India ABLAZE Launched into Space. Manmohan Rushes to Tokyo to Bail Out Melting Japanese Economy. GoM Approves Insurance FDI. ISRO Eyes Manned Moon Mission by 2015, Awaiting Govt Approval. Obama Establishes Double Digit Lead over McCain! Financial Crisis Summit to be Nov. 15 - U.S. Official.The MNS Rampage: Thackeray Granted Bail, Repercussions felt in Bihar and West Bengal

[PalashKL]

India ABLAZE Launched into Space. Manmohan Rushes to Tokyo to Bail
Out Melting Japanese Economy. GoM Approves Insurance FDI. ISRO Eyes
Manned Moon Mission by 2015, Awaiting Govt Approval. Obama Establishes
Double Digit Lead over McCain! Financial Crisis Summit to be Nov. 15 -
U.S. Official.The MNS Rampage: Thackeray Granted Bail, Repercussions
felt in Bihar and West Bengal



Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams: Chapter 90

Palash Biswas

Chandrayaan-1 has perfect launch
(01:25) Report
Oct. 22 - India's first unmanned mission to the moon, the
Chandrayaan-1 had a perfect launch according to the chairman of the
Indian Space Research Organization, Madhavan Nair.

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Barring any technical failure, the spacecraft will reach the lunar
orbit and spend two years scanning the moon for any evidence of water
and precious metals.

An ANI report.

Raj Thackeray arrested in Mumbai
(01:33) Report
Oct. 21 - Maharashtra Navnirman Sena leader Raj Thackeray has been
arrested on Tuesday sparking violent protests in and around Mumbai.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh has said that all
measures were being taken to keep the situation under control.

An ANI report.
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US, India sign nuclear deal
(01:36) Report
Oct. 11 - The United States and India signed a potentially lucrative
agreement on Friday that would allow India to buy U.S. civil nuclear
technology for the first time in three decades.

The accord, reached after years of tortuous negotiations and harshly
criticized by non-proliferation advocates, was signed by U.S.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Indian External Affairs
Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

Pavithra George, Reuters
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'Fashion' stars walk the ramp at LFW
(02:19) Report
Oct. 21 - Actors from Madhur Bhandarkar's film "Fashion," Priyanka
Chopra, Kangana Ranaut and Mugdha Godse walked the ramp at designer
Narendra Kumar's show at the Lakme India Fashion Week in Mumbai.


An ANI report.
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India Ablaze launched into Space.India launched its first unmanned
moon mission on Wednesday, joining the Asian space race in the
footsteps of rival China and reinforcing its claim to be considered a
global power!

The US on Wednesday congratulated India on the successful launch of
the maiden moon mission Chandrayaan-I, describing it as demonstration
of the country's technological prowess in its quest for peaceful
exploration of space.

India Inc is hopeful that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) would bring
down repo rates to 7 per cent from the current 8 per cent and create a
mechanism to monitor banks' lending, according to an industry lobby
survey.


India reached a historic milestone in the early hours of the morning
on Wednesday as it successfully launched its first unmanned lunar
mission, Chandrayaan 1, into Transfer Orbit. The feat placed India as
the sixth country to join the space-trotters club after USA, former
Soviet Union, European Space Agency, China and Japan. The spacecraft
was successfully launched at 6:22 am (IST) and with it the ISRO
scientists at Sriharikota burst with joy that was resounded by the
entire nation.

Nevertheless, dark happens the Moon for Indians facing the turmoil of
communal violence instituted by the ruling Brahminical Hegemony to
subvert the Parliament in Session derailed from the track to address
the burning national international issues!In what seems like a
backlash against MNS-led violence against north Indians in Mumbai, two
air conditioned bogies of a train – reportedly with Maharashtrian
passengers on board – two bogies of Vikramshila Express were set on
fire in Barh area of Bihar.

Maharashtra and Bihar burn as Assam and Orissa have been. Kashmir and
entire north East happens the Troubled zone for time infinite. Tamil
Nationality has to clash with Indian foreign policy. Global financial
crisis Inferno eats Indian Economy. Parliament Session is once again
subverted as none of the burning issues have been addressed at all.
Mass Destruction of Black Untouchables, indigenous communities and
minorities continue as well as continues the War against Terrorism!
Unable to stall either INdo US Nuclear deal or the Strategic
realliance in US lead, the decoupled Left now takes credit to Save
India! The Marxist ways of capitalism, indeed, save India as nandigram
and singur have exposed well! On the other hand, the planted Prime
Minister, the supreme slave Dr manmohan singh rushes to Tokyo to bail
out the melting Japanese Economy. US periphery is not enough, Japanese
corporates are now Invited to the open Indian Consumer market to
destroy us!Reaffirming their commitment to fight terrorism and trans-
national crimes, India and Japan on Wednesday signed a joint
declaration on security cooperation that will intensify interaction
between their militaries and expand the scope of strategic dialogue
between the two Asian powers. Cooperation between coast guards,
defence dialogue, coordination on issues relating to disarmament and
non-proliferation and disaster management are some of crucial elements
of the security cooperation pact signed here by Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh and his Japanese counterpart Taro Aso.

Japan's Nikkei average fell more than 5 percent on Wednesday, with
Sony Corp and other exporters battered as the yen advanced on the
dollar and euro, while banks were hit by worries about their earnings.
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and other big banks tumbled after a
Nikkei business daily report that they will cut their earnings
outlooks, while trading houses slid after oil fell on fears of a slide
in demand.

European shares extended losses by midday on Wednesday, led by
commodity and financial stocks.

The first global summit on the financial crisis and how to reform the
financial system will be held on Nov. 15 in the Washington, D.C.,
area, a senior Bush administration official said on Wednesday.

"This will be the first in a series of summits that bring together
leaders from the countries that participate in the G20 finance
ministers process to discuss current economic challenges," the
official said declining further identification.

The official said that at the first meeting, which will be 11 days
after the U.S. presidential election, it will be important that the
leaders discuss the causes of the financial crisis, progress being
made, develop principles for reforms and to instruct working groups to
begin developing recommendations.

A venue in the U.S. capital area has not been chosen yet, the official
said. A dinner at the White House will be held the night before the
summit, the official said.

The G20 includes the Group of Seven major industrial economies plus
key emerging-market countries like China, India and Brazil.

Keeping the more expensive manned lunar missions in its radar, the
country's top space agency is planning to send two Indians to the Moon
by 2015 in a purely indigenous effort.

And Indian Space Research Organisation's(ISRO) ambitious plans does
not end there for it has just started technical capability as well as
mission planning for a Mars mission saying the red planet was the
"next natural destination" for the space agency.

After the spectacular success of the country's maiden unmanned moon
mission Chandrayaan-I, ISRO said on Tuesday it would gear up for the
complex and challenging task of the manned mission which is awaiting
government's approval. The manned mission project is estimated to cost
Rs 120 billion (about 2.4 billion dollars).

"Now we have a little bit of breathing time (after today's launch)...
we are looking how we can design a capsule, which can carry
two(Indian) astronauts onboard a GSLV rocket," ISRO Chairman G
Madhavan Nair said at a post-launch press meet here.

"This is a very complex and challenging task... first of all to
conceive a module, which can predict the condition of human life in
space, is a big challenge is terms of technology and realisation," he
said. The manned mission will be an indigenous initiative but foreign
agencies are welcome to cooperate, he said.

Besides, selecting the astronauts and training them for the space
flight and improving the reliability of the launching system were also
complex issues, he said.

"After considering all these, we have prepared a project report and
this had been cleared by the Space Commission and is awaiting the
government approval. Based on this, we will have the first man mission
from Indian soil before 2015," a beaming Nair said.

Meanwhile, Group of Ministers (GoM) has cleared a bill to hike the FDI
cap in insurance sector to 49% from the current 26% and it will be
placed be
fore the Cabinet now, Rajya Sabha was informed on Tuesday.

“The GoM has approved the proposed amendment with certain
modifications and the same are to be placed before the Cabinet,”
minister of state for finance P K Bankal said in a reply to a question
in the Rajya Sabha.

The government on October 16 had deferred a decision on hiking Foreign
Direct Investment (FDI) cap in insurance sector to 49% from 26%, as it
is watching for the impact of the global financial crisis. The
proposed changes include amendments in the IRDA Act, 1999 and Life
Insurance Corporation (LIC) Act, 1956 among others.

It is a time for jubilation for the scientific community of India and
they are cherishing every moment of it with the successful launch of
Chandrayaan-1 early Wednesday!

I was excited as a child when I learnt from All India Radio that Man
has landed on Moon. It was an American Mission. But I believed that it
was breaking the barriers in the space.

After almost four full decades, my motherland India enters the elite
Space club just after USA, USSR and Japan! But I feel nothing! Sorry !
Nothing! The excitement of that day before four decades is quite
absent in the Indian Masses despite the Information explosion. How can
it be? When your Home is burning, how you may celebrate a Carnival
irrelevant? More than hundred private companies are associated with
Moon Mission India! The meat of the national Revenue is going to be
digested by India Incs and MNCs! We are amidst the Global financial
meltdown! How do we afford such a strategic Moon Mission associated
with Nasa and with direct involvement of Developed Capitalist nations
including United States of America!All these instruments have been
developed in India, but Chandrayaan-1 also carries six other
instruments, developed in collaboration with the European Space
agency, Bulgaria and the United States.

I don`t know whether I would survive in 2015. but I am sure that I
would not be excited with Indian Manned Moon Mission either!
How would I?

Seventy Corore of my countrymen are suffering from Food insecurity!

Twenty Corore of them face starvation!

Indigenous communities and black Untouchables are predestined to be
killed!

Dismissing suggestions that Chandrayaan-1 was an expensive mission,
ISRO today said the moon odyssey will enable India to upgrade
technological expertise for exploration of outer space and ultimately
help in setting up a base on the earth's natural satellite.

"Moon mission cost is less than Rs 400 crore, which is just ten per
cent of annual budget of ISRO spread over many years," ISRO
spokesperson S Satish said, countering critics who questioned the need
for such a venture when other countries have already explored the
moon.

Cost of India's first unmanned lunar mission, slated for October 22,
is Rs 386 crore, which includes Rs 100 crore for the establishment of
Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) at Byalalu near here that will
perform the task of receiving radio signals transmitted by future
satellites, not just Chandrayaan-1.



With inherent injustice and inequality how may we the enslaved
majority Indian people enjoy the US backed super Power status of a
colonised Periphery?

However, we black untouchables have something to celebrate as we
approach closer to the Dream of martin luther King!

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama has established a double
digit lead over his Republican rival John McCain just two weeks ahead
of crucial elections, a just released poll says.

The Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll found that 52 per cent voters
favour Obama against 42 per cent who support McCain, showing a four
per cent increase since the poll two weeks ago. The poll has a margin
of error plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

The poll says that a growing number of voters said that they were
comfortable with the Democrat's values, background and ability to
serve as commander-in-chief.

It's the largest lead in the Journal/NBC poll so far, and represents a
steady climb for Senator Obama since early September, when the
political conventions concluded with the candidates in a statistical
tie.

"Voters have reached a comfort level with Barack Obama," said Peter D
Hart, a Democratic pollster who conducts the poll with Republican Neil
Newhouse.

Though most voters polled said that McCain is better prepared for the
White House than the first-term Obama, there are increasing concerns
about the readiness of McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin,
the poll showed.

The race, the Journal said, has rested largely on the question of
whether voters could get comfortable with Obama, the first African-
American to run on a major party ticket, and one who has been on the
national political scene for just a few years.

McCain has worked to stoke concerns about Obama's past and his
qualifications, raising questions about his rival's character and his
association with 1960s-era radical William Ayers. The new poll
suggests that these attacks haven't worked.


Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray was granted
anticipatory bail for two days in all the cases pending against him.
He was earlier remanded to 14-day judicial custody by the Kalyan
Court, which later approved his bail application. On Tuesday too he
had been sent to judicial custody in another case but was granted
bail. The situation outside the Kalyan court where the MNS chief was
being tried was tense, with the party’s activists gathered outside the
court and indulging in miscreant activities.

NCP chief and Union Minister Sharad Pawar on Wednesday denounced the
violence carried out by MNS in Maharashtra but said there was no need
for Central intervention as the state government is already taking
action in the matter.
Pawar, whose party is a part of the Congress-led coalition government
in Maharashtra, also criticised the media for highlighting actions of
the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, saying this had led to creation of a
‘monster’ out of the situation.



Meanwhile, The Maharashtra Government seems to be learning its
lessons. Their new zero-tolerance approach with Raj Thackeray is an
attempt to demonstrate that they are not going to go soft on him as
many believed they did last time.


So the state is likely to bring in an ordinance on Wednesday against
destruction of public property.

The ordinance will seek to increase the fine and punishment of upto
five years.

It will also have provisions to recover money directly from those who
damage public property be it a political party.



The MNS activists had indulged in stone throwing nad slogan shouting
to protest their leader’s arrest and the police had to resort to cane-
charge to disperse the mob. A preventive curfew was clamped in Kalyan
from 11 am.

After Tuesday's incidents outside the court in Bandra, in Mumbai,
where groups of MNS activists indulged in violence, police today
prevented all journalists from standing near the court.

In a separate incident Bihari students in rural Patna set on fire two
air-conditioned coaches of the Vikramshila Express in the Barh area of
Bihar, which were reportedly carrying Maharashtrian passengers.

Hundreds of slogan-shouting students descended surrounded Barh railway
station in rural Patna demanding that MNS leader Raj Thackeray be
tried for sedition.

The students set on fire the coach of the Danapur-Durg South Bihar
Express, Superintendent of Railway Police (Patna) D N Gupta was quoted
as sayiing by the media.

No injuries were reported as the passengers had fled as soon as the
attackers started setting the bogies on fire. Police had to fire four
rounds in the air to disperse t he protesting mob.

The incident had an effect in West Bengal too, as the Eastern Railway
authorities decided to cancel all trains that pass through Bihar, as a
preventive measure.


More European banks may fail as cash injections dry up and the
region's economy grinds to a near-halt next year, the International
Monetary Fund warned on Tuesday.

The IMF said in its economic outlook for Europe that banks are still
under severe pressure to reduce their high leverage the amount of debt
they carry in proportion to their assets.

It said recapitalization was ``now likely to slow'' because cash-rich
investors such as sovereign wealth funds and institutional investors
such as pension funds are now less interested in buying into banks.
Instead, governments have decided to take equity stakes and become the
provider of new capital.

Leaders from Asia and Europe will gather in Beijing Friday for two
days of talks in which French President Nicolas Sarkozy will seek
Asian b
acking for his bid to rebuild the world's financial system.

The global economic woes are set to dominate the Asia Europe Meeting
(ASEM), a summit of 43 nations held every two years, with the forum
offering the first opportunity for Asian countries to discuss the
financial crisis as a group.

Sarkozy, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the European
Union, has made it clear he will use the event to press Asian nations
for support in a dramatic restructuring of the global financial
system.

Sarkozy said on Tuesday his objective for the forum was "to convince
the Asian powers to take part in this (financial) rebuilding."




Three killed in landmine explosion in West Midnapore


Three persons, including a doctor, were killed in a landmine blast set
off by suspected Maoists in West Midnapore district on Wednesday, a
senior police official said. The blast blew up a vehicle killing its
driver, the doctor in-charge of the Belpahari primary health centre
and a woman employee at Patharchabri on the Simulpal-Laboni road under
Belpahari police station, Inspector General of Police (Law and Order),
Raj Kanojia told the media.

The explosion occurred at around 2:30 PM and could have been triggered
by Maoists, he said.

Villagers claimed that they had informed the police in the morning
that "wires were lying on the road and that a landmine could have been
planted, but no action was taken

‘Worried’ Buddha mum on Darjeeling Morcha

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee broke his silence on Darjeeling, saying the
signs were “extremely worrisome”, but did not name the Gorkha Janmukti
Morcha, the prime mover of the agitation in the hills.


After meeting hill affairs minister Ashok Bhattacharyya at Writers’
Buildings today, the Bengal chief minister said in a statement: “What
has been happening in the hills of Darjeeling district over the past
few days is extremely worrisome. Activities like changing of car
number plates, defacing government buildings and naming them as
offices of the Gorkhaland government and imposing a dress code... have
certainly hurt the sentiments of the people and disturbed the rule of
law in the hills.”

He said the district administration had been “instructed to ensure
that law and order is maintained in Darjeeling” and the state
government was keeping an eye on the developments’’.

Such activities could affect the tripartite talks in Delhi, he pointed
out. “Based on a request by our state government, the Centre convened
a tripartite meeting to discuss the Darjeeling issue and come to a
solution to the problems being talked about by the protesters. Given
that, the activities in the hills threaten to affect the talks
atmosphere. So, the manner in which the present agitation is being
staged should stop.”

Bhattacharjee appealed to the “right-thinking people of the hills” not
to give into such “provocation”.

“What is necessary in this regard is the co-operation of all right-
thinking people of living in Darjeeling district. Please don’t give
into any provocation.’’

He said the hill economy had suffered “immensely’’ because of the
agitation and that people of Darjeeling would be hurt the most if the
movement continued.

“The agitation has cost the hill economy dear, affecting the life of
every person living in Darjeeling. Tourism, education and the general
condition in the hills have become the casualty. Consequentially,
Siliguri, Dooars and the Terai regions have also been affected,” he
said.

DM order

The Darjeeling district administration has ordered that signboards
reading “Government of Gorkhaland” were to be brought down at the
earliest.

The Chandrayaan-1


The Chandrayaan-1 Imaging X-ray Spectrometer (C1XS), an ESA payload,
is the result of a joint development by Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
in England, and ISRO Satellite Centre. The instrument will conduct
high-quality mapping of the moon based on an X-ray fluorescence
technique, which will also be used to identify the presence of
Magnesium, Aluminum, Silicon, Iron and Titanium on the lunar surface.

The launch of India's maiden unmanned mission to Moon [Images] on
Wednesday prompted Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama
[Images] to underline the need for the United States to revitalise its
space programme "to remain the undisputed leader in space".

"With India's launch of its first unmanned lunar spacecraft following
closely on the heels of China's first spacewalk, we are reminded just
how urgently the United States must revitalise its space programme if
we are to remain the undisputed leader in space, science, and
technology," Senator Obama said.

Obama, who is ahead in most opinion polls for the November
presidential election, stressed on the importance for the US to train
new scientists and engineers for the next generation so as not to "let
other countries surpass" American technical capabilities.

"We must not only retain our space workforce so that we don't let
other countries surpass our technical capabilities; we must train new
scientists and engineers for the next generation,'' Obama said in a
statement.

He said his plan to revitalize the space programme and close the gap
between the Space Shuttle's [Images] retirement and its next-
generation replacement includes $2 billion more for NASA [Images] --
but more money alone is not enough," the Illinois Democrat added.

"My comprehensive space policy focuses on reaching new frontiers
through human space exploration, tapping the ingenuity of our
commercial space entrepreneurs, fostering a broad research agenda to
break new ground on the world's leading scientific discoveries, and
engaging students through educational programmes that excite them
about space and science," Obama said.

The Democrat Party leader said as a child he had been inspired by the
splashdown of Apollo. "As a child, I remember sitting on my
grandfather's shoulders and watching the Apollo astronauts return from
a splashdown to Hickam Air Force Base, dreaming of where they had
been," Obama noted.

"It inspired my imagination and gave me confidence in what we as
Americans could achieve. It's time for a space programme that inspires
our children again," he underlined.

"As President, I will lead our space programme boldly into the 21st
Century - so when my daughters, and all our children, look up to the
skies, they see Americans leading the way into the deepest reaches of
our solar system," the Democratic nominee said.


The successful launch of the India's maiden mission to moon Chandrayan
1 is "just the beginning" of the opening up of a new frontier of
cooperation between the US and India on a wide range of sectors, the
United States India Business Council (USIBC) said on Wednesday.

"It is an extraordinary moment in history. We have an India of 1.3
billion people looking to the heavens and now exploring the frontiers
of Space," USIBC president Ron Somers told PTI upon the launch of
Chandrayan 1.

The liftoff of Chandrayan 1 was lustily cheered at the US Chamber of
Commerce where the USIBC had organised a live broadcast of the
historic occasion that saw the participation of officials from the
White House, the State Department, the NASA and senior officials of
the Indian Embassy.

The USIBC event also saw the participation of the Indian American
community who were clearly thrilled.


The Smart Near Infrared Spectrometer (SIR-2), the second ESA payload,
developed by Max Plank Institute of Germany, will explore the mineral
resources on moon’s surface. The Sub kiloelectronvolt Atom Reflecting
Analyzer (SAR), the third ESA payload, developed at the Swedish
Institute of Space Physics and Space Physics Laboratory of Bikram
Sarabhai Space Center, will analyze the surface composition of the
moon, and the magnetic anomalies associated with the surface.

The Radiation Dose Monitor (RADOM), developed by the Bulgarian Academy
of Sciences, will target the radiation environment surrounding the
moon.


"In an era of renewed interest for the Moon on a world-wide scale, the
ESA-ISRO collaboration on Chandrayaan-1 is a new opportunity for
Europe to expand its competence in lunar science while tightening the
long-standing relationship with India – an ever stronger space power,"
said Prof. David Southwood, ESA Director of Science and Robotic
Exploration.

Two other instruments from the U.S., the Mini Synthetic Aperture Radar
(MiniSAR) and the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3), will try to detect the
presence of water ice at moon’s poles, up to a depth of a few meters,
as well as help obtain a map-view of the mineral resources on the
moon, at high special and spectral resolution.

On the other hand, notwithstanding the drop in international oil
prices, the government has no immediate plans to reduce retail price
of petrol, diesel and domestic LPG as oil firms are yet to breakeven.

"There is no such proposal with the government as of now," Petroleum
Secretary R S Pandey said when asked if the government was planning to
cut fuel prices by this weekend to brighten Diwali.

Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum continue to incur
losses as a 22 per cent depreciation in value of rupee against the US
dollar have wiped away some of the gains from falling international
crude oil prices.


The Indian Space Research Organization announced the successful launch
of its first unmanned lunar space mission: Chandrayaan-1 is the first
Indian spacecraft expected to reach Moon’s orbit, where it will spend
the next two years to investigate the lunar surface. Its primary
objectives are to conduct mineralogical and chemical mapping of the
lunar surface, as well as upgrade the technological base in the
country.

On October 22, Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO) Polar
Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C11) launched Chandrayaan-1 from the
Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota, at 06:22 IST
(Indian Standard Time).

The agency explained that Chandrayaan-1 was placed into an elliptical
transfer orbit around the Earth, which will help it obtain the desired
trajectory later on. As it reaches the vicinity of the moon, the
spacecraft will slow down, which will allow it enter into an
elliptical orbit, where it will begin its observations.


Heralding a new era in the country's space programme, India on
Wednesday successfully launched its first unmanned moon mission,
Chandrayaan-1, becoming the sixth nation to undertake an odyssey for
exploration of lunar surface. Meanwhile,in line with fall in global
markets, the domestic bourses on Wednesday closed in the red with the
benchmark Sensex losing a hefty over 500 points to cut short the
gaining trend of the past two days. Marketmen attributed the steep
losses to heavy selling pressure, re-emerged on renewed worries of
global economy falling into a recession.

The 30-share index, which had gathered nearly 710 points in the past
two sessions, lost 513.49 points, or 4.81 per cent, at 10,169.90.

Three persons were killed and over 170 arrested in neighbouring Thane
after violence erupted there following the arrest of MNS leader Raj
Thackeray, police said.
Three deaths were reported in the Pisoli village area in Kalyan last
night following a clash between two groups, Thane Police Commissioner
Anil Dhere said. MNS leader Raj Thackeray, who was arrested on
Tuesday and spent a day in police custody, returned to his residence
amidst celebrations by supporters on Wednesday evening.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday expressed concern over the plight of
the common man in Mumbai who is caught in the mayhem caused by
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) activists to protest the arrest of
party chief Raj Thackeray!


Thirteen people were killed and 27 injured when a bomb attached to a
two-wheeler went off at Ragailong near the Police Commando Complex in
Imphal West district on Tuesday evening. According to official
sources, unidentified militants targeted the place where security
personnel and civilians were gambling ahead of Diwali.

The home-grown PSLV-C11, ISRO's workhorse launch vehicle, placed the
spacecraft into a transfer orbit around the earth exactly 18.2 minutes
after a textbook lift off at 6.22 am from the second launch pad of
Satish Dhawan Space Centre in this island in the Bay of Bengal, 100 km
north of Chennai.

When the spacecraft finally reaches its destination at 100 km above
the moon surface after a series of manoeuvres over the next two weeks,
it would signal India's arrival in the league of nations -- the US,
Russia, European Space Agency, China and Japan which are already
involved in lunar exploration.

India's last tryst with moon came way back in 1984 when Indian
astronaut, Squadron Leader Rakesh Sharma, travelled to space along
with two Soviet cosmonauts. The focus now shifts to ISRO's telemetry,
tracking and command network (ISCRAC) at Payenya in Bangalore, which
will be the country's nerve centre for tracking and controlling
Chandrayaan-1 over the next two years of its life span.

What a contrast in between the Full Moon and the dark Moon! People on
Honeymoon may perhaps feel it most!

The short-term outlook for Indian economy looks "cloudy" in the face
of the global financial meltdown and steps are required to prevent the
credit crunch from turning into a crisis of confidence, Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh said on Wednesday in Tokyo.

"The short-term outlook is cloudy but I am confident that the Indian
economy has the resilience to sustain its growth momentum in the
medium-term... we have to prevent the liquidity crisis from becoming a
crisis of confidence in the international monetary and financial
system," he said.

