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Friday 30 November 2012

Twenty years on a refusal to see the truth

The pseudo-secular narrative has triumphed on the Ram Janmabhoomi struggle which climaxed twenty years ago on December 6. The tragedy is that all the blood and gore could have been avoided through a negotiated settlement

On December 6, 1992, a superstructure called the Babri Masjid standing in the city of Ayodhya, came crashing down. It remains even today a traumatic event for the nation, because modern Indians have not yet been weaned on a true history of India, and hence a large section of our educated classes still view the destruction of the structure as criminal vandalism. What happened exactly? There was a superstructure built on the site of an ancient temple after demolishing it. That was the real vandalism.
Two years earlier, by a coincidence, on the same month and day, I had met representatives of the VHP and BJP at a house, next door to mine, on Mathura Road. The newly sworn in Prime Minister, the late Chandrashekhar, had asked me (I was then his newly sworn in senior most Cabinet Minister) that as the new Union Law& Justice Minister, I should talk to them about withdrawing their proposed nation-wide stir slated to begin on December 9, 1991 for building a Ram temple at the site the super-structure had then stood in its gloomy glory. He told me to assure the VHP that our government would get removed the Babri Masjid with the consent of Muslim leaders through discussions.

The VHP and BJP leaders I met readily agreed to call off the stir since we were a new government. Their decision to go on a stir was taken when VP Singh was in power - his government fell in November. Thereafter, in January 1991, talks initiated by Chandrashekhar himself began with the Muslim leaders. Unfortunately, despite the zig-zag progress in the talks, our government did not last long enough to fructify it. Had history taken a different turn and our government lasted for a year more, I am confident we would have amicably liberated the Ranjanmabhoomi for building a befitting Ram temple, that too with the consent of the Muslim community, even though the Government was in the minority in the Parliament.

From my personal experience as a Minister in a minority government, I can therefore say that lack of majority is no excuse for implementing any agenda, if the leadership had the mindset to get things done. As a Minister of Law &Justice, for instance, I got the controversial Sessions Judge of Faizabad, KM Pandey, a High Court judgeship, despite the fact that the previous V.P. Singh's "three-legged" government had issued orders on file that since Pandey had directed the locks on the so-called Babri Masjid  be removed in 1986, he should never be made a High Court judge.

Mulayam Singh was our Chief Minister of UP, but with firmness I got his protests sufficiently moderated to his permit me to go ahead. He cooperated because he knew I would do it anyway-- make Pandey a judge of the High Court-and hence he acquiesced since he wanted other things done for him by me,. The same clarity enabled the Chandrashekhar government to get Saifuddin Soz's kidnapped daughter freed without releasing any dreaded terrorists. There are methods for doing that-mostly based on retaliation. In each case it is the mindset of those elected to high office that matters, not the size of the parliamentary majority or lack of it.

It was this mindset that enabled the Chandrashekhar government to nearly solve by an agreement the question of building of a Ram temple in Ayodhya. However, the government however fell before it could be clinched. But could the Babri Masjid have been demolished in a more legally authorised way? Hindus should not be defensive in the face of an onslaught by the fashionable secularists about removing mosques built on where temples had once stood, because the Supreme Court has held in the Faruqui vs. Union of India case [(1994)6 SCC360], that a masjid is not an essential part of Islamic theology, and these can and have been be demolished for public good.

Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and even in British-ruled undivided India, masjids have been demolished to facilitate roads. The government of Saudi Arabia did not think twice before demolishing the Bilal Masjid in Mecca where Prophet Muhammed used to read namaz. A masjid, like a church, is not a religious place in the sense a temple is.  Masjids and Churches are places for worship, i.e., buildings which serve as facilitation centres for namaz and prayer. Namaz can be read anywhere even on a railway platform. In the United States, the VHP buys disused Churches and converts them into temples, and yet no Christian there objects.

But temples, once it is shown that a prana prathista puja has been  performed to build it, is where God or deity resides, and belongs to God forever.  As Union Law&Justice Minister in 1991 I got our government legal team to prove this to the satisfaction of the House of Lords in Britain, to bring back a Nataraja statue taken from a disused Thanjavur temple. It was at Rajiv Gandhi's request I took interest in the case!

Of course, because of this fact about masjids and churches, no one in a democracy has the right to take the law into his own hands to demolish them. But on the other hand, a government can remove in a legal and orderly way the masjids in Ayodhya, Kashi, and Brindavan,  in fact in 300 other places, to rebuild the original temples under law. We can get Muslims to cooperate in this. I am confident of this. Babri Masjid was built as an affront to Hindus. Otherwise it could have been built anywhere else since namaz can be offered anywhere. Hindus have however prevailed because despite 800 years of Islamic and 200 years of Christian domination, Bharat today is still over 80 per cent Hindu and a continuum of an ancient civilisation. Hence, now we must resolve to rectify what is essential to rectify and reclaim. For that, the restoration of three holy sites, in Ayodhya, Vrindavan, and Kashi, is necessary. Patriotic politicians must resolve: Come our way or go the highway.

But it is easier said than done to expect that politicians would do or die for it. As our rudderless democracy has drifted, we are today in a "match-fixing mode" even in electoral contests. In Tamil Nadu, the DMK and AIADMK are bitter enemies, but in most crucial constituencies, a match-fixing arrangement for money have been worked out for decades between Sasikala of the AIADMK and Arcot Veerasamy of the DMK, who are alter egos of their respective top leaders, and determined to keep out the Hindutva forces from Tamil Nadu.

The same match-fixing disease has spread to other parties nation-wide. We have to cure it before it completely debilitates and destroys our democracy as it has done in Banana Republics of Latin American countries such as Colombia and Peru.

