Tipu Sultan the Tyrant King :-E

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

Tipu Sultan the Tyrant King :-E

Most historians will vouch for the fact that viewed from any angle Tipu was a tyrant. His great ambition was to become an emperor of India from his relatively small-time position of being just a king of the principality of Mysore. He then wanted to convert Hindustan into an Islamic empire. His fight against the British was a part of this design and not out of any patriotism. For that purpose,he is said to have even consulted Brahman astrologers and thanthrics and then faithfully carried out all the rituals prescribed by them in Sree Ranganatha Swami Temple which fact leading some historians to see him as secular.


Historian Lewis B. Boury had described Tipu’s violence against Hindus in and around Malabar as way more ferocious than atrocities committed by Mahmud of Ghazni, Nadir Shah and Alauddin Khalji against Hindus in Hindustan. William Logan has mentioned in the “Malabar Manual” that Thalipparampu and Thrichambaram temples of Chirackal Taluqa, Ponmeri Temple of Badakara, and Thiruvangatu of Tellicherry were among the major temples smashed by Tipu Sultan

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Fra Bartolomeo in “Voyage to East Indies” describe Tipu Sultan’s military operations and portray him as a cruel and intolerant Muslim ruler. On occasions, he converted lots of Hindus into Mohammedans against their will. It is reported that he captured over one thousand Hindus in Coorg, forcibly converted them to Islam, and imprisoned them in the Sreerangapatanam fortress. All Coorgi Hindu prisoners successfully escaped during the last battle between the British and Tipu Sultan. So you understand the immense feeling of resentment  and consequent protest against the official celebration of Tipu's Jayanti in Coorg.


Report by Colonel Fullarton, the then in-charge of British forces in Mangalore, Tipu Sultan committed the worst possible brutalities on Brahmans during his acquisition of Palghat Fort in the year 1783. His soldiers scared Hindus by exposing the heads of all innocent Brahmans that were brutally killed by them from the fort Zamorin. The Zamorin then decided to abandon the fort, so that he and his Hindu followers didn’t have to witness more such brutalities.


Muslim historians such as Kirmani, and Ghulam Muhammad, Tipu Sultan’s own son, revealed numerous shocking facts and realities associated with Tipu Sultan in their writings. Since he wanted to give most things around him a Muslim touch, he got several Hindu names of places replaced with Muslim names.
For example, Mangalore or Mangalapuri was changed to Jalalabad, Mysore to Nazarabad, Bepur to Sultanpatanam, Cannanore to Kusanabad, Gooty to Faiz-Hissar, Dharwar to Quarshed-Sawad, Dindigul to Khaliqabad, Ratnagiri to Mustafabad, Kozhikode to Islamabad, and Dindigul to Khaliqabad. The local residents of all these places could revert to old names only after Tipu Sultan’s death!


If a section of Karnataka Muslims consider Tipu Sultan as a role model king and thereby they had got immense sense of power during his regime and want to celebrate its memory, this land being extremely tolerant, will have no objection. I understand that they have been doing this quietly for some years. But the moment the government confers official sponsorship and patronage to such sectarian expressions which run counter to the common milieu then then it becomes a fissiperous issue and acquire communal and contentious overtones.. By this act of minority appeasement for which the Congress is notorious to which even in this late hour they cling desperately hoping that it may bring some redemption to them from their abysmal political predicament they are not only clueless how to go about it, but also in the process, doing incalculable harm to the secular fabric of this country.

The Award Return Drama: Politics by Other Means.

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

The Award Return Drama: Politics by Other Means.

 Many observers of the debate on intolerance in India, have scoffed at the melodrama of returning the awards by,  first, the Sahitya Akademi clan of favored writers, then by the  historians, then by Bollywood and other-wood film directors, and now incongruously, of all people, by scientists. Of the latter, being one belonging to the fraternity, I am flabbergasted to see eminent scientists like Bhargava forsaking the scientific method of testing their contrived hypothesis of prevailing intolerance in India by proper analysis of data.. Let them analyze the supporting data and establish the hypothesis before others follow suit. Having betrayed the scientific community by hastily and unscientifically drawing from unsubstantiated data such a momentous conclusion, it is for him and his ilk to prove and establish their misconstrued contention. Others can act emotionally but scientists cannot and should not.

What are the evidences for an unprecedented state of intolerance now in India which can be solely attributed to acts of commission or omission by the Modi government, so that these people shed their medals at its doorstep? They have not particularly enumerated the episodes of "intolerance' but prefer to be vague by design, using the term "climate", inappropriately because climate is not man-made. So, judging from the general phobia that can be seen in media one may list them down to 3 murders of writers, the Dadri lynching, the Dalit children burning, Shiv Sena shooing away the ghazal singer Ghulam Ali, black-painting the face of erstwhile BJP loose cannon Sudheendra Kulkarni. and the independent MLA of J&K, Engineer Rashid, eight in all, but, by any means, add 2 more and make it a round figure of 10.

Even if these are 24 karat incidents of intolerance, which they are not , do they form a big deal? The glaring fact is that they have nothing to do with the Modi government, in fact not even with the respective state governments, all non-BJP. They are all fundamentally criminal acts the likes of which have happened sporadically in the past and are likely to occur in future too as anywhere in the world. They should be dealt with as such. Let us take them one by one...........

The murders of writers:The rationalist Mr. MM Kalburgi was shot dead in Karnataka, a Congress ruled Government. Mr. N. Dabholkar, another rationalist, was shot down on 20th August 2013 in Maharashtra at that time ruled by the Congress and the NCP; where were these writers at the time? Both incidents need to be condemned in no uncertain terms. It is the responsibility of the State government to maintain law and order and provide security to a vulnerable target of attack. .....Bleach no. 1 for the intolerance brigade.

Similarly, the Dadri incident took place in Uttar Pradesh, which is ruled by the Samajwadi Party. UP police in its interim  report says that Dadri lynching was a spontaneous, isolated, case, and they do not see any conspiracy. ....Bleach no. 2 for the intolerance brigade.

Then the Dalit children burning case: The forensic division of the Haryana Police has in their report to CBI, revealed their findings that the fire was an inside job The house was found locked, and empty fresh kerosene bottle was retrieved  from under the cot and matchstick from window sill. So it was not even the upper caste to blame for the arson, least of all any government. ....Bleach no. 3 for the intolerance brigade.

Now the Gulam Ali blocking. It was Shiv Sena at it and the BJP took steps against it, offered security for smooth running of the function. The BJP fought its alley to protect freedom. ....Bleach no.4 for the intolerance brigade.

Inking episodes: Well known that it was the work of misguided Shiv Sainiks, BJP condemned it and arrested the culprits. On Engineer Rashid,  it was by an obscure Hindu Sena and the culprit was booked. In fact ink throwing and slipper throwing at leaders have been galore in the past.across parties: Yoga guru Baba Ramdev, Lal Krishna Advani, Ex PM Mohan Sing, Sharad pawar, ex Finance minister Chidambaram, Omar Abdullah, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, AAP leaders Kejriwal,Yogendra Yadav, Kumar Vishwas,  all have been the targets of either ink throwing, shoe throwing or even downright slapping of face. ....Bleach no. 5 for the intolerance brigade.