Singh was addressing a gathering of top Indian and Japanese business
leaders in Tokyo on the second day of his three-day official visit to
Japan.

For the first time, the Centre on Wednesday admitted that it may miss
the budget targets for fiscal and revenue deficits for 2008-09 as
global financial crisis is exerting pressure.
"Thanks to the global financial crisis, which is exerting pressures on
all economies, it is likely that we may overshoot budget targets (for
fiscal and revenue deficits)," Finance Minister P Chidambaram said at
USAID function in New Delhi.

According to the budget estimates, the Centre would be bringing down
the fiscal deficit below the three per cent and revenue deficit to
1-1.1 per cent this year, Chidambaram said. However, he said, the
government will do its best to remain as close to the targets as
possible.

"If we are not able to achieve the targets by 31.03.2009, I am sure we
can achieve them by 31.3.2010. I often console myself by saying that
we waited odd 60 years to achieve some fiscal discipline, it does not
matter to wait for one more year," he said.

Fiscal deficit represents excess of government's total expenditure
over total income (excluding market borrowing), while revenue deficit
is the difference between the current expenditure and current
receipts.

The Budget for 2008-09 targets to cut fiscal deficit to 2.5 per cent
of GDP and revenue deficit to one per cent of GDP.

The Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act binds the
government to cut fiscal deficit to three per cent of GDP by 2008-09
or 0.3 per cent every year.

Revenue deficit is targeted to be reduced to nil in five years by
2008-09 or 0.5 per cent every year.

The joy of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) scientists knew
no bounds as the 44.4 metre tall four-stage rocket majestically soared
into the sky, capping their four years of toil for the first-ever
mission that would travel beyond earth's orbit in the country's forty-
year-old space programme.

"The launch was perfect and precise. It was a remarkable performance
by the PSLV. The satellite has been placed in the earth orbit and with
this we have completed the first leg of the mission. It will take 15
days to reach the lunar orbit," a beaming ISRO Chairman G Madhavan
Nair announced.

President Pratibha Patil, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Leader of
the Opposition in the Lok Sabha L K Advani congratulated the space
scientists on the successful launch.


Chandrayaan-1 carries 11 payloads, including two instruments from the
American space agency, NASA, which will assess mineral resources, map
the polar regions, look for ice deposits and prepare a three-
dimensional atlas of the moon and prospect the lunar surface for
natural resources.

Coming after 44 years of its maiden rocket launch from Thumba in 1963,
Chandrayaan-1 will also look for possible uranium deposits on the moon
as India sets out to augment its energy capacity through international
bilateral nuclear pacts.

Later addressing a press conference, the ISRO Chairman said the first
leg and perhaps one of the most difficult parts of the journey to the
moon has been completed successfully.

"The 360-tonne PSLV-C11 has precisely achieved the objective of
placing the satellite in the orbit around the earth with its nearest
point being 250 km (perigee) and the farthest around 23,000 km
(apogee)," Nair said.

"If everything goes on well, on Nov 8 we will be injecting the
spacecraft into the lunar trajectory."

Nair expressed the hope that India would be able to send the first man-
mission to moon from Indian soil before 2015 and that mars was the
next natural destination for the ISRO.

Help build 'new India': PM tells Japanese investors

Seeking Japanese investments to build a ‘new India’, Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh on Wednesday said that he has come this time on a
mission: to consolidate the multifaceted India-Japan strategic
relations.

"Our relations have changed considerably over time and we now have a
multifaceted relationship. Japan is not just a source of development
aid but an important investor and partner in building Asian co-
operation," Singh said at a luncheon hosted by the Indian and Japanese
business community in Tokyo.

"For me, each interaction with Japan has been a most pleasurable,
educative and revealing one. It has revealed to me how much our two
countries can do together, and how little we have done," he said.

"I have come to Japan to consolidate this partnership," Singh said
ahead of his summit talks with his Japanese counterpart Taro Aso.

"We welcome Japanese investment in our efforts to build a new India,"
the Prime Minister said while thanking Tokyo for its generous aid in
the form of Overseas Developmental Assistance (ODA).

India currently gets 30 per cent of all Japanese ODA, becoming the
largest recipient, overtaking China.

"We are deeply grateful that India has been the largest recipient of
the Japanese ODA for the last five years. Its most visible symbol is
the Delhi Metro," he said.

Describing Japan as the ‘economic and technological powerhouse of the
world’, Singh noted that both nations were located in Asia to which
the 21st century undoubtedly belongs.

Raj Drama!

MNS leader Raj Thackeray, who was arrested on Tuesday and spent a day
in police custody, returned to his residence amidst celebrations by
supporters on Wednesday evening.

Hundreds of supporters who thronged his residence 'Krishna Kunj' in
the Shivaji Park area of Central Mumbai and celebrated Thackeray's
return by bursting crackers after a court in Kalyan granted him bail.

"He is happy that he has been released from police custody and
appealed to MNS activists to mantain peace," Shishir Shinde, general
secretary of MNS, said.

Thackeray was arrested from Ratnagiri on Tuesday in connection with
cases of assault registered against MNS activists for attacking North
Indian candidates appearing for railway recruitment exams.

The MNS leader spent the night in custody at the Manpada police
station in neighbouring Dombivali and was produced before a
magistrate's court in Kalyan where he was granted bail. On Tuesday, he
was granted bail in a similar case by a court in Mumbai.

Thackeray was also granted interim relief by the court in a case where
Railway police sought his custody, after which he was released.

Sporadic violence was reported on Wednesday in Mumbai which was by and
large peaceful, a day after MNS activists went on a rampage to protest
the arrest of Raj Thackeray, as curfew was clamped in the area around
the Kalyan court in Thane where the politician was to be produced.

Elsewhere in Maharashtra, stray cases of violence were reported in
Ahmednagar district where MNS workers targeted buses breaking window
panes in Sangamner area and resorted to arson and stone pelting at
several places.

"There were no reports of any major violence in the city and the
situation was largely peaceful," Police said.

As they kept a tight vigil on the country's financial capital, Police
said they had been given instructions to sternly deal with MNS
activists if they indulge in violence after Raj was picked up in
connection with the attack on North Indian job aspirants on Sunday.

Curfew has been clamped in the area around the Kalyan court, where
Thackeray was to be produced, and the Manpada police station, police
said apparently not wanting to take any chances after Tuesday's arson
and rioting in Thane.

The police had a tough time dispersing the crowd which had gathered
around the police station and were maintaining a tight vigil.

In overnight violence in neighbouring Thane, three persons including
brother of a local MNS leader were killed, Thane Police Commissioner
Anil Dhere said.

The deaths were reported in the Pisoli village area in Kalyan last
night after a clash between two groups.

Miscreants torched an auto-rickshaw in the northern suburb of Dahisar
and damaged another in suburban Ghatkopar.

Services on the Central Railway was disrupted for some time when
miscreants attempted to block tracks using a cement sleeper near
Kalyan station, railway officials said.

Left Claims Credit to Save india

UPA's friend-turned-foe, Left parties, self-congratulated themselves
for saving India from getting trapped in the global financial turmoil
by stopping the government from allowing pension money in stock market
and opening up banks for foreign investment.

Demanding reduction in the fuel prices, Sitaram Yechury (CPM) said,
"you must congratulate us as we have stopped you from increasing the
FDI in insurance".

The policy allowed 26 per cent foreign direct investment in insurance.
While there was a move to raise the FDI ceiling to 49 per cent, the
Left parties which had provided crucial support to the government,
were opposed to it.

Had the government allowed the pensions funds to be invested in the
share market, "what would have happened to pensioners now," Yechury
asked. Investors have lost over 50 per cent value in the stock market
since January this year.

He said with the softening of crude oil prices, government should cut
prices of petroleum products. Yechury also sought a cut in the issue
price of food grains supplied through ration shop since food prices
have come down.

"These two measures should be immediately taken, if government is
serious about inclusive growth," he said. The CPM MP said the
government has delisted only eight commodities in futures trading
though there was a demand for banning 25 essential commodities.

"But I do not know why you have included rubber in the list of banned
items," he said. The primary cause of inflation is speculative trading
in commodity exchanges where turnover has exceeded Rs 40 lakh crore,
he said. "How can you stop rise in prices when people are expecting
profit from commodity futures," he asked.

Slow pace in river interlinking irks Parliamentary panel


Asking the government to take urgent steps regarding interlinking of
rivers, a Parliamentary panel on Wednesday warned that if the pace of
arriving at consensus is not accelerated by states, the ambitious
programme would take at least another 30 to 40 years to materialise.


Presenting its 11th report on Inter Linking of Rivers (ILR) in Lok
Sabha today, Parliamentary Standing Committee on Water Resources said
it was "disheartened to note that though all states had agreed to the
ILR programme in principle, problems cropped up on the specifics of
the issue of water sharing and other related benefits."

The committee felt that if the pace of arriving at consensus and
preparation of detailed project reports (DPRs) is not accelerated, the
actual implementation of projects under ILR would take another "30-40
years or more" for completion of all the identified 30 links.

The committee, headed by R Sambasiva Rao, "desired" the Ministry of
Water Resources to take urgent and concerted measures to bring all the
concerned states on one platform to arrive at a consensus for all the
30 links at the earliest.

The committee, in one of its recommendations, suggested that the
government should ask the Irrigation and Water Resources Finance
Corporation to raise funds through bonds to fund projects under the
ILR.

"To begin with, the Corporation could raise funds for the Ken-Betwa
link for which the DPR is likely to be available by end of December,
2008," it said.

The report said the government should discuss threadbare with Nepal
issues relating to the Himalayan component of the ILR programme so
that Kathmandu could also appreciate the benefits accruing from the
programme to them.


Left parties to decide on alliance strategy in AP

Amid efforts to forge a grand alliance to fight the ruling Congress
in Andhra Pradesh in the forthcoming assembly elections, the state
leaders of CPI and CPI(M) met in Hyderabadon Wednesday to discuss the
political situation and a common strategy on public issues.

The state CPI(M) Secretary B V Raghavulu and his CPI counterpart A
Narayana had a two-hour long meeting at the CPI(M) headquarters.

While broad contours of tie-ups with other opposition parties were
discussed at the meeting, a final decision on alliances will be taken
after the central committee meetings of the two parties before the
first week of November, the Left leaders said.

"I will submit my report on the alliances to the state executive
committee meeting here on October 29. It will be discussed by our
national executive committee on November 1 and 2 after which a
decision will be taken," Narayana told reporters.

The CPI(M), on the other hand, will discuss the issue of poll
alliances during its meeting, scheduled to be held here from October
30 to November 5 before taking a final view, Raghavulu said.

There has been hectic activity in the opposition camp in the last few
weeks with Telugu Desam Party, Telangana Rashtra Samithi and Left
parties stepping up efforts to forge a grand alliance to take on the
Congress.

However, there are reports that Left parties have different view
points on alliance strategy.

While CPI(M) is said to be in favour of sailing with the main
opposition TDP in view of the latter's strong cadre base, the CPI is
reportedly keen on joining hands with the actor-turned-politician
Chiranjeevi's Praja Rajyam Party.

Eastern Railway cancels 12 trains due agitation by students

Eastern Railway on Wednesday cancelled 12 trains running through
Bihar, including the Howrah and Sealdah Rajdhani Express, owing to the
student agitation in the state over the recent assault on railway
recruitment examinees in Mumbai.

Besides, the 2301-Up Howrah-New Delhi Rajdhani Express and 2313-Up
Sealdah-New Delhi Rajdhani Express, other important trains cancelled
include the 3111-Up Lalquila Express, 3133-Up Sealdah-Varanasi Express
and the 3049-Up Howrah-Amritsar Express, an ER release said.

Other cancelled trains include the 3105-Up Sealdah- Ballia Express,
3185-Up Ganga Sagar Express, 3021-Up Mithila Express and the 0231-Up
Howrah-New Delhi Puja Special.

The 2367-Up Bhagalpur-New Delhi Vikramshila Express, 3401-Up Bhagalpur-
Danapur Intercity Express and 3419-Up Bhagalpur-Muzzafarpur Janseva
Express have also been cancelled, the release said.

Stating that four trains passing through Bihar were short-terminated,
it said the 2381-Up Poorva was stopped at Asansol, while the 2317-Up
Akal Takht Express was terminated at Jasidih. The 3151-Up Jammu Tawi
Express was short- terminated at Baruipara and the 0365-Up Howrah-
Danapur Puja Special was short-terminated at Vidyasagar.

Centre to take final view on GUJCOC soon: Home Ministry

The Centre will take a "final view" on the the Gujarat Control of
Organised Crime Bill, 2003 (GUJCOC) soon, the Rajya Sabha was informed
on Wednesday.

Replying to written questions, Minister of State for Home Radhika
Selvi said the bill has been under examination of the Centre "in the
light of the angles of conflict with any Central law, the policy of
the Central government and other legal and Constitutional angles."

"It is expected that a final view in the matter would be taken in the
near future," the minister said.

In reply to another question on Rajasthan Control of Organised Crime
Bill, Minister of State for Home Sriprakash Jaiswal said a fresh draft
of the bill was received by the Ministry on May 16 this year and is
under the examination in consultation with various ministries and
departments including Law Ministry.

He said the revised draft bill was sent after certain objections and
comments of the Department of Revenue and the Department of
Telecommunications were communicated to the state government for their
consideration.

FM discusses liquidity situation with bankers

Finance Minister P Chidambaram held a meeting with senior bankers last
evening in the backdrop of easing liquidity situation following a slew
of measures taken by both RBI and the government.

"The meeting reviewed situation in the light of easing liquidity
situation," Punjab National Bank Chairman and Managing Director K C
Chakrabarty said.

Credit delivery to productive sector was also discussed during the
meeting, he said.

The meeting was also attended by State Bank of India Chairman O P
Bhatt and Indian Banks Association and Bank of India Chairman T S
Narayanaswami.

When asked whether any meeting with Prime Minister was also there on
the day, Chakrabarty said, "I am not aware of that."

Last month, owing to the tight liquidity situation, many banks had
tightened their purse and went slow on credit disbursal.

Cash in the market dipped to the extent that inter-bank call money
rates went as high as 23 per cent.

However, Finance Minister P Chidambaram came to the rescue of
borrowers.

"Our banks are ready and willing to provide credit. Suitable
advisories are being issued to the banks," he had said.

Following this, RBI issued a notification saying, "In view of the
improved liquidity in the markets, the banks concerned are advised to
review all such cases and permit drawal of sanctioned limits, guided
by their usual commercial judgment."

Govt to set up 1500 new ITIs

Government will set up 1500 new Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs)
in blocks where there are none at present, Labour and Employment
Minister Oscar Fernandes told Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.

Replying to supplementaries during the Question Hour, he said the
Government has taken up establishing ITIs in those blocks where such
institutes do not exist now. He said 5000 skill development centres
will also be set up on priority.

Fernandes said 300 ITIs will be approved by the month-end on top of a
similar number sanctioned recently.

About 100 applications for ITIs are currently pending with the
Government.

In addition, 100 ITIs will be upgraded with Government funds and
another 400 through World Bank assistance. After that, 1396 ITIs would
be upgraded through assistance from financial institutions, he said.


RS adjourns after uproar over attack on Christians in Orissa

Opposition BJP and ruling Congress members on Wednesday clashed in the
Rajya Sabha over the issue of attack on Christians in Orissa, leading
to abrupt adjournment of the House.

Trouble broke out when Congress member Shantaram Laxman Naik rose to
read his Zero Hour notice on the issue, provoking BJP members who
strongly protested against raising state matters. Orissa is ruled by
BJD-BJP coalition.

Rudra Narayan Pany (BJP) led the opposition attack which was
immediately countered by Congress members, plunging the House into
turmoil.

Deputy Chairman K Rahman Khan pleaded with the agitated opposition
members to restore peace as the notice had been admitted by the
Chairman and he could not do anything about it.

As Pany rushed towards the podium, Khan admonished him. "I condemn
this. I am warning you," he said as the BJP member had a heated
argument with the Chair.

Senior BJP member S S Ahluwalia then asked Pany to take his seat and
he himself entered into a verbal duel with Khan. BJD member B J Panda
was also seen standing in protest.

Amidst noisy scenes, Khan asked Naik to read the notice, further
infuriating the opposition members who rushed to the well.

Some members from the Congress too rushed towards the well to counter
the BJP attack.

At one point of time, an agitated Pany was seen rushing towards the
Congress bench and was persuaded by his senior party colleagues to go
back to his place.

As the din continued, Khan adjourned the House 15 minutes before the
scheduled lunch recess.



Indo japanese landmark Joint declaration
India and Japan on Wednesday inked a landmark joint declaration on
security cooperation but immediately assured China that their enhanced
ties were not aimed at it or any other country.
Economic partnership and security cooperation between India and Japan
“are not at the cost of any third country, least of all China,” Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh said at a joint press conference with his
Japanese counterpart Taro Aso.

“I have explained on several occasions both in India as well as in
China and abroad that I sincerely believe that there is no competition
between India and China. The world offers enormous scope for both our
countries to realise their development ambitions.

“So there is no question of our ... economic partnership with Japan
being at the expense of any other third country, least of all China,”
Singh said here on the eve of his visit to Beijing to attend the 7th
ASEM Summit from October 24.

Aso also tried to downplay the ‘China factor’, saying “we do not have
any assumptions as targeting a third country, including China.”
Earlier, Singh and Aso inked the Joint Declaration on enhanced
security cooperation between India and Japan, saying their ties were
rooted in their similar perceptions of the evolving environment in the
region and the world at large.

The two sides stressed common commitment to democracy, open society,
human rights and the rule of law and pointed out their deep respect
for each other’s contribution in promoting peace, stability and
development in Asia and beyond.

Recognising that India and Japan are partners with a mutual stake in
each other’s progress and prosperity, the joint declaration said “a
strong and prosperous India is in the interest of Japan and a strong
and prosperous Japan is in the interest of India."

We will solve ethnic issue after 'finishing' terrorists: Lanka

Ahead of the visit of President Mahinda Rajapaksa's Senior Adviser
Basil Rajapaksa here next week, Sri Lanka on Wednesday promised to
address the decades-old ethnic conflict in the island nation through a
political settlement but only after "finishing" terrorists.

Sri Lankan Minister of Rural Industries and Self Employment Promotion
S B Nawinna said the government is committed to protecting Tamils in
the restive northern region and that it had made efforts to supply
food and other essential items to those affected.

"The government will end the conflict through a political settlement.
After liberating the eastern region from the LTTE, the Government
conducted elections and have made a Tamil as the Chief Ministers.
Likewise, due representation will be given to people in north also,"
he told reporters on the sidelines of a function here.

"We will settle the (ethnic) issue after finishing terrorists,"
Nawinna said.

His comments assume significance as India has been insisting that Sri
Lanka should address the ethnic issue through a political settlement
as there could be no military solution to the problem.

India has voiced concern over the humanitarian situation in Sri Lanka
and has asked Colombo to ensure that the rights of Tamils in the
island nation do not get "enmeshed" in the hostilities and that their
safety is not compromised.

Basil will be coming here next week to discuss the issue with the
Indian leadership.

Rs 7.35 crore fraud: Two accused of duping IA sent to PC

Four office bearers, including chairperson of a private firm, accused
of duping state-owned Indian Airlines of Rs 7.35 crore by not
remitting sale proceeds of air-tickets, have been remanded to two days
of police custody by a Delhi court.

"The recovery has to be effected at the instance of the accused.
Therefore, two days of police custody is granted," Metropolitan
Magistrate Satish Kumar said, allowing Delhi Police plea that their
custodial interrogation was needed to ascertain the money trail.
Sanjeev Khanna, chairman of Delhi-based M/s Rao Tours and Travels
Private Ltd, woman accused Swatanter, director of the firm, Jyotika
Khanna and Satish were arrested following the complaint of Indian
Airlines that they did not remit the sale proceeds of the tickets in
the tune of Rs 7.35 crore with it.

Indian Airlines had on July 13, 2000 appointed the firm its authorised
dealer for selling the tickets, said the complaint lodged by Tilak
Raj, Manager (finance) of the Airlines.

The private firm, however, did not remit sale proceeds of the air
tickets, distributed during August-September, 2006, and a cheque,
issued to the company, also bounced, it alleged.

Later, an FIR on May six last year was lodged against the firm and its
officials under various provisions of the IPC, dealing with fraud,
breach of trust and misappropriation of public money.

The police, seeking their custodial interrogation, said the money and
various documents have to be recovered at the instance of the
accused.

No third alternative before LS polls: Bardhan

Dismissing the possibility of a third front emerging at the national
level before the Lok Sabha polls, CPI leader A.B. Bardhan on Tuesday
said the Left will instead have state-specific alliances to fight the
BJP and the Congress.

"There is no question of an all-India front coming up before the
elections. The third alternative is a perspective to be materialised
through struggles," the CPI general secretary told reporters here.

On the chances of projecting Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati as
the prime ministerial candidate of the anti-Congress and anti-BJP
axis, he said his personal opinion was that she would be a better
candidate.

"I have only said there are several aspirants, and according to me,
she is better than others," he said. Voicing concern over the communal
polarisation taking place in many parts of country resulting in the
alienation of minorities, Bardhan said it was regrettable that the
Centre has not responded to the demand for a judicial probe into the
Jamia Nagar encounter in Delhi.

It has become all the more necessary to have a probe into the Jamia
Nagar incident as so many doubts have been raised and so many
questions asked about it, he said. Resenting the tendency to equate
the entire Muslim community with terrorism, he said "What sort of
national unity could be there if 18 crore Muslims are alienated." On
the attack on Christians in Orissa, he said the Centre has failed to
exercise the constitutional powers and create a sense of security
among those under attack "from forces like the Bajrang Dal".


India is fastest growing market for Bell Helicopter

After taking 52 years to sell its first 100 choppers in India, Bell
Helicopter expects to sell its next 100 in less than five years as the
country has emerged as an important market for the US company, a top
official said.

"India is our fastest growing market in the whole world," said Bell's
director of communications Greg Hubbard, who was here for the civil
aviation show last week.

"When we started our India office in 1995 we had only four percent of
the market share; today we enjoy 52 percent market share," Hubbard
told IANS.

Bell sold its first helicopter in India in 1956 and delivered its
100th commercial aircraft to leading Indian infrastructure company
Abir Infrastructure during the air show here.

"We have sold 17 helicopters in India this year, we expect to sell 22
next year and we expect to sell our next 100th one within five years,"
Hubbard said.

"In India our growth rate is 15-17 percent while it is less than five
percent in the US or Europe. Russia and Brazil are also growing fast,
but the growth rate is lower than that in India," he said.

According to the Bell executive, the global downturn has not affected
its India operations; nor does the company expect it to do so in the
future. "Unlike fixed wing aircraft, helicopters are utility vehicles
and demand will always be there."

Bell Helicopter, which is a subsidiary of Texas-based $13.2 billion
multi-industry company Textron Inc, is also excited about supplying
military helicopters to India.

"We will bid for the Indian Army's 197 reconnaissance and surveillance
helicopter programme by end of December and we are hopeful of bagging
a large contract."

Giving details of the Bell429 model that it unveiled at the air show,
Hubbard said the company had adopted a unique approach while
developing the model.

"We formed a panel of customers and asked them what features they
wanted and during the designing process they participated in working
out the trade-offs between various features," he said.

"As a result, we ended up developing a very flexible model that can be
easily customized. For example, it has a completely flat floor that
helps in customizing to meet specific needs of customers," he said.

The helicopter has a glass cockpit and digital controls designed to
meet the latest safety requirements and is very quiet, he said.

Talking about training institutes and maintenance, repair and overhaul
(MRO) centres that Bell is planning to set up in India, Hubbard said:
"We hope to select our Indian partners by early next year."



Sena targets Lalu, takes credit for disrupting Rly exams

Keen to reinforce its pro-Marathi agenda in the face of aggressive
stand on the issue by MNS chief Raj Thackeray who is hogging
limelight, the Shiv Sena on Wednesday sought to take credit for
thwarting the scheduled Railway exams in Mumbai, saying they were
arranged "exclusively" for Biharis.
An editorial in the party mouthpiece 'Saamana', which flayed Railway
Minister Lalu Prasad for his "anti-Maharashtrian" stand in recruitment
in Railways, played down the role of MNS in jolting the exam. It said
the recruitment of "bhaiyyas" was stopped by Shiv Sainiks who agitated
at the exam centres in Mumbai.

MNS workers too arrived waving their flags but it was the valour of
Shiv Sainiks that finally clinched the issue leading to cancellation
of the exams, the editorial claimed.

In a departure from its earlier assertion that Shiv Sainiks too had
bashed up the candidates from north India at railway stations in the
metropolis on October 19, the paper said the MNS workers were
responsible for the attack on Biharis asleep on railway platforms.

It also carried a statement by Sena Executive President Uddhav
Thackeray saying that the Sainiks would never resort to a cowardly
attack on people in their sleep.

Lambasting the Railway Minister, Saamana said, "The Railway Board
exams for recruitment covered only the Yadavs coming from Bihar and
nobody from other states, including Uttar Pradesh."


Nun rape case: No CBI inquiry says SC, archbishop disappointed

The Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to hand over to CBI the
investigation into the alleged rape of a nun during the on-going
communal violence in Orissa.
"At this stage we do not think that handing over the investigation
into the case from the state police to the CBI is in the interest of
the victim as well as in the interest of justice. We think that the
victim will cooperate with the state police," a Bench headed by Chief
Justice K G Balakrishnan said.

