Posted on Sunday, November 14, 2010 - 12:38 pm:

---

Kamal:

btw .. ninna first time oka leader tho matladithe confirm chesadu .. Arun Jaitley sometimes uses media in his favor ani .. but he is still in good terms with NaMo ani cheppadu !!! he had gr8 praise for Gadkari .. tanaki unna sakthi meraku kastapadutunnadu party kosam ani cheppadu .. naaku telisindi inthe ..

---

Posted on Sunday, November 14, 2010 - 11:34 am:

---

quote:

Imagine the first Mahatma Gandhi-led independence to usher in on Aug 15, 1947, a democratic polity, and imagine Mrs Indira Gandhi, his follower, destroying all democratic institutions by imposing the emergency some 28 years later on June 25, 1975. The nation celebrated a second independence when she was routed at the polls in January 1977.

It is not an insignificant coincidence that a journalist reported, on the eve of Aug 15, that the Congress has "destroyed" all papers relating to our second independence in January 1977. If only history could be so easily rewritten.
Imagine the first Mahatma Gandhi-led independence to usher in on Aug 15, 1947, a democratic polity, and imagine Mrs Indira Gandhi, his follower, destroying all democratic institutions by imposing the emergency some 28 years later on June 25, 1975. The nation celebrated a second independence when she was routed at the polls in January 1977.

Typical of Congress' furtive ways to cover up its misdeeds, the home ministry claims it does not have the emergency proclamation issued by then President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed. Nor does it have any record of the decisions taken on the arrests of thousands on the basis of false allegations, the appointment of certain people to key posts and the manner in which the statutory provisions governing detentions were breached.

This means that anyone aged 30 or younger will find it difficult to obtain any hard information about what happened during those dark days. Many of us remember the courage of Jayaprakash (JP) Narayan, who challenged Mrs Gandhi's misrule, and the pain he suffered when he was subsequently imprisoned.
M.G. Devasahayam, who was then district magistrate of Chandigarh where JP was detained, drew the authorities' attention to JP's deteriorating health. As Devasahayam writes in his book, the reply came from the then Defence Minister Bansi Lal, who basically said, 'let him die'.

I am surprised that there was no furore in parliament on the disclosure of the disappearance of the papers on the emergency. Neither Mulayam Singh nor Lalu Prasad Yadav, nor even the Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, raised the topic.

The home ministry fixes responsibility for the missing records on the National Archives of India, saying that it is the "repository of non-current records". The National Archives says that nothing was transferred to its safekeeping. Yet the Shah Commission, which dug into the misdeeds committed during the emergency, said on the last day of its proceedings that it was depositing all the records with the National Archives.

The Shah Commission held 100 meetings, examined 48,000 papers and issued two interim reports. While the Janata government was still in power, I checked with the National Archives and was assured that the records of the commission's verbatim proceedings were intact.

Apparently, the destruction of evidence started after Mrs Gandhi's return to power in 1980. Copies of the Shah Commission report disappeared even from the shop where official publications were available. The report by the National Police Commission, which made praiseworthy recommendations to free the force from the pressure of politicians, was shelved because it had been constituted by the Janata government. Mrs Gandhi walked out of a police medal distribution ceremony when her aide told her that the medals were for work in exposing excesses during the emergency.

The Congress cannot rehabilitate Mrs Gandhi by hiding records of her misdeeds. It must face the fact of her authoritarian governance. She did great things and her fervour for nationalism allowed the country to hold its head high, but she also had her limitations. She was responsible for ousting morality from politics and effaced the thin line that separated good from bad, moral from immoral. We are still suffering from the hangover.

With her extra-constitutional authority exercised by her son Sanjay Gandhi, she effectively smothered dissent and corroded India’s democratic values. It's a pity that the press went out of its way to conform to the dictates of the government. L.K. Advani was quite right when he chided the press: "You were asked to bend but you began to crawl."

The reason why the system, which was derailed during the emergency, has not been able to return to its moorings so far is the unaccountability of bureaucrats and politicians. No one found guilty by the Shah Commission has been punished. In fact, those who indulged in excesses were given out-of-turn promotions and appointments to key posts. The rulers should heed the advice of the Shah Commission: "The government's primary responsibility is to guarantee protection to those officials who refused to deviate from the code of conduct which should be accepted not only by the officials but also by the political authorities."

