A Shoe? All Over A Shoe?

“A personal security officer of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati touched a new low when he bent down to wipe her dusty shoes with his handkerchief during her visit to the district”. That’s the Times Of India on February 8. Will our news channels be far behind? They had a ball, as did the opposition parties in UP. The Congress, BJP, SP and, of course, our friends in the media like Rajdeep Sardesai and the rest.

And it’s even funnier when you hear the media or a Congressman calling it ‘feudal’ or ‘sycophancy’. What does Mayawati think she is? And why the hell is she wearing shoes anyway? Why can’t she learn anything from that intellectual called Rahul Gandhi who’s so bright in every which way. Sometime in February last year during Rahul Gandhi’s visit to Mumbai in the midst of a Shivsena agitation,  a Congress minister carried his shoes. You see that way there is no chance your shoes can get muddy and no one needs to clean it. And no one can accuse you of sycophancy or feudalism.

It is highly unfair of that security guard to have cleaned Mayawati’s dirty shoes. Such shoes are reserved for the likes of P. Chidambaram. I wonder what PC did with the shoes thrown at him. Were they dirty and soiled? Wait, even former Pak president Musharraf is reported to have shoes hurled at him just yesterday.

And it all started with poor old George W with that Iraqi journalist throwing shoes at him. Sometime back a rule was imposed at a student meeting of Rahul Gandhi. ‘Nobody is to wear shoes to the meeting’. We have come to fear shoes so much! And our political tryst with shoes go a long way back.

Sometime in 1977, Nani Palkhivala had stooped to measure Lillian Carter’s shoes (President Jimmy Carter’s mother) presumably to buy her some from India. This came to be known as ‘Shoe-string diplomacy’ I guess. The BJP (then part of the Janata Party in 1977) criticising Mayawati may have forgotten how important a role shoes play in politics and diplomacy. Palkhivala then explained that touching shoes or feet of elders is a sign of respect in Indian culture.

As recently as December 2010 TRS chief K. Chandrashekhar Rao promised to wash Sonia Gandhi’s feet if she gives statehood to Telengana. Scared as she was, Sonia Gandhi has since decided to wear shoes all day long, never letting KCR anywhere near her feet. It’s altogether a different matter that she often has her foot in her mouth for protection as well. The media celebrates shoes like nothing else. After all, 'boot-licking' is part of their daily chores.

My collection of shoes for the media keeps growing!

I have a collection of shoes too. A big pile. And they are exclusively reserved and piled in front of a pic of the Indian mainstream media. I add a shoe every day. My prayers are simple, someday I hope some security guard will mend the media’s ‘soles’ !

Supreme Court - The Last Truthful Media Standing

In yet another rap for the Central Government the Supreme Court has directly questioned its ‘secular’ credentials. A bench said the government has reformed only Hindu laws and failed to overhaul personal laws of minority communities. Effectively, as we have known for ages, secularism in India basically means being ‘Anti-Hindu’. Trample on Hindu culture, control Hindu temples and make a mockery of our Constitution which enshrines a ‘Uniform Civil Code’.

The wrong practices under ‘secularism’ in various democracies have directly led to the victimisation of or discrimination against the majority community. In the first place there shouldn’t have been laws like Hindu Marriage Act or Muslim Marriage Act or Sikh or Christian marriage Acts. There should have been one single Indian Marriage Act. That Act could well have recognised religious practices under which marriages are conducted but all other laws should have been uniform. That Act could have authorised Priests and Maulvis to authorise and register marriages with legal stipulations.

It is not fair to blame just the government alone. The ones who practice and encourage ‘minority-favouring’ secularism are all over the media. The communists, the pseudo-secularists and the anti-Hindu brigade. The NDTVs, the CNN-IBNs, the Times-NOWs, the Aaj-Taks, the Headline-Todays and many more. Is reform required in religions? Absolutely, yes! Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, Sikhism and most religions have undergone reforms. It is only the one major religion of Islam that refuses to undergo reform. It is not for no reason that more and more European leaders are now waking up to the fact that ‘multiculturalism’ has failed miserably. It is important for any community to be tolerant, but simply a bad principle to tolerate the ‘intolerant’.

