40 Arrested After Communal Clashes in Vadodara in Gujarat

19:57 0 Comments


40 people have been arrested after clashes between Hindus and Muslims in Vadodara in Gujarat; the police has suspended mobile Internet and text messaging services, an official said on Sunday.

The two groups pelted each other with stones and set vehicles alight on Saturday following several days of tensions, police said.

Paramilitary forces have been deployed in Vadodara, which is 110 kilometres from Ahmedabad.
"Police have arrested over 40 people in connection with the communal riots in Vadodara," said senior state government official SK Nanda.

"The number is likely to increase as combing operations are still on," Mr Nanda, additional chief secretary for the home ministry, told news agency AFP.

The ban on phone services would remain in place until September 30 in a bid to stop the clashes spreading and to defuse tensions, officials said.

Tensions have been mounting since Thursday after photos that were circulated on social media incited communal tension.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is currently in the United States and is set to meet with US President Barack Obama, won the seat of Vadodara at the national elections in May. However, he chose to represent Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh in the Lok Sabha. The by-election for his seat in Vadodara was won recently by the BJP. 

0 comments:

Watch Live: It's Modison Square Garden Tonight | Live Blog

08:22 0 Comments





WATCH LIVE : 

Watch our PM Narendra Modi's speech LIVE from America 




Click Here To Watch

video courtesy : NDTV.com

0 comments:

New York, How Are You Doing, Asked PM at Central Park

05:06 0 Comments




 Even a mega A-lister would find it hard to steal the show from celebrities like Jay-Z.
 Or Beyonce. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in exemplary form at Central Park in New York on Saturday evening. "How are you doing, New York?" he asked an audience of nearly 60,000 people, most of them young and gathered for a concert that included performances by Alicia Keys and Sting.

Speaking in English, Mr Modi, 64, who had earlier in  the day addressed the UN in Hindi, was dressed in a white half-sleeved kurta and a blue jacket.
He was introduced on stage by actor Hugh Jackman to huge applause and focused his 7-minute speech on the issues of sanitation, cleanliness and global peace. 

The Central Park concert had been organized by Hugh Evans of the Global Poverty Project, an international organisation involved in poverty alleviation programmes; he had met PM Modi last month. 
Mr Modi said that the work today's youth is doing on issues like sanitation and poverty will  have a deep impact in the times to come. 

"I salute you, I repeat, I salute you," he said as the crowd erupted in applause.

"God bless. May the force be with you," he said, citing Star Wars. 

Today, he will address a giant audience of nearly 18,000 NRIs at New York's Madison Square Garden before heading to Washington for his first-ever meeting with President Barack Obama.

0 comments:

Narendra Modi, Once Unwelcome in US, Gets Rock Star Reception

05:02 0 Comments



The Indians who draw crowds of adoring fans are usually tall and sultry, with washboard abs and elaborate outfits, Bollywood stars like Shah Rukh Khan - described by some as the Brad Pitt of India - or Priyanka Chopra, the bombshell actress, singer and model. 

But this time it is a teetotaler and bachelor who has boasted of his 56-inch chest and wears a simple cotton shirt. 

Narendra Modi, India's new prime minister, will receive a rally fit for a rock star at Madison Square Garden on Sunday. His rags-to-riches story mirrors the rise of Gujarat, the Indian state that he governed and that gave him and his Bharatiya Janata Party a landslide victory in India's general election in May. His new profile has also allowed him to return to the United States; the State Department had revoked his visa in 2005 over his alleged role in deadly religious riots in Gujarat three years earlier. 

For Modi and his supporters, the visit, which includes a speech before the United Nations General Assembly and a meeting with President Barack Obama, is also a moment to connect with members of the broad Indian diaspora in the United States, many of whom watched with embarrassment from afar as India's economic engine sputtered and corruption scandals plagued Modi's rivals in the Indian National Congress party, which has governed India for most of its postcolonial history. 

