Important articles

http://www.hindu.com/2009/08/06/stories/2009080651690800.htm
(Congress is selling India away!)
"It is important to also note that all the three defence service chiefs have vehemently and repeatedly, verbally and in writing, individually and collectively conveyed to New Delhi at the highest levels their strong and total opposition to India entering into an EUMA with the U.S. because of its serious national security-compromising character. But the Cabinet Committee on Security chaired by the Prime Minister brushed aside these acute concerns and went ahead and approved the EUMA."

http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=303&page=33

(NGO's in J&K spreading lies about human rights abuses to get international attention!!)

http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=303&page=16

(Chidambaram avoids answering question on kandhamal incident)

http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/2008/11/2427

(Media least bothered about suffering of farmers and caters only to the new rich!)

http://www.merinews.com/article/abhinav-justice-of-bharat-phika-liberty-in-pak/15778387.shtml

(A comparison of Indian and Pakistani treatment of its own people)

EVMs and the Indian elections

It is obvious that the congress highjacked the election process to put themselves in the drivers eat. The fact that many congress people have themselves put cases in court in orissa about tampered EVMs shows that the EVMs are clearly not tamper proof.

More proof is given in these articles,

http://www.rediff.com/news/report/2009/jul/08/rigging-is-possible-through-evms.htm

http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=9&theme=&usrsess=1&id=260707

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/4791127.cms

http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=Demo+held+to+show+EVM+can+be+tampered+with&artid=J86m4YLREOA=&SectionID=e7uPP4pSiw=&MainSectionID=fyV9T2jIa4A=&SectionName=EH8HilNJ2uYAot5nzqumeA==&SEO=
http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=302&page=26

See what the congress is doing now,
http://www.hindu.com/2009/07/12/stories/2009071260740800.htm

http://asiantribune.com/07/14/venkaiah-naidu-punctures-pranab-budget-bubble-says-equal-rights-to-tamils-alone-will-restore-normality-in-sri-lanka/

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/15317/its-sellout.html

Congress better?

Recently the BJP has been behaving totally wierd and it is possible that Congress rule might actually be better than BJP rule right now!

Firstly, the Karnataka BJP, increased Madrassa funding from Rs. 30 crores to 120 crores annually in the state budget!! Inspite of that the muslims in Karnataka gave a fatwa to vote against the BJP.

Turns out that even in Rajasthan, the BJP government gave a lot of money to madrassas for thei modernization. Giving computers is not modernizing them. They will only use it to further their Jehadi ideals!! Turns out that once Congress started ruling the state, the madrassas are not finded anymore.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Jaipur/Gehlot-govt-blamed-for-problems-of-state-madrasas/articleshow/4637726.cms

Also, now in Gujarat, 3 muslim boys kidnapped and raped a hindu girl. Immediately the state govt. detained 40-50 VHP people. It looks like Modi, is trying very hard to remove the communal tag that the pseudo-seculars and commies have given him.

http://deshgujarat.com/2009/06/12/3-muslim-youths-who-kidnapped-raped-a-girl-nabbed-in-surat/

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Surat-gangrape--VHP-workers-detained/476583/

It was good to know that the locals beat up the rapists.

The Gujarat govt. has also started tapping phones of VHP personnell which is illegal,

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/VHP-alleges-that-Guj-police-taps-their-phones-/articleshow/4663786.cms

Indian election fiasco

It is shocking how inspite of the multitude of blunders by the UPA including but not limited to the Arjun Singh OBC reservation fiasco, the N-deal bribing issue, the laxity in punishing terrorists, prise rise, mis-handling of the economy, threatening to impose presidents rule in Orissa and Karnataka, denouncing Lord Ram and trying to destroy the Rama Sethu, portraying Hindus as terrorists, gifting away Nepal to the commies..........................., the Indian people seem to have voted them back to power with even more enthusiasm than even what the UPA expected!!

It is impossible that the Indian populace is so stupid that they would shoot themselves in the foot again!! The media of course played their bit by highjacking the real issues and focused on how handsome Rahul Gandhi looked and how pretty and dignified Priyanka Gandhi appeared while making Varun Gandhi look like some loony who wanted to spread "deheshat" in the country!!

It is not surprising though considering that Kapil Sibal once said more than 150 publications and dailies in India are owned by Congress members. For loyal Congress fellows it won't take much time to carve a legend out of Rahul within a decade.

The BJP now has to rethink its strategy. Most important for it is to stregthen its base in states where it is already ruling such as Karnataka, MP, Chattishgrah, Gujarat, Himachal and Uttarkhand and start making inroads into states like Andhra and Orissa.

I found a good article in the economic times which gives very good advice to the BJP in how best to rise from this low that they have reached. Hopefully there are some important BJP leaders who will read it. Advice ranges from reducing internal bickering and holding presidential primaries, delivering state governments, to grow in size from inside and not look for allies and the best advice is to decide who they are!


A few enlightening reads on the election regarding fraud that might have been perpetrated on the Indian public at least in certain constituencies.

http://election.rediff.com/column/2009/may/17/loksabhapoll-after-the-counting-and-other-stories.htm

"There is, of course, the possibility that the average voter did not in fact fall for the UPA's charms, and that this election was subject to massive fraud. I am talking about Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). Having spent many years in the high-tech world, I do not trust computers, especially embedded systems. Researchers in the US have shown how easy it is to break into EVMs, which is why they have not adopted them. They have realised how important it is to have a paper audit trail, hanging chads and all.
It would not be extraordinarily difficult to install a programme with a Trojan Horse in it. To outward appearances and to ordinary testing, the programme would appear normal. However, when it is fed a sequence of keystrokes by the agent of the party committing the fraud, the Trojan Horse wakes up, and then, regardless of what buttons the voter actually presses, it can assign a certain (non-suspicious-looking) percentage (not 90% but, say 45%) to the preferred party. The Trojan Horse can even be programmed to quietly delete itself when the voting is over. Nobody would know any better, as there is no paper trail.
Let me emphasise that I do not have any evidence that this happened in 2009, but it is worth investigating. There were too many surprising -- almost miraculous -- victories by certain candidates whom the casual observer would have written off. By Occam's Razor, the simplest explanation is fraud. I would like to note in passing that in 2004, expecting the NDA to commit fraud, an Indian Communist in the US had prepared a suit alleging EVM fraud. Therefore it is clear that the thought has occurred to various people that there could be EVM fraud."

http://election.rediff.com/report/2009/may/16/loksabhapoll-sena-alleges-evm-malfuntion.htm

"Rawale cited the examples of US and Indonesia where the use of EVMs has been stopped due their inconsistency." I wonder how i got only 5 votes from an area that is a Shiv Sena stronghold," the defeated candidate said. Replying to query, Rawale claimed that the MNS had not impacted the outcome."

http://www.indianexpress.com/oldStory/45296/

"Producing doctored EVMs is child’s play: Computer chips that control the EVMs can be easily programmed to do all kinds of improper manipulations. For example, after a certain number of people (perhaps hundreds) have voted, the rest of the votes may be channeled to a chosen candidate. This is just one among many mischievous tricks possible."

http://election.rediff.com/interview/2009/may/19/loksabhapoll-cho-ramaswamy-on-election-2009.htm

"The room for suspicion is in Vaiko's constituency. How is it that while counting, the votes increased by 23,000 more than the polled votes? There is a register of polled votes. When it is counted, it is much more than that. It means there was rigging also. Those who rigged must have gone overboard in Vaiko's constituency!"

A counter point to the manipulated EVMs is given here,
http://theoverlord.wordpress.com/2009/05/19/the-indian-electronic-voting-machines/

Christian threat in India

Saw an article in the Indian Express giving details on an inquiry into forced conversions in the Karnataka state. This should put to rest the doubts on whether conversions are always voluntary.

"“Christian missionaries have forcibly converted my family to Christianity,” 20-year-old Akash, a resident of Koppa taluk in Chikmagalur district, told the Justice B K Somashekara Commission of Inquiry on Wednesday.
“On the pretext of helping our family, a few Christians offered Rs 3,000 to my father and converted my family members to Christianity,” Akash said during the cross examination by Rupert Rosario, advocate appearing for the Christian organisation.
“Money was offered to our family with a pre-condition that we embrace Christianity. After joining Christianity himself, my father forced me to join the same religion. But I refused to do so,” Akash said.
Akash admitted that a church in Jaipura of Koppa taluk was attacked due to forcible conversion in that area. He also said that Hindu organisations or his community members did not help them in curing his mother’s disease, but Christians did help by offering money.
Ashwini Manjunath, a resident of Koppa, deposed before the panel and said that when she was 10 years old, one Thomas, a manager in a coffee estate married her widowed mother who later converted to Christianity.
Ashwini alleged that her step-father Thomas harassed her to embrace Christianity, but she did not budge. Later, she escaped from the custody of her step-father when he took her to Mangalore for conversion.
Advocates Madhusudhan Adiga and Satishchandra, appeared for Hindu organisations.
Government advocate Prasanna Deshpande and Srinivas were also present during the hearing."

