The World Today

By Manuwant Choudhary

Baitullah Mehsud, the Taliban leader, alleged to be responsible for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, is reportedly dead somewhere near Peshawar in Pakistan.

No, not in a cross-border US missile strike or Pakistan's Asif Ali Zardari's war on terror but he dies of disease with both kidneys having failed him and diabetes...a sweet killer.

Gods Will!

And its Eid today so Eid Mubarak.

And perhaps the war on terror is hurting the US now with its markets in chaos after its BIG corporations lent their money to small borrowers who cannot pay back.

And the US House of Representatives defeat the 700 billion dollar bail out package proposed by US President George Bush.

India's PM says India's markets are safer than the US, but he doesn't admit that a year ago the 60,000 crore bail out for farmers in distress was actually a bail out for India's state-owned banks.

In New Delhi, life goes on amidst metal detectors and bomb scares and real blasts.

The metal detector gate looks quite good really - a modern sculptor of sorts, and I intend having one outside my home just to scare away terror!

But more people die in India in temple stampedes than terror attacks...this time 147 have died at Chamundi temple in Jodhpur Rajasthan...TOI says stampedes have killed 360 people while blasts only 156 in 2008.

India's misrule is still way ahead of terror masterminds.

Like in Uttar Pradesh...a super highway flyover collapses onto unsuspecting taxpaying citizens..TV footage show a cycle under the massive cement beam and still hoped there would be survivors.

In Patna a servant accidentally shoots himself playing with a doctors gun.

But in New Delhi police say Headlines Today TV journalist Saoumya Viswanathan dies in a car accident but doctors discover a bullet through her head.

The Sin in Singur

By Manuwant Choudhary

Kolkata: I am in New Delhi right now but just a few days ago I was travelling in crumbling Kolkata - the red bastion.

And in New Delhi my friend Barun Mitra of Liberty Institute is organising a seminar `The Sin in Singur' this evening, which unfortunately I will not be able to attend.

So I write about my Kolkata visit and Singur instead from what my driver Sanjay told me as he drove a Toyoto Qualis in smoke-filled Kolkata as wooden buses and creaking trams blocked traffic.

Just like the Sanjay in The Mahabharata.

He said, "Sir do you know why people are protesting against the Singur Nano project?"

I said, "You tell me."

He said how one protestor, a woman, was asked why she is protesting by a TV reporter and this is what she said, "Woh Momta didi ka zameen sarkar le raha hai naa...isliye humlog idhaar aaya hai." (Mamata Didi's land is being taken away by the government so we have come here to protest.)

Said Sanjay smilingly. "Don't you think car project should happen and it will be good for Bengal?"

I said "yes, of course."

But then I showed him all the yellow ambassadors on crowded Kolkata streets and asked him whether 60 years of manufacturing an ambassador as a monopoly had brought about prosperity to Bengal or India?

I asked him, "Does Kolkata have those multiplex parking buildings yet?"

He replied, "No."

Then he said, "Sir, its true that the communists shut down some 6000 factories in the past 30 years of their rule just around Kolkata. I know some employees who went on strike and shut down their own factories. They used to earn Rs.5,000 and now they earn Rs.2000 per month as security guards."

Sanjay is from Bihar but living in Kolkata for 12 years.
We drove past an old red building standing almost like an encroachment and Sanjay told me its the Writers Building.

"I do not have voting rights here but people from Bangladesh can vote. Many Muslims from Bangladesh now pray to Lord Ram and celebrate Durga puja as well. They even collect money for the pandals. Sometimes in our bastee when we oppose the extortion there is violence. But Bengali goondas never go to prison. Even before the police get them to the police station, a telephone call has already come to let them go free."

I have been to Kolkata several times when it was still called Calcutta and driving around Victoria Memorial I often thought the city had a future but this time I decided to go visit the Victoria Memorial.

Just old photographs of British generals and Bengali aristocracy are housed there. One remark said how Bengal's aristocracy burnt ten rupee notes to light a cigarette and one zamindaar ripped off the sides of his dhoti as they would hurt his soft skin.

Todays Bengal is of course different. The Babus have taken over from the bhadraloks.

Sanjay describes a scene outside a transport office in Kolkata.

