No Whispers.......

2011-11-25T07:19:00.000-08:00

ഡല്‍ഹിയിലെ ബലിപെരുന്നാള്‍ ഓര്‍മ്മക്കുറിപ്പ്

2011-11-12T04:12:00.000-08:00

എന്‍റെ ഏറെകാലത്തെ ഡല്‍ഹി പെരുന്നാളനുഭവമാണ് ഞാനിവിടെ പങ്കുവെക്കുന്നത്. 2002 - ജാമിയ മില്ലിയ ഇസ്ലാമിയയില്‍ ബിരുദത്തിനു പഠിക്കുന്ന ആദ്യകാലം.മലയാളി വിധ്യാര്‍ത്തികള്‍ എന്ന് പറയാന്‍ മൂന്നു പേര്‍ മാത്രം. മറ്റുരണ്ടുപേരും എന്‍റെ സീനിയേഴ്സ് ആയിരുന്നു. ബിരുദ വിദ്ധ്യാര്‍ത്തി എന്ന നിലയില്‍ അധികം ലീവ് എടുക്കാനൊന്നും വകുപ്പില്ല.അതുകൊണ്ടുതന്നെ പെരുന്നാളാഘോഷിക്കാന്‍ അവരുടെകൂടെ നാട്ടില്‍പ്പോകാന്‍ പറ്റിയില്ല. എസ് ഐ ഓ അഖിലേന്ത്യാ ആസ്ഥാനത്തുള്ള ഹോസ്റ്റലിലായിരുന്നു താമസം. അവിടത്തെ അന്തേവാസികള്‍ക്ക് വേണ്ടി ആരോ ഒരു ആടിനെ ബലിക്കായി സ്പോണ്‍സര്‍ ചെയ്തിരുന്നു. ആ ആടിനെ കണ്ടോണ്ടാണ് ഉച്ചഭക്ഷണത്തിന് ഒരു ഡല്‍ഹി സുഹൃത്തിനെ ക്ഷണിച്ചത്. ളുഹര്‍ നമസ്കാരാനന്ദരം ഹോസ്റ്റെലിലോട്ടു ഭക്ഷണത്തിനായി അദ്ദേഹത്തെയും കൊണ്ട് വരുമ്പോഴും രാവിലെ കേള്‍ക്കുന്നുണ്ടായ ആടിന്‍റെ കരച്ചില്‍ ദൂരെനിന്നെ കേള്‍ക്കാമായിരുന്നു. പടച്ചോനെ,ആടിനെ അറുത്തിട്ടില്ലേ ?!! -എന്‍റെ പരവേശം കണ്ട അദ്ദേഹം പറഞ്ഞു: പരിഭ്രമിക്കേണ്ട, നമുക്കെന്‍റെ വീട്ടില്‍ പോകാം,കശാപ്പുകാര്‍ക്ക് വന്‍ ഡിമാണ്ടാണ് ഈ ദിവസം !!. ഒരല്‍പം ജാള്യതയോടെ ഞാന്‍ അദ്ദേഹത്തിന്‍റെ വീട്ടില്‍ചെന്നുഭക്ഷണം കഴിച്ചു. അങ്ങിനെ അഥിതി ആഥിധേയനായി!. ഇവിടെ ഈദ്‌ഗാഹ് നാട്ടിലുള്ളതുപോലെ തക്ബീര്‍ ധ്വനികളുള്ള ഒന്നല്ല...അത് പോലെ വളരെ വ്യത്യസ്തമാണ് പെരുന്നാള്‍ നമസ്കാരവും. എന്നാലും ജമാഅത്തെ ഇസ്ലാമി അഖിലേന്ധ്യ ആസ്ഥാനത്തെ ആ വിശാലമായ മൈദാനിയില്‍ നിറഞ്ഞ ജനക്കൂട്ടത്തിന്‍റെ നമസ്കാരം ഒരു കൗതുക കാഴ്ചയാണ്.
അറിയപ്പെട്ട ചില വ്യക്തിത്തങ്ങള്‍ ജ. ഇ മര്‍കസ് മൈതാനിയിലാണ്
പെരുന്നാള്‍ നമസ്കാരത്തിന് പങ്കെടുക്കുക. നമസ്കാരാനന്ദരം ഏക്കറോളം വരുന്ന മര്‍കസ് ഗ്രൗണ്ടില്‍ ഓരോരുത്തരുടെ ആടിനെ
അറുക്കുന്നതുകാണാം.ഉടുഹിയ്യത്തിണ്ടെ ഉര്‍ദു 'കുര്‍ബാനി'എന്നാണ്.തണുപ്പായതുകൊണ്ട് കുപ്പായമിട്ട ആടുകളെയാണധികവും കാണാന്‍ പറ്റുക.ബലിപെരുന്നാളിന് ഈ പ്രദേശത്തെ വീട്ടിലൊക്കെ വിവിധതരം മധുര പലഹാരങ്ങളാണ് അധിതികള്‍ക്ക് നല്‍കാര്‍. ഈദുല്‍ ഫിതറിനു സെവൈയാന്‍
(സേമിയ പായസം ) ആണ് പ്രമുഖ ഇനം.അതുകൊണ്ട് തന്നെ ''മിട്ടായി വാലി ഈദ്, സവിയ്യാന്‍ വാലി ഈദ്'' എന്നാണ് രണ്ടു പെരുന്നാളുകളെയും വിശേഷിപ്പിക്കാറ്.
അങ്ങനെ കഴിഞ്ഞുപോയി ആദ്യത്തെ പെരുന്നാള്‍ .

കാലം മുന്നോട്ടു നീങ്ങി...മലയാളികള്‍ കൂടുതലായി ഇവിടേയ്ക്ക് പഠനത്തിനും മറ്റുപല ആവശ്യങ്ങള്‍ക്കുമായി വന്നുതുടങ്ങി . അങ്ങനെ ഡല്‍ഹി മലയാളി ഹല്‍ക്കക്ക് വേണ്ടി പ്രത്യേക ഓഫീസും ഹോസ്റ്റല്‍ സൗകര്യങ്ങളും നിലവില്‍വന്നു . .
2008-ലെ ബലിപെരുന്നാളനുഭവം പറയാം ...അതിനു വലിയ പ്രാധാന്യമുണ്ട്. ബട്ട്ല ഹൌസ് ഏറ്റുമുട്ടല്‍ നടന്നത് പെരുന്നാളിനും കുറച്ച് ദിവസം മുന്‍പായിരുന്നു. അതുകൊണ്ടുതന്നെ, ഈദ്ഗാഹിലേക്ക് കടന്നു വരുന്ന പലരുടെയും കയ്യില്‍ ദു:ഖാചരണത്തിന്‍റെ ഭാഗമായി കറുത്ത നാട ധരിച്ചിരുന്നു. സാധാരണ നടത്തിവരാറുള്ള പ്രവാചക ചരിത്ര കഥകളില്‍ നിന്നും വ്യത്യസ്തമായ ഖുത്ബയാണന്നുണ്ടായതും.'മുസ്ലിംകളുടെ ശക്തി'യെക്കുറിച്ച്.തുടര്‍ന്ന് അവര്‍ക്കുവേണ്ടി പ്രാര്‍ഥനയും,നിയമസഹായത്തിനായിപിരിവും
നടക്കുകയുണ്ടായി. ഇവിടെ ആടിന്‍റെ ലേലംവിളി രസകരമാണ് .ഒരാഴ്ചമുമ്പേ പുരാന ദില്ലിയിലെ ചരിത്ര പ്രസിദ്ധമായ ജുമാ മസ്ജിദ് പരിസരം ആടുകളാല്‍ നിബിടമാകും..അണ്ടിപരിപ്പ്, ബദാം എന്നിവ കൊടുത്തു പോറ്റുന്ന ആടുകളുണ്ട്.കടല ,പയര്‍ വര്‍ഘങ്ങള്‍ കഴിക്കുന്ന ആടുകളെ അപേക്ഷിച്ച് ഇവയ്ക്കു വില കൂടുതലാണ്, ഏതാണ്ട് അന്‍പതിനായിരം രൂപ .ALLAH,786 ചന്ദ്രക്കല തുടങ്ങി ഇങ്ങനെ പച്ച
കുത്തിയ ആടുകളും ലേലത്തിനു ലഭ്യമാണ്.പച്ച കുത്തിയും,ജനിച്ചപ്പോള്‍ തന്നെ ആടിന്റെ ശരീരത്തിലെ തൊലി അടര്‍ത്തിയും മറ്റുമാണ് ഈ പേരുകള്‍ ശരീരത്തില്‍ ആലേഖനം ചെയ്യുന്നത്.ഇവയ്ക്കു നാലര ലക്ഷം വരെ വില വരും!!. വില
കൂടിയ ആടിനെ വാങ്ങുന്നത് ആട്യത്തിന്‍റെ ഭാഗം. അവനവന്‍റെ ജാഡക്കനുസരിച്ച്
വേണമല്ലോ സമൂഹത്തില്‍ പൊങ്ങച്ചം കാണിക്കാന്‍.
എന്നാല്‍ പെരുന്നാള്‍ നമസ്കാരാനന്ധരം ജാതി വ്യത്യാസമില്ലാതെ എല്ലാവരും
തമ്മില്‍ ഹസ്തദാനവും മൂന്നു പ്രാവശ്യം ആലിന്ഘനവും ചെയ്യുന്നത് സന്തോഷം
പകരുന്ന അനുഭവമാണ്. പുത്തന്‍ വസ്ത്രങ്ങളണിഞ്ഞ് പരസ്പരം സന്ദര്‍ശനങ്ങള്‍
നടത്താനും ആഹ്ലാദകരമായ അന്തരീക്ഷത്തില്‍ സ്നേഹാശംസകള്‍ കൈമാറി സൗഹൃദം
പുതുക്കുന്നതിനുമുള്ള ദിനം കൂടിയാണ് പെരുന്നാള്‍.പ്രത്യേകിച്ചും
മലയാളികള്‍ ഉത്തരേന്ധ്യന്‍
സുഹൃത്തുക്കളെ സന്ദര്‍ശിക്കുന്ന ദിവസം.ആര്‍ക്കും ആരുടേയും വീട്ടില്‍ കയറി
ചെല്ലാം,മധുര പലഹാരങ്ങള്‍ കഴിക്കാം... മത ഭേദമന്യേ എല്ലാവരെയും ആ
സന്തോഷത്തില്‍ പങ്കാളികളാക്കുകയാണെങ്കില്‍ രാജ്യത്തിന്‍റെ ഈ മേഖല
അനുഭവിക്കുന്ന വര്‍ഘീയ ചേരിതിരിവ്‌,ചരിത്രപരമായി പെരുകിവരുന്ന വൈരാഘ്യം
എന്നിവ ഇല്ലാതാക്കാന്‍ ഒരു പരിധിവരെ കഴിഞ്ഞേക്കാം . ആഹ്ലാദം നിറയുന്ന
സന്ദര്‍ഭങ്ങള്‍ സൃഷ്ടിക്കുക എന്നത് ഇവിടെയുള്ള ഓരോരുത്തരും അവരവരുടെ
കടമയായി ഏറ്റെടുത്തിരുന്നെങ്കില്‍ എന്ന് ആശിച്ചു പോകുന്നു. നമ്മുടെ
നാടിനും കാലത്തിനും ഏറ്റവും ആവശ്യമായിരിക്കുന്നത് അത് തന്നെയാണ്.
ഇപ്പോള്‍ ഇവിടെ മലയാളി മുസ്ലിം കൂട്ടായ്മയായ ഡല്‍ഹി മലയാളി ഹല്‍ക്ക വളരെ
വ്യവസ്ഥാപിതമായി പ്രവര്‍ത്തിക്കുന്നത് കൊണ്ട്,മലയാളികളായ ആര്‍ക്കും തന്നെ
ഒറ്റപ്പെടല്‍ അനുഭവപ്പെടുന്നില്ല.പെരുന്നാള്‍ ദിവസം വൈകുന്നേരങ്ങളില്‍
ഇന്ത്യ ഗെയ്റ്റിലാണ് ഹല്‍ക്ക പ്രവര്‍ത്തകര്‍ ഒരുമിച്ചു കൂടാര്‍ .കുട്ടികളെയും
മുധിര്‍ന്നവരെയും ഒരുപോലെ പങ്കെടുപ്പിച്ച്ച്ചുകൊണ്ടുള്ള രസകരമായ
വിവിധതരം കലാപരിപാടികള്‍ ഹല്‍ക്കാ ഭാരവാഹികള്‍ നടത്തി വരാറുണ്ട് .
ബലിപെരുന്നാള്‍ കഴിഞ്ഞാലും പിന്നീടുള്ള ഒരാഴ്ച വരെയെങ്കിലും ഈദ്
മുബാറകും,കുര്ബാനിയും തുടരും.അതുകൊണ്ടുതന്നെ ഇറച്ച്ചിക്കടകള്‍
ഒരാഴ്ചയോളം അടവാണ്.

ഫോട്ടോ: ജ.ഇ അഖിലെന്ധ്യ ആസ്ഥാനം.
ശുഐബ്

Seeking to establish values and morality

2011-04-19T23:45:00.000-07:00

I happen to attend the launching of Welfare Party of India, two days ago at Mavlankar Hall, New Delhi. The ceremony itself conveyed a right message when it brought together leaders of various sects of Indian political and social life, and the leadership of the party rests with such diverse people. The usual grievance of mainstream political parties failing the communities and using it as a vote bank and the need for the marginalised communities as well as those in the mainstream to become politically conscious was reiterated by speakers from across the country.
Dr. S Q R Ilyas, a senior Jamaat leader and one of the brains behind the party, reminded every now and then that the WPI is not a Muslim party.

The president of Indian Islahi Movement Abdul Wahab Khilji,Former Karnataka Minister and social activist Lalitha Naik, Catholic Priest Father Abraham Joseph, Dr. Zafarul Islam Khan, and ex- MP Ilyas Azmi will be the vice presidents. Dr. Syed Qasim Rasul Ilyas has been elected as one of the general-secretary of the new political party.

The Welfare Party of India aims at reforming Indian politics and realizing a welfare state based on moral values and governed by the principles of justice, freedom, equality and fraternity.The party would play a different role than the existing ones are, esp in holding foundations of our democratic values and constitution.

Dr.S.Q.R Illyas, said that this would just not just be an additional 1201th party registered with Election Commission of India, but a party to play a leading interventional role to establish and practice ethics and value. The leaders of Jamat-e-Islami hind, one major promoter of this party, received good applause from the activists and thinkers for the integrity they practice and the sympathy they shower upon human. Of course, it is what Mahatma Gandhi expressed. I hope that would be long lasting ,given the corrupted and vitiated atmosphere of this country.

There was also fund raising from the public for party activists and the response was heartening with good support from all.Many assembled there found their dream come true by launching such aam aadmi dream of many years.

Surely, i find hope in them in this time of burglars ruling the country.

Join the page to support if you wish :
http://www.facebook.com/home.phpsk=group_132222996846081&ap=1

Disaster man made

2011-03-15T21:46:00.001-07:00

Japan, a nation at the brink of a nuclear disaster while recovering from earthquake and tsunami. The citizens are seeking refuge in other countries due to fear, that too from a nation synonymous with best of the technology.Hello, Mr. PM of India, are you still fond of pursuing the Jaithpur nuclear power plant or with the nuclear power with the support of US.Friends,pass on your message against nuclear power among your circle,create a national opinion

2010-06-12T03:17:00.000-07:00

A tale of unending attacks -1

2010-02-16T01:42:00.000-08:00

Maoist rebels kill 24 police in eastern India
February 16, 2010, Associated Press.

Pune blast: Death toll climbs to 10
February 16, 2010, DNA, Mumbai

Two attacks,two different reasons, but the clear reason for second one is unknown.First one is clearly illustrated as it is an act of Maoists,whom the Prime Minister have termed as the biggest threat to country.But the latter ones are unknown.The media is ready with their news (notion) of Laskar,IM,HM...all such Ms.And these are never worth trusting, as the source of news is from police, intelligence or media themselves. And i attribute the ever increasing terror attacks to this misinformation and wrong priorities.As long as we do not come in to terms with truth, these terror evils would strike us more.The police,media and bureaucracy of this greatland is poisoned by saffron sangh parivar elements, who knows only language of hate.
It was few months back Mr. S M Mushrif, a retired IPS officer, and IG Maharashtra of maharashtra wrote his book, ‘Who killed Karkare ?’.Ironically, despite all the truth he has managed to jot down in his daring work, he couldn’t get the kind of coverage or response in the Media. The sort of debate or discussion it should spark off in the market sounds missing though, the reasons are obvious, which he himself disclosed in his recent visit to Nagpur on 2nd and 3rd January 2010 in conference organised by Bahujan Sangarsh Samiti Nagpur Chapter.

He said that, despite the 20-25 different journalists from the various big and small Media houses both the print and electronic, which interviewed him on 28th October 2009 at his Pune based residence; nothing really appeared the following day, except in small time Newspapers of the city. His work was totally brought below the carpet; nobody really cared to debate or discusses it in public domain, thanks to the kind of pressure the Saffron brigade has created on the Media industry.

The 2 Laptops recovered by Karkare after Sadhvi Pragya’s arrest disclosed, how the Hindu Terror Network was responsible for the series of bomb blasts carried out and making Muslim innocent youths responsible for the same. The Laptop recovered, had ample of information, about how the Hindu terror group materialized this anti national activities using people and groups of different expertise and resource. These groups of men included some high profile industrialists, politicians, Media professionals, Historians, Academicians and so on.
This new nexus coming into light was well exposed by our real hero, the ATS Chief, Hemant Karkare. This man made a promise to himself that he will leave no stone unturned to let the world know the truth. However, before he could do this, he was knocked out of this mortal world in a very mysterious fashion during the 26/11 Mumbai attack.
Any comments......?

With inputs from Mohd. Ziyaullah Khan, countercurrents

My name is khan:Sharukh proves it

2010-02-04T01:45:00.000-08:00

One cannot be bullied all the time. Take a lesson, people. Always stand ground for your rights.This is the first time anyone's stood up to these goons! Thank you! We must not accept violence and the suppression of our right to voice our own opinions! We are free! Spread the word, and say it loud!
Bal Thackaray and his associates are cowards...they have not uttered a single word (they were not at all heard) one month since 26/11.

Destructive Psychological Warfare

2009-12-17T06:25:00.000-08:00

Abridged and very rough translation of the December 16th, 2009 editorial of the leading Daily, Maadhyamam (Calicut, Kerala).

The Sachar committee that looked into the condition of the Indian Muslim minority has pointed out to the anxieties about their self and security faced by the Muslims and the helpless situation where in Muslims are constantly asked to proove that they are not anti-nationals or terrorists. The Sachar committee observes that the social and educational backwardness of this community can be attributed to this insecurity that they face. The Liberhan commission also underlines this and shows how the propaganda that Muslims are more devoted to Pakisthan than India is entirely false. Both historically and socially the Kerala Muslim has been free of the traumas of this identity crisis that has been haunting this nation's largest religious minority. The Sachar committee also talks about how the Kerala Muslims are in a comparatively better social position because of this.

But some people seem to be hell-bent on destroying the traditional communal harmony and security that Muslims have been enjoying in Kerala. This is what the recent raging debates in the contemporary media makes one think. At one time, when the news came that four Malayalees were killed in Kashmir there was a huge media propaganda that claimed that thousands of Malayalee suicide bombers were being recruited to Kashmir from Kerala. High level police officials had to call for a meeting to dispel the ill-effects of such a propaganda by saying that all these these stories were baseless and were mostly highly exaggerated media reports. However soon, the uproar about love jihad started in the media. 14 of the 18 reports submitted by police superintendents under the command of the Kerala High court refuted the media claims and showed that love jihad does not exist in Kerala.

The remaining ones, it was later proved were based on false complaints that had no basis in real facts. Even the central home ministry has confirmed that love jihad is baseless. Even the DGP of BJP ruled Karnataka has said the same. In spite of all this, the rumor mongering industry is still flourishing through the media of Kerala. What should we make of this?

Even before this has died out, the Thadiyantavide Naseer battle has started. It is clear that this criminal who has been wandering about after failing SSLC has at last been trapped. It is also necessary that he should be questioned in detail and at length. If there are more people who have been involved in unlawful activities they should also be brought to court. Nobody is big or small before the law. But no one other than the police is allowed to meet Naseer. Media is also not allowed to contact him. Yet, for the Kerala media, Nasser is the South Indian commander of the Pakistan based terrorist organization, LeT, He is also the master mind of everything that has and will happen. Till now, the version from the Central home ministry was that those responsible for the 2008 Delhi blasts were all killed in the Batla encounter. Now we hear a different story. Naseer, it seems, is responsible for this too. Things do not end here. Nasir is said to be responsible for the Aluva incident where a bus by the Tamilnadu transport corporation was burned. It seems he contacted Madani's wife, Soofiya, before and after the incident. So Soofiya has been added as the 10th accused in this case. She might land in jail in a few days.

If you have committed a crime, you should be punished. But if we look at the fireworks in the media, the image of Soofiya, the house wife, is portrayed in such dreadful and terrifying terms that even the Palestinian Crusader, Laila Khalid who shocked the world by organizing the world's first hijacking, dims in front of her. In most people's mind today she is the dreaded wife of the terrifying terrorist Madani. Remember that all this is happening in a country were those who have burned bus full of people are still going free without being punished. Many political parties are also using this incident to settle old scores. We want to point out that this case is not only a matter that concerns Madani or other leaders alone, but is also one that is going to have direct ramifications on the situation of peace and harmony in Kerala.

Swiss Minarets or western intolerance?...Decide what?

2009-12-08T01:55:00.000-08:00

Some argue--"non-muslims are not even allowed into mecca and no other religions are tolerated in muslim countries"

I am surprised at these ignorance utterances. The Islamic world is filled with churches in places where there are christian minorities. Yes saudi arabia doesnt have that but then again, how many mosques are there in the VATICAN?? and its not like Muslims are free to worship all over the christian world as not all of the christian world follows religious freedom. These mongers need to check their facts before they speak.
switzerland claims to be a democratic secular country not a church-state or a opressive state hence why you cant use the same kind of standards of countries with dictators as thats hypocrisy. By the way, count how many churches there are in Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Egypt alone and then compare that to how many mosques there are in the entire EU!!

If a muslim country had voted against building churches in a Islamic country the "holders of democratic values" would say nothing right? you would just say "we respect their honesty and we will not condemn it"? Yeah right, you guys would have bombed that country to pieces in the name of bringing it democracy! My God, Isn't their a limit to your hypocrisy

why are we trading and traveling to these people lands? Just look at the reality: they need us more than we need them yet we tolerate their insults intolerance and hatred continually.

If you do not know what happened during the Dark Ages in Europe you should read about this European era. And if you do not know who helped Europe emerge from its Darks Ages you should read about that too. And if you do not know who inspired Saint Thomas Acquinas to reconcile between Faith and Reason you should read about that too. Watch "Islam Empire of Faith", that will tell better about historical facts.

I read through a news that politicians and people are taking steps to reopen a historic Christian Seminary in Istanbul.Senem Ozer, US opines that Europe is banning a small community mosque, while caving into fears of their own fringe nationalistic fears. I think it's clear who is more "European" in this regard. Turkey is certainly more European than Switzerland today.

(I wanted to vent out my frustration..thanks to my own conscience and other websites i have referred,like Al Manar,for their inputs)

prime minister uses this kind of buttering techniques...

2009-11-23T01:56:00.000-08:00

No replacement for US dollar...says Dr.Manmohan Singh.

When IMF decide to sell off 400 Tons of Gold, with the demand supply principle the gold prices should have fallen. Instead it sky rocketed. And knowing that the demand supply principle didn't work, the economic viz kid went ahead and purchased 200 Tons of Gold in a high price. If Dr. Prime Minister had so much trust in US currency, why purchased gold, that too when the prices are on record high???

It is simple currency terrorism, some nation simply enjoy becuase they trade and retain us dollars and usa citizen buy so cheap product that is made in third world low currency exchange, india is in trap of usa , it is only country which welcome whole chaeap product to its middleclass and earn taxes and export expensive weaponaries.

Usa need more chines than india because chinese are so cheap and easy to start their business at lower cost and manipulate exchange rate rediculously,,,india is very far away,,,,it is not devlopment it is another sort of casino gambling,, rob pope and donate to mike to usa.

Manmohan might have brokered in providing India with H1B visas (H1N1 virus also)and back office jobs is their mantra...both these had its setbacks.....creating a youth pool without creativity.The ash posh lifestyles are taught in these back offices by offering them late night pub parties,language,culture training...etc....most of the back office works are causing underutilisation of well educated youth possssing MBAs and other degrees....A culture of laziness and consumerism has been imported indian way of life and thinking...which stunted innovation and self sustenance

Nobel Prize - Made for U.S.A

2009-10-10T03:59:00.000-07:00

That the Peace Nobel has been given to the leader of a country that is killing people in two countries with illegal war is shocking.The devastation other nations are facing due to them are aside. And it has been given for the posturing and promises that Mr. Obama has made. He is yet to fulfil even one of his major promises. But nothing much can be expected from a group which did not think it fit to award the Peace Prize to Mahatma Gandhi, the Apostle of Peace.

The Washington Post reported that Mr. Obama, during his presidential campaign, indicated that he would use military force to fight terrorism in Pakistan. But after getting elected, we find him playing safe with Pakistan.

For an effective communicator like Mr. Obama and an equally supportive American media, the Nobel is a natural by-product, however unwise and confusing his assertions on foreign and military affairs are.

Polluting yamuna.........

2009-10-04T04:24:00.000-07:00

It is estimated that 1300 durga puja were offered in delhi
30 tonnes of toxic elements go into yamuna due to idol immersion every wear says a 2008 study
In kolkata and Mumbai, many organizers of durga puja and ganesha festivals started immersing idols in artificial ponds to spare the rivers and the sea.

Time for delhi too...before yamuna becomes history......

Eid shopping spree in Delhi

2009-09-21T23:13:00.000-07:00

Jamia Nagar is dazzling with lights. Roads are lined with kurtas, as shopkeepers try to lure customers. Hawkers are busy selling vermicelli and dry fruits. Markets here have been hit by a heavy rush of customers who are on a buying spree as the festival of Eid is barely a week away.

The majority of the shoppers are women who are busy buying special utensils and ingredients like dry fruits to make Eid's Dastarkhawan, a sheet where food is spread, impressive. In contrast, male customers are flocking to the kurta pajama, sherwani and kolhapuri chappal shops.

Eid or Eid-ul-Fitr is one of the most important festivals for Muslims that marks the end of Ramzan, the Islamic holy month of fasting. Eid is an Arabic word meaning "festivity", while Fitr means "charity"; and so the holiday symbolizes the breaking of the fasting period. It is celebrated on the first day of the Islamic month of Shawwal.

The other shopping hubs are also bustling with enthusiastic people buying things.

Sarojini Nagar in South Delhi is one such market that is teeming with shoppers.

"It's like a battle won, if you get to choose your stuff and buy it. I came here (Sarojini Nagar ) at around 10 a.m. and it has been more than four hours, but I have not been able to complete my shopping because the sales guys are so busy and the shops are so crowded that you have to wait at least 20 minutes for your turn." Shaqib Jamal, a shopper who came to buy clothes for his family, told IANS.

"During Eid it's obvious that the crowds are at its peak and we make full efforts to utilise this opportunity and touch maximum sales every day and we get incentives for it," Rajesh, a salesman in Sarojini Nagar, said.

Shop owners in South Extension have also expressed their delight at the increase in customers visiting their stores.

"There has been a great increase in customers in the last five days especially looking for kurtas and pyajamas to wear on Eid and the customers are ranging from 20 to 45 years of age. Silk kurtas are more in fashion this time," Prabhjeet Singh, owner of the show room Kurta Palace in South Extension, told IANS. Singh expected a further increase in customers.

Elahana Moora, store manager at Globus in South Extension, says: "We have seen a substantial increase in the number of customers in all ranges of products from clothing to households goods and feel it is all because of the festivals."

Courtesy:Nabeel A.Khan, IANS

Recession times

2009-08-19T11:52:00.000-07:00

Great monetarist economist Milton Friedman was of the opinion that the central bank could always deal with deflationary problems by dropping money from a helicopter. However, in the real world, not everyone is underneath the helicopter when it makes the drop. In fact, it is likely that the helicopter pilot will hover over friends and relatives when dropping the money. And even if the pilot is completely non-corrupt, the crowd on the ground will always assume that there is some hidden and partisan plan.

In the lap of nature

2009-08-04T22:44:00.000-07:00

Few pics from konkan valley during my journey back to kerala by train:

http://s614.photobucket.com/albums/tt229/shuhaibim/From%20KonKan%20Valley/

A Community Marriage in Disguise of a Village Festival

2009-08-04T05:37:00.000-07:00

It represented all the perfect mix of a village festival. Children, woman and the aged came together inside the simple pandal that has been erected. The signs of joy were represented in the eyes of each and everyone gathered there. It seemed they have regained some thing which has been lost from them. The festive mood was reflected in each and every pious mind there.

The above incident is from babuwan, patteruva villages in supol and areria district of Bihar. It was the village which has been washed away in the terrific flood of August, 2008 due to collapse of Kosi dam in Nepal.

They were striving to establish the chains of life that has been lost in the midnight flood that devastated their life. Many lost their lives, houses were razed down to earth, cattle population and agricultural fields were totally devastated, Whole set of families were in refugee camps….After long eight months of refugee life, they returned back to their village. Erstwhile agricultural fields were now rivers, houses as shallow pits; the atmosphere is charged with memories of kith and kins, relatives, cattle which was once their livelihood….. Yes, the festive like mood which now arise was due to the community marriage that was being arranged there. They found it as an opportunity to forget the past memories.

The happiness reflected in the eyes of Nayyirussaman sahib. He was leading the flood relief activities in the state. His face reflected the satisfaction he has gained by working for reconstruction of the villages. He lead the activities involving maintenance of over five hundred houses, digging of three hundred tube wells, providing employment assistance to three hundred people, reconstruction of schools and mosques. His team also distributed clothes to during Ramadan, Eid and Dussehra. They distributed blankets to five thousand persons. They are still continuing their activities by providing assistance to marriages and treatments. Construction of thousand houses will begin soon.

The incident was so co-incidental. Ashraf sahib, owner of A.R.H in Ernakulam, kerala says “daughter’s marriage has been fixed. Wish to assist one or two poor girls also to get married on that occasion.” I said “there many people working to help girls from poor families to get married. If you wish to do anything in this regard, it should be in the flood devastated regions of Bihar”. He accepted the suggestion with happiness. The reply from Nayyirussaman sahib on this regard was a surprise, “after the calamity, hundreds of marriages have been cancelled here. Even the pre scheduled ones are difficult to conduct.” Here on, things moved in no time. Arrangement was made for the marriage of 65 couples from villages of supol and areria. Arrangements were done in two locations.

While we reached these villages on February 12th, the scenes were surprising. The land which was transformed in to a river by the flood reflected a perfect village festival. Two locations had one pandal each, a marriage kuthuba, one marriage for each of the selected village. Respective Imam of every village led the procedures. Food was also arranged for those invitees of bride and groom. Elderly people of the respective villages, B.D.O and police inspector were special guests, Ashraf sahib and his wife, his brother in law Musthafa and wife, me and wife were as external guests. Towards meeting expenses of dress and mehar, the organizers gave five thousand rupees each.

