Evil State

Tears for martyrs of hindusthan

2009-03-21T07:28:00.000-07:00

Tears for martyrs of hindusthan

2009-03-21T07:22:00.000-07:00

Demand a Commission of Inquiry against Sonia Gandhi

2008-12-06T05:04:00.000-08:00

Mumbai terror attack

IANS

Politicians sponsoring terrorism with foreign support: Rane

Saturday, 06 December , 2008, 19:23

Mumbai: Suspended Congress leader Narayan Rane on Saturday hit out at his rivals within the party, saying some Indian political leaders were supporting external forces and financing terror activities in the country.

"The government must conduct an inquiry into this aspect and if required, I can provide evidence. I am making this statement with full responsibility," Rane told a packed media conference at his residence here. He said that these political leaders not only financed terrorists but also provided them safe haven in the country.

Ashok Chavan to be Maharashtra CM, Rane furious

He, however, declined to name any leaders or parties, saying: "When the right time comes, I shall provide all these details." He also alleged that Congress leaders were only interested in making money and had no regard for public sentiments or the development of the country.

His allegations came after he was suspended from the party earlier in the day for indiscipline. He was critical of the party leadership for ignoring him while choosing Ashok Chavan as the next Maharashtra chief minister.

Vilasrao Deshmukh resigned as chief minister earlier this week, taking moral responsibility for failing to prevent the November 26 terrorist attacks here.

Chidambaram admits lapses

Detailing his version of the political developments in the past two days, Rane said that a conspiracy had been hatched in Varsha, the official residence of the chief minister, to keep him out of the post "at all cost". "Deshmukh, along with state party president Manikrao Thakre and Mumbai party chief Kripa Shankar Singh, with the backing of some industrialists, conspired to prevent me from becoming chief minister, though 48 legislators had proposed my name - as compared to 32 who supported Chavan - to the party's central observers," Rane said.

"With this kind of support, my name was due to be announced, it was stopped at the last minute," Rane claimed. He warned that if his political rivals continued to make baseless allegations against him, he would be compelled to show his "strength" in the party.

Chhagan Bhujbal to be Maharashtra deputy CM

"Even at this juncture, I can block the new government from taking office. I can prove the support I enjoy among the legislators. I can approach the state governor and bring to his notice that (chief minister-designate) Ashok Chavan does not enjoy majority support. "However, keeping in view the grim situation confronting Mumbai and the state in the wake of the terrorist attacks, I shall not take this step," Rane declared.

Continuing his attack on Deshmukh, Rane read out what he said were official government records proving that the outgoing chief minister had been involved in a number of land scams. He threatened that he had gathered "so much evidence against Deshmukh" that he could expose a new scam every day.

Shiv Sena urges president to dismiss Maharashtra govt

"They were scared that if I become chief minister, all their scams along with several industrialists would be out in the open. That's why they had decided even before the legislators' meetings with the central party observers that I should not be allowed to become chief minister at any cost," Rane said.

Welcoming his "expulsion" from the Congress, Rane regretted that the party did not want honest and capable persons. Despite persistent questioning, Rane declined to reveal his future course of action, and laughed off suggestions that he was "offered" plum posts by the Congress as well as other parties.

Responding to a query, he asserted that he had never uttered a word against Congress president Sonia Gandhi nor insulted her political advisor Ahmed Patel, as alleged by his rivals. "I hold her and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in great esteem and have great respect for them," he said.

http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14813223

Serious charges against Sonia and Congress leaders of criminal cognizable offences – by Narayan Rane. Sonia, quit public offices, quit politics.

What Narayan Rane has alleged are NOT internal affairs of the Congress Party.

He has accused Congress of selling the nation for money. This is a charge of sedition.
The credibility of Sonia Gandhi is at its lowest gutter level. He has been betrayed by Sonia Gandhi who had promised to make him CM and ditched him.

"Congress leaders are selling nation for money. Congress doesn't like people with self-respect or people who work for people so I was sure they wouldn't keep me," added Rane.

"Congress leaders like Vilasrao Deshmukh and Ahmed Patel were involved in scams of Videocon, Hudco, MHADA, MIDC among others," he said.

These allegations of selling the nation for money, of scams and corruption involving public funds are charges which demand a Commission of Inquiry to nail the named culprits -- Vilasraol Deshmukh and Ahmed Patel and bring them to justice.

It is a well-known secret that every week 120 were being sent in by Deshmukh to Congress High Command.

The most serious charge Rane made is treaon. "Suspended Congress leader Narayan Rane Saturday hit out at his rivals within the party, saying some Indian political leaders were supporting external forces and financing terror activities in the country.”The government must conduct an inquiry into this aspect and if required, I can provide evidence. I am making this statement with full responsibility,” Rane told a packed media conference at his residence here."

Speaker of the Lok Sabha should take suo moto notice of these serious charges and suspend the privileges of Sonia Gandhi as a Member of the Lok Sabha.

President should advice the PM to constitute an inquiry commission forthwith against Sonia Gandhi and leaders of the Congress Party.

All parties should support this demand for an inquiry commission in the national interest and redeem the image of politicians which has reached very low levels in the wake of the 26/11 Mumbai islamist jihadi terror attack.

These charges supplement the j’accuse report of Francois Gautier (attached for ready reference) asking Sonia Gandhi to quit forthwith.

Kalyanaraman

Politicians sponsoring terrorism with foreign support: Rane (Lead)

December 6th, 2008 - 7:10 pm ICT by IANS -

Mumbai, Dec 6 (IANS) Suspended Congress leader Narayan Rane Saturday hit out at his rivals within the party, saying some Indian political leaders were supporting external forces and financing terror activities in the country.”The government must conduct an inquiry into this aspect and if required, I can provide evidence. I am making this statement with full responsibility,” Rane told a packed media conference at his residence here.

He said that these political leaders not only financed terrorists but also provided them safe haven in the country.

He, however, declined to name any leaders or parties, saying: “When the right time comes, I shall provide all these details.”

He also alleged that Congress leaders were only interested in making money and had no regard for public sentiments or the development of the country.

His allegations came after he was suspended from the party earlier in the day for indiscipline. He was critical of the party leadership for ignoring him while choosing Ashok Chavan as the next Maharashtra chief minister.

Vilasrao Deshmukh resigned as chief minister earlier this week, taking moral responsibility for failing to prevent the Nov 26 terrorist attacks here.

Detailing his version of the political developments in the past two days, Rane said that a conspiracy had been hatched in Varsha, the official residence of the chief minister, to keep him out of the post “at all cost”.

“Deshmukh, along with state party president Manikrao Thakre and Mumbai party chief Kripa Shankar Singh, with the backing of some industrialists, conspired to prevent me from becoming chief minister, though 48 legislators had proposed my name - as compared to 32 who supported Chavan - to the party’s central observers,” Rane said.

“With this kind of support, my name was due to be announced, it was stopped at the last minute,” Rane claimed.

He warned that if his political rivals continued to make baseless allegations against him, he would be compelled to show his “strength” in the party.

“Even at this juncture, I can block the new government from taking office. I can prove the support I enjoy among the legislators. I can approach the state governor and bring to his notice that (chief minister-designate) Ashok Chavan does not enjoy majority support.

“However, keeping in view the grim situation confronting Mumbai and the state in the wake of the terrorist attacks, I shall not take this step,” Rane declared.

Continuing his attack on Deshmukh, Rane read out what he said were official government records proving that the outgoing chief minister had been involved in a number of land scams.

He threatened that he had gathered “so much evidence against Deshmukh” that he could expose a new scam every day.

“They were scared that if I become chief minister, all their scams along with several industrialists would be out in the open. That’s why they had decided even before the legislators’ meetings with the central party observers that I should not be allowed to become chief minister at any cost,” Rane said.

Welcoming his “expulsion” from the Congress, Rane regretted that the party did not want honest and capable persons.

Despite persistent questioning, Rane declined to reveal his future course of action, and laughed off suggestions that he was “offered” plum posts by the Congress as well as other parties.

Responding to a query, he asserted that he had never uttered a word against Congress president Sonia Gandhi nor insulted her political advisor Ahmed Patel, as alleged by his rivals.

“I hold her and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in great esteem and have great respect for them,” he said.

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/world-news/politicians-sponsoring-terrorism-with-foreign-support-rane-lead_100127913.html

Rane lashes out at Cong after suspension
Agencies

SPEAKING OUT: In a press conference Rane lashed out at Congress accusing it of selling the nation for money.

New Delhi: The Congress on Saturday suspended Maharashtra Revenue Minister Narayan Rane for "gross indiscipline" following his public outburst against the party high command after he was ignored for the post of state chief minister.

"I have learnt from TV channels that I've been suspended from Congress, as nothing has been communicated to me," Rane said while addresing a press conference on Saturday.

"Congress leaders are selling nation for money. Congress doesn't like people with self-respect or people who work for people so I was sure they wouldn't keep me," added Rane.

While lashing out at Congress Rane said that the Government is in minority and cannot be formed without the support of his MLAs.

"I have 25 to 30 MLAs who support me. I can go to the Governor but I will not go to him for the sake of the state," he said.

Rane also verbally attacked former Mahsrashtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, saying he had taken the state back by 20 years. He also accused Deshmukh and Ahmed Patel of corruption.

"Congress leaders like Vilasrao Deshmukh and Ahmed Patel were involved in scams of Videocon, Hudco, MHADA, MIDC among others," he said.

"I had 48 supporters in assembly, by number I should have won. If the decision was later attributed to Congress President Sonia Gandhi, why did they ask MLAs for opinion in first place," he demaded.

Meanwhile, decision to suspend Rane comes a day after he attacked outgoing Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and chief minister-designate Ashok Chavan, as well as the party, at a hurriedly convened media briefing at his residence.

"It has been observed that after the announcement of the new leader of the CLP in Maharashtra, Narayan Rane is making public statements deliberately with a view to lowering the prestige of the Indian National Congress," said AICC General Secretary Janardan Dwivedi.

"The party has taken a serious view of his utterances and considering this as a case of gross indiscipline, Narayan Rane has been suspended from the party with immediate effect," he said in a statement hours before Rane was scheduled to hold a press conference in Mumbai on Saturday.

Rane, whose name was being considered for the top post after Deshmukh resigned on Wednesday in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks, opted out of the race after the party leadership selected Industry Minister Ashok Chavan for the top job.

http://ibnlive.in.com/printpage.php?id=79883§ion_id=3

Rane, who was overlooked by the party high command in favour Ashok Chavan [Images] for Chief Ministership, had attacked the Congress leadership yesterday accusing it of reneging on a promise to make him the chief minister.

"I don't trust even Sonia Gandhi anymore", he said which party sources said was the trigger for his suspension.

Rane, a leader from the Konkan area who had left Shiv Sena three years ago, had attacked not only Deshmukh but also Ashok Chavan and some central leaders and accused them of conspiring and ignoring his claim for the top job in the state.

http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/dec/06maharashtra-congress-suspends-narayan-rane.htm

Have lost faith in Sonia: Rane
6 Dec 2008, 0452 hrs IST, Prafulla Marpakwar, TNN

MUMBAI: A few hours before external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee declared Ashok Chavan as the state's new CM, revenue minister Narayan Rane raised a banner of revolt against the leadership of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, saying that he had lost confidence in the party high command.

Rane also launched a frontal attack on outgoing CM Vilasrao Deshmukh, MPCC president Manikrao Thakre and Mumbai Congress president Kripa Shankar Singh, saying that they were hand-in-gloves and that Deshmukh was a blot on Maharashtra politics. Rane didn't forget to predict that Congress would be wiped out in the coming Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. ( Watch )

"When I joined Congress three years ago, I was promised the CM's post. On Thursday, when party observers were in the process of declaring me as the leader of the legislature party, there was some sudden pressure on them and they declared the new leader would be announced in Delhi. The entire exercise was a farce," Rane told reporters at his official residence on Friday.

Party insiders said Rane would quit Congress and float his own regional party with eight to 10 legislators. He said, "I have no plan to quit the party now but, sooner or later, I will have to take a decision. Congress is not a reliable organisation."

Rane made it clear that it wasn't possible for him to work under the leadership of Ashok Chavan as he was the "most incompetent politician". "No sensible politican will work under him and there is no question of my joining the cabinet," he said.

Deshmukh and Thakre summoned a section of Congress legislators to Varsha, the CM's official residence, when he emerged as a front-runner for the top post, Rane alleged. "My information is that a majority of legislators were in my favour. But Deshmukh and Thakre told them that they would be denied party tickets if they did not vote in Chavan's favour. So they voted in his favour in the presence of party observers," Rane said.

Deshmukh, however, reacted sharply to Rane's uncalled-for allegations. "I feel he is reacting like this because he is frustrated. All decisions on leadership issues is taken by the high command in Congress and there is no way I could have influenced the decision," he told TOI.

Once a firebrand Sena leader, Rane quit the party after his differences with Sena executive president Udhav Thackeray and joined Congress. Rane claimed that he was promised the CM's post — "in reasonable time" — when he joined the party but the Congress high command has maintained no such promise was made to him.

The main worry for Congress now is the political fallout of Rane's anger. "He was never with the party in the real sense though he joined Congress as he was all along aiming for the chief minister's post. We don't think his quitting the party will have any impact," a senior Congress leader said.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-3799718,prtpage-1.cms

I can topple Chavan govt if I wish to: Rane

Mumbai (PTI): Suspended Congress leader Narayan Rane today claimed that he holds key to the survival of soon-to-be-formed Ashok Chavan led Congress-NCP Government in Maharashtra.

"If I wish, I can prevent the new government from taking charge or topple it when it is formed. The new government is not in a majority and I can prove it on the floor of the house, even if the opposition does not demand a trust vote," Rane, who was suspended for his latest utterances against the party after he lost in the chief ministerial race, told a press conference here.

Rane refused to divulge his future course of action when the winter session of the legislature would be convened in Nagpur this month.

"I will be going to Nagpur," he said.

He said he could provide a letter of 30 MLAs to the Governor saying that they were not supporting the new government.

"I am refraining from doing this because the prevailing situation in the aftermath of terror attacks in Mumbai is not right. I warn the Congress not to provoke me to take such a step," he added.

Referring to his suspension from the Congress, Rane said he had been expecting the action.

"I consider this as a good omen. In 1997, Vilasrao Deshmukh was suspended from the party for six years and in 1999 he became the chief minister," Rane added.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holnus/001200812061831.htm

Sonia’s presence in Delhi is costing India dearly

Francois Gautier 2 Dec. 2008-12-06

Source: New Indian Express

In 1898, the French writer Emile Zola wrote an open letter to the then French president in the newspaper L’Aurore, titled j’accuse (‘I accuse’), where he accused the French government of anti- Semitism towards Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer unfairly condemned for treason.

Now it is time for the people of India to say openly that which many, including within the Congress, think secretly and may utter in the privacy of their chambers.It is not about Manmohan Singh, it is not even about Shivraj Patil, the fall guy; it is about that one person, the Eminence Grise of India. She who pulls all the strings, She whose shadow looms menacingly over so many, She who holds no portfolio, is just a simple elected MP, like 540 others, but rules like an empress.

Sometimes, one’s very physical presence at the top is enough to move things, to influence the course of events. One word from Her, a glance, a frown, are enough to put the whole heavy, inert, unwilling machinery of India’s bureaucracy and political system in full motion. Sometimes She need not say anything: in the true tradition of Bhakti, Her ministers, Her secretaries, interpret Her silences and rush to cater to Her western and Christian identity.

Nevertheless, she has said and acted enough so that one day she may stand accused on the pages of History for what she must have done to India.

I’accuse Sonia Gandhi as being responsible for the tragedy of Mumbai, having emasculated India’s intelligence agencies by stopping them from investigating terror attacks in the last four years, including the Mumbai train blasts. She has also neutralised the ATS by ordering them at all costs to ferret out ‘Hindu terrorism’, which if it exists, has wrought minuscule damage compared to what Islamic terror has done since 2004.

Did the US send a warning to India that there may be an attack on Mumbai and that the Taj would be one of the targets? Were these ignored because the ATS was too busy chasing Hindu ‘terrorists’ on Sonia’s orders? I accuse Sonia and her government of having made the NSG the laughing stock of the world. How many times did the NSG (who took ten hours to reach Mumbai) claim that it had “sanitised the Taj and that the operation was over” and how many times did a bomb go off immediately after? For the last 20 years, the NSG has guarded VIPs and has become soft. See the comments of Israeli terror specialists, who said the NSG should have first sanitised the immediate surroundings of the places of conflict, kept the bystanders and press (who gave terrorists watching TV in the Taj rooms a perfect report of the security forces’ whereabouts) out of the place, gathered enough information about the position of the terrorists and hostages before taking action, instead of immediately engaging the terrorists, and ensuring the deaths of so many hostages.

I accuse Sonia of having let her Christian and Western background, in four years, divide India on religious and caste lines in a cynical and methodical manner.
I accuse Sonia of weakening India’s spirit of sacrifice and courage, so that 20 terrorists (or less) held at ransom the financial capital of India for more than three days.

I accuse Sonia Gandhi of always pointing the finger at Pakistan, when terrorism in India is now mostly homegrown, even if it takes help, training, refuge and arms from Pakistan; of not warning Indians of the grave dangers of Islamic terror for cynical election purposes.

I accuse Sonia of being an enemy of the Hindus, who always gave refuge to persecuted minorities, and who are the only people in the world to accept that God may manifest under different names, in different epochs, using different scriptures.

I accuse Sonia Gandhi of taking advantage of India’s respect for women, its undue fascination with the Gandhi name, and its stupid mania for White Skin.

I’accuse Sonia of exploiting the Indian Press’ obsession with her. She hardly ever gave interview in 20 years, except scripted ones to NDTV, yet the Press always protects her, never blames her and keeps silent over her covert role.

I’accuse Sonia and her government of trying to make heroes of subservient and inefficient men to hide the humiliation of Mumbai 26/11. Before going to his death, Hemant Karkare, the ATS chief, was shown on television clumsily handling his helmet, as someone who uses it very rarely. Why did he die of bullet wounds in the chest when he was wearing a bullet-proof vest? Either Indian vests are inferior quality or he was not wearing one.

How did the terrorists who killed him and his fellow officer escape in the same vehicle used by the ATS chief ? Why did he and his officers go into Cama Hospital without ascertaining where the terrorists were? We honour his death, but these facts say a lot about the ATS’ battle-readiness.

Will someone in the Congress, someone who feels more Indian than faithful to Sonia, stand up and speak the truth? Who said, “Go after Hindu terrorists”? Who insisted on putting pressure on BJP governments in Karnataka or Orissa for so-called persecution of Christians, when Christians have always practised their faith in total freedom here, while their missionaries are converting hundreds of thousands of innocent tribals and Dalits with the billions of dollars given by gullible westerners? Who said, “Go soft on Islamic terrorism”? Who wants to do away with India’s nuclear deterrence in the face of Pakistani and Chinese nuclear threats, by pushing at all costs the one sided Indo-US nuclear deal, which makes no secret of its intention to denuclearise India militarily? I am sure Sonia Gandhi has good qualities: she probably was a good wife to Rajiv, a good daughter in law to Indira and by all accounts, she is a good mother to her children. One also hears first-hand reports about her concern for smaller people, her dignity in the suffering that befell her when her husband was blown to pieces, and her courtesy with visitors.

Nevertheless, she is a danger to India.

Her very presence, both physical and occult, open the doors to forces inimical to India. Even Indian Christians should understand that she is not a gift to them: her presence at the top has emboldened fanatics like John Dayal or Valson Thampu, who practise an orthodox Christianity prevalent in the West in the early 20th century, but no longer, to radicalise their flock. Indian Christians should recognise that they have a much better deal here than Christians or Hindus have in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia or Saudi Arabia.

Under Sonia’s rule, Indian Muslims, too, have been used as electoral pawns. They have been encouraged to shun the Sufi streak, a blend of the best of Islam and Vedanta, for a hard-line Sunni brand imported from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

For the good of India, her civilisation, her immense spirituality and culture, Sonia Gandhi has to go and a government that thinks Indian, breathes nationalism and will protect its citizens must be voted to power.

http://francoisgautier.wordpress.com/
http://sites.google.com/site/hindunow/mumbai-s-9-11--islamist-jehadi-terror
http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/print.aspx?artid=LNnjswClsuc=

http://www.india-forum.com/indian_politics/200.html Disband Congress, said Gandhi. Act on the guidance 2 Oct. 2008

Tibet: How trustworthy is China? -- B. Raman

2008-11-24T18:10:00.001-08:00

Tibet: How Trustworthy is China?

B.Raman, C3S Paper No.231 dated November 24, 2008

(To be read in continuation of my article of November 3,2008, titled TIBET: ‘STATUS QUO PLUS’ AS AN OPTION? available at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers30/paper2913.html )

How trustworthy is China on Tibet? Do the words, promises and commitments of its leaders have any value? What are the options available to the Tibetan people in dealing with an economic power, which the international community is not prepared to displease because of the perceived dependence on Chinese co-operation for re-stabilising the global economy? Are the Tibetan people condemned to extinction, with neither India nor the West prepared to support their cause for autonomy? What after the Dalai Lama? Will his death also mean the death of the Tibetan cause?

2. These were the questions and concerns that were uppermost in the minds of 560 prominent Tibetan personalities from the Tibetan diaspora in India and the rest of the world, who participated in a Special General Meeting convened by His Holiness the Dalai Lama at Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh ” to hold an extensive discussion and debate with regard to the Tibetan cause in the light of recent emergency events in Tibet and the international scenario.”

3. His Holiness himself did not attend the meeting, which was held from November 17 to 22,2008.The meeting was held against the background of the ruthless crushing of the uprising in the Tibetan majority areas of China in March and April last by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the failure of the resumed dialogue between the Chinese authorities and the representatives of His Holiness to find a way forward for meeting the aspirations of the Tibetan people. The Chinese had agreed to the resumption of the dialogue earlier stalled by them under international pressure after the uprising. The two meetings held in China by visiting representatives of His Holiness made it apparent that the Chinese were merely buying time in order to prevent a boycott of the Olympics by world leaders.

4. Hopes that after the Olympics, the Chinese leaders would adopt a softer line on the future of Tibet have been belied. There was one meeting before the Olympics and one after the Olympics. The meeting held after the Olympics ( 8th round from October 30 to November 5, 2008) made it painfully clear that the Chinese stance has further hardened. During the seventh round of talks in Beijing on July 1 and 2, 2008, the Vice Chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and the Minister of the Central United Front Work Department, Mr. Du Qinglin, invited suggestions from His Holiness for the stability and development of Tibet. The Executive Vice Minister of the Central United Front Work Department, Mr. Zhu Weiqun, further said they would like to hear the views of the Dalai Lama’s representatives on the degree or form of autonomy they were seeking as well as on all aspects of regional autonomy within the scope of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In response to the Chinese request, the Dalai Lama’s team, which, as before, consisted of Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari and Kelsang Gyaltsen submitted to their Chinese interlocutors during the 8th round a Memorandum outlining the position of His Holiness on the autonomy issue. To their surprise, the Chinese contemptuously rejected the Memo and refused to discuss the issue of autonomy. A summary of the Memo as released by the Tibetan delegation is annexed.

5.The hardening of the Chinese stance after the Olympics can be attributed to the following reasons:

Firstly, the manner in which France and other Western countries eased their pressure on the human rights issue after the Chinese people threatened to boycott Western goods made Beijing realise the power of the economic card which it now wields against the West.
Secondly, the economic melt-down in the West and its anxiety to secure Chinese co-operation and assistance for re-stabilising the global economy made it even more unlikely than in the past that the West would extend any concrete support to the Tibetan cause apart from pro forma lip sympathy.
Thirdly, speculation about health problems faced by the Dalai Lama made them feel that it was only a question of time before he disappeared from the scene and that once he is dead they can have a Dalai Lama of their choice nominated and sound the death-knell of the Tibetan cause.
6. The Tibetans have been shocked by the Chinese repudiation of a commiment made by Deng Xiao-ping on March 12,1979, that “apart from independence, all other issues can be discussed.” He gave this solemn assurance during a meeting with Kasur Gyalo Thondup, the elder brother of His Holiness. While replying to a Japanese correspondent in Beijing on November 10,2008, Zhu Weiqun asserted that Deng had never made such a statement. He said: “ It is a falsehood made by Gyari and is a complete distortion of Deng Xiaoping’s statement.”
7. Taken aback by this denial which came on the eve of the Special General meeting, Gyalo Thondup addressed the international media, which had assembled at Dharamsala, on November 19,2008, to give his version. To quote him: “I am shocked to hear such a statement from the Chinese officials because it was myself to whom the late paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping, said, “except independence all other issues can be settled through discussions,”.Deng Xiaoping is no longer with us today. But to put the record straight I would like to clarify in front of international media that during my first visit to China in 1979 I met the paramount leader Deng Xiaoping on 12 March 1979. He told me “except independence all other issues can be settled through discussions.”

8. Juchen Thubten Namgyal, who also addressed the press conference, said: “I am totally surprised to learn that Mr Zhu Weiqun recently denied Deng Xiaoping’s statement. As a member of the first Tibetan exploratory mission, we met with Vice-premier Yang Jireng, who was also the head of the Central United Front Work Department and Nationality Affairs Commission and others on 29 April 1982. I sought confirmation from Yang Jireng whether Deng Xiaoping had made such a statement. He did not deny this fact.”

9. According to the advisers of His Holiness,on March 1,1979, Ulanfu, Minister for Nationality Affairs Commission, told Gyalo Thondup: “ The Dalai Lama and the Tibetans in exile are welcome to return to their home and contribute towards the development and progress of the nation. Suitable arrangements could be made for everyone upon their return. The Dalai Lama had not made contacts with the Soviet Union. Therefore, apart from independence, we can solve any problem.”

10. The advisers of His Holiness pointed out that a record of statements made by former Chinese leaders and official documents authenticated the statement made by Deng and Ulanfu. In an interview with the Xinhua News agency on May 19,1991, China’s then Premier Li Peng said: “All matters except Tibetan independence could be discussed”. His statement was later emphasised in a newsletter released by the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Washington DC, regarding the “Questions concerning negotiations between the Central Government of China and the Dalai Lama.”

11. According to the advisers, during a state visit to China from May 18 to 23, 1992, the then Indian President R Venkataraman was told by Premier Li Peng that “ … we are willing to talk to him about anything except the issue of the so-called independence of Tibet.” A White Paper released by the Information office of the State Council of the PRC in September 1992 reiterated that “all matters except Tibetan independence can be discussed”.

12. Gyalo Thondup told the media: “Some hardliner communist officials, who hold high up position in the Chinese Government, treat Tibet as a personal belonging in their pocket and deliberately intend to scuttle the dialogue process to resolve the issue of Tibet.
The Tibetan people will continue to demand their legitimate and reasonable rights as given to other minority nationalities entitled in the constitution of the People’s Republic of China.The legitimate rights of Tibetans are rights to freedom, thinking, speech, religion, travel, to promote and preserve Tibet’s culture. We must not lose faith and plead to the Chinese Government for our legitimate rights.As a Tibetan, I’m convinced that we must all live together. Therefore it is very important for the Tibetan people not to lose hope and to keep a good relationship with people in China. We are sandwiched between China and India, both very important countries. I was always critical with the Chinese face to face in Beijing, and now I’m desperate, that’s why I told people in the Chinese Embassy in Delhi that there’s no choice [but to talk]. We must face the reality that we have to deal with China. The people of China will eventually realize that what we are asking is legitimate.”

13.A commentary on Tibet disseminated by the official Xinhua news agency on November 21,2008, coinciding with the meeting, said: ” Its purpose is to set up a ‘half independent’ or ‘covertly independent’ political entity controlled by the Dalai clique on one quarter of the Chinese territory.And when conditions are ripe, they will seek to realise ‘complete Tibet independence’.” Qin Gang, a spokesman of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, was quoted as saying as follows: “Our position on Tibet is clear and resolute. Any attempt to separate Tibet from China is doomed to fail.The so-called Tibetan government-in-exile is not recognised by any government in the world.”

14. In the light of the Chinese repudiation of their past commitments and statements, the Special General Meeting discussed whether any useful purpose would be served by continuing with the dialogue with the Chinese and whether the time had not come to call off the dialogue with the Chinese officials, abandon the Middle Path of autonomy so far followed and start a full-fledged struggle for independence. This view is particularly shared by the younger Tibetans belonging to the Tibetan Youth Congress. A question posed by many during the discussions was: When the Chinese are not even prepared to discuss autonomy, what is the point in continuing the dialogue with them?

15. There was unanimity against accepting the status quo. The meeting reiterated its faith in the continuing leadership of His Holiness and decided to continue with the present objective of a Middle Path. It also stressed that the Tibetans would continue to adhere to non-violence. The relevant portions from the final summary of conclusions of the meeting are given below:

(a). “The Central Tibetan Administration is the sole and legitimate representative of the Tibetans in and outside Tibet, which the CTA has inherited from many centuries. This historical experience of the Tibetan people proves the baselessness of the recent rhetoric and propaganda of the Chinese Government, which says that His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Central Tibetan Administration have no right to represent Tibet and the Tibetan people. The Tibetans in and outside Tibet strongly oppose such remarks.”

(b).”Based on the suggestions received to this Special General Meeting from in and outside Tibet and after frank and candid discussions held by the delegates in regard to the future policy of Tibet, it came to an unanimous decision to straightly follow the guidance of His Holiness the Dalai Lama based on the prevailing situation from time to time. Majority decision was to continue the policy of Middle-Way-Approach. Besides that, looking at the Chinese Government’s behavior in the past, views to stop sending envoys and to pursue complete independence or self-determination if no result comes out in the near future, were also strongly expressed.”

(c).”The Middle-Way-Approach, independence or self-determination, whatever is pursued in the Tibetan struggle, we shall not deviate from the path of non-violence to achieve our aims.”

(d).”His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Central Tibetan Administration in an effort to resolve the Sino-Tibetan problem, by adopting the Middle-Way-Approach, a memorandum on genuine autonomy for the Tibetan people, within the framework of the constitution of the PRC, was recently presented to the Chinese Government. Leave alone giving positive response, the PRC Government rejected every single clause of the memorandum and accused the CTA of seeking independence, semi-independence or independence in disguised form. Therefore, the dialogue process did not produce any substantive result to the Sino-Tibetan problem and the whole responsibility of this failure is solely with the PRC government.”

(e). “Because the PRC had alleged that they have evidence to prove that the recent unrest in Tibet had been ‘triggered, instigated, planned and orchestrated’ by the ‘Dalai clique’, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Central Tibetan Administration insisted that an international investigating body be allowed to travel to Tibet to verify the PRC’s claims. And that delegates from China can also visit Dharamsala to investigate and validate their allegation. However, the PRC did not have the gumption to accept both these suggestions. Moreover, the PRC could not even bring forth one single evidence in support of their claims before the world audience. This has clearly pointed to the fact that demonstrations and protests in Tibet since March this year are because of the repressive policies adopted by the PRC towards Tibet and Tibetans since its occupation. Therefore, the PRC government should accept responsibilities for their mistakes.”

(f).”This is to reiterate, through this Special General Meeting, that the cause of the Tibetan struggle is a struggle for the rights of Tibetans. It is a struggle against the wrong policies of the PRC towards Tibet and Tibetans. The Tibetan struggle is in no way against the Chinese people, as it is being portrayed by the PRC.”

(g).”In order to destroy Tibetan Buddhism, the PRC instituted new regulations on measures for the recognition of incarnate lamas or ‘Living Buddhas’. We totally oppose any interference by a Government which is avowedly atheist in spiritual affairs for political advantage. We strongly oppose the ‘Patriotic Education’ campaign that is being increasingly forced down in various monasteries in Tibet.”

16. It is not clear whether His Holiness would take the initiative for another round of talks with the Chinese. The position seems to be that while the doors are open for more talks, the initiative has to come from the Chinese. It needs to be noted that the post-Olympics hardening of the Chinese stand on Tibet has been accompanied by what seems to be a post-Olympics hardening of the Chinese position on the Sino-Indian border talks during which the Chinese continue to insist on the transfer of at least Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh to China. It is understood that the Dalai Lama proposes to hold a meeting of the international well-wishers of the Tibetan cause to brief them on the deliberations of the Special General Meeting, which was restricted to Tibetans and seek their views.

(The writer, Mr B.Raman, is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )

ANNEXURE

SUMMARY OF THE MEMORANDUM

The Constitution of the PRC contains fundamental principles on autonomy and self-government whose objectives are compatible with the needs and aspirations of the Tibetans. Regional national autonomy is aimed at opposing both the oppression and the separation of nationalities by rejecting both Han chauvinism and local nationalism. It is intended to ensure the protection of the culture and the identity of minority nationalities by empowering them to become masters of their own affairs.

To a very considerable extent Tibetan needs can be met within the constitutional principles on autonomy. On several points, the Constitution gives significant discretionary powers to state organs in decision-making and on the operation of the system of autonomy. These discretionary powers can be exercised to facilitate genuine autonomy for Tibetans in ways that would respond to the uniqueness of the Tibetan situation. Given good will on both sides, outstanding problems can be resolved within the constitutional principles on autonomy. In this way national unity and stability and harmonious relations between the Tibetan and other nationalities will be established.

TIBETAN ASPIRATIONS

Tibetans have a rich and distinct history, culture and spiritual tradition all of which form valuable parts of the heritage of humanity. Not only do Tibetans wish to preserve their own heritage, which they cherish, but equally they wish to further develop their culture and spiritual life and knowledge in ways that are particularly suited to the needs and conditions of humanity in the 21st century.

As a part of the multi-national state of the PRC, Tibetans can benefit greatly from the rapid economic and scientific development the country is experiencing. While wanting to actively participate and contribute to this development, we want to ensure that this happens without the people losing their Tibetan identity, culture and core values and without putting the distinct and fragile environment of the Tibetan plateau, to which Tibetans are indigenous, at risk.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s commitment to seek a solution for the Tibetan people within the PRC is clear and unambiguous. This position is in full compliance and agreement with paramount leader Deng Xiaoping’s statement in which he emphasised that except for independence all other issues could be resolved through dialogue. Whereas, we are committed, therefore, to fully respect the territorial integrity of the PRC, we expect the Central Government to recognise and fully respect the integrity of the Tibetan nationality and its right to exercise genuine autonomy within the PRC. We believe that this is the basis for resolving the differences between us and promoting unity, stability and harmony among nationalities.

BASIC NEEDS OF TIBETANS

Subject Matters of Self-government
1) Language
2) Culture
3) Religion
4) Education
5) Environmental Protection
6) Utilisation of Natural Resources
7) Economic Development and Trade
Public health
9) Public Security
10) Regulation on population migration
11) Cultural, educational and religious exchanges with other countries

RESPECT FOR THE INTEGRITY OF THE TIBETAN NATIONALITY

Tibetans belong to one minority nationality regardless of the current administrative divisions. The integrity of the Tibetan nationality must be respected. That is the spirit, the intent and the principle underlying the constitutional concept of national regional autonomy as well as the principle of equality of nationalities.

There is no dispute about the fact that Tibetans share the same language, culture, spiritual tradition, core values and customs, that they belong to the same ethnic group and that they have a strong sense of common identity. Tibetans share a common history and despite periods of political or administrative divisions, Tibetans continuously remained united by their religion, culture, education, language, way of life and by their unique high plateau environment.

The Tibetan nationality lives in one contiguous area on the Tibetan plateau, which they have inhabited for millennia and to which they are therefore indigenous. For purposes of the constitutional principles of national regional autonomy Tibetans in the PRC in fact live as a single nationality all over the Tibetan plateau.

In order for the Tibetan nationality to develop and flourish with its distinct identity, culture and spiritual tradition through the exercise of self-government on the above mentioned basic Tibetan needs, the entire community, comprising all the areas currently designated by the PRC as Tibetan autonomous areas, should be under one single administrative entity. The current administrative divisions, by which Tibetan communities are ruled and administered under different provinces and regions of the PRC, foments fragmentation, promotes unequal development, and weakens the ability of the Tibetan nationality to protect and promote its common cultural, spiritual and ethnic identity. Rather than respecting the integrity of the nationality, this policy promotes its fragmentation and disregards the spirit of autonomy.

THE NATURE AND STRUCTURE OF THE AUTONOMY

The exercise of genuine autonomy would include the right of Tibetans to create their own regional government and government institutions and processes that are best suited to their needs and characteristics. It would require that the People’s Congress of the autonomous region have the power to legislate on all matters within the competencies of the region and that other organs of the autonomous government have the power to execute and administer decisions autonomously. Autonomy also entails representation and meaningful participation in national decision-making in the Central Government. Processes for effective consultation and close cooperation or joint decision-making between the Central Government and the regional government on areas of common interest also need to be in place for the autonomy to be effective.

A crucial element of genuine autonomy is the guarantee the Constitution or other laws provide that powers and responsibilities allocated to the autonomous region cannot be unilaterally abrogated or changed. This means that neither the Central Government nor the autonomous region’s government should be able, without the consent of the other, to change the basic features of the autonomy.

Implementation of genuine autonomy, for example, requires clear divisions of powers and responsibilities between the Central Government and the government of the autonomous region with respect to subject matter competency. Currently there is no such clarity and the scope of legislative powers of autonomous regions is both uncertain and severely restricted. Thus, whereas the Constitution intends to recognise the special need for autonomous regions to legislate on many matters that affect them, the requirements of Article 116 for prior approval at the highest level of the Central Government - by the Standing Committee of National People’s Congress (NPC) - inhibit the implementation of this principle of autonomy. In reality, it is only autonomous regional congresses that expressly require such approval, while the congresses of ordinary (not autonomous) provinces of the PRC do not need prior permission and merely report the passage of regulations to the Standing Committee of the NPC “for the record” (Article 100).

The exercise of autonomy is further subject to a considerable number of laws and regulations, according to Article 115 of the Constitution. Certain laws effectively restrict the autonomy of the autonomous region, while others are not always consistent with one another. The result is that the exact scope of the autonomy is unclear and is not fixed, since it is unilaterally changed with the enactment of laws and regulations at higher levels of the state, and even by changes in policy. There is also no adequate process for consultation or for settling differences that arise between the organs of the Central Government and of the regional government with respect to the scope and exercise of autonomy. In practice, the resulting uncertainty limits the initiative of regional authorities and impedes the exercise of genuine autonomy by Tibetans today.

http://www.c3sindia.org/tibet/422

Arrest demanded of ATS officers for human rights violation: VHP

2008-11-21T01:58:00.000-08:00

Lawyers' body to provide legal help to Malegaon accused

PTI | November 21, 2008 | 15:30 IST
Throwing its weight behind the Malegaon blast accused, including sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, a group of advocates in Sonepat have set up a 17-member lawyers committee to provide legal assistance to them.

The Hindu Unification Movement Legal and Welfare Association will provide legal assistance to the sadhvi and other accused, according to Bhupeshwar Dayal Gaur, a founder-member of the association.

He said the Anti-Terrorist Squad of the Maharashtra police, which is conducting a probe into the September 29 blast, has already collected information about the association and he, too, was interrogated in Delhi recently.

Dayal alleged that he was pressurised by the ATS officials to not provide any legal assistance to Pragya and other accused.

He said that the members of the association were committed to providing free legal assistance to any Hindu who was harassed by police and falsely implicated in the criminal cases.

http://www.rediff.com///news/2008/nov/21atsmale-lawyers-body-to-provide-legal-help-to-malegaon-accused.htm

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: TCG Menon
Date: Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 12:26 PM
Subject: A Study of Newspaper Reports on the Malegaon Blasts.
To: advanilk@sansad.nic.in, rajnath@sansad.nic.in, murli@sansad.nic.in, jaswant@sansad.nic.in, swamy39@gmail.com, swaraj@sansad.nic.in, ravis@sansad.nic.in, ysinha@sansad.nic.in, ashok.vhp@gmail.com, vkmalhotra_bjp@yahoo.co.in, cm@gujaratindia.com, drtogadiya@gmail.com

A study of newspaper reports on the Malegaon Bomb blast.

When ever there is a bomb blast, the Govt used to come out with a
theory of the ISI hand behind the blast. But in this particular
case it is directed to Hindu activists and the Indian Army. After
the Malegaon blast, many other bomb blasts took place in India. The
recent blasts in Assam are several times powerful and a number of
lives were lost. Recently two infiltrators had been shot dead by the
security personnel in Jammu & Kashmir. After searching their dead
bodies, it was revealed that they were from Kerala. The Kerala ATS
have arrested a number of persons recently in connection with the
above- reported incident The English TV news channels and the news
papers have not been giving any importance to these cases. The Kerala
ATS is not revealing any details and the media is also not interested
to publicize it. The Times Of India is using their news paper and TV
channel to spear- head the attack on Hindutva and publicize the day
to day 'progress' of the 'investigation' into the Malegaon bomb blast
case since the arrest of Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur.

The Sadhvi has been arrested as the motor cycle used for planting
the bomb is registered in her name. This has been found from the last
four digits (0303) of the frame number of the motor cycle. It is also
reported that the remaining numbers are not legible. It seems
somebody purposely tried to disfigure the number plate beyond
recognition. These are punched numbers and they can be wiped out
easily if anyone wants to do so. In most of the cases the illegibility
is due to rusting/corrosion. Perhaps a few numbers got disfigured
due to the impact of the blast . Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur has
clearly stated in her affidavit that she had sold her motor cycle to
one Sunil Joshi of MP, with proper records. Particular details of the
affidavit is given below:-
. "I say that in Surat during the course of my interrogation with Mr
Sawant, I mentioned to him that the LML Freedom two wheeler once owned
by me was subsequently sold to one Sunil Joshi of Madhya Pradesh way
back in October, 2004 and that Mr Joshi had paid me Rs 24,000/- for
the same. I had also signed the necessary TT Form for RTO transfer in
October, 2004 itself. I categorically asserted to Mr Sawant that since
October, 2004 I had no control over the vehicle or its movements and
usage.

There is a report published in Times of India dt Nov 5th, which is
given below:-
"that Sunil Joshi to whom Sadhvi Pragya had given her LML Freedom
motor cycle that was subsequently used in the Malegaon blast, was
killed by suspected SIMI activist at Dewas in Madhya Pradesh in
December last year. The vehicle subsequently passed on to Ramji, who
used this it to trigger the attack in the weavers town last month."

ATS reported that Ramji is absconding. In that case, what about his
identity. Why is the ATS not publishing his photo or giving other
details of the person in the papers? Who gave the motor bike to him,
and when? Unless he is an imaginary figure, he will have a family,
relatives and friends. Since no such details have come out, in all
probability this Ramji is an imaginary character used to implicate
the arrested Army officers & Hindu spiritual leaders. It seems 'some
one' has seen the Sadhvi talking to Ramji. She was under illegal
detention, and then arrested and kept under police custody more than
13 days before producing her in the court As per the rule a woman
should not be arrested or kept under custody without women police. In
this case all rules have been violated.

In the case of Sister Abhaya murder case, recently CBI have arrested
two priests and a nun. After producing the accused before the Judicial
Magistrate and getting permission from the court they remanded them
for 14 days custody. The Court heard the argument of the Advocates
appearing for the accused. This did not happen in the Malegaon Blast
case, where Hindus were arrested and kept under illegal detention.
Why is it so? Is the Law different for Hindu accused persons?

I am quoting below what CBI said when the reporters asked many
questions. "Sharing the dias with DIG Kanthaswamy, SP Rajeevakshan and
DySP Nandakumar Nair, the joint director did not answer any queries
in detail or give details of the involvement of each of the accused in
Abhaya's killing. ""Wait for a month, we will give you all the
details," he repeated.
Whereas Mumbai ATS has been giving day to day report about Malegaon blast.
They are trying to implicate Lt Col Shri kant Purohit in all the
blasts which took place in this country, of which ATS have not got
any clue. First they told Lt Col Purohit got the RDX from Army. Army
is not a production unit to keep stock of RDX or any other
ingredients of the bomb.
"In Bengaluru, last week, the Army man categorically denied having
taken RDX from any source during his J&K stint. Questions in this
regard were repeated to him but each time he strongly denied that he
had any links to the RDX. He was cooperative and answered with
clarity, said sources.
Sources in the Army also said a Military Intelligence officer has no
access to explosives. "He is in mufti and his brief is to collect
intelligence on insurgency and anti-national activities. Also, the
Army does not use or store RDX," an official source said.

