MB Lal Book 8
91.
Aaron Swartz, computer
programmer and activist, committed suicide on January
92.
The long and short of open
defecation
93.
Conclave fails to elect pope on
Day 1
94.
India , U.S.
95.
The American Association for the
Advancement of Science: mapping the brain
96.
The world view of Bradley Manning
97.
German parliament passes ‘Google
tax’ law, forcing royalty payments for news snippets
98.
Let us read
Gandhiji again...
99.
Relevance of
Mahatma Gandhiji's Ideology in the Context of Indian Democracy
100.
MK Gandhi as Management Guru
101.
The Mahatma -
and the Indian Independence movement
102.
Why Gandhi Must
Return...
103.
Azim Premji
first Indian to sign up for Gates-Buffett charity
104.
Satyagraha and
Sarvodaya as keys to Good Governance and Corporate Management
105.
When water flows like money
106.
JNU opens Central Library
e-resources for students
107.
Visions of drones swarming
American skies hit bipartisan nerve
Aaron Swartz
Aaron Swartz, computer programmer and activist, committed suicide on January 11th, aged 26
SMALL, dark, cluttered places were important in the life of Aaron Swartz. His days were spent hunched in his bedroom over his MacBook Pro, his short-sighted eyes nearly grazing the screen (why, he asked himself, weren’t laptop screens at eye level?), in a litter of snaking cables and hard drives. In the heady days of 2005 when he was developing Reddit, now the web’s most popular bulletin board, he and his three co-founders shared a house in Somerville, Massachusetts, where he slept in a cupboard. And it was in a cupboard—an unlocked wiring cupboard, where a homeless man kept stuff—that in November 2010 he surreptitiously placed a laptop, hidden under a box, and plugged it directly into the computer network at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
His aim was to download as many pages as possible from an archive of academic journals called JSTOR, which was available by paid subscription only to libraries and institutions. That was morally wrong, he thought; the knowledge contained in it (often obtained with public funding, after all) had to be made available, free, to everyone. And it was absurdly simple to do that. He already had access to the library network; no need to hack into the system. He just ran a script, called keepgrabbing.py, which liberated 4.8m articles at almost dangerous speed. MIT tried to block him, but time after time he outwitted them; and then, as a last resort, he plugged in the laptop in the cupboard.
He had form on this; lots of form. In 2006 he got hold of the book cataloguing data kept by the Library of Congress, usually steeply charged for, and posted them free in the Open Library. In 2009 he wormed his way into a free-access trial of the PACER system, which contains all electronic federal court records, in certain public libraries; he downloaded 19.9m pages of it, then uploaded them to the cloud, before anyone could stop him. Again, it was easy: using a small, elegant language called perl, the documents fell into his hands.
He seemed to have been doing this for ever, writing programs to liberate information. At 12 or 13—a plump, bookish boy with a computer-company executive for a father and a very early Mac in the den—he set up theinfo.org, a sort of Wikipedia before the fact, which was going to contain all the world’s knowledge on one website. A mere year or so later he was working with Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the world wide web, to launch the Semantic Web to improve data-sharing, and developing RSS 1.0 to distribute videos and news stories. He helped set up Creative Commons, too, which made copyright licensing simpler (as, for example, to get this photo of him).
All this could have made him a fortune, but he had no interest in that. He wanted a world that was better, freer and more progressive. He dropped out of high school, then out of Stanford, educating himself instead by reading prodigious numbers of books, mostly philosophy. He made friends and fell loudly out with them because they couldn’t be as perfectionist as he was. At gatherings he would turn up messy-haired and half-shaven, the shy nerd’s look, but with the intense dark gaze and sudden, confident grin of a young man out to turn society on its head.
A lot of money came his way when Reddit was sold to Condé Nast in 2006, but relocation to an office made him miserable. Google offered him jobs, but he turned them down as unexciting. Political campaigning became his passion. He wanted to see everything available online, free, with nothing held back by elites or big money, and nothing censored. Information was power, as he proclaimed in his Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto of 2008, and war was needed “by stealth”, “in the dark”, “underground”, for the freedom to connect. In 2011 there was no fiercer voice against the Stop Online Piracy Act, and in 2012 no one prouder to proclaim it dead.
The JSTOR business, however, got him into deep trouble. When he went back to the cupboard for his laptop, police arrested him. He was charged on 13 counts, including wire fraud and theft of information, and was to go on trial in the spring, facing up to 35 years of jail. The charges, brought by a federal prosecutor, were hugely disproportionate to what he had done; MIT and JSTOR had both settled with him, and JSTOR, as if chastened by him, had even opened some of its public-domain archive. But theft was theft, said the prosecution.
Darkness to light
All this added to a weight that had oppressed him for many years. “Look up, not down,” he urged readers of his weblog; “Embrace your failings.” “Lean into the pain.” It was hard to take that advice himself. He kept getting ill, several illnesses at once. Migraines sliced into his scalp; his body burned. And he was sad most of the time, a sadness like streaks of pain running through him. Books, friends, philosophy, even blogs didn’t help. He just wanted to lie in bed and keep the lights off.
In 2002 he posted instructions for after his death (though I’m not dead yet! he added). To be in a grave would be all right, as long as he had access to oxygen and no dirt on top of him; and as long as all the contents of his hard drives were made publicly available, nothing deleted, nothing withheld, nothing secret, nothing charged for; all information out in the light of day, as everything should be.
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March 14, 2013
The long and short of open defecation
March 11, 2013
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March 13, 2013 00:52 IST
Conclave fails to elect pope on Day 1
Black smoke has poured from the Sistine Chapel chimney, signaling that cardinals have failed to elect a pope on their first try.
Black smoke has poured from the Sistine Chapel chimney, signaling that cardinals have failed to elect a pope on their first try.
The cardinals held the first day of the conclave on Tuesday deeply divided over the problems of the church and who best among them could fix them following the stunning resignation of Pope Benedict XVI. The Vatican made clear it didn’t expect a winner on the first ballot.
The cardinals now return to the Vatican’s Santa Marta hotel for the night. They return to the Apostolic Palace for Mass on Wednesday morning and a new round of voting.
Earlier in the day, cardinals from around the globe locked themselves inside the Sistine Chapel, surrounded by Michelangelo’s imposing frescos imagining the beginning and the end of the world.
The 115 scarlet-robed men entered their conclave with a final appeal for unity to heal the divisions that have been exposed by Pope Benedict XVI’s shocking resignation and revelations of corruption in the Vatican bureaucracy.
Led by prelates holding a crucifix and candles, the cardinals chanted the Litany of Saints, the hypnotic Gregorian chant imploring the intercession of the saints, as they filed into the chapel and took their oath of secrecy.
With a dramatic closing of the thick double doors and the exhortation “Extra omnes” or “all out,” the ritual-filled conclave began beneath Michelangelo’s frescoed “Creation” and before his “Last Judgment” potent images for the task at hand.
Benedict XVI’s resignation has thrown the church into turmoil and exposed deep divisions among cardinals grappling with the apparently conflicting needs for a manager to clean up the Vatican’s dysfunctional bureaucracy and a pastor who can inspire Catholics at a time of waning faith and growing secularism.
The buzz swirled around Cardinal Angelo Scola, an Italian seen as favored by cardinals hoping to shake up the powerful Vatican bureaucracy, and Brazilian Cardinal Odilo Scherer, a favourite of Vatican-based insiders intent on preserving the status quo. Other names included Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, who heads the Vatican’s powerful office for bishops, and U.S. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the exuberant archbishop of New York.
In a final appeal before the conclave began, the dean of the College of Cardinals, retired Cardinal Angelo Sodano, appealed for unity within the church, urging the cardinal electors to put their differences aside for the good of the church.
“Each of us is therefore called to cooperate with the Successor of Peter, the visible foundation of such an ecclesial unity,” Sodano said. He said the job of pope is to be merciful, charitable and “tirelessly promote justice and peace.”
Sitting in the front row was Benedict’s longtime aide, Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, who reported that Benedict was watching the proceedings from the papal residence in Castel Gandolfo, according to a Vatican spokesman the Rev. Thomas Rosica.
For over a week, the cardinals have met behind closed doors to try to figure out who among them has the stuff to be pope and what his priorities should be. But they ended the debate on Monday with questions still unanswered, and many cardinals predicting a drawn-out election that will further expose the church’s divisions. The conclave proceeds in silence, with no debate.
During the discussions, Vatican-based cardinals defended their administration against complaints that they have been indifferent to the needs of cardinals in the field. At one point on Monday, the Brazilian head of one Vatican office reportedly drew applause for challenging the Vatican No. 2, who has been blamed for most of the bureaucracy’s administrative failings.
“Let us pray for the cardinals who are to elect the Roman pontiff,” read one of the prayers during the Mass. “May the Lord fill them with his Holy Spirit with understanding and good counsel, wisdom and discernment.”
A few hundred people braved thunderstorms and pouring rain to watch the Mass on giant TV screens in St. Peter’s Square. A handful knelt in prayer, eyes clenched and hands clasped. They stayed on through the rain, watching the narrow chimney atop the chapel for the first puffs of smoke which signal whether a pope has been elected or not.
