today

RAINING TROUBLES: As Badal takes over the reigns in Punjab, he'll have to deal with the corruption charges against him.

Chandigarh: With the victory of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in Punjab, the Congress are gearing up to play the disgruntled Opposition. But the winning Akalis say they won't chase the Congress and play a politics of vendetta. "Amrinder favoured reliance, he took bribes from the companies to let them invest in the state," says President, Shiromani Akali Dal, Parkash Singh Badal.

The Vigilance Bureau filed a corruption case against Parkash Singh Badal soon after the Congress government came to power in 2002. A fast track court is hearing the case in Ropar near Chandigarh. The outgoing Chief Minister in his turn says he is not afraid of the possibility of a political vendetta. He's also denied rumours of him fleeing the country fearing an Akali backlash.

"I have never taken a decision based on fears, it is not in my nature. I have not at all worried about these things," says Amrinder. The Akalis are back in power, but if Badal's statement was anything to go by, Punjab will not see politics of vendetta. But then, Amrinder says he has nothing to fear and will stay right here.

The SAD-BJP alliance stormed back to power winning 67 seats routing the Congress, which bagged 44 seats in the 117-member State Assembly. While SAD has won 48 seats, BJP has got 19 seats. The remaining five seats went to the Independents. Polling for the Beas assembly constituency has been deferred to March 11 following poll-related violence.

In a day of hectic parleys between the two alliance partners, the BJP is said to have staked claimed for the post of deputy chief minister in the new government.

BJP leadership sources said that the claim to this post and other ministerial berth had been made to the Akali leadership in view of the BJP's good showing in the assembly elections.

London Times headline today: : "Talks with Taleban the best prospect".

London Telegraph headline today: "Cheney escapes Taliban suicide attack on base". The Taliban claimed that it was an assassination attempt on the US vice president.

IMO: From those headlines you could certainly argue that the Taliban are at least trying to be helpful. A lot of people in the West do not care much for Cheney and that was nearly one "problem solved".. Not necessarily a wry joke. The mysterious "Middle East" or as it might be called from further round the globe the "Near West" is often Byzantine in its complexities. Well it is near the old Byzantium, so you would expect that.

Feb 27: CAAT ("Campaign Against the Arms Trade") had launched a legal challenge against the Serious Fraud Office's decision to drop an investigation into alleged bribery by BAE in Saudi Arabia.

BAE allegedly had a "history of infiltrating" the campaign and attempting to obtain information illicitly.

A whistleblower had alleged in 2003 that BAE paid £120,000 a year to a security firm whose agents downloaded files, rifled through personal diaries, carried out surveillance and passed on bank records.

Yesterday, Mr Justice King, sitting at the High Court in London, agreed to grant CAAT a court order which the campaigners hope will help them identify the "mole".

IMO: I pointed out on Feb 18 that Lord Goldsmith had seemingly not been doing his job properly on this and other matters. Laziness, incompetence, theft and fraud. Is that all Britain and the EU has left to offer the world.? The Brits at least sent 1400 more soldiers to Afghanistan but that's less than the number that use one Mumbai slum privy. Certainly the competence of NATO and the West has to be questioned.

New Delhi, Feb 23: The entry of US giant Wal-Mart into retail appears to be snowballing into a major controversy with the Prime Minister's office expressing disappointment over Industry Ministry's response to Congress President Sonia Gandhi's concern and asking for a fresh study.

Many people feel India is a bit slow about such matters. But I can well remember, for example, the way it turned out that the taste of Thums-Up was ruined by the US drink firms, and how Kerala water was poisoned and polluted by them. And they still DO NOT CARE and try to PRESS ON REGARDLESS. They even tried to sell bottled Sidcup tap water at a high price in the UK - with the addition of cancerous impurities. The whole UK is filled with the loathsome Tesco brand - formerly run by the Jewish poisoner Shirley Porter and now using every crooked measure it can to start more shops, of low quality and not even cheap. They say that they are cheap both to gain custom and so that UK people will not complain about the way they grind down the faces of the overseas workers. So their corruption even lowers the standard of social life in the UK.

IMO: India should be very careful before allowing Americans and English to effectively control their agriculture. These people are often not even just obscene neocolonial filth but in Africa they are even slave drivers as well. Tesco have repeatedly failed to answer satisfactorarily complaints about their foreign slave driving and by now people do not care.

