Song of Praise

All in a day's work

Some photographs from my travels around Bihar.
I leave it to you to comment, if you wish....

Outside a roadside dhaba near Begusarai

Shot in passing from a car window near Motihari, East Champaran

In a school compound, in Muzaffarpur District

Shot from passing car window, East Champaran

The Anna Hazard

Surely, the lok pal, like the ombudsman, needs to play the role of the watchdog of society, putting pressure on the government and its diverse administrative arms to regulate governance with probity, using the mechanisms and delivery systems according to stated laws.



This is the humungous corrective that has to be initiated and made operative. India does not need anarchy to replace democracy. We need our democratic systems to be rebooted and restored. We need collective political will to do that. We need Parliament to be respected by the elected representatives themselves. We need to conduct ourselves with dignity. And this ‘we’ includes Team Anna, political parties of India, the administrative service, the judiciary and the people. To exchange one dreadful, failed mess with another is suicidal. – Malavika Singh

The Lokpal tamasha is bereft of serious debate and discussion. Allegations and counter allegations are being flung around, making the entire exercise contentious and unacceptable. There’s no real debate on TV, only hysteria and endless political 'tu tu main main' . Anchors have stopped being non-partisan. They brandish personal views, thus diluting all discussions


Something called ‘Team Anna’ claims to represent ‘civil society’. Clearly, it does not. There are many in ‘civil society’ — experienced professionals, thinkers and activists — who are stridently questioning the foundation of many demands raised by ‘Team Anna’.


This is like a movement for anarchy. ‘Team Anna’ seems to want the creation of a parallel government, peopled with self-appointed individuals, who believe that they are more honest than their fellow men. This ‘Lok pal’ will have no accountability at all to established democratic institutions: the Constitution, Parliament and the judiciary, even to the people of India.


The ‘hero’ of the TV anchors is Anna Hazare, who comes across as being equally superficial and simplistic when addressing this issue of enormous future importance for our democracy. His arrogant manner, devoid of intellectual strength, is scary, to say the least. The prospect of leaving governance to this ‘alternative’ is terrifying.


The press, has failed us by not being able to transmit the pros and cons of issues that are fundamental to our everyday lives. With a few exceptions, TV channels have reduced debate to sarcastic comments, trite questioning and disdainful, personal comments


Sadly, the untrained electronic lot screams at us, pushes its agendas in high-pitched, aggressive tones and kills the potential strength of the television. Anchors get away with anything. The same, predictable faces from civil society appear for the discussions. They flit like flies from one channel to the next, buzzing their plastic speil.


Prasar Bharati should have seized the moment to reinvent Doordarshan so that it could compete with the frivolous channels in our media space. There is a crying need for a public interest channel that will treat the viewer with respect and not ‘dumb down’ every idea to the lowest common denominator.

Swami Nigamananda: Salute to a Satyagrahi

After four months of fasting for saving river Ganga, Swami Nigamananda Saraswati died at around 2 pm on June 13, 2011 at Jolly Grant Himalayan Institute Hospital in Dehradun. Swami Nigamanand, 34, had been fasting for 115 days in Haridwar.
The 34-year-old Swami, a member of Matri Sadan, was protesting against the illegal mining that is polluting the river Ganges. He had started his fasting on February 19 this year. On April 27, his health started deteriorating and forced the authorities to admit him at the district hospital. The Swami went into coma and had to be admitted in a very critical condition to the Jolly Grant Hospital in Dehradun on April 27, 2011.

After 115 days without food, Nigamanand had to die to be noticed, briefly, by the national media

 

In contrast with the fuss over Ramdev, it's a terrifying revelation of how lop-sided India’s priorities have become.

Against the background of the Anna and Ramdev 'fasting' tamsahas, somebody commented that a culture addicted to cheap thrills is always self-destructive, for it cannot focus its mind on anything that lacks a circus.

'The cleaning of the River Ganga' is a much-flogged horse, and doesn't have much 'sensational value'. A clean Ganga is of fundamental importance to the life of a large part of India. Chief ministers sign agreements over this, just as the Uttarakhand chief minister did. It's just lip service: 'clean' the river  without interrupting ongoing polluting activity or try to change anything.

So when  Swami Nigamanand, to whom the cleanliness of the Ganga was really equal to godliness, began to fast to draw attention to the illegal mining, sand-quarrying and stone-crushing that pollutes  a stretch flowing to Rishikesh, no one wanted to take notice. The wannabe Mahatma and the crossdressing Yogi were hogging mediaspace.