So it is total bleaching of the Intolerance brigade, lock stock and barrel!

Even without all these glaring facts staring at every one with eyes to see, one can leave aside the writer-historian section of the brigade.  Because writers are, if any thing, highly subjective people where stark objectivity takes lesser precedence. History is always his or her story of history. But not the scientists, for whom the empirical factor must be proved and repeatably provable. How 'Dr' P M Bhargava is going to escape from his self-closed closet of a bloomer political commitment and remedy his self ejection from the real scientific community is something he has to grapple with the rest of his life.

And now pit these few unreal, nonissues, with the 5000 sikhs who were massacred in the one and only genocide in Independent India in the wake of Indira Gandhi's murder, the hundreds who perished in riots during Congress regimes, the more than 30 books banned, including the Satanic Verses by  Salman Rushdie, and An Area of Darkness by  V. S. Naipaul and The Lotus and the Robot by Arthur Koestler, the thousands of Kashmiri pundits driven away from Kashmir, the hand chopping of TJ Joseph in Kerala, and a lot lot more, all in Congress led regimes! And speaking of bans, the cow slaughter and beef eating were banned by the Congress much earlier. Were these hypocrites hiding their conscience in their pockets to conveniently take it out now?

 "Politics by other means" now dictates an alternative strategy. Combine the three crimes, camouflage the truth and throw all of them in the basket of present Central Government," - so aptly and succinctly summarized Arun Jaitley.

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The Executive versus Judiciary

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

 The Executive versus Judiciary

 Independence of the judiciary means that the judiciary as an organ of the government should be free from influence and control of the other two organs i.e. the executive and the legislature of government. The doctrine of Separation of Powers provides for a responsibility to the judiciary to act as a watchdog.

Our constitution  just talks of the independence of the judiciary but it is no where defined what actually is the independence of the judiciary. Art. 50ays down that the state shall take steps to separate the judiciary from the executive in the public services of the state, but how exactly is unstated.

The independence of the judiciary, raises concern about the latent dangers of the judicial independence and there arises the importance of “Judicial Accountability”. Law Commission had recommended for the inclusion of a whistleblower provision, aimed at protecting those making complaints against judges, also dealing with the removal of judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts. Judicial Accountability and Judicial Independence have to work hand in hand to ensure the real purpose of setting up of the institution of judiciary.

Accountability of judiciary also evokes the question of supremacy. Only one that is supreme to the other can enforce accountability. Who is supreme, out of the commonly mentioned: the Constitution, the Parliament, or the Judiciary? The answer is none. The real power is that of the people who are therefor the supreme.The Constitution is a creature of the people. In fact the preamble of the Constitution starts with the words; " We the people of India" have resolved to have this Constitution. .".

People are, in a democracy represented by the  elected members of the Parliament and not by the selected members of the judiciary. It is because of this overriding factor that Arun Jaitley characterized the recent judgement overturning the National Judicial Appointments Commission as unconstitutional, as " tyranny of the unelected"

The Constitution of India,  makes a distinction between statutory law and constitutional law and prescribes a special procedure for amending the latter as incorporated in Article 368. The Supreme Court held ( in Keshavananda Bharati v. the State of Kerala ) that Article 368 does not enable Parliament to alter the ‘basic structure’ or framework of the Constitution. The term basic structure is a vague and general term and the Judges themselves did not offer a common agreed meaning.
    Some included Fundamental Rights and federation in the concept of basic structure while others saw no limit to the amending power of Parliament. The Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976, provided that Parliament had full power to amend the Constitution and no amendment made under Article 368 could be questioned in any Court on any ground. However the latest position is that the validity of the Forty-second Amend­ment was questioned and in May 1980, and the Supreme Court struck it down. There are many who see this as judicial activism

Together with the independence of the judiciary, there must also be accountability and restrictions   In order to ensure smooth functioning of the system there must be a right blend of the two. There has to be  a more explicit definition of what is basic structure of Constitution, in the light of which the latter judgement needs to be reviewed.

The 'Cold Start' and the Stupid Start

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

 The 'Cold Start' and the Stupid Start

 

 India has adopted dangerous military doctrines. This will compel Pakistan to take several counter measures to preserve credible deterrence, says Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif

What this means ,or portends for India, can be seen in the statement of a senior Pakistani official earlier in the build up to Obama- Sharif meeting,  according to which Pakistan’s battlefield tactical nuclear weapons were aimed at offsetting India’s “cold start” military doctrine of lightning fast, all-in offensive using its overwhelming conventional warfare advantage. That was the context of  Sharif’s reference to “credible deterrence.

Whether this, together with his warning of real possible escalation of hostility by India, was an overshot or crying-wolf antic, to push Obama in to mediation between the two countries, India cannot dismiss the mindset of Pakistani establishment which can air such a threat.

We have to constantly remind ourselves of the jihadic growth and spread of Islam and the culture of violence as a means of reacting to situations not to that faith's liking, or for achieving its thoughtless aspirations that are driven by sheer bigotry. A good chunk of the heartland of Arab world is engulfed in internecine and civil wars. If such a calamitous situation has not yet befallen Pakistan,  but it merely remains the epicenter of terrorism of kinds good to them, but bad for India, and bad to them and all the rest, the reason lies in Pakistan's original Indian ethos that in its  dna,  to a considerable extent. Due to centuries of cohabitation with the Hindus  and the derivation of the bulk of Muslim population from conversions of ethnic Hindus, the Islam jihadic temperament, and violence that also deflects in to fissiparous internecine and civil wars have been tempered. Tempered but not conquered, leaving the core susceptible to mutation back to the original bizarre. To the original single pointed blind violence, unheeding of consequences, of the soldier of Allah kind.

A Semitic theocratic state by implication is autocratic, and in the case of Islamic one, driven by Sharia law which is despotism by the clergy. Modern principles of statehood become subservient to Sharia, leading to lopsided  and dangerous policies. That, it might have the seeds of self-destruction never enters in to reckoning so long as it is seen as bidden duty dictated by faith. That is the ominous foreboding plausibility that lurks in such utterances. This mindset has to be factored in to India's counter strategy.

The bottom line is that we have to keep our powder dry, more explicitly
, our atoms alert. Pakistan by reliable accounts is the fastest growing atomic weapon power and is headed to the 5th position in the world. The Indian government over the years has never taken the people in to confidence on this issue. It is time that they do that to a great extent.

China Bans Islam.

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup


 China Bans Islam

China, all of a sudden is getting a bitter taste of renewed terrorism. Its Xinjiang and Quinghai provinces in the west are  the hotbeds of rising Islamist fundamentalism manifesting in intolerance of ethnic habits and practices. The fundamentalists  try to impose the Sharia driven agenda on the public. In Qinghai province on Friday, an angry crowd of Muslims smashed windows of a supposedly halal store in Xining city, after pork sausages and ham were found in a delivery van. The sharia based prohibition of alcohol and smoking and insistence on halal food were sought to be imposed on the local people and commercial establishments through such vandalism and force. Many local shopkeepers had stopped selling alcohol and cigarettes since 2012 because they feared public scorn, while many locals had decided to abstain from drinking and smoking as a result of Sharia pushers.