In his final radio address before being sequestered, Cardinal Dolan on Tuesday said a certain calm had taken hold over him, as if “this gentle Roman rain is a sign of the grace of the Holy Spirit coming upon us.”
Some of the faithful outside alluded to the huge challenge facing the next pontiff.
“It’s a moment of crisis for the church, so we have to show support of the new pope,” said Veronica Herrera, a real estate agent from Mexico who traveled to Rome for the conclave with her husband and daughter.
Yet the mood was not entirely somber.
A group of women who say they are priests launched pink smoke from a balcony overlooking the square to demand female ordination a play on the famous smoke signals that will tell the world whether a pope has been elected. Two topless activists from Femen were dragged away from the edge of St. Peter’s Square by police as she protested the Vatican’s opposition to gay marriage.
And in a bizarre twist, basketball star Dennis Rodman promised to be in St. Peter’s Square on Wednesday in a makeshift popemobile as he campaigns for Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana to become the church’s first black pope.
None of the cardinals will see it, since they will be sequestered inside the Vatican walls. They are allowed to travel only from the Vatican hotel through the gardens to the Sistine Chapel and back until they have elected a pope. No telephones, no newspapers, no television, no tweeting.
The cardinals began the process Tuesday afternoon by filing into the Sistine Chapel. After the doors closed, they heard a meditation by an elderly Maltese cardinal and were then expected to cast their first ballots.
Assuming they vote, the first puffs of smoke should emerge from the chapel chimney by 8 p.m. (12.30 a.m. IST, Wednesday) black for no pope, white if a pope has been chosen.
While few people expect a pontiff to be elected on the first ballot, the Vatican was ready — In the Room of Tears off the Sistine Chapel, three sizes of white cassocks hung from a clothes rack. Underneath, seven white shoe boxes were piled, presumably containing the various sizes of the red leather shoes that popes traditionally wear. The room gets its name from the weight of the job thrust upon the new pontiff.
The papal tailor Gammarelli delivered the clothes on Monday to ensure that the newly elected pope could change immediately into papal white as soon as he accepts the election. With the words “Habemus Papam” or “We have a pope” the pontiff then appears on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica to greet the crowd.
The conclave is taking place amid more upheaval and uncertainty than the church has seen in decades — There’s no front-runner, no indication how long voting will last and no sense that a single man has what it takes to be pope.
Going into the vote, cardinals offered wildly different assessments of what they’re looking for in the next pontiff and how close they are to a decision. It was evidence that Benedict XVI’s surprise resignation has continued to destabilize the church leadership and that his final appeal for unity may go unheeded, at least in the early rounds of voting.
Even the American cardinals couldn’t agree on whether to expect a short or long conclave.
Cardinal Dolan this week publicly expressed optimism that the election would be wrapped up quickly. And on the eve of the conclave, he wrote a letter to New York priests, saying — “My guess is that we’d have a new Successor of St. Peter by Thursday evening,” according to Dolan’s spokesman, Joseph Zwilling.
That bullish stance stood in stark contrast with the view of Chicago Cardinal Francis George- His spokeswoman, Colleen Dolan, told The Associated Press that the cardinal suggested it could be a long affair. George raised the possibility that the cardinals may still be meeting by Saturday, when conclave rules require the cardinals to take a break and spend some time in prayer before resuming voting.
The faithful in St. Peter’s square were also weighing in on the papal stakes.
“I don’t think it’s going to be a European pope,” said Michael Flueckiger, a 38-year-old caretaker and sacristan of a church in Flamatt, Switzerland. “In Europe sometimes I think we have given away the gift of faith. Many people have lost the faith. They have lost their expectation in God.”
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India, U.S. sources of cyber attacks: Chinese firm
A Chinese Internet security firm has claimed that India, along with the United States, South Korea and Japan, was “a major source” of cyber attacks directed at the government and companies here last year.
A report released by the Beijing Rising Information Technology company said at least 60 per cent of attacks targeting “large companies, government, and scientific research institutions come from overseas” with the “major sources of the attacks” in India and the three other countries, the official The China Daily reported on Tuesday.
Chinese officials in recent days have sought to rebut allegations from the U.S. suggesting the involvement of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in organised cyberattacks, pointing out the threats faced by China.
Echoing their argument, the Rising report said “nearly 200,000” Chinese websites had been hacked in 2011.
“The situation in 2013 will not change much. Although we do not know who initiated those attacks, we do know which country the hackers are from,” Liu Siyu, director of the security research team at Rising, told The China Daily. He said China was the world’s “second-largest target” for hackers globally after the United States.
Stop data theft: U.S.
Only on Monday, U.S. National Security Adviser Tom Donilon called on China to stop the theft of data from U.S. government departments and companies and to follow “acceptable norms” in cyberspace, in the most direct public comments on the issue from Washington.
His statement followed a recent report by a U.S. private cyber security firm that claimed a PLA unit based in Shanghai was linked to a spate of attacks targeting U.S.-based organisations.
Last week, outgoing Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi hit out at the allegations, saying “they may have caught the eyes of people but they are built on shaky foundations”.
“Anyone who tries to fabricate or piece together a sensational story to serve a political motive will not be able to blacken the name of others or whitewash oneself,” he told reporters in his last press conference as Foreign Minister.
“All countries in cyberspace are closely interconnected,” Mr. Yang said. “Cyberspace needs not war but rules and cooperation. We oppose turning cyberspace into a new battlefield or using the Internet as a new tool to interfere in other countries’ internal affairs.”
Chinese officials have pointed out that other countries like the U.S. and Israel had themselves been involved in cyberattack operations in the past. But U.S. analysts say cyberattacks from China targeting private companies were unprecedented in terms of scale and had, in a sense, changed the rules of the game.
In 2011, the Chinese government’s official National Computer Network Emergency Response Coordination Centre released a report claiming that half of 4,93,000 cyber attacks on the websites of the Chinese government “originated from abroad, particularly the United States and India”. It said 14.7 per cent of the attacks were linked to Internet Protocol addresses (IPs) in the U.S. and 8 per cent in India.
The release of the 2011 report followed another investigation by a cyber security company, McAfee that documented 72 hacking attacks on government agencies in India and the U.S. as well as on the International Olympic Committee and United Nations agencies. The pattern of the attacks and nature of the targets led many analysts to suggest they originated in China.
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The American Association for the Advancement of Science: mapping the brain
Only connect
The first of four reports from the AAAS’s annual meeting looks at how brains are wired up
BIOLOGISTS used to suffer from physics envy. It was the physicists, not them, who got the big bucks for big science. That changed with the Human Genome Project, which spent about $3 billion over a decade reading (though not always understanding) the complete sequence of the genetic “letters” of the DNA that describes how to make and run a human being. The genome project, however, came to an end ten years ago. Ever since then, ambitious biologists have been looking for the Next Big Thing. And rumour has it that the NBT is about to be announced. In March the American government is expected to launch an attempt to solve biology’s most mysterious problem: how the brain works.
The Brain Activity Map, as this project seems likely to be called, will study how the brain is wired up at all levels, from the connections between individual nerve cells to the neuronal superhighways between its various lobes and ganglia. In so doing it will institutionalise the emerging science of connectomics—which was one of the centrepieces of this year’s meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, held in Boston from February 14th-18th.
The connectomists, if they may be so called, are attempting to complete a project begun in 1543 when Andreas Vesalius published a book called “De humani corporis fabrica” (“On the fabric of the human body”), which was the first modern treatise on anatomy. The science of anatomy, with its mantra that form follows function, has illuminated understanding of every organ but the brain. Now, the connectomists hope, this last bastion will fall, and a comprehensive atlas of neuroanatomy will lead to a real knowledge of mental processes and mental disease.
Life in thin slices
Jeff Lichtman, of Harvard University, works at the lowest anatomical level of all, that of the links between individual nerve cells. He is using an industrial approach to build exquisite three-dimensional maps of how such cells connect to each other in the brains of mice. To do so, he and his colleagues embed brains in plastic and put them in a machine that cuts them into microscopically thin slices. The slices are automatically processed and stored on circular plates in a library. Tiny areas of these brains can then be photographed by an electron microscope, and clever software follows each cell from one slice to the next, to reconstruct, as the picture above shows, how those cells connect to each other.
The picture is of a piece of tissue only 100 microns across. Yet it required 2,000 slices to produce and about a terabyte of data to store, and it contains parts of thousands of nerve cells (only a few dozen of which are shown, in order to avoid confusion). A brain contains hundreds of billions. And that, in a nutshell, is the measure of the problem of brain anatomy. Yet you have to start somewhere, and Dr Lichtman’s hope is that when he has looked at enough small blocks of nerve cells, patterns will emerge that will cause someone to say “aha!”, and produce a testable theory of what is going on.
A comprehensive theory of how brains work will, however, require an understanding of their higher levels of organisation, as well. And the top end of that scale, where anatomical structures are measured in centimetres rather than microns, is the province of the Human Connectome Project (HCP). This, as its name suggests, was set up as a stepchild of the Human Genome Project—and if the rumours are correct, its fairy godmother is about to arrive and the $35m that it has to spend over the course of five years will soon be multiplied, albeit under a different name.
