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Indian Communists upset at being labeled Indian agents

Communists who have not objected to being labeled as KGB agents are upset that they have been branded as people who helped India!

"We are consulting legal experts for advice on how to go about a criminal defamation case against the newspaper that projected comrade Promode Dasgupta as an IB informant," senior CPI-M leader S. Ramachandra Pillai told IANS.

The Aryan Invasion Theory
One of the most controversial ideas about Hindu history is the Aryan invasion theory.

This theory, originally devised by F. Max Muller in 1848, traces the history of Hinduism to the invasion of India's indigenous people by lighter skinned Aryans around 1500 BCE.

The theory was reinforced by other research over the next 120 years, and became the accepted history of Hinduism, not only in the West but in India.

There is now ample evidence to show that Muller, and those who followed him, were wrong.

In the end, it’s all about the beginning. Toying with human skulls for the past two years, Panjab University alumnus Dr Parthmanathan Raghavan has now conclusively established the fact that origins of Caucasoids (Europeans and Middle-East settlers) and Australoid (Australian Aborigines) resulted from a human gene split in India 1,00,000 years ago.

This “new discovery” based on osteogenetic evidence and his excellent academic record have earned Australian citizenship for Dr Raghavan, who also becomes the first Asian to be conferred with the honour.

Of course, the big question the authors don't address is whether prostitution's spillover effects-- spread of disease, impact on the stability of marriage and the likelihood of out-of-wedlock children, etc. -- justify the widespread bans we see today

S M Krishna was of course a good Chief Minister, but even cleverer as a politician. The Karnataka Government, he knew well, could never defend its position that hoisting the national flag at the Maidan in Hubli did hurt the minorities, read Muslims, and forced them to riot.

He knew that would shame the entire minority community, not only in Hubli, but everywhere.

He was sure that if the case went ahead, some one would ask why Uma Bharati broke the ban. He was embarrassed that the truth that the ban was on hoisting of the national flag in a place declared as a public place by the judiciary would come out. If vegetables could be sold at the Maidan, if public meetings could be held, Krishna knew that it was difficult to say that national flag should alone be banned.

...if the minority community did not want our national flag hoisted at the Maidan, what was their national flag?

Let us take a classic example in India of petty corruption. I have applied for a phone but the telephone linesman is demanding a payment to install it. (Recent changes have made this example somewhat dated, but that will allow useful insight.) This bribe demanded by the linesman appears to be a clear instance of corruption. Yet, one may argue – isn't this a straightforward business transaction? I'm paying for a service to the lineman and he is installing the phone. On giving the payment, I am certain that the line will be installed, it would be very unusual for the fellow to run away with my money. So, on one level, this business transaction has a high level of integrity – and in that sense, the linesman doesn't appear to be fundamentally dishonest. On the other hand, one can argue that this is clearly corruption because he is already getting paid by the government to perform this service and he is not doing his job.

But, what if we legalized that? What if the government made a regulation that the linesman could collect a fee of five hundred rupees per line that he installs? The same transaction is taking place but we have now privatized it and we would no longer call it corruption. Has the integrity of the person changed or have we merely changed the rules? Are we defining corruption simply within the bounds of legality or can we determine right and wrong beyond those bounds?

"India was the mother of our race and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's languages. She was the mother of our philosophy, mother through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics, mother through Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity, mother through village communities of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all." -- Will Durant

Will Durant, American Historian: “It is true that even across the Himalayan barrier India has sent to the west, such gifts as grammar and logic, philosophy and fables, hypnotism and chess, and above all numerals and the decimal system.”

Max Muller, German Scholar: "If I were to look over the whole world to find out a country most richly endowed with all the wealth, power and beauty that nature can bestow – in some part a very paradise on earth – I should point to India."

"There is no book in the world that is so thrilling, stirring and inspiring as the Upanishads." (‘Sacred Books of the East’)

Apollonius Tyanaeus, Ancient Greek Traveler: "In India, I found a race of mortals living upon the Earth, but not adhering to it, inhabiting cities, but not being fixed to them, possessing everything, but possessed by nothing."

"When Indians were donating money and jewellery - even sweaters - to sustain India's fight against the Chinese in 1962, Mani Shankar Aiyar, as secretary of the Cambridge unit of Communist party, was busy collecting funds for Chinese soldiers," Thackeray said, quoting Bhagat, on Saturday.

