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Memories of Another day

Memories of Another day
While my Parents Pulin babu and Basanti devi were living

Monday, November 24, 2008

Besieged GEOPOLITICS! Old Brothel is Making Way as Global Ruling Economy Plays the Mind Control and Brain Washing Game along with ZERO TOLERANCE!Nothi




Besieged GEOPOLITICS! Old Brothel is Making Way as Global Ruling Economy Plays the Mind Control and Brain Washing Game along with ZERO TOLERANCE!Nothing, Nothing is any CAUSE for the CONCERN of our Policy Makers as well as so called People`s representatives involved into the Brothel Of Parliamentary Politics! The Old Prostitution is only concerned with FREEsenSEX!

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Sunday said India was failing in its efforts to crush a Maoist rebellion plaguing vast swathes of the country.Addressing a conference of senior police and security officials in New Delhi, Singh once again described the ultra-leftist insurgency as "the most serious internal security threat" India was facing.


Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams: Chapter 110

Palash Biswas

YouTube - The Real Politics in India 2


The Real Politics in India 2. Hello, you either have ...
1 min 47 sec -






www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg4W9XG6cYY

Indyarocks Videos - Real politics in india
Real politics in india. The truth of Indian politics. Find this video and other related videos only at Indyarocks.
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Be Aware!
What Mahmoud Darwish described the State of Nation and Nationality in reference to Palestine, has come TRUE in our Besieged Geopolitics, the latest War Zone consisting of syatematic Killingfields everywhere!

Just we never feel!

Mahmoud Darwish, often referred to as the Palestinian national poet, once told his readers: “Do not trust the poem —/ The daughter of absence/ It is neither intuition nor is it/ Thought/ But rather, the sense of the abyss...” These lines of verse wave a flag to warn the reader of besieged territory ahead — the sort of territory where poetry, politics — life itself — has to be conducted in a state of dispossession. The poem is called, appropriately, ‘In a State of Siege’.

Old Brothel is Making Way as Global Ruling Economy Plays the Mind Control and Brain Washing Game along with ZERO TOLERANCE!

Ruling Hegemony behaves like the OLD BROTHEL with Age Old Rituals! The Horse Sex had been used as Horse Power to extend Empires. Ashwamedh Yagna was the episode. God Indra was a SEX LORD. Now, the ruling hegemony is engaged in intense debate on GAY and LESBIAN. Starvation, Insecurity, Inequality, Injustice, Food Insecurity, Price Rise, Melt Down, Nationality Questions,National Integrity and Unity, Freedom Fraternity, Social Justice, Nutrition, Human Rights and Civil Rights, Women and Children, Bonded labour, Untouchability, Natural and man Made Calamities, Dissidence, Subsidense, Education and Health, Displacement and Migration, Demography, Environment and Global Warming, Proction system and Real Economy, Agrarian crisis, subhuman life and livelihod in Metro, Personality Disorder of the Generation Next, Job Crunch.. Nothing, Nothing is any CAUSE for the CONCERN of our Policy Makers as well as so called People`s representatives involved into the Brothel Of Parliamentary Politics! The Old Prostitution is only concerned with FREEsenSEX so that the Policy Makers, ICONS, Media, Muscle Power, MNCs, Promotres, Builders, Regimented party Gestapo, CREAMY LAYER Subaltern, Officers and the Govt. Employees, Police, Security Personnels, PSU officers, IAS PCS may be involved to FEED The MONEY MACHINE sustaining Galaxy Order od Phoenix enabling Post Modern Manusmriti and Apartheid.



Clearly, the old brothel is making way for sex facilitated by the Internet. The red light district is losing its boundaries.

Deadlock in WB's Maoist-dominated Lalgarh continues!Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee already said his government wouldn’t compromise in any way with the Maoists and dubbed them “cowards’’ who hide in forests and plot murders.The marxist Poet did not hesitate to dismiss the grievances of the Indigenous Aboriginal Tribal Population as Maoist Insurgency and on the other hand, the Government of India, which never recognised nationality Identies, never addressed nationality problems, always defended ethnic cleansing adopting Military solution of Nationality Problems and continues AFPSA in entire North east and Kashmir, is all set to help the Marxist GESTAPO to crush Lalgarh Insurrection. Prime Minister has already hinted. Prim Minister waiting is though dissatisfied and prescribes POTA to deal TERRORISM diluting whatsoever Resistance against ruling Brahaminical hegemony in India. RSS has always branded all Muslims as Terrorists and all Tribals as Extremists. Now it is all out to defend Hindutva Bomb and hates to be branded as HINDU TERRORISTS!

Meanwhile, Miss Mamata Banerjee said that the state government should immediately convene an all party meeting to resolve the ongoing turmoil in Lalgarh and surrounding areas. Miss Banerjee said that the leaders of the agitating tribal population should be invited for discussions.
She also said that extremist outfits should be excluded from such talks. Miss Banerjee said that there should not be any rigidity on the venue of the talks. Talks can be held in Kolkata or in Lalgarh.
On the other hand, CPI-M state secretary, Mr Biman Bose, said it is for the state government to decide where and when an all-party meeting can be convened.
Miss Banerjee questioned the sincerity of the state administration in solving the problem. She said that CPI-M wants to keep the problem alive so that it can make electoral gain. She also criticised the chief minister for making comments like the Trinamul zilla parishads in South 24 -Parganas and East Midnapore are not disbursing the fund properly for benefit of the poor

PTI reports:
Tribals in Bengal's restive Jhargram belt today postponed their proposed boycott of police at Lalgarh, saying they would wait for a few more days for the state government to start talks with them.
However, they further dug up roads and felled trees at seven places along a vital road, linking the area to the district headquarters.

Fresh barricades were put up on the arterial Jhargram-Dherua road near Lalgrah, where the backlash started on November seven to protest against alleged police excesses.

The aggrieved tribals also dug up 'kutcha' roads in many areas at Jamboni, Katapahari, Belpahari and other police station areas in the tribal belt in West Midnapore district.

Meanwhile, the Jharkhand Party (Aditya) has called a 48-hour bandh starting from November 28 in Bankura, West Midnapore and Purulia districts. The party's leader, Aditya Kisku, told reporters at Khatra in Bankura that the state government had been playing "game with innocent adivasis".

Leaders of the 'Janaganer Police Nirjatan Pratirodh Committee', spearheading the agitation, today held a "secret" meeting at Gidhni in the Jamboni police station area to chalk out future course of action in case the talks failed to take place, sources said.

Although both the the administration and the tribal leaders expressed willingness to sit across the table, the talks actually did not take place as the government representatives were unwilling to go to the tribals-suggested venues at Dalilpur and now Katapahari, both being the hotbeds of Maoist activity.
PTI

HINDU TERROERISM Hype gets a new Dimention as RSS makes it a well planned SUBVERSION from all other issues!In a setback to the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad in the Malegaon blast probe, a MCOCA court here on Monday refused to grant it the custody of accused Sadhvi Pragnya Singh Thakur, Lt Col Prasad Purohit and Ajay Rahirkar.


Malegaon blast accused Sadhvi Pragnya Thakur on Monday charged the Anti-Terrorism Squad with making her hear an obscene CD, while repeating her earlier allegation of physical and mental torture against the investigating agency.

The Sadhvi along with seven other accused - Lt. Col. Prasad Purohit, Shivnarain Singh Kalsangra, Shyam Sahu, Sameer Kulkarni, Maj. (retd) Ramesh Upadhyay, Ajay Rahirkar and Rakesh Dhawde were produced before the designated MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organised Crimes Act) court in Mumbai on Monday.

The ATS had last week booked the blast accused under the stringent MCOCA that would enable them to get their remand any number of times in a period of 180 days from the date the Sep 29 offence was registered.

The allegations made by the Sadhvi in the affidavit her lawyer Avinash Bhide filed in the Nashik court last week have already raised a political storm across the country.

While Prime Minister Manmohan Singh telephoned senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader LK Advani after the latter hit out at the ATS for meting out barbaric treatment to the sadhvi, his emissary, National Security Advisor MK Narayanan assured Advani of a probe into the Sadhvi's allegations.

Other key accused Purohit also repeated his earlier allegation of torture against the ATS.

62 per cent polling in J&K
Hindu - 20 hours ago
GANDERBAL/KANGAN: Defying the boycott call given by separatists, a large number of people turned up for the second phase of Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday.
JK election: Nearly 67 per cent turnout in round two Press Trust of India
65% turnout in J&K polls The Statesman
Times of India - Deccan Herald - Kashmir Live - GreaterKashmir.com (press release)

More roads dug-up, steep rise in prices of essential commodities
The protesting tribals are mulling a total boycott of the administration and stepping up their agitation in Lalgarh and adjoining areas.

The district administration met the tribals on Sunday evening in Lalgarh, but failed to break the ice. More roads were also dug up as various areas in Jhargram, Salboni and Lalgarh remained cut off from the rest of Bengal.

“We are planning a total boycott of the administration in the tribal-dominated areas. We will let the panchayat offices remain open, but none of the government officials will be allowed to visit them or conduct any business,” Sidhu Soren, secretary of the newly-formed Committee Against Police Atrocities told The Indian Express on phone.

The administration, he said, does not seem serious about solving the crisis. “They are adamant and do not want to talk to us under the open sky,” Soren said. The protestors will not talk with the administration in air-conditioned rooms. “On Sunday, we met them at Lalgarh block development officer’s office and submitted our demands — one of these is that they have to meet us on our home ground,” Soren added.

The talks broke down after the leaders submitted their demand list.

“We have accepted some of their demands already. But they now want us to go there and talk with them, which is not possible right now. Our doors, however, are open for the talks,” said Additional District Magistrate RA Israel, who met the protesting leaders.

Tribal leaders dug up Jhargram-Dherua Road on Sunday. Apart from that, fresh road blockades were set up at four spots, including Baita. The protestors held rallies at Chakadoba, Bhulaveda and Amdanga in Belpahari area and Katapahari in Lalgarh area. They even blocked and dug up roads inside jungles.

Prices of essential commodities and food have also skyrocketed. The situation has turned grave because ration shops have exhausted their stocks long time ago. An acute shortage of kerosene is plaguing the areas.

Potatoes are being sold at Rs 12 to Rs 14 per kg as opposed to Rs 5 to Rs 6 before the agitation. Similarly, onions are selling at Rs 40 to Rs 45 per kg, compared to Rs 15 before the agitation.

In Lalgarh most of the 21 ration shops remained shut since stocks have diminished long ago. “What can we do? There are no stocks. The roads are blocked or dug up, so nothing is coming here. People are at the receiving end, but we cannot help it,” said Basudeb Kundu, a ration dealer in Katapahari.


Althoough, there seemed a flicker of hope at the end of the tunnel 18 days after the police assault on tribals following the blast near the chief minister's convoy. Blockade was lifted at several places, a formal complaint was lodged by the villagers against police and both the administration and the tribals softened stand on the venue of the peace talks.

Lalmohon Tudu, president of the Committee Against Police Atrocities, submitted a complaint against police to the ADM (general) Raja Aaron Israel during a meeting at Lalgarh's Ramkrishna Vidyalaya.

Though roads were blocked at Pingboni and another place between Dherua and Midnapore town, in the rest of the area, uprooted trees were removed, making way for vehicles. There is no blockade on the road from Jhargram to Dalilpur.

Earlier in the day, around 3,000 villagers gheraoed the Binpur-II BDO's office, demanding their 11-point charter of demand be accepted. District administration indicated that this could be more of a pressure tactic to make the government hold talks.

There was palpable tension even after Israel, along with additional SP Shubhankar Sinha Roy, arrived at the Lalgarh school for a meeting with the leaders of the committee. Key leaders Lalmohan Tudu, Chhatradhar Mahato and Tanmay Rai arrived at the meeting in the late afternoon. Apparently both sides have climbed down regarding the venue of the peace talks.

"The administration is willing to hold talks at Lalgarh. We are also no longer insisting on holding it at Dalilpur Chowk. On Monday, our committee members will decide on a possible venue. But we will continue with the movement till our demands are met," said Mahato said.

The tribals are sticking to two key demands police raids on clubs run by Santhals must be stopped and raids can be carried out only in the presence of Majhi Maroas. ADM R A Israel said, "There was a communication gap with the tribals. We have been able to solve that problem."

“Do not trust the poem —/ The daughter of absence/ It is neither intuition nor is it/ Thought/ But rather, the sense of the abyss...”

Well! Friends! Just FEEL your Heart and Mind! Just identify your True self. Your Identity.

Be Awake!


Charging the UPA government with being "callous" towards the common man, Left parties, TDP and JD(S) on Monday decided to hold nationwide protest action on December 2 to demand immediate reduction in petrol and diesel prices.

"The Manmohan Singh government is adopting a callous stand by refusing to cut the prices of petrol and diesel and providing relief to the people who are suffering from all-round price rise of essential commodities," the six parties said in a joint statement here.

Meanwhile, President-elect Barack Obama is constructing a gigantic economic stimulus package far in excess of the $175 billion he promised during the campaign, hoping the new Congress will be ready when he takes office in the midst of the most severe U.S. financial crisis in eight decades.

On the other hand, Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani Monday slammed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's proposal for a task force to counter terrorism within a deadline of 100 days as "distressing" and demanded that the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) be revived instead.Manmohan Singh put forth the proposal while addressing the director generals of police (DGPs) and inspector generals of police (IGPs) at their annual conference in New Delhi.

"Manmohan Singh took over as prime minister in May 2004 and after so many days, he is talking about a 100-day roadmap," Advani said while addressing a press conference here.

"This announcement of the Prime Minister is nothing but an acceptance of the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) Government's failure to tackle terrorism," the BJP's prime ministerial candidate said.

The Prime Minister had on Sunday recommended a task force under National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan to address "Leftwing extremism, terrorism and insurgency".

But Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Sunday said India was failing in its efforts to crush a Maoist rebellion plaguing vast swathes of the country.Addressing a conference of senior police and security officials in New Delhi, Singh once again described the ultra-leftist insurgency as "the most serious internal security threat" India was facing.

"It is evident that despite the efforts that have and are being made, the measures taken so far have not yielded desired results," the premier was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India news agency.

"The inability of intelligence agencies and the police to obtain pinpointed and actionable intelligence and in time has enabled these outfits to carry out some high-profile attacks."

Singh was referring to audacious attacks by the revolutionaries this year including the slaughter in July of 21 elite police commandos in eastern Orissa state.

“These Maoists are a bunch of cowards. They stay in the jungles of Jharkhand during the day and come out in the night to kill people. They are not even sparing ambulances. A doctor and a nurse were recently killed in a landmine blast triggered by the Maoists in West Midnapore. But we wouldn’t compromise with them. I have asked the administration not to have any dialogue with the Maoists. I want to see how far they can go,” he told a rally in South 24-Parganas’ Baruipur, 35km from Calcutta.

On November 2, a landmine had missed the chief minister by minutes and hit Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan’s convoy in West Midnapore.

Protesting the arrests and detentions that followed, tribals egged on by Maoists have laid siege to Lalgarh in West Midnapore. Bhattacharjee said: “It is unfortunate that these killers call themselves Maoists. Had Mao (Ze Dong) been alive, he would have hung his head in shame at his name being used in this manner.”

“A party,” he added, “wants the three districts (West Midnapore, Purulia and Bankura) to be in Jharkhand.”

Bhattacharjee did not name anyone but Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader Shibu Soren had urged the Centre before the July 22 trust vote in Parliament that the three Bengal districts be merged with Jharkhand. Soren is now the Jharkhand chief minister.

Bhattacharjee said Maoists would not be able to drag the tribals of Bengal into their fold because “we had supported them on the issue of land rights and minimum wages”.

However, after a Left Front meeting same day, the allies blamed the CPM-led government, and not Maoists, for the Lalgarh trouble. Forward Bloc secretary Ashok Ghosh said: “The tribal agitation has nothing to do with Maoists. It is the expression of their anger resulting from prolonged neglect and deprivation.”

The CPI’s Nandagopal Bhattacharya said the “government’s apathy” towards the tribals had led to the agitation.

At the meeting, the allies resolved to tackle the Maoists “politically”. Front chairman Biman Bose said the government had been asked to expedite development work in the tribal areas.

The chief minister told the meeting the government was mulling a development package for the tribals.

On the othre hand,India’s External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee begins his three-day official trip to Nepal Monday, eclipsing visits by a British minister and a senior UN official who also arrive in Kathmandu the same day.Mukherjee’s visit — the first by a high-level Indian official since the formation of a Maoist-led government — will be watched closely by the former guerrillas, the opposition as well as royalists who blame the ouster of Nepal’s 239-year monarchy on India’s support.

The private media in Nepal focused on the Indian minister’s arrival, eclipsing the visits by United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people Prof. S. James Anaya and British Minister for International Development Mike Foster.

Mukherjee will meet Nepal’s President Ram Baran Yadav, Deputy Vice President Parmanand Jha, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda and Foreign Minister Upendra Yadav.He will also fly out to Sunsari district in south Nepal to meet the victims of the flooding after the Kosi breached its banks and inundated large swathes of Bihar and Nepal as well and the Indian consulate in Birgunj town on the India-Nepal border.

Govt still looking for a solution, Lalgarh still on the boil...


