Sunday, December 31, 2006

Bribe Britannia

dec 31st, 2006

the atlanticists 'fess up to their sins.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Shahryar

 
Bribe Britannia
Dec 19th 2006
From The Economist print edition





Two steps back in the fight against corporate backhanders
TO CONNOISSEURS of irony, who often find rich pickings in politics, last week's offering was a vintage one. British delegates to the inaugural conference of the United Nations Convention against Corruption, in Jordan, were piously denouncing sleaze and promising to tackle corruption "wherever we find it—whether here or abroad". At home, meanwhile, their colleagues were busily quashing a two-year investigation into allegations of bribery in connection with the country's biggest-ever defence contract, the Al-Yamamah deal with Saudi Arabia.
 
Britain has long turned a blind eye to the bribery of foreign officials (until recently such business costs were even tax-deductible), but of late it has been trying to polish its public image. Much of the pressure for change has come from non-government organisations and Britain's fellow rich-country members of the OECD. America, which has banned bribing foreigners since 1977, was especially peeved that its companies were at a disadvantage while everyone else merrily bribed away.
 
In 1998 Britain ratified the OECD's convention against bribing foreign officials, but its commitment to the treaty has been half-hearted. Instead of passing comprehensive legislation to meet its new obligations, the government argued that Britain's existing laws against domestic corruption were sufficient. It was finally persuaded to ban explicitly the bribing of foreign officials by British citizens and companies, no matter where the offence took place, in the anti-terrorism act of 2001 .
 
But loopholes abound. Take so-called "facilitation payments", a high-faluting name for little bribes. Although they are technically illegal, the government says British firms are unlikely to be prosecuted for stumping up when officials insist on them in countries where they are the normal practice. Firms also get a free pass for the corrupt practices of their subsidiaries, unless it is proved that they ordered or actively connived in them. Even the Home Office concedes that the current law is an unsatisfactory patchwork in need of reform. Others agree: the OECD complained in March 2005 that Britain was dragging its feet in implementing the convention.
 
But progress is being made. Last year the Home Office began consulting on a new anti-corruption law. And in June it set up a team of police investigators to focus on bribery abroad by British businesses and money-laundering by corrupt foreign politicians. It has also tightened rules forcing firms that apply for support from the government's export-credit agency to provide information about the agents they employ and the commissions they pay.
 
Britain presents anti-corruption campaigners with a paradox. Despite the lax rules and the fact that it is neck-deep in the arms and oil trades—both especially prone to corruption—it fares well in international surveys of corruption.
 
A study by Transparency International, an anti-corruption campaign group, ranks Britain as the sixth most virtuous of 30 countries, ahead of America and well ahead of France. Gary Campkin of the Confederation of British Industry, which represents big business, says this shows that "British business is, by and large, fairly clean in comparison with its competitors." But many think it demonstrates that Britain is better at keeping dodgy business under wraps. The OECD finds it "surprising that no company or individual [in Britain] has been indicted or tried for the offence of bribing a foreign public official".
 
The Home Office reckons this is not because British businessmen are especially scrupulous, but because it is hard to gather evidence abroad. That seems a poor excuse. In the first half of this year America embarked on 50 prosecutions of alleged foreign bribery and France managed eight.

 
Chandrashekhar Krishnan of Transparency International attributes the lack of prosecutions in Britain to the lack of political will. Events last week would seem to bear him out.
 
On December 14th the Serious Fraud Office reluctantly ditched its investigation into allegations, denied by the company, that BAE paid bribes to Saudi Arabian officials in exchange for an agreement to supply, organise and train the Saudi air force, a deal that has produced up to £43 billion ($84 billion) over almost two decades for BAE. The decision came after weeks of intense lobbying by BAE and the Saudi government, which reportedly threatened to cancel a follow-on purchase of 72 Eurofighter Typhoon jet fighters.
 
Tony Blair said the investigation had been halted because it threatened to harm relations with Saudi Arabia, a key ally in the fight on terrorism and a partner in the Middle East peace process. But suspicions linger that an equal motive was protecting thousands of British jobs.
 
Whatever the intention, the decision is at least embarrassing, and may be subject to judicial review, if various pressure groups ask the courts to look at it. British delegates to the next international anti-corruption junket, meanwhile, can expect a tougher reception than at the last one. Mark Pieth, the chairman of the OECD's working group on bribery, says he will be raising the matter in a meeting with the British government next month.
 
"Every time a government minister goes abroad and tries to lecture a corrupt dictator they are going to see this thrown back in their face," says Neil Cooper, of Bradford University's peace-studies department. "It will undermine efforts to promote the rule of law abroad in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan."


Copyright © 2006 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.

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limeys kiss ass, again

dec 31, 2006

i have mentioned my opinion that the brits are very willing to kiss anybody's ass if they have money. they are doing that in bucketloads to arabs and other mohammedans now.

also, there was a time when they genuflected to mahathir mohammed when the latter (thug, racist and bigot, but pretty clever nevertheless) threatened to cancel all brit contracts unless they basically crawled. and so they did.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Shahryar

 
 
 
UK's 'banana politics' on BAE
 
 
Britain has been accused of behaving like a banana republic over the controversial decision to drop a fraud investigation into BAE Systems and Saudi Arabia, a story the Guardian has investigated over several years.
 
The accusation is all the more pointed because it comes from Anwar Ibrahim, the former deputy Malaysian prime minister turned anti-corruption campaigner.
 
Mr Ibrahim, now the president of AccountAbility, a UK-based group promoting good governance, told Guardian Unlimited: "To say that it was in the national interest to stop the Serious Fraud Office [SFO] investigation was shocking. It reminds me of the modus operandi of a banana republic."
 
Mr Ibrahim thought long and hard about criticising the British government because he is on good terms with the chancellor, Gordon Brown, and strongly supports his initiatives on Africa, debt cancellation and more aid.
 
He is also grateful for Tony Blair's support when he was jailed by the Malaysian government on trumped-up charges of corruption and sodomy in 1998.
 
However, Mr Ibrahim - who fell out with the former Mahathir government over his campaign against corruption in Malaysia - felt compelled to speak out because he believes the BAE episode not only undermines Britain's leadership position on development issues, but also damages all those campaigning against corruption.
 
"What better reference point and benchmark for corrupt politicians and business people alike around the world to be able to speak of the case of 'Britain's national interests' in justifying cronyism, nepotism or straightforward, arms-length bribery," Mr Ibrahim said in a statement.
 
Larry Elliott, the Guardian's economics editor, made the same point, arguing that it will be that much harder for Britain to make the case to an African leader to crack down on corruption in return for aid - because he will simply respond by saying: BAE.
 
Mr Ibrahim feels the attorney general's decision to drop the SFO case on the advice of the prime minister on grounds of national interest pulls the rug from under Mr Brown (lots of fodder for conspiracy theorists here).
 
For the past 10 years, Mr Brown has staked out a leadership role on international development issues, linking debt cancellation and aid with good governance and anti-corruption measures.
 
Mr Ibrahim argues that Britain has forfeited a position built up - mainly by the chancellor - over the years.
 