I am also furnishing below a few published reports -
" Purohit used to collect money for his activities and financial
transactions were through banks and hawala agencies. Police suspect
that some money was routed through Bangladesh, where Abhinav Bharat
sympathizers are active."

'Purohit fits into the description of bomb trainer.'

'The Maharastra police are now examining whether Lt Col Shrikant
Prasad Purohit arrested in connection with Malegaon blast was
involved in blasts in Parbhani, Jalna and Purna, as Sanjay Chaudhari
an accused in April 2006 Nanded blast case has referred to a person
called Mithun Chakravarthy. During narco- analysis test Chaudhari
said Chakravarthy who trained Nandel blast accused Himanshu
Vyankatesh Panse in bomb – making , had a beard, was tall and stoutly
built." The training programe was held in Shivagad in Pune , Purohit
's home town.
There are so many Army officers and others having beard, and are tall
and stout. If the ATS wanted to clarify this doubt, why did they not
conduct the identification parade before coming out with a story?
Their only aim is to damage the image of a patriotic Army officer.
Before coming out with such report they should have verified where he
was at the time of the bomb blast. Moreover, narco-analysis test is
not a valid proof in the court of law. ATS could not get any proof
after completing forensic test , psychological profile test and
polygraph test carried out on the Sadhvi and Purohit.

Despite the absence of any evidence to frame the accused, the ATS
told the press that Purohit is the master mind of Samjhauta Express
train blast. This was contradictory to the revelation from the
Forensic test that no RDX was used in the above bomb blast. When this
attempt also failed, ATS came up with a report that Purohit, has
arranged a revolver licence for his friend, Milind Datye from the
army quota with forged documents. The Pune ATS told the court they
received a complaint about this from Datye himself when he got
suspicion about the licence after Purohit's arrest in the blast.
Sudhakar Chaturvedi, national co-ordinator for Abhinav Bharat, was
arrested by the Matunga police on Nov 4 on charges of carrying an
illegal revolver and possessing a fake identity card of the Deolali
military cantonment.

In brief what do we understand from these reports?

This is a conspiracy by unscrupulous, anti- national elements to
damage the image of the Hindu organizations and Indian Army, by
implicating Hindu spiritual leaders and Army officers. Otherwise why
has the ATS not done any further investigation on how the motor cycle
got into the hands of one Ramji before arresting Sadhvi Pragya?
There is every possibility the conspirators killed Sunil Joshi to
implicate Sadhvi Pragya. How come ATS is silent on the reason for
killing Sunil Joshi? For investigating the above details, Ramji's
presence is not required. Sadhvi Pragya is said to be a great orator
. She must be having so many devotees . There is no rule that Army
people cannot keep in touch with any spiritual leader. The arrested
Major Ramesh Upadhyay(retd) said that he was very much impressed with
Sadhvi Pragya's speech. When they failed to establish any link with
RDX used in explosion, they are implicating the Army officer with
forgery of the documents and also questioning the working of Army
establishments. The last two reports are clearly indicating this.
Some how the Govt wants keep alive the case till the next general
election to please the 'minorities'. The imposition of the Maharashtra
Control of Organized Crime Act(MCOCA)on the accused persons without
any solid evidence, is proof enough of the Govt's active participation
in this conspiracy, which seems to have the involvement of the ISI
also.

T.C.Govindan,
Chennai.

Arrest demanded of ATS officers for human rights violation: VHP

VHP demands arrest of ATS officers for human rights violation

Express News Service Posted: Nov 19, 2008 at 0155 hrs

Ahmedabad, November 18 The Vishwa Hindu Parishad in Gujarat on Tuesday demanded the arrest of the Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) officers interrogating Sadhvi Pragya Singh and eight other people in connection with the Malegaon blast, for “human rights violations.”

VHP General Secretary Praveen Togadia said in a statement that the ATS was torturing the sadhu-sadhvis and targeting Hindu religion. He also urged the judiciary to protect the human rights of all citizens.

The statement said that one of the Malegoan blast accused had told the Nasik court on November 17 that he was not allowed to meet either his lawyer or his family. Besides, the ATS was preventing three letters that he had written, to be sent out.
The statement added that Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur had told the court that she was tortured by the police.

Togadia threatened a nationwide stir if the Maharashtra government failed to address the human rights concerns of the accused.

http://www.expressindia.com/story_print.php?storyId=387666

NSA to brief Advani on Malegaon blast probe
21 Nov 2008, 0904 hrs IST, TIMES NEWS NETWORK & AGENCIES

NEW DELHI: Two days after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called up BJP leader L K Advani in regard to his allegations about torture of Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, a key accused in the Malegaon blast case, National Security Advisor M K Naryanan will meet the BJP leader on Friday to discuss the ongoing ATS probe. ( Watch )

Intelligence Bureau Chief P C Haldar will also be present at the meeting, highly placed BJP sources said.

According to BJP sources, Advani forcefully took up the sadhvi's case on Tuesday when the PM called him up to offer to share details of the investigations into the Malegaon blast leading to the arrests of the sadhvi and Lt Colonel Shrikant Purohit.

"Have you gone through the affidavit filed by Pragya in the Nashik court where she has given details of how she was tortured and was kept in illegal detention for 16 days? I was outraged when I read the account and I am sure that you would feel the same," Advani is learnt to have told the PM.

The Leader of Opposition also strongly objected to the Malegaon case being called a case of Hindu terror.

"Before that, I had only objected to the expression `Hindu terror' for the Malegaon blast. My point was simple, we never used descriptions like Muslim terror or Sikh terror. Then why are we describing the Malegaon case as an act of Hindu terror," Advani is learnt to have told the PM, according to sources close to Advani.

Advani also used the conversation to rebut any suggestion that the BJP had reversed its stand on terrorism because of the "faith" of Malegaon suspects. "A terrorist is a terrorist. He has no religion. He is a criminal and should be treated as one," he told the PM.

Singh had called Advani just after he issued a strongly-worded statement attacking the "barbaric treatment" of the sadhvi by Maharashtra's anti-terrorism squad and against the backdrop BJP ratcheting up its protest against Malegaon arrests.

Singh had offered to send national security advisor M K Narayanan over to Advani to explain the details of the case, in what is seen as reflecting recognition on the government's part of the fallout that BJP's protests can have for the investigations into Malegaon and other suspected cases of `Hindu terror'.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-3739632,prtpage-1.cms

Stavan Desai, Hindustan Times
Email Author
Mumbai, November 21, 2008
First Published: 00:26 IST(21/11/2008)
Last Updated: 09:57 IST(21/11/2008)
Hindu terror targets RSS
Members of Hindu right-wing organisation Abhinav Bharat, accused of carrying out the Malegaon blast, plotted to kill senior Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leaders who they thought weren’t doing enough for Hindutva, show investigation reports accessed exclusively by Hindustan Times.
At a time when the Bharatiya Janata Party has declared its support for the accused, who are being investigated by the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), the probe report reveals a plan to kill RSS general secretary Mohan Bhagwat and senior leader Indraeesh, who manages the Rashtriya Muslim Manch, which attracts Muslims with a “nationalistic outlook”. The report is with the state Home Department, which has shared it with the Union Home Ministry and central intelligence agencies.
Data found on the laptop of Dayanand Pandey, alias Shankaracharya Sudhakar Dwivedi, who was arrested in Lucknow on November 12, verifies the report. Experts at the Forensic Science Laboratory in Kalina are examining the laptop.
The planned killings, the report said, were masterminded by S. Apte, a 70-year-old Pune-based RSS worker who was unhappy with the organisation’s functioning, along with Pandey, Major (retd) Ramesh Upadhyay and a leading Delhi-based doctor identified only as ‘Dr Singh’.
The ATS found that Apte and Pandey, the son of a retired sub-inspector of the Uttar Pradesh police, approached Lieutenant-Colonel Prasad Purohit for help in executing the plan. Apte also paid him Rs 10 lakh, said the report.
Purohit introduced a close aide, whose identity HT has withheld so as not to hinder investigations, to Apte to assist him.
In August, when the group learnt that Bhagwat and Indraeesh would be visiting Pune, “Apte showed [Purohit’s aide] around the various spots [suitable for the killings] in Pune” and they zeroed in on a couple.
Investigations also showed that “[Pandey] had arranged for a weapon”, a 9 mm foreign-made pistol, which was delivered to one of his followers “in Faridabad” when he and Apte first hatched the plot.
The ATS is investigating Apte, who is currently in Pune.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print.aspx?Id=a3ca5b7b-8161-4fc0-a935-ed0de020cc7b

Saffron unity: BJP, RSS, VHP join hands for elections
Divyamanu Chaudhry
CNN-IBN

FOR OR AGAINST: It is still not clear if LK Advani is in favour of Sadhvi or not.

New Delhi: Adversity seems to have brought the squabbling cousins in the Parivar together. The Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) president Rajnath Singh is sharing dias with the rabble rousing sadhus and sants (priests).

In Panipat, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) also known as the Sangh made it clear that it will make allegations of ‘Hindu terror’ an election issue. The RSS is planning an Amarnath type agitation on the Malegaon blasts investigations and the BJP will be lending support to it.

“There is a strong undercurrent and we need to mobilize especially after the Malegaon episode,” says RSS spokesperson Ram Madhav.

But it is still not clear if the BJP united on its support to the movement. The party president Rajnath Singh has been the most vociferous and visible face in support of the Sadhvi while National Democratic Alliance (NDA)’s prime ministerial candidate LK Advani for once seems to be playing second fiddle.

“If someone is not sharing the dias it doesn’t make him any less Hindu,’ says BJP spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy.
But the NDA allies don’t seem to be following them. It is an open secret that some like the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) and Bharitya Janata Dal (BJD) don’t seem toeing the RSS line on this issue. They are restless and disassociating themselves from the campaign.

“Our main concern is the national agenda for governance and that is being followed by all in the NDA,” says BJP leader BJ Pande.

This open show of unity by the BJP, RSS and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) especially before the elections is a big thumbs up for the saffron brigade. After all the Ram Janmabhoomi movement played a big role in the party's success in the 1990's, now what really needs to be seen is that how much of all this actually translates into votes in the impending elections.

http://ibnlive.in.com/printpage.php?id=78372§ion_id=3

NO SMALL DIFFERENCE
- Hindu vigilante versus jihadi terrorist
Mukul Kesavan (Kolkata, The Telegraph, 20 Nov. 2008)
After the Bharatiya Janata Party’s denunciation of the authorities at Jamia Millia Islamia University for their decision to extend legal aid to two students arrested for suspected involvement in terrorist conspiracy, it is good to see the party belatedly embrace that civilized republican principle, the presumption of innocence. The arrest of Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and Lieutenant Colonel Shrikant Purohit for their alleged involvement in the explosions in Malegaon has, after some initial hesitation, spurred the party to affirm their innocence and offer the sadhvi the best legal representation available in the country. The anti-terrorist squad and its investigations of Thakur and Purohit for terrorist activity have been condemned by the spokespersons of the sangh parivar as politically motivated and unsound.
None of this is unreasonable. The accused are entitled to a fair trial and good lawyers are an indispensable part of due process; moreover, the tendency of the Indian police and its investigative agencies to feed newspapers and news channels with unreliable information and spurious breakthroughs in cases that are never resolved, leads to an understandable scepticism about their claims. The BJP is also right in taking exception to the term ‘Hindu terrorism’; even if Thakur and Purohit were to be found guilty, no connection between being Hindu and being terrorist would follow from their guilt. In the event of their conviction, the proper term for their activities would be ‘Hindutva-vaditerror’: to assimilate a large and law-abiding community to the violence of bigots would be unjust.
The BJP is also right in arguing that members of India’s armed forces should not be carelessly implicated by police agencies in something as serious as terrorism. Not because soldiers should be seen to be above the law or be privileged by it, but because the political neutrality of the army is a precious asset and charging an officer with political extremism is a serious business, not to be lightly undertaken. The Indian army is a curious institution, built on pluralist ideas that are colonial rather than republican in their provenance. But in times of sectarian violence, it is often summoned to establish order because unlike the police, it is seen as a secular, apolitical force. So if the BJP’s affirmation of Purohit’s innocence ensures a thorough investigation and a fair trial, the party will have done all Indians a favour.
Equally, L.K. Advani’s condemnation of the ‘narco’ tests administered to the sadhvi (and the colonel) is consistent with the long-held position of human rights activists that forcing suspects to endure potentially dangerous chemical injections to induce legally worthless confessions is both barbaric and illegal. ‘Brain mapping’ and ‘narco testing’ are good examples of the ways in which Indian policemen use pseudo-scientific gimcrackery as a substitute for real police work.
So on these issues, every Indian who believes in the rule of law should endorse the BJP’s criticism of the ATS. The sadhvi’s allegations that she was beaten and tortured in police custody should be taken seriously. Advani’s demand that Thakur and Purohit be investigated by a judicial probe, and not by the ATS, ought to be given fair consideration. The fact that the BJP and its allies were pleased with the rough ‘justice’ meted out to the two men shot by the police in the Batla House ‘encounter’ and subsequently wanted Jamia’s students left indefinitely in police custody, unaided by the university to which they were affiliated, doesn’t in itself invalidate the importance of human rights and due process.
The real difficulty with the sangh parivar’s defence of Pragya Singh Thakur and Shrikant Purohit lies in the reasons its spokespersons adduce for their innocence. Praveen Togadia, the chief of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, made the Hindutva-vadi case without qualifications: “No Hindu can be a terrorist,” he declared. Asked if he knew the sadhvi, he said, “I do not know Pragya Singh at all. But I know she is not a terrorist.” For Togadia, Thakur’s birth identity was all the evidence he needed to know that the allegations against her were false. He told The Hindu as much: “Hindus will not forget this. They [the police and the Congress] are committing the sin of describing a Hindu, a ‘sadhvi’, as a terrorist… I warn that there will be a political backlash and the government will be swept out.”
Chandan Mitra, MP and editor of The Pioneer, made the same point more circumspectly. “Let the courts pronounce the ‘Hindu terrorists’ guilty,” he wrote in the Economic Times, “and, if so, let the verdicts be executed. But they cannot be pilloried on the basis of specious ‘confessions’, which could well be figments of a beleaguered ATS’s shaky imagination.” Aware that this might seem inconsistent with the sangh parivar’s enthusiasm for pillorying Muslims accused of terrorist conspiracy by anti-terrorist squads elsewhere, Mitra argued that Muslims accused of terrorism were a different matter. Muslims had form in the matter of terrorist conspiracy whereas Hindus didn’t. “Many SIMI and other jihadi terror mongers have already been brought to book and are being tried in courts. The most celebrated of the lot, Afzal Guru, has been found guilty by the Supreme Court and sentenced to death.”
One SIMI member, Yasin Patel, has been successfully prosecuted under a terrorism law. Three others were recently jailed for a year, not for terrorism but for stoking communal hatred. Even if there were to be a string of successful terror prosecutions against the SIMI, are we to understand that Mitra would have the police and the public withhold the presumption of innocence from Muslims in cases of terrorist conspiracy?
This is rather like arguing that once Hindus are convicted of terrorizing and murdering Muslims during the Gujarat pogroms, or slaughtering Sikhs in the Delhi pogrom of 1984, any Hindu accused of communal killing afterwards can be legitimately treated as guilty unless proven innocent, whereas Muslims and Sikhs charged with communal violence ought to continue to be given the benefit of the doubt.
In essence, there is no difference between Mitra’s position and Togadia’s. They both believe that Hindu violence can’t be described as terror because Hindus are victims. Victims can’t be perpetrators. So even if the ATS case against Thakur and Purohit is successfully prosecuted, even if they are guilty of organizing the explosions in Malegaon, they aren’t terrorists because all they’re doing is retaliating against jihadi violence. “Even if for a moment we accept that some Hindus have indulged in copycat acts,” writes Mitra, “it must be borne in mind that the majority of Indians are shocked, outraged, angry and even vengeful because of relentless terrorist depredations. Nearly 10,000 innocent people have died at the hands of bloodthirsty jihadi terrorists over the past 15 years.
“If some people, howsoever misguided, attempt to avenge this because the state fails to provide security or succour should it come as a big surprise? This is not to justify vigilante action, but only try and explain it.”
I’m not sure what form of words would constitute a watertight justification of vigilantism, but that last paragraph comes close. Then, in a remarkable move, Mitra holds out ‘Hindu’ involvement in the Malegaon blasts as a sinister portent: “If the state does not shed its hypocrisy the alleged Malegaon plot may only be the beginning.” So from the illegitimacy of the notion of “Hindu terror” we’ve arrived at the prospect of continuous ‘Hindu’ violence if the State dares to apply to Hindus the police methods it routinely uses against Muslims.
The difference between Indians who respect the republic’s Constitution and the majoritarian Right is this: constitutional democrats speak out against the police treatment of the sadhvi and the colonel because, as citizens of this republic, this nation of laws, they deserve every protection the law has to offer. The sangh parivar demands these protections because Thakur and Purohit are Hindu. This is not a small difference: it’s the difference between a civilized nation and a sectarian country, the difference, if you like, between India and Pakistan.
mukulkesavan@hotmail.com
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081120/jsp/opinion/story_10132969.jsp

Spit-and-scoot ATS: political victimisation of an MI officer.

2008-11-19T15:10:00.000-08:00

Thursday, November 20, 2008 (Pioneer)

A Hindu Dreyfus Affair?

Ashok Malik

Has a rogue operation by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad ended up undermining a Military Intelligence network and thus severely discomfited the Army? The implications of the 'Hindu terror' fiasco could be far-reaching

Depending on political positions, the so-called 'Hindu terrorism' issue has divided the political class and analysts into two. One section believes this is a concocted case, and the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad is simply arresting people on the basis of the fact that they socially knew or called the mobile number of the previous suspect. The other argues that this is final and incontrovertible proof that a secret army of 'Hindu fascists' is bent upon destroying India.

Indeed, as one writer put it in a formerly mainstream newspaper this past week, the episode is evidence of the BJP's "specious sophistry" and inability to face up to the radicals in the Hindu Right. He gushingly contrasted this with the response of others, such as "the Deobandis -- who had earlier issued a fatwa against terror -- the Muslim clergy congregated in Hyderabad for a conference to deprive terror of religious sanction".

Truth may not be quite as neat. There is a third possibility that the whole business was an intelligence operation that went horribly wrong -- or, for some people, just perfectly right. As is now coming to be believed, did a section of the intelligence agencies, working on behalf of the Congress, seek to infiltrate the broader Hindu socio-religious leadership, exploit the anger against the Government's inability to counterjihadi terror and then comfortably frame them?

There are many gaps in the story that need to be filled. For instance, it is clear that Lt Col SP Purohit -- whom the Maharashtra ATS has accused of being the 'Hindu terror' mastermind -- was politically supportive of Right-wing political philosophy. Perhaps he knew similarly aligned and active people. There is nothing startling about this. Maharashtra's political tradition since Tilak and Ranade -- if not earlier -- has been alive to such ideas.

However, to see Lt Col Purohit's political views as disagreeable is one thing, to label him a terrorist is another. As a Military Intelligence officer, he was professionally bound to be in touch with a range of people, reputable, dubious or otherwise. Among his 'registered sources' -- sources he was in contact with, and whose identities were reported by him to his superiors in the Army -- were at least two people who have now been called 'Hindu terrorists' by the Maharashtra ATS.

When Lt Col Purohit was transferred from Deolali (a town in Nashik district), he passed on his 'registered contacts' to his successor. As such, two so-called 'Hindu terrorists' were paid informants working on behalf of the Indian Army, introduced by one officer -- who may have shared their electoral preferences -- to another -- who may not have been a political sympathiser.

Intelligence sources don't emerge from thin air. A source and an intelligence gatherer have to share social and other affinities. That is how they learn to trust each other. That is why Muslim police officers and intelligence operatives hold the key to winning the war against jihad .

As such, it was only to be expected that Lt Col Purohit would be asked to use his personal capacities to keep abreast with Hindu social currents. It is understood that he was also in contact with senior officers of the (then) Royal Nepal Army, officers who were Generals and seriously outranked him. Here again, he was using personal contacts for a professional, national purpose.

If his interaction with the Nepal Army was, however, unauthorised, it would be a serious indiscretion. That is for the Indian Army to clarify.

Here one begins treading on dangerous ground. At some point, from being the channel to Hindu activists, Lt Col Purohit became the target of a rogue intelligence operation, with the Maharashtra ATS and the Army working at cross-purposes, probably unknown to each other.

As long as the Maharashtra Police was targeting unknown civilians and little-known religious figures, and alleging they were behind small, localised bombings, the issue was serious in its ramifications but also limited in its context.

Having named Lt Col Purohit as the possible initiator of the Samjhauta Express terrorist attack in early-2007, the Maharashtra police -- despite its subsequent, ham-handed backtracking -- has taken things a trifle too far. What was a standard dirty tricks operation by a politicised police unit has now threatened to become something far, far bigger.

What the ATS has so far implied is this: Lt Col Purohit travelled across the country planning terrorist bombings, from Malegaon to Nanded, Samjhauta Express to Hyderabad's Mecca Masjid. He allegedly stole 60 kg of RDX from the Army and handed it over to a Hindu militia. While he was doing all this, his superiors noticed nothing. They did not find his behaviour out of character; most important, the Army did not miss 60 kg of RDX -- enough to blow up Parliament, Rashtrapati Bhawan, South and North Blocks and still have ammunition to spare.

If this is true, and if the Indian Army is so casual and delinquent, then far from being a stable state, India is the mother of all banana republics. If this is true, India cannot be trusted with nuclear bombs, with sophisticated weapons, perhaps even with a standing Army. It is a rogue state masquerading as a democracy. That is the upshot of the accusation being made by the Maharashtra ATS.

The next time there is a terrorist attack in India, and the Home Ministry points fingers at Pakistani or Bangladeshi involvement, Islamabad and Dhaka could retort that New Delhi had better question the Indian Army first. They could cite the expansive Press briefings of the Maharashtra ATS as corroborative material.

In the 1890s, a Jewish officer serving in the French Army was convicted of spying for Germany and sent to prison. Years later, it was revealed that he had actually been framed, that the documents used to implicate him were fabricated. The real culprit was another officer. In 1906, Alfred Dreyfus, the officer who was a victim of anti-Semitism, was exonerated and went on to serve his country in World War I.

Has modern-day India created a 'Hindu' Dreyfus?

http://dailypioneer.com/135567/A-Hindu-Dreyfus-Affair.html
Thursday, November 20, 2008 (Pioneer)

ATS runs out of ammo

TN Raghunatha | Mumbai

But needs 3 cases to book Purohit under MCOCA

Shrikant Shivde, defence counsel for key Malegaon blast accused Lt Col Prasad Purohit, on Wednesday alleged that by seeking custody in different cases, the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) was desperately trying to invoke the provisions of Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) against his client.

On a day when First Class Judicial magistrate (JFMC) GG Itkalkar remanded Purohit to police custody in a forgery and cheating case till November 21, Purohit's counsel charged that by demanding his client's police custody repeatedly, the ATS wanted to show Purohit had committed more than three offences so that it could project him as a member of an organised crime syndicate, a pre-requisite for booking a person under MCOCA.

Purohit's counsel also charged that the ATS was drumming up charges against his client. Given his exceptional credentials as a serving Army officer who had participated in many military operations, including operation Vijay and Operation Rakshak, and had killed many terrorists during his career, it was sad that the ATS was terming Purohit as an anti-national, defence counsel said.

Purohit's counsel also produced a set of commendations and a document showing that he had been invited by the ATS to deliver a lecture on terror combat techniques.

Alluding to a complaint filed by a Pune resident against Purohit that the latter had produced fake documents to help the former obtain an arms licence, Shivde said that Pune resident Shirish Date had with the help of Purohit got an arms licence way back in 2005, why did not the ATS not take action against the complainant assuming that he did not possess a valid arms licence.

Dwelling on the manner in which his client was being harassed by the investigating agencies, Shivde told mediapersons that the CBI and Haryana police had at one stage handed out deaths to Purohit.

Ahead of the production of Purohit before Pune's Shivajinagar court, there were hundreds of activists belonging to various Hindu organisations raising slogans expressing their solidarity with him.

As he was being escorted back to the ATS van after the court remanded him to police custody for two days in forgery and cheating case, the Hindu activists showered rose petals on the officer and raised slogans of ''Jai Bhavani, Jai Shivaji'' and "Purohit Tum Aage Bado Hum Saath Hain". Giving a new twist to the Malegaon blast case, Purohit on Wednesday alleged in a Pune court that he was being victimised for "political reasons" as he was in possession of information pertaining to SIMI and ISI that could embarrass some quarters.

Purohit's counsel Srikant Shivde alleged that the officer was in possession of intelligence data of a "sensitive nature" regarding SIMI and ISI operations and could even be eliminated.

Meanwhile, a Pune court remanded Abhinav Bharat activist Sameer Kulkarni, an accused in the Malegaon blast case, to police custody for a day in a case involving the alleged attack on a Christian leader in 2007.

The remand felicitated the Khadki police to question Kulkarni for a day in question with in connection with a case lodged against him in 2007 for allegedly being a part of the group that assaulted Pastor Peter David Silway of Vineyard Workers' Church.

Like in the case of Purohit, hundreds of activists belonging to Hindu organisations had turned out in a large numbers to express their solidarity with him. They raised vociferous slogans for Kulkarni.

Meanwhile, the probe into how Hindu outfits accused of terrorism had links with some Armymen brought a few business houses under the scanner of Maharashtra's ATS and Central Security agencies investigating the finances of the group allegedly responsible for Malegaon blast. Sources attached with the probe said that a religious leader from Southern Gujarat was one of those who collected funds from the business houses.

Working on the chain of events about finances of the Abhinav Bharat, a little known saffron outfit allegedly involved in the September 29 Malegaon blast that left six people dead, sources said names of some of the business houses in Maharashtra as well as Gujarat cropped up. A check was being done whether the business houses were aware about the end use of funds. "We have questioned some of them and we are working to ascertain as to how much of money had been handed over to the saffron outfit," a senior probe official said on the condition of anonymity. The names of the business houses were not divulged for security reasons, reports PTI.

http://dailypioneer.com/135690/ATS-runs-out-of-ammo.html

ATS may arrest Abhinav Bharat leader today
20 Nov 2008, 0354 hrs IST, Mateen Hafeez, TNN

MUMBAI: Sudhakar Chaturvedi, the national coordinator for the Abhinav Bharat organisation, who the police claim has admitted to his role in planning the Malegaon blast, is likely to be arrested by the Anti-Terror squad on Thursday.

Chaturvedi (37) was arrested by Matunga police on November 4 on charges of carrying a revolver without licence and possessing a fake ID of Deolali military cantonment. During narco-analysis on Tuesday in Bangalore, he told forensic experts that he had arranged several meetings of Abhinav Bharat members in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Haryana. The ATS, probing the September 29 Malegaon blast, suspects the blast was planned in these meetings.

Lt-Col Shrikant Prasad Purohit, the alleged mastermind, was on Wednesday subjected to brain mapping and polygraph test at the forensic laboratory in Kalina, Mumbai. The ATS have so far arrested 10 people including Purohit, retired Major Ramesh Upadhay, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and Mahant Dayanand Pandey for their alleged role in the Malegaon blast that killed six. The ATS has claimed that Purohit masterminded the blast and procured RDX to assemble the bomb.

"Chaturvedi has admitted that Purohit had given him the revolver and also prepared a fake ID for his entry into the Deolali military cantonment. The ATS submitted an application in Kurla court on Saturday seeking his custody in the blast case,'' said senior inspector Sunil Deshmukh of Matunga police station. Deshmukh said Chaturvedi worked for Abhinav Bharat on a monthly salary of Rs 5,000.

"Chaturvedi's basic job was to arrange meetings and inform all the members about the meeting. He used to raise funds for the organisation too,'' said Deshmukh. Police sources said Chaturvedi had visited the restricted military area in Deolali camp near Nashik several times and was in constant touch with Purohit. It is also learned that Purohit had prepared the fake ID for Chaturvedi in 2005, when he was posted at Deolali as a liaison officer.

Chaturvedi hails from Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh and migrated to Maharashtra 10 years ago. He had been staying in a rented room in a chawl at Deolali. Police said he was aware of the blast conspiracy and his arrest would lead to details of the case. Chaturvedi had also visited the Bhonsale military school in Nashik to attend a personal development camp. It was there Purohit introduced him to Major Upadhay, now retired. The Matunga police may also booked Purohit in its case of keeping illegal firearms and helping Chaturvedi in preparing the fake military ID.

Purohit is currently in the custody of ATS (Pune unit), in a case of forgery. The Sarkar Wada police station in Nashik had registered a case of forgery and cheating against Purohit last Saturday. Yeshwant Date, who lodged the complaint of forgery, told police that Purohit had submitted fake documents to get an arm license for him. Date said he didn't know then that Purohit was cheating him.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-3733665,prtpage-1.cms

'Purohit oversaw bomb-making'
20 Nov 2008, 0132 hrs IST, Pranati Mehra & Mateen Hafeez, TNN

MUMBAI: Sudhakar Chaturvedi, Abhinav Bharat national coordinator who allegedly participated in the Malegaon blast conspiracy, revealed during a narco-analysis on Tuesday that some Muslim boys had assembled the bomb that was planted in Malegaon on September 29. The blast killed six people.

Lt-Col Shrikant Purohit, Major (Retd) Ramesh Upadhyay and one Sudhakar Dange "inspected" the assembling of the bomb by the Muslim boys, Chaturvedi said during the test in Bangalore, probe officials told TOI on Wednesday.

Purohit and Upadhyay are in ATS custody and Chaturvedi is likely to be in ATS custody by Thursday. The Muslim boys took the bomb to Malegaon along with Ramji — an accused the ATS is yet to find — and planted it near the SIMI office with Ramji’s help, Chaturvedi is learnt to have said. Officials said he also said Ramji had brought the LML Freedom two-wheeler to Malegaon.

The two-wheeler was owned by Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and led the ATS to the sadhvi. The sadhvi claimed in her affidavit before the Nashik court on Monday that she sold it in 2004 to a man named Sunil Joshi for Rs 24,000. So, if the narco tests claims are to be believed, the ATS now has to establish the link between Joshi and Ramji. Purohit had said in his test on November 12 that some Malegaon Muslims had prepared the bomb and that the RDX was sourced from some Kashmiri Muslims in Pune. Chaturvedi was arrested by the Matunga police on November 4 on charges of carrying an illegal revolver and possessing a fake Deolali military cantonment identity card.

He was subjected to narco-analysis on Tuesday in Bangalore and, during the test, told forensic experts that he had arranged several meetings of Abhinav Bharat members at Indore, Panchmarhi and Jabalpur (MP), Faridabad and other places in Haryana and Gujarat as well as Deolali. The ATS, however, suspects that the blast conspiracy was hatched in these meetings.

Chaturvedi has reportedly revealed that some businessmen in Maharashtra were funding Abhinav Bharat. ‘‘But they may not have known what the money was being spent for,’’ Chaturvedi is learnt to have said. Purohit, too, was on Wednesday subjected to brain-mapping and polygraph tests at the Kalina forensic laboratory.

The ATS has so far arrested 10 persons, including Purohit, Major (Retd) Ramesh Upadhay, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and Mahant Dayanand Pandey, for their alleged role in the blast that killed six persons. The ATS has claimed that Purohit masterminded the Malegaon blast.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-3734249,prtpage-1.cms

Satyajit Joshi , Hindustan Times
Pune, November 20, 2008
First Published: 01:43 IST(20/11/2008)
Last Updated: 02:07 IST(20/11/2008)
CBI threatened to kill me: Purohit
Lt Col Srikant Prasad Purohit, one of the prime accused in the Malegaon blast case, told a Pune court on Wednesday that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Haryana police had threatened to kill him in an encounter.
Purohit was produced before Judicial Magistrate (First Class) G.G. Itkalkar here for allegedly procuring an arms licence for Pune-based Shirish Date by using fake documents. Purohit has been granted two days police custody by the court.
Contesting the forgery case, Purohit also claimed that he was falsely implicated in the Malegaon case, and anti-national elements, like the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), were pleased with his arrest.
In Delhi, a Union home ministry official, who did not wish to be identified, negated a public prosecutor’s charge in a Mumbai court that Purohit was involved in the Samjhauta Express blast. He said, “Investigations are on to gather evidence although news reports are making definitive statements on his involvement.”
Earlier, Purohit’s lawyer Srikant Shivde pointed out that Maharashtra anti-terrorists-squad (ATS) had not followed the Supreme Court guidelines while arresting him. Purohit’s family members, lawyer, friends or relatives were not informed about his arrest, his medical examination was not done and there was no entry of his arrest in any police station.
Shivde also alleged that the forgery case was fabricated as the ATS wanted more time to prepare a charge sheet under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act.
Earlier, Shirish Date alleged that he had paid Purohit Rs 20,000 to obtain a licence for his revolver. But after learning of Purohit’s involvement in the Malegaon blast case, he decided to check the authenticity of his licence and discovered that fake documents had been submitted. He then voluntarily came forward to file the complaint.
(With inputs from Political Bureau)
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print.aspx?Id=6467866b-ba67-4ba6-9165-5b4bc638501a

Malegaon probe: ‘Purohit could even be eliminated by ATS’
AgenciesPosted online: Nov 19, 2008 at 2048 hrs
Pune, November 19: : Malegaon blast accused Lt Col S P Purohit was on Wednesday remanded in two days of police custody by a magisterial court in Pune in connection with a case of alleged forgery in procuring a gun from the military.
Purohit, who was escorted to Pune from Nashik by the ATS squad, has been charged under various sections of IPC for committing forgery in procuring a gun from Jammu and Kashmir for one Milind Date in 2003.
Opposing the prosecutions' plea for a seven-day remand for further investigations into the case, Srikant Shivde, appearing for the accused told the judge that the ATS was trying to implicate him in a false case by threatening Date.
The counsel alleged that Purohit, who had a distinguished service record in the army, was being victimised for political reasons and he could even be eliminated by ATS because he was in possession of Intelligence data of a sensitive nature pertaining to the SIMI and ISI operations, which could embarrass some quarters.
Public Prosecutor A V Ausekar, appearing on behalf of ATS, argued that police custody for the accused was required to trace his connections in Jammu and Kashmir from where he managed to procure the gun for complainant Date from the military quota under the fake designation of Major Date and for giving bogus address in the application form for securing the weapon.
http://www.indianexpress.com/story_print.php?storyid=387838

Purohit alleges victimisation due to 'political reasons'
Pune/Mumbai (PTI): Giving a new twist to the Malegaon blast case, prime accused Lt Col S P Purohit on Wednesday alleged in a Pune court that he was being victimised for "political reasons" as he was in possession of information pertaining to SIMI and ISI that could embarrass some quarters.
Purohit's counsel Srikant Shivde alleged that the officer was in possession of Intelligence data of a "sensitive nature" regarding SIMI and ISI operations and could even be eliminated.
A military intelligence officer, Purohit, 36, who was arrested on November 3 and is one of the 10 accused including Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, was today sent to two days of police remand by a magisterial court in connection with a case of alleged forgery in procuring a gun.
Purohit, who was escorted to Pune from Nashik by the ATS squad, has been charged under various sections of IPC for committing forgery in procuring the gun from Jammu and Kashmir for one Milind Date in 2003.
Opposing the prosecutions' plea for a seven-day remand for further investigations into the case, Shivde told the judge that the ATS was trying to implicate him in a false case by threatening Date.
Public Prosecutor A V Ausekar, appearing on behalf of ATS, argued that police custody for the accused was required to trace his connections in Jammu and Kashmir from where he managed to procure the gun for Date from the military quota under the fake designation of Major Date and for giving bogus address in the application form for securing the weapon.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holnus/000200811200334.htm

Tuesday, November 18, 2008 | Email | Print |

ATS charge backfires

The Pioneer Edit Desk

‘Investigation’ descends into witch-hunt

The Anti-Terrorism Squad of Mumbai Police has virtually ended up with egg on its face. After planting stories in those sections of the media which are only too happy to publish and broadcast any cockamamie tale that portrays Hindu spiritual leaders as ogres, denigrates Hindu society and defames Hindu organisations, and claiming in a Nashik court that Lt Col Srikant Prasad Purohit had used RDX stolen from the Army for the terrorist attack on Samjhauta Express in February 2007, it has had to eat humble crow and do an about-turn. What the too-clever-by-half ATS personnel, who have eagerly offered their services to launch what increasingly appears to be a witch-hunt and be party to a political conspiracy of calumny and worse, thus raising questions about their integrity, forgot while hurling their latest startling allegation against Lt Col Purohit is that public memory may be short, but it is not short enough to fail to recall the nature of the terrorist strike on Samjhauta Express. The explosives use on that occasion were improvised incendiary devices and the Forensic Laboratory in Chandigarh had not found any traces of RDX in the debris — for that matter, nor were any traces of RDX found at the site of the Malegaon explosion. These details are on record, as are the findings of the subsequent investigation. No less stunningly crude is the ATS’s allegation that Lt Col Purohit misappropriated 60 kg of RDX from the Army: The charge could have been brushed aside as ridiculous had it not been for the sinister implications of what has been alleged. Sixty kilograms of RDX is not a small amount of explosive material; nobody can just walk away with it from an ammunitions store of the Army. That apart, what the ATS has shockingly alleged is that the Army as an institution is so callous that an officer can pilfer a huge amount of explosive material without the theft being noticed. This is outright slanderous and the ATS must be held accountable for portraying the Army as a rogue institution; to let the calumniators go scote-free would be tantamount to whitewashing their misdeed. This paper has in the past raised the question whether the ATS sees itself as being above the law of the land and answerable to none. Since it is neither, it must be brought to heel right now before its recklessness causes irreparable damage to reputations.

It is by now obvious that the ATS is dancing to the tune of its political masters who are unmoved by the enormity of the damage that is being inflicted by the spit-and-scoot tactics which have been the mainstay of the so-called ‘investigation’ into the explosion at Malegaon that killed six Muslims in September. The feverish pace at which the ATS is pursuing this case, spinning bizarre stories by the minute and planting them by the dozen in the media, is in sharp contrast to the non-response of Maharashtra’s Congress-NCP Government, endorsed by the Congress-led UPA Government at the Centre, to the mass slaughter by jihadis who bombed commuter trains in Mumbai on July 11, 2006. The perpetrators of that crime are sitting pretty, possibly laughing themselves silly over the manner in which the ATS is making a mockery of what it claims is an ‘investigation’ into a ‘terrorist attack’. This paper believes that the law must take its own course and anybody found guilty of indulging in violence should be punished. But what is being witnessed is blatant abuse of law.

http://www.dailypioneer.com/135175/ATS-charge-backfires.html

Financial tsunami created by fraudulent derivatives

2008-11-14T14:12:00.000-08:00

Financial tsunami created by quarks and nerds who won the Nobel Prize in Economics

– Quarks and nerds created models for ‘derivatives’ to manage risk by diversification without managing greed

I am appending two long excerpts:

• First, is an excerpt from Wikipedia explaining a financial derivative called ‘option’.
• Second, is a brilliant expose by F. William Engdahl written in Feb. 2008 about the fraud inherent in financial derivatives.

G-20 may meet, drink and be merry with a lame-duck President of USA, George Bush. But, they will get nowhere near finding a solution to the global financial mess, unless they simply ban all financial derivatives from the financial system.
Let me explain why this is imperative.

Engdahl rightly cites the example of Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) hedge fund in Greenwich, Connecticut which collapsed in 1998.

With a capital of $4.8 billion, LTCM held derivatives with a notional value of $1,250 billion.
The assumption was that like the fraudulent nobel prize winners in economics LTCM had assumed that life was a bell-curve (subject to the rules of a statistical stochastic model and the random, predictable, walk of a rational drunkard).

The assumption was wrong. Life was NO bell-curve. Economic actors were NOT rational. An ‘impossible event’ occurred (which was not figured out in the model). A non-normal event occurred. Russia declared it was devaluing its rouble currency and defaulting on its Russian state bonds. The risk parameters of the quarks’ and nerds’ risk models were rendered to be fraudulent. LTCM collapsed.

I do not know enough about justice system under international law to bring these quarks and nerds to justice and together with them, hoist on the hall of global shame, the likes of Greenspan and Treasury Secretaries of USA who were instrumental in acquiescing in this global fraud.

The fraud is so gigantic that it has led to the impoverishment of at least 3 billion people all over the world, many of whom are already reeling under oppressive regimes caring little for their welfare. Witness the utter contempt with which the 10-Janpath chamcha-s in India ignore the recurring suicides among farmers, without announcing ‘New Deals’ such as National Water Grid to achieve a new blue revolution in agricultural productivity or setting up an Indian Ocean Community to build trans-asian highway and trans-asian railroad. Instead, the PM and FM of India behave as though they are PM and FM of Dalal Street (Wall Street version in India) and not of the 1 billion people of the nation. Does the Hon’ble PM Manmohan Singh have enough leverage with the other G-20 members and with lame-duck President George Bush to ask for banning of all financial derivatives?

Saving institutions such as IMF or World Bank or commercial banks or investment houses is NOT the solution. Saving the economic system by ensuring full employment and fair compensation for the hard-working citizens IS the solution.

Don’t expect anything but pious declarations from the G-20 summit which is a gathering of chamchas hiding under the skirts of equally fraudulent nerds and quarks producing bogus models.

Kalyanaraman

[quote] Options are a financial instrument giving the holder the right to buy or sell an underlying stock or commodity at a future point in time, at an agreed upon price. The Black-Scholes model, for which Fischer Black, Myron Scholes and Robert Merton were awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics, is a tool for pricing equity options. Prior to its development there was no standard way to price options; in a very real sense, the Black-Scholes model marks the beginning of the modern era of financial derivatives.
There are several assumptions underlying the Black-Scholes model. The most significant is that volatility, a measure of how much a stock can be expected to move in the near-term, is a constant over time. The Black-Scholes model also assumes stocks move in a manner referred to as a random walk; at any given moment, they are as likely to move up as they are to move down. By combining these assumptions with the idea that the cost of an option should provide no immediate gain to either seller or buyer, a set of equations can be formulated to calculate the price of any option.

The Black-Scholes model takes as input current prices, length of time until the option expires worthless, an estimate of future volatility known as implied volatility, and the so-called risk free rate of return, generally defined as the interest rate of short term US treasury notes. The model also works in reverse: instead of calculating a price, an implied volatility for a given price can be calculated.

Options traders often refer to "the greeks", especially Delta, Vega, and Theta. These are mathematical characteristics of the Black-Scholes model named after the greek letters used to represent them in equations. Delta measures how much an option price will move relative to the underlying, Vega is the sensitivity of the option price to changes in implied volatility, and Theta is the expected change in option price due to the passage of time.

There are known problems with the Black-Scholes model; markets often move in ways not consistent with the random walk hypothesis, and volatility is not, in fact, constant. ABlack-Scholes variant known as ARCH, Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity, was developed to deal with these limitations. The key adjustment is the replacement of constant volatility with stochastic, or random, volatility. After ARCH came an explosion of different models; GARCH, E-GARCH, N-GARCH, H-GARCH, etc, all incorporating ever more complex models of volatility. In everyday practice, however, the classic Black-Scholes model remains dominant with options traders. [unquote] http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-black-scholes-model.htm

For nerds and quarks, the link is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-Scholes

[quote] The world financial system had faced a systemic crisis threat as recently as the September 1998 collapse of the Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) hedge fund in Greenwich, Connecticut. Only extraordinary coordinated central bank intervention then, led by Greenspan’s US Federal Reserve, prevented a global meltdown.

That LTCM crisis contained the seed crystal of all that is going wrong with the multi-trillion dollar asset securitization markets today. Curiously, Greenspan and others in positions of responsibility systematically refused to take those lessons to heart.
The nominal trigger of the LTCM crisis was an event not foreseen in the hedge fund’s risk model. Its investment strategies were based on what they felt was a predictable mild range of volatility in foreign currencies and bonds based on data from historical trading experience. When Russia declared it was devaluing its rouble currency and defaulting on its Russian state bonds, the risk parameters of LTCM’s risk models were literally blown out of the water, and LTCM with it. Sovereign debt default was an event that was not “normal.”

Unlike the risk assumptions of every risk model used by Wall Street, the real world was also not normal, but rather highly unpredictable.

To cover their losses LTCM and its banks began a panic sell-off of anything it could liquidate, triggering panic selling by other hedge funds and banks to cover exposed positions. In response, the US stock market dropped 20%, while European markets fell 35%. Investors sought safety in US Treasury bonds, causing interest rates to drop by over a full point. As a result, LTCM’s highly leveraged investments started to crumble. By the end of August 1998, it lost 50% of the value of its capital investments.

