proloybagchi |
Indians will soon find survival difficult |
2012.05.20 15:27:22 | |
A time seems to have come when people should give up cooking. A recent report said that a domestic LPG cylinder is soon going to cost Rs. 996/- (around $20), virtually a thousand rupees, for those who have an income of more than six hundred thousand rupees ($12000 app.) per annum. The Standing Committee on the matters relating to petroleum ministry has made the recommendation indicating that those who are rich should not be supplied the subsidised LPG. For all one knows, the recommendation may even get accepted regardless of the fact that identification of those who are in receipt of the specified income is going to be a tough proposition. If implemented, only the salaried class would get trapped while others, who are professionals, traders and self-employed, etc. and have to declare their own incomes (which most don’t do entirely) are likely to continue to get subsidised LPG. Tags: Hits: 15555 | Read more... |
gideonpolya |
Oz censorship |
2012.05.10 01:16:05 | |
Internet censorship by the Australian Government-funded ABC and The Conversation. Censorship is repugnant because it prevents basic human communication required for democracy and in particular short circuits risk management that is crucial for societal safety and which successively involves (a) accurate information, (b) scientific analysis and (c) informed systemic change to minimize risk. Tags: Hits: 18600 | Read more... |
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Trade Mission to Israel |
2012.03.25 08:16:16 | |
Attn: The Hon Bill Shorten MP Ref: Trade Mission to Israel Dear Mr Shorten, I have recently read an open letter to you from fellow Australian Dr Vacy Vlazna, which I have included with this letter. I write to emphatically support the views expressed in that letter by Dr Vlazna. Your Trade Mission to Israel is an outrageous offence against human decency in general, against our often celebrated and ostensibly shared Australian values in particular and against the pride and, of special concern to me, proud of two grandfathers who (misguided as they were) risked their lives in European wars for noble values, the self-respect of all Australians. The obsequious flattery inherent in the statement of your mission’s objective (to “attempt to understand how is it that Israel-a country of 7.2 million people, a third of the size of Tasmania, sixty per cent desert, only sixty three years old, with limited natural resources-produces more start-ups than large, peaceful and stable nations like Japan, India, Korea, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia.”) reflects either a startling ignorance or a willful blindness to reality and is utterly insulting to anyone who understands the truth. Tags: Hits: 20513 | Read more... |
proloybagchi |
A threatened Ramsar Site |
2012.01.31 22:26:20 | |
One can be reasonably sure that on the 2nd of February next the ministers concerned of the government of the Central Indian province of Madhya Pradesh will mouth some platitudes about conservation of the Upper Lake and its adjunct the Lower Lake which together constitute Bhoj Wetland. In practice however, the local officialdom is more concerned about its “development” and by that they mean providing means for attracting more and more visitors to its shores or to its close proximity. Conservation is a word which does not seem to figure in their lexicon in so far as this fantastic natural asset of Bhopal is concerned, particularly when it is a Ramsar Site – a wetland of international importance, the only one in the state. Tags: Hits: 17205 | Read more... |
proloybagchi |
Hunger and riches in 'incredible India' |
2012.01.31 22:20:11 | |
A national daily presented the other day two contrasting pictures of India. On its front page were the findings of a research indicating the extent of hunger and malnourishment in the country and in one of the inside pages was a report on the explosion on its roads with millions of private vehicles causing traffic jams in its urban centres. Tags: india Hits: 18283 | Read more... |
deboldt |
The King of Love is dead |
2012.01.17 03:18:37 | |
On this Martin Luther King Day it is good to remember the unseemly truth behind the pompous posturing. All the inflated homage to the "I have a dream" secretly veils the real relief of our public officials who thank their gods that there remains no seer, prophet or revolutionary thinker left that can match the vision and the strategic intelligence of the man who called out the conscience of a nation and died at the hands of our government for his trouble. Tags:
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proloybagchi |
India - a subcontinental refuge |
2011.12.23 15:04:58 | |