My cousin in Bangalore wants to marry a Christian girl but her mother is hell bent against it because she believes that he is a devil worshipper and it is a sin to marry a hindu!! Imagine what trash these people are taught in their churches if this is the level of thinking that christians living in a cosmopolitan city like Bangalore.
The girl on the other hand got my cousin to become willing to convert. Don't ask me his logic for doing so cos I dont think anything will justify such a stupid move.

Also found a good organization called secularism combat, I suspect in response to the trecherous Teesta Setalvad's NGO communalism combat, run by Dr. T H Choudary. His articles are quite nice and am giving a link to one of them,

http://www.drthchowdary.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=640&Itemid=57

""Sri Mareppa who till recently was Marketing Minister in the Congress government of Andhra Pradesh enrolled himself as an SC in government records. He contested and won a seat reserved Scheduled Caste in the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly. But he is a practising Christian and is proud to announce that he is a Christian. For example, to Sakshi a largely circulated Telugu daily of 4th January 2009 he told this…………
“YS (Dr Y S Rajasekhar Reddy) is my Jesus… He is my heart, he is my life. I said this earlier also. I am reiterating now. I am proud that I have worked in the cabinet of so wonderful a person like Dr Y S Rajasekhar Reddy. I am ever ready to do anything that he (YS) orders me to do. Even if the order is to sacrifice my life also, I will not hesitate….”"

With the Congress winning the election (which I believe have a good chance of having been rigged), the fate of Andhra is in grave danger. The people of Andhra have to wake up and see beyond their stupid caste and money equations, something that they have been obsessed with for decades, if they want their glorious culture and tradition to survive the onslaught of evengelical christianity.

Getting back India's black money

t and brings back There is apparently a lot of money in foriegn bank accounts by Indians who have tried to evade taxes and also with a lot of other illicit money.
The BJP has promised to bring back the money as soon as possible. The congress on the other hand has been trying to obfuscate the issue since most of the money must be owned by Congress people.

Here is an interview of S. Gurumurthy, a renowned chartered accountant, who is part of the task force to bring the money back,

http://election.rediff.com/inter/2009/apr/20/loksabhapolls-in-five-years-indians-stashed-rs-688000-cr-illegally.htm

"At that time Advaniji felt as the PM was attending the April 2 meeting, he should take up this issue. But our people remained silent at the G-20 preparatory meet.
See what India did. We didn't forcefully ask the Germans to give us the particulars. When Germany and France took up the matter in the OECD, we didn't welcome it. When they took up the matter in G-20 we did not support them or join them. So, from all this arose a big question, whether the government was at all interested in working against illicit Indian monies abroad. That is why Advaniji took up the matter. As the government did not take it up, the BJP had to take it up as an electoral issue."

Professor Vaidynathan is a well known faculty in IIM-B who is also a member of the task force the BJP has constituted to bring back the money,

http://election.rediff.com/interview/2009/mar/31/inter-swiss-black-money-can-take-india-to-the-top.htm

"It is not due to our pressure but that of US which will make them co-operate. When a family is in deep financial crisis then it tries to look at the small amount saved under the sugar jar by grandma. Same way developed economies are desperate for every dollar. Even if we do not act due to their efforts the list of crooks may be out, then we will be in a dangerous social situation since the who's who of India will be there. Instead we should get it and get the funds and decide on the steps to sterilise it. Otherwise, the world will laugh at us."

From the editorial of the Indian Express,

"Mystification” is how the additional solicitor general felt about a petition in the Supreme Court, filed by several eminent Indians, seeking recovery of perhaps Rs 70 lakh crore of black money in secret Swiss bank accounts. Gopal Subramaniam was mystified by the petition’s timing; he perhaps sees BJP prime ministerial candidate L K Advani’s promise of a 100-day plan to retrieve that black money as being an election gimmick.
His suspicions were echoed by the Congress party’s candidate for Leader of Opposition, Rahul Gandhi, who promised voters in Hyderabad an enquiry. “The BJP would forget their promises of unlocking the money from Swiss bank accounts because they know there was no such money anywhere,” young Rahul thundered, mystifying listeners about what exactly would be enquired — the very fact of black money or the BJP’s sincerity. In any case he did not promise to bring back any money from abroad.
Congress strategist Jairam Ramesh has gone from blue-eyed to cross-eyed over the amount that Advani claims was salted away between 2002 and 2006. Research by Advani’s task force suggests it could be Rs 70 lakh crore, the higher end of estimates in the Global Financial Integrity report of the Washington-based Centre for International Policy; Jairam cites the lower end of those estimates, about Rs 14 lakh crore. That still seems like a hell of a lot of money.
Jairam also coyly proposes that the negative flow in India’s capital account suggests a reversal of capital flight — meaning that people are stashing their black money in India. So that’s why we had participatory notes for foreign investors! Now it all makes sense. The UPA was trying to turn India into a nuclear-powered Swiss bank. Thank God for the global economic slowdown.
Even the man behind the PNs, P Chidambaram, whose IQ is higher than the Sensex (in contrast to those politicians whose IQs are lower than the current dollar price of crude oil per barrel) is mystified. He wondered in Sivaganga whether Advani’s 100- day action plan was a smokescreen: “I wonder whether he is unwittingly alerting those who have deposits abroad to re-arrange their affairs in the next four weeks before a new government is sworn in.” So Chidambaram is accusing Advani of both deliberation (by fiendishly setting up a smokescreen) and inadvertence (by unwittingly alerting those with foreign piles). He is like a sophist on steroids. Also, he should be careful lest someone alert his boss Sonia Gandhi that he is going around openly declaring that these are the Congress party’s last four weeks in power, and that the UPA will be handing the reins of government to someone else.
Congress spokesperson Kapil Sibal is another brainy guy, but he refuses to succumb to mystification. Rather, he scoffs at Advani’s plan as he believes that Advani does not know the legal procedure for getting black money back from Swiss banks.
That’s like saying that Advani cannot file his tax returns because he does not know how to fill out the form. It also appears to ignore one minor event in London at the beginning of this month: the G20 meeting.
You may recall that the G20 decided to crackdown on tax havens by agreeing to fix the loopholes that currently exist around hedge funds and tax havens. This has come shortly after America’s threats to UBS of Switzerland to reveal the estimated 52,000 accounts held by Americans. The US said that about $15 billion dollars of untaxed money were held in the Swiss bank. Our tax laws may differ from the USA’s, but it appears that there is a new global political will to end this convenience for the fabulously wealthy, and that there will be concerted legal action to do so. Even if India does not have the requisite legal tools, formulating new ones will not be difficult in the new global environment.
What is common to all the statements by this galaxy of Congressmen is the accusation that the BJP is looking to derive political mileage from the promise of a 100- day action plan; that the NDA government did nothing about recovering black money during its tenure; and that the retrieval of black money is a minor derivative issue, meant to detract from weightier issues that confront the nation.
It may well be that talk of recovery of such monies will not generate the wave of votes that can propel the BJP into power.
It appears that most voters, and even those who are paying attention, do not comprehend the enormity of the sum involved; eve n i f we see the number 7,00,00,00,00,00,000, we do not understand it. If they do not understand it, how can it become an emotive issue for them? Yet the reason that Advani has mooted it, and why Rahul is dismissive, is that for their parties these elections are a neck-andneck race. Every incremental gain is unquantifiable but necessary if the final tally of each party is to be pushed up, piecemeal, to 150 seats or more. Hence emotive or not, each issue is a worthwhile pursuit. The argument that it is politically motivated is nonsensical, because all policy initiatives in a democracy must be politically motivated.
Elections are the best time to test a policy proposal; it is when you have people’s attention, and when the politician’s patience with voters is inexhaustible. The world’s most successful politician currently is Barack Obama, and it was during his gruelling campaign that he fine-tuned or fleshed out many of his ideas and policy proposals. In this context, any accusation of gimmickry sounds more like “sour grapes”.
It is equally misguided to say that the BJP will drop its proposal on May 14, the day after the last round of polling, or to wonder why nothing happened during the tenure of A B Vajpayee. If the BJP does forget this promise, it will not be the first party in India or abroad to do so, but that seems unlikely given the kind of research already put in by Advani’s task force. As to why nothing happened during the Vajpayee tenure is tantamount to wondering why Vajpayee did not solve the Kashmir issue.
Whatever be the many reasons, does it mean Advani should not try to resolve it? Certainly there are weightier issues confronting the nation, but it appears that all parties have made their broad ideologies clear in these elections, and what remains are their details of proposed governance.
The BJP has promised to honour the nuclear deal with the USA, another issue that carries no emotional weight with voters (as evidenced by the Congress party’s campaign amnesia on Manmohan Singh’s single achievement in five years), but it is another detail that sharpens the image of the party in the voter’s mind. Congressmen may suffer mystification, but it is certain that the Indian voter does not.

editorchief@epmltd.com

About The Author:
Aditya Sinha is the Editor-in-Chief of The New Indian Express and is based in Chennai.

