DALIT VOICE

Tamil Nadu government scholarship for SC/ST students doing full time PhD in arts, science and engineering-2015

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Tue, 23 Dec 2014 11:58:00 +0000

The scheme is open to candidates who belong to Scheduled Caste & Scheduled Tribe from Tamil Nadu and currently pursuing full time/regular Ph.D degrees in Sciences, Humanities, Social Sciences and Engineering & Technology in colleges and universities located within Tamil Nadu. The news paper advertisement of the scholarship scheme is given below (Click on the image to enlarge)

Eligibility:

1. SC/ST full time PhD scholars registered within Tamil Nadu.

2. Family income less than 2 Lakhs.

Filled in application should be sent to

The Director,
Adi Dravidar welfare department
Chepauk
Chennai-600005.

Application last date: 31.01.2015

The application can be downloaded from the following link:

Application Form

To see the Tamil font in the word document kindly download and install the following Tamil font in your system

Bamini Font

Tamil Nadu government Post-Matric Scholarship for SC/ST students studying in private Engineering,Medical,Nursing,Diploma,Teacher training,Arts and Science colleges 2014-2015

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 12:04:00 +0000

As part of the Post-Matric Scholarship Scheme for SC/ST students devised by the Central government and implemented through States, the compulsory non-refundable fee charged towards registration/enrolment, tuition, games, union and library membership, medical examination and any other fee compulsorily payable at all private higher education— is covered, apart from a host of other fees.

1. Central and state government is offering SC/ST scholarships to all SC/ST students studying B.E/M.E/M.B.B.S/Diploma/paramedical/Nursing courses at all government and private institutions.

2. SC/ST students studying B.A/M.A/B.Sc/M.Sc in private colleges are waived tuition fees.

3. Government will pay the fees on behalf of the students to the institution from the beginning of the academic year.

4. Eligible students are exempted from paying any fees at the time of admission. Even if the students had paid the fees for first year the fees would (Must) be refunded by the concerned institutions.

5. Students who got admission through management quota and government quota at all private colleges are also eligible for this scholarship.

Who are eligible?

All SC/ST/Converted SC/ST Christians (students pursuing full time course) with an annual income of parents/guardian less than Rs. 2.5 lakhs are eligible for this scholarship.

How to apply?

You need not apply for this scholarship separately. The concerned institution need to implement this scheme. In short the College management should feed all details of SC/ST students admitted in their college in the online portal.

For reference-You can visit this website here http://escholarship.tn.gov.in/

Moreover government has clearly mentioned in its GO that college management should not collect tuition fees from SC/ST students. Kindly show this to the management.

You can download the Instructions given by government to the institutions and relevant GO from here:

http://escholarshipdr.tn.gov.in/edistrict_adw/struts/ScholarshipInstructions.pdf

http://escholarshipdr.tn.gov.in/edistrict_adw/struts/2013_GO106.pdf

http://escholarshipdr.tn.gov.in/edistrict_adw/struts/2013_GO107.pdf

In case of denial

In case the college management denies the scholarship benefit please feel free to contact me through my mail id (Get it from my Profile). Let us know the phone number of the principal with college name and address. We will contact them directly in this regard.

Government has appointed monitoring committee to oversee the implementation of this scheme throughout Tamil Nadu. We are ready to help needy students through proper channel.

Kind request to all:

Please forward this information to all. Help the poor and socially disadvantaged SC/ST students.

The list of important guidelines mentioned in the government order along with name of the course and amount of scholarships can be downloaded from the following links. (These guidelines can also be seen in the following link)

IMPORTANT: PLEASE DOWNLOAD THE G.O AND CIRCULAR FROM THE FOLLOWING LINKS:

G.O Ms.No. 92 Dt: September 11 ,2012 (80KB)

ஆதிதிராவிடர் நலம் - சுயநிதி கல்வி நிறுவனங்களில் (சிறுபான்மையினர் நிறுவனங்கள் உட்பட) அனைத்து விதமான படிப்புகளுக்கும் இலவச / கட்டண இருக்கையில் பயிலும் ஆதிதிராவிடர் / பழங்குடியினர்/ மதம் மாறிய கிறித்துவ ஆதிதிராவிடர் மாணவ / மாணவியர்களுக்கு அரசு நியமித்த சுயநிதிக் கல்லூரிகளுக்கான கட்டணக்குழு நிர்ணயிக்கும் கல்விக் கட்டணங்கள் மற்றும் அரசு நிர்ணயிக்கும் கல்வி கட்டணங்கள் போன்றவற்றை வழங்குதல் - வழிகாட்டு நெறிமுறைகள் - வெளியிடப்படுகிறது.

G.O Ms.No. 6 January 9, 2012 (49KB)

ஆதிதிராவிடர் மற்றும் பழங்குடியினர் நலம் - கல்வி – சுயநிதிக் கல்வி நிறுவனங்களில் அரசு ஒதுக்கீடு செய்யும் இலவச / கட்டண இருக்கைகளில் பயிலும் ஆதிதிராவிடர் / பழங்குடியினர் மாணவ / மாணவியர்க்கு கட்டாய, திருப்பி செலுத்தப்படாத அனைத்து கல்வி கட்டணங்களை வழங்கி ஆணைகள் - வெளியிடப்படுகின்றன.

Circular to All private college principals

Even after taking these steps if the management continue to ignore your pleas you can petition the CM cell cmcell.tn.gov.in for necessary action. You have to create a login name and file a petition under social justice. You will get a petition number and you can track the status of your petition online itself.

You can seek the assistance of Coimbatore-based social movement Dalit People Association. They have been conducting seminars and conferences across the state to make the benefits of the Post-Matric Scholarship Scheme reach the maximum number of Dalit students.

Contact number of Dalit People Association (DPA) will be given on request only!

Half Truths, Fully Baked-The New Indian Express way!!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sat, 24 Aug 2013 11:01:00 +0000

This is Article is a rejoinder to Mr. S. Gurumurthy's article in the Indian Express "A decade of economic Destruction" by Mr. R. Nandha kumar.

- R. NANDHAKUMAR

The article “A Decade of Economic Destruction”, written by S.Gurumurthy is more about politics than economics. He identified something as causes of the crisis and suggested entirely different things as remedies. For instance, he laments UPA’s tax-waivers to the corporate sector as ‘criminal mismanagement of the economy’ as it adds to the huge fiscal deficit of the country. His observation is right this far. But while suggesting remedies to rejuvenate economy, he does not utter a single word against tax-waivers. Instead he calls for postponing the much awaited Food Security Bill. [Though it is only a diluted version of the original draft bill, it will protect millions from hunger. And postponing the implementation is nothing short of shelving the bill.

According to the statistics he has given tax waivers have accumulated to Rs.30 lakh crore in the nine years of UPA rule. He points out that the waivers averaged Rs.2.6 lakh crore a year before the stimulus measures undertaken in 2008. And after that it almost doubled to a staggering Rs. 5 lakh crore per year. In his own words the implementation of Food Security Bill would cost the government only Rs. 2 lakh crore a year. So the rationale should be revoking the former; not the latter. Even the partial withdrawal of tax-waivers would pump an additional Rs.2.5 lakh crore to the economy. It will be more than enough for the proper implementation of food security bill.

The author’s intention is clear in the first paragraph itself. Its sub-title, “Messing up a robust Economy”, reminds one the BJP’s hilarious “India Shining” campaign. He says, under the NDA regime, India had a substantial Current Account Surplus of $ 22 billion and accuses the UPA for draining it all. Now the CAS has become CAD, which is $ 89 billion. It is obvious that the more widening CAD is a major cause for the current crisis. But is it right to say an economy is healthy – or robust – just because it is having surplus in its current account? Nothing other than the CAS is mentioned in the article to support the claim of ‘robust economy’.

The author is right in pointing out the fact that voluminous import of capital goods had suppressed the domestic production. But he fails miserably while attributing India’s loss to China’s gain. In the globalised world, India’s loss could be anybody’s gain. Indeed there are several occupants in the Indian market space and everybody gain. Japanese gain in exporting electronic goods, machinery and software; Koreans in electronic gadgets; Russians in arms and nuclear reactors; Americans in software, nuclear reactors, processed food, cinema and many other fields; Saudi Arabians in petroleum products; Israelis in modern weapons. It is not because of India’s unpreparedness that China grabs Indian market. In fact it grabs US market as well in the same magnitude. What does this mean? It is simply an efficient performer in global markets. So painting a big picture of China eating India is far from reality.

Though the article speaks a lot about stimulus packages, it does not spell out clearly who got benefit from those packages. It is only corporate giants; not small industries. To improve domestic production small and medium scale industries should be given priority. Stimulus packages in one form or the other should be available to them. Unless we improve our small scale domestic industries we could not compete with foreign players more effectively.

Fiscal and budget deficits, current account deficit and rupee’s continuous fall are the talking points of the economists now. Where had they gone when these figures are high? What did NDA do with current account surplus? What did UPA do when the country achieved double digit GDP growth? Absolutely nothing had been done for the welfare of the people. This does not mean that we can neglect this crisis altogether. Something must be done to save the economy. It is high time to think over the policies undertaken during the last 3 decades – not a decade as the author is arguing- and change them effectively if we really want progress.

(Note: In assessing the health of an economy, GDP is insisted upon. If it is high, the corresponding economy is considered to be vibrant and vice-versa. But GDP, as an indicator of the economy, lost its charisma long before. Now the policy-makers across the globe think of social indicators like health, education and nutritional status as effective indicators of a country’s economy. Many countries have already incorporated these into their policies -Bhutan’s National Happiness Index is an example -and are working towards improving them. But our government and opposition are so obsessed with the GDP that they cannot see beyond that. This is implicit in this article too.)

Grievance redressal procedures to be followed in getting Tamil Nadu government Post-Matric Scholarship for SC/ST

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Fri, 12 Jul 2013 10:24:00 +0000

I continue to receive mail enquires regarding the Tamil Nadu government Post-Matric Scholarship for SC/ST students studying in private Engineering, Medical, Nursing, Diploma, Teacher training, Arts and Science colleges. Hence I decided to post this additional information along with grievance redressal procedures to be followed in getting the scholarship.

· SC/ST students (Parents Annual income 2 Lakhs) studying in Deemed universities are also eligible for this Scholarship.

· As per the government order scholarship amount are disbursed through online process using a centralised website. College management should feed all details of SC/ST students admitted in their college in the online portal. You can visit this website here http://escholarship.tn.gov.in/.

· Moreover government has clearly mentioned in its GO that college management should not collect tuition fees from SC/ST students. Kindly show this to the management. you can download the GO from here:

http://escholarship.tn.gov.in/edistrict_adw/struts/ScholarshipInstructions.pdf;jsessionid=8CEAABEA54F81941AF3A09063F0BCD6B

Further references:

http://escholarship.tn.gov.in/edistrict_adw/struts/GO1.pdf

http://escholarship.tn.gov.in/edistrict_adw/struts/G.O.pdf

· Even after taking these steps if the management continue to ignore your pleas you can petition the CM cell cmcell.tn.gov.in for necessary action. You have to create a login name and file a petition under social justice. You will get a petition number and you can track the status of your petition online itself.

· You can seek the assistance of Chennai-based social movement Thudi Iyakkam. They have been conducting seminars and conferences across the state to make the benefits of the Post-Matric Scholarship Scheme reach the maximum number of Dalit students.

Contact number of Thudi Iyakkam will be given on request only!!!

Three Decades of High economic growth and failure of Indian Republic

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 11:30:00 +0000

I thank the author Prof. Sankaran Krishna and The Hindu for such an highly informative article on Republic day. Its a great article to read in fact I read it thrice to get deep insight into the facts and views of the article.I have never came across such an in depth analysis particularly with reference to the middle class.

In many of the social parameters India is way behind our neighbors.This sums up the fact after liberalization only the elite have benefited not the larger section of poor.

Even after three decades of High economic growth, the Indian Republic has failed to achieve broad social progress. An obsession with GDP growth cannot deliver social progress.

A must read article to all "The great number fetish"

One of the most prominent features of India’s middle-class-driven public culture has been an obsession about our GDP growth rate, and a facile equation of that number with a sense of national achievement or impending arrival into affluence. In media headlines, political speeches, and everyday conversations, the GDP growth rate number — whether it is five per cent or eight per cent or whatever — has become a staple of our evaluations of the state of national well-being and future trajectory. Ever since Goldman Sachs (an investment banking firm headquartered in New York city) released a report in 2003 (“Dreaming with BRICs: the path to 2050”) touting Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) as the harbingers of a new wave of global accumulation, we Indians have been afflicted by an optimism disease with little empirical traction. Since then, the GDP number’s implications for India’s development, her attractiveness as an investment site, our standing relative to China, and our competitiveness in the games nations play have become an inescapable part of our social lives. As the former CEO of Infosys and leading public intellectual Nandan Nilekani notes in his book Imagining India, “Wherever I go, I find that Indians know our growth numbers backward and forward, and there is a strong, common feeling among us that our country has finally come of age.”

Fast growth, limited results

Yet, in a recent essay, the eminent economists Amartya Sen and Jean Drèze pointed to an important problem with equating India’s economic performance with its GDP growth rate. They noted: “There is probably no other example in the history of world development of an economy growing so fast for so long with such limited results in terms of broad-based social progress.” Sen and Drèze were referring to the fact that for about 32 years now (since 1980), India has averaged annual GDP growth rates of approximately six per cent — whereas, the nation’s ranking in terms of the Human Development Index has remained unchanged over that period: we were ranked an abysmal 134 in 1980, we were ranked exactly that in 2011. In 1980, about 80 per cent of our population subsisted on less than two dollars a day, and that percentage has declined by as little as five per cent since then. Comparable growth rates sustained over similar lengths of time have utterly transformed societies in the 20th century: South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and large parts of China, to mention the most prominent ones. They have gone from largely poor, illiterate and agrarian societies to middle class, literate, urbanised and industrial societies with standards of living vastly superior to ours. Whatever may be said about India, it is obvious that no structural transformation of our largely poverty-stricken economy has occurred and what is more, none seems very likely in the immediate future.

Not only have three decades of high GDP growth gone unaccompanied by a societal transformation, we seem to have regressed on certain fronts. For instance, while India ranked either first or second in 1980 within South Asia (defined here as comprising India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan) on most yardsticks such as life expectancy, female literacy, infant mortality, maternal mortality ratio, improved sanitation, child immunisation, and mean years of schooling, today we are ranked either fifth or last among the South Asian nations on these same yardsticks. Ironically, the only indicator in which we have done well is in the rate of GDP growth per annum. A country like Bangladesh, whose annual GDP growth rate has averaged about half that of India’s over these years, has done vastly better in terms of translating that growth to the quality of life for its poor, its young, and its females. On most yardsticks that matter, Bangladesh now outperforms India. That 30 years of more than twice the much-disparaged “Hindu” rate of growth has left us at the absolute rock-bottom of the world tables in terms of malnourished children (44 per cent at the last count — significantly more than that anchor of all things sorry and sad about this world, sub-Saharan Africa whose percent of underweight children is 25 per cent) should tell us that there is something seriously amiss about looking at the annual growth rate of the GDP to measure the well-being of a society.

On demographic dividend

The Goldman Sachs report argued that by the year 2050, if Brazil, Russia, Indian and China grew at a certain rate per annum, they would be among the world’s six largest economies in terms of overall size. This does not tell us anything about either per capita incomes (in terms of which these countries would remain well behind the more affluent nations) or the quality of life of the majority of people therein. The report based its projections mainly on something called the “demographic dividend.” In simple terms, “young” societies like India and China have a disproportionately large percentage of people in the workforce relative to those outside it. The size of the working-age cohort is central to the overall attractiveness of an economy from the perspective of an investment bank like Goldman Sachs because it is likely to be in the market for all sorts of goods — homes, automobiles, appliances, electronics, cosmetics, fast-food, etc. The working-age cohorts’ employment earnings, moreover, can support a social security net for those who have retired and now have to subsist on pensions and savings. On a comparative yardstick, India’s demographic profile was seen by the BRIC report as most favourable because this ratio of working to non-working populations would remain in favour of the former well into the 21st century in our case.

In the euphoria over the BRIC report (it was the basis for the disastrous “India Shining” campaign of the Bharatiya Janata Party; the same projections were echoed in speeches by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Union Finance Minister Chidambaram, Deputy Chairman of the Central Planning Commission Montek Ahluwalia; and they were quoted ad nauseam in the mainstream media) certain basic facts were glossed over.

Firstly, the GDP is a statistic from within the field of National Accounts whose very definition indicates its limited ambit: it is the total market value of all final goods and services produced in a country in a given year. In other words, it is a statistic that measures the quantity, not the quality or content, of economic activity in a society. When a country liberalises — either domestically as India began to do in 1980 or across its international borders as we began after 1991 — the increased volume of production, investment, trade and market exchanges will inevitably result in an increase in the GDP. To infer from the growth in GDP any consequences for societal welfare is not logical. The GDP’s precursor was devised during the Depression of the 1930s as western governments (in Britain and the United States most prominently) tried to get a handle on the basic statistics of the different sectors of their economies in order to plan state policies to get them out of recession and on to growth. Simon Kuznets and John Maynard Keynes, both pioneers in its creation and measurement, warned against confusing GDP with anything other than a measure of the sum of economic activity of a society, and especially against confounding it with societal welfare. Something like the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska will inevitably increase the GDP as the massive clean-up means billions of dollars will be spent, whereas the environmental impact of that disaster did nothing to diminish the GDP of the U.S. as damage to nature is rendered an externality. On the other hand, the positive impact of people in a community bartering or exchanging services (“I’ll baby sit for you this week while you fix the leak in my roof”) goes unregistered on the GDP metric.

Secondly, the BRIC report emerged not from an academic body or a policy think-tank. It came from an investment bank that was interested in getting people to put their money into a newly created “Emerging Market” fund. Creating a buzz about these economies, and finding some hard nugget or fact that seemed to suggest their fortunes were on the rise, is an inevitable part of the marketing of such funds. The “demographic dividend” argument offered a perfect empirical “fact” of just this sort. The extrapolations into the future (projections were made as far as 2030 and even 2050) by a firm that could not foresee (and was in fact a substantial culprit in) the financial crisis that engulfed the world economy barely four years later were essentially meaningless. It was moreover a tautological argument in the sense that given the overall size of the BRIC economies it was inevitable that their GDPs would over time end up being among the largest in the world. The greater the buzz Goldman Sachs could create about the BRIC economies, the likelier the “success” of their Emerging Market funds in the short run, which added to their profits as the firm made money off every transaction therein. The Goldman Sachs report should have been assessed as advertising copy rather than as unbiased prognostication about the future of the world economy. (By the late 2000s, as the BRIC economies with the exception of China failed to perform to expectations, Goldman Sachs had already lost interest in them and had started promoting MIST, another emerging market fund based on Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea and Turkey. The analogy to advertising sloganeering rather than economic analysis should be obvious to anyone here.)

Thirdly, for India (or any society) to realise its demographic dividend, at least three factors are critical: its youth need (a) quality education, (b) good health, and (c) jobs that pay a decent wage and enhance their intellectual and other skills. The story of India’s post-independence development has been one of failure across all three of these sectors, and the picture has not improved post the economic liberalisation initiated in 1991. Recent studies have confirmed what every Indian already knows: the quality of public education at the primary and secondary levels has been abysmal. In large part this is because since 1947 we have emphasised tertiary education for a narrow middle-class and elite, and underinvested in primary and secondary education for the masses. We have already seen that with the highest rate of malnourishment of children below the age of six in the entire world, and a public health infrastructure that exists more on paper than on the ground, especially outside the cities, large segments of our populace are not in good health. The difficulty of getting clean water, the unavailability of toilets, and decrepit or non-existent sewage systems, have also meant high incidence of preventable diseases like cholera, typhoid, and dysentery. And when it comes to jobs, recent decades of high growth, especially since 2000, have been accompanied by either stagnation or even decline in the absolute numbers of those employed in the organised sector of the economy. Unlike Korea or Taiwan or China (all three of whom also had a thoroughgoing land reform that eliminated landlordism and other feudal holdovers) whose growth was concentrated initially in relatively labour-intensive sectors such as manufacturing, ours has been skewed heavily towards skill- and education-intensive sectors like Information Technology, pharmaceuticals, and business process outsourcing. The performance in these sectors has been stellar in terms of exports and their contribution to the GDP, but not in terms of their ability to generate large numbers of jobs. Twenty years after the onset of the phenomenal IT boom, even with the most expansive definition of its ambit, this sector only employs about nine million Indians while India produces about 13 million new entrants into the job market every year.

What all this adds up to is this: given its history of inadequate investment in human capital and the present patterns and trajectory of its economy India seems unlikely to reap the demographic dividend that other societies seem to have cashed in on.

There is nothing inherent in demographic patterns that guarantees economic success: whether a certain set of preconditions eventuates in socially widespread and meaningful growth depends, as always, on state policies that prioritise human capital (the health and education of its citizenry); on efficient state and political party institutions to deliver these programmes to the people; and on the ability to insulate these programmes from being hijacked by elites and middlemen.

Middle class focus

How then can one explain the Indian middle class’ obsession with the GDP growth number, and the extent to which many of us have equated high growth rates of recent years as a sign of our emergence as a global power? One has to step outside the domain of the empirical and the economic, and into the social and the psychological to understand this obsession with a number, this fetish we have developed for the GDP.