Shyam Sundar Roy
MIDNAPORE, Nov. 23: Even after sustained agitation by the locals with the Santhals in the forefront, under the banner of the Police Santras Birodhi Public Committee (PSBPC) ~ in Lalgarh, Jhargram, Binpur, Belpahari and other adjoining blocks of Midnapore West ~ the state government seems to have failed to assess (or deliberately ignored) the real causes which have led to the ongoing public outcry among the Adivasis.
This evasive attitude of the government is likely to send the agitators towards a point of no return.
For, in their day-long meeting in Kolkata on Saturday, Left Front heavyweights, including the chief minister, were in consensus to harp on ‘neglect and lukewarm attitude on the part of the government towards socio-economic uplift of the community people’ which are supposed to have caused the tribal rage. The intention is perhaps to divert public opinion in the state from police excesses in Lalgarh in the aftermath of 2 November landmine blast, the real focus.
In this regard, a handsome development package of about Rs 20 crore will be announced soon by the government which will again be monitored by the chief minister himself to assuage Adivasi agonies.
But, the PSBPC leaders made it amply clear in their 11-point charter of demands stating that the current agitation was solely to protest agianst “police excesses” on Adivasi womenfolk of Chhoto Pelia besides framing innocent people, in the blast case.
Nevertheless, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee yesterday told a party rally in Baruipur, South 24-Parganas that steps will be taken against the guilty if there are any specific complaints of torture against the police. “Why is the Adivasi woman being treated by the government if she was not injured by the police?” asked district APDR secretary, Mr Arup Dasgupta. In a memorandum to the DM, the APDR secretary alleged that a total of 32 Adivasi women, including a pregnant one, were tortured in the crackdown carried out by the police which had no women personnel in clear violation of Section 50(2) of the CrPC. He demanded adequate compensation to the injured Adivasi women.
Meanwhile, the agitating tribals have threatened to call Sajjan Giro (war call) against the state government if it fails to hold a bipartite meeting on their grievances within seven days.
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=6&theme=&usrsess=1&id=232447

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Maoist wake-up call for cops

Biswabrata Goswami
BELPAHARI (Jhargram), Nov. 23: State Intelligence officers are worried over the efforts Maoist rebels are making to set up strong bases in the tribal hinterlands of West Bengal.
Security experts are analysing the possible ramifications of the move. An official said agencies are worried because the presence of Maoist rebels would further complicate the situation in the region. A report on internal security states: “The security situation in the Maoist-infested blocks of the district would further deteriorate if ultra-Left extremists succeed in getting their foothold in the tribal belts.”
According to the reports, the land-mine blast on the chief minister’s convoy is believed to have been led by a three-member Maoist action squad consisting of Dwijen Hembram and Jaba Hembram of Jharkhand and Chandra Sekhar from Andhra Pradesh. Chandra Sekhar is considered to be an explosives expert and was seen in the West Midnapore district few days before the explosion. Reports indicate that the Maoist duo from Jharkhand had entered the state a month back and were living near Salboni. They had adopted pseudo names for themselves. As, the state Intelligence had no adequate information about the Maoists, the security beef-up by the district police completely failed to assess the possibility of a such blast and so consequent raids in the tribal villages to arrest culprits ultimately boomeranged into a form of a tribal mass-movement against the police repression on them and the whole movement is currently under the grip of the Maoists.
A visit to the remote tribal villages in Lalgarh, Belpahari and Binpur bordering Jharkhand reveals that Maoists have already established strong bases among the tribals and they have many squads inside 700 square km forests of the district.
Mr Pashupati Mahato (name changed on request) of Belpahari said, “The Maoists meet almost every day in Laljol forest and a trained squad leader from Jharkhand was also seen recently. The Belpahari squad has recently recruited a few youths after giving them a short training in Dumka, Jharkhand. the Maoists are also eager to fulfill their long-cherished dream of establishing a Red Corridor from Andhra Pradesh to Nepal. The forest blocks of this district are gradually becoming a safe haven for the Maoists since six of eight districts of Jharkhand that border West Bengal ~ Dumka, Dhanbad, Bokaro, Ranchi, West Singhbhum and East Singhbhum are strongholds of the Maoists. A few months ago, some members of Belpahari squad were killed in a Orissa police operation and then this squad became weak but with the passage of time, they have freshly recruited some youths”.
Though, Chhtradhar Mahato, leader of the Police Santrash Birodhi Public Committee (PSBPC) denied accepting the presence of Maoists in their mass-movement, he conceded that if Maoists agree to support their movement under PSBPC banner, they will invite them.
Mr Babu Bose, general secretary of Jharkhand Jana Mukti Morcha said: “This movement is now not under control of the tribal organisations. Currently, Maoist leaders are dominating the movement and they may intensify the stir if the state government does not come forward to settle the impasse”.
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=6&theme=&usrsess=1&id=232448

PM moots task force on terror

Statesman News Service
NEW DELHI, Nov 23: The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, has recommended the setting up of a high-level task force to address the emerging challenges of terrorism and Left-wing extremism in the country.
Addressing the top brass of state and central police organisations in a two-day seminar here, the Prime Minister also said it was imperative to improve the intelligence machinery and undertake police reforms to be able to deal with such threats.
Dr Singh in addition urged the police to avoid stereotypes that might enlarge "fault lines in our society".
The task force, chaired by the National Security Advisor, with suitable representation from central and state agencies, should draw a roadmap within 100 days to develop an integrated capability to address the challenges of Left-wing extremism, terrorism and insurgency, the Prime Minister said.
The Prime Minister also mooted the setting up of a standing committee of DGPs, comprising five states on rotation basis, to advise government on police and related legal matters.
“Side by side with this, it would be advantageous if the MHA could devise a scheme by which a certain number of executive level police personnel could be inducted into the Ministry,” the Prime Minister said.
They would help MHA officials with policy formulation and induce a degree of field experience into various formulations involving police matters, the Prime Minister said.
“Risks are often unforeseen in today’s work. Threats are often hidden. This has made the work of law and order professionals far more challenging than ever before. We need therefore to be able to anticipate better,” he said, stressing on the need to set up a networked security architecture.
"In a period of 100 days, the task force should come out with a road map regarding the detailed steps to be taken immediately, as also the subsequent steps to be taken over the next several months so as to translate this vision of an integrated neo-centric capability into reality," Dr Singh said.
He also noted that the impartiality, capabilities and fairness of the police are frequently being questioned, and told the heads of the country's police forces that a major challenge before them will be to restore the faith of the people ~ especially those belonging to religious and ethnic minorities and weaker sections ~ in their impartiality and effectiveness. In this context, he exhorted police officers to avoid stereotypes that might enlarge "fault lines in our society".
Dr Singh further stressed the need to check effectively and in time the virus of communal violence that threatens the secular fabric of society.
Redrawn ‘map’ sparks fears in Pak

NEW YORK, Nov. 23: A redrawn map of South Asia showing a truncated Pakistan, reduced to an elongated sliver of land, has sparked fear among military planners in Islamabad who think India and Afghanistan are “colluding” to destroy the only nuclear powered-Muslim nation with US help, a media report said today.
The map, first circulated as a theoretical exercise in some American neoconservative circles, has fueled a belief among Pakistanis that what the United States really wants is the breakup of their country, the New York Times reported.
That notion, it says, may strike Americans as strange coming from an ally of 50 years but as the incoming Barack Obama administration tries to coax greater cooperation from Pakistan in the fight against militancy, it can hardly be ignored.
Pakistan, says the Times, is upset over the Indo-American civilian nuclear deal as also big investments made by New Delhi in Afghanistan.
In this context, the paper makes special reference to the Iranian border road which, it says, would ultimately provide access to India to Iranian port of Chabahar, circumventing Pakistan. Besides, India has offered training for Afghanistan's military, given assistance for a new Parliament building in Kabul and has re-opened consulates along the border with Pakistan.
US military commanders, including Gen David H Petraeus, have started to argue forcefully that the solution to the conflict in Afghanistan, where the American war effort looks increasingly uncertain, must involve a wide array of neighbors.
Mr Obama has said much the same. Several times in his campaign, he laid out the crux of his thinking. Reducing tensions between Pakistan and India would allow Islamabad to focus on the real threat ~ the Qaeda and Taliban militants who are tearing at the very fabric of the country, he has argued.But the Times says such an approach faces sizable obstacles, the biggest being the “conflict” over Kashmir.
Pakistan's army and intelligence agencies have long fought a proxy war with India by sponsoring militant groups to terrorize the people in Jammu and Kashmir, it noted.
After the 9/11 attacks, the paper says that Pakistan reined in those militants for a time, but this year the militants have renewed their incursions. Talks between the sides made some progress in recent years but have “petered out.”
If the Obama administration is indeed to convince Pakistanis that militancy, not the Indian Army, presents the gravest threat, it will not be easy, stresses the paper. n PTI


WB: Tribals Vs the Left

The West Bengal government faces a Herculean task in containing the current agitation launched by tribals in the districts of West Midnapore and Bankura. The Maoists have rubbed salt into the Left’s wounds by openly backing the tribals.
CJ: Rupam Banerjee , 11 hours ago Views:78 Comments:0
OPENLY FANNED by some Jharkhand parties, including Jharkhand chief minister Shibu Soren and the Maoists, the tribal villagers of West Midnapore and Bankura have virtually decided to go ahead with their current agitation to isolate certain tribal areas, including Lalgarh and Sarenga. This is to register their protest against ‘police excesses’ after the landmine blast on the convoy of Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan.

Many of these tribal villagers, who are mostly daily-wagers, have been rendered jobless because of the agitation and are finding it difficult to earn their livelihood. They admitted that the Maoists and a section of the leaders from Jharkhand had been encouraging the youth to go ahead with the agitation and create problems for the state. Maoist leaders from Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh held several rounds of talks with a section of the tribal youth, who had been spearheading the agitation. The Maoists had even issued a couple of statements supporting the agitation, they said.
While the Left Front chairman and the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) state unit secretary Biman Bose blamed the Centre and forces from within the state and without for the current agitation, chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee slammed opposition leader and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee for supporting the agitation.

The Maoists, however, reportedly criticised Banerjee for seeking Central intervention in containing the agitation since they felt that the deployment of Central forces would only aggravate the agony of the tribals. They however supported her movement in Nandigram and urged the tribal youth to implement it in the western districts of Purulia, Bankura and West Midnapore.

Intelligence reports, however, indicated that the agitators’ demand seeking the presence of senior district police officers at the venue of the talks was nothing but a ploy to help the Maoists either kidnap or ambush the police officers. Reports said that digging up important roads had become a convenient and effective tool for the opposition parties to create chaos in the state ahead of next year’s Lok Sabha elections. Digging up important roads, originally a Maoist idea, became popular during the Nandigram movement.

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Political observers, however, feel that the state government should act firmly to prevent agitators from digging up important roads to register their protest. The administration should take a firm stand against such vandalism, which ultimately proves detrimental to the welfare of the poor.
Bhattacharjee had reportedly advised the administration and his party men to wait and watch and not to go for any drastic action. He also advised them to carry on the discussions with the leaders of the agitation to achieve a peaceful and lasting solution to the problem. Observers felt that the Left Front, which had been working for the cause of tribals over the years, was reluctant to take any drastic action lest it should aggravate the situation, particularly when elections are round the corner.
In the backdrop of such an impasse, the Left Front leaders are to meet to review the situation and chalk out a programme to counter such agitations, which have been hampering the growth and future of the state and its people, especially those living in remote rural areas.
http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=150381
In March 2007, the rebels assassinated a federal MP and a few days later killed 55 policemen in twin attacks in eastern India.
The Maoist insurgency grew out of a peasant uprising in 1967 and rebels often target the overstretched and poorly trained security forces operating in the east of the country.
The rebels say they are fighting for the rights of neglected tribal people and landless farmers and that their ultimate goal is to capture India's cities and overthrow parliament.
The left-wing guerrillas are active in more than half of India's 29 states and the rebels use a heavily forested region in eastern Chhattisgarh state as their headquarters.
Singh's government promised in July to create new, specialised commando units in the worst-hit states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa.
It has also pledged to create six jungle warfare and counter-insurgency schools.
At least 834 people were killed in Maoist-related violence nationwide last year.
New Delhi has refused to hold peace talks with the shadowy rebels unless they renounce violence.

Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Center
www.imemc.org for Monday November 24 2008
As the Israeli military continues closure of Gaza's crossings for the third week consecutively, reports said Israel would reopen one of such crossings partially today. These news and more are coming up stay tuned.
Israeli media sources reported Monday that the Israeli military would reopen one of Gaza's crossings partially today to allow in some food assistance into the besieged Gaza Strip.
The sources reveled that the Kerem Shalom crossing would be reopened today as the Palestinian resistance factions agreed yesterday night to stopping homemade shells fire from Gaza into nearby Israeli towns.
The Gaza Strip lives a tight closure of commercial crossings for three weeks now, as humanitarian aid organizations have warned of an imminent crisis due to lack of essential goods, commodities and fuel.
In the meantime, the Israeli parliament is expected to convene today over the situation in Gaza, as the Israeli government considers extending the closure, while Israel's defense minister, Ehud Barak, warns of a large military offensive on the coastal territory.
At the political level, U.S Secretary of States, Condoleezza Rice , defended yesterday her outgoing administration's failure to achieve peace between Palestinians and Israelis , based on a two-state solution by the end of this year.
Palestinian-Israeli negotiations witness a stalemate, since Washington has launched its Annapolis peace conference in November2007.
Thank you for joining us from occupied Bethlehem. You have been listening to Palestine Today from the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org. This report has been brought to you by Rami Al-Meghari, and Husam Qassi
http://www.imemc.org/article/57791

Under the rubric of the need to choose one's battles, Israel is not putting a lot of energy into battling the annual anti-Israel ritual at the UN known as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, scheduled for Monday.
Every year on this day, the UN passes a number of pro-Palestinian resolutions that blast Israel, and one diplomatic official said that Jerusalem had concluded it was useless to invest much in fighting those resolutions because of the built-in Arab and third-world majority in the General Assembly.
"We pick our battles, and this is one that, because of the numbers, we simply can't win," one senior diplomatic official said.
Nevertheless, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gabriella Shalev is expected to address the General Assembly.
Meanwhile,Eager to calm economic anxieties, President-elect Barack Obama is rolling out an economic vision that will require congressional cooperation even before he settles into his new desk in the White House's Oval Office.The plan is likely to far exceed the $175 billion Obama proposed during the campaign. It would include an infusion of money for infrastructure projects, new environmental technologies and tax cuts for low- and middle-income taxpayers. It will not call for tax hikes for the wealthy.While Obama and his team are focused on the work of the new Congress, they also weighed in work pending before the current one.
The emphasis on the economy began Saturday when Obama outlined the framework to save or create 2.5 million jobs by the end of 2010. The scope of the recovery package is far more ambitious than Obama had spelled out during his presidential campaign, when he proposed $175 billion of spending and tax-cutting stimulus. The new plan will be significantly larger and incorporate his campaign ideas for new jobs in environmentally friendly technologies - the "green economy." It also would include his proposals for tax relief for middle- and lower-income workers.

Obama aides on Sunday called on the new Congress to pass by the Jan. 20 inauguration legislation that meets Obama's two-year goal of saving or creating 2.5 million jobs. Democratic congressional leaders said they would get to work when Congress convenes Jan. 6 with bigger Democratic majorities in the House and Senate.
With the wounded economy worsening, the Obama team's new assertiveness was a recognition he needed to soothe financial markets with signs of leadership. It also foreshadowed a more hands-on role by Obama to influence congressional action during the final weeks of the transition.
Heading his economic team will be Timothy Geithner as treasury secretary and Lawrence Summers as head of the National Economic Council. Obama also has settled on New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson as his commerce secretary.