India is ahead of China in terms of the proportion of its population that has attained tertiary education. According to the Institute for Management Development (IMD) World Competitiveness Year Book for 2001, about 8% of the Indian population ranging from 25 to 34 years old had attained some tertiary education compared with 5% in China. Another edge for India is that a majority of the tertiary programs use English as the main medium of instruction. This is not the case in China. India also adds about 2.3 million bachelor degree graduates and about 300,000 engineers annually. In terms of the degree to which the university education system meets the competitive needs of the economy, IMD ranks India sixth among 30 nations, with a score of 6.2 out of 10 compared with a ranking of 25 for China, which received a score of 4.4.

India also has a large pool of skilled labor, especially engineers, relative to its economy's needs. According to IMD, India ranks among the top three of 30 nations in terms of the availability of skilled labor. In fact, IMD ranks India No 1 in terms of the availability of qualified engineers, while China is in 29th place.

In a global first, two Indian scientists have devised a tiny electrical current by merely passing a lot of gas over semi-conductors.

This innovation by Ajay K. Sood and his student Shankar Ghosh at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, is already drawing laurels from across the world for its simple design and immense technological potential. Some observers are even of the opinion that this is the greatest Indian scientific discovery in the last 50 years.

‘‘Gas flow energy can be converted directly into the electrical signal – thus having a potential for applications in generating electricity,’’ the duo asserted.

New Delhi, January 16: Using flowing water, specialised carbon tubes and their abundant grey cells, a team of Indian scientists in Bangalore has generated electric current. The current generated is nano-small but the impact of this discovery huge: it has the potential of powering coronary pace makers and beign used as a sensor in biomedical applications.

Prof Ajay K. Sood, Shanker Ghosh and N. Kumar at the Physics Department of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore have demonstrated, for the first time ever, that tiny electric currents can be generated whenever certain liquids like water are passed through very fine capillaries of carbon — technically known as carbon nano-tubes. The team’s paper outlining this finding has been picked up by the American journal Science in its ‘Science Express’ category — one that’s usually reserved for papers having ‘‘timeliness and importance’’.

A Limpopo woman says she is being plagued by a hail of stones that follows her wherever she stays.

Miyi Shongi, 58, was kicked out of Lombani village by her terrified family and neighbours three weeks ago and moved in with relatives in Nhombelani village, 30km away near Malamulele, but the rain of stones followed her there too.

"I thought I would be safe there," she said at the time, "but the stones followed me and embarrassed me".

She believes a Zimbabwean trader has cast an evil spell on her, because she'd failed to pay for clothing she'd bought from the trader on credit.

When the problem first began in Lombani, her family called the police for help.

Stones 'fell like rain'

"We were there for nearly the whole night and saw stones falling from the sky like rain," said Vhembe police spokesperson Ailwei Mushavhanamadi.

Her achievement has given Nagpur rickshaw-puller Ramesh Wankhede and his wife Maya, a domestic help, reason to cheer.

Braving all odds, their studious daughter Vaishali has made it onto this year's list of trainee doctors in the state of Maharashtra...
Apart from her doting family, Vaishali's maternal uncle next door stood firmly behind her to ensure that she continued to study.

"There were times when she went to school hungry," said her mother in a choked voice.

"We could never meet her needs," lamented her father, who had to give up his rickshaw job after injuring a leg.

Vaishali is also indebted to Professor H C Kaliwale, a local educationalist, who provided her with books and knowledge when she needed it desperately.

"I saw in her a great determination. I knew at once she would make it," he said.

There were others who helped too, including her mother's employers who provided books and pens when she could not afford them.

Now this soft-spoken girl has achieved her goal, and she is the toast of her neighbourhood.

Inspired by her results, students in her neighbourhood are seeking her guidance, and she is helping them out.

"Together we will change our world one day," she said.

Now, most incredibly, Guardian says, China defines its poverty line at $76 per year, whereas India conforms to the World Bank norm of $365/year. Think that over deeply and then, evaluate India's performance. Also, for a country with an average income of $1000 a year, China's definition of its poverty line is astounding. Only less so, than world's applause for its performance.

Art of Living guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is likely to visit Pakistan for the first time July 19 to address spiritual discourses in a country where the essentially Indian form of yoga, deep breathing and meditation, is rapidly catching on...

The first invitation came in January, when Ravi Shankar was asked to give a discourse on "Yogam (yoga) and Dhyanam (meditation)"...

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has promised assistance to families of farmers who have committed suicide in southern India.