A group of 140 overstaying Pakistani Hindus have expressed the desire to remain in India and make Delhi their home. They came to India from Sindh on tourist visa and for fear of being targeted are afraid to go back. With visas expired, they live in utter penury in Majnu Ka Tila in Delhi and have only one appeal for the Government of India that their visas should be extended. They would also like the government to provide them proper accommodation. These people from 27 families waited for years for their visas and were so desperate that once they got them they walked across to India. According to them they always felt unsafe in their own country and were subjected to discrimination. Not only they had no religious freedom, their children were ill-treated in schools, i.e. if they were allowed to join one. Always being told to convert to Islam, they would like to give up their home country and live in India, they said, just as numerous Bangladeshis, Nepalese and Tibetans live here. They are mistaken if they think they are the only Pakistani Hindus who want to permanently make their home in India. Before them, hundreds and thousands of them came here with or without valid visas and never went back. And, all of them did not come only at the time of partition. Off and on, whenever, there were atrocities against Hindus, India would see an influx of Sindhi Hindus from Pakistan. A large number of them came after the 1971 War that resulted in dismemberment of Pakistan, arousing in it great antipathy for India and, of course, local Hindus. Even in normal times the process of ethnic cleansing has been continuing. Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh are two states which seem to have been receiving them in large numbers. In fact, the two states have been welcoming them more or less with open arms, presumably, for political gains. They constitute a solid vote bank for the BJP. An August 2011 report said that around 3500 Sindhis who migrated more than a decade ago on long-tem visas and residing in Madhya Pradesh are still awaiting citizenship. If anything, this is a great under-statement. There are far, far more than 3500 Sindhis in the state. Many of them have merged with the local population without observing official niceties and have established themselves in business. Those now camping in Majnu ka Tila are right when they say numerous Bangladeshi and Nepalese are also living in India. Hindu Bangladeshi refugees always made a beeline for India whenever they were subjected to atrocities. Their numbers were never accurately determined but it is estimated that a million came post partition, another million in 1950s and around 5 million in 1960s, most came after the 1965 war with India. During the struggle for independence in 1970-71 about 10 million East Pakistani Hindus crossed over to India to avoid a veritable genocide. Not all of them went back; around 1.5 million are estimated to have stayed back. But there has been no respite for India even after Bangladesh came into being. Migration, in fact infiltration, into India has been continuing and, currently, 20 million illegal Bangladeshis, mostly Muslims, are reportedly in residence in India. There is practically no state in Upper India which does not have their colonies. They have swamped several districts of Assam and border districts of West Bengal changing their demographics. In Assam as many as six districts now have Muslims in majority and in two in West Bengal. In Assam a violent socio-political movement was launched for their eviction. While the porous borders have helped easy accessibility, poor enforcement and rampant corruption has ensured the illegal immigrants to avail of the benefits they are not entitled to. Their presence in large numbers, largely by design, especially in the states of West Bengal and Assam (where their number is reported to be 5 million out of 26 million) has given rise to fears of Islamic fundamentalism and consequential security threats to India. There have been frequent reports of these illegal immigrants promoting the idea of a “Greater Bangladesh” inclusive of the Indian states of West Bengal and Assam. The case of Nepalese in India, however, is entirely different. They are here in pursuance of the Indo-Nepal Friendship Treaty of 1950. Each, seemingly, fell into other’s lap out of fear on the emergence of the Red Dragon on their northern borders. The rise of Communist China in 1949 and its subsequent invasion of Tibet heightened their security concerns. Under the Treaty, Nepalese citizens in India have all the rights of an Indian citizen and they do not require visas to enter India, except a valid identification card while entering India by air. Both countries have also agreed to grant, on a reciprocal basis in each other’s territories, the same privileges in the matter of