ISSUES AND CONCERNS ಸಮಸ್ಯೆಗಳ ಮೇಲೆ ಕ್ಷಕಿರಣ

Indian diaspora asks US to declare Pak a terrorist state Washington: Arguing that Islamabad is using terrorism as a tool of its foreign policy, especially against India, an Indian-American group asked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to declare Pakistan as a terrorist State and seize all its nuclear weapons. "Instead of penalizing Pakistan for its support to the notorious terrorists and spreading global terrorism, US, unfortunately, is rewarding this country with the deadly weapons and billions of dollars of hard cash," Narayan Kataria, head of New York-based Indian American Intellectual Forum, said in a letter to Clinton. Similar letters have also been written to several influential lawmakers. "We should recognise in unambiguous terms that Pakistan is the root cause of terror and instability in that region. In order to win the war in Afghanistan it is essential that American war strategy should be focused on Pakistan. In the next 18 months, American troops will be lea...

Indian jailed for biting man’s ear off Singapore: An Indian-origin man was sentenced by a Singapore court to seven years in corrective training and eight strokes of the cane for biting off the ear of his girlfriend’s husband. Anpazhakan Raghavan (42) and his girlfriend Magesh Eyamalai (28) were drunk after a night out in the city’s riverside clubbing street of Boat Quay on November 13 last year. But Raghavan was berated by the woman’s then 40-year-old husband Ramachandran Sitarenchan. The husband and wife were then going through a divorce proceeding. A fight broke out between the two men with Raghavan biting and ripping off part of Sitarenchan’s left ear. The court also ruled that Raghavan would not be eligible for early release. 5th standard kids can’t read New Delhi: Portraying a poor picture of the quality of elementary education in the country, India’s annual Economic Survey said that over 47 percent children studying in Class 5 cannot even read 2nd std. textbooks and the trend has...

Is Britain relevant to India today? Dr. M. V. Kamath The inconclusive general elections held in Britain on 6 May 2010 has resulted in the first elected coalition government in the country since 1931 which comes as no surprise, considering that not just in Britain, but in many other countries, with ideological visions getting blurred, a wide range of ideas are shaping up reflecting changed social needs. Does India, once a major constitute of the British Empire care? Does it matter to Delhi who resides at 10Downing Street? The general understanding is no one in India cares any longer who rules Britain. The country no longer appears on India’s radar screen. How does one explain that? British books or journals seldom are on sale in book stores. Has anyone heard of British stars? It is not, one can assert, because India hates Britain. The GenNext may not even have heard of Winston Spencer Churchill who said that if Britain left India “it will fall back quite rapidly through the centuries in...

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 ...