The Indian middle class is not conventional in the sense of being sandwiched between rich, conservative elites and the lowest third of a society that is poor and potentially revolutionary. In that ideal type, the middle class was the vanguard in the emergence and consolidation of liberal democracy, individual freedoms, capitalist development, and a politics of moderation and civil society. There was a convergence between the material and ideological needs of this middle class that made it the champion of liberal democracy and market capitalism. Or as the comparative historian Barrington Moore Jr. put it in a pithy formulation: “no bourgeois, no democracy.” In India, the middle class is folded into the apex and is the dominant component of the top 20 per cent of society in terms of income and wealth, as well as in terms of cultural and symbolic capital as reflected in its education, caste-status and westernisation. It is overwhelmingly upper caste and its substantive, as distinct from rhetorical, commitment to egalitarianism and democracy outside its own narrow ambit, and often even within it, is shallow. This class’ self-image is that of a meritocratic group that has advanced through education, discipline, and deferred enjoyment. However, both the colonial period and the decades after independence show this “merit” to be based more on privileged and restricted access to western education and professions that emerged in the wake of modernisation rather than by rising to the top in a context marked by widespread equality of opportunity.

Even if its commitment to the idea of inclusive economic development that makes a significant impact on the daily lives of the vast majority of its fellow citizens was sincere, we have neither the political institutions — state bureaucracy or party cadres — nor the political commitment to act in ways that will, at least in the short-run, go against this middle class’ own material interests. This disjuncture between a set of ideological or rhetorical commitments to development, on the one hand, and, on the other, the absence of the institutional means to achieve them, as well as the fact that their very achievement might jeopardise our own status as an elite, makes the Indian middle class peculiarly susceptible to technocratic quick-fixes. Our desire to be seen by our peers in the rest of the world as an emerging economy, or a successful nation, seems to often overwhelm our ability to regard the economic and social reality that surrounds us with a clear eye. The GDP growth rate number, and its neat extrapolation into the future by reports like the one by Goldman Sachs that seem to literally leapfrog over the difficult, messy and forbidding social and political tasks that are the inevitable prerequisite of successful economic development, thus capture our imaginations in ways that are obsessive.

A fetish is an inanimate object imbued by humans with magical powers and believed to bring good luck or fortune. We have fetishised the GDP number and read all our hopes and dreams into a statistic that was never designed to bear the weight it has come to carry. The reverence and faith with which we have treated the GDP number says more about the social-psychology of our middle class and our desire to be seen as a successful and emerging economy than it does about the actual state of life for the vast majority of our fellow Indians.

(Sankaran Krishna is professor of political science, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, U.S. Email: Krishna@hawaii.edu)

Source: The Hindu

Tamil Nadu government Post-Matric Scholarship for SC/ST students studying in private Engineering,Medical,Nursing,Diploma,Teacher training,Arts and Science colleges 2012-2013

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 07:06:00 +0000

1. Central and state government is offering SC/ST scholarships to all SC/ST students studying B.E/M.E/M.B.B.S/Diploma/paramedical/Nursing courses at all government and private institutions.

2. SC/ST students studying B.A/M.A/B.Sc/M.Sc in private colleges are waived tuition fees.

3. The government will pay the fees on behalf of the students to the institution from 2012 onwards.

4. Even if the students have paid the fees for 2012 session the fees can be refunded from the institutions.

5. Students who got admission through management quota and government quota at all private colleges are also eligible for this scholarship.

Who can apply?

All SC/ST/Converted SC/ST Christians with the annual income of parents/guardian less than Rs. 2 Lakhs are eligible to apply for this scholarship.

How to apply?

You can apply to this scholarship through your institution itself with the following documents

1. A copy of the G.O’s and circular listed in the download link
2. Income certificate.
3. Caste certificate.

In case of denial

In case the college management denies such scholarships please feel free to contact me over my mail id.

Government has appointed monitoring committee to oversee the implementation of this scheme throughout Tamil Nadu.

Hence we are ready to help such students through proper channel. In case of denial let us know the phone number of the principal with college name and address. We will contact them directly in this regard.

Kind request to all:

Please forward this information to all. Help the poor and socially disadvantaged SC/ST students.

The list of important guidelines mentioned in the government order along with name of the course and amount of scholarships is listed below. (These guidelines can be seen in the attached file also)

IMPORTANT: PLEASE DOWNLOAD THE G.O AND CIRCULAR FROM THE FOLLOWING LINKS:

G.O Ms.No. 92 Dt: September 11 ,2012 (80KB)

G.O Ms.No. 6 January 9, 2012 (49KB)

Circular to All private college principals

Capitalistic Indian Media portrays Maruti workers as Villains

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 13:55:00 +0000

I have gone through several leading news papers barring "The Hindu" almost every section of the Indian print and Media news companies portrayed the Maruti workers at Manesar plant as Villains. One must strongly condemn the killing of the HR manager at the Maruti, Manesar plant but on the same we also must think what led to this worker unrest at the Maruti plant? The general public should look in to the past in this issue because last year this same Maruti workers have led a peaceful protest for several months demanding for their right to establish worker's Union. At that time their struggle went off peacefully despite violent repression by the Maruti management. Indians follow outdated labor laws after the opening up of the Indian market even these outdated labour laws were not implemented now a day. Maruti is the leader in car manufacturing and it is the market leader despite earning huge amount of profit, the management of Maruti continue to exploit its workers. Indian democracy is at the hands of capitalists and its policies are largely influenced by the corporate houses. If such is the situation such labor unrest are bound to happen. A responsible government would look in to this issue seriously and draft its plan accordingly but since the Indian government is at the hands of capitalists a meaningful solution to this problem will be a question mark??????????

IMPORTANT NOTE:

India third 'snoopiest' country: Google Transparency Report. The GOI have requested Google to censor the internet contents/opinions of many users who speak against the Indian government. Even dictatorship countries haven't placed such a number of censor requests to the Google. So it’s clear that the government of India is keeping an eye on its internet users and with the help of Google, GOI have acquired the privacy details of the internet users to intimidate them. The important fact is that the Indian government seeks censorship to political views, hate speech, Government Criticism etc. It is clear we the Indians don’t have freedom of speech when it comes to criticizing government in key issues.

DISCLOSURE:

Hence I hereby declare that the above article is my personal opinion and it is not being copied from any other Internet/anti-India websites.

With this View I post here a well balanced article published @ Economic political weekly. The Hindu also have come up with some excellent articles on the problems faced by workers in the manufacturing sectors and also with detailed report on Manesar worker unrest. Here are the links to those articles.

Down and out on India’s shop floor

‘Outsider unions’ are unwelcome here

Roadblocks to rights in ‘Detroit of the South’

This ‘innovation’ is unfair to workers

'Manesar Workers are the Villains': Truth or Prejudice?

Rakhi Sehgal

The events of 18 July in the Manesar plant of Maruti Suzuki which ended with the murder of a manager were not a sudden conflagration. Anger at the plant had been building up for months over the management’s refusal to recognise an elected union; workers were increasingly frustrated over their inability to exercise their constitutional rights and the demand of equal pay for equal work was falling on deaf years. Rather than portray the workers as villains, managements in this industrial belt of Haryana have to ask themselves why they have not been able to develop a democratic industrial relations framework that can address the concerns of workers.

Rakhi Sehgal (rakhi.sehgal@gmail.com) is vice president of the Hero Honda Theka Mazdoor Sangathan, which is affiliated to the New Trade Union Initiative.

On Tuesday, 23 July, a Maruti Suzuki worker, VK from Sonepat said that though he had done nothing on 18 July – the day the Manesar plant witnessed large-scale violence ending in the death of an executive of the company – he was coming to surrender to the Gurgaon police because the police were threatening his family with arrest of his father if they could not find VK. He says he was working in the B-shift in the Manesar plant in the paint shop when violence broke out on 18 July but his first name matched the name of one of the 51 workers listed in the first information report (FIR) filed by Deepak Anand, general manager at Maruti Suzuki. Some of us tried to meet him and talk to him before he presented himself to the police, but he was picked up by the Gurgaon police and his family was told he would be taken to the Manesar police station where the FIR was registered. However, until the time of writing (24 July), VK could not be traced either at the Gurgaon police station of Sector 17-C which picked him up or at the Manesar police station where he was to be presented since the FIR was lodged at this station.

According to an unconfirmed report, Haryana police has detained the uncle of RV, an executive committee member of the Maruti Suzuki Workers’ Union (MSWU), because they are unable to locate RV himself. Another worker is afraid to seek medical help for fear of arrest and torture by the police. He is a B-shift worker who injured himself while fleeing the factory premises on the evening of 18 July and is afraid to meet or talk to anyone or seek medical help.

Workers’ colonies near the Manesar plant are deserted. Police swept through the area and went up to Jhajjar and Rohtak on the night of 18 July to pick up any worker wearing a Maruti Suzuki uniform or carrying a company identity card.[1] The Haryana police, administration and the Maruti Suzuki management have managed to terrorise Maruti Suzuki workers into silence and forced them underground. This strategy has worked well for Maruti Suzuki management as it has had all the freedom to present only its version of what is purported to have transpired on the evening of 18 July.

A handful of workers we managed to speak to were unanimous in the view that the death of the Maruti Suzuki executive Awanish Kumar Dev “should not have happened”. According to a worker, Awanish Dev had agreed to take back Jiya Lal, the suspended worker, who had protested caste abuse by a supervisor during A-shift on 18 July, but then Awanish Dev got a call from a senior, instructing him otherwise. Naresh Narwal, additional labour commissioner, and Gurgaon district administration officials told a joint trade union delegation that they too had received word that Maruti Suzuki management had agreed to take back the suspended worker the next day on 19 July and that the matter was almost resolved. Some B-shift workers we spoke to, report hearing the same.

What happened in the matter of a couple minutes that changed the course of events that evening? Was it the phone call from a senior manager, reversing the understanding and agreement with the union? Were the union leaders who protested the alleged reversal of the decision threatened inside that negotiating room? Did union members rush into the negotiating room to protect their leaders who they feared were being threatened or attacked? Or was it the case that some people dressed in workers uniforms carrying “weapons” entered the room and started thrashing managers, exhorting workers who were milling outside the room to follow their lead, and these instigators refused to listen to union leaders who pleaded with them to stop and drop their weapons? Was the fire deliberately started or was it an accident, a short-circuit? Was Awanish Kumar Dev’s death an accident or a brutal murder?

Perhaps We Will Never Know

Perhaps by the time workers and union leaders who were present in that negotiating room are able to present their story (if at all they are able to do so), no one would be willing to listen, because Maruti Suzuki management would have drowned out all reasonable voices and the relentless baying for the blood of workers would have reached such a crescendo that the guilt of all workers would be a foregone conclusion and no one would want to hear otherwise.

Build-up on 18 July

What we do know is that on 18 July the workers and their union were protesting the unilateral decision of Maruti Suzuki management to suspend Jiya Lal. The previous day, workers of both shifts had decided to skip their pre-shift meeting with supervisors to protest against management intransigence vis-à-vis their union in negotiations on the charter of demands submitted by MSWU. On 18 July morning, the supervisor, Ramkishore Majhi, stopped some workers, including Jiya Lal, when they were returning from their tea break and instructed them to stop boycotting the pre-shift meeting. In the exchange of heated words between the supervisor and group of workers, Ramkishore Majhi, reportedly hurled a caste abuse at Jiya Lal, who protested along with others in the group. Thereafter, Majhi reported this incident to his senior managers and Jiya Lal reported it to his union leaders. Without giving Jiya Lal an opportunity to present his version of the incident, or discussing the matter with the union leaders, or showing any intent to resolve the dispute, the Maruti Suzuki management took the unilateral decision of suspending Jiya Lal with immediate effect.

Union leaders and workers protested this high-handedness and called upon the Maruti Suzuki management to either discipline both Ramkishore Majhi and Jiya Lal, or revoke Jiya Lal’s suspension and talk to the union and both parties before taking any action. Disciplinary action against just the worker and not the supervisor when the supervisor was equally, if not more at fault, was not acceptable to the workers. Maruti Suzuki management refused and the situation escalated with every passing hour. Workers were angry with what they perceived to be yet another instance of a worker being punished in a jiffy without establishing his guilt and without talking to their democratically elected union, while supervisors and managers are presumed innocent and protected even when they are at fault. B-shift workers continued production while A-shift workers decided to stay back in the plant at the end of their shift until the dispute was satisfactorily resolved.

Workers had not reacted like that earlier in the month when Ram Mehar, president of the union had been suspended and then taken back a day later. Workers already had an enviable history of conducting a long non-violent struggle during the summer months of 2011. So what was different on 18 July? Had they had enough of management high-handedness and arrogance and decided that they must stand up against it? Were their actions fuelled by another alleged incident earlier in the week when supervisors and workers seem to have had a heated exchange and a supervisor allegedly told the workers they could do what they wanted, their story was going to end in the next two to three days (kar lo jo karna hai, agle do-deen din mein tum logon ka yahan se safaya ho jayega)?

Fighting for Recognition

What is clear is that workers and the union leaders had been increasingly frustrated by Maruti Suzuki management’s disrespect towards their elected union, to establish which they had sacrificed much and had also adhered to all pre-conditions laid down by the management so that it would “allow” the Haryana Labour Department to register the union!

Chairman of Maruti Suzuki India R C Bhargava claimed on 20 July in a press conference that it was the Government of Haryana which had reservations about the registration of a union and not the management. Does this claim have any credence in light of the fact that last year Maruti Suzuki withstood a five-month long agitation, massive production losses, loss of market share and gave a huge payout to the union leaders to abandon their struggle for the registration of their union? If Maruti Suzuki did not have reservations about the registration of a union, then how do we interpret Managing Executive Officer (Administration) S Y Siddiqui’s statement in June 2011 that Maruti Suzuki will neither permit the formation of a union nor “tolerate any external affiliation of the union”.

It has been repeatedly made clear to the workers that they were up against the collective might of a huge corporate like Maruti Suzuki with its clout, influence and money power, and a collusive labour department of the state government who were determined to thwart the exercise of the workers’ constitutional right to freedom of association.

Unfortunately, the formation and registration of a union does not automatically lead to its recognition by managements, many of which refuse to negotiate in good faith, if at all, with registered unions – a cause of much frustration among workers.

Workers of Maruti Suzuki were also pressurising their union not to give in to management demands to form a grievance committee and welfare committee, as agreed to by the previous union (the Maruti Suzuki Employees Union) in the October 2011 settlement. Workers feared that the management would use these committees to build a parallel system of governance and subvert the functioning of their democratically elected union and deny it legitimacy and recognition. Workers did not believe that the labour department of the state government could have issued challans to managers (for non-compliance with terms of the tripartite settlement of October 2011) independently, without the implicit “permission” of Maruti Suzuki management and they saw it as a pressure tactic to force the MSWU’s hand.

Managers and labour officers, who regularly visited the shop floor in Manesar, were fully aware of the mounting concerns, anger and frustration of the workers and yet did nothing to address and defuse the situation. Instead the Maruti Suzuki management escalated tensions by trying to intimidate the union leaders to agree to its terms – no collective bargaining and no serious discussion on the charter of demands until the union agreed to form the grievance and welfare committees! It refused to yield to the union’s conciliatory gesture that the formation of these committees could be a part of the negotiations and not a precondition. Maruti Suzuki management went so far as to lodge false cases against key union leaders at the Manesar police station last month when talks broke down on this issue. Union leaders were repeatedly harassed by the SHO of Manesar police station but they refused to yield to the threats and intimidation.

And yet R C Bhargava claims in the press conference that there were no issues between management and workers and “no one saw this coming”! If that is the case then the entire management team of Maruti Suzuki should be sacked and more competent managers should be hired.

Resisting Violations

The workers and the union leaders were also united in their demand – that the long-term settlement that was under negotiation should be implemented for all casual and contract workers employed at the Manesar plant, who worked alongside them on the shop floor. The management was adamant that it would not agree to do so. It used the same argument proffered time and again in this industrial belt by managements and labour department – that permanent workers do not have the legal right to espouse the cause of casual and contract workers! And that casual and contract workers do not have the legal right to raise an industrial dispute with the principal employer! That these so-called casual and contract workers are working in core production processes in violation of the Contract Labour (Regulation & Abolition) Act, 1970 is known to all and yet no company has been prosecuted for this violation in Haryana. And the Haryana government does not deem it necessary to comply with its statutory duty of constituting a State Contract Labour Advisory Board before which complaints can be raised, investigated and redressed. Maruti Suzuki management’s recent announcement, that by 2013 it will ensure no contract worker is employed in its core production processes, is an admission that this is the existing practice. Will the Haryana Government prosecute Maruti Suzuki (and all other companies) for violating the Contract Labour Act over several years?

The determination of the permanent workers of Maruti Suzuki to redress the injustice being meted out to their fellow workers in the name of business exigency and need for flexibility is evident from their stand taken during negotiations as reported by them. The MSWU offered to give up one year’s worth of arrears and economic benefits if the Maruti Suzuki management ensured implementation of the long-term agreement (LTA) on all casual and contract workers employed at the Manesar plant. The union had submitted that the LTA be made applicable from April 2011 and the management had countered that the Maruti Udyog Kamgar Union (MUKU) LTA was under implementation for the period 2009-11 and applied to the Manesar plant permanent workers as well. Therefore the MSWU settlement, when finalised, could not be implemented retrospectively from 2011. The MSWU countered that if the MUKU settlement was applicable to them from 2009 onwards when many of them were casual workers and trainees, then by the same logic, the MSWU settlement could be implemented for existing trainees, casual and contract workers. If the management agreed to do so, they would drop their demand for implementation of the settlement from April 2011 onwards, agree to its implementation from April 2012, and give up one year’s worth of economic benefits.

Failing Industrial Relations Systems

There is a danger that the events of 18 July will impede a thorough examination of the reasons for the simmering discontentment among workers of Maruti Suzuki (and it would not be stretching it to say of all workers in the industrial belt of Gurgaon-Manesar-Dharuhera-Rewari).

We must recognise and find the collective will to address issues at the centre of the ongoing dispute between workers and management of Maruti Suzuki – the right to form a union (along with the right to affiliate with any central trade union if they choose to) and the right to equal wages and benefits for equal work and an end to discriminatory wage systems and wage theft. These workers have shown the courage to stand up to a powerful corporation and the might of the State. They are not willing to give up their right to form an autonomous union that the management cannot control or dictate to and they are unwilling to sell out their casual and contract workers by accepting a settlement that does not apply equally to all workers doing the same work. This is the biggest threat to the extant production system. And management wonders why the backlash is so severe.

There are many voices commenting on the lack of maturity among these workers, the expression of their demands and their discontentment, their youth, their lack of experience as many are first-generation industrial workers, their supposed hotheadeness and impatience, their aspiration to be upwardly mobile and to have the capacity to indulge in consumerism, and their demands for better wages (why not?). Getting caught up with these issues would be akin to missing the wood for the trees in the immediate circumstances. And yet with an eye towards the long term, one could ask of the Maruti Suzuki management and industrial relations and human resource management experts – if this is the profile of educated workers recruited from ITIs, working in some of the most sophisticated production processes in our country – then why have managements and experts not been able to evolve an appropriate and democratic industrial relations framework and a human resource management system that can address the concerns and aspirations of these workers?

To ignore the problems arising from a defunct industrial relations system and claim as S Y Siddiqui did that “the problem at Manesar, is not one of industrial relations. It is an issue of ‘crime and militancy’” is a gross dereliction on one’s responsibilities and blatant criminalisation of labour.

Trade unions must also introspect on how they are failing the new generation of workers and new formations of labour. We need to collectively reflect on the New Trade Union Initiative’s assessment of last October that “trade union movements have shown a lack of shared understanding and effective strategy to make the workers’ struggle at Maruti Suzuki a decisive trade union battle to change the orientation of the labour policies of companies and government. In order to move forward and build support for the Maruti Suzuki workers the trade union movement needs to build coordination in both the Gurgaon-Manesar-Dharuhera belt and at the national level.”

The Maruti Suzuki management, the labour department of the state, the Gurgaon district administration and the Haryana government must introspect and take responsibility for turning a blind eye to the neon flashing signs and failing to act to defuse or contain the situation before it spiralled so horribly out of control and resulted in the tragic death of Awanish Kumar Dev.

Equally tragic was the brutal murder on 18 October 2009 of 26-year-old Ajit Yadav, a worker at Rico Auto Industries, Gurgaon who was allegedly tossed into the company’s furnace by company officials and company-hired goons during a struggle by the workers to form a union to demand a wage hike and redress of onerous working conditions. Three years later the family of Ajit Yadav and workers of the Gurgaon industrial belt are still awaiting justice!

[1] On that evening, two buses taking workers of Honda Motorcycles and Scooters India. (HMSI) back home from Manesar after their shift ended were detained all night even though both the buses had been checked thoroughly twice already by Haryana police and no Maruti Suzuki workers were found in the buses. Calls by the HMSI Employees Union on behalf of their members trapped all night in the buses, fell on deaf ears. The buses were allowed to proceed to their destination only at 8 am the next morning

Free download of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar books

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Fri, 18 May 2012 11:26:00 +0000

I am happy to post some important books and works done by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar.