Nayyirussaman sahib conveyed an interesting fact. Out of the five thousand rupees granted to each, most of them bought cattle by spending around Rs 2500- 3000 !. Some of the grooms were wearing already used and old clothes. To represent their marriage costume, they wore skull cap and shawl only. From each family we allowed 10 guests.
The simplicity and village life dignity were clearly illustrated here. Moreover, the complete absence of any extravaganza and simplicity shown are beyond our imagination. Ashraf sahib, whose wish was to sponsor two marriages, is happy for sponsoring sixty five marriages.
Mufti Hazrath Imam Salafi of Nepal addressed the marriage kutuba. He reminded of duties of a husband and wife and glory of family relationship.

There were many enquiries to Nayyirussaman sahib on when would the next be held. He turned on to the audience and addressed: “shortly we will arrange a community marriage for hundred pairs”. Many interested parties have approached him to join in that. “When we conduct marriages for two pairs with ten thousand rupee, as a source of livelihood, a goat or cow also reaches that family.” Mr. Musthafa exclaimed.

The experience in Kosi was big enough to open the eyes of Muslim youth who spent millions on marriages alone.
(The above experience is during the visit conducted by Prof. Siddique Hassan, Vice-President, Jamat-e- Islami Hind and others)

When it rained here.....awesome

2009-07-17T08:19:00.000-07:00

Delhi- Jaipur Express way Toll Gate

When it rained at Guragaon, on 15th July, 2009

A tale of two encounters: Dehradun and Batla House

2009-07-12T03:26:00.000-07:00

Manish Sethi and Adeel Mehdi
Jamia Teachers' Solidarity Group extends its heart-felt condolences to the family of Ranbir Singh, the youth who was killed in a police encounter in Dehradun last week. This encounter again brings to the fore the trigger happy ways of the Indian police who kill and torture for medals and promotions. We demand exemplary punishment for the guilty policemen.

However, the manner in which the Indian State and the mainstream political parties have responded to the encounter in Dehradun is in striking contrast to the reaction to the shooting down of two young men in Batla House in Delhi last September. Both encounters were followed by mass anger and upsurge which spilled onto the streets of the capital cities of Uttarakhand and the country. While the `secular' Congress has put its weight behind the agitation in Uttrakhand, joining the peoples' demand for fair probe and crying foul over human rights violation, the BJP not to be left behind in the Human Rights race sent its emissary in the form of BJP President's and Ghaziabad MP's son to the family of the slain youth to reassure them that the probe into the encounter would be fair and independent, without the involvement of the accused Dehradun Police. A CB-CID enquiry has already been ordered and all police men involved in the shootout have been charged for murder.

Recall now the jingoist hysteria created by Congress and BJP alike, aided by a section of pliant media, in which all calls for independent and impartial enquiry in the Batla House encounter were branded as unpatriotic and downright insulting of the bravery of Special Cell cops. The Congress, which today preens on the retrieval of its minority vote, persistently bulldozed all demands for a probe into the Batla House `encounter'. So much so, that even the simple, procedural requirement for a magisterial enquiry was subverted through the Lieutenant Governor, who refused to grant permission for an enquiry on flimsy grounds. The post mortem reports of the deceased—the killed boys as well as Inspector Sharma—have been accorded the status of State secret.

So, what could be the reason for this speedy demonstration of justice for Ranbir Singh, and the obstinate refusal to concede to the widespread demand for an enquiry into the killings of Atif Ameen and Mohammad Sajid? Except that Atif and Sajid fall in that unfortunate category of `encounterables'— those whose killings can be justified, explained, and remain unmourned by our society and polity. It is all right to snuff out the lives of young men as long as they are drawn from a certain demographic and reside in areas identified as ghettoes. What we are being told here is that Atifs and Sajids cannot claim the framework of democratic rights—the only framework that they must exist in is that of national security.

JTSG reiterates its demand for a judicial probe into the Batla House incident, and the application of the same standards of justice for Atif and Sajid as those applied in the unfortunate and tragic case of Ranbir Singh.

(The authors teach at Jamia Millia Islamia, and are attached to Jamia Teachers' Solidarity Group)

Lost mercy of of monsoon

2009-06-24T09:18:00.000-07:00

The lower than expected seasonal rainfall, or what is fondly called the monsoons, is casting gloom not just on the faces of those looking for a respite from the heat, but in a country where the rains are the only way to irrigate crops, agricultural output could falter and the economy could start sputtering.
Satya Bansal, CEO of Barclays Wealth, India, said, "17 per cent of India's GDP still depends on the agriculture sector and 60 per cent of agriculture remains rain dependent. A weak monsoon would mean lower agricultural output."

Apart from the economic impact, a weak monsoon could also put pressure on corporates by denting India's rural consumption story, but for now corporates find little reason to worry.

As every major report on climate change has alarmingly pointed out, the impact of global warming will be most felt by developing countries. In a final injustice of geography and imperial history, the world's developing countries are by and large also the world's warmest and most densely populated. Of all the emerging economies whose fortunes are rising, India is one of the most vulnerable to climate change.
Little wonder India is building a fence along its border with Bangladesh in anticipation of a wave of climate-change refugees. At 4,000 kilometers in length, the Indo-Bangladeshi Barrier will rival the Great Wall of China. One can only imagine what rising sea levels will do to the millions crammed onto reclaimed land in Mumbai or in India's new auto manufacturing hub of Chennai, around which one trusts the government of India has no plans to build fences.

Climate change is also already causing the glaciers of the Himalayas to melt at an alarming rate, the rivers they feed are receding. Some scientists are predicting that the sacred Ganga, whose waters have nourished the great grain-producing Gangetic plains as well as the souls of untold millions of Hindu faithful through millennia, is in danger of simply drying up. Three billion people - half the world's current population - depend on the Himalayas for water. The impact of that water dwindling away is terrifying.

If temperatures rise in India by even a couple of degrees Celsius, which they are already well on track to do, the very viability of food plants will be threatened. Yields will plummet in plants simply not evolved to thrive in higher temperatures. More immediately, climate change causes predictable weather patterns to become unpredictable. This is not good news for a country where the vast majority of agricultural production depends on the regular arrival, duration, and bounty of the monsoon rains.

Climate change is a weapon of mass destruction. Mitigating global warming by whatever means necessary should be the new Indian government's priority number one.
The government should make a major push to develop low-cost alternative energy technologies that don't require finite, toxic fuel sources (which means both fossil and fissile energy sources).

India must embrace a new path to equity and sustainability, without which democracy will merely be one casualty among many too terrible to imagine

'WalaikumAssalaam': Indian muslims to Obama

2009-06-04T19:23:00.000-07:00

MUMBAI: President Barack Obama's "new beginning'' seems to have sown seeds of hope among large sections of the Muslim community in India going rom initial reactions to his much-awaited speech to the Islamic world. Opening with the traditional greeting of `Assalaamu Alaykum', Obama made several references to Quranic verses and spoke both articulately and with feeling, and referred to the conflict-torn areas of Israel, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The American Centre in Mumbai organised a post-speech discussion of Muslim scholars, clerics and lay Muslims. The collective sentiment seemed to be that Indian Muslims should cooperate to isolate the extremist fringe and promote peace.

Urdu commentator Hasan Kamal, who led the discussion, sounded quite overwhelmed when he said, "I have heard and read speeches of many world leaders. But I can honestly say that I have never heard anything like this before. I listened to Obama as a Muslim, and must say that he has given the Muslims and the world a new hope.''

Many were touched by Obama's "Assalaamu Alaykum'' and his quoting from the holy book. "By quoting the Quran in the right context, Obama has reiterated that Islam stands for peace and reconciliation. He reminded the Muslims of the Quranic commandment about being truthful when he quoted `be conscious of God and always speak the truth','' said Zeenat Shaukat Ali who teaches Islamic Studies at St Xavier's College. She was also happy at the way in which Obama upheld the rights of women and women's educations. The American president said he had no problem with the hijab but did have a problem with a woman being denied the right to education andequality.

Even the orthodox section welcomed Obama's effort to debunk the "crude stereotypes' ' that the community has been labelled with.

"His speech will help reduce hostility between the USA and the Islamic world. It will open a new chapter of reconciliation between the largely aggrieved Muslim world and the West,'' said Qasim Rasool Illyas of All India Muslim Personal Law Board, an influential Muslim body. Illyas also lauded the venue of the speech. "Cairo, with its rich Islamic roots and its two major institutions which co-sponsored the address-Islamic seminary Al-Azhar and Cairo University-was the right platform to reach out to Muslims. Muslims must welcome it,'' he said.

The most widely appreciated point in the speech was the roadmap to solve the festering Palestine-Israel conflict. Prof Mushirul Hasan, historian and vice-chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia, called it a "laudable initiative'' . "He has openly talked of Palestine's genuine right of being a separate nation and Israel's right to exist. This is the best possible speech one could have expected from him,'' said Hasan.

Kamala Surayya or Kerala's own Madhavikutty

2009-05-31T19:27:00.000-07:00

Kamala Surayya (March 31,1934- May31,2009)
The sad demise of the writer was an irreparable loss to the world of letters, not only to Kerala but the whole world.Kamala's language was the ''language of love'' which she penned both in her novels and poems, he recalled that she had courageously announced that women were not weak or slave, but equal to men.she had made lot of fans across the world.

India's foremost poetess Kamala Das born on March 31, 1934 at Punnayurkulam in the Malabar area of Kerala. She born in the great Kerala literary household Nalapattu, as the daughter of M.K Menon and well-known Malayalam poetess Balamaniyamma. She acquainted with the great writers in Malayalam literature at a tender age and had enough exposure due to her stay at Calcutta and Kerala. The young Kamala read the Malayalam translation of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables by Nalapattu Narayanamenon at a tender age of eight. This ancestral house and the love of her grandmother influenced the young 'Amy' to grow into the Malayalam writer Madhavikutty as well as English poet Kamala Das.

Kamala Das' first poetry collection Summer in Calcutta promised the rise of a revolutionary woman poet in India. Her writings mainly reflected woman's longing for love and her restrictions in the society. Her stories and poems were greatly misunderstood and criticized by a section of Indian critics. Her poems like An Introduction, The Descendants, Alphabet of Lust and Only The Soul Knows How To Sing were open voices of restricted women in an orthodox society. Her autobiography My Story, published in 1976 put her on the centre of controversies. When this confessional work has been translated to more than 15 languages, Inadian critics accused for spreading the idea of unmarital relationships.

Controversies have always dogged the writer, who created a storm when she published her autobiography My Story and later embraced Islam in 1999 and adopted the name Kamala Surayya. She began wearing a veil, saying it offered dignity and comfort to women and continues to do so even now.

The poet who always wrote about Lord Krishna and imagined to be his Radha suddenly started to address Allah. Her statement "I converted my Krishna to Islam" evoked much opposition from conservative Hindus in Kerala. However she was bold in her decisions and continues her life according to Muslim beliefs.

And the ripples set off by the conversion were visible even on Sunday as her death certificate was made in the name of Kamala Madhava Das and the accompanying smasan parvana was filled with the venue for funeral at Vaikunth (city crematorium) and the date for the funeral as 31/05/09. Clearly, the decision taken in the morning was changed later in the day.

“My mother was a Muslim for many years and died a Muslim. She had converted to Islam happily and of her free will. It doesn’t matter what I or my brothers want. It was her wish (to convert to Islam) and we will respect it and abide by it. There is no way a posthumous reconversion can be held. So her funeral will have to be as per Islamic norms. It was also her wish that she be returned to Kerala,” Monu Nalapat, Madhavikutty’s eldest son, said.

chillll..courtesy to the one who made it!!!!

2009-05-21T07:40:00.000-07:00

some writings from somebody!!!!

2009-05-06T07:45:00.000-07:00

What is there to be scared about?

Growth should be equitable even if a percentage point lesser! All the growth that has happened in the last one decade is at the top end segment of the society which benefitted the rich and the upper middle class! The rural poor have only seen organic 2-3% growth and not beyond that.

This kind of growth is benefitting only the Western World to market their luxury products to the rich and upper middle classes like top end wrist watches, other consumer products etc. Gucci, Armani likes are allowed to open single brand outlets so that rich and upper classes income can be swallowed by selling exorbitant priced products because of brand names while qualitatively they may not be proportionate to their price tags!

Even Manmonhan Singh is aware and facilitated this. That is why he even asked the private sector to reduce the salaries and perks to its top executives because the gap between the rich and poor is widening too fast. The problem is not just economic; it is social as well; you are seeing more and more people adopting western culture in dress and celebrations of festivals like Valentines day which is getting the goat of those who follow even Hindu values. Raising incidents of violence is the direct result of this distorted economic boom. You need economic boom but not lopsided one. If India allows that it will fall prey to the western countries and revolution is imminent as it happened in Iran and other places.

At the same time, because of renewed economic growth, working class young men had growing purchasing power, which enabled them to spend more on beer. These are probably the main causes of heavy drinking and heavy violence.

BJP-USELESS PARTY OF INDIA

2009-04-13T10:51:00.000-07:00

Portfolio of ministers based on their past performance

Prime Minister - LK Advani -- top priority..to build Jinnah statues all over India

Home Minister - Narendra Modi -- top priotiry..to trigger a riot every 6 months to prove masculinity of Majority community

Finance Minister - Arun Shourie -- top priority..to sell all Navratnas for amount less than Rs.100 within a year's time

Tourism Minister - Sushma Swaraj --top priority..to get all Indian women head shaven so that they can provide glimpse of real Sati culture to all foreigners

Law Minister - Arun Jaitley -- top priority...to introduce POTA, SAPOTA, LOTA, BATA and TATTA schemes..to improve Indian law system

Commerce Minister -- Bangaru Laxman -- top priority...to make sure there are thousands of bundles of cash available which can be easily distributed to all hardworking MPs in the country

Wish there was such a dream cabinet that can take India back to the future into 21st century.....BC

Save India fom "Loh-Purush" and the sorts.....

2009-03-24T10:00:00.000-07:00

MR. Lalkrishan Advani (self proclaimed "Loh-Purush") was the weakest Home Minister of India. There were many-many big attacks of terrorist in his period of Home Ministry. Attack on Parliament, Akshar Dham, Lal Qila, J&K Vidhan Sabha etc. And also released the terrorists in "Kandhar". He always misguide the people of India in the name of "God Shri Ram" and "Jinnah". He is a confused man. "Kabhi Ram-Ram karte hen, Kabhi Jinnah-Jinnah karte hen". All this exercise he does for votes. But people didn't select his party. People does not believe on BJP and its P.M. candidate. So called "Loh-Purush". LK Advani comparison with "Loh-Purush" Sardar Patel".
"Kahan Raja Bhoj (Sardar Patel) Kahan Gangu Teli". (Advani). Sardar Patel united our nation and Advani always tried to destroy our unity.

Now its a suggestion to Mr. Advani to take retirement from politics and go to the shelter of God Shri Ram.
He wrote a book full of lies My Country My Life & My Lies. His tenure as HM was as good / bad as of shivraj patil. The only difference is that patil was removed for his failure but advani got himself promoted as Dy. PM by twisting hands of poor vajpayee.
Poisoning Indian social thread by taking rath yatra. India has witnessed maximum riots after that only.
Advani as HM got himself freed from Babri Masjid demolition charges but kept Murli Manhoar Joshi and others leaders busy with same.
Praising jinnah for making himself free from old criminal charges in Pakistan.
He himself started his political journey as Rajyasabha member but has objection on others.
He was main reason for BJP's defeat in 2004
He is the only person in Indian history who declared himself as PM candidate at least 1 years before the election.

"Bhagwan Ram se apne krityon ke liye pashchatap kare, tabhi uddhar hoga". Bhagwan Shri Ram bade hi dayalu hen voh jaroor maf kar denge.

Advani is a Fox - vajapee was million times better.
BJP will destroy India, every state they come in their thugs get active and police the state.
We wont need police only " Ram Sena will be our Police"
Poor Ram Lord being insulted here. Atleast they could have called it Ravana sena. and save my lord.
Our nation will be another taliban- ruled by these fanatics of RSS and VHP
Advani took entire Indian army to Indian border- blew crores of rupees- and bought them back without achieving anything at all-
USELESS PARTY OF INDIA- BJP

Destroyers of India - BJP

We will be 25 nations if BJP comes to power\
Save my India please.

Mr Madoff's Ponzi Scheme...Nothing less than a complete break up would do!!!!

2009-02-20T06:17:00.000-08:00

Ponzi Scheme:
Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment strategy where an existing investor is paid high short term return with the principals flowing from other new investors. So simple in explanation and so vast in its consequences. In order for this scheme to work, there has to have steady flow of investment to the fund, thus more new investors. Such strategy, which has its existance from 1920s, can easily be leveraged by a private fund house, hedge funds which are immuned to regulations.

Who is Mr. Madoff????

"Ex-chairman of NASDAQ, esteemed member of SEC, founder of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, a firm which is outperforming market in terms of steady juicy return to investor in this drowning economy". Not any more.

Madoff's broker-dealer firm has its investment advisory arm which runs a massive fund house (with AUM $17 billion as quoted in public sphere) with a well-known option trading strategy called, "Collar" - that means short Call, buy Put, considered to be safest in capital market fraternity. Such strategy is deemed to suceed provided the strategist has the knack of time - when to get into market & when to come out. Since his fund was performing relatively better in this choppy market, investors(mostly big banks, fund of funds, ultra-rich individuals, charity organizations) were lured to join this exclusive black box of Madoff. With dollar dividends coming at ease, none of the investors ever scrutinized or questioned this man having distinctive background. And now, they all marred in the quagmire of Ponzi. Madoff never disclosed his investment strategy in public media nor explained that in investor reporting. He was equally illusive to regulators with very minimal disclosure, being a private broker-dealer / hedge fund manager. His stature remained tact since his stream of investors are not mass- market individuals, rather exclusive club of luminaries built on his rapport and personal relations (smells hedge fund, is n't it).

Strategy• Build an exclusive club of investors through his circle of friends
• Build the fund house framed on Ponzi structure
• Limited regulatory liability being a private firm (again, hedge fund disclosure doctrines are non-existent). SEC even could not find any clue to possible fraud charge in 2006.
• Exclusivity of investor club and steady return kept fradulent scheme suspicion at bay.
• Maintained utmost secrecy on his investment to his closest executives & employees
All split open when he faced with massive redemption pressure (around $7 billion) from investors and then he starting disclosing the real scheme to his sons- close executives in the firm. Though it is premature to conclude on the whole fiasco, but it does raise eyebrows on certain market players who are really free, arogant- hedge funds, PEs and the regulations they are tied to till now.
• SEC regulations on hedge fund industry is abysmally low - Madoff has thrived because of that. With no information on his investment details, regulators are equally blinded on the whole story.
• Limited disclosure to investors - Hedge funds being considered to possess exclusive investment strategy which are not to be shared openly, investors in those entities blindly believe and rarely questions the nitty-gritty of investment strategy and underlying risk. That's where again Madoff has maneuvered his investor group / family.
• Investor callousness- When dividend outsmarts market in this southward economy, investors were happy to count dollars than questioning the authenticity. Madoff's fund has neither details available at SEC nor Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINR).

Do not blindly ape the Western culture but follow our age-old traditions and values!

2009-02-12T08:16:00.000-08:00

When someone extends a helping hand, a Westerner will acknowledge it by offering ‘thanks’ and walk away; whereas an Indian will never forget a good deed or a favour bestowed upon him by someone. Parents relentlessly toil for our happiness since our birth and it is next to impossible to repay this debt. That is the precise reason why the parents have been treated as Guru in Indian culture. Indian culture encourages the youth to express their love and respect for their parents by bowing and seeking their blessings every day. We do not celebrate ‘Father’s or Mother’s day’ like Westerners. Present Indian young generation is blindly following Western culture by celebrating ‘Friendship Day’, ‘Valentine Day’, ‘Rose Day’, ‘Jeans’s Day’ etc. Such celebrations do not exhibit true love and gratitude but is an excuse for enjoyment and is just a formality without any meaning. The love shown through such celebration is restricted to a day. Today’s youth should realize that what one owes to his parents can not be repaid by ‘cutting cake’, ‘presenting a greetings card’ or by celebrating a ‘Day’; but the real repayment would be to become an ideal son or an ideal daughter i.e. to become an ideal citizen.
Most of the times, these adolescents indulge in immoral acts under the pretext of 'Valentine's Day'. In a country like Bharat, that is enriched with values, such moral degradation of the youth is indeed a serious social problem.
A short History of Valentine Day
In the 3rd Century, a Roman king named Cloudius II issued an order that 'The youth should refrain from marriage and join the army'. In this regard, St. Valentine, a priest, revolted against the king; however he was given death penalty by the king. While in prison, St. Valentine fell in love with the prison attendant's young daughter. It is sinful for a priest to get attracted to a lady. Why should the people of Bharat, who attach utmost importance to values, cherish memories of a sinful so-called priest?

Various days of the likes of 'Valentine's Day' that have originated from the blind emulation of the western culture are based on materialism. Regular practice of values, festivals, traditions and religious observances as per our own culture helps one acquire a pious state of mind and makes one happy, content and balanced.

Political Cartoons......

2009-02-04T08:49:00.000-08:00

Culprits of Financial Meltdown

2009-02-04T08:47:00.000-08:00

The market is heavily manipulated. The driving force behind the meltdown is speculative trade. The system of “private regulation” serves the interests of the speculators.
While most individual investors loose when the market falls, the institutional speculator makes money when there is a financial collapse. In fact, triggering market collapse can be a very profitable undertaking.
There are indications that the Security Exchange Commission (SEC) regulators have created an environment which supports speculative transactions.
There are several instruments including futures, options, index funds, derivative securities, etc. used to make money when the stock market crumbles.
The more it falls, the greater the gains.
Those who make it fall are also speculating on its decline.
With foreknowledge and inside information, a collapse in market values constitutes a lucrative and money-spinning opportunity, for a select category of powerful speculators who have the ability to manipulate the market in the appropriate direction at the appropriate time.
Short Selling
One important instrument used by speculators to make money out of a financial meltdown is “short selling”.
“Short selling” consists in selling large amounts of stocks which you do not possess and then buying them in the spot market once the price has collapsed, with a view to completing the transaction and cashing in on the profits.
The role of short selling in bringing down companies is well documented. The collapse of Lehman, Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns was in part due to short selling.
Short selling has also been used extensively in currency markets. It was one of the main instruments used by speculators during the 1997 Asian Crisis to bring down the Thai baht, the Korean won and Indonesian rupiah.
Speculation in major currency markets also characterizes the ongoing financial crisis. There have been major swings in currency values with the Canadian dollar, for instance, loosing 10% of its value in the course of a few trading days.
Temporary Ban on Short Selling
Following the stock market meltdown on Black Monday September 15, the Security Exchange Commission (SEC) introduced a temporary ban on short selling. In a bitter irony, the SEC listed a number of companies which were “protected by regulators from short sellers”. The SEC September 18 ban on short selling pertained largely to banks, insurance companies and other financial services companies.
The effect of being on a “protected list” was to no avail. It was tantamount to putting those listed companies on a “hit list”. If the SEC had implemented a complete and permanent ban on short selling coupled with a freeze on all forms of speculative trade, including index funds and options, this would have contributed to reducing market volatility and dampening the meltdown.
The ban on short selling was applied with a view to establishing the protected list. It expired on Wednesday October 8 at midnight.
The following morning, Thursday 9th of October, when the market opened up, those companies on the “protected list” became “unprotected” and were the first target of the speculative onslaught, leading to a dramatic collapse on of the Dow Jones on Thursday 9th and Friday 10th.
The course of events was entirely predictable. The lifting of the ban on short selling contributed to accentuating the downfall in stock market values. The companies which were on the hit list were the first victims of the speculative onslaught.
The shares of Morgan Stanley dropped 26 percent on October 9th, upon the expiry of the short-selling ban and a further 25 percent the following day.
Financial warfare
There are indications that the downfall of Morgan Stanley was engineered by financial rivals. A day prior to the September 18th ban on short selling, Morgan Stanley was the object of rival speculative attacks:
John Mack, chief executive of Morgan Stanley, told employees in an internal memo Wednesday [September 17]: “What’s happening out there? It’s very clear to me – we’re in the midst of a market controlled by fear and rumours, and short sellers are driving our stock down.”’ (Financial Times, September 17, 2008)
Morgan Stanley was also the object of doubts expressed by the ratings agency Moody’s, which contributed to investors dumping Morgan Stanley stock.
Moody’s cited an expectation that “an expected downturn in global capital market activity will reduce Morgan Stanley’s revenue and profit potential in 2009, and perhaps beyond this period”.
In contrast JP Morgan Chase, controlled by the Rockefeller family climbed by almost 12%. JP Morgan Chase and Bank America have consolidated their control over the US banking landscape.
Regulators Serve the Interests of Speculators
The SEC was fully aware that the ban on short selling would serve to exacerbate the downfall.
Why did they carry it out? How did they justify their decision?
In a twisted logic, the SEC, which largely serves the interests of institutional speculators, contends, quoting the results of an academic research paper, that short selling contributes to reducing market instability, thereby justifying the repeal of the September 18 short selling ban
Courtesy: Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research.

THE BIGGEST ROBBERY OF THE 20TH CENTURY

2009-01-26T06:37:00.000-08:00

IS IT GOLD !!!! NO

IS IT DIAMOND !!!!!! NO

IS IT MONEY !!! NO

IS IT OIL !!!!!! NO

CAN YOU GUESS THE EXTENT ?????

Out of Graves

2009-01-20T06:03:00.000-08:00

An embarrassing incident of massive Israeli military incursion into densely packed cities and refugee camps in Gaza didn't stop both houses of the U.S. Congress from declaring their nearly unanimous and totally uncritical support for the Israel state sponsored terror on gaza. One family buried a slain son over his grandfather. Another bundled up the tiny bodies of three young cousins and lowered them into the grave of a long-dead aunt. A man was laid to rest with his brother.

More than two weeks into the Israeli offensive that has killed more than 940 Palestinians, Gazans are struggling to find places to bury their dead. Cemeteries throughout Gaza City that were closed for new burials have now reopened.
The first to suffer and die in these inhuman conditions will be the most vulnerable: infants, children, the elderly, the sick. What else can they do? Where can they go? Not to the medical centers being destroyed in the attack.
No doubt Israel is hoping to copy America's success in burying atrocities, mass murder and oppression behind the PR illusions of a triumphant "surge" in Gaza. Just like the bipartisan Terror War establishment in Washington, the Israelis too hope to establish a "peace of the grave" in their own military adventure. They have a long way to go to match the million innocents slaughtered in the American war on Iraq, of course -- just as their harsh sanctions seem like a pajama party compared to the 500,000 children killed by the bipartisan, Clinton-Bush sanctions regime imposed on pre-war Iraq: one of the greatest deliberate non-military inflictions of death and suffering on a people since the heyday of Hitler and Stalin. But the Israelis are certainly doing their best to follow the master's example.

There's only one problem: how can you have a "peace of the grave" -- if you run out of graves?

Satyam: Part of the dreaded Game

2009-01-13T06:34:00.000-08:00

Some thoughts thats disturbing me........comment if you really feel
Our police and other agencies, departments, military and judiciary all are corrupt.

Our political system is corrupt. So the whole system is corrupt morally, materially.

There is no justice.
There is no rights.
There are atrocities, killing, oppression, land grabbing, riots etcs.
Government carried-out genocide. killers roam scot-free
People killed like animals on regular basis. In our day to day life.
............................................................................
The amounts that politicians routinely steal from the public dwarfs the amount that Mr Raju cooked his company’s books with. The politicians regularly get away with it. But Mr Raju will not get away. His actions have directly hurt his colleagues through the negative fallout on the whole IT industry. He will be made an example of because it must become clear to all that he is an exception and not the rule in corporate India.
The market is heavily manipulated. The driving force behind the meltdown is speculative trade.
There are several instruments including futures, options, index funds, derivative securities, etc. used to make money when the stock market crumbles.
The more it falls, the greater the gains.
Those who make it fall are also speculating on its decline.
..............................................................................
First, we had our 9/11 with 26/11. Now, we had our Enron. Wonder what’s next. Hope the next elections don’t throw up an Indian Bush.
............................................................................

Stop Israel’s terror in Gaza

2009-01-06T08:59:00.000-08:00

US and Britain have blood on their hands | End the killing–lift the blockade

Israel is committing mass murder in Gaza, and the US and Britain are giving their blessing to the slaughter. Gaza’s hospitals and morgues are bursting with the dead and the injured.

Israel’s barbaric assault, which began last Saturday, has killed hundreds of Palestinians. It plans to kill many more. Israel’s defence minister Ehud Barak has said that Israel wants to “widen and deepen the operation”.

Western leaders blame the Hamas resistance group for the conflict. The media mostly go along with this, or at best portray it as a clash between two sides that are equally to blame.

But Israel is a terror state, armed with F-16 fighter jets, helicopter gunships and tanks, that is attacking a largely impoverished and isolated people. The West has backed Israel to the hilt.

Israel has launched its new onslaught in an attempt to wipe out any resistance to its dominance over the Palestinian people.

Struggle

It wants to destroy Hamas, which won the Palestinian elections in January 2006, because the organisation leads the struggle against its people’s oppression.

The last few days have exposed the shameless hypocrisy of Western leaders.

George Bush says there cannot be a ceasefire until the Palestinians surrender to Israel’s demands. Gordon Brown calls for “moderation” but refuses to condemn Israel’s attacks.

Both ignore the fact that, while a “ceasefire” held from June to November, no Israeli was killed by rocket fire from Gaza. Israel broke the ceasefire on 4 November forcing the Palestinians to respond.

Israel’s economic blockade of Gaza over the past year and a half has cut off supplies of the most basic necessities, such as food, medicine and water.

A ceasefire on Brown’s terms would allow the blockade to continue, with tens of thousands of Palestinians suffering from malnutrition, disease and poverty.

Anger at the slaughter has sparked mass demonstrations across the world in solidarity with the Palestinians, calling for an immediate end to the Israeli bombing and the blockade of Gaza. Millions of people are also demanding that Gaza’s borders are opened.

Any hope of lasting peace in the Middle East will only be realised if there is justice for the Palestinian people. This means an end to the racist state of Israel and the so-called “war on terror”, which has produced more wars and instability. It is only a global mass movement of ordinary people that can bring about this change.

Courtesy:http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/
© Copyright Socialist Worker (unless otherwise stated). You may republish if you include an active link to the original and leave this notice in place.

Mumbai Trails....

