Musings

A 2011 Collage

2011-12-31T21:09:00.001+05:30

2011 was the year when I was obsessed with dates. But few took it in their stride. Happy New Year!

Bandipur

Seine, Paris

Red Hills, Tamilnadu

Tungabhadra, Hampi

Auroville Beach, Puducherry

Sam, Rajasthan

Anna Hazare's latest demands deserve to be ignored

2011-12-27T18:12:00.002+05:30

The following article was published on INI Broad Mind. I'm reposting it here.

Anna Hazare's latest demands deserve to be ignored

By Balaji Ganesan.

As the Lokpal related protests by India Against Corruption group resume in Mumbai, it is pertinent to analyze their latest demands. Anna Hazare has written an open letter to the Prime Minister and the MPs with four specific demands.

Demand 1: Suo moto powers to investigate.

The motivation behind this demand apparently is to facilitate secret investigation (based on tip-offs) while corruption is in progress or to catch the accused by surprise. However the Lokpal Bill is clear that the Ombudsman proposed to be created is not an investigating agency. Any investigation possible under this law is going to be carried out by CBI, ACBs and Lokayukta Police as the case may be. All these investigative agencies are already empowered to initiate suo moto and secret investigations into potential acts of corruption.

Its not clear why the Central Vigilance Commission, which is specifically created to make such secret inquiries, is being overlooked. Vigilance is clearly the domain of the CVC and not that of an ombudsman. Another civil society group, NCPRI has proposed several measures to strengthen the CVC, which are worth considering. The protesters can perhaps demand that the vigilance activities of CVC be extended to Group A and B officials.

In many cases, having a complainant may help protect the institution of Lokpal from accusations of partisanship. One of the salient points of Lokpal is that it can initiate inquiry proceedings without the need for approval. Having acquired such authority, it should exercise that power with responsibility. Ordering secret investigations against highest executive offices in the country based on tip-offs seems unwarranted. At the lower levels, CVC is already keeping vigilance.

Demand 2: The Lokpal to carry out independent investigations, through any one of the following mechanisms.

Its not at all clear why the demand is not for making CBI a constitutional body, answerable to parliament, with its own budget and recruitment process independent of the Department of Personnel. Its somehow taken for granted that an investigating agency has to be controlled and influenced one way or the other.

a. Merging Anti-corruption branch of CBI with Lokpal.

The current and former directors of CBI have argued that the resources of the organization are not such that a division can take place without rendering both the splinter units ineffective. In many cases, the acts of corruption are accompanied by offenses under criminal law. For example, the cases where upright officers were killed by Kerosene/adulteration mafias. The resources of the state are likely to be better utilized by having a single investigation.

Further, in the absence of a single independent investigating agency, its entirely possible that government functionaries may order parallel inquiries by other agencies to offset Lokpal led investigation.

b. Creating another investigation agency under Lokpal.

There is no justification to spend tax payer's money in creating a new agency, when more autonomy can be given to CBI. Having CBI under government control and a new investigative agency under Lokpal control is certain to lead to turf wars and delay the investigations. As observed in some of the Gujarat Riot Cases, where three different agencies were probing the same cases, the supreme court was trying to restrain individual officers from sabotaging other investigations.

c. Administrative and Financial control of CBI with Lokpal.

Again its not clear, why CBI should not be an independent body but instead be subject to influence by Lokpal. Considering CBI investigates a multitude of cases in different domains unrelated to corruption, the demand to vest control of CBI with an anti-corruption ombudsman seems arbitrary.

Demand 3: Selection panel to have fewer elected officials.

This is the most problematic of all the demands. Requiring a consensus on the appointment is a non-starter. As observed in Lokayukta appointments in Gujarat, Karnataka and the CVC appointment, a consensus is certain to elude the selection panel, leaving the Lokpal with vacancies if not non-existent.

Having two judges of the supreme court in the selection panel is also not advisable, since appointments to offices of this kind are often challenged in the courts. Further, the Lokpal is a prosecutor and the supreme court judges are later eligible to be appointed to the Lokpal panel. There are several opportunities for conflict of interest. While there are demands to create a National Judicial Commission to give elected representatives more say in Judicial appointments, this demand seems to be a step backward. Its pertinent to remember that in the US, judicial appointments are confirmed by the legislature and are even subject to partisan voting on the nominee. Their system works just fine.

The demand to include CEC and CAG, who have nothing to do with Lokpal, seems entirely arbitrary. Exposing such offices to lobbying in other appointments, can only have disastrous consequences in their independent functioning.

Having a panel of parliamentarians appoint the Lokpal chairman and members might be a better alternative. While such appointments may come to be influenced by partisan considerations, the opposition members in the selection panel will get the opportunity to expose questionable candidates. As it happened recently in a CVC appointment, such questionable appointments become untenable in the public opinion and can be over-turned by the courts.

Demand 4: The Lokpal's jurisdiction should include Class C and D officers directly.

The current Lokpal Bill already has provisions to refer cases against groups C and D officers to the CVC. And if such officers collude with higher officials, they'll be party to a CBI investigation anyway. Moving even petty cases to a nine member Lokpal is likely to be ineffective besides liquidating the authority of departmental vigilance officers and CVC. Corruption at lower levels, which directly affects the common man, requires to be handled by a highly decentralized mechanism rather than the one demanded by the protesters.

As has been their wont, India Against Corruption group continues to regard all democratically elected representatives as untrustworthy and is trying to vest as much authority in unelected officials as possible. While there may be wide-spread disillusionment with the political class in India, it may not be in the long term interest of the Republic to undermine the authority of our elected officials.

While demands for increasing the autonomy of CBI and strengthening the CVC are worth considering, they are outside the purview of the current Lokpal Bill. Hence the latest demands by Anna Hazare deserve to be ignored.

Balaji Ganesan participated in the initial anti-corruption protests in Bangalore and blogs at balajiworld.blogspot.com

Thanks Hitch, for everything.

2011-12-16T14:39:00.001+05:30

Christopher Hitchens has passed away. I think writing about him is a good way to celebrate his life.

While his death was expected, his diagnosis last year did come as a shock. His passing away was not as peaceful and literary as that of Art Buchwald, but I wish it had not been as painful as the horse being flogged to death in that story about Nietzsche.

I have used this blog on several occasions to proclaim my atheism and utter contempt for anyone who believes in "God" and other irrational beliefs. I owe a lot of my thinking to Hitchens. While I was an atheist very early in life and do not recollect believing in "God" at any point, Hitchens et al gave me the confidence that I am right.

My childhood arguments against religion were probably inspired by Periyar, Bharathiar and my school Tamil teacher, but I used to be easily be cowed down by opposing views. From a dumb "are you any smarter than X and Y person who believes in God" to manufactured creationism in Advaita. Listening to Hitchens for countless hours on youtube, helped me to not get intimidated by idiotic superstitions being passed on as spiritual enlightenment.

While Richard Dawkins and Darwinian arguments were too bland for my taste, and I wasn't patient enough to indulge in Sam Harris or Daniel Dennett kind of sophistry, I found Hitchens very appealing. However I must add here that I consider myself to be very religious or lets say, a religion enthusiast. Just that I do not believe in irrational things like God.

Early this year, I gifted a copy of 'Hitch 22' to a friend for his wedding (?!!). Hope to buy one myself and read it soon.

Thanks Hitch, for everything. There is no reason to be sad today, for you have had such a wonderful life.

My Talk on Electoral Reforms at Takshashila Shala

2011-11-08T22:04:00.001+05:30

Video streaming by Ustream

Takshashila Shala: Vote for my talk on Electoral Reforms

2011-11-04T23:03:00.000+05:30

At the upcoming Takshashila Shala in Chennai, I would like to talk on "The State of the Debate: Electoral Reforms". This will be a brief survey of the issues in electoral reforms, history of the debate and the current legislative proposals. Here's my recommended reading list on the subject.

A "Core Committee" of the Law ministry along with the Election Commission is currently studying the various proposals on Electoral Reforms. A series of regional consultations were held early this year to solicit views on the same. I hope my talk will bring you up-to-date with the recent happenings, so that you can join this national debate and contribute effectively.

If you are going to be at the Shala on Sunday, do vote my talk up!

ps: The video below is from my talk on "Participatory Democracy - ward sabhas, social audits etc" at the previous Shala in Pune.

Video streaming by Ustream

Literature Survey: Electoral Reforms in India

2011-11-04T20:50:00.000+05:30

The following is a collection of reading material on Electoral Reforms in India. At the time of writing this post, people are waiting for the National Consultation on Electoral Reforms that was proposed to be held in July 2011 but was postponed.

Papers, Reports and Notes:

Electoral Reforms - Points to Ponder: A note by the Core Committee on Electoral Reforms based on Regional Consultations. April 2011.
Background paper on Electoral Reforms: Prepared by the Core Committee on Electoral Reforms. Dec 2010.
Important Electoral Reforms proposed by the Election Commission. Note available on the Election Commission website. Feb 2011.
ADR/New Recommendations for Electoral Reforms. Recommendations by Association for Democratic Reforms. Apr 2011.
Electoral and Political Party Reforms in India. Note by Jayaprakash Narayan for Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) Asia Regional Meeting. Feb 2011.
Electoral Reforms in India: A lecture by J M Lyngdoh. Jan 2009.
Proposed Electoral Reforms. Proposals by the Election Commission based on the experiences from Lok Sabha Election 2004.
Electoral Reforms Goals: A Loksatta discussion paper on Electoral Reforms.
Electoral Reforms: A presentation by Jayaprakash Narayan at the Workshop on Electoral Reforms, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore. March 2002

Resources:

National and Regional Consultations on Electoral Reforms. The law ministry website on the work of the Core Committee on Electoral Reforms.
Consultations on Electoral Reforms: The resource page of ADR on Electoral Reforms.
Foundation for Democratic Reforms: The thinktank of Loksatta which has published several articles on Electoral reforms.

Misc:

Why India is in dire need of electoral reform: Article by Soutik Biswas in June 2011.
Electoral reforms in India: For a stronger democratic polity.: A summary of the issues. Feb 2010.
Campaign for Electoral Reforms in India: An organization promoting Proportional Representation System.

Perspective:

The following articles throw light on the struggle in 2002-03 to get candidates declare financial and criminal records while filing their nominations.

National Campaign for Electoral Reforms: A series of articles in India Together. 2003 and before.
Electoral Reforms: Key to Effective Democracy: Article by Jagdeep S. Chhokar on Indian Liberal Group's Freedom First magazine. September 2002 issue.

Rajya Sabha discussion on Lokpal Bills

2011-08-27T13:09:00.008+05:30

Arun Jaitley:

1. Lokpal can cover lower bureaucracy. Details can be worked out.

2. We do need Grievance Dedressal. Welcome displaying a citizens charter in govt offices.

3. Lokpal cannot be allowed to tap phones.

4. Parliament cannot law for establishing Lokayuktas.

Ashwani Kumar:

1. Serious doubt if Lokpal will be effective if lower bureaucracy is brought under it.

2. How can Lokpal Quasi-judicial powers to punish officials? Its unconstitutional.

3. Supreme court has already given protections with regard to Sanctions. Janlokpal provisions in this regard are unconstitutional.

4. Judiciary cannot be under Lokpal. They should come under Judicial Accountability Bill.

Sitaram Yechuri:

1. Lokayuktas can be formed by passing enabling legislation in the state assemblies.

2. Its not practical to include lower bureaucracy in the Lokpal purview. Make use of existing vigilance measures. Lokpal can perhaps be made as an appellate body.

3. Judiciary - there is consensus that judiciary cannot be under lokpal.

4. Grievance Redressal - there is already a bill in the public domain regarding this. That bill can be passed a reference made in the Lokpal bill.

Loksabha discussion on Lokpal Bills

2011-08-27T12:27:00.005+05:30

Sushma Swaraj:

1. Include PM under Lokpal.

2. No objection if CBI is brought under the purview of Lokpal.

3. Ensure selection committee is balanced with members of both the govt and the non-govt members.

4. Don't bring judiciary under Lokpal. Along with Judicial Accountability bill, we support setting up National Judicial Commission.

5. Doesn't agree with Janlokpal Bill that Lokpal can impose penalties when a public servant doesn't perform a task written in a citizen's charter.

6. Parliament can pass legislation to set up Lokayuktas in states using the provisions in Article 252. The article requires that two states pass such a legislation before the parliament can pass its own legislation in this regard.

7. We can bring lower bureaucracy under Lokpal.

Sandeep Dikshit:

1. Parliament can legislate after two states legislate. Agree with Sushma Swaraj.

2. Lokpal will be burdened if grievance redressal is brought under its purview.

3. The structure to cover lower bureaucracy needs more discussion.

4. There is consensus that Judiciary cannot be brought under Lokpal.

5. Corruption in Corporate and NGOs should also be covered under some law. Not sure if this can be under the purview of Lokpal.

Inheritance of a Political Loss

2011-08-24T01:45:00.003+05:30

This post is somewhat self-reflectional. You'll understand it better if you are a political activist.

If anyone has cared to read newspapers and blog posts by the intelligentsia on the India Against Corruption saga, you'll notice that most of them carry vitriol against Anna Hazare and his cohorts especially the trio of Kejriwal, Bedi and Prashant Bhushan. The only positive seen by the intelligentsia from this movement is bringing the issue of corruption to the national conscience like never before. Everything else is criticism.

I think there are two major causes for this anger against IAC.

1. Political analysts/activists are genuinely disgusted by the blatant stupidity of the Janlokpal Bill and the arrogant way in which the trio have been forcing it on everyone.

2. The other cause is jealousy. Jealousy that such a movement has succeeded beyond anyone's wildest imagination.

The first is easy. One is not being uppity in calling the Janlokpal Bill stupid or the IAC leaders arrogant. Anyone who dispassionately studies the bill or listens to the IAC leaders will come to the same conclusion. But the movement has succeeded nevertheless. What explains that success?

One can suggest the following reasons for people supporting Anna Hazare.

1. that they have not studied the Janlokpal bill and are not familiar with the criticism against its basic structure (the attempt to create another branch, parallel to the executive). though these people may have heard simplistic criticisms against the govt version of the Lokpal Bill like the exclusion of the PM, judiciary and the lower executive.

2. that they were never really interested in politics or law making that conventional wisdoms in the field of political science don't inhibit their thought process now.

3. that they are merely expressing their frustration about corruption and couldn't care less which version of the lokpal bill is passed.

At the end of the day, its a democracy. If the people's representatives in Parliament feel that their constituents are so favorably inclined to pass the Janlokpal bill, then so be it.

Now to the other cause for the anger against IAC. Jealousy.

Its no fun spending a life-time advancing a nuanced position in political science only to be rolled over by the juggernaut of a stupid idea. There is anxiety in the political mind while the apolitical mind celebrates in agitation. The inability of Nitin Pai to refrain from tweeting about Annawallon, the discomfort faced by Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey, the belligerence of a Tavleen Singh or Shoma Chaudhary, the thoughtless article by Arundhati Roy or the nervousness of Nandan Nilekani. All of this comes from this anxiety in their political minds.

Its as if Political Science was suddenly removed from the University class schedules to be replaced by Newspeak. What are we political analysts/activists supposed to do now? Do we go back and advance another piece of Marxism or Hayek, suggest another small public policy idea to save tax payers money or find another unattended section of the society that deserves welfare ... you know ... another small pebble in the water pot kind of work ... when utterly clueless school kids parade to re-structure the Republic!!

And oh, now I understand Edmund Burke better.

Ideas for Jan-Lok-Mantri Manmohan Singh to respond to Nihilists and Fascists

2011-06-11T11:57:00.006+05:30

Breaking News: I have now unsubscribed all the Sun TV group channels from my Tata Sky pack. I had removed all Kalaignar TV channels and Jaya TV in the previous round. Allegedly non-partisan and untainted channels DD Podhigai, Star Vijay and Raj TV(?!) are good enough for me.

In 2009, I campaigned vigorously to keep Manmohan Singh led Congress Govt from coming back to power. Its given that I'll campaign against the Congress Party and infavor for any right-liberal candidate in 2014.

However Manmohan Singh is now my Prime Minister. I thoroughly disapprove the unconstitutional and undemocratic actions taken by the Nihilists (of the IAC led by Anna Hazare) and the fascists (of the Sangh now led curiously by "Baba" Ramdev) to undermine the popularly elected government of the Republic.

Hence I'm offering my ideas to the Prime Minister, who shall now be referred as Jan-Lok-Mantri to emphasize his constitutional and democratic legitimacy.

1. Draft the Lokpal Bill before June 30, 2011 whether the nihilist members in the drafting committee co-operate or otherwise. Janlokpal Bill is utter garbage. Don't include any provision from that draft.

But ensure the Prime Minister is brought under the purview of Lokpal. Let it be a 3 member panel with no judicial powers. Ensure it is only a public ombudsman with powers to order investigation and assist in the prosecution. Don't bring grievance redressal under this. For more advice on the draft, refer to such renowned blogs like balajiworld.blogspot.com

2. Table the Lokpal Bill in the upcoming Monsoon session of Parliament, conduct a thorough debate, send it to standing committees if asked by opposition. Let the legislative process take its own time. Ignore any ultimatum set by nihilists.

3. Appoint a 3 member Lokpal Panel with a retired CJI of the Supreme Court (Justice Verma?) and a retired bureaucrat (Vittal?, Lyngdoh?) as members. Invite Justice Santosh Hegde to be the third member (to make him feel uncomfortable!).

4. Ensure that all congress ruled states appoint Lokayuktas. Invite Justice Hegde to the swearing in ceremony of all these new Lokayuktas. Send Rahul Gandhi and Shankarsingh Vaghela to fast in Sabarmati Ashram to force the Gujarat Govt under Fascist leader Narendra Modi to appoint a Lokayukta. (doesn't matter if its the Congress Leader of Opposition who might have stalled it until now!)

5. Reconstitute National Advisory Council with the Prime Minister as the chairman. Rename it as the National Welfare Council. Appoint Harsh Mander as the National Welfare Advisor. Invite Kiran Bedi and Swami Agnivesh to join the NWC. Conduct meetings of the National Security Council (NSC), NWC and the National Knowledge Commission (NKC) for three days in a row to rebuff critics who question the legitimacy of the NAC.

6. Tout the action taken against corrupt ministers/officials in a nation-wide campaign and project the Lokpal Bill as a great achievement of the Congress Party government.

See here for my previous advice/praise to the Prime Minister offered on August 03, 2007.

Takshashila Shala - vote for my talk on Participatory Democracy!

2011-05-27T12:18:00.007+05:30

I just got the talk-schedule for Sunday's Takshashila Shala from Nitin. There are 3 half hour talks up for grabs from participants. I wish to talk on Participatory Democracy.

If voted up, I'll briefly share my experiences in,

1. trying to organize ward sabhas in Bengaluru. this is the holy grail of Panchayati Raj (rather nagarpalika act). i was part of Koramangala Smartvote campaign which tried to bridge the gap between the voters and the candidates in Ward 151. I'm now a member of Koramangala United Citizen's Welfare Association.

2. social audits in PDS. i have personally observed such social audits in Warangal and have testified about the same before the one-member investigating committee of Dr. Balasubramanium which is probing the irregularities in Karnataka PDS. This investigation is on-behalf of the Karnataka Lokayutka's office. i have interacted with the members of MKSS in Rajasthan who pioneered "Jansunwais" in MG-NREGA.

and if time permits, briefly bring up,

3. referendums - having been initially (and no longer) associated with Saaku (India Against Corruption's public rally and campaign in Bengaluru), i wish to talk about the lack of constitutional provisions like Initiative and Referendum which makes us less of a Republic. Like, why not have Referendums to decide Kashmir, Telangana and Nagalim?

4. Why not elect Governors from the state's Presidential electoral college? - being a victim of the charade in Karnataka, i wonder why we are persisting with a colonial era office?

Well, if my talk is not voted up, its alrite. I'll blog about the above issues here!

In the meanwhile, here's the list of talks, I plan to attend. Hope the other speakers are not offended!!

10:00 - 10:30 - Raj Cherubal - Caging the beast
10:35 - 11:05 - Chandrasekharan Balakrishnan - Ambedkar, the champion of Free Market
11:10 - 11:40 - Vinay Kumar Singh - Creating well-designed schemes to deliver public services
11:45 - 12:15 - Naveen Mandava - Public policy - what sells?
12:20 - 12:50 - Venkat Ananth - Post-conflict Srilanka
14:00 - 14:30 - Navdeep Suri - Why public diplomacy matters
14:35 - 15:05 - Gul Panag - We are all civil society
15:10 - 15:40 - Amit Paranjape - Ranade, Tilak, Phule & Agarkar - Pune's golden age of reform
15:45 - 16:15 - Balaji at S2?!! - Participatory Democracy, ward sabhas, social audits ...
16:20 - 16:50 - Nilim Dutta - Bangladeshis in Assam: How this has shaped the state's politics
17:00 - 17:30 - Nitin Pai - Why India should swing

Eudaimonia

2011-05-24T14:18:00.003+05:30

After I read this article on Eudaimonia, I have had this urge to read more on the subject. But these days, everything I do, comes associated with a sense of guilt. Hope someday, I'll be able to explore Eudaimonia in more detail. Irony!

Here's a related article which explores Virtue Ethics.

Curiously, there is no mention of (or i couldn't find) Eudaimonia in Russell's History of Western Philosophy. But a chapter on Aristotle's politics mentions that the right age for marriage (in the Hellenic world) is 37 for men and 18 for women :)

Dalits will vote only for Dalits?

2011-05-06T09:02:00.004+05:30

I think the reservation of constituencies for a particular community is undemocratic and a violation of the constitutional rights of other communities. I support the abolition of reserved constituencies for SCs and STs in Parliament, Assemblies and Local Bodies. I also oppose women's reservation and the existence of nominated members for Anglo-Indians.

However, I do not oppose affirmative action in educational opportunities or public sector jobs. I want such reservation to be put to vote in state legislatures every year! But legislature itself is far too important an instrument of public opinion and representative democracy to be tinkered in the name of affirmative action. I have written how my right to contest elections is under threat because of caste, a system I oppose, and gender which I'm not responsible for.

Incidentally, BBMP has a rather funny circular reservation policy, which for the most part throws up incompetent people to be elected as Councilors and later as Mayor and the Deputy. Few days ago in the Mayoral election, only two incompetent women (who's husbands already call the shots) were available to be elected. And the deputy mayorship also went like this to a man from a particular caste.

While the Koramangala Smartvote campaign was on, people were miffed that only a particular community candidate could contest from Koramangala when that community has negligible presence in the constituency. However I opposed any move by Smartvote to challenge this affirmative action because of the randomness 'protection' inherent in the reservation policy!!

Now, The Hindu today has published a research, Does political reservation affect voter turnout?, which is kind of bizarre. The research notes that non-SCs have no biases against voting for SCs in reserved constituencies but the SCs themselves vote in droves when only members of their community are contesting elections. And the researchers claim that the conclusion of their research is that Political Affirmative action is good.

If anything, the research should only be used as an argument against reservation. If its empirically provable that non-SCs are not biased against voting for SCs, then it calls into question, the whole policy of reservation. I emphasize on empirical data, because there is enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that in many villages of Tamilnadu, non-SCs are not willing to vote for SCs. The more famous cases being Pappapatti and Keerippatti.

However, this research is flawed. Its very much expected that community votes for members of their community is high irrespective of whether its SCs or others. And its even possible that non-SCs are biased against SC candidates when there are non-SC options available. I just wonder how the above researchers came to such a conclusion.

disclosure: i'm right liberal.

My suggestions to the Lokpal Bill Draft Committee

2011-04-24T23:02:00.006+05:30

I made the following comment on the website provided by the Citizen members of the Lokpal Bill Draft Committee. Note: I consider the notification and the inclusion of these members in that committee unconstitutional. But that shouldn't prevent me from offering my suggestions, no?

http://www.lokpalbillconsultation.org/

The comment number as acknowledged by their team #A736 LB.

Summary: Please do not create a Frankenstein monster. We only need a Public Ombudsman.

Please consider the following in the Lokpal bill:

1. Use the 1968 Lokpal bill as the base. Bring every constitutional office under the preview of Lokpal including the Prime Minister.

2. Ensure that only elected representatives are in the appointment panel of Lokpal. Even supreme court judges have no locus standi in any executive appointment. Arbitrary inclusion of civil society members like noble laureates is making a mockery of the constitution. Let executive find suitable candidates, legislature appoint and judiciary have the power to verify the legality of the appointment. Like it happens in CVC appointment. This method worked as evidenced in the recent removal of Shri P J Thomas. He even got his due legal recourse to state his case.

3. Do not abolish the requirement to seek the permission of the speaker/senior official to investigate or prosecute an MP/junior officers. Instead allow the Lokpal to appeal in a court of law against the speaker/senior official's decision.

4. Allow the Lokpal to order investigation by CBI or any agency of the union or the states. But do not make them subordinate to the lokpal. let them remain independent in action but under executive control for funding/personnel related reasons. Lokpal and by extension Lokayukta should not be considered as police officers but only the representative of the plaintiff. The plaintiff being the citizen who brought the issue to the Lokpal.

5. Do not bring Grievance Redressal under Lokpal. That can be considered as part of a separate "Right to Government Services Act" on the lines of "Right to Information Act". Grievance Redressal will make Lokpal unmanageable.

****

Other changes, the draft committee can suggest outside the purview of the lokpal bill.

1. Changes to the Criminal procedure code (section 197) and Prevention of corruption act (section 19) as suggested by Justice Santosh Hegde.

2. Considering the creation of a Central Prosecution Commission on the lines of the CVC, CIC, CAG etc. This commission can study and comment on the arguments made by govt prosecutors in various cases. This will help check the collusion of the prosecutors with the accused to sabotage the case. Just as CAG reports are used to find faults in financial decisions made by the executive, the new Prosecution Commission reports can be used by parliament and/or the govt to act against errant prosecutors.

DIY: Complain if you have been wronged

2011-04-17T21:52:00.004+05:30

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Chief Traffic Manager (O)
Date: Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 10:25 AM
Subject: Re: Dear Balaji Ganesan, your complaint details.
To: bal****@gmail.com

Dear sir,

BMTC regrets the inconvenience caused. Taking note of your complaint action has been taken by deploying sarathy patrol squad to monitor in the said area and to take necessary action in this regard.