Who is Sonia Gandhi?

Dr. Subramanian Swamy is one of the rare genius people in Indian politics. Unfortunately he doesn't have as much influence in political matters are he should have. He has done immense reaserch in various topics involving Indian security and pride.

One of his most important researches has involved exposing Sonia Gandhi who pretends to be a saint with ample help from the Indian sold out media. The link given below is form Dr. Swamy's Janata Party website which gives a lot of details on exactly who Sonia Gandhi is and what her intentions are. The very fact that Sonia nor her family has threatened to sue Dr. Swamy for defamation clearly proves that all his statement about her must be true!

http://janataparty.org/sonia.html

"Patriotic Indians should thank the President of India for having the courage, by citing a legal hitch, to dissuade Ms. Sonia Gandhi from staking her claim to form the government on May 17th this year. She therefore, despite all the contrived media hype, did not, and could not, become the Prime Minister of 1 billion plus people of India.

It can now be said that Bharat Mata has been saved from a monumental, devastating, and permanent injury to her national interest and to the patriotic psyche of Indians.
Therefore, it should be the resolve of every Indian to make any and every effort that can be made in a democracy, to ensure that Ms. Sonia Gandhi is kept permanently out of reckoning for any public office. For those who instinctively understand that imperative, this Note has been written to explain the factual basis for this rational determination, and suggest what patriotic Indians can do now to implement that democratic and patriotic resolution.

My opposition to Ms. Sonia Gandhi is not merely because she is Italian---born, although that by itself is a major issue. In other democratic countries, including in Italy, such an issue [of foreign-born aspiring to be head of government]would not even arise at all because the issue has already been settled by incorporating into law that a person cannot hold the highest public office unless he or she is native born. "

"The nation by the stalling of Sonia becoming Prime Minister of India, has thus got an unexpected but temporary reprieve, a reprieve received not only because her citizenship of India by registration is not equal to one by birth even by Indian law, but a reprieve more because of the national security risk that was averted.

To comprehend that risk, we must however first understand who Sonia Gandhi really is and what kind of danger she, her family and her friends in Italy, hold for India’s national security. Very little is known about the Mainos’ murky past, and the little that we are told about Sonia are lies. In other words, Indians do not know who Sonia really is or what she represents [see Annexure-4].

Even for an Indian born citizen, we find it difficult to know a person’s true background, but for a foreign-born it is extremely hard because of the remoteness of the place and the language barrier for most people, in this case---Italian.

This note is thus an aide d’memoir of certain verifiable facts that taken together constitute the danger that Sonia Gandhi represents for the nation. And that is the real Sonia and what she represents."

AP gone crazy

The first phase of elections included all the Naxal torn regions. Surprisingly, there turned out to be more violence in the second phase of polls that too in Andhra Pradesh. It is well known that AP is the next target of the Xtian missionaries supported by the congress chief minister Samuel Reddy. They seem to be deparate to hold on to power so they can continue in their nefarious conversion crusade.

http://election.rediff.com/report/2009/apr/23/loksabhapoll-ap-1-killed-as-violence-mars-phase-2.htm

"Despite the unprecedented security arrangements involving more than 60,000 personnel of state police and the paramilitary forces, the polling was marred by large scale violence across several districts in which one person was killed and more than 50 were injured, mostly in clashes between the workers of the ruling Congress party and the main opposition Telugu Desam Party.

The president of Election Watch, an NGO, K J Rao after monitoring the polling in Pulivendula constituency said that at many polling booths there were election agents of only the Congress party. "

True colors of Sangliana

WHen HT Sangliana joined the BJP and won in Bangalore, I was very happy. Firstly, to see a christian accept the BJP ideology of loving the nation first and secondly to see a native of the north east being accepted in the heart of India.

But he disappointed me when he voted for the Congress on the shady nuclear deal and was subsequently disqualified as an MP and then suspended from the BJP. He is now a candidate for the congress in Bangalore and is now showing his true colors. I've always wondered if it is possible for converts in India to ever respect and love the nations culture and traditions and am realizing that it is not possible because if they did they would never have converted in the first place.

Sangliana was a great cop, its sad to see him go against the nation by joining the congress for his religious beliefs.

Here is an article that appeared in the Indian Express exposing Sangliana,

Contest wide open in Bangalore
Rajashekara S
First Published : 18 Apr 2009 09:45:49 AM IST
Last Updated : 18 Apr 2009 10:59:48 AM IST

BANGALORE: It took five years for ‘super cop’ H T Sangliana to find that the BJP is “communal and anti-national,” before switching sides to the Congress on the floor of the House to nurture his political career.
The Indo-US nuke deal gave him a perfect opportunity to “hop” onto the Congress bandwagon and Sangliana has been rewarded with a ticket to contest as the party candidate from the newlycarved out Bangalore Central Lok Sabha constituency. In fact, he was considered by the party high command by refusing the ticket to seasoned leader and former union minister C K Jaffer Sharief, whom the former Bangalore City Police Commissioner defeated in 2004 from Bangalore North LS constituency, on a BJP ticket.
Soon after his retirement from the police department, Sangliana - hailing from Mizoram - surprised everyone when he joined the BJP stating that he “was inspired by Atal Behari Vajpayee.” After making controversial statements like terming the BJP as Bharatiya Jesus Party, Sangliana could not gel with the local BJP leaders and started distancing himself from the rank and file within a few months after getting elected.
Now, as a Congress candidate, Sangliana has the Herculean task to first establish a rapport with the Congress workers and leaders and second to get re-elected.
Denial of ticket to Sharief in Bangalore Central could prove to be a thorn in the poll prospects of Sangliana. This apart, Sangliana’s earlier charges against former chief minister S M Krishna, when he was a BJP MP may boomerang on him. Sangliana had supported the now convicted, former ASP Sangram Singh, when Singh had levelled charges against Krishna and other Congress leaders, of allegedly accepting money from stamp paper racket kingpin Abdul Karim Telgi, to secure the release of Dr Rajkumar from the clutches of forest brigand Veerappan.
As a result, Krishna turned down the request of Sangliana to campaign for him. Bangalore Central has four Congress MLAs and four BJP MLAs, representing its eight Assembly segments.
But lack of necessary support by Cong ress MLAs has proved to be a handicap for Sangliana to some extent.
On the other hand, BJP candidate P C Mohan and JD(S) nominee B Z Zameer Ahmed Khan have been aggressively campaigning.
Known for his “honesty and integrity” during service, Sangliana is a poor match when it comes to spending money for the polls, vis-a-vis Khan and Mohan, who are established businessmen.
Other than money bags, Khan is depending on the goodwill that he enjoys among Muslim voters besides the huge Vokkaliga population in the constituency.
Khan had offered to stay out of the contest, if Sharief were to contest from Bangalore Central to avoid division of “secular votes.” This has turned out to be a boon in disguise for the JD(S) as Sharief himself is understood to have sent a message to the community to stand behind the proprietor of the National Travels.
Sangliana, however, expresses confidence of winning the constituency and is pinning hopes on the good work done by him as an MP in the previous term.
In fact, he is one of the few MPs from the state who judiciously utilised the MPLAD fund to take up development works in the constituency.
But his recent public support to “everything Christian,” seems to have taken a toll on his otherwise clean image. More than Mohan’s influence and image, BJP is hoping for a repeat of the 2004 results when its then candidate Sangliana surprised all by trouncing a senior leader Sharief. Then, the party managed to win because of the split in minority votes between the JD(S) which had fielded C M Ibrahim and Sharief.
This time, the saffron party is hoping a similar split in votes between Sangliana and Khan.
On the whole, the contest appears to be equally matched as Sangliana is set to get almost the full chunk of Christian votes, which are around 1.5 lakh, while Khan could bag nearly 80 to 90 per cent of the Muslim votes. BJP, on the other hand, is keeping its fingers crossed waiting for a split in the minority votes.
With no particular wave in anyone’s favour and the general disenchantment among the electorate, it has made it difficult and uncertain for all three main candidates who can never take victory for granted, until the last vote is counted.

Swamy on Vajpayee

I am impressed by the scholarship of Dr. Subramanian Swamy, who quit from a position of faculty in Harvard to join active politics in India. I enjoy listening to him speak on various issues concerning India. What does bother me about him is his tendency to change sides. I wonder if it is because of his love for truth or something else! He once was completely against Jayalilitha (and was nearly killed for that) and then he became her personal confidant. He appears to be a Hindutva supporter but is against the BJP. He is a very unpredictable person which must be the reason that he is called the "Captain without a ship".

