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| << April02, 2008 - [India Thinkers Net]Religious freedom in China ,Tibet,TB etc |
April05, 2008 - [India Thinkers Net] Pak film ,Pak export of terrorism,China unrest etc >> |
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[1] Open SIMIsim! Now fight radical Islam Balbir Punj Little purpose will be served by cracking down on SIMI unless there is adequate political conviction that radical Islamism must be countered What is tumbling out of the SIMI cupboard is a glimpse of the countrywide network of about 20,000 youngsters brainwashed to believe that through terror they can convert India into an Islamic country. As disclosed by Riyazuddin Nasir, SIMI leader Safdar Nagori had instructed his followers thus: "Jihad is our path. India is to be liberated by converting it to dar-ul Islam by either forcefully converting everyone to Islam or by violence." There should be no surprise at such inspirations behind terror. No doubt, the recent Deoband gathering of imams has declared terrorism "anti-Islamic". However, the interpretation of Jihad that this global network of extremism preaches is effectively brought out in the Islamist literature that is getting widely distributed and is being used to mislead young Muslim minds. From his hideout somewhere in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, the two leading lights of Al Qaeda regularly call on Muslims to resort to terror in the name of Jihad, assuring them that this way the entire world will become Muslim. If the country has to be convinced that the Deoband call is going to be effective antidote to the poison that is being spread in the name of religion, there should be a positive action plan for the ulema to isolate the extremists so that the Government can finally overcome them. This observation becomes relevant in the light of what Nasir has revealed. While the Madhya Pradesh Government deserves credit for this prized catch, it is obvious that Nagori and his terror merchants were operating with impunity in the last four years across the country. The fact that as many as six State police organisations and Central intelligence agencies are interrogating the SIMI leadership reveals how effective and widespread this terror network is. From the reports of interrogation of this group, it seems that SIMI was behind almost every incident of terrorism in country for the last four years. This is not to say that police establishments in other States were not doing their work. In Hyderabad, for instance, soon after the Mecca Masjid bombing, many suspects were held. But the police could not interrogate them as much as they needed. A sustained campaign accusing the police of "torturing innocent Muslims" was launched. Soon, the Congress-led State Government caved in and the police were told to back off. Hyderabad was also in the news when Gujarat Police traced the attack on Haren Pandya, the former Gujarat Home Minister, to a maulana in Hyderabad, arrested him and took him to Ahmedabad. There was once again demonstrations against this arrest. There is thus everything to suspect that such demonstrations are being inspired by those very forces that plan terror attacks in the country. Nasir is that maulana's son. An engineering college dropout, Nasir, 21, is a Lashkar-e-Tayyeba operative, according to Hyderabad Police chief Prasad Rao. Nasir and Abu Bakr, a 21-year-old ayurveda student, were waiting to receive a consignment of explosives from Bangladeshi operatives when they were arrested on January 17. The media has been full of reports of the many plans that Nasir was privy to - ram the Andhra Pradesh police headquarters, attack the nuclear fuel complex in Hyderabad and also the nuclear reactor in Kaiga. There was also an assignment given to Nasir to attack American and Israeli tourists in Goa on the lines of the Bali bombing in Indonesia that killed at least 200 tourists. Now that Central intelligence agencies and the police of six States have given out the same story of widespread network of SIMI that Nagori and his associates created from the Malabar coast to Uttar Pradesh through Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, etc, with links to the terror outfits working in Jammu & Kashmir and a regular flow of funds and explosives as well as mentors from Pakistan and Bangladesh, one wonders how these activities were going on for years without the knowledge of our security and Intelligence agencies. A foreign-inspired Jihadi movement cannot strike roots unless there is a local organisation to facilitate it. The SIMI was suspect right from the day Parliament was attacked; the NDA Government then took the bold decision to ban the outfit. However, after 2004, there was little that was made known to the public about SIMI's activities. It is 'cool' to condemn the US on Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine, as the imams at Deoband have done. But they have not directed their anger at those who are misleading Muslim youth in the country, about which they necessarily know much more than what the intelligence agencies do. Such a vast network cannot be built without local sympathies. Muslim leaders have been fanning anger against the US to build their political constituencies. Worse, our self-styled secular leaders have ignored their duty to balance their support to what is termed as 'Muslim anger' with a strong condemnation of the extremist ideology that keeps the embers burning. On the other hand, they have done everything to fan these flames and tell the Muslim leadership that it's right to organise massive demonstrations against Danish cartoonists or Ms Taslima Nasreen. Some political parties are misleading the people by saying that we are fighting terrorism. This is a half-truth. What we are fighting is not just terrorism, but radical Islamism. If we just focus on terror and ignore the ideology behind such subversive activities, we are inviting bigger trouble in future. Some political parties are misleading the people by saying that we are fighting terrorism. This is a half-truth. What we are fighting is not just terrorism, but radical Islamism. If we just focus on terror and ignore the ideology behind such subversive activities, we are inviting bigger trouble in future. -------- [2] From: Sukla Sen <suklasen@yahoo.com Date: Fri Apr 4, 2008 12:51 pm Subject: Defining Indian Elite Identifying The Indian Elite Arun Kumar Based on the article published in The Tribune, April 1, 2008. Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, inaugurating the new airport in Hyderabad is reported to have said, “… air travel was not elitist anymore”. With airports jammed and congestion in the air leading to delays in take off and landing, many would come to that conclusion. However, saying that more people are traveling by air now compared to 5 years back is not the same thing as saying that it is not elitist anymore. Who do we consider to be elite in India? The statement reflects the view of our top leadership about society. It is particularly important since it is Mrs. Gandhi who moved the Congress to its evocative slogan, `hamara hath aam admi ke sath’ and it helped the party regain power in 2004. Further, it is she who forced the powerful trio of PM, FM and Dy. Chairperson of the Planning Commission who believe in the pro corporate and pro rich policies based on the neo-liberal philosophy, to accept the NREGS and now the farm loan waiver scheme. Thus, she has been the ally of the poor in the Congress party. Yet, her statement reflects where her empathy is. The Unorganized Sector Report based on the NSS 61st round (2004-05) shows that 77% of the population lives at less than Rs. 20/- per person per day. So, most people would hardly even use trains much less flights. Those who do use the railways mostly travel by the ordinary unreserved compartments in our trains. The overcrowding of these compartments suggests that a vast majority does not even have the money for reservation, much less AC or air travel. The statement is similar to the argument that India is prosperous since a large number of people use cell phones. In the metropolitan centers one can even spot a rickshaw puller or a gardener flaunting a cell phone. However, this does not signify that these users are able to afford these gadgets or are better off than earlier. They maybe cutting other expenditures, perhaps on essentials for the family, like, on food or education of the child. High pressured advertising and peer group pressure is known to force people into irrational choices where they sacrifice their essential expenditures for the sake of prestige, etc. Can one say that those who consume alcohol should be spending enough on food for the family? It is well known that many of those who drink heavily leave their families destitute. Women’s movement against drinking in Andhra Pradesh in the mid Nineties focused on this. The plight of many such families moved Gandhiji to demand prohibition. An irrational choice maybe made by an individual belonging to a poor family and this cannot be the basis for concluding that if someone in the family drinks, the family must be eating well. Malnourishment amongst children and women is higher in India than in sub Saharan Africa. Food consumption per capita has declined in the country after 1991 and this has affected the nutritional status of the poor, children and women. To argue that those who do not have adequate calories are eating more of high value food does not stand scrutiny. Production of one unit of meat takes 6 units of foodgrain and of one unit of chicken takes 2 units of foodgrain. So, as the well off sections consume more of these items, their per capita consumption of foodgrain rises even though their direct consumption may fall. That is why in the rich countries, foodgrain consumption rises. Since, in India, the overall consumption per capita is falling, the brunt of this decline in the average is falling on the poor who are in no position to go for higher value food items. The confusion regarding who are the elite is similar to that of who are the middle class in India? By definition, those who are the middle of any ordering of the population can be called the middle class. In India, if we classify the population by their incomes, then 500 millions would be in the middle. But these are not the middle class as understood in the international context of the `consuming classes’. According to the survey, in 2004-05, only 4% of the population (numbering 44 million), at the top of the income ladder and categorized as the high income spent more than the princely sum of Rs. 48/- per person per day. This category spent an average of Rs. 93 per day. Thus, in reality, even these people can hardly afford air travel in spite of the drop in air fares. It is quite likely that given these figures, less than 1% of the population or about 11 million people would be middle class and would be able to use air travel. This is certainly also the elite unless for any arbitrary reason one wishes to call the top 0.1% as the elite. There is a catch, namely, these figures are based on the reported data. The economy has a roaring black economy which now adds up to about 50% of GDP. Much consumption is based on these incomes but the surveys do not capture it. Just as the black income earners do not reveal their black incomes they also do not reveal their consumption out of the black incomes. So, consumption in the economy ought to be higher than what is revealed. But black incomes are concentrated in the hands of at most the top 3% of the population so it is they who have the extra