February 24, 2007: Tata's motor project at Singur continues to be a thorn in the West Bengal government's side. The latest to take the government to task is none other than the Calcutta High Court.

The Singur land acquisition controversy has acquired a new dimension altogether.

The Calcutta High Court has observed that the Bengal government could have twisted the state's land acquisition laws to pacify protestors by first offering compensation even before farmers gave their consent and then by enhancing the offer following their will to part with land, the government might have laundered public money.

Petitioner's Lawyer MP Babu said, “This is totally wrong. This is manipulation on the part of the government. The Supreme Court has said the government does not have the power to shift from awarding compensations under one scheme to the other."

And though the court hinted that it could nullify land acquisition in Singur, chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was caught unawares.

Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said, “I have not received the court's observations. I will talk to my advocate general. Just now I am not in a position to comment." The CPI-M has already walked two steps back and has put a hold on land acquisition in Nandigram following violent protests there. With the legal imbroglio in Singur now more acute than ever, the whole process of farmland acquisition for industry in Bengal could be thwarted even before it properly began.

IMO: Indian democracy may be at work and the poor people and India as a whole may benefit. Better than the UK got with Lord Goldsmith and Toady B. Liar over Iraq. Let us hope that India proves itself by being yet again less corrupt than the vile UK.

Latest figures show Clostridium difficile and MRSA between them were involved in 5,436 deaths in a single year. Experts fear the statistics are just the tip of an iceberg and say many infections go unrecorded. Graham Tanner, chairman of the National Concern for Healthcare Infections, said there was still "vast under-reporting" because many doctors failed to follow guidelines on certifying the cause of death.

He said the true toll could be as high as 27,600. There were at least 230,000 infections and their average mortality rate was 15 per cent.

Britain has one of the worst records for MRSA in Europe. A recent report put the UK fifth bottom for rates of the superbug, above only Malta, Romania, Cyprus and Portugal.

Although some people can be healthy carriers of C. difficile, in most cases the disease develops after cross infection from another patient, either through direct patient to patient contact, via healthcare staff, or via a contaminated environment. A patient who has C. difficile diarrhoea excretes large numbers of the spores in their liquid faeces. These can contaminate the general environment around the patient’s bed (including surfaces, keypads, equipment), the toilet areas, sluices, commodes, bed pan washers, etc. They can survive for a long time and be a source of hand-to-mouth infection for others. If these others have also been given antibiotics, they are at risk of C. difficile disease.

IMO: In the UK, filthy wards and doctors and nurses watching their own backs and to hell with the patients. Seen 'em all. And think of Mumbai, 1440 people to a toilet in the slums.

The Chinese government is imprisoning and giving electric shocks to people it thinks have become addicted to the Internet.

Led by Tao Ran, a military researcher who built his career by treating heroin addicts, the clinic uses a tough-love approach. Tao said the clinic is based on the idea that there are many similarities between his current patients and those he had in the past. "Today you go half an hour, and the next day you need 45 minutes. It's like starting with drinking one glass and then needing half a bottle to feel the same way."

The verdict in the trial of imprisoned Egyptian blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman will be delivered on 22 February, Alexandria judge Ayman al-Akazi announced. A call was made for “the maximum penalty for one who has insulted God, his Prophet and the Koran.”

Defence lawyers responded that the prosecution case was incomplete and that Suleiman could not be convicted of Internet-related offences that do not appear in Egypt’s criminal code. Nonetheless the blogger faces a possible 11 year prison sentence. Details currently here, FWIW. Abdel seems to have been civil enough.

You may say it could happen in USA, the sort of penalty inflicted by hicks in the sticks, like speeding fines in Denver and populist lynching - but that it couldn't happen in the UK. Well Tony B. Liar tried to change all that by providing life sentences for insanity - one had to do nothing wrong or even be very mad, he'd just find a local Harold Shipman type to sign some form if he fancied - but he got that turned down in the Lords, so far at least. Perhaps its just as well Thatcher isn't back, she'd simply go to the other extreme and throw all the loonies out onto the street, perhaps at the same time giving them a free bottle of cider to sit there and beg !.

Islamabad, Feb 22 : If Pakistan intelligence agencies' reports are to be believed, the Taliban are planning to carry out 12 suicide attacks in various parts of Pakistan, which has already been a victim of a series of suicide bombings this year.

