshwara at Tirupati. How can the Sadhus, who have given up everything for spiritual pursuit afford to pay for the darshan? This is a gross insult to Hindus, who deeply revere them.
 
And then there is the issue of  safeguarding of religious artifacts, allegedly stolen or clandestinely sold. No one seems to care or be accountable!
 
==========================================

 Attachment C1

 

Articles 25 and 26 of the Indian Constitution

 

Right to Freedom of Religion


25. Freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion.—
 
(1) Subject to public order, morality and health and to the other provisions of this Part, all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion.
(2) Nothing in this article shall affect the operation of any existing law or prevent the State from making any law—
(a) regulating or restricting any economic, financial, political or other secular activity which may be associated with religious practice;
(b) providing for social welfare and reform or the throwing open of Hindu religious institutions of a public character to all classes and sections of Hindus.

Explanation I.—The wearing and carrying of kirpans shall be deemed to be included in the profession of the Sikh religion.
Explanation II.—In sub-clause (b) of clause (2), the reference to Hindus shall be construed as including a reference to persons professing the Sikh, Jaina or Buddhist religion, and the reference to Hindu religious institutions shall be construed accordingly.

26. Freedom to manage religious affairs.—Subject to public order, morality and health, every religious denomination or any section thereof shall have the right—
(a) to establish and maintain institutions for religious and charitable purposes;
(b) to manage its own affairs in matters of religion;
(c) to own and acquire movable and immovable property; and
(d) to administer such property in accordance with law.

==================================================

 

    Attachment C2
 
Article 246 of the Indian Constitution and the Concurrent List containing religious endowments and religious Institutions that empower the states to legislate such institutions:
 

 246. Subject-matter of laws made by Parliament and by the Legislatures of States.—

(1) Notwithstanding anything in clauses (2) and (3), Parliament has exclusive power to make laws with respect to any of the matters enumerated in List I in the Seventh Schedule (in this Constitution referred to as the "Union List").

 (2) Notwithstanding anything in clause (3), Parliament, and, subject to clause (1), the Legislature of any State also, have power to make laws with respect to any of the matters enumerated in List III in the Seventh Schedule (in this Constitution referred to as the "Concurrent List").

 (3) Subject to clauses (1) and (2), the Legislature of any State has exclusive power to make laws for such State or any part thereof with respect to any of the matters enumerated in List II in the Seventh Schedule (in this Constitution referred to as the "State List"').

(4) Parliament has power to make laws with respect to any matter for any part of the territory of  India not included in a State notwithstanding that such matter is a matter enumerated in the State List.
  

SEVENTH SCHEDULE              

(Article 246)

 

List III—Concurrent List

.....................

28. Charities and charitable institutions, charitable and religious endowments and religious institutions.

http://indiacode.nic.in/coiweb/welcome.html

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

brahma: U.S. drags India into CTBT through backdoor

mar 28th

i spoke to brahma recently, and he's extremely concerned about where the politicians are leading the country. and this is not just the congress, although they are far worse. but i remember brahma was not all that thrilled about the bjp government either. he feels that a lot of very short-sighted decisions are being made that the nation will regret in the long run. he's probably right. just as we're now regretting the giveaway of tibet, we will regret the giveaway of national security as well.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Brahma

Asian Age, Front-Page, March 28, 2006

Bush traps India into CTBT

By BRAHMA CHELLANEY

The Bush administration has attached a legally binding rider to the nuclear deal with India even before the US Congress has had an opportunity to put conditions of its own. Under the administration's action plan, India would become a party to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) through a congressional piece of legislation.

            This is the first time in world history that one power has sought to bind another state to an international treaty rejected by its own legislature. The US Senate threw out the CTBT in 1999.

            Under subsection 'd' of the "waiver authority" sought by the administration from Congress, India would be precluded forever from conducting any nuclear-explosive test. If India were to violate that blanket prohibition, all civilian nuclear cooperation with it will cease, leaving any power reactors it imports high and dry, bereft of fuel.

That is exactly what happened to the US-built Tarapur power reactors when, in response to India's 1974 test, America walked out midway through a 30-year civil nuclear cooperation pact it signed in 1963. Although the 1963 pact had the force of an international treaty, the US halted all fuel and spare-parts supplies. Today, with the Indian foreign secretary in Washington to negotiate a new civil nuclear cooperation accord, India is reliving history.

For Washington, the nuclear deal has come handy to impose qualitative and quantitative ceilings on India's nuclear-deterrent capability in order to ensure that it never emerges as a full-fledged nuclear-weapons state. A permanent test ban is part of its effort to qualitatively cap the Indian deterrent, while the quantitative ceiling comes from America's success in making India agree to reduce to less than one-third the existing number of facilities producing weapons-usable fissile material.