The Bench noted that the victim has left the area and was refusing to
participate in the Test Identification Parade (TIP), though nine
persons have been arrested in connection with the alleged rape.

On the issue of compensation for damage caused to churches during the
communal riots, the Bench asked the Orissa Government to assess the
damage and assist in re-building them.

The apex Court said that proceedings in cases arising out of the
violence will have to be conducted by setting up fast track courts.

Further, the Bench said that the central para-military forces provided
to the state government for maintaining law and order in riot-hit area
will remain there till December-end in view of the upcoming festival
of Christmas.

The Archbishop of Cuttack had in a petition sought Rs hree crore
compensation for demolition of Churches in the anti-Christian riots,
while seeking a CBI inquiry into attacks on Christians.

He alleged that Orissa government was not taking steps o arrest the
culprits who allegedly raped and paraded the nun naked on August 25.


I am disappointed over SC judgement: Archbishop




Noting that he was ‘disappointed’ over the Supreme Court declining to
hand over the nun rape case to CBI, the Archbishop of Cuttack-
Bhubaneswar on Wednesday said they were not interested in filing a
review petition in the apex court.

"I am disappointed. I was expecting more from the Supreme Court,"
Archbishop Raphael Cheenath said, adding he would hold talks with the
community leaders before taking any further action.

Cheenath, who had filed the petition in the Supreme Court, seeking a
direction to the state government to hand over the case to the CBI,
said that the court should take a harassed woman's statement into
consideration.

The Archbishop said he approached the apex court seeking a CBI probe
after the victim expressed her ‘no trust’ on the Orissa police. "How
can the woman face the same police which turned mere witness to her
being assaulted and raped," Cheenath said.

Asked what would be the community's next course of action, the
Archbishop said that he would like to speak to the nun before saying
something.

Declining to reveal whereabouts of the nun, the Archbishop said he
would try to speak to her over phone.

Though he was a petitioner, Cheenath said he was yet to receive a copy
of the judgement. "I will go through the wording of the judgement copy
before giving further statement on the matter," he said.

On the court's advice to the state government to help in re-building
damaged churches, Cheenath said he was expecting positive action from
the state government.

Earlier, Cheenath had claimed that nearly 200 churches and prayer
houses were damaged during violence.


Book Raj for murder, demand RJD, LJP, BJP

Slamming the Congress government in Maharashtra for ‘failing’ to
protect north Indians from attacks by MNS men, UPA constituents RJD
and LJP and Opposition BJP on Wednesday demanded booking Raj Thackeray
for murder after the death of a youth in violence.
LJP chief and Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said the Maharashtra
government has booked MNS chief Thackeray under bailable sections of
the IPC.

"You release him tomorrow and he will indulge in same activities...he
should be booked under section 302 (murder) of the IPC as a candidate
(for the railway board exam) injured in Maharashtra violence has
died," Paswan told reporters before Lok Sabha met for the day.

He also demanded job in Railways on compassionate grounds for the kin
of the victim. "The LJP will provide Rs one lakh to the family of the
deceased," said Paswan.

BJP leader Shahnawaz Hussain dubbed Raj as a ‘murderer’ and demanded
that he be booked under Section 302 of IPC.

Describing Raj as a ‘danger for national unity’, Hussain said the
treatment meted out to north Indians in Maharashtra is something done
‘not even in Pakistan’.

Taking potshots at RJD over the violence in Maharashtra, the BJP
leader said the RJD should withdraw support to the UPA government at
the Centre.

After the Lok Sabha was adjourned following an uproar over the issue,
RJD member Ram Kripal Yadav told reporters that violence was
continuing in Maharashtra.

"Taxi drivers, shop-keepers of north Indian origin are

being targeted...Raj Thackeray be booked under section 302 of IPC or
we continue with our agitation," he said.

He claimed the Centre and Maharashtra governments failed to take
action which helped Raj become a ‘hero’.

"The Centre should use provisions under Article 355 or 356 to curb
violence and instil a sense of confidence in people," he added.

LJP member Ramchandra Paswan claimed the Bihar government also
maintained a silence when north Indians were being targeted and said
it too should be dismissed.

Airlines can repay fuel dues in 6 instalments

Indian carriers troubled by a financial crunch on Wednesday got time
until March 2009 to clear their dues, estimated at about Rs
2,500-2,800 crore, to oil companies in equated monthly installments.
The decision was taken at a meeting called by Petroleum Minister Murli
Deora with airline bosses and Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel to
work out ways to help airlines stay afloat without hurting the
interests of oil firms.

Patel said that it was decided that oil companies would extend the
credit period on jet fuel purchase to 90 days from 60 now (applicable
till March 2009), as also allow airlines to clear dues in EMIs by
March 2009.

Kingfisher Airlines Chairman and CEO Vijay Mallya, Jet Airways
Executive Director S K Dutta and Air India Chairman Raghu Menon were
among those who attended the meeting.

The meeting was necessitated as some airlines, including Jet, have
defaulted on payments at the end of their 60-day credit period on
Aviation Turbine Fuel purchase.

Representatives from state-run oil firms Indian Oil Corp, Bharat
Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum and Finance Ministry officials also
attended the meeting.

Why target us for being pro-Maratha, look at DMK: Sena
Defending its stir to facilitate jobs for Marathi people in the
Railways, the Shiv Sena on Wednesday cited the example of political
parties in Tamil Nadu, including the ruling DMK, that were exerting
pressure on the UPA Government to protect the interests of Tamilians
in Sri Lanka.
"The DMK has even threatened to withdraw its support to UPA at Centre
if the government failed to curb the anti-LTTE offensive launched by
Sri Lankan military," an editorial in 'Saamana', the Sena mouthpiece,
commented. "These political parties are so sensitive to the Tamilian
interests even outside India and Shiv Sena is being condemned for
supporting jobs of Marathis in Maharashtra with the labeling of
regionalism," the editorial in the paper, edited by party chief Bal
Thackeray, said.

The editorial said just to mention a few, Maharashtra had given to the
nation illustrious sons like Babasaheb Ambedkar, C D Deshmukh (who
resigned from the Nehru Cabinet on the issue of Samyukta Maharashtra)
and Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anil Kakodkar.

"But the rulers in Delhi always handed a raw deal to Maharashtra and
expected it catapult before it. The Shiv Sena will never tolerate this
situation and will always support Marathis in their fight for
justice," it said.

Reliance Communication launches ‘Free laptop offer with unlimited net
surfing’
Reliance Communications, part of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, has
entered into a strategic alliance with five computer hardware
suppliers, to offer free laptops with internet connectivity to
customers.

The computer companies are Intel Corp, Acer, Asus, HCL Infosystems and
Lenovo.

The company claims that, the latest introduced scheme will enable
customers to get free laptops powered by Intel's 'Atom' with high-
speed internet data card service of Reliance.

However, under the scheme, customer has to pay monthly installment of
Rs 1,500 for two years duration.

Reliance Communication is Country 's leading wireless internet service
provider with over 10 lakh customers and access to 20,000 towns and
4.5 lakh villages in the country.

Spice S-580 Music Phone Launched in India

Spice Mobiles has announced the availability of its latest smart and
slim musical handset, dubbed the Spice S-580, in the Indian market.


Seven PSU banks to be recapitalised: FM

Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Wednesday said that seven PSU banks
having a capital adequacy ratio of below 10% would be recapitalised.


Chidambaram said the fundamentals of the Indian economy are strong and
assured the Rajya Sabha that policy rates can be revisited if
inflation continues to moderate.

Replying to a discussion on supplementary demands for grants in the
Rajya Sabha, finance minister said, "We have taken pre-emptive
measures (to deal with the global crisis) and we are drawing upon the
inherent strength of our economy. We will overcome the crisis."

Referring to the measures taken by the Reserve Bank to manage the
crisis, Chidambaram said, "CRR has been reduced by 250 basis points
and repo rate has been reduced by 100 basis points... We are watching
the situation. If the liquidity situation remains benign, there is no
reason to infuse further liquidity and if inflation continues to
moderate, we can again revisit these rates."

Parliament on Wednesday approved the supplementary demands for grants
with the Rajya Sabha returning the Bill. The supplementary demands
were earlier approved by the Lok Sabha.

The supplementary demands envisage an additional expenditure of Rs
2,37,385 crore, which include Rs 15,000 crore for payments to banks
towards farmers debt relief fund.

On Tuesday, Chidambaram held a meeting with senior bankers in the
backdrop of easing liquidity situation following a slew of measures
taken by both RBI and the government.

"The meeting reviewed situation in the light of easing liquidity
situation," Punjab National Bank Chairman and Managing Director K C
Chakrabarty said.

Credit delivery to productive sector was also discussed during the
meeting, he said.

The meeting was also attended by State Bank of India Chairman O P
Bhatt and Indian Banks Association and Bank of India Chairman T S
Narayanaswami.


Indian shares drop 4.8 pct; Reliance, ICICI lead
Wed Oct 22, 2008 5:23pm IST Email | Print | Share| Single Page[-]
Text [+] * Shares fall 4.8 pct on global recession fears

* Disappointing Wipro earnings drags down software stocks

* Resources shares slump on worries of falling demand (Updates to
close)

By Devidutta Tripathy

NEW DELHI, Oct 22 (Reuters) - Indian shares fell 4.81 percent on
Wednesday in a broad sell-off, erasing the previous session's gains as
recession fears hammered international equity markets and helping
knock the rupee to a record low against the dollar.

Reliance Industries (RELI.BO: Quote, Profile, Research), India's most
valuable firm which is due to report quarterly results on Thursday,
fell 5.8 percent, and top private-sector bank ICICI Bank (ICBK.BO:
Quote, Profile, Research) lost 8 percent.

These two stocks, which account for more than fifth of the main index,
contributed most to the fall.

Disappointing quarterly results from No. 3 software-services exporter
Wipro Ltd (WIPR.BO: Quote, Profile, Research) and a muted outlook on
worsening economic conditions triggered selling of other outsourcers.

"Global cues, selling pressure from foreign institutional investors
are hitting the markets," said D.D. Sharma, vice president at Anand
Rathi Securities in Mumbai.

Asia, EU wrestle crisis in messy diplomatic dance
Wed Oct 22, 2008 9:58am IST Email | Print | Share| Single Page[-]
Text [+]
1 of 1Full SizeBy Chris Buckley

BEIJING (Reuters) - Dozens of Asian and European leaders representing
half the global economy gather this week confronting a world financial
crisis but their talks are more likely to cloak differences than
galvanise action.

At the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) opening on Friday, the 27 EU member
states and the European Commission will trade views with Japan, China
and India and 13 other Asian countries on the global downturn, climate
change and international security.

Beijing, this year's host, has stressed the value of the biennial
leaders' meeting in joining two regions that account for two thirds of
world trade and 60 percent of global output.

"If everyone doesn't meet like this, then it's much easier for
misunderstandings to arise," said Zhou Hong, an expert on relations
with Europe at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

"Europe is fairly united on many issues, of course, but Asia is much
more disparate, so achieving consensus among all 45 members is never
easy. But we do need it now."

The meetings make no binding decisions, and Prime Minister Gordon
Brown, whose bailout of the British banking system swiftly became a
model for the United States and many EU countries, will not attend.

Yet even a symbolic flourish of unity may help as governments seek to
steady themselves in the financial turmoil: the two-day meeting will
issue a closing statement likely to stress a shared purpose in the
face of financial meltdown and economic slowdown.

"The main thing is to come out with strong united messages conveying
confidence -- confidence that, yes, we can improve the international
financial system," France's ambassador to Beijing, Herve Ladsous,
speaking last week, said of the ASEM meeting.

surprise rate cut
Tue Oct 21, 2008 10:52pm IST Email | Print | Share| Single Page[-]
Text [+]
1 of 1Full SizeBy Surojit Gupta

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Shoring up India against a global recession has
overtaken taming double-digit inflation as the government's prime
economic goal, officials said on Tuesday.

Soon after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) slashed its key lending
rate by 100 basis points on Monday, just four days before a scheduled
review of monetary policy, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the
country should brace for slower economic growth, but stressed the
economy and banking system were safe.

"There was in some sense unjustified nervousness about the impact of
the recession in advanced countries on the Indian economy," said
Suresh Tendulkar, chairman of prime minister's Economic Advisory
Council.

"It is precisely to dispel this nervousness that the prime minister
made his speech, and I think the Reserve Bank of India cut the repo
rate to keep the India growth story going."
Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said on Tuesday that
financial stability would be a focus with growth and inflation as
India faced the indirect impact of the global crisis.

"At this moment we must stimulate the economy. The steps that we have
taken on the CRR (cash reserve ratio) and the repo rate are intended
to stimulate the economy," he told parliament.

"Meanwhile we continue to pay attention to inflation. I concede
inflation is still high."

Like elsewhere around the world, Indians have been bombarded with
headlines of global market turmoil and forecasts of slowing growth and
job losses, and sentiment has been undermined



Chandrayaan: ‘It was a perfect launch’

K Sreedevi at Sriharikota | Wednesday, 22 October , 2008, 18:15
http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14782731


The rains are not a taboo anymore at Sriharikota (SHAR).

Moments before the launch of India's first unmanned moon mission,
Chandrayaan -I, at 6.22 am on October 22, 2008, there were prayers to
the rain gods to rein in their fury.

However, the incessant showers around 9 a.m. in the area was a matter
of cheer.

The relaxed and jubilant group of ISRO scientists actually did not
even mind getting drenched in the drizzle. For it was celebration time
after an "on the dot" launch of India's first lunar mission worth
about Rs 360 crore. The copy-book launch of Chandrayaan into orbit by
PSLV-C11 was a matter of pride for all.

"It is a remarkable performance by the launch vehicle," beamed ISRO
chairman Madhavan Nair. "It is a perfect launch. What we have started
is a remarkable journey for the Indian spacecraft to go to the moon
and try to unravel the mysteries of the moon".

Chandrayaan –I launched successfully

Exactly seven years ago, on the same date (October 22, 2001), ISRO
scientists had successfully and proudly launched a Polar Satellite
Launch Vehicle (PSLV C3) carrying three satellites - one Indian and
two foreign.

Today, on the day of PSLV’s 14th flight, however, the pride was
greater on achieving the "perfect" launch "against all odds".

"We have been fighting against all odds," said Nair, admitting that
the heavy rains and cloudy skies over the last four days had led to a
lot of worries about the launch.

There were moments of apprehension until as late as the penultimate
day of the launch (October 21). But the tiresome team refused to let
even nature come in the way of its 27th launch exercise. “What we
faced in the last five days is nearly an ordeal. We were looking for
breaks in between rains to carry out preparation. We had lost all
hopes for the launch yesterday,“ Nair said.

But his special prayers to Chengamma Devi at Sulurpet on Monday
evening and ISRO team’s offering to Lord Balaji at Tirumala Tirupati
last week seem to have paid off.

"Fortunately, we had clear skies today and we would be completing the
remaining part of the journey within 15 days," Nair said heaving a
sigh of relief.

"It was a coincidence of events working against all odds. The launch
was perfect and precise. The satellite has been placed in the earth
orbit. With this, we have completed the first leg of the mission and
it will take 15 days to reach the lunar orbit."

Special: Destination Moon

After some more procedures, Chandrayaan's orbit would be finally
lowered to its intended 100 km height from the lunar surface around
November 8.

"Injecting the spacecraft into the lunar trajectory is another key
aspect of the mission and we are looking forward to it," Nair said.

Unveiling future plans of the research organization, the ISRO chief
said his team was looking at moving from moon mission to a manned
mission and was gearing itself up to send GSLV spaceships with two
humans before 2015.

Work on the RS 12,000-crore Chandrayaan-II, with the same set of
scientists, had already begun and the focus would be on a soft landing
on the moon, he said.

Inside Chandrayaan-1

Re-useable launch systems were also at a conceptual stage and would
materialize in 2020, Nair said.

Despite such elaborate plans, ISRO was working only on a shoe-string
budget of S1 billion on projects, compared to the $20 billion spent on
the same project by its US counterpart, NASA, Nair claimed.

With Chandrayaan, India joins the elite space club comprising the US,
Russia, European Space Agency, China and Japan by demonstrating its
capability to explore the moon with its own spacecraft and launch
vehicle.

From the launch of a US-made Nike-Apache Sounding Rocket from Thumba,
near Thiruvananthapuram, on November 21, 1963, which marked India’s
foray into space, we have come a long way.







Yahoo to axe 1,500 jobs on weak ad revenue
Font Size -A +A
Reuters
Posted: Oct 22, 2008 at 0918 hrs IST

San Francisco, October 22: Yahoo Inc posted a sharply lower quarterly
profit on nearly flat sales, but its shares rose 8 per cent on the
Internet media company's plan to cut at least 10 per cent of its work
force to save costs.
Yahoo, the leading provider of online display advertising, said on
Tuesday it planned to cut at least another 10 per cent of its roughly
15,000-strong global work force, and reduce its expense-run rate by
around $400 million by the end of 2008.

The planned job cuts of more than 1,500 employees expand an earlier
cut of roughly 1,000 jobs, or 7 per cent, that Yahoo made in February.
Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen said Yahoo was prepared to
further cut jobs and other expenses in 2009 if the economy continues
to deteriorate.

Yahoo is cutting its work force in high-cost markets and hiring
aggressively in lower-cost locales such as Eastern Europe, India and
Southeast Asia.

"The stock is up," Cowen & Co analyst Jim Friedland said. "It's not up
on better-than-expected results. It's up on a lack of a complete
meltdown in the business," he said.

The Silicon Valley-based Web pioneer said net income for the third
quarter tumbled to $54.3 million, or 4 cents per diluted share, from
$151 million, or 11 cents per diluted share.

Gross revenue, including payments to affiliated websites that carry
Yahoo ads, edged up 1 per cent to $1.79 billion. Net revenue was
$1.325 billion, compared with the average Wall Street estimate of
$1.37 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.

Wall Street was looking for a profit, on average, of 8 cents per
share, according to Reuters Estimates. Net revenue forecasts had
ranged from $1.29 billion to $1.43 billion, the same data showed.

Yahoo President Susan Decker said the company struggled as corporate
brand advertisers scaled back spending on Web marketing promotions,
not only in the United States but also across Europe and Asia.
Marketers in the travel and retail industries have been canceling some
contracts, she said.

"We are still seeing a weakening trend in some Asian markets," Decker
said.

Yahoo co-founder and Chief Executive Jerry Yang put a brave face on
the situation, saying that while its premium display advertising
business was declining, Yahoo appeared to be gaining market share as
buyers consolidated their spending.

"I am encouraged that most advertisers who are still spending in this
environment are spending with Yahoo," Yang said.

GLOOMY OUTLOOK, NARROWING OPTIONS

Yahoo forecast fourth-quarter gross revenue at between $1.773 billion
and $1.973 billion. That represents a decline of 3 per cent to a
modest growth of 8 per cent from the year-earlier quarter's $1.83
billion.

"I had been predicting they would reduce their guidance for (the
fourth quarter) but they really whacked it," said Martin Pyykkonen, an
analyst with Wunderlich Securities.

"It had been in the mid-teens, now it's just barely over 2 per cent
for revenue growth in the fourth quarter, normally a seasonally strong
one," he said, referring to the midpoint of the per centage growth
Yahoo has forecast.

Shares of Yahoo gained 7.7 per cent to $13 in extended trade on the
results, after closing 6.1 per cent lower at $12.07 on Nasdaq. But
despite the rebound, the stock remains at 5-year lows as hopes earlier
this year that Microsoft might acquire Yahoo for $33 or more per share
have dissipated for now.

Free cash flow fell to $215 million from $231 million in the 2008
second quarter and $310 million in the year-earlier quarter.

Analysts said that while the latest downturn in Yahoo's business has
forced the Sunnyvale, California-based company to make sweeping
cutbacks, these cuts are likely to further damage its competitiveness
with Internet market leader Google.

"They don't have much of a choice, but it's likely to hurt Yahoo's
longer-term growth," Friedland said.

Excluding one-time items such as the costs of fending off a proxy
campaign by Carl Icahn to force Yahoo back into talks with Microsoft
Corp on a possible merger, quarterly profit rose to $123 million, or 9
cents a diluted share.

For the September quarter, the company said it ran up $36 million in
merger, consulting and legal costs related to its on-again, off-again
talks with Microsoft, an aborted proxy fight with activist investor
Carl Icahn, and its bid to win regulatory approval for an ad sales
deal with Google Inc.

Icahn subsequently joined the Yahoo board.

Yahoo and Google recently agreed to delay their advertising deal amid
competitive concerns by the US Justice Department but Yang.



Once Chandrayaan goes near the moon, we will be there to track it’


The 32-metre antenna in Bangalore will allow us to collect the signals
from Chandrayaan about 4,00,000 km away both in terms of satellite
control capability and the science data coming from the various
onboard experiments.


After its expected launch on Tuesday morning, Chandrayaan-1, the
Indian lunar orbiter, will be injected into its first orbit around the
earth in just 17 minutes. During its subsequent course to the final
orbit around the moon, and during the orbiter’s lifetime of two years,
a critical element of the mission will be the constant communication
link from the ground to the satellite for tracking it as well as for
its orbit control and house-keeping — the Telemetry, Tracking and
Command (TTC) operations — and receiving data from the 11 onboard
experiments.

Missions that go beyond a distance of 1,00,000 km from the Earth are
usually termed as deep space missions and Chandrayaan-1 is the first
such for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). For deep space
missions, ISRO has established an impressive communications
infrastructure called the Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) at Byalalu,
a village located about 45 km from Bangalore, as part of the ISRO
Telemetry Tracking and Command (ISTRAC) system. Comprising a massive
indigenously built 32-m antenna and a German 18-m antenna, the IDSN
will be the centre of activity for the entire duration of the
mission.

Excerpts from an interview of ISTRAC Director S.K. Shiva Kumar with
Science Correspondent R. Ramachandran:

Dr. Shiva Kumar, what are the critical issues involved in telemetry,
tracking and communications in general associated with deep space
missions?


When we talk of satellites in near earth orbit, we mean about 1,000 km
altitude or more, or near earth space of about 2,000-2,500 km in range
from the Earth’s surface. But when we say deep space mission, we mean
lakhs of kilometres. For example, when we talk of the Moon mission, it
means that the distance is not less than the Earth-Moon distance,
which is about 4,00,000 km. Internationally, there is a way of
categorising deep space and near earth, but a common way of defining
would be the moon distance and beyond.

In deep space missions, as the space probe moves farther away from the
Earth, the strength of the signals from it become weaker and weaker.
The real challenge is to catch those weak signals. Mathematically,
from antenna theory, we know that we have to put up larger and larger
dishes. ISTRAC has so far been involved with smaller dimension 10-11-
metre diameter dishes. But now for a deep space mission, it jumps to
something like 32 m. To make such an antenna, especially through the
indigenous industry, was a big challenge for us. We looked at
[systems] the world over and found that the nominally working deep
space antenna you get to see is 30m-plus. We decided to make a 32-m
antenna in Bangalore, which would give us the strength to talk to our
satellite from our own soil and also to collect the signals from
Chandrayaan about 4,00,000 km away both in terms of satellite control
capability and the science data coming from the various onboard
experiments.

But wisely this DSN-32 has not been done only for the Chandrayaan
mission but for all deep space missions to come in the future. It puts
us in the category of deep space antennae found anywhere else in the
world. That is the whole essence of building an Indian Deep Space
Network facility. Starting with Chandrayaan we are pretty sure that we
can track any other object deeper than this. If we are doing a Mars
mission we do not have to worry at that point of time whether we have
to build some more things. We have built a world standard facility
that meets all the international standards. That means it can track
any other [deep space] object. Simply stated, it is state-of-the-art
interoperable and cross-support compatible facility that meets the
Indian requirements with good margins and also the requirements of any
other space agency.

For deep space applications, when we say that we are capable of
receiving signals of weaker strengths with this antenna, we should
similarly be able to pump fairly strong signals to the satellite for
commanding the spacecraft. Once the diameter of the dish is increased,
that is very easily done with higher power amplifiers. About 2 kW was
our normal usage. This time we have put up a 20 kW high power
amplifier. That much power with a big dish is enough for the satellite
to receive and execute the command functions. This is another world
standard that has been met by IDSN. This antenna will also be capable
of doing what is called the two-way ranging required for determining
the position of the spacecraft. In addition, we have put up a
reception facility for the science experiments [next to the antennae
at Byalalu].
All the data will be sent to the spacecraft control centre [of ISTRAC]
and the science data will be sent from this facility to the Space
Science Data Centre (SSDC). The science data received here can then be
sent to different processing systems for producing the various data
products. All this needed a lot of critical technologies to be done
and everything had to be done through the Indian industry.
In terms of the amount of data that you would be receiving, what would
be the bandwidth requirements? Could you give a comparison with what
you handle in LEO missions?

Of course, in deep space everything is [at] a premium. Actually, IRS
satellites, which are in 700-900-km orbit, produce much more data than
what Chandrayaan will produce. For the imagery that you collect with 1-
m and 5-m resolutions, that data is quite voluminous. But we are
[already] in the higher level of data transmission from Chandrayaan.
We will be transmitting data at 8.4 Mbps, whereas many people are
doing it at much lower rates. Just for comparison, IRS satellites
transmit at 100 Mbps data rate. Since we have handled high bit-rate
data links, there is no issue in handling these lower bit-rates. For
Chandrayaan, since the incoming data is at 8.4 Mbps, we have organised
ourselves well for transmitting the data. The data we receive from
Chandrayaan at our SSDC will be redistributed [for which] we have put
up really high-speed dedicated links [up to 16 Mbps depending upon the
experiment and the location]. In addition to that, since some people
did not want dedicated links because they wanted [their data] to be in
the public domain, we have put up a high-speed internet link of 16
Mbps. These are all, I would say, first in our domain. ISTRAC has
never handled so many high-speed links.
How will the operations be sequenced? Will it be that the normal
ISTRAC network would track up to 1,00,000 km and then switch over to
DSN?