Here is an excerpt from Dr. Swamy's article on his association with Moraji Desai in which he questions the character of ex-prime minister A.B. Vajpayee. I wonder what truth there is to this. One thing is for certain, Dr. Swamy has no qualms in questioning someones character.

http://janataparty.org/articledetail.asp?rowid=10

"From that day on wards, even if Morarji did nothing much for me politically, he was always on my side helping me where he could and I remained his friend till his last breath. When his Cabinet was formed, it was widely thought that I would be made a Cabinet Minister for my role in the Emergency, but Atal Behari Vajpayee, who had played a disgraceful role of writing an apology letter to Mrs.Gandhi during the Emergency - to come out on parole out of jail, - controlled 91 Jan Sangh MPs. Vajpayee was given to tremendous jealousy, and it is the root cause of the mess BJP is in today. He found my "Emergency Hero" status unbearable especially since he wanted to hide his own surrender shame. He therefore prevailed upon Morarji to offer me only a Minister of State with independent charge. Morarji also thought that at the age of 37, a Cabinet Ministership was too early."

"Morarji helped me to break the ice with China. Vajpayee as Foreign Minister blocked my visit for one year, but in 1978, Morarji saw that I went first to China. He accepted my view about China, and rejected Vajpayee's, who was keen to keep the Soviet Union pleased. Even on Israel, Morarji accepted my view and invited Moshe Dayan to visit India." - It must be mentioned that Vajpayee is credited with opening relations with China.

"Because of the factionalism in the Janata Party, during his tenure as PM, he could not make me a Cabinet Minister. Delhi was always abuzz with the rumour that he was about to induct me as Foreign Minister because he was fed up with Vajpayee's drinking habits whenever he went abroad or his indiscretion with women. But the 91 MPs of the Jan Sangh group was Vajpayee's strength, so Morarji kept postponing the date. Then there was the Raj Narain nuisance. However in June 1979, Raj Narain was expelled from the Janatha Party, and everything was under control-- or so it seemed. It was then I was confidently told by insiders that Morarji would bring me into the Cabinet in the September 1979 re-shuffle. That re-shuffle never came because Morarji quit office in July 1979. But the greatness of Morarji was exhibited in those trying moments when he was betrayed by colleague after colleague, each trying to become Prime Minister. Some got a bad name for it such as Charan Singh, but the real culprits were Vajpayee and Ramakrishna Hegde who pushed Morarji into a confrontation with Charan Singh, and then let Morarji down.

Provoked by what he mistakenly took as Morarji induced insults, Charan Singh broke the party, and the Janatha Party lost majority. Then Vajpayee and Hegde produced a list of 279 MPs of which 23 MPs signatures were forged. The President Mr.Sanjiva Reddy was alerted to it by the IB, and he made it public. Morarji gallantly took the blame and quit public life. It should have been Vajpayee and Hegde who should have quit, but they left Morarji holding the bag and owning responsibility! Such was their character."

I am a supporter of the BJP but at the same time I do realize that it is not a perfect party and has its shortcomings. Here is another of Swamy's retorts against the BJP.

http://www.mid-day.com/news/2005/sep/119551.htm

"While the Bharatiya Janata Party demanded action by the UPA government regarding the KGB revelations against Congress leaders being bribed by the Russian spy agency, it had failed to take action when NDA was in power.

The party, in an aggressive mode lead by deputy leader of opposition in Lok Sabha, V K Malhotra, demanded that action be taken against Congress and CPI leaders who were allegedly on the KGB payroll, as revealed by agent Vasili Mitrokhin in a book.

However, the BJP failed to take action against Congress leader Sonia Gandhi and others who were reportedly being paid by the KGB. Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy, who has been raising this issue, questions the silence of the BJP, when it was in power during Prime Minister A B Vajpayee era.

Jaswant Singh, the BJP leader in Rajya Sabha, admitted to Swamy in a letter that the issue was raised when he was the external affairs minister during the NDA regime. The MEA had approached the KGB through the Indian Embassy in Moscow to get the details. The KGB informed the Indian Embassy that it could only correspond with the Indian spy agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, under the Prime Ministers office.

According to Singh, the information was received by the RAW but expressed his inability to recall the outcome of the KGB information.
Interestingly, Swamy had informed the PMO, when Vajpayee was PM, through the proper channels. He wrote to MoS Vasundara Raje Scindia on March 3, 2001.

In his letter, Swamy mentioned how Sonia Gandhi appointed the managing director of Maruti Technical Services Private Limited in the presence of two shareholders Sanjay Gandhi and Maruti Heavy Vehicles Private Limited.
The KGB had said that it paid money to certain Congress leaders and a company funded by the Gandhi family.

According to a letter written by KGB chief Viktor Chebrikov, in 1992, to the Central Committee of Communist Party of Soviet Union, the family of Rajiv Gandhi had expressed gratitude for the help being received by them through commercial deals of an Indian firm controlled by them with Soviet foreign trade organisations.

He wrote, They (Mainos Sonias paternal family name) informed that a major part of these resources were used to support the party of Mr Rajiv Gandhi.

This information was available to Vajpayee and the PMO, who failed to take action. On Tuesday, the BJP general secretary demanded a thorough probe. An Intelligence Bureau official said the information was available to the Vajpayee regime but failed to take action.

However, Swamy, fighting a legal battle in the Delhi High Court, faced a hurdle from the NDA government when the court asked the Central Bureau of Investigation to record a FIR in the case. However, the NDA government did not give permission to the CBI and the matter languished for four years.

On January 10, 2001, home minister L K Advani was appraised of the reported funding of the Congress leaders by KGB, but no action was taken, according to sources. Now the issue is in the Supreme Court and comes up for hearing on October 24, 2005.

The Congress and the CPI have rubbished the claims and former West Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu said that the Americans had paid money to Indira Gandhi and the Congress to curb the communists in India. "

The Nehru legacy - brainwashing the public

Found a very good piece in LK Advani's website which gives very good information on how the Congress has worked to influence Indian minds and brainwash them so that they think that it is only the Gandhi-Nehru family which contributed anything for India!

It only goes to show that Indian never really got its freedom and what happened on August 15th was merely the passing of the Baton from the brits to the Nehru family. The way the congress thinks it owns India while itself being ruled by the Nehru family clearly shows that India is struggling to get itself out of the monarchy minset.

All in the name of the Nehru Gandhi Family

- Surya Prakash


1. BUILDING BRAND CONGRESS WITH PUBLIC MONEY
In a planned and systematic effort to gain unfair advantage over other political parties, the Congress Party has named all major government programmes, projects and institutions in the country after three members of the Nehru-Gandhi family - Rajiv Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru – who are its icons, and disturbed the level playing field in the electoral arena.


2. WHERE IS THE LEVEL PLAYING FIELD?
Such is the obsession of the Congress Party with three members of the Nehru-Gandhi family that even the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi has been virtually forgotten. The Congress Party’s contempt for Mahatma Gandhi is best explained by the fact that just one central scheme – the Mahatma Gandhi Backward Region Development Fund- has been named after him. Even this tokenism has come as an after thought only in 2007, almost 60 years after the Mahatma’s assassination. On the other hand, schemes to promote rural electrification, drinking water, crèche for children and micro and small industries in rural areas ( each of which was close to the heart of the Mahatma) are all named after Rajiv Gandhi. Again, the scheme to build houses for the rural poor (something that would have made the Mahatma proud) is named after Indira Gandhi, as also the national old age pension scheme. Yet another programme which ought to have been named after the Mahatma - the greatest Indian of the 20 th Century- is the Rozgar Yojana which guarantees 100 days of work for the rural unemployed all over the country. Even this programme was initially named after Jawaharlal Nehru as also the Urban Renewal Mission (annual budgetary allocation of over Rs 10,000 Crores).


3. LIST OF THE 450 SCHEMES
Inside is the list of Government Schemes and Projects; Universities and Educational Institutions; Ports and Airports; National Parks and Sanctuaries; Sports Tournaments, Trophies and Stadia; Hospitals and Medical Institutions; National Scientific and Research Institutions; University Chairs, Scholarships and Fellowships; Festivals; Roads and Buildings named after three member of the Nehru Gandhi family viz. Rajiv Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, which has been submitted to the Election Commission by A.Surya Prakash as an Annexure to his complaint. This list includes most of the projects, schemes and institutions funded by the Union Government and the Governments in the States.

Rahul Gandhi lies to the people

A good editorial in the New Indian Express (one of the very few coming out in Indian MSM).

"When former President A P J Abdul Kalam said Indians should build a knowledge society to achieve our national aims of economic transformation and world leadership, he did not realise that some would try to take a shortcut. Yet shortcuts never work. Take the Tamil Nadu chief minister, Mr Kalaignar, for instance; he has an honorary doctorate when he should have been bestowed a Master of Maladministration instead.

Even that will be snatched from him some day, going by the way he is busy with his children’s political careers, neglecting the fact that Tamil children are being killed by Sri Lankan warplanes.

