'Opposition paid back in same coin in Nandigram'-India-The Times of India

'Opposition paid back in same coin in Nandigram'-India-The Times of India

KOLKATA: Defending the recapture of Nandigram by ruling CPM, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Tuesday said opposition parties there were "paid back in the same coin".

"They have been paid back in the same coin. Our supporters, after remaining away from their homes for 11 months, were desperate to return. They risked their lives and returned home," Bhattacharjee told a press conference here.

He accused the Centre of delay in sending the CRPF sought by his government for deployment in Nandigram and said had the central forces arrived in time, the situation could have been avoided.

"I wrote to the Home ministry on October 27, but they informed me on November 5 that they could not provide central forces because they were to be sent to Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh (where assembly polls will be held)," Bhattacharjee said.

Asked whether the events in Nandigram took place as a result of the failure of the police, Bhattacharjee replied "to some extent it is their failure. The police could not enter Nandigram. If they could have, the situation would have been better".

Bhattacharjee said he had personally called up Union Home minister Shivraj Patil and External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and urged them to send central forces.

"One battalion of CRPF was sanctioned for Nandigram. They reached Kolkata on 11 and went to Nandigram the next day," he said.

India Manifesto Comments: Where have we heard this before? Hmmm... Let us think!

Oh! Yes!! It was during Rajiv Gandhi who said, "When a big tree falls, the earth is bound to shake" - when Sikhs were being killed by his Congress party after the murder of his mother Indira Gandhi. For Buddha, like any other good communist, it is party before people - not surprising.

WSJ: India's Rural Innovators Help Open Students' Eyes

India's Rural InnovatorsHelp Open Students' Eyes
Network o InventorsFrom Poorer AreasBecomes Global Model
By CRIS PRYSTAYNovember 9, 2007

In the second year of earning his M.B.A. at the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, Gaurav Gupta made a three-hour journey to a village outside the city to chat with a former textile-mill clerk as part of an assignment for a class about innovation.
He and four classmates spent the day with Sakrabhai Prajapati, inventor of a swinging chair that doubles as an exercise machine. The students came back amazed. "You would assume that any scientific thinking behind a new process would come from a person with education," says Mr. Gupta, who graduated with his M.B.A. in 2001 and now is associate rural marketing manager at Nokia Corp.'s Indian unit. "During the course, I realized that it's not just this innovator, but there [are] so many others [in poor areas who have] come up with such great solutions to simplify their own lives."

The assignment is part of a bigger effort to promote grassroots innovation overseen by Prof. Anil K. Gupta, founder in 1988 of Honeybee Network, an online database of rural innovations that has aspirations of becoming the Wikipedia of grassroots inventions. Mr. Gupta calls the effort an innovation-pedia, and he wants to see it become a platform for incubation of innovations around the world.

Innovations in the database range from traditional herbal treatments handed down over generations to solutions to everyday rural problems, like a plow and weeding device that can be attached to a motorcycle.

So far, Honeybee has catalogued more than 70,000 innovations by rural inventors in India alone, and has helped several hundred of these meet third-party entrepreneurs who want to license their technologies. It also has filed more than 142 patents, such as a Singapore patent for a walnut-peeling machine and a U.S. patent for a tree-climbing apparatus. Two dozen patents have been granted.

The field trips for Mr. Gupta's M.B.A. students began a few years ago. Part of the exercise is practical: The students work on mini business plans that the inventors might use. But the trips also are about opening students' eyes. "When they start looking at the poor as providers, as a source of creativity, the tail will start wagging the dog," says Mr. Gupta, no relation to student Gaurav Gupta.

In turn, the Honeybee Network is about teaching big business to see India's less-developed communities differently: as a source of product ideas and potential business partners, and not just a market for dumbed-down technologies, simplified products or charity cases for corporate social-responsibility campaigns.

"We don't want a system where you first create a lot of growth and try to create a lot of CSR [corporate social-responsibility] programs as a nod to the poor; you include them as stakeholders right up front," he says.

Honeybee is going global. In 2004, Liyan Zhang, a professor from the Tianjin University of Finance and Economics, won a scholarship to study entrepreneurship at IIM Ahmedabad, and met Mr. Gupta. She and Mr. Gupta obtained World Bank funding in 2005 for a project with Tianjin University and Genesis Institute, a university in Rio de Janeiro.
Both schools have since set up similar networks and begun to teach similar lessons. Mr. Gupta is a visiting professor at Tianjin University. In May, Tianjin and Honeybee hosted a conference with participants, mostly academics, from 15 countries, who agreed to turn Honeybee into a global platform.