Looking forward for your continued patronage

With regards
CTM(O),
BMTC

On 9 April 2011 16:03, BMTC Customer Support wrote:

**** This mail is automatically generated. Please do not reply. ****

Dear Balaji Ganesan,

The following query has been registered with us.
Query Information
TTNO BMTC-0420111604-3682
Topic Name Crew Behavior
Problem Name Crew Behavior
Complaint

Hi, my name is Balaji and I live in Koramangala 4th Block.

This afternoon (April 9th, 2011 around 3 PM), the route 356 bus (KA 01 FA 1589) I was traveling from Majestic to Koramangala Water Tank failed to stop at the specified Water Tank bus stop and many passengers had to walk all the way from the next stop (Madiwala) which is about a kilometer away.

I'm bringing this to your attention so that you can please ensure that your drivers/conductors do stop at specified stops. I'm a fan of BMTC. But some of your bus drivers bring a very bad name to BMTC and our Bengaluru city in general. Please do the needful. Thanks.

-Balaji.

Our team shall get back to you shortly. We thank you for your concern and support.

--
Best Regards,

BMTC Team.

Bring Breach of Privilege motion against Shri Anna Hazare and Shri Arvind Kejriwal

2011-04-13T09:18:00.003+05:30

I had recently written the following petition and hosted it at the following url. Didn't think anyone would bother to sign. I'm surprised 15 people have signed it. I hereby declare the campaign a massive success :-)

http://www.petitiononline.com/lokparls/petition.html

To: Hon'ble Speaker, Lok Sabha and Hon'ble Chairman, Rajya Sabha

Summary:

1. Please bring a breach of Parliamentary privilege motion against Shri Anna Hazare and Shri Arvind Kejriwal for threatening Loksabha Members with pressure to pass a Lokpal Bill before August 15, 2011, which may or may not have public support.

2. Please take up with the President of India and the Supreme Court, the issue of conflict of interest in Karnataka Lokayukta Justice Santosh Hegde drafting a bill, to be tabled in your house, that may vest more authority in his current constitutional office.

****

As you might be aware, a 10 member committee to draft a Lokpal Bill has been constituted and notified in the Official Gazette. The following citizens, including five members of Parliament, have been made members of the draft committee.

1. Shri Pranab Mukherjee, Union Finance Minister and Member of Lok Sabha
2. Shri Palaniappan Chidambaram, Union Home Minister and Member of Lok Sabha
3. Shri Veerappa Moily, Union Law Minister and Member of Lok Sabha
4. Shri Kapil Sibal, Union HRD, Communications and IT Minister and Member of Lok Sabha
5. Shri Salman Kurshid, Union Water Resources and Minority Affairs Minister and Member of Lok Sabha

6. Justice Santosh Hegde, Karnataka Lokayukta and former Supreme Court Judge
7. Shri Shanti Bhushan, private citizen and former Union Law Minister
8. Shri Anna Hazare, private citizen and social activist
9. Shri Arvind Kejriwal, private citizen and social activist
10. Shri Prashant Bhushan, private citizen and social activist

The above committee is slated to meet for the first time on April 16, 2011. Couple of members of the committee, Shri Anna Hazare and Shri Arvind Kejriwal have issued statements threatening to bring pressure on the members of the Lok Sabha, if the yet to be drafted Lokpal bill is not passed by Parliament on or before August 15, 2011.

The undersigned citizens of India express our gratitude towards the social activists for mobilizing public opinion against corruption in public offices. However we wish to bring to your notice that Hon'ble members of Parliament in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha have debated a similar bill on eight occasions and have not found it appropriate to make the bill into law.

While amendments to the said Lokpal Bill or a new draft of the bill may, upon approval by you, be tabled for debate by the treasury or any member of both houses, the institution of a draft committee comprising unelected members might be in violation of our Constitution.

Hence We, the undersigned,

1. request you to verify the constitutional validity of such a committee and if needed pass appropriate ruling on such a bill, if and when its tabled in your house.

2. we also urge you to consider the possibility of approaching the Hon'ble President of India to request the opinion of the Supreme Court of India on the validity of the notification issued to constitute such a committee.

3. we request you to peruse the statements* made by Shri Anna Hazare and Shri Arvind Kejriwal threatening to bring pressure on the members of Lok Sabha to pass the bill drafted by their committee or else face protests starting August 15, 2011. In our Republic, the Parliament of India has the right to altogether refuse the creation of the constitutional post of Lokpal and not merely decide the quantum of authority that may be vested in that office. Their statement demanding a particular outcome of a parliamentary debate and the accompanied threat of protest otherwise, might be in breach of the privilege of Parliament.

4. we also urge you to look into the conflict of interest, if any, that arises from the inclusion of the Karnataka Lokayukta Justice Santosh Hegde in the drafting committee. He holds a constitutional office and it may not be appropriate for him to draft a partisan bill that may have a bearing on the very office he is currently occupying. Please consider taking this conflict of interest issue to the President of India and the Supreme Court.

5. look into the arbitrary inclusion of private citizens in the drafting committee and the absence of women members which may not have arisen if your office had been consulted.

* - News report in The Hindu newspaper on the statements made by Shri Anna Hazare and Shri Arvind Kejriwal.

http://www.hindu.com/2011/04/10/stories/2011041064801200.htm

Thanks.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

India Against 'India Against Corruption' blackmail

2011-04-07T17:54:00.028+05:30

I have volunteered for India Against Corruption and will resume my support later. I support the enactment of a Lokpal Bill with some changes to the 1968 draft. I want Lokpal as a public ombudsman but not as the chairman of the Gestapo.

The current undemocratic demand by IAC to include "citizen activists" in the draft committee and the blackmail fast by Anna Hazare, both need to be condemned. And people need to be informed that there is no "Jan" in the Jan Lokpal Bill. So, I'm collecting public opinion against Jan Lokpal Bill in general and Anna Hazare's fast in particular.

1. Jan Lokpal - Caveat Emptor.

2. Appeal to India Against Corruption Team: Drop the Fast.

3. Against Jan Lok Pal and the politics of hunger strikes. - Nitin Pai.

4. Anna Hazare’s misguided fast..

5. The dramatically over-hyped faith in the Jan Lokpal Bill.. - Sanjiv Sabhlok.

6. Jan Lokpal Bill undermines democracy: experts.

7. Anna Hazare should have waited, says Santosh Hegde.

8. My issues with the Proposed Jan Lok Pal Bill.

9. An Anti-Corruption Ayatollah. B. Raman.

10. The Hazare hazard. Business Standard Editorial.

11. Of the few, by the few. Pratap Bhanu Mehta.

12. At the Risk of Heresy: Why I am not Celebrating with Anna Hazare.

13. To End Corruption, End Statism. Sauvik Chakravarty.

14. The Jan Lokpal Bill: Good intentions and the road to hell.

15. Aruna Roy, others seek sharper scrutiny of Jan Lokpal Bill.

16. Hazare is being used, exploited: Digvijaya Singh.

17. India's Middle Class Hungers for Undemocratic Change. Salil Tripathi.

18. High Court to AG: Explain Lokpal panel.

19. Why I believe in Shanti Bhushan, not not in double standards.
Vir Sanghvi.

20. Justice Sawant’s remarks on Anna Hazare. Nitin Pai.

21. Make Sure The Cure Isn’t Worse Than The Disease. Aruna Roy, Nikhil Dey.

22. Jan Lokpal: an alternative view. K.N. Panikkar.

23. The sheer arrogance of including me (Magsaysay Award winner) in the collegium instead of elected representatives. - P Sainath.

24. A Robin Hood Lokpal.

25. Why this ‘freedom’ is false.

26. Bring Breach of Privilege motion against Shri Anna Hazare and Shri Arvind Kejriwal.

27. Drafting panel faces first legal hurdle.

28. Mahesh Bhatt, KN Panikkar & Shabnam Hashmi object to Hazare's 'attitude'.

29. Mayawati: why no Dalit on Lokpal panel?

more to come.

An Appeal to the India Against Corruption team: Drop the Fast

2011-03-30T10:34:00.005+05:30

I appeal to the India Against Corruption team to drop the (protest) fast planned for April 5, 2011.

For the following reasons:

1. In a Democracy, Parliament is the place to make laws. Not necessarily the Treasury benches let alone the Executive offices of the Cabinet. Please approach individual MPs directly to table the Janlokpal Bill as a private member bill and then lobby the entire house to debate and pass it.

2. The Prime Minister, has kept his promise to consult civil society activists in the draft of the Treasury version of the Lokpal Bill. There was a meeting yesterday. Thats more than what is required of the govt.

3. Lobby groups like IAC being allowed to draft the treasury version of a bill is not a good precedent. In the future, an argument could be made to involve RSS and other Hindutva Terror groups in drafting the Anti-Cow Slaughter bill or SIMI and other Jihadi Terror groups in drafting the Uniform Civil Code. The Group of Ministers has asked civil society to comment on the individual provisions of the Lokpal Bill. Thats what civil society should do.

4. Janlokpal Bill is not necessarily a good one. Infact, I find it anti-democratic and hence unconstitutional. Provisions like merging the CVC with Lokpal are debatable. And demanding that a collegium of Judges, Nobel and Bharat Ratna award recipients et al appoint the Lokpal might provoke hearty laughter, except that its plain anti-democratic. We are not a Platonic Republic but a Democratic Constitutional one.

*****

The following is a mail I wrote this morning to one of the activists knowledgeable in the subject. And you may also want to read the previous open letter I wrote to the IAC team.

oh, you have put it very nicely. i'm also wondering how does this lokpal fit in with our constitutional republic. i asked Justice Santosh Hegde "if the Jan Lokpal Bill is consistent with our constitution and democracy". he said yes. but this was at the interaction program organized by IAC and i don't think i could convey my misgivings properly in a one line question.

i read both the drafts of lokpal and janlokpal, i don't find anything particularly wrong with the lokpal bill. it does require that the speaker/secretaries be approached to investigate a member of parliament/official. i don't find anything wrong with that. just that the lokpal office, on behalf of the complainant, should be able to approach the judiciary if it believes the speaker or the secretary is reneging in his/her duty to take cognizance of an offense.

other jan lokpal bill provisions like abolition of section 197 of CrPC are not really related to the lokpal. their demand to abolish the CVC and merging it into Lokpal seems to miss the whole point of CVC being a vigilance agency at the bureaucratic level while Lokpal being the proposed agency to investigate more sensitive constitutional offices of the republic.

however, i don't necessarily agree with lokpal becoming a stronger agency for investigation. Police, CBI, ED, CVC are these very institutions. just that they need a strong backer in the public ombudsman namely Lokpal, so that they can investigate without fear of being harassed by the powerful people they are investigating. for example, CBI functions much better when it has the backing of the supreme court. so Lokpal having the powers to order an inquiry by the police or CBI, advising the filing of an FIR, Chargesheet etc should be enough.

if anything, i find the whole concept of lokayukta police quite bizarre. why isn't the entire police of the state available to the lokayukta to investigate?

btw, have you had a chance to look at the French Conseil d'etat, which performs an advisory, but seemingly binding role in overseeing administrative omissions and commissions.

-Balaji.

A finger to Indian Cricket Fans

2011-03-13T12:03:00.008+05:30

There is a bill board put up by Yahoo! on MG Road. It says "come watch a finger, silence a nation". They mean an umpiring decision against the host nation. I just think its the middle finger. Even Dhoni said yesterday that his team shouldn't give a damn about the Indian fans.

I'm listing 10 reasons why you deserve the finger.

1. You are just not interested in cricket, but only in India playing it. And that too only on TV. Even Mint front page says so. Tata Sky has a channel with just Indian cricket. The poor 500 rupee cricket fans have to either get lathicharged or like me, miss the Protea-England game in Chennai becos you don't sell tickets legally. The Proteas were so agitated about my absence, that they lost the game.

2. When was the last time, the Indian team did anything to develop cricket in one of the associate nations? Why not visit or host Afghanistan, UAE, Canada, Malaysia, Hong Kong, US, Nepal, Ireland, Netherlands, France, Singapore (my cousin plays for their under-something national team and went on a tour of Australia)?

Forget the money. They have enough or ICC gives them $300 million a year. Why not come play? Even football superstars come to Kolkata to promote the game in India. Lanka played a series in the US, although sadly against NZ. And even by your narrow nationalistic mindset, most of the associate nations have players of Indian origin. Why not help them?

3. Why didn't you have cricket included in the Commonwealth Games. Hell, you hosted it with my tax money. Do you know which country sent a full team to the previous CWG in Malaysia? South Africa. Australia won it. You guys sent half a team while the other was in mass nationalist orgy in Toronto playing Pakistan. (no, that had nothing to do with promoting cricket in Canada. their team was playing in Malaysia!).

4. Why Adam Gilchrist et al are the ones pleading to make cricket an Olympic sport? They get bucket loads of medals at the Olympics. How many do you Indians get? Oh, you don't even want cricket included in the Asian Games where you finished 5th or something. You were watching the BCCI XI play New Zealand, while a dozen countries were playing for Asian cricket glory in China.

5. How is it that you allow a franchise owner (Srinivasan) to be the VP and Prez-elect of the BCCI? Is something like 'conflict of interest' too complex to understand? Have you watched Nero's Guests, a documentary on farmer suicides in Vidharbha? Why do I get the feeling that Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar is the Nero, playing board room cricket and you are among the guests? btw prisoners were burnt alive at the stake to provide lighting for Nero and his guests.

6. Why do you turn a blind eye to unacceptable behavior by your players. Sachin tried to cheat a poor country of millions of rupees in customs duty. The customs officer who colluded with Sachin now owns the Kochi team. Harbhajan calls a fellow player monkey for his color and you people claim its just "maa ki", as if thats a very nice thing to say (Read my 'Racism for Dummies'). Do you think any other cricketing nation would have failed to discipline someone like Sreesanth?

7. How many balls are there in an over? 4? When was the last time you saw two consecutive TV replays of a wicket within 2 mins of it occurring? How much money do you pay for your cable or DTH operator? You call yourself a cricket fan when you don't even get to watch those important moments in the game? (Read my 'Jihad against Ad Terror').

8. Why do you hate Pakistani cricketers? How is it that the greatest cricket entertainers on the planet aren't welcome in IPL? Why shd they waste their lives for few thousand pounds dished out by Indian bookies?

Pakistan were co-hosts of this world cup. They gracefully accepted that their country was unsafe and let go of the opportunity. Lankan players were attacked with machine guns in Lahore, few got injured and its Lanka which is hosting Pakistan now! Thats what cricket is for. Camaraderie and friendship. Not to promote one of the most vulgar human emotions, "patriotism".

9. What did you do when a free market initiative to promote cricket in India, namely the ICL, was destroyed by the BCCI? The lovely Pakistanis sent their best players in a generation to play in ICL. Two of the greatest New Zealand players (Bond, Cairns) retired from amateur cricket to play ICL. You destroyed it. (Read my 'Checklist for Subash Chandra').

10. How do you support the Mumbai Immigrants team which doesn't include Marathis and Mumbaikars (other than Sachin who thinks Mumbai belongs to Biharis)? No charity considering Mumbai, its catchement area, has the best Ranji team in the country. Why will you support Mallya's team who failed to retain Dale Steyn or any of the local players? Why should a promising young cricketer like Manish Pandey get 40 lakhs when non-entities are making millions in the auction?

Open Letter to Indian Against Corruption team

2011-03-08T12:28:00.002+05:30

for whatever its worth, i wrote the following in a mail addressed to one of the co-ordinators of India Against Corruption in Bengaluru.

Dear Vijay Dwivedi,

The demand that IAC members be allowed to draft the bill along with govt representatives or else hunger strike, seems ridiculous. If IAC is so interested, why not try to convince a MP to table your Jan Lokpal bill as a private member bill in this parliamentary session itself? Why not talk to Rajeev Chandrasekhar here in Koramangala? In your zeal, you may be unwittingly trying to damage the institutions of our constitutional republic. Please, please stop this blackmail.

I think the question of which Lokpal bill to be tabled should be left to real leaders of the country, namely those headed by the Prime Minister.

The Jan Lokpal bill drafted by IAC is not necessarily a good one. The provision to bring CVC, CBI etc under the purview of the Lokpal, seems to go against the constitutional values of executive leadership. Please don't undermine the office of the Prime Minister. That CVC and CBI should be independent of political interference is obvious. But bringing them under someone (Lokpal) who is not elected by the people and not related to the Judiciary doesn't seem right. IAC should perhaps stick only to demands like adequate summoning powers and "the power to order a CBI enquiry against anyone" etc be given to the Lokpal.

A better way forward for IAC will be to demand a Parliamentary Committee on Appointments which will vote on crucial appointments like CVC, CBI director, CAG, Attorney General, Service chiefs, Election commissioners. We have all seen the senate and congressional hearings happen in the US for all major appointments other than elected offices.

I think the Lokpal and Lokayuktas should remain public ombuds[wo]men, meaning a facilitatory institution that will bridge the gap between the govt and the people. Not a super power, with its own police force, over and above the powers of the Judiciary and the state anti-corruption bodies like the CVC, CAG or CBI.

Curiously, no-body is talking about a Central Prosecution Commissioner. Just as the CAG watches over government accounts, a CPC can look at the arguments made by the public prosecutors in courts, arguing on behalf of the state.

When the Attorney General says that "integrity is not necessary to become CVC", he is obviously not keeping the best interests of the people or even the govt in mind and is failing in his job as a law officer of the state. He needs to be pulled up and a critical note written on his career papers by an independent CPC. Similarly the prosecutors in Gujarat riot cases or Bofors scandal etc should be monitored by a state or national level CPCs to ensure that they are not colluding with the accused. [i had suggested this CPC in BJP's campaign website lkadvani.in as well].

-Balaji.

--- On Tue, 8/3/11, vijay dwivedi wrote:

From: vijay dwivedi
Subject: [IAC] Meeting between PM and IAC representatives(-MUST READ)
To: "India Against Corruption Karnataka"
Date: Tuesday, 8 March, 2011, 10:55 AM

Dear Friends,

The meeting yesterday evening between IAC representatives (Anna Hazare, Shanti Bhushan, Prashant Bhushan, Kiran Bedi, Arvind Kejriwal, Swami Agnivesh, Archbishop Vincent, Dr Kuldip Chikara (Bharat Swabhimaan Nyasa), Darshak Hathi (Art of Living) and PV Rajagopal) and the PM and Law Minister, Veerapan Moily was not very encouraging.

The PM said that the govt has no time to consider the issue of corruption till the 13th May due to the ongoing parliament session and the impeding elections in five states. The IAC representatives requested to take immediate action because the country was seething with anger and bleeding with corruption.

After great persuasion, he agreed to bring a Lokpal bill in the monsoon session of parliament. How would the bill be drafted and which bill would it be? He was informed that the govt bill was extremely badly drafted. The PM suggested that a subcommittee of "Group of Ministers (GOM)" will be constituted which will have two meetings with representatives of IAC after the 13th of May. The GOM will draft the bill accordingly after the interaction. When he was told that we were not willing to wait so long, he offered to have one symbolic meeting after 25th march when parliament session ends.

When he was requested to set up a joint committee consisting of half members from IAC and half from the government's side to prepare the draft Lokpal Bill by the 13th May when the elections end, the govt simply refused.

In effect, we stand where we were before the meeting. The meeting served no purpose except made the intention of the government clear. Annaji has decided that the whole country desperately needs to act immediately on corruption. He said that it was unfortunate that the govt does not have time to address this burning issue and therefore the movement would continue and intensify. His decision to go on fast on the 5th April stands as it is.

Annaji will write a letter to the PM today which will be shared with all of you.

--
Regards

Vijay

happy bday balajiworld :-)

2011-02-28T21:43:00.002+05:30

well, seems this blog turned 6 last week. Feb 23, 2005 being the first post. silly celebrating this, i know. but you have no idea what this blog got me :-)

incidentally, an "avid" reader of my blog chose this day (Feb 23, 2011) to get married!

and I still run ...

2011-02-21T05:20:00.002+05:30

oh, this is just to say that I ran the Auroville Half Marathon (timed 2 hrs and 26 mins). and intend to run < a quarter at Sunfeast, another half at Kaveri in September and a full in Mumbai 2012. should take cycling a bit more seriously too. i envy TFNers.

elsewhere, one is up (infact wild!), another down (suspended?) and the third needs attention.

Seminar on AFSPA and protest in solidarity with Sharmila Irom Chanu

2011-02-02T21:51:00.003+05:30

Got the below message on the Pedestrian Pictures mailing list. Please spread the info and attend the seminar if you can.

I strongly support the repeal of AFSPA and ending the military rule that currently exists in several states of the Union. I believe AFSPA in its present form is a shame on the Republic.

On Manipur, while I support the Naga demand for Nagalim (either within the Indian Union or as an independent state), things have to be decided only by a referendum across the region. But Irom Sharmila is certainly a hero. I also think Assam Rifles should either be disbanded or made into a regiment of the Army and withdrawn from policing duties in the north-east.

********

We would like to invite to attend a seminar on Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and protest in solidarity with Irom Sharmila, who is on a hunger fast for more than ten years in Manipur. Irom Sharmila is being force fed through the nose by the administration. Many official bodies of Government of India as well as international bodies including the UN have demanded the repeal of AFSPA. However, this draconian act is responsible for murder, torture and rape of hundreds of innocent people every year in Manipur.

In this context, many civil society organizations in Bangalore have joined together to initiate a campaign against AFSPA in solidarity with Irom Sharmila. A seminar on AFSPA will be held at the SCM House, Mission Road, Bangalore from 9.30 am to 4 pm.

We invite you to join us in a seminar on AFSPA, speakers from north east including Manipur will be sharing their concerns. 'Le Mashalien' a one woman play on Sharmila Irom by Ojas SV will also be staged during this meeting at 4 pm. 'April 6th', a film on the plight of the widows of Manipur whose husbands were murdered by the Indian Army will also be screened at the venue at 1.30 pm.

Venue: SCM House, Mission Road, Bangalore

Date: February 3, 2011

Time: 9.30 am to 4pm

The main speakers are:

Prof. Bimol (Jawaharlal Nehru University)

Babloo (Human Rights Alert, Imphal)

Nitan (Extra Judicial Execution Victim Families’ Association Manipur)

Chandam Netraj (Director of documentary film, `April 6th).

And other speakers from various organisations of Bangalore.

A protest in solidarity with Sharmila Irom Chanu is also organised at 5-7pm, Town Hall, Bangalore.

The events are organised in Bangalore by Peoples’ Solidarity Concerns, SICHREM, Pedestrian Pictures, Open Space, New Socialist Alternative, Students Christian Movement of India, Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, Visual Search, Indian Social Institute, Moving Republic and other orgnisations. We request you to support the events with adequate media coverage within your means.

The Kakatiyas of Warangal

2011-01-02T20:25:00.006+05:30

Early last month, I visited villages in Warangal district of Andhra Pradesh to observe social audits. I sneaked in a visit to the remains of the Kakatiya dynasty fort too.

My impression of the monument is kinda mixed. While the Kakatiyas are the second most popular dynasty from this region (Eastern Chalukyas beat them to the podium), there doesn't seem to be much left from their rule. This is sad considering they ruled as recently as 700 years ago.

Whatever that is left and currently made into a monument by the ASI does give a clue to their once impressive city. But I think the ASI has done a rather mediocre job of coming up with the memorial. Or perhaps this is the best they could do. I really doubt if the four thoranam's (famous warangal arches) were not in the cardinal directions. Somebody pls enlighten me on this. Me being too busy to lookup :-)

Why I run?

2010-12-21T06:58:00.003+05:30

Samar Halarnkar (i like him) had tweeted, asking runners to comment on why they run, for one of his pieces. I sent mine. He said I can post it to my blog and he might use one or two lines. I wish he does :-)

I have been running for few years now. But its very irregular. These days I run about 3 kilometers on the road in the morning and about 2 kms in the gym. I have run two Bangalore Sunfeast 10k runs (with a mediocre 72 mins best time) and I'm planning to run my first half marathon in Auroville come February.

Why I run? As one would expect, I started running to reduce weight and become 'fit'. Merely running doesn't work ofcourse. Infact while I learnt to swim in a crash course of about a month, I was burning lots of calories in the pool and gaining lots of weight outside! I was living in West LA at that time. Try swimming for few hours and going to an Indian restaurant immediately after!!

I know US Republican leader Mike Huckabee lost incredible amounts of weight by running marathons etc. I have lost 4 kgs from 72 to about 68 in the last 4 months. Even this wasn't as easy as it sounds. And it was mostly because of a reduced food intake. But I have become fit nevertheless.

I have heard from an avid cyclist friend (who finished Tour of Nilgiris last year) that biking is a personal struggle with oneself. No matter how trained you are and have friends coming along, that stiff climb on the way is essentially a personal journey. You are on your own. You can give up and walk the bike. But most bikers won't do it. They will struggle with all their might. I'm sure runners feel that way too. Imagine putting that kind of effort in your office work.

Coming back to my running. Since I wasn't all that fit until recently, I used to utter some Sanskrit verses (i'm atheist) to concentrate. After some distance, its difficult even to do that. Then I start counting my steps. I think about various things while running. I quit my previous job after an intense falling out with colleagues and managers. Those fights in office were rehearsed during my morning runs! My manager finishes his Sunfeast 10k runs in less than 60 mins. So there.

And finally, the reason why I think anybody will care about my rant. In the last year, I have been chasing some incredibly tough personal, professional and political goals. Completing a run boosts my self respect (i run 2-3 circles of my neighborhood). When my body wants to give up, my mind tells me, "no, I'm not that weak. I'll finish it. If I can't achieve this, how will I succeed in my bigger goals". I'm not exaggerating. I do feel that way.

'Say NO to UID' campaign: Talk by Usha Ramanathan, 17 Dec 2010

2010-12-15T21:23:00.007+05:30

got this in a mail. I absolutely Say No to UID. infact i have been telling few fellow koramangalaites to go and incapacitate Nandan Nilekani as a service to the Republic. no takers yet.

see more links at the bottom.

*********

Public Talk on the implications of the Unique ID project in India and the proposed National Identification Authority of India Bill 2010

Venue : Institute of Agricultural Technologists, off Queens Road, Bangalore
Time : 3.30 pm
Date : Friday 17th December 2010.
Speaker : Usha Ramanathan, Independent Law researcher, New Delhi.

In September this year the process of rolling out a highly controversial and least debated project - the Unique ID - has begun. There has been consistent opposition to this project and the responses from any of the authorities concerned are not forthcoming. Many demands have been raised from mass movements, civil society groups, eminent jurists, writers, researchers, and human rights activists raising serious concerns of the debilitating impacts such measures will have on urban and rural poor. The UID Project has cross-cutting impacts on food security, MGNREGS (Right to Work), banking, public health, etc.