SUCI activists block roads in West Bengal
Kolkata : Hundreds of supporters of Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI) on Mondayblocked roads in the metropolis and elsewhere in West Bengal against alleged police atrocities on tribals at Lalgarh and on other issues.
Road blockades were reported from Balurghat, Purulia, Krishnagar, Berhampore and other areas in the districts set up by the SUCI who were also demanding return of land to unwilling farmers at Singur after the exit of the Tatas, solution to the primary teachers problems and filling up "three lakh" vacancies in State government offices.
In the metropolis, the blockades led to traffic snarls, police said. In many areas, police chased the agitators with batons.
At least 70 SUCI workers, including women, were arrested from the Hazra crossing and Esplanade areas, the sources said.
(PTI)
PCC elects Abbas as president of Palestine state
RAMALLAH, Nov. 23 -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was overwhelmingly elected by the Palestinian Central Council (PCC) on Sunday as the president of the future state of Palestine.
The PCC, which has around 126 members representing all Palestinian factions and groups in Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), convened in West Bank city of Ramallah for two days which was chaired by Abbas.
The Palestinian National Council (PNC), the parliament in exile, had elected in Nov. 15, 1988 late leader Yasser Arafat as the president of state of Palestine.
Arafat was president of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA)and chairman of the PLO. After he died in November 2004, Abbas was elected as the PLO Executive Committee Chairman and in January 2005 he was elected as the president of the PNA.
Meanwhile, Hamas movement slammed the PCC decision of choosing Abbas as president of the state of Palestine, saying that both the PCC and the PLO are not representing the Palestinian people.
Mushir el-Masri, a Hamas lawmaker, said in a statement that the PCC decision aims at extending the presidential term for Abbas which "according to the Palestinian basic law, ends by January 9, 2009."
"Such actions would complicate the current internal situation and would increase obstacles to hold the national dialogue and to reach a national Palestinian reconciliation," said al-Masri.
An independent Palestinian state has not been established yet, as Gaza Strip has been ruled by Islamic Hamas movement since mid June last year, while the PNA and Fatah movement controls parts of the West Bank.
(Xinhua)
UN Chief Ban Expresses Concern over Humanitarian Situation in Gaza



Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has voiced regret that Israel has not yet heeded his call to urgently permit the delivery of humanitarian assistance to the civilian population of Gaza.
A statement issued by his spokesperson said Mr. Ban, who phoned Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Nov.18 to urge him to facilitate the freer movement of urgently needed humanitarian supplies and of United Nations personnel into Gaza, continued to express his concern at the situation following Israel¡¯s closure of crossing points.
¡°The Secretary-General reiterates his condemnation of rocket and other attacks by Palestinian militants against Israeli civilian targets,¡± the statement added. ¡°He calls for an end to such attacks and urges full respect by all parties for the calm that has been in effect since 19 June 2008,¡± it added, referring to the truce on Palestinian rocket attacks and Israeli assaults.
Mr. Ban has been briefed on the humanitarian situation in Gaza by UN Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes, it said, and supports the statement just released by his office calling on all parties to refrain from violence and allow the immediate and sustained reopening of border crossings.
¡°Measures which increase the hardship and suffering of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip as a whole are unacceptable and must cease immediately,¡± Mr. Holmes said.
Mr. Holmes – who is also Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs – noted that the Secretary-General had repeatedly condemned rocket attacks aimed at Israeli civilian targets, but he also expressed particular concern that the human dignity and well-being of the civilians in Gaza, over half of whom are children, do not appear to be a major issue for the parties to the conflict.
Israel reinstituted its blockade of the Gaza Strip Nov.19 after a brief respite to let humanitarian aid pass through on Tuesday, United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes said today, describing the situation as ¡°desperate¡± and ¡°unacceptable.¡±
No fuel, humanitarian supplies or commercial commodities were allowed into Gaza today, according to the Office of the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO).
Mr. Holmes – who is also Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs – told journalists in Geneva that the closure was seen as collective punishment. Half the population of Gaza was under 15 and were being held hostage by the situation.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to urge him to facilitate the freer movement of urgently needed humanitarian supplies and of UN personnel into Gaza. Mr. Olmert denounced the continuing rocket fire into Israel from Gaza, although he agreed to look seriously into the urgent matter.
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) had to suspend cash assistance to some 98,000 of the poorest people in Gaza due to the lack of Israeli shekel bank notes in banks there.
The agency also warned that it is facing ¡°a grave and imminent crisis¡± and must receive additional pledges in the first quarter of 2009 if it is to continue assisting the 4.6 million people in its five field operations.
UNRWA Commissioner General Karen AbuZayd told donors, host governments and non-governmental organization (NGO) partners that according to present projections its core services will suffer a deficit of more than $87 million by then, leading to an overall shortfall of $160 million when combined with unfunded projects on hold from previous years.
¡°This will bring UNRWA closer to financial crisis than it has ever been,¡± she said today at the agency¡¯s annual meeting in Amman, Jordan, which heard updates from the directors for the five field operations – Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza.
http://theseoultimes.com/ST/?url=/ST/db/read.php?idx=7629



India must 'banish' thought of recession: Chidambaram
Times of India - 27 minutes ago
NEW DELHI: Indians must "banish thought of recession", the finance minister said on Monday, as he forecast the economy would still be the second-fastest growing in the world despite the global financial crisis.
See FY09 growth moderating at 7-8% range: FM Moneycontrol.com
India bond yields end higher on lack of policy cues Reuters India
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Times Now.tv
Sadhvi claims was made to hear obscene CD
Hindustan Times - 1 hour ago
Malegaon blast accused Sadhvi Pragnya Thakur on Monday charged the Anti-Terrorism Squad with making her hear an obscene CD, while repeating her earlier allegation of physical and mental torture against the investigating agency.
Malegaon blast: Judicial custody for 7 accused till Dec 3 Times of India
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APEC leaders commit to quick economic action
Reuters - 2 hours ago
By Chisa Fujioka and Oleg Shchedrov LIMA (Reuters) - The United States, China, Japan and 18 other economies in Asia and the Americas promised fast and decisive action on Sunday to prevent a severe global economic downturn.
Bush wears poncho on last foreign trip BBC News
Beleaguered Bush farewells Asia leaders AFP
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Mahmoud Darwish
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mahmoud Darwish (13 March 1941 – 9 August 2008) was a respected Palestinian poet and author who won numerous awards for his literary output and was regarded as the Palestinian national poet.[1] In his work, Palestine became a metaphor for the loss of Eden, birth and resurrection, and the anguish of dispossession and exile.[2][3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Darwish

Palestine
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the geographical area. For other uses, see Palestine (disambiguation).

A 2003 satellite image of the region, with national borders shown in light gray.Palestine is a name which has been widely used since Roman times to refer to the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.[1] Other terms that have been used to refer to all or part of this area include Israel, "Greater Israel" (Hebrew Eretz Yisrael), Retenu (Ancient Egyptian) Southern Syria, Greater Syria, Arabistan, Canaan, and the Holy Land.

In the broad geographical sense, Palestine refers to an area that includes contemporary Israel and the Palestinian territories, parts of Jordan, and parts of Lebanon and Syria.[1][2] In the narrow sense, it refers to the area within the boundaries of the former British Mandate of Palestine (1920-1948) west of the Jordan River.

Today, Palestine may also refer to the State of Palestine proposed by the Palestinian National Authority.[3]

Within the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the term Palestine has weighty political connotations and arouses fierce controversy.[4]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine

Palestinian territories
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Palestinian territories are composed of two discontiguous regions, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, whose final status has yet to be determined. The territories, which were originally contained within the British Mandate of Palestine, were captured and occupied by Jordan and by Egypt in the late 1940s, and captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. "Palestinian territories" is one of a number of designations for these areas.

Following the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, portions of the territories have been governed in varying degrees by the Palestinian Authority. They do not include the Golan Heights captured from Syria during the Six Day War, or the Sinai Peninsula, captured from Egypt at that time but later returned by Israel to Egypt after a peace accord was signed between the two countries in 1979. Israel does not consider East Jerusalem nor the former Israeli - Jordanian no man's land (the former annexed in 1980 and the latter in 1967) to be parts of the West Bank. Israel claims that both fall under full Israeli law and jurisdiction as opposed to the 58% of the Israeli-defined West Bank which is ruled by the Israeli 'Judea and Samaria Civil Administration', although this has not been recognized by any other country.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_territories

Brothel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A brothel, also known as a bordello or whorehouse, is an establishment specifically dedicated to prostitution, providing the prostitutes a place to meet and to have sex with the clients. In some places, brothels are legal, and in many countries, places such as massage parlors are allowed to function as brothels, with varying degrees of regulation and repression. Depending on zoning, brothels may be confined to special red-light districts or 'tolerance zones'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothel

Lame-duck US, Israeli leaders to meet a final time

WASHINGTON : Visiting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert heads to his final meeting with President George W. Bush aiming to wrap up three years of close cooperation.

Monday evening's White House session is expected to focus on the Iranian nuclear threat and assess progress in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, as both lame-duck leaders look to leave a Mideast peace legacy to their successors.

Olmert meets Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and national security adviser Stephen Hadley on Monday ahead of a private dinner with Bush.

Just a year ago, Olmert and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, proudly announced the resumption of peace talks after a seven-year hiatus at a summit hosted by Bush in Annapolis, Maryland. The three set an ambitious target of concluding a final peace deal by the end of 2008.

Despite frequent negotiating sessions, two trips to the region by Bush and eight more by Rice, the sides have little to show for their efforts and have acknowledged the year-end target will not be met.
Speaking Sunday to reporters aboard Air Force One as Bush headed back from a summit in Peru, Rice said the peace process is ``in pretty good shape.''

``Even though there was not an agreement by the end of the year, it is really largely because of the political situation in Israel,'' she said.

Bush, who spent the weekend in Peru at a meeting of Pacific Rim nations, invited Olmert to Washington as part of his final round of talks with world leaders before he leaves office Jan. 20. Olmert, who announced plans to resign in September amid corruption charges, will step down after a successor is chosen Feb. 10.

As for Tehran's nuclear program, Israel has identified it as its biggest threat in light of Iran's development of long-range weapons and its president's repeated calls for the destruction of the Jewish state. Both the U.S. and Israel say they hope diplomatic pressure resolves the standoff, but have not ruled out military action.

The two leaders also probably will discuss the global financial crisis, Israel's indirect peace talks with Syria and the future of arms and aircraft deals to Israel.
(AP)




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Lahore Arts Festival to go ahead despite blasts, threats!
Lahore : Organisers of the World Performing Arts Festival, being attended by a large Indian delegation, went ahead with performances in this eastern Pakistani city despite three bomb blasts that were apparently aimed at disrupting the event.

Four persons were injured when three bombs went off on Sunday night outside a crowded stadium and a cultural complex hosting the arts festival. The organisers of the festival said they had earlier received an anonymous threat asking them to halt the event. The Indian delegation at the festival is the largest one.

Former Bhutan King to get 'Deshikottama' award
Santiniketan (WB) : Former Bhutan King Jigme Singye Wangchuk will be among eight eminent personalities to be conferred with 'Deshikottama', the highest award of the Visva-Bharati, by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during the university's annual convocation here on December 6.

Wangchuk will be conferred with the award for his efforts to herald an era of democracy in Bhutan, Visva-Bharati officials said.

Other recipients of the award include -- former Visva-Bharati vice-chancellor Amlan Dutta, economist J Endrez, historian Irfan Habib and noted theatre personality Habib Tanvir.

A security drill is being chalked out for the short visit of Manmohan Singh who will be attending the Visva-Bharati convocation for the first time as its Chancellor.

Seven years ago, former premier A B Vajpayee attended the annual convocation here as its chancellor.

In the wake of blast triggered by the Maoists near Salboni in West Midnapore district recently, efforts are on to tighten security in the capital during Singh's visit.

Meanwhile, sources said that a team of Special Protection Group would be arriving here shortly to get a briefing on the security arrangements and finalise the programmes.

PTI

Indian company bags $250 mn for Sri Lanka's tallest building
Colombo: A Hyderabad-based company has bagged the contract to construct a 250 million dollar 70 storeyed building in Colombo, the tallest in Sri Lanka.

The foundation stone for the proposed highest building in Sri Lanka was laid by Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayake on Sunday.

The public-private partnership building project will come up in the premises of Sethsiripaya in Battaramulla in Colombo suburbs at an estimated cost of USD 250 million and will be constructed by Sutchi NEB Construction Company of India.

The project initiated by the Board of Investment (BOI) of Government of Sri Lanka will have administration, commercial and housing units, a BOI official told PTI, adding the project is expected to be completed in three years.

While 40 floors will be dedicated for commercial operations, 20 floors will be for residential purposes, the official said.

Speaking on the occasion, the Sri Lankan Prime Minister said peoples' only desire was to see an end to the scourge of terrorism that was obstructing all new projects, investments and the country's development programmes.

Wickramanayake said the government will meet the peoples aspirations of rooting out terrorism and bring peace soon.

Speaking at the function, Urban Development Minister Dinesh Gunawardena pointed out that India's contribution to such a mega development programme is another milestone in Indo-Sri Lanka ties.
(PTI)

India would make Pakistan barren by 2014: official
Lahore : India would make Pakistan a barren land in the next six years by blocking its water through construction of dams in violation of the Indus Water Treaty, Pakistan Indus Water Commissioner Jamaat Ali Shah said on Monday.

Shah said India had constructed dams at various rivers and continued doing so in violation of the Indus Water Treaty.

The Treaty, he said, allowed New Delhi to generate electricity on the flow of the river but said water to Pakistan cannot be stopped, the Daily Times reported today. Dismissing India's claim that it had stopped Pakistan's water only from August 19 to 28, he said,"we do not accept the Indian point of view because India has stopped water till September 5 according to our estimate". The commissioner said that an Indian delegation was supposed to visit Pakistan on November 29 for discussions. Pakistan has formally complained to India about the alleged diversion of river waters to fill the Baglihar dam, claiming this was a violation of the Indus Waters Treaty.

Pakistan Water and Power Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf had earlier said that they would seek compensation from India in the form of additional discharge of water for the reduction of the flow of the Chenab from 55,000 cusecs to 22,000 cusecs.
(PTI)



Maintaining that the government was "prompt" in slashing jet fuel prices from Rs 71,000 to Rs 43,000 per kilolitre and abolishing customs duty on it, they said "neither the Prime Minister nor the Finance Minister considered the losses suffered by the oil marketing companies when providing such largesse to private airline companies".

Observing that the UPA government was "refusing" to reduce petrol and diesel prices despite the drastic fall in world crude prices, the parties said there was "no justification for refusing to make a substantial cut (in fuel prices) when the government itself has admitted that the administered prices of petrol and diesel are based upon an Indian basket calculated at USD 67 a barrel."

The parties announced a joint call for observing a protest day on December two and holding of demonstrations and dharnas across the country to demand cut in petrol and diesel prices.

The statement was signed by Prakash Karat (CPI-M), H D Deve Gowda (JD-S), N Chandrababu Naidu (TDP), A B Bardhan (CPI), Debabrata Biswas (Forward Bloc) and T J Chandrachoodan (RSP).



Top aides said Sunday that Obama also wants Congress to use its large Democratic majority when it convenes Jan. 6 to prepare tax cuts for low- and middle-income earners as part of a massive government intervention designed to pull the country out of its frightening economic nosedive.

The aides said, however, the plan would not offer an immediate tax increase on wealthy taxpayers. During the campaign, Obama said he would pay for increased tax relief by raising taxes on people making more than $250,000.

``There won't be any tax increases in the January package,'' said one Obama aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the details of the Obama package have not been fleshed out. Instead, Obama could let taxes on upper-income families increase when the current Bush administration tax cuts expire in 2011.

Obama senior adviser David Axelrod unambiguously voiced Obama's expectations.

``Our hope is that the new Congress begins work on this as soon as they take office in early January, because we don't have time to waste here, `` he told Fox News. ``We want to hit the ground running on January 20th'' when Obama takes office.

Congress will have two weeks to hold hearings and write legislation between its return to Washington in early January and Obama's inauguration.

Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the second-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, acknowledged a readiness for quick action.

``We expect to have during the first couple of weeks of January a package for the president's consideration when he takes office.''

Axelrod also warned executives of the U.S. auto industry to draw up plans to retool and restructure their industry if they want the billions of dollars they are seeking from Congress. Otherwise, Axelrod said, ``there is very little taxpayers can do to help them.''

Obama advisers would not discuss a specific size of the new economic stimulus, though economists have called for spending as much as $600 billion to shock the economy back onto a positive trajectory.

``I don't know what the number is going to be, but it's going to be a big number,'' Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee said on CBS television. ``It has to be. The point is to, kind of, get people back on track and startle the thing into submission.''

Obama also delved into one of the most pressing foreign policy issues facing his presidency, calling Afghan President Hamid Karzai by telephone and telling him that fighting terrorism there and in the region would be a top priority, Karzai's office said on Sunday.


The Saturday conversation between Obama and Karzai was the first reported contact between the two leaders since the Nov. 4 U.S. election. The United States has some 32,000 American troops in Afghanistan, a number that will be increased by thousands next year.


Fighting terrorism and the insurgency ``in Afghanistan, the region and the world is a top priority,'' Karzai's office quoted Obama as saying during the conversation.


On the domestic front, Axelrod confirmed that the president-elect would name Timothy Geithner, the New York Federal Reserve president, as his treasury secretary on Monday. Axelrod spoke Sunday on Fox News and ABC television.


``The response has been great, and it should be _ Tim Geithner is uniquely qualified to do this job,'' Axelrod said in response to the 6.5 percent jump in the stock market on Friday when word of Geithner's appointment began to leak. The market had just endured several days of steep losses.


The Geithner news followed in one-two fashion Obama's declaration on Saturday that his administration planned to create 2.5 million jobs over the next two years.


Geithner will team with Lawrence Summers, a treasury secretary under former President Bill Clinton and former Harvard University president, who will take over the National Economic Council.


The men will confront an economic crisis that continues to deepen in spite of hundreds of billions of dollars in federal emergency spending in recent weeks.


Both Geithner and Summers will appear with Obama at a Monday news conference in Chicago.


Also Sunday, a Democratic official said Obama would name New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson as commerce secretary, adding a prominent Hispanic and one-time Democratic presidential rival to his Cabinet.


Obama planned to announce the nomination after Thursday's Thanksgiving holiday, according to a Democratic official familiar with the discussions. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the negotiations and did so on condition of anonymity.


Richardson served as U.N. ambassador in the Clinton administration and later as energy secretary.


He is a seasoned international negotiator who mediated with North Korea over the downing of two U.S. Army helicopter pilots; hammered out a deal with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein for the release of two U.S. oil workers; and was later sought out by the North Koreans to discuss nuclear issues.