"Prime Minister Modi's message will be refreshing - what role Indian-Americans can play promoting a relationship between two great stories," said Dr. Bharat Barai, a longtime friend of Modi's who helped arrange his visit. 

Many Indians in the United States see Modi as India's savior: a strong leader who has pledged to cut through red tape, stamp out corruption, revive India's economy and restore pride. 

Of the more than 1,700 Indians living in the United States who responded to a New York Times questionnaire, a majority expressed excitement and hope about Modi's visit, saying they expected him to resurrect the narrative of India as a rising global power and strengthen relations between the two countries. 

"Modi's trip will jump-start the process of restoring respect and admiration for Indian civilization," wrote one respondent, Sant Gupta, 66, of Virginia. 

Tapping into a level of interest they never expected, Barai and the group organizing the $1.5 million event, the Indian American Community Foundation, have mobilized more than 400 organizations and individuals. Bollywood stars offered their talents, but organizers wanted to keep the focus on Indian-Americans. The hosts will be last year's Miss America winner, Nina Davuluri, and a PBS anchor, Hari Sreenivasan. Anjali Ranadivé, the daughter of Vivek Ranadivé, owner of the Sacramento Kings basketball team, will sing the American national anthem, while L. Subramaniam, a violinist, and Kavita Krishnamurthy, a classical singer, will perform the Indian anthem. 

The prime minister's office told Barai and the other organizers, "Just don't have a Bollywood night there." 

The event will include an acrobatic and laser show, a speed-painted portrait of Modi and a hologram re-creating the seminal speech of Modi's guru, Swami Vivekananda, who became the ambassador of Hinduism to the United States when he spoke at the World's Parliament of Religions in 1893. Modi was honoring Vivekananda when he visited the United States in 1993, and Barai recalled how embarrassed Modi was by his meager possessions during that visit. 

"I know you only do laundry in America once a week," Modi said. 

"But I only have two pairs of clothes." Now, his shirts are a fashion symbol. 

"It's also milestone for us as a community," said Anand Shah, a spokesman for the organizers. 

Only about half of the 30,000 people who applied for free tickets will get to see Modi. Free lunches will be provided around the corner for guests though Modi, himself, will be observing a nine-day religious fast. A majority of those attending are from the Northeast. 

"I am die-hard fan of Narendra Modiji and have been following him since last 12 years," a software engineer from Atlanta wrote in an email to Barai, using a term of respect for the prime minister. He said he had bought a plane ticket to New York before learning that he had not got a ticket to the Modi event. 

The Indian diaspora is as complex as India itself: a kaleidoscope of religious and ethnic groups, a growing middle class, skilled laborers, poor migrants and pockets of the wealthy elite. The Indian government estimates the diaspora, including immigrants and their descendants, at 20 million, with large concentrations in 22 countries. 

India has the largest number of people living outside its borders of any nation, according to the Pew Research Center. Indian-Americans make up the third-largest Asian-American group in the United States and lead these groups in terms of income and education. 

"India has defense and economic ties with other countries," said Tanvi Madan, director of the India Project at the Brookings Institution, but the large number of Indians living in the United States "is what makes the relationship different." 

By the mid-1990s, the Indian community in the United States was fairly large and rich, made up of skilled migrants of the 1960s and '70s and young men seeking higher education in the mid-1980s, according to Ashutosh Varshney, a political scientist at Brown University. 

"This diaspora was embarrassed about India's poverty and economic performance," he said. "There's a diasporic desire to see India economically rise again, which also drives the fascination with Mr. Modi." 

After India's economy was overhauled in the 1990s, its technology sector began to boom, and it began approaching China's double-digit growth rates. But the global downturn of 2008-09 laid bare India's chronic problems, including antiquated infrastructure, wasteful spending and rising food prices. 