2008-12-12T09:46:00.001-08:00

Here is an article presented by a close friend of mine. I have added my inputs too....
It was the last week of November and that was the last time once can see the glorious Taj and Oberoi- trident standing showing the world class architecture and hospitality of India. The landmarks were the pride of not only Mumbai but whole India. It was all normal till they came with the intention to challenge the pride of India. Yes there was the terrorist attack this time on Mumbai. They were running on streets and on stations killing innocent people. The government was sleeping, even if the intelligence gave SOS to the state that there could be a terrorist attack. The government was busy in making a consensus that among the population of Mumbai who all were North Indians.
I must ask the politicians of the government that “where were those people who were raising their voice that we were Mumbaikars and will not allow people from other states to enter Mumbai. This time the people were from outside country. Why the hell they were given a chance to enter Mumbai, if our countrymen need a sc called permission from politicians of Mumbai”. It was the system failure. The facts remain the same and the NSG from New Delhi went to rescue the people. The MARCOS for the first time landed on land for the operation, because they knew that they were not doing it for the state, they did it for the country. If the politicians there in Mumbai don’t want any north Indian and south Indian there then why they allowed NSG to operate in their state against those terrorists. Most of the NSG commandos were non- Mumbai Kars but they fought for Mumbai.
Why the politicians always prefer their vested interest first than the interest of the country. Our three main top officials were killed, more than 150 innocent people were killed and around 300 injured in this dreadful attack that shaken the confidence of people. The next question will be on agenda that these terrorists were Muslims and again the debate would be that “All Muslims are not terrorists but all terrorists were Muslims”. A sweet answer to that is now days Muslims are so educated that they can judge what is right and what is wrong. I totally agree with the fact that if a person from a particular community favors the so called “jihad” ( a grossly misinterpreted term) of the terrorists there are thousand that are against it. Ask those people from the same community that lost the lives of their kins in the attack. They bears the same pain as the other people.

Hemant Karkare was engaged in unearthing a terror network with characteristics which had not been seen so far. For the first time, the Indian state was conducting a thorough professional probe into a terror network centred on Hindu extremist organisations, this one with huge ramifications, some leading into military and bomb-making training camps and policised elements in the army, others into organisations and political leaders affiliated to the BJP. One of the most potentially explosive discoveries was that a serving army officer, Lt.Col. Srikant Purohit, had procured 60 kg of RDX from government supplies for use in the terrorist attack on the Samjhauta Express (the India-Pakistan ‘Understanding’ train) in February 2007, in which 68 people were killed, the majority of them Pakistanis. Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi and BJP Prime Ministerial candidate L.K.Advani accused him of being a ‘desh drohi’ or traitor, a charge that in India carries a death penalty, and the Shiv Sena offered legal aid to those accused of the terrorist attack, complaining that ‘The government does not save Hindus from terrorists, and if Hindus defend themselves, they are maligned’. In an interview shortly before he died, Karkare admitted he was hurt by the campaign against him. On November 26, just before the terrorist attack, the police in Pune received a call from an anonymous caller saying in Marathi that Karkare would be killed in a bomb blast within two or three days.

Let there be peace……………

Eid Wishes.....

2008-12-08T02:29:00.000-08:00

The Hajj pilgrimage is associated with the life of Muhammad, but the ritual of the Hajj itself was considered ancient even during his lifetime in the 7th century. Many Muslims believe that it goes back to the time of Abraham in 2000 BC. Eid-Ul-Adha (a.k.a. the Feast of Sacrifice or Day of Sacrifice) is observed after the Hajj -- the annual pilgrimage to Makkah (Mecca) in Saudi Arabia.
A duty of each Muslim, as described in the Five Pillars of Islam, is to go on Hajj at least once once during their lifetime, unless they are prevented by finances or ill health. "The Hajj consists of several ceremonies, meant to symbolize the essential concepts of the Islamic faith, and to commemorate the trials of prophet Abraham and his family...The pilgrimage also enables Muslims from all around the world, of different colors, languages, races, and ethnicities, to come together in a spirit of universal brotherhood and sisterhood to worship the One God together." 1
It is the second of the two major Muslim holy days. The other is Eid-ul-Fitr which follows Ramadan -- a lunar month of partial fasting.

Its message is to train us to respond to the commandments of god in everyday life. It instills in us the sense of unity and togetherness, and helps remove from our hearts any kind of hatred and animosity toward our brothers and sisters. In Hajj, man enters into a state of total sanctity that prevents him from violating the life or the safety of any human being. Hajj is the sign of the universality of this Divine message. All people come from all parts of the globe celebrating the praises of the One true God, no colors, races, regional borders. All barriers are removed and all pilgrims are molten in one brotherhood that gathers their hearts and strengthens their bonds and sense of belonging to one religion.

Markets Hate Farmers

2008-11-19T09:25:00.000-08:00

Farmers in United States, Europe and for that matter in other rich and industrialised countries are quitting agriculture. That makes me wonder. Why? After all, they get huge subsidies. They have the advantage of being literate and techno-savvy. They can take benefit of future trading and commodity exchanges. Linked to supermarket retail stores, they supposedly get a bigger share of the consumer price.

Yet they are herding out of agriculture. How can this be possible if the market was working to the benefit of farmers? How can this be a reality at a time when the private trade is believed to be providing higher income to farmers? Still, there must be some reason for the collapse of family farms in the developed world. Either the ground realities in the rich countries are far away from our perception of farming or something must be terribly wrong in our understanding of the market economy and farming.

What makes it still worse is that the same prescription of farming is being doled out to Indian farmers. Policy makers and the agribusiness companies never feel tired to tell us that such a paradigm shift alone will bring about a second Green Revolution and liberate farmers from the clutches of the old mandi system. What they don't tell us is that the same farming model is not working in America. Farmers are abandoning agriculture at a pace that remains unprecedented. Farming has moved into the hands of agribusiness corporations.

Take the case of Europe. It is the biggest provider of farm subsidies. You get subsidies for entering into agriculture, you get subsidies based on the land you own, you get subsidies for keeping cow, pig or horses. You get subsidised credit for farm machinery, which is often written-off subsequently. You get subsidies for preserving biodiversity, for even planting hedges. The rural infrastructure works very efficiently, farmers have access to credit and insurance and there are no mandis (local market yards) like in India. In other words, farmer is linked to the private markets.

And yet, every minute one farmer quits agriculture. In America, there are more people in jails than on the farm. There are approximately 7 million people in jail or on parole and bail. And only about 700,000 people are left on the farm. Thanks to the farm policies, American farmers have been driven out of agriculture. In its last census in 2000, America did not count the number of farmers for the first time in history. In need not. After all the number of farmers has plummeted to a historic low. So when America talks of agriculture, it actually talks of corporations and machines.

On the other hand, despite the industrial farming systems linked to supermarkets, the number of middlemen has actually grown in the US. The new breed of middlemen operates under one umbrella organisation. You have the quality control man, the standardiser, the processor, the retailer and so on. It is primarily for the increase in the number of middlemen that the farmer's income has got squeezed. Studies have shown that in 1995 when a farmer went to the market to sell his produce worth one dollar, his income would be 70 cents. Ten years later, in 2005, farmer's income has dropped to a paltry four cents. The middlemen have neatly pocketed the rest.

Economists and socialites who back the entry of global retailers like Wal-mart, Tesco, Reliance and Bharti Telecom repeatedly tell us that while the intermediaries may be sulking over being left out from the newly acquired value chain, for the farmers, hopes, opportunities and wealth are all finding their way into their homes. Well, the reality is that the American farmers were actually pauperised by the value chain. If that is the situation in the Mecca of second Green Revolution, I wonder what will happen to the Indian farmers when the retail chains take over.

In any case the proponents of market economy feel that talk of farmer suicide is cheap. Like an Ostrich we should all bury our heads in the sand, and see only what they want us to see.

In America, knowing that distress sale is what the farmer faced, the government had stepped in and provided them with direct support. Each farm receives something close to US $ 33,000 a year in federal support. In Canada, the National Farmers Union has in a study shown that while the 70-odd agribusiness companies are raking in profits, farmers are the only segment of the food chain incurring losses. Farmers in the rich countries essentially live on government doles.

It is now the turn of 600 million farmers in India. Like the farmers in the rich and industrialised countries, it is now their turn to be oppressed. Whatever that remains of the marginalized farming community is now up for grabs. Not only agribusiness companies, private banks and the new micro-finance army that replaces the private money lenders with organised money lending through Self-Help Groups are getting ready to expand their activities. As the ICICI chief K.V.Kamath said: "After all, there is a lot of money to be made from rural areas".

The economic prescription therefore is not for the farmers to get a bigger slice of the consumer price. It is not going to result in new homes rising in rural lands and children going to good schools. As the global experience shows, it is actually aimed at letting the agribusiness industry walk away with the entire cake. Who said you can't have your cake and eat it too? #
By Devinder Sharma
Dsharma.net
(This article first appeared in Deccan Herald, Jan 18, 2007)

www.dsharma.net

So many jobs, but so few experts for Islamic finance industry

2008-11-06T18:04:00.001-08:00

The swift rise of the Islamic finance industry could hit a wall in the coming years as the sector struggles to find enough experts to do the job, an industry official said on Tuesday.

Sharia banking’s sudden popularity has created a scramble for bankers, scholars and lawyers conversant in both conventional finance and Islamic economics, and produced a shortage that sometimes compromises the quality of products, experts say.

Many Islamic bankers are drawn from the conventional finance sector and have structured products which have drawn criticism that sharia banking is little more than usury-based financing cloaked in Islamic dress.

The Islamic industry’s rapid growth has outpaced the rate at which the sector is able to churn out workers, said Agil Natt, chief executive of Kuala Lumpur-based INCEIF, which says it is the world’s only dedicated Islamic finance university.

"We want to bring the Islamic finance professionals closer to understanding sharia principles and we want the sharia advisers to be able to understand some of the problems of practitioners," Mr. Natt said in an interview.

About 30,000 Islamic finance professionals will be needed in the Middle East in the next 10 years, he said, citing figures from consultancy AT Kearney.

In Malaysia, another leading center of Islamic finance, an estimated 8,600 sharia bankers would be needed by 2012, almost double the 4,800 available now, according to the central bank.

The Islamic insurance, or takaful, industry would require just over 2,000 professionals by 2012, up from 1,250 now.

The industry’s lack is especially glaring in commercial banking and takaful in the Middle East, retail banking in the United States and fund management and investment banking in Malaysia, Mr. Natt said. Modern Islamic banking, which has its roots in the 1970s oil boom, has been growing about 20% annually, driven mainly by a surge in Middle East oil revenues.

It aims to be a viable alternative to the conventional industry but with over 300 financial institutions worldwide and the sector valued at about $1 trillion, the size of the Islamic industry is still just a fraction of conventional banking.

The shortage of talent in the industry is creating a fierce competition for workers. Middle East institutions, in particular, are trying to draw in professionals by offering top dollar.

It has also driven up wages, with it not uncommon for sharia bankers to draw higher pay than their conventional peers.

The Islamic industry’s growth was not expected to stall despite easing energy prices, as the global financial meltdown have put the spotlight on ethical investing, Mr. Natt said.

The industry also faces a shortage of sharia scholars, he said, estimating that there are about 200 such scholars worldwide.

All financial institutions that offer Islamic products must have a board of sharia advisers who decide if instruments comply with Islamic law’s standards. — Reuters

Hindutva's Terror Link

2008-11-06T17:24:00.001-08:00

The revelation that a militant section of the Hindutva network was behind the September 29 bomb blasts in Muslim-dominated Malegaon in Maharashtra and Modasa in Gujarat has shattered the myth propagated by the Hindutva campaign that only Islamist fundamentalism breeds terrorism. Indeed the Sangh Parivar’s loaded argument has been that while all Muslims are not terrorists, all terrorists are Muslim. Saffron rabble-rousers have had no compunction in lobbing this charge at the Muslim community as a whole. While it has become almost an article of faith with the parivar to link Islamist fundamentalists with terrorism, today, with the arrests of radical Hindu activist Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and four others, among them a retired Major, the Sangh and its affiliates find themselves warding off the same accusations. Prima facie, the case against the Sadhvi and her accomplices is serious. The Anti-Terrorism Squad of Maharashtra, which has been on the trail of Hindutva terror since 2006, has charged them under the Indian Penal Code for murder as well as under sections of the Indian Explosives Act, 1884, and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967.

The antecedents of the accused, the suspected role of former military personnel in providing training to them, and the recovery of military-grade explosive material (possibly RDX) from the blast sites, have added to the discomfiture of the BJP and the parivar, which claim to be India’s only truly nationalist forces. The Sadhvi is a former activist of the BJP’s student wing, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad. She and her accomplices were associated with several right-wing Hindu extremist organisations. There is another deeply worrying aspect to the case: How did the accused lay their hands on military-grade explosives? The other question is how far the trail will go as the investigators pursue the leads provided by this lethal mix of Hindutva and terror. There is no escaping the crisis that this has set off in the parivar. The BJP’s first response was to deny that any Hindutva outfit could be involved in terror. But party chief Rajnath Singh, who has been photographed with Pragya Singh Thakur, has subsequently gone on the offensive, insisting that she must be presumed innocent unless proven guilty. What all this highlights is the imperative of acknowledging that terrorism is too serious a challenge to be left to opportunistic, subjective interpretation. Combating terror is a responsibility governments and political parties across the spectrum must take up in a united and cooperative way.

2008-11-06T01:36:00.000-08:00

Anatomy Of Sangh Parivar

By Ram Puniyani

The arrest of Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur in the context of Malegaon blasts of September 29, 2008 has been an important step in the investigation of bomb blasts which have been blowing the social peace and communal amity. Along with her the arrest of army officers, retired and serving, has unfolded the whole new dimension about investigation of acts of terror. The involvement of Bhonsala Military School has also come under the scanner of investigating agencies.

The Sadhvi has been the member of Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad and Durga Vahini, which are the parts of Sangh parivar, before she adorned the saffron robe. Sangh parivar is the word coined by the RSS and its progeny for the whole combine, all of them put together. RSS acts as the central controller and its trained volunteers, swayamsevaks, set up and manage different organizations to pursue the goals of RSS.

Sadhvi?s connections with BJP/RSS top leadership came to the surface and the BJP leadership in particular, distanced itself from her, initially. The ideological and political association was attempted to be played down to a mere acquaintance. Disowning the member of its outfits, after they do the crime is nothing new for Sangh organizations. The first such disowning was done when RSS prachark Nathuram Godse murdered the father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi. Since RSS was not keeping records of its members etc. Nathuram claimed in the court that he had nothing to do with RSS, despite the fact that he was a trained RSS volunteer (swayamsevak). In an interview given to ?The Times of India? (25 Jan 98), his brother Gopal Godse, who was also an accomplice in the murder, elaborated the apparent reasons for hiding their affiliation with RSS. ?Technically and theoretically he (Nathuram) was a member (of RSS), but he stopped workings for it later. His statement in the court that he had left the RSS was to protect the RSS workers who would be imprisoned following the murder, on the understanding that they (RSS workers) would benefit from his dissociating himself??

The second major disassociation has been that from Rajendra Pal, alias, Dara Singh who murdered Pastor Graham Steward Stains. His case in the courts was fought by BJP ex Minister Dilip Singh Judeo's brother. Dara Singh himself was an active worker of VHP, Bajrang Dal and other Sangh organizations. All this was denied shamelessly by RSS combine. And now come the one related to the Sadhvi.

After initial quiet on the issue, now the Hindutva parties (BJP, Shiv Sena) are raising the army of lawyers to fight the case for her. Now their plea is that every accused has a right to be defended. So far they have kept quiet when the lawyers of the accused in the acts of terror have been beaten up and many lawyers associations have resolved not to fight the cases of accused in cases of acts of terror.

It was also stated by BJP spokesperson that there is no evidence, proof of involvement of the Sadhvi. The technicalities of this proof in this case apart one will like to know how many times, in how many cases of arrest of ?alleged Muslim terrorists? this question is raised. Their being a Muslim is a good enough proof of being a terrorist in this scheme of things propagated by RSS combine, and even the encounters, fake most of them, are welcomed by a section of these.

Then came the argument that since Sadhvi is a follower of ?cultural nationalism?, she can?t be a terrorist! Here the partisan attitude of those involved in this politics is clear. What they are referring to by cultural nationalism is Hindu nationalism. As such cultural nationalism has been promoted by the practitioners of politics in the name of religion. Be it Muslim terrorists taught in the US promoted Madrassas in Pakistan in yesteryears or the fundamentalists, doing politics in the name of any religion. In case of Hindutva, this cultural nationalism is the opposite of democratic nationalism, where diversity and equality of all is the foundation of the political ethos.

In case of RSS, cultural nationalism, is based on the some religious texts and the culture of elite Hindus, which gives priority to the Brahminical values, the values of caste and gender based inequality. Democratic nationalism has its focus on respecting and approving all cultures and religions, while in RSS scheme of cultural nationalism the Brahminical culture is the base of political nationalism. So what label does one put to the acts of Godse and Dara Singh? Both of them were steeped in the Cultural nationalism propagated by RSS combine. The formula that terrorism done by Muslims is anti national and the acts done by the ilk of Sadhvi are nationalism defies all the logic. Any act of violation of the Indian law is anti national, there can?t be separate set of laws for those indulging in violence and heinous crimes in the name of religion.

After initial hesitation, it started being said that she was pained by the terrorism committed by Muslims, so this revenge terrorism was meant to protect the Hindu society, and so subtle justification and approval for this variety of crime as being the answer to the terrorism done by Muslims. Some commentators are openly glorifying this and some others are quietly going by this logic. One can say that the Bajrang Dal and Sadhvi?s ilk is not into terrorism because of so called Islamic terrorism, it is in this more due to the indoctrination which they have received through RSS indoctrination module. This indoctrination reduces all the political-social issues to the religious ones.

RSS indoctrination is carried out through its Shakha Baudhiks (Branch intellectual sessions) and camps. It says that this is nation belongs to Hindus alone. Here, the Muslims and Christians are foreigners, the secular people are trying to say that this country belongs to all the people, which is wrong. We need to ensure that these threats to Hindu nation are dealt with properly.

RSS type indoctrination has also created the myth that all terrorists are Muslim, deliberately overlooking that terrorists come from all the religious communities, but not due to religious reasons. The reasons behind terrorism are social, economic and political. Be it LTTE, Khalistanis, ULFA, Irish Republican army all have indulged in terrorism, the reasons being anything but religious. In RSS scheme of things all the acts of terror have been projected to be due to Islam and Muslims. So the two modules merge and create the mind set of Sadhvi or Bajrang Dal members who have died while making bombs in Nanded and Kanpur or members of Hindu Jagran Samiti who planted bombs in Thane near Mumbai.

The current involvement of army officers, Bhonsla Military School and the members of different wings of Sangh privar should not be a surprise if one sees the structure and functioning of RSS. RSS founded to oppose democracy and to work for Hindu nation has been working, indoctrinating and creating more and more organizations to fulfill it objective of Hindu nation, which in essence means to restore the feudal hierarchical values of caste and gender in Indian context, to work for status quo around the modern version of Brahminical system. Its trained swayamsevaks, have been on one hand directly entering the political formations, Bhatiay Janata Party, Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarhti Parishad, Vanvasi Kalyan Ashrma, Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Hindu Munnani, Bajrang Dal, Samajik Samrasta Manch on one hand, creating subordinate organizations amongst women, Rashtra Seviak Samiti, Durga Vahini etc on the other hand. Vast layers of Saints, the likes Asaram Bapu or Sri Sri Ravishakar, or Narnedra Maharaj are ideologically on same wave length as RSS and through their work they lay the ground for the politics of RSS to flourish in different sections of society.

Its second strategy has been that of infiltration in the different wings of state machinery, police, bureaucracy, Judiciary. On yet another layer its recruits have been working in the field of education and media by the mechanism of infiltration. Its hold and vicious grip on society cannot just be assessed by the electoral strength of BJP. That?s why Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the then Prime Minister, in Staten Island could assert that first he is the swayam sevak of RSS and then the prime minister. That?s why in 1977, when the Bharatiya Jansangh, previous avatar of BJP, who were part of Janata Party, were told to severe their links with RSS, they preferred to break the Janata party rather then severing their affiliation with RSS. Its strength comes from the earlier silent, by now violent, infiltration in all spheres of social and political activities. Its wing amongst retired military officers ensures that people like Retired army Officer Upadhyay is probably the part of the Malegaon and other such blasts.

Bhonsala military school has been managed by RSS in more ways than one, so not only it may be a place for hatching the conspiracies for blasts, but also for turning out recruits who can aid and assist this Sangh combine while serving in the army. Surprise is not that Bhonsla military school?s connection with this politics is coming to surface, surprise is not that Upadhyay and Purohits? links are coming to surface so late; surprise is that how they hid it so long and so well?

Various components of RSS family sometimes have some differences also, but these are sorted out by the patriarch RSS, through subtle control and ideological mechanisms so that their cohesion with the goal to destroy democracy, through all the means, including using democratic platforms for the same, remains intact. Sadhvi is involved in the blasts or not, army officers or involved in these acts or not should hopefully come out despite their ideological plants scattered all over. What it has brought to our notice is the dangers of this multi headed hydra, which is working in the democratic system with a goal to abolish democracy itself and bring in Hindu nation, another name of fascist formation, abusing the Hindu religion, the religion of Kabir and Gandhi!

In RSS scheme of things the organizational affiliation comes second, the primary thing which they instill is the ideological subordination. Most of those involved in these acts will not have any remorse for what they did, as like the Al Qaeda variety, they are indoctrinated to believe that it is nationalism (Hindu in this case, in Al Qaeda variety it is Islamic nation of course) so what you are doing while instigating anti minority violence or while planting the bombs is for the service of your religion!

While superficially at loggerheads the ideological wavelength of RSS indoctrination is similar to the one used in Pakistani Madrassas for training Al Qaeda. Here the religion is different paradigms are same. To deal with such ideologies leading to acts of terror, what is also needed is to combat their ideological foundations.

Source:Countercurrents.org

Genesis of Sub Prime Crisis: A Slide Presentation

2008-10-14T02:56:00.000-07:00

Please visit the link below for a better grasp of U.S SubPrime Crisis. More to follow on Current Financial Turmoil:

http://docs.google.com/TeamPresent?docid=ddp4zq7n_0cdjsr4fn&skipauth=true&pl

A Request to Bombers and Fanatics

2008-09-16T04:40:00.000-07:00

If you are the merchant of death,be you the one conducting bomb blasts in Indian cities or the one who are attacking minorities in karnataka, orissa..elsewhere, please read this text once:

Perpetrators of terror and communal riots follow the distorted versions of the preaching and are trying to preach the same nonsense to the whole world. And as for the revenge you are talking about, that would help you only to loose the sympathy or concern others have about sufferings, if any. Terror mongers communal fanatics attacking minorities like you are serving interest of none other than evils who are out to destroy harmony. By evil act of this kind you are killing my fellow human beings. When you were exploding those bombs in the city , it’s not only my parents and relatives who had worried about my safety but also my friends, most of them Hindus and Christians. They hadn’t thought before calling me whether I am a Hindu or Muslim. Because they knew bombs, whether made by Muslims, Hindus or Christians would kill all living things on earth notwithstanding one’s religion, region or country. Bombs don’t discriminate Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims or Indians or Americans or Pakistanis. Everybody is same for them. They will kill whoever comes in their way. So my friends worried about me, for they are human beings above all. Then only they are Hindus, Sikhs or Muslims.

The killers are just killers everywhere. They are neither Muslims nor Hindus, neither theists nor atheists, neither spiritual nor intellectual. They are just killers. They deserve a punishment what a murderer deserves. Nobody, Hindu, Muslim or Sikh, should be ashamed of their religion in front of these killers. A religion resides in people’s heart, not in guns.

Forecasting the Stock Market

2008-09-14T17:48:00.000-07:00

“ Bulls make money. Bears make money. Pigs get slaughtered.” Anon.

Every day I see in the financial section of newspapers how to forecast what the market will do in 6 months, 12 months, several years. “Ten stocks that will double in the next 6 months.” Right! I have trouble trying to forecast what it will do tomorrow. Do not trust any who claims he knows what the future will be for the market.
Of course, your broker will send you gobs of slick material about various companies that predict they will double or triple in the next 12 months. On the New York Stock Exchange there will be about one half of one per cent (0.5%) of companies that will double this year. Are you smart enough to pick those winners? I’m not and I am considered a professional trader. And I am sure your broker isn’t either. He just wants to make a commission and is probably promoting a stock his brokerage company wants to push.
Every investor wants to know the future and will send money to some “expert” who will send him news about a company that only (?) he knows. And pigs can fly. One thing about the market. It is almost impossible to keep a secret and everyone knows everything about other companies. As soon as some “analyst” finds a cogent fact that can influence a stock price he will share that “secret” with a few close friends. Within minutes the “secret” is known by hundreds of thousands and is immediately reflected in the price of the stock.

If you do get sucked into one of these money traps by some smooth-talking salesman or newspaper verbiage I strongly suggest you immediately plan your exit strategy. Without an exit plan you can easily lose a large amount of your “investment”. This is not an investment; it is a gamble and should be treated as such. The first thought of any professional trader is ‘if I am wrong how much am I willing to lose’? Maybe 2%, 5%, certainly no more than 10%. Pros understand that small losses are OK, but never take a big loss.

From 1982 to 2000 it seemed everyone was a financial genius. How many of those folks kept those big winnings from 2000? Almost none. Most lost 40% to 60% of their money. Brokers said, “Hang in there. You are in for the long haul”. Unfortunately he did not tell you that Modern Portfolio Theory is based on a 40 year time line.

Yes, but understand you don’t need to predict anything. Don’t forecast. What you can easily learn is follow the major trend. You bought in 1982 and you sold out in 2000. The trend can be found in many ways with the simplest being posted every day in Investors Business Daily newspaper under the IBD Mutual Fund Index. When the Index price is above the 200-day moving average you own equities and when it is below you are in cash or bonds. Nothing complicated,

Don’t try to forecast the market. Let the market trend tell you.
courtesy:Al Thomas

MICROFINANCE AND AGRICULTURE: AN ANALYSIS

2008-09-14T17:38:00.000-07:00

Microfinance groups can effectively improve agriculture, water resources and standard of life of an individual, community….etc as various empirical studies has pointed out. People’s contribution along with assistance from banks and government could work well to stimulate investment in rural agricultural activities. Obtaining fertilizers at lower rate than market rate and easy availability of credits can provide relief to farming community. As any micro credit programme there is mutual sharing of plans, actions, and crises due to which members are able to react quickly to emergency situations and mitigate loss.

Today, there are about 60,000 retail credit outlets of the formal banking sector in the rural areas comprising the 12,000 branches of district level cooperative banks, over 14,000 branches of the Regional Rural Banks. On an average, there is at least one retail credit outlet for about 5,000 rural people. In the mist of the apparent inadequacies of the formal financial system to cater to the needs of the rural poor, NABARD sponsored an action research project in 1987 through an NGO called MYRADA. Encouraged by the results of field experiments in group based approach for lending to the poor, NABARD launched a pilot project in 1991-1992 in partnership with NGOs for promoting and grooming self help groups of homogenous members and making savings from existing banks and within the existing legal frame work. Steady progress of the pilot project led to the mainstreaming of the SHG-Bank linkage programme in 1996 as normal banking activity of the banks with widespread acceptance. The rapid progress achieved in SHG formation, which has now turned in to an empowerment movement among women across the country, laid the foundation for emergence of MFIs in India.

Delivering small-scale loans and savings mechanisms can be particularly challenging in areas of low population density, where the distance between clients is great, transportation networks are often poor and low income levels tend to translate into impracticably small financial transactions. This phenomenon prevails in India to a large extent. India has seen man farmer suicides during the last few years; the reasons attributed are many, ranging from pro rich approach of World trade Organization to lack of access to proper credit facilities.

The identification of agricultural microfinance is a significant remaining challenge to financial sectors that serve the majority of the poor spurred CGAP to undertake an analysis of current practices. CGAP in 2002 began desk research, consultant site visits, and stakeholder consultations to identify promising agricultural operations. The study was based on Kyrgyzstan, Bolivia, Peru, Mozambique and Kenya.

Summary of the studies are as follows;

Bai Tushum Financial Foundation (BTF) began agricultural credit operation Kyrgyzstan in 2000, after it assumed the foundering, three-year-old portfolios of several small agricultural credit associations. Through dedicated attention to building a sustainable institution and creative solutions to cultural and legislative barriers, BTF has quickly evolved into a strong local institution serving a range of rural and urban borrowers’ needs. BTF has half of its loan portfolio in agriculture, offering crop production and livestock loans, as well as a mixture of agro-processing, trade, and mortgage loan products. Yet it is profitable, achieving 230 percent operational self-sufficiency in its first year of operation. The institution’s commitment to agricultural lending appears to have superseded profit maximization however, with trade and other loans sometimes cross-subsidizing the agricultural portfolio.

Confianza, Peru is a small regulated financial institution in central Peru that provides a mixture of rural, urban, small business, agricultural, housing, and consumer loans to low-income clients. Confianza’s loan portfolio was almost exclusively group loans for agricultural purposes. Confianza was forced to make a set of swift, substantial changes in order to survive due to plunging commodity prices and combination of other factors. The organization’s approach demonstrates that agricultural lending can be viable when combined with other rural and urban financial services, making small-farmer clients attractive when competition is strong in urban areas. By the end of 2002, the organization was financially sustainable, lending more than US $4 million annually.

Equity Bank Limited (Equity), Kenya provides microfinance services to more than 250,000 low and moderate income citizens in Nairobi and Kenya’s Central province via a network of branch offices and mobile banking units. In 1994, it began tailoring its loan and saving products to a microfinance market, eventually adding two loan products for tea and dairy farmers that are secured by agribusiness contracts. By the end of 2003, the deposit base of equity had grown o US $44 million and its outstanding loan portfolio topped $22 million.

In very recent years some recognition has been given to food production by urban residents. And urban agriculture is a concept that evokes contradictory images. However, as urbanization overtakes demographic trends in developing countries, it is critical that policy makers in developing countries, it is critical that policy makers in developing countries and urban planners in particular heighten their awareness and appreciation of the important contribution that urban food and non-food production is making to the diversity of livelihood activities of the urban poor and the quality of life in urban centers in developing countries (Remenyi, 1999, and UNDP,1996)

It is only relatively recently that microfinance providers in Bangladesh have begun to target the needs of the urban poor for financial services. The Grameen bank restricts itself to rural areas. BRAC, on the other hand, initiated an urban credit program for slum dwellers in 1997. In a city (Dhaka) of two million people below the poverty line the BRAC share is only 2.5% of the poor. BRAC urban credit program is targeted at women slum dwellers, especially recent arrivals who have least knowledge of where land might available for planting or animal production, and with the least opportunities to use their rural production skills.

In addition to BRAC, ASA and SafeSave, willing cooperation was forthcoming from the Credit and Development Forum (CDF) in Bangladesh. CDF is an umbrella body representing microfinance and micro enterprise development programs and NGOs in Bangladesh. It is electronically networked b email to all 850 member institutions.

The project’s impact on the agricultural sector, however, was modest, largely because of the scattered nature of its activities and future interventions in Bangladesh will require a radical rethink to maximize overall project impact.