INDEX OF BOOKS & ARTICLES BY Dr. B. R. AMBEDKAR

1. Administration and finance of the east India Company

2. Ancient Indian Commerce

3. Annihilation of Caste

4. Buddha or Karl Marx

5. Buddha and His Dhamma

6. Castes In India

7. Commercial Relations of India in the middle Ages

8. Communal Deadlock and a Way to solve it

9. Essays on Untouchables and Untouchability 1

10. Essays on Untouchables and Untouchability 2

11. Essays on Untouchables and Untouchability 3

12. Evidence before The Royal Commission On Indian Currency And Finance

13. Federation versus Freedom

14. Frustration

15. India and The Pre-requisites of Communism

16. India on the eve of the crown government

17. Lectures on the English Constitution

18. Maharashtra as a Linguistic Province

19. Manu and the Shudras

20. Mr. Gandhi and the Emancipation of the Untouchables

21. Need for Checks and Balances

22. Notes on Acts and Laws

23. Notes on History of India

24. Notes on Parliamentary Procedure

25. Pakistan or the Partition of India

26. Paramountcy and the claim of the Indian states to be independent

27. Philosophy of Hinduism

28. Plea to the Foreigner

29. Preservation of Social Order

30. Ranade Gandhi & Jinnah

31. Review: Currency & Exchange

32. Review: Report of the Taxation Inquiry Committee

33. Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Ancient India

34. Riddle in Hinduism

35. Small Holdings in India and their Remedies

36. Statement of Evidence to the Royal Commission on Indian Currency

37. States and Minorities

38. The Constitution of British India

39. The Evolution of Provincial Finance in British India

40. The Present Problem in Indian Currency

41. The Present Problem in Indian Currency 2

42. The Problem of Political Suppression

43. The Problem of the Rupee

44. The Untouchables and the Pax Britannica

45. The Untouchables Who were they and why they became Untouchables

46. Thoughts on Linguistic States

47. Untouchables or the Children of India

48. Waiting for a Visa

49. What Congress and Gandhi have done to the Untouchables?

50. Which is worse?

51. Who were the Shudras?

52. With the Hindus

Here is the Download Link:

Download Link 1

Download Link 2

Controversy over Dr.B.R.Ambedkar's Cartoon

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Fri, 18 May 2012 11:12:00 +0000

I am a strong supporter of freedom of speech and expression. But the inclusion of a cartoon in CBSE political science book is done with a wrongful intention and it needs to be condemned. Despite non cooperation by the constituent committee members and lack of support from many prominent political leaders (Including the then President Rajendra prasad and PM Nehru himself had some objections over the inclusion of some crucial laws and stalled the constitutional work). So Such is the truth the inclusion of the controversial cartoon does not shed any truth at all. Instead of criticizing the persons responsible for deliberately delaying the constitutional process its highly unfair to show a cartoon that criticizes Dr.B.R. Ambedkar alone. With this I am posting an article that appeared in The Hindu paper.

An illustration in a textbook must expand or add to the lesson; Shankar's cartoon of Ambedkar does neither. The controversy kicked up over the withdrawal of a textbook for high school over a cartoon after a ruckus in Parliament has been superficially interpreted and uniformly criticised without understanding the sensitivities of the oppressed for whom B.R. Ambedkar is a hero. The anger of Dalits is being interpreted as intolerance while in fact it is an assertion of a people who are in the process of finding their long-suppressed voice and learning to stand up to insults and humiliation. What is needed is not criticism and anger but sensitivity to the emotions of a horribly wronged people.

Those lamenting the move by the government in Parliament and the apology by Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal for using the cartoon have preferred to understand it as a cynical move to “appease” the supporters of B.R. Ambedkar for political reasons, namely not to antagonise a large section of voters when elections are round the corner. A social scientist was scornful calling it “psepho-cracy” and ruing that the spirit of democracy hadn't seeped into society. Yet another said the government's withdrawal of the offending textbook was a “nominal if not hypocritical” acknowledgement of Dalit power. One could agree with both commentators: there is no question that democracy has not seeped into society which has remained deeply and irreconcilably divided along caste lines; what prevails in our society and in very many minds that have not been influenced either by education or modernity is “caste-ocracy.” As for Dalit power, it has not yet gained mass but is strong enough to force the government of the day to draw back. Hence, it is immaterial whether the acknowledgement is nominal or hypocritical. The crucial thing is that it is real.

While the government is supposed to have caved in to the protests in Parliament, it is a fact that the issue witnessed the unusual spectacle of the entire Opposition united in the belief that the cartoon had denigrated Ambedkar. The issue led to the resignation of two “chief advisers” of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), both professors of political science, as they did not agree with Parliament's stand on the issue.

What the critics say

The critics of the government's decision make the following points to show that the inflamed sentiments of Dalit supporters both in Parliament and outside are misplaced: that the cartoon is about 60 years old and that it was drawn by a well-known and highly popular cartoonist Shankar; that Nehru was democratic enough to appreciate and even enjoy the lampooning he occasionally got at Shankar's hands; that even Ambedkar would have chuckled at the cartoon especially since there is no evidence of him being offended by it when it was first published in 1948. Those who made the decision to include the cartoon also point out that an effort was made to make the lesson interesting, to infuse some humour in it. Using outdated cartoons as this one certainly is, is hardly fun. Perhaps Ambedkar laughed on seeing the cartoon. Or if he hadn't, he would have shaken it off as he had so many barbs in his lifetime, but that is beside the point. What is the relevance of this particular cartoon in the context of a lesson? Sure, it is important for a student to be told that the process was laborious and that it took several years for the Constitution to be finalised. A cartoon is a comment and a reflection on current situations and personalities of those times. Then, the cartoon was relevant and summarised pithily the delay in finalising the Constitution, but today, after 60 years, it is totally outdated and neither provides any insight nor reflects on the process of the making of the Constitution.

Importantly, any illustration with a lesson or with any piece of writing, expands and adds to the “body” or the text. It even contextualises the text. The cartoon neither adds to nor contextualises the Constitution. Importantly, in the overall context of the making of the Constitution, seen from the perspective of the present, how is the delay in finalising it important? There are more important things that need to be foregrounded to understand the process of the making of the Constitution such as how the then President Rajendra Prasad, a confirmed conservative opposed equal property rights for women, and how a modernist Nehru caved in to him and how when an outraged Ambedkar threatened to quit the team they agreed to it. Poking fun at somebody else's icons is so much easier than one's own, just as it is easy to use somebody else's opinion to introduce one's own predilection.

Panic situation

Apart from criticising the “intolerance” of Dalits and the “weak-kneed” response of the government, the critics are trying to create a panic situation, making alarmist statements that perhaps the government will now withdraw all the textbooks produced by the NCERT under the National Curriculum Framework or that now cartoonists will have to think twice before they put their pencils or paint brush to paper. At this rate all cartoons will have to be banned, says an apologist for the cartoon.

One of the professors claims that the cartoon was included to expose students to the different ways in which leaders and events were understood and viewed. One has no issue with this. If one wants to include criticism, then do it openly and not go about it indirectly. The way it has been done in the book shows dishonesty. Surely, a rational and reasoned critique won't be objected to by any thinking person. Shankar lampooned Nehru, Parliament and important events in his cartoons. Why were those not included to expose students to different interpretations? The professor also claims that for the first time, Ambedkar was given his due in a textbook as not just as Father of the Constitution but as one who laid the democratic foundations of the country: you give with one hand and take it away with another!

The issue is not that it is after all a cartoon; not about a sense of humour or the lack of it among some; nor is it about the unreasonableness or prickliness of some. It is about misrepresenting, it is about trivialising, it is about a lack of sensitivity. Most importantly, it is about a callousness that is rooted in one's own biases and prejudices. That is why the cartoon is hardly funny.

(R. Akhileshwari is a journalist and academic.)

IMPORTANT NOTE:

Free Download of "Riddles in Hinduism" ebook -By Dr.B.R.Ambedkar

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Thu, 10 May 2012 12:13:00 +0000

I Thank Mr.Periasamy for sharing the link of "Riddles in Hinduism" ebook -By Dr.B.R.Ambedkar.

You can download the book here.....!!!!

DOWNLOAD

Justice for Adivasi school teacher Soni Sori

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Thu, 03 May 2012 10:54:00 +0000

Police atrocities against innocent dalits and adhivasi’s are a common thing in India. It’s time we the civilized and educated citizens of India unite together to condemn such inhuman acts of Indian police. In this post I publish an online campaign (started by Tehelka) for saving the life of an innocent adivasi school teacher Soni Sori.

Soni Sori, a 35-year-old Adivasi school teacher in Chhattisgarh, has been languishing in Raipur Jail since October 2011, she has written letters from jail asking the Nation to help her.

Why is she being tortured?

Soni has been tortured by the Chhattisgarh police - she complained that she was stripped naked and given electric shocks. A medical exam found small stones in her vagina and rectum.

The torture was under the supervision of Ankit Garg, Superintendent of Police. In a terrible twist of events he was given the President's Award on Republic Day.

Soni lives in Dantewada, a Naxalite stronghold. Last year, Soni fought with the Naxalites when they tried to stop her form hoisting the national flag on Independence Day. Naxalites shot her father in the leg saying he was a police informer. Yet the police first arrested her husband, and now Soni, for being Naxalite supporters!

Why do the police want her in jail?

Because she has constantly fought for her people’s rights - for minimum wages. She has taken on powerful companies that want the Adivasis’ land, and the Chhattisgarh government that supports these companies. She has taken on the police for their illegal activities.

Now, fed up of being in jail, far from her three young children, Sori has gone on hunger strike. In a letter to her lawyer she writes: “We Adivasis are only fated to suffer atrocities and die. We Adivasis are a business for the government.’’

Please Visit the following links to know more about this inhuman behavior of the Indian Police

Save Soni Sori and Punish Chattisgarh police

Capitalism: A Ghost Story

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Thu, 03 May 2012 09:49:00 +0000

This is an excellent article by Arundhati Roy (published in Outlook magazine)

Rockefeller to Mandela, Vedanta to Anna Hazare.... How long can the cardinals of corporate gospel buy up our protests?

Corbis (From Outlook, March 26, 2012)

Antilla the Hun Mukesh Ambani’s 27-storey home on Altamont Road. Its bright lights, say the neighbours, have stolen the night.

Is it a house or a home? A temple to the new India, or a warehouse for its ghosts? Ever since Antilla arrived on Altamont Road in Mumbai, exuding mystery and quiet menace, things have not been the same. “Here we are,” the friend who took me there said, “Pay your respects to our new Ruler.”

Antilla belongs to India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani. I had read about this most expensive dwelling ever built, the twenty-seven floors, three helipads, nine lifts, hanging gardens, ballrooms, weather rooms, gymnasiums, six floors of parking, and the six hundred servants. Nothing had prepared me for the vertical lawn—a soaring, 27-storey-high wall of grass attached to a vast metal grid. The grass was dry in patches; bits had fallen off in neat rectangles. Clearly, Trickledown hadn’t worked.

But Gush-Up certainly has. That’s why in a nation of 1.2 billion, India’s 100 richest people own assets equivalent to one-fourth of the GDP.

The word on the street (and in the New York Times) is, or at least was, that after all that effort and gardening, the Ambanis don’t live in Antilla. No one knows for sure. People still whisper about ghosts and bad luck, Vaastu and Feng Shui. Maybe it’s all Karl Marx’s fault. (All that cussing.) Capitalism, he said, “has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, that it is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells”.

In India, the 300 million of us who belong to the new, post-IMF “reforms” middle class—the market—live side by side with spirits of the nether world, the poltergeists of dead rivers, dry wells, bald mountains and denuded forests; the ghosts of 2,50,000 debt-ridden farmers who have killed themselves, and of the 800 million who have been impoverished and dispossessed to make way for us. And who survive on less than twenty rupees a day.

Mukesh Ambani is personally worth $20 billion. He holds a majority controlling share in Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), a company with a market capitalisation of $47 billion and global business interests that include petrochemicals, oil, natural gas, polyester fibre, Special Economic Zones, fresh food retail, high schools, life sciences research and stem cell storage services. RIL recently bought 95 per cent shares in Infotel, a TV consortium that controls 27 TV news and entertainment channels, including CNN-IBN, IBN Live, CNBC, IBN Lokmat, and ETV in almost every regional language. Infotel owns the only nationwide licence for 4G Broadband, a high-speed “information pipeline” which, if the technology works, could be the future of information exchange. Mr Ambani also owns a cricket team.

RIL is one of a handful of corporations that run India. Some of the others are the Tatas, Jindals, Vedanta, Mittals, Infosys, Essar and the other Reliance (ADAG), owned by Mukesh’s brother Anil. Their race for growth has spilled across Europe, Central Asia, Africa and Latin America. Their nets are cast wide; they are visible and invisible, over-ground as well as underground. The Tatas, for example, run more than 100 companies in 80 countries. They are one of India’s oldest and largest private sector power companies. They own mines, gas fields, steel plants, telephone, cable TV and broadband networks, and run whole townships. They manufacture cars and trucks, own the Taj Hotel chain, Jaguar, Land Rover, Daewoo, Tetley Tea, a publishing company, a chain of bookstores, a major brand of iodised salt and the cosmetics giant Lakme. Their advertising tagline could easily be: You Can’t Live Without Us.

According to the rules of the Gush-Up Gospel, the more you have, the more you can have.

The era of the Privatisation of Everything has made the Indian economy one of the fastest growing in the world. However, like any good old-fashioned colony, one of its main exports is its minerals. India’s new mega-corporations—Tatas, Jindals, Essar, Reliance, Sterlite—are those who have managed to muscle their way to the head of the spigot that is spewing money extracted from deep inside the earth. It’s a dream come true for businessmen—to be able to sell what they don’t have to buy.

A whole spectrum of corruption A. Raja being led to jail in connection with the 2G scandal. (Photograph by Sanjay Rawat)

The other major source of corporate wealth comes from their land-banks. All over the world, weak, corrupt local governments have helped Wall Street brokers, agro-business corporations and Chinese billionaires to amass huge tracts of land. (Of course, this entails commandeering water too.) In India, the land of millions of people is being acquired and made over to private corporations for “public interest”—for Special Economic Zones, infrastructure projects, dams, highways, car manufacture, chemical hubs and Formula One racing. (The sanctity of private property never applies to the poor.) As always, local people are promised that their displacement from their land and the expropriation of everything they ever had is actually part of employment generation. But by now we know that the connection between GDP growth and jobs is a myth. After 20 years of “growth”, 60 per cent of India’s workforce is self-employed, 90 per cent of India’s labour force works in the unorganised sector.

Post-Independence, right up to the ’80s, people’s movements, ranging from the Naxalites to Jayaprakash Narayan’s Sampoorna Kranti, were fighting for land reforms, for the redistribution of land from feudal landlords to landless peasants. Today any talk of redistribution of land or wealth would be considered not just undemocratic, but lunatic. Even the most militant movements have been reduced to a fight to hold on to what little land people still have. The millions of landless people, the majority of them Dalits and adivasis, driven from their villages, living in slums and shanty colonies in small towns and mega cities, do not figure even in the radical discourse.

As Gush-Up concentrates wealth on to the tip of a shining pin on which our billionaires pirouette, tidal waves of money crash through the institutions of democracy—the courts, Parliament as well as the media, seriously compromising their ability to function in the ways they are meant to. The noisier the carnival around elections, the less sure we are that democracy really exists.


	India’s new megacorps—Tatas, Jindals, Essar, Reliance—are those who’ve moved to the head of the spigot that’s spewing money extracted from inside the earth.

Each new corruption scandal that surfaces in India makes the last one look tame. In the summer of 2011, the 2G spectrum scandal broke. We learnt that corporations had siphoned away $40 billion of public money by installing a friendly soul as the Union minister of telecommunication who grossly underpriced the licences for 2G telecom spectrum and illegally parcelled it out to his buddies. The taped telephone conversations leaked to the press showed how a network of industrialists and their front companies, ministers, senior journalists and a TV anchor were involved in facilitating this daylight robbery. The tapes were just an MRI that confirmed a diagnosis that people had made long ago.

The privatisation and illegal sale of telecom spectrum does not involve war, displacement and ecological devastation. The privatisation of India’s mountains, rivers and forests does. Perhaps because it does not have the uncomplicated clarity of a straightforward, out-and-out accounting scandal, or perhaps because it is all being done in the name of India’s “progress”, it does not have the same resonance with the middle classes.

In 2005, the state governments of Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Jharkhand signed hundreds of Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with a number of private corporations turning over trillions of dollars of bauxite, iron ore and other minerals for a pittance, defying even the warped logic of the free market. (Royalties to the government ranged between 0.5 per cent and 7 per cent.)

Only days after the Chhattisgarh government signed an MoU for the construction of an integrated steel plant in Bastar with Tata Steel, the Salwa Judum, a vigilante militia, was inaugurated. The government said it was a spontaneous uprising of local people who were fed up of the “repression” by Maoist guerrillas in the forest. It turned out to be a ground-clearing operation, funded and armed by the government and subsidised by mining corporations. In the other states, similar militias were created, with other names. The prime minister announced the Maoists were the “single-largest security challenge in India”. It was a declaration of war.

On January 2, 2006, in Kalinganagar, in the neighbouring state of Orissa, perhaps to signal the seriousness of the government’s intention, ten platoons of police arrived at the site of another Tata Steel plant and opened fire on villagers who had gathered there to protest what they felt was inadequate compensation for their land. Thirteen people, including one policeman, were killed, and 37 injured. Six years have gone by and though the villages remain under siege by armed policemen, the protest has not died.

Meanwhile in Chhattisgarh, the Salwa Judum burned, raped and murdered its way through hundreds of forest villages, evacuating 600 villages, forcing 50,000 people to come out into police camps and 3,50,000 people to flee. The chief minister announced that those who did not come out of the forests would be considered to be ‘Maoist terrorists’. In this way, in parts of modern India, ploughing fields and sowing seed came to be defined as terrorist activity. Eventually, the Salwa Judum’s atrocities only succeeded in strengthening the resistance and swelling the ranks of the Maoist guerrilla army. In 2009, the government announced what it called Operation Green Hunt. Two lakh paramilitary troops were deployed across Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand and West Bengal.

After three years of “low-intensity conflict” that has not managed to “flush” the rebels out of the forest, the central government has declared that it will deploy the Indian army and air force. In India, we don’t call this war. We call it “creating a good investment climate”. Thousands of soldiers have already moved in. A brigade headquarters and air bases are being readied. One of the biggest armies in the world is now preparing its Terms of Engagement to “defend” itself against the poorest, hungriest, most malnourished people in the world. We only await the declaration of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), which will give the army legal immunity and the right to kill “on suspicion”. Going by the tens of thousands of unmarked graves and anonymous cremation pyres in Kashmir, Manipur and Nagaland, it has shown itself to be a very suspicious army indeed.

While the preparations for deployment are being made, the jungles of Central India continue to remain under siege, with villagers frightened to come out, or go to the market for food or medicine. Hundreds of people have been jailed, charged for being Maoists under draconian, undemocratic laws. Prisons are crowded with adivasi people, many of whom have no idea what their crime is. Recently, Soni Sori, an adivasi school-teacher from Bastar, was arrested and tortured in police custody. Stones were pushed up her vagina to get her to “confess” that she was a Maoist courier. The stones were removed from her body at a hospital in Calcutta, where, after a public outcry, she was sent for a medical check-up. At a recent Supreme Court hearing, activists presented the judges with the stones in a plastic bag. The only outcome of their efforts has been that Soni Sori remains in jail while Ankit Garg, the Superintendent of Police who conducted the interrogation, was conferred with the President’s Police Medal for Gallantry on Republic Day.

We hear about the ecological and social re-engineering of Central India only because of the mass insurrection and the war. The government gives out no information. The Memorandums of Understanding are all secret. Some sections of the media have done what they could to bring public attention to what is happening in Central India. However, most of the Indian mass media is made vulnerable by the fact that the major share of its revenues come from corporate advertisements. If that is not bad enough, now the line between the media and big business has begun to blur dangerously. As we have seen, RIL virtually owns 27 TV channels. But the reverse is also true. Some media houses now have direct business and corporate interests. For example, one of the major daily newspapers in the region—Dainik Bhaskar (and it is only one example)—has 17.5 million readers in four languages, including English and Hindi, across 13 states. It also owns 69 companies with interests in mining, power generation, real estate and textiles. A recent writ petition filed in the Chhattisgarh High Court accuses DB Power Ltd (one of the group’s companies) of using “deliberate, illegal and manipulative measures” through company-owned newspapers to influence the outcome of a public hearing over an open cast coal mine. Whether or not it has attempted to influence the outcome is not germane. The point is that media houses are in a position to do so. They have the power to do so. The laws of the land allow them to be in a position that lends itself to a serious conflict of interest.

The litfests Along with film, art installations, they have replaced the 1990s obsession with beauty contests. (Photograph by Tribhuvan Tiwari)

There are other parts of the country from which no news comes. In the sparsely populated but militarised northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, 168 big dams are being constructed, most of them privately owned. High dams that will submerge whole districts are being constructed in Manipur and Kashmir, both highly militarised states where people can be killed merely for protesting power cuts. (That happened a few weeks ago in Kashmir.) How can they stop a dam?

The most delusional dam of all is Kalpasar in Gujarat. It is being planned as a 34-km-long dam across the Gulf of Khambhat with a 10-lane highway and a railway line running on top of it. By keeping the sea water out, the idea is to create a sweet water reservoir of Gujarat’s rivers. (Never mind that these rivers have already been dammed to a trickle and poisoned with chemical effluent.) The Kalpasar dam, which would raise the sea level and alter the ecology of hundreds of kilometres of coastline, had been dismissed as a bad idea 10 years ago. It has made a sudden comeback in order to supply water to the Dholera Special Investment Region (SIR) in one of the most water-stressed zones not just in India, but in the world. SIR is another name for an SEZ, a self-governed corporate dystopia of “industrial parks, townships and mega-cities”. The Dholera SIR is going to be connected to Gujarat’s other cities by a network of 10-lane highways. Where will the money for all this come from?


	After three years of trying to flush out the rebels, the Centre’s said it’ll deploy the armed forces. In India, this is not war, it’s ‘Creating a Good Investment Climate’.

In January 2011, in the Mahatma (Gandhi) Mandir, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi presided over a meeting of 10,000 international businessmen from 100 countries. According to media reports, they pledged to invest $450 billion in Gujarat. The meeting was scheduled to take place at the onset of the 10th anniversary year of the massacre of 2,000 Muslims in February-March 2002. Modi stands accused of not just condoning, but actively abetting, the killing. People who watched their loved ones being raped, eviscerated and burned alive, the tens of thousands who were driven from their homes, still wait for a gesture towards justice. But Modi has traded in his saffron scarf and vermilion forehead for a sharp business suit, and hopes that a 450-billion-dollar investment will work as blood money, and square the books. Perhaps it will. Big Business is backing him enthusiastically. The algebra of infinite justice works in mysterious ways.