Mining and stone-crushing companies are too good a source of funds for a government. And why should anyone pay  attention to a sadhu with neither political connections nor media presence? Nigamanand was innocent [and foolhardy] enough to think that fasting for a good cause would bring about change.

The politicians who turned deaf ears to the Supreme Court’s directives on clearing the banks of polluting industries were really not interested, and were busy 'pleading' with Ramdev to end his fast, to score political points.

A man fasting to make a point, any point, must be looked after. In this case the point was of overwhelming importance. What happened to the local and national media on this one?  Nigamanand’s courage in taking on powerful mining bosses and indifferent or greedy politicians should have been recognized and given space in print and on the electronic media.

Post his death, the slanging match between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party is shameful. Instead of humility and shame, each side is using Nigamanand's death to score a point against the other. They have an eye on the forthcoming assembly elections in Uttarakhand, they care for neither Nigamanand nor  the Ganga.

 

Illegal activity: stone-crushing polluting the Ganga

The accusations — the Congress gave the stone-crushers their licence, the BJP allows the mining to continue and so on — include one of poisoning the sadhu. This sordid drama proves that politicians and governments are least interested in the good of the people, or the improvement and preservation of the environment.

Will 'civil society' response be such that the death of this real Satyagrahi doesn't go in vain?

Only you, dear reader, can answer this one!

Judas

Then

There was the time

I gave my friend a crystal ball

Of trust

And returned

To find

Its fragments


Shattered

On the kitchen floor.

Frank Krishner 1984, Published in Friends Magazine.

Let the kids learn in school

Making RTE meaningful: Karnataka, Andhra recognise kids with HIV


The government of Karnataka is all set to make reservation for children infected with HIV mandatory in all private schools under the Right to Education (RTE) Act. It’s a strong step towards ensuring a place for HIV affected children in classrooms.

The latest draft rules prepared by the Karnataka government sets aside five per cent, out of the mandatory 25 per cent reservation in private schools, for HIV positive children as well as orphaned and disabled children.

The National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), says nearly 11,000 children live with HIV/AIDS in Karnataka. The state has the third largest number of HIV affected children after Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. It is estimated that nearly 300 children died of AIDS related causes in the State during 2007-2010.

The introduction of a specific quota for HIV affected children will face two significant roadblocks.

The first dilemma for the State government how to keep the identity of HIV affected children confidential. The second is tiding over opposition from parents and schools.

With transparency in the admission process bound to be made compulsory, admitting students under this quota could reveal the identity of potential HIV+ children. Vasudeva Sharma, member of the Karnataka State Commission for Protection of Child Rights, says that schools will have to maintain the confidentiality of students admitted under this quota.

"Of course, there are challenges which we hope to overcome in course of time," Sharma told the press, "Perhaps the day will come when children can say, without any trepidation, that they are HIV+," he adds.

There have been demands in the past for removal, boycott and ostracising of students known to be HIV+. For instance, in Belgaum last year as many as 22 children, who tested HIV+, at a government primary school were prevented by other students and parents from studying in the same school.

This year, in reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, the Centre said there were cases of 61 children infected by HIV who were removed from schools in various instances during 2008-2010.

The discrimination cases were reported from Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Kerala, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

Karnataka is not the only State to have this reservation policy . They have virtually copied the Andhra Pradesh model. A quota for HIV affected kids is not part of the model RTE rules of the Centre, and States like Kerala have not included any category-wise reservation in the 25 per cent quota


Reservation quota under RTE: [a] HIV+/Orphans/Disabled 5 [b]Scheduled Caste 10 [c] Scheduled Tribe 4 [d] Backward Classes 6. Total 25%

Alvida McBull Fida Hussain

India's amazing artist and barefoot billionaire is to be buried in Britain tomorrow.

Today, after his death has been announced, everyone in India is teary-eyed and sentimental. Hypocrites! The Shiv Senas and the BJP who used zombie gangs to attack the artist, ruin his paintings and scream death threats in order to to stifle his artistic expression, are suddenly dripping honey from their fangs, and saying things like "Hussein should be buried in India. What a load of BS!

And as for Pratibha Patel and the Congresswallahs and all the so-called liberal noise-makers: in over six years of their tenure in government, they couldn't create conditions in which the great liberal artist could return to his motherland: he was in self-imposed exile because for all our posturing, there's really no rule of law - the government couldn't guarantee protection to one of India's illustrious sons.

It's fitting that MF Hussain's final resting place will be  England. To bring him back and bury him in India would be nothing short of a mockery.