The China network already has logged 500 innovations, including one by a teenager who designed a shoe rack that kills shoe odor. Eighteen-year-old We Zhi Chuan, chairman of his Tianjin school's innovation association, built his "bactericidal shoe-hanging machine" to wipe out the smell in his running shoes. An avid ping pong player, he hated the way his shoes stank after a sweaty game. So he made a multiprong stand that comes equipped with an ultraviolet light on the end of each prong to kill the bacteria that cause odor.

"Nobody in the world, not one of the major shoe manufacturers, thought of this," says Mr. Gupta.

Businesses are starting to tap the network. An employee at Matrix BioSciences, part of Hyderabad-based Matrix Group, learned of Honeybee during a Web search for a new pesticide. "In one afternoon, we came across it on the Net, and by the next morning at 7 a.m. I was in Ahmedabad. Something told me there's something really wonderful going on here," says Ramesh Chouhan, president of the Matrix Group.

In August, the company struck a deal to commercialize natural agricultural products including herbal pesticides and a treatment for mastitis in dairy cows, made by a pool of 11 farmers in Gujarat that Honeybee helped band together. Matrix BioSciences, which chalked up $3 million in revenue last year selling products including veterinary medicine and pesticides, is labeling the new products "The Innovation Series," and will put the name of each inventor on the label and share profits with them.

Last month, Matrix launched 13 of the products. These include a natural pesticide that fights mites and prevents leaf-curl disease, concocted by Popatbhai Rupabhai Jambucha, an illiterate farmer from Gujurat; and a herbal pesticide that keeps aphids, white flies and mealy bugs away, this one made by Arkhiben Mithabhai Vankar, a village healer and midwife. Mrs. Arkhiben, from the interior of Gujarat, is a 65-year-old widow who made about 12,000 rupees, or about $300, a year before her patent was filed and the deal with Matrix signed; Dr. Chouhan estimates she will earn several hundred thousand rupees next year.

NEPAL Communists attack Hindu faithful: a child of 6 in grave conditions - Asia News

NEPAL Communists attack Hindu faithful: a child of 6 in grave conditions - Asia News

» 10/30/2007 11:32
NEPAL
Communists attack Hindu faithful: a child of 6 in grave conditions
by Kalpit Parajuli

During celebrations for the feast of Dashian, a group from the Communist Youth League launched an attack with knives and batons on a group of Hindu faithful gathered in a temple. Before leaving they warned: no more idol worship.

Kathmandu (AsiaNews) – A group from the Communist Youth League, which answers to the Nepalese Maoist Party, yesterday launched a knife and baton attack on a group of Hindu faithful who were celebrating the festival of Dashian, guilty of “idol worship”. According to early reports, there are 14 victims in grave conditions: among them a child of only 6 years of age.

The attack took place in Kalikot, 700 kilometres west of Kathmandu. The young aggressors then threatened the faithful, to force them to “abandon all idol worship”. Ramji Pun, present during the attack adds: “They attacked the worshipers without any warning and those who were inside the temple are among the seriously injured”.

Dashian celebrations last ten days during which ten Hindu gods and goddesses are revered. According Din Bahadur Magar, chief of the local Communist league, “Praying to statues and carvings of gods does not lead to heaven nor it gives us what we desire for. Then why to spend time, money and labour going to temple?" He added, "We have no any enmity with Hindu but with their practice. Therefore, we can oppose not only Hindus but also any other idol worshipers”.

AKI - Adnkronos international India: Muslim girl translates Hindu religious texts into Urdu

AKI - Adnkronos international India: Muslim girl translates Hindu religious texts into Urdu

India: Muslim girl translates Hindu religious texts into Urdu



Varanasi, 4 Oct. (AKI/Asian Age ) - Nazneen Ansari, a Muslim girl living in the holy Hindu city of Varanasi, in India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh has assigned herself a unique task of translating Hindu religious texts into Urdu.

Ansari feels that this will help people of both faiths understand each other better.

"I have done this to bring people closer to each other. There are many people who cannot read Hindi. Now, they can read Hanuman Chalisa [a key Hindu religious text] in Urdu and understand the meaning and moral of the text."

"This is my humble effort towards forging better understanding between the two communities," she told a news channel.

She has already translated Hanuman Chalisa into Urdu and is now working on the Hindu epic Ram Charitra Manas.

Hanuman Chalisa is a Hindi-language poem that has gained enormous popularity among Hindus. Many of them recite it as a prayer every week, generally on Tuesdays or Saturdays.

Is it Possible to be a Hindu Follower of Christ? | Christianpost.com

Is it Possible to be a Hindu Follower of Christ? | Christianpost.com


Is it Possible to be a Hindu Follower of Christ?
By
Michelle Vu
Christian Post Reporter
Sat, Oct. 06 2007 11:45 AM ET
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DALLAS, Texas – Is it possible to be a Hindu and a follower of Jesus Christ?

Related
* Interview: Dr. Ralph D. Winter on Frontier Missions in India
* Center for World's Unreached in India, Says Global Church Expert

Some of the world’s top missiologists are not only nodding their heads, but even advocating the practice.