The Dholera SIR is only one of the smaller Matryoshka dolls, one of the inner ones in the dystopia that is being planned. It will be connected to the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC), a 1,500-km-long and 300-km-wide industrial corridor, with nine mega-industrial zones, a high-speed freight line, three seaports and six airports, a six-lane intersection-free expressway and a 4,000 MW power plant. The DMIC is a collaborative venture between the governments of India and Japan, and their respective corporate partners, and has been proposed by the McKinsey Global Institute.

The DMIC website says that approximately 180 million people will be “affected” by the project. Exactly how, it doesn’t say. It envisages the building of several new cities and estimates that the population in the region will grow from the current 231 million to 314 million by 2019. That’s in seven years’ time. When was the last time a state, despot or dictator carried out a population transfer of millions of people? Can it possibly be a peaceful process?

The Indian army might need to go on a recruitment drive so that it’s not taken unawares when it’s ordered to deploy all over India. In preparation for its role in Central India, it publicly released its updated doctrine on Military Psychological Operations, which outlines “a planned process of conveying a message to a select target audience, to promote particular themes that result in desired attitudes and behaviour, which affect the achievement of political and military objectives of the country”. This process of “perception management”, it said, would be conducted by “using media available to the services”.

The army is experienced enough to know that coercive force alone cannot carry out or manage social engineering on the scale that is envisaged by India’s planners. War against the poor is one thing. But for the rest of us—the middle class, white-collar workers, intellectuals, “opinion-makers”—it has to be “perception management”. And for this we must turn our attention to the exquisite art of Corporate Philanthropy.

Of late, the main mining conglomerates have embraced the Arts—film, art installations and the rush of literary festivals that have replaced the ’90s obsession with beauty contests. Vedanta, currently mining the heart out of the homelands of the ancient Dongria Kondh tribe for bauxite, is sponsoring a ‘Creating Happiness’ film competition for young film students whom they have commissioned to make films on sustainable development. Vedanta’s tagline is ‘Mining Happiness’. The Jindal Group brings out a contemporary art magazine and supports some of India’s major artists (who naturally work with stainless steel). Essar was the principal sponsor of the Tehelka Newsweek Think Fest that promised “high-octane debates” by the foremost thinkers from around the world, which included major writers, activists and even the architect Frank Gehry. (All this in Goa, where activists and journalists were uncovering massive illegal mining scandals, and Essar’s part in the war unfolding in Bastar was emerging.) Tata Steel and Rio Tinto (which has a sordid track record of its own) were among the chief sponsors of the Jaipur Literary Festival (Latin name: Darshan Singh Construction Jaipur Literary Festival) that is advertised by the cognoscenti as ‘The Greatest Literary Show on Earth’. Counselage, the Tatas’ “strategic brand manager”, sponsored the festival’s press tent. Many of the world’s best and brightest writers gathered in Jaipur to discuss love, literature, politics and Sufi poetry. Some tried to defend Salman Rushdie’s right to free speech by reading from his proscribed book, The Satanic Verses. In every TV frame and newspaper photograph, the logo of Tata Steel (and its tagline—Values Stronger than Steel) loomed behind them, a benign, benevolent host. The enemies of Free Speech were the supposedly murderous Muslim mobs, who, the festival organisers told us, could have even harmed the school-children gathered there. (We are witness to how helpless the Indian government and the police can be when it comes to Muslims.) Yes, the hardline Darul-Uloom Deobandi Islamic seminary did protest Rushdie being invited to the festival. Yes, some Islamists did gather at the festival venue to protest and yes, outrageously, the state government did nothing to protect the venue. That’s because the whole episode had as much to do with democracy, votebanks and the Uttar Pradesh elections as it did with Islamist fundamentalism. But the battle for Free Speech against Islamist Fundamentalism made it to the world’s newspapers. It is important that it did. But there were hardly any reports about the festival sponsors’ role in the war in the forests, the bodies piling up, the prisons filling up. Or about the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, which make even thinking an anti-government thought a cognisable offence. Or about the mandatory public hearing for the Tata Steel plant in Lohandiguda which local people complained actually took place hundreds of miles away in Jagdalpur, in the collector’s office compound, with a hired audience of fifty people, under armed guard. Where was Free Speech then? No one mentioned Kalinganagar. No one mentioned that journalists, academics and filmmakers working on subjects unpopular with the Indian government—like the surreptitious part it played in the genocide of Tamils in the war in Sri Lanka or the recently discovered unmarked graves in Kashmir—were being denied visas or deported straight from the airport.

But which of us sinners was going to cast the first stone? Not me, who lives off royalties from corporate publishing houses. We all watch Tata Sky, we surf the net with Tata Photon, we ride in Tata taxis, we stay in Tata Hotels, we sip our Tata tea in Tata bone china and stir it with teaspoons made of Tata Steel. We buy Tata books in Tata bookshops. Hum Tata ka namak khate hain. We’re under siege.

If the sledgehammer of moral purity is to be the criterion for stone-throwing, then the only people who qualify are those who have been silenced already. Those who live outside the system; the outlaws in the forests or those whose protests are never covered by the press, or the well-behaved dispossessed, who go from tribunal to tribunal, bearing witness, giving testimony.

But the Litfest gave us our Aha! Moment. Oprah came. She said she loved India, that she would come again and again. It made us proud. This is only the burlesque end of the Exquisite Art. Though the Tatas have been involved with corporate philanthropy for almost a hundred years now, endowing scholarships and running some excellent educational institutes and hospitals, Indian corporations have only recently been invited into the Star Chamber, the Camera stellata, the brightly lit world of global corporate government, deadly for its adversaries, but otherwise so artful that you barely know it’s there.

What follows in this essay might appear to some to be a somewhat harsh critique. On the other hand, in the tradition of honouring one’s adversaries, it could be read as an acknowledgement of the vision, flexibility, the sophistication and unwavering determination of those who have dedicated their lives to keep the world safe for capitalism.

Their enthralling history, which has faded from contemporary memory, began in the US in the early 20th century when, kitted out legally in the form of endowed foundations, corporate philanthropy began to replace missionary activity as Capitalism’s (and Imperialism’s) road opening and systems maintenance patrol. Among the first foundations to be set up in the United States were the Carnegie Corporation, endowed in 1911 by profits from the Carnegie Steel Company; and the Rockefeller Foundation, endowed in 1914 by J.D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil Company. The Tatas and Ambanis of their time.

Some of the institutions financed, given seed money or supported by the Rockefeller Foundation are the UN, the CIA, the Council on Foreign Relations, New York’s most fabulous Museum of Modern Art, and, of course, the Rockefeller Center in New York (where Diego Riviera’s mural had to be blasted off the wall because it mischievously depicted reprobate capitalists and a valiant Lenin. Free Speech had taken the day off.)

J.D. Rockefeller was America’s first billionaire and the world’s richest man. He was an abolitionist, a supporter of Abraham Lincoln and a teetotaller. He believed his money was given to him by God, which must have been nice for him.

Here’s an excerpt from one of Pablo Neruda’s early poems called Standard Oil Company:

Their obese emperors from New York
are suave smiling assassins
who buy silk, nylon, cigars
petty tyrants and dictators.

They buy countries, people, seas, police, county councils,
distant regions where the poor hoard their corn
like misers their gold:
Standard Oil awakens them,
clothes them in uniforms, designates
which brother is the enemy.
the Paraguayan fights its war,
and the Bolivian wastes away
in the jungle with its machine gun.

A President assassinated for a drop of petroleum,
a million-acre mortgage,
a swift execution on a morning mortal with light, petrified,
a new prison camp for subversives,
in Patagonia, a betrayal, scattered shots
beneath a petroliferous moon,
a subtle change of ministers
in the capital, a whisper
like an oil tide,
and zap, you’ll see
how Standard Oil’s letters shine above the clouds,
above the seas, in your home,
illuminating their dominions.

When corporate-endowed foundations first made their appearance in the US, there was a fierce debate about their provenance, legality and lack of accountability. People suggested that if companies had so much surplus money, they should raise the wages of their workers. (People made these outrageous suggestions in those days, even in America.) The idea of these foundations, so ordinary now, was in fact a leap of the business imagination. Non-tax-paying legal entities with massive resources and an almost unlimited brief—wholly unaccountable, wholly non-transparent—what better way to parlay economic wealth into political, social and cultural capital, to turn money into power? What better way for usurers to use a minuscule percentage of their profits to run the world? How else would Bill Gates, who admittedly knows a thing or two about computers, find himself designing education, health and agriculture policies, not just for the US government, but for governments all over the world?

Over the years, as people witnessed some of the genuinely good the foundations did (running public libraries, eradicating diseases)—the direct connection between corporations and the foundations they endowed began to blur. Eventually, it faded altogether. Now even those who consider themselves left-wing are not shy to accept their largesse.


	RIL owns 27 TV channels. But the reverse is also true. Dainik Bhaskar owns 69 companies with interests in mining, power generation, real estate and textiles.

By the 1920s, US capitalism had begun to look outwards, for raw materials and overseas markets. Foundations began to formulate the idea of global corporate governance. In 1924, the Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations jointly created what is today the most powerful foreign policy pressure group in the world—the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), which later came to be funded by the Ford Foundation as well. By 1947, the newly created CIA was supported by and working closely with the CFR. Over the years, the CFR’s membership has included 22 US secretaries of state. There were five CFR members in the 1943 steering committee that planned the UN, and an $8.5 million grant from J.D. Rockefeller bought the land on which the UN’s New York headquarters stands.

All eleven of the World Bank’s presidents since 1946—men who have presented themselves as missionaries of the poor—have been members of the CFR. (The exception was George Woods. And he was a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation and vice-president of Chase-Manhattan Bank.)

At Bretton Woods, the World Bank and IMF decided that the US dollar should be the reserve currency of the world, and that in order to enhance the penetration of global capital, it would be necessary to universalise and standardise business practices in an open marketplace. It is towards that end that they spend a large amount of money promoting Good Governance (as long as they control the strings), the concept of the Rule of Law (provided they have a say in making the laws) and hundreds of anti-corruption programmes (to streamline the system they have put in place.) Two of the most opaque, unaccountable organisations in the world go about demanding transparency and accountability from the governments of poorer countries.

Given that the World Bank has more or less directed the economic policies of the Third World, coercing and cracking open the markets of country after country for global finance, you could say that corporate philanthropy has turned out to be the most visionary business of all time.

Corporate-endowed foundations administer, trade and channelise their power and place their chessmen on the chessboard, through a system of elite clubs and think-tanks, whose members overlap and move in and out through the revolving doors. Contrary to the various conspiracy theories in circulation, particularly among left-wing groups, there is nothing secret, satanic, or Freemason-like about this arrangement. It is not very different from the way corporations use shell companies and offshore accounts to transfer and administer their money—except that the currency is power, not money.

The transnational equivalent of the CFR is the Trilateral Commission, set up in 1973 by David Rockefeller, the former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski (founder-member of the Afghan Mujahideen, forefathers of the Taliban), the Chase-Manhattan Bank and some other private eminences. Its purpose was to create an enduring bond of friendship and cooperation between the elites of North America, Europe and Japan. It has now become a penta-lateral commission, because it includes members from China and India. (Tarun Das of the CII; N.R. Narayanamurthy, ex-CEO, Infosys; Jamsheyd N. Godrej, managing director, Godrej; Jamshed J. Irani, director, Tata Sons; and Gautam Thapar, CEO, Avantha Group).

The Aspen Institute is an international club of local elites, businessmen, bureaucrats, politicians, with franchises in several countries. Tarun Das is the president of the Aspen Institute, India. Gautam Thapar is chairman. Several senior officers of the McKinsey Global Institute (proposer of the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor) are members of the CFR, the Trilateral Commission and the Aspen Institute.


	Coercing a woman out of a burqa is not about liberating her, but about unclothing her. Coercing a woman out of a burqa is as bad as coercing her into one.

The Ford Foundation (liberal foil to the more conservative Rockefeller Foundation, though the two work together constantly) was set up in 1936. Though it is often underplayed, the Ford Foundation has a very clear, well-defined ideology and works extremely closely with the US state department. Its project of deepening democracy and “good governance” are very much part of the Bretton Woods scheme of standardising business practice and promoting efficiency in the free market. After the Second World War, when Communists replaced Fascists as the US government’s enemy number one, new kinds of institutions were needed to deal with the Cold War. Ford funded RAND (Research and Development Corporation), a military think-tank that began with weapons research for the US defense services. In 1952, to thwart “the persistent Communist effort to penetrate and disrupt free nations”, it established the Fund for the Republic, which then morphed into the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions whose brief was to wage the cold war intelligently without McCarthyite excesses. It is through this lens that we need to view the work Ford Foundation is doing, with the millions of dollars it has invested in India—its funding of artists, filmmakers and activists, its generous endowment of university courses and scholarships.

The Ford Foundation’s declared “goals for the future of mankind” include interventions in grassroots political movements locally and internationally. In the US, it provided millions in grants and loans to support the Credit Union Movement that was pioneered by the department store owner, Edward Filene, in 1919. Filene believed in creating a mass consumption society of consumer goods by giving workers affordable access to credit—a radical idea at the time. Actually, only half of a radical idea, because the other half of what Filene believed in was the more equitable distribution of national income. Capitalists seized on the first half of Filene’s suggestion, and by disbursing “affordable” loans of tens of millions of dollars to working people, turned the US working class into people who are permanently in debt, running to catch up with their lifestyles.

Embracing death Microcredit has been the bane of many a farmer. Many have been forced to commit suicide.

Many years later, this idea has trickled down to the impoverished countryside of Bangladesh when Mohammed Yunus and the Grameen Bank brought microcredit to starving peasants with disastrous consequences. Microfinance companies in India are responsible for hundreds of suicides—200 people in Andhra Pradesh in 2010 alone. A national daily recently published a suicide note by an 18-year-old girl who was forced to hand over her last Rs 150, her school fees, to bullying employees of the microfinance company. The note said, “Work hard and earn money. Do not take loans.”

There’s a lot of money in poverty, and a few Nobel Prizes too.


	But which of us sinners was going to cast the first stone? We watch Tata Sky, surf the net with Tata Photon, sip Tata Tea. Hum Tata ka namak khate hain!

By the 1950s, the Rockefeller and Ford foundations, funding several NGOs and international educational institutions, began to work as quasi-extensions of the US government that was at the time toppling democratically elected governments in Latin America, Iran and Indonesia. (That was also around the time they made their entry into India, then non-aligned, but clearly tilting towards the Soviet Union.) The Ford Foundation established a US-style economics course at the Indonesian University. Elite Indonesian students, trained in counter-insurgency by US army officers, played a crucial part in the 1965 CIA-backed coup in Indonesia that brought General Suharto to power. Gen Suharto repaid his mentors by slaughtering hundreds of thousands of Communist rebels.

Eight years later, young Chilean students, who came to be known as the Chicago Boys, were taken to the US to be trained in neo-liberal economics by Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago (endowed by J.D. Rockefeller), in preparation for the 1973 CIA-backed coup that killed Salvador Allende, and brought in General Pinochet and a reign of death squads, disappearances and terror that lasted for seventeen years. (Allende’s crime was being a democratically elected socialist and nationalising Chile’s mines.)

In 1957, the Rockefeller Foundation established the Ramon Magsaysay Prize for community leaders in Asia. It was named after Ramon Magsaysay, president of the Philippines, a crucial ally in the US campaign against Communism in Southeast Asia. In 2000, the Ford Foundation established the Ramon Magsaysay Emergent Leadership Award. The Magsaysay Award is considered a prestigious award among artists, activists and community workers in India. M.S. Subbulakshmi and Satyajit Ray won it, so did Jayaprakash Narayan and one of India’s finest journalists, P. Sainath. But they did more for the Magsaysay award than it did for them. In general, it has become a gentle arbiter of what kind of activism is “acceptable” and what is not.

Team Anna Whose voice are they, really?. (Photograph by Sanjay Rawat)

Interestingly, Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement last summer was spearheaded by three Magsaysay Award winners—Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi. One of Arvind Kejriwal’s many NGOs is generously funded by Ford Foundation. Kiran Bedi’s NGO is funded by Coca Cola and Lehman Brothers.

Though Anna Hazare calls himself a Gandhian, the law he called for—the Jan Lokpal Bill—was un-Gandhian, elitist and dangerous. A round-the-clock corporate media campaign proclaimed him to be the voice of “the people”. Unlike the Occupy Wall Street movement in the US, the Hazare movement did not breathe a word against privatisation, corporate power or economic “reforms”. On the contrary, its principal media backers successfully turned the spotlight away from massive corporate corruption scandals (which had exposed high-profile journalists too) and used the public mauling of politicians to call for the further withdrawal of discretionary powers from government, for more reforms, more privatisation. (In 2008, Anna Hazare received a World Bank award for outstanding public service). The World Bank issued a statement from Washington saying the movement “dovetailed” into its policy.

Like all good Imperialists, the Philanthropoids set themselves the task of creating and training an international cadre that believed that Capitalism, and by extension the hegemony of the United States, was in their own self-interest. And who would therefore help to administer the Global Corporate Government in the ways native elites had always served colonialism. So began the foundations’ foray into education and the arts, which would become their third sphere of influence, after foreign and domestic economic policy. They spent (and continue to spend) millions of dollars on academic institutions and pedagogy.

Joan Roelofs in her wonderful book Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism describes how foundations remodelled the old ideas of how to teach political science, and fashioned the disciplines of “international” and “area” studies. This provided the US intelligence and security services a pool of expertise in foreign languages and culture to recruit from. The CIA and US state department continue to work with students and professors in US universities, raising serious questions about the ethics of scholarship.

Uniquely placed Nandan Nilekani, ‘CEO’ of Project UID. (Photograph by Jitender Gupta)

The gathering of information to control people they rule is fundamental to any ruling power. As resistance to land acquisition and the new economic policies spreads across India, in the shadow of outright war in Central India, as a containment technique, the government has embarked on a massive biometrics programme, perhaps one of the most ambitious and expensive information-gathering projects in the world— the Unique Identification Number (UID). People don’t have clean drinking water, or toilets, or food, or money, but they will have election cards and UID numbers. Is it a coincidence that the UID project run by Nandan Nilekani, former CEO of Infosys, ostensibly meant to “deliver services to the poor”, will inject massive amounts of money into a slightly beleaguered IT industry? (A conservative estimate of the UID budget exceeds the Indian government’s annual public spending on education.) To “digitise” a country with such a large population of the largely illegitimate and “illegible”—people who are for the most part slum-dwellers, hawkers, adivasis without land records—will criminalise them, turning them from illegitimate to illegal. The idea is to pull off a digital version of the Enclosure of the Commons and put huge powers into the hands of an increasingly hardening police state. Nilekani’s technocratic obsession with gathering data is consistent with Bill Gates’s obsession with digital databases, “numerical targets”, “scorecards of progress”. As though it is a lack of information that is the cause of world hunger, and not colonialism, debt and skewed profit-oriented, corporate policy.

Corporate-endowed foundations are the biggest funders of the social sciences and the arts, endowing courses and student scholarships in “development studies”, “community studies”, “cultural studies”, “behavioural sciences” and “human rights”. As US universities opened their doors to international students, hundreds of thousands of students, children of the Third World elite, poured in. Those who could not afford the fees were given scholarships. Today in countries like India and Pakistan there is scarcely a family among the upper middle classes that does not have a child that has studied in the US. From their ranks have come good scholars and academics, but also the prime ministers, finance ministers, economists, corporate lawyers, bankers and bureaucrats who helped to open up the economies of their countries to global corporations.


	Corporate philanthropy is as much a part of our lives as Coca Cola. Global finance buys into protest movements via NGOs. More troubled an area, more the NGOs.

Scholars of the Foundation-friendly version of economics and political science were rewarded with fellowships, research funds, grants, endowments and jobs. Those with Foundation-unfriendly views found themselves unfunded, marginalised and ghettoised, their courses discontinued. Gradually, one particular imagination—a brittle, superficial pretence of tolerance and multiculturalism (that morphs into racism, rabid nationalism, ethnic chauvinism or war-mongering Islamophobia at a moment’s notice) under the roof of a single, overarching, very unplural economic ideology—began to dominate the discourse. It did so to such an extent that it ceased to be perceived as an ideology at all. It became the default position, the natural way to be. It infiltrated normality, colonised ordinariness, and challenging it began to seem as absurd or as esoteric as challenging reality itself. From here it was a quick easy step to ‘There is No Alternative’.

It is only now, thanks to the Occupy Movement, that another language has appeared on US streets and campuses. To see students with banners that say ‘Class War’ or ‘We don’t mind you being rich, but we mind you buying our government’ is, given the odds, almost a revolution in itself.

One century after it began, corporate philanthropy is as much part of our lives as Coca Cola. There are now millions of non-profit organisations, many of them connected through a byzantine financial maze to the larger foundations. Between them, this “independent” sector has assets worth nearly 450 billion dollars. The largest of them is the Bill Gates Foundation with ($21 billion), followed by the Lilly Endowment ($16 billion) and the Ford Foundation ($15 billion).


	Nilekani’s technocratic obsession with gathering data is consistent with that of Bill Gates, as though lack of information is what is causing world hunger.

As the IMF enforced Structural Adjustment, and arm-twisted governments into cutting back on public spending on health, education, childcare, development, the NGOs moved in. The Privatisation of Everything has also meant the NGO-isation of Everything. As jobs and livelihoods disappeared, NGOs have become an important source of employment, even for those who see them for what they are. And they are certainly not all bad. Of the millions of NGOs, some do remarkable, radical work and it would be a travesty to tar all NGOs with the same brush. However, the corporate or Foundation-endowed NGOs are global finance’s way of buying into resistance movements, literally like shareholders buy shares in companies, and then try to control them from within. They sit like nodes on the central nervous system, the pathways along which global finance flows. They work like transmitters, receivers, shock absorbers, alert to every impulse, careful never to annoy the governments of their host countries. (The Ford Foundation requires the organisations it funds to sign a pledge to this effect.) Inadvertently (and sometimes advertently), they serve as listening posts, their reports and workshops and other missionary activity feeding data into an increasingly aggressive system of surveillance of increasingly hardening States. The more troubled an area, the greater the numbers of NGOs in it.