"Your commission on Africa is as dead as if it were never born," he said, "and efforts to persuade companies and governments to sign up to important accountability innovations such as the Extractive Industry Transparency initiative just became a whole lot harder, if not impossible."

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new entry in adheet's blog

dec 31, 2006

do check out adheet's blog.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Adheet
Date: Dec 24, 2006 4:34 PM
Subject: new entry in blog
To:

Friends

I have uploaded some new content at my blog

www.chanakya2006.blogspot.com

Please visit and revert with comments!

thanks

new yorker on counterinsurgency

dec 31, 2006

interesting stuff.

the kashmir insurgency could be defeated using some of these ideas.

i have the URL of the us army and marine corps handbook on counterinsurgency mentioned in this article, but have been unsuccessful in downloading the darn thing (actually just did download all 282 pages of it). it was given in an interesting dialog in the nytimes book review section between two war historians, max boot and geoffrey wheatcroft.
 http://usacac.army.mil/cac/repository/materials/coin-fm3-24.pdf

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ga

christist pedophile predator tranferred to 'safe' kerala

dec 31, 2006

kerala being a safe place for the predator, because of the clout of his fellow-cultists.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ram

http://mid-day.com/news/nation/2006/december/148925.htm

how to write a NYTimes editorial or article about india

dec 31, 2006

good one.

this reminded me of the Dada Engine software that automatically produces the idiocy that is passed off by romila thapar and k n pannikar as history. see:

http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2005/04/how-r-thapar-and-k-n-pannikar-write.html



=====

In this piece, blogger neelakantan comes uncannily close to unraveling the NYT
editorial policy on writing about India. Someone sould keep building on this as
there is no dearth of new material, although mostly old wine in a new bottle.
Maybe we can come up with a "Write about India for Dummies" bestseller.

Sanjay

Thursday, December 28, 2006
How to write about India?

Or how to be successful/popular/sought after as a journalist/writer/author
especially abroad. Here are the rule(s) of thumb when writing about India for a
Western audience...

Heres how you go about it.

Your piece has to start well. Therefore you first create, with good
vocabulary, a nice paragraph on the social inequities. Keywords to be used are
caste, poverty, illiteracy. Statistics like 80% of India lives on farms or 50%
of India is illiterate or 70% of India do not use soap can be very handy. Other
than percentages, use population figures. 4,32, 1235 houses do not have more
than 12 volts of electricity for 3 days of the week would make a great sentence.
Include a few names like Vidharba, Madurai if you want greater impact other than
the usual outskirts of Bangalore or Hyderabad or slums of Mumbai.

If you want to become particularly rabid mention child marriage. A comparison
with Pakistan and Bangladesh at this juncture would make great reading
especially from a literacy rates or the great strides those two nations have
made. If you have to mention China, mention that they are simply a great nation
or that they will overtake India in the next 3 minutes. Never, not even once,
create an impression that overall India is moving in the right direction.

The second paragraph should be about India's growth in the last few years.
Dont forget to add a sentence in the end of this para to denounce the growth.
Keep this para as short as possible. Keywords are myth, haves vs have nots,
elitist bias. So, a sentence in this paragraph should read, even though Indias
IT and BPO sector has grown, farmers commit suicides. Do not, repeat, do not
make a connection that reforms have never really happened in the farm sector and
that it is because reforms have not reached them that this happens. Insist, by
repeated assertion, that it is IT and its success at the expense of the farm
sector that causes this to happen.

In the third para or thereabouts, compare to death. Example: Compare the life
of an educated professional with a gardener and say that the gardener earns
about 1/10th of what the professional earns. The other good comparison is the
number of hutments outside the balcony of your hotel room or the number of
beggars in trains. Wonder aloud why reforms have not reached beggars travelling
on trains. In the same trend close your eyes to the number of people cellphones
have reached, also close your eyes to how individuals are pulling themselves out
of poverty using these very things.

Over the next few paras, whine and whine. Now that you already know how to
write, just continue in the same vein. For every one sentence of Indias growth,
three sentence have to denounce it in the strongest terms. Mention two murders
which took place recently.

Somewhere just before the end, mention that Indias progress has not benefitted
anybody. Do not talk about people who have gotten out of poverty thanks to this
progress. Try to ignore gardeners who maintain lawns in the IT campuses, also
ignore cab drivers who are cab owners today. Preferably avoid talking to maids
and security guards who would not have had a job if it were not for this level
of growth. Try not to talk to people who are working hard so that their children
are educated and their next generation gets out of poverty. Also, if you have to
mention that the BPO sector attracts fresh graduates, mention that these jobs
are bad for their gall bladder at the very least. Ignore the fact that jobs are
available for the asking in India at almost all levels. Cooks to caterers to
security guards to courier boys to shop assistants to technology architects to
structural engineers. Also never once, ask the question to the man on the street
- has their life changed for the
better over the last 10 years. (Believe me, the resounding answer, except in
dark corners will be a resounding yes.)

Your last paragraph has to sound a warning to all those who read your article.
Mention about how people and companies and the government has to take more
responsibility for poverty and paint it with a broad brush of "private public
partnership to make a significant impact".

And oh, the headline of your article should read something quite apocalyptic.
"Social inequality threatens Indias Economic growth"

Btw, India really is about contrasts. While not getting carried away by the
growth and saying all is well here, let us also not go to the other extreme of
saying that the reforms have done nothing and that all is wrong here. Neither
will reforms take away inequity all of a sudden nor will inequity take away
reforms. Both these arguments miss the wood for the trees.
http://ecophilo.blogspot.com/2006/12/how-to-write-about-india.html

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

reasons 237, 238, and 239 for why christism is a dumb cult

dec 25, 2006

in the spirit of christmas (natch!) here is why christism is a dumb semitic cult for the terminally clueless.

if you are a believer in this stuff, here's something for you: your god -- ye olde yhwh himself -- called me the other day and said, 'rajeev, go out there and raise $10 million. or else i'll call oral roberts "home".' so in case you don't want oral roberts to go "home", please send  money. amazingly, this stuff works -- idiot rednecks in the (american) south did send $10 million to old oral when he made a similar plea a few years ago. as p t barnum said, there's a sucker born every minute.

so, now to those reasons:

237. they put up all these lights (and stars in india), totally light up the place and waste enormous amounts of electricity -- think serious global warming -- to celebrate the mythical birth of their hoax 'founder'. christmas, in case you just tuned in, is the stolen druidic celebration of the winter solstice. there is no evidence that jesus was born on dec 25th, and in fact, there is no evidence that he was born at all. he is a hoax.

so we should start campaigns to outlaw christmas lighting. it adds the equivalent of 100,000 cars belching CO2 into the atmosphere. this is serious environmental degradation.

238. to add to the environmental damage, they cut down millions of trees, bring them into their homes, and then toss them in the garbage, adding to landfill problems. this is the equivalent of another 100,000 cars worth of C02 not being recycled because the trees were cut down. and this also means more good land being taken up for trash. in case the trees are plastic, that stuff will not degrade for 10,000 years.

so this entire tree business needs to be outlawed as a major waste. where are you, ye NGOs of india, who are so concerned about pollution and the environment?