The reluctance today to confront and expose the anti-Hindu personages in Parliament, academia and media because of this disease of "match-fixing". It is said that such attacks would be "personal" and "counter productive". There is however nothing "personal" in such directed and organised attacks. Just as the world focused on Hitler or Mussolini, without thinking of it being personal, therefore we should identify and expose especially the person who today has emerged as the fountain head of the anti-Hindutva campaign.

But we cannot prevail in this struggle, if we have in our midst those suffering from the "Arjuna virus" as-the late Swami Chinmayananda once pointed out, referring to Arjuna's initial reluctance to fight at Kurukshetra. The Babri Masjid legacy is that virus we still have to cure twenty years later.

(The writer is President, Janata Party)

Source: http://dailypioneer.com/columnists/item/52929-twenty-years-on-a-refusal-to-see-the-truth.html

Thursday 29 November 2012

Mumbai Riot planner Raza Acadamy is Free & Nationalist www.hindujagruti.org is Blocked?

THURSDAY, 23 AUGUST 2012

Why no ban on anti-national websites of Raza Academy, Jamat-E-Islami Hindu etc. ? – HJS questions Hindu-hater Congress

Issue of ban on the nationalist HJS’ website !
Dharna agitation on 24th August in Azad Maidan, Mumbai !

Mumbai (Maharashtra)  : A Dharna agitation will be held on 24th August 2012 between 2.00 p.m. and 5.00 p.m. in Azad Maidan, Mumbai, to oppose the ban on Hindu Janajagruti Samiti’s (HJS’) website by the Hindu-hater Congress Government. The website of HJS is a nationalist website. Through this medium, HJS is awakening the Hindus throughout the world and thus in a way assisting the Government. In spite of this being so, the Hindu-hater Congress Government has imposed a ban on HJS’ website. This is an attack on a nationalist and patriotic website which is treading a democratic path.

If the website of HJS is blocked, why have the websites of organisations which spit venom against the Hindus and the Congress such as Raza Academy, Jamat-E-Islami Hind, Tehriq-E-Hurriyat Jammu-Kashmir, tocircle.net etc. not been banned and why are they allowed to continue ? Mr. Ramesh Shinde, national spokesperson of the HJS has posed this question to the Congress. He warned that the ban on HJS website be lifted immediately, failing which HJS will be compelled to take stringent actions such as giving representations in a democratic manner against the Government’s Mughal-like rule, launching nation-wide agitations, raising voice in the Parliament through Members of Parliament and if necessary, taking the Government to task through courts.

He was speaking in a press conference organised by HJS in Mumbai Marathi Patrakar Sangh, Mumbai.

Source : Sanatan Prabhat

Rajiv Gandhi Assassination: Criminals Rewarded?