The sad state of minorities in India

2008-08-29T07:18:00.000-07:00

Large number of young Muslims are being victimised by police on the charge of being involved in terrorist acts across the country, according to a public tribunal.
In its report, a people's tribunal on atrocities committed against minorities in the name of fighting terrorism noted that such instances were reported more from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan. In most of the cases, the persons picked up are not shown to be arrested by the police until many days after their arrest in gross violation of the law. Their families are also not informed about their arrest. In many cases, they have been tortured in police custody and made to 'confess' and sign blank papers, the report said, adding that the police has often been humiliating Muslim detenues on the ground of their religion. The tribunal, comprising retired judges, academicians and media persons, said the testimonies it heard showed widespread communalisation of the police across states in the country.It also flayed the media for uncritically publicising allegations levelled by the police.
This has resulted in the destruction of the lives and reputations of a large number of persons picked up by the police, who have later been found to be innocent, it added. The tribunal observed that citizens who are picked up by police officers for interrogation are subject to repeated harassment and torture, and are implicated in false cases even after release or acquittal. They are further subjected to mental and physical torture.
Lamenting on the lack of accountability, the tribunal said unfortunately, the courts are going along with this behaviour of the police and are virtually ignoring allegations of torture in police custody. Criticising the Human Rights Commission for not standing up against such violations, the jury felt that by and large the complaints were being treated with casual indifference. "They either do not take up such cases on the ground that they are the subject matter of court proceedings or just ask for a routine police report without getting any independent investigation done on such serious charges of human right violations."Some of the recommendations put forth by the tribunal are:
State Human Rights Commission and National Human Rights Commission and State Minority Commission should take up such matters seriously and come to independent finding itself and awarding adequate compensation in suitable Cases. It should not wait for somebody to approach the commission but should take action Suo-moto.
Courts must not routinely grant police or judicial custody, but must examine at that stage whether there is any credible evidence against the accused. The courts should keep in mind that no reliance should be placed on the alleged confession of the accused even for consideration of bail/remand.
Whenever any person is released by the police for want of evidence against him the courts should award adequate compensation for destruction of his life and reputation. In such cases, the courts should examine if the prosecution was malafide, and if it is so found, the police officials involved must be held accountable and the compensation payable to the victim must be recovered from the officers concerned.
Independent police complaints authorities must be immediately set up at all levels in line with the Supreme Court's judgment in the Police Reforms case.
Trial courts be provided with a medical officer, who can immediately examine any accused complaining of torture in police or judicial custody.
The number of trial courts must be greatly increased to ensure speedy conclusions of Trials. Investigations must also be concluded within the shortest possible time and extensions of time must not be routinely given.
The police, during interrogation or investigation, cannot get blank papers signed by the accused; Police officers found indulging in such practice must be severely punished.
Narco analysis is a psychologically and physically third degree method of investigation, which is not even scientifically proven. It must not be allowed on persons, particularly without consent.
The media, both print as well electronic, should be very careful not to publicise mere allegations or claims of the police, which can irreparably damage reputations of innocent persons without subjecting them to basic scrutiny.
India must immediately sign the International Criminal Court Treaty, known as the Rome Statute which has been signed by most countries.
Courtesy: Rediff.com, 28/8/2008

Behind The Opposition of Nuclear Deal-Part II

2008-07-23T02:19:00.000-07:00

The Deal has been pushed forward in India in an anti-democratic manner without approval of the Parliament - in fact in the teeth of opposition by a large majority of parliamentarians. Power from nuclear energy is a failed project in developed countries and the eagerness of the Prime Minister to clinch the Deal fails to generate any enthusiasm among the common people of India. Neither is nuclear energy a solution to global warming as some experts make it out to be. On the contrary the entire nuclear fuel cycle is fraught with danger and exposes human beings to hazardous radiation. The world is yet to find a safe way for disposal of radioactive waste, a factor which is constraining the growth of nuclear power programmes in the developed countries.

The US, UK, Canada, Germany, France, Japan all seem to be reviewing their nuclear energy programmes and commissioning of new nuclear power plants in all these countries has almost come to a stand still. Australia, the biggest supplier of Uranium in the world, is yet to initiate a nuclear power programme. Everybody has realized there is no future in nuclear energy. Advanced countries are looking for alternatives. But because of the parochial vision of our government the ruling class of this country has become obsessed with the nuclear option without any clear understanding of its implications. There seems to be a superficial feeling that this Deal is somehow going to enhance the stature of India in the community of nations. Hence it is matter of vanity and false sense of pride with possibly no concrete benefits for the people of this country.

A Planning Commission study shows that even with the best possible estimates of capacity addition in power generation after the Deal is through, the country is not going to increase its share of electricity from nuclear energy from the present 3% to more than 7-9%. And this would come at a huge cost -- financially and politically. We would be required to bring our foreign policy in line with the US policy as has been already exhibited by India being forced to vote against Iran in the IAEA meeting.

The Indo-US Nuclear Deal is meant to serve the interests of the global nuclear power industry and is a ploy to keep India away from staking claims to shrinking fossil fuel reserves in proportion to its large population so that these reserves may last for some more time for the rich countries.

The undue importance given to the Indo-US Nuclear Deal as opposed to the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline, even though gas is predicted to be the major source of power globally for the next two to three decades, raises questions about the motives of the Indian government.
In the face of unprecedented pressure mounted by the US, the Left Front, a partner in the UPA alliance, must be congratulated for successfully stalling the Indo-US Nuclear Deal up till now. The Deal is now stuck at the stage of finalizing an India specific agreement with the IAEA. The Left party leaders have displayed foresight in foiling the US hegemonic designs in South Asia even though they have yet to take an ideological position against the nuclear power programme. It would make more political, economic and environmental sense for India to pursue a path of self reliant renewable energy programme for fulfilling its need rather than the elusive nuclear energy for which we'll always be at the mercy of external agencies. But then India will have to give up its own hegemonic designs of acting as a regional military super power.

Clean source of energy will have to be accompanied by clean politics. India will have to work on the agenda of regional peace, disarmament and stability rather than converting it into a region of warfare. If Manmohan Singh embarks on this twin objective programme, he would be remembered for his wisdom more than he would be if he were to finalize the Indo-US Nuclear Deal. He would favourably alter the course of history of not only this nation but also possibly the world towards a cleaner, safer and secure future.
Courtesy :Dr Sandeep Pandey.

"Why do I Oppose Indo-U.S Nuclear Deal?"

2008-07-09T08:30:00.000-07:00

I am apprehensive about this deal because of various other reasons as well. Let us consider any treaty or international law with regard to the “respect” the US has been “endowing” upon them!

They have signed CTBT, but not ratified it ,

They have not signed Kyoto protocol,

They don’t care at all about the Geneva Convention ( Check for Rumsfeld, with the torn Geneva Convention Papers, in his hands, in Google!).

They withdrew from the International Court of Justice in 1986,

They have Nelson Mandela listed in the “terrorist list” (After i came to know this, i just could not stop laughing for an hour so. Probably in the 50’s Gandhi, would have been featured in the list!)

They knew there was no WMD in Iraq, but went on to attack them on the basis of their own false allegations!

IAEA- to which India is planning to hold talks about the 123 agreement – have been constantly bringing out reports that Iran doesn’t have enough capabilities to make a nuclear bomb. US is not convinced about this either; with their sheer conviction based on some biblical blathering about Rapture, they are devising an attack on Iran.

It is dangerous. If the US is telling Iran or North Korea against developing nuclear weapons. Even George Bush has described as evil the weapons of mass destruction. So it is wrong for the US to help any other countryThere is an awful lot of noise in the media these days because the dogmatic left parties in India are opposing the Nuclear Deal, the 123 agreement with United States. Left, according to the media is retrograde; they are still stuck in the Soviet era, the cold war hangover. The “rising” India needs energy, which, according to the present Congress government can only be solved by nuclear energy. The left claims, it is more of a strategic deal, the Hyde Act passed by the US Congress will subvert the deal and so on…
So where do I stand on this? I will not get into the technical aspects of the deal, but, the fact is that I don’t really need to delve into technicalities to oppose this deal. I have enough and more reasons that will eclipse the “technical advantage” this deal may provide.
First of all, I would like to ask: Where is that gas pipeline from Iran which we planned for? It has been totally pushed to oblivion; the only minister in the Congress government who pushed this plan was the former (please note!) petroleum minister Mani Shankar Aiyar. He has been booted out of this portfolio a while ago and now, heads the sports ministry, and is in logger heads with all the sports bureaucrats in India. It is Congress’s internal issue that he was booted from the post. But, he actively campaigned for the Iran pipeline, and after he was made to leave, the petroleum ministry never uttered a word about this pipeline! Sources say: the American administration was not very happy with Mani; the self proclaimed leftist in the congress government. So that’s what he gets: a bloody boot! Having Mani as the petroleum minister who wanted to realize the pipeline would have irked the American administration as they are waiting for an opportunity to bring “Democracy in Iran” and make the government in Iran “accountable to the people”. As we all know, America is doing a tremendous job with Iraq! So we have been made to completely forget this pipeline by the media, as it is not acceptable to America and we still claim we have an independent foreign policy.
I am trying to dissect the sheer apprehension in me, about India signing a nuclear deal with them. Vikram Sood writes in The Hindu: “For the U.S., it was part of a larger game plan. The deal was a means to cap India’ s strategic programme, provide access to India’s growing defence market, and become a strategic partner in U.S. foreign policy initiatives globally. One of the abiding primary bipartisan U.S. objectives has been to restrict, roll back and cap the Indian strategic deterrent.”

I still believe that this more of a strategic partnership than it being a simple nuclear deal. Dogmatic, you would say. US, with a tie-up with General Musharaff has been meddling around with our neighbor for a long while, but has not gained anything in particular, other than some hostility from the ultra-right wing groups in the region. With Russia and China building up strategic partnership through Shanghai Cooperation Organisation , joined military exercises and forthright comments from the hard man Putin against the unipolar world, the leftover major player in this area is India, with a susceptible Prime Minister in Manmohan Singh. So, this deal is definitely more than a simple nuclear deal!

So what is wrong with having a nuclear deal which is not exactly a nuclear deal alone? Vikram Sood goes on writing in The Hindu: “The deal was supposed to give India several benefits but the pressure to sign the deal by a specific deadline mostly came from the Americans, almost as if India was being hustled into this. The old principle of never ever signing anything in a hurry was abandoned. The Japanese, for instance, spent seven years discussing the deal before signing it. The China-U.S. 123 agreement of 1985 specifically states that both sides would observe the principle of international law under which neither party could invoke a domestic law to justify failure to perform a treaty. The India-U.S. 123 agreement does not have this safeguard.” If Japan, an outright ally of US, could take seven years in studying and charting out the repercussions of such a deal, why are we especially Manmohan Singh in a hurry? Is it that US needs an ally in us when they attack Iran? Russia and China have big business interests in Iran, they would not come out in support for the attack. As India has been restricted in laying the gas pipeline, we are not at stake if they attack Iran and some coaxing/bullying will enable USA to get us on their side. Though it is unlikely that we will send any troops or ammunitions, but we keeping silent, when such a blatant aggression takes place is more than enough for us to be on their side. So, there is no wonder US is pushing for another deal, along with the Nuclear one called Access and Cross Servicing Agreement, which will inevitably provide logistical support for US from different locations in India. I am not confident enough to make a statement on the part of our people about their knowledge that Iran shares a boundary with Afghanistan, and a logistical base in India for the US of A will not be a bad idea for their future plans of offering a “shock and awe” treatment for Iran!

They have been blatantly attacking nations doting all over the globe! They also maintain around 700 military settlements across continents. Their view of the world has a more uni-polar nature, where they tend to boss around.
So, where is our assurance that the US of A will abide all those clauses in the 123 Agreement? Their credentials from the past does not assure me that they will.

It is ridiculous and callous that our media is trying to simplify the issue as a dogmatic subservience. It shows the struggle of Indian Left, which failed to carve an identity of their own in this country. So, the middle class in India, catered by columns from the ilk of Tavleen Singh, who came on an NDTV discussion, with her perky mannerisms said, “ the model of democracy which US brought about in Afghanistan is wonderful”, are misled.

Her claim almost put me in bouts of laughter, pushed me in to a sense of sympathy, which later, turned into rage. I wonder, if there is any difference between her and a US spokesperson. So, it is not surprising to see the Indian, angrezi-speaking, middle class, supporting the Congress in their act of signing the deal, and vilifying the Left. I believe that it is crass on the part of the Indian media, to reduce this issue as a mere dogmatic subservience. When media affirm this point time and again, they fail to consider the point the Left is trying to raise, and is restricting them from having a voice of their own. This voice raised by the Left is to be considered, when Russia and China hardly matters as sources of inspiration for them anymore.

To conclude, personally, I am reluctant to accept the “clauses” offered by an American system, which I know is totally flawed, corrupted, and brazen on all fronts!
http://tushizap.wordpress.com/2007/09/07/why-i-oppose-the-nulcear-deal/

How To Write And Publish Your Own Book

2008-06-27T07:42:00.000-07:00

There are great rewards when writing a book for the first time. Free ArticlesThere is a great sense of accomplishment by the individual person once they have a complete manuscript in their hand.The other reward is obviously money; if you write a good book that is marketed correctly you will receive a reward.Depending on how well you market your book will depend on the size of the pay cheque.The first step to writing a good book is…Writing the book.Start on your computer or with a piece of paper and start writing; don’t go back to correct spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, sentences that don’t make sense. Just keep writing.Set yourself a target each day, say you want to write 20 pages in a day, then stick to it and do it.In a short amount of time, hopefully in less than two weeks you will have a rough manuscript.The next step is to get your book proof read and copy edited. The copy editor will make any grammatical changes, correct spelling mistakes and get your book reading well.You then need to design the layout of your book, this is important because the book must have sufficient gaps, payout in the correct paces so the readers don’t get tired.You then need to design a cover for your book, you can do this yourself or you can find a cover designer on the Internet.Next you need to get an ISBN number; you can usually find these on the Internet. You can buy these from a few sources; the best price I have seen them for is $55.00.All books need printing, and you need to find a printing company, I would suggest Gardeners or Book Force. Upload your book to their websites; they will take care of all the printing and distribution for you.The penultimate step is to deposit your books in the legal deposit library; this is a requirement that 6 copies of each book written need to be deposited to qualify as an actual book.The final step is to register a book registration company; in the UK it’s Nielsons Book Data. You need to find out what it is in the USA. If you are a resident there.You all done, your book will appear on Amazon and other online book shops, all you have to do is go out and promote your book.Get out on the road, hire a PR agency, get on your local radio station, write to the newspapers.Good Luck and Good Writing.

Christopher Angus is a writer and promotes the following sites: http://www.mdhsasbestosconsultants.com/ http://www.the-printing-company.com/ http://www.everest-oxfordshire.co.uk/. » Read more articles by Chris Angus

Food, Water And Fuel:Three Fundamental Necessities Of Life In Jeopardy.

2008-06-10T07:04:00.000-07:00

We are at the crossroads of the most serious economic and social crisis in modern history. The process of global impoverishment unleashed at the outset of the 1980s debt crisis has reached a major turning point, leading to the simultaneous outbreak of famines in all major regions of the developing World.
There are many complex features underlying the global economic crisis pertaining to financial markets, the decline in production, the collapse of State institutions and the rapid development of a profit-driven war economy. What is rarely mentioned in this analysis, is how this global economic restructuring forcibly impinges on three fundamental necessities of life: food, water and fuel.
The provision of food, water and fuel is a precondition of civilized society: they are necessary factors for the survival of the human species. In recent years, the prices of these three variables has increased dramatically at the global level, with devastating economic and social consequences.
These three essential goods or commodities, which in a real sense determine the reproduction of economic and social life on planet earth, are under the control of a small number of global corporations and financial institutions.
Both the State as well as the gamut of international organizations --often referred to as the "international community"-- serve the unfettered interests of global capitalism. The main intergovernmental bodies including the United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions and the World Trade Organizations (WTO) have endorsed the New World Order on behalf of their corporate sponsors. Governments in both developed and developing countries have abandoned their historical role of regulating key economic variables as well as ensuring a minimum livelihood for their people.
Protest movements directed against the hikes in the prices of food and gasoline have erupted simultaneously in different regions of the World. The conditions are particularly critical in Haiti, Nicaragua, Guatemala, India, Bangladesh. Spiraling food and fuel prices in Somalia have precipitated the entire country into a situation of mass starvation, coupled with severe water shortages. A similar and equally serious situation prevails in Ethiopia.
Other countries affected by spiraling food prices include Indonesia, the Philippines, Liberia, Egypt, Sudan, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Eritrea, a long list of impoverished countries..., not to mention those under foreign military occupation including Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.
Deregulation
The provision of food, water and fuel are no longer the object of governmental or intergovernmental regulation or intervention, with a view to alleviating poverty or averting the outbreak of famines.
The fate of millions of human beings is managed behind closed doors in the corporate boardrooms as part of a profit driven agenda.
And because these powerful economic actors operate through a seemingly neutral and "invisible" market mechanism, the devastating social impacts of engineered hikes in the prices of food, fuel and water are casually dismissed as the result of supply and demand considerations.
Nature of the Global Economic and Social Crisis
Largely obfuscated by official and media reports, both the " food crisis" and the " oil crisis" are the result of the speculative manipulation of market values by powerful economic actors.
We are not dealing with distinct and separate food, fuel and water "crises" but with a global process of economic and social restructuring.
The dramatic price hikes of these three essential commodities is not haphazard. All three variables, including the prices of basic food staples, water for production and consumption and fuel are the object of a process of deliberate and simultaneous market manipulation.
At the heart of the food crisis is the rising price of food staples coupled with a dramatic increase in the price of fuel.
Concurrently, the price of water which is an essential input into agricultural and industrial production, social infrastructure, public sanitation and household consumption has increased abruptly as a result of a Worldwide movement to privatize water resources.
We are dealing with a major economic and social upheaval, an unprecedented global crisis, characterized by the triangular relationship between water, food and fuel: three fundamental variables, which together affect the very means of human survival.
In very concrete terms, these price hikes impoverish and destroy peoples lives. Moreover, the Worldwide collapse in living standards is occurring at a time of war. It is intimately related to the military agenda. The war in the Middle East bears a direct relationship to the control over oil and water reserves.
While water is not at present an internationally trade commodity in the same way as oil and food staples, it is also the object of market manipulation through the privatization of water.
The economic and financial actors operating behind closed doors, are:
- the major Wall Street banks and financial houses, including the institutional speculators which play a direct role in commodity markets including the oil and food markets
-The Anglo-American oil giants, including British Petroleum (BP), ExxonMobil, Chevron-Texaco, Royal Dutch Shell
-The biotech-agribusiness conglomerates, which own the intellectual property rights on seeds and farm inputs. The biotech companies are also major actors on the NY and Chicago mercantile exchanges.
-The water giants including Suez, Veolia and Bechtel-United Utilities, involved in the extensive privatization of the World's water resources.
-The Anglo-American military-industrial complex which includes the big five US defense contractors (Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grunman, Boeing and General Dynamics) in alliance with British Aerospace Systems Corporation (BAES) constitutes a powerful overlapping force, closely aligned with Wall Street, the oil giants and the agribusiness-biotech conglomerates.
The Oil Price Bubble
The movement in global prices on the New York and Chicago mercantile exchanges bears no relationship to the costs of producing oil. The spiraling price of crude oil is not the result of a shortage of oil. It is estimated that the cost of a barrel of oil in the Middle East does not exceed 15 dollars. The costs of a barrel of oil extracted from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, is of the order of $30 (Antoine Ayoub, Radio Canada, May 2008)
The price of crude oil is currently in excess of $120 a barrel. This market price is largely the result of the speculative onslaught.
Fuel enters into the production of virtually all areas of manufacturing, agriculture and the services economy. The hikes in fuel prices have contributed, in all major regions of the World, to precipitating tens of thousands of small and medium sized businesses into bankruptcy as well as undermining and potentially paralyzing the channels of domestic and international trade.
The increased cost of gasoline at the retail level is leading to the demise of local level economies, increased industrial concentration and a massive centralization of economic power in the hands of a small number of global corporations. In turn, the hikes in fuel backlash on the urban transit system, schools and hospitals, the trucking industry, intercontinental shipping, airline transportation, tourism, recreation and most public services.
Inflation
The rise in fuel prices unleashes a broader inflationary process which results in a compression of real purchasing power and a consequent Worldwide decline in consumer demand. All major sectors of society, including the middle classes in the developed countries are affected.
These price movements are dictated by the commodity markets. They are the result of speculative trade in index funds, futures and options on major commodity markets including the London ICE, the New York and Chicago mercantile exchanges.
The dramatic price hikes are not the result of a shortage of fuel, food or water.
This upheaval in the global economy is deliberate. The State's economic and financial policies are controlled by private corporate interests. Speculative trade is not the object of regulatory policies. The economic depression contributes to wealth formation, to enhancing the power of a handful of global corporations
According to William Engdahl;
"... At least 60% of the 128 per barrel price of crude oil comes from unregulated futures speculation by hedge funds, banks and financial groups using the London ICE Futures and New York NYMEX futures exchanges and uncontrolled inter-bank or Over-The-Counter trading to avoid scrutiny. US margin rules of the government's Commodity Futures Trading Commission allow speculators to buy a crude oil futures contract on the Nymex, by having to pay only 6% of the value of the contract. At today's price of $128 per barrel, that means a futures trader only has to put up about $8 for every barrel. He borrows the other $120. This extreme 'leverage' of 16 to 1 helps drive prices to wildly unrealistic levels and offset bank losses in sub-prime and other disasters at the expense of the overall population. (See More on the real reason behind high oil prices, Global Research, May 2008)
Among the main players in the speculative market for crude oil are Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, British Petroleum (BP), the French banking conglomerate Société Générale, Bank of America, the largest Bank in the US, and Switzerland's Mercuria. (See Miguel Angel Blanco, La Clave, Madrid, June 2008)
British Petroleum controls the London based International Petroleum Exchange (IPE), which is one of the world's largest energy futures and options exchanges. Among IPE's major shareholders are Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
According to Der Spiegel, Morgan Stanley is one of the main institutional actors in the London based speculative oil market (IPE). According to Le Monde, France's Société Générale together with Bank of America and Deutsche Bank have been involved in spreading rumors with a view to pushing up the price of crude oil. (See Miguel Angel Blanco, La Clave, Madrid, June 2008)
Spiraling Food Prices
The global food crisis, characterized by major hikes in the prices of basic food staples, has spearheaded millions of people around the World into starvation and chronic deprivation.
According to the FAO, the price of grain staples has increased by 88% since March 2007. The price of wheat has increased by 181% over a three year period. The price of rice has increased by 50% over the last three months (See Ian Angus, Food Crisis: "The greatest demonstration of the historical failure of the capitalist model", Global Research, April 2008):
The price of rice has tripled over a five year period, from approximately 600$ a ton in 2003 to more than 1800$ a ton in May 2008. (see chart below)
"The most popular grade of Thailand rice sold for $198 a ton, five years ago and $323 a ton a year ago. In April 2008, the price hit $1,000. Increases are even greater on local markets — in Haiti, the market price of a 50 kilo bag of rice doubled in one week at the end of March 2008. These increases are catastrophic for the 2.6 billion people around the world who live on less than US$2 a day and spend 60% to 80% of their incomes on food. Hundreds of millions cannot afford to eat" (Ibid)
The main actors in the grain market are Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). These two corporate giants control a large share of the global grain market. They are also involved in speculative transactions in futures and options on the NYMEX and the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT). In the US, "the world's largest grower of GM crops, Cargill, ADM and competitor Zen Noh between them control 81 per cent of all maize exports and 65 per cent of all soyabean exports." ( Greg Muttitt, Control Freaks, Cargill and ADM, The Ecologist, March, 2001)
Background of Agricultural Reform
Since the early 1980s coinciding with the onslaught of the debt crisis, the gamut of neoliberal macroeconomic policy reforms have largely contributed to undermining local agriculture. Over the last 25 years, food farming in developing countries has been destabilized and destroyed by the imposition of IMF-World Bank reforms.
Commodity dumping of grain surpluses from the US, Canada and the European Union has led to the demise of food self-sufficiency and the destruction of the local peasant economy. In turn, this process has resulted in multibillion dollar profits for Western agribusiness, resulting from import contracts by developing countries, which are no longer able to produce their own food.
These preexisting historical conditions of mass poverty have been exacerbated and aggravated by the recent surge in grain prices, which have led in some cases to the doubling of the retail price of food staples.
The price hikes has also been exacerbated by the use of corn to produce ethanol. In 2007, global production of corn was of the order of 12.32 billion bushels of which 3.2 billion were used for ethanol production. Almost 40 percent of corn production in the US will be channeled towards ethanol
Genetically Modified Seeds
Coinciding with the establishment the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, another important historical change has occurred in the structure of global agriculture.
Under the articles of agreement of the World Trade Organization (WTO)), the food giants have been granted unrestricted freedom to enter the seeds' markets of developing countries.
The acquisition of exclusive "intellectual property rights" over plant varieties by international agro-industrial interests, also favors the destruction of bio-diversity.
Acting on behalf of a handful of biotech conglomerates GMO seeds have been imposed on farmers, often in the context of "food aid programs". In Ethiopia, for instance, kits of GMO seeds were handed out to impoverished farmers with a view to rehabilitating agricultural production in the wake of a major drought.
The GMO seeds were planted, yielding a harvest. But then the farmer came to realize that the GMO seeds could not be replanted without paying royalties to Monsanto, Arch Daniel Midland et al.
Then, the farmers discovered that the seeds would harvest only if they used the farm inputs including the fertilizer, insecticide and herbicide, produced and distributed by the biotech agribusiness companies. Entire peasant economies were locked into the grip of the agribusiness conglomerates.
The main biotech giants in GMO include Monsanto, Syngenta, Aventis, DuPont, Dow Chemical, Cargill and Arch Daniel Midland.
Breaking The Agricultural Cycle
With the widespread adoption of GMO seeds, a major transition has occurred in the structure and history of settled agriculture since its inception 10,000 years ago.
The reproduction of seeds at the village level in local nurseries has been disrupted by the use of genetically modified seeds. The agricultural cycle, which enables farmers to store their organic seeds and plant them to reap the next harvest has been broken. This destructive pattern – invariably resulting in famine – is replicated in country after country leading to the Worldwide demise of the peasant economy.
The FAO- World Bank Consensus
At the June 2008 FAO Rome Summit on the food crisis, politicians and economic analysts alike embraced the free market consensus: the outbreak of famines was presented as a result of the usual supply, demand and climatic considerations, beyond the control of policy-makers. "The solution": channel emergency relief to affected areas under the auspices of the World Food Program (WFP). Do not intervene with the interplay of market forces.
Ironically, these " expert opinions" are refuted by the data on global grain production: the FAO forecasts for world cereal production point to a record output in 2008.
Contradicting their own textbook explanations, World prices are, according to the World Bank, expected to remain high, despite the forcasted increased supply of food staples.
State regulation of the prices of food staples and gasoline is not considered an option in the corridors of the FAO and the World Bank. And of course that is what is taught in the economics departments of America's most prestigious universities.
Meanwhile, local level farmgate prices barely cover production costs, spearheading the peasant economy into bankruptcy.
The Privatization of Water
According to UN sources, which vastly underestimate the seriousness of the water crisis, one billion people worldwide (15% of the World population) have no access to clean water "and 6,000 children die every day because of infections linked to unclean water" (BBC News, 24 March 2004)
A handful of global corporations including Suez, Veolia, Bechtel-United Utilities, Thames Water and Germany's RWE-AG are acquiring control and ownership over public water utilities and waste management. Suez and Veolia hold about 70 percent of the privatized water systems Worldwide.
The privatization of water under World Bank auspices feeds on the collapse of the system of public distribution of safe tap drinking water: "The World Bank serves the interests of water companies both through its regular loan programs to governments, which often come with conditions that explicitly require the privatization of water provision..." (Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke, Water Privatization: The World Bank's Latest Market Fantasy, Polaris Institute, Ottawa, 2004))
"The modus operandi [in India] is clear -- neglect development of water resources [under World Bank budget austerity measures], claim a "resource crunch" and allow existing systems to deteriorate." (Ann Ninan, Private Water, Public Misery, India Resource Center April 16, 2003)
Meanwhile, the markets for bottled water have been appropriated by a handful of corporations including Coca-Cola, Danone, Nestlé and PepsiCo. These companies not only work hand in glove with the water utility companies, they are linked up to the agribusiness-biotech companies involved in the food industry. Tap water is purchased by Coca-Cola from a municipal water facility and then resold on a retail basis. It is estimated that in the US, 40 percent of bottled water is tap water. (See, Jared Blumenfeld, Susan Leal The real cost of bottled water, San Francisco Chronicle, February 18, 2007)
In India, Coca-Cola has contributed to the depletion of ground water to the detriment of local communities:
"Communities across India living around Coca-Cola's bottling plants are experiencing severe water shortages, directly as a result of Coca-Cola's massive extraction of water from the common groundwater resource. The wells have run dry and the hand water pumps do not work any more. Studies, including one by the Central Ground Water Board in India, have confirmed the significant depletion of the water table.
When the water is extracted from the common groundwater resource by digging deeper, the water smells and tastes strange. Coca-Cola has been indiscriminately discharging its waste water into the fields around its plant and sometimes into rivers, including the Ganges, in the area. The result has been that the groundwater has been polluted as well as the soil. Public health authorities have posted signs around wells and hand pumps advising the community that the water is unfit for human consumption....
Tests conducted by a variety of agencies, including the government of India, confirmed that Coca-Cola products contained high levels of pesticides, and as a result, the Parliament of India has banned the sale of Coca-Cola in its cafeteria. However, Coca-Cola not only continues to sell drinks laced with poisons in India (that could never be sold in the US and EU), it is also introducing new products in the Indian market. And as if selling drinks with DDT and other pesticides to Indians was not enough, one of Coca-Cola's latest bottling facilities to open in India, in Ballia, is located in an area with a severe contamination of arsenic in its groundwater.(India Resource Center, Coca-Cola Crisis in India, undated)
In developing countries, the hikes in fuel prices have increased the costs of boiling tap water by households, which in turn favors the privatization of water resources.
In the more advanced phase of water privatization, the actual ownership of lakes and rivers by private corporations is contemplated. Mesopotamia was not only invaded for its extensive oil resources, the Valley of the two rivers (Tigris and Euphrates) has extensive water reserves.
Concluding Remarks
We are dealing with a complex and centralized constellation of economic power in which the instruments of market manipulation have a direct bearing on the lives of millions of people.
The prices of food, water, fuel are determined at the global level, beyond the reach of national government policy. The price hikes of these three essential commodities constitute an instrument of "economic warfare", carried out through the "free market" on the futures and options exchanges.
These hikes in the prices of food, water and fuel are contributing in a very real sense to "eliminating the poor" through "starvation deaths". The sugar coated bullets of the "free market" kill our children. The act to kill is instrumented in a detached fashion through computer program trading on the commodity exchanges, where the global prices of rice, wheat and corn are decided upon.
'The Commission on Population Growth and the American Future'
But we are not dealing solely with market concepts. The outbreak of famines in different parts of the World, resulting from spiraling food and fuel prices have broad strategic and geopolitical implications.
President Richard Nixon at the outset of his term in office in 1969 asserted "his belief that overpopulation gravely threatens world peace and stability." Henry Kissinger, who at the time was Nixon's National Security adviser, directed various agencies of government to jointly undertake “a study of the impact of world population growth on U.S. security and overseas interests.”
In March 1970, the U.S. Congress set up a Commission on Population Growth and the American Future. (See Center for Research on Population and Security). The Commission was no ordinary Task Force. It integrated representatives from USAID, the State Department and the Department of Agriculture with CIA and Pentagon officials. Its objective was not to assist developing countries but rather to curb World population with a view to serving US strategic and national security interests. The Commission also viewed population control as a means to ensuring a stable and secure environment for US investors as well as gaining control over developing countries' mineral and petroleum resources.
This Commission completed its work in December 1974 and circulated a classified document entitled National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests" to "designated Secretaries and Agency heads for their review and comments." In November 1975, the report and its recommendations were endorsed by President Gerald Ford.
Kissinger had indeed intimated in the context of the National Security Study Memorandum 200 (NSSSM 200) that the recurrence of famines, disease and war could constitute a de facto instrument of population control.
Although the NSSM 200 report did not assign, for obvious reasons, an explicit policy role to famine formation, it nonetheless intimated that the occurrence of famines could, under certain circumstances, provide a de facto solution to overpopulation:
"Accordingly, those countries where large-scale hunger and malnutrition are already present face the bleak prospect of little, if any, improvement in the food intake in the years ahead barring a major foreign financial food aid program, more rapid expansion of domestic food production, reduced population growth or some combination of all three. Worse yet, a series of crop disasters could transform some of them into classic Malthusian cases with famines involving millions of people.
While foreign assistance probably will continue to be forthcoming to meet short-term emergency situations like the threat of mass starvation, it is more questionable whether aid donor countries will be prepared to provide the sort of massive food aid called for by the import projections on a long-term continuing basis.
Reduced population growth rates clearly could bring significant relief over the longer term.....
In the extreme cases where population pressures lead to endemic famine, food riots, and breakdown of social order, those conditions are scarcely conducive to systematic exploration for mineral deposits or the long-term investments required for their exploitation. Short of famine, unless some minimum of popular aspirations for material improvement can be satisfied, and unless the terms of access and exploitation persuade governments and peoples that this aspect of the international economic order has "something in it for them," concessions to foreign companies are likely to be expropriated or subjected to arbitrary intervention. Whether through government action, labor conflicts, sabotage, or civil disturbance, the smooth flow of needed materials will be jeopardized. Although population pressure is obviously not the only factor involved, these types of frustrations are much less likely under conditions of slow or zero population growth."
(1974 National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests". (emphasis added)
The report concludes with a couple of key questions pertaining to the role of food as "an instrument of national power", which could be used in the pursuit of US strategic interests.
"On what basis should such food resources then be provided? Would food be considered an instrument of national power? Will we be forced to make choices as to whom we can reasonably assist, and if so, should population efforts be a criterion for such assistance? Is the U.S. prepared to accept food rationing to help people who can't/won't control their population growth?" (Ibid, emphasis added)In the words of Henry Kissinger: "Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people."
© Copyright Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 2008
The url address of this article is: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9191