239. they are taking up increasing amounts of land to preserve the moldy bones of their dead people. the idiotic idea behind this is that they will eventually all rise to heaven (ha, ha! reminds me of the 72 white raisins story!) *in* these moldy bones. yeah right -- you really think you want to walk around in heaven in the remnants of your bones? if not, why do you care if your bones are recycled into the earth?

so this cemetery business is total bullshits. at the rate these christists are multiplying, eventually, *all* the productive farmland in their part of the world will become cemeteries. there should be a campaign to bury these blighters *vertically* so that they take up only a 2 ft*2 ft space, rather than a 6ft * 3 ft space. campaign, anyone? so much more sensible to cremate dead people.

you know about colma, california, right? it's a town near san francisco, which basically is a bunch of cemeteries connected by roads. behold the future of christist cities: they will all become like colma. lots of sick jokes about the 'dead center of town'.

Islam's golden age comes to life

dec 25th, 2006

yes, more gibberish about mohammedan contributions to civilization. in point of fact, there are no mohammedan contributions to civilization, unless you count the fine art of lying (al-taqiyah) as a contribution.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Shahryar

More lies about the mythical Islamic golden age repeated by the usual gullible ill-educated western journalist!
 
 

Islam's golden age comes to life

Students celebrate scholars and poets of a great empire

By Stephen Magagnini - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PST Saturday, December 23, 2006

Poets and philosophers, merchants and mathematicians, artisans and astronomers re-enacted the Golden Age of Islam at the Al-Arqam Islamic School in south Sacramento on Friday.
 
The artistry, story-telling and role-playing was a creation of 233 students from kindergarten through ninth grade who brought to life the sights, tastes and smells of an Islamic empire that spanned three continents from the eighth to the 13th centuries.
 
From incense to Turkish coffee, dates to oranges, minarets to miniature mosques and castles -- you could find it all at The Islamic Civilization Exhibit and Festival in the school's multipurpose room.
 
Pageantry was accompanied by plenty of food for thought.
 
In the midst of this "village" teeming with children dressed in Saudi, Afghan, Palestinian, Pakistani, Egyptian and Moroccan garments, a large gold and blue tent set the stage for a debate among nine famous Muslim scholars.
 
Ibn Battuta (12-year-old Abdurrahman Husnein)was considered the greatest tourist of the 14th century. He followed the Prophet Muhammad's advice to "seek knowledge even if it takes you to China."
 
Ibn Sina (10-year old Belal Ahmed) insisted that his Canon of Medicine was a more important contribution because "My work saves lives!" Sina lived from 980 to 1037.
 
The father of algebra, Muhammad Ibn Musa Al-Khawarizmi (11-year-old Javed Maroon) responded, "I created the decimal system and the use of zero ... I educate the lives you save." The mathematician lived from 770 to 840.
 
Imam Malik (13-year-old Ossama Kamel), who compiled thousands of sayings from the Prophet Muhammad, warned the others against arrogance. "No one who has an atom's weight of pride in his heart will enter the garden," he quoted the prophet as saying.
 
Kamel said the festival "gives us pride in our religion -- these scholars are Islam, and people who are doing wrong today, that's not really Islam."
 
Dozens of other Muslim scholars were represented, including seventh-grader Nimra A. Syed's favorite, Al-Jazari, the first-known mechanical engineer who invented water clocks, combination locks and double-action water pumps.
 
She said that Al-Jazari, who lived from 1150 to 1220, was born in Iraq and wrote "The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices."
 
"The coolest thing about this guy is some inventors don't look like they have fun in their lives, and he made some practical-joke devices," Nimra said. The inventions included a drinking container that looked full when empty, and a glass that looked empty but spilled water out when it tipped over.
 
And fourth-grader Shareef Sadek was captivated by Abu-Uthman Al-Jahiz, a writer who penned an environmentalist yarn, "The Story of Abu Said, The Recycler." It's a tale of a man who would hoard his garbage and sift through it, saving items he could re-use such as pomegranate skins for red dye and chicken bones for fuel.
 
The exhibit was filled with fascinating lessons, such as the origin of the word "mattress," which comes from matrah, Arabic for "a place where things are thrown." In addition, the youths said Muslim doctors were the first to document patient histories, and carried out the first cataract surgery.
 
Many kids flocked to the market, where Safa Khan and Hameed Ahmadi, two 9-year-olds, hawked oranges, dates, dried apricots and eggplant.
 
"Try some oranges," Khan said with a smile, then confessed, "I'd rather go with some sugar-coated almonds."
 
Vice principal Dalia Wardany, who organized the festival, said her students learned the power of knowledge.
 
"These kids are the torch bearers of our religion," said Wardany. "If they rely on their skills and talents, they can do something positive for future generations."

About the writer:

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Saturday, December 23, 2006

separate IITs, IIMs, KVs... for .....

22nd dec 2006

of course, arjun "saudis gave me $4billion" singh will immediately put this into effect.

now how about a whole separate country for mohammedans?

oops... forgot -- we already gave them a separate country: pakistan.

those who want all this separate stuff can be invited to emigrate.

actually they want several more separate countries: mughalistan, greater bengalimohammedanstan, hyderabadirazakarstan, moplahstan, etc.

and the christists want: kmmanistan, samuelreddystan, trbaalustan (which are approximately kerala, andhra, tamil nadu)

at the end of it, india will be: laalustan.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: arun
Date: Dec 22, 2006 4:52 AM
Subject: seperate IITs, IIMs, KVs... for .....
To:

guess we can name them Indian Institute of Maulvis (IIM), Indian Institute of Tablighis (IIT)  and so on

Hyd School Kid beaten for wearing kumkum

22nd dec 2006

it's a crime to be a hindu in manmohan 'invertebrate' singh's india.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rag

IMPORTANT:
Please forward this to all your friends, relatives, Indians, NRIs and Human Rights groups
 
 

Hyd kid beaten for wearing kumkum

Posted Thursday , December 21, 2006 at 13:08
Updated Thursday , December 21, 2006 at 13:48
 
BEATEN TRACK: Sarvesh Yadav claims he was beaten up by his English teacher for wearing kumkum and mala in school.
BEATEN TRACK: Sarvesh Yadav claims he was beaten up by his English teacher for wearing kumkum and mala in school.
New Delhi: In a bizarre incident, a student was allegedly beat up by his teacher for attending the school wearing kumkum and mala.
Sarvesh Yadav, a fifth standard student of Hyderabad's St Christ Church School, claims he was beaten up by his English teacher and sent home for wearing kumkum and mala after taking the Ayappaswamy diksha.
He was also not allowed to appear for his exams. His mother, Jyoti Yadav, says they had not been told about any such rule. "How can wearing a bindi be this big an issue. If he doesn't want to follow the rules, let him sit at home," she says.
But the school authorities denied the allegations. "All these days, we have allowed him to wear that dress. But they had made some plan when they came to school today. We don't have any religious bias and treat all children equally—be it Christians, Muslim or Hindus," says the headmistress, Miss S Solomon.
The school has been provided security by the police after an angry mob allegedly manhandled the school incharge.
 