0 comments:

Jayalalithaa Gets Four Years in Jail for Corruption, Fined 100 Crores

08:56 0 Comments



Here is your 10-point cheat-sheet to this big story:
  1. Ms Jayalalithaa, who is 66, will have to resign as Chief Minister - she stands disqualified as a legislator. The Supreme Court ruled last year that a convicted law-maker can't continue as MP or MLA and shall be disqualified from office.
  2. She is also now barred by law from contesting elections for the next 10 years - six years after the completion of her sentence - unless today's judgement is reversed by a higher court. She is the first chief minister to be disqualified.
  3. Tamil Nadu is tense as angry supporters of the chief minister and her AIADMK forced shops to close in some parts of the state and burnt effigies of leaders of the rival DMK. Stones were thrown at the Chennai residence of DMK chief M Karunanidhi.
  4. An NDTV team was attacked by AIADMK activists outside Ms Jayalalithaa's residence in Poes Garden, Chennai. Protesters damaged the crew's equipment and the Outdoor Broadcast van outside Ms Jayalalithaa's residence in Poes Garden in Chennai. NDTV's Uma Sudhir reported that the workers targeted the crew deliberately, broke their camera and called women workers who threw stones at the team.
  5. Ms Jayalalithaa flew from Chennai to Bangalore this morning to attend the hearing, which took place in a makeshift court created at the Central Jail on the outskirts of the city.
  6. The case against her is 18 years old and was filed originally by Subramanian Swamy, now a BJP leader. It was pursued by Jayalalithaa's arch rival, the DMK, after it came to power in Tamil Nadu.
  7. The case against Ms Jayalalithaa accuses her of misusing her first term as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu from 1991 to 1996 to collect assets that were vastly disproportionate to her income. She has been convicted along with three close aides, including Sasikala Natarajan, who lives with her. They have been fined Rs. 10 crore each.
  8. The prosecution argued that Ms Jayalalithaa took a salary of just one rupee when she was elected Chief Minister, but used her five-year tenure to illicitly gather huge assets that added up to Rs. 66 crores.  The alleged illegal wealth includes 2,000 acres of land, 30 kg of gold and 12,000 saris.
  9. Ms Jayalalithaa has denounced the case as political vendetta. She argued that the prosecution undervalued her earlier assets, ignored her income from other sources and exaggerated the value of her property.
  10. In the national election this year, her AIADMK virtually swept the state, winning 37 of 39 Lok Sabha seats. The state votes for its next government in two years.

0 comments:

Jayalalithaa First Chief Minister to Lose Post in Corruption Case

08:54 0 Comments



J Jayalalithaa, the chief of the AIADMK, has become the first chief minister to be forced from office after being convicted of serious criminal charges.

The 66-year-old has been sentenced to jail in Bangalore after a local court found her guilty of corruption during her first term as chief minister of Tamil Nadu from 1991 to 1996.
In a landmark judgement last year, the Supreme Court ruled that any law-maker found guilty of a crime that carries at least a two-year jail sentence will be disqualified immediately after conviction and barred  from contesting elections. Before that, criminal law-makers could remain in office if they appealed within three months against their conviction.

Jayalalithaa's AIADMK swept the national election in May, winning all but two seats on the state. The party is the third-largest in Parliament. Tamil Nadu will vote for its next government in two years. 

She is expected to select a loyalist to replace her as head of the government. She will also appeal to a higher court against her verdict and sentence of four years.

0 comments:

'G-All': New Modi-ism in UN Address

08:53 0 Comments



Prime Minister Narendra Modi's penchant for coining new phrases, often described as "Modi-isms", saw the term G-All debuting at the UN today.

"Why can't we have a G-All grouping? Why is it that despite having a wonderful platform like the UN, we have had to have various G platforms?" PM Modi wondered in his 32-minute speech in Hindi at the UN General Assembly in New York. 

"The names of groupings keep changing - G-5, G-7, G-20 and so on...but what we need is a G-All the most. We need to think how to create a G-all atmosphere when the UN is about to celebrate its 70 years," he said.

