MB Lal Book -
11
135.
The Kissinger Cables
India U.S.
India a ‘fact of life’, say U.S. Singapore
Delhi Kashmir , BJP wants CBI to probe
chit funds148.
City's toilet
museum in weird list149.
Swami
Chinmayananda150.
missing children claim Delhi
Police 'demanded bribes to investigate151.
Adivasis’ dangerous journey into
the urban jungle152.
National Interest: Mere paas
media hai153.
Delhi
April 8, 2013 12:36 IST
The Kissinger Cables
Continuing a partnership that began in 2011 with the India Cables and Pakistan Cables, The Hindu is in investigative collaboration with WikiLeaks once again to bring to its readers a new set of U.S. diplomatic communications, this time from an earlier but highly turbulent period in India's political history: the early-to mid-1970s.
The ‘Kissinger Cables,’ comprising more than 1.7 million U.S. diplomatic records for the period 1973 to 1976, relate to a period when Henry Kissinger was the U.S Secretary of State in the Nixon and Ford Administrations. Starting today, The Hindu will publish reports based on cables of interest from this tranche that relate to India. The links to the cables, which have been obtained by WikiLeaks, will be available on our internet site thehindu.com and the WikiLeaks website,wikileaks.org
As with our earlier collaborations, the Kissinger Cables have been accessed by The Hindu through an arrangement with WikiLeaks that involves no financial transaction or obligations on either side.
Siddharth Varadarajan
Editor
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April 8, 2013 07:26 IST
Fernandes ‘sought CIA funding’ during Emergency
The Hindu ArchivesGeorge Fernandes, then Union Minister for Industry, addresses railway employees in New Delhi in May, 1979.
At the height of Emergency, fiery Socialist labour leader George Fernandes sought to get funding from the American Central Intelligence Agency and the French government while he was underground organising sabotage activities.
Mr. Fernandes, who liked to project himself as a sworn enemy of American imperialism and foreign capital, said in November 1975 that “he was even now prepared to accept money from the CIA,” according to a new set of U.S. diplomatic cables from the Henry Kissinger era obtained by WikiLeaks and accessed by The Hindu.
Mr. Fernandes, who was at the time plotting to dynamite government installations as part of protests against the Emergency, made this request for funding during a meeting with the French Labour Attaché Manfred Turlach on or around November 1, 1975 (Cable: 1975NEWDE15543_b).
Fernandes initially asked Turlach for help from the French government. When this was refused, he asked Turlach if he could suggest CIA contacts. Turlach told him he knew none.
The cable, sent on November 28 from the New Delhi Embassy to the State Department in Washington, notes that on November 8 a certain “Miss Gita” (quotes from the original text) had approached the U.S. Labour Counsellor seeking to arrange a meeting between Fernandes and the U.S. Ambassador. “She was told that there was absolutely no possibility for a meeting.”
During the meeting with Turlach, Fernandes, with more than a touch of bravado, claimed there were about 300 people with him engaged in sabotage activities and that they had “already blown up two railway bridges in the south and a bridge between Bombay and Poona”. He also claimed his group set fire to the docks in Bombay (Mumbai) and that the Naxalites, with whom his group was working, had set fire to the LIC building in Madras (Chennai) in July, 1975. That the Americans were sceptical about these claims is evident from a later cable which says “George Fernandes has previously bragged to a western diplomat that he and his group….were responsible for explosions on the rail lines”(1976NEWDE05180_b).
Fernandes, who as president of the All India Railwaymen’s Federation led the Railway strike of 1974 which nearly brought the country to a halt, went into hiding soon after Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared the Emergency on June 26, 1975. Turlach told the Americans that “Fernandes is moving about with a great deal of secrecy”. The meeting with Turlach was at Fernandes’s request, set up by an intermediary who “would not normally be identified with opposition activities or associated with Fernandes, as he is a former management official”.
Though he was apparently willing to take CIA money and sought out American help while in the opposition, in a few years time as Industries Minister responsible for foreign investment in the Janata Party government he was to deliver a near-fatal blow to U.S. business interests in India. In 1977, he invoked the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) to oust Coca Cola from the country, and IBM in 1978. He later claimed that he “kicked out” Coca Cola because it paid Rs. 20 lakh to Indira Gandhi.
Some of Fernandes’s assertions while in government turn ironic in the light of the Turlach cable. After Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who was U.S. Ambassador to India from 1973 to 1975, claimed in his book A Dangerous Place that in the 1950s the U.S. gave money to the Congress, and specifically to Indira Gandhi, to fight the Communists in elections, Fernandes was adamant that it was the government’s duty to find out from the Americans how much money she received and whether she was still receiving it.
While none of the cables available seem to indicate that the Americans followed up on Fernandes’s request for funding as conveyed by Turlach, there are many that indicate great interest in Washington as to the fate of the Socialist leader after his arrest on June 10, 1976. The State Department sent a confidential cable to the Embassy in Delhi on August 6 that year saying “Department would appreciate whatever current information embassy can discreetly obtain on opposition leader George Fernandes and status of investigation being conducted against him. Department continues to receive inquiries about Fernandes” (Cable: 1976STATE195162_b). In a November 10 cable Secretary of State Henry Kissinger himself sent a similar request, “in view of continuing interest in Fernandes case” (Cable: 1976STATE276882_b).
The Embassy followed up this request with a series of cables detailing the “Baroda dynamite case”, and Indira Gandhi’s attempt to put Fernandes and his associates behind bars.
There even seems to have been a point where Kissinger sought opinion on making an official or private appeal for Fernandes’s release due to pressure in Washington. Deputy Chief of Mission David T. Schneider strongly cautions against such a move as “it would do no good and some harm” and as the Indian government “will insure that even when (or if) the emergency is lifted Fernadez [sic] will not be let free” (Cable: 1976NEWDE11654_b). The pressure on the State Department seems primarily to have been from the liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith who was Ambassador to India under John F. Kennedy since Schneider tells Kissinger that “you may inform the Galbraiths or others of our frank assessment.”
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Diseases of the affluent- heart disease, diabetes and hypertension- normally seen as bane of the developed West have emerged as top killers even in India.
The change in disease pattern- from infectious diseases to non-communicable disease- has happened rather rapidly and coincides with the period of economic growth from 1990 to 2010.
This, however, does not mean that infectious diseases like tuberculosis and vector-borne diseases like malaria have disappeared, altogether.
The change means that the highest number of deaths and disease burden in the country now is the due to lifestyle diseases. In fact, heart disease has emerged as the largest killer even in rural areas.
The data from the recently announced 'Global Burden of Disease' study has only confirmed what doctors and scientists have been saying for a few years now.
Cardiovascular diseases- heart disease and stroke- are responsible for nearly a quarter of all deaths in India, according to data compiled by the health ministry.
"The occurrence of heart disease goes up with the increase in disposable incomes. We have seen this happen in the West and now this is happening in India and across the developing world. The only difference is that it the shift to heart disease happened over a longer period in the rich world, but it is occurring at a faster pace in India because of fast-track development- urbanisation, liberalisation and overall economic growth", explained Dr K. Srinath Reddy, president, World Heart Federation.
Unhealthy diets, lack of physical activity and rise in tobacco consumption are leading causes of the rise in lifestyle diseases. Disposable incomes, Dr Reddy said, increases the exposure to all these risk factors.
"The rise in heart disease is linked to mass production and mass consumption of mediating factors - diets rich in fats, salt, processed foods and so on", he added.
The increased use of labour-saving devices and motorised personal transport has greatly reduced physical activity. "Technology has crept in there as well, and this has clearly made their life mechanised and thereby sedentary too," said Dr Ashok Seth, chief cardiologist, Fortis Escorts Heart Institute.
Diabetes and hypertension - two key precursors of heart disease have seen dramatic rise. The results of a government-sponsored study, the largest of its kind, have jolted policy makers in the health ministry.
Some 1.76 crore people above 30 in were screened for these two ailments in 100 districts across the country. Of them, 7.22 per cent were suspected of having diabetes and 6.59 per cent hypertension.
Health secretary Keshav Desiraju said, "The prevalence of non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and cancers is definitely increasing".
High blood pressure- the theme of this year's World Health Day- is a leading risk factor for cardiovascular disease. "India is facing a difficult set of health challenges," Dr Reddy said.
"While we still have significant work to do in combating major infectious diseases like diarrhoea and tuberculosis, we must prepare to grapple with the dangerously increasing burden of non-communicable conditions like heart disease, stroke and diabetes."
"Urban young Indians face a lethal combination of unhealthy lifestyle and environmental factors. More than 15 per cent of our patients are below the age 40. We have women in their 20s reporting with coronary artery diseases", said Dr Aparna Jaswal, cardiologist at Fortis Hospital.