 The Rajiv Gandhi assassination is a story that refuses to disappear. Likethe Kennedy assassination and that of Abraham Lincoln a century earlier new theories keep cropping up. Here is a report by Sam Rajappa, one of India’s preeminent investigative journalists.
Guest column by Sam Rajappa
Crime and reward: The Curious Investigation of Rajiv’s Assassination
Explosion that killed Rajiv
Explosion that killed Rajiv
THE wage of crime is punishment. In the scheme of things of the Congress First Family, the wage of selective crime is reward. This has been brought out clearly in the latest book, Conspiracy to Kill Rajiv Gandhi: From the CBI Files, by K Ragothaman, chief investigation officer of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. MK Narayanan, then chief of the Intelligence Bureau, had suppressed a vital piece of evidence in the form of a videotape. Vazhapadi Ramamurthy, then president of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee, had arranged with a videographer to record the entire election meeting Rajiv Gandhi was to address at Sriperumbudur on the fateful night of 21 May 1991.
Vital tape made to vanish
The tape contained vital clues leading up to ‘human bomb’ Dhanu blowing up Rajiv, how she gained access to the sterile zone three hours before her gruesome act, and the people with whom she mingled freely during the long wait till the Congress leader arrived. It washanded over to Narayanan on 22 May itself and he wrote a letter to the then Prime Minister Chandrashekhar the same day stating that the tape was being scanned to “IDENTIFY THE LADY” (in capital letters). The lady referred to was the assassin.
DR Karthikeyan, chief of the Special Investigation Team, restrained Ragothaman from pursuing the tape handed over to Narayanan. When Karthikeyan was asked in a TV debate why he did not allow Ragothaman to pursue the impugned tape, hepleaded amnesia but he could remember all other incidents connected with the assassination in minute details. Narayanan’s letter has become a part of the Justice Verma Commission Report. He cannot deny having written it.
Causing disappearance of evidence in a capital offence is punishable with imprisonment for life under Section 201 of the IPC. And if the offence is committed by a public servant, which Narayanan was, he could be prosecuted under Section 204 IPC as well. The sole charge against Suba Sundaram, one of the 26 accused in the assassination case and sentenced to death by the trial court, was attempt to suppress evidence.
MK Narayan, alleged to have suppressed investigation and rewarded for it
MK Narayan, alleged to have suppressed investigation and rewarded for it
A leading news photographer of Chennai, one of his assistants, Haribabu, was engaged by the assassination squad to photograph Rajiv’s Sriperumbudur meeting. On hearing of Haribabu’s death in the explosion, Sundaram wanted to retrieve the camera. Before he could reach the spot a policeman picked it up. The prosecution maintained that had Sundaram retrieved the camera, he would have concealed the exposed filmroll which turned out to be the vital clue in cracking the case. He was never in possession of the film, yet the SIT managed to get him convicted under Section 201. The Supreme Court freed him after 11 years in prison. He died soon after his release.
Sonia blocks investigation, rewards loyalists
Narayanan was in possession of the tell-tale video tape which he suppressed from the SIT. Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao, reportedly convinced of Narayanan’s culpability, not only superannuated him in 1992 but also ordered the CBI to register a criminal case against him. Such was Sonia Gandhi’s clout with the government institutions even before she edged out Sitaram Kesari as Congress president and occupied his chair that the CBI could not proceed with Case No. 1 of 1995 registered against Narayanan. The case was given a quiet burial by Karthikeyan.[Sic: This Karthikeyan was a Sonia loyalist, promoted CBI director at her insistence. (See below.) NSR]
After Narasimha Rao demitted office, Narayanan was brought back as National Security Adviser and when he and P Chidambaram, then Home Minister, fell out, he was elevated as the Governor of West Bengal, a sinecure he still enjoys.
Suppression of evidence was not the only misdemeanour of Narayanan in the assassination of Rajiv. From the time Sivarasan, leader of the assassination squad, reached Tamil Nadu in 1990, Army intelligence had been keeping surveillance on his activities and the IB was kept informed. On 22 March 1991, Sivarasan was asking Pottu Amman, LTTE intelligence chief in Jaffna, over the telephone, whether to try in Chennai or in Delhi. The taped conversation was promptly conveyed to Narayanan.
Sivarasan was also in telephonic contact with Kittu, LTTE’s London representative. On 7 May, Sivarasan and team conducted a dry run at a public meeting addressed by VP Singh in Chennai and kept Pottu Amman informed of its success. Sixteen pages of Sivarasan’s taped conversation with Pottu Amman made available to Narayanan were produced in court during the trial of the 26 accused. There is no record of any pre-emptive action taken by the IB in spite of the forewarning. To reward such a person, to say the least, is intriguing.
Immediately after the assassination, the Chandrashekhar government requested the Tamil Nadu government to send a panel of three suitable names to select the chief of the SIT. K Mohandas, who had just retired as DGP (Intelligence) of the State police, was the first choice. Chandrashekhar showed the list to Sonia Gandhi. She rejected all the three names and asked for D R Karthikeyan, a Karnataka cadre IPS officer who, like his mentor M K Narayanan, had been a Gandhi family loyalist but with no record of any investigative achievement.
Because of his proximity to the family right from Indira Gandhi’s time, Karthikeyan was given a three-year stint in Moscow as First Secretary in the Indian Embassy and a four-year stint in Sydney as Indian Tea Board representative. After guiding the assassination investigation along the lines the Congress wanted, he was promoted to the coveted post of CBI Director and on retirement made the chief of the National Human Rights Commission. And as a crowning glory, he was awarded the Padma Sri.
[Sic: This was bettered when the late Brijesh Mishra was made Padma Vibhushan when Sonia Gandhi’s UPA Government came to power. It is believed this was for Mishra (then Vajpayee’s National Security Advisor) getting Rahul Gandhi released when he was detained by the FBI in the Logan International Airport in Boston. NSR]
Rajiv misled by insiders
At the time of the 1991 Lok Sabha election, Tamil Nadu was under President’s rule. Governor Bhishma Narain Singh cautioned Rajiv against campaigning in the State for security reasons. The Congress had an alliance with the AIADMK and its leader Jayalalitha accepted full responsibility of campaigning for both the Congress and her party candidates and told Rajiv there was no need for him to visit the State. Rajiv conceded to the request of Maragatham Chandrasekhar, whom he called aunty, and even agreed to spend the night in Sriperumbudur, which was vetoed by the Governor.
Sivarasan had given Rs 5 lakh to Lalith, son of Maragatham Chandrasekhar, Congress candidate for Sriperumbudur. Lalith is married to a Sri Lankan woman who was staying with her parents in the Theosophical Society campus in Chennai before her marriage. Using this Sri Lanka connection, Dhanu, the human bomb, wormed her way into the Maragatham household and became a guest.
The Statesman reported that Dhanu was a house guest of the Congress candidate. A criminal defamation case was filed against this newspaper and its correspondent in Chennai by Maragatham. The case was dropped when documentary evidence was produced to substantiate the report. It is not the contention of this writer that Maragatham did everything that facilitated the assassination with any foreknowledge. But what made Karthikeyan cover up her tracks?
Karthikeyan has taken great pains to identify the brand-name of the nine-volt battery used by Dhanu to detonate the belt-bomb that killed Rajiv as ‘Golden Power’ and got the teenager, Perarivalan, used by Sivarasan as an errand boy to buy it from a shop in Chennai, the death sentence which was confirmed by the Supreme Court along with that of three other bit players. The battery containing cadmium compounds bound in zinc sheet was reduced to smithereens in the explosion, leaving hardly any trace.But the SIT could not locate the hand bag found hanging on the shoulder of Dhanu seconds before the explosion.
Sivarasan’s diary produced in the court had an entry showing he had paid Rs 1.5 crore to some person and that Rs. 45 lakh more was to be given to that person. The bomb Dhanu used to kill Rajiv had RDX which was supplied only to the military and not easily available in the open market. Circumstantial evidence shows the Rs 1.5 crore Sivarasan paid was to the person who supplied the RDX.
Why didn’t Karthikeyan investigate this angle? In any assassination of this nature, who benefited from it would form the main line of investigation which Karthikeyan and his team totally ignored. The moribund Multi-Disciplinary Monitoring Agency set up to inquire into the conspiracy behind Rajiv’s assassination has been hibernating for more than a decade. Will Manmohan Singh activate the MDMA? The nation wants to know the truth behind the conspiracy.
Added note: Several knowledgeable individuals beginning with Dr. Subramanian Swamy (a close friend of Rajiv Gandhi’s) have been alleging that Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated to forestall a major change in the national scene including the first family. Whatever, it is extraordinary that so many members of the first family—Indira, Sanjay and Rahul—should have met with violent ends.
The pattern did not end with Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. Several members of Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra— his father, brother and a sister have died under mysterious circumstances. Is all this a coincidence or the result of a conspiracy by inimical forces? The mystery has only been deepened by the strange conduct of some family members like Priyanka secretly meeting Nalini who is in prison for her part in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination. This is only the latest twist in the mystery that refuses to disappear.
The writer Sam Rajappa is a veteran journalist and former Director of Statesman Print Journalism School.
Source : Folks Magazine

Read and watch only intelligent and pro-active media !