We had been waiting for an hour in hot sun and the officer comes in at 11 a.m. instead of 10 a.m. He then opens his shirt's top buttons and rolls his shirt collars back, pushes a chair, sits down, looks up at a creaking fan and says, "Ektu Jawl lao" (get me a glass of water)

A waiting driver from behind comments. "Dekho zamindaar ka beta aa gaya." (see a zamindaar's son has arrived."

The Babu, "Kya bola, kya bola...kaun bola..kaun bola."

Another driver from behind, "Tumraa baap bola..." (Your father said...)

The Babu drinking his glass of water gets up from his chair..."Aaaj kam hobe naaa.." (Today I will not work).

Strike!

This is not the India I know: Soli Sorabjee on violence against Christians in Karnataka and Orissa

By Manuwant Choudhary

New Delhi: "This is not the India I know," says Mr. Soli Sorabjee, India's former solicitor general, commenting on the violence against Christians in Karnataka and Oriisa.

He said, "I called up the BJP leaders immediately when I saw such attacks taking place and I asked them to immediately condemn such violence. The debates on forced conversions may be important too but that can be discussed later."

Mr. Sorabjee was just one of the speakers at a Symposium on `Opportunities for Liberalism,' organised on the occasion of 50 years of the Freidrich Naumann Foundation and 40 years of its work in India.

While most speakers were euphoric about India's economic liberalisation and the fact that most political parties are for reforms, Mr. Bibek Debroy, economist, differed and said, "Our Prime Minister has not taken a single step towards economic liberalisation in the past four years. In the early 90's we did liberalise externally and later the UF did some tinkering and the NDA took four steps towards reforms but this government has done nothing."

Mr. Debroy stressed on tax reforms, law reforms and taking reforms to rural India so that people do not see reforms as something that benefits only the rich.

Mr. Gurcharan Das said this country grows only by night when the government sleeps and many say we are on auto-pilot now.

While Mr. Sharad Joshi, Swatantra Bharat Party MP, said the US policy towards failing corporations was a hypocrisy. The Americans had one set of advise for such corporations in South Korea and now another for their own.

While Mr. S.V. Raju, national co-ordinator, spoke about his association with the erstwhile Swatantra Party and how at their first meeting in Patna the senior members of the party laid down an agenda for this country.

Mr. Barun Mitra of Liberty Institute spoke on property rights and how granting property rights will industrialise India and not otherwise. Liberty Institute has a seminar on Monday 29 6p.m. `The Sin of Singur'. So if you are in Delhi feel free to attend.

Dog Sense

By Manuwant Choudhary

A month before the Kosi breached its embankment and drowned half of Bihar I had told friends how at my Patna home four stray dogs have suddenly started climbing onto my car roof.

My staff informed me about the dogs attributing this strange behaviour to the waterlogging in Patliputra colony but I told him not to mind the sratches on the car and let them be.

I knew dogs had a certain sense we humans have lost in our mindless chase for cellphones and other modern gizmos.
I told a friend that something terrible may happen.

So when the Kosi brought the disaster to Bihar I wish to recall the stray dogs who live under my flat - their eyes scared, hungry and wet but no they did not want food. They wanted protection.

So today I just searched the net for photos of dogs on car roofs and I found this photo taken during the hurricane Katrina.

Surely, dogs have more sense than the politicians we elect.

Did India shelter terrorist `Prachanda'?

By Manuwant Choudhary

The `Fierce One' is in New Delhi and the bombs that struck Delhi on the eve of his arrival was perhaps only a warning.

Pushpa Kamal Dahal alias Prachanda is the Maoist Prime Minister of Nepal on his first official visit to New Delhi, having broken traditions by making his first foriegn trip to Beijing..even as the Kosi breached an embankment in Nepal and drowned five
districts of Bihar.

After the Nepalese Maoist leader had come out from hiding he had declared that all these years he had been living in Delhi colony, while he waged a war in Nepal which killed 12,000 people.

It is very hard to believe that Prachanda could stay in Delhi without the knowledge of India's intelligence wings and politicians.

So one must read between the lines when Prachanda says, "India is Nepal's best friend."

"We got a lot of support from India in our armed struggle."

No Indian political party openly says anything on their proximity with Prachanda.

But on August 18 when Bihar drowned a three-member parliamentary delegation led by JD (U) leader Sharad Yadav met Prachanda in Kathmandu handing him India's invitation to visit New Delhi.

Of course, Prachanda instead went to Beijing and Bihar drowned.

