Self Respect

What would the reactions of our imminent personalities and institutions on the mutilation and decapitation of Lance Naik Hemraj and Lance Naik Sudhakar Singh during an ambush by Pakistani forces? The writer’s view:-

Manmohan Singh: We condemn this dastardly attack on the sovereignty of the nation and urge our neighbouring country to look into the matter to see that these kind of incidents are not repeated. We also appeal to the citizens of the country to maintain peace. Theek hai.

Sonia Gandhi: We condemn this inhuman and barbaric act and warn that such incident will not be tolerated. We will raise these concerns with Pakistan at a suitable time.

Salman Khurshid: We demand an apology from the Pakistan MEA. Such irresponsible acts will hurt the peace talks and confidence building measures. We can raise this issue in UN.We will send a strong worded letter to the Pakistani authorities for this ghastly ……….….

AK Antony: Pakistan should be given one week to explain this, failing which it should be given two weeks, failing which……

Rahul Gandhi: This attack is certainly alarming but still, we must not forget that the biggest challenge we face is Saffron terror.

Sushilkumar Shinde: Atleast we are certain that this attack wasn’t carried out by Shri Hafeez Saeed.

Digvijay Singh: Looks like an RSS conspiracy to malign our friendly neighbours.

Nitish Kumar: We must not react in a hasty way which can threaten the secular fabric of the country or which could spoil the goodwill built by my Pakistan trip.

RR Patil: Badi badi sarhadon par chhoti chhoti hatyaen hoti rehti hain.

Arvind Kejariwal: As this is not related to Janlokpal or anti corruption movement, it will not be wise to comment on the issue.

Anna Hazare: I promise to go on a hunger strike for two days to condemn this when my current hunger strike obligations are over.

Prashant Bhushan: Didn’t I tell you that AFSPA was to blame for all this?

Laloo Yadav: We must not let the communal forces to take advantage of this incident.

Mayawati: Were the soldiers Manuvadis or from the Bahujan Samaj?

Sheila Dixit: Atleast Delhi is much safer than the LoC.

Mulayam Singh: Whatever happens, the relations between the two countries should not affect the communal harmony in the country.

Mamata Banerjee: This would not have happened if Defence Ministry were handled by our party.

Shivanand Tiwari: India and Pakistan are two sides of the same coin.

Markandey Katju: We must remember that India and Pakistan are enemies only because of the British. They made us forget our composite culture . We have so much in common, even 90% of Pakistanis are idiots.

Arundhati Roy: This is a positive assertion of the Pakistani proletariat fighters against the Indian bourgeoise forces.

N Srinivasan: Does this mean that Indian cricket team’s tour to Pakistan is cancelled? Are we to skip bidding for Pakistan players in this season’s IPL as well?

NDTV: This is a huge setback to bilateral relations between the two countries. People to People contact has to be increased to diffuse the tension.

India TV: Kya Bhatatiya sena kee grah disha bigad gayi hai?

Mahesh Bhatt: India must apologise to Pakistan for straying so close to the border. To make up for this folly, my next project will exclusively feature Pakistani artistes.

LK Advani: The government must convince US to declare Pakistan as a terrorist state.

Candle light activists: We can protest only against real issues that affect us all, like publicity hogging when an unfortunate girl gets brutalized or for the youth right to night life (or when we are funded by the likes of Ford foundation). Doesn’t the army have weapons to protect itself? We certainly feel that this issue is not that important for us.

Dreamers: It is the death of the rebel and the poet that shakes us from within, we are far away from the violent geopolitics.

Common Man: When even the soldier is not safe, how can I be?

Those who forget history are condemned to relive it- George Santayana

A nation that makes  a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its laws made by cowards and its wars fought by fools- Thucydides.

Civilizations die from suicide, not murder-Alfred Toynbee

A nation that forgets is defenders will itself be forgotten- Calvin Coolidge

We learn from history that we learn nothing from history-George Bernard Shaw.

Cry, my beloved country.

 http://theviewspaper.net/self-respect/

Tata's "Jewel"

The most prestigious name in Indian business scenario has called it a day. Ratan Naval Tata passed on the command of the Bombay House to Cyrus Mistry as he decided , at the age of 75.

He had retired a decade back in 2002, at age 65, when the company decided to make him a non executive chairman of the Tata Group, thereby rendering him eligible to continue for five more years. When that time elapsed, the retirement age was again extended for five more years. Ratan, the jewel for the Tata group was indispensable, undoubtedly.

Educated at Cornell, he would have stayed back in USA as he had an offer from IBM. But JRD Tata’s nephew and group chairman Naval Tata’s son was destined to be a part of the family business. He joined the family business in 1962, as one of the several thousand shopfloor employees at Tata Steel in Jamshedpur.

It would be nearly a decade when he would get something ,as he was put incharge of the troubled Nelco (National Radio and Electronics) in 1971 which had shown losses as high as 40%. Unfortunately for him, when he had just turned around the scenario, emergency was declared, and with labour issues, Nelco was back to square one. His next assignment was to help revive the sick Empress mills. He had that, but was refused the Rs 50 lakh necessary for its revival. The mill finally closed down in 1986.

Ratan Tata’s criticism’s grew, and his baiters led by Russi Modi blamed Nelco’s  and Empress mills’ collapse on him , conveniently ignoring that both had been caused mainly by factors which were beyond his control. The criticism grew to a new level when JRD stepped down as the chairman of the group in 1981 and named Ratan as his successor, as his detractors thought that but for the Tata surname, he was not worth much.

