Category: News

What about them?

Here is a real opportunity for India to prove in front of the world that we are indeed a developing nation. And it does not need a penny to be wasted on exhibitions. All it needs is a will and an action. Governments here and abroad are watching India’s stand on endosulfan at the sixth meeting of the Persistent Organic Pollutants Review Committee (POPRC) of Stockholm Convention that began in Geneva, Switzerland, on Monday. – says The Hindu.

Oh, and you should read this too, from the same news article – “While most of the governments represented at the Stockholm Convention are taking stands in favour of global ban on endosulfan, India was opposing it.”

Aha!

To those who don’t know what this is all about, go here to read about the Endosulfan tragedy in northern Kerala.

For 26 long years, the government-owned Plantation Corporation of Kerala aerially sprayed endosulfan in an area of nearly 4,700 acres in Kasaragod. Endosulfan is a deadly pesticide banned in many parts of the world. The United States Environmental Protection Agency classifies Endosulphan as a highly hazardous pesticide. But in Kerala it was sprayed for years in government-owned plantations. Today, villagers who lived close to the plantation are paying the price, despite an indefinite ban on the substance. Many of them got paralyzed or are seriously ill. Swarga and other areas like Padre, Muliyar and Bellur in Kasaragod district of Kerala have become living examples of how the poison in pesticides could be lethal to our health when used excessively and carelessly. The area is dotted with tragedy struck families battling physical deformities, cancers and disorders of the central nervous system. [India Together – The Living Dead]

And also see these pictures:



[Photos courtesy: Endosulphanvictims.org]

The Common Health Games

As we easily forget all the wealth games of the Common Wealth Games as India wins more Gold medals each day, we have such wonderful news to accompany. Be proud, my fellow countrymen!

“India dropped two ranks to 67th among 84 developing countries in the International Food Policy Research Institute’s annual ” Global Hunger Index” for 2010. Even Sudan, North Korea and Pakistan rank higher than India.” – says TOI.

“The policymakers in India, who are are still fighting over the need to have an expansive National Food Security Act, should look at the following data more closely: in 2005-06, about 44% of Indian children — below five years — were underweight, and nearly half — 48% — were stunted.“

“Notes from a beautiful city”

More from a game that cost 90,000 crores to a country that has more than 70% of it’s population below poverty line, with not even 10 percent in return for the money spent, made us look ridiculous during it’s final preparation stage, took out the right of the city’s inhabitants to live in the city and hid it’s own citizens behind huge posters.

Shame on you, austerity wallahs!

Tampered Machines, Tempered Masters

A group of scientists and technologists did a research and found out that contrary to the claims of Election Commission of India (of India’s EVMs being “perfect” and “infallible”), the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) are easy to tamper with. Their technical paper (PDF link) details the process they have done to prove their point, with a real EVM. But rather than ordering a detailed inquiry and a fix to those EVMs, the Election Commission arrested Hari K Prasad, one of the researchers, to have stolen an EVM. The research website says “in 2009, the Election Commission of India publicly challenged Prasad to demonstrate that EVMs could be tampered with, only to withhold access to the EVMs at the last minute.”

As per the research website, the device was given by an anonymous source which itself raises questions about the security of these machines. And what exactly should we say about an independent researcher being charged for stealing the machine while the more important questions he raised about the credibility of EVMs are muted? The technical paper (PDF link) also claims that Hari Prasad “was approached in October 2009 by representatives of a prominent regional party who offered to pay for his technical assistance fixing elections. They were promptly and sternly refused.”

NYT calls the terrorists “Militia”

A New York Times article says this in the title: “Militia Charged With Plotting to Murder Officers“. Digging down into the news I could read the following:

In an indictment against the nine unsealed on Monday, the Justice Department said they were part of a group of apocalyptic Christian militants who were plotting to kill law enforcement officers in hopes of inciting an anti-government uprising, the latest in a recent surge in right-wing militia activity.

Going by the news piece above, what should you call this group of people? A “Militia” or a group of “Terrorists”? Since NYT chose to use a lose term “Militia” instead of “Terrorists” in their news article, let us have a look at what Princeton University, a prestigious institution of America,  says about a terrorist:

“A terrorist is a radical who employs terror as a political weapon; usually organizes with other terrorists in small cells; often uses religion as a cover for terrorist activities”.

