NEW YORK EDITION

TheSouthAsianTimes.info

Sonia to revive party with rally

ew Delhi - Congress president Sonia Gandhi will spearhead the Congress campaign for revival N

with a series of public rallies, beginning with a rally in Uttarakhand on 5 November at Gochar village in Chamoli district. Gandhi, whose health has now improved considerably will lead election

campaigns in a bid to revive the Congress that h a s b e e n complaining of flagging morale in the face of s e v e r a l c o r r u p t i o n charges and the illness of their leader.

As per sources, U t t a r a k h a n d goes to the polls i n F e b r u a r y 2012. Although

the occasion is a government function, the inauguration of a rail line, political issues are also on the agenda. "She will lay the foundation stone for a rail link between Rishikesh and Karnprayag that has been expedited by the railway ministry. Soniaji has given her consent for a rally and meeting with party

The South Asian TimesTowards Excellence in Journalism

Don’t end AFSPA in J&K: Advani Senior BJP leader L.K. Advani on Saturday opposed any move to withdraw the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) from Jammu and Kashmir, saying nothing should be done that weakens the armed forces' position. He, however, said there is a case for withdrawal of the Act in Manipur, which c o u l d b e examined.Speaking to c o r r e s p o n d e n t s a t Thiruvananthapuram, Advani said: "I don't think there is a need to withdraw AFSPA in so far as Jammu and Kashmir

is concerned. Nothing should be done that weakens the armed forces'

p o s i t i o n . " A t t a c k i n g Prime Minister M a n m o h a n Singh, Advani t o o k s t r o n g objection to the position that c o a l i t i o n dharma often came in the way o f a c t i n g s t r o n g l y

against corruption. "Coalition dharma matters only in matters of policy and not in matters of integrity," he said.

workers at Gochar. The location was chosen as there is an airfield there," said a Congress source. This will be Mrs Gandhi's first election rally after her return from the United States where she reportedly underwent surgery for cancer, but the party, which has kept silent over the nature of her illness, did not confirm this. Of late, however, Congress leaders have been hopeful that Gandhi will campaign in the states that are going for the Assembly elections early next year.

The Congress that managed to emerge out of the woods in the last Lok Sabha elections is hopeful of improving its score in the forthcoming Assembly polls. At present, the party has 20 of the 70 Assembly seats in the state.

"The expectation in Uttarakhand is to win between 40 and 45 seats. For the first time in 25 years, we were able to win five seats in the last Lok Sabha

polls. The ill-will garnered by former BJP Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank will help the electorate swing towards the Congress," said a party leader. However, all's not well with Uttarakhand Congress, with a serious tug-of-war on between different quarters for the leadership of the party in the state. Senior leader Harish Rawat, who is seen as a chief ministerial contender, faces stiff competition from certain quarters in the party.

AICC in charge for Uttarakhand, Chaudhry Birender Singh Sheokand scotched rumours about any kind of infighting within the party, but asserted that a chief ministerial candidate would only be chosen by Sonia Gandhi. "We never go to elections projecting anybody as the chie f minis ter ia l candidate , " Sheokand told The Sunday Guardian, speaking on phone from Ram Nagar.

J&K gets second spot in nationalThang-Ta contestJammu and Kashmir is surging ahead in the field of sports, as became evident from the state team securing the second position in the 18th National Thang-Ta Championship. The tournament was organised by the Jharkhand Thang-Ta Association in collaboration with Thang-Ta Federation of India and the Doon Public School, Dhanbad in Jharkhand.

832 players from 23 states participated in this tournament where the team from J&K got 17 gold, 31 silver and 14 bronze medals. However, the J&K cricket team faced defeat at the hands of Haryana in the first four-day match in the C.K.

Naidu Cricket Tournament. The tournament, which is being held at the S.K. Cricket Stadium, Srinagar is being organised by the Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association under the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). The Omar Abdullah-led Jammu and Kashmir government is trying its best to revive sports in the s t a t e . E v e r y d a y d o z e n s o f tournaments are held across the state and even Union Sports Minister Ajay Maken recently visited Kashmir and acknowledged the efforts being made.

Maoist bandh flops, Didi readies for clashThe bandh called on Saturday by Maoists had little impact in Purulia, West Midnapore and B a n k u r a , t h e t h r e e Jangalmahal districts in West Bengal. Trinamool Congress workers set up a Jan Jagran Manch in Jhargram in West Midnapore and moved around on bikes daring the Maoists to

attack them for violating their bandh call. The deadline given to the Maoists by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to surrender arms expired on Saturday. The joint forces, which have been given a free hand to tackle the Maoists, are expected to limit civilian casualties by encircling rebel bases on the basis of intelligence tip-offs. They are likely to force them to open fire first. Instead of

l i m i t i n g t h e m s e l v e s t o a r e a domination as they were doing in the past four months ever since the TMC has come to power, the joint forces will now restart combing operations, house to house searches. They will also force anyone seen moving around with arms to surrender. West Midnapore MP Subhendu Adhikari said, “We will throw out the Maoists if they try to disrupt normal life.”

Iranian Tank Girlspg 31

iPhone v/sAndroidpg 11

Ramanuja & Ramayanapg 15

Mahatma Metamorphosis pg 22

TheSouthAsianTimes.info2 INVESTIGATIONS

Swiss far-right poised to win pollThe far-right Swiss People’s Party (“SVP”) appears poised to win a record margin of victory in Sunday’s general elections. And they intend to celebrate it by banning immigration. Polls indicate that the SVP may reach a historic 30% of the vote, which, under Switzerland’s system of consensus government by a seven-member Cabinet, made up of members from at least three parties, would give it a decisive three cabinet posts.

Best known for its strident anti-i m m i g r a t i o n p o s i t i o n , i n p r e v i o u s e l e c t i o n campaigns, an S V P p o s t e r showed three w h i t e s h e e p kicking a black sheep off the Swiss flag. In a subsequent referendum campaign, another SVP poster showed a woman wearing a burqa a burka against a background of minaret-like missiles jutting out of the Swiss flag. The SVP was also reportedly instrumental prompting the recent vote in the lower chamber of parliament to ban the Muslim veil, as well as being behind a Swiss referendum last year which banned minarets.But the SVP’s shrill anti-Muslim rhetoric has also translated into a general

movement against immigration in general. The EU is concerned by the SVP’s announcement that it has already gathered the requisite 100,000 signatures to call a referendum, under Swiss direct democracy laws, on withdrawing from freedom of travel arrangements with the European Union. If adopted, EU citizens would lose the automatic right to freely work and reside in Switzerland.

J u s t b e f o r e c a m p a i g n i n g ended, the SVP f l o o d e d t h e Alpine state with p o s t e r s depicting the l e g s o f m e n trampling over the Swiss flag with the slogan “That’s enough. S t o p m a s s

immigration!”

I t a l s o t o o k o u t n e w s p a p e r advertisements recounting alleged crimes committed by foreigners. According to official data, over one in 22.9 % Swiss inhabitants is a foreigner. But perhaps not for much longer.

Bangalore gets legal helpline manned by lawyers B a n g a l o r e | R e p o r t b y O u r Correspondent - The Karnataka State Legal Services Authority (KSLSA) has set up a 24-hour toll-free helpline to provide free legal advice to callers from all over India. The toll free number 1 8 0 0 4 2 5 - 9 0 9 0 0 i s m a n n e d b y advocates. If the caller is from Karnataka, free legal services will be provided on request. For callers from other states, the KSLSA will try to

arrange for legal representation through the legal service authority of the caller's state.

The advocates will answer doubts about what to do in case of assault, how to file an FIR, how to file criminal cases and so on. It will also give legal advice on executing wills, granting power of attorney, property registration, property disputes etc.

Rivals target Yadav with rumoursSamajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav's political opponents are spreading the rumour that he is suffering from dementia. Yadav's family members and his party colleagues have noticed that he often forgets to use his hearing aid while talking to people. As a result of this, his replies tend to get incoherent. With Assembly elections around the corner, SP rivals are taking advantage of

the situation by saying that Yadav will not become Chief Minister if his party comes to power. They say it is because of his ill health that he is projecting his son Akhilesh as his successor. His family members have told Mulayam Singh Yadav to keep his hearing aid on a lways . They have asked h is bodyguards to keep an eye on this.

Ministers like mobiles more than meetingsPrime Minister Manmohan Singh has started noticing that after every Cabinet meeting his ministers get busy with their mobile phones passing on information about decisions taken to their friends in various TV channels. All Cabinet decisions, thus, hit the headlines much

before they are announced officially. The PM has now warned his ministers against leaking information to the media and asked them to concentrate more on the deliberations rather than their mobile phones.

PM sidelines media adviser KhareDr Manmohan Singh's media adviser Harish Khare may be on his way out now that his mentor, T.K.A. Nair, has left the Prime Minister's Office. With Pulok Chatterjee taking over as principal secretary to the PM from Nair, Khare has been sidelined. Last week the Prime Minister did not take him to Pretoria. Khare, is however, saying that he decided at the last moment not to accompany the PM. But the truth is, the

Prime Minister asked him to stay back and help National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon handle the c o n t r o v e r s y s u r r o u n d i n g t h e Kudankulam nuclear power plant. Khare is, however, lobbying hard to join the PM on his next foreign trip. He is also said to be in touch with his godfathers in the Congress to help him survive the crisis.

A huge Type 8 house for Mr Chatterjee

Pulok Chatterjee has got a new address after taking over as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's principal secretary. He has been allotted a huge Type 8

bungalow at 4 New Moti Bagh. On the other hand, his predecessor, the once high-flying T.K.A. Nair has been s h i f t e d t o a m u c h s m a l l e r accommodation.Clueless PMO leaves ministers in

the dark on Teen Bigha tripWhen Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina visited the Teen Bigha corridor last week, it was Jairam Ramesh who was supposed to meet her. But it was Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad who met her. Ramesh, who was told by the Prime Minister's Office to receive Hasina in T e e n B i g h a , c a n c e l l e d h i s appointments and got his ticket for the next day's flight. He e v e n c a l l e d o n Pranab Mukherjee to d i s c u s s w h a t h e should say at the meeting. But by evening the PMO had decided that Ramesh was too junior to revitalise India-Bangla ties, particularly after the Teesta river water fiasco. It started searching for a senior minister. Home Minister P. Chidambaram was contacted

but he was not in town. The PMO then decided on Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, one of the senior most Congress ministers in the UPA. He is also the party's Muslim face and has a good rapport with Sheikh Hasina.

Azad was told about next day's meeting at 11.30 p.m. It was after t h i s t h a t t h e Bangladesh wing of t h e M i n i s t r y o f E x t e r n a l A f f a i r s started to write his speech. The speech was delivered to him at 1.30 a.m. Azad was

to leave for abroad the next day, but he had to cancel that trip. Interestingly, all this while, Jairam was clueless that the plans had changed. He got to know an hour before he was to board his flight.

Mamata angry with Dinesh over treatment of railway officerRailway Minister Dinesh Trivedi has ceased to be Mamata Banerjee's most trusted minister in Delhi. There was a time when Banerjee trusted Trivedi so much that she chose him, a non-Bengali, as her successor in the Ministry of Railways over her Bengali colleagues. But now she is upset t h a t T r i v e d i i s treating her key man in the ministry, J . K . S a h a s o shabbily that the I n d i a n R a i l w a y S e r v i c e o f f i c e r wants a transfer out of Rail Bhawan. Trivedi snubbed Saha, his executive director, at a meeting in front of his colleagues. Saha was ED to Mamata as well. She depended on him

totally while preparing the Railway Budget. Relations are so strained between the West Bengal Chief Minister and the new Railway Minister that Mamata has instructed the Writers Building in Kolkata, the state

secretariat, that all answers to Railways queries should be given only after taking her permission. T r i v e d i , meanwhile, has become a popular t o p i c o f discussion in his m i n i s t r y . H e recently went off

to Gujarat for two days and no one in the ministry knew anything about his whereabouts.

TheSouthAsianTimes.info 3POLITICS

Mamata makes Sudip take a very long walk Mamata Banerjee took Trinamool C o n g r e s s M P S u d i p Bandopadhyay on a really long walk last week. She was on her way back to Kolkata a f t e r t h e N a t i o n a l D e v e l o p m e n t C o u n c i l meeting in New Delhi. Her flight was supposed to take off at 5.30 p.m., but the West Bengal Chie f Minis ter reached the airport early, around 4 p.m. She decided that she would spend the time by

walking around. But she needed someone to keep her company. So she told Sudip Bandopadhyay who was a c c o m p a n y i n g h e r , "SudipDa, you have gained a lot of weight. You are becoming fat, so you should w a l k w i t h m e . " P o o r Bandopadhyay was seen huffing and puffing for the next one and half hours trying to catch up with his

party leader who walks very fast.

Arunachal CM, state Congresschief quits runachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jarbom Gamlin and his rival, state Congress chief Nabam Tuki, resigned from their posts on Saturday. Congress leaders, however, said that a final decision could be arrived at only by party chief Sonia Gandhi.

"The Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister and the P r a d e s h C o n g r e s s Committee chief have offered to submit their resignations. As of now, no decision has been t a k e n . I t i s u n d e r c o n s i d e r a t i o n , " Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi Manu Singhvi said.

The Congress has been witnessing turmoil in Arunachal for a while over Gamlin's choice as Chief Minister, with a section of party men led by Tuki rallying against him.

Gamlin took over as Chief Minister on 5 May following the death of then CM Dorjee Khandu in a helicopter crash.

A three-member team of AICC observers, who had visited the state for taking stock of the situation, submitted its report to the Congress president on

Saturday. The AICC in-charge for Arunachal Pradesh, Dhaniram Shandil, former Union minister B.K. Handique and Union minister Sushilkumar Shinde were part of the committee. The three members reported their observations to Mrs

Gandhi.

Mrs Gandhi's political secretary Ahmed Patel and party leader Oscar F e r n a n d e z w e r e present in the meeting, which was held to discuss the Arunachal situation and to look for other options of leadership. Earlier, the BJP had demanded the i m p o s i t i o n o f President's Rule in the state. BJP national general secretary Tapir G a o , i n a memorandum sent to P r i m e M i n i s t e r

Manmohan Singh, urged him to invoke Article 356 (1) to promulgate President's Rule to bring an end to the ongoing political crisis in the state.

"The prolonged indecisiveness to resolve the prevailing leadership crisis is an anti-people attitude and a mockery of democracy," Gao said.

K’taka BJP in tatters, Cong clueless

Report by Govind Krishna - he BJP's house is in disarray in Karnataka, with four ministers of the last Cabinet in jail on various corruption charges, including former Chief Minister Yeddyurappa. With visible public emotion against corruption in the state, the Opposition should be sharpening its knives. But while the JD(S) and Congress has had great success in bringing to light illegal mining deals and land scams involving BJP leaders, the Opposition parties are far less confident of translating it into an electoral victory.

A senior Congress leader, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the state Congress leadership is paralysed and has failed to seize the initiative. "The Congress has failed to turn the issue of BJP's corruption into anti-BJP sentiment in the state. With the UPA leadership under a cloud due to the 2G and Commonwealth Games scams, the people do not see much difference between the Congress and the BJP. The party has to act in a united and organised manner and evolve a plan of political action," he said.

With Advani's anti-corruption "Jan Chetna Yatra" set to reach Bangalore on Sunday, the BJP might put the ball back in Congress' court.

"The state is facing a severe drought as well as a power crisis, and except for a handful, the senior leaders in the Karnataka Congress have not initiated any mass action. With the political setback which Yeddyurappa has suf fered, the Congress has an opportunity to reverse the erosion of its vote bank in Karnataka by actively wooing the Lingayat votes as well as winning back sections of the backward class votes that has switched to the BJP. For that we will have to select the right candidates, but there has been no move in that direction so far," said the Congress leader.

The state Congress has been plagued by in-fighting between its leaders when R.V. Deshpande was the KPCC president. After G. Parameshwar took charge as the new president in October last year, public spats between leaders have come down, but the new party

president is widely perceived as more ineffective than his predecessor.

When Yeddyurappa was facing political rebellion from Janardhan and Karunakar Reddy, the Congress had taken out a massive padayatra to the Reddy brothers' home district, protesting against illegal mining and staged sit-ins in the Legislative Assembly. But after the crows came home to roost for the BJP corruption-w i s e , C o n g r e s s l e a d e r s h a v e inexplicably confined themselves to press conferences and the floor of the House.

Another Congress insider said that the party believes that it is better to let the disarray in the BJP fester rather than launching an-all out attack. "If we attack them directly now, they might unite and consolidate the party." The Congress leader felt that the Congress is in a better position in Karnataka now and that the booth-level work the party was engaging in would pay dividends in the election. "But there is no doubting that we could have done a better job. The party needs to be far more organised if we have to get a majority in the Assembly elections."

With the Karnataka High Court squashing proceedings against its state party president Kumaraswamy in an alleged land scam, the JD(S) is all ready to up the ante on corruption. But the going against the BJP is bound to be tough as the BJP has started making i n - r o a d s i n t o t h e V o k k a l i g a community, the JD(S)'s traditional vote bank. This was apparent in the recently concluded by-elections where J D ( S ) l o s t i t s s t r o n g h o l d Chennapatana as well as Koppal to the BJP.

But the greatest stumbling block for the JD(S) may well turn out to be the fact that it is a family-run party. In contrast with BJP, apart from party national president and former Prime Minister Deve Gowda and son Kumaraswamy, JD(S) lacks leaders who have a mass appeal. For now, corruption or no corruption, the BJP can afford to breathe easy.

Team Anna core committee will not expand

eam Anna held a meeting of its core committee on Saturday. It was decided by the members, including Arvind Kejriwal, Prashant Bhushan and Kiran Bedi that they will not expand the core committee, as demanded by other members like Kumar Vishwas and Medha Patkar. Anna Hazare, who has taken a vow of silence, did not attend the m e e t i n g i n Ghaziabad.

T h e B J P i s continuing to extend its support to the a n t i - c o r r u p t i o n m o v e m e n t . " W e want the movement to stay united and continue the anti-corruption crusade. Team Anna has been supplementing what the BJP has been doing in this regard," said Rajiv Pratap Rudy, spokesperson BJP.

The core committee was held in the wake o f a l l e g a t i o n s o f f i n a n c i a l misdemeanours on the part of Kiran Bedi. The father-son duo Shanti Bhushan and Prashant Bhushan have also been accused of trying to fix judges for favourable judgments in the past.

However, the BJP distanced itself from the controversies surrounding Team Anna. "Team Anna will have to explain these allegations itself. They have our support for their overall agenda against corruption," said Ravi Shankar Prasad, another BJP spokesperson.

Rudy expressed hope that Team Anna would be able to get over the allegations of financial irregularities and other matters. "These are mostly allegations. They can handle that. I believe they can come clean soon," he said.

Team Anna has also b e e n b e s e t w i t h disagreements within i ts key members. Patkar and Santosh H e g d e d i d n o t p a r t i c i p a t e i n Saturday's meeting. Prashant Bhushan's

remarks over plebiscite in Kashmir were refuted by Anna himself who is now on a maun vrat (vow of silence).

Rajendra Singh and P. V. Rajagopal have quit the movement stating that they were unhappy with the "political hue being acquired by the campaign".

TheSouthAsianTimes.info4 WORLD

Gaddafi son open to surrender

The Hague (Reuters) he International Criminal Court said on Saturday that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was in contact t h r o u g h i n t e r m e d i a r i e s a b o u t surrendering for trial, but it also had information mercenaries were trying to spirit him to a friendly African nation.

The ICC has warned the 39-year-old, apparently anxious not to be captured by Libyan interim government forces in whose hands his father Muammar Gaddafi was killed last week, that it could order a mid-air interception if he tried to flee by plane from his Sahara desert hideout for a safe haven.

The ICC's comments o f f e r e d s o m e c o r r o b o r a t i o n o f reports from Tripoli's n e w N a t i o n a l Transitional Council (NTC) leaders and African neighbours that he has taken refuge with Tuareg n o m a d s i n t h e borderlands between Libya and Niger.

"There are some people connected with him that are in touch with people connected with us ... it's through intermediaries," ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told Reuters in an interview during a visit to Beijing.

"We have some information that there is a mercenary group trying to help him to move to a different country, so we are trying to prevent this activity," said Moreno-Ocampo.

"We are also working with some states to see if we can disrupt this attempt. Some of them are South Africans allegedly."

Moreno-Ocampo said the ICC was not making any deal with Saif al-Islam but was explaining through the contacts that he had to face trial because he had been

indicted for war crimes. "He says he is innocent," said the prosecutor.

NTC officials told Reuters earlier this week that monitoring of satellite calls and other intelligence indicated Saif al-Islam was considering turning himself in to the ICC, and trying to arrange an aircraft to get him there and out of reach of NTC fighters.

However, surrender is only one option. The Gaddafis made friends with desert tribes in Niger, Mali and other poor

former French colonies in West Africa, as well as farther afield in countr ies l ike Zimbabwe and Sudan, some of t h e m a l s o r e c i p i e n t s o f largesse during the 42-year rule o f M u a m m a r Gaddafi, a self-styled African "king of kings."

France, a key b a c k e r o f February's revolt, r e m i n d e d A f r i c a n s o f obl igat ions to hand over the

surviving ICC indictees - former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi and Saif al-Islam.

"We don't care whether he goes on foot, by plane, by boat, by car or on a camel, the only thing that matters is that he belongs in the ICC," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero. Niger, Mali, Chad and Burkina Faso, a swathe of arid states to the south of Libya, are all signatories to the treaty that set up the ICC, established to

give a permanent international tribunal for crimes against humanity after ad hoc bodies set up for Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia and Sierra Leone.

Murder plot sharpens Saudi, Iran tensionsRiyad -The traditional confrontation between Sunni-Arab Saudi Arabia and Shia-Persian Iran, one of the great strategic conflicts of the Middle East, which acquired a sharper dimension since the US invasion of Iraq, burst into a new dimension this week with the r e v e l a t i o n t h a t Iranian agents were plotting to kill Saudi a m b a s s a d o r t o Washington Adel Al-Jubeir. Saudi Arabia has decided to take the gloves off.

"There were always problems with Iran and Saudi Arabia, (but) the fact that t h e S a u d i ambassador was the target in the United States, I believe this will mean Saudi Arabia and the United States will take a joint decision t o g e t h e r , " s a i d Abdullah Al-Shammari, a government official based in the Saudi capital.

“An ambassador of the level of Adel Al-Jubeir, who is an adviser to the Royal Court (and who is particularly close to King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud), that is a great provocation for Saudi Arabia," Al-Shammari said. "After this incident, Riyadh is definitely expected to take measures, the least of which will be to pull the Saudi ambassador from Iran," said Al-Shammari. "This situation is not going to pass easily.”

The Saudi government condemned the assassination attempt as "sinful and abhorrent".

"The Saudi government appreciates the efforts exerted by the American authorities ... in uncovering the sinful and abhorrent plot," the government-run Saudi Press Agency quoted an official source as saying.

Former ch ie f o f Saudi intelligence Prince Turki Al-Faisal said there was o v e r w h e l m i n g evidence that Iran was behind a plot and must pay the price. "The burden of p r o o f i s overwhelming ... and clearly shows official I r a n i a n responsibility for this. Somebody in Iran will have to pay the price, whatever the level of these persons is," he said.

Prince Turki, who has also served as Saudi ambassador to the United States and Britain, said the alleged plan to kill the Kingdom's current ambassador in Washington was "so criminal, it's beyond description."

The US Justice Department on Tuesday charged two men with conspiring with Iranian government factions to blow up Saudi Ambassador Adel Al-Jubeir on US soil. A criminal complaint named Manssor Arbabsiar,

56, a naturalised U S c i t i z e n holding Iranian a n d U S passports, and Gholam Shakuri, an Iran-based member of the Quds Force, a u n i t o f t h e Iranian Islamic Revolut ionary Guard Corps.

The secretary-general of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which i n c l u d e d a l l major Gulf states, also condemned the alleged Iran plot, saying they would severely

harm relations.

