My wife and I went to the Orange County agricultural show and one of the first exhibits we stopped at was the breeding bulls.. We went up to the first pen and there was a sign attached that said,
' THIS BULL MATED 50 TIMES LAST YEAR '
My wife playfully nudged me in the ribs .....Smiled and said,
'He mated 50 times last year, that's almost once a week.'
We walked to the second pen which had a sign attached that said,
''THIS BULL MATED 150 TIMES LAST YEAR'
My wife gave me a healthy jab and said,
'WOW~~That's more than twice! a week ! ..........
You could learn a lot from him.'
We walked to the third pen and it had a sign attached that said,
in capital letters,
'THIS BULL MATED 365 TIMES LAST YEAR'
My wife was so excited that her elbow nearly broke my ribs, and said,
'That's once a day ..You could REALLY learn something from this one.'
I looked at her and said,
'Go over and ask him if it was with the same cow.'
Sent by Prakash Bhartia
Friday, February 24, 2012
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
It's time!again for the annual 'Stella Awards'!
For those unfamiliar with these awards, they are named
after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee
on herself and successfumly sued the McDonald's in New
Mexico, where she purchased coffee. You remember, she took
the lid off the coffee and put it between her knees while
she was driving. Who would ever think one could get burned
doing that, right? Uhat's right; these are awards for
the most outlandish lawsuits and verdicts in the U.S.
You know the kind of cases that make you scratch your head.
So keep your head scratcher handy
Here are the Stellas for this past year -- 2011
*SEVENTH PLACE*
Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas was awarded $80,000
by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping
over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store.
The store owners were understandably surprised by the
verdict, considering the running toddler was her own son.
Start scratching!
* SIXTH PLACE *
Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles, California won $74,000
plus medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his
hand with a Honda Accord.
Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the
wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbor's
hubcaps.
Scratch some more...
* FIFTH PLACE *
Terrence Dickson, of Bristol, Pennsylvania, who was
leaving a house he had just burglarized by way of the
garage. Unfortunately for Dickson, the automatic garage
door opener malfunctioned and he could not get the garage
door to open. Worse, he couldn't re-enter the house because
the door connecting the garage to the house locked when
Dickson pulled it shut. Forced to sit for eight, count 'em,
EIGHT days and survive on a case of Pepsi and a large bag of
dry dog food, he sued the homeowner's insurance company claiming
undue mental Anguish.
Amazingly, the jury said the insurance company must pay Dickson
$500,000 for his anguish. We should all have this kind of
anguish
Keep scratching. There are more...
Double hand scratching after this one..
*FOURTH PLACE*
Jerry Williams, of Little Rock, Arkansas, garnered 4th
Place in the Stella's when he was awarded $14,500 plus
medical expenses after being bitten on the butt by his next
door neighbor's beagle - even though the beagle was on a chain
he asked for because the jury believed the beagle might have
been provoked at the time of the butt bite because Williams
had climbed over the fence into the yard and repeatedly shot
the dog with a pellet gun.
Pick a new spot to scratch, you're getting a bald spot..
* THIRD PLACE *
Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania because a jury ordered
a Philadelphia restaurant to pay her $113,500 after she slipped
on a spilled soft drink and broke her tailbone. The reason
the soft drink was on the floor: Ms. Carson had thrown
it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.
What ever happened to people being responsible for their own actions?
Only two more so ease up on the scratching...
*SECOND PLACE*
Kara Walton, of Claymont, Delaware sued the owner of a
night club in a nearby city because she fell from the
bathroom window to the floor, knocking out her two front teeth.
Even though Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the ladies
room window to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge, the jury said
the night club had to pay her $12,000....oh, yeah, plus dental expenses.
Go figure.
Ok. Here we go!! Drum roll ...
* FIRST PLACE *
This year's runaway First Place Stella Award winner was: Mrs.
Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, who purchased new
32-foot Winnebago motor home.
On her first trip home, from an OU football game, having
driven on to the freeway, she set the cruise control at
70 mph and calmly left the driver's seat to go to the back
of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich not surprisingly,
the motor home left the freeway, crashed and overturned.
Also not surprisingly, Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not
putting in the owners manual that she couldn't
actually leave the driver's seat while the cruise control was set.
The Oklahoma jury awarded her, are you sitting down?
$1,750,000 PLUS a new motor home. Winnebago actually changed
their manuals as a result of this suit, just in case
Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor home.
If you think the court system is out of control and
America has lost ALL common sense, be sure to pass this one on!!!
Sent by Prakash Bhartia
after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee
on herself and successfumly sued the McDonald's in New
Mexico, where she purchased coffee. You remember, she took
the lid off the coffee and put it between her knees while
she was driving. Who would ever think one could get burned
doing that, right? Uhat's right; these are awards for
the most outlandish lawsuits and verdicts in the U.S.
You know the kind of cases that make you scratch your head.
So keep your head scratcher handy
Here are the Stellas for this past year -- 2011
*SEVENTH PLACE*
Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas was awarded $80,000
by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping
over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store.
The store owners were understandably surprised by the
verdict, considering the running toddler was her own son.
Start scratching!
* SIXTH PLACE *
Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles, California won $74,000
plus medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his
hand with a Honda Accord.
Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the
wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbor's
hubcaps.
Scratch some more...
* FIFTH PLACE *
Terrence Dickson, of Bristol, Pennsylvania, who was
leaving a house he had just burglarized by way of the
garage. Unfortunately for Dickson, the automatic garage
door opener malfunctioned and he could not get the garage
door to open. Worse, he couldn't re-enter the house because
the door connecting the garage to the house locked when
Dickson pulled it shut. Forced to sit for eight, count 'em,
EIGHT days and survive on a case of Pepsi and a large bag of
dry dog food, he sued the homeowner's insurance company claiming
undue mental Anguish.
Amazingly, the jury said the insurance company must pay Dickson
$500,000 for his anguish. We should all have this kind of
anguish
Keep scratching. There are more...
Double hand scratching after this one..
*FOURTH PLACE*
Jerry Williams, of Little Rock, Arkansas, garnered 4th
Place in the Stella's when he was awarded $14,500 plus
medical expenses after being bitten on the butt by his next
door neighbor's beagle - even though the beagle was on a chain
he asked for because the jury believed the beagle might have
been provoked at the time of the butt bite because Williams
had climbed over the fence into the yard and repeatedly shot
the dog with a pellet gun.
Pick a new spot to scratch, you're getting a bald spot..
* THIRD PLACE *
Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania because a jury ordered
a Philadelphia restaurant to pay her $113,500 after she slipped
on a spilled soft drink and broke her tailbone. The reason
the soft drink was on the floor: Ms. Carson had thrown
it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.
What ever happened to people being responsible for their own actions?
Only two more so ease up on the scratching...
*SECOND PLACE*
Kara Walton, of Claymont, Delaware sued the owner of a
night club in a nearby city because she fell from the
bathroom window to the floor, knocking out her two front teeth.
Even though Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the ladies
room window to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge, the jury said
the night club had to pay her $12,000....oh, yeah, plus dental expenses.
Go figure.
Ok. Here we go!! Drum roll ...
* FIRST PLACE *
This year's runaway First Place Stella Award winner was: Mrs.
Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, who purchased new
32-foot Winnebago motor home.
On her first trip home, from an OU football game, having
driven on to the freeway, she set the cruise control at
70 mph and calmly left the driver's seat to go to the back
of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich not surprisingly,
the motor home left the freeway, crashed and overturned.
Also not surprisingly, Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not
putting in the owners manual that she couldn't
actually leave the driver's seat while the cruise control was set.
The Oklahoma jury awarded her, are you sitting down?
$1,750,000 PLUS a new motor home. Winnebago actually changed
their manuals as a result of this suit, just in case
Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor home.
If you think the court system is out of control and
America has lost ALL common sense, be sure to pass this one on!!!
Sent by Prakash Bhartia
Monday, February 20, 2012
Never Give up!!
One day I decided to quit...
I quit my job, my relationship, my spirituality... I wanted to quit my life.
I went to the woods to have one last talk with God.
"God", I said. "Can you give me one good reason not to quit?"
His answer surprised me...
"Look around", He said. "Do you see the fern and the bamboo?"
"Yes", I replied.
When I planted the fern and the bamboo seeds, I took very good care of them.
I gave them light. I gave them water.
The fern quickly grew from the earth.
Its brilliant green covered the floor.
Yet nothing came from the bamboo seed.
But I did not quit on the bamboo.
In the second year the Fern grew more vibrant and plentiful.
And again, nothing came from the bamboo seed.
But I did not quit on the bamboo. He said.
"In the third year, there was still nothing from the bamboo seed. But I would not quit. In the fourth year, again, there was nothing from the bamboo seed. "I would not quit." He said. "Then in the fifth year a tiny sprout emerged from the earth.
Compared to the fern it was seemingly small and insignificant... But just 6 months later the bamboo rose to over 100 feet tall.
It had spent the five years growing roots.
Those roots made it strong and gave it what it needed to survive. I would not give any of my creations a challenge it could not handle."
He said to me. "Did you know, my child, that all this time you have been struggling, you have actually been growing roots."
"I would not quit on the bamboo. I will never quit on you. “Don’t compare yourself to others ..."
He said. “The bamboo had a different purpose than the fern ... Yet, they both make the forest beautiful."
Your time will come, “God said to me.” You will rise high! “How high should I rise?" I asked.
How high will the bamboo rise?" He asked in return.
"As high as it can?” I questioned.
“Yes.” He said, "Give me glory by rising as high as you can.” I left the forest and brought back this story.
I hope these words can help you see that God will never give up on you.
He will never give up on you.
Never regret a day in your life.
MORAL OF THE STORY
Trials keep you Strong, Sorrows keep you Human,
Failures keep you humble, Success keeps you Glowing, but Only God keeps you going!
otos, videos and web pages.
Sent by U BANERJEE< N.P
I quit my job, my relationship, my spirituality... I wanted to quit my life.
I went to the woods to have one last talk with God.
"God", I said. "Can you give me one good reason not to quit?"
His answer surprised me...
"Look around", He said. "Do you see the fern and the bamboo?"
"Yes", I replied.
When I planted the fern and the bamboo seeds, I took very good care of them.
I gave them light. I gave them water.
The fern quickly grew from the earth.
Its brilliant green covered the floor.
Yet nothing came from the bamboo seed.
But I did not quit on the bamboo.
In the second year the Fern grew more vibrant and plentiful.
And again, nothing came from the bamboo seed.
But I did not quit on the bamboo. He said.
"In the third year, there was still nothing from the bamboo seed. But I would not quit. In the fourth year, again, there was nothing from the bamboo seed. "I would not quit." He said. "Then in the fifth year a tiny sprout emerged from the earth.
Compared to the fern it was seemingly small and insignificant... But just 6 months later the bamboo rose to over 100 feet tall.
It had spent the five years growing roots.
Those roots made it strong and gave it what it needed to survive. I would not give any of my creations a challenge it could not handle."
He said to me. "Did you know, my child, that all this time you have been struggling, you have actually been growing roots."
"I would not quit on the bamboo. I will never quit on you. “Don’t compare yourself to others ..."
He said. “The bamboo had a different purpose than the fern ... Yet, they both make the forest beautiful."
Your time will come, “God said to me.” You will rise high! “How high should I rise?" I asked.
How high will the bamboo rise?" He asked in return.
"As high as it can?” I questioned.
“Yes.” He said, "Give me glory by rising as high as you can.” I left the forest and brought back this story.
I hope these words can help you see that God will never give up on you.
He will never give up on you.
Never regret a day in your life.
MORAL OF THE STORY
Trials keep you Strong, Sorrows keep you Human,
Failures keep you humble, Success keeps you Glowing, but Only God keeps you going!
otos, videos and web pages.
Sent by U BANERJEE< N.P
Treating your friends
A man and his dog were walking along a road. The man was enjoying the scenery, when it suddenly occurred to him that he was dead.
He remembered dying, and that the dog walking beside him had been dead for years. He wondered where the road was leading them.
After a while, they came to a high, white stone wall along one side of the road. It looked like fine marble... At the top of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch that glowed in the sunlight.
When he was standing before it he saw a magnificent gate in the arch that looked like mother-of-pearl, and the street that led to the gate looked like pure gold. He and the dog walked toward the gate, and as he got closer, he saw a man at a desk to one side. When he was close enough, he called out, 'Excuse me, where are we?'
'This is Heaven, sir,' the man answered.. 'Wow! Would you happen to have some water?' the man asked.
Of course, sir. Come right in, and I'll have some ice water brought right up. 'The man gestured, and the gate began to open.
'Can my friend,' gesturing toward his dog, 'come in, too?' the traveler asked.
'I'm sorry, sir, but we don't accept pets.'
The man thought a moment and then turned back toward the road and continued the way he had been going with his dog.
After another long walk, and at the top of another long hill, he came to a dirt road leading through a farm gate that looked as if it had never been closed. There was no fence.
As he approached the gate, he saw a man inside, leaning against a tree and reading a book.
'Excuse me!' he called to the man. 'Do you have any water?'
'Yeah, sure, there's a pump over there, come on in.'
'How about my friend here?' the traveler gestured to the dog.
'There should be a bowl by the pump.'
They went through the gate, and sure enough, there was an old-fashioned hand pump with a bowl beside it.
The traveler filled the water bowl and took a long drink himself, then he gave some to the dog.
When they were full, he and the dog walked back toward the man who was standing by the tree.
'What do you call this place?' the traveler asked.
'This is Heaven,' he answered.
'Well, that's confusing,' the traveler said. 'The man down the road said that was Heaven, too.'
'Oh, you mean the place with the gold street and pearly gates? Nope. That's hell.'
'Doesn't it make you mad for them to use your name like that?'
'No, we're just happy that they screen out the folks who would leave their best friends behind.'
Sent by Prakash Bhartia
This is being posted from Bikanir where I have just arrived this morning and so you will not see the normal colours in the font which you normally see.
It is too much of a bother to set up all the HTML colour arrangement in a cybe cafe where you see the metre running.
I am here for a marriage.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Children - What they say
A little girl was talking to her teacher about whales.
The teacher said it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human because even though it was a very large mammal its throat was very small.
The little girl stated that Jonah was swallowed by a whale.
Irritated, the teacher reiterated that a whale could not swallow a human; it was physically impossible.
The little girl said, 'When I get to heaven I will ask Jonah'.
The teacher asked, 'What if Jonah went to hell?'
The little girl replied, 'Then you ask him'.
A Kindergarten teacher was observing her classroom of children while they were drawing. She would occasionally walk around to see each child's work.
As she got to one little girl who was working diligently, she asked what the drawing was.
The girl replied, 'I'm drawing God.'
The teacher paused and said, 'But no one knows what God looks like.'
Without missing a beat, or looking up from her drawing, the girl replied, 'They will in a minute.'
A Sunday school teacher was discussing the Ten Commandments with her five and six year olds.
After explaining the commandment to 'honour' thy Father and thy Mother, she asked, 'Is there a commandment that teaches us how to treat our brothers and sisters?'
From the back, one little boy (the oldest of a family) answered, 'Thou shall not kill.'
One day a little girl was sitting and watching her mother do the dishes at the kitchen sink. She suddenly noticed that her mother had several strands of white hair sticking out in contrast on her brunette head.
She looked at her mother and inquisitively asked, 'Why are some of your hairs white, Mum?'
Her mother replied, 'Well, every time that you do something wrong and make me cry or unhappy, one of my hairs turns white.'
The little girl thought about this revelation for a while and then said, 'Mummy, how come ALL of grandma's hairs are white?'
The children had all been photographed, and the teacher was trying to persuade them each to buy a copy of the group picture.
'Just think how nice it will be to look at it when you are all grown up and say, 'There's Jennifer, she's a lawyer,' or 'That's Michael, He's a doctor.'
A small voice at the back of the room rang out, 'And there's the teacher, she's dead.'
A teacher was giving a lesson on the circulation of the blood. Trying to make the matter clearer, she said, 'Now, class, if I stood on my head, the blood, as you know, would run into it, and I would turn red in the face.'
'Yes,' the class said.
'Then why is it that while I am standing upright in the ordinary position the blood doesn't run into my feet?'
A little fellow shouted,
'Cause your feet ain't empty.'
The children were lined up in the cafeteria of a Catholic elementary school for lunch. At the head of the table was a large pile of apples. The nun made a note, and posted on the apple tray:
'Take only ONE . God is watching.'
Moving further along the lunch line, at the other end of the table was a large pile of chocolate chip cookies.
A child had written a note, 'Take all you want. God is watching the apples..'
Sent by Prakash Bhartia
The teacher said it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human because even though it was a very large mammal its throat was very small.
The little girl stated that Jonah was swallowed by a whale.
Irritated, the teacher reiterated that a whale could not swallow a human; it was physically impossible.
The little girl said, 'When I get to heaven I will ask Jonah'.
The teacher asked, 'What if Jonah went to hell?'
The little girl replied, 'Then you ask him'.
A Kindergarten teacher was observing her classroom of children while they were drawing. She would occasionally walk around to see each child's work.
As she got to one little girl who was working diligently, she asked what the drawing was.
The girl replied, 'I'm drawing God.'
The teacher paused and said, 'But no one knows what God looks like.'
Without missing a beat, or looking up from her drawing, the girl replied, 'They will in a minute.'
A Sunday school teacher was discussing the Ten Commandments with her five and six year olds.
After explaining the commandment to 'honour' thy Father and thy Mother, she asked, 'Is there a commandment that teaches us how to treat our brothers and sisters?'
From the back, one little boy (the oldest of a family) answered, 'Thou shall not kill.'
One day a little girl was sitting and watching her mother do the dishes at the kitchen sink. She suddenly noticed that her mother had several strands of white hair sticking out in contrast on her brunette head.
She looked at her mother and inquisitively asked, 'Why are some of your hairs white, Mum?'
Her mother replied, 'Well, every time that you do something wrong and make me cry or unhappy, one of my hairs turns white.'
