NARCO ANALYSIS: ANOTHER SORDID SCAM?

Dr S Malini, the forensic psychologist who made narco analysis tests famous after multi-crore stamp paper racketeer Abdul Karim Telgi was subjected to one in 2003-04, has been sacked by the Karnataka government for forging her birth details and falsely stating that she has Masters in Science degree instead of the MA (psychology) degree that she actually does. Also, despite holding a government job, she is working as a consulting specialist at a private hospital.

Dr Malini is not new to controversy. There have been complaints about her earlier too. In fact in December 2008, the Karnataka police had asked the government to dismiss her on grounds of being unsuitable for the job. The police had then alleged that her way of conducting narco tests was "unprofessional" and that she was willfully leaking details of the tests to the media even before they were given to the investigating officers. As per the police, she leaked information to TV channel Aaj Tak on the narco analysis on Fahad Ali, one of the two Al Badr men arrested in October 2006 by the Mysore police on charge of planning terror strikes in Mysore and Bangalore. Later she leaked to the same channel the CDs of narco analysis done on the brother of Shahid, arrested by the Andhra Pradesh police in connection with the terror attack in Hyderabad in 2005. Shahid was suspected to have been involved in the Indian Institute of Science attack in Bangalore in December 2005.

There is much more. When Dr Malini had coaxed a confession out of Telgi, the CBI had dismissed it as unreliable. Why? Probably because in the test he had named many senior politicians, including Sharad Pawar, as being neck-deep in the huge racket. But the same CBI went back to her when it took over the Arushi murder case from the police and asked her to carry out narco tests on Rajkumar, Krishna and Vijay Mandal. Based on the results of the tests, Arun Kumar, Joint Director in charge of the investigations, held a press conference and announced with great bravado that the three of them had killed Arushi and that the case had been solved.

With the same confidence with which NOIDA police had declared Arushi's father Dr Rajesh Talwar guilty of murdering her, the CBI exonerated him. That too without subjecting him to a narco test, despite the many unsolved riddles surrounding his activities on the night of the murder and later. Subsequently, the CBI had serious egg on its face when it failed to file a charge sheet against any of the three accused who had confessed during Dr Malini's narco test because no evidence could be found by the agency to back the narco report.

As per NDTV, nothing was revealed in the narco test on one of the accused Krishna. But after senior CBI officials landed up in Bangalore that very evening, the alleged confessions emerged. NDTV also says that in August last year, the CBI team probing the sister Abhaya murder told the court that Dr Malini's video CD of the narco analysis test was made at 6.20 am, which means that it was made at her home and not at the laboratory. The CBI also received a tampered CD instead of 3 original CDs. Based on this, a Kerala High Court judge said: "I have no doubt that the edited and manipulated CDs and report on Narco Analysis by Dr Malini may mislead the investigation."

No one has yet spoken about the narco test Dr Malini had carried out on millionaire Moninder Singh Pandher in the that shocking Nithari case where a number of children were sexually exploited and then killed and eaten over a period of more than a year. His answers were telecast on many channels and there was nothing in them to implicate him in any of those heinous acts. Even then, when I watched him answering questions during the test, I had that uncomfortable feeling that he was not fully in a trance. It appeared to me then that the required dosage of the truth serum had perhaps been erroneously not administered, due to which he was in control of his answers. At the end of it, when he got up, there was a peculiarly triumphant smile on his face that seemed to say that he had done it! Then of course, there was not even a whiff that something was amiss in the narco tests, so I had to reluctantly dismiss the doubts from my mind. Perhaps someone needs to look at that CD again.

Now, with Dr Malini's role and integrity under serious cloud, I cannot help but wonder whether the CBI's investigations into the Arushi and Nithari cases have been transparent. Manifestly rigged narco tests on three accused to wrongly blame them for Arushi's murder, no narco test on Dr Rajesh Talwar and probably a rigged narco test on Moninder Singh Pandher to exonerate him, do not generate the confidence that a professional investigative agencies efforts should. I am not saying that Dr Talwar and Pandher are guilty. But something does stink here.
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1. Arushi murder case: The CBI goofs up too!
2. Arushi case: A damning indictment of investigative agencies.

ALL CYLINDERS ON FIRE, WHERE IS PAKISTAN HEADING?

Really, are Pakistanis that dumb? People with even elementary intelligence will not continue to fool themselves into believing for so long that they can keep playing with fire and making a fool of everyone else, and yet emerge triumphant at the end of it. Particularly when things are falling apart all around them. But that is exactly what the many actors who define the state of Pakistan are doing even though the whole world can see that the dangerous games they are playing are leading their country straight into the pages of history.

How can almost an entire nation be so blind? Or is it that it has come so far on the path of consciously plotting the destruction of others that it is now impossible for it to turn back and get onto a track it has never been on, never believed? Why hasn't the nation's survival instinct kicked in yet?

President Asif Ali Zardari, no less, tells the world openly that his nation is in danger of being run over by the Taliban, a possibility that is already beginning to look like a reality. The world, naturally, reacts with due understanding and sympathy thinking that the democratically elected government that he is heading is innocent and the real villain is the military. But, within days of making that chilling statement, Zardari supports the capitulating deal to hand over the Swat Valley to the Taliban saying that force is not the answer to defeat them. Simultaneously, he shows no qualms in playing dirty political games again to defeat his principal political opponent, Nawaz Sharif, with whose support he had got Musharraf thrown out.

It may be recalled that Zardari had earlier to manipulated his way to become President in a swift move that left Sharif stunned and fuming. Then, after getting into that chair, he went back on his two key promises of giving up the enormous powers that Pervez Musharraf had illegally given to the President, and reinstating the judges of Supreme Court who had been sacked by Musharraf to save his Presidency. In effect, Zardari is now theoretically as powerful a President as Musharraf was, provided the Army lets him be, which it won't.

If that dishonesty was not enough, he has now manifestly got the Musharraf-appointed judges of the Supreme Court to declare Nawaz Sharif ineligible to contest elections and also declare null and void the election of his younger brother, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, leading the fall of his government and imposition of Governor's rule. Predictably, protests have broken out all over Pakistan and the situation has once again become unstable and ripe for another former military takeover. Nawaz Sharif, in fact, is now talking of starting, yes, one more jehad in Pakistan, this time against Zardari.

Given this political turmoil, will the military seize power again or has the wily Zardari struck a double-deal with the Army and the US to ensure his survival in the Presidential Palace with Army Chief Kiyani calling the shots? The latter seems likely. But what has happened once again in Pakistan is that its civilian leaders have proved that they are no better than petty tribal chieftains who cannot see beyond themselves and are completely unfit to rule and run their country. That story, which began almost immediately after Pakistan was created, is having another sickening re-run. No one seems to have learnt any lesson yet even though the country broke in two in 1971 and is going to pieces now.

What about the military? Has it learnt any lessons from 9/11 and the spread of the Taliban into large parts of Pakistan? Has it realised that the double-game that it has been playing with the US since its troops landed in Afghanistan cannot be continued indefinitely? Or does it think that a few nukes and America's dependence on Pakistan to sustain its war in Afghanistan is sufficient insurance that will work till the Americans, like the Soviets before them, accept defeat and leave that country back in the hands of Pakistan, just like it was before?

It may be recalled that before 9/11, Pakistan's military was virtually in control of Afghanistan through an almost seamless relationship with the Taliban that it had nurtured and armed to overthrow the Soviets, with generous American assistance. For Pakistan, Afghanistan was then all but it own territory that, as per its military "thinkers", provided "strategic depth" to Pakistan. That view has still not changed. Pakistan cannot allow a strong, secure and truly independent Afghanistan to re-emerge before the US leaves that country. It wants it remain its private backyard. That why General Kiyani, who headed the ISI before taking control of the Army, talks of Talibani commanders like Jallaluddin Haqqani as "strategic assets". That is why, while pretending to be on the side of the the US, Kiyani continues to blatantly back the Taliban who are fighting US troops in Afghanistan. He reckons he will need them after the Americans leave.