With both men and women caught up with their work lives, health takes a backseat. Young people consume food which contains high levels of sodium and salt, which causes hypertension. Lack of exercise, smoking and alcohol are other major triggers.
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Affluenza strikes India: Lifestyle ailments biggest killers over the past two decades
The change in disease pattern has happened rather rapidly.
The change in disease pattern- from infectious diseases to non-communicable disease- has happened rather rapidly and coincides with the period of economic growth from 1990 to 2010.
This, however, does not mean that infectious diseases like tuberculosis and vector-borne diseases like malaria have disappeared, altogether.
The change means that the highest number of deaths and disease burden in the country now is the due to lifestyle diseases. In fact, heart disease has emerged as the largest killer even in rural areas.
The data from the recently announced 'Global Burden of Disease' study has only confirmed what doctors and scientists have been saying for a few years now.
Cardiovascular diseases- heart disease and stroke- are responsible for nearly a quarter of all deaths in India, according to data compiled by the health ministry.
Unhealthy diets, lack of physical activity and rise in tobacco consumption are leading causes of the rise in lifestyle diseases. Disposable incomes, Dr Reddy said, increases the exposure to all these risk factors.
"The rise in heart disease is linked to mass production and mass consumption of mediating factors - diets rich in fats, salt, processed foods and so on", he added.
The increased use of labour-saving devices and motorised personal transport has greatly reduced physical activity. "Technology has crept in there as well, and this has clearly made their life mechanised and thereby sedentary too," said Dr Ashok Seth, chief cardiologist, Fortis Escorts Heart Institute.
Diabetes and hypertension - two key precursors of heart disease have seen dramatic rise. The results of a government-sponsored study, the largest of its kind, have jolted policy makers in the health ministry.
Some 1.76 crore people above 30 in were screened for these two ailments in 100 districts across the country. Of them, 7.22 per cent were suspected of having diabetes and 6.59 per cent hypertension.
"While we still have significant work to do in combating major infectious diseases like diarrhoea and tuberculosis, we must prepare to grapple with the dangerously increasing burden of non-communicable conditions like heart disease, stroke and diabetes."
"Urban young Indians face a lethal combination of unhealthy lifestyle and environmental factors. More than 15 per cent of our patients are below the age 40. We have women in their 20s reporting with coronary artery diseases", said Dr Aparna Jaswal, cardiologist at Fortis Hospital.
With both men and women caught up with their work lives, health takes a backseat. Young people consume food which contains high levels of sodium and salt, which causes hypertension. Lack of exercise, smoking and alcohol are other major triggers.
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April 9, 2013 17:05 IST
Sanjay Gandhi’s Maruti sought to bat for British plane, says U.S. cable
The Maruti company, in which Sanjay Gandhi had major stakes, actively sought, and was rumoured to have got, the role of agent for the British Aircraft Corporation in its sales efforts in India during the 1970s, according to Kissinger-era U.S. embassy dispatches obtained and released by WikiLeaks on Monday.
In a cable dated July 7, 1976 (1976NEWDE09954_b, Secret), the U.S. embassy in New Delhi said a “British Aircraft Corporation team that visited India to compete agains[t] Dutch and American aircraft suppliers was approached and offered the assistance of the Maruti company, a firm controlled by Sanjay Gandhi.” According to the Americans, “BAC replied that something could certainly be worked out.”
The cable was sent by the embassy in response to a State Department request for a comprehensive assessment of India’s anti-corruption laws to work on an “international agreement on illicit payments.”
In 1976, negotiations were going on in two major aircraft deals: Deep Penetration Strike Aircraft (DPSA) for the Indian Air Force and twin-jet commercial aircraft for Indian Airlines. BAC was in the running for both. The Jaguar — manufactured by SEPECAT, a joint venture of BAC and the French firm Breguet — was the eventual winner of the DPSA race with French firm Dassault’s Mirage and the Swedish Saab-Scania’s Viggen fighter. In the Indian Airlines negotiation, the competition was among BAC 111-474, U.S. firm Boeing’s 737-200, and the Dutch Fokker’s F-28 Mark 4000.
While no American firms were in the running for the DPSA due to the U.S. arms embargo on India and Pakistan at the time, the commercial aircraft sale was a different ball game. The U.S. embassy was desperately trying to swing the deal towards Boeing by prodding the Exim Bank of the U.S. to provide favourable financing to the Indian government, as is evident from a series of cables on talks among embassy, State Department, Boeing and Exim bank officials. The embassy was keeping a close eye on the offers from BAC and Fokker and Sanjay Gandhi’s apparent involvement with BAC made it nervous.
In a cable dated July 30, 1976 (1976NEWDE11152_b, Confidential), the embassy says it “understands Maruti (in which Sanjay Gandhi has interest) is negotiating for BAC agency in India.” By August 27, the Embassy has “heard unconfirmed rumors that Maruti also repsents [sic] BAC” (1976NEWDE12666_b, Confidential). It rues that “these and perhaps other political factors, none of which seem to favor US procurement, could have a bearing on the final outsome[sic].” The embassy implicates all other countries involved in the two deals by stating in its July 7 cable that “Dutch, Swiss and French firms are equally know[n] for their willingness to make contributions.”
Boeing ultimately won the Indian Airlines deal, based on the 737’s technical superiority and well-arranged financing — if separate cables on the negotiations are to be believed.
Maruti and Cessna
The Americans’ understanding that the involvement of Sanjay Gandhi, or anyone related to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, could load the dice in any deal is further evident from a cable dated August 27, 1976 (1976NEWDE12666_b, Confidential) on K.L. Jalan, Managing Director, Maruti Heavy Vehicles (P) LTD., requesting “embassy assistance in arranging a meeting with the president or high level official of Cessna aircraft to discuss the sale of Cessna aircraft in India”.
Jalan claims that “his firm has an immediate [sic] sale for two aircraft with a very promising outlook for 20 more units by fiscal year-end”. Jalan also makes it a point to state that the company is “owned by Sanjay Gandhi (son of Prime Minister), Sonia Gandhi (Sanjay’s sister-in-law) and J.K. Jalan,” prompting the Embassy to suggest to the State Department that “Cessna be informed immediately on sales opportunity… but that company be [briefed] on background of Maruti and implications of any association with company”.
It should be noted that while Sanjay Gandhi’s Maruti was described as angling for the BAC agency, his older brother Rajiv was said in another U.S. embassy despatch to have emerged as an “entrepreneur” on behalf of Saab-Scania, as already reported by The Hindu on Monday. Saab-Scania had to drop out of the race due to U.S. pressure since the Viggen utilised American technology. The Janata Party government that took office in 1977 eventually decided to go the Jaguar way and on July 27 1979 the first two Jaguar aircraft landed in India.
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April 11, 2013 04:47 IST
Corruption in India a ‘fact of life’, say U.S. diplomats
“American interference” was the political catchphrase of the 1970s. With Indira Gandhi’s claims of a “foreign hand” and allegations of CIA-funding against her, it was easy to believe that a vast American conspiracy was active backstage to the great Indian tamasha.
But the Americans themselves saw a different villain, according to a U.S diplomatic cable sent from New Delhi during that period: “India’s ‘united givers fund,’ the Congress party.”
Its “collectors” — sometimes “politicians themselves, sometimes a ‘bagman’ for the party, sometimes, most recently, eve[n] a bureaucrat” — approach large and small firms alike, says the cable, accessed and released online by WikiLeaks.
It is in this July 7, 1976 communication (1976NEWDE09954_b, Secret) that the Americans first reveal that Sanjay Gandhi’s Maruti was seeking to be an agent for the British Aircraft Corporation, as already reported by The Hindu.
The cable was a response to a State Department request for a comprehensive assessment of India’s anti-corruption laws as inputs into a U.S. plan then for an “international agreement on illicit payments.”
But, the Embassy wrote, such a “comprehensive inventory may give the misleading impression that corruption/illegal payments are well under control in India.”
In fact, as the cable put it, the Indian experience had led the Embassy to the “cynical conclusion” that in India “there is a direct and positive relationship between laws against corruption and the extent of corruption itself, i.e., each such law only means that there are more people to bribe.”
The communication dismisses with disdain the “anglo-saxon legalistic” mindsets back home in the U.S that won’t understand the “cultural/political/economic fact of life” that was corruption in India, and sounds almost respectful of the discerning Indian who distinguishes “between corruption for political purposes and that for personal purposes.”
“It is more acceptable to take money for the Congess [sic] party than for one’s own personal comfort. While it is illegal for a corporation to make a contribution to a political party it is perfectly legal for the same corporation to make an equal payment to the Prime Minister’s relief fund or other organization which essentially serve the same purpose. It is legal to purchase advertising in party publications whether or not they are ever published.”