…At the beginning of 1998, LTCM had capital of $4.8 billion, a portfolio of $200 billion, built from its borrowing capacity or credit lines loaned from all the major US and European banks hungry for untold gains from the successful fund. LTCM held derivatives with a notional value of $1,250 billion. That is one unregulated, offshore hedge fund held a portfolio of options and other financial derivatives nominally worth one and a quarter trillion dollars. Nothing of that scale had ever before been dreamed of. The dream rapidly turned into a nightmare.

In the argot of Wall Street, LTCM was a highly geared fund, unbelievably high. One of its investors was the Italian central bank, so awesome was the fund’s reputation. The major global banks who had poured their money into LTCM hoping to coattail the success and staggering profits included Bankers Trust, Barclays, Chase, Deutsche Bank, Union Bank of Switzerland, Salomon Smith Barney, J.P.Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Crédit Suisse, First Boston, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter; Société Générale; Crédit Agricole; Paribas, Lehman Brothers. Those were the very banks that were to emerge less than a decade later at the heart of the securitization crisis in 2007…

The source of the awe over LTCM was the “dream team” who ran it. The fund’s CEO and founder was John Meriwether, a legendary trader who had left Salomon Brothers following a scandal over purchase of US Treasury bonds. That hadn’t dented his confidence. Asked whether he believed in efficient markets, he once modestly replied, “I MAKE them efficient.” The fund’s principal shareholders included the two eminent experts in the “science” of risk, Myron Scholes and Robert Merton. Scholes and Merton had been awarded the Nobel Prize for economics in 1997 for their work on derivatives by the Swedish Academy of Sciences. LTCM also had a dazzling array of professors of finance, doctors of mathematics and physics and other “rocket scientists” capable of inventing extremely complex, daring and profitable financial schemes. …

There was only one flaw. Scholes’ and Mertons’ fundamental axioms of risk, the assumptions on which all their models were built, were wrong. They had been built on sand, fundamentally and catastrophically wrong. Their mathematical options pricing model assumed that there were Perfect Markets, markets so extremely deep that traders’ actions could not affect prices. They assumed that markets and players were rational. Reality suggested the opposite—markets were fundamentally irrational in the long-term. But the risk pricing models of Black, Scholes and others over the past two or more decades had allowed banks and financial institutions to argue that traditional lending prudence was old fashioned. With suitable options insurance, risk was no longer a worry. Eat, drink and be merry…

That, of course, ignored actual market conditions in every major market panic since Black-Scholes model was introduced on the Chicago Board Options Exchange. It ignored the fundamental role of options and ‘portfolio insurance’ in the Crash of 1987; it ignored the causes of the panic that in 1998 brought down Long Term Capital Management – of which Scholes and Merton were both partners. Wall Street blissfully ignored the obvious along with the economists and governors in the Greenspan Fed.

Financial markets, contrary to the religious dogma taught at every business school since decades, were not smooth, well-behaved models following the Gaussian Bell-shaped Curve as if it were a law of the universe. The fact that the main architects of modern theories of financial engineering—now given the serious-sounding name ‘financial economics’—all got Nobel prizes, gave the flawed models the aura of Papal infallibility. Only three years after the 1987 crash the Nobel Committee in Sweden gave Harry Markowitz and Merton Miller the prize. In 1997 amid the Asia crisis, it gave the award to Robert Merton and Myron Scholes.

The most remarkable aspect of the incompetent risk models in use since the origins of financial derivatives in the 1980’s, through to the explosive growth of asset securitization in the last decade, was how little they were questioned.

LTCM had ace Wall Street investment bankers, two Nobel Prize economists who literally invented the theory of pricing derivatives on everything from stocks to currencies. To top its all-star LTCM lineup, David Mullins, the former vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve Board under Alan Greenspan quit his job with the Maestro to become a partner at LTCM. Despite all this, the traders at LTCM and those who followed them to the edge of the financial abyss in August 1998 did not have a hedge against the one thing they now confronted—systemic risk. Systemic risk was precisely what they confronted once an “impossible event,” the Russian state default, had occurred.

Despite the clear lessons from the harrowing LTCM debacle—there is no derivative that insures against systemic risk—Greenspan, Rubin and the New York banks continued to build their risk models as if nothing had taken place. The Russian sovereign default was dismissed as a “once in a Century event.” They were moving on to build the dot.com bubble and, in the aftermath, the greatest financial bubble in human history—the asset securitization bubble of 2002-2007.

Life is no Bell Curve

Risk and its pricing did not behave like a bell-shaped curve, not in financial markets any more than in oilfield exploitation. In 1900 an obscure French mathematician and financial speculator, Louis Bachelier, argued that price changes in bonds or stocks followed the bell-shaped curve that the German mathematician, Carl Friedrich Gauss, devised as a model to map statistical probabilities for various events. Bell curves assumed a mild form of randomness in price fluctuations, just as the standard I.Q. test by design defines 100 as “average,” the center of the bell. It was a kind of useful alchemy, but still alchemy.

That assumption that financial price variations behaved fundamentally like the bell curve allowed Wall Street Rocket Scientists to roll out an unending stream of new financial products each more arcane and complex than the previous. The theories were modified. The “Law of Large Numbers” was added to say that when the number of events becomes sufficiently large, like flips of a coin or rolls of die, the value converges on a stable value over the long term. The Law of Large Numbers, which in reality was no scientific law at all, allowed banks like Citigroup or Chase to issue hundreds of millions of Visa cards without so much as a credit check, based on data showing that in “normal” times defaults on credit cards were so rare as not to be worth considering.

The problems with models based on bell curve distributions or laws of large numbers arose when times were not normal, such as a steep economic recession of the sort the United States economy today is beginning to experience, a recession comparable perhaps only to that of 1931-1939.

The remarkable thing was that America’s academic economists and Wall Street investment bankers, Federal Reserve governors, Treasury secretaries, Sweden’s Nobel Economics Prize judges, England’s Chancellors of the Exchequer, her High Street bankers, her Court of the Bank of England, to name just the leading names, all were willing to turn a blind eye to the fact that economic theory, theories of market behavior, theories of derivative risk pricing, were incapable of predicting, let alone preventing, non-linear surprises. It was incapable of predicting bursting of speculative bubbles, not in October 1987, not in February 1994, in March 2002, and most emphatically not since June 2007. It couldn’t because the very model created the conditions that led to the ever larger and more destructive bubbles in the first place. Financial Economics was but another word for unbridled speculative excess.

A theory incapable of explaining such major, defining surprise events, despite Nobel prizes, was not worth the paper it was written on. Yet the US Federal Reserve Governors—above all Alan Greenspan, US Treasury secretaries, above all Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers and Henry Paulsen—prevailed to make sure that Congress never lay a legislative or regulatory hand on the exotic financial instruments that were being created, created based on a theory that was utterly irrelevant to reality.
On September 29, 1998, Reuters reported, “any attempt to regulate derivatives, even after the collapse—and rescue—of LTCM have not met with success. The CFTC (the government agency with nominal oversight over derivatives trading-w.e.) was barred from expanding its regulation of derivatives under language approved late on Monday by the US House and Senate negotiators. Earlier this month the Republican chairmen of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees asked for the language to limit the CFTC’s regulatory authority over over-the-counter derivatives echoing industry concerns.” Industry of course meant the big banks.

Reuters added that “when the initial subject of regulation was broached by the CFTC both Fed chairman, Alan Greenspan, and Treasury Secretary Rubin leapt to the defense of the industry claiming that the industry did not need regulation and that to do so would drive business overseas.”

The combination of relentless refusal to allow regulatory oversight of the explosive new financial instruments from Credit Default Swaps to Mortgage Backed Securities and the myriad of similar exotic “risk-diffusing” financial innovations and the 1999 final repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act strictly separating securities dealing banks from commercial lending banks opened the way for what in June 2007 began as the second Great Depression in less than a century. It began what future historians will describe as the final demise of the United States as the dominant global financial power.

Liars’ Loans and NINA: Banks in an orgy of fraud

The lessons of the 1998 Russia default and the LTCM systemic crisis were forgotten within weeks by the major players of the New York financial establishment. Flanked by MBA whiz kid ‘rocket scientist’ analysts, bell curve models and fatally flawed risk models, the financial giants of the US banking world launched a wave of mega-mergers and began to create ingenious ways of getting lending risk off their books. That opened the doors to the greatest era of corporate and financial fraud in world history, the asset securitization bonanza.

With Glass-Steagall finally repealed in late 1999, at the urgings of Greenspan and Rubin, banks were now free to snatch up rivals across the spectrum from insurance companies to consumer credit or finance houses. The landscape of American banking underwent a drastic change. The asset securitization revolution was ready to be launched.

With Glass-Steagall gone, now only bank holding companies and subsidiary pure lending banks were directly monitored by the Federal Reserve. If Citigroup opted to close its Citibank branch in a sub-prime neighborhood and instead have a new wholly-owned subsidiary, CitiFinancial, which specialized in sub-prime lending, work the area, CitiFinancial could operate under entirely different and lax regulation.

CitiFinancial issued mortgages separately from Citibank. Consumer groups accused CitiFinancial of specializing in “predator loans” in which unscrupulous mortgage brokers or salesmen would push a loan on a family or person far beyond his comprehension or capacity to handle the risks. And Citigroup was only typical of most big banks.

On January 8, 2008 Citigroup announced with great fanfare publication of its consolidated “US residential mortgage business,” including mortgage origination, servicing and securitization. Curiously, the statement omitted CitiFinancial, the subsidiary with the most risk.

Basle I loopholes

The driver pushing the banks towards securitization and the proliferation of off-balance-sheet risks including highly leveraged derivatives positions was the 1987 Basle Bank for International Settlements Capital Adequacy Accord, known today as Basle I. That agreement among the central banks of the world’s largest economies required banks to set aside 8% of a normal commercial loan as reserve against possible future default. The then-new innovation of financial derivatives were not mentioned in Basle I on US insistence.

The Accord originally had been intended by Germany’s ultra-conservative Bundesbank and other European central banks to rein in the more speculative Japanese and US bank lending which had led to the worst banking crisis since the 1930’s. The original intent of the Basle Accord was to force banks to reduce lending risk. The actual effect for US banks was just the opposite. They soon discovered a gaping loophole—off-balance-sheet transactions, notably derivatives positions and securitization. Because they were left out of Basle I banks need not set aside any capital to cover potential losses.

The elegance of securitization of loans such as home mortgages for the issuing bank was that they could take the loan or mortgage and immediately sell it on to a securitizer or underwriter who bundled hundreds of such loans into a new Asset Backed Security. This seemingly genial innovation was far more dangerous than it sounded. Lending banks no longer needed to carry a mortgage loan on its books for 20-30 years as was traditional. They sold it on at a discount and used the cash to turn the next round of credit issuing.

That meant as well that the lending bank now no longer had to worry if the loan would ever be repaid.

Fraud a la mode

It didn’t take long before lending banks across the United States realized they were sitting on a bonanza bigger than the California gold rush. With no worry about whether a borrower of a home mortgage, say, would be able to service the debt for the next decades, banks realized they made money on pure loan volume and resell to securitizers.

Soon it became commonplace for banks to outsource their mortgage lending to free-lance brokers. Instead of doing their own credit checks they relied, often exclusively, on various online credit questionnaires, similar to the Visa card application where no follow-up was done. It became common practice for mortgage lenders to offer brokers bonus incentives to bring in more signed mortgage loan volume, another opportunity for massive fraud. The banks got more gain from making high volumes of loans then selling for securitization. The world of traditional banking was being turned on its head.
As the bank no longer had an incentive to assure the solidity of a borrower through minimum cash down payments and exhaustive background credit checks, many US banks, simply to churn loan volume and returns, gave what they cynically called “Liars’ Loans.” They knew the person was lying about his credit and income to get that dream home. They simply didn’t care. They sold the risk once the ink was dry on the mortgage.

A new terminology arose after 2002 for such loans, such as “NINA” mortgages—No Income, No Assets. “No problem, Mister Jones. Here’s $400,000 for your new home, enjoy.”
With Glass-Steagall no longer an obstacle, banks could set up myriad wholly-owned separate entities to process the booming home mortgage business. The giant of the process was Citigroup, the largest US bank group with over $2.4 trillion of group assets.

Citigroup included Travelers Insurance, a state-regulated insurer. It included the old Citibank, a huge retail lending bank. It included the investment bank, Smith Barney. And it included the aggressive sub-prime lender, CitiFinancial, according to numerous consumer reports, one of the most aggressive predatory lenders pushing sub-prime mortgages on often ignorant or insolvent borrowers, often in poor black or Hispanic neighborhoods. It included the Universal Financial Corp. one of the nation’s largest credit card issuers, who used the so-called Law of Large Numbers to grow its customer base among more and more dodgy credit risks.

Citigroup also included Banamex, Mexico’s second largest bank and Banco Cuscatlan, El Salvador’s largest bank. Banamex was one of the major indicted money laundering banks in Mexico. That was nothing foreign to Citigroup. In 1999 the US Congress and GAO investigated Citigroup for illicitly laundering $100 million in drug money for Raul Salinas, brother of the then-Mexican President. The investigations also found the bank had laundered money for corrupt officials from Pakistan to Gabon to Nigeria.
Citigroup, the financial behemoth was merely typical of what happened to American banking after 1999. It was a different world entirely from anything before with the possible exception of the excesses of the Roaring ‘20’s. The degree of lending fraud and abuse that ensued in the new era of asset securitization was staggering to the imagination.

The Predators had a ball

One US consumer organization documented some of the most common predatory lending practices during the real estate boom:

“In the United States in the first decade of the 21st century there are many storefronts offering such loans. Some are old — Household Finance and its sister Beneficial, for example — and some are newer-fangled, like CitiFinancial. Both offer credit at rates over thirty percent. The business is booming: the spreads, Wall Street says, are too good to pass up. Citibank pays under five percent interest on the deposits it collects. Its affiliated loan sharks charge four times that rate, even for loans secured by the borrower’s home. It’s a can’t-miss proposition. Even if the economy goes South they can take and resell the collateral. The business is global: the Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation, now HSBC, wants to export it to the eighty-plus countries in which it has a retail presence. Institutional investors love the business model and investment banks securitize the loans. These fancy terms will be defined as we proceed. The root, however, the fodder on which the whole pyramid rests, is the solitary customer at what’s called the point of sale… points and fees can be added to the money that’s lent. CitiFinancial and Household Finance both suggest that insurance is needed. This they serve in a number of flavors — credit life and credit disability, credit unemployment and property insurance — but in almost all cases, it is included in the loans and interest is charged on it. It’s called “single premium” — instead of paying each month for coverage, you pay in advance with money on which you pay interest. If you choose to refinance, you will not get a refund. It is money down the drain, but at the point-of-sale it often goes unnoticed.

Take, for example, the purchase of furniture. A bedroom set might cost two thousand dollars. The sign says Easy Credit, sometimes spelled E-Z. The furniture man does not manage these accounts. For this he turns to CitiFinancial, to HFC or perhaps to Wells Fargo. While the Federal Reserve lends money to banks at below five percent, these bank-affiliates charge twenty or thirty or forty percent. You will have insurance on your furniture: to protect you, they say, from having it repossessed if you die or become unemployed. Before the debt is discharged, dead or alive, you will have paid more than the list-price of a luxury car or a crypt with a doorman.

Midway you’ll be approached with a sweet-sounding offer: if you’ll put up your home as collateral, your rate can be lowered and the term be extended. A twenty-year mortgage, fixed or adjustable. The rate will be high and the rules not disclosed. For example: if you satisfy the loan too quickly, you’ll be charged a pre-payment penalty. Or, you’ll pay slowly and then be asked to pay more, in what’s called a balloon. If you can’t, that’s okay: they knew you couldn’t. The goal is to refinance your loan and charge you yet more points and fees.

In prior centuries, this was called debt peonage. Today it is the fate of the so-called sub-prime serf. Fully twenty percent of American households are described as sub-prime. But half of the people who get sub-prime loans could have paid normal rates, according to Fannie Mae and Beltway authorities. Outside it’s the law of the jungle; the only rule is Buyer Beware. But this is easier for some people than others.
Why would a person overpay by so much? In the nation’s low-income neighborhoods, sometimes called ghettos or, in a more poetic euphemism, the inner city, there’s a lack of bank branches. In the late 20th century, many financial institutions left the ‘hood in the lurch. They refused to lend money; they refused to write insurance policies.

In the 1980’s this author interviewed a senior Wall Street banker, at the time recovering from some kind of burnout. I asked about his bank’s business in Cali, Colombia during the heyday of the Cali cocaine cartel. Speaking not for attribution, he related, “Banks would literally kill to get a slice of this business, it’s so lucrative.” Clearly they moved on to sub-prime lending with similar goals in mind, and profits as huge as in money laundering drug gains.

Alan Greenspan openly backed the extension of bank lending to the poorest ghetto residents. Edward M. Gramlich, a Federal Reserve governor who died in September 2007, warned nearly seven years ago that a fast-growing new breed of lenders was luring many people into risky mortgages they could not afford. When Gramlich privately urged Fed examiners to investigate mortgage lenders affiliated with national banks, he was rebuffed by Alan Greenspan. Greenspan ruled the Fed with nearly the power of an absolute monarch.

Revealing what was most certainly the tip of a very extensive iceberg of fraud, the FBI recently announced it was investigating 14 companies for possible accounting fraud, insider trading or other violations in connection with home loans made to risky borrowers. The FBI announced that the probe involved companies across the financial services industry, from mortgage lenders to investment banks that bundle home loans into securities sold to investors.

At the same time, authorities in New York and Connecticut were investigating whether Wall Street banks hid crucial information about high-risk loans bundled into securities sold to investors. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said he and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo were looking whether banks properly disclosed the high risk of default on so-called “exception” loans — considered even riskier than sub-prime loans — when selling those securities to investors. Last November, Cuomo issued subpoenas to government-sponsored mortgage companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, in his investigation into what he claimed were conflicts of interest in the mortgage industry. He said he wanted to know about billions of dollars of home loans they bought from banks, including the largest US savings and loan, Washington Mutual Inc., and how appraisals were handled.

The FBI said it was looking into the practices of sub-prime lenders, as well as potential accounting fraud committed by financial firms that hold these loans on their books or securitize them and sell them to other investors. Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Bear Stearns Cos. all disclosed in regulatory filings that they were cooperating with requests for information from various unspecified, regulatory and government agencies.

One former real estate broker from the Pacific Northwest, who quit the business in disgust at the pressures to push mortgages on unqualified borrowers, described some of the more typical practices of predatory brokers in a memo to this author:

The sub-prime fiasco is a nightmare alright, but the prime ARMs hold potential for overwhelming disaster. The first “hiccup” occurred in July/August 2007 - this was the “Sub-prime Fiasco,” but in November 2007 the hiccup was more than that. It was in November 2007, that the prime ARMs adjusted upwards.

What this means is that upon the “anniversary date of the loan” the Adjustable Rate Mortgage adjusts up into a higher payment. This happens because the ARM was “purchased” at a teaser rate, usually one or one and one half percent. Payments made at that rate, while very attractive, do nothing to reduce principal and even generate some unpaid interest which is tacked onto the loan. Borrowers are permitted to make the teaser rate payments for the entire first year, even though the rate is good only for the first month.

Concerns about “negative amortization,” whereby the indebtedness on the loan becomes more than the market value of the property, were allayed by reference to the growth in property values due to the bank-created bubble, which it was said was normal and could be relied upon to continue. All that was promoted by the lenders who sent armies of account executives, i.e., salesmen, around to the mortgage brokers to explain how it would work.

Adjustable interest rates on home loans were the sum of the bank’s profit - the margin - and some objective predictor of the cost of the borrowed funds to the bank, known as the index. Indexes generated by various economic activities - what the banks around the country were paying for 90 day CD’s or what the banks in the London Interbank Exchange (LIBOR) were paying for dollars - were used. Adding the margin to the index produces the true interest rate on the loan - the rate at which, after 30 years of payments, the loan will be completely paid off (”amortized”). It is called the “fully indexed rate.”

I am going to pick an arbitrary 6% as the “real” interest rate (3% margin + 3% index). With a loan amount of $250,000.00 the monthly payment at 1% would be $804.10; that is the “teaser rate” payment, exclusive of taxes and insurance. This would adjust with changes in the index, but the margin remains static for the life of the loan.
This loan is structured so that payment adjustments only occur once per year and are capped at 7.5 % of the previous year’s payment. That can go on, stair stepping, for a period of 5 years (or 10 years in the case of one lender) without regard to what is happening in the real world. Then, at the end of the 5 years, the caps come off and everything adjusts to payments under the “fully indexed rate.”

If the borrower has been making only the minimum required payments the whole time, this can result in a payment shock in the thousands. If the value of the home has decreased twenty-five percent, the borrower, this time someone with stellar credit, is encouraged to give it back to the bank, which devalues it at least another twenty-five percent and that spreads to the surrounding properties.

According to a Chicago banking insider, during the first week of February 2008, bankers in the U.S. were made aware of the following:

Chase Manhattan Bank (”CMB”) has sent out an unlimited number of statements to its customers about Lines of Credit (”LOC’s”. The terms of its LOC’s, which, have been popular in the past, are now being manipulated and the values of the properties securing them are being unilaterally adjusted down, sometimes as much as 50 percent. This means homeowners are faced with making payments on a loan to buy an asset that is apparently worth half of the principal amount of the loan and paying interest on top of that. The only sensible thing to do in many cases is walk away, which results in a major loss in equity, reducing the value of all surrounding properties and adding to the avalanche of foreclosures.

This is especially aggravated in cases of “Creative Financing” LOCs - those that were drawn on equal to between ninety and one hundred percent of the value of the property before the bubble burst…

CMB has automatically closed credit lines that have “open” credit on them - meaning that the borrower left some money in the LOC for the future - over an 80% ratio of the amount of the loan to the value (”LTV”) of the property. This has been done on a mass basis without any reference to the “property owners.”

Loan to Value limits mean that the amount of money which the lender is willing to loan cannot exceed the stated percentage of the property value. In common practice, an appraiser would be hired to assess the value of the property. The appraisal is informed by comparable sales of other properties which have sold in an area that, with a few exceptions, must be no more than one mile away from the subject property. That was merely the tip of the mortgage fraud bonanza that preceded the present unfolding Tsunami.

The Tsumani is only beginning

The nature of the fatally flawed risk models used by Wall Street, by Moody’s, by the securities Monoline insurers and by the economists of the US Government and Federal Reserve was such that they all assumed recessions were no longer possible, as risk could be indefinitely diffused and spread across the globe.

All the securitized assets, the trillions of dollars worth, were priced on such flawed assumption. All the trillions of dollars of Credit Default Swaps—the illusion that loan default could be cheaply insured against with derivatives—all these were set to explode in a cascading series of domino-like crises as the crisis in the US housing market unraveled. The more home prices fell, the more mortgages facing sharply higher interest rate resets, the more unemployment spread across America from Ohio to Michigan to California to Pennsylvania to Colorado and Arizona. That process set off a vicious self-feeding spiral of asset price deflation.

The sub-prime sector was merely the first manifestation of what was to unravel. The process will take years to wind down. The damaged products of Asset Backed Securities were used in turn as collateral for yet further bank loans, for leveraged buyouts by private equity firms, by corporations, even by municipalities. The pyramid of debt built on assets securitized began to go into reverse leverage as reality dawned in global markets that no one knew the worth of the securitized paper they held.
In what would be a laughable admission were the consequences of their criminal negligence not so tragic for millions of Americans, Standard & Poors, the second largest rating agency in the world stated in October 2007 that they “underestimated the extent of fraud in the US mortgage industry.” Alan Greenspan feebly tried to exonerate himself by claiming that lending to sub-prime borrowers was not wrong, only the later securitization of the loans. The very system they worked over decades to create was premised on fraud and non-transparency. [unquote] http://tinyurl.com/6yutf2

Lessons for India from the ongoing global recession

2008-11-13T18:06:00.001-08:00

Lessons for India from the ongoing global recession

The state of the world economy is indicated by the following gloomy reports.

First, it should be noted that economy is delinked from finance system.

Second, the finance system is governed by fetishism of money dealing with currency as a commodity inventing bizarre instruments without or with little underlying ‘real’ assets. Witness the instruments such as index funds or participatory notes (which allow for hawala transactions from resident Indians in the Indian context).

Third, the finance system lives on intense speculation, greed and self-aggrandisement not unlike the Indian political system. This is casino-brothel capitalism.

The extent to which the finance system of a country is delinked from the economic system (that is, the measurement of real wealth of a nation by valuing the productivity of assets) is a measure of the volatility noticed in the stock markets.

It is unfortunate, in the Indian context, that there is a regime run by 10-Janpath chamcha-s who care little for enhancing the nation’s wealth. The substitute PM and the self-proclaimed main-hoon-na FM seem to operate like PM and FM of the Dalal Street and not of the Indian economy. Witness the reluctance to reduce the oil prices even though the world-wide prices for oil have been reduced by over 50%. This together with the tax reliefs given to aviation fuel (allegedly to rescue airlines) indicate that there is excessive patronage system (main-hoon-na) in operation. The permission given to resident Indians to indulge in hawala transactions manipulated through participatory notes is a crime of the worst order. The participatory notes should be nationalized and the holders of the notes booked under Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act, making them accountable to prove the source of their funds held as p-notes. See the bare act http://www.vakilno1.com/bareacts/Benamiact/benami.htm which provides for legal remedies for the treasonous financial dealings. The next Government should within the first 100 days announce the nationalization of the P-notes, ban all derivative instruments (puts, calls, credit swaps, P-Notes) created by FIIs, switch the system of financing India’s projects by stock-market medium to direct investments by foreign technology companies directly into specific development projects. India should take a cue from China on this financial system reform.

The economy is measured by the strength of the capacity of the inviduals and guilds to produce income-yielding wealth and to create employment opportunities. These should be the only two true measures to declare a PM or an FM as truly concerned about the nation’s economy. Luckily, Indian currency is not fully convertible. Thus, there is substantial leverage available in putting an effective financial system in place to shield the Indian economy from the global financial sharks and recession in the developed economies. Luckily, again, India is not excessively dependent upon the export earnings to build up a fragile foreign exchange reserve (quite unlike China which is totally exposed to the world markets through dependence on exports). The economic steps to be announced by the next Government should include a declaration of development of an energy policy based on thorium-based breeder reactors to produce 40,000 MW additional nuclear energy within the next 20 years, to expand research and development of wind-energy, geo-thermal energy, hydropower, solar-energy and other renewable energy resources. There should be a cut-back on the expansion of the auto industry dependent upon imported fuels. The ISRO technology available for hydrogen cars should be used in production facilities within the next 5 years.

There is need for an economic ministry in GOI. This should consist of experts who are nationalists and not the 10 Janpath chamcha variety nor those who believe that India should catch cold when Uncle Sam sneezes.

Dhanyavaadah.

kalyanaraman

Rajesh Mahapatra and Gaurav Choudhury, Hindustan Times
Email Author
New Delhi, November 13, 2008
India loses $63 billion in six months
India’s richest are not the only ones who have lost billions in net worth amid the global meltdown. The country’s central bank has seen its foreign exchange reserves shrink more than $63 billion — enough to fund 600 Moon missions — in less than six months as exports slumped, trade deficit widened on a surge in the oil import bill and foreign investors pulled out of the stock market.
Lately, the reserves are falling at an alarming pace, squeezing much of the room for manoeuvre that India had in the face of the ongoing financial turmoil. The fall was a staggering $31 billion in October, or almost half of the decline since May 23, when reserves touched a record $316 billion.
The fast depletion has serious implications, as it could bring more pressure on the rupee, which has already depreciated about 20 per cent this year and made everything from imported machinery to foreign travel and education more expensive. A weaker rupee could also reverse the recent slide in inflation.
“If this trend continues for more than three months, there could be a problem,” said a top monetary policy official, who didn’t want to be named because the issue is market sensitive.
The government, however, is hopeful that the situation would change once its policy responses begin to play out and stability returns to global financial markets. “We are trying to minimise the drawdown on reserves,” said Suresh Tendulkar, who heads the prime minister’s economic advisory council. He said the Centre is trying to induce NRI deposits and tap sovereign wealth funds, especially from the Gulf. Efforts are underway to revive exports growth, he said.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print.aspx?Id=edd12119-d4b3-4f13-816f-bbac2610ef60

Germany enters recession, China output growth hit
13 Nov 2008, 1713 hrs IST, REUTERS

LONDON/TOKYO: Germany has fallen into recession and China's industry output growth waned to its weakest in seven years, data showed on Thursday, reinforcing evidence the financial crisis is plunging the world into a painful downturn.

Seeking to limit the fallout from a crisis that began when the U.S. housing market collapsed more than a year ago, Japan said it would offer up to $100 billion to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for emerging economies.

The impact of the worst financial conditions in 80 years was felt sharply in Germany, Europe's largest economy, where the economy contracted by 0.5 percent in the third quarter, putting it in recession for the first time in five years.

The decline -- much sharper than the 0.2 percent forecast -- was accentuated by German export growth grinding to a halt.

"We are going to have to face up to a very difficult and long-lasting economic crisis," Germany's Deputy Economy Minister Walther Otremba told Reuters.

Analysts agreed with that grim forecast.

"The headwinds of the financial crisis and the global economic slowdown are blowing right in the face of the German economy," said Carsten Brzeski of ING Financial Markets.

"Even more worrying, the full impact of the financial crisis still has to unfold," he said. "If you think today's numbers are already bad, just wait for the next quarter."

In China, which has unveiled a 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus package, annual industrial output growth slowed to 8.2 percent in October, its weakest showing since October 2001, as the global downturn took its toll.

Among corporates, British telecoms company BT Group said it was cutting 10,000 jobs at home and overseas.

Stock markets tumbled again in Asia. Tokyo shares slid 5.3 percent and the price of oil hit a 22-month low at $55 a barrel on worries that a recession will curb demand.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/3709435.cms

Japan on the brink financial crisis: Nakamura

13 Nov 2008, 0947 hrs IST, REUTERS

Nakamura is thought to have called for an interest rate cut of 0.25 percentage point with two other board members on Oct. 31, when the BOJ cut

rates by 0.20 percentage point on the casting vote of Governor Masaaki Shirakawa after the board was split 4-4 on the proposal.

Following is a summary of Nakamura's speech on Thursday:

"The global financial crisis could slow down the world economy. Japanese economy could be on the brink of a drawn-out adjustment phase. The downside risk to the Japanese economy is rising further." "After the policy meeting on Oct 6-7, in the United States, we've seen weakness in consumption and output, and marked deterioration in consumer sentiment, on top of a slump in housing markets." "In Japan, exports and output, which have been leading the economy, were both confirmed as weak in July-September." "The turmoil in overseas financial markets are starting to affect Japanese markets, which had been relatively stable."

"The yen is appreciating, particularly against the euro, worsening exporters' earnings... Capital market conditions, including commercial paper, have deteriorated as investors are becoming cautious, raising companies' dependence on bank loans" "At the same time, Japanese banks' lending attitude is turning cautious due to concern over the economy and the earnings outlook, suggesting a change in easy monetary conditions." "Capital spending is likely to be weak for the time being. But it is unlikely to fall sharply if expectations of mid to long-term growth in global demand will be maintained."

"As the latest turmoil in the global financial markets is increasing pressure on the real economy, the risk of further slowdown in the world economy is rising and it's getting hard to predict when it will stop decelerating and accelerate again. "There's the risk that growth expectations in emerging economies and resource-rich countries, which have been propping up the world economy, will ebb, which could further push down the economy in the Western developed countries."

"The emergence and bursting of the bubble this time was not necessarily caused by the subprime mortgage problem alone. "The world economy grew steadily from 2002 to 2006 on the back of emerging economies and U.S. consumption while interest rates remained low worldwide thanks to globalisation, providing very accommodative monetary conditions. "This nurtured expectations for stable growth and firm asset prices to continue, resulting in a massive fund flow to money markets and a huge distortion in the market pricing of assets. "I understand adjustments are now taking place in the wake of the bursting of the bubble that had created a big gap between the value of assets based on fundamentals, and actual assets and debts. "This situation is similar to the bubble and ensuing financial crisis that Japan has experienced, and a recovery in the balance sheets (of Western banks) will take a considerable time."

"We judged that we should pay attention to downside economic risks while maitaining our basic stance that we will conduct policy in line with our assessment of the economic scenario and risk factors." "We will also ensure stability in financial markets by conducting appropriate market operations."
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/3707394.cms

Major world economies appear in recession: OECD
13 Nov 2008, 1555 hrs IST, AGENCIES
PARIS: Leading industrialised nations appear to be in a "protracted" downturn, with the US, Japanese and eurozone economies likely to shrink next

year, the OECD said on Thursday.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development predicted a return to modest growth in 2010 but warned that the United States, the world's largest economy, would suffer a whopping 2.8 percent contraction in fourth quarter 2008.
It called for further government stimulus measures and steps to shore up financial markets but also warned against any move that would distort competition or threaten the operation of open markets.

The OECD, the Paris-based grouping of the world's 30 most developed countries, issued a one-page statement ahead of an emergency summit in Washington Saturday of 20 developed and developing nations aimed at dousing a global financial and economic firestorm.

"The OECD area now appears to have entered recession," the statement said, with OECD projections pointing to "a protracted downturn." It sees the OECD countries contracting 0.3 percent in 2009, after growth of 1.4 percent this year, before rebounding to 1.5 percent in 2010.

The US economy will contract 0.9 percent in 2009, Japan 0.1 percent and the eurozone 0.5 percent after posting respective gains this year of 1.4 percent, 0.5 percent and 1.1 percent. In 2010, according to the OECD, the United States should grow 1.6 percent, Japan 0.6 percent and the eurozone 1.2 percent.

The OECD said the US econony shrank 0.3 percent in the third quarter this year and would contract 2.8 percent in the fourth, thereby meeting the traditional measure of recession -- two consecutive quarters of negative growth.
The United States will not enjoy positive growth -- 0.6 percent -- until the third quarter of 2009, according to the OECD.

The Japanese economy will also see negative growth in the final two quarters of 2008 before returning to positive territory -- 0.8 percent -- in first quarter 2009. But in the third quarter of 2009, Japan will slip back and its economy will contract 0.3 percent.

In the eurozone, the economy will not begin to grow again until the third quarter of 2009, when it should expand 0.1 percent.
The OECD said its analysis was based on an assumption that the "extreme" financial market distress that erupted in mid-September would be "short-lived" but "followed by an extended period of financial headwinds through late 2009, with a gradual normalisation thereafter."

It said it expected a continued moderation in inflation while "against the backdrop of a deep economic downturn, additional macroeconomic stimulation is needed," suggesting that tax cuts for credit-strapped households could prove effective.

The OECD said that in the United States and Japan the scope for additional interest rate cuts to spur momentum had narrowed. The US Federal Reserve has already slashed its benchmark rate to a record low 1.0 percent while the Bank of Japan last month reduced its key rate to 0.30 percent.

Many OECD members in recent weeks have adopted vigorous measures to revive their struggling banks, notably through direct injections of capital and credit guarantees aimed at inducing them to start lending money again. "The need for further measures to stabilise financial markets cannot be excluded," the OECD said.

It also called for "international cooperation ... to avoid measures that distort competition" and said that regulatory and supervisory frameworks would have to be "re-examined." "When addressing these issues, it will be important to focus on reforms to the global financial architecture and at the same time resist pressures for a wider rollback of open markets which would prove costly," it added.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/3709010.cms

Emerging economies more vulnerable to credit crisis: Lamy
13 Nov 2008, 1840 hrs IST, PTI
LONDON: The World Trade Organisation has warned of a deteriorating trade-finance situation in coming months, stating that emerging economies

would be more vulnerable to the impact of fund scarcity.

"The situation is likely to deteriorate further in the months to come," WTO Director General Pascal Lamy said addressing trade ambassadors in Geneva yesterday.

Underscoring the importance to keep the flow of trade-finance, Lamy said, "Countries most vulnerable to shortages of trade-finance are the emerging market economies on whom we are counting to sustain trade and economic growth as the developed countries slow down."

Lamy said private banks, international financial institutions and export credit agencies have confirmed that the market for trade-finance has severely deteriorated over the last six months and particularly since September.

"The financial crisis is a wake-up call indicating that the world economy cannot grow above the limits of its real production, and that feeding it by debt and liquidity may only provoke severe corrections," the WTO chief said ahead of the G-20 Summit on November 15 in Washington, called by US President George Bush to discuss the financial meltdown.

In fact, the G-20 Summit cast a shadow on Lamy's meeting where heads of multilateral institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund remained absent.

Conveying a message to world leaders who would assemble in Washington on Saturday, the WTO Chief said, "The world economy is slowing and we are seeing trade decrease. If trade-finance is not tackled, we run the risk of further exacerbating this downward spiral." The market at present estimates the liquidity gap in trade-finance at about USD 25 billion.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/3709806.cms

Testimonies in US Congress

Hedge fund chiefs blame the system for financial crisis (13 Nov. 2008)

The statements by George Soros and others suggested that hedge fund executives and lawmakers were reaching a consensus in the wake of the credit crisis that the status quo, in which the funds largely escape scrutiny, was no longer tenable…

Mr Soros pinned blame on the “financial system itself”, while James Simons, president of Renaissance Technologies, criticised credit ratings agencies, which he said had facilitated the sale of “sows’ ears … as silk purses” through “fanciful” ratings of mortgage-backed securities.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0f8c0216-b193-11dd-b97a-0000779fd18c.html?nclick_check=1

Aurangzeb Naqshbandi, Hindustan Times
Email Author
New Delhi, November 14, 2008
First Published: 00:03 IST(14/11/2008)
Last Updated: 00:07 IST(14/11/2008)
Haj officials want 5-star facilities

The government has taken a serious note of the Central Haj Committee’s letter to the Indian consulate in Jeddah, seeking five-star accommodation and separate facilities for its 100-member delegation, comprising officials and their family members, during the pilgrimage.

The visit can set the Haj committee back by Rs 8 crore. The government has questioned the committee’s decision allowing families with the officials at a time of economic downturn.

The external affairs ministry has sought the list of officials, with their antecedents.

In a letter to the Consulate General of India in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Haj committee chief executive officer Mohammed Owais sought separate accommodation, with better kitchen and toilet facilities, for officials and their families “befitting their status” during their stay in Mina. He said the delegation be provided five-star accommodation in ‘Markaziyah area’ during its visit to Madinah Munawwarah and their transport arrangements made.

A Haj committee official said it was a routine practice and government money was not being used. “The Haj committee does not use government money. It’s customary to send a delegation, which may include family members,” he said. Despite repeated attempts, Owais could not be contacted for comments.

“If the Haj committee is not using the government money, then whose money is being wasted?” asked Dr Zafarul-Islam Khan, head of All-India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat, an umbrella body of Indian Muslim organisations.

“It’s very unfortunate. The Haj committee is overcharging the pilgrims and spending their money on fun trip,” he said.

The committee’s move is in violation of a government order, asking all ministries to cut down foreign and domestic travel under the mandatory 10 per cent cut in the non-plan expenditure, sources said.