This piece of news of Sharad Yadav's visit was deliberately kept away from the Indian media.

SERIAL BOMB BLASTS ROCK CAPITAL NEW DELHI

Are Indians Safe?

By Manuwant Choudhary

Serial bomb blasts rock India's capital New Delhi...from Greater Kailash 1...to Karol bagh..to Cannaught Place...all markets attacked killing more than a dozen and many people injured.

Out of breath top anchors take to reporting from the streets and blood and glass stain Delhi's streets.

The initial shock turns shrill as more reporters join in their shouting match...and within minutes politicians also being given precious airtime...Arun Jailtley and Kapil Sibal...whose elequence is best served in the courts of law.

In exactly, a week you will see this story buried and forgotten.

No journalist will probe deeper...no reporter will try and investigate.

In two days Singur and the Tata's and Mittal's will take the airtime on prime TV, and some TV quiz and glitzy dances will make you forget about this as well.

In two days, politicians will be back grabbing farmers lands.

In two days policemen will be back to collecting hafta alongside the local dadas.

In two days Raj Thackeray will be back attacking some `bhaiya'.

But that person who sends e-mails from Mumbai is not scared of the Thackerays.

And no they are not scared of Narendra Modi or L.K. Advani either. Not even of Dr. Manmohan Singh, India's Prime Minister.

And I'm not surprised.

They've done it in Bangalore, done it in Gujarat and now Delhi.

Are Indians safe?

Two years ago indiavikalp wrote to the Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar that CCTVs should be installed at all major road crossings and public places.

There was no action ..not even a customary acknowledgement of my letter.

Last week the TOI reported the Bihar government finally plans to instal CCTVs...but guess who is got the contract....a defunt Bihar public sector electronic company called Belron.

Do you buy Beltron TVs anymore?

But the Bihar government thinks their CCTVs are the best in the world.

Thats how safe you are.

Yes, in New Delhi..I am not sure whether the markets had CCTVs but I recall visiting the GK market once and it seemed crowded and worse than the Patna market.

Law and order is not on the agenda of the current political parties and that is why a liberal alternative is so very critical to Indians.

Besides, India and Indians can never be safe under a corrupt political system.

ADVERTISE ONLY IN MARATHI!

By Manuwant Choudhary

After Mumbai's filmstars deciding to speak only in Marathi..from Rekha, to Dilip Saab, to Govinda..to Akhshay Kumar..even Katrina Kaif has decided to give up learning Hindi for learning Marathi..

And with all actors swearing they are more Marathi than even Raj Thackeray, now even advertisers are planning all their advertisements in Marathi, even if people in India and around the world do not understand them at all.

As long as Raj will be happy they would be spared of Goonda Raj!

Who wouldn't agree that your own life is more important than selling a few extra soaps? And why even Big B has become a small b after he apologised to Raj.

So Mumbai's advertisers have decided to unleash new Marathi ads onto India. All billboards will be in Marathi.

Afterall Maharashtra is greater than India.

Even Sonia Gandhi is more comfortable with giving Marathi speaches although written in Roman letters...after all its her government there.

But there was one problem.

There was no problems with the translations into Marathi of old ads except when one advertiser tried to translate `Only Vimal'....

The Marathi for `Only Vimal' sounds something like `Fuk the Vimal'!!!!!

SO MANY FLOOD WARNINGS IGNORED

Todays Times of India reports that the Saharsa District Magistrate Narmedeswar Lal through his letter no.171-1 dated March 15, 2008, to the principal secretary, disaster management, had warned that with heavy rains in the Kosi catchment area there would be threats to the embankment and a breach in the upper reaches would result in massive devastation.

The Bihar government also says that they warned the centre and the Indian government said they warned the Nepal government.

But all these warnings are in the form of letters written and meant to be buried in the dusty files of the secretariat.

My question is why were the people not warned?

JUST RS.3703/- FOR EACH BIHAR FLOOD VICTIM!

By Manuwant Choudhary

Rs.1000 crore for a national calamity like the Bihar floods is simply a pittance and not as BIG as the media and politicians make it out to be...even according to government figures 27 lakh people are flood affected..and this works out to be just Rs.3,703.70/- per flood victim.

Surely, even you and I pay a hundred times more to the Government of India as income tax, and even in time of such distress...this is what the Government of India gives to its people in desperate need.