Another example of a shortcut is the degree honoris causa given to liquor baron Vijay Mallya, a man in debt of approximately Rs 15,000 crore these days. True, his contributions to society are multiple and weighty: this columnist has himself cheered Mallya through many a Sunday afternoon’s drunken haze. Do not be judgmental. After all, Mallya did get back Gandhiji’s chappals from an unscrupulous American collector who had the temerity to demand India increase expenditure on healthcare (no honorary doctorate for him!). And as Mallya bragged on TV: “Gandhiji was a great man because he made India famous in the world with his philosophy”.

Yet that quote is not half as brilliant as tennis player Sania Mirza’s when she got her honorary doctorate: “I always wanted to be a doctor”. This is ironic not because degrees honoris causa have nothing to do with medicine, but because its recipients are not supposed to use the title “doctor”, even though bullies like Mallya insist on being called “Dr”. So in future, you may call him Dr King of Good Times (or just Dr Times).

Rahul Gandhi, as Express reported this week, took a different shortcut to fulfilling Kalam’s dreams. His nomination affidavit to the Election Commission says he received an MPhil in Developmental Economics from Cambridge University in 1994-95.

He made the same claim in 2004. Cambridge University, however, says that he was registered for an MPhil course in 2004-2005 (yes, we do not know if he even completed the course), and that it was not in Developmental Economics but in Development Studies (one of the four papers he took was titled “Developmental Economics”).

He also failed one of the subjects, National Economic Planning and Policy. This is not surprising for a man who can’t even remember what degree he’s sitting for. You would hope that a possible future ruler of India would try to master this paper. Maybe Rahul did not try hard because he believes in free markets (but if that is the case, why did he take this course in the first place?). So he didn’t do the MPhil out of intellectual interest, but to pad his CV with a respectable academic qualification, having flunked out of prestigious institutions in India (St Stephen’s) and the USA (Harvard) before collecting a degree from a college in Florida, a state known for having the best “party schools” in America.

Why would Rahul Gandhi falsify his CV? One reason: maybe he does as his Mum advises.

After all, she too falsified her affidavit by claiming to have attended Cambridge University, when all she attended was a language school in the town of Cambridge (she attributed it to a “secretarial typing error”).

But Rahul has not heeded his Mum’s repeated advice to take on more responsibility in government, so we can count that explanation out. Maybe he has a girlfriend somewhere (and in all fairness he should publicly reveal her name, so that we know the name of a potential prime ministerial candidate 20 years from now), whose parents insist on an educated son-in-law. But since youngsters today don’t listen to their parents, we can discount this theory. Maybe he thinks you need an MPhil in Developmental Economics to open a Swiss bank account.

The only plausible explanation for Rahul’s mysterious MPhil is that he thinks it will give him an edge in Uttar Pradesh during the elections. This is not as far-fetched as it sounds. At this point, the two states with the most exciting races (in an election which everyone accepts will give a bits-andpieces Lok Sabha) are UP and Andhra Pradesh. UP is more of a cliffhanger because it has 80 seats and it is a four-way contest which, of late, threatens to become a twoparty fight. This is because of the other young Gandhi, namely Varun who, according to Outlook, falsely claimed to be a graduate of the London School of Economics, and whose speech against Muslims remains an issue in the Hindi heartland (as opposed to the Congress party’s attempts to pacify shoe-throwing Sikhs in Delhi and Punjab).

UP Chief Minister Mayawati has played along with the BJP’s none-too-subtle attempt to polarise the electorate by jailing Varun under the National Security Act, attracting those voters he repelled to her party, the BSP. Suddenly, the Samajwadi Party’s Mulayam Singh Yadav does not know what has hit him, other than the fact that he is being end-played. The panic is evident in the squabbling in his party between trusted lieutenant Amar Singh, and key western UP party leader Mohd Azam Khan. Mulayam would not have been pandering to Azam Khan if he did not feel queasy about Muslim support of late.

And while Mulayam is being end-played, the Congress is being squeeze played. Rahul, who is in charge of UP, had put a brave face to the cavalier way in which erstwhile allies have treated his party; he said the Congress would contest on its own in UP and Bihar as it was time to build the party in the Hindi heartland, necessarily a long-term project.

Yet the Congress is non-existent in UP; it may not win any seats other than his or his Mum’s. In Bihar, recent Congressman Pappu Yadav and Jagjivan Ram’s daughter Meera Kumar are said at least to have realistic chances of entering the Lok Sabha. In UP, not only does the party not have its house in order, it lacks the mortar and bricks to even start construction of its house. Rebuilding the party in UP is not just a long-term project, but a very-long-term project.

Perhaps Rahul’s phantom MPhil is intended for just that: to build the party. After all, it makes him look more respectable than rabble-rousers like Mayawati or Mulayam.

Picture the average UP voter, entering the polling booth and thinking: “Rahul is an MPhil. I will vote for Congress.” I can’t picture it either. Obviously, if Rahul had the intellectual stamina to sincerely pursue an education, he could have added to his knowledge, he could have trained himself in rigorous thought, and he could have combined that methodological thinking with the experience his privileged position provides him, and come up with a sensible and practical vision for India. Who knows — he could have convincingly preached the knowledge society and become as popular as Dr Kalam.

Instead, he took the shortcut.

editorchief@epmltd.com

About The Author:
Aditya Sinha is the Editor-in-Chief of The New Indian Express and is based in Chennai.

Christian deceit - Benny Hinn

Found an interesting documentary on Benny Hinn on Youtube made by CBS.



It is a 5 part series and is a must watch.

Another video is,


It is so funny to watch the antics of this joker on stage!! It is shocking that there are so many people who actually believe in such trash!

He spews venom like no on else and talks complete gibberish, typical of evangelists.

What disappoints me greatly is the way the Indian media has covered his visit to India. Also shocking was the support the Congress people gave by attending his "service"!! Only the BJP spoke against his bullshit.

http://www.indiasalvationcrusade.com/

AP Congress in hate speech

I wonder why the media is not going full steam with this news piece where the Congress leader spews venom against Hindus!!


http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=15765033

THE CONGRESS, which is jubilant with the arrest of BJP young campaigner Varun Gandhi for his alleged remarks against Muslim minorities, is now facing the same music with its Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee president D Srinivas facing similar charges.

The Chief Electoral Officer of the Election Commission in Hyderabad Dr IV Subba Rao viewed the video-footage of the speech made by Srinivas in Nizamabad, from where he is seeking re-election to the State Assembly. He later submitted a report to the Election Commission for suitable action.

On the line of Varun Gandhi, the Election Commission is expected to issue a notice to Srinivas. However, it will be interesting to observe whether the EC makes a similar move by advising the AICC to withdraw him from the contest.

The BJP, which feels isolated with regard to Varun Gandhi episode, is now challenging Congress government in the state to arrest Srinivas on the lines of Varun Gandhi. But interestingly all Congress leaders, including Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy are silent.

In an obvious riposte to BJP leader Varun Gandhi, the APCC chief reportedly stated that he would sacrifice his head for the minorities if need be and would cut off the hands of those who pointed a finger at them.

This prompted the BJP, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal to submit separate representations to the Chief Electoral Officer demanding disqualification of Srinivas and action against him under the National Security Act.

Senior BJP leader M. Venkaiah Naidu slammed the Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee president D. Srinivas for making “highly objectionable” remarks relating to minorities and demanded that the party high command respond whether the National Security Act (NSA) should be applied.

Accusing the Congress of adopting “double standards” on the issue, he said that his party had already complained to the Election Commission. He was not advocating that the NSA should be invoked, but wanted the Congress leadership to respond. Srinivas was not a “political greenhorn” like Varun Gandhi and his remarks that he became PCC chief due to the “mercy” of minorities were tantamount to appeasement.

BJP state spokesperson N Ramchander Rao said the statement had hurt the religious sentiments of the majority community and was liable to cause tension between communities. He charged the PCC chief with making a “very overt attempt’’ to divide the people on communal lines for the sake of votes.

Meanwhile, learning of the complaints pouring in at the CEO’s office, the Congress rushed its representatives to the CEO to explain that the remarks by D Srinivas were misquoted by the print media and it was on the basis of these that complaints were lodged by the BJP, VHP and the Bajrang Dal.

Cracking the whip against police officials, the Election Commission on Tuesday suspended Deputy Superintendent of Police of Adoni in Kurnool district, TS Krishna Murthy, and ordered an inquiry against him for “negligence of duty.”

The EC also shifted Y Nagi Reddy from East Godavari district where he is serving as Superintendent of Police, following a similar report by the DGP accompanied by comments by the CEO. Ms Charu Sinha has been appointed in his place.

Barkha Dutt beats a retreat

This is from a discussion on the nuclear deal that the UPA government passed through parliament without giving out any details on the deal and also paid crores of rupees to buy votes from opposition MP's!

This video is a must watch to understand what the controversy over the nuclear deal was all about.