The news about denigration and insult of Shri Ganesh by anti-Hindu Dr. Zakir Naik was first published by ‘Dainik Sanatan Prabhat’ and later by a few Periodicals. However, not many news channels covered this. This shows that media in the Hindu-majority Bharat is anti-Hindu. It looks down upon and is least concerned about the religious sentiments of the Hindus. Information on how ideal and principled journalism should be is given in Holy text ‘Sanatan’s Journalism’. Leave alone principled journalism, today’s journalists do not even engage in objective news-collection, and thus work towards keeping Hindus in the dark. 
            O Readers ! Since anti-Hindu media is on the rise, your responsibility too has increased. Please identify Periodicals you read from the list given ahead. Boycott media that is deceptive and keeps you in the dark, and subscribe only to intelligent and pro-active Periodicals. Please also inform the nearest office of ‘Dainik Sanatan Prabhat’ about the names of Periodicals which are unprincipled.

Types of Periodicals
     1. Demoniacal : Those which provide a perspective conducive for anti-national and heretic acts.
     2. Inert : Those which do not publish news on anti-national and heretic acts and if they do, they do not mention the religion of the criminal under the pretext that ‘criminals have no religion’; for example, those who advocateSarvadharmasamabhav (Equality among religions).
    3. Unintelligent : Those which publish news on anti-national and heretic acts, but do not educate the readers on any aspect.
    4. Intelligent : Those which publish news on anti-national, heretic elements and educate readers.
    5. Pro-active : Those which publish news about anti-national and heretic elements and encourage readers towards action; for example, ‘Sanatan Prabhat’.
            Since most Hindus in Bharat are inert, lack intelligence and are demoniacal, Periodicals with identical traits have millions of readers. Intelligent and pro-active Hindus are in minority and hence, Periodicals with identical traits do not have many readers. Therefore, the number of readers of Periodicals like ‘Sanatan Prabhat’ is insignificant.
 
We have to change this situation so as to be able to establish the ‘Hindu Nation’.
 
- Dr. Athavale (Nij Bhadrapad Shukla Paksha 12, Kaliyug Varsh 5114 [27.9.2012])
O Hindus ! Boycott media that keep you in the dark !
 
The news about denigration and insult of Shri Ganesh by anti-Hindu Dr. Zakir Naik was first published by ‘Dainik Sanatan Prabhat’ and later by a few Periodicals and news channels. The newspapers that did not publish this news (since they are Demoniacal / inert) is given ahead.
 
English newspapers : The Times of India, The Indian Express, Economic Times, Financial Express, Hindustan Times, The Week, The Hindu
 
TV news channels : CNN-IBN, Times Now
 
            Newspapers and news channels that did not publish this news have incurred the sin of keeping the Hindus in the dark about the denigration of their seats of faith. O Hindus ! Protest against them in a legitimate manner !

Thursday 8 November 2012

Mid-air scare: Man turns violent on Mumbai-Delhi flight, raises Islamic slogans


NEW DELHI: In what was described by a frequent flyer as the "scariest flight of his life", a passenger on board a Mumbai-Delhi IndiGo flight suddenly turned violent mid-air on Wednesday and started raising Islamic slogans while threatening to harm the aircraft. The situation turned so alarming that the cabin crew and passengers pinned down the flyer, Mursalim Shaikh, 41, and blocked the aisle with a food trolley to prevent him from making a dash for the cockpit.

The IndiGo flight 6E 196 made a quick descent in Delhi after seeking priority landing, where Shaikh, a used car dealer from Babu Tansen Chawl in Virar, was handed over to security agencies.

The drama began about an hour after the plane had taken off from Mumbai at 3.45pm and was flying over Jaipur. Shaikh, bearded and dressed in a pathani suit, was seated on seat 28 A. "He suddenly turned around on the seat to face an aged woman on 29A and started muttering menacingly to her," a flyer said. An airhostess reportedly asked Shaikh to sit properly, but he kept gazing at her before suddenly slapping her, turning very aggressive.

Recalling the hijack scare on a Delhi-Mumbai flight, a co-passenger said, "Shaikh was waving a cellphone and threatening 'sabko dekh loonga' (I will teach everyone a lesson)." Male passengers and the crew together pinned Shaikh down. Then women and children seated in the rear were sent to the front and a food trolley was placed in the aisle to prevent Shaikh from going towards the cockpit.

Confirming the incident, IndiGo said, "This unruly passenger started screaming and also physically assaulted a crew member. The passenger also got violent with co-passengers, and tried to access the forward of the aircraft. IndiGo crew made appropriate announcements and deployed security measures to block access to the front of the aircraft and the front galley."

Said a passenger, "We landed soon after the man had been overpowered." The flight commander had requested for security personnel on arrival. The passenger was taken out at 6.13pm and handed over to the CISF. IndiGo said it was in the process of lodging an FIR. "An untoward conduct of this nature is of serious concern to us. We will take all necessary action to address this violation," IndiGo said.

While passengers said the landing in Delhi came as a huge relief, the drama did not end there. For, the airline and airport personnel did not handle the situation as professionally as the crew had done in the air. "Once the aircraft door opened, we expected security personnel to rush in and arrest the flyer. But the airline's own security team came into the aircraft. We were first asked to alight and then a second announcement was made asking us to stay seated. We were wondering why security agencies did not just whisk the guy away?" said a passenger.

The IGI domestic airport police have arrested Shaikh and registered a case for criminal intimidation, assault and threatening the crew. The Intelligence Bureau is quizzing him.



Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Mid-air-scare-Man-turns-violent-on-Mumbai-Delhi-flight-raises-Islamic-slogans/articleshow/17135286.cms

CBI officer probing 2G scam passes away


CBI official Suresh Kumar Palsania, who meticulously investigated the 2G spectrum scam, died on Wednesday night due to a blood disorder.

44-year-old Palsania, who was termed as one of the bright officers of the agency, passed away at a private hospital in South Delhi due to a terminal illness.

Hailing from Rajasthan, Palsania was a 1996 batch IPS officer of Odhisa cadre and was working with the CBI since 2006.

An engineering graduate, Palsania, who was posted as Deputy Inspector General with the CBI, was a recipient of this year's Police Medal for meritorious service announced on the Republic day.

CBI Director A P Singh, who is at present in Rome for Interpol Conference, expressed shock over the sad demise of Palsania.

"We are all crushed and shocked. He was one of the best officers of the CBI," Singh told PTI.
Palsania filed chargesheet in the 2G case booking the then Telecom Minister A Raja and DMK leader Kanimozhi, besides a number of top honchos of telecom companies.

Palsania had walked out of a meeting with a senior government law officer who wanted to discuss the strategy on 2G case with him along with the lawyer of the former telecom minister A Raja, who was in jail.

He had recently visited Malaysia and other countries to pursue the quick processing of the Letters Rogatory in connection with the case.

Palsania also initiated a probe in the Commonwealth Games scam and was also in the two-member team that went to London to probe Suresh Kalmadi's role in the Queen's Baton Relay controversy.


Source: http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_cbi-officer-probing-2g-scam-passes-away_1761810

Tulsi Gabbard feels her Hindu faith an asset as Congresswoman


Washington: Tulsi Gabbard, who appears all set to become the first Hindu to be elected to the US House of Representatives, has said her faith would be an asset in the Congress as it would help enhance mutual understanding between America and India. "It is clear that there needs to be a closer working relationship between the United States and India. How can we have a close relationship if decision-makers in Washington know very little, if anything, about the religious beliefs, values, and practices of India's 800 million Hindus?" Gabbard asked.

"Hopefully the presence in Congress of an American who happens to be Hindu will increase America's understanding of India as well as India's understanding of America," Gabbard, 31, was quoted as saying 'Religion News Service' news agency. While Gabbard has welcomed Indian-American support, her campaign noted that their contributions account for less than 3 per cent of the total it has raised.

Still, her potential election has electrified the Hindu American community, which is estimated to be from 600,000 to 2.3 million, most of them Indian-Americans. Gabbard, was born in American Samoa to a Catholic father and a Hindu mother, fully embraced Hinduism as a teenager. Gabbard was elected to the Hawaii state legislature in 2002, when she was only 21.

This image has been taken from Tulsi's Twitter account.
(For updates you can share with your friends, follow IBNLive on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest)

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/tulsi-gabbard-feels-her-hindu-faith-an-asset-as-congresswoman/304382-2.html

At the Heart of a Political Brawl in India, Two Historic Newspapers

A screenshot of the masthead of Qaumi Awaz, an Urdu  newspaper started by Jawaharlal Nehru, that was shut down in 2008.  
Anindianmuslim.com blog
A screenshot of the masthead of Qaumi Awaz, an Urdu  newspaper started by Jawaharlal Nehru, that was shut down in 2008. 


Subramanian Swamy, chief of the Janata Party, on Thursday accused Sonia Gandhi, the Congress Party president, and Rahul Gandhi, the Congress general secretary, of illegally purchasing a publishing company to gain ownership over land that it held, and loaning it money from party coffers.

Hours later, Mr. Gandhi, in a letter addressed to Mr. Swamy and circulated in the press, called Mr. Swamy’s accusations “utterly false, entirely baseless and defamatory,” and threatened to sue. “We are committed to pursuing all legal actions against the scandalous abuse evident in your so-called ‘press conference,’ ” the letter said. A suit against Mr. Swamy could be filed in the next few days, one adviser said.

At the heart of the acrimonious battle, just the latest between Mr. Swamy and the Gandhi family, is a company called Young Indian. Mr. Swamy claims it was established by Mrs. Gandhi and her son to do what he called a “stinking deal” aimed at acquiring a publicly listed publishing company, Associated Journals. Associated Journals owned property in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi worth, he said, $295 million.

Beyond Mr. Swamy’s allegations, public information about Young Indian, Associated Journals or the alleged land deals is limited, but the company appears to be a not-for-profit formed to revive two historic newspapers.


From the Ministry of Corporate Affairs’ Web site comes this list of “Section 25” companies, or those formed “for the sole purpose of promoting commerce, art, science, religion and charity or any other useful objects.” According to page 61, Young Indian was formed on Nov. 23, 2010, and lists its address as 5A, Herald House, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, in New Delhi.

Among other rules, Section 25 companies must apply any income or profits to promoting its objectives, and are forbidden to pay dividends to members.
Former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, in this 1962 file photo. 
United Press InternationalFormer Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, in this 1962 file photo.
Associated Journals stopped publication of two of its newspapers in 2008, long before Young Indian was formed. Qaumi Awaz, an Urdu newspaper founded by Mr. Gandhi’s great-grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, and the English-language National Herald, which was edited by Mr. Nehru before he became prime minister, shut down in the spring of 2008.

At the time, loyal readers decried their closure, particularly because it came while Mr. Nehru’s Congress Party was in power. “Sonia Gandhi’s intervention would have saved the papers,” wrote the blogger An Indian Muslim at the time. “Forever I will miss the newspaper that was once largely circulated in entire North India.”

Young Indian planned to revive the papers, the Press Trust of India reported on Oct. 9. The news agency, citing Registrar of Companies documents, said the former Indian Express editor Suman Dubey was the signatory to the company and that the papers would be “set up under the guidance of top leadership of Congress Party,” and that Sam Pitroda, a telecommunications industry entrepreneur, was also involved.