I am not surprised that Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah has remained silent over the missing records. He is too close and beholden to the dynasty. Yet he has done laudable work in expanding the contours of the Right To Information Act. Mrs Gandhi did not even consult the cabinet before asking the president to sign the proclamation of emergency order. The cabinet was called the following morning to retrospectively endorse it. It's understandable that the home ministry cannot explain this without blaming Mrs Gandhi personally. She even wanted to close down the courts but was assured that the judges would fall in line. The Supreme Court went to the extent of upholding five to one the imposition of the emergency.

True, it is all history. But the Congress cannot rewrite it. The failings of the government and its leaders should never be fudged because the nation's conscience is at stake. Coming generations should know how and where the country's institutions were compromised and democracy derailed. It is only by laying the truth out in black and white that future emergencies and associated authoritarian rule can be avoided. And I hope the dawn of our second independence is never overtaken by the twilight made up of the brutalities and excesses that shame us.

By Kuldip Nayar The writer is a senior journalist based in Delhi.

---

Posted on Sunday, November 14, 2010 - 03:48 am:

---

quote:

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday called upon the spinning industry of Tamil Nadu to set up units in his State.

Though Gujarat was a major cotton producing State, a substantial number of spinning mils were located in Coimbatore. Cotton produced in the western State came to Coimbatore for spinning. The material went back to Gujarat for making it into fabrics, Mr. Modi told a gathering of industrialists at an interactive session organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

[According to industry sources, cotton production during 2009-2010 was 295 lakh bales, of which Gujarat accounted for 98 lakh bales. Of 3,102 spinning mills in the country, 1,931 are in Tamil Nadu. Approximately 60 per cent of the mills are in the Coimbatore region which includes Tirupur, Erode and Salem districts.]

Assuring the industrialists of uninterrupted and quality power supply, Mr Modi said, "The real power is not with the Chief Minister. The real power is in the energy sector."

5F formula

For the textile sector, his formula was 5F: farm to fibre to fabric to fashion to [exporting finished products to] foreign [countries]. "Whoever is interested in the 5F formula, please come [to Gujarat]. We will give all facilities," he said.

If spinning mills were established in Gujarat, the transport cost could be reduced. "We can capture the whole world."

In a lighter vein, he told the gathering, "Retain your unit here. You can set up one unit in Gujarat. I am not asking you to leave Tamil Nadu. I am not here for that."

Emphasising that the development process should be converted into a mass movement, Mr Modi said development should not remain the agenda of governments alone. If it is a government's agenda, the progress would be slow. If it became a mass movement, the whole environment could be changed. This could be achieved through public-private partnerships, for which transparency had to be ensured. Governments should be driven by policies, not by ideas of individuals. "When you are a policy-driven State, the grey area will be minimum. There is no scope for discretion," he said.

Quoting data of the Central government, Mr. Modi said his State accounted for 78 per cent of jobs created in the country between 2007 and 2009. This was possible because of a host of incentives given to the sectors of agriculture and small and medium enterprises.

Children's University

On education, the Gujarat government was establishing an institution aimed at producing quality teachers on a large scale. In view of the growing number of nuclear families, children were getting marginalised in terms of care and attention. To address this, the Children's University had been set up and its functions would be research, education, training and extension services.

A.K. Joti, Gujarat Chief Secretary, said the biennial Vibrant Gujarat summit, launched in 2003, had received an overwhelming response in its last edition in 2009. The next edition would be held in Gandhinagar on January 12 and 13, 2011.

M. Sahu, Gujarat Principal Secretary (Industries and Mines), said two more LNG (liquefied natural gas) terminals had been proposed in the State.

T.T. Ashok, Deputy Chairman of CII-Southern Region, said Gujarat had been clocking double digit growth over the last one decade. It had also been consistently moving upwards in terms of attracting domestic and foreign direct investments.