What exactly does the UID project involve? What changes will it cause to one's life and livelihood? What are the issues relating to invasion of privacy? Who is proposing them and what are their interests?

Has the UID project and the NID Bill been deeply debated across India in various local governments, legislatures, and other official forums? What is the position of the Finance Ministry, Planning Commission and other concerned authorities about these initiatives? What the the implications to Citizenship?

Has such an initiative been tried elsewhere in the world? And if so, what is the result?

Usha Ramanathan will address these questions and concerns and will also offer a critique of the NIAI Bill 2010.

We look forward to your active participation and support for this campaign.

For the Campaign

--------------------------

Environment, Social Justice and Governance Initiatives Environment Support Group Trust 1572, 36th Cross, Banashankari II Stage Bangalore 560070 Tel: 91-80-26713559-61 Voice/Fax: 91-80-26713316 Email: esg@esgindia.org Web: www.esgindia.org

*********

right liberals have always been opposed to UID.

http://www.countercurrents.org/karun240809.htm

but a lefty no less than Jean Dreze has opposed UID as "creating the infrastructure of authoritarianism".

http://www.hindu.com/2010/11/25/stories/2010112563151300.htm

and as many as 100 left wing intellectuals including Aruna Roy have signed a letter asking UID be not used in NREGA.

http://www.hindu.com/2010/12/01/stories/2010120164301300.htm

What would have Gandhi learnt in Pietermaritzburg?

2010-12-11T22:00:00.008+05:30

I went to Saaku! - the walk against corruption today. Had to listen to a terribly boring speech by Lok Satta leader Jaiprakash Narayan. I will some day write a post on "Why Lok Satta is a joke", but lets discuss something else today.

Jaiprakash said (i paraphrase), "Gandhi was more motivated by his insult at Maritzburg" than perhaps "if he had been made to pay a bribe for his daughter's birth certificate". (aside: Gandhi had 4 sons).

****

I decided to check what happened in the infamous train incident and referred to my copy of The Selected Works of Mahatma Gandhi. The Maritzburg incident occurs in Vol 1 - Autobiography, Part II, section VII titled "Some Experiences".

I will have to read a lot more to decide, if Maritzburg was such an important event in Gandhi's life. But from his description, it doesn't seem so. Gandhi mentions that he was already known as a "coolie barrister" and that he had thought of abandoning his Indian Turban in favor of a hat.

Abdullah Sheth had persuaded him to wear the turban in solidarity with other Indians who wore it with pride and also becos he'll look like a waiter with his hat. Gandhi writes that he didn't like Sheth's reason of "looking like a waiter" becos he didn't think that was shameful. He persisted with his turban.

Now to the Maritzburg incident. He was traveling by train from Durban -> Maritzburg -> Charlestown -> stage coach to Johannesburg with halt in Standerton -> Pretoria.

Gandhi had traveled from Durban first class. He mentions nobody objected to it in Durban. A guard threw him out in Maritzburg after a white passenger complained. Gandhi telegrammed the Railway Company official who made arrangements for his further travel to Charlestown. Gandhi seems to have been more insulted in the stage coach with first being made to sit atop instead of inside the coach. Gandhi mentions this was an insult but didn't protest.

Later he was asked to sit on the footboard so that the coach leader can come outside and smoke. Gandhi now refused and many white passengers supported him. He continued to ride atop. At Standerton, Gandhi again protested to the stagecoach management who corrected the situation after the night halt. But for the night stay, the local hotel told Gandhi that it was "full". He stayed with an acquaintance.

From Johannesburg, Gandhi wanted to travel first class to Pretoria. So he wrote a letter to the Railway Company official mentioning he was a barrister and later met the official wearing a coat, looking "English". The official was greatly supportive of Gandhi's right to travel first class but requested that the company be not dragged in, if a guard throws Gandhi out of first class. Infact, the guard in the train did ask Gandhi to go to third class. But was given a severe dressing down by a fellow white passenger who insisted that Gandhi will travel first class with him.

After reaching Pretoria, Gandhi needed a room. A problem but an African American cab driver helped by taking him to one Johnston's Family Hotel. Mr. Johnston again was glad to accommodate but requested Gandhi to have his dinner in the room and not with other guests in the dinner hall. Gandhi agreed. But in a few minutes Johnston came to the room, apologized profusely and said that, he had spoken to other white guests who were happy to have Gandhi join them for dinner. Gandhi mentions he enjoyed the dinner that night.

*****

Now the recurring theme is,

1. Gandhi's clothes had wrought more injustice by reminding people of his color.

2. It was lower level employees (guards, managers) who mis-behaved. But most business owners and white passengers treated him with respect. Some white passengers even protested against his mistreatment.

I will be surprised if the Mahatma had not understood the phenomenon. Lok Satta leader Jaiprakash Narayan should perhaps read more and talk (please!) less.

*****

ps1: Last Sunday morning between 5 and 6 AM, I was shooed out of three big hotels in Hanamkonda (Warangal) becos, the handlers perhaps didn't think that I could afford to stay there. Before leaving for Warangal, I had declined an offer to stay at the Govt Circuit House as the District Collector's guest. "I can easily find a place", I had said.

ps2: Its very common for a 'colored' 'young' man like me to be treated with contempt by Indian shopkeepers. By both employees and business owners. Ask me, I have shopped alone all my life. But even minimum wage earning employees in the US stores, always treated me with respect.

ps3: Having stopped listening to Jaiprakash Narayan today, I could have given my first ever media interview on behalf of Smartvote. "Could have" becos, after listening to me for few moments, she said "can I speak to someone other than you?". Grrr!

How will walking in Saaku! help mitigate Corruption? Let me tell you how!

2010-12-09T22:40:00.012+05:30

In response to popular demand (couple of my friends were asked by their friends), I wrote a cynical reply. Now that I think about it, and as the couple of anecdotes shared below will explain, Saaku! the walk against corruption, could make a difference.

How will walking in Saaku! help mitigate Corruption?

My initial boilerplate reply:

my personal view is that every indian is corrupt! its impossible for any govt official or policeman to be honest in India becos middle/upper class people force them to accept bribes.

people just want to beat others in the queue or worse don't even want to get into any queue. like at the railway parcel service, passport office etc. given time, they'll get the service, but people want to jump the queue. and hence the bribe. Isn't spectrum 2G scam also a case of corporates jumping queue by cozying up to ministers/officials?

considering how dishonest people are, I think Indian politicians are less corrupt than what we deserve!

anyway, walking in a march or listening to people like Arvind Kejriwal at the rally, may help us to resolve not to bribe anymore. and also question the notion of corruption as a way of life in India.

Anecdote 1: The success of Sachidananda Nagara Nyayapara Andolana.

Smartvote, currently has a project called CCGG - Citizens Campaign for Good Governance. Initially it was suggested that we do Gandhigiri in front of offices which demand bribes. I opposed such Gandhigiri, claiming people jolly want to bribe! I was voted out 2 to 8.

But even before Smartvote could do anything, Sachidananda Nagara Nyayapara Andolana (SNNA) rocked Bangalore. You can read about that bunch of amazing people at http://www.nyayapara-andolana.org/. Its a story of how 120 households fought against every imaginable obstacle to get their house khattas without paying a bribe.

To be fair, several state level officials in Karnataka govt assisted the people in their campaign. It was an MLA and his cronies in lower level govt, who tried to swindle crores out of these people (yes, crores!). But people eventually won!

In this case, I was certainly wrong about people wanting to bribe or the efficacy of Gandhigiri. Some Smartvote members went to support SNNA in the above campaign and SNNA is one of the organizers of Saaku!

Anecdote 2: PDS Social Audits in Warangal District of Andhra Pradesh

As part of the Smartvote Good Governance project, we are currently studying the implementation of Public Distribution System in Karnataka.

On Monday and Tuesday of this week (Dec 6-7), I visited several villages in the Warangal District of Andhra Pradesh to study the PDS Social Audits currently being conducted there. Please come back to this blog to read about those Social Audits in more detail. For now, the following photos will suffice. I took them only about 72 hours earlier!

Its a Gram Sabha meeting in YerraGolli Pahad village in Jangaon division of Warangal. The Sarpanch (not in the picture) presided over. The residents of the village are seated below. On the plastic chair is the ration shop dealer. Standing with the megaphone is Tehsildar Venkatesh Reddy who read out the findings of the Social Audit conducted earlier in the day.

Some of the enforcement officials and the food advisory committee members of the Panchayat, who conducted the audit are seen standing behind. Director of Social Audits, Andhra Pradesh, Ms. Sowmya Kidambi (not in the picture) had come to observe. She is an MKSS activist currently working for the AP govt. I accompanied her.

The dealer was found to have given some residents, less food grains than what they are entitled to. Revenue Divisional Officer Vinay Krishna Reddy verified the findings. Joint Collector Ms. Karuna Aakella asked the residents what should be done to the ration shop dealer. People suggested only a fine instead of cancellation of her license. Karuna joked "you people have such big hearts!".

Tehsildar calculated the fine based on how much food grain was not given to residents. It came to Rupees 2480. Tehsildar gave a challan for the amount to the dealer in front of all the residents. The dealer agreed to pay it in the Tehsildar's office next day and vowed to never to repeat the mistake again. Incidentally, political leaders in this district are very supportive of these social audits.

****

Anecdote 1 shows how people can fight politicians and officials and refuse to pay bribes. Anecdote 2 shows how government officials supported by politicians are going beyond their expected calls of duty, to empower people to fight corruption.

So people, there is hope! Come, lets walk this Saturday at 9:30 AM from the Kanteerava stadium towards Shantinagar grounds. Lets listen to activist Arvind Kejriwal, Justice Venkatachaliah, SVYM activist Dr. Balasubramaniam among others. Saaku! Enough! We can together End Corruption!

Kaarthigai Deepam - A festival of Lights

2010-11-21T19:48:00.005+05:30

Today is Kaarthigai Deepam. A festival of lights celebrated in Tamilnadu. We light small earthen lamps and decorate the house-front. While munching on the pori-urundai (jaggery mixed popped rice balls), its pertinent to see the history of this lovely festival.

Kaarthigai is the name of a Tamil month and the Deepam festival occurs on the first or second full-moon day after Deepavali, which is a no-moon day. Deepavali (Diwali) is the more prominent festival of lights in North India. Its also the festival of noise (?! kidding) in South India. But its almost certain that Kaarthigai Deepam and Deepavali are the same festival.

Tamils follow a solar calendar. Its a month behind the other calendars of India. For example, Ugadhi, the Telugu and Kannada new year's day occurs in mid-March while the Tamil new year's day is mid-April. Infact, the Tamil Calendar is also behind the naming convention used in the other solar calendars like the Punjabi one.

Consequent of this, the Tamil Chithirai or Vaikasi is one month behind Chithra or Baishaki in other calendars. Now, I don't know how all these calendars still converge on the day of winter Solstice which is January 14 or 15 in all the states!!

Anyway, its likely becos of these calendar confusions, Tamils celebrate Kaarthigai Deepam a month behind Deepavali.

People all over the world celebrate the Sun and its winter Solstice. Thats the shortest day of the year and also the day on which Sun starts its northern journey. A similar festival for Light (artificial) or its source Fire is perfectly understandable. The Jews celebrate Light on Hanukkah roughly around the same time as we do. I'm certain the fire worshiping Zoroastrians also have their Deepavali equivalent, they being the symbiotic cousins of the Vedic-Aryans.

*****

How nice it'll be if Indians celebrated this festival for what it is. A festival of Lights. Alas, our small minds don't seem to comprehend the magnificent simplicity of this festival. We need clichéd reasons to celebrate Light.

The most clichéd of these reasons is the one about the victory of Good over Evil. Isn't Good always subjective? George Bush was obviously fighting for the Good side against the Evil Saddam Hussein. But how many on the planet subscribe to this view or celebrate it? Which brings us to the question of Rama, on whose name many north-Indians celebrate this festival.

Really? Is the victory of the racist, male-chauvinist, real-or-imaginary king Rama, any cause for celebration? And how silly is that a reason to celebrate the festival of lights? Even the other protagonists in the story (Sita, Jabali, Vali) called Rama, a dishonorable man. And to his face. I'll take George Bush any day over Rama.

Now, to the south Indian story for Deepavali. That Krishna helped by Sathyabhama killed Naragasuran and hence the good-over-evil motive for the festival of lights. While, the teachings of the Philosopher-King Krishna are close to the pinnacle of Indian achievement in Philosophy, why believe in such a silly story as Naragasuran being evil? He may well have been bad or it could be a typical Aryan story vilifying non-Aryans. But why bother?

These stories besmirch the antiquity of this festival which must be several thousand years old. I myself remember Mahavira's Nirwana on Deepavali, but he merely happened to die on this festival day.

I hope, we all mature as a civilization and appreciate the abundant wonders of the universe, most of which we comprehend as light from distant objects. Lets celebrate Light. Its Beautiful. Happy Kaarthigai Deepam!

Thengovanoor

2010-11-02T19:43:00.018+05:30

Today is my mom's birthday. Last weekend we had gone to her native village Thengovanoor near Mannargudi. While it was obviously an emotional trip for her, I was intrigued by the changes wrought to this place in about 50 years.

Few kilometers from Mannargudi, on the way to Thiruvarur are a couple of small villages Vadagovanoor and Thengovanoor. (North and South Govanoors). Its a tract bound by Vennar and Koraiyar rivers. Seemingly fertile land littered with ponds, canals and small temples.

My great grandfather's house was in the agraharam of Vadagovanoor. Surprising that as recently as 50 years ago, a part of this tiny village could have been off-limits to the rest of the community. Now the agraharam has vanished, with the Brahmins leaving for urban Tamilnadu and thence to California, I suppose.

Apparently the four village gods (Mari-amman, Kali-amman, Pidari and Ayyanar) guard the boundaries while Pillaiyar occupies the center in Vadagovanoor. Mariamman being our ancestral god.

Someone has posted pics from a Kumbabhishekham at this temple here. Thengovanoor also has its set of temples.

Change seems to have caught with our family too. My great grandfather had ran away and made a little fortune in Dhaka/Calcutta before returning to settle down. My grandfather had moved his family out to Thengovanoor, to live close to his lands. No agraharam in Thengovanoor, ours being the only Brahmin family. My grandfather was the village Munsif before he himself moved to Calcutta. The house still stands, but it now belongs to someone else.

My mom's elementary school was just outside the house thru the back gate and overlooking a rather large pond. Today there is a panchayat building there. My mom caught up with one of her classmates and a junior, to make a for some teary eyes and later, a good snap.

The neighbors gushed about the beautiful girl who went on to become my mom! Apparently I didn't get those genes or I blame it on the sun burnt Vellore district where I grew up. Or more honestly, over-eating.

For high school, my mom and uncles rode a bullock cart (themselves) to Koothanallur. This larger village being a exclusive Muslim community with palatial mansions in well aligned streets. Ayesha Palace being a particular hit, for it supplied ice-water to kids on the way to school. I remember many Muslim mansions in Vaniyambadi also have taps outside. Such nice people.

My mom eventually went to college in Kumbakonam. She has a certificate in rifle training, a sporting achievement I could never match. Oh, wait. I was the UKG rabbit race champion.

Here's the post from last year's trip to my dad's native village, Umayalpuram.

How to fix PDS? Abolish it. Let FCI run Food Retail shops.

2010-10-23T01:29:00.003+05:30

PDS (public distribution system) is socialism. UID is a means to deliver freebies. apparently with better targeting. Economists from both the right and the left, have argued why targeting doesn't work, keeps beneficiaries out and instead helps the crooks/babus swindle the money. Swaminathan Aiyar has suggested self-targeting.

All the current discussion is about fixing PDS. Becos PDS is sanctioned/budgeted by parliament and hence people are trying to fix the problems. If anyone is interested in a real solution, here's a right-liberal one.

1. Govt has no business running PDS or the Minimum Support Price (MSP) racket. both disturb the free market on food grains and hence should be abolished. Abolish fertilizer subsidies too.

2. Allow FCI (Food Corporation of India) to open retail shops. PDS works somewhat better if all aspects are owned by a single entity as observed in Tamilnadu and Chattisgarh govt owned PDS shops/transport.

3. Let FCI find real estate in every corner of the country with partnerships from Amul, Nandini, Aavin, HOPCOMS, Karpagam etc. Let state govts provide real-estate in exchange for equity.

4. Let FCI procure food grains by open competitive bidding. with small farmers getting the option to match the lower price quoted by big industrial farming companies.

5. Allow 100% foreign direct investment in Food retail. Let Wal-Mart, Costco, Carrefour, Tesco compete and force Ambani/Mittal/Biyani to bring food prices down.

6. Remove all restrictions on export or import of food grains. Quantitative restrictions are so uncool in Laissez faire economics.

7. If despite all this, FCI/others can't sell food grains at reasonable prices (say wheat at 3 rupees), and remain profitable, then let parliament write off the losses of the food retail industry. Such write-off is anyday more acceptable than bailouts for the aviation industry. And those bailouts will be lot cheaper than what goes down the drain in PDS/MSP.

And all the above is not some terrible scheme against farmers. Infact its farmers who are demanding something like that. Or atleast those behind Shetkari Sanghatana and Swatantra Bharat Paksha do. (shetkari.in)

Nandan's Number: UID will lead to Citizen's Rights violations

2010-10-22T07:32:00.010+05:30

The following is a comment I made on the blog post by Nitin Pai of the Takhsashila Institution.

a disappointing Yes Tank post.

its fairly obvious that UID will lead to "human" or rather citizen rights violations. lets take the PDS example.

the fundamental problem with PDS is not that there are more ration cards than families, but that many needy families don't have a ration card.

and not having a ration card, not just denies a beneficiary of food ration but also several other state benefits from a handloom saree to a color tv :-) but more crucially denies access to pension, ladli lakshmi, kalaigner health insurance etc. and don't even ask me about how premium the possession of a BPL ration card is against the APL one.

how will UID solve this problem? no way. it'll make the situation a lot worse.

the possession of a UID number will now become the premium possession and there is no reason to believe that govt will deliver such numbers any more efficiently than its bungling with ration/voter/pension cards. infact Nandan Nilekani's overly optimistic (rather outlandish) claim that govt offices will ping the Aadhar network for the citizen's identity, further strengthens the argument that the poor and the needy will be denied access to several benefits because they don't have a UID number.

The parliament authorizes the govt to spend billions of taxpayers money to provide food (and other essential benefits) but a needy citizen will be denied the benefit becos of a non-possession of a mere UID number. Parliament is going to makes laws proclaiming the RIGHT TO FOOD and the govt machinery jolly makes that conditional on a possession of a card?!! Or is parliament also gonna mandate the possession of a UID number a fundamental duty? and Nilekani claims UID number is optional!! yeah, right.

Now, pls don't under-estimate the difficulty in getting a card, any card from the govt if you are poor or belong to a backward caste. Any one of you who reads this post and doesn't have a voter ID, try to get one for you and your house maid from the same AROs office but going separately. There is a extremely high probability that your maid won't get it.

I'm part of a citizen's group in Bangalore which has worked on electoral roll/turnout mobilization efforts and I'm also studying PDS for another project. I can testify to the fact the India's poor are having a hard time getting any card from the end levels of the govt. Not to mention the bribes one has to pay, once the babu deigns that the poor person could be entitled to the "benefit" of possessing a card.

********

And this post is lot more disappointing becos its contrary to a widely held economic consensus (surprisingly on both left and right) that the targeted PDS is doomed to fail. Several left leaning members of the NAC (lead by Jean Dreze) have advocated universal PDS as opposed to TPDS. Harsh Mander and N C Saxena (who doubles up as a planning comm. member as well) wrote in detail about the merits and demerits of TPDS in their reports as the Supreme Court Commissioners (http://www.sccommissioners.org/) on the "Right to Food".

On the other side of the spectrum, Swaminathan Aiyar advocates self-targeting by which the benefits are universal but come with strings attached (like taste of the flour distributed via PDS, becos of iodine, iron, millet flour mixed), that only the poor will opt for it.

on the whole, its fair to say that UID will lead to violation of citizens rights, unless ofcourse this blogger and the other pro-govt agencies think you are not a citizen unless you possess Nandan's Number.

ps: i have given five more reasons why we all should SAY NO TO UID. click on my name above to read the blog post.

**********

Update: I didn't write this while commenting on Nitin's blog. but now I think about it, UID could be used to commit caste and gender based atrocities and almost certainly to demand bribes.

If UID is implemented as Nilekani claims it will be, where citizen's identity will be found by a govt office by pinging the Aadhar network, then thats a disaster waiting to happen. Currently, a govt official has to be very brazen to refuse identifying a citizen, when the latter submits copies of ration/voter/PAN card.

But if the onus of identifying the citizen is the domain of the babu, who'll look it up on the Aadhar network, then the citizen is a goner. The official can simply say "your name doesn't exist" and that "you are an imposter". A poor citizen will have no option but to bribe his/her way out of this insurmountable Babudom obstruction. And one can't even prosecute the official later. "Its not working on my computer" claim is as old as the computer itself.

And I can think of thousands of villages where upper castes in cooperation with the babus, will make the UID number more like a Manu (as in Manu Smriti) number. Our poor citizen being the pariah (outcast, untouchable) without a number.

10 Reasons why Kashmir must be given the Right to Self-determination

2010-09-12T13:29:00.003+05:30

1. Kashmir was already Independent in 1947.

Pakistan and India invaded it. India could have helped to protect Kashmiri Sovereignty from invading Pakistanis. Instead India blackmailed the Dogra King to join the Indian Union.

2. India promised a Plebiscite and then reneged on its promise.

There really is no excuse for this. Pakistan is more than willing to withdraw its forces from POK, if India did so from IHK. There is even a UN mission (UNMOGIP) established specifically to monitor troop positions in Kashmir.

3. The Betrayal of 1953.

India betrayed Kashmir in 1953 by going back on many of the terms of the 1948 accession. Karan Singh (son of Maharajah Hari Singh, an Indian puppet and even today a Congress leader) dismissed Sheikh Abdullah, the Prime Minister of Kashmir, without allowing him the opportunity to prove his majority in the assembly. The Sheikh will spend the next 11 years in Jail (till 1964), 3 years (1965-1968) under house arrest and another 18 months (1970-71) exiled in South India (Kodaikanal).

4. India makes cunning deals with two Kashmiri families; never with the people.

India's involvement with Kashmir is mostly through deals with two families, Maharajah Hari Singh family or the Abdullah family. Never with the people of Kashmir. There is no reason to believe Kashmiris supported Hari Singh's decision to accede to India or Sheikh Abdullah's decision (in 1974 after 15 years spent in jails) to drop the Plebiscite demand.

5. India continuously rigged elections in Kashmir until 2002.

Or didn't conduct elections at all. When separatists contested elections, India rigged the polls to defeat them. India also claims that separatists who contest elections under the Indian constitution are accepting Kashmir's accession to India! Worse, India even claims that people merely voting in the elections, is evidence of their accession to India. Most Kashmiris reject this assertion.

6. Kashmiri Pandits are ... well, Kashmiris.

Pandits are a very small minority community who don't necessarily support the Kashmiri freedom struggle. They were harmed by predominantly non-Kashmiri militants from Pakistan. Some Kashmiri's did try to save Pandits from the militants. Nevertheless, the Kashmiri civil society will have to do more to accommodate the interests of Pandits. And these Pandits can very well vote (from refugee camps in Jammu or Delhi) to keep Kashmir within the Indian Union, if they want to.

7. Human Rights violations.

Almost every government or human rights organization in the world has called out India for gross human rights violations in Kashmir. Even Indian media report staged killings, fake encounters, disappearances and custodial murders by the Army, CRPF and the erstwhile STF of the J&K police. While some misdemeanor by Armed forces is expected in any conflict, India has provisions like AFSPA which give the Armed forces unlimited powers (and near complete judicial immunity) to harass the civilians. 7 Indian states are currently under such Military rule.

8. India doesn't trust Kashmiri Police.

Why isn't India allowing Kashmiris to police themselves? Militancy that raged since 1989 mostly stopped in 2002. Why are so many outsiders (Army/CRPF) still there? One possible explanation is that India doesn't trust Kashmiris to make a strong police force out of them. And India offers to train the Afghan Army!

9. There are precedents - East Timor, Eastern Europe

Independence movements are not old history book stuff. There are contemporary examples of Republics letting some of their citizens to form separate states. Indonesian occupation of East Timor is remarkably similar to that of Kashmir.

10. Indian Republic is not a Kashmiri concern.

The argument that Indian Republic will fall apart or get balkanized if we let Kashmir go, doesn't wash. India's failures to protect the liberty of people in the North-East is not really a Kashmiri concern. Its India which has to sort out the mess. I support referendums to resolve such issues as Nagalim or Telangana too.

****

And finally, a part of me wishes that Kashmiris will vote to stay in the Indian Union instead of choosing Independence (most likely) or merger with Pakistan. But its Kashmiris who have to decide for themselves.

A place where the will of the people isn't reflected in the Union or its Government is neither a Republic nor a Democracy.

ps 1: I have deliberately used the word Kashmir instead of Jammu and Kashmir. In general, Kashmir refers to the Kashmiri speaking regions, Kashmir Valley, the surrounding mountains and POK.

ps 2: The people in the plains of Jammu, plains of POK, rugged hills of Gilgit-Baltistan (extending to Siachin and Kargil) and the Ladakh plateau will also have to vote in the referendum for Kashmiri Independence. Hence all these regions will first have to vote in a referendum to formally dismantle the J&K state. Only if they want to, ofcourse.

Exaggerated Minorities in Linguistic Histories

2010-08-14T18:28:00.010+05:30

... and possible conclusions in The Aryan-Dravidian Debate.

Introduction:

This post is in response to the review of Michel Danino's book 'The Lost River' by Jayakrishnan over there at The Varnam blog.

I read Michel Danino's book The Lost River earlier this year, ironically while traveling in Rajasthan, the deserts of which hide their share of the mysteries of Saraswathi. I have also read some works of Romila Thapar, DD Kosambi and Asko Parpola.

Problem Statement:

Lets phrase two of the important Questions in this field:

1. Was Harappan civilization (which now includes both the Indus and the Saraswathi valleys), an Aryan civilization? And that too, the Vedic-Sanskrit Civilization?