Ratan Tata drew up a new strategic plan in 1983, anticipating expansion of capital markets. His plan emphasized on venturing into high tech businesses, focusing on select markets and products, mergers & acquisitions. He promoted seven such companies in the same decade:- Tata Telecom, Tata Finance, Tata Keltron, Hitech Drilling Services, Tata Honeywell, Tata Elxsi and Plantek. But his plans found a cold response in many of the group companies, most of whom were run as defacto independent units. All the progresses in them were made independent of him.

In 1988, he tookover as Telco chairman, amidst the worst labour dispute in Tata’s history. He stood firm and the dispute was resolved in the company’s favour. Three years later, he He implemented the retirement age rule for the board of directors and business heads, and this took care of many of his detractors. The economy opened up in 1991, and his peers at Bombay house were not very enthusiastic about this new change which took away the protectionist policies of more than four decades.

He drew a new plan in 1991 in place of his old plan.He gave prominence to technology, and made global competitiveness the motto. McKinsey group was hired for reorganization. Multiple, overlapping group companies were brought in under one roof,  and by 1998, there was a single group logo and Tata belonged to Tata Sons, who now held the sole authority on the use of the brand name. 

Tata exited from its once established sectors like cement, textiles, pharmaceuticals and cosmeticsNew businesses were entered into viz telecommunciations, finance , retail and preference was given to IT and renewable energy. Today, TCS is the most profitable company in the IT sector.

Tata Group's global expansion started in 2000 with the acquisition of Britain's largest tea firm, Tetley, by Tata Tea, now called Tata Global Beverages.From 2000-10, more than USD 18 billion was spent to acquire more than 22 companies worldwide . Tata Steel also acquired Europe's second largest steel maker Corus in 2007 for $12 billion. The company is now called Tata Steel Europe. These  acquisitions also include of controlling stake in government-run Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL) by Tata Sons, purchase of heavy vehicles unit of Daewoo Motors in South Korea by Tata Motors, acquisition of Singapore's NatSteel by Tata Steel and purchase of New York-based The Pierre hotel by Indian Hotels Company. Jaguar Land Rover, a personal favourite of Ratan Tata since his young days was acquired for $ 3 billion.

Before him becoming the chairman, less than 5% of Tata’s earning came from overseas. Today, it is the largest Indian multinational conglomerate; more than 65% of its income comes from overseas . Tata group has, till now 98 operating companies spread across 56 countries in six continents. Tata Group's market capitalisation, which has some 30-odd listed companies, is now nearly Rs.4.54 trillion ($825 billion), 33 times more than in 1991 when Tata took over the top job. During this period, the group's aggregate sales have increased 43 times, while net profit has grown 51 times.

In 2008, he was awarded India’s  second-highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan.

He has not been without controversies, namely various environmental issues flouted by the group in case of the port at Dharma (Orissa), which is near protected wildlife areas.Or about the Nano plant withdrawal from Singur, WB and going to Sanand , owing to farmers protest over inadequate compensation for their land.

What makes him so different than other Indian businessmen who began in the license permit era? The very fact that he turned the biggest relic of the license permit raj into a global company in little more than a decade. On other hand, where behemoths like Birla could not stand the changed business scenario and promptly broke up into little factions, Tata grew beyond its wildest dreams, acquiring overseas businesses, a fact which would have been impossible for any Indian enterprise for most of the 20^th century. On one hand where he acquired luxury brands like Jaguar Land Rover, he also strived for the development of the world’s cheapest car, Nano and the first car designed in India, the Indica (which has been Tata Motors biggest success till now, and still going strong). On one hand where Laxmi Mittal’s takeover of Arcelor is still causing problems, Tata’s bid for Corus hardly raised any concerns, speaks about the goodwill the group has built beyond India’s borders. Most of his now hailed successes, like the Corus and Jaguar acquisition were predicted to bring the company’s doom and bankruptcy. But he spent no time in proving them right. Because after all, Tata has been among the very few to perfectly understand the pysche and the needs of the Indian consumer -- and build successful businesses around those insights.

For those who think that he is into full fledged pensioner’s life now, he heads Sir Dorabji Trust and the Sir Ratan Tata Trust, which control nearly 60% of the group company. Its very logical that he is in no mood to rest on his laurels.

http://theviewspaper.net/tatas-jewel/

Exit Wounds

Ban Guns.

 Say no to guns.

Its time someone brought a law for gun control.

These are just three examples of demands that come up hysterically whenever there is a shootout in public place or school in USA. These incidents are happening at an alarming rate there, and have had horrific  outcomes. The most prominent in our memory in recent times  are the Columbine school massacre (1999), the Virginia Tech massacre (2008), the Aurora cinema hall shooting (2012) and the Newtown, Connecticut school shooting (2012), the very last being the most horrific in the writer’s opinion as the victims were children who had barely lived the first five years of their lives.