The BJP alliance is shown at 34.8% of vote share, the INC alliance at 34.6%, and others at 27.1%. That leaves 3.5% of the total vote share unaccounted for. I was unable to locate the Samata Party on the list, for example.


But taking the figures as they presently stand, we have the anomalous situation of a loss in vote share for both the defeated BJP coalition, and the victorious INC coalition. The BJP coalition lost 3.6% (net), contributed to principally by the BJP itself, the JD(U), the Telugu Desam Party, and the Trinamool Congress. The INC coalition lost 2.4%, contributed to principally by the INC itself, the RJD, and the NCP.

Gujarat 2002 riots

Provocation: On the morning of February 27, at Godhra station, 58 Hindu passengers returning from a pilgrimage to Lord Ram's Ayodhya were scorched alive by a Muslim mob.

Retaliation: While nothing much happened on February 27 itself, a mass vendetta commenced on February 28. For two days thereafter, Hindu groups indulged in arson and loot, raping and killing.

Counter-retaliation: A Delhi-based journalist, wrote that subsequently there were 157 riots and that all of them were started by Muslim groups (India Today, June 24, 2002).

Victims: In the three months following the Godhra massacre, the official figure is 800 dead, of which a quarter were Hindus. Another estimate is 1,050 dead, of which Hindus were 250. Of the 98,000 persons sent to refugee camps, 10,000 were Hindus.

Government action: A five-man fact-finding committee of The Council for International Affairs and Human Rights headed by D S Tewatia, a former chief justice of the Calcutta and Punjab and Haryana high courts, reported that:–

* By the afternoon of February 28... at 4.30 pm that day, the chief minister announced ... call the army to assist the civil administration.

* ...Troops needed to be withdrawn from the country's border with Pakistan, where they were deployed in full strength in an eyeball-to-eyeball situation.
* Within 24 hours, one brigade of the Indian Army had landed in Ahmedabad.
* The second brigade was deputed to Rajkot and Vadodara on the night of March 1.
* Columns allotted to Godhra reached there on the morning of March 2.
* The army went back to the barracks on March 10.

What did the Gujarat police do? In the first 48 hours of the violence, they arrested 3,900 persons, of whom two-thirds were Hindus (Sanjoy Banerjee, 'Indian Politics in this Age', Indian Currents, June 2002). By April 5, 9,500 persons had been arrested, of whom two-thirds were Hindus. 'The Gujarat police did try to restore law and order.' (Prem Shankar Jha, 'Gujarat: A Sober Diary', Outlook, April 22, 2002.) National Minorities Commission Chairman John Joseph noted, 'As on April 6, 126 persons were killed in police firing, of whom 77 were Hindus.' (Kay Benedict, 'Bad PR charge on Atal, Modi', The Telegraph, April 21, 2002.) L K Advani, ex-home minister, publicly stated that the police fired 3,900 rounds of ammunition.

The National Human Rights Commission and the Minorities Commission 'accepted the Gujarat government's contention that it did foresee trouble and took precautionary steps to check it, but was caught by surprise and overwhelmed by the mob fury erupting on February 28.'

The billion-dollar question: So was Gujarat 2002 'state-sponsored' genocide against Muslims? Was it at all genocide or a pogrom against Muslims? Or was it a case of any number of sandbags not enough to stem the Brahmaputra floods?

During the years 1894-1900, Bose performed pioneering research on radio waves and created waves as short as 5 mm. Bose’s work actually predates that of Guglielmo Marconi who is most often associated with the development of radio. Unlike Marconi who sought to commercialize his work with radio waves, Bose was purely interested in radio waves as a scientific endeavor. Bose also developed equipment for generating, transmitting, and receiving radio waves and used it to demonstrate conclusively the waves’ properties such as reflection, total reflection, refraction, double refraction, and polarization. Bose also experimented with galena to form an early type of semiconductor diode, which may be used as a detector of electromagnetic waves.

In 1895 Bose gave his first public demonstration of electromagnetic waves, using them to ring a bell remotely and to explode some gunpowder. In 1896 the Daily Chronicle of England reported: "The inventor (J.C. Bose) has transmitted signals to a distance of nearly a mile and herein lies the first and obvious and exceedingly valuable application of this new theoretical marvel." Popov in Russia was doing similar experiments, but had written in December 1895 that he was still entertaining the hope of remote signalling with radio waves. The first successful wireless signalling experiment by Marconi on Salisbury Plain in England was not until May 1897. The 1895 public demonstration by Bose in Calcutta predates all these(Marconi and Popov) experiments.