The little girl thought about this revelation for a while and then said, 'Mummy, how come ALL of grandma's hairs are white?'
The children had all been photographed, and the teacher was trying to persuade them each to buy a copy of the group picture.
'Just think how nice it will be to look at it when you are all grown up and say, 'There's Jennifer, she's a lawyer,' or 'That's Michael, He's a doctor.'
A small voice at the back of the room rang out, 'And there's the teacher, she's dead.'
A teacher was giving a lesson on the circulation of the blood. Trying to make the matter clearer, she said, 'Now, class, if I stood on my head, the blood, as you know, would run into it, and I would turn red in the face.'
'Yes,' the class said.
'Then why is it that while I am standing upright in the ordinary position the blood doesn't run into my feet?'
A little fellow shouted,
'Cause your feet ain't empty.'
The children were lined up in the cafeteria of a Catholic elementary school for lunch. At the head of the table was a large pile of apples. The nun made a note, and posted on the apple tray:
'Take only ONE . God is watching.'
Moving further along the lunch line, at the other end of the table was a large pile of chocolate chip cookies.
A child had written a note, 'Take all you want. God is watching the apples..'
Sent by Prakash Bhartia
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Dicky Dog
She named him Dick! Wonder Why?
Sent by Prakash Bhartia
We too have Dick in India.
He is called Dicky Raja by people who love him
Sent by Prakash Bhartia
We too have Dick in India.
He is called Dicky Raja by people who love him
Patnaik asks other states to protest anti-terror body
Bhubaneswar, Feb 14 (IANS) Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Tuesday spoke with the chief ministers of Tamil Nadu and West Bengal and asked them to oppose the powers to be vested in the proposed National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC).
Patnaik discussed with J. Jayalalithaa, and Mamata Banerjee and drew their attention to the powers the central government has planned to vest with the NCTC.
Patnaik has also discussed the matter with former Andhra Pradesh chief minister and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief N. Chandrababu Naidu and sought his support in the protest, a senior official of Patnaik's office told IANS.
Citing a recent memorandum of the union ministry of home affairs regarding the powers vested in the proposed National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC), Patnaik had Monday written a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking a review of the matter.
Describing the move as "an infringement on the powers of the states", the chief minister said the provisions have draconian overtones.
What power does Mr. Naveen Patnaik talk about?
The state intelligence has been proved useless as far as countering terrorism is concerned.
The CMs themselves are never worried for nobody can harm them because they are surrounded by a bandobast of highly armed police force.
It is the common man who suffers, be it in the railways, or temples or bazaars of the malls.
Unfortunately no bloody chief minister dies- it is always the common man.
No state police can take comprehensive action for they fear stepping onto each others shoes and they are very vigilant as far a marking their turfs are concerned.
We want a strong Anti-terrorist set up which can counter the terrorists, irrespective what the self-centred CM may say.
Patnaik discussed with J. Jayalalithaa, and Mamata Banerjee and drew their attention to the powers the central government has planned to vest with the NCTC.
Patnaik has also discussed the matter with former Andhra Pradesh chief minister and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief N. Chandrababu Naidu and sought his support in the protest, a senior official of Patnaik's office told IANS.
Citing a recent memorandum of the union ministry of home affairs regarding the powers vested in the proposed National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC), Patnaik had Monday written a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking a review of the matter.
Describing the move as "an infringement on the powers of the states", the chief minister said the provisions have draconian overtones.
What power does Mr. Naveen Patnaik talk about?
The state intelligence has been proved useless as far as countering terrorism is concerned.
The CMs themselves are never worried for nobody can harm them because they are surrounded by a bandobast of highly armed police force.
It is the common man who suffers, be it in the railways, or temples or bazaars of the malls.
Unfortunately no bloody chief minister dies- it is always the common man.
No state police can take comprehensive action for they fear stepping onto each others shoes and they are very vigilant as far a marking their turfs are concerned.
We want a strong Anti-terrorist set up which can counter the terrorists, irrespective what the self-centred CM may say.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
TIME TO STOP DEMONISATION OF NARENDRA MODI
B.RAMAN
The allegations made against Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujarat, in connection with some incidents of violence against Muslims during the communal disturbances of 2002 were quite serious. They amounted to charges of conscious inaction amounting to criminal complicity.
2. These allegations warranted thorough investigation by a body of professional investigators and follow-up action in the form of criminal prosecution if the allegations proved to be correct during the investigation.
3. Such a body was constituted by the judiciary through the setting-up of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by R.K.Raghavan, former Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Raghavan is a highly distinguished officer of the Indian Police Service (IPS) known for his professionalism, integrity, independence and objectivity.
4. He had been associated with many complex criminal investigations when he headed the CBI and continues to be associated with matters relating to the Police even after his retirement.
5. After a thorough and professional investigation lasting about two years, the SIT headed by him has reportedly concluded that its investigation did not unearth any evidence that could warrant the prosecution of Modi under any charge.
6. In other words, the allegations of criminal complicity against Modi stand disproved. The serious allegations against Modi were not pushed under the carpet. He was not exempted from facing the due process of the law in the nature of a criminal investigation. He was treated like any other citizen despite the high office held by him and subjected to a criminal investigation by a team of distinguished professionals.
7. When the SIT has cleared him of the charges levelled against him by some sections of the public---particularly from the Muslim community--- and by some human rights activists, fairness of criminal justice demands that the demonization campaign against him should be discontinued and the sword hanging over his head should be removed. He has been cleared honourably and not conditionally.
8. Instead of doing so, his political and non-Governmental detractors seem determined not to accept the conclusions of the SIT and to keep up the campaign of denigration and demonization against him by recycling the allegations which have already been enquired into and found unproven by the SIT.
9. It is no longer a case of the law taking its own course, but one of malicious witch-hunt against a political leader by his political opponents and by sections of the media and lawyers and others who are not well disposed towards him. Even after having failed to prove the charges before the SIT, they are determined to keep their vicious campaign alive for political reasons and not for reasons of natural justice.
10. Their ill-motivated attempts have to be deplored by all right-thinking persons, who should demand that the campaign of demonization should stop immediately. Modi has so far not allowed this campaign to negatively affect his administration of the State of Gujarat for the last 10 years. The State has made considerable progress under his leadership. This is acknowledged by independent-minded observers and even by persons who are not comfortable with him as an individual.
11. His future should be decided by the people not on the basis of the re-cycled unproven allegations of his demonisers, but on the basis of what he has already achieved as an administrator, his ideas and vision for the future and his capability for achieving them.
12. Those who still have reservations regarding his style of leadership and do not agree with those who praise his governance should confront him politically and establish before the people that his achievements and capabilities are over-rated if that is what they feel.
13. But his detractors and demonisers find themselves on a weak ground in respect of a political campaign against him based on objective factors. They are, therefore, trying to keep alive the demonization in the hope of thereby damaging and destroying his future political career. This has to be strongly deplored and I have no hesitation in doing so.
14. I have never been an uncritical admirer of Modi. Nor am I in the ranks of his perpetual demonisers. I have always sought to judge him as objectively as I can. It is my view that the demonization campaign against him must stop now. ( 12-2-12)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com Twitter : @SORBONNE75 )
The allegations made against Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujarat, in connection with some incidents of violence against Muslims during the communal disturbances of 2002 were quite serious. They amounted to charges of conscious inaction amounting to criminal complicity.
2. These allegations warranted thorough investigation by a body of professional investigators and follow-up action in the form of criminal prosecution if the allegations proved to be correct during the investigation.
3. Such a body was constituted by the judiciary through the setting-up of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by R.K.Raghavan, former Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Raghavan is a highly distinguished officer of the Indian Police Service (IPS) known for his professionalism, integrity, independence and objectivity.
4. He had been associated with many complex criminal investigations when he headed the CBI and continues to be associated with matters relating to the Police even after his retirement.
5. After a thorough and professional investigation lasting about two years, the SIT headed by him has reportedly concluded that its investigation did not unearth any evidence that could warrant the prosecution of Modi under any charge.
6. In other words, the allegations of criminal complicity against Modi stand disproved. The serious allegations against Modi were not pushed under the carpet. He was not exempted from facing the due process of the law in the nature of a criminal investigation. He was treated like any other citizen despite the high office held by him and subjected to a criminal investigation by a team of distinguished professionals.
7. When the SIT has cleared him of the charges levelled against him by some sections of the public---particularly from the Muslim community--- and by some human rights activists, fairness of criminal justice demands that the demonization campaign against him should be discontinued and the sword hanging over his head should be removed. He has been cleared honourably and not conditionally.
8. Instead of doing so, his political and non-Governmental detractors seem determined not to accept the conclusions of the SIT and to keep up the campaign of denigration and demonization against him by recycling the allegations which have already been enquired into and found unproven by the SIT.
9. It is no longer a case of the law taking its own course, but one of malicious witch-hunt against a political leader by his political opponents and by sections of the media and lawyers and others who are not well disposed towards him. Even after having failed to prove the charges before the SIT, they are determined to keep their vicious campaign alive for political reasons and not for reasons of natural justice.
10. Their ill-motivated attempts have to be deplored by all right-thinking persons, who should demand that the campaign of demonization should stop immediately. Modi has so far not allowed this campaign to negatively affect his administration of the State of Gujarat for the last 10 years. The State has made considerable progress under his leadership. This is acknowledged by independent-minded observers and even by persons who are not comfortable with him as an individual.
11. His future should be decided by the people not on the basis of the re-cycled unproven allegations of his demonisers, but on the basis of what he has already achieved as an administrator, his ideas and vision for the future and his capability for achieving them.
12. Those who still have reservations regarding his style of leadership and do not agree with those who praise his governance should confront him politically and establish before the people that his achievements and capabilities are over-rated if that is what they feel.
13. But his detractors and demonisers find themselves on a weak ground in respect of a political campaign against him based on objective factors. They are, therefore, trying to keep alive the demonization in the hope of thereby damaging and destroying his future political career. This has to be strongly deplored and I have no hesitation in doing so.
14. I have never been an uncritical admirer of Modi. Nor am I in the ranks of his perpetual demonisers. I have always sought to judge him as objectively as I can. It is my view that the demonization campaign against him must stop now. ( 12-2-12)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com Twitter : @SORBONNE75 )
Anti-terror body: Mamata upset
KOLKATA, 13 FEB: Chief minister Mamata Banerjee is upset with the Centre's decision to come up with the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC), an agency set up to maintain data of terror modules, terrorists, their associates, friends, families and supporters which will start functioning from 1 March.
Miss Banerjee reportedly feels it will be an attack on the federal structure of the country since the officials of NCTC will have the powers to seize or arrest any person suspected to have terror links. The NCTC will derive powers from the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), which allows the Central government agencies to make arrests or searches in terror-related cases. It may seek information from various agencies. The chief minister is reportedly in touch with her counterparts in Bihar and Odisha over the issue. sns
Ever since the attack on World Trade Centre on Sept 11.2011, the USA has never had a similar attack.
On the other hand we in India have had regular attacks all over India.
Why?
It is because of people like Mamta Banerjee who is always ready to fight for her rights but doe not care for the thousands of people who are killed every year because of terrorists attack. The latest one being just yesterday in Delhi by a magnetic car bomb.
Instead of cooperating with the centre to strengthen our anti-terrorist forces, she is finding fault in it to derail it, just for her vote bank.
Miss Banerjee reportedly feels it will be an attack on the federal structure of the country since the officials of NCTC will have the powers to seize or arrest any person suspected to have terror links. The NCTC will derive powers from the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), which allows the Central government agencies to make arrests or searches in terror-related cases. It may seek information from various agencies. The chief minister is reportedly in touch with her counterparts in Bihar and Odisha over the issue. sns
Ever since the attack on World Trade Centre on Sept 11.2011, the USA has never had a similar attack.
On the other hand we in India have had regular attacks all over India.
Why?
It is because of people like Mamta Banerjee who is always ready to fight for her rights but doe not care for the thousands of people who are killed every year because of terrorists attack. The latest one being just yesterday in Delhi by a magnetic car bomb.
Instead of cooperating with the centre to strengthen our anti-terrorist forces, she is finding fault in it to derail it, just for her vote bank.
WHY ATHLETES CAN'T HAVE REGULAR JOBS:
1. Chicago Cubs outfielder Andre Dawson on being a role model:
"I wan' all dem kids to do what I do, to look up to me. I wan' all the
kids to copulate me."
2. New Orleans Saint RB George Rogers when asked about the upcoming season:
"I want to rush for 1,000 or 1,500 yards, whichever comes first."
3. And, upon hearing Joe Jacobi of the 'Skin's say:
"I'd run over my own mother to win the Super Bowl,"
Matt Millen of the Raiders said: "To win, I'd run over Joe's Mom, too."
4. Torrin Polk, University of Houston receiver, on his coach, John Jenkins:
"He treat us like mens. He let us wear earrings.."
5. Football commentator and former player Joe Theismann:
"Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like
Norman Einstein."
6. Senior basketball player at the University of Pittsburgh :
"I'm going to graduate on time, no matter how long it takes."
(Now that is beautiful)
7. Bill Peterson, a Florida State football coach:
"You guys line up alphabetically by height.."
And, "You guys pair up in groups of three, and then line up in a
circle."
8. Boxing promoter Dan Duva on Mike Tyson going to prison:
"Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton ."
9. Stu Grimson, Chicago Blackhawks left wing, explaining why he keeps a color photo of himself above his locker:
"That's so when I forget how to spell my name, I can still find my
clothes."
10. Lou Duva, veteran boxing trainer, on the Spartan training regimen of heavyweight Andrew Golota:
"He's a guy who gets up at six o'clock in the morning, regardless of
what time it is."
11. Chuck Nevitt , North Carolina State basketball player, explaining to Coach Jim Valvano why he appeared nervous at practice:
"My sister's expecting a baby, and I don't know if I'm going to be an uncle or an aunt. (I wonder if his IQ ever hit room temperature in January)
12. Frank Layden , Utah Jazz president, on a former player:
"I asked him, 'Son, what is it with you? Is it ignorance or apathy?'
He said, 'Coach, I don't know and I don't care.'"
13. Shelby Metcalf, basketball coach at Texas A&M, recounting what he told a player who received four F's and one D:
"Son, looks to me like you're spending too much time on one subject."
14. In the words of NC State great Charles Shackelford:
"I can go to my left or right, I am amphibious."
15. Former Houston Oilers coach Bum Phillips when asked by Bob
Costas why he takes his wife on all the road trips,
Phillips responded: "Because she's too damn ugly to kiss good-bye."
Sent by Prakash Bhartia
I suppose it is because athletes are hit on their heads more often and probably the strain they are put through does not allow much oxygen to go to their brains
"I wan' all dem kids to do what I do, to look up to me. I wan' all the
kids to copulate me."
2. New Orleans Saint RB George Rogers when asked about the upcoming season:
"I want to rush for 1,000 or 1,500 yards, whichever comes first."
3. And, upon hearing Joe Jacobi of the 'Skin's say:
"I'd run over my own mother to win the Super Bowl,"
Matt Millen of the Raiders said: "To win, I'd run over Joe's Mom, too."
4. Torrin Polk, University of Houston receiver, on his coach, John Jenkins:
"He treat us like mens. He let us wear earrings.."
5. Football commentator and former player Joe Theismann:
"Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like
Norman Einstein."
6. Senior basketball player at the University of Pittsburgh :
"I'm going to graduate on time, no matter how long it takes."
(Now that is beautiful)
7. Bill Peterson, a Florida State football coach:
"You guys line up alphabetically by height.."
And, "You guys pair up in groups of three, and then line up in a
circle."
8. Boxing promoter Dan Duva on Mike Tyson going to prison:
"Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton ."
9. Stu Grimson, Chicago Blackhawks left wing, explaining why he keeps a color photo of himself above his locker:
"That's so when I forget how to spell my name, I can still find my
clothes."
10. Lou Duva, veteran boxing trainer, on the Spartan training regimen of heavyweight Andrew Golota:
"He's a guy who gets up at six o'clock in the morning, regardless of
what time it is."
11. Chuck Nevitt , North Carolina State basketball player, explaining to Coach Jim Valvano why he appeared nervous at practice:
"My sister's expecting a baby, and I don't know if I'm going to be an uncle or an aunt. (I wonder if his IQ ever hit room temperature in January)
12. Frank Layden , Utah Jazz president, on a former player:
"I asked him, 'Son, what is it with you? Is it ignorance or apathy?'
He said, 'Coach, I don't know and I don't care.'"
13. Shelby Metcalf, basketball coach at Texas A&M, recounting what he told a player who received four F's and one D:
"Son, looks to me like you're spending too much time on one subject."
14. In the words of NC State great Charles Shackelford:
"I can go to my left or right, I am amphibious."
15. Former Houston Oilers coach Bum Phillips when asked by Bob
Costas why he takes his wife on all the road trips,
Phillips responded: "Because she's too damn ugly to kiss good-bye."
Sent by Prakash Bhartia
I suppose it is because athletes are hit on their heads more often and probably the strain they are put through does not allow much oxygen to go to their brains
Monday, February 13, 2012
Just think about it!
1. If you cross the North Korean border illegally, you get ..... 12 years hard labor in an isolated prison .....
2. If you cross the Iranian border illegally, you get ..... detained indefinitely .....
3. If you cross the Afghan border illegally, you get ..... shot .....
4. If you cross the Saudi Arabian border illegally, you get ..... jailed .....
5. If you cross the Chinese border illegally, you get ..... kidnapped and may be never heard of - again ....
6. If you cross the Venezuelan border illegally, you get ..... branded as a spy and your fate sealed .....
7. If you cross the Cuban border illegally, you get ..... thrown into a political prison to rot .....
8. If you cross the British border illegally, you get ..... arrested, prosecuted, sent to prison and be deported after serving your sentence
Now .... if you were to cross the Indian border illegally, you get .....