That’s rightly perceived. Actually, the satellite will be first put
into an orbit with an apogee of 22,800 km. This is quite close to
Earth. Since ISTRAC has a fairly big network, all our stations
commonly used in our IRS missions will be deployed. None of these
stations has a big antenna but they are good enough for tracking up to
1,00,000 km without any problem. Once we cross the 1,00,000-km
barrier, the big antenna will come in. Notwithstanding this [nominal
procedure], since we are deploying the big antenna for the first time,
we cannot be waiting till 1,00,000 km. So, for most part of the
trajectory we will be tracking it with both DSN-18 and DSN-32, even
earlier than 1,00,000 km. But beyond 1,00,000 km, we will be doing
specifically by the mission-assured IDSN.
Are there any issues with regard to calibration that you need to do
before you start your operations?

First, there are the standard test and evaluation procedures that we
have in ISTRAC. Then we have tracked some of the LEO satellites like
Cartosat and IRS-P4/Oceansat with the big antenna. But, of course,
this does not satisfy anybody because you have to track something
nearer to moon. Very recently, we have started tracking SELENE, the
Japanese lunar orbiting satellite [launched in September 2007], thanks
to cooperation from JAXA [the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency]. We
have been able to track the satellite continuously with this antenna.
That has given us ample confidence to say ‘Yes. Once Chandrayaan goes
near the moon, we will be there to track it.’ To that extent, our
comfort level is quite high because if you have tracked a similar
object that is closer to moon and you have been able to establish
links with good margins and all that, we don’t have to speak much
about our ability to do [the same] with Chandrayaan. In addition, we
are planning to track another deep space [cometary] probe ROSETTA
[launched in 2004]. This was another opportunity that was created
thanks to the European Space Agency.
That is one part of it. We have also tracked radio stars, which are
quite good in S-band and X-band [the frequencies that will be used for
TTC operations and science experiments respectively], like Cygnus,
Cassiopeia, as well as Sun and Moon. This has given us ample
experience in terms of pointing the beam on such a far off object, a
major thing in my opinion. It also gives us ample scope for
measurements because their movements are quite slow and we now know
how to maximise our signals.
What are the critical technologies that had to be developed to
establish this set-up?

The realisation of the entire antenna system itself was a big
challenge because we were doing it for the first time. ISTRAC was
responsible for building this. We chose ECIL [Electronics Corporation
of India Ltd.] as the prime contractor who had the primary
responsibility for the reflector and the mount of the antenna. In turn
we worked with ECIL very closely. Along with that we chose BARC for
antenna control servo system, the major subsystem. The RF design was
entrusted to the ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC). ISTRAC and ISAC
together developed the feed system. These three are the heart of the
whole system and these four agencies constituted the core team for
executing the project. But that is not all because many subsystems had
to be realised. So we went around scouting different industries in the
country. We could identify sources with good capability within the
country — L&T, Godrej & Boyce, SLN Technologies in Bangalore, HAL and
many others. I think we had interface with 40 industries to do this
work.
http://www.hindu.com/2008/10/22/stories/2008102255641100.htm

RPF had warned Maha police about attack
Font Size -A +A
Raghvendra Rao
Posted: Oct 22, 2008 at 1021 hrs IST
New Delhi, October 21: On at least three occasions in the run-up to
the Railway Recruitment Board's examination on October 19, where
candidates from North India were attacked by Maharashtra Navnirman
Sena (MNS) activists, the Railway Protection Force (RPF) Headquarters
in New Delhi had informed the Maharashtra Police that it was
anticipating trouble at many of the examination centres and wanted the
local police to beef-up security.
In one of its communications to Navi Mumbai Police Commissioner Ramrao
Wagh, the RPF had expressed concern over "certain local political
activists and hoodlums" who could target applicants from outside
Maharashtra and had demanded that sufficient police strength be made
available to guard the exam centres.
The October 19 written exam was conducted to fill up 518 posts in the
categories of enquiry-cum-reservation clerks, goods guards and
assistant station masters. Out of the 2.29 lakh applicants, only
26,000-odd could appear for the exam following the violence
perpetrated by MNS workers. The first missive was sent on October 3
wherein the RPF informed the state police about the examination giving
out a list of all the examination centres. "We told the Maharashtra
Police that a similar problem had taken place during railway exams in
2006 and that ample force was to be deployed at the 144 exam centres
in Mumbai," a top RPF official told The Indian Express. This
communication was then followed up with two more letters, the first
one sent on October 9 and the second on October 16 when RPF officials,
both at the headquarter and state level underlined the “possibility of
a disruption”.
RPF officials also said that the stone-pelting on applicants in Thane
on October 19 were recorded on camera by the MNS workers who later
sent the video footage to all the news channels.
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/RPF-had-warned-Maha-police-about-attack/376266/
Lenders see recession through 2009
Font Size -A +A
Reuters
San Francisco, October 22: The US economy is currently in a recession
that will not end until the middle of next year when a slow recovery
begins, the Mortgage Bankers Association said on Tuesday.
"A recession appears to be under way, as evidenced in rising
unemployment, contracting manufacturing activity and declining
inflation-adjusted consumption spending," said Jay Brinkmann, the
trade group's chief economist, at the group's annual convention.
Unemployment will climb to 7.8 per cent by early 2010 before
declining, the MBA said.
The housing sector will see more pain ahead, Brinkmann said, with the
worst downturn in new home sales and construction yet to come.
New, single-family home sales will hit bottom in the middle of next
year, falling to an annual rate of 413,000, Brinkmann predicted. The
pace of those sales hit 460,000 in August.
The low point for the existing-homes market was set in mid-2008 when
sales hit a 4.91 million unit rate, the MBA said.
The bottom of the home building market will be reached next summer
when total housing starts set a 800,000 annual pace, Brinkmann said at
the trade group's annual meeting in San Francisco.
September home starts set a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 817,000
units, their slowest pace since January 1991.
But Brinkmann also said he expects the foreclosure rate to be higher a
year from now.
"My expectation is, nationally, we are going to be up," he said.

Action replay: Raj steals a march on stumped Sena
22 Oct 2008, 0323 hrs IST, S Balakrishnan, TNN
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Mumbai/Action_replay_Raj_steals_a_march_on_stumped_Sena/articleshow/3625798.cms
MUMBAI: The Shiv Sena appears to be suffering from political paralysis
with Raj Thackeray emerging as the sole champion of the Marathi
manoos. The Se
na simply did not know what to do as hundreds of Marathi youths
protesting Raj’s arrest were lathi-charged by the police. “If we
condemned the violence against the Marathi youths, then we would be
unwittingly helping Raj’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS). If we kept
quiet then we would be seen as being unsympathetic to the Marathi
cause. We simply do not have a strategy to counter Raj,’’ a Sena
activist conceded on Tuesday.
In the ’70s, the Congress politically propped up a cartoonist, Bal
Keshav Thackeray, who had a visceral hatred for communists. The idea
was to neutralise the reds’ influence as they had a stranglehold over
industries.
Thackeray Sr’s Sena wiped out the communist influence in Mumbai. Now,
history is repeating itself with the Congress and its ally, the NCP,
backing Raj Thackeray with a view to delivering a body blow to the
Shiv Sena. If the near-total bandh in Mumbai and Thane on Wednesday
following the arrest of Raj was any indication, then the Congress-NCP
alliance appears to be succeeding in its cynical gameplan. Another
Thackeray has emerged on the political scene and he is, ironically,
destroying the Sena.
Even though transport services were not substantially affected, most
shops, schools and factories downed shutters when news of Raj’s arrest
in Ratnagiri reached Mumbai. Fear gripped the business community even
though Raj’s MNS does not have the organisational strength like the
Shiv Sena to impose a bandh. Raj’s earlier violent campaigns have
instilled a fear—like the Shiv Sena of the ‘70s—among traders and
educational institutions. They decided to play it safe at the
slightest hint of trouble.
Anil Desai, a confidante of Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray,
claimed that Raj is a creation of the electronic media. “The solid
work put in by the Shiv Sena for the Marathi people over 40 years
cannot be wiped out,’’ he reasoned. But already rumblings are being
felt in the Sena over the failure of the party’s leadership to prevent
Raj from stealing Bal Thackeray’s agenda. “The state is trying to
pulverise our party, but our leaders appear to have no strategy to
checkmate it,’’ a Sena MLA conceded.
Another Sena insider said: “The Sena’s leaders have become big-time
builders, hoteliers and so on, and have thus developed a stake in the
system. How do you expect them to lead street battles? In contrast,
most of Raj’s supporters are jobless youths who have no stake in the
system and are hence willing to start street battles.”

MNS had four VVIP suites at guest house
22 Oct 2008, 0320 hrs IST, Yogesh Naik , TNN

MUMBAI: Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray managed
to get four VVIP suites at the circuit house (government guest house)
in Ratnagi
ri, from where he was picked up early Tuesday morning. The guest house
had been recently renovated.
Thackeray stayed in the Ashwini suite of the guest house with his MLA
Bala Nandgaonkar. A large number of his supporters had also gathered
at the guest house.
Ratnagiri superintendent of police Fatehsingh Patil said that many of
the MNS supporters had collected stones for pelting during the night
as they feared the police might take action against Raj.
A senior IAS officer in Mantralaya has reportedly appraised the Chief
Minister’s Office about the use of the government property by
Thackeray and his supporters.
A Ratnagiri guest-house staffer, Pandurang Padave, said that Raj had
booked four VVIP suites and eight ordinary ones for himself at the
guesthouse. After Raj was eventually arrested, the MNS men left
without paying the Public Works Department, which manages the
facility. It is not known if the bill will be cleared.
Ratnagiri PWD deputy engineer M S Kulkarni said the MNS had informed
the collectorate about his tour 10 days ago. “The collector’s office
had sent us a note to give the guest house. Besides, we can give the
guest house to private parties if there is no demand from government
officers or ministers.’’
But retired IPS officer Y P Singh said that such a large quantity of
rooms is not given to even ministers. “The MNS managed to get a huge
number of rooms and this shows that the administration is at his beck
and call,’’ said Singh.

President’s visit to fetch more Chinese capital

Hafiz sanaullah
http://thepost.com.pk/NatNewsT.aspx?dtlid=188450&catid=2

As the US is losing, China is rapidly gaining influence in the war on
terror's worst hit province - NWFP - and its adjoining tribal areas
bordering Afghanistan. Thanks to the US predator and drone attacks on
the tribal territory of NWFP causing heavy loss of civilian lives.
Why the people in the soil of frontline ally have turned their faces
towards China? Answer is simple. People in the heaven of Taliban
needed energy and food. The Bush's White House has turned its back.
They cried for wheat and ghee (bread and butter) Bush sounded news -
good or bad- of US anti-submarine frigate to Pakistan and that too
over 30 years old.
What China did? Economically depressed Pakistanis cried for help.
China came for the rescue. If anybody doubts he better give
microscopic look into President Asif Ali Zardar's first choice of
official visit to China which made the top American diplomat for South
Asia Richard Boucher apparently apprehensive of the growing influence
of Taliban militants in settled areas of the NWFP, to dash to Peshawar
to probe and search about China's growing influence.
He met NWFP Governor Owais Ahmad Ghani and Chief Minister Amir Haider
Hoti separately, normally the US technique. Chinese commodities are
flooded in the markets of Peshawar and elsewhere in the NWFP and its
adjoining tribal areas. From electronic items to rickshaws and
bicycles and from wristwatches to several other items of daily-use of
common man in both inexpensive and high priced quality is a source of
income for millions of jobless people in the province.
A large number of people dash to China where they have rented flats
for their brief business trips. Swat was the main route for Chinese
goods for transit to down the country. The militancy blocked the
route. Queries are sounded whether it is militancy or an attempt to
block the route for Chinese goods. The murder of some Chinese here and
there in the NWFP is being linked to discourage Chinese in NWFP and
its tribal areas. Naturally there seems to be foreign hands behind all
these tragic incidents.
China proved a friend in need and deserved to be called a friend in
deed at a time while Pakistanis expected wheat, food and energy from
the US. China won over hearts and minds of people of the NWFP and
tribal areas at this critical juncture.
President Zardari is back in Islamabad after his first ever four-day
official visit to China. What he said about his visit is widely
covered by Pakistani and international media. But one aspect of his
keen interest in China depicts from his statement that he will visit
China after every three months. His visit has proved successful and
fruitful as Pakistan and China signed 12 agreements focusing on
enhancing economic and trade cooperation between the two friendly
countries.
The visit is believed to have a positive impact on international
politics, economic uplift, trade relations, commercial pursuits, peace
in the region and the ongoing war on terror.
The significant aspect of the visit is President Zardari made China
the first choice of his official visit which reflects the sentiments
of the people of Pakistan for China people as Zardari put it "he
wanted to develop the political friendship between the two countries
that was already deepened than the sea." President Zardari
particularly mentioned the special relations of Bhutto family
including Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto with Chinese leadership. The
leadership played a pioneering role in promoting and deepening the
bilateral ties that turned into a strategic partnership over the
period. Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao was also of high praise for
Zardari for his visit to China as his first destination for the state
visit which demonstrates that Pakistan attaches immense importance to
the bilateral relations between the two countries.
The visit paved the way for Pakistan and China to reiterate their
commitment to play their role for peace, development and prosperity of
the region by strengthening their multi-faceted relations and
cooperation in diverse fields. It was a golden chance that the
Pakistani president and the Chinese prime minister in their formal
talks focused on further cementing strategic partnership. The visit
shows there was a determination on both sides to strengthen the
existing trade and economic cooperation including the mega projects of
infrastructure, energy, mineral development, defence production,
science and technology. It is to be noted that China and Pakistan have
a five-year economic development programme and it was decided that a
meeting of the joint economic committee would soon be held in
Islamabad to explore the avenues of preferential treatment to Chinese
investment in Pakistan as well as a provision of soft credit by the
Chinese banks and financial institutions. The visit also provided the
opportunity for a substantial discussion on practical cooperation
between the two countries to promote trade and investment, with a
focus on enhancing Pakistan's production capacity in cement and steel
sectors as well as energy development. According to a joint statement
issued on the first state visit of President Zardari to China the two
sides agreed to fast track the implementation of the Five Year
Development Programme on economic cooperation and make full use of the
free trade agreement in goods and investment and Pak-China Joint
Investment Company.
The pledge made by the Chinese premier during a meeting to help
Pakistan overcome its economic troubles, raised the morale of the
people of Pakistan and deepened their trust in the time-tested friend
of China particularly at a time while Islamabad is in an economic
grip. The Chinese premier pledged that whether it's confronting the
present financial crisis or fighting terrorism both China and Pakistan
must strengthen their bilateral cooperation.
President Zardari's visit should be considered fruitful as China
agreed to provide $500 million in a concessional loan to help Pakistan
meet its balance of payment needs in April. Zardari's hope to secure
another concessional loan of $500 million to $1.5 billion will provide
relief to the ailing economy of Pakistan. Apart from this, the Chinese
companies and entrepreneurs have offered to invest $5 billion in
Pakistan's defence, banking, oil exploration and mining sectors,
develop Thar coal, build Bhasha and Kohala dams and launch Pak-Sat IR
by 2011. Some leading industrialists and business tycoons met
President Zardari and made offers by expressing their willingness to
intensify cooperation with Pakistan in defence, production, oil and
gas, energy, poly technologies, electronics, hydropower generation and
other sectors. Zardari has very rightly made it a point to encourage
investment and offered preferred treatment to the Chinese firms.


There are ample opportunities Pakistan offered in various sectors
given its strategic geographical local and the presence within the
country of many resources. China has extended offers of help in
several areas including mineral development, agricultural research,
satellite procurement and technical cooperation.

The joint statement envisages strong opposition to all forms of
terrorism, extremism and separatism. Both sides resolved to
cooperation with each other to fight the above mentioned three forces.
China conveyed its complete support to Pakistan's commitment and
efforts to fight terrorism and appreciated its sacrifices rendered by
the people and the government of Pakistan towards this end.

Sarah Palin's new image cost Republicans $150,000Shopping spree in
Minneapolis just before party conference is revealed in campaign
records

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Sarah Palin's new image cost Republicans $150,000Shopping spree in
Minneapolis just before party conference is revealed in campaign
recordsElana Schor in Washington guardian.co.uk, Wednesday October 22
2008 14.49 BST Article history
Sarah Palin, with her daughter Willow, holding her brother Trig,
campaigns at a rally in Henderson, Nevada. Palin is giving the
American sign language hand sign for "I love you". Photograh: Eric
Jamison/AP

The Republican party has spent $150,000 (£92,000) on clothes and
accessories since late August for Sarah Palin and her family,
according to records of party spending.

The Republican shopping sprees, including a $75,000 jaunt to the
upscale store Neiman Marcus, began showing up on financial disclosure
reports in early September, just after Palin was chosen as John
McCain's running mate.

Palin often depicts herself as a homespun product of small-town "real
America"on the campaign trail, but she was revealed last month to be
working with a secret team of stylists on sharpening her dress sense.

Today's reports on the Palin family's elaborate spending habits – a
$295 pram was among the purchases as a treat for baby Trig, according
to politco.com – could hurt the Republicans' credibility. The election
is less than two weeks away.

The former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards became a
national joke last year after campaign financial reports showed him
spending $400 on haircuts. McCain and his wife, Cindy, were plagued
this year by reports of $500 shoes and a $300,000 party ensemble
respectively.

"The campaign does not comment on strategic decisions regarding how
financial resources available to the campaign are spent," Palin's
spokeswoman, Maria Comella, told politico.com, declining to confirm
that the fashion expenses were exclusively for Palin.

No similar shopping trips were reported by the Republican party before
Palin became McCain's running mate.

The Neiman Marcus branch where Republicans shopped in September was
located in Minneapolis, the site of the party's national convention
where Palin was introduced as McCain's running mate. Republicans spent
$9,440 at a Macy's shop in the city during the same period. Another
$4,900 was registered at Atelier, a men's fashion emporium, suggesting
Palin's husband Todd was treated to a new wardrobe.

Palin's makeover was not limited to attire, according to a lengthy
story due to be published this weekend in the New York Times. The vice-
presidential hopeful worked with Priscilla Shanks, a voice coach and
Hollywood actor, to help refine her speaking style before her speech
at the Republican convention.

She has billed her home state of Alaska, where she is governor, for
more than $21,000 for taking her five children on official trips –
even when they were not invited.

Palin claimed $17,000 in per diem reimbursements from her state's
government for nights spent at her family home in Wasilla, Alaska. Tax
experts have questioned the propriety of those claims, which were not
added to her annual income tax returns.

"With all of the important issues facing the country right now, it's
remarkable that we're spending time talking about pantsuits and
blouses," said the McCain campaign's spokeswoman, Tracey Schmitt.

"It was always the intent that the clothing go to a charitable purpose
after the campaign."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/22/uselections2008-sarahpalin

Chinese surfers see red over Microsoft black-outs
Wed Oct 22, 2008 2:57pm IST Email | Print | Share| Single Page[-]
Text [+]
1 of 1Full SizeBy Kitty Bu

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese Internet users have expressed fury at
Microsoft's launch of an anti-piracy tool targeting Chinese computer
users to ensure they buy genuine software.

The "Windows Genuine Advantage" programme, which turns the user's
screen black if the installed software fails a validation test, is
Microsoft's latest weapon in its war on piracy in China, where the
vast majority of 200 million computer users are believed to be using
counterfeit software, unwittingly or not.

"Why is Microsoft automatically connected with my computer? The
computer is mine!" one angry blogger wrote on popular Chinese web
portal Sina.com. "Microsoft has no right to control my hardware
without my agreement."

Another blogger railed over the cost of authorised versions.

"If the price of genuine software was lower than the fake one, who
would buy the fake one?" he wrote.

A visitor to a Beijing internet cafe said Microsoft was violating
people's rights.

"If, when I'm programming, the computer screen goes black, that will
probably cause some important information to be lost," he said. "Who
will pay me for my loss then?"

Dong Zhengwei, 35, a Beijing lawyer, described Microsoft as the
"biggest hacker in China with its intrusion into users' computer
systems without their agreement or any judicial authority", the China
Daily said.


Wells Fargo Chairman Prefers U.S. Plan to Buy Stakes (Update2)

By Ari Levy

Oct. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Wells Fargo & Co. Chairman Richard Kovacevich
said the U.S. Treasury's intention to buy stock in banks provides a
better stimulus to escape the financial crisis than an earlier plan to
purchase soured mortgage-related assets.

``Direct capital injections versus buying loans is a far more
preferable way'' to help companies already facing credit losses,
Kovacevich, 64, said yesterday at an event hosted by San Francisco's
Commonwealth Club. ``It's an important tool to get the financial
system back into the money business again.''

Wells Fargo, which agreed to buy Wachovia Corp. for about $14 billion
this month, is one of nine large lenders slated to receive cash
infusions as part of the government's plan to spend $700 billion
unfreezing credit markets. Wells Fargo, based in San Francisco, will
get $25 billion. JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Goldman
Sachs Group Inc. are among the others that will receive the cash.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson last week urged banks to
``deploy'' the money in loans. He was forced to change his strategy
after the initial plan to buy distressed assets caused banks to hoard
cash and failed to halt a slide in the stock market. Kovacevich
declined to say if he initially opposed Paulson's plan as the New York
Times reported.

Wells Fargo dropped 99 cents, or 3 percent, to $31.65 at 10:04 a.m. in
New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares gained 8.1
percent this year through yesterday, the biggest advance in the 24-
comopany KBW Bank Index. Wachovia fell 17 cents to $5.92, adding to
its 84 percent decline this year.

He's Seen Worse

Kovacevich said the current economic crisis isn't the worst he's seen,
and the U.S. government's may help end the credit freeze ``reasonably
soon.''

``Our customers, except those in residential home lending or autos,
are doing quite well,'' he said. ``By far, the worst economic crisis
of my career was in the 1980s.''

The Wachovia deal, orchestrated by Kovacevich, marks an eastward
expansion and strategic shift for Wells Fargo, which maintained a
profit during the financial crisis by avoiding riskier loans.
Wachovia's mortgage portfolio includes an estimated $74 billion in
future losses.

The Wells Fargo-Wachovia deal will create the biggest U.S. bank
network, with 6,675 branches. The Federal Reserve said yesterday that
Wells Fargo agreed to reduce its deposit base to comply with U.S. bank-
merger law should the combined company control more than 10 percent of
deposits nationwide.

Wachovia reported its third straight quarterly loss today, hurt by
crumbling mortgage markets and writedowns on securities backed by real
estate. The loss for the three months ended Sept. 30 was $23.9
billion, or $11.18 a share, compared with net income of $1.6 billion,
or 85 cents, in the same period a year earlier, the Charlotte, North
Carolina-based company said in a statement.

The Wachovia deal would be Wells Fargo's biggest acquisition since
Norwest Corp. purchased the old Wells Fargo 10 years ago and adopted
the name.

Kovacevich was chief operating officer at Minneapolis-based Norwest in
the 1980s when current Wells Fargo Chief Executive Officer John
Stumpf, 55, was running the auto-dealer business and working on
commercial loans. Kovacevich was promoted to CEO of Norwest in 1993
and stepped down in June 2007 to make way for the promotion of Stumpf,
who has been with the company for 26 years.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ari Levy in San Francisco at
ale...@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 22, 2008 10:06 EDT

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aJA_SCWQqtkw&refer=home

Tripura suicide in stock crash
OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
Agartala, Oct. 21: A 26-year-old man hanged himself here last night
after he found that he had bungled while trying to recoup his losses
in the market downswing.

Jayanta Saha, a resident of Shanitola and son of an LIC development
officer, had invested over Rs 18 lakh in equity shares, which had
halved in the meltdown.

Jayanta did not hold a regular job but made a living by investing in
the stock market.

A harried Jayanta planned to recoup the losses by making fresh
investments in 700 more shares. But while operating his demat account
through the Internet yesterday, he keyed in an extra zero, thereby
placing an order for 7,000 shares.

Jayanta, who had passed MCom from Tripura University, was alone at
home as his parents had gone to Bangalore to visit his married
sister.

Having realised the mistake, Jayanta spoke to his father in Bangalore
over phone and was advised not to worry.

“Apparently it is a case of suicide though we have found no suicide
note. Only papers containing accounts of share values were recovered
from his bedroom,” said Sanjay Biswas, officer-in-charge of East
Agartala police station.
Police sources said Jayanta’s father Santosh and his mother Manjushree
arrived home this morning. He was cremated today after post-mortem.

“Jayanta was upset at having lost so heavily in the stock market,
especially because part of the money was his father’s,” an LIC agent
and Jayanta’s cousin, Chhaya Saha, said.

Saha said even his parents had tried to pacify him from Bangalore,
saying the loss would be made up in time but “Jayanta was
inconsolable”.

Kotak Securities, through which Jayanta transacted business, downed
shutters early, presumably on hearing the news of his death. Mintu
Bhowmik, who heads the local office, refused to comment on the
monetary value of shares under his care.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081022/jsp/frontpage/story_10002713.jsp

THE GREAT GAME
- Where is India on the new map of energy security?
Chandrashekhar Dasgupta


The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, October 2005
“Turkestan, Afghanistan, Transcaspia, Persia …they are the pieces on a
chessboard upon which is being played out a game for the dominion of
the world,” wrote George Nathaniel Curzon in 1898, at the high noon of
the British Empire.

