24082013 aseema september 2013 approved to print

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IN THIS ISSUE

‘Unlawful’ Son-in-law

Still Flying High

Matrimonial Mishaps

Robert Vadra, son-in-law of Sonia Gandhi, is in the eye of a political storm. He is alleged to have amassed crores of rupees through land sales in Haryana apparently using his immense clout as the close relation of the UPA chairperson. The IAS officer, who relentlessly pursued this case, Ashok Khemka, was transferred and a three-member committee set up to inquire into the allegations found no fault with the Vadra’s land deals.

The law is taking its slow course in the case of film celebrity Salman Khan who was involved in a hit and run incident way back in 2002. Whether it was just an accident or an incident of rash driving is yet to be decided by the court. During this long period, Salman has acted in many films that have proved to be great “hits”. And the case too has hit many legal hurdles.

Economy in tight spotThe macro-economic parameters are presenting little room for cheer. The rupee is slipping and the industry is not getting sufficient stimulus to sustain growth. IIP contracted in June to an abysmal 2.2%; inflation is on the rise and there has been a huge withdrawal of funds -- $11.58 billion -- by foreign investors from the equity and debt markets in just over two months.

Matrimonial sites have become so popular that they are thriving on the huge demand for suitable brides and bridegrooms. All the information that one needs to get about the would-be candidates are available on the websites. But there is also a risk involved in this system: certain key information some of the fraudsters deliberately conceal.

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Telangana now;what next?

Statehood comes with loads of problems

IN THIS ISSUE

Transcending Boundaries

www.aseema.net.in

Volume 14Issue 14Shravana/ Bhadrapada September 2013

EditorNarayana Sevire Editorial TeamCP NambiarRaju ShyanbhagNarayan A.Sridharan.M.KProductionJayavanthMob: 096861 [email protected] Surender Sharma [email protected] mob - 08091273410 09459552352n Ajay Diwaker [email protected] mob - 08890843766n Dhiren Barot mob - 09687183734Edited, Publishedand Printed byNarayana Sevire on behalf of Jnana Bharathi Prakashana P.O. box. No. 794City Point, 4th Floor, KodialbailMANGALORE 575 003 Karnataka StatePhone: 0824 249791email: [email protected], Production and Marketing RIVERTHOUGHTS MEDIA PRIVATE LIMITED72/1, 3rd Floor 1st Cross Shankarapark ShankarapuramBANGALORE 560004Karnataka Stateemail: [email protected]

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Setting right our language policy

Demand for ‘Gorkhaland’

Revisiting Arthasastra

Under attack

Homeless in Homeland

Honesty Punished

Temple Tantrums

Submarine Tragedy

Solar Scam flare

The demand for separate states may sound alarm bells at the power centre in Delhi, but one has to take into consideration whether it is based on certain genuine concerns such as the identity crisis, economic disparity or discrimination.

The work has more relevance now than ever before

Muslims are being targeted in Sri Lanka by some Budhist organisations. This was something unthinkable a few years ago, since Budhism is essentially a peace-loving religion. Maybe because the Budhists believe that their religion is threatened by the conversion zeal of the Muslims or because of the dominance of the minority community in the economic sphere, there is now an atmosphere of antagonism against the Muslims in that country which is recuperating from the aftermath of a prolonged war against the Tamil Tigers.

Atrocities on Kashmiri Pundits Unabated

6 SEPTEMBER 2013 7SEPTEMBER 2013

• Narayan Ammachchi

Sonia Gandhi, it seems, is do-ing everything she can to hush up the Haryana land licensing

scandal that is threatening to expose the real colour of her son-in-law Rob-ert Vadra. It was Arvind Kejriwal, who brought the case to light for the first time, but an IAS officer who physical-ly processed the documents appears all set to take the case to its logical conclusion.

The bureaucrat we are talking about is Ashok Khemka, who was removed from the department of land registra-tion soon after he cancelled the deal Vadra had struck with the real estate firm DLF Group.

Given Khemka’s statement, the Vadra-DLF deal is just a drop in the ocean, because he says the govern-ment of Haryana lost thousands of crores of rupees in revenue, with in-termediaries like Vadra buying land-holding licences only to sell at higher prices later. He says the government might have lost Rs.3.5 lakh crore in just over the past eight years.

The state government knows it, of-ficials know it and journalists know it, yet the farmers have continued to lose their property for nothing. Get-ting land directly from the govern-ment at throwaway prices and then selling it at exorbitant prices is how

the fraudsters made money here. But getting land from the government re-quires power and influence. Robert Vadra certainly has it since he is the son-in-law of Sonia Gandhi, the chair-

person of the UPA.It all began in the second week of

October when Anna Hazare’s aide Ar-vind Kejriwal accused Robert Vadra of making crores of rupees using his in-

Vadra’s Dubious Business Transactions

Robert Vadra, son-in-law of Sonia Gandhi, is in the eye of a political storm. He is alleged to have amassed crores of rupees through land sales in Haryana apparently using his immense clout as the close relation of the UPA chairperson. The IAS officer, Ashok Khemka, who relentlessly pursued this case, was transferred and a three-member committee set up to inquire why Khemka cancelled the deal, found no fault with the Vadra’s land deals. The ultimate losers in the whole scam are the people of Haryana and of course the state government which has lost crores of rupees by way of revenue.

‘Unlawful’ Son-in-law


fluence on the Congress government in Haryana. The allegation received little response, but people grew curi-ous when Khemka cancelled the deal suspecting it to be a scandal.

The Haryana Government, in re-sponse, transferred Khemka and set up a three-member committee to in-quire why Khemka cancelled the deal. Khemka has submitted a 45-page re-port to the committee detailing how the scandal took shape.

This IAS officer has been trans-ferred for more than 42 times in his career spanning over two decades.

In February, 2008, Vadra’s Skylight Hospitality bought 3.53 acres of land for Rs 7.5 crore in Shikohpur, Gur-gaon, from Onkareshwar Properties, and then obtained licence to develop a residential colony. Vadra did not de-velop the colony; instead he sold the property along with the licence. The deal earned him Rs 42.61 crore in net profit.

Khemka says this is the very modus operandi everyone is using in Hary-ana to make quick bucks. According to Khemka, what added value to the property is the licence to develop a residential colony. Interestingly, the government issued this licence to Vadra’s firm in a matter of 18 days. And it was approved by none other than Chief Minister Hooda and this was instantly communicated to Vadra by his principal secretary.

Why did the chief minister inter-vene to issue licence to a real estate company? The three-member com-mittee has, however, found no fault with Vadra or his company, but it criticised Khemka. Interestingly, this committee too came up with its ver-dict in a record time of 14 days. Then the Prime Minister’s office dismissed the allegation, saying it was false, vexatious and based on hearsay.

Though the talk about the scandal is growing louder by the day, Vadra has remained mum. Given the docu-ments, Vadra paid Rs 7.5 crore for the property. But Khemka says all he paid was a cheque and that was never en-cashed. Therefore, Khemka says, it

was a dummy cheque.When Vadra’s company was given

the licence, all it had in its bank ac-counts was a mere one lakh rupees in capital and the shareholders of the company were Vadra and his mother Maureen. Having gained the licence, Vadra entered into a deal with DLF, which gave Rs 25 crore in advance payments. Finally, he sold the whole property for Rs 52 crore.

“This funding from the DLF Group was used to clear the dues of Rs 7.95 crore, that is, Rs 7.5 crore towards cost of land plus Rs 45 lakh towards stamp duty,” Khemka says in his re-port. Vadra did not register the ‘col-laboration agreement’ he had signed

with the DLF. Had he done so, the gov-ernment would have got a huge sum of money by way of stamp duty. So the real loser here is the government and the people of Haryana.

Khemka seems to be determined to take the case to its logical conclusion. In an interview given to Governance-Now, he says he was once transferred for refusing to send 200 trucks for a Congress rally held in New Delhi in 1994.

The day he cancelled Vadra’s deal, he was summoned to a Congress leader’s house at around 8 pm. An hour after he returned home, his door bell rang and someone handed him his transfer order.

Vadra’s VIP StatusUnlike other businessmen in the country, Vadra will not be frisked at check-points in airports across the country. The Congress Government gave him this VIP status in September 2005. Others on the list include the President, the Prime Minister and former Presidents.

When an RTI activist questioned the government, Home Minister Chidam-baram replied that Vadra’s was “a special case.” The Home Minister went on to say that Vadra was married to an SPG protectee – Priyanka Vadra, the daughter of Sonia Gandhi.

One day, policemen at the Parliament building had stopped Vadra’s bodyguards for carrying pistols.

Numerous reports have questioned the veracity of balance-sheets of Vadra-owned companies, which claim to have received an overdraft of Rs 7.94 crore from Corporation Bank. Corporation Bank later denied that it ever provided an overdraft facility of that amount.


Still Flying HighSalman Khan’s Controversial Sides

The law is taking its slow course in the case of film celebrity Salman Khan who was involved in a hit and run incident way back in 2002. Whether it was just an accident or an incident of rash driving is yet to be decided by the court. During this long period, Salman has acted in many films that have proved to be great “hits”. And the case too has hit many legal hurdles.

He is controversy’s favourite child. Salman Khan, one of the biggest stars of the Indian

film industry, has often found him-self pitted against the wrong side of public sentiments. Everything from his reportedly obnoxious behaviour on the sets to his 2002 hit and run case has been well documented by the media.

Salman Khan, or Sallu Bhai, as the industry fondly calls him, was in-volved in a hit and run case in 2002. On the 28th of September that year, Salman’s Land Cruiser allegedly rammed into a bakery in Mumbai; one person who was sleeping on the pavement outside the bakery died and three others were injured in the mishap. The actor surrendered and the case has been dragging on for more than a decade now.

It could have been among the hundreds of hit and run cases that occur in our badly managed streets every day, which run out of steam in a few days. But this was Salman Khan, an actor whose every step is closely watched and reported by the media. So his hit and run case is gradually turning into a case study of how celebrities get preferential treatment in our country.

Those close to him, includ-ing his fa-ther Salim K h a n , w o u l d like us to be-

lieve that Salman didn’t flee from the accident spot. The police constable, who was with him that night, carried Salman away when the crowd start-ed throwing stones at Salman’s ve-hicle. So the case must be treated as an accident be-c a u s e

• Raju Shanbhag


Salman didn’t run away. In an inter-view given to a daily, Salman’s father also claimed that only one person was injured apart from the one who died. He also said that Salman was being tried for more than 10 years under a section of the law harsher than the one invoked in the Bhopal gas tragedy. The government had his passport confiscated and he could not travel without permission.

But even Bollywood coins have two sides. Although Salim Khan’s version would make it appear as if Salman Khan is being targeted because of his celebrity status, there are some other ground realities to consider. To begin with, a Metropolitan court has already exempted Salman from ap-pearing before it in this case.

Some sections of the media and some complainants have also alleged that the police is deliberately de-stroying the case by not interrogating any witness. The actor’s busy sched-ule has also kept him away from court hearings and most of the trial has tak-en place without Salman’s presence.

In fact, RTI activist Saurabh Daun-dkar and his lawyer Abha Singh had filed a complaint alleging that the Mumbai police had faked the docu-ments and evidence to help Salman in the case.

They alleged that on the basis of false information furnished by the police, a wrong group of doctors was questioned in court during the trial. According to them, these doctors were not concerned with the case and

were either discharged or not exam-ined.

Whatever the realities of these ar-guments in favour or against Salman Khan, the fact is that he has given at least half a dozen hit films since the time he was involved in the ac-cident. He has led a life of glamour and opulence and the latest news is that he has even been granted visa to shoot in foreign locales for his up-coming film, Kick. While one would like to believe that the law will take its own course, Salman’s case has been dragged on for a little too long. All this while, he has enjoyed a life of opulence and fame.

Certainly not the life of an ordinary man.

Bollywood’s tryst with courts

It’s not the filmy courtroom trial where the hero dishes out some emotionally charged dialogues and the judge, impressed, rules in favour of the hero. These are real court cases, and Bollywood was involved in all of them. Here is a list:

BHARAT SHAH: In 2001, he was con-victed for his links with mafia don Chhota Shakeel and was sentenced to one year in prison.

SANJAY DUTT: Sanjay was arrested under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA). He spent 16 months in jail as an under trial. Now he is serving the jail term again.

SRIDEVI: Sridevi had issued a cheque for Rs 96.6 million to a financier, which bounced. Her challenge at the Bombay High Court was put on stay.

MADHUR BHANDARKAR: A complaint against Bhandarkar was lodged in 2004 by model Preeti Jain with the Ver-sova police that he raped her 16 times from 1999 to 2004 on the promise that he would cast her in his movies. Madhur has also been charged with threatening her.

SAIF ALI KHAN: In 1998, Khan was charged with poaching two black bucks in Kankani during the filming of Hum Saath Saath Hain along with co-stars Salman Khan, Tabu, Son-ali Bendre and Neelam. The charges were dropped and soon after Khan was acquitted.

SHINEY AHUJA: On March 30, 2011, Ahuja was sentenced to seven years in prison by a sessions court in Mum-bai for raping his maid in 2009.

FARDEEN KHAN: Khan was arrested from Juhu on May 5, 2001, for alleg-edly buying cocaine from a peddler.

IMRAN KHAN : Actor Imran Khan on Wednesday September 14 2011, filed a public suit in the Mumbai High Court against raising the age limit for drink-ing to 25 in Maharashtra.