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kishore mehbubani on india at YaleGlobal Online

22nd dec 2006

mehbubani is a smart guy, but anyone who has to quote nehru and a. sen about india is way behind the times. (note that a. sen said that hindus are no good: the only good kings in india were a buddhist and a mohammedan, ashoka and akbar, which shows more than anything else a. sen's ignorance. he hasnt heard of rajaraja chola or krishnadeva raya, or he ignores them because they are hindus. similarly, j. nehru's history is mostly fiction and may actually have been written by irfan habib's father!)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: vps





Asian nations grow more confident, more optimistic, even as the US withdraws from global leadership, fearful after the 9/11 attacks and lashing out in anger like a wounded animal, without plans or purpose. By condoning torture and instigating war while overlooking pressing problems, the US has abandoned lofty principles it once embraced. With that context, former Singapore ambassador to the United Nations, Kishore Mahbubani, offers predictions about the direction India is likely to take as an emerging power: The country will retain its cultural pride and not shy away from its clothing styles or cultural traditions. Likewise, India will show diminished interest in the West. The country will retain democracy, respect for human rights and other values, but apply those values in the context of its own history and culture. Finally, India will continue striving for inclusiveness rather than exclusiveness. As such, India may once again act as a bridge for multiple cultures – and show that as a major power it does not stand alone, but can cooperate fruitfully with the rest of the world. – YaleGlobal





India: Emerging as Eastern or Western Power?

India can follow in the footsteps of Japan or China – or even forge its own path


Kishore Mahbubani
YaleGlobal, 19 December 2006



Showing true colors: A confident India stands up and doesn't follow anybody's model

SINGAPORE: Pundits agree: India will be the third great Asian power to emerge, after Japan and China. Japan emerged self-consciously as a Western power. China has made no pretensions in that direction. What will be India's path?

Figuring India's direction is not easy. What is the nature of era we are living in, Eastern or Western? Also what is the nature of Indian civilization itself?




A century ago, we lived in the Western era of human history. Japan emerged as a Western power because there seemed to be no alternative to Western power in 1868. Japanese Meiji reformer Yukichi Fukuzawa said: "Our immediate policy, therefore, should be to lose no time in waiting for the enlightenment of our neighbouring countries in order to join them in developing Asia, but rather to depart from their ranks and cast our lot with the civilized countries of the West.1 Sun Yat Sen also acknowledged superiority of the West: "We, the modern people of China, are all useless, but if in the future we use Western civilization as a model, we can easily turn weakness into strength, and the old into the new.2

Similarly, India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru said: "The search for the sources of India's strength and for her deterioration and decay is long and intricate. Yet the recent causes of that decay are obvious enough. She fell behind in the march of technique, and Europe, which had long been backward in many matters, took the lead in technical progress.3 Would these Asian statesmen, if alive today, readily acknowledge the superiority of the West?




Many in the West have never felt so insecure, both in their daily lives and sense of future. Remarkably, one man sitting in a cave in Afghanistan has unleashed much of this insecurity. A few young English Muslims aggravated it further. Lou Dobbs has convinced many Americans that outsourcing to Asia is the next big threat to America. Europeans, by contrast, feel threatened when a British citizen of Indian ancestry, Lakshmi Mittal, tries to buy a European steel company, all the while playing by European rules. All these are examples of insecurity.

If the Goldman Sachs BRICs study is accurate, three of the four largest economies in the year 2050 will be Asian: China, USA, Indian and Japan. It is hard to engage in Western triumph if this triumph does not rest on a conviction of perpetually superior economic performance.

Something equally important has occurred in the moral dimension. If anyone had suggested 15 years ago that Western countries would allow the use of torture, he would have been dismissed out of hand. But this has happened. In 2005, Irene Khan, the head of the Amnesty International, said: "Guantanamo is the gulag of our times." If her statement was untrue, there should have been a rush of denials from the West. If her statement was true, an equally strong chorus of voices would have demanded that this had to stop. Apart from a few flutters of regret, nothing really happened. The gulag continued.

This silence of the West has resulted in a profound shift in how leading Asian minds view the West. Instead of seeing the West as a paragon of virtue, they now see an emperor with no moral clothing.

The good news here is that many of these "Western" values may not be uniquely Western, and other custodians could emerge.

The West believes that it alone championed "freedom" and "tolerance." But Amartya Sen points to the Indian emperor Ashoka, "who during the third century BCE covered the country with inscriptions on stone tablets about good behaviour and wise governance, including a demand for basic freedoms for all – indeed, he did not exclude women and slaves as Aristotle did.4

Sen's point is that the great divide between the East and West may be artificial, that the values of freedom and tolerance, reason and logic, may not be uniquely Western.

Against this backdrop, let me offer concrete predictions about how India will emerge:

My first prediction is that Indians, unlike the Japanese, are going to wear less rather than more Western clothing. Clothing helps define one's identity. Try to imagine another Mahatma Gandhi or Jawaharlal Nehru without their trademark Indian garb.




Second, India will gradually drift away from the West. The West will continue to lose the magical place it has enjoyed in the global imagination. Part of this is will be a result of relative economic performance. There was a time when many Asians believed that Westerners were inherently superior. Today, the cultural confidence of Asians is immense. Most people in the West have not noticed this because cultural confidence is intangible. But Asians are fully aware, no longer amazed to see Asians top the lists of leading global entrepreneurs or academic achievers in leading American universities.

But there is another practical reason why many in the West have not noticed the rising cultural confidence of Asians. Most Western opinions are generated by a small group of Western pundits – whether they be in "The New York Times" or "Financial Times." A deep conviction of Western civilizational superiority seeps through their writings. Strangely enough, in our information-rich universe, Western voices continue to speak to other Western voices on the basis of deep-seated assumptions of Western superiority, while the rest of the world drifts from these assumptions.

With the West losing its magical place in the human imagination, it is also likely that the desire to emulate the West will diminish in India and the rest of the world. India will continue with some of the finest political traditions it has inherited from the West: Democracy, a respect for human rights and respect for the rule of law. But increasingly, Indians will claim these traditions as their own, just as Western philosophers happily accepted the work of Islamic rationalists and claimed their ideas as their own.




My third prediction is that, with the growing detachment between the West and the rest, India will once again resume its natural role as the meeting point for the great civilizations. At a time when many in the West are convinced that the West cannot co-exist in peace with the Islamic world, they will increasingly marvel at how India has accommodated many civilizations – including the Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic and Christian civilizations – and how most live in peace with one another most of the time.

A spirit of inclusiveness pervades Indian political and social culture. While the West often tries to discuss the world in black-and-white terms, the Indian mind sees the nuances.

Take Iran as a case study. The West cannot see beyond the relatively new and brief theocratic rule of Iran. Indians however see a rich and deep Persian civilization that has contributed so much to the development of both Asian and Indian cultures. Hence, while the West insists on cutting itself off from Iran, Indians naturally believe in engagement, even though the Indian government disapproves of the Iranian nuclear program.