consumption and not the poor. Actually, the rest suffer since they have to pay bribes, etc., to line the pockets of the top 3% and they have to curtail their consumption. In brief, at most 3% of the population would be able to afford air travel but would these people not be called the elite? Mrs. Gandhi could have said that the elite need air travel because they travel frequently. What Mrs. Gandhi’s statement indicates is the distance between our leaders and the common man who lives at less than Rs. 20/- per person per day. Even Big B is reported to have said that now poverty is a thing of the past. How insulated the top is from the reality – perhaps blinded by its own hype of `India shining’? All this is not surprising given that our leadership rubs shoulders with the rich in India and abroad. Even the party of the Dalits demands from aspirants for its election tickets a donation of a few lakhs if not more. Lakhs are spent on birthday bashes and big diamonds sported. In the Parliament, designer clothes are flaunted which perhaps cost as much as the yearly expenditure of the common person’s family. To attend Parliament, MPs are known to fly in daily in their private planes. The top functionaries of the state live like the new maharajas of the old. The top leadership socializes with the rich on a daily basis and internalizes their concerns to the exclusion of the needs of the poor who they see only at a distance. Recently, for the wedding of his son, one CM gave an invitation card package estimated to cost Rs 15,000/- per invitee. The top leadership is imitating the businessmen in their lavish lifestyle and aspiring to get their. As they say, a person is known by the company they keep. They do not any more identify with the destitution of the common man. On days when the leaders make a political show of their concern for the poor, they make speeches to them or to hired crowds looking like the poor. Or, they pay a flying visit to the villages and slums and wave at the common people since they are cut off from the masses by the security bandobast. Unlike, Gandhiji, they do not go and live in their midst. There are no PMs or CMs or ministers who become a `Ek din ka’ slum dweller or villager. Empathy with the poor is missing amongst the ruling elite. The leadership does not even feel the need for it because their entire class does the same and there is no competition. The poor in the country have no choice and select one or the other of them. The statement that air travel is “not elitist anymore” when hardly 1% (or at most 3% is able to afford it) of India uses this mode of transport is bereft of an understanding of the country; a bit like the Queen supposedly saying that if they do not have bread let them eat cake. arunkumar1000@hotmail.com Peace is doable. -------------- [3] From: Sukla Sen <suklasen@yahoo.com Date: Thu Apr 3, 2008 9:07 am Subject: Re: [indiathinkersnet] Genocide in Tibet and Indian Perspective Did you refer to <http://hindtoday. com/Blogs/ ViewBlogsV2. aspx? HTAdvtId= 1042&HTAdvtPlace Code=IND33WB, which clearly and categorically exposes your blatant lie that I had ever supported the CPIM-sponsored atrocities in Nandigram? As regards the killings, the main problem is not that the figures are unauthenticated. One of the major problems is that Leftists and Marxists of different hues have valiantly fought these atrocities on the ground, that goes unacknowledged. Another major one is that it does not talk of Hiroshima-Nagasaki, or Vietnam or Indonesia or Chile or Nicaragua and innumerable such others. How war industry is promoted worldwide. Right at the moment the world spends more than 1 trillion US dollar on military purposes. About the half being spent by the US alone. Even more important is that it totally disregards how the capitalist-imperialist world order thrives on the poverty and pauperization of a large chunk of the world population. How it cause slow sub-human death to millions. It of course does not mention the mass murders and gang rapes of Gujarat. Sukla ------------- [4] Mayawati's Burgeoning Wealth: Who Gains? By S. R. Darapuri http://www.countercurrents.org/darapuri040408.htm In April, 2007 while filing her nomination papers for Assembly elections Mayawati had declared her assets to be worth Rs. 52 crores. While filing her income tax return for the assessment year 2008-09 she estimated her income to be Rs. 60 crores and had deposited Rs. 15 crores as advance tax. The actual income is likely to exceed this estimate at the end of this financial year. Now the question arises as to what are the sources of her income and what are the consequences of this amassing of wealth by her. It is also pertinent to discuss as to apart from Mayawati who else are the beneficiaries of this money game. What is the loss and gain of Dalits in this game of exchange of money? Pakistan: Befriending Oppressors, Alienating Masses By Mir Adnan Aziz http://www.countercurrents.org/aziz040408.htm Nobody more than the people, as one, yearn for peace. A strong, stable and vibrant Pakistan is somethinfg the nation longs for, imperative as it is for peace and stability in this region. It is equally important we find our own remedies to achieve this objective. With a representative government in place a new day beckons. Let us all hope they succeed in mending a shattered national psyche and a tattered societal fabric Gujarat: Cry For Justice! By Ram Puniyani http://www.countercurrents.org/puniyani040408.htm Fresh Probe Ordered in to Gujarat Carnage Cases ------------- |
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| << April02, 2008 - [India Thinkers Net]Religious freedom in China ,Tibet,TB etc |
April05, 2008 - [India Thinkers Net] Pak film ,Pak export of terrorism,China unrest etc >> |
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