2. Is the Indus script likely to have been used to write an Aryan or a Dravidian language?

Literature Study:

Michel Danino makes a very convincing case that Saraswathi is indeed the mighty river praised in the Vedic Aryan literature and also the life giver of the Indus-Saraswathi civilization.

Romila Thapar has for long suggested that the origin of Sanskrit is more likely to be Bactria (central Asia) than northern or even north-western India. DD Kosambi had written extensively about the words and cultural habits of the natives that were inherited by the Aryan speakers. And Asko Parpola's research is on the lines of seeking a Tamil (and hence a decidedly non-Aryan) connection to the Indus script.

Ofcourse, the positions of the eminent historians above are more nuanced than the crude way in which I have put them.

What I'm saying:

I think if we don't leave detailed evidence, future historians, some 2000 years from now, will be fighting whether Arabs, Persians and Britishers were the original inhabitants of India. It may sound ridiculous but our current controversies could be as bizarre as such a proposition.

Example 1:

Minorities especially religious minorities have a tendency to contribute extensively to literature. For instance Tamil literature has a disproportionate amount of contributions from Jains, Buddhists, Brahmins and Ajivikas. Take some of the most famous works in early Tamil literature: Thirukkural (Jain), parts of Tholkappiam attributed to Tholkappiar (Brahmin), Silappathikaram (Jain), Manimekalai (Buddhist), 'Yadhum Oore ...' of Purananuru (Ajivika), Kamba Ramayanam (Brahmin).

Similarly Brahmin contribution to the medieval (some famous songs of Thevaram and Nalayira Divya Prabhantham) or even modern literature (Panchali Sapatham and songs by Bharatiyar), is disproportionate to the size of the Brahmin population in Tamilnadu. If you take the English works both in literature and the popular print that has orginated from Tamilnadu, Brahmin contribution is again disproportionately high.

We should also remember that, at certains points in history, south-Indian Brahmins (who's native tongues were now non-Aryan) also produced a disproportionately large amount of Sanskrit religious literature. Here, disproportionate with respect to the large Aryan speakers in the north of the country.

Example 2:

In the case of past thousand years of north India, the cultural contribution of Muslims especially in architecture is so humongous that any future historian will definitely mistake north-India as the world's largest Islamic settlement. And that too speaking Persian or even Arabic. Wait, let me rephrase it. India is certainly one of the largest Islamic settlements. But future historians may conclude that Islam was the religion of the majority of the people and Persian their language, both of which were never true.

Example 3:

Now, a more contemporary example. If its not already the case, majority of the words written in India in the near future are likely to be in English. But curiously, the words that may survive as archaeological evidence, like in Temple inscriptions may still have disproportionately more native (non-english) words. I mean disproportionate to popular print. Not to mention the fact that English could become the most understood language in India (overtaking Hindi).

Actually, in the above examples, when we mean literature and art forms produced in disproportionate quantity, its an assessment by what survives. Because, religious and linguistic minorities save their literature for future generations, much more than the majority communities who take things for granted.

Conclusions:

Now, applying the above heuristics to the Indus-Saraswathi debate:

1. its very much possible that Sanskrit is indeed of foreign origin and its spread in India and its influence on the native tongues, a quirk of civilizational time.

2. and its also possible that the Vedic Aryans were a minority community in the Harappan civilization. As found in Tamilnadu and elsewhere, these Vedic Aryans could have lived in secluded enclaves (Agraharams) and produced literature in a non-native, elite language (Sanskrit) and in a disproportionate quantity.

3. so we shouldn't be surprised if Indus script was used to write a non-Aryan language. Infact, considering the large corpus of Vedic Sanskrit and Tamil literature available, and our inability to decipher the Indus Script so far, we can even suggest a completely non-Aryan, non-Dravidian language. After-all, how much of the eastern Munda languages have survived in written form?

Postscript:

ps 1: If while reading the above post, you were thinking Aryan-Dravidian as a race debate, you are in the stone age of research in this field. Aryan-Dravidian debate is a linguistic one.

ps 2: The very interesting Nadistuti Sukta from the Rig Veda, mentioned by Michel Danino in his book.

ps 3: You may want to read this related (but rather pompously named) post by me. A History of Aryans.

A SmartVote Case for Organizing Ward Sabhas in Bengaluru

2010-07-04T22:34:00.005+05:30

This is a campaign proposal, I'm making to other SmartVote members. So 'we' from hereon means SmartVote.

To begin, here's a photo I took from a May Day mela organized by MKSS in Bhim, Rajasthan. It shows what is possible :-)

According to the 74th Amendment to the Constitution (Nagapalika Act), Ward Sabhas (meetings) are supposed to be organized every 3 months, where Ward Committee members meet the citizens of the ward. Ward Sabha being the 'parliament' to which, the ward committee 'cabinet' is answerable.

Since no such meetings are happening, we can organize them ourselves. In our case, merely getting the Councillor to meet the citizens would suffice. We had promised to help create a Citizen's council and organize meetings with the Councillor in Koramangala Ward 151.

As part of our Ward Sabha campaign, We can go to a Ward, talk to the councillor, RWAs, local papers, few active citizens and convince them to come to their Ward Office, the first Sunday of a month and just meet each other. We'll be doing this only once per ward. We will request the group to take it forward in subsequent quarters.

We have about 34 months to the 2013 assembly election. There are 28 assembly constituencies in Bengaluru. So we can realistically try to organize 28 such wards sabhas (one per constituency) before we get busy with any program for the assembly election.

What can be done in a Ward Sabha?

1. Citizens can quiz the Councillor on issues concerning their ward. This is an achievement in itself.

2. Form 6 or Form 7 to register/remove names from voter rolls can be distributed. We can invite volunteers from Janagraha/Jaagore too. We can also encourage the citizens to organize Voter registration Melas.

3. Citizens can be informed of published voter rolls, upcoming census, pulse polio campaign or income tax filing event at palace grounds, so that they can plan to make use of the opportunities.

4. BBMP, BESCOM, BWSSB workers can meet the citizens so that there is an amicable relationship between them. So the next time, there is an overflowing drain somewhere, a concerned citizen can perhaps call the local BWSSB worker him/herself, instead of complaining at higher levels and putting the workers in a spot.

5. Some active citizens can cajole others to join them in cleaning up a lake/canal or garbage dump in their ward. Or atleast signing petitions towards such causes.

6. Citizens can inform each other about their attempts in Solid waste management or rain water harvesting. And explore the possibility of implementing them in their localities.

Applying some of Ashwin Mahesh's broad guidelines in building our organization.

1. Be fast, seem to be doing stuff.

Organizing a ward sabha every month will turn out to be a pretty hectic activity. There will be enough work for every smartvote member to contribute. This will also help prevent our group from fizzling out. And we will be noticed. More people across Bengaluru will come to know about us. We will get more volunteers. Media will understand us better. Politicians may eventually take us seriously.

2. Confusion is good. Be seen everywhere.

At ward sabhas, we can propose any number of ideas and see if there are any takers. Educating children on civic issues, provoking people to file RTI petitions, PILs against ward reservation, RWA verification of voter rolls, plant trees on the roadside etc. Wherever citizens are willing to try them, we can get involved as volunteers.

3. Intervene, go tell the govt, what to do.

Councillor may want to listen to our ideas and offer it elsewhere. If we are successful in bringing ARO or any official from the para-state bodies to these meetings, we can propose our (process, not policy) ideas to them. Say, we can offer to thoroughly verify and clean up the voter list in a ward as a pilot project.

4. Build an Ecosystem.

There are folks like CIVIC, who are working towards broader implementation of the 74th Amendment. Any plan for Bengaluru will be lot more successful if done by the MPC (Metropolitan Planning Committee) as proposed by that amendment with proper oversight over BDA, BBMP et al. Our Ward Sabha effort may help such larger campaigns.

Besides, if Ward Sabhas become regualr events, we will provide citizens and other voluntary organizations, a platform to work on. Any number of civic groups can come and try to catch the attention of the citizens. CMCA, Janagraha, Jaagore, Greenpeace, rain water club etc. Heck, even the kadlekai/chai/goli soda guys might get some business.

Why organizing Ward Sabhas may help other competing SmartVote proposals?

1. Certifying or block vote to 'Good' candidates:

At present, why would candidates come to us to get certified? Or how will we make a good candidate win? If Lok Satta or SBPP or CPM can't make 'Good' candidates win in Bengaluru, what chance do we have? Why would people listen to us? Becos we have money and can print pamphlets? To even have an outside chance of influencing election outcomes, we need credible ground work for a reasonably long period of time. Organizing 28 ward shabhas in 3 years may give us some credibility. Let us revisit this idea, 3 years from now and see if its feasible.

2. Policy intervention:

Again, what expertise or experience do we claim as a group to influence public policy? If we organize ward sabhas, and hence mobilize voter registrations/cleanup and provoke wider citizen-councillor-bureaucrat cooperation for the next three years, we can gain some experience in Urban civic governance and maintenance of public records.

Jindabad!

2010-05-22T21:47:00.006+05:30

Jindabad! Thats how people associated with MKSS (Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangatan) greet each other when they meet! So Jindabad! Thanks to couple of MKSS veterans in the SmartVote team, I went to the May Day Mela held in Bhim, Rajasthan (travelogue).

Now, I'm a Conservative visting one of the current dens of Indian Socialism! MKSS has been the biggest incluence in UPA govts popular socialist iniatives RTI (Right to Information Act) and NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarntee Scheme). So I decided to be a keen observer/listener on this trip. Here's what I heard from some interesting people.

Aruna Roy:

I was only hoping to say Namaste to her, if I ever get a chance. But I ended up being a guest at her residence for two days! First in Devdungri and then in Tilonia! Within 2 minutes, we (with one other person) were arguing about the origin of Dravidian languages and sankritization of Tamil! Infact, I didn't ask anything about her work at all in two days. But I found her to be fiesty. We spoke in Tamil and she inquired how fluent my Hindi was. The week later, this had a disastrous consequence for my office colleagues since I took to my text book Hindi with gusto!

Nikhil Dey:

Mr. Charming! If organizations have such cool minds, they are bound to be successful. I sat thru a late night conversation where Nikhil spoke at length about what MKSS has achieved in the last 20 years and where they have not been perhaps successful. The next morning, I invited myself to a meeting Nikhil and few other activists were having wth a group of villagers from Dholpur. Let it be recorded that it was my first Hindi speech to an audience as big as 12 people! As someone said, Eternal Vigilence is the Price of Liberty. I see such vigilence being put into practice atleast with respect to Narega (thats how NREGA is pronounced) in some 4 districts of Rajasthan.

Shankar Singh:

I didn't get a chance to speak to him. But heard him crack folksy jokes and keeping the volunteers engaged.

Chunni Singh:

One of the core members of MKSS, he went with Aruna to collect the Ramon Magsaysay award. Heard from him, the events leading upto the formation of MKSS. These stories have become some sort of a legend now. In a nutshell, villagers provoked by Aruna/Nikhil/Shankar rebelled against a local feudal lord, then faught with authorities for higher minimum wage (asked for ~23 bucks then, its 100 now), asked authoritizes to itemize and declare spending in their villages (sowing seeds for RTI act of 2005), ensured that job schemes meant for famine relief did actually get created (later influcened NREGA) and are now busy forming village level NREGA Employees Unions. Incidentally the burning issue these days is more more pay (150 bucks). History repeats 20 years later!

Sarpanch Pathi of Vijayapura Village:

He is a MKSS supporter, who later became the Sarpanch of Vijayapura Village. His wife is the Sarpanch now. This proxy candidacy created much anxiety. But Vijayapura is touted as a model village. They have written all spending under NREGA on public walls! I enquired among other things, what he/his wife are doing to properly run the PDS (ration) shops in their village.

Ram Charan Singh:

A veteran RTI pioneer. He visited a government office 73 times to get some information about his village panchayat, which the Sarpanch was unwilling to share. This one man satyagraha resulted in Ram Charan Singh being sued by a vindictive government and the cases are still pending!

Kiran:

She is a member of the National Commission for Child Welfare. Don't know if I got her office name correctly, but she influences education policy at the national level. Heard from her about the 'Right to Education' which both as a fundamental right and as a welfare scheme has come into effect since April 1, 2010.

Unnamed MKSS activist:

Sorry I forgot his name, but he helps spread MKSS message in villages. He is from a tribal community and his anecdotes were awesome. In his community, the bridegroom is supposed to spend few months in the bride's home. The elders will observe his behavior and only if found good, will they give the bride in marriage! So this MKSS activist got married in this fashion.

For the wedding, he had arranged for a horse ride to the marriage hall. Now a tribal man riding a horse was too much for the upper castes (or even for Caste Hindus) since he is a tribal man! There was lot of commotion and he eventually did not take the ride. But in a somewhat sad twist, he refused to go live in the brides home permanently as is required in their system. This resulted in the annuling of their marriage. But the story doesn't end there.

Our man got arranged to be married again after some years. This time he had his way and how! He went to the marriage hall sitting atop an elephant! But but this time, he had gained a lot of clout and the village conditions had changed. So the upper castes couldn't do anything abt the elephant ride. Incidently he some kind of a known 'stones for rings' expert who counts several politicians including former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Babulal Gaur among his clientale. (husssssh ... he admitted that all his ring stones have no effect whatsoever on future events except perhaps on the personal confidence of the wearer!)

Sarpanch Puttar:

Talking of marriages, in a conversation, I mentioned that marriages are one of the greatest causes of financial ruin in this country. I was merely paraphrasing Swaminathan Aiyar here. So we inquired about the cost of marriage in a typical Rajasthani village family. A Sarpanch puttar (a Sarpanch's son!) first explained that in Rajasthan (atleast in that part) there is no dowry but instead the groom has to pay a bride price. But the girls family also bears some costs. He estimated the cost of the latest wedding he had attended to be about 80,000 rupees from both the families.

He mentioned another wedding where the father clubbed the weddings of all four of his daughters to reduce costs! Thats by 'delaying' the elder daughter's wedding to 23 years so that the youngest turned 18!

Rajasthan

2010-05-05T00:00:00.006+05:30

After a typical trip, a post like this with pics wud have excited me enough. But I did something more awesome during last week's trip to Rajasthan. So wait for my next post. Jindabad!

Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur:

The haze in the above pic is infact dust blowing from the desert :-)

Not all houses in Blue city are painted blue, huh?

Bhim:

MKSS mazdoor Mela on May Day. Detailed report soon.

Ajmer:

Dargah of Hazrat Khawaja Moinuddin Chisty at Ajaymeru.

Pushkar:

Alley from the Pushkar Lake upto the Brahma Temple. Brahma being Sarasvati's husband/father as the legend may be. I was reading The Lost River, On the trail of the Sarasvati thru the trip and crossed Luni river on the bus ride from Jodhpur to Beawar (pronounced biyawar). More on Sarasvati later.

Nadistuti Sukta

2010-04-25T00:46:00.003+05:30

I'm reading Michel Danino's The Lost River, On the trail of Sarasvati. He mentions the following two verses (#5 and #6) in the Nadistuti Sukta of Rg Veda. (Griffith 10.75.5-6)

O Ganga, Yamuna, Sarasvati, Shutudri (Sutlej), Parushni

(Ravi), hear my praise! Hear my call, O Asikni (Chenab)

Marudvridha (Maruvardhvan), Vitasta (Jhelum) with

Arjikya and Sushoma.

First you flow united with Trishtama, with Susartu and

Rasa, and with Svetya, O Sindhu (Indus) with Kubha

(Kabul) to Gomati (Gumal or Gomal), with Mehatnu to

Krumu (Kurram), with whom you proceed together.

Thats 19 rivers! Two more rivers Silamavati and Urnavati are mentioned in verse 9.

As Michel Danino's explains thats a birds-eye view sweeping (east to west) across more than a thousand kilometers! This sukta seems to be an amazing source of information on Vedic geography.

In defense of Lalit Modi and Capitalism in Sport

2010-04-21T07:38:00.008+05:30

In response to my tweet,

tantricNinja why wud any org. wanna lose an amazing admin like @LalitKModi? remem IPL2 in SA? heck, he even got a minister fired!

someone raised the following queries (in bold letters). Since they are of public interest (!?!), I'm replying here ...

1. The (IPL) commissioner (Lalit Modi) himself is involved in match-fixing

seems like a wild allegation. franchises which have spent hundreds of millions are throwing away matches? why? wud Punjab owners sell if losses aren't making them unviable?

2. IPL is used as a money laundering route

how is Modi responsible for this? atleast in the Kochi case, he asked who are the real owners. if ED (Enforcement Directorate) can't find money laundering, there is not much a commissioner can do.

3. He is diverting good percentage of IPL earnings (10%) towards his own companies

again a wild allegation. u think Mukesh Ambanis and Mallyas of this world will watch and keep quiet if someone is pocketing earnings from their investments?

as for iplt20.com, BCCI signed an MoU with companies (LCM, Netbluelink etc) in which Modi's relatives/friends currently have stakes. this MoU was also for bcci.tv. if ppl had problems with this vendor, they shud have raised it in BCCI or IPL governing council meetings. remember such firms as Sony and Google who own broadcasts rights have not objected to iplt20.com

4. He is favoring specific companies to get the deal and in turn gets personally benefited from that

again a wild allegation. even his worst [current] adversary like Shashi Tharoor has not accused Modi of personally benefiting from franchise deals. Modi's family members got stakes in (teams) Royals and Kings XI thru proper bidding.

>> IPL is not a private company or a private venture. It is a part of BCCI. They are answerable to people

not really 'answerable' to people. as long as their books are clear during ED / IT dept investigations, they are fine. but yes transparency is desirable.

ironically Modi with his tweets brought a level of transparency unheard of in any sport or any other body (govt or private) in this country.

>> Modi must go.

do you think IPL will be what it is, without the hard hours put in by Lalit Modi?

When the incompetent Indian Govt refused to provide security to IPL2 in 2009, he moved the tournament to South Africa and completed it without any apparent glitch.

Lalit Modi is by far the most competent sport administrator in the country. Compare him to Suresh Kalmadi, who has wasted thousands of crores of taxpayers money while disorganizing the Colonial Games. Delhiites are paying for it with tax increases in diesel, cooking gas, kitchen utensils etc.

Or such losers as KPS Gill (there is a sport called Hockey) or Arun Jaitley (Delhi Cricket) ... this Jaitley built the worst cricket stadium in the country. Players incl Sehwag and Gambhir were so put off by favoritism in team selection that they wanted to play for Haryana!

Shashi Tharoor turned out to be yet another corrupt politician who wanted to make some quick buck (70 crores) for his friend. He was caught with his pants down by Lalit Modi and the Congress govt rather uncharacteristically has fired Tharoor with due inquiry and haste. And the authorities are investigating the folks who paid 70 crores to Tharoor's friend. What is there to complain?

>> if that means disbanding IPL, so be it.

any idea how much employment and business opportunities, ipl has created? ask the guys selling stuff to the people standing in Qs to enter the stadia.

Imagine if the iLeague (football) or the PHL (Premier Hockey League) get as much traction as IPL. How much employment (for players, broadcasters, merchandise makers/sellers, street vendors, ground staff) will that create? Why put a spoke in all this with baseless allegations against IPL?

*****

And finally, as a free market capitalist, nothing is more sacred to me than 'opportunities to create wealth'. Thats the panacea for most ills plaguing mankind and especially Indians. IPL has created real economic value. The typical Indian cynicism and the inherent socialist urge to vilify corporates, shud not be allowed to besmirch an institution based on wild accusations. What kind of losers ask for nationalization of a franchise run sports entity?

For all my rant, Lalit Modi may indeed be a corrupt businessman, or BJP vs Congress vs NCP politics maybe at work. But as of this moment, IPL does seem above board. And anyway its the job of the Enforcement Directorate to find irregularities, if any. Let them do it.

Tamil New Year in Chithirai : Explained

2010-04-15T00:42:00.006+05:30

In response to popular demand (one person asked), I have written a quick post on the meaningfulness of celebrating Tamil New Year's day on the First day of Chithirai month, which is the Sidereal Vernal Equinox day. I had written a similar post in Tamil few years back and hence the English version now.

Equinox?

day and night are of equal duration. dates are slowly variable across centuries. currently equinoxes occur around March 22 - Spring Equinox and Sept 22 - Autumn Equinox

Solstice?

days when sunlight is longest (Summer Solstice - June 22) and shortest (Winter Solstice - Dec 22)

How so?

The Earth revolves around the sun at an inclination of abt 23 degrees. So Sun appears to move up or down thru the year. One revolution is ofcourse a year.

Now,

Spring Equinox - sun is directly above the Equator - day and night times are equal on March 22. After this day, Sun starts 'going' north.

Summer Solstice - Sun is farthest from the Equator in the northern direction. its now directly above the Tropic of cancer. Tropic of Cancer passes thru Central India. So summer is intense. Naturally the longest day of the year occurs on June 22nd. Sun now turns back and travels south.

Autumn Equinox - Sun has come back to to the top of Equator. day and night times are again equal on Sept 22.

Winter Solstice - Sun is farthest from the Equator in the Southern direction. Farthest from India. Its now directly above the tropic of capricon in the Indian Ocean. Sun is far, so winter is cold. The shortest day of the year occurs on Dec 22nd.

Note: all these seasons are w.r.t to Northern Hemisphere. In the southern hemisphere, the seasons will be opposite.

Why shud new year be celebrated on Equinox?

There is no necessity, but many cultures do. A day with equal day-night seems a good candidate. Especially most parts of India celebrate on the Spring Equinox. The Roman calendar also began in March with September (Septa - 7), October (Octa - 8), November (Nova - 9), December (Deci - 10) and ending in the last Month February (less days). But the New Year was moved to January for political reasons. Chinese New Year is supposed to be mid-way between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox. Hence between Jan end to mid Feb.

Equinox is on March 22, why does Tamil New Year occur on April 14?

Becos Tamils (along with malayalis, punjabis, assamese etc) follow Sidereal year and not tropical year. Sidereal is calculating the movement of the Sun vis-a-vis Earth by noting the postion of certain stars. i.e. with respect to fixed positions on the sky and not just the position of the sun. This fixed year is the Sidereal year.

From around April 14, Chitra star (one point of reference) is visible. The Sun is in the Aries (Mesham) zodiac constellation. If we strictly go by the position of the Sun, that year is tropical year. So currently, tropical Equinox is March 22 and sidereal equinox is April 14.

So then, is Ugadi (Telugu/Kannada new year) the correct observance of Spring Equinox?

Not really. They follow a luni-solar calendar. i.e. their months take both the Sun and the Moon into consideration. Their Ugadi (new year) day keeps moving w.r.t the lunar month closer to the Spring Equinox (March 22).

What is Zodiac?

Its just a way of dividing the sky into 12 equal parts and taking a constellation to name it. When the Sun appears within/closer to a constellation of stars, Sun is supposed to be present in that Zodiac. There is no reason to be alarmed about Astrology w.r.t to Zodiac signs.

I don't believe the position of the stars in any year with respect to their position at your time of birth has any relevance. In short, astrology is mostly non-sense. But Zodiac is just a position of the Sun in the sky. So no harm in using the Zodiac signs in conversation.

Coming back, why can't we celebrate New Year on Pongal?

Becos Pongal is already celebrated on Winter Solstice. Sun is turning north from Tropic of Capricon. So its gonna come back to Northern hemisphere, bringing warmth with it. Hence we celebrate. We can as well celebrate both Spring Equinox (as new year) and Winster Solstice as Pongal. More the merrier.

Isn't Pongal the Tamizhar Thirunal (Tamil people's day)?

non-sense. Winter Solstice is celebrated in almost all the states of India. Everywhere its the harvest festival. The joy of Sun starting the northerly journet bringing Spring. And in many states rice-moong dal Pongal (aka Kichidi) is the specialty. This day btw is called Makara Sankranthi becos the Sun travels from the Makara line (Tropic of Capricorn) towards north from this day.

Why can't we have Thiruvalluvar Year and Thiruvalluvar Day as reference for New Year?

How do we know Thiruvalluvar was born on that year? What evidence? Its mere conjecture by Maraimalai Adgigal (aka Vedachalam) that the author of Thirukural was born 31 years before Christ. A dubious assertion which shud not be taken seriously.

And Thiruvalluvar day was selected by Karunanidhi as the day after Pongal, which incidentally is based on the same Tamil calendar which picks Sidereal Vernal Equinox day (Chithirai 1) for New Year. An arbitrary year and arbitrary day as Thiruvalluvar's birth day is quite silly. That day cannot be the start of our year.

Say No to UID

2010-04-13T01:46:00.005+05:30

Among the many socialist atrocities commited by the UPA govt on the hapless people of India, UID project is the one least talked about.

I mean, NREGA, massive increase in indirect taxes, expansion of central govt by encroaching state subjects like education, banning 100 million male citizens from contesting elections etc have received some attention in the media. UID hasn't received the scrutiny due to it.

However there are folks concerned about the violation of civil liberties likely to come from the UID project. There is one such meeting in Bengaluru this Friday. Details here.

In the meanwhile, here's some prep material. The reasons for our (Right Conservative/Liberal) oppostion to UIDs are viz,

1. Its a massive waste of tax payers money. Especially considering the ultimate objective of UID is to properly identify 'beggers' whom the socialist govt can humor with more freebies, paid for ofcourse by hardworking tax payers like you and me.

2. Waste of government resources. Even after working for more than a decade, Electoral Photo ID cards are not in the possession of many voters. And having worked in polls, I have found the accuracy of both the cards and the voter list they are based upon, to be laughable.

Nandan Nilekani's daughter herself is listed four times in the Electoral rolls! While there is likely to be more enthusiam to get a begger's card, the entire effort is still a massive diversion of govt resources from critical public services.

3. UID project's claims on security are laughable. We can be rest assured that all terrorists and illegal immigrants will receive UID numbers before you and I get hold of one. Infact to prove a point, I'm gonna try to get two UIDs with my two voter id cards. (My name has still not been removed from the voter list in Tamilnadu thou I have mentioned all the details and asked for removeal while enrolling here in Bangalore.)

4. The biometric component of UID project is in a pilot stage. Even if it gets the go ahead, it'll be a further monstrous waste of tax payers money and a logistical nightmare. I challenge any govt to handover one 10 rupee note each to 1 billion citizens let alone issue bio-metric cards to them.

5. Ofcourse there is much graver issue of privacy violation. But from a Indian perspective where we out even British NHS records outsourced here, security of

the data given to the govt, is expecting a little too much. Nevetheless please follow the links below to get yourself abreast of that angle.