The United States and its European allies warned that Iran may face retaliation.

The United States, through Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden, said Tehran must be held accountable and urged international condemnation.

The plot is "a flagrant violation of international and US law and a dangerous escalation of the Iranian government's long-standing use of political violence and sponsorship of terrorism," Clinton said. "Iran must be held accountable for its actions."

"It is an outrageous act, where the Iranians will have to be held accountable," Biden told ABC television's Good Morning America programme. "We're in the process of

unit ing world public opinion cont inuing to i s o l a t e a n d condemn their b e h a v i o u r , " Biden added.

But the Pentagon played down the p r o s p e c t o f military action, saying the alleged plot required a diplomatic and legal response.

"The US military has longstanding concerns about I r a n ' s m a l i g n

influence in the region. But with respect to this case, it is a judicial and d i p l o m a t i c i s s u e , " P e n t a g o n spokesman Capt. John Kirby told reporters.

‘Dickens was a womaniser, heavy drinker’

Author Charles Dickens was a heavy drinker with a violent temper, and he c h e a t e d c o n s t a n t l y behind his wife's back, a new book has revealed.

As an impoverished youngster l iv ing in London, he walked the city's seedy streets which overflowed with crooks and drunken floozies rolling in the gutter.

And the high-flying author loved nothing more than getting down and dirty with the capital's low-life.The darker side of the gifted novelist was revealed by biographer Claire Tomalin

his in new book, Charles Dickens: A L i f e . L o n d o n e r Claire has spent the p a s t 1 5 y e a r s studying the literary figure famed for novels such as A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist and A Tale Of Two Cities.

She said Dickens had more than one p e r s o n a l i t y — c a p a b l e o f e x t r a o r d i n a r y kindness towards

strangers but shocking cruelty to those closest to him.

TheSouthAsianTimes.info 5WORLD

Mademoiselle is sexist for French feministsLondon (Our Correspondent) - For centuries, gallant Frenchmen have flattered women by addressing them as "Mademoiselle", thereby suggesting to older (and possibly plainer) women that they are both young and attractive. But now, French feminists have taken umbrage at the Gallic equivalent of "Miss", condemning its usage as sexist, misogynistic and patronising, and have demanded that it be banned from official language.

Most administrative forms in France require applicants to tick one of three boxes: "Monsieur", "Madame" or "Mademoiselle". Last week, two prominent feminist groups, "Osez le Feinisme" (Dare Feminism) and "Les Chiennes de Garde" (Guard Bitches) launched a campaign to have the term "Mademoiselle" struck off state and corporate forms.

The campaigners are reported to have been inspired by the Austr ian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein's characteristically opaque dictum: "The

limits of language mean the limits of my world". They have taken this maxim to mean that since language shapes the way people understand the world, the terms people use on an everyday basis, such as this one, may, however unintentionally, reinforce sexism and sexual discrimination. Other feminists have delved into the origins of the word "Mademoiselle" and have discovered, to their ire, that it stems from an old word for "virgin", a physical condition that may be considered most virtuous by the pious French clergy, but one which does not play well with young, adult French women.

Some critics have called the campaign for all women, married or not, to be called "Madame" a stunt, contending that it would be better to devote attention to combating sexual harassment. But even they concede that the one merit of the word "Madame" is that, unlike, "Ms", it can actually be pronounced.

Moonwalker Aldrin’s divorce buzzLondon (Lakshman Menon) - Buzz Aldrin, who famously became the second man to walk on the moon, has taken another giant leap, if not for mankind, than for himself. The 81-year-old is divorcing his wife and has begun dating a woman 30 years his junior, it has been reported.

T h e f o r m e r astronaut, who h a s b e e n married three t i m e s , r e p o r t e d l y started seeing former Borders b o o k s t o r e e x e c u t i v e M i c h e l l e S u c i l l o n , 5 1 , after walking out on his wife of 23 years, Lois.

The pair met at a book signing for his autobiography, Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moon, and were recently spotted "making out like teenagers". But Mrs Aldrin told the New York Post that she is not happy about her husband's new romance: "He's not [officially] divorced yet. It is kind of scandalous," she said, adding: "He's 81 and having kind of a midlife crisis in old age".

Their divorce, which is still working its way through the courts, has taken an acrimonious turn, with multiple law suits being filed over the ownership and

control of "Starbuzz", the company that manages and promotes Aldrin's i m a g e , a p p e a r a n c e s a n d endorsements.

Aldrin's lawyer said that the legendary astronaut's goal is "simply to conclude a dignified divorce".

But divorce, apparently, is n o t altogether on Mrs Aldrin's r a d a r . S h e said, "I still love him. I would hope we get back together."

T h e i r divorce, which is still working its way through the courts, has taken an acrimonious turn, with multiple law suits being filed over the ownership and control of "Starbuzz", the company that manages and promotes Aldrin's i m a g e , a p p e a r a n c e s a n d endorsements.

Aldrin's lawyer said that the legendary astronaut's goal is "simply to conclude a dignified divorce".

But divorce, apparently, is not altogether on Mrs Aldrin's radar. She said, "I still love him. I would hope we get back together."

Obama support plummets: Poll s new polls suggested that President Barack Obama's support is eroding among elements of his base, he claimed that his odds of being re-elected in 2012 are "much higher" than they were in 2008.

The latest New York Times/CBS News poll released on Friday suggested that a yearlong effort by O b a m a t o recapture the political centre h a s f a i l e d t o a t t r a c t i n d e p e n d e n t voters. The poll found a 12-point jump since late J u n e , t o 4 3 percent, in the n u m b e r o f Americans who say the economy is getting worse. And for the first time since taking o f f i c e , h i s d i s a p p r o v a l r a t i n g h a s r e a c h e d 5 0 percent in the Times and CBS News polls.

The poll found a 43 percent approval rating for Obama. It is significantly higher than Jimmy Carter, who had an approval rating of 31% at a similar time in his presidency, according to the Times and CBS News poll, which showed Ronald Reagan with an approval of 46 percent and the elder George Bush at 70 percent. But at a small campaign fundraiser in Washington on Thursday night, Obama sought to reassure donors and play down concerns of his weakness in the 2012 presidential race.

"Now, I know that, over the last couple of

months, there have been Democrats who voiced concerns and nervousness about, well, in this kind of economy, isn't this just - aren't these just huge headwinds in terms of your re-election? Here's one thing I know for certain: "The odds of me being re-elected are much higher than the odds of me being elected in the first place,"

the President s a i d . M e a n w h i l e , another poll suggested over a t h i r d o f A m e r i c a n s believe the US w o u l d b e better off now i f H i l l a r y Clinton were President.

T h e B l o o m b e r g s u r v e y r e l e a s e d o n Friday showed 34 percent of t h o s e q u e s t i o n e d said America w o u l d b e superior under a H i l l a r y

Clinton administration, while 47 percent said it would be about the same and 13 percent said it would be worse.

Clinton remains the most popular American political figure with nearly two-thirds of Americans holding a favourable view of the former first lady.

Half of the respondents felt the same way about Obama, who received the lowest job approval rating of his presidency, at 45 percent.

10-yr after 9/11, NY moves on New York - The attacks of 11 September 2001 changed life in the United States forever, but 10 years after the devastating hit, New Yorkers have learned to live in a more dangerous world and are ready to move on.

Police heightened security in New York on Friday in response to a credible but unconfirmed threat of an al Qaeda plot to attack the city again on the anniversary of the downing of the World Trade Centre towers by hijaked airplanes.

In Manhattan, police set up impromptu check points and searched v e h i c l e s , b u t N e w Y o r k e r s t o o k t h e security alerts in their stride as a normal part of their life.

Ahead of Sunday 's c o m m e r a t i v e ceremonies at Ground Zero, there are signs that some New Yorkers are tired of it all.

Don't call it Ground Zero, don't use the term 9/11 widow and don't read the names of the dead, they say.

Progress helps that argument. The new One World Trade Centre skyscraper towers more than 80 stories above ground as it inches to its planned 1,776

foot height — symbolic of the date of America's independence.

The memorial plaza is ready and the neighborhood has enjoyed a revival making it a trendy Manhattan place to live.Some of those most devastated by the attacks no longer wish to be defined by it. Among them is Kristen Breitweiser, who became a widow,

activist and author after her husband d i e d w h e n hijacked planes slammed into the W o r l d T r a d e Centre.

"I don't identify myself as a widow anymore. I'm a s i n g l e m o m , " B r e i t w e i s e r , author of the 2006 book "Wake-Up Call: The Political Education of a 9/11 W i d o w , " t o l d

Reuters.

Sunday's ceremony includes moments of silence marking when hijacked passenger planes hit the Twin Towers as well as when they collapsed.

Research shows that Americans accept a more dangerous world with plots such as the one being investigated on Friday.

TheSouthAsianTimes.info6 COMMUNITIES

Rao writes to Clinton; seeks fair treatment of Indian studentsIndian Ambassador Nirupama Rao has written to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asking her to view the cases of over 1,000 Indian students affected by the “sham” Tri Valley University with “understanding” and in a “fair” manner.

Rao also took up the case of the students, who had enrolled at the California university, with Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Jane H o l l L u t e o n October 24.

I n h e r communication to C l i n t o n , R a o “reiterated that t h e I n d i a n students of Tri-Valley University have undergone hardship since the c losure o f the University and their cases be viewed in their totality with understanding and in a fair and reasonable manner,” Indian embassy spokesperson Virander Paul said in a statement.

The Embassy of India is continuing its efforts with US authorities for addressing the concerns of the TVU students, it said.

Officials of the Department of Homeland Security, Department of State, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and US Citizenship and Immigration Services had met representatives of the Indian Embassy in Washington on October 21 and discussed several issues relating to the Indian students at the Tri-Valley University.The university was raided and shut down

by authorities earlier this year on charges of a massive immigration fraud.

US officials had informed that of more than 1000 students who were being considered for transfer to other universities, 435 transfers were approved, 145 were denied and about an equal number were issued Notices

of Intention to Deny (NOIDs).

The remaining transfer cases are s t i l l u n d e r examination.

US officials had t o l d I n d i a n Embassy officials t h a t c a s e s o f s t u d e n t s h a v e been “examined individually after

evaluating all information provided by the them.” Susan Xiao-Ping Su, the president of the Tri-Valley University, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in May on the allegations of visa fraud and money laundering that affected Indian students.

41-year-old Su, who also served as the school’s chief executive officer, is accused of engaging in a two-year scheme to defraud the Department of Homeland Security by submitting phony documents in support of Tri-Valley University’s applications to admit foreign nationals on student visas.

Guinness decline to ratify 100-yr-old Fauja’s marathonFauja Singh, a 100-year-old runner who attracted worldwide attention when he completed a Marathon in over eight hours, won’t be recognised as the world’s oldest marathoner because he can’t show a birth certificate.

Guinness World Records said it won’t recognise Singh, a Briton of Indian-origin, as the world’s oldest m a r a t h o n e r because he can’t s h o w a b i r t h certificate from 1911.

“We’d love to say t h i s i s a t r u e Guinness World Record, but the problem is there is just no evidence… We can only accept o f f i c i a l b i r t h documents created in the year of the birth,” the editor-in-chief of Guinness World Records, Craig Glenday, was quoted as saying by BBC.

Singh’s British passport, showing his date of birth as being 1 April 1911, as well as a letter from the Queen congratulating him on his 100th birthday, have been shown to the organisation, the BBC reported. A letter from Indian government officials stating that no birth records

were kept in 1911, and a statement from a former neighbour in India, have also been passed to Guinness World Records. But the organisation says these are not considered sufficient proof of age.

It took Singh over eight hours to cross the finish line, more than six hours after Kenya’s Kenneth Mungara won the Scotiabank Toronto W a t e r f r o n t M a r a t h o n o n October 16.

Singh, who only speaks Punjabi, was the last competitor to complete a full-d i s t a n c e 4 2 -k i l o m e t r e m a r a t h o n . H e received worldwide publicity celebrating his position as the

oldest man to complete a marathon – n u m e r o u s m e d i a g r o u p s , including the BBC, announced he had made it into Guinness World Records.

It was Singh’s eighth marathon. He ran his first at the tender age of 89. In the 2003 Toronto event, he set the mark in the 90-plus category, finishing the race in five hours 40 minutes and one second.

Indian-American Sikh wins$295,000 for job denial

An Indian-American Sikh has won a six-year fight to be hired as a state correctional officer without having to shave off his beard as a condition of employment and $ 2 9 5 , 0 0 0 i n damages.

Trilochan Singh Oberoi applied for a job with the C a l i f o r n i a Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in 2 0 0 5 a n d p r o g r e s s e d t h r o u g h t h e hiring process until the final stages, when he was required to be fitted for a t i g h t - f i t t i n g respirator mask, according to his lawyer.

Oberoi, who maintains a full beard mandated by his religion, was told he would have to shave the beard off to take the test.

The dispute led to a series of bureaucratic and legal fights that culminated earlier this month in a settlement agreement that will allow

O b e r o i t o begin work Nov 1, his San F r a n c i s c o a t t o r n e y , Harmeet K. Dhillon, said i n a n e w s release.

T h e s e t t l e m e n t also calls for the state to pay $295,000 to Oberoi and his attorney, Dhillon said.

Fighting the case has generated more than $500,000 in legal costs to Oberoi, most of which were donated, Dhillon said.

Ravan Uncle? It’s all about keeping it in the family

For those who belong to the pre-Facebook and pre-iPhone era, Dusshera brings back fond memories of watching the Ramlila, swishing cheap bamboo bows and arrows in the air and donning Hanuman mukhautas. Delhi-based Abhinav Chauhan, though, has very different memories of the festive season.

“ I r e m e m b e r getting made up f o r S r i R a m ’ s vanar sena or as Luv-Kush,” recalls Chauhan. Today, at 28, Chauhan h a s g r a d u a t e d from those walk-in roles to that of Raavan, a legacy passed on from his father Tejveer Singh Chauhan, who played the mythological baddie for so long that people fondly referred to him as ‘Raavan Uncle’. “My father played the role of Raavan for 28 years and was the star attraction at the Ashok Vihar Ramlila until his death in 2008. So when the Committee offered me Raavan’s role, I simply couldn’t refuse,” he says. “I know my father would have been happy,” says the man who, at 26, became the youngest Raavan.Recalling his father’s interest in the

Ramayana, Chauhan says the epic was discussed extensively at home. “Over the years, my father felt deeply connected with his character. He would often say to us that just as white cannot exist without black, Ram cannot exist without Raavan.”

Such was the veteran’s on-stage p r e s e n c e t h a t o n c e , w h i l e p l a y i n g M e g h n a t h , Chauhan was so mesmerised by h i s f a t h e r ’ s performance that he forgot his lines. H e c h u c k l e s remembering this and adds frankly,

“ I s t i l l w a t c h h i s r e c o r d e d performances and I know it will take me a while to be able to perform like my father.”

Today’s crass commercialisation of the Ramlila pains Chauhan. He feels that earlier, even though the productions were trite, the viewers appreciated the art inherent in the performances.

TheSouthAsianTimes.info 7BUSINESS & ECONOMY

Jindals start ore export from BoliviaSoon after a Bolivian minister threatened to cancel contracts with Jindal Steel and Power Limited (JSPL), the company clarified the issue has been sorted out. A company official said that the company has started exporting iron ore from the country.

“We have commenced exporting iron ore from Bolivia. The first shipment of iron ore was flagged off by Jindal Steel Bolivia (JSB) president Vikrant Gujral from Puerto Aguirre on 3 October. This is for the first time that JSB is exporting iron ore from El Mutun mine of the country,” said a JSPL spokesperson.

The ore will be u s e d f o r producing hot metal which w i l l b e converted into steel.

“ W e h a v e explained our s e r i o u s n e s s a b o u t t h e project to the Bolivian authorities and now the issue has been solved,” the official said.

Bolivia’s energy minister Jose Louis Gutierrez had said earlier this month that JSB had deceived the country by not honouring its commitment to invest there. He also threatened to cancel its contract with the company.

The official claimed that as part of the commitment, the company has started the construction of a technical training centre at Puerto Suarez, near Santa Cruz. The training centre, which is in agreement with Infocol, aims to train human capital, linked to both the Mutún

projects. The school will have capacity for 210 students in three shifts and it will have three areas of study — welding, electrical and mechanical.

JSB is transporting the ores to different destinations through the Parana Paraguay Hidrovia riverway. The company is exporting iron ore, mainly to China, Middle-East, European and South American countries. The Bolivian government has provided 4,000 acre land for the project.

The official said that the logistics of the dispatch of the iron ore has been a major challenge for the JSB’s project as the El Mutun mine is located 2000 Km a w a y f r o m t h e ocean from Chile, Brazil or Argentina sides.

JSB had signed a contract with the

Bolivian government in 2007 to mine 20 billion tonnes of iron ore from El Mutun mines, one of the world’s single biggest iron-ore deposits.

The 40-year contract which gave the company the right to mine the iron ore reserves also includes setting up an integrated 1.7 MTPA Steel Plant, a 6 MTPA sponge iron and 10 MTPA iron ore pellet plant in Bolivia with an investment of $2.1 billion. This will be the largest investment by an Indian company in South America and also the largest investment by a foreign company on a single project in Bolivia.

Apple’s lead over rivals could narrow without Steve Jobs

If the death of Apple’s inspirational leader means a slowdown in the company’s blistering pace of innovation, it could give breathless rivals like Microsoft and Samsung a chance to catch up.

The extinguishing of the creative force behind the iPod, iPhone and iPad means a host of competitors — already closing the gap in some markets — will redouble efforts to counter the domination of Apple Inc in consumer electronics.

“ N o q u e s t i o n , c o m p e t i t o r s l i k e Microsoft will try and c a p i t a l i s e o n a n y weakness, stumble or oversight to shift the public’s attention away from Apple and toward their own offerings,” said Todd Lowenstein, portfolio manager at H i g h M a r k C a p i t a l Management.

Luminaries of the tech world paid tribute to Apple co-founder Steve Jobs af ter his death on Wednesday, from Microsoft Corp Chairman Bill Gates and Google Inc chief Larry Page to Samsung Electronics’ CEO G.S. Choi and Sony head Howard Stringer. But investors said emotion will not take any edge off fierce competition with Apple.

“The downturn in the economy will likely spur more and more competitors with more and more mimicry products,” said Stanley Crouch, chief investment officer at fund manager Aegis, pointing to Amazon.com’s new low-cost tablet computer as a recent example. “When

you get this incredible pressure from low-cost entrants, it’s very tough to maintain market share and margins,” said Crouch.

South Korean conglomerate Samsung is one of the best placed companies to deliver something fresh and exciting to rival Apple, analysts said.

It already makes the closest competitor by sales to Apple’s iPad tablet and the

two companies are scrapping for top s p o t i n t h e smartphone market, having overtaken Nokia, the market leader for the past decade, earlier this year. Apple is also Samsung’s biggest customer through the sale of mobile chips and display s c r e e n s . T h e relationship and rivalry has helped Samsung become a top global brand

over the past decade with a stock market value of $115 billion, a third of Apple’s. But the two are also involved in a bitter dispute over mobile devices, suing each other in 10 countries involving more than 20 cases since April.

S a m s u n g ’ s G a l a x y r a n g e o f smartphones and tablet computers run on Google’s Android operating system, which Jobs believed to be a blatant copy of Apple’s mobile interface.

“ S t e v e J o b s w a s p a r t i c u l a r l y passionate about the enforcement of Apple’s intellectual property,” said

WALL ST. PROTESTS GO GLOBALDemonstrators worldwide shouted their rage on Saturday against bankers and politicians they accuse of ruining economies and condemning millions to hardship through greed and bad government.

Galvanised by the Occupy Wall Street movement, the protests began in New Zealand, rippled round the world to Europe and were expected to return to their starting point in New York.

Most rallies were however small and barely held up traffic. The biggest anticipated was in Rome, where organisers said they believed 1,00,000 would take part.

“At the global level, we can’t carry on any more with public debt that wasn’t created by us but by thieving governments, corrupt banks and speculators who don’t give a damn about us,” said Nicla Crippa, 49, who wore a T-shirt saying “enough” as she arrived at the Rome protest. The Rome protesters, including the

unemployed, students and pensioners, planned to march through the centre, past the Colosseum and finish in Piazza San Giovanni.

Some 2,000 police were on hand to keep the Rome demonstrators, who c a l l t h e m s e l v e s “the indignant o n e s ” , peaceful and t o a v o i d a repeat of the violence last y e a r w h e n s t u d e n t s p r o t e s t i n g o v e r e d u c a t i o n policy clashed with police. As some 750 buses bearing protesters converged on the capital, students at Rome university warmed up with their own mini-demo on Saturday morning.

The carried signs reading “Your Money

is Our Money”, and “Yes We Camp,” an echo of the slogan “Yes We Can” used by US President Barack Obama.In imitation of the occupation of Zuccotti Park near Wall Street in Manhattan, some protesters have been camped out across the street from the headquarters

o f t h e B a n k o f Italy for s e v e r a l days. The worldwide p r o t e s t s w e r e a response in part to c a l l s b y the New Y o r k demonstrators for

more people to join them. Their example has prompted calls for similar occupations in dozens of US cities from Saturday.

Demonstrators in Italy were united in

their criticism of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and angry at his victory in a vote of confidence in parliament on Friday.

The government has passed a 60 billion-euro austerity package that has raised taxes and will make public health care more expensive.

On Friday students stormed Goldman Sachs’s offices in Milan and daubed red graffiti. Others hurled eggs at the headquarters of UniCredit, Italy’s biggest bank.

New Zealand and Australia got the ball rolling on Saturday. Several hundred people marched up the main street in Auckland, New Zealand’s biggest city, joining a rally at which 3,000 chanted and banged drums, denouncing corporate greed.

About 200 gathered in the capital Wellington and 50 in a park in the earthquake-hit southern city of Christchurch.

TheSouthAsianTimes.info8 BUSINESS & ECONOMY

Slowdown a concern: PMPrime Minister Manmohan Singh questioned on Saturday whether Asia’s third-largest economy will meet an average growth target of 9% annually over the next five years, g i v e n e c o n o m i c volatility around the globe.

India has been forced t o p a r e g r o w t h forecasts this year as high inflation and i n t e r e s t r a t e s h i t industry, adding to chill winds from the euro zone and the United States. The government now expects growth of close to 8% this fiscal year. In a speech discussing preparations for India’s next five-year economic plan, which runs from 2012, Singh said long-term economic prospects remained good.

“The approach paper proposes a growth target of 9% per year. It is relevant to ask whether this is feasible since the economy is currently

slowing down,” he said.

“ T h e c u r r e n t s l o w d o w n i s a matter of concern. But it should seem a s h o r t - t e r m p h e n o m e n o n , reflecting highly u n s e t t l e d conditions in the world economy,” he said. All major

economies were reducing their growth expectations given the debt problems in Europe and the United States, he said. Singh added that the country had not done enough to bring the benefits of growth to the poor.

UPA is weakening us: Jaya, ModiNon-UPA ruled states on Saturday criticized the Centre for its policies towards them with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and her Gujarat counterpart, Narendra Modi, launching scathing attacks by accusing it of weakening the federal structure. "I am not sure that the government recognizes the states as partners," Jayalalithaa said in her speech at the National

Development Council (NDC) meeting. "There are attempts by the Centre to weaken the states with interference thereby reducing them to the status of glorified municipal corporations," she said. Modi was equally bitter as he accused the Centre of "tinkering" with the federal structure and advised the UPA to follow the "federal dharma".

Trade unions predict more strikes, blame poor labor lawsClose to the heels of Maruti Suzuki worker unrest, Moser Baer workers called for a strike at the Greater Noida plant on Monday. And even though the problem was resolved by Friday, trade unions believe the Gurgaon-Rewari-Noida region may witness further labour unrest due to Harayana government's failure to implement labour laws in letter and spirit.

All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) general secretary Anil Kumar said that faulty implementation of labour laws that led to unrest in Maruti plant is now spreading to other neighbouring areas of Uttar Pradesh as well.