Contrary to what most Christians might think, it is possible to be a fully devoted follower of Christ who remains truly and fully a Hindu – a Krista Bhakta, as they like to be called.

“You can’t say a Hindu is a person that believes in A, B and C,” said Raghav Krishna, a Brahmin Hindu Krista Bhakta whose real name is withheld for security reasons.

“Probably the best way to say it is someone that is born to Hindu parents is a Hindu and you can have any beliefs you want.”

At this year’s annual gathering of the International Society for Frontier Missiology, Krishna emphasized that there is no consensus over the definition of a Hindu. It’s notable that India has over 4,500 different communities so what are considered Hindu forms change depending on the individual’s community.

Keeping the Hindu forms can mean attending a house gathering for Sunday service instead of a church building, singing bhajans (Indian style devotional music) instead of English hymns, continuing the Hindu dietary restriction, and having a water ceremony instead of a baptism in a Christian church.

Common Misunderstandings

Throughout the conference, speakers addressed the common misconception that Hinduism is a uniform religion when in fact it is more of an umbrella identity for vastly diverse cultural and religious communities. Most Christians, however, tend to perceive the word Hindu to mean a singular, homogenous religion – an understanding that is both erroneous and misleading.

“Historically, quite a number of people – including William Carey – referred to the term Hindu Christian to mean Hindu in a civilizational sense and Christian in a religious sense,” pointed out H.L. Richard, who spent over 20 years working and studying Hinduism and Christian ministry among Hindus.

“Today, most consider this terminology too confusing and wonder why a follower of Christ needs to abandon a Hindu identity and adopt all the baggage that is included with the ‘Christian’ label,” he added.

Richard said the term Christian should also not be confined as only a religious reference. He pointed to Europe where the word Christian is primarily used in a historical and civilizational manner more so than a person’s way of life and religious beliefs. The scholar noted that Hindus understand the word Christian as a geo-political and civilizational description, rather than as a spiritual or religious one.

Why the Hindu Forms are Needed

Proponents of the Hindu Krista Bhakta movement argue that Hindus who turn to Christ should not be forced to abandon their culture and identity, but rather be followers of Jesus Christ while rejoicing that God made them Hindus and desire to serve Him as Hindus.

“In Islam and Hinduism, we’ve insist that people come out of their culture and that is not biblical,” said Dr. Ralph D. Winter, founder of the U.S. Center for World Mission and one of the founders for ISFM, to The Christian Post in September. “It is a misunderstanding of the Bible and it is not successful and never will be. It shouldn’t be.

“God doesn’t want to destroy their (Indians’) language or culture, He wants to refine them.”

Related
* Interview: Dr. Ralph D. Winter on Frontier Missions in India
* Center for World's Unreached in India, Says Global Church Expert

Krishna, for example, said that the western form of church is “foreign” to a Hindu person. He acknowledges that many Hindus who are in Christ can eventually adjust to Western worship forms, but said this comes at the cost of alienation from family and friends and a possibly closer relationship with God.

“The importance of social forms for me – because I was born in a Hindu family and I’m used to these forms – is they enable me to experience Christ in a much deeper way,” said Krishna.

Furthermore, supporters of the movement argue that followers of Jesus who remain Hindu and express their faith using Hindu forms are in a better position to witness in their community and avoid creating unnecessary tension within their families.

“The stumbling block in India has nothing to do with theology,” said Richard. “A triune God is absolutely non-problematic to Hindus. It is a problem for American rationalists and to Muslims, but no Hindu has a problem with the Trinity.

“The offense of Christianity is change of community,” added Richard, who is a strong proponent of new believers maintaining with integrity their Hindu culture.

“Why are you leaving us and going to them? How are they better than us? Isn’t there as much corruption in ‘Christianity’ as there is in ‘Hinduism’? Why are you shaming our people?” he listed as possible questions from the communities.

“So this community issue is absolutely basic and fundamental,” declared Richard.

Some of the younger attendees who were not familiar with the concept expressed skepticism at first when they heard that a person could follow Jesus as a Hindu, but later said they support the practice after understanding that Hinduism is not a religion, but a complex civilization that accepts multiple religious expressions within its various cultural forms.

“I still walk in Hindu traditions as long as they don’t contradict my faith in Christ,” explained J.V., a Brahmin follower of Christ who oversees a campus ministry catering to Hindu students in the United States.

The International Society of Frontier Missiology held its 2007 meeting Sept. 15-17 in Dallas, Texas, and convened missiologists, missionaries, and those working in the mission fields. The annual conferences focus on frontier mission – an area of missiology that concentrates on reaching the people with the least access to the gospel. The theme this year was India: Debating Global Missiological Flashpoints.