And then there are the acceptable levels and modes of corruption. “‘Speed money’, a small payment required to move papers, secure admission to a hospital, obtain a train ticket, etc. This is illegal but not considered corrupt since it is supposed to balance the niggardly income normally given to recipients of such payments. Similarly, nepotism, whether it benefits one’s family, caste or language or regional group is considered acceptable.”
The embassy acknowledges that “for the anglo saxon mind and the treasurer of a multinational corporation these distinctions are important” but “to the Indian realist they are sophistries.”
Of course, there is the occasional backfiring. “An Indian manufacturer paid a substantial bribe to the minister of civil aviation for a particular contract.” However, “the project became a source of controversy for reasons which had nothing to do with the bribe. The minister sought to return the bribe but the donor insisted on interest.” Finally, “a compromise was reached whereby an additional contract was awarded [to] the manufacturer.”
The ‘innovative’ Indian method of awarding contracts to the favoured bidder is explained in the words of a World Bank official “with extensive experience in India.” He “had never seen a case where an original low bidder ever received a contract” since “repeated tenderings combined with specification changes are instituted by the GoI until the appropriate bidder becomes low bidder as well.”
The examples of corruption coincide with the Emergency, still fondly recollected by some as when government offices actually worked and the babus flinched on being offered bribes. The embassy finds no evidence that corruption levels came down during this period.
As a prelude to this assessment, the embassy acknowledges the impossibility of putting the “extent and modalities of corruption in India” in one message. It also adds that “corruption is not a phenomenon which was brought to India by the West” since various kinds of corruption and corresponding punishments are prescribed by Kautilya in Arthashastra.
However, it does acknowledge that “the foreigner is an active participant in this form of activity, and in many ways is a preferred player.” The ace up his sleeve is, of course, “foreign resources.” “A contribution of foreign exchange in a foreign bank account is of high value and normally accompanies any major international transaction.”
In view of all this, the embassy’s suggestion to the State Department on the international agreement on illicit payments is that if “such a code ... is passed, US firms in India would probably lose some business while India goes on as before.”
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Singapore
Mall Nation
Within minutes of landing in this island nation, I felt I was passing through a gigantic mall. The city was an extension of the airport. I lowered the taxi window to let the wind whip my face and suggested that the driver turn off the air-conditioning. After all, it was a lovely 30 degrees. He grunted and made me roll up the window. I was soon to realise that every indoor space in the city was air-conditioned. That evening, I was told by a friend about the work of Cherian George, a local academic and author ofSingapore: The Air-Conditioned Nation (2000). Seems Lee Kuan Yew believed that the tropical climate made people lazy, and decided ACs would make them productive, efficient. Not just the air, everything here is conditioned. I gaped at trees that appeared too reticent, too conscious of spreading their branches. I was hosted by the National University of Singapore where I was to give a few lectures, on Ashis Nandy’s recent utterances, the Ambedkar cartoon and suchlike. I began one of my presentations with a lesser heard sound bite from Nandy at the same Jaipur festival where he otherwise mouthed nonsense: “The only country which I know is close to zero corruption is Singapore and that’s not part of my concept of utopia, it can be very much a part of my concept of dystopia.” A few days inSingapore
Nothing to crow about
As I walked the city, I kept drawing the attention of my friends to things that did not seem odd to them at all. I was fascinated by howSingapore Delhi Singapore
Only death frees you
Singapore Cuba Bangladesh Singapore Singapore India
An iPad for your effort
How do you get citizens to conform? Like inIsrael India India refused, and they secretly turned to Israel
A friend took me to Little India
The streets were messy. The Tamils even had a Tasmac wine shop and open bars. I felt at home.
Former Madras
KRISHNA JOSHIMUMBAI , INDIA
OUTLOOK/ LAST PAGE
Within minutes of landing in this island nation, I felt I was passing through a gigantic mall. The city was an extension of the airport. I lowered the taxi window to let the wind whip my face and suggested that the driver turn off the air-conditioning. After all, it was a lovely 30 degrees. He grunted and made me roll up the window. I was soon to realise that every indoor space in the city was air-conditioned. That evening, I was told by a friend about the work of Cherian George, a local academic and author ofSingapore: The Air-Conditioned Nation (2000). Seems Lee Kuan Yew believed that the tropical climate made people lazy, and decided ACs would make them productive, efficient. Not just the air, everything here is conditioned. I gaped at trees that appeared too reticent, too conscious of spreading their branches. I was hosted by the National University of Singapore where I was to give a few lectures, on Ashis Nandy’s recent utterances, the Ambedkar cartoon and suchlike. I began one of my presentations with a lesser heard sound bite from Nandy at the same Jaipur festival where he otherwise mouthed nonsense: “The only country which I know is close to zero corruption is Singapore and that’s not part of my concept of utopia, it can be very much a part of my concept of dystopia.” A few days in
As I walked the city, I kept drawing the attention of my friends to things that did not seem odd to them at all. I was fascinated by how
How do you get citizens to conform? Like in
The streets were messy. The Tamils even had a Tasmac wine shop and open bars. I felt at home.
Letter in response to this article.
Thank god you visited Little India I am sure the chai and also feeling that a woman could get gangraped made you feel really at home! Try not being the poor defensive Indian male cause nobody takes you seriously...Do I see a pattern here between all the male outlook diarist like MSA, this guy, etc. ?
Go abroad, trash everything one finds out of place and then wax nostalically about things back home. MSA finds fault with Americans talking aggresively to their "Social superiors" and then let us know that the filth infused food of the Indian railways rocks! Really?
The only thing this article left out was a nice racial slur aimed at Singaporeans.
But then again if one wanted perspective one would not read a commentator who makes a living off Asish Nandy.
Try a certain Joseph Stiglitz and check what he thinks of the island city.
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Atma, centre of our being, is also centre of other beings
Swami Krishnananda
We are always likely to think the Atman is within us. How can it be everywhere? When it is within us, naturally it is very clear. It is within you, and within that person, and within this object, and so on. So there are many ‘withins’. Naturally we are led, due to a sensory interpretation of this centre, to regard it as manifold, or a multitude of intuitively grasped subjects, or Purushas.
This is absolutely far from the truth. The Atman, which is the centre of our being, is also the centre of other beings, organic or inorganic. Inasmuch as they are uniformly spread, they can only be one ultimately, and yet we have to comprehend this uniformity of centre or Atman without bringing the idea of circumference or externality.
The moment we think of a centre, we cannot help thinking of a radius or a circumference, but this is a centre without a radius and circumference. This is an inwardness without an outwardness. When we say it is the Atman within, well, it is all right, wonderful; but it is not such a kind of within as to isolate itself from the without. That is the meaning of saying the centre is everywhere with circumference nowhere.
If we can comprehend such a situation where there can be an inwardness without a corresponding outwardness, that would be the Atman, but we cannot think such a thing. That is why we are unable to meditate. Meditation has become a problem because the mind is unable to grasp what it is that is before it. It has become a hard job stretching and scratching, but nowhere ending. It begins nowhere and ends nowhere.
The spiritual effort is a psychological novelty in our life, and it is not something that we have been accustomed to or which we have been habituated to see with our eyes. By the effort of logical analysis, when we come to this conclusion of the true nature of the Being of all beings, we need not be told as to what righteousness is or what Dharma is. When we know what truth is, we will also know what law is. When we know what Satya is, we will automatically know what Dharma is. We need not be taught about it. We will not put a question about what Dharma, what law, what righteousness is. First of all know the centre; find your Being, and when you find your Being, you have found the Being of others also.
Our problem in meditation and in spiritual practice in general is that we cannot escape this old grandmother’s habit of externalizing the centre and interpreting it in a sensory fashion. Though we may say that God is everywhere, for us He is a sense object only. However much we may think otherwise, it would be impossible to comprehend in any other manner.
This is the influence of sensory perception on our life – so deep and so hard to overcome that whatever be our effort at the recognition of truth, we give it a color of untruth. The character of an object is foisted on the universal subject, and that is why the mind hankers after pleasure in spite of trying to seek the centre in meditation. We have not been able to overcome our weaknesses yet because of the fact that the senses have not left us fully; we are still under their clutches. The readings that we make of life are only sensory readings, empirical appreciations which disturb our meditation and our effort at spiritual practice.
Every day we have to humiliate ourselves and come to the simple conclusion that we have not yet reached even the boundary or the fringe of the recognition of what the truth is.