This capacity for engaging other cultures may well mean that India could play a bridging role between the West and the East. Or, it could play a bigger role of convincing leading Western minds that they should stop seeing themselves as guardians of one leading civilization. A great crusade is needed to convince the West that it is essentially no different from the rest. India may well play a leading role in this crusade.

Kishore Mahbubani is the dean and practice professor of public policy at the LKY School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, and author of "Can Asians Think" and "Beyond the Age of Innocence: Rebuilding Trust between America and the World." This article is adapted from remarks delivered by Professor Mahbubani at the annual lecture of the Center for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania, in New York City on November 9, 2006.

1 Shunsaku, Nishikawa. 1993. "Fukuzawa Yukichi." Prospects: the quarterly review of comparative education (UNESCO: International Bureau of Education), vol. XXIII, no. 3/4, p.8. (The quote is from the article "Datsu-A Ron" (Leaving Asia) is published in Jiji-shimpo, 16 March 1885. The translation is by Sinh Vinh in Fukuzawa Yukichi nenkan [Annals], vol. 11, Mita, Tokyo, Fukuzawa Yukichi kyokai, 1984.)

2 "Zai dongjing zhongguo liuxuesheng huanying dahui de yanshuo" in Sun Zhongshan quanji, vol. 1, p. 278.

3 Jawaharlal Nehru, "The Discovery of India." New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1980.

4 Amartya Sen, "The Argumentative Indian." London: Penguin Books, 2005, p. 284.



Rights:
© 2006 Yale Center for the Study of Globalization

economist guy continues his trip around india

dec 22nd, 2006

he is pleased that a white woman is the puppeteer.

http://www.economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8443408&fsrc=nwl

Tech targets the Third World

dec 22nd 2006

interesting new motophone, among other things.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From:

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12.22.2006
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Tech targets the Third World
Making sophisticated products cheaply and in huge numbers is how the giants hope to grow.
By David Kirkpatrick, Fortune senior editor

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Carly Fiorina may have gotten some things wrong when she was CEO of Hewlett-Packard, but she did show an admirably early understanding of one of the most important trends in tech. Back as far as 1999, she was championing something HP called World e-Inclusion, a program to focus the company's resources on creating products and services for the world's poor and developing nations.

Today, efforts like that are top of mind at many of the biggest technology companies. AMD, Cisco, Google (Charts), IBM (Charts), Intel (Charts), Microsoft (Charts), Motorola, Nokia and Sun, among others, are resolutely focused on the opportunities presented by the developing world. They are interested because of a wonderful combination of social concern and greed.

This is the largest market any of these companies have ever seen - the first ever whose size can be routinely measured in billions of people.

The entire world is hungry for technology. I recently had the privilege to give a speech on technology and the developing world to a group at the United Nations in New York. In the speech I enumerate many specific initiatives big tech companies have launched. (Ironically, Fiorina's successor at HP Mark Hurd seems to have deep-sixed the e-Inclusion work.)

Americans too often talk about the tech industry as if it primarily transacted its business here. But the biggest companies see it otherwise. They need growth, and realize it can be had helping the poor. The logic is simple - if you provide the poor with tools that increase their earning power, they will be able to earn more and pay you for those tools.

The appetite for tech is striking in countries around the world, even in places you might not expect. I recently asked Paul Mountford, Cisco's (Charts) head of emerging markets, if there were any new countries he had encountered that were aiming to use IT to speed up growth in the way that Korea, Taiwan and Singapore have done in recent decades. He said the first country that came to his mind was Libya.

The cellphone is by far the most important tool for connection in developing countries. There are an estimated 1.5 billion cellphones now in use in the developing world. That figure will grow to at least 3 billion over the next five years. In India alone, 5 million new customers sign up for cellphones every week.

More than 80 percent of the world's population, calculates Motorola, already lives in an area covered by wireless networks. People are starting to talk about owning a cellphone as a basic human right. And cellphones in the developing world are generally used heavily for the micro-businesses that so many individuals and families there maintain.

Motorola (Charts) already has many millions of orders for its new Motofone, built specifically for emerging markets. Even slimmer than the celebrated RAZR, it will sell for around $30.

Motofone gets up to 400 hours of standby time on one battery charge, enabling its use in environments where electricity is scarce. It uses a very large screen that works in reflected light, using no internal lamps, specially enabled for text messaging. (Short text messages are even more important in developing economies than they are in developed ones.)

The Motofone also illustrates how the poorest markets are increasingly served with the most sophisticated high technology. To make Motofone both simple and cheap enough, Motorola had to apply state-of-the art design and electronics.

The business strategist C.K. Prahalad has had a huge impact in the tech industry with his book "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid." It explains, among other things, how products made for developing countries can prove tremendously valuable in developed ones as well.

You are likely to want a Motofone. But technologies like this will appear first in the developing world, and only later penetrate places like the United States.

Another example is the so-called $100 laptop for students in developing countries championed by Nicholas Negroponte of MIT's Media Lab. Negroponte's team has made breakthroughs in the screen, power source and physical design, among other things. People will salivate for it in the United States and Europe even as it gets launched next year in Latin America, Africa and rural Asia.

This trend will continue the profoundly anti-inflationary global impact of the tech industry, whose products typically get cheaper even as they improve. (For instance, the newest iPod shuffle holds 240 songs and costs $80, but replaced one that held 120 songs for $100.)

In coming years we will see an explosion of new technologies for broadband, for mobile computing, for education and health care - and the first place in the world many of these will take root will be in developing countries where there is no legacy system problem, no installed base, just a huge mass of eager people. The next five years will begin a golden era for technology to empower the poor.

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Thursday, December 21, 2006

on pathans

dec 20th, 2006

this is an excellent example of the way white people have always felt about pathans. they have been intimidated and awed by the violence and primitive brutishness of the tribes. also, the pathans have actually defeated the christists in the british-afghan wars, wiping out their expeditionary force, including the whites and their indian conscripts, massacring them to basically the last man.

therefore the white christists are scared of pathans. they are not scared of hindus, because hindus are not violent. net net, the only people who get any respect are the violent ones. we need some violent people to get respect.

this same fear is seen in the manomohansingh-soniagandhi-arjunsingh type of person in india. thus they will do anything to appease the mohammedans, imputing afghan-type violent tendencies to them. and it is equally fruitless because it simply increases their demands.

not only is it the white guys, but i also believe that certain white females -- such as barbara crossette, robin raphel -- have entertained notions about afghan virility that have clouded their judgment. in this case it is a mixture of horror and fascination about the afghans' well-established preference for anal sex, and for young boys. i have read british colonial-era books too in which the white women had this fantasy-horror-desire about being raped by these very manly and tough pathans.

http://www.economist.com/world/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8345531

also, i found this passage remarkable:

To settle disputes, Mr Kuchi has two main options. He can order a guilty party to compensate its victim with cash, a practice known as wich pur, "dry debt", or he can order the two parties to exchange women, or lund pur, "wet debt". By binding the antagonists together—just as in medieval European diplomacy—lund pur is considered more effective. Typically it involves exchanging a 15-year-old, a ten-year-old and a five-year-old girl, to be married into three succeeding generations of the enemy clan. Thereby, and though human-rights groups understandably revile the practice, Pushtuns have peace and happy grandfathers.

i dont think 'lund pur' means exactly 'wet debt', if i remember my hindi/urdu, it is rather more graphic and picturesque than that.

and the white guy writing this seems a little jealous of 'the happy grandfathers', ie. the guys getting to marry the fifteen-year-olds.

this sort of acceptance of extreme chattelization of women betrays the white guy's own semitic perspective that women are worth nothing.