At the moment, the HCP’s largesse is split between two groups, one led by Harvard and one by Washington University, in St Louis. Steven Petersen, who works on the St Louis side of things, explained to the meeting what they were all up to.
Unlike Dr Lichtman’s project, the HCP studies still-living creatures, so rather than chopping brains up it uses the most up-to-date forms of scanning technology, including a technique that can follow the passage of water molecules around the brain and another that observes correlations between the metabolic activity of different brain areas, to map otherwise invisible pathways between various nerve centres.
The brains Dr Petersen and his colleagues are scanning belong to 1,200 volunteers, including 300 pairs of twins (some identical, some not), who each come in for a two-day assault course of questionnaires, cognitive tests and sessions lying in the scanner. This way, the HCP researchers hope to establish which features of brain architecture are common to all, how much they vary from person to person, how they relate to someone’s skills and behaviour, and (via the twins studies) how genetic variation changes them.
Co-ordinated action
The metabolic-activity approach has been particularly fruitful. Marcus Raichle, one of Dr Petersen’s colleagues in St Louis, explained to the meeting how it has revealed many previously invisible networks in the brain. These are formed of places all over the organ where metabolic activity ebbs and flows synchronously, even when the person in the scanner has been told to lie still and not to think about any particular task. And the discovery of these networks is not merely of academic interest. As William Seeley of the University of California, San Francisco, explained, they may also be the key to understanding some nasty neurological diseases.
Connectomics, Vesalius style
Hitherto, doctors have found it convenient to distinguish between disorders of the mind, such as schizophrenia and clinical depression, which leave no obvious anatomical trace, and disorders of the brain, such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, which do. But this is surely a false distinction; it is merely that the anatomical traces of psychiatric disorders have not yet been found—perhaps because they are actually caused by misconnections, known as “connectopathies” in the jargon, that current techniques are not clever enough to recognise. One of the aims of connectomics is to find these connectopathies. Conversely, it is not clear how Alzheimer’s and other dementias whose physical traces can easily be seen with existing techniques actually spread through the brain. But Dr Seeley thinks an important part of the answer has now been found, for in Alzheimer’s and four similar but rarer dementias the pattern of spread seems to match the networks of co-ordinated metabolism described by Dr Raichle. Somehow, the links that co-ordinate activity are also spreading the disease.
Exactly what is going on is unclear. But this discovery may be the clue needed to work out how to stop dementia in its tracks. If it is—given the burden that an ageing population threatens to impose on many countries over the next few decades—connectomics will have proved its worth even before the big bucks turn up.
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The world view of Bradley Manning
File photo of Bradley Manning
The U.S. soldier accused of passing on state secrets to WikiLeaks says he believes that the American people have a right to know the true costs of war
Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of the biggest unauthorised disclosure of state secrets in U.S. history, has admitted for the first time being the source of the leak, telling a military court that he passed the information to the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks because he believed the American people had a right to know the “true costs of war.”
At a pre-trial hearing on a Maryland military base, Manning, 25, who faces spending the rest of his life in military custody, read out a 35-page statement in which he gave an impassioned account of his motives for transmitting classified documents and videos he had obtained while working as an intelligence analyst outside Baghdad.
Sitting at the defence bench in a hushed courtroom, Manning said he had been sickened by the apparent “bloodlust” he had witnessed in a video of a helicopter crew involved in an attack on a group in Baghdad that turned out to include Reuters correspondents and children.
He believed the Afghan and Iraq war logs published by WikiLeaks, initially in association with a consortium of international media organisations that included the Guardian, were “among the more significant documents of our time revealing the true costs of war.”
The decision to pass the classified information to a public website was motivated, he told the court, by his depression about the state of military conflict in which the U.S. was mired. Manning said: “We were obsessed with capturing and killing human targets on lists and ignoring goals and missions. I believed if the public, particularly the American public, could see this it could spark a debate on the military and our foreign policy in general [that] might cause society to reconsider the need to engage in counterterrorism while ignoring the human situation of the people we engaged with every day.” In a highly unusual move for a defendant in such a serious criminal prosecution, Manning pleaded guilty to 10 lesser charges out of his own volition — not as part of a plea bargain with the prosecution. He admitted to having possessed and wilfully communicated to an unauthorised person — presumably Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks — all the main elements of the disclosure.
That covered the “Collateral Murder” video of an Apache helicopter attack in Iraq; some U.S. diplomatic cables, including one of the early WikiLeaks publications, the Reykjavik cable; portions of the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs; some of the files on detainees in Guantánamo; and two intelligence memos.
The charges to which he pleaded guilty carry a two-year maximum sentence each, committing Manning to a possible upper limit of 20 years in military prison. But the plea does not avert a long and complex trial, which is currently scheduled to begin on June 3.
Manning pleaded not guilty to 12 counts that relate to the major offences of which he is accused by the U.S. government. Specifically, he denied he had been involved in “aiding the enemy” — the idea that he knowingly gave help to al-Qaeda and caused secret intelligence to be published on the Internet aware that by doing so it would become available to the enemy.
As he read his statement, Manning was flanked by his civilian lawyer, David Coombs, and two military defence lawyers. In full uniform, Manning read out the document at high speed, occasionally stumbling over the words and at other points laughing at his own comments.
He recounted how he had first become aware of WikiLeaks in 2009. He was particularly impressed by its release in November that year of more than 5,00,000 text messages sent on the day of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Manning told how he had originally copied the war logs as a good housekeeping measure to have quick access to the information. But the more he read into the data, the more he was concerned about what it was uncovering.
He decided to take a copy on a memory stick when he went back from Iraq to the U.S. on leave in January 2010. There, having failed to interest the Washington Post and the New York Times in the stash of information, he turned to WikiLeaks. On his return to Iraq, he encountered a video that showed an Apache helicopter attack from 2007 in which a group of people in Baghdad had come under U.S. fire. The group was later found to have included civilians, children and two Reuters correspondents who died.
Embarrass but not damage
Manning said he had been troubled by the resistance of the military authorities to releasing the video to Reuters, and a claim from on high that it might not still exist. When he looked through the video on a secure military database he was also troubled by the attitude of the aerial weapons team in the Apache — “the bloodlust they seemed to have. They seemed not to value human life.” He related that in the video a man who has been hit by the U.S. forces is seen crawling injured through the dust, at which point one of the helicopter crew is heard wishing the man would pick up a weapon so that they could kill him. “For me that was like a child torturing an ant with a magnifying glass.” After he had uploaded the video to WikiLeaks, which then posted it as the now notorious “Collateral Murder” video, Manning said he was approached by a senior WikiLeaks figure code-named “Ox.” He assumed this was probably Assange. Of the largest portion of the WikiLeaks disclosures — the 2,50,000 U.S. diplomatic cables — Manning said he was convinced they would embarrass but not damage the U.S. “In many ways they were a collection of cliques and gossip,” he said.
The charges
Manning admitted 10 charges known in military jargon as “lesser and included” — a set of charges that are less serious than those alleged by the army. He admitted unauthorised possession of various classified documents and videos and “wilfully communicating” them to a third party — WikiLeaks. Each charge carries a top sentence of two years, opening him up to a possible maximum sentence of 20 years in military custody.
This is a “naked plea” — meaning it is not part of a plea deal with the prosecution.
Manning denied the major offences the U.S. government alleges he committed. Top of the pile is “aiding the enemy,” a count under the Espionage Act that carries a life sentence with no chance of parole. Manning still faces trial on these counts, with proceedings due to start on June 3.
He also denied stealing a U.S. government list of global addresses; that he committed computer violations that he will argue were widely disregarded in his military unit; and that he transmitted the information to WikiLeaks “with reason to believe that such information could be used to the injury of the U.S. or to the advantage of any foreign nation.”
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German parliament passes ‘Google tax’ law, forcing royalty payments for news snippets
By David Meyer | paidContent.org – Fri, Mar 1, 2013 6:33 AM EST
This story was updated at 5 a.m. PT with comment from Google, and again at 6.45am with thoughts following on from that comment.
The German parliament has passed a controversial law that willforce search engines and news aggregators to pay publishersroyalties for providing snippets of their articles in results.
The Bundestag passed the Leistungsschutzrecht für Presseverleger (LSR), or “ancillary copyright for press publishers” law, on Friday by 293 votes to 243. Germany’s coalition government was the driver behind the law, and the main opposition, the SPD, now says it will try to defeat the law in the country’s second legislative chamber, the Bundesrat.
The text that got passed in the Bundestag exempts individual words or “small text snippets,” although it does not state how short a text snippet has to be to be royalty-free – if it is shorter than a headline, this will probably mean the wholesale removal of all German news publications from Google’s search results.
Google has been a vocal opponent of the law, for obvious reasons. In France and Belgium the company has settled related disputes with publishers in deals that many have seen as tantamount to a payoff.