The popular media will have us believe that all these are the result of violent video games or violent films, but school shootings have been going on in United States since the early 1800’s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shootings_in_the_United_States

The second amendment, stated in the Bill of Rights of United States of America proclaims:- A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights#Amendment_I

In simple words, it is the right to arms for the citizen. The powerful gun lobby thrives by it, and since the days of the war of independence, armed citizenry has been a permanent part of the American life. And no politician who wants to be on the scenario for a long time dares oppose it , or the gun lobby brings him down without delay. As the popular saying goes, America doesn’t go to war because it wants to, it goes to war because it has to. The arms manufacturers like Colt who produces , among others the standard issue M-16 rifle for the American forces (the same is available in semi-automatic version as AR-15 for the civilians) to the ones like Boeing and Lockheed Martin that produce F-16 and F-18, war is a required industry. If conflicts don’t exist, they have to be invented, so that, in addition to increasing the sales of the weapons , it will also establish regimes that are friendly enough to be called as allies as they will facilitate American interests in the region and provide cheap oil and allow permanent military bases, which are mostly manned by enlisters who mainly come from the lower middle class or working class, for whom, in these times of recession a stint in the army is the only way out, that of becoming another cog in the war machine and a test user for the weaponry, and for the CIA to run drugs in the area, arming the criminals and other nefarious elements who are eager to become allies to the cause, so what if two decades later, they become the biggest enemies of freedom according to Uncle Sam. Such is life. The mighty have their own rules.

But then, is banning firearms the solution? Sure, the odds are overwhelming, with over 100000 people killed in United States in gun crimes in little over a decade,or that of Pakistan, where thanks to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and American aid to counter it has resulted in a scenario where there is one Kalashnikov per nine individuals, where in areas like Darra Adam Khel , it is easier for a teenager to make an exact copy of a Beretta or a Kalashnikov on a lathe machine than reading a paragraph. Their terrorist network formed against India has now turned on them, imploding the country. Divine justice, isn’t it?

Banning guns to stem crime is like banning fornication to control rapes. There were some other scum like the Westboro Baptist Church which used this opportunity to proclaim that the shooting in the Connecticut school was god’s will because god was being removed from school everyday. The writer prays to gods that he please send an army of crazed shooters to the homes of these biped swine as they don’t deserve  to exist in a civilized society.

A rifle is just a tool. It is a hard heart that kills (Full Metal Jacket, 1989)

The writer has just one answer to give to the ban supporters : Criminals will always be armed. Those who are going to commit crimes will always manage to lay their hands on a firearm.

If there are countless examples of madmen shooting in public places, there are countless examples of many robbery and murder attempts thwarted by armed citizens. A place full of people with guns is much better than a place where unarmed, lame duck citizens are abused and raped at will by armed criminals. Admiral Yamamoto during WWII said that the empire of Japan could never invade United States because “there would be a rifle behind every blade of glass”. The very reason that the mighty Americans are finding it difficult to put and end to Iraq war is because the civilians are armed to the teeth. Three decades ago, the Soviets found out the same when they invaded the villages of the mujahideen armed by Uncle Sam.

Dictators start their regimes by the careful disarmament of the general populace, so that they can be sure of no dissent against their rule. This is true for everyone, from Stalin to Mao .

The de arming of the general populace in India started with the Mughals, who de armed as many Hindus as they could. This practice was continued by the British, and has been continued in independent India. The results are for all of us to see, where any criminal is free to molest any woman on the street, any robber is free to loot anyone’s house and kill the inhabitants and hence the common man has to live all his life being a insect to be crushed because forget about a firearm, he is not even allowed to carry a 10 cm blade knife for his protection. Thats why all these calls of asking the common man to fight terrorism are cruelly laughable, because the only way a defenceless common man can fight terrorism is by getting shot by a terrorist or by blowing into smithereens by a bomb, thereby becoming a statistic to be discussed by so called eminent personalities in some talk show of a so called news channel.

If guns are always going to end up in the wrong hands, shouldn’t there be provisions that they can end up in the right hands as well? Those who still say that the pen is mightier than the sword should really try fighting an armed assailant with a fountain pen.

Imagine for a moment if even three people in the vicinity of a terrorist in event of an attack like the 26/11 in Mumbai have guns, wouldn’t that create a chance to gun him down before he kills 50 more people? Or if half the villagers have atleast a country made firearm, can the local “bahubali”’s goons threaten them? Or would a ruffian on the street dare to molest a woman if he had the slightest doubt that she might be carrying a weapon underneath her veil?

After all, if live and live let had been practical in real life, lions and antelopes would have been babysitting each other’s offspring.

 http://theviewspaper.net/exit-wounds/

ODI left without its patron saint

Sachin Tendulkar, after 23 years has decided to call it quits from one day internationals. All good things must come to an end they say. This good thing had lasted so beautifully for so long that one did not want this to end. And now it has ended, to leave behind a void which can never be filled.

Because this is the man who defined what one day cricket is. He showed just how exciting it can be instead of the tag of pyjama cricket which was heaped on it by the purists. Before his arrival on the scene, Indian batsmen were called as dull dogs, who could never play aggressively. There used to be a time when all the Indian one day team combined did not have half of Desmond Haynes centuries. SRT changed this and in less than eight years after his debut, he broke Haynes record for most number of ODI centuries,  inspite of reaching the three figure match only after 79 matches. If this isn’t phenomenal, what is?

His beginning in ODIs was far from promising, with him failing to score in his first two innings. Even after that, he mostly batted down the order at 5 or 6, and inspite of that making a great impact. He was promoted to open the innings against NZ in 1994. He scored 82 off 49 deliveries.The rest as they say, is history. He became the premier batsman in the Indian team in all formats of the game in no time at all. By 1998, he was already the best batsman in the game.