David E Sanger has written in his book "The Inheritance" that as per an American intelligence report, "Taliban were making huge inroads into Afghanistan and... other militants saw an opportunity over the next two years to attempt the first violent overthrow of a nuclear-armed state: Pakistan. The country was ripe for the picking: Its weak, corrupt government faced national bankruptcy, an insurgency was at the doorstep of the capital, and the Pakistani government had no comprehensive strategy to confront either threat. Nor did it seem to want one...Pakistan’s aid to the Taliban was no act of rogue Pakistani intelligence agents, but instead was government policy".

If Pakistan's aid to the Taliban, despite the US on its back, is not an act of rogue elements but remains government policy, then is there any doubt as to what its policy about the likes of Lashkar-e-Toiba and other terrorist outfits operating against India will be?

The whole drama that Pakistan has been enacting since Mumbai 26/11, from the initial outright denial of its involvement in the attack to the slow and reluctant change to its acceptance of the involvement of only a few rogue Pakistanis operating in isolation is not a case of innocent ignorance as it is pretending. It is no less than a concerted effort on part of the government and the military from day one to prevent exposure of the damning fact that carrying out terror attacks on India continues to be a central part of government policy and that Mumbai 26/11 was just a visible manifestation of that. India needs to understand clearly that nothing has changed in Pakistan's avowed policy of bleeding India to death by inflicting on it a thousand cuts. All this official talk of Pakistan being a victim of terror etc is just to hide that ugly fact so that the international community does not react too harshly.

Unfortunately for Pakistan, Ajmal Kasab has provided enough clues to show that the attack on Mumbai was not done by "non-state actors", a new term coined by Pakistan to con gullible Indian media personalities and others. The charge sheet filed by the Mumbai Police points to the involvement of a serving Colonel, whose name Ajmal Kasab has revealed, and a serving Major General in the attack. It goes without saying that Kasab, a lowly operative, would not have been given direct access to Kiyani himself. But the fact that two senior officers were in touch with him at the lowest rung of the whole operation tells us that they in turn would have had been operating under the orders of much higher ranked officers in the military hierarchy. Mind you, we are not talking about the rogue ISI here. It is the Army that is directly involved. Col Sadatullah, whom Kasab has named, has already been traced by Indian media.

Who can believe that the Pakistani establishment has not known exactly who all were involved in the attack from the very beginning? If there were really a few small-time rogue elements responsible for the attack, would there have been such an elaborate exercise to shield them and deceive India and the world for so long?

It is amazing how a country that is a basket case, that is being torn apart internally, that is lead by warring political leaders with minds of petty, feudal tribal chieftains, and that has all but failed as the state it started out to be, can simply refuse to see reality and live in peace with itself and its size. Even as it is cracking apart, it still wants to make-believe that it can usurp Afghanistan and Kashmir, destroy India and be in the vanguard of the jehad that seeks to establish Islamic rule over the whole world. Somehow, its nuclear-tipped military thinks it is almost invincible and can successfully achieve all this and more. These sweeping and dangerous ambitions make even Adolf Hitler look benign, as indeed he was mistakenly believed to be by some before he launched the Blitzkrieg. Can there be a more explosive recipe for unmitigated disaster?

Barack Obama has already hyphenated Afghanistan with Pakistan. By now almost everyone in the US has come around to the conclusion that Pakistan is the ground zero for the central war on terror that the US is fighting. The realisation that there cannot be a peaceful and genuinely independent Afghanistan till there is a Pakistan in its present shape will also come soon. The same goes for Kashmir too, no matter what Pakistan might say to try and de-link it from what it has been doing in Afghanistan. From that will flow the logical understanding that the present state of Pakistan has to be fundamentally altered and reconfigured to give abiding peace in the region a real chance.

If all these illuminations come to Pakistan itself in time, then the country might yet survive in its present form and shape. Will Pakistan be able to see light and save itself from the inevitable? Tribal minds are perhaps the most obdurate of them all. Not only can they not see beyond narrow limitations, they are not at all amenable to being told what they should do in their own interest. Add to it the many jehads that have been unleashed by and in the country, and it does not appear likely that Pakistan will be able to transform itself as it needs to. On its own.

With all its cylinders on fire and no fire extinguisher in sight, Pakistan does not need a crystal ball to see its 'future'. It is staring it in the face. But its eyes are still wide shut.
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Readers may also read:
1. Kashmir and Afghanistan are two sides of the same terror coin
2. India needs to ready itself for a post-Pakistan scenario
3. A vote to save Jinnah's Pakistan: Will it?
4. Pakistan: Dangers of the multi-ethnic Islamic state

POLITICAL DEBATES: THE SLUMDOG EFFECT!

Slumdog Millionaire has not just won eight Oscars. It has also inspired our politicians to venture into Animal Kingdom this election season. As elections come closer, we may well find more and more plants, animals and other living creatures figuring in the descriptions of political rivals and in 'befitting' responses! Perhaps Bollywood will finally be able to cast away its obsession with the word "Kutte" (dog) used by heroes and villains and ladies to challenge rivals and rapists on the screen.

Narendra Modi has kicked off this 'return to nature' campaign, ironically by recalling an old Bollywood film "Ek Phool Do Mali" (One flower two gardeners). If he is to be believed, Rahul Gandhi is a 'flower grown in a pot', a flower that has been protectively tended to by gardeners. He is not a wild flower, the one that grows in the wild that is, not the potted one that goes wild! Modi also sees a cute goldfish in Rahul, a delicate one that swims gently in an aquarium. In his own self, on the other hand, he finds a hardy, ocean fish that knows how to fight the waves and storms!

While Rahul Gandhi is still looking up his old books and appropriate TV channels to pick suitable creatures that describe Modi accurately, Manish Tiwari, the Congress party spokesman, has already found the carnivorous piranha in Modi. How does it matter if piranhas are fresh water fish not found in any ocean and are actually pretty small fish that very rarely attack humans or other large animals? The 'maut ka saudagar' (merchant of death) as Sonia Gandhi had described Modi in the previous election has now become a cannibal who loves eating Muslims!

Is Modi going to react angrily to being compared to a tiny piranha by thumping his 'chhappan chhati' (56 inch chest) as he has been doing till now? Or is he going to call himself a whale shark, the largest fish in the ocean? If he tries the former, Tiwari may well say that while Rahul Gandhi may have a 26 inch chest, his heart is bigger than that of a blue whale. If it is the latter, then he will quickly pounce on the 'shark' part and say Modi is actually a great white shark, that ferocious predator, and not the gentle giant that the whale shark is!

Mayawati, on hearing this sharp exchange will certainly be tempted to remind them all that these elections are being fought on land and not in the ocean and that here, there is no animal bigger than the elephant. Her Blue Elephant, she will say in forceful Hindi - the type you will never hear on Zoom - will crush the small 'hand' of the Congres and eat BJP's 'kamal kakari' (lotus stem) for dinner, prompting both the parties to look for alternate election symbols that can take on the elephant!

Yes, next we may well hear someone from the BJP say that Rahul Gandhi is a 'videshi khet ki mooli' (radish of a foreign field), nurtured with urea, while Modi is a banyan tree that has grown on organic manure. The retort might well be that Modi is not the big tree that he appears to be but the creeper parasite that kills it. Someone from the Congress may also well say that Rahul is a pedigreed poodle while Modi is a rabid street dog. The BJP, he may add, is led by an old dog ( Lk Advani) when what the nation really wants in this century is an enthusiastic pup (Rahul Gandhi). Even the Australian cricket team is thinking of handing over captaincy to 'pup' Michael Clarke, he will remind cricket lovers, just to rub home the point!

Political battle lines are being drawn and the cowboys of both the Congress and the BJP are trying to herd as many cattle as they can into their pens before the elections. This really is boom time for the many small parties who know how to keep their options absolutely open, pretences apart. They are the bees, not 'B's - may be even that, some would say - of the political garden that are not partial to flowers of any variety or colour. All that they are looking for are flowers, potted or otherwise, that are either in bloom or ready to bloom; you don't get nectar from withered ones do you?

