ISSUES AND CONCERNS

Friends, We are in the month of May, when mercury normally goes up, but this time round it has been relentless. It’s been ‘sweating’ virtually ‘like pig’. Monsoon although not yet due, did show up a little here and there. But that has only rendered the life from bad to worse. Hope, before its late, shower comes to the rescue of those Indians who are not lucky enough to enjoy air-conditioned cocoon of the haves. Yes as usual, India continues to be a happening place from outlandish to down to earth, from incredible to perfectly believable. Month began with print media screeming ‘Sonia Back in Driver’s seat’. So after 4 years, the Congress Party President is back in power, as the Chair person of National Advisory Council, a position she resigned in March 2006, in the wake of “office of profit” controversy. It will be a cabinet status post and shall give immense power, which include the power to summon any government file, question government decisions and advice changes. Of course technic...

SHASHI THAROOR & HASSAN ALI Barking Up The Wrong Tree All good things, do come to an end some day. On Jan. 5, 2007, The Income Tax Deptt. (ITD) raided Ali’s residence in Koregaon, Pune, and for the first time seized details of his accounts from the computers found there. Simultaneously, his properties in Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore were raided. There could be properties not recorded in the computer. Dealing in horses with foreigners and even locals could have involved huge payments in cash. The unaccounted cash only helped him to involve in hawala transactions. This hawala could help him get foreign exchange. In the raid, ITD found that he had some 10 Swiss bank accounts, with scores of unknown sources of income or receipts, so also he had not filed his income tax returns since 1999. Recent weeks have witnessed an unprecedented imbroglio within the safe haven of BCCI, the premier cricket managers of the country. For a sensation hungry media, especially the 24x7 electronic media...

A Book by : Sudhir Venkatesh We spent the next several hours driving around the South Side, covering the great swath of territory controlled not just by J.T.’s faction of the Black Kings but by other gangs within the BK nation. As J.T. rose within the BKs’ citywide hierarchy, part of his broader duty was to monitor several BK factions besides his own to make sure that sales proceeded smoothly and that neighboring gangs cooperated with one another. This meant that he now oversaw, directly or indirectly, several hundred members of the Black Kings. There was a constant reshuffling and realignment of gang factions. This typically had less to do with dramatic events like a gang war and more to do with basic economics. When one local gang withered, it was usually because it was unable to supply enough crack to meet the demand or because the gang leader set his street dealers’ wages too low to attract motivated workers. In such cases a gang’s leadership might transfer its distribution rights ...

Assassinations, terror attacks leading to huge loss of life and property, may, at the end of the day may not be possible to be eliminated, after all. Yes, security apparatus, technologically even the best, at best can only help to check the menace only marginally. We are aware of the 9/11 WTC attack, in the U.S., despite CIA intelligence tentacles spread all over the world. Thus it is clear that the best of security can be breached if the attacker is a motivated, rightly or wrongly, and an inspired individual or a group. We in India are privy to the details of the assassination of both Mahatma Gandhi and Indira Gandhi. We couldn’t save them with all our intelligence inputs. Even the killing of Rajeev Gandhi was by an inspired cadre of LTTE who penetrated the security ring around Rajeev. Thus, whatever care an establishment or the administration takes, an attacker can always make a successful attempt at least some time, if not all the time, to break-in and achieve his objective. So how ...

No doubt this is probably the harshest that we have read anywhere. But there is truth in it. May be in some places, it is exagerated. But the starkness is ringing. It’s the apathy, the all pervading casualness chalta hai attitude that has been a stumbling block for India to become a serious contender as a developed nation, let alone being a super power. This piece is a serious damning indictment of our complacency-political class, bureaucracy and civil society all included. Yes we need to ponder, ‘If we are not a part of the solution then we are the problem! -Editor -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you are Indian, or of Indian descent, I must preface this post with a clear warning: you are not going to like what I have to say. My criticisms may be very hard to stomach. But consider them as the hard words and loving advice of a good friend. Someone who’s being honest with you and wants nothing from you. These criticisms apply to all of ...

M.V.KAMATH The trouble with our Leftist intellectuals it seems is that they have forgotten their Indian past and concept of dharma. But can it be that many of our ordinary Indians in government service and in power have also lost their sense of right and wrong? But first consider the Leftists. They are the ones who have been brought up to think in terms of western values such as socialism and communism as means to establish social justice. When the Communist Party was established in India, it was to Moscow that its founders looked up to, for guidance. For Jawaharlal Nehru it was the British concept of socialism that shaped his thinking. It was only Mahatma Gandhi who could project Indian values and work out ways to resolve injustice as he first did in the mill workers’ strike in Ahmedabad, with remarkable success. If the Mahatma were alive today, he would have asked the CRPF to stay away and would have himself undertaken to take the journey to Dantewada, alone, and with no security sur...