Incidentally Richard M Stallman, coming from the other end of the political spectrum, also wishes to live in a country where citizens are not reduced to a mere number.

1. The Fantasy Of Dataveillance - a blistering attack on the UID project especially from a Security stand point.
2. Stop the database state NO2ID - how British conservatives are opposing IDs in their country.

74th Constitutional Amendment (Nagarpalika Act 1992)

2010-04-11T20:53:00.003+05:30

This afternoon, I went to a soapbox session called "Politics of the 74th Amendment" at Cubbon Park.

People involved with CIVIC Bangalore (esp. Vishwanath Srikantaiah) spoke and answered our queries.

Here's the amendment in brief:

1. As the name suggests its the 74th Amendment to the Indian Constitution. It introduces various provisions of Article 243 for Urban civic governannce. It was passed by the Parliament in December 1992.

Summary: "Statutory provisions for Local Administrative bodies as third level of administration in urban areas such as towns and cities".

2. The 73rd Amendment is more popular and has been better implemented. It concerns the Rural bodies. You know it as the Panchayati Raj Act.

3. Karnataka Municipal Corporations (Amendment) Act 1994 is the Conformity Legislation passed in Karnataka. All state governments have passed such Conformity legislation to bring the provisions of the 74th Amendment into force.

4. This amendment annexed the 12th Schedule to the Constitution which lists the 18 functions of the municipalities.

What do all this mean?

1. The third tier of governance, the local bodies, are given constitutional validity and permenance. Until then, local bodies existed according to the whims of the state governments. [well, they still are in many ways :-)]

2. There have to be State Election Commissions, State Finance Commissions and District Planning Committees so that Municipal bodies (corporations, zilla panchayats, municipalities, taluk panchayats, gram panchayats) can be properly elected, allocated funds and plan.

3. Metropolitan Planning Committees (MPC) to be established for metros of 1 million and more. Bangalore MPC has NOT been established.

4. Ward Committees to be established. Kerala and the city of Kolkata have reasonably well functionings ward committees. In Karnataka, Bangalore has dysfunctional ward committees, while other cities do not even have them.

Ward Committees in Bangalore:

In Bangalore there are 30 Ward Committees. Each has 3-4 Councillors, 5 nominated members from members of the public, who are familiar with civic administration and 2 nominated members from NGOs/CBOs. ARO - Assistant Revenue Officer is the secretary to this Committee.

Note: since the elections have just been completed, there are no ward committees at present. State government has to constitute them within a month of the new BBMP assuming office.

Ward Committees are there, whats the problem with the current setup?

1. There are 198 Wards now, so 30 ward Committees mean one committee for more than 2 lakh people! Village Panchayats typically have few thousand people.

2. Ward Committee members other than Councillors are nominated and can out vote elected members! Why would elected Councillors come to such meetings?

3. Nominated members turned out to be political appointees with no apparent interest in civic welfare.

4. Ward committees do not have much financial powers. In anycase they are dysfunctional. No bureaucrat will feel answerable to them.

CIVIC recommendations:

City level:

1. Metropolitan Planning Committee shud be established for Bangalore. They shud replace or work with ABIDe, BATF etc.

2. All the parastatal bodies in Bangalore like BDA, BMRDA, BWSSB should report to the BBMP and not the State Government.

Ward level:

1. one ward committee per ward.

2. direct election of ward committee members.

3. indirect election of ward councillor from among the ward committee members.

4. there shud be a secretary (from the city officials) appointed for each ward committee instead of the ARO acting as one.

5. officials of the municipality working within a ward shud be ex-officio members of the ward committees. they shud be answerable to the ward committee.

6. ward committee shud meet every month at the ward office and this should be announced to the public.

7. 'ward sabha' should be held every 3 months where all citizens can interact with the ward committee members. ward Councillor shud precide over this meeting.

8. ward committee shud be provided complete control over local resources (parks, lakes, roads) and decisions pertaining to them.

Balaji's List - 20 BBMP candidates you can vote for!

2010-03-25T20:03:00.004+05:30

Constituency (ward number) - Candidate - Party - why you should vote for this candidate

1. Byatarayanapura (7) - Mangala Shridhar - BJP - she is the prabhari of Karnataka BJP IT cell, a tribal leader and a state general secretory. I have met her once. She is ok.
2. Hebbala (21) - Derek - Janadhwani - candidate put up by NGOs.
3. Ramamurthy Nagar (26) - Anjanappa - candidate from North East Federation of RWAs
4. Banasavadi (27) - Rajasekhar - candidate from North East Federation of RWAs
5. Kacharkanahalli (29) - Ashok Kamath - candidate from North East Federation of RWAs
6. Aramane Nagara (35) - Meenakshi Bharath - a Gynacologist put by Lok Satta. she was involved with SmartVote last year. Excused herself becos of her own candidacy.
7. Lingarajapura (49) - M. Sakshi - Janadhwani - candidate put up by NGOs.
8. Shakthi Ganapathi Nagar (74) - Pujappa - Janadhwani - candidate put up by NGOs.
9. Vasanth Nagar (93) - Ramakanth - Lok Satta candidate
10. Okalipuram (96) - Veena - Prajakeeya Paksha - a transgender candidate
11. Hampi Nagar (133) - Pushpalatha - Janadhwani - candidate put up by NGOs.
12. Rayapuram (137) - Srinivasa Murthy - Janadhwani - candidate put up by NGOs.
13. Sunkenahalli (142) - Prakash Belawadi - Lok Satta candidate
14. Lakkasandra (146) - Chandrasekhar Hariharan - Lok Satta candidate
15. Koramangala (151) - Dr Florence - JDS - I'm voting for her. isn't that reason enuf?
16. Basavanagudi (154) - C N Kumar - Lok Satta candidate
17. Rajarajeshwari Nagar (160) - Dr Shankara K Prasad - Lok Satta candidate
18. HSR Layout (174) - Prof. Amaravathi - Congress - http://www.profamaravathi.com/
19. Padmanabha Nagar (182) - Ramakrishna - Citizens Action Forum
20. Anjanapura (196) - Lion Renukumar - some RWA called Konanakunte Kshemabhivruddhi Sangagala Okkoota

Dr. Florence for Koramangala Corporator!

2010-03-25T10:08:00.004+05:30

The following is the flyer handed out by Dr. Florence, who is the JDS candidate for Ward 151 (Koramangala). She had preferred not to be interviewed by the Koramangala Smartvotes team. But she did come to the debate we organized last week.

I had initially thought of voting for the independent candidate Ms. Malathi. Becos she is better than the BJP and Congress candidates and I suspected Dr. Florence to be a dummy candidate put up by JDS. I did speak to Dr. Florence in person and she seems a very decent person. And her resume is very good. Now, I see her campaign gaining stream in Koramangala. So she is a serious candidate after all.

I'm now formally endorsing Dr. Florence for the Koramangala Ward 151 Corporator position!

Dr. Florence. DCE, MA English, BCS, MBBS BIO, MD AM.

Work Experience:

1. Worked in the PWD department of Architecture as Junier Engineer.
2. Actively involved with the works of the New City Market building project and the Jayadeva cardiology building project and many more prestigious projects.
3. Worked as a lecturer in Bishop Cottons Women's College and St. Joseph's Arts and Science College.
4. Worked as an administrator for NAITT.
5. Working as a Counselor for a non profitable organization called the 'YWCA Arathi Center' near Bethany High School at Koramangala.
6. I do free counseling for women, children and youngsters who suffer from different problems like family issues, mental stresses, social problems, psychological and health issues and a practising doctor.

Extracurricular activities:

Social:

1. Free heart surgery got done for economically backward section people.
2. Conducting workshops for women, students and children.
3. Helped students to come out of mental disturbances to face exams.
4. Helped students to get job oriented technical training and secure jobs.
5. Helped low income group to sell their home made products.

Sports:

1. Taken part in state and national level sports. Won the "Star of India" award for throw ball.
2. Was the Vice captain for the state for Volley Ball. Won the "Best Player" award in the Mini Olympics.

Vision:

1. To serve the larger section of society and to make Our Koramangala Ward the best ward in Bangalore City.
2. To solve drainage problems, water problems, traffic problems.
3. The entire environment should be eco-friendly and people friendly.
4. To interact with all the people of Koramangala Ward of all walks of life.
5. To find suitable solutions to whatever problems residents are facing.
6. To conduct different welfare programmes, senior citizens welfare programmes.
7. I can serve the community to the best of my ability.
8. "TO MAKE KORAMANGALA AND BANGALORE A DREAM PLACE TO LIVE IN"

Email: dr_florence AT hot mail.com

Sharad Joshi's speech in RS opposing Women's Quota

2010-03-10T11:13:00.005+05:30

The following is the speech made by Sharad Joshi of Swatantra Bharat Paksha in the Council of States (Rajya Sabha) before voting against the Women's Reservation bill, which seeks to make the 108th amendment to the Constitution. Thanks to RealityCheck blog for posting it.

SHRI SHARAD ANANTRAO JOSHI (MAHARASHTRA): Sir, I rise to speak on behalf of Swatantra Bharat Paksh Party. The position of my party can be very briefly summarised as follows: Political empowerment for women – a thumping yes, yes, yes. Reservation – a fairly big question mark. And, Rotation and lottery system – an absolute No, No, No.

It was in 1986 that the Shetakari Mahila Aghadi of my party, the Rural Women’s Organisation in Maharashtra, decided for the first time to have 100 per cent women’s panel for contesting the Panchayati Raj elections. It was the Congress (I) Party, under Shri Shankar Lal Chauhan in Maharashtra, who opposed that idea and postponed all elections to the Panchayati Raj for three years running. And it was only after that that they accepted the concept of 33 per cent reservation. Sir, hon. Mishra of the BSP raised the question: Where does this reservation come from? This is the genesis of 33 per cent.

Now, the question is: Has the reservation, actually, ever given benefit to any of the targeted communities? And our experience is not very happy. This problem could have easily been solved by a system of proportional representation rather than the Party List system. That would take care of the entire set of problems connected with reservation. And, the scenes that we have witnessed in the last two days could have also been avoided had we included proportional representation instead of the Party List system.

Lastly, coming to the lottery-cum-rotation system, this is not a minor defect. I still insist that this is a fatal defect in the system. Here, we choose a constituency first, and it is very likely that for that constituency, there may not be an enthusiastic woman candidate. On the other hand, it is likely that a man has nursed that constituency for some time.

This will unnecessarily create bitterness against the women’s movement. Sir, secondly, it is also likely that this opportunity will be used by established leaders for pushing the candidature of their family members which is not the purpose of this Bill at all. Sir, once a woman is elected, she would know that she does not stand a chance of getting the ‘woman reserved constituency’ again. Therefore, she would not be equally enthusiastic about nursing the constituency. Similarly, the men candidates who get elected would also have doubts about their letting to contest that election once again from the constituency because the chances that it will be available to them would be only 50:50. Under these circumstances, Sir, the major effect will be that all the constituencies will be badly nursed.

And, lastly, Sir, this kind of a reservation system will make it impossible for any House to have more than 33 per cent repeaters at any time. So, we will lack the experienced people in the Legislatures and the Parliament. That could prove to be fatal for the Indian Democracy. Thank you, Sir.

Indian Women should grow some more Spine!

2010-03-07T07:40:00.006+05:30

Politicians are gonna Constitutionally declare that Indian Women are incapable of competing and winning against men in elections! Not withstanding the sheer impropriety of banning half the population from contesting elections in one third of the constituencies, let us only concentrate on the humiliation being heaped upon women and how happily they are submitting to it.

The crux is Manmohan Singh and his ilk have such a low opinion of women that they are not willing to give women tickets to contest elections. This isn't any smart stratgey considering women seem to have a better winning ratio than men. Nothing prevents the political parties from giving more tickets to women.

Even if the parties need to be pushed, all we need is a change to the People's Representation Act to ensure all registered or atleast reconginzed parties give 50% of the tickets to women members. If Political parties open up their nominations to primaries, more and more women candidates will trounce their male counterparts and secure tickets to contest General elections.

So why then are politicians unwilling to let women contest? Becos they think if women from their party contest against men of other parties, then they have no chance of winning! Or atleast thats the theory they have fed women who also seem to be gulping it down.

Let us even assume that any woman of one party is incompetent to beat any man from another party. Then why not restrict this reservation to just political parties? Nope says Manmohan. According to his ilk, no woman even with the might of a political party behind her, can beat any man merely contesting as an indepenent. If there is any more humiliation that can be heaped on women, then I'm not aware of it.

And what is the context of this humiliation? Women politicians in India seem to be much more competent than men! The longest serving Chief Minister in the country is Shiela Dikshit! Its Mamata who is storming the four decade stong communist citadel in Bengal. Its Sushma who emerged unscathed from the ugly BJP feuds and has become Leader of the Opposition. And will likely be the next Prime Ministerial candidate from that party.

Its Mayawati who won an unbelievable 205 seats for her party in Uttar Pradesh. Vasundhara, Jayalalitha, Shobha Karandlaje, Renuka Chaudhry, Brinda Karat, Uma Bharati etc are all giants in their own right. But Manmohan Singh and his ilk think women cannot compete against men.

Who do you think won the toughest election in 2009? Jaya Prada! In a mulism dominated constituency (Rampur) far away from her home state, against a formidable Congress candidate Noor Begum and BJP's Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, with Jaya Prada's own party working against her, she won hands down! And we are told women can't compete!

India's topmost diplomat is a woman (Nirupama Rao). The nation's most famous banker (Chanda Kochar), India's most accomplished CEO (Indra Nooyi), the next (likely) RBI governor (Usha Thorat) are all women. Latika Saran is Tamilnadu's Police chief. In fields where there is competition, women don't seem to need any help. But in ticket distribution, they have to beg or settle for some 33% charity from male politicians!

And whats more, when it comes to mass awakening and mobilization, the nation is being led by women! Medha Patkar, Vandana Shiva, Aruna Roy, Arundhathi Roy are all the champions of alternative politics. But winning a mere Panchayat election against male candidates is apparently not their cup of tea.

To the canard that the above cases are exceptions, I can cite my own experience with grassroot politics. Our Smartvote campaign in Koramangala is pretty much run by women. Two days ago, I was calling up volunteers for door2door campaigning and two-thirds of them were women. Most qualified (director of a policy think tank), fiesty (lawyer!), hardworking (mapping streets, marshalling volunteers) members of the group are all women. Similarly, there is probably no district in the country where women self help-groups are not a force to reckon with.

Then why on earth are women meekly submitting to the dictats of Manmohan and his political class? I'm at a loss to explain this.

The whip which Congress/BJP/CPM have issued to their MPs to vote and constitutionally declare women as incompetent to contest against men, is perhaps symbolic. Thats the whip these men have used for ages to browbeat women into submission. If only women can grow some more spine, these whiplashes will start hurting and perhaps women will eventually face up to the male Indian political class.

On Spinoza's God

2010-03-04T00:32:00.005+05:30

Prologue: This post began as a comment to Vijay's post on Spinoza. I had once criticized (?!) Einstein as a creationist who gave legitimacy to the notion of 'God'. Einstein ofcourse claimed to believe in Spinoza's (pantheist/deist) God.

********

I read what Bertrand Russell says about Spinoza and the wiki article. Ethics as you mentioned is a tough read.

Russell,

1. thinks Spinoza was a lovable person.

2. says Spinoza's whole philosophy is dominated by the idea of God.

3. dismisses Spinoza's metaphysics ("there is a logical reason for everything to be what it is") as inconsistent with science.

4. praises his Ethics.

There seems to be a parallel between Sankara's ideas on Brahman/Maya and Spinoza's metaphysics. So far so good.

But Spinoza goes further to say that "in every human mind, there is some awareness of God" and that a part of the "eternal mind" survives death.

Russell writes in detail about Spinoza's Ethics.

now, my take:

Like Russell, I think Spinoza's major contribution is Ethics. Although I'm not sure I agree with the notion that past and the future shud be treated equally becos for God, this time difference is immaterial.

the problem I have with Spinoza is the pre-conceived notion of the existence of God. his "intellectual love" for God is akin to what Meera wud have felt or what Mother Theresa wud have wanted to feel about God.

I suspect Spinoza's upbringing as a Jew couldn't free him up to address the question of God from an agnostic point of view. Once you are convinced of the existence of something, you can come up with any logical reasoning or even scientific reasoning (in Einstein's case) to justify the existence and consistency of the God theory.

I wud call Spinoza and Einstein, both creationists. (Russell calls Spinoza pantheist although he calls his metaphysics 'logical monism') Becos, I do not see how pantheism is different from Creationism. Let us not take "world is 6000 years old" kind of morons as examples for creationists.

My definition of a creationist is, anyone who claims a consistency and derivation in the current snapshot of the universe and is supposing that it all emanated from something powerful and perhaps benevolent or indifferent, and hence worshipful or lovable.

Einstein claimed that he doesn't believe in a immanent God who watches over every human action. We are to understand that like Spinoza, Einstein believed in the logical or perhaps scientific consistency of the universe as having derived from God. This is becos according to Spinoza, everything there is in the universe, is part of the whole, which is God.

Now, I'm quite lost here. This refusal to address the question of "why is God needed to explain anything?" rankles me. And from what I have read from Darwin, Dawkins and Hitchens, it is totally absurd to claim consistency in the appearance and the evolution of the universe. When there is no consistency nor is any case for a logical derivation, where is the need to explain it away with the notion of God?

Why bother about authorship when there is no book but merely a litany of words/phrases thrown up by a randomized function?

ps: I understand that I approach the question of God, from a pre-convinced (not pre-conceived!) position of atheism and hence am more skeptical than a agnostic wud be.

‘Hold Grama Panchayat Elections on Schedule’

2010-02-24T11:09:00.004+05:30

The following was in a mail I received from a fellow SmartVote campaigner. I'm pasting it here to reach a wider audience.

My take:

1. State Election Commissions must be abolished. The same Central Election Commission which holds Parliamentary and Assembly elections should also hold the local bodies elections. Local body elections must be held every five years as regularly as the other two elections.

2. State governments should have no control whatsoever over Corporations/Municipalities/Panchayats. The relationship between State government and the Local bodies should be similar to the one between the Union government and State governments.

‘Hold Grama Panchayat Elections on Schedule’ - Demands Grama Panchayat Hakkottaya Andolana.

Representatives of the Concerned for Working Children (CWC), Conveners of the Grama Panchayat Hakkottaya Andolana, met with Shri C.R. Chikkamath, State Election Commissioner on 17th February 2010.

We voiced our concern that an announcement regarding the schedule of the Gram Panchayat Elections in Karnataka had not been made to date and that there was the possibility that the State Government would try to delay the holding of the elections using similar strategies that have been employed in Gujarat.

To this the Commissioner assured us that he was doing everything in his powers to conduct elections to the Gram Panchayats in Karnataka and that planned to hold the elections between mid-March and mid-April so that it would not interfere with the National Census or the school exams, especially the SSLC and PUC. He also said that 25 days was a sufficient notice period to hold an election.

When asked about the monsoon, he said that would not be a factor to delay the elections and in any case he was scheduling the elections before the onset of the monsoons.

He said that the process of seat reservation was complete in the entire state and ward-wise voters’ lists were being prepared.

The Commissioner further stated that he had written to the Chief Secretary regarding the conducting of the elections and a series of meetings have been planned in the state machinery to conduct the elections. These meetings different regions of the State to assess the availability of will be completed by 24th of March and the Commission assured us that we could expect an announcement regarding the Gram Panchayat Elections before March 15th, 2010.

He further added that though reservations of the BBMP elections were with the State Government, reservations for the Gram Panchayats rested with the Commission itself.

With reference to the BBMP elections, he also mentioned that though he wanted to hold the BBMP elections in January, the State and other parties had dragged the elections to court and he was therefore not in a position to conduct the elections.

He regretted that the State Election Commission was dependant on the State Government to a large extent, such as funds and machinery and that he was pressing for more autonomy of the Commission, as in the case of Central Election Commission.

When we brought up the Supreme Court Judgment in the case of Kishansing Tomar v/s Municipal Corporation of the City of Ahmedabad of the constitutional duty of the Election Commission to hold the elections on schedule, he said that there was another Supreme Court order not to disturb teachers during exams and disrupt student’s academics.

He however, concluded by saying that the ground work was being done and that he was trying his best to conduct the elections as per schedule.

Nandana Reddy,
The Concerned for Working Children (CWC)
303/2, L.B. Shastri Nagar,
Vimanapura Post,
Bangalore - 560 017
# 91 - 80 - 25234611/25234270
Web: www.workingchild.org

Religion is Great, 'God' doesn't exist and doesn't matter

2010-02-20T13:10:00.006+05:30

I just read a piece by one Sujatha Desikan in the Tamil weekly Ananda Vikatan. He quotes from a discussion between writer Sujatha Rangarajan and Rangarajan's brother.

The crux, Rangarajan was thrilled while visiting the Sri Rangam temple becos it brought back childhood memories. But more importantly becos his ancestors had worshiped at that very temple, roamed its precincts and touched the very stones, Rangarajan was touching.

Its true. I have felt the same way while visiting the Big Temple in Thanjavur and have written about it here. Curiously I have no childhood memories of Thanjvur. I have visited that temple only twice in my life and that too only recently. But the thrill I feel in my spine while visiting the temple, cannot be put in words.

I don't believe in 'God' and don't remember believing in anything super natural even as a kid. But the fascination with Thanjavur temple is unmistakable. Yes, I like history and the fact that Rajaraja Cholan built and roamed about the temple, adds to the intrique. But the instinct to do something closely related to my family is probably the leading emotion.

Similarly, I'm fascinated not just by Adi Sankara's Advaita but also the Smartha brahmin tradition he spawned. Again, becos I know that my ancestors have followed that tradition. And quite likely from the days of Adi Sankara himself! Advaita, Jainism and Epicureanism are philosophies I tend to agree with. Mostly becos I believe they reject the notion of 'God'.

But I have critiqued myself that the Smartha Brahmin caste affinity also lies at the root of my fascination with Adi Sankara. And I agrue with my conscience that, I hate Brahmanism. Not becos its convenient but also becos I realize the injustice and hypocrisy inherent in Brahmanism. While anything associated with Sankara and Advaith thrills, I feel pure hatred towards the scoundrels who run the Kanchi Sankara mutt now. If Jayendra is convicted and sentenced to death, I wud gladly volunteer to be his hangman.

I understand my anger is becos these Kanchi scoundrels violated something I hold sacred and personal. Afterall, at my Upanayanam ceremony, my dad passed on a family tradition hundreds if not thousands of years old. And this (wud be) murderer Jayendra was invoked as the Guru.

I have once ridiculed (some) Sikhs for claiming sanctity for their cult while denying the same to an offshoot. I believe Sikh affinity with their ancestors is understandable and is a cause to be celebrated. But that doesn't make their Gurus immune to scrutiny and even ridicule.

In my case, I'm open to the idea that Adi Shankara committed suicide having lost a debate. And another advaitin Vivekananda called Adi Shankara, a blood thirsty Brahmin who enjoyed defeating Buddhist scholars which resulted in their suicides. I agree with that assessment. Elsewhere, Jain monks have weird views on laity and women, and are rightly criticised for it.

I have seriously considered throwing away the 'thread' I wear. It has no practical use other than to brandish my caste. I try to hide it in temples and in water bodies where I have to take my shirt off. I'm told, Udupi Krishna temple offers food separately to people with and without the thread. I recommend a terrorist bombing of the place.

But I haven't had the balls to cast the thread aside. My father initiated me into this institution and I'll have to perform animist rituals for our ancestors when he is no more. I know its irrational. All my ancestors are dead and gone. They don't need any food. Any connection there is, is entirely in my mind and nowhere else.

But this irrationality has practical uses. I have attended five funerals in the last two years and I know its inevitable that I'll attend more. The irrational rituals at funerals and later on, seem very helpful in going thru the trauma. That I think is the most important reason to persist with religion. Animist rituals in my family tend to be about ancestors going somewhere (?!) and living there. But I'm even ok with animist rituals that claim going to 'God' or sleeping with 72 virgins (4 at a time).

Daniel Dennet, philosopher and one of the four horsemen, calls religion a continuation of our tribal identities. I agree. While indulging in 'God' and other irrational beliefs, we shud never forget the rational for indulging in such irrationality. Go for it!

The Case against loony liberal hijacking of Bt Brinjal

2010-02-08T22:02:00.008+05:30

The following is a comment I wrote in what looks like a left liberal blog. The author had provoked me on twitter. I'm disappointed that the loony liberal fringe has hijacked an issue of life and death to the farmers, and is using it to further the failed ideals of socialism.

I see your interest in the subject is political rather than health or environment. your rant against the likes of walmart while discussing bt. brinjal, exposes your prejudices. not a good start.

do you have any objections to bt. brinjal on health grounds? i see you have mentioned none.

ethical reasons are not health reasons. the govts job is foremost to ensure that bt. brinjal doesn't harm people's health. labeling is not a health requirement. if the govt is not convinced of the safety of bt. brinjal, no labeling wud do. if its not safe on health grounds, it cannot be approved.

labeling is merely to offer a choice to people who oppose GM crops for political, ethical or environmental reasons. its like labels saying vegetarian or halal cut.

****

>> Once Bt Brinjal comes in, it will be quickly followed by corn, Jowar (Sorghum), rice, Okra and others.

so you have no case against brinjal? and are merely creating controversies to feed future political agendas?

>> Going by what the experts say, GM foods are not the only option at all to alleviate our food needs. In fact, the world can well do without them.

forget the world. european farmers aren't committing suicide by drinking pesticides. is your ideology more important than the lives of farmers? in anycase, major agricultural countries like US, Brazil, China are allowing GM crops as required.

>> If the Government was really serious about providing food why have they still not taken any major steps to aggressively push totally non-controversial

this is typical socialist rant. govt cannot solve all our problems. private sector, in this case Mahyco Seed has come up with a solution. that solution shud be analyzed on its merit, not based on some wacko political ideology.

>> And, does it mean that without GM foods, hunger and death are an inevitability for our people?

oh, blime. show me the great alternative scientific solution that you have hidden beneath your pillow. i assure you of all help to take that technology to the farm fields [after it passes health tests].

>> IF GM technology did not exist or if it was already proved to be harmful, what would the Government have done? Worse, if later on it is conclusively found that the GM foods are not desirable, what would we do?

