The acquittal of Faheem Ansari and some questions

The trial court in Ahmedabad created history of sorts by convicting a senior BJP leader and former minister in the Narendra Modi government, Mayaben Kodnani, and a former Bajrang Dal convener Babu Bajrangi along with 30 others for the massacre of innocent Muslims in Naroda Patiya. This is the first case in which political leaders, if one can call them that, have been found guilty. The tears streaming down the faces of the survivors of this terrible terrible massacre was indication of the suffering and trauma they have gone through in all these years.

The Supreme Court, while convicting Kasab, acquitted two Indian Muslims, Farheem Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmed, who had been accused by the Mumbai investigators of being co-conspirators. The lower courts had acquitted them, but clearly the authorities had gone in appeal to the apex court that has upheld the acquittal. Significantly, except for a few newspapers no one even bothered to speak of this important acquittal, and even the sections of the media that reported the facts did not dwell on the trauma that the two men and their families must have gone through.

Who is going to compensate them? Rehabilitate them and their families? There isn’t even a hint of an apology from the state government and all those responsible for keeping two innocent men in jail for a crime they clearly had no part in. In fact more and more reports from Maharashtra suggest that such arrests have become a common practice with the police and the politicians totally unaccountable for the numbers of innocent people they arrest, torture and jail without any proof whatsoever. So while the nation exults over the death sentence for Kasab, it should also pause to pay some thought to the two innocent men whose lives have been ruined in the process.

The second case of Naroda Patiya also has an untold story, of the 97 victims who were brutally raped and killed by a 5,000 strong mob on February 28,2002 of whom 32 have been convicted by the courts. But what about the rest? Where are they? Why have they not been arrested? This along with the trauma and the suffering of the victims is a story that needs to be tracked down, and told. For, while justice has been dispensed, the country needs to assess whether it has been enough, whether there are several loose ends that need to be tied so that the secular and just foundations of India are not just strengthened, but protected against future assault.

The investigating authorities seem to be falling short in more ways than one. Innocent persons are arrested, tortured, jailed and released only after the court’s intervene. Guilty persons are able to evade the investigators and walk free as the investigating agencies fail to collect sufficient proof, or at times, even find the accused even though they are giving interviews to the media. The point here is that while the higher judiciary at least is trying to do its job with a modicum of responsibility and honesty, politicization and corruption has hit the police and the investigating agencies to a point where fiction often replaces facts.

Seema Mustafa in DNA. Here

News can be bought and sold :Seema Mustafa

The story of a country cannot be without its people. The government’s decision to bring in a Food Security Bill cannot be divorced, in the coverage, of what impact it will have on the ground. It is the job of the media to explore not the legalities of the legislation, but whether it will bring relief to the people, and to what extent. These stories are not being covered any more with the media getting away with a couple of quotes from the VIP politicians, and a ‘this party is against the other party’ kind of superficial approach. What has happened to the Women’s Reservation Bill? What does 51% FDI in the retail sector mean for the people? And by people, the yardstick should be poor people, and not just the consumers who determine the advertisements and the TRP ratings.

People do not like to come out on the streets to protest. Not even those who belong to political parties. They do so because they genuinely believe that there is no other course, and the issue is important enough to merit their participation. But when thousands of workers march on the streets of Delhi for justice and rights, the entire media without an exception blocks them out as they are the conscience check for unbridled capitalism keeping the corporates in business.

All that is reported are traffic jams as a result of people’s protests. Of course, if the protests turn violent the media is in full attendance to damn the protestors and their supporters.

The state has realised the importance of controlling the media across the world, particularly in democracies. It has also realised that it does not need to do this through draconian laws (like censorship) and has opted for outright seduction. Big media empires are set up with covert state support, and the pay back is through the manipulation of news that is difficult to detect. This has happened in the US, it is happening in India. Multi media chains are being established by industrial houses, they get full support by the government that even bails them out at later stages through closed door multi-crore deals, so that eventually they can control the news.