Central Asia all but ceased to figure in international relations
during the Soviet era. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991,
however, triggered off another struggle for influence over the newly
independent states in Central Asia and the Caspian region. A century
after Lord Curzon, the American energy secretary, Bill Richardson,
highlighted the geo-strategic importance of the region, albeit in more
prosaic terms. “This is about America’s energy security, which depends
on diversifying our sources of energy worldwide,” he said in October
1998. “It’s also about preventing strategic inroads by those who don’t
share our values. We’re trying to move these newly independent
countries toward the West. We would like to see them reliant on
Western commercial and political interests than going the other way.
We’ve made a substantial political investment in the Caspian, and it’s
very important to us that both the pipeline map and the politics come
out right.” A new Great Game had been launched in Central Asia.

Though the theatre of contest remains broadly the same, the players as
well as the stakes are very different today. In the 19th century, the
principal players of the Great Game were Russia and Britain. Today,
the leading players in the new Great Game are the United States of
America, Russia and China, together with a supporting cast including
the European Union, Turkey and Iran, among others. Central Asia was
only the theatre of the 19th-century contest; the principal stake lay
elsewhere. The stake was the control of the approaches to Britain’s
Indian empire, rather than the resources of the arid lands of Central
Asia. The objective in the current contest is to control access to
Central Asia’s vast oil and gas resources. The geopolitics of the new
Great Game no longer focuses on potential invasion routes, as it did
in Curzon’s time, but on the alignment of oil and gas pipelines.

Since the Caspian-Central Asian region is landlocked, its petroleum
and natural gas production can reach major foreign markets only
through pipelines leading directly to consumer countries or to
international ports from which they can be shipped to consumer
countries. During the Soviet era, all pipelines constructed in this
region passed through Russia. Even today, the bulk of oil and natural
gas produced in the region is exported through pipelines running
northward through the Russian Federation. Thus, for instance, gas from
Turkmenistan is currently delivered to Central Europe via Russia.

Two new pipeline routes have radically changed the geopolitical map of
the Caspian-Central Asian region. An east-west oil pipeline now runs
from Baku in Azerbaijan to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan in Turkey,
bypassing Russian territory. A new west-east pipeline transports oil
from Kazakhstan to China. Both these ambitious ventures have important
strategic implications.

The strategic objective of the US-backed Baku-Ceyhan pipeline is to
reduce Western dependence on Russia for energy imports. Russia, with
its vast deposits of oil and gas, is an energy superpower. The EU is
already heavily dependent on Russia for gas imports and this
dependence is expected to increase further as a result of declining
offshore production in the North Sea. The new pipeline will enable the
EU to secure access to Caspian oil and gas without giving Russia the
control or leverage that it might exercise as a transit state.

The construction of the pipeline was an immense political enterprise
in a region divided by deep animosities. The shortest routes from Baku
to Ceyhan lie through Iran or Armenia but neither was politically
acceptable. The US would not even contemplate an option involving
Iran, a “rogue state” in its eyes. The latter option was impracticable
because Armenia’s relations with Azerbaijan are characterized by deep
hostility, while its ties with Turkey are still marred by historical
animosities. Ruling out these shorter — and more economical —
alignments, the only feasible option was the pipeline that now
initially runs northward from Baku (Azerbaijan) to Tbilisi (Georgia)
and thence southwards to Ceyhan (Turkey).

The alignment of the pipeline thus took into account existing regional
political realities. At the same time, it is also creating new
political realities. The Western alliance is building closer ties with
both Georgia and Azerbaijan. Both countries have contributed troops to
current peacekeeping operations in Iraq and Kosovo. Georgia has
received sizeable military aid from the US, and is now an eager
candidate for Nato membership. Washington is pressing for Georgia’s
early admission, but several of its west European allies are reluctant
to get drawn into Georgia’s dispute with Russia over the status of the
territories of Abkhazia and Southern Ossetia. Azerbaijan, more wisely,
has thus far refrained from seeking Nato membership, while indicating
that the option remains open for the future.

China’s search for energy security provides the strategic rationale
for the Kazakhstan-Xinjiang pipeline. China’s spectacular economic
development can be maintained only if it is able to import increasing
volumes of oil and gas. The quest for energy security has led China to
invest heavily in oil and gas fields in Africa, Central Asia and Latin
America. This enables Beijing not only to secure access to overseas
“equity oil” but also to diversify its sources, thereby minimizing the
risk of a disruption of supplies on account of political instability
in an oil-producing country.

The Chinese have been prepared to pay high prices for oilfields in
Central Asia. Heavy costs are also involved in transporting oil and
gas over a distance of 3,000 kilometres from Kazakhstan to China’s
industrial heartland. Many analysts have drawn the conclusion that
Chinese policy in this regard is shaped by strategic factors. They
maintain that Beijing is prepared to pay a premium for oil and gas
transported by overland routes because it apprehends that, in certain
contingencies, the US may employ its naval supremacy to impose a
maritime oil embargo against China. As in the case of the Baku-Tbilisi-
Ceyhan pipeline, energy security considerations (rather than purely
economic calculations) appear to provide the rationale of the
Kazakhstan-China pipeline.

How does India fit into this new geopolitical map? Indian officials
are reportedly holding talks with their Turkish and Israeli
counterparts to examine the feasibility of transporting Central Asian
oil from Ceyhan to the Israeli port of Ashkelon on the Mediterranean,
linked by an overland pipeline to the Red Sea port of Eilat, from
where supertankers could pick up shipments destined for India. This
route would avoid the overcrowded Suez Canal or the long detour around
the African continent.

The Ceyhan route might be an attractive short-term option. The
preferred long-term goal, however, must be to obtain access to Central
Asia’s oil and gas reserves through less circuitous southward routes
running through Iran or through Afghanistan and Pakistan. For example,
crude oil from Azerbaijan could be carried through pipelines to
Iranian ports for shipment to India. Gas from Turkmenistan could be
delivered to India through Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Political factors obstruct early implementation of these projects. The
Iran option would face strong opposition from the US, and would be
practicable only if other powerful countries can be recruited as
partners in the enterprise. The Pakistan-Afghanistan option must await
restoration of peaceful conditions in southern Afghanistan and
adjacent areas of Pakistan. Yet, we must not lose sight of these
alternatives because of the important contribution they can make to
our energy security — and to consolidating our ties with neighbours.

The author is a retired ambassador and is currently a Distinguished
Fellow at The Energy and Resources Institute
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081022/jsp/opinion/story_9995591.jsp

No terror charges on Godhra accused: SC

NEW DELHI, Oct. 21: The Supreme Court today dropped POTA charges
against all the 134 accused in the 2002 Godhra train burning incident
in Gujarat in which 59 Kar Sevaks were burnt alive, while holding that
a trial under POTA cannot proceed if the review committee decides
otherwise.
A bench of Chief Justice Mr KG Balakrishnan and Justices Mr R V
Raveendran and Mr Dalveer Bhandari held that a trial under POTA cannot
proceed if the review committee recommends that the offence against
the accused cannot be made out under the anti-terror law. The bench
also directed that the trial against the accused will now resume.
The apex court, however, said the state can always file an appeal
against the POTA review committee.
The apex court gave the order on a bunch of petitions challenging the
decision to prosecute the accused under the anti-terror law even after
the Gujarat POTA review committee had held that offence under POTA
cannot be made out against them.
The SC rejected the Gujarat government’s stand that the review
committee recommendations are not binding. n SNS
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=2&theme=&usrsess=1&id=228047

TN: Human chain deferred

Chennai, Oct. 21: The human chain protest demanding the Centre to stop
military aid to Sri Lanka and provide medicine and food to the Tamil
population in the island nation through the International Red Cross
has been postponed to 24 October due to continual rains in the State
for the last three days.
In another significant development, the student wings of the DMK and
MDMK joined hands to form a Confederation of All Students alongwith
the students unions of the Left, Dravidar Kazhagam, Viduthalai
Chiruthaigal Katchi, “to channel the rising emotions among the
students community in the right direction in support of the suffering
Tamil brethern in Sri Lanka”. The students would start a campaign
against a section of the English media, “supporting state terrorism of
the Sinhalese and opposing the self-determination rights of Tamils”.
These are the ones who count in the state, since the AIADMK and
Congress have negligible presence among the students’ community.
The confederation in a resolution said that they would boycott classes
on 24 October and hoist black flags in front of colleges and conduct
meetings to mobilise all the students against the Centre’s military
and economic assistance to “Sinhalese government carrying out a
genocide of Tamils”. The resolution said that relief materials should
be provided through the International Red Cross and other
international agencies as it should reach the suffering Tamils and
should not go to the hands of the island military. Going a step
further from the stand of their leaders, the students said that the
Vattukottai resolution demanding a separate Tamil homeland for island
Tamils had been endorsed by the people in the Kangesanthurai bye-
election, which was accepted by all parties concerned as a referendum
and the subsequent general elections and this alone could be the
solution to the conflict.
n SNS

Rajapaksa assurance
Massive operations by security forces to capture the Tamil Tigers
stronghold of Kilinochchi was taking more time as troops have been
instructed to ensure safety of battle-zone trapped civilians, Sri
Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has said, adds PTI.
“We have directed the Armed Forces to refrain from inflicting any
harm, even a scratch, to the innocent civilians who are being used as
human shields by the terrorists in the Wanni,” the President said.
Speaking at the National Research Council ceremony in Colombo
yesterday, President Rajapaksa said that army was fighting under
constraints as they had been told to avoid any civilian collateral
damage.
“We are proud to have an army which is complying and carrying out
their humanitarian operations accordingly,” he said.
He said the ongoing military operations were designed to liberate the
Tamil masses, who are deprived of their rights for many years due to
LTTE's intimidation.
The President said that humanitarian assistance was being allowed for
the trapped civilians in the rebel held area even when the government
was aware that some of the food items were ending up with the
terrorists.

http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=2&theme=&usrsess=1&id=228044

Orissa tops communal violence chart

PTI & SNS
New Delhi, Oct 21: Orissa has recorded the highest number of communal
violence incidents this year, resulting in the death 41 people, the
Lok Sabha was informed today.
“A total of 695 cases of communal violence were reported from
different states during the period in which 116 people were killed and
left 1680 injured,” minister of state for home affairs Mr Shakeel
Ahmad said in reply to a question.
“Orissa recorded maximum of 159 cases till September 2008 which left
41 people dead and 76 injured. The ministry does not maintain record
of the property destroyed during the violence,” he said.
In terms of toll, Orissa was followed by Madhya Pradesh where 19
people were killed, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh where 11 people lost
their lives and Karnataka where three persons were killed.
Mr Ahmed was replying to a question by Members of Parliament Mr Naveen
Jindal and Mr P Karunakaran. He said the data included recent
incidents of violence targeted against the members of Christian
community in Orissa in the wake of murder of Swami Laxmanananda
Saraswati and four others on 23 August this year.
The minister said seven advisories and communications were sent to
Orissa government between 25 September to 18 October , 2008 at various
levels. “Four advisories were sent to Karnataka between 15 September
to 15 October, 2008,” he said.


“Orissa was asked to take stringent action against persons indulging
in communal violence, including identification and apprehension of
elements inciting communal violence and hatred,” the minister said.
Similarly, Karnataka was also asked to take immediate steps to stop
violence targeted at minority communities and their places of worship,
Mr Ahmad said.
Karnataka today ordered a probe by Corps of Detectives (COD) into the
fire that broke out at a church in Yadavanahalli in Anekal taluk after
the government came in for flak from Christian bodies and political
leaders on the matter.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court today adjourned the hearing till tomorrow
of the petition filed by Archbishop Raphael Cheenath of Cuttack
seeking a CBI inquiry into the rape and humiliation of a Christian
nun, while allowing the Centre to file some additional documents in
connection with the ethnic violence that rocked the Kandhamal district
of Orissa.

Caring for the land losers

Developing countries like India and China, burdened with about one-
third of the world’s total population, are for rapid industrial
development so that jobs are available to as many people as possible.
Availability of suitable land with infrastructure is most vital for
development of industries, and particularly attracting the big
industries which require large parcel of land.
In India the governments, central and the states, announce their
industrial policy without doing any homework on availability of land
with infrastructure. While some states left the matter to
industrialists to find suitable land, others made ready industrial
plots (with infrastructure and services) in advance and these states ~
Maharashtra, Gujarat, Haryana ~ attracted more industries than others.
States like Orissa, Bihar and West Bengal, which have a good reserve
of natural resources, as well as human resources (particularly West
Bengal), are unable to provide land with infrastructure to
industrialists and advise them to find their own land (as is the case
with the Jindal Industries which is preparing to set up a major steel
plant in West Bengal). This highlights the unplanned industrial
development across the country particularly in West Bengal, Orissa and
Bihar.
China too is facing major problems in acquiring land for industry and
violent protests have flared up in villages where even local leaders
have been harassed and beaten up. However, in most cases before the
situation turns violent, the state committees sit with the displaced
persons and provide them with adequate compensation. Fortunately or
unfortunately, it is a one-party state and there is no opposition
party to agitate.
While industrialisation is essential for economic development and
creating employment opportunities and wealth, it must be developed in
a planned manner; unplanned industrial development encroaches on
fertile agricultural land, evicts villagers and turns them destitutes
and creates environment pollution leading to climate change.
In order to establish planned development, it is essential for
government to earmark in advance the land for industries in order to
ensure that such industries do not encroach upon high-yielding
agricultural land/water bodies, resulting in the eviction of farmers
from their land which has sustained them for generations. This
inheritance of loss is unbearable for the farmers and their families
and sometime the suffering leads to loss of human lives. Consequently
unplanned industrial development must be stopped.
In India, the earliest planned use of land can be traced back to 1894,
when the British introduced the Central Land Acquisition Act primarily
for housing the British citizens and military population in
settlements (cantonments) adjoining a few existing urban centres and
for establishing new towns.
The Land Acquisition Act 1894 is indeed very old and archaic. It is
surprising that even after 113 years the central government has failed
and neglected to amend the Act considering that it has caused more
harm than good over the past 60 years. Even though the Centre has
announced its amendment several times, it has failed to do so.
In order to avoid any controversy in the future on state governments
acquiring land for private industry (as it happened for the land
acquired by the West Bengal government for the Nano plant at Singur in
2006), it is essential that the revised Act must state specifically
under what circumstances the state governments can acquire land for
private industrial houses.
As per the existing Act, the state government cannot acquire land for
a private company except for “public purpose”. It has not been
specifically mentioned what constitutes “public purpose”. Many experts
said that since Tata Motors’ main motive is to make profit for the
benefit of the shareholders, the project cannot be classified as
“public purpose”. Others said that since the car factory would provide
employment, it could be termed as “public purpose”.
This controversy and disturbance that followed during 2006-08 could
have been avoided had the Act specified what constitutes “public
purpose’. Accordingly, the revised Act must specify clearly what
constitutes “public purpose” and clarify other controversial issues.
Furthermore, the Land Acquisition Act states that the landowners
should be compensated monetarily at the market price of the land, but
does not include any clauses granting rehabilitation and resettlement
rights of people displaced.
It is obvious from the present experience that land owners and farmers
are reluctant to part with their land, unless they are offered better
compensation package, including resettlement and rehabilitation.
Industrialists are now providing these facilities, as is evident from
the packages offered by industrialists recently.
The Land Acquisition Act provides landowners with the market price of
land as compensation. Now it is a well known fact that “the method of
fixing fair price through the averaging of the sale deed price is
unfair even as a starting point because of systematic undervaluation
of the deed price due to stamp duty and income-tax (on land)”.
Since the evicted families found that the compensation amount was a
petty sum compared to the enhanced price of land once it was acquired
for industry or development, most of the farmers and displaced persons
are unwilling to accept the cost of land only.
For example, the price of land around the car factory at Singur had
gone up four times since the work on the factory commenced. However,
as per provision of the Land Acquisition Act, only the nominal price
of the land prior to commencement of the car factory was paid as
compensation to Singur farmers. Consequently, there was a demand from
the displaced families that the compensation had to be paid
considering the enhanced price of land and many industrialists felt
the demand was justified.
About a year back, the Union ministry of rural development announced
that it had prepared a draft proposal for a comprehensive Resettlement
and Rehabilitation Act; it is yet to be placed in Parliament for
approval.
On 27 August, Union minister for steel and mines Jitendra Prasada said
in Kolkata that “the draft policy consists of a provision for adequate
compensation to the land losers, job guarantee for the displaced and
has provision for including land lowers as share holders in the
project.” However, the proposed Act has to be implemented by the state
government.
The proposed Resettlement and Rehabilitation Act covers all the
demands made by the displaced persons in West Bengal, Orissa and other
states. Had this Act been approved by Parliament a year ago, many of
the prevailing land disputes (in West Bengal, Orissa and Bihar) could
have been settled and progress on the industrial front could have been
made.
Procrastination by the Centre has delayed industrial projects and
caused loss of crores of rupees to the states and the Union
government.
Notwithstanding the delay, different industrialists have already
adopted various packages for the rehabilitation of displaced persons;
The most important issue with respect to providing compensation for
land has its roots in the fragmented nature of the land pattern in
Singur and in other parts of West Bengal. An estimated 20 to 30 per
cent of agricultural land owners in Singur are absentee landlords and
they do not personally tend to their land. These and other important
issues have been recorded in a study conducted by the Centre for Human
Settlements and prepared by Tara Lonnberg on “The Use of Land and its
Acquisition for the Development of Industry: the Case of Singur, West
Bengal”.
Thus, it is not known whether all the persons who claimed compensation
from the government are the current owners of the land; there may be
many cases that the compensation has been claimed by former landlords
or absentee landlords. This is based on the statements of the people
associated with the state’s Land Records and Surveys department which
estimates that 80 per cent of the land data deficit is due to land
owners not reporting change in ownership or use of their land.
When landowners wish to convert the use of their land from agriculture
to homestead land, they are supposed to go through a process of
applying for the proposed change of ownership. However, due to lack of
knowledge of the legal requirement, such changes in land use are often
made outside the legal framework, without the knowledge of the
authorities.
While the compensation should be paid to the person owning the land at
the time of compensation, if a transfer of acquisition occurred prior
to the acquisition; which the landowner failed to report, then the
government records would not have been updated, and would not
recognise the rightful claimant as the owner. In the process the wrong
person would be identified as eligible recipient of compensation.
Without the land deed in hand, the land owner has to contest the
misdirected compensation in court.
It is yet uncertain whether the rightful owners of Singur land have
received compensation. There have been reports in the print media that
compensations have been paid to men in Singur who have sold the land
to some one else earlier.
One of the big steel producing companies in India, Jindal group has
signed a memorandum of understanding with the Government of West
Bengal to establish a steel plant at Salboni. The company required
about 6,000 acres or more of land and it has ventured to acquire the
land on its own by directly negotiating with the land owners. The
company is progressing satisfactorily.
In order to avoid any confrontation with the land owners, the company
has offered an attractive compensation package termed as “Salboni
model”. It proposes to pay for the land at the open market price if
not higher. And in addition, it proposes to give company’s share at
free of cost, so that the families will have long term earning from
the shares even in case the land owners spend their money within a few
years. Many industrialists have hailed this as one of the best
packages offered to displaced families.
On 28 August, the West Bengal government approved a new airport
project at Andal, Burdwan, where for the first time the land losers
will be compensated with land. The promoting company would buy about
3,500 acres of land from the West Bengal Industrial Development
Corporation Limited. Those who would lose their homes would be
provided with a house. It is estimated about 250 families would be
displaced.
The Centre must revise the Land Acquisition Act and take steps to get
the Resettlement and Rehabilitation Act passed at the coming winter
session of Parliament for rapid industrialisation of the country.
However, it is the state which has to implement the Acts and it must
have its machinery ready.

(The author is executive director, Centre for Human Settlements)

http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=4&theme=&usrsess=1&id=227885

Manufacturing consent


22 Oct, 2008, 0409 hrs IST,Ram Puniyani,

Noam Chomsky is one of the foremost rights activists. He theorised as
to how the US administration creates consent of the broad layers of
population
for its acts of aggression.

The perceptions which were drilled into popular psyche related to the
dangers of communism, while attacking the emergent nation state of
Vietnam in yesteryears or weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq
in recent times.

By the time such propaganda starts getting questioned, the mainstream
US propaganda becomes part of popular consciousness and too large to
be countered by the sceptics and its opponents. Manufacturing consent
is achieved through various mechanisms, the major of that being the
media.

And by the time the state version starts getting challenged the ‘goal’
of the state is achieved. So even if the critics prove that there were
no WMDs, the goal of controlling the oil wells is over. Even if some
sections question the veracity of the version of 9/11, Afghanistan is
in its pocket.

Another dimension to this comes when the powerful political
formations, in power or out of power, achieve the same, through
molecular permeation, infiltration in media, through other parts of
state apparatus. In the Indian context, the perceptions about
minorities can be traced to the role and sustained propaganda
programmes of ‘supra-political’ formation with a political agenda of a
Hindu nation.

Currently ‘all terrorists are Muslims’ is the perception, deep rooted,
hardly affected by the reports of citizens fact-finding committees or
the academic and popular contributions by activists/scholars. The
initial propaganda gradually became part of broad-ranging perceptions
and the policies of the administration, police and other investigating
agencies make it the base of their actions. So we see that Batla house
encounter in the Jamia Nagar has lot of holes in the story dished out
by the vacillating police authorities, and the human rights activists
have pointed the flaws in the same demanding the deeper probe.

The acceptance of such a simple demand is shelved in order to go along
with popular sentiments and to ‘preserve the morale’ of police force!
The voice of these activists questioning the version dished out by the
authorities hardly reaches the popular level as the media already
ensures that police version is part of popular perception. Truth, the
desirable guiding principle of the social policies can wait.

In different acts of terror, in front of mosques or in other crowded
places, always the Muslims are involved and the job of investigating
authorities is fairly well cut out. The tragedy with a section of
media is that, contrary to ethical norm of doubting the official/
police versions, they are not only meekly accepted; at times they are
accepted in highly exaggerated form as well.

Here the word ‘Islamic terrorism’, initially popularised by the US
media after 9/11, is generously used while nobody has heard of Hindu
terrorism when Dhanu of LTTE killed Rajiv Gandhi or Sikh terrorism,
when Khalistanis were doing such actions or Christian terrorism when
Irish republican army was indulging in acts of terror.

The other points elaborated by Chomsky relate to ‘Thinkable thought’
and ‘Unthinkable thought’. These are the outcome of the propaganda,
indoctrination, which is the culmination of the same process. So by
now the thinkable thought is that all Muslims are terrorists and
unthinkable thought is that anyone else can be also be a terrorist.

By now all the acts of terror where Bajrang Dal is involved are
either, suppressed, under-projected or forgotten with ease by the
social thinking process. So the Bajrang Dal activists getting killed
while making bombs in Nanded or Kanpur soon lapse out from popular
memory, and the blasts where Hindu Jagran Samiti is involved is not
taken due note of.

The consistent propagation that Christian missionaries convert by
force and fraud is thinkable thought, good enough of a pretext to kill
and maim them. There are reports by the human rights groups to the
contrary, but that is not the story bought by the mainstream, media
and others.

While a section can claim that they are objective, the pattern of
reporting of large section of media on anti-Christian violence is
hidden in the small columns in the back pages while the acts of terror
hog the front page banner headlines. Channels keep screaming about a
Muslim terrorist, while reports of violence against Christian are
buried somewhere under the weight of the news of ‘jehadi terrorist’,
and of those doing aggressive conversions!

So today, even when the role of state in the carnage of Gujarat, even
when Modi’s role in leading the carnage in Gujarat is well known, for
section of media he is the hero, for whom he is the hope for India.

So today when it is a well known secret that VHP and Bajrang Dal are
behind the Orissa violence, they can dare the state to ban them and
see the consequences! So it is thinkable (and doable too) that SIMI
should be banned, it is unthinkable that Bajrang Dal can be banned,
despite its role in Orissa violence.


( The author is retired professor of IIT, Mumbai)

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Manufacturing_consent/articleshow/3625887.cms

SEZs: Going down well-trodden path


11 Oct, 2008, 0000 hrs IST,R PRASAD & R SINHA RAY,

Special economic zones (SEZs) are in the news yet again with the much
publicised decision of the Maharashtra government to go in for a
referendum on
the acquisition of land in Raigad and the granting of eighteen formal
approvals and ten in-principle approvals by the Board of Approvals of
SEZs on September 22.

Much has been made of the fact that SEZs are being proposed in large
numbers in industrially backward states like Uttar Pradesh, and
Orissa, and have even shown up in the hinterlands of Nagaland. Based
on this, proponents of SEZ policy argue that it is heralding a new
dawn of balanced industrialisation. Contrarians choose to call the
outcomes a ‘race to the bottom’ characterised by state governments
over-reaching themselves in a bid to attract SEZ investment. This
trend, they argue will lead to fiscal ruin and neglect of crucial
public functions like boosting agriculture, education, and health.

This article postulates that neither camp is correct, because contrary
to general perception, SEZ activity continues to be focused in states
with strong industrial bases perpetuating the trend of unbalanced
regional development.
SEZs have been notified (i.e., been approved by the board and acquired
land) in only 17 out of 29 states with six of these states — Tamil
Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Haryana, Gujarat, Karnataka —
bagging 80% of SEZs both in terms of numbers and total land area
notified. These states fall in the top ten states of India along the
dimensions of state domestic product (SDP), SDP per capita, SDP from
industry, and percentage share of industry in SDP. In terms of
formally approved SEZs (those that have been approved by the board but
not necessarily acquired land), the trend is identical.