---

Posted on Saturday, November 13, 2010 - 10:11 pm:

---

Kamal:

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/118268/Nation/gujara t-modi-tries-gandhigiri.html

---

Posted on Saturday, November 13, 2010 - 10:02 pm:

---

quote:

The state where Mahatma Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, is seeing a resurgence of his ideas. Chief Minister Narendra Modi is finding new ways to promote his ideals-khadi, antyodaya (taking care of the last man in society), rural uplift and girl child education, on which Gandhi laid special emphasis. Modi has asked government employees to buy khadi during October and to present a khadi napkin and a book to guests at official functions instead of bouquets. Observes well-known Gandhian Devendra Desai of Saurashtra Rachnatmak Samiti, "Modi's efforts to propagate Gandhian aims, particularly his measures to enhance Khadi sales, are commendable."

To bring down the female dropout rate from schools, the chief minister undertakes an annual two-day visit to villages with IAS officers, imploring people to send girls to schools. Says Gandhian writer Gunwant Shah, "No one has ever sent IAS officials to villages to propagate Gandhian ideals. Modi has charted a new path when it comes to selling Gandhi in modern times."

Under the crafts bazaar scheme, the state government provides selling and living space to rural craftsmen in major cities. The upcoming Mahatma Mandir in Gandhinagar is also meant to remind youth of who Gandhi was and what he stood for. Being built on 58,000 square metres, the temple will be opened early next year. To nurse people's sentiments, the chief minister roped in 18,000 villagers to contribute to the temple by bringing soil and water from their lands. The site will have a huge salt hill to remind people of Gandhi's Salt March, a charkha-•••-windmill that will produce power, three exhibition halls and a Gandhi garden. Says IAS officer Bhagyesh Jha who is involved in the project, "Gandhinagar has just one statue of the Mahatma. Gandhi Mandir will put the city on the world tourist map."

To keep global interest in the Father of the Nation alive, the state government is planning to showcase the crafts of Gujarat's rural artisans at the next Vibrant Gujarat Global Investments Summit in January.

---

Posted on Saturday, November 13, 2010 - 09:51 pm:

---

Kamal:

---

Posted on Saturday, November 13, 2010 - 09:43 pm:

---

quote:

As ever the udanpirappugal (brothers) have turned out like the sea." That is what Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi says whenever he sees a large turnout at his rallies. Rattled by the resurgence of AIADMK leader Jayalalithaa, the DMK supremo has changed the script. He wrote in the party mouthpiece Murasoli: "Gathering of people is necessary to weigh the views expressed by the leaders.

But gathering alone cannot be the yardstick to calculate victory. The huge turnout did not turn into votes for Anna in the 1962 Assembly elections. Had it been so, the DMK could have formed its government the same year." What makes the octogenarian more nervous is the fact that Jayalalithaa, by wooing actor Vijayakanth's DMDK, has begun to consolidate anti-DMK votes.

Karunanidhi was further flustered by Congress President Sonia Gandhi's rally in Tiruchi recently. She gave a clarion call to her cadres asking them to make the Congress "the party of the future". Sonia neither took any effort to pacify the rattled DMK nor did she call on Karunanidhi as she usually does whenever she visits the state. Worse, Rahul Gandhi had recently referred to the AIADMK as a "like-minded" party. All eyes are now on the wedding of Durai Dayanidhi, son of Karunanidhi's eldest son and Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers M.K. Alagiri. The DMK high command hopes that the attendance of senior Congress leaders at the wedding scheduled to be held in November at Madurai will send out a message to Jayalalithaa.

What worries Karunanidhi even more is the bickering in his own party, specially the tiff between siblings Alagiri and M.K. Stalin. Alagiri's recent statement on his willingness to return to state politics has made the DMK chief distraught. "Alagiri is aspiring for a senior party position like his deputy chief minister brother," says a senior DMK leader. For now, problems are coming to Karunanidhi like the sea, not people as he liked.

---

Posted on Saturday, November 13, 2010 - 09:37 pm:

---

quote:

The message came right at the end. It went unnoticed by both politicians and journalists. Sonia Gandhi began her concluding address at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) Session in Delhi on November 2 with a seemingly innocuous, "Pradhan mantriji, A.K. Antonyji, Pranab Mukherjeeji...". But she had changed the pecking order in the Congress hierarchy and the government. The new Number 2 is Antony, not Mukherjee.