Mischievously, when the government or sections of the Corporate Press want to run a smear campaign against a genuine people’s movement, like the Narmada Bachao Andolan, or the protest against the Koodankulam nuclear reactor, they accuse these movements of being NGOs receiving “foreign funding”. They know very well that the mandate of most NGOs, in particular the well-funded ones, is to further the project of corporate globalisation, not thwart it.

Armed with their billions, these NGOs have waded into the world, turning potential revolutionaries into salaried activists, funding artists, intellectuals and filmmakers, gently luring them away from radical confrontation, ushering them in the direction of multi-culturalism, gender, community development—the discourse couched in the language of identity politics and human rights.

The transformation of the idea of justice into the industry of human rights has been a conceptual coup in which NGOs and foundations have played a crucial part. The narrow focus of human rights enables an atrocity-based analysis in which the larger picture can be blocked out and both parties in a conflict—say, for example, the Maoists and the Indian government, or the Israeli Army and Hamas—can both be admonished as Human Rights Violators. The land-grab by mining corporations or the history of the annexation of Palestinian land by the State of Israel then become footnotes with very little bearing on the discourse. This is not to suggest that human rights don’t matter. They do, but they are not a good enough prism through which to view or remotely understand the great injustices in the world we live in.

‘Mining happiness’ Vedanta is stripping all that the Dongria Kondh tribals hold sacred. (Photograph by Sandipan Chatterjee)

Another conceptual coup has to do with foundations’ involvement with the feminist movement. Why do most “official” feminists and women’s organisations in India keep a safe distance between themselves and organisations like say the 90,000-member Krantikari Adivasi Mahila Sangathan (Revolutionary Adivasi Women’s Association) fighting patriarchy in their own communities and displacement by mining corporations in the Dandakaranya forest? Why is it that the dispossession and eviction of millions of women from land which they owned and worked is not seen as a feminist problem?

The hiving off of the liberal feminist movement from grassroots anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist people’s movements did not begin with the evil designs of foundations. It began with those movements’ inability to adapt and accommodate the rapid radicalisation of women that took place in the ’60s and ’70s. The foundations showed genius in recognising and moving in to support and fund women’s growing impatience with the violence and patriarchy in their traditional societies as well as among even the supposedly progressive leaders of Left movements. In a country like India, the schism also ran along the rural-urban divide. Most radical, anti-capitalist movements were located in the countryside where, for the most part, patriarchy continued to rule the lives of most women. Urban women activists who joined these movements (like the Naxalite movement) had been influenced and inspired by the western feminist movement and their own journeys towards liberation were often at odds with what their male leaders considered to be their duty: to fit in with ‘the masses’. Many women activists were not willing to wait any longer for the “revolution” in order to end the daily oppression and discrimination in their lives, including from their own comrades. They wanted gender equality to be an absolute, urgent and non-negotiable part of the revolutionary process and not just a post-revolution promise. Intelligent, angry and disillusioned women began to move away and look for other means of support and sustenance. As a result, by the late ’80s, around the time Indian markets were opened up, the liberal feminist movement in a country like India has become inordinately NGO-ised. Many of these NGOs have done seminal work on queer rights, domestic violence, AIDS and the rights of sex workers. But significantly, the liberal feminist movements have not been at the forefront of challenging the new economic policies, even though women have been the greatest sufferers. By manipulating the disbursement of the funds, the foundations have largely succeeded in circumscribing the range of what “political” activity should be. The funding briefs of NGOs now prescribe what counts as women’s “issues” and what doesn’t.

The NGO-isation of the women’s movement has also made western liberal feminism (by virtue of its being the most funded brand) the standard-bearer of what constitutes feminism. The battles, as usual, have been played out on women’s bodies, extruding Botox at one end and burqas at the other. (And then there are those who suffer the double whammy, Botox and the Burqa.) When, as happened recently in France, an attempt is made to coerce women out of the burqa rather than creating a situation in which a woman can choose what she wishes to do, it’s not about liberating her, but about unclothing her. It becomes an act of humiliation and cultural imperialism. It’s not about the burqa. It’s about the coercion. Coercing a woman out of a burqa is as bad as coercing her into one. Viewing gender in this way, shorn of social, political and economic context, makes it an issue of identity, a battle of props and costumes. It is what allowed the US government to use western feminist groups as moral cover when it invaded Afghanistan in 2001. Afghan women were (and are) in terrible trouble under the Taliban. But dropping daisy-cutters on them was not going to solve their problems.

In the NGO universe, which has evolved a strange anodyne language of its own, everything has become a “subject”, a separate, professionalised, special-interest issue. Community development, leadership development, human rights, health, education, reproductive rights, AIDS, orphans with AIDS—have all been hermetically sealed into their own silos with their own elaborate and precise funding brief. Funding has fragmented solidarity in ways that repression never could. Poverty too, like feminism, is often framed as an identity problem. As though the poor have not been created by injustice but are a lost tribe who just happen to exist, and can be rescued in the short term by a system of grievance redressal (administered by NGOs on an individual, person to person basis), and whose long-term resurrection will come from Good Governance. Under the regime of Global Corporate Capitalism, it goes without saying.

Indian poverty, after a brief period in the wilderness while India “shone”, has made a comeback as an exotic identity in the Arts, led from the front by films like Slumdog Millionaire. These stories about the poor, their amazing spirit and resilience, have no villains—except the small ones who provide narrative tension and local colour. The authors of these works are the contemporary world’s equivalent of the early anthropologists, lauded and honoured for working on “the ground”, for their brave journeys into the unknown. You rarely see the rich being examined in these ways.

Having worked out how to manage governments, political parties, elections, courts, the media and liberal opinion, there was one more challenge for the neo-liberal establishment: how to deal with growing unrest, the threat of “people’s power”. How do you domesticate it? How do you turn protesters into pets? How do you vacuum up people’s fury and redirect it into blind alleys?

Here too, foundations and their allied organisations have a long and illustrious history. A revealing example is their role in defusing and deradicalising the Black Civil Rights movement in the US in the 1960s and the successful transformation of Black Power into Black Capitalism.

The Rockefeller Foundation, in keeping with J.D. Rockefeller’s ideals, had worked closely with Martin Luther King Sr (father of Martin Luther King Jr). But his influence waned with the rise of the more militant organisations—the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Black Panthers. The Ford and Rockefeller Foundations moved in. In 1970, they donated $15 million to “moderate” black organisations, giving people grants, fellowships, scholarships, job training programmes for dropouts and seed money for black-owned businesses. Repression, infighting and the honey trap of funding led to the gradual atrophying of the radical black organisations.


	Stones were pushed up Soni Sori’s vagina to get her to ‘confess’. Sori remains in jail; her interrogator, Ankit Garg, was awarded the police medal this Republic Day.

Martin Luther King Jr made the forbidden connections between Capitalism, Imperialism, Racism and the Vietnam War. As a result, after he was assassinated, even his memory became a toxic threat to public order. Foundations and Corporations worked hard to remodel his legacy to fit a market-friendly format. The Martin Luther King Junior Centre for Non-Violent Social Change, with an operational grant of $2 million, was set up by, among others, the Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Mobil, Western Electric, Procter & Gamble, US Steel and Monsanto. The Center maintains the King Library and Archives of the Civil Rights Movement. Among the many programmes the King Center runs have been projects that “work closely with the United States Department of Defense, the Armed Forces Chaplains Board and others”. It co-sponsored the Martin Luther King Jr Lecture Series called ‘The Free Enterprise System: An Agent for Non-violent Social Change’. Amen.

A similar coup was carried out in the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. In 1978, the Rockefeller Foundation organised a Study Commission on US Policy toward Southern Africa. The report warned of the growing influence of the Soviet Union on the African National Congress (ANC) and said that US strategic and corporate interests (i.e., access to South Africa’s minerals) would be best served if there were genuine sharing of political power by all races.

Black ‘liberation’ Or a bow to the Washington Consensus?. (Photograph by Reuters, From Outlook, March 26, 2012)

The foundations began to support the ANC. The ANC soon turned on the more radical organisations like Steve Biko’s Black Consciousness movement and more or less eliminated them. When Nelson Mandela took over as South Africa’s first Black President, he was canonised as a living saint, not just because he was a freedom fighter who spent 27 years in prison, but also because he deferred completely to the Washington Consensus. Socialism disappeared from the ANC’s agenda. South Africa’s great “peaceful transition”, so praised and lauded, meant no land reforms, no demands for reparation, no nationalisation of South Africa’s mines. Instead, there was Privatisation and Structural Adjustment. Mandela gave South Africa’s highest civilian award—the Order of Good Hope—to his old supporter and friend General Suharto, the killer of Communists in Indonesia. Today, in South Africa, a clutch of Mercedes-driving former radicals and trade unionists rule the country. But that is more than enough to perpetuate the illusion of Black Liberation.

The rise of Black Power in the US was an inspirational moment for the rise of a radical, progressive Dalit movement in India, with organisations like the Dalit Panthers mirroring the militant politics of the Black Panthers. But Dalit Power too, in not exactly the same but similar ways, has been fractured and defused and, with plenty of help from right-wing Hindu organisations and the Ford Foundation, is well on its way to transforming into Dalit Capitalism.

‘Dalit Inc ready to show business can beat caste’, the Indian Express reported in December last year. It went on to quote a mentor of the Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry (DICCI). “Getting the prime minister for a Dalit gathering is not difficult in our society. But for Dalit entrepreneurs, taking a photograph with Tata and Godrej over lunch and tea is an aspiration—and proof that they have arrived,” he said. Given the situation in modern India, it would be casteist and reactionary to say that Dalit entrepreneurs oughtn’t to have a place at the high table. But if this is to be the aspiration, the ideological framework of Dalit politics, it would be a great pity. And unlikely to help the one million Dalits who still earn a living off manual scavenging—carrying human shit on their heads.


	Do we need weapons to fight wars? Or do we need wars to create a market for weapons? It’s the one thing that the US hasn’t outsourced to China.

Young Dalit scholars who accept grants from the Ford Foundation cannot be too harshly judged. Who else is offering them an opportunity to climb out of the cesspit of the Indian caste system? The shame as well as a large part of the blame for this turn of events also goes to India’s Communist movement whose leaders continue to be predominantly upper caste. For years it has tried to force-fit the idea of caste into Marxist class analysis. It has failed miserably, in theory as well as practice. The rift between the Dalit community and the Left began with a falling out between the visionary Dalit leader Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar and S.A. Dange, trade unionist and founding member of the Communist Party of India. Dr Ambedkar’s disillusionment with the Communist Party began with the textile workers’ strike in Mumbai in 1928 when he realised that despite all the rhetoric about working class solidarity, the party did not find it objectionable that the “untouchables” were kept out of the weaving department (and only qualified for the lower paid spinning department) because the work involved the use of saliva on the threads, which other castes considered “polluting”.

Ambedkar realised that in a society where the Hindu scriptures institutionalise untouchability and inequality, the battle for “untouchables”, for social and civic rights, was too urgent to wait for the promised Communist revolution. The rift between the Ambedkarites and the Left has come at a great cost to both. It has meant that a great majority of the Dalit population, the backbone of the Indian working class, has pinned its hopes for deliverance and dignity to constitutionalism, to capitalism and to political parties like the BSP, which practise an important, but in the long run, stagnant brand of identity politics.

In the United States, as we have seen, corporate-endowed foundations spawned the culture of NGOs. In India, targeted corporate philanthropy began in earnest in the 1990s, the era of the New Economic Policies. Membership to the Star Chamber doesn’t come cheap. The Tata Group donated $50 million to that needy institution, the Harvard Business School, and another $50 million to Cornell University. Nandan Nilekani of Infosys and his wife Rohini donated $5 million as a start-up endowment for the India Initiative at Yale. The Harvard Humanities Centre is now the Mahindra Humanities Centre after it received its largest-ever donation of $10 million from Anand Mahindra of the Mahindra Group.


	When Mandela took over, socialism disappeared from the ANC agenda. Today, a clutch of Mercedes-driving ex-radicals and trade unionists rule the country.

At home, the Jindal Group, with a major stake in mining, metals and power, runs the Jindal Global Law School and will soon open the Jindal School of Government and Public Policy. (The Ford Foundation runs a law school in the Congo.) The New India Foundation funded by Nandan Nilekani, financed by profits from Infosys, gives prizes and fellowships to social scientists. The Sitaram Jindal Foundation endowed by Jindal Aluminium has announced five cash prizes of Rs 1 crore each to be given to those working in rural development, poverty alleviation, environment education and moral upliftment. The Reliance Group’s Observer Research Foundation (ORF), currently endowed by Mukesh Ambani, is cast in the mould of the Rockefeller Foundation. It has retired intelligence agents, strategic analysts, politicians (who pretend to rail against each other in Parliament), journalists and policymakers as its research “fellows” and advisors.

ORF’s objectives seem straightforward enough: “To help develop a consensus in favour of economic reforms.” And to shape and influence public opinion, creating “viable, alternative policy options in areas as divergent as employment generation in backward districts and real-time strategies to counter nuclear, biological and chemical threats”.

I was initially puzzled by the preoccupation with “nuclear, biological and chemical war” in ORF’s stated objectives. But less so when, in the long list of its ‘institutional partners’, I found the names of Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, two of the world’s leading weapons manufacturers. In 2007, Raytheon announced it was turning its attention to India. Could it be that at least part of India’s $32 billion defence budget will be spent on weapons, guided missiles, aircraft, warships and surveillance equipment made by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin?

Do we need weapons to fight wars? Or do we need wars to create a market for weapons? After all, the economies of Europe, US and Israel depend hugely on their weapons industry. It’s the one thing they haven’t outsourced to China.

In the new Cold War between US and China, India is being groomed to play the role Pakistan played as a US ally in the cold war with Russia. (And look what happened to Pakistan.) Many of those columnists and “strategic analysts” who are playing up the hostilities between India and China, you’ll see, can be traced back directly or indirectly to the Indo-American think-tanks and foundations. Being a “strategic partner” of the US does not mean that the Heads of State make friendly phone calls to each other every now and then. It means collaboration (interference) at every level. It means hosting US Special Forces on Indian soil (a Pentagon Commander recently confirmed this to the BBC). It means sharing intelligence, altering agriculture and energy policies, opening up the health and education sectors to global investment. It means opening up retail. It means an unequal partnership in which India is being held close in a bear hug and waltzed around the floor by a partner who will incinerate her the moment she refuses to dance.

In the list of ORF’s ‘institutional partners’, you will also find the RAND Corporation, Ford Foundation, the World Bank, the Brookings Institution (whose stated mission is to “provide innovative and practical recommendations that advance three broad goals: to strengthen American democracy; to foster the economic and social welfare, security and opportunity of all Americans; and to secure a more open, safe, prosperous and cooperative international system”.) You will also find the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation of Germany. (Poor Rosa, who died for the cause of Communism, to find her name on a list such as this one!)

Though capitalism is meant to be based on competition, those at the top of the food chain have also shown themselves to be capable of inclusiveness and solidarity. The great Western Capitalists have done business with fascists, socialists, despots and military dictators. They can adapt and constantly innovate. They are capable of quick thinking and immense tactical cunning.

But despite having successfully powered through economic reforms, despite having waged wars and militarily occupied countries in order to put in place free market “democracies”, Capitalism is going through a crisis whose gravity has not revealed itself completely yet. Marx said, “What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.”


	Capitalism is in crisis. The international financial meltdown is closing in. The two old tricks that dug it out of past crises—War and Shopping—simply will not work.

The proletariat, as Marx saw it, has been under continuous assault. Factories have shut down, jobs have disappeared, trade unions have been disbanded. The proletariat has, over the years, been pitted against each other in every possible way. In India, it has been Hindu against Muslim, Hindu against Christian, Dalit against Adivasi, caste against caste, region against region. And yet, all over the world, it is fighting back. In China, there are countless strikes and uprisings. In India, the poorest people in the world have fought back to stop some of the richest corporations in their tracks.

Capitalism is in crisis. Trickledown failed. Now Gush-Up is in trouble too. The international financial meltdown is closing in. India’s growth rate has plummeted to 6.9 per cent. Foreign investment is pulling out. Major international corporations are sitting on huge piles of money, not sure where to invest it, not sure how the financial crisis will play out. This is a major, structural crack in the juggernaut of global capital.

Capitalism’s real “grave-diggers” may end up being its own delusional Cardinals, who have turned ideology into faith. Despite their strategic brilliance, they seem to have trouble grasping a simple fact: Capitalism is destroying the planet. The two old tricks that dug it out of past crises—War and Shopping—simply will not work.

I stood outside Antilla for a long time watching the sun go down. I imagined that the tower was as deep as it was high. That it had a twenty-seven-storey-long tap root, snaking around below the ground, hungrily sucking sustenance out of the earth, turning it into smoke and gold.

Why did the Ambanis’ choose to call their building Antilla? Antilla is the name of a set of mythical islands whose story dates back to an 8th-century Iberian legend. When the Muslims conquered Hispania, six Christian Visigothic bishops and their parishioners boarded ships and fled. After days, or maybe weeks at sea, they arrived at the isles of Antilla where they decided to settle and raise a new civilisation. They burnt their boats to permanently sever their links to their barbarian-dominated homeland.

By calling their tower Antilla, do the Ambanis hope to sever their links to the poverty and squalor of their homeland and raise a new civilisation? Is this the final act of the most successful secessionist movement in India? The secession of the middle and upper classes into outer space?

As night fell over Mumbai, guards in crisp linen shirts with crackling walkie-talkies appeared outside the forbidding gates of Antilla. The lights blazed on, to scare away the ghosts perhaps. The neighbours complain that Antilla’s bright lights have stolen the night.

Perhaps it’s time for us to take back the night.

1. Edited March 18, 2012: the year of CIA backed coup in Indonesia was earlier incorrectly mentioned as 1952. Corrected to 1965

2. Edited March 20, 2012: The sentence that now reads “All this in Goa, where activists and journalists were uncovering massive illegal mining scandals, and Essar’s part in the war unfolding in Bastar was emerging” was earlier published as: “All this in Goa, while activists and journalists were uncovering massive illegal mining scandals that involved Essar”

Tribute to Dr. Baba Saheb Ambedkar- 121st birth Anniversary

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 08:43:00 +0000

Today is the 121st birth Anniversary of Dr. Baba Saheb Ambedkar. He was a great social reformer and revolutionary. He was also the chief architect of the Indian Constitution.

Overcoming numerous social and financial obstacles, Dr. Ambedkar became one of the first "Dalit" to obtain a college education in India.

He fought tirelessly against the discrimination of SC/ST people by the upper caste people in India. He is still a role model to millions of underprivileged SC/ST people in India. Without Dr. Ambedkar no SC/ST person would have got access to politics, education or job in India. I salute and pay tribute to this great Indian leader.

Many of the well placed SC/ST people failed miserably to upheld the principles of Dr.B.R.Ambedkar. Its really a cause of concern for those who believe in social justice and equality. Many educated SC/ST people tempt to accept the evil practices of Hindu religion. On the occasion of Dr. Baba Saheb Ambedkar 121st birth Anniversary people belonging to the SC/ST and oppressed community come together to upheld the principles of Dr. Baba Saheb Ambedkar.

Why I (one should) hate The Hindu and its editor N.Ram in Srilankan Tamil issue?

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 07:15:00 +0000

I am writing this article on seeing one of the most distressing war crime videos committed by the srilankan soldiers (animals in uniforms) aired by channel 4.Whats been interesting to note is that barring some progressive news groups majority of the bigger news agencies in India viz The Hindu, Times of India etc see India’s support to the US sponsored resolution against srilanka and the entire war crimes committed by the srilankan army against the Tamils as an diplomatic issue between India and srilanka. Instead of covering and condemning the heinous war crimes committed by the Lankans Indian media especially The Hindu headed by N.Ram continue to serve as an unofficial media partner to Srilankan government. Even the so called biggest enemy Pakistan never kills Indian fisher men but the lankan navy has killed more than 100s of Tamil fishermen brutally till now and the killings haven’t stopped yet. As a leader in print media the The Hindu never questioned this Lankan government attitude towards Tamil fisherman in India. The Hindu news paper continues to betray Tamil people both in Tamilnadu and in Srilanka. Even after the Geneva resolution The Hindu paper is openly supporting the srilankan war criminals in its news editorial and news analysis report. We the people of Tamilnadu must expose this shameful act of The Hindu and its (mama) editor N.Ram.

A picture of N.RAM posted in a blog against his fascist attitude

Here are the facts and findings in support of my claims

The Hindu is an open supporter of Srilankan government. So one can easily say this Hindu group would never highlight the truth in Srilankan Tamil issue. Some classical examples are

1. When a Srilankan news paper (Sunday times of srilanka) refused to accept (on account of growing dangerous trend towards the journalist in lanka) the highest Srilankan honor for a journalist. The Hindu Ram accepted the ‘Best Journalist of Asia award’ from an NGO (supported by War criminal mahinda)

2. He is also the First Indian National to get "SriLanka Rathna" award from the srilankan government. If such is the closeness between The Hindu Ram and war criminal Mahinda. How can one expect The Hindu group to speak the truth?????

3. No journalist in the world would term a visit to a refugee camp as an up lifting experience as N.Ram described in one of his article immediately after the end of war between the LTTE and Lankan army on 2009 Visiting the Vavuniya IDP camps: an uplifting experience,. It is to be noted that the srilankan government at that time refused entry to any international journalist or even the Red Cross officials in to the refugee camps but for The Hindu N.Ram the war criminal mahinda arranged for a special helicopter to look in to the internally displaced camp for the war displaced Tamil people.

4. Here is an article listing the one sided attitude (in support of srilankan government) of The Hindu and its chief N.Ram towards the srilankan Tamil issue and also the Tamil fishermen rights in katchatheevu islands.