'Secular' Nepal forgets Muslims on Eid- Hindustan Times

'Secular' Nepal forgets Muslims on Eid- Hindustan Times

'Secular' Nepal forgets Muslims on Eid
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First Published: 15:55 IST(14/10/2007)
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More than a year after it abolished Hinduism as the state religion and declared itself secular, Nepal, once the world's only Hindu kingdom, still remains Hindu in its psyche, with the government on Sunday failing to extend greetings to Muslims on the occasion of Eid-ul-Fitr, one of the Muslim festivals.

As Muslims in the parts of sub-continent celebrated Eid on Sunday after a month's fasting, the Nepal Muslim Ittehad Sangh's petition to Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala to declare Eid a national holiday fell on deaf ears.

The secular government however had observed a public holiday on Friday to celebrate Ghatasthapana, worshipping a holy pitcher and kicking off the biggest Hindu festival in Nepal that lasts for nearly a fortnight.

Strangely, the prime minister's office had not issued any public message, extending greetings to the Muslim community.

It was the communists and royalists who rose to the occasion.

The second largest party in the ruling coalition, the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (UML), greeted Muslims, wishing for peace and progress.

Madhav Kumar Nepal, chief of the party, hoped the country would soon be able to hold the stalled election and progress to a peaceful and prosperous federal republic.

Earlier this month, Maoist chief Prachanda had issued a statement, extending best wishes for Eid.

A former prime minister, Surya Bahadur Thapa, who was appointed by King Gyanendra in 2003, also extended his best wishes as chief of the Rastriya Janashakti Party, hoping for peace, happiness and prosperity.

However, there was no message from the office of the prime minister, who is now also the head of state.

Since this year, Koirala has been observing all the Hindu festivals, including recently offering worship to Nepal's living goddess, the Kumari, an incident that created a standoff between him and the embattled king with the crowds hailing the monarch and shouting slogans against the premier.

Last month, Nepal experienced one of the worst sectarian violence in its history when the murder of a powerful Muslim landlord in apilavastu triggered killings, arson and looting.

Hundreds of Muslims are said to have fled their homes following the incident, with many of them fleeing to India.

The omission comes even as Koirala is braced for yet another crisis. He needs to hammer out an understanding with the Maoists by Friday or face the possibility of his government coming under attack.

The rebels forced the government to convene a special session of parliament on Thursday to discuss if Nepal's 238-year-old monarchy could be scrapped immediately through a vote among legislators.

The voting was to have been held on coming Tuesday.

However, on Sunday, the Speaker agreed to a request from the UML to postpone the session till Monday to allow the parties more time to try reach an agreement.

If they fail to do so and the vote takes place next on Sunday, the Maoists have warned they would oust the Koirala government if they lost the vote.

Indian festival is boom for private detectives | Lifestyle | Reuters

Indian festival is boom for private detectives | Lifestyle | Reuters

Indian festival is boom for private detectives
Fri Oct 19, 2007 12:51pm BST

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By Rupam Jain Nair

AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) - Parents in western India are hiring private detectives to spy on their teenage children during a nine-day Hindu festival when late-night dance celebrations attract tens of thousands of youngsters.

"It is strange to pay someone to keep a night watch on my daughters but it is better than regretting later," said S. Doshi, a 42-year-old mother of two girls, aged 17 and 19.

Doshi used a detective agency to keep a vigil on her daughters, who dress up in revealing clothes every night and hop across several dance venues, eat and go for long drives with their friends.

"Children can do anything. Drugs, unprotected sex and bad company are my main worry," said Doshi, a resident of Ahmedabad, the main city of the western state of Gujarat.

Detective agencies say they are the only solution to the parental concern during the Navratri festive fervor which ends this weekend.

Garba, a traditional Indian dance, is performed to pay respect to Goddess Durga and it is on a grand scale, with visits from Bollywood stars and music troupes.

"We follow the boy or the girl to make sure that they have gone to the dance venue and report to parents if they leave the ground or spend time at a friend's house instead of dancing," said Sanjiv Thakkar of Mission Detective Agency.

Parents provide a photograph of their children and even details about their friends to the detectives who charge 2,000 to 4,000 rupees for snooping around every night.

Detective agencies say anxious parents have meant business is booming during the festive season and most are forced to hire freelance detectives to cater to soaring demand.

"You cannot stop your children from going out with friends but you can keep a check on them," said Neeta Vashist, a gynecologist in Ahmedabad who conducts workshops for teenagers before the festival.

"Every year, I get caseload of unmarried girls seeking abortions after the festival is over," she said.

Gujarat, thought to be a conservative state, also sees a sudden rise in condom sales during the festival, according to Rajan Gupta, a member of the Gujarat Drugs and Pharmacy Association.

"Freedom for nine nights is what children enjoy but parents have sleepless nights," said Gupta, who has a 16-year-old son.