Commodity futures and Inflation

2008-06-03T10:15:00.000-07:00

Karan Sharma*

Commodity futures represent a bet on commodity prices; they are directly linked to the components of inflation. Second, because futures prices include information about foreseeable trends in commodity prices, they rise and fall with unexpected deviations from components of inflation. This is exactly why futures do well when stocks and bonds perform poorly.
Commodity futures returns are negatively correlated with stock returns. Commodity futures have opposite exposures to unexpected inflation from stocks and bonds. It is tempting to put both together and ask: does the opposite exposure to unexpected inflation account for the negative correlation between commodity futures and stocks and bonds? Preliminary findings suggest that this only part of the story behind the negative correlations.
India's high inflation rate, hitting three-year highs at more than 7% and coming amid record food grain production, is prompting demands for a ban on the increasing trade in food commodity derivatives. The Wholesale Price Index for food grains touched a record 222.8 this month, up from 210.4 a year earlier as the overall commodities derivatives market has climbed to an average of more than US$3 billion in daily trading turnover. The government, which a year ago banned trading of rice and wheat futures, appointed a now 13-month-old, four-member expert committee to check if a future trading is causing food prices to soar. The expert committee, expected to issue its findings on Monday, April 28, was forecast to refrain from recommending an immediate or future ban on futures trading in certain commodities. Futures trading aims to offset market risks and get better prices to producer, marketer and consumer, but the current inflationary crisis has intensified debate as to whether the gap is widening between rosy free market theories and the reality of unscrupulous market manipulation. Statistics point to an increasing rush in investments into the global commodities market, with a Citibank report claiming that investments in commodity indexes increased by $40 billion to $185 billion between January and March this year, a bigger gain than in the entire 2007. Yet commodity futures market keepers deny any link between the increase in investor interest in commodity trading and rising prices. "That futures trading in commodities causes’ inflation is a spurious co-relation," Prabhakar Patil, director of the Mumbai-based regulator Forward Markets Commission, told Asia Times Online. "Historically in democracies, a future trading has often been blamed for inflation and commodities banned from being traded, a trend going back to the 19th century." The Indian government banned futures trading in urad and tur (two popular pulses widely used in Indian cuisine), rice and wheat in February 2007, but government policies increasingly appear caught by conflicting tussles between various economic and political forces, within and outside the government.
Internal conflict has infected the Planning Commission, India's leading economic think-tank. Its deputy chairman, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, has strongly dismissed calls for a ban on futures trading in commodities and instead recommends a better-regulated futures market. But Ahluwalia's Planning Commission colleague Abhijit Sen, who heads the committee studying the impact of futures trading on commodity prices, conceded that the futures market could be responsible for price increases, an admission that immediately prompted a meeting of the committee on April 23 to sort out the difference of views. No consensus was reached. Market analysts believe otherwise. In an article headlined "Who pushes up your food prices? Gamblers!" the India-based trade site Commodities Online says, "The enormous influx of capital has resulted in the futures markets no longer reflecting supply and demand. Ironically, investors have placed their wildest bets on staple foods. Information about supply bottlenecks and famines at the other end of the world is not noted on market quotations." Studies by the Switzerland-based Bank of International Settlements (BIS) have also concluded a clear co-relation between the volume of derivative trading in commodities to sharp rise in commodity prices. India's fast growing commodity exchanges has grown 50-fold in barely five years and could expand to $1.8 trillion by 2010, according to an industry body report. People's Democracy, the weekly mouthpiece of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) demanded in an April 20 editorial that futures trading in 25 agricultural commodities be banned. Not just the communists, but India's leading industry body the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India also on April 20 called for a temporary ban on futures trading until the price rise crisis is reversed. Farmer groups are not impressed either. "Despite the good [food crop] production, there is a deliberate manipulation of the market," wrote Krishan Bir Chaudhary, president of the New Delhi-based Bharatiya Krishak Samaj (Indian Farmers Forum). "The farmers do not gain in the process as they are paid relatively lower prices than what the corporate houses quote on the futures exchanges or in the spot market, or at what the retail chains sell to the consumers." Chaudhary has called for the government to reject "this neo-liberal and corporate-led agriculture model and replaced it by a farmer-centric one". India joined the global furor and confusion whether commodity speculators and hoarders are part of the problems driving up prices, amid fears of the worst global food crisis unfolding since World War II. Josette Sheeran, executive director of the United Nations World Food Program, said on April 22 that rising food prices would leave 100 million people hungry in every continent.
Soaring food prices of rice, wheat and other staple grains are hitting the world's most vulnerable sections, say aid agency officials. The Rome-based United Nations World Food Program, that serves over 80 million people in 78 countries, revealed that food aid for 20 million of the world's poorest children will be reduced. Rice prices in Asia soared by 68% in a year, provoking the world's leading rice exporters such as India and Vietnam to ban exports of popular rice varieties, a move deepening anxiety of decreasing supply and increasing prices. Suspicions of artificial inflation could increase. Food grain production in India is set to touch record levels of 227.32 million tonnes (mt) this season (July 2007 to June 2008), up 4.6% from the year-on-year period in 2006-07, according to the third Advance Estimates of production of major crops grown in India. India's stance in the commodities market could prominently feature in the next round of the contentious World Trade Organization talks in Doha, Qatar, tentatively slated later this summer. The governmental dilemma seems a no-win situation born out of largely ignoring the agricultural sector until the pre-election year.

*Associate,Bank of America Continuum Solutions

What is Bush good for?...oil greed and wars

2008-05-23T08:33:00.000-07:00

This President had had the rarest reputation of bringing disrepute to the US

THOUGH THE world is not worried much about its continued existence, thanks to the interference of an ordinary mortal like George Bush, it is a good idea to ask an individual question to each one of us – what is Bush good for? The question may sound simple enough, but answering the question may demand a little sense of humour and a tinge of cynicism.

The former requirement, sense of humour, is what the world comes to experience as and when Bush makes a statement on international affairs, and the second requirement, cynicism, is what goes into the making of such comments. See some of his comments and suggestions on international affairs.

“The US would help the oil giant Saudi Arabia to protect its oil reserves.” What does the world understand when it listens to such a comment? A comment is made by whom? And what is he commenting on? When was he making the comment? Where does price of oil per barrel stand in the international market?

“We are happy to assist Saudi Arabia to generate nuclear energy.” What does Saudi Arabia need more than this? Are not the Arabs powerful enough now to dictate oil terms with the rest of the world? They are. Still as Bush needs to be good for the world, he is offering a little help to the ’king’.

When it is of Palestine, Bush cannot resist making a comment that ’independent statehood is what is needed to keep peace in this part of the world’. Since the rest of the world is left with lasting peace, thanks to Bush incorporated, and as Iran is staying in where it has always been, now it is time and the same is ripe for Palestine and then Egypt. Again Bush is becoming of some good to the world order.

Closely following the comment that it is Indian middle-class that is eating away the due food shares of the rest of the world, he had come up with yet another comment on Kashmir the other day. “It is time India and Pakistan found a solution to Kashmir issue.” Are we not going to respond to that comment? A brokerage from America would work wonders in bringing peace in the borders.

His West Asian regional tour focussing on peace comes to close this week, he would have made himself good to a lot of communities around the world, and by the time he leaves office not very soon, the world community would, including those bereaved families of thousands of American marines who got killed around the world, record in their respective histories that there was a president in America who had been good, not at keeping the world peaceful but ensuring the rest of the world in pieces and geopolitical regions.

How can mainstream Muslims perceive Bush or the United States as respecting Islam when their overwhelming propaganda machine is producing this torrential flow of anti-Muslim terminology and their overpowering war machine is disintegrating Muslim societies to pre-state age, allegedly to defend the freedom of American people. How could a leader secure his people's freedom when he deprives other peoples of their freedoms!. His global war on terrorism targets "Islamic terrorism" almost exclusively. "Till recently, of the 36 organisations on the U.S. State Department's banned list, 24 were Muslim. The rest were Basque and Irish separatists and leftist groups. There were no Christian, Buddhist or Hindu groups. The State Department also lists 26 countries whose nationals represent an 'elevated security risk' to the U.S. Barring North Korea, all are Muslim-majority countries."
And Bush still can't come to grips with the question of "Why they hate us." Bush's line: "They hate us because of our freedoms."
No Mr. President, they hate you because your administration and its predecessors have been for decades depriving them of their liberty, freedoms, resources and elected governments, in a historic trend that extends from removing an elected leader in Iran in the 1950s because of his nationalizing the oil and replacing him by the Shah, a brutal dictator, to suffocating the Palestinian people to squeeze out the elected Hamas-led government from power in 2006.
Bush's scare tactics aimed at American public should not blur the divide in Bush's WWIII. The battle lines should be redrawn to be between U.S. and Israeli militarism and military occupation and expansion and the liberation movements that were led by nationalists or Pan-Arabists in the 20th century and now are led by Islamists.

Bush's religious terminology is shooting his unreligious war in the legs, antagonizing not only the mainstream Muslims but also the non-Muslim large Christian minority in the midst of their ethnic compatriots because this minority feels threatened by his inciting anti-Muslim propaganda, which creates an explosive antagonistic environment that plays in the hands of the same extremists whom he uses as a scapegoat for his unjust pre-emptive wars.
However, Muslims and especially Arabs are very well aware that the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the former USSR have made Islam a useful scapegoat for tightening the US grip on the unipolar world. Books by the Orientalist Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations became popular in the west because they promoted the idea that Islam was the main threat to Western "civilization."
They are also aware that this war to establish total and lasting U.S. global hegemony, a sort of modern-day Roman Empire, is spearheaded in the heartland of Muslims and Islam, the Arab world, where all the regimes are targeted sooner or later; it makes no difference whether they are Islamic, Islamist, secular, liberal, or Pan-Arab regimes, monarchies or republics.

And this President had had the rarest reputation of bringing disrepute not only to the US but to the rest of the world too. What, an ordinary mortal like Bush, is good for after all? Good for not a good thing!

Democracy: Inclusion Or Exclusion?

2008-05-19T10:20:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama, who is in the race for being nominated as presidential candidate for America, made a remarkable speech on race relations in America. It was not merely complaining about discrimination against blacks (African Americans) but it was about extending hand of friendship towards whites so that people of America could stand together and form a more perfect union.
In fact he began by referring to the opening sentence of the constitution of America "We the people, in order to form a more perfect union" The Indian constitution also opens with "we the people of India". Obama was seeking reconciliation as a statesman and a country looks to such leaders who have grace, a future vision and seek to unite and refrain from dividing.

Those who seek to divide for the sake of power will ultimately be thrown on the dustbin of history. They may come to power momentarily but will never rule the hearts of people, would never command any respect. Hitler though most powerful in his country, was hated in his own lifetime and in his own country it is crime to take his name and Hitler is no exception.

And we live in a democratic system and democracy is noting if not inclusive. A true democrate tries to include everyone in power and fruits of development. Democracy unites everyone through inclusion as exclusion of any section of the population would prove to be divisive. Fathers of our constitution reserved jobs and parliamentary seats for the Scheduled castes and tribes precisely for this reason so that they are also included. It was based on future vision of unity and inclusion.
The African Americans were excluded from power structure in America for long. They were brought as slaves and treated as slave even long after slavery was abolished. It needed leader like Martin Luther King to campaign for their inclusion in early sixties. He also did not adopt the way of conflict but of non-violence and reconciliation. He adopted Gandhian way and infused confidence in African Americans in USA and gave them sense of pride and equal partners in American system.
White racialists tried to exclude them, hated them and deprived them of their due rights. White racists lost and blacks won and policy of positive discrimination was adopted by America in order to do justice to African Americans. Barack Obama addressing the people of America thus said, "What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and reality."
He also said, in the same speech, "Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African-Americans and white Americans." It is great moment for America that it has risen above its white racialism, though after a great struggle. It is moment of glory indeed, perhaps the moment when we can say slavery has indeed been abolished, not only from the constitution but also from the hearts and minds of the people.
India also produced great leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru who rose above all communal prejudices and struggled to make India secular. But like America it is taking long time to become truly secular. America abolished slavery from its constitution long ago but it took more than a century to abolish it from hearts and minds of people. We in India abolished communalism from our constitution and all forms of discrimination in 1950 itself while proclaiming our constitution but both caste and communalism is still well entrenched in our hearts and minds.
Our politicians further keep on dividing us to satiate their lust for power. After Gandhi and Nehru and Maulana Azad we have failed to produce any statespersons. On the eve of partition when communal bloodbath was taking place it was this trinity of Gandhi, Nehru and Azad who again enthused sense of unity and confidence, especially among the people of India. Maulana Azad with his great speech delivered from the steps of Jama Masjid to build the confidence among the completely shaken and shattered.
However, the coming generations of leaders could not build upon this, though our constitution did imbibe these ideals. The gap between ideals and the real has increased over the years thanks to petty political interests. Mahatma Gandhi and others launched civil disobedience movement to break the colonial stranglehold. Now, like King Martin Luther Jr. we have to launch a civil rights movement to make our democracy truly inclusive changing our hearts and minds.
True test of our democracy would be when any deserving citizen of India, be he/she tribal, dalit, Muslim, Christian, Parsi or Sikh can become prime minister of India. It is true a Muslim, dalit and Sikh have risen to the office of President and a Sikh is now Prime Minister but President's post is decorative one, not executive one. True test lies in making a dalit or Muslim or Christian Prime minister of India.
Yes, theoretically a Muslim, Christian or dalit can become Prime Minister too but that ideal has not yet been realized. India is the largest democracy in the world but our hearts and minds are yet to capture true democratic spirit. It is undoubtedly a great revolution that we have given right to vote to lowest of low and poorest of poor but our society is far from being equal in spirit.
It is heartening that an African-American, until yesterday being looked down upon, has risen to this height he is competing and so far nearly winning the candidacy for Presidentship of most powerful nation of the world. And whites are voting enthusiastically for Obama. No one thought until yesterday that an African-American, can ever achieve this. Racialism in America, though not dying, is undoubtedly diminishing.
However, in India, let alone dying, communalism and castism, is increasing. Communal parties and outfits are promoting rank communalism for the sake of majority votes. Even secular parties have no serious tryst with destiny. The very idea of destiny which Nehru had envisioned when power was being transferred to India on the midnight of 15th December is dying out.
Communalism and castism are penetrating deeper into our political processes. Dalits and minorities are living in fear as riots break out on petty quarrels. Christians had not faced such situation after independence right up to nineties which they are facing today. In Orissa Christians witnessed communal frenzy on the eve of Christmas. And now BJP ruled state after state are passing laws against conversion ironically calling them 'Freedom of Religion Act'. Even a Congress ruled state (Himachal Pradesh) passed such a law. So much for its commitment to secularism.
Today Communal parties are on the offensive and secular parties (with the exception of communist parties) are not only mute witness but also ally with them. Janata Dal (Secular?) which had broken from Janta Dal (United) on the question of allying with the BJP, itself allied with it BJP in Karnataka to come to power. Without including minorities in the political processes and making them equal partners, India cannot become true democracy.
BJP is, on the other hand, making all possible efforts to exclude religious minorities and making only symbolic gesture towards Scheduled castes and tribes. The moment Congress makes some symbolic gesture towards Muslims like BJP makes towards SCs, it raises bogey of appeasement and Congresses looses its nerves. Today a large section of bureaucracy and the police also has been communalized and police does not hesitate to openly play partisan role in communal riots against Muslims and Christians.
BJP, during NDA rule communalized vital organs of Indian state though it failed to revise Indian Constitution to remove article 25 to 30 guaranteeing rights to minorities. Mr. L.K. Advani, then Deputy Prime Minister and now aspiring to be Prime Minister, if NDA comes to power again, openly praised Narendra Modi after Gujarat riots though whole world was condemning what happened in Gujarat and holding Modi to be responsible for genocide in Gujarat.
India's glorious past and its composite culture (right from beginning of its history) can make us all proud and India will be able to play that role again only when its leaders resist the lust for power and dedicate themselves to its moral and spiritual values. All communities, including religious minorities, have contributed richly to India's glory. India is, and has always been, an alliance of religions and cultures and never a monolith which communal forces want it to be.
BJP can also contribute to future of India provided it gives up its anti-minority obsession and adopts open door policy. Though BJP claims to stand for 'justice for all and discrimination against none', it is nothing more than a hollow at best and deceptive at worst, slogan. One wishes it adopts this slogan with true heart and it will indeed contribute to India's future
Courtesy:Asghar Ali Engineer,09 May, 2008
CSSS

Drugs Ruling Life.......?

2008-05-13T05:57:00.000-07:00

Is it true that people are becoming very tense day to day and more population getting addicted with liquor, drugs and smoking?

Yes….In the years to come, depression, alcoholism, drug abuse and diabetes are going to be the number 1 killers. Intense competition, saddled with responsibilities at work, frustrations and failed relationships, disappointments, failures and rejections are attributed to be some of the reasons leading to suicidal tendencies and taking to drugs. People fail to relieve their pent up anger effectively in the form of talking it out with a friend and relieving oneself of bottled up tensions. Instead agonize oneself by brooding over things we don't have a control on. This makes people traffic in drugs & smoking. People should learn to take things in their stride and have the resilience to tide over it bravely. Every cloud has a silver lining after all.

This is due to poor understanding of life scince. Greedy, competition, false prestige, tension in work place, unwanted wishes, white goods addiction, unfinished targets chasing, poor time management…etc.

Opportunity of Islamic investment in India

2008-05-08T10:24:00.000-07:00

Allah says: Allah made trade lawful and prohibited interest (2:275). At on other place
Allah says O who believer in me fear god and quit what remains of riba if you are
indeed believers; but if you do not, take notice of war from Allah and his
messenger.(2:278-9)
There is two ways of getting profit (1) which Islam permits (2) which Islam prohibits.
Islam has forbidden earning from interests. And has counted as big sin and among
the big sins there is no which forbidden in this manner; that notice a war from Allah
and his messenger. Can human being defeat Allah and his messenger?
In India Muslims are second largest population after Indonesia, Indian Muslims
population estimated to be around 150, millions. Inspite of this India is routinely
ignored in the vast majority of the books articles on the subject of Islamic banking
and or investments. Dow Jones has Islamic index, FTSE of Britain has not only
Islamic Index but also a full fledge Islamic bank, but unfortunately there is not a
single Islamic Product or an Islamic benchmark in Indian investment environment.
Even more bizarre India is not covered and not included for any of their research
work by any Islamic institution or bank .although India is the big market for Islamic
investments,and according to me no research work of any research institution could
be complete without including India. Although India has a good Islamic structure
which provides opportunity of riba free investment and finance which gives us lots of
benefit.
Since the 1991 liberalization reforms, India's GDP has consistently grown at over 5%
and has now crossed the 8% mark. In fact, India is expected to be one of the world's
two largest economies by 2050. The huge capital inflows into the country mirror the
confidence of foreign investors in the Indian economy's ability to match this
expectation.
India's institutional framework is well suited for the world economy. Corporate India
has been performing well and this factor, coupled with strong macroeconomic
fundamentals, growing industrial and service sectors, provides great potential for
investment in the Indian economy.
(1) Stock market:
Common people in our community believe that investment in stocks is prohibited. No
it is not true. Indeed there are some kind of stocks, which might be prohibited but
not all. So prominent Islamic scholars, and ulemas have defined all market
instruments and after that they have permitted with some conditions to have
investments in stock market and invest in it.
(a)The company’s activities should not include liquor, pork, hotel, casino, gambling,
cinema, music, interest bearing financial institutions, conventional insurance
companies, etc.
(b) The total interest bearing debt of the company at any point in time should remain
below one third of its average market capitalization during the last twelve months.
(c) Its aggregate of account receivables should remain below 45% of total assets.
(d) If company has any interest bearing income it should not be more than 10% in
any condition.
While Shariah compliant investment avenues are now becoming available in most
countries, India has not seen large-scale development.To gauge the scope of Islamic
investment opportunities in the Indian stock market, it is imperative to examine
stocks that conform to Islamic Shariah principles "Out of 6,000 BSE listed
companies, approximately4,200 are Shariah compliant. The market capitalization of
these stocks accounts for approximately 61% of the total market capitalization of
companies listed on BSE.This figure is higher even when compared with a number of
predominantly Islamic countries such as Malaysia, Pakistan and Bahrain. In fact, the
growth in the market capitalization of these stocks was more impressive than that of
the non-Shariah compliant stocks.
The software, drugs and pharmaceuticals and automobile ancillaries sector were the
largest sectors among the Shariah compliant stocks. They constitute about 36% of
the total Shariah compliant stocks on NSE. Further on examining the BSE 500 the
market capitalization of the 321 Shariah compliant companies hovered between 48%
and 50% of the total BSE 500 market capitalization.(Source:
www.islamicequity.co.in)
(2) Mutual funds:
Another opportunity is mutual fund which is based on 100% equity. These funds are
invested in different sectors like IT, automobile telecommunication, cement and a
few present in interest based financial institutes, almost 10 to 15 %. So investor has
to purify that amount from the profits. And also there are many sectorial funds which
invests only in a particular sector like automobile,Oil & Gas, etc
Here are some of the most common types of the sharia compliant funds and their
basic investment profile, which an investor must know before leaving his/her hardearned
money at their disposal:
Equity Funds : As the name suggests, equity funds invest the money pooled in from
the investors into stocks. Equity MFs are further classified into sub-categories
depending upon the asset classes such as large-cap, mid-cap and small-cap, sectors
or themes. Equity funds carry a bigger risk profile than the bond funds.
Sector Funds : Sector funds invest in the stocks of one particular sector and these
funds are generally conceptualized after some sector catches fancy of the market or
when there is any significant buzz for some major growth in a particular sector. For
example, the infrastructure sector is the current favourite in the MF circle, while a
few other sectors with exposure to the country’s infrastructure growth are also
finding favour.
However, sector funds do not offer the much-desired diversification to the MF
investors and often these funds enter the market after most of the growth has
already materialized in that particular sector. However, there are certain defensive
sectors like FMCG and pharmaceuticals, which consistently witness some modest
growth with limited volatility.
Index Funds: The index funds primarily invest in the constituent stocks of a
particular market index, such as Sensex and Nifty, and most often track the
movements of those indices. While during a bull run, index funds can give impressive
returns, the losses are also sharp during the bearish phases of the market. However,
the index funds are known to given good returns in the long term, as their portfolio
generally consist of stocks with proven track record.Here however you have to
consider purification as quite a few banking stocks are there in the current index.
Growth Funds: These funds invest in growth stocks, or the stocks of those
companies that are likely to see a sharp rise in their sales and profits. These funds
seek to cash in upon the rise in the share prices of these companies, driven by their
bulging sales and profit books.
Source:http://islamicequity.co.in

The politics of hate

2008-05-06T09:39:00.000-07:00

Aijaz Ahmad

THE politics of hate that sets the political agenda today is in reality as old as the century-old process that has gone into the making of modern India. It is more influential today than it has ever been. However, a politics of this kind has been with us for a century or more. In most kinds of such politics, religious extremism plays the same role that racialism has played in the history of European fascisms. Indeed, religion itself is viewed in such tendencies primarily not as spiritual faith or a system of beliefs but as racial particularity and a civilisational essence.

For V.D. Savarkar, the revered forefather of this extremism who was not even notably devout, what all Hindus share is "common blood". According to him, then, those Indians for whom India is undeniably a janmabhoomi but who subscribe to other religions have fallen out of this mainstream of blood and belonging. They have thus lost their rights as equal members of this nation and should therefore be prepared for repression or even extermination. As he eloquently put it: "Germany has also shown how well nigh impossible it is for Races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by."

It is worth emphasising, though, that unlike Hitler, for whom the crossing over from one race to another was simply impossible, Savarkar does offer to non-Hindu "races" an alternative, namely that they can re-join this mainstream if they convert to Hinduism and bring up their children as Hindus. This demand, made some eighty years ago by one of the illustrious founders of Hindutva, sheds a rather interesting light not only on the Vishwa Hindu Parishad's ongoing terror campaign against hapless Christians, precisely on the issue of conversions, but also on the proposition advocated by Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee, an old veteran of the Savarkar-inspired Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), that there should be a national debate on this issue. For 'conversion' has been central to the very ethos of RSS extremism, as bogey, as project and as threat.

They begin with a semantic sleight of hand. Opting out of Hinduism for some other religion is called 'conversion'; opting out of some other religion in favour of Hinduism is called 're-conversion'. The dominant media just take up this vocabulary and assist in creating a sort of common sense that anyone who is converting to Christianity or Islam is doing something out of the ordinary, possibly something anti-national as well (the famous "foreign hand"!), whereas anyone converting to Hinduism is only returning to his or her true essence.

If a Christian mission, after having been in the area for a hundred years or more, manages to convert some twenty-five thousand souls whom we, in our infinite wisdom, continue to call 'tribal' and/or 'untouchable', because these damned of this earth see in even the most miserable form of Christianity a way out of the filth of a caste-ridden society, that is said to be emergency enough for the nation to "debate" the matter solemnly while the various offspring of the RSS carry out their campaigns to slash the human beings and burn the crosses. But if a functionary of the Bharatiya Janata Party announces an explicit plan to convert a hundred thousand or more to Hinduism within a year, he is supposed to be doing only the natural thing, the right thing, because he has the rights of the twice-born: born first as Hindu and therefore, logically, as the 'true' Indian as well. And the rights of this variety of the twice-born include their ability to hold out the threat that those who do not " re-convert" shall be treated as outcasts, even non-citizens.

It was well before Partition, when over a quarter of the Indian population belonged to organised religions other than 'Hinduism' even in its broadest definition, that Hindu extremism - the RSS, the Hindu Mahasabha, and the rest - adopted Savarkar's notion that only a Hindu was a 'true' Indian and that the rest could be treated as 'true' Indians only if they converted to Hinduism. In claiming that a quarter or more of the population should convert to a particular religion or else be denied equal status in society, Savarkar's was undoubtedly the most ambitious plan in pursuit of conversions that modern India has known. Neither the Christian missions nor the Tabligh movement spawned by the Muslim clergy can offer even a vaguely comparable scope or clout.

But for the power and devotion of the RSS to the pursuit of this design, one would dismiss the Savarkar project as one of those crackpot ideas that extremists think up. Given the power and the devotion, however, one has to take stock of the long-term implications of the project, and in doing that one has to understand what is unique about the RSS and the way in which it organises this project, quite beyond the electoral calculus.

SINCE its inception during the 1920s, the RSS has been primarily interested, from the side of the Extreme Right, in what Antonio Gramsci once called a 'war of position'. It has been engaged, in other words, not in short-term electoral power but in long-term historical change. For this reason, then, it is really not possible to gauge the power of the RSS from the electoral fortunes of the BJP, especially if we do not sufficiently appreciate that the design for historic change may go on even as electoral fortunes fluctuate. In that larger project of historical change, the RSS has always calculated, I believe correctly, that if they can continue successfully to engineer fundamental cultural change, dividends in the electoral arena may come later but will then come more reliably and enduringly.

A second and crucial element, a secondary layer as it were, was added during the 1950s and has been a part of their design ever since, for reasons very palpable. Once the Republic of the bourgeoisie emerged as the primary form of rule in independent India, the RSS understood, after some floundering, as everyone else in India also understood, also after some floundering, that the electoral process is the one through which governments would now rise and fall, in any foreseeable future. This process they have sought to address, and have so far addressed with impressive success, first through the Jan Sangh, which culminated in their central role in the Janata Government, and then through the BJP, an extremely sophisticated political machinery in charge of government these days which is run strictly by veterans of the RSS; there is hardly any significant leader of the BJP who is not such a veteran.

This game, too, the RSS has played with dexterity. Ordinarily, in mature bourgeois democracies, there are very sharp constraints within which any political force is permitted to propagate its politics of hate. In Germany or Italy, for example, where stable democracy is not much older than in India and where neo-fascists are fairly strong, the politics of hate in the post-War period has so far been contained on the margins of society. In India, by contrast, and through much trial and error over virtually half a century, the RSS has understood that the constraints are much less operative, but also that the constraints do exist. The BJP is there in order to keep testing the limits of constraints, so as to expand constantly the scope for irrationalist politics, but also to capture governmental power within the general framework of those constraints, however brittle these might be. The Shiv Sena, by contrast, cannot emerge as a major national force precisely because it recognises no such constraints. The RSS does.

The main objective of the RSS is not parliamentary politics, however, but the politics of hate so as to undo the traditions of secularism, democracy and socialism that have embedded so powerfully in at least a substantial part of modern India, and to re-make the whole of India in its own image. Most of that project it pursues not through the BJP, the parliamentary front, but through the other fronts, such as the VHP and the Bajrang Dal, designed more specifically for those purposes. A mark of their great success is that they have convinced the liberal media, and perhaps many beyond even the liberal media, that the distinction between the BJP and the VHP is not merely procedural but real, and that what we are witnessing is not a division of labour within a cluster of fraternal groupings but a fundamental political difference.