The distance between the journalist and the politician has been bridged, and both go to bed with each other to ensure smooth functioning of the new media industry that first creates the news and then disseminates it with admirable ease. The voter cannot be controlled, but the information can. And as the Iraq war and its embedded journalists have shown so successfully to the world, information can be bought and sold.

Seema Mustafa in DNA. Here

"Just one slap?" :Anna Hazare over slap on Sharad Pawar

Harvinder Singh, a resident of Rohini in the capital, slapped the Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar in full glare of TV cameras on Thursday.

Anna Hazare, self-confessed arch rival of Pawar, was quick to respond to the incident. Initially with swagger Anna said, "Just one slap?"; 

A report in IBN LIVE. Here

Ek hi maara? : Anna  Hazara on slap on Sharad Pawar

After committing a faux-pas in his reaction to the attack on Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, Anna Hazare said tonight that he was ready to apologise if his remark was perceived to be "wrong".

"He got slapped! Only one slap?" Hazare had said to a group of journalists at Ralegan Siddhi when he learnt about the attack on Thursday. But later he condemned the attack.

Explaining what he meant by his remark, Hazare, talking to a Marathi news-channel, was at pains to explain the faux pas saying "I was addressing a daily gathering of people when someone sent me a note informing about the attack. I wanted to know whether it was just a slap or there was some other kind of violence."

The social activist said he did not say or mean anything inappropriate when he said "ek hi mara?". He always believed in non-violent method of agitation, Hazare said.

"However, if it is perceived that I have said something wrong, I am ready to apologise," he said.

A report in DNA. Here.

“He got slapped! Only one slap?”: Anna Hazare

Anna Hazare on Thursday tied himself in knots with his reaction to the attack on Sharad Pawar first appearing to respond with contempt and later condemning it.

“He got slapped! Only one slap?” he said to a group of journalists who broke out in laughter at his reaction.

A report in The Hindu. Here

Why there is a chance for Mayawati to become PM?

The Congress party is vulnerable because of its own misdeeds, starting from the nuclear deal that was pushed through Parliament with purchased votes, to the blind eye turned to the loot of the country in the 2G scam. Anna Hazare has demonstrated the widespread public revulsion that exists for the UPA government; character assassination of Team Anna members may remove the personnel, but not the public revulsion. Such is the state of public nausea that voters are willing to tolerate a timid and unimaginative chief minister like Maharashtra’s Prithviraj Chavan so long as he’s clean, as a DNA survey showed this week. The opposition parties must think of maximising the opportunity on the horizon; however, on current evidence it looks a tall order. The BJP has over-estimated its own strength and its ability to deliver an alternative. The fact that some of its worthies still think that the 84-year-old rath yatri LK Advani is a PM candidate, despite the fact that he led a losing campaign in 2009, demonstrates the bankruptcy of their political strategy.

India has had several experiments with non-Congress, non-BJP governments, but they have not lasted the full course. This does not mean a future experiment will also come up short. But the regional parties have to get their act together for 2012’s two milestones: the UP elections and India’s Presidential election. Mayawati looks on course to decide the first; perhaps she should take the lead in strategising an alternative for the next Parliamentary election. (I don’t give importance to the anti-Mayawati reports in our casteist media, and I don’t think the voters will either.) And the others, be it Mamata, Jayalalithaa, Nitish, etc, should follow her lead. Doing so would be far better than to delude oneself into following Modi’s lead, because his is a road that will lead nowhere in a hurry.

Aditya Sinha in DNA. Here

Subramanian Swamy, Hindu Fascism and Tamil Brahmins

So, where does the Zionist way of Swamy’s thinking come from? It might be because Swamy is a Tamil Brahmin, and he feels that the social upsurge there which took the form of challenging and overthrowing the Brahmin domination in Tamil society from about the middle of the 19th century — no, it is not centuries old because the political elites in pre-colonial India were never Brahmins — and many Tamil Brahmins feel persecuted, intellectually and culturally at one level, and more acutely at the social and political levels. Many Tamil Brahmins are more receptive to the Hindutva thought than any other group in South India. Tamil Brahmins are in a continual intellectual sulk. Swamy personifies this.