Earlier there was relatively normal religious freedom for the Islamic way in China even though it is a communist country. Muslims were allowed to pray, fast, and go to the mosques with the restriction that they do not preach towards non-Islamic villages.  Chinese imams were allowed to lead congregational prayers and there was  room for Muslims to gather, break their fast together, and pray. And then the jihadists came.

The modus operandy of the jihadists every where is the same. Before a community gets into jihad mode, the first thing they do is call on all Muslims to repent from alcohol, pork and tobacco. It is this spark which begins the process rolling, as small groups of Muslims begin to push that agenda on Muslim communities by using peer-pressure. When this happens, it is a sign that trouble is ahead. Pretty soon they begin to demand a change in laws in order to force the mainstream to acquiesce to their demands. The ball gets rolling and clamor for giving more religious freedom grows, but soon Islam’s ethics begin to come into  conflict with the majority community. The conflict arises because, first, Islam focuses on the outward forms of holiness: Hijabs, beards, no drinking, no pork and no smoking. Secondly, Islam’s concept of ‘peace is different. It is the Muslim understanding of 'justice' and can occur only when Sharia reigns supreme. China understands that spreading Islam starts by peer pressure for observing outward manifestations of religious identity and public scorn towards its violators.

With the spurt in Sharia induced violence and trouble, the reaction by the Chinese government was swift, specific and measured. In China, unlike in India or the west they get it. In the case of alcohol and smoking,  it ordered the freedom and also insisted for the shopkeepers to carry cigarettes and alcohol which gives them the excuse to tell the Sharia mafia ‘sorry’ but that it is a government mandate to allow smoking. The Chinese authorities launched a series of “strike hard” campaigns to weaken the hold of the drug of Islam in China’s western region. Not only  they ordered Muslim shopkeepers and restaurant owners in its troubled Xinjiang region to sell alcohol and cigarettes, but also to  even promote them in “eye-catching displays,”  Alcohol and tobacco, while it is a problem, to the Chinese is the lesser of the two evils. So now establishments that failed to comply were swiftly dealt with and were threatened with closure and their owners with prosecution. So while some might think that China is imposing on freedoms, Chinese government is only  thwarting the jihadist's attempts of imposing their Sharia driven agenda on the public

Muslim government employees and children are also barred from attending mosques and are even prohibited from observing the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. By that China is telling jihadists that if you want to fast Ramadan, it is fine, but if you want to push your revolution, then a Ramadan-ban is added as a bonus punishment. And in many places, women have been barred from wearing Hijabs and the men are discouraged from growing long beards. China has added several bonus-punishments. In addition to the ban on fasting, China has ordered restaurants to stay open all day during Ramadan . Even wearing the hijab in public, including on public transportation and when getting married in a religious ceremony, was banned in 2014, with fines of about $353 for wearing a hijab in public. In reality, China is cracking down on jihadists who apply peer pressure, and public scorn towards Muslims who decided to smoke or drink alcohol, in order  to promote Islamic revolution.This sends a message, you push your Islamic revolution on us and we will push back to say no Islam altogether. Wherever there is a Muslim revolution, there is a ban on Islam. It does not give a darn to  all the cry babies who complain.

The Naga Peace Accord

As characteristic of the people, the Naga insurgency had also been a very hardy and perseverant problem which had meandered through a tortuous route of successive negotiations, ever since the  first sign of Naga resistance was seen in the formation of the Naga Club in 1918   The landmark peace accord signed on Monday last  by the government and the NSCN-IM, the dominant rebel group in Nagaland, is a “framework agreement” that will pave the way for a final and lasting solution to one of the longest running insurgencies in Asia 

The Naga hills became part of British India in 1881. In 1946 came the Naga National Council (NNC), which, under the leadership of Angami Zapu Phizo, declared Nagaland an independent state on August 14, 1947. Challenged by the central government Phizo went underground in 1952, forming the underground Naga Federal Government (NFG) and the Naga Federal Army (NFA). The Government of India sent in the Army to crush the insurgency and, in 1958, enacted the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act. The Naga Hills, till then  a district of Assam, was upgraded to a state in 1963, by also adding the Tuensang Tract that was then part of North East Frontier Agency(NEFA).

In 1975 came an important breakthrough when the government got a section of NNC leaders to sign the Shillong Accord, under which one section of NNC and NFG agreed to give up arms. However a group of about 140 members led by Thuingaleng Muivah, who were at that time in China, refused to accept the Shillong Accord, and formed the National Socialist Council of Nagaland in 1980. But in 1988, the NSCN split into NSCN (IM) and NSCN (K). The NSCN (IM) came to be seen as the “mother of all insurgencies” in the region   

 What did the NSCN (IM) want?A “Greater Nagalim” comprising “all contiguous Naga-inhabited areas”, along with Nagaland. That included several districts of Assam, Arunachal and Manipur, as also a large tract of Myanmar. The map of “Greater Nagalim” has about 1,20,000 sq km, while the state of Nagaland consists of 16,527 sq km. The Nagaland Assembly has endorsed the ‘Greater Nagalim’ demand — “Integration of all Naga-inhabited contiguous areas under one administrative umbrella” — as many as five times: in December 1964, August 1970, September 1994, December 2003 and as recently as on July 27, 2015. The claims have always kept Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh wary of a peace settlement that might affect their territories.

Insurgency continued and Muivah, Swu and other top NSCN (IM) leaders escaped to Thailand in the early 1990s. Indian leaders, a succession of them,  however kept up the negotiations abroad,  The Government of India signed a ceasefire agreement with NSCN (IM) on July 25, 1997, which came into effect on August 1, 1997. Beginning with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who met them in Paris on September 30, 1998, over 80 rounds of talks between the two sides were held subsequently.

For the NSCN (IM), the Modi government continues from where Vajpayee left. The RSS’s Northeast veteran P B Acharya is currently Nagaland Governor, and Joint Intelligence Committee chairman R N Ravi, with his IB background, is an old Northeast hand. The state’s political scenario has changed, with T R Zeliang’s Naga People’s Front, an NDA ally, persuading all groups in the Assembly, including the Congress, to become partners in an all-party government.

Leaders cutting across party lines have preferred to wait and watch. Nobody in these three states would allow even an inch of their land to be added to a ‘Greater Nagalim’, Not much details have emerged abot the accord. it is called a “framework agreement” that will pave the way for a final and lasting solution It is however given out that NSCN-IM’s most contentious demand – the creation of Nagalim or Greater Nagaland comprising all Naga-inhabited areas of the northeast – had been “set aside for now”. The accord will be “confined to Nagaland”, Within this framework agreement, details and execution plan will be released shortly.

   Before the NSCN-IM agreed to ink the accord, Muivah met top “kilonsers” or ministers of the rebel group at the group’s Camp Hebron in Nagaland on July 27. At the meeting, the NSCN-IM leadership vetted and approved the draft of the accord. In that context  both sides described the signing of the accord on Monday as a key breakthrough in efforts to end the insurgency and unrest in Nagaland and to make the NSCN-IM part of the mainstream.

The Jihafrica

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

 

The Jihafrica

 The biggest threat to African peace and prosperity comes from a dangerous idea, the African jihad or Jihafrica.