The attacks have been planned by Taliban commanders such as Baitullah Mahsud, Abdullah Mahsud, Sheikh Khalid Mahmood and Nazir Wazir.

Nurani, a resident of Ghazni district in Afghanistan, has been given the task to carry out a suicide attack in Islamabad or Sargodha. Gul Jan, who belongs to the Mahsud tribe in South Waziristan, has reportedly been tasked with an attack in Lahore. Miatol, who belongs to a Punjabi tribe, is stated to be planning an attack in Dera Ismail Khan. Zia-ul Haq, a resident of Shand Estate, is reported to be preparing a suicide blast in the Bahawalpur region. Mohammad Zaman, a resident of Waziristan, is said to be planning attacks in Lahore and Rawalpindi.

Terrorists were believed to be targeting senior security officials and politicians who support President Pervez Musharraf's policy of "enlightened moderation".

In the meantime, Jemima Khan, daughter of Sir James Goldsmith (Imran Kahn's ex and former follower of Hugh Grant), is said to be attending rehab, FWIW.

Terror on tracks will not derail dialogue, say Hindustan Times.

Blasts that ripped through the Samjhauta Express will not affect the bilateral peace process between India and Pakistan, senior Indian officials said on Monday, but would definitely be discussed in the talks between the foreign ministers of the two neighbours.

But a former Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan, G Parthasarthy believes that the terror groups Pakistan has fed for so long, are maybe turning against it. "Whatever problems of terrorism Pak faces, it is of its own actions. It plays with fire and it gets its fingers burnt," said G Parthasarthy. He warns that the infrastructure of terrorism still flourishes in Pakistan. Groups such as the Lashkar-i-Taiyyaba and Jaish-i-Mohammad function openly with government backing. This may not derail the peace process, he says, but would render the much hyped joint terror mechanism meaningless. It is meeting in Islamabad for the first time next month.

Pakistani soldiers, monitoring the Afghan border, couldn't have a better view. In terms of having some impact, however, they might as well be invisible.

IMO: India/Pakistan travel is still possible, but is now obviously a bit more risky.

The government's highest-ranking lawyer admitted last night that he had an affair with the UK's leading Asian barrister, supposed ly ending about 2 years ago. Asked to give tips for success to young female lawyers, the 10 years younger barrister once said: "Networking is incredibly important." According to the London Times, her highest profile case was the prosecution of a man accused of stealing Victoria Beckham’s underwear.

It was claimed that claimed the relationship had a negative impact on £108,000 a year plus perks Goldsmith’s ministerial duties. “He used to disappear off the radar for hours at a time. People just couldn’t get hold of him,” the legal source said.

Lord Goldsmith, who apparently still lives with his wealthy wife, has always denied that he originally believed the Iraq war was not legal but that he had been forced to change his mind under pressure from Downing Street. He only offered advice that it was legal in the teeth of many claims to the contrary and a protest movement which saw at least one million demonstrators on the streets of London. The details were hidden for years and perhaps altered like the dodgy dossier. The Attorney General also attracted criticism after making the announcement, in the House of Lords, that the Serious Fraud Office was dropping a major corruption probe into BAE Systems, Britain's biggest defence company, and the Saudi royal family. Well we all know what everyone else thinks of all that.

Details of the affair came after Director of Public Prosecutions Sir Ken Macdonald was revealed to have had an affair with barrister Kirsty Brimelow last week. As the head of the state's prosecution service, a relationship with a barrister who regularly practises in the Crown Courts could lead to accusations that Sir Ken risks compromising his professional position. Brimelow defends rapists, people on "death row" etc. It seems MacDonald has never prosecuted, bizarre. No wonder there are so many guns around and kids have to do prison time.

Supporters of the Chancellor have suggested that the peer could be replaced by Harriet Harman, the constitutional affairs minister and a long-time supporter of Mr Brown. Well Harman could hardly be worse, one hopes. At least she has a constituency (Packham or Peckham) that seems to demand street respect so she may watch her step in case she has to go near it.

IMO: There are some people who should be taken off the streets, some say, and doubtless the late Ulrike Marie Meinhof would have shared those sentiments.

Drugs giant Eli Lilly has failed in its bid to restrict a wiki from linking to documents that could be damaging to its business. The ruling of a New York court said the court could not rule against the internet "in its various manifestations". Though Eli Lilly did obtain an injunction against individuals forcing them to return documents belonging to it and to refrain from disseminating them further, it failed to stop other websites from linking to copies of the documents in a case which is being seen as a vital test of free speech online.