There was no need for huge delegations to Saudi Arabia, Khan said. “The past experience shows that the Haj committee officials pose problems to the Indian staff,” he said.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print.aspx?Id=70c21c5a-6c7d-4290-98ac-425be366dd93

President-elect Obama had questioned evangelizing and proselytizing

2008-11-13T16:45:00.000-08:00

President-elect Obama had questioned evangelizing and proselytizing (March 27, 2004)
Nov. 14, 2008

[quote] FALSANI:
The conversation stopper, when you say you're a Christian and leave it at that.
OBAMA:
Where do you move forward with that?
This is something that I'm sure I'd have serious debates with my fellow Christians about. I think that the difficult thing about any religion, including Christianity, is that at some level there is a call to evangelize and prostelytize. There's the belief, certainly in some quarters, that people haven't embraced Jesus Christ as their personal savior that they're going to hell.
FALSANI:
You don't believe that?
OBAMA:
I find it hard to believe that my God would consign four-fifths of the world to hell.
I can't imagine that my God would allow some little Hindu kid in India who never interacts with the Christian faith to somehow burn for all eternity.
That's just not part of my religious makeup. [unquote]
Obama's Interview on Faith with Cathleen Falsani (2004) unearthed, can be found here:
"Tuesday November 11, 2008
The most detailed explication of Barack Obama's faith came in a 2004 interview he gave Chicago Sun Times columnist Cathleen Falsani when he was running for U.S. Senate in Illinois. The column she wrote about the interview has been quoted and misquoted many times over, but she'd never before published the full transcript in a major publication.
Because of how controversial that interview became, Falsani has graciously allowed us to print the full conversation here."
"At 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 27, 2004, when I was the religion reporter (I am now its religion columnist) at the Chicago Sun-Times, I met then-State Sen. Barack Obama at Café Baci, a small coffee joint at 330 S. Michigan Avenue in Chicago, to interview him exclusively about his spirituality. Our conversation took place a few days after he'd clinched the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate seat that he eventually won. We spoke for more than an hour. He came alone. He answered everything I asked without notes or hesitation. The profile of Obama that grew from the interview at Cafe Baci became the first in a series in the Sun-Times called "The God Factor," that eventually became my first book, The God Factor: Inside the Spiritual Lives of Public People (FSG, March 2006.) Because of the staggering interest in now President-Elect Obama's faith and spiritual predilections, I thought it might be helpful to share that interivew, uncut and in its entirety, here."
--Cathleen Falsani
http://blog. beliefnet. com/stevenwaldma n/2008/11/ obamas-interview -with-cathleen. html
Some exerpts related to the ongoing discussion here:
[...]
FALSANI:
Do you pray often?
OBAMA:
Uh, yeah, I guess I do.
Its' not formal, me getting on my knees. I think I have an ongoing conversation with God. I think throughout the day, I'm constantly asking myself questions about what I'm doing, why am I doing it.
One of the interesting things about being in public life is there are constantly these pressures being placed on you from different sides. To be effective, you have to be able to listen to a variety of points of view, synthesize viewpoints. You also have to know when to be just a strong advocate, and push back against certain people or views that you think aren't right or don't serve your constituents.
And so, the biggest challenge, I think, is always maintaining your moral compass. Those are the conversations I'm having internally. I'm measuring my actions against that inner voice that for me at least is audible, is active, it tells me where I think I'm on track and where I think I'm off track.
It's interesting particularly now after this election, comes with it a lot of celebrity. And I always think of politics as having two sides. There's a vanity aspect to politics, and then there's a substantive part of politics. Now you need some sizzle with the steak to be effective, but I think it's easy to get swept up in the vanity side of it, the desire to be liked and recognized and important. It's important for me throughout the day to measure and to take stock and to say, now, am I doing this because I think it's advantageous to me politically, or because I think it's the right thing to do? Am I doing this to get my name in the papers or am I doing this because it's necessary to accomplish my motives.
FALSANI:
Checking for altruism?
OBAMA:
Yeah. I mean, something like it.
Looking for, ... It's interesting, the most powerful political moments for me come when I feel like my actions are aligned with a certain truth. I can feel it. When I'm talking to a group and I'm saying something truthful, I can feel a power that comes out of those statements that is different than when I'm just being glib or clever.
FALSANI:
What's that power? Is it the holy spirit? God?
OBAMA:
Well, I think it's the power of the recognition of God, or the recognition of a larger truth that is being shared between me and an audience.[.. .]
FALSANI:
Who's Jesus to you?
(He laughs nervously)
OBAMA:
Right.
Jesus is an historical figure for me, and he's also a bridge between God and man, in the Christian faith, and one that I think is powerful precisely because he serves as that means of us reaching something higher.
And he's also a wonderful teacher. I think it's important for all of us, of whatever faith, to have teachers in the flesh and also teachers in history.
[...]
FALSANI:
Do you try to take some time for whatever, meditation prayer reading?
OBAMA:
I'll be honest with you, I used to all the time, in a fairly disciplined way. But during the course of this campaign, I don't. And I probably need to and would like to, but that's where that internal monologue, or dialogue I think supplants my opportunity to read and reflect in a structured way these days.
It's much more sort of as I'm going through the day trying to take stock and take a moment here and a moment there to take stock, why am I here, how does this connect with a larger sense of purpose.
[...]
FALSANI:
Jack Ryan [Obama's Republican opponent in the U.S. Senate race at the time] said talking about your faith is frought with peril for a public figure.
OBAMA:
Which is why you generally will not see me spending a lot of time talking about it on the stump.
Alongside my own deep personal faith, I am a follower, as well, of our civic religion. I am a big believer in the separation of church and state. I am a big believer in our constitutional structure. I mean, I'm a law professor at the University of Chicago teaching constitutional law. I am a great admirer of our founding charter, and its resolve to prevent theocracies from forming, and its resolve to prevent disruptive strains of fundamentalism from taking root ion this country.
As I said before, in my own public policy, I'm very suspicious of religious certainty expressing itself in politics.
Now, that's different form a belief that values have to inform our public policy. I think it's perfectly consistent to say that I want my government to be operating for all faiths and all peoples, including atheists and agnostics, while also insisting that there are values tha tinform my politics that are appropriate to talk about.
A standard line in my stump speech during this campaign is that my politics are informed by a belief that we're all connected. That if there's a child on the South Side of Chicago that can't read, that makes a difference in my life even if it's not my own child. If there's a senior citizen in downstate Illinois that's struggling to pay for their medicine and having to chose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer even if it's not my grandparent. And if there's an Arab American family that's being rounded up by John Ashcroft without the benefit of due process, that threatens my civil liberties.
I can give religious expression to that. I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper, we are all children of God. Or I can express it in secular terms. But the basic premise remains the same. I think sometimes Democrats have made the mistake of shying away from a conversation about values for fear that they sacrifice the important value of tolerance. And I don't think those two things are mutually exclusive.
FALSANI:
Do you think it's wrong for people to want to know about a civic leader's spirituality?
OBAMA:
I don't' think it's wrong. I think that political leaders are subject to all sorts of vetting by the public, and this can be a component of that.
I think that I am disturbed by, let me put it this way: I think there is an enormous danger on the part of public figures to rationalize or justify their actions by claiming God's mandate.
I think there is this tendency that I don't think is healthy for public figures to wear religion on their sleeve as a means to insulate themselves from criticism, or dialogue with people who disagree with them.
FALSANI:
The conversation stopper, when you say you're a Christian and leave it at that.
OBAMA:
Where do you move forward with that?
This is something that I'm sure I'd have serious debates with my fellow Christians about. I think that the difficult thing about any religion, including Christianity, is that at some level there is a call to evangelize and prostelytize. There's the belief, certainly in some quarters, that people haven't embraced Jesus Christ as their personal savior that they're going to hell.
FALSANI:
You don't believe that?
OBAMA:
I find it hard to believe that my God would consign four-fifths of the world to hell.
I can't imagine that my God would allow some little Hindu kid in India who never interacts with the Christian faith to somehow burn for all eternity.
That's just not part of my religious makeup.
Part of the reason I think it's always difficult for public figures to talk about this is that the nature of politics is that you want to have everybody like you and project the best possible traits onto you. Oftentimes that's by being as vague as possible, or appealing to the lowest commong denominators. The more specific and detailed you are on issues as personal and fundamental as your faith, the more potentially dangerous it is.
FALSANI:
Do you ever have people who know you're a Christian question a particular stance you take on an issue, how can you be a Christian and ...
OBAMA:
Like the right to choose.
I haven't been challenged in those direct ways. And to that extent, I give the public a lot of credit. I'm always stuck by how much common sense the American people have. They get confused sometimes, watch FoxNews or listen to talk radio. That's dangerous sometimes. But generally, Americans are tolerant and I think recognize that faith is a personal thing, and they may feel very strongly about an issue like abortion or gay marriage, but if they discuss it with me as an elected official they will discuss it with me in those terms and not, say, as 'you call yourself a Christian.' I cannot recall that ever happening.
FALSANI:
Do you get questions about your faith?
[...]
FALSANI:
Do you believe in heaven?
OBAMA:
Do I believe in the harps and clouds and wings?
FALSANI:
A place spiritually you go to after you die?
OBAMA:
What I believe in is that if I live my life as well as I can, that I will be rewarded. I don't presume to have knowledge of what happens after I die. But I feel very strongly that whether the reward is in the here and now or in the hereafter, the aligning myself to my faith and my values is a good thing.
When I tuck in my daughters at night and I feel like I've been a good father to them, and I see in them that I am transferring values that I got from my mother and that they're kind people and that they're honest people, and they're curious people, that's a little piece of heaven.
FALSANI:
Do you believe in sin?
OBAMA:
Yes.
FALSANI:
What is sin?
OBAMA:
Being out of alignment with my values.
FALSANI:
What happens if you have sin in your life?
OBAMA:
I think it's the same thing as the question about heaven. In the same way that if I'm true to myself and my faith that that is its own reward, when I'm not true to it, it's its own punishment.
FALSANI:
Where do you find spiritual inspiration? Music, nature, literature, people, a conduit you plug into?
OBAMA:
There are so many.
...
I can be transported by watching a good performance of Hamlet, or reading Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, or listening to Miles Davis.
FALSANI:
Is there something that you go back to as a touchstone, a book, a particular piece of music, a place ...
OBAMA:
As I said before, in my own sort of mental library, the Civil Rights movement has a powerful hold on me. It's a point in time where I think heaven and earth meet. Because it's a moment in which a collective faith transforms everything. So when I read Gandhi or I read King or I read certain passages of Abraham Lincoln and I think about those times where people's values are tested, I think those inspire me.
FALSANI:
What are you doing when you feel the most centered, the most aligned spiritually?
OBAMA:
I think I already described it. It's when I'm being true to myself. And that can happen in me making a speech or it can happen in me playing with my kids, or it can happen in a small interaction with a security guard in a building when I'm recognizing them and exchanging a good word.
[...]
FALSANI:
... An example of a role model, who combined everything you said you want to do in your life, and your faith?
OBAMA:
I think Gandhi is a great example of a profoundly spiritual man who acted and risked everything on behalf of those values but never slipped into intolerance or dogma. He seemed to always maintain an air of doubt about him.
I think Dr. King, and Lincoln. Those three are good examples for me of people who applied their faith to a larger canvas without allowing that faith to metasticize into something that is hurtful.
[...]

Throw out of powre the 10 Janpath chamchas

2008-11-04T18:23:00.001-08:00

Throw out of power the 10 Janpath chamchas

Disband Congress said Mahatma Gandhi. See note at:
http://dharma1.blogspot.com/2008/10/disband-congress-said-gandhi-act-on.html

Since there is little chance that voluntary disbanding will occur, it is time to throw out of power the 10 Janpath chamchas. This about summarises the following two incisive analytical articles from Offstumped.

The destruction of the polity through ‘extra constitutional wedlock’ -- as Offstumped picturesquely describes -- is the most serious act of treason reducing Indian democracy to a farce. Congress should be made accountable for this.

kalyanaraman

http://offstumped.nationalinterest.in/2008/10/25/mood-of-the-nation/
Offstumped For all things Right of Centre
Mood of the Nation
Offstumped wishes all its reader a Happy Deepavali with these musings.

The nation is less than six months away from the next general election. If the first four decades after Independence were marked by the absolute domination of one family in presiding over the nation’s affairs the last 2 decades saw the beginning of a more level playing political field. After some political turmoil and short lived national governments the nation has finally seen two back to back full term premierships from Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh.

Perhaps it can be safely said that political stability is the only thing Vajpayee and Manmohan regimes had in common. It is useful to contrast the mood of the nation in the last 6 months of the Vajpayee regime with the Manmohan regime.

For the purpose of this exercise Offstumped examined the editorial pages of The Hindu between November of 2003 and March of 2004 with the editorial pages in the last 30 days.

It is striking that period between Nov 2003 and March 2004 was one of relative political calm across the nation. As latest as March 2004 the Vajpayee regime was firmly focused on Governance with initiatives like revamping the National Security Council to Urban reforms. There was some concern on lack of job growth but nothing of alarming proportions.

If optimistic editorials on the economy spelled the mood, here is what Offstumped found striking over a two month period between Feb and March 2004 after the Lok Sabha was dissolved Offstumped did not see a single divisive issue dominate the public debate to make its way to the editorial pages. In fact the majority of the editorials in The Hindu were on the state of the economy or foreign affairs.
Neither Divisive Identity Politics, nor Terrorism nor Caste or Class conflicts find any mention in the public debate during that period with the Gujarat riots of 2002 a faint and distant echo.

It is also striking that Communal Socialist rhetoric by the usual suspects that is so common these days makes no appearance during that entire period. The most dominant topics - Kashmir, peace talks with Pakistan, the economy and the U.S. elections.

Now contrast this with how the mood of the nation has soured over the past 5 years with the Manmohan Singh Sonia Gandhi duo presiding over the nation’s affairs.

From North to South and East to West if there is one sentiment in common it is the manner in which social conflicts have been allowed to fester and dominate the public debate. The legacy of the Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi duo is not just the utter mismanagement of the economy but a litany of conflicts that have driven deep fissures into the social fabric in areas where none existed just 4 years back.

We went from a period of successful elections in Kashmir to deep conflict over Jammu, from a period where the wounds from Gujarat Riots were forgotten to a period where no debate would begin without invoking the riots, from a period where class entitlements were given the short shrift as the nation looked forward to a high performing economy to a period where the economy is no longer managed and entitlements have become the political mantra of the day.

If Terrorism was not even a footnote in the period leading up to the last election we are now faced with not just Terrorism becoming the most dominant issue of the day but with an obscenely vulgar public debate that will view everything only from the prism of vote bank politics.

How pray did the Mood of the Nation sour from one of Optimism fuelled by limitless possibilities to one of bitterness and myopic politics ?

In the answer to that friends lies the criminal irresponsibility of the Congress Party on two counts

- the first was in the foisting on this nation a political arrangement first with the Communists and then with the Samajwadi Party that thrived on Social Conflicts from communal issues in Uttar Pradesh to caste and class issues across the country

- the second was in the foisting on this nation another political arrangement of “Power without Accountability” that saw an electile dysfunctional bureaucrat in Manmohan Singh pushing the Communal Socialist agenda of a political leader in Sonia Gandhi who sees herself as being above any kind of public scrutiny.

It was not without reason that Offstumped described thepolitics of the Congress divisive. Premised on “Progresive Liberalism” that thrives on “victimhood” and “guilt” the evidence is incontrovertible that the Congress having inherited a nation bereft of conflict has damaged its fabric irreversibly with its Communal Socialist agenda.

On the auspicious occassion of Diwali Offstumped calls upon all right thinking nationalist Indians to reflect upon this souring of the mood of the nation and give serious thought to defeating this divisive brand of politics rather than fall into its trap for nothing serves the Communal Socialists better than festering conflicts that create new classes of victims while spreading around an all pervasive emotion of guilt.

http://offstumped.nationalinterest.in/2008/10/31/the-indian-state-adrift/
Offstumped: For all things Right of Centre
Offstumped

For all things Right of Centre: The Indian State adrift

When Offstumped began a look back at how the Mood of the Nation has soured since 2004 little did it expect that events would take such a dramatic turn across the nation.

It can now be safely said that the wages of Absentee Leadership and Executive Delinquency are finally being paid by citizens of India from East to the West.

It can now also be safely concluded that North Block no longer has a functioning Internal Security Executive at its helm. Some brain dead zombies may still be lurking in the corridors and finders may please return them to their respective constituencies in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh where they maybe safely put to rest.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has lost his grip on governance while Congress President and UPA Chairman Sonia Gandhi remains AWOL.

Reflecting back on the aberration of 2004 when an irresponsible Sonia Gandhi decided to foist a Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister , only one question comes to mind.

What was she thinking ?

Reflecting back on the more than 4 years of misery under the UPA dispensation throws up another question
How could we as citizens or voters have been so careless to have allowed such an incompetent and utterly clueless duo to ride roughshod on national affairs for 4 years ?

What were we thinking ?

Offstumped Bottomline: Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh were way over their heads when they thought they could wing it with their extra-constitutional wedlock. Managing the Indian State is way beyond their league and it is time they recognized this bitter truth and spared the rest of us the costs of their absentee leadership and executive delinquency.

Offstumped calls upon this incompetent and utterly clueless duo to dissolve parliament and call for fresh elections so we can get some real leadership and governance before it is too late.

How Indians could have saved the financial system

2008-10-30T17:07:00.000-07:00

Three reports including a brilliant piece by E. Ramachandran on how Indians could have saved Lehman from bankruptcy.

The issues are these:
1. All attempts seem to be to bail out institutions such as commercial banks and investment banks
2. Little attempts are being made to work out an index beyond ‘consumer spending’ and measures other than promoting ‘spending’ by consumers
The most incisive comment relates to the concept of GDP itself as a measure of wealth.

To what extent is the mother’s contribution worked into the GDP? Zero, zilch. In the Indian tradition, she is the tutor, guru who moulds a child and equips her child to realize his or her full potential. Every child is a prospective contributor to the wealth of nations. Unfortunately, economists, nerds and quarks (the so-called winners of economics nobel prizes) have no clue to measure this contribution of the mother.

Unless the financial system comes to grip with dharma detailed by Kautilya in his Arthashastra, this fetishism of money will continue to yield bizarre, recurring recessions. Governments have no clue, no solutions beyond palliatives such as bailing out banks of a number of money varieties. P. Chidambaram for example is the promoter of Participatory Notes which have substantially spelt the doom of the Indian stock prices while making some Indians rich through hawala transactions which are endemic in this Participatory Note act of treason, trying to loot the nation’s wealth.

The next President of USA may have to establish an international commission including Nanubhai from India to start eating khaman dhokla and enjoy life. Life is a lot more pleasurable when various forms of money are ignored and varieties of dhokla are tasted and enjoyed.

Kalyanaraman

Banks borrow record amount from Fed (The Hindu, Oct. 30, 2008)

WASHINGTON (AP) : Banks borrowed in record amounts from the Federal Reserve's emergency lending programme over the past week, while investment banks drew loans at a slower pace.

The Fed's report, released Thursday, showed commercial banks averaged a record $111.9 billion in daily borrowing over the past week. That surpassed the old record, a daily average of $105.8 billion, from the prior week.

For the week ending Wednesday, investment firms drew $87.4 billion. That was down from $111.3 billion in the previous week. This category was recently broadened to include any loans that were made to the U.S. and London-based broker-dealer subsidiaries of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch.

The Fed report also showed that its net holdings of ``commercial paper'' came to $144.8 billion on Wednesday. The Fed created a first-of-its kind program, which started Monday, to buy mounds of this crucial short-term debt that companies use to pay everyday expenses.

Squeezed banks and investment firms are borrowing from the Fed because they can't get money elsewhere. Investors have cut them off, moving their money into safer Treasury securities. Financial institutions are hoarding whatever cash they have, rather than lend it to each other or customers. The lockup in lending has contributed to a sharp slowing in the overall economy.

Investment houses in March were given similar, emergency-loan privileges as commercial banks after a run on Bear Stearns pushed what was the fifth-largest U.S. investment bank to the brink of bankruptcy.

The identities of commercial banks and investment houses that borrow are not released. Commercial banks and investment companies now pay 1.25 percent in interest for the emergency loans.

Since the Bear Stearns debacle in March, the Fed has taken a series of unprecedented steps to get lending _ the economy's oxygen _ flowing more freely again. The central bank has repeatedly tapped its Depression-era authority to be a lender of last resort not only to financial institutions, but also to other types of companies.
Critics worry the Fed's actions could put billions of taxpayers' dollars at risk.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holnus/000200810310380.htm

How Indians would have saved Lehman Brothers
E.R. RAMACHANDRAN writes: I happened to run in to Nanubhaion Dalal Street. He was eating Khaman Dhokla in a farsan shop.
“Khem cho, Nanubhai?”
“Saru che.”
He was looking glum but gestured me to join him.
As I bit into the tasty dhokla with tangy chutney on the Friday afternoon, which was fast turning into a ‘Manic Friday’ as per Dalal Street lingo, he was staring at the bull near the entrance, which overnight had become a Russian bear hugging everybody that passed the Street.
Nanubhai is a well-respected Dalal Street dada with an answer to every shareholder’s query.
“What went wrong with Lehman Brothers?” I asked.
“Lots of things. If the founder brothers, Henry, Emanuel andMayer were alive this wouldn’t have happened. Lehman Brothers were more than a 150-year-old company. But yet, it had no Lehman in the company. Such a situation can never happen in India.”
“Are you trying to tell me an Indian would have handled this differently?”
“Bilkul. If it was an Indian firm, Lehman Brothers would have fought as soon as their father died and divided in to three companies. They would have diversified into clothing, polystyrene, petrochemicals, vegetables, movie making, telecom, drilling oil, mobile phones, retailing, books, spectacles, gyms, wellness. In short, anything and everything under the sun. They would have made money for themselves and their shareholders.”
“But when there is massive failure there would be no option but to file for bankruptcy?”
“Fail-wail chance hi nahin! Even if they encounter tough times, they would have friends like Mulayam Singh and Amar Singh to bail them out. They could finish off competition by befriending the finance minister and getting duties levied on the imports of competition. They would fund and befriend ruling parties. Unfortunately for Lehman Brothers in 2008, without a Lehman on the board or some Indian business brothers at the top, they couldn’t open the survival kit to stay afloat.”
As we were sipping double khadak chai, I asked: “Did anybody anticipate this global meltdown?”
“Anticipate? Mazak chodo! I will tell you something. America has some 45 Nobel laureates in economics from 1970. From 2000 alone there are 15 Nobel laureates in econometrics sitting on company boards, treasury benches and in places like Harvard, Stanfordetc. Kisiko kuch patha nahin tha! How come none of these had any inkling to the disaster awaiting the banking circles all over the world? Even the finance ministers of G-7 talked of strong “fundamentals” of world economy around this time last year! Two months back the only topic they were discussing was the rise in oil prices.”
“What will happen if it goes all on like this?”
“Some American economist will study this, write a new a theory and get Nobel Prize next year, dekhna. Seriously, they forgot things like control, double check, systems-in-place etc and brought in vague words like Subprimes to give loans left, right and centre.”
“What will happen to the Indian market?”
“It’s already having the Lehman Brothers’ effect. Our finance minister seems to like the figure 60,000. While presenting the budget earlier in the year he pledged Rs 60,000 crore to write off loans given to farmers. Now he is pumping Rs 60,000 crore to help out the banks! I don’t know what he will do next. He is again from Harvard!”
“What is the lesson to be learnt from the Lehman Brothers’ episode?” I asked as we were leaving.
Nanubhai took a spoonful of saunf and said: “You know, we have an old elementary rule for keeping hisab-kithab. Divide a page into ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ with a line in the middle to denote Debit and Credit. In case of LB, as somebody said, nothing was right in the ‘Left’ and nothing was left in the ‘Right’,” concluded Nanubhai.
http://churumuri.wordpress.com/2008/10/11/how-indians-would-have-saved-lehman-brothers/

Whoever captures the White House seems certain to inherit a starkly challenging economic picture. Thursday’s government report showed that consumer spending — which makes up more than 70 percent of American economy activity — dipped at 3.1 percent annual rate between July and September, after growing at a 1.2 percent annual rate in the previous three months.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/31/business/economy/31econ.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
OCTOBER 30, 2008, 12:41 PM
Alternatives to the G.D.P.
By CATHERINE RAMPELL (New York Times)
In response to our coverage of today’s gross domestic product estimate, a reader who goes by the name “TheBookkeeper” writes:
Has the time come to consider a better way to measure our economic state than to use consumer spending? Bookkeeping is a science that measure equity. Equity is the efficiency with which a business entity is operating, be that business a person, a household, or an industry. Doing more walking and less driving helps my equity account and hurts the economist’s consumer spending account. Is my walking a good thing or a bad thing?
Consumer spending is the largest component of G.D.P., and was a primary driver in G.D.P. decline in the third quarter. But it is far from the only component of G.D.P., which also includes investment, government spending and net exports.
So, to answer TheBookkeeper’s question, the preferred “way to measure our economic state” is usually G.D.P., which covers areas of growth other than consumer spending. But that does not mean G.D.P. is the best way to measure the health of an economy.
G.D.P. measures the total market value of final goods and services produced in a country during a given period. Ithas long come under fire, though, for not measuring “that which makes life worthwhile,” as Robert F. Kennedy put it 40 years ago.
G.D.P. does not take into account some of the negative effects of economic growth, like pollution. It does not factor in leisure time, or parts of the “informal economy” (like parents’ unpaid care for their own children) that have value but not necessarily measurable, marketable value. It does not give any sense of how equitably distributed a country’s wealth is; a country could theoretically have both the world’s highest G.D.P. and the world’s highest poverty rate simultaneously. It also does not reflect quality of life or happiness in any given country.
Along the years, economists have suggested alternative ways to measure a country’s economic health, most of which focus on measures of well-being. China has recently tried to use a measure known as “green G.D.P.,” an index of economic growth that factors in environmental consequences. The United States Congress has alsocommissioned research on “green accounting” measures.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has studied its own G.D.P. alternatives that take into account leisure. Others have proposed the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare, which factors in both pollution and income distribution, and the Genuine Progress Indicator, which tries to determine if economic growth has improved a country’s welfare. Alternative efforts try to supplement or supplant traditional income-based measures with happiness-based measures. These include the Happy Planet Index, a Gross National Happiness measure and work on National Well-Being Accounts, which our Daily Economist Alan Krueger has studied extensively.
It is not clear that any one of these competing measures of economic and societal health will replace G.D.P. anytime soon.
But while TheBookkeeper and the rest of us wait for a new consensus on how to measure economic health, we can also experiment with how these measures would apply to our own lives. The Happy Planet Index lets you measure your own personal happiness level according to the H.P.I. metric. this site allows you to create your own I.S.E.W. (for Britain only), depending on how you weigh different measures of well-being and economic growth, and see how it compares to G.D.P.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/30/alternatives-to-the-gdp/

Pushing Hindus into a corner -- Tarun Vijay

2008-10-27T20:44:00.000-07:00

Pushing Hindus into a corner

Tarun Vijay | October 27, 2008 | 14:14 IST

One Diwali the highly revered monk of Hindus, Swami Jayendra Saraswati, was arrested while performing puja. The secular world celebrated it as a victory of law and constitutional propriety. When nothing was proved, all the chargesheets turned bunkum, the Supreme Court gave a verdict favouring theswami's release on bail, but no one retracted the strong, often abusive words used for the Hindu monk. It was met with silence as if nothing important had happened.

One Krishna Janmashtami night, another ochre-robed reformist monk, Swami Lakshmanananda, was murdered along with an aged Hindu nun, Ma Bhaktimoyee, in his ashram. Secularists tried to direct and guide the entire investigation till the arrested murderers confessed that swami's work among tribals made prosylitisation difficult and hence they took the violent way.

The media linked the violence post-Lakshmanananda's murder to various Hindu organisations and completely ignored the brutal killing of the sanyasi and the lady monk.

This Diwali, Hindus were labelled as 'terrorists'.

There is a university in Delhi which gets a large amount of Saudi grants, and which thought it appropriate to honour a Muslim painter whose nudes of Hindu gods and goddesses and Mother India were opposed by Hindus, with a Doctor of Philosophy degree, honoris causa. The same university's vice chancellor, in a display of public affection for those students arrested for treason by a Congress government, declared that he will fund their 'struggle' as they are his 'children' and they would be considered innocent till proved guilty.
The secular world applauded his decision as bold and highly moral.
A Hindu sadhvi has been arrested for her alleged involvement in the Malegaon blasts. But not a single Hindu organisation came out in her support saying she remains a member of the global Hindu fraternity and would be considered innocent till proved guilty and hence shall provide all the financial assistance to her.

I was thinking, suppose I start a 'support Pragya fund' how any Hindu saints and ashrams and mutts and leaders would come out in support?Doesn't she deserve help and support till proved innocent?

Unlike the sweet little students of the university's vice chancellor, who were arrested from the area of the Batla House encounter, Pragya was in Surat, giving a religious discourse when the Malegaon blasts occurred in September. Her bike had been sold years before. No one said the blasts were organised to make Hindu law applicable or turn the nation into a Hindu state. No one had quoted Hindu scriptures to justify what would be termed as a ghastly act, inhuman and un-Hindu.

Yet, there was a virtual celebration in the so-called secular camp, they were over-joyous as if they have reached the moon. Got it, they said, what we were saying for years! The usual suspects were on our TV screens, delightedly giving interviews and the media lapped up crispy descriptions like Hindu terror, Hindu bomb, Saffron terrorism. When they quote the Quran, seculars cry don't label them Islamic terrorists, but Hindus being Hindus must be termed as Hindu terrorists to keep a 'balance'. So those who insult the memory of a martyred police officer show their glee over having succeeded in bringing the term 'Hindu terrorism' in vogue. What greater shield could an Islamic terrorist have wished for.

They were itching for this day and they have got it.

Last year too the 2006 Malegaon blasts were blamed on Hindus. Later the agencies proved they were done by SIMI. This year, Union ministers were demanding the ban on SIMI be lifted in spite of truckloads of evidence of the organisation's involvement in deadly blasts and waging war against the State, the most heinous crime in any part of the world. And the investigations, gathering of proof and the hard, difficult investigation, were done by government agencies.
The same honourable members of the Union cabinet demanded banning Hindu organisations, in spite of having no evidence of their involvement in violent activities or working against the Indian State. Those who ignore the Supreme Court's verdict on a terrorist who was accused waging war against the State, demand that Hindu organisations be banned for theirpatriotism.Once they drove out the tricolour folks from the Kashmir Valley, now theyassassinatetheir morale in the rest of the country.

For the sake of Muslim vote-bank, SIMI had to be helped and Hindu organisations needed to be shown as being involved in anti-national activities. The balancing had to be achieved, like the U C Banerjee Commission. Much before the honourable commission could start work on Godhra, leaders were declaring during the Bihar election campaign -- many of whom loved to be seen with an Osama look-alike -- that the Godhra train inferno was a creation of Hindus so that they could get a chance to pounce on Muslims.

So much for their secular credentials!

This time, too, they had tremendous amount of pressure to nurse their vote-banks. Elections are right here, campaigning has begun, chances look very bleak seeing the public mood, and voters seem already restless with high prices, growing inflation and an insecure atmosphere. Hence a communal divide would help. If such considerations can be credited as having instigated the 'creation' of a Hindu or 'Saffron' terrorism, would it be a far-fetched conclusion?
The intelligent people who could create a Bhindranwale, or a Raj Thackeray, to 'defeat' one or the other political opponent, could also be trusted to repeat the feat elsewhere.

So, this time, the police version is not to be distrusted or questioned. The first suspicion about police action is reserved for the Batla House fraternity. Hindu monks do not deserve it.

The term 'Hindu terrorism' looks so attractive to secularists. Proof, evidence, and final acquittal may take year. But the articles, front page edits, condemnations, further isolation, and cornering of the saffron side, would help someone. That's enough for today.
That this way may turn more dangerous tomorrow is not understood by the perpetrators of the secular pogrom of words against the Hindu Right. Every nation has a soul and a colour. India's soul is Hindu civilisation and the colour is saffron. Samuel Huntington described America as a Latin Christian nation, and it doesn't make her any less to give other communities second-class citizenship.

It may be the first time in its four hundred years of democratic history that a Black might be sworn in as President, who would take oath on the Bible. Who would demand that it's an unhealthy tradition, as non-Christians also built America? Traditions, colours and the inner core are always sacred and nations preserve them at all costs. If the same elements are humiliated and turned into icons of shame, nothing remains except a dead, meaningless smoke of rootless words.
India's Hinduness is that essential element to define this nation. We can't be explained through Saudis, Marx or Bethlehem. Or through Arabic or Latin or Persian. India is explained by the Ganga, Krishna, Ram and Gandhi. By Kumbh Mela, Sanskrit chanting, lighting of the lamp, Namaste, the Vedas, Guru Nanak's teachings, Guru Gobind Singh's valour, Buddha's global message of peace and compassion and Mahavir's ahimsa. India is deciphered by Dhammapad, the Gita, the Guru Granth Sahib and a divine love that saw the emergence of Radha and Meera. That fired the imaginations of doyens like Tagore and Vivekananda. Together they make a mutually supportive group of Indian streams of faith that welcomed and accommodated without murmur all other ways of worship brought here through various means.

Every single persecuted community in the world found a respectable space here, while they were brutalised, uprooted, converted and 'museum-ised' in other countries. The legacy of tolerance and plurality is the legacy of the Hindus and all those faiths born and flowered here. It made Taj Mahal possible and Jesus adored by a non-Christian majority. You deny them this place of honour, make them shrink in a defensive shell, and you lose India.

For just a comeback to power? And how!

Ram Sethu becomes a target of destruction, Ram is denied, Ram's history linked with the bridge is mocked at, Sita's persona is caricaturized in public, the shrinking Hindu population and their conversion become victory signposts of the secularists, Hindus driven out of Kashmir are deleted from all lists of secular concern, Hindu temples are taken over by the atheist State and their revenue used on non-Hindu areas, while not a single non-Hindu place of worship is taken over or 'managed' on similar grounds by the governors! More than sixty thousand Hindus have been killed by terrorists in various actions during the last three decades, five lakh have been uprooted and turned refugees, but no one shares their grief or respects their courage, but terms them terrorist in a matter of 24 hours, that too relying on media hype and an election platform?

After centuries Hindus got freedom that should have meant a free space for them to flower their culture, language and traditions. After all, the invaders came to attack and loot them and raze their temples. Wasn't it a matter of logical right that they should have been honoured for exemplary resistance and resilience and showing an extraordinary tolerance towards all those communities whose leaders had been in the forefront to deprive them of basic human rights?
But instead, the victims were portrayed as aggressors and humiliated for their colour and faith. What has changed since Ghauris and Ghaznavis and the inquisitionist Portuguese left?

They killed us but never portrayed Hindus as terrorists. This secular dispensation is celebrating Diwali with that label gifted to Hindus. It will not remain unanswered. Hindus as a mainline faith never never never believed in any kind of cowardice that's the hallmark of terrorism we see today. Killing innocents, shooting at fellow citizens and the dreaded midnight knocks just for the reason they wear a different faith.

If that was the case, the way Islamists quote from religious scriptures and declare their religious intentions while committing ghastly acts of violence, how much ever disapproved of by their co- religionists living and enjoying democratic freedoms, Hindus too would have shown the same streaks immediately after their women were gang-raped and kids murdered in Kashmir. There was no revenge in the rest of the country. Not a single Hindu soul would ever justify any act of terrorism ever (and please don't refer to exceptions to corner Hindus, see the principal stream). Born reformists, they would revolt if anyone did that.

But I am afraid the secular hate-mongers are pushing Hindus into a difficult corner without a space to be heard. Not a single 'mainline' newspaper publishes their views, though any number of assaults on them are a matter of routine. This is creating a grave situation and it's a warning signal that can be ignored only at the peril of the nation's great legacy of pluralitity.

Tarun Vijay is a director of the Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation
http://www.rediff.com///news/2008/oct/27tarun.htm

Rethinking capitalism

2008-10-26T19:37:00.000-07:00

Two insightful articles:

1. Rethink American model of development by Prof. Vaidyanathan
2. Capitalism needs to be rescued: NY Times editorial

How to rethink capitalism?

In my view, the Arthashastra of Kautilya provides the answer. This extraordinary treatise of Kautilya postulates the protection of dharma as the responsibility of everyone, including the state. Dharma is a recognition of the cosmic and consciousness order which upholds everything. The accent has to shift from right to responsibility, from consumption and avarice to sharing.

Economy cannot be boosted by promoting spending by citizens. Economy can be boosted and wealth created by hard work. This means that full employment should be the goal of the polity to unleash the full potential of everyone while leaving the globe in a sustainable state to the future generations. One facet of dharma is abhyudayam, that is, welfare of all. This facet is achievable by discarding, to start with, the evils of fetishism of money.

Kalyanaraman

Rethink required on imitating the American model of development
R Vaidyanathan
Wednesday, October 22, 2008 03:47 IST

Recent events show a failure of many of the model’s basic premises
The evolving crisis in the American financial system is only a symptom and the disease is more deep rooted.

The American model of development is itself in doubt. It is based on many important premises, some of them related to concepts such as “market is always right,” “lower taxation,” “trickledown effect,” the role of the “hidden hand,” issues of “moral hazard” and of course the greatness of “consumption driven society.” It is also stressed that prudential self-regulation will guide the affairs than prescriptive regulations.

The recent crisis has to a large extent shows the king without clothes. The way institutions are bailed out by the government makes us wonder about the role of “moral hazard”. The senior executives who are partly responsible have not been adequately punished, nor their retirement benefits confiscated. The low-saving American household has been rudely made to accept the reality that consumption cannot just be continued with multiple credit cards. The algo traders and swap insurers needed more prudent regulations. The regulator needed more knowledge of the products and the over-the-counter products actually needed more disclosure and clearing mechanisms. But these are symptoms. The basic malaise is deeper. Throughout the seventies and eighties, it was globalisation of product markets and manufacturing facilities.

The anecdotal evidence often told in many a business school classroom used to be something like this: The doors of the Ford car are made in Barcelona, the seat cushions near Budapest, gearbox in the suburbs of Paris, music system in Osaka and the assembly is done at Kula Lumpur, and the car is sold in Shanghai. So, what’s American about it? It is transnational and the geographical boundaries are crumbling. Think global and act local, we were told, and bringing in the term “glocal.”

This was the ultimate in the process of global integration of economic activities through integration of manufacturing facilities to reduce cost, take advantage of specialised skills and pool the resources available in the global market. It was to move manufacturing nearer to material centres or to markets. It also argued about “standardisation” of lifestyles - mostly the American standards - in terms of jeans, processed food and cola drinks; heated food became the in thing and not hot food.

The nineties saw the globalisation of financial markets. If you wanted to set up a facility in Mumbai, you could now think of raising funds from New York stock exchange if the project was attractive enough. Funds were looking for markets and “geographical diversification” became the buzzword. The correlations between stock indices of New York and Timbuktu were constructed to justify that low correlated Timbuktu offer good portfolio possibility along with New York since low or ideally negative correlation implies risk reduction. This whole development was initiated by the USA and sincerely followed by countries like India. It premised on the belief that free financial markets and flow of funds would facilitate faster growth.

Then came the idea of consumption-led growth and greed as the norm. On May 18, 1986, Ivan Boesky gave the commencement address at the University of California at Berkeley’s business school. “I think greed is healthy,” he told his enthusiastic audience. “You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself.” A few months later, Boesky was indicted on the charges that would land him in Southern California’s Lompoc Federal Prison, also known as Club Fed West. But greed continued to be the norm rather than the exception. The pure interest rate or the inter-temporal expectations became very large and waiting time became shorter and the so called “get rich quick” attitude took over. To achieve those aims domestic markets were not found to be adequate. Hence the search for “geographical allocation” wherein it was felt that risk should be reduced by spreading it across territories and across product lines. The more financial markets integrated, the less they became attractive for diversification since the correlations were becoming more positive. The earlier idea of geographical diversification is not working since events in New York are impacting Shanghai and Mumbai. Hence we need to closely re-look at the issue of integrated Financial Markets.
May be segmented markets with some tenuous ties might not have created such a global meltdown since contagion effect would have been lesser. Actually, the lower impact on India is to a large extent the lower integration of our markets with those of others, except through the FII and trade routes.

At the same time, the traditional notions of banks doing banking work and insurance companies doing insurance work, etc were thrown out to embrace universal institutions where anybody can do anything. Insurance companies were active in swap markets, banks in insurance and pension funds in stocks. It was argued that these reduce risks. But it was not so, as the problems of AIG reveal. Its problems did not arise out of insurance, but out of other financial derivative products. Our own private airlines are suffering since they have leased aircraft from a subsidiary of AIG and lease rentals have shot up since they are at floating rates linked to the London Inter Bank Offer Rate. Hence, there is a need to re-look at the universal banking idea.

The issue of trickledown effect seems to be an asymmetrical argument. When the going is good, it is expected to trickle down from business tycoons to the poor labourer. But when the going is tough, it is the poor labourer who is punished first. During bad times, suffering seems to be slowly trickling up. Actually, the senior executives and owner managers should take a huge cut in their pay packets before advocating “pruning” of human sources. Perhaps we should go for the Scandinavian model of high taxation and larger social security net since our business leaders have moved away from dharmic (the right course, as prescribed by religion) methods to asuric (pertaining to demons) ways. It is unimaginable that many of our business owners and executives are flaunting their wealth in an obscene fashion and suggesting tightening of belt to lower level employees.

We need to rethink on integrating our financial markets with global markets since their embrace can be that of vish-kanya (the mythical poison woman whose very touch was lethal). We should re-look at the universal banking model where the contagion could be more stressful. We must re-emphasise the importance of saving and welfare of families rather than just the rights of individuals and a possibility of government rescue. Executive remuneration should be within our own parameters and not based on the “greed is good” policy. If corporates refuse to see the point, then the government must step in to apply the brake. Overall, social stability and harmony are far more important than page-3 obscenities in our context.
The writer is professor of finance, Indian Institute of Management - Bangalore, and can be reached atvaidya@iimb.ernet.in. Views are personal.
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1200055&pageid=0

October 25, 2008
Editorial
Rescuing Capitalism
It would be fairly easy to dismiss the gleeful boast by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France that American-style capitalism is over, to file it with French critiques of fast food and American pop culture.

Except that the United States government now owns stakes in the nation’s biggest banks. It controls one of the biggest insurance companies in the world. It guarantees more than half the mortgages in the country. Finance — the lifeblood of capitalism — has to a substantial degree been taken over by the state.

Even Alan Greenspan, the high priest of unfettered capitalism and a former chairman of the Federal Reserve, conceded this week that he had “found a flaw” in his bedrock belief of “40 years or more” that markets would regulate themselves. “I made a mistake,” he said.

The question is what new direction capitalism should take.In a globally interconnected world, the United States cannot simply march back to the gray flannel capitalism of the 1950s and 1960s when regulations were tough and coddled monopolies dominated the corporate world. Still, the next president will have a chance, not to be missed, to re-evaluate some tenets of the freewheeling, deregulated version of a market economy that has dominated America since the Reagan administration.

Financial deregulation enabled our boom-and-bust dynamic — removing barriers to capital flows, allowing unrestricted trading of abstruse financial products and letting financial institutions take on more and more debt. Cheap money, from China or the Federal Reserve, fueled the fire. But America’s virtually unregulated shadow financial institutions — brokerages, hedge funds and other nonbank banks — played a particularly important role at the center of this process.

The solution will require rethinking the rules of finance. The amount of capital that banks must keep in reserve will have to rise; deregulated financial institutions will have to be regulated. Yet much more will be needed than just putting the bridle back on American banks.

The next government must re-establish some notion of equity of opportunity. Investment is desperately needed in health care, education, infrastructure. The social contract and the government’s role in it should be examined anew. Addressing these challenges will be an enormous task — especially amid the bitter recession that most economists expect over the next year or so. But they must be faced. Fixing finance is merely the start.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/25/opinion/25sat2.html?_r=1&th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

US and India preparing highest battle field of the world, Siachen. Are Hu, Karat squirming?

2008-10-18T03:45:00.001-07:00

US and India preparing highest battle field of the world, Siachen. Are Hu, Karat squirming?

US Army chief visits Siachen
Shabir Ibn Yusuf

SRINAGAR, Oct 17: US Army Chief George W. Casey today visited the Siachen glacier, the highest battle field.The US army chief is on a three day visit to India that began on Thursday.

Pakistan has objected to the visit, terming Siachen as a disputed territory and has apprehensions that peace process might get derailed after his visit.

According to a senior army officer from Udhampur based Northern command, Indian Army chief General Deepak Kapoor accompanied Casey during the visit. “Casey was first flown over the 70 km glacier to have an aerial view and then landed there to acquaint himself about the ground realities,” the army officer said, adding that the Corps commander of Ladakh based 14 Core was already there. “He held an interaction with some army officers presently posted there,” the senior army officer added. The army officer said that his visit is for developing concept and medical aspect of fighting troopers in severe cold conditions and high altitudes, “Siachen is best for such concept developing as it is a unique battle field,” added the army officer.
He said that the US Army is presently dealing with rugged and high altitude terrain in Afghanistan. “US army wants to learn from the Indian army to fight on such inhospitable, rough and rugged terrain,” the army officer added.

Pakistani foreign Office spokesman has said about the visit of US army chief to Siachen “Any such visit to an area which is disputed and which is under discussion between Pakistan and India will certainly cast a shadow on the ongoing composite dialogue between the two neighbours,” a Foreign Office spokesman was quoted saying by the newsmen.

Here it needs to be mentioned that since September 2007, Siachen has opened up mountaineering and trekking expeditions by Indian army to the forbidding glacial heights for civilians. Earlier Israeli Army chief also visited valley and held threadbare discussions about the dealing of counterinsurgency in Jammu and Kashmir with senior army officers in Srinagar.
[Kashmir Times]

------------------------------------------------------------
US army chief lands at Siachen

Mehboob Jeelani

Srinagar, Oct 17: United States Army Chief of Staff General George William Casey on Friday visited Siachen, the world’s highest battle battle field, army sources said.

Sources said that Casey landed in Ladakh in a US aircraft and had an hour long interaction with the Indian army officials.

After the interaction, Casey alongwith Indian army chief General Deepak Kapoor visited Siachen, world’s highest battle field at an altitude of above 20000 ft above the sea level. “He was first flown over the 70 km glacier to have an aerial view and then landed there to acquaint himself about the ground realities,” sources said.
They said that US army chief was briefed about the situation in the glacier by the local army officials. “Later he conducted geographical inspection of the world’s highest battle field,” they said, adding, “He visited the Siachen for developing concept and medical aspect of fighting in severe cold conditions and high altitudes”.

The US Army has to deal with rugged and high altitude terrain in Afghanistan and "they want to learn from the Indian army to fight on such inhospitable, rough and rugged terrain".
After staying in the glacier for few hours, Casey returned to New Delhi.
Army sources said that US army chief appreciated the role of Indian army for operating in tough weather conditions in Siachen. They said that during the interaction with Indian army officials in Ladakh and Siachen, Casey deliberated upon the need to improve the cooperation between the armies of two countries.

Earlier, few months back, a group of around 20 US army officials visited Kashmir. They later visited Ladakh, where they held deliberations with the Indian army officials.

In September Israel’s Army chief, Major General Avi Mizrahi secretly visited Kashmir and offered training programmes to Indian troops based on counter-insurgency operations.

Siachen is the highest battle field in the world where India and Pakistan have been fighting to claim control over the glacier.

Since September 2007, India has opened up mountaineering and trekking expeditions to the forbidding glacial heights for civilians.
Indian and Pakistani troops regularly traded fire along the Line of Actual Control on Siachen till a ceasefire was put in place along the frontiers in Jammu and Kashmir in late 2003.

However, more troops from both sides have lost their lives due to inclement weather condition than to bullets on Siachen.

[Rising Kashmir]
http://www.kashmirwatch.com/showheadlines.php?subaction=showfull&id=1224319236&archive=&start_from=&ucat=1&var0news=value0news

Ignoring Pak protest, US general visits Siachen
18 Oct 2008, 1304 hrs IST, Chidanand Rajghatta, TNN

WASHINGTON: Washington's response to Pakistan's complaint about the visit to Siachen Glacier in India by the US Army Chief General George Casey? Cold.

Hours after Islamabad loudly remonstrated about General Casey's reported programme to the highest battlefield in the world, which Pakistan considers a disputed territory, a senior US official in Washington confirmed the outing, while pointedly ignoring the Pakistani protest.

"As you all know, Gen Casey is in India and he was up in Siachen today," Evan Feigenbaum, deputy assistant secretary for South and Central Asian affairs, told an Indian media round table on Friday on US-India relations. "Exciting things are happening in defense."

The remarks followed an unexpected protest from Islamabad over Casey's journey to the region to study Indian expertise and tactics in high-altitude battlefield conditions which could come in handy for US troops in Afghanistan's front with Pakistan.

A Pakistani foreign office spokesman said on Thursday that "any such visit to an area which is disputed and which is under discussion between Pakistan and India will certainly cast a shadow on the ongoing composite dialogue between the two neighbours."

The Pakistan objection seems to be more pro-forma than a meaningful one considering India has taken several foreign diplomats and generals to Kashmir, and even conducted military exercises in the region. It is now widely accepted in Washington that the boundaries between India and Pakistan, including the Line of Control, will not be redrawn, and any solution to the Kashmir issue will be within the ambit of the current boundaries.

While the Kashmir issue as a "dispute" has gradually receded into the background, saner voices are suggesting that the time is ripe for India and Pakistan to settle the matter broadly along existing lines.