THE descent from tourist destination to no-man’s land has been a short one on Kenya’s coast. The only foreign visitors of interest on the beach in recent months are Somali jihadists At this rate the coast may come to resemble northern Nigeria. One Nairobi-based ambassador frets about the “birth of a Kenyan Boko Haram” (a reference to Nigeria’s most brutal group of Islamist).

It seems more likely that the jihadist superbug will turn south. The Sahel, an arid belt on the southern fringe of the Sahara desert that stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, has already caught the virus from Algeria and Libya. 
 
Ever more places in sub-Saharan Africa are no-go zones, including parts of Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria and Niger. Northern Mali has been off-limits to outsiders (and especially Westerners) since an Islamist-backed uprising in 2012. Recent attacks by Boko Haram have killed hundreds in Nigeria and Chad, prompting Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari, to dismiss his military chiefs. 
 
On the continent’s eastern side, violent Islamism has crossed south of the equator, spreading as far as Tanzania More than a dozen sub-Saharan countries are now dealing with jihadism at home (see map). They include Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. Jihadist attacks in many places are a daily or weekly occurrence Sudan is a crossroads through which many extremists groups combine or swap men, material and know-how 

 

The two major brands of violent jihadism, IS and al-Qaeda, compete for the allegiance of various groups of African jihadists. The cancer of jihadism in sub-Saharan Africa will probably spread outward from conflicts now underway involving groups in Libya and Nigeria; their members are likely to flee into the sandy expanse that covers much of Africa above the equator,

Although the extremist groups are backed by well-financed elites, they could not survive without popular support. Every one of them taps into well-known local grievances. From Mali and Nigeria to Kenya and Tanzania the story is the same: extremists emerge from and woo Muslim populations on the national periphery who are fed up with decades of neglect, discrimination and mistreatment by their rulers. Jihadists are able to exploit existing religious tensions and latch on to disgruntled Muslim communities.
Increasingly what drives African extremism is not just opportunity or firepower but ideology.

A distinct flavor of poisonous thinking has spread across thousands of miles. Islamism is the continent’s new ideology of protest. Only genuine political competition could change this dynamic. Yet most ethnic and tribal leaders have little interest in upsetting their own hold on power. African and Western governments are thus left to counter jihadism by force of arms

Such brawn has little chance of succeeding alone.
   

         [Reduced from The Economist]

Greece's Financial Meltdown

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup



 Greece's Financial Meltdown

European policymakers would have done well to pay attention in 1997 when free-market political economist Milton Friedman predicted that the euro would be a disaster. Eighteen years later, with Greece on the verge of a financial meltdown, his analysis looks prophetic. European common market conditions are unfavorable for a common currency. The separate nations of different languages, customs, and  nationalism have not yet developed the idea of 'Europe'.  Despite being a free trade area, goods move less freely among them, regulation of industrial and employment practices differs far more from country to country, and as a result, wages and prices in Europe are more rigid, and labor less mobile.

It appears Friedman concluded rightly that "  The drive for the Euro has been motivated by politics not economics. The aim has been to link Germany and France so closely as to make a future European war impossible, and to set the stage for a federal United States of Europe. I believe that adoption of the Euro would have the opposite effect. It would exacerbate political tensions by converting divergent shocks that could have been readily accommodated by exchange rate changes into divisive political issues. Political unity can pave the way for monetary unity. Monetary unity imposed under unfavorable conditions will prove a barrier to the achievement of political unity".

The Greek government-debt crisis has its origin in the Greek Depression that started in late 2009, first of the four in the Eurozone. The root cause is said to be "a combination of structural weaknesses in the Greek economy along with a decade-long pre-existence of overly high structural deficits and debt-to-GDP levels of public accounts ". Fears of a sovereign debt crisis developed among investors concerning Greece's ability to meet its debt obligations, confounded  by the revelation that the government had hidden the actual data on government debt levels and deficits from public domain. In 2012, Greece's government had the largest sovereign debt default in history. Greece became the first developed country to fail to make an IMF €1.6 billion loan repayment on June 30, 2015. At that time, Greece's government had debts of €323bn. The resultant crisis of confidence had a cascading effect on worsening the financial predicament.

Now the time has run out for Greece, which is dealing with an economy in a protracted recession, with high unemployment and banks dangerously low on capital. The international bailout — under which it received nearly 240 billion euros in rescue loans — expired last week, on the same day Greece defaulted on an IMF repayment, becoming the first developed nation to do so. Of critical importance will be whether the European Central Bank (ECB) decides to maintain its lifeline to Greece in the form of emergency liquidity assistance, or ELA. The assistance, now at around 90 billion euros, has been maintained but not increased in past days, leaving the country's financial system in a stranglehold

Greece's debt crisis had taken a dramatic turn after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras suddenly called a crunch  referendum on bailout conditions (to implement austerity measures in exchange for a bail out ) early last Saturday knowing well that a 'no' vote  could determine its financial future and even its place in the eurozone and  could also make or break the radical-left government  In answer to the fears Tsipras says the vote is needed to force creditors to finally accept his key demand of another round of debt relief to save Greece from financial meltdown and possibly crashing out of the euro.

Tsipras's gambit sparked consternation among his country's international creditors, and led to the breaking off of talks on the rescue plan just days before the country was due to repay 1.5 billion euros to the IMF. With nothing left in the state's coffers, Greece defaulted on its IMF debt, and was forced on Monday to impose capital controls and close banks to halt a haemorrhage of cash as anxious Greeks rushed to withdraw money.

Nevertheless, Tsipras got a rock-star welcome at an Athens rally late Friday as he sought to revive support for the 'No' vote in a referendum called to strengthen his hand in talks with international creditors.

A pensioner crying before a bank

 Sunday's vote was held after a week of capital controls imposed to halt a bank run, with Greeks restricted to a daily cash withdrawal maximum of 60 euros ($67). Long lines have formed at ATMs, while pensioners without bank cards have thronged the few bank branches opened to allow them access to a maximum 120 euros for the week. Queues at ATMs swelled again as the initial results of the referendum, a thumping 'No' came in.

People celebrating a 'no' verdict

  The ECB operates on rules according to which it can only continue ELA funding if Greece is in a bailout. Without an increase, it is unclear how much longer people will be allowed to withdraw 60 euros per day.Some analysts say Greece is so starved of cash that it could be forced to start issuing its own currency. No country has ever left the 19-member eurozone, established in 1999.

While EU leaders  warned that a 'No' victory could cause Greece to crash out of the Eurozone and rival raliies of 'yes' supporters  shouted pro-European slogans and voiced fears of a so-called "Grexit" from the eurozone and a return to Greece's former currency, the drachma,  Tsipras got his way. The margin of victory was far wider than expected, which led the opposition leader to resign. This victory for the 'no' camp will unfortunately embolden the government, but is likely to do little to convince the creditors that Tsipras is a trustworthy negotiating partner who has any ability to implement a deal.

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Testing The Waters.

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup


 Testing The Waters.

  Bharathiya Janatha Party (BJP) veteran and margadarshak, Lal Krishna Advaniji has emphasized the need for probity on the part of political parties, citing his own resignation in the face of hawala accusation in the past, which becomes rather spiked and striking in a literal sense, in the current context of the chorus for resignations of the three BJP women ministers, Swaraj, Scindia, and Munde.