© Reuters2007All rights reserved.

'Sanyas' lessons for Christian clergy-India-The Times of India

'Sanyas' lessons for Christian clergy-India-The Times of India

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: While the Anglican Church may shun Yoga, in Kerala the Syro-Malabar church - regarded as the oldest in the country - has decided to embrace the Hindu tradition of sanyas. This and other cultural aspects like bhajans are becoming a part of new curriculum for training the Christian clergy in the church.

‘‘Priests have to work in the Indian milieu. So it’s necessary that they learn about India’s strong spiritual foundations like the Gurukul system, Sanyas, and Varnashram’’ church spokesman Paul Thelekat told TOI. The curriculum, which is called the ‘Charter for priestly formation in the Syro-Malabar church’, has been reformed and promulgated and is going to be applied in every seminary, he said.

‘‘We were taught the basics of Indian philosophical systems as part of theory,’’ says Thelekat, but now there’s focus on practical learning.

The clerical curriculum includes an introduction to Hinduism. Although the usual training is given by Indologists, of late seminaries are being advised to take direct assistance of sanyasis, to prepare students for ascetic life. ‘‘Undoubtedly, there are a lot of good ideas in the Indic way of life which we must incorporate and use. Priests must imbibe the rich Indian traditions and be open to new ideas,’’ said Thelekat.

But then why all this fuss about Yoga in the UK? ‘‘That’s absolute nonsense. Even we were taught Yoga during our training. It’s a method by which you can recollect yourself. I do it everyday. It’s good not only for the body but also for the mind,’’ said the priest.

Early this year, a church was opened at Pariman in Kollam district with Jesus seated in padmasana and was called ‘Jagat Jyoti Man-dir’. While the church calls this Indianisation, critics are wary of all the changes, suspecting it to be an attempt to confuse people.

Half of terror toll due to Islamist extremism-India-The Times of India

Half of terror toll due to Islamist extremism-India-The Times of India

Half of terror toll due to Islamist extremism
27 Aug 2007, 0313 hrs IST,Shankar Raghuraman,TNN
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While India has lost 3,674 lives to terrorism-related incidents over three years and three months, the toll more than all of North America, South America, Central America, Europe and Eurasia put together, the number of those injured or taken hostage is no respite.

Apart from those killed, 8,430 were injured and 2,070 taken hostage in India, taking the total number of direct victims of terror to over 14,000 in a little over 3,000 incidents.

The list of the top 10 terrorist-stricken countries, in terms of the number of people killed, has some predictable names but a few that might come as a surprise to many. Thailand, for instance, figures at No. 5 with over 1,300 deaths and Chad (in Africa) at No. 8 with almost 1,100 killed.

Surprisingly, as many as 103 countries have not lost a single life to terror in the period for which information is available from WITS which has data for 193 countries.

The NCTC defines terrorist incidents as follows: Terrorism occurs when groups or individuals acting on political motivation deliberately or recklessly attack civilians/non-combatants or their property and the attack does not fall into another special category of political violence, such as crime, rioting, or tribal violence.

Among the most affected countries are those with a significant presence in the international drug trade, either as major producing areas or as key transit points.

Thus Colombia, Afghanistan, Nigeria and Thailand all figure in the top dozen.

There's a fairly widespread impression that the bulk of terrorism and terrorist-related deaths across the world can be traced back to Islamist radicalism. What do the numbers say? WITS break-ups available for the period January 2004 to December 2006 show that of the 29,000-odd incidents in the period, in over 18,000 the perpetrators are not known.

Of the nearly 11,000 for which the identity of the perpetrators is known, over 7,500 were by what WITS calls secular political/anarchist groups, while Islamic extremist groups further sub-categorised into Shia, Sunni and unknown were responsible for less than 3,000. That's a large number and a large share, but not as large as its often made out to be.

But look at deaths for which responsibility can be pinned and the picture looks grim: Islamist extremists account for about 11,400 of the 24,614 deaths caused in incidents where the perpetrators can be identified, that's almost half of all people killed by terrorism.

Christian extremists too have played their deadly part — causing 686 deaths, and before you think Ireland and the UK, pause.

The fact is that Ireland is one of 103 countries where no lives have been lost to terrorism since 2004, while the UK has lost 55. Most of the 686 deaths caused by Christian extremists are in places like Uganda.

How many lives have countries that are part of the coalition forces in Iraq lost to terrorism on their own soil? The UK, as we just mentioned, has lost 55 lives and the US none. Of the 20 other countries that are US allies in Iraq, 14 have not had a single death due to terrorism on their soil in this period. The other six — Georgia, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Albania, Estonia and Macedonia — have together lost 40 lives.

In fact, seven of the coalition countries, all except Australia and eastern Europe, have not had to deal with a single terrorist incident between January 2004 and March 2007.

