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On February 22 the Oscar awards were announced with the British film - Slumdog Millionaire - bagging a majority of them including two for its Indian music director. On February 24, the 'Deccan Chronicle' of Hyderabad had two prominent features: its first lead in large type described the Indian music director as ‘top dog’. The paper must have realized the faux pas of attaching the phrase to the name of a member of a particular community and promptly apologised to the community. The paper did the right thing for however inadvertently hurting the feelings of the community. The second was by M. F. Hussain who has not so far done the decent thing the paper did - apologizing for his sacrilegious paintings of Hindu gods and goddesses.
In the 24x7 cable news age where political correctness and distortion of facts thrive, there's no dearth of glib-tongued self appointed spokespersons trying to earn a some name and fame in face of tragedy.
Many individuals with average awareness of ancient indian literature and knowledge argue that – Nirayana astrology having sign names Mesha, Vrishabha etc was imported from
I have not been commenting on political matters in India, though I happened to live and breathe politics from my childhood, when my father used to express his political faith through revolutionary activities like the members of the Anushilan Samiti (a pro-independence secret society against British) and Bengal Volunteer Force of Netaji Subhas Bose. I had been briefly associated with the Congress. I left it after realising that all “Pank” (mud) do not produce “Pankaj” (lotus). In pre and post independent India most political Pank, with few honourable exceptions, have been producing punks like mafia, gangster, bandits and worst kind of exploiters in the garb of political leaders; the conglomeration of which is described as Political Parties. Parties are said to be ideologically or shareholding differentiated clubs where, privileged people fool rest of the people for all the time, in the name of ideology, commit constitutionally empowered holy criminal tasks for mutual benefit, which are advertised as public service.
It was a Red Letter Day at the California Institute of Integral Studies. The Annual Convention of the Indian Muslim Council has awarded the Tipu Sultan Genocide Award to their most visible faculty member, Associate Professor Dr. Angana Chatterji. She received the award to the applause of distinguished guests representing the world’s most distinguished genocide specialist organizations. Organizations as diverse and yet as united in their aspirations as the Pakistan embassy, the Pakistan-American Association, the Pakistan Inter Services Intelligence, the CAIR, the Association for India’s Development that shares membership and website design with the Marxist-Leninist Maoist (a.k.a People’s War Group) of the Communist Parties of India and Nepal, the Khalistanis from Canada, and many others who have won recognition from the US State Department in their annual global foreign Jehaadi honors list. This recognition of Dr. Chatterji’s lifetime devotion to the Cause of Genocide was indeed rare cause for rejoicing at CIIS.
As is their wont the secular exponents found in the recent Hindu-Christian violence in Orissa and Karnataka grist to their anti-Hindu mill. The violence in Orissa followed the brutal murder of a revered Hindu pontiff Swami Lakshmananda Saraswathi who happened to be the state vice president of the Viswa Hindu Parishat. He was murdered along with four other inmates of his Ashram including a woman devotee.
The happenings in Mangalore Karnataka were again true to form: a neo-convert pastor in Andhra Pradesh wanted to be lauded for being more loyal than the King. His pamphlet, the product of a prostituted, putrefied and suppurating mind portrayed Hindu gods and goddesses in the most obnoxious manner possible accusing them of incest, debauchery and worse.
The debate on ''art and freedom of expression'' triggered by protests against M. F. Hussein’s paintings of Hindu gods and goddesses, is skewed on three counts. The first is the Indian media's anti-Hindu bias. The second concerns the misconception about erotic sculptures in temple bas-reliefs that they represent Hindu gods and goddesses. The third relates to the questions, "Is artistic freedom absolute?" and "What, when the absolute artistic freedom militates against the freedom of religion of a multitude?" This article deals with the subject citing the rulings of Austrian courts and the European court of human rights.
It is time to critique the state of the polity in India after 60 years of Swarajyam. The focus is naturally on the Congress Party which has dominated the political scene and has been the prime instrument in creating an environment of criminalized polity in the country.