1. GM technology exists.
2. it has not already been proven harmful.
3. if its not desirable (desirable from which perspective?) on health grounds, we'll ban it. your inability to prove something shud not stand in the way of offering a meaningful solution to the farmers.

i don't know how old your are. but I'm certain, ppl wud have protested against Norman Borlaug, Swaminathan et al when the golden wheat and IR rice varieties were introduced in the 60s. your ilk was was proved wrong then.

and I hope more farmers (who escaped suicide) and better nutritioned children wud live to tell the current tale.

"Discussions on Bengaluru's future"

2010-01-31T15:29:00.004+05:30

There was a meeting of Benagaluru RWA folks (Resident Welfare Associations) in Koramangala today. Koramangala SmartVotes team made a presentation. Here's my aankhon dekhi report.

1. Meet was organized by City Plus, Suvarna TV and Radio Indigo. I understand Rajeev Chandrasekhar, our representative in the Council of States (aka Rajya Sabha) took an interest in organizing the event.

2. The event was rather badly named. Lets take a part of the title, "Discussions on Bengaluru's future", which suits us fine.

3. Prithvi introduced Koramangala SmartVotes to the audience and spoke about citizen's participation.

4. SmartVote video on the upcoming (?!) BBMP elections was screened.

5. Ashwin Magesh made a presentation on the Bengaluru Plan, a blueprint for the city.

6. YV Pai, President of KUCC - Koramangala United Citizens Council called for a federation of RWA's across the city. He referred to the 74th Amendment of the constitution, which inserted Article 243S concerning the establishment of Ward committees. (Shobha Narayan, please note.)

7. Jayanagar MLA, Vijaykumar spoke about the work of RWA's in his constituency.

8. SmartVote Campaigner Radhakrishnan made a presentation on the issue of vanishing Open Spaces. He explained how BDA is actively shrinking the Open Spaces from about 9.8% in 1995 to 6.7% in 2001 to the absymal 3.4% estimated in 2015. BDA ofcourse is selling Open Spaces to rich and the mighty or is giving away to ex-MLAs!

9. Rajeev Chandrasekhar and some RWA presidents spoke, to which I failed to pay attention :-) Hope to get an abridged version from @rajeev_mp's tweets! I wish the MP gives a leg up to our twitter account @smartvote too.

10. SmartVote team had put up a stall and campaigned at the venue.

The Case against Compulsory Voting

2010-01-16T16:11:00.004+05:30

To begin with, compulsory voting will require processes and man power to ensure adherence. Its a massive expansion of government and hence a colossal waste of tax payers money. Why would we divert resources to spy over people's political participation when that money could be spent on more useful sectors like Health and Education?

How come French people vote 85% without any compulsory voting? How so in Kerala, Puducheri and many north-eastern states? Infact except Australia, no serious democracy in the world has country-wide compulsory voting. I think its becos, compulsory voting is a extreme form of cynicism. An Unwillingness to trust people's judgment. If people have to be forced to vote, I wonder what kind of democracy will that entail?

We in India, don't even have postal ballots! We don't have week long polling as it is the case in the US. We don't receive the ballot packets by post. We whimsically schedule elections during extreme weather conditions. And on top of all these, we want to force people to vote? Are we serious?

People have genuine reasons not to vote. They could be working away from home and cannot afford to go home for voting. Daily labourers cannot miss a day's work. People might be sick, old and dying. People might be travelling for causes that are much more important like ... family. In the ridiculously staggered elections we have, people can have a holiday when their place of work goes to polls and not when their hometown goes to polls. Now how incredibly arrogant and perverted should someone be, to ask the above people to come, stand before a babu and explain their conduct? Or else face punishment! Really? How arrogant? How can citizens be treated with such disdain?

One of the reasons put forth for compulsory voting is that, it'll make our democracy more representative. Really? In about one-fourth of the constituencies at all levels, namely the ones reserved for SC/STs, a majority of the population cannot contest the election becos they belong to the 'wrong' caste. And in the local bodies, half the population cannot contest elections becos they belong to the wrong gender. Now, how is one responsible for his gender or his/her alleged caste? In a electoral process designed to never truly represent the people, how can we make voting compulsory?

Why not respect people's right to boycott elections? Every election, some village or the other announces a boycott of elections. I think its beautiful. To see a whole village expressing its opinion in one voice, even to not vote, is a triumph of democracy much more than a vote forced out of people. Some years ago, in the Modakurichi constituency of Tamilnadu, many farmers decided to contest, so as to make a point about their demands. The election was delayed a while to make arrangements and when it did happen, people were given booklets containing about 1600 contestants! Again, how beautiful!

In the past several elections, some constituencies of Kashmir like Sopore have recorded less than 20% voting. Many Kashmiris genuinely reject Indian occupation of their land. While the rest of us would like them to remain part of the Union, we should, at the very least, respect the right of Kashmiris to reject our electoral process. Everytime there is an election in Kashmir or recently in Jharkhand, our media and the state claim victory for the status-quo. How cheap? Why not let people express their anger in one of the more peaceful ways? Namely boycotting elections.

Article 21 of our constitution provides for 'Personal liberty'. I think its a violation of fundamental rights provided by that article, to make citizens explain their choices in such a whimsical issue as voting in the elections. And punishing citizens for not harming anyone's right to anything is utterly unacceptable. Remember, this article grants citizens the right to Emigrate out of India without having to give any reason.

In anycase, republic, constitution and democracy are all make believe concepts. No matter how well intentioned they are, and widely accepted by the people, no individual can be forced to accept citizenship and a particular form of governance. If a person wants to stay out of these processes, his/her right to do so, must be respected by all means.

This is not to say that someone who claims not to accept the constitution and our laws, can violate them. Becos by doing so, he/she might be denying the rights of others who have accepted the constitution. And the Republic is entitled to quarantine such individuals from the rest of the constitutional society in a safe place like a Jail. But the minimum requirement here is that someone's constitutional rights must have been violated. A person not voting is by no means causing any such offence.

Even people who accept membership of the Indian Republic, need not agree with our practice of first past the post, electoral democracy. They could be Communists, Libertarians, Epicureans or say Sanyasis who have renounced the worldly affairs. For these people, 49-O, the none-above provision, is not a sufficient form of rejection. Because that would give legitimacy to a process which doesn't deserve it. I can't fathom situations where a sky-clad Jain monk is going out to vote or has to explain to a Govt babu the reasons for not voting.

And finally, in the last year, I have personally met about 7000 people and asked them to vote. In the Lok Sabha elections, I was campaigning for a party and now I'm part of a non-partisan effort to boost voting in my municipal ward. Nothing will make me more happy than to see 85% or more voter turnout in the elections.

This morning I stood for about 5 hours at a stall to help people to register to vote. And I'm willing to spend many of my weekends like this. But I will never accept a solution where my fellow citizens are forced to do something, anything by the state. Compulsory voting is a shameless assault on people's liberty. And liberty is never negotiable.

Lanka

2010-01-06T00:43:00.010+05:30

There is so much I wanna say about my Lanka trip that this post won't be enuf. You better call me and ask! Or wait for my next post.

But two things need to be mentioned.

1. Visiting Anuradhapura was one of my dreams. I did it on the last day of the decade, on a auspicious Poya day. And then began the new year in Polonorruva, the new Capital!

2. I resent that men in Kerala, Bengal and now Lanka, get significantly more opportunities to ogle at nature's most beautiful creations :-)

Kandy

Temple of the Tooth Relic. One of Gautama Buddha's tooth is worshiped here.

The Tooth Temple abuts a lake in this cute Hill city.

Anuradhapura

Anuradhapura is the ancient capital of Lanka. Its been inhabited probably from about 900 BC. But definitely so from the time of Ashoka.

Ruvanweli Saya, the stupa built by the legendary King Dutugamunu. He was the son of King Devanampiya Tissa who received Arahant Mahinda (son of Ashoka) in Lanka. The above structure is a renovated version from about 100 years ago.

Sanghamitra (Ashoka's daughter) had brought eight branches of 'The Bodhi' tree from Gaya. The Mahabodhi above is one of them. Pilgrims are dressed all white on the occasion of Poya (full moon) day.

One of the monastery ruins on the Western end of the city. Rather vainly known for the urinal built for (senior?) monks, as seen in the foreground.

Polonorruva

Polonorruva was made the new capital by Vijayabahu the First, following the sacking of Anuradhapura by Rajaraja Chola. Rajaraja ofcourse built the Big Temple in Thanjavur, which was completed in 1010 AD and hence celebrates 1000 years now!

3 remaining levels of the 7 storied palace built by Parakrama Bahu. He had succeeded Vijayabahu after about 40 years of chaos.

Vatadage.

Rankot Vehera (Gold pinnacled stupa) at the Alahana Parivena. Parivena roughly means a monastic group. This pic doesn't capture the awe that strikes you while being near this colossal brick structure.

This is Lankatilaka. Look at the height of the Buddha and the canopy built for him!

Galvihara. Wonder who got the brain wave to build this shed. The sculptures were out in the open until recently.

Dambulla

I wasn't planning on visiting Dambulla which has above such paintings in some five caves. These are from about 400 years but I guess the originals are much older. The place is ordinary. I wish I had visited Sigiriya instead.

Knuckles Trek

Trekked up to one of the knuckles, a range north-east of Kandy. About 16 km hike from one side to the other. This is the Deanston side of the range. Ended at Thangpo village having started at a hamlet on the other side of the hill.

Thats me looking down the cliff. To the left is Ravi of srilankatrekking.com.

Galle

The Dutch fort and its famous lighthouse. A cute cricket stadium is coming up right outside the fort.

Unawatuna

Honestly, I don't know whats the fuss about this beach.

The Sunset of the Decade

2009-12-26T15:20:00.003+05:30

As the noughties come to a close, its time to look back. In my case, its also ten years since I left home for College and beyond.

As a small town kid from Vaniyambadi, who set out to explore the world, I had a chip on my shoulders. I had topped my town in both 10th and 12th standard board exams. And having literally lived at the Perumal temple, lot of people knew me. Or atleast I knew many!

But in late 1999, I went to live in Chennai, having made a serious mistake. I chose Engineering and Computer Science! After 6 years in the academia and 4 years in the industry, Computer Science bores me no end. I could have earned a doctorate in Indian History and been a Professor somewhere. But that story, which may still materialize is for another day.

Chennai initially alarmed me. I was living with my grand parents and the city as such was devoid of life and impersonal. Actually, it was just me. I remember doing nothing worthwhile in my undergrad years. And another bad decision followed. I accepted a campus offer to work as a coolie. Sometime during that coolieship, in 2004, I was sent to Maharashtra and my life changed.

In Ahmednagar, my client factory worked 6 days a week and the seventh day, there was power shutdown thru the town! For 3 months, every Satuday, I travelled the span of Central Maharashtra including Ajantha and Ellora. From that trip on, until now, I have mostly lived between trips. At any point in time, I always had a trip in the horizon. Thats a good feeling.

Having discovered my disinterest in CS, I still went for a Masters from Arizona. The travel appealed to me. I was too finicky with food and hated Chipotle becos of unflavored rice. I also started a blog. My English was much, much worse than what it is now. My academic life in Tucson was awful but at that point, I didn't even care. Among the various trips Colorado stands out. That I reckon was also the last trip when I sported a moustache.

Los Angeles changed me in so many ways. Food to begin with. We checked out every affordable restraunt in Beverly Hills and today I can eat anything Vegetarian on the planet and savor it. Some afternoons, I have walked about a mile for Chipotle! (But spare me the awful Kannadiga Sambar please.)

And I wonder if there is any Star Bucks in West LA that I haven't been to. My coffee has remained firmly black for 4 years now. A South Indian who rediscovered Coffee in a faraway land! And While I was content with finishing the IMDB list and the odd Amelie or two in Arizona, I went full throttle on world movies.

And the trips kept on improving. One nice evening, in a sweet little town called Gardiner in Montana, just north of Yellowstone, I tasted wine for the first time! Today, in parties and happy hours, people just count me for wine. And I have tasted lots of other foul liquids too. From these years, I hate to pick one trip as stand out, but I'll cherish Alaska forever.

Before returning to India, I wanted to travel for a month in southern Europe. But in the end, chose not to travel alone for fear of boredom. And not visiting Machu Picchu is another regret.

Anyway, the vast swathes of India beckoned. Until 1999, I had traveled outside Tamilnadu, exactly five times. 3 of them to Thirupathi! In the last 20 months, I have explored a lot more of India without having touched a single Hindi speaking state!

For the decade, that exposed me to so much diversity, of places, people, cuisines, coffee, movies, wine and unforgetable experiences, a big Thank You! It was awesome.

How fitting that I'll culminate the noughties in the quiet surroundings of a place that'll take me 2400 years back into the past!

Koramangala Smartvotes

2009-12-20T16:38:00.007+05:30

After the 12 day rigorous campaign in April-May, for a party which I no longer support, it was time to hit the road again.

Went door2door to urge voters to participate in the Smartvotes initiative. This is regarding the upcoming local bodies election. I didn't cover too many homes this morning, but spent better part of the day meeting other volunteers at the 5th Cross, 'Fountain' park in Koramangala 4th Block.

Here's a heads up on the Koramangala Smartvotes project:

1. Its an initiative by folks @ smartvote.in. They were active during the Lok Sabha elections too.

2. Koramangala Smartvotes campaign is limited to ward 151 of BBMP. This ward has about 30,000 voters. Last time about 4000 people voted and the winning candidate got about 1300 votes. I don't know if there was a dumb voters initiative last time, that can explain the numbers.

3. What are the objectives?

a. inform the voters of ward 151, that BBMP elections are scheduled for February 21, 2010.

b. encourage residents to contest the election. but there is a catch. this is a women only, backward classes constituency. I can't contest. We call this idiocy a democracy, sigh!

c. after nominations are complete, collect profiles of all the candidates and distribute physical copies to the voters at their homes.

d. organize a debate between the contestants in a public place in Koramangala. publicize the date and venue to the voters.

e. organize a pre-election opinion poll through SMS. the winner of this poll will be endorsed as the Smartvotes consensus candidate. This provision seems to be controversial even among the volunteers. But I'm fine with it.

f. help select a Citizens council which will interact and assist the eventual Councellor in looking after the affairs of the ward. As I understand there is no reservation etc for this council. The selection will be thru blockwise consensus among interested individuals.

4. What one can do?

a. Join the campaign, listen to the debate, vote in the opinion poll and if interested, support the consensus candidate in the actual polls on Feb 21.

b. Become a volunteer like me, contest the election and/or become a member of the citizen's council.

c. Chip in with funds etc.

5. For more details:

a. website http://www.smartvote.in/koramangala/
b. facebook group.
c. twitter http://twitter.com/smartvote/

6. My take:

The efficiency of a political party in running the campaign is missing, but thats understandable. I would like it to be a citizens' movement rather than a volunteer driven effort. Getting volunteers and locality enthusiasts is taking a lot of effort.

While the project is non-partisan, I guess many volunteers are liberals. I ofcourse willingly disclosed that I'm a conservative (as in classical liberal). So if you are from a party I abandoned recently, you might want to join and diversify the grouping.

On the whole, I think I'll be volunteering several sundays in the next two months.

Deeksha Bhoomi, Sevagram, Pavanar

2009-11-30T23:26:00.005+05:30

Went to Nagpur for a friend's wedding. Pity there isn't much or rather nothing left from the Vakataka dynasty that ruled this area around the 4th Century. But I did check out few places of contemporary importance.

Deeksha Bhoomi, the place where Ambedkar along with his followers initiated into Buddhism on 14 October, 1956.

Pavanar ashram of Vinobha Bhave. Reading his writings now. I'm amazed at the breadth of his knowledge. And inspired by his call for "freedom from the government". If and when I form a conservative political party of my own (!?!!), 'Sarvodaya Sangha' cud be a possible name for the party :-)

Sevagram - preparing for the evening prayers. Gandhi used to lead such prayers. I wish Sevagram had remained a 'gram' (village).

Travel tip: Sevagram and Pavanar are near Wardha, which is some 70 kms south of Nagpur.

Notes:

1. Nagpur seems a cute city. I wud like to spend more time there.
2. Maharashtrians are such a nice people. I had spent 3 months of 2004 roaming around Ahmednagar. Nice to be back.
3. Pity that north-indians are abusing the hospitality of such a cultured and proud people.
4. And ofcourse, didn't bother to visit the supreme fascist head quarters based in the city.

Jai Maharashtra!

The Giving Issue

2009-10-17T12:38:00.006+05:30

Mint, my favorite paper has once again come up with a list of good NGOs to goad people to give. Here's the list from my visual parsing. And you can find last Deepavali's list here.

http://cry.org

http://childsurvival-india.org

http://deepalaya.org

http://nanhikali.org

http://udayancare.org

http://planindia.org

http://ashaf.org

http://youthforseva.org

http://preranaatc.com

http://makkalajagriti.org

I also found the following NGOs and non-profits at the Sneha Santhe organized recently in Bengaluru.

http://ananyatrust.com

http://yuvabengaluru.org

http://disha.resolve.at

http://spasticssocietyofkarnataka.org

http://ecoalertindia.org

http://balajothi.org

http://rangde.org

http://prathambooks.org

And here's a list of orgs that I have trusted in the recent past.

http://www.akshayapatra.org/
http://www.samarthanam.org/

http://www.care.org/
http://divinekarnatakaproject.org/v1/floodrelief.htm
http://www.aidindia.org/main/

http://greenpeace.org/india

Chola Desam

2009-10-04T14:03:00.010+05:30

The famous south gopuram of Srirangam. There is no God to absolve me the crime of using the 250 rupee shortcut darshan!

Kaveri beside the Thiagaraja Swami Samadhi at Thiruvaiaru. I see the water levels in Kaveri are kept deliberately high for canal irrigation, thereby depriving its distributeries, esp Kollidam.

A couple of residents of Umayalpuram, who helped establish this school in 1897, may not be amused to know that education has utterly escaped one of their great grand sons.

My ancestors on my grand mothers side lived on this street facing the Perumal Kovil, while my grand father's house was on the next street.

Darasuram. Pity, in a town full of temples (Kumbakonam), this umbilical cord with the Golden age of the Cholas, has tourists outnumber locals.

Big temple at dusk!

Itinerary:

Friday: Bus to Trichy from Bangalore. Checked out Srirangam and Thiagaraja Swami Samadhi at Thiruvaiaru on the way to Umayalpuram, our ancestral village. Stayed the night in Kumbakonam.

Saturday: Darasuram in the morning. Went to Saraswathi Mahal and other museums at the Thanjavur Palace before spending the evening at the Big Temple. More pics from my previous trip there.

Note:

Chola Desam's infrastructure seems incapable of servicing such high population density. Not to mention the huge influx of religious tourists and the Tam-Brahm community which flocks back to get a glimpse of their roots.

Chalukya Sojourn

2009-09-28T19:48:00.020+05:30

The year was AD 750. Chalukyan King Vikramaditya II and his Queen Lokadevi are visiting Pattada Kallu. Master Sculptors Anivaritha Gunda and Sarvasidhi Achari are showing off their spectacular creations to the royal couple. I can imagine the pride, happiness and gaiety that must have been in the air.

After all, Vikramaditya had just wiped the Pallavas clean and undone the ignominy of the freak defeat of Pulakesi II at the hands of Narasimha Pallava, a full hundred years earlier. While Pallavas got a solitary Vatapi Ganapathi, who now rests in Thiruvarur and a song to boot, the Chalukyas tried to outdo the Kailasanatha temple and seem to have pulled it off quite well too.

1259 years later, this Pallava subject walked thru those very temples. And ofcourse, I couldn't quite find Sivagami. Well, she ofcourse was Kalki's rip off from the legendary Buddhist Ambapali. The Vaishali royal courtesan turned love interest of Magadhan King Ajathasatru, who later received and hosted Buddha Siddhartha Gautama.

Vatapi aka Badami

Pattada Kallu (Redstone)

Pattada Kallu, we are told, is one of the rare places where Rekha nagar style (like in Orissa temples) co-habitates with the Dravidian style. See the above pic.

Sidhlephadi Cave

ASI claims to have found evidence of human habitation in this cave since the mesolithic age by recovering primitive stone tools used for hunting. Modern day Neanderthals have made ASI's job easy. They just leave their phone numbers.

Aihole aka Aryapura

I was quite surprised at these exquisite Tombstones for soldiers. Other than the Indic inscriptions, the ancient tombstones hold the secrets of India's pre-Aryan past.

Itinerary:

Saturday: Reached Badami by bus. Checked out the four caves, Bhuthanatha Temple and some recent fortifications added by Tipu Sultan. Don't miss the museum. A deity from the fertility cult might stun you.

Sunday: Spent almost the whole day in the Pattada Kallu group of temples. Briefly checked out the Mahakoota Temple. Later, in the evening hiked upto the Sihlephadi cave near Badami. About 10 kms round trip.

Monday: Stared the day by visiting Siddhana Kallu. Then roamed around Aihole village. Walked up to the Megutti temple atop the hill nearby to soak in the excellent views. Don't miss this small climb. You'll understand why Chalukyas moved their capital here after the Pallava sacking of Vatapi.

Note: Pigs, monkeys and the people of Vatapi seem to be living in perfect harmony. While I can understand the pigs, afterall Varaha is the Chalukyan Insignia, I wonder why people have to live like this.

Before you celebrate Vijaya Dasami

2009-09-28T09:43:00.007+05:30

1. Bride snatching was one of the most common ways of getting married in the ancient times. Krishna helped Arjuna to snatch Krishna's own sister.
2. After Krishna's death, when the royal entourage vacated ancient Dwaraka (not the one in Gujarat), the women folk, both married or otherwise, had to be protected from bride snatchers.
3. Ravana is worshiped by Jains as a man of honor who didn't touch Sita without her consent. Contrast this with Rama who supposedly banished her to the jungle as an 'impure' woman.
4. Ravana is ofcourse celebrated as a great Saivaite. The greatest 'Hindu' temple ever built in the history of mankind (?!!), the Kailasanatha temple, cave 16 in Ellora has a gigantic sculpture of Ravana moving Mount Kailash. The Chalukyas and several other dynasties celebrated Ravana in their temples.
5. People who celebrate 5 men sleeping with Draupati and then gambling her away, criticizing Ravana is quite hypocritical. Remember, one of those five was the recipient of Bhagwat Gita, 'the god's own words' (?!!).
6. Some versions of Ramayana mention Sita as the sister of Rama. Contrast the way Ravana treated Sita and Lakshmana treated Surpanaka (Ravana's sister).
7. When Rama met Sukriva in the jungle, he had been driven away by Vali. Why? becos Sukriva had earlier taken his elder brother Vali's wives and kingdom. Rama helped that Sukriva by killing Vali from behind.

Applying 21st century morals on ancient stories is a dubious exercise. Especially in a country where men marrying 4 women is legal for nearly 1/6th of the population.

Somebody supposedly returned triumphant on this Dasami day. But Dharma most certainly wasn't accompanying him. Victors write histories and epics. Celebrating victors, irrespective of whose side Dharma was on, tells a lot about us.

Disclaimer: I believe Krishna, the philosopher mentioned in the Chandognya Upanishad and who likely wrote the Gita, must have lived several hundred years after the flood of Hastinapur.

Play the Great Game

2009-09-23T13:55:00.002+05:30

As expected Obama wants to vote 'Present' on the AfPak war. By questioning the strategy of celebrated US generals, including Gen. David Petraeus, he is pitting the liberal anti-war democrats against his Generals. This is what happens when you put a community organizer (aka a radical) as commander in chief. A C-in-C is not supposed to publicly question the strategy of his own Generals.

Some Republicans have openly wished for Gen. Petraeus to be the Conservative candidate against Obama in 2012. It looked very unlikely a few weeks ago. But if Obama tries to betray his Generals in public, Petraeus may well take the plunge.

But this post is not about American political games. Its about the Great Game. Played as always in Central Asia, Iran and now in AfPak. What is India's strategy in the Great Game?

As I suggested few years ago, a nuclear armed Iran is in India's best interests and will stabilize the region. In anycase nobody can argue against Iran's inherent right to protect itself against Israeli and US aggression. The only problem is that Iran hasn't yet opted out of NPT, signed by its pre-revolutionary Shah government.

On the AfPak war, we need a bold long term strategy. The goal is to balkanize Pakistan and take parts east of Indus for ourselves. As I wrote here, we want Kashmir, Punjab, Sind and Gandhara to return to the Indian Union and Pakhtunkhwa, Baluchistan and Balawaristan to become Independent.

Manmohan Singh's sellout on Baluchistan in Shram-al Shek and his silence on the recent Pakistani moves in Gilgit-Baltistan are well documented. So I don't expect him to do anything in Pakhtunkhwa. Anyway here's my plan.

India should propose a SAARC peace keeping force for Afghanistan. Europeans want a way out of Afghanistan and we shall provide one. SAARC countries should deploy not less than 3,00,000 troops in Afghanistan. Remember, Afghanistan is also a member of SAARC.

Just as NATO forces have divided duties across Afghanistan, India, Bangladesh, Lanka and Nepal shall take responsibilities in the non-Pashtun areas of Afghanistan. And guess what, we should let Pakistan takeover the Pashtun areas. Let US and Pakistani forces continue to operate in Pakhtunkhwa. If US pulls back and lets Pakistan to install a Talibani regime out of Kandahar, so be it.

Its a win-win situation for all. 1. Europe gets out. 2. US either plays and wins or gets an alibi to cut and run. Namely blaming Pakistan. 3. Pakistan gets to talibanize atleast half of Afghanistan and get its strategic depth back.

Now what do we get? We get a hold in Afghanistan proper. Afghani is a persian word which doesn't necessarily include Pathans. Lets try to protect the non-Pashtun areas from the Taliban. Afterall, we supported the erstwhile Northern Alliance.

But more importantly, Pashtun nationalism is the surest way to unravel the Pakistani non-state. Remember we once 'threw Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Khudai Kidmadgars and the Pathans in general to the Pakistani wolves'. Now let us help Pathans on either side of the Durand line to come together. In anycase, Baluchis have proved ineffective and Balawaristan seems a long shot.

Ofcourse its a gamble. Will the unified Pashtuns eventually turn against Pakistanis and demand separation or continue the vegetative state in which they live now? But whats wrong in trying. After all, this is the Great Game and we ought to gamble.

Alvida BJP!

2009-08-19T22:59:00.008+05:30

August 17, 2009 was always meant to be melancholic. It was my 27th birthday. I mean, at this age, one tends to reflect back on life and see how I wasted it!