(The documents relate to claims that Eli Lilly deliberately downplayed the side effects of its best selling drug Zyprexa, which is meant to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The side effects are said to include weight gain, high blood sugar levels and diabetes.)

"This ruling makes it clear that Eli Lilly cannot invoke any court orders in its futile efforts to censor these documents off the internet," said EFF staff attorney Fred von Lohmann.

IMO: Seems to be another legal result in favour of reasonable freedom of speech.

The Tata Group on Friday said it was determined to roll out small cars from its Singur plant in West Bengal in 2008 itself despite several hiccups.

This may be a mistake for many reasons. Tata obviously seem to plan to bring out small cars of the Fiat variety, presumably a bit like cheap old Mumbai Fiat taxis. For a start they have had to up the cost before they have even started to build and secondly they appear to be wanting to use decent farming land. Already it is apparently going to be far far worse than the fabled "Betsy", no '48 Studebaker this one. It is generally recognised that Buddhadeb Bhattacharya's govt has not planned their land re-use situation adequately, indeed some might say it is based on political favours. A really bad start, as we see here.

"The Party headquartered in New Delhi is now trying to lighten the mistake made by Buddhadeb Bhattacharya government. Again, a colossal loss to development and employment potential in a state where industrialization has become a necessity.

Agricultural scientist MS Swaminathan's warnings should be taken seriously when he says Special Economic Zones should not be set up in an adhoc manner - the exercise calls for mapping of the chosen area through remote sensing. Mapping would help in finding the true biological potential of an area and based on that development process could be taken up."

In other words, an area which could even be the bread basket of the entire world is to be used to build small stinky not-so-cheap cars.

Now globalisation and climate worries give the potential to make a lot of money for India, for Indians and even for Tata. Toyota for instance, is already doing reasonably well globally with the Prius, much better than US car firms who got it wrong and currently seem to be on the skids, causing US unemployment problems and substantial US dislike. Actually pollution is now the key to solution of these problems (one review here) and India should leapfrog the world and build a cheap pollution free vehicle.

At least Ratan Tata has done better than the USA in one way. By now he must be more hated in India than George Bush and the polluting car firms are in the USA.

He is worried about competitors apparently. Well there is at least one possible competitor on his home turf in Pune now. Bajaj. Bajaj are on the lookout for land in Maharashtra and Uttarakhand.
If Bajaj brings out a 4 wheeler it surely cannot be as bad as a dumbed down Fiat or the horrible Tata Rover, panned on Top Gear.

There are a number of good reasons why Tony B. Liar should be arrested. I have mentioned some of them earlier in this blog. In this entry I will concentrate on one reason only.

According to "Private Eye" issue 1178 headed "Cameron Drugs Latest", page 5, 3rd entry there is revealed the interesting fact that anyone who has been ever been arrested in the UK, however briefly, cannot enter the USA under the Visa Waiver program. I am certainly not an expert on visa law but I do understand from what PE says and from what I hear elsewhere, that such arrest can therefore possibly make subsequent US entry very difficult and quite likely downright impossible. Furthermore it seems to me that in the circumstances where some celebrity is thus turned down, we could reasonably ask why such permission is later given.

In other words this could put paid to jaunts by at least some of those characters like John ("Two Jags") Prescott, John ("I only screwed a nigger servant not Edwina") Major and other such notorious types regarded by some people as undesirable characters. On the other hand it seems to me that Tony B. Liar appears to have been regarded by some people in the USA as a man of unimpeachable integrity and great charm. If so, why couldn't he make US entry easier for decent people who may have not have had his chances. I used to know the late Paul Erdos slightly, for example and guys like him deserve a fairer go. In fact, as things stand, all people in the UK who are not very clearly criminals should easily get in to the USA if they want.

If B. Liar were placed in the same position as the rest of us, once he has been arrested he would know what a nightmare it can all be. And anyway, seems to me he probably should be put in the nick. Plenty of reasons have been given earlier. Apart from that, for example many people are very unhappy about his presumed corrupt or bad arrangements with foreigners like Americans and Saudis.