***
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April 13, 2013 07:06 IST
Karnataka farmers being driven to suicide
A farmer standing in his parched paddy field near Hyderabad.— Photo: AFP
Farmers have had a harrowing time in Karnataka, having had to contend with continuous drought and ever-increasing agriculture input costs. This has driven many farmers to suicide, with the number of deaths touching 100 in the last financial year (2012-13).
More than 16 per cent of sowed crops were affected due to erratic rainfall in the past year. The State government has declared 157 taluks in 28 districts as drought-hit. A total of 2,986 farmers ended their lives in the last one decade (2003-04 to 2012-13).
As many as 187 farmers committed suicide in 2011-12 and 242 in 2010-11. Officials claim that schemes like crop loan waiver have brought down the number of suicides.
In 2012-13, more than 10 famers committed suicide in three districts of Bidar (14), Hassan (10) and Chitradurga (12). The numbers in other districts are: one each in Gulbarga, Kodagu, Ramangaram, Belgaum, and Kolar; Chamarajangar (5); Haveri (6); Uttara Kannada (3); Mandya (2); Chikmagalur (8); Raichur (2); Shimoga (3); Tumkur (4); Mysore (6); Bijapur (6); Gadag (5); Davanagere (7) and Bellary (2), officials in the Agriculture Department said.
No suicide case been reported from nine districts of Bagalkot, Dharwad, Koppal, Udupi, Dakshina Kananda, Chickballapur, Yadgir, Bangalore Rural and Bangalore Urban. No farmer committed suicide in Udupi and Chickballapur districts since 2008-09 and 2010-11 respectively, officials said.
In the last one decade, more than 100 farmers ended their lives in more than 12 districts and they are: Bidar (234), Hassan (316), Haveri (131), Mandya (114), Chikmagalur (221), Tumkur (146), Shimoga (170), Belgaum (205), Davanagare (136), Chitradurga (205), Gulbarga (118) and Bijapur (149). The least number of cases have been reported from Udupi (five) during 2003-12.
Distressed
Farmers commit suicide primarily due to agrarian distress caused by debts, high farming cost, particularly fertilizers, and low returns due to faulty policies, says R.S. Deshpande, Director, Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Bangalore.
Observers note that the contribution of the agriculture sector to the economy has been declining without commensurate decline in the workforce in agriculture.
The State’s Economic Survey (2012-13) noted that the agricultural sector is likely to register a growth of 1.8 per cent while the food grain production is expected to touch 12.5 million tonnes as against the target of 13.65 million tonnes.
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KOLKATA, April 20, 2013
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TODAY'S PAPER » NATIONAL
KOLKATA, April 20, 2013Trinamool students protest a flop
What was meant to be a show of strength by the student wing of the Trinamool Congress ended up as a major embarrassment here on Friday when sparse crowds were seen at a demonstration to protest against the heckling of the State’s Finance Minister Amit Mitra in New Delhi.
The protest, held 48 hours after a memorial service for Students Federation of India (SFI) leader Sudipta Gupta at the same venue, became a study in contrast despite it retaining several elements of the ceremony organised by Left affiliated student unions.
The screening of a documentary on Mr. Gupta on Wednesday reflected in the manner in which scenes from the SFI protests outside New Delhi, including the heckling of Mr. Mitra were projected on screens continuously.
Every seat in the auditorium was taken on Wednesday, but supporters kept pouring in and soon there was no space left in the aisles, stairways or floor either.
Two days later, the scene had completely changed with the stands mostly empty, barring a few front rows that were occupied. Even the crowd that had gathered began thinning out by the end of the event that lasted more than two hours.
The poor attendance naturally drew comment and local news channels reported the fiasco prompting president of the Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad Sankhu Deb Panda to retort that this was a part of a “conspiracy” by the media.
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Drilling holes in the Thirst Economy
“Only two of them work,” says Badri Kharat of his borewells in Roshangaon. That’s hard — when you’ve sunk 36 of them spending millions of rupees, as he has. Kharat, a big landowner and local political personage, has been generous to his neighbours in this village of Jalna district. He pipes in drinking water from a well he’s sunk quite a distance away. Twice a day, for two hours, the people of Roshangaon can draw water free from this source.
Meanwhile, the failure of most of his wells spells disaster for him. Borewells cost money. “This could be the biggest growth industry in the water-crisis districts,” says one administrator. “For the rig-makers, rig-owners and drillers — this is boom-time. The farmer pays up, whether the wells yield water or not.” The borewell industry is a key sector of the Thirst Economy and is worth billions.
The unchecked guzzling of groundwater in Maharashtra has even seen a few, but worrying instances, of striking what are called “paleo-historic storages,” as the wells go deeper. That is, water which is many millennia old.
High failure rate
The current failure rate is extremely high. Perhaps 90 per cent or worse in some villages. “Normally, I have 35-40 labourers working for me,” says Kharat. “Now, zero. My fields are quiet. Almost all the new borewells in our village have failed.” Many older ones have run dry.
But despair has drilled thousands of new borewells across the water-crisis districts. As the wells go down deeper, their debt goes up higher. “No irrigation borewell is now less than 500 feet,” says Bharat Raut in Takwiki in Osmanabad district. Of his village’s 1,500 borewells, “over half have been drilled in the past two years. Perhaps 300 new points were sunk between January and March this year. Almost all the new points have failed. But people were desperate, with the crop dying in the fields.”
If the most visible vehicle on the roads is the water-tanker, in the fields it is the borewell rig. These may be operated, sometimes even owned, by a local in the district. But the rigs themselves are mostly from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Of the Rs.1,50,000 a farmer spends on a 500-foot borewell, a little over 70 per cent goes on the steel pipe, submersible pump, cable, setting and transpiration costs. The rig operator collects the remaining Rs.40,000. That’s for the drilling: Rs.60 per foot for the first 300 feet. Then, Rs.10 more per foot for every 100 feet thereafter. And Rs.200 per foot for the casing pipe protecting the bore. That can go down to 60 feet.
In one estimate, the State has seen at least 20,000 borewells drilled in the first three months of this year. Some officials fear the figure could be higher. “A hundred villages like Takwiki would themselves account for close to 30,000,” they point out. Even if pumps and steel pipes were purchased for only a third of Takwiki’s new bores, it means this single village spent at least Rs.25 million in 90 days from January to March. Even if all the 30,000 in the crisis districts went no deeper than 500 feet, that would have been business worth Rs.2.5 billion.
“An operator can sink up to three in a day,” says Raut in Takwiki. “Two at least,” says Kharat in Roshangaon. “He can manage three if they’re in the same village.” On the road, we meet Sanjay Shankar Shelke, proud owner of a brand new borewell rig for which, he tells us, “I paid Rs.14 million.” Not a small sum. But one he can recover in six months — if he drills just two a day. And there is no dearth of demand. His phone is ringing as we speak.
Only the mounting debt has now begun to slow down the orgy a bit. How are people going to repay the loans they’ve run up on these? Moneylenders here charge interest rates between 60 and 120 per cent per annum. “On the farming side,” says Raut, “bank notices for repayment on our regular loans will begin this month. And with the borewells, the loans are from private lenders who we can only repay when there is a crop.” That crop being mainly sugarcane — needing 18 million litres of water per acre — and a major cause of the crisis in the first place, this completes the tragic cycle. It’s what villagers refer to as “double nuksaan” (double loss).
Geological facts
There’s more. Consider that over 90 per cent of Maharashtra is hard rock, say officials in the State’s Groundwater Surveys & Development Agency (GSDA). The average depth of a traditional dugwell in such rock is 32-40 feet. The maximum, around 80 feet. “The geological reality,” says Madhav Chitale, former Water Resources Secretary, Government of India, “is such that you are unlikely to find water below 200 feet. And have hardly any chance of finding it between 200 and 650 feet below the surface.” Yet the new borewells are mostly at the deep end of that range. Sometimes a lot deeper.
So how many irrigation borewells does Maharashtra have? No one knows. A 2008-09 GSDA report places the number that year at 1,91,396. “There are probably more in my district,” jokes one senior administrator. How did we end up with such insane figures? “There is no obligation,” explains a GSDA official, “on any owner to report or register a new borewell. Oddly enough, the owner of a traditional dugwell is obliged to do so and pay the water cess. But not a borewell owner.” A new State law setting that right is stuck pending the President’s approval for some time now.
“From 1974 to 1985,” says Chitale, “the Talati (revenue official) often lumped all kinds of wells in the same category. So it’s hard to know how many in that period were actually borewells. From 1985 onwards, there was a clearer separation. However, there was and is no compulsion on the owner of a borewell to report it.” In 2000, a commission headed by Mr. Chitale found there were almost as many irrigation borewells as there were dugwells. Which would have meant there were around 1.4 million that year. But since then, their spread has been stunning — with no way of counting them.
