Bharatham : Uthishtatha-Jagratha : (wef-05/11/2012. )

The Hindu 29.06.2013 Opinion » Lead    June 29, 2013        Indentured labour may be a forgotten part of our colonial economic history but Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh are still sending ‘Girmitya’ to toil in distant lands ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The descendants of indentured labourers, who migrated from eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to erstwhile colonies, recently met at The Hague in the Netherlands to commemorate 140 years of migration — perpetuated through a system popularly known as ‘Girmit.’ They gathered from all corners of the world to pay homage to their ancestors and celebrate the end of slavery in the Dutch colonies. Persons of Indian origin in Suriname, a sizeable portion of the country’s population, are also marking the occasion this month.  Contractual system  Suriname, previously a Dutch colony, abolished slavery in 1863. To meet the demand f...

Thousands of gullible students are spending time preparing for and paying entrance fees to appear for these bogus tests where the candidates who have already “booked” their seats months or even years in advance get the top ranks. File photo: K. Murali Kumar The massive fraud being played on medical students who prepare for the entrance exam of private colleges, thinking them to be genuine, should be stopped : It is admission time and the great medical education bazaar is in full swing. Parents are running around like headless chickens ready to mobilise bundles of cash trying to get their children into the best medical colleges. In a society that has come to accept that paying illegal capitation fees is an effective way to get good education it is little surprise that parents have no compunction in violating the law and in acceding to the demands of the colleges by paying up whatever is asked.  Officially, the collection of capitation fee is banned. Ho...

1. Almost all channels are boring, all copied items, silly, stupid, wastage of valuable time. 2. Entertainment value -great Zero. 3. News channels - broadcasting stick to few sensational  items through out the day, continued to many days. 4. Indian films foolish, silly copied from different films and events are stitched from scenes of many films lifted crookedly. 5. Indian sports limited to cricket played by eleven fools, against another eleven fools, watched by thousands of fools, in India only. 6.Other programmes , all types funny realty shows with Judges drop outs in the present, by the entertainment industries+glamour added by the presence of no theme idea, celebrity with joker face. 2. Stupid comedy of low taste, 3. Last and decaying vulgar serials, 4. Discussion programmes with ignorant audience, facing  some no-work specialists(fixed members in all channels), and the Anchor (Joker) conducting the show with his intermittent foolish cheap jokes. 7. Ads cove...

The Hindu 23.06.2013 Courting marriage GEETA RAMASESHAN  The Madras High Court's order treating sexual relationships under some conditions as marriage opens the door to fresh litigation. The judgement of the Madras High Court in Aysha vs Ozir Hassan does not really lay down any new law in a case where the husband denied the marriage even though he had declared himself as the father of the two children and stated that the petitioner was his wife in the ration card giving rise to presumption of marriage. The concept of presumption of marriage is invoked to address instances when a spouse denies the marriage. In Mohd Amin and Others vs Vakil Ahmad and Others (AIR 1952 S.C 358) the Supreme Court held that the presumption of a lawful marriage would arise when there was a prolonged and continued cohabitation as husband and wife and where there was no insurmountable obstacle to marriage, such as prohibited relationship between parties, the spouses being not divorced and the ...

The Hindu 21.06.2013   A Himalayan tragedy Excessive rainfall provides only a partial explanation for why the ‘abode of the Gods’ — the Himalayan hill States of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh — has been battered beyond measure in recent days. For man’s excesses and follies have also been a factor in the destruction that nature has wrought. Whole villages, stretches of roads and communication links have been effaced. Thousands, including those from other parts of the country who were undertaking pilgrimages to religiously significant temples in the region, remain stranded. It is evident that the problem of poor soil stability on the steep slopes in this fragile region has been compounded by man-made factors like indiscriminate deforestation and mindless construction. Hundreds of buildings along the banks of the Alaknanda and the Bhagirathi have been swept away in Rudraprayag district alone. Downstream, the Ganga, Yamuna and other rivers have reached levels not seen in year...