"The Government of India has stated that maps cannot be redrawn. The Government of Pakistan has stated that the status quo is unacceptable. One way to proceed toward a settlement would be to accept both positions and devise new regional bodies that would overlay the current map of a divided Kashmir. These regional bodies could deal with trade, tourism, power generation, pilgrimages, and other matters," the Washington think-tank Stimson Center said in a recent paper on confidence building measures between the two sides.

For a section of the Pakistani establishment though, not redrawing the maps would amount to a status quo. But under pressure from Washington and the international community, Islamabad is being persuaded to move towards a solution on the existing lines, particularly in view of Pakistan's parlous situation that makes continued confrontation with India untenable.

The Stimson paper approvingly noted that a delegation of business leaders from Muzaffarabad recently has crossed the Line of Control dividing Kashmir to discuss the modalities of expanded trade. Pakistan's top peacenik rock band, Junoon, which arguably has a larger fan following in India than in its own home, was allowed by the Indian government to perform at Srinagar in the biggest musical event in the disputed valley in decades.

The objection to Gen Casey's Siachen visit is seen here as part of a series of confused responses from the out-of-kilter Pakistani establishment that seems to be working at cross purposes. While Pakistan's newly elected president Asif Ali Zardari has been pushing for peace with New Delhi, going to the extent of saying India has never been a threat to Pakistan, the military establishment, whose budgets depend on a confrontational posture with India, had been chafing at the bit.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/USA/Ignoring_Pak_protest_US_general_visits_Siachen/articleshow/3611948.cms

Christist conversion marketing as multinational enterprise -- TH Chowdary

2008-10-17T05:19:00.000-07:00

Christist conversion marketing as multinational enterprise -- TH Chowdary

October 7, 2008

The Danger of Hindu-Christian Riots in Andhra Pradesh – TH Chowdary

The weeks-long Hindu Christian riots in Kandhamal District of Orissa and similar incidents in Karnataka are not unlikely to be repeated in Andhra Pradesh very soon. In Orissa and Karnataka the riots are precipitated by the intensive, aggressive, extensive activities of hundreds of missionary organizations with thousands of fulltime, well-paid propagandists and agents. In Kandhamal District, alone there are 350 missionary organizations funded from all quarters of the world. They are engaging lots and lots of unemployed people, to inveigle poor and uneducated Hindus into Christianity by monetary rewards, given in installments related to the number of people that these full-time marketers of Christianity are able to convert. Aiding them are the fifth columns of a number of NGOs with enticing names, all funded by Christian missions from abroad? The fact that in Kandhamal District alone the Christian population has increased from 6 percent in 1970 to 27 percent in 2001, despite an Act enacted by Orissa Legislature in 1967 to prevent conversion shows the intensity of the multinational conversion, [MNC] enterprises marketing and financial clout.

2. In Karnataka, it is plain blasphemy, openly and aggressively indulged in by an MNC enterprise that has led to the Hindu-Christian strife. In Andhra Pradesh, strife is building up and will burst with great fury in not too distant a time. In Village after Village, different denominations of Christians are planting churches, recruiting converts as pastors, paying them handsomely, they are also engaging thousands of unemployed Hindu youth for propagating Christianity and gaining converts. These are being rewarded in installments. Just as the total compensation of company employees is having a fixed and varying components, fixed amount and varying amount related to the number of converts they are able to bring into Christianity.

3 A look at the Table below shows the fantastically numerous places of worship or prayers of Muslims and Christians district-wise in our State it would be seen based upon Christian population is 1.44% as per the census of 2001, there is one place of worship for seven Christians and one place of worship for 39 Muslims and one place of worship for 341 Hindus.

Existing No. of Temples, Mosques and Churches in as on 31st March 2005. (Revenue and Endowment Board of Andhra Pradesh)

District Temples Churches Mosques
Adilabad 12,346 3,347 18,482
Ananthpur 14,008 4,892 9,328
Chittor 26,120 9,098 12,320
Cuddpah 22,982 7,241 14,223
East Godavari 8,220 12,123 9,230
Guntur 9,302 16,388 5,429
Hyderabad 13,144 3,204 15,203
(Rangareddy)
Kakinada 7,203 8,585 5,274
Karimnagar 4,129 1,648 9,714
Khammam 5,210 7,203 5,922
Krishna 8,929 8,462 3,769
Kurnool 6,549 5,203 9,293
Machlipatnam 5,000 8,320 6,493
Mahboobnagar 3,299 3,128 7,235
Medak 6,302 3,203 3,234
Nellore 7,993 6,782 7,323
Nalgonda 6,882 2,412 5,239
Nizamabad 4,638 3,203 9,366
Prakasham 4,255 5,583 4,932
Srikakulam 7,339 9,879 2,140
Warangal 1,393 6,320 1,342
West Godavari 3,293 5,464 2,765
Vishakapatnam 6,430 3,203 4,203
Vizianagaram 3,891 3,100 3,500

TOTAL 198,857 147,991 175,959

4 Where from is the money coming for the large number of Christians' places of worship, if the Christian population is only 1.44%? In contradiction of the census figures, leaders of Christian churches and associations having been asserting that their population is not less 10% to 12% in Andhra Pradesh and therefore every party must put up 10% to 12% candidates of their total number, from Christians. The difference between 1.44% as per GOI's census of 2001 and 10% to 12% claimed by Christians is clear indication of the fraud that the conversion enterprises are indulging in. It appears that they are telling the converts to continue to describe themselves as Hindu Scheduled Castes, so that they continue to get the benefit of reservations meant for Hindu SCs. They withhold the fact of conversion from the government records. At the same time in order to protect themselves from the exposure of fraud and continue to get benefit of reservations, they have launched a movement for get "Christian dalits". The greatest lure to get converts from Hindu Harijans is that in Christianity there are no castes. How come then that there are Dalits among Christians? Another fraud that the converters are indulging in is 70% of the Christians in Andhra Pradesh are former SCs. In the educational Institutions and medical Institutions that Christians are founding and managing, there are no reservations for "dalit Christians". But the churchmen and the converters are asking that in Hindu Institutions, including government and colleges there should be reservations to Christian dalits. 98% of the Bishops in India are from upper castes, while 70% of the Christians are former Scheduled Castes. The caste discrimination continues in Christianity. There are Reddy Christians, Kamma Christians, Brahmin Christians and Dalit Christians. They seldom inter-marry. This is another fraud for selling Christianity.

5 Almost all Hindus are feeling tremendously agitated about the intense activities of the multinational conversion enterprises, their planting of churches in Villages. Families are getting divided, so are Village populations and so will be the entire polity in the state. Wanting to know whether there is anything in the Gospels which promotes this division and strife in the people, I am surprised to find the following in the Gospel according to Luke in the New Testament Chapter 12,

51 "Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you, not at all, but rather division.

52 "For from now on five in one house will be divided: three against two, and two
New testament of Bible:

53: "Father will be divided against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother.

6 In Andhra Pradesh especially in districts of the Godavari, we are sitting on a time-bomb of Hindu-Christian strife. To prevent this, intelligentsia in the State and newspapers and media men with integrity must bring out the facts, including the conflict between 1.44% Christian population according to government on the one hand and thousands of churches and claims of Christian leaders that their population is 10% and more. Government should also find out where from the money is coming for thousands of full timers and buildings for churches. Income Tax authorities must also swing into action to assess the total cost of all the churches that are built and find out from the church owners, the sources of their funds.

7 Finally, Government of Andhra Pradesh is contributing not a small measure to the building up of strife between Christians and Hindus by subsidizing the pilgrimage of Christians to Jerusalem from the funds of the 'secular' Government of Andhra Pradesh. The 'secular' government is spending tax moneys for the performance of Christians' marriages. Government of Andhra Pradesh is not spending tax moneys for subsidizing the pilgrimage of Hindus or performance of their marriages. The TTD's 'Kalyanamastu' is financed by offerings of Hindus to the Hindu God, Balaji in Tirumala. Government of Andhra Pradesh is also spending tax moneys, performing marriages of Muslims.This way the government is contributing to the heart burning among Hindus and therefore for the building up of potential strife between the various religious communities in the state. It would be proper for any responsible government, especially the government of Andhra Pradesh which claims to be transparent and accountable to come out with a White Paper on the number of conversion enterprises, associated NGOs and finances available to the MNC enterprises to build numerous churches; how many are engaged as full timers for conversion activities and whether the Supreme Court's observation that the right to propagate guaranteed in the Constitution does not confer right to convert is being flouted by the MNC enterprises.. And since the conversion activities are conducted as a business with modern marketing methods, with multinational sources for funds, the constitutionally guaranteed freedom to propagate, profess and practice religion is being misused by the commercial activities of the multinational conversion enterprises. Right to convert oneself to another religion is legal; can such a right to convert extend to MNC enterprises, operating on commercial lines? It would be right and prudent to ban this organized marketing of religions by company-like multinational enterprise conversion missions offering the same product competitively under different brands.

Dr T H Chowdary
* Director : Center for Telecom Management & Studies
Chairman : Pragna Bharati, Andhra Pradesh
Fellow: Tata Consultancy Services & Satyam Computer Services
Former: Information Technology Advisor: Government of Andhra Pradesh
Chairman & Managing Director, Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd
Plot No. 8, P&T Colony, Karkhana (Secunderabad), Hyderabad - 500 009.
Phone : +91 (40) 2784-6137,6667-1191 (Off) & 2784-3121 (Res)
Fax : +91 (40) 6667-1111, 2789-6103 (Off)
E-Mail: hanuman.chowdary@tcs.com & thc@satyam.com

Seige of Lankan Tamils of Kilinochchi and crocodile tears of Tamil Nadu parties.

2008-10-16T14:14:00.000-07:00

Seige of Lankan Tamils of Kilinochchi and crocodile tears of Tamil Nadu parties.

Sadanand Menon: Who speaks on behalf of Lanka's Tamils?

CRITICALLY INCLINED

Sadanand Menon / New Delhi October 17, 2008, 0:56 IST

The LTTE, by all accounts, seems to have been lassoed. The dreaded militant outfit fighting for an independent Tamil state within Sri Lanka, is said to be engaged in a last ditch battle from its encircled base in the Vanni region in Jaffna. The Lankan army claims to be a couple of kilometres short of the LTTE’s administrative headquarters in Kilinochchi.

Reporters who have covered the decades-old nationality struggle in the island know that, in Jaffna, being a ‘couple of kilometres’ away really means nothing. The LTTE is the world’s deadliest deployer of World War-II vintage Claymore mines. Almost twenty years ago, the commander of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka, Lt Gen Harkirat Singh, had told reporters that after a 48-hour gun-battle, the IPKF would succeed in flushing a building across the road which had been occupied by LTTE snipers, but that to cross the road and occupy the building could take up to a week or more, as they would have mined every square inch of access to the building.
So the din in Tamil Nadu the past days by political parties, many known to be fronts for the LTTE, for Indian intervention in Sri Lanka to prevent the “genocidal attack on the Tamil race” seem orchestrated by an invisible agency. The Centre has been served two-week’s notice to ensure a ceasefire on the island, failing which the all-party meeting chaired by Chief Minister Karunanidhi on October 14, has threatened that all 39 Lok Sabha MPs from the state would resign their seats.

For at least a quarter of a century, crocodile tears over the plight of Sri Lankan Tamils has irrigated political arterial wells in Tamil Nadu and given heroic legitimacy to a section of its leaders who, otherwise, have no other constituency. MDMK’s Vaiko has, for long, built his political fortune in the name of speaking on behalf of Lanka’s Tamils. That he simultaneously bats for a ruthless and near-fascist organisation like the banned LTTE has not disturbed anyone in particular, as he continues to forge opportunist alliances with more mainstream parties.

So too are the dubious claims to ‘Tamil interest’ expressed by one of the most undemocratic formations in Tamil politics is recent times, the PMK of Anbumani Ramadoss. Through the past twenty years of its growth, it has only exhibited caste sectarianism of the worst kind, so as to disqualify it from ever being able to speak on behalf of ‘Tamils’ as a whole.

One has not come across any of these parties pleading the cause of a genuinely democratic political process in Sri Lanka, especially among the Tamils, which they consider their own undifferentiated constituency. Never once has the brutally militarist and supremacist ideology of the LTTE been questioned. The parties in Tamil Nadu have only obediently echoed what the master ventriloquist across the Palk Strait has made them repeat.

While there can be no two opinions that Sri Lanka is today some sort of a rogue state and should be restrained from assaulting unarmed Tamil civilians, I am personally unable to categorise the move of the parties in Tamil Nadu, and the claims on behalf of Lankan Tamils, as anything but hypocritical, as I have been witness to one of the cruellest chapters in this saga which saw the marginalising, pauperisation and death of the almost 750,000 repatriates (people of Indian origin) from Sri Lanka during the ’70s and the ’80s.

In two phases, under the Shastri-Sirimavo Pact of 1964 and the Indira-Sirimavo Pact of 1974, three-quarter of a million ‘stateless people’ of Sri Lanka — the descendents of the 19th and early 20th century indentured labourers to the tea plantations — were lock-stock-and barrel repatriated to Tamil Nadu in one of the most infamous instances of human engineering in recent times.

The reception they had from fellow-Tamils was less than human. It has been documented that they were rapidly dispossessed of their meagre belongings. A few found ‘jobs’ in the exploitative special ‘rehabilitation’ schemes created by the state government. A conservative estimate by a fact-finding team surmised that at least 25% died within the first three years of landing in India, of starvation.

It is a memory that cannot be erased. The claims now by Tamil Nadu’s parties on behalf of Lankan Tamils, rings hollow.

http://www.business-standard.com/india/printpage_sam.php?autono=337655&tp=

Sri Lanka steps up air strikes on rebels, food convoy blocked

9 hours ago (17 Oct. 2008)

COLOMBO (AFP) — Sri Lanka's military on Thursday stepped up attacks against suspected Tamil Tiger positions in the island's north and accused the rebels of blocking a UN-escorted food convoy.

The UN's World Food Programme was escorting a convoy of trucks taking essentials for hundreds of thousands of people in rebel-held areas on Thursday when it fell victim to a roadside bomb attack, the defence ministry said.

"Reports state the LTTE has also launched an artillery attack at these unarmed lorries," the ministry said, referring to the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
No one was hurt and the convoy returned to the government-held town of Vavuniya, the ministry said.

The UN office in Colombo said separately "that a major food convoy into the north of the island has been forced to turn back due to fighting," without explaining the nature of the problem.

The UN office said it would immediately seek "renewed security assurances from the two sides" before attempting to send the 50-truck convoy carrying 750 tonnes of supplies.
Earlier Thursday, the rebels accused the military of bombing bridges in rebel-held areas in a bid to block food reaching civilians.

Most international aid agencies have quit the troubled region after a government order, leaving only the International Committee of the Red Cross. The WFP's action was a one-off, and they no longer have a presence in the area.

Meanwhile, the military said it had used jets to bomb an arms store and an LTTE command centre in the north, the ministry said.

It gave no details of any new casualties.

The latest air strikes by government forces came as ground troops were battling to capture the rebel political capital of Kilinochchi, 330 kilometres (210 miles) north of the capital Colombo.

Security forces say they are on the outskirts of the town.

Troops have killed 7,553 rebels since Sri Lanka pulled out of a Norwegian-backed truce in January, according to the ministry. During the same period, 748 soldiers have been killed in combat.

The figures cannot be independently verified.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5idb0fw89QC_s9Nn48p-Svs36SlpA

Forces march to final victory with strong political backing
Daily News, Colombo, 17 Oct. 2008 Ranil Wijayapala, Defence Column

Troops are at the peak of their morale as they brave the adverse weather conditions and stiff resistance from the LTTE while observing the sucesses of their months-long effort to weaken the LTTE to their lowest ebb.

The months long efforts of the LTTE to stop the advance of the troops into their strongholds in Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu are now becoming futile, with all their huge earth bunds falling to the Security Forces in all three major battlefronts in the Wanni, compelling the LTTE to give serious thoughts about their existence in the remaining areas they control in the Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu districts.
What is left for the LTTE is to engage in delaying tactics, to delay the certain defeat they are going to face in the Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu in the final battle now on in the Wanni.

That was why the LTTE is trying to hang on to the Tamil Nadu politicians who are trying to score out of the Sri Lankan situation to strengthen their Tamil vote base for the upcoming general elections in India, to come out of the situation.

Though it seems that South Indian politicians are pressurizing the Centre to urge Sri Lanka to stop the military thrust on the LTTE in Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu, at a time certain defeat is looming for the LTTE, the same type of pressure is also there on the Indian Government not to bow down to the politicians backing LTTE terrorism which had a major impact on the Indian politics during the past two decades. As President Mahinda Rajapaksa very clearly stated in his recent media interviews, military offensives are not at all aimed at the Tamils but against the LTTE which had become an obstacle for ethnic amity and the development of the country.

He has also communicated to the Indian Government that all precautionary measures have been taken to ensure the safety of the Tamil civilians entrapped in the Wanni and also urging the Indian Government to urge the LTTE to enter into mainstream politics as all avenues are now open for them to settle for a political solution.

The type of pressure to the Central Government of India by disgruntled politicians in Tamil Nadu can be understood once we go through the ground realities in the Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu battlefronts.

The LTTE is confronting a situation akin to the situation they faced during the Vadamarachchi operation in 1987 in which the LTTE was about to crushed by the Security Forces on all fronts. The Indian intervention in the North East conflict in 1987 came amidst such a situation.

But things have changed so fast under the present context as for the first time the Government has taken steps to restore democracy in the Eastern province with the establishment of the Eastern Provincial Council which saw the election of militant turned politician Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan as Chief Minister.

Apart form that one time militant renegade LTTE Eastern commander Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna Amman has also been appointed as a Member of Parliament representing the ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance Government led by President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has also invited Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran to lay down arms and join the democratic path at the All Party Conference held on Saturday, focusing on finding a political solution to the North East conflict.
So, on the part of the Government a conducive atmosphere has been set to go for a political solution to the North East conflict with all avenues open for the LTTE to enter into the democratic path giving up violence and without sacrificing more cadres to the battlefront in the face of certain defeat.

The pressure should be exerted on the LTTE but not the Government of Sri Lanka as it is engaged in eliminating one of most ruthless terror outfits which is ready to use its cadres as human bombs violating the basic human rights of the Tamil community which they represent.

What the international community and the Indian Government should understand at this juncture is that the LTTE is ‘concerned’ about the plight of the Tamil civilians entrapped in Wanni and exerting pressure on Tamil Nadu politicians to raise their voice about the civilians as there is no other way for them to escape certain defeat.
On the other hand they have been isolated internationally with all Governments extending their support towards the Lankan Government’s efforts to eradicate terrorism.

The Government of Russia also extended their fullest cooperation to the Government’s effort to eradicate terrorism when a Sri Lankan defence delegation lead by Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa visited Russia last week.

The Sri Lankan Defence delegation met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Deputy Defence Minister General Nikolai Makarou and the Russian Intelligence Chief during this visit.

The discussions had focused on sharing military intelligence and military training and the implementation of existing defence cooperation agreements.

The Sri Lankan delegation has explained the current situation in the country and the Russian Government has given an assurance that they will stand by the Sri Lankan Government in their efforts to eliminate terrorism from Sri Lanka.

The Australian Government has indicated that they are also seriously considering banning the LTTE as a terror organisation when Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama met his Australian counterpart this week.

Amidst the LTTE losing its international support except for a few elements which had been misled by the LTTE, it is also now on the verge of facing certain defeat in the Wanni with troops advancing from all three fronts to crush them in Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu districts.

The Task Force -I or the 58 Division under the command of Brigadier Shavendra Silva made a major breakthrough on the Nachchikuda front in the west of Kilinochchi district. The efforts the LTTE had taken for the past few months creating huge earth bunds to delay the troops have become futile with the capture of the Earth bund from Pandiveddikulam to Vannerikulam.

Following the break of the earth bund from the Karambakulam area a few weeks back the troops attached to the 583 Brigade under the command of Colonel Suraj Banshajaya have now advanced nearly four and half Kilometres northwards from the massive earth bund in Karmabkulam.

Task Force-I or the 58 Division captured 5.5 Kilometres of the Nachchikuda Akkarayankulam Kokavil road from Pandiveddikulam to Vannerikulam. It was from that stretch the troops attached to the 583 Brigade had advanced northwards.
With the capture of this relatively high ground connecting Pandiveddikulam to Vannerikulam troops are now in control of tactically important locations to control Tiger movements in Kilinochchi West.

The advancing troops have captured Mannikulam village which is a five way junction four Kilometres north of Karambakulam area. Mannikulam is a vital LTTE location from which the LTTE could control many areas in the Western flank of Kilinochchi.
The five roads leading from Mannikulam connect to the A-32 road 11th and 12th mile posts and to the Pooneryn - Paranthan road from the North and to the Akkarayankulam road from the South.

With these advances, the LTTE is making desperate attempts to defend this territory by inducting their well trained cadres into the front using all their resources. Two vehicles bringing such Imran Pandyan cadres have been targeted by the troops operating in the Mannikulam area last Saturday on two occasions killing 18 cadres.

The LTTE had moved in without knowing that troops have moved into the area.

Apart from this the troops have also advanced towards Jayapuram village located west of Pandiveddikulam reaching close to the A-32 road from the north of Nachchikuda.
Troops attached to the 58 Division are poised to cut off the A-32 Mannar Pooneryn road from north of Nachchikuda to isolate the Nachchikuda Sea Tiger base.

With these developments the Tigers now entrapped in Nachchikuda are apparently withdrawing removing all their positions. Intelligence reports indicate a hive of activities in the Nachchikuda area within the past few days.

They have been confused as many Tiger movements along the A-32 road north of Nachchikuda have been targeted by commando troops last week. Once the Military gains the A-32 road the LTTE automatically loses Nachchikuda which has been defended by them for months having constructed huge earth bunds.

Once troops hit the A-32 road from the North of Nachchikuda the LTTE will be left with only Valaipadu and Palavi jungle areas. Once troops move into the jungle patch in Palavi they can easily control the Tiger activities and also Sea Tiger activities in the Valaipadu Sea Tiger base from which the LTTE had unloaded a consignment of arms and weapons to be transported to the Kilinochchi side.

Therefore, the LTTE is now undergoing a confusing situation as they cannot take control of the troops movement in the western part of the Kilinochchi district as gateways has already been opened for the troops to march towards Pooneryn direction.
This move has become vital at this decisive moment in which the LTTE is trying to get the maximum political pressure on the Government through the volatile political situation in Tamil Nadu as such a move will enable them to control supplies from the South Indian side to the north western coast.

These developments on the battlefront have compelled the LTTE to seriously consider their defence system as more than 10 of their earth bunds so far have been captured by the 58 Division during their operations in the Mannar Rice Bowl area and in Viddathalthivu, Iluppakadavai, Vellankulam and Mulangavil.

Even in Kilinochchi south west the LTTE is trying to delay the troops advance by constructing a huge earth bund. But troops are now in control of the section of this earth bund in the south west of Kilinochchi and frequently confronting the LTTE there.
By this time the LTTE is once again trying to save their well trained cadres having inducted junior cadres without proper training to the Kilinochchi south front. But this proved futile as many of these cadres have started to flee the Tiger forward defences in Kilinochchi south without obeying orders of senior Tiger cadres.

It was a clear signal that the LTTE is fast losing control over their cadres and also the civilian population as they are well aware that the LTTE trying to exploit their lives for an unwinnable war at this stage.

Amidst this situation the troops operating in the South of Kilinochchi are making progress though they have not shown a rapid progress within the past few days. The troops are now preparing for the final stage of the battle as they are moving towards a built-up area in the Kilinochchi town after passing jungle terrain.

The 574 and 573 Brigades under the command of Lt. Colonel Senaka Wijesuriya and Lt. Colonel Prathap Thillekeratne are overlooking the LTTE movements on the A-9 road. They have been able to control LTTE movements along the A-9 road as they have taken the stretch of A-9 road from Mankulam to Murikandi.

For the past one week the troops have been able to attack eight Tiger Tractors moving along this stretch of A-9 road.

The troops attached to the 59 Division too are making steady progress towards Mullaitivu having captured half of the area coming under Nayaru lagoon and a huge earth bund constructed encircling the Kumulamunai and Alampil areas.

Air Force fighter jets and gunship helicopters are providing close assistance to ground troops taking on to LTTE logistics and military bases frequently. One such Tiger facility where the LTTE had a large number of their earth moving equipment came under attack of SLAF fighter jets.

Therefore troops, with the strong backing of the political leadership who are firmly standing behind their action without succumbing to local and international pressure, are now in a strong position to face the final battle to crush the LTTE on Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu fronts to see an end to the two and half decade long conflict in the country.

http://www.dailynews.lk/2008/10/17/fea03.asp

http://in.rediff.com/news/2008/oct/16spec.htm Is the Eelam dream over? Sheela Bhatt.

'Calling Bajrang Dal's action as terrorism is utter nonsense'

2008-10-16T03:49:00.000-07:00

'Calling Bajrang Dal's action as terrorism is utter nonsense'

October 16, 2008 | 13:59 IST

If there is one issue that has replaced terrorism and the slumping markets that is the attacks on the Christians which, according to Hindutva activists, is sparked off by forcible conversions. It all started in Orissa and then gradually spread to Karnataka and now even Tamil Nadu.

The issue has become a hot political potato with the United Progressive Alliance considering a ban on the Bajrang Dal for its reign of terror and the saffron brigade daring it to go ahead with the ban.

In an interview with Special Correspondent Vicky Nanjappa, D N Murthy, general secretary of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, talks about religious conversions, the violence that it sparked off, and also the allegations of terrorism being made against some Hindutva activists.

The issue has spiralled out of control. So much violence and no solution in sight. The Union government and the international community have reacted very sharply to the violence in Orissa and Karnataka. Being a very senior man in the VHP, what are your views on this?

You call the incidents in Karnataka as violence. A few glass panes were broken and you call that terrorism. In Karnataka not a single person was injured. What are these people talking about? It is ridiculous. Glass panes of cinema theatres are broken due to certain disputes. Can you call this terrorism? Did the Union government react in this manner? The people are just protesting against those indulging in forcible conversion. That is all.

The Bajrang Dal is being seen as the perpetrator of this violence. The government came very close to banning it. What do you have to say about banning the Bajrang Dal?
Ask the Congress this question. All right, tell me something. They planned to ban it but were they able to? What allegations are they making against the Bajrang Dal? There is no consensus even among the allies of the Congress on this issue.

An act of terror does not necessarily have to limit itself to bomb blasts. Violence and destruction in any form is also terrorism. Since the Bajrang Dal has indulged in violent acts don't you think it classifies as terrorism?

Bajrang Dal and terrorism? Whoever says this has no common sense. There are so many terror attacks in the country in which so many innocent lives have been lost. The security agencies are unable to nab the real culprits who always manage to give the slip. As I said earlier, in Karnataka not a single person was injured and you call the Bajrang Dal's actions as terrorism. It is utter nonsense.

What about Orissa? People were killed and raped over there.

In Orissa the people were just reacting to forcible conversions. Over there forcible conversions have damaged the lives of thousands of people and there were protests against it.

But Orissa or Karnataka, violence is violence. Are you saying the VHP justifies the violence in Orissa or even in Karnataka?

We do not believe in violence. I am aware that nothing can be achieved by violence. The Bajrang Dal is protesting against conversions. But get this clearly into your head. Our direction to the Bajrang Dal is simple and straight-forward. It is Seva (service), Samskara (culture)and Suraksha (security). They have been asked to follow these three points.

If you do not approve of the violence and your message to the Bajrang Dal is that of peace and protection, then who is behind the madness that has claimed so many lives?
Yes, there were protests against conversions. If there were instances of horrific violence then it was due to personal scuffles in some areas. If one of two persons have indulged in acts of serious violence can you blame the entire organisation? The police force is meant to protect but there are some policemen who misbehave. Does that mean you brand the entire organisation and brand the entire police force as rotten?
But what about those one or two people? They were also part of the Bajrang Dal and they too know about Seva, Samskara, and Suraksha. Will the VHP keep quiet and not do anything about them?

Did I say we will keep quiet? We will surely act against them.

The state convener of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Professor M B Puranik, told me in an interview recently that once a Hindu converts his loyalties shift. Do you agree with that?

Yes, the loyalties do shift. But I would also like to add that everyone has a right to practice a religion. But nobody has the right to convert. If a conversion is based on an ideological acceptance of a new way of life, it is fine. But conversions in large numbers or mass conversions are deplorable. I can understand when an educated man converts. He can think and decide for himself what each religion has to offer. Why are missionaries targeting slum-dwellers and tribals? What can these people understand?
Do you have proof that conversions are really taking place? If yes please give me figures.

I cannot give you the figures off-hand. But, yes, the census says it all. The number of Christians has gone up all of a sudden in the past few years. Looking at the census I could easily say that the rise in population is just not proportionate. It is really hard to tell the difference between a Hindu and a Hindu who has converted.

The missionaries have found a way of duping the people. The women who have been converted continue to wear saris, bangles, and bindis, and this is not different when compared to the way a Hindu woman dresses. Even if these persons are found in a �church during mass, the missionaries claim they have just come there for prayers. This is the way in which they dupe the people.

How much of the problem has been solved after these sudden outbursts? Or let me put it this way. Will the problem ever be solved?

The problem surely will not be solved unless and until both Christians and Muslims agree that all other religions are great too and their path is not the only path to reach God. In India our practice is to welcome all great thoughts. We believe that all religions' ways are towards God. The problem is that both Christians and Muslims think it is only their way which takes people ultimately to God. They say theirs is the right path and the only way to attain salvation. The problem will be solved only if Muslims and Christians agree that all religions are great and have the same goal.
Many have said it is unfair that while Muslims get blamed for terror strikes, Hindu activists who indulge in bomb blasts as in Nanded and Kanpur get away. What is your reaction to this?

If they think Hindu activists are involved in terror activities then let them probe. Nobody is stopping them.

http://www.rediff.com//news/2008/oct/16inter.htm

Evangelicals blaspheme Hinduism. Media abetting the crime -- HAF response to media.

2008-10-14T17:26:00.000-07:00

Evangelicals blaspheme Hinduism. Media abetting the crime – HAF responses to media

“Violence in India is fueled by religious and economic divide,” by Hari Kumar and Heather Timmons (Asia Pacific, September 3)

The Hindu American Foundation wrote this letter to the New York Times in response to an article that presented a skewed and inaccurate detailing of the murder/assasination of Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati and the riots that subsequently ensued between Christian and Hindu tribal communities. The original article was published on September 3.

To the Editor:

"Violence in India Is Fueled by Religious and Economic Divide," by Hari Kumar and Heather Timmons (Asia Pacific, September 3), is dually disturbing: in the depiction of tragic killings and for its glaring omissions and errors. In labeling a Hindu ascetic and reformer a "radical," while failing to acknowledge his varied social services, the Times alarmingly seems to justify a brutal assassination. Independent reports that the Hindu and Christian convert riots are actually the brutal endgame resulting from inter-tribal rivalries intensified by the pursuit of ludicrously complex affirmative action benefits was also ignored in the report.

One can only wonder why the Times sought to present a story of Christian victimization by "radical" Hindus, when the sordid events playing out in India are the obvious results of unethical religious conversions that polarize families and communities and aggravate long-standing social conflicts.

Sincerely,
Aseem R. Shukla, M.D.
Member, Board of Directors
Hindu American Foundation
www.hafsite.org
http://www.hinduamericanfoundation.org/media_letters_violence_in_India_fueled.htm

"Hindu Threat to Christians: Convert or Flee," by Somini Sengupta,October 13, 2008.

Dear Editor, New York Times:

Re: "Hindu Threat to Christians: Convert or Flee," by Somini Sengupta,October 13, 2008.

As Hindu Americans, we unequivocally condemn and repudiate all of the violence consuming Orissa today. That the New York Times would engage in blatant, inflammatory race-baiting with the front-page headline above is shocking. If the intention is to spuriously allege that marauding Hindus across India are contemporary actors emulating the Crusades or the Islamic conquests--then mission accomplished!

Telling are the omissions in Sengupta's reporting, that a) four others were brutally killed with Swami Laxmananda, including a female monk; b) Swami Laxmananda was more than a "preacher"--he was a Hindu social worker devoted to social upliftment in a neglected region; and c) all of the ostensibly Maoist assassins arrested in the killings of the Swami and his aides were Christian converts.

The tragedy unfolding in Orissa state results from the venomousamalgam of the Swami's murder, and Hindu radicals in the area inflamed by evangelicals blaspheming Hinduism as they seek to meet quotas of new converts in a wild west battle for souls. Pluralism and respect for the tribals' indigenous Hindu traditions became the first casualty that opened the door to the madness seen today.

Are Pakistan's nuclear warheads safe? -- Gurmeet Kanwal.

2008-10-14T05:55:00.000-07:00

Are Pakistan's nuclear warheads safe?

Gurmeet Kanwal | October 14, 2008 | 12:16 IST

Pakistan is facing a grave internal security crisis as radical extremists are gradually gaining ground. The crisis is attributable to a large extent to the resurgence of Islamist fundamentalist forces and the army's inability to fight them effectively. Consequently, the spectre of Pakistan's nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorist organisations has once again come to the fore. Western commentators are calling for contingency plans to physically secure or destroy the nuclear warheads in the event of a meltdown in the country.

The possession of nuclear weapons by Islamist fundamentalist terrorists will pose a grave danger to international security. The Al Qaeda has declared war on the United States and it allies, and Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri are known to have made attempts to buy nuclear warheads. Whether the Al Qaeda leadership will actually detonate nuclear warheads over civilian targets or plan to use them for coercion is not known; however, given their predilection for senseless terrorist strikes, they are unlikely to be averse to actually exploding a bomb or two to achieve their nefarious goals.
Among Pakistan's neighbouring countries, India will be particularly vulnerable if Islamist terrorists and their Al Qaeda and Taliban brothers ever lay their hands on Pakistan's nuclear warheads as it is one of the nations that the Al Qaeda has named as an enemy. Being a contiguous land neighbour, it is also easier to target even if sophisticated delivery systems like ballistic missiles are not available.

Islamist terrorists can gain possession of nuclear warheads by physically breaching the security ring around them, by subverting the personnel on guard duty or if they succeed in overthrowing the regime in power in Islamabad through a coup. The Pakistani military authorities are extremely concerned about such eventualities and have made elaborate arrangements to ensure that all their nuclear warheads are stored safely. They claim that carefully formulated personnel reliability policies and electronic safety mechanisms have been developed and incorporated by Pakistan's Nuclear Command Authority.
General Musharraf and his lieutenants have reiterated several times that Pakistan's nuclear warheads are safe and are in no danger of falling into the hands of radical extremists. The Pakistani ministry of foreign affairs said in a recent statement: 'As a responsible nuclear weapon state Pakistan has always attached great significance to the security of its strategic assets. These assets are completely safe and secure under multi-layered security and Command and Control structures that are fully indigenous.'

Pakistan's nuclear warheads (about 30 to 50 in number) are reported to be stored at up to six separate locations. The warheads are stored separately from the launchers so as to guard against accidents and unauthorised use. Luongo and Salik have written that the warheads are equipped with electronic locks (Permissive Action Links). A three-tier security system has been instituted for the physical protection of the various components of the warheads.
The fissionable atomic core made of highly enriched uranium and the high explosive trigger assembly are handled only by the respective agencies and are in their custody. These are stored in fortified underground storage sites. Entry and exit into these "bunkers" is controlled by armed and well-equipped specially selected and meticulously trained personnel of the Security Division of the Strategic Plans Division who form the second tier. As part of the Personnel Reliability Programme, these personnel are screened carefully before induction, are kept under constant surveillance and are frequently rotated.

The third tier comprises a well-guarded and fortified perimeter fence with strictly controlled entry. Most of these sites have air defence assets allotted to them to defend against attacks from the air. Personnel selected for the security of the outer perimeter are reported to belong to elite infantry battalions of the Pakistani army. The possibility of any of these personnel being subverted is guarded against by counter-intelligence teams. Military regimes have very strong survival instincts and the Musharraf regime has ensured that hard-line radical elements are ruthlessly weeded out from the nuclear security detail. Hence, it can be concluded that if some rogue elements were to try to gain control over the nuclear warheads, they would have to be prepared to fight their way through several layers of highly motivated personnel who are armed to the teeth.

The delivery systems of Pakistan's Strategic Forces Command, comprising Chinese supplied M-11 and M-9 and the North Korean Nodong and Taepo Dong nuclear-capable surface-to-surface missiles and their launchers, are based at separate locations. These sites or "hides" are well-dispersed to ensure that maximum warheads survive a conventional air attack during war. They are also well defended against possible commando raids.
In the improbable eventuality that radical hard-liners take over Pakistan, their rag-tag fighters will have to fight the elite army guards to the bitter end before they can lay their hands on the delivery systems. A terrorist organisation must get hold of both a nuclear warhead and a launch system and must acquire the expertise to mate the warhead with the launcher. Or, it must smuggle a warhead undetected to the target and somehow break the electronic code to activate it. These are all extremely complex challenges as highly sophisticated expertise is required to test, mate, activate and launch a nuclear warhead.

Soon after General Musharraf's military coup in October 1999, reports of joint US-Israel plans to seize control of Pakistan's nuclear weapons had made headlines the world over. Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh of Watergate fame had written in The New Yorker that commandos of Israel's elite Unit 262 and US Special Forces had been rehearsing plans to prevent Pakistan's nuclear warheads from falling into the hands of Islamist fundamentalists within and outside the Pakistan army. It had even been speculated that India would willingly provide logistics support for such a venture.

Similar stories have again been appearing in the media, particularly the Western press. Contingency plans are reported to exist for the Special Forces to "take out" or "secure" Pakistan's nuclear weapons, even though it is acknowledged that it is an unbelievably daunting problem. Thomas E Ricks quotes retired Marine Colonel Gary Anderson as having said ('Calculating the Risks in Pakistan', Washington Post, December 2, 2007): 'The bottom line is, it's the nightmare scenario... It (Pakistan) has loose nukes, hard to find, potentially in the hands of Islamic extremists, and there aren't a lot of good military options.'
Planners in the Pentagon must appreciate that even though Pakistan is bleeding from serious blows struck by the Frankenstein monster of radical extremism, it still has a professionally trained combat-ready army that will fight tooth and nail to defend Pakistan's strategic assets against foreign intervention. Hence, a joint US-Israel commando operation to secure or take out Pakistan's nuclear warheads in the event of a serious crisis is a far-fetched idea that does not have even a remote chance of succeeding.

However, there is a possibility that an Islamist fundamentalist regime might overthrow the unstable civilian government with support from a large faction of the army. In such an eventuality, the US and its allies may justifiably form another 'coalition of the willing' to bomb the nuclear warhead storage sites in Pakistan from the air. The coalition forces could employ cruise missiles and fighter-bombers from stand-off ranges to physically destroy the warheads with deep penetration bombs. Several repeat bombing runs would be required after strike damage assessment and even then there will be no guarantee that all the warheads would be destroyed or rendered ineffective.
In fact, a non-kinetic option that employs high-energy microwaves to "fry" the electronic circuitry of the nuclear warheads may also be considered, either in conjunction with physical destruction of the warheads or as a stand-alone strike. These options presuppose that accurate information of the locations of all the warhead storage sites would be available in advance for targeting. The intelligence fiasco about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Saddam Hussein's Iraq and other recent revelations do not generate confidence that this might be so.

Some Pakistani commentators have been scathing in their criticism of Western doubts about the safety and security of Pakistan's nuclear warheads. Adnan Gill has called it mass hysteria and loose talk ('Loose Nukes or Loose Talk?'Asian Tribune, November 23, 2007). However, others like Farah Zahra make out a case for bolstering Pakistan's nuclear safety ('Bolstering Nuclear Safety',The News, October 25, 2007).
Indian political leaders and analysts have shown restraint in commenting on Pakistan's nuclear worries. M K Narayanan, India's national security advisor, has rated the probability of Pakistan's nuclear warheads falling into the hands of extremist elements as remote. Bharat Karnad laments the lack of Indian capability to intervene deep inside Pakistan if it becomes necessary to do so ('Nuclear Commando and Control',�Asian Age, January 17, 2008): The Indian Army has ten Special Forces battalions but lacks the capability to inject commando teams deep into Pakistan via high-altitude air-drop or by helicopters flying extremely fast and low to avoid Pakistani radar. It is a moot point whether a weak coalition government in India will have the political courage to join a coalition of the willing to secure or destroy Pakistan's nuclear warheads.

The clear and present danger, however, and one that continues to be underestimated, is from nuclear terrorism. Terrorist organisations may assemble radiological dispersal devices-- 'dirty bombs' in which high explosives (RDX or TNT) are used to blow up and scatter uranium or other radioactive materials over a densely populated area, or to pollute a major water source. Crude RDDs do not require a very high degree of technological sophistication and can be assembled quite easily. Spent nuclear fuel rods that are stolen and commercial radiation waste from cancer facilities in large hospitals and irradiation centres could be used.
Though such dirty bombs will not cause horrendous casualties initially, they will cause long-term damage from residual nuclear radiation. They will also serve to create a fear psychosis that will add to the paranoia that has already got a deep hold over ordinary people in this age of terrorism. If there is even the slightest suspicion that the terrorist organisation that orchestrated the attack had the backing of a state, it could set into motion a chain of events that may eventually lead to an inter-state conflict. It is imperative that commercial nuclear materials are also stored safely and are fully accounted for at all times.

Another area of concern is that one or more Pakistani nuclear scientists with fundamentalist inclinations may have volunteered to work for the al Qaeda, as has been reported off and on over the last few years. Three Pakistani nuclear scientists were arrested and handed over to US intelligence agencies for questioning in 2001. Two of the three were senior scientists who had set up an NGO called Ummah Tameer-e-Nau (Reconstruction of the Muslim Ummah) in Afghanistan after retirement. This NGO, with its membership comprising mainly nuclear scientists and military officers, is known to have had close links with the Taliban and the Al Qaeda.
It is possible that these scientists may have been actively engaged in assembling rudimentary nuclear weapons for the Afghan terrorists with fissionable material smuggled from the former Soviet states. Other reports have affirmed that at least one Central Asian nuclear weapons expert works for Osama bin Laden. Hence, the possibility that a crude, untested, nuclear warhead may have been developed by bin Laden's Al Qaeda cannot be ruled out.

Finally, contingency plans must be debated, analysed, made, approved, rehearsed and readied for execution to meet unforeseen eventualities, the safety and security of nuclear weapons is best assured by the country to which these belong. Maximum cooperation must be extended by the NWS to Pakistan by way of technology, intelligence and training to help Pakistan to secure its own nuclear warheads. While the world waits with bated breath for the crisis in Pakistan to blow over, the government of Pakistan and the Pakistani army would do well to ensure that all possible measures are adopted to further enhance the safety and security of the country's nuclear warheads and delivery means.

The writer is Director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi
http://www.rediff.com///news/2008/oct/14guest.htm

Kandhamal: Mischievous, untruthful report in NY Times by Somini Sengupta

2008-10-13T17:21:00.000-07:00

The report is mischievous because it reports anecdotes without an understanding of the root of Hindu rage in Kandhamal: assassination of Swami Lakshmananda Sarasvati and 4 of his associates. There is also no reporting of the facts brought out by expert investigators in many reports on the situation created by christists indulging in unlawful activities and in tearing asunder the Hindu community through conversions through allurements and other means.

The fundamental question of who assassinated Swami Lakshmananda remains unanswered by this investigative reporter. It doesn't behove of objectivity of New York Times to allow such flippant reporting to pass muster on its newspaper pages.

Is the US media also in league with the evangelising christists?

To show the nature of the half-truths indulged in by Somini Sengupta, I append the report of Ashok Sahu, former Addl. Director General of Police. New York Times should publish this report of Ashok Sahu in its entirely to demonstrate fairplay in journalistic ethic.

It is time that the readers also know the murderous activities of the Church.

Kalyanaraman

Kandhamal: Mischievous report in NY Times by Somini Sengupta

October 13, 2008

Hindu Threat to Christians: Convert or Flee

By SOMINI SENGUPTA (New York Times 14 Oct. 2008)

BOREPANGA, India — The family of Solomon Digal was summoned by neighbors to what serves as a public square in front of the village tea shop.

They were ordered to get on their knees and bow before the portrait of a Hindu preacher. They were told to turn over their Bibles, hymnals and the two brightly colored calendar images of Christ that hung on their wall. Then, Mr. Digal, 45, a Christian since childhood, was forced to watch his Hindu neighbors set the items on fire.