The 2008-09 GSDA report notes the danger of its own 1,91,396 number. Since the drawings on groundwater are assessed on such low figures, we get a wrong picture of the State’s groundwater balance. There are really large numbers of borewells, it says. Which are “the main source of irrigation across the State and a large number of these are not even on record for electricity connections.” If we counted these: “then the balance position would have certainly emerged as alarming.”
The State badly needs to know how many borewells it has, to even begin tackling the problem. “We can start when Rashtrapatiji clears that law,” says a State government official.
Meanwhile, Sanjay Shelke’s rig is tanking up at the petrol pump. Tomorrow is another day — and maybe three more borewells.
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Gandhi Book (page 32-37)
'The police told me to pay Rs 3,000': Grief-stricken parents of missing children claim Delhi Police 'demanded bribes to investigate, and pressured them to drop unsolved cases'
Indian Express
National Interest: Mere paas media hai
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Gandhi Book (page 32-37)
Mahatma Gandhiji’s conception of the spinning wheel evoked great criticism from Dr. Rabindranath Tagore in the year 1921, when he contributed an article on the subject to the Modern Review. We shall first state the salient points in Dr. Tagore’s criticism and then see how Mahatma Gandhi answers them. Dr. Tagore tells us that he would have been in full agreement with Mahatma Gandhi if the utility of the machine power had to be stressed but there is limitation to this idea.1 The Charkhā is good so far as it goes; but it cannot be expected to do all the work that is expected of it.2 In fact, Mahatma Gandhi’s one Mantra (devotional incantation) is ‘ Spin and weave, spin and weave’, with which Dr. Tagore does not agree.3
Mahatma Gandhi, says Tagore, asks his votaries to surrender their intellects.4 A bee-hive which contains within itself bees which at the bidding of nature have to surrender their sex for the sake of efficiency carries with it its own prison house.5 It is not only the apparel that matters in the winning of Swarāj, but progress all round in various branches is required. Mind is more powerful than cotton.6 The lyre could not be set to music only on one string. A number of strings are required before good music could be produced.7 A nation must advance in all its arts and sciences and a perfect system of moral and intellectual discipline should be evolved before it can go ahead to attain Swarāj.
Mahatma Gandhi replied to this criticism equally acutely just ten days after Dr. Tagore’s article had been published. Mahatma Gandhi’s arguments in Young India could be set down as follows: He has never asked people to surrender their reason and when Dr. Tagore asked them to revolt he should have considered whether it was an opinion forced upon them or whether they had arrived at it after a long and laborious thought.1
Beyond this rational point of view Mahatma Gandhi stresses three more important points, economic, moral and spiritual, in order to advocate the efficacy of the Charkhā. Mahatma Gandhi tells us that he could safely predict its great function even before he was able to see it.2 Until the year 1909, he tells us, he had not seen the Charkhā and had confounded it with a handloom: but he was so fully convinced about its utility that he had no hesitation in advocating it. The economic aspect must be first looked to.3 A poor man’s hunger cannot be assuaged by singing a song from Kabir.1 Hungry I was, says the Bible, and you fed me not; naked I was and you clothed me not. These are the barest essentials of life and any scheme which does not look to the fulfilment of these is hardly worth its name. We must indeed learn to live before we can hope to die for humanity.2 Dr. Tagore’s bird can fly into the free air if it is fed, but a bird which is starving can hardly be coaxed even into a flutter of its wings.3 In losing the Charkhā we have lost our left lung and have developed a galloping consumption.4 Therefore I appeal to the poet sage, says Mahatma Gandhi, “ to spin the wheel as a sacrament.” The moral aspect is not less important than the economic.5
In fact the economic finds its consummation in the moral. The Charkhā might be regarded as a symbol of non-violence.6 It is not my invention.
My discovery consisted only in linking it with non-violence.1 ‘It would pain me’, says Mahatma Gandhi , ‘to behave like a patron of the poor.2 I must associate myself with the lowliest in order that they might feel themselves one with me. Through them also, in this way, I might establish a contact with the whole of humanity.3 The Charkhā might be taken to be a symbol for all moral virtues.4 As regards its spiritual aspect, Mahatma Gandhi quotes an English lady. He tells us how the sonorous tunes of the Charkhā filled her always with tender emotions as it did the heart of every Indian woman in India . Indian women sing their beautiful songs to the tune of the Charkhā. ‘I have no difficulty in imagining the possibility’, says Mahatma Gandhi, ‘of a man having nothing but a bit of flint and dial for lighting his path or his matchlock, ever singing new hymns of praise and delivering it to an aching world a message of peace and good-will upon earth.5 God whispered into my ears, says Mahatma Gandhi: “Nothing great could be achieved unless one cares for the smallest thing. God hangs the greatest weight upon the smallest pegs.”1 The spiritual tunes of the Charkhā have made me see the myriad-formed God in the Charkhā. It is to me, a complete symbol of rational, economic, moral and spiritual perfection.”2
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Inside Delhi's mobile porn boom: How the adult film market is thriving thanks to easy-to-download phone videos
By BHUVAN BAGGA
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The new porn boom in the Capital is hand-held. And, as a Mail Today investigation found, an internet connection is not required.
The old hubs of porn in the Capital have moved beyond CDs and DVDs to where the money really is: mobile phones. Porn is sold by the byte, not the disc, now.
This is probably how Manoj Sah and Pradeep, the men accused of brutalising and raping five-year-old Gudiya (name changed by The India Today Group) got the phone clips the police say they were looking at just before their ghastly crime.
Mail Today went scouting for porn in Palika Bazar, Gaffar Market and Nehru Place - traditional hubs of the pirated, illegal, but evergreen business of adult entertainment - and found that things have changed. No more pictures of scantily clad, or naked, women on display on shop counters, no more hole-in-the-wall stash, or sleazy salesmen prowling in the alleyways.
It's all about mobile phones and memory cards now, as porn is fed directly into the handheld devices of buyers.
Here's how it works: If you're looking for 'maal', as it is called in Karol Bagh's Gaffar Market, the shops don't count. It's those men with open laptops on the rough plywood tables who sell the stuff. Find what you want and it'll be copied to your phone instantly. At a price, of course.
Pornographic films are available in English and Hindi, and in poor as well as high quality, one grizzled old seller told us.
"High Definition blue films are also available, but I will only recommend them if you have got a good phone, Apple or Samsung, otherwise for simple mobiles these shorter, low quality clips are fine," a young man, probably in his late teens or early twenties, told us.
Blue film CDs are passe as 'enthusiasts' now favour getting porn clips transferred directly to their mobile phones
The costs vary from Rs 150 to Rs 450 for 10 GB, depending on how well you can bargain. The young man, a 'scout' for another porn merchant, took us to his employer who was sitting on the main footpath of the Gaffar Electronics Market Complex. The duo had one laptop, two near-dead plastic chairs and one wooden stool.
"Do you want to look at the entire collection or should I do it for you? We have only the best, and most updated," the boy said.
Within seconds, he had shown us a folder that had hundreds of different clips of different genres and lengths. Just to test him, we rejected the collection as outdated, and not worth the money. Bristling with indignation, he showed how his laptop was connected to the net even as we spoke.
"Even when we do business, I am downloading some of the new stuff from the Internet. How can you call it out of date? At home or office you will end up running a huge bill downloading or watching the same stuff," he said. He was right.
In the 30 minutes we spent at this porn counter, he dealt with at least half-a-dozen other customers, all with mobile phones to accommodate their purchases. We made a deal: Rs 100 for a few low quality clips. After the laptop-cellphone transfer, which took less than a minute, we scouted around for some more 'maal'. It wasn't a minute before another young 'scout' swooped on what he identified with a practiced eye as prospective customers.
He said he had a huge collection of songs, android games and "all kinds" of movies, a murky emphasis on "all". Yet another stool-and-laptop operation, another young techno-savvy man. This time we talked money first, offering Rs 400 for the latest in Indian and foreign porn.
We were taken to another counter. There, a young man with a Wi-Fi connected laptop on his counter showed us the stuff. While we got chatting, the young man explained how this technology upgrade had made their work easier.
"It is all in high demand. How can you stop the demand? Just look at yourself. We get so many other educated persons, college students who want this," he said.
While we were getting 16 GB of movie clips streamed into our cellphones, he elaborated.
"It's easy to conceal and carry for everyone. The CDs were such a headache. Now you won't see them a lot, at least not here," he said.
It was the same story at every table. Mail Today also discovered that such single counter operatives at the market usually formed sub-groups to get a Wi-Fi connection, which they shared along with the downloaded stuff. Palika Bazar was the same. Thousands of CDs and DVDs were out on display on shop counters, but not much adult stuff. 'Scouts' were aplenty though, all offering a slice of porn paradise.