Lucky to escape Bush's nuclear embrace, Pakistan can now seek to overtake India on nukes, as it has done on missiles. It can watch the fun as the Bush administration and US Congress entangle India in a web of capability restraints, in return for offering New Delhi dubious benefits — the right to import uneconomical power reactors dependent on imported fuel.

The White House has ingeniously used the reference to India's "unilateral moratorium" in the July 18, 2005, nuclear deal to make it legally obligatory for New Delhi to abjure testing perpetually. In other words, India is being compelled to foreswear a right America will not give up, even as the US merrily builds nuclear bunker-busting warheads and conducts sub-critical tests.

The reference to the Indian moratorium in the July 18 accord is specifically linked to the commitment therein that India "would be ready to assume the same responsibilities and practices and acquire the same benefits and advantages as other leading countries with advanced nuclear technology, such as the US". The US imposition of both a perpetual test ban and perpetual international inspections, however, shows vividly that India is being denied the "same benefits and advantages" as the US.

While parties to the CTBT can withdraw from the treaty invoking its "supreme national interest" clause, India will have no such option. It will take on US-imposed, CTBT-plus obligations.

Instead of repealing or amending provisions of its domestic law, the Bush administration has simply sought a waiver authority under which, if the President were to make seven specific determinations on India's good conduct, "the President may … exempt" nuclear cooperation with New Delhi from the requirements of Sections 123(a)(2), 128 and 129 of the 1954 Atomic Energy Act.

The seven good-conduct determinations listed in subsection 'b' of the Waiver Authority Bill include the following — that "India is working with the US for the conclusion of a multilateral Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty" (FMCT); and that India is making "satisfactory progress" with the International Atomic Energy Agency to implement an "additional protocol", which will bring India's entire civil nuclear fuel cycle and its workforce under international monitoring. 

There is also an eighth determination to be made. Marked, "Subsequent Determination", subsection 'd' reads: "A determination under subsection (b) shall not be effective if the President determines India has detonated a nuclear explosive device after the date of the enactment of this Act".

India's second-class status is being endowed with legal content, so that it stays put at that level permanently.

It began with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's announcement earlier this month that, contrary to his solemn pledge in Parliament "never to accept discrimination", he gave his word to Bush that India will accept international inspections of a type applicable only to non-nuclear states — perpetual and immutable. Bush's waiver-authority request makes clear that he would seek to grant India any exemption only after it has brought into force a legally irreversible international inspections regime.

After being the only nuclear power to accept perpetual, enveloping inspections, India now stands out as the only nuclear-weapons state whose test "moratorium" will cease to be voluntary or revocable. Although still to build a single Beijing-reachable weapon in its nuclear arsenal, India will have no right to test even if China, Pakistan or the US resumed testing.

Having set out to drag India into the CTBT through the backdoor, the US is positioning itself to also haul New Delhi into a fissile-material production ban even before an FMCT has been negotiated, let alone brought into force. This objective could be facilitated either through a congressionally imposed condition requiring New Delhi to halt all fissile-material production or through what Undersecretary of State Robert Joseph has called "additional non-proliferation results" in "separate discussions".

The new bilateral civil nuclear cooperation accord under negotiation offers yet another avenue to Washington to enforce an FMCT-equivalent prohibition on India. In any case, once India places orders to import power reactors and locks itself into an external fuel-supply dependency, Washington will have all the leverage to cut off further Indian fissile-material production.

            The Bush administration, in its written replies earlier this year to scores of questions posed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, did not seek to dissuade Congress from considering the imposition of additional conditions on India, despite a specific query on new riders. In other words, the administration may not be averse to Congress attaching any additional rider as long as it is not a deal-buster. But given the way India has relinquished the central elements of the July 18 deal, the US might believe that it can make New Delhi bend more.

What US-inspired technology controls against India could not achieve over three decades, the PM has been willing to do, in order to import power reactors that make no economic or strategic sense — retard the country's nuclear-deterrent capability. He has offered no explanation, for example, for agreeing to shut down the Cirus plutonium-production reactor without ordering a replacement.

The irony is that a nominated PM, who has never won a single popular election in his career, has agreed to a deal with an outside power under which India's nuclear-weapons potential is to be cut by more than two-thirds without he being required to get Parliament's approval either for the accord or his civil-military separation plan. But the same deal needs to be vetted thoroughly by US Congress!

 

For a country that prides itself as the world's biggest representative democracy, India needs to ask itself what sort of democracy it is when its Parliament passes its national budget without any deliberation, and limitations imposed on its most important security programme escape legislative scrutiny.