“ ‘Embrace Hinduism, and your house will not be demolished,’ ” Mr. Digal recalled being told on that Wednesday afternoon in September. “ ‘Otherwise, you will be killed, or you will be thrown out of the village.’ ”

India, the world’s most populous democracy and officially a secular nation, is today haunted by a stark assault on one of its fundamental freedoms. Here in eastern Orissa State, riven by six weeks of religious clashes, Christian families like the Digals say they are being forced to abandon their faith in exchange for their safety.

The forced conversions come amid widening attacks on Christians here and in at least five other states across the country, as India prepares for national elections next spring.

The clash of faiths has cut a wide swath of panic and destruction through these once quiet hamlets fed by paddy fields and jackfruit trees. Here in Kandhamal, the district that has seen the greatest violence, more than 30 people have been killed, 3,000 homes burned and over 130 churches destroyed, including the tin-roofed Baptist prayer hall where the Digals worshiped. Today it is a heap of rubble on an empty field, where cows blithely graze.

Across this ghastly terrain lie the singed remains of mud-and-thatch homes. Christian-owned businesses have been systematically attacked. Orange flags (orange is the sacred color of Hinduism) flutter triumphantly above the rooftops of houses and storefronts.

India is no stranger to religious violence between Christians, who make up about 2 percent of the population, and India’s Hindu-majority of 1.1 billion people. But this most recent spasm is the most intense in years.

It was set off, people here say, by the killing on Aug. 23 of a charismatic Hindu preacher known as Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, who for 40 years had rallied the area’s people to choose Hinduism over Christianity.

The police have blamed Maoist guerrillas for the swami’s killing. But Hindu radicals continue to hold Christians responsible.

In recent weeks, they have plastered these villages with gruesome posters of the swami’s hacked corpse. “Who killed him?” the posters ask. “What is the solution?”

Behind the clashes are long-simmering tensions between equally impoverished groups: the Panas and Kandhas. Both original inhabitants of the land, the two groups for ages worshiped the same gods. Over the past several decades, the Panas for the most part became Christian, as Roman Catholic and Baptist missionaries arrived here more than 60 years ago, followed more recently by Pentecostals, who have proselytized more aggressively.

Meanwhile, the Kandhas, in part through the teachings of Swami Laxmanananda, embraced Hinduism. The men tied the sacred Hindu white thread around their torsos; their wives daubed their foreheads with bright red vermilion. Temples sprouted.

Hate has been fed by economic tensions as well, as the government has categorized each group differently and given them different privileges.

The Kandhas accused the Panas of cheating to obtain coveted quotas for government jobs. The Christian Panas, in turn, say their neighbors have become resentful as they have educated themselves and prospered.

Their grievances have erupted in sporadic clashes over the past 15 years, but they have exploded with a fury since the killing of Swami Laxmanananda.

Two nights after his death, a Hindu mob in the village of Nuagaon dragged a Catholic priest and a nun from their residence, tore off much of their clothing and paraded them through the streets.

The nun told the police that she had been raped by four men, a charge the police say was borne out by a medical examination. Yet no one was arrested in the case until five weeks later, after a storm of media coverage. Today, five men are under arrest in connection with inciting the riots. The police say they are trying to find the nun and bring her back here to identify her attackers.

Given a chance to explain the recent violence, Subash Chauhan, the state’s highest-ranking leader of Bajrang Dal, a Hindu radical group, described much of it as “a spontaneous reaction.”

He said in an interview that the nun had not been raped but had had regular consensual sex.

On Sunday evening, as much of Kandhamal remained under curfew, Mr. Chauhan sat in the hall of a Hindu school in the state capital, Bhubaneshwar, beneath a huge portrait of the swami. A state police officer was assigned to protect him round the clock. He cupped a trilling Blackberry in his hand.

Mr. Chauhan denied that his group was responsible for forced conversions and in turn accused Christian missionaries of luring villagers with incentives of schools and social services.

He was asked repeatedly whether Christians in Orissa should be left free to worship the god of their choice. “Why not?” he finally said, but he warned that it was unrealistic to expect the Kandhas to politely let their Pana enemies live among them as followers of Jesus.

“Who am I to give assurance?” he snapped. “Those who have exploited the Kandhas say they want to live together?”

Besides, he said, “they are Hindus by birth.”

Hindu extremists have held ceremonies in the country’s indigenous belt for the past several years intended to purge tribal communities of Christian influence.

It is impossible to know how many have been reconverted here, in the wake of the latest violence, though a three-day journey through the villages of Kandhamal turned up plenty of anecdotal evidence.

A few steps from where the nun had been attacked in Nuagaon, five men, their heads freshly shorn, emerged from a soggy tent in a relief camp for Christians fleeing their homes.

The men had also been summoned to a village meeting in late August, where hundreds of their neighbors stood with machetes in hand and issued a firm order: Get your heads shaved and bow down before our gods, or leave this place.

Trembling with fear, Daud Nayak, 56, submitted to a shaving, a Hindu sign of sacrifice. He drank, as instructed, a tumbler of diluted cow dung, considered to be purifying.

In the eyes of his neighbors, he reckoned, he became a Hindu.

In his heart, he said, he could not bear it.

All five men said they fled the next day with their families. They refuse to return.

In another village, Birachakka, a man named Balkrishna Digal and his son, Saroj, said they had been summoned to a similar meeting and told by Hindu leaders who came from nearby villages that they, too, would have to convert. In their case, the ceremony was deferred because of rumors of Christian-Hindu clashes nearby.

For the time being, the family had placed an orange flag on their mud home. Their Hindu neighbors promised to protect them.

Here in Borepanga, the family of Solomon Digal was not so lucky. Shortly after they recounted their Sept. 10 Hindu conversion story to a reporter in the dark of night, the Digals were again summoned by their neighbors. They were scolded and fined 501 rupees, or about $12, a pinching sum here.

The next morning, calmly clearing his cauliflower field, Lisura Paricha, one of the Hindu men who had summoned the Digals, confirmed that they had been penalized. Their crime, he said, was to talk to outsiders.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/world/asia/13india.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

Murder of Mahatma by the Church

By Ashok Sahu, IPS (Retd.),

Former Addl. Director General of Police

On the 23rd August, while doing pooja on Janmasthami, the most sacred day for Hindus, militant Christians entered into the Ashram premises at about 8.00 p.m. and pumped bullets from an AK-47 assault rifle on the frail body of an 84 years old Swamijee (Vedanta Keshari Swami Laxanananda Saraswati) at Jalespata Vanabashi Kanyashram in Kondhmal District of Orissa. After killing him brutally the Christian assailants have cut various parts of Swamijee's body by chisel and axe, it appears. Along with him others who tried to rescue Swamijee got killed are Sadhwi Bhakti Mata who was in over all charge of the Kalyan Ashram, Kishore Baba, Amritanand Baba and a visitor guardian of an inmate of the school. The dead body of Matajee was also defiled by cut injuries which was most brutish and nasty.

Swamijee had received a threatening letter which he could read only the previous evening on his return from routine tour for religious preaching. He had sought security from the local police against imminent danger to his life by a written prayer to the authorities including the District Magistrate on 23rd August. The media had broadcast on apprehensions to his life during morning news bulletins on the very fateful 23rd August.

Hardly one month back, at Tumudibandh, two kilometers from his Jalespata Ashram, there was armed attack by a group of Christians when he was protesting against Cow-slaughter in the area. In the violence one of his disciples Madhu Baba had sustained fatal cut injuries. Following the incident the State Government had deployed one platoon of armed CRPF personnel to guard his Ashram round the clock. Swamijee, in addition to these arrangements, had an armed security person to protect him during his tours who was mysteriously absent at the time of attack.

It may be mentioned that the personal security man Bhubaneswar Jani who was replaced by an emaciated, cowardice constable by the local S.P. only five days prior to the attack, was serving Swamijee for more than 10 months most sincerely jeopadising his own life. During armed attack by militant Christians on the 24th December 2007 at Daringbadi for which he was hospitalized along with Swamijee with fatal injuries. In that connection, though the Police has registered a case vide 83/07 u/s 147/148/353/323/324/307/426/149 IPC the culprits are still at large with impunity. Prior to this there were nine more attacks on Swamijee's life and consistently the assailants were all recently converted Christians in the area. It is evident that the Catholic Church and the Baptist Church by conversion was gradually criminalizing the local youth. Few of them were also encouraged to join the Maoist group of terrorists which was proved by the way Bamunigaon Police Station was attacked and the subsequent raids in non-descript Sikarama village during December violence there, that led to recovery of more than 20 guns in a single tiny village.

What is surprising is that similar raids were not conducted in other villages where there is pillage of fire-arms. More suspicious is the withdrawal of the CRPF from the Ashram and replacing the PSO to the Swamijee only five days prior to the murderous attack on 23rd August. Danger to the life of Swamijee was mounting every day since the abortive attempt on his life in last December.According to reliable sources, there was a secret meeting on 9th August 2008 in the Community Centre at Raikia attended by activists representing Church based NGOs like the World Vision, Jana Kalyan Samiti, NISWAS, ASHA, Sahara, Palli Shree, Jana Vikash etc. who regularly receive huge funds from abroad. It was also attended by Nakul Nayak, former M.P. from the ruling BJD, Krushna Para Seth the former Block Chairman from Tumdibandh, Alfansoe Baliyar Singh a notorious militant Christian from Raikia, advocate Manas Singh who was to bring activists from Bamunigaon and Daringbadi in a vehicle specifically provided by Archbishop C.Raphel. It was resolved in the meeting to eliminate Swamijee who was 'an insurmountable obstacle against conversion and cow-slaughter in the area'.Simultaneously, they felt that by philanthropic activities among the Kondh tribes in the District he was dissuading the vulnerable poor and illiterate tribe and Panas in the area from falling prey to the allurements and fraud by the Church authorities.

Sources reveal that on the 13th August a letter purportedly written by 'Pahadia' group of people was circulated addressed to the Swamijee that his life would not be spared, that too, within a week. Copies were supposed to be sent to the State Chief Minister, DGP, District Magistrate, District S.P. etc. besides the Swamijee and some other targets. A similar closed door meeting was reportedly held on 20th August in the Jana Kalyan Samiti at Jatani (Khurda) attended among others by Father Bijoy Nayak from Baliguda Church and Ajay Singh of Khurda, where it was decided to eliminate Swamijee, come what may. On the 23rd August night they succeeded in killing him as per their planned conspiracy.

The government had clear knowledge and the authorities had detailed information, but instead of reinforcing the security arrangements, it appears that they colluded with the killers. What has failed to convince is the glaring gap in alacrity with which the Orissa Police had rounded up 63 suspects in Graham Staines murder case within 24 hours of the alleged murder and their utter failure to arrest even a single culprit even after four days of the murder of Swamijee.People of Orissa expressed their ire against the government during the dawn to dusk bundh in the most unprecedented manner for the government attributed this murder to the Naxal Maoists within minutes of the incidents. They were reminded of the callousness of the Chief MinisterNaveen Patnaik who had made a similar statement accusing the Maoists when DIG Jasvir Singh was killed but later it was revealed by subsequent investigation that the DIG was killed by his own PSO from Orissa Police.

When there was prior information on danger to life of Swamijee, so much so that, the local TV channels trumpeted the whole day urging the government to save the Swamijee from imminent attack, the government apparently colluded with the killers and in order to prove his self-claimed 'secular credentials' the Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is over active to safeguard the Christian minorities from the onslaught by the enraged Hindus whole over the State. Now the question is, why should the government first create a situation by a series of 'omissions and commissions' later in order to prove his 'secular credentials' try to protect the endangered minorities. There can not be a greater embarrassment for the ruling alliance BJP who can not escape the moral responsibility of being a party to these omissions and commissions on the part of the coalition government.

It is a ghastly incident and a challenge to the advocates of pseudo-secularism that the majorities are discriminated against, to keep the minorities appeased. The pseudo secularists have proved more Christian than Pope in upholding Christianity in India. The unprecedented response to the bundh called by Hindu organizations in Orissa indicated the shape of things to come. No government how powerful it may be can function with out the co-operation from the people. Peoples elected representatives in Orissa have legislated for the first time in independent India, the Orissa Freedom of Religion Act, 1967 to prevent conversion by fraud, allurements, cheating, bribery and misrepresentation. It was challenged by all the Churches in the country in the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Bench of the apex court upheld its validity and said that right to propagate does not include right to convert.

Swamijee was only insisting that the Act should be strictly followed in the State. He came to Kondhmal District because there was utter poverty and illiteracy in the district with more than 70% of its population as tribals who are below the poverty line. He came there in 1967 and continued till his murder by Christians on 24th in August 2008.

Similarly, Orissa was the first to enact against cow-slaughter in 1964 as per Directive Principles in the Part-IV of the Constitution. Swamijee had made the motto of his life mission to make Orissa free of conversion as well as cow-slaughter. These two Acts legislated by Orissa Assembly reflect the sentiments of Orissa people for implementation by subsequent governments.

So long as these Acts are in the statute book, it is the constitutional responsibility of the government of the day to execute strictly. But the government has miserably failed. The government did not co-operate, rather criminally neglected in saving the life one man who preferred to lay down his life for the common cause.

The Church is supposed to preach The Gospels, ironically criminalizes the youth and with foreign funding indulges in conversion by-passing the law. Hindus in Orissa are not against any particular community or religion. They do not want any other religion to disturb their faith and social harmony by taking advantage of poverty and illiteracy in their society. Irate Hindus when, as a last resort react, at times, with violence; the advocates of 'secularism' cry for protection. Is it not time enough to stop conversion and cow-slaughter as a respect for the majority living in the country as a lasting measure to ensure peace and harmony in the society?

As this brutal murder is directly linked with the series of incidents right from December 2007, until and unless the State Police detects the right culprits and bring them to book with out further loss of time, peoples already shaken trust on the government can not be restored and peace in the civil society can not come back.

Should the government at the centre and the state want a permanent solution to these types of communal repercussions in future, they must concentrate in stopping illegal conversion, put a check on the church based NGOs, stop cow-slaughter strictly in Orissa and manage the forest land and tribal land problems with tribal welfare as the sole yardstick.This would also serve as a fitting tribute to the departed soul of Swamijee who has immortalized himself by laying down his life on the altar of the motherland.

Ashok Sahu, IPS (Retd.)
Former Addl. Director General of Police.

E-mail: ashok.sahu53@gmail.com

Karnataka CM blames Christist groups for violence

2008-10-13T04:08:00.000-07:00

Karnataka CM blames Christian groups for violence

PTI | October 13, 2008 | 16:06 IST

With his government facing flak over recent attacks against churches, Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa on Monday blamed certain Christain organisations for flaring up "disharmony and social tension" in the state.

"While Christians and Hindus have co-existed peacefully in the state, there have been unconstitutional and illegal efforts by some Christian organisations such as New Life to forcibly convert or to induce conversion to Christianity," he said, addressing National Integration Council meeting in Delhi.

"Efforts of such organisation include publishing booklets like Satya Darshini in which Hindu gods and goddesses were denigrated. Our Constitution provides for freedom of religion, but does not permit forcible or induced conversion," he said.

He also criticised some Union ministers and alleged political vendetta. "It was very unfortunate that our state was targeted for political vendetta by ministers and officials of the government of India," he said.

Yeddyurappa stressed that there was no need to send Central advisories or rush a team to Karnataka in the aftermath of attacks on minorities.

"There have been serious communal and terrorists activities in other states such as Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, Tripura, Delhi and Andhra Pradesh. The Union government was not so active in sending advisory notes, at times touted as notices (under Article 355) to the states," he added.

http://www.rediff.com///news/2008/oct/13ktaka.htm

"India with Lanka in war against LTTE" -- Rajapakshe. LTTE is banned by India -- Swamy.

2008-10-12T17:38:00.000-07:00

India with Lanka in war against LTTE" -- Rajapakshe. LTTE is banned by India -- Swamy.

‘India with Lanka in war against LTTE’

Sutirtho Patranobis (Hindustan Times)
Email Author
Colombo, October 13, 2008
First Published: 00:58 IST(13/10/2008)
Last Updated: 01:01 IST(13/10/2008)

Sri Lanka is getting the maximum support from India in its ongoing war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a top Presidential aide said.

He added that Sri Lanka was also closely considering the concerns that India has raised about the situation of the Tamil civilians in the embattled north.

“The government, which has destroyed the LTTE, is getting adequate support from our foreign friends. Here, the support from our neighbour is very vital. India has been always with us. We got maximum support from India to crush the LTTE,’’ senior adviser to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Basil Rajapaksa, told the Sunday Observer newspaper. Basil Rajapaksa is the President’s brother.

On the issue of Sri Lanka’s deputy high commissioner in New Delhi being summoned by the National Security Advisor, MK Narayanan, Rajapaksa said that the UPFA “is seriously considering these concerns (of India) now.” He added that the President had already instructed that “to take some measures to address their concerns.”

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print.aspx?Id=73b72109-e018-4358-aadf-8bec8cee4da5

The Moment of Truth for India on the LTTE

Mon, 2008-10-13 07:09
By Dr. Subramanian Swamy,

Recently there have been some hectic efforts to get the Government of India to pressure the Sri Lanka government to end the “genocide” of Tamils and to enter into negotiation with the LTTE.

Dr. Subramanian Swamy: "We Indians have to take stock now and decide what to do to remove the fault line in our policy towards the LTTE, and secure our geographical neighborhood."

Is there genocide going on in Sri Lanka? Not if one goes by the United Nations definition of genocide. The 1948 International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide signed by 135 countries including India and Sri Lanka has elaborately defined the term “genocide”. By this definition that is available to any literate person by just going to the Google search engine, we can say there is no genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka.

There are a large number of Sri Lankan Tamils who say that there is no genocide in their country, well known persons such as V. Anandsagaree of TULF, S.C. Chandrahasan of Ofer, Douglas Devananda presently a Minister and Karuna MP. May be the pro-LTTE parties in India have a new definition of genocide, which is that if the Sri Lanka army kills then it is genocide, but if LTTE kills then that is part of a Freedom Struggle. We in India need not bother about such a laughable contortion of the definition of genocide.

The truth is that the internationally banned terrorist organization, the LTTE, is losing in the battlefield, and it is only matter of time before its headquarters in the jungles of Jaffna is overrun by the Sri Lankan army. This has activated certain political groups in India who depend on the LTTE for monetary support.

Why is the LTTE on the run? In one word, it is because of their hubris. These terrorists killed at will even Tamils who were not only for Eelam, but also were opposing tooth and nail the Sri Lanka majority hegemonism: Gandhian leaders like such as Amrithalingam, Yogeswaran, Neelam Tiruchelvam, and militants such as Sri Sabaratnam. Why ?

Because the LTTE Chief Prabhakaran thought he could get Eelam alone. He of course welcomes cheerleaders like Nedumaran and Veeramani, because they slavishly serve him, but not independent Tamil leaders working for the goal of self-respect and autonomy for Tamils. Rajiv Gandhi sent 100, 000 troops to the island and defacto carved out a North and East Tamil area in Sri Lanka, with a full fledged Tamil Chief Minister who was elected in an election. The IPKF did not allow a single Sri Lankan soldier to enter the region.

But that was not good enough for the terrorist LTTE because Rajiv Gandhi wanted political plurality and leaders to hold office via elections. Since the LTTE believes in a single party Marxist state, so Prabhakaran decided that Rajiv Gandhi should be killed.

Hence, he decided to assassinate Rajiv as soon as he found Indian collaborators who he mistakenly thought could protect him post the dastardly deed. That is called hubris. His collaborators could not protect him however because Rajiv Gandhi had more courageous friends than he had thought, and his collaborators were cowardly to the core. As a consequence, Prabhakaran is a now an internationally wanted criminal, a proclaimed offender for whom the Interpol is in search.

Should India intervene to prevent the inevitable decimation of the LTTE ? That is the question of importance for us. Now is the moment of truth for clarity and transparency.

At present, there is confusion in our approach to Sri Lanka because of a hidden compulsion of the UPA government. The confusion is manifested in the following contradiction: On one hand, the Indian government has banned the LTTE as a terrorist organization because of it’s murderous activities, including the killing of Rajiv Gandhi, yet on the other hand, despite the continuing assassinations by the LTTE of pro-Indian Sri Lankan politicians and it’s open interference within India by financing pro-LTTE politicians and training other terrorist organizations, the Indian government pontificates that the “peace dialogue” of the Sri Lanka government with the LTTE must take place, which talks in the past have ended up legitimizing the terrorist outfit and thus making the ban meaningless.

Hence, we Indians have to take stock now and decide what to do to remove the fault line in our policy towards the LTTE, and secure our geographical neighborhood.
We have to regard the LTTE a part of the problem in the Sri Lanka crisis and not a part of any solution of the crisis because of that outfit’s links with India’s terrorists such as PWG, Naxalites, and ULFA, and with ISI of Pakistan and even Al Qaeda [ which now has established camps in Chittagong, Bangla Desh], as well as with defacto separatist Indian political parties such as DMK, PMK, Dalit Panther and not mention 38 paramilitary connected terrorists outfits roaming the forest areas of Tamil Nadu.

Thus, India has a national security imperative and an unavoidable moral obligation to get involved to free Sri Lanka of the LTTE’s treacherous terror, if for nothing else than to secure our own security environment and punish those seek to overawe our people with terror.

I see five specific reasons why India has this obligation to assist in the elimination of the LTTE:

First, India had trained the LTTE in 1980s and created this Frankenstein monster. Hence, India has to atone for it by actions to disband and unravel the LTTE.

Second, despite enjoying India’s hospitality for years, the LTTE betrayed India by entering into a shocking alliance with the Premadasa’s government and killing more than a thousand Indian army personnel of the IPKF sent to the island to enforce peace and create an autonomous North and East Tamil region. The betrayal and loss of lives of our valiant jawans have to be avenged to keep up the morale of the Indian armed forces.

Third, for assassinating Rajiv Gandhi, India is obligated to search for Prabhakaran and to teach the LTTE a lesson in a language they will understand, and to immobilize them enough to deter them in the future from engaging in any murderous and terrorist activities against India and Indian interests.

Fourth, the LTTE interferes in the internal affairs of India by financing stooge Indian political parties, in providing training to Indian militant and extremist organizations. It also launders black money of Indian politicians through it’s illegal Eelam Bank in the Jaffna area. India cannot allow such erosion of law and order within it’s own borders due to such money laundering.

Fifth, the LTTE is a part of the international terror network and is aided by ISI of Pakistan to smuggle narcotics into India, circulate fake currency notes to buy medicines and diesel, to smuggle out antiques to Italy, and engage in passport fabrication, and hawala operations.

The question thus is: To discharge these obligations what should India do ? The Tamils are squeezed between the devil [LTTE] and the deep sea [Sinhala chauvinists].
Hence first India has to initiate action to assist the Sri Lankan government to take out the LTTE, and the same time tell the Sinhala majority that following the end of the LTTE, India reserves the right to intervene militarily if they do not implement a proper devolution of powers for the Tamils under the Constitution of Sri Lanka.
Second, India must assist and nurture the democratic elements in the Sri Lankan Tamil population, those that have demonstrated capacity to stand up to the LTTE such as S.C. Chandrahasan, Anandsagaree, Douglas Devananda and breakaway LTTE group that had opposed Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, viz., the Karuna group, etc., to form a non-violent and democratic alternative to work out with the Sinhala majority the federal constitution that would serve the purpose of power sharing.

Time is at hand for India to effectively contribute to the war against terrorism and in promotion of democracy by targeting the LTTE sincerely and effectively in the larger national interest of security and national integrity. There is today a window of opportunity due to international consensus against the LTTE, and we must seize it now. Let the pro-LTTE parties sing for their supper. We need to pay no attention them.

[The writer is a former Union Law Minister]
- Asian Tribune -

http://www.asiantribune.com/?q=node/13691

Statement of Dr. Subramanian Swamy, President of the
Janata Party

The so-called "All Party Meet" on Sri Lanka convened by the TN Chief Minister is turning out to be a pathetic flop. It is bereft of any legitimacy since the principal opposition party in the State, the AIADMK led by the former Chief Minister, Ms. J. Jayalalithaa has boycotted the meeting, calling it a hoax on the public. The meeting as it now turns out is a gathering of parties who have been rendered by the Tamil Nadu public as agents of the LTTE. No amount of rigged opinion polls can convince anyone with any touch with the public that the LTTE is not a hated terrorist organisation in Tamil Nadu. As it is, any resolution passed by this motley crowd of parties would be only a reflection of their own political impotence, since the DMK and PMK are not prepared to walk out of the UPA on this issue. We have already witnessed their abject surrender for the crumbs of power in the Sethusamudram Ship Channel Project, after pompously predicting that their patron saint Ms. Sonia Gandhi would flag off the first ship via the proposed channel on November 1st 2008 and that too after rupturing the holy Rama Setu besides collecting their hefty illegal ommissions from international dredging companies. But the people have a right to protest against this ill-fated "All Party" Meet since the tax payers money is being wasted to plead for a foreign terrorist outfit, the LTTE, which killed a former Prime Minister of India. The whole exercise is futile because mainstream India has decided that LTTE is part of the problem of Sri Lanka, and cannot be a part of any negotiated solution of the problem.

13 Oct. 2008

Don't convert -- Hilda Raja

2008-10-11T10:52:00.000-07:00

Don't convert!

A rejoinder (11 Oct. 2008) by Dr. Mrs. Hilda Raja to the article "Don't target converts" by Michael Pinto in the 'Times of India' dated 8 October 2008.

'Don't target Converts 'by Michael Pinto (TOI 8th OCT) poses many questions than it answers. No amount of provocation can justify violence is easily said but humanly not easy to follow. All are not Gandhians or Jesus to show the left cheek when slapped on the right. Some countries follow a justice system which is based on 'eye for an eye'. Aggressive policy of conversion followed by some fundamentalist churches and fundamental Christians cannot justify taking law into one's hand and no amount of provocation can justify violence is correct theoretically and logically. But if such logic rules the hearts and minds of men/women why is there so much of violence in the world? Why do countries violate the rights of other countries? Why do law makers turn into law breakers? Why do those in the Khaki who have to operate the law on the streets become violators of human rights? In the midst of such oppression, exploitation can we expect the people to meekly be submissive and subservient? Or is the author's theory held good only in the provocation rising in the business of conversion?

When Indira Gandhi was assassinated why thousands of Sikhs were butchered in the capital? Was it not justified by the Congress party? When the Brahmin pundits were killed and chased away from their homes in the Valley and forced to become refugees in their own country under ethnic cleansing no voices were raised against such an abuse and violation? When a holy man held in great reverence was brutally murdered with his three disciples in his own ashram will the author's theory be strong enough to hold back the emotional, social, and religious upheaval of the hurt psyche?

Every action has a reaction. When a nun is raped then all hell breaks loose-Daily children are sexually violated and raped and murdered, no protest voice is heard -no church rallies are held, no Archbishop/bishop rebukes Chief Ministers and express pain and anguish. And no EU raises the issue with the PM in a foreign land. So Christians have global brokers and Christian lives become sacred and the PM is accountable to foreign powers for their safety.-the lives of others can be snuffed out without even a whimper. What is the root cause of this warped perception but religion? This is not to down play the rape of the nun but to point out that it is a harsh world we are living in and to high light the discrimination in our perception. Does a crime become more heinous because the victim belongs to a particular religion?

'Terrorists do not belong to any one community knows no religion', pontificates our political leaders. Is this again reserved only when it comes to the terrorists of the Minority community? It must be said that violence is nurtured within religious ghettos, madrassas, and only religions/beliefs are strong enough to provoke and sanctify spilling of the blood of the innocents. It is in the name of religion that the world had witnessed violence, genocide, torture and oppression and a Talibanism justifying the imposition of religious domination and curtailment of the rights of humans.

It is a utopia that Michael Pinto is envisaging when he states that no amount of provocation can justify violence. This is armchair wistful thinking. When the Christians were oppressors this theory vanished. The tables are turned and when there is an assertion of the Hindus to retain their culture, their religion and their heritage then the drum beating of the Constitutional guarantees is heard. It is the right of the Hindus to protect the Hindu ethos of this country which they feel is threatened. Was Art 30 not enacted to ensure the Right of the Minorities to establish manage and administer institutions to safeguard their ethos?

It is shocking that politicians are equating the Bajrang Dal and the VHP with the SIMI. The latter is a terror outfit with its branches now functioning in new names. The suspects belonging to these outfits are involved in serial blasts all over the country, they are trained in Pakistan and in POK .These are anti national outfits. What is the purpose/aim of these serial blasts-killing of innocent people who are about their daily business? The aim is to destabilize the country, create panic and insecurity and unrest within the country. Why was Parliament targeted? And who were behind it? But the same cannot be said of Bajrang Dal and the VHP. They are nationalists-they may be attacking a particular community for reasons of their own- the root cause being forced conversion and a reaction to the denigration of the Hindu gods and goddesses. Those involved in such violence and criminal activities must be apprehended and brought to justice. But where is the justification to demand a ban on such outfits? This is indulging in vote bank politics. Till date not a single terrorist has been brought to justice. The reality of wars, underworld dons killing, custodial deaths, political bosses unleashing terror against their opponents are all part of the harsh reality of today's world.

Conversion from time immemorial has a concomitant-violence. Indian history is replete with it. The oppression, force, torture, massacre of the Indians to convert them to Islam, and Christianity is not a fable. The Inquisition and all that it wrought is world record. Again it is in the name of religion. What you sow you reap. Violence begets violence-this is nature's order. In 'don't target converts' the author finds it strange that converts are targeted in a country which constitutionally upholds the right to preach and propagate one's religion. But then to preach and propagate one's religion does not mean to force and use fraudulent means to pressurize people to change from one religion to another. I am shocked that in this context the author compares inducements like 'buy one and get one free' in the market of commodities, to faith changing. If the market goods can be sold with inducements why not it be extended to faith and belief changing is the author's argument. Can faith and belief be brought to the market level of sales of commodities? By this analogy the author accepts that there is inducement. Money is flowing from foreign based churches and the gods of these churches need recruits-the greater the strength the greater the power of these gods and hence the brokers of these gods are all out targeting the poor. The inducement-a plate of rice, a loaf of bread to the hunger, shelter for the homeless, and also the promise of the green pastures in the next world-The strategy has first an entry point-first denigrate, abuse, degrade and demolished their gods and icons. Second instill in these victims the doubt that their gods are false and then promise to lead them to the true god. A vulnerable victim, with a vacuum inner self is then ready for the initiation into a "New Life"/to be "Born Again". The false propaganda is vicious because of its attack on another religion. This kind of provocation is not easy to overlook because human nature is to refute and repel this atrocious slander/blasphemy.

What will the author say if one prints pamphlets that the mother of Jesus was a prostitute and Jesus' birth was not a virgin birth? That after her marriage Joseph found her pregnant and toyed with the idea of putting her away. Only the intervention of an angel restrained him from taking such a drastic action. This is what the bible narrates. Will the Catholic Church and other fund churches sit back and humbly submit to such provocation? When posters depicting Jayalalitha as a Virgin Mary appeared in Chennai there were massive rallies and protests. But if Madhuri Dixit is depicted as Durga and the goddess is painted nude it comes under the freedom of expression of a painter. Only difference is that the same painter will not dare to let his artistic acumen and constitutional right to freedom of expression to depict Allah even in the best form. This is how we perceive the operation of guarantees/Rights enshrined in our Constitution

If opting for a "New Life"/ "Born Again", demands discarding of one's culture, social practices, adapting a western life style and adapting western forms of worship then the convert becomes an alien to the Indian/Hindu 'ethos', and is sucked into a process of alienation. This has other ramifications. Why did East Timor break away from Indonesia when its Christian population swelled to 27percent just in a matter of ten years? Similarly in our own context the partition of India was based on the theory that two religions-Islam and Hinduism cannot co-exist as a nation-that was the contention of then Muslims leaders. World history and Indian history is replete with the experience that 'peace cannot co-exist with conversion. The reason being conversion has an inbuilt violence: physical, psychological, social and cultural. It may even abet one to be anti-national.

At times church laws and rules are in variance with national rules and laws. The Christians and the Muslims have their own Personal laws. Whom will the Christians take orders from-their respective church leaders or the government of India when it comes to a national decision? When loyalties of a person are divided and clash then the likelihood of becoming a victim to schizophrenia. A leader from Kashmir proclaimed on the floor of the Parliament that he is a Muslim and an Indian. No Muslim/Christian will state, 'I am first an Indian and then a Muslim/Christian'. One can change one's religion but not one's nationality into which one is born. Politicians too have abetted this by not addressing citizens but focusing on communal/caste/religious divide.

Another aspect to be noted in the business of conversion is that conversions are made even in proxy. A few years ago in Trichy district of Tamilnadu a whole list of names were produced in paper and the bishop of that evangelical church baptized them in absentia! Would this qualify as conversion? I belong to the Catholic Church and my understanding of conversion is that it is a process-a life long search for truth. Conversion is a private affair and not a street tamasha-neither is it an activity intended to swell numbers. It is not that conversion is from one religion to another the Fundamentalist churches poach on the grounds of other Christian sects. So the Jesus of one church is different from the Jesus of another. This creates also distrust and disharmony among the Christian community. Freedom is always accompanied by restrictions. Freedom is restricted when it encroaches the freedom of others and of a whole society. Rights are not hierarchically.

When conversions are a threat to peace then it needs to be banned. Like the curfew order-the ban to strike etc. The million dollar question is why conversion? Is it a prerequisite for development work? Why are the foreign agencies funding conversion activities? It is strange that the fundamental Christians and the churches to which they belong do not turn their attention and energy in this salvation ensuring business to the Muslims. Development and upliftment of the poor is the camouflage of evangelization all the more why the need for the churches to work with the Muslims. Because according to Sachar report the Muslims are the lowest in India-both economically and educationally. Is it not strange that not a single Muslim has been converted? According to Michael Pinto the Christian population has fallen from 2.6 percent in 1971 to 2.3 percent in 2001.This does not mean that lakhs are not converted by the hundreds of fundamental churches that have mushroomed in the country. Today we are one billion so what does the 2.3 indicate in absolute numbers? When one reviews numbers a few other indicators must also be listed-Christians follow Family planning, the celibacy of nuns and priests, and the fact that most of the converts for the sake of reservation and other benefits retain the religion and the caste in which they were born on records.

Conversion has been commercialized by the Fundamentalistic churches. The number of converts is co-related to the quantum of funds that flow in. This must not be overlooked. Why not ban foreign funds and watch how evangelization evaporates? All laws have their accompanying lacunae/loopholes and difficulties in implementation, do we on such grounds fight shy of enacting laws? Conversions must be banned to ensure peace and harmony. Let us give peace a chance-for peace and conversion cannot co-exist.

Dr Mrs Hilda Raja,
(Former member of the National Advisory committee of the CBCI)

Gamblers at risk. This is the financial crisis mantra.

2008-10-11T00:05:00.000-07:00

Gamblers at risk. This is the financial crisis mantra.

The key word in the plan of action and Financial Stability Forum recommendations is ‘risk’. This is the favourite word of gamblers.

This word is the problem and the solutions being worked out by nerds, quants is to use computer simulation models to manage ‘risk’.
The unanswered question is: why get into a ‘risk’ situation in the first place with use of derivatives and other inventions collectively called complex financial instruments?
Another unanswered question concerns nations other than G-7. There is no sense of remorse or guilt on the part of the G-7 for the mess of their creation which has impoverished many part of the globe outside of G-7 nations. Surely, the next meeting of G-20 will be a platform for unsolicited advice on how the central banks of G-20 nations should come to the rescue of the G-7 nations which have landed themselves in the financial turmoil.
It is a pity that an opportunity created by the financial crisis is being wasted by not addressing the central issue: fetishism of money. Remedies are sought by the proven failures such as ‘encouring more spending’, ‘putting money in the hands of consumers to spend’ and so on. This is the only demand-driven solution the nerds, quants can think of to ‘stimulate’ the financial markets. Such moves will only exacerbate the rapid slide down of a recession into a depression.
A meeting of financial talking-hats which cares little for the poor people of the globe who are being drawn into the tsunami created by the financial markets is a meeting in futility. The good news for countries like India is that these markets constitute an insignificant percentage of the productive capacity of the nation represented by GDP. It is time for G-7 to realize that wealth of nations is not enhanced by complex financial instrument but by ensuring employment and judicious, sustainable use of the limited resources of the globe.
G-7 meet and the action plan is a clear indication of the poverty of economic thought. It is time to reinforce the goal of dharma as abhyudayam, ‘welfare’. It is time to talk about abhyudayam on the globe and not about the loot engaged in by gamblers calling themselves financial wizards.
kalyanaraman

October 10, 2008
HP-1195
G-7 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Plan of Action
Washington-- The G-7 agrees today that the current situation calls for urgent and exceptional action. We commit to continue working together to stabilize financial markets and restore the flow of credit, to support global economic growth. We agree to:
1. Take decisive action and use all available tools to support systemically important financial institutions and prevent their failure.
2. Take all necessary steps to unfreeze credit and money markets and ensure that banks and other financial institutions have broad access to liquidity and funding.
3. Ensure that our banks and other major financial intermediaries, as needed, can raise capital from public as well as private sources, in sufficient amounts to re-establish confidence and permit them to continue lending to households and businesses.
4. Ensure that our respective national deposit insurance and guarantee programs are robust and consistent so that our retail depositors will continue to have confidence in the safety of their deposits.
5. Take action, where appropriate, to restart the secondary markets for mortgages and other securitized assets. Accurate valuation and transparent disclosure of assets and consistent implementation of high quality accounting standards are necessary.
The actions should be taken in ways that protect taxpayers and avoid potentially damaging effects on other countries. We will use macroeconomic policy tools as necessary and appropriate. We strongly support the IMF's critical role in assisting countries affected by this turmoil. We will accelerate full implementation of the Financial Stability Forum recommendations and we are committed to the pressing need for reform of the financial system. We will strengthen further our cooperation and work with others to accomplish this plan.
http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/hp1195.htm

Enhancing Market and Institutional Resilience
On 10 October 2008, the Financial Stability Forum (FSF) presented to the G7 Finance Ministers and central bank Governors a follow-up report to its April Report on Enhancing Market and Institutional Resilience. The follow-up report reviews the implementation of the recommendations set forth by the April report in five areas:
• Strengthened prudential oversight of capital, liquidity and risk management
• Enhancing transparency and valuation
• Changes in the role and uses of credit ratings
• Strengthening the authorities' responsiveness to risks
• Robust arrangements for dealing with stress in the financial system
Public sector and private sector initiatives are underway in these areas. The FSF will continue to facilitate coordination of these initiatives and oversee their timely implementation, thus preserving the advantages of integrated global financial markets and a level playing field across countries.
The follow-up report is available here. http://www.fsforum.org/press/pr_081009f.pdf
The FSF Report on Enhancing Market and Institutional Resilience in April 2008 is available here. http://www.fsforum.org/publications/r_0804.pdf
http://www.fsforum.org/

China says no to derivatives and vikalpa fetishism of money..

2008-10-10T18:46:00.000-07:00

China says no to derivatives and vikalpa fetishism of money (complex financial instruments which are throws of dice; remember how Pandavas made a mess of themselves playing games of dice). King Henry says that US Treasury will invest 'passively' in banks and without any control over the institutions. Good luck, Henry. Go back to the next-in-bankruptcy line Goldman Sachs.

What are the chances that G-7 or G-20 will ban derivatives globally? The rascals are all in the same game -- gambling.

kalyanaraman

The End Of American Capitalism?

By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 10, 2008; A01

The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression is claiming another casualty: American-style capitalism.

Since the 1930s, U.S. banks were the flagships of American economic might, and emulation by other nations of the fiercely free-market financial system in the United States was expected and encouraged. But the market turmoil that is draining the nation's wealth and has upended Wall Street now threatens to put the banks at the heart of the U.S. financial system at least partly in the hands of the government.

The Bush administration is considering a partial nationalization of some banks, buying up a portion of their shares to shore them up and restore confidence as part of the $700 billion government bailout. The notion of government ownership in the financial sector, even as a minority stakeholder, goes against what market purists say they see as the foundation of the American system.

Yet the administration may feel it has no choice. Credit, the lifeblood of capitalism, ceased to flow. An economy based on the free market cannot function that way.

The government's about-face goes beyond the banking industry. It is reasserting itself in the lives of citizens in ways that were unthinkable in the era of market-knows-best thinking. With the recent takeovers of major lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Macand the bailout of AIG, the U.S. government is now effectively responsible for providing home mortgages and life insurance to tens of millions of Americans. Many economists are asking whether it remains a free market if the government is so deeply enmeshed in the financial system.

Given that the United States has held itself up as a global economic model, the change could shift the balance of how governments around the globe conduct free enterprise. Over the past three decades, the United States led the crusade to persuade much of the world, especially developing countries, to lift the heavy hand of government from finance and industry.

But the hands-off brand of capitalism in the United States is now being blamed for the easy credit that sickened the housing market and allowed a freewheeling Wall Street to create a pool of toxic investments that has infected the global financial system. Heavy intervention by the government, critics say, is further robbing Washington of the moral authority to spread the gospel of laissez-faire capitalism.

The government could launch a targeted program in which it takes a minority stake in troubled banks, or a broader program aimed at the larger banking system. In either case, however, the move could be seen as evidence that Washington remains a slave to Wall Street. The plan, for instance, may not compel participating firms to give their chief executives the salary haircuts that some in Congress intended. But if the plan didn't work, the government might have to take bigger stakes.

"People around the world once admired us for our economy, and we told them if you wanted to be like us, here's what you have to do -- hand over power to the market," said Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist at Columbia University. "The point now is that no one has respect for that kind of model anymore given this crisis. And of course it raises questions about our credibility. Everyone feels they are suffering now because of us."

In Seoul, many see American excess as a warning. At the same time, anger is mounting over the global spillover effect of the U.S. crisis. The Korean currency, the won, has fallen sharply in recent days as corporations there struggle to find dollars in the heat of a global credit crunch.

"Derivatives and hedge funds are like casino gambling," said South Korean Finance Minister Kang Man-soo. "A lot of Koreans are asking, how can the United States be so weak?"

Other than a few fringe heads of state and quixotic headlines, no one is talking about the death of capitalism. The embrace of free-market theories, particularly in Asia, has helped lift hundreds of millions out of poverty in recent decades. But resentment is growing over America's brand of capitalism, which in contrast to, say, Germany's, spurns regulations and venerates risk.

In South Korea, rising criticism that the government is sticking too close to the U.S. model has roused opposition to privatizing the massive, state-owned Korea Development Bank. South Korea is among those countries that have benefited the most from adopting free-market principles, emerging from the ashes of the Korean War to become one of the world's biggest economies. It has distinguished itself from North Korea, an impoverished country hobbled by an outdated communist system and authoritarian leadership.

But the repercussions of crisis that began in the United States are global. In Britain, where Prime Minister Margaret Thatcherjoined with President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s to herald capitalism's promise, the government this week moved to partly nationalize the ailing banking system. Across the English Channel, European leaders who are no strangers to regulation are piling on Washington for gradually pulling the government watchdogs off the world's largest financial sector. Led by French PresidentNicolas Sarkozy, they are calling for broad new international codes to impose scrutiny on global finance.

To some degree, those calls are even being echoed by the International Monetary Fund, an institution charged with the promotion of free markets overseas and that preached that less government was good government during the economic crises in Asia and Latin America in the 1990s. Now, it is talking about the need for regulation and oversight.

"Obviously the crisis comes from an important regulatory and supervisory failure in advanced countries . . . and a failure in market discipline mechanisms," Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF's managing director, said yesterday before the fund's annual meeting in Washington.

In a slideshow presentation, Strauss-Kahn illustrated the global impact of the financial crisis. Countries in Africa, including many of those with some of the lowest levels of market and financial integration and openness, are now set to weather the crisis with the least amount of turbulence.

Shortly afterward, World Bank President Robert Zoellick was questioned by reporters about the "confusion" in the developing world over whether to continue embracing the free-market model. He replied, "I think people have been confused not only in developing countries, but in developed countries, by these shocking events."

In much of the developing world, financial systems still remain far more governed by the state, despite pressure from the United States for those countries to shift power to the private sector and create freer financial markets. They may stay that way for some time.

China had been resisting calls from Washington and Wall Street to introduce a broad range of exotic investments, including many of the once-red-hot derivatives now being blamed for magnifying the crisis in the West. In recent weeks, Beijing has made that position more clear, saying it would not permit an expansion of complex financial instruments.