Rahul Gandhi’s office had responded to the Press Trust of India’s e-mail inquiries by saying that Young Indian “is a not-for-profit company and does not have commercial operations” and that it had “no intention of starting” any newspapers, and neither Mr. Dubey or Mr. Pitroda responded to questions.

However, Mr. Pitroda’s official website, in his current capacity as adviser to the prime minister, displays a Hindustan Times article from May 2011 which reported that the Congress Party would soon be restarting the National Herald along with its Hindi edition, Navjeevan, and the Urdu edition, Qaumi Awaz.

Mr. Pitroda, the adviser to prime minister on public information, infrastructure and innovations, was roped in “to give a new look to the publications,” the Hindustan Times said.

On Thursday, Mr. Swamy also alleged that the All India Congress Committee had given Associated Journals an unsecured loan of over $16 million, which he said was illegal because a political party cannot give loans for commercial purposes under the Income Tax Act.

Janardan Dwivedi, chairman, media department of the All India Congress Committee said in a statement Friday that the object of the Indian National Congress is the “well being and advancement” of the Indian people and that it has done its duty by supporting The Associated Journals “to help initiate a process to bring the newspaper back to health in compliance with the laws of the land”. The support, the statement says, was in the form of “interest free loans from which no commercial profit has accrued to the Indian National Congress.”

An income tax lawyer, who asked to remain anonymous because of a conflict of interest, said that a loan such as Mr. Swamy had described would be illegal according to Section 13 A of the Income Tax Act, which speaks of special provisions made for the income of political parties. Income of political parties is exempted from taxation, he said, however the money thus exempted is not meant to be used for purposes other than those of the political party.

Phone calls to the Registrar of Companies went unanswered, as did calls to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, the Securities and Exchange Board of India and the offices of Mr. Gandhi and Mr. Pitroda.


Source: http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/at-the-heart-of-a-political-brawl-in-india-two-historic-newspapers/

Sunday 4 November 2012

Cong admits giving interest-free loans to revive National Herald

New Delhi: Breaking its silence, the Congress on Friday rejected allegations levelled by Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy and maintained that its support to National Herald newspaper was interest-free loans yielding no commercial profit to the party. After the party spokesman and other top leaders during the day refused to go into Swamy’s allegations, the party came out with its position in a late night press release.

Congress General Secretary Janardan Dwivedi said in the release that the Congress has done its duty in supporting The Associated Journals Limited to help initiate a process to bring the newspaper back to health in compliance with the law of the land. “This support was extended by the Indian National Congress in the form of interest-free loans from which no commercial profit has accrued to INC,” the release said.


Courtesy: ibn live
On Thursday, Swamy addressed a press conference in which he alleged that Congress party gave a loan of Rs 90 crores to Associated Journals that published the now defunct National Herald and Quami Awaz, which was in violation of Income Tax and election laws. He had also said that a new company Young Indian was floated to take over the functioning of Associated Journals by Sonia and Rahul to grab a prized building in the capital and renting it out in violation of laws.

Dwivedi said the object of Congress is the well-being and advancement of the people of India and the establishment in India, by peaceful and constitutional means of a social state based on Parliamentary democracy in which there is equality of opportunity and of political, economic and social rights and which aims at world peace and fellowship.

“In furtherance of its object and its political activities, it is a matter of pride for the Indian National Congress that it has supported The Associated Journals Limited, publisher of the National Herald and other newspapers, founded by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in 1937, which have played a role in our freedom movement.

“The Indian National Congress has done its duty in supporting The Associated Journals to help initiate a process to bring the newspaper back to health in compliance with the laws of the land,” Dwivedi said.

PTI 

Source: http://www.firstpost.com/politics/congress-admits-giving-interest-free-loans-to-revive-national-herald-newspaper-513113.html?utm_source=storypage&utm_source=article_politics

Why Swamy is begging to be sued by Sonia, Rahul

by Nov 2, 2012


When you’re a one-man army pitted against a sophisticated war machine, going to conventional battle, where you can be outgunned and outnumbered, is a bit of a mug’s game. Which is why the wily warrior chooses the battleground where he has a natural advantage, and tries to ensnare his enemies in his parlour, so to speak.

Subramanian Swamy, who has for long been waging a lonely battle against big-ticket corruption deploying the due process of law, on Thursday sounded the bugle to signal his latest guerrilla war effort. And this time, the political targets he has in his sights are not peripheral players in the UPA beehive, but the Queen Bee – Sonia Gandhi – herself, and her son Rahul Gandhi.


On Thursday, Swamy laid out what he said was prima facie evidence of mala fide transactions that underlay the acquisition by a private company called Young India (floated by Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi under Section 25 of the Companies Act) of prime, high-value real estate in Delhi and other places owned by Associated Journals Ltd. Associated Journals was a public limited company floated by Congress leaders with public donation during the Indian freedom struggle to spread the message of the independence movement.

Subramanian Swamy. PTI
Swamy then furnished documents which purported to establish that the acquisition of Associated Journals was illegal on several counts, and that both Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi were allegedly in technical violation of several laws. Indicatively, in his election affidavit in 2009, Rahul Gandhi had not declared his shareholdings in Young Indian, and could therefore have been in technical breach of election law. Likewise, Sonia Gandhi had also allegedly misused the government accommodation provided to her at 10, Janpath by permitting a shareholder meeting of Young Indian to be held at the premises.

For all the excitement that the micro-details of this case may give rise to in those with a keen interest in legal minutiae, the allegations seem extraordinarily tame compared to the over-the-top allegations we’ve come to expect from Subramanian Swamy, particularly when he gets his accusatory engine warmed up and he has Sonia Gandhi in his sights.