The statement on the face of it sounds.like an ethical pronouncement, but in fact can be viewed as a bit sanctimonious. Given the real facts and vacuous hysteria of a largely hostile scruple less media, the advice or suggestion seems to be a little loaded with tentative opportunism.

It is gullible to believe that Advaniji was not wiser to the possibility, nay, certainty of his statement providing heavier caliber ammunition to the excited Congress and the BJP- basher section of the media.  Put together with yesterday's sarcastic comment of another old guard, Yeshwant Sinha, that the present leadership of BJP considers those above 75 in age as "brain-dead", and Advaniji's own earlier observation affirming the possibility of a second emergency in the country, it appears that the old relegated leadership finds an opportunity however tenuous, to stage a come back or at least to regain their lost voice.

But how much of an opportunity is the current controversy about the culpability of BJP ministers? Congress is painting the town red with accusations after accusations either dug out by themselves or hoisted by the media. Barring another desperado party like the Aam Aadmi Party ( AAP,),  themselves facing dooms day scenario of impotency, confounded by criminality of their key members, dissidence and schism, the other opposition parties stay aloof.

The matter that hurts the Congress much to their discomfiture, is the singular absence of scams in the new governance. Like the uncouth horn bill bird said to be yearning for the rain from above to fall on its beak as otherwise it cannot drink normally with its huge bill, it has been wishing its heart out for a full sized scam or at least for a fraction of a scam to fall and settle on the govt. A fraction or just a semblance will do; it can always be blown up, with an ever conspiring, confabulating, rating -thirsty media at its side.

But what got thrown at them or in the arena was a mischievous onion by that mercurial Lalit Modi. Any one who tries to peel its layers and layers ends up with nothing but unexpected tears, whether it is Sushma, Raje, Chidambaram, Priyanka-Vadra, or Sonia.  And Rahul doesn't care two sneeze about it so long as it gives another opportunity to meditate on the Jupiter's velocity, or perhaps women empowerment in Thailand. 

  Advaniji's testing the water to find it is warm enough or not for taking another splash, not withstanding age, may raise the question: - should resignation be the norm at the accusation stage.

The Great Indian Yoga Moment

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

The Great Indian Yoga Moment

The famed Rajpath where India's gratest glory spectacle the Republic Day Parade is held was turned in to a veritable 'Yogapath", as PM Modii put it so aptly,  for the celebration of the very Modi- inspired International Yoga Day today. While the nature blessed the event with a slight monsoon  sprinkle, the rain god held back till the end.


  The heart of India’s capital today turned into a sea of colorful mats as Prime Minister Narendra Modi led thousands of people performing various physical postures across the country for the first International Yoga Day. PM Modi was expected to make only a speech at the event and not take part at the mass yoga session. But dressed in all-white kurta-pyjama and a tricolour scarf, 64-year-old Modi took everyone by surprise by performing a variety of postures including Vajrasan and Padmasan, along with nearly 40,000 people on red mats on the Rajpath in a 30-minute mass outdoor yoga session from 7 am, also aimed at qualifying for the Guinness Book of Records.

 
  Before going to the event, the prime minister tweeted early this morning "greetings to people around the world on 1st International Day of Yoga! Lets pledge to make Yoga an integral part of our daily lives ."
 
  Heralding the session, off the event, Modi said the yoga session is aimed at benefiting the people by making them both physically and mentally healthy. He said yoga seeks to make a tension-free world and spread the message of harmony and added that it is "more than only physical fitness". "We are not only celebrating a day but we are training the human mind to begin a new era of peace – harmony. ….This is a programme for the benefit of mankind, a tension-free world and a programme to spread the message of harmony," Modi said.
 
  Giant digital screens set up for the event beamed live the yoga session for which security arrangements matched that of the Republic Day celebrations held every year on January 26 as more than 8,000 security personnel guarded the venue. Yoga day was  celebrated in over 251 cities in 191 countries across the world; in Britain, mats were rolled out along the banks of the River Thames
 
 
  In spite of certain communal  quarters and the opposition, trying to  hit the event of 'peace and harmony' with jarring notes of discord and in the process belittling one of India's greatest contributions to the world,  the whole of India celebrated yoga day almost unanimously.

The TV Media Mongers, the 'Fugitives' From Political Fair Play

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup



 The TV Media Mongers, the 'Fugitives' From Political Fair Play

 It is a shame that the bulk of TV channels are increasingly turning in to a sham. If one visits the cantankerous Times Now channel which has abandoned all sense of  fair shake and open-mindedness, and see their frenzy to indulge in a 24 x 7 Sushma-Scindia bashing, led by their loud-mouthed, pretentious Arnab Goswami, and then visit the  many other channels trying hard not to be outdone, one gathers the impression that it is all a frenetic fight for viewer- rating, getting more ads, and thus more profit. Arnab Goswami is so swollen- headed that he believes  he can single handedly bring any government to its knee, no matter how big is the popular mandate for the ruling party. When one serves himself such a big ladle of that  intoxicating concoction of self delusion and megalomania , it is better that he is left to reel in his own juice.

But what are the facts? Let us deal with the allegations one by one.

1. That,  Lalit Modi , former Commissioner of Indian Premier League (IPL), the  cricket body, is an 'absconde'r or a  'fugitive'.

Fact: A competent authority, including a court, has to declare a person a "fugitive'. Lalith Modi has not been declared a fugitive by any court or authority.

2. That a Blue Corner notice has been issued against him by Interpol.

Fact: The Interpol has denied that they have issued any such notice. What turned out in this matter, as the Finance Minister mentioned, is that the Dept. of Revenue Intelligence has issued a "light blue corner notice". But unless the Interpol has accepted this and issued their own notice, this departmental notice has no significance or value. In any case a blue corner notice means merely that the concerned person may intimate his present address, and as such does not necessarily  implicates him in any offense.

3. That, the External Affairs Minister, Smty.Sushma Swaraj requested or gave no- objection certificate from this government to the British government to issue travel documents to Lalith Modi.

Fact: Sushma Swaraj did no such thing. No request  No certificate. She merely said when asked orally, yes orally, that the government has no objection in the matter for the British government to take whatever legally proper action.
And why should she have any objection when Lalith Modi was just like any other citizen with no criminal case- record against him. Especially when the whole context was a life or death question of Cancer surgery on his wife in Portugal? How heinous politics can be to raise objections in such a  predicament of a fellow citizen!

There are other adjunct allegations. They pale in to insignificance and downright comic in the light of above facts  which can only show how malicious is the Congress and the channels.

China's Long Nose

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

China's Long Nose

 China is of late poking its long nose in to Afghanistan aiming at weaning away that country from any Indian influence and instead having their own in the entire region, embracing Pakistan too. Unfortunately for India the new Afghanistan President, Ashraf Ghani, elected in mid-2014, is more willing than previous President Karzai for closer ties with Pakistan. 


In February 2015, a new strategic dialogue was held between Pakistan and Afghanistan under Chinese coordination, illustrating Beijing’s recent interest in its strategic neighborhood. Since 2001, China had been limiting its intervention to minimal security contribution; but over the past two years, a proactive tone has been used vis-à-vis improving bilateral ties with Afghanistan.