On Monday, about 150 workers of the packaging section of Moser Baer halted work early, for higher wages and bonus.

After five days of trouble, however, Moser Baer has managed to resolve the issue. "All issues have been amicably resolved, all issues concerning a very small group of our associates at the Greater Noida plant. All 150 unhappy associates have come back and have

joined their respective duties. Our plant operations are running as normal," said Bhaskar Sharma, CEO, Black Optical Media and Consumer Electronics.

Four months back, more than 20,000 workers supported the AITUC bandh for two hour in industrial units at places surrounding the national capital. Explaining the wave of labour unrest in the Gurgaon-Rewari-Noida region, Kumar said: "It is because of the anti-worker approach of the Haryana government. In case of Maruti, some of the workers wanted to f o r m a u n i o n , b u t t h e s t a t e government, instead of processing their application, passed on the name of applicants to the company's management, which led to their termination. That became the reason for unrest in the plant. The workers are becoming aware of their rights. Successful agitation at Manesar has probably motivated workers in the neighbouring areas to unite against the management."

Swap-your-drive campaign gains popularityord's new advertising campaign, "swap your drive" is getting praise from the advertising industry. The campaign allows potential customers to test drive any Ford model including the E n d e a v o u r , Fiesta Classic, and the Figo for seven days in e x c h a n g e f o r their car. After seven days, the consumer shares his experience w i t h t h e company.

A c c o r d i n g t o Harish Bijoor, CEO of Harish Bijoor Consults, " T h e advertisement is compelling. The campaign has given the image of the car as a c o m p e l l i n g p r o d u c t . T h e USP of the advertisement is that the customer does not want to part with the car."

Nigel E Wark, executive director, marketing, sales and service, Ford India said: "Swap your drive justifies Ford India's attempt to bring customers to the core of our marketing campaigns to drive real, credible and honest experiences. We aim to usher in a new era of marketing communications where we are co-creating content and building advocates."

The Ford India advertising campaign is an extension of Ford's global "feel the difference" campaign. "We are aware that the single largest source of information before buying a vehicle is word-of-mouth advertising. Customers bring across a better response and clearer communication. They also help

us understand better who our target is and what it wants," said Hari Krishnan, senior vice president and head, global team Ford. "We needed to

build credibility and authenticity for our products, so rather than c h o o s e a " s t o r y t e l l i n g through the voice of the company" approach, we took a demonstrative route narrated by c o n s u m e r , " h e added.

However, Bijoor also feels that the a d s f a i l e d t o d i f f e r e n t i a t e b e t w e e n t h e brands. "The only problem is that the brands get mixed up," he said.

The campaign is based on a seven-day long test drive by the potential customers. Ford India hired the services of Synovate, a global market research company, to shortlist candidates for the campaign. The criteria for selecting the participant was that the person should have had purchased a competitor car in the last one-two years, and was willing to be interviewed.

A total of nine participants were chosen from three cities — Delhi, M u m b a i a n d L u d h i a n a . T h e participants then swapped their cars with Endeavour, Fiesta Classic, and the Figo. Some of the cars swapped include Maruti Suzuki's Swift and Desire, Hyundai's i10, Tata Motors' Manza and Toyota's Fortuner.

Manesar woes make Maruti look to Gujarat

Auto giant Maruti Suzuki announced on Saturday that it will acquire land for setting up new manufacturing facilities in Gujarat. The company board has approved the purchase of land in the district of M e h s a n a for future expansion o f manufactur i n g facilities.

T h e d e c i s i o n was taken in the wake of the huge loss that t h e company had to incur because of labour unrest followed by the subsequent strikes at its Manesar plant. The collective capacity of the Gurgaon and Manesar plants is 1.2 million units annually.

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi "welcomed" the move. "Gujarat is moving ahead fast as Asia's auto hub.

With Maruti, the pace will accelerate," Modi said on Twitter. "It's Gujarat's New Year and this is Maruti's gift to Gujarat on this occasion," he said. Osamu Suzuki, chairman, Suzuki

M o t o r Corporat ion had met Modi in September. G u j a r a t already houses Tata Nano's p l a n t i n Ahmedabad.

The company also registered a decline of 59.81% in its net profit for quarter ended

30 September as compared to the same period last year. The profit posted for quarter ending September 30 is Rs240.44 crore over Rs 598.24 crore in September last year. The weak profit is being attributed to labour unrest at Manesar plant, sluggish growth in the auto sector and high fuel and interest rates.

TheSouthAsianTimes.info 9SPORTS

Indian men thumped 4-1 by Oz, out of final contention

The Indian men’s hockey team’s hopes of reaching the final of the Lanco International Super Series 9's went up in smoke after Australia handed it a 4-1 drubbing in their last league match on Saturday. India will now face Pakistan for the bronze medal on Sunday. By

w i n n i n g a l l i t s matches, Australia e n t e r e d the finals majestically and will battle it o u t a g a i n s t N e w Z e a l a n d i n t h e f inal on Sunday.

I n d i a needed a win today

to make it to the final but fell short in all departments of the game. Australia set the pace early on and went on a scoring spree, while India could reply only once through Sardar Singh. With just a draw and two loses India finished last in the four-nation event, while with

two draws Pakistan came third. Earlier, Pakistan too failed in its endeavour to make the final. It needed an outright win, but the Kiwis denied the side holding it to a 1-1 draw.

Pakistan’s sixth-minute goal by Shafqat Rasool was cancelled out six minutes later by Joel Baker. The draw was enough for the Kiwis, who thrashed India on the opening day, to make the cut. India were left to do the chasing act quite early in the match when twice FIH Player of the year Jamie Dwyer put his side ahead in the second minute itself leaving Indian goalie PR Sreejesh flummoxed. Australia widened the gap four minutes later, through Russell Ford.

The Indians got their act together to some extent after conceding the lead. Midfielder-turned-attacker Sardar reduced the margin after Gurbaj Singh set him up after sending in a grounder that whistled past the legs of rival goalie Tristan Clemons. The Australians did

not let the momentum slip in the second half even as India played sluggish in this phase of the match. Desmond Abbott all but ended India’s chances with an immaculate push towards the goal and then a minute from close, Dwyer scored his second goal. PR Sreejesh, who guarded the cage for the entire match, did well in the first half with neat clearances but he was let down by forwards who did not score. Young star Yuvraj Walmiki twice missed out on sitters, both supplied by the hard-working Danish M u j t a b a . “ T h e r e w a s s o m e misunderstanding in our defence line today, and it proved costly,” said Sreejesh.

Indian forward Tushar Khandekar lamented missing many chances. “We missed some, and it happens in such a fast game. We played a good first half, and it was not so in the second,” he said.

India look to maintain stranglehold over visitorsThe series may be in their grasp, but India are unlikely to take their foot off the pedal when they take on a hapless England in the fourth ODI to push for a whitewash in the five-match ODI series at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. Having outplayed England in the first three encounters, Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his men have returned to the scene of India’s greatest triumph just over six months after sending the billon-strong nation to delirium by clinching cricket’s biggest prize, the World Cup.

M e m o r i e s o f t h a t glorious April 2 night a n d t h e w i l d c e l e b r a t i o n s t h a t followed might be d is tant for Dhoni especially after his squad was swamped by England at home in all three formats soon after that historic t r i u m p h . T h e 3 - 0 unassailable lead going into the penultimate clash on a wicket that is expected to be a slow turner may not be redemption, but it must have assuaged some bad feelings the Indian captain might have carried since his return home from the disastrous tour of England. What should be more pleasing to him and coach Duncan Fletcher is that the triumphant run in the current series has been achieved without the presence of several key members of the World Cup-winning squad, indicating the strong bench strength, albeit in home conditions.

But Dhoni knows that a momentary

easing of the pressure applied by his men on England could be counter-productive. He would be keen to keep the winning momentum going to stay in the hunt for a memorable clean sweep, with the last game being scheduled at Kolkata on October 25. Team India has done everything right thus far and taken the insurmountable lead with the same eleven players turning out in the first three matches

and the batting order t o o r e m a i n i n g constant. The home team has batted well, both while chasing the target or setting one, with skipper Dhoni himself taking up the challenge when the innings had gone into a slight wobble on occasions.

Among the most pleasing aspects of t h e f i v e - w i c k e t victory in Mohali was the form shown by young opener Aj inkya Rahane, w h o w o u l d b e

playing his f irst international encounter in front of his home crowd. With Gautam Gambhir also showing good form with a half century, the stiff target was reached with five wickets to spare. Add to this mixture, the explosive potentials of Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina and the batting in ideal conditions looks formidable.

The largely inexperienced Indian bowling attack has done enough to keep the English batsmen under the

Newcastle stay unbeaten, Wolves stage late comebackNewcastle United maintained their unbeaten start to the season, sending Wigan Athletic to the bottom of the Premier League with a 1-0 victory at St J a m e s ’ Park after a l a t e w i n n e r f r o m Y o h a n Cabaye on Saturday.

Newcastle are fourth o n 1 9 p o i n t s , level with t h i r d -p l a c e d C h e l s e a , a f t e r Cabaye curled home a shot in the 81st minute to hand Wigan their sixth successive league defeat. In the day’s early game Wolverhampton Wanderers scored twice in the last five minutes through Kevin Doyle and Jamie O’Hara to end a run of five successive defeats and force a 2-2 draw with Swansea City.

West Bromwich Albion won in the league at Midlands rivals Aston Villa for the first time since 1979 in an eventful match. Villa defender Chris Herd was sent off and West Brom’s Chris Brunt missed a penalty after 36 minutes. Paul Scharner scored Albion’s winner in the second half. In the day’s other match

Sunderland won 2-0 at lowly Bolton Wanderers, Stephane Sessegnon and Nicklas Bendtner earning the visitors their first away win of the season.

Swansea , i n t o t a l control f o r a lmost t h e e n t i r e m a t c h a n d seemingly on t h e i r way to a f i r s t a w a y w i n

since being promoted, collapsed in the dying minutes as Kevin Doyle scored after 85 minutes and then Jamie O’Hara smashed in the equaliser. The Welsh side led with first half goals from Danny Graham and Joe Allen and squandered a number of other chances in the second half before Wolves’s unexpected fightback.

Swansea are 11th in the 20-team table with nine points from as many games while Wolves are 14th on eight points.

TheSouthAsianTimes.info11 TECHNOLOGY

The iPhone is your slick NRI, Android your desi engineer

In today’s world, one of the most difficult decisions to make is how to choose b e t w e e n A p p l e a n d A n d r o i d smartphones. I wrote earlier about the kind of technology perspectives a tech-savvy person must consider before buying a smartphone, but some of the feedback I got for that piece was that it was too complicated and nerdy for layperson use. So I decided to extend my tribute to Steve Jobs and simplify the process of making this choice, improve its user experience, so to speak. In order to do that, I am going to use an analogy. Analogies have been a crucial tool in mankind’s history. They have powered myths, religions and philosophies, so it’s

only f a i r t h a t they help u s choos e betwe e n Appl

e and Android.

One of the oldest analogies Indians are familiar with is the horse sacrifice, the Ashwamedha Yagna. Furthermore, it is estimated that buying a smartphone today costs the same as it cost to perform this yagna back in the day. Unfortunately, most people still believe that the key to a successful kingship is a white horse that runs free with a contingent of soldiers doing pillaging and looting behind it, and at the end of the day, everyone enjoys some fine Steak d’Cheval (horsesteak). Heck no! The horse is a metaphor. A white horse that runs wild is a symbolic

representation of a human being’s ego and all its attendant cohorts, jealousy, greed and selfishness. What the Yagna tells us is that in order to bring our ego under control, it’s important to let it run wild, see the harm it does (soliders pillaging in its wake etc) and then slaughter it once and for all. I can imagine the number of poor white horses that would’ve went “Hey no, you’re getting this all wrong…aaaaaah” but then I’d be digressing. Let’s get back to smartphones.

After soap serials, reality shows and SMS-voting based song and dance contests, what are Indians typically obsessed about? Yes, procreation. We aren’t a billion+ without some serious interest in this um…activity, but as conservative people, we mostly don’t do procreation without marriage. So I figured that if I have to come up with a user friendly analogy for smartphone platform choice, marriage must be the analogy of choice. But then instead of putting myself in the feet of a young boy looking for a prospective bride (a process I’m mostly unfamiliar with because I didn’t go through the arranged marriage charade), I am going to put myself in the position of a girl looking for a suitable bridegroom.

An Apple device is that suave, good-

l o o k i n g g r o o m w h o g e t s h i s shaadi.com profile shot by his professional photographer friend and uses a lot of software filters to remove every last facial blemish. He is one of those homogenous NRI-MBA types and there’s not much variety. The iPhone comes in pretty much one variety (no, the earlier versions don’t count) and there isn’t really much of a choice. While its easy to be wowed by his good looks, luxury sedan and 6-figure dollar salary, the iceberg beneath the surface is the really nasty conservative mother-in-law that comes with this package, one that will restrict you from doing whatever you want to do, much like how iTunes is the only way to get apps and in most cases, phones come locked with a carrier.

An Android device, on the other hand, is a sruffy looking, generally unfit, geeky, but yet occasionally charming MS (engineer types) who has never spoken to a girl in his entire life. His general lack of fitness can sometimes require you to keep recharging him but he comes in quite a few varieties. He’s generally hard to like at first glance, but if one looks deeply enough, he’s a nice chap, much more open minded than the MBA dude. But before you take the plunge, do check their horoscopes.

Siri so popular it’s jamming networks

Siri, the voice-activated personal assistant that comes with the new iPhone 4S, is drawing rave reviews as consumers take to Twitter and the blogosphere to express their delight. Some have taken to posting the questions they ask and showing Siri’s responses, such as this one from @mattgemmell: “Me: “What’s the best mobile phone?” Siri: “The one you’re holding.”

However, its popularity has already become a problem. As consumers flooded stores this weekend, to the tune of more than 4 million devices sold in three days, their desire to test out Siri has resulted in connectivity problems. Tech

experts believe Apple’s servers have been overwhelmed by the number of users trying to use Siri. However, there is one thing that those who have used the device agree on — Siri is quite impressive. “Even in a noisy environment inside a car going 60 miles an hour, it can still understand most of what you’re saying if you hold the iPhone up to your ear,” Charlie White wrote for Mashable. Meanwhile, blogger Johnny Evans over at Computer World thinks that Siri will be a game changer in the field of search.

First online fair provides Indian art virtual platformIn an effort to guide the country’s art industry into the virtual sphere and make the works available to the masses, Burgundy Art Pvt. Ltd. is organising the country’s first online art fair called the India Art Collective (IAC). The fair will provide galleries a platform to showcase art and allow buyers and collectors easy and convenient access to quality Indian art.

“A very limited number of people appreciate and buy art in India. We lack a museum culture, which is why art does not reach the larger public. We hope to enhance the consumption of Indian art by providing easy access and increasing awareness. An online art fair like India Art Collective, where anyone can browse and appreciate a large inventory of good Indian art, is a step in that direction,” says Sapna Kar, co-founder and IAC fair director.

Scheduled to be held from 19-26 November, the fair is mainly targeted at serious collectors and art lovers, and gives them an opportunity to view, appreciate and purchase without leaving the premises. Diffusing geography and negating all logistical nightmares, IAC hopes to build up the consumption of Indian art in the country and across the world.

“IAC is an effort to showcase an exquisite collection of Indian art at transparent

prices while exploring the unlimited potential of the online medium. Emulating the traditional art fair experience is not a requisite for this medium. The cornerstone of our model is simplicity and I believe that browsing this fair may, in fact, be way simpler than attending a traditional art fair,” Kar told Guardian20. The site opens up to three exhibition halls, sorted by price, which allows buyers with fixed budgets to visit the hall that fits their pocket. Buyers can also browse the fair by artist; for instance, if a buyer is exclusively looking for a Husain work, they can see all the works of that artist displayed by each gallery in the fair. The fair also lets buyers browse by genres, like sculptures or paper work, giving it a personalised touch.

The incredible reach of the online medium can no longer be ignored by the Indian art industry. — Sapna Kar

“It is a great initiative as it is cost-effective and reaches out to a wider audience. Though a majority of the buyers still like to look at the works before buying them, this is a good platform for seasoned buyers and buyers abroad who are used to buying works after browsing them online,” says Bhavna Kakar, director, Latitude 28.

TheSouthAsianTimes.info 11ARTS & LITERATURE

Ramanujan & the Ramayana Delhi University is home to a literary battle that has turned political. Ragini Bhuyan reports

inquiry and a student's private individual belief. The central premise of their argument is that a student exposed to alternate ways of thinking will necessarily adopt them, instead of doing what is actually expected of students, which is to evaluate the information you are presented with.

At the press conference, Chahal argued that the world erupted in protest when cartoons of Prophet Muhammad were published by a Danish newspaper. Christian organisations also protested against the portrayal of the Vatican in Dan Brown's worldwide bestselling thriller, The Da Vinci Code. Chahal went on to cite the example of the professor in Kerala who wrote a question in an exam paper referring to Prophet Muhammad, and who sufferred the horrific fate of having his hands cut off. The inference was clear: other religions don't tolerate it, so why should Hindus?

he press conference also brought to light some undercurrents in this battle. The NDTF and the ABVP's press release says, "It is a well-known tactic of the Leftists to attack deep-rooted religious beliefs of Hindus." Dr Awasthy claimed at the press conference that "these historians are all Left wing. The Nehru Memorial Museum, the ICSSR and Delhi University are full of Left historians. This is a conspiracy by the Left. Even the expert committee was, after all, full of historians. If they are so eager to defend academic freedom in the face of religious sentiments, then why didn't they protest when Professor Joseph's hands were cut off in Kerala?" When this journalist asked them for the names of historians they were unhappy with, they responded with at least three names — Romila Thapar, R.S. Sharma and D.N. Jha. Their press release also asks "Whether the same historians will recommend a narrative by Salman Rushdie as a compulsory text for the study of the Quran or Islam?"

Chahal argued that when it came to the Rama Setu controversy, the same historians said that Rama was not a historical subject, but now felt free to teach stories about Rama in a history course. He said they would make sure the essay that replaces Ramanujan's does not contain anything offensive to Hindus, indication that this brand of academic vigilanteism will only intensify.

Two ideas underprin the discontent — that the syllabus of Delhi University is hostage to a Leftist conspiracy and that the students who read this essay will be brainwashed into believing all the things the author says. Forgotten in this debate is the role of academics itself. The purpose of higher education is to inculcate critical faculties in the student. Critical analysis of texts is an integral part of humanities and social sciences education. Ramanujan's word is not gospel and a student or teacher is free to agree or disagree with his essay. Renu Bala, one of the nine Academic Council members who voted in favour of retaining the essay, says, "Ramanujan

has not concocted these stories but merely presented his findings. If 18-year-olds have the right to vote in India, then can we not consider second-year B.A. students mature enough to judge the essay for themselves?"

But the controversy over the Ramanujan essay is merely a chapter in a larger political battle. Censorship and attacks on freedom of speech have become de rigueur in this new atmosphere. This has, in turn, given rise to the culture of intolerance and a purported right to 'take offense'. Journalist Nilanjana Roy, who has written extensively on censorship of texts and banning of books in India, says, "The function of a university is not only to hand out degrees, it's to encourage students to a life of independent thinking, to introduce t h e m t o t h e m a n y w a y s o f understanding the world rather than just one narrow view." She feels that India does not have a culture of protecting free expression, "nor do we have a political understanding of why freedom of expression is such a fundamental part of having a functioning democracy. The erosion of free speech in India has happened over a period of time, as one institution after another has chosen to give in to the demands of extremist sections or to the threat of violence. If you can edit out inconvenient truths or inconvenient ways of seeing India's history from university syllabi, or ensure that there is silence around many subjects — a discussion of religion, a discussion of Shivaji's life or the lives of key players in the National Movement — you come one step closer to ensuring that it is only your narrow view of history and India that will gain ground. The aim is also to shut down discussion and debate; to threaten or bully people into turning away from active, independent inquiry".

The battle rages on. 24 October saw more than 500 students and professors walking across the DU campus, their voices resonating in college halls and doorways. One of the placards at the protest said, "Read the world: stop censorship of texts." An admirable sentiment in these narrowed times.

n 9 October, Delhi University's Academic Council decided to drop A.K. Ramanujan's essay 300 Ramayanas from the Delhi University B.A. syllabus, largely due to pressure from right-wing organisations. The Council, which deals primarily with administrative affairs, saw fit to intervene in this case and d i s m i s s t h e e s s a y , d e s p i t e recommendation to the contrary by the expert committee. The essay has been the subject of controversy since 2008, when these groups first objected to some of the findings presented by Ramanujan.

On Monday, 24 October, hundreds of professors and students across DU marched in solidarity, protesting against the removal of this essay from the syllabus. Slogans like "Historical inquiry pe attack nahi sahenge" rent the air, while various placards called for people to resist the saffronisation of higher education and to oppose the policing of academia. Immediately after this, the ABVP (Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of the BJP) and another organisation called the National Democratic Teacher's Front (NDTF) held a press conference to explain their position.

Those against the essay are bothered by the examples cited from other Ramayanas. Ramanujan studies some of the myriad 'tellings' of the essay throughout South and South East Asia. Many of these tellings vary from, or even contrast with, the Valmiki Ramayana most Indians are familiar with. For example, in a South Indian folk account of the Ramayana, it is Ravana who becomes pregnant with Sita and gives birth to her when he sneezes.

Ramanujan says that in Kannada, the word sita means 'he sneezed', and thus Sita's name is given its Kannada etymology in this version. At the ABVP and NDTF press conference, this example came under much fire. "Is this scientific, can this be true that a man can get pregnant and give birth to a daughter by sneezing? How can this be taught at the college level?," asked Dr Avnijesh Awasthy, NDTF President and a professor of Hindi at PGDAV College. This had many people at the p r e s s c o n f e r e n c e p e r p l e x e d , wondering whether Dr Awasthy was arguing that the version of events presented in the Valmiki Ramayana could be scientifically verified.

On the Thai Ramakien, Ramanujan writes, "The focus in the Ramakien is not on family values and spirituality. Thai audiences like Hanuman more than Rama. Neither celibate nor devout, as in the Hindu Ramayana, here Hanuman is quite a ladies' man, who doesn't mind looking into the bedrooms of Lanka and doesn't consider watching another man's wife while she sleeps to be immoral, as Valmiki's or Kampan's Hanuman would." Although Ramanujan is merely drawing out the differences in the various narratives, for the ABVP and the NDTF, the reference to the Thai Hanuman as a voyeur is an insult to Hindu sentiments. At the press conference, ABVP State President Rohit Chahal said, "We worship Hanuman in our daily life. But a student who reads this will be led to believe that this was Hanuman's character!" These groups seek to unite two quite separate spheres — academic

TheSouthAsianTimes.info12 ART & LITERATURE

Dinesh Singh: Eye of the Storm

At the centre of the controversy is the university's Vice Chancellor, Prof. Dinesh Singh. Singh is a well-respected academic from the Maths Department, who took on the unenviable task of stepping in after his predecessor, Deepak Pental, had steamrolled in the semester system, ignoring widespread protests across University. Singh's father, U.N. Singh, was a pro-Vice Chancellor of Delhi University..Prof. Sheo Dutt, an expert on Ancient History and Academic Council member, laments the way in which the Vice Chancellor has relinquished his authority. "Prof. Dinesh Singh comes from a very educated and progressive family. I think he is being pressurised because this is very unlike him. He is a sad person these days. He is not facing journalists. Though I feel bad for him, I also hold him responsible for allowing saffronisation o f t h i s course and for allowing fundamentalists to rule. H e s h o u l d n o t h a v e a l l o w e d a decision to be reached on the work of a scholar like Ramanujan based on the v o i c e o f people who a r e n o t experts on this subject. T h e A c a d e m i c C o u n c i l u s u a l l y leaves it to t h e department to decide the academic merit, and it accepts the expert's recommendations. But in this case, because of political pressure, it entertained complaints which were not based on academic merit. Also, the VC set such a serious matter as a supplementary agenda at the meeting and circulated the copies of the essay amongst the members at the last minute."