These bees are all enjoying these vicious dogfights and cockfights, and are happily waiting for the victor to emerge, weaker the better. No matter who wins, they will. Topdog Millionaires, in real life! Jai Ho!
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3. Will the Congress do better without Sonia and Rahul?
4. Congress sounds war cry. Really?
5. Modi and Reddy: The choice is clear

AR RAHMAN, THE WORLD IS YOUR OSCAR NOW

I rarely watch movies, except the odd one on TV, and I haven't seen Slumdog Millionaire. But the little that I have seen of Danny Boyle in interviews etc on TV, he comes a cross as a very honest person. He himself has risen from humble beginnings. That is possibly why his connect, his empathy with the cast that he picked from Mumbai's slums shows; his connect with them is perhaps even more than what many of us Indians are capable of having. That is the main reason why he has been able to make an authentic film that has surprised and wowed the world.

Notwithstanding the accolades that the movie has been getting globally culminating in it getting eight Oscars today, to me the real triumph is of Allah Rakha Rahman. He is perhaps the greatest ever musician India has produced, the Tansen of modern India, may be more than that. His music has a transcendental quality that comes from a deep personal connect with God. The two Oscars that he got today within 10 minutes is no more than a just recognition of his work, a recognition that should have come long back.

Starting from Mani Ratnam's 'Roja', where he introduced Indians to refreshingly different music, to Slumdog Millionaire, AR Rahman has given exceptional, unheard of music in a number of films, and has taken the art and craft of popular music to a new level altogether. Who can also forget the soul that he put into that goose pimple raising 'Ma Tujhe Salaam' with not just the score but even his voice? For those who may have missed it, or want to listen to it now, the outstanding original video has is available here at You Tube since its embedding has been disabled.

As far as I am concerned, Rahman's best ever score was in Subhash Ghai's 'Taal'. Every song and the background music in that film was exceptional but Sukhwinder's 'Ramta Jogi' was something else. The innumerable ways in which Rahman got him to say 'jogi' was unbelievable. Rahman should have got an Oscar for that score. Here is Sukhwinder:



Rahman's music in Slumdog Millionaire is good, but everyone in India knows that he has done much better. The world has got its first real taste of him with this film and soon we will find people all round the globe thirsting for his music. Not just what he is going to create in future but even what he already has. With his canvas now global, he is going to surprise the world with his creative genius and is going to sell many more than the 100 million albums he has already sold. Move over everyone else. Rahman has arrived.

At the Oscar awards ceremony, AR Rehman revealed one secret behind his success. He said that all his life he had a choice between hate and love. He chose love and "that is why I am here". Yes, Rahman, the soulful divinity of your love flows through your music. That love is now poised to touch everyone around the world. The world is your Oscar now.

COVERING UP THE MOTHER OF ALL CORRUPTION SCANDALS

Despite best efforts of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YSR Reddy, the contours of the the mother of all political corruption and misuse-of-office scandals are beginning to clearly emerge from the seemingly impenetrable fog that he has created all around it. If former Andhra Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu is to be believed, the personal worth of CM Samuel Reddy has jumped to a whopping Rs 100,000 crores ($20 billion) since he became the CM, due to his wrongdoing.

The whole world believes by now that Ramalinga Raju, the disgraced promoter-turned-looter of IT firm Satyam, made his billions in unholy partnership with YSR Reddy and Son. But what is becoming increasingly evident is the that the corruption racket that the father-son duo have been running blatantly is not limited to Satyam alone. There are manifestly many other respectable firms who allowed themselves to be willingly exploited in varying degrees by the all-powerful CM who was, and still is, invincible, thanks to, as someone described it recently, his privileged knock-and-walk-in access to the most powerful address in Delhi.

The facts emerging are startling, to say the least.

Ramalinga Raju's other firm, Maytas Infra, the one he apparently siphoned money to from Satyam, catapulted from a little know construction company to an infrastructural conglomerate within a couple of years. Its turnover rose eight times in just three years — from Rs 220 crore in 2005-06 to Rs 1,670 crore in 2007-08, and last year alone it won more than Rs 18,000 crore in contracts, including the Rs 12,000-crore Hyderabad Metro Rail project and a port project in Machilipatnam (Rs 1,600 crore). It may be recalled that E Sreedharan, the spotless father of the Delhi Metro, had in September last year said that "The BOT operator (Maytas) has a hidden agenda which appears to be to extend the Metro network to a large tract of his private land holdings so as to reap a windfall profit of four to five times the land price.

It has recently come to light that on the "specific instructions of the honourable CM", 50 acres of land having an auction value of Rs 4 crore to Rs 4.5 crore per acre, were allotted to Satyam at only Rs 10 lakh per acre, in Vishakhapatnam. According to Raju's own admission, Maytas Properties, owned by his family, has a land bank of 6,800 acres in Andhra Pradesh. Most of it is concentrated in the state capital and important urban centres such as Visakhpatnam. This included three Special Economic Zones for the IT industry in Hyderabad and a port the company was permitted to develop at Machilipatnam. It is widely believed that Reddy helped the company acquire this land too at rock bottom prices and then awarded projects to Maytas Infra in and around it so that Raju could sell it at many times the purchase price later and make a huge killing.

Reddy's son Jagmohan has become perhaps the fastest-growing entrepreneur in the country, may be even the world. As per CNN-IBN, Jagmohan bought a small company called Sandur Power Ltd and ever since his father became CM in 2004, hectic activity has been witnessed in this power generation firm. Jagmohan first raised almost 125 crore rupees by allegedly allotting shares at a premium of Rupees 61 to two Mauritian companies, viz. 2 I capital and Flurry. Thereafter he floated some subsidiary companies like Classic Reality, Caramel Asia, Bhavati Sanidhi Estates and Harish Infra. Each of these companies was, in turn, used to float separate firms including Jagan's pet Jagathi Publications and Indira Television. Almost 200 crores is believed to have been circulated between these companies, most of which was raised for different purposes.

In March 2008, Jagmohan launched a newspaper, Sakshi, with 23 editions simultaneously across Andhra Pradesh. Within two months of its launch, it became the largest circulated daily in the state with a 13 lakh circulation. In an interview in June 2008, Jagmohan himself had boasted that "Deloitte has valued Sakshi at Rs 3,500 crores and my investors include companies like Aurobindo Pharmaceuticals, India Cements, Matrix Labs and Lanco Group, to name a few". According to data available with the registar of companies, 23 firms have invested in Jagathi Publications (P) Ltd, the company which publishes Sakshi. As per Chandrababu Naidu, their investment was to the tune of Rs 365 crore.

The pay off? All companies that had invested in the Jagathi were reportedly given lucrative government projects to bag which they would have perhaps given even more cuts to CM Reddy. There is a lot of smoke about the ownership of some firms and the price at which they were given the shares. That is not all. The accounts of the firm were audited by the same audit firm, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, that had been auditing Satyam, after which the start-up paper was given government ads from which it earned huge sums of money. It is quite likely that unwritten orders/suggestions would have been given to all government offices and departments and even private companies to subscribe to Sakshi. There is no other way a brand new newspaper would have touched the highest circulation figure in its targeted area within two months of its launch anywhere in the world. Even Playboy could not have grown so explosively.

This is not all. Sunita, a blogger, has written about numerous other corruption cases through which CM Reddy has allegedly enriched himself enormously. Of course, these have not apparently been authenticated or properly investigated. They are, therefore, not being listed on this page and can be read on her blog. But, considering the blazing manner in which Samuel Reddy has manifestly gone about increasing his wealth exponentially through corrupt practices, even if half of what Sunita has alleged is true, the conscience of the whole nation will be shocked. In fact, it is entirely within the realm of possibility that Reddy's network of sleaze is far wider than what Sunita and others have uncovered till now.

Surprisingly, investigations into the Satyam scandal are being effectively scuttled. The case has finally been handed over to the CBI, which has filed an FIR. But, knowing what the the agency did with Bofors and Quattrochi, little is expected to come out of it. Ramalinga Raju had floated as many as 350 companies through which he siphoned billions of dollars. The investigation into these have been handed over to the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) which is incapable of investigating so many companies in any reasonable time, making a mockery of the whole exercise.