residence, ownership of property, participation in trade and commerce, etc. Curiously, however, while the citizens of Nepal have been exercising the rights granted under the Treaty Indians have not only have to have visas for entering Nepal but also are prevented under Nepalese laws to own and acquire property in Nepal. An estimated 10 million Nepalese are, as a consequence, residing and working in India, doing all kinds of jobs, including in the public and private sectors and in the Army, strengthening their country’s economy by remittances – largely informal – which amount to approximately 10% of its GDP. Although the Nepalese find the 1950 Treaty unequal, strategic concerns apart, it appears to be highly unfavourable to India. The open borders between the two countries have allowed Nepalese to flood the country and take away from the locals millions of jobs in formal and informal sectors and share the resources that are increasingly becoming scarce. Besides, the open borders have been freely used by the Pakistani jihadists to spread mayhem and chaos in the country. While Nepal exports its so-called labour as a national policy, illegal Bangladeshis are plain and simple intruders having no right to be in India in such large numbers. Sadly, the Centre has hardly made any effort to prevent their ingress and has made, if at all, very feeble efforts to send them back. Even a rich country like the US adopts a very uncompromising attitude against those who breach its frontiers. Pakistan, on the other hand, is solving its communal problem by easing out its unwanted Hindus in hundreds and thousands. India, however has never taken up with Pakistan the question of crude treatment meted out to its Hindus even though President Musharraf during a press conference in Delhi had the audacity to make a comment about treatment in Indian Muslims. Surely he was aware that India hosted far more Muslims than Pakistan. He was, however, put in his place by one Maulana Madani who happened to be present at the meeting. This is not all. Apart from millions of Pakistani Hindus, Nepalese and Bangladeshis, there are a few thousand foreigners including Pakistanis and Bangladeshis who have overstayed their visas having entered the country with valid documents. Add to that hundreds and thousands of Tibetan, Afghan, Sri Lankan and Burmese refugees to complete the picture. In India’s 1.2 billion people its neighbours have, thus, made the substantial contribution of close to 10%. Had the country – virtually a sub-continental refuge – not been weighed down by these foreigners, its economic profile perhaps would have been far different. Tags: india Hits: 17365 | Read more... |
deboldt |
Moral Conservative Zizek? |
2011.12.09 07:34:40 | |
For me the definitive pronouncement on Newt Gingrich was made recently by Slovenian philosopher, . (Note: this is a transcript of a spoken conversation.) Tags: Hits: 21989 | Read more... |
deboldt |
Tom Selleck in Zuccotti Park? |
2011.11.07 10:10:27 | |
Does art imitate life or is it the other way around? Tags:
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Archie |
The Cult of Capitalism |
2011.11.04 05:17:54 | |
Strive to be an oddball and to think for yourself. To be ‘normal’ in the modern, western world is to be psychologically sick. We are products of our environment and the environment of capitalism is no longer a healthy one. In fact, it is no longer capitalism. It has graduated into monopolism. The ideology of psychopathic corporatism along with its values and priorities has an impact on most individuals if not all. We must understand how the sickness creeps into our psyche and how it affects us. Tags: capitalism Hits: 18881 | Read more... |
proloybagchi |
The great Indian ferment |
2011.10.25 16:22:13 | |
India these days seems to be in ferment. If one picks up a newspaper one gets hit by headlines that certainly do not bode well for the country, at least, not in its immediate future. While one can discern a severe churning taking place in the country’s social, political and economic life, the government, at the same time, is largely perceived to be drifting along. Tags: india Hits: 17768 | Read more... |
proloybagchi |
Indian iconic lake under threat |
2011.10.08 18:53:43 | |
Bhopal, the capital of the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, could have been such a beautiful city. It was endowed with everything a place could aspire for – green hills and valleys, several lakes and a few small gurgling streams. Climatically it was bordering on the ideal – equable, with mild summers, plenty of rains and moderate winters. All that has been lost because of “development”, now a dreaded word for those who are sensitive about the city’s environment that they have seen progressively deteriorating. The unrestricted urban expansion has been gobbling up the surrounding farmlands, colonising the green hills, transforming the city’s streams into sewers and its lakes into septic tanks. The developmental assault on the city’s iconic millennium-old Upper Lake, a drinking water source for the locals for centuries, unmindful of its vital importance for the city’s environment, water security and green cover. Tags: india Hits: 16862 | Read more... |