He is not acceptable in the Bharatiya Janata Party, the natural party of Hindutva, because he cannot expand his intellectual horizon to include the complex Indian social mosaic. That is why he speaks so glibly of transcending caste barriers when caste identity is at the base of the social churning across the heartland of North India. Swamy shows that he has no clue about the Indian political reality.

All that Swamy can hope to get is to head the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which is caught in a time warp much like the one Swamy is in.

Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr in DNA. More Here

How to wipe out secularism in India?

I couldn’t believe that the DNA under Aditya Sinha (one of the editors whom I deeply admire for his editorials, his guts in taking on the DMK, and his dedication in bringing to light the atrocities suffered by Tamils during the genocidal attack in 2009) had published such a rabid, anti-Muslim piece written by Subramanian Swamy.

This article is possibly the closest we will ever get to reading an almost-Nazi and absolutely chilling description of the Hindutva project in any mainstream publication.

For those who have difficulty imagining Swamy’s HINDU NATION, here is what it means.
Majoritarianism and political power to Hindus

If half the Hindus voted together, rising above caste and language, a genuine Hindu party would have a two-thirds majority in Parliament and the assemblies.

Portraying Hindus as the sole victims of terrorism 

The first lesson to be learnt from the recent history of Islamic terrorism against India and for tackling terrorism in India is that the Hindu is the target and that Muslims of India are being programmed by a slow reactive process to become radical and thus slide into suicide against Hindus.

Denying non-Hindus the fundamental right to vote, and the fundamental right to power-sharing making them non-citizens

The Muslims of India can join us if they genuinely feel for the Hindu. That they do I will not believe unless they acknowledge with pride that though they may be Muslims, their ancestors were Hindus. If any Muslim acknowledges his or her Hindu legacy, then we Hindus can accept him or her as a part of the Brihad Hindu Samaj (greater Hindu society) which is Hindustan. India that is Bharat that is Hindustan is a nation of Hindus and others whose ancestors were Hindus. Others, who refuse to acknowledge this, or those foreigners who become Indian citizens by registration, can remain in India but should not have voting rights (which means they cannot be elected representatives).

Retelling history in which even atrocities by Hindutva like the Babri Masjid demolition are recast into narratives where the Hindu becomes the “victim”

The third lesson is that whatever and however small the terrorist incident, the nation must retaliate massively. For example, when the Ayodhya temple was sought to be attacked, we should have retaliated by re-building the Ram temple at the site.

Meena Kandasamy in her blog. More Here

Anna Hazare is right. Jan Lokpal Bill is wrong

Anna Hazare is right in his anger against corruption, but he is wrong in the remedy he seeks for it — the Lokpal Bill.

Corruption thrives in the country because there is little or no implementation of the existing laws. And for that you need honest people in the right places. It is naive and even stupid to believe that laws can make men honest. Laws are meant to act as deterrents. But you need honest and good people to make them effective.

Hazare and his group of self-righteous middle-class moralists are, of course, justified in fighting corrupt politicians and bureaucrats. It would perhaps make people aware of the issue and throw out corrupt politicians. They, however, cannot do much about career bureaucrats. Also, their efforts are hampered because all political parties have corrupt people. It is like throwing a crook and bringing in another.

Honest people who say they cannot fight elections and win them because they do not have the muscle or the money to withstand the bloody electoral arena are speaking the truth. But they are unwilling to go among the masses and win them over. When they do not get elected in the first attempt or even in the second attempt they often turn into cynics. You can hear them saying, “people do not deserve honest people like us”, and launching a tirade against corrupt politicians.

The problem with Anna Hazare is more serious — he wants to bypass all democratic channels. If Parliament is bypassed and NGOs — they may be honest with learned people — want to draft the country’s laws, it raises serious questions about the legitimacy of democratic practices.