• Raju Shanbhag

For a tradition that has thousands of years of history, marriage has undergone a sea change in re-

cent years. The very tradition of mar-riage has become trendier, with more emphasis on opulence than on cus-toms. Live-in relations have set their foot in the delicate family systems of our country and, yes, the number of divorces too has gone up in recent years.

In the 1960s, barely a few cases of divorce were reported. But these days, at least 9,000 cases are re-ported every year and the numbers are steadily increasing. There are various reasons contributing to the decrepit state of the Indian society. The younger generation is losing faith in the institution of marriage; they are becoming economically stronger and independent and are becoming less tolerant of each other’s weaknesses.

Apart from all these reasons, there is one more peculiar reason contrib-uting to the increasing divorce rate among Indian couples: Online matri-monial sites. Many experts and social observers believe that instant mar-riages done online without much of a

background check are proving fatal to the health of the society.

Online matrimony sites have brought the world of marriage to your computer screen. Gone are the days when you enquired with your kith and kin for a suitable match for your daughter. A basic computer literacy is all that it takes to create a profile for your son or daughter. It’s easy,

and in many cases, it’s advantageous too, as it transcends the boundaries of language, caste and even geogra-phy and brings two people together in a holy union. While the marriages of the past were made in heaven, the current day marriages are made in the virtual world.

So, what possibly could be wrong in such a blissful marriage utopia? Un-fortunately, many things. First, most marriages conducted through online matrimony are done without proper background check. Experts say that misrepresentation of facts by people during online interactions is one of the primary reasons for the break-down of such unions.

Frauds in online matrimony servic-es are rampant. Recently, police un-earthed the case of a fraudster who duped at least four well educated, well settled females who were look-ing for a match on these matrimony websites. His modus operandi was simple. He uploaded his fake pro-files on these matrimony websites and lured unsuspecting females into chatting with him. He then told them he was a doctor settled in the UK and won their confidence with his sweet talk. Then he would demand money

Matrimonial Mishaps

Online unions pose some serious problems


from them on one pretext or the other and after getting the money, he would simply vanish into thin air.

Such incidents are causing an alarming rise in the number of cou-ples applying for divorce. Marriage counselors and lawyers reveal that in about 70% of the cases, couples are citing social media output, mat-rimonial profiles, SMS’s, photos and e-mails as electronic evidence.

But online matrimony portals can-not sit back and watch what’s hap-pening because marriage is big busi-ness in India, be it in the real world or in the virtual world. The online matri-mony market is valued at Rs 510 crore and is growing at around 30% annu-ally, according to the Internet and Mo-bile Association of India (IAMAI). So the companies are turning to technol-ogy to make their sites more reliable. Many of these sites have deployed proprietary security algorithms and technology to maintain the sanctity of the platform and shred out fake or non-genuine profiles.

Many matrimonial sites like Shaadi.com are also turning offline to find solutions to online problems. More than a 100 counters of Shaadi.com in various cities of the country gave tips on how to settle well in your marriage and sustain it forever. They also dis-tribute booklets to couples who are getting married through their sites which advise them on tips for a happy marriage.

But it’s not easy. The growth of these sites has been so enormous that it’s virtually impossible to check all the profiles being posted on these sites. On an average, the most popu-lar portals see about 10,000 new registrations daily with one-tenth of these resulting in marriages. For most companies, the bulk of the business is from first-time marriages.

Some responsibility lies with the

marriage aspirants too. It pays to do a background check of the prospective bride or bridegroom before tying the knot. There are public records avail-able about almost any person who uses the internet. Some marriage advisors even suggest employing the services of private detectives.

After all, it’s the question of a mar-riage. In our country, we believe mar-riages last for a lifetime.

Matrimonial sites have become so popular that they are thriving on the huge demand for suitable brides and bridegrooms. All the information that one needs to get about the would-be candidates are available on the websites. But there is also a risk involved in this system: certain key information some of the fraudsters deliberately conceal. That is why cases of divorces are going up in the country since many nuptial ties are taking place without prober background check.

GOTRA staging a comebackIn their bid to lend more credibility to the profiles posted on their websites, many matrimony sites are turning to the good old method of “gotras”. In Hindu society, the term “gotra” means clan. It broadly refers to people who are descendants in an unbroken male line from a common male ancestor. All members of a particular “gotra” are believed to possess certain com-mon characteristics by way of nature or profession. A “gotra” must be dis-tinguished from a “kula”. A “kula” is a set of people following similar cul-tural rituals, often worshiping the same divinity (the Kula-Devata, god of the clan). Kula does not relate to lineage or caste.

When a marriage is arranged, the family enquires about the “kula” and “gotra”. This is to prevent a possibility of incest. Those who belong to the same “gotra” may be related by blood. Marrying first cousins is generally prohibited in Hindu dharma. There are two reasons: There are eight Rishis who form the root of the “gotra” system. Angirasa, Atri, Kashyapa, Bharad-waja, Bhrigu, Vashistha, Gautama and Kuthasa. Today there are 49 “gotras”. The “gotra” of the groom must be different from the bride’s. The bride takes on her husband’s “gotra” after her marriage. The children born of this union also belong to the father’s “gotra”. Even if the families are strangers, they are still considered blood relatives.


In spite of the best efforts of the Government and the Reserve Bank, the fall of the rupee continues un-

abated. It plunged to an all-time low of 61.65 on Friday, August 16, which prompted the Finance Ministry to term it as a knee-jerk reaction from the investors. It has since regained 135 paise after falling to 63.20 on Friday, August 23. One of the rea-sons attributed for this free fall is the strong sign of recovery in the United States that prompted global investors to pull out from the emerging markets and invest there. The Sensex lost an incredible 769 points, the steepest in nearly four years on August 16. It was also partly due to the controls being imposed by the Reserve Bank on In-dian companies investing abroad. The RBI has restricted the amount of dollars Indians can spend abroad and imposed certain restrictions on remittances.

The adverse effect of the falling ru-pee will be far-reaching. It will mean that India’s import bill will surge, es-pecially payment for crude oil which is one of the two most important com-ponents of our imports, the other be-ing gold. Higher crude oil prices will result in higher transportation cost leading to higher inflation. Inflation based on the wholesale price index (WPI) jumped to 5.79% in July from 4.86% in June, led mainly by costlier imports and rising vegetable prices. And there are no signs of it moving to the positive territory in the near future. Prices of primary food articles jumped by 11.91%. Vegetable prices also shot up, rising by 46.59%, while onion prices more than doubled from last year. Fuel inflation accelerated by

Economy in tight spotShares tumble; Re too takes a dive

The macro-economic parameters are presenting little room for cheer. The rupee is slipping and the industry is not getting sufficient stimulus to sustain growth. IIP contracted in June to an abysmal 2.2%; inflation is on the rise and there has been a huge withdrawal of funds -- $11.58 billion -- by foreign investors from the equity and debt markets in just over two months. Investors and industry fear that the country may be propelled back to the capital control regime of the pre-reform era if the present trend continues.

• C P Nambiar

Former Governer Subbarao


11.31%, mainly because of a weaker rupee that pushed up oil import prices.

Households have tough time adjusting their income to the spiralling prices. Loans also are likely to be costlier with the RBI reluc-tant to cut the rates in view of the prevailing inflation-ary conditions. A rate cut is needed at the present junc-ture to stimulate growth as corporates are experienc-ing funds crunch in view of the high cost of borrowing. But indications are that the apex bank is unlikely to risk it.

Predictably, with the fall-ing stock prices, investors are turning to gold, which hit a six-month high of Rs. 31,010 per 10 gram on Fri-day, August 16. Chances are that the uptrend will continue if the current trend persists. The hike in import duty on gold aimed at curbing its import seem to have had some marginal effect and the government has warned the people to

cut down on gold consump-tion so as to keep the cur-rent account deficit -- the difference between dollar inflows and outflows -- un-der control. Import of gold and silver did decline and stood at $2.9 billion in July as against $4.4 billion in

the corresponding period last year.

At a time when the coun-try is in dire need of funds, foreign investors have pulled out $11.58 billion from India’s equity and debt markets in just over two months. As of June,

they had withdrawn a re-cord Rs 44,162 crore from the debt and equities mar-kets and the outflows as of July 19 were about Rs 11,196 crore from the debt market and Rs 6,005 crore from equities, according to data on net FII investments with market regulator SEBI.

The weakness in the Indian currency was in-strumental in overseas investors exiting the debt markets as the rising cost of hedging a volatile rupee hurts the yield differen-tial the FIIs work with, ac-cording to market experts. More funds are likely to be drained out of the country and that will place the gov-ernment in a difficult situa-tion. The Finance Minister has stated that the govern-ment is closely monitoring the situation, an indication that drastic steps are likely if things get out of con-trol. Already the RBI has stepped in with several steps to shore up the cur-rency.

February March April May June July

Food items 11.95 8.63 6.08 8.25 9.74 11.91

Cereals 18.63 17.86 15.52 15.95 17.18 17.66

Rice 17.75 17.56 17.09 18.48 19.11 21.15

Wheat 21.81 19.35 13.55 12.37 13.83 13.42

Pulses 13.95 10.84 10.52 5.95 1.59 -7.39

Vegetables 19.88 -1.68 -8.88 5.21 16.47 46.59

Potato 50.14 15.8 -0.63 1.28 -14.22 -6.45

Onion 182.36 110.74 90.83 94.28 114 144.94

Fruits 10.16 5.67 0.56 0.67 -0.43 -4.8

Milk 4.52 4.42 4.04 4.46 3.74 2.35

Egg, Meat, Fish 12.37 11.42 10.44 11.38 12.23 10.94

Overall 7.28 5.65 4.77 4.58 4.86 5.79


On Monday, August 12, the central bank conducted auctions of cash manage-ment bills worth Rs.22,000 crore to suck in excess liquidity in the banking system. The measures an-nounced by the Finance Minister included steps to contain imports of gold, silver, oil and other non-essential commodities.

In order to attract foreign funds, the government has allowed state-owned finan-cial institutions to raise quasi-sovereign bonds to finance long-term in-frastructure, liberalised norms on external com-mercial borrowings (ECBs), allowed state-owned oil companies to raise addi-tional funds through ECBs and trade finance and lib-eralised deposit schemes for non-resident Indians.

Hopes of industrial re-covery also seem to be dim if the latest data released by the Central Statistics Organisation are any in-

dication. The index of in-dustrial production (IIP) contracted to 2.2 per cent in June for the second con-secutive month on account of the dismal performance by manufacturing, power, mining, capital goods, ba-sic goods and consumer goods. During April-June, the manufacturing sector, which constitutes 75 per-cent of the index, saw a decline of 1.2 per cent com-pared with a contraction of 0.8 per cent in the same

period last year.Mining output declined

4.1 per cent in June against 1.1 per cent fall in the same period a year ago. In April-June, the sector declined 4.5 per cent compared with a contraction of 1.6 per cent. Power generation was flat in June. It had re-corded a growth of 8.8 per cent in same month last year. In the first quarter this fiscal, it grew 3.5 per cent against a growth of 6.4 per cent. In short, among the

22 industry groups in the manufacturing sector, 13 recorded negative growth in June. This has prompted the economists to warn of negative in the first quarter growth.

However, in the face of weak rupee, exports in-creased by 11.64 per cent to $25.83 billion in July, finally bringing to an end two consecutive months of export fall. Exports were aided by strong demand from Africa, ASEAN and the Far East. Imports dropped by 6.2 per cent to $38.1 billion and the trade deficit stood at $12.2 billion as compared to $17.47 billion in same period last year.

In the April-July period of this financial year, exports increased by 1.72 per cent to $98.2 billion. Imports also rose by 2.82 per cent to $160.7 billion during the period while the trade defi-cit during the period stood at $62.4 billion.

Back to pre-reform era?Global investment bankers have warned that India’s growth could slip sharply if the Reserve Bank’s liquidity tightening measures are not rolled back by October-March. “A weak growth trend lasting for 4-5 quarters would in-crease the risk of a vicious cycle building, whereby the economy becomes vulnerable and the risk increases of GDP growth sliding to 3.5-4 per cent,” according to a report by Morgan Stanley. “The recent monetary tightening and uncertain global capital market envi-ronment could mean growth stays low for at least two more quarters.”

It said the viciousness could intensify with a 4-5 quarter growth slowdown result-ing in a sharp rise in non-performing assets leading to risk aversion in the domestic banking sector; increase in challenges related to fiscal deficit man-agement with weaker revenues and reduced confidence of foreign investors, exacerbating the external funding risk.

All this might end up in India slipping to Hindu rate of

growth of the pre-liberalisation era and may fall to an abysmal 3.5-4 percent growth zone if the weak growth trend lasts for four-five quarters more, the Morgan Stan-ley report said.

According to a report by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, incoming data should “reinforce our view

that FY’14 growth will slip to 4.8 per cent if RBI’s tightening is not rolled back by October-March busy season.”Our base case is that it will be: Bimal Jalan’s (former RBI Governor) January 1998 tightening lasted two months. We expect growth to end FY’14 at 5.3 per

cent and FY’15 at 6.3 per cent,” it said. “In fact, RBI tightening will only sustain de-

posit growth below loan demand. Infrastructure industries production has also slowed down to 0.1

per cent from 2.3 per cent last month. The HSBC PMI is down to 50.1 from 54.7 in December,” BofAML said.