Some of that basic project of uniting a majority of Hindus the RSS pursues through the BJP as well, however, and it is a sad comment on the nature of our polity that the BJP has benefited so spectacularly from campaigns of hate. This too we find difficult to concede. It is thought best not to recall, for example, that in the elections of 1989, which marked the resurgence of the BJP that is yet not over, 47 of the 88 constituencies that it captured were ones which had experienced the most virulent forms of communal violence during the preceding year.

Nor is it comfortable for us to contemplate the possibility that this politics of hate may actually be popular among key sectors of the Indian polity, notably the professional middle classes and the trading bourgeoisie in northern India. Thus, for example, a MARG opinion poll conducted between December 17 and 23, 1992, soon after the destruction of Babri Masjid and in the midst of the massive communal violence that ensued, showed that 52.6 per cent of those interviewed in the North approved of the demolition (as against 16.7 per cent in the South, it must be added).

That this is a derangement especially common among the well-off becomes refreshingly obvious, however, if we consider yet another statistic from roughly the same time: a survey conducted in Delhi and western Uttar Pradesh showed that while 60 per cent among white-collar professionals and 62 per cent of traders approved of the demolitions, among workers the support fell to 28 per cent.

The point in citing these statistics is not to suggest that the politics of hate has some inexorable logic in our society, equally among all classes and regions in the country. The point is to say, rather, that the politics of hate is much more popular among the beneficiaries of the system than among its victims, and that it is most effective among the social segments and in regions which have been much more influenced by right-wing politics in general.

Having said that, however, it is also the case that the consent it commands is very widespread in society, especially among the politically powerful and influential segments; and that this consent has been very much on the increase over time. What accounts for this power of the politics of hate in a society where at least the urban intelligentsia cultivates for itself and for the country an image of liberal tolerance, benign spirituality, and so on?

THE first reason can be traced back, I believe, to the earliest period of our modernity, and to the colonial character of this modernity. The very sense of history of the first generations of the Bengali intelligentsia was deeply marked by the colonially propagated ideologies of Aryan identity, Vedic purity and "Muslim tyranny". The typical reform movements of the late 19th century were markedly revivalist in character. Based as they were among the beneficiaries of traditional systems of caste and property, the reformers frequently had a vested interest in propagating a romantic notion of the cultures of the upper castes to which they themselves belonged and which were now presented as the very essence of being 'Indian' and 'Hindu'.

Precisely at the time, during the closing years of the nineteenth century and the opening ones of the twentieth, when representatives of Indian economic nationalism were formulating analytic procedures for explaining colonial exploitations, some of the most influential figures in the literary and cultural fields were deeply attracted by a cultural nationalism that was distinctly revivalist in character and religiously exclusivist by implication. Neither Bankim Chandra Chatterjee nor Aurobindo, neither the Swadeshi Movement in Bengal nor the Shivaji cult propagated in Maharashtra by such icons of Indian nationalism as Bal Gangadhar Tilak himself, were quite untainted by that kind of revivalist fervour. Indeed, so powerful was the revivalist culture of the upper castes that when anti-Brahminical movements surfaced in Maharashtra, whether under Jyotiba Phule or B.R. Ambedkar, it was the extremity of the backlash of the upper castes in that region that gave us the RSS in the first place.

This is not to say that either Tilak or Aurobindo would be quite approving of what the Hindutva of our own day is and does. And yet there is enough there for a common sense to prevail today among sections of the urban upper castes and middle classes, in various parts of India, especially the northern and the western, to be persuaded that the social vision and cultural idiom of this modern-day Hindutva is descended from that general ambience of our 'renaissance' and 'awakening'.

Indeed the potentials of that kind of revivalism were so pernicious that Rabindranath Tagore was to warn at length, already in the second decade of this century, that there was only a short step from revivalist zealotry to communal frenzy. In two of his great novels, Gora and Home and the World, whatever other shortcomings those novels might also have, Tagore was to portray with great sensitivity and acumen how revivalist politics and communal closures may be particularly tempting to the socially insecure and the upwardly mobile.

THAT, then, is the first point: the sheer persistence of Brahminical revivalisms at the very heart of what were expected to be structures of our modernity and which never did give us any kind of modernity, precisely because of the extensive compromises they made with colonial representations of Indian history and because of their interest in representing their caste cultures as our 'national culture'. Hindutva has derived much comfort from those revivalisms.

Second, then, one can say that since the advent of mass politics in India during roughly the 1920s, there have been essentially three alternative visions that have competed for dominance here.

There is of course the vision represented by the Communist and pro-Communist Left, which has been committed to creating a modern, civil, secular, democratic culture and which has held that such a culture cannot come into being, in the specific conditions prevailing in India, without also building a genuinely socialist society: socialist in a sense far more radical than the Nehruvian. Second, and far stronger, has been what one might call the vision of national independence together with social reform, industrial capitalism, and a political democracy - in short, a modern bourgeois order. Finally, there has been the conservative, caste-based elitism which came eventually to be monopolised by the RSS, with considerable fuel from the Hindu Mahasabha, which had itself come into being in opposition to both the Communist and the bourgeois-nationalist movements.

If the Communist movement was inspired by Marxism, Hindu extremism was undoubtedly inspired by Fascism, as the direct links between Italian Fascists and such leaders of this extremism as B.S. Moonje and Shyama Prasad Mookerjee would testify. The conflict between the two visions was inevitable because they represented radically opposed visions, both on the national and the international scales. Within the country, though, the third vision, that of capitalist democracy in the framework of an independent polity, was by far the dominant one. So, whether a culture of civic virtues or a culture of hate and cruelty shall prevail in our country has depended, in general, on the actual balance of forces among these competing visions, which we could also describe as visions associated with the Left, the Centre, and the Right respectively. Whether or not the Right could be contained depended, in other words, on whether or not the Centre would hold and incline, for its own survival if not anything else, toward the Left.

THE politics of hate has been both the moment of birth as well as the chief instrument of expansion for the RSS, considering that it was founded in the aftermath of the Nagpur riots of 1923 and was already playing a role in the later riots of 1927 in the same city. Then, before Independence, the RSS had two brief moments of growth: between 1939 and 1942, when the national movement was very much on the defensive and the colonial state was assisting all kinds of communal forces; and then during the 1946-48 period when the RSS had much room for action in the midst of the communal holocaust that accompanied Partition. Its involvement in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi put an end to all that, however, even though Sardar Patel did get it off the hook by legalising it again.

The astonishing fact about communal violence in India is that it was at its lowest level during the first decade after Independence, when the memory of Partition and the attendant violence was the sharpest; and that the intensity of this violence has increased with every succeeding decade even though Partition, which is said to explain the virulence in northern India, keeps getting more distant in time.

Although Nehru was relatively isolated even within the Congress, he and his associates seem to have been successful in stemming the communal tide during the 1950s. Political discourse within the nation was preoccupied with issues of land reforms, planned development and India's place among the newly decolonised states and in the anti-imperialist movement of the non-aligned. The Communist Party was the main Opposition, and the contest therefore was between what we have described as visions of the Left and the Centre. The Right, the RSS with its newly formed parliamentary front of the Jan Sangh, was simply sidelined.

What began to happen thereafter is that the Centre, or what could have been the Centre, kept collapsing. Powerful elements of the ruling class in northern India, from the former ruling families of the princely states to sundry Marwari capitalists, patronised the RSS with a vengeance; Vajpayee's own early parliamentary career from Gwalior is inconceivable without the key patronage from the Scindias. Then there was the political elite. The roll call of those who were associated with the RSS in one way or another is embarrassing for all those who believe in some essential secularism or even the civic decency of this elite. From Vallabhbhai Patel to Gulzarilal Nanda, with Jayaprakash Narayan and the whole Sarvodaya crowd in between, not to speak of myriads such as Dr. Karan Singh, large sections of this elite, so polite and liberal otherwise, trusted and cooperated with the RSS quite gladly.

But then, there were at least two other features of politics in India during the period after the 1960s, as communal violence began to escalate, which contributed to giving us a more generalised culture of cruelty. One was the routine participation of large numbers of police and paramilitary personnel in communal violence, almost always on the side of Hindu communalism and across a wide territory from, let us say, Meerut and Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh to Ahmedabad or Surat in Gujarat or Bombay in Maharashtra, without fear of any severe punishment from the ruling party of the day. The second was the propensity of the Congress itself to play what was quaintly called 'the communal card', so that one was faced with a macabre field of competing communalisms practised unequally but fervently by what were once conceived of as the 'Right' and the 'Centre', and it became difficult to tell between the pragmatic and the programmatic communalisms of the respective parties.

It is in this larger context, then, that images of those burned houses and torched crosses can be flashed into the living rooms of the affluent across the country, and nothing really happens in response. This kind of indifference to communal violence is made all the more possible, however, because the victims are poor and, even as Christians, at the lowest possible rung of the caste society. It is only the cynicism of the VHP which can terrorise them on the one hand and urge them, in the same breath, to return to a Hindu fold that was never very keen on them in the first place. Communal violence is combined here, then, with the violence of caste and class. For what has become more marked in independent India with each passing decade is not just a vortex of communal hatreds but a much wider culture of cruelty in which polarisation of castes and classes have been at least as bloody as conflict of religious or denominational communities.

Aijaz Ahmad is Senior Fellow, Centre for Contemporary Studies, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi. He is a leading theorist of culture and the author of 'In Theory' and 'Lineages of the Present'

In The Name Of Nationalism

2008-04-18T08:07:00.000-07:00

K.N.Panikker
A new identity is being foisted on Hindus. The identity of Hindutva. Are Hindus being coerced to accept that identity, socially and culturally and indeed politically? Apparently, no society can be forced to own an externally induced identity. It has to emerge from within as a part of social dynamics. Yet, when ideas are implanted in social consciousness and nurtured through legitimising interventions, they do succeed in exercising a powerful influence in society. Hindutva is such an idea `invented' about 80 years ago, intellectually elaborated thereafter by several communal ideologues and recently given wide currency through state sponsorship, political support and socio-cultural mobilisation. Although alien to Hindu philosophical tenets and religious practices, Hindutva has gained legitimacy as a commonly shared heritage among a large section of Hindus. The implications of this development has pitch-forked Hindutva to the centre stage of contemporary Indian politics.
Hindutva and Hinduism
But then what is Hindutva? None of its contemporary advocates, including former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his less imaginative colleagues in the Sangh Parivar, have spelt out its character and its constitutive elements. For good reasons. They are seeking to evolve an overarching political ideology to bring together the followers of a highly differentiated religious faith. Hindutva is, therefore, conceived as an undefinable quality inherent in the Hindu `race', which cannot be identified with anything specific in Hinduism. Hindutva, in the opinion of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the progenitor of the concept, "is so varied and so rich, so powerful and so subtle, so elusive and yet so vivid" that it defies all attempts at analysis. Therefore, he had stopped short of defining it; instead he only tried to underline its relationship with Hinduism. He had asserted: "Hinduism is only a derivative, a fraction, a part of Hindutva." He, however, argued that this distinction would help to consolidate the Hindu community: "Failure to distinguish between Hindutva and Hinduism has given rise to much misunderstanding and mutual suspicion between some of those sister communities that have inherited this inestimable and common treasure of our Hindu civilisation... It is enough to point out that Hindutva is not identical with what is vaguely indicated by the term Hinduism. By an `ism' it is generally meant a theory or a code more or less based on spiritual or religious dogma or system. But when we attempt to investigate into the essential significance of Hindutva, we do not primarily - and certainly not mainly - concern ourselves with any particular theocratic or religious dogma or creed... Hindutva embraces all the departments of thought and activity of the whole Being of our Hindu race." Despite the above distinction, the relationship between Hindutva and Hinduism is well marked even in Savarkar's scheme. Savarkar had argued that a Muslim or a Christian, even if born in India, could not claim to possess the qualities of Hindutva. The essentials of Hindutva, according to Savarkar, are "a common nation (rashtra), a common race (jati) and a common civilisation (sanskriti)".
Later Hindu ideologues such as M.S. Golwalkar elaborated this idea to exclude all non-Hindus from the ambit of the nation. Hindutva, therefore, serves as an ideological justification for the construction of India as a Hindu nation. The statement of the Prime Minister that the demolition of the Babri Masjid is an expression of national sentiment and his reluctance to condemn the Gujarat massacre unambiguously demonstrate his commitment to the political ideology of Hindutva. So does the Sangh Parivar's general view that the rath yatra of L.K. Advani, currently enacting a repeat performance, represents the resurgence of India as a nation. In the Hindu communal practice, therefore, the distinction between Hindutva and Hinduism has disappeared, which has helped the militant communal Hindu politics to command the support of unsuspecting Hindu believers. In the last few elections, this strategy has returned high dividends.
The next election is another test case as to whether Hindus can be coerced in the name of their faith to act against the basic tenets of their own religion. Despite the new slogans of development and statesmanship, Hindutva would continue to be an issue in the forthcoming elections. For the Sangh Parivar cannot ensure the support even of its ardent followers without feeding them with irrational politics. Such politics commands wider support when imbued with cultural content. The Sangh Parivar is fully alive to this mobilising potential of culture, which accounts for the foregrounding of cultural nationalism as central to its politics.
Cultural nationalism
The concept of cultural nationalism conceived and propagated by Hindutva is based on a misrepresentation of the nature of national identity. Nationalism, like democracy, is indivisible, with its constitutive elements - political, economic and cultural - intermeshed with each other. Privileging any one of these attributes tends to undermine the holistic character of nationalism. There is no denying the importance of culture in the make-up of national identity; yet culture alone does not mould the nationalism of any country. This was true of India as well where nationalism emerged and evolved as a part of anti-colonial consciousness. Culture was deeply implicated in this process of national reconstruction, both by trying to develop a national culture, which was distinct from the colonial and the traditional, as well as by invoking culture as a locus of resistance. Yet, the struggle for national culture during the anti-colonial period either remained an epi-phenomenon, or an instrument of political mobilisation. Therefore, the cultural question was not adequately addressed during the anti-colonial struggle and Hindutva has appropriated the space thus left open.
Hindutva's conception of nationalism is rooted in the primacy of culture over politics. The meaning attributed to culture by the ideologues of the Sangh Parivar and their cultural practices further qualifies the character of cultural nationalism. According to their interpretation, culture "is but a product of our all-comprehensive religion, a part of its body and not distinguishable from it". It naturally implies that the national culture is Hindu religious culture. Cultural nationalism is, therefore, a euphemism invoked in order to mask the creation of a state with Hindu religious identity. Such a character of the nation was clearly spelt out by Golwalkar: "In Hindustan, the land of the Hindus lives and should live the Hindu Nation... Consequently, only those movements are truly `National' as aim at rebuilding, revitalising, and emancipating from the present stupor, the Hindu Nation."
The contemporary advocates of cultural nationalism and the movements they lead are engaged in creating a nation in which the Hindu religious identity coincides with the cultural. This is attempted through intervention in culture rather than cultural intervention. The importance of this distinction is realised by the activists of the Hindutva who, as a result, constantly intervene in the actual cultural life of the people in order to transform it in a religious direction. As a part of this endeavour, the Sangh Parivar has set up cultural organisations in almost every conceivable area. They are constantly engaged in imparting a Hindu religious character to the quotidian cultural practices of the people. The secular forces, on the other hand, even at the face of the successful cultural advance of Hindutva, continue to be trapped in an instrumentalist view of culture and persist with their faith in the transformative power of cultural performance.
The multi-faceted cultural intervention of Hindutva is primarily intended to appropriate the cultural past as Hindu and to expropriate the `other' as anti-national. As a part of the former, a new Hindu cultural pantheon is being constructed. The icons of this pantheon goes back to the Indus Valley Civilisation, renamed now as Saraswati River civilisation, as a part of the attempt to impart to it a Hindu character. At any rate, the lineage of the Hindu nation is traced to the culture of the Vedic era and, though not yet firmly, to the Indus Valley. Identifying the roots of the Indian civilisational process to the achievements of the Harappan and the Vedic people is indeed unexceptionable. That, however, does not establish either its contemporary relevance or its being the sole source of national culture, as Hindutva seems to advocate. In doing so, the historical process, which has ushered in a fundamental transformation in social and cultural mores, is ignored. Nevertheless, it has admirably served its ends. It has given to the Hindu, culturally and psychologically ravaged by colonial subjugation, the knowledge of a credible and honourable cultural past. In the process, Hindutva has not only succeeded in creating a new, even aggressive, cultural confidence among Hindus, but at the same time cast itself as the defender and preserver of Indian heritage. Thereby Hindutva claims to represent the cultural interest of the Hindu `community' as a whole.
The success of Hindutva was its ability to implant its Hindu representative character in social consciousness. Through a series of social and cultural undertakings, initially at the grassroots level, such an impression was slowly but surely created. An interesting example is the movement for the renovation of village temples, which were in decay. The members of the Sangh Parivar positioning themselves in the forefront of this movement received the general approval and approbation of the Hindus of the locality. It was believed that they were acting not only to maintain a religious place of worship but also to preserve the cultural tradition. At a national plane, the Ram Janmabhoomi issue provided an unprecedented opportunity, which was used by celebrating Ram as a national icon and by undertaking the popularisation of symbols linked with him. The agitation centred around the temple, including the rath yatra of Advani, established Hindutva's claim to represent Hindus. The effort, however, goes on. Bhojshala in Madhya Pradesh and Baba Budangiri in Karnataka are the new sites invented to defend Hindu interests.
In order to realise this claim socially and culturally, the Sangh Parivar has adopted an aggressive policy of homogenising the diverse groups among Hindus. Many were taken by surprise when Dalits participated in the Gujarat pogrom or when Adivasis supported the Bharatiya Janata Party in the recently held elections to the State Assemblies. But it is not altogether surprising as the ideology of Hindutva has been at work among these groups for a long time in order to inculcate a Hindu identity in them. An indication of this change is the transformation in their worship pattern. Their traditional places of worship are being refashioned as Hindu temples and their modes of worship are being replaced by those of the Brahminical order. The Hinduisation thus taking place amounts to cultural denial and oppression. Yet, a large number of Dalits and Adivasis are attracted to the lure of sanskritisation, which is a major achievement of Hindu consolidation.
Appropriation of cultural tradition
A selective appropriation of cultural and intellectual traditions and their privileging through the intervention of innumerable organisations have lent credence to Hindutva's claim to represent Hindu interests. It is selective because it excludes those with non-Hindu affiliations. Even in the Hindu past only what is ideologically useful is invoked. The purpose of this appropriation is to inscribe on Hindutva the stamp of the authentic tradition of the nation. As a part of this endeavour, Hindu religious events have been turned into national cultural celebrations, even when they are alien to regional cultures or unknown to different sections of Hindus. Rakshabandhan and Ganapati festivals, for instance. Sponsored by the Sangh Parivar, they have now become public celebrations even in South India where they were earlier unknown.
The appropriation is not limited to cultural tradition alone; even political and intellectual leaders of the past are being turned into Hindu nationalist icons. Ancient and medieval rulers, even if they had followed the principles of secular governance, are claimed as Hindu. So are those who fought against colonial rule. Kerala Varma Pazhassi Raja, Velu Thampi, Nana Saheb and Kattabomman are being made into Hindutva's cult figures. Similarly, Hindu religious reformers of the 19th century, such as Dayananda Saraswati, Vivekananda and Aurobindo, who gave much importance to the universalist spirit in all religions, are celebrated as the progenitors of Hindu nationalism. But their ideas of inclusive nationalism are completely overlooked. Vivekananda, for instance, had argued that the union of Hindu and Islamic civilisations offered an ideal solution for India's regeneration. Aurobindo's concept of nationalism was riven with contradictions and at any rate he did not subscribe to a Hindu denominational nationalism in which the followers of other faiths had no place. Even Mahatma Gandhi and Bhagat Singh are in the process of being co-opted into the Hindutva fold!
At the same time, what is excluded from the nationalist tradition helps to reinforce Hindutva's religion-based concept of nationalism. Liberal and tolerant rulers such as Ashoka, Akbar, Jai Singh, Shahu Maharaj and Wajid Ali Shah do not figure in Hindutva's list of national heroes. Among those who revolted against the British, Bahadur Shah, Zinat Mahal, Maulavi Ahamadullah and General Bhakt Khan, are conspicuous by their absence. Even syncretic traditions such as the Bhakti movement are generally ignored. It is quite interesting that the advocates of religious universalism, including modernisers such as Rammohan Roy and Keshab Chandra Sen, do not figure in the Hindutva pantheon.
The selective appropriation is based on the premise that national regeneration and resurgence would require the recreation of an authentic culture by reclaiming the indigenous and purging the exogenous. Hindutva's cultural project, encoded in the slogan `nationalise and spiritualise', therefore, is twofold: First, to retrieve and disseminate the cultural traditions of the `golden' Hindu past; and second, to eliminate all accretions that had become part of the heritage. The educational policy as adumbrated by the BJP-led government is inspired by the first. The entire exercise of curriculum revision undertaken by government agencies during the last few years was mainly intended to achieve this end.
The involvement of the government, obsessive and lopsided, with the pursuit of Vedic knowledge is an obvious example. The government, it appears, is spending an enormous amount of money for research in Vedic studies, which in itself is not undesirable. But it is a different matter when undertaken to prove certain preconceived assumptions. It is reported that several science organisations funded by the government are scouting for scholars and institutions who would be willing to testify the golden age thesis. Such efforts are likely to create false notions about India's past.
The authentic cultural tradition Hindutva seeks to construct does not respect either the trajectory of its own historical evolution or the importance of external influences in its make-up. It, therefore, takes a static view of cultural tradition, ignoring its inherent dynamism. One of the consequences of this attitude is the intolerance of different interpretations and conflicting representations for which the Indian cultural tradition is justly famous. The plural cultural traditions, therefore, have been continuously under attack. Well-known examples are the vandalising of M.F. Hussain's paintings of Hindu goddesses, disruption of the shooting of Deepa Mehta's film, the campaign against the Malayalam writer Kamala Suraiya and the destruction of SAHMAT's exhibition on Ayodhya. The instances in which the Hindu cultural police has intervened, often in a violent and intimidatory manner, in defence of Hindu cultural tradition are far too many to cite. The denigration of secular historians, writers and journalists are also done with the same purpose.
These fairly orchestrated assaults are meant to silence any opposition to the communal colonisation of the cultural sphere. The legitimacy Hindutva has managed to garner is the most decisive development in contemporary Indian politics. A marginal force until about 10 years ago, it is now in a position to dictate the political and cultural agenda of the nation. Yet, the rise of Hindutva was neither sudden nor spontaneous. It owes much to the slow transformation in social consciousness as a result of sustained interventions in the cultural and religious life of the people. The decline of the Congress(I) and the inability of the Left to emerge as an alternative provided the space for Hinduva to imbue such interventions with a political content. It was compounded by the willing collaboration and cooperation of secular formations, particularly after the Emergency, which lent to Hindutva the legitimacy it lacked before. Hindutva thus succeeded in integrating politics with culture. Hence cultural nationalism is the real shining motif of Hindutva. Given its exclusivist character, however, cultural nationalism is anti-democratic and anti-national. The existence of India as a nation is possible only with the rejection of cultural nationalism.
K.N. Panikkar was formerly Vice-Chancellor of the Sri Sankara University of Sanskrit, Kalady, Kerala.
Source: countercurrents.org

Microcredit or Macrowelfare: The Myth of Grameen

2008-04-02T09:52:00.000-07:00

For those who follow the zeitgeist — and the Nobel Prize committee seems always in the position of following rather than leading — the 2007 Peace Prize was no surprise. It went to one of the least-criticized men on the planet: Professor Muhammed Yunus and his Grameen Bank of Bangladesh.
Pundits left, right, and center appear to love him. His microcredit scheme seems to mix the best socialist ideals with free market means, and then the rhetoric alone carries the day.
The literature on Grameen is an echo chamber of hurrahs. Even the Nobel Committee didn't bother looking more deeply. Its press release provides 5 paragraphs of puff. Its link to other resources includes only one source: the Grameen Bank itself.
The uncritical attitude is especially strange given the extent to which pawn shops and payday lending — which, unlike Grameen, are genuine market institutions — in poor areas of the United States are hounded by the anticapitalist Left. Why is giving high-interest loans to the inner-city poor considered exploitative in the United States but wonderful and compassionate in Bangladesh?
The best fallout from the prize, then, will be a continued rethinking of the core assumptions behind microcredit of the Grameen model. A deeper look at this institution shows not a success but precisely the sort of flop you might expect from a government-subsidized program that is predicated on the view that money alone is the answer to poverty.
So let's look deeper. Aside from my own piece in 1995, the Grameen public relations edifice has been cracking for years. In 2001, the Wall Street Journal's Daniel Pearl and Michael Phillips revealed that the repayment rate of their loans isn't anywhere near what the bank claims, that at least one quarter of its loans were being used for consumption, that the bank delays defaults and hides problem loans, that the bank isn't subject to any kind of serious supervision, public or private. The government owns 6% of its assets, while the rest is only superficially owned by borrowers who cannot sell or trade their stock.
The impact on the target population has not been stellar. Sudhirendar Sharma of New Delhi writes that "the effect of the Grameen strategy has not been to reduce poverty but only to create a debt trap for borrowers, who are being charged very high rates of interest relative to conventional banks. The oft-repeated stories of how microcredit has helped a rural woman buy a buffalo, or how a poor woman now owns a telephone kiosk, cannot be replicated in meaningful numbers. Conversely, at the cost of the poor, a large number of NGOs have benefited; banks have found a convenient route to increased lendings; and corporations have got a growing consumer market to target."
Grameen is not alone in the microcredit movement. As pointed out by Jonathan Morduch in the Journal of Economic Literature (December 1999, pp. 1569-1614), "most programs continue to be subsidized directly through grants and indirectly through soft terms on loans from donors. Moreover, the programs that are breaking even financially are not those celebrated for serving the poorest clients. ...poverty-focused programs..cover only about 70 percent of their full costs."
Further, "even established programs like the Grameen Bank would have trouble making ends meet without ongoing subsidies." In answer to the question of whether Grameen is financially sustainable, the author says "no." If Grameen had been a market institution, it would have suffered $34 million in losses between 1985 and 1996, or it would have had to raise its loan rates to well above 50%.
As helpful as the data are, market logic alone is enough to reveal the problem. Consider the absurd claims that we are being asked to believe.
We are told that Yunus discovered a wonderful new way of making profitable loans to the poor by doing something that all conventional bankers in Bangladesh had overlooked. Half the population lives below the poverty line in Bangladesh. Are we really supposed to believe that banks blithely overlooked millions of poor people out of bias or hatred or snobbery?
Even if we can accept that he had some sort of entrepreneurial insight that no one else had, Grameen has been giving loans to poor women for thirty years. Are we really supposed to believe that conventional bankers were so stupid as not to spot this opportunity even after decades of demonstration? Yunus says that he discovered that the poor are "bankable" but if this were true in the way that he says, others would have discovered the same profit opportunities and done it without help from government.
Actually, Grameen is not really free enterprise at all. Yunus's first pile of cash came from the United Nations. Then he went to the Bangladesh government. Then he went to US foundations. In the 1980s and '90s, the bank received nearly $150 million in grants. At the same time, he started borrowing at low interest rates from governments around the world, and lending out the same money at higher rates. His institution keeps the difference.
Those who uncritically celebrate microcredit seem unaware of the actual debates within the microcredit community. As Connie Bruck explains, the dominant issue right now is how best to build institutions that are genuinely market viable as verses subsidy dependent. Until very recently and with only few exceptions, microbanking has been commerce in name only.
The Grameen Bank says it no longer accepts outright grants — the grant money goes to a dozen or so spin-off "enterprises" — but it still borrows low and sells high, and since its books are under wraps and its stockholders are that in name only, we'll never know for sure. But this much we do know from its recent history. The Grameen "foundation" received 1.5 million from Bill and Melinda Gates just a few months ago. Meanwhile, George Soros has given some $12 million plus to all sorts of Grameen spin-offs, including gifts to expand "banking" in other countries. (The latest detailed financial analysis, which looks grim, excludes these massive grants)
Since Yunus and Grameen won the prize, many institutions have rushed forward to take credit for the success, by virtue of their vast giving. Here is a small sample of other grant announcements: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
Let us now turn to the peculiar features of Grameen, and, in particularly, its repayment tactics. The bank assembles peer groups to lean on delinquent borrowers, and makes political-mental reconstruction a condition of the loans, which are often being taken out to repay previous loans and so on. Yunus's "Sixteen Decisions" that must be adopted by all borrowers read like a party platform for collectivist regimentation.
"We shall take part in all social activities collectively."
"We shall grow vegetables all the year round. We shall eat plenty of them and sell the surplus."
"We shall build and use pit-latrines."
"If we come to know of any breach of discipline in any centre, we shall all go there and help restore discipline."
A very strange bank indeed!
And why would economists — and sophisticated free market economists, of all people (examples: 1, 2, 3, 4) — fall for the line that more debt can somehow save the world? More much sensible is Vijay Mahajan, the chief of Basix, who reports to the Guardian that Grameen's tactics suffer from five fatal assumptions.
First is the idea that poor should be self-employed rather than work for wages. That is contrary to the whole history of successful economic development.
Second is the idea that loans are the main financial service needed by the poor, whereas they really need savings and insurance.
Third is the idea that credit is what builds enterprise, whereas the truth is that entrepreneurship and management are more important.
Fourth is the idea that the non-poor don't need credit, whereas the truth is revealed in market-based banking: higher incomes can handle higher debt.
Fifth is the idea that microcredit institutions can become self-sustaining, whereas all experience shows that new enterprises in poor areas that are built on credit alone rarely emerge from dependency.
For years, I've received notes from financial professionals in Bangladesh that have thanked me for writing about this institution, which has made their lives very difficult.
But I thought it might be useful to share these recent additions to my pile of correspondence:
Your article on Grameen system is informative and thought provoking. I fully agree with you that the Grameen success stories are nothing but over blown claims supported by tricky financial arithmetic. As a Bangalee, I am delighted that Dr. Yunus won the Nobel peace prize. Any one should feel proud when another person of his country gets a Nobel. But I also reflect that now the whole Grameen operation will come under intense international scrutiny. I am sure that they will come to the same conclusions as you did.
Dr. Yunus founded so far 17 companies. Except for Grameen Phones, all flopped. How did he manage to fund these projects? Is it the Grameen Bank that funds his 'innovative ideas'. Perhaps we will never know, for Grameen Bank never publishes its audited annual balance sheets. Every other commercial banks in this country does that and it's mandatory. Grameen Bank does not pay any corporate tax which is about 20%. Other commercial banks have to pay the taxes.
Last year Grameen Phone made US$450 million profit (that's what I read in the newspaper). Out of these profit, TeleNor which owns 62% share took the profit and transferred it as US dollar. Who provided the hard currency? The poor Bangalee labourers who toil in Middle east like slaves. They send the dollars earned as their wage. These labourers, like the Grameen women are from deep rural areas where there is no electricity. In fact there are more than 70% households (mostly in the rural areas) where electricity is not available. How do these people use the mobile phone? They don't. Because they can not re-charge their mobile phone battery. Yet, Dr. Yunus is jetting around the world to tell that the Grameen phone has revolutionized the countryside. This is a massive fraudulent act involving millions of truly poor people who are incapable of getting beyond the razzle dazzle economic talk Dr. Yunus is making.
The western enthusiasm over Dr. Yunus verging on madness should now end. We should not be taken in by a fast talking economist whose life-long objective has been to be a player in the international arena. And he found out fast, that the all pervading poverty in this country could be used profitably to gain international attention and perhaps appreciation. … Whenever, I see this guy on the TV, I feel the presence of a very sleek salesman who target group is rich and powerful in the west who are apparently on a guilt trip over the poverty in third world countries.
The poverty problem in Bangladesh and many other countries are truly frightening and it has deep rooted causes. We should evaluate other models where a nation came out of poverty and fulfilled their basic human needs. …
And another concerning the Sixteen Decisions:
My daughter did an internship with Yunus/Grameen while she was doing her under graduate studies in the late 90's, and came back with both admiring and critical position on their works…. She did have some concerns as you also mention mainly in the pushy privacy violation aspects. As a gifted observer with US upbringing and heightened respect for the universally prevalent, taken-for-granted individual rights, it was hard for her to not notice the harsh big brotherism. She privately told me of some troubling aspects.