It is a legitimate moral weapon to keep politicians under pressure, but moral blackmail is not. And Hazare is doing just that. But he is not the first. Jayaprakash Narayan used the same tactic in the 1970s and took the country to the brink of anarchy while giving Indira Gandhi a reason to impose Emergency.

Every poll verdict since Independence shows that the people of India have tackled corruption to the best of their ability and within the ambit of choices they have. If Anna Hazare and his band are willing to pick up the gauntlet and challenge corrupt politicians in elections, people will vote with their feet.

Does Hazare have any faith in the people of India? Or is he a prophet who believes that his job is to raise the moral alarm and it is for the people to either do something or just ignore it. In that case he must not try to arm-twist the government.
Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr in DNA. More Here

Earthquake, Tsunami and some lessons from Japan

Look at Japan coping with its worst disaster in 100 years. It has been a saga of restraint, discipline and sacrifice. Think. Survivors still search for their near and dear ones. There has been no public display of grief. In the tsunami ravaged areas, Japan’s societal mores are as intact as ever.

Severe shortages of power, food and water continue. But no one is complaining. There have been no riots, protests or even looting. If the power in a super market goes off, shoppers put back the stuff back and leave. Outside stores, there are long lines, but no one is jumping the queue. People just buy what they need to survive and don’t hoard.

Some restaurants offered free meals. People ate with dignity, thanked and left. At Sendai, a small restaurant offered free hot soup. No one took an extra cup though they were very hungry. Restaurants cut prices. Many grabbed the opportunity to reach out to the needy.

The strong looked after the weak. No one made a drama of their sacrifice. It was as if that was the natural thing to do. Everyone from the young to the aged knew exactly what to do as there was training. Every September 1, there is an earthquake drill. Jeffrey Kingston from Temple University says that it is all about Japan’s national character as from a young age children are socialised to put the country’s interest above their own. That is why at the nuclear plant that is now threatening to spread radiation, workers decided to stay back voluntarily so that the country is safe.

The coverage was so dignified. Look at Japan’s media. The coverage was so dignified. No blood and gore. No screaming anchors and reporters wallowing in melodrama.

India could learn some lessons from Japan. It is redundant to say that India could learn some lessons from Japan. For we have yet to start building character. I covered the Gujarat earthquake over 10 years ago and still remember the chaos, intolerance towards communities other than their own, hoarding, stealing and looting.

Many made a fast buck. Rents of ground floor houses shot up. Prices of essentials spiralled. Many made a fast buck. Beggars moved from Rajasthan to corner relief supplies. I even saw someone trying to break a good wall so that insurance could be claimed!

It is values that have steeled Japan. It is values that have steeled Japan. They will survive. And prosper again.

Ramesh Menon in DNA. More Here

The code within the code

One of the most beautiful aspects of the genetic code is its simplicity: three letters of DNA combine in 64 different ways, easily spelled out in a handy table, to encode the 20 standard amino acids that combine to form a protein.

But between DNA and proteins comes RNA, and an expanding realm of complexity. RNA is a shape-shifter, sometimes carrying genetic messages and sometimes regulating them, adopting a multitude of structures that can affect its function. In a paper published in this issue (see page 53), a team of researchers led by Benjamin Blencowe and Brendan Frey of the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada, reports the first attempt to define a second genetic code: one that predicts how segments of messenger RNA transcribed from a given gene can be mixed and matched to yield multiple products in different tissues, a process called alternative splicing. This time there is no simple table — in its place are algorithms that combine more than 200 different features of DNA with predictions of RNA structure.

The work highlights the rapid progress that computational methods have made in modelling the RNA landscape. In addition to understanding alternative splicing, informatics is helping researchers to predict RNA structures, and to identify the targets of small regulatory snippets of RNA that do not encode protein. "It's an exciting time," says Christopher Burge, a computational biologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. "There's going to be a lot of progress in the next few years."