Whenever Tendulkar came down to bat, it was no less than a hero making an entry in his blockbuster. When he batted, it was India that was batting. The silence during his walk back to the pavilion whenever he got out was deafening. But  when he clicked, nothing could stop him and he ruined the statistics of many bowlers , even ending the careers of some. Mike Kasparowicz, one of them famously said “I’m sick of that m********”.

Now most of his critics who have been calling for his head all the times, always said that he never played in crisis situations, conveniently forget that when it came to his role in the Indian team, every innings was a crisis innings.  For more than half of his career, he played the role of both accumulator and speedy scorer, and it was his wicket that the opposition wanted the most. Anyone who watched cricket in the 1990s and early 2000s would remember that whenever his wicket fell, the opposing team celebrated as if they had won more than half the match. And it used to be that way.

He has been accused of not playing a big role in the wins of the team, like his counterparts Brian Lara or Ricky Ponting. This again is being very unfair to the great man. Its the bowlers who win matches, not batsmen, and no batsman can save a match if the team has bowlers who gift away runs like toffees. Batsmen are bound to fail 8 out of 10 times, whether in test or one day matches.Ponting had the assurance that  no matter what went wrong, McGrath and Warne will be there to make amends(so was Bevan, erroneously rated next to Tendulkar by some Aussies due to his high average, a result of sheer number of not out innings owing to his coming at No5). Lara’s life was made easy a lot by Walsh and Ambrose, those two peerless gems of fast bowling.  So was the life of Inzamam by Wasim and Waqar, so that his embarrassing run outs were drowned by their brilliant bowling. It will be interesting to the fans of Ponting to see his record in the subcontinent, given that SRT has scored runs all over, and remains the highest scorer in all formats of the game against Australia and South Africa, in addition to the rest.

Did Indian team ever have any reliable bowlers like this? Who could Tendulkar look back on in case he failed? Nobody worth mentioning  other than Anil Kumble. Add to the pathetic fielding of the Indian team in the 1990s where  catches being dropped at slips , point or gullies were painfully common (Javagal Srinath could have got 350+ wickets in any good test team. He ended up with just 236 due to the aforementioned reasons) .Take SRT out of the Indian team of the 1990s and it wouldnt look a lot different than Bangladesh team of today. He spent half of his career making a mediocre team look competent, shielding the incompetent middle order (Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid arrived much later, in late 1996, and the latter took a lot of time settling down in the ODI team) and being the sole dependable batsman the team could look upto. If this is not handling pressure, then what is?

Inspite of all the stereotypes, it is SRT who has won the most number of matches while chasing the target (54. The next in the line are kallis 53 and Ponting 46). With the exception of 1999 World Cup, he has been the leading  or the second highest run scorer in all the other five editions that he has played. India couldn’t have reached the semifinals in 1996 or finals in 2003 and 2012 without him. For the only player who has scored 18000+ runs, his strike rate of close to 86 is unbelievable. His failure rate is the lowest among all Indian batsmen, inspite of him having played the most number of matches than anyone (463). Right from the time he opened the innings in 1994, he has changed the way one day cricket is played. People are quick to say how Viv Richards was better, but they forget that Tendulkars career has been twice as long as any batting great in cricket. Can anyone imagine a player today who starts at the age of 16, to play for more than two decades, not only as a part of the team but being the best batsman all that while, fighting career threatening injuries not once but thrice and still emerge the winner at the end?  

Indeed he was the biggest impact maker in one day cricket more than anyone. Right from giving Shane Warne nightmares, to ending the careers of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis and the derailing of Shoaib Akhtar (which began his end) in that unforgettable innings of 98 in Centurion, or the two unforgettable innings in the finals of the Standard bank Series , two glorious hundreds in the series win against Australia or any of his innings in India’s WC matches that they won. The examples are more than enough to remember and hence his baiters choose not to.

His career was not without lows, his poor captaincy being the biggest of it. The other lows were his extended lean phases in 1997, 2004-07. Add to that the three career threatening injuries. But he emerged stronger from it all the time. He was down and out after India’s exit in group stages in WC 2007. Ian Chappel suggested him to look in the mirror and retire. But he came back with a  bang, having the most glorious period in the next five years, which included many match winning innings, and a long strings of 90s , incidentally for which he holds the record as well. 

His retirement, though sad , has come at the right time from ODIs. He ends out on a high, with his last innings being a gutsy half century, but in all his last year’s  performances were not matching to his calibre. His value in India’s ODI team is way beyond his 18000+ runs or 49 centuries. The writer is not in awe of him due to him being the biggest run scorer but due to the fact that this individual has brought excellence to such an extent in his chosen profession that he has become the very face of it. It was this man who showed the Indian middle class to aspire to become something more than cramming for medical and engineering seats. It was him because of whom cricket started earning its millions and had its millionaires, an unthinkable fact just two decades ago. In a world full of influential figures drunk on their success, he remained a figure of humility, someone who had the respect of all the competitors and even the fans of the rival team, a peerless example for everyone to follow.

It will be so hard not to see  his name in the batting scorecard of Indian one day team, and it wont be long before the name disappears from the test format . Cricket in India, without SRT. We will have a hard time getting used to it.

Thanks a million Sachin , for the boundless joy you have given us for more than two decades. There wont be a better man in blue.

http://theviewspaper.net/odi-left-without-its-patron-saint/

Dear Singh Sahab

Dear Singh Sahab,

People spread all kinds of rumour and infamy about you. Some even say that you are the Prime Minister of India.