The Rahul Gandhis and Digvijay Singhs may equate Hindu outfits with terrorism and Nazism. The cost of perpetuating such twisted practices of ‘secularism’  by the Congress and the Communists is immense and will destroy the nation. If gutter-mouths in the Congress, the Communist parties and the media are able to frequently attack Hindus it is because, as the SC rightly observes, “the Hindu community has been tolerant to these statutory interventions”. The UK has seen the birth of the English Defence League (EDL). It may not be long before a ‘Hindu Defence League’ is born. India is not the same as UK, USA or other western countries where immigrants form the minority community. Indian minorities are people of Indian soil and origin. The difference ends there. The streak of ‘intolerance’ runs uniformly among some minority communities in the west as also in India. It is this intolerance that fuels pseudo-secular policies and laws.

True secularism is not about asking the majority community to be more tolerant. It is about ending ‘intolerance’ that exists in any form. If secularism can still survive in India it will most certainly be because of Hindus and not otherwise.

JuD: Jihad, N-War Solutions To Kashmir Issue

Any ‘moderate’ muslim anywhere in the world will tell you ‘Jihad’ is an ‘internal struggle’ for spiritual cleansing. I am confident that the likes of Digvijay Singh and Rahul Gandhi will agree. It’s only idiots like us who do not understand the real meaning of ‘Jihad’ and frequently stereo-type muslims.

“India has shown disappointment over the release of Hafiz Saeed, chief of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and a suspect for masterminding 26/11 Mumbai attacks. JuD is suspected to be a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba. The release questions Pakistan’s seriousness in combating terror...Hafiz Saeed is also reported to be a co-founder of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT)”.  That was a news report from June 2009.

On Sunday, February 6, at a Kashmir Solidarity Day meeting Lahore, Hafiz Saeed’s speech for spiritual cleansing of Kashmir was reported as under: (From DNA)

"You (Manmohan Singh) must remember that the movement of the Kashmiri people is nearing an end and I am telling you very clearly to immediately leave Kashmir. Otherwise we are ready to start a war against you to get this at any cost," "The only solution to the Kashmir issue is jihad," said Saeed. The jihad should continue "as long as Kashmir remains under Indian occupation" and there would be "no problem" if the fighting leads to nuclear war between Pakistan and India, he contended".

Well, we need not worry much about the JuD or the LeT. We have a bigger terrorist threat at home through Hindu Terror outfits. That is what Rahul Gandhi told an American Diplomat. Hafiz Saeed also blamed India for masterminding the 26/11 attacks. He is not wrong. The Digivijay Singhs and Aziz Burneys of India have also expressed similar sentiments. It was probably an RSS conspiracy.

A few days ago I wrote a post titled ‘Egypt & The Fifth Column’. The separatists in J&K are understandable. Why should we believe that there aren’t hidden separatists in the other parts of India? The more the weakness of the UPA government and greater their attempt to cloak the real threat of Islamic Terror with strident cries of Hindu terror the more emboldened the likes of JuD and LeT are likely to feel. For long many leaders have been calling upon muslims in India to merge with the mainstream. It may have happened to some extent. But there is a certain religious intolerance among certain sections of muslims which will inevitably fall prey to the designs of JuD and LeT, if they haven’t already done.

Not surprisingly, British PM David Cameron has recently announced that multiculturalism has failed in Britain. This follows earlier such announcements by Angela Merkel of Germany. The community being responsible for this according to them is not Hindus or Jains or Sikhs. They singularly point to muslims who have proved to be against any norm of democratic and liberal society. And on cue, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has announced that they would like to implement the ‘Sharia’ in Egypt.

Here is a video of a Fox News interview with Imam Anjem Chowdhary. This Imam is one who deeply desires complete Islamisation of Britain and is also reported to be a Sharia Court Judge in one of Britain’s Sharia courts. A Sharia court in Britain? Yes, there are more than 80 of them. And this is the multiculturalism that David Cameron states is failing.

                           Anjem Choudhary on Fox News "..You can live under Sharia"

Let me caution you, Fox News is often cited as a right-wing conservative news channel. I have not pasted this video for a Fox News’ programme but to reflect on the views of Anjem Choudhary. And he holds out this promise in the video “...Islam is coming to your backyard...you can live under Sharia”. But when our own politicians and media tarnish many Hindu outfits as ‘right-wing’, ‘communal’ and such choice tags you have to know what they are inviting into this country through a backdoor. A veritable fifth column. If we talk about these, don’t be surprised getting labelled as ‘Racist, Bigot, Propagandist or an Islamophobhe’.

So all the mediacrooks who were tom-toming the theory that the protesters in Egypt were seeking democracy, freedom and liberty should now stop lying and realise the fact that much of the protests was fueled by the Muslim Brotherhood and their ultimate aim is Islamic rule in Egypt. Our friendly neighbour, Pakistan, is already an ‘Islamic Democracy’. The Times of India, NDTV and similar news outfits desire nothing but great peace with Pakistan. Nothing wrong with that. The only problem is Islamic rule and Democracy are not compatible. According to the Islamists, democracy is man-made and that is not acceptable to them. Therefore, their God-made laws and systems will always triumph over man- made ones. That’s a certainty.