Mr Modi pressed for the expansion of the UN Security Council by 2015, saying, "We will turn 70 next year. We have to ask ourselves, do we wait till we turn 80? No. The next year can be an opportunity."

0 comments:

Congress Makes a Comeback in Vasundhara Raje's Rajasthan Too

00:35 0 Comments


 It will make no dent in the BJP's massive majority in Rajasthan, but the Congress' win in three of four assembly seats in by-elections in the state is cause for pause for the ruling party.

All four seats were held by BJP legislators who became MPs in May this year. The party has managed to retain just one - the Kota South seat. The Congress has won Surajgarh, Weir and Nasirabad.

This is the first good news to come out of Rajasthan for the Congress in almost a year since it lost the state it ruled for a decade to the BJP led by Vasundhara Raje, now chief minister. 

The victory is a big fillip for the Congress' new in-charge in the state, Sachin Pilot, who has been assiduously rebuilding party cadres in the state since his party's debacle in the national elections.  

"Everyone said the Congress will not perform, but I congratulate the party workers," Mr Pilot said after the results were declared. "The BJP should take a lesson from these elections and introspect.  The government will have to watch where it steps." 

The BJP had won an unprecedented 162 seats to get an absolute majority in the state elections and followed it up with a 25-0 rout of the Congress in the general elections four months ago. Vasundhara Raje sealed her reputation a match winner.  

The loss of Surajgarh will be particularly painful for Ms Raje; she had handpicked former health minister Digambar Singh to contest that seat.

0 comments:

BJP Makes a Debut in Mamata Banerjee's West Bengal

00:31 0 Comments


For the BJP, which had to cede space to the Congress in Gujarat and Rajasthan, here's some cheering news. The party has finally managed to open an account in Mamata Banerjee's West Bengal, with the Basirhat Dakshin seat. 

But it has lost its key target - the prestigious Chowringhee in Kolkata, which the Trinamool Congress has managed to retain.

The BJP's victory in smalltown Basirhat is also a comment on party chief Amit Shah's new gambit of attacking the Trinamool Congress on the Saradha Ponzi scam, which has badly hit the state's rural poor.

The Basirhat seat was won by CPI(M)'s Narayan Mukhopadhyay in 2011. The by-election was caused due to his death.

The victory, though with a narrow margin, comes as a shot in the arm for the BJP, which is looking to carve out a niche in Bengal. The outcome has set up the party for the municipal elections in Kolkata next year and the assembly polls in 2016.

Chowringhee was won by Nayana Bandyopadhyay, wife of Sudip Bandyopadhyay, leader of the Trinamool Congress parliamentary party. She beat BJP state secretary and spokesman Ritesh Tiwary.

The seat was won by Sikha Mitra of Trinamool Congress in the 2011 assembly elections. The by-election was held as the seat fell vacant after Mitra's resignation from the party.

0 comments:

I Want a Full Stop for Myself in Delhi Politics: Sheila Dikshit

16:39 0 Comments



Senior Congress leader and former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit today stood by her comment that if BJP have the numbers, they should be asked to prove it on the floor of the House.

"I took a constitutional position, if they (BJP) have the numbers. Because without the numbers, whether you have support or not, you cannot form a government. No one should read into what I have said, I have simply stated the constitutional position," Ms Dikshit said.

Reacting to the Congress distancing itself from her remark, the 76-year-old said, "The Congressmen who made these remarks - I don't think they really knew what I said. Because later they corrected themselves."

Ms Dikshit, who was the chief minister of Delhi for three consecutive terms, said if the BJP could not prove its numbers, Delhi would have to face elections in February 2015, when the current term of President's Rule ends.

She also ruled out her return to Delhi politics. "I have been in the government for 15 years and one year before that preparing the party for elections. And I think it needs a full stop," she said.

She, however, expressed her willingness to accept any position in the Congress Working Committee.