Al Qaida’s New HideoutYemenis Run for Cover as US and Terrorists Fight It Out• Narayan Ammachchi

The United States got them on the run after it invaded Afghanistan following the September 11 ter-

rorist strike in New York. But Al Qaida has found a new base in the impov-erished Arab country of Yemen. This desert country is now fighting a battle for survival, with the terrorists carv-ing out their own territory and mark-ing their borders with deep trenches.

Yemen’s cash-strapped govern-ment has turned to the United States to help it destroy the terrorist ele-ments. But the US involvement in the region has angered a section of the Muslims and forced more youths to become radicals. And the common man in Yemen is watching helplessly and feeling caught between religious fanatics on the one hand and the US “saviours” on the other.

Al Qaida seized a vast territory in Yemen when the whole country was in chaos due to the democratic up-heaval in 2011. The same year, a mis-sile fired from an unmanned aircraft in Yemen killed Anwar al-Awlaki, the New Mexico-born Imam who had risen to become one of the recruiters and spiritual leaders of the terrorist group.

In 2009, a Nigerian jihadist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab strapped a bomb in his underwear and tried to detonate it in a plane bound for De-troit. That was when the United States turned its attention on Yemen for the first time. The terrorist had received training at a camp in Abyan in Yemen. As a precautionary measure, the Unit-ed States has closed down several of its embassies in the Middle East and Africa after it suspected a possible terrorist strike on Americans in the

region. According to The New York Times, the US learnt about the strike plan when it tapped a phone conver-sation between Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda’s leader, and a dozen chiefs of his international affiliates, including

Nasser al-Wuhayshi, a former aide to Osama bin Laden and head of Al Qaida’s arm based in Yemen.

Yemen’s Defense Ministry has, in the meanwhile, heightened security around the Bab el-Mandeb waterway, which connects Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden — the site of the 2000 terror-ist attack against the USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors.

Most of the Al Qaida fighters are those who fled Saudi Arabia follow-ing a crackdown on them in the Arab country. And now they are re-group-ing in Yemen and recruiting heavily from the impoverished tribes. Though the United States has been investing millions of dollars to curb insurgency, the terrorists seem to be growing from strength to strength.

In 2011, during the Arab Spring that led to the downfall of Yemen’s Presi-

dent, Ali Abdullah Saleh, Al Qaeda took advantage of the political confu-sion and the breakdown of army dis-cipline to seize control of two towns in Abyan Province, east of Aden.

Following their takeover, the mili-

After Afghanistan, Yemen has become the new hideout for Al Qaida terrorists. Here, the United States is fighting a running battle with them. As they did in Afghanistan, the terrorists have imposed the Sharia law on the territory they have carved out within Yemen. And in their zeal to impose the strict Islamic law, they have driven out many people from their homes. Though the US drone strikes have killed a number of their top leaders, the militants seem to be growing from strength to strength.

The face of terror


tants imposed Sharia, the Islamic law, on their territory and drove out tens of thousands of residents. Today the region is in the grip of fear, with terrorists setting up checkpoints and launching hit-and-run attacks on ci-vilians and the army alike.

Yet, in the middle of 2012, Yemini forces seized back the towns they had lost and killed nearly 400 mili-tants and sent hundreds, if not thou-

sands, fleeing to their mountain hide-outs. Things have worsened since then. The terrorists have escalated their attacks on the army and civil-ians. Before, they were concentrated in certain areas, but now they appear to be hiding everywhere.

US drone attacks have killed sev-eral of their top leaders, yet a large number of them are still on the run. Moreover, people are living in con-

stant fear. Worse still, Al Qaida is re-cruiting poor and disgruntled young men in the mountainous region.

Over the past few years, Yemen has received hundreds of millions of dol-lars in aid from the US to fund coun-terterrorism training programmes. The US has also supplied equipment ranging from ammunition to night vi-sion goggles to navigational systems. But the terrorists have become elu-sive and are hiding among the local population. Today, the only effective weapon is the drones that hover over the territory endlessly hunting down terrorists.

Since July 27, the US has carried out at least eight drone strikes in the re-mote mountainous areas and valleys where Al Qaida’s top five command-ers are believed to be based, killing dozens of militants. The drone strikes have placed Al Qaeda on the run, be-cause these planes appear suddenly in the sky and bombard them.

The crisis over the detention of the Indian oil tanker by the Iranian

authorities continues as Iran has refused to release MT ‘Desh Shanti ‘which was on its way to India car-rying crude oil from Iraq. The tanker was captured by the Iranian Revolu-tionary Guard Corps on August 13, 2013, in international waters while it was on its way to India.

Port authorities in Bandar Abbas have permitted Indian officials to check the tanker, but the Iranians in-sist that the ship caused “widespread pollution” in the Persian Gulf on July 30. They have also said that it left a 10-mile long oil stain. The Shipping Corporation of India has been holding on to its stance that there was no oil discharge from the ship as it was not carrying any cargo on that fateful day.

The international maritime law states that the oil tanker should pay

through its P&I (protection and in-demnity) insurance for the damage it has caused by polluting the Per-sian Gulf waters and also provide the necessary guarantees in this regard to the Iranian Ports and Maritime Or-ganisation.

The Iranian foreign ministry spokes-

person said that the country was try-ing to preserve the Persian Gulf envi-ronment by capturing the tank. There is still no sign of a breakthrough in spite of hectic diplomatic activity in both Delhi and Tehran.

This incident happened at a time when India, the world’s fourth larg-est oil importer, has considerably reduced its import of crude from Iran after severe financial sanctions from Western countries against the Islamic republic.

The Iranian Embassy in Delhi has said in a statement that the deten-tion was “purely a technical and non-political issue”. India’s crude imports from Iran nosedived by more than 26.5% in the 2012-13 financial year (Apr-Mar). This happened after the US and European sanctions on Tehran made it difficult for Indian refiners to ship Iranian oil.

Iran-India Deadlock

Drone: Unmanned aircraft


Telangana now;what next?

Statehood comes with loads of problems• By Narayan Ammachchi

After years of dilly-dallying, the Congress Party has finally agreed to give statehood to the

Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh. But it appears to be the beginning of a problem rather than an end. People in Telangana are dancing with joy, but they do not seem to have assessed the hard task of choosing their lead-ers, building a new administrative structure and raising revenue.

New states come with newer prob-lems and none of the new states cre-ated in the past decade have been successful in realising the vision they had at the time of the split. The ex-perience of other new states in the

country shows that statehood is not the panacea for regional inequality.

Take the example of Jharkhand. This new state, despite having huge deposits of mineral wealth, has failed to prosper because of endemic cor-ruption. They escaped from Lalu Ya-dav’s party but are now caught in the grip of a far more corrupt Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM).

The future of Telangana state might be decided by the Telangana Rash-tra Samithi (TRS). Beware, K Chan-drasekhar Rao, the founder of TRS, was in fact a Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader. He quit TDP due to dif-ferences with Chandrababu Naidu. In 2004, he joined hands with the Congress and fought the election on

the promise of getting statehood for Telangana.

The new Telangana state strength-ens the political career of Chan-drasekhar, but the question is: Will it serve the interests of the common man? Following the split, Hyderabad may even be declared a Union Ter-ritory, though it is physically part of Telangana.

Of course, there is still a long way to go before the new state, which will have an estimated population of 40 million, becomes a reality, because the measure has to be approved by the Andhra Pradesh Assembly and then by Parliament where the Con-gress does not have a clear majority.

If both Telangana and Seemandhra


are bereft of Hyderabad, they might lose their main source of revenue. So, splitting of Andhra Pradesh might lead to the creation of two failed states.

Supporters, however, say that Telangana’s economic development has been neglected in favour of the richer and more powerful Andhra re-gion and so a new state is the only solution.

Andhra is already known as a ‘welfare state’ with a large number of schemes designed to rationing food grains and other commodities at throwaway prices. How the new states will raise money to fund these schemes is a question that has no easy answer.

The creation of Telangana has been prompted by short-term electoral ma-noeuvres, but their long-term victims are the general public. Part of Telan-gana is the under-developed region of Rayalaseema, where Naxals domi-nate and it is they who decide the po-litical future of the leaders.

According to Wikileaks, Chan-drasekhar Rao refused to join the UPA Government after his party’s suc-cessful election in 2004 because of

Now that the state of Telangana is going to be a reality, the question is which city should be its capital. All eyes are riveted on Hyderabad, but Seemandhra also has staked its claim for the city, which is the main source of revenue for the whole of Andhra Pradesh with its booming real estate business, flourishing entertainment industry and a number of other enterprises. There is a fear that if Telangana doesn’t get its demand accepted, the new state may be starved of funds which it badly needs to keep its economy going.

Hyderabad: Who should have it?The real bone of contention over the splitting of Andhra Pradesh is who should own Hyderabad, the city which accounts for a major share of revenue, including 72 per-cent of sales tax collection, in the state. And it is the city where every politician in the state owns prop-erty or runs a real estate business.

This again is the headquarters of Andhra’s lucrative film industry. In this state, people grow into politi-cians either because of their in-volvement in the film industry or in real estate or in Naxalism.

Muslim political parties are also concerned about the fight over Hyderabad. Leaders from Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) have

already met Sonia Gandhi to insist that Hyderabad should never be declared a Union Territory. As the Union Territories are ruled directly by the Central government, MIM is worried that it might lose its politi-

cal influence. Thus, Hyderabad is caught in the crossfire for no sin of its own, perhaps the only sin being that it is an economic success.

A statehood to Telangana in-volves several major issues such as river sharing, but that does not seem to affect the politicians more than the status of Hyderabad where they have invested in every-thing -- from real estate to business and entertainment industry.

More than the industrialists, it is the politicians who are lobbying for Hyderabad as a Union Territory or joint capital, as they fear that their real estate projects would crash if the city is made the capital of See-mandhra.


a death threat from the Naxalites. Like or dislike, Naxals will dominate the Rayalaseema politics once the new state is cre-ated and they might even control the government.

Between 1994 and 2001, while the gross domestic product (GDP) of Andhra Pradesh grew by 36 percent, the GDP of Rayalaseema grew by just 22 percent. Reports say that the only sector growing in Rayalaseema is the healthcare sector. And in Telangana, the Ru-ral Employment Scheme has become a huge suc-cess. This shows how de-pendent Telangana is on welfare schemes.

During the same peri-od, Telangana, excluding Hyderabad, accounted for just 7.6 percent of sales tax collections. Rayalaseema account-ed for 2.9 percent and coastal Andhra for 14.3 percent, while Hyder-abad accounted for 75.2 percent. That means, the state that will not be part of Hyderabad will be snuffed out economi-cally and will die a slow death.

If Hyderabad becomes part of Telangana, for-eign firms operating in the city will feel the heat once the Naxals take control of the new state. Then the whole of Andhra will be the loser. That’s why TRS is insist-ing that Kurnool and An-anthpur districts, which are dominated by Nax-als, should never be in-cluded in Telangana.

The Legacy of NizamUnder Nizam’s rule, Hyderabad was the capital and here lived most of the Muslims. His autocratic rule led to feudalism in many regions, driving a large number of people deeper into poverty. Those parts of Nizam’s kingdom were Medak, Nizamabad and Adi-labad. These regions will be part the pro-posed Telangana state.

Nizam carefully picked up Muslims to lead his government, army and other main departments. Most of those whom he chose were never the sons of the soil; they had come from different parts of the country

and abroad. He had mastered the art of the “divide and rule” policy of the British. His rule drastically widened the gap between the haves and have-nots. Those who were at the bottom of the economic ladder, particu-larly the Dalits, suffered a lot under his rule. Surprisingly, nothing has changed much over the past 60 years of democratic rule. The only region that has prospered is Hy-derabad and that’s why the political leaders of Seemandhra and those of the proposed state of Telangana want Hyderabad as the capital.


Setting right our language policy

Khariboli, also known as Dehla-vi, KhariBoli, Khadiboli, Khadi-Boli and Kauravi, is an Indian

dialect used around Delhi for a very long time. Like other Indian languag-es it was derived from Sanskrit. Del-hi, ruled by the Sultanates (Mamluk, Khilji, Tughlaq, and Sayyad dynas-ties) and Moghuls between 1200 and 1600, officially adopted Persian and Turkey as official languages sidelin-ing Khariboli spoken by the common people. During the 400 years of Mus-lim rule, this dialect remained as the lingua franca of the common people and probably adopted some Per-sian vocabulary and finally emerged as Hindustani replacing Persian as the working language of the elite. It replaced Persian completely in the Indian society, especially with the decline of Islamic rule in India. As India moved towards Independence, Islamic separatism generated a trend of revival of Persian influence over the Hindustani dialect. Natural re-luctance to this trend generated two dialects - Urdu, a Persian influenced Hindustani, and Hindi, less influ-enced, Sanskrit-rich Hindustani. The partition in 1947 saw Urdu as the offi-cial language of Pakistan. While Urdu adopts mainly Arabic script, Hindi uses the Devanagari script.

In independent India, Hindi in Deva-nagari script was declared as the of-ficial language of the Union. The form of numerals to be used for official purposes of the Union is the interna-tional form of Indian numerals. In ad-dition to Hindi, English was allowed to be used for official purposes. Eng-lish was also allowed to be used to transact business in Parliament along with Hindi. Provision was provided, with permission, to use other Indian languages in the House under special circumstances. In 1947, a period of

15 years was provided to allow usage of English along with Hindi for official purposes. Later, in 1963, the act was amended to continue the use of Eng-lish indefinitely beyond 15 years after independence. Since 1947 till today, English has been used for all official communications between the Central governments and the state govern-ments of states, which has adopted Indian languages other than Hindi as official language.