Shourie very nicely cuts Barkha Dutt down to size and puts her in her place! 8 minutes into the discussion he tells Barkha to stop shouting and tells her to first read the document and questions her on her stupid comments. She quickly beats a retreat saying its not her comments but the oppositions.

Shouries arguments are so well thought out and detailed that it is a joy to listen to him analyze the nuclear deal.

The Truth behind Kandhahar

Recently with the election about to start there has been a lot of mud-slinging against the BJP with Congress falsely accusing the BJP of many things it is not guilty of. One such accusation is that the BJP government succumbed to the hijackers of the Indian Airlines plane and therefore they do not have any right to talk against the Congress on their bad performance on terrorism.

This article by Kanchan Gupta is eye opening as to what really happened.

The truth behind Kandahar

Kanchan Gupta

Was it really an ‘abject surrender’ by the NDA Government?

There have been innumerable communal riots in India, nearly all of them in States ruled by the Congress at the time of the violence, yet everybody loves to pretend that blood was shed in the name of religion for the first time in Gujarat in 2002 and that the BJP Government headed by Mr Narendra Modi must bear the burden of the cross.

Similarly, nobody remembers the various incidents of Indian Airlines aircraft being hijacked when the Congress was in power at the Centre, the deals that were struck to rescue the hostages, and the compromises that were made at the expense of India’s dignity and honour. But everybody remembers the hijacking of IC 814 and nearly a decade after the incident, many people still hold the BJP-led NDA Government responsible for the ‘shameful’ denouement.

The Indian Airlines flight from Kathmandu to New Delhi, designated IC 814, with 178 passengers and 11 crew members on board, was hijacked on Christmas eve, 1999, a short while after it took-off from Tribhuvan International Airport; by then, the aircraft had entered Indian airspace. Nine years later to the day, with an entire generation coming of age, it would be in order to recall some facts and place others on record.

In 1999 I was serving as an aide to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the PMO, and I still have vivid memories of the tumultuous week between Christmas eve and New Year’s eve. Mr Vajpayee had gone out of Delhi on an official tour; I had accompanied him along with other officials of the PMO. The hijacking of IC 814 occurred while we were returning to Delhi in one of the two Indian Air Force Boeings which, in those days, were used by the Prime Minister for travel within the country.

Curiously, the initial information about IC 814 being hijacked, of which the IAF was believed to have been aware, was not communicated to the pilot of the Prime Minister’s aircraft. As a result, Mr Vajpayee and his aides remained unaware of the hijacking till reaching Delhi. This caused some amount of controversy later.

It was not possible for anybody else to have contacted us while we were in midair. It’s strange but true that the Prime Minister of India would be incommunicado while on a flight because neither the ageing IAF Boeings nor the Air India Jumbos, used for official travel abroad, had satellite phone facilities.

By the time our aircraft landed in Delhi, it was around 7:00 pm, a full hour and 40 minutes since the hijacking of IC 814. After disembarking from the aircraft in the VIP bay of Palam Technical Area, we were surprised to find National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra waiting at the foot of the ladder. He led Mr Vajpayee aside and gave him the news. They got into the Prime Minister’s car and it sped out of the Technical Area. Some of us followed Mr. Vajpayee to Race Course Road, as was the normal routine.

On our way to the Prime Minister’s residence, colleagues in the PMO provided us with the basic details. The Kathmandu-Delhi flight had been commandeered by five hijackers (later identified as Ibrahim Athar, resident of Bahawalpur, Shahid Akhtar Sayed, Gulshan Iqbal, resident of Karachi, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, resident of Defence Area, Karachi, Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim, resident of Akhtar Colony, Karachi, and Shakir, resident of Sukkur City) at 5:20 pm; there were 189 passengers and crew members on board; and that the aircraft was heading towards Lahore.

At the Prime Minister’s residence, senior Ministers and Secretaries had already been summoned for an emergency meeting. Mr Mishra left for the crisis control room that had been set up at Rajiv Bhavan. In between meetings, Mr Vajpayee instructed his personal staff to cancel all celebrations planned for December 25, his birthday. The Cabinet Committee on Security met late into the night as our long vigil began.

Meanwhile, we were informed that the pilot of IC 814 had been denied permission to land at Lahore airport. With fuel running low, he was heading for Amritsar. Officials at Raja Sansi Airport were immediately alerted and told to prevent the plane from taking off after it had landed there.

The hijacked plane landed at Amritsar and remained parked on the tarmac for nearly 45 minutes. The hijackers demanded that the aircraft be refuelled. The airport officials ran around like so many headless chickens, totally clueless about what was to be done in a crisis situation.

Desperate calls were made to the officials at Raja Sansi Airport to somehow stall the refuelling and prevent the plane from taking off. The officials just failed to respond with alacrity. At one point, an exasperated Jaswant Singh, if memory serves me right, grabbed the phone and pleaded with an official, “Just drive a heavy vehicle, a fuel truck or a road roller or whatever you have, onto the runway and park it there.” But all this was to no avail.

The National Security Guards, whose job it is to deal with hostage situations, were alerted immediately after news first came in of IC 814 being hijacked; they were reportedly asked to stand by for any emergency. The Home Ministry was again alerted when it became obvious that after being denied permission to land at Lahore, the pilot was heading towards Amritsar.

Yet, despite IC 814 remaining parked at Amritsar for three-quarters of an hour, the NSG commandos failed to reach the aircraft. There are two versions as to why the NSG didn’t show up: First, they were waiting for an aircraft to ferry them from Delhi to Amritsar; second, they were caught in a traffic jam between Manesar and Delhi airport. The real story was never known!

The hijackers, anticipating commando action, first stabbed a passenger, Rupin Katyal (he had gone to Kathmandu with his newly wedded wife for their honeymoon; had they not extended their stay by a couple of days, they wouldn’t have been on the ill-fated flight) to show that they meant business, and then forced the pilot to take off from Amritsar. With almost empty fuel tanks, the pilot had no other option but to make another attempt to land at Lahore airport. Once again he was denied permission and all the lights, including those on the runway, were switched off. He nonetheless went ahead and landed at Lahore airport, showing remarkable skill and courage.

Mr Jaswant Singh spoke to the Pakistani Foreign Minister and pleaded with him to prevent the aircraft from taking off again. But the Pakistanis would have nothing of it (they wanted to distance themselves from the hijacking so that they could claim later that there was no Pakistan connection) and wanted IC 814 off their soil and out of their airspace as soon as possible. So, they refuelled the aircraft after which the hijackers forced the pilot to head for Dubai.

At Dubai, too, officials were reluctant to allow the aircraft to land. It required all the persuasive skills of Mr Jaswant Singh and our then Ambassador to UAE, Mr KC Singh, to secure landing permission. There was some negotiation with the hijackers through UAE officials and they allowed 13 women and 11 children to disembark. Rupin Katyal had by then bled to death. His body was offloaded. His widow remained a hostage till the end.

On the morning of December 25, the aircraft left Dubai and headed towards Afghanistan. It landed at Kandahar Airport, which had one serviceable runway, a sort of ATC and a couple of shanties. The rest of the airport was in a shambles, without power and water supply, a trophy commemorating the Taliban’s rule.

On Christmas eve, after news of the hijacking broke, there was stunned all-round silence. But by noon on December 25, orchestrated protests outside the Prime Minister’s residence began, with women beating their chests and tearing their clothes. The crowd swelled by the hour as the day progressed.

Ms Brinda Karat came to commiserate with the relatives of the hostages who were camping outside the main gate of 7, Race Course Road. In fact, she became a regular visitor over the next few days. There was a steady clamour that the Government should pay any price to bring the hostages back home, safe and sound. This continued till December 30.

One evening, the Prime Minister asked his staff to let the families come in so that they could be told about the Government’s efforts to secure the hostages’ release. By then negotiations had begun and Mullah Omar had got into the act through his ‘Foreign Minister’, Muttavakil. The hijackers wanted 36 terrorists, held in various Indian jails, to be freed or else they would blow up the aircraft with the hostages.

No senior Minister in the CCS was willing to meet the families. Mr Jaswant Singh volunteered to do so. He asked me to accompany him to the canopy under which the families had gathered. Once there, we were literally mobbed. He tried to explain the situation but was shouted down.

“We want our relatives back. What difference does it make to us what you have to give the hijackers?” a man shouted. “We don’t care if you have to give away Kashmir,” a woman screamed and others took up the refrain, chanting: “Kashmir de do, kuchh bhi de do, hamare logon ko ghar wapas lao.” Another woman sobbed, “Mera beta… hai mera beta…” and made a great show of fainting of grief.

To his credit, Mr Jaswant Singh made bold to suggest that the Government had to keep the nation’s interest in mind, that we could not be seen to be giving in to the hijackers, or words to that effect, in chaste Hindi. That fetched him abuse and rebuke. “Bhaand me jaaye desh aur bhaand me jaaye desh ka hit. (To hell with the country and national interest),” many in the crowd shouted back. Stumped by the response, Mr Jaswant Singh could merely promise that the Government would do everything possible.