Now look back into the NYT news piece to see how they described the “Militia” and if that matches with the definition of a terrorist –

  • “part of a group of apocalyptic Christian militants (read from the definition – “uses religion as a cover for terrorist activities“)
  • who were plotting to kill law enforcement officers (read from the definition – “employs terror” as they were planning to kill the guardians of law and thus terrorizing the society)
  • in hopes of inciting an antigovernment uprising (read from the definition – “employs terror as a POLITICAL WEAPON“), the latest in a recent surge in right-wing militia activity“.
  • They also “organizes with other terrorists in small cells” as you can read from the report.

And what is a Militia? Wiki says –

“The term militia (in English, pronounced as milisha) is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens[1] to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service.”

A “Militia” is something like Salwa Judum in India. And even such Militias can terrorize (like many accusations have risen against Salwa Judum since it’s formation). But even though there are clear definitions, NYT takes it lightly with the all-white, Christian “Militia”.

Evidently, if this was any other “militia” as such, particularly of Asian Muslims, the Western media would immediately tag them with terrorism, but when it comes to a Christian terrorist group, it is called a “Militia”. This is something like what went here in India when a Hindu terrorist group was caught. Many people declined to call them the terrorists. In the public eye, they were, at the most, fundamentalists, fanatics or extremists. Not the terrorists. As for the public, we associate terrorism with a certain group of people and no one else.

CNN article: Right-wing extremism may be on rise, report says

Info via a tweet from @flyyoufools

Thilakan and “The Gangs of New Kerala”

What goes on in the Malayalam movie industry these days make the movie lovers quite sad. The current state of the Malayalam movies is quite pathetic. We have only a couple of hits each year and rest of them bombs in the box office. The state of the cinema theaters is also pathetic that one wouldn’t take the pain of going to a theater to watch a movie and would rather watch it at his own home. With the arrival of big LCD screens, Dolby home theater sound systems and DVD/Blue-Ray discs, watching a movie at home is much much more comfortable than watching it in a theater. As a result, many theaters are closing down rapidly.

But who cares? There is absolutely no effective discussions going on about a rescue plan. The people in the industry are busy making crappy movies and the competition is so high in this field that we get crappy, crappier and crappiest movies – one after one. Then there are these organizations (AMMA, MACTA, FEFKA and all those funny names) which functions like gangs and we see their gang wars quite often. And it is cinema that dies in this war.

The whole incident of Thilakan being an outcast from Malayalam cinema has proved that there is no hope for any improvement in the near future. Thilakan had accused AMMA (Association of Malayalam Movie Artists) of not allowing him to work in the movies and he pointed fingers at the superstars (Mammootty and Mohan Lal) in particular. What followed was a series of cheap stunts.

Director B Unnikrishnan, general secretary of Film Employees Federation of Kerala (FEFKA), said that the actor in Thilakan has died. But Thilakan has some great performing moments of Malayalam cinema (or rather Indian or world cinema) to his credit and we all know what kind of movies B Unnikrishnan has directed. Unnikrishnan also said that he would resign from his general secretary position if Thilakan could prove that FEFKA banned Thilakan from acting in films. Incidentally, the same FEFKA has threatened to pull out all technicians from the movie “Dam 999” if Thilakan was cast and the producers threw Thilakan out of the project. And as far as we know B Unnikrishnan still holds on to his position.

The above incident proves that there is some truth in what Thilakan says. He also lashed out at the Super Star fans and I whole heartedly agree with him on the fan-hood. The fan associations work like thugs, threatening people if they boo in cinema halls (and they themselves send booing teams when their enemy star’s cinema is released) and they also threaten people who leave after intervals when they are fed up of watching crap movies, and now the fans of Mohan Lal and Mammootty have united against Thilakan. Kerala now see that the rivals joining hands to fight a lone, old man.

Thilakan undeniably is a great actor. The truth is that if there is Thilakan acting in a super-star movie, he outshines the super stars with his acting prowess; however small his role is in the movie. So there are good reasons to believe what Thilakan says about the popularity-hungry, fan-fed Superstars working on denying him chances. Take a couple of superstar movies for example. “Kireedam“, an award winning movie where Mohan Lal and Thilakan played father and son, had both Mohan Lal and Thilakan in an equal performance and for the movie lovers, it was a treat (remember the scene where Thilakan says “kathi thaazheyideraa…“?). Or take Mohan Lal’s commercial hit “Sphadikam“. Thilakan’s Chacko maash was the most powerful character in that movie than Mohan Lal’s Aadu Thoma. Or take Mammootty’s “Kauravar“. It was an outright Thilakan movie, though Mammootty was in the lead role. Or take movies like “Perumthachan“, “Moonnaam Pakkam” etc. I can draw a lot more examples.