Achuthanandan's land package a poll gimmick: Sreekumar
Kochi (PTI): Kerala Chief Miniser V S Achuthanandan had announced the Rs 5,000-crore package for the landless scheduled caste and scheduled tribes with an eye on the Lok Sabha elections, a prominent leader of the SC and ST has alleged.
Speaking to reporters in Kochi on Monday, Punnala Sreekumar, General Convener of Scheduled Caste-Scheduled Tribes Joint Committee and C K Janu, President Adivasi Gothramahasabha, said the package announced by the government for the SCs and STs was only to betray them with an eye on the next Parliament elections.
The current initiative by the government do not honour the sentiments of the SCs and STs who wanted a comprehensive development policy by implementing the second land reforms in the State, he said.
By giving false hope of 3 or 5 cents of land to the adivasis and SCs and STs, the government's ambition to win the Parliament election will not succeed, Sreekumar said.
The government package will not get support from the SCs and STs, he said.
The government will not be able to form a Scheduled Caste policy by holding discussion with the feeder organisations of Left parties alone, he said.
Sreekumar said on December 10 on 'Human Rights Day', a meeting of SCs and STs will be organised at Thrissur and their future plans would be announced.
CPI(M) highlights lack of basic amenities in J&K
Srinagar (PTI): With an eye on Gujjar and Bakarwal votes in J&K, the state unit of the CPI(M)on Monday said economic development of these communities will be its priority and highlighted the lack of basic facilities in Kulgam and Shopian districts of south Kashmir.
"The poor condition of roads and bridges, absence of proper healthcare facilities, unemployment and lack of safe drinking water show the neglect of Shopian district by successive governments," state secretary of CPI(M) M Y Tarigami said addressing a road show today.
Tarigami, who is seeking election from Kulgam seat for the third time which goes to polls in the sixth phase on December 17, said that the ongoing polls in the state was purely meant to address the day to day problems of the people and had nothing to do with long pending Kashmir issue.
Tarigami alleged that there was food crisis in the district as essential commodities like wheat, rice and kerosene oil were not available at government-run ration depots.
Expressing grief over the plight of Gujjars and Bakarwals who reside in large numbers in Shopian district, Tarigami said, "economic development of Gujjars and Bakarwals will be our priority".
Tarigami invited attention of the government to problems faced by the people of the district and assured them that his party will work for the overall development of the area.
The Communist leader said his party would work to develop the famous streams and water falls like Nandan Sar, Dabijan besides Aharbal as tourist destinations in Shopian district.
Mohammad Khalil Naik and Mohammad Abdullah Wani, the party candidates for Wachi and Shopian constituencies respectively, demanded granting of industry status to fruit industry.
Life comes to standstill, when Mayawati 'goes'
Lucknow (IANS): When Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati moves on the streets of the state capital Lucknow, she has in attendance an army of at least 350 policemen and an assortment of 34 vehicles.
A security cover by the country's elite Special Protection Group (SPG) having been denied to her last year, Mayawati has ensured she has a heavier cover for herself. The SPG security is available only to the prime minister and former prime ministers. But Behenji, as she is called back home in Uttar Pradesh, had demanded it.
She had claimed there was a conspiracy to eliminate her and when she was denied the special security, even alleged that the Congress was part of it. In her quest for security, she even asked her officials to study the stringent Israeli security apparatus.
With a huge force moving with her, a curfew-like situation prevails wherever she goes. Shopkeepers are told to down shutters till the chief minister whizzes past, the traffic is halted, and onlookers are told to look the other way.
Her official residence as well as the entire Kalidas Marg on which the house is located were turned into a heavily barricaded fortress long ago, while her office has witnessed drastic alterations with the enhanced security in recent days.
These include an exclusive entry and exit gates and a dedicated elevator that lands directly into the chief minister's chamber. Her room has been renovated with expensive vitrified tiles and granite, like top business tycoons, and the wash room could beat one in any seven-star hotel.
To add to the opulence is some of the best imported furniture personally approved by her.
The chief minister's occasional visits to her office at Lucknow's Shastri Bhavan, her frequent trips to the airport from where she is currently busy shuttling on her election campaign in various states, and the passage of her convoy present an ordeal for all and sundry.
The situation was no different even before she raised the demand for an SPG cover. But the passion of the state police bigwigs to keep enhancing her security appears to be growing.
The citizens have to face the brunt of the traffic snarls each time she steps out of her impregnable mansion, whose surroundings resemble those of 7, Race Course Road, the official residence of the prime minister in New Delhi.
Mayawati now proposes to have a helipad built right across the CM's house on a piece of land for which negotiations are on with the 164-year-old La Martiniere College, owners of the property.
Whether it is a passer-by, a shopkeeper or a resident living along the 14-km route from her official residence to the Lucknow airport, none is spared the trauma.
"We are told to suspend all activity, push away customers and sometimes even shut our shops each time Mayawati passes by," complained a petty shopkeeper, who is too scared to give out his name.
"We must keep far away from the road but also look the other way while her convoy is passing," said a worker at a petrol pump along the way to the airport, who too declined to give his name for fear of retribution.
A retired railway official residing along the route recalled to IANS: "I was sitting on my terrace when a cop shouted at me to get inside my house and not even peep out until the chief minister's motorcade was gone."
To top it all, state director-general of police Vikram Singh and Lucknow zonal inspector-general of police Arvind Jain invariably accompany the chief minister on her election tours to other states where they are expected to coordinate her security with local officials.
The exercise began after a handful of Samajwadi Party workers staged a protest demonstration in front of her car as she was driving down somewhere in Madhya Pradesh last year.
Former state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Kesri Nath Tripathi wondered: "Does Mayawati realise that she is living in a democracy?"
"No one, howsoever high and mighty, was entitled to make the lives of the common citizens miserable; even former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee never allowed such inconvenience to anyone whenever he came calling to Lucknow, his constituency," he said.
State Congress president Rita Bahuguna Joshi felt that "every chief minister is entitled to certain security, but Mayawati seems to be obsessed with it. She thinks it is her right to trample upon civil liberties of common people".
Claiming that his elder brother and former Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav never allowed common citizens to be harassed because of his movements, Samajwadi Party state president Shivpal Yadav said: "Mayawati thinks she is a feudal Maharani who does not allow lesser mortals to get anywhere close to her".
Defending her security, a top police officer of the state maintained to IANS: "We cannot take any chances with the chief minister's security. We have clear inputs about all kinds of threat to her life."
NCM to submit report on Batla House encounter to govt.
New Delhi (PTI): Amid controversies surrounding the September 19 police encounter at Batla House in Delhi, the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) is contemplating to place the "pulse of the people" on the issue before the government.
The Commission discussed the issue in its November 6 meeting in detail after a team of NCM prepared a report on the basis of the team members' interactions with social workers, NGOs, teachers and intellectuals and family members of the persons arrested by Delhi police, sources said.
The Commission prepared a ten page report carrying verbatim statements of the persons concerned with the issue, who interacted with the NCM team led by its Chairman Mohammed Shafi Qureshi on October 10 at the Jamia Millia University, they added.
"The Commission can either send the same report carrying the pulse of the people over the episode to the government or may send a report based on its findings," an NCM official said.
The Commission may also be recommending measures to instill confidence among the people of the locality. During the visit, the Commission Chairman had said that he would definitely draw the attention of the government towards the situation.
Prior to it, the Commission Chairman had addressed a seminar on a related issue in the university the same month.
Two youths, suspected as Indian Mujahideen terrorists, were shot dead in the police encounter. Inspector of Delhi Police Mohan Chand Sharma was also killed in the encounter.
However, the locals doubted the encounter theory of the police and raised doubts regarding the police claim about the arrested and deceased having any terrorist links.
Congress MP urges PM to contest from Malda
Kolkata (PTI): Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who represents Assam in the Rajya Sabha, has been urged to contest from Congress-stronghold of West Bengal's Malda in the coming Lok Sabha polls.
Congress MP from Malda Abu Hashem Khan Chowdhury today said that he had requested Singh to contest from Malda (North) during his recent meeting with the prime minister.
"The prime minister did not say no to my proposal. He said he will speak to me when he arrives in Malda," Chowdhury told PTI from Malda.
Malda is considered to be a Congress-stronghold as veteran Congress leader and former Union minister late Ghani Khan Chowdhury, who is Hashem's brother, had won the seat seven times in a row.
After delimitation, the Malda seat has been bifurcated into Malda (South) and Malda (North).
"We will be happy if the prime minister agrees to contest from Malda in the coming Lok Sabha elections," working president of WBPCC Pradip Bhattacherjee said.
He said that the party wanted Singh to address a public meeting at Malda on December seven for which confirmation was awaited from the PMO.
The Prime Minister will visit Chowdhury's house at Kotwali and also pay tributes at his brother's samadhi.
CULTIVATING HOPE
- Mahmoud Darwish’s idea of Arab was an inclusive identity
Postscript
Githa Hariharan


Mahmoud Darwish (March 13, 1941-August 9, 2008)
Mahmoud Darwish, often referred to as the Palestinian national poet, once told his readers: “Do not trust the poem —/ The daughter of absence/ It is neither intuition nor is it/ Thought/ But rather, the sense of the abyss...” These lines of verse wave a flag to warn the reader of besieged territory ahead — the sort of territory where poetry, politics — life itself — has to be conducted in a state of dispossession. The poem is called, appropriately, ‘In a State of Siege’.
What does living such a life entail? A few details of Darwish’s life provide us with fairly clear-cut indications.
Darwish was born in 1941 in al Birweh, a village in Galilee, under the British mandate in Palestine. When he was six, his world was turned upside down, and it never set itself right again. And it wasn’t just young Mahmoud’s life, but the lives of his family, his village, other villages, and their homeland. All their lives were turned upside down, and so was their sense of who they were, and who they now had to be. As the Israeli army occupied Birweh, Darwish and his family were forced to join the great exodus of refugees. They spent a year in Lebanon living on United Nations handouts. By the time they returned to their village in 1949, Israel had been created; but their village was one of the hundreds of Palestinian villages that had been razed to the ground.
They were refugees again, infiltrators in their own land. Their return was “illegal”; they were given the status of “present-absent aliens”. Present-absent alien — an invention worthy of a bizarre fictional dystopia — would be the identity that would shadow Darwish from that point onwards.
Years later, Darwish recalled how his grandfather chose to live on a hill that overlooked his land. “Until he died he would watch [Jewish] immigrants from Yemen living in his place, which he was unable even to visit.” The message of such an experience was: “You were not here. This was not Palestine.”
This is what Golda Meir said when she announced, “There are no Palestinians.”
Displacement, landlessness, exile, fragmentation, discontinuity — such experiences are bound to confuse and erode identity. Edward Said took statements like Meir’s and transformed them into questions that explore the shifting, elusive nature of contemporary Palestinian identity: “Do we exist? What proof do we have? The further we get from the Palestine of our past, the more precarious our status, the more disrupted our being, the more intermittent our presence...”
Darwish described this identity in terms of a continuous “struggle between two memories”. If his memories were real, his poetry had to challenge the Zionist tenet of “a land without a people for a people without a land.” The result was, often, a strange contest within the poet. For instance, Darwish admired the work of the Hebrew poet, Yehuda Amichai; but he also recognized that Amichai’s poems were a challenge to him. Darwish said of Amichai, “He wants to use the landscape and history for his own benefit, based on my destroyed identity. So we have a competition: who is the owner of the language of this land? Who loves it more? Who writes it better?”
Darwish never found his homeland again in a literal sense, but he found it in his language. The language of his poetry managed to describe everyday events. And according to the literary critics who consider Darwish “the saviour of the Arabic language”, he did this with such understanding of the people living in his poetry, that they are finally able to express “what they fear most but are unable to utter”.
Darwish has written of a state of siege in which anger simmers; but he has also written, “Here on the slopes of hills, facing the dusk and the cannon of time/ Close to the gardens of broken shadows,/ We do what prisoners do,/ And what the jobless do:/ We cultivate hope.”
Perhaps this is the most important legacy Darwish has left all of us, not just his fellow Palestinians. The “sense of abyss” he describes so movingly in his work does not exist on its own. It has been transformed through political acts, and acts of imagination, into something more life affirming. In other words, there’s siege, but there’s also hope. There’s loss, but there’s also belonging.
The homeland that was not within reach had to grow into something bigger. The history of Palestine had turned the insider — the Palestinian Arab — into the outsider. As a result, the Palestine in Darwish’s work turned into a universal metaphor for the loss of Eden, for birth and resurrection, for the anguish of dispossession and exile. In fact, Said described Darwish’s poetry as “an epic effort to transform the lyrics of loss into the indefinitely postponed drama of return.”
Darwish was often called “the poet of the resistance”; but in the course of his life’s work, he somehow managed to resist any neat or simplistic label. He wrote the Palestinian declaration of independence in 1988, and many poems of resistance that are an integral part of every Arab’s consciousness. But he also allowed himself to grow into a poet who did not close his mind to other ways of seeing.
He said: “Poetry and beauty are always making peace. When you read something beautiful you find coexistence; it breaks walls down... I always humanize the other. I even humanised the Israeli soldier…” Humanizing a “side” in a polarized situation is not easy for anyone, least of all a poet. Just after the 1967 war, Darwish wrote a subtle and tender poem about an Israeli friend who decided to leave the country on his return from the front. The poem, “A Soldier Who Dreams of White Lilies” drew criticism from the secretary general of the Israeli Communist Party, who wanted to know whether Darwish wanted them to leave the country; while many Arab readers were offended because Darwish had humanized the Israeli soldier. But Darwish wrote that he had “multiple images of the Israeli other” — the Israelis in his poetry were not only jailors, but also friends and lovers — and that he would “continue to humanize even the enemy...”
It’s not surprising then that his conception of “Arab” was an open and inclusive identity. His work conducted a dialogue with a range of peoples and cultures — including Canaanite, Hebrew, Greek, Roman, Persian, Egyptian, Arab, French, English, Ottoman and Native American. Not only did these dialogues create multiple levels of meaning in the poems, but they also made the theme of defining and asserting identity a richer, more complex exercise that made allowances for all kinds of overlapping. Darwish also wrote many poems about love and death; some could be easily understood; others yielded their meanings more reluctantly. And in all this body of work, Darwish tried to maintain an open and honest relationship with his readers. In an interview to The New York Times, he said, “When I move closer to pure poetry, Palestinians say go back to what you were. But I have learned from experience that I can take my reader with me if he trusts me...”
Mahmoud Darwish
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Mahmoud Darwish
????? ?????
Born March 13, 1941
al-Birwa, Palestine
Died August 9, 2008 (aged 67)
Houston, Texas, United States
Occupation Poet and writer
Nationality Palestinian
Writing period 1964-2008
Genres Poetry

Influences[show]
Palestinian nationalism, Palestinian exodus, Nakba
Mahmoud Darwish (13 March 1941 – 9 August 2008) was a respected Palestinian poet and author who won numerous awards for his literary output and was regarded as the Palestinian national poet.[1] In his work, Palestine became a metaphor for the loss of Eden, birth and resurrection, and the anguish of dispossession and exile.[2][3]
Contents [hide]
1 Biography
2 Literary career
2.1 Literary influences
3 Attitude toward Israel
4 Political activism
5 Music and film
6 Quotations
7 Awards
8 Death
9 Published work
9.1 Poetry
9.2 Prose
10 References
11 External links


[edit] Biography
Darwish was born in the village of al-Birwa in the Western Galilee.[4] He was the second child of Salim and Houreyyah Darwish. His father was a Muslim landowner. His mother was illiterate, but his grandfather taught him to read.[5] After the establishment of the State of Israel, the family fled to Lebanon first in Jezzin and then in Damour.[6] A year later, they returned to the Acre area, which was now part of Israel, and settled in Deir al-Asad.[7] Darwish attended high school in Kafr Yasif, two kilometers north of Jadeidi. He eventually moved to Haifa. He published his first book of poetry, Asafir bila ajniha, at the age of nineteen. Darwish left Israel in 1970 [8]to study in the USSR. He attended the University of Moscow for one year, [3]before moving to Egypt and Lebanon.[9] When he joined the PLO in 1973, he was banned from reentering Israel.[5] In 1995, he returned to attend the funeral of his colleague, Emile Habibi and received a permit to remain in Haifa for 4 days.[10] Darwish was allowed to settle in Ramallah in 1995,[10] although he said he felt was living in exile there, and did not consider the West Bank his "private homeland."[11]
Darwish was twice married and divorced. His first wife was the writer Rana Kabbani. In the mid-1980s, he married an Egyptian translator, Hayat Heeni. He had no children.[5] Darwish had a history of heart disease, suffering a heart attack in 1984, followed by two heart operations, in 1984 and 1998.[5]
His last visit to Israel was on July 15, 2007 to attend a poetry recital at Mt. Carmel Auditorium in Haifa,[12] in which he criticized the factional violence between Fatah and Hamas as a "suicide attempt in the streets".[13]

[edit] Literary career
Darwish published over thirty volumes of poetry and eight books of prose. He was editor of Al-Jadid, Al-Fajr, Shu'un Filistiniyya and Al-Karmel (1981). His first poetry collection to be published "Leaves of Olives" included the poem "Identity Card", written in 1964:[14]
Record! I am an Arab/ And my identity card is number fifty thousand/ I have eight children/ And the ninth is coming after a summer/ Will you be angry?/ Record!/ I am an Arab/ I have a name without a title/ Patient in a country/ Where people are enraged . . . I do not hate people/ Nor do I encroach/ But if I become hungry/ The usurper's flesh will be my food/ Beware../ Beware../ Of my hunger/ And my anger!
Darwish's work won numerous awards, and has been published in 20 languages. [15] A central theme in Darwish's poetry is the concept of watan or homeland. The poet Naomi Shihab Nye wrote that Darwish "is the essential breath of the Palestinian people, the eloquent witness of exile and belonging...."[16]
[edit] Literary influences
Darwish was impressed by the Arab poets Abd al-Wahhab al-Bayati and Badr Shakir al-Sayyab.[6] He cited Rimbaud and Ginsberg as literary influences.[5] Darwish admired the Hebrew poet Yehuda Amichai, but described his poetry as a "challenge to me, because we write about the same place. He wants to use the landscape and history for his own benefit, based on my destroyed identity. So we have a competition: who is the owner of the language of this land? Who loves it more? Who writes it better?"[5]