 

ex-editor of marxism today trashes the us and praises china. but of course.

mar 27th

the man is singing for his supper, can't blame him.

he told me personally in email that his indian wife had been effectively murdered by chinese racism.

but he himself has no problem with china taking over. i think he's a white guy, but he may be from the west indies, i dont know.

he's yet another limey preparing to kiss chinese ass (like the guy who's doing the 'admiral' zheng he mythology -- you know, the mohammedan chinese eunuch who basically owns the indian ocean because he sailed around it?) now that they realize america is on the downswing. rats, sinking ship, etc.

when india is on the upswing, these limeys will be prepared to kiss indian ass too. the nation of shopkeepers is the nation of butlers and flunkeys as well. (offtopic: read kazuo ishiguro's luminous and magnificent 'the remains of the day' for butler-lore, not the wodehouse stuff).

btw, crown prince charles of the uk is in india. i wonder what gems of utter brilliance he is going to utter. his dad, philip, who appears to have the IQ of a doorknob, famously declared after going to the jallianwallah bagh memorial that not so many people had died there, no, surely not 1579 killed/wounded with 1650 bullets. and how did he know? why, general dyer's son had told him! (general dyer ordered the massacre in the walled garden).

i look forward with bated breath for charles to surpass his father's feat.

as a caste, the inbred british royalty and hangers-on have the brains of large flightless birds. dodos leap to mind.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Gau

fyi, by ex-editor of Marxism Today whose Indian wife racist Hong Kong Chinese hospital surgeons allowed to die from neglect, according to him. But this is about the US and the implied rise of China.
GS

nytimes: how open source concepts are spreading

mar 27th

how open-source is being used more widely these days. the success of linux has been a big factor in this.

one thing we need to remember is that the original idea of open source was in india's innovation machine in the old days. inventors created ideas, and did not even bother to sign them: they just put them in the public domain. and it turns out, mysteriously, that this is at least as good as the patent system which tries to harness people's greed. we need to take credit for the open source nature of indian intellectual activities. the very appealing humility of indians prevented them from taking credit for inventions and ideas. an example is the severe buddhist logician dharmakirti. it was through elaborate analysis of obscure clues that scholars discovered that this was the same dharmakirti who wrote surpassingly tender erotic poetry!

or take one of the greatest inventions in the history of mankind, panini's grammar. panini invented it and just put it out there in the public domain. similarly with madhava/neelakantha/parameswara of the kerala school of mathematics and their invention of infinite series and calculus.

the cathedral and the bazaar analogy from eric raymond is valid here: the bazaar has lots of smart people, not only the cathedral.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/26/business/yourmoney/26mgmt.html?8ym=&emc=ym&pagewanted=all

innocentive's website is interesting too:

http://www.innocentive.com/using/index.html

nytimes: vinod khosla invests in ethanol

mar 27th

i guess E85 is 85% gasoline and 15% ethanol, or is it the opposite?

if one can get ethanol from waste biomass rather than from sugarcane, its costs will go up. compare this to the numbers in an earlier post here which looked at the cost of setting up sugarcane farms on a large scale.

also the other thing that as craig ventner said that scientists need to do is to come up with non-oil based feedstock for a lot of plastics.

i remember that during ww2, the japanese made oil out of rubber (they had malaya's rubber in hand, but no oil).
the americans made rubber out of oil (they had oil wells, but no rubber).

i guess they could have just traded :-)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/26/business/yourmoney/26mgmt.html?8ym=&emc=ym&pagewanted=all

see what eating chinese food does to your IQ? :-)

mar 27th

and i have always had such a high opinion of fidelity! if this is the way they do their stock picks as well, no wonder some of their funds are sucking wind.

from siliconvalley.com

Those spare ribs are sticky. Maybe I should leave it in the car. ... If my employer were reckless enough to permit me to load the personal information of nearly 200,000 people onto a laptop and foolish enough to allow me to take it off campus for a business meeting, I'd like to think I'd do my damndest to safeguard it. I'd like to think that I would put the security of that information above all things, including my craving for Peking Duck. And if I were unable to do that, I'd like to think that I would at least keep the laptop with me when I popped into a Chinese restaurant to satisfy that craving. But that's just me.  And hey, I don't work for Fidelity Investments. According to authorities, the Fidelity laptop containing the retirement information of 196,000 current and former Hewlett-Packard workers was stolen from a rented SUV parked outside a Chinese restaurant a few miles from HP's Palo Alto headquarters . Unbelievable. Well, at least it wasn't left on an unencrypted CD forgotten in airline seat pocket (see "The McAfee data? It's in my CD wallet between 'Zeppelin III' and 'Physical Graffiti' ").