States like Uttar Pradesh and Orissa which have low ranks in many
economic indicators have succeeded in attracting SEZs but they are the
exceptions rather than the rule. The non-SEZ states which include the
North-East states, Chhattisgarh, and Tripura lie in the bottom ten, in
respect of most economic (and social) indicators. Even within SEZ
states the quantity of SEZ activity measured by the land area under
SEZs increases with SDP from industry, average industrial SDP over the
last three years and so on. This strong correlation continues to be
valid after removing Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh which can be
considered as atypical on account of their high SEZ activity, between
themselves accounting for almost 40% of the total land approved.

One may suspect that the statistical results reflect the relatively
innocuous fact that large states have a higher amount of land
available for SEZs and also a higher industrial SDP by virtue of their
size. However the correlation between total land area of a state and
land area under SEZs is low. States like Rajasthan, Bihar,
Chhattisgarh, Jammu &Kashmir which lie in the top half of Indian
states in terms of land area, do not have any SEZs.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Opinion/SEZs_Going_down_well-trodden_path/articleshow/3581849.cms

White House not proposing second stimulus package


21 Oct, 2008, 2240 hrs IST, REUTERS

WASHINGTON: The White House on Tuesday said it was not proposing a
second economic stimulus package, but was open to ideas that would
clearly help the economy.

"We're not proposing a second stimulus package right now," White House
spokeswoman Dana Perino said. "We are open to good ideas, we will
listen to people if they put anything forward that we think would
actually stimulate the economy; so far we have not seen that."

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Monday told Congress another
wave of government spending may be needed following a first stimulus
package earlier this year.

US govt chooses PWC and E&Y to manage $700 bn rescue plan


21 Oct, 2008, 2145 hrs IST, AGENCIES

WASHINGTON: The US government has selected two major accounting firms
to help it manage the $700 billion rescue program for the financial
system.

The Treasury Department said on Tuesday it had chosen
PricewaterhouseCoopers to be the auditor for the program. Ernst &
Young will provide general accounting support.

The two firms will work on the part of the rescue program that is
handling the purchase of troubled assets from banks as a way of
encouraging them to resume more normal lending.

Treasury said that Ernst & Young will be paid $492,006.95 initially
while Pricewaterhouse Coopers will be paid $191,469.27 for its
services initially. The two contracts last until Sept. 30, 2011.

In a statement, Treasury said that the two firms will help the
department with accounting and internal control services that will be
needed ``to administer the complex portfolio of troubled assets the
department will purchase, including whole loans and mortgage-backed
securities.''

Britain to loan Iceland 3 bn pounds to repay savers


22 Oct, 2008, 0556 hrs IST, AGENCIES

LONDON: Britain is planning to lend about three billion pounds (five
billion dollars, 3.8 billion euros) to Iceland to repay Britons with
savings in
a stricken Icelandic bank, a newspaper reported Wednesday.

The Financial Times, quoting unnamed officials in Iceland, said a
British delegation hoped to wrap up the deal, worth about 30 per cent
of the island nation's gross domestic product, during a trip to the
country this week.

The British finance ministry announced Tuesday that the delegation
would be heading to Iceland to finalise a compensation deal for
British savers with Icesave, a subsidiary of Landsbanki.

After talks between finance minister Alistair Darling and Icelandic
Prime Minister Geir Haarde, "officials from the Treasury and Bank of
England are going to Iceland to work on finalising an agreement that
aims to compensate UK depositors and ensure fair treatment for
creditors", a statement said.

The freezing of thousands of British-held accounts following the
collapse of Icesave came close to provoking a diplomatic incident
earlier this month.

A British delegation visited Iceland October 10-11, with both sides
reporting progress on the issue of compensation for British savers.
Britain said last week it would provide a short-term loan of up to 100
million pounds to Landsbanki to help repay cash to British savers.

Iceland's once booming financial sector has collapsed under the weight
of the global financial crisis, with the government forced to take
over the major banks for lack of liquidity as its krona nose-dived.

The country has been scrambling to get hold of foreign currency to try
to re-boot its struggling foreign trade. On Tuesday, the government
said it hoped to reach a deal on an economic rescue loan from the
International Monetary Fund within a day or two.

Iceland has also been negotiating with Russia for a loan that could be
worth as much as four billion euros.

US aid to banks seen exceeding $700 bn


22 Oct, 2008, 1425 hrs IST, REUTERS

NEW YORK: The US government will likely have to pump much more money
into banks than the $700 billion it has committed if they are to
survive the do
wnturn, even if the cost is a tough pill for taxpayers to swallow.

The government must temporarily support the US banking system, until
banks can attract substantial amounts of new money from investors. To
begin operating normally again, banks will have to admit to their bad
assets.

But that cannot happen immediately. Banks cannot predict how many of
their loans will sour because they do not know how much the economy
will shrink, and forecasts of their future losses would only spook
investors. Investors will likely shy away from pouring money into
banks until they fully understand the extent of their bad assets.

That hesitancy means that in the near term, the government will likely
need to pony up more than the $700 billion it agreed to shell out
through the Trouble Assets Relief Program, experts said. "The
government is being political and not saying they're putting in a
trillion dollars or more, but the commitment has to be open ended,"
said Dan Alpert, a banker at Westwood Capital.

By the numbers, the outlook for banks is troubling. US commercial
banks had about $1 trillion of capital as of the end of the second
quarter. That may sound like a lot, but Alpert estimates that banks
globally could have a total of $1.25 trillion to $1.5 trillion of
writedowns and losses from mortgages, of which perhaps $600 billion
have already been recorded.

Admittedly not all of those will be in the United States, and banks
will generate capital in the coming years even as they write down
assets and set aside more money for losses. But add in expected losses
from commercial real estate, leveraged loans, credit cards, auto loans
and a host of other areas as economic growth slows, and even the
Treasury's full $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program starts to
look worryingly small.

But if $700 billion from the government is not enough, don't expect
investors to make up the difference -- they aren't interested in
pouring money into a banking system that would otherwise be insolvent.
That's why pumping in enough money to keep the banking system solvent
is key, experts said.

China - Rising by stamping skulls of our fellow countryman who were
mercilessly slaughtered



Are you aware that the news you are watching is interlaced with
Communist China's propaganda,as
Communist China maps a realm of news with innocent lives?
Communist China is scheming a millennial terrorist activity by
manipulating people's behaviors
through electromagnetic waves to contain criticism and harm
innocent human lives.

1. The anomaly in community traffic of cars and motorcycles and drag
racing,and reckless honking by
cars and motorcycles is exceeding an unprecedented level.
2. Communist China has the technology to scan the human brain waves
through military satellite and
to discern and decipher their thoughts,scheming to instill
individual interference focusing on
each individual in need using the satellite electromagnetic
waves.
3. Deploying electromagnetic waves is poised to project onto the
human brain with certain
sounds for the perception of grossly traumatizing or startling
pain,or deploying the broadcast
of noise via electromagnetic waves in sleeping humans with edited
clips of films or through
voice or image signals onto our brains or besiege our sensory
functions with fabricated
audible and sensory illusions.
4. It manipulates one's moods,such as
smiling,nervousness,disgust,panic,anger,sorrow,
desires,appetite,and so forth.
5. It interferes the human brain's thinking capability,memory or
linguistic capability,to name a
few,causing spasms of muscles and fingers in the left and right
hands,stinging aches
throughout the body,coughing,yawning,trembling,involuntary
blinking of the eye,runny
nose and so forth.
6. Electromagnetic waves are deployed to hinder the motoring
functions of the body and neck,
disrupt the heartbeat or respiration,manipulate dizziness,deprive
one's sleep,spasm,saliva
gland,dental neural pain,etc.
7. Watch out that Communist China is infiltrating the news media by
deploying electromagnetic
waves to besiege the broadcast media,map out viral disillusion or
erroneous perception,and
investigate threats of brainwashing in viral spreading.
8. It further moved to deploy various symptoms in what one sees of
media icons,gesture terms,
adding a skewed interpretation to one's cognitive
awareness,misleading an individual to
hallucinate or suffer,such as the North Korean's rigid
smile,which is a tactic Communist
China often deploys to counter the people.
9. By observing the resolution accuracy of Communist China's sound
and image (scenario)
interference projected onto the human's brain,this can only be
achieved with a certain level
of frequencies at the source of interference,hence there is no
doubt that it has to be the
electromagnetic wave. Yet questions remain as to what range of
frequencies the source of
interference deploys,or what kind of electromagnetic waves
insulation chamber would suffice
to provide an insulation yield? Communist China might deploy
specific metal alloys as small scale
molecular antennas, which are attached to the human brain in
large number,creating
electromagnetic waves when the human brain is in function,where
the current created by
Communist China's electromagnetic interference would poise to
amplify in a staggering
number of multiplication,which Communist China can detect at all
times to discern and
muscles would excel the generation of electrode,which in turn
create a corresponding
electromagnetic wave within.
10. Some of Communist China's intimidation experiences in 2002:6.9
"Hey,are you tired of living?"
6.14 "We had concocted the bombing incident at the U.S. embassy
in Pakistan"
"Jiang Zhemin ordered us to kill you,but without creating
scenes"6.16 "The Pakistani
civilian troops confessed that they had schemed the bombing of
the U.S. embassy in
Pakistan,which we had manipulated them to confess,so what are you
going to do about it?"
6.19 "Hey,why don't you just go ahead and commit suicide""We are
going to scheme
murder using the public bus"6.20 "Commit suicide by burning
charcoal,get it?"6.25 "Jiang
Zhemin just does not like you,go hit your head against the wall".
11. I reckon that there are victims abound out in the street,no less
alarming than wars,and those
not in the know or did not understand that Communist China's
simple electromagnetic design
could easily turn people against each other,create moving
incidents,little lese to say mislead
the youth to broach down the wrong path,suicidal prompting,design
and fabrication of a host
of society news (which Communication China refers to as movie
making),as Communist China has had a
decade long of the technology,and has long abused its
technological advantages to scheme up design
of abusing human lives by arranging fabricated news to poison and
infiltrate the free
world,manipulate and misguide the contents of the media,and
deploy brainwashing and malicious
spread of viruses,done with insinuation and riddles.The fact that
Communist China's slaughtering
the innocent had been the result of a high level of
calculation,and a high level of rationalization,
where the threats are in existence,and cannot be ignored of their
detrimental severity.
12. Communist China often coerce people to watch news compiled by the
reporter Lu Yuling of the cable
news in order for them to be saved,but few are aware that
Communist China had merely deploy the
reporter to entrap many people. I do envision that those that
turn to committing crime as framed
by Communist China,the extra sufferings by the ordinary
people,and the deaths of many innocent
lives will not go unnoticed as hindered by a condoning attitude.
13. Nazi Hu Jintao, Jiang Zemin, Chinese Liberation Army, security
police and armed police have committed suppression and massacre on
their own civilians. Hu, Jiang and the other atrocious butchers owe
these innocent civilians! More horrible and serious is that they are
using mysterious killing technologies to cause harms to human brains
around the world, making advantage of numerous international
politicians and journalists to help them commit atrocities and
beautify their actions, aiming to overturn and suppress those innocent
people and cover up their terrorist acts and win fame by cheating the
world. Securing in the knowledge that they have strong backing, these
arrogant and shameless butchers have committed tortures and mass
killing cruelly to those innocent ones around the world.
Unfortunately, neither these politicians and nor journalists knowing
what is what would dare to express their conscience.
14. The inhumane acts and atrocities committed by Nazi China are far
more vicious than that of Nanjing massacre in China during WWII
committed by Japanese army, as Chinese government is using mysterious
technologies to commit massacres to masses of bare-handed civilians
around the world as well as launch violence and terrorist activities
to suppress these completely unarmed people’s freedom of speech. These
demons, like Hu, Jinag and Chinese Liberation Army, despise the
chastity, dignity and precious life of those innocent ones and
suppress the emotions of their beloved. Meanwhile, relying on the
condition that most of people in the world will not be able to witness
their vicious acts of violence and behaviors they have committed
unscrupulously and shamelessly, these Chinese Liberation Army enjoys
using cruel ways to torture, massacre and trample on these innocent
people, physically and mentally, in one free world. The arrogant Hu,
Jiang and those jackals nurtured under such ferocious power treat
themselves as the symbol of benevolence and hero, as they fail to
learn their gutless and vicious acts to trample on those innocent
people. If these demons, butchers and dregs of human, such as Hu,
Jiang and Chinese Liberation Army who have become frenzied and
conscienceless appeared in the site of Nanjing massacre in WWII, they
definitely would be the leading roles to act atrocities!
15. We don’t want to see masses of innocent people to fall victim to
the hell on earth built by red China where they will be susceptible to
tortures and massacres for thousands of years.
16. Despite being even unable to fend for themselves in face of the
high-tech detriments and attacks from China, we can not tolerate the
fact that these politicians and journalists will become the
accomplices to help China commit its terrorist acts and suppression on
these innocent people in the current era or an unknown future.
17. In view of the notorious, vicious and sinister Hu, Jiang, Chinese
Liberation Army with blood-stained hands, we just cast doubt over
whether these greats of knowing what is what who have negotiated with
these demons will show their conscience to save these innocent
civilians or will act just for the sake of their profits, or are under
the control of China. In this current drowned world, how will these
innocent lives be treated in face of the atrocious acts committed by
these diabolical figures, or when these innocent people will witness
the practice of democracy in China? Will these phenomena turn out to
be the joint efforts and endeavors achieved by China and those
powerful figures in the world? Are we really dedicated to overturning
such adversity? Our goal is to eliminate the vicious power one day
with our strenuous efforts, and we absolutely will achieve it!


Chen,Shun-Chuan's Blog http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/shun-chuan
http://abn2739.blogspot.com




http://www.counterpunch.org/toussaint10212008.html

October 21, 2008


Time to Delink


The Economic Crisis and Latin America
By ERIC TOUSSAINT

T he economic and financial crisis, whose epicentre is found in the
United States, has to be utilised by Latin American countries to build
an integration favourable to the peoples and at the same initiate a
partial delinking.

We need to learn the lessons of the 20th century in order to apply
them at the beginning of this century. During the decade of the 1930s,
that followed the crisis that exploded on Wall Street in 1929, 12
countries in Latin America suspended for a prolonged time the
repayment of their foreign debt, prinicipally to North American and
Western European bankers. Some of them, such as Brazil and Mexico,
imposed on their creditors a reduction of between 50% and 90% of their
debt some 10 years later. Mexico was the one that went the furthest
with their economic and social reforms. During the government of
Lazaro Cardenas, the petroleum industry was completely nationalised
without any compensation for the North American monopolies. Moreover,
16 million hectares were also nationalised and in large part handed
over to the indigenous population in the form of comunal goods (“el
ejido”). During the thirties and up until the middle of the sixties,
various Latin American governments carried out very active public
policies with the aim of seeking a partially self-centred development,
known later by the name of the model of industrialisation via
substitution of importations (ISI). On the other hand, beginning in
1959, the Cuban revolution attempted to give a socialist content to
the Bolivarian project of Latin American integration. This socialist
content began to appear in the Bolivian revolution of 1952. Brutal US
intervention, backed by the dominant classes and the local armed
forces, was necessary to put an end to the ascending cycle of social
emancipation during this period. The blockade of Cuba since 1962,
military junta in Brazil from 1964, US intervention in Santo Domingo
in 1965, the Banzer dictatorship in Bolivia in 1971, the Pinochet coup
in Chile in 1973, installing of dictatorships in Uruguay and
Argentina. The neoliberal model was put in practice first in Chile
with Pinochet, and with the intellectual guidance of the Chicago Boys
of Milton Friedman, and afterwards was imposed on all the continent,
aided by the debt crisis that exploded in 1982. With the fall of the
dictatorships in the eighties, the neoliberal model continued in
force, principally through the application of structural adjustments
programs and the Washington Consensus. The governments of Latin
America were incapable of forming a common front, and the majority
applied the recipes dictated by the World Bank and the IMF in a docile
manner. This ended up producing a large popular discontent and a
recomposition of popular forces that led to a new cycle of elections
of left or centre left governments, beginning with Chavez in 1998, who
committed himself to installing a different model based on social
justice.
There is a dispute between two projects of integration
At the beginning of this century, the Bolivarian[3] project of
integration of the peoples of the region has gain new momentum. If we
want this new ascending cycle to go further it is necessary to learn
the lessons of the past. What was particularly missing in Latin
America during the decades of the 1940s to the 1970s was an authentic
project of integration of economies and peoples, combined with a real
redistribution of wealth in favor of the working classes. We need to
be conscious of the fact that in Latin America today there is a
dispute between two projects of integration, that have an antagonist
class content. The capitalist classes of Brazil and Argentina (the two
principal economies of South America) are partisans of an integration
based on their economic domination over the rest of the region. The
interests of Brazilian companies, above all, as well as Argentine
ones, are very important in all the region: oil and gas, large
infrastructure works, mining, metallurgy, agrobusiness, food
industries, etc. The European construction, based on a single market
dominated by big capital is the model that they want to follow. The
Brazilian and Argentine capitalist classes want the workers of the
different countries in the region to compete amongst themselves in
order to obtain maximum benefit and be competitive on the world
market. From the point of view of the left, it would be a tragic error
to fallback on a policy of stages: support a model of Latin American
integration according to the European model, dominated by big capital,
with the illusionary hope of giving it a socially emancipatory content
later on. Such support implies putting oneself at the service of
capitalist interests. We do not have to involve ourselves in the
capitalist’s games, trying to be more astute and letting them dictate
the rules.
The other project of integration, that falls within Bolivarian
framework, wants to given a social justice content to integration.
This implies the recuperation of public control over natural resources
in the region and over large means of production, credit and
commercialisation. The levelling from above of the social conquests of
the workers and small producers, at the same time as reducing the
asymetries between the economies in the region. The substantial
improval of paths of communication between countries of the region,
rigourously respecting the environment (for example, developing
railway lines and other means of collective transport before
highways). Support for small private producers in numerous activities,
agriculture, artisan, trade, services, etc. The process of social
emancipation that the bolivarian project of the 21st century is
pursuing aims to liberate society from capitalist domination
supporting forms of property that have a social function: small
private property, public property, cooperative property, comunal and
collective property, etc. At the same time, Latin American integration
implies equiping oneself with a common financial, judicial and
political architecture.
Latin American is losing precious time
The current international conjuncture, favorable for developing
countries that export primary products, needs to be utilised before
the situation changes. The countries of Latin America have accumulated
close to US$400,000 million in reserves. This is no small figure, in
the hands of Latin American Central Banks and which needs to be
utilised at an opportune moment in order to help regional integration
and shield the continent in the face of the effects of the economic
and financial crisis that is unfolding in North America and Europe and
that threatens the whole planet. Unfortunately, we should not create
illusions: Latin American is on the path to losing precious time,
while the governments, beyond the rhetoric, pursue a traditional
policy: signing of bilateral agreements on investment, acceptance or
continuation of negotiations over certain free trade agreements,
utilisation of reserves to buy bonds from the US Treasury (that is,
lending capital to the dominant power) or credit default swaps whose
markets have collapsed with Lehman Brothers, AIG etc, advance payments
to the IMF, World Bank and the Paris Club, acceptance of the World
Bank Tribunal (ICSID) as a way to resolve differences with
transnationals, continuation of trade negotiations within the
framework of the agenda of Doha, maintainance of the military
occupation of Haiti. Following a loud and promising start in 2007, the
initiatives announced in regards to Latin American integration seem to
have come to a halt in 2008.
Bank of the South
In regards to the launching of the Bank of the South, this has already
been delayed quite a bit. Discussions have not progressed. We have to
get rid off any confusion and give a clearly progressive content to
this new institution, whose creation was decided upon in December 2007
by seven countries in South America. The Bank of the South has to be a
democratic institution (one country, one vote) and transparent
(external auditing). Before using public money to finance large
infrastructure project that don’t respect the environment and which
are carried out by private companies whose objectives are to obtain
maximum benefit, we have to support the efforts of the public powers
to promote policies such as food sovereignty, agrarian reform, the
development of studies in the field of health and the establishment of
a pharmaceutical industry that produces high quality generic
medication, reinforce collective rail-based means of transport,
utilize alternative energies to limit the impact on depleted natural
resources, protect the environment, develop the integration of
education systems….
Debt
Contrary to what many think, the problem of the public debt has not
been resolved. It is true that the external public debt has been
reduced, but it has been replaced by an internal public debt that, in
certain countries, has acquired totally huge proportions (Brazil,
Colombia, Argentina, Nicaragua, and Guatemala) to the point that it
derails a considerable part of the state budget towards parasitically
financial capital. It is very worthwhile following the example of
Ecuador, which established an integral auditing commission to study
the external and internal public debt, with the aim of determining the
illegitimate, illicit and illegal parts of the debt. At a time when,
following a series of adventurous operations, the large banks and
other private financial institutions of the United States and Europe
are wiping out dubious debts with an amount that by far surpasses the
external public debt that Latin America owes them, we have to
constitute a united front of indebted countries in order to obtain the
cancellation of the debt.
Nationalisation of the banks without paying compensation and
exercising the right of reparations
Private banks need to audited and strictly controlled, because they
run the risk of being dragged down with the international financial
crisis. We have to avoid a situation where the state ends up
nationalising the losses of the banks, as has happened many times
before (Chile under Pinochet, Mexico in 1995, Ecuador in 1999-2000,
etc). If some banks on the brink of bankruptcy have to be
nationalised, this should be done without paying compensation and
exercising the right of reparations over the patrimony of their
owners.
Moreover, numerous litigation cases have emerged in the last few years
between the states of the region and multinationals, from the North
and the South. Rather that taking them to the International Centre for
Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), which is part of the World
Bank, dominated by a handful of industrialised countries, the
countries of the region should follow the example of Bolivia, which
has pulled out of the organisation. They should create a regional
organism for the resolution of litigation cases initiated by other
countries or private companies. How can we continue to sign loan
contracts or trade contracts that state that, in the case of
litigation, the only jurisdictions that are valid are those of the US,
United Kingdom or other countries of the North? We are dealing here
with an inadmissible renouncement of the exercising of sovereignty.
It is worthwhile establishing a strict control over capital movements
and exchange rates, with the goal of avoiding capital flight and
speculative attacks against currencies in the region. For the states
that want to make the Bolivarian project of Latin American integration
for greater social justice a reality, it is necessary to advance
towards a common currency.
Integration has a political dimension
Naturally, integration has to have a political dimension: a Latin
American parliament elected by universal suffrage in each one of the
member countries, equipped with a real legislative power. Within the
framework of political construction, we have to avoid repeating the
bad example of Europe, where the European Commission (that is, the
European government) has exaggerated powers in regards to the
parliament. We have to move towards a democratic constituent process
with the goal of adopting a common political constitution. We also
have to avoid reproducing the anti-democratic procedure followed by
the European Commission that attempts to impose a constitutional
treaty elaborated without the active participation of citizens and
without submitting it to a referendum in each member country. On the
contrary, we have to follow the example of the constituent assemblies
of Venezuela (1999), Bolivia (2007) and Ecuador (2007-8). The
important democratic advances achieved in the course of these three
processes will have to be integrated into the Bolivarian constituent
process.
Likewise, it is necessary to strengthen the powers of the Latin
American Court of Justice, particularly in matters regarding the
guaranteeing for the respect of inalienable human rights.
Until now, various processes of integration coexist: the Community of
Andean Nations, Mercosur, Unasur, Caricom, Alba….It is important to
avoid dispersion and adopt a integration process with a social-
political definition based on social justice. This Bolivarian process
should bring together all the countries in Latin America (South
America, Central America and the Caribbean) that adhere themselves to
this orientation. It is preferable to commence this common
construction with a reduced and coherent nucleus, rather than with a
heterogeneous set of states whose governments follow contradictory, if
not antagonistic, social policies.
Partial delinking from the world capitalist market
Bolivarian integration should be accompanied with a partial delinking
from the world capitalist market. We are dealing with trying to
progressively erase the borders that separate the states that
participate in the project, reducing the asymmetries between the
member countries especially thanks to a mechanism of transfer of
wealth from the “richer” states to the “poorer”. This will allow for
the considerable expansion of the internal market and will favour the
development of local producers under different forms of property. It
will allow for the putting into action of a process of development
(not only industrialisation) with substitution of importations. Of
course, this implies the development, for example, of a policy of food
sovereignty. At the same time, the Bolivarian project made up of
various member countries will partially delink itself from the world
capitalist market. This means in particular the repealing of bilateral
treaties in areas of investment and trade. The member countries of the
Bolivarian group should also pull out of institutions such as the
World Bank, the IMF and the WTO, at the same time as promoting the
creation of new democratic global institutions that respect
inalienable human rights.
As was mentioned before, the member state of the new Bolivarian group
would equip itself with new regional institutions, such as the Bank of
the South, which would develop collaborative relations with other
similar institutions made up by states from other regions in the
world.
The member states of the new Bolivarian group will act with the
maximum number of third states in favour of a radical democratic
reform of the United Nations, with the objective of ensuring
compliance with the United Nations Charter and the numerous
international instruments that defend human rights, such as the
international pact on economic, social and cultural rights (1996), the
charter on the rights and responsibilities of states (1974), the
declaration on the right to development (1986), the resolution on the
rights of indigenous people (2007). Equally, it would lend support to
the activities of the International Criminal Court and the
International Court of Justice in The Hague. It would act in favour of
reaching understandings between states and the peoples with the goal
of acting in order to limit climate change as much as possible, given
that this represents a terrible danger for humanity.
Eric Toussaint, president of the Committee for the Cancellation of
Third World Debt – Belgium www.cadtm.org , author of The World Bank: A
Critical Primer, Pluto, London, 2008.
Translated by Fred Fuentes