There used to be a time (before May 2004) when the term Prime Minister of India used to mean something. Now it only means a puppet subordinate to the orders or pressures of various groups or a super chairperson. It might be amusing to some but it surely is a painful fact as far as the country is concerned.

Its so sad for the Prime Minister of the country to be a mute or a completely invisible element in almost all aspects that are vital to a nation’s survival, may it be economy (Sorry Sir, “we will grow at 8%” wont suffice. I mean if a person is hungry, what should he eat? The sensex? Or growth? ). Last eight years have seen the slow but steady undoing of the great India story which began in 1991, with your budget itself, when a then bankrupt country began its march to being one of the world’s most formidable economies. Your role as a Prime Minister has been a far cry from your role as the Finance Minister back then. When one sees the same person giving upto the leftist elements who want India to go back to the days of license permit raj and long queues, one can’t help grimacing. Since the last eight years, the cost of living has gone up steadily and swiftly so much that the day is not far when even drawing a breath will be taxed. The prices pre UPA govt have become somewhat of a nostalgia to the public of India, a time when filling the fuel tank of a vehicle with petrol/diesel didn’t exactly feel like someone was siphoning off blood from your guts or buying a kilo of pulses didn’t feel like cutting your own piece of flesh to pay for it. I used to express wonder at Zimbabwe with its 3210000% inflation, the exodus of the middle class from the country and the 10 billion Zimbabwean Dollar bank note, but suddenly, these horrors do not seem very far from home to me, with your partymen and coaliation partners so firmly in their place even after it has long been proved that they are trying to stitch ornate brocades with kitchen knives.

Or that of national security, the two most devastating attacks that were in Mumbai on 7th July 2006 and 26th Nov 2008, in addition to the hundreds of terrorist incidents in the country which the poor writer finds too numerous to mention here. Any decent person would be appalled at the impunity with which terrorists strike and the utter indifference of the govt which instead tells the citizens to be prepared for more attacks as everyone cannot be protected is nothing but shamelessness and utter treason. My true emotions about this cannot be expressed in this letter as the publication won’t tolerate flowery colourful language. It is not rocket science to figure out that the protection of the people against terrorism is nowhere in the government’s agenda. And instead of talking tough with our friendly neighbor next door, the govt only fights with dossiers, and you sir, make a sharmnaak (shameful) declaration in Sharm al Shaikh (Egypt) that India and Pakistan have a common destiny as both of them are the victims of terrorism. Instead of garnering international support for India for placing pressure on Pakistan to mend its way, you have opened the roads for business with them, and it will only mean that the next batch of Kalashnikovs for the militants will be paid from our pockets as most of the businesses in Pakistan have a huge stake of the Pak Army. And what can one say about friendly Bangladeshis pouring into our borders like cockroaches? They show their friendly colours by kicking out the locals from our north eastern states , as they did in one of their colourfully engineered riots this year and your party remains quiet as they comprise of a significant vote bank. Plus, since the UPA has come to power, the Naxalite menace has become worse, and one fourth of the country is under their whims and fancies. And what does the govt want to do? Nothing. All it is obsessed is Saffron terror, a concept which is as realistic as the Tooth Fairy. On one hand when China  increased the defense budget by 11%, India increased the age of its Army Chief by one year.

India has become a scam haven. 2G scam, Foodgrains scam, ISRO scam, Coal scam, Defence acquisition scam, Commonwealth games scam, Stamp paper scam…looks like the entire country is a scam and every person is a fraud. All people are equal but some people are more equal than the others. Accountability of any person or authority is nil, the buck never stops anywhere, finance has become the art of passing money from one hand to another until it finally disappears.CBI is Congress Bureau of Investigation. Billions have been looted and stashed overseas, billions more are invested in real estate, more are stashed in dubious companies or with the so called godmen. It wont be surprising if it is found out that a large part of the FDI is actually nothing but the money which which was looted earlier.

Add to that the little gems like including caste in the latest census, or the famous declaration that Muslims have the foremost right on the resources of the country, the shameless Bharat Nirman ads (when actually it should be Bharat Neelaam), not observing any anniversary of the Kargil war of 1999 as the victory was not under your regime, the utter inaction when Assam was burning earlier this year or turning a blind eye to the naxal menace all the time and so on.The paid media surely is a boon at such demanding times.

But the most important thing I want to ask you is that why cant we hear your voice or your opinion on anything? Your deathly silence deafens us all, Singh Sahab. Are you merely a figurehead? Or someone who only has the work of speaking a few lines in overseas summits? Third rate regional parties being wooed, given immense power and important posts in the cabinet just for the sake of saving the coaliation. They hold the country to ransom, and their demands are catered, in the name of secularism and “coaliation dharma”. None of the country’s problems are taken to you for discussion and none of them has you speaking on the floor of the house. Maybe the spectacle of Manmohan Singh speaking is like summer on the south pole, brief and fleeting.