Sanskrit, the mother of Hindi and other Indian languages, was a natu-ral candidate for the Indian national language. In September 1949, the

then Law Minister, Dr. B. R. Ambed-kar, moved an amendment to replace Hindi with Sanskrit so as to make Sanskrit the official language of In-dia. Prominent politicians and public figures from Tamil Nadu, and a Mus-lim leader and member of the Mus-lim League Naziruddin Ahmed were signatories for the resolution. The failure of Independent India to adopt Sanskrit as its national language is admitted in a way by not declaring any language as national language. Hindi is declared as official language and not national language. India is waiting for Sanskrit to take the posi-tion of its national language.

Several proposals are being worked out to set our language policy right. One of the basic aspects of some of the good proposals is to consider several of Indian languages as official languages (as unofficially in practice today) and treat languages of foreign origin as link languages. It should be mentioned here that Urdu would be an official language and English would be a link language along with Japanese, Chinese and EU languages. Adopting official languages promi-nently in education and using them in administration would be the correct approach towards a meaningful lan-guage policy. Link languages should be taught in a short span effectively and Sanskrit to be made the national language of India. Translation de-partments and language promotion boards should be set up at regional and national levels to ensure effec-tive communication across India in a hassle-free manner.

Several proposals are being worked out to set right our language policy. One of them is to consider several of Indian languages as official languages and treat languages of foreign origin as link languages. Thus Urdu would be an official language and English would be a link language.

• M K S Rao


The English language has caused a great loss to the country. We are los-ing our language, our culture as there are hardly any people who speak Sanskrit now. There are only 14,000 people left in this country speaking in (the ancient language of) Sanskrit. Knowledge acquired out of English is not harmful but the anglicisation penetrated into youths in this coun-try is dangerous.”

l BJP president Rajnath Singh on 19th July 2013.

“Paradox-BJP outsources vision doc-ument to anglicised policy wonks while ranting English caused great loss to India. This attempt to create a dispute over language or saying that one language is better or worse than another, doesn’t strengthen the country and is not expected from a responsible political party.”

l Information and broadcasting minister Manish Tewari.

“They are trying to reach out to the Hindi belt, where the Hindi elite has an ambiguous relation with English, with which it isn’t comfortable. They are trying to create a Hindi psyche to replenish their Hindi-Hindu-Hindu-stan constituency.”

l Badri Narayan, an Allahabad-based academic.

“For most Indians, English is an ad-ditional language, and it does not in-sulate or separate people from their identities. Knowing English will only help Indians to advance and develop further.”

l CPM leader SitaramYechury.

“All things Indian by tradition, be it caste, be it social structure, political structure, have stopped India from growing into a modern society. If Eng-lish is eliminating tradition, it is also eliminating a culture that is caste-driven. I am not surprised that BJP is upset. The party cannot succeed in a caste-neutral India. It is opposing English because of its opposition to modernity itself.”

l Dalit ideologue Chandrabhan Prasad.

“Anybody who thinks that the growth of English has been a bane for India is seriously out of touch with reality. In the era of globalisation, it is one of the critical advantages India has vis-a-vis countries like China. Indeed, China has itself recognised this and is seeking to catch up in a hurry. In any case, to blame one language or culture for the sorry state of another language is to miss the point. There is no contradiction between the growth of English and the thriving of native cultures. English represents, for most Indians, the language of op-portunity, while their mother tongues are often the language of expression. The BJP chief should see English as cause for celebration rather than mourning.”

l Times View

“English will be a weapon in the hands of the poor and the oppressed to question the ways of the exploit-ers; it will be an armour for women subjected to male domination in this nation and for men who want to come out of a decadent culture, English shows the way. We need to break the caste system and we need to see that the benefits of progress percolate to the lowest rungs of the poocr and for this the affected people should have access to English.”

l MPK Kutty.

Hindi & English Viewed with pride and prejudiceThe quality of public discourse on such an important policy issue is not encouraging. Here are some of the quotes by prominent public figures and editorial comments about a proposal to

promote Sanskrit language in modern India. It is interesting to note that the issue of language is viewed through coloured prisms of politics, caste and communal prejudice.


“Every country has the right to pro-tect its culture and customs.”

l BJP spokesman Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi.

“Sanskrit had helped the priestly class to deny knowledge to the lower castes and keep them oppressed. For thousands of years the higher castes kept exploiting the weaker sections and English enabled those classes to open their eyes to the Truth. Without English millions of Indians would not have had an opportunity to prosper in countries like the US, UK, Australia and the Gulf region. The benefits of human civilisation have percolated to this nation through the study of English. It is this language which brought light to an otherwise back-ward and dark regions of the world. There is a verse in the Bible which says: ‘Men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.’ (John 3:19) Why are people afraid of English?” l From an article in Speaking Tree.

“This is an illusion that English is the

only means of progress…this is not true. True education is to develop feeling and dedication for the coun-try. “Earning money is not every-thing. Children should have sanskar (culture) and they should know rela-tionship and love.”

l Mohan Bhagwat, Chief of Rashtreeya Swayamsevak Sangh.

“Rajnath Singh’s deliberate yet bi-zarre, regressive statement on Eng-lish confirms that the BJP lives in the Jurassic Age.”

l SanjayJha, a political analyst (published by Foxnews, article title “Indian politician sparks outrange

with anti English remarks”).

In my view people should learn Hindi, English, Sanskrit and their mother tongue. You cannot be parochial in

these things. Knowing any language is not a bad thing. The problem is that the entire thought process of the BJP leadership is very narrow-minded.”

l Rajeev Shukla-Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs.

“English has been an asset for In-dia. It is perhaps the only worthwhile thing we gained from the colonial experience. And in a country that is as vast and diverse as ours, it is very good to have a language like English to link us together, to link all parts of the country together where no part feels disadvantaged.”

l Shashi Tharoor, HRD Minister.


• Narayan Ammachchi

“If you can carve Telangana out of Andhra Pradesh, why can’t you carve Gorkhaland out of West

Bengal?” is the question of Nepali-speaking Gorkhas. They seem to have a point there. Nepali and Bodo are among the 22 languages the Constitution has recognised, but the speakers of this tongue have no state of their own.

More than anything else, the inhab-itants of Darjeeling district have long been viewed as migrants from Ne-pal and therefore “foreigners,” even though they have been living here for

more than a century. Over the past decades, hundreds of thousands of Nepalis have crossed the border into India and are slowly spreading across the country. A large number of Indi-ans have migrated to Nepal as well.

Historically, Darjeeling was not part of Bengal; it was leased by the Brit-ish from the kingdom of Sikkim in 1835. The allegation of being foreign-ers, used by those opposed to the demand for a separate state, para-doxically feeds the insecurity of the Indian Nepalis and strengthens their demand for statehood.

Call for a separate Gorkhaland has grown louder these days, particularly

after the UPA Government agreed to create a separate Telangana state in Andhra Pradesh. At the centre of Gorkhaland is the summer haven Darjeeling, which sits at the narrow stretch of land that connects the northeastern states to the rest of the country.

In Darjeeling, Nepalis are in the majority and Nepali is the commonly spoken language across the hilly ter-rain. Even in the foothills of Darjeel-ing, there is a large population of Ne-pali-speaking people. Siliguri town, which is also in the foothills, has a population of 500,000 and contains a concentration of Bengali speakers.

Demand for ‘Gorkhaland’Nepali Gorkhas Ask for A New State

24 SEPTEMBER 2013

It is they who are opposing a separate state for Gorkhas.

A large number of Nepali speaking people also live in the northeastern states of Sikkim, Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Manipur. They would not have asked for a separate state had their been no threat of their evic-tion in these states. The ethnicity-driven movements of northeast India categorise Nepali speakers as outsid-ers and add to the community’s anxi-eties.

Unlike Telangana, economic pros-perity is not the reason for the call for a separate state. The hilly terrain of Darjeeling has a rich biodiversity and here there are a number of plac-es to set up hydropower plants. Yet

Darjeeling has remained backward, though it has a railway network built during the British Raj.

In addition, Gorkhas have little po-litical voice to force the Central Gov-ernment to pay heed to their call for a separate state. There are only three MLAs representing the province in the West Bengal Legislative Assem-bly. Therefore, the majority of Benga-lis never hear their voice. Maybe that is why West Bengal Chief Minister Ma-mata Banerji is repeatedly warning

that she is ready to crack down on the agitators if they turned violent.

The Gorkhaland movement had gone silent in 1988 when the govern-ment sealed a deal with the Gorkhas offering them autonomy. Now they say that the autonomy deal is not working. But a settlement that gave them considerable autonomy brought the movement to an end in 1988.

Recent roadblocks have disrupted transportation of tea grown in Dar-jeeling. Tea gardeners say they may be forced to stop production if the agitation continues and exporters are fearing cancellation of orders be-cause of the delay. The protest may ultimately push up the prices for tea across the country. About 70% of the

tea pickings are shipped abroad.The protest has already cost Rs 144

crore to the local tea industry with the growers expecting to lose more than Rs.1.92 crore every day.

Recently, a Gorkha youth set him-self on fire protesting Delhi’s decision not to consider their demand for a separate state. His condition is said to be serious.

The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha and other Gorkha social organisations contend that the state of Gorkha-

land is not only for Darjeeling, but for about 4 million to 10 million Gorkhas estimated to reside across India.

Interestingly, today even non-Gorkha residents of the area are sup-porting the demand for a separate state, because they say that it is the only way to bring about prosperity. Rajput, who sacrificed for the move-ment, was not an ethnic Gorkha but a Bihari Gorkha as the minorities, who support the movement, refer to them-selves.

Most Bengalis are sceptical about the credibility of the Gorkhas’ politi-cal leadership, but the popular senti-ment in Darjeeling is overwhelmingly in favour of a separate state, because they argue that Gorkhas routinely face racist discrimination in the Indi-an cities, where they seek education and employment.

The demand for separate states may sound alarm bells at the power centre in Delhi, but one has to take into consideration whether it is based on certain genuine concerns such as the identity crisis, economic disparity or discrimination. If they are genuine, there should be no objection to carving out separate states. In fact, experts say that smaller states will ensure better administration and greater economic prosperity. Looked at from this perspective, the demand for Gorkhaland has some substance that the Centre can hardly ignore.

The Nepalese IdentityThe call for a separate state for Nepali-speaking people dates back to 1907. But the first mass movement calling for a separate Gorkhaland state, led by Subhas Ghising of the Gorkha National Lib-eration Front, began in 1986, lead-ing to the death of more than 2000 people in two decades. The move-ment came to an end with the cre-ation of a semi-autonomous gov-erning body called the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council in 1988. For separate identity, they are plan-ning to adopt the term “Gorkhali.” So the new state they want will be named Gorkhaland.

The Nepalese identity is an um-brella term for the various Mon-goloid and Indo-Aryan groups and castes, like animists, Buddhists and Hindus, bound together by their linguistic identity tied to the Nepali language.

24 SEPTEMBER 2013

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Transcending Boundaries


It’s a work that has withstood the vagaries of time and a changing society over thousands of years.

Although written for the Maurya Em-peror, the profoundly thought-pro-voking views expressed by the famed scholar Kautilya in Arthasastra about statecraft, diplomacy, war, peace, intelligence, security and political economy are still relevant for the modern society. The work continues to astonish scholars for its insightful views on various aspects of state-craft and other aspects on polity.

Unfortunately, Kautilya and his works are not being studied with the same passion and reverence as the works of other ancient scholars like Aristotle or Machiavelli. In fact, Kauti-lya is referred to as the “Indian Ma-chiavelli”, though his works predate Machiavelli’s by about 1,800 years.

In his new monograph, author P. K. Gautam focuses on the relevance of Kautilya’s Arthasastra to contem-porary security studies. The mono-graph also offers updates on various academic and scholarly controversies on its age and authorship and on the misperceptions which abound on Kautilya himself.

In fact, Kautilya’s Arthasastra is said to be as relevant as other inter-national scholarly works, if not more. The monograph quotes Johann Jakob Meyer, the German Indologist and translator of Arthasastra from San-skrit to German language in 1927. He says, “Arthasastra was not a book but a library of ancient India. Any work in policy field must have rele-vance and in Kautilya’s treatise ideas on relevance abound.”

May be not all, but some major leaders of our land have recognised the importance of Kautilya’s trea-tise and have utilised it in numerous ways. From Mauryan emperors to Jawaharlal Nehru, Arthasastra has re-ceived praise and recognition at vari-ous times.

The monograph especially takes a closer look at Kautilya’s military policies. It states that “Kautilya’s prescriptions for control over senses

are wisdom, fit for a manual of lead-ership and command not only for the military but for all leadership roles in society.” Kautilya had a detailed view about the composition of an army. It included various classes and pe-culiarities like Maulabala (standing

army), Bhrtabala (recruited locally for particular occasion), Srenibala (band of soldiers from guilds, mercenaries), Mitrabala (troops of the ally), Amitra-bala (enemy troops) and Atavibala (forest tribes such as Sabaras, Pun-inda and others.