1. A ration card
2. A passport (even more than one - if you please!)
3. A driver's license
4. A voter identity card
5. Bank Account
6. Debit / Credit cards
7. A Haj subsidy
8. A Job reservation
9. Special privileges for minorities
10. Government housing on subsidized rent
11. Loan to buy a house
12. Free education
13. Free health care
14. A lobbyist in New Delhi, with a bunch of media morons and a bigger bunch of human rights activists promoting your cause
15. The right to talk about secularism, which you have not heard about in your own country!
16. And of-course voting rights to elect corrupt politicians who will promote your community for their selfish interest in securing your votes!!!
17. Right to fight election for MLA or MP Hats off ..... to the .....
A. Corrupt and communal Indian politicians
B. The inefficient and corrupt Indian police force
C. The silly pseudo-secularists in India, who promote traitors staying here
D. The amazingly lenient Indian courts and legal system. That's why people like Afzal Guru are still alive, same will happen with Kasaab.
E. WE self centered Indian citizens, who are not bothered about the dangers to our own country.
F. The illogically brainless human-rights activists, who think that terrorists deserve to be dealt with by archaic laws meant for an era, when human beings were human beings.
Sent by Shiba Prasad Dutta.
I think you all must have read this earlier, somewhere.
But it is worth reading again and again to understand what The Congress and Mulayam Singh is doing to India for short term gains.
2. If you cross the Iranian border illegally, you get ..... detained indefinitely .....
3. If you cross the Afghan border illegally, you get ..... shot .....
4. If you cross the Saudi Arabian border illegally, you get ..... jailed .....
5. If you cross the Chinese border illegally, you get ..... kidnapped and may be never heard of - again ....
6. If you cross the Venezuelan border illegally, you get ..... branded as a spy and your fate sealed .....
7. If you cross the Cuban border illegally, you get ..... thrown into a political prison to rot .....
8. If you cross the British border illegally, you get ..... arrested, prosecuted, sent to prison and be deported after serving your sentence
Now .... if you were to cross the Indian border illegally, you get .....
1. A ration card
2. A passport (even more than one - if you please!)
3. A driver's license
4. A voter identity card
5. Bank Account
6. Debit / Credit cards
7. A Haj subsidy
8. A Job reservation
9. Special privileges for minorities
10. Government housing on subsidized rent
11. Loan to buy a house
12. Free education
13. Free health care
14. A lobbyist in New Delhi, with a bunch of media morons and a bigger bunch of human rights activists promoting your cause
15. The right to talk about secularism, which you have not heard about in your own country!
16. And of-course voting rights to elect corrupt politicians who will promote your community for their selfish interest in securing your votes!!!
17. Right to fight election for MLA or MP Hats off ..... to the .....
A. Corrupt and communal Indian politicians
B. The inefficient and corrupt Indian police force
C. The silly pseudo-secularists in India, who promote traitors staying here
D. The amazingly lenient Indian courts and legal system. That's why people like Afzal Guru are still alive, same will happen with Kasaab.
E. WE self centered Indian citizens, who are not bothered about the dangers to our own country.
F. The illogically brainless human-rights activists, who think that terrorists deserve to be dealt with by archaic laws meant for an era, when human beings were human beings.
Sent by Shiba Prasad Dutta.
I think you all must have read this earlier, somewhere.
But it is worth reading again and again to understand what The Congress and Mulayam Singh is doing to India for short term gains.
Just rob, place and time no bar
By A STAFF REPORTER | www.telegraphindia.com
Calcutta, Feb. 12: The "unbelievable" has happened in Calcutta ' that too in daylight.
Two youths walked up to a sedan carrying a young couple finishing off their Sunday breakfast, held a knife to the throat of the husband who resisted initially and suffered a cut, and eventually ambled away with his gold chain and ring around 9am.
The sequence unfolded near a roadside eatery at Burrabazar, where families go for a bite of comfort food such as sabzi and kachori on Sunday mornings. The audacious hold-up on Sir Hariram Goenka Street, off Rabindra Sarani, did not last for more than two minutes and the robbers melted away in full view of at least 20 to 30 people.
"I still can't imagine that two persons actually walked up to our car, held a knife to my throat, gave me a cut when I resisted and then just walked away with the jewellery. I can't believe this happening in Calcutta," Amit Rungta said after lodging a complaint with Posta police station.
Amit, 36, a businessman, was wounded in his palm as he tried to resist the robbers initially but later gave in to the request of his wife Jyoti, 32, and parted with his ring and chain with two pendants, valued at Rs 1.5 lakh.
"All I can say at this point is that I am never coming back to Burrabazar," said Amit, who lives with his family on Upper Wood Street.
The couple had visited the famous Badri kachori shop on Hariram Goenka Street ' a typical Burrabazar bylane with shops lined up on both sides of the eight-foot street ' this morning.
"The family is originally from Burrabazar…. Amit and Jyoti have the habit of enjoying their Sunday morning breakfast at different eateries," said Lokesh Sharma, a business associate of the Rungtas.
In his complaint to the police, Amit had said that after parking his Honda City around 50 meters from the shop, he and his wife went to the eatery and placed their order. "We carried the food back to the car," recounted Amit.
Amit was sitting in the driver's seat with his wife beside him. Just when he finished his plate, the door next to him was yanked open and a knife was held to his throat. The two men ordered him in Hindi to give them his gold chain and ring.
"Initially, we tried to raise an alarm. But one of them said 'halla mat karo (don't make a noise)' and, in any case, no one was coming to our help. So we stopped shouting," said Jyoti.
"I saw my husband had cut his hand trying to resist them. They were still holding the knife to his throat and I feared his throat would be slit. So, I begged him to part with the ornaments," she recollected.
Amit, however, had dropped two other rings and a bracelet inside the car while handing over what the snatchers had demanded. Jyoti said she did not wear jewellery.
"It is baffling that the snatchers walked away and nobody even tried to stop them," Amit said.
Roshan Kumar, a helper at the kachori shop, said he had rushed to the car on hearing screams. "As I and a few others were approaching, the robbers who had put their heads through the car windows warned that the couple would face dire consequences if we ventured nearer…. This prompted us to run to a safe distance," Roshan, in his mid-thirties, said.
"Both of them were carrying knives," he added.
City detective chief Damyanti Sen said an investigation was on. "It seems the duo were local people," Sen said.
This is the new W. Bengal, under Mamta Banerjee,
I wouldn't be suprprised if these two criminals are caught, which is doubtful, thet happen to be Trinamul Congress supporters.
The Trinamul Congress has become the happy hunting ground for criminal of all types.
Calcutta, Feb. 12: The "unbelievable" has happened in Calcutta ' that too in daylight.
Two youths walked up to a sedan carrying a young couple finishing off their Sunday breakfast, held a knife to the throat of the husband who resisted initially and suffered a cut, and eventually ambled away with his gold chain and ring around 9am.
The sequence unfolded near a roadside eatery at Burrabazar, where families go for a bite of comfort food such as sabzi and kachori on Sunday mornings. The audacious hold-up on Sir Hariram Goenka Street, off Rabindra Sarani, did not last for more than two minutes and the robbers melted away in full view of at least 20 to 30 people.
"I still can't imagine that two persons actually walked up to our car, held a knife to my throat, gave me a cut when I resisted and then just walked away with the jewellery. I can't believe this happening in Calcutta," Amit Rungta said after lodging a complaint with Posta police station.
Amit, 36, a businessman, was wounded in his palm as he tried to resist the robbers initially but later gave in to the request of his wife Jyoti, 32, and parted with his ring and chain with two pendants, valued at Rs 1.5 lakh.
"All I can say at this point is that I am never coming back to Burrabazar," said Amit, who lives with his family on Upper Wood Street.
The couple had visited the famous Badri kachori shop on Hariram Goenka Street ' a typical Burrabazar bylane with shops lined up on both sides of the eight-foot street ' this morning.
"The family is originally from Burrabazar…. Amit and Jyoti have the habit of enjoying their Sunday morning breakfast at different eateries," said Lokesh Sharma, a business associate of the Rungtas.
In his complaint to the police, Amit had said that after parking his Honda City around 50 meters from the shop, he and his wife went to the eatery and placed their order. "We carried the food back to the car," recounted Amit.
Amit was sitting in the driver's seat with his wife beside him. Just when he finished his plate, the door next to him was yanked open and a knife was held to his throat. The two men ordered him in Hindi to give them his gold chain and ring.
"Initially, we tried to raise an alarm. But one of them said 'halla mat karo (don't make a noise)' and, in any case, no one was coming to our help. So we stopped shouting," said Jyoti.
"I saw my husband had cut his hand trying to resist them. They were still holding the knife to his throat and I feared his throat would be slit. So, I begged him to part with the ornaments," she recollected.
Amit, however, had dropped two other rings and a bracelet inside the car while handing over what the snatchers had demanded. Jyoti said she did not wear jewellery.
"It is baffling that the snatchers walked away and nobody even tried to stop them," Amit said.
Roshan Kumar, a helper at the kachori shop, said he had rushed to the car on hearing screams. "As I and a few others were approaching, the robbers who had put their heads through the car windows warned that the couple would face dire consequences if we ventured nearer…. This prompted us to run to a safe distance," Roshan, in his mid-thirties, said.
"Both of them were carrying knives," he added.
City detective chief Damyanti Sen said an investigation was on. "It seems the duo were local people," Sen said.
This is the new W. Bengal, under Mamta Banerjee,
I wouldn't be suprprised if these two criminals are caught, which is doubtful, thet happen to be Trinamul Congress supporters.
The Trinamul Congress has become the happy hunting ground for criminal of all types.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
India ranks high in corruption-hit nations: Court
New Delhi, Feb 12 (IANS) India ranks prominently high in the list of countries plagued by corruption, a Delhi court has said while handing down one year imprisonment to two convicts in a 24-year-old graft and forgery case.
Observing that the anti-corruption measures in India were perceived by people to be ineffective, Central Bureau of Investigation Special Judge V.K. Maheshwari said that corruption was a scourge that not only affected progress and development in society but also posed a grave challenge to governance.
"Unfortunately, India ranks prominently high in the list of countries plagued by corruption. Anti-Corruption measures in India are perceived by the people to be weak and ineffective," the court said.
"The United Nations Global Report on Crime and Justice quotes public opinion surveys in a number of countries, to point out that citizenry in those countries ranks corruption as one among the five most important problems facing their society," the court said Thursday, in a verdict that has just become available.
The judge said people's doubts over the ability of the criminal justice administration to deal with the corrupt led to public cynicism and distrust in almost all government institutions.
The court awarded one year rigorous imprisonment to O.P. Dabas and A.K. Puri for helping a Tihar Jail inmate get shifted to a state-owned hospital and avail nursing home facilities in 1988. The court also imposed a fine of Rs.60.000 each on the convicts.
Dabas and Puri helped Gurbux Biryani, arrested in a drugs case, to shift from jail to Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan (LNJP) Hospital and then to the adjoining G.B. Pant Hospital and avail special nursing home facilities on two occasions July 28, 1988 and Aug 5, 1988. Biryani died Jan 25, 2010 during trial.
Dabas was working as reception assistant in G.B. Pant Hospital and Puri was the brother-in-law of Biryani.
The court held both of them guilty under the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, criminal conspiracy and forgery.
The court acquitted Jolly Bansal, a doctor, and Sushil Kumar, an LNJP hospital employee.
"Ashok Puri in connivance and conspiracy with Dabas had got Gurbux Biryani illegally admitted to LNJP Hospital and managed false and forged admission summary/transfer summary on the basis of which in furtherance of his criminal conspiracy along with O.P. Dabas got Biryani admitted to G.B. Pant Hospital on July 28, 1988 and Aug 5, 1988," the court said.
CBI prosecutor Brajesh Shukla examined 55 witnesses in the case.
The honourable judge is telling us something we all know and against which Anna was fighting.
Unfortunately, the congress achieved its aim in derailing the agitation by making frivolous charges against his core group.
We are seeing the results in the state elections in UP where all the parties have put up candidates with criminal records. Where criminals rule the nation, can one expect honesty in the government.
What is the judiciary doing. They are just attacking the surface, leaving the rotten roots to continue their work.
We are seeing the site of an impotent election commissioner, appealing the the President of India to rein in the minister Salman Kurshed.
The President then forwards the complaint to another impotent person, the prime minister to look into the complaint, knowing full well that he will not take any action as they are both from the same party - the congress.
Oh! how I wish Mr. T N Seshan was here.
He would have straightened these recalcitrant politicians.
Observing that the anti-corruption measures in India were perceived by people to be ineffective, Central Bureau of Investigation Special Judge V.K. Maheshwari said that corruption was a scourge that not only affected progress and development in society but also posed a grave challenge to governance.
"Unfortunately, India ranks prominently high in the list of countries plagued by corruption. Anti-Corruption measures in India are perceived by the people to be weak and ineffective," the court said.
"The United Nations Global Report on Crime and Justice quotes public opinion surveys in a number of countries, to point out that citizenry in those countries ranks corruption as one among the five most important problems facing their society," the court said Thursday, in a verdict that has just become available.
The judge said people's doubts over the ability of the criminal justice administration to deal with the corrupt led to public cynicism and distrust in almost all government institutions.
The court awarded one year rigorous imprisonment to O.P. Dabas and A.K. Puri for helping a Tihar Jail inmate get shifted to a state-owned hospital and avail nursing home facilities in 1988. The court also imposed a fine of Rs.60.000 each on the convicts.
Dabas and Puri helped Gurbux Biryani, arrested in a drugs case, to shift from jail to Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan (LNJP) Hospital and then to the adjoining G.B. Pant Hospital and avail special nursing home facilities on two occasions July 28, 1988 and Aug 5, 1988. Biryani died Jan 25, 2010 during trial.
Dabas was working as reception assistant in G.B. Pant Hospital and Puri was the brother-in-law of Biryani.
The court held both of them guilty under the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, criminal conspiracy and forgery.
The court acquitted Jolly Bansal, a doctor, and Sushil Kumar, an LNJP hospital employee.
"Ashok Puri in connivance and conspiracy with Dabas had got Gurbux Biryani illegally admitted to LNJP Hospital and managed false and forged admission summary/transfer summary on the basis of which in furtherance of his criminal conspiracy along with O.P. Dabas got Biryani admitted to G.B. Pant Hospital on July 28, 1988 and Aug 5, 1988," the court said.
CBI prosecutor Brajesh Shukla examined 55 witnesses in the case.
The honourable judge is telling us something we all know and against which Anna was fighting.
Unfortunately, the congress achieved its aim in derailing the agitation by making frivolous charges against his core group.
We are seeing the results in the state elections in UP where all the parties have put up candidates with criminal records. Where criminals rule the nation, can one expect honesty in the government.
What is the judiciary doing. They are just attacking the surface, leaving the rotten roots to continue their work.
We are seeing the site of an impotent election commissioner, appealing the the President of India to rein in the minister Salman Kurshed.
The President then forwards the complaint to another impotent person, the prime minister to look into the complaint, knowing full well that he will not take any action as they are both from the same party - the congress.
Oh! how I wish Mr. T N Seshan was here.
He would have straightened these recalcitrant politicians.
Gilgit-Baltistan may be leased to China’
WASHINGTON, 11 FEB: Seeking to fortify its strategic ties with China amid strains in relations with the USA, Pakistan is considering a proposal to lease the disputed Gilgit-Baltistan region to Beijing for 50 years, a US-based think tank has claimed, citing local media.
The Pakistani move is aimed at cementing its all-weather relations with China amid the irreparable rupture in US-Pak ties over the past year, said Middle East Media Research Institute in a report-released yesterday, which was based on news reports in this regard in local Urdu newspapers.
The decision to launch the Pakistan-China Strategic Programme for Gilgit-Baltistan was probably taken during army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani’s visit to China in January 2012, it said.
A report, titled “Pakistan’s Deteriorating Situation, Strained Relations with America: Deliberation on Leasing Gilgit Baltistan to China for 50 years”, which was published in the Urdu daily Roznama Bang-e-Sahar, reads: “In the backdrop of the deteriorating situation in Pakistan and strained relations with America, deliberations have begun (on a proposal) to hand over Gilgit-Baltistan to China on a 50-year lease”. pti
This is the proverbial case of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
So, to get back Kashmir, Pakistan is giving away Gilgit-Baltistan for leasing is as good as giving it away for they will never get it back from China.
I have said earlier and I repeat, the faster the USA, India and Russia axis is formed the better we will be able to avoid a third World War.
At the rate China is bulldozing everywhere, there is nothing to prevent China from launching the war.
WASHINGTON, 11 FEB: Seeking to fortify its strategic ties with China amid strains in relations with the USA, Pakistan is considering a proposal to lease the disputed Gilgit-Baltistan region to Beijing for 50 years, a US-based think tank has claimed, citing local media.
The Pakistani move is aimed at cementing its all-weather relations with China amid the irreparable rupture in US-Pak ties over the past year, said Middle East Media Research Institute in a report-released yesterday, which was based on news reports in this regard in local Urdu newspapers.
The decision to launch the Pakistan-China Strategic Programme for Gilgit-Baltistan was probably taken during army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani’s visit to China in January 2012, it said.
A report, titled “Pakistan’s Deteriorating Situation, Strained Relations with America: Deliberation on Leasing Gilgit Baltistan to China for 50 years”, which was published in the Urdu daily Roznama Bang-e-Sahar, reads: “In the backdrop of the deteriorating situation in Pakistan and strained relations with America, deliberations have begun (on a proposal) to hand over Gilgit-Baltistan to China on a 50-year lease”. pti
This is the proverbial case of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
So, to get back Kashmir, Pakistan is giving away Gilgit-Baltistan for leasing is as good as giving it away for they will never get it back from China.
I have said earlier and I repeat, the faster the USA, India and Russia axis is formed the better we will be able to avoid a third World War.
At the rate China is bulldozing everywhere, there is nothing to prevent China from launching the war.
Bihar Government’s Zero Action Against Big Electricity Thieves
Patna,(BiharTimes): The recent attack by consumers on Bihar State Electricity Board officials and employees in Gaya following raids and the proposed move to once again raise the power tariff––this time by about 100 per cent––have raised several serious questions over the handling of the power situation in Bihar.