For instance, Swamy has in the past alleged, among other things, that Sonia Gandhi conspired with the LTTE to have Rajiv Gandhi assassinated, that Sonia Gandhi had KGB connections, and that Sonia Gandhi had conspired to delay medical attention for Indira Gandhi after the latter was shot by her Sikh security guards in 1984.

Even the headline number that Swamy invoked on Thursday as a measure of the land scandal involving Young Indian and Associated Journals—of the order of Rs 1,600 crore—is small change, as Beni Prasad Verma might say, considering that under the UPA’s watch, the bar for corruption in high places has been raised to lakhs of crores of rupees.

What accounts for the sudden diminution in the scale of allegations that Swamy is levelling against Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi? Why have his horizons shrunk?

It appears that whereas Subramanian Swamy’s earlier allegations, involving elaborate and somewhat fantastic conspiracy theories, may have, for all the weight of circumstantial evidence that he marshalled, been intended as polemical muck-raking to score political points, this time, he is looking to draw Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi into a legal battle, on turf that he is rather more comfortable with.

For precisely the reason that Swamy’s earlier allegations were so over the top (and therefore easier to dismiss as the wild and fanciful imagination of a fevered mind), the latest charges, for all their chillar nature, sound more credible, particularly in an environment in which the lid has been blown off corruption in high places with recent damaging revelations about everyone, from Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra to BJP president Nitin Gadkari.
From all accounts, Swamy’s strategy of provoking Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi to respond—unlike in times past—has already succeeded. A letter purporting to be from “Rahul Gandhi’s office” addressed to Swamy (but which made it to the media) says Rahul Gandhi reserves “all options”—including, presumably, the option to sue Swamy for defamation. Which, ironically, is what Swamy wants: he would like nothing better to get Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in the stand, where he can use his right as his own defence counsel to cross-examine them and pose all the embarrassing questions that he’s been shooting at them all these years, but which they have airily dismissed. In a court of law, however, it’s difficult to get away by sniffing snootily at embarrassing questions.

This accounts precisely for why all of Thursday evening, in his appearance on several television channels, Swamy has virtually been egging Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi to sue him for defamation.

“My advice for Rahul Gandhi,” Swamy said on one such channel stop, “is to grow up – and go to court.”

Chinese Internet entrepreneur Jack Ma (of Alibaba fame) used famously to liken himself to a crocodile in the Yangtze river: if he were to take on the global e-commerce giants, which were like sharks in the ocean, on their turf, he would lose, he said. “But if we fight in the swamps and marshes of the Yangtze river, we will win.”

Subramanian Swamy has likewise been looking to lure Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi out of 10 Janpath, from which comfortable cocoon they have thus far been engaging with the world on their terms. This time, he has offered them a juicy bait, with which he hopes to get them to venture into the turf where he enjoys territorial advantage: the court of law. The Ganges gharial is now lying in wait, hoping the sharks will stray into the bogs and marshes he knows so well.


Source:  http://www.firstpost.com/politics/why-swamy-is-begging-to-be-sued-by-sonia-rahul-512563.html

Past makes Indians nervous of foreign cash

 By Subramanian Swamy
Illustration: Liu Rui
Illustration: Liu Rui
India suffered from British imperialism for two centuries. Unlike in China, where colonial influence was exerted indirectly, the British ruled the country through an established government that exploited peasants and workers through the machinery of rule, sucked agriculture dry of resources through an imposed feudal system, and exported India's resources to Britain to finance its industrial development.

The British imposition of a Western education and government system blocked locals from benefiting from the industrial revolution sweeping Europe.

It is against this background that Indians view foreign investment. Indians are naturally suspicious of the motives of foreign investors and want to proceed cautiously.

The fundamental principle we wish to follow is to accept what is necessary according to what we need and cannot easily produce ourselves. Thus India does not want to globalize blindly.

Unlike most other countries including China, India's households provide more than 85 percent of domestic savings, which make up an overwhelming proportion of investment today. Their contribution may be as high as 35 percent of GDP.

 Foreign investment can add to this pool of investment funds, but it comes at a cost. If the foreign investment comes as portfolio investment, with the mobility to enter and exit at short notice, it causes financial instability.

If we allow financial services to be penetrated by foreign firms, then they will recklessly use computer generated derivatives to convert mortgage into liquid funds as we saw recently in the US.

There the financial services wizards shifted and spread risk through derivatives to overload the financial system. As a consequence, a small perturbation in the economic situation caused a huge recession in the US economy and resulted in a worldwide slump.

Foreign portfolio investment with unbridled derivatives can wreck any economy. India therefore has to exercise great caution that, in our open economic system, the winds of financial globalization do not destabilize our future prospects.

At present, there is great agonizing going on in India about foreign direct investment in retail trade and insurance and pension funds. As far as retail trade is concerned, Indian traditional traders work on very small margins, because the cost of capital measured by the prime lending rate of banks over 12 to 18 percent annually, a painfully high rate.

In contrast, for companies like the US giant Walmart, the lending rate is 2 to 4 percent. Hence, the Indian traders, who number in their millions, are agitated, because there cannot be fair competition on a level playing field with Walmart and other US competitors that benefit from favorable policies.

In addition, wage rates will rise if Walmart and similar firms recruit Indian labor, making it even more difficult for Indian traders to face competition.

And why do we need Walmart? What new technologies or techniques will it bring that Indians do not know already?

In China, Walmart's entry is understandable since the decades of the planned economy set back trade as an activity.

Hence when China, under former leader Deng Xiaoping's guidance, undertook economic reforms in the 1980s, China had to fill the trading class void by importing the marketing services of foreign companies.

However in India, we have no shortage of traders and hence this argument does not apply.

If the US was ready to allow Indian companies to take Indian labor to the US to build roads, constructing houses, running textile companies, and setting up software companies, then I would not object to Walmart coming to India.