The work has more relevance now than ever before

Revisiting Arthasastra


It’s no wonder that Shri Gautam has a special interest in Kautilya’s security policies as he is a retired colonel. He draws various parallels between Kautilya’s composition of an ideal army and the present day Indian Army.

In spite of its brilliance and rele-vance to the modern India, Arthasas-tra has not obtained the attention it truly deserves. According to the monograph, in India students of po-litical science do not pay adequate attention to Kautilya. In fact, many university teachers know more about Hobbes than about Chanakya. The syllabus for Masters in IR in the Uni-versity of Delhi has no reference to Chanakya. In the syllabus for MA in Conflict Analysis and Peace Building (III Semester) 2011-2012 of Jamia Mil-ia Islamiya University New Delhi un-der Indian Strategic Thought, for fur-ther reading the book of Peter Rosen has been listed with that of George Tanham, whereas no Indian author worth a study is listed. The mono-graph urges that Kautilya’s thoughts and philosophy need to be studied in a contextual yet rigorous, scien-tific and a-religious manner, and not on the initiative of the religious right wing.

However, the trend seems to be changing. These days Chanakya is being mentioned more by top secu-rity and policy-makers and journal-ists in lectures like in the first memo-rial lecture on late K. Subramanyam by the National Security Advisor Shri Shivsahankar Menon in 2011 and at the Fifteenth Colonel Pyara Lal Me-morial Lecture-2011 by Dr C. Raj Mo-han. The Indian Army has introduced for the first time operation art in the military history syllabus for the an-nual Staff College competitive exami-nation: BH Liddell Hart’s “Strategy: The Indirect Approach” for 2012, Von Clausewitz’s “On War” for 2013, “Ar-thasastra” by Chanakya (only chap-ters IX, X, and XI of the Book) for 2014 and, Sun Tzu’s “Art of War” for 2015.

The author states there is still a need to initiate the study, inter-nalisation, spread and consolida-

tion of Chanakya’s Arthasastra in a sustained way. The first step is to increase the width and depth of re-search. There has to be a renewed fo-cus on Chanakya in a holistic manner for contemporary times, along with apolitical state patronage, sponsor-ship and finance. He also suggests offering jobs/opportunities to young university entrants so that they opt for studying Kautilya through San-skrit, History, Philosophy and Politi-cal Science streams.

To make Kautilya and his treatise more popular, Shri Gautam suggests projects on writing textbooks for the civil service institutes (for IFS, IAS and IPS) and military training estab-lishments. These works can also be a guiding light for public. Research must be conducted on specific themes like internal security, foreign policy-making, intelligence studies, military training and education and laws/ethics of wars.

The monograph makes it very clear that Kautilya’s Arthasastra has not been given the due attention it de-serves. Although the trend seems to be changing for the better, lots of research needs to be done about this great treatise of Kautilya, the master strategist.

Arthasastra, the most comprehensive treatise on statecraft of classical times, by Kautilya, also known as Chanakya, covers numerous topics such as the king, foreign policy, secret and occult practices and so on. Its relevance today is mainly with regard to national security, of which Kautilya writes with astonishing insight and clarity. A monograph on this work by scholar P K Gautam tries to throw more light on this subject. He argues that Kautilya’s thoughts and philosophy need to be studied more rigorously and scientifically by all those who are concerned with statecraft and military strategy.

P K Gautam


The simmering tension between the Buddhist and Muslim com-munities has been a major cause

of concern in the Asian region in the last few months. The Buddhist hard-liners in Sri Lanka have been repeat-edly attacking the Muslims in the country. The latest example of this is the attack on a mosque and the sub-sequent closure of that mosque by the Muslims.

Muslims make up 9.72% of the population of Sri Lanka. The commu-nity is further divided into three major ethnic groups, namely, the Sri Lankan Moors, the Indian Muslims and the

Malays. Each of these groups has its own history and traditions.

Although Buddhism and the Bud-dhist communities are generally as-sociated with peace all over the world new groups of extremist Buddhists have cropped up in various parts of Asia in recent times. In 2012 alone, Buddhist groups have attacked the mosques and Muslim-owned busi-nesses as well as the churches and the clergy. They have alleged that Muslim and Christian groups have been involved in clandestine conver-sions. Although no deaths have been reported in Sri Lanka yet, there is no

doubt that the Sri Lankan Govern-ment is currently sitting on a ticking time bomb.

In Asia, Burma and Sri Lanka have been the two countries where the tension between these two communi-ties has reached flash point. This is ironical as neither of these countries faces any immediate Islamic extrem-ist threats. The majority Buddhists in Sri Lanka have accused Muslims of conversion and of trying to steal their future.

All through the human history, violence has been used as a potent weapon by religious zealots. Chris-

Under attackSri Lankan Muslims at the receiving end

Muslims are being targeted in Sri Lanka by some Budhist organisations. This was something unthinkable a few years ago, since Budhism is essentially a peace-loving religion. Maybe because the Budhists believe that their religion is threatened by the conversion zeal of the

Muslims or because of the dominance of the minority community in the economic sphere, there is now an atmosphere of antagonism against the Muslims in that country which is recuperating

from the aftermath of a prolonged war against the Tamil Tigers.

A group of Budhist monks in Shri Lanka calling on the government to demolish a mosque built in their religious place


tian crusaders, Islamist extremists, or the leaders of “freedom-loving nations”, have all been involved in some form of religious violence and this has been defended in the name of higher good.

The Muslim community in Sri Lanka is largely peaceful. But some Bud-dhist groups, like the members of the Bodu Bala Sena - the Buddhist Brigade -- are in no mood to acknowl-edge that. They openly hold rallies, call for direct action and boycotting of Muslim businesses, and rail against the size of Muslim families.

Although Buddhism is a major re-ligion in Sri Lanka and Burma, many Buddhists in these countries believe that their religion is under threat and they should unite to protect it. May be this populist sentiment is fuelled by increasing instances of Islamic funda-mentalism all over the world. But the violence against innocent citizens of a country is unpardonable.

And that brings us to the question: What is the Sri Lankan government doing to calm the tension? It is an open secret that after successfully fighting Tamil militants, the govern-ment has failed to take the minority communities into confidence. As a result, they are feeling left out from the mainstream society. Added to that, the local Buddhist groups have been making all sorts of allegations against the Sri Lankan and Burmese Muslims. They allege that Muslims are dominating businesses and are trying to take over the country by in-creasing their birth rate.

Many Muslims feel that the govern-

ment isn’t doing much, if anything, to protect the Muslims in Sri Lanka. Rajiva Wijesinha, a ruling party MP and Sri Lanka’s former secretary to the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights, has described the recent agitation by certain groups as “counterproductive”, and requested the government to do more to miti-gate racial and religious tensions.

But the increasing sense of distrust has grown among the minorities with every incident of communal violence. The exact nature of the relationship between the Buddhist extremists and the ruling parties in is unclear. Sri Lanka’s powerful Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa was guest of honour at the opening of a Buddhist Brigade training school, and referred to the monks as those who “protect our country, religion and race”.

In May, Azard Sally, a Muslim poli-tician and a former deputy mayor of Colombo, was arrested by the Sri Lankan Government under the Pre-

vention of Terrorist Act for “insti-gating communalism”. In the past, Sally had openly criticised Bodu Bala Sena, which since February 2013 has reportedly attacked various Muslim-owned commercial establishments. The group has also agitated against various Muslim religious practices, including the ‘halal’ system of slaugh-tering animals.

The root of this communal tension could be somewhere else. Since the end of the country’s 26-year-long civil war, the country has never been able to bring together the various sections of its society. As a result, Sri Lanka continues to be a polarised and fragmented society at various levels -- economic, social, religious and po-litical.

The recent attacks on minorities should act as a wakeup call for the Sri Lankan Government. The country is still recovering from a major civil war and it cannot risk going into another one.

The history of the Muslim-Buddhist conflict is a long one. During the ninth century, Sunni Turks, the new converts to Islam, launched a sustained attack on Buddhists and their monasteries. They drove Buddhists out of Afghanistan, across the Punjab and into northern India. By 1021, the Buddhists routed the Muslim armies in Kashmir before be-ing attacked again and pushed further into the Himalayas and Tibet.

The first major attack on Buddhist culture in recent de-

cades was the detonation of the giant Buddha statues of Bamiyan in the Hindu Kush mountains of central Afghani-stan, in March 2001. Six months before the 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks on the US, the Taliban, blew up the world historic treasures.

In 2010, a Buddhist temple in the North Sumatran city of Tanjung Balai, Indonesia, was forced to remove a Bud-dha statue from its roof after complaints by an Islamist organisation. In Malaysia in 2012, a Buddhist society, in the city of Kota Bharu, was told that its new temple would not be able to include definitive iconography of the faith in its design, but would have to resemble a mosque.

The history of tension

Police standing guard in front of a mosque that the Buddhists say should be demolished


They are homeless in their own homeland. In a country where those who stand up for justice

for Hindus are branded as fundamen-talists, the plight of Kashmiri Pundits always falls on the deaf ears of a mute government. The latest epicen-tre of shameful atrocities on Kashmiri Pundits is Kishtwar. Right after Eid, communal clashes erupted there be-tween the two communities in which three people were killed and 80 peo-ple were injured.

Attacks on minority Hindus in Kashmir are not the first and will not be the last. For the last 24 years, Is-lamic militants, backed by Pakistan,

have been committing a number of atrocities, including loot and arson, to cause a mass exodus of Hindus (Kashmiri Pundits) as part of a well-thought out plan of ethnic cleansing.

And, without any intervention from the government, either from the Cen-tre or the State, the plan is working

perfectly well. Before 1948, the Pun-dits constituted approximately 14 to 15 percent of the population of the Kashmir valley. During the 1948 Mus-lim riots and 1950 land reforms, 20 per cent of them left Kashmir and by 1981 their population had dwindled to 5 per cent.

Homeless in HomelandAtrocities on Kashmiri Pundits Unabated

The Kashmiri Pundits are again at the receiving end, this time in Kishtwar. They are being subjected to all sorts of atrocities by the militants and separatists with the active support of the Pak intelligence agency, ISI. Their strategy is to cause a mass exodus of the minority community. With the governments, both at the Centre and Sate, being the mute spectators of this ongoing ethnic cleansing, the plight of the Kashmiri Pundits has become extremely miserable.

Important Stages of Struggle for Kashmiri Pundits in Kashmir

• Raju Shanbhag

Army and police personnel search the house in which a Special Police Officer (SPO) Mudssir Ahmad Dar was gunned down by militants at Unto Hamam area in Sopore town of north Kashmir.


They began to leave in greater num-bers in the 1990s. According to vari-ous sources, approximately 100,000 Kashmiri Pundits have left the valley. They were subjected to numerous in-dignities and brutalities before they were driven out of Kashmir by the militants who reportedly were able to do so under the patronage of the ISI. Many of them are living in abject condition in refugee camps in Jammu.

The plight of Kashmiri Pundits in their homeland is a result of the apa-thy of the Hindus in general and the vote bank politics of various govern-ments. Even in the best of times, the total number of Kashmiri Pundits has been just about 5 lakhs. This does not constitute a sizeable vote bank for any government at the Centre. On the other hand, the so-called intellec-tuals of our country raise their voice only when the minority communities are affected.

In 2001, a delegation of Kashmiri Pundits met Congress President So-nia Gandhi and placed a request to reinstate them in their homeland. She assured them of quick action, but even after 12 years they are living in exactly the same condition as they were earlier. The BJP Government too has to take the blame for this state of affairs. Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee also had met a delegation of Kash-miri Pundits and promised a “reha-bilitation policy”, including a finan-cial package. Needless to say, so far nothing to this effect has been done.

The deafening silence of human rights groups on the atrocities com-mitted against the minorities in Kash-mir is deplorable, to say the least. These groups, who do not hesitate in calling even some of the hard

core militants as ‘Gandhians’, have not raised a single voice against the genocide in Kashmir. Instead, there have been systematic attempts at raising doubts about the exodus of Kashmiri Pundits.

Governments and media had taken notice whenever ethnic cleansing had occurred over the last few decades. When it happened in Eastern Europe, the world treated it as a global cri-sis. The United Nations got involved and the world press treated it very seriously. And the Western govern-ments tried to find solutions. But in the case of Kashmiri Pundits, nothing has been done and nobody seems to care.

Before the government draws up plans for their rehabilitation, it should accept the gravity of the situation in Kashmir. These people have been

living away from their home and hearth for more than two decades and all that the gov-ernment has done is to make empty promises.

In 2008, the Prime Minister announced an employment package of Rs1,618 crore to fa-cilitate the return of Kashmiri Pundits. But, out of 6,000 jobs, only 1,446 were taken. The rea-son for this low response was fear and lack of security. So the major tasks in front of the gov-ernment are to ensure their se-curity in Kashmir and create an atmosphere of safety because it is their right.

Many of the Kashmiri Pun-dits have been demanding a homeland, a separate state on the line of a Union territory. But these demands have not been

dealt with seriously as their vote clout is insignificant in the national scheme of things of the governments.

As a token of recognition of the true identity of Kashmiri Pundits, the government can at least start by ac-cepting their addresses prior to 1990 as their “permanent address,” for disbursing Aadhaar Cards. Internet is abuzz with various blog posts from exiled Kashmiris who were forced to supply their makeshift addresses as their permanent addresses to get Aadhaar Cards.