One of the ostensible reasons for China's new interest in the region, specially Afghanistan, is said to be its concerns about the growing insurgency in its Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. It sees the Uyghur separatist movement as a national security matter with important external connections and wants to preempt any chance of Afghanistan becoming a strong base for Uyghur militancy. But the fact that the Uyghur separatist movement  has not overgrown the Zinjiang province to a degree that China cannot tackle it within its borders gives little credence to this view.

  The more apparent reason for this new thrust of Chinese diplomacy in Afghanistan is, along with the move to sideline India in that country, is to fill the space vacated by US and become the dominant strategic power in the region especially when they have  the conniving friendly Pakistan' and thus become the counter weight to India. Further it may now want to leave a  cleare economic foot print that can overflow and spread in the whole region.
 
  However, India is unlikely to be sidelined in Afghanistan. New Delhi is still an important strategic partner for Kabul, and the future of their bilateral relations depends on how India manages to balance and maintain its ties with Kabul.

The Ford Foundation- NGOs -AAP Nexus

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup




 The Ford Foundation- NGOs -AAP Nexus



 Long before the Modi government  put the Ford Foundation (FF) on the watch list of NGOs suspected of having unstated agenda, France's Stonor Saunders wrote in 2001: ". The Ford Foundation had a record of close involvement in covert actions in Europe, working closely with Marshall Plan and CIA officials on specific projects.". The very next year, James Petras, retired Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York, wrote a damning article on 18 September 2002, exposing the Ford Foundation’s sinister choice of beneficiaries of its donations. Citing a US Congressional investigation in 1976 that said the CIA considered foundations such as Ford “the best and most plausible kind of funding cover” he revealed that beginning the 1950s, “50 per cent of the 700 grants in the field of international activities by the principal foundations were funded by the CIA, The crux of professor' s accusation was to the efect that the Ford Foundation-CIA connection was a deliberate, conscious joint effort to strengthen U.S. imperial cultural hegemony. Naomi Klein ("The Shock Doctrin") speaks of a double game By FF of intellectual sponsorship of fascist intellectuals and in the aftermath that follows, sponsorship of human rights organizations. Most of the  projects  looked innocuous but had American soft imperialism as its motive

McCloy, while chairman of the Ford Foundation's board of trustees from 1958 to 1965, had at that time itself said of the Ford Foundation as a quasi-extension of the U.S. government. Ford and similar foundations played a key role in co-opting opposition movements. The doctrine that guided in that was: "While dissent from ruling class ideas is labeled 'extremism' and is isolated, individual dissenters may be welcomed and transformed. Indeed, ruling class hegemony is more durable if it is not rigid and narrow, but is able dynamically to incorporate emergent trends".

R Vaidyanathan of the Indian Institute of Management, Bengaluru, in his investigative article ‘Is India safe: What is Ford Foundation?’ mention the following as having recieved Ford foundation grants:

•  Sampoorn Parivartan (later christened Parivartan) of Arvind Kejriwal and Kabir of both Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia.

•   ICSSR of Jawaharlal Nehru University that funded Yogendra Yadav.

•  PRADAN of Meera Sanyal.

 There are other Leftist noise makers who are beneficiaries of the Ford Foundation:

•  Mallika Sarabhai’s NGO Darpana.

• Amartya Sen for his book, The Idea of Justice.

• Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand’s Sabrang Communication.

Activists in Gujarat allege that Sarabhai runs an ‘empire of trusts’ in the State.  Mallika Sarabhai is a trustee in several trusts that own miles and miles of plots of land across Ahmedabad. The book, Toward Sustainable Development: Struggling Over India’s Narmada River, edited by William F Fisher, shows special interest of these American outfits in Medha Patkar’s Narmada Bachao Andolan: Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Indo-US Sub-Commission on Education and Culture and the US Department of Education

Sarajith Dasgupta, Edior, National Affairs of  Swarajya.describes the various nefarious connections Arvind Kejriwal and his cohorts have with FF extracting funds from it. According to him there is also a suspect  nexus of CIA- Indian National Congress. He cites the   Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) -   MongoDB contract as an example for this.   

A check up with the web site of Ford Foundation would suggest that almost all NGOs have some Government, then National Advisory Council (NAC) or AAP connection: In fact AAP or close association with it seems to be the major conduit of FF dispensation of grants in India. The book, Toward Sustainable Development: Struggling Over India’s Narmada River, edited by William F Fisher, shows special interest of these American outfits in Medha Patkar’s Narmada Bachao Andolan: Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Indo-US Sub-Commission on Education and Culture and the US Department of Education.
The CIA’s unusual interest in the AAP is evident in the fact that in 2012, right after the party was registered by the Election Commission of India, the American spy agency released a list of “significant” parties in this country. Every party that featured in the list except the AAP was a recognized party — one that has participated in elections in at least four States of the country and secured 6 per cent of the total votes polled. This, when the AAP was just one month old with no record of participation in elections!
Simlilarly Sisdia's NGO Kabir got FF funds before it was registered Later, Kabir resurfaced in newspapers with evidence of Sisodia misappropriating the foreign funds received by Kabir. Moreover, the papers revealed that Kejriwal is a part of Kabir, too.


Stichting Hivos, the Netherlands, part funded by FF is also a donor who maintains a full-fledged country office in India, and one of the co-financing agencies to the Government of the Netherlands, whose embassy funds Kejriwal and Sisodia’s NGO, Kabir. AAP’s Yogendra Yadav has been associated with two bodies  both recipients of the Ford Foundation’s grants.

A larger network of miscreants, Maoists, Marxists, evangelists, tablighis, terrorists, India bashers and financiers of disruptive activities in this country helping the AAP has surfaced. To understand how the entire international network works, the personnel connecting one nefarious organisation to another must be studied.

On 19 July 2011, two people of Pakistani origin were arrested in Washington DC. The US Department of Justice records describe one of them, Ghulam Nabi Fai, as an agent of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The New York Times reported that Fai was coordinating between the activities of several ultra-communist groups, Islamist outfits and Christian missionaries in India.

 Fai once worked closely with Rajmohan Gandhi, the AAP’s paratrooped candidate from the East Delhi Lok Sabha constituency. Gandhi was one of the prominent signatories to the petition by 53 odd well-networked ‘liberals’ like Ved Bhasin and Gautam Navlakha that defended Fai and demanded his release from the American jail. . This Fai had enlisted the support of  anthropologist-activist Angana P Chatterji, who supports the cause of Kashmir’s separation from India, to further his agenda. Angana is the one who was given the Tipu Sultan Award in 2008 by   US-based advocacy group Indian Muslim Council (IMC)

Chatterji happens to be a co-author of the book, Kashmir: The Case for Freedom, whose other authors are Arundhati Roy, Pankaj Mishra, Hilal Bhatt and Tariq Ali.  Forum of Inquilabi Leftists (FOIL, earlier called Federation of Indian Leftists), and the Association for India’s Development (AID). both floated by elements of the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) [CPI(ML)] who moved to the US  after the collapse of Naxalism in India, They are alleged to be closely collaborating with AAP nd facilitate funding to various leftist extremist outfits by showing the financiers legally valid ways of routing the money, and also collects funds for the AAP

According to Dasgupta, in 1999, Teesta Setalvad and her husband Javed Anand’s magazines Sabrang and Communalism Combat had, through their channels in the Indian National Congress, Communist Party of India (CPI) and Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)], extracted $ 15 million to project the BJP as an anti-minority, anti-woman party. Recently, the couple accepted that they had diverted part of the fund for their NGO for personal use. All these people and their shady organisations are connected to each other and international rackets..