But little did I know, the day would trigger an event or two, that'll end my association with the Bharatiya Janata Party. Jaswant Singh released his book on Jinnah and gave out interviews that precipitated his expulsion from the party today, the 19th August.

This afternoon, I sent out my resignation from the Karnataka BJP IT cell. I had been a member only 6 months but I have felt one with the party for atleast 17 years. It all comes to a sad end today. For, having witnessed the staggering decline in its behavior, I do not hope or expect the BJP to be worthy of my vote let alone my active support in the foreseeable future.

But I shall remain a conservative (i mean right-liberal or classical liberal) and any other party or individual who can live upto my expectations, can bank on me for vote and non-trivial support.

The following are some memories of the BJP I have. I know this post is a bit vain, if not narcissistic. But its my blog and this post is important to me.

1. About a week after the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992, I remember buying a copy of the Tamil edition of the India Today (5 rupees) and eagerly perusing it. I clearly remember being frenzied and was perhaps even happy. I'm ashamed of it now. I guess this 27 year old man can forgive that 10 year old boy.

2. Sometime (1995?) during Narasimha Rao's reign, I remember Nitish Kumar speaking in Parliament amidst pandemonium. Some Bihari politician (Lalu Yaday?) shouted that a Bihari shud become the PM. Nitish countered it saying, "a bihari will definitely become the next PM, but it will be Atal Bihari!". BJP MPs went "ab ki bari, atal bihari!". I was sufficiently political and pro-BJP at that age to appreciate and rejoice at that scene.

3. I can vividly remember the 1996 swearing-in ceremony and the 13th day resignation speech of Atalji in parliament. Around this time, I fell for the charm of Pramod Mahajan.

4. The day after the results of 1998 elections were announced, I clearly remember the discussion in my moral science class. My 11th standard class teacher who also took this early morning class, mentioned that Pramod Mahajan's defeat was a shock to the BJP. I concurred and offered that Jaswant Singh's defeat in Chittorgarh was equally shocking. My teacher didn't know who Jaswant Singh was.

5. One evening, around 4.27 PM, I resturned home from school to catch the recap headlines of the Hindi news on Star Plus. 'The Wonder Years' was due at 4.30 PM. Pankaj Pachauri was ending his bulletin and wrapped up saying, "we will have more on the nuclear tests, India has carried out today, in our 7 PM bulletin". I could hardly believe my ears and lept in joy. Ofcourse to this day, I'm undecided whether those nuclear tests were the morally right thing to do.

6. A saturday afternoon, I believe in April 1999, I came out after writing my first paper in the Engineering entrance exam. I eagerly asked my dad waiting outside, "what happened?". He said, "they lost by one vote". Atalji's government had lost the confidence vote. I still wonder how I spent that night and went back to write the second paper next morning. I actually did well in that paper. I wish this 27 year old could stay focused like that 16 something teenager.

7. No matter what anyone thinks, I maintain that Atal Bihari Vajpayee's government (1998-2004) was the best India has ever had. I was witness to it and can brag about it for the rest of my life.

8. I only have fleeting memories of the Gujarat carnage in 2002. Brain does remember only what it wants to! But I recollect watching the burning train in the evening bulletin on Doordarshan. I can also recollect Atalji crying as he visited the riot victims later on. I vaguely remember the BJP Executive meeting (in Goa?) where the dubious decision directing Narendra Modi to seek early re-election was taken. However I confess that I buried my conscience and not until after the 2009 elections did I convince myself that Modi cannot and should not become PM.

9. I have lost relatives, friends, neighbors and have attended funerals. Infact a bit too many of them in the last two years. But Pramod Mahajan's death in May 2006, remains one of the few that made me feel really low.

10. Early this year, after having spent four years observing the US Republicans, I decided that I can no longer stay away from active politics and campaigned for the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections. I thought the party might just scrape through but on the eve of counting, I tweated defeat was certain. But I hadn't lost hope yet.

11. I continued my association with the BJP IT cell, even advocated internal democracy by writing emails that were frowned upon, created and contributed to rightnews.in, made a fan page for Sushma Swaraj, sought new direction for the party, portrayed a war between Integral Humanism and Hindutva and fought blog wars on the former's behalf.

12. Few months back, I was invited by lkadvani.in folks (Anupam Trivedi) to a national level brain-storming session in Delhi involving senior most BJP leaders like Advani, Jaitley and Kulkarni. Ofcourse, mine was supposed to be one of the rank outsider's views on the Lok Sabha defeat. So, nothing to brag about. The meeting was botched by Rajnath Singh who ruled no 'chintan' can take place before the National Executive meeting.

I have never accepted Hindutva but understand that Religious Right is an integral part of the larger conservative movement. I'm very opinionated if not dogmatic. But I believe debate and disagreement also enrich democracy. By expelling Jaswant Singh for having a different opinion, BJP has crossed a line. Perhaps an umbilical cord. I'm cutting it. Its all over.

Bengal

2009-08-03T22:48:00.010+05:30

Gorgeous looking girls, delicious Shingoras (samosas), kurthas and the Ganga just about manage to obfuscate a state/people in a time-wrap.

The first time, I got a glimpse of the city proper, coming out of the M G Road metro station, I was like "you've got to be kidding me. this must be some 18th century movie set!". Probably in that disbelief, I forgot to take pictures of the streets. The other places I went also disallow photography. So not much to flaunt.

The temples above stand on the places where Vivekananda, Sarada Devi, Brahmananda and Ramakrisha were cremated.

Itinerary:

Friday: Flew into Kolkata. Took the metro and got down at M G Road. Walked all the way to Howrah savoring all sorts of street food. Went to a friend's wedding.

Saturday: Took the Ganadevata Express to Bolpur, some 140 kms away. Roamed all day in Shantiniketan.

Sunday: Spent the morning in the Ramakrishna Mutt. Took a ferry across the Ganga to Dakshineshwar and back. Went to the Indian Museum in the afternoon.

Notes:

1. Ate some citric fruit which only one of my Bengali friends has been able to identify, though not by name. Apparently his mother once scolded him for eating such junglee fruit!

2. Bengali Brahmins eating fish is a myth. They eat all animals!

3. Humans and auto-mobiles live in perfect smoky harmony. While men maintain the puff levels in buses, temples, ferries and trains, commies apparently have never heard of such things as emission control.

4. Its very depressing to see people smugly sit in a man-peddled cycle rickshaw without any apparent struggle of conscience. Thankfully I didn't come across a man-pulled rickshaw.

5. The Indian Museum has an amazing collection. Nearly all Indian schools of architecture have items on display. The 2nd century BC Sunga dynasty stone archway (brought from Bharhut in Madhya Pradesh in 1878) is awesome until you realize what is it doing here instead of being returned to Bharhut.

Kalinga

2009-07-16T22:16:00.016+05:30

Water, Paddy, Mandirs and more and more of it! Orissa is truly enchanting!

Beripada village, near Soro

Went to my friend's cute little village in Balasore District. More on 'The Herbivore's Dilemma', shortly.

Dhauli, near Bhubaneshwar

The Kalinga war was fought somewhere in the vicinity of Dhauli. One of Asoka's rock edicts is here. The curious sculpture of the 'Elephant emerging from the rock' indicates the significance of this place. As mentioned by bloggers, the stupid crowds skip the 2250 years old rock edicts and just visit the Shanthi stupa recently built by the Japanese!

Konark

As always happens in such places, hype ruins the experience. But I wud any day celebrate a society that worships the Sun. Learnt a cool name, Nairuti from the Konark Museum.

Puri

Besides the Jagannath Mandir, checked out the beach and the Govardhana mutt established by Adi Shankara.

Udayagiri and Khandagiri

Within years after Asoka, Kalinga was recovered by the great Jain king Kharavela. He supported these Jain monasteries.

Ratnagiri

'Sri Ratnagiri Mahavihariya - Aryabikshu - Sanghasya' aka Ratnagiri Monastery is the kind of place that sends shivers down your spine. Its a 5th-13th century monastery associated with Tathagatta and refered to by Hiuen T'sang as Pushapagiri. This ancient university made immence contributions to Tantric (Vajrayana) Buddhism. Avalokiteśvara celebrated here is the Buddha later adopted and claimed to be 'incarnating' as the Dalai Lamas.

'Rajarani' Mandir, Bhubaneshwar

This temple made of Rajarania rock is elegant. Lingaraj Mandir is very impressive.

Notes on Orissa:

1. The state surprisingly has very good infrastructure. Or atleast, the central government funds are being well utilized. No wonder Naveen Patnaik is back for his third term.

2. Public Transport is non-existent. No kidding. There aren't any government run buses!

3. They are cultivating Paddy in every inch of Orissa! A Tamil farmer will scarcely believe the amount of water available here. Mahanadi made me dizzy.

4. That Oriya society is uneducated is palpable. People spit (betel, tobacco?) and urinate wherever they like. I guess more hands needed to till the land keeps people away from college.

5. Non-brahmins or specifically Nayaks also wear and flaunt the 'thread'. While this infatuation is amusing, tribal gods like Jagannath, Subhadra and Balabhadra being taken over by Brahmins angers me. Puri joins the list of places like Sabarimala which I have vowed never to visit again.

6. There is an acute shortage of 'change' in Orissa. Its a nightmare. RBI obviously is not supplying enough currency in proper denominations.

Chargesheet on Modi

2009-06-29T20:26:00.003+05:30

The following is a comment I made on journalist Kanchan Gupta's blog. He has removed this comment claiming its vituperative and uses intemperate language.

BJP supporters and those who follow current affairs closely may associate development with Modi. But others, thats about 80% of the country, sees him only as a mass murderer. How BJP supporters view Modi is immaterial. Rest of the country neither has the patience nor the necessity to forgive Modi.

BJP is not Modi's private property. We should only think whats good for BJP and the country. What happens to Modi is his problem.

Why can't Modi stay in Gujarat and deliver some 20 seats to the BJP which he has never been able to do? To borrow his own rhetoric, why is he batting at 65% strike rate against a weak Congress in Gujarat when Raman Singh is batting at 95% strike rate against the might of Ajit Jogi and the Shuklas.

And say, why can't he become party president and let someone else become PM candidate in 2014. I concede that Modi excites party workers. So why can't he do stuff that suits him instead of chasing voters away in a poll.

Instead of delivering in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Goa, he went on a ego-boasting, [2014 pre-cursor?] whirlwind tour of the country. And is now plotting [with help from Swapanda etc] to divert any criticism of him in the party. Hardly the sign of a leader.

In 1996, Advani, despite being the champion of the Ayodhya movement, realised that no Indian in his right mind will vote for BJP with Advani as the PM candidate. Hence he whole heartedly backed Atalji. Why can't Modi emulate Advani?

The national BJP and the Sangh have done so much for Modi. Taking him from a lowly clerical job in the party office to making him CM, forgave his murders at great image loss to the party and allowed him to destroy the careers of several Gujarat leaders. But what has Modi given back to the party?

Besides what are the contributions of Gujarat BJP to the national party? Apart from perhaps money, where is the human resource from Gujarat? The only notable leader from Gujarat is Amit Thaker who hardly seems to be doing anything. Even Prodyut Bora, a cell convener has done a lot compared to a morcha head!

Aside: You may also wanna read what I wrote about Modi in October 2007 here. I see my position has changed a bit. Thats the lesson I have learnt from the 2009 elections.

Kanchipuram

2009-06-14T19:30:00.009+05:30

My dear wish to visit this eighth century Pallava temple for Kailasanatha, cost my friend his wallet and displeased another friend whose wedding reception initiated the trip in the first place (we were late)!

About the photos:

1. Its from my new point and shoot and I didn't take 3 of the above!
2. I know very little about this temple, which probably is the oldest in Tamilnadu. I'm ashamed.
3. I'm guessing, the 6 (+1 not in picture) smaller structures just outside the temple are tombs of royals. Becos they are outside, each have a Shiv ling and this was supposed to be a private royals only temple.
4. I don't know if the paint in the last photo is from the 8th century, but bear in mind that Ajantha and Ellora influenced the Pallavas and the later Chola paintings in the inner sanctum of Thanjavur (11th century) still survive.

Hindutva

2009-05-27T01:30:00.001+05:30

“A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with Hindu decline, humiliation or victimhood at the hands of Muslim and Christian rulers/evangelists and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants [Sangh], working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites [Upper castes/royals/rich], abandons democratic liberties [like justice, minority rights] and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing in Gujarat and Kandhamal and external expansion into places like Pakistan.”

I just wrote the definition of Fascism in the Indian context. We call it as Hindutva.

The New Right

2009-05-24T09:09:00.004+05:30

BJP is at the cross roads. The People of India have soundly rejected it.

In order to remain relevant in Indian polity, I believe BJP has to choose between Integral Humanism (as proposed by Deendayal Upadhyaya and practiced by Vajypayee and Sushma Swaraj) and Hindutva (as proposed by Savarkar and practiced by Sangh Parivar, Advani and Modi). Riding the twin horses is no longer possible.

The following are according to me, the founding principles of a conservative, humanist, right wing party in India. But there is little evidence that BJP is interested in becoming one. We shall see.

1. Espousing free market principles.

Abolition of all monopolies including and especially Government monopolies. Every PSU shall be listed on the stock markets. Government will not stand in the way of business. Ex: allow private players to enter terrestrial broadcasting. Government recognizes the fierce urgency of alleviating the poverty of its citizens in their own lifetime.

2. Conservative Economics and Fiscal responsibility.

Low interest rate regime. Discouraging immoral loans like Credit cards, Home loan, car loans etc. And instead ensure easy credit for farmers, industry, students and self-help groups.

3. Secularism.

Government recognizes no religion and will not interfere in the religious activities of its citizens under any circumstance. No tax benefits for religious institutions. Temples like Tirupati to pay 35% corporate income tax on their earnings. Abolition of Haj Subsidy and Waqf boards. Having said this all religious places of historical importance shall be owned by the government but run by autonomous bodies.

Governmet re-affirms the right of Indian nationals to preach and convert others to whatever religion they like. But foreign nationals found in missionary activity shall be arrested and deported. Foreign donations to Indian religious institutions will be illegal.

4. Uniform Civil code.

All citizens of the country are equal in the eyes of the law. All citizens shall be subject to a Uniform civil code concerning marriage, divorce, adoption and inheritance.

Gays cannot adopt/raise children even if the child is born of the sperm/womb of one of the parents. But homosexuality is not illegal. The state has no role to play in the sexual preference of its citizens. Its only concerned about the emotional and social upbringing of child citizens of India. State recognizes marriage as the union of a male and female (one each) citizens.

5. Rule of Law and the Constitution.

Maintaining the checks and balances inherent in our constitutional framework. No more abusing Election Commission, CBI, Governor's post. Supreme Court will not be allowed to legislate from the bench. The state shall not make any law that cannot be implemented.

6. Recognizing and adhering to the federal nature of the Indian Union.

Abolition of article 370 and 356. No central govt can dismiss a state govt. Governors appointed by Central govt will have to be ratified by the respective state legislature with a two-thirds majority. India shall remain a union of Linguistic and cultural nation states.

7. Respect for life.

Abolition of death sentence. Espousal of ethical eating. Recommending the killing of animals and plants (for food or any other purpose except in self-defense) to be treated as a punishable offense.

8. Practicing caste system of any kind punishable by law.

No educational institution can ask any student which caste or religion he/she belongs to. A campaign against using caste and varna names as surnames (yadav, jha, sharma, gupta, verma, thakur).

9. Freedom of speech.

Abolition of laws that inhibit the freedom of speech like “speech provoking communal disharmony” etc. Citizens are free to burn the national flag and the constitution, if they want to.

10. Humanism.

Non-violence and peace as foreign policy tools. Disclosing the current stockpile of nuclear weapons. Signing the CTBT. Signing the NPT provided they let us replenish our constant and pre-disclosed nuclear weapon stockpile.

Campaign beat - Part 2

2009-05-15T01:21:00.002+05:30

If and when BJP comes to power, they shud ban dog ownership. They are such a nuisance to campaigners.
Campaigned for sitting MP Vijayashankar in Mysuru. If I were a voter there, its very unlikely that I would have voted for him. Such hypocrisy!
A state minister asked us to not worry about the low turnout in Bangalore. He said something which I understood as "care has been taken to delete large number of Muslim names from the electoral rolls". And I campaigned for such people, hmm ...
Met a fellow campaigner from the Merchant Navy. He comes from a family of sea-farers and has visited almost all the countries that have a coast. He had been to both the Arctic Tundra and Antarctica!
According to him, while the whole world derided Bill Clinton for the Monica Lewinsky affair, Latin Americans were mighty impressed that he scored at 50+ years!
Gave water and later fanta (?!) to the victims of a motor-bike accident near Attibelle. Called 108 for ambulance and sent them to the Sanjay Gandhi Hospital. I'm never sitting on a motor-bike again.
Met a ABVP activist from Kasargod who lives in Bangalore. He and his fellow Sangh volunteers had sent 6 bus loads of Mangalore voters living in Bangalore to vote back home in Mangalore! No wonder BJP is confident of retaining that seat.
He explained how he became student president in his Mangalore college. They had 4 voters in their Bangalore campus of which 2 were certain to vote against him. Voters needed verification letters from the department heads and had to be in Mangalore on the voting day. He spoke to the Sangh friendly dept head and ensured that the head was suitably late in giving letters to those 2 opposition voters. They couldn't reach Mangalore in time and were blissfully unaware that their Professor had gamed them.
Went to some remote villages in the tri-junction of TN, KA and AP near Bagalur (north of Hosur). Seems half the farms here are owned by Jayalalitha. Her erstwhile Bargur constituency is nearby.
How did I live for 5 years in Chennai? I don't think that place is fit for human habitation let alone election campaigning. Temperature there must have been about 600 degrees. And the people are so rude.
Met one of my Aunts while campaigning in Besant Nagar! Luckily she hasn't called too many relatives to pass on the message. Atleast not yet.
Went to some dumb Tamil movie with a Mumbaikar simply bcos we wanted some cool air in the afternoon campaign break. Left during intermission. Need to look up pics of that new heroine.
I was organizing some people and the party had given me 1000 bucks for their lunch. But it cost only abt 500 since few went home for Lunch. In the evening I returned the money and the guy was surprised that I didn't keep it for myself. hmm ...
And finally, I spoke to (or atleast introduced myself to) the following leaders: Karnataka BJP President Sadananda Gowda, Organization Secretary Santoshji (RSS man on deputation), TN BJP President Ila Ganesan, Karnataka Law Minister Suresh Kumar, Former Union Minster Dhananjay Kumar, Party candidates Janardhana Swamy (Chitradurga), P C Mohan (B'luru Central), Vijayashankar (Mysuru) and Balakrishnan (Hosur), Malleshwaram MLA Aswathnarayan, MLC 'Mukhayamanthri' Chandru, Former TN BJP President Lakshmanan.

Campaign beat - Part 1

2009-05-15T01:17:00.004+05:30

I suspect I'll be in a foul mood from Saturday. So let me write trivia when I'm still interested.

Campaigning is hard physical labor. No wonder political workers get about 200 bucks per day besides food.
Assuming I spoke to about 500 people each day, in 12 days its 6000. On the whole, we spoke to about a hundred thousand voters.
Campaigned in five languages! Kannada, English, Tamil, Hindi and Telugu, in that order. In Telugu, I only managed "vote veyandi".
We start conversing in a language based on the TV channel people are watching. Some funny "anti-demon" symbol hung outside houses also gives away the lingustic profile of the voter.
Why do people advertise their religion on their front doors? In our home, there is no 'God' outside the Pooja room.
Muslims are much more politically aware than the average voter. And they were very nice to us despite the Saffron baggage we carried.
While we 'volunteers' had easy access to leaders, the local party workers aren't that lucky. Hierarchy matters in politics.
I wish Vijayakumar, our local in-charge in Chitradurga, gets third time lucky. He has unsuccesfully contested Municipal elections twice (spent > 100 rupees per voter!).
Didn't visit the Chitradurga fort even though we were campaigning all around it.
Apparently BJP spent about 100 crores on the Bellary seat. Neighbouring Chitradurga's budget was 40-50 crores.
Visited the seer of the Basava (Lingayat) Mutt at their sprawling campus in Chitradurga. The first thing he asked, "howz the situation?".
The money I donated to the party election fund was used to buy Advani masks. A campaigning method that I can scarcely approve.
Met a girl and apparently her mom-in-law in Domlur, outside their unbelievably huge house. They had atleast half-a-dozen cars and said they'll never vote for the BJP :)
A local leader in Domlur was to arrange our lunch in a restaurant. We hardly required 6000 rupees. He gave a large bundle of cash, coolly said "call me if you need more" and left. I wonder what happens to the rest of the money.

Continued here.

A Mighty Vote!

2009-05-12T23:33:00.002+05:30

1. Voting for BJP's Ananth Kumar in Bangalore South.
2. 12 days of door-2-door campaigning, meeting about 6000 people in their homes. (6 straight weekends in Chitradurga, Bangalore Central, Bangalore North, Mysore, Hosur and South Chennai.)
3. Hacking up a rails application for the BJP state IT cell. (hasn't gone live yet)
4. Contribution to the party election fund.
5. Participation in 'Friends of BJP' and 'Advani @ Campus' events.

I have done whatever I could, to support BJP in this election. I hope I have done enough to save the life of atleast one fellow Indian from the terrorists and their chamcha Manmohan Singh. If I haven't and the Congress returns to power, please let me feel a fraction less guilty.

Max Interest Rate aka 'Kabandhu Vatti'

2009-04-10T21:28:00.006+05:30

Rather curiously this is my first political opinion piece this election season. I guess working on the field is much more satisfying than ranting online.

Anyway, the issue I want to muse today is private lending at abominable interest rates. In Tamil, we call it as 'kandhu vatti'. The practice where a private person lends loans which are typically charged interest every month. For example for 1000 rupees lent, the debtor will have to pay 50 rupees interest per month until he repays the principle.

If the math doesn't strike you in the gut already, thats 60% interest per year!! And in many cases, the creditor will also deduct the interest at the time of lending. Example: For a 1000 rupee loan, the debtor will just get 400 at the time of the transaction. But by the end of the year he has to pay 1000 back. No wonder farmers commit suicide.

Few months ago I discovered that one of my friends happened to be one such debtor. The '50 on 1000 rupees' interest I mentioned above sadly isn't one I made up. Thats what my friend was paying! His family had taken a loan of about 60K for his sister's wedding, they had paid about 40K at the end of the year and still 'owed' their creditors 80K!!

Believe me, this country has several million such debtors whose blood is being sucked by those bastards. Now, how do you solve this problem? Is waiving loan given by public sector and cooperative banks gonna solve this? I seriously doubt if anyone among the thousands of farmers who committed suicide, did so, because he/she owed money to a bank and was embarrassed about not being able to repay.

Anyway, the Congress party went ahead and waived 50K crores of farm credit. Ofcourse you, I and a few million others, paid for that largesse with our tax money. BJP hijacked by such socialists as Sudheendra Kulkarni and Raman Singh also proposes to waive more such loans in its manifesto. Screw the millions of other honest farmers who repaid their loans in time or were plain 'stupid' not to have taken a loan in this period.

Moving on, how will such loan waivers stop the suicides of farmers who got credit from those evil private lenders? The solution is actually straight forward. If those farmers get easy access to bank loans at cheaper rates, they'll perhaps refinance their credit. BJP has proposed Farm loans at max interest rate of 4%. If I waste some time on the Congress manifesto, I might even find a line on "easy kisan credit".

Now which party do you trust to deliver on the promise of easy farm credit? I leave it to you to decide.

Anyway, I would further propose that the incoming govt, start a max interest rate regime across the board. For instance, we may set the max interest rate as twice that of the prime-lending rate. If RBI gives credit at 6%, anyone who gives credit at more than 12% annual interest should automatically land in jail. Simple, no?

ps: 'kabandhu' in Tamil means protection. So a Max Interest rate regime = kabandhu vatti = protection againt atrocious interest rate regime!

Bus hikers guide to Coorg and Wayanad

2009-03-30T23:18:00.013+05:30

3 days, 15 bus rides and such wonderful people! Incredible India, it is!

Day 1: Kushalnagara and Madikeri

(i) Bangalore -> Kushalnagara.

rides ii and iii: Kushalnagara -> Madikeri and back.

* the lightening dhamaka on the ticket saleswomen at Raja's seat.
* the auto driver Anwar to Abbi Falls.
* yummy idiyappam with some Bamboo soot dish.

Day 2: Dubare and the sojourn across Coorg into Wayanad.

ride iv: Kushalnagara -> Dubare.

* wishing those tribal kids Mannu, Anjal and Sarasa are not stuck in Dubare like those unfortunate elephants.
* roadside tamarind hunt with stone missiles.

rides v, vi, vii, viii, ix, x: Dubare -> Siddapur -> Gonikoppa -> Kutta -> Tholpetty -> Manathavady -> Kalpetta.

* miles and miles of Coffee, Arecanut plantation.
* the cute school kids of Hundi village.
* the Kutta conductor has 'kept' his mobile phone for 500 bucks and needs to get it back.
* such helpful people of tholpetty.
* the drunkard who wailed to "thamburan" when asked for ticket and later fell flat on the bus floor and the conductor who kept change balance with almost everyone on the packed bus.

Day 3: Edakkal Cave and Mysore.

rides xi, xii, xiii, xiv: Kalpetta ~~ Edakkal ~~ Sulthan Bathery -> Mysore.

* what really are our New Stone Age ancestors telling us by scribbling under Edakkal (Idaikkal - Tamil)
* Bathery to Mysore thru Muthanga Wildlife Sanctuary and Bandipur.

ride xv: Mysore -> Bangalore.

* hindustani classical at the palace.
* is "open masala" dosa now extinct? Hotel Santosh where I have had it several summers ago didn't have it this time.
* and the final forgettable bus ride to bangalore.
* forget tanning. looking into the mirror its more like 'tar'ring.

the new post format released as usual on WTFPL!

Friends of BJP!

2009-03-21T22:38:00.007+05:30

Went to the Friends of BJP meet here in Bengaluru this evening. Arun Jaitley, Ananth Kumar, Rajeev Chandrasekhar and R K Mishra spoke. Couple of videos were screened. Rajeev launched nationfirst.in. Swapan Dasgupta was in the audience.

Jaitley dwelt at length on the economy, advocating conservative principles like fiscal responsibility and economic stimulus through infrastructure projects. I wish the political discourse in the country is consistently at this level.