The floodgates were opened by high-throughput technologies that allow researchers to compile comprehensive catalogues of RNA molecules found in various tissues and under different environmental conditions. Such techniques revealed that 95% of the human genome is alternatively spliced, and that changes in this process accompany many diseases. But no one knew how to predict which form of a particular gene would be expressed in a given tissue. "The splicing code is a problem that we've been bashing our heads against for years," says Burge. "Now we finally have the technologies we need."

From Heidi Ledford's article in Nature

To read the full article click here

Quran says:

There ar many Signs on earth for those of sure faith, and also in your own selves. Do you not see? Quran (51 : 20, 21)

I'm neither a Maoist nor a Gandhian but I'm an Adivasi who is determined to fight

Gladson is an Adivasi living in the now war-torn state of Jharkhand. When he was one, his family, prosperous farmers owning 20 acres of fertile land, were made homeless. Their ancestral land disappeared when a dam was built on the Chinda river. As compensation the family was paid Rs 11,000. When they and their neighbours protested they were sent off to Hazaribagh jail. Could a family of six ensure food, education, housing, health care for their entire life with Rs 11,000?

"The worst thing is the culprits were not brought to justice. Can anyone tell us why the Indian state did not deliver justice to us, who snatched our resources in the name of development? Why there is no electricity in my village even today? Why my people do not get water for their field whose lands were taken for the irrigation projects? Why there is no electricity in those houses, who have given their land for the power project? And why people are still living in small mud houses whose lands were taken for the steel plants? It seems that the Adivasis are only born to suffer and others to enjoy over our graves.

"After a long struggle, we all got back to life but my pain and sufferings did not end here. When I was working as a state programme officer in a project funded by the European Commission, a senior government officer and an editor of a newspaper (both from the upper caste) questioned my credentials saying that being an Adivasi, how could I have gotten into such a prestigious position?

Can those so-called supporters of the unjust development process, who have not given even one inch of land for the so-called national interest, coin me as a Maoist ideologue: why should I shut up my mouth and stop writing against injustice? I have lost everything in the name of development and now I have nothing to lose.
Therefore I'm determined to fight for my own people.I have taken the democratic path of struggle. A pen, mouth and mind are my weapons. I'm neither a Maoist nor a Gandhian but I'm an Adivasi who is determined to fight for his own people, whom the Indian state has alienated, displaced and dispossessed from their resources and is continually doing it in the name of development, national security and national interest even today." 

From Mallika Sarabhai's thought provoking article 'A story about an Adivasi's fight for his people' in DNA.

To read the full article click here.

What the Greek tragedy can teach us?

A year-and-a-half after Lehman Brothers up-ended the world economy, a similar tragedy is unfolding in Europe. If the Americans were widely blamed for poorly regulating buccaneer capitalism and excessive risk-taking, this time it is the European Union (EU) that should take the rap for letting rogue borrowers like Greece to join the eurozone. Despite a 110 billioneuro ($140 billion) bailout package, Greece looks set to threaten the political and economic basis of the European Union. The size of the bailout — for a country with 1 per cent of India’s population and one-quarter its economic size — is larger than India’s current GDP by a wide margin.

How can a country as tiny as Greece rock the EU, which is bigger than the US economy? The answer: in an integrated world, market confidence is key. Greece had to be rescued from a debt default to prevent a domino effect. If it had gone under, the markets would have started dumping the bonds of other problem countries like Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Italy. Once panic sets in, the EU cannot survive.

This brings us to the first lesson for India, which is actually an economic union of many linguistic states, just like the eurozone: don’t let central or state debt grow to unsustainable levels. For the last few years, the UPA government has been squandering the fiscal prudence achieved in the NDA years through profligate spending. The public debt-to-GDP ratio is a high 82 per cent for centre and states — and rising.

From "What the Greek tragedy can teach us?" by R Jagannathan in DNA

To continue reading click here.