“The Hindu”s extreme Pro Sri Lankan Propaganda

The Sri Lanka crisis and the recent offensive of the Sri Lankan army on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam gained much media attention in India. The Hindu group coverd the developments very closely. However, most readers notice that The Hindu is biased on the issue and often functions as propaganda machinery for the Sri Lankan government and its Army. Mr N Ram of The Hindu is known to have been involved in the high level discussions between all the involved parties – the Tamil rebels, Indian government officials and Sri Lanka government officials during early 80′s. The group has maintained an extreme hardline pro Sri Lanka stand on the issue ignoring the Tamil and Indian interests in the region. There have been several public protests in the state of Tamil Nadu against the biased reporting of The Hindu on the Sri Lanka issue………To read the complete story click on the following link “The Hindu”s extreme Pro Sri Lankan Propaganda

“The Hindu”s lies about Katchatheevu Island

Hindu editorial against the Sovereignty of India and invites Contempt of court

On 22.06.2006 The Hindu published their editorial with a title “Katchatheevu is settled” propagating a lie as if they are announcing a foreign policy. Immediately it is republished in Sri Lanka with a title “Katchatheevu is settled, say Indian media “………To read the complete story click on the following link “The Hindu”s lies about Katchatheevu Island.

5. A letter that never got published in The Hindu news paper.

An Open Letter to The Hindu

A friend asked me to look at the last page of the Hindu today (July 4th, 2009). At a first look, it appeared as though there were a lot of advertisements on the page. After a closer observation, I found out that I was not far from the truth. The lead article “Visiting the Vavuniya IDP camps: an uplifting experience” is nothing short of an advertisement for the Lankan government. The article flows like a good corporate ad – the (non-existent) virtues of the Lankan state have been overstated while its miserable failures have been understated…….. To read the complete story click on the following link An Open Letter to The Hindu

6. An article by a Delhi based journalist on The Hindu Ram

The Ram-Rajapaksa Tape: Fictional By Satya Sagar

I appeal to all the readers don’t stamp me as Tamil nationalist, on reading this article. As a Human rights activist I wanted to highlight this one sided journalism of The Hindu. Please spread this article and create awareness about this modern day Media mafia The Hindu N.Ram.

Note: This type of one sided reporting of The Hindu is happening in The Mullaiperiyar dam issue as well. A total of more than 10-15 reports in support of the kerala government (barring few in support of the truth) has been published in The Hindu paper so far. (Most of the article is contributed by Ramaswamy R. Iyer).

IMPORTANT NOTE:

Free download of Dr.B.R.Ambedkar books

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 14:51:00 +0000

B.R.Ambedkar Annihilation of Caste

Since caste is at the heart of the problems within Hinduism, this is a classic statement of what to do about it.

B.R.Ambedkar Philosophy of Hinduism

A hard-hitting and eminently scholarly masterpiece that is a must read for a Hindu wishing to be a progressive and make Hinduism progressive. This is not a piece for those Hindus who are insecure in their Hinduism and become defensive immediately.

The Annihilation of caste by Dr.B.R.Ambedkar

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 10:34:00 +0000

The following post links you to the "Annihilation of Caste" Multimedia Study Environment

Welcome to the Annihilation of Caste Multimedia Study Environment (MSE) which was produced by Frances Pritchett, Professor of Modern Indic Languages, Columbia University and the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning, with additional sponsorship and funding from the Southern Asian Institute, Columbia University.

Dr. B.R. Ambedkar (1891-1956) was the first highly educated (Ph.D., Columbia University), politically prominent member of the ritually-polluted Hindu "Untouchable" castes. Dr. Ambedkar wrote the "Annihilation of Caste" for the 1936 meeting of a group of liberal Hindu caste-reformers in Lahore. After reviewing the speech, conference organizers revoked Ambedkar's invitation. He then self-published the work, which became an immediate classic. Gandhi wrote a refutation in his own newspaper. Ambedkar then answered Gandhi's refutation, and included the whole thing in appendices. The Multimedia Study Environment includes the Annihilation of Caste, edited for classroom use by Fran Pritchett; her explanatory annotations; and several other major texts by Ambedkar, including The Buddha and His Dhamma; Pakistan, or, the Partition of India; and the Indian Constitution.

The text source for this version of the Annihilation of Caste is reprinted from: Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches, Vol. 1. Bombay: Education Department, Government of Maharashtra, 1979, pp. 25-96. Annihilation of Caste was first published in Bombay, 1936; 2nd ed. 1937; 3rd ed. 1944.

Click on the following link to read "The Annihilation of caste by Dr.B.R.Ambedkar"

Anna Hazare's campaign-A corporate sponsored show

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 19:31:00 +0000

Is Anna a true leader....? Many educated people are going behind him like a herd...! Anna Hazare is supported by (bribe giving) corporate and corporate media....! How can one support this corrupt person? By calling this corporate sponsored protest as another freedom struggle we all insulting the true freedom fighters of India......!

Before going in to the review of the Jan lokapal bill we must know about the persons involved in drafting this lokpal bill and the hidden agenda behind this bill. Even some of the members in the Anna team have a point to prove on their integrity. This article cannot be seen as a attack on some individuals, i am trying to emphasise the facts surrounding this protests and the true intentions of these corrupt individuals. Since most of the English media (corporate sponsored) and some regional media are portraying this fast by Anna as another freedom struggle. It’s high time we all must stop this kind of news (nonsense), because it directly insults the true freedom fighters of the Indian nation. Here are the serious integrity issues relating to the Anna team:

1. Anna Hazare: Termed as another Gandhi he is accused of misusing his trust money for celebrating his B’day. To add up to these allegations- I request the readers to look in to the following links about Anna`s atrocities in His own village.

I'd rather not be Anna- Arundhati Roy

The Making of Anna Hazare

2. Arvind Kejriwal: This former IIT student is being projected as next youth icon (next to/instead of Rahul!). Soon after getting a capitalists sponsored award he rose to prominence. Later he started a NGO called kabir. He is a key member in the Anna team. His NGO is said to have got donations from Ford foundation and several other unknown persons to the tune of 250,000 $. Till now the identity of the donors are not being disclosed in the organization’s official website. Here is an excerpt of the interview given by Arvind Kejriwal to THE HINDU on the donations received from outsiders. Arvind Kejriwal himself does not follow transparency in his own organization. But he is advocating transparency to the government?

THE HINDU: “Another of your NGOs, Kabir, received grants from the Ford Foundation (FF). According to the FF, Kabir received $172,000 in 2005 and $197,000 in 2008. The FF also sanctioned an “in-principle” grant of $200,000 for 2011, which you have not accepted so far. Why does Kabir not mention the FF and these specific details on its website?

Arvind Kejriwal: We did not give the specific details because we also got some other NRI contributions and these were clubbed together. I will make sure that the website gives the break-up.”

3. Kiran bedi: Abusive use of power is also a corrupt practice. So kiran bedi itself guilty of this corrupt practice. She has been projected as a straight forward IPS officer but her official work record speaks the other way! She has derailed from her duties several times. She has used her power to secure her daughter’s admission at Delhi’s Lady Hardinge College for an MBBS course through the Mizoram quota. I request the readers to read the following links to know more about it.

The True Face Of Kiran Bedi by Subir Ghosh

It’s very clear that the main leaders of the campaign itself corrupt and we are following the wrong person/ group of people and portraying them as crusaders of corruption. So it’s high time that we all must think about their true intentions and the supporting force behind the Anna teams’s protests. Maoists are seen as a terrorist outfit because they don’t believe in the Indian state and they seek to over throw the Indian state by armed struggle. Same is the case in the Anna team and its supporters –They don’t believe in the constitution of India. They seek to control the entire government under a dictatorship kind of bill. So in a way Anna team should also be seen considered as a dangerous outfit. Many of the supporting organization of the Anna team are right wing saffron terrorist’s organization like RSS, VHP and many anti reservation outfits like youth for equality team. Thus one can easily conclude that these short minded persons don’t recognize the “right to equality” clause mentioned in the constitution of India.

Will Jan lokpal bill eradicate corruption?

The answer is NO! because one must keep in mind that there are numerous laws are in place to tackle the corruption practice in India. But the fact is these laws are not being properly implemented and executed by the law enforcing agencies. If we can find a proper way and will to implement this already existing law we can eradicate corruption at the grass root levels. But as far as the big scams involving the corporate companies the government must come with a new law such as “if a company is found to involve in corrupt practices it should be nationalized or banned from any other future business, hefty fine should be imposed on them or one must make it as a non-bailable offence”. The entire lokpal bill is critical in giving punishment to the bribe accepting politicians and government servants but it does not have a mention on the extent of punishment that would be given to bribe giving capitalists and industrialists. A person who induces another to indulge in wrong doings deserves better punishment than the other. Lokpal bill deserves to be in trash it deserves nothing more than that! There are numerous articles written about the flaws in the lokpal bill some are given in the references section do please read it and spread awareness about it.

The root cause of corruption can be understood clearly when we look in to the liberalization policies that are implemented in India after the 1990`s. The primary reason said for its implementation is that it would reduce corruption in India. At that time it was widely believed that the biggest corruption takes place at the government run institutions, hence the role of private institutions is seen as an alternative to combat corruption. But after the liberalization policies were implemented the corruptions and scams grow even bigger. The amount of money associated with each scams accounted for more than thousand crores or lakhs of crores. Although before liberalization India saw some big corruptions, the scams in that period was very few and the money involved in it was very meager when compared to the present cases.

A few notable Scams before liberalization:

Jeep Scandal of 1948-Rs 80 lakh.

Bofors in 1985-86-Rs 64 crore.

Liberal Benefits?
The opening up of the economy post-’91 boosted scam monies into the stratosphere

Total scam money (approx) in Rs crore since 1992:
73000000000000

1992
Harshad Mehta securities scam Rs 5,000 cr
1994
Sugar import scam Rs 650 cr
1995
Preferential allotment scam Rs 5,000 cr
Yugoslav Dinar scam Rs 400 cr
Meghalaya Forest scam Rs 300 cr
1996:
Fertiliser import scam Rs 1,300 cr
Urea scam Rs 133 cr
Bihar fodder scam Rs 950 cr
1997
Sukh Ram telecom scam Rs 1,500 cr
SNC Lavalin power project scam Rs 374 cr
Bihar land scandal Rs 400 cr
C.R. Bhansali stock scam Rs 1,200 cr
1998
Teak plantation swindle Rs 8,000 cr
2001
UTI scam Rs 4,800 cr
Dinesh Dalmia stock scam Rs 595 cr
Ketan Parekh securities scam Rs 1,250 cr
2002
Sanjay Agarwal Home Trade scam Rs 600 cr
2003
Telgi stamp paper scam Rs 172 cr
2005
IPO-Demat scam Rs 146 cr
Bihar flood relief scam Rs 17 cr
Scorpene submarine scam Rs 18,978 cr
2006
Punjab's City Centre project scam Rs 1,500 cr,
Taj Corridor scam Rs 175 cr
2008
Pune billionaire Hassan Ali Khan tax default Rs 50,000 cr
The Satyam scam Rs 10,000 cr
Army ration pilferage scam Rs 5,000 cr
State Bank of Saurashtra scam Rs 95 cr
Illegal monies in Swiss banks, as estimated in 2008 Rs 71,00,000 cr
2009:
The Jharkhand medical equipment scam Rs 130 cr
Rice export scam Rs 2,500 cr
Orissa mine scam Rs 7,000 cr
Madhu Koda mining scam Rs 4,000 cr

Source: http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?262842

It must be noted that the above stats does not include the 2G, CWG scam, the KG basin scam and the illegal mining scam etc. If we add up the scam money involved in these scams the total scam money would grow up even bigger. Thus from the above facts we can clearly say that the root cause of the corruption lies in the liberalization policies carried out by the Government of India. The root cause of corruption is privatization policy! A classic example is the health sector. In India hospital business is seen as a great oppurtunity to earn huge amount of profits. In the name of improving the quality of health sector the GOI opened up the health sectors to the private players. But instead of improving the quality of health sector it has driven millions of poor Indian people to debt by indiscriminate collection of fees. The main slogan of private ownership is to “earn profit-no matter how they come by”. So in such a scenario no private involvement is required in key sectors such as agriculture, education, food distribution (PDS), transport, health and other social sectors. Without eliminating corporates from these key sectors we cannot eradicate corruption no matter how many laws/bills are tabled.

With most of the politicians is either coming from a business family or a corporate sponsored person, it’s up to the voters of India to prevent them from winning the elections. Without preventing the corporate-politician nexus it’s difficult to achieve a corruption free society. The Lokpal bill does not highlight the key issue of corruption involving big MNC`s, corporate sectors etc. and it remain silent on corporate scams. Even some of the English media like Times now, CNN-IBN and NDTV 24x7 that supports this Anna Team campaign is also facing serious allegations in various issues such as paid news and Redia tape case etc. When more than 50,000 trible people protested against the wrongful acquisition of their home land for a foreign company POSCO at Orissa, no one from the Anna team or the media highlighted it (this protest also happened at the same time of Anna’s so called protest!). Also till now the villagers of kudumkulam of Tamilnadu are staging a marathon protest against the building up of nuclear power plant but no one highlighted this issue. So, it’s not wise on our part to support the Anna team blindly because their true motives are even more dangerous than the corruption issue. By the time I finish writing this article a new illegal mining scam at Goa to the tune of Rs.4000 cr is being reported!!!! The so called corruption crusader ANNA HAZARE again started to give ultimatum to the union government of India to pass the lokpal bill!

Arundhati Roy on Anna Hazare's campaign:

part one:

part two:

An NGO's view on ANNA HAZARE:

Further reading:

1. I'd rather not be Anna- Arundhati Roy

2. The True Face of Kiran Bedi by Subir Ghosh

3. Liberal benefits The opening up of the economy post-’91

4. The Making of Anna Hazare

5. Many Avatars of Indian Corruption

6. Lokpal bill of the Anna Team

7. Why I cannot support the Jan Lokpal - a detailed analysis

IMPORTANT NOTE:

In support of Samacheer Kalvi

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 13:18:00 +0000

I am posting this article in support of Samacheer Kalvi. On seeing some of the capitalist run news paper I am of the opinion that most of them are completely against the implementation of “Samacheer Klavi”. Most of the English,(some) Tamil news paper opinion looks like as if it was written by the PRO of all private schools association of Tamilnadu and their views are in support of the private schools. In my view the syllabus of the private schools are not superior to the government schools. The reason behind the success of the private school is that they have better infrastructure facilities when compared to that of the government schools. Private schools produce students with high marks by simply giving them tests and coaching classes. For eg: private schools teach (in the name of quality education) syllabuses that are meant for higher classes (say for 8^th standard) to (6^th class students) smaller classes and burden the children. This is done because private schools see education as a lucrative business opportunity. Most of the private schools don’t even have qualified teachers. When a common platform such as samacheer kalvi is implemented the private schools cannot run matriculation schools under the guise of giving quality education and thereby they may not earn profits. A good government should provide its children equal platform to perform. In India only the rich is blessed with quality education. Whereas majority of the poor children are made to sit under the tree as their class room. That's why the admission of Erode collector's daughter in a local government school is published as big news. This vast divide cannot be cleared on a single day but a scheme like samacheer kalvi at least provide some sorts of equal platform for the students from both private and government schools.

The so called expert committee formed by the State government is an eye wash because some of the expert committee members are indeed not subject/educational experts but they are owners of private schools. A clear case of conflict of interest. How can one accept the report of this one sided expert committee. We all must remember great scientists namely Dr.A.P.J.Abdul kalam, Dr.Mayilsamy Annadurai and Dr.Sivadhanu pillai had their school education at Government schools only. How can one term the government syllabus as low quality when it produces such great scientists to the nation? The thing is not with the quality of syllabus its all about good educational environment, infrastructure, and quality teachers. Parents also should come out of the myth that only private schools are superior to the government schools. Thus in my opinion the government’s priority in education should be to nationalize the educational system and it should completely abolish the private run educational institutions

IMPORTANT NOTE:

India third 'snoopiest' country: Google Transparency Report.The GOI have requested Google to censor the internet contents/opinions of many users who speak against the Indian government. Even dictatorship countries haven't placed such a number of censor requests to the Google. So its clear that the government of India is keeping an eye on its internet users and with the help of Google, GOI have acquired the internet users privacy details to intimidate them. The important fact is that the Indian government seek censorship to political views,hate speech,Government Criticism etc.It is clear that We the Indians don’t have freedom of speech here in India when it comes to government criticism in key issues.

DISCLOSURE:

Hence I hereby declare that the above article is My personal opinion and it is not being copied from any other Internet/anti-India websites.

War crimes of Srilankan army against Tamil people and Indian media's support to the Srilankan Government

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 17:46:00 +0000

Main stream media and news print agencies such as THE HINDU, INDIAN EXPRESS, NDTV and DINAMALAR etc are still lending a helping hand to the Lankan government by publishing articles in support of the Lankan government. The main stream media is one sided and is continually keeping the people of Tamilnadu and India in dark by hiding the war crimes of the Lankan army against the innocent Tamil people in refugee camps. Although fault lie on both the Lankan and LTTE sides, lakhs of innocent Tamil people were made to pay a big price for this bloody war. Even during the war or be it now the main stream media systematically black out the Human rights violations news that is still prevalent in IDP (internally displaced people (Tamil)) camps run under the Lankan army. According to the Human rights watch more than 1 Lakh 20 thousand Tamil people were brutally killed by the Lankan army with the support of India (primarily) and China. One need not be a Tamil to condemn this war crime but all real Human beings irrespective of the religion, geographical location would/should condemn this war crime.

I am writing this because I got shocked and emotionally moved after seeing the Channel 4 documentary film, “Srilankan killing fields” that was telecasted last week in Headlines Today news channel. I feel ashamed to say we live in a civilized society/world.

In this post I would like to share my mail sent to THE HINDU and Col.Hari, Chief of the Intelligence unit of the Indian peace keeping force (IPKF) in response to his article "The moment of truth for the LTTE". At that time the civil war between the Srilankan government and the LTTE was fought fiercely. Also during that period the main stream media in India are busy in hiding the true facts of the bloody war. They did not point out the human rights violation of the Lankan army instead they published what the Lankan government has told them.

Flag this message

reg:The article in The Hindu

Saturday, 7 February, 2009 1:22 AM

From:

"selva sharma"

View contact details

To:

colhari@yahoo.com

Respected sir,

I read your article "The moment of truth for the LTTE" in Hindu news paper dated feb 5,2009.I accept your views regarding LTTE's systematic elimination of Tamil leaders to an extent. But apart from that your article is completely baseless and one sided.LTTE alone cannot be blamed for the civil war, indeed the majority sinhalas and the political parties representing the sinhalas only paved the way for the formation of an extremist LTTE organization. Tamils in ceylon first fought for their rights peacefully. But the sinhala political parties used the ethnic tension to their advantage for political gains and power. Right from the independence srilnakan government are one sided and sponsored many riots against Tamils in Srilanka. You haven't mention these facts in any part of your article!
Some Government sponsored violence in Srilanka:
*Gal oya riots 1956
*1958 riots
*1977 riots
*Jaffna library burning 1981
*Black july 1983.

The war in lanka will definitely end within few weeks from now, LTTE will be defeated. But the question is will the Tamils in Srilanka be granted equal rights? I am sure that the Srilankan government do nothing for the empowerment of Tamils. This fact is evident by seeing the killing of innocent Tamils even in so called safe zones by the Srilankan army. History shows that Srilankan government is always against ethnic Tamils.

"However,The LTTE started dissipating its goodwill in India when it colluded with its "sworn sinhala enemy" R.Premadasa to get the Indian forces off its back and send them out of Srilanka...."

The above said lines in the article are true to some extent. But one also needs to concede the grave human rights violation committed by the IPKF in Srilanka. Valvettiturai massacre, Jaffna teaching hospital massacre are some examples. But sir as an head of intelligence of IPKF you should have conceded your failure in Jaffna football ground massacre of our fellow countrymen.

Also one logical question arises sir, What is the need for the Indian government to supply weapons to this Sinhala government which is virtually against India in all aspects right from the India-China war, India-Pakistan wars. Also even our enemy Pakistan never shoots at the Indian fishermen, if they accidentally cross the fishing border. But the so called close ally of India, Srilanka has so far killed more than 600 Tamil fishermen. What does the Indian navy and government did to save my State's fishermen. Had the Pakistan has done this kind of act i am sure our country would have fought a war with Pakistan. No writer in this print media raised this kind of questions till now.

Regards,

A.Selvasharma,

M.Sc.Chemisrty,

Department of Chemistry,

Bharathiar university

Tamilnadu.

The reply to the above mail from Col.Hari was mere “Thanks for your feedbacks”. I sent a modified mail to THE HINDU too but it never got published.

I am sharing this mail and views because many innocent Children, Women and Men are brutally killed everyday all around the world in the name of war against terrorism. Its high time we all must and should join hands in condemning violence or army action against innocent people wheather it happens in our country or in Palestine, Sudan Afghanistan, Srilanka or Pakistan. I also request you to dedicate some time for the social issues and spread awareness among many educated (there are many educated illiterates in India!) and uneducated persons. Changes don't happen in a day. But if we don't start today, change may never happen. After all Revolutions don’t happen within a day…….!

IMPORTANT NOTE:

India third 'snoopiest' country: Google Transparency Report.The GOI have requested Google to censor the internet contents/opinions of many users who speak against the Indian government. Even dictatorship countries haven't placed such a number of censor requests to the Google. So its clear that the government of India is keeping an eye on its internet users and with the help of Google, GOI have accquired the internet users privacy details to intimidate them. The important fact is that the Indian government seek censorship to political views,hate speech,Government Criticism etc.It is clear that We don’t have freedom of speech here in India when it comes to government criticism in key issues.

DISCLOSURE:

Hence I hereby declare that the above article is My personal opinion and it is not being copied from any other Internet/anti-India websites.