However, Singh still has some defenders amongst his erstwhile colleagues. Prof. Ajay Kumar, currently Dean of Research at Delhi University, has known him as a colleague and friend in the Maths department for 15 years, and says that he doesn't think that the VC has any political affiliations of his own. "He is a wonderful and easy going man", he says.

Singh has earned the favour of the ABVP, which has openly praised the VC for dropping the essay. But it will not be easy to override the immense anger and opposition from the history department and other students. At Monday's protest, the anger against the VC was palpable, as slogans of 'Dinesh Singh sharm karo' and 'Vice Chancellor jawab do' continued throughout the protest march.Study in Shame?

300 Ramayanas, one of the seminal

essays in Indian literary theory, deconstructs the various versions of the Ramayana story as it exists across South and South East Asia. A.K. Ramanujan, the Padma Shree winning scholar, prefers to call them "tellings", as the word 'version' seems to suggest that there is an original master narrative and all other forms of the story have deviated from it. It recounts the different ways in which the Ramayana story survives today amidst d i f f e r e n t c u l t u r e s a n d d r a w s connections between various tellings.

There are more than 25 different tellings of the Ramayana in Sanskrit alone. Many later versions of the Ramayana take inspiration and draw from previous versions. Ramanujan narrates one of his favourite passages from the sixteenth century Adhyatma Ramayana — "When Rama is exiled, he does not want Sita to go with him into the forest. Sita argues with him. At first she uses the usual arguments: she is his

w i f e , s h e should share h i s suf fer ings , exile herself in his exile and so on. When he still resists the idea, she is furious. She bursts out, ' C o u n t l e s s Ramayanas h a v e b e e n c o m p o s e d before this. Do you know of one where Sita doesn't g o w i t h Rama to the forest?'".

Ramanujan's essay also d i s c u s s e s

Jain tellings of the Ramayana. Here Ravana is a tragic figure and his virtues are extolled. In some Jain tellings, the s t o r y h a s s h a d e s o f w h a t psychoanalysts refer to as the Elektra-complex, where Sita is his daughter, though Ravana is not aware of this. Jain Ramayanas are full of Jain homilies and legends, and presents Rama as an evolved Jain man who does not even kill Ravana. On the other hand, the Thai Ramakien regards Rama as a human figure. Hanuman is portrayed as quite a ladies man, and Thai audiences are more fond of him than Rama. Also, though Valmiki's telling focuses on Rama, other tellings focus on different characters. In some later extensions like the Adbhuta Ramayana and the Tamil story of Satakantharavana it is Sita who goes to war and slays Ravana. In Santhal oral tellings, Sita is even portrayed as an unfaithful wife and is seduced by both Ravana and Lakhshmana.

After investigations into black market bones for Buddhists in Bhutan, transplant kidneys of dubious legality in Tamil Nadu, ‘don't ask, don't tell' adoptions in the American Midwest, ova for sale in Cyprus, surrogacy for hire in Gujarat, blood farming in Gorakhpur, and hiring himself out for clinical testing of Levitra in Wisconsin ('I am the Chuck Yeager of erectile dysfunction.'), Scott Carney finally arrives, on page 194, at this truth: 'There's a double standard when it comes to valuing human bodies.'

The Red Market is a necessary book, if only to shake awake some concern in a society too comfortable with avoiding inconvenient questions about matters of individual conveniences. Our dilemma is moral, and it is pathetic what manner of immorality invests our quest for health and immortality. Altruism is the façade concealing First World exploitation of the impoverished Third World. Any man's death diminishes me no longer, as someone somewhere is always more equal than others.Having supp'd full of horrors by the end of the book, I still found one, perhaps the most necessary, unexplored. It's not the sleazy nexus of medicine and the flesh trade, but the stratospheric motive force that drives this market. If there were no buyers, there would be no red market. It isn't correct to say that both strata are made up of desperate people: buyers, to save their loved ones; and donors, fraught to find a meal. The exploitative force is the buyer with the money. He sees nothing wrong in buying if somebody is willing to sell. Naturally then, the market works first by keeping a large donor farm of people so desperate they always want to sell, and then, and only then, by hiking up prices. Those who have studied the mechanics of famine know how fine-tuned this skill can be.

Carney overlooks an artificial evolution-in-the-making: a super-species that cannibalises a subordinate group. Soon countries like ours may become organ farms for the west. We're almost there with the mindless boosting of medical tourism at the cost of basic healthcare for millions of poor Indians. Montek Singh Ahluwalia dithers over the definition of poverty as food prices climb, but medical tourism promises India Shining.

There is salacity to this brand of gonzo journalism, a voyeuristic glee that leaves the reader feeling unclean. Its heroics embed the writer in the premise. Mary Roach, the author of Bonk!, copulated with her husband while being imaged in an MRI scanner, and yet, that hardly qualifies. The prurience comes more from the author's visceral xenophobic rejection of the locale he's describing: it's

face is always something less than human.

This book opens with such a chapter. A young American girl on a meditation retreat in Bodh Gaya kills herself. Carney narrates his travails in sending the body back to her family in the US. It is a stepping stone to the book because it defines the writer's perspective. It has nothing to do with loss, or the dead girl. It is about the impossibility of getting anything done decently in a corrupt and inefficient country. The language — a wobbly juxtaposition of fact and sentiment, the choice of descriptives — sets the tenor: The doctors have split her down the middle with crude tools — opening her wide from the base of her neck to her pelvis. They broke her ribs to see her heart.

That, the world over, is standard autopsy incision, and instruments that lack an electrical hum aren't necessarily crude tools. I returned to this chapter after I finished the book with a question: Why such rage at this assault on the dead when the book entire is about unimaginable assaults on the living?

There comes a point in every doctor's professional life when he makes the decision to determine what he'll be — a healer or a merchant of flesh; he either draws a lakshman rekha for himself or joins the flow on Easy St. The ethical burden on surgical skill is specially high. Can what was invented to repair and heal be subverted as commercial procedure? Surgery is much more than technique, and I'm not talking mystique here either. Surgeons deal with patients, and technicians with body parts—that's the difference. Every surgeon has to decide between good science and good commerce. It never works both ways. I strongly recommend Carney's book to every medical undergraduate. It is necessary for doctors to discover early that the realm of Hippocrates' 'Do no harm' extends well beyond the treatment of a sick organ. It includes, also, many healthy organs jostling for sale. It includes, also, the lives those healthy organs belong to.

Kalpish Ratna is the nom de plume of Bombay surgeons Ishrat Syed and Kalpana Swaminathan. Their most recent novel is The Quarantine Papers.

Uneven but important study of human body parts trade

The Red MarketScott CarneyHachette IndiaPages: 254 Rs. 550

Scott Carney’s investigation into the worldwide trade in human body parts raises important questions about the ethical responsibilities of medical professionals.

TheSouthAsianTimes.info 13YOUTH

Circus in the City: F1 weekend is always a really rocking ride

becomes more e x p e n s i v e ( o b v i o u s l y ) and there is a s e a o f entrepreneurs (read crooks) who think it is their solemn birth right to make a quick million when 'it's so easy'.

M y a d v i c e ? Stay home or at work. Keep all t h e e r r a n d s and shopping f o r M o n d a y o n w a r d s . Unless you like seeing hapless f o r e i g n e r s being taken for a ride (literally a n d figuratively) or

locals fighting it out over a series of 'one-upmanship' competitions. If you feel like going for the free practise and qualifiers, head to the track with four hours to spare, at least. There are always people who think that stalking the drivers or pit crew is an easy way to get race tickets. Where they will tail, there is jail. Tihar should be ready!

F1 weekend nights are all about the fun of spending power. The more power you have, the stupider you behave in front of others. Thankfully, the opposite is not true. If there is one weekend in a year when you can show off those shady

'contacts' that you keep hidden, it's this w e e k . N e v e r a g a i n w i l l a n acquaintance become a 'chaddi buddy' overnight, nor will you gather so many 'new' family members (do you know how many 6th cousins you have?). People will do anything to get their grubby paws on a Paddock Pass or invites to the famed after-parties. If you have any work that you need to get done by certain people, now is the time.

Leverage your extra passes and you'll be surprised at the results. This weekend boasts of the most exclusive parties held across the globe and it usually costs more than an arm, a leg, two kidneys and a liver to get in. Networked contacts will help, you say? Good luck. The hundreds of people at these parties are an eclectic mix of wannabes, has-beens, has-been wannabes, and maybe 6-7 actual race and party fans. Be it from films, sports, entertainment, or business, they all want to be seen and heard, dressed in obscure designer attire and speaking in up to four different accents every night.

The F1 weekend is actually a circus-in-the-city, but it is fun all the same. The energy, madness, and adrenaline are unmatched. Everyone in the city contributes to the show in some way or the other, with some putting on a show the entire 72 hours. It's a great experience to live, so go ahead and enjoy it. For me, this will be my 9th live race and the first in my hometown. I'm really looking forward to the oozing attitude, the blasphemed banter and a brand new style of name-dropping. See you at the track.

For any city hosting an F1 race, the entire weekend is basically a super-charged, electrifying experience for its dwellers, transforming even the most non-automotive personality into an ardent race fan. It all starts with the influx of people from all over the world, usually on the Wednesday and Thursday before the race. Hotels and motels are full, guest houses suddenly charge more than a five-star property does, and all available extra bedrooms in the city are converted into eager Bed & Breakfast lodgings.

Every restaurant and eatery worth its salt and chillies tries to cash in on the

speed fever. There are food specials, car and F1 decorations, and even menus that are 'supposedly' what the drivers themselves eat during the weekends. Sightseeing suddenly becomes a craze since a vast majority of the people are travelling to the city for the first time and intend on seeing and doing everything they possibly can.

From 8am right up till 6pm, the days see a plethora of activities that can actually be very irritating for a city local. Traffic becomes horrendous, with snarls at even the remotest of locations. Everything automatically

Ambiguities of a fertile mind

or Delhi-based artist Roohi Kapoor, art is an expression of what has transpired in her life and what is due to come. Her upcoming art exhibition Mindscapes at the Stainless Gallery is a delicate depiction of what she has felt at various stages of her life. "It is broadly a body of work that speaks about my myriad feelings and moods," says Kapoor.

The collection largely comprises oils and acrylics on canvas, along with a few charcoals on paper. The Dreamer is a powerful neon green figurine resting, Purple haze features four female figurines reclining and Mr Here and Mrs Now shows a male and a female face facing each other. The

nomenclature makes for fascinating telling and speaks of the ambiguity that these images try to capture.

"Expressing the sentiments behind these works into words is a difficult task. For example, Mr Here and Mrs Now is about being in the moment, depicted through the images of a couple looking at each other," says Kapoor. She has a t t e n d e d v a r i o u s experimental courses in Europe that focus on creative painting and these t e c h n i q u e s f i n d considerable expression in her artistic oeuvre. "I recently attended a course in Florence that focused on the 'sight size technique' w h i c h i s h e a v i l y methodological. I draw most of my anatomical drawing tools from there," adds Kapoor.

This is Kapoor 's second solo exhibition. The previous show last year dealt with wider themes and different mediums. This time she has chosen to

be more specific, in terms of medium and concept.

Another interesting feature of the show is the hand tufted rugs that have been co-designed by Roohi and Ron

Brinkers, the curator of Mindscapes. "It's a whole new medium. Ron, who is a rug designer, and I have taken simpler variations of some of my works and used them to design the rugs," says Kapoor. Mindscapes is showing on the 5 and 6 November between 11am and 7pm.

TheSouthAsianTimes.info14 ENVIRONMENT

Scientists find underground river beneath Amazon

Brazilian scientists have discovered an underground river some 4,000 meters (13,000) feet deep, which flows from west to east like the country’s famous waterway.

A statement this week from Brazil’s National Observatory named the underground river Hamza and said it represents one of two different draining systems for the large rainforest region.

A t e a m o f scientists led by E l i z a b e t h Pimentel came t o t h e c o n c l u s i o n from studying 2 4 1 w e l l s drilled by the state oil giant Petrobras in the Amazon region.

Even though the two rivers cover a similar

path they have differences. The underground river flows at a far slower pace and empties into the ocean deep underground.

“It is likely that this river is responsible for the low level of salinity in the waters around the mouth of the Amazon,” the statement said.

‘Happy’ Bhutan alarmed by Himalayan climate change

Bhutan’s prime minister has issued a dire warning about the impact of Himalayan climate change, saying it could wreck the tiny kingdom’s ambitious plans to be a world leader in hydropower. The isolated, mountainous nation sandwiched between India and China is famed for pursuing “happiness” for its citizens instead of orthodox economic growth, with environmental protection central to its development model.

Bhutan, home to 700,000 people, is already a carbon-neutral electricity producer, with almost all of its power generated at plants that capture energy from the cascading streams that criss-cross its spectacular landscape.

But Prime Minister Jigmi Thinley told AFP the country was powerless to prevent changes caused by shifting weather patterns which threaten regional water supplies and plans to harness the energy of the Himalayan snowmelt.The glaciers are retreating very rapidly, some are even disappearing. The flow of water in our river system is fluctuating in ways that are very worrying,” he said in an interview in his office in the capital Thimphu.

“In the summer they overflow their banks in a way that used to never happen in the past and in the winter they shrivel and almost dry up.

“The climate is changing, global warming is real and the impact on our hydrology is very severe.”

The increase in meltwater caused by warmer summers has also led to the creation of lakes high in the mountains that threaten people in the valleys below.

The government is building an early warning system to alert authorities to any possible breach of the natural dams that hold back the water.

In 1994, Lake Lugge in northern Bhutan burst and killed 21 people.

Currently, a team of 200 to 300 labourers and engineers are working in the same area to lower the level of the largest glacial lake in the country, called Thorthormi in Lunana district.

The workers, active during the summer months when work is possible in the icy and inhospitable area, are digging a drainage canal that will reduce the lake level by five metres (16 feet).

All the equipment for the task had to

been carried, with the air t o o t h i n t o u s e helicopters. To reach the spot on foot every man had to pass a 5,000-metre peak.

“It’s literally spades and shovels,” said Karma Tshiteem, the secretary of t h e G r o s s N a t i o n a l Happiness Commission, a state agency that vets and proposes policy, who

recently inspected the work.

“This is a stark example that climate change is not some theoretical thing that is still to be debated. We are facing it and having to do mitigation efforts,” he told AFP in an interview.

On November 19, Bhutan will host a conference bringing together India, Nepal and Bangladesh to discuss ways to lessen the impact of global warming on the mountains, which are a source of water for 1.3 billion people downstream.

It is a follow-up to a similar meeting in Kathmandu in 2009 and an attempt to put climate change back on the international agenda, which has been dominated by concerns about debt and recession in developed countries.

For Bhutan, the change in river water flows caused by colder, drier winters and warmer, wetter summers is particularly alarming.

The shift may jeopardise ambitious hydroelectric power plans to raise capacity seven-fold from a current peak of about 1,500 megawatts (MW) from four plants, to 10,000 MW by adding another 10 projects by 2020.

By selling electricity to energy-starved neighbour India, the aid-dependent country had hoped to become economically self-sufficient by 2018.

But Thinley said the government was having to reconsider the assumption that rivers would be a boundless source of energy and income. The total potential for hydropower in Bhutan had been estimated at 30,000 MW.

“Hydropower may not be the sort of exponential source that we considered it to be,” he said.

“The flow during the winter and summer used to be regulated, the variation was not so much. Now it is so much that in the winter, we are importing electricity from India.”

The UN’s top panel on climate change warned in a landmark 2007 report that “widespread mass losses from glaciers and reductions in snow cover over recent decades are projected to accelerate throughout the 21st century.”

New study shows that Florida’s reefs cannot endure a ‘cold snap’

Remember frozen iguanas falling from trees during Florida’s 2010 record-breaking cold snap? Well, a new study led by scientists at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science shows that Florida’s corals also dropped in numbers due to the cold conditions.

“It was a major setback,” said Diego Lirman, associate professor at the UM Rosenstiel School and lead author of the study. “Centuries-old coral colonies were lost in a matter of days.”

The chilly January temperatures caused the most catastrophic loss of corals within the Florida Reef Tract, which spans 160 miles (260 kilometers) from Miami to the Dry Tortugas and is the only living barrier reef in the continental U.S.

Members of the Florida Reef Resilience Program, a group comprised of Florida scientists and resource managers, conducted a month-long survey of 76 reefs sites from Martin County to Key West, both during and shortly after the unusually cold weather.

The research team compared the mortality rates of corals from the cold event to warm-water events, such as the highly publicized bleaching event in 2005, and concluded that the cold-water event cause even more widespread morality than previous warm-water events. The results were published in the

August 2011 issue of the journal PLoS One.

The study found coral tissue mortality reached over 40-p e r c e n t f o r s e v e r a l important reef-building species and that large colonies in shallow and near-shore reefs were hardest hit. This is in

contrast to a less than one-percent tissue mortality caused by warm-water events since 2005. Coral species that had previously proven tolerant to h i g h e r - t h a n - n o r m a l o c e a n temperatures were most affected by the cold-water event.

“This was undoubtedly the single worst event on record for Florida corals,” said Lirman.

Ice-cold Arctic air swept into Florida in early January 2010, plummeting air temperatures to an all-time low of 30°F (1°C) and dropping ocean temperatures to a chilly 51°F (11°C).

“The 2010 cold-water anomaly not only caused widespread coral mortality but also reversed prior resistance and resilience patterns that will take decades to recover,” the study’s authors conclude.

Florida’s reefs are located in a marginal environment a t the n o r t h e r n m o s t l i m i t f o r c o r a l development. Corals have adapted to a specific temperature range and are typically not found in areas where water temperatures drop below 60°F (16°C).

Provided by University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science

TheSouthAsianTimes.info 15HERITAGE

A walk with the KhwajaAs you walk through the quaint lanes of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya Dargah, an omnipresent calm envelops you. RAHUL DEVRANI takes you to one such spiritual journey

Even though the streets are buzzing with activity as hundreds of people walk briskly towards their destinations and vendors pester you to buy traditional clothes or jewellery, an accompanying sense of calm and innocence makes you wonder: What separates these streets from other parts of the city? They are crowded but they cannot be compared with old Delhi; it’s a market area and yet it cannot be called one.

Not many people would know, but the entire stretch of Mathura Road — from Humayun’s tomb right up to Faridabad — is like a graveyard with kings, philosophers, poets and men of eminence buried underneath. Be it the famous historian Ziauddin Barani or Mughal prince Mirza Babur and Mirza Jehangir, all were buried here.

However, out of all these people, 13th century Sufi saint of the Chishtiyyah order, Nizamuddin Auliya, “Allah’s favourite one”, has always had a special significance among the masses. So much so that even after centuries, people would want to be buried near his tomb.

N i z a m u d d i n A u l i y a h a s b e e n immortalised for his generosity and humanitarianism. His advice — “first greet, then eat, then talk” — is still followed heartily with people often saying “Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim” before opening their meals.

“This has never been a residential area; people used to live in areas around Mehrauli and old Delhi. It was only after Partition that people started to reside here. But interestingly, everyone wanted to be buried here,” says Yousuf Saeed, an independent filmmaker and researcher.

The shrine of Nizamuddin Auliya is across the road from Humayun’s tomb, and as we know from historical records,

THE LEGACY

was earlier a village called Ghayaspur when young Mohammed Nizamuddin migrated to Delhi from Badayun (Uttar Pradesh) in the early 13th century along with his mother to become a qazi (Muslim priest). Later, he became a disciple of Baba Farid and was appointed his spiritual emissary for Delhi.

Nizamuddin Auliya settled near the Yamuna, about a km east of the p r e s e n t - d a y d a r g a h , b e h i n d Humayun’s tomb. This is where he prayed, meditated and met hundreds of people. Even today, devotees from across the world come in numbers to get the spiritual feel. “Nizamuddin Auliya was the most well-known of Sufi saints. Sufism as an ideology or a course of conduct has enchanted many. It says that God is best worshipped through humanity. This is what Nizamuddin Auliya did and in the process became the most celebrated of saints,” says Saeed, adding, “One thing that makes Sufi saints special is the fact that they are and have always been with us. The ritual of burying the deceased, in fact, brings this place alive as you feel all the more connected to the past.”

Towards the west of Nizamuddin Auliya’s tomb is the Jamaat-Khana (prayer hall), supposedly constructed by Feroz Shah Tughlaq a few years after Nizamuddin Auliya’s death. Indeed, the very thought that one is breathing the same air in the ancient locale , makes for an ecstat ic experience.

There may be several celebrated friendships in history but none can match the fabled relationship Nizamuddin Auliya had with Amir Khusrau. According to historians,

LEGENDARY COMPANIONSHIP

Khusrau was the most favourite disciple of the Sufi saint.

Constructed in 1605, Khusrau’s marbled tomb is just steps away from Nizamuddin Auliya’s and is considered to be highly sacred. Just opposite the opening of Khusrau’s tomb is the Hujra-e-Qadeem (the ancient room), believed to have been built in the 13th-14th century. On the wall at the entrance to the room has an engraved p o e m i n p r a i s e o f Nizamuddin Auliya by Urdu poet Allama Iqbal.

“Iqbal wished if he could be Nizamuddin Auliya’s servant and he requested t h a t h i s p o e m b e engraved in his praise,”

says Saeed.

Born in 1253 to a Turk-Indian family, Khusrau was a renowned poet of his time who served as many as seven rulers of the Delhi Sultanate. Even today, his poetry and prose, which are considered the best in Persian, serve as a casket containing invaluable historical information.

Being a court poet, Khusrau enjoyed all sorts of materialistic privileges but he felt at home only in Nizamuddin Auliya’s khaneqah (monastery). As the legend goes, Nizamuddin Auliya could get annoyed and angry with anyone but Khusrau.

Saeed mentions that there is a fable that when he was eight-year-old, Khusrau’s mother pushed him to visit Nizamuddin Auliya’s khaneqah. As he reached there, Khusrau waited at the entrance and c o m p o s e d t h e f o l l o w i n g l i n e s impromptu: You are a king at the gate of whose palace/ even a pigeon becomes a hawk./ A poor traveller has come to your gate,/ should he enter, or should he return?

It is said that Nizamuddin Auliya at once asked one of his servants to go out at the gate and narrate the following lines to the boy: Oh you the man of reality, come inside/ so you become for a while my confidant/ but if the one who enters is foolish/ then he should return the way he came.

To many, the custom of celebrating someone’s death might sound eccentric, but for a Sufi it is only a transition phase — the penultimate stage for unison with God. So, every year about 16 days after Eid-ul-fitr, people take part in another festive occasion, the urs or death

STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

anniversary of Amir Khusrau, called t h e ‘ S a t r a h v i n S h a r i f ’ ( h o l y seventeenth). Hundreds of thousands of people come to offer their nazrana (flowers, sweets, chadars) at the twin tombs of Nizamuddin Auliya and Khusrau.

“Urs has been taken from the Arabic word uroos which literally means ‘wedding’. So, in Sufism, someone’s death is considered to be a wedding with the divine,” says Saeed.

It is believed that Khusrau learnt of Nizamuddin Auliya’s death while he w a s a w a y i n B e n g a l , b u t h e immediately rushed back to Delhi. When he saw Nizamuddin Auliya’s grave, he immediately uttered the following lines The fair maiden rests/ On a Bed of roses,/ Her face covered/ With a lock of hair;/ Let us oh Khusrau, return home now,/ The dark dusk settles in four corners of the world.

Six months later, Khusrau died.

Today, the entire dargah adopts an ambience that is a mélange of a massive celebration and unmistakable sacredness. Qawwalis are sung in the evening and for centuries they begin by a recitation of the above quoted lines.

People consider Khusrau no less than Nizamuddin Auliya and pray to them for their well-being and request the two to become a mediator between them and God.