''George Bush brings out the Muslim in me!", said Dalai Lama

Bollywood has a wisdom that one must understand. In its movies, there is always a battle between good and evil. In its own sociological way, Bollywood shows that goodness is not enough. It reminds us that in everyday sense, the good cop, the good teacher, the good officer and even the good father are not adequate enough. They get eliminated before the interval. One almost sighs with relief when such incompetent, naive old-world goodness makes an exit. But the problem begins there.

The flaw in Bollywood is that its resolutions are more and more incomplete. As it meets new situations, it tries to resolve them through excessive violence backed by a plethora of technology. The question is what an ordinary person should do when he confronts new situations. The general idea seems to be to resort to technocratic management or exponential violence. 

Let us add to the complexity by discussing terror. Terror frightens us, frightens our sense of ease and comfort, our middle class sense of security, our sense of law and order. We immediately become judges. We need to condemn, dismiss, execute. We become adherents to capital punishment. All our silly stereotypes surface and we easily become anti-Muslim, anti-Pakistan, anti- whatever threatens us. None of us have the courage and imagination to say what the Dalai Lama once said: “George Bush brings out the Muslim in me”.

How many of us can bring up the Muslim or dalit in us when the occasion requires it. Our ethics are reduced to a demand for security. If we are liberal, we add a touch, just a touch of human rights. But terror is a virus, an epidemic that demands elimination. Terror dehumanises us and we dehumanise it in turn. Justice becomes a form of vigilantism and our shaken sense of morality turns us blood thirsty.

Law cannot be a substitute for ethics. A regulated society can produce its own forms of corruption. Law also generates concepts which are still coy about the nature of responsibility of science. At most, it can generate the idea of the precautionary principle which contends that ignorance is by itself no excuse. A person whose action creates a disaster is responsible for the consequences. But such a notion of responsibility while being forward-looking does not look far enough. Science through regulation can move as far as precaution or prevention. But what it needs now is what I call “Wild Ethics”, an ethics that moves beyond the current boundaries and definitions. One needs an ethic which is plural, playful and eventually exemplary.

Wild Ethics claims that the formal economy of ethics needs an informal economy of coping, satisficing, of jugaad, of improvisation.

We have to reinvent both the ethics of the past and the future. We need a different kind of story-telling which takes terror beyond security, science beyond hubris and memory beyond erasure and obsolescence. Can we posit a Dalai Lama for nanotechnology, a Mandela for poverty and examine how they think. Every citizen has to improvise. These are new puzzles of tomorrow which democracy must solve to survive.

Excerpts from an article on 'Wild Ethics' by Shiv Visvanathan in DNA 

To read the full article click here.

Shiv Visvanathan is a social scientist

Men, the hunters; women, the gatherers

A new study suggests that to get the same work done, men often expend 70% more energy than women. So tell us — the exasperated wives, infuriated women colleagues, impatient female friends, irritated sisters — what we didn’t know already.

A study of mushroom gatherers by the National Autonomous University of Mexico, to be published in Evolution and Human Behaviour, shows how men spread out far and wide, tackling difficult terrain, vigorously sweating it out to collect the same amount of mushroom as the women did, pottering about effortlessly on easy ground.

Apparently men went looking for mushroom-dense patches, never mind how far or how difficult to reach, whereas women quietly collected mushrooms from patches which could be sparser but easier to access and more frequently found. At the end of the day, the men and women had the same amount of mushrooms.

It’s all because of our hunter-gatherer past. Men, the primary hunters, are good at chasing a distant target, while women, primarily nurturers and gatherers, make the best of what they have closer at hand.

From Antara Dev Sen's comment  Men, the hunters; women, the gatherers in DNA

To read the full story click here

Train your mind

My friend’s son, who successfully cleared the a bank probationary exam last year, was asked two questions in course of viva-voce. One of the interviewers asked him: “Tell me, Mr Ravindran, what if I decide to run away with your sister?” The 24-year replied:
“Great sir. I couldn’t find a better husband for my sister.”