Why is Ramalinga Raju being shielded? No one is in any doubt that he is being shielded because his links to Reddy cannot be concealed if there is an impartial inquiry. There is obviously a lot of truth in the murmurs that the Reddy and Raju families have made billions of dollars in the last few years through corrupt and fraudulent means. Why is there no investigation into the massive corruption and fraud that Samuel Reddy has committed as CM? Reddy is being protected because of his closeness to the Gandhi family and because, as R Jagannathan says in the DNA, "With him goes the Congress party's hope of returning to power as the head of the next coalition".

It is not that YSR Reddy discovered corruption, deceit and fraud only after he became CM. He perhaps was chosen to become CM because of such a past which, as Swaminathan S. Anklesariya Aiyar wrote in the Times of India in 2004 itself, helped him rise " on the basis of murder, loot and terror". His "hair-raising history" of rise through terror goes back to his father and is filled with one scandal after another. Surely, all this and more would have been known to the Congress High Command when Sonia Gandhi chose to appoint him CM.

Why, then, did Sonia turn a blind eye to such a damning, criminal past when she decided to give him the top job in such a big state? Why is she continuing to protect him and project him as the hope of the Congress party in the coming elections? Why is there such a massive cover up under way when few are in doubt that this is by far the largest ever corruption scandal involving the Chief Minister of a state, indeed any politician? It is not believable that Reddy is continuing to enjoy the blessing of 10 Janpath only because of his religious background, as some are saying. There has to be a lot more there. And that raises very, very disturbing questions about where some of our top leaders are taking the country.

Worse than the cover up operation that the Congress party has launched is the one launched by the media. Where is Tehelka now? Why are all the so-called guardians of probity in politics silent now even in the face of this massive storm of corruption and fraud and possibly worse? Is this latest combined fraud to cover the Reddy fraud going to do this country proud? Is this what the young politicians of India have in store for the country when their time comes? Is there going to be re-run of the goonda raj that a young Sanjay Gandhi introduced in this country during the Emergency?

Will somebody speak up? Or is this sordid game, this blot on the nation, going to continue unchecked?
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Readers may also read:
1. Modi and Reddy: The choice is clear
2. Maytas: Truth inverted; greed is king
3. Capital punishment, not gain, for the corrupt
4. Corrupt colonial India faces volcano
5. 1000 times President's salary for India's babus!

SAY SORRY TO THE NATION MR. SPEAKER

The all too familiar scene that has become synonymous with India's Parliament was enacted once again for the nth time on February 19, 2008. A number of MPs rushed to the well of the Lok Sabha with aggressive intent, shouted like there was no tomorrow and made sure that no business of the House could be conducted.

The whole nation, indeed the world, has been seeing such shocking scenes for years now with shame and disgust respectively. A lot of Indian politicians are by far the most ill behaved, irresponsible and uncivilized lot of Indians whose real place is in a seedy bar, not in the most hallowed institution of Indian democracy which is supposed to represent the will of the people of this country. Not only do they continue to keep shaming one billion Indians repeatedly, but seem to believe that such disgraceful acts reflect their power and status that makes them immune to all acceptable norms of behaviour and above the reach of the very laws that they themselves have made to regulate the behaviour of the citizens of this country.

Almost exactly a year ago, when similar scenes were witnessed, Somnath Chatterjee, the Speaker of the Lok Sabha and a veteran Parliamentarian of many decades, was so driven to desperation that he was compelled to say that India's MPs were "working overtime to finish democracy". Yesterday, he went a few steps further and even got personal. "You are insulting the people of the country and wasting public money. You do not deserve even a single paisa. You are behaving in a condemnable manner", he told the MPs, adding "I hope that all of you are defeated in the election. I hope the people will give their verdict properly. You have to be taught a lesson."

This kind of behaviour that so agitated the Speaker yesterday is continuing unabated in the prime symbol of India's democracy only because there are many respected political leaders who continue to watch this nonsense ad nauseum and choose to do nothing about it. One does not expect better from the likes of Laloo Yadav, Mulayam Yadav etc. But what about LK Advani, Sonia Gandhi and even the young Rahul Gandhi?

LK Advani had sat quietly through the proceedings when BJP members were displaying wads of currency notes that they alleged had been paid by Amar Singh as bribes to their MPs to vote in favour of the Indo-US Nuclear Deal. Sonia Gandhi too had quietly watched members of her party behave most unacceptably on innumerable occasions when the Congress was in the opposition. Rahul Gandhi, in fact, had once even gone to the extent of saying that he was proud that every member of the House could freely express his views!

What about Somnath Chatterjee, to whom partial enlightenment seemed to have come at the fag end of his political career, much to the joy of most Indians? What did he do today, just a day after he said what the MPs deserved to hear? Today, believe it, he said sorry to them, saying that he had made those comments in "little frustration".

This is nothing less than an insult to the people of India Mr. Speaker. It is to the nation that you and all those who are meant to be carriers of the wishes and will of a billion plus people should be saying sorry to. By choosing to apologise to your fellow MPs instead, you have legitimised their unacceptable behaviour and given them just the encouragement they needed to behave even more badly in future. Now that you have cast your lot with them, the least you can do before you go is stop any further telecast, live or later, of proceedings in Parliament. We do not wish to see our nation being so disgraced by those we have chosen to lead it.

BLOGGING OR BOGGING?

One had heard that blogging can be very addictive. But this? Sleeping with the laptop has become part of the lifestyle of a lot of bloggers. But shitting with it? May be this is the best place and time to reply to comments that don't smell right or post similar ones in other blogs of the same variety. May be the thunder box does bring out the best creative energies in some people, as many claim. Or is there a kernel of truth in the view of some people who believe that the content of many blogs suggests that they could not have been written anywhere except in the bogs? Is a lot of blogging in real danger of being called 'bogging'?

What do you think? Are you too a blogger who can be called a 'bogger', at least part-time?

P.S. Maybe the poor lady is just trying to finish an assignment that she had forgotten all about!

Picture source: Mango Fun. Now that is a BLOG.

ELECTIONS 2009: SECULAR SP FOR COMMUNAL BJP!

The 'secular' Samajwadi Party(SP) has really got itself into a hole. Playing smart too often finds it wanting to embrace its sworn enemy, the 'communal' BJP! 'Mullah' Mulayam Singh Yadav, otherwise reportedly a Hanuman Bhakt, now wants to openly say 'Jai Sri Ram'! Is this offer a part of his pressure tactics to force the Congress to agree to a seat sharing arrangement dictated by him or is it a recognition of the fact that, of all the parties in UP, the SP is today the most vulnerable?

Indian politicians can find the most unbelievable of excuses to justify doing the exact opposite of what they had been doing minutes before they change their mind. The SP now says that if the BJP gives up its key demands of construction of a Ram Mandir in Ayodhya and abrogation of Article 370 of the constitution that gives special status to J&K, it is willing to enter into a pre-poll alliance with the saffron party! Mulayam Yadav and Amar Singh surely know that these demands were 'given up' by the BJP years back to forge alliances with other parties and form the NDA. They remain on the BJP's party agenda alone. So is there anything new that they are asking for from the BJP now?

As I had mentioned in a previous post, the Mulayam and Amar have made some terrible mistakes. When they embraced the Congress by ditching the Third Front and annoying the Left , they left themselves at the mercy of that party. A non-existent Congress may have had no choice but to go along with them in UP then. But, now, thanks to their isolation, increased even further by their re-embracing of Kalyan Singh of Babri Masjid fame, they have given the Congress a real chance to recover a substantial part of its traditional Muslim vote bank that the SP had taken away.

That is probably why the Congress is now talking tough and demanding more. Is Mulayam Yadav going to capitulate and give in to most of the demands of the Congress which wants 30 seats in UP? More importantly, is the Congress going to remain happy by remaining a totally fringe player or is it going to seize this opportunity to claw its way back in the state?