Ms Dikshit, one of the seniormost members of the Congress, also commented on what seemed like a growing divide between the party's old guard and its younger leaders.

"If there is no churning now, you will say we are immune to even such a defeat. There are ideas coming forth and eventually a consensus will be reached. I don't see why this should be seen as dissent or dissidence," she said.

She, however, added that leaders should express their views within the party forum and not speak out in public.

Ms Dikshit, who was appointed the Governor of Kerala after she lost the elections in Delhi in December, resigned last month after the NDA government insisted that all governors appointed by the UPA government go. 

"I was hurt by the way the government handled the issue, but more than an individual's humiliation, it is the office of the Governor that has been denigrated," she said. 

"If all parties decide that Governors should quit the moment a government changes, then perhaps the Governor can go in a much more dignified way," she added.

0 comments:

In a First, Andhra Pradesh Holds Paperless Cabinet Meet

08:59 0 Comments


 Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu is trying hard to keep up with his image of 'CEO of Andhra Pradesh Inc.' that he had crafted for himself in his earlier tenure.

To mark 100 days of his government, Mr Naidu today held an e-cabinet, a paperless cabinet meeting, that's being claimed to be a first for the country. 
 
At the meeting, the many faces in the Andhra Pradesh cabinet reflected the many moods: Tech-savvy or overawed, dazed or absorbed, learning slowly or lending a helping hand.
B Gopalakrishna, Environment and Forests Minister of Andhra Pradesh said it is only appropriate that the tech-savvy Chandrababu Naidu should have taken the first step in this direction. He said having information available at hand makes decision making easy and fast.
 
"Whoever has information, looks intelligent and powerful. The iPad will enable that. Everybody should know. As long as you don't know swimming or driving, it is very difficult. Once you know, it is very simple. Like that only computers also. Man who is really known as computer-centric person, Chandrababu Naidu, he is only next to Modi in bringing this kind of change," Mr Gopalakrishna said.

A specially designed app, eCabinet enables ministers to log in with a password and access the agenda of the Cabinet meeting in electronic form but prevents the user from sharing it with anyone.

With not all ministers tech-savvy, a special training camp was organised recently when the iPads were distributed along with the passwords.
 
"What would have taken several hours got done in just over an hour because information was easily available at our fingertips," said a cabinet minister.

Mr Naidu's admirers point out that he is after all the first to start path-breaking changes in e-governance, with initiatives like e-seva, HARD and so on. "He is a trendsetter and soon everyone else will be doing this," said a software firm techie based in Hyderabad.

Critics however say Chandrababu Naidu seems to be a man in a hurry. At a time when he should be focusing on basics like building a new capital and an office for his colleagues to sit in, Mr Naidu wants his cabinet to leapfrog into the digital future. Citizens would hope the e-cabinet proves to be more than just a charming photo-opportunity. 

0 comments:

Trying Our Best For an Alliance With BJP, Says Shiv Sena Chief Uddhav Thackeray

06:22 0 Comments


BJP leader Rajiv Pratap Rudy is expected to meet Shiv Sena Chief Uddhav Thackeray today amid a massive row over seat-sharing in election-bound Maharashtra that, according to top Sena sources, is a "possible make or break moment" for the long-time allies. 

The BJP is firm; it wants each party to contest 135 seats, while the smaller parties in the coalition get to contest 18 seats. The Sena, however, wants to contest nothing less than 155 seats. (Furious Over Remark Against Uddhav Thackeray, Sena Fires Back at Prithviraj Chavan)

"135 seats each is not feasible. The BJP had mission 272 for the Lok Sabha elections. What's wrong if Sena has Mission 150 for state elections?" Mr Thackeray said today, adding, however, "I am trying my best for an alliance. We don't want to take any steps to break the alliance as it is for Hindutva."
On Sunday, BJP spokesperson Madhav Bhandari had said that "talks have hit a "gati rodhak" (roadblock)."