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Re: one face of the enemy



On 12/20/06,  wrote:
dec 19th, 2006

this inane semitic cult is very successful in india. i keep hearing of normal people become 'benthicos' and then becoming complete maniacs. for instance they refuse to accept medicine but instead will 'pray' to he-who-doesnt-exist. which is good, hopefully a lot of them will perish that way.

the incredible capacity of the semitic ideologies to create ever more extreme neo-semitic cults never ceases to amaze. remember jonestown? remember the branch davidians?

http://www.economist.com/world/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8401206&fsrc=nwlptwfree

something new for terrorists: polonium bombs

dec 19th, 2006

oh great, just bloody wonderful.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/19/opinion/19zimmerman.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

btw, the atlanticists are really up in arms against russia these days: for the fact that russia is holding them to ransom with oil and gas.

but the atlanticists are quite happy to be held to ransom by arabs.


economist guy is scared of his job being outsourced to india

dec 20th, 2006

as i was saying a while ago about their india correspondent, their america correspondent (presumably the guy from the silicon valley) is worried too. and so he should be.

http://www.economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8443408&fsrc=nwl

atlanticists' view of the future

dec 19th, 2006

download that pdf document.

i like tatasoft as the 2nd largest company and ranbaxywhatever as another huge one in 2060.

http://www.eiu.com/site_info.asp?info_name=eiu_Setting_the_standard_for_60_years

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Fwd: State plans fund for Christian pilgrims

dec 19th, 2006

why not? after all, empress sonia 'constantine' maino is in power.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Narayan

http://www.deccan.com/home/homedetails.asp#State%20plans%20fund%20for%20%20Christian%20pilgrims
State plans fund for Christian pilgrims
Hyderabad, Dec. 18: The State government would consider a subsidy for Christians to travel to Bethlehem, Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy said on Monday. Responding to Hyderabad Archbishop Marampudi Joji's request at the United Christmas Celebrations, Chief Minister Y.S. Rajashekar Reddy assured that the government would study the possibility and financial implications of such a subsidy.

At present, the government subsidises Muslim pilgrims to perform the Haj. Bishop Joji said, "I visited the holy land and prayed at the place where Jesus was born. I request the government to assist Christians to fulfil their wish of making a pilgrimage to the holy land by subsiding the cost to some extent."

Dr Reddy replied, "The government is allotting a budget for construction of churches in towns and villages. While increasing the allocation we can adjust some money." On the issue of dalit Christians, Bishop Joji said, "Dalit Christians should be given SC status. I request the Chief Minister to get a resolution passed in the Assembly, as the UP Assembly has done, and send the recommendation to the Prime Minister, as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu has done." Dr Reddy assured that he would examine the proposal. Bishop Sugandhar, legislator Christine Lazarus among others took part in the celebrations.


Monday, December 18, 2006

Saturday, December 16, 2006

High IQ link to being vegetarian

dec 15th, 2006

a conscientious abstainer from meat -- who, born into an omnivorous family, decided at the age of 14 to become a vegetarian, and is now in her late 40s -- forwarded this to me.

there may be something to this. all those animal toxins do end up messing up your body. and animals themselves concentrate the toxins in whatever they ingest.

this raises the question though: is it that high IQ people become vegetarian for ethical and health reasons, or is it that vegetarians get to have high IQ? which way is the cause - effect relationship pointing?

anyway vegetarianism is a sensible thing all around. and if you have the likes of madras woodlands and saravana bhavan around to indulge your palate with genuine udipi cuisine, well, why not? just watch it with those laddus and jhangris and mysorepaks (or is it 'mysorepa'(TM)?).

i must say, though, that the best masala dosas are in chennai (and in singapore, and the silicon valley), not udipi -- has to do with the sambar, which in udipi itself is rather thin and a little sweet, almost rasam-like compared to the robustly thick tamil sambar. and i just went to udipi a few weeks ago and did a taste-test on the sambar, so there. bangalore masala dosas are good, but they put that chili paste in them, god knows why.

kerala sambar is also pretty wimpy, and kerala dosas are too thick. but the appams and vegetable stew -- yummy!


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: amrita

** High IQ link to being vegetarian **
Intelligent children are more likely to become vegetarians later in life, a study says.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/health/6180753.stm >



wharton's expectations of how 2007 will shape up

dec 15th, 2006

they are giving india a passing grade.

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1621&CFID=3144872&CFTOKEN=85892481

but i am getting a little nervous: the dollar is nosediving against the
euro and other strong currencies (although not against the rupee). i
suspect it is time to move some dollars into rupees, which is what i am
doing. mutual funds in india have had a great run in the last few years,
so i am getting into some funds. i am not sure what return to expect
after inflation (which is around 7% in india these days). the risk
premium in india has been high, but i am also a little concerned that
the steam is going to go out of technoloyg industry. happily, there is
infrastructure and retail to take up the slack. i think the india story
in 5 years should be good, but there will be some trying times in between.

any of you international finance wizards reading this have an opinion?

of course, all bets are off if the kaangress-marxist charade continues.
the sooner these charlatans are kicked out the better. latest example of
their mating dance: the marxists call for a nationwide strike -- against
a government they keep in place!

Friday, December 15, 2006

Periyar-12dec2006 SANDHYA JAIN ARTICLE 1047 WORDS

resending

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rajeev
Date: Dec 14, 2006 1:11 PM
Subject: Periyar-12dec2006 SANDHYA JAIN ARTICLE 1047 WORDS
To:

14th dec 2006

sandhya's article.


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sandhya J

Pioneer-12December2006

Periyar and Sri Rama

 

Sandhya Jain

 

Fourteen years after the removal of the offending Babri structure at his sacred birthplace, Sri Rama returned on 6 December 2006 to face his greatest modern iconoclast, the late EV Ramasamy Naicker. EVR or Periyar, as he was popularly called, was the most avid native votary of the colonial myth of the Aryan Invasion of north India and its supposed expulsion of the 'original' Dravidian inhabitants to the south.

 

            Tutored well by Invasion theorists, Periyar projected Hindu dharma as an Aryan imposition from the north, concentrating his bile especially upon Sri Rama, moral exemplar of Hindu dharma. Interpreting the Ramayana as a text depicting Dravidian subordination, he projected Ravana as more ethical than Sri Rama, Sitaji and Sugriva. Besides vigorously propagating his retelling of the Ramayana, Periyar openly indulged in vandalism and iconoclasm of the images of Sri Rama, Sitaji and other Hindu deities. He is reputed to have claimed that the Dravidian movement would attain ultimate victory the day Sri Ranganatha (Mahavishnu) at Srirangam and Chidambaranatha (Shiva) at Chidambaram were blown apart and their temples razed to the ground with canons.