A passing thought: if the tomb of one of India's best known Sufi saints could be smashed and turned into a highway overnight by  a gang of thugs who haven't even been identified  yet, I shudder to think of what desecrations would  be planned for Hussain's tomb if he were to be laid to rest in Maharashtra!

Seven year old raped by father and uncle

It's a sickening story. A man harrasses his wife for not bearing a son. And rapes his 7 year old daughter along with his brother and two nephews!  Child sexual abuse is a horrific crime and these monsters deserve the strongest punishment.

The Chinchwad police [Pune] on June 5 arrested the father, uncle and two cousins of a seven-year-old girl for allegedly 'gang-raping' her between May 13 and 31.

The suspects were arrested after the victim's mother complained to the police. The victim's father is a bus driver, a migran from from Bihar. The uncle works as a security guard, and cousins as contract labourers.

Deputy commissioner of police (Zone III) Dnyaneshwar Chavan said that the victim lived with her mother, who had separated from her husband. Her mother had picked up a job and used to leave the child at home. He said that during this time, her husband took teh daughter to his house, where he allegedly sexually abused her. The victim's uncle and cousins also sexually abused her.

The abuse came to light after the small girl complained of severe stomach pain. She was examined at a government hospital.

The four men were charged with committing an offence of gang-rape under section 376 (g) of the Indian Penal Code. A magisterial court in Pimpri has sent them to police custody till June 7.

According to the police, the victim's parents had married in 2003. After the girl was born, the husband's family started harassing the woman  The victim's mother had started staying separately, and had also lodged a complaint against her husband for subjecting her to cruelty in 2009.

If You are in touch with Childline and other groups working for children's rights in Pune, please follow this up!

Shedding the Baba Suit

Ramdev is , at best, a shrewd  businessman who started his own brand of yoga and 'herbal' concoctions and has played upon the sentiments of a several thousand gullible folks to achieve his own selfish ends.
Any rational and scientific minded person would have seen through him as he made claims for curing HIV and Homosexuality, but of course, in the true spirit of Indian democracy, we do let quacks of all kinds build their duckponds. And now all this noise on TV, trying to turn this fellow into some sort of a hero!

This chap Ramdev is solely responsible for the so-called crackdown at Ramlila Grounds. You take permission for a yoga camp for 3,000 people and turn it into a political rally with 30,000 supporters, and then act surprised that the district administration wants to shut you down? The pack of wolves baying at Rajghat are an insult to the memory of the Mahatma... and to equate Ramdev's tricks with satyagraha, and the Ramlila ground incident with Jalliamwalla Bagh is absurd in the extreme.

It is Ramdev who should be held morally responsible for the Ramlila grounds incident, and the injuries to his people. If he really had nothing to hide, then why leap from the stage like a thief and a thug, and try to sneak away in women's clothes while his supporters engaged the police?

The Puri Shankaracharya is right when he says that Ramdev is a blot on the sadhu saffron.
A 'holy man' would have met the cops with dignity, accepted the warrant, told his followers to disperse with calm and urged the police to show resraint ... that is how a person with character and leadership is expected to be. A true leader's first thought would be the welfare of his followers. Here Ramdev showed how small he really is. Had Ramdev displayed true courage and dignity, he would have gained so much more respect, even from those who oppose him. But no, the so-called 'peaceful guru' actually willed violence to be done, so that he could claim 'martyrdom', and so this very obvious ploy - let your supporters sacrifice their lives towards your selfish cause.

Ramdev has shown that he is courageous only when surrounded by 'supporters'. There is far more to it than meets the eye, he was really afraid of being arrested, which brings to mind all those other accusations that Digvijay Singh has been making about 'disappearences' of key people in Ramdev's career path.

Manmohan Singh and his ministers had no business meeting Ramdev and giving him such importance in the first place. The man's 'demands' that 'people with black money should be given the death sentence' and such were absurd anyway, why appease him?

India doesn't need a psuedo- ramdev revolution. If the Government is really serious about bringing back the black money stashed away overseas, they will have to do something about it, or they'll be kicked out anyway through the ballot box.

Also, people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, so here's a proposal. Let's  have Ramdev investigated and let's find out whether he and his gang of 'followers' have no black money and have paid their taxes... Let's conduct scientific medical research and have Ramdev's claims of 'curing' HIV through ayurveda tested ...

It's a pity that the man didn't stick to Yoga and asans ... I know some people who believe that Ramdev's very good at Yoga, but now after watching their macho Guru running away in women's clothing, they're not very comfortable being advocates of Ramdev Baba's Salwar Suits.