 This is a letter writing forum to the PM of India. But even while I write, I’m full of doubts, as to whether I have addressed it to the right person, because I’m still not able to ascertain as to who is the Indian PM or whether the number of PMs runs into a few score or many dozen. And who do I complain to? I know very well that our government was never ours to begin with. When someone is a citizen of some country, it means something. Does being a citizen of India have any meaning? Do I even have a right to a decent life which can make me feel that my life has some value, something which is not to be lost in an accident in our lunar landscaped streets or in an attack by terrorists ( who I know will never be punished for whatever they do)? Do I have a right to dignity, instead of being kicked around by the pimps in khakhi , called as police in a little decent language (who are there to protect the politicians or whoever buys them, not the people, and who wont have the least moral obligation of saving the likes of me in case a riot breaks out or if my house is burgled), the pimps in safari called as bureaucrats in a little decent language, or any ruffian on the street (one who has the full freedom of thrashing or killing me but I don’t have the right even to carry a little knife for protection)? Do I have the right of purity in anything, because everything from the air I breathe to the food that I eat to the institutions that I’m governed under are toxins? In India, the tax we pay to the govt is actually not tax but hafta, extortion money which we have to pay just so that we are allowed to live for another miserable year. What next? An additional tax for people who have more than two square meals a day?

Do I have a right to have the littlest faith in anything, without worrying that there might be a fraud in it? Or to have something as hope for something called as India or whatever is left of it?

Because what we want is a country, and not an asylum with 1.25 billion inmates who are given shocks and morphine in the name of development.

Sincerely,

Ankur Jayawant

http://theviewspaper.net/ankur-jayawant-writes-a-letter-to-the-prime-minister/

Kasab and the Superpower truth

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of four years, Ajmal Kasab, the last surviving terrorist of the 26 Nov 2008 attack on Mumbai was hanged.

In the four years that he was incarcerated in Arthur Road jail in Mumbai, he had become the most infamous figure in the country in recent times. People were angered by the agonizingly slow trial that went on, the comic sequence of India submitting proofs to Pakistan and Pakistan rejecting them as expected, the insane amount of taxpayer’s money spent in keeping him safe and sound and cosy and the endless wait on the mercy petition (a fact shocking in itself as he was not an Indian citizen) sent by his counsel to the President. The frustration at this helpless situation increased day by day, and it felt Ajmal Kasab was spitting on India for every subsequent day added  to his life , knowing that he was a part of the squad who ensured that more than a hundred odd families never feel fulfillment in their lives again.

But as a realistic person, I would like to thank this vile creature.

He has effectively demolished the myth of India being a superpower. And its better that we abandon this delusion too for our own good.

A superpower is not a sitting duck for terrorists.

A superpower does not show apathy in combating threats to its security, due to excuses like world opinion and hurting religious sentiments.

A superpower does not mean a society who doesn’t have even the vaguest idea of national interest nor places national security even in littlest of its priorities.

A superpower’s backlash is not like opening a soda bottle, which generates a little fizz and goes flat in a few seconds. It keeps its desire for revenge and salvaging pride alive, like embers beneath a seemingly cold film of ash.

A superpower doesn’t have “leaders” who are like Alice in Wonderland where their country’s interests are concerned, who don’t have any desire to make their country a superpower but merely some pathetic reasons to call it as one.

USA, Israel and Russia attack their enemies with missiles, rockets, fighter planes, helicopters, drones, howitzers, tanks , rifles, blockades, embargos….

India attacks its enemies with off spin, leg spin, yorkers, inswingers, straight drive, square cut, cover drives….Or when they get more serious, a scathing attack with dossiers is launched.

Countries like Russia and Israel never negotiate with terrorists. One only has to read about IDF’ s Entebbe operation (1976) and the way Russia ended the Moscow theatre siege 2002) or Beslan school siege (2005). India was made to look like a weakling during the Kandhahar highjacking (1999) and forced to release Maulana Masood Azhar, who at the time of writing, continues to wreak havoc.

On one hand , Navy Seals enter Pakistani territory and gun down Osama Bin Laden in full view of the world, Israel ruthlessly eliminates Palestinian terrorists without caring for world opinion. Russia destroys without mercy all the Chechen terrorists it can, without caring for hurting anyone’s sentiments as national interest is paramount.

India on the other hand has to wait for four years to discreetly execute a brainwashed footsoldier who has been proven guilty long ago and had long ago outlived his utility and was kept alive for questionable reasons. And after that the govt portrays itself to have “sent out a strong message” of destroying terrorism, treating its very delayed elimination of a small fry, a mere cog in the scary apparatus of global Islamic terrorism, as the ultimate victory on terror. It is indeed a shamefully pathetic condition that shows exactly as to why India keeps on becoming the target of terrorism frequently and why it has stopped invoking any fear even for Sri Lanka, forget Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Its very easy to blame the political establishment for this pitiable condition. The terrorist attack of 26/11/2008 would have been over in a few minutes had the police had assault rifles and decent Kevlar jackets, and there would be no need to call the paramilitary or the army. Or in worst case, a day if there had been NSG hubs near every metro instead of just being in Manesar. Or had there been leaders in place of just jokers. That they don’t have a concrete plan to fight terrorism and don’t even have the willingness to do so, that disaster management in India only comprises of three words “call the army”.That we don’t even have the mini versions of Navy Seals, Spetsnaz or even Kidon and hence we have to call the army for everything because anyone less may it be police or paramilitary, is too ill equipped to handle such a problem  .But this is just the tip of the iceberg.

It is the situation that has risen due to a weak society.

A society made up of of honourless, spineless people are  harbor no feeling of anger or desire for vendetta for the insults heaped on them. Even if they do get angry, it lasts only a while and they revert back to the same ways of apathy and bring the same people to power who were guilty of the pathetic state . A society which cannot rise beyond selfishness and hence elects fixers in the name of leaders.