I love my AMERICA

I love my AMERICAI love my AMERICA
By: Santoshee Mishra
August 16, 2007
BPO boys say they celebrate the US Independence Day only because that’s the country, and not India, that values, clothes and feeds them
Yankee doodle dandies
They are Indians who unabashedly say they would rather celebrate the US Independence Day on July 4, than India’s independence.

Meet India’s new generation of India ignorers — the BPO worker.

“I do not see any reason to celebrate India’s independence. I am paid by a US-based company, so I celebrate their Independence Day,” said Vikram Rathor, from Malad.

He added it was ironic that I-Day and republic day were dry days in India, but it was an open secret that alcohol was available at a price. “Why do Indians hide things? In the US, everybody takes joy in raising a toast to the nation.”

Ani Fernandez, from an Andheri BPO, added, “Why should I celebrate India’s independence? It’s so noisy.” In the days that follow August 15 and January 26, the streets are littered with national flags, he said.

“I have seen people trample on them and walk away. In the US, the celebrations are held at home with dignity and style,” he added.

“I struggled for two years to get a job and finally I joined this BPO.

Obviously, I am very thankful to the UK-based company that allowed me to land this job,” said Pam Kaur, who works in a Malad call center.

An HR executive from Sitel, Andheri said nobody in the company wants a holiday on August 15.

“They are happy celebrating the US Independence Day. In the last two years, I have never had an employee asking for a holiday on August 15.”


Indians never valued me, so why should I value the independence of this country?

- Pam Kaur, works in a Malad call centre






Main jiska namak khata hoon usi ke geet gata hoon

- Vikram Rathor also works in a Malad BPO

Innovate for India's Poor - WSJ.com

Innovate for India's Poor - WSJ.com

Innovate for India's Poor
By RAVI VENKATESAN
July 18, 2007

BANGALORE -- When the Korean steelmaker Posco decided to invest $11 billion in the bleak hinterland of eastern India, it might have expected to be greeted with flowers. Instead, two Posco executives were recently kidnapped, but later released unharmed, in a protest over government policies to transfer land from struggling farmers to the mega-corporations driving India's modernization.

It is only the latest evidence of gathering rage among the hundreds of millions who remain mute spectators to the Indian economic miracle. In recent months, peasant revolts have been flaring up across the country, protesting against industrialization and the land grabs that accompany it. Harnessing the anger of rural poor, Maoist-inspired insurgents roam freely across much of central India, causing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to call them the largest threat to India's security.


We business leaders for the most part tend to believe that growth will cure most sins and that our responsibility stops at creating competitive enterprises and paying taxes. Eradicating poverty is the government's job, not ours. Right?

Wrong. The consequences of abdicating this issue will be grave. There are already signs of growing lawlessness as disaffected young people turn to crime, insurgency and terrorism. But even more ominously, inequity inevitably generates a political response that can thwart the ambitions of the affluent. Last year, political parties, vying to tap the discontent created by inequity, enacted legislation reserving half the seats in India's educational institutions for lower-caste students. It is not hard to see how the extension of such quotas to jobs in the private sector can well bring the economic miracle to a halt.

This policy, and the controversy surrounding the creation of special economic zones, should serve as an early warning of what majorities can lawfully do when we elites ignore them. Furthermore, unless we educate hundreds of millions of people at the bottom of the pyramid and create jobs for them, we will starve our businesses of the skilled talent and the consuming middle class we need to buy our products and keep growing. So eliminating poverty is very much in our self interest.

However, even when business leaders agree that poverty is our problem, the approach is often confused. Two methods in particular have dominated recent thinking on the subject, and, in my view, both are well-intentioned but futile against so vast a problem.

Lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty cannot happen through "corporate social responsibility." Important as these initiatives are, they are neither sustainable nor scalable, and therefore achieve limited impact. Nor will poverty be overcome through the "bottom of the pyramid" initiatives that seek to make the poor into bigger consumers of shampoos and televisions by enabling them to pay per use.

We need a new approach driven by innovation. We need to focus less on doing small, nice deeds for the poor, and less on selling them affordable versions of what rich people consume. Instead, we must marshal the best resources of big, innovative corporations to think freshly about the shackles that keep people poor and invent solutions that break these shackles.

India is filled with efforts of this kind. For instance, the biggest hope for the next agricultural productivity revolution in India lies in the rural business initiatives of companies like conglomerate Reliance Industries, telecom operator Bharti Airtel and tobacco company ITC, which are investing billions of dollars to create an efficient agricultural supply chain bypassing scores of middlemen. Look, too, to the rural banking initiatives of companies like SBI and ICICI that will deliver affordable credit and insurance to half a billion people, helping them finally break a historic cycle of poverty.

