Quick notes: Nizam nostalgia, Korean slavery...

• Telaban chief: "Nizam was great, secular ruler"



• Secular Rape: Japanese student gang-raped for 12 days -- Sahid, Sabir and Wasim Khan, posing as tour guides, took the woman to Digha, a beach town in Bengal.



• Yesu and Slavery in S Korea: Slavery has been so pervasive that regional judges have shown leniency toward several perpetrators. A pastor who lived on Sinui for 19 years sympathized with farmers (slave lords) forced to deal with disabled, incompetent workers whom he described as dirty and lazy.



• The Brilliance of Angkor Engineers: worth watching..
  




• Immune response to red meat could be cancer key: The human body views red meat as a foreign invader, prompting a toxic immune response.
  - New diet guidelines might pull back from meat



• Hormonal dysfunction:Researchers Say Puberty Starting Early in Many Girls

So far plastic, antibiotics in animal food sources & soy have come up in our discussion of early puberty in girls: http://t.co/luzI6BHdHj
— KQED Forum (@KQEDForum) January 2, 2015

Quick notes: Kaangress pulls an old trick, Tianhe-2...

• Desperate Kaangress to try old trick in Maharashtra: Quota for Muslims!



• Energizing India: 35 Gigawatts of electricity capacity is “stranded” because of the shortage of fuel... Listen to this blog, try Solar-Coal Hybrid



• Pedestrians last on road designers' mind: “Not much attention is paid to pavements and zebra crossings. Bangalore ranks very low in the walkability index.”



• China's Tianhe-2 supercomputer remains the world's most powerful. The development of the C919 airliner and drug testing in the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica were both helped by Tianhe-2's super powers.



• Why People Eat With Their Hands in Kerala: "Our hands and feet are said to be the conduits of the five elements. The Ayurvedic texts teach that each finger is an extension of one of the five elements. The thumb is agni (fire) -- you might have seen children sucking their thumb, this is nature's way of aiding the digestion at an age when they are unable to chew; the forefinger is vayu (air), the middle finger is akash (ether -- the tiny intercellular spaces in the human body), the ring finger is prithvi (earth) and the little finger is jal (water)".



• Juveniles committing rape: Why leniency? Reduce the minimum age to 16.



Rape has become an epidemic. Ramayana&Mahabharata is about going to war for women's honour, so let us devise a deterrent punishment for it
— Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) June 5, 2014

Quick notes: Moon fixation, Styrofoam ban...

• Why China is fixated on the Moon: The Moon is so rich in helium-3, which is a possible fuel for nuclear fusion, that this could "solve human beings' energy demand for around 10,000 years".



• The rape that energized the ELM: While several national channels flashed news of the alleged "gangrape" and murder of a 30-year-old woman in Assam, the post-mortem report and her husband's statement prove that there was no sexual assault on her. 



• Kinky trap: NSA using online porn habits to target Muslim extremists 



• Better than Photovoltaics: Reliance Power to Complete Solar-Thermal Plant



• NYC considering a ban on Styrofoam: Sanitation officials say plastic foam food containers add 23,000 tons of trash a year to landfills

THiNK

“Self-proclaimed atonement and recusal for a period are hardly the remedies for what the allegations show to be outright criminality.”

• A bad lapse of judgment, an awful misreading of the situation, have led to an unfortunate incident that rails against all we believe in and fight for
  Unfortunate incident? An author of Tejpal’s calibre should have chosen better words to describe alleged rape under the new law
  
  
• I have already unconditionally apologised for my misconduct to the concerned journalist, but I feel impelled to atone further.
  Impelled to atone? Has anyone been more regal while referring to what he did to his daughter’s best friend?



• I feel atonement cannot be just words. I must do the penance that lacerates me. I am therefore offering to recuse myself from the editorship of Tehelka, and from the Tehelka office, for the next six months.
  Rarely has an accused judged himself and then sentenced himself to a six-month vacation

Telegraph India: Our ugly backyard

Quick notes: Jobs' last gift, Item numbers...