A society made of shamelessly weak creatures who put on a false sense of optimism or indulge in escapism whenever dangers confront them, who don’t have the guts to call their enemy and enemy and instead indulge in war of words and sloganeering, which disappears as soon as some average wailer (who have to be called as Sufi singers in a politically correct world) or a cricket team (cash strapped) arrives from across the border.

A society for which is made of ungrateful people who only remember their soldiers only when in trouble, of hypocrite armchair intellectuals who talk of everyone’s interest except that of their own country, who are more worried about the terrorist’s human rights than that of their victims, foreign & criminal funded so called news channels whose coverage helps the enemy more than the country’s defenders and utterly escapist overrated morons (called artistes/artists  in a politically correct world) who live in ivory towers and are only interested in Aman ki Asha (which infact is Amanullah screwing the hell out of Asha).

But above all, a society which is content in being a crowd of bickering factions rather than being a nation, a mob into which someone has thrown a few gold coins and they are all scratching at each other to get those gold coins, conveniently forgetting that ten thousand Kasab clones are ever ready across the border, waiting for a good opportunity to spill rivers of blood again by shooting through this thoughtless mass of people.

Superpower? First develop a national character and some self respect. And after that, think about eliminating the masterminds instead of rejoicing on killing one of the innumerable rabid dogs. Rest will follow.

 http://theviewspaper.net/kasab-and-the-superpower-truth/

Gulabi Chacha

Dear Gulabi Chacha,

Again comes your birthday, childrens day as we call it, because apparently only you loved children. Its another matter that there are many others who did something concrete to justify their love of children. All you did was play with some carefully selected spick and span children on republic day. But you did pretty little for your beloved children Chacha, starting with the criminal neglect of elementary education in favour of higher education institutes even though it’s the former which has to be given the highest importance in any sane society, because afterall it was the priority of the masses you were a world away from since your childhood in the opulent Swaraj Bhawan and Anand Bhawan. Hence we still have a fifth of our population illiterate even today and we still remain one of the worst places for a child to grow up. One wonders why your birthday is celebrated as children’s day. What is one supposed to tell one’s child on the meaning of this day? To sell the country for one’s selfish motives? To ignore reality in favour of flowery dreams which blinds everyone to dangers? Or to hold debauchery and hedonism paramount to all the other qualities? As far as the humble writer is concerned, he will prefer remaining childless than to have children who will grow up to emulate your example.

Freedom fighter is what we are taught to call you. Although, like your mentor, you were placed in the most comfortable accomodations during your jail terms, where you had the luxury and comfort to distort and mutilate India's history beyond anyone's wildest dreams.You called this discovery of morbidity as discovery of India. Nowhere can blatant falsification like Aryan invasion theory or painting a rosy picture of the barbarian hordes be called as history but in a corrupt society. This pulp fiction, which can only be hailed by the very delusional or the very treacherous, confirms that there are two kinds of history-the real one and the official one.

 You would not  had a snowball's chance in hell of a political career had you not been Barrister Motilal Nehru's son, whose money the Congress needed, the party that you would quickly convert into your fiefdom two decades later. Nor would you have been even considered as a leader had not Mr Gandhi endorsed you feverently. Fate was kind to a person, who hardly passed any exam in Cambridge nor did an honest day's work in his life, to be besotted with the title of Pandit. Your presence in the freedom struggle is not a lot more than photo ops with Gandhi & Co, a few eloquent speeches that you made to the crowds and a few sessions that you presided, thanks to Mr Gandhi. It was him, who promoted you always, ultimately over the capable Sardar Patel, which saw you become the prime minister of independent India. Nevertheless, in this capacity you had all the opportunity of becoming the greatest leader a country can have. Instead, you built an administrative structure that had nothing Indian in it, which instead is a ghastly mixture of the Soviet regime and the British Raj, systems which were made to oppress and were the farthest from the upliftment of the common man. Rightly you have been called as the last Englishman to rule India.

You did not have the slightest capability to quell the partition bloodbath or pressurize the Muslim league to reduce their influence, and looked towards the British for all matters in running the state. All you cared was the new throne of India, the opulent lifestyle unsuited to the head of state of a then poor country, playing into the hands of Lord Mountbatten, whom you depended on in running the matters of the soon to be vivisected land and showing more than just love for his better half (Afterall, Gulabo was a bigger priority than governance). Nero’s example looks pale in comparison. It was not a tryst with destiny that we entered into, but a tryst with infamy, shame and suicide. You even tried to scuttle Sardar Patel’s plan of capturing Hyderabad with force from the murderous Razzakars of the Nizam, which thankfully for us went through and hence we have Hyderabad and 537 other principalities as the part of our country today. One shudders to think what would have happened if you had retained the home ministry during 1947-50. Sardar Patel’s warnings about China were ignored and every effort was made to undermine him. After his death in Dec 1950, the road for the left to dominate the Congress was open, which continues till today.

The Indian Army was on the verge of wiping out the entire presence of Pakistan from Kashmir when you, on Lord Mountbatten’s advice declared ceasefire and carried the Kashmir question to UN, thereby becoming the only stellar example of a head of state in the world who stopped the war that he was winning. Afterall, you had to prove yourself as a worthy disciple of Mr Gandhi, who not very long before this had gone on a hunger strike to death in order to award Rs 550 million to Pakistan which it gleefully used to build its forces. India remains forever grateful to you for your handling of the Kashmir issue.