[edit] Attitude toward Israel
While Darwish is widely perceived as a Palestinian symbol [17]and a spokesman for Arab opposition to Israel, he rejected the accusation of antisemitism: "The accusation is that I hate Jews. It's not comfortable that they show me as a devil and an enemy of Israel. I am not a lover of Israel, of course. I have no reason to be. But I don't hate Jews."[18]Darwish wrote in Arabic, but spoke English, French and Hebrew. According to Israeli author Haim Gouri, who knew him personally, Darwish's Hebrew was excellent.[19] Four volumes of his poetry were translated into Hebrew by Muhammad Hamza Ghaneim: Bed of a Stranger (2000), Why Did You Leave the Horse Alone? (2000), State of Siege (2003) and Mural (2006). [20] Salman Masalha, a bilingual Arabic-Hebrew writer, translated his book Memory for Forgetfulness into Hebrew.[21] In March 2000, Yossi Sarid, the Israeli education minister, proposed that two of Darwish's poems be included in the Israeli high school curriculum. Prime Minister Ehud Barak rejected the proposal on the grounds that Israel was "not ready."[22] It has been suggested that the incident had more to do with internal Israeli politics in trying to damage Prime Minister Ehud Barak's government than poetry.[23] With the death of Darwish the debate about including his poetry in the Israeli school curriculum has been re-opened.[24]

[edit] Political activism
Darwish was a member of Rakah, the Israeli communist party, before joining the Palestine Liberation Organization in Beirut.[25] In 1970 he left for Moscow. Later, he moved to Cairo in 1971 where he worked for al-Ahram daily newspaper. In Beirut, in 1973, he edited the monthly Shu'un Filistiniyya (Palestinian Affairs) and worked as a director in the Palestinian Research Center of the PLO and joined the organisation. In the wake of the Lebanon War, Darwish wrote the political poems Qasidat Bayrut (1982) and Madih al-zill al'ali(1983). Darwish was elected to the PLO Executive Committee in 1987. In 1988 he wrote a manifesto intended as the Palestinian people's declaration of independence. In 1993, after the Oslo accords, Darwish resigned from the PLO Executive Committee.[26] Darwish has consistently demanded a "tough and fair" stand in negotiations with Israel.[27]
In 1988, one of his poems, Passers Between the Passing Words, was cited in the Knesset by Yitzhak Shamir.[5] He was accused of demanding that the Jews leave Israel, although he claimed he meant the West Bank and Gaza[28]: "So leave our land/Our shore, our sea/Our wheat, our salt, our wound." A specialist on Darwish's poetry Adel Usta, said the poem was misunderstood and mistranslated,[29] while poet and translator Ammiel Alcalay wrote that "the hysterical overreaction to the poem simply serves as a remarkably accurate litmus test of the Israeli psyche ... (the poem) is an adamant refusal to accept the language of the occupation and the terms under which the land is defined".[30]
Despite his criticism of both Israel and the Palestinian leadership, Darwish believed that peace was attainable. "I do not despair," he told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. "I am patient and am waiting for a profound revolution in the consciousness of the Israelis. The Arabs are ready to accept a strong Israel with nuclear arms - all it has to do is open the gates of its fortress and make peace."[9]
In July 2007, Darwish returned to Ramallah and visited Haifa for a festive event held in his honor sponsored by Masharaf magazine and the Israeli Hadash party. [31]To a crowd of some 2,000 people who turned out for the event, he voiced his criticism of the Hamas takeover:
"We woke up from a coma to see a monocolored flag (of Hamas) do away with the four-color flag (of Palestine)."[32]

[edit] Music and film
Many of Darwish's poems were set to music most notably Rita, Birds of Galilee and I Yearn for my Mother's Bread and have become anthems for at least two generations of Arabs, by Arab composers, among them Marcel Khalife[33][34], Majida El Roumi and Ahmad Qa'abour.[35] In the 1980s, Sabreen, a Palestinian group in Israel, recorded an album including versions of Darwish's poems "On Man" and "On Wishes".[36] Khalife was accused of blasphemy and insulting religious values because a song entitled I am Yusuf, oh my father based on Darwish's lyrics, cited a verse from the Qur'an.[37] In this poem, Darwish shared the pain of Yusuf (Joseph) who was rejected by his brothers, who fear him because he is too handsome and kind. "Oh my father, I am Yusuf / Oh father, my brothers neither love me nor want me in their midst". The story of Joseph is an allegory for the rejection of the Palestinians.
Tamar Muskal, an Israeli-American composer incorporated Dawish's "I Am From There" into her composition "The Yellow Wind," which combines a full orchestra, Arabic flute, Arab and Israeli poetry, and themes from David Grossman's book The Yellow Wind.[38]
In 1997, a documentary entitled Mahmoud Darwish was produced by French TV directed by French-Israeli director Simone Bitton.[39]

[edit] Quotations
Why are we always told that we cannot solve our problem without solving the existential anxiety of the Israelis and their supporters who have ignored our very existence for decades in our own homeland?[40]
We have triumphed over the plan to expel us from history.[41]
"I thought poetry could change everything, could change history and could humanize, and I think that the illusion is very necessary to push poets to be involved and to believe, but now I think that poetry changes only the poet."[42][43]
"We should not justify suicide bombers. We are against the suicide bombers, but we must understand what drives these young people to such actions. They want to liberate themselves from such a dark life. It is not ideological, it is despair."
"We have to understand - not justify - what gives rise to this tragedy. It's not because they're looking for beautiful virgins in heaven, as Orientalists portray it. Palestinian people are in love with life. If we give them hope - a political solution - they'll stop killing themselves."[3]
“Sarcasm helps me overcome the harshness of the reality we live, eases the pain of scars and makes people smile. The sarcasm is not only related to today’s reality but also to history. History laughs at both the victim and the aggressor.”[4]
"I will continue to humanise even the enemy... The first teacher who taught me Hebrew was a Jew. The first love affair in my life was with a Jewish girl. The first judge who sent me to prison was a Jewish woman. So from the beginning, I didn't see Jews as devils or angels but as human beings." Several poems are to Jewish lovers. "These poems take the side of love not war,"[3]

[edit] Awards
The Lotus Prize (1969; from the Union of Afro-Asian Writers)
Lenin Peace Prize (1983; from the USSR)
The Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters (1993; from France)
The Lannan Foundation Prize for Cultural Freedom (2001)[44]
Prince Claus Awards (2004)
"Bosnian stecak" (2007)
Golden Wreath of Struga Poetry Evenings (2007)
[edit] Death
Mahmoud Darwish died on August 9, 2008 at the age of 67, three days after heart surgery at Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston, Texas. Before surgery, Darwish had signed a document asking not to be resuscitated in the event of brain death.[45]
Early reports of his death in the Arabic press indicated that Darwish had asked in his will to be buried in Palestine. Three locations were originally suggested; his home village of al-Birwa, the neighboring village Jadeida, where some of Darwish's family still resides or in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Ramallah Mayor Janet Mikhail announced later that Darwish would be buried next to Ramallah's Palace of Culture, at the summit of a hill overlooking Jerusalem on the southwestern outskirts of Ramallah, and a shrine would be erected in his honor.[25] Ahmed Darwish said "Mahmoud doesn't just belong to a family or a town, but to all the Palestinians, and he should be buried in a place where all Palestinians can come and visit him."[46]
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared three days of mourning to honor Darwish and he was accorded the equivalent of a State funeral.[25][47]
Arrangements for flying the body in from Texas delayed the funeral for a day.[48] Darwish's body was then flown from Amman, Jordan for the burial in Ramallah. The first eulogy was delivered by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to an orderly gathering of thousands. Several left-wing Knessets members attended the official ceremony; Mohammed Barakeh (Hadash) and Ahmed Tibi (United Arab List-Ta'al) stood with the family, and Dov Khenin (Hadash) and Jamal Zahalka (Balad) were in the hall at the Mukataa. Also present was the former French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin.[49] After the ceremony, Darwish's coffin was taken in a cortege at walking pace from the Mukataa to the Palace of Culture, gathering thousands of followers along the way.

[edit] Published work
[edit] Poetry
Asafir bila ajniha (Wingless birds), 1960
Awraq Al-Zaytun (Leaves of olives), 1964
Ashiq min filastin (A lover from Palestine), 1966
Akhir al-layl (The end of the night), 1967
Yawmiyyat jurh filastini (Diary of a Palestinian wound), 1969
Habibati tanhad min nawmiha (My beloved awakens), 1969
al-Kitabah 'ala dhaw'e al-bonduqiyah (Writing in the light of the gun), 1970
al-'Asafir tamut fi al-jalil (Birds are Dying in Galilee), 1970
Mahmoud Darwish works, 1971. Two volumes
Mattar na'em fi kharif ba'eed (Light rain in a distant autumn) 1971
Uhibbuki aw la uhibbuki (I love you, I love you not), 1972
Jondiyyun yahlum bi-al-zanabiq al-baidaa' (A soldier dreaming of white lilies), 1973
Complete Works, 1973. Now al-A'amal al-jadida (2004) and al-A'amal al-oula (2005).
Muhawalah raqm 7 (Attempt number 7), 1974
Tilka suratuha wa-hadha intihar al-ashiq (That's her image, and that's the suicide of her lover), 1975
Ahmad al-za'tar, 1976
A'ras (Weddings), 1977
al-Nasheed al-jasadi (The music of human flesh), 1980. Joint work
Qasidat Bayrut (Ode to Beirut), 1982
Madih al-zill al-'ali (A eulogy for the tall shadow), 1983
Hissar li-mada'eh al-bahr, 1984
Victims of a Map, 1984. Joint work with Samih al-Qasim and Adonis in English.
Sand and Other Poems, 1986
Hiya ughniyah, hiya ughniyah (It's a song, it's a song), 1985
Ward aqal (Fewer roses), 1985
Ma'asat al-narjis, malhat al-fidda (Tragedy of daffodils, comedy of silver), 1989
Ara ma oreed (I see what I want), 1990
Ahad 'asher kaukaban (Eleven planets), 1992
Limaza tarakt al-hissan wahidan (Why did you leave the horse alone?), 1995. English translation 2006 by Jeffrey Sacks (ISBN 0976395010)
Psalms, 1995. A selection from Uhibbuki aw la uhibbuki, translation by Ben Bennani
Sareer El-Ghariba (Bed of a stranger), 1998
Then Palestine, 1999 (with Larry Towell, photographer, and Rene Backmann)
Jidariyya (Mural), 2000
The Adam of Two Edens: Selected Poems, 2001
Halat Hissar (State of siege), 2002
La ta'tazer 'amma fa'alt (Don't apologize for what you did), 2003
Unfortunately, It Was Paradise: Selected Poems, 2003. Translations by Munir Akash, Caroyln Forché and others
al-A'amal al-jadida (The new works), 2004. A selection of Darwish's recent works
al-A'amal al-oula (The early works), 2005. Three volumes, a selection of Darwish's early works
Ka-zahr el-lawz aw ab'ad (Same as almond flowers or farther), 2005
[edit] Prose
Shai'on 'an al-wattan (Something about the homeland), 1971
Wada'an ayatuha al-harb, wada'an ayuha al-salaam (Farwell, war, farwell, peace), 1974
Yawmiyyat al-hozn al-'aadi (Diary of the usual sadness), 1973
Dhakirah li-al-nisyan (Memory for Forgetfulness), 1987. English translation 1995 by Ibrahim Muhawi
Fi wasf halatina (Describing our condition), 1987
al-Rasa'il (The Letters), 1990. Joint work with Samih al-Qasim
Aabiroon fi kalamen 'aaber (Bypassers in bypassing words), 1991
Fi hadrat al-ghiyab (In the presence of absence), 2006
[edit] References
^ BBC News 9 August 2008 Palestinian 'national poet' dies
^ New York Times 22 December 2001 A Poet's Palestine as a Metaphor by Adam Shatz
^ a b c d Guardian Saturday June 8, 2002 Poet of the Arab world by Maya Jaggi
^ a b Saudi Gazette 10 August 2008 Death defeats Darwish
^ a b c d e f g PHRC Saturday June 8, 2002 Poet of the Arab world by Maya Jaggi, Originally printed in the Guardian
^ a b Guardian 11 August 2008 Mahmoud Darwish by Peter Clark
^ Geocities Mahmoud Darwish Biography by Sameh Al-Natour.
^ http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1019886.html
^ a b Seattle Times Saturday, August 9, 2008 Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish dead at 67 By Diaa Hadid
^ a b New York Times 10 May 1996 Ramallah Journal;Suitcase No Longer His Homeland, a Poet Returns By Joel Greenberg
^ http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1019886.html
^ Ha'aretzPalestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish to attend event in Haifa By Yoav Stern,
^ BBC News 16 July 2007 Palestinian poet derides factions
^ see the site
^ Fencemag.com
^ Poets.org from the Academy of American Poets
^ http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1019886.html
^ New York Times 7 March 2000 Ramallah Journal; Poetry of Arab Pain: Are Israeli Students Ready? by Susan Sachs
^ http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1011812.html
^ http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1019886.html
^ http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1019886.html
^ BBC News 7 March 2000 Poetry sends Israel into political storm
^ New York Times 14 March 2000 Barak Survives 2 No-Confidence Motions by Susan Sontag
^ Jpost10 August 2008 Should Darwish's poetry be taught in schools? By Ehud Zion Waldoks
^ a b c Ha'aretz 10 August 2008 Palestinians: Mahmoud Darwish to be laid to rest in Israel By Zvi Bar'el
^ New York Times 25 August 1993 Palestinian Critics Accuse Arafat Of Secret Concessions to Israelis by Youseff M. Ibrahim page 2
^ kirjasto.sci.fi/darwish
^ New York Times 5 April, 1988 Palestinian's Poem Unnerves Israelis
^ CBC 9 August 2008 Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish dies
^ Alcalay, Ammiel (7 August 1988), "Who's Afraid of Mahmoud Darwish?", News From Within IV (8): 14-16
^ http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1011812.html
^ AFP 9 August 2008 Famed Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish dies: hospital
^ I am Yusuf, oh my father
^ My Mother's Bread
^ International Herald Tribune 10 August 2008 Mahmoud Darwish, Palestinian poet, is dead Reuters, The Associated Press
^ [1]
^ Marcel Khalife's website In Defence of Freedom and Creativity By Mahmoud Darwish
^ New York Times 14 May 2005 Letting Music Speak of Mideast Pain by Felicia R Lee
^ Official Mahmoud Darwish website
^ New York Times 19 September 1988 Waiting, Forever, for Mr. Arafat
^ New York Times 15 May 1998 Mideast Turmoil: In Jerusalem; Israeli Police In a Clash With Arabs by Joel Greenberg
^ The Progressive May 2002 Mahmoud Darwish: Palestine's Poet of Exile By Nathalie Handal
^ Tikun Olam Aug 10th, 2008 Mahmoud Darwish, Palestine’s Greatest Poet, Dies by Richard Silverstein
^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/14/israelandthepalestinians.poetry?gusrc=rss&feed=worldnews
^ al Jazeera.net 10 August 2008 Palestinian poet Darwish dies
^ Jpost 10 August 2008 PA may request Galilee burial for poet By Associated Press
^ Washington Post 10 August 2008 Palestinians plan big funeral for poet Darwish By Mohammed Assadi
^ Gulfnews.com 11 August 2008 Mahmoud Darwish funeral postponed till Wednesday
^ Ha'aretz 14 August 2008 Mahmoud Darwish - The death of a Palestinian cultural symbol By Avi Issacharoff and Jack Khoury
[edit] External links
Mahmoud Darwish: Official website
FAQ on Mahmoud Darwish at the Institute for Middle East Understanding
Listen to Mahmoud Darwish (videos in Arabic and French)
Homage to Mahmoud Darwish Hour-long radio program from Voices of the Middle East
Mahmoud Darwish Commented Bibliography
Roundtable discussion on Mahmoud Darwish at the Institute for Middle East Understanding
Darwish poems
Darwish biography
2002 Article on Darwish from The Progressive
Short biography, two poems and one exerpt at Fence
Five Darwish poems at Poemhunter.com
Seven Darwish poems at a Geocities fansite
Poem of Darwish in a light projection of artist Jenny Holzer in London
Poem by Darwish at the Virginia Quarterly Review
Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre
Poets.org In Jerusalem
Poets.org I Belong There
YouTube Mahmoud Darwish -Abiroun
Marcel Khalife.com Oh My Father, I am Yusif

Call girl to e-mail girl
Sex rackets are flourishing online, with a raft of escort services — including those from small-town Bengal — strutting their stuff on the web. Prasun Chaudhuri reports