With the U.S. government's current push toward intervention and the soul-searching over the role of deregulation in the crisis, the stage appears to be at least temporarily set for a more restrained model of free enterprise, particularly in financial markets.

"If you look around the world, China is doing pretty good right now, and the U.S. isn't," said C. Fred Bergsten, director of thePeterson Institute for International Economics. "You may see a push back from globalization in the financial markets."

Staff writers Blaine Harden in Seoul and Ariana Cha in Washington contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/09/AR2008100903425_pf.html

Evolution of the Apocalypse: Empire’s Demise, Human Renaissance

by Carole Brouillet

Global Research, October 7, 2008

Apocalypse (Greek: Apokálypsis; "lifting of the veil") is a term applied to the disclosure to certain privileged persons of something hidden from the majority of humankind. Today the term is often used to refer to the end of the world, which may be a shortening of the phrase apokalupsis eschaton, which literally means "revelation at the end of the æon, or age.[1]"

The unraveling of the US and global financial system should not be a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention, doubted the news headlines over the past decade, or plunged into an odyssey of self- and world-discovery by reading books, studying history, or seeking the truth behind the cultural myths that cocoon Americans into the notion that they live in the world’s beacon of democracy and freedom. The most surprising factor is that people who have created the crisis think that they can continue the scam by stealing another $850,000,000,000 overtly through the bailout, and even larger amounts covertly, to keep the game going for the world’s wealthiest people at the expense of everyone else.

In the past, Egypt, Babylon, Persia, and Rome fell when a small percentage of the population controlled nearly all of the wealth. [2] Today, the rich have never been richer nor the poor poorer. The concentration of wealth has been achieved by conquest, as well as by one of the most powerful tools of empire money.

Debt-based monetary systems are the building blocks of empires, and generally empires collapse or topple when they have destroyed their ecological base. The current global empire severely threatens the forests, the oceans, the climate, the fertility of the soil, the aquifers, the bees, and innumerable other species, including humanity.

There is a Cree prophecy that goes as follows[3]:

“When all the trees have been cut down, when all the animals have been hunted, when all the waters are polluted, when all the air is unsafe to breathe, only then will you discover you cannot eat money.”

Caught up in the empire game, many have forgotten the difference between money and real wealth. Money is a human invention. It is not neutral. Who creates it, how it flows in a society, a nation, and the world is important and subject to change. Money is an agreement that can be backed either by force or by a spirit of cooperation.[4]

Bankers, like magicians, do not want to reveal their secrets. Able to create money out of thin air, they have learned that belief in the value of money is the key to their success. When people begin to doubt the purchasing power of money, banks fail and currencies collapse.

The “modern” fractional reserve banking system has evolved over centuries.[5] “Mortgage” literally means “death-gamble.” When mortgages were first introduced, those who risked their land to borrow money were literally risking the lives of their families, their liberty, and their hopes for the future. Only gradually, over eons of time, did the idea of a “mortgage” become more commonplace, acceptable, and even encouraged. Mortgages became attached to the “dream of home ownership” and provided the liquid currency to fuel “national economies.”

The origins of paper money can be traced to receipts that goldsmiths provided to their customers, who would leave their gold with a goldsmith for safekeeping. Centuries ago goldsmiths began giving out receipts for the gold that they safeguarded, and people soon learned that the receipts were more useful for business transactions than heavy amounts of gold. Some enterprising goldsmith figured out that it was not necessary to maintain a supply of gold equal to all the receipts issued, because all the customers would never come to claim their gold at the same time. Because large amounts of gold weren't necessary to ensure the utility of receipts, the goldsmith was able to issue many times as many receipts as he had gold in his vault, and the fractional reserve system was born. Since goldsmiths began to loan gold and receipts at interest, the system of "debt money" was born in which customers had to pay back more money (receipts) than were in circulation thus ensuring that the community as a whole would always be in debt to the goldsmith.

When money is created by the banks and loaned to governments or business at interest, it is mathematically impossible to pay back all the money with interest. Not all debts can be repaid, so foreclosures occur. In this way wealth is continually transferred from the poor to the rich.

Kings, queens, and nations have succumbed to the power of those who lend them money, finance their wars, pay their armed forces and own the means of communication, which either provide rulers their aura of legitimacy or can just as easily demonize and dethrone them.

Over a hundred years ago, the populist movement in the United States rose up in the wake of the collapse of agricultural prices that threatened farmers and enriched bankers. The farmers pushed for monetary reform, including the demand that dollars be backed by silver rather than gold. The populists also argued that money should be created by the government for the benefit of the people, rather than by banks for the benefit of the bankers.

In 1890 the German economist Silvio Gesell formulated a theory of money that was as revolutionary as the notion that the earth circles the sun, rather than the other way around despite appearances. Gesell suggested securing the money flow by making money a governmental service subject to a use fee. Instead of paying interest to those who have more money than they need, people would pay a small fee if they kept money out of circulation. The fee would serve as income to the government and would reduce the amount of taxes needed to carry out public tasks.

Gesell's ideas were tested by the mayor of Worgl, Austria, in 1932 when economic conditions were deplorable. The mayor proposed to substitute a local currency for the national currency which he called “work certificates.” On the first of every month the holder had to affix a 1 percent stamp of the face value of the certificate. The "taxes" went into the community chest, to provide a relief fund for the invalids or elderly who were unable to work. Because of the stamp tax, taxes were paid quickly, accounts were settled without the usual delays, and even the bank became eager to loan out money, as fast as it received it.

The mayor then embarked upon a public works program "to alleviate want, give work and bread," which exceeded his highest hopes. The conditions of the streets of Worgl had been a standing joke to the people in the surrounding countryside. In less than four months, sewers and improvements were completed. Later, other streets were paved, and even streets outside of Worgl were repaired.Prosperity blossomed throughout Worgl.

Inspired by Worgl’s success, a meeting of 200 Austrian mayors decided unanimously to follow the Worgl example in their impoverished communities. At this point, fearful of losing its power, the private Austrian National Bank protested against the shattering of its money-making monopoly. After a legal fight, the Austrian Supreme Court sided with the bank, as might be expected. Although this experiment was abruptly terminated in Austria, the Worgl experience inspired three or four hundred scrips in circulation in the United States, Canada, and Mexico during the Great Depression.[6]

If the Federal Reserve were actually a part of the US government, would the US government need to borrow money? Wouldn’t it be able to just print its own? In 1913 the Federal Reserve Act took away Congress’s Constitutional power of regulating the value of money and bequeathed it to private banks.[7] Since then the financial plight of the US government has been dire and under pressure from the very rich, who choose which candidates and politicians will serve their interests and oust those who threaten them.

In recent times there have been numerous communications revolutions, including radio, television, and the Internet, and social movements have also arisen. At the same time there has also been the consolidation and expansion of corporate power served by new centers of supranational power, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization. Alex Carey said:

"The twentieth century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy.''[8]

During this time money and resources have flowed from poor countries to rich industrialized nations. The Structural Adjustment Programs forced upon nations by the World Bank and the IMF have meant shifting food production from domestic needs to export crops, devaluing local currency to encourage exports, cutting social spending on health and education, reducing wages, privatizing national industries, selling off natural resources, and removing tariff protections for local industries. Hunger, unemployment, hardship and inequality are the direct and calculated results of these World Bank policies.

The vertical integration of entire industries has taken place with the rise of giant transnational corporations whose economies are larger than that of many countries.

At the end of World War II, when the Bretton Woods Agreements were signed, the dollar became the de facto “world currency” and was backed by American gold reserves. In 1972, in the midst of the Vietnam War, when President Nixon detached the dollar from the gold standard, he detached the dollar from anything of real tangible value and basically allowed the currency rates of every nation to fluctuate in relationship to one another’s currencies. The dollar was then backed by oil and American military might.

In those days 98 percent of foreign exchange transactions had to do with the exchange of goods and services and only 2 percent were speculative. Today the vast majority of foreign exchange transactions have been speculative and less than 2 percent are for the exchange of real goods and services.

Measurements have inherent limitations and biases. The family existed before money did. Villages grew out of interdependent relationships between families. As societies have grown more complex, hierarchies have developed and the "public family" or the state has created institutions that have taken over many of the functions once met within the household, such as educating children and caring for the sick. [9]

In urban environments, basic living skills have been lost, people are more dependent than ever on the state or a monetized economy to meet their basic needs. In order to get slaves or labor to serve industries, people had to be forced away from the land where they once were able to sustain themselves.

In the film “Who's Counting? Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies and Global Economics,” Marilyn unravels many of the problems in the global system. The IMF and the World Bank were created to maintain certain power relations and exercise control over the world's resources. The U.N. System of National Accounts was based upon a pamphlet entitled "How to Pay for the War." That system, imposed upon every country that joins the U.N., enables the global elite to finance their militaries, to engage in conflicts with other nations, and to build internal security forces to control populations who might not agree with the expropriation of their country's resources.

The system assumes that the unpaid work of women who are bearing children, raising them, feeding them, carrying for the sick and aged, and maintaining a home or garden is of little or no importance. Nor does the system recognize the value of forests or the natural world unless they can be chopped down and sold or monetized in some way. Monetary transactions are measured, no matter how devastating their effects are on the environment. The arms industry is the most lucrative of all industries. It is in the economic interest of the major powers that there always be a war going on somewhere. This pathological system does not recognize the inherent value of life, peace, or the earth itself. It does not even notice anything of unquantifiable value; it only sees that which it measures¬money.[10]

Maximizing profits is the primary value in modern economics. The economic measure of monetary flow is directly related to the rape of the earth, the amount of exploitation occurring within a country, and how effectively the world's parasites are expropriating the labor of others and the natural world.

Because the greatest profit can be made through war and drugs, the global economy is a war economy. While the importance of oil for both energy and military purposes is enormous, dwarfing the oil industry in monetary terms is the illegal trafficking in drugs. Laundered drug money in enormous quantities has always found its way into the large financial centers and into key industries.

In criminal law, fraud is the crime or offense of deliberately deceiving another in order to damage them – usually, to obtain property or services unjustly. [1] …

Fraud for profit is often perpetrated by industry professionals. There are generally multiple loan transactions with several financial institutions involved. These frauds include misrepresentations including the following: Income is overstated, assets are overstated, collateral is overstated, the length of employment is overstated (or fictitious employment is reported), and employment is backstopped by conspirators. The property value is inflated (faulty appraisal) to increase the sales value to make up for their being no down payment and to generate cash proceeds in fraud for profit.[11]

In the 80s, Congress paved the way for the savings and loan scandal by loosening regulations, which cost taxpayers $160.1 billion. John McCain was one of the “Keating Five” rebuked by the Senate Ethics Committee for exercising "poor judgment" for intervening with the federal regulators on behalf of Charles Keating, who was at the center of the scandal and convicted of fraud, racketeering, and conspiracy.

The history of the stock market reveals a transition from investments in real companies producing tangible, measurable products and services toward “financial instruments” of an increasingly speculative nature. Electronic money, borrowed and loaned into existence, flowing through cyberspace, can wreak havoc and collapse entire nations’ economies. In the 90s the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) was devised to ensure the ability of speculators and multinational corporations to move capital in and out of countries without governmental involvement or public interest safeguards.[12] Recognizing the dangers of this agreement to the interests of people everywhere, civil society organized global resistance via the Internet to defeat the MAI.

The 90s also witnessed major consolidation of the mass media, the frenzy of speculation in the high-tech industry, and the development and expansion of Internet commerce. New technologies permitted local, national, and international communications and organizing to occur, which profoundly challenged the credibility and legitimacy of established governments, corporations, and the corporate press.

Global resistance to corporate globalization broke through the mainstream media barrier in the US in 1999 in Seattle, Washington, when tens of thousands of protestors tried to peacefully shut down a World Trade Organization meeting. The first Indymedia.org website was created specifically for that protest to share information from the point of view of activists. Since then the Indymedia network has grown to span the globe particularly in those cities where international protests have been organized, the main website is accessible in eight languages.

Under President Clinton in 1999 and the leadership of Senator Phil Gramm (now co-chair of the McCain campaign), Congress repealed the Glass-Steagall Act which removed Depression-era laws separating banking, insurance, and brokerage activities and helped pave the way for the next wave of financial integration and fraud. In late 2000 when Gramm chaired the Senate Banking Committee, he pushed through the Commodity Futures Modernization Act which prohibited federal agencies from regulating financial products called credit default swaps, which have been used to back up the mortgage-based securities. The credit default swaps are the major reason for the 54 trillion dollar liabilities that are threatening financial institutions worldwide.[13] (After the legislation passed, the Swiss bank UBS purchased American institutions. UBS then hired Gramm as a lobbyist and paid him over $750,000. UBS alone issues over $18 billion in subprime mortgages.) [14]

Throughout history there has been a struggle in all societies between a ruling class and the many who are not so privileged. Toynbee noted that the world struggle takes place between a few vested interests and social justice. There has always been a struggle between tyrants and ordinary people, where the people have made some gains and have also had setbacks.

Social movements are born when public myths are shattered, societal secrets are revealed, and people realize that powerholders are acting in violation of deeply held values. In the current era, the Internet has allowed for the increasingly rapid transmission of information challenging powerholders, institutions, and cultural myths.

Social movements are collective actions that alert, educate, and mobilize the public to redress social problems or grievances. With all the problems confronting humanity there are innumerable social movements, which have evolved and learned from one another. At times they have come together in increasingly powerful coalitions. Professor and author Anthony Hall has called them “the fourth world,”[15] and others refer to them as the “anti-corporate globalization movement” or the “global justice movement.”

In January of 2001 while the World Economic Forum was meeting in Switzerland, thousands of people from hundreds of countries met at the first World Social Forum in Porto Allegre, Brazil, a convergence of social movements. Their points of agreement included opposition to the policies of the IMF, World Bank, and WTO; opposition to militarism, corporate globalization, and environmental destruction; and support for public participation in decision-making processes, and for the respect for people and life over profits. Social movements are an evolutionary force that pushes people to live up to their ideals and values and enables people to exercise their collective power.

When people believe that power flows downward from those at the top of institutions towards the helpless at the bottom of the pyramid, tyranny rules. Most people believe in this model. Under this model, change can be achieved only by appealing to elites, using persuasion. However, when people discover their own power and belief in democracy that government should be “of, by, and for the people” power flows from them through institutions to powerholders and public servants. True democratic power comes from the bottom, results in social progress, and powerholders and policies are changed to meet popular social demands.[16]

The strategy of the powerholders is not to broadcast the truth about their beliefs, actions, policies, and programs. They know who benefits from the unfair distribution of benefits and costs within the existing system. They must keep their actual policies hidden from the public, because they rightly fear that the majority would rebel if they knew the truth. Powerholders habitually use myths, slogans, and rhetoric to sell their policies and programs to the public.

One of the great American myths that is promulgated by powerholders is the idea that we have a watchdog press. Over 3,000 people attended the last two National Conferences on Media Reform, primarily because of their deep concern about the failure of the traditional media. Lord Northcliffe said, “News is something that someone wants suppressed; all the rest is advertising.”

Colossal crimes have been committed and then masked by the media for centuries. But the larger pattern in this era of information including names, dates, evidence, and various kinds of documentation is coming to light at a staggering rate, beyond the capacity of any one individual to absorb, read, process, and disseminate all the details. In turn the information is gradually reaching the most heavily propagandized target audience the American public, who are increasingly losing faith in their government, the war, the Congress, and the financial system.

As Aung San Suu Kyi wrote, "It is not power that corrupts, but fear fear of losing power and fear of the scourge of those who wield it."

Fear, war, and terror are routinely used to shut down rational thinking processes a tactic that Naomi Klein outlines in her book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism[17] (as well as in the video[18]). Klein fails to recognize, however, that 9/11 was designed to terrorize Americans and the world into going along with the bogus “War on Terror,” to forget about the missing $2.3 trillion on the Department of Defense books[19], the stolen election[20], the evidence destroyed in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s offices in World Trade Center 7,[21] to not even notice the massive insider trading,[22] and then to permit a giant escalation in the military budget and the construction of the surveillance industry. The plunge in the stock market and the “apparent attack” on America’s financial center also prompted the Fed to lower interest rates, which helped the housing market and Bush encouraged folks to “go shopping.”

The best historical parallel to 9/11 would be the Reichstag fire, which Hitler used to vilify and target “communists” and pass the Enabling Act (similar to the PATRIOT Act), before launching wars of aggression. The PATRIOT Act was mirrored by legislation passed in Canada, Australia, and the UK, severely eroding civil rights and granting more power to governments to chill dissent to monitor and crack down on those they considered a threat.

With the bust of the dot com bubble, speculative money went into real estate, housing, and derivatives[23]. Congress and the Bush administration changed laws and regulations to lure people into borrowing money, purchasing homes, and investing their savings in the 21st century Ponzi schemes. Elliot Spitzer was vilified by the press the day before he wrote an article naming Bush as the "Predator Lenders' Partner in Crime," saying

“In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act pre-empting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. …

"Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye."[24]

Close scrutiny of powerholders running the government, institutions, and corporations reveals conflicting loyalties and economic interests. Legislators in fact represent the millionaires and billionaires who fund them and who continually rewrite the rules in their own favor and have decided that the Constitution is obsolete.

The unfolding financial crisis has been arriving in wave after destructive wave. People have lost their homes, their jobs, their savings, their health, their marriages, their kids, and finally their hope.

The housing bubble began to burst when home prices in the US began to decline in March and April of 2007. The IMF warned of risks to global financial markets. Bear Stearns was in trouble in June 2007 because of its mortgage-backed securities. In the summer of 2007 German banks were in trouble and foreclosures in the US almost doubled. In September 2007 there was a run on Northern Rock, which the British government nationalized, and the Fed began to drop interest rates to help the housing market. In January 2008, UBS reported $18 billion in write-downs due to US real estate exposure. In February, Fannie Mae reported a $3.55 billion loss. [25]

In March, however, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department directed money towards the 85-year-old investment bank Bear Stearns, via JP Morgan[26] and $200 billion went to prop up Fannie Mae. By April the IMF projected $945 billion in losses. In June housing possessions doubled again, and the FBI announced the arrest of over 400 people charged with mortgage fraud, including two senior managers of the failed Bear Stearns Hedge Funds.[27] In July Congress passed the Foreclosures Prevention Act, which was a $33 billion hand-out to those who helped create the problem, according to a report by the Laborers' International Union of North America. Under the bill's little-publicized "carry-back" provision, builders would get billions in tax breaks and the 15 largest corporate homebuilders, who made $16 billion in profits on $100 billion in revenues, would receive a third of the benefits.[28]

In September 2008, the Fed, in an unprecedented move, lent $85 billion to the American International Group (AIG), the nation’s largest insurance company, which also handled credit default swaps and suffered losses from its subprime mortgage-backed securities holdings.[29] Then Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, and Bank of America devoured Merrill Lynch. Soon there was a run on money market funds, and short selling of financial stocks was suspended globally. Bush made a speech acknowledging that there was a serious crisis, and backed Paulson’s bailout plea.

There were only a few voices in Congress that dared to challenge the current bailout of the speculators so intimately involved in created the current financial crisis. Anyone could look up Henry Paulson on the internet to discover his ties to Goldman Sachs, but these ties were not emphasized in the mainstream media. According to Wikipedia notes:

“Paulson was Staff Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon from 1970 to 1972… He joined Goldman Sachs in 1974… He became a partner in 1982. From 1983 until 1988, Paulson led the Investment Banking group for the Midwest Region, and became managing partner of theChicago office in 1988. From 1990 to November 1994, he was co-head of Investment Banking, then, Chief Operating Officer from December 1994 to June 1998; eventually succeeding Jon Corzine (now Governor of New Jersey) as its chief executive. His compensation package, according to reports, was US$37 million in 2005, and US$16.4 million projected for 2006. His net worth has been estimated at over US$700 million. Paulson has personally built close relations with China during his career. In July 2008 it was reported by The Daily Telegraph that: "Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has intimate relations with the Chinese elite, dating from his days at Goldman Sachs when he visited the country more than 70 times. …

“There is increasing evidence that Paulson was influential with two U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairmen, William H. Donaldson and Christopher Cox, in receiving restraint in the Commission's exercise of oversight requirements. In 2004…the Commission agreed unanimously to release the major investment houses from the net capital rule, the requirement that their brokerages hold reserve capital that limited their leverage and risk exposure. The complaint that was put forth by the investment banks was of increasingly onerous regulatory requirements in this case, not U.S. regulator oversight, but European Union regulation of the foreign operations of US investment groups. In the immediate lead-up to the decision, EU regulators also acceded to US pressure, and agreed not to scrutinize foreign firms' reserve holdings if the SEC agreed to do so instead. The 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, however, put the parent holding company of each of the big American brokerages beyond SEC oversight. In order for the agreement to go ahead, the investment banks lobbied for a decision that would allow "voluntary" inspection of their parent and subsidiary holdings by the SEC.

“During this repeal of the net capital rule, SEC Chairman Donaldson agreed to the establishment of a risk management office that would monitor signs of future problems. This office was eventually dismantled by Chairman Cox, after discussions with Paulson. According to the New York Times, ’While other financial regulatory agencies criticized a blueprint by Mr. Paulson, the [new] Treasury secretary, that proposed to reduce their stature and that of the S.E.C. Mr. Cox did not challenge the plan, leaving it to three former Democratic and Republican commission chairmen to complain that the blueprint would neuter the agency.’ Only in late September 2008, Chairman Cox and the other Commissioners agreed to end the 2004 program of voluntary regulation.”

With the unregulated credit default swaps posing enormous liabilities to the financial institutions that dwarf the global economy, Paulson’s allegiances to Goldman Sachs and AIG will help determine which institutions will fail or escape, survive, and profit in the current turmoil.[30]

Henry Paulson asked for and received over $700 billion in taxpayer money with little or no oversight as to who will actually get the money. It is clear that it won’t be going to Main Street, and it is more than likely to go to Paulson’s Wall Street and foreign friends.

Ohio Representative Marcy Kaptur spoke out bravely against the bill, explaining precisely how it was being rushed through Congress[31], and Dennis Kucinich condemned it as well. Their token resistance was swept aside, even as Representative Brad Sherman pointed out the fear mongering and panic pressure placed on Congress to push it through.[32] The fear that was generated by insiders and the media, as well as some token pork, helped to get the bill passed on Friday, October 3, 2008. Democrats, Republicans, and both presidential hopefuls were behind the bailout.

Amongst Obama’s advisers are Franklin Raines, who was a chairman and chief executive officer at Fannie Mae; and Tim Howard, who was the chief financial officer of Fannie Mae; and Jim Johnson, who was an executive at Lehman Brothers and later forced from his position as Fannie Mae CEO. Howard was forced to retire when auditing discovered severe irregularities in Fannie Mae's accounting activities. The books ran afoul of generally accepted accounting principles for four years, and Fannie Mae had to reduce its surplus by $9 billion. The Government filed suit against Raines and Howard when the scandal became clear[33]. The court ordered Raines to return $50 million he received in bonuses based on the misstated Fannie Mae profits. The government investigation determined that "Chief Financial Officer Tim Howard failed to provide adequate oversight to key control and reporting functions within Fannie Mae." Raines and Howard resigned under pressure in late 2004. Howard's golden parachute was estimated at $20 million. Raines left with a "golden parachute valued at $240 million in benefits. A look at the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight's May 2006 report on mismanagement and corruption inside Fannie Mae reveals that Fannie Mae had hidden a substantial amount of Johnson's 1998 compensation from the public, reporting that it was between $6 million and $7 million when it fact it was $21 million." Johnson is currently under investigation for taking illegal loans from Countrywide while serving as CEO of Fannie Mae. Johnson's Golden Parachute was estimated at $28 Million.[34]

Any close scrutiny of the financial ties of major politicians particularly those in office such as Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Pelosi, and Feinstein reveal major conflicts of interest between the politicians and the military, oil, and pharmaceutical industries. At the highest levels, however, there is no accountability. Laws are meaningless to these people. They have the power and influence to pass murderous legislation that enriches and empowers them and their cronies and threatens and impoverishes the rest of us, all of this veiled by a subservient corporate press that bestows upon them an aura of legitimacy. Within government agencies there is corruption, fraud, and the persecution rather than protection of whistle-blowers.

When Congress voted $87 billion to occupy Afghanistan and Iraq, some of that money was earmarked to suppress dissent in the US. In 2003, thousands of protestors gathered in Miami to oppose the negotiations of the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Pre-emptive arrests, violent violation of civil rights, brutal treatment of innocent medics, and criminalization of dissent became known as “the Miami model.” The militarization of the police and Homeland Security’s targeting of anti-war and peace activists have continued and expanded since then as seen most recently in the protests at the Democratic and Republican Conventions where even the regular press was arrested, and organizers were arrested and charged with “terrorism.”

There is a battle going on a clash of worldviews over what is true, legal, and moral; over who is a terrorist, and who is serving humanity; over who has the right to live, and who has the right or duty to jail, kill, or torture anyone. Every individual will have to decide for themselves what is true and what is legitimate what is best for themselves, their families, their country, and the whole planet.

The strategy of all social movements is to convince the public that a problem exists and that policies must be changed, and to exercise the people power that resides within themselves into a force that finds solutions to commonly recognized problems.

The perpetrators of 9-11 had a different strategy. Their strategy was to terrify the American people into silence and submission, then bully the Congress into nearly unlimited funding for war and a greatly expanded surveillance industry (the anthrax attacks came at a convenient time for this). The perpetrators of 9/11used a BIG LIE to sell a “bogus protection racket” to their victims to institutionalize under the guise of “National/Homeland Security” a greater concentration of wealth and power into fewer hands. Their tools were violence, fear, criminal fraud, manipulating the financial markets, and selling it all to the American people through the megaphone of the mainstream media.

Cheney, like Napoleon, believes that you don’t have to suppress a truth just delay it until it no longer matters. There are a growing number of people who are challenging the lies, especially through the Internet. It is apparent that those in power are very much afraid of the Internet, of people’s ability to share information and communicate so that they can organize in unprecedented ways using emerging technologies, or simply gather together in a public space where free speech is still possible.

The deeply held values, symbols, beliefs, sensibilities and traditions that are important to the public are being violated today by the power elite. The majority of people are against the war, torture, and the bailout of Wall Street. Those in power depend on the public to be stupid, uninformed, disengaged, apathetic, cynical, powerless, and silent. Social movements are dependent on empowered, engaged, informed people at every level of society to uphold the values and principles that are being violated by powerholders and their policies. Will the American people continue to wake up and begin to exercise more control over the US government to force changes in policy?

A major cause of social problems is the concentration of political, economic, and military power in the hands of relatively few people. An informed, empowered, and politicized population is required to resolve today’s problems and to establish a just, peaceful, sustainable world for all. Political and economic power ultimately rests with the majority population; rulers can only rule with the consent and acquiescence of the people. Where people put their time, energy, and money has a greater impact on society and the world than who they vote for. Elections have been stolen for decades; only an awakened citizenry can oversee and ensure honest elections.

The most important issue is the age-old struggle between the majority of people and the individual and institutional powerholders to determine whether society will be based on the authoritarian model¬where power flows from the top down or the “people power” model of genuine participatory democracy.

Kevin Barrett expressed the following in a talk entitled “A Folklorist Looks at 9/11 ‘Conspiracy Theories’” (folk meaning “the people,” as opposed to the “rulers and the press” who in the past have authoritatively defined “event/reality”):

“Marshall McLuhan’s famous line “the medium is the message” could describe the way the 9/11 Truth movement is an artifact of the Internet, and the radically-enhanced folk-communications it has brought. Thanks to digital audiovisuals, email and the world-wide web, the folk are now a leg up on their would-be manipulators, those well-paid professionals in corporate media, public relations, marketing, and psychological warfare or psy-ops, whose collective job is to reify and manipulate their fellow human beings.

“It is one thing for the content of informal, non-institutional, “folk” communication to subvert institutional authority. It is another and more significant thing for the very medium of folk communication to radically shift in a way that empowers the folk and disempowers the institutions. And that is what has happened. The world has been turned upside-down as the old oral-transmission grapevine has gone digital…

“Today’s digitally-enhanced subversives and skeptics can spread large numbers of copies of audio, video and photographic evidence, along with an unlimited amount of writing, for pennies. This digital awakening may turn out to be our second post-Gutenberg revolution in half a century. Its importance may rival the emergence of writing, which created hierarchical societies of kings, priests and scribes; with the invention of the printing press, which created the kind of mass-literate societies we call “democratic”; and with the invention of television, which McLuhan suggests created a global village of creeping Orwellian fascism. 9/11, in this view, was the last gasp of television as a means of mind-control via mass hypnosis, while the 9/11 Truth controversies may represent the birth pangs of the new, digitally-enhanced democracy.”

It is sobering to know that if the world’s population was reduced to 100 representatives, only 1 would have a computer, or have attended college, and he would have more wealth than all the others and be from the United States. While 70 percent of American homes may have access to the Internet, they are not representative of the world. However, an enlightened American people would be a grave danger to the advancement of the American Empire. We are uniquely responsible and able to thwart or advance the aspirations of the US oligarchy. We are also directly under attack by that oligarchy, who view us as a threat and are trying to criminalize dissent.

The financial crisis that faces America and the world today was as orchestrated as the events of 9/11. Similar to what transpired after 9/11, it is likely that the financial crisis will be used to further concentrate wealth and power, crush dissent, criminalize larger and larger numbers of people, trash civil liberties, and generally replace the “rule of law” with the “rule of fear.”

There is another possibility, however, which we the people can promote. We can join together to speak up, organize, and challenge the lies, crimes, and illegitimacy of the powerholders and corporations that threaten the well-being of the people of the world. We can create and nurture new organizations to fulfill real needs and aspirations. This is already taking place and can be seen in the rise of nonprofit organizations over the past decade. Ignored by the corporate media, Ron Paul, Cynthia McKinney, and Ralph Nader have raised key issues that the corporate-anointed candidates won’t discuss. The public must search the Internet for the statements of these courageous challengers to the oligarchy, because their views are ignored, marginalized, or dismissed in the corporate press but they nonetheless provide a rallying cry for people looking for true change. At a recent press conference, the third-party candidates clearly represented majority opinions and interests, far better than McCain or Obama.[35]

Repression, reform, revolution or renaissance?

When revolutions occur simultaneously in many different areas, the transformation of society can be called a renaissance. We are witnessing changes happening at a rapid pace in a multitude of areas, and few can begin to keep up with the new technologies and research. As traditional power structures are threatened, new possibilities and synergies are emerging. If the traditional banking system or the dollar collapses, money will be reinvented at the local, regional, national, and probably international levels.

Mike Nickerson, author of Life, Money, & Illusion: Living on Earth as If We Want to Stay, wrote:

“An alternative to panicking when GDP stops growing is to view it as a sign of maturity. Human activity cannot expand forever on our finite planet. Fuel prices, climate change and the sub-prime mortgage crisis are all symptoms of one cause. When we stopped growing as individuals, it was not the end of the world. Indeed, for most of us, life had scarcely begun before physical maturity. Even as physical growth ended, we became better informed, more comfortable in ourselves and we developed the skills and relationships that define our lives. The same can be true for civilization.”[36]

The convergence of various crises including the financial system, peak oil, climate change, population growth, resource depletion, and mass extinctions is forcing humanity to collectively recognize its limits and mature as a species, simply to survive.[37]

In order to behave maturely, wisely, and responsibly and to make wise rational decisions people need to know what is true, what is real.

Mike Nickerson has been championing the Genuine Progress Index to provide more accurate information about how people are affecting the planet and one another. If economic indicators were aligned with universal values such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, economists would ignore the marketplace and concern themselves with the health and well-being of the environment, the health and well-being of every person, and whether the basic human needs for food, water, shelter, clothing, and education were being met.

One of the heftiest charges against members of the Bush Administration is their attack upon science.[38] There is ample evidence that they have ordered agencies to be silent about their findings, or to fudge data to suit political purposes and shape public opinion. Only Bush science, as exemplified in the NIST report, could explain the collapse of all three World Trade Center buildings at free-fall speed as due to fire alone. Hundreds of independent scientists, architects, and engineers have rejected the conclusions of the NIST report. The scientific evidence indicates that two planes could not have shredded three steel-framed buildings, but that controlled demolition does explain their rapid disintegration.

It is increasingly challenging to evaluate scientific studies without knowing who has funded them, and for what particular purpose. Researchers whose findings challenge government or corporate objectives are vilified and lose their funding. Citizen-supported scientific research and data collection whose intention and purpose is clearly in the interests of the health and well-being of people and their environment whose data can be shared, checked, verified, and corroborated by others in a transparent manner will ultimately gain the widest acceptance.

Satyagraha, or “the force of truth,” pioneered by Gandhi, has inspired the social movements of today. According to Schopenhauer, “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”[39]

The individual and human journey also passes through stages. As proposed by Abraham Maslow in his classic study Toward a Psychology of Being, healthy people outgrow the self-centered need for material acquisition and find greater joy and purpose in more expansive activities such as developing friendships, being of service to others, expressing creativity, and joining together with others to solve problems. The deliberate infantilization of the public and the manipulation of the public mind has contributed to the current crisis in values, where people seem to be concerned only for themselves and are cynical about what is happening in the world. The cure lies in the maturation of our species. The times that we live in are calling to us to grow up, individually and collectively. We need to develop a greater understanding of ourselves and our world, to develop our talents and skills to make this a better world. Despite the dangers and challenges of the time we live in, we can find meaning and joy through joining together in the search for truth, peace, justice, and, freedom. As Gandhi and others have demonstrated, the truth, combined with love and compassion, will set us free. As we work together to pursue the truth and expand our awareness, we are lifting the veil and awakening from a media-induced trance so that we can more clearly see how we have allowed our power to be taken from us. This knowledge will empower us to reform the outmoded structures that are so oppressive and to create new systems that truly serve the needs of the people and the planet for current and future generations.

NOTES

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse
[2] Debt Virus: A Compelling Solution to the World's Debt Problems, 1995 by Jacques S. Jaikaran
[3] http://www.unahi.org/quotes/native-american-quotes.htm
[4] Bernard Lietaer, ex-central banker, author of The Future of Money:
Creating New Wealth, Work, and a Wiser World, 2001, http://www.transaction.net/money/bio/lietaer.html
[5] Money as Debt, Paul Grignon's video production, available at http://www.moneyasdebt.net/ and viewable online at http://tiny.cc/z30uD
[6] Interest and Inflation Free Money, 1995 by Margrit Kennedy, http://tiny.cc/FQtb3
[7] Secrets of the Federal Reserve, by Eustace Mullins, http://www.whale.to/b/mullins5.html
[8] How Corporations Destroyed US Democracy by Propaganda, http://tiny.cc/UCT9Q
[9] Hilkka Pietila, The triangle of the human economy: household - cultivation - industrial production,http://www.kasakobiet.ngo.org.pl/teksty/hilkka_pietila_eng.html
[10] Whose Counting? Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies and Global Economics,http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/whoo.html
[11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud
[12] http://www.citizen.org/trade/issues/mai/
[13] http://www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org/energy-news/?p=608
[14] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Gramm
[15] http://mqup.mcgill.ca/book.php?bookid=1628
[16] Doing Democracy: The MAP Model for Organising Social Movements, by Bill Moyer, http://tiny.cc/KB6W9
[17] http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine
[18] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kieyjfZDUIc
[19] http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/eveningnews/main325985.shtml
[20] http://archive.democrats.com/display.cfm?id=248
[21] http://www.wtc7.net/articles/kimball/thirdskyscraper.html
[22] http://911research.wtc7.net/sept11/stockputs.html
[23] http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8634
[24] http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8376
[25] http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3689713,00.html
[26] http://tiny.cc/dYeSJ
[27] http://www.fbi.gov/page2/june08/malicious_mortgage061908.html
[28] http://tiny.cc/1dQZI
[29] http://tiny.cc/0WX1c
[30] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/27/business/27charts.html,
http://www.crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/60-minutes-wall-streets-shadow-market
[31] http://tiny.cc/kRIcq
[32] http://www.mefeedia.com/entry/h-r-1424-brad-sherman-one-minute-speech/11766853/
[33] http://housingdoom.com/2006/12/18/fannie-charges/
[34] http://tiny.cc/E3K4h
[35] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1LMoWqXrE4
[36] http://www.shanejolley.com/2008/09/05/silver-lining-economic-downturn
[37] http://www.chrismartenson.com/peak-oil-b
[38] http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2004/02/62339
[39] Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (1788 - 1860)

Global Research Articles by Carole Brouillet

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10477

Batla house shootout; muslim right-wing myth-making -- Praveen Swami

2008-10-10T18:26:00.000-07:00

Batla house shootout; muslim right-wing myth-making -- Praveen Swami

Date:10/10/2008

Behind the Batla House shootout

Praveen Swami

Charges that the Jamia Nagar encounter was fake belong in the Wonderland.
http://www.thehindu.com/2008/10/10/images/2008101053621101.jpg

The scene near Batla House, Jamia Nagar, after the police gunned down two terror suspects and arrested a person on September 19.

“Sometimes,” said the Queen in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, “I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Ever since last month’s encounter in New Delhi’s Jamia Nagar, critics have been claiming that the two men killed by the police were innocent students, not Indian Mujahideen terrorists. A number of well-meaning commentators and politicians have expressed concern over the encounter. Few seem to have paused to wonder if there was, in fact, anything mysterious about the shootout. If it was indeed fake, the story would read something like this: Hoping to redeem their anti-terrorism credentials and whip up anti-Muslim paranoia, the Delhi police shot dead two innocent Muslims. For some reason, though, they left a third innocent Muslim, Mohammad Saif, alive to tell the tale. Either because of incompetence or to get rid of an inconvenient honest officer, depending on who is telling the story — the Delhi police also killed one of their own. They also shot another officer, but let him live.

A riveting fiction? The truth about Batla House is, in comparison, mundane.

When inspector Mohan Chand Sharma walked through the door of the flat where he was to die, all he knew was that he was looking for a man with two missing front teeth. Soon after the Gujarat bombings, a Bharuch resident contacted the police to report that the vehicles used as car bombs in Ahmedabad had been parked by his tenant. Gujarat Crime Branch Deputy Commissioner Abhay Chudasma had little to go on, bar one small clue: the mobile phone used by the tenant to communicate with the landlord. It turned out that the phone went silent after the Ahmedabad bombings.

Based on the interrogation of suspects, Gujarat police investigators determined that the cell phone was one of the five used by the perpetrators between July 7 and 26 — the day of the serial bombings. They learned that the perpetrators had observed rigorous communication security procedures, calling these numbers only from public telephones. Between July 16 and July 22, the investigators learned, another of the five Gujarat phones had been used in the Jamia Nagar area. This phone had received just five calls, all from public phones at Jamia Nagar. Then, on July 24, the phone became active again in Ahmedabad.

The investigators also found evidence of a second link between the Ahmedabad bombings and the Jamia Nagar area. On July 19, the Bharuch cell phone received a call from Mumbai, made from an eastern Uttar Pradesh number — the sole break in the communication-security procedure. Immediately after this, a call was made from the eastern U.P. phone to a number at Jamia Nagar, registered to local resident Mohammad Atif Amin. The authorities mounted a discreet watch on his phone but decided not to question him in the hope that he would again be contacted by the perpetrators.
Mumbai police crime branch chief Rakesh Maria made the next breakthrough last month, when his investigators held Afzal Usmani, a long-standing lieutenant of ganglord-turned-jihadist Riyaz Bhatkal. From Usmani, the investigators learned that top commander ‘Bashir’ and his assault squad left Ahmedabad on July 26 for a safe house at Jamia Nagar. Armed with this information, the investigators came to believe that Atif Amin either provided Bashir shelter or the two were one and the same person. Inspector Sharma was asked to settle the issue.

‘Vodaphone salesman’
Sub-inspector Dharmindar Kumar was given the unhappy task of trudging up the stairs in the sweltering heat, searching for Bashir. Dressed in a tie and shirt, just like other members of Sharma’s team, Kumar pretended to be a salesman for Vodaphone. At the door of Amin’s flat, he heard noises — and called his boss.

According to head constable Balwant Rana, who was by Sharma’s side, the two men knocked on the front door, identifying themselves as police officers. There was no response. Then, the officers walked down an ‘L’ shaped corridor which led to a second door. This door was unlocked. Sharma and Rana, as they entered, were fired upon from the front of and to the right of the door. When the rest of the special team, armed only with small arms, went in to support Sharma and Rana, two terrorists ran out through the now-unguarded front door. Saif wisely locked himself up in a toilet.

It takes little to see that Sharma’s team made several tactical errors. However, as anyone who has actually faced hostile fire will testify, combat tends not to be orderly. In the United States or Europe, a Batla House-style operation would have been carried out by a highly trained assault unit equipped with state-of-the-art surveillance equipment. Given their resources and training, Sharma and his men did as well as could be expected.

Judging by Sharma’s injuries, as recorded by doctors at the Holy Family Hospital in New Friend’s Colony and later re-examined at the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences’ Trauma Centre, he was fired at from two directions. One bullet hit him in the left shoulder and exited through the left upper arm; the other hit the right side of the abdomen, exiting through the hip. The investigators believe that the abdomen wound was inflicted with Amin’s weapon and the shoulder hit, by Mohammad Sajid.

Much has been made of a newspaper photograph which shows that Sharma’s shirt was not covered in blood, with some charging that it demonstrates he was shot in the back. Forensic experts, however, note that bleeding from firearms injuries takes place through exit wounds — not, as in bad pop films, at the point of entry. In the photograph, signs of a bullet having ripped through Sharma’s shirt are evident on his visible shoulder; so, too, is evidence of the profuse bleeding from the back.

In some sense, the allegations levelled over the encounter tell us more about the critics than the event itself. In part, the allegations have been driven by poor reporting and confusion — the product, more often than not, by journalists who have not followed the Indian Mujahideen story. More important, though, the controversy was driven by the Muslim religious right-wing whose myth-making, as politician Arif Mohammad Khan recently pointed out, has passed largely unchallenged.

In a recent article, the University of Delaware’s Director of Islamic Studies, Muqtedar Khan, lashed out at the “intellectually dishonest” representatives of Muslims who “live in denial.” “They first deny that there is such a thing as jihadi terrorism,” Dr. Khan noted, “resorting to conspiracy theories blaming every act of jihadi violence either on Israel, the U.S. or India. Then they argue that unjust wars by these three nations [in Palestine, Iraq and Kashmir] are the primary cause for jihadi violence; a phenomenon whose very existence they have already denied.”

It is easy to rip apart the pseudo-facts that drove the claim that the Jamia Nagar encounter was fake — or that the Indian Mujahideen is a fiction. Much political work, though, is needed to drain the swamps of denial and deceit in which the lies have bred.

http://www.thehindu.com/2008/10/10/stories/2008101053621100.htm

Muqtedar Khan
Celebrating Ramadan Jihadi Style
Ramadan is the ninth month in the Islamic calendar and serves as a spiritual boot camp for Muslims. In this month, Muslims fast from dawn to dusk everyday; abstaining from food, water, sex and anything unpleasant and immoral. One is not allowed to get angry, speak rudely or even think of bad things. The purpose of the month is to take a break from deep entanglements in mundane affairs and make a systematic and concerted effort to reconnect with the divine and work on improving one's personal moral character.

For me, Ramadan is about returning to the fountain of truth and drinking from it as deeply as possible. It is not the parched throat but rather the parched soul that is my concern, so I study the Qur'an and contemplate on it. Other Muslims adhere more closely to rituals. I believe that while rituals discipline, knowledge is more transformative. But to each his own. The goal in Ramadan is really is to find a way, ritual, spiritual or intellectual, to get closer to God.

Unfortunately, for some Muslims, murder and mayhem rather than prayer and fasting have become the way to celebrate Ramadan.
On September 6, in the first week of Ramadan, two suicide bombers killed over 50 people in Peshawar, Pakistan. On September 13, five bombs killed over 30 in New Delhi, India. On September 15, a female suicide bomber blew herself up at a Ramadan fast breaking ceremony killing 22 people in Diyala, Iraq. On September 17, a truck bomb and some militants attacked the US embassy in San'a, Yemen killing 16 people. And on September 20, a massive truck bomb killed over 60 people in Islamabad, Pakistan.