In fact, a little ahead of Nizamuddin Auliya’s tomb, a dark passage, with adjacent sieved walls, leads to Nizamuddin Baoli — the only step well in Delhi that is still fed by underwater springs. It is considered to be highly sacred. According to popular belief, water in the step well is a mixture of different types of water and has healing powers.

Till sometime ago, there were houses made on the roof of ancient structures around the well. Although the well, which was built in the form of circular stairs converging at the bottom, has lost much of the originality as a result of renovations and man-made pollution, it still charms people and is sacred not only to the locals but also devotees all around.

Even as you read this piece, there sits a man near the dargah, who is dumb and is yet playing harmonium. He’s been sitting there for years, hoping that his prayers would be heard and he would be able to speak someday.

TheSouthAsianTimes.info16 ENVIRONMENT

The MBA SarpanchA jeans-clad, highly qualified woman hardly fits the bill for a sarpanch in rural India. There is, however, an exception in Chhavi Rajawat, who has left her corporate job to address the problems of her village in Rajasthan. Eram Agha reports

The changing face of rural Rajasthan is a sarpanch in jeans! Chhavi Rajawat took a de tour in her career by leaving a comfortable corporate job to address the problems of the villagers of Soda district, 60 km from Jaipur, Rajasthan.

Carrying the legacy of her grandfather, Brig Raghubir Singh, Rajawat picked up from where he had left — the Brigadier had retired from the post of sarpanch 20 years prior to Rajawat’s election. Her grandfather had worked hard to provide basic amenities — roads, electricity, schools and hospitals — to the villagers.

Rajawat was not prepared for a village life, but the locals had already set plans for her. “I would give full credit for this change of direction in my life to the inhabitants of this village. I had never planned to fight elections or contest for such a post and perhaps wouldn’t have, had it not been for the persistence of the villagers,” Rajawat says.

Fifty-odd men went a long way in convincing Rajawat to contest elections. But why were they so convinced to have her onboard? “There were many reasons that influenced them. This is my ancestral village where my grandfather was also elected unanimously as sarpanch. He was behind many development activities in the village,” she says.

After his retirement, the village hardly saw any development activities. “After the retirement of my grandfather, the village did not see any significant development. Primarily, owing to their love, faith and respect for my grandfather, the villagers decided to get someone from his family to run for the post,” Rajawat says.

The Soda residents were already familiar with Rajawat, as she used to spend a lot of her vacation in the village. The unbounded energy of hers found expression in hopping around from one house to another in the village. She would often jump onto someone’s tractor and visit the neighbouring villages.

“I, therefore, formed a strong bonding with the villagers at a very young age,” she says, adding: “The team which c a m e c a l l i n g upon me with t h i s p l e a , comprised of men older than my father and many as old as m y g r a n d p a . These were the men who had carried me on their shoulders and pampered me when I was a child.”

So, Rajawat was left with no choice but to take up the responsibility. She says, “I did not want to let them down… since I am a great believer of the idiom — ‘charity begins at home’ — I wanted to make a difference by starting work in my own backyard. And, being originally from the village, I was aware of all the problems. I had the nagging thought that if an insider like me did not come forward to help, then how could an outsider be expected to do the same?”

“I have seen, observed and become aware of the issues that exist. Also, I have noticed how, over the years,

problems have only got aggregated in my village,” says the sarpanch.

Rajawat’s MBA experience and Lady Shri Ram College education helped her in her endeavour. “Through my education I am able to better manage projects, prioritise tasks, balance budgets and even create reports for the village. This, I believe, helps me win credibility when I meet government officials,” she says, emphasising the

importance of an educated leader in rural areas.

On March 25, 2011, Rajawat addressed the 1 1 t h I n f o -P o v e r t y W o r l d Conference at t h e U n i t e d Nat ions . “ I believe I was the only one

there (at the UN) representing the grassroots,” she says. “There was no clear understanding of the grassroots issues. But why should we look outside? Even within our country, most people living in cities are unaware of what rural India is all about. There is much to be done,” Rajawat says, adding: “Rural development is as important as urban development. It needs to be understood that if rural areas are neglected, then the migration to cities will increase, ending up creating chaos in urban centres.”

The battle had just begun for Rajawat after her election victory. Issues like safe dr inking water , educat ion and sanitation were lined up for her attention. First and foremost was the

water conservation project, which aimed to dig afresh the village’s main reservoir covering an area of 100 acres.

In Soda, the limited groundwater is unsafe even for agriculture, as it is s a l i n e a n d h a s h i g h n a t u r a l contamination, resulting in high skeletal and dental fluorosis. Due to the lack of water between mid-March and August, life becomes very difficult in the village. Conserving rainwater is the only way to have safe drinking water. The project, therefore, aims to conserve rainwater. “Of 1,000 houses, not even one per cent have toilets. We intend to construct toilets in each and every household. For reforestation, approximately 1,200 bighas of forest and pastureland need to be revived. As for education, the high school here has Hindi literature, Sanskrit literature and Geography available for the 11th and 12th standard students. Just imagine the future they have in store,” she rues.

As a visionary, Rajawat wants agriculture, animal husbandry and h o r t i c u l t u r e t o b e t a u g h t t o schoolchildren. These lessons will not only provide technical know-how, but also equip them with tools to improve the yield. Since agriculture and animal husbandry are the only source of income for the villagers, the move is much needed.

Rajawat is not going to take it lying down. After all, grassroots service lies in her jeans. Err… I mean genes!

Battling monumental neglectHistorical monuments in Jammu & Kashmir have been facing utter neglect for decades now. But SAIMA IQBAL, instead of indulgingin blame game, has taken up the task of restoring them to their old, pristine glory. ERAM AGHA recounts her story

There are several Kashmiris influencing the world literary map by telling their stories. Conservation architect Saima Iqbal, too, has a story to tell, but that goes beyond the turmoil of the day. For the past several years, she has been earnestly trying to restore the cultural identity of Jammu & Kashmir. There are about 250 neglected monuments within the three-km area of downtown Srinagar; and, of the 838 listed properties in the State capital, only 18 enjoy legal protection. Despite all the neglect, Saima doesn’t indulge in blame game. “Why should we blame politicians? The public is as much responsible for the mess,” she says.

Saima has studied architecture from MSIA Bijapur, and has done her post-graduation from Oxford Brookes University, UK. The overseas exposure has only been of help. “It was a

tremendous experience, which opened my mind to an entirely new world. It gave me opportunities to explore and work hands-on. I have become more m a t u r e a s a p r o f e s s i o n a l . However, there are some s igni f icant differences in British and Asian contexts. So, there is a need to adapt the Western education to local requirements, and that is what I am doing,” she says.

Since 2004, Saima has been involved in several conservation projects in Kashmir through INTACH (Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural

Heritage), and since then the winds of change have been felt across the State. “In a short period of seven years, a lot

has been achieved. Y e t , m u c h m o r e remains to be done. Perhaps the most i m p o r t a n t achievement is that c o n s e r v a t i o n h a s become a subject of d i s c o u r s e i n t h e Valley. Almost all the c o n s e r v a t i o n - l e d p r o j e c t s t h a t w e proposed have either been implemented or are in the process of being implemented. The introduction of

the Jammu & Kashmir Heritage Conservation and Preservation Bill can also be counted as one of our biggest

accomplishments,” she adds.

Initially, Saima had a few hurdles like the size of the team, unavailability of equipment, space and furniture to work with. “Just one borrowed computer for four of us is how we began,” she recounts. She further shares how one day she got lucky. “The narrowest escape we have had when the Tourist Reception Centre (Srinagar) was burnt down (by terrorists) in 2005. Just a few days before the fire, we were temporarily lodged in that office. And, it contained our one of the most important works on the Cultural Resource Mapping of Srinagar,” she says. “The day the centre was put on fire, we fortunately, with all the data, were in Delhi for the printing of the five volume report,” she says with a sigh of relief.

TheSouthAsianTimes.info 17LIVING

Knick KnacksEnding in Splitsville

Couples who live together before they get married are less likely to stay married, according to a report. The UK-based Christian think-tank Jubilee Centre said that living together had become ‘a more fragile state of relationship than ever before’.

It said that couples who cohabited before marriage were 45 per cent more likely to split than those who waited until after the wedding. It was also discovered that more couples are cohabiting than ever before — with the average time living together before tying the knot doubling to three-and-a-half years in the past four decades.

The Daily Mail quoted Dr John Hayward and Dr Guy Brandon as saying, in the report, that despite the popularity of cohabitation and its relationship to marriage, it is also the case that marriages that start with a period of prior cohabitation are significantly more prone to divorce than those that do not.

Girls who regularly watch reality television, expect and accept more bullying and drama in their lives, a just-released study in the United States suggests. They also assign more value to physical appearances, and to view themselves as leaders and role models, according to the survey by the research wing of the Girl Scouts of the United States. Some 1,141 girls aged 11 through 17 took part in the survey.

What the survey says: ?78 per cent girls think that gossiping is normal in relationships?68 per cent think it’s in girls’ nature to be catty and competitive?37 per cent girls think you have to lie in order to get what you want?65 per cent say reality TV has exposed them to new perspectives

Men are grumpier than women, especially when it comes to getting their picture taken. The study of more than 1,000 photographs in student yearbooks found that women are far more likely to smile for the camera than men.

Psychologist Dr Nicolas Gueguen, who led the research, believes teenage girls associate smiling with attractiveness from role models such as actresses and female pop stars. But boys, whose role models include rock bands and sport stars, tend to be sulkier. Dr Guegen was quoted as saying that women were more likely than men to smile expansively when photographed.

Reality bites

Men are camera shy

Pet healersAnimals are not only loyal companions but can also provide a therapeutic effect to those who are suffering from disabilities. Sangeeta Yadav brings you a report

What therapists and medicines couldn’t do, Casper did and did it quite remarkably. “There was nothing working for eight-year-old Ashwin who was suffering from Down syndrome, a birth defect. When his parents had given up all hope, Casper, a two-year-old Golden Retriever who is a therapy dog entered his life and changed it completely. Earlier, Ashwin could barely move his lips to utter ‘maa’ and ‘khaana’. Today he can speak ‘ball’, ‘sit’ and ‘come’ only after a few sessions,” Rohini Fernandes, co-founder of Animal Angels Foundation, an NGO that provides animal therapy, tells you.

Ashwin enjoys watching Casper play with the ball. So much so, that Ashwin started speaking out. With the help of Casper, Ashwin has progressed. His teachers reveal that his movements have become more relaxed. He has also

started socialising with his peers.

Ashwin’s case bears testimony to the fact that canines are not only loyal

companions but also power healers. Several disabled children, old people, children with learning disabilities et al have benefited from animal assisted therapy. Experts say that playing with an animal in a supervised way reduces negative behaviour and creates a sense

of responsibility.

Sunil is a case in point. Handicapped with a weak left hand and a totally non-

functional right hand, he stayed confined to his room. But, after meeting Angel, a seven-year-old Golden Retriever, he started laughing. He would throw the ball to her, play a game of tug of war, pet her, brush her, feed her and give her commands.

After a couple of sessions. Sunil felt that his left arm had become stronger and he could hold the rope for a longer time. Now, he even tries to use his right hand to caress Angel. Earlier, Sunil would not come out of his room on Saturdays. But, now, when

Angel visits him on a Saturday morning, he gets up early and waits for her. He plays with her and smiles a lot while interacting and talking to her.

Honey, let’s goHoneymoon is something which goes a long way in deciding the course of a matrimonial alliance. Thus, it is important to cherish every moment of those days. Rather than spending time in sight-seeing, the couple should try to steal some moments of romance and togetherness, says Nidhi Mittal

Mummy, papa, uncles, aunties, cousins, extended family and the lesser known friends and family of the family members surrounding you 24X7 — coupled with shopping madness, gifts, clothes, venues — all this and more makes it the big fat Indian wedding. What the girl and boy, who are about to get married, want gets lost in the hustle and bustle by the excitement around. However, after the nuptial knot has been tied and the people around retire to their own zones, all that the exhausted couple craves for is some time away to relax and let the feeling of getting married sink in.

“Getting married in India is a tiring business. Even though there are certain activities that you would want should happen in your wedding, what others want matters more. By the time my wedding ceremonies arrived, I was so tired that I wanted to run away. So, as soon as I got married, all I could think of was to be on our honeymoon. But since our Europe visas got stuck, it got difficult for both of us as we had to be amid a huge family sans any peaceful time together,” says 27-year-old Poonam Bansal.

Honeymoon is one thing that is common to all marriages around the world. Couples know that honeymoon is the time that they can spend with each other only. “Honeymoon is as important as all other rituals of marriage. It has become a status quo and both the girl and the boy have huge expectations from it. It occupies a person’s mind space since teenage. It is one time that you have

away from all the rigorous rituals, huge family and work. Honeymoon gives time to rest and assume a new relationship,” says Dr Kamal Khurana, relationship coach, Purple Alley Institute of Relationships.

Couples who do not manage to go on a honeymoon or go with family members or friends hardly ever build the bond that a strong marital relationship requires. The time when the two actually start living in, be it a love or arranged match, is a fresh start to an alliance that is supposed to go on for a lifetime sans any hiccups. “And at that time it is important to be away from all others. In India, a girl plays many roles. She moves into a big family and everyone has a lot of expectations from her. People also want to spend time with the new couple. There are also judgements made. In all this, honeymoon is a way to escape from everything and celebrate your union,” Dr Khurana remarks.

For Poonam, who had an arranged match and got married into a big joint family, no honeymoon was a horrifying idea. She was not able to spend time with her husband and the leaves from work were gradually coming to an end. “I wasn’t at peace, even though I was getting all the attention. We were both hesitant as to how we’re supposed to behave with each other with so many people around. Apart from night time, we were not able to even sit together for five minutes. And honeymoon plans

were all going haywire as the visa situation was bad. I finally decided to take things in my hands and booked us for a weekend trip. And I did notice a difference — in our state of mind and our interaction with each other,” she tells you. Even though Poonam got a considerable amount of time with her husband during their courtship period, things were different after marriage. There was a need to know the man better which could not happen while they were surrounded by people.

“Marriage is like baking a cake. If it’s well settled right at the beginning, the end product will come out to be good. When a person enters matrimony with a lot of anxieties, mutual support is important. Honeymoon helps in generating a sense of belonging. It should not be on an itinerary and should not be a rigorous affair. The objective of these days is knowing each other and it should not involve sight-seeing. More importantly, in the d e c i s i o n - m a k i n g a b o u t t h e destination, no family or agent should be involved. There are also cases where the boy takes his parents with him on the honeymoon. This is a classic case of marital disaster,” says Dr Khurana.

the better. We had only 1.8 lakh students who had enrolled themselves at that time. And today, we have about 5 lakh candidates who will be taking the test this time.

TheSouthAsianTimes.info 18AVENUES

Get the right skillsOut of a population of 600 million youth below 25 years of age, 320 million are in schools and colleges. Surprisingly less than 25 per cent are employable due to the skills gap. Amit Bhatia tells you more about this gap and what one can do to reduce it

Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration,” is the famous lines that Thomas Alva Edison, World’s greatest inventor, scientist and businessman, said when he founded General Electric. GE as it is known today is the world’s most successful and enviable industrial enterprise. Although Edison had no formal schooling his success is much talked about.

Where did all these great heroes like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs who had not completed college get their inspiration from?

Nearer home, Dhirubhai Ambani, Founder of Reliance Group, India’s most valuable business empire, too evaded school. What makes these people and millions like them successful? It clearly is not academics or degrees. There is some other knowledge, skills and attitude at work.

It is not a revelation that we all require some common sense to succeed in life. Yet, it is seldom a course we study. Yes, life evaluates us on parameters “out of syllabus”. This is the bane of Indian Education. We leave our youth to learn the most critical employability skills by osmosis in real life; while Educational Institutions own this responsibility academically, professionally, and morally!

I n t o d a y ’ s h i g h l y c o m p e t i t i v e employment market, jobs and roles are o f t e n d e s c r i b e d i n t e r m s o f

competencies which are a combination of behaviours that lead to superior performance in a job. The two major concerns of employers are finding good workers and training them.The skills-gap, which is the difference between the skills needed on the job and those possessed by applicants, is of real concern to managers and business owners looking to hire competent employees. India currently has 600 million youth below 25 years of age of which 320 million are in schools and colleges. Less than 25 per cent of these are employable due to the skills gap!

Employability skills can be divided in three areas of learning. Knowledge is theory or technical understanding of a subject, the ability to comprehend, apply, analyse, synthesise and evaluate to arrive at solutions. Knowledge plays an essential role as a foundation, the basic building block supporting Skills and Attitude. Knowledge is what one knows, like technical designs, software languages, statistical programming or financial modeling.

Skills move a person from theory (knowledge) to action. To be skilled one must be able to undertake a task with competence. Skills are learned and repeatable. In short, skills are what one can do with knowledge, e x a m p l e p r e s e n t a t i o n , s a l e s , management, communication, etc.

Knowledge & Skills

Attitude is receiving and responding to the environment and people; it is the value a person attaches to others, situations or environment. Attitude plays a frontline role and is a major driver for converting one’s potential into reality. In short, attitude is how one behaves: for instance motivation, teamwork, confidence, etc. Together, knowledge, skills and attitude provide a platform for a winning and successful career.

Employability skills are not taught. They are learnt. At the under-graduate or post-graduate level, the andragogy (not pedagogy) is experiential training (not teaching). Adults don’t change behaviours because they are “taught”, only when they “experience” its virtues and are convinced about the new set of behavior or attitude. They have to be internally inspired, not externally motivated. This learning is problem-centric, not content-centric.

This training is fundamentally different from academic teaching. India still has enough to catch up on “project-oriented” or “activity-based” academic learning from blackboard-and-chalk based rote learning that the same teachers are unlikely candidates for training students in an experiential format. This has to be left to expert trainers who often have clinical psychology (for soft skills) or

How are students trained

speech pathology (for communication skills) backgrounds.

The training is mostly role-play or game-based and does not have much “theory”.

It has takeaways from experiences, which are very personalised and become each individual’s learning. Consider topics like positive attitude and confidence, time management, conflict management, emotional i n t e l l i g e n c e , g o a l s e t t i n g , communication skills, dealing with diff icult col leagues, managing expectations, working in teams, grooming and etiquettes, etc? You can’t help but train students through professional trainers.

Our academicians often fall into the classic trap of finding a book in these subjects and use traditional teaching methodology in the classroom! The result: 25 per cent employability. Training is not teaching.

Our education system’s emancipation will lie in academia’s self realisation that we cannot leave employability skills to accidents. This is exactly what employers want.

Engineering haven There are over 5 lakh candidates who will take the upcoming JEE. Deebashree Mohanty chats up Kalyan Kumar, director FIITJEE, about his take on the upcoming test

What is in store for aspiring students this year?

How do you think the knowledge of the cut—off should benefit students?

It is going to be a challenging test is all that I can say at the moment. Although students this year have a huge advantage and they should make full use of it. This time round they know exactly what the cut-off is going to be for each subject as well as over all. According to the new set of rules students need to score at least 10 per cent in all the subject papers and an aggregate of 30 per cent in total.

It is going to benefit them immensely. This is so because now they have a fixed target in front of them. They know that they have to score these many questions to qualify. So they will not try and attempt a lot of questions. They will only

do those for which they know the correct answer. It helps them to prioritise.

Career opportunities keep changing. 10 years back, computer science was the field to be in. But today there are many opportunities available in other fields as well. For engineering students specially, the sky is the limit. They are trained such that they are very career oriented and with the amount of hard work that they have put in preparing for the engineering exams, they are all set to make a mark in any field that they choose.

Do you see an upsurge in the career opportunities for engineering students?

D o y o u t h i n k t h a t preparation for these tests prepares a student for a job simultaneously?

Yes. The JEE for instance, a candidate needs to prepare seriously for at least two years if not more. And it is not just the slogging, it is also the mental preparation that counts. The candidates prepares himself to take on challenges. These king of engineering exams trains the student so that he can find a good placement after his studies.

Depends on many things like the condition of the economy, the institute that the candidate has passed out from et al. All reputed institutes offer great placement opportunities.

If at all anything has changed it has for

Do students land up with good placements?

You have been wi th FIITJEE for the past nine y e a r s . H a s a n y t h i n g changed?

TheSouthAsianTimes.info 19TRAVEL

A modern sufi dairyAjmer Sharif in Rajasthan has long been a prominent seat of Sufism in the country and, like any other centre of spiritual practice, it helps rejuvenate one’s mind and soul. Susmita Mukherjee visits the holy place to get a hands-on experience of the same

I could begin by explaining how I ended up in the middle of the hinterland of Rajasthan with a share of hospitality that is the trademark of these quarters… but that would be another story. For now, I’ll keep the joys of the mighty Aravallis that tower before me as I soak in the flavour of the land, with a generous helping of gatta curry and hot chapatis, in the courtyard of a quaint cottage and take you on a journey through faith.

The reason I chose to stay here was because of the peace I felt at heart,” said Roza as we sat sipping a cup of hot tea at the Anjuman Guest House. I couldn’t help laughing at the irony of residing at a guest house on the beggar-infested street that led to the entrance of the Dargah Sharif. What peace could one possibly find here? But Roza, a tourist from Dimona in Israel, offered to take me around the dargah as she had come to see it over the past month.

After walking through the remaining expanse of the wide street with flowers and souvenir shops flanking both sides and alms-seekers stopping me at every step, we finally reached the Nizam Gate — the main entrance to the shrine. “When you climb these steps, you leave every worldly possession and clamour behind. You must have nothing but a sound faith,” said Roza. “The only identity of a true follower is his faith in the divine.” Her words calmed me instantly, the sight and sounds of the bustling market didn’t seem to bother me anymore as I handed over my footwear and proceeded to climb the steps. At the top, I felt like stepping into a different world, familiar, welcoming and yet so simple in its regularity that we crave for its solace in a mad, hectic world.

I walked through the gates and towards the talaab where I stopped to wash my

First impression

hands and feet. “Everything around here reminds me of home,” she said. “The marketplace in my hometown was not very different and I often used to go to a dargah in the outskirts with my mother. I grew up seeing every beautiful part of my life falling to bits. Seeing life go on so normally here was startling at first but now I realise that this is how it was meant to be. The world was created for human beings like you and me to explore and appreciate the God’s great work.”

We walked across the market, selling flowers and chadars (drape for the saint) to be offered at the dargah. There was no haggling over prices. I merely took out the amount I was willing to pay and handed it to the shopkeeper who asked me if I wanted a chadar as well. He prepared my tokri (basket) as I watched Roza look longingly at the dargah. She had nothing to offer today except prayers.

I could see the pilgrims in a different light now. It was easy to distinguish those who had come to ask their benevolent benefactor for a favour from those who had returned to thank him for his kindness. There were also quite a few travellers, mainly foreigners, who wanted to feel the magic of Sufism, the egoless surrender to the divine as propagated by Moinuddin Chisti.

M y t o k r i w a s r e a d y . I t w a s , unfortunately, too large for me to carry in my hand and seeing the crowd waiting to heave in, I understood the devotees’ habit of placing it on the head while entering the shrine. I walked towards the entrance, silently praying for Roza’s safe return, for finding peace within myself and in the world I live in. I lost sight of her in the crowd. I realised that our meeting was over and that I had to go forth on my own, find

The way in

my path.

I j o s t l e d f o r space and was met with a mob trying to break in and out of the s h r i n e . Fortunately, like e v e r y o t h e r pi lgrim there who refused to give up, I found my way inside a n d o f f e r e d prayers. When I emerged, I was overcome by a draining fatigue. I c a n n o t s a y whether it was for the lack of space inside the shrine or the weight of the m a n y l i t t l e burdens that I had just shed. I

found myself a quiet spot near a jaali (trellis) through which a group of women were looking at Chisti’s tomb. I sat down and meditated with them. After some time, I felt great peace and the crowd around me did not bother me anymore.

Khwaja Gharib Nawaz, as the saint is fondly referred to by his disciples, holds an important place in the Sufi circuit of the subcontinent. He is hailed as the founder of the Chisti order of Sufis, said to be the descendants of Prophet Mohammed.