We visited several shops, asking for porn. What we got was advice.
Canadian porn actress Sunny Leone has found fame in Bollywood
"Who watches CDs these days? You won't even be able to keep it openly at home... everyone prefers it in the mobiles, why don't you take it there or on a pen drive... it's much cheaper, up-to-date and longer lasting," one shopkeeper told us. He was right.
Another shopkeeper who spoke to us outside Palika confessed how the CD, DVD market had come down because of the new cell-porn boom.
Nehru Place was so much of the same that we got tired and gave up, taking our new handy porn collections with us in our pockets.
When Sunny shone on India
Porn had always been a four-letter word not talked about in Indian households until Bigg Boss managed a casting coup of sorts by roping in Canadian porn star Sunny Leone for the show's fifth season.
Not only had a porn star entered the Indian drawing rooms, she expressed nothing but pride for her profession.
"My presence on Bigg Boss empowered a lot of people to be open about their sexuality," Sunny was quoted as saying.
And while many believed a foothold in Bollywood would inspire Sunny to quit porn, she has no such plans.
"I can never be sure enough to give it up," she had said.
Tuesday , April 23 , 2013Saradha group boss held in Kashmir, BJP wants CBI to probe chit funds |
Srinagar, Apr 23 (PTI): The Jammu & Kashmir Police on Tuesday detained Saradha group chairman & managing director Sudipto Sen and a director of the company from Sonamarg, where they had fled after their Calcutta-based chit fund business collapsed last week leaving thousands of depositors and agents stranded.
“We have detained Sudipto Sen and Debjani Mukherjee, chairman-cum-managing director and a director of the Saradha group respectively, and Arvind from Sonamarg,” the inspector general of police (Jammu & Kashmir), Abdul Gani Mir, said.
The three had admitted that they were the same persons wanted by the West Bengal Police, he said.
A police team from West Bengal was on its way to Kashmir to confirm the identity of the three, the IGP said.
The three detained persons had been lodged in Ganderbal Police Lines, the police chief of Ganderbal, Shahid Mehraj, said.
In Kolkata, Bidhannagar Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar said “three persons have been detained in Sonamarg in Jammu and Kashmir. The police there have identified them as Sudipto Sen, Debjani Mukherjee and Arvind Singh Chauhan.”
A Scorpio vehicle with a West Bengal numberplate had also been seized, Kumar said.
Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party said it wants the Central Bureau of Investigation to probe the functioning of chit fund companies in West Bengal, including the Saradha group.
It said the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which headed the previous government, and the ruling Trinamul Congress had both aided chit fund companies.
“We demand a CBI inquiry into the chit fund scam. The scam has taken place with the help of the CPI(M) and TMC in West Bengal. When CPI(M) was in power they had helped these firms to flourish and when the Trinamool is in power they also did the same,” BJP state president Rahul Sinha told reporters.
Without naming Trinamool Congress member of Parliament Kunal Ghosh, who was the Group Media CEO of the Saradha Group, Sinha said “Why is he not being arrested? All those guilty should be arrested immediately.”
Sinha also appealed to the people who invested in other chit fund companies to immediately withdraw their money as such companies would meet the same fate as the Saradha Group.
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City's toilet museum in weird list
Wednesday Apr 24, 2013
· New Delhi , April 24 -- The International Museum Of Toilets that is housed in Delhi Witch Museum in Salem and the International Spy Museum in Washington DC
Inaugurated in 1992, the museum houses a collection of toilet seats from different eras. "It is indeed a very unusual museum as it's the only one of its kind in the world. A highlight of the museum is the replica of the throne of King Louis the XIV. The king is believed to have used this to defecate while conducting court sessions," says Dr Bindeshwar Pathak, founder of the NGO Sulabh International, who has conceptualised the museum.
The list features nine other museums from across the world. "Research by our team resulted in this list. We have been curating content related to travel for the past 13 years," says Varun Chadha of Journeymart.com. "The museums are being called weird in a fun way. Each museum is unique and can't be compared to one another. Interestingly, though Delhi
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The effect is nothing but the cause in different form
Swami Chinmayananda
Why is it that every human intellect in every part of the world during all periods of history, was always asking – What is the cause of every effect? They started a deep and exhaustive study of cause-effect relationship. As a result of this investigation and study, they reduced their entire data into three laws of causation.
The three laws they deduced from their entire study, and Number One Law is – ‘An effect can never be without a cause.’ The waves cannot be without ocean. Ornaments cannot be made without gold. Pots can never be made without clay. An effect is not possible without the cause.
Law Number Two – ‘Effects are plural.’ Nothing but the cause itself in different forms. The big wave, medium wave, the small wave, ripple, foam, bubble, and the lather are all different forms of the ocean –
The Cause. The jug, the cup, the saucer, the plates, the flower vase, are all different shapes and different names for what? – the clay in
different forms. The bangles and the rings and the chains and the earrings are all different names, different shapes, and different uses. But all of them are gold in different forms.
And Law Number Three: ‘From the effect if the cause is removed, nothing remains’. If a wave is transferred to the hill, there will be no waves. From clay pot, all the clay is removed, no pot. From the gold chain, all the gold is removed, nothing there remains. Since the effect is nothing but the cause itself in different forms, from the effect
if the cause is removed, nothing remains.
When they got these three laws, they had the scientists to apply it to the world. Here is the universe that you and I are seeing and experiencing. It cannot be without a cause, why? The first law. Effect cannot be without a cause – must have a cause. That cause of universe religion calls as ‘God’, philosophy calls it as reality or truth. We have heard there is a God and God created the world. But what our doubt is, Who is god‘? Where is god? What is god? Is he man or a woman? All sorts of worries and anxieties. And why did he create? Where did he create? When did he create? And thousand questions. These students of the Vedic period asked these questions to the teacher. The teacher only cried out, Shanthi! Shanthi! Shanthi!!. Peace be, Peace be, Peace be. Why?
Unless the mind is peaceful, you cannot rationally think. Excited mind has no capacity to logically think. They said – let us apply the 2nd law. Effects are nothing but cause itself in different forms. Therefore our assumption that, God is above clouds, he is like a manufacturer, manufacturing things and pushing it in to the world is absurd, illogical, is false, is a superstition.
The effect cannot be separate from the cause and therefore the Lord, the God – One without a second, when he created the world, He must have created forms from Himself – the entire universe. Names and forms, the mineral world, plants and animals and human everything we are seeing here are all nothing but Him – He in different forms.
Excerpted from ‘Logic Of Spirituality.’ The 97th birth anniversary of Swami Chinmayananda will be observed on May 8
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A special note for you
Balakrishnan Menon entered the field of journalism, and worked for The National Herald, where he felt he could influence political, economic and social reform in India . While working at the Herald, Menon went to meet Sivananda Saraswati at his ashram at Ananda Kutir, in Rishikesh because he wanted to write an article criticizing Hindu monks. But instead, Menon's life was changed forever as he became interested in the Hindu spiritual path.
Balakrishnan Menon took sanyas deeksha (monkhood) from Sivananda on Mahashivratri day on February 25, 1949, and was thus given the name Chinmayananda Saraswati – the one who is saturated in Bliss and pure Consciousness. He stayed at Sivanada Ashram, Rishikesh for several years, and subsequently Sivananda saw further potential in Chinmayananda and sent him to study under a guru in the Himalayas – Tapovan Maharaj under whom he studied for the following years.
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'The police told me to pay Rs 3,000': Grief-stricken parents of missing children claim Delhi Police 'demanded bribes to investigate, and pressured them to drop unsolved cases'
By KUMAR VIKRAM
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The Delhi Police's claims of proactive policing in the cases of missing children ring hollow.
A Mail Today investigation, which covered six police stations and several affected families, has revealed that the police not only delay registering such cases, they also occasionally demand money for doing so.
Shockingly, in some cases, the police have also pressured parents to withdraw their complaints.
This correspondent met a few families from different parts of the Capital who are yet to come to terms with the reality of their children having gone missing.
In the first four months of this year, about 650 children were reported missing in the city. The investigation revealed that aggrieved parents are still running from pillar to post to find out the whereabouts of their children. Most of these cases involve families from the poorer strata staying in resettlement colonies such as Jehangirpuri, Gokulpuri, Sonia Vihar pushta and Shalimar village.
Whenever her mobile phone rings, Meena picks it up hoping that she will get some news about her 14-year-old son, who went missing from the Gokulpuri area of northeast Delhi on March 5, 2011.
The FIR in the case was registered over two weeks later, on March 21.
