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[1] 7 Christians injured in attack by Dharma Sena in Jabalpur, 250 Christian Believers including women and children of the St. Paul's Church belonging to the Church of North India, Jabalpur Madhya Pradesh, was attacked by Radical Hindu elements during the Palm Sunday procession. Around 6 pm, a group of 30 – 35 Dharma Sena people led by Yogesh Agrawal and other office bearers of the Dharma Sena attacked the crowd. The Sena activists were fully armed with swords, baseball bats, huge bamboo sticks and knives. First the Dharma Sena people damaged the vehicles of the people breaking glasses and smashing windows and headlights. Then they turned their attention to the Pastors beating them black and blue. Pastor James Masih who is the presbyter in charge for the St. Paul's Church at Gokulpur was beaten mercilessly and has suffered internal injuries. The Dharma Sena people then turned their attention to women and children and started beating them with baseball bats and sticks. According to eye witnesses, women were pulled by their Chunnies (cloth used for head and body covering), which amounts to outraging the modesty of women. Even children were not spared. Pastor James Masih's 5 year old son, who was playing the Congo drum, was beaten by bats. The food which was ant for fasting people after the prayers was also spoiled by the attackers. Eyewitness said that "The Dharma Sena people used a lot of abusive language against the women in particular. They also abused our religion and hurled insults at the Christian religion in general." When the Christians saw that they are surrounded a few of them started throwing stones at the Dharma Sena activists in self defense. Seeing this, the Sena people fled, but one of them while getting away lost his balance and was hurt a little because of falling down the cliff. It was not until late that the police decided to admit an FIR against the Dharma Sena activists. One motorcycle belonging to a Dharma Sena man was captured by the police although we do not know about the status of the arrests of the attackers. ] ------------- [2] From: Mukul Dube <uthappam@gmail.com> Date: Mon Apr 2, 2007 Subject: Re: [indiathinkersnet] Gujarat: Five Years After It's all balls, then? MD Sukla Sen wrote: > > > Gujarat: Five Years After > > Apoorva Anand > > Swami Vivekananda aspired for a man who would have the mind of a Hindu > and the body of a Muslim. Narendra Modi showed that the Muslim body > could be annihilated, made irrelevant. > A journalist friend tells me that after the success of Hrithik Roshan’s > first film, Kaho Na Pyar Hai, RSS mouthpiece Panchajanya commented that > in Hrithik Roshan we could see the entry of a new, real Hindu Putra. > That he went on to marry a Muslim girl could also be treated as a > revenge on behalf of those Hindus who have lost their daughters and > sisters to Muslim men. Narendra Modi vanquished the Muslim body, Hrithik > Roshan made it evaporate by integrating it with himself. -- Mukul Dube D-504 Purvasha Anand Lok .. Mayur Vihar 1 .. Delhi 110091 +91 (0) 11 9873553167 .. 22750240 uthappam@gmail.com .. payasam@ricmail.com -------------------- [3] From: "sanjeev nayyar" <exploreindia@vsnl.net> Date: Mon Apr 2, 2007 Subject: Light & Sound Show at Somnath mandir by vimla patil Namaskar Mitra, AN outline for the script of the sound and light show at the somanath Temple, Saurashtra by Vimla Patil http://www.esamskriti.com/html/essay_index.asp?cat=832&subcat=831&cname=somnath_ talk_vpatil To see pictures of Somnath mandir - http://www.esamskriti.com/html/new_photo.asp?subcatid=70 --------------- [4] From: Sukla Sen <suklasen@yahoo.com> Date: Mon Apr 2, 2007 59 pm Subject: Nandigram: Dissolve the People! http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=229341 ... CPI(M) state secretary Biman Bose today said the Politburo, too, is in line with the state government on the issue. "Our party's industrialisation programme was one of the promises on which we came to power; it was accepted and approved by the Politburo," Bose, a Politburo member, told Newsline. "The Politburo knows it cannot treat the manifesto as a scrap paper and throw it into garbage bin." The Politburo has been briefed on every detail of the Nandigram firing incident, Bose said. According to him, "party mechanism" would henceforth be used to support the administration's efforts to acquire land. "We cannot acquire land with just administrative orders from the Writers' Buildings and police firing." Over the next 10-12 years, the government would have to acquire 1 lakh acres, out of 1.37 crore acres agricultural land, for planned industrial projects, he said. 'At one time we had said Tata-Birla go away' Bose said a change in people's mindset is needed, just as CPI(M) has changed its own approach, to take the industrialisation process further "Don't forget that at one time we had said 'Tata-Birla go away'," he said. "Then we realised private capital is needed to build industry." ... The Solution Bertholt Brecht After the uprising of the 17th June The Secretary of the Writers Union Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinalle Stating that the people Had forfeited the confidence of the government And could win it back only By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier In that case for the government To dissolve the people And elect another? -------------- [5] From: Sukla Sen <suklasen@yahoo.com> Date: Mon Apr 2, 2007 Subject: Singur and Nandigram: Celebrate the Resistance http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/portal/2007/04/872 Celebrate the resistance The Left tradition is alive. In the amazing resistance of peasants, among poor people who cling to their urban dwellings and livelihood, in the unprecedented, tumultuous expressions of solidarity with the people of Nandigram that now rock cities and towns Tanika Sarkar The true history of the terror at Nandigram between 14 and 16 March will probably never be disclosed in its fullness. Snippets of information that broke through the police cover, and visual fragments that could be shown on television channels have, nonetheless, brought forth an unprecedented upsurge of popular outrage all over the state, from all ranks of people. It is time to open up some old histories and structural characteristics of CPI(M) conduct in the state. What happened in Nandigram had been rehearsed there already in early January, and at Singur, in September and December, 2006: imposition of unilateral party