Moinuddin Chisti, as he was named by his parents, was born in Iran. After his father’s death, when he was just a teenager, he chanced upon a mystic walking by his garden. It was with his blessings that he embarked on his own journey of soul-searching. His quest took him to faraway lands and he met several scholars of his age. He finally came to India after a brief stopover at Lahore. He set up his base in Ajmer, continued his teachings and offered peace, guidance and solace to anyone who came to his door. His shrine is at its colourful best during the festival of Urs, which marks the day when the Khwaja left his mortal body to be united with the divine after living the last six days of his life in isolation. Death is not considered inopportune in Sufism. It is, in fact, celebrated as the union of the soul with the source. Every year, those going for Haj are expected to visit the shrine at the time of Urs, which is scheduled according to the lunar calendar.

Having received the Khwaja’s blessings, I headed for the exit. Brushing my way through the crowd while looking for one of the khadims — men who have been

Khwaja’s legacy

Return to reality

serving at the dargah for generations and are always dressed in white with a black cap to cover their heads — I would have been lost for certain when a friendly pat on my shoulder made me turn around. Dressed in the traditional green attire with a string of white beads around his neck and a potli (pouch) under his arm, a fakir held out his arm as if beckoning me to follow his lead. He guided me through the crowd and brought me to one of the exits.

“Would you like to contribute to the deg (vessel) here? The light of the Sahan-e-Chiragh will always guide your way,” the fakir said, pointing to the courtyard lamp that I had missed during so many visits. I was aware that on festivals, the food and money donated by the pilgrims into the badi and chhoti degs (said to have been donated by Mughal emperors Akbar and his son Jahangir) were used to prepare a great meal for the public. I didn’t realise that it was one of the little joys that the people looked forward to. The smiling fakir looked on as I walked up to the edge of the badi deg a n d l o o k e d w i t h n e w - f o u n d admiration at the amount of foodgrain, money and dried fruits that had been collected for a free kitchen.

After making an offering, I headed back to the fakir who then guided me to the lamp he had pointed at earlier. As I bowed my head in gratitude for the simple yet enlightening tour of the dargah, the fakir placed his hand on my head, blessed me and left.

My good deeds of the day done, I was content to head back to the materialistic city life.

By air The nearest airport is at Jaipur, 135 km. The closest international a i rport i s the Indira Gandhi International Airport at New Delhi, 350 km.

By rail There are several direct trains plying via Ajmer. Ajmer Junction is well-connected to the major cities of the country.

By road Ajmer is connected to New Delhi by the National Highway 8 via Jaipur and makes for a comfortable five-and-a-half-hour drive. The Rajasthan Roadways offers several luxurious and standard coaches for travel within and outside the State.

Copyright: Exotica, the wellness and lifestyle magazine from The Pioneer Group, available in all rooms of select five-star hotel chains across the country

Getting there

TheSouthAsianTimes.info 20ADVENTURE

My motorcycle diaryAnup Kutty tests his own limits and those of his 350 cc Bullet on a trip from Manali to Kaza

I am on a throbbing 350 cc single cylinder engine motorbike at a dizzy height of over 13,000 ft above sea level. The dark lunar landscape with rocky towering mountains envelopes me like a carefully constructed abysmally huge cosmic maze with only a winding gravel road as an escape route. In the limitless electric blue sky above, the sun shines mercilessly on the grey slopes. I am in the painfully beautiful Spiti Valley and there’s no one around. No phones. No Internet. No girlfriends, folks, friends. No pets. No sound… except for the confident rumble of my Enfield Bullet and the eerie wind sweeping down. This is what I call freedom. And this is my motorcycle diary.

Satish and I arrive at Manali in a Volvo bus choc-a-bloc with honeymooners. This is no honeymoon for us. This is a test of physical and mental endurance wrought with extreme danger. I haven’t written a will but Satish has already messaged a couple of his girlfriends to look after his iconic restaurant Gunpowder in the eventuality of his not returning. As planned, we meet Tabasheer (Sherry) — a Mumbai-based costume designer and friend — at Kalath, seven-km before Manali and well-known for its hot springs. We pack our bags, buy our essentials and walk up to Old Manali where we settle ourselves with a beer and grilled trout at the somewhat recently-opened Lazy Dog run by a former Delhi-based journalist Gautum. We finalise our route and itinerary here. Soon, we hop to a garage next door called New Enfield Motors run by two enterprising Punjabi brothers who rent out Enfield Bullets to enterprising riders.

The next day we leave Kalath on our thunder beasts. By the time we reach Kullu, it’s pouring down. We stop at Bhuntur for a quick chai and wear our army waterproof ponchos. After passing the spooky Aut tunnel, we leave the Manali-Chandigarh highway to take a left towards the Banjar Valley.

The drive uphill from Aut to Jalori Pass takes us through Jibhi — one of the interesting little villages in Himachal

that uses watermills (gharats) for domestic electricity. Jibhi is also where the motorable road ends and the mad climb begins. The road turns into a 75 degree mud track and it’s a first gear drive for about 15 km. I reach the Banjara Camp at Shoja — our first stop. This camp is a comfortable place for a weekend break — albeit slightly expensive — promising spectacular views of the Banjar Valley and short trips to the nearby Raghupur Fort and a waterfall.

On the third day, incessant rain and dirt welcome us through the Banjar Valley up to Jalori Pass (3,550 m). This pass gets heavy snowfall during December and March and connects Kullu district with the Seranj area. Continue downhill and you hit the hamlet of Khanag — a route that winds through rich apple orchards and forests. The roads here are perfect for motoring and within minutes we are at the crowded bazaar of Ani where we get some waterproof tarpouline for our luggage. The road from here to Sainj where we meet the NH 22 is a green stretch running parallel to the raging Sutlej river.

Once we hit Sainj, it’s easy sailing on the National Highway that’s coming from Shimla. I’ve driven on this road innumerable times but never on a bike and I feel the difference. I am in tune with all the elements — the wind, the drops of rain, the smell, the occasional pothole on the road and the gravel.

On the fourth day, it’s noon by the time we leave Kalpa to get back onto NH 22. From here the landscape changes drastically — green gives way to grey. I pass a checkpoint at Sumdo where I have to sign in my details. Foreigners need to show an Inner Line Permit here which they can procure from either Recong Peo or Kaza. We are now climbing higher into the painfully beautiful Spiti Valley. I begin to feel the altitude effects — a feeling of pointlessness and despair. The sun, the dizzying height and the rocky barren lunar landscape are surely playing tricks with my mind. I gasp for breath

with only the familiar thumping of my 350 cc engine for company. It suddenly dawns upon me that there’s no more hurry to get anywhere. Time needs to come to a standstill. There are no phones here. No deadlines. No bosses. No cameras. No friends, folks or foes. No one to share anything with. Only me in the middle of all this vastness. I loosen my grip on the accelerator. From hereon, it’s easy, rider.

We stop at Nako, a village that boasts of a lake the size of a pond and a Gompa with some of the oldest paintings in Tibetan history. With an economy based mostly on the cultivation of peas, Nako shot to limelight when the Dalai Lama visited it in 2000 which explains the helipad and the bunch of homestays and backpackers here. We make Amar Home Stay our home for the night and indulge in the arrack (barley liquor) that the owner gets us. Smoking is strictly prohibited in this village so our sojourns are mostly limited to the great indoors.

Next morning, we reach the Tabo monastery founded in 996 by the great Tibetan translator Rinchen Zangpo and where the Dalai Lama had conducted the Kalachakra ceremony to coincide with t h e m i l l e n n i u m a n n i v e r s a r y celebrations of the monastery. We remain there for a day.

The next stop, on the sixth day, is the Dhankar monastery — a spectacular structure literally carved out of the rocky cliff it clings on to. The monastery, built at an elevation of 3,894 m, used to be a prison before it was converted into a gompa for around 150 lamas. From here we witness the confluence of the Spiti and Pin rivers. If God exists, He’s definitely been here!

But there isn’t time to lose and we must head now to take a detour to Mudh — the last village on the road to Pin Valley and the land of the ibex and the extremely shy snow leopards. The road leads through tiny villages many with a population of not more than 30. After a picturesque village called Sagnam, the path turns into a bad terrain with streams running across and after some time join Sherry and Satish at the Snow Valley Restaurant. We soon decide to move. About a few kilometres into our ride, we stop at a meadow that offers a panoramic view of the icy Bhabha Pass flanked by sweeping green mountain slopes on either side. There’s a gurgling mountain stream where we rest and trip on a frozen carcass of a colt probably from previous winter.

We get to trek up to Ki — another old monastery set atop a rocky mountain that offers a mind-altering view of the Spiti Valley. From Ki, about 12 km up ahead is the village of Khibber, which at 4,550 m used to be the highest village in the world till they built a motorable road to a nearby village of Ghetten. Khibber is a quiet and stark village with a single guest house to stay overnight.

The next morning, Vikas fixes the bike real soon, and we resumed our journey.

The drive from Kaza to Losar is one of the best so far. It’s a smooth metal road with occasional straight flat stretches where instead of going high-throttle, you may just be tempted to kill your engine and get awed by the fantastic 360 degree panorama. Losar is a village only 60 km away from Kaza with one phone-booth that doesn’t work. We halted here for the night.

Kunzum La, at 4,551 m, is one of most impressive, if not highest, motorable passes in the Himalayas. It’s a rough track all the way from Losar, but we manage to cross it in less than an hour. After the ritualistic photo session, we descend through melting glaciers to Bathal, known for a little dhaba. We decided to loosen our baggage here and do a bumpy ride up to Chandrataal. This is the last leg of our tour. Satish celebrates it with a bottle of rum he scores at a nearby tent. For me, it’s a dive into the divine lake — something I highly recommend. We all huddle around a table, drinking, listening to Spitian folk songs, talking about our ride so far and Himachali folklore.

On the ninth day, we wake up to a few horses grazing around our tents. Ten minutes into my ride, I run into an icy waterfall. It’s less than 30-km from Bathala to Chattru, but it takes us almost three hours to get there. There is no road, only tyre marks over stones, streams, ice, gravel, sand and waterfalls. Satish, Sherry and I have to push our bikes through a few of these hurdles while wondering where our tax money goes. By afternoon, we make it atop Rohtang Pass after the worst 50-km of our lives. It’s a momentous occasion but instead of stopping and taking it all in, we decide to keep going. The road from Rohtang to the next village is literally a road to hell. There’s leftover construction work, smoke, landslides, traffic jams, dirt, horse-dung, domestic tourists wearing fur coats and boots… At one point I want to stop my bike, stand next to it and weep. My eyes can’t digest the ugly sight. Not after all that I have soaked in. I need a lot of motivation to begin again and at one point even contemplate giving it up and getting a cab. And then I remember the grilled trout and beer at Lazy Dog and the prospect of meeting the others there. By 4 pm, I swing in my bike with a confident flair into the New Enfield Motors, jump off it and walk up to Lazy Dog. Satish and Sherry are already waiting for me with beer mugs. Grilled trout it is.

Courtesy: Namaskaar, Air India’s inflight magazine. Copyright (C) National Aviation Company of India Limited (Air India)

TheSouthAsianTimes.info 21TRAVELOGUE

Hidden land of the eastThe beauty and the sacredness of the sites, the serene atmosphere of the mountains, the luxuriant flora and the gentleness of the local population can turn Arunachal Pradesh into a tourist paradise, says Claude Arpi

The history of the location of the gompa is interesting: A monk called Mera Lama, born in Kitpi village near Tawang, spent several years in Tibet before returning to his native place. Before leaving Lhasa, he met the Fifth Dalai Lama, who asked him to propagate the Buddhism in Monyul and establish a large monastery with the help of the local population.

The legend says that it is Mera Lama’s horse that discovered the location of the monastery. It became known as Tawang Gompa: In Monpa dialect, ta means ‘horse’ and wang means ‘blessings’. So, Tawang is ‘the place blessed by the horse’.

Today 500 monks study in the gompa, the largest Buddhist monastery in India, under the dynamic leadership of a young lama, Guru Rinpoche.

Buddhists believe in the concept of sacred places or pithas. During the 10th century, the great Indian yogi Tilopa said that pithas are to be found inside your own self, though “outer pithas are mentioned in the scriptures for the benefit of simple fools who wander about the country”. As a tourist, you may be classified as ‘a simple fool’ by siddhas, but you will tremendously enjoy visiting some other ‘outer’ places empowered by the Sixth Dalai Lama, Mera Lama or Guru Padmasambhava.

Most of the tour operators will tell you to visit Madhuri Lake. After Rakesh Roshan shot Koyla (starring Madhuri Dixit and Shah Rukh Khan), jawans posted in the area began calling it ‘Madhuri’ Lake; it was a grazing pasture before becoming a lake after the dreadful earthquake of August 1950. Locals say that it is its USP, as there are as many as 108 lakes in the area — many of them larger and more stunning, with some having been blessed by great tantric masters and yogis.

A few kilometres away is the Tagtsang Gompa (the ‘Tiger Lair’ monastery), perched at 13,500 ft. It is one of the four pithas that Padmasambhava, the great Indian tantric master who helped establishing Buddhism in Tibet, Bhutan and some other Himalayan regions, established. He is said to have traversed Tagtsang in the form of a tiger and subdued some powerful local spirits hostile to Buddhism.

Another popular figure in Monyul is the great Mahasiddha Thangtong Gyalpo. Born in 1385 in central Tibet, he travelled widely across the Himalayas. He is remembered in Buddhist history not only for his teachings, but also for the iron bridges he constructed. He was a remarkable engineer and might be the first Asian to understand the meaning of communication (seven centuries before

Lama Geno, in Monpa language could be translated as “the lama knows”, or more freely, “here we are”. It is what Tsangyang Gyaltso, the young Sixth Dalai Lama, wrote in 1688 with his finger on a stone in Urgyeling, a village south of Tawang, the headquarters of the western-most district of Arunachal Pradesh.

A high delegation had just arrived from Lhasa looking for the reincarnation of the Fifth Dalai Lama, who had passed away a couple of years earlier in Tibet. The boy was waiting to be “taken back” to his Potala Palace in Lhasa.

It is just one of the numerous stories or legends in Monyul (the ‘low land’), as Tawang is known. The Monpas, said to be one of the primitive tribes of Tawang, are obviously fond and proud of these legends.

Being located near the tri-junction between India, Tibet and Bhutan, south of the McMahon Line, Tawang is today one of the most strategic locations in the country. The Government has, however, opened it to visitors — an Inner Line Permit is required for Indians and a Protected Area Permit for foreigners.

Long ago, the British created an ‘inner line’, separating these ‘excluded tracks’ from the plains. Though for a long time considered ‘backward’, one soon discovers a culture dating back several centuries; a first darshan of an imposing gompa (monastery), towering over the valley in all its majesty, will remove all doubts about this.

Tourism has become a key to the economic development and the integration of these border areas. And, it will ultimately become a factor for the defence of the frontiers once the infrastructure gets the much needed attention.

In October 1962, when China entered the Indian territory north of Tawang, the Army was woefully unprepared and the infrastructure non-existent. It was a watershed event in Indian history as the

policy of keeping a part of the Indian territory ‘excluded’ proved to be both fatal and humiliating for the nation.

In January 2008, during a visit to Itanagar and Tawang, the Prime Minister announced a Rs 24,000-crore package for the State. Priority was given to connectivity (in particular, the construction of a Trans-Arunachal Highway).

As a result, the road between the plains of Assam and Tawang is the messiest construction site imaginable. In fact, it has become the butt of a joke among local drivers; one can, however, take comfort in the fac t that the construction work has finally started.

Reaching the Sela Pass, at 13,700 ft above sea level between Tawang and Bomdila (West Kameng district), you feel as if you are entering another world. But you are first reminded that the area was the theatre of the 1962 Sino-Indian conflict. A memorial dedicated to Jaswant Singh, the heroic rifleman who defended the pass and earned a Maha Vir Chakra in November 1962, has turned into a sort of mandir in memory of the brave jawan. It is a compulsory stop for all Army personnel as well as tourists (more than 95 per cent of the visitors are currently from West Bengal). Looking at the old bunkers, one can imagine the incredible sufferings and bravery of the jawans and officers of the Indian Army, abandoned by an irresponsible leadership. A visit to the 1962 War Memorial in Tawang is also a must.

Two hours later, the first glimpses of the Tawang Gompa — perched on one of the highest hills overlooking the Tawang Chu Valley (chu is ‘river’ in Tibetan/Monpa language) — are breathtaking. For the past three centuries, life in Monyul has been centred around the gompa, the fountainhead of Buddhism for some 30,000 Monpas and other Buddhist ethnic groups (like the Sherdukpens).

it became the sign of our civilisation). His hagiography said that he built 58 iron bridges and 118 boats to cross rivers. One of these bridges, Chaksam Bridge, can be seen today across Tawang Chu near Kitpi village towards Mukto. The iron was of such high quality that it is still in use after seven centuries. Thangtong Gyalpo was also the founder of the Tibetan Opera.

Another special place is Gorsam Chorten (stupa), which was built in the 18th century by a monk of Tsona monastery (Tibet). He wanted to make a replica of the Bodhnath Stupa in Kathmandu. He is said to have travelled to Nepal and made a perfect model carved in a radish that he managed to conserve and copy once back in Gorsam.

Another name of the land of the Monpa is ‘Mon Payul Kyinochung’, which means the “hidden and blessed land”. This brings a familiar concept in the Himalayan literature: The esoteric meaning of ‘Hidden Land’ is that a person has to be initiated first to enter this region.

Till recently ‘hidden lands’ had a literal meaning in Tawang, but with the relaxation of the Inner Line Permit system, the region is today accessible to all (the initiation being the two-day journey on the road from Assam to Tawang).

The beauty and the sacredness of the sites, the serene atmosphere of the mountains, the luxuriant flora and the gentleness of the local population of Arunachal Pradesh can make the most tense city-wallah relax.

Getting there

By Air: The closest airport to Arunachal Pradesh is Lilabari Airport in Assam which is about 67 km from Itanagar. However, there are also some direct air flights from Kolkata to Tezpur. The helicopter services are also available from Guwahati to Tawang.

By Rail: The closest railway station to Arunachal Pradesh is Harmuty, about 33 km from Itanagar. But the most convenient rail destination is North Lakhimpur, Assam, which is about 60 km from the State capital, Itanagar.

By Road: There are many bus services provided at regular intervals by the State Transport Corporation of Arunachal Pradesh. There is a direct service from Naharlagun and Itanagar. Some of the main road distances are Guwahati (381 km), Shillong (481 km) and Imphal (495 km).

TheSouthAsianTimes.info 22HISTORY

Mahatma MetamorphosisIt is a little known fact that until the end of the First World War Mahatma Gandhi was a strong supporter of both the British Empire and the military. He became the Apostle of Nonviolence only after Tilak died and he became leader of the Congress. N.S. Rajaram find out more…

India. Curiously, he didn’t start out that way and was once openly supportive of warfare. He served under in two wars in South Africa— the Zulu War (1906) and the Boer War, both on the side of the British. The first was against the African tribe known as the Zulus and a purely colonial war. The second was against Dutch settlers in South Africa. He was a non-combatant serving in the ‘Ambulance Corps ’ , attached to the Army (British) Medical Corps. He was a conscientious soldier and was decorated by the British for his war service.

(It is surprising that Gandhi should have been accorded such a high honor as invitation by the Viceroy. Gandhi was still regarded as a war veteran— a recruiting sergeant though no longer in uniform. And the invitation was for a war conference.)

This was exactly the advice given by Veer Savarkar and followed by Subhas Bose for which they have been excoriated by the supposed followers of Gandhi! As late as 1918, when he was nearly fifty, Gandhi maintained a perfectly sensible position recognizing the importance of military training in the defense of the nation. It is also interesting that the British saw him as their faithful ally, according him the rare honor of meetings with the Viceroy.

It is possible to almost pinpoint Gandhi’s metamorphosis from a sensible nationalist into the Ahimsa Apostle to August 1920, when Bal Gangadhar Tilak died. This allowed Gandhi to fill the resulting vacuum as the undisputed leader of the Congress. That marked the decisive change in direction of the Indian Freedom Movement from total freedom (‘Purna Swaraj’) to nonviolence as the central policy. It led to Gandhi’s ill-fated Khilafat Movement in support of the restoration of the deposed Turkish Sultan and the horrors of the Moplah Rebellion. Gandhi justified it in the name of ahimsa and from then on imposed nonviolence as a dogma on his Hindu followers but not Muslims. Jinnah and Subhas Bose opposed Gandhi’s policies but were both forced to leave the Congress.

All this is well known. What has not received the attention it deserves is the transformation of Gandhi from a sensible statesman who recognized the importance of the armed forces in national life into an ahimsa fanatic. After Tilak’s death, which allowed him to become the unchallenged leader of both the Congress and the freedom movement, freedom or swaraj became subordinate to nonviolence. Those who disagreed with him had no place in his party. Is it mere coincidence that all the movements led by the British favorite Gandhi ended in stalemate if not worse and only delayed freedom? Did the British see Gandhi and his nonviolence as an ally that would help prolong their

One of the important lessons of history is that a nation cannot come into existence much less prosper without a powerful army. While much is made of the ‘non-violent’ freedom struggle waged by Mahatma Gandhi, what made the British leave India in 1947 was Subhas Bose through his INA turning the British Indian Army into a nationalist force. The naval mutiny and other disturbances during the INA trials convinced the British that Indian soldiers would fight for India but not to protect British interests.

This history has been turned on its head by claiming that Gandhi brought freedom through his non-violent movement. The fact is that the Fall of Singapore to the Japanese in 1942 was far more important than Gandhi’s Quit India Movement launched the same year, which was a fiasco. The curious thing is that Gandhi himself had strongly advocated Indians join the military. He was himself a decorated soldier. Let us take a look at this hidden chapter of history.

Bhishma, the wise old pitâmaha of the Mahabharata advised Yudhishtira: “A king who is always gentle is exploited by all; but the world dreads one who is severe. You must use both to rule proper ly .” Bhishma a lso to ld Yudhishtira— “That king is the greatest in whose kingdom people move about without fear, like children in their father’s home.”

It is not just ancient thinkers who said that. A hundred years ago Sri Aurobindo wrote: “The sword of the warrior is as necessary to the fulfillment of justice and righteousness as the holiness of the saint. Ramdas is not complete without Shivaji. To maintain justice and to prevent the strong from despoiling, and the weak from being oppressed is the function for which the Kshatriya was created. Therefore, says Krishna in the Mahabharata, God created battle and armour, the sword, the bow and the dagger.”

What it really means is that force (or violence) should only be used to protect helpless innocents by suppressing tyrants. Instead of maintaining peace, the Gandhian brand of ahimsa became a

doctrine of surrender to justify cowardice in the face of evil. Here we have Gandhi’s own words on the subject, in the face of the violence at the hands of Muslims. “As a man of truth I honestly believe that Hindus should yield up to the Mohammedans whatever the latter desire, and that they should rejoice in so doing. We can expect unity only if such mutual large-heartedness is displayed.”

As R.C. Majumdar observed (History of the Freedom Movement in India, Volume II, pp 313-14): “The first sentence is one of those pro-Muslim sayings which bore the special trademark of Gandhi and did incalculable harm to Hindu-Muslim unity by putting a premium on Muslim intransigence. It was repeated in 1947when Gandhi made the proposal, which astounded even his devout followers, that Jinnah should be the supreme ruler of India, with a cabinet of his own choice, which might consist only of Muslim ministers. The word ‘mutual’ in the second sentence is meaningless, as Gandhi never dared make similar request to the Muslims, and they never showed the slightest intention of doing any such foolish thing.” Gandhi’s attitude did not change even after the creation of Pakistan.

But it was different Gandhi who supported the British war effort until he took over as the leader of the Congress after Bal Gangadhar Tilak died in 1920. The national movement which had been militant until then suddenly turned soft with Gandhi stressing nonviolence more than freedom. Did the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre of April 1919 convince Gandhi that the British could never be defeated by militant activism? Was it for the same reason that he surrendered to Islamist demands after the Khilafat and the Moplah Rebellion of 1921 – 22? These are questions that need to be raised.