How real banks workThe real problem in Bangladesh is not its lack of personal indebtedness but instead is revealed in the account in the Index of Economic Freedom. Its government's bad economic policies include huge barriers to trade, vast amounts of state-owned enterprise, unionization, heavy taxes on foreign investment, a high tax burden, and some of the world's worst political violence and official corruption.
The irony of it all is that Bangladesh is making economic progress in its export sector for fish and clothing. There is no mention of Grameen's contribution to its 5% rate of economic growth in any reliable source.
The best that Professor Yunus could do to help his country would be to use his now-considerable credibility to push for a freer market through radical privatization and free trade. And it is true that he has pushed a bit for halfway privatization in health care. But in general, he has a stake in keeping the status quo just as it is. In the meantime, there is really no excuse for serious analysts of the Grameen experience to pretend as if money alone is going to save the country.
Courtesy:Jeffrey A. Tucker,Ludwig von Mises Institute

The Myth of Politics and Economics in India

2008-03-27T03:23:00.000-07:00

There is buzz around town -- the recent economic polices of the UPA government, as announced via the Budget 2008, would lead them to electoral victory in Oct-Nov 2008. The Opposition is not really worried for at least two reasons. First, Budgets per se have little effect on elections; second, and more importantly, the reason for hidden complacency in the Opposition is because it has not one but at least two Trojan horses in the Congress camp!
There is an unfortunate myth about economic and political reality in India -- low inflation is an electoral winner. There is precious little evidence to substantiate this claim, and it is therefore unfortunate that even as good an economist as Dr Manmohan Singh keeps repeating this (false) mantra. Even more unfortunately, this mantra has led to misguided monetary policy in the mid 1990s, and today.
A major puzzle about the Indian economy is the constancy of the GDP growth rate post the economic reforms of the early 1990s (1991-93). These reforms have been politically popular; accepted by all parties, including most elected Left MPs.
Only post 2003 did the Indian economy experience a significant growth acceleration -- from 5.5 per cent (1980s and 1990s) to 8.5 per cent, 2003-2008. Congress leaders somewhat embarrassingly take refuge in long and variable lags, but such long lags only exist in virtual reality. So what really happened in the 1990s?
Why did the GDP growth rate not accelerate? It did, for three years 1993-94 to 1995-96 -- average GDP growth of 7.5 per cent. But "in the name of inflation" monetary sledgehammer made interest rates go sky high starting in 1995; investment declined subsequently, and GDP growth decelerated to a pre-reform level. One policy messed up the total effect of the mother of all reforms.
The political consequences of this strict monetarist (SM) policies were felt by the Congress in the 1996 elections. Except for 1991, inflation had been running at an 8 to 9 per cent rate. In the last year of Congress rule (1995-96), the inflation rate began to decline and reached a rate of 6.5 per cent in 1996-97, a rate close to then historical lows.
Despite this low-lowest inflation rate achievement, the Congress lost massively -- down from 220-odd seats before the elections to only 140 seats in 1996. Anyone for lower inflation getting you extra votes?
This extremist monetary policy is defended by the RBI, and its then governor, Dr Rangarajan (now the Chairman of the National Advisory Council to Manmohan Singh; the first Trojan horse). While electorally the Congress lost, India gained; inflation expectations got killed, and inflation was reduced permanently in India to an acceptable 3-5 per cent level.
How true is this belief? Quite false, actually. The table reports the identical pattern of Indian and developing economies' inflation rates; the other countries did not experience the Rangarajan SM sledgehammer. Yet inflation also collapsed elsewhere, and by somewhat more, 3 percentage points, compared to the 2.5 percentage point Indian decline.
The deeper one examines the inflation picture in India and the world, the less does the claim of extreme monetarist victory in India post 1996 hold true.

Sadly, history may be on the verge of repeating itself in 2008-09. Sadly for India that is, not necessarily for the political opposition. There has been an investment and savings boom in India, yet the present RBI governor, Dr Reddy (the second Trojan horse), believes that we have mostly been "overheating" these last few years.
And overheating begets inflation -- and inflation requires high interest rates. The RBI concern for inflation is touching, but in reality the RBI SM policy is geared towards the ideological belief that whenever the Indian economy grows faster than 6 to 7 per cent per annum, it most likely is overheating. This belief is logically and empirically inconsistent with the 14 percentage point jump in savings and investment rates that India has experienced over the last five years.
But what about gains against inflation? Again, the table shows that the RBI SM policy has produced a worse outcome than the average developing country. This average has stayed near constant for the last two years, as it has in India.
So no gains in inflation declines for India -- and losses in terms of much lower GDP growth. While China, Korea, Euroland and Australia have yet to slow down, Indian GDP growth has slowed considerably. From 9.6 to 8.5 per cent, and forecasts of 7 % GDP growth in 2008-09. Industrial growth is down considerably (data for Jan. 2008, at 5.6 per cent y-o-y growth, is half the growth observed in Jan. 2007).
Why this lower growth? Misguided inflation fighting has meant a large increase in real borrowing rates for corporates -- real rates of 10 per cent and above, while our competitors pay less than half this magnitude.
In the recent discussion about high food and energy inflation around the world, I have not understood the following. Agreed that food inflation hurts the poor the most and oil inflation hurts the middle class the most.
But can any of the so-called experts please tell me as to how raising interest rates in India to double-digit real levels is going to affect the probability of an Australian drought, which has driven food (wheat) prices to record levels? Or how does obstinate SM policy in India affect the prospects for the price of OPEC oil? These questions deserve answers rather than homilies about the need to fight inflation.
The more these questions are not asked and not answered, the greater the likelihood of an electoral defeat for the Congress in 2008, as it happened in 1996. Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. In the US, the Republicans are hoping for a Hillary Clinton win; in India, the Opposition is privately cheering Dr Rangarajan and Dr Reddy's strict monetarist tendencies.
Courtesy:Surjit S Bhalla,Business Standard,March 15,2008

The Economist On India

2008-03-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

Well, here I am, hard at it trying to write a review for this blog of the latest Economist Intelligence Unit country risk report on India (which, worry not, will follow in due course) and what I find myself doing is revving-up on all cylinders to come back and point out some of the facts of this life to all those people who spent their time during the second half of 2006 arguing that India was overheating when it was busily growing away at a mere 8%. In fact India’s growth has not only continued, it has even accelerated slightly since the debate got started, growing at an 8.9% year-on-year rate during the most recent quarter (following 9.1% and 9.3% in the first and second quarters of calendar 2007, respectively). And far from inflation shooting up and away through the roof it is currently not too far from the Reserve Bank of India’s 5% target. Perhaps it is towards China or Russia that people should be directing their attention, or towards Eastern Europe, or even - god forbid - the eurozone, but India it seems is one country where the “great overheating” argument is steadily running out of steam. Of course there is one country which everyone will readily admit is not overheating, and in comparison with the rate of negative price increases they have on their hands in Japan India’s inflation may seem serious, but I think we can safely leave that topic on one side for today.At this point I just want to repost part of a reply I gave to the Economist when they had the kindness to try to answer some points I had raised about the general quality of their economic coverage, and in particular about what I take to be their obsession with ignoring the demographic component in economic growth. For the Economist, it seems, growth and development is a single issue item, and is all about insitutions, and institutional quality. Which makes it kind of funny that Argentina, which must be among the worst of the emerging economy pack in institutional quality is still powering away, despite more or less openly manipulating their inflation data.
Obviously institutions matter, but so does demography. This is not a one horse race, or if you prefer, this particular horse doesn’t only run on one leg.
The topic in question here is India’s potential growth rate. Recent GDP performance at just under 9% must have been astounding many of India’s critics, especially given the way inflation, despite all that growth, has been kept pretty much under control.

Doesn’t look to bad at all, does it, in the light of what has been happening during the second half of this year. And remember this was written in the Autumn of 2006, not Autumn 2007 when just about everyone and their auntie is saying something like this. Of course this whole debate is ongoing.Again, I am really comfortable standing by this, and even the point about China, since the inflation problem really does seem now to be getting a grip there, in a way which it isn’t doing in India (and remember they have had nearly 30 years now of the one child per family policy, and at some point soon their labour market is going to tighten and tighten, and for a glimpse of what may well happen next in China see my recent analysis of the growing problem we now see in Russia: “Russian Inflation, Too Much Money Chasing Too Few People” (not too much danger of this getting to be a problem in India in the near future, now is there?).
Since this time of course, the whole recoupling/decoupling issue has really taken off as a live debate. My latest thoughts on this can be found here, and Claus Vistesen’s post - The Global Economy, Compass and Charts Needed - follows up on and continues the “uncharted waters” theme.

To The Economist
At the risk of having to assume some kind of modern “j’accuse” mantle (for which of course there are ample precedents in the early origins of your own magazine) I am going to put up yet another comment. Maybe this is because I would like to participate in that “severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress” which your contents page so boldly announces.
Maybe it is also because I want to pin down quite clearly for future reference just what the issues are, and just why it isn’t “absurd” to suggest that the Economist currently systematically fails to factor-in the demographic components in economic growth (or the lack of it). Well, saving the best (or should that be the worst) to the last, I would like now to come to the case of your India correspondent. This gentleman (and I sincerely hope that despite his evident predilection for strong Vindaloo curry he is one of these) has been systematically re-adjusting upwards India’s potential trend growth rate in recent months. In fact his estimate seems to have shot up from 6.5% in November 2006 to 7% in February 2007, to 8% in June 2007. Now that’s an upward adjustment of around 25% in trend growth in roughly 8 months. Quite an achievement, especially since he offers absolutely no explanation whatever for these adjustments, but what he does not fail to tell us - oh, he never lets a moment rest without beating this drum - is that: “India’s economy, like Delhi this week (or Vindaloo curry perhaps, EH), remains far too hot.”
Now just in case what I am suggesting here is questioned I would like to quote chapter and verse, since the issue is an important one.
In November 2006 the Economist’s India correspondent estimated capacited growth for India at around 6.5%.

Basically I find myself in agreement with the Indian economists he doesn’t like. It isn’t that these reforms aren’t desireable, as he admits, we all agree on this. But the point is, even ex-reforms (and of course there have been reforms and global opening) demographic momentum would indicate that substantial growth is now going to occur. How substantial? Hard to say, but I think it is quite probable that 5 years from now India will be growing faster than China, and may even peak out at the highest annual growth rates yet seen for a significant economy over the 5 to 10 year window. I can justify why I think this with some sort of coherent argument, but I think the big danger for the sort of view they are advancing at the Economist is that they imagine virtually nothing is possible without institutional reform, and this is just as big a mistake as saying demography is everything. You need to systematically take the two components into account. If you don’t do this you risk getting into the ridiculous position the World Bank found itself in earlier in the year, when countries like Argentina and Thailand complained that since their countries were registered as going backwards on the global governance index, while both countries were growing quite nicely, then logically the methodology used to construct the index must be wrong. IMHO the World Bank has been totally mechanistic about institutions and thoroughly deserves all the problems it creates for itself on this count. OK, so that’s it. I finally rest my case. The dialogue will continue.

Source:The Indian Economy Blog

2008-03-26T08:52:00.001-07:00

A Very Special PoliceIndia's 'Special Cell' and Abuses

2008-03-25T04:51:00.000-07:00

Nirmalangshu Mukherji [Published earlier on ZNet Activism,June 29, 2005]

Keeping to the subcategory that Noam Chomsky calls "doctrinally acceptable," (1)óótheir terror against usóóthe real threat of terrorism in India cannot be denied. While preventive measures, which conform to principles of democratic governance, are needed to combat this threat, any exaggerated perception of the threat, and the resulting fear, is likely to affect the roots of such governance itself.(2) Allowed to grow, the combination of fear and helplessness may promote both a loss of confidence in open, democratic procedures, and an increased dependence on the peremptory features that any state has. The spiraling cycle of distrust, violence and loss of democracy only helps the terrorist. It is now acknowledged that "human rights, along with democracy and social justice, are one of the best prophylactics against terrorism."(3) From this perspective, recent developments on the terrorism-frontóóespecially, its handling by law-enforcing agenciesóóraise worrying questions about the functioning of civil institutions in India. Going by newspaper reports in the past four months, the national capital of India must be one of the most dangerous places on this planet. Apart from big-time extortionists, hired killers, gangsters, and highway robbers, the city of Delhi seems to be teeming with militants from a variety of terrorist organizationsóóall armed to the teeth with sophiscated weapons and explosives, and flushed with astronomical funds. The panic is so extreme that, when an explosion due to gas-leak took place in a Delhi Metro site, television channels rushed in. As the news was aired, "within an hour, we received over 500 calls where harried people inquired about the explosion," according to the Delhi Police. (Hindu, 6 March).The reports also suggest that, despite the presence of this terror, sustained bloodbath and mayhem could be mostly averted in time due to impressive police work by a small group of brave men belonging to the Special Cell of the Delhi Police. The following reports, collected basically from one respectable newspaper (The Hindu), bring out the picture. We give a brief description only of the 'terrorism'-related incidents. (A much longer version with more details is available on request)Factsheet Special Cell(1) February 18, 2005: Ex-Supreme Commander of Al-jehad arrested Aziz, ex-militant, "chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir People's League," arrested. Fake Indian currency worth Rs. 1 lakh, and UAE dirhams worth Rs. 16 lakhs "obtained" from the Pakistan High Commission, seized. (Hindu, 19 Feb)(2) February 25, 2005: Two Kashmiri ex-militant 'activists' arrestedSouth-West Delhi police arrested ex-militant, "self-proclaimed human rights activist" Mohammad Ahsan Untoo on February 12. Rs. 70, 000 in cash, allegedly received from the Pakistan High Commission in exchange for defence information, seized. At Untoo's "instance," Gulam Nabi Nazar, had been arrested from Srinagar on February 17. Special Cell, among other agencies, interrogated the arrested persons. (Hindu, 26 & 28 Feb)(3) March 2, 2005: Kidnappers of notorious gang arrested(4) March 3, 2005: Extortionist and aide of Chhota Shakeel arrested(5) March 5, 2005: Three militants gunned down, two arrestedHamid Hussain and Sariq, "functioning as LeT operatives," arrested. 10.5 kg of RDX seized. At their instance, a Special Cell team led by Additional Commisioner of Police, Rajbir Singh, "laid siege" to a house in Bharat Vihar in South-West Delhi, and gunned down three LeT militants. Gelatine sticks weighing 100 kg., 450 detonators, three AK-56 assault rifles, four hand grenades, live cartridges, satellite and mobile phones and some documents seized.(Hindu, 6 & 7 March).(6) March 6, 2005: Pakistani conspiracy to destabilize economy foiledLeT militants were planning to attack the Indian Military Academy, Dehra Dun, and IT companies in Bangalore "in a bid to destabilize the country's booming economy fuelled by the IT sector." Hamid disclosed that one Salim who took him to Kathmandu to meet Abdul Aziz, "a senior Lashkar functionary." Abdul Aziz works under the command of Saifullah, who operates mainly from Saudi Arabia." "Irrefutable evidence"óópassport, ID card, diaries, etc.óófound to show militants were " Pakistani nationals." (Hindu, 7 March)(7) March 7, 2005: Widespread terror network exposedOne slain Pakistani militant, Shahnawaz, obtained driving licenses from Aligarh and Patna. "Intelligence agencies" listed terrorist outfits spread over Nepal, Jedda, Jakarta, Bangladesh, Kapilvastu, Kashmir, Purnea, Champaran, Darbhanga, Saharsa, Malda, Murshidabad, and so on. (Hindu, 8 March)(8) March 8, 2005: Arrest of LeT "conduit", more revelations21-year old LeT conduit, Mohammad Iftekar Ahsan Mallick, arrested; he revealed that the third slain militant, Shams, was an activist of SIMI. A hunt was initiated for Salim, "aka doctor," who is the link between Hamid and Abdul Aziz (see (6) above). (Hindu, 9 March)(9) March 10, 2005: Criminal gunned down, Pak spy arrested, profile of Salim42-year old Pakistani national Mohammad Sayeed arrested. "Incrimating documents" recovered. Sayeed was instructed by one Major Taimoor of the "Pakistani intelligence agencies" to receive a set of documents from a person near Jama Masjid. (Hindu, 11 March) The Cell also released a photograph of Salim, alias "doctor." (10) April 4, 2005: Robbers, extortionists arrested(11) April 12, 2005: Contract killers, highway robbers arrested(12) April 25, 2005: Two Lashkar militants gunned downA team of Special Cell, led by Rajbir Singh, intercepted a white Maruti car near the gate of the National Science Center in the Pragati Maidan area in New Delhi. When the two occupants came out of the car and opened fire; the police returned the fire and killed the militants. 2 kg of RDX, an AK-56 assault rifle, a .3 mm pistol, two magazines, four detonators, a satellite phone, two timers, alongwith ID cards and e-mail addresses were recovered. "Intelligence inputs" gave their names as Osama and Sabir, both belonging to Sialkot in Pakistan. (Hindu, 26 April)(13) April 26, 2005: Hunt for more terroristsDiary recovered from Osama contained satellite phone numbers of Pakistan and Jammu and Kashmir. Scrutiny of the calls made and received by the terrorists indicated that they were in constant touch with "top commanders of the LeT," Abul Alqama, based in Jammu and Kashmir. More members of the "module" could be hiding in the capital. (Hindu, 27 April; Times, 27 April)(14) April 27, 2005: Gangster gunned down(15) May 15, 2005: One gangster killed, several arrested(16) May 16, 2005: LeT Militant arrestedOn 12 May, ACP Rajbir Singh arrested a LeT militant, Harun Rashid, ay as he arrived at the Delhi airport from Singapore. Rashid is an "active member" of SIMI. He was in touch with "doctor" Salim, Abdul Aziz in Kathmandu, Shams, Shahnawaz, and Hamid (see 6 and 8). (Hindu, 17 May)(17) May 19, 2005: Two hard-core criminals arrested(18) May 21, 2005: Three criminals gunned down(19) May 22, 2005: Blasts in Delhi cinema hallsThe blasts resulted in one death and several dozen injured. Although the case was "handed over" to the Special Cell the same night (Hindu, 23 May), a number of other agencies ó the Inter-State Cell of the Crime Branch, The Intelligence Bureau and the Central Bureau of Investigation ó also seem to be conducting the investigations. (Hindu, 1 & 10 June; Times, 2 June) It is unclear how the responsibilities (and laurels) are to be distributed among them. The stellar role of ACP Rajbir Singh in arresting terrorists from Punjab was repeatedly highlighted in the reports. (Times, 6 June)(20) May 23, 2005: LeT militant arrestedLeT militant, Ishaq, arrested; 5.5 kgs of RDX, 2 detonators, and Rs. 2.5 lakhs seized. (Times, 24 May) (21) June 4, 2005: Three Hizb militants arrested Two agents of the Hizb-e-Islami, Ejaj Ahmed Wani and Shabbir Ahmed Peer, arrested on May 28; fake currency notes worth Rs.1.1 lakh seized. Subsequently, another LeT operative Nazir Ahmed Khan was arrested by the Special Cell and half a kg of RDX was recovered. (Hindu, 5 June) Nazir had also received Rs. 60 lakhs through hawala channels arranged by Sarfaraz for further delivery. (Times, 5 June)Unanswered QuestionsA. What explains the sudden exponential increase of terrorist activities in and around the city of Delhi during the specified period, especially when it was well-known that the city was placed under close police surveillance after the attack on S.A.R. Geelani (see below)?B. What explains that organizations such as LeT would allow themselves to be repeatedly caught in the traps set up by the Cell? Consider the arrest of Harun Rashid, on 12 May. The LeT 'module' he is supposed to be a member of was decisively 'smashed' by the Cell in a series of operations between March 5-10. Yet, Rashid compulsively landed at the Delhi Airport with the Special Cell waiting for him. C. What explains that the Cell is able to recover huge amounts of explosives, weapons, incriminating material, IDs, diaries, phone numbers, e-mail messages, cash, etc. such that the identity and the goals of the organizations are immediately exposed?D. What explains the remarkable ability of the Special Cell to remain unharmed? As documented, considerable arms and ammunition were recovered during most of the operations. We also saw that in many cases, allegedly seasoned terrorists/ gangsters were arrested or killed after gun battles. However, we could locate just one instance in which two members of the Special Cell received 'minor injuries,' and that too in a shoot-out with gangsters in Hardwar; in Delhi, there's not even a scratch. Even in Jammu and Kashmir, where we would expect the security forces to be better trained, more experienced, well-equipped and informed, a large number of security forces were killed in anti-terrorist operations during the same period. (Times, 12 June)Protest by Human Rights GroupsThere were at least two reports of protests by human rights groups on some of the incidents listed above.Arrest of Mohammad Ahsan Untoo (See case 2 above)As noted, the police reported the arrest of an ex-Hizb militant Mohammad Ahsan Untoo on February 12. Newspapers reported the arrests with the following headings: 'Former Hizb unit head and assistant arrested' (Asian Age), 'Two held for allegedly passing defence documents' (The Hindu), 'Ultra, Pak agent held for spying' (The Pioneer), 'ISI agent received donations from Pak High Commission' (Times of India), etc.On 16 May 2005, the All India Defence Committee for SAR Geelani and All Jammu & Kashmir Trade Union Centre held a press conference in Delhi on the Untoo case (see case 2). In their press statement, the Centre affirmed that Untoo is in fact a well-known human rights activist and is the Chairman of the Human Rights Forum, Jammu and Kashmir, and a member of the UK based International Forum for Justice. He has taken up over 3000 cases with the State Human Rights Commission, National Human Rights Commission, and Amnesty International among others.In an application filed before the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Delhi, on 12 May 2005, the advocate for Untoo, the noted human rights lawyer, N. D. Pancholi, submitted that: (i) Untoo came to Delhi on 5 February, 2005 for some personal work.(4) and to file some cases with the NHRC; (ii) after learning of the attack on Geelani on 8 February, he went to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences the next day to show solidarity as a human rights activist, but the police did not allow him to see Geelani; (iii) the same evening, some unidentified policemen arrested him from Priya Guest House in Daryagunj; (iv) he was kept in police custody and was brutally tortured for the next ten to twelve days; (v) the police compelled one scavenger to sodomize him and subjected him to all kinds of humiliation; (vi) the police wanted Untoo to make a false confession stating that he was involved in the attempt to murder Geelani; (vii) the police forced Untoo to sign blank pieces of paper; (viii) he was produced before a Magistrate only on 13 February; (ix) he was denied access to any lawyer; (x) there were reports in the papers that Untoo had been arrested in connection with the attack on Geelani; (xi) Untoo is a victim of communalism and prejudice against Kashmiris who have been portrayed as "terrorists."The Pragati Maidan Encounter (See case 14 above)A team of People's Union for Democratic Rights, PUDR, visited the site of the shooting, examined the car in which the alleged militants were travelling, and questioned the guards at the National Science Center who were present during the operation. PUDR made three observations, among others. (Hindu, 3 May)First, since a large number of policemen, were already stationed in and around the area much before the time of the encounter; it was highly unlikely that the alleged terrorists would have failed to notice the arrangement and stopped the. Second, bullet holes on the car's body suggest that the persons were fired at close range. Third, the guards did not see any cars parked there for any length of time, or a car being chased. The PUDR also pointed out that "the police are never hurt in the cross-fire even when they are wearing only civilian clothes and the encounters always take place in high-profile places like Ansal Plaza, Humayun's Tomb or Pragati Maidan." PUDR requested the National Human Rights Commission to investigate the matterIn a seminal piece published in The Guardian (5 July, 2003), Basharat Peer began a recounting of the Ansal Plaza 'encounter' with a quick portrayal of Rajbir Singh, the ACP of the Special Cell, who led the police operation on the concerned occasions: "A tall, sturdy man with rugged features, Singh has risen from the lowly position of sub-inspector to his present prestigious position in just a few years. His record of eliminating terrorists is matched only by the allegations of human rights violations against him. His role in six separate killings of alleged terrorists and gangsters has been questioned by the Indian media, and his involvement in a shoot-out at a shopping mall by the National Human Rights Commission of India." In November 2002, Singh and his men claimed to have killed two terrorists of Lashkar-e-Taiba at Ansal Plaza shopping mall, but "a local Hindu doctor, Hari Krishna, told the media that he saw the police shoot in cold blood the two unarmed and apparently drugged men, who, Krishna said, could barely walk." In the 30-odd months that have elapsed, both Hari Krishna and the Ansal Plaza incident have disappeared from public view. How many of the alleged arrests, encounters and recoveries detailed earlier are fake? And why were they needed now?A Perspective: December 13Much of the concerns about possible false cases and fake encounters can be traced back to some of the salient features of the Parliament attack case. The hearing on this case has just ended at the Supreme Court of India, and the Court has reserved its judgment.(5) In what follows, we will just cite some reports and documents that are currently before the Court, without commenting on their veracity. The Cell and December 13To recall, five armed persons entered the Parliament complex in New Delhi on 13 December 2001 at about 11.30 A.M. when Parliament was in session. On being challenged near the carcade of the Vice-President of India, they opened fire. For half an hour, a fierce battle raged outside the building. All five persons died on the spot before they could enter inside the Parliament building. Nine other people, including some members of the security forces, died in the attack while sixteen persons from the security forces were injured. Soon after the attack, four people were arrested by the Special Cell for their alleged role in the conspiracy: Mohammad Afzal, Shaukat Hussain Guru, Syed Abdul Rehman Geelani, and Afsan Guru. The case went on trial in the designated POTA Court in May 2002. The Court delivered its judgment in December 2002. On appeal, the case went to the High Court in Delhi, which delivered its judgment on 29 October 2003. On cross-appeal, the case went to the Supreme Court where the hearing has just ended, as noted.Throughout the trial, the defence raised a series of objections against the conduct of the investigations by the police. Some of these were reported in the press even before the judgment of the POTA Court.(6) During the High Court stage, the defence was joined by seniors lawyers Ram Jethmalani and Shanti Bhushan, both former Union minister of law. Commenting on the investigation, Jethmalani submitted that it "is riddled with illegality. The evidence discloses concoction and fabrication. All these have been grossed one and have resulted in a grave miscarriage of justice."(7) In his submission on behalf of Shaukat Hussain Guru, Shanti Bhushan contended that his client "has been falsely implicated in the conspiracy case by the investigating agency." The agency has not only "gone out of its way in concocting evidence," it "had even gone to the extent of forging and fabricating important documents for framing the appellants and police officials had clearly given perjured evidence." According to the Senior Counsel, "the investigating officials have clearly committed offences punishable imprisonment with life under Section 194 and 195 of I.P.C." "When such a serious offence has been committed by the investigating officials," Shanti Bhusan continued, "it is only by having them punished that such fabrication of documents and the giving of perjured evidence can be stopped by the Court."(8)The High Court not only acquitted Geelanióósentenced to death by the POTA Courtóóand Afsan Guru of all charges, they made several adverse remarks on the conduct of the police. First, concerning Mohammad Afzal's 'confession' before the media conducted by Rajbir Singh, the court observed: "It has indeed become a disturbing feature as is being noticed by us repeatedly that the accused persons, after their remand by the Magistrate, are brazenly paraded before the press and interviews are being allowed."(9) Moreover, the Court observed that "the prosecution stands discredited qua the time of arrest of accused S. A. R. Geelani and accused Afsan Guru." In particular, they noted that "The presence of Bismillah's [Geelani's brother] signatures as having attested the arrest memos of the three accused probabilises the testimony of DW-5 that Bismillah was in illegal confinement and was forced to sign papers."(10) However, the Court stopped short of suggesting punishment for the concerned police officers.The outright acquittal of Geelani and Afsan from all charges naturally gave rise to some obvious questions. Why should we now believe in the prosecution's story for the rest of the case? In particular, what justifies the underlying assumption that, although the police, the prosecution and the POTA Court have been horribly wrong in one part of the case, they have been vindicated for the other parts? Some publications began to appear that examined these and related questions with full seriousness.(11) As the trial moved to the Supreme Court, these write-ups penetrated much of the readership in the activist and human rights circles. Briefly, they raised the following issues, among others: (i) there was a complicity between the media and the police for projecting a largely unproven story, (ii) the police possibly forced statements and confessions from the accused, (iii) public witnesses were coerced into making false statements, (iv) the accused were brutally tortured by the police, (v) crucial documents and records were fabricated or tampered with, (vi) the accused, especially Mohd. Afzal, a surrendered militant, did not get adequate legal representation.(12) In a recent interview, Shanti Bhusan complained that the government "pushed us to the brink of a nuclear war" following the attack on Parliament. However, "the police failed to crack the case" as "all the five militants died in the attack." So the police, Shanti Bhusan suggested, "framed people" in order "to create a conspiracy case." (Tehelka, 16 Oct, 2004) Outside the courts, these concerns were largely restricted to the activist and human rights circles, as noted.The Attack on SAR GeelaniThe noted concerns exploded into the full public domain with the murderous attack on SAR Geelani on the evening of 8 February 2005. As the grievously-injured Geelani was rushed to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, a large number of lawyers, activists, journalists and university teachers gathered in front of the hospital within the hour. In front of live television, speaker after speakeróófrom the eminent lawyer Kamini Jaiswal to student leaders from the Jawaharlal Nehru Universityóópointed their finger at the Special Cell.In the following days, the entire mainstream media highlighted the allegations against the Special Cell for the first time in the brief history of the Parliament attack case.(13) The day after the attack, hundreds of writers, artists, academicians, activists, and journalists gathered in front of the Police Headquarters in a spontaneous demonstration that lasted for hours. A delegation was formed and sent to meet the Union Home Minister, Shri Shivraj Patil, to submit an 'Open letter' that was signed by hundreds of those gathered. The letter stated: "although we do not wish to pre-judge any specific complicity in the attack on Geelani at this stage, we strongly feel that the involvement of the Delhi Police itself, especially its Special Branch, in the crime can not be ruled out." The letter then went on to describe the treatment meted out to Geelani and the other accused in the Parliament attack case; it also detailed Geelani's refusal to submit to police pressures despite torture. Further, it described how "after his acquittal, Geelani has been a prominent voice in defence of democracy and human rights. Following his own bitter experience, he has drawn attention of the country to the abject violation of the rights of prisoners, especially Kashmiri muslims, in the Tihar jail." Thus, the letter suggested, "no wonder his presence has been a thorn in the flesh of cynical power enjoyed by the Special Branch with the undisguised blessings of the erstwhile NDA government in the name of anti-terrorist operations."(14)Recounting some of the more sinister aspects of the Parliament attack case, Arundhati Roy wrote, "I have no idea who pumped those bullets into S.A.R. Geelani. However, in deference to the general public unease with the Special Cell, the investigation ought to be conducted by an agency other than the Delhi Police. While it may be unfair to accuse them without evidence, they certainly cannot be considered above suspicion, and must be investigated."(15) In a subsequent article, we observed that there is no report as to whether the police have interrogated their own brethren in the Special Branch, the hoodlums that ransacked Senior Counsel Ram Jethmalani's office when he decided to defend Geelani in the High Court, and the right-wing forces that burst crackers in front of the Special Court when Geelani was sentenced to death. In other words, people with demonstrated enmity towards Geelani have been systematically spared. At the same time, there is a constant attempt to implicate shadowy terrorist groups, persons lodged in prison, and even Geelani himself for "crafting" this attack.(16)Questioning the investigative methods of the Delhi Police on the attack on Geelani, the Delhi University Teachers In Defence of SAR Geelani submitted a petition to the National Human Rights Commission on 15 February. This petition was signed by a large number of academicians, lawyers, and human rights activists. After a careful review of the police investigations, the petition stated "these actions not only show the failure of the police to launch a serious investigation into this massive crime, there is an attempt to personalize what is clearly an enormous political crime. Who are the police trying to shield with these diversionary tactics?"(17) As noted, these concerns were openly expressed and covered in the mainstream papers and television for several days after the attack. The matter was placed before the Supreme Court who asked for a report from the police. (Hindu, 10 Feb) Also the defence filed an application, with supporting documents, before the Court praying for transfer of the case to the CBI. Although, the Court rightly refused to join the issue given the pending Parliament attack case, they suggested that the petitioners appeal before the High Court in Delhi.We must also mention the publication of the book December 13: Terror over Democracy, with a foreword essay by Noam Chomsky, in March 2005. The book recounts the allegations of fabrication, concoction and conspiracy by the police in detail with supporting documents. Simultaneously, a national Committee for Inquiry into December 13 was launched. The committee is chaired by the veteran Gandhian and Rajya Sabha member Nirmala Deshpande and has Mahasweta Devi, Rajni Kothari, Prabhat Patnaik, Ashish Nandy, Prashant Bhushan, Mihir Desai, Gautam Navlakha, Sumanta Bannerjee, among others, as members. One of the first actions of the Committee was to send copies of the book to the highest political and judicial leadership of the country. Quite evidently, for the first time in recent years, the heat is on the police, especially the Special Cell. It is also natural to assume that, especially in view of recent developments, the Supreme Court will pay the closest attention to the conduct of the police in the Parliament attack case.From this perspective, it is difficult to ignore a telling pattern in the operations of the Special force listed above. The first sequence of aggressive media publicity of the anti-terrorist operations of the Special Cell begins a week after the attack on Geelani, when the public outcry on the attack was at its peak. The sequence lasts nearly a month and reaches a crescendo with the gunning down of three alleged LeT militants in Bharat Vihar. After this huge success, a period of lull followed as public protests died out. However, the Cell was never out of news: it turned its attention to gangsters. The second sequence begins in the third week of April, the week of final hearings at the Supreme Court as the Court prepares to write the judgment. This sequence begins with the high drama at Pragati Maidan and continues today with a careful mix of operations against both gangsters and terrorists. How can the general public and the Court ignore the supreme efficiency and the indispensability of the Cell in making the life of the citizens of Delhi safe?In a way, the police spilled the beans when, in response to a question about allegations of illegal arrest and police brutality by rights activists in the Untoo case, a senior police officer said, "This is a desperate attempt by them as the Supreme Court is going to pronounce judgment in the case soon." (Indian Express, 17 May) The questioner did not even mention either the Supreme Court or the Parliament attack case.