The Nitish government came to power on the promise to brighten up the state within six months, but more than six years later the situation has turned from bad to worse with the BSEB becoming an agency to shield the big electricity thieves close to powers that be and instead nab the petty ones on one pretext or the other. According to one estimate thousands of crores have been lost in the process.
The Bihar government formulated its State Litigation Policy in April 2011 which sets down the following objective criteria for filing a Special Leave Petition in Supreme Court: 1) Where issues related to public finance are involved; 2) Where substantial questions of law are involved; 3) Where the High Court has exceeded its jurisdiction and finally 4) Where the High Court has struck down a statutory provision etc.
Yet the state government, according to sources, has violated its own Litigation Policy when the Patna High Court recently quashed the two FIRs lodged by Vigilance Cell of the BSEB in 2008 and 2009 against Dadiji Steel Ltd, a leading firm, and the then Chairman of BSEB respectively.
The Court ruled that the police were not empowered to institute cases under Electricity Act 2003 though in one case alone close to Rs 20 crores of public money was involved.
Besides, sources said several hundreds of crores may be involved in dozens of cases of power theft which are under investigation and the government may be forced to close them as well in the light of the judgment of the High Court.
Though the High Court ruling involves both public finance and a question of law yet the government has not filed an appeal in the Supreme Court. As a result 52 other voluntary declarations are likely to remain un-investigated.
According to the latest issue of Bureaucracy Today “The voluntary declaration itself may have put the BSEB to a possible loss of Rs 600 crore...This value of Rs 600 crore is speculative, because the Chairman, and underlings, refused to part with any papers, hence effectively stopping the investigation in its tracks.”
Needless to say, consuming electricity through a tampered metre is a criminal offence entailing a punishment of up to three years rigorous imprisonment and a punitive billing which may be up to six times the actual bill. But if a consumer makes a voluntary declaration under Clause 11.4 of the Bihar Electricity Supply Code 2007 that his/her metre is being tampered then the BSEB replaces the metre, and s/he is let off with an average billing for the last three months in case of domestic consumers and six months of average billing and no criminal proceedings will follow after that.
It needs to be recalled that the Vigilance Cell of the BSEB launched an intensive drive during the tenure of DG Anand Shankar to check theft of power by big consumers during the months of March and April 2008. Among others case was registered against Dadiji Steel Limited for theft of electricity. A punitive bill of Rs 20 crores was slapped.
What followed is something very strange. The then Chairman of the Board Swapan Mukherjee accepted the voluntary declaration of Dadiji Steel Limited about two months after Vigilance had caught it red-handed and raised a bill for Rs 1,19,91,755.00 on July 9, 2008 under Clause 11.4 of the Supply Code. All this when there was no scope for it in this case.
Meanwhile, Anand Shankar was transferred and Manoje Nath replaced him. The Chairman, on being countered by the Vigilance, that the voluntary declaration was illegal in this case admitted that he was not aware of Vigilance action. Voluntary declaration was not admissible to someone who had been raided still he refused to realise Rs 20 crores.
The then principal secretary of the department also lent his support to the Vigilance view. But still a bill for the remaining Rs 20 crores was not raised or realised from Dadiji Steel.
Vigilance registered a second case under Section 13 (1) D of the Prevention of Corruption Act against the Chairman for causing a pecuniary advantage of about Rs 20 crores to the Dadiji Steel Limited.
Not only that, to avoid raids 53 big industrialists responded to the advertisement published by the BSEB to declare that their metres are being tampered. Some of them had been caught stealing electricity worth Rs 80 and 70 crores in the past. Yet they also got their tampered metre replaced after paying a minimal amount. The Vigilance could not make much headway because the Board not only refused to co-operate it took a U-turn and made common cause with Dadiji whom it was prosecuting earlier.
Ironically, this offer was not made to a single common domestic consumer by BSEB, whose officials lodged 250 FIRs in 2008, in Patna alone. They realized Rs 1.68 crores as punitive fines and sent to jail dozens of them for the theft of as little as Rs 6,000. This notwithstanding the fact that it is the discretion of the BSEB either to send power thieves to jail over and above a punitive fine, or to grant them amnesty under Clause 11.4.
The Nitish government refused to heed to the pleas of the DG to remove the Chairman. Instead it removed the DG (Electricity Vigilance) Manoje Nath within six months leaving the Board to conduct the case to its advantage.
According to Bureaucracy Today highly placed officers like the former Chief Secretary, Additional Director General of Vigilance Bureau and the Inspector General lent a helping hand to weaken the case of the state.
While the big fish is being let off, sources said, that common citizens will have to bear the brunt of unpaid power bill worth Rs 2500 crores. This loss is euphemistically called transmission loss which runs to 44 per cent.
The BSEB was always known to be corrupt.
My interaction with BSEB is more than 40 years old.
When I worked in Express Cables, in Patna, we used to supply ACSR & AAC conductor.
There was one company who are presently one of the leading industrial houses in India.They are into Aluuminium, Copper, Zinc, mining and have recently gone into oil. When they were very small in Patna, they used to supply drums of conductor to the BSEB godowns during the daytime and then remove those drums during the night and then supply the same drums the next day.
They earned their first crore then.
It seems Nitish has tried to change Bihar.
He has been successful in other spheres but as far as the BSRB is concerned, he i a failure.
The BSEB chugs along at the same rate with the same engine and bogies of corruption.
Even Nitish cannot change some things.
The Nitish government came to power on the promise to brighten up the state within six months, but more than six years later the situation has turned from bad to worse with the BSEB becoming an agency to shield the big electricity thieves close to powers that be and instead nab the petty ones on one pretext or the other. According to one estimate thousands of crores have been lost in the process.
The Bihar government formulated its State Litigation Policy in April 2011 which sets down the following objective criteria for filing a Special Leave Petition in Supreme Court: 1) Where issues related to public finance are involved; 2) Where substantial questions of law are involved; 3) Where the High Court has exceeded its jurisdiction and finally 4) Where the High Court has struck down a statutory provision etc.
Yet the state government, according to sources, has violated its own Litigation Policy when the Patna High Court recently quashed the two FIRs lodged by Vigilance Cell of the BSEB in 2008 and 2009 against Dadiji Steel Ltd, a leading firm, and the then Chairman of BSEB respectively.
The Court ruled that the police were not empowered to institute cases under Electricity Act 2003 though in one case alone close to Rs 20 crores of public money was involved.
Besides, sources said several hundreds of crores may be involved in dozens of cases of power theft which are under investigation and the government may be forced to close them as well in the light of the judgment of the High Court.
Though the High Court ruling involves both public finance and a question of law yet the government has not filed an appeal in the Supreme Court. As a result 52 other voluntary declarations are likely to remain un-investigated.
According to the latest issue of Bureaucracy Today “The voluntary declaration itself may have put the BSEB to a possible loss of Rs 600 crore...This value of Rs 600 crore is speculative, because the Chairman, and underlings, refused to part with any papers, hence effectively stopping the investigation in its tracks.”
Needless to say, consuming electricity through a tampered metre is a criminal offence entailing a punishment of up to three years rigorous imprisonment and a punitive billing which may be up to six times the actual bill. But if a consumer makes a voluntary declaration under Clause 11.4 of the Bihar Electricity Supply Code 2007 that his/her metre is being tampered then the BSEB replaces the metre, and s/he is let off with an average billing for the last three months in case of domestic consumers and six months of average billing and no criminal proceedings will follow after that.
It needs to be recalled that the Vigilance Cell of the BSEB launched an intensive drive during the tenure of DG Anand Shankar to check theft of power by big consumers during the months of March and April 2008. Among others case was registered against Dadiji Steel Limited for theft of electricity. A punitive bill of Rs 20 crores was slapped.
What followed is something very strange. The then Chairman of the Board Swapan Mukherjee accepted the voluntary declaration of Dadiji Steel Limited about two months after Vigilance had caught it red-handed and raised a bill for Rs 1,19,91,755.00 on July 9, 2008 under Clause 11.4 of the Supply Code. All this when there was no scope for it in this case.
Meanwhile, Anand Shankar was transferred and Manoje Nath replaced him. The Chairman, on being countered by the Vigilance, that the voluntary declaration was illegal in this case admitted that he was not aware of Vigilance action. Voluntary declaration was not admissible to someone who had been raided still he refused to realise Rs 20 crores.
The then principal secretary of the department also lent his support to the Vigilance view. But still a bill for the remaining Rs 20 crores was not raised or realised from Dadiji Steel.
Vigilance registered a second case under Section 13 (1) D of the Prevention of Corruption Act against the Chairman for causing a pecuniary advantage of about Rs 20 crores to the Dadiji Steel Limited.
Not only that, to avoid raids 53 big industrialists responded to the advertisement published by the BSEB to declare that their metres are being tampered. Some of them had been caught stealing electricity worth Rs 80 and 70 crores in the past. Yet they also got their tampered metre replaced after paying a minimal amount. The Vigilance could not make much headway because the Board not only refused to co-operate it took a U-turn and made common cause with Dadiji whom it was prosecuting earlier.
Ironically, this offer was not made to a single common domestic consumer by BSEB, whose officials lodged 250 FIRs in 2008, in Patna alone. They realized Rs 1.68 crores as punitive fines and sent to jail dozens of them for the theft of as little as Rs 6,000. This notwithstanding the fact that it is the discretion of the BSEB either to send power thieves to jail over and above a punitive fine, or to grant them amnesty under Clause 11.4.
The Nitish government refused to heed to the pleas of the DG to remove the Chairman. Instead it removed the DG (Electricity Vigilance) Manoje Nath within six months leaving the Board to conduct the case to its advantage.
According to Bureaucracy Today highly placed officers like the former Chief Secretary, Additional Director General of Vigilance Bureau and the Inspector General lent a helping hand to weaken the case of the state.
While the big fish is being let off, sources said, that common citizens will have to bear the brunt of unpaid power bill worth Rs 2500 crores. This loss is euphemistically called transmission loss which runs to 44 per cent.
The BSEB was always known to be corrupt.
My interaction with BSEB is more than 40 years old.
When I worked in Express Cables, in Patna, we used to supply ACSR & AAC conductor.
There was one company who are presently one of the leading industrial houses in India.They are into Aluuminium, Copper, Zinc, mining and have recently gone into oil. When they were very small in Patna, they used to supply drums of conductor to the BSEB godowns during the daytime and then remove those drums during the night and then supply the same drums the next day.
They earned their first crore then.
It seems Nitish has tried to change Bihar.
He has been successful in other spheres but as far as the BSRB is concerned, he i a failure.
The BSEB chugs along at the same rate with the same engine and bogies of corruption.
Even Nitish cannot change some things.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Obituary -chonminthang Misao
Dear Goethalites, an old friend and school hero Minthang (chonminthang Misao) passed away in Manipur this morning. May his soul rest in peace
Posted by Peter Remedios on FB.
Posted by Peter Remedios on FB.
Knowing which side your bread is buttered
A husband and wife were having dinner at a very fine restaurant when this absolutely stunning young woman comes over to their table, gives the husband a big kiss, says she'll see him later and walks away.
His wife glares at him and says, "Who the hell was that?"
"Oh," replies the husband, "she's my mistress."
"Well, that's the last straw," says the wife. "I've had enough, I want a divorce!"
"I can understand that," replies her husband, "but remember, if we get a divorce, it will mean no more shopping trips to Paris, no more wintering in Barbados, no more summers in Tuscany, no more Infinity or Lexus in the garage and no more yacht club. But the decision is yours."
Just then, a mutual friend enters the restaurant with a gorgeous babe on his arm.
"Who's that woman with Jim?" asks the wife.
"That's his mistress," says her husband.
"Ours is prettier," she replies.
Sent by Prakash Bhartia
His wife glares at him and says, "Who the hell was that?"
"Oh," replies the husband, "she's my mistress."
"Well, that's the last straw," says the wife. "I've had enough, I want a divorce!"
"I can understand that," replies her husband, "but remember, if we get a divorce, it will mean no more shopping trips to Paris, no more wintering in Barbados, no more summers in Tuscany, no more Infinity or Lexus in the garage and no more yacht club. But the decision is yours."
Just then, a mutual friend enters the restaurant with a gorgeous babe on his arm.
"Who's that woman with Jim?" asks the wife.
"That's his mistress," says her husband.
"Ours is prettier," she replies.
Sent by Prakash Bhartia
Drunk in Market Check-out
A woman at the super market says: NEVER, EVER, QUESTION A DRUNK . . . .
I was shopping at the local supermarket where I selected:
A half-gallon of 2% milk
A carton of eggs
A quart of orange juice
A head of lettuce
A 2 lb. Can of coffee
A 1 lb. Package of bacon
As I was unloading my items on the conveyor belt to check out, a drunk standing behind me watched as I placed the items in front of the cashier. While the cashier was ringing up the purchases, the drunk calmly stated -- 'You must be single.'
I was a bit startled by this proclamation, but I was intrigued by the derelict's intuition, since I indeed had never found "Mr. Right." I looked at the six items on the belt and saw nothing particularly unusual about my selections that could have tipped off the drunk to my marital status.....
Curiosity getting the better of me, I said -- 'Yes you are correct. But how on earth did you know that?'
The drunk replied -- 'Cause you're ugly.'
Sent by Prakash Bhartia
I was shopping at the local supermarket where I selected:
A half-gallon of 2% milk
A carton of eggs
A quart of orange juice
A head of lettuce
A 2 lb. Can of coffee
A 1 lb. Package of bacon
As I was unloading my items on the conveyor belt to check out, a drunk standing behind me watched as I placed the items in front of the cashier. While the cashier was ringing up the purchases, the drunk calmly stated -- 'You must be single.'
I was a bit startled by this proclamation, but I was intrigued by the derelict's intuition, since I indeed had never found "Mr. Right." I looked at the six items on the belt and saw nothing particularly unusual about my selections that could have tipped off the drunk to my marital status.....
Curiosity getting the better of me, I said -- 'Yes you are correct. But how on earth did you know that?'
The drunk replied -- 'Cause you're ugly.'
Sent by Prakash Bhartia
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Priorities
One day a man decided to retire...
He booked himself on a Caribbean cruise and proceeded to have the time of his life, that is, until the ship sank.
He soon found himself on an island with no other people, no supplies, nothing, only bananas and coconuts.
After about four months, lying on the beach, the most gorgeous woman he has ever seen rows up to the shore.
In disbelief, he asks, "Where did you come from? How did you get here?"
She replies, "I rowed over from the other side of the island where I landed when my cruise ship sank."
"Amazing," he exclaims. "You were really lucky to have a row boat wash up with you."
"Oh, this thing?" explains the woman. "I made the boat out of some raw material I found on the island. The oars I whittled from gum tree branches, and wove the bottom and the sides from palm tree branches. And the stern i carved from a Eucalyptus tree."
"But how, where did you get the tools?"
"Oh, that was no problem," replied the woman. "On the south side of the island, a very unusual stratum of alluvial rock is exposed. I found that if I fired it to a certain temperature in my kiln, it melted into ductile iron. I used that to make tools and used the tools to make the hardware."
The guy is speechless, smitten, stunned.
"Let's row over to my place," she says.
So, after an hour of athletic rowing, she docks the boat at a small, home-made wharf.
As he looks to shore, the man nearly falls off the boat: before him is a long stone walk leading to a cabin and tree house.
While this exquisite woman ties up the rowboat with an expertly woven hemp rope, he can only stare ahead, dumbstruck. As they walk into the house, she says casually, "It's not much but I call it home. Sit down, please. Would you like a drink?"
"No! No thank you," the man blurts out, still dazed. "I can't take another drop of coconut juice.."
"It's not coconut juice," winks the woman. "I have a still. How would you like a Tropical Spritz?"
Unable to hide his continued amazement, the man accepts, and they sit down on her couch to talk.
After exchanging their individual survival stories, the woman announces, "I'm going to slip into something more comfortable. Would you like to take a shower and shave? There's a razor in the bathroom cabinet upstairs."
No longer questioning anything, he goes upstairs into the bathroom. There in the cabinet is a razor made from a piece of tortoise bone, with two shells honed to a hollow ground edge fastened on to its end inside a swivel mechanism.
"This woman is beyond amazing," he muses. "What's next?"
He returns downstairs, to the faint smell of gardenias, where she greets him, wearing nothing but some tiny flowers strategically positioned..
She beckons him to sit beside her.
"Tell me," she begins suggestively, slithering closer, "We've both been out here so long. You must have been lonely too. When was the last time you played around?”
She stares swimmingly into his eyes.
He can't believe what he's hearing.
"You mean..." he swallows excitedly as tears start to form in his eyes,
"Don't tell meYou've built a bloody golf course?"
Sent by Prakash Bhartia
He booked himself on a Caribbean cruise and proceeded to have the time of his life, that is, until the ship sank.
He soon found himself on an island with no other people, no supplies, nothing, only bananas and coconuts.
After about four months, lying on the beach, the most gorgeous woman he has ever seen rows up to the shore.
In disbelief, he asks, "Where did you come from? How did you get here?"
She replies, "I rowed over from the other side of the island where I landed when my cruise ship sank."
"Amazing," he exclaims. "You were really lucky to have a row boat wash up with you."
"Oh, this thing?" explains the woman. "I made the boat out of some raw material I found on the island. The oars I whittled from gum tree branches, and wove the bottom and the sides from palm tree branches. And the stern i carved from a Eucalyptus tree."
"But how, where did you get the tools?"
"Oh, that was no problem," replied the woman. "On the south side of the island, a very unusual stratum of alluvial rock is exposed. I found that if I fired it to a certain temperature in my kiln, it melted into ductile iron. I used that to make tools and used the tools to make the hardware."
The guy is speechless, smitten, stunned.
"Let's row over to my place," she says.
So, after an hour of athletic rowing, she docks the boat at a small, home-made wharf.
As he looks to shore, the man nearly falls off the boat: before him is a long stone walk leading to a cabin and tree house.