Hat tip for the Friends of BJP meet organizers: Its a Friends of BJP meet, not BJP and its friends meet. Try to invite as few BJP leaders as possible. What were the five Karnataka ministers doing here?

Singapore!

2009-03-16T22:40:00.008+05:30

This post reminded me of the half day I spent in Singapore in early 2007. Curiously, I hadn't posted pics from 3 trips in a row including this one. Will post others later!

I remember Singapore as a claustrophobic, character less, over governed city. I feel sorry for the people who live there. There's more to living than money and sea food, folks.

Itinerary: Went to some Mariamman Temple by train. Took a boat ride from near the parliament. Went to the Asian Civilizations Museum and the Esplanade. And loitered around the city malls trying to kill time!

The State of the Wannabe states!

2009-03-02T22:56:00.003+05:30

In response to popular demand (one person asked), I'm elucidating my stand on the 4 wannabe states viz Kashmir, Tibet, Palestine and Eelam. In supporting a movement, three things are important to me.

1. Demonstrable injustice in the status quo.
2. Presence of an inclusive democratic political leadership, which can control the armed wing if one exists.
3. The economic/democratic viability of the wannabe nation state.

Kashmir: Independence. (3/3)

Injustice: This is straight forward. India and Pakistan invaded an independent nation in 1948. Neither the King nor the people of Kashmir wanted to be part of either states. India signed a dubious accession agreement with a King who demostrably had no support among his subjects. Even that agreement was conditional on a plebiscite. India never came good on that commitment.

Leadership: Hurriyat has consistently lead the people with a visible control over its armed element Hizbul Mujhahideen. Even the mainstream parties, National Conference and PDP have demanded a very high degree of autonomy. In Mirwaiz Farooq, Yaseen Malik, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti, the new nation will be in very capable hands.

Viability: Democracy in this new state is likely to be exceptional. Tourism, trans-asia trade, agriculture and hydro-electric power can sustain this economy.

Tibet: Independence. (2.5/3)

Injustice: A barbaric movement called 'Communism' invaded this independent nation and subjected its people to the control of an external race, the Hans. Considering the Chinese state will (and has tried to) destroy every symbol of Tibetan nationhood namely religion, language and its unique culture, the question of rapprochement with China does not arise.

Leadership: Although Dalai Lama is an apostle of peace and non-violence and the Tibetan movement presently has no armed resistance, the leadership is a bit weak. The Tibetan prime minister in exile is just a lackey of the Dalai Lama. Besides Dalai Lama represents a feudal system where monks lorded over unfortunate but willing commoners. Dalai Lama should relinquish the political role he still plays.

Viability: When independent, Tibet will be one of the largest countries of the world with an abundance of natural resources. The new state is very likely to be a Democracy and probably one of the most peaceful states on earth.

Palestine: One state solution, meaning no Palestinian state. (1/3)

Injustice: The Zionist movement flooded this land of the Arabs and made them second class citizens in their own land. While Jews have always lived in Palestine and some level of Jewish immigration would have been acceptable, what Arabs got was a raw deal. Why should Arabs pay for the crimes of the socialists and communists in Europe?

Leadership: Palestinian movement has been plagued by poor leadership throughout its existence. Even the few reasonable leaders it got like Yasser Arafat were terrorists. Besides Palestinians were stupid enough to be cheated by their Arab neighbors and rejected every reasonable solution put forth by the Jews. Presently there is no credible Palestinian leadership.

Viability: An independent Palestine will start and forever remain a third-world state of squalor and poverty. Joining a unified secular state will instantly make them first-world citizens with every opportunity at their disposal. After-all some 1.5 million Arabs already live peacefully inside Israel. Besides any solution short of the unified state will deny both Arabs and Jews, legitimate and complete access to the land of their forefathers.

Eelam: Total Annihilation of LTTE (0/3)

Injustice: None. Even at the height of Sinhalese majoritarianism from the 1950s thru 83, an independent Eelam state was an unjustifiable demand. The Srilankan Tamil struggle should have been on the lines of the US Civil rights movement and the South African anti-apartheid struggle.

Whatever legitimate demands the Tamils had, were satisfactorily met in the 13th amendment of the Srilankan constitution. Additional demands (if any) can easily be made and suitable justice sought in a vibrant democracy like Srilanka.

Leadership: When Tamils needed a Martin Luther King Jr or a Nelson Mandela, they got a scoundrel in Prabhakaran. I wonder if there has ever been a tyrant in the history of the world, who sought a socialist authoritarian regime with zero democracy, even before his wannabe state was born! The rest of the Tamil leaders have had very little credibility or have been eliminated by the Tamils themselves.

Viability: Imagine a country full of racists!! These people who refuse to live peacefully with their Sinhalese co-nationalists, are not capable of forming and governing their own nation state. Agriculture, Fishing and smuggling can sustain this economy but such a nation, born out of hatred, will forever remain a pariah state.

Lost in Hampi

2009-02-25T01:25:00.009+05:30

yup! literally. After spending a gorgeous evening at the Vittala Temple, we were taking a dip in Tungabhadra. Thats when we realized that it was getting really dark and we had to cycle our way back to our room.

But behold, Vittala was getting lit for the night!! Thanks to some higher ups who were visiting. Throwing caution to the wind, we rushed back and begged the security to let us in. He initially tried to scare us away saying a bear had been spotted only minutes ago and that we were already being stupid biking around in darkness.

He let us in anyway and we soaked in Vittala's splendid beauty! (pls excuse my bad pic below.) Now the ride back to the room. It was supposed to be a straight road along the river albeit in complete darkness. Some 10 mins later, we were at a dead end! Between the rock and the river.

We retraced our path and hit several dead ends. And the mosquitoes were feasting on us. I had intelligently left the torch back in the room and we were using my DSLR flash and iPod screen for illumination!

This went on for about an hour, but our plight only made me happy. Imagine getting lost in the ruins of the last (and only the second) south Indian empire! I secretly wished we would spend the entire night 'finding' our way back. And if two security men had not spotted and escorted us back, I reckon I would have been granted my wish!

The next morning, from atop Matanga hill, at sunrise, I surveyed the plane of our errand with amusement and satisfaction!

Itinerary:

Saturday: Overnight Hampi Express to Hospet and auto to Hampi. Cycled around the ruins the whole afternoon. Arch Museum in Kamalapuram, Pattabirama, Vittala.

Sunday: Sunrise at Matanga Hill, Virupaksha, trip to Kishkintha (yes, of the Ramayana) on the other side of Tungabhadra, Zenana, Royal Enclosure, Hazararama and the 'underground' temple.

Hat Tip 1: except Vittala and Royal Enclosure, you can safely avoid entering any place. The architecture is rudimentary. Its the scale and the atrocious landscape that gives the kicks.

Hat Tip 2: The Mango tree restaurant is worth more than the hype!

And finally,

1. I wonder if later versions of Ramayana exaggerated the boulder bridge built across Tungabhadra as one across the Palk strait.
2. I wish Aamir Khan tells ASI to stop harassing our Athithis with 250 rupee tickets while 'poor' Indians like me pay 10.
3. I'm seriously reconsidering my summer schedule after the tan I got in Hampi. I'm so dark (except around the eyes) that I can barely recognize myself.

Screw Barkha Dutt

2009-01-31T23:14:00.004+05:30

You may know about NDTV or more specifically 'Padma Shri' Barkha Dutt suing a blogger for criticizing her work covering the Mumbai terror attacks. huh?

Here's reproducing the said blogger's post from a search engine cache. The blogger himself has retracted the post and is not responsible for my reproduction here.

-- Read at your risk. Barkha might sue you! --

Appalling journalism. Absolute blasphemy! As I watch the news from home, I am dumbfounded to see Barkha Dutt of NDTV break every rule of ethical journalism in reporting the Mumbai mayhem. Take a couple of instances for example:

You do not need to be a journalist to understand the basic premise of ethics, which starts with protecting victims first; and that is done by avoiding key information from being aired publicly—such as but not limited to revealing the number of possible people still in, the hideouts of hostages and people stuck in buildings.

Imagine you’re one of those sorry souls holed-up in one of those bathrooms, or kitchens. A journalist pulls your kin outside and asks about your last contact on national television, and other prying details. In a bout of emotion, if they happen to reveal more details, you are sure going to hell.

Remember these are hotels, where in all likelihood, every room has a television. All a terrorist needs to do is listen to Ms. Barkha Dutt’s latest achievement of extracting information from your relative, based on your last phone-call or SMS. And you’re shafted—courtesy NDTV.

If the terrorists don’t manage to shove you in to your private hell, the journalists on national television will certainly help you get there. One of the criticisms about Barkha Dutt on Wikipedia reads thus:

During the Kargil conflict, Indian Army sources repeatedly complained to her channel that she was giving away locations in her broadcasts, thus causing Indian casualties.

Looks like the idiot journalist has not learnt anything since then. I join a number of bloggers pleading her to shut the f⋅⋅⋅ up.

-- ignoring updates in the original post --

South Kodagu

2009-01-27T23:41:00.015+05:30

Despite my best efforts to screw it, the first long weekend of the year went very well. South Kodagu offers a rather surprising confluence of National Parks. The abundant wildlife of Nagarhole, the barren - except for the river - Kabini forest, the exotic Wayanad and the adventurous Brahmagiri.

Add to this, the Coorgi hospitality, Coffee and the amazing diversity of languages (Coorgi, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil), its an experience.

Itinerary:

Saturday: Morning Bus to Kutta. Junked our plan to go on Jeep Safari at Nagarhole. Spent a quiet evening in Irupu at Dreamland Homestay.

Sunday: Irupu Falls. Went looking for game in Nagarhole. Shot Elephants, Deer, Wild Boar and Langurs with Canon 18-50mm! Completed the circle with Kabini reservoir/forest and driving past Wayanad.

Monday: Hiked upto Narimale Camp House on the Brahmagiri trek (10 km roundtrip). Took a dip in a ravine and back again at Irupu falls. Bus to Gonikoppal and thence to Bengaluru.

Atleast two more trips to the region are in the pipeline. One to Wayanad and the other to complete the 2 day Brahmagiri/Narimale hike.

Hoysala tales from Malnad

2009-01-08T23:08:00.009+05:30

There are few things in life for which there are no explanations. Like, why it took me six months since moving here to visit Halebeedu, Belur and Sravanabelagola.

On a quiet evening on a small hillock in Malnad, I felt a chill go down my spine while thinking that Chandra Gupta Maurya may well have spent the last days of his glorious Jain life in that very place. Imagine that!

Itinerary:

Saturday: Bus to Channarayapatna and thence to Belagola. Try the home-made jain food. Its delicious. Stay the night in Hassan.

Sunday: Halebeedu and Belur.

As the new year cometh ...

2009-01-01T11:57:00.003+05:30

I find myself almost friendless in Bengaluru! hmm ... thats one thing I really need to work on, this new year.

And talking of resolutions, its been two years to the day since I started experimenting with Vegan/Jain food. There has been some setback on that front. Too much plant meat these days. Need to work on that too.

And contrary to popular opinion that 2008 was a bad year, I have no qualms against it. It was good to me. It started near Times Square with me almost drunk on wine. Hawaii, Vegas, Kualalumpur, Goa, Mysore, Hyderabad, Kudremukha and Trivandrum in a trip year is fine with me. Besides I moved back with Parents and made (few) new friends.

Yes, it was a bit weird fielding calls about my parent's safety in Bengaluru when I was partying in Goa! But the economic woes haven't really had any effect on me except as opportunities. Hope 2009 brings more trips and good movies.

Happy New Year!

Me, Nandita and the Paparazzi!

2008-12-21T21:02:00.006+05:30

Ok. Despite the lofty title, this is what happened.

Nandita Das was at IFFK, Thiruvananthapuram to promote Firaaq. After an open forum where she sounded very sensible, she fell off the stage! I mean literally.

And I was there with a first hand account of everything she said before the Paparazzi surrounded us! Darn it. No bloody reporter approached me to get that scoop. Losers! Hope they atleast got me covered in the front-page photos.

As for Firaaq, I think its a good debut for Nandita. It'll put most Gujarati's to shame. Without the bluster and crap you would expect from these kind of movies. But as cinema, I wasn't too impressed.

We went to 9 movies, a documentary and a Shiv Kumar Sharma concert. While Chevolution, Aurora Boreal, Postcards from Leningrad, Firaaq, Hafez and Laila's Birthday made up the rear guard, here's my top four picks.

Ulzhan: This movie made my trip. Ulzhan as you would expect is an atrociously beautiful girl. From remote Kazakhstan who teaches French to cute little kids! She accompanies a man from France who travels all the way east, to the China-Kazakh border, to the place where ancient Shamen went to die.

Music Box: The kind of movie only Iran can make. A little boy meets up with Obedient Agent No.2. OA2 ofcourse escorts people on to their next journey, in the afterlife! And their dialogues throw up some seminal questions on life, death and love.

Listening to the Silence: With a title like this, how can you bet against it? A Russian movie where everyone turns out to be good and decent! And the girls. Alya, Yulia ... sigh!

The Yellow House: A very moving tale from Algeria. Reminded me of 'A Painted House', which I should now add to the reread queue. Simple people. Hard but simple life. Worth living, and dying.

Now I have to decide how the above four affect my all time list.

Postcards from Thiruvananthapuram!

2008-12-16T22:36:00.014+05:30

Amazing movies, goddess looking girls, kovalam, swimming in the 'high seas', boiled rice, red bananas, ravi varma, honest people. Damn, why did it have to end?!

Spent four days at the International Film Festival of Kerala. Will write a separate post on 'me, nandita and the paparazzi', shortly.

For now, here's some hard truth. You can swim in the sea for a while, float perhaps forever, but you'll die unable to climb back on to the kattumaram.

And here's some demonstration on how and how not to swim/float on the waves. Thanks Sid for clicking me.

Itinerary:

Friday: 1 documentary and Shangumugham Beach. (Sun missed us!)
Saturday: 4 movies, Napier Museum and Sri Chitra Art Gallery.
Sunday: Kovalam, 3 movies and Pt. Shiv Kumar Sharma concert.
Monday: Padmanabhaswamy Temple and 2 movies.

Le Lignes Rouge!

2008-12-07T14:22:00.007+05:30

Update: Since this post was written Northern Areas have been renamed Gilgit-Baltistan and NWFP is gonna be renamed Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa.

I recently watched a heist movie called "Le Cercle Rouge". Jean-Pierre Melville made up a story where Buddha drew a circle with red chalk and said "When men, even unknowingly, are to meet one day, whatever may befall each, whatever the diverging paths, on the said day, they will inevitably come together in the red circle."

Funny enough, there exists a circle in the ancient Utharapada region of the Vedas where the future of the world may well be decided. And this circle is characterized by two lines standing by the names of Messrs, Durand and Radcliffe. The Lines that should never have been drawn, let alone legitimized as national borders.

Pashtuns have never recognized the Durand Line, the purported Afghan-Pakistan border. Someday Hindus will also have to reject the Radcliffe line, the supposed India-Pakistan border. By Hindus I mean the Hindustani speaking people of Pakistan and India. Indus river should be the only legitimate border in this region.

Pakistani map presently reads like this. Punjab, Sindh, Baluchistan and NWFP make up the four provinces. FATA, 'Azad' Kashmir, Northern Areas and NCT Islamabad make up the rest. This should instead read, Punjab, Sindh, Gandhara and Kashmir states of India, Pakhtunkhwa province of Afghanistan and the independent nations of Baluchistan and Balawaristan.

Pakhtunkhwa:

Pakhtunkhwa is the name suggested for the North West Frontier province. Pakhtun is ofcourse Pashtun. The areas west of the Indus in NWFP, FATA and the Pashtun speaking regions of South-eastern Afghanistan should form the future Pakhtunkhwa province of Afghanistan. This region on either side of the Durrand line is the theater of US/NATO operations.

Gandhara:

The Hindko speaking parts of NWFP, east of the Indus, should form the future Gandhara state of India. Ancient Gandhara extended well into Pakhtunkhwa and Kashmir but the Hazara region should suffice now. Abbottabad should be the capital of this state. Taxilla in Western Punjab should also be included in this state.

Baluchistan:

India may already be helping Baluchistan gain independence from Pakistan. Iran and India should join hands in the creation of this independent state. The state suffered a serious setback with the killing of Nawab Bugti by General Musharraf. Its time to revive nationalism there.

Balawaristan:

The Northern Areas region comprising Gilgit and Baltistan is the forgotten child of the Kashmir conflict. While Pakistan turned POK into 'Azad' Kashmir, Northern Areas are directly under its control. This region north of the Indus, through which the Karakoram Highway passes, should be the Independent Balawaristan nation.

Enough day dreaming for today!

Questions

2008-12-05T22:05:00.005+05:30

1. Why didn't terrorists surface again to kill the nihilists who rallied in Mumbai?
2. Which moron is spreading the canards about the so-called 49-O option of no-Vote?
3. What will be the best punishment for the traitors who fail to vote, on purpose?
4. Why is the prime culprit in this whole saga, NSA Narayanan not being targeted by the media?
5. Who was the politician who reportedly made the NSG wait for hours, so that he can accompany them to Mumbai?
6. How would have Narayanan been punished in the middle ages? Stoning? Mob lynching? Impalement? Crucification?
7. Was Manmohan Singh briefed by R&AW and/or Narayanan of the possible sea-borne attack on the Taj? If not, why? If yes, shouldn't we repeat step 6 for Manmohan?
8. Was the Nariman House deliberately ignored for two days into the attack becos Jewish killings are the best propaganda material against Pakistan?
9. Why doesn't spreading rumors of terrorist attacks on live television land Rajdeep Sardesai in jail?
10. When did you get to know, that most of the (reported) casualties occurred within the first hour at CST and not at the luxury hotels?

Anti-terror ideas for the BJP

2008-12-04T01:20:00.002+05:30

When asked to comment on India conducting a joint terror investigation with the ISI, Arun Jaitley quipped "why not with the Lashkar?". Exactly!

Anyway, here's my list of anti-terror ideas for the people who matter. Hope BJP gets these things done.

Chains of command:

1. Create a post called National Police Chief or something. Find a Bezu Fache to head it! Just as Cabinet Secretary is the highest ranked IAS officer in the country, this Police chief will be the highest ranked IPS officer.
2. He/she will be the Commander-in-chief of the all central police forces. CRPF, CISF, RAF, NSG, SPG etc. The directors of CBI and the national narcotics control board will also report to him/her.
3. This post essentially takes the home secretary out of the police operations. I cannot imagine a uniformed officer taking orders from a babu.
4. Create zonal police commands similar to the Army commands. All the state DGP's will report to the zonal commander, in addition to the state government.
5. State governments cannot appoint or remove any IPS officer without the recommendation of an appointments committe comprising Chief Secretary, state DGP and the zonal C-in-C. Zonal C-in-C can veto any appointment.
6. Just like BSF and Coast guard can be placed under Army command during a war, all the state police forces can be placed under the command of the Central Police Chiefs. During terror attacks, riots, elections etc.
7. All the above will put Law and Order in the concurrent list instead of the state list. Thats the way it should be.

Force restructuring:

1. CBI should be the nodal agency to investigate all terrorist attacks. State governments should have no jurisdiction over what cases CBI can and cannot investigate. No more dowry cases to the CBI please.
2. Merge RPF with CISF, ITBP and SSB with BSF and all remaining quasi-military wings like Rashtriya Rifles, Assam Rifles etc with the Army.
3. Every officer in the state police forces should be given a Short Service Commission style opportunity to serve in any of the central police forces. Presently only the IPS officers go on deputation.
4. Remove NSG from VIP security, but SPG (a part of NSG) can continue to protect the Prime Minister. Each police force in the country must have a commando unit. CRPF shall protect central ministers, CISF for business and sports people and state commandos for politicians.

Legal reforms:

1. Bring back POTA by all means. And make it stronger. Lie detector and narco analysis tests should be admissible in a court as secondary evidence. Anyone who retracts a confession given to the police in a court should be additionally charged with perjury.
2. Create a Central Prosecution Commission. This will be similar to the vigilance and information commissions we already have. This CPC will scrutinize the work of all public prosecutors in the country and recommend punitive measures against incompetent and unwilling prosecutors.
3. Establish the National Judicial Commission ofcourse. This body besides appointing judges will take more bureaucratic work away from Chief Justices. Summer court holidays must be abolished. Each Judge can go on a month long sabbatical every few years. NJC will handle such scheduling.

Kudremukha

2008-12-02T21:55:00.002+05:30

Imagine sitting in a cubicle, writing crappy code and dreaming of a place. Jainism, Tulunad, jungle, mountains, camping, treks, animal acoustics, bats, leech bites! The weekend was well spent in the Kudremukha National Forest.

Itinerary:

1. Bus to Karkala and thence to Kadari village.
2. Left Kadari in the afternoon. Checked out a falls on the way.
3. Reached Kudremukha village in the evening to buy provisions.
4. Camped at Bhagavati Nature Camp.
5. Sunday, hiked the Kuringal trail. 12 kms round trip with the peak at 1753 meters.
6. Gomateshwara temple in Karkala before heading home.

Jihad against Ad terror!

2008-11-23T23:56:00.004+05:30

As India celebrate their win this midnight in Bengaluru, cricket fans across the country are rushing to buy a CBZ, an Airtel plan, Max Life insurance or some sh*t which Neo Cricket channel wants us to buy! Let the Indian celebrations go to hell. Bhago junta bhago. Go buy that freaking phone!

Really. Why are we Indians like this? How do we tolerate such wanton harassment by these TV channels and solicitors. A wicket goes down or India wins. You have got about 2 seconds to register it. Bcos there'll be no replays. Instead you have to watch a commercial. And I'm paying 30 bucks a month to get slapped on the face like this.

How can I wage a Jihad against these Ad terrorists? Whom should I go lynch?

What?! Zaheer is not the Man of the match?

Gross Moral Deficit

2008-11-19T00:01:00.005+05:30

An Israeli male gay couple have gotten a mother in Mumbai to surrogate a child and have flown back. They apparently want to come back to get a sibling. That was news this evening. The newscaster claimed that India and the US (really?) are the only countries where this kind of surrogacy could be performed legally. Is India the most immoral society on the planet?

I cannot imagine how heartless a woman should be to rent her womb for the perverse desires of these homos. Excuse me, but how different is this from rape or prostitution? And why this extra-ordinary desire to plant one's seed? Couldn't they adopt one or two Palestinian orphans who's country these Jews have been raping for half a century now?

And how is this sh*t legal in India? What was I smoking when I criticized the Indian law that deems homosexuality as criminal? Besides, isn't there a restriction on unmarried people especially males adopting a child? Or atleast thats what Maniratnam told us in a movie. And why isn't there a firing squad to treat the doctors who assisted in this?

Sometime back a 70 something woman had conceived a male child. Lest one appreciate modern medicine, she already had two grown up daughters and wanted a male heir. I hope that woman, her husband and their doctors rot in the non-existent hell for eternity.

I also wrote about that evil witch of a woman in Mumbai, who ran a circus on abortion laws, before mercilessly killing her unborn child in a 'miscarriage'. But I couldn't follow the case of that Japanese grandmother who took away a surrogate child from Rajasthan, when the (Japanese) father had already abandoned the child, even before it was out of its rented womb.

Let me stop before I break my keyboard in outrage. But just this morning I spoke to the guys at Samarthanam. How are one set of people able to give it all, so that differently abled kids can get a life of dignity and happiness, while others are able to make and buy children for money? Its so depressing.

All things negative!

2008-11-11T00:09:00.004+05:30

These commentators are a bunch of losers, I tell you. Saturday's game (166-8) was one of the better days of test cricket I have ever watched. 8-1 looks ugly from the commentary box? Wonder who's gushing when Laxman flicks one outside off to mid-wicket?

And the sheer hypocrisy of going after Ponting for not throwing it all in and blaming Dhoni for doing exactly the same. Glad Dhoni told them to stuff it, standing outside leg-stump. Boy! wasn't Bowden taken for a ride?

I once helped 'Guru' Greg with ideas to screw the Indian team. Here's few for Ganguly's spiritual heir (?!!).

1. Keep a seven 7-2 field on one side of the wicket. I mean 7 behind the square. Short balls only.
2. Use a part-time bowler, specifically to land on the wicket in his follow-through.
3. Make the wicket keeper stand on the boundary.
4. Appoint retiring players as captain and bowl 60 overs a day.
5. When defending a 1-0 lead, bat five days of the test.

McCain is defeated. Long live Conservatism!

2008-11-05T22:57:00.004+05:30

Obama has won as expected. Its truly a seminal moment in Black American history and as I wrote here, US democracy is again its pride and the world's envy. Its nice to see so many Americans and curiously even people across the world derive happiness from the extra-ordinary journey of Barack Obama.

To put things in perspective, Obama's win is one of the worse performances by a winning candidate since 1928. I mean, Obama's tally of 364 pales in comparison with Reagan's 525 and Roosevelt's 523. Clinton had 370 and 379. Considering the extremely favorable political environment for Obama, McCain and the Republicans seem to have stood their ground.

Ofcourse, Obama's supporters will be quick to see white racism against the Black candidate. Then one wonders what motivated the Blacks (in Virginia) to vote for him? And those whites (in Colorado) who possibly voted for Obama just bcos he is black, so that they can feel good about themselves.

And only 5 senate and 18 house seats have switched Blue from Red. Thats a reasonable performance following the Dubya presidency. And I'm glad to see Paul Ryan getting re-elected easily. Ryan, 38 is one of the smartest financial brains on Capitol Hill and is tipped for greater things in the future. His seat was supposedly in danger for championing the bailout package despite being a stanch conservative himself.

Anyway, Republicans should realize that this election was an impossible one to begin with and should work towards making a strong come back as early as 2010. I mean, contrary to what he claims, come 2010, Obama will still be fighting the war in Iraq, sending rebate checks and promising a socialist utopia, with literally no money in the bank.

Besides, look what happened to Democrats who set foot in the Oval Office last century. Kennedy got killed. Lyndon led US to defeat in the Vietnam war. Carter managed to become the worst president in US history. And Clinton got impeached for failing to clearly define the word 'sex'. Socialists can't govern, baby!

And finally, on the one on puffs, California seems to have voted Yes on banning Gay-marriages. Arizona, Florida and Arkansas have also gotten more tough on benefits for Gay couples. Colorado and South Dakota have resisted bans on abortions, while a 'Death with Dignity' law has been approved in Washington.