" We may elect representatives to Congress to end the war in Iraq, but
the war goes on. We may plead with these representatives to halt
Bush's illegal wiretapping but the telecommunications lobbyists make
sure it remains in place. We may beg them not to pass the bailout but
850 billion taxpayer dollars are funneled upward to the elites on Wall
Street. We may want single-payer, not-for-profit health care but it is
not even discussed as a possibility in presidential debates. We, as
individuals in this system, are irrelevant. "
The Idiots Who Rule America
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081020_the_idiots_who_rule_america/
By Chris Hedges
Our oligarchic class is incompetent at governing, managing the
economy, coping with natural disasters, educating our young, handling
foreign affairs, providing basic services like health care and
safeguarding individual rights. That it is still in power, and will
remain in power after this election, is a testament to our inability
to separate illusion from reality. We still believe in "the experts."
They still believe in themselves. They are clustered like flies
swarming around John McCain and Barack Obama. It is only when these
elites are exposed as incompetent parasites and dethroned that we will
have any hope of restoring social, economic and political order.
"Their inability to see the human as anything more than interest
driven made it impossible for them to imagine an actively organized
pool of disinterest called the public good," said the Canadian
philosopher John Ralston Saul, whose books "The Unconscious
Civilization" and "Voltaire's Bastards" excoriates our oligarchic
elites. "It is as if the Industrial Revolution had caused a severe
mental trauma, one that still reaches out and extinguishes the memory
of certain people. For them, modern history begins from a big explosion
—the Industrial Revolution. This is a standard ideological approach: a
star crosses the sky, a meteor explodes, and history begins anew."
Our elites—the ones in Congress, the ones on Wall Street and the ones
being produced at prestigious universities and business schools—do not
have the capacity to fix our financial mess. Indeed, they will make it
worse. They have no concept, thanks to the educations they have
received, of the common good. They are stunted, timid and uncreative
bureaucrats who are trained to carry out systems management. They see
only piecemeal solutions which will satisfy the corporate structure.
They are about numbers, profits and personal advancement. They are as
able to deny gravely ill people medical coverage to increase company
profits as they are able to use taxpayer dollars to peddle costly
weapons systems to blood-soaked dictatorships. The human consequences
never figure into their balance sheets. The democratic system, they
think, is a secondary product of the free market. And they slavishly
serve the market.
Andrew Lahde, the Santa Monica, Calif., hedge fund manager who made an
870 percent gain last year by betting on the subprime mortgage
collapse, has abruptly shut down his fund, citing the risk of trading
with faltering banks. In his farewell letter to his investors he
excoriated the elites who run our investment houses, banks and
government.
"The low-hanging fruit, i.e. idiots whose parents paid for prep
school, Yale, and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking," he
said of our oligarchic class. "These people who were (often) truly not
worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to
the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and
all levels of our government. All of this behavior supporting the
Aristocracy only ended up making it easier for me to find people
stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless
America."
"On the issue of the U.S. Government, I would like to make a modest
proposal," he went on. "First, I point out the obvious flaws, whereby
legislation was repeatedly brought forth to Congress over the past
eight years, which would have [reined] in the predatory lending
practices of now mostly defunct institutions. These institutions
regularly filled the coffers of both parties in return for voting down
all of this legislation designed to protect the common citizen. This
is an outrage, yet no one seems to know or care about it. Since Thomas
Jefferson and Adam Smith passed, I would argue that there has been a
dearth of worthy philosophers in this country, at least ones focused
on improving government."
Democracy is not an outgrowth of free markets. Democracy and
capitalism are antagonistic entities. Democracy, like individualism,
is not based on personal gain but on self-sacrifice. A functioning
democracy must defy the economic interests of elites on behalf of
citizens. This is not happening. The corporate managers and government
officials trying to fix the economic meltdown are pouring money and
resources into the financial sector because they only know how to
manage and sustain established systems, not change them. Financial
systems, however, are not pure scientific and numerical abstractions
that exist independently from human beings.
"When the elite begin to think that money is real, the crash is
coming," Saul said in a telephone interview. "That is just a given in
history. Because what they've done is pull themselves out of the
possibility of looking in the mirror and thinking, this is inflation,
speculation, this is fluff. They can't do it. And when you say to
them, gosh, this is not real. And they say, oh, you don't understand,
you're so old-fashioned, you still think this is about manufacturing.
And of course, it's basic economics. And that's what happens every
single time.
"The difficulty is you have a collapse, you have a loss of face by the
people who are there, and it's not just George Bush, it's very, very
deep," Saul said. "What we're talking about is the need to rethink the
departments of economics, of political science. Then you have to
rethink the whole analytic method of the World Bank. If I'm the
secretary of the treasury, and not a guy like [Henry] Paulson, but I
mean a sort of normal secretary of the treasury or minister of
finance, and I say, OK, we've got a real problem, let's get the senior
civil servants in here. Gentlemen, ladies, OK, clearly we have to go
in another direction, give me some ideas. Well, those people don't
have any other ideas because at this point they're about the fourth
generation of what you might call neoconservative globalist managers,
unfairly summarized. So they then go to the people who work for them,
and you work down; there's no one in there with an alternate approach.
I mean they'll have little alternatives, but no basic differences in
opinion. And so it's very difficult to turn anything around because
they've eliminated all opposing ideas inside. I mean it's the problem
of the Soviet Union, right?"
Saul pointed out that the first three aims of the corporatist movement
in Germany, Italy and France during the 1920s, those that went on to
become part of the Fascist experience, were "to shift power directly
to economic and social interest groups, to push entrepreneurial
initiative in areas normally reserved for public bodies" and to
"obliterate the boundaries between public and private interest—that
is, challenge the idea of the public interest."
Sound familiar?
"There are a handful of people who haven't been published in
mainstream journals, who haven't been listened to, who have been
marginalized in every way," Saul said. "There are a couple of them and
you could turn to them. But then who do you give the orders to? And
the people you give the orders to, they are not going to understand
the orders because it hasn't been a part of their education. So it's a
real problem of a good general who suddenly finds that his junior
generals and brigadiers and corporals, you want them to do irregular
warfare and they only know how to do trenches. And so how the hell do
you get them to do this thing which they've never been trained to do?
And so you get this kind of disorder, confusion inside, and the danger
of what rises up there is populism; we've already had populism in a
way, but we could get more populism, more fear and anger."
We may elect representatives to Congress to end the war in Iraq, but
the war goes on. We may plead with these representatives to halt
Bush's illegal wiretapping but the telecommunications lobbyists make
sure it remains in place. We may beg them not to pass the bailout but
850 billion taxpayer dollars are funneled upward to the elites on Wall
Street. We may want single-payer, not-for-profit health care but it is
not even discussed as a possibility in presidential debates. We, as
individuals in this system, are irrelevant.
"I've talked to several Supreme Court justices, several times in
several countries," Saul told me, "and I say, look, in your rulings,
can you differentiate easily in cases between the social contract and
the commercial contract, and to which the answer is, we can no longer
differentiate. And that lies at the heart of the problem. You don't
have the concept of the other, and of obligation of the individual
leading to individualism. You can't have that if the whole legal
system has slipped over the last, really, 50 years, increasingly, to a
confusion between the social contract and the commercial contract.
Because they are two completely different things. The social contract
is about the public good, responsible individualism, imagining the
other. The commercial contract is a commercial contract. They're not
supposed to be confused. They don't actually fit together. The
commercial contract only works properly when the social contract works
in a democracy."
The working class, which has desperately borrowed money to stay afloat
as real wages have dropped, now face years, maybe decades, of stagnant
or declining incomes without access to new credit. The national
treasury meanwhile is being drained on behalf of speculative
commercial interests. The government—the only institution citizens
have that is big enough and powerful enough to protect their rights—is
becoming weaker, more anemic and less able to help the mass of
Americans who are embarking on a period of deprivation and suffering
unseen in this country since the 1930s. Consumption, the profligate
engine of the U.S. economy, is withering. September retail sales
across the U.S. fell 1.2 percent. The decline was almost double the
0.7 percent drop analysts expected from consumers, whose spending
represents two-thirds of U.S. economic activity. There were 160,000
jobs lost last month and three-quarters of a million jobs lost this
year. The reverberations of the economic meltdown are only beginning.
I do not think George W. Bush or Barack Obama or John McCain or Henry
Paulson are fascists. Rather, they are part of a cabal of naive,
mediocre and self-deluded capitalists who are steadily weakening
political and economic structures to a point where our democracy will
become so impotent that it can be blown aside, probably with broad
popular support. The only question is how this will happen. Will there
be a steady and slow decline as in the late Roman Empire when the
Senate ended as a farce? Will we see a powerful right-wing backlash
from those outside the mainstream political system, as we did in
Yugoslavia, and the rise of a militant Christian fascism? Will there
be a national crisis that allows those in power to instantly sweep
away all constitutional rights in the name of national security?
I do not know. But I do know that what is coming, as long as our
oligarchy remains in charge, will not be good. We will either recover
the concept of the public good, and this means a revolt against our
bankrupt elite and the dynamiting of the corporatist structure, or we
will extinguish our democracy.
'Media-police collusion is a threat to society'
CNN-IBN
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/mediapolice-collusion-is-a-threat-to-society/76234-3.html

Karan Thapar Hello and welcome to Devil's Advocate. Why is Arundhati
Roy angry with the police and upset with the press? That's the key
issue I shall explore today. Arundhati Roy, let's start with the
recent encounter in Jamia Nagar in New Delhi. You've called for an
independent judicial enquiry headed by a Supreme Court judge. Why do
you involve yourself into this work? What's your locus standi?
Arundhati Roy: Well, I am just one of those thousands of people who
are asking some very serious questions of the police. The trouble is
that you know, even if you wanted to believe this police version, you
so know which police version to believe…the Bombay police, the UP
police, the Gujarat police or the Delhi police. All of them have
different versions. There's a blizzard of masterminds. The Additional
Commissioner of Mumbai police, Rakesh Maria recently said that
Tauqeer, who is the Delhi police's mastermind of Indian Mujahideen, is
a media creation. The point is who creates the media creations…is it
the media or the police or do they work together?
Karan Thapar So you are motivated by these contradictions? Is that the
sole reason you need a judicial enquiry headed by a Supreme Court
judge?<0/i>
Arundhati Roy: Again, it is not just me. It was thousands of people
who are saying one thing, you know. When the police have killed
people, it ceases to be a neutral party. It cannot have an impartial
investigation in its own actions. And there are so many serious
questions about what happened at Batla House.
Karan Thapar But before we come to those questions, let me point out
what many people will be thinking at this moment. They are going to
why do you think will an encounter, when a senior police officer like
M C Sharma is killed and another injured would be fake. The police
would not endanger themselves in a fake and fraudulent incident.
Arundhati Roy: Well, historically the police and security agencies the
world over have done things like that. I am not saying it is fake. I
am saying lets have an enquiry because…this matter of M C Sharma, for
instance would be cleared up if they would only produce the post
mortem report. Instead the post mortem report is leaked in various
ways and Mail Today says that he was shot from behind. (Journalist)
Praveen Swami (of the daily The Hindu) says he was shot from two
sides. The residents say that the police arrived and that there were
drills and that they are making holes in the flat now. Why cannot all
this be cleared up if they would just produce the reports, which even
the Magistrate asked for the report and has put out a warrant for
investigating officer for the investigating officer and they still
haven't produced it.
Karan Thapar As you speak, I get the impression that your whole
premise is that you don't trust the police. Millions of Indians do. Is
it fitting and fair that you should question their veracity in this
way when you know that it would not just demoralize them but it would
seriously undermine their struggle to contain terror?
Arundhati Roy: Well. Millions of Indians do not trust the police. Is
our choice not to question them because here we are talking about the
communal profiling of a hundred and fifty million people, demoralising
them, radicalizing a whole generation and asking serious questions of
a story that is told to us that is full of holes? Especially because
such a senior police officer died in the incident, why should we not
clear it up for the sake of police itself?
Karan Thapar Let me for a moment play Devil's Advocate and point out
to you evidence that you are deliberately ignoring. AK-47s were found
in Batla House, so were two pistols. Policemen were shot at, policemen
were killed. Atif's name appears in the Ahmedabad, Mumbai and UP
police findings. Now, most recently, it transpires that Atif's degree
from Allahabad is a fake. Why aren't you giving the police, as anyone
else will, the benefit of the doubt? The evidence suggests that there
is something suspicious, that there is a case. Why do you doubt it?
Arundhati Roy: Let enquiry clear it up. Even in the case of these
recoveries, you know, there is a serious procedural lapse. When the
police make recoveries at the scene of the crime, they should have
independent witnesses corroborating it. They didn't, like in the case
of the Parliament attack.
Karan Thapar Isn't it possible that people are scared to come forth?
Arundhati Roy: No, but they have to get the seizure memo signed,
right? And even the magistrate is asking for all these documents…for
the FIR, the post mortem report, for the case diary not being
produced. Now, let me ask some questions about Atif. The reports in
the media given out by the police say that they have had him under
surveillance since July 17. If so, then how was he allowed to plant
these bombs in September? And even when they say that they had him
under surveillance, they say that his number was called by a number,
which was called by another number…I mean, c'mon, that's a lead, not
proof that someone is a terrorist.
Karan Thapar Maybe the surveillance wasn't effective. Maybe the police
are exaggerating that they had him under surveillance. What about the
other evidence that the police have brought into the public domain? It
transpires that clips of the car that was used in the Ahmedabad
bombings were found inside Atif's mobile, it transpires that
literature of Al Qaeda was found at Batla House. It seems that even
Saif has been using an assumed name. He has been travelling under a
false identity calling himself Rohan Sharma. He even had that
gentleman's voter identity card with him. None of these is suggestive
or corroborated but you are dismissing it as otherwise.
Arundhati Roy: I am not dismissing it. If there is an enquiry, all
this will also be a part of it. I am not dismissing they may be real
terrorists. There are real terrorists; who are they; are these boys
the real ones? While the police are giving us evidence, there are also
strange stories floating around. The police have been using the media
to put out stories. All this is very disturbing and all this could be
cleared out.
Karan Thapar See, if I understand you correctly, there are two things
you want clarified. One is that you want the questions and the
inconsistencies in the police stories clarified because they suggest
that the police hadn't got a clear cut case. And the second thing is
that you want to try and get at the proof that establishes that the
police had good reason to suspicious of the people.
Arundhati Roy: Exactly! Even their own versions are contradicting each
other. On the one hand they say that you know, we did not know that
they were terrorists and that is why we went in, in this casual
manner. But the minute something came up they come out and say that
these were the masterminds. There are so many things, you know. They
say that people were killed in the crossfire but the proof is that
these two men were killed while they were kneeling with shots in their
head.
Karan Thapar That's an assumption, I must point out!
Arundhati Roy: No, there are pictures.
Karan Thapar Suggested. But we do not have the corroboration from the
police.
Arundhati Roy: The police should show the post mortem report but we
see it from the photographs.
Karan Thapar You know what listening to you, people will say? And I am
repeating what I have said to you earlier! They will say that her
problem arises from the fact that she does not trust the police. Is it
right that you should have such serious doubts about them?
Arundhati Roy: Not just rights, I think its our duty to have serious
doubts and especially today, when we are sliding quickly into fascism
and terrorism. It's our business as members of civil society to ask
hard questions.
Karan Thapar In which case, what are you suspecting the police…or let
me put me more strongly and bluntly…what are you accusing the police
of, on this issue?
Arundhati Roy: Well, primarily of giving us a story that doesn't hold
together and insults our intelligence.
Karan Thapar Why would they do this?
Arundhati Roy: I don't know. That's what we would like to know.
Karan Thapar Is it not possible that they have got it right and you
have doubts about them?
Arundhati Roy: Maybe! But an enquiry would show that, wouldn't it? The
more they block it, refuse to produce the post mortem…the more they
subterfuge and obfuscate their way through this, the more people will
get suspicious of them.
Karan Thapar An enquiry at the end of the day, would be in their
benefit as well! Is that what you are arguing?
Arundhati Roy: Absolutely!
Karan Thapar What then do you say of people who argue that this is
typical Arundhati Roy. She's been against dams and developments; she's
in favour of cessation of Kashmir. She's attacked nuclear weapons and
is now she is defending terrorists?
Arundhati Roy: Well, to being accused of being typically oneself is
not an accusation. But if you are accusing me of having a world view
that I do not believe in…I mean I do not believe in neo colonial
military occupation, I don't believe in nuclear weapons and I don't
believe in ecological destruction; then I am guilty as accused.
Raising questions does not amount to supporting terrorism. I raised
questions on the Parliament attack along with the people; we want to
know who the terrorists are. We don't know. Now, of the people we
defended, two of the four 'masterminds' of the case were released.
Afzal has been convicted by the Supreme Court which says that says
that we have no evidence to prove that he is attached to any terrorist
groups but in order to satisfy the collective conscience of society,
he is being sentenced to death. Excuse me Karan, its my case that the
collective conscience of society is also a part of media construct and
a part of the judicial imagination constructed by these stories that
being put out.

Karan Thapar So, you are saying to me that as a citizen, as a
conscientious democrat, it is your duty to question. And if the
questions are awkward and unsettling, so be it and that they must be
answered, none the less?
Arundhati Roy: Yes, absolutely!
Karan Thapar Arundhati Roy, lets come to the wider issue about how the
police treats the people it has arrested and it is holding in
detention. You are extremely upset by the fact that India Today
journalists were given an access to the young men arrested at Batla
House so that interviews could be done. Why do you call this a
terrible thing?
Arundhati Roy: Well, look this phenomenon of media confessions is
becoming a standard operating procedure with the Special cell and the
Delhi police. The point is that neither the courts nor any kind of
international law allows you to say that people who are being held in
police custody under torture…
Karan Thapar How do you know that they are being held under torture?
Arundhati Roy: Well, the possibility of torture…maybe that day, they
were not tortured…it was the first day…
Karan Thapar You are saying that Human Rights laws and values do not
permit people under detention to be interviewed when they are not
willing to be interviewed?
Arundhati Roy: Yes! And even the courts do not accept these as
confessions or evidence. But the reason these are done is because they
have a propaganda value.
Karan Thapar The assumption when you say that such incidences have
propaganda value is that these are forced confessions…that the young
men interviewed did not give the answers they did, willingly and
voluntarily. How can you conclude that that's the case?

Arundhati Roy: In this case it is very easy to be sure. Those young
men, before they were caught, Zeeshan went to Headlines Today, Saquib
went to Mail Today…both these (media units) are owned by the India
Today, as you know. They were all people who came out in support of
Atif and Saquib and said, look we know this guy. We know who he is.
Karan Thapar Then how come you are calling those so called confessions
when they are incriminating themselves and that when they went
willingly to Mail Today or India Today, there are inconsistencies.
Arundhati Roy: Yes, so which version are we supposed to believe? The
custodial one or the non-custodial one?
Karan Thapar All the three men named by India Today and I will name
them, Zia-ur-rehman, Saquib Insaar and Shakil admitted to planting
bombs. You are denying or doubting the veracity of the so called
confessions.
Arundhati Roy: Obviously! Its absurd not to, because they are in
police custody. The same guys, Saquib went to Mail Today saying that I
have known Atif for years…I got him this house. I mean it's hardly the
behaviour of terrorists.
Karan Thapar I assume that the point you are making is that any
interview that is granted in police custody is not a willing and
voluntary one and therefore any confession made in that interview is a
forced confession and not acceptable?
Arundhati Roy: Well, it is not admitted. Even in the Parliament case,
the courts admonished the police for parading these people before the
media and giving these media confessions. They didn't do anything to
the police which is why the same police ; in fact Mohan Chand Sharma
was a part of that cell, that same cell did it to theses people and it
served the purpose. The propaganda value has been achieved.
Karan Thapar You are saying that the Courts had admonished the police
at the time the Parliament attack had happened for arranging such
alleged false confessions and the police disregarded that admonishing
and did the same thing again.
Arundhati Roy: That's right.
Karan Thapar In your eyes, is the police guilty of violating
fundamental human rights by arranging what you call false confessions
to be made in forced interviews? Is this a violation of basic human
rights?
Arundhati Roy: It is a violation of all kinds of rights. I say it
again, that in this atmosphere of communal profiling, this kind of
propaganda is essential for them. It is the keystone to this whole
enterprise. They have achieved what they set out to, regardless of
what the court says.
Karan Thapar The police have made a habit of this. It happened under
circumstances, in the Arushi murder case, practically everyday. They
hold press briefings, where half baked theories or at least
unconfirmed details they are repeated and revealed to the press. The
press then prints them as facts. The readers and the viewers of
television then accept it as the truth. Are you disconcerted by this?
Arundhati Roy: I am utterly disconcerted by this because now it is the
combination of the media and the police…you do not know which ends
where and which begins where. In a situation where these encounter
specialists are going out and summarily executing thirty people,
calling them terrorists…No one asks questions once they are dead. We
just accept it.
Karan Thapar Just a moment ago, you spoke about the collusion between
the media and the police. Are you saying that the press is itself in
error when it accepts what is given by the police and publishes it
without verifying or double checking it?
Arundhati Roy: It is not just an error. It is outrageous to do
something like this.
Karan Thapar So the press' behaviour is outrageous?
Arundhati Roy: It is outrageous. There are statements like…and this
man looked at me and he looked like a human bomb…I mean what kind of
journalism is that?
Karan Thapar So when as a result, like many people have said, this
collusion between the police and the press leads to Jamia Nagar or to
Azamgarh being thought as terrorist hubs or breeding grounds for
terrorism, how unfortunate is that?
Arundhati Roy: It is not just unfortunate, its very dangerous. We now
have a situation where a hundred and fifty Muslims and an equal number
of Dalits and Adivasis in a different set of circumstances are being
targeted in this way. Even if half a per cent of them decide to stop
putting their heads down and decide to hit back, life as we knew it is
over. A whole generation is radicalised and India becomes a threat to
not just itself, but to the whole world.
Karan Thapar This is something very important that you are saying. You
mean that this behaviour of the police and the uncritical reporting by
the press is going to end up in alienation and breeding the terrorism
that we think we are controlling.
Arundhati Roy: Yes, that and also that this is a recipe for sliding
into fascism. And we are bang in the middle of it now and this is how
it works.
Karan Thapar Why does the Indian middle class society that is so proud
of calling itself a liberal democracy, accept this?
Arundhati Roy: Well, I don't think we are anymore proud of this. We
have increasingly accepted that we are a police state and there is a
sort of sliding of the democracy into majority into fascism that is a
real danger now.
Karan Thapar So you are saying that the middle class no more stands up
for the liberal values it believes in. It is actually in a sense
accepting the horrible shortcuts and therefore colluding. It's a very
strong criticism, do you really mean it?
Arundhati Roy: I do. In fact, I feel that some day like the Nazis in
Germany, we will be called upon to answer for what we have done and
why we kept quiet while this was happening.
Karan Thapar I get the feel that you are deeply disillusioned with the
Indian middle classes.
Arundhati Roy: It is not just the middle classes, you know. It is the
framework that we are putting into action these days. I have spent ten
years writing about it. We are in a very serious situation. If we are
to right it, all of us should ask ourselves very serious questions
about when we chose to speak up and when we chose to stay quiet.
Karan Thapar But in keeping quiet, as you say suggesting, Indians
today are prepared to do, they are not just betraying essential values
that they claim they believe in, they are actually betraying
themselves and letting down their country. That's the case you are
making.
Arundhati Roy: I am making that case and I am saying that with these
policies that we are persuing, today every ordinary Indian's life is
going to be at risk and we will pay very heavily for the consequences
of what is going on now.
Karan Thapar So it is virtually the last moment to stand up and be
identified with the values that we claim to believe in otherwise those
values are gone and with that our lives are gone.
Arundhati Roy: Absolutely!
Karan Thapar And that's not an exaggeration?

Arundhati Roy: Nope! Absolutely not!

Karan Thapar Arundhati Roy, a pleasure talking to you on Devil's
Advocate






A global financial meltdown of this magnitude has inevitably prompted
an explosion of black humour. My personal favourite centres on
Iceland, the small North European country whose currency has collapsed
and where the stock market index fell by 70% on October 14. Question:
What is the capital of Iceland? Answer: $3.50.

India, mercifully, is not about to go the way of Iceland. Nor are
there descriptions of India as the new Burkina Faso with nuclear
weapons. Yet, there is a deepening realisation that no amount of
reassuring platitudes delivered in slow, loud and impeccable diction
by the finance minister is going to prevent the Incredible India dream
from turning into a nightmare. The ideologically-inclined may direct
their ire at smug investment bankers and hedge fund managers who
descended on India to educate the natives on modern capitalism.
However, to the new middle classes that extricated themselves from the
shortage economy, enjoyed the benefits of housing, car and education
loans, a rising stock market and surfeit of consumer goods, the party-
poopers are at home.

The outrage over Jet Airways' proposed job cuts was a revelation. At
one level, it symbolised the end of hope in the New Economy. But it
also suggested that even impeccably groomed kids, trained in
hospitality, will not hesitate to kick butts and even solicit the help
of Raj Thackeray to safeguard their future. Politically, all this is
bad news for the government. Regardless of who was really to blame,
the ultimate responsibility for things going wrong is invariably
pinned on incumbent administrations.