These are suggestions, or if one wants to be practical, mere wishes. There is no reason to believe that they will be granted by a government that goes out of its way to please its vote bank.

Important Stages of Struggle for Kashmiri Pundits in Kashmir

1989-90Prominent Pundits like Jia Lal Taploo, Neel Kanth Ganjoo and Lassa Kaul were killed by the JKLF.

1990Joint reconciliation efforts by mem-bers from both Muslim and Pandit communities fails.

1993An estimated 36,000 Hindu fam-ilies and 20,000 Muslim families leave Kashmir.

2003About 9000 Pan-dits still hang on to their lives under severe tortures by militant groups.

Present DayThe situation continues with incidents like Kishtwar.

32 SEPTEMBER 2013

Honest bureaucrats are a rare breed in any country, more so in India, which is infected with

deep-rooted corruption in every level of the government machinery. So, when Durga Shakti Nagpal, an IAS officer who had the courage to take on the sand mafia in UP, was suspended by UP Samajwadi Party Government on flimsy grounds, there were widespread protests.

Durga was suspend-ed for bringing down an illegal construction -- a wall to be precise -- in Kadalpur village in the Rabupura area of Greater Noida. The wall allegedly was part of an under-construc-tion mosque and the UP Government could not tolerate the fact that such issues like the legality of the con-struction were even being considered. The IAS officer was suspended in 41 minutes, as boasted by the SP leader, Mr. Narinder Bhati, at a rally in Gautam Budh Nagar.

He was right. Durga inspected the controversial mosque in Kadalpur

village on July 28, 2013, and on the same day she was suspended by the Akhilesh Yadav Government for caus-ing “communal trouble”.

Forty-one minutes! In a country where politicians taking bribe and

are caught on camera survive for ever dragging court cases, an honest IAS officer was suspended for discharg-ing her duty within such a short time. May be it was a political master stroke for Akhilesh Yadav, who saw a golden

opportunity to appease the minority community and then suspend an IAS officer to please the sand mafia in the state.

There are enough reasons to be-lieve that Durga’s suspension was on

trivial grounds. A day after Akhilesh Yadav claimed that Durga had caused communal tension, his own police department refuted that claim. There was no communal tension in Kadalpur village, they said. The village has more than 80% Muslims and appar-ently no one objected to construction of that mosque. But the people building the mosque had no per-mission to build it and Narinder Bhati had do-nated money to build that mosque. Under-standably so, since he is being projected as a candidate from Sama-jwadi Party in the next elections in that area.

Since Durga’s suspension, various reports in the media have claimed that she was just doing her duty and did nothing wrong in ordering the demolition of that wall. In fact, a Su-preme Court order on illegal religious

Criminal elements are becoming stronger and stronger with the passing of each day. And their influence over government machinery is becoming more and more pronounced. The suspension of Durga Shakti Nagpal, an IAS officer, by the Akhilesh Yadav Government for demolishing an illegally constructed wall is a case in point. She was suspended for doing her duty. It is high time these high-handed measures are stopped and honest officials are allowed to function without fear or favour.

Honesty PunishedDurga needs to be reinstated without delay• Raju Shanbhag

Durga Shakti Nagpal: Paying the price for being honest.

32 SEPTEMBER 2013


structures passed in 2009 shows that Durga only acted according to the procedure and did not violate any rules.

In December 2009, the court had ruled that no new temples, mosques, churches and Gurdwaras can be constructed on public parks, public streets and public spaces. Demand-ing strict compliance, the court said any breach of the order would be viewed seriously. Further, the Su-preme Court had said that the ban must be enforced even if it gave rise to a law and order problem.

So why was the UP Government so eager to suspend Durga in 41 min-utes? Was it because of the alleged communal tension she was creat-ing or because tension was brewing elsewhere? Durga was standing in the way of illegal corrupt mining in UP, which is big business in this area. Most of the sand-mining activities near Noida, Faridabad (Haryana) and Delhi are illegal and no environment impact assessment (EIA) has been done todate. Take a look at what is at stake for illegal miners. It is estimat-ed that 250 to 350 truckloads of sand is illegally smuggled out every day. The cost of this sand varies from Rs. 100 crore per month to Rs. 500 crore per annum. This illegal mining has eroded and changed the natural flow of the Yamuna and the Hindon rivers.

After starting work as an IAS officer, Durga initiated a massive operation to stop illegal sand mining in the dis-trict, and used surprise and secrecy to arrest illegal miners and confiscate their machinery. Since April 2013, the Uttar Pradesh police has filed 17 FIRs and 22 cases. It even resulted in the Chief Judicial Magistrates ordering the arrest of illegal sand miners.

Either way, Durga joins a long list of government officials who fought corruption in the system and were booted out by the powerful political lobby. In the past, there were honest civil services officers like Satyendra Dubey and Ashok Khemka. Satyen-dra Dubey was murdered and Ashok Khemka was transferred 42 times when we last checked.

It’s been pretty clear that Durga was doing no wrong. She was simply doing her duty. The widespread pro-tests all over the country that have erupted after her suspension have been heartwarming, but they are not addressing the full issue. The de-mand should not only be to reinstate Durga in her position; it should also

be to take action against a govern-ment which acted either to please the minority community or to take sides with the sand mafia. But at the mo-ment all efforts are directed reinstat-ing Durga Shakti Nagpal to her right-ful place.

Now the question is who will show the corrupt their rightful place?

Lesser known braveries It’s not only Durga Shakti Nagpal who has rubbed the powerful sand ma-fia the wrong way. Even her associates are being targeted. On July 25, three days before Durga was suspended, the mining officer assisting her in the drive against sand mafia was transferred too. The officer, Ashish Kumar, was transferred to Bulandshahar. While the Noida City Magistrate has been handed over Nagpal’s duties, the Gautam Budh Nagar district is left without any mining officer.

Before being transferred, Kumar survived three attempts on his life and the latest was on February 9, 2013. He had gone with two guards to stop illegal sand mining along the Yamuna Expressway. The miners fled and Kumar seized two tractors. But later, a gang of more than 10 men fully armed with country-made pistols attacked his car. He fought back and re-turned fire from his licensed private revolver. The attackers took to their heels, but took the two tractors along with them.

Durga was also targeted on April 26, 2013, during a visit to the Kasna police station. These attacks were attributed to the sand mafia operating in the district.

Akhilesh Yadav: Pleasing the sand mafia?


Temple Tantrums

Bihar Govt’s Plan to develop temples comes under attack

Managing religious groups is a double-edged sword for any government. If the gov-

ernment offers some aides to one religious group, others will complain about bigotry. Nonetheless, no gov-ernment can cease promoting or sponsoring religious activities, be-cause if it doesn’t, then it will hurt the sentiments of most people.

The Nitish Kumar Government in Bihar is learning this the hard way. Sometime back, the government an-nounced the development of infra-structure for pilgrims and tourists around a few well-known shrines of the deities located in different parts of Bihar. It allocated Rs.12.64 crore for Baba Mahendranath Mandir, a temple of Lord Shiva in Siwan district, Rs.4.54 crore for Goddess Shyama Kali Temple in Darbhanga, Rs.3.34 crore for Ugra Tara Sthan, a temple associated with the Tantric cult, Rs.76 lakh for the Goddess Durga Temple at Thabe in Gopalganj and Rs.50 lakh for the Ram-Janki Temple at Buxar.

Bihar is home to some of the oldest and well-known temples, mosques and other places of religious wor-ship. The Nitish Kumar Government thought that developing these tem-ples would improve religious tourism in the state. The government is even encouraging industrialists to invest in the sector, particularly in hotel and transport sectors.

But the opposition parties and lead-ers of minority communities wasted no time in taking the government to task. They hit out at the govern-ment for allocating funds for specific temples in the name of development of facilities for tourists. They said the state government had just created a facade of its minority welfare work and that the Chief Minister was clev-erly pursuing the agenda of the BJP

It is a peculiar situation: Whenever the government spends anything on as insignificant as temple renovation, it is viewed as an attempt to please the majority community, whereas crores of rupees spent on the welfare of other communities are brushed aside as if they are a normal feature of government spending. This is what is happening in Bihar. The Nitish Kumar government has just announced allocation of a few crores of rupees for this purpose, but the Opposition and leaders of the minority communities are up in arms alleging bias in favour of a section of the society. Why no one objects when the government spends crores of rupees on minorities’ religious activities but does so when a few temples are funded for renovation is a mystery.

• Raju Shanbhag


and Sangh Parivar under the guise of minority welfare work. They also al-leged that Nitish was playing into the hands of the BJP which considered the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Ba-jrang Dal as ideal organisations.

That is why religious works can be controversial for any government. Some years ago, the RSS had criti-cised government and said it pursued a minority appeasement policy. The RSS was referring to a decision of the government to grant land for setting up a branch of Aligarh Muslim Uni-versity (AMU) in Kishanganj district of Bihar.

In fact, when Nitish Kumar was talking about the development of reli-gious tourism in Bihar, he wasn’t talk-ing about the Hindu shrines alone. He had mentioned Bodh Gaya, Jain stu-pa in Vaishali, mausoleum of Hazrat Makhdum Sarfuddin Yahiya Maneri, birth place of Guru Govind Singh and Goddess Sita’s direct links with Bihar to highlight that the state has a trea-sure trove of all religions.

Sometime back, Nitish Kumar even ordered that all Buddhist sites be-tween Bodh Gaya and Sarnath (Uttar Pradesh) be documented to promote tourism. The chief minister directed the officials to get Dubbagarh exca-vated and get a museum built at the place to ensure conservation of the relics found at the site.

And yet, The Chief Minister was crit-icised by the opposition parties for developing Hindu shrines. Why does it happen? Why is it that when the government spends crores of rupees on minority religious activities, no-body questions it; but when it spends on the restoration of Hindu temples that have hundreds, even thousands of years of history, people see it as playing the Hindutva card?

No one raised the question of mi-nority appeasement when the Bihar Government spent Rs.9 crore to pro-vide facilities at the Manersharif Dur-gah, a famous Sufi shrine, last year. In fact, the Bihar Government has announced a slew of schemes for the minority community in the last few

years. They included schemes like fencing of graveyards, scholarship to meritorious students of the minority community and grant of Rs 10,000 as incentive money to the students passing matriculation exam with first division and training programmes like Hunar and Auzar schemes under which the trained youth are provided with tools.

Under the minorities’ employment scheme, loan of Rs 125 crore will be disbursed at low interest in the next five years. The second scheme is about minorities’ education, under which the meritorious students are being given loan at low interest rates for higher technical education. A sum of Rs 50 crore has been sanctioned for this scheme.

The opposition chose to overlook all these schemes and alleged that the government is trying to appease Hindus by developing the infrastruc-ture of the temples. They did that be-cause it’s easy to question anything that is even remotely related to Hindu religion and get away with it. In fact, one may even be branded as an intel-lectual if one opposes Hindus and anything that has something to do with Hindutva.

The politics of minority appease-ment has reached such a feverish point in our country that something as harmless as the restoration of some ancient Hindu temples is seen as a pro-Hindu step. And we may not have seen its peak yet.

Some famous Religious Places in BiharBihar has many holy places. The Mahabodhi Temple is one of the well-known spiritual des-tinations for Buddhists all over the world. It has achieved spe-cial significance on the world map and is placed on the UNES-CO World Heritage Site list. The temple, situated at Bodh Gaya, is the place where Gautam Bud-dha got enlightenment. It is the most sacred place of Buddhist pilgrims.

The Vishnupad Temple, dedi-cated to Lord Vishnu, is situat-ed in Gaya district. The temple is one of the main sacred plac-es of the Hindus. It is believed that the footprints of Lord Vishnu are marked on basalt in the temple. Several legendary saints including lord Rama with his wife Sita have visited the temple, which is situated along the river Falgu.


Submarine TragedyWarnings ignored or not taken seriously

The sinking of the submarine INS Sindhurakshak after a series of explosions on board has dealt a serious blow to the country’s defence capability and affected the morale of the naval personnel since 18 crew members also lost their lives in the accident. No doubt, it is an irretrievable loss, for the submarine was refitted only recently in Russia at an enormous cost of more than Rs.500 crore. A thorough inquiry into this tragic incident brooks no delay, especially since rumours of sabotage are rife in the air.

India’s naval defense has suffered a major setback. The Navy’s Rus-sian-made Kilo-class Type 636

(Sindhughosh-class) diesel-electric submarine Sindhurakshak met with an accident and sank on August 14 setting back the country’s naval de-fense by a few years and, tragically, taking down 18 members of the crew.

Sindhurakshak was the ninth of the ten Kilo-class submarines of the Indi-an Navy. It was constructed at the Ad-miralty Shipyard in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Construction of the subma-rine began in 1995. It was launched in June 1997 and delivered to India in December 1997. The submarine returned from Russia with a long and costly refit that had cost the exche-quer more than Rs.500 crore.

India and China have ten subma-rines each. These countries are the world’s largest operators of the So-viet-designed Kilo-class submarines. Russia is a major player in the Indian defense strategy as it has refitted seven Indian Kilo-class submarines. Refits of two other Kilo-class subma-rines, Sindhukirti and Sindhushas-tra, are underway at the naval dock-yard in Vizag.

On August 14, the Sindhurakshak sank after explosions caused by a fire on board when it was berthed in the Mumbai dock. The fire came after numerous ordnance blasts on the armed submarine, and it occurred shortly after midnight. The fire was put out within two hours. It is not clear exactly what caused the fire.