But he had very little support from industry, probably because nobody wants to question the “kings” and destroy their own career. Sukumar Azheekode came in support of Thilakan but he only added more garbage to the already stinking mess. Thilakan had claimed that he is a staunch Communist, but the party kept mum on the whole matter. It is understandable particularly when Mammootty is the chairman of party-owned Kairali TV. So the party did not back the ‘lesser Communist’ when they have ‘elite Communists’ in their fold. But renowned director Shaji N Karun came in support of Thilakan. He said, “The organizations have nothing to lose if they ban Thilakan. But the it is the cinema viewers who are going to lose.” He is so right. It is not AMMA, FEFKA or any other organization who is going to lose, but us, the Malayalam movie viewers. And the members of these organizations are busy looting our money and give us crappy movies.

Open letter to M F Husain

Dear Mr. Husain

I have great respect to artists. Especially to those like you who have set your own mark in the field of art, though I don’t understand (and can’t appreciate) certain forms of art due to the lack of my knowledge in the field of art. But as far as the freedom of expression goes, I am fully with you Sir. That nobody holds the right to tell an artist how he/she should express through their art. And an artist need not consider what his/her audience asks what to do with their artistic medium because that will kill the sole purpose of his/her work. Art is born when an artiste feels that he/she cannot live without doing it.

But you should also consider, Mr. Husain, that people are free to protest. Peacefully, yes. They can file complaints in the court and as long as the laws of the country see it fit, the court can ask you to be present and give an explanation by the law. No sir, I am not supporting the Sangh Family here. Those goons will have this or any other reason just to flare up the communal sentiments and get people into the street to get them killed. On one hand they proclaim they are a civilized society unlike the Fatwa issuing communities and on the other they issue their own Fatwas – like offering Rs. 51 crores to behead you, 1 KG of Gold to gouge your eyes and 20000 Euros to chop off your hands. But except for their blind and foolish supporters, nobody has thought a bit highly of them, so let us leave it at that.

Now coming to the matter at hand, shouldn’t you accept the end results of your work with the same courage that you took to do your creative work? Shouldn’t you face the court, like many brave souls did, to stand tall and firm for the artistic cause you had? Have you ever thought of what kind of an impression it leaves upon the supporters of freedom of expression when you go hiding in another country and fly around in your Ferrarri while you put all the blame on your old homeland? I do understand, that any man can get afraid of getting caged at this age, after having been revered as one of the great artists of our time. So if you just simply said that you don’t prefer to live in India fearing the court case, that would make more sense. But by putting blame on India, that it did not protect you or there were not enough sane and supportive voices, you are insulting the sensitivity of the majority of the people here in India, who have always supported the freedom of expression, unlike a few goons from the saffron brigade.

Were you running away fearing for your life? But even then, what makes you think you are more secure in Qatar? Fundamentalists are everywhere and if you are running away from them, you will have to run away from the whole world. So what is the kind of example that you are setting here?

You say a painter is a world citizen. But why just the painter, Sir? We are all citizens of this world, not just you. We all know that countries, states and borders are all illusions drawn by some people to stay firm to powerful places, but it is our convenience and sentiments that makes us stay where we are. Why don’t you just accept and admit that simple fact?

PS: I am also curious as to why you mentioned you had a friend, who was a “Brahmin”. What and how does that matter in proving your tolerance to religions?

Related post: I am an Indian

Blogswara V6 – Released!

What better way to celebrate this year’s Holi! Celebrate it musically!! Go and listen to the songs from Blogswara‘s 6th online album which has just been released. This album comes with 14 songs in 4 Indian languages and 22 new artists. Listen to the songs from the website and share the buzz with your friends. Tweet it, blog it, post it in your Orkut/Facebook pages and show support the best platform available for free independent music and let the Blogswara saga continue!

Our special thanks to Jyothis E for his continued support in providing the space to host the songs and to Pradip Somasundaran for all the technical help extended. Thank you both! And to the panel members who spent their time reviewing the songs – Vijay, Nandu, Roshni and JK. Thank you!!

Follow us @Blogswara for Twitter updates.

Racism and Casteism

Raped Dalit girl kills self as cops let-off the accused – The girl was raped by an upper caste youth on February 12 in their village.

The above news item shows up in the front page of IBN website. Whenever such news come up, there is not much rage in Twitter or blogs like it happens when Indians are attacked in Australia. Not many are condemning Casteism, like they condemned Racism. Not many concerns of security and the criminals being left unpunished because this is just another day and just another news item in India.

When Australians attack Indians, it is seen as a racist attack. When Indians attack Indians, people insist that it should be seen purely based on the crime aspect that caste and class have nothing to do with it.

Such is our time.