Google’s spokesman in Germany, Ralf Bremer, hailed the watering-down of the law but still bemoaned the lack of a proper settlement:
“As a result of today’s vote, ancillary copyright in its most damaging form has been stopped. However, the best outcome for Germany would be no new legislation because it threatens innovation, particularly for startups. It’s also not necessary because publishers and internet companies can innovate together, just as Google has done in many other countries.”
Who won?
Google’s attempt to paint this as a victory — claiming the recently-added exemption clears it — is only partially on-target. You can tell this by the fact that the German publisher’s association is alsoclaiming a semi-victory.
According to that association, the BDVZ, the legislation’s passage will “enable [publishers] to set the conditions under which their content is used by search engines and aggregators for commercial purposes”. Crucially, the BDVZ also points out that “an automatic right of use” is not permitted by the law, leaving it “open to publishers to make the business decision that they agree with search engines and aggregators who wish to use the content for commercial publishing”.
In other words, the publishers now have an even stronger hand in their behind-the-scenes negotiations with Google than their counterparts in France and Belgium did, because they have a rather muddled law they can point to. And I doubt Google will stand its ground for long in such talks — the company has seemed increasingly willing of late to quietly settle issues that it previously yelled about as matters of principle.
So who really won here? The publishers. Google just didn’t lose as hard as it was going to before the text got revised.
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Let us read Gandhiji again...
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Once he got involved with a classmate of his, who influenced him to taste meat, on a false pretext .Though he did taste meat, but the regret and shame took over and he left eating meat. Having committed one mistake Mohandas could not commit another mistake of speaking a lie to his parents. While going to England to pursue further studies in Law, he promised to his mother that he would not touch wine, meat or women, since he was already married at the age of 13 years. Though many were not convinced of his resolve, yet his mother believed him, for she knew him more than anyone. She knew that her son would not break his vow, once taken in solemnity. In England he won friendship of many and was generally regarded by one and all, as a man of truth. Once he made a false assertion to his landlady that he was unmarried, but he lost no time in correcting himself with a polite letter next day, seeking her pardon. Of course, the lady was so impressed with his truthful disclosure, that he was again invited that very same evening for dinner at her place. While in South Africa he enrolled himself as a barrister to practice law. In the very first case, he could bring about a compromise between the warring parties and the case got settled outside the court. Both the parties were brought to see the truth of the case and the need to settle the case amicably. While in law practice, Gandhiji records, that he could bring many litigants together for a compromise when they realized the truth of the case. In fact, even the judges in the courts knew that Gandhi would not argue a case which he knew to be false. It is on record that in one case, he withdrew and returned his brief, in the middle of an argument in the court, the moment he realized that his client had spoken a lie and misrepresented the facts to him. His fight in South Africa against the racial discrimination was as a result of his introspection and his intense desire to assert the truth of the cause. He had called his movement satyagraha, which literally means truth by persuasion While fighting in South Africa, he once suspended his satyagraha on the assurance of the Government in power headed by General Smuts, on certain promises , which the government later did not adhere to. The followers of Gandhi were furious and refused to go along with him anymore. Gandhiji still would not agree to deviate from the path of truth and non violence. He was willing to give another chance to the government to prove its credulity. While negotiating with the government in India, very many times, the government played dirty, retracting from its promised stand yet Gandhiji would not return its falsehood with falsehood. He would gently remind the government of its promises and ask it to fulfill its commitment, but would not resort to any violent means to press his point. There was no malice even when he strongly protested against the injustices. Gandhiji is often criticized for his indulgence and being overly patient with the machinations of the government but few realise that while he lost a battle or two, he won a permanent victory. The credulity of the British Government was so high in the psyche of the people, that any radical attempt of overthrow of the Government of India would have been the second repetition of 1857. It was necessary to demonstrate to a very large section of the populace that the British were no less a tyrant than any other, when it came to protect their self interests. Truth and non violence are the only means to reach out to the masses and convert them to the cause. Gandhiji was one of the greatest mind readers of human psychology that this world has witnessed. He had learnt his earliest lessons in human psychology from his mother and later in South Africa, where he led an entirely unlettered Indian indentured labour to protest and fight against the mighty empire of the whites, unarmed and without malice. By his technique, he conquered the hearts of not only his men but that of every conscientious white man. His appeal was more to the heart than to mind but his arguments in favour of racial equality was pure logic, which could not be demolished. He attacked racial discrimination on the sound logic that God never intended to place one man over the other and all devout church goers must respect the law of God. He could demonstrate that a government that treats its subjects unequal and practices racial discrimination has no sanction in the kingdom of God, and hence has to be removed. By a master stroke Gandhiji quietly lifted the struggle to a moral platform and got listed the support of several Englishmen. The Government continued to hold reins by brute force but it suddenly found its clothes removed in the public gaze. It lost all moral authority to rule .Gandhiji knew that the British rule had survived so long only because they had made people believe that the English rule was morally right and it was in the interest of everyone that the rule should continue forever. The fallacy of this argument was shown by Gandhiji by his own belief, in the greatest of truths, that all men are equal and no one particular race has any divine right to subdue and lord over other races. Gandhiji got an opportunity to hit back the British after the aftermath of Rowlatt Act, in the massacre of hundreds of innocent and unarmed civilians in Jalianwala Bagh. The conscience of the nation was aroused and so was the indignation of several Englishmen in India as well as in England. The reprehensible act of violence by the British General and its justification by the Government opened the eyes of the strongest supporters of the British rule. Gandhiji did not retaliate with violence; instead he called for hartal and prayer meetings. This was a novel experience for any nation so far in the history of freedom struggle, where violence was replied with non violence. Many eminent historians have said that reply by non violence, to brutal violence by the British Government, shook the very conscience of the Englishmen and exposed the extreme brutality of the British forces against the peaceful citizens, protesting against an unjust rule. The British lost the moral authority to rule from then onwards and their collapse was now a matter of time. Truth and non violence was therefore the most potent weapon in the hands of unarmed citizenry against an oppressor. The story got repeated again in the Dandi march, when the silent protestors were again beaten up and the news with live photographs got relayed to the world at first hand. Gandhiji again replied with his characteristic brhamashtra of truth and non violence. Every satyagraha and its repression by the British brought the nation closer to freedom. Every satyagraha brought out more and more fence sitters into the freedom struggle till the entire nation was ablaze in 1942.The British dealt every non violent civil disobedience movement with brute force and lost millions of supporters every time. The world was awakening to a new order and the British understood that they could not hold on forever. Often it is argued, if violence and armed struggle could have brought nation to independence earlier. There cannot be a straight answer; possibly yes and possibly no. The British government would have come down heavily on the people by resorting to greater violence and very possibly would have projected the entire struggle as purely law and order problem. Gandhiji’s methods of truth and non violence were put to severe test again, when communal violence broke out on the partition of the country. The massacre of innocent people by hoodlums in the name of religion followed by communal frenzy by common people, led to mass migration, probably the biggest that the world has ever witnessed. Communal fire was sweeping the country particularly in the Punjab, Bihar and Bengal. The Indian Government then headed by Prime Minister Nehru with Lord Mountbatten as the Governor General ordered for the deployment of Armed Forces in Punjab to control the rioting and massacre. There were no forces for Bengal, which was the scene of gruesome killings. Gandhiji went to Bengal and prayed for peace and sanity. He was the single man army and he could achieve what no army could achieve. His appeal was to the ‘heart of the man’ and that worked wonders. Gandhiji’s appeal was to remove hatred and suspicion from the hearts of people. Bengal came under the spell of Gandhiji, while Punjab continued to suffer. Lord Mountbatten wrote to Gandhiji, “In the Punjab, we have 55 thousand soldiers and large scale rioting on our hands. In Bengal, our forces consist of one man, and there is no rioting.” Nehru pleaded with Gandhiji to return to Punjab. Gandhiji returned to Delhi and began his peace mission. His prayer meetings had huge gatherings and the madness of communal frenzy slowly abated. The last fast of Gandhiji undertook on 13th January 1948, brought an end to the communal violence in both the countries. The fast was undertaken against communal violence and was terminated on 18th January, when community leaders undertook to maintain peace. It was his martyrdom 12 days later, which shocked the people of both the countries and virtually ended the communal violence in the subcontinent. His assassination on the 30th January 1948 was the final victory of non violence over violence. The blood of saints purifies the hearts of men; all saints have to pay for the sins of others, through their suffering and penance. This is the universal law of nature. The truth and non violence are universal principles; universal principles are those, which sustain the world .To what extent and degree, each one of us can practice, depends upon our resolve and circumstances. Gandhiji writes in the last chapter ‘farewell’ of his autobiography (My experiments with truth), “My uniform experience has convinced me that there is no other God than Truth. And if every page of these chapters does not proclaim to the reader that the only means of realization of truth is Ahinsa, I shall deem all my labour in writing theses chapters to have been in vain. And, even though my efforts in this behalf may prove fruitless, let the readers know that the vehicle, not the great principle is at fault.” Gandhiji admitted that he has been a seeker of truth all his life and sometimes he ‘caught only the faintest glimmer’ of truth. “The seeker of truth should be humbler than the dust. The world crushes the dust under its feet, but the seeker after truth should be so humble that even dust could crush him.” The first lesson that any mother would teach to her child is to speak the truth and not to hurt other children. She does it naturally, not being aware that in the little teachings of hers, lay the greatest truths of existence. Was there anything new in what Gandhiji said? He said that truth and non violence are as old as hills and therefore he has nothing to teach. “My life is a message.” Those who scoff at Gandhiji and his teachings do not know the power of truth and non violence. Do these parents teach their children falsehood and violence and hatred? Gandhiji simply applied the fundamental truths of life to public life and demonstrated that moral force is superior to brute force. So long mothers of the world would teach morals to the children, through nursery rhymes and fairy tales, so long Gandhiji lives along. Gandhiji and his teachings cannot be obliterated; Gandhiji manifests himself in every parent who silently prays that his child should grow up into a ‘good human being’.