"We kept searching for him for two days as we knew that the police would hardly do anything. Unable to find any clue, we went to the police station to lodge a report. A policeman told us to come with more information.
"We kept meeting police officers for about 10 days and only after that did they register a case," she said.
When asked about the police's response after the FIR, Meena said she had lost count of the times she had visited the police station.
For Suman Kumar (name changed), a resident of Shalimar village, the agony of having lost his son has only increased in the last four years.
In his case, the FIR was registered on March 2, 2009, a day after his son went missing. But he has had no positive response from the police yet. Police officers have allegedly begun pressuring him to withdraw the case.
Azhar, a resident of Jehangirpuri, is the distraught father of a girl who went went missing on April 13, 2008.
"The police told me to pay Rs 3,000. They said it was needed to publish photos in newspapers and for showing it on TV. I had to borrow the money to get the case registered," he said.
Some families said they have now started approaching NGOs for help.
Rakesh Sengar of Bachpan Bachao Andolan said: "Many parents have alleged bribing police officers to register a case. And they hardly do anything even after registering the FIR… A majority of children return without any help from the police."
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Published: April 25, 2013
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Published: April 25, 2013
Adivasis’ dangerous journey into the urban jungle
Jharkhand villagers get frequent news of their kin missing or rescued in metropolitan cities
Last week, two 14-year-old adivasi girls, who had migrated from Khunti district to work in Delhi as domestic help, were found dead in mysterious circumstances, both within two days of each other.
On April 19, Jyoti Mariyam Hora died soon after she was brought to the Madan Mohan Malviya Hospital in Delhi’s Malviya Nagar. Two days later, Dayamani Guriya, who had studied with Jyoti till class VI and had migrated to Delhi with her, died in mysterious circumstances at the Ranchi railway station when she was being sent back to her village in Torpa in Khunti with police’s intervention.
The Delhi Police have arrested one Chandumani, who had brought the two girls to Delhi. “We are waiting for a second autopsy report to verify if Dayamani was poisoned. Jyoti’s family members have left Khunti accompanied by a police team to bring Jyoti’s body back,” said Superintendent of Police, Khunti, M. Tamilvanan.
The two incidents are the tip of the iceberg in the crisis unfolding in several adivasi homes across Jharkhand, where hardly a week goes by without reports of children and youth, especially girls and women, missing or rescued from metropolitan cities. There are 14 children from villages of Murhu block alone in Khunti. In March, Miti Purti (name changed) of Kotha Toli, Khunti, returned from Delhi with a debilitating skin infection, earning Rs. 27,000 after working seven years in Delhi. Mani Dondray, 15, worked in Delhi for seven months but had to return after she contracted TB and became severely underweight.
The Hindu spoke to adivasi families in Latehar who are seeking clues to the lives, and death, of their children who have left home to find work in cities.
Missing children
On a clear evening in March, as dusk fell, Dayakishore Tirkey, a tall farmer in his late 40s, waited patiently for his turn to speak to police officials at the Mahuatarnd police station. Two days back, he had got word for the for the first time since, three years ago, his 15-year-old daughter Supriya had left their home in Guera village in Jharkhand’s Latehar district to find work in Delhi.
“We got information from Delhi about a girl who is from Guera village. Her name is different from her given name but we made her talk to Dayakishore on the phone and they both recognised each other. Now we will arrange for him to go to Delhi to identify and get her back,” said Mahuatarnd Station House Officer (SHO) Anil Kumar Singh.
This is the third instance since January where the SHO has had to act on information from Delhi about adivasi girls reported missing and found or rescued through police raids at placement agencies’ offices in Delhi. “The adivasi girls educated in missionary schools are well-educated, but the poorer families’ children in government schools frequently drop out by class VI or VII and leave to work in cities. These adivasi families do not have the tradition of keeping in touch with or keeping watch over their daughters. The police have to routinely bring them back and try to get them their unpaid wages from placement agencies in Delhi,” he said.
Tirkey, who owns a small plot of land in Guera, says he worked a few years as a tailor in the army. “When Supriya asked me if she could go to Delhi with Dominica Minj, a woman from the nearby village, I had said no. I have worked in Delhi, Rajasthan and U.P. and know what cities are like. But she told her mother and left,” he spoke outside the police station.
The next morning, he left for Latehar, the district headquarters 140 km away, from where he would board a train to Delhi with a change of clothes and Rs. 210 — all the money he could manage.
More mysterious deaths
The same week that Tirkey boarded a train to Delhi, in Chekma, the adjoining village Manju Lakda, in her early 20s, came home to receive her younger sister Shanti’s body sent in an ambulance from Delhi.
“My brother, who is studying in Uttarakhand, youngest sister, who also worked as a domestic help in Delhi, and Sunita the younger sister of Dominica Minj who had first taken my sister to Delhi four years — brought Shanti’s body back. Dominica and Shanti called and tried to mislead me on the phone. At first they told us the wrong hospital’s name and to the police who had come to the hospital after my sister died they said they did not know whose body it is,” she recalled. “It took my brother and sister two days to find Shanti’s body in the mortuary. They saw marks of vomit-like substance on her face,” said Manju who is training to be Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM) in Visakhapatnam. The family is still awaiting the final autopsy report from Maulana Azad Medical College, Delhi, to make sense of Shanti’s mysterious death.
A mobile phone — which the family has put in a plastic bag and hung on a tall stick at their door to be able to receive better phone signal — rings and Manju gets up excitedly to answer it. “The phone does not always work but Shanti would call once in three months or so. She said she got Rs. 3,000 as wages but I am not sure if she got the salary or the placement agency. She had left after she finished IX with Dominica from our village. Two years back she called and said she was unwell and we should come to Daltonganj station to receive her. She had contracted TB in Delhi. She stayed home a year. My husband works for the mission here and we got her fully treated. Then she left for Delhi again with her younger sister and worked in a house in Kashmiri Gate,” says Manju’s mother Sabhani Khaka. The family says Dominca Minj has threatened them for pursuing the case legally. “She is close to the parties [splinter Maoist groups active in Latehar] and says she will get our family members abducted,” said Shanti’s kin
Minj, who was in Chekma to visit her father, denied the allegations. “I had taken seven girls including Shanti once to a placement agency run by Mahendra Singh in Naraina Vihar in Delhi. I got Rs. 6,000 per girl. But the girls get money too and wanted to go on their own,” she said. No complaint or FIR has been registered yet in Latehar.
“We will follow up and will request the families to share all information with us. In January, Jharkhand government started using Child Track, a database software used by 18 States to track missing children, we have conducted several raids on illegal placement agencies in Delhi with the Delhi Police’s help,” said IG CID Anurag Gupta. The Jharkhand government has so far uploaded full details of 100 missing children.
“We are trying to tackle adolescent girls’ migration through ‘Sabla’, a scheme which focuses on vocational and leadership training for adolescent girls,” said Mridula Sinha, Secretary, Department of Social Welfare, Women & Child Development. The scheme is operational only in seven of Jharkhand’s 24 districts — Ranchi, Gumla, West Singhbhum, Hazaribagh, Giridih, Sahebganj, Garhwa.
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Indian Express
National Interest: Mere paas media hai
Shekhar Gupta : Sat Apr 27 2013 , 08:33 hrs
The fixer-businessman's new badge of honour — and disgrace
Besides political connections, there is one equally significant common thread linking the owners of chit fund companies currently under the scanner in the east. They are all media owners as well. Many have a footprint across media and languages. Further, there are other common factors within their media businesses. For none of them, is media a major or core activity. Most of them make losses in their media businesses. For all of them, media has also been an afterthought, after they had made their money in other businesses, mainly chit funds, mining, real estate or simply politics. They obviously saw media as a small investment relative to the size of their businesses. What is more important to the people of India
The Saradha group set up several news channels, besides newspapers in Bengali, English, Hindi and Urdu. The group in the Northeast it was looking to invest in belonged to another unconventional owner, an occasional politician, Matang Singh, who appeared from nowhere to become a minister in Narasimha Rao's cabinet in Chandraswami's heyday and disappeared equally mysteriously. If he and his wife Manoranjana Singh made any money running the media business, we do not know, but it seems unlikely. Rose Valley, Tower Group, Shine Group, Rahul Group, Chakra Group and G Group, all under the scanner now in Bengal , have the same basket of interests: chit funds, real estate and media. In resource-rich east-central India
THE political class was the first to understand what a tiny business the media was financially, and how out of proportion its clout. The first "non-traditional" media entrepreneurs in this current phase were thus politicians, particularly in the states. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy's Sakshi group is the most visible, but there are many others, some in almost every state. Of these two sets of new entrants in the media, entrepreneurs who work on the cusp of politics and resources (mining, real estate) and regulation (non-banking finance), and the politicians, the latter have been cleverer. If it was clout they were after, the better way, some of them figured, was to control access for others rather than go through the "jhanjhat" (messiness) of setting up channels and newspapers and paying salaries to ungrateful, insufferable journalists. Go over the map of India Punjab and Tamil Nadu are two of the starkest examples where powerful political leaders or families control distribution, and anybody critical of them is routinely taken off air. You are also less likely to lose money in this business. Distribution has guaranteed incomes, and political clout ensures your monopoly anyway.