Placing a cup of coffee before him, another interviewer asked him: “This is your last question of the interview. Please tell me the exact position of the centre of this table.” Ravindran confidently put one of his fingers at one point. The interviewer asked how he knew that for sure. Ravindran was quick to reply: “Sir, you said this was the last question. So, I took a wild guess.”

Ravindran was selected with an excellent score. You see, apparently, the two answers Ravindran gave do not sound awfully innovative, per se. However, what’s striking is the fact that he succeeded in giving innovative replies with alacrity. In short, Ravindran’s replies were out-of-the-box responses which defied the constricted mindset that we find in most people today.

From an article by N Raghuraman in DNA Read the world

To read the full article click here.

Whither IITs and IIMs? UPA govt is set to destroy them!

The UPA government has set the stage. It has decided to open the education market to the foreign players. With such a supporting govt at the hustings foreigners and their agents will swallow the education market in no time. It is high time that the patriots rise to the occasion and stop this advent of neo-east India companies.

R. Jaganathan of DNA has shed light into this subject:

 
Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal is about to destroy an important national legacy: the IITs and IIMs that have made Indians world beaters in tech and management. His foreign universities bill, if passed in its present form without reforming the Indian system of governance, will lead to the ruin of not only the technology and management institutes, but all government-run academic institutions of repute.
Let’s first make a digression here before we come to the specifics.

Five years ago, BSNL was India’s biggest and most valuable telecom company. Today, it is an also-ran and will soon become an artefact of history.

Five years ago, Air India and Indian Airlines ruled the skies. Today, the sky has fallen on their heads. As a merged entity, they have become the government’s biggest basket case.

Ten years ago, ONGC and Indian Oil were India’s oil kings. Reliance was nowhere. Today, ONGC has been robbed of profits and Indian Oil is a pale shadow of its former self. The latter survives on government handouts and subsidies.

Where is the connect with Sibal’s foreign universities bill?

Here it is: opening up without giving equal autonomy to domestic institutions is a recipe for disaster. The private sector will use the Indian system of bribing ministers to hold back the domestic companies or institutions while they themselves grow in size and stature. Nobody will bat for the public sector, and soon enough, they will live up to the image of inefficiency and sloth.

What happened to the BSNLs, Air Indias and Indian Oils will now happen to the IITs and IIMs. Consider what’s wrong with Sibal’s bill. The entry norms specify a minimum corpus of Rs 50 crore, regulation (but no ceiling) of fees by the UGC, non-remittance of profits from educational activities, and a possible exemption from SC/ST quotas.

To read more, click here.

Karti Chidambaram and Obama!!

Karti Chidambaram is different.
He is the son of P Chidambaram, our Union Finance Minister.
But he seems to be different from the regular politicians.
He is vocal and seems to read a lot. But oflate, he seems to be bitten by the Obamamania!
In Tamil Nadu, it is fashionable for every budding political figure to do a Obama! Vijaykanth calls himself as Obama of Tamil Nadu. Sarathkumar too wants to do the same. Vaiko has gone to the extent of translating Obama's book in Tamil. Now, Where does Karti stand? You can see it in his website. Its central theme is Change!!!
He has gifted himself a website on his birthday.
The website is rich in design, outlook and presentation.

Karti P Chidambaram expresses his views on various issues that need to be urgently addressed by society today. He also encourages youth participation in politics, believing that their idealism and energy can be channelised for the nation's benefit.

The website will serve as a discussion forum for the youth who can come forth and provide their views and solutions on any issue. In time, Karti will engage with citizens on a regular basis for live chats to get the pulse of people's thoughts and views.

The bilingual site, in English and Tamil presents a broad picture of the man, his speeches, interviews and his progress in the political milieu.

The most attractive feature of the website is its theme: Change!!

Now come on, do agree my contention that Karti Chidambaram is different!!

Also read: Coke, Pepsi and Obama!
And read : Deve Gowda is greater than Obama!
And read : The Indian Obama & the American Mayawati
And read : Obama, racism and America!