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Relevance of Mahatma Gandhiji's Ideology in the Context of Indian Democracy
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Abstract
India follows the democratic type of Government. India is a big country and hence needs to be governed in a proper and an effective way. Mahatma Gandhi’s imagination of the democracy -fully encircled with non-violence -exists in no nation of the world as up to now. His ideal is a stateless democracy, in which there is a federation of satyagrahi village communities, functioning on the basis of voluntary cooperation and dignified and peaceful co-existence are relevance in the context of Indian democracy. In the present day democracy, there is a great deal of centralization and inequality. Gandhian concept of Self Rule means Swaraj is real democracy, where people’s power rests in the individuals and each one realizes that he or she is the real master of one’s self. These issues are still relevant to what free India is and represent. The main cause of worry today is intolerance and hatred leading to violence and it is here the values of Gandhi need to be adhered to with more passion discussed in this paper. He is relevant not yesterday or today but forever.
Meaning of Democracy:
Democracy is a form of Government which is very popular and also considered as one the most effective forms. In this form of Government, the majority of decisions are taken by the representatives that are chosen by the people. India follows the democratic type of Government. India is a big country and hence needs to be governed in a proper and an effective way. The representatives chosen by the people are the ones who take major decisions pertaining to the development of the country. Democracy is the best kind of government because one has lot of benefits. India is truly democratic since one enjoys freedom of speech and expression here. Here people can voice their opinions openly and straight. In a way democracy makes sure that equality is maintained. In India all the citizens are treated equally and have the same set of rights as the others. By true definition democracy does not differentiate on the basis of religion, colour, caste and creed. However, there have been instances when the term democracy has been misused. The main reason for this being ignorance. The government which runs the country is chosen by the people, for the people.
Mahatma Gandhi's Thoughts on Democracy:
References:
* Dr. Shubhangi Rathi is a Associate Professor & H.O.D. Poliical Science, Smt. P.K. Kotecha Mahila Mahavidhalaya, Bhusawal, Maharashtra, India.
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Courtesy: Hindustan Times dt. 25.02.2013
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WOMEN EXTRAORDINAIRE
The Mahatma - and the Indian Independence movement - lost two determined and courageous women on February 22: Valliamma in 1913 and Kasturba in 1944
‘How can I forget her?’
Mohandas K Gandhi has not said that of any woman. ‘Woman’? ‘Girl’, really, from a Tamil family of indentured labourers working in the Transvaal, South Africa, where MKG had turned, with the turn of the 19th century, from lawyer to protester for the rights of the Indian community, from a barrister clutching a rail ticket no one around honoured to a statesman no one could ignore.
Let me give the reader Gandhi’s own description of the woman he was writing about: “Valliamma R Munuswami Mudaliar was a young girl of Johannesburg only 16 years of age. She was confined to bed when I saw her. As she was a tall girl, her emaciated body was a terrible thing to behold. ‘Valliamma, you do not repent of your having gone to jail?’ I asked. ‘Repent? I am even now ready to go to jail again, if I am arrested’, said Valliamma. ‘But what if it results in your death?’, I pursued. ‘I do not mind it. Who would not love to die for one’s motherland?’ was the reply.”
Valliamma Crossing Over on February 22, 1913.
Gandhi said hers was “an immortal name”. It means virtually nothing to most of us in this generation, certainly to most of us outside of Tamil Nadu and, I should add, South Africa. There, the name conjures a legend. There is something wisp-like about her that kindles awe but eludes knowledge, even understanding. No longer a child, not yet a woman, what made her join Gandhi’s first satyagraha, his first mass march, that year, 100 years ago?
As Gandhi was preparing for the march from his ashram in Phoenix, outside Durban, Kastur took her husband to task.
“I am sorry that you are not telling me about this. What defect is there in me which disqualifies me for jail? You are inviting others… I also wish to go…” “… it should not appear… as if you went at my instance…’ “If you can endure hardships, and so can my boys, why cannot I?... I am bound to join” “… In that case I am bound to admit you…” Even as Valli turned from ‘an ordinary girl’ to an extraordinary revolutionary, Kastur turned from an ‘an ordinary housewife’ to one who led a leader to the road where leadership began.
The other women like 44 years old Kastur, on the march — and they were a minority among the men — were all much older than Valli, mostly married, most of them mothers stung into action by a new law that disrecognised Indian marriages.
Valli joined them, regardless, on the long dusty march down the fields, down the roads, eating little, sleeping less. We can picture her, jumping over the runnels of water, doe-stepped, with the light of youth in her eyes, bringing cheer to the older marchers. I can imagine her, very specifically, comforting the Tamil mother who lost her babe in one gushing stream. I can imagine Valli being the very life of the determined group of marchers, the ‘Transvaal party’ as they were called.
There is no record to tell us if they sang as they marched, Tamil songs, perhaps, with Hindi ones added or, some in the language, Gujarati, of their leader they called ‘Gandhibhai’.
Indian Tamil, Valli was an Indian South African. She had never been to India, her motherland. She never was to. She may have pictured, though, her ancestral village, Thillaiyadi, with its little temple, its paddy fields. But there where she was, Valli was South African, of South African earth, knowing only that country’s sugar cane fields and the mines of gold she and her people worked in.
Just as she could not have pictured India in any detail, she could not have, not at her age, thought of death. I wonder if she thought of consequences, death included, when during the march at one point, the SA police arrived in jeeps, raising arrogant dust, when it took the marchers in, when they entered the jail gates, when the iron clangs shut behind her in the dank and dark of Pietermaritzburg’s jail.
And I wonder, in particular, what one woman said to Valli and in what language. Kastur was among the women marchers arrested with Valli. Did Kastur tell Valli ‘ So… Valliamma… this is it! We have chosen to suffer, so here we are…. but tell me… I have done what I have because that man… your Gandhibhai… I have known him… Moniya… as his parents used to call him…. now for some 30 years… he is like that only…. he lifts you up and you just get carried away… and then asks ‘why are you getting carried away?’ but you… why did you, child, have to join….’
But Kastur may not have had to wait for an answer. She saw Valli was not thinking of herself but of something beyond. And that beyond was: did any doctor come to Valli when she took ill in that jail? Perhaps an indifferent jail doctor did and perhaps — who knows? — Valli did not care to be examined by some strange man who did not seem to keen to examine her. The fact is Valli, given like the others including Kastur hard labour and food unfit to be eaten, was grievously ill already. Having traipsed through the march, entered the prison gates like a bird, by the time they opened to let her out, she was too ill to walk. Kastur - thirty years later, another jail, another country — her ‘own’. The Mahatma as he is now known and Ba as she is called by millions, are in The Aga Khan Palace detention Camp, Poona. She is grievously ill, pneumonia has been diagnosed. A handful of members of the family and family friends as ‘attendants’, have been permitted access. MKG writes to the home secretary, government of Bombay: “The patient is no better. The attendants are about to break down. Four only can work — two at a time on alternate nights. All four have to work during the day. The patient herself is getting restive, and inquires: ‘When will Dr Dinshaw come?’… I hope it may not have to be said that the relief came too late…”.
Their youngest son Devadas asks his father if penicillin, the latest drug on the block, should not be tried. Kastur herself is too weak to say anything upon it. “Why don’t you trust God?”, the father tells his agonised son. “Why do you wish to drug your mother even on her death bed?”
He knows, the Mahatma does. It is her death bed. The end comes on the same date, marked earlier by the same Visitor. February 22. Only the year is different. Gandhi’s remote jailer, the Viceroy writes to his prisoner to condole. Only the British can manage something as bizarre. Gandhi thanks him and Lady Wavell for their “kind condolences” and says, “I have welcomed her death as bringing freedom from living agony… (but) I feel the loss more than I had thought I would… We were a couple outside the ordinary”.
Mohandas K Gandhi has not said that of any woman. ‘Woman’? ‘Girl’, really, from a Tamil family of indentured labourers working in the Transvaal, South Africa, where MKG had turned, with the turn of the 19th century, from lawyer to protester for the rights of the Indian community, from a barrister clutching a rail ticket no one around honoured to a statesman no one could ignore.