Antony has been silently creeping up the ladder at 10 Janpath. Last year when the prime minister went in for a heart surgery, Manmohan Singh's duties were divided between the two: Mukherjee got the chores and Antony got the ceremonial role. However, this is probably the first time that his name has preceded Mukherjee's in any formal party hierarchical statement. As the seniormost Congressman on the dais, it was Mukherjee who drafted and read out the AICC statement summarising the spirit of the session. But it's unlikely that a seasoned player like him would have missed the innuendo in Sonia's speech.

There was no reference to the Commonwealth Games and the Adarsh Society scam by any of the top leaders. The valiant Digvijaya Singh later tried to score a brownie point. "Corruption is a big issue. This was only a statement ahead of the AICC plenary next month. This was not a resolution," he said. The most significant visual, the prominent presence of Commonwealth Games totem Suresh Kalmadi and the gladhandler Chief Minister of Maharashtra Ashok Chavan, underscored the missing factor in Sonia's speech-no mention of corruption. The message to the party and the country was that the corrupt were safe in the Congress bosom, because the tales they would tell might bring too many others down.

The session was an unabashed ode to Rahul, as speaker after speaker eulogised the leader-in-waiting. Sonia praised him indirectly by lauding the process of democratisation of the Youth Congress and NSUI. Rahul is the general secretary of both. Others were more vocal. Mukherjee commended him for bringing a new era of "inclusive participation of youth through an election based political process at the grassroots". When Kerala PCC chief Ramesh Chennithala declared that Rahul would be the next prime minister, Manmohan smiled in agreement. An excited leader from Punjab, Shamsher Singh Dullo, compared Rahul's Dalit tourism to Mahatma Gandhi's stay at Harijan hamlets. In the sycophantic folklore of Congress culture, "Rahul Gandhiji is the neo-Mahatma. While Mukherjee quoted Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajasthan MP Girija Vyas and Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit quoted Rahul.

There was a "spontaneous" request from the crowd for Rahul to speak. Even Jairam Ramesh stopped his constant SMSing to listen to the voice of the Congress Tomorrow. Rahul delivered his favourite and rather repetitive speech about the two Indias. Perhaps he needs to fire Ramesh and get another speechwriter.

It was a mutual admiration festival. Both Rahul and Sonia praised Manmohan; the prime minister thanked Sonia, yet again, for giving a "new direction" to the Congress for the last 12 years. He also thought the party had a "bright future", the code words for Rahul. The unsung Mukherjee did one of his balancing acts and praised the "guidance of Sonia Gandhi and the leadership of Dr Manmohan Singh". But even Sonia cringed when Vyas referred to her as "the pride of India, pride of womanhood and of the world".

As planned, the delegates dutifully raised their hands to endorse Sonia to nominate the new Congress Working Committee (CWC). Two ballot boxes that some optimistic Congressmen had brought to the venue were unceremoniously sent back via a back door. "Nominating a CWC is not as simple as it looks. It is difficult to accommodate everyone. Someone will complain that he has been left out," said Sonia. And added, "But in the Congress, if you wait long enough, your number does come."

Maybe not. Not all Congressmen have the same employment guarantee scheme that is available only to the Nehru-Gandhis.

---

Posted on Saturday, November 13, 2010 - 08:29 pm:

---

Gandhiguevara:

ntaki 2014 BJP chances enti?

---

Posted on Saturday, November 13, 2010 - 08:24 pm:

---

Kamal:

do u still have the same view?

---

Posted on Saturday, November 13, 2010 - 08:15 pm:

---

Vjavasi:

---

Posted on Saturday, November 13, 2010 - 07:44 pm:

---

Chiru_fan:

eedi laantoodu mana AP ki okkadu kaavaali...mana AP ni nizamgaa swarnaandhra pradesh gaa chesthaadu.... mana daridram yemitoo gaani...mana leaders andaroo bewarse category nee!

---

Posted on Saturday, November 13, 2010 - 11:24 am:

---

Modi:

'In Gujarat education is run as a social service. Gujaratis living in other places are also doing the same. Education is not a business in Gujarat or for Gujaratis. For those wanting to set up an educational institution as a business proposition, it will be a problem,' Modi said to a question at an investors' meeting here Saturday.

---