Full text of the petition at www.sacw.net/hrights/letterNHRC14022005.htmlNirmalangshu Mukherji is a Professor of Philosophy, Delhi University, India. E-mail address: somanshu@bol.net.in

The Article About Nothing

2008-03-24T03:22:00.000-07:00

Hmmm, no ideas? So what? Ever thought of writing about….nothing? You know this is actually common nowadays. Free ArticlesI don’t know how you feel but I am overwhelmed about the abundance of information that can be found everywhere.Everyone is writing about everything. The same subjects are written and rewritten and rewritten and I look and them and wonder how the hell is this supposed to help the modern man become more efficient? The truth is that we are in a hurry, our whole lives are spent running from place to place, trying to keep up with the others around us. We sleep less trying to make more time for ourselves, but we end up wasting that time on useless things. How about TV ? How useless is that? I really think that you are in the danger of becoming dumber if you spend too much time in front of it. There are people that spend half of the day, that becomes half of their life in front of the TV. You know what the worst part is ? Most shows on TV are for complete morons … instead of watching someone live a stupid life on TV maybe you should go outside and live your own life…maybe you’ll start liking it.Internet….oh this is a big one. At first I thought wow, what a useful thing, and don’t get me wrong, if you know what you’re looking for and how to find it, you’ll probably find it on the internet. The sad thing is, that besides information, it is full to the teeth with crap. People selling made-up information, spammers, people trying to scam other people. How in gods name is it possible to search for something and the first 10 or so results you find are scams? Let me tell you why…because these guys know SEO, they will do anything to be listed first in search engines to make more money. Instead, the good old sites that offer information and recreation aren’t well placed in search engines because they don’t do SEO, they just rely on offering good content .This is not good, I’m at paragraph 5 and I still have nothing to write about…this is turning out to be just another useless piece of article, made just to confuse the common man. Another article in the immensity of useless articles that just take up space and help no one. Hope you didn’t reach this point and I’m really sorry for wasting your time in this manner, you know the other day I read something I found really enlightening. It said something like this : “If you stay and do nothing, you don’t kill time, you commit suicide”.At least let me give you an advice I hope you’ll take, because it’s for your own good. Stop wasting time and do something with your life. Never say I’ll do this tomorrow, if you have time, do it now, and live to the maximum ! Have a nice life !
Source: Taitelul Verde, http://www.articleset.com

Why Bangalore is India's suicide capital

2008-03-24T02:36:00.000-07:00

Vicky Nanjappa in Bangalore

Source:Rediff.com

Bangalore is India's suicide capital.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau, at least 35 in every 100,000 people in Bangalore commit suicide.
Why is Bangalore seeing an increasing number of suicides?
Experts say most suicide cases in the city are related to stress; its citizens are unable to cope with Bangalore's quick growth. If you walk into Bangalore's leading hospitals, you will find a large number of patients suffering from stress-related ailments.
Doctors specialising in this disorder told rediff.com that, on an average, they treat at least 10 patients a day for stress-related ailments.
A doctor at the city's Manipal Hospital said, on condition of anonymity, "We admit such patients to monitor them. They remain in hospital for at least a day or two before they are discharged. We keep them on medication if necessary or we advise counselling."
Work and the city's chaotic traffic contribute to increased stress among Bangalore residents. Anoushka Tripathy, a clinical psychologist, says, "Several of my patients, especially from the IT and BPO industry, complain that they are unable to cope with their work. Extended work timings, competition and, most importantly, insecurity at work are contributing to an increase in people's stress levels."
Another reason is that many young people working in these industries have no family life. "By the time they return from work, it is quite late. Their family members are either sleeping or they themselves are too tired to talk, which makes them very lonely."
Take the case of Ravi Varma (name changed), a customer service adviser at a reputed BPO. Unable to bear the stress and loneliness, he attempted suicide five months ago. Luckily, he was saved due to quick medical attention. Ravi says the loneliness and stress got to him. He hardly had any time to spend with his family or friends. "Sometimes I felt like discussing work-related issues with my family, but never got the opportunity because of my work hours."
Ravi's mother says she never thought the problem was this bad until he attempted suicide. "We now take him for regular counselling and yoga class. We are making attempts to create time to spend with each other. Giving up his job is not the solution," she says.
Traffic-related stress is another problem Bangaloreans are grappling with. The number of vehicles in the city has grown five-fold and Bangalore just does not have the infrastructure to cope. Between 8 am to 10 am and 6 pm to 8 pm, the city looks like a village that has exploded.
Those working in the IT sector have to travel at least 20 kilometres to 25 kilometres to reach their work place and, thanks to the traffic jams, the travel time increases by a good one-and-a-half hours at the very least. The pressure of meeting deadlines and making it on time to meetings prey on their mind as they try and beat the traffic. This, in turn, contributes to increasing stress levels.
The National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Bangalore also treats patients for stress-related ailments. Doctors at NIMHANS say software engineers in the age group of 24 to 30 years form a large chunk of the patients facing this problem. The doctors add that such patients complain of restlessness, lack of concentration, anxiety and body pain -- all of which are symptomatic of stress.
In the last two months, over 100 IT professionals have made a beeline to Ayurvedic centres for de-stressing programmes, where they are taught how to strike a balance between their personal and professional lives.
A close study indicates that work-related insecurity, extended working hours and stringent deadlines also contribute to Bangalore's rising stress levels. Psychiatrists say those afflicted by stress should spend more time with the family and talk about their problem.
Moreover, people working in the BPO and IT industries constantly need to adjust to different cultures as they keep interacting with different people of different nationalities. This constant change also takes a toll on them, the doctors say.
The common factor, the doctors add, is that most of these youngsters are stressed out about money. Since the IT boom took place, salaries are at an unbelievable high. This has prompted banks to make tempting loan offers. At least five out of 10 IT workers fall into the trap.
Says Kishore Alva, a software engineer, "It is the EMIs that worry us. How do we repay the banks if we lose our jobs? This factor is on my mind almost every day and increases my stress levels."
While hospitals deal with at least 10 patients a day on an average, counsellors see five patients a day as against five patients in five days three years ago.

Holi's Muslim history

2008-03-22T03:26:00.000-07:00

Holi, being celebrated across India March 21, may bethe most colourful Hindu festival but it has a Muslimhistory as well.Sufi saints like Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia and AmirKhusrau in their chaste Persian and Hindi loved thefestival. Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, whose Holi‘phags& #8217; (songs) are relished even today,allowed his Hindu ministers to tinge his forehead with‘gulal& #8217; during Holi festival each year.During the Shahjahani tenure of Delhi, Holi was knownas Eid-e-Gulabi (Pink Eid) or Aab-e-Pashi (Shower ofColourful Flowers), and truly so owing to its carnivalspirit and hysterical rejoicing for both Hindus andMuslims.The nobles, kings and nawabs exchanged rose waterbottles and sprinkled them on each other along withthe frenzied drumming of the ‘nagaras& #8217;(drums).This enlightened spirit percolated in the Mughalsright from the time of the greatest Mughal emperorAkbar. Jahangir is shown holding Holi festivities inTuzk-e-Jahangiri.Many artists, especially Govardhan and Rasik, haveshown Jahangir playing Holi with Noorjahan, his wife.Mohammed Shah Rangila, in a remarkable painting, isshown running around the palace with his wifefollowing him with a ‘pichkari& #8217;, or watercannon.Such examples are umpteen in India’ s culturalheritage; and this has been enriched by the harmoniousamalgamation and assimilation of various faiths andethnicities.Mirza Sangi Baig in Sair-ul-Manazil narrates that therollicking and frolicking Holi groups were alternatelypowdered and drenched till the floor had been coveredwith a swamp of crimson, yellow and orange colour,with the faces being multi- coloured, a spectacle veryenthralling and exclusive.“Who says Holi is a Hindu festival?” asksMunshi Zakaullah in his book Tarikh-e-Hindustani .Zakaullah writes that the carnival of Holi lasted fordays during the Mughal rule during which people,irrespective of religious or social distinctions,forgot their restraints. The poorest of the poor threwcolour on the emperor.Children’ s Urdu monthly Khilona (March 1960)mentioned that during the days of Bahadur Shah Zafar,special arrangements were made for Holi festivities.And Jam-e-Jahanuma, an Urdu newspaper (March 10,1844), reported that on such occasions, both Hindusand Muslims joined hands.The above post is excerpted, with slightmodifications, from different sites.

The link between financial markets in the US and Indian stock markets

2008-03-22T02:47:00.000-07:00

Today, as the Indian markets get lashed by something called sub-prime mortgage, we are being asked to remain calm and cool as there is no linkage between what happens to the financial markets in the US and to the Indian stock market.
Well, that is a partial truth and, in effect, a partial lie.
Stock markets are influenced by 2 factors:
how much do companies earn, and
how much are people willing to pay for those earnings.
The earnings power of a company is a function of the business of the company, its management, and the overall growth rate in the economy in which it operates. There is little change here in our view and we should safely assume that India's GDP will grow at a 6 per cent to 6.5 per cent per annum rate for the next few years. (Many more optimistic people have a higher GDP growth rate for India at 8 per cent plus but we don't subscribe to that view as yet.)
Understanding liquidity & sub-prime debt
How much people are willing to pay for those earnings is a function of what economists call 'liquidity' and though there is no clear definition of what 'liquidity' is, one can assume that it is how much money is sloshing in the system. Imagine you are at a bar and everyone is feeling a little good from the various other liquids that the bar tender has to offer for a price, of course. Then the bar tender says, "Hey, folks, how about I cut the price of the drinks by 50 per cent - anyone want some more?"
You bet! The crowds get bigger and people feel even more elated. With all those drinks available on the cheap, they lose their sense of judgment. Human nature is anyways tuned to drift into flirtations. With a few more drinks, the drifting becomes a reality. The poor bloke standing next to you in this bar - a total stranger - suddenly feels like a friend.
You begin chatting. By the end of the fifth glass, the poor fellow who works as a waiter in some corner restaurant in some obscure town in USA now looks like a promising young man who could one day start his own restaurant, build his own mall, and maybe have a chain of restaurants. So you lend him money to buy a house. He is actually what the credit rating agencies would call a "sub-prime credit risk".
But, because that bar tender gave you all those free drinks, in your eyes he becomes a good risk and better still, you turn to the other drunk next to you and re-sell the loan you made to this sub-prime fellow for a profit. And why do you sell the loan for a profit? Because the guy you sell it to (a European, Japanese, Middle Eastern, whoever) is more drunk than you because the bar tender in his country also gives him free drinks.
And he cannot assess the risk profile of that sub-prime American any better than you can. So all the drunks are happy. And you use that profit to make another loan to another poor sub-prime fellow and so on and so forth...
Since 2003 all the drunks are having a good time, lending and buying and selling sub-prime loans to each other.
All the sub-prime folks who got this silly money in 2003, 2004, and 2005 from the folks at the bar thought they were rich and started buying big houses and big cars and spent money which was not earned, but borrowed.
The bar tender is serving the drinks because he needs to make sure everyone feels good. There may be an election around the corner. Or if he serves his drinks quick and fast, some big bank group may come in and hire him as a consultant or make him a chairman of a global financial conglomerate riding this tide of global liquidity.
So the central banks were the bar tenders, doling out drinks and money as if their printing presses had to print, and print and print. Rather than being the men in grey suits with grumpy faces worried about the fate of the financial world, they became the stars on TV channels and the toast of conventions: their suits were grey but they were talking about this perfect world and this goldilocks, fairy tale.
And that fairy tale found its way to India and the rest of the emerging markets. From being the poor countries with corrupt governments and inept governments that have consistently failed to look after the needs of their people, these countries got a new name: BRIC.
They became the darlings of the drunks. Yes, while there have been significant improvements in many countries - including India - the perception of the depth or the sustainability of these improvements were exaggerated when the drunks at the bar came calling.
India has seen nearly US$ 50 billion of foreign inflows - of which US$ 40 billion have come in since 2003. Yes, the Indian companies and the Indian stock markets did deserve a lot of that but the assessment of risk has been, in my opinion, absent.
The sub-prime fall out
The sub-prime blow has so far seen some US$ 2 billion of losses from funds that have been closed down. There is maybe another US$ 50 to 100 billion of losses that may yet be exposed, according to people who track this industry. While US$ 100 billion is nothing in a world where the market cap of stocks is US$ 30 trillion (300 times the potential losses) and where bonds worth maybe US$ 100 trillion float around, the bar tenders are now serving less of that booze. The drunks are getting more sober.
They now see that sub-prime person as someone who may be lucky to keep his job in a restaurant as opposed to their previous assumption (over the rim of their liquor glass) that they were lucky to stumble on the founder of the next new big restaurant chain in USA. And they will price that loan accordingly.
And they will see the investment opportunities in the emerging markets with a little better understanding of risk. Don't get me wrong: the fundamentals for India are fantastic, and money will flow in to India over the next decade. Sensible, risk-assesses money. But for now, the silly money will go out. The P-Note folks will vacate and that will cause the Indian market to suffer.
India has, via its P-Note policy, linked itself to silly money. We enjoyed the ride for the past 4 years, now we will feel a bit of pain.
Keep your money ready to invest. Stay disciplined, never be carried away, politely tell the bartenders to keep their extra, free drinks. And you will profit: steadily but surely.

Discrimination rife in Indian economy

2008-03-21T10:05:00.000-07:00

Jo Johnson in New Delhi

Male graduates applying for private sector jobs in India are far more likely to progress to the next round if they have high-caste Hindu names than if they have surnames associated with dalit (formerly untouchable) or Muslim origins, new research has found.
Far from being a hangover from the past found only at the margins of a newly meritocratic society, such discrimination is rife in the most dynamic sectors of the Indian economy, according to a joint study undertaken by academics from Princeton University and the Indian Institute for Dalit Studies.
Making use of techniques pioneered in the US to measure discrimination against blacks and other minorities, researchers made 4,808 job applications to 548 graduate level openings advertised in newspapers by blue chip Indian and multinational companies, changing only the names of identically qualified candidates.

Appropriately qualified applicants with a dalit name had odds of progressing to the next stage of the recruitment process that were two thirds of those of an equivalently qualified candidate with a high caste Hindu name, while those of an equally qualified Muslim candidate were only around a third as good.
The findings, published in India's Economic and Political Weekly, have been released at a politically sensitive time, with the government threatening to extend a system of quotas to the private sector unless businesses voluntarily boost the number of recruits from disadvantaged social groups.
The private sector has argued that the under-representation of dalits, tribes people and Muslims should be solved by improving the public education system - on the grounds that these communities attend inferior schools - rather than through quotas that would crimp freedom to hire and fire.

The studies, however, cast some doubt on whether, without government intervention, the self-interest of theoretically economically "rational" recruiters, who would want to minimise wage bills by recruiting from the widest possible pool of qualified talent, would be sufficient to correct the problem.
"Reaching the pinnacle of what the Indian education system has to offer is not sufficient to create full and open opportunity," wrote Sukhadeo Thorat, founder of the Indian Institute of Dalit Studies, and Katherine Newman, a sociologist and director of Princeton University's Institute for International and Regional Studies, two of the academics involved with the project.
"Far from fading as India modernises, the problem of discrimination remains a serious one, even at the very top of the human capital hierarchy," the authors said, arguing that recruiters in major companies continued to "subject low caste applicants to negative stereotypes that may overwhelm their formal accomplishments".
Business groups have argued that mandatory extension of quotas to the private sector would hit productivity. They say the organised private sector, which accounts for less than 5 per cent of the workforce, is already suffering from labour market rigidities, such as the need to secure government approval to fire employees.
Manmohan Singh recently became the first sitting Indian prime minister to acknowledge openly the parallel between "untouchability" and apartheid, describing the latter as a "blot on humanity". His government is poised to establish an Equal Opportunity Commission, whose powers have yet to be defined.

Islamic Finance

2008-03-21T10:01:00.000-07:00

ISLAMIC BANKING AND FINANCE #13
Education demands intensifyThe rapid growth in Islamic finance activities in recent years has led to an increasing demand for qualified personnel. Tan Su Lin reports on the availability and quality of courses worldwideAfter more than 10 years of service at Hong Leong Bank, a household name in conventional banking in Malaysia, Bernard Khoo chose to leave for a posting as branch manager of the newly opened Asian Finance Bank in the capital city, Kuala Lumpur. With its generic moniker, nobody would have had an inkling that it is actually an Islamic bank until they notice the absence of interest-free banking. In a way, this also illustrates how quickly Islamic finance is spreading. Naturally, this has led to the industry’s recruitment net being cast onto the talent pool for conventional banking and finance. “It’s not very different from normal banking, operations-wise, but I am thinking of a course in Islamic finance, maybe a post-graduate diploma,” says the 42-year-old. “It would be difficult to sell our products without it.”As Islamic banking activities flourish across Europe, the Middle-East and Asia, opportunities exist for executives with a combination of market savvy and the ability to differentiate between mudharabah and murabaha contracts. For job-seekers, the Islamic finance qualification may help to set them apart from the competition. “It’s impossible for me to know, but I had four interviews, and in most of those it came up as a topic for discussion,” recalls Morris Blumenthal, a 32-year-old legal counsel with Standard Chartered Bank UK. Mr Blumenthal cut his teeth in private practice at Clifford Chance and later DLA Piper. It was at his Canary Wharf office that he first worked on a sukuk deal. While networking and attending free lectures offered at the Institute of Islamic Banking and Insurance (IIBI) in Northwest London, he then enrolled in its postgraduate diploma programme, which he completed two years ago.“I thought the course looked interesting and it was an opportunity to cement the knowledge I had and learn more,” he says.
Commodity-linked investmentsThe Shariah-compliant commodity-linked and structured product market is increasingly presenting more comprehensive offerings. David Kemp focuses on the latest developmentsIt should come as no surprise that Shariah-compliant commodity-linked investments have become available in the market, given that Shariah finance and commodities as an asset class are leading themes in finance. A combination of the two are highly sought after by Islamic investors Commodity investment predates Islam and is a natural Islamic investment, being both tangible and representing the raw material necessary to the means of production. Shariah-compliant commodity-linked investment began with the physical holding of a commodity, accompanied by the associated issues of sourcing, storing and funding. A further development enabled investors to hold a commodity through an intermediate vehicle such as a metals fund, which frequently imposed high running costs and limited scale. The market can offer fully fledged commodity-linked structured products. These include investment certificates, providing exposure to risk-return profiles ranging from a single commodity or basket of commodities through to modified benchmark indices and beyond into bespoke commodity indices. Each of these products is discussed. Many believe that now is the time to invest in commodities.Islamic investors, as with their conventional counterparts, are aware that an investment in commodities can provide otherwise unobtainable diversification benefits to a balanced portfolio. In particular, research has shown the low correlation of commodities with the traditional asset classes of equities and bonds. In addition, the high Sharpe ratio and low volatility of commodities enable a portfolio that includes commodities to move along the efficient frontier in a way that both reduces volatility and increases returns (see diagram 1).
Unlocking French banking codeFrance must remove restrictions on foreign banks if it wants to share in the expansion of Islamic banking and protect its markets, says Fehmy Saddy. Sooner or later, there will be a tide of change Establishing an Islamic bank, or any bank for that matter, is usually a simple process. A banking institution or an investment advisory firm assembles a group of investors and retains a law firm, an accounting firm, a bank technology firm and a public relations firm. It selects a couple of experienced bankers to oversee the preparation of a feasibility study, develops a business plan and submits an application to the regulatory authorities. The capital is then deposited, a banking license is issued and a bank is born. It is a fairly straightforward process. However, the process is more difficult in some countries. The extreme case is Brazil, where a moratorium on issuing new bank licenses has been in effect since 1988. In the United States there are strict requirements, such as holding hearings for the community to express its views and meeting the requirements of the Community Reinvestment Act. Probably the most flexible is the UK, where Her Majesty’s government is determined to make London the world centre of Islamic banking. There are certain basic requirements, particularly with respect to transparency, but once they are met and the funds are there, a license will be issued, regardless of the nationality, ideology, religion or skin colour of the shareholders. In France, the issue is a little more complicated. The nationality of the majority shareholders is a critical factor and there are explicit as well as some unwritten requirements. First, foreign banks or investors (defined as non-EEC or EEC space nationals) must have a French or European financial institution participate in the capital structure of the new bank and hold at least one-third of the equity. This national or European bank shall act as parrain (guarantor) for the foreign shareholders. Second, the French or EEC parrain must have been engaged in the banking business in France for at least 15 years and must be financially strong enough to sustain the loss in case the new bank failed.
On the crossroads of Shariah complianceShariah scholars have arrived at the minimum criteria to provide investors with a wide choice of compliant equities. MH Khatkhatay and Shariq Nisar assess the norms set by three organisationsIslamic banks, investment companies and equity funds have their own norms for assessing Shariah compliance of companies in which they consider investing. Most do not publicise the norms they use for selection or screening. Organisations such as Islamic Development Bank, the Association of Islamic Banks, IFSB and the Islamic Fiqh Academy of the OIC also have not laid down any definite criteria.Information is available on the screening criteria of Dow Jones for inclusion and tracking of equities in its Islamic equity indices. Similarly, the screening criteria of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Malaysia are available as are the criteria of Meezan (Pakistan). The rationale they apply for a particular norm is not available.The Dow Jones Islamic Index screens for acceptable business activities by stating that activities of the companies should not be inconsistent with Shariah precepts. Therefore, based on revenue allocation, if any company has business activities in the Shariah inconsistent group or sub-group of industries, it is excluded from the Islamic index. The supervisory board established the following broad categories of industries as inconsistent with Shariah precepts: alcohol, pork-related products, conventional financial services, hotels, entertainment, tobacco, and weapons and defense industries.Dow Jones also screens for acceptable financial ratios by removing companies with unacceptable levels of debt, liquid assets and receivables. It excludes companies for which total debt divided by its trailing 12-month average market capitalisation (TTMAMC) is greater than or equal to 33%. It also excludes companies for which the sum of cash and interest-bearing securities divided by TTMAMC is greater than or equal to 33% and those companies whose accounts receivable divided by TTMAMC are greater than or equal to 33%.
Expansion is only the beginningDemands for portfolio diversification have led to greater private equity opportunities for Islamic financial institutions and investors. Robert Varley looks at the benefits and possibilitiesThe last two years have seen a massive expansion of Shariah compliant private equity (PE) funds. By 2006 there were 126 Islamic PE funds with a collective value of US$16 billion. Apart from volume, though, the market has developed in terms of sophistication and range of assets. By looking at where the market has come from, we can start to see what it is likely to do over the next two years.It is worth taking a moment or two to look at the origins of Shariah-compliant PE funds and, in particular, the economic drivers. Shariah-compliant funds are nothing new. Cayman Islands-domiciled funds with Islamically acceptable structures and products were being established before the turn of the century for US real estate investments, and not long afterwards for UK, European and GCC property portfolios. The assets were relatively easy to screen for Shariah compliance, while the massive—and growing —liquidity among Islamic investors in recent years justified the additional marginal cost of ensuring Shariah compliance. Indeed, the compliance costs were (and are) far from prohibitive, even for the more complex funds structured to take advantage of conventional leverage.Shariah-compliant PE lagged behind the real estate funds sector by several years. The reasons are straightforward. Investors in Shariah-compliant funds had a preference for real estate as an asset class. This was reinforced by the spectacular returns available on GCC real estate funds in particular in recent years.However, a number of factors have changed in recent years. First, the success of Islamic financial institutions has led to growth and an appetite among those institutions for expansion into new areas. At the same time, greater sophistication on the part of the investors has driven demand for portfolio diversification.
An interest-free commodity currencyMost modern money exists as the balance sheet counterpart to the interest-bearing loans of commercial banking. Tarek El Diwany discusses why the underpinning of paper currency is so precarious and proposes a less volatile interest-free alternativeThe origin of money is a rarely discussed topic in media outpourings on economics and finance. This is rather strange, given that money is the measuring rod by which the worth of so many other efforts are judged. Supply and demand determine price, but this is only part of the story, because the value of money itself helps to determine price. If the measuring rod of economic activity is unreliable, then the conclusions of myriad arguments among economists may themselves be unreliable, as may the commercial decisions of individuals and corporations the world over. While the man in the street typically believes the government alone has the right to create money and regulate its value, the professional economist usually acknowledges that both the state and deposit-taking financial institutions create the monetary medium of the modern nation. Given that commercial banks are the most common form of deposit-taking institution, the following discussion refers to two types of modern money, “state money” and “bank money” (see box, Paper tiger cannot stand up to gold).In 1935 Professor Irving Fisher proposed the elimination of the power of the commercial banks to create money on the basis that they had consistently used this right to profit at society’s expense. The side-effect of their profit-seeking action was, argued Fisher, a boom and bust economy, unnecessary levels of debt, and the needless paying of interest on money that the commercial banking system had, in effect, created out of nothing.The method that Fisher proposed for achieving his objective was the gradual raising of required reserve ratios for commercial banks (that is, the ratio of monetary base to a bank’s sight deposit liabilities) to 100%. The entire money supply of a nation would then comprise money issued by the state, from which point onwards the state alone would have the right to create money. Over the years, economists such as Frank Knight and Henry Simons have argued in a similar vein to Fisher, and so the idea is not an entirely novel one.
Why London is so influentialLondon has been involved with Islamic finance for more than 30 years. Professor Rodney Wilson examines its role and suggests how its standing could be enhanced to curry even more favour in the years aheadInitially the major Islamic finance activity in London involved wholesale operations, with banks in London providing overnight deposit facilities for the newly established Islamic banks in the Gulf. These Islamic banks could not hold liquid assets such as treasury bills, which paid interest, but the joint venture Arab banks in London, accepted deposits on a murabahah mark-up basis, with the associated short-term trading transactions being conducted on the London Metal Exchange.The next milestone was in 1982, when the Jeddah-based Al Baraka Investment Company bought Hargrave Securities, a licensed deposit taker, and converted it into an Islamic bank. This served the British Muslim community to a limited extent, but its main client base was Arab visitors of high net worth who spent the summer months in London. Its business expanded from 1987 when it opened a branch on the Whitechapel Road in London, followed by a further branch on the Edgeware Road in 1989, and a branch in Birmingham in 1991, as by then the bank had between 11,000 and 12,000 clients. Al Baraka’s ambitions were in wealth management rather than banking, however, and in 1992 it converted into being an investment company, and it was no longer constrained by the regulatory requirements that applied to banking.As the Muslim population increased and many became more affluent, there was clearly scope for developing and marketing Shariah-compliant financial products. Housing finance was the key to this, as for most UK residents, their mortgages represent their largest financial commitment. Al Baraka provided some Shariah-compliant housing finance during its years as a bank, but the first serious attempt to reach this market was made by the London-based Islamic Banking Unit of the United Bank of Kuwait in 1997. The trading transactions necessary to make these mortgages Shariah-compliant attracted double stamp duty, however, making the financing relatively expensive. It was only when this was abolished in 2004 that the market for Shariah-compliant mortgages took off. Further tax concessions with respect to diminishing musharakah mortgages, arguably the product best suited for housing finance, resulted in it becoming the most popular vehicle, with funding of more than £150 million. The Alburaq division of ABC Islamic Bank accounts for much of the market, with its products being distributed by Lloyds TSB and the Islamic Bank of Britain.