The overwhelming presence of the then  Government, NAC and AAP functionaries among the beneficiaries of the Ford Foundation is not a mere coincidence

India - Bangladesh Concerns

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup


India - Bangladesh Concerns

 Building bridges with neighbors, especially looking east in this respect, has become the  hallmark of Modi govt.'s foreign policy - a sea change from the amorphous foreign policies of the past  Latest endeavor by PM Modi in this pursuit is his visit to Dhaka where already the two countries have reached a watershed in mutual relations, by signing the historic Land Border Agreement ( LBA )which should prove to be a harbinger of peaceful and wholesome bilateral relationship.

India has been providentially instrumental in liberating the erstwhile East Bengal from the oppressive hegemony of big brother Pakistan and help it assuming its present nationhood of independent Bangladesh. Much water has flown under Farraka Barrage since then, and nations cannot afford to live in the past.  So it is high time that we again take the initiative to usher in a new mutually beneficial era of friendship. And PM Modi is precisely set out in that task.

There are thorny problems between the two but certainly surmountable. Now that the LBA is sucessfully resolved the water sharing of Teesta river is the key issue. Even after 18 years, the Teesta water-sharing pact is far from being sealed despite the two countries agreeing on a 50:50 formula in 2011. Water is a state subject in India and without West Bengal signing up, the Teesta water pact cannot be sealed. For the LBA also consent of the state was necessary which had prolonged the issue so long,  but this time Didi agreed to it and accompanied PM to Dhaka, but the CM has not yet nodded for Teesta River water sharing.

India's northeastern states have the potential to generate 70,000 MW of hydropower. But without Bangladesh allowing transit of the power grid through its territory, drawing and supplying this power to other Indian states is not feasible.  India had offered sharing of this power with Bangaladesh in return for transit facility. It took 8 years for that country to clear its misgivings on the proposal before finally it agreed to electricity sharing in October 2013. Bangladesh plays a key role in our sub-regional connectivity plans which include Nepal and Bhutan.

Trade imbalance and security issues, besides the water sharing  are now the outstanding problems waiting to be  resolved between the two neighbors.  In a trade volume of impressive $6.5 billion,  Bangladesh's exports to India account for a mere $500 million. Bangladesh demands that India needs to  narrow the gap. As it stands they feel that the growing trade only benefits India.

Security concerns of the two sides are very much interrelated. India and Bangladesh share a 4,096-km border. Five Indian states - West Bengal (2,217 km), Assam (262 km), Meghalaya (443 km), Tripura (856 km) and Mizoram (318 km) - have a border with Bangladesh. After decades of non cooperation Bangladesh has now started helping India crack down on the northeastern militant groups, but has also raised its concerns about certain groups using Indian territory against it.

Border states should realize that they have a crucial role in fostering Indo-Bangladesh relations, and should cooperate in that respect with the government at the center.

Does doing yoga make you a Hindu?

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup




 Does doing yoga make you a Hindu?

Farida Hamza, a Muslim woman living in the US (pictured above), had been doing yoga for two or three years when she decided she wanted to teach it.

Yoga is a Sanskrit word meaning union and in the context of its exercise it means communion of self with nature. No one is or should be offended with a language, be it Sanskrit or Urdu or Russian or English or Chinese. If yoga is for men's  communion with nature languages are for communication among men. So, normally the communion and the communication should not be contentious.

But not with many, mainly religionists, who have disparate associations of both, with disparate motives and perceptions. Religionists object to the Hindu flavor of Yoga, its origin and antiquity of practice in Bharat that is India. They are put off by adopting and practicing a trait so identified with the core of another alien culture,  as if having to enter another one's bedroom.

But these myopic people conveniently obfuscate the all round phenomenon of adopting cultural lifestyles of all hues, emanating from better exposure to technology, education, contacts,  as well as sheer indispensability of many modern aspects of life. Take clothes and attire; do not Muslim men and women wear all kinds of dress and particularly of the west?; do they not play games and sports of all kinds, themselves originated in different countries? And also have education, specializations of all kinds in medicine including indigenous ones, technology and science? As world becomes more and more a global village, its inhabitants have to increasingly synchronize with what the wind of change brings in.

There are three primary kinds of yoga, the Jnana yoga, the Karma yoga and the Bhakthi yoga. Don't be put off by the Sanskrit terminology. It only means communion by knowledge, communion by action, and communion by devotion. None but the third,  the Bhakti yoga has strict religious connotation, but even that need not be of any particular faith. Shorn of its Sanskrit name, a Muslim or Christian can practice Bhkathi yoga in his own religion ie. devotion to Allah or Christ. The yoga of common parlance and the subject here is known in more exact terms as the Hatayoga which is a part of Karma yoga. Hatayoga merely means physical exercise. And what objection have you got against physical exercise, unless you are an invalid incapable of exercise?

As a  physical exercise, in yoga the main concern should be whether you are breathing correctly or your body parts are correctly aligned and should not be whether you should be doing it at all or whether you are betraying your faith. The main thing that is to be considered her is the intention. If you kneel down does it mean you are praying - or you are just kneeling?

This is what Farida Hamza, a young Muslim  practitioner of yoga all her life and now an instructor, asked herself  when she got yoga training initially in a Hindu temple. She felt very guilty but in the end trusted that Allah understood her intentions. She completed the training without participating in any rituals or actions of religious overtones. And she says they were so respectful of her feelings.

Many yoga institutions and ones in many countries  now do not make any overt mention of spirituality at all. Iran is one such country where yoga is very popular. "It has managed to flourish in a country with Sharia law and an Islamist political system, by divesting itself of anything that could be construed as blasphemy. Yoga teachers are careful to always refer to "the sport of yoga" and are accredited by the Yoga Federation, which operates in the same way as a tennis or football organization . Classes tend to be slow with much discussion about the physical benefits of each position. As with other sports, yoga competitions are held, judged by specially invited international yoga teachers.

 Yoga has been repackaged in the US as well. Schools in California, take part in classes twice a week based on a style of yoga called Ashtanga yoga. The name has been changed to American slang like"criss-cross apple sauce", for the lotus position, the Surya namaskar has become the "opening sequence" and the organizers insist that it is all just a form of physical exercise.

 With its emphasis on practice and experience and not on words and beliefs like faiths, Yoga stands in a theological blind spot welcoming all.

The Himalayan Earthquake

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup


The Himalayan Earthquake

 As of latest estimate, the Nepal earthquake death toll just exceeded 2400 with about 6000 injured. Since the main quake that measured 7.9 in Richter.Scale(RC), there have been over 60 aftershocks measuring over 4 to 6.7 RC. One solace is that compared to the last one that rocked Nepal in 1934 that measured 8.2 RC and  claimed 10 to 12 thousand lives, this time the causalities so far are much smaller while not ruling out a steep rise in figures when more reports from interiors might  pour in.