All of these attacks have been conducted by people who call themselves "Jihadis", this they claim is their struggle in the path of God. One cannot imagine to what extent the minds and the hearts of these people have become poisoned that in the month of Ramadan, when even frowning is undesirable, they chose to murder and maim indiscriminately. The most incomprehensible aspect of these atrocities is that a vast majority of their victims are the very people on whose behalf these wars are waged!

If they want to fight and die for God, they are welcome. There are over 200,000 American soldiers, in Iraq and Afghanistan, who are there specifically to oblige them, why not go and fight them.

These cowards, who call themselves Jihadis, run and hide from soldiers seeking to fight them and instead target helpless and unarmed civilians. They repeatedly confirm that they have no regard for social order, for law, for human life and even for the sacred injunctions from the God whose pleasure they seek through violence.

If they really wish to wage a Jihad (struggle) in this holy month of Ramadan, then their first target should be their own cowardice and the profound Jahiliyyah (ignorance) that disables them from seeing what is right and what is wrong.

There are three kinds of Muslim responses to these never ending atrocities. Some Muslims condemn, oppose and actively reject the Jihadis and their agenda of global anarchy. I wish they would be better organized and more effective.

Another minority, unfortunately, appreciates and supports the Jihadis. I pray that this Ramadan may open their eyes to the true reality of the Jihadi phenomenon. It preys on the weak and the helpless, has achieved absolutely nothing of value for Muslims, and has pushed a large number of people in the world to despise Islam and hate Muslims.

And then there is a significant Muslim population that lives in denial. They also are intellectually dishonest. They first deny that there is such a thing as jihadi terrorism, resorting to conspiracy theories blaming every act of Jihadi violence either on Israel, the U.S. or India. Then they argue that unjust wars by these three nations (in Palestine, Iraq and Kashmir) is the primary cause for Jihadi violence; a phenomenon whose very existence they have already denied.

Unless Muslims wakeup to the culture of terrorism in their world and act to eradicate it, they may find themselves isolated and shunned from the rest of the world, while also being the biggest victims of the very phenomenon they do not fight.

Muqtedar Khan is Director of Islamic Studies at the University of Delaware and a Fellow of the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding.
POSTED BY MUQTEDAR KHAN ON SEPTEMBER 22, 2008 3:39 PM
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2008/09/celebrating_ramadan_jihadi_sty.html

List of Islamic Terror Attacks For the Past 2 Months
Date Country City Killed Injured Description
10/10/2008 Afghanistan Khost 2 3 Two people are blown up by a Taliban suicide bomber.
10/10/2008 Pakistan Orakzai 43 200 A Fedayeen bomber sends over forty souls to Allah at a tribal meeting.
10/9/2008 Pakistan Bajaur 4 0 Four tribal elders are abducted and beheaded in the name of Allah.
10/9/2008 Afghanistan Uruzgan 6 9 Women and children are among the casualties during a shooting attack by religious extremists.
10/9/2008 Iraq Udhaim 4 5 Two children are among four family members wiped out by Jihadi bombers.
10/9/2008 Iraq Tal Afar 2 3 Mujahideen bomb a restaurant, killing two patrons.
10/9/2008 Iraq Habaniya 3 8 A suicide bomber successfully takes out three Iraqis.
10/9/2008 Pakistan Islamabad 10 21 Four schoolgirls are among ten people killed in a Mujahideen bombing.
10/8/2008 Iraq Baquba 10 19 A female Fedayeen murders ten Iraqis outside a courthouse.
10/8/2008 Iraq Mosul 2 0 Two more Christians are murdered by Muslim extremists in separate attacks.
10/8/2008 Lebanon Ain al-Helweh 1 0 Suspected fundamentalists gun down a Fatah activist.
10/7/2008 Iraq Mosul 2 0 A Christian man and his elderly father are shot to death at their workplace by Religion of Peace radicals.
10/7/2008 Iraq Mosul 1 0 Islamic extremists enter a Christian pharmacy and kill the owner.
10/7/2008 Algeria M'sila 2 0 An army major is killed when fundamentalists booby-trap the dead body of another man kidnapped and murdered earlier.
10/7/2008 Thailand Narathiwat 1 1 Militant Muslims murder a man sitting in his pickup truck. The victim's teenage son is severely injured.
10/7/2008 Somalia Beledweyne 1 0 Islamic militia are suspected of shooting a peaceful negotiator in the head at a marketplace.
10/6/2008 Somalia Mogadishu 17 35 Children are among the seventeen civilians killed at a marketplace following an al-Shabab mortar attack.
10/6/2008 Somalia Merka 1 2 Islamic milita attack a humanitarian vehicle, leaving one worker dead.
10/6/2008 Pakistan Punjab 17 60 Holy Warriors strike a party held at a home. Seventeen people are blown to bits.
10/6/2008 Iraq Mosul 1 0 A disabled Christian is abducted from his shop by Islamists and then shot to death.
10/5/2008 Iraq Zanjili 4 6 Terrorists attack a funeral with automatic weapons, killing four innocents.
10/5/2008 Egypt al-Tayeba 1 3 A 19-year-old Christian is shot to death by a Muslim mob.
10/5/2008 Iraq Mosul 1 1 Fundamentalists gun down a butcher in his shop.
10/4/2008 Thailand Pattani 2 0 Two local soliders are brutally executed by Muslim radicals.
10/4/2008 Somalia Baidoa 1 0 A man strolling through a market is shot five times in the chest by Islamic militia men.
10/4/2008 Iraq Mosul 4 0 Islamists enter a Christian store and murder the owner. Three tortured and executed kidnap victims are found elsewhere.
10/4/2008 Somalia Mogadishu 5 7 Five people are killed when Islamic milita lob mortars into the city airport.
10/4/2008 Iraq Tahrir 1 0 A 15-year-old Christian boy is shot to death by Mujahideen while standing outside his home.
10/4/2008 Ingushetia Rostov-on-don 1 0 A cop is gunned down by religious extremists.
10/3/2008 Algeria Theniet el-Had 6 0 Six local security forces are killed when armed fundamentalists open up with machine-guns on their vehicle at point-blank range.
10/3/2008 Afghanistan Kunar 1 4 Islamic militants gun down a civilian.
10/2/2008 Pakistan Charsadda 5 12 A suicide bomber invades a home, killing five people.
10/2/2008 Iraq Wajihiya 6 3 Women and children on a mini-bus are machine-gunned to death by Freedom Fighters.
10/2/2008 Iraq Baghdad 26 50 Sunni suicide bombers target two Shia mosques, slaughtering at least twenty worshippers.
10/1/2008 Iraq Balad 4 29 Four Iraqis are taken out by a Jihad car bomb.
10/1/2008 Philippines Mindanao 3 12 Moro Islamists ambush a security patrol, killing three members.
10/1/2008 India Agartala 4 76 Harkat ul-Jihad-e-Islami is suspected in serial bomb blasts at civilian bus stops that leave at least four dead.
10/1/2008 India Doda 1 0 A shepherd is abducted by Mujahideen, who then slit his throat.
10/1/2008 Somalia Baidoa 2 4 A child blown apart by an Islamist grenade, one of two people killed in separate attacks.
9/30/2008 Ingushetia Nazran 1 3 A Fedayeen suicide bomber takes out a local civilian.
9/30/2008 Iraq Baghdad 4 9 Islamists bomb a movie theater, killing four Iraqis.
9/30/2008 Iraq Mosul 2 0 A coffee shop employee and a woman are taken down by Mujahideen.
9/30/2008 Somalia Baidoa 1 4 A child standing along a city street is killed by Mujahideen bombers.
9/30/2008 Thailand Yala 2 0 Two young men in their 20's are gunned down in separate Muslim drive-by attacks.
9/30/2008 Pakistan Sadar 1 0 A woman is sprayed with acid and then set on fire by her in-laws in an 'honor' attack.
9/29/2008 Pakistan Chatto Chowk 1 0 Fundamentalists bomb a music shop, killing a patron.
9/29/2008 Lebanon Tripoli 6 30 Six people are burned to a crisp, and thirty others injured by Islamic bombers targeting local soldiers.
9/29/2008 Iraq Mosul 2 0 Two brothers are gunned down by Sunni radicals.
9/29/2008 India Gujarat 7 82 The Religion of Peace is behind two bomb blasts in commercial districts that leave seven dead, including women shoppers.
9/29/2008 Algeria Bomerdas 3 4 Suicide car bombers take down three innocent people.
9/29/2008 Thailand Narathiwat 1 0 Islamists shoot a 47-year-old man to death while he is shopping for groceries.
9/28/2008 Afghanistan Kandahar 1 1 A top policewoman is gunned down by the Taliban, who also put her young son in a coma during the attack.
9/28/2008 Algeria Dellys 4 9 al-Qaeda bombers murder four in a commercial district.
9/28/2008 Algeria Tizi Wazu 2 0 Two security guards are brutally slain by Muslim fundamentalists at a fake checkpoint.
9/28/2008 Iraq Baghdad 32 97 Three separate Jihad car bombings leave nearly three dozen Iraqi civilians dead.
9/28/2008 Afghanistan Kandahar 4 0 Taliban assassins take down four Afghan bodyguards.
9/28/2008 Somalia Mogadishu 2 0 Two civilians are killed during a Mujahideen attack in a residential area.
9/28/2008 Thailand Narathiwat 1 0 A 33-year-old man is shot to death by Muslim extremists.
9/28/2008 Pakistan Attock 3 1 Suspected Taliban abduct an engineer after murdering his three companions.
9/28/2008 Thailand Pattani 1 0 A 47-year-old man is murdered by Muslim terrorists.
9/28/2008 Somalia Tayeglow 0 2 Two Christians are seriously injured when a Muslim mob invades their church with spears and machetes.
9/27/2008 Iraq Mosul 1 0 Fundamentalists gun down a table tennis coach.
9/27/2008 Pakistan Matta 3 0 Sunni extremists kill three house servants when they blow up several homes.
9/27/2008 Somalia Mogadishu 9 10 Islamic militia fire mortars into an airport, killing at least nine.
9/27/2008 Syria Damascus 17 14 A suicidal Sunni bombs a Shia shrine, slaughtering seventeen innocents.
9/27/2008 India Delhi 2 25 A young boy and an old man die following a bombing by Muslim radicals at an outdoor market.
9/26/2008 Pakistan Karachi 1 0 The body of a kidnapped truck driver is found tortured and murdered by Islamists.
9/26/2008 Afghanistan Khost 5 7 A Fedayeen suicide bomber murders five Afghans at a marketplace.
9/26/2008 Pakistan Punjab 9 15 A woman and three children are among nine killed when suspected Islamists derail a train with an explosive device.
9/26/2008 Thailand Narathiwat 1 0 Islamists shoot a 27-year-old plantation worker to death.
9/26/2008 Iraq Baghdad 3 2 Jihadis use an IED to kill three children.
9/26/2008 Pakistan Karachi 1 0 Religious extremists murder a man after handcuffing him.
9/26/2008 Pakistan South Waziristan 1 0 A local tribesman is killed by the Taliban.
9/26/2008 Philippines Maguindanao 1 7 A civilian is killed when Moro Islamists attack an army patrol.
9/25/2008 Pakistan Swat 2 1 Religious extremists gun down two local cops.
9/25/2008 Afghanistan Kandahar 4 3 Talibanis take down four locals with two bombs.
9/25/2008 Afghanistan Herat 11 5 Eleven guards at a construction site are murdered by religious radicals.
9/25/2008 India Baramulla 1 0 A pro-India politician is gunned down by Mujahideen.
9/25/2008 Iraq Baghdad 1 0 Fundamentalists gun down a local homosexual rights leader inside a barber shop.
9/25/2008 Somalia Wardegley 10 14 Ten civilians, including a woman and several children are killed following attacks by Islamic militia.
9/25/2008 Pakistan Charbagh 1 0 A flour dealer is murdered near his shop by Muslim militants.
9/25/2008 Pakistan Khyber 1 1 The Taliban shoot a man to death outside a mosque.
9/25/2008 Thailand Pattani 3 1 Three civilians in their early 30's are murdered by Islamic gunmen in separate attacks.
9/24/2008 Pakistan Quetta 4 10 A young girl is among four people killed by a Fedayeen suicide bomber.
9/24/2008 Pakistan Kot 2 10 Islamic militants blow up a girls school and kill two local soldiers in a separate incident.
9/24/2008 Thailand Pattani 1 1 A local soldier is killed by Muslim radicals while resting under a tree.
9/24/2008 Somalia Mogadishu 11 40 Eleven civilians are killed during an attack by Islamic militia.
9/24/2008 Somalia Baidoa 4 0 Mujahideen kill four people at a market with a bomb hidden in a donkey cart.
9/24/2008 Afghanistan Kabul 6 4 Six Afghan policemen are murdered in two attacks by religious extremists.
9/24/2008 Iraq Diyala 35 0 al-Qaeda gunmen ambush an Iraqi security patrol, wiping out thirty-five souls.
9/24/2008 Thailand Yala 1 0 A 30-year-old hospital gardener is murdered in cold blood by Islamic gunmen.
9/23/2008 Iraq Baquba 1 8 Sectarian rivals blow up the home of a recently returned family, killing one of the women.
9/23/2008 Afghanistan Uruzgan 6 0 A woman and a 12-year-old are among six civilians blown to bits by Taliban bombers.
9/22/2008 Iraq Mosul 5 3 Five Iraqi children at play are murdered by a bomb planted by Freedom Fighters.
9/22/2008 Pakistan Peshawar 1 1 Suspected Islamists shoot a driver to death, then kidnap a passenger.
9/22/2008 Afghanistan Kandahar 2 0 Two Afghans are murdered by Taliban bombers while driving home.
9/22/2008 Iraq Baghdad 3 5 Sunni militants kill three Iraqis with a bomb.
9/22/2008 Thailand Narathiwat 2 0 A Buddhist man and his teenage son are shot and beheaded by Religion of Peace militants.
9/22/2008 Israel Jerusalem 0 15 Fifteen Israelis are injured when an Arab driver goes on a rampage.
9/22/2008 Pakistan Swat 9 2 Nine local soldiers are killed by a Fedayeen suicide bomber.
9/22/2008 Somalia Mogadishu 42 60 Over forty people, including a woman and her five children, are killed by mortar fire during two al-Shabab terrorist attacks.
9/21/2008 Iraq Mosul 6 48 A Fedayeen suicide bomber is among several Mujahideen attackers who kill six Iraqis, including a woman and two brothers
9/21/2008 Thailand Pattani 1 0 A 60-year-old rubber worker is shot off his motorcycle by Mujahideen.
9/21/2008 Iraq Jalawla 3 6 Three people riding a minibus are murdered by Sunni roadside bombers.
9/21/2008 Thailand Yala 2 0 Two civilians are shot to death by Muslim radicals in separate attacks.
9/21/2008 Thailand Pattani 1 0 A Buddhist market vendor is murdered by Islamic gunmen.
9/21/2008 Iraq Kirkuk 3 23 Jihadis take down three Iraqis with a truck bomb.
9/20/2008 Pakistan Islamabad 53 257 Over fifty people are burned or blasted to death when Mujahideen attack a Marriott hotel.
9/20/2008 Pakistan North Waziristan 6 5 Six locals are blown to bits by a Fedayeen suicide bomber.
9/20/2008 Philippines Maguindanao 1 4 Moro Islamists ambush and kill a pro-government tribesman.
9/20/2008 Iraq Tal Afar 6 23 Three women are among six Iraqis murdered by Muslim terrorists in separate attacks.
9/20/2008 Pakistan Jamrud 1 1 A truck driver is shot to death by religious militants.
9/20/2008 Mauritania Tourine 12 0 Twelve local soldiers are kidnapped and beheaded by al-Qaeda.
9/19/2008 Pakistan Swat 2 0 Islamic militants attack a bank vehicle, killing two occupants.
9/19/2008 Thailand Narathiwat 1 0 A teenager is taken down in a drive-by shooting by Islamic radicals.
9/19/2008 Pakistan Quetta 8 9 Eight students at a religious school are blown to bits by a suicide bomber.
9/19/2008 Somalia Mogadishu 12 35 al-Shabaab Islamists rain down mortars on a city airport, killing a dozen civilians.
9/19/2008 Iraq Basra 1 0 A Shia cleric is assassinated by Sunni extremists.
9/19/2008 Iraq Tuz Khormato 1 0 A woman is shot to death by Muslim terrorists.
9/19/2008 Afghanistan Paktika 4 2 A child is among four civilians working in a field killed by a Jihadi rocket attack.
9/18/2008 Iraq Mosul 2 0 Two family members are killed when sectarian gunmen storm their home.
9/18/2008 UK Crawley 0 1 A man shouts about the Qur'an as he stabs a non-Muslim woman in the head.
9/18/2008 Afghanistan Khost 3 0 Three Afghans are taken down by a Taliban ambush.
9/17/2008 Yemen Sanaa 10 13 Women and children are among the casualties when al-Qaeda militants stage a coordinated attack on the US embassy.
9/17/2008 Philippines Mindanao 1 7 Moro Islamists attack a group of local soldiers, killing one.
9/17/2008 Thailand Yala 2 0 A father and son are brutally gunned down by Religion of Peace militants.
9/17/2008 Ingushetia Magas 4 0 Four local security personnel are ambushed and killed by Muslim radicals.
9/17/2008 India Srinagar 0 15 Fifteen pedestrians are injured when Islamic terrorists toss a grenade into the street outside a shopping center.
9/17/2008 Pakistan Dera Ismail Khan 1 7 A woman is murdered by Islamic bombers in a residential area.
9/17/2008 Pakistan Khyber 1 0 The Taliban abduct and murder an Afghan refugee.
9/17/2008 Iraq Baghdad 18 79 Eighteen Iraqis are killed in a series of Mujahideen bombing and shooting attacks.
9/16/2008 Lebanon Ain el-Helweh 4 0 Four people are killed when Sunnis and Shia clash over their differences.
9/16/2008 Pakistan Swat 3 6 Talibanis attack a schoolhouse, killing three guards.
9/16/2008 Thailand Narathiwat 3 0 A man sweeping the curb outside his home is among two people shot to death by Islamists.
9/16/2008 Iraq Taji 2 16 Mujahideen manage to kill two civilians with a bicycle bomb placed in a marketplace.
9/16/2008 Iraq Khanaqin 4 3 Four local police are murdered by Jihadi bombers.
9/16/2008 Thailand Pattani 1 0 Muslim radicals murder a 50-year-old civilian outside his home.
9/16/2008 Pal. Auth. Gaza 1 0 Hamas gunmen attack a family home, killing a baby girl.
9/15/2008 Iraq Balad Ruz 22 33 A female suicide bomber sends twenty-two others to Allah with a blast in a residential area.
9/15/2008 Thailand Narathiwat 1 0 A young hospital worker is murdered by Religion of Peace gunmen.
9/15/2008 Thailand Pattani 1 0 An 80-year-old man is murdered by Islamic gunmen.
9/15/2008 Iraq Baghdad 13 35 Jihadis successfully kill thirteen Iraqis with a pair of strategically placed bombs.
9/15/2008 Mauritania Tourine 12 4 al-Qaeda militants rake a security patrol with machine-gun fire, killing a dozen local men.
9/15/2008 Somalia Mogadishu 4 0 Four African Union soldiers are murdered by Islamic militia bombers.
9/14/2008 Afghanistan Kandahar 3 16 Two doctors and their drivers are murdered by fundamentalist bombers while delivering vaccine to children.
9/14/2008 Iraq Saidiya 7 6 Jihadi bombers take down seven Iraqis with a series of blasts.
9/14/2008 Afghanistan Ghazni 6 12 Six children are blown to bits by Taliban bombers.
9/14/2008 Afghanistan Ghazni 7 0 Religious extremists murder seven Afghan security patrol members riding in a pickup truck.
9/14/2008 Pakistan Lahore 1 0 A pregnant woman is burned alive by her husband, allegedly because she wanted to leave him.
9/14/2008 Somalia Mogadishu 3 0 Islamic hardliners celebrate Ramadan by killing a Ugandan peacekeeper and two others.
9/14/2008 Thailand Pattani 1 0 A 41-year-old laborer is shot by Islamists while riding his motorcycle home.
9/14/2008 Pakistan North Waziristan 1 0 A 70-year-old man is stabbed to death in the neck by Sunni extremists.
9/14/2008 Kenya Garissa 0 10 A Muslim mob storms a church during a service, pelting worshippers with stones and injuring ten.
9/14/2008 Pakistan Esha 1 0 A 55-year-old refugee is kidnapped and severely tortured before being shot to death by Religion of Peace militants.
9/14/2008 Iraq Mosul 2 0 Two brothers are shot to death by sectarian rivals.
9/14/2008 India Poonch 4 0 Four local security personnel are killed in a Mujahideen ambush.
9/14/2008 Russia Karachayevo-Cherk. 1 2 A local cop is gunned down outside his home by Muslim terrorists.
9/13/2008 Iraq Mosul 2 0 Fundamentalists storm a home and kill a man and woman who may have been co-habitating.
9/13/2008 Afghanistan Logar 4 0 The Taliban murder a local governor with a bomb attack on his vehicle.
9/13/2008 Israel Yitzhar 0 1 A Palestinian terrorist stabs a 9-year-old Israeli boy five times, then throws him from a balcony.
9/13/2008 India New Delhi 30 90 Islamists detonate bombs at five marketplaces within a 30-minute span, massacring dozens of innocent people explicitly in the name of Allah.
9/13/2008 Iraq Mosul 4 0 Four members of a charity-TV crew are kidnapped and senselessly executed by Islamic terrorists.
9/13/2008 Pakistan Lahore 1 0 A man shoots his teenage daughter to death over a relationship with a non-Muslim boy.
9/13/2008 Pakistan Zabul 0 1 Talibanis drag a teacher out of a mosque and cut off his ears.
9/13/2008 Pakistan Kurram 2 8 At least two people are killed when Sunnis and Shias work out their differences.
9/13/2008 Iraq Baghdad 4 9 Four Iraqis are killed in a roadside bombing attack by Jihadis.
9/12/2008 Afghanistan Farah 8 0 Eight people are blasted to death at point-blank range with automatic weapons during a Taliban ambush.
9/12/2008 Iraq Dujail 31 60 Over thirty Shias are blown to Allah by bombs detonated by radical Sunnis at a marketplace.
9/12/2008 Iraq Sinjar 3 15 Sunnis bomb a Shia mosque, killing three attendees.
9/11/2008 Pakistan Orakzai 2 0 Talibanis abduct and slit the throats of two local soldiers, then cut off their heads.
9/11/2008 Afghanistan Nimroz 2 0 Two civilians are murdered by a Fedayeen suicide bomber.
9/11/2008 Iraq Baghdad 3 3 Jihadis bomb a minibus carrying civil servants, killing at least three.
9/11/2008 Afghanistan Kandahar 2 4 A suicide bomber takes out two Afghan civilians, including a young boy on his way to school.
9/11/2008 Iraq Khalis 2 0 A man and his son are shot to death inside their home by Sunni militants.
9/11/2008 Iraq Mosul 5 7 A family of three is among five civilians taken down by Islamic terrorists.
9/11/2008 Thailand Narathiwat 1 0 Islamists gun down a 45-year-old man in a drive-by shooting.
9/11/2008 Thailand Pattani 2 0 A young Buddhist man is among two civilians killed in separate attacks by Muslim militants.
9/11/2008 Pakistan Swat 8 0 A 9-year-old girl, brutally gunned down by Jihadis, is among eight people murdered in two attacks.
9/11/2008 Iraq Saidiya 5 2 Five members of the same family are murdered in their home by Mujahideen.
9/11/2008 India Doda 0 1 A farmer is pulled from his home by the Mujahideen, who then hack off his ears.
9/10/2008 Sudan Zamzam 5 24 Janjiweed militia attack a displaced persons camp, killing five refugees.
9/10/2008 Iraq Mosul 1 0 A Christian man is shot to death by Muslim fundamentalists.
9/10/2008 Pakistan Dir 25 50 Twenty-five people are killed when rival Islamists hurl grenades into a mosque.
9/10/2008 Somalia Mogadishu 4 0 At least four civilians are killed when dozens of militants screaming 'Allah Akbar' attack an Ethiopian patrol.
9/10/2008 Pakistan Bajaur 3 0 Sunni fundamentalists kidnap three civilians, then shoot them in the neck.
9/9/2008 Pakistan Sindh 4 0 Religious radicals gun down a man, his two wives and young grandson in their home.
9/9/2008 Thailand Yala 1 1 A local soldier is killed when Islamists fire rockets into their base.
9/9/2008 Thailand Pattani 1 0 A Buddhist is shot and beheaded by Religion of Peace militants.
9/9/2008 Pakistan Swat 5 1 Five civilians are murdered by the Taliban in two targeted attacks.
9/9/2008 Iraq Mosul 1 0 A humanitarian agency worker is gunned down by Muslim terrorists.
9/9/2008 Sudan Bere 6 0 Six villagers are killed during an attack by Janjiweed militia.
9/8/2008 Afghanistan Zabul 6 2 The Taliban take out six civilians with a landmine.
9/8/2008 Pakistan Sindh 1 0 The local leader of a minority sect is murdered by Islamic hardliners.
9/8/2008 Iraq Mosul 3 0 Mujahideen kill a woman and two children by bombing their home.
9/8/2008 Iraq Bani Saad 2 1 Jihad gunmen murder a married couple and injure their young son.
9/8/2008 Iraq Baiji 2 4 Car bombers take out two Iraqis.
9/8/2008 Somalia Mogadishu 4 2 Children are among those killed when Islamic militia stage a terror attack along a public street.
9/8/2008 India Doda 1 0 A civilian is shot to death by Hizb-ul-Mujahideen.
9/7/2008 India Ramban 1 2 Muslim militants attack and kill a member of a search party.
9/7/2008 Afghanistan Kandahar 8 23 Eight Afghans are blown to bits by a pair of Fedayeen suicide bombers.
9/7/2008 Pakistan Kurram 3 12 Three children are killed when Sunnis and Shia clash settle sectarian differences by targeting homes with heavy weapons.
9/7/2008 Pakistan Swat 2 0 Mujahideen shoot two civilians to death.
9/7/2008 Pakistan Zila Mir Pur Khas 1 0 Islamic extremists gun down a Ahmadiyya doctor for worshipping the wrong god.
9/7/2008 Somalia Beletwein 5 5 Five civilians are taken down during an ambush by Islamic militia.
9/7/2008 Pakistan Waris Khan 2 0 A man shoots his daughter and her lover to death over their relationship.
9/6/2008 Afghanistan Nimroz 6 1 A suicide bomber pretending to be a beggar murders six office workers.
9/6/2008 Afghanistan Nimruz 2 7 Religious extremists attack a police post, killing two officers.
9/6/2008 Pakistan Peshawar 16 80 Sixteen people are blown up by suicide car bombers.
9/6/2008 Pakistan Peshawar 35 91 Over thirty people are massacred by Fedayeen suicide bombers in a brutal attack along a city street.
9/6/2008 Iraq Buhriz 2 3 Two people are blown apart by Sunni bombers.
9/6/2008 Iraq Tal Afar 6 54 Fedayeen suicide bombers take out six innocents, and injure nearly sixty more, with an attack on an outdoor market.
9/6/2008 Somalia Mogadishu 1 0 Mujahideen gun down a businessman in his store.
9/5/2008 Thailand Pattani 2 0 Two Buddhists are shot to death by militant Muslims in separate drive-by attacks.
9/5/2008 Thailand Yala 1 0 A man mourning beside his brother's grave at a cemetery is murdered by Muslim extremists.
9/5/2008 Iraq Baghdad 6 17 Six people are killed by Jihadi bombers.
9/4/2008 Iraq Mosul 4 0 A 12-year-old child and a woman are among four Iraqis murdered by Sunni terrorists.
9/4/2008 Thailand Narathiwat 1 0 Islamists gun down an orchard worker.
9/3/2008 Somalia Mogadishu 2 4 Two civilians are killed during an ambush by Islamic militia.
9/3/2008 Pakistan Sahiwal 1 0 A 17-year-old girl is shot to death by her father and brother for seeking a divorce after being forcibly married at 9.
9/2/2008 Iraq Baghdad 4 23 Four Iraqis are killed in a couple of Jihad roadside attacks.
9/2/2008 Iraq Mosul 7 7 Children are among the victims of a Fedayeen suicide car bombing.
9/2/2008 Iraq Kirkuk 1 2 A 9-year-old boy is murdered by Islamic bombers.
9/2/2008 Pakistan Swat 2 0 A retired schoolteacher is among two people murdered by the Mujahideen.
9/2/2008 India Pulwama 1 2 An off-duty soldier is brutally cut down by Islamists while shopping at a vegetable market.
9/2/2008 Iraq Mosul 1 0 Islamic fundamentalists abduct and murder a 65-year-old Christian doctor.
9/2/2008 Dagestan Makhachkala 1 0 An anti-Islamist journalist is assassinated by suspected extremists.
9/1/2008 Somalia Mogadishu 1 0 A civilian is killed during a Mujahideen ambush along a city street.
9/1/2008 Afghanistan Kunduz 1 0 A civilian is blown to bits by a suicide bomber.
9/1/2008 Philippines Digos 6 32 Islamic bombers are suspected in a blast that rips nails through a passenger bus, leaving six dead.
9/1/2008 Thailand Yala 1 0 A 61-year-old man is shot to death by militant Muslims while driving home.
9/1/2008 Thailand Pattani 2 0 A Buddhist woman is among two people murdered in separate shooting attacks by Muslim radicals.
9/1/2008 Iraq Othmaniyah 3 0 Sunni bombers kill three farmers with a device hidden in a water pump.
9/1/2008 Pakistan Kohat 7 0 Religious extremists take out seven security personnel in a surprise ambush.
9/1/2008 Iraq Kirkuk 1 2 An Iraqi child is taken down by Islamic bombers.
9/1/2008 Thailand Yala 1 0 A teacher is brutally gunned down in front of his wife by Religion of Peace warriors.
9/1/2008 Afghanistan Khost 2 2 The Taliban take down two local cops with a roadside bomb.
9/1/2008 Afghanistan Kandahar 1 0 A taxi driver is murdered by Sunni extremists.
9/1/2008 Afghanistan Wardak 3 0 Three security guards are killed by religious radicals in an ambush.
8/31/2008 Thailand Pattani 2 0 Muslim extremists gun down a 43-year-old man, and a 50-year-old in separate attacks.
8/31/2008 Iraq Mosul 1 0 A Christian man is kidnapped and murdered by Islamic fundamentalists.
8/30/2008 Pakistan Kurram 19 70 Nineteen tribesman are killed in a series of Taliban suicide attacks and ambushes.
8/30/2008 Philippines Sulu 4 10 Four local soldiers are killed in a brutal ambush by Islamic extremists.
8/30/2008 Iraq Iskandariya 2 0 Two civilians are murdered by Jihadis, one of whom is decapitated.
8/30/2008 Chechnya Vedeno 2 11 A Fedayeen suicide attack is one of two bombings that leave two people dead.
8/30/2008 Iraq al-Ahbash 4 0 A husband, wife and their two children are slaughtered in their home by al-Qaeda militants.
8/30/2008 Angola Andulo 1 40 A young girl is decapitated by Muslims rampaging through a Christian community on a church-burning spree. (Reported)
8/30/2008 Pakistan Swat 2 0 A civilian and a cop are murdered by Mujahideen in separate attacks.
8/29/2008 Algeria Batna 7 14 Islamic fundamentalists kill seven Algerians in a highway attack.
8/29/2008 Dagestan Makhachkala 1 0 A local cop is gunned down by Islamic militants.
8/29/2008 Somalia Mogadishu 1 0 A civilian is killed during an attack by Islamic militia.
8/29/2008 Somalia Kismayo 2 1 Two brothers are gunned down by armed Islamists.
8/29/2008 Pakistan Kohat Tunnel 5 37 Fedayeen suicide car bombers murder five innocents.
8/28/2008 Pakistan Bannu 10 16 Islamic bombers target a bus carrying prisoners, leaving at least ten dead.
8/28/2008 Lebanon Sejoud 1 0 Hezbollah gunmen fire on a helicopter, killing a Lebanese officer.
8/28/2008 China Xinjiang 2 7 Knife-wielding Muslims set upon a group of police, stabbing at least two to death.
8/28/2008 Pakistan Swat 2 0 Two civilians are beheaded by religious radicals.
8/28/2008 Iraq Baghdad 2 0 A man and his wife are gunned down by Islamic terrorists.
8/28/2008 Pakistan Koza Bandai 1 0 The Taliban abduct and murder a civilian.
8/27/2008 Pakistan Wana 2 11 A Taliban ambush leaves two local soldiers dead.
8/27/2008 Thailand Yala 1 0 A 51-year-old electrical worker is shot to death by Mujahid.
8/27/2008 Afghanistan Nangarhar 1 0 A Japanese humanitarian worker on an irrigation project is kidnapped and murdered by the Taliban.
8/27/2008 Somalia Mogadishu 2 0 Two civilians are killed in a sudden attack by Islamic militia.
8/27/2008 India Jammu 6 0 Lashkar-e-Toiba shoot six civilians to death, including a cab driver and his passengers.
8/27/2008 Thailand Pattani 2 0 A young man and woman are shot to death in separate attacks by radical Islamists.
8/27/2008 Thailand Narathiwat 1 0 Muslim gunmen murder a government social worker.
8/26/2008 Somalia Baidoa 2 1 Two people are killed in a Mujahideen grenade attack on their home.
8/26/2008 Iraq Mandali 5 0 A family of five is taken out by Jihadi roadside bombers as they are traveling to a religious shrine.
8/26/2008 Pakistan Islamabad 8 20 Sunni radicals manage to kill eight patrons at a cafe with a planted bomb.
8/26/2008 Iraq Jalawla 28 45 A suicide bomber calmly walks up and murders over twenty-five police recruits waiting outside a station.
8/26/2008 India Kupwara 1 1 A local soldier is shot to death in an ambush by Islamic militants.
8/25/2008 Philippines Maguindanao 1 0 A soldier is kidnapped, bound, tortured and brutally executed.
8/25/2008 Pakistan Shakardara 2 0 Two tribesmen are killed and several girls schools are blown up during a rampage by Islamic hardliners.
8/25/2008 Iraq Mussayab 1 2 Jihadis kill a soldier's daughter and injure his two sons with a bomb near his home.
8/25/2008 Sudan Darfur 32 135 Women and children are among the thirty-two bodies counted following a government attack on a civilian refugee camp.
8/25/2008 Pakistan Swat 10 2 Ten occupants of a home are killed when Talibanis fire rockets into it.
8/24/2008 Iraq Baghdad 9 32 Nine civilians are murdered in three separate Jihad bombings.
8/24/2008 Pakistan Matta 4 0 Islamists kidnap and bind four civilians, then shoot them to death.
8/24/2008 Iraq Baghdad 30 42 Thirty people attending a celebration are blown apart by a Fedayeen suicide bomber.
8/23/2008 Pakistan Abuha 2 4 Two people are killed when Islamists detonate a bomb at an intersection.
8/23/2008 Pakistan Swat 15 23 A Holy Warrior sends over a dozen innocents to Allah with a car bomb.
8/23/2008 Iraq Kirkuk 5 8 Five people are killed when Fedayeen suicide bombers strike an auto dealership.
8/23/2008 Chechnya Agishty 2 2 Jihad warriors take out two Russians with a roadside bomb.
8/23/2008 Pakistan Kurram 4 7 Four people are killed in a sectarian clash.
8/23/2008 Pakistan North Waziristan 2 0 Two civilians are kidnapped and shot to death by Sunni radicals.
8/22/2008 Pakistan NWFP 2 14 Two security force personnel are killed when Mujahideen attack their vehicle with a grenade.
8/22/2008 India Ganderbal 1 1 A local soldier is shot to death by Islamic militants while standing guard.
8/22/2008 Pakistan Peshawar 1 2 Taliban militants fire rockets into a police station, killing one officer.
8/21/2008 Iraq Mosul 1 0 A civilian is abducted and beheaded by suspected fundamentalists.
8/21/2008 Somalia Mogadishu 6 11 Six civilians are killed during two separate attacks by Islamic militia.
8/21/2008 Thailand Narathiwat 2 17 A journalist is among two people murdered by Muslim car bombers.
8/21/2008 Pakistan Kohat 1 0 Muslim radicals on motorcycles gun down a young soldier.
8/21/2008 Pakistan Swat 5 1 Five civilians are brutally gunned down in two Taliban drive-bys.
8/21/2008 Pakistan Wah 78 67 Over seventy innocents are slaughtered by twin Fedayeen suicide bombers outside a factory.
8/20/2008 Pakistan Sargodha 1 0 Two brothers kill their grown sister with knives over suspicions that she is engaging in unauthorized sex.
8/20/2008 Somalia Kismayo 9 22 Al Shabaab Islamists attack a town, killing at least nine civilians.
8/20/2008 Iraq Baghdad 7 6 Seven civilians are murdered by Islamic terrorists in various attacks, including a woman and a player on a soccer field.
8/20/2008 Pakistan Peshawar 2 0 Jaish-i-Islami shoot two accused prostitutes to death, then mutilate their faces with knives.
8/20/2008 Somalia Mogadishu 4 7 Four civilians are killed during an ambush by Islamic hardliners.
8/20/2008 Algeria Bouira 12 38 Islamic fundamentalists murder a dozen civilians with two bomb attacks, one on a hotel.
8/19/2008 Algeria Issers 43 38 An Islamic fundamentalist drives a car packed with explosives into a police school. Over forty are killed in the carnage.
8/19/2008 Afghanistan Surobi 10 21 Ten French soldiers are brutally ambushed and killed. Four were murdered in captivity.
8/19/2008 Afghanistan Khost 2 0 Two civilians are killed in attacks by Sunni suicide bombers.
8/19/2008 Pakistan Dera Ismail Khan 30 32 A man walks into a hospital, yells "Allah Akbar," then detonates, slaughtering over thirty innocents.
8/19/2008 Iraq Baqubah 35 0 Thirty-five victims of Sunni terrorists are found bound and executed in two mass graves.
8/18/2008 Afghanistan Khost 10 13 Ten civilians are murdered by a suicide bomber along a city street. The victims are described as "poor laborers."
8/18/2008 Pakistan Kari Wala 1 0 A young woman is murdered by her cousins for having sex with a man she loved.
8/18/2008 Iraq Baghdad 1 1 Radicals gun down a cleric. His wife is also shot in the attack.
8/18/2008 Iraq Ramadi 5 7 Five Iraqis are taken down by a Fedayeen car bomber.
8/18/2008 Philippines Mindanao 49 50 Forty-nine Christian villagers are shot or hacked to death by Moro Islamists rampaging through three towns.
8/18/2008 Somalia Doblai 2 2 Fundamentalists hurl a grenade into a meeting place used by a sect, killing two people.
8/18/2008 Pakistan Swat 1 0 A civilian is shot to death by Mujahideen.
8/17/2008 Somalia Dinsoor 2 0 Two humanitarian workers are murdered by hardline Islamists.
8/17/2008 Philippines Lanao del Sur 7 11 Moro Islamists ambush a logistics transport, killing seven riders.
8/17/2008 Afghanistan Helmand 3 4 A woman and two small children are killed when Mujahideen use them as human shields.
8/17/2008 Azerbaijan Baku 2 8 Islamic extremists are thought responsible for hurling a grenade into a mosque.
8/17/2008 Iraq Baghdad 15 29 An al-Qaeda suicide bomber on a motorcycle attacks a crowd outside a Sunni mosque, killing at least fifteen innocents.
8/16/2008 Afghanistan Logar 1 0 A drum player is shot to death by Islamic hardliners.
8/16/2008 Pakistan Hayatabad 1 0 A prominent Shia leader is shot to death outside his home by Sunni militants.
8/16/2008 India Kishtwar 1 0 Mujahideen abduct and murder a civilian.
8/16/2008 Afghanistan Kandahar 10 0 Ten Afghans are blown up by religious extremists in a roadside attack.
8/16/2008 Pakistan Shawaal 1 0 A 40-year-old man is beheaded by religious radicals.
8/16/2008 Iraq Baghdad 6 11 Six more Shia pilgrims are murdered by Sunni bombers in an attack on their minibus.
8/16/2008 Philippines Panamao 2 0 Two off-duty soldiers are brutally murdered by Abu Sayyaf after being stranded by a broken motorcycle.
8/15/2008 Somalia Mogadishu 5 0 Islamic militia kill five people with a roadside bomb along a city street.
8/15/2008 Iraq Balad 9 48 Sunnis detonate a bomb on a bus carrying Shiite pilgrims, killing nine.
8/14/2008 Pakistan Umari 1 0 A pro-government tribesman is shot to death by the Taliban
8/14/2008 Iraq Karbala 18 75 An al-Qaeda female suicide bomber strikes a group of Shiite pilgrims, slaughtering at least eighteen.
8/14/2008 Pakistan Swat 1 0 A civilian is abducted and riddled with bullets by Sunni militants.
8/14/2008 Iraq Baqubah 1 2 An 8-year-old girl is killed by Islamic bomber, who also wound her mother and sister.
8/14/2008 Pakistan Swat 2 0 A woman and a boy are killed when Islamists fire on security forces in a populated area.
8/14/2008 Algeria Jijel 2 0 An army officer and his driver are killed by Islamic fundamentalists in their car. A separate bombing kills one other person.
8/13/2008 Pakistan Kirri 1 5 Baitullah Mehsud terrorists ambush a group of local soldiers, killing one.
8/13/2008 Thailand Yala 1 2 A 57-year-old man is killed, and his family injured, when Mujahideen toss a grenade into his home.
8/13/2008 Afghanistan Logar 4 0 Three female humanitarian workers and their driver are brutally shot to death at point blank range by Holy Warriors.
8/13/2008 Lebanon Tripoli 18 45 Eighteen people at a bus stop are blown to bits by Islamic bombers.
8/13/2008 Afghanistan Helmand 5 4 Taliban bombers murder five local police.
8/13/2008 Iraq Mosul 3 15 Islamic bombers kill three Iraqis at an intersection.
8/13/2008 Thailand Pattani 1 19 Islamists gun down a 26-year-old man, then plant a bomb to catch first responders.
8/13/2008 Iraq Qayara 2 10 Two patrons are killed when Jihadis set off a car bomb at a market.
8/13/2008 Pakistan Lahore 9 35 Islamists bomb an independence day celebration, killing at least nine innocents.
8/13/2008 Pakistan Bajaur 1 0 A doctor is killed while being held as a human shield by Mujahideen.
8/13/2008 India Kishtwar 1 0 A civilian is shot to death by Muslim militants outside his home.
8/13/2008 Algeria Bouira 1 0 A local guard is killed by a bomb planted by Islamic fundamentalists.
8/13/2008 Iraq Khan Bani Saad 1 2 A local woman is taken out by Mujahideen bombers.
8/12/2008 Thailand Narathiwat 3 1 Two small children and their father are brutally gunned down by radical Muslims while out on a family trip.
8/12/2008 China Xinjiang 3 0 Three security guards are stabbed to death by Muslim militants.
8/12/2008 Philippines Basilan 4 0 At least four Catholic civilians are killed when Moro Islamists strafe their homes with gunfire.
8/12/2008 Pakistan Peshawar 13 11 A child is among thirteen people killed when Sunni bombers target a minibus.
8/12/2008 Iraq Ramadi 6 0 A woman and three children are among six family members shot to death by the Religion of Peace.
8/12/2008 Iraq Baqubah 2 10 A female suicide bomber takes out two Iraqis.
8/12/2008 Germany Ruesselsheim 1 0 A 55-year-old woman is shot to death in an honor attack involving two Muslim groups.
8/11/2008 Iraq Baqubah 4 16 A female suicide bomber takes out four Iraqis.
8/11/2008 Afghanistan Kabul 3 12 Three Afghan civilians are blown apart by a suicide car bomber.
8/11/2008 Philippines Basilan 2 12 Two civilians are killed when Moro Islamists storm a village.
8/11/2008 Iraq Wajihiya 5 3 Five women field laborers are slain by Jihad bombers while walking to work.
8/11/2008 Pakistan Bajaur 2 0 Islamists capture and then cut the heads off of two civilians.
8/11/2008 Afghanistan Uruzgan 6 3 A child is among a half dozen civilians killed while being used as human shields by Holy Warriors.
8/11/2008 Somalia Mogadishu 8 0 Holy Warriors kill eight soldiers in a brutal ambush.
8/11/2008 Iran Saravan 2 0 A Sunni group called 'soldiers of Allah' kidnaps and executes two security guards.
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