The columns that some of our media friends write could well be ‘The fifth column’ in reality. Aziz Burney was not the only one strident with his conspiracy theories about 26/11. Digivijay Singh, A.R. Antulay are among prominent subscribers of that theory. And among the many journals that espouse such theories has to be Tehelka. Yes, the journal that employs journalists who believe in journalism and who get paid to tell the truth!

An interesting piece about Tehelka titled “Turncoat Tehelka” appears on Sandeepweb, and I produce some excerpts below:

.....Back to the fearless paper’s fearlessness, we see that Tehelka in February 2009 published an article entitled THE CURIOUS TALE OF MUMBAI TERROR by one Raveena Hansa. The full text of the article is here. An unending stream of the author’s medically-untreatable bowel movements on an overdrive, it basically says the following:

• There are unanswered questions about 26/11.
• There are doubts about who killed Hemant Karkare.
• The attack is not entirely the work of Pakistani terrorists.
• We can’t rule out the possibility of “Hindutva terrorists.”
• Pakistan is as serious about shutting down terror networks as India is.

And then inexplicably, Tehelka took down that article from its site, a fact that went by unnoticed except that the indefatigable Barbarindian detected this sleight-of-hand and posed a question to the fearless paper. The paper responded with:

@barbarindian Sorry that article wasn’t published on Tehelka. Altho, same article on Countercurrents w/ diff headline Here.

That is the fearless Tehelka denying an article it carried supporting the conspiracy theories about 26/11. One needs to be reminded that Tehelka had nearly shut down some years ago. The blog Sans Serif carries a post about how the Congress government helped restore Tehelka. Is it any surprise that such a fearless journal would need to reward the Congress with some propaganda?

The dangers of the media being corrupt and not willing to call the lies spread by several politicians or events that unfold in the nation and the world is a clear warning that propagandist media will eventually destroy every democratic value and freedom that we cherish. Hafiz Saeed and his JuD are emboldened to threaten Jihad and N-war. And on the sidelines of the current SAARC meeting our journalists are busy interviewing various people on the next move for peace with Pakistan. We need a watchdog over the media so that they do not abuse the very freedom we cherish to open the backdoors to those who wish to destroy India.

Corruption: First The Tears Of A Clown, Now The Puppet’s Tears...

They say public memory is short. It probably is. Ordinary citizens cannot spend time tracking the deeds of those in power. They trust the mainstream media to do that job. But the Indian msm has turned itself into a propaganda machine for the rulers and the corporate world. Those who use words like ‘truth’, ‘fair’, ‘fearless’ are some of the biggest crooks and liars amongst us. I must add, don’t expect the corrupt to expose the corrupt. Every newspaper and TV channel has screaming headlines that proclaim they were the ones to first break this or that scam. So when they are constantly caught up in this race of who was first, truth will always be the first victim. Haven’t we seen, say an Aamir Khan ‘Exclusive’ interview at the same time on three different channels? Or haven’t we seen gutter mouth Manishankar Aiyar ‘live’ on two different channels? They have even destroyed the very concept of ‘Breaking news’. How else can you explain ‘DMK chief meets Sonia Gandhi’ as breaking news? How else can one explain every news channel claiming credit for the exposures made by the CAG on various scams? Our mainstream media is utterly corrupt and that is the greatest danger to a democracy than any corrupt politician, individual or entity. And it is because the public has a short memory that journals and news channels are supposed to keep them reminded. They won’t!

After the Tears of the Clown Prince, it was the turn of the Puppet’s Tears on corruption. Rahul Gandhi’s sermons on corruption ended a few days ago and now we have the PM sermonising us about it. He should be the last man talking about corruption in this country. And our media faithfully reproduces the stupid utterances of these people without telling them the truth. Not a single editorial or opinion piece tells Rahul Gandhi or the PM to stop their ‘onion tears’ (crocodile tears are too easy!) Rahul and Manmohan sermonising on corruption is quite akin to a bunch of criminals in prison lecturing their jailors on ethics. Let’s first see some recent utterances of the PM.