Instigated thus by colonial officials and their missionary cohorts, Tamil society came to accept an invented Dravidian identity and to create a chillingly anti-Hindu polity, which even assumed anti-India separatist overtones. Fortunately, Periyar's Dravidar Kazhagam (DK) movement split as a section of his followers could not digest his marriage to an exceedingly young girl, and though MG Ramachandran later wisely closed the separatist chapter, the corrosive legacy of Tamil particularism is yet to be fully undone.

I believe the current violence in Tamil Nadu, triggered by righteous Hindu anger against an EVR statue furtively placed in front of the Ranganathaswamy temple in Srirangam, symbolizes Hindu society's growing confidence in tackling offences by its successive colonial oppressors. Indeed, I view the decision to illegally install the statue in the dead of  night on 21 November as a last ditch attempt to force new generation Tamils to retain the movement's atheistic (read anti-Hindu) orientation. This is because in recent times it has become apparent that Tamil youth are wearying of the political culture of atheism and seek anchorage in Hindu dharma and civilization, symbolized in open visits to temples and reverence for Hindu deities.

The placing of EVR's statue in front of a renowned temple, doubly sacred for its proximity to the footprints of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, was not just a deliberate provocation, but a desperate reiteration of the old missionary Hindu-baiting agenda. It bears noting that though the decision to install EVR's statue was taken in 1973 when the DMK was in power, it could not be implemented due to sustained Hindu resistance. In the 1990s, a law forbade putting up statues without government permission; hence the Karunanidhi regime is complicit in the statue's illegal installation as it failed to remove it despite a Hindu outcry. Indeed, the regime facilitated inauguration of a bronze EVR statue at the same site on 10 December, after violence followed damage to the stone sculpture by outraged Hindus on 6 December. This wholesale availability of Periyar statues is suspicious and suggests a deep anti-Hindu conspiracy.

The State Government has been slow to contain organized violence by DK cadres. Hindu devotees complain of attacks on the Sankara Matham at Salem, Sri Raghavendra Swami Matham at Erode, the famous Ayodhya Mandapam at West Mambalam, Chennai and several other temples and mathams. Brahmin priests have been assaulted with dangerous weapons, their top-knots and holy threads cut off, and the murtis of Hindu deities desecrated and beaten with slippers. No political party or leader, either at Central or State level, has condemned this motivated attack upon Hindu dharma and its sacred institutions.

 

It is pertinent that when police arrested four Hindu Makkal Katchi (HMK) followers for damaging EVR's statue, they found that the principal accused was an OBC (like Periyar himself), while the other three were Scheduled Castes. Shocked, Chief Minister Karunanidhi stated in the Legislative Assembly that those who tarnished the statue did not know that EVR had fought for them, an open hint to large sections of Hindu society to embrace Periyar's divisive and hate-filled agenda. This strengthens my personal conviction that this supposedly intra-Hindu conflict is a carefully contrived stratagem to fragment the growing consolidation of Hindu society. It is bound to fail because atheism has no appeal for society as a whole; it can be imposed as state policy (like Soviet Communism), but its reign cannot exceed the span of two generations; this is what is happening in Tamil Nadu today.

 

To my mind, it is no coincidence that the Tamil Nadu provocation follows the desecration of statues of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar in some states, causing violence by his followers in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. On the surface, the violence has a visibly caste hue, yet it is pertinent that Dr. Ambedkar's appeal is not confined to Scheduled Castes and he is widely revered by upper castes as the erudite author of the Indian constitution. Indeed, upper castes have no political or social scores to settle by disrespecting the Dalit icon; nor is iconoclasm a Hindu characteristic.

Few commentators realize that in an era in which the Indian political template is expanding to encompass more and more groups in an electorally winning combination, the polarization of upper caste vs. scheduled caste is political suicide. Hence there has to be a deeper conspiracy behind the dishonouring of Ambedkar statues; the objective is more than the destabilization of Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav.

I suspect a link with Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati's avowed ambition to be India's first Dalit Prime Minister, and her refusal to quit the Hindu fold until this goal is achieved. Ms. Mayawati's Dalit constituency is under great pressure from the Sonia Gandhi-led UPA, which wants to whittle away the constitutional privileges of Hindu Scheduled Castes and grant parity to converts to Islam and Christianity. At a time when the BSP leader is striving to appeal to all Hindu castes and varnas, a pernicious plot has been unleashed to alienate Dalits from the larger Hindu society through disrespect to Dr. Ambedkar. The needle of suspicion points to those with the resources and the freedom to execute such vicious designs with tacit State support.

EOM

 

 


'dravidiana': The perversity of Periyarana

dec 14th, 2006

periyar was a charlatan and a hoax.

his supporters are busy making up stories about him. one such is his appellation as 'vaikom veerar' or 'vaikom hero', regarding the myth that he was a major player in the vaikom satyagraha on 1924 in kerala.

the fact of the matter is that evr went to kerala. nobody paid the slightest attention to him, because everyone in kerala knew him as a hate-mongering ruffian. he came, he saw, and he was ignored. so instead of 'vaikom veerar', he was 'vaikom visitor' or 'vaikom tourist'. but this 'vaikom veerar' bullshit was part of a speech made by karunanidhi justifying 'dravidian' imperialism over the mullaperiyar dam in kerala just a few weeks ago, so they are still shouting from the rooftops about it.

and why do i feel particularly incensed about this lie? it is because members of my family led the vaikom satyagraha, and they were the ones who were beaten up by the police. this poseur periyar just showed up, got some 'photo ops' and was roundly ignored by all concerned.

this is the kind of 'truth by repeated assertion' that the 'dravidians' and their patrons the christists are very good at. 'dravidianism' is a nihilistic and empty neo-semitic cult, and the cult founders and camp-followers have made out like bandits, just like the fellow-travelers who have benefited from all the other neo-semitic ideologies like marxism, nehruism, ambedkarism, etc.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Anand


The perversity of Periyarana

V SUNDARAM Retd IAS officer

        A detailed study of Karl Marx is called Marxiana. A detailed study of Gandhi is called Gandhiana. A detailed study of Churchill is called Churchilliana. A detailed study of Periyar is called Periyarana.

        I have read all the writings of that great intellectual giant Periyar, called the Socrates of Tamilnadu or Bernard Shah of Europe. Personally I have received great inspiration, illumination and rational instruction from his mighty intellectual outpourings. l am giving you some flashes of time-defying wisdom and original genius from the Intellectual Armoury of 'Periyarana'.