But why are we complaining? Why are we being so protective of what only we see as our turf? There is nothing in the law to stop anybody from owning media. And sure enough, the biggest business houses in India
But there is a difference between then and now, and between them and the state-level businessmen investing in the media now. They failed because they did not respect journalism. The current lot are setting up or buying up media mainly because they do not respect journalism, because they think all journalists are available, if not for sale then for hire, as lawfully paid employees. If you have a couple of news channels and newspapers, a few well known (and well connected) journalists as your employees, give them a fat pay cheque, a Merc, and they solve your problem of access and power. They also get you respect, as you get to speak to, and rub shoulders with top politicians, even intellectuals, at awards and events organised by your media group. It is the cheapest ticket to clout, protection and a competitive edge. A bit like, to steal the immortal line Shashi Kapoor spoke to his wayward "brother" Amitabh Bachchan in Yash Chopra's Deewar (mere paas maa hai), tere paas police, SEBI, RBI, CBI, kuchch bhi ho, mere paas media hai. Remember how Gopal Kanda defied Delhi Police to arrest him rather than have him present himself grandly for surrender? The police put up scores of checkpoints to look for him, but he arrived in style, riding an OB van of STV, a channel known to be "close" to him. Which cop would dare to look inside an OB van?
Most of us, particularly senior citizens in the profession, have stories of cash-rich businessmen promising "blank cheques" to set up new media companies. My favourite is of a well known and, frankly, well respected and clean real-estate baron coming in to see me once, in evident distress, and asking if I would set up a TV channel for him, whatever the cost, Rs 300, 400 crore. I asked him why. Almost every news TV channel in India
WE are complaining, and we should be worried, because this new phenomenon destroys two things. One, it damages our markets by distorting wages and corrupting terms of engagement with advertisers, sponsors and government. Second, it wrecks the very bedrock of our profession: respect that is built over years and decades of honesty, integrity and professional competence. Journalism, in so many ways, is like medicine, a very special, even noble profession with its own equivalent of the Hippocratic oath. This new invasion has contributed to the declining respect for the journalistic class, a point I had tried to make in an earlier article ('Noose Media', IE, April 3, 2010 , goo.gl/MwgzW), provoked to see how often journalists were being mocked or caricatured in popular culture and Hindi cinema. And that was five months before Peepli Live.
So what can we do about it? Any suggestion that gives the government, or any regulator, a say in who can own the media would be disastrous. Esoteric ideas cannot work. You'd remember how venerable Justice P.B. Sawant, as press council chairman in the '90s (he would have hit more headlines than Justice Katju if there was much news TV then), used to say that journalists' cooperatives should run newspapers. I had humbly pleaded with him that such a thing would never work: I was a member of a housing cooperative run by journalists and it was a disaster. You will, therefore, need entrepreneurs to run the media.
Maybe we should begin by learning to talk more about ourselves, and more openly. There is no bar on who owns media, but disclosure and discussion of conflicts of interest should be widespread and open. Print, at least, has an annual disclosure of its shareholders. This should be extended to news TV. But, more than that, we need to cover and investigate each other. How many of us knew this web of conflicting media-chit fund-real estate-political interests in Bengal before lakhs had lost their life-savings and the media hundreds of jobs and a bit of credibility?
We in the mainstream media have to get over that old-fashioned queasiness. Because we cannot escape scrutiny now, and not only should we not try avoiding it, we should become part of it. It is not the usual, silly cry for naming and shaming, but for opening ourselves up to peer review and scrutiny.
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By Abhishek Bhalla
PUBLISHED: | UPDATED:
Delhi 's party circuit is perched high on cloud amphetamine. The Capital has emerged as a major supplier of pseudoephedrine, the key raw material for manufacturing Amphetamine Type Stimulant (ATS), whose variants are popularly known as ecstasy, speed, base, and ice in party drug circles.
Law enforcement agencies have been left stunned by the seizure of 1,528kg of pseudoephedrine by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in just the first three months of this year.
The seizures for all of last year totalled a piddly 380kg, while previous years had settled at a steady 200 to 250kg.
This year's mega-seizure, NCB sources say, could be used to manufacture ATS substances worth Rs 200 crore in Delhi .
The easy availability of pseudoephedrine has jet-fuelledDelhi 's rave parties. ATS substances are a hit with party-goers, who feel the need to energise themselves for an orgy of dancing through the night. ATS substances have even displaced cocaine, the drug of choice for the capital's swish set, because they are relatively inexpensive and easily available.
ATS substances come as pills, powders and in liquid form. They can be injected, taken orally and even smoked.
"Pseudoephedrine is used in stimulants that give a high and make a person more energetic. Even cocaine comes in the category of a stimulant. An overdose can irreparably damage the liver. It can even cause death," says Dr Sandeep Vohra, a consultant psychiatrist atApollo Hospital
Big money
The big money involved in the pseudoephedrine trade has birthed an international syndicate in the city. Pseudoephedrine, which can be legitimately used for pharmaceutical purposes, is illegally manufactured in Uttarakhand and Himachal and brought to Delhi . Organised cartels working in Delhi send it to Myanmar via the North-East states.
InMyanmar , the raw material is manufactured into party drugs and smuggled across the world, including India where the demand is growing. These drugs are also smuggled across South- East Asia and even to Europe .
NCB officials say that a crackdown on the syndicate began towards the end of 2012 with some major seizures taking place.
"TraditionallyIndia was only a transit point but now the main component for party drugs is originating from here. It is also being consumed in rave party circles in Mumbai, Goa and Bangalore ," one NCB officer said on condition of anonymity.
The crackdown is only one part of the story. Experts are unanimous in saying that the demand for such drugs in cities likeDelhi is growing exponentially.
"It's only a matter of time before transit point becomes a consumption point. Manipur andPunjab were two states that were traditionally transit points but have now become highest consumers," said former Delhi Police chief Ved Marwah.
The carriers
Officials worry about the latest drug smuggling trend of using girls as carriers. In fact, the profile of the carrier also seems to have changed.
The traditional modus operandi of using Nigerians, now seems to be history history. Instead, young women, preferably students, are being used to smuggle the drugs fromDelhi to the North-East, from where they are sent to Myanmar .
The 1,528kg of pseudoephedrine seized this year inDelhi is just the NCB's handiwork. Local police forces in the North-East states, and even the Delhi Police, have also made some big recoveries.
"It is estimated that the total quantity seized countrywide would be more than 2,500kg if seizure by other agencies are taken into account," says an NCB official.
Delhi
By Abhishek BhallaPUBLISHED: | UPDATED:
Law enforcement agencies have been left stunned by the seizure of 1,528kg of pseudoephedrine by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in just the first three months of this year.
The seizures for all of last year totalled a piddly 380kg, while previous years had settled at a steady 200 to 250kg.
Swish set vices: Delhi
The easy availability of pseudoephedrine has jet-fuelled
ATS substances come as pills, powders and in liquid form. They can be injected, taken orally and even smoked.
"Pseudoephedrine is used in stimulants that give a high and make a person more energetic. Even cocaine comes in the category of a stimulant. An overdose can irreparably damage the liver. It can even cause death," says Dr Sandeep Vohra, a consultant psychiatrist at
Big money
The big money involved in the pseudoephedrine trade has birthed an international syndicate in the city. Pseudoephedrine, which can be legitimately used for pharmaceutical purposes, is illegally manufactured in Uttarakhand and Himachal and brought to In
NCB officials say that a crackdown on the syndicate began towards the end of 2012 with some major seizures taking place.
"Traditionally
The crackdown is only one part of the story. Experts are unanimous in saying that the demand for such drugs in cities like
"It's only a matter of time before transit point becomes a consumption point. Manipur and
The carriers
Officials worry about the latest drug smuggling trend of using girls as carriers. In fact, the profile of the carrier also seems to have changed. The traditional modus operandi of using Nigerians, now seems to be history history. Instead, young women, preferably students, are being used to smuggle the drugs from
The 1,528kg of pseudoephedrine seized this year in
"It is estimated that the total quantity seized countrywide would be more than 2,500kg if seizure by other agencies are taken into account," says an NCB official.
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