and corporate decisions on villagers without even informing them that their land had been acquired for corporate profit, private profit now designated as public purpose. Intimidation, especially by party cadres, violent attacks on villagers by the police and by cadres, violence that did not spare women and children. Branding of all criticism as of Trinamool, the BJP or Naxal inspiration, and hence not fit to be met with serious discussion. Slander campaigns against the Left sympathisers and against renowned social activists who balked at party-led violence. Keeping Front partners out of every crucial decision making, whether it related to land acquisition, or to organisation of violence. Singur and Nadigram, thus, raise questions about a neo liberal economics that the state party seems to have definitively embraced and which the central committee has endorsed, and about the failure of democratic processes which such policies have produced. We need to think about whether the embrace of corporate interests and surrender to corporate will can ever be managed democratically. It has not happened anywhere else in India. West Bengal proved no exception. Land reforms in the state that the early Left Front governments initiated proved to be remarkable in their effects on peasant economy and morale, stimulating thriving small peasant agriculture and an amazing measure of peasant self-confidence and self-esteem that we saw at Singur and at Nandigram. At the same time, however, industries were allowed to die away, leaving about 50,000 dead factories and the virtual collapse of the jute industry. Beyond registration of sharecroppers and some land redistribution, no other forms of agrarian restructuring were imagined. The successful panchayat bodies were equipped with powers and functions but these very gains led to bitter conflicts and rural violence among different parties that contested the elections. While all parties were more or less implicated, especially the Trinamool, it was the CPI(M) alone which controlled the police and dominated state power. >From the mid 1990s, with the adoption of structural adjustment policies on a national scale, some new changes occurred, just as the party, battening on repeated victories, became increasingly tolerant of criticism and opposition. In the name of urban beautification, hawkers were sought to be removed from Kolkata streets, massive tracts of highly cultivated land, rich in bio-diverse resources, were taken over at New Rajarhat near the capital and handed over to corporate groups to be made over into Vedic villages, aquatic sports complexes and magnificent residential resorts for the super rich. It was the same story on both sides of the bypass that connects the capital with the airport: huge land tracts snatched from peasants and fishermen, earmarked for pleasure grounds of the rich: private hospitals, gated communities, expensive parks and entertainment centres, huge shopping malls. Government schools languished and public health was in a dismal condition at the same time: one new primary health care centre all over the state in the last ten years. While factories remained closed, half the annual funds sent under the Rural Employment Guarantee schemes were sent back untouched. We may say that the history shows no concern for promoting real industrialisation, or for public concerns, nor for employment generation. What flourished with tender government nurture had been upper middle class luxuries and corporate profits. Another disturbing development was the cycle of misinformation. It is clear now that massive land transfers were planned without land use maps or land surveys since the early 1970s, against advice of the Geological Survey of India about the ecological damage such acquisition would lead to. Singur's visibly multi-cropped land was designated as single cropped, misinformation abounded about the extent and purposes of land transfer and queries under the right to information were not answered. The party circulated fact sheets that were immediately disproved. Even though there was no violent movement in Singur, peaceful resistance by farmers was met with the police and cadre brutalities. It was as if the party expected that villagers would have to obey the diktat taken without any discussion with people whose land, livelihood, village, environment and culture were at stake. Singur — a village whose land was taken without information reaching the peasants prior to the event, and whose peaceful movement brought forth horrible reprisals, formed the determination of Nandigram peasants to defend their livelihood and space at any cost: in late January, some of us who visited that area, warned about an impending rural civil war. The resistance at Nandigram has led to a few promises of concessions, only because it was fierce to the point of violence, determined, to pay any price that was needed to protect their land. At the same time, party leaders at all levels proudly declare that SEZs would happen in West Bengal. The revisions in the structure of SEZs that they suggest, however, do not involve any real protection of labour rights, no provisions for unionisation or any curbs on extra territorial powers of the companies. What is the Left, then, in West Bengal? I would suggest that the very long and rich tradition of the Left politics and culture has survived. We need to look for them in the amazing resistance of peasants, among poor people who cling to their urban dwellings and livelihood, in the unprecedented, tumultuous expressions of solidarity with the people of Nandigram that now rock cities and towns in the state and that strengthen resistance to arbitrary state power in many other rural pockets in the state. ------------- [6] Who Is Calling The Shots In Bangladesh? By Taj Hashmi http://www.countercurrents.org/hashmi030407.htm As the Emergency cannot be an end in itself, making ???? politics difficult for politicians???? is not going to salvage the country either. It is high time that the present regime start calling a spade a spade by identifying itself not only as an interim government to hold free and fair elections but also as the one determined to establish the rule of law and a corruption-free society in Bangladesh |
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| << April02, 2007 - [India Thinkers Net] Secular India updates ,Buddha ,Iran strike etc |
April05, 2007 - [India Thinkers Net] Female vigilante ,breastfeeding etc >> |
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