The trade was never this easy. All that you have to do is e-mail an “escort” service. You get a prompt reply with a cell phone number. You call the number and a “hostess” answers, asking for your preferences. “We have top beauties — executives, housewives, models — who offer personal elite escort service to discerning gentlemen,” she says.
A week later, Rina, the escort, calls up. In her mid-20s — or so she claims — Rina stresses that she’s been an escort for years but has just got listed on the Web. “Now I’ll have my own site,” she exults. “On the Net you get to screen clients.”
Rina — or her escort service — won’t say it upfront, but she is the new face of the Calcutta sex worker. Unlike her older mates, she doesn’t hang around shady corners at dusk or sit provocatively in hotel lounges. She advertises herself on the Net — but as an escort. Scores of online services promise escorts to suit every occasion.
Rina came to know about the online agencies from Neha, a college student who has just joined the sex trade. Neha says she has her own site, linked to top escort agencies.
The money, clearly, is good. To meet a premium escort, you need to deposit Rs 15,000 in a specified account. One night with an escort can cost upwards of Rs 25,000. Rina says agents grab 80 per cent of an escort’s fees.
The agents are, not surprisingly, tightlipped about the racket. “We do use the Net, but you can’t prove we’re selling sex,” says Rina’s agent, Rocky. One of Calcutta’s top agents for escorts, Rajesh, is, however, convinced about the benefits of hooking clients through the Net. “You get premium customers who can pay loads,” he says.
Indeed, the phenomenon is far from being confined to Calcutta. Web-based escort services are also reaching out to places outside Calcutta such as Alipurduar, Berhampore, Naihati and Purulia. “Escorts can always become available at home, office or hotel as fast as (in) 20 minutes,” one web site proudly announces.
A project conducted in Naihati, a town 40 km from Calcutta, finds that most sex workers are housewives or students. Sujoy Singh of Naihati ProLife, who has been associated with the national project, says that women join sex rackets to make money to be able to buy smart phones or luxury cars. “Many of them not only use the Net to develop contacts but have joined porn rackets for some extra money,” says Singh.
Debashree Chattopadhyay, officer in charge of the immoral traffic section of the Calcutta Police, says she has received preliminary reports about a flourishing pornography industry in rural Bengal. The Suprova Panchashila Mahila Udyog Samity, an organisation working on an HIV intervention programme in Behrampore in rural Bengal, has found cases of students of technology colleges participating in sex rings.
“Until recently, most sex workers were either trafficked or compelled by poverty to join the profession,” says Subodh Das, the author of a four-volume book Chaloman Jounokormi (Stories of Mobile Sex Workers). “But now these streetwalkers are facing stiff competition from affluent call girls who can access the Net to hook new age clients.”
The law enforcement agencies are not unduly bothered by the Net-based prostitution rings masquerading as escort agencies. Chattopadhyay of the Calcutta Police is aware of online escorts in the city — she even knows which hotels they operate from — but states that the law (the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act) doesn’t recognise them as criminals. “Call girl service advertising on the Net isn’t illegal as long as it doesn’t involve children or exploitation,” she says.
There is little that the West Bengal Women’s Commission can do either. “Our law has yet to catch up with pimping or soliciting over the Net,” says commission chairperson Malini Bhattacharya. “But we need to investigate because after all the Net is a public domain and online networks can easily target Net-savvy adolescents,” she adds.
Some organisations, however, have started dealing with Net-based prostitution. “Although it is not our priority, we plan to explore its role in girl trafficking,” says Anindit Roy-Chowdhury of Sanlaap, an organisation battling commercial sexual exploitation. He recalls the case of an 18-year-old woman who was rescued after she was trafficked by a Delhi-based prostitution ring operating through an online matrimonial agency. “If you’re a troubled teenager, it’s an easy way to make quick money. There are chatrooms which often lure unsuspecting adolescents into prostitution,” says Roy-Chowdhury.
That Calcutta and its suburbs are being drawn into the online prostitution was first documented in 2004 by the Bhoruka Public Welfare Trust (BPWT), a body working on an HIV/AIDS intervention programmes for Calcutta’s sex workers. “We’d bumped into websites that solicited sex,” says Ishita Majumder, senior project manager, BPWT. “Deals are discreetly done through e-mails till the agent is convinced of the client’s intentions.”
Majumder points out that it was difficult getting into the networks that operate clandestinely, unlike traditional sex workers who are out in the open. “Since most women (who use Net services) belong to educated middle-class families, they dread any kind of exposure,” she says.
It took them more than six years to reach out to 1,189 women, 201 agents and 506 clients. Among the women were housewives, office workers and even school students. “Although most of them do it for the money, some get into it for the self esteem of being employed and in control of their sexuality,” she says. As these women have access to the Net and can afford several mobile phones, they naturally join online agencies. Many clients too prefer the Net to develop contacts.
Another organisation, the Society of Human Genetics and Population Health (Sohgaph), has been dealing with HIV/AIDS prevention among sex workers in Salt Lake. “We spoke to 1,800 call girls and 15 agents,” says Samadrita Sardar Mukherjee, secretary, Sohgaph. “Some are tech savvy, make extensive use of Net-based services and are independent.”
Two surveys commissioned by the ministry of women and child development demonstrate the modernisation of the sex trade in India. The countrywide 2004 and 2008 surveys of 20,000 sex workers reveal the use of the Internet and the mobile phone “to develop and maintain contacts.” According to K.K. Mukherjee, who led the surveys, brothel-based prostitution is fast disappearing from India.
“Consumerism has changed our values. Now young women from upper class families are getting hooked on to the sex trade and the clients too have a similar background,” says Mukherjee. “Young men are exposed to pornography or sex chat forums from an early age; escort agencies reach these clients through links to these sleazy sites.”
Brothel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2007)
"Lupanar" redirects here. For the Pompeii brothel, see Lupanar (Pompeii).
For the 2008 film of this name, see The Brothel. For the television series of this name, see Cathouse: The Series.
A brothel, also known as a bordello or whorehouse, is an establishment specifically dedicated to prostitution, providing the prostitutes a place to meet and to have sex with the clients. In some places, brothels are legal, and in many countries, places such as massage parlors are allowed to function as brothels, with varying degrees of regulation and repression. Depending on zoning, brothels may be confined to special red-light districts or 'tolerance zones'.

18th century illustration of Sally Salisbury stabbing a client in a brothel.

Contents [hide]
1 Business models
2 Military brothels
3 Nevada brothels
4 Regulation
5 In popular culture
6 See also
7 Bibliography
8 External links
9 References


[edit] Business models
Brothels use a variety of business models:
In some, prostitutes are held in involuntary servitude without the option to leave,[1] receiving only a small portion (or none) of the money paid by the patron. This is typical where human trafficking procures a large percentage of prostitutes, and is common in (though not limited to) countries where prostitution is forbidden or repressed. In some cases, prostitutes are bought and sold by their keepers, reducing them to a state of chattel slavery. All of these are illegal in most jurisdictions.
In others the prostitutes are employees, receiving a small fixed salary and a portion of the money spent by the customer. (Maison close French for "closed house")
In still others, the prostitutes pay a fee for use of the facilities, with the brothel owner not being involved in the financial transaction between prostitute and client. (Maison de passe, French for "trick house")
In the regulated brothels in Nevada the prostitutes are contract workers who split their earnings with the house, and are often expected to "tip" support staff (cleaners, limo drivers, etc.); they receive no benefits, such as health insurance, and no withholding for Social Security taxes.
In those countries which restrict or forbid prostitution, the latter provides some level of plausible denial to the facility owner, who often (thinly) disguises the brothel as a massage parlor, bar or similar facility. Allowing such brothels may also be a form of face-saving by politicians who are unwilling or unable to fully enforce laws against prostitution.

[edit] Military brothels
Further information: Comfort women, Bordels Mobiles de Campagne, and Forced prostitution in German armed forces
Until recently, in several armies around the world, a mobile brothel service was attached to the army as an auxiliary unit, especially attached to combat units on long-term deployments abroad. For example, during French and Japanese colonial campaigns of the 20th century, such employees were mainly recruited among the local populace of Southeast Asia and Africa; often, some of the women were underage. Because it is a touchy subject, military brothels were often designated with creative euphemisms. Notable examples of such jargon are la boîte à bonbons (English: "the candy box"), replacing the term "Bordel militaire de campagne". Women forced into prostitution by the Japanese occupation armies throughout East Asia were known as "Comfort battalions". The prostitutes were individually referred to as "Military comfort women" or jugun-ianfu.

[edit] Nevada brothels
In the United States, the only state where brothels are legal is Nevada (see List of brothels in Nevada and Prostitution in Nevada). Brothels are allowed in counties with populations of less than 400,000 inhabitants, and not all qualifying counties have allowed them. County governments license and regulate brothels within their boundaries. The brothels and their employees have to register with the county sheriff and receive regular medical checkups. Brothels have existed in Nevada since the old mining days of the 1800s and were first licensed in 1971. As of 2007, thirty brothels existed in Nevada. The legendary Mustang Ranch operated from 1971 through 1999, when it was forfeited to the federal government following a series of convictions for tax fraud, racketeering, and other crimes.
Due to the county population rule, all forms of prostitution are illegal in Reno and Las Vegas, and prostitution not occurring in a licensed brothel is illegal anywhere in Nevada.

[edit] Regulation
Various countries have fully legalized prostitution (as opposed to only tolerating it) in the last decades, including countries such as the Netherlands, Germany and New Zealand among others. Most of these countries seem to favor brothels, at least in theory, as they are considered to be less problematic than street prostitution. Laws regarding prostitution often include strict regulations for brothels, for example specifying that they may not be situated in certain zones (such as in residential areas or near schools) and usually prescribing various forms of health inspections. Actual regulations vary widely.[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothel



Cracks expose India’s fragile nation-hood: Raj Thackeray hammers Bharat Mata
Oppressed “low caste” lumpen proletariat of Bombay led by the newly aggressive Maharashtra Navnirman Samiti (MNS) has once again proved that India is not a “nation” but a country divided into several warring “nations”. We had said this many times but an angry Bihari gunman, who came to kill Raj Thackeray and was gunned down by the Bombay police in the last week of October 2008, has very graphically proved it.
Cracks have started appearing thick and fast exposing Hindu India’s fragile nationhood. We welcome this trend and expect many more serious cracks damning the Bharat Mata worshipping crackpots.
North-South divide: As this is written the North Indian states of Bihar and UP, two of the country’s most populous states and also the most backward, heart of the stinking Hindi heartland, are on a warpath against Maharashtra. Such a North-South divide has pushed into background even the ever-present caste contradictions. Language, class or political divide are all pushed aside. It is simply North against South. Good development.
Already many angry articles, editorials and comments have appeared in our “national” toilet papers on this subject. But none said the Bombay killing of the Bihari gunman, which united all the quarelling Bihari leaders, is part of the country’s boiling nationality question. That once again proves the depth of the country’s intellectual poverty.
It is only the Brahminical people who say India is a “nation” while the history says India was never, ever a nation but a sub-continent of perpetually warring nations. The Constitution of India describes the country as a “union of states”.
India is slowly cracking into nation-states. Yes. History is asserting itself.
Partition of India: As soon as India became “free” (1947) from the British rule, the country got divided on religious lines into “Hindu India” and “Muslim Pakistan”. Then India was again divided on linguistic basis.
Bombay dominated by North Indians: But the different “nations” living inside “Hindu India” are slowly but gradually erupting to assert themselves. The killing of the Bihari gunman in a Bombay city bus shoot-out dramatically brings out the boiling anger in the hearts of the poor, oppressed Marathi “low castes” against the domination of Bombay by the North Indian Hindi-speakers.
We know Bombay very well and lived in the city three times. Bombay is the capital of the Marathi-speaking Maharashtrians but controlled by the Punjabis, Gujaratis, Sindhis, Marwadis — all upper castes. The Maharashtrains are mostly working as slaves. The Hindi-speaking UP and Bihari fellows also constitute the working class — all “low castes”.
In the early 60’s, the cartoonist-turned Hindu terrorist leader, Bal Thackeray, exploited the anger of the poor, “low caste” Maharashtrians by attacking the South Indian (read Udupi) hotels. The owners of the hotels were neither upper castes nor millionaires like the Punjabis, Sindhis, Marwadis and Gujaratis. But the attack on hotels then helped hoist Thackeray, a Kayasth, as a powerful leader of the Marathi “low caste” lumpen proletariat.
Brahmins hate Thackeray: Bal Thackeray never spoke against or attacked the real owners of Bombay city in the film, stock market, business, trade, commerce, industry. Rather, he attacked the Udupi hotels, collected money from them but protected the North Indian multi-millionaires. To keep his ill-gotten wealth running into hundreds of crores, he aligned with the Hindu terrorist RSS-BJP parties although the Brahmins controlling these parties always hated Bal Thackeray who has now become too old and weak.
We have written a lot on the Brahmin-Thackeray conflict and how intensely the Marathi Brahmins hate him.
Blood-suckers of Marathis are safe: As Bal Thackeray started fading, his nephew came on the scene and the latest development has brought Raj Thackeray on the top replacing his maternal uncle.
But the current North-South nationality struggle is not being waged between the oppressed and the oppressors. The beauty is on both sides only the poor, oppressed “low castes” are fighting and dying. The real blood-suckers of Bombay’s Marathis are not attacked. In fact the villains are managing the bloody drama from the back-door.
A stray incident in which a lone UP Brahmin journalist, Dinanath Tiwari (40), was attacked on Oct.29 in Bombay by Raj Thackeray’s MNC goons. This is the first case of striking the right target. As the upper caste Brahminical people own the media and have their men in key positions they can always manage to keep themselves hiding in the background and manage the contradictions without being identified.
Maharashtra jumps from North to South: Yet another interesting aspect of the latest explosion is that for the first time the Maharashtrians surprisingly identifying themselves as anti-North. All these years the Maharashtrians, at least officially, never claimed themselves to be South Indians. To call themselves South Indians was below their dignity all these years.
This is because the Marathi language uses the Devanagari (Sanskrit) script like Hindi. They always pretended to be part of the Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan because of the tremendous Brahmin influence on the Maharashtrians. This false pride has melted away. Good.
Homeland of RSS: The country’s topmost Hindu terrorist party, RSS, was born in Maharashtra. The topmost Hindu terrorist leader, B.G. Tilak, a founder of RSS, was a Maharashtrian Brahmin. So too the RSS leader Nathuram Godse who killed M.K. Gandhi. RSS has its headquarters at Nagpur. Maharashtrian Brahmins, particularly the Chitpavans, lead the hate-mongering honchos of India.
It is this influence that welded the mental make-up of the Maharashtrians though their state is down the Vindhyas — the dividing line between the North and the South.
Be that as it may, the Bihari gunman forced the unthinking Maharashtrian lumpen proletariat to throw their lot with South India. This is a welcome development in the latest nationality struggle warming up in the country. So far only four states — AP, Karnatkaa, TN and Kerala — comprised South India.
We thank Raj Thackeray for pulling out Maharashtra from the stinking Hindi heartland and putting it with the progressive South.
Let the nationality struggle continue.
Bharat Mata worshippers: Aryans (upper castes) led by the less than 3% Brahmins are the worshippers of Bharat Mata and the Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan mad philosophy. The Maharashtrian Brahmins as the cheer leaders of this mad philosophy are not happy with Raj Thackeray war on the North Indians. Even South Indian Brahmins, who consider Sanskrit as their mother tongue, are fully united with their North Indian jatwalas.
That is why India’s Brahmin-controlled “national” toilet papers unanimously condemned Raj Thackeray and desired to drink his blood.
But the Maratha community-led Maharashtra Govt. silently sympathised with Raj Thackeray for two reasons: (1) to cut the demon of Bal Thackeray to size and also (2) to weaken the Hindu terrorist forces which are very strong in Maharashtra.
The upper castes of North, South and East India are anxiously watching and silently weeping because Raj Thackeray has hammered their Bharat Mata.
The country’s largest state of UP — the most stinking spot of the Aryavarta — where all their gods, holy rivers, holy temples, Ramjanam Bhoomi are situated — is ruled by an angry Untouchable woman (Mayawati), daily kicking their heart. A precious piece of UP is already sliced away as Uttaranchal. Mayawati is demanding a further breakup of UP.
Politically, the vaidiks have lost UP. Bihar has also gone into the hands of OBCs. Everywhere the Aryan Brahminical people are losing. Even their own Brahmana Jati Party is headed by a hated Thakur. Their party nominee for prime ministership is the hated Sindhi Khatri, L.K. Advani. Muslims are not giving them any peace. The Untouchables are polluting all those held sacred by the Bhoodevatas.
Telangana: Separation of Telangana from AP has almost become a reality. Kashmir is almost lost. The North-East no longer considers part of “Hindu India”. Sikhs, once cut to size, may rise their head again.
The latest financial crisis has seriously affected the rich (read upper castes). On the top of all these mounting misfortunes if the Black-cum-Muslim Barack Obama gets elected in USA what will happen to their new-found friendship with Jews? And their bomb-making project?
As all their dreams are collapsing one by one, Raj Thackeray is trying to drive them out of the country’s biggest and the richest city. If they find their life miserable in Bombay also, what they will do is to kill the city. That is what they did in Calcutta, Madras. Already Bombay has started dying.
Nationality struggle is unstoppable. Because India is a broken mirror. Any amount of glue cannot bring it to normalcy. (Nov. 1, 2008)
DV REFERENCE TO NATIONALITY QUESTION
DV Dec.16, 2005 p.8: “Caste consciousness will avert dangers like Shiva Sena”.
DV Aug.1, 2005 p.6: “Power flows out of caste — not gun”.
DV March 1, 2004 p.6: “Sambhaji Brigade ruins Thackeray’s hate politics”.
DV Nov.16, 2002 p.8: “Bal Thackeray’s Muslim-baiting”.
DV Sept.1, 1999 p.6: “Shudra Bal Thackeray sentenced to death for challenging vaidik vampire”.
DV June 1, 1999 p.6: “Shudra Thackeray exposes vaidik beggars disguised as writers”.
DV March 16, 1994: “Why Hindu press hates Hindu nazi Bal Thackeray?”
DV April 1, 1992 p.22: “DV proves right: BSO cuts Thackeray to size”.
DV Jan.16, 1992 p.20: “Thackeray’s fall is a warning to all shudra worms & slaves”.
DV Dec.1, 1991 p.11: “Shudra nazi chief gets a taste of Brahmin anger”.
DV Nov.16, 1991 p.22: “Brahmin-shudra fight within the nazi parties”.
http://www.dalitvoice.org/Templates/nov_a2008/editorial.htm
DEBATE
Dalai Lama selling Brahminism in the name of Budhism
KULDIP KUMAR, 1269 - URBAN ESTATE -II, HISAR - 125 005
A meeting of DV family members of UP held at Lucknow on Sept.28 was attended by about 120 people. Compared to Delhi, the attendance was very good. In all six women were present of which three were Muslims. Some Dalit Muslims and Christians were also present. Only one person came with his wife. About 20 came from outside UP.
The Editor invited me (Haryana) and Bhimrao Ganvir (Nagpur) to speak on Budhism. I distributed a four-page Hindi note on Budh Dharm: Hamara Kal, Aaj aur Kal. The host, Moses Parmar, expressed concern that the curse of caste has not spared even those who left Hinduism and adopted Christianity. In Orissa and Gujarat where the Hindu terrorist VHP and Bajrang Dal attacked Christians, the worst sufferers were the Dalit Christians.
Dalai Lama role: The Editor explained how the Brahmins infiltrated and polluted all the religions in India. Even after leaving Hinduism, the stamp of “low caste” did not vanish. In all religions, top posts were held by Brahmin converts. Under Budhism the Brahmins are not holding top positions but they have now started polluting it also. Budhists have started adopting the same rituals and ceremonies of Brahminism.
The Dalai Lama who claims to be a Budhist, was actually selling Brahminism. Just as the “Jews of India” created a false image of “India shining”, the Jews in America, who controlled its economy created the same illusion in their country. Both the Jews and the “Jews of India” ruined the common people in their countries.
India’s first Dalit PM: The rise of Barack Obama was giving sleepless nights to the Jews of America. The Brahmins of India do not know that their “India shining” has lost its shine. The Blacks of India are going to regain their regime. Mayawati is on the verge of becoming the first Dalit Prime Minister, he said.
While comparing Babasaheb and M.K. Gandhi, the Editor said that Gandhi was being called the “father of the nation”. As there were numerous nations in India, Gandhi was the father of which nation? The Brahmin and Kshatriya “nations” would never accept a low caste Bania to be father of their nations. The Dalits have declared him as their enemy no.1. That means he could at best be the father of only one nation of Banias. On the contrary Babasaheb is the “father of India”. He not only provided his children a parliamentary democracy but also social equality, fraternity and liberty. Not only that. He looked after the interests of Muslim, Christian, BCs and even upper caste women.
Irshadul Haque, a Dalit-Muslim from Patna, very emphatically presented his point that like Brahminism, their religion too was infested with graded casteism. There could be unity only between Dalit and Dalit Muslims. Upper caste Muslims were unwilling to form alliance with Dalits. That was how the Dalit-Muslim unity campaign of the Editor failed, he said.
Vipassana: I presented my paper on Budh Dhamma. Babasaheb through his superb intelligence and knowledge cleansed all vices from the Dhamma injected by wretched criminals. He described the purified form of the Dhamma in his book, The Buddha & His Dhamma. Since the last two decades, the conversion to the Dhamma has gained momentum. So the Brahminvadis have again started adopting their tactics of saam niti. This time they have started selling Vipassana in the name of the Dhamma. Soon they will pronounce that Vipassana and tapsya done by their rishis are one and the same thing. Vipassana may or may not be good for health but it has nothing to do with morality and rationality, the two fundamental principles of Dhamma. Right from the Budha to Babasaheb, Kanshi Ram and VTR, none practised Vipassana but all of them spent every moment of their lives to establish moral life in the society. Concluding, the Editor spoke of his age and desired that a torchbearer should come forward to take the burning flame of struggle that he lit 28 years ago.