But we cannot accept the US double standard of bringing in cheap capital to India and use its cheap labor but not allowing Indian companies to bring cheap labor to the US and borrow cheap capital from US banks.



The author is president of India's Janata Party. He received his PhD in economics at Harvard University and is a former Indian Cabinet minister for commerce and law. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn


Source:  http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/741779.shtml#.UJMYd6xKyIs.twitter

Revealed: Nehru wanted to scuttle Sardar’s Hyderabad plan

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the then Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister of India, whose 137th birth anniversary is on October 31, was insulted, humiliated and disgraced by the then Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, during a Cabinet meeting. “You are a complete communalist and I’ll never be a party to your suggestions and proposals,” Nehru shouted at Patel during a crucial Cabinet meeting to discuss the liberation of Hyderabad by the Army from the tyranny of the Razakkars, the then Nizam’s private army.
 
“A shocked Sardar Patel collected his papers from the table and slowly walked out of the Cabinet room. That was the last time Patel attended a Cabinet meeting. He also stopped speaking to Nehru since then,” writes MKK Nair, a 1947 batch IAS officer, in his memoirs “With No Ill Feeling to Anybody”. Nair had close ties with both Sardar and VP Menon, his Man Friday.
 
Though Nair has not written the exact date of the above mentioned Cabinet meeting, it could have happened during the weeks prior to the liberation of Hyderabad by the Indian Army. Operation Polo, the mission to liberate Hyderabad from the Nizam, began on September 13, 1948 and culminated on September 18. While Sardar Patel wanted direct military action to liberate Hyderabad from the rape and mayhem perpetrated by the 2,00,000 Razakars, Nehru preferred the United  Nations route.
 
Nair writes that Nehru’s personal hatred for Sardar Patel came out in the open on December 15, 1950, the day the Sardar breathed his last in Bombay (now Mumbai). “Immediately after he got the news about Sardar Patel’s death, Nehru sent two notes to the Ministry of States. The notes reached VP Menon, the then Secretary to the Ministry. In one of the notes, Nehru had asked Menon to send the official Cadillac car used by Sardar Patel to the former’s office. The second note was shocking. Nehru wanted government secretaries desirous of attending Sardar Patel’s last rites to do so at their own personal expenses.
 
“But Menon convened a meeting of all secretaries and asked them to furnish the names of those who want to attend the last rites of Patel. He did not mention anything about the note sent by Nehru. Menon paid the entire cost of the air tickets for those secretaries who expressed their wish to attend Sardar’s last journey. This further infuriated Nehru,” Nair has written about his memoirs in the corridors of power in New Delhi.
 
Nair’s friendship with Patel began during the former’s posting in Hyderabad as a civilian officer of the Army. “I was a bachelor and my guest house was a rendezvous of all those in the inner circle of the then Nizam of Hyderabad. Every night they arrived with bundles of currency notes. We gambled and played flash and the stakes were high. During the game I served them the finest Scotch. After a couple of drinks, the princes and the junior Nawabs would open their minds and reveal the secret action plans being drawn out in the Nizam’s palace. Once intoxicated, they would tell me about the plans to merge Hyderabad with Pakistan after independence. This was information that no one outside the Nawab’s close family members and the British secret service were privy to. But I ensured that this information reached directly to Sardar Patel and thus grew our relation,” writes Nair.
The relation between Nair and Sardar Patel was such that the former’s director general in the ministry told him once: “Sardar Patel keeps an open house for you.” Nair, who worked in various ministries during his three-decade long civil service career, writes that the formation of North East Frontier Service under the Ministry of External Affairs by Nehru and the removal of the affairs of the Jammu & Kashmir from the Ministry of Home Affairs are the major reasons behind the turmoil in both the regions. 
 
“This was done by Nehru to curtail the wings of Sardar Patel,” Nair has written. Though Sardar Patel was known as a no-nonsense man devoid of any sense of humour, Nair has written about lighter moments featuring him. The one centres around VP Menon with whom Patel had a special relation. Menon had to face the ire of Nesamani Nadar, a Congress MP from Kanyakumari, during his visit to Thiruvananthapuram in connection with the reorganisation of States. Nadar barged into Menon’s suit in the State Gust House and shouted at him for not obeying his diktats. Menon, who was enjoying his quota of sun-downer, asked Nadar to get out of his room. A furious Nadar sent a six-page letter to Sardar Patel trading all kinds of charges against Menon. “He was fully drunk when I went to meet him in the evening and he abused me using the filthiest of languages,” complained Nadar in his letter.
 
Sardar Patel, who read the letter in full asked his secretary V Shankar, an ICS officer: “Shankar, does VP take drinks?” Shankar, who was embarrassed by the question, had to spill the beans. “Sir, Menon takes a couple of drinks in the evening,” he said. Sardar was curious to know what was Menon’s favorite drink. Shankar replied that Menon preferred only Scotch. “Shankar, you instruct all government secretaries to take Scotch in the evening,” Sardar told Shankar. Nair writes that this anecdote was a rave in the Delhi evenings for a number of years!
 
Balraj Krishna (92), who authored Sardar’s biography, told The Pioneer that Nehru was opposed to Babu Rajendra Prasad, the then President, travelling to Bombay to pay his last respects to Patel. “But Prasad insisted and made it to Bombay,” said Krishna. MV Kamath, senior journalist, said though Nehru too attended the funeral of Patel, it was C Rajagopalachari, who delivered the funeral oration.
 
Prof MGS Narayanan, former chairman of Indian Council of Historical Research, said there was no reason to disbelieve what Nair has written. “But his memoirs did not get the due recognition it deserved. It is a historical chronicle of pre-and post independent India,” he said.


Source: http://www.dailypioneer.com/home/online-channel/360-todays-newspaper/105521-revealed-nehru-wanted-to-scuttle-sardars-hyderabad-plan.html