The Hindu 19.06.2013. Opinion » Columns » Harsh Mander  Barefoot: Battle for the idea of India HARSH MANDER  On a winter morning in 1992, a frenzied mob of young men assaulted and triumphantly razed the three domes of a medieval mosque. I wept then, as did large numbers of my countrymen and women. Eighteen years later, the three judges of the Special Full Bench of the Allahabad High Court, hearing a 60-year-old title suit over this bitterly contested property, could have corrected these immense wrongs, and restored to Indian public life principles of justice, secular democracy and rationality. But they have failed us comprehensively. Today once again I feel dismayed and betrayed. And again I am not alone. The campaign demanding that a grand Ram Temple should be built on the site in Ayodhya where the Babri Masjid stood is often understood to be a clash between Hindus and Muslims. There is indeed no such clash, and there never has been. It has always been a dispute...

The Hindu 19.06.2013. Barefoot - Unwanted daughters Harsh Mander  India is one of the few countries in the world in which there are fewer women and girls than men and boys: their share in the country's population has declined continuously over the past century. The census of 2001 revealed that for every 1000 males, there were only 946 females. If women and girls are ceded the same life chances as men and boys, including health care and nutrition, there would be roughly equal numbers of females and males. Instead, there were 35 million fewer women and girls than men and boys in 2001. In a stark sense, what these figures establish beyond doubt is that social, cultural — and increasingly technological — processes of discrimination, neglect and hostility have extinguished life chances of these many million ‘missing' girls and women.  Exposed These figures hold up a mirror to society, to what we are and what we have become. They reveal the enormity of vio...

The Hindu 19.06.2013 Editorial It is not rare in the Indian judicial oeuvre to see sound justice being mixed up with irrelevant obiter dicta, for some of the judges in our superior judiciary do tend to pontificate and sermonise when required only to reason, or seek refuge in social mores when law, precedent or practice is available to fall back upon. However, even with some allowance for superfluous observation, the Madras High Court’s view that pre-marital sex between an unmarried man and woman, otherwise unencumbered by any third party interest, amounts to marriage is truly outrageous. The remarks of Justice C.S. Karnan cannot be ignored as mere obiter dicta, as much of what he says is in some way related to his ultimate decision — allowing monthly maintenance to a woman sought to be disowned by a man with whom she had lived and begotten two children. Physical consummation between a man above 21 and a woman above 18, arising out of “sexual cravings” would be considered a “vali...

The Hindu 19.06.2013. Editorial This was no time for overhauling, but even if it were to have been only tinkering, a lot more could have been done with much better results. The general election is less than a year away, and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh cannot be faulted for having focused on keeping things going while undertaking his latest cabinet shuffle. Even so, this was surely an opportunity to have infused some life and purpose into the government at the fag-end of its term. But, instead of taking in the big picture, Dr. Singh concentrated on the details in a few States. Actually, the shuffle appears intended to keep some of the party bigwigs in key States happy, and not to improve the functioning of the government. Of course, it is but natural that political as well as administrative calculations go into any change in the Council of Ministers. However, the latest additions to the Cabinet and reallocation of portfolios are mainly directed at boosting the chances of the ...

Mathrubhumi 18.06.2013 Prevent cruelty to animals  Posted on: 12 Jun 2013 Maneka Gandhi   Two months ago I held a meeting with the Ministry of Animal Husbandry officials. I went to ask them to change their policy on things that were killing India : the growing of emus and rabbits, the hundred percent subsidy on slaughterhouses, the bad slaughter practices. They heard me out in silence – and the next day Sharad Pawar told me that none of these things would be changed because he was personally in favour of them. One of the things I asked for was for a policy decision to be taken on the terrible physical mutilations done to cattle – dehorning , castration and nose-roping. The Commissioner for Animal Husbandry, a horrible, foolish man who epitomises the illiterate and pompous bureaucrat that has ruined India felt he had to add to the discussion. So he butted in 'I am a vet and I believe that animals do not feel any pain when these things happen to them, becaus...

The Indian Express 18.06.2013 The real Phaneesh Murthy scandal Saritha Rai : Mon Jun 03 2013, 00:27 hrs  Indian IT companies, though modern and meritocratic, are still too forgiving of sexual harassment  The many attention-grabbing details of Phaneesh Murthy's biography make his IIT-Chennai and IIM-Ahmedabad credentials look pallid. Back-to-back exits from large IT services companies (Infosys, iGATE) within the span of just over a decade. First CEO in India to be sacked on charges of sexual misdemeanour. First Indian CEO to attract multiple multi-million dollar sexual harassment lawsuits.  Reports say that Phaneesh Murthy, recently sacked CEO of outsourcing firm iGATE, has done it for the third time. In three separate instances, his colleagues accused Murthy of sexual harassment. In all incidents, the accusers were Murthy's American colleagues. In a near three-decade career mostly in India, Murthy did not face a single charge of sexual transgression in his h...