And we are not sure what the thousand crores are being spent on, whether the money has been sent to the Bihar government and how much of it will go in the fuel of the helicopters and how little in food to the starving flood victims???

And to top it all the Bihar government told the centre that they are yet to receive the Rs.2,500 crores they spent on last years floods.

Floods are due to criminal negligence and governments pay no penalty.

Yes, not just Bihar, but even flood-affected Assam, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh deserves large compensations for the loss of life and property but this money should not go to state governments but rather directly to the flood victims.

LALOO TAKES HIS AERIAL NAP WHILE BIHAR DROWNS

SEXY SARAH DISPLACES RACE DEBATE

`IT DOESN'T HURT TO BE SEXY'

By Manuwant Choudhary

Politics is full of surprises and American politics is no different.

Just when everyone thought the fight was between an Obama and McCain, the drawing boards have changed.

Sexy Sarah Palin is hogging the headlines - from her smile to her eyeglasses, the media not even sparing her children.

A Guardian article says voters think she looks like a naughty librarian who could pole-dance by night!

But McCain is clearly no fool and when he introduced her to America he said he could not wait to introduce her to Washington!

Palin is being projected as the `Change' the Democrats only talk about.

Her fights in Alaska, her bringing down property taxes and the fact that she is a working woman goes to her advantage.

With popularity charts going her way...its clear it doesn't hurt to be sexy.

MAMATA BANERJEE - A BENGAL TIGRESS

SINGUR SOLUTION IS REALLY ABOUT ENFORCING PROPERTY RIGHTS

By Manuwant Choudhary

The farmers of Singur alongwith Mamata Banerjee have achieved in Communist West Bengal something that cannot be done in socilaist India, where there is no property rights.

LAND FOR LAND is about property rights.

Mamata Banerjee has shown the way that force cannot be allowed in India..that land cannot be taken away by law or by anyone against the wishes of the people.

Its an irony that the capitalist Tata is on the side of the communists while the naxals are on the side of the property holders.

Thanks to the intervention West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi Singur has been solved, but doing what Mamata did in Bengal for every land acquisition is the real challenge.

Ultimately, property rights must be re-introduced in our fundamental rights and the fundamental rights must be sacrosanct.

Thats the challenge for liberals.

It does not matter whether Nano costs Rs.1 lakh or more or whether production starts in October or not.

Without property rights, for all who love freedom Nano would be a Na and No...

INDIA JOINS THE NUCLEAR CLUB, BUT WILL INDIA GET ELECTRICITY, EVER?

By Manuwant Choudhary

For 60 years most parts of India is without electricty and now there is another lie being propogated by the national media that nuclear energy means electrifying India.

I can guarantee you India will not get electricity for another 100 years.

India's villages are dark not because we do not have nuclear energy.

India's villages are dark because we have a socialist economy.

An economy where only the state takes upon itself a monopoly to produce and supply electricty.

And like all things government - they fail, thereby impoverishing people.

Todays headline news is of our sky-blue turbaned Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh's nuclear success and this he hopes will become the election battle-cry.

Do you know why half of Bihar is flooded? Thats also for the same reason. Socialism.

The State took upon itself the task of building dams and embankments in order to protect its people from yearly floods.

And like all things government as the years went on the projects were forgotten, the dams neglected, the bunds left to collpase with the first rains in Nepal.

But one thing is certain that in all this our politicians did what they know best - make money, lots of it.

When India's former railway minister LN. Mishra was killed in a bomb attack on the Samastipur railway platform, the then Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi immediately blamed Jaiprakash Narayan for killing L.N. Mishra, a powerful Congress politcian.

JP of course blamed Indira.

On the day of the killing of L.N. Mishra, many opposition leaders like Piloo Modi of Swatantra Party and the socialist Karpoori Thakur were at my home.

When the press asked Piloo Modi as to who killed L.N. Mishra, Mr. Modi just lifted a rather large bundle of files and dropped it onto the table. "All my years of hard work has been wasted."

These were the files exposing the corruption in the Kosi project by L.N. Mishra and with the money he was funding Sanjay Gandhi's Maruti project.

So if you drive a Maruti Suzuki car today spare a thought for the dying people in flooded Bihar today.

As for the nuclear headline, ordinary people are left wondering how great an achievment it has been for India.

My take on that is the Nuclear Suppliers Group is just like your street corner vegetable vendor. Does the vegetable vendor say I do not like your face so I will not sell you vegetables?"