No lessons were taken from this attack by the newly formed state of Pakistan. The modernization of the Indian armed forces was given the least importance throughout the 1950’s by you and your crony communist defence minister Mr VK Menon. All that was in your mind was the greatness of your Soviet idols like the humanitarian Josef Stalin and the new danger of Mao’s China. You went as far as renouncing the chance of India getting a permanent security council seat in the UN in favour of China, even though it had occupied Tibet the same year. So much for your foreign policy. All the intentions of China to usurp Indian territory was ignored because Panchsheel and Non Aligned movement (A beggar party which ridiculously continues even today and it is interesting to note that none of the non aligned countries ever stood by India in any of its numerous hours of need) were more important. China attacked on Oct 1962. Our troops fought valiantly, but they were found to be lacking in necessary support,and war cannot be won by bravery alone. When China finally withdrew a month later, India was left bloodied, 5000 of its brave troops lost and thousands of miles of its territory under Chinese occupation, an infamy which will forever haunt us. If you had had any foresight  about India’s security I 1947, you wouldn’t have had to cry to “Ae mere wata ke logo” in 1962. A Himalayan blunder by a blundering “leadership”. Mercifully, weren’t around when Pakistan attacked in 1965, or its borders would have started after Rajasthan.

  

Your pathological love and fascination for Communism and its greatest practioner ,the Soviet Union and later on Red China, was boundless. Since your short visit there in 1927,you were so much taken in by their planned economy that you became a proto communist yourself, wanting to make India a mirror image of it. You even called communism the most humane system, conveniently ignoring the rivers of blood, the mass purges and liquidations and the depraved living standards of people there. Even after the massive de-Stalinization done by Khruschev from 1954 onwards did not cause your deification for Stalin to diminish, regardless of the details of the great purge and similar crimes against humanity coming to light. No efforts were spared to make India a Soviet style socialist state masquerading as a democratic nation. Communist literature and funds flowed like torrents in the country and it had a devastating effect which is felt even today with more than a fourth of the country suffering from the red menace. Indian academic system became dominated by communists, who have henceforth poisoned generations of students with their utter drivel, the effects of which can be seen till today in the hordes of rootless middle class youngsters devoid of any nationalism who have nothing but contempt for their culture and slavish admiration for everything foreign. It was a fitting tribute to you that the University named after you We continue to have textbooks printed by leftist “intellectuals” that paint India’s history as the history of its invaders and reduce the national heroes to a paragraph, or malign them or obliterate their record altogether.

Your brand of socialism did what any form of socialism does- distributing wealth without creating it . But the problem with socialism is that you soon run out of other people's money. When you stifle production, how can you expect growth? When you limit capacity, how can you expect quality to develop? Your leftist worshippers scoffingly call this as "Hindu rate of growth" whereas in reality, it was "Nehruvian rate of growth". How much of national wealth has been thrown to the dogs in the name of socialism, populism, public sector and five year plans is unfathomable. It has made the difference between India's villages looking like little heavens and wastelands. Your beloved daughter continued with these ghastly policies, which made it impossible for an honest man to do business in this country, as licenses were only obtained after money was passed around the government officials who mattered. Even today, an unscrupulous businessman has all the friends in the local authorities while the efficient one has the government agencies hounding him till he either shuts shop or moves to a place where he is harassed less.

Nehruvian Socialism's damage to India was more psychological than monetary. It has rewarded ineptitude and punished efficiency. It has encouraged more and more sections of the economy to become non performing and believe that any section of the society doing well, owes them a living. A government job still remains a dream preferable to being a professional as it makes ample provisions even for the coming generation. This legacy of yours continues to bleed us, put millions and millions of dollars of national resources into the gutters called public sector enterprises, five year plans, a soviet legacy which still survives even two decades after Soviet Union’s demise. Also survives is the immense void between the haves and have-nots, between the all powerful bureaucrats and the puny common man, which again is a reminder of the nightmarish existence of a common man in a communist regime where he is nobody , someone whose entire life can be decided at the whims and fancies of the local party boss or a commissar. The same system was established in India, the local party boss replaced by the MLA/MP and the commissar replaced by the Indian bureaucrat. And they together continue to suck the country dry and make any sort of an honest decent life impossible.

Do I need say anything about Nehruvian Secularism? Its another name for blatant appeasement, where Urdu is termed more Indian than Sanskrit, where Mahmud is a hero and Shivaji a robber,where towns have names like Ghaziabad, where any mention of the name “Hindu” or its glory is a sign for the rabid dogs of secularism to bark their hearts out and any talk of weeding the undesirable elements causes the same dogs to yelp in pain because their darlings will be persecuted?

 You are called as the architect of India by your sycophants and macaulite followers, and I have to agree with them. Only you can be the architect of a dystopia where any kind of thought on national interest is deemed extremist and treason is tolerated in the name of secularism and progressivism. Afterall, when the biggest hedonist imaginable gives a slogan of Aaram Haram Hai (Rest is Forbidden), it speaks volumes about the hypocrite, cowardly and escapist society he is a product of, which can only produce abominations in the name of leadership, which is busy singing “Chhodo Kal ki Baatein, ki baat purani (Forget yesterday’s events, they are old) as it has no vision, neither about itself nor knows who are its friends and who its enemies, nor has any desire to learn from history to avoid repeating the same follies in future. All it knows in the name of solving its issues is to pretend that there aren’t any issues at all.

Have a good Birthday, Gulabi Chacha, while we wallow here in the mess created by your likes, which we richly deserve.

http://www.thefrustratedindian.com/2016/11/chacha-nehru-sins/