Let me give the reader Gandhi’s own description of the woman he was writing about: “Valliamma R Munuswami Mudaliar was a young girl of Johannesburg only 16 years of age. She was confined to bed when I saw her. As she was a tall girl, her emaciated body was a terrible thing to behold. ‘Valliamma, you do not repent of your having gone to jail?’ I asked. ‘Repent? I am even now ready to go to jail again, if I am arrested’, said Valliamma. ‘But what if it results in your death?’, I pursued. ‘I do not mind it. Who would not love to die for one’s motherland?’ was the reply.”
Valliamma Crossing Over on February 22, 1913.
Gandhi said hers was “an immortal name”. It means virtually nothing to most of us in this generation, certainly to most of us outside of Tamil Nadu and, I should add, South Africa. There, the name conjures a legend. There is something wisp-like about her that kindles awe but eludes knowledge, even understanding. No longer a child, not yet a woman, what made her join Gandhi’s first satyagraha, his first mass march, that year, 100 years ago?
As Gandhi was preparing for the march from his ashram in Phoenix, outside Durban, Kastur took her husband to task.
“I am sorry that you are not telling me about this. What defect is there in me which disqualifies me for jail? You are inviting others… I also wish to go…” “… it should not appear… as if you went at my instance…’ “If you can endure hardships, and so can my boys, why cannot I?... I am bound to join” “… In that case I am bound to admit you…” Even as Valli turned from ‘an ordinary girl’ to an extraordinary revolutionary, Kastur turned from an ‘an ordinary housewife’ to one who led a leader to the road where leadership began.
The other women like 44 years old Kastur, on the march — and they were a minority among the men — were all much older than Valli, mostly married, most of them mothers stung into action by a new law that disrecognised Indian marriages.
Valli joined them, regardless, on the long dusty march down the fields, down the roads, eating little, sleeping less. We can picture her, jumping over the runnels of water, doe-stepped, with the light of youth in her eyes, bringing cheer to the older marchers. I can imagine her, very specifically, comforting the Tamil mother who lost her babe in one gushing stream. I can imagine Valli being the very life of the determined group of marchers, the ‘Transvaal party’ as they were called.
There is no record to tell us if they sang as they marched, Tamil songs, perhaps, with Hindi ones added or, some in the language, Gujarati, of their leader they called ‘Gandhibhai’.
Indian Tamil, Valli was an Indian South African. She had never been to India, her motherland. She never was to. She may have pictured, though, her ancestral village, Thillaiyadi, with its little temple, its paddy fields. But there where she was, Valli was South African, of South African earth, knowing only that country’s sugar cane fields and the mines of gold she and her people worked in.
Just as she could not have pictured India in any detail, she could not have, not at her age, thought of death. I wonder if she thought of consequences, death included, when during the march at one point, the SA police arrived in jeeps, raising arrogant dust, when it took the marchers in, when they entered the jail gates, when the iron clangs shut behind her in the dank and dark of Pietermaritzburg’s jail.
And I wonder, in particular, what one woman said to Valli and in what language. Kastur was among the women marchers arrested with Valli. Did Kastur tell Valli ‘ So… Valliamma… this is it! We have chosen to suffer, so here we are…. but tell me… I have done what I have because that man… your Gandhibhai… I have known him… Moniya… as his parents used to call him…. now for some 30 years… he is like that only…. he lifts you up and you just get carried away… and then asks ‘why are you getting carried away?’ but you… why did you, child, have to join….’
But Kastur may not have had to wait for an answer. She saw Valli was not thinking of herself but of something beyond. And that beyond was: did any doctor come to Valli when she took ill in that jail? Perhaps an indifferent jail doctor did and perhaps — who knows? — Valli did not care to be examined by some strange man who did not seem to keen to examine her. The fact is Valli, given like the others including Kastur hard labour and food unfit to be eaten, was grievously ill already. Having traipsed through the march, entered the prison gates like a bird, by the time they opened to let her out, she was too ill to walk. Kastur - thirty years later, another jail, another country — her ‘own’. The Mahatma as he is now known and Ba as she is called by millions, are in The Aga Khan Palace detention Camp, Poona. She is grievously ill, pneumonia has been diagnosed. A handful of members of the family and family friends as ‘attendants’, have been permitted access. MKG writes to the home secretary, government of Bombay: “The patient is no better. The attendants are about to break down. Four only can work — two at a time on alternate nights. All four have to work during the day. The patient herself is getting restive, and inquires: ‘When will Dr Dinshaw come?’… I hope it may not have to be said that the relief came too late…”.
Their youngest son Devadas asks his father if penicillin, the latest drug on the block, should not be tried. Kastur herself is too weak to say anything upon it. “Why don’t you trust God?”, the father tells his agonised son. “Why do you wish to drug your mother even on her death bed?”
He knows, the Mahatma does. It is her death bed. The end comes on the same date, marked earlier by the same Visitor. February 22. Only the year is different. Gandhi’s remote jailer, the Viceroy writes to his prisoner to condole. Only the British can manage something as bizarre. Gandhi thanks him and Lady Wavell for their “kind condolences” and says, “I have welcomed her death as bringing freedom from living agony… (but) I feel the loss more than I had thought I would… We were a couple outside the ordinary”.
Courtesy: Hindustan Times, dt. 23.02.2013
http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/GopalkrishnaGandhi/Women-extraordinaire/Article1-1015935.aspx
http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/GopalkrishnaGandhi/Women-extraordinaire/Article1-1015935.aspx
Gopalkrishna Gandhi is a former administrator, diplomat and governor. The views expressed by the author are personal.
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Why Gandhi Must Return...
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There is a Law that has been woven into the fabric of this Universe, which decrees that everything that has a beginning must have an end, and that end must be joined to the beginning. This is the Cycle of Karma which manifests in millions of different ways here on Earth, but always according to that precise logical consistency of The Law that has been woven into this Universe.
According to this Law, those who have been sent out on spiritual missions to Earth are required to fulfill these spiritual missions completely. If for some reason a person who is sent out on such a spiritual mission does not fulfill this mission, if on account of some circumstance he chooses a different path from the one originally ordained for him, then the one sent on this mission has deviated from the spiritual mission he was given, and thus his spiritual mission remains incomplete. One may object that it is not possible for a person who has come on a spiritual mission to fail in that mission. Indeed, that is how it should be! How is it possible for someone who has been blessed with great Spiritual Knowledge to deviate from the path that he has to follow on Earth? And yet, not only is such a thing possible, but it also happens manifold! You may be surprised to know that in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century, a multitude of such blessed ones were sent to Earth to lay the foundation for the spiritual transformation of the world. This multitude, spread out all over the globe, comprised of numerous blessed individuals, each with different talents and abilities, but all filled with Spiritual Knowledge and Illumination from Above. They were all sent to Earth during this very precise time of the early twentieth century to build a foundation that would uplift Earth from out of the old wrong ways of living into the new! They were the messengers of the Aquarian Age, whose activity should have converged upon a single point, rather than diverged! Had these individual messengers of Truth found the way to each other at that time, had they worked together in a single, concerted effort the world today would not be what it is today. These individuals were the spiritual leaders of many nations, including India! They were also spiritual leaders in great temples, churches, mosques, and also leaders who formed their own spiritual movements in different parts of the world, who eventually came to be known as messiahs. Their goal was not to lead people to earthly independence, but rather to institute the practices that would revolutionise the human race and lead to true Peace on Earth. That was their task at that time! But instead of working to converge, many of them developed their own ideas. Because, after incarnating on the Earth, they were also under the influence of the over-developed intellect, which is bound to space and time. This intellect, with its own bound will and so-called "free thinking", was able to drown out the voice of the spirit. Consequently, a convergence of the activity of these blessed ones did not take place. Different movements arose which all went in different directions. Today you find the movements or religions started by many of these individuals, but none of them are really working together for the spiritual upliftment of the human race. Some decided only to lead their people to earthly independence and focused on this. Others desired spiritual independence, but gave in only to the purely materialistic needs of the people. Still others felt themselves specially called and started religions of their own, eventually calling themselves messiahs or christs. Yet others gravitated to the material possessions that came to them and sank into exclusively building up materialistic and power-mongering way. And there were also those who focused solely on science, who made some great discoveries during this time, but then forgot about God and His Laws. In short, they all forgot their real task on the Earth. Generally speaking, these messengers of the Aquarian Age thus failed in their tasks and were diverted by intellect, instead of finding a point of convergence in their activities. As a result of this, they too have burdened themselves with a Karma that can only be redeemed here on Earth. They are thus required to return to the Earth by The Law of Karma and pick up where they left off, if they come to recognition in time! This time they all have it much harder than before, for they have to deal with the consequences of their failures, which they see all around them in the polluted and corrupt humanity of today, which only cares about money and power and has lost all sense of spiritual things, even in matters of religion. They also see the fruits of the spiritual or religious movements that they set up during their time and how corrupt these too, have become. Their task is much harder now and they feel more pain in their heart when they realise how wrong they had been to have ignored the path of convergence. Yet, this is all learning, experiencing and ultimately redemption for them! And also for those who now assist them in their task of redemption! The Law of Karma, the Law of Reciprocal Action, of Sowing and Reaping, Immutable, unchangeable, adamantine. Neither you nor I can divert this Law by even a hair's breadth! It is steadfast and immovable, unshakeable! In this Law lie the answers to all the great questions of life, thus also why the great leaders of India, the originally Blessed Ones must return to experience their former failure!