For governments it's a no-win situation. Adopting a hands-off approach
is impossible because the mismanagement of private greed has a knock-
on effect on the whole economy and mar people's lives. At the same
time, bail-out packages (including nationalisation) invite charges of
cosy stitch-ups - in a Vanity Fair article Christopher Hitchens
described them as privatisation of profits and socialising of debts.

Electorates need someone to pillory and governments are first in the
retribution queue. In the US, the sub-prime crisis sealed the fate of
John McCain because he is the nearest thing to a President Bush proxy.
If the Republican still pulls off a miraculous win it is because the
White working class is wary of a Black president. In Britain, opinion
polls suggest that despite some imaginative crisis management, Gordon
Brown is being considered for a place in a chamber of horrors.

The implications for the Manmohan Singh government are ominous. A few
months ago it had banked on an overall mood of optimism and some
populist gestures to see it through. Now, with elections only a few
months away, it is sandwiched between two different impulses.
Conservatives charge it on financial profligacy, high inflation,
spending inefficiently beyond its means on gimmicky schemes and
burdening the future with a fiscal deficit that could touch 10% of
GDP. The remaining socialists charge the regime with being enticed by
the glitz of consumerism and encouraging reckless speculation. They
would rather sacrifice rapid growth for a life of secure stodginess
and modest expectations.

In today's climate of uncertainty, the government can hardly be
expected to mount a credible campaign based on the appealing but
intangible spin-offs from the Indo-US nuclear agreement. Nor will the
invocation of a non-productive NREG galvanise the poor into believing
that a distant Sonia Gandhi is a reincarnation of the combative Indira
Gandhi. Middle India is both fearful and angry. It knows what it
doesn't want: terrorist attacks, job insecurity, dwindling purchasing
power and political chaos. It is less sure how the goals can be
achieved.

In moments like these, the temptation to look for a strong, no-
nonsense leader who can offer a lifeline is irresistible. Controversy
is no deterrent. An exasperated industry said so after the tomfoolery
in Singur and the sacked Jet Airways staff said so in Mumbai.


CPM Alleges Breach of Parliamentary Prvilege on 123 Agreement (in line
with the cue prvided by CNDP)


I/II.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/CPM_moves_privilege_motion_against_PM/rssarticleshow/3609399.cms
CPM moves privilege motion against PM
17 Oct 2008, 1815 hrs IST,PTI

NEW DELHI: The CPM on Friday moved a breach of privilege motion
against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for "violating" the promise he
made in Lok Sabha that he would come back to Parliament before
operationalising the Indo-US nuclear deal.
"We have submitted the breach of privilege motion with the Speaker. It
will come up before the House on Monday. Let's see what decision the
Speaker takes on the issue," CPM Parliamentary Party leader Basudev
Acharia said.
Acharia said the Prime Minister, during the trust vote debate in Lok
Sabha on July 22, has assured that he will bring back the 123
Agreement to the House after securing clearance from IAEA and NSG and
before signing the deal.
The CPM leader said Singh has not kept his word and went ahead with
signing the agreement with the United States which is a "breach of
privilege" of the House.
He pointed out that the Prime Minister has given nine assurances to
House with regard to the nuclear deal on fuel supply assurances,
reprocessing rights and other issues.

II.
October 8 2008

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/india-unity/message/27921

The Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP)

Demands

Parliamentary Review before Signing of 123 Agreement

-----------------------------------------------------------------

The Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP) notes with
great concern various reports to the effect that the government of
India is to sign the "123 Agreement" with the US as regards civilian
nuclear trade between the two countries anytime now. In fact the
signing of the agreement appears to be overdue in that it has
reportedly already been twice postponed for certain reasons. And a
similar agreement has already been signed with the French government.




This does clearly contradict the solemn promise made by the Indian
Prime Minister on the floor of the parliament on July 22 last in his
concluding reply to the debate on the confidence motion moved by him a
day earlier. He then had categorically assured: "I have said on
several occasions that our nuclear agreement after being endorsed by
the IAEA and the Nuclear Suppliers Group would be submitted to this
august House for expressing its view."




While the CNDP desists from speculating whether going ahead with
signing of bilateral agreements with foreign nations pursuant to the
waivers granted by the NSG and the IAEA constitutes a breach of
parliamentary privilege, it emphatically demands that before taking up
any such bilateral agreement the GoI must come back to the parliament
to obtain its view on the whole gamut of issues and the momentous
developments since July 22 as per the solemn commitment made by the
Indian Prime Minister.




The CNDP takes this opportunity also to reiterate its firm, consistent
and principled opposition to the "nuclear deal" as it surely
undermines the prospects of global nuclear disarmament, promotes the
cause of nuclear militarism and nuclear-weapon build-up in India,
threatens to intensify the arms race between India and Pakistan ,
carries forward the perilous US-India "strategic partnership", and
seriously distorts India's energy priorities.


Arundhati Roy: Nope! Absolutely not!

Karan Thapar Arundhati Roy, a pleasure talking to you on Devil's
Advocate






A global financial meltdown of this magnitude has inevitably prompted
an explosion of black humour. My personal favourite centres on
Iceland, the small North European country whose currency has collapsed
and where the stock market index fell by 70% on October 14. Question:
What is the capital of Iceland? Answer: $3.50.

India, mercifully, is not about to go the way of Iceland. Nor are
there descriptions of India as the new Burkina Faso with nuclear
weapons. Yet, there is a deepening realisation that no amount of
reassuring platitudes delivered in slow, loud and impeccable diction
by the finance minister is going to prevent the Incredible India dream
from turning into a nightmare. The ideologically-inclined may direct
their ire at smug investment bankers and hedge fund managers who
descended on India to educate the natives on modern capitalism.
However, to the new middle classes that extricated themselves from the
shortage economy, enjoyed the benefits of housing, car and education
loans, a rising stock market and surfeit of consumer goods, the party-
poopers are at home.

The outrage over Jet Airways' proposed job cuts was a revelation. At
one level, it symbolised the end of hope in the New Economy. But it
also suggested that even impeccably groomed kids, trained in
hospitality, will not hesitate to kick butts and even solicit the help
of Raj Thackeray to safeguard their future. Politically, all this is
bad news for the government. Regardless of who was really to blame,
the ultimate responsibility for things going wrong is invariably
pinned on incumbent administrations.

For governments it's a no-win situation. Adopting a hands-off approach
is impossible because the mismanagement of private greed has a knock-
on effect on the whole economy and mar people's lives. At the same
time, bail-out packages (including nationalisation) invite charges of
cosy stitch-ups - in a Vanity Fair article Christopher Hitchens
described them as privatisation of profits and socialising of debts.

Electorates need someone to pillory and governments are first in the
retribution queue. In the US, the sub-prime crisis sealed the fate of
John McCain because he is the nearest thing to a President Bush proxy.
If the Republican still pulls off a miraculous win it is because the
White working class is wary of a Black president. In Britain, opinion
polls suggest that despite some imaginative crisis management, Gordon
Brown is being considered for a place in a chamber of horrors.

The implications for the Manmohan Singh government are ominous. A few
months ago it had banked on an overall mood of optimism and some
populist gestures to see it through. Now, with elections only a few
months away, it is sandwiched between two different impulses.
Conservatives charge it on financial profligacy, high inflation,
spending inefficiently beyond its means on gimmicky schemes and
burdening the future with a fiscal deficit that could touch 10% of
GDP. The remaining socialists charge the regime with being enticed by
the glitz of consumerism and encouraging reckless speculation. They
would rather sacrifice rapid growth for a life of secure stodginess
and modest expectations.

In today's climate of uncertainty, the government can hardly be
expected to mount a credible campaign based on the appealing but
intangible spin-offs from the Indo-US nuclear agreement. Nor will the
invocation of a non-productive NREG galvanise the poor into believing
that a distant Sonia Gandhi is a reincarnation of the combative Indira
Gandhi. Middle India is both fearful and angry. It knows what it
doesn't want: terrorist attacks, job insecurity, dwindling purchasing
power and political chaos. It is less sure how the goals can be
achieved.

In moments like these, the temptation to look for a strong, no-
nonsense leader who can offer a lifeline is irresistible. Controversy
is no deterrent. An exasperated industry said so after the tomfoolery
in Singur and the sacked Jet Airways staff said so in Mumbai.


CPM Alleges Breach of Parliamentary Prvilege on 123 Agreement (in line
with the cue prvided by CNDP)


I/II.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/CPM_moves_privilege_motion_against_PM/rssarticleshow/3609399.cms
CPM moves privilege motion against PM
17 Oct 2008, 1815 hrs IST,PTI

NEW DELHI: The CPM on Friday moved a breach of privilege motion
against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for "violating" the promise he
made in Lok Sabha that he would come back to Parliament before
operationalising the Indo-US nuclear deal.
"We have submitted the breach of privilege motion with the Speaker. It
will come up before the House on Monday. Let's see what decision the
Speaker takes on the issue," CPM Parliamentary Party leader Basudev
Acharia said.
Acharia said the Prime Minister, during the trust vote debate in Lok
Sabha on July 22, has assured that he will bring back the 123
Agreement to the House after securing clearance from IAEA and NSG and
before signing the deal.
The CPM leader said Singh has not kept his word and went ahead with
signing the agreement with the United States which is a "breach of
privilege" of the House.
He pointed out that the Prime Minister has given nine assurances to
House with regard to the nuclear deal on fuel supply assurances,
reprocessing rights and other issues.

II.
October 8 2008

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/india-unity/message/27921

The Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP)

Demands

Parliamentary Review before Signing of 123 Agreement

-----------------------------------------------------------------

The Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP) notes with
great concern various reports to the effect that the government of
India is to sign the "123 Agreement" with the US as regards civilian
nuclear trade between the two countries anytime now. In fact the
signing of the agreement appears to be overdue in that it has
reportedly already been twice postponed for certain reasons. And a
similar agreement has already been signed with the French government.




This does clearly contradict the solemn promise made by the Indian
Prime Minister on the floor of the parliament on July 22 last in his
concluding reply to the debate on the confidence motion moved by him a
day earlier. He then had categorically assured: "I have said on
several occasions that our nuclear agreement after being endorsed by
the IAEA and the Nuclear Suppliers Group would be submitted to this
august House for expressing its view."




While the CNDP desists from speculating whether going ahead with
signing of bilateral agreements with foreign nations pursuant to the
waivers granted by the NSG and the IAEA constitutes a breach of
parliamentary privilege, it emphatically demands that before taking up
any such bilateral agreement the GoI must come back to the parliament
to obtain its view on the whole gamut of issues and the momentous
developments since July 22 as per the solemn commitment made by the
Indian Prime Minister.




The CNDP takes this opportunity also to reiterate its firm, consistent
and principled opposition to the "nuclear deal" as it surely
undermines the prospects of global nuclear disarmament, promotes the
cause of nuclear militarism and nuclear-weapon build-up in India,
threatens to intensify the arms race between India and Pakistan ,
carries forward the perilous US-India "strategic partnership", and
seriously distorts India's energy priorities.



__________________________________________________________________________

Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace â€" CNDP

A â€" 124 / 6, 1st Floor, Katwaria Sarai

New Delhi â€" 110016,

telefax - 011-26517814

e mail â€" cndp...@gmail.com


Three sons murdered, she seeks protection for the rest
Font Size -A +A
Express news service
Posted: Oct 21, 2008 at 0316 hrs IST

Lucknow, October 20 A Dalit woman from Allahabad, who has taken to
arms to protect her family, visited the state capital on Monday to
meet Director General of Police Vikram Singh.
Vidhyawati (45) from Allahabad, was seeking protection from the men
accused of murdering her three sons. They were threatening to kill her
and her family, she said.

Armed with a licensed gun, she, however, could not meet the police
chief. The police took her application and assured her that it would
be forwarded to Singh.

In her application, Vidhyawati named former village pradhan Manik
Chand Patel, his son Doodhnath and cousin Rakesh Patel. She accused
them of murdering her son and now forcing her not to give statement
against them in court.

The men had been released on bail a week ago from the Allahabad
District Jail.

The Deputy Inspector General, Allahabad Range, MK Prasad, said: "We
provided an arms license to her after she complained about the threat
to her family.

Security has been arranged for her when she visits the court for
hearings."

Two of Vidhyawati's sons were allegedly poisoned in 2003 and 2004. A
third was killed brutally in 2006 and his body was found on the
railway tracks.

The murders took place after she staked claim on her father's land
following his demise.

No FIR was lodged in this connection.

"My rivals were trying to capture my land and when I opposed it, they
beat me up. Because of the threat I left the village but did not let
them capture the land," said Vidhyawati, who is currently living in
Soran with a physically-handicapped husband and two children.



--
Vidya Bhushan Rawat
Visit my blog at
www.manukhsi.blogspot.com


Chengara's Dalit-Adivasis call to restore their fundamental rights

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat





Bharathi Sreedharan could not resist taking risk on her life through
dense forest as her children suffered in hunger and starvation in the
Chengara village which has been unconstitutionally and unethically
blocked by the trade union gangs of all the political parties
including the ruling CPI(M) in Kerala. Her agonizing face reflected
the happenings inside the village as for more than two months; it is
completely cut off from rest of the country. No outsider is allowed to
venture into the village and no villager is allowed to come out of it.
CPM's goons attack people from the buses once they recognize that they
have sympathies with Chengara people. Many families are on the verge
of hunger death if in the next few days no arrangement of food supply
is done. 'They want us to get out of the place but we are determined,
says Bharathi, we won't allow them to take over the place. We are
ready to face any eventuality'. We are ready to die for the cause of
our children'.



Bharathi came hiding to get some ration from her brother. When the
road is blocked from all the way, it is possible only through walking
around 10 kilometers in the forest to come and reach the office and
wait for him to be there at Laha Gopalan's office who is the leader of
' Sadhu Jan Vimoc-hana Samyukta Vedi', the organization fighting for
the land and livelihood rights of the Dalits and Adivasis in Chengara.
It is remarkable that people have united in this struggle and are
determined to sacrifice their lives for the land. Interestingly, it is
for the first time, that Kerala is witnessing an assertive emerging
Dalit Adivasi struggle independent of the influence of dominating
communities irrespective of religion.



Gopalan hails from a trade union back ground as he worked in
Electricity department and now swears by the legacy of both Baba Saheb
Ambedkar and Ayyankali, another Dalit revolutionary from Kerala. The
semi constructed office in Pattthanamthittha is a place where all the
Dalit-Advasis in the Chengara struggle come and stay. According to
Laha Gopalan, they ventured into the area some fourteen months back,
as it was legally a government land which should have gone to the
landless Dalit-Adivasis of Kerala. The government of Kerala was never
interested in the land reform and whatever happened in the name of
land reform was eyewash. The tragedy is that there are villages where
the Dalits do not have land for even cremating their people. The issue
of Dalits and tribal has been neglected by the national and state
level parties and hence we decided to make our own destiny.



About 10 kilometer away towards Tiruwala lives the big family of Sabu
who are five brothers. Each brother has a big family of his own to
support. They have no land. Sabu and his wife have small tea shop. The
number of children in the family and the small kitchen that they have
for their survival tell the story as how the successive Kerala
governments failed to give land to the Dalits. ' Sabu was happy that
Chengara's vast track could have provided him a source of independent
living and some land for agriculture work. He went there with other
families. The real assault came from the trade unions this year when
people refused to leave their land. ' The union felt that they can
coerce us to accept their issues but at the moment people are ready to
die. They will commit mass suicide if police and other forces are
sending to evict them. We are not ready to accept anything less than a
decent land package for our children', say Sabu. He adds that
situation is worsening as there is no food, no water and no sanitation
in the entire area. Particularly, it is becoming difficult for
children and elderly people to stay. Because of the blockade, we can
not provide emergency treatment to any of the villagers as vehicles
are not allowed and there is every chance of a bloody fight if we come
in touch with the trade union people. Children are facing the
malnutrition as there is nothing to eat and drink. We can not go to
market to buy milk and rice. Moreover, because of no work in the past
two months, there is no money to buy anything'.



How come he is here in the village. ' Sir, the union people allowed us
5 days leaves during the Onam festivities. We were allowed to move in
and out and hence I came here. I have overstayed here and hence it is
difficult to go there because of blockade'. I can not speak to my
relatives and friends there, I am really worried as if food is not
provided to people soon, they will start dying soon. I am concerned
about children and elderly people. They are completely cut off from
the rest of the world. It is shameful.'



The seize of Chengara went off well until one day the government which
was keen to revive its lease to Harrison Plantation decided that the
Dalit and Adivasis could only be evicted if they push it through other
routs which is 'right to live' issue of the 70 odd plantation workers
who were working there. The issue is the Chengara's tea plantation was
already defunct years ago and hence to blame the current situation for
the crisis is absolutely wrong. Harrison Plantation cannot use these
70 workers as a shield to deny land rights of the people. The tactics
they adopted are fascistic in nature as from the August this year, the
situation worsened after the plantation trade union and CPM in
particular started blockade. Now the parties have not only used the
local tea plantation trade unions but people have been invited from
other parts of the state also against the landless people. All the
ways going to Chengara were blocked by the party men and no material
including medical aid was allowed to go into the village. Only
allowance given to people was during ONAM festivities when the
blockade was lifted for 5 days to let the people celebrate the
festival. But after that the blockade has become functional and
harsher and it might turn into a bloody war. Now the situation has
gone out of hand. People inside the Chengara area have no source of
livelihood; there is no supply of food and water. Some Muslim youth
organizations of the area wanted to send rice for the families but but
never allowed to do so. It is violation of their rights to food and
free from hunger. The state government has shamelessly allowed the
situation to go out of hand which has given strength to the trade
unions.



It is unfortunate that in this war against their Dalits and tribal the
organized gang of the trade union is taking action irrespective of
ideology. It is a rare combination of how the upper caste communists
and the Hindutva people can come together to wipe out the legitimate
demands of the Dalits and tribals. The duplicity of the CPM's idea
comes that the same party launch movement for restoration of land in
Andhra Pradesh but want to say that all the Dalits and tribals who
have now settled in Chengara are encroachers. Perhaps they have
forgotten their own slogan of ' Jo jameen sarkari hai, woh jameen
hamari hai ( the government land is our land. Land struggles
historically invoked this slogan. Harrison Plantation Company did not
have legal rights to the acquired land. The lease expired long back.
The dalits and tribal who did not get benefited under any programme of
the government rightfully acquired the land and asked the government
to redistribute it to them. How come the communist government of
Kerala kept quiet and turned hostile to Dalits who have just extended
the slogan what the communist parties have been raising every where
else except in the states they have been ruling. Is it because this
land struggle is first of its kind being led by the Dalits and have
organized both the Dalits and tribal together in the state.





Dalits have been asking the government to allot them land. In 2006 in
the Patthanamthitta district after five days struggle in the
government land of rubber plantation area, the land was given to the
Dalits on the papers only. Many people are still trying to find where
there land is which was given to them on papers by the state
government. Says, Raghu, one of the members of the Solidarity
Committee, 'we do not want papers, we want land'.



Patthanamthitta is a district about 60 kilometers from Kottayam, the
heart of the Syrian Christian, the original brahmanical convert to
Christianity. About 40 kilometer from the town is the heart of Ayappa,
the Hindu God. The land relations here are different as the dominant
community here is the upper caste Christians. What their role is in
the entire struggle of the Dalits, I ask Raghu. ' Oh, like any other
feudal, the Syrian Christians also are not interested in the battle of
Dalits. Dalits here have separate churches for them.' The Solidarity
Committee members like Simon John, who is also Chairman of Backward
People Development Corporation, Kerala concede that the original
Brahmin converts to Christianity have not left their old prejudices in
the Church and therefore are not very keen in supporting the movement
of the Dalits and tribal in Chengara. Like the CPM cadre, many of them
too feel that the Dalits and tribal have 'encroached' the government
land, though it is another matter that they all forgot that Harrison
Plantation has been the biggest encroacher and was overstaying at the
place. It is also shocking that Kerala did not have substantial land
reform and all talks of a Kerala module in the developmental text
books are big farce if one visit the rural areas of Kerala and speak
to Dalits and tribals. A lot is written about Kerala model as a state.
Recently a friend wrote to me from London about casteless, dowerless
society in Kerala. Yes, I said, Kerala's caste prejudices are hidden
underneath like West Bengal since the first thing the communist regime
does is to stop the export of information to outside world. More
importantly since a large number of writers and authors actually have
been sympathetic to the CPM's policies with upper caste mindset, they
do not really expose the Kerala myth. It was not just Bengal, Tatas
have huge track of land in Kerala in the name of tea gardens and
plantation. One should not forget that great Dalit revolutionary
Ayyankali emerged in Kerala to fight for the rights of Dalits. It is
not for nothing that both Patthanmthitta and Trivendram represent two
different kind of dominations that Kerala has : the Christian
domination and the Hindu domination. Both these upper elites interest
are against the rights of the Dalits and other marginalized
communities. They remain caged to their old prejudiced worldview.



Laha Gopalan is a determined man. He has seen the traumas of the Dalit
communities in the villages where they do not even have land for
funeral leave alone for education and houses. ' The political
parties, both at the national and state level have betrayed the cause
of the Dalits and tribal,' he says. ' We started our struggle when
people failed to get land by any request. We found that there is no
land to them and the government wanted to further the lease at the
area which was being used by the Dalits and tribal. Our historic
struggle started last year as 7000 people captured the area and
started living there. One should have expected that the communist
parties which have raised the slogans of ' jo jameen sarkari hai, wo
jameen hamari hai, ( Government land is our land) today are strangely
at the other end. There is no hope in the sight as the trade unions
are determined to take law in their own hand and kill people with
chief minister virtually becoming a 'Dhritrastra'.

Says Laha Gopalan, ' when we started our first struggle the government
termed that they were genuine demands. In June 2006 about 5000
families were living in another plantation area when the revenue
minister interfered and promised them land. Chief Minister
Achutanandan promised about 1 acre land to each family of the landless
but nothing happened. Since August 4, 2007, there are over 7000
families and the government has so far neglected their demand. The
unions have surrounded the area and are beating people who are showing
solidarity. The lives of the solidarity committee members are in deep
threat in the area. They are being identified in the buses, taxis and
even in the press conferences and targeted.'



' Even in the war zones people allow doctors and medical teams to
visit the victims but here the goons of CPM and other trade unions
have denied that too to the people,' says Simon John. They are not
allowing the food supply in the village. There is a hunger and
starvation situation prevailing in the 'samarbhoomi' and one person is
already dead due to hunger. It is violation of people's right to
life', add John. ' We are deeply disturbed at the turn of events as
government and political parties led by the upper castes are not at
all bothered about the growing marginalization of the communities says
another activist in Patthanamthittha.



Is it not strange and ironical that CPM and other communist parties
who have been in the forefront of agitation against any kind of
exploitation in the organized sector do not find that the landless
people in Chengara are struggling for a genuine cause? The party
leaders termed the entire struggle as unwanted and felt that the local
goons and land mafias have taken over the Chengara land struggle.
Ofcourse, Party's anti Dalit stand is visible anywhere. One does not
blame the top leadership of the party for being anti Dalit as it would
be too much to blame but definitely party's local leaders are not
really that radical Dalit supporters as they should have been. CPM for
that matter is like any other political party ( we wanted it remained
a different political party) whose cadres hail from dominant
communities and serve their local interest as we have seen in West
Bengal and how the party remained mute to the displacement of about
700 Valmiki families in Belilius Park in Howarah several years back.
Today, party's proud MPs have made use of the entire space for private
properties and shops. Ofcourse, the poor Balmikis never got support
from any other Bhadralok parties in Bengal and living in Bengal in
highly uncivilized and unacceptable conditions near the waste-
mountains, on sewerage lines and on the railway tracks. Similar thing
happen in Kerala where the Dalits and Adivasis of Chengara have not
got support from any other political outfits. That gives strength to
fascistic tendencies of the ruling party and their leaders. But the
fact is this nationalism of the communist parties is more dangerous.
Our problems with the Hindutva fascist is that we know that they are
against the people but when the so called leaders of the proliterariat
start behaving neo Hindutvavadis then situation need special remedial
measures otherwise people's frustration would explode soon.



Chengara's land struggle is historical. It shows that people can not
really depend on government dole out for land. Political parties in
connivance with the defunct industrial houses are keeping people
landless. New landlessness is on the rise. Courts are being used as an
excuse to evict people. The marginalized have understood this and are
ready to fight till end. If the government of Kerala think it is
wrong, let it come out in open and say that they oppose people's
movement for land right. The government cannot use trade unions and
other goons to threaten people and evict them. Life in Chengara has
become miserable and any further delay will turn Chengara into another
Nandigram. The situation in Chengara would become more dangerous and
bloody if the government does not behave responsibly. All national and
international rights bodies should take care of this note that denying
people free movement is denying them right to choice and livelihood.
Kerala government has failed to protect Chengara's Dalits and Adivasis
right to move free from one place and other. The inhuman blockade has
created unprecedented situation where children and elderly people in
Chengara are suffering. Any further delay would escalate the crisis
and only government of Kerala would be held responsible for this. The
government must act fast and negotiate with the struggling masses of
Chengara. The trade union blockade is unconstitutional and illegal and
must be removed immediately as it violate the fundamental rights of
the people living there who are victim of the criminal silence of the
government and civil society.




--
Vidya Bhushan Rawat
Visit my blog at
www.manukhsi.blogspot.com

























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