Doing good is also good business: Scalable business models that help the poor access markets, or deliver essential services like education, health care or drinking water, represent huge economic opportunities waiting to be tapped. For example, at my company, Microsoft India, engineers are working on problems like how to learn English using a computer or cell phone, how to use the Web to deliver services to rural entrepreneurs, or how to help tiny businesses access global markets.

Microsoft is not doing this for charity. If we get it right, the poor will be happy to pay to get jobs they otherwise wouldn't have and we will have expanded the potential base of users for our software to 500 million from 100 million. It is very conceivable that the next big innovation could come from immersion in the problems of India's poor. They don't need our charity or single-use sachets of shampoo. They need us to innovate them out of their morass.

Mr. Venkatesan is Chairman of Microsoft India.

Principal gives electric shocks to student for 'better performance'-India-The Times of India

Principal gives electric shocks to student for 'better performance'-India-The Times of India

I have to follow capitalism: Buddha- Hindustan Times

I have to follow capitalism: Buddha- Hindustan Times

Former HRD minister feels sex education corrupts kids- Hindustan Times

Former HRD minister feels sex education corrupts kids- Hindustan Times

Kuldip Nayar : Are Muslims alone to blame?

DAWN - Opinion; July 14, 2007

Hindu recalls her ordeal in Islamic camp-Rest of World-World-The Times of India

Hindu recalls her ordeal in Islamic camp-Rest of World-World-The Times of India

Reservation integrates caste-ridden society, says UPA- Hindustan Times

Reservation integrates caste-ridden society, says UPA- Hindustan Times

Now, Christians too want quota-Hyderabad-Cities-The Times of India

Now, Christians too want quota-Hyderabad-Cities-The Times of India

The Hindu : Front Page : 4 per cent reservation for Muslims in State

The Hindu : Front Page : 4 per cent reservation for Muslims in State

It's official: Taj Mahal is among 7 wonders of the world- Hindustan Times

It's official: Taj Mahal is among 7 wonders of the world- Hindustan Times

It is a matter of pride that one of the Indian monuments has been accorded the honor of being one of the seven wonders of the world. Indians, Rejoice! the power of IT and mobile telephones can be put to good use and Indians have shown that those of us who sit at the computer for extended period of times can use our time and ability to achieve some distinction for India.

While we rejoice in our regained pride of hosting one of the new seven wonders, Taj Mahal, perhaps we should spare a thought to the historical accuracy of the monument we just helped anoint. There has been a long standing, well researched claim that the Taj Mahal was originally an ancient Hindu temple devoted to Lord Shiva called "Tejo Mahalaya".

Prof. P. N. Oak has worked tirelessly to study and promote this claim which has never really been refuted. More details on Tejo Mahalaya can be found on the net by doing Google search.

Sure, the ancient Hindu temple will not have the same romantic aura as a universally cherished story of love, but truth and integrity must prevail. If indeed it is scientifically and archaeologically proved that Taj Mahal was Tejo Mahalaya then the world must recognize Shah Jahan as a thief who duped all of the humanity for hundreds of years.

To folks like us to whom truth matters, Tejo Mahalaya vs. Taj Mahal is not a religious controversy, but an attempt to give credit where it is due.

The India Manifesto section on ancient Hindu monuments will focus on finding and assigning rightful owners of the historical monuments and places of worship and restoring the property to its rightful owner.

Freedom of Speech, Salman Rushdie and Fundamentalism

An op-ed piece in Pakistani daily Dawn by Anwar Syed exposes hypocrisies of those protesting the Knighthood for Salman Rushdie. Iran's Ayatollaha Khomaeini issued a fatwa on Rushdie after the publication of his Brooker prize winning novel Satanic Verses, which Khomeini considered blasphemous.

Here are some excerpts from Anwar Syed:

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Government of Pakistan gave no thought to foreign reaction when it decided to honour Ahmad Faraz, a distinguished poet, and awarded him a “Sitara,” even though he has all along been a harsh critic of western policies towards the Third World. Why then do we feel entitled to condemn the British government for its failing to consider our possible reaction to its honouring of Salman Rushdie?
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British Catholics reject Protestantism and the Jews reject all of Christianity. Yet many Catholics and Jews have been awarded knighthood and even higher titles. At least one British Muslim sits in the House of Lords. If this is how they feel about their own religion, how can we expect them to have developed the kind of sensitivity about Islam and its heroes that we do?
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Christians believe that Jesus was the son of God. They also believe in his resurrection after he had been lifted from the stake. Muslims say, no, he was not the son of God, and that the reports of his resurrection are false. Christians may view our rejection of their most fundamental doctrine as an attempt to belittle their Lord, and one that is intended to hurt their feelings. Nor should we be surprised if they mounted retaliatory movements against us. At the instigation of the popes in Rome, their knights and soldiers did fight crusades against Muslims in Palestine, but their object was to take Jerusalem, not to change Muslim beliefs about Jesus.