proloybagchi |
In Soviet-occupied Kabul |
2011.09.16 18:41:11 | |
In April 1983 I happened to go to Kabul on a Universal Postal Union (UPU) consultancy with the Postal Administration of Afghanistan. I got a rather short notice as I was told about the assignment only in the third week of March. Although Afghanistan was not really stable with the mujahideen resisting the Soviet occupation, yet there was no way one could say “no”, having been trained by the UPU to function as a consultant. Besides, we all believed in the concept of Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries (TCDC). Tags: Hits: 16085 | Read more... |
proloybagchi |
The Indian 'Class of 2011' |
2011.09.07 19:39:42 | |
The current year has been a year of protests. The “Jasmine Revolution” of Tunisia was the beginning of it all. It was an intensive campaign of civil resistance, including a series of street demonstrations and strikes by professionals that culminated in the ousting of long-time President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011. The demonstrations were precipitated by high unemployment, food inflation, corruption, lack of fundamental freedoms and poor living conditions. Tags: Hits: 17793 | Read more... |
proloybagchi |
Demise of India's small change |
2011.07.21 17:32:26 | |
The Indian central bank, the Reserve Bank of India, had been making quite a song and dance about the 25 Paise coins ceasing to become legal tender from the 30th June this year. It had been asking people to exchange them for equivalent amount of currency. A report the other day said only a little more than a hundred thousand rupees worth of these coins had been deposited in the banks in Bhopal till the 30th June.
Tags: india Hits: 18119 | Read more... |
deboldt |
Let's not forget the reason for this holiday |
2011.07.04 00:03:45 | |
Tags: Wikileaks | Bradley Manning Hits: 29329 | Read more... |
proloybagchi |
Kashmir in environmental peril |
2011.07.02 19:26:32 | |
As the plane came to a halt at the Srinagar Airport one of the cabin crew denied us exit from the rear door. She said passengers had to go out through the front door as the Airport had an aerobridge. Surprised, I thought to myself that through the twenty-odd years of militancy the process of development in Kashmir had mercifully not been discontinued. It said much about the Centre’s patience with the turmoil that persisted all around in the Valley as also its belief in the efficacy of improvements in physical conditions on the ground. Perhaps, these were paying off now as this year Kashmir, seemingly, broke all previous records of tourists’ arrival. Our plane flew with a full load of passengers. It was not the only one; many more were flying in everyday as a result of the government’s “open skies” policy. Tags: kashmir Hits: 17135 | Read more... |
timgatto |
Responsibility, Accountability and 'The Slippery Slope' |
2011.06.30 10:41:32 | |
Why we are seeing this nation sabotage itself in almost every way possible... economically, politically and morally? Perhaps the simple truth is that the idea of responsibility has become something that people in this country don’t want to talk about.
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timgatto |
Foreign Aid and the Economic Crisis |
2011.06.29 00:10:51 | |
From The Heritage Foundation, a Conservative Think-Tank: “Abstract: Since 2000 about 95 percent of U.N. member states that receive U.S. assistance have voted against the United States most of the time in the U.N. General Assembly on non-consensus votes. The U.S. should inform aid recipients that their support--or lack of support--for U.S. priorities in the U.N. and other international organizations will directly affect future decisions on allocating U.S. assistance. In order to strengthen and broaden support for America's policies in the U.N., the U.S. should also seek to build coalitions of like-minded nations that are firmly committed to political and economic freedom. Over the long term, U.S. aid could facilitate the expansion of these coalitions by encouraging more countries to become freer, both politically and economically”. Tags: Hits: 22817 | Read more... |
deboldt |
Response to a letter from Michael Moore |
2011.05.13 04:45:14 | |
Response to “Some Final Thoughts on the Death of Osama bin Laden ...a letter from Michael Moore” Tags: Michael Moore Hits: 31144 | Read more... |