 

“Corruption dents India’s image...It demeans us before our own people. Corruption strikes at the root of good governance... Along with legislation, the necessary revamp of administrative practises and procedures needs to be fast-tracked. A systemic response that reduces opportunities for corruption needs to be put in place”. These statements can be attributed to Moses, Jesus Christ, Krishna or any spiritual leader anytime you want. Even the honourable roadside cobbler will tell you all this. Only one thing’s wrong. It doesn’t ‘demean’ YOU or the officers you addressed Mr.PM, it demeans and insults the people of this nation. Innocent, honest people.

Like Rahul Gandhi, the PM sermonises as if he was some independent observer or a panelist at some TV discussion or a UN watchdog. All of it rings hollow. Under the cloak of ‘honest’ and ‘clean’ this PM has been a silent watcher of some major corrupt practices in this nation. The recent scams are not stray incidents; it is a pattern with Manmohan Singh.

To start with MMS should have called the lies in the media that he was the one to implement economic reforms in India. That is what propaganda does. Not once has the PM acknowledged he acted as instructed by Narasimha Rao and there were other compulsions for the reforms, including those by the IMF. We need to recall that he was the Finance Minister when Rao was involved in the JMM bribery scam to help his government survive. So what’s new with Manmohan Singh? If he were honest and had a clean conscience he should have quit that government following the JMM bribery case. He watched in silence!

In his own tenure as PM and for survival of his government in UPA-1 he watched money playing a role in the confidence vote following the nuclear deal fall out with the CPM.  He watched in silence! He survived! So why is it surprising to anyone that this man has consciously watched in silence the actions of the Rajas and the Kalmadis? In some parts probably was even a party to it. Suddenly, the black money issue is all over the media as if this was some great secret for ages. Yet, MMS seems to be unable to do anything about it.

The likes of MMS and Rahul Gandhi will talk to officials, students, media and everyone about corruption and related issues. Why aren’t they making statements in the parliament? Why is the Congress not agreeable to a JPC on scams? In an earliest post I had written that ‘Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi should be held criminally liable...” for all the scams. One sheds tears and the other comes up with silly five-point something programmes to tackle corruption. And our foolish media does the propaganda. No questions asked, no holding their feet to fire.

MMS takes self-righteous offence at being called a ‘weak’ prime minister or a ‘puppet’. Not once has he proved himself to be anything else. Therefore, this is his chance to shut up and stop sermonising and ‘act’. To use his own words, ‘fast-tracked’ action will do a lot more than repeated sermons. The recent cabinet reshuffle hardly showed any sign that he is acting on it. I am tempted to call MMS the ‘Raj Kapoor’ of politics. Mera Naam Joker,  the one that will fit anywhere in a (political) card game. Commenting on the continuance of one tainted minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh, in the cabinet the Supreme Court has frustratingly called it 'shameless'. So much for your tears on corruption, Mr. PM!

There is a bright side to everything. This will probably be the last term of MMS as prime minister. He will go down in history as having overseen the most corrupt government in the history of India. He can still act and alter that course, but that is seriously doubtful. The down side is the Puppet will go and they might send in the Clown. One way or the other, for the media, the circus will go on. MMS should remember ‘puppets’ don’t shed tears.

Barkha Dutt Saves Hosni Mubarak

“It was impossible for Christiane Amanpour to not be there, so one can understand how hard it must have been for Barkha Dutt to have not rushed to Egypt. Someone must have stopped her, and thankfully so”.  This is what I wrote a couple of days ago in my post ‘Egypt & The Fifth Column’. As expected Barkha Dutt has proved me wrong once again and has rushed to Egypt. Well, she was just a bit late. Hosni Mubarak was looking for someone to pass the buck for the present crisis in Egypt. He wanted to pick Barkha for an exclusive interview, but in her absence he had to pick the poor man’s version of Barkha, Christiane Amanpour.

I have to presume Barkha was fed up with the comic work of CNN-IBN journalists who went there and were either detained or attacked. So on CNN-IBN the reporting was much about their own journalists’ plight than Egypt itself. After all, these are the representatives of India, the new super-kid on the block. To her absolute delight Barkha found she had scared the living daylights out of the protesters and Mubarak’s goons. Incidentally, CNN-IBN had originally planned to send Sagarika Ghose, but the Egyptians strongly objected to the fact that her shrill screaming would drown their own voices. So good sense prevailed on that channel. Another reporter, Karmic Soliloquy, who was in Cairo, has filed this live report from Egypt:

Protesters praying for Barkha Dutt to go..