An unattended questionnaire on caste in cash rich Indian cricket

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 15:57:00 +0000

Sudipta Sengupta,

Delhi: B P Baloo, a Dalit cricketer, earned glory for India during the pre-independence period. But, the issue is why there are not many players from lower castes in the Indian team.

BABAJI PALWANKAR BALOO: not many cricket fans will be aware of this name. And, if I go ahead with this article without giving a brief background about him, then perhaps it will sound like talking in the national language of Timbaktoo. So, let me start with a brief introduction of Baloo.

He was a left-arm orthodox spinner, who played cricket for India from 1906 to 1920. Born in Dharwad in Karnataka, he was perhaps the first Dalit cricketer of India. With an exceptional ability to turn the ball both ways he managed to claim 179 wickets in his career. Now, for all those who are wondering what is so special about this cricketer from the Chamar caste, let me remind them that this was the time when caste discrimination was predominant in India. This was also the time when the British ruled the Indians and in many areas ‘dogs and Indians were not allowed’.

However, it was the sheer talent of Baloo that never allowed the upper castes to dominate him. Most of us are aware of the fact that Vinoo Mankad claimed 100 wickets in 1946 in England. But, we might not know that Baloo achieved the same feat in 1911 when he toured England. He ended the year with a total of 114 wickets at an average of 18.84.

Can you imagine a Dalit cricketer in the pre-independence era going to England and beating the English batsmen in their own game? Also, do not forget to take into account the limitations of training and grooming available in India compared to what the English got, who started playing the game much before us. Many believe that Baloo was an inspiration for Dr B R Ambedkar.

The name of Baloo, however, is not new to many. The author Ramchandra Guha has written a famous book A Corner of a Foreign Field: The Indian History on Baloo’s life. Another author, Boria Majumdar, has also covered the player’s life well in his writings.

Many questions came to my mind about Balo and caste in Indian cricket. In fact, I would have loved to get answers for some of my questions mentioned below from either Guha or Majumdar. But it is my bad luck that none of them were available for an interview with a citizen journalist. Hence, I pass on the entire set of unanswered questions to the intelligent web community.

Here they follow.

Question 1: Babaji Palwankar Baloo, played in 1906. He was a good player. But, amazingly, till date we can hardly count any other Dalit cricketer in the Indian cricket team. Is it because Dalits are still financially weak and cannot pay to get groomed for the competitive selection process or is there a hidden social bias against them?

Question 2 (a): Unlike old days when cricket field was a forte of the city-dwelling rich and mighty, we have seen a number of star cricketers emerging from smaller cities in recent days, namely Mahendra Singh Dhoni from Jharkhand, R P Singh from Rai Bareilly, etc. Even the ones coming from cities belong to the lower class. Does it show a shift in the Indian cricket from big cities to small towns and across classes? What effect does it have on the caste composition of the team?

(b): Is there a regional trend in caste in cricket? The cricketers from the south – Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble and V V S Laxman – and Maharashtra – Sachin Tendulkar and Ajit Agarkar – are Brahmins and urban. The cricketers from the north – Virendra Sehwag and Harbhajan Singh – and smaller towns are either lower or middle caste Hindus or non-Hinus. Is caste hierarchy more rigidly placed in the south?

Question 3: All selectors in Tamil Nadu Cricket Board are Brahmins, and the most recent player to emerge from the state is Murli Karthik, who is also a Brahmin. Does it reflect a caste bias in cricket?

Question 4: Is it a mere coincidence that Sunil Gavaskar, Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Kumble, Tendulkar, Laxman and many other stalwarts of the Indian cricket are Brahmins?

Question 5: Everytime there is a small town guy displacing a big-city Brahmin from a position of prominence, the Brahmin lobby in cricket gets furious. Sunil Gavaskar could not digest the success of Kapil Dev. Tendulakar had problems with Sehwag taking his opener’s slot. The initial success of Harbhajan Singh displaced Kumble from the team in situations where only one spinner is required, and it created some murmers of discontent in the Karnataka cricketing lobby. Is this cold war castist in character?

Question 6: What can be the future trends in Indian cricket team with respect to caste and class of players across regions?

Question 7: Some writers have pointed out Baloo inspired Ambedkar, something that Ambedkar has acknowledged. Can there be more Ambedkars if there are more Baloos?

I will like to put a disclaimer here that my intentions are neither to engage the fanatic cricket fans in a brainless debate nor to point a finger to the worthiness of any of the big cricketers I have named. Rather, with this article, I just want to dig into the truth and find out if India is really free of caste bias. If yes, then why is it that the eleven-member team of our most popular sport is not big enough to fit in a Dalit member? Or, does the problem lie somewhere else?

Land mark verdict by the Supreme court of India

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 15:41:00 +0000

In a landmark verdict the supreme court of India have ordered the Chattisgarh government and Union government to end salwa judum.

What is/Who are SALWA JUDUM,SPO,KOYA COMMONDOS?

SALWA JUDUM,SPO (special police officers),KOYA COMMONDOS is an armed group formed by the pro capitalistic Indian/state government comprising of young, barely literate and poorly trained innocent tribals to fight the Maoists/Naxalites in six northern states of India.

Why Human rights activists and people are against SALWA JUDUM,SPO,KOYA COMMONDOS?

SPO's were given power to execute innocent people without any law.This has resulted in several Human rights violation in tribal region.The sufferings of the innocent Tribal people due to the lawless violence of state supported SPO's is higher when compared to that of the Maoists.

Why the Government itself employing the innocent tribal youths against the Moists instead of the police and army?

Its very simple the Government does not have the will power to sacrifice its own police in combating the Maoists. Instead they are using innocent tribal youths as "cannon fodder" for the state.

Also the government does this type of strategy to evacuate the tribal people from the mineral rich forest areas so that it can be handedover to big corporate houses such as TATA,Reliance,Vedanta,Mittal steels,POSCO. (Remember the theme of hollywood movie,AVATAR).Thus in the name of curbing Maoists violence, the Indian government is supporting the big corporates. .

What the Supreme Court said in its judgment?

The supreme court of India in its judgment statement state that, "Laws cannot remain silent when the canons roar"

The court also made the link between the state's illegal counter-insurgency strategy (Salwa judam) and the wider "Neoliberal' approach being followed by the government at the central and state levels.” The Salwa judum is the illegimate product of a system that sees nothing wrong in giving tax breaks to the rich and guns to the poor to fight each other"

IMPORTANT NOTE:

India third 'snoopiest' country: Google Transparency Report.The GOI have requested Google to censor the internet contents/opinions of many users who speak against the Indian government. Even dictatorship countries haven't placed such a number of censor requests to the Google. So its clear that the government of India is keeping an eye on its internet users and with the help of Google, GOI have accquired the internet users privacy details to intimidate them. The important fact is that the Indian government seek censorship to political views,hate speech,Government Criticism etc.It is clear that We the Indians don’t have freedom of speech here in India when it comes to government criticism in key issues.

DISCLOSURE:

Hence I hereby declare that the above article is My personal opinion and it is not being copied from any other Internet/anti-India websites. The excerpts of the Supreme Court Judgments are taken from The HINDU news paper.

On Suicides of Dalit Students in India's Premier Educational Institutions

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 13:49:00 +0000

I am writing this post in response to alarming raise in suicides of many dalit students studying in various premier institutes in India. Dalit students are also fellow human being so what is the need for discriminating them! Dalit students are subjected to discrimination in various forms at many educational institutions.

Many students and teachers stamp Dalit students as reserved or quota student. Quota is not an offer or an election time freebies given to dalits it is given to them in response to the century old slave like treatment meted out to them by the upper castes of India. Dalits got this reservation rights by several protests and fight.

The only way to bring social upliftment of dalits is to give them access to jobs and education hence the reservation policy has come. India alone is not the first country to offer reservation to the oppressed, countries like USA (red Indians, African black), Australia (Aborigines) offer reservation to the oppressed community. If a student get seat by money we don’t dare to discriminate him/her but the students coming through reservation alone is discriminated by upper caste students and teachers.

So friends, I request you to lend your support to the dalit students facing discrimination at your educational institution or work place.

Also I appeal to all the dalit students not to take the extreme step of suicide. If you come across any discrimination from the student or faculty side face them boldly you have nothing to lose.....!

Link:

http://www.countercurrents.org/insight300411.htm

Dr.S.R. Sankaran- Tribute to an Honest IAS officer who fought for the rights of dalits and poor

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 19:57:00 +0000

HARSH MANDER

S.R. Sankaran was an extraordinary civil servant whose life and work touched innumerable marginalised lives…

Photo: Mohammed Yousuf

A life of compassion:S.R. Sankaran.

Crowds surged to join his funeral procession as it wound its way through the busy streets of Hyderabad, on a warm afternoon on October 8, 2010. Senior civil servants and human rights workers jostled with tens of anonymous indigent men and women, each of whom wished for the privilege to carry his body in its last journey for a few moments. Uniformed policemen lowered their eyes in tribute after offering an incongruous gun salute to a man the crowds extolled as a messenger of peace. Slogans continuously rent the air, hailing him to be the beloved son of dalits, tribal people, the poor and disabled persons. Few eyes were dry when his niece set aflame his funeral pier.

Man of integrity

I doubt if there has ever been such a funeral of any civil servant before him. The diverse multitude which surged to bid this diminutive, frail, under-stated man his final farewell represented the extraordinary range of people whose lives he had touched. S.R. Sankaran set standards of integrity and service to the most disadvantaged, for a whole generation of public officials. His courage of convictions inspired human rights activists. Despite his uncompromising opposition to violence, he was revered by Maoists as much as by Gandhians. And a lifetime of egalitarian compassion bound him to masses of India's poorest people, disadvantaged by indigence, caste, gender and disability.

Sankaran firmly believed lifelong that the foremost duty of the State was to uphold the dignity, rights and freedoms of India's most oppressed people, and his life's work demonstrated what a democratic government could indeed accomplish if it included persons like him. He drew up laws for land reforms, and pushed governments to implement these. He conceived of the Tribal Sub-Plan and Special Component Plan, to compel governments to set aside significant proportions of the state budgets for the welfare of Scheduled Castes and Tribes. He designed many programmes for justice and welfare of these socially most deprived communities, including thousands of residential schools for the education of tribal boys and girls. It was he who helped craft laws to release bonded workers.

Among the many legends which have grown up around his life's work, the story is often recounted of how a powerful Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh was furious when, as Secretary Social Welfare, Sankaran organised campaigns to release bonded workers from generations of debt bondage. The Chief Minister announced in a cabinet meeting that Sankaran was a trouble-maker, who went from village to village, held meetings with poorest people, instigated them by declaring that they had the right to be free, and mobilised them to rebel against a lifetime of bondage. Soft-spoken Sankaran retorted that this indeed was what he did, and this was his duty. This enraged the Chief Minister further, and he asserted in the cabinet meeting itself that such subversives had no place in his government. Sankaran replied in his customary low voice that he too did not want to work in his government, and proceeded on long leave.

Turning point

This proved a fortuitous turning point in his life. The legendary Marxist Chief Minister of Tripura, Nripen Chakravarthy, invited him to shift to Tripura and serve there as Chief Secretary. Both austere bachelors, fiercely honest, had few worldly belongings, and even washed their own clothes. They formed a unique partnership, leading the state for six years. Few governments in India earned such a reputation of integrity, service and justice for the under-privileged.

Sankaran gained national fame when he was kidnapped by Naxalites from the jungles of Andhra Pradesh. After his retirement from government, he constituted a Concerned Citizens Committee, to mediate with government to end its human rights violations in its military-like offensive against the armed rebels, and its policy of ‘encounter' killings of alleged Naxalites, which he condemned as ‘targeted extralegal executions'. Many tribal or dalit youth, or their loved ones, would desperately contact Sankaran when they were in danger of being eliminated in fake encounters, and it was Sankaran's mediation which saved several of them. He reminded government tirelessly that it was decades, indeed centuries, of injustice against tribal people — their brutal dispossession from their lands and forests — which was the true source of the insurgency in the jungles of the state.

But Sankaran was equally unsparing in condemning the violence of the Naxalites, and their focus on ‘ military actions rather than on the mobilisation of people for social transformation'. He was convinced that this contributed to ‘further brutalise the society and lead to the shrinkage of democratic space for mobilisation and direct participation of the people, impairing the very process of transformation that the movements claim to stand for'.

Unique standing

It was due to his unique moral stature that both government and the Maoists felt compelled to respond to his appeals, and defend to him their policies. It is another matter that neither altered their basic approaches to the conflict, and the unabated blood-letting by both sides of the conflict caused him great anguish. The efforts of this Committee dominated a decade of Sankaran's life, and he grieved until his end that he could not free his people from the mutually reinforcing cycles of violence, and reclaim for them enduring peace and justice.

Another task to which he devoted a significant part of his time after he retired was to lead the Safai Karmchari Andolan, an exceptional campaign for ending the humiliating age-old practice of people of particular castes being forced to clean dry latrines with their bare hands, and carry human excreta in baskets on their heads. He regarded this to be the most dreadful manifestation of untouchability and caste. A decade of Sankaran's leadership of the Andolan led to the substantial decimation of this centuries-old evil in many parts of India. This was through a combination of judicial interventions, compelling accountability of public officials, and a non-violent mass campaign for self-respect by people engaged in this vocation in which they burned their baskets and demolished dry latrines. But those Sankaran led to a life of dignity will mourn that he will not be by their side to witness the historic final end of this scourge.

Sankaran set aside a significant portion of his salary, and his pension after he retired, to educate dalit children. He never spoke of this to anyone, but when he first suffered a heart attack, many young men competed to keep vigil at his bedside. We learnt later from this assortment of doctors, civil servants, engineers and teachers that whatever they achieved in their lives was due to Sankaran. He never married, but clearly several loved and revered him like a father.

He was an intensely ethical person, but never didactic or judgemental. He displayed an unexpected impish sense of humour and mischief. After he retired from government, he lived in a small unpretentious and sparsely furnished apartment, which looked more like the home of a retired school teacher than a senior civil servant. Even the few pieces of furniture and gadgets in his house were forced on him by those who loved him. When he received his pension arrears, he was alarmed by this very modest swelling of his bank balance, and quickly distributed the money to street children's homes, and an organisation for disabled persons.

Sankaran's life and work illuminated the lives of literally millions of India's most dispossessed people with dignity, justice and hope. His compassion, simplicity and lifetime of public service will continue to light the way, both of those who work within government, and others who choose to struggle against it. His enduring legacy will be to demonstrate what true and authentic goodness in public and personal life can accomplish, to make this world a better, kinder place.

UMA SHANKAR I.A.S-Interview to a Tamil daily after the revokation of his Suspension

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 03:40:00 +0000

உமா சங்கர் பேட்டி!

சாதிச் சான்றிதழ் தொடர்பாகக் கேள்வி எழுப்பும் அதிகாரம், மாநில அரசுக்குக் கிடையாது. யூ.பி.எஸ்.சி-க்கு மட்டுமே அதிகாரம் உண்டு என தமிழக அரசால் பணியிடை நீக்கம் செய்யப்பட்ட ஐஏஎஸ் அதிகாரி உமாசங்கர் ஆனந்த விகடனுக்கு அளித்த பேட்டியில் கூறியுள்ளார்.
ஒரு ஐ.ஏ.எஸ். அதிகாரி மீது நடவடிக்கை எடுக்கப்பட்டதற்காக தெரு வில் நின்று பொதுமக்கள் போராட்டம் நடத்தும் அதிசயம், உமாசங்கர் விஷயத்தில்தான் நடந்திருக்கிறது.
சென்னையின் அரங்குகளிலும் நெல்லையின் தெருக்களிலும் நின்று 'உமாசங்கரைப் பணியில் சேர்த்துக்கொள்' என்று மக்கள் கோரிக்கைவைக்கிறார்கள். இது எப்படிச் சாத்தியம் ஆனது?

"ஆண்டவன் ஒருவனை நம்பியே களத்தில் நிற்கிறேன். உலகின் பல்வேறு மூலைகளில் இருந்தும் முகம் தெரியாதவர்கள்கூட தொலைபேசி வாயிலாகவும், இ-மெயில் மூலமாகவும் வார்த்தைகளிலும் எழுத்திலும் நம்பிக்கையை விதைக்கிறார்கள். முன் எப்போதையும்விட, என் வீடு இப்போது மகிழ்ச்சியும் அன்பும் நிறைந்து காணப்படுகிறது.
முதல்வருக்கு நன்றி!" - தெளிவாகப் பேசுகிறார் உமாசங்கர். தமிழகத்தின் பிரபலமான ஐ.ஏ.எஸ்., அதிகாரியாக இருந்த உமாசங்கரைப் பணியிடை நீக்கம் செய்திருக்கிறது அரசு.

"20 வயதிலேயே அரசுப் பணிக்கு வந்தவன் நான். வங்கிப் பணியில் இருந்துகொண்டே சிவில் சர்வீஸ் தேர்வு எழுதி, 26-வது வயதில் ஐ.ஏ.எஸ்., ஆனேன். முதலில் வேலூரில் ஒரு வருடம் உதவி கலெக்டர். பிறகு மயிலாடுதுறை, மதுரை, திருவாரூர் என வெவ்வேறு ஊர்களிலும், துறைகளிலும் பணி. பிறகு வந்த அ.தி.மு.க. ஆட்சியில் ஒழுங்கு நடவடிக்கை ஆணையராக ஐந்து ஆண்டுகளுக்கு மேல் வனவாசம். தி.மு.க. ஆட்சி வந்ததும் எல்காட் எம்.டி. பணி. அதன் பிறகு, தமிழ்நாடு கேபிள் டி.வி. கார்ப்பரேஷன் பணி. அங்கிருந்து வேறு பணிக்கு திடீரென மாற்றப்பட்டேன். வருமானத்துக்கு மீறி சொத்து சேர்த்ததாக லஞ்ச ஒழிப்பு போலீஸ் என்னை விசாரிக்க... நான் நீதிமன்றப் படியேற... பணி நீக்கம் செய்யப்பட்டு இப்போது வீட்டில் உள்ளேன்."
"உங்களை தலித் ஆதரவு அதிகாரி என்று கூறுகிறார்களே?"

"இன்னும் சிலர் கம்யூனிஸ்ட் என்பார்கள். தீவிரமாக மக்கள் பணி செய்வதால், சிலர் 'தீவிரவாதி' என்றார்கள். நான் எங்கு பணியில் இருந்தாலும், நிலமற்ற ஏழை விவசாயிகள் பெருமளவில் என்னைச் சந்திப்பார்கள். அவர்களில் 90 சதவிகிதம் பேர் தலித்துகள். தாழ்த்தப்பட்ட குடும்பத்தில் பிறந்து வளர்ந்தவன் என்பதால், அவர்களின் வலியை என்னைவிட வேறு யார் உணர்ந்துகொள்ள முடியும்? என் அலுவலகம், வீடு இரண்டின் கதவும் அவர்களுக்காக எப்போதுமே திறந்தே இருக்கும். இதனால்தானோ என்னவோ, எனக்குக் குறைவான நண்பர்களே உள்ளனர். 20 ஆண்டுகள் பணி முடித்துவிட்டேன். மீதம் உள்ள 15 ஆண்டுகளையும் பாதி அரசுப் பணி, மீதி மக்கள் பணி என்று வடிவமைத்துக்கொள்வதாகத் திட்டம் இருக்கிறது."
"உங்களை எதிரியாக நினைத்த ஜெயலலிதாவே உங்களுக்கு ஆதரவாக அறிக்கைவிடும் அளவுக்கு வந்திருக்கிறாரே?"

"பணியிடை நீக்கம் செய்யப்பட்டதும், 'உங்களுக்காகக் களம் இறங்குகிறோம்' என்று பல தரப்புகளில் இருந்தும் ஆதரவு அலை. 'வேண்டாம். அரசியல் சாயம் பூசுவார்கள். நான் அரசியல் சார்பற்ற அதிகாரியாகவே தொடர விரும்புகிறேன்' என்றேன். ஆனால், நெருக்கடி முற்ற முற்ற... அவர் களே களத்துக்கு வந்துவிட்டார்கள். தேவேந்திரகுல வேளாளர் உட்பட பல்வேறு அமைப்புகள் தமிழகம் முழுவதும் ஆர்ப்பாட்டம், போராட்டங்களை நடத்தி வருகிறார்கள். கம்யூனிஸ்ட் தோழர்கள், வைகோ, டாக்டர் கிருஷ்ணசாமி உள்ளிட்ட தலைவர்கள் பேசி வருகிறார்கள். ஆனால், முன்னாள் முதல்வர் ஜெயலலிதா பேசுவார்... அறிக்கைவிடுவார் என்று நான் எதிர்பார்க்கவே இல்லை. 'பலவான்களை உனக்காக இறங்கிப் பேசவைப்பேன்' என்கிறது பைபிள். அது தான் இன்று நடக்கிறது!"
"கருணாநிதியின் செல்லப் பிள்ளையாக இருந்தீர்கள். உங்களுக்குள் பிணக்கு வர என்ன காரணம்?"

"நான் யாருக்கும் செல்லப் பிள்ளை கிடையாது. என்றுமே மக்களுக்காக செயல்படும் பிள்ளையாகத்தான் இருந்து வருகிறேன். கோப்புகள் அனைத்திலும் கேள்வி கேட்காமல் கையெழுத்திடும் அதிகாரிகளையே அரசியல்வாதிகள் விரும்புகிறார்கள். ஆனால், இன்று துணை முதல்வர் ஸ்டாலின் மட்டுமே துணிச்சலாகக் கேள்வி கேட்டு, சாதக பாதகங்களை விளக்கிச் சொல்லும் சில அதிகாரிகளைத் தனக்குக் கீழ் வைத்திருக்கிறார்."
"அ.தி.மு.க. ஆட்சி வனவாசம் என்கிறீர்கள். தி.மு.க. ஆட்சிக்கு வந்ததும்

உங்களுக்கு நல்ல பதவிகள்தானே கொடுக்கப்பட்டன?"