What about the BJP? Is it going to accept the SP's offer in the hope of increasing its tally of seats and thereby its chances of winning the elections? Arun Jaitley and Muhktar Abbas Naqvi of the BJP have publicly rejected the offer, with former ruling it out completely and the latter saying that the BJP will never give up its core demand about Ayodhya. By now, the whole nation knows that such statements are not meant to be taken seriously. For all we know, the two parties have already struck a deal and are now preparing the public for the announcement!

The Congress and the BJP both need to realise that in UP they are really not fighting each other. Mayawati and Mulayam have eaten into their votes, with the Congress almost evaporated with less than 8% of the vote share. The BJP too has been hit significantly. The only way that these national parties can recover lost ground is by taking on the powerful duo and not by engaging in a mutually destructive fight. The SP is today more vulnerable than it has ever been. It will, therefore, be foolhardy on the part both the Congress and the BJP to re-energise it out with a shot of electoral glucose without any real benefit in return.

The most significant part of Mulayam Yadav's offer for an alliance with the BJP is that he is now willing to go to bed with both the national parties. That defining change of stance opens up an entirely new set of possibilities after the elections and almost demolishes Mayawati's dream of becoming the PM. The scenario that is now building up is that, if required, almost all political parties, except the Congress and the Left, will be willing to join a BJP led NDA government at the Centre, should the NDA get better numbers than the UPA but still fall short of majority.

This almost paradigm shift also marks the beginning of the end of the ridiculous division of the political landscape into secular and communal camps. The reality is that every single political party practices its variant of blatant communalism to get the votes of its traditional vote banks and attract newer ones.

It is time that this fraudulent divide that has been dishonestly flogged to death by some political parties and their media friends by mounting the high 'secular' horse is done away with and the political debate in the country re-focussed on real issues rather than fake ideologies.

The real IPL T20 is on in UP! - 2
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Readers may like to read:
1. Will Congress finally dump SP?
2. How to get the secular badge, no questions asked!
3. Mayawati's hug of death

ELECTIONS 2009: SANGH PARIVAR OR CONG FAMILY?

Elections are around the corner. The largest democracy in the world is soon going to enable Indians to elect whoever they want to send to the Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament. Hopefully it will be their vote and not political machinations that will decide the next lot of politicians who will rule India.

On the face of it, Indians are spoilt for choice. There are any number of regional and national political parties to choose from besides a whole lot of 'independents' who contest elections on their own. Most of the latter fight elections in the hope that the mathematics will fall just right and their support will be vital for forming the government. If that happens, then they not only recover their election expenses but also take care of future expenses for a couple of decades, if not generations, within days of getting elected. KBC in real life, umeed se kai guna!

Notwithstanding the muddle, the real fight, despite Mayawati, is between the Sangh Parivar and the 'Cong'ress Family. Can't call the latter 'Parivar' because Hindi is to be used only for uneducated desis - remember how panties became chaddis for Muthalik? - and not for the 'pucca sahibs' who control the Congress; they don’t like to call even Bombay by its official name!

In 2004, most opinion polls had predicted that the Sangh Parivar led NDA would be voted back to power. In the event, the unexpected and total rout of Jayalalitha in Tamil Nadu and and an unforseen below-par performance of the NDA primarily in UP saw the Congress cobble up a post-poll alliance called UPA and claim 'victory'. Which one of the two groups is going to make it in May 2009?

CNN-IBN has kicked off the prediction game with an extensive nation wide poll. The first part of the program based on the poll was telecast on February 16, 2009 and the remaining parts will be aired through the week. Watch them all if you want to, but know that you are going to be no wiser than you are now about what the voters really have in mind. After going through all the data and discussions in the first program hosted by Rajdeep Sardesai and Yogendra Yadav, the only thing that is clear is that nothing is clear.

It is worth mentioning here that, as per the poll, of the issues that will matter most in deciding whom to vote for, economy and inflation tops the list for 32% of the people. Significantly, national security and terrorism is next for 21% of them. There is something here for sure. During the discussion, both N Ram and Vinod Mehta gave the UPA almost full marks on both theses issues. But that was expected.

Does the aam admi share their opinion? Will he be influenced by it or any such opinions aired on English channels?

The most stunning piece of information that has emerged from the poll is that almost one in three Indians (28%) have not heard of Mumbai 26/11. And these are not people living in, say, Walong in Arunachal Pradesh, leading to the deduction that the actual percentage will be higher. The high level of unawareness of such a huge incident that has been in the headlines for so long tells us something about how many people would be aware of other 'hot' issues that agitate some of us in the cities.

This not only gives an indication of the reach of the complete media but also shows that the reach of the English media is really very small. That is why it neither reflects real pubic opinion nor influences it in any significant manner, notwithstanding the fact that it sometimes tries to swamp the nation with an issue or an opinion, and makes it appear as if it is the real voice of India.

That is why those politicians who co-habit with this section of the media or use it to promote themselves and discredit their opponents remain disconnected from the masses, and repeatedly keep missing the bus they desperately want to catch. All of them perhaps forget that they are not in the UK or the US where the English media is the media of the whole country, not of a microscopic few who mostly don't even vote.

In fact even for a vast majority of Indians who know English, it is the Hindi and regional language media that really matters. Those really few who belong solely to the 'English speaking world', as Barkha Dutt had once described those like her, are electorally and statistically completely insignificant, except in less than half a dozen constituencies.

In 2004, 48% of those who took part in a similar poll wanted to give the NDA government another chance. Now, 45% want the UPA to continue. The picture now is almost identically in favour of the ruling combination as it was then. Does that mean the the UPA will romp back to power like the NDA was expected to, barring an unforeseen hiccup? Or is the voter hiding something to surprise us all when he actually casts his vote?

"The mood of the nation is something of a mystery. No body knows what people are thinking at the moment. No body knows how they are going to vote." This is how Vinod Mehta summed up the results thrown up in the survey after making valiant efforts to beat the Cong Family drum during the debate.

Everyone has been chastened by what the voters in Kashmir Valley showed a few months back dramatically and what voters in other states have been demonstrating in varying degrees over the past few years. No one knows which issue will catch their imagination and which will repel them, as the Hurriat found to its horror after having led the fiery agitation on the Amarnath land issue.

The bottom line, I think, is that voters can now discern between a politically motivated agenda where they are the fodder rather than the focus, and a sincere one which is truly meant for them. Is that not why the NREGA and the loan waver schemes have yielded no returns for Rahul Gandhi? Is that not why Narendra Modi's decision to not grant waiver of electricity dues to lakhs of farmers worked in his favour and did not prove politically suicidal as all seasoned analysts had predicted?

Do either the Sangh Parivar or the Cong Family have a defining program that sincerely tells the aam admi that it is for him and not for his vote? You know the answer. That is why nobody knows the answer about the program that the aam admi has in mind for either of them on Election Day!
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Readers may also read:
1. The real IPL T20 is on in UP!
2. Opinions, not opinion polls
3. Congress alone in UP, Bihar: hara-kiri or masterstroke?
4. NDTV sees Congress steaming ahead after Phase 2

INDIA NEEDS TO READY ITSELF FOR A POST-PAKISTAN SCENARIO

When the Head of State of a nation admits unashamedly to the world that his country is under real danger of being captured by rogue elements, then it can no longer be pretended that the threat is remote. Nuclear weapons and missiles, and a huge military are no protection whatsoever against such assaults from within. Talibani termites have been eating away the woodwork that defines the state of Pakistan for a number of years, encouraged by strong pillars of that very wooden frame that mistakenly believed, some still do, that these termites were programmed to attack and weaken only other structures that were inimical to it. Now it can no longer be hidden that the hollowed structure is on the brink of collapse.

In an interview with CBS, President Asif Ali Zardari has said that Pakistan is fighting for “survival” in the face of an onslaught by the Taliban who have “established themselves across a large part of the country”. "We are aware of the fact it’s ... Taliban... trying to take over the state of Pakistan. So, we’re fighting for the survival of Pakistan. We’re not fighting for the survival of anybody else." The Taliban, he added, had been taken for granted for a long time. "It's been happening over time and it's happened out of denial. Everybody was in denial."