In 2009, the Sena had contested 169 seats. The BJP, which contested 119 seats the last time, feels entitled to a greater share after winning more seats than the Sena in the national election.

The party with the most legislators will have the bigger claim to the Chief minister's post. 

Mr Thackeray's sharp warning in his party's magazine Saamna that "a lust for power can lead to divorce" has upset the BJP.

But it is the Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut's assertion that the "Chief Minister can only be from our party" that has the BJP up in arms. (Maharashtra Chief Minister Only From Our Party, Says Shiv Sena)

This is not the first time that the two partners have brought to the table brinksmanship and pressure tactics as they attempt to hammer out a seat sharing pact.

Sources in both parties say that while all efforts shall be made to arrive at a consensus, each is preparing to contest all 288 seats in Maharashtra. (Lust for More Seats Could End in Divorce, Sena Chief WaOn Sunday, BJP spokesperson Madhav Bhandari had said that "talks have hit a "gati rodhak" (roadblock)."
BJP chief Amit Shah, who is to visit Mumbai on Wednesday, could also meet Mr Thackeray.  

Sources also said that no decision is likely to be taken before next week, when the shraad period, considered inauspicious, ends. Elections will be held in Maharashtra on October 15 and votes will be counted on the 19th.

In the national election, the BJP won 23 of the state's 48 seats. The Sena won 18. 

The Congress-NCP alliance, which has governed Maharashtra since 1999, won only six seats. They are also yet to agree on a seat-sharing arrangement.


0 comments:

Stone Pelting Stalls Food Drops in Parts of Srinagar: 10 Latest Developments

08:11 0 Comments



  1. In the wake of attacks on the rescue teams, two battalions of Armed Police have been airlifted from Jammu to flood-ravaged Kashmir Valley to maintain law and order. "We have inducted two battalions of Armed Police from Jammu for maintaining law and order in the valley," a senior police officer said.
  2. Rescue and relief operations were briefly halted today because of rain accompanied by thunder and lightning, triggering panic among the residents. But as the weather condition improved, rescue and relief operations resumed in flood-hit parts of Jammu and Kashmir.
  3. The aerial operations which begin at day break and continue till sunset are the only method of carrying supplies and ferrying the stranded people to safer places. Nearly two lakh people have been rescued so far.
  4. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has directed concerned departments to redouble the ration supply to the valley, and asserted that restoration of essential services and public utilities on war footing is the priority of the government.
  5. Mr Abdullah also said that 60 per cent power supply has been restored in Kashmir Valley so far, and that within 15 days, all power will be restored.
  6. The state government today asked its employees to immediately report back to their offices or face action. Chief Secretary Mohammad Iqbal Khanday told the employees that they needed to help mitigate the problems caused by the unprecedented floods.
  7. Receding water in many areas is now beginning to reveal the real extent of the devastation. "Srinagar has drowned completely, it's unrecognisable. Almost everything is in ruins, it is just unimaginable," a State Disaster Response Force official said.
  8. OP Singh, director general of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), said the big worry now was of the spread of water-borne diseases. "Many parts are still submerged in four to five feet of water and we are concentrating on supplying anti-diarrhoea, anti-infection medicines and using chlorine to avert diseases," he said in Srinagar.
  9. The Jammu-Srinagar National Highway remained closed for the tenth consecutive day on Saturday due to landslides and sinking of road at various places. However, educational institutions in Jammu, except those serving as relief camps for flood-affected people, reopened after almost a week.
  10. Officials say over 200 people have been killed in the worst floods in the state in over a century; about 1.5 lakh are still stranded. 

0 comments:

This Doctor Returned to Kashmir after 25 Years to Help the Flood-Hit

00:07 0 Comments



The Jammu and Kashmir floods have triggered the emotions and memories of many people including those who left the valley during the mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits. 