While this exquisite woman ties up the rowboat with an expertly woven hemp rope, he can only stare ahead, dumbstruck. As they walk into the house, she says casually, "It's not much but I call it home. Sit down, please. Would you like a drink?"
"No! No thank you," the man blurts out, still dazed. "I can't take another drop of coconut juice.."
"It's not coconut juice," winks the woman. "I have a still. How would you like a Tropical Spritz?"
Unable to hide his continued amazement, the man accepts, and they sit down on her couch to talk.
After exchanging their individual survival stories, the woman announces, "I'm going to slip into something more comfortable. Would you like to take a shower and shave? There's a razor in the bathroom cabinet upstairs."
No longer questioning anything, he goes upstairs into the bathroom. There in the cabinet is a razor made from a piece of tortoise bone, with two shells honed to a hollow ground edge fastened on to its end inside a swivel mechanism.
"This woman is beyond amazing," he muses. "What's next?"
He returns downstairs, to the faint smell of gardenias, where she greets him, wearing nothing but some tiny flowers strategically positioned..
She beckons him to sit beside her.
"Tell me," she begins suggestively, slithering closer, "We've both been out here so long. You must have been lonely too. When was the last time you played around?”
She stares swimmingly into his eyes.
He can't believe what he's hearing.
"You mean..." he swallows excitedly as tears start to form in his eyes,
"Don't tell meYou've built a bloody golf course?"
Sent by Prakash Bhartia
All in the presentation ..........
God summons President Barrack Obama, Chinese Leader Hu Jintao and French
President Nicolas Sarkozy to a meeting. He then tells them that he
has decided to end the world in 3 days and orders them to tell their
people.
President Obama has a television speech to ****America**** and says, "I
have good news and bad news. The good news is that there is a God. The bad
news is that he will destroy the world in 3 days."
Leader Hu has a television speech to the Chinese people. He tells them, "I
have bad news and worse news. The bad news is that there is a God. The
worse news is that the world is going to end in 3 days and you're
all going to hell."
President Sarkozy goes on television and tells the French people, "I
have good news and better news. The good news is that there is a God and
he spoke to me! The better news is that the European economic crisis
will be over in 3 days."
Sent by Prakash Bhartia.
You can trust the French to make the best of even the worst situation
President Nicolas Sarkozy to a meeting. He then tells them that he
has decided to end the world in 3 days and orders them to tell their
people.
President Obama has a television speech to ****America**** and says, "I
have good news and bad news. The good news is that there is a God. The bad
news is that he will destroy the world in 3 days."
Leader Hu has a television speech to the Chinese people. He tells them, "I
have bad news and worse news. The bad news is that there is a God. The
worse news is that the world is going to end in 3 days and you're
all going to hell."
President Sarkozy goes on television and tells the French people, "I
have good news and better news. The good news is that there is a God and
he spoke to me! The better news is that the European economic crisis
will be over in 3 days."
Sent by Prakash Bhartia.
You can trust the French to make the best of even the worst situation
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Calcutta High Court stays compensation to kin of Hooch tragedy
Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court has stayed the payment of compensation declared by the West Bengal government to the families of victims of last December's hooch tragedy in South 24 Parganas that claimed more than 172 lives.
Hearing the PIL filed by two advocates Chittaranjan Panada and Basabi Raichowdhury challenged the state government's move to pay compensation to the victims of the hooch tragedy, bench constituting of Chief Justice JN Patel and Justice Sambuddha Chakrabarti stayed the payment of compensation for eight weeks.
The Court also asked the state government to explain its compensation policy and on what grounds it can give compensation.
Besides, the court has also asked the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) which is probing the case to submit status report of the investigations in addition to a report from the secretary of the State's Excise department on the steps taken by it to curb the menace.
Petitioner Panda argued that if money is given to the families of the victims, it will send a wrong signal. Consumption of illicit liquor was illegal and the government cannot give compensation for any illegal act, added Panda.
He even contended that if compensation is given to the victims, then it would act as a major setback for the state government’s drive against hooch.
Meanwhile government’s counsel Ashok Banerjee argued that the tragedy was an accident and the government had the right to compensate the affected.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had announced Rs.2 lakh compensation each to the families of those who died in the hooch tragedy.
The government counsel Ashok Banerjee may claim it was an accident but the people view it as negligence by the people who are supposed to see that these illegal activities do not occur.
Next, Mamta will be giving compensation to people who make illegal bombs and pipe guns and the bombs go off by accident.
This too would be an accident and they should also demand compensation.
Next would be drivers of rampaging buses and trucks who meet with an accident because they drive rashly.
Where is this madness or populism going to stop?
Hearing the PIL filed by two advocates Chittaranjan Panada and Basabi Raichowdhury challenged the state government's move to pay compensation to the victims of the hooch tragedy, bench constituting of Chief Justice JN Patel and Justice Sambuddha Chakrabarti stayed the payment of compensation for eight weeks.
The Court also asked the state government to explain its compensation policy and on what grounds it can give compensation.
Besides, the court has also asked the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) which is probing the case to submit status report of the investigations in addition to a report from the secretary of the State's Excise department on the steps taken by it to curb the menace.
Petitioner Panda argued that if money is given to the families of the victims, it will send a wrong signal. Consumption of illicit liquor was illegal and the government cannot give compensation for any illegal act, added Panda.
He even contended that if compensation is given to the victims, then it would act as a major setback for the state government’s drive against hooch.
Meanwhile government’s counsel Ashok Banerjee argued that the tragedy was an accident and the government had the right to compensate the affected.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had announced Rs.2 lakh compensation each to the families of those who died in the hooch tragedy.
The government counsel Ashok Banerjee may claim it was an accident but the people view it as negligence by the people who are supposed to see that these illegal activities do not occur.
Next, Mamta will be giving compensation to people who make illegal bombs and pipe guns and the bombs go off by accident.
This too would be an accident and they should also demand compensation.
Next would be drivers of rampaging buses and trucks who meet with an accident because they drive rashly.
Where is this madness or populism going to stop?
Global markets bloom for South Gujarat farmers
Himansshu Bhatt, TNN Feb 3, 2012
SURAT : Flowers grown in south Gujarat have begun to find their way to world's biggest flower markets of Amsterdam in Holland and London in United Kingdom on a regular basis.
Different varieties of Dutch roses that are being grown in the green houses of Mahudi of Vyara in Tapi district and Bagumara and Bardoli of Surat district reach the markets in Tokyo, Dubai and those in European countries via Amsterdam every week.
Ankit Desai, a green house consultant, said, "Three firms from south Gujarat export as much as 1.5 lakh Dutch roses from the state. One of these also exports 50,000 Gerbera flowers to London."
Snehal Patel, owner of S Agro, has green houses spread over 9 acres of land in Mahudi in Vyara. Nimesh Bachkaniwala of Anand Exports has green houses spread over 13 acres near Bardoli and Suresh Parmar of Shital Biotech has set up green houses on 11 acres near Bardoli.
Bachkaniwala family, which is traditionally into textile business, started high tech rose farming three years ago. Nimesh Bachkaniwala said, "High-tech farming is more paying thus we ventured into it. Demand for roses is very high in foreign countries and the rate is at least Rs 4 per flower." He is the only one in Gujarat, who exports Gerbera to Japan. A consignment of 50,000 flowers is shipped on a weekly basis during the season.
"On an average a Dutch rose fetches Rs 8 or 15 cents to a farmer and the price could go as high as 0.50
$ or Rs 25 per flower," said Desai, adding that this has made many farmers in the region to take up high tech farming.
The initial cost of setting up a green house on one acre of land could be as high as Rs 50 lakh. However, 50 per cent government subsidy has made it an attractive business for some farmers.
Assistant director, horticulture , Surat, Dinesh Pataliya, said nearly 150 new green houses will be set up in the coming year in Surat district itself. World flower market is worth 60 million US dollars. Major exporters to Amsterdam market are Columbia, Equador, Kenya, Israel, Costa Rica, Thailand, Poland, India, China, Korea and Mexico in that order. Flowers are dispatched to buyers in 120 countries from Amsterdam.
Source:http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-02-03/surat/31020805_1_green-houses-world-flower-market-dutch-roses
Another feather in Gujarat's development.
It seems Narendra Modi is doing all round development for his state without any assistance from the Central Government which is doing all in its power to put hindrances in his path.
Compare it with our own Bengal where didi is just announcing populist measures with an eye to the vote bank politics without having necessary finance.
It started with Nano and is continuing.
The latest being Rs 2.0 lakhs to each of the families whose members died in the recent hooch tragedy.
The High Court has put a stay to that. More about this in my next post.
SURAT : Flowers grown in south Gujarat have begun to find their way to world's biggest flower markets of Amsterdam in Holland and London in United Kingdom on a regular basis.
Different varieties of Dutch roses that are being grown in the green houses of Mahudi of Vyara in Tapi district and Bagumara and Bardoli of Surat district reach the markets in Tokyo, Dubai and those in European countries via Amsterdam every week.
Ankit Desai, a green house consultant, said, "Three firms from south Gujarat export as much as 1.5 lakh Dutch roses from the state. One of these also exports 50,000 Gerbera flowers to London."
Snehal Patel, owner of S Agro, has green houses spread over 9 acres of land in Mahudi in Vyara. Nimesh Bachkaniwala of Anand Exports has green houses spread over 13 acres near Bardoli and Suresh Parmar of Shital Biotech has set up green houses on 11 acres near Bardoli.
Bachkaniwala family, which is traditionally into textile business, started high tech rose farming three years ago. Nimesh Bachkaniwala said, "High-tech farming is more paying thus we ventured into it. Demand for roses is very high in foreign countries and the rate is at least Rs 4 per flower." He is the only one in Gujarat, who exports Gerbera to Japan. A consignment of 50,000 flowers is shipped on a weekly basis during the season.
"On an average a Dutch rose fetches Rs 8 or 15 cents to a farmer and the price could go as high as 0.50
$ or Rs 25 per flower," said Desai, adding that this has made many farmers in the region to take up high tech farming.
The initial cost of setting up a green house on one acre of land could be as high as Rs 50 lakh. However, 50 per cent government subsidy has made it an attractive business for some farmers.
Assistant director, horticulture , Surat, Dinesh Pataliya, said nearly 150 new green houses will be set up in the coming year in Surat district itself. World flower market is worth 60 million US dollars. Major exporters to Amsterdam market are Columbia, Equador, Kenya, Israel, Costa Rica, Thailand, Poland, India, China, Korea and Mexico in that order. Flowers are dispatched to buyers in 120 countries from Amsterdam.
Source:http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-02-03/surat/31020805_1_green-houses-world-flower-market-dutch-roses
Another feather in Gujarat's development.
It seems Narendra Modi is doing all round development for his state without any assistance from the Central Government which is doing all in its power to put hindrances in his path.
Compare it with our own Bengal where didi is just announcing populist measures with an eye to the vote bank politics without having necessary finance.
It started with Nano and is continuing.
The latest being Rs 2.0 lakhs to each of the families whose members died in the recent hooch tragedy.
The High Court has put a stay to that. More about this in my next post.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
AIDS WARNING!!!
Senior Citizens are the leading carriers of Aids -
To all of you approaching 60 or who have REACHED 60
And past,
This is especially for you...
SENIOR CITIZENS ARE THE NATION'S LEADING CARRIERS OF AIDS!
HEARING AIDS
BAND AIDS
ROLL AIDS
WALKING AIDS
MEDICAL AIDS
GOVERNMENT AIDS
MOST OF ALL,
FINANCIAL AID
TO THEIR CHILDREN!
Not forgetting HIV
(Hair Is Vanishing)
Sent by U Banerjee
Wives & Women
Every Wife is a "Mistress" for her Husband.
"Miss" for one hour & "Stress" for the rest 23 hours!
The are 2 times when a Man doesn't understand a Woman.
Before Marriage and After Marriage.
My Husband And I Divorced Over Religious Differences.
He Thought He Was God, and I Didn't.
Marriage Is Like A Public Toilet.
Those Waiting Outside Are Desperate To Get In & Those Inside Are Desperate To Come Out.
Why Were Hurricanes Usually Named After Women?
Because When They Arrive, They're wet and wild,
But When They Go, They Take Your House And Car...
A Man Goes To The Wizard To Ask If He Can Remove A Curse He Has Been Living With For The Last 40 Years.
The Wizard Says, "Maybe, But You Will Have To Tell Me The Exact Words That Were Used To Put The Curse On You.
"The Man Says Without Hesitation, "I Now Pronounce You Man And Wife."
Husband Searching Keywords on Google `How to Tackle Wife? Google Search Result, "Still Searching`.
A Man Goes To A Shrink And Says, "Doctor, My Wife Is Unfaithful To Me. Every Evening, She Goes To Larry's Bar And Picks Up Men. In Fact, She Sleeps With Anybody Who Asks Her! I'm Going Crazy. What Do You Think I Should Do?" "Relax," Says The Doctor, "Take A Deep Breath And Calm Down. Now, Tell Me, Exactly Where Is Larry's Bar?"
Husband Throwing Darts at His Wife's Photo and Not Even a Single One Hitting the Target... From Another Room Wife Called The Husband: Honey What Are You Doing...Husband: "MISSING YOU"...
A Man Goes To See The Rabbi. "Rabbi, Something Terrible Is Happening And I Have To Talk To You About It."
The Rabbi Asked, "What's Wrong?"
The Man Replied, "My Wife Is Poisoning Me."
The Rabbi, Very Surprised By This, Asks, "How Can That Be?"
The man then pleads, "I'm telling you, I'm certain she's poisoning me, what I should do?"
The Rabbi Then Offers, "Tell You What. Let Me Talk to Her, I'll See What I Can Find out and I'll Let You Know."
The Rabbi Calls after a while And Says, "Well, I Spoke To Her For Three Hours. You Want My Advice?"
The Man Said "Yes"
The Rabbi Replied, "Take the poison"
Sent by Prakash Bhartia
"Miss" for one hour & "Stress" for the rest 23 hours!
The are 2 times when a Man doesn't understand a Woman.
Before Marriage and After Marriage.
My Husband And I Divorced Over Religious Differences.
He Thought He Was God, and I Didn't.
Marriage Is Like A Public Toilet.
Those Waiting Outside Are Desperate To Get In & Those Inside Are Desperate To Come Out.
Why Were Hurricanes Usually Named After Women?
Because When They Arrive, They're wet and wild,
But When They Go, They Take Your House And Car...
A Man Goes To The Wizard To Ask If He Can Remove A Curse He Has Been Living With For The Last 40 Years.
The Wizard Says, "Maybe, But You Will Have To Tell Me The Exact Words That Were Used To Put The Curse On You.
"The Man Says Without Hesitation, "I Now Pronounce You Man And Wife."
Husband Searching Keywords on Google `How to Tackle Wife? Google Search Result, "Still Searching`.
A Man Goes To A Shrink And Says, "Doctor, My Wife Is Unfaithful To Me. Every Evening, She Goes To Larry's Bar And Picks Up Men. In Fact, She Sleeps With Anybody Who Asks Her! I'm Going Crazy. What Do You Think I Should Do?" "Relax," Says The Doctor, "Take A Deep Breath And Calm Down. Now, Tell Me, Exactly Where Is Larry's Bar?"
Husband Throwing Darts at His Wife's Photo and Not Even a Single One Hitting the Target... From Another Room Wife Called The Husband: Honey What Are You Doing...Husband: "MISSING YOU"...
A Man Goes To See The Rabbi. "Rabbi, Something Terrible Is Happening And I Have To Talk To You About It."
The Rabbi Asked, "What's Wrong?"
The Man Replied, "My Wife Is Poisoning Me."
The Rabbi, Very Surprised By This, Asks, "How Can That Be?"
The man then pleads, "I'm telling you, I'm certain she's poisoning me, what I should do?"
The Rabbi Then Offers, "Tell You What. Let Me Talk to Her, I'll See What I Can Find out and I'll Let You Know."
The Rabbi Calls after a while And Says, "Well, I Spoke To Her For Three Hours. You Want My Advice?"
The Man Said "Yes"
The Rabbi Replied, "Take the poison"
Sent by Prakash Bhartia
Arvind Kejriwal
Excerpt from The Game Changers, a book by-IIT Kharagpur students that outlines the life and times of 20 most successful IITians.
The title of the book says it all. The Game Changers: 20 extraordinary success stories of entrepreneurs from IIT Kharagpur by current and ex-alumni from IIT Kharagpur outlines the entrepreneurial journeys of the most successful IITians from the institute.
Written by Yuvnesh Modi, Rahul Kumar (both 4th year undergraduate students at IIT-Kharagpur) and Alok Kothari (an ex-alumnus, IIT Kharagpur), the book has a foreword by Reserve Bank of India Governor Dr Duvvuri Subba Rao.
The Game Changers is a veritable list of who's who and includes names like Suhas Patil, Vijay Kumar, Vinod Gupta, Sam Dalal, Sridhar Mitta, Arjun Malhotra, Kiran Seth, Prabhakant Sinha, Ranbir Singh Gupta, Bikram Dasgupta, founder of Globsyn, Praful Kulkarni, Sunil Gaitonde, Anand Deshpande, Arvind Kejriwal, Harish Hande, Anuradha Acharya, Venkata Subramanian, Bikash Barai, Vikram Kumar, and Krishna Mehra.
Meet Arvind Kejriwal (the authors have called him Agent of Change), who, in recent times has borne the torch for an anti-corruption ombudsman under Kisan Baburao 'Anna' Hazare's leadership.
Excerpted with kind permission from the book's publishers, Random House India.
Nannu, a middle aged daily wage earner from an east Delhi slum, lost his ration card which provided his family cheap grain and other essential commodities from India's public distribution system, PDS. He applied for a duplicate ration card in January 2004.
According to the rules he should have got his ration card within ten days, but for three months he kept running around in vain. The government officers were expecting a bribe. He didn't have the money to pay the bribe and often he was not even allowed to enter the local Food and Civil Supplies Office because he was shabbily dressed.