* R. M. Duraisamy [Email: rmduraisamy@gmail.com] is the author of the work "FROM INDIA TO THE TRUTH", which is availalble from the websitehttp://www.Sphatik.com Please visit this website for more details.
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Azim Premji first Indian to sign up for Gates-Buffett charity
Azim Premji has become the first Indian to sign up for the Giving Pledge, an undertaking by large-hearted billionaires to dedicate a majority of their wealth to philanthropy.
The Wipro founder and chairman, who has already committed nearly 9,000 crore to the cause of education, will direct more of his charitable giving towards the endowment supporting his philanthropic foundation, Premji wrote in a statement.
"I was deeply influenced by Gandhi's notion of holding one's wealth in trusteeship, to be used for the betterment of society and not as if one owned it," he wrote to the Giving Pledge organisation, whose prime movers have been Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.
The Bloomberg Billionaires' Index estimates Premji's wealth at $16 billion, or about 87,000 crore, making him the 50th richest man in the world and the third-richest Indian after Mukesh Ambani and Lakshmi Niwas Mittal of ArcelorMittal.
67-year-old drives a Toyota Corolla, is known to avoid staying in five-star hotels and leads a generally frugal life.
Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, and billionaire investor Warren Buffett (the two of them are together worth over $110 billion) have persuaded dozens of America's billionaires to sign up for the Giving Pledge and return a majority of their fortunes to charitable causes.
Buffett, the world's fourth-richest man with a fortune of $53 billion, will give away 99% of his wealth, and Gates, the second-wealthiest man on the planet, will donate at least half his riches in keeping with the pledge. Premji's letter does not make an explicit commitment of this nature, but the Giving Pledge is clear that a majority of the wealth goes to charity.
The organisation announced on Tuesday that for the first time, wealthy families from outside the US have joined the pledge, taking the total number who have made the commitment to 105. Joining Premji on the international list were Richard Branson of the Virgin Group and David Sainsbury from the founding family of the eponymous British supermarket chain.
The Wipro founder and chairman, who has already committed nearly 9,000 crore to the cause of education, will direct more of his charitable giving towards the endowment supporting his philanthropic foundation, Premji wrote in a statement.
"I was deeply influenced by Gandhi's notion of holding one's wealth in trusteeship, to be used for the betterment of society and not as if one owned it," he wrote to the Giving Pledge organisation, whose prime movers have been Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.
The Bloomberg Billionaires' Index estimates Premji's wealth at $16 billion, or about 87,000 crore, making him the 50th richest man in the world and the third-richest Indian after Mukesh Ambani and Lakshmi Niwas Mittal of ArcelorMittal.
67-year-old drives a Toyota Corolla, is known to avoid staying in five-star hotels and leads a generally frugal life.
Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, and billionaire investor Warren Buffett (the two of them are together worth over $110 billion) have persuaded dozens of America's billionaires to sign up for the Giving Pledge and return a majority of their fortunes to charitable causes.
Buffett, the world's fourth-richest man with a fortune of $53 billion, will give away 99% of his wealth, and Gates, the second-wealthiest man on the planet, will donate at least half his riches in keeping with the pledge. Premji's letter does not make an explicit commitment of this nature, but the Giving Pledge is clear that a majority of the wealth goes to charity.
The organisation announced on Tuesday that for the first time, wealthy families from outside the US have joined the pledge, taking the total number who have made the commitment to 105. Joining Premji on the international list were Richard Branson of the Virgin Group and David Sainsbury from the founding family of the eponymous British supermarket chain.
Courtesy: Economic Times dt. 20.02.2013
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-company/corporate-trends/azim-premji-first-indian-to-sign-up-for-gates-buffett-charity/articleshow/18582497.cms
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-company/corporate-trends/azim-premji-first-indian-to-sign-up-for-gates-buffett-charity/articleshow/18582497.cms
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Satyagraha and Sarvodaya as keys to Good Governance and Corporate Management
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The world has gone through a lot of tumultuous phases in the last few years & decades. Few of the examples are corporate misadventures like Enron & Satyam scam, collapse of corporate giants like Lehman Brothers, World Com, the Iraq War, disgrace of few global political leaders, etc. All of these instances highlight the imperative need for truthful and trustworthy leaders and also for transparency, justice, non-violent conflict resolution, etc. And a careful analysis of the root cause of these problems also reveals that it was the deviation from the path of Truth that has single-handedly been responsible for these catastrophes.
The first 20th century leader to successfully oppose violence and social injustices like racism, casteism, colonialism, etc. with the help of non-violent tools was Mahatma Gandhi. Satyagraha & Sarvodaya are two such concepts which are solidly based on the concepts of Truth. For Gandhiji, Satyagraha was a weapon which can be and should be wielded by a person of impeccable integrity and one who believes in the maxim ' Truth is God'. Similarly, on the practical application, he placed the concept of Sarvodaya at the heart of all his social and economic programmes. Sarvodaya is a concept which Gandhiji had developed after he was greatly influenced by John Ruskin's ' Unto This Last'. For him, Truth is God. Period. Gandhiji firmly believed that there is an indefinable mysterious power that pervades everything. For him, that power was God. Though this concept may seem too abstract but the fact remains that millions of Indians followed Gandhiji’s lead and were willing to sacrifice based on their complete acceptance of this definition of God & Truth. Satyagraha as a tool was formulated after the historic 11th Sept, 1906 meeting at Empire Theatre. In Gandhiji's view, Satyagraha has no scope for secrecy. Neither does it have any scope for Selfishness. It aims to convert the opponent and not crush the opponent. It places a great emphasis on being open and transparent even when dealing with your opponents. For Him, Satyagraga was not a program for seizure of power. Thus, clearly Gandhiji's approach to practical concepts of governance rested heavily on the pillars of morality & truth. Gandhiji’s approach to governance along with other aspects like economics, politics and civilization was rooted in morality. He has enunciated his such principles in his 1909 booklet 'Hind Swaraj'. His further elaboration on this aspect is described in his 1941 booklet 'Constructive Program: Its meaning & place'. It described a society where there is complete equality, communal harmony, self employment, democratic participation, etc. Also, his concept of Swaraj was enlarged to 'Poorna Swaraj' which implied not only political/administrative freedom but also freedom from social & behavioral evils like untouchability, bonded labor, anger, violence, etc. His fundamental principles of governance were
Gandhiji's ideas of a village based democracy of 'concentric circles' and minimal state control were ignored by India's constitution makers and political leaders. Enormous investments in agriculture, education, healthcare, housing, etc. have not been able to completely reduce India's poverty levels. However, last decade's liberalisation has led to a considerable growth in India's economy. But, the benefits of liberalisation have accrued to only a few. There are so many farmer's suicides, increase in Naxal terrorism, social distress, etc. that the effects of the so called economic growth is debatable. The profits being earned by corporates has been increasing exponentially but can that be said of the well-being of the common public? The current leaders keep on talking of 'reforms with a human face'. But the truth of the intent is indeed debatable. The recent financial meltdown has been described to be the result of dishonesty on the part of financial institutions. With a keen eye on future profits, the corporate leaders turned a blind eye to the inherent risks. Many believe that the effects of the meltdown would not have been so severe had the corporate sector acted in the true spirit of good governance. The corporate sector's greed had increased to such an extent that not only humans but animals and the environment are bearing the brunt. Many animals are on the verge of extinction, just to satisfy human wants. Environment has suffered the greatest of damages because of human greed. The World Social Forum (WSF) has stood up against the social injustices being committed by corporates. The Forum has been consistently seeking means for creating a global non-capitalist, non-communist, social, political and economic order. The current global warming threats coupled with a food crisis scenario clearly indicate the necessity of following Gandhiji’s principles in these matters. He consistently exhorted people to utilize natural resources only as per need and not as per greed. Man’s greed to exploit environment ruthlessly has created an alarming situation where the entire future generation is at stake. India's political leadership is in dire need of applying Gandhiji's principles of Truth in to their day to day dealings. Be it the criminalisation of politics or politics-corporate nexus, both need an urgent dose of Gandhian principles for India as a country to regain its lost glory. Gandhiji's innovative Trusteeship concept sought to give an ethical dimension to economics and at the same time transform the inhuman capitalist order into humane one by sheer moral force. Today's corporate sector should formulate, adopt and enforce a comprehensive set of ethical norms and thus ensure a healthy working environment for its employees. It is essential that India's politicians, corporates, common people should all pledge their complete faith in the maxim 'Satyameva Jayate' so that the spirit of Satyagraha & Sarvodaya is nurtured for ages to come.