When were such words heard last from the President of a country? Some analysts believe that this admission is meant to get the US to give Pakistan more aid and even get Kashmir back into focus. It seems they are all missing the point. Pakistan is actually under a grave and unprecedented threat, a threat of its own making and a threat which powerful elements in the military and the ISI still want to deny. Zardari's statement also indicates that there is a bitter power struggle between him and Army Chief Kiyani who, as per Imran Khan and others, is effectively in control of the government. When Zardari says "We have weaknesses and they are taking advantage of that weakness,” he is probably referring to the nexus between the Taliban and the military which has allowed the former to get to a position where they can take over the whole country, with the help of elements of the military who are still supporting it

As per William Dalrymple, "Saudis have invested intensively in Wahhabi madrasas in the North-West Frontier Province and Punjab, with dramatic effect, radically changing the religious culture of an entire region. The tolerant Sufi culture of Sindh has been able to defy this imported Wahhabi radicalism". The Taliban and the Al Qaida are the visible militant faces of this version of Islam which is completely intolerant of all other faiths, including Shia Islam. They are, therefore, the perfect ideological weapons that can be exploited to oppose both the Western world and India with the ultimate aim of ushering in the political rule of Islam all over the world.

Since Wahhabi Islam rejects other versions of Islam too, it should have been anticipated by the handlers and trainers of the Taliban that, sooner or later, they would try to establish their version of the rule of Islam, the one they had in Afghanistan before 9/11, in Pakistan too. Up to a point, the military did have the Taliban and other militant groups bred with similar ideology by their "tooti" (penis), as a Pakistani general had once boasted. That was a long time back. Today it is clearly the militants led by the Taliban who have got the state of Pakistan by its "tooti".

President Obama is alive to the fact that terrorists are operating against US forces in Afghanistan from safe havens in the tribal regions of Pakistan. Quit naturally, he wants the state of Pakistan to fight and defeat them within its territory. Is that going to happen any time soon, if at all? If the world has heard Zardari right, that is almost an impossibility. Because the "weakness" is within, inside Pakistan's military and the ISI. And that situation is not likely to change on its own. The investment of these two organisations in the terror infrastructure is so heavy and so deep-rooted that it is realistically not possible for them to become enemies of the very men that they have trained and used for decades as their own, integral tools of state policy.

Is it, then, possible for Pakistan to continue to exist as one state with very strong elements pulling it in opposite directions? Will Pakistan succumb to Wahhabi Islam completely, with its military and the Taliban becoming indistinguishable from each other? Will the civil society of the areas still not overrun by the Taliban meekly surrender to the birth of an altogether 'new' country, a photocopy of the primitive and horribly oppressive Afghanistan that the world saw before 9/11? Or will Sindhis and Punjabis resist this speeding slide?

Will America and the world allow a nuclear power to become completely Talibanised and pose unimaginable danger to the whole world? The answer is a clear no. Is a strong and stable Pakistan possible with the Talibanis and Wahhabi ideology in control of large parts of the country and threatening the rest? Of course not. What, then, is likely to happen?

Will Pakistan suddenly and quietly collapse one day like the Soviet Union did and get confined to Punjab and Sindh, with most of its establishment and military intact? Or will it 'explode' first in one form or the other before it emerges from the fire and smoke in a new avatar that the world can comfortably live with?

India, indeed the world, has to start preparing for a post-Pakistan scenario that may be upon us sooner than we think. Before that, India needs to ready itself for any contingency that may suddenly arise necessitating the deployment of its combat power in support of elements in Pakistan in the highly possible event of an intense power-struggle and even a Bangladesh-like situation arising there.

Zardari knows what he is talking about better than most outside of Pakistan do. And he is clearly talking at a tangent with the dominant view in the military and the ISI. Pakistan's survival is perhaps no longer possible in its present form. Zardari's cry is probably one of despair and helplessness than of any realistic hope. India needs to listen to it very carefully and ready itself for a post-Pakistan scenario in which it may well find Zardari as the President of an Independent, Wahhabi-free, Sufi Sindh.
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Readers may also read:
1. Kashmir and Afghanistan are two side of the same terror coin
2. Understanding and defeating the ideology of terror
3. 9/11 to 9/19: Beads on a string that needs to be cut
4. A vote to save Jinnah's Pakistan: Will it?
5. A thousand cuts bleeding Pakistan
6. Pakistan: Dangers of the multi-ethnic Islamic state

LOCAL SUPPORT MUMBAI 26/11: INVESTIGATION STINKS

Within days of Narendra Modi raising the question about local support for the Pakistani terrorists who carried out the attack on Mumbai on November 26, 2008, and just as Pakistan was responding to the dossier sent by India to it, Mumbai Police Commissioner Hasan Gafoor sprang a surprise on the nation by admitting to the media that local support was indeed given to them.

This is what Gafoor said: "Fourteen to sixteen men, which includes Indians and Pakistanis, are wanted in the attacks". That is not all. "We have included names of these men in the dossier which has been sent to Pakistan", he added, revealing that "Two Indians have already been arrested while some are absconding about whom we have informed to Pakistan. So there are Indians as well as Pakistanis". About their role in the attack, Gafoor said that those wanted had conducted 'recce', given financial and logistical support and "they belonged to North India". Asked why names of Indians have been mentioned in the dossier, Gafoor said they likely escaped from India, and "we suspect that they might be hiding in Pakistan".

Within hours of that statement came the retraction. The list of those fourteen to sixteen "wanted" men was inexplicably modified by Gafoor to include the nine terrorists who were killed and Ajmal Kasab who is already in custody! The remaining six, he said, were Pakistanis, including Lashkar-e-Taiba commander and suspected 26/11 mastermind Zaki-ur Rahman Lakhvi and Zarar Shah, who have perhaps never visited Mumbai. There were no Indians in the list any more. There was no mention of local support either. If Gafoor's complete turnaround is to be believed, there were only two Indians, Fahim Ansar and Sahabuddin, who were involved in the attacks and both had been arrested quite some time back by the police and are still in custody.

Just yesterday I had written in detail about various significant facts that had come to light immediately after the attack indicating strong local support and which had not been followed up at all. I had also questioned as to how it was possible that, based on Ajmal Kasab's confession, India had got all details about the Pakistan end of the operation but nothing about what Kasab and his associates did in Mumbai. I had also wondered whether it was possible that his investigators had not even asked him at least the following questions:

• How and when did he and other members of his gang get Indian credit and identity cards? Who helped them get these documents?

• Since they were to sink the boat they used to land in Mumbai, where were they to go to and whose assistance were they to get after completing their mission and escaping? How long were they to stay in India and where before going back to Pakistan?

• How and when did they familiarise themselves so thoroughly with the hotel layout?

• How many times did he and/or other members of his group visit Mumbai earlier to carry out reconnaissance? Where did they stay then and for how long?

• Who pre-placed ammunition and explosives in the Taj?

Gafoor's initial admission yesterday about the local support that the Pakistani terrorists got was significant not only because it finally came after more than two and half months but also because he revealed that it was not Indians citizens but Pakistan which had first been informed by the government about it and that all those who had given local support had safely reached/been allowed to escape to Pakistan. That was damning in itself and pointed to the incompetence, even complicity, of very powerful people in the political and administrative establishment in allowing the guilty to get away.

If that was not bad enough, his subsequent complete retraction within hours, manifestly at the behest of his political masters in New Delhi, shows that something is seriously wrong somewhere and that the police and the government are hiding something very significant from the nation.

Ever since the attack on 26/11, scarcely a day has passed without there being a lot of noise made by the government about Pakistan's involvement in the attack, keeping of all options open, diplomatic efforts being made to bring the Pakistani masterminds of the attack to book etc. This has been accompanied by an eerie and unquestioned silence about the involvement of local actors in the attack. Till Modi asked, nobody in the media even thought of it.