His family and friends knew that it was no use. Nothing will change, this is India. Is desh ka kuch nahin ho sakta (nothing will happen in this country). These are the feelings that come to everyone's mind when one sees injustice meted out to a fellow citizen. This attitude of people is very difficult to change.
However, Nannu approached Parivartan, the brainchild of Arvind Kejriwal. Parivartan encouraged him to file a Right to Information, RTI, application questioning why he was being denied a ration card.
On the fourth day after submitting the application, the food inspector came to his house to inform him that his card was ready. When he went to collect his card, the Food and Supply Officer, who is the head of a district, escorted him to his office room, offered him tea, gave him his card, and requested him to take back his application under the RTI Act.
Nannu, who had been running around for three months and was persona non grata in the eyes of those officers, had suddenly become a VIP! Now you can find this illiterate, confident man helping others file RTI applications.
One might think that Arvind must have been an activist in his schooldays, but he was actually a bookworm. He did nothing else but study.
This son of an engineer came all the way from the little town of Hissar in Haryana to IIT-Kharagpur in 1985 to pursue Mechanical Engineering. He was amazed to see people speaking in English but quickly grappled with the inferiority complex he suffered.
At IIT, Arvind enjoyed his life, actively participating in cultural activities and winning numerous awards. His Hindi debating skills were readily acknowledged in the campus. Arvind, known as 'Kejri' to his friends in IIT, excelled in Hindi dramatics as well.
'IIT has contributed immensely to my personality and I give the entire credit to it for whatever I am today.'
After graduating from IIT in 1989, Arvind joined Tata Steel in Jamshedpur. He recalls that it was a time when nearly 80 to 90 percent of an IIT batch used to go abroad. He knew even back then that he wanted to do something for society.
Arvind sat for the civil services examination and qualified for the Indian Revenue Service, IRS, in 1992. To get into the much coveted Indian Administrative Service, he made another attempt at the examination, and before the results were declared he travelled extensively around India.
He went into the interiors of the insurgency-hit Bodoland and other areas of the North East. His stint with Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata for two months was a complete eye-opener. He saw a lot of poverty, sick people on footpaths, some even with gangrene.
Subsequently, he joined the Ramakrishna Mission in Kolkata and then travelled all across Haryana by joining the Nehru Yuva Kendra.
He began to realise how backward these parts of India were. But he still had no answers then as to what holds back a community from development. What he did have was a whole set of questions.
Results were declared and this time too his rank fetched him the IRS only. So Arvind joined the IRS in 1993. After his training, he was posted at the income tax commissioner's Office in Delhi in 1995 as an assistant commissioner.
He recounts that often chartered accountants would casually ask him if they could 'do something for me,' which he would politely refuse and show them the door.
In a few months, his reputation as an honest officer was established and the offers stopped coming. He didn't even keep a peon and used to clean up the office room himself.
'While serving in the IRS I realised the kind of power the bureaucracy enjoys. It's too much and there is absolutely no accountability and transparency. This has led to inefficiency and wanton corruption. The problem is the lack of transparency,' he says.
Gradually, Arvind realised that he couldn't do much against corruption while being in the bureaucracy. In January 2000, with a few friends, he formed Parivartan (which means 'change' in Hindi), a Delhi-based citizens' movement to work on ensuring just, transparent, and accountable governance. Its aim was to provide relief to the people who do not want to pay bribes, but are forced to pay them. Arvind calls this 'extortionist' bribery and says, 'Every single individual in the country is subject to this form of bribery in some form or the other.'
Arvind's job had given him an insight into the bureaucratic system at the income tax department. Hence, that was Parivartan's first target. Arvind started working under pseudonyms to avoid the complications that might arise from his seniors and colleagues.
In the income tax department, tax refunds and PAN allotments were being deliberately delayed in expectation of bribes. The Parivartan team met the chief income tax commissioner to inform him that they would bring to him cases where bribes were being sought, to which he agreed.
They also appealed to him to implement a few simple suggestions to make the department transparent. They put up banners across Delhi which read, 'Don't pay bribes in the income tax department. If you have a problem, contact Parivartan. We will get your work done free of cost.'
Now the commissioner berated them for putting up banners that implied that his department was corrupt. Despite that, cases through them got solved on the strength of numbers. The print media too published a few cases and they petitioned the Public Accounts Committee and the chief vigilance commissioner, adding pressure on the department. But the suggestions for transparency never got implemented.
Parivartan filed a Public Interest Litigation, PIL, in the Delhi high court in July 2000, seeking to direct the department to implement the suggestions. Arvind went on leave from his IRS job from November 2000. Manish Sisodia, a Parivartan member and a journalist, got the media to cover the campaign.
The department reluctantly filed an affidavit in April 2001 that directions had been issued for the implementation of the suggestions. However, no such direction was ever issued.
In July 2001, thirty volunteers of Parivartan sat in a peaceful protest in the corridor outside the commissioner's office. This forced him to implement the reforms.
From August 2000, Arvind, a Gandhian, had stationed himself along with other Parivartan members outside some of the offices of the Delhi Vidyut Board -- the electricity department -- every day during public dealing hours. They would exhort visitors not to pay bribes and offered to facilitate their dealings with the department free of cost.
Seven families in Maujpur had been running from pillar to post to get a new electricity connection through DVB since 1994. Each family was asked to shell out Rs 5,000 as bribe. They approached Parivartan in October 2000 and quickly got the new connections.
The Parivartan members felt that people were coming to depend on the organisation without being empowered themselves. Arvind realised that while his efforts may have considerably eliminated middlemen and touts and the chances of bribery, 'We too were acting as brokers, albeit honest brokers'.
Accidentally, Arvind came across the Delhi RTI Act in late 2001, in a small newspaper report. 'We took a copy of the law which had been passed just then, studied it and found that it could be a very powerful tool. What we found was that earlier we had been acting as middlemen and were struggling with what to do. RTI provided us with the answer.'
To know how the law worked, Parivartan filed some dummy applications in departments like the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and DVB. Arvind was shocked to know that these departments were not even aware that such a law had been passed. Parivartan gave the officials copies of the law.
This didn't work, so Parivartan wrote a letter to the chief minister. The chief minister called a meeting of all the departments in January 2002 and directed them to implement the law.
Parivartan's first success story under the RTI Act was scripted in February 2002. A citizen, Ashok Gupta, had been unable to get a new electricity connection for the last two years because he refused to pay a bribe of Rs 5,000. As per the rules, a consumer is supposed to receive his electricity connection within thirty days of applying.
Instead of taking up his complaint with the department, Parivartan asked him to file an application under the RTI Act. He submitted the RTI application which Parivartan drafted, and within ten days his work was done. It was almost miraculous.
'After this we stopped taking grievances from people and the focus shifted to raising awareness and increasing participation. Within three months we helped 300 people file RTI applications and everyone got their jobs done in ten to fifteen days, some of which had been pending for several years!'
The MCD was the last department to implement RTI. On March 3, 2003, Parivartan organized a dharna outside the office of the additional commissioner and submitted an application to implement RTI. The additional commissioner said that MCD was a big department and needed time to implement.
The Parivartan members told him that they would again come back after two months and would keep sitting until RTI was implemented. Under pressure, the MCD implemented RTI.
Parivartan had its office in a slum called Sundernagri in east Delhi. Under the RTI Act they obtained copies of all the contracts given by MCD in the last two years in the area. Out of 168 contracts, they shortlisted 68 and verified them. They went from street to street.
'We would beat drums and collect people and tell them about the government schemes and the work that was supposed to have been done in their colony in the last two years. We asked them about the actual work done,' says Arvind.
Urban India's first ever Jan Sunvayi -- public hearing – was held on December 14, 2002 in Sundernagri. Around 1,000 to 1,500 people gathered. A panel chaired by a former Supreme Court judge was formed. MCD officials were present and the local MLA came. Actual work done from each of the contracts was read out.
It was found that of the 68 contracts worth Rs 1.3 crore, items worth Rs 70 lakh were missing; 59 handpumps were claimed to be installed but only 14 were found; 29 electric motors were supposed to have been installed, but not a single motor could be seen on the spot.
There were some roads which were shown to have been made two to three times within six months, but had not been made even once.
A detailed report was prepared and submitted to the chief minister and the municipal commissioner. There was no action taken. So Parivartan finally filed a PIL in the Delhi high court on the basis of which the police were directed to register an FIR.
Due to the buzz created by the Jan Sunvayi, many people came forward with their complaints about the PDS to Parivartan.
Triveni Devi had a meagre family income, with less than Rs 500 coming in per month. The ration shop at Sundernagri kept denying Triveni her quota of wheat and rice month after month. However, after six months, she approached Parivartan and filed an RTI application forcing the ration shop owner to reveal the records.
According to the books, 25 kg of wheat and 10 kg of rice were purportedly being issued to her every month and the cash memos even had her fake thumb impressions. Triveni was a literate woman and could actually sign. But before she could do anything, the shopkeeper begged her for forgiveness.
The area had almost 10,000 families and seventeen shops catering to them. Parivartan asked for records from all seventeen shops. 'At that time all the officers and shopkeepers came together and refused to give the records,' Arvind says.
Parivartan continued the battle for transparency in the dealings of ration shops for the next two years and the case even went to the Delhi high court which directed that the records be given.
'Records were burnt, Parivartan members were beaten up. In the area, over 90 percent of the grain ration was being skimmed off by shopkeepers in collusion with the food department officials,' he says.
Nineteen-year-old Santosh, a girl from the slums of Sundernagri, worked for Parivartan and was a great street organiser. On December 29, 2004 her throat was slashed by a shopkeeper. Thankfully, after several days of struggle, she survived.
After this incident, which was the seventh attack on them, Parivartan members seriously thought whether they could continue these campaigns.
Family members of the girl put pressure on her to quit Parivartan and get married. Despite this Santosh was undeterred and said, 'We can't stop like this. I have to do something to improve my country. No one is going to come from America or Japan.'
Finally, the Delhi government took notice and issued orders to clean up the PDS. Parivartan had finally won a two year-long battle.
Excerpt from The Game Changers, by Yuvnesh Modi, Rahul Kumar and Alok Kothari, with kind permission from the book's publishers, Random House India.
This has come to me through Rediffmail.
The Congress party has dug in deep to find faults with Arvind to see if there were any chinks in his armour.
It used the income-tax department to harass him to return money which is generally waived but went after him just to defame him.
He has come out of the ordeal, unscathed.
On the other hand the Congress party is staggering from one crisis to another led by an impotent prime minister with infinite tolerance towards corruption although he claims zero tolerance
The title of the book says it all. The Game Changers: 20 extraordinary success stories of entrepreneurs from IIT Kharagpur by current and ex-alumni from IIT Kharagpur outlines the entrepreneurial journeys of the most successful IITians from the institute.
Written by Yuvnesh Modi, Rahul Kumar (both 4th year undergraduate students at IIT-Kharagpur) and Alok Kothari (an ex-alumnus, IIT Kharagpur), the book has a foreword by Reserve Bank of India Governor Dr Duvvuri Subba Rao.
The Game Changers is a veritable list of who's who and includes names like Suhas Patil, Vijay Kumar, Vinod Gupta, Sam Dalal, Sridhar Mitta, Arjun Malhotra, Kiran Seth, Prabhakant Sinha, Ranbir Singh Gupta, Bikram Dasgupta, founder of Globsyn, Praful Kulkarni, Sunil Gaitonde, Anand Deshpande, Arvind Kejriwal, Harish Hande, Anuradha Acharya, Venkata Subramanian, Bikash Barai, Vikram Kumar, and Krishna Mehra.
Meet Arvind Kejriwal (the authors have called him Agent of Change), who, in recent times has borne the torch for an anti-corruption ombudsman under Kisan Baburao 'Anna' Hazare's leadership.
Excerpted with kind permission from the book's publishers, Random House India.
Nannu, a middle aged daily wage earner from an east Delhi slum, lost his ration card which provided his family cheap grain and other essential commodities from India's public distribution system, PDS. He applied for a duplicate ration card in January 2004.
According to the rules he should have got his ration card within ten days, but for three months he kept running around in vain. The government officers were expecting a bribe. He didn't have the money to pay the bribe and often he was not even allowed to enter the local Food and Civil Supplies Office because he was shabbily dressed.
His family and friends knew that it was no use. Nothing will change, this is India. Is desh ka kuch nahin ho sakta (nothing will happen in this country). These are the feelings that come to everyone's mind when one sees injustice meted out to a fellow citizen. This attitude of people is very difficult to change.
However, Nannu approached Parivartan, the brainchild of Arvind Kejriwal. Parivartan encouraged him to file a Right to Information, RTI, application questioning why he was being denied a ration card.
On the fourth day after submitting the application, the food inspector came to his house to inform him that his card was ready. When he went to collect his card, the Food and Supply Officer, who is the head of a district, escorted him to his office room, offered him tea, gave him his card, and requested him to take back his application under the RTI Act.
Nannu, who had been running around for three months and was persona non grata in the eyes of those officers, had suddenly become a VIP! Now you can find this illiterate, confident man helping others file RTI applications.
One might think that Arvind must have been an activist in his schooldays, but he was actually a bookworm. He did nothing else but study.
This son of an engineer came all the way from the little town of Hissar in Haryana to IIT-Kharagpur in 1985 to pursue Mechanical Engineering. He was amazed to see people speaking in English but quickly grappled with the inferiority complex he suffered.
At IIT, Arvind enjoyed his life, actively participating in cultural activities and winning numerous awards. His Hindi debating skills were readily acknowledged in the campus. Arvind, known as 'Kejri' to his friends in IIT, excelled in Hindi dramatics as well.
'IIT has contributed immensely to my personality and I give the entire credit to it for whatever I am today.'
After graduating from IIT in 1989, Arvind joined Tata Steel in Jamshedpur. He recalls that it was a time when nearly 80 to 90 percent of an IIT batch used to go abroad. He knew even back then that he wanted to do something for society.
Arvind sat for the civil services examination and qualified for the Indian Revenue Service, IRS, in 1992. To get into the much coveted Indian Administrative Service, he made another attempt at the examination, and before the results were declared he travelled extensively around India.
He went into the interiors of the insurgency-hit Bodoland and other areas of the North East. His stint with Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata for two months was a complete eye-opener. He saw a lot of poverty, sick people on footpaths, some even with gangrene.
Subsequently, he joined the Ramakrishna Mission in Kolkata and then travelled all across Haryana by joining the Nehru Yuva Kendra.
He began to realise how backward these parts of India were. But he still had no answers then as to what holds back a community from development. What he did have was a whole set of questions.
Results were declared and this time too his rank fetched him the IRS only. So Arvind joined the IRS in 1993. After his training, he was posted at the income tax commissioner's Office in Delhi in 1995 as an assistant commissioner.
He recounts that often chartered accountants would casually ask him if they could 'do something for me,' which he would politely refuse and show them the door.
In a few months, his reputation as an honest officer was established and the offers stopped coming. He didn't even keep a peon and used to clean up the office room himself.
'While serving in the IRS I realised the kind of power the bureaucracy enjoys. It's too much and there is absolutely no accountability and transparency. This has led to inefficiency and wanton corruption. The problem is the lack of transparency,' he says.
Gradually, Arvind realised that he couldn't do much against corruption while being in the bureaucracy. In January 2000, with a few friends, he formed Parivartan (which means 'change' in Hindi), a Delhi-based citizens' movement to work on ensuring just, transparent, and accountable governance. Its aim was to provide relief to the people who do not want to pay bribes, but are forced to pay them. Arvind calls this 'extortionist' bribery and says, 'Every single individual in the country is subject to this form of bribery in some form or the other.'
Arvind's job had given him an insight into the bureaucratic system at the income tax department. Hence, that was Parivartan's first target. Arvind started working under pseudonyms to avoid the complications that might arise from his seniors and colleagues.
In the income tax department, tax refunds and PAN allotments were being deliberately delayed in expectation of bribes. The Parivartan team met the chief income tax commissioner to inform him that they would bring to him cases where bribes were being sought, to which he agreed.
They also appealed to him to implement a few simple suggestions to make the department transparent. They put up banners across Delhi which read, 'Don't pay bribes in the income tax department. If you have a problem, contact Parivartan. We will get your work done free of cost.'
Now the commissioner berated them for putting up banners that implied that his department was corrupt. Despite that, cases through them got solved on the strength of numbers. The print media too published a few cases and they petitioned the Public Accounts Committee and the chief vigilance commissioner, adding pressure on the department. But the suggestions for transparency never got implemented.
Parivartan filed a Public Interest Litigation, PIL, in the Delhi high court in July 2000, seeking to direct the department to implement the suggestions. Arvind went on leave from his IRS job from November 2000. Manish Sisodia, a Parivartan member and a journalist, got the media to cover the campaign.
The department reluctantly filed an affidavit in April 2001 that directions had been issued for the implementation of the suggestions. However, no such direction was ever issued.
In July 2001, thirty volunteers of Parivartan sat in a peaceful protest in the corridor outside the commissioner's office. This forced him to implement the reforms.
From August 2000, Arvind, a Gandhian, had stationed himself along with other Parivartan members outside some of the offices of the Delhi Vidyut Board -- the electricity department -- every day during public dealing hours. They would exhort visitors not to pay bribes and offered to facilitate their dealings with the department free of cost.
Seven families in Maujpur had been running from pillar to post to get a new electricity connection through DVB since 1994. Each family was asked to shell out Rs 5,000 as bribe. They approached Parivartan in October 2000 and quickly got the new connections.
The Parivartan members felt that people were coming to depend on the organisation without being empowered themselves. Arvind realised that while his efforts may have considerably eliminated middlemen and touts and the chances of bribery, 'We too were acting as brokers, albeit honest brokers'.
Accidentally, Arvind came across the Delhi RTI Act in late 2001, in a small newspaper report. 'We took a copy of the law which had been passed just then, studied it and found that it could be a very powerful tool. What we found was that earlier we had been acting as middlemen and were struggling with what to do. RTI provided us with the answer.'
To know how the law worked, Parivartan filed some dummy applications in departments like the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and DVB. Arvind was shocked to know that these departments were not even aware that such a law had been passed. Parivartan gave the officials copies of the law.