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Vipassana is Budhism
ER. RAM AWTAR RAM, LUCKNOW


I like Dalit Voice because I am an Ambedkarite and Budhist. I also like your fiery ideas.

My only problem with you is Vipassana. I was shocked to hear bad comments on such a great vidya on earth. In your speech at Lucknow, when you have never attended the Vipassana course, how can you pass comments like that? If you go there with open mind you will get the greatest achievement of your life. I have been to Vipassana for 12 days. Actually it is a holy laboratory of Budhism. How to follow Budhism is learnt there. You cannot be Budhist only by saying that you are a Budhist.

Actually none at the Sept.28 Lucknow meeting was aware of Vipassana except myself and Gautam Jayant. People who were shouting against Vipassana were blind to the facts even without knowing the truth.

People are misguiding the common people. Vipassana is the real Budhism. Without it the society will go astray and become characterless. You did not attend the course because not only your Guru Babasaheb but also my prophet Babasaheb, did not mention it nor practiced it. Vipassana has come into re-existence in India only after its revival and re-discovery by S.N. Goenka in the late 90s. Babasaheb died in 1956.

I can never claim that the Marwadi Goenka is greater than Babasaheb, the Father of India. What I say is that if there is any place for god in universe I will put Babasaheb in that place. I am from a scientific background. Pure Budhism is based on scientific background only. Babasaheb embraced it for its scientific background only. I respect science. In science, nothing can be established on consensus. We accept anything based only on actuality. If 100 persons say a dog is a bull it will not become a bull.

Babasaheb did not criticise Vipassana. You could reach any conclusion only after hearing the experience of those people who have done Vipassana course. I am very sorry to say that all those persons who criticised Vipassana at the Lucknow meeting never did Vipassana. They were telling lies. We should not criticise Vipassana only because of a Marwadi preacher. I am an experienced person on Vipassana.

(ramawtarram@rediffmail.com)


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DV predictions always prove correct
NAVEED HUSSAIN, MADRAS

How true has DV been in prediction again and again. Congratulations. Dalit Voice may have less circulation compared to the trash toilet papers which get support and aid from ruling class/caste. But it is the quality and truthfulness that matters. It is the quality and not the quantity that matters in journalism. Gold will be less abundant than coal. Many IT companies have shifted their base from India to China. Indian economy is also falling. The govt. under control of the Bhoodevatas is squandering our foreign exchange reserves. Instead of helping the poor they are giving out loans to the able (one who can pay back with interest). How can a vaidik ever tolerate the growth and success of a Dalit? (naveed_chennai@yahoo. com).

In the past over 28 years DV has never erred in its predictions which are based purely on our deep study of social forces and the law of contradictions. We were also the first to predict the financial collapse of America and its dollar domination. But, as you rightly said, our circulation is small because the Brahminical rulers are bent upon killing us. It may the duty of the enemy to suffocate us but why our own friends, admirers and fellow suffers like you are silent? — EDITOR.


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Maoist Brahmin no different from RSS Brahmin : Dilemma of class & caste
V.T. RAJSHEKAR

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, had described the naxalites (Maoists) as “terrorists” and clubbed them with Muslim “terrorists”. In his 2007 “independence” day address, he made the shocking statement that there was no greater internal security concern than that presented by naxals. He described them as India’s “single biggest internal security challenge”.

They have been having a free run in over 100 districts for years. A Times of India (Oct.2, 2007) report by its senior journalist said the Govt. of India was finalising plans to “liberate” the areas under naxals by the month-end. One year is over, we see no signs of the govt. clamp-down on naxalites.

Double happiness
Why? Our upper caste rulers have a soft corner for the naxal leaders because the Mandarins leading the Maoists are “our jatwalas”. That is why there is a deliberate go-slow in the planned crackdown.

Even the PM, himself an upper caste Khatri Sikh and a party to all upper caste conspiracies, never bothered to give effect to his harsh “independence” day tantrums against naxals.

Our upper caste rulers have a double happiness: while the leadership is their jatwalas, those killed in Naxal violence are our people: the hated SC/ST/BCs or Muslim/Christians. Let them die. Who cares?

This is the secret of the silence in Delhi. And deliberately not implementing the PM’s I-Day declaration. It is all-round conspiracy.

We recently met a top Naxalite leader, Dipankar Bhattacharya, a Bengali Brahmin, heading an important naxalite outfit in Bihar, called CPI (ML), in Bangalore recently. We heard his speech to a group of local Maoist cadres, mostly dark-looking Dalits who could not understand his English talk.

Dalits, Tribals, OBCs and Muslims are the country’s poorest of the poor. Govt. statistics admit this fact. Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Orissa Dalits and Tribals are virtually starving. Such a dirt poor people have been dubbed the country’s greatest “internal threat” by the PM. Does he have a heart? Such a PM is described by the upper caste rulers as a “good man”, because he is good to them.

The Maoist Naxal leadership is upper caste but the cadres are poor, illiterate, landless Dalits whose anger against the village upper caste landlords and officials is easily exploited by the naxal leadership.

How Marx failed in Hindu India
During our talk with Dipankar Bhattacharya we did our best to convince him that the CPI-CPM parties failed to bring about a marxist revolution in India because they did not identify the ruling class. Those who joined the CPI-CPM were mostly the oppressed castes and communities because they were exploited by the upper castes only because of their low caste status.

The CPI-CPM could have brought about a Marxist revolution in the whole of India had they identified the upper caste as the “class enemy”. But they failed and that is how the party got confined today to W. Bengal and Kerala.

Even here a mere 8% of the upper castes are controlling the party and ruling while the party followers are the Dalits and Muslims who continue to be poor and neglected.

Both CPI and CPM failed to win over the hearts and minds of the over 85% oppressed castes and communities because the party leadership belonged to the very same upper caste exploiters.

Caste-based parties fail
The Maoist (Naxal) movement leadership too is in the hands of the very same hated upper castes and that is why it is not identifying the caste of the “class enemy”.

Both in villages and cities, the class and the caste are the same. The rich are mostly the upper castes and the poor are the lower castes and minorities with minor exceptions. (Read our book, How Marx Failed in Hindu India, DSA-1988, Dilemma of Class & Caste, DSA-1984, Photocopy available, Rs. 110 for both).

There is no difficulty in identifying the enemy oppressor. It is only the oppressed who get attracted to marxism. But the upper castes who captured its leadership (like Dange, EMS, Jyoti Basu, Prakash Karat) are deceiving the followers and defeating the Marxist-Maoist revolution.

We warned Bhattacharya that if the Maoist leadership also committed the same mistake of the CPI-CPM by refusing to accept caste as class under Indian conditions, there is every chance of the maoist movement also going the CPI-CPM way and the oppressed castes losing faith in them.

Dipankar refused to accept our thesis and said “to think that if the lower castes come to power they will be better off has proved to be an illusion” and gave the example of Mayawati, Lalu Prasad, Mulayam and DMK “who have proved that caste-based parties are a failure”. The problem with Bhattacharya is he was referring to “political parties” while we were referring to “political movements”. We consider Maoists as a movement. It is our considered opinion that no political party can bring about socio-cultural changes through vote-based political parties. That is how caste-based political parties proved a failure.

The Congress is only politically opposed to BJP but culturally and socially with the Brahmana Jati Party (BJP). The CPI-CPM too do not socially and culturally fight the RSS-BJP. Brahminical leadership continues to be strong in Marxist-ruled states. CPI-CPM never denounced Brahminism let alone trying to undermine it. The Congress rejected the demand of its own Muslim leaders to ban Bajrang Dal and VHP, a demand made by many other leaders in the ruling UPA alliance. RSS is a Manuwadi (Brahmanwadi) outfit that stands for the supremacy of the upper caste Brahminical people (15%). The Congress, CPI, CPM or even the Maoist parties never publicly denounce Brahminism, India’s principal contradiction. Because the leadership of these parties is Brahminical. Periyar E.V. Ramaswamy and Kanshi Ram in the early stage of BSP did speak of the Aryan aggression.

Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar demanded a cultural-social revolution to uproot Brahminism. But such an exercise is not possible by “capturing” political or state power. Because political leaders, whether state or central, have no control on the social and cultural power. The state is oppressing the SC/ST/BCs and Muslim/Christian/Sikhs at the behest of the Brahminical forces. Brahminism is a thought. The holders of political power at the Centre and the states may be SC/ST/BCs and Muslims but they dare not fight Brahminism.

The Hindu terrorist party RSS always keeps itself outside the state power and yet controls the social and cultural power of the country. Brahminical power controls the state power and cultural-social power but not vice-versa. Mayawati and Kanshi Ram were great followers of Dr. Ambedkar but when they went to capture political power in UP they found it not possible without compromising on Brahmins and Brahminism.

During the six-year rule of BJP under Vajpayee they might have brought lot of gains to upper castes but could not convert India into Hindu Rashtra. They failed despite having the state (political) power.

The RSS knows it and that is why it does not get into electoral power politics but sends its rejected stuff to contest elections and capture power.

But the best of Brahmin wicked brains always remain outside vote politics. If Golwalkar had contested election he would not have got 1,000 votes even in Nagpur where the RSS headquarter is located.

To the RSS state power is secondary. What it wants is Hindu (read Brahminical) nation. The RSS knows that the SC/ST/BCs are against “Hindu nation” (meaning Brahminical imperialism).

So right now it is busy hinduising the non-Hindus — meaning enslaving the anti-Hindu SC/ST/BCs. They have almost succeeded in hinduising the Bahujan Samaj of SC/ST/BCs.

Failure to destroy “caste identity”
But what the RSS, comprising the hard-core Brahminical think tank, failed to do is to destroy the “caste identity” of the SC/ST/BCs. These underdogs are all divided into castes. Every caste has developed strong caste roots and pride in their identity. (Read: Caste — A Nation Within The Nation, Books for Change, Bangalore, Rs. 140).

SC/ST/BCs may say they are Hindu but remain within their caste. What the Brahmins want is destruction of their “caste identity” by hinduising them. Yes. They have done it but could not destroy the “caste identity” which is our only hope.

Did we not say that the caste will destroy the casteists? (Brahminism).

The SC/ST/BCs may angrily shout they are Hindu but once they go home they live within their caste. It is this caste which is blocking the formation of Hindu Rashtra. That is how we consider caste (not the caste system) as our only hope.

The caste division or social division is nothing but a national division that will not allow “Hindu nation” to sprout.

Broken mirror
Every caste is strengthening its roots. Wonderful. This is evident from every caste in India forming its caste association and organising caste conferences. Even Brahmin subcaste associations are flaunting their “caste identity”. Why not all Brahmin subcastes join together and say they are Hindu? No. They are not ready.

This will not happen. Because India is a broken mirror.

Even the Banias have formed their own association to challenge the Brahmins. L.K. Advani is hated by the Brahmins because he is a Sindhi Khatri. When Advani has created the demon, Narendra Modi, who killed thousands of Muslims, why the Brahmins hate Advani? With such internal contradictions how can the Brahmins create Hindu Rashtra?

Advani hated by Brahmins
Brahmin- nonBrahmin hatred is too strong inside RSS-BJP. Advani is not allowing any Brahmin to come up.

When caste is so strong even inside Brahmin parties, Naxalite leader Deepankar Bhattacharya says those who are in the ruling class are not all upper caste. He says caste-based politics has become a failure.

Despite impressing him with all our sincerity that we are honest well-wishers of the Maoist/Naxalite movement and deeply worried over the Dalits losing faith in upper caste leadership, he was not prepared to compromise.

How then can we say a Maoist Brahmin is different from a Hindu terrorist Brahmin?

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DV Sept.16, 2008 p.7: “Brahminical joy over Prachanda take over of Nepal” .

DV Sept.1, 2008 p.12: 6% upper caste ruling Bengal in the name of marxism”.

DV May 16, 2008 p.7: “DV proves right on Prachanda” & “Maoist menace is creation of ruling upper castes”

DV May 1, 2008 p.6: Prachanda establishes Brahmin rule over Nepal”.

DV Jan.16, 2008 p.23: “Brahmin Prachanda betrays Nepal revolution”.

DV Oct.1, 2007 p.8: “Secret of CPM screaming against nuclear deal”. p. 17: “Maoist Prachanda’s wealth”.

DV Edit May 16, 2006: “Red star over India: Danger of manuwadi marxists further enslaving starving Dalits”.

DV March 16, 2006 p.7: “CPM election stunt to fool Dalits?”

DV June 16, 2005 p.6: “Manuwadis in naxalite garb: Vaidik Varavara Rao’s treachery against Dalit hero Gaddar” & “DV proves right on Naxalite natak companies”.

DV June 16, 2004 p.9: “Brahmin face of EMS: How marxists subverted Indian revolution”.

DV Jan.16, 2003 p.23: “How DV prophecy on Marxism proved right”.

DV May 1, 2000 p.7: “If PWG is menace why upper caste rulers are soft on it?”

DV June 16, 1998 p.16: “EMS ensured enslavement of SC/ST/BCs”.

DV Edit May 16, 1998: “Elegy on EMS: Verdict of Bahujans on Modern Shankara”.

DV Edit June 16, 1989: “Naxalites & Marxists join hands with NTR to crush AP Dalit Maha Sabha”.

DV Edit Aug.1, 1984: “To Dalits, Marxists are the Enemy No.1”.

DV Oct.1, 1983 p. 3: “Brahmin-NonBrahmin fight in Communist Party”.

DV Aug.16, 1983 p.4: “The Story of a Calcutta Dalit Disillusioned with marxists”.


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Brahmin hold on Naxals
IRSHADUL HAQUE, PATNA

Dipankar Bhattacharya is the gen. secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist Liberation). He succeeded Vinod Mishra in 1998. Son of a railway employee, he was born in Guwahati (Assam) in 1960 and studied in Ramkrishna Mission Vidyalaya, Narendrapur, near Calcutta and stood first in Higher Secondary Examination in 1979. He then joined the Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta and became active in CPI(ML) politics. Within years he became a professional revolutionary, though he took his M. Stat degree in due course. He later worked as the gen. secretary of the Indian Peoples Front and then as the gen. secretary of the party’s trade union wing and elected member of central committee and political bureau of CPI(ML) in 1987. After the sudden death of Vinod Mishra, he was unanimously elected to the post. His party is active in central Biahr and has 5-8 MLAs in Bihar Assembly. He is very popular among the oppressed castes in rural area.