Dr Rajkumar Karwani, an Indigo Airlines doctor, left Kashmir nearly 25 years ago. When NDTV met him on Srinagar to Delhi flight that was carrying mostly evacuated people, he said he volunteered to help because the floods were a call for duty for him. 

"I left so many years ago. But when I heard about what was happening, I volunteered to go back as they need doctors at the airport...I felt I must serve Kashmir," he said. He didn't step out of the airport but said he felt emotional and overwhelmed about his return under such tragic circumstances.
30 Indigo Airlines staff members from flood-ravaged Srinagar are untraceable. The airline has therefore deputed its Delhi staff who fly in daily to help out. They return back by the last flight since hotel rooms are scarce in Srinagar. The airline is giving free food to all passengers on this sector; majority of traveler are migrants fleeing due to floods. 

When we asked Dr Karwani if he went back to his old home, he said, "No, I didn't but I will revisit with my parents one day." Till then he plans to commute to Srinagar daily, tending to those who need him on the plane or at the airport. 
source : NDTV.com


0 comments:

In Disaster-Hit Kashmir, a Collective Story of Human Determination

00:00 0 Comments



The line was nothing less than a kilometer long. And, as the sun dipped, it was nothing short of a deluge, a mass of humanity. 

The Jammu - Srinagar highway is still closed. Large landslides at Ramsu just ahead of Banihal tunnel - the divides Jammu from Kashmir valley - have blocked the crucial highway. The only way to get out of the valley is via the aerial route.

But that is hardly a hurdle. Like Hannibal's army of yore - this army too, that of migrant workers in the valley, have walked over an entire mountain range to reach Jammu. They have walked through the mountains to reach Ramban in Jammu. Some have walked for as many as six days without any food and water for most of those days. 

"We noticed them yesterday, nearly 8,000 people crossed over today.  About 10,000 crossed over yesterday," said Brigadier Bhubesh Commader of the 11 sector of Rome Force. 

The army, he said, is making every effort to open the highway but it will take time. "We have opened a few langars (community kitchen) and medical camps at either side of the land side. Once they cross over, we put them on buses which are ferrying them to the Udhampur railway station," he said.

The exodus is a story of human grit, endurance and of human survival instinct. 

"We had nothing to eat for three days because of the rains; as soon as the weather improved I started walking," said Sunil Kumar Paswan from Bihar. He said that he tried taking shelter in a school and then in a hospital, but could not. 

"The police threw us out of the hospital and asked us to get lost," he said.  

On his way, he sold his mobile because he had no money. 
"I was thrown out by my employers as the water level started rising. They didn't pay me," alleged Rafiq from Bihar.

We met several survivors who, like Sunil, had either been asked to leave or had not been paid. Most labourers like Sunil and Rafiq were contracted to work in the fields, brick kilns and in other such odd jobs in the valley.

We found a young woman at the make-shift transit camp at the Ramban bus station. She was feeding her year two-year-old child. It was the first meal for them in three days.  

The langar is a combined effort between the local administration, the India Army, and the local people of Ramban. 

"I will go back to my village in Malda (in West Bengal) and then let's see what's in store," she told me as a volunteer put more hot daal androti on her plate by a volunteer at the camp. 

Disasters and deaths often bring out the worst in people; sometimes, the best of all that makes us human.

0 comments:

The BJP and Hindu-Muslim Romance

21:35 0 Comments


Mukul Kesavan is a writer based in Delhi. His more recent book is Homeless on Google Earth (Permanent Black, 2013).

 'Love jihad' is a sharp new name for a squalid prejudice. The cadres of the Sangh Parivar have, for years, described mixed unions, specially unions between Hindu women and Muslim men, as a form of covert aggression. It's a position founded on two assumptions: one, that every romantic attachment between a Muslim man and a Hindu woman is an example of a larger, purposeful conspiracy and two, that since no Hindu woman in her right mind would voluntarily agree to such a union, every Hindu woman in such a union is either a dupe or a coerced victim. 
 