The deal is not a panacea for energy security as the government makes us believe. However it is desirable as a part of long range planning to develop alternative sources of energy in view of the finite nature of resources like coal and gas.
The left’s opposition is untenable (or stupid) because in foreign relations, there is no place for dreamy-eyed ideological considerations. A clever nation pursues a foreign policy that suits its strategic interests. The US may be no exception. But we must not forget that it was the US that bailed us out when China invaded us in 1962. It is therefore desirable to have a strategic alliance with the lone super power in view of our hostile neighbourhood.
The alliance with the US can only accelerate our progress in various scientific and technological fields and in wealth creation. No doubt nuclear commerce creates thousands of jobs in the US but will also do so in India.
The BJP’s opposition is untenable because we do not have nuclear resources in the first place and have to depend on others for supplies in the foreseeable future.
What happens when the artistic freedom of an individual (or a famous painter) militates against the collective human rights of a multitude? This article raises certain pertinent questions about the observations of Indian courts which have been generally liberal in preserving individual freedoms vis-à-vis the rights of the majority religion. Could the defenders of artistic freedom, have inveigled the courts into delivering ill-conceived judgements by speciously citing mischievous evidence? In the process were the courts oblivious to pertinent alternative views on the matter?
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In any case newspapers are ‘brands’ and ‘brands’ survive by winning and retaining their customers’ mindshare, in this case their readers’ mindshare. Newspapers use various devices, not least their ‘letters to the editor’ columns to win the elusive mindshare that according to marketing gurus is locked in a black box (so designated because it is difficult to fathom) in the brain. This they do by attempting to mould public opinion at a subliminal level.
Therefore the editing of these columns is taken very seriously and the content that goes in is filtered and sieved, cut and edited and at times even mutilated to strip it of its meaning and context to suit the paper’s professed or covert ideology.
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‘Is it Indian or Chinese?’ is the question that puzzles the viewer after watching the highly hyped television programme - which we shall see.
In a press conference held in the first week of November last year, Two BJP MPs from Arunachal Pradesh, Tapir Gao and Kiren Rijiju narrated incidents relating to Chinese incursions into their state. In one such incident, in the first week of November, 2007 Chinese soldiers blew up a Buddha statue - well inside Indian territory - which was there as long as anyone could remember and which local inhabitants worshipped.
In NDTV’s February 16 Big Fight, (Should India talk tough on border dispute?), a presumable sequel to the press conference, Kiren Rijiju’s concerns were tossed aside on the floodtide of Singhvi’s eloquence. Prakash Javedkar’s protests were dismissed as a paranoid party’s undue alarmism. Comrade Ren Yan, could go home with the satisfaction that the ruling establishment and popular media in India alike support China’s cause because they had to spite her principal opposition.
Is it ‘The Big Fight’ then Indian or Chinese?
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The prevention of crime and anti-social activities is an important responsibility of the government-one in which all segments of society have a stake. But on that crime fighting ideological front, the Marxist government in Kerala has been notably deficient. (In the view of the Marxists aligned with the Jihadis, peace loving, law abiding Hindus are the real problem of social tension, crime, violence and Jihadi terrorism)....
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Kushwant Singh?s surgery to create a cross between Play Boy and Pent House out of the staid Illustrated Weekly of India hastened the magazine?s endgame to use Mukul Sharma?s pun. Sharma was one of those who was trying to nurse the magazine back to life during its dying days. He ran a brilliant column called Mindsport - MS for short again punning his own initials. He called one of the items in MS, ?Managrams? in which readers were asked to describe a celebrity in witty ?shorthand?. For example one reader described Sridevi as ?Winker, wailer, boulder thigh? recalling the film star?s debut with huge hoardings showing her lavish thighs. Those were also the days when Bofors? made headline news and triggered creative juices in the English novelist Geoffrey Archer, who included the story with thin camouflage in his anthology of stories, A Twist in the Tale. To cut a long story short, a participant in MS? Managrams reveled in his creativity by describing the pilot turned Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi thus: ?Sonia Mania flying high; drawbacks kickbacks plenty why??
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