 Nepal, located at the central part of the Himalaya represents one of the active seismic zones in the Himalaya There are historical indications that Kathmandu has been struck by repeated severe earthquakes in the past centuries, and more recently in last centuary we know  at least 6 earthquakes have occurred in the country.

Earthquakes happen when any of the major six plates or many minor plates, of which the earth consists of, releases suddenly the pent up strain energy at their margins. Where today the Himalaya mountains exist there was an ancient sea called Tethys sea separating the Indian subdcontinent and Eurasian continent. Tethys was obliterated when the Indian plate underthrust the Eurasian continental plate  raising a ridge between them as the rudiment of the Himalyas and raising it to the present height in a process of  continued action of converging stress field in the last fifty-fi ve million years after the under thrust or collision commenced. The process is still ongoing although much dissipated, the indian plate moving at a rate of about 20 to  45 millimeters an year going under the Eurasian plate. resulting in potentail earthquakes.  Pressure builds up as the plates push together, until the Indian plate lurches suddenly downwards, sending a great earthquake reverberating across hundreds of kilometres.

The Himalaya Mountains, now a well defined arc, and extending  for ~2500 km from Nanga Parbat (8215 m) in west-northwest to Namcha Barwa (7755 m) to the east-northeast are therefore very much prone to earthquakes. Himalayan belt was rocked by four great earthquakes (1897 Assam, 1905 Kangra, 1934 Nepal-Bihar border and 1950 Assam) within fifty-five years (1897-1950) and large number of strong earthquakes caused huge loss of lives and property. Many regions of the central Himalayas are now holding onto at least four meters of convergence, which would cause a great earthquake when released. This amount of slip is thought to have occurred in the great earthquake of 1934 that rocked the Bihar-Nepal region.ut the pressure has been mounting,

Large earthquakes have struck this region every few decades since the early nineteenth century. Since 1950, when the biggest earthquake within a single continent in recorded history shook Assam, the fault lines have been silent. But the pressure has been mounting, and it was predicted since 2001 and as recent as a couple of months back  that an earthquake of up to 8 RC was actually overdue. Considering probable ruptures of 150 km segments the Himalayan plate boundary at seven positions, Kashmir, DehraDun, Garhwal, West Nepal, Kathmandu, Bhutan and Assam are identified as places where sufficient elastic energy is believed to be accumulated for magnitude eight earthquakes. Even if the great thrusts of the Himalaya are now apparently quiescent for large earthquakes, the foothill shows geologically very recent faulting and thrusting on a large scale.

But unfortunately earthquakes cannot be predicted with the accuracy anywhere nearing that of climatic disasters like cyclones. We are rather helpless in preparing and be ready to mitigate the deadly effects. All that any country can do is to cope with its aftermath.

Yes, The Cow is Holy. Protecting the Cow.

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup


 Yes, The Cow is Holy. Protecting the Cow.

 Beef eating is not anyone's birth right, nor is it enshrined in the constitution of India as a fundamental right. So it cannot be anyone's case that there is a human rights violation in the recent ban of cow slaughter in Maharashtra State. It is rather a foot-in-mouth argument to say that one should be allowed to feed on whatever one has a fancy for, because there are are so many kinds of food restrictions on various grounds prevalent in the world including India.  Due to cultural and or religious taboos a  sort of built-in aversion or disinclination to include an animal's flesh in one's diet is practiced by many broad groups of people . The taboos extend to health grounds and to plants and  beverages too. Many food taboos forbid the meat of a particular animal, including mammals, rodents, reptiles, amphibians, bony fish, mollusks and crustaceans. Some taboos are specific to a particular part or excretion of an animal, while other taboos forgo the consumption of plants, fungi, or insects and some are merely seasonal.

The cow, by Hindus, and the pig, by the Muslims are forbidden to be slaughtered and their meat consumed by respective followers. Hindus are not alone in abstaining from eating beef or bovine meat. Many Zoroastrians do not eat beef, because of the cow that saved Zoroaster's life from murderers when Zoroaster was a baby. Actual Pahlavi texts state that Zoroastrians should be fully vegetarian.
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Judaism prescribes a strict set of rules, called Kashrut, regarding what may and may not be eaten.  Jains  follow religious directives to observe vegetarianism. Some ethnic Chinese may also refrain from eating cow meat, because many of them feel that it is wrong to eat an animal that was so useful in agriculture. Some Chinese Buddhists discourage the consumption of beef, although it is not considered taboo. A similar taboo can be seen among Sinhalese Buddhists, who consider it to be ungrateful to kill the animal whose milk and labor provides livelihoods to many Sinhalese people.

Consumption of beef is taboo for Hindus out of respect for the cow. Those Hindus who do eat meat abstain from the consumption of beef, as the cow holds a sacred place in Hinduism.  Dairy products such as milk, yogurt and particularly ghee are highly revered and used in holy ceremonies. Cow milk was the nearest substitute of mother's milk for orphaned new-born babies before the advent of modern medicine when  young mothers died during or just after delivery.. Cattle, cows and bulls, were the mainstay of our ancient ancestors for their livelihood  both before and after agriculture was developed. Cow particularly was next only to the  mother in providing sustenance which was regarded therefore as 'gomatha", the mother cow, the alter mother. Slaughter of cows is therefor an extremely provocative issue for many Hindus

Some professed right activists and pseudo-progressives even question the very basis of the Hindu belief that beef is proscribed for them by faith, by pointing out that there are here-and-there references to beef eating in the Vedas and Puranas, and to liking of it even by some seers.   Undoubtedly there are,(seer Yajnavalkya is well known for his expressed liking for "tender cow's meat".), but what these half-knowledgeable naivete should learn is that there is express injunction or command against cow slaughter in Vedas and explicit recommendation of vegetarianism, and those few references to beef- eating  are in the nature of concessions under certain circumstances. Every rule has exceptions.

Rig Veda (10.87.16):

"One who partakes of human flesh, the flesh of a horse or of another animal, and deprives others of milk by slaughtering cows, O King, if such a fiend does not desist by other means, then you should not hesitate to cut off his head."

Similar injunctions against meat eating as well as recommendations for vegetarianism are found strewn through out the other Vedas, Sutras, Smritis,and Puranas,-  especially in Manusmriti. As per concessions, cows (and other specified animals) could be slaughtered for yajnas or ritual sacrifices as offerings and small portions of their meat to be consumed as prasaad or partaking of the blessings. (Incidentally, it was a deadly sin not to partake of  these offering)

One may argue that these taboos are self imposed and not enforced by the government. But when the taboo is held or  practiced by the majority, the difference becomes insignificant. Not only that in India the ban  on cow slaughter is already in force which is not widely realized.  The fact that by Indian law, the slaughter of female cattle (i.e. cows) is banned in almost all Indian states except Kerala, West Bengal and the seven north eastern states is  not widely known . A person involved in either cow slaughter or its illegal transportation could be jailed in many states. Now with the ban on cow slaughter to be strictly implemented in Maharashtra, it will not be long before the restriction covers all India.