        'Tamil is a barbourous language and Tamilians are barbarians'

        '15 August 1947 is a day of mourning and sorrow'

        'I want to be surrounded by fifty bloody fools, so that I am heard without any undue disturbance at all my public meetings'

        'Parimelazhagar who wrote the commentary on Thirukural was a 'Parppanar' (Periyar was always more interested in Dravidian substance than in Aryan shadow!). '

        Periyar was a world renowned authority on public administration. Writing about The Board of Revenue in 1965, he stated as follows at a public meeting on the Marina Beach:

        'The Board of Revenue today consists of senior civil servants who are drawing very fat salaries. Unfortunately, not one of them is a Tamilian: The first member of the Board of Revenue is T A Verghese ICS. He is a Malayalee. He is not a Tamilian. The second member of the Board of Revenue is C A Ramakrishnan ICS. He is a 'Parapannar'. He is also not a Tamilian. The third member of the Board of Revenue is M S Shivaraman ICS. He is also a 'Parpanar'. He is not a Tamilian. The fourth member of the Board of Revenue is E P Royappa IAS. Unfortunately he is also not a Tamilian. He is only a Christian'.

        As a world renowned anthropologist, sociologist and ethnologist Periyar had highly original, iconoclastic and racist Ideas about who is a Tamilian? The public of Tamilnadu have a right to know whether Periyar belonged to Karnataka or Tamilnadu and whether his mother tongue was in fact Tamil. These questions become relevant because of the mysteriously Magisterial Verdict given by him above on the origins of some of the ICS/ IAS civil servants in Tamilnadu. Today these questions have become more relevant because the members belonging to the Dravida Kazhagam and Periyar Dravida Kazhagam are fighting not for the soul of Periyar but for the installation of the statue of Periyar opposite the Rajagopuram of Srirangam Temple in Tiruchirapalli.

        The enlightened public of Tamilnadu, regardless of caste, colour, creed or religion, (the Brahmins and forward communities not excluded!) would like to ask the following pertinent questions:

        a) Why did Tamilnadu government, which is usually in a state of self-chosen rational coma in all situations affecting public peace and welfare, galvanize itself into a state of combat readiness to deal with the Da Vinci Code film issue which had been fully cleared by the Film Censor Board of the Government of India some months ago? Tamilnadu Government gave clear signals to the effect that it is their public duty to show great concern for the religious feelings and susceptibilities of Christians in minority in the State. It is a different story that later on, on par with the stand taken by the Andhra Pradesh High Court, Madras High Court also took the same stand and overruled the decision of the Government of Tamilnadu to ban the screening of the film in Tamilnadu.

        b) Why is Tamilnadu government indifferent and contemptuous towards the religious feelings and susceptibilities of the Hindus who are in absolute majority in terms of numbers in Tamilnadu?

        c) Why is it no immediate action was taken under Sec. 153-A and 295-A of the Indian Penal Code against those elements who wanted to install the statue of Periyar opposite the Rajagopuram of Srirangam Temple?

        d) Are not some of the anti-social elements reportedly acting under the banner of the DK and the Periyar DK 'inciting violence, disturbing public tranquility, promoting, on grounds of religion, feelings of enmity, hatred and ill-will between different religious communities and insulting other religions or beliefs of other communities in Tamilnadu'? (Exact words seen in the IPC).

        The great sensitivity shown by Tamilnadu government on the nominal Da Vinci Code film issue has not been shown on a more sensitive and more substantive issue involving the time-honoured religious feelings and sentiments of the Hindus in majority. Many Hindu temples have been ravaged supposedly by the DK and the PDK elements. The common man in Tamilnadu doubts the bone fides of the elected and contrived minority Government of Tamilnadu and its commitment in the matter of absolute maintenance of law and order on the one hand and giving protection to the majority Hindus against the planned onslaught of anti-social elements deriving their so-called inspiration from the umbrella of Periyarana.

        The shameful Congress Party, which calls itself a national party, has degenerated into a mere suppliant of the DMK party in Tamilnadu. Congress party is a major partner in the conspiracy of political silence on this vital and sensitive issue of maintenance of communal and religious harmony in Tamilnadu.

        Following the installation of the EVR statue in the stealth of the night on 21 November, a self-respecting Hindu approached Vigil secretary G R Swaminathan, a practicing lawyer in the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court to file a writ protesting the installation and seeking an injunction that pending disposal of the case no further move should be made by the DK to inaugurate the statue. It has been reported that an extremely hostile division bench remarked: 'Swaminathan, the street doesn't belong to Hindus alone, it belongs to all people'. The common man in Tamilnadu would like to ask as to why this kind of response is never shown by the judiciary when Muslims object to Ganesha procession passing down the Triplicane road in Chennai every year?

        The bench made it clear that although the statue had been installed without prior government permission, yet it would not grant the injunction prayed for to stop further moves on the statue. The defendants were advised to approach the Government for permission before inaugurating the statue. By giving such an advice, in terms of plain law, was not the High Court condoning, if not ignoring, the blatantly illegal act of those who were responsible for the erection of the Statue without obtaining prior Government permission as prescribed by the Government through a Government order? I have consulted a few legal luminaries in this regard and all of them are of the view that the decision of the High Court amounted to condoning the blatantly illegal act of the D.K., which is akin to post-facto regularization of unauthorized and illegal construction.

        In this context, I would like to quote the beautiful words of Felix Frankfurter, one of the greatest names in the history of American Judiciary: 'For the highest exercise of judicial duty is to subordinate one's personal pulls and one's private views to the law of which we are all guardians - those impersonal convictions that make a society a civilized community, and not the victims of personal rule'. Justice Herlan Stone in another historic Judgement in 1936 proclaimed: 'While unconstitutional exercise of power by the executive and legislative branches of the Government is subject to judicial restraint, the only check upon our own exercise of power is our own sense of self-restraint'. Justice William Douglas, in a landmark judgement in 1947 in USA, declared: 'There is no special perquisite of the judiciary which enables it, as distinguished from other institutions of democratic Government, to suppress, edit or censor events which transpire in proceedings before it'.

        About two years ago I had written an article in News Today under the Title 'Decoding the Dravidian Drival' in which I wrote: 'By his highly original writings and platform speeches Periyar tried to educate the Tamilians that he was being rational when in fact he was being racist'.

        The quintessence of rational-racial Dravidianism is that spiritual knowledge is superstitious and secular ignorance is rational; character is superstitious and debauchery is rational; chastity is superstitious and prostitution of mind, body, heart and soul is rational; discipline superstitious and indiscipline is rational; accepted truth is superstitious and blatant untruth is rational, refinement is superstitious and brutality is rational; justice is superstitious and rapacity is rational, counsels of the wise and the good are generally superstitious and the flattery of knaves particularly rational. And finally to crown it all having a legally wedded wife is superstitious and irrational and having innumerable concubines is logically rational.

        One can go on like this in this vein endlessly in a superstitious and irrational manner, because the clear stream of Dravidian perversity and unabashed bestiality is indeed perpetual and even perennial. It may not be too much to say that all the leading actors in the highly exciting and even titillating Dravidian Drama have succeeded condomising everything excepting the condom itself in the name of rationalism and social justice.

        The climax of this lurid and artificial drama will be reached on 16 December, 2006 at the same spot at Srirangam where the DK has planned to conduct a 'Moodanambikkai Maanaadu', which is pitted against the Hindus and Hindus alone and not against any other religion. It only means that all Muslims and Christians are rational according to the DK.

        (The writer is a retired IAS officer)

        e-mail the writer at vsundaram@newstodaynet.