• One of Steve Jobs' last gifts was left in a brown box and handed out at his memorial service.  Inside the brown box was a copy of "Autobiography of a Yogi" by Hindu guru Paramahansa Yogananda. 



• Next Lok Sabha elections are expected to be the most expensive in history. Those expenses are largely borne by under-the-table payments from Indian oligarchs, who will expect a return for their investments. 



• With the Supreme Court monitoring the probe, Coalgate could well morph from a financial scam into a serious political crisis.  



• India and CBI need freedom from Kaangress: We need freedom from babudom: CBI tells Supreme Court



• Item numbers: The combination of raunchy lyrics and dance movements with sexual overtones, often portrayed by the female lead for a male-dominated on-screen audience, may push persons already primed for wrongdoing towards exploiting opportunities for rape. “Collective encouragement is one reason why many young men fail to appreciate the severity of the crime”.



• USA: Some 95% of 2009-2012 Income Gains Went to Wealthiest 1%



• Alternative Energy: Geothermal growth is on fire! Except in Kaangress ruled India.

Love jihad and other crimes against humanity

British Sikh girls are being preyed upon by gangs of Muslim men who subject them to horrific sexual abuse, a BBC Inside Out investigation has uncovered.  In many cases the men deceive the girls into believing that they are Sikh to gain their trust.  Desperate to hide their secret for fear of bringing shame to their families, girls are often forced to leave home.

Six men were jailed at Leicester Crown Court last week for offences including facilitating child prostitution. The convictions are being heralded as a legal landmark because it is the first high-profile case involving a Sikh victim of sexual abuse which has led to convictions in the UK.

BBC: British Sikh girls exposed to sexual grooming by gangs

Quick notes: Poison pill, populism...

• Telegraph editorial on the white lady's brinkmanship:  The political philosophy of Sonia Gandhi was revealed in her startling statement that if there was no money available for the food security bill, the money would have to be found. She did not bother to suggest where the money was to be found. This defies even the simple common sense of the housewife who knows how to cut her coat according to the cloth that is available. It would be easy to cite Ms Gandhi’s statement as evidence of her utter irresponsibility. Thus she pushed through the food security bill without any guarantees about the delivery mechanism, because she is convinced that it will make her popular.



• White lady's poison pill for Bharat: Make no mistake, the two populist legislations of the past week, the crippling of the rupee and stagnation of infrastructure and industry in the past decade are the equivalent of an economic Hiroshima. Remember how difficult it was to rebuild a broken Japan after World War II? That’s the task that awaits India's next PM. 



• For real innovation, thank the state: The Internet, GPS, touch-screen displays, and even the voice-activated smartphone assistant Siri all received state cash. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency bankrolled the Internet, and the CIA and the military funded GPS. Even the algorithm behind Google benefited from U.S. National Science Foundation funding. So, although the US is sold to us as the model example of progress through private enterprise, innovation there has benefited from a very interventionist state.



• NE excels on women's safety: In Darjeeling, police stations across the district will tell you that in the last decade they have come across only a couple of cases (of sexual crime). That, too, in one an outsider was involved. A cop I spoke to for this article remembered just a single case of “eve teasing” – in 1981. The Khasis of Meghalaya also score very high on gender parity. So do the Nagas, Mizos, Sikkimese and generally the people of the North-East.



Old enough to rape but young enough to escape punishment. God bless India.
— Donald Duck (@WatDaDuck_) August 24, 2013

Quick notes: Temple gold, No-growth economy...