I do not remember the exact date, but sometime during the crisis, Mr Jaswant Singh was asked to hold a Press conference to brief the media. While the briefing was on at the Press Information Bureau hall in Shastri Bhavan, some families of the hostages barged in and started shouting slogans. They were led by one Sanjiv Chibber, who, I was later told, was a ‘noted surgeon’: He claimed six of his relatives were among the hostages.

Dr Chibber wanted all 36 terrorists named by the hijackers to be released immediately. He reminded everybody in the hall that in the past terrorists had been released from prison to secure the freedom of Ms Rubayya Sayeed, daughter of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, while he was Home Minister in VP Singh’s Government. “Why can’t you release the terrorists now when our relatives are being held hostage?” he demanded. And then we heard the familiar refrain: “Give away Kashmir, give them anything they want, we don’t give a damn.”

On another evening, there was a surprise visitor at the PMO: The widow of Squadron Leader Ajay Ahuja, whose plane was shot down during the Kargil war. She insisted that she should be taken to meet the relatives of the hostages. At Race Course Road, she spoke to mediapersons and the hostages’ relatives, explaining why India must not be seen giving in to the hijackers, that it was a question of national honour, and gave her own example of fortitude in the face of adversity.

“She has become a widow, now she wants others to become widows. Who is she to lecture us? Yeh kahan se aayi?” someone shouted from the crowd. Others heckled her. The young widow stood her ground, displaying great dignity and courage. As the mood turned increasingly ugly, she had to be led away. Similar appeals were made by others who had lost their sons, husbands and fathers in the Kargil war that summer. Col Virendra Thapar, whose son Lt Vijayant Thapar was martyred in the war, made a fervent appeal for people to stand united against the hijackers. It fell on deaf ears.

The media made out that the overwhelming majority of Indians were with the relatives of the hostages and shared their view that no price was too big to secure the hostages’ freedom. The Congress kept on slyly insisting, “We are with the Government and will support whatever it does for a resolution of the crisis and to ensure the safety of the hostages. But the Government must explain its failure.” Harkishen Singh Surjeet and other Opposition politicians issued similar ambiguous statements.

By December 28, the Government’s negotiators had struck a deal with the hijackers: They would free the hostages in exchange of three dreaded terrorists — Maulana Masood Azhar, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar and Ahmed Omar Sheikh — facing various charges of terrorism.

The CCS met frequently, several times a day, and discussed the entire process threadbare. The Home Minister, the Defence Minister and the Foreign Minister, apart from the National Security Adviser and the Prime Minister, were present at every meeting. The deal was further fine-tuned, the Home Ministry completed the necessary paper work, and two Indian Airlines aircraft were placed on standby to ferry the terrorists to Kandahar and fetch the hostages.

On December 31, the two aircraft left Delhi airport early in the morning. Mr Jaswant Singh was on board one of them. Did his ministerial colleagues know that he would travel to Kandahar? More important, was the Prime Minister aware of it? The answer is both yes and no.

Mr Jaswant Singh had mentioned his decision to go to Kandahar to personally oversee the release of hostages and to ensure there was no last-minute problem. He was honour-bound to do so, he is believed to have said, since he had promised the relatives of the hostages that no harm would come their way. It is possible that nobody thought he was serious about his plan. It is equally possible that others turned on him when the ‘popular mood’ and the Congress turned against the Government for its ‘abject surrender’.

On New Year’s eve, the hostages were flown back to Delhi. By New Year’s day, the Government was under attack for giving in to the hijackers’ demand! Since then, this ‘shameful surrender’ is held against the NDA and Mr Jaswant Singh is painted as the villain of the piece.

Could the Kandahar episode have ended any other way? Were an Indian aircraft to be hijacked again, would we respond any differently? Not really. As a nation we do not have the guts to stand up to terrorism. We cannot take hits and suffer casualties. We start counting our dead even before a battle has been won or lost. We make a great show of honouring those who die on the battlefield and lionise brave hearts of history, but we do not want our children to follow in their footsteps.

We are, if truth be told, a nation of cowards who don’t have the courage to admit their weakness but are happy to blame a well-meaning politician who, perhaps, takes his regimental motto of ‘Izzat aur Iqbal’ rather too seriously.

Congress and the Indian Media

This is a brilliant piece by Tarun Vijay on rediff on the systematic way the Congress party and the trecherous media are working hard to undermine the HIndu population in India.


Family legacy and the Varun effect

Those who opposed the Ayodhya temple movement, wore silence over the plight of Kashmiri Hindus, damaged the Ram Sethu and denied Lord Rama ever existed, denied the violence at the Godhra railway station, and embraced the butchers of 1984, are collectively gunning at Varun Gandhi's political life.

Column after column by Padma Shris in the media have created an atmosphere where supporting Varun has become a sin. Why? The simple reason is that the farmhouse of Gandhi-Nehru politics has been broken and a scion of the family chose to speak out as his conscience directed.

More than what Varun said or didn't say, it is the hurt and bewilderment over the loss of a Gandhi to the saffron brigade that has made the media and anti-Hindutva politicos react with such venom and acid. He was not heard, not given a chance to present his case, nor did forensic experts examine the so-called proof in the form of a CD containing his speech.

Varun has suddenly dwarfed the media-supported Rahul.

Nobody has ever heard a dynasty member to say with understandable assertion that he or she is a Hindu. Rather, they have always tried to look differently at things. They banned Hindu organisations, imposed the Emergency, removed basic human rights, never willingly facilitated the Sikh massacre probe, rewarded hardened criminals, made alliance with those who were convicted for murder or were facing scandalous charges, had the Muslim League join the government after Partition. Yet, they are nice, decent, peace-loving, patriotic democrats who love to tell others: 'Go read the Gita.'

When Indian soldiers were fighting Pakistani marauders in 1947, we didn't have enough jeeps. So orders were placed with the British company and supply demanded immediately. Our high commissioner in London V K Krishna Menon, Pandit Nehru's blue-eyed boy, messed it up. The jeeps reached a year late.

That was the first scandal in independent India.

We lost Gilgit, Baltistan and Skardu. We lost Aksai Chin because the government in New Delhi didn't know the exact boundaries and so no patrolling was being done there.

In all we have lost 125,000 square km to the Pakistanis and Chinese during Congress rule.

Plus we had a bad dream called 1962.

At that time our ordnance factories were making coffee machines as Pandit Nehru openly argued against having a well-equipped large army for defence. 'Who is going to attack us?' he would ask.
And people still remember the mysterious death of Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee, who simply wanted Kashmir to be a part of India like Bihar or Bengal and the permit system to enter the valley be abolished. Kashmir had two rulers then, its ruler was called Sadr e Riyasat or 'head of state', and it had a prime minister. Mookerjee's martyrdom compelled the Nehru government to remove the permit system and the two heads of state.

Then we had the Mundhra scandal, the Nagarwala case, the L N Mishra murder. The Jana Sangh's fast-emerging leader Deendayal Upadhyaya was murdered. A Congress leader canvassed openly against the official Presidential candidate and supported her own choice as independent nominee. The original Congress symbol was a pair of oxen. After the official Congress broke up, they got the hand as a temporary symbol till the case is finally settled. It would never be.

Opposing Sonia Gandhi's sudden rise in politics only on the grounds of her foreign origin were leaders like Sharad Pawar and P A Sangma. Old Congressmen still feel sad that they lost dynamic and promising leaders of substance like Rajesh Pilot, Madhavrao Scindia and Jitendra Prasada, who could have steered the Congress on an entirely different and strong nationalist course. And a veteran like Sitaram Kesri was humiliated no end.

The only non-dynasty prime minister to run a Congress government for full five years successfully was insulted even in his death and his body-in-state was not allowed to enter the Congress headquarters in New Delhi. An airport in his home state to be named after him was opposed to by Congressmen although the proposal was put forth by an Opposition leader.
This is how they treat their party leaders not belonging to the family. They amended, abused and twisted the Constitution, put the entire Opposition behind bars for an undisclosed period and were harsh on the unyielding masses.

Yet, they are the democrats and secular lighthouse of freedom of expression and liberty.
They kept India backward in such a planned manner that even after 62 years of independence we are yet to have a spacious functional airport in the national capital, 70,000 farmers committed suicide in one year, decorated soldiers returned their medals in protest and a movie on our poverty-stricken 'slum dogs' fetches the Oscar. And they loved illegal infiltrators for the sake of their votes -- and still they say they are the inheritors of a freedom struggle that demanded the ouster of aliens.

No electoral reforms, no police reforms or strengthening their morale and weapons, the administration is still run the way it functioned during the Sahebs; and despite having won a well-fought war in 1971 we couldn't settle the Kashmir issue or control the jihadi tail-wagger in the neighbourhood.

Minorities were so well supported in Congress regimes that in the sixth decade after independence they felt a need to provide special crutches for them. Show the 'M' card and get the privilege, became the new secular psalm, further shrinking the space and opportunities for the condemned majority.