This didn't work, so Parivartan wrote a letter to the chief minister. The chief minister called a meeting of all the departments in January 2002 and directed them to implement the law.
Parivartan's first success story under the RTI Act was scripted in February 2002. A citizen, Ashok Gupta, had been unable to get a new electricity connection for the last two years because he refused to pay a bribe of Rs 5,000. As per the rules, a consumer is supposed to receive his electricity connection within thirty days of applying.
Instead of taking up his complaint with the department, Parivartan asked him to file an application under the RTI Act. He submitted the RTI application which Parivartan drafted, and within ten days his work was done. It was almost miraculous.
'After this we stopped taking grievances from people and the focus shifted to raising awareness and increasing participation. Within three months we helped 300 people file RTI applications and everyone got their jobs done in ten to fifteen days, some of which had been pending for several years!'
The MCD was the last department to implement RTI. On March 3, 2003, Parivartan organized a dharna outside the office of the additional commissioner and submitted an application to implement RTI. The additional commissioner said that MCD was a big department and needed time to implement.
The Parivartan members told him that they would again come back after two months and would keep sitting until RTI was implemented. Under pressure, the MCD implemented RTI.
Parivartan had its office in a slum called Sundernagri in east Delhi. Under the RTI Act they obtained copies of all the contracts given by MCD in the last two years in the area. Out of 168 contracts, they shortlisted 68 and verified them. They went from street to street.
'We would beat drums and collect people and tell them about the government schemes and the work that was supposed to have been done in their colony in the last two years. We asked them about the actual work done,' says Arvind.
Urban India's first ever Jan Sunvayi -- public hearing – was held on December 14, 2002 in Sundernagri. Around 1,000 to 1,500 people gathered. A panel chaired by a former Supreme Court judge was formed. MCD officials were present and the local MLA came. Actual work done from each of the contracts was read out.
It was found that of the 68 contracts worth Rs 1.3 crore, items worth Rs 70 lakh were missing; 59 handpumps were claimed to be installed but only 14 were found; 29 electric motors were supposed to have been installed, but not a single motor could be seen on the spot.
There were some roads which were shown to have been made two to three times within six months, but had not been made even once.
A detailed report was prepared and submitted to the chief minister and the municipal commissioner. There was no action taken. So Parivartan finally filed a PIL in the Delhi high court on the basis of which the police were directed to register an FIR.
Due to the buzz created by the Jan Sunvayi, many people came forward with their complaints about the PDS to Parivartan.
Triveni Devi had a meagre family income, with less than Rs 500 coming in per month. The ration shop at Sundernagri kept denying Triveni her quota of wheat and rice month after month. However, after six months, she approached Parivartan and filed an RTI application forcing the ration shop owner to reveal the records.
According to the books, 25 kg of wheat and 10 kg of rice were purportedly being issued to her every month and the cash memos even had her fake thumb impressions. Triveni was a literate woman and could actually sign. But before she could do anything, the shopkeeper begged her for forgiveness.
The area had almost 10,000 families and seventeen shops catering to them. Parivartan asked for records from all seventeen shops. 'At that time all the officers and shopkeepers came together and refused to give the records,' Arvind says.
Parivartan continued the battle for transparency in the dealings of ration shops for the next two years and the case even went to the Delhi high court which directed that the records be given.
'Records were burnt, Parivartan members were beaten up. In the area, over 90 percent of the grain ration was being skimmed off by shopkeepers in collusion with the food department officials,' he says.
Nineteen-year-old Santosh, a girl from the slums of Sundernagri, worked for Parivartan and was a great street organiser. On December 29, 2004 her throat was slashed by a shopkeeper. Thankfully, after several days of struggle, she survived.
After this incident, which was the seventh attack on them, Parivartan members seriously thought whether they could continue these campaigns.
Family members of the girl put pressure on her to quit Parivartan and get married. Despite this Santosh was undeterred and said, 'We can't stop like this. I have to do something to improve my country. No one is going to come from America or Japan.'
Finally, the Delhi government took notice and issued orders to clean up the PDS. Parivartan had finally won a two year-long battle.
Excerpt from The Game Changers, by Yuvnesh Modi, Rahul Kumar and Alok Kothari, with kind permission from the book's publishers, Random House India.
This has come to me through Rediffmail.
The Congress party has dug in deep to find faults with Arvind to see if there were any chinks in his armour.
It used the income-tax department to harass him to return money which is generally waived but went after him just to defame him.
He has come out of the ordeal, unscathed.
On the other hand the Congress party is staggering from one crisis to another led by an impotent prime minister with infinite tolerance towards corruption although he claims zero tolerance
Women's army fights graft
Jamshedpur, Feb. 4: A five-day training session on Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) has led to the formation of a 60-member squad of vigilante women who have already managed to blow the lid off several irregularities in the implementation of Centre's flagship job scheme in remote corners of East Singhbhum.
The irregularities, detected between January 12 and January 17 at Mahulia panchayat of Galudih block in Ghatshila sub-division, Dhirol panchayat of Potka block and Kumir panchayat of Patamda block, pertained to fake job cards and doctored muster rolls.
In some cases, the women whistleblowers were harassed and even intimidated, but they stuck to their guns and ensured corrective measures were initiated.
The idea came from the women, all members of the Jharkhand Mahila Samakhya Society (JMSS) that functions under the state human resources development department. They involved East Singhbhum Lok Pal (NREGA) Haldar Mahto who took it forward.
"It is well known that even administrative officials at the block level and rozgar sevaks aren't aware of all the provisions of the MGNREGA. So, when the women's outfit, with members in almost all panchayats of the district, approached me for an awareness session, I decided to go ahead," said Mahto.
The district Lok Pal conducted the MGNREGS awareness session over five days for 60 women from villages in two batches at the Golmuri city office of JMSS in December last year.
The results have been encouraging, though findings of wrongdoing still need to be followed up by the district administration and, if necessary, police.
From January this year, all those who attended the session went back to their villages and began making enquiries, at first discreetly, about the status of various MGNREGS projects.
Soon, they were airing their findings at public hearings conducted by the Lok Pal.
The first case of irregularity was detected at Kumir panchayat in Potka on January 12. Pushpa Mahto (32), a resident of Tatragoda village and among those who attended the Golmuri session, unearthed the use of fake job cards.
"The police have not taken any action to arrest the culprits and instead tried to convince us not to carry out such campaigns. We will take up the matter with state women's commission," said JMSS district coordinator Gloria Purty.
She revealed that on the day Pushpa voiced her protest, she was later roughed up by a group of unidentified people. An FIR was lodged on the insistence of the JMSS at Patamda police station.
At Mahulia panchayat in Ghatshila, 35km from Jamshedpur, Gulapi Mahto (30) pointed to irregularities in muster rolls, or a list of bonafide labourers from the village enrolled for a particular project, on January 16.
She detected anomalies in names and signatures ' names bore signatures in one list, whereas another list of same names had thumb impressions.
The third case was unearthed at Dhirol panchayat of Potka during a public hearing on January 17 when Gurubari Tuddu (32) objected to the manner in which job cards were being issued to a favoured few.
Mahto agreed that a beginning had been made in East Singhbhum, but the complaints given by the women needed to be followed up in right earnest.
"I have asked them to carry on the good work… they should continue to complain about irregularities in MGNREGS in every panchayat of the district. I plan to hold another training session soon," Mahto added and signed off by saying that East Singhbhum could soon emerge as a role model for proper implementation of the job scheme.
The above is from The Telegraph
The spark which Anna started will soon be a raging fire.
The irregularities, detected between January 12 and January 17 at Mahulia panchayat of Galudih block in Ghatshila sub-division, Dhirol panchayat of Potka block and Kumir panchayat of Patamda block, pertained to fake job cards and doctored muster rolls.
In some cases, the women whistleblowers were harassed and even intimidated, but they stuck to their guns and ensured corrective measures were initiated.
The idea came from the women, all members of the Jharkhand Mahila Samakhya Society (JMSS) that functions under the state human resources development department. They involved East Singhbhum Lok Pal (NREGA) Haldar Mahto who took it forward.
"It is well known that even administrative officials at the block level and rozgar sevaks aren't aware of all the provisions of the MGNREGA. So, when the women's outfit, with members in almost all panchayats of the district, approached me for an awareness session, I decided to go ahead," said Mahto.
The district Lok Pal conducted the MGNREGS awareness session over five days for 60 women from villages in two batches at the Golmuri city office of JMSS in December last year.
The results have been encouraging, though findings of wrongdoing still need to be followed up by the district administration and, if necessary, police.
From January this year, all those who attended the session went back to their villages and began making enquiries, at first discreetly, about the status of various MGNREGS projects.
Soon, they were airing their findings at public hearings conducted by the Lok Pal.
The first case of irregularity was detected at Kumir panchayat in Potka on January 12. Pushpa Mahto (32), a resident of Tatragoda village and among those who attended the Golmuri session, unearthed the use of fake job cards.
"The police have not taken any action to arrest the culprits and instead tried to convince us not to carry out such campaigns. We will take up the matter with state women's commission," said JMSS district coordinator Gloria Purty.
She revealed that on the day Pushpa voiced her protest, she was later roughed up by a group of unidentified people. An FIR was lodged on the insistence of the JMSS at Patamda police station.
At Mahulia panchayat in Ghatshila, 35km from Jamshedpur, Gulapi Mahto (30) pointed to irregularities in muster rolls, or a list of bonafide labourers from the village enrolled for a particular project, on January 16.
She detected anomalies in names and signatures ' names bore signatures in one list, whereas another list of same names had thumb impressions.
The third case was unearthed at Dhirol panchayat of Potka during a public hearing on January 17 when Gurubari Tuddu (32) objected to the manner in which job cards were being issued to a favoured few.
Mahto agreed that a beginning had been made in East Singhbhum, but the complaints given by the women needed to be followed up in right earnest.
"I have asked them to carry on the good work… they should continue to complain about irregularities in MGNREGS in every panchayat of the district. I plan to hold another training session soon," Mahto added and signed off by saying that East Singhbhum could soon emerge as a role model for proper implementation of the job scheme.
The above is from The Telegraph
The spark which Anna started will soon be a raging fire.
ALL EUROPEAN LIFE DIED IN AUSCHWITZ By Sebastian Vilar Rodrigez
I walked down the street in Barcelona , and suddenly discovered a terrible truth - Europe died in Auschwitz ...
We killed six million Jews and replaced them with 20 million Muslims.
In Auschwitz we burned a culture, thought, creativity, talent.
We destroyed the chosen people, truly chosen,
because they produced great and wonderful people who changed the world.
The contribution of this people is felt in all areas of
life: science, art, international trade, and above all,
as the conscience of the world. These are the people we burned.
And under the pretense of tolerance, and because we wanted
to prove to ourselves that we were cured of the disease of
racism, we opened our gates to 20 million Muslims, who
brought us stupidity and ignorance, religious
extremism and lack of tolerance, crime and poverty, due
to an unwillingness to work and support their families with pride.
They have blown up our trains and turned our beautiful
Spanish cities into the third world, drowning in filth and crime.
Shut up in the apartments they receive free from the
government, they plan the murder and destruction of their naive hosts.
And thus, in our misery, we have exchanged culture for
fanatical hatred,creative skill for destructive skill,
intelligence for backwardness and superstition.
We have exchanged the pursuit of peace of the Jews of Europe
and their talent for a better future for their children,
their determined clinging to life because life is holy,
for those who pursue death, for people consumed
by the desire for death for themselves and others, for
our children and theirs.
What a terrible mistake was made by miserable Europe
The Global Islamic population is approximately 1,200,000,000;
that is ONE BILLION TWO HUNDRED MILLION or 20% of the
world's population. They have received the following Nobel Prizes:
Literature:
1988 - Najib Mahfooz
Peace:
1978 - Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat
1990 - Elias James Corey
1994 - Yaser Arafat:
1999 - Ahmed Zewai
Economics:
(zero)
Physics:
(zero)
Medicine:
1960 - Peter Brian Medawar
1998 - Ferid Mourad
TOTAL: 7 SEVEN
The Global Jewish population is approximately 14,000,000; that is FOURTEEN
MILLION or about 0.02% of the world's population. They have received the
following Nobel Prizes:
Literature:
1910 - Paul Heyse
1927 - Henri Bergson
1958 - Boris Pasternak
1966 - Shmuel Yosef Agnon
1966 - Nelly Sachs
1976 - Saul Bellow
1978 - Isaac Bashevis Singer
1981 - Elias Canetti
1987 - Joseph Brodsky
1991 - Nadine Gordimer World
Peace:
1911 - Alfred Fried
1911 - Tobias Michael Carel Asser
1968 - Rene Cassin
1973 - Henry Kissinger
1978 - Menachem Begin
1986 - Elie Wiesel
1994 - Shimon Peres
1994 - Yitzhak Rabin
Physics:
1905 - Adolph Von Baeyer
1906 - Henri Moissan
1907 - Albert Abraham Michelson
1908 - Gabriel Lippmann
1910 - Otto Wallach
1915 - Richard Willstaetter
1918 - Fritz Haber
1921 - Albert Einstein
1922 - Niels Bohr
1925 - James Franck
1925 - Gustav Hertz
1943 - Gustav Stern
1943 - George Charles de Hevesy
1944 - Isidor Issac Rabi
1952 - Felix Bloch
1954 - Max Born
1958 - Igor Tamm
1959 - Emilio Segre
1960 - Donald A. Glaser
1961 - Robert Hofstadter
1961 - Melvin Calvin
1962 - Lev Davidovich Landau
1962 - Max Ferdinand Perutz
1965 - Richard Phillips Feynman
1965 - Julian Schwinger
1969 - Murray Gell-Mann
1971 - Dennis Gabor
1972 - William Howard Stein
1973 - Brian David Josephson
1975 - Benjamin Mottleson
1976 - Burton Richter
1977 - Ilya Prigogine
1978 - Arno Allan Penzias
1978 - Peter L Kapitza
1979 - Stephen Weinberg
1979 - Sheldon Glashow
1979 - Herbert Charles Brown
1980 - Paul Berg
1980 - Walter Gilbert
1981 - Roald Hoffmann
1982 - Aaron Klug
1985 - Albert A. Hauptman
1985 - Jerome Karle
1986 - Dudley R. Herschbach
1988 - Robert Huber
1988 - Leon Lederman
1988 - Melvin Schwartz
1988 - Jack Steinberger
1989 - Sidney Altman
1990 - Jerome Friedman
1992 - Rudolph Marcus
1995 - Martin Perl
2000 - Alan J. Heeger
Economics:
1970 - Paul Anthony Samuelson
1971 - Simon Kuznets
1972 - Kenneth Joseph Arrow
1975 - Leonid Kantorovich
1976 - Milton Friedman
1978 - Herbert A. Simon
1980 - Lawrence Robert Klein
1985 - Franco Modigliani
1987 - Robert M. Solow
1990 - Harry Markowitz
1990 - Merton Miller
1992 - Gary Becker
1993 - Robert Fogel
Medicine:
1908 - Elie Metchnikoff
1908 - Paul Erlich
1914 - Robert Barany
1922 - Otto Meyerhof
1930 - Karl Landsteiner
1931 - Otto Warburg
1936 - Otto Loewi
1944 - Joseph Erlanger
1944 - Herbert Spencer Gasser
1945 - Ernst Boris Chain
1946 - Hermann Joseph Muller
1950 - Tadeus Reichstein
1952 - Selman Abraham Waksman
1953 - Hans Krebs
1953 - Fritz Albert Lipmann
1958 - Joshua Lederberg
1959 - Arthur Kornberg
1964 - Konrad Bloch
1965 - Francois Jacob
1965 - Andre Lwoff
1967 - George Wald
1968 - Marshall W. Nirenberg
1969 - Salvador Luria
1970 - Julius Axelrod
1970 - Sir Bernard Katz
1972 - Gerald Maurice Edelman
1975 - Howard Martin Temin
1976 - Baruch S. Blumberg
1977 - Roselyn Sussman Yalow
1978 - Daniel Nathans
1980 - Baruj Benacerraf
1984 - Cesar Milstein
1985 - Michael Stuart Brown
1985 - Joseph L. Goldstein
1986 - Stanley Cohen [& Rita Levi-Montalcini]
1988 - Gertrude Elion
1989 - Harold Varmus
1991 - Erwin Neher
1991 - Bert Sakmann
1993 - Richard J. Roberts
1993 - Phillip Sharp
1994 - Alfred Gilman
1995 - Edward B. Lewis
1996- Lu RoseIacovino
TOTAL: 129!
The Jews are NOT promoting brain washing children in military training
camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of
Jews and other non Muslims. The Jews don't hijack planes, nor kill athletes
at the Olympics, or blow themselves up in German restaurants. There is NOT
one single Jew who has destroyed a church. There is NOT a single Jew who
protests by killing people.
The Jews don't traffic slaves, nor have leaders calling for Jihad and death
to all the Infidels.
Perhaps the world's Muslims should consider investing more in standard
education and less in blaming the Jews for all their problems.
Muslims must ask 'what can they do for humankind' before they demand that
humankind respects them.
Regardless of your feelings about the crisis between Israel and the
Palestinians and Arab neighbors, even if you believe there is more
culpability on Israel 's part, the following two sentences really say it
all:
"If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more
violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more
Israel ." Benjamin Netanyahu
General Eisenhower warned us it is a matter of history that when the
Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, General Dwight Eisenhower, found
the victims of the death camps he ordered all possible photographs to be
taken, and for the German people from surrounding villages to be ushered
through the camps and even made to bury the dead.
He did this because he said in words to this effect:
'Get it all on record now - get the films - get the witnesses - because
somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that
this never happened'
Recently, the UK debated whether to remove The Holocaust from its school
curriculum because it 'offends' the Muslim population which claims it never
occurred. It is not removed as yet. However, this is a frightening portent
of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is
giving into it.
It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended.