Gandhi’s flip-flop on war and nonviolence

The specter of Mahatma Gandhi, the supposed Apostle of Nonviolence looms large over the history of modern

stay? His beginning as leader was inauspicious enough— the disastrous Non-cooperation Movement in support of the Khilafat. Although Gandhi had promised ‘Swaraj within the year’, he called it off following a violent attack on a police station in Chauri Chaura. The failure of the Khilafat to deliver the promised Swaraj within the year to the Ali Brothers led to the Moplah Rebellion. Gandhi was helpless; it took the British controlled Indian Army several months to restore order.

Here is an intriguing point: was there a tacit understanding that the British would tolerate if not support Gandhi’s n o n - v i o l e n t m o v e m e n t s a s a counterweight to the militant nationalism of the likes of Veer Savarkar, Bhagat Singh, Subhas Bose and Bal Gangadhar Tilak? In any event Gandhi and his followers got kid gloves treatment being ‘imprisoned’ in places like the Aga Khan Palace in Pune while Tilak spent six years in Mandalay, Burma. Savarkar was confined in the infamous ce l lu lar ja i l in the Andamans.

Gandhi repaid his dues to the British by remaining an Anglophile to the end. He chose the Anglicized Nehru instead of Patel to be the first prime minister of I n d i a . H e a n d N e h r u a s k e d Mountbatten to continue as Governor General instead of appointing Rajagopalachari (Rajaji) who had to wait until Mountbatten was gone. Here is another ‘what if’ of history: would there be a Kashmir problem today had Rajaji-Patel been in charge instead of Mountbatten-Nehru? We know that Patel and Rajaj i handled the Hyderabad crisis resolutely defeating Jinnah’s attempt to take the case to the United Nations.

India’s leaders lack courage and are more interested in protecting themselves than the nation. To such people their personal security is more important than national security. So they will never take a tough decision that they feel may provoke the terrorists. This is not the mindset that can help win the war on terror. This is the sad truth: Indians have allowed leaders to come up who have neither the will nor the intent to defend the country by fighting terrorists.

As John Stuart Mill wrote: “War is an ugly thing, but it is not the ugliest of things. The ugliest is that man who holding nothing is worth defending or worth fighting for would let better men than himself protect him.” This is what has been happening in India in the half century and more since independence. Brave lives are being sacrificed to protect unworthy men and women. Gandhi must bear his share for this tragedy with his perverse U-turn.

TheSouthAsianTimes.info 23HISTORY

Marco Polo world discovery was big conThe beauty and the sacredness of the sites, the serene atmosphere of the mountains, the luxuriant flora and the gentleness of the local population can turn Arunachal Pradesh into a tourist paradise, says Claude Arpi

East. They returned to Venice 24 years later, having also journeyed to Persia and Japan. Marco Polo’s account of his t ravels igni ted the i m a g i n a t i o n o f Europeans. It became an instant bestseller and has remained a source of inspiration and wonder to travellers ever since.

But now, a team of archaeologists suggest t h a t M a r c o P o l o probably never went further east than the Black Sea. They suspect he picked up second-hand stories of China, Japan and the Mongol empire from Persian merchants whom he met on the shores of the Black Sea and passed them off as his own a d v e n t u r e s i n T h e

Travels of Marco Polo, one of the first travel books ever to be written. Following research in Japan, Professor Daniele Petrella of the University of Naples told the Italian history magazine, Focus Storia, that there were many

Marco Polo, one ofhistory’s greatest explorers, may in fact have been a conman, it has been claimed. The Venetian merchant adventurer claimed to have embarked on his epic journey across Asia and the Middle East in 1271 AD, at the age of 17, accompanied by his

father, Niccolo, and uncle, Matteo. Their travels took them from Europe through Bukhara to China, where the Mongol ruler, Kublai Khan, is said to have made Marco Polo his emissary to the modern day Middle East.

inconsistencies and inaccuracies in Marco Polo’s description of Kublai Khan’s invasions of Japan in 1274 and 1281. “He confuses the two, mixing up details about the first expedition with those of the second” said Petrella.

“In his account of the first invasion, he describes the fleet leaving Korea and being hit by a typhoon before it reached the Japanese coast. But that happened in 1281 — is it really possible that a supposed eyewitness could confuse events which were seven years apart?” asked Patrella.

Marco Polo’s description of the Mongol fleet is also at odds with the r e m a i n s o f s h i p s t h a t t h e archaeologists have excavated in Japan. The Venetian wrote of five-masted ships, when in fact they had only three masts, said Petrella. The explorer claimed to have worked as an emissary to the court of Kublai Khan, but his name does not crop up in any of the surviving Mongol or Chinese records.

The professor’s findings may mean that one of the world’s greatest travel books was, sadly, just a gripping work of fiction.

Canines sniff out trouble for security forces in J-K, North East Dogs with the canine units of the Indian Army have proved to be the best friends of security forces in Jammu and Kashmir and North East, helping detect 35 IEDs planted by terrorists in the two areas.

detect 35 high powered IEDs in J and K and North East, Army sources told PTI here.

Out of these 35 instances, 19 were reported from militancy-hit areas of Kashmir Valley, they said.Rest of the 16 cases were reported from North East region where the IEDs were planted under thick layers of vegetation making their detection difficult by electronic scanners.

Apart from the explosives, the canine units were also successful in detecting 24 cases of narcotics being smuggled by insurgents in the North East.

Some of the IEDs detected by these dogs were planted on the routes used by the Army for moving its convoys for winter stocking and other purposes.

"We can say that these dogs have actually helped in averting some big incidents,"

Trained to detect various combinations of explosives hidden under layers of rocks and vegetation, the dogs can also

detect explosives which may escape detection by electronic scanners. The canine units this year managed to

the sources said.

The Indian Army has been training and employing dogs of various different breeds such as German Shepherd, Labrador, Doberman, Boxer and Bull dogs.

Besides the basic obedience training, these dogs are trained in various different traits suiting their capability s u c h a s d e t e c t i n g a r m s a n d ammunition, explosives, contrabands and guard duties at vulnerable installations like ammunition depot and radar stations, aircraft hangers and etc.

To meet the ever-increasing need for such dogs , the Remount and Veterinary Corps (RVC) has been undertaking the task of breeding and rearing of pups.

TheSouthAsianTimes.info 24NEWS FEATURE

Diwali celebration crosses religious divide in village near Godhra The name Godhra conjures up the images of the 2002 train burning incident and the communal riots which followed, but a village nearby shows the spirit of harmony.

groups, armed with a locally made cracker, have a fight."Kothi is made by the people of local Kumbhar (potter) community. An earthen pot is filled with an explosive mix to make a Kothi, which the two groups launch at each other, he said."Nobody is injured in this sport," Kadri

Vejalpur, 12 km from Godhra, in the neighbouring Panchmahal district, has a mixed -- Hindu and Muslim -- population of around 15,000, and Diwali is a fun time for both the communities. The celebration not only cuts across the religious divide, but is also unique. For, the villagers stage a

mock-fight between two teams, where the weapon of choice is `Kothi, a locally made crakcer.

Mehbub Kadri, a local, said, "We celebrate Diwali with the Hindus....The village has a unique way of celebrating Diwali. Two

claimed.

Ibhrahim Kathiya, deputy sarpanch of the village, said the celebrations were reciprocal; the Hindus visit Muslim homes on Eid, and partake of festivities.

Statue of Liberty celebrates 125th birthday The 125th birth anniversary of the iconic Statue of Liberty was celebrated here with events including a gun salute, fireworks and naturalisation ceremony for 125 immigrants organised to commemorate the day.

enduring hope and welcome to the millions of immigrants who have entered the US, 125 immigrants took the oath of allegiance on Liberty Island becoming new US citizens. The iconic green lady, a gift from France to the United States, was dedicated on October 28, 1886 and designated as a National Monument in 1924. More than 1,000 people from both the countries were present on the occasion on Liberty Island in New York Harbour.

A series of new web cameras have also been placed around the torch of the Statue of Liberty, providing on computers and smart phones live and unobstructed views of the New York City skyline, the Hudson River, ships in New York Harbour as well as a wide-angle interactive view of the famed golden torch.

"Lady Liberty is an enduring symbol of freedom, tolerance and openness that

Noted singer and pianist Michael Feinstein, Academy-Award-nominated actress Sigourney Weaver and vocalist Capathia Jenkins were among the celebrities who joined New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar for the ceremony

held yesterday.

The theme for the 125th anniversary events is ' H o n o u r H i s t o r y , Envision the Future.' Through the various c e r e m o n i e s , t h e National Park Service intended to re-create the actual programme of the day the statue was gifted to the US by France.

" S h e r e m a i n s a n inspiration for people all around the world," Bloomberg said.

A small flotilla of government, commercial and private vessels offered a salute to the Statue at the close of the ceremony, evoking the 1886 "water parade" that attended her dedication. Honouring her status as a symbol of

represents our country's highest ideals," Salazar said. During the ceremony, American and French national anthems were played, followed by Weaver reading "The New Colossus," a poem by Emma Lazarus inscribed under the statue in bronze.

The iconic New York symbol will close for a year beginning today, during when a USD 27.25 million renovation will be undertaken to improve the stairway up into Lady Liberty's crown and to add new safety equipments.

However, Liberty Island, where the copper statue is located, will remain open during the project and views of Lady Liberty will remain largely unobstructed during the year-long upgrade.

Single-malt Scotch whisky named world's best A 21-year-old single malt whisky distilled in one of the most remote places in Scotland has won the coveted title of "World Whisky of the Year".

old Old Pulteney single malt. It is only the third time that a single malt has ever won the prestigious award, and just the second Scottish distillery to do so," Murray said in a statement on his

The title has been mentioned in the 2012 edition of writer Jim Murray's guidebook "Whisky Bible". Murray said that during his search for the top-ranked whisky, conducted 1,200 tastes and

"many more retastes" over four months."The Pulteney distillery in Wick, Caithness, scored a record-equalling 97.5 points out of 100 for its 21-year-

Whisky Bible website. He said he was surprised to find the winner came from "the most northerly distillery on mainland Britain and one of the most remote in all Scotland".

Few remember anti-British Phulaguri uprising 150 years ago Peasants of remote Phulaguri village in central Assam's Nagaon district had dealt the first blow to the British in the northeast in 1861, but 150 years later there are few in independent India who remember the rebellion.

the day on October 18, but now we plan to hold a public meeting on October 30 which will be a part of the celebration," he said.

Whatever might have been its original objective, the uprising became a symbol of challenge to the mighty British power in the province and projected the anti-colonial character of the Assamese people, Das said. Nagaon Deputy

The revolt, known as 'Phulaguri dhawa', in which a British official was killed and several police officers were injured, was triggered by a ban imposed on opium cultivation and a proposed taxation on betel leaf and nut. The British crushed the rebellion, but the incident shook the foundation of the British rule in the region all the same, a resident of Phulagari and president of a committee, formed to commemorate the 150 years of

the revolt, Hari Kanta Das said. "It is sad that the state government has forgotten to commemorate the event and honour the martyrs and even the local Congress MLA who had earlier promised to be present at a small function organised by us, failed to attend it," Das said. The resources with the organising committee were limited and so "we decided to hold only an hour-long function to commemorate

Commiss ioner M Angamathu, however, pointed out that the district administration has decided to form a 25-member committee, comprising h i s t o r i a n s , i n t e l l e c t u a l s a n d prominent citizens, to prepare a detailed history of the uprising.

TheSouthAsianTimes.info 25NEWS FEATURE

I learned intuition in India: Jobs told biographer The seven months that Steve Jobs spent wandering in India in search of spiritual enlightenment were "not a waste of time", his biographer has said, with the late Apple co-founder telling him his time in India taught him "intuition".

When asked how Jobs, a hippie college dropout goes to India and comes back deciding he wants to be a businessman, Isaacson says, "Jobs has within him sort of this conflict, but he doesn't quite see it as a conflict between being hippie-ish and anti-materialistic but wanting to sell things like Wozniak's board. Wanting to create a business. And I think that's exactly what Silicon Valley was all about in those days. Let's do a startup in our parents' garage and try to create a business."

In an interview with the CBS, biographer Walter Isaacson says Jobs' design sense was greatly influenced by the "simplicities of Zen Buddhism."

Isaacson's book 'Steve Jobs' will hit bookstores today. In the 1970s, Jobs took a leave from working as a technician at video games manufacturer Atari and spent seven months wandering across I n d i a l o o k i n g f o r s p i r i t u a l enlightenment.

"And it turned out not to be a waste of time," he says. According to Isaacson, when Jobs returned from India he said,

"The main thing I've learned is intuition, that the people in India are not just pure rational thinkers, that the great spiritual ones also have an intuition."

Isaacson says that "the simplicities of Zen Buddhism, really informed his (Jobs') design sense. "That notion that s i m p l i c i t y i s t h e u l t i m a t e sophistication," the biographer says in the interview.

After returning from India, Jobs and his friend Steve Wozniak founded Apple computer in his parents' garage with an initial USD 1,300 investment.

The more the merrier, says Mizo man with 39 wives, 94 kids Many would consider it an achievement of Biblical proportions! With 39 wives and more than 120 children and grandchildren, all staying together, a tribal Christian cult leader in the northeastern state of Mizoram could perhaps claim to head the world's biggest family.

Zionnghaka's father Challianchana who died in 1997. The cult, f o u n d e d b y Challianchana some time in the early 1930s, is now spread over four generations and boasts of having some 1,700 members.

Challianchana was believed to have had 5 0 w i v e s , w i t h Zionnghaka being the eldest of his many children -- there is no count available of the number of children Challianchana had.

Perched at a hilltop, the 100-room four-storeyed building they live in is as unique as t h e f a m i l y - t h e youngest wife sleeps near to Zionnghaka's bedroom. There is a r o t a t i o n s y s t e m among the wives to share his bedroom.

Most of the community members are today known across Mizoram for their skills in carving out wooden furniture and pottery items.

The circumstances leading to the establishment of the cult are as bizarre as the traditions and practices followed by the Channa sect, whose ancestors worshipped a traditional drum called the 'Khuang', until the arrival of the Welsh missionaries.

Not only that, Zionnghaka Chana, 67, is still keen to expand his family by marrying a few more women.

"I can travel beyond the borders of Mizoram or even India to marry as that would help me to expand my family," a beaming Zionnghaka told IANS.

From a playground to a school and a church, the village of Baktawng resembles any other tribal village but for the fact that the community members

belong to one single family of 181 members -- 39 wives, 94 children, 14 d a u g h t e r s - i n - l a w a n d 3 3 grandchildren.

"We are all happy and like any other church we believe in the existence of god but the only distinctive difference is that our denomination allows us to marry more than one wife," said Nunparliana, one of Zionnghaka's sons. The family is part of a Christian cult called Channa, named after

"The Welsh missionaries banned the worship of the Khuang. Upset over this, my grandfather Challianchana and his brother severed ties and founded this sect whom we call either Channa or the Lalpa Kohhran," another community member said.

But church leaders, Presbyterian being the dominant denomination, reject the cult's claims to be Christians.

"Christianity does not allow polygamy and hence accepting the cult as Christian does not arise at all. Polygamy is very rare in Mizoram," said a Presbyterian Synod leader in Mizoram capital Aizawl.

There are an estimated 95 Christian cults in Mizoram with diverse practices -- some of them do not allow their children to mingle with others and attend school, while some of the sect claim their members to be gods.

A predominantly Christian tribal state of just over one million people bordering Myanmar and Bangladesh, Mizoram is India's third highest literate state, next only to Kerala and Lakshwadeep. Christians account for about 88 percent of the population.

The Mizo tribal people were animists until two British Baptist missionaries William Frederick Savidge and J.H. Lorrain first landed in Mizoram some time in 1894.

TheSouthAsianTimes.info 26NEWS FEATURE

Mental illness, not British gas attack, 'blinded Hitler' It was one of the most notorious stories that Germany's Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler used to say -- his First World War experience ended when he was blinded by a British mustard gas attack.

unpublished letters between two American neurologists from 1943, which debunk Hitler's claim, the 'Daily Mail' reported.

The correspondence showed that Otfried Foerster, a renowned German neurosurgeon, had inspected Hitler's medical file, and found that he was treated for h y s t e r i c a l a m b l y o p i a , a psychiatric disorder that can make sufferers lose sight.

Dr Weber said: "There were rumours suggesting that his war b l indness may have been psychosomatic, but this is the first time we have had any firm evidence."

He said discovering the letters was "crucial" because Hitler's medical file, at the Pasewalk

Now, a new research has exposed Hitler's account of his own gallantry as a sham, and revealed that his temporary loss of sight

was caused by a mental d i s o r d e r k n o w n a s "hysterical blindness" and not the mustard gas attack he alleged.

H i t l e r h a d c l a i m e d numerous times during his lifetime, including in his autobiography 'Mein Kampf', that the British attacked in October 1918 south of Ypres using a "yellow gas unknown to us". And, by morning, his eyes "were like glowing coals, and all was darkness around me", he wrote in his book.

But, historian Dr Thomas W e b e r o f U n i v e r s i t y o f A b e r d e e n , s a y s h e h a s u n c o v e r e d a s e r i e s o f

military hospital in Germany, was destroyed. "Hitler went to extreme lengths to cover up his First World War medical history," Dr Weber said.

Dr Weber said the letters could help to explain Hitler's radical personality change after the war. "Hitler left First World War an awkward loner who had never commanded a single other soldier, but very quickly became a charismatic leader who took over his country," he said.

He added: "His mental state could explain this dramatic change and his obsessive and e x t r e m e b e h a v i o u r . T h e evidence also gives a crucial insight into Hitler's mental state during his leadership."

Tiny planet has water ice, may have atmosphere too: Scientists Astronomers have discovered a mysterious little dwarf planet which they believe is covered in ice and may sport the wispy remnants of an atmosphere.

ice when they used the Magellan Baade Telescope in Chile to take a closer look at Snow White last year. But, spectral data showed that water ice abounded on Snow White's surface. "That was a big shock. Water ice is not red," Brown said.

The new findings were published in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Scientists already knew one dwarf planet that's both red and covered with water ice: Quaoar, which Brown and his team discovered in 2002.

Researchers think Quaoar, which is slightly smaller than Snow White, once had an atmosphere composed of volatile compounds s u c h as me t h ane , c arb o n monoxide and nitrogen. But its gravity wasn't strong enough to hold onto these chemicals, and the icy world began losing its atmosphere to space.

Over time, everything but some methane escaped. And radiation from space has transformed those

The planet, nicknamed "Snow White", lies outside Neptune and is orbiting the sun as part of the Kuiper belt -- the ring of icy bodies that orbit the sun beyond Neptune.

Officially known as 2007 OR10, it is actually red, half of its surface is covered by water ice that probably s p e w e d f r o m a n c i e n t cryovolcanoes, researchers said.

It's believed that the dwarf planet's reddish hue likely comes from a thin layer of methane, the last gasps of an atmosphere that has been bleeding off into space

for eons.

"You get to see this nice picture of what once was an active little world with water volcanoes and an atmosphere, and it's now just frozen, dead, with an atmosphere that's slowly s l i p p i n g a w a y , " l e a d scientist Mike Brown of California Institute of Technology was quoted as saying by SPACE.Com.

At the time of its discovery in 2007, Brown guessed that Snow White had broken off long ago from another dwarf planet, called Haumea -- a weird, football-shaped body, which is sheathed in water ice. Hence, it's nicknamed Snow White.

However, follow-up studies soon showed that Snow White, which is about half the size of Pluto, is actually quite red like many other Kuiper Belt objects.

So Brown and his team weren't expecting to find a lot of water

methane molecules -- which consist of one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms -- into long hydrocarbon chains, the researchers said.Those c h a i n s l o o k r e d t o o u r instruments, and they sit atop Quaoar's water-ice surface. Snow White's spectrum looks similar to Quaoar's, suggesting that similar processes occurred on both dwarf planets, they said.

"We're basically looking at the last gasp of Snow White. For four and a half billion years, Snow White has been sitting out t h e r e , s l o w l y l o s i n g i t s atmosphere, and now there's just a little bit left." Brown said.

While Snow White definitely has a lot of water ice on its surface, the evidence for methane is not conclusive, he added..

TheSouthAsianTimes.info 27BOLLYWOOD

Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan turns 38Bollywood actress and mother-to-be Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan, is turning 38 today and will celebrate her birthday with family and close friends.

In 1997, she entered Bollywood through Rahul Rawail's film 'Aur Pyar Ho Gaya’. Though the film failed at the box office, Aishwarya bagged the 'Star Screen' award for the Most Promising Newcomer. S h e g a i n e d a t t e n t i o n i n Bollywood through Sanjay Leela Bhansali's film 'Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam' (1999), for which, she won the Filmfare Best Actress award.

She was last seen in Bhansali's 'Guzaarish' (2010) opposite Hrithik Roshan. Though, was not a hit at the box office, it was critically acclaimed and won awards and nominations at several award ceremonies.

"She will be celebrating her birthday with family...Like she always does," a source close to the actress said.

There is a buzz that the Bachchan family is planning a grand party this evening, where besides, family members, several B-town personalities would be coming.

Recently, the Bachchans hosted a grand 'godh bharai' ceremony for Aishwarya , where severa l actresses came in to shower their blessings.

In June this year, Aishwarya's father-in-law and superstar A m i t a b h B a c h c h a n , h a d announced, through micro blogging site twitter, that she is

expecting a child. It was reported that the baby is due in November.

Aishwarya was to play the l e a d i n g l a d y i n M a d h u r Bhandarkar's upcoming project 'Heroine'. However, the film was put on hold and later it was revealed that Kareena Kapoor will play the character instead. Having started her career as a model, Aishwarya went on to win the 1994 Miss World pageant and then turned to Bollywood for a career in acting.

The actress had made a debut in Mani Ratnam's Tamil film 'Iruvar' in 1997 and had her first commercial success with the Tamil movie – 'Jeans'(1998).

Nandita Das in IWF’s International Hall-of-FameFor portraying the plight of voiceless women authentically through cinema, critically acclaimed actress-director Nandita Das has become the first Indian to have been inducted into the Hall of Fame by the International Women’s Forum (IWF).

of the chairperson of the Children’s Film Society of India, Das has never shied away from c o n t r o v e r s i a l i s s u e s a n d unconventional roles.

Considered one of the most sensitive actresses around, she is best known f o r h e r performances in films like ‘Fire’, ‘ E a r t h ’ , ‘Bawander’.

“I have only done

Known as the ‘thinking man’s actress’, the 41-year-old was admitted to the elite group at Washington DC’s h is tor ic National Building Museum last night, a release said here.

She was chosen by a selection committee representing women leaders across five continents “for her sustained contributions to the arts and to the world as one of the most gripping cinema arts leaders of our time who has shown us what both-feet-on-the-floor authenticity looks like and how keeping your values in focus and applying your talent can fuel women and the world forward”.

IWF recognises leading global

women game-changer women by inducting them into the International Hall of Fame, which acts as a platform for t h e m t o connect with the world’s m o s t p r e e m i n e n t w o m e n o f s i g n i f i c a n t and diverse achievements.

W e a r i n g many hats , including that

what comes naturally to me but I feel a deep sense of gratitude that my choices are being validated by none other than the discerning women, from around the world. I see it as an encouragement to continue the work I do,” the actress said after receiving the honour.

With her directorial debut, ‘Firaaq’ (2008), Das brought out poignant and evocative stories of the 2002 religious riots in Gujarat and won a number of awards, including a Filmfare.

An advocate of issues of social justice and human rights, she has served as the main jury at the Cannes Film Festival in

We do not have pure rockstars: AR RahmanMusic maestro A R Rahman, who is looking forward to a live concert of his upcoming film ‘Rockstar‘, feels that India does not have ‘pure’ rockstars.

