THE BIGGEST ROBBERY OF THE 20TH CENTURY

IS IT GOLD !!!! NO


IS IT DIAMOND !!!!!! NO


IS IT MONEY !!! NO


IS IT OIL !!!!!! NO


CAN YOU GUESS THE EXTENT ?????

Out of Graves

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

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.
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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.
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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.
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Stop Israel’s terror in Gaza

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....

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.....

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

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)

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