Source: 'Gandhi Marg' Volume 31, Number 3, October-December 2009
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March 6, 2013 12:55 IST
When water flows like money
If drought is making many in Osmanabad struggle for survival, it is also boosting a 24-hour trade that thrives on scarcity
Bharat Raut spends around Rs.800 a month on petrol — just to fetch water that belongs to him. So do a lot of others in Takwiki village in Osmanabad district in Marathwada. Almost every household in Takwiki (and other villages) has one member locked into a single task each day: fetching water from wherever they can. Nearly every vehicle you see on Osmanabad’s roads is ferrying water somewhere. That includes cycles, bullock carts, motorbikes, jeeps, lorries, vans and tankers. And women carrying it in pots on their heads, hips and shoulders. The drought ensures that most do it for sheer survival. Some, for a neat profit.
Timings and distances
“Yes, every household has a person on full-time water duty,” says Bharat a small farmer with five-and-a-half acres. In his family, he is the one. “I fetch the water that comes sporadically from the borewell on our own fields. But it’s a little over three kilometres away from home.” So Bharat hooks four ghadas (plastic pots) to his Hero Honda and makes three trips a day to his fields to return with around 60 litres of water each time. “I go there just for the little water the bore gives,” he says. “The crop itself is dying.” There are some 25 motorcycles in this village roving about on this task at any time.
Since each round trip is over six kilometres, Bharat clocks close to 20 km each day, or 600 km a month. That takes up 11 litres of petrol, or around Rs.800 a month for just this task alone. “The water timings alternate each week,” explains Ajay Niture, who visits a government-controlled source. “This week we have power from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. so we get water during those hours. Next week it will be from midnight to 10 a.m.” He does his two-three kilometre trips on a bicycle mounted with seven plastic pots. And he’s been to the local hospital twice — “it really hurts your shoulders.”
Landless workers run into trouble with employers. “Some days you turn up late. Some days you don’t make it at all,” says Jhambhar Yadav. “That delays chores like feeding the animals, which is bad. And this has been on for five months now.” Jhambhar has already made two trips with six ghadas on his cycle this morning.
Impacting women
Yet their efforts are eclipsed by the women of Takwiki who do multiple trips daily on foot, carrying two to three pots with them. “That’s 8-10 hours a day on the job,” they explain at one of the water sources where they’ve congregated. They also tell us of their recycling of water: “First you use it for your bath. Then you use that same water for washing clothes. And finally for cleaning out the utensils.” The distances the women walk are often greater than those covered by the men on motorbikes. They do far more trips and log over 15-20 km in a day. The stress causes several to fall ill.
Women like Phulwantibai Dhepe have it worse. She is a Dalit and so excluded from many water sources. Even at the government-acquired well from where she fetches her water, “I am always last in the line.”
Sugarcane and rain
Scarcity impacts on livestock too. With little water and less fodder, “those like me who sell milk are in a bad way. My cows are suffering and so am I. I used to make Rs.300 a day selling milk,” says Suresh Ved Pathak. “Now the yields have fallen and I make just a third of that.”
Takwiki is a microcosm of Osmanabad’s built-in problems. The village has less than 4,000 people, but maybe 1,500 borewells for irrigation needs. “The ones being drilled now are going to 550 feet and beyond,” says Bharat Raut. And the main crop in this drought-prone district is sugarcane. “We got 397 mm of rainfall least season, as against our normal average rainfall of 767 mm,” says Osmanabad Collector K.M. Nagargoje. “In itself, 800 mm is not at all bad rainfall. And some regions get by on 400 mm, too.”
But you can’t get by, even on 800 mm, if your output is 2.6 million metric tons of sugarcane. A crop that demands roughly 18 million litres of water per acre. (Enough to fill seven-and-a-half Olympic swimming pools.) And the number of farmers who can afford to save on water by using drip is very small, just a handful in Takwiki.
Collector Nagargoje has serious trouble on his hands. And having had a stint with the Groundwater Department, he knows it. Almost all the district’s big or medium water projects are at dead storage level. That’s when water is below the point from where it can be pumped out or controlled. At that stage, it serves to keep the fish alive. He does have around 3.45 million metric cubic feet left in the district’s small projects. That can’t last too long in this district of 1.7 million people. He also has 169 water tankers presently serving two towns and 78 villages. And a district where private borewells for irrigation are spreading rapidly.
“The ground water table this January was at around 10.75 metres. That’s five metres below the five-year average in this region,” he says. “In some blocks, it’s even lower.” He remains optimistic about the district’s capacity to handle the crisis this year. But knows the existing cropping patterns will thwart rescue plans in the next one.
Private trade rules
Back in Takwiki, indebtedness grows as income falls. “The sahucari (money lending) rate here is now anything between Rs.5 to Rs.10 per hundred per month, explains Santosh Yadav. (That’s 60 to 120 per cent annually.) Yadav’s own family spent nearly Rs.10 lakh in laying down pipelines — all of which have run dry — to their fields. And summer isn’t far away. Yadav asks: “Who can think of that? We’re focused on getting past today. One day at a time is all we can handle.”
But if the drought makes many struggle for survival, it also boosts a trade that thrives on scarcity. This is visible everywhere. “We spend whole days on cell phones trying desperately to buy water from those who have it because they own borewells or some other source,” says Bharati Thawale, a social worker. “I struck a deal with one of these water-sellers. He was to give me 500 litres for Rs.120. But on the way he got offered Rs.200 for it and sold out. Many frantic calls later, he brought me the water I needed, at 9 p.m. the next night.” After that, she’s been buying water from a neighbour.
The brisk trade in water is on around the clock across the district. Scarcity drives the rates upwards. The government has requisitioned 720 wells of water. It pays the owners of each of these Rs.12,000 a month. Water from these is free for the public. But the long distances and the huge crowds at these points can be daunting. Which means privateers rule. With them, you bargain by the litre. The price can go well above Rs.200 for 500 litres. The rate spikes sharply if you are buying small quantities. And it will all get worse in coming days. Every colony now has someone with a borewell or other source, milking the scarcity. Here, water flows like money.
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WASHINGTON, March 11, 2013
Visions of drones swarming American skies hit bipartisan nerve
The debate goes to the heart of a deeply rooted American suspicion about the government, the military and the surveillance state: the spectre of drones streaking through the skies above U.S. cities and towns, controlled by faceless bureaucrats and equipped to spy or kill.
That Big Brother imagery — conjured up by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky during a more than 12-hour filibuster this week — has animated a surprisingly diverse swath of political interests that includes mainstream civil liberties groups, Republican and Democratic lawmakers, conservative research groups, liberal activists and right-wing conspiracy theorists.
They agree on little else. But Mr. Paul’s soliloquy has tapped into a common anxiety on the left and the right about the dangers of unchecked government. And it has exposed fears about ultra-advanced technologies that are fuelled by the increasingly fine line between science fiction and real life.
Drones have become the subject of urgent policy debates in Washington as lawmakers from both parties wrangle with President Barack Obama over their use to prosecute the fight against terrorism from the skies above countries like Pakistan and Yemen.
But they are also a part of the popular culture toys sold by Amazon; central plot points in “Homeland” and a dozen other television shows and movies; the subject of endless macabre humour, notably by The Onion; and even the subject of poetry. (“Ode to the MQ-9 Reaper”, a serious work by New York poet Joe Pan that was just published in the journal Epiphany, describes the drone as “ultra-cool & promo slick, a predatory dart” that is “as self-aware as silverware”.)
Benjamin Wittes, a national security scholar at the Brookings Institution who has written extensively about drones, said he thought Mr. Paul’s marathon was a “dumb publicity stunt”. But he said it had touched a national nerve because the technology, with its myriad implications, had already deeply penetrated the culture.
“Over the last year or so, this thing that was the province of a small number of technologists and national security people has exploded into the larger public consciousness”, Mr. Wittes said.
On the right, Mr. Paul has become an overnight hero since his filibuster. Self-proclaimed defenders of the Constitution have shouted their approval on Twitter, using the hashtag #StandWithRand and declaring him to be a welcomed member of their less-is-better-government club.
“The day that Rand Paul ignited Liberty’s Torch inside the beltway!” one Tea Party activist wrote on Twitter. “May it never be extinguished!”
But even as the right swooned, the left did, too. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the only Democrat to join Mr. Paul’s filibuster, said the unexpected array of political forces was just the beginning, especially as Congress and the public face the new technologies of 21st-century warfare.
“I believe there is a new political movement emerging in this country that’s shaking free of party moorings,” Mr. Wyden said. “Americans want a better balance between protecting our security and protecting our liberty.”
P.W. Singer, whose 2009 book Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century anticipated the broad impact of drones, said he believed they had shaken up politics because they were “a revolutionary technology, like the steam engine or the computer”.
“The discussion doesn’t fall along the usual partisan lines”, he said.
The serious issues raised by the government’s lethal drones seem inextricably mixed with the ubiquitous appearance of the technology in art, commerce and satire.
A four-minute video by the Air Force Research Laboratory on “micro aerial vehicles” shows a futuristic bee-size drone flying in an open window and taking out an enemy sniper with a miniature explosive payload.
Since it was posted in 2009, it has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times and reposted all over the Web. — New York Times News Service