Our Bombay correspondent adds: Dipankar Bhattacharya is not from Varavara Rao’s Maoist Party. but he is from the so-called CPI-ML (Liberation) which was earlier led by Vinod Mishra, another funny Brahmin. He is promoting the late Charu Majumdar’s son Abhijit Majumdar as supreme leader and general secretary of his outfit in true Manuwadi Brahminical hereditary style.
http://www.dalitvoice.org/Templates/nov_a2008/articles.htm

When Brahminical people are rulers, why this military training ?
OUR CORRESPONDENT

Bangalore: DV was the first in the country to call RSS-BJP and its many outfits as a Hindu terrorist organisation. With the arrest of a 38-year sadhvi and her many accomplices, which included many ex-Army officials for killing innocent Muslims in Malegaon, no further proof is needed to declare them a terrorist outfit. Some serving army officers are also being questioned by the police in this connection. Defence Services have many hard-core Brahminical top officers with close connection with this terrorist outfit.The police have finally found the “Bhonsala Military School” at Nasik which gives training in the use of guns, bombs and swords to its “Hindu students”. The Hindustan Times, the country’s premier Hindu English daily paper from Delhi owned by the Hindu big business house of Birlas, published the picture of the school in its Delhi edition on Oct.28, 2008. Lt. Col (retd.) S.S. Raikar, principal of the school, was also arrested in this connection.

Vasanth Sathe, a Chitpavan Brahmin former Union Minister, is member of the management of the school, established by a founder of the RSS, B.S. Moonje, in 1935.

Marathi Brahmins: For over 63 years this school has trained hundreds of hard core terrorists but none “discovered” it as all those in the police and intelligence happened to be its sympathisers.

Almost all those arrested are Maharashtrian Brahmins, mostly from Pune, home of Nathuram Godse of the RSS who killed M.K. Gandhi.

When Godse was arrested after he killed Gandhi, RSS quickly disowned him. Similarly, RSS-BJP disowned Miss (Sadhvi) Pradhnyasingh Thakur also for the Sept.29, 2008 Malegaon bombing that killed six Muslims. Disowning the murderers involved in terrorist activities is not new to Brahminism.

Hydra-headed serpent: RSS-BJP is a hydra-headed serpent with numerous subversive, anti-national organisations under it — all of which are engaged in protecting and perpetuating the Brahminical hegemony over India. They killed Gandhi, partitioned India, killed Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, demolished Babri Masjid and staged the “Gujarat Genocide”. And yet parading as patriots and greatest nationalists.

They are now threatening the govt. itself that if their killing outfit, Bajrang Dal, is banned they will start a new one, as “Hanuman Sena”. As all those in the country’s top are its friends, admirers and jatwalas, their threat is real.

Afraid of whom: Who can book this most dangerous terrorist organisation when the very rulers of India happened to be its sympathisers, friends and benefactors?

When the 15% Brahminical upper castes are the country’s ruling class — not from 1947 but from centuries — and the rest are its slaves, why are they taking military training? Against whom?

When the entire Defence Services, law and order forces, intelligence, the govt., judiciary, media and the whole lot of things — their very gods and religion — are under their dictatorial control, they are afraid of whom?

We have the answer.


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DV expresses no confidence in PM
OUR CORRESPONDENT

Bangalore: We have repeatedly expressed no confidence in the pro-rich (read upper caste) capitalist-roader, Manmohan Singh, and his Finance Minister. Our fears have increased hundred fold after India is caught in the financial crisis.

This is because we know the PM is the creator of the notorious Harshad Mehta who caused market crash and the collapse of two banks. Today’s PM was then the Finance Minister who fully defended this fraud.

The same fellow in his Beijing speech on Oct.24, 2008 made a dishonest confession: Any reform of the financial system “would have to take on board the economically damaging role of excessive speculative activity” (Hindu Oct.25, 2008).

India shiningwalas: How can the person who defended the speculator (read gambler) Harshad Mehta now criticise the same gamblers who caused the current financial crisis? Why did this great sage of today defend the fraud of yesterday?

Both the PM and FM were jumping with joy and predicted that the “booming stock markets” in India proved the Indian economy was also booming and that called for removal of all regulatory controls so that the stock market frauds and their financiers had full freedom to loot us.

Today the stock markets are sinking and the brokers are losing. The unanimous cry of the day is to rescue the same speculators by the govt. banks. Why should govt. banks go to the rescue of the rascals?

Honest people keep their hard earned money in the banks. If the banks are directed to divert the funds to rescue the rascals what will happen to banks? It will be chaos. There will be run on the banks leading to serious law and order problem. The PM is warned.


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FINANCIAL CRISIS

Socialism can better control Brahminical blood-suckers
OUR CORRESPONDENT

Bangalore: The greed of the rich (read upper castes) to grab resulted in the current financial crisis. Manmohan Singh, who blessed the notorious Harshad Mehta, the Dalal Street robber, as the then Finance Minister is promoted as our PM. Naturally he is blessing all the highway robbers. That is what he meant in his Oct.20, 2008 Parliament statement: “Deposits in Indian banks are safe, but prepare for temporary slowdown”.

The Khatri Sikh PM’s heart is with the highway robbers. Fortunately our elected representatives are not allowing a free hand to the highway robbers to privatise our banks. Left to the Khatri Sikh and the Tamil Chettiar, by this time they would have played football with our banks which too would have collapsed like the many private banks in America.

BRAHMINS CHANTING MARXIST MANTRA
India’s Brahminical leaders experimented with socialism as long as it suited them. During Nehru and his daughter Indira Gandhi’s regime socialism paid high dividends to its Bhoodevatas. All Communist and socialist parties were headed by the choicest Bhoodevatas. After milking the socialist cow dry, they switched on to capitalism. The Telugu Brahmin PM. P.V. Narasimha Rao, launched the LPG era with Manmohan Singh in the driver’s seat.

The greatest socialists of India overnight became double-distilled free marketwalas. Either socialism or capitalism, the Bhoodevatas have been always on the top as exploiters.

But the current turmoil in the capitalist West is making the thinking people of the world to realise the need for strict state control. This is what the US, the leader of the capitalist world, did to save its economy.

WHY INDIAN BANKS ARE SAFE
The banks in India are fairly safe because they are all govt.-owned though Brahminical exploiters are sitting on the top. In a country like India where over 85% of its oppressed SC/ST/BCs and Muslim/Christian/Sikhs are the deprived destitutes, naked capitalism will be a disaster. That is how a petrol bunk servant, Gujarati Backward Caste boy Dhirubhai Ambani became the country’s richest tycoon. Liberalisation, privatisation, globalisation (LPG) made the Ambanis the richest business house in India by simply bribing the officials and ministers.

Making money in India is a child’s play. You should know how to exploit, speak lies, butter the right spot, and bribe the right persons. That is how Ambani’s became the country’s richest.

When purest capitalist countries like US and UK could admit the failure of capitalism, a beggar country like India cannot afford the luxury of capitalism. Harshad Mehtas, Khetan Parekhs and Dalal Street dadas will suck our blood with the blessings of the Bhoodevatas.

Look what happened to ICICI adventurism. The bank became the darling of the upper castes because it tried to dazzle with Western financial sophistry. That is how it got into trouble. The ICICI chief is a Gowda Saraswata Brahmin fully backed by his jatwalas in the Reserve Bank and the Govt.

MARX IS BACK?
In a country notorious for its ruthless exploitation because of its caste system, Western-style capitalism will only help the Brahminical exploiters to drink more of our blood. When West, particularly the US, home of capitalism, is bidding good-bye to capitalism, it is high time we from the poor, starving country revert to socialism.

Meanwhile, even in the very heaven of private enterprise, capitalists have started questioning the capitalist system. A London report said Karl Marx book, Das Capital, has suddenly become a best seller.


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Obama victory will end world financial crisis & also Islamophobia
OUR CORRESPONDENT

Bangalore: Barack Obama, DV’s darling, is winning. The American Presidential election will be over before this issue is out. The country’s first Black cum Muslim candidate — unthinkable and unimaginable — most hated by America’s Jews and its micro-minority racist White Christians, is simply unstoppable.

DV was the first in India, if not the world, to predict this victory. And we are proud that we are proving right — unless mischief-mongers play the vote fraud through election machine mischief or voter suppression.

Record number of Blacks have registered themselves as voters. So too Latinos. Both the groups are the country’s poorest and hence pro-Obama. So also the entire trade union movement.

“JEWS OF INDIA” GO WITH MCCAIN
Even pro-Republican papers have predicted Democrat Obama victory. Republican McCain is the candidate of the rich and powerful plus the king- maker Jews.

The “Jews of India” in US as the tail of American Jews are with McCain because as racists they hate Obama for two reasons: he is Black and also Muslim. To hell with them. Obama must mark these treacherous fellows.

The American ruling class, already pounded by the financial crisis which is their own creation, may resort to some last-minute desperate actions.

They may provoke some international crisis like bombing of Iran or some act of terrorism (read Muslim) which the Republican President Bush will be too glad to oblige to spoil the chances of Obama. Our feeling is even this is ruled out. Historical forces have made the enemy too weak. The entire financial crisis is the making of this anti-Obama hate mongers. But it did not work.

BLACK ARMED STRUGGLE
Our reading is Obama will be able to control the financial crisis as the President. How? Because the Jews and the racist White Christians, who engineered the war on Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq at the behest of zionist Israel, know the overwhelming American voters want peace. The hate-mongers also know Obama has the blessings of the entire world: entire Asia, Africa, South America and even whole of Europe.

If Obama is defeated the whole world will be against America which will not only lose its super power status, dollar will be dumped but the angry Blacks and Hispanics inside USA will take to armed struggle. None can control the situation.

Once Obama gets elected that will be a big defeat for hate-mongers. Swindlers and manipulators who triggered the financial crisis will be cut to size with strict governmental control on the economy. This is what we called as the historical forces favouring Obama.

OBAMA AS PRODUCT OF HISTORY
We are waiting for the Obama victory. And the death of Bush and the end of his most hated American regime.

On one side the money-mad Jews who wanted to enslave America and through that the world to establish the supremacy of zionist Israel — supported by the American White Christian fundamentalists — pushed America to one extreme capitalist-imperialist chaos.

On the other side the enraged American underdog comprising the poor White Christians, Blacks and the Latinos — who constitute the overwhelming majority — resisted the George Bush chaotic rule and pushed America to another extreme.

The fight between the micro-minority rascals and the overwhelming oppressed, helpless American underdog made history and produced Barack Obama.

BLOW TO RASCALS
Such a life and death struggle between the two forces not only impacted the Presidential election but even the composition of the American Congress (Parliament) which is going to have an absolute Democratic super majority. This will be another blow to the rascals.

END TO ISLAMOPHOBIA
This is what we described as the “forces of history” which always take care of the tyrants. Alas, India’s micro-minority Brahminical forces sucking the blood of the Bahujans (over 85%) are so blind and deaf that they are not ready to heed the warnings of history.

That is how we so confidently say that not only Obama will electrify America but the whole world.

Yes. What will be the result? Obama Era is likely to bring back America to sanity, restore it to its former glory, keep the zionists and the fundamentalist Christians under control, bring peace to the war-torn world, end the current financial crisis. And end the current mad, mad Islamophobia. This is history. Those who ignore history cannot make history. Brahminists are warned. (Oct.22, 2008).


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How millionaires can grow in starving India?

OUR CORRESPONDENT

Bangalore: Look at the serious contradictions that Hindu India is facing. A toilet paper says India is producing millionaires at the fastest rate even as we groan under poverty. The “India Shining” column we started in DV is reproducing reports only from our toilet papers which say that India is sinking under poverty. Then how millionaires are growing at the rate of 27.7% and added 23,000 more millionaires in 2007 to its tally of 100,000 millionaires in 2006? Yes. The millionaires are growing richer by drinking the blood of the innocent, hard-working Bahujans. According to the Times of India (June 26, 2008) over 350 million people live on an income below $1 a day. Another 700 million live on less than $2 a day. The report says for every millionaire, India has about 7,000 starving people. This is “Hindu India”.


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INDIA SHINING

Over 200 million hungry

New Delhi: Punjab, the granary of India, ranks below countries like Honduras and Vietnam in terms of hunger levels while MP has the most severe level of hunger in the country, followed by Jharkhand and Bihar, says a report prepared by US-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in collaboration with Welthungerhilfe and Concern worldwide, California. “When Indian states are compared to countries in the 2008 Global Hunger Index, MP ranks between Ethiopia and Chad. Punjab, the best-performing State, is below Gabon, Honduras and Vietnam”, says the country report released here by G.K. Chadha, member of Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, on the eve of the World Food Day. “India is home to the world’s largest food insecure population with over 200 million people who are hungry” the India State Hunger Index (ISHI) said.

—(Hindu, Oct.17, 2008)

*****

Pregnancy death & Dalits

New Delhi: Of the 301 women who die annually of pregnancy-related complications in every 1,00,000 live births, about 50% are from SC/STs. According to data collected by Unicef from 16 districts of Rajasthan, Bengal, Orissa, Jharkhand and MP, the maternal mortality ratio (MMR) shows that women are dying of preventable causes. In first phase of the implementation of Unicef’s maternal and perinatal death inquiry and response (MAPEDIR), cases of 1,600 women were analysed. In Dholpur (Rajasthan), 49% of deaths were from SC/STs, 51% of the 375 deaths examined in Bengal’s Purulia between 2005 and 2008 were in same category. In Ranchi, 123 deaths in the last year were examined, of which 56% were from SC/STs and in 8 districts of Orissa the percentage of SC/ST deaths was as high as 68. In Madhya Pradesh’s Shivpuri district, 60% of the deaths were of SC/STs while in Guna district it was 49.4%.

—(Times of India, Oct. 10, 2008)

*****

Rot in the three pillars

Just when we thought that the world was raving about the economic miracle of India, a brutal confession by The White Tiger protagonist exposes the rot in the three pillars of modern India — democracy, enterprise and justice — reducing them to the tired cliches of a faltering nation. And the author of this tragic tale grabs the prestigious Booker, with the head of the jury, Michel Portillio, calling it a work that shows the “dark side of India — a new territory”.

—(Times of India , Oct.19, 2008 on Karnataka Brahmin writer Aravind Adiga’s honest admission)


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LETTERS TO EDITOR

Seharworddin Khan, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, (zulu@ieee.org): DV is becoming popular among Muslims. I am from Orissa and working in Saudi. The process of this “gaining popularity and understanding the philosophy” is however too slow. How to hurry up? A group of people from Orissa want to educate Dalit and Dalit converts (Muslim and Christians) that we are blood brothers and create a social awareness for mutual benefits. Dalit Voice and Dalit Sahitya Akademy books will be helpful in this.

Religious leaders of Muslims in India have made their followers addicted to religion by shutting out the more important social and cultural aspects of revolutionary Islam. This is the problem. In spite of our hammering this point for the past 20 years, the leadership is not interested in listening to us. Now that you have raised the issue, we will deal with it in course of discussion with you. If you study the “Law of contradictions”, there is what is called the “sharpening of the contradictions”. When that takes place, Muslims and all those persecuted by the Brahminical tyrants will rush to us. Right now the enemy itself is sharpening the contradictions by attacking the Muslims and Christians. But they are doing it by using the Dalits. This is bad. We have all the medicines for the different diseases — EDITOR.

Umar Shafi Saif, (shafimangalore@hotmail.com): Journalist Hyder Hussein from Assam not allowed to accompany the PM on his recent trip to USA was not published by any paper in India (DV Nov.1, 2008 p.14). This is because Indian news-feeders are under control of upper castes Brahmins who intentionally prevent its publicity. A Malayalam daily, Madhyamam, published it. I know why the Brahminical rulers are creating this anti-Muslim phobia. Without understanding this you will not be able to tackle and much less cure, the disease. If Brahminical rulers do not do this they cannot survive in India among Dalits. They always want to prevent Dalit-Muslim unity. I know you very well from my college days. During which I used to read the Dalit Voice. Recently I searched the same in Google search engine. Now I am a regular on-line reader of DV. I am surprised to read your experience in the field of journalism which is more than my age (I am 30 crossing). You have rightly said “India is suffering because of the Brahminical media”. India, in spite of having 154 million Muslims, there is no single effective media by this community. There is no single national newspaper in India under Muslims. Whatever newspapers, magazines, TV channels Muslims possess are bound to religion. Even in the 21st century Indian Muslims failed to learn the importance of media. Though some regional media do discuss affairs, they failed to reach the hands of Dalits. Despite 28 years work by DV, Muslims do not want to wake up on this fact. Whenever there is anti-Muslim riot in India, Brahmins and upper castes use Dalits as their weapon to kill Muslims. Unfortunately Dalits are killed by Muslims in return. Muslims utterly failed to realise that it is the upper castes who are the mastermind behind this Hindu/Muslim clash. Hardly there is any Brahmin or upper caste Hindu is killed in any “communal violence”.


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TIRUPATI BALAJI WAS A BUDDHIST SHRINE

Dr. K. Jamanadas

A revised and enlarged second edition is under print. Originally published in 1991 and well received by
all circles, it had an international exposure.
It was out of print for a long. The nature of Venkatesvara has always been a matter of dispute for centuries. Some say he is Vishnu, some Siva, some Shakti, some Skanda and some Harihara.
But in fact, it was an old Budhist shrine.
A Tribal god was vaishnavized by the saints and later sanskritized and brahminized to his present form, in same way as Vitthala of Pandharpur, Jagannatha of Puri, Ayyappa on Sabarimala etc.
How this was brought about is explained with all historical and archeological evidences.
The author is a noted Ambedkarite,
also author of Decline and Fall of Buddhism, Devadasis: Ancient to Modern,
Maratha Revolt Against Brahminism etc.

Rs. 300 pp. 304 (hard bound)

Prepublication price Rs. 200 (including postage)
before Nov.15, 2008.

Send M.O. to:

Dr. K. Jamanadas, Sanjivan Publications,
“Shalimar”, Main Road, Chandrapur - 442 402.
http://www.dalitvoice.org/Templates/nov_a2008/reports.htm


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