The submarine had a top speed of 18 knots and was capable of operat-ing solo for 45 days with a crew of 53.

Fitted with the latest Club-S multi-role missile system, It was capable of engaging targets at a distance of over 250 km. Hence, the complete loss of one submarine and partial damage to another will undermine the Navy’s ef-forts to that extent.

The incident occurred a day after In-dia launched its first indigenous air-

craft carrier and activated the reactor aboard its locally designed nuclear-attack submarine on August 10. Ex-perts say that the explosion may have been due to the buildup of volatile hy-drogen during a battery charging.

Old world submarines like the Sindhurakshak are run by a combina-tion of diesel generators and electric

• Raju Shanbhag

The picture of the submarine bursting into flame

38 SEPTEMBER 2013

batteries. The 2300-ton submarine had 500 batteries. These were ‘over charged’ once in every few months and during this time each cell is man-ually checked. According to experts, the presence of a large crew early in the morning points to a supervised battery overcharge.

The extent of the explosions was so massive that the submarine sank at its berth with only a portion of the tail visible above the water. It was reported that three sailors on board jumped and swam to safety. Navy div-ers were also brought in as there was a possibility that 18 personnel were trapped inside. Defence Minister A. K. Antony confirmed that there were casualties. Other sources state that a small explosion occurred around mid-

night which then triggered two larger explosions.

As unfortunate this incident was, it seems the Indian defense system did not listen to the warning signs that had cropped up well in advance. The Indian government auditors -- the Comptroller and Auditor General – had warned that the navy faced the danger of operating with less than half its already deficient submarine fleet by 2012-13 when 63% of its boats would be eligible for retire-ment.

And this was not the first time Sind-hurakshak met with an accident. In February 2010, there was a fire mis-hap aboard while the vessel was in Visakhapatnam. One sailor died and two others were injured in the inci-

dent. Navy officials reported that the fire had been caused by an explosion in the submarine’s battery compart-ment, which occurred due to a faulty battery valve that leaked hydrogen.

Apart from the possible setbacks to the Indian defense, this mishap also reveals India’s overdependence on imported arms. Today, India is the world’s biggest importer of arms, while China exports weapons worth $2 billion. It also throws light on the lack of professional expertise on defence and security matters in the military. Even politicians do not take decisions on time. The bureaucracy consists of people who make it hard to develop and retain expertise.

It has been reported that even major consultations are undertaken largely on files. This keeps even the complicated and critical issues in limbo for decades. One of the major examples of this is the long-overdue national security reforms.

The Navy had huge expectations from Sindhurakshak. The submarine was sent to Russia for a two-and-a-half-year refit, overhaul and upgrade in 2010. It was modernised, repaired and retrofitted under Project 08773, and after the upgrade sea trials start-ed in October 2012. The upgrades included improved electronic warfare systems, an integrated weapon con-trol system and a new cooling sys-tem, and were expected to extend the service life of the submarine by ten years.

The Sabotage AngleVeteran submariners do not rule out the possibility of sabotage in the sinking of INS Sindhurakshak, even as indications are emerging that the vessel was prepar-ing for “a war patrol” with armed torpedoes and cruise missiles close to Pakistani shores. They are even sug-gesting a naval board of inquiry (BoI), presided by a senior officer from the submarine wing. That officer should thoroughly probe the sabotage angle. This is all

the more important because the warheads of the tor-pedoes and missiles have numerous layers of security features built in to avoid inadvertent blasts aboard the vessel. These multi-layered measures added together ensure almost foolproof levels of safety.

Even with the exploder unit put together, the unit gets active only when the torpedo is started from the submarine and has travelled out a fair distance away from the submarine. There are many more levels of inbuilt safety nets that make sure that the warhead doesn’t go off at random.

38 SEPTEMBER 2013


• By Narayan Ammachchi

Kerala’s Congress Chief Minister Oommen Chandy is struggling to cling to power even as the

solar scandal continues to rage, turn-ing the government offices into po-litical battlefields. Involvement of an actress and some officials in the chief minister’s office has added colour to the scandal.

The crux of the scandal is this: Two people develop contacts with powerful politicians in the state and start a company called Team Solar which goes on collecting money from households and companies offering to install solar panels. One day they disappear with the money, leaving the lenders in an endless wait for so-lar power.

As the scandal hits the headlines, police trace its origin to the chief min-ister’s office. Even the chief minister has been accused of making sev-eral telephone calls to a lady named

Saritha Nair, who is one of the chief suspects in the scandal. Opposition parties, led by the CPM, was stag-ing pickets, demanding the resigna-tion of the chief minister. The latest move by the Left Front to launch what they called the indefinite ‘Secretariat blockade’ has just been called off fol-lowing a promise by the chief minis-ter to order a judicial probe into the whole affair.

Relentless protests have led to the dismissal and arrest of the chief minister’s secretary, Tenny Joppan. Also arrested are Saritha Nair, Biju Radhakrishnan, the other alleged kingpin in the scam, and a filmy lady Shalu Menon. Meanwhile, the chief minister’s public relations officer, ac-cused of taking Rs.5 lakh bribe from the solar firm, has gone underground fearing arrest. A gunman of the chief minister was also suspended for his alleged association with the fraud-sters.

The dubious firm had made all it can

to slip away with the money system-atically. The environmental awards it gave away to the state’s prominent personalities had attracted huge media attention. Saritha became ever more popular, with the news-papers wasting reams of newsprint to publicize her care for the environ-ment. Now, they are all embarrassed with Saritha, the “environmentalist”, standing behind the bars.

All had gone well for the alleged fraudsters until a customer sued the company for not supplying him with the solar panels as promised. Soon hundreds of people came out and told their tales. It is not yet clear how much money the solar company had defrauded. A conservative estimate puts it at Rs 10 crore.

Though the scandal is raging like wildfire, the chief minister has man-aged to cling on to his seat. Inter-estingly, three of his aides have lost their jobs. They are either behind the bars or on the run. Soon after the

Solar Scam flareKerala CM being ‘fried’ by the Left Front

Saritha Nair being arrested


scandal hit the headlines, a quarry owner by name Shridharan Nair disclosed that he had met the Chief Minister at his office along with Saritha, during which the chief minister had rec-ommended investments in renewable energy. Shridharan Nair has filed a complaint to the effect that CM’s secretary Tenny Joppan, along with Saritha Nair and Biju Radhakrish-nan, had taken Rs.40 lakh from him after telling him that a solar power plant would be installed at his company premises in Pal-akkad.

Following relentless pressure from the opposi-tion parties for the resigna-tion of the chief minister, the government has agreed to order a judicial inquiry by a sitting high court judge, but it is not yet clear if the investigators can in-terrogate the officials at the chief minister’s office.

According to reports, the chief suspects, Saritha Nair and her business associate Biju Radhakrishnan, trav-elled in chauffeur-driven cars and went out to meet their clients accompanied by impeccably dressed personal aides. The police say they suspected that the firm’s promoters ran a ‘ponzi’ scheme, a money chain operation where the deposit of a new investor

was used to pay off those who had invested earlier.

At the time of arrest, Saritha Nair had identified herself as Lakshmi Nair and Biju as B.R. Nair. The police then found out that their counterparts in Tamil Nadu had arrested them in 2005 in connection with a wind energy harvesting invest-ment fraud in Coimbatore. They were later sentenced

to imprisonment as well.Police say the duo had in-

curred huge debts in their previous operations in Tamil Nadu. In Kerala, their plan was to collect money in the name of solar panels and pay off the debts they owed in Tamil Nadu. Some-where something went wrong and they are now in jail.

In Kerala, no scandal of this magnitude has ever shaken the very foundation of the government. From secretary to a gunman – several people in Chief Minister’s office have been accused of being involved in the scandal. Chief Minister’s public relation officer has gone underground fearing arrest. Government offices have turned into battlefields with the Opposition parties laying seize to many of them. Interestingly, Chief Minister Chandy has managed to cling onto power.

Who is Oommen Chandy?Oommen Chandy, also known as Kunjoonju, is the son of Malayali Christian couple. Oom-men means Thomas and Chandy is a variant of Alexander. He is a product of Kerala’s stu-dent unions, which are affiliated to different political parties.

Chandy became the president of the Kerala Students Union (KSU) at St George High School, Puthupally, and went on to become the state president of the organisation. He later became a lawyer and a trade union leader. Once he became the president of the Youth Congress, he made a formal entry into politics.

In 2004, he became the Chief Minister of Kerala. This is his second term as the Chief Minister. In 1992, he was reported to be involved in the Pal-molein import scam, but the case was closed soon after the death of the veteran Congress leader K Karunakaran.

Interestingly, he has won the United Nation’s award for combating corruption in public service.

Opposition parties laying sieze to government offices


Tribals Halt Vedanta’s Plans

Local tribal groups in two backward Odisha dis-tricts of Kalahandi and Rayagara have taken on

the State Government and London-based private sector company Vedanta. Both the government and the company had plans to launch a bauxite mining project in the eco-sensitive Niyamgiri hills.

The villagers summarily rejected the proposals in the 12 “Gram Sabhas” (village meetings) held in the tribal villages located in the hills. The local ad-ministration of the two districts had organised the meetings under the supervision of the judge of a lo-cal court selected by the Orissa High Court as per the order of the apex court in April this year.

Locals belonging to the primitive tribe Gandaria Kondh raised objections to the mining project. They said that they not only depend on the important hills for their livelihood but they also have been worship-ping it for generations. The tribals were also backed by the Congress and the UPA Government at the Cen-

tre as they had rejected the mining project, leading to the Supreme Court’s intervention.

But the Gram Sabhas were not free from contro-versies either. The ruling regional outfit in the state, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), and a local organisation supporting the project had objected to the presence of local Congress leaders, including the Lok Sabha member from Kalahandi, Bhakta Charan Das, and NGO representatives in the meetings. They also ac-cused them of unduly influencing the tribals into vio-lating the Supreme Court order.

Similarly, the presence of two foreign nationals in one of the Gram Sabhas had raised a question mark. Activists had staged demonstrations against the project in New Delhi as well as London during the vil-lage meetings in the two tribal districts.

The development has once again cast a shadow over the future of Vedanta’s existing one-million-tonne-per-annum capacity aluminium plant at Lanji-garh in Kalahandi district, for which bauxite was to be mined from the nearby Niyamgiri hills through a joint venture.


Indian Athletes Sent Back

Eighteen Indian athletes have been sent back from the Asian Youth Games in Nanjing as they were

found to be above the age limit of 17. Most of them were sent by the Athletics Federation of India (AFI). There are chances that more athletes may be sent back. However, the AFI has stated that it is a case of miscommunication and has sought an inquiry to sort out the problem.

The 18 athletes were part of a 27-member squad. They were in Nanjing when they were told to pack off without competing. This has left the already weak representation of the contingent severely depleted. Indian athletes are taking part in the event as “Inde-pendent Olympic Athletes” since the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) is under suspension.

The setback comes just two days after four Indian badminton players landed in Nanjing to find that they had not even been entered in their respective events.

It seems no one raised objections about their age when these names were sent to the IOA or the Sports Authority of India (SAI). Even the organisers had not rejected their online applications and they seeming-ly gave them accreditation, all this just days before disqualifying them.

It has also been learnt that the four badminton players, who were not on the entry list, might be going home too. The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) tried to assist the players and even asked other com-peting countries to agree to a re-draw, but it did not succeed. The associations have come to know that eight of the contesting countries agreed for a re-draw, but three others had some objections. So it

may not happen after all.

Tainted people barred from Contesting IOA Polls

In a decision that could have far-reaching conse-quences, corruption-tainted candidates will no

longer be able to contest the Indian Olympic Asso-ciation elections under the revised draft constitution of the IOA sent by its parent body, the International Olympic Committee.

It published a 43-page draft revised Constitution, wherein it stated that the world body has laid down the provisions about the election process of the IOA. It has also set up three important commissions, laid down the voting rights of the National Sports Fed-erations and state Olympic bodies, fixed the often debated age limit and explained the tenure rules, among others.

About the election of the Executive Council mem-bers, the revised draft Constitution has stated that, to be eligible as an office-bearer or member of the Executive Council, a member must be a citizen of In-dia; be in full possession of his/her civil rights; not face charges framed against him/her by any court in India in respect of a criminal or corruption offence which would be punishable with imprisonment if he/she was convicted; not have been convicted of any criminal or corruption offence.

It also said that when charges were framed against


members of IOA General Council, Execu-tive Council, Committees or Commis-sions in a criminal or corruption case, that member shall be suspended from IOA and should be automatically ex-pelled in case he was convicted.

“When an individual member of IOA General Council/Executive Council/Committees or Commissions is convict-ed of a criminal or corruption offence, and ruling is final, he/she must be auto-matically expelled from IOA,” the draft revised Constitution sent along with a letter to Indian officials by Jerome Poivey, IOC Head of Institutional Rela-tions and Governance, NOC Relations Department, said.

This will mean that office-bearers like Suresh Kalmadi, Lalit Bhanot and V K Verma, who are charge-sheeted in connection with 2010 Commonwealth Games scam, will not be able to contest the IOA elections.

Age NO Bar to Gain Knowledge

Many find it difficult to get their de-grees in their youth. But at the age

of 78, T D Krishnamachari has complet-ed a journalism course and obtained a degree and he wants to do a doctoral research on intersection of journalism and Sanskrit.