Hindus believe that their Lord Krishna was divine. He is often portrayed as surrounded by a whole bunch of young women (“Gopies”) and dancing with them. Muslims reject the claims of divinity for him, and many of them think he was inclined to be excessively romantic. Hindus might regard these Muslim assessments as an insult to their religion. Lucky for us that they do not think much of us or our views.

They have fought wars with us to consolidate their control over Kashmir, but not to change our views of Krishna. It is true that some Hindu extremists hope to change the Indian Muslims’ views by converting them to Hinduism, but note that we condemn their efforts on this front.

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The entire article is available here

Freedom of Speech is an important aspect of The India Manifesto. As the India Manifesto takes shape, it is important to ensure that India allows true freedom of speech and expression. Under the guise of various laws, the Government of India impedes up on this fundamental human right. For example, India was the first to ban Satanic Verses so as to not offend the Moslem sentiments. However, the same Government would does not see it fit to ban the nude and offensive paintings of Hindu Goddesses by M. F. Hussain.

The First Amendment to US Constitution guarantying absolute freedom of speech (except commercial speech or "shouting fire in a crowded theater" type speech) is a good model for India.

Understanding Terrorism

For several decades, social scientists and historians in India have been trying to illustrate the true nature of radicalism and religious extremism that has manifested in attacks like 9/11 around the world. However, the far left of Indian politics along with the supporters and sympathizer who thrives on creating social and political anarchy has sought to undermine these efforts by casting these scholars as extremists themselves.

Now comes this remarkable op-ed piece from Daily Mail titled, "I was a fanatic...I know their thinking, says former radical Islamist" by Hassan Butt.

Here are some of the excerpts from Mr. Butt's article:

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And though many British extremists are angered by the deaths of fellow Muslim across the world, what drove me and many others to plot acts of extreme terror within Britain and abroad was a sense that we were fighting for the creation of a revolutionary worldwide Islamic state that would dispense Islamic justice
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the foundation of extremist reasoning rests upon a model of the world in which you are either a believer or an infidel.
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For centuries, the reasoning of Islamic jurists has set down rules of interaction between Dar ul-Islam (the Land of Islam) and Dar ul-Kufr (the Land of Unbelief) to cover almost every matter of trade, peace and war.

But what radicals and extremists do is to take this two steps further. Their first step has been to argue that, since there is no pure Islamic state, the whole world must be Dar ul-Kufr (The Land of Unbelief).

Step two: since Islam must declare war on unbelief, they have declared war upon the whole world.

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The entire article is available here.

This op-ed is very relevant for India. The basis for secularism in India is the Hindu philosophy which accepts diverse religious view points. However, radical Islam attacks the very basis of this secularism by dividing the world into believers and non-believers. This means that Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, Christians, Jews and atheists have no place in the world idealized by 12% of Indian population.

The ability of radicals to promote this ideology under the garb or democracy and socialism means that democracy and secularism are themselves being used to undermine their fundamental tenets.

The anti-religious left sees no contradiction in joining hands with the religious extremists. The Manifesto of India will be based on true secularism - pure and unadulterated.

Caste Based Reservation

The current argument:

The constitution of India guaranteed caste based reservation (also known as quota) in education and employment for 10 years after independence.  This provision has been extended continuously since first instituted

Some of the arguments against the reservation are:

1. It deepens the caste system

2. It does not reward merit

3. It rewards "creamy layer" of prosperous "so-called lower castes" and does not benefit the deserving / deprived sections of the socitety

4. The data used to classify castes is quite old because no caste based census has taken place since 1932

Some of the arguments in favor of the reservation are:

1. The discrimination is caste based and the deprevation of benefits is on the basis of caste.  A dalit is not treated in the hospital because of his/her caste and the dalit child is relegated to second class eduction based on his/her caste therefore the benefit must be accorded based on caste

2. Economically deprived "so-called upper caste" member of the society stands a better chance at education and employment because of the "caste connections" compared to a dalit

Historical Basis:


Manifesto Opinion:

References

1. Ekatmata Manav Vaad or Integral Humanism by Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya

2. Artha Shastra

Inspiration

The Manifesto is inspired by the concept of freedom that India pioneered which embraced the multi-culturalism, diversity, varied customs, languages, modes of worship and persevered to create a nation that made significant contribution to the advancement of world.

The Manifesto for India

Many Indian's believe that the 21 st. century is "India's Century." If India does fulfull its destiny in twenty first century, it will usher in yet another golden age in India's long history.

What will bring about India's Century? The Manifesto for India will outline policies that will help India's sprint towards its' journey.

This manifesto will not start out as a definitive document - rather, it will start out as thoughts on contemporary issues. Over a period of time, these thoughts will be compiled into a manifesto document.