• Kaangress should use temple gold to build a psecular India, expert suggests:
  The Tirupati Trust Foundation has 1,700 tonnes of gold, which is about five per cent of all the gold held in India. This comes to between $1.5 trillion and 1.7 trillion - that's right, trillion.  These, by the way, are assets - it is money we Indians own. And, given that they are foreign currency assets, it is hard to understand why we have a foreign exchange problem.  The finance minister and the governor should offer the Tirupati trustees annual earnings of, say, Rs 3,000 crore (two per cent interest on 500 tonnes of gold) plus savings of the cost of storage of the gold.



• India has become the "least favourable market", and it now makes business sense to exit and export from China, Finnish major Nokia has told the government. Nokia cautioned that the political risk of operating in India may impact future investment decisions.



• Constable alerts rapist: Qasim, after having committed the crime along with four of his friends, was watching TV at his hutment in Agripada when a constable named Mujawar called him on his mobile phone. "The policeman asked him where he was and said he wanted to make some inquiries," Qasim's mother, Chand Bibi, told ToI. Qasim immediately changed his shirt, borrowed Rs 50 from his mother and left. He has been untraceable since. 



• Silicon Valley can’t save America’s no-growth economy. High-tech solutions cannot and will not prevent America’s economic growth’s collapsing



Every Conquerer who moved from West to East was Suffixed 'The Great' as in 'Alexander The Great' and East to West became 'The Barbarian' !
— InterNet Hindoo ! (@DrShobha) August 21, 2013

Quick notes: Top Universities, Promoting the Vernacular...

• Macaulay's legacy: Only one Indian institute in the top 500 world universities. Indian Institute of Science is the only institution that figures somewhere between 300 and 400 in the list.



• Some MNCs better than corporate India in promoting the vernacular Samsung to support more Indian languages



• Alarm at child-abuse incidence in some Hindi states: North Indians targeted in Kolhapur after child's rape



• Han juggernaut: Six Chinese Megaprojects Across the Globe



• Canine Diagnosis: Dogs sniff out ovarian cancer in new study



• Fake sugar ain't cutting it: Diet-Soda Sales Have Fallen at Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Dr Pepper Snapple

Mohammedan Law Comes To Rapists' Rescue

A Muslim man has been absolved of charges of illegally confining and raping a minor by a Delhi court which cited the Mahomedan Law that allows a 15-year-old girl to marry against the wishes of her parents.

The IPC treats a girl as minor till she attains the age of 16 years and establishing physical relations with her, even with her consent, is an offense entailing life term as maximum sentence.

IE: Delhi court cites Mahomedan Law to absolve man of raping minor

Presence of mind and some pepper spray

 ToI: Pepper spray saves Hyderabad’s braveheart

Atrocities - Some Numbers

State wise Statistics

Rape Map

WSJ: New Delhi Attack: The Victim's Story

"Bhagwat is right"

Social scientist Ashis Nandy supports RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's remark on rapes and says there is a connection between modernisation, urbanisation and violence against women.
“These are typical characteristic of anonymous cities. Highly individualized, personally thin cultures and it is so not only in India, I repeat, but perhaps all over the world from which we have data. In anonymous societies kinship dies and community ties weaken and become superficial. It is in these circumstances that you see the kind of rape that you are seeing today,” Nandy says

Tehelka: Ashis Nandy says Bhagwat is right

Father of Jyoti Singh Pandey Wants Her Remembered

The father of Delhi rape victim Jyoti Singh Pandey wants the world to know his daughter's name.

May She Rest in Peace.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/victim-of-indian-gangrape-is-named-8439740.html

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/jyoti-singh-pandey-will-become-a-standard-1521344

http://www.rferl.org/content/india-gang-rape-name/24816551.html

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_want-world-to-know-daughter-jyoti-singh-pandey-was-delhi-braveheart-father_1786106

http://news.oneindia.in/2013/01/06/delhi-horror-british-newspaper-reveals-victims-name-1126184.html

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2013/01/we-now-know-name-india-gang-rape-victim/60640/

UPDATE: Based on feedback from you all, I've taken down the photo which I believed to be of her. Apologies for any error on my part. I'll try to find out more as more facts become available.