There was a time when zealous Sanghis would pore over civil marriage notices in local courts to snout up information about interfaith marriages involving Hindu women. They would then turn up at the home of the Hindu woman to abet her parents if they were opposed to the match or lean on them if they weren't. 
 
Recently, the Sangh Parivar has been energetically peddling stories of Hindu women being duped into marrying men they thought were Hindu but were actually Muslim, or Hindu women being coerced by Muslim husbands into converting to Islam, or Hindu women being abducted by Muslim men and so on. Star campaigners of the BJP in Uttar Pradesh like Yogi Adityanath have made these allegations of 'love jihad' central to their election campaigns. 
 
Usha Thakur, MLA and vice-president of the BJP in Madhya Pradesh, went a step further: she called for Muslim men to be stopped from entering garbha festival venues to protect Hindu girls from harassment. Her position is entirely consistent with her party president's electoral strategy of demonizing Muslims. 
 
In the course of the general election campaign in April, Amit Shah set the tone from which Adityanath and Thakur have taken their cues, in a speech he made to a gathering of Jats in Bijnor. Attempting to frame Mayawati as someone who pandered to Muslims, he said that she had given 19 Lok Sabha tickets to a particular community (varg vishesh) which 'flouted' the sisters and daughters of his assembled audience and violated their honour. There was no ambiguity about the community in question: Mayawati had, in fact, allotted precisely that number of tickets to Muslim candidates. Amit Shah was categorically describing Muslims as a community of predators who targeted theaabru of Hindu women. 
 
'Love jihad' is a useful way of giving this slander legs because it doesn't need evidence or categorical proof to do its work. Any anecdote about a romance, an elopement or a marriage between a Hindu woman and a Muslim man is grist to this mill because according to the Sangh Parivar, such relationships, by definition, cannot be entered into in good faith on both sides: the Muslim man is always the thin end of an sinister wedge, a fifth columnist bent on subverting the solidarity of the Hindu nation from within. Should a Hindu girl inconveniently deny coercion or rape or conversion or abduction, as a girl in Muzaffarnagar did just last week, forcing the police to release her blameless boyfriend, Pervez, there's always another story about a predatory Muslim aashiq to move on to. 
 
Like all slanders, 'love jihad' works best in places where communal violence has already stoked distrust and hostility. It isn't a coincidence that in the wake of the Muzaffarnagar riots an allegation that used to be confined to the rhetoric of the Parivar's lunatic fringe is now the BJP's favourite meme. 
 
The notion of 'love jihad' is a classic example of a majoritarian party trying to tap into a sense of passive-aggressive injury. In the Indian context this consists of riffing on several related themes: we-are-peaceful-but-they-are-predatory, we-don't-convert-but-they-steal-our-daughters, if-this-goes-on-we'll-be-a-minority-soon. 
 
That there are more than a billion Hindus in India, that many state legislatures have made conversion from Hinduism to Islam or Christianity a process that has to be vetted and approved by officers of the state, that shuddhi ('reconversion' to Hinduism) has been a hardy staple of Hindu revivalists since the nineteenth century, is irrelevant. 'Our' existence as a nation depends, apparently, upon stalking and shaming and 'saving' Hindu girls who have been unwary enough to fall in love with Muslim men. 
 
Curiously there's no mention in the 'love Jihad' narrative of Hindu men marrying Muslim women. The assumption must either be that in these cases it is Muslim women who are assimilated into the Hindu fold, so that's all right, or that if it is the Hindu men who convert, this is such an appalling prospect that it's best not thought of or mentioned. 
 
A party that reduces love across religious boundaries to a zero sum game, is a party that can't conceive of love. In their campaign against 'love jihad' the whiskered patriarchs of the Parivar have given notice of a crusade of another kind: a jihad on love itself.
 

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. NDTV is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity of any information on this article. All information is provided on an as-is basis. The information, facts or opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same. 


0 comments:

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)