“Live and direct from Cairo: NDTV journalist and all round news aunty Barkha Dutt has lodged a strong protest with the Egyptian government over the latter’s decision not to arrest or threaten her. Bharkha, who is reporting on the crisis in Egypt from Cairo, was among the few journalists left unharmed by President Hosni Mubarak supporters, policemen and army soldiers.....Barkha’s stock in India has been on a freefall since the last three years following among others an incident where she got a tiny small time blogger to shutdown his blog over some uncharitable comments he had made on the self proclaimed queen of Indian newsdom .......not only did the Egyptian government goons leave her alone, but they also treated her with much respect as if she was one of them. An angry Barkha rushed to the makeshift office of the Mubarak Goons Association and demanded an immediate arrest\detention or even a reprimand from the forces loyal to Mubarak..... (instead) The goons served her tea and breakfast and even gave her a sturdy horse to take her around Cairo. Grandpa Pranoy Roy has meanwhile condemned the incident and refused to dye his beard for three days in protest....” Read the full report by Karmic Soliloquy

The New York Post writer Andrea Peyser had once conferred the title ‘War Slut” on Christiane Amanpour for her reporting from conflict zones, and later called her a “Palestinian Propagandist”. Barkha is now angry that the international media has conspired to deprive her of similar titles which would have been well-earned.

 

Knowing Barkha was in Egypt can Nira Radia be far behind? Well, the Egyptian protesters suddenly realised that with Barkha in Egypt there was every chance that Hosni Mubarak may stay on in office. After all, some Indian journalists and PR bigwigs know how to put people in office or keep them there. So they have now shifted their focus away from Mubarak and instead want Barkha out.

Another Indian reporter in Cairo (Emmaarcee) has sent in this one:  “Here is a sms message which says that "After seeing (NDTV's) Burka Dutt's reports, several Egyptians dropped their demand for Mubarak's exit. They want HER to go”. So now you know how our very own Barkha saved Hosni Mubarak. I can confirm the Amanpour-Mubarak interview, but the rest is, of course, based on unconfirmed reports. Indian journalists can get anything done and keep anyone in power. Now you know!

2G Scam – More ‘Si-BalShit’

After the sacking of Spectrum Raja one would have thought the induction of Kapil Sibal as Telecom Minister would bring in some sanity to the ministry. Most people have known Sibal to be knowledgeable, sensible and a straight-talking person. Being a top grade lawyer, he has usually chosen his words carefully in the past. Adversity and calamity bring out the best in a man or the worst in a man. Far from his best, it seems to have brought out the worst in Kapil Sibal. I am now tempted to say ‘Si-Bull in a china shop’. (Or 'Si-Bull in a mobile shop?)

Si-Bull In A Mobile Shop?

First, the uncalled for attack on the CAG when he stated: “We are extremely pained at the methodology adopted by the CAG for arriving at the [allocation loss] figures that have no basis. The “presumptive losses” had embarrassed the government and the nation, he said, and this “resulted in a kind of sensationalism, which has allowed the Opposition to spread utter falsehood among the people.” Falsehood? The CAG then stood by its report.

Later, in January,  in an interview with Rajdeep Sardesai, Sibal was unusually combative and almost militant. He even mentioned that all the letters to and from the PM that were being referred mostly didn’t exist and that the ‘Aam Aadmi’ had actually benefited from the spectrum policies. In other words, the aam aadmi had benefited from the 2G Scam. Sardesai was so battered by the ‘Si-Bull’ that he couldn’t even ask proper questions or get answers.

In between, he appointed retired Justice Shivraj Patil as a one-man panel to look into the irregularities in spectrum allotment. The justice dishes out a report that suggests wrong polices existed since 2003, during the NDA regime. Quoting the report, Sibal said the committee found that original spectrum allocation was "bad" and procedures were not followed both during the NDA government till 2004 and the UP government up to 2008.  This comes today, a day after Raja’s arrest.

It’s time the press and electronic media told Mr. Kapil, “Enough of your (Si)Balshit please get on with the job”. Kapil Sibal has the job of cleaning up the mess and moving on to ensure better policies, more transparency, and do the best to recover any losses that the nation may have incurred under previous policies, previous ministers or previous regimes. It would be a disaster if a respected politician and lawyer such as Kapil Sibal drowns himself in petty politics to defend the UPA. Nobody is blaming Kapil Sibal for any mess but if he continues in this vein he will attract the same revulsion that A. Raja has.

The arrest of A. Raja has nothing more than drama value and some comic relief. It means nothing unless he is sentenced to prison after a proper court procedure. In the meantime, Mr. Kapil please spare us anymore ‘Si-Balshit’! We would not like to see you become Si-BULL in a mobile shop!