The Indian Express 18.06.2013 Locked House Inder Malhotra : Tue Jun 18 2013, <>Both the BJP and Congress are responsible for a dysfunctional Parliament  For whichever other statement Prime Minister Manmohan Singh might be faulted, he is absolutely right in regretting that the "animosity" between the principal opposition party, the BJP, and the Congress, the core of the ruling United Progressive Alliance, has rendered the Indian Parliament — a role model for the third world during the Nehru era — overwhelmingly dysfunctional. He has, of course, put the entire blame on the saffron party's determination to be "obstructionist" all the way. This calls for a caveat because the ruling party is also to blame, which will be explained presently.  It is surely arguable that at a time when every other institution has been eroded dangerously, why should only Parliament be expected to be a paragon of democratic virtue? But this is a dangerous school of tho...

Officials say National Security Agency intercepts stopped David Coleman Headley’s planned attack in Denmark, but sources say a tip from the British led to his capture after the U.S. failed for years to connect multiple reports of terror ties The Hindu 18.06.2013 Defenders of NSA surveillance omit most of Mumbai plotter’s story: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sebastian Rotella ProPublica Officials say National Security Agency intercepts stopped David Coleman Headley’s planned attack in Denmark, but sources say a tip from the British led to his capture after the U.S. failed for years to connect multiple reports of terror ties:- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Defending a vast program to sweep up phone and Internet data under antiterror laws, senior U.S. officials in recent days have cited the case of David Coleman Headley, a key plotter in the deadly 200...

MISSING LINKS: Officers of forensic and intelligence agencies reconstructing the Ishrat Jahan encounter case on the outskirts of Ahmedabad The Hindu 18.06.2013 Can’t get away with murder:- Manoj Joshi The new twists in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case highlight the need for parliamentary oversight of intelligence agencies: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Ishrat Jahan encounter case is like the proverbial can of worms whose contents have already spilled out. Not only has it shone the spotlight on the ruthless and, possibly, illegal manner in which the police and intelligence agencies fight terrorism, it has also exposed the Narendra Modi government’s poor record of managing the Gujarat police. And now, it has created schisms within the State police force, and between the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).  At the outset, some plain fac...

A file photo of Ishrat Jahan taken from her family album. The CBI questioned IB Special Director Rajinder Kumar in connection with the case on Tuesday. The Hindu 18.06.2013 IB Special Director quizzed in Ishrat case  PTI  Rajinder Kumar, a 1979 Batch IPS officer, is questioned by the CBI for his alleged role in the fake encounter: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The CBI on Tuesday questioned Intelligence Bureau Special Director Rajinder Kumar in connection with the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case at its office in Gandhinagar.  This is the second time the IB officer has been grilled by CBI sleuths probing his alleged role in the fake encounter in which 19-year old Jahan was killed along with four others on June 15, 2004 by a team of Crime Branch officials on the outskirts of Ahmedabad.  Sources said Mr. Kumar, a 1979 Batch IPS officer of Manipur-Tripura...

Mathrubhumi 17.06.2013. Solar cheating case: Biju Radhakrishnan held Posted on: 17 Jun 2013  Coimbatore: Biju Radhakrishnan, the prime accused in the solar panel cheating case and who is absconding after Sarita S Nair's arrest in connection with the solar panel case, was held by the Kollam crime branch police in Coimbatore on Monday afternoon. The Tamil Nadu police assisted the Kerala police in nabbing Biju. He will be produced in the Kollam court. Tracking his mobile calls, police came to know that he was in Coimbatore and sought the help of the TN crime branch to nab him. The special team which was formed to probe the solar cheating case recently included crime branch SP Unniraj and Kollam commissioner Debesh Kumar Bahura in the team. Based on their directive, the team reached TN. DySPs Sudharsan, Jaison Abraham, Prasanan Nair, Harikrishnan, Ajith, Reji Jacob are the others in the probe team. Biju had escaped to Coimbatore from Thrissur after he learnt that his estrange...