It may be recalled that when the Mumbai ATS had uncovered the conspiracy behind the Malegaon blasts, the media was being fed leaks on an almost daily basis about the involvement of Hindu terrorists in other terror attacks too. There was saturated media coverage and the din created nationally then is almost at par with what is being witnessed through the 'pink chaddi campaign' that has been launched by a few politically connected rootless Indians, in response to the attack on a few girls in a pub in Mangalore by some Hindu hooligans.

Seen in this light, the complete silence all round about the involvement of Indians in the worst ever terror attack on India, followed by the disgraceful spectacle that the nation witnessed yesterday suggests that a very deliberate attempt is being made to con the country and shield all Indians who were directly and indirectly involved in the attack. It is entirely possible that the involvement of some of them may not be limited to this one attack only.

A few may well be having very powerful links in the top echelons of the UPA and any exposure about the extent of this nexus between them may prove to be disastrous in the forthcoming elections. There is a widespread feeling that all evidence of local support has already been systematically erased and that the operatives who were physically involved have already been sent to that impenetrable sanctuary of terrorists and criminals that calls itself a country.

What happened yesterday shows that there is a real stink here which the Central and State governments want to keep a firm lid on. Mumbai police is their willing accomplice and is hiding a lot more than what it has revealed about India's 9/11. One wonders whether and how much of blood money has been received by those who, some say, are merrily continuing to play with the lives of ordinary Indian citizens.

UPDATE

Any guesses about what Barkha Dutt has to say about what the Mumbai Police Commissioner has revealed? This is how she dismisses it in a column in the Hindustan Times today: "There was much media to-do after Bombay's (note, not Mumbai's) top cop said, rather matter-of-factly that the terror attacks did have some local links...Yes, perhaps he spoke out of turn and contradited the government's positon. To that end, the need to talk is clearly embedded in the subcontinent's DNA...So when Bombay's police chief made the point about local arrests he possibly goofed up in how he articulated it. But we need not spend much more defensive energy on it." (italics mine).

So, as per Ms Dutt, Gafoor's clear admission, made after almost 11 weeks of silence, only to be retracted a few hours later, is because of his DNA-driven need to talk. And the initial admission was only a goof up in articulation. Read again what he said to the media. Can you spot lack of articulation or any congenital problem?

Should what he said be dismissed and forgotten as Ms Dutt, who sounds more like a Congress party spokesman than a journalist, has and wants us to? Or should the nation be even more concerned that a powerful section of the media is little more than the mouthpiece of a government that really does have something sordid to hide?
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Readers may also read:
1. Mumbai 26/11: Local support and vote bank politics
2. Valentine's Day: It's chaddi vs langot!
3. India's Osama and Al Qaida found: Banish them!
4. Hindu terror at last. Thank God!

MUMBAI 26/11: LOCAL SUPPORT AND VOTE BANK POLITICS

Narendra Modi, for all his well publicised faults, has a knack of bringing back into focus issues that should have never gone out of it. A couple of days back, he said that the "smallest of persons knows" that a terror attack of the scale that was launched on Mumbai on November 26, 2008, could not have been launched without some local support. The UPA government, according to him, was shying away from taking any action due to vote bank politics. Home Minister P Chidambaram responded by evading a direct answer and by asking in turn whether Mr. Modi was in contact with Pakistan.

It is perhaps worth recalling certain significant facts that had emerged immediately after the attacks but which have clearly not been followed up, or at least that is what is seems.

• Naval commandos who were among the first to engage terrorists in Taj Hotel recovered a rucksack left behind by them. The contents of this rucksack were shown by many TV channels and included, among other things, cash and seven credit cards including those of top Indian banks like the ICICI, HSBC, HDFC, Axis and CITI bank.

• Fake Indian identity cards were also found on the person of all terrorists. Ajmal Kasab, the lone terrorist captured alive, was carrying a fake ID card of Arunodaya Degree College of Hyderabad, in the name of Naresh Verma.

• The terrorists were completely familiar with the layout of the hotels and moved around the buildings with practiced ease. Their knowledge of the layout was first brought out by the Naval commandos and later confirmed by Ratan Tata himself. "There seems to be no doubt that they knew their way around the hotel," he said, "They seemed to know it in the night, or in the daytime. They seemed to have planned their moves quite well, and there seem to have been a lot of pre-planning in terms of what they did and how they managed to carry on for three days and sustain themselves during that time."

• There were early reports that the terrorists had checked in and stayed in the hotels on a previous trip to familiarise themselves thoroughly. These were, however, dismissed by Mumbai Police Commissioner Hasan Gafoor who said that terrorists "were shown detailed plans". Such thorough knowledge, based only on blueprints?

• The way they were able to sustain themselves for three days without running out of ammunition and explosives suggests that much more of the lethal stuff than they carried in their rucksacks had been smuggled into the hotel prior to the attack and placed at locations precisely marked during previous reconnaissance missions.

• The IB had initially said that it suspected that the terrorists had been provided logistic support by members of the Dawood Ibrahim gang.

Ajmal Kasab has apparently given shocking details to his investigators about the the role and activities of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, terror training camps etc in Pakistan. Based on the information given by him, MV Kuber, the boat used by the terrorists has been found and a lot of other leads have been followed up enabling India to confidently send a huge dossier to Pakistan and other countries containing evidence of the involvement of powerful elements of the state in the terror attack.

Is it not surprising that Ajmal has spoken only about the Pakistan end of the operations and has remained silent about what exactly was done in India during the planning and execution stages of the attack? Is it possible that he has not even been asked the following questions, if not more, by the investigators?

• How and when did he and other members of his gang get Indian credit and identity cards? Who helped them get these documents?

• Since they were to sink the boat they used to land in Mumbai, where were they to go to and whose assistance were they to get after completing their mission and escaping? How long were they to stay in India and where before going back to Pakistan?

• How and when did they familiarise themselves so thoroughly with the hotel layout?

• How many times did he and/or other members of his group visit Mumbai earlier to carry out reconnaissance? Where did they stay then and for how long?

• Who pre-placed ammunition and explosives in the Taj?

In a lively discussion on the Face the Nation program on CNN-IBN on February 11, 2009, IDSA Fellow Dr Sreeradha Datta was candid enough to admit in response to a question by Sagarika Ghose that "If you look at the proportions of the attack, it would not have been possible without some kind of logistical support from within India. These kind of actions cannot take place by people just walking into a particular state and doing what they did." Why is it that more than two and a half months after the attack, there is total silence on this critical and vital aspect of the worst terror attack that India has faced?

Is Narendra Modi right in accusing the government of playing vote bank politics in view of the forthcoming elections? Are the electoral prospects of the ruling alliance more important than the safety and security of the country and the lives of ordinary citizens? Yes, even the "smallest of persons" can make out that ten terrorists could not have just got into a boat in Pakistan and successfully held India to ransom for three days. Had logistic support been provided to them by the underworld or by other Pakistani nationals based in India, there is little doubt that the government would have by now arrested/exposed them and made a huge international issue of it, as further evidence of Pakistan's involvement.

The fact that no one in the establishment is now speaking of it does raise some uncomfortable questions that have to be faced squarely. If indeed some Indians are involved, then it is important that they are quickly identified and punished and their involvement not allowed to degenerate into communal stereotypes. The longer the government remains in denial, the greater will be the perceptual damage. It is also important that the government brings everything out honestly and transparently so that the ordinary citizen knows that his life is not being put in danger only because of petty political considerations.

UPDATE

News is coming in that Pakistan that has owned up by and large to the evidence given by India. It should be evident to all that the denial has turned into confession not because of the dossier that India sent but due to the evidence that the Americans have confronted Pakistan with behind closed doors.

Significantly, Pakistan has admitted that only a part of the conspiracy was hatched in Pakistan and is suggesting that part of it was done in India. There lies the sting. India has 'uncovered' everything about what happened in Pakistan but has not been able to find anything about the Indian angle. Watch this space. Plenty of dirt ahead. Perhaps some people in the Indian establishment have blood on their hands.

VALENTINE'S DAY: IT'S CHADDI VS LANGOT!