"தி.மு.க. ஆட்சிக்கு வந்ததும் என்னை அழைத்த முதல்வர், 'எங்கேய்யா போறே?' என்றார். கம்ப்யூட்டரில் ஆர்வம் என்ப தால் 'எல்காட்' என்றேன். ஓ.கே. என்றார். அந்தச் சமயத்தில்தான் இலவச கலர் டி.வி. திட்டம் நடைமுறைக்கு வந்தது. பலரும் பதறிஅடித்துப் பின்வாங்கிய அந்தத் திட்டத்தை நான் கையில் எடுத்து வெற்றிகரமாகச் செயல்படுத்தினேன். எல்காட்டின் துணை நிறுவனமான 'எல்நெட்', டைடல் பார்க் அருகில் உள்ளது. இந்த நிறுவனம் 'ஈ.டி.எல். இன்ஃப் ராஸ்ட்ரக்சர்' என்ற துணை நிறு வனத்தைத் தொடங்கியது.

இதற்காக 25 ஏக்கர் பள்ளிக்கரணையில் இடம் வாங்கப்பட்டது. ஆனால், நாளடைவில் அந்த கம்பெனியே காணாமல் போனது. அந்த முறைகேடுகளை விசாரிக்கப் போனபோது, கோப்புகள் காணாமல் போய்விட்டதாகச் சொன்னார்கள். நானே அமர்ந்து தேடி, கிடைத்த கோப்புகளை வைத்து ஆய்வு செய்யச் சென்றேன். நான் அங்கு சென்ற சில நிமிடங் களிலேயே 'உங்களை மாற்றி விட்டார்கள்' என்று தகவல் வந் தது. ஆனால், முறைகேடுகள்பற்றி தெளிவான அறிக்கையை, முதல்வர், தலைமைச் செயலர், எல்காட் போர்டு ஆகியோருக்கு அனுப்பினேன். இவை அனைத்தையும் சென்னை உயர்நீதி மன்றம், மத்திய தீர்ப்பாயத்தில் பிரமாணப் பத்திரமாக தாக்கல் செய்துள்ளேன். நீதிமன்ற நட வடிக்கையில் இருப்பதால் பிர மாணப் பத்திரத்தில் குறிப்பிட் டுள்ளதைத் தவிர வேறு எதையும் தெரிவிக்க விரும்பவில்லை!"
"லஞ்ச ஒழிப்பு குற்ற விசாரணை உங்கள் மீது தொடர்கிறதா?"

"வருமானத்துக்கு அதிகமாகச் சொத்து சேர்த்ததாக விசாரிக் கிறார்கள். உடனடியாக என் மீது வழக்கு பதிவு செய்து, என்னைக் கைது செய்யுங்கள் என்றுதான் நீதிமன்றத்தில் என் வழக்கறிஞர் வாதாடினார். ஆனால், அதை செய்யத் தயங்குகிறார்கள். ஏன் என்றால், என்னுடைய கணக்கு வழக்குகள் அனைத்தும் தெளிவாக உள்ளன. ஓர் அரசு ஊழியன் 15 ஆயிரம் ரூபாய்க்கு மேல் எது வாங்கினாலும் அரசுக்குத் தெரியப்படுத்த வேண்டும் என்பது விதி. கம்ப்யூட்டர், செல்போன், கார் என்று எது வாங்கினாலும் உடனடியாகத் தெரியப்படுத்தி வருகிறேன்.

அப்படி இருக்கையில் என் மீது என்னவென்று அவர்கள் எஃப். ஐ.ஆர். ஃபைல் செய்வார்கள்? இந்த வழக்கில்தான் உயர்நீதிமன்ற தடை உத்தரவு வாங்கியிருக் கிறேன். இதை எல்லாம் எஸ்.சி., எஸ்.டி. கமிஷனுக்குப் புகாராக அனுப்பினேன். அந்தக் கோபத் தில்தான் என் சாதிச் சான்றித ழைக் காரணம் காட்டி, என்னைப் பணி நீக்கம் செய்துள்ளார் முதல்வர். நான் இந்து தலித் கோட்டாவில் பணிக்குச் சேர்ந்த வன். காலப்போக்கில் நம்பிக்கையின்பால் கிறிஸ்துவ தேவாலயங்களுக்குச் சென்றுவருகிறேன். இதில் என்ன தவறு இருக்கிறது? இதனால் தாழ்த்தப்பட்ட சமூகத்தைச் சேர்ந்த நான் பிற்படுத்தப்பட்ட வகுப்பைச் சேர்ந்தவனாக மாறிவிடுவேனா? மேலும், சாதிச் சான்றிதழ் தொடர்பாகக் கேள்வி எழுப்பும் அதிகாரம், மாநில அரசுக்குக் கிடையாது. யூ.பி.எஸ்.சி-க்கு மட்டுமே அதிகாரம் உண்டு."
"கருணாநிதி அரசின் சாதனை என்று எதையாவது சொல்ல விரும்புகிறீர்களா?"

"ஓரிரு விஷயங்கள் உண்டு. சி.பி.எஸ்.சி., மெட்ரிக், ஸ்டேட் போர்டு, ஆங்கிலோ-இந்தியன் என்று பாடத் திட்டத்தில் இருந்த ஏற்றத்தாழ்வுகளைப் போக்கக் கொண்டுவந்த சமச்சீர் கல்வித் திட்டம் பாராட்டப்பட வேண்டிய ஒன்று. அதேசமயம், 'நேர் நேர் தேமா... நிறை நேர் புளிமா' என்று குழப்பியடிக்கும் அளவுக்கு தமிழ்ப் பாடங்களில் இலக்கணம் தேவை இல்லை என்பது என் கருத்து. செய்யுளைக் குறைத்து உரைநடையை அதிகரித்தால், பிறகு மாணவர்களே ஆர்வமாக இலக்கணம் கற்பார்கள்."
"அடுத்து என்ன செய்வதாக உத்தேசம்?"

"நான் பெரிய குடும்பத்தைச் சேர்ந்தவன். 12 பேர்களில் ஒருவ னாகப் பிறந்தவன். மாதத்துக்கு ஒரு லட்சம் ரூபாயை வரியாகச் செலுத்தும் அளவுக்கு வருமானம் உள்ள தம்பி இருக்கிறார். தங்கைகள், வெளிநாட்டில் இன்ஜினீயர்களாக இருக்கிறார்கள். அவர்கள் அனுப்பிய பணத்தில் கார் வாங்கி உள்ளேன். பணியிடை நீக்கம் செய்யப்பட்ட நேரத்தில், கார் வாங்கிய ஒரே ஐ.ஏ.எஸ்., அதிகாரி நானாகத்தான் இருப்பேன்.

இதையும் அரசிடம் தெரிவித்துவிட்டேன். என் அனுபவங்களைப் புத்தகமாக எழுத உள்ளேன்.

Complaint filed by C.Umashankar IAS against the State of Tamil Nadu

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 03:26:00 +0000

Before the National Commission for SC/ST, New Delhi
From
C.Umashankar IAS., (1990 batch)
No.33 Balakrishnan Road,
D1, Ashok Swasthi Apts., 3rd Floor,
Valmiki Nagar, Thiruvanmiyur,
Chennai 41. Tel: 044-42020423 Mob: 94443-00123

To

Chairman,
National Commission for Scheduled Castes,
Lok Nayak Bhawan, Khan Market,
New Delhi - 110003
Fax: 91-11-24632298 Email: chairman-ncsc@nic.in

Complaint filed by C.Umashankar IAS., against the State of Tamil Nadu

I was selected for appointment as an IAS Officer by the Union Public Service Commission against SC quota and allotted to Tamil Nadu cadre during 1990. I joined the Service on 20th August 1990.
I state that during 1995 I was working as Additional Collector, (Development) and Project officer, District Rural Development Agency (DRDA), Madurai. There was misuse of funds allotted for construction of Cremation Sheds for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled tribes under Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (JRY). I refused to obey the illegal order of the then District Collector, Madurai Mr.P.R.Sampath IAS., to award the contract to a private contractor. A pubic interest litigation came to be filed in the Madras High Court. I filed an affidavit in the said writ petition narrating the true facts. (Annexure A[i]).
A Division Bench of Madras High Court, accepting the affidavit filed by me ordered a CBI enquiry in WP No.15929/1995. (Annexure B[ii]). The real accused in the scam are yet to be punished.
During 1996, the DMK was voted to power. The Government appointed me as Joint Vigilance Commissioner to peruse the files pertaining to high level corruption. I submitted several reports including 1) South India Shipping Corporation Share disinvestment scam (loss of Rs.200 crores) 2) Granite quarry lease scam (loss of about Rs.1000 crores) 3) Allotment of plots and houses of Tamil Nadu housing Board to fictitious persons (loss not estimated) 4) Purchase of 45000 TV antennas and boosters without following tender procedure and without ascertaining the actual need 5) Leasing of 20 acres of Coimbatore Medical College lands to Star hotel, club etc., in the name of women and child development at throwaway lease rent 6) Fraudulent grant of Patta for 7106 acres forest land in Megamalai forest village, Madurai/Theni district to one family etc.
I indicted several senior IAS officers including the ex Chief Secretary Mr.N.Narayanan IAS., Thiru.C.Ramachandran IAS., Dr.S.Narayan IAS., Thiru.Debandranath Sarangi IAS., former Chief Minister, Ministers and others.
To my dismay I found that no worth while action was taken against highly influential officials who were deeply involved in the corruption. I therefore requested the Government to relieve me from the post of Joint Vigilance Commissioner.
During February 1999 I was appointed as District Collector, Tiruvarur. I introduced e-governance in the district administration. This was the first of its kind in the whole of India. Tiruvarur was rated 20 years ahead of rest of India by leading News Paper – Times of India (Annexure C[iii]). The English weekly, THE WEEK, in its millennium edition chose me as the Bureaucrat from all over India who can make the life of Indians better in the new millennium (Annexure D [iv])
I submit that in the next general election, the DMK was defeated and the AIADMK came to power. I was sidelined and appointed as Commissioner for Disciplinary proceedings, an ex-cadre post.
The DMK was voted to power again in May, 2006. I was appointed as Managing Director of ELCOT, a state owned company. I introduced total transparency in the matter of award of contracts by introducing e-tender and also by introduction of a new method of tender evaluation by the bidding contractors themselves. I also introduced the use of large scale free and open source software in Government offices during this period.
While I was working in ELCOT, twice I was called by Tmt.Rajathi Ammal, wife of the Hon'ble Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu to her office at Alwarpet. I should have refused to meet her. However, by way of courtesy I met her in her office. She attempted to influence me to award contract to her men in the matter of purchase of 45000 fishermen wireless sets. I told her that only through e-tender contracts are finalised and I should not be disturbed.
I state that ELCOT along with another private limited company by name New Era Technologies Limited, controlled by one Thiagaraja Chettiar floated a joint venture company named ELNET Technologies Limited. The share of ELCOT in the new company is 26%. The share of New Era Technologies Limited is 24% and the remainder shares were subscribed by the public. This Joint venture company ELNET floated a 100% subsidiary company named ETL Infrastructure Private Limited with intention of floating an Information Technology Park cum Special Economic Zone at Pallikaranai, Chennai. The company owns 26 acres of land which had been given IT Special Economic Zone status by the Government of India. The company built 1.8 million square feet IT building in this IT- Park cum SEZ. The total value of the asset is more than Rs.700 crores. The said company mysteriously disappeared from the control of ELNET and ELCOT obviously with the connivance of former Chairman of ELCOT and political heavy weights. In my capacity as Managing Director, I was also the Chairman of ELNET. I wanted to probe the circumstances in which the ELCOT and ELNET lost control of ETL Infrastructure Limited. I circulated a special resolution to be moved in the Annual General Body meeting of the share holders of ELNET for removal of Unnamali Thiagarajan W/o Thigagraja Chettiar from the office of Managing Director of ELNET (Annexure-E[v]). The Annual General Body meeting of the shareholders of ELNET was to be held on 30th July 2008.
I also sent special reports to the Government regarding the scam namely the mysterious disappearance of ETL Infrastructure Limited worth more than Rs.700 crores (Annexure-F[vi]). I wanted a probe in the role of Mr.Vivek Harinarayanan IAS., and Dr.C.Chandramouli IAS.,
I state while I was physically verifying and searching the records pertaining to the mysterious disappearance of ETL Infrastructure Limited in ELNET's office on 28th July 2008, I received an order of transfer removing me from the post of MD, ELCOT and posting me as Managing Director of Tamil Nadu Industrial Investment Corporation Limited (TIIC) (Annexure G[vii]). I have reason to believe that it was a fraudulent transfer. The order of transfer was passed adverse to public interest and to help the said Thiagaraja Chettiar. It is perceived that Mr.M.K.Alagiri, Union Minister was responsible for my abrupt transfer from ELCOT.
While I was working in the TIIC, there was a feud between Maran brothers who own the Sun TV group of Television network and the family of Dr.Kalaignar Karunanidhi, the Hon'ble Chief Minster of Tamil Nadu. The feud between Maran brothers who have become very powerful and one of the richest in the country and M.K.Alagiri, the elder son of the Chief Minster was well known. The burning of Dinakaran News Paper office at Madurai and hurling of petrol bomb and death of 3 innocent persons in the murderous attack is also well known.
I state that the Hon'ble Chief Minister called me and ordered me to take assignment as Managing Director of Arasu Cable TV Corporation Limited. I told the Hon'ble Chief Minister that I would not be able to work under Dr.Chandramouli IAS., against whom I had submitted a report on the mysterious disappearance of ETL Infrastructure limited and also pledging of ELCOT's Joint Venture company – ELNET to secure Rs.81 crore loan for the mysteriously disappeared company namely ETL Infrastructure Limited. Dr.Chandramouli IAS., was transferred from the post of Information Technology Secretary cum Chairman of Arasu Cable TV Corporation Limited and in his place Mr.P.W.C.Davidar IAS., was appointed. My appointment as MD, Arasu Cable TV corporation was notified simultaneously on 30th October 2008. (Annexure-H[viii])
I assumed office as MD, Arasu Cable TV Corporation Limited, a Government owned company on 3rd November 2008.
I found that Sumangali Cable TV, controlled by Maran brothers was indulging in large scale destruction of Optic fibre cable infrastructure of Arasu Cable TV Corporation. Sumangali Cable Vision was determined to ensure that their monopoly was maintained by all means. I brought to the notice of the Government the criminal acts committed by the Sumangali Cable Vision Limited and the involvement of Pongalur Palanichamy, a Minister in the State Cabinet in helping Sumangali Cable TV who destroyed the property of the Government company. I sent several reports including the proposals for arrest of Maran brothers under the preventive detention laws and for action under the penal laws. (Annexure I [ix] – 21 pages)
I state that there was a settlement of the dispute between the Maran brothers and the family of Dr.Kalignar Karunanidhi. As an officer of the All India Service I pursued my job in right earnest and wanted the Maran brothers to be punished and Sumangali Cable TV to be nationalised (Annexure J[x])
I state that I was shunted out of Arasu Cable TV Corporation and posted as Commissioner of Small Savings, an ex cadre post. The Arasu Cable TV Corporation Limited is now almost dead.
I state that the Hon'ble Chief Minister and the Maran brothers became vengeful against me and wanted to disturb me.
While I was working in TIIC I sent an intimation to the State Government under Rule 4 (2)(b) of the All India Service (Conduct) Rules 1968 stating that my wife Suryakala M.Com., BL., was employed in Tessolve Inc. Chennai branch as HR Executive. She was working in that company from 1-4-2008 to 31-12-2008. Her gross salary was Rs.25,000 per month.
I state that the State Government which was determined to throttle me at the behest of the Maran brothers issued a charge memo apropos my wife joining service in Tessolve Inc. The Charge Memo was issued to prevent empanelment of my name in the cadre of Joint Secretary to Government of India. Because of this, I have been denied Joint Secretary empanelment during this year. I have been denied even a car loan and allotment of housing plot by the Government of Tamil Nadu.
I filed OA No.79 of 2010 on the file of the Central Administrative Tribunal, Chennai and obtained stay against the Charge Memo on 16th January 2010 (Annexure- K[xi]).
I received a communication from the Chief Secretary to Government (Annexure- L[xii]) regarding my movable and immovable assets. I sent a reply dated 28-10-2009 (Annexure-M[xiii] ).
On 6-5-2010 a Deputy Superintendent of Police called me over phone and sought an appointment for conducting enquiries regarding my alleged assets disproportionate to my known sources of income. When I asked him under what authority he was asking me to answer his queries, he said he was so authorised by the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti Corruption. This led to my filing WP No.12274 of 2010 on the file of the High Court. (Annexure-N[xiv] ). The Hon'ble High Court was pleased to admit the writ petition and grant stay.
I also filed WP No.15946 of 2010 (Annexure-O[xv]) questioning the Manual of Directorate of Vigilance and Anti Corruption under which the officers of the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti Corruption, namely police officers conduct enquiries against All India Service officers de-hors the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Code of Criminal Procedure. It is my case that the State Government is free to institute any disciplinary proceedings against me in accordance with the provisions of the All India Service Act, Public Servants Enquiries Act, the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Code of Criminal Procedure and the State Government is not competent to conduct any enquiry against me without registering a case against me by the due process of law. The writ petition is pending adjudication.
I state that the Government of Tamil Nadu have passed G.O Ms No. 670, Public (Special. A) department, dated 21-7-2010, suspending me from the service pending enquiry to scrutinise the genuineness of the Scheduled Caste community certificate produced by me. (Annexure-P [xvi])
I state that the Government have also issued a press note on 23-7-2010 intimating to the press the cause of my suspension. I state that the law relating to caste certificates is settled. It is only the Committee which can go into the question of caste certificate.
I submit that I submitted the community certificate to the Union Public Service Commission. When the results of the All India Services examination was published by the UPSC, my name was withheld and placed in the provisional category pending verification of the community certificate. The certificate was duly verified and thereafter the result was published.
I submit that the Government have not taken any action against the corrupt bureaucrats. The state Government is targeting me because I have been honest and sincere.
The State Government have caused a publication in the New Indian Express dated 25-7-2010 titled “Umashaknar Did produce false community certificate”, stating that I have produced a false certificate. The news paper report is engineered by the State Government, the Maran brothers and the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti Corruption of Tamil Nadu (Annexure-Q[xvii]).
I state that in WP No.15946 of 2010 I have alleged that one Mr.Ram Mohan Rao IAS was found in possession of assets disproportionate to his known sources of income to the extent of several crores of rupees. The amount is said to be about Rs.81 crores. The Government is protecting him. The Government is protecting all corrupt officials and making use of them. The Government does not want officers like me to serve the public.
I state that I am not claiming any special right. I can be charge sheeted under the All India Services Act, Public Servants Enquiries Act , the Prevention of Corruption Act or under the penal laws if the Government have credible information and materials against me. The Government, through the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti Corruption have started a smearing campaign against me by planting false stories as if I have produced a false certificate. I have come to know that the Hon'ble Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu is insisting that an FIR should be filed against me. The State Government headed by the present Chief Minister is intolerant and vindictive against me because I recommended penal action against Maran brothers and made public the scam in ETL Infrastructure where the hands of Mr.M.K.Alagiri, a Central Minster of the DMK party is involved. Thus the State power is being misused against me.
I therefore request the Commission to protect me from illegal harassment by the Tamil Nadu Government, the Chief Minister's family and the powerful Maran brothers who are closely related to the Chief Minister.
Please ensure that enquiry, if any, regarding my caste certificate is conducted by the Central Vigilance Commission or CBI or any other Central agency not under the control of the State Government.
Appropriate action may be initiated to allow me to work under the Central Government or any of the agency of the Central Government not under the control of the Government of Tamil Nadu.
I also request you to ensure proper security to me and my family through Central Security forces.
Dated the 26th July 2010 at Chennai.

C.Umashankar IAS., (RR 1990)
Chennai
044-42020423
Mob: 9444300123
e-mail: umashankarc@gmail.com

[i] ) Annexure A – Affidavit filed before the Madras High Court in what is known as “Cremation Sheds Scam”

[ii] Annexure B - Judgement in Cremation Sheds Scam in WP No. 15929/95 dated
27th February 1996.

[iii] Annexure C – Web report on Tiruvarur e-governance

[iv] Annexure D - THE WEEK, in its millennium edition 2000, declaring me the
man of the next millennium from among the bureaucrats of India.

[v] Annexure E – Draft Special Resolution for removal of Tmt.Unnamalai Thiagarajan
from the post of Managing Director of ELNET.

[vi] Annexure F – Report to Government and the Board of ELCOT regarding the ETL Infrastructure scam.

[vii] Annexure G - Transfer orders to Mr.C.Umashankar IAS from ELCOT to TIIC.

[viii] Annexure-H G.O Rt. No. 4394 Public (Special A) Department, dated 30-10-2008, notifying transfers and postings of Mr.PWC Davidar IAS., Dr.Chandramouli IAS., C.Umashakar IAS., etc.

[ix] Annexure I (21 pages) – Letters and reports sent to Government on illegal OFC cable cutting and other related reports.

[x] Annexure J – Proposal submitted to Government for nationalisation of Sumangali Cable Vision Limited dated 7th January 2010.

[xi] Annexure K – OA No.79 of 2010 filed before the Central Administrative Tribunal, Madras bench.

[xii] Annexure L – Letter from the Chief Secretary to Government seeking my asset details. .

[xiii] Annexure-M – Letter to Chief Secretary dated 30th October 2009 in response to the letter from Government seeking my asset details.

[xiv] Annexure-N Writ application in WP No. 12274 of 2010.

[xv] Annexure- O Writ application in WP No.15946 of 2010

[xvi] Annexure- P G.O Ms No. 670, Public (Special. A) department, dated 21-7-2010, suspending me from the service pending enquiry

[xvii] Annexure-Q News clipping titled “Umashankar did produce false community certificate” in the New Indian Express dated 25th July 2010.