This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the, 6 million
Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians, and 1,900 Catholic
priests who were 'murdered, raped, burned, starved, beaten, experimented on
and humiliated' while the German people looked the other way.
Now, more than ever, with Iran , among others, claiming the Holocaust to be
'a myth,' it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets.
This e-mail is intended to reach 400 million people. Be a link in the
memorial chain and help distribute this around the world.
How many years will it be before the attack on the World Trade Center
'NEVER HAPPENED' because it offends some Muslim in the United States ?
Sent by U Banerjee.
There is no point telling me.
In India too we are facing the same fate with political parties scrambling over each other to get their votes forgetting that these same people had partitioned India once and they will do it again once their population crosses 25%.
At the time of Independence their population post-partition was just 10%.
On the other hand the population of the Hindus has reduced from 30% in Pakistan (East and West) to just 2%.
Our politicians like Mulayam Singh, Rahul Gandhi are just not realizing and pampering them. It is understandable with Rahul Gandhi for his grandfather, J L Nehru was instrumental in the first partition of India. Mulayam is the new Mir Zaffar who is willing to sell his country for a few votes.
It is understood why Salman Kurshed should be offering 9%, since he is a Muslim but why Mulayam?
For Votes
But then, we have good company.
They have also infiltrated the White House in Washington, D.C
We killed six million Jews and replaced them with 20 million Muslims.
In Auschwitz we burned a culture, thought, creativity, talent.
We destroyed the chosen people, truly chosen,
because they produced great and wonderful people who changed the world.
The contribution of this people is felt in all areas of
life: science, art, international trade, and above all,
as the conscience of the world. These are the people we burned.
And under the pretense of tolerance, and because we wanted
to prove to ourselves that we were cured of the disease of
racism, we opened our gates to 20 million Muslims, who
brought us stupidity and ignorance, religious
extremism and lack of tolerance, crime and poverty, due
to an unwillingness to work and support their families with pride.
They have blown up our trains and turned our beautiful
Spanish cities into the third world, drowning in filth and crime.
Shut up in the apartments they receive free from the
government, they plan the murder and destruction of their naive hosts.
And thus, in our misery, we have exchanged culture for
fanatical hatred,creative skill for destructive skill,
intelligence for backwardness and superstition.
We have exchanged the pursuit of peace of the Jews of Europe
and their talent for a better future for their children,
their determined clinging to life because life is holy,
for those who pursue death, for people consumed
by the desire for death for themselves and others, for
our children and theirs.
What a terrible mistake was made by miserable Europe
The Global Islamic population is approximately 1,200,000,000;
that is ONE BILLION TWO HUNDRED MILLION or 20% of the
world's population. They have received the following Nobel Prizes:
Literature:
1988 - Najib Mahfooz
Peace:
1978 - Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat
1990 - Elias James Corey
1994 - Yaser Arafat:
1999 - Ahmed Zewai
Economics:
(zero)
Physics:
(zero)
Medicine:
1960 - Peter Brian Medawar
1998 - Ferid Mourad
TOTAL: 7 SEVEN
The Global Jewish population is approximately 14,000,000; that is FOURTEEN
MILLION or about 0.02% of the world's population. They have received the
following Nobel Prizes:
Literature:
1910 - Paul Heyse
1927 - Henri Bergson
1958 - Boris Pasternak
1966 - Shmuel Yosef Agnon
1966 - Nelly Sachs
1976 - Saul Bellow
1978 - Isaac Bashevis Singer
1981 - Elias Canetti
1987 - Joseph Brodsky
1991 - Nadine Gordimer World
Peace:
1911 - Alfred Fried
1911 - Tobias Michael Carel Asser
1968 - Rene Cassin
1973 - Henry Kissinger
1978 - Menachem Begin
1986 - Elie Wiesel
1994 - Shimon Peres
1994 - Yitzhak Rabin
Physics:
1905 - Adolph Von Baeyer
1906 - Henri Moissan
1907 - Albert Abraham Michelson
1908 - Gabriel Lippmann
1910 - Otto Wallach
1915 - Richard Willstaetter
1918 - Fritz Haber
1921 - Albert Einstein
1922 - Niels Bohr
1925 - James Franck
1925 - Gustav Hertz
1943 - Gustav Stern
1943 - George Charles de Hevesy
1944 - Isidor Issac Rabi
1952 - Felix Bloch
1954 - Max Born
1958 - Igor Tamm
1959 - Emilio Segre
1960 - Donald A. Glaser
1961 - Robert Hofstadter
1961 - Melvin Calvin
1962 - Lev Davidovich Landau
1962 - Max Ferdinand Perutz
1965 - Richard Phillips Feynman
1965 - Julian Schwinger
1969 - Murray Gell-Mann
1971 - Dennis Gabor
1972 - William Howard Stein
1973 - Brian David Josephson
1975 - Benjamin Mottleson
1976 - Burton Richter
1977 - Ilya Prigogine
1978 - Arno Allan Penzias
1978 - Peter L Kapitza
1979 - Stephen Weinberg
1979 - Sheldon Glashow
1979 - Herbert Charles Brown
1980 - Paul Berg
1980 - Walter Gilbert
1981 - Roald Hoffmann
1982 - Aaron Klug
1985 - Albert A. Hauptman
1985 - Jerome Karle
1986 - Dudley R. Herschbach
1988 - Robert Huber
1988 - Leon Lederman
1988 - Melvin Schwartz
1988 - Jack Steinberger
1989 - Sidney Altman
1990 - Jerome Friedman
1992 - Rudolph Marcus
1995 - Martin Perl
2000 - Alan J. Heeger
Economics:
1970 - Paul Anthony Samuelson
1971 - Simon Kuznets
1972 - Kenneth Joseph Arrow
1975 - Leonid Kantorovich
1976 - Milton Friedman
1978 - Herbert A. Simon
1980 - Lawrence Robert Klein
1985 - Franco Modigliani
1987 - Robert M. Solow
1990 - Harry Markowitz
1990 - Merton Miller
1992 - Gary Becker
1993 - Robert Fogel
Medicine:
1908 - Elie Metchnikoff
1908 - Paul Erlich
1914 - Robert Barany
1922 - Otto Meyerhof
1930 - Karl Landsteiner
1931 - Otto Warburg
1936 - Otto Loewi
1944 - Joseph Erlanger
1944 - Herbert Spencer Gasser
1945 - Ernst Boris Chain
1946 - Hermann Joseph Muller
1950 - Tadeus Reichstein
1952 - Selman Abraham Waksman
1953 - Hans Krebs
1953 - Fritz Albert Lipmann
1958 - Joshua Lederberg
1959 - Arthur Kornberg
1964 - Konrad Bloch
1965 - Francois Jacob
1965 - Andre Lwoff
1967 - George Wald
1968 - Marshall W. Nirenberg
1969 - Salvador Luria
1970 - Julius Axelrod
1970 - Sir Bernard Katz
1972 - Gerald Maurice Edelman
1975 - Howard Martin Temin
1976 - Baruch S. Blumberg
1977 - Roselyn Sussman Yalow
1978 - Daniel Nathans
1980 - Baruj Benacerraf
1984 - Cesar Milstein
1985 - Michael Stuart Brown
1985 - Joseph L. Goldstein
1986 - Stanley Cohen [& Rita Levi-Montalcini]
1988 - Gertrude Elion
1989 - Harold Varmus
1991 - Erwin Neher
1991 - Bert Sakmann
1993 - Richard J. Roberts
1993 - Phillip Sharp
1994 - Alfred Gilman
1995 - Edward B. Lewis
1996- Lu RoseIacovino
TOTAL: 129!
The Jews are NOT promoting brain washing children in military training
camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of
Jews and other non Muslims. The Jews don't hijack planes, nor kill athletes
at the Olympics, or blow themselves up in German restaurants. There is NOT
one single Jew who has destroyed a church. There is NOT a single Jew who
protests by killing people.
The Jews don't traffic slaves, nor have leaders calling for Jihad and death
to all the Infidels.
Perhaps the world's Muslims should consider investing more in standard
education and less in blaming the Jews for all their problems.
Muslims must ask 'what can they do for humankind' before they demand that
humankind respects them.
Regardless of your feelings about the crisis between Israel and the
Palestinians and Arab neighbors, even if you believe there is more
culpability on Israel 's part, the following two sentences really say it
all:
"If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more
violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more
Israel ." Benjamin Netanyahu
General Eisenhower warned us it is a matter of history that when the
Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, General Dwight Eisenhower, found
the victims of the death camps he ordered all possible photographs to be
taken, and for the German people from surrounding villages to be ushered
through the camps and even made to bury the dead.
He did this because he said in words to this effect:
'Get it all on record now - get the films - get the witnesses - because
somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that
this never happened'
Recently, the UK debated whether to remove The Holocaust from its school
curriculum because it 'offends' the Muslim population which claims it never
occurred. It is not removed as yet. However, this is a frightening portent
of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is
giving into it.
It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended.
This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the, 6 million
Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians, and 1,900 Catholic
priests who were 'murdered, raped, burned, starved, beaten, experimented on
and humiliated' while the German people looked the other way.
Now, more than ever, with Iran , among others, claiming the Holocaust to be
'a myth,' it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets.
This e-mail is intended to reach 400 million people. Be a link in the
memorial chain and help distribute this around the world.
How many years will it be before the attack on the World Trade Center
'NEVER HAPPENED' because it offends some Muslim in the United States ?
Sent by U Banerjee.
There is no point telling me.
In India too we are facing the same fate with political parties scrambling over each other to get their votes forgetting that these same people had partitioned India once and they will do it again once their population crosses 25%.
At the time of Independence their population post-partition was just 10%.
On the other hand the population of the Hindus has reduced from 30% in Pakistan (East and West) to just 2%.
Our politicians like Mulayam Singh, Rahul Gandhi are just not realizing and pampering them. It is understandable with Rahul Gandhi for his grandfather, J L Nehru was instrumental in the first partition of India. Mulayam is the new Mir Zaffar who is willing to sell his country for a few votes.
It is understood why Salman Kurshed should be offering 9%, since he is a Muslim but why Mulayam?
For Votes
But then, we have good company.
They have also infiltrated the White House in Washington, D.C
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Time tested tips on how to stay healthy & live longer – by Khushwant Singh
"Rookhi Sookhy Khai kay Thandi beer Pee, Na Veykh paraayee chonparian, na Tarssain jee" and live to be 98 like Sardar Khushwant Singh.
Coming on to 98 and still earning more than I did in my younger days, people ask me how I manage to do it. They regard me as an expert on longevity. I have pronounced on the subject before; I will repeat it with suitable amendments based on my experience in the past two years. Earlier I had written that longevity is in one’s genes: children of long-living parents are likely to live longer than those born to short-lived parents. This did not happen in my own family. My parents who died at 90 and 94 had five children, four sons and a daughter.
The first to go was the youngest of the siblings. Next went my sister who was the fourth. My elder brother who was three years older than me went a couple of years ago. Two of us remain; I, who will soon be 98, and my younger brother, a retired Brigadier three years younger than me and in much better health. He looks after our ancestral property. Nevertheless, I still believe gene is the most important factor in determining one’s life-span. More important than analysing longevity is to cope with old age and make terms with it.
As we grow older, we are less able to exercise our limbs. We have to devise ways to keep them active. Right into my mid-eighties, I played tennis every morning, did rounds of Lodhi gardens in winter and swam for an hour in summer. I am unable to do this any more. The best way to overcome this handicap is regular massages. I have tried different kinds and was disappointed with the oil drip and smearing of oil on the body. A good massage needs powerful hands going all over one’s body from the skull to the toes. I have this done at least once a day or at times twice a day. I am convinced that this has kept me going for so long. Equally important is the need to cut down drastically one’s intake of food and drink. I start my mornings with guava juice. It is tastier and more health-giving than orange or any other fruit juice. My breakfast is one scrambled egg on toast. My lunch is usually patli kichri with dahi or a vegetable. I skip afternoon tea. In the evening, I take a peg of single malt whisky. It gives me a false appetite.
Before I eat supper, I say to myself “Do not eat too much.” I also believe that a meal should have just one kind of vegetable or meat followed by a pinch of chooran. It is best to eat alone and in silence. Talking while eating does not do justice to the food and you swallow a lot of it. For me no more Punjabi or Mughlai food. I find South India idli, sambhar and grated coconut easier to digest and healthier.
Never allow yourself to be constipated. The stomach is a storehouse of all kinds of ailments. Our sedentary life tends to make us constipated. Keep your bowels clean however you can: by laxatives, enemas, glycerin suppositories, whatever. Bapu Gandhi fully understood the need to keep bowels clean. Besides, taking an enema every day, he gave enemas to his women admirers.
Impose strict discipline on your daily routine. If necessary, use a stop-watch. I have breakfast exactly at 6.30 am lunch at noon, drink at 7 pm, supper at 8. Try to develop peace of mind. For this you must have a healthy bank account. Shortage of money can be very demoralising. It does not have to be in crores, but enough for your future needs and possibility of falling ill. Never lose your temper, it takes a heavy toll and jangles one’s nerves. Never tell a lie. Always keep your national motto in mind: Satyamev Jayate — only truth triumphs.
Give generously. Remember you can’t take it with you. You may give to your children, servants or charity. You will feel better. There is joy in giving. Drive out envy of those who have done better than you in life. A Punjabi verse sums up: Rookhi Sookhy Khai kay Thanda Paani Pee Na Veykh paraayee chonparian na Tarssain jee (Eat dry bread and drink cold water Pay no heed or envy those who smear their chapattis with ghee) Do not conform to the tradition of old people spending time in prayer and long hours in places of worship. That amounts to conceding defeat. Instead take up a hobby like gardening, growing bonsai, helping children of your neighbourhood with their homework.
A practice which I have found very effective is to fix my gaze on the flame of candle, empty my mind of everything, but in my mind repeat Aum Shanti, Aum Shanti, Aum Shanti. It does work. I am at peace with the world. We can’t all be Fawja Singh who at 100 run a marathon race but we can equal him in longevity and creativity. I wish all my readers long, healthy lives full of happiness.
…Khushwant Singh
Sent by U Banerjee
Here is hoping that Khushwant is not stuck at 99 like Tendulkar.
Wishing him a bubly century
Coming on to 98 and still earning more than I did in my younger days, people ask me how I manage to do it. They regard me as an expert on longevity. I have pronounced on the subject before; I will repeat it with suitable amendments based on my experience in the past two years. Earlier I had written that longevity is in one’s genes: children of long-living parents are likely to live longer than those born to short-lived parents. This did not happen in my own family. My parents who died at 90 and 94 had five children, four sons and a daughter.
The first to go was the youngest of the siblings. Next went my sister who was the fourth. My elder brother who was three years older than me went a couple of years ago. Two of us remain; I, who will soon be 98, and my younger brother, a retired Brigadier three years younger than me and in much better health. He looks after our ancestral property. Nevertheless, I still believe gene is the most important factor in determining one’s life-span. More important than analysing longevity is to cope with old age and make terms with it.
As we grow older, we are less able to exercise our limbs. We have to devise ways to keep them active. Right into my mid-eighties, I played tennis every morning, did rounds of Lodhi gardens in winter and swam for an hour in summer. I am unable to do this any more. The best way to overcome this handicap is regular massages. I have tried different kinds and was disappointed with the oil drip and smearing of oil on the body. A good massage needs powerful hands going all over one’s body from the skull to the toes. I have this done at least once a day or at times twice a day. I am convinced that this has kept me going for so long. Equally important is the need to cut down drastically one’s intake of food and drink. I start my mornings with guava juice. It is tastier and more health-giving than orange or any other fruit juice. My breakfast is one scrambled egg on toast. My lunch is usually patli kichri with dahi or a vegetable. I skip afternoon tea. In the evening, I take a peg of single malt whisky. It gives me a false appetite.
Before I eat supper, I say to myself “Do not eat too much.” I also believe that a meal should have just one kind of vegetable or meat followed by a pinch of chooran. It is best to eat alone and in silence. Talking while eating does not do justice to the food and you swallow a lot of it. For me no more Punjabi or Mughlai food. I find South India idli, sambhar and grated coconut easier to digest and healthier.
Never allow yourself to be constipated. The stomach is a storehouse of all kinds of ailments. Our sedentary life tends to make us constipated. Keep your bowels clean however you can: by laxatives, enemas, glycerin suppositories, whatever. Bapu Gandhi fully understood the need to keep bowels clean. Besides, taking an enema every day, he gave enemas to his women admirers.
Impose strict discipline on your daily routine. If necessary, use a stop-watch. I have breakfast exactly at 6.30 am lunch at noon, drink at 7 pm, supper at 8. Try to develop peace of mind. For this you must have a healthy bank account. Shortage of money can be very demoralising. It does not have to be in crores, but enough for your future needs and possibility of falling ill. Never lose your temper, it takes a heavy toll and jangles one’s nerves. Never tell a lie. Always keep your national motto in mind: Satyamev Jayate — only truth triumphs.
Give generously. Remember you can’t take it with you. You may give to your children, servants or charity. You will feel better. There is joy in giving. Drive out envy of those who have done better than you in life. A Punjabi verse sums up: Rookhi Sookhy Khai kay Thanda Paani Pee Na Veykh paraayee chonparian na Tarssain jee (Eat dry bread and drink cold water Pay no heed or envy those who smear their chapattis with ghee) Do not conform to the tradition of old people spending time in prayer and long hours in places of worship. That amounts to conceding defeat. Instead take up a hobby like gardening, growing bonsai, helping children of your neighbourhood with their homework.
A practice which I have found very effective is to fix my gaze on the flame of candle, empty my mind of everything, but in my mind repeat Aum Shanti, Aum Shanti, Aum Shanti. It does work. I am at peace with the world. We can’t all be Fawja Singh who at 100 run a marathon race but we can equal him in longevity and creativity. I wish all my readers long, healthy lives full of happiness.
…Khushwant Singh
Sent by U Banerjee
Here is hoping that Khushwant is not stuck at 99 like Tendulkar.
Wishing him a bubly century
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