This is imagination going wild pink. A fast growing group of urban women have decided to send their 'chaddis' (panties), only pink ones if you please, to Pramod Muthalik's Ram Sainiks (Soldiers of Ram) in Bangalore. This is their idea of sending 'love' to the self-proclaimed protectors of Indian culture on Valentine's Day!

Do you send 'love' when you take off and send your panties, even if their colour is pink? May be the idea is actually to get the Brahmachari (celibate) followers of Ram to forget about their boring 'morals', loosen their langots (loin cloths) and discover fun! Will the Ram Sainiks get the exciting message being sent by "The Consortium of Pubgoing Loose and Forward Women" or will they actually claim that it vindicates their stand that Valentine's Day celebrations are part of a 'Christian conspiracy' to destroy Indian values and turn all 'chaste' Indian girls into 'loose' women who frequent pubs? Much to their joy, even the author of the facebook listed consortium's blog is Susan!

This is a country where more than 80% of women do not wear panties at all. This is not because they are ready to 'lose it' but because their saris, salwars, ghagras, mekhlas, kiras, lehngas etc leave little possibilities of upskirt accidents that necessitate wearing of panties.It is obvious that this consortium is not aware that there is nothing beneath the over garments worn by chaste Indian women in the country side, and that they don't really need to take anything off for love! Madhuri Dixit's efforts to educate people through that famous song 'Choli ke peechhe kya hai' (What is beneath the blouse) have all gone waste, it seems.

May be the consortium has been sponsored by a lingerie manufacturing company which wants more and more Indian women to start wearing functionally redundant panties in the heat and dust of rural India. May be the co-sponsor manufactures products specifically designed to cure itches in the loins - those caused by skin diseases that are caused by a combination of friction and sweat.

What next? An all-women political party with a pink chaddi as its election symbol?! Or are the langot-wearing mascots of the Sangh Parivar going to take the gifted pink panties to every nook and corner of the country to tell people that this is the 'low' that Valentine's Day is actually about, and ask them for their vote to protect their, well, 'high' morals?!

UPDATE

This 'itsy bitsy' pink chaddi group has powerful media tentacles. Its campaign is one of the lead three-column front page stories stories in the Times of India and Hindustan Times of February 10, 2009. It has also been covered by other publications/TV channels including Outlook , NDTV, DNA, Times Now, The Hindu and Mint. More coverage will certainly follow in the coming days, with pink panties flying around everywhere! They are even calling it 'Gandhigiri'. Mahatma Gandhi would never have dreamt that this would happen to him; his celibacy is being tested 61 years after his death!

The target clearly is not the Ram Sene but a Western audience, may be even donors. In the sixties, American feminists had burnt their bras in protest. This group probably wants to outdo them but in a completely different cultural setting and context. There is obviously a total social disconnect somewhere...but who cares as long you create shock and awe in Westernised urban India and the global media. Pramod Muthalik must be pleased pink. This is probably just the 'pink slip' his gang needs to 'uplift' their sagging morale!

P.S. A protest is being planned in New Delhi on Valentine's Day. This is a balanced and civilised way of voicing opposition to uncivilised and unacceptable behaviour. I am sure many of you who read this and are in Delhi will join the protest and make your voice heard. For further details, visit this blog

P.P.S. Sagarika Ghose, a member of the Facebook group 'A Consortium of Pubgoing Loose and Forward Women' has written a column in today's (February 11) Hindustan Times on this underwear flinging campaign. It is worth a read.
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Readers may also read: Forget drinking, boys and girls can't even study together!

WILL CONGRESS FINALLY DUMP SP?

As per news reports, the Congress party will take a final decision by February 11, 2009 about continuing its alliance with Mulayam Yadav's Samajwadi Party (SP) in UP. Will the Congress dare to go in for elections alone in the state? With just about 8% of the vote share and certain victories limited to the two constituencies represented by Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, conventional wisdom suggests that it will be suicidal for the party to do so. Really?

Yes, no new voters are being attracted to the party. Mayawati has taken away all its dalit votes and Mulayam Yadav all its Yadav and most of its Muslim votes, leaving the Congress with the votes of only the old and dying who continue to support the party as they have been since Independence. With Rahul Gandhi having failed to enthuse voters, particularly the youth, the situation is actually desperate and the party has no hope of bettering its performance on its own. That is the compelling argument in favour of a tie up with the SP.

It may be recalled that till 2007, the Congress and the SP were on the same side of the fence. Then, just before the UP state elections in 2007, the Congress dumped the party, became its sworn enemy and vowed to defeat it and end Chief Minister Mulayam Yadav's 'goonda raj'. The bravado was triggered by the induction of Rahul Gandhi into UP politics and his decision to actively campaign for the Congress as its star campaigner. Disconnected “loyalists”, helped by similarly placed media moguls, probably had visions of the latest Nehru-Gandhi taking the state by storm, just like his illustrious ancestors had done. He would, they believed, single handedly attract enough additional votes to at least ensure that no one could form a government in the state without the critical support of the Congress.

In the event, not only did the strategy backfire badly, the vote percentage of the party also actually declined, and Mayawati stunned everyone by not only defeating the SP but also getting to power entirely on her own, something which no party had been able to do in UP for a long time. Then began a honeymoon between her and the Congress.

I had then itself warned that Mayawati’s hug was the hug of death from which only the Congress would emerge a loser. But the realization took a long time coming. The successive defeats faced by the Congress in the other state elections that followed, made the party sit up and realize that the BSP was taking away enough voters everywhere from the Congress, to ensure the defeat of many of its candidates by that critical margin. Mayawati was serious competition.

So, what did the Congress do? It went back to the same SP that it had vowed to defeat, and once pariah Amar Singh became the party's best friend! Admittedly, the Congress then had little choice but to embrace the SP because the communists had walked out on them on the Indo-US Nuclear Deal. The alliance made great electoral sense for the humbled SP as it would enable it to get the critical number of Congress votes required to get enough MPs into Parliament and, if the dice rolled right, for Mulayam Yadav to stake claim for the PM's job.

But was that alliance ever going to benefit the Congress electorally? Even before the Congress and SP became friends again, it was clear to me that the Congress would be the loser, just like it had been with the BSP. In UP, Mayawati and Mulayam have, between them, taken away the traditional voters of the Congress and made the party irrelevant in the state. The Congress is never going to improve its base by aligning with either of them. The only way it can retrieve its position is by defeating at least one, if not both of them. And, in the given circumstance, it is only the SP that the Congress can hope to weaken and destroy.

The Congress and the BJP have to realise that they are no longer fighting each other in UP. If they still continue to believe that they are principal opponents there and indulge in a mutually destructive fight, only Mayawati and Mulayam will benefit.

In what must come as a great relief to the Congress, Mulayam and his Man Friday Amar Singh, for all their astuteness, have got themselves into a very vulnerable corner. When they had embraced the Congress, they failed to realise that by ditching the Third Front and annoying the Left , they had isolated themselves completely and left themselves at the mercy of the Congress. They took the risk probably in the smug belief that an almost non-existent Congress had no choice but to go along with them in UP. A few days back, when they re-embraced Kalyan Singh of Babri Masjid fame, they thought that they had further strengthened their bargaining power with the party. That move of theirs has not gone down well with a large section of their Muslim vote bank. If the situation is exploited adroitly, a substantial part of the Muslim vote can be got to get back to the Congress.

The Congress has a real opportunity here.

One of its two principal opponents in UP stands politically isolated and electorally vulnerable. This is an almost heaven-sent opportunity for the Congress to meaningfully begin the revival of its fortunes in the state. The Third Front has been vapourised, the Left is not willing to forgive Mulayam and forget what he did and Muslims are annoyed with him for sleeping with Kalyan Singhand giving him the 'secular badge' for free. Any pre-poll tie up with SP, therefore, will only be to the advantage of that party and the Congress will suffer an even further erosion in the little popular support that it has.

Will the Congress still bargain with and bail out Mulayam in the possibly misplaced hope of getting may be around five additional MPs from UP? Or will it finally go in for the kill and decide to go it all alone?