“Also, in this film, the character that Ranbir plays, does not drink. He does not like alcholol. But, I like the character,” he said. The song ‘Sadda Haq ‘ from the film has become quite a rage with the youth and will be the highlight of the concert.

The other songs that will be performed at rhe concert include

The makers of Ranbir K a p o o r - s t a r r e r f i l m , ‘Rockstar‘ have planned a live concert to promote the movie. Rahman will be performing live at the concert. Joining Rahman for the live performance will be lead actors Ranbir and Nargis Fakhri,

director Imtiaz Ali, singer Mohit Chauhan and others.

“I have seen IIT people playing rock music and then you have the usual rock bands. India-wise, we have morals and hence, we do not see pure rockstars here,” Rahman told reporters here at the announcement of the concert.

– ‘Jo Bhi Main‘, ‘Kun Faaya Kun‘, ‘Katiyan Karun‘, and ‘Nadaan Parinde‘. ‘Rockstar‘, directed by Imtiaz Ali, starring Ranbir and Nargis, will release on November 11.

TheSouthAsianTimes.info 28BOLLYWOOD

Nargis Fakhri is certainly the flavour of the season. The gorgeous babe, who makes her debut opposite Ranbir Kapoor in Imtiaz Ali's Rockstar, has surely made heads turn with her unconventional looks. We bring you some stunning images of

Himesh's A * Is Killed to release on Michael Jackson's death anniversaryIt was exactly six months back when Himesh Reshammiya's international film A * Is Killed (where * stands for STAR) was announced. Though the makers hadn't chosen to make a statement on record, those who had a dekko at the film's First Look were convinced that the film was based on the murder of Michael Jackson.

Well, now it could well be time for the whole world to be convinced of the same since the makers of the film (producers Arifilms and director Christophe Lenoir) have declared their plans to bring A * Is Killed on the 25th June 2012, the day which marks the third death anniversary of Michael Jackson.

Confirms a source close to the film, "Yes, the film is all set to release on June 25 next year. The makers felt that it was just an apt release timing for the film which tells the story of an Indian musician (Sidharth Patel - played by Himesh Reshammiya) who is mesmerized by a superstar who gets killed."

Though the makers continue to be tight lipped about the identity of the superstar, it doesn't take rocket science to establish the fact that it is Michael Jackson's story which is being told. Moreover the teaser, which is currently available online, has a few shots from the film interspersed with quotes/snippets from friends, supporters and family

members of the killed superstar, all of whom are expressing a sense of disbelief that the man is not amidst them any more.

A * Is Killed is said to be taking on from this point on and seemingly unfolds truth behind this murder. The film also stars celebrity blogger Perez Hilton who was very close to Michael Jackson in real life.

The announcement of A * Is Killed is also special for Himesh since it comes in the wake of Damadamm turning out to be one of the better received films of the composer/singer turned actor. While the film managed a sustained run for itself over the weekend, even on Monday it saw a mere 10% drop in collections when compared to it's opening Thursday with Rs. 45 lakhs more coming in.

Says a source, "Guess Himesh is now even surer about his acting career, with Damadamm fighting it out despite Ra.One in fray, A * Is Killed also confirming it's arrival plans and a co-production with Akshay Kumar (Khiladi 786 - Made In Punjab) where he would also be sharing screen space with the actor, Himesh has pretty much declared that acting would stay on to be his love for quite some time."

Bipasha Basu dons bikini in Players

Bipasha Basu will be seen sporting a two piece bikini in her upcoming film Players. This is not the first time the sultry actress will be seen in a bikini, she has earlier sported a multi colored bikini in Dhoom 2, wherein she showed off her fully toned body scampering down the beaches of Rio de Janeiro, leaving all the men spellbound.

In the theatrical trailer Players, Bipasha is apparently seen prancing around a beach in a sizzling red bikini. People who have seen the trailer say that Bipasha is all set to burn the screens with her red

hot bikini look. The Bong babe is looking extremely gorgeous and enchanting.

Players is an action thriller directed by Abbas-Mustan based on the 2003 American film The Italian Job. The film also stars Abhishek Bachchan, Bobby Deol, Sonam Kapoor, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Omi Vaidya and Sikander Kher.

Players will release world wide on January 6, 2011.

Farah Khan to choreograph 3 songs for Joker in 15 days

Farah Khan has a hectic fortnight in progress as she gears up to play a triple role in real life that of a producer, choreographer and of course a mother. Though over the last few weeks she was comfortably placed between taking care of her triplets and also ensuring that production of Joker goes on smoothly, it won't be as easy for next few days to come, what with husband Shirish Kunder summoning her on the sets.

"In precisely 15 days, she has to choreograph as many as three songs for Joker", informs a senior member from the production team, "The film is in its last schedule as it gears up for 30th August release next year. Since there were combination dates required from Akshay, Sonakshi, Shreyas and Minissha, there is no way these days could be further split. For Farah as well as Shirish, it is good to have all actors under the roof at the same time. It is a different matter though that being a mother, Farah is now required to slog in a big way to fulfil her responsibilities at home as well as work."

Shirish too didn't want any other choreographer to come on board other than Farah and the choreographer turned director made an exception as well. For someone who is picking and choosing projects quite sparsely since she is working on the script of her next film after Tees Maar Khan, Farah is practically going through the drill round the clock.

"During the day, she makes sure that her kids are ready for school. She then goes on to work for production related activities and spends time with kids once they return from school", says a close family member, "Once she has spent enough time with them, there are song and dance shoots in the evening and sometimes it gets extended late in the night."

Due to such hectic schedule, her leading man Akshay Kumar too has made an exception to shoot late in the night, something that he usually avoids.

Tees Maar Khan to take on piratesClick above for more movie stillsTees Maar Khan (TMK), 2010's much awaited movie, is all set to take on movie pirates just before its release. Bollywood wants to end the year on a good note and all hopes are on Farah Khan's next release Tees Maar Khan. This is also the reason why the producers are putting immense pressure on the pirates this week.

Alliance Against Copyright Theft (AACT) has rendered its full support to the producers of the film. Anybody seen in possession of a TMK pirated CD/DVD will be booked under the Indian Copyright Act, 1957. AACT's enforcement consultants have planned raids at various locations across India to seize pirated

goods like inlay cards, DVD writers and other equipment.

Siddharth Roy Kapur, CEO, UTV Motion Pictures who are also the producers of the movie says, "The entire team of TMK is working hard to curb piracy. We are working closely with the authorities to intercept attempts to copy or distribute pirated versions of the movie. It is important for our industry to collaborate with AACT against piracy. We will continue putting pressure on the pirates till the release and post release as well."

TheSouthAsianTimes.info 29OPINIONS

Vignettes from a voyage of discoverystashed their ill-gotten gains in secret accounts abroad. Unapologetic about describing Manmohan Singh as India’s weakest-ever Prime Minister, Mr Advani particularly emphasised the need to bring back the nation’s pilfered wealth. He said the Swiss, for example, had amended banking laws after 9/11 and parted with information about account holders; that Germany had obtained more than 2,000 such names which included those of many Indians; and that the Government ought to make these public, besides vigorously pursuing still undisclosed names. He pointed out that international agencies had revealed that the maximum amount of illicit money parked in tax havens belonged to Indians.

What drew the loudest applause was his pledge that, once the estimated Rs 25 lakh crore of such funds were retrieved, it should be invested in India’s 600,000 villages to ensure rural India gets good roads, uninterrupted power supply,

As I flew to Raipur last week to join tireless traveller Lal Krishna Advani’s sixth yatra in 21 years, I wondered to myself whether he would elicit the same kind of response as some of his previous nationwide road shows. Wouldn’t viewer fatigue have set in by now? After all, he is approaching 85 and the novelty of a customised vehicle traversing interior India’s dusty roads has worn off. Prior to every election, whether in the States or for Parliament, various leaders hit the road on similar vehicles to interact with voters. In fact, in April this year I too initiated such a poll-eve yatra in West Bengal, travelling in a rath for several days across the State’s northern districts along with the State party president. So, I had some doubts whether this method of connecting with people hadn’t begun to yield diminishing returns.

When I caught up with Mr Advani’s motorcade at Azad Chowk in Raipur, it was my turn to be surprised. Several thousand charged-up people had lined

the route, patriotic songs blared full blast and being Diwali week crackers burst all around me. So many onlookers thronged the bus to have a closer look at Mr Advani accompanied by Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh that I could gain access to the v e h i c l e o n l y a f t e r r e p e a t e d announcements from inside the bus to clear the passage. A little earlier a massive gathering had been addressed by BJP leaders at a large maidan but the enthusiasm of Raipur residents had not dulled although many had already seen the proceedings live on TV. The yatra through the relatively small city took more than two hours to wind its way to the State Guest House.

In all meetings and street-corner gatherings, Mr Advani’s message was simple. The biggest swindle of public funds had taken place under the Manmohan Singh-led UPA regime. Corruption in high places had crossed all limits and the carpetbaggers had

easily accessible and safe drinking water, quality schools and proper hospital facilities. He repeated this message throughout his journey along narrow, potholed roads masquerading as National Highways as the bus travelled across vast agricultural tracts and pristine forests, connecting with people who had been bypassed by India’s post-liberalisation growth trajectory.

I observed anger, aspiration and determination on the faces of people a l l a long the way. The large congregations in Odisha were an even bigger surprise, for the BJP has only six MLAs and no Lok Sabha MPs in that State. India is waking up to the magnitude of the loot, and if the steely look on people’s faces is any indication, Ms Sonia Gandhi has much to worry about.

WRITE POINT by Chandan Mitra

NaMo proposes, PM disposes COUNTER VOICE by Kanchan Gupta

milk or fruits, or rice and wheat, for that matter. Such mundane details are not meant for the privileged ruling classes. Their kitchens are taken care of, if not by tax-payers then those who steal on taxes. The Economic Times provides a good analysis of the latest inflation figures, released last Thursday. Food inflation is at a six-month high of 11.43 per cent with vegetables 25 per cent costlier on an annual basis, fruits dearer by 11.96 per cent, milk by 10.85 per cent and eggs, meat and fish by 12.82 per cent. “This double-digit inflation comes on top of a very high level of price rise recorded in October last year, when it stood at 14.20 per cent — already a ‘high-base’ comparison. The last time food inflation stood this high was on April 9 when it was recorded at 11.53 per cent.” Thankfully, this time we have been spared bogus promises like those made by the Prime Minister earlier. We don’t need to live under the illusion that he will rein in prices in two weeks, four weeks or six weeks. He is either blissfully ignorant of what a kilo of potatoes costs or just doesn’t care anymore. A Regent has other things to worry about, for example, how to keep the Prince occupied with thoughts other than asking him to vacate the masnad.

Nevertheless it would be in order to demand an explanation from the Prime Minister as to what has he done with the report submitted by the Working Group on Consumer Affairs headed by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. The other members of the committee were

n 19th century Great Britain the most indigent among the country’s Iimpoverished masses were provided

with shelter and food, or what passed for them, under the Poor Law. And so it was that Oliver Twist, his mother dead and father missing, found himself first at a ‘baby farm’ and then at a workhouse where he was barely able to keep body and soul together. Food for Oliver and his fellow inmates was a dollop of inedible gruel that was carefully rationed by fearsome beadles. There were no second helpings.

The boys decided that one of them should try and ask for more — a draw of lots ensued and it fell upon Oliver to be the fall guy. Clutching his bowl, Oliver stepped forward and uttered the six words which have proved to be the most memorable of those penned by Charles Dickens: “Please, sir, I want some more.” Needless to say, those who were in charge of the workhouse, well-fed, well-groomed and well-empowered, did not take kindly to Oliver’s outrageous demand.

In 21st century India we have an expanding underclass, the masses who are wretchedly poor and desperately hungry. The rich live in their plush ivory towers, the middle-classes remain cocooned in their tacky drawing rooms, the rest languish in abject misery. The rich aspire for the moon, the middle-classes aspire to become rich, the miserably impoverished aspire to earn Rs 26 a day so that they can crawl above

the poverty line. We have our version of the ‘Poor Law’, drafted by the Army of the Virtuous also known as the National Advisory Council, headed by Ms Sonia Gandhi, and implemented by a Government which has a surfeit of ‘economists’, including one who presides over a decrepit and corrupt regime. It’s called the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. It’s also the latest means of politicians and babus pocketing cash meant for the poor, a fact established in State after State, including Odisha whose allegedly squeaky clean Chief Minister can reportedly do no wrong.

In this 21st century India, where food inflation hovers at nearly 11.5 per cent and vegetables are beyond the reach of the ‘common man’, the ‘aam admi’ for whom the Congress toils night and day, it’s only the children of the rich and the middle-classes who can dare say “I want some more” when food is served on the table. Those born into less fortunate families make do with what is available; if there’s nothing to eat, they go to bed hungry. Were they to ask for food, the beadles in charge of this wondrous land of ours, including our ‘economist’ Prime Minister and his ‘economist’ Planning Commission Deputy Chairman, would be mighty displeased. As for the Congress, its leaders have either never known hunger or have forgotten what deprivation means. It’s doubtful they would know the prices of vegetables or

the Chief Ministers of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The committee was set up in April 2010 to suggest ways and means of holding the price line for essential commodities. By early this year, the report was finalised and it has been gathering dust in some corner of the Prime Minister’s Office for the past six months. It’s not a voluminous report crammed with senseless data and meaningless jargon. That’s not Mr Modi’s style. It’s a s l im report which l is ts 20 recommendations with 64 detailed actionable points for their expeditious implementation. Here are some of the recommendations:

Future Markets: Considering the lack of strong linkages between spot and future markets at present, it has been suggested that for the time being essential commodities should be kept out of the future markets.

Price Stabilisation Fund: The setting up of a Price Stabilisa-tion Fund by the Government of India has been suggested to help State Governments in the procurement and distribution of essential commodities in short supply.

Nevertheless it would be in order to demand an explanation from the Prime Minister as to what has he done with the report submitted by the Working Group on Consumer Affairs headed by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. The other members of the committee were the Chief

TheSouthAsianTimes.info 30OPINIONS

Through the looking glass ceiling BY LINE by MJ Akbar

Of course he is a brilliant man. You have to be, to become a billionaire on Wall Street. Someone has calculated, I hope competently, that if you were to begin counting now it would take you fifteen odd years to reach a billion. The point is not the stretch, whatever it might be. The issue is: at what point does a man stop counting out his money? Both Raj and Rajat Gupta had made enough money to feed many future generations. Why did Raj need to indulge in insider trading at this point of his life? We are so much in awe of success so we almost refuse to see any flaw in the diamond. But the mightiest can slip on a banana peel.

I have often wondered about the origins and rationale of the phrase "filthy rich". Is it mere decorum, or pity, that prevents us from saying "filthy poor" with equal abandon? You have to be mad to prefer poverty to wealth. Or you could be a saint. One of the virtues of a sufi or a yogi is his total indifference to money. It is not merely the moral strength of

How much anger do you need to smash a glass ceiling?

A glass ceiling became the symbol of discrimination during the struggle for women's rights in western democracies. By the 1970s women had moved out of the stereotype steno pool into the infested rivulets of middle management, but there was no further room for upward mobility. An invisible ceiling prevented them from entering the boardroom. No rules prevented entry. It just did not happen.

The relevant part of the simile, it seems to me, is not invisibility, but that you can see through a glass window, or ceiling, into the other side. Class and caste have always been instruments of injustice, but ruling elites have generally taken care to cloak inequity with some pompous code, either of faith or in the name of a law which they write and an order which they impose.

Democracy offered the liberation of greater transparency. Perhaps the difference between upstairs and downstairs was more bearable when the worlds were separated by impermeable iron curtains. The pain is less when you cannot clearly see what you have been denied. When the democratic spirit melts this iron into glass, when you find that the b o a r d r o o m i s f u l l o f s m u g incompetents, and your talent is being denied its due, the urge to throw stones at the glass ceiling becomes an itch.

But this glass does not shatter easily. Wealth protects itself with an obduracy honed and perfected over centuries. Talent can easily make you rich, but even an abnormally high level of ability may not get you membership of the exclusive megarich cluster. You need IQ plus anger. The establishment might sneer at "raging ambition", but it is also afraid of it.

abstinence at play. There is also a hint that the path to riches is at least amoral, if not overtly tainted by immorality. Avarice might encourage envy, but rarely true admiration. Men like Raj Rajaratnam know that those at the top have not reached the perch b e c a u s e t h e i r b e h a v i o u r w a s impeccable. If the predecessor could get away with it, why not the successor?

If Rajaratnam had to write up his tragedy he would probably see no further than bad luck. Not so simple. The democracy that opens up glass ceilings also tightens the noose of law.

Author is Editor-in-chief of THE SUNDAY GUARDIAN

Right to Information is not a gift to be revoked at will ETHICS & POWER by Ram Jetmalani

including foreign relations, no other organ could judge so well of such matters. Therefore, documents in relation to these matters might fall into a class which per se might require protection. But the Executive is not the organ solely responsible for public interest. It represents only an important element in it; but there are other elements. One such element is the administration of justice. The claim of the Executive to have exclusive and conclusive power to determine what is in public interest is a claim based on the assumption that the Executive alone knows what is best for the citizen. The claim of the Executive to exclude evidence is more likely to operate to subserve a partial interest, viewed exclusively from a narrow department angle. It is impossible for it to see or give equal weight to another matter, namely, that justice should be done and seen to be done. When there are more aspects of public interest to be considered, the Court will, with reference to the pending litigation, be in a better position to decide where the weight of public interest predominates."

In a later paragraph he elaborated on this in words that occupy an immortal place in the jurisprudence of democracy: "In a government of responsibility like ours, where all the agents of the public must be responsible for their conduct, there can be but few secrets. The people of this country have a right to know every public act, everything that is done in a public way, by their public functionaries. They are entitled to know the particulars

Demands for access to government i n f o r m a t i o n a r e n o t a r e c e n t phenomenon. In India they were made in the 1920s. In 1946 the General Assembly of the United Nations passed a resolution which stated, "Freedom of information is a fundamental human right and is the touchstone for all the freedoms to which the United Nations is consecrated." This was followed in 1948 by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which included an Article stating, "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers."

One of the important lessons of the Second World War was the misuse of information in totalitarian regimes, as exemplified by the notorious role played by Joseph Goebbels and the National Socialist propaganda. In 1971, the British appointed a committee presided over by Lord Franks to examine Section 2 of the British Official Secrets Act of 1911. The Franks Committee received an enormous amount of evidence. It found that Section 2 was obscurely drafted and so recommended its repeal. It also recommended the passing of a new statute called the Official Information Act. The Franks report was debated in the House of Commons in June 1973, but because of change of government in 1974, no action could be taken. It is recognised in Britain that government has not yet conducted its affairs with

complete openness. A campaign for freedom of information is however on. In India the credit must go not to our politicians and their parties, but to some of our great judges. In the 1975 case of State of UP vs Raj Narain, the Supreme Court had to deal with Raj Narain's claim for production in court of a government document called the Blue Book said to contain the rules and instructions for the protection of the Prime Minister when on tour. The claim was resisted by government on the ground that it was opposed to public interest. The court had to decide on the conflict between public interest, which demands that the sensitive contents of a document should not become public, and public interest in the administration of justice, which requires that the courts should have the fullest possible access to all relevant evidence.

The court directed the high court: "Look at the document and decide whether the whole document or any part of the document could be made public after resolving the conflict between the two opposing kinds of public interest."

Mathew J., one of the greatest judges that India has produced, delivered a very learned concurring judgement. This is how he dealt with this question: "Those who are responsible for national security must be the sole judges of what national security requires. As the Executive is solely responsible for national security

of every public transaction in all its bearing. The right to know, which is derived from the concept of freedom of speech, though not absolute, is a factor which should make one wary, when secrecy is claimed for transactions which can, at any rate, have no repercussion on public security. To cover with veil of secrecy, the common routine business, is not in the interest of the public. Such secrecy can seldom be legitimately desired. It is generally desired for the purpose of parties and politics or personal self-interest or b u r e a u c r a t i c r o u t i n e . T h e responsibility of officials to explain and to justify their acts is the chief safeguard against oppression and corruption."

This judgement was followed by another judgement in 1982 in the famous Gupta case. Justice Mathew was fully approved and followed now by seven judges and unanimously.

Every honest officer should have the courage of his convictions. For limitation of space I shall quote no more, but a government that thinks of tinkering with freedom of information must be voted out on that ground alone. A government sinking in its scams has no business to repeal or modify statutes designed to empower and protect society from the horrendous scams that are now firmly imprinted on the public mind.

TheSouthAsianTimes.info 31Photo Essays

Iranian Tank GirlsPhoto & essay by Jenny Matthews – In 1999 I was commissioned by Marie Claire magazine to go to Iraq with writer Christine Aziz. Our assignment was a story on a group of Iranian exiles (the PMOI – P e o p l e ’ s M o j a h e d i n Organisation of Iran) who had a military camp of around 3500 people in the desert north of Baghdad. They were practicing for the day when they would launch an attack on Iran and topple the government there. In this army 70% of the officers were women, and a one third of the fighters were also women. Ever since the early nineties, their leader, Mme Maryam Rajavi, has placed women at the forefront of their battle against the Iranian government.

The trip was a great adventure, beginning with an eight-hour ride across the desert from Jordan in a red Mercedes. As soon as we arrived at the camp the picture opportunities began – thousands of fighters on parade, the women wearing photo friendly red headscarves, then off to a tank battle. A delicious lunch was followed by a demonstration by female commandos. Superficially the story was great – beleaguered woman fighters squaring up to

the might of Iran ( men appeared to be were very much in support roles – dancing for us, making bread, serving food – that sort of thing . The story was published, everyone was happy but I’ve always felt uncomfortable about my part in glorifying women and weapons, and that all was probably not as upbeat as it seemed.

Saddam Hussein was using the PMOI to patrol the long border with Iran. The US government has accused the PMOI of being involved in the suppression of the Kurds, and that the actual order came from the PMOI leader at the time Maryam Rajavi. There is, however, no evidence to prove it. Her photo is everywhere on the base, especially in the women’s lockers , the nearest they have to any personal space. The group come over as a cult, and some of those who have managed to escape speak of indoctrination and a stranglehold on their lives. At the same time there was great enthusiasm for the tanks – driving, firing and maintaining them. As one young woman, Parveen, explained, ”I’m a gunner on a tank – in the past that was unimaginable. At first it was difficult to lift tank shells. The

noise in the turret, the smoke – it was all very alien and difficult, but eventually the tank became like putty in my hands and it got so my heart started to throb when I heard the tank engine’.

Now the tanks are gone. During the shock and awe attack on Iraq in 2003 the base came under fire, there were deaths and injuries. The group was asked to disarm. The tanks, including 19 British made Chieftains, were taken away by the Americans who set up a Forward Operating Base, Camp Grizzly, on the edge of the camp. Some of the camp members had knowledge of the Iranian nuclear programme so they became an asset rather than a liability, although the group is still designated terrorist by Iran and the US. The label has been dropped by the European Council.When we went back to visit in 2003 the fighters were reduced to playing battles on Apple Macs and learning karate and holding concerts of classical music in their huge exhibition and conference hall.

Despite being held under the protect ion of the Geneva Convention, 34 people died in clashes with Iraqi security forces

that broke into the camp. When a US congressional delegation tried to visit in June this year Maliki (Prime Minister of Iraq) refused them permission. The latest twist in the tale is that now local farmers (encouraged by the I r a q i g o v e r n m e n t ) a r e demanding their land back and the PMOI has been told to leave by the end of this year. Iraq’s liberal and more secular sections of society support the PMOI and will be sorry to see them go. It is unclear where members of the former army will go to- certainly not back to Iran. Many of them have already served prison sentences there. Its claims to have a lot of support in Iran, but it is difficult to tell. Its links with Saddam Hussein during the tail end of the devastating Iraq-Iran war are not forgotten Driven by a feminism unique to the region it is despised by the fundamentalist regime it seeks to overthrow. Only time will tell if the PMOI is more than a pawn in the wider politics of the region.

TheSouthAsianTimes.info 32Photo Essays