Krishnamachari won an award for securing the first rank in MA Journalism and communication from the University of Madras at the convocation held recent-ly.

He has redefined the pursuit of knowledge as he already has a master’s degree each in Mathemat-ics, Sanskrit, Journalism, Vaishnavism and a doctor-ate in Sanskrit. H wants to know something about everything. It apparently helps him to deal with the challenges of life. After 33 years of professional life, all he wanted was to understand the subjects that

fascinated him.Adopted by his uncle at the age of 2, Krishnamach-

ari passed his senior secondary with accolades and secured admission at Guindy Engineering College, a dream for any engineering aspirant in the 1950s. In 1962, Krishnamachari joined IIM Ahmedabad as a teacher.

It was the formative years of IIM and Vikram Sarab-hai was the director. Krishnamachari was there for three years as a teacher in manufacturing manage-ment. Thereafter, he joined Lucas TVS and rose to the rank of advisor. During his tenure at Lucas, he

T D Krishnamachari


had a brief stint with Doordarshan as a newsreader.Krishnamachari believes in the pursuit of knowl-

edge. It was the time when the likes of Shashi Kumar and Shobana Ravi were the news readers. Krishnam-achari was impressed with their intonation and ar-ticulation and joined Doordarshan as a Tamil news reader. But he left it after a few years.

Post-retirement, he was back as a teacher. This time, he explained the nuances of yoga to students. It started with his shoulder pain and he found a rem-edy in yoga. Interested in the subject, he completed a two-year diploma course in it. How did he feel rub-bing shoulders with young students? It seems they were initially surprised to see an old man in the class, but later on he became an inspiration for them.

Govt. Against Cleansing Politics of Criminalisation

The Supreme Court had recently given a last chance to the Centre to break its long silence over

the Election Commission’s suggestion to ban politi-cians facing trial for serious offences from contest-ing elections.

A bench consisting of Justices R M Lodha and Madan B Lokur was irritated by the Centre’s long si-

lence on such an important issue. It has been almost eight months since it instructed the Centre to file its response to a PIL seeking numerous directions to make sure that those with criminal track records do not enter the political arena.

The main issue before the court was whether the government could be asked to consider the feasibil-ity of enacting legislation to deal with the menace of criminalisation of politics. It was also looking to de-bar those charged with serious offences.

But the UPA Government has stated that it will challenge the Supreme Court judgment disqualifying MPs and MLAs convicted in criminal cases from con-testing elections. The government said it will discuss amendments to the Representation of People’s Act with members of the cabinet to overturn the apex court’s ruling.

Earlier, during the monsoon session of Parliament, leaders had expressed their disapproval of the Su-preme Court ruling. Parties said the supremacy of Parliament must be maintained and, if required, amendments must be brought to the Constitution. The Supreme Court, in a landmark ruling to cleanse Indian politics of criminal elements, had struck down the legal provision that protects a lawmaker from disqualification even after conviction in a crimi-nal case. The Court had ruled that MPs or MLAs shall stand disqualified from holding the membership of


the House from the date of conviction in a trial court. As many as 31 percent of Members of Parliament

(MPs) and legislators (MLAs/MLCs) have criminal cases pending against them.

TV Regulator Fines Two Channels

While the debate on the regulation of the media is dragging on, the television regulatory body,

Broadcasting Content Complaints Council, has im-posed penalties on two TV channels for what it called “transgression of programming codes and ethics”.

The BCCC, headed by former Delhi High Court Chief Justice A.P. Shah, acted on a complaint from the Min-istry of Information and Broadcasting and cracked the whip on Big CBS Love and Big CBS Spark.

The ministry had complained about eight epi-sodes of the popular series, “Sex and the City”, and claimed that the Big CBS Love show contained graphic depiction of sexual intercourse, suggestive expressions and “indecent” intimacy that did not fit into the “Indian composite system of values”.

It had also objected to two other shows — “Ameri-ca’s Next Top Model” and “Britain’s Next Top Model” — for their depiction of nudity and “obscenity”. The ministry stated that one incident, summarised by the BCCC, was “showing two women half-naked and in some shots cuddling each other in an indecent way”.

According to BCCC, it was “shocked” to see some clips from the shows and said they violated the In-dian Broadcasting Foundation’s Self Regulatory Guidelines and also Programming Code. Initially, the channel claimed that the shows were “niche” and for a “select audience”, and hence the norms may not strictly apply to them.

It then attributed some problems with its Stan-dards and Practices Department. But eventually, the

BCCC had to use its newly-acquired powers enabling it to fine up to Rs.30 lakh, and imposed a fine of Rs.10 lakh.

It has also instructed the channel to carry an apol-ogy every two hours for seven days.

The regulator also found the lyrics of rap song ‘No Lie’, telecast on CBS Spark, “inappropriate” and “grossly offensive to good taste and decency”. It rejected the channel’s defense, fined it Rs.2,50,000 and instructed it to run an apology for three days — two hours each day.

How to Protect the Indian Tiger?

A US-based environmental research group has suggested that India should build green strips

around the tiger sanctuaries so as to stall the decline in the tiger population. Researchers at the Smithso-nian Conservation Biology Institute in Washington say that tigers usually travel between 100 and 375 kilometres in search of mate. On their way, they stray into villages and other human habitats on the fringe of forests.

The tiger is one of the main attractions of India’s tourism with hundreds of thousands of foreigners visiting the country’s wildlife sanctuaries with the sole aim of spotting this magnificent animal roaming


in the wild. For many foreigners and green speakers, spotting the tiger in a forest is a lifetime aim.

Hundreds of resorts and tourism departments in several states are heavily dependent on “tiger tour-ism”. Analysts say that protecting tigers is critical to the growth of India’s tourism sector.

The study details how construction and mining activities in forests are hampering the animal’s free and frequent movements between the jungle corri-dors.

It is believed that there are just about 273 tigers left in central India (between the Satpura and Maikal regions). And here there are four tiger sanctuaries. Researchers say a strip of forest connecting these sanctuaries will be a great idea to protect the tiger. That means tigers may not bounce on humans or stray into human territory on their hunt for a mate or in search of prey.

No road should cut through this forest strip and

there should be no mining in this area, the research group has suggested.

According to “Pioneer”, a team led by Sandeep Sharma, a researcher at the Smithsonian Conserva-tion Biology Institute, surveyed 45,000 square kilo-metres of an area covering four wildlife sanctuaries including Kanha-Phen, Pachmarhi-Satpura-Bori and Melghat and Pench.

India was home to a large number of tigers 300 years ago. But their number began to dwindle for the first time when the Moghuls freed vast acres of for-est land around the river valley to make way for agri-culture. Then the British killed thousands of tigers as part of their hunting sport.

That means the main reason for the decrease in tiger population is the decrease in forest area, the researchers have concluded.


Teaching Love to Students

Calcutta’s Presidency University has introduced a new lesson to college students. And that’s about

love. The course will not only instruct how to love but also how to treat the womenfolk.

The subject, filled with a variety of love stories and talks about the philosophy of love, has not yet been added to the syllabus, but is likely to be introduced in the coming academic year. Students cannot ignore the subject because it carries 50 marks.

According to “Hindu”, love will be the subject of study only for the sociology students. Vice Chancel-lor Malabika Sarkar says that the university will use the subject to teach students about the sociological and economic implications of love.

Love has different meaning in different cultures, but the university will teach how it is viewed in In-dian culture. This appears to be an interesting devel-opment in the light of the growing number of rape incidents across the country.

Recently, a student in Delhi killed himself after his female classmate repulsed his advance. And it was just a few days ago a photojournalist was gang-raped by four men in Mumbai.

Terrorists’ Poem in Students’ Syllabus

Kerala’s prestigious Calicut University has includ-ed a poem penned by an Al Qaida terrorist dur-

ing his detention in American jail. The poem – “Ode to the Sea” -- written by Ibrahim al-Rubaish is part of the Literature and Contemporary Issue Studies course.

What has angered teachers and students, how-ever, is that the text gives all the details about the writer except his “terror links”. Some students, in-cluding students’ unions such as ABVP have called for an inquiry to ascertain why the poem was added to the syllabus.

Interestingly, the university has talked extensively about the author but stops short of answering why he was detained in Guantanamo Bay prison on a Cu-ban island.

American army arrested the 33-year-old Saudi

Arabian in Afghanistan and later held him at Guan-tanamo for more than five years. It was then that he wrote this piece.

The poem is an expression of the poet’s mind and heart and that’s why the students and parents are concerned about it. Also worrying them is the Uni-versity’s attempt to hide the background of the au-thor.

A lecturer at the Calicut University has expressed anger at the introduction of the poem. Given a past report from Associated Press, Ibrahim Suleiman has been accused of playing a prominent role in expand-ing Al Qaida’s operations in Yemen, the Arabian country that is today hit hard by the violence trig-gered by the terrorists.

Some parents are asking why the university did not include this truth in the comments it made about the author in the academic book. It said al-Rubaish was “a theological adviser to the group and his writ-ings and sermons are prominent in the group’s lit-erature”.

Americans freed him in 2006, but today he is on the run again. Saudi Arabia says he is behind a ter-rorist plan to assassinate its counterterrorism chief in 2009.

Ibrahim al-Rubaish


Gujarat Riots paved way for Indian Mujahideen?

Congress General Secretary Shakeel Ahmad re-cently shocked the majority community in the

country when he tweeted that it was Gujarat riots that led to the founding of the Indian Mujahideen. Congress leadership swiftly declined to own up the charges and said that it was Shakeel’s own opinion.

Whosever opinion it might be, Shakeel’s statement has shocked everyone, because the Indian Mujahi-deen is a terrorist organisation involved in a string of terrorist attacks carried out in several places across the country over the past several years.

Shakeel says he said so citing a comment made in one of the past chargesheets prepared by the Na-tional Investigation Agency (NIA).

But all that the NIA says is that the Indian

Mujahideen was formed after Gujarat riots; it does not specifically say that it was the Gujarat riots that led to the founding of the terrorist organisation.

“This (2002 riots) was the reason behind the cre-ation of Indian Mujahideen. If they forsake their com-munal politics, outfits like IM will cease to exist,” he later told the media.

BJP quickly replied to his comment, saying that there were 40 riots in Gujarat under the Congress rule and the courts could convict only three persons.

A shaken Congress leadership later intervened and silenced Shakeel but the party did not dare punish him for being sympathetic with the terrorist organ-isation that has killed hundreds of innocents with bomb blasts across the country.

Shakeel stated that the BJP must stop what he called “communal politics” before talking against the Islamic terrorist organisations.

50 SEPTEMBER 2013

Sometimes, facts are more shocking than fiction. This is more so when it comes to the bloody tales

of Afghanistan. While Khalid Hosseni’s first novel, `The Kite Runner’, broke our hearts with facts told in fiction, his second novel, ‘A Thou-sand Splendid Suns’, touched our emotional chords through the story of gritty women of this devastated country.

But now Qais Akbar Omar, a child-hood kite runner-turned carpet weaver, provides the true accounts of these stories in a matter of fact autobiography titled ‘A Fort of Nine Towers’ (396 pp. Farrar, Straus & Gi-roux. $27). The book is full of heart-wrenching anecdotes, taken directly from the author’s childhood days. His story is also the story of a gritty father, a grandfather, uncles, friends and families.

Qais has woven these anecdotes as skilfully as his angel-like teacher taught him. The saga revolves around his family taking refuge from Taliban in the house of his father’s business friend, which is a hundred-year-old, nine-towered fort called Qala-e-Noborja. They live there for some time and then try to escape to locations which are away from war and strife. Like in a game of chess, they move from place to place: A riverside, Tashkurghan, Bamyan caves, Kuchi herders and finally Mazar. They escape a flash flood while staying in the riverside; were offered shel-ter by a farmer whose pomegranates Qais had stolen the earlier day; invited by Kuchi nomads from among whom Qais’ grandfather had married a girl in the past. It is at Mazar that Qais meets a masterful weaver girl,

a deaf and mute ‘angel’. Qais learns the intricacies of quality weaving from her. His poetic expressions come to the fore while writing about this wonderful teacher. He even ends the book in search of her, as

by now, he has become a popular carpet manufacturer. The enduring charm turns elusive.

Anchored between 1990s and 2000s, `A Fort of Nine Towers’ brings the saga of a family, in-tensely interfered by the Taliban and all other Afghan factions. Qais sees hundreds of dead bodies in a single house, witnesses a rape, escapes sniper shots and still sur-vives. He was even stopped mid-road by a Taliban zealot who mea-sures his pubic hairs in public to see whether they are as per Taliban rules! Thus we get to know how Af-ghans survived the Taliban regime. The sense of humour of father is another highlight of this interest-ing narrative.

The book, with many matter-of-fact details, is worth for its non-glorified narration. Afghanistan is still clueless about its destiny and Qais’ story looks like a spot in its timeline. But peo-ple like Khalid Hosseni, who has established a char-ity foundation, Qais Akbar Omar who is campaigning for peace, and Greg Mortenson (with two highly ac-claimed books `Three Cups of Tea’ and `Stones into Schools’), who established a number of schools for Afghan children, and many such activist-writers pro-vide a ray of hope for this strife-torn country.

- Beluru Sudarshana

[ From the world oF books ]-

This Kabuliwala weaves a blood-chilling story

50 SEPTEMBER 2013

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