More than anything else they tried to wreck the morale of the assertive Hindus who faced the onslaught of invaders for 12 centuries with unparalleled bravery and with invincible spirit to protect their culture and the fragrance of the land. They deserved to be comforted most after a fractured independence and a massacre that was thrust upon them by a weak Congress leadership. Yet, a large section of Hindus today feel cheated and anguished.

They form governments in 12 states, prove they can run the country beautifully with a coalition of 25 parties with diametrically opposed ideologies. And one of their Swayamsewaks unfurled the tricolour six times from the ramparts of the Red Fort as the prime minister, impressed world leaders and the international media with a record of infrastructure-building, communication revolution and women's empowerment, chose a Muslim to be the President and conducted Pokhran II by fooling the CIA's 'eyes', and resisted extraordinary world pressure and sanctions.

Yet, they are called anti-development, anti-women, even anti-social. In not a single so-called mainstream media outlet are their views published, but every news item is scanned to hurl stones on them through editorialising on the front-page.

Still, they are the very objective face of our independent media.

The choicest abuses used by 'decent guarantors of the freedom of expression' columnists and editorial-writers can be collected as a bouquet of India's uncivilised lexicon, yet their films against the very spirit of Hindu nature get widely supported by a regime that survives on Hindu money and votes.

Their love for development and secularism is so deep that they can send dredgers to destroy a million years of faith and marine life because that was Ram Sethu, but won't dare to touch a six feet by six feet dargah in the middle of the road blocking the highway and causing accidents, for fear of annoying a vote-bank.

And then they say, they are the future of India.

B. Raman on Varun Gandhi episode

This is a very good article by the former intelligence chief B. Raman on the Varun Gandhi Saga.

http://election.rediff.com/column/2009/mar/25/guest-ec-should-have-given-varun-gandhi-a-hearing.htm

"As I read the late night communication of the Election Commission to Varun Gandhi, son of Sanjay and Maneka Gandhi and grandson of Indira Gandhi, and his reply to the Election Commission, I was reminded of the exchange of midnight missives between his illustrious grandmother and the so-called syndicate in the Congress before the Presidential elections in the late 1960s in which V V Giri, supported by her, was elected and Sanjiva Reddy, supported by the syndicate, was defeated.

Indira Gandhi rightly viewed the machinations of the syndicate as an attempt to marginalise her in the Congress party and put a stop to her political aspirations. She fought back ferociously and ultimately prevailed. The syndicate did not forgive her for this. When the Congress lost the elections after the lifting of the Emergency in 1977, the syndicate had its moments of revenge. It got Sanjiva Reddy elected as the President and sought to humiliate her in every way possible. She ferociously fought back again and returned to power in 1980. Nobody remembers the syndicate. Its members have been consigned to the dustbin of history. Everybody remembers Indira Gandhi.

A grand-son of Indira Gandhi is now fighting ferociously against what he apparently sees as an attempt by a syndicate of so-called secularists to discredit him and crush his political aspirations even before he could take his first firm steps in politics. He has every right to fight against what he perceives to be the denial of the right of natural justice to him.

The extremely objectionable remarks alleged to have been made by Varun Gandhi during two pre-election meetings in the Pilibhit constituency should be strongly condemned by all right-thinking persons as distasteful, irresponsible and unworthy of a political leader if it is established that he did make those remarks.

If he had not contested those remarks and, on the contrary, if he had tried to justify them, there would have been no need for a further enquiry before condemning him. But he has contested the remarks which he is supposed to have made and he has not justified them. He has challenged the genuineness of the tapes and alleged that the tapes have been doctored.

In TV interviews, he has given a number of arguments as to why he contended that the tapes had been doctored. Many of his arguments could be dismissed as after-thoughts but not one, namely, his contention that in a tape he is shown as referring to a sister of his whereas he had no sister. If what he says about the contents of the tapes is correct, there is a serious mistake of fact in the remarks which he is shown as making. Where there is such a serious mistake of fact, there is a presumption of innocence in favour of the accused. He has not been given the benefit of this presumption.

There are certain procedural infirmities in the way the Election Commission has passed its order of March 22 against Varun. The first infirmity arises from the fact that the commission has passed an ex-parte order without giving Varun an opportunity to appear before the commission and explain his conduct. An ex-parte order is permissible if a person against whom an inquiry is being made was given an opportunity to appear and explain his conduct, but he did not do so. When a person fails to respond to a summons to appear before an inquiry body and explain his conduct, he is presumed to be avoiding the due process of the rules or the law. There is an automatic presumption of guilt against him.

All of us, including the distinguished members of the EC, had served as bureaucrats. We had all done our training before we started our career. We had all attended courses in how to hold an inquiry and about the importance of being fair in an inquiry. There are detailed departmental orders in the government of India and the states as to how to hold a fair inquiry. All these orders lay down that every person against whom an inquiry is held has a right for a personal hearing before the inquiry officer twice -- before the inquiry starts and again before an adverse ruling is pronounced by the inquiry officer. If Varun Gandhi is to be believed, these dos and don'ts of a fair inquiry were not followed in his case.

The second infirmity arises with regard to Varun's contention that the tapes seem to have been doctored. The Election Commission has held that it was for him to prove this. How could he have explained to the commission as to why he thought that the tapes might have been doctored if he was not given an opportunity for a personal hearing. There are two ways of proving that a tape must have been doctored -- forensically or by pointing out serious mistakes of fact in the contents of the tape, which are glaring and could not have been made by him. It would have been but fair that he was given an opportunity to appear before the commission and explain why he contended that the tapes must have been doctored.

Priyanka Gandhi, another grand-child of Indira Gandhi, has reportedly advised Varun to read and understand the Gita better. She should too. In fact, all of us, who consider ourselves proud Hindus, should. In the Gita, Lord Krishna advises and convinces Arjun as to why one should sometimes fight even against one's kith and kin if there were strong moral grounds for doing so.
That is why Indira Gandhi fought ferociously against the syndicate of the Congress.
If Varun thinks that he should emulate his illustrious grand-mother and fight ferociously against what he sees as the unfair attitude of the syndicate of so-called secularists against him, he has every right to do so. "

B Raman

The UPA effect

A good analysis of the effect the Congress-UPA governance has had on India.

http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/mar/25/upa-will-cost-india-economic-superstardom.htm

"Given the profligate spending of the United Progressive Alliance and its self-proclaimed galaxy of economic geniuses, India now sports perhaps the highest deficit of any country: about 13 per cent, a far cry from the 5 per cent that the UPA has been promising us all along.
Yet again, the Congress has successfully brought India back to the verge of the 'Nehruvian rate of growth' of 2-3 per cent, which is an economic crime against humanity, imposing abject poverty on 250 million people."

"This in the name of programmes for the 'common man': such as the NREGS (National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme), the waiver of farm loans, and the windfall for bureaucrats.
Rs 70,000 crore (Rs 700 billion) for the NREGS, which, if we had truth-in-advertising, should be renamed 'National Employment Guarantee Scheme for Party Cadres', because 95 per cent of the funds ended up in their pockets "

Varun Gandhi

Here is a good and objective editorial on the media hungama on Varun Gandhi's speech.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Editorial/Thrown-to-the-wolves/articleshow/4295119.cms

"Someone should have told the poor boy. How was he to know that saying those electioneering things would mean such a brouhaha? Here he was, a young man with an impressive, though troubled lineage, phoren-returned, simply seeking to make his mark politically, much as so many others have done before him.

And suddenly, Varun Gandhi is neck-deep in shifty stuff like EC notices and CDs and tamperings and what not. Not for nothing was his first amazed reaction the ‘what’d I do wrong?’ sort.

Haven’t we all seen so many of them leaders say worse things and make a career out of it? And since the pseudo-secular camp was already taken, what choice did he have but to join the other gang and speak up in defence of the defenceless, downtrodden majority of the nation?

And out there, in the dusty heartland, where PC chat is hardly de rigueur, he naturally assumed this was the best way to get some enthusiasm going among the locals. Sure, he seems to really have been the target of a conspiracy.

Why else, pray, would suddenly he be blamed for saying things which others have said so often, and so much more forcefully? It isn’t also the case that he just made a minute miscalculation. The chap was told things were this way, and he merely proceeded.

Then, even more insidiously, someone seems to have advised him to take a ‘so what if I did’ stand. Probably told him it’d mean nice bouts of publicity and also gather the requisite flock around. When he did do that, the party he was supposedly running for now seems to have done a Pontius Pilate.

Make no mistake, what we are witnessing is no case of a wannabe leader quoting publicly what his (supposed) party oft ideologises. This is a clear case of a normal young man, full of perfectly acceptable aspirations being thrown to the wolves.

Of being abandoned after never being informed that there might well be something wrong with what he was saying, or even led to think. Sigh. Can we all not pretend this was just youthful passion at work? "