Thursday February 15 : The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, last night urged Tony Blair to intensify pressure on Pakistan over the cross-border activities of Taliban and al-Qaida fighters. Afghan officials have accused Britain of reluctance to apply pressure on President Pervez Musharraf to act because it needs Pakistan's help in the fight against domestic terrorism.

Many of the most serious terrorist suspects, as well as at least two of the July 7 London suicide bombers, trained in Pakistani camps. Britain is now seeking the extradition of Rashid Rauf, a Muslim of dual British-Pakistani nationality, and key suspect behind an alleged suicide plot to blow up airliners last summer.

According to People's Daily, in a joint press conference, held after meeting with visiting Afghan President Hamid Karzai at Downing Street, B. Liar said securing the war-torn nation's future was necessary to protect Britain. Although British troops faced a "tough and difficult job," he was "determined to do everything we can to make sure the mission is successful in the south of Afghanistan," he said.

IMO: It this point it may not be unreasonable to do much more with regard to pro-active influence than B. Liar has done so far. (i.e. zap the Paks real hard if they don't actually help instead of telling blatant ridiculous lies and acting against UK interests; UK is still capable of telling that worthless failed nation what to do as otherwise British lives may have to pay just to save B. Liar minor embarrassment. For heavens sake, the Paks have been making trouble with India for years and India has not retaliated hard, simply because of their kindness and kinship, both qualities being reasonable, fair and virtuous. The Iranians will not be so friendly if they have to nuke the Paks. Taking out all the Paks may not be unreasonable. UK has NO kinship with the Paks AT ALL except for a small unwanted minority who are usually abusers anyway and Pak owes a lot in manpower and money)

List here. I don't have much to do with kids, but I frequently note young and even middle aged adults who are confused, unhappy, and whose only recourse in the UK seems to be to join a gang. Justice is no longer there in the UK with the mad corrupt judges, lawyers and politicians.

According to the London Times, UK kids are the unhappiest in the West. Having seen poor but happy Indian kids who are hard working and very poor, I would say UK kids, pampered and spoilt little bastards that they are, may be the unhappiest in the world - with USA a close second.

Consider just that kiddie's favorite, Myspace. There is an article in Wired about it which makes it look totally corrupt and evilly violent. People are petitioning to close Myspace, I believe. But that is just a symptom of the way the UK and USA are going down the pan.

IMO: Look who is winning out. Mad corrupt dictators all over the world and and their political stooges. You need think not even as far as Myspace, but even UK Ch4 Big Brother shows enough selfishness and greed. And the Media Moguls won't improve the media, more likely ruin the internet as well.

An Indian network with useful ideas, often mentioned on BBC, who today described it as a sort of practical ideas equivalent of the OpenSource software movement. In a way it is a sort of Indian village version of 'Make' magazine, but fortunately more practical in nature. There is a version in English.
It gives many reasons for joining, a few being:

If you feel totally dissatisfied with the current mode of dominant mediocrity all around us
If you feel that lots of poor people are so poor not because they can not think, but because their ideas and initiatives do not get space for expansion and fulfillment
If you think that there are many dreams that you had which you could not fulfill in your life but would like others to fulfill them sooner rather than later

IMO: Interesting ,bearing in mind that India is now becoming a tiger economy, and the fact of global warming. Even Tata Group may participate, according to BBC.

“For 28 years, we’ve done what we wanted to do, and there’s no reason to stay and generate more of the same data,” said the laboratory’s founder, Robert G. Jahn, 76, former dean of Princeton’s engineering school and an emeritus professor. “If people don’t believe us after all the results we’ve produced, then they never will...”

Many are sceptical of this PEAR work, in view of papers like the one by the (now retired but eminent) W.H. Jefferys here. It fairly enough concludes "Where data are at the margins of detectability, the solution is to design a better experiment, not more statistics... parapsychological experiments are not having their intended effect of convincing a skeptical scientific world."

In some ways the Baader-Meinhof organisation was reminiscent of such great Europeans as Rosa Luxembourg.

Death has already claimed the founders of the Red Army Faction, a group of students and intellectuals who believed they could engineer a communist mass uprising by the West German working class. Their bizarre theory was that by assassinating senior business and justice officials, they could provoke the government into establishing a police state, which would make communism seem the desirable alternative to the masses.

Many people were displeased at both the Baader-Meinhof organisation and the RAF, which at one point was said to be close to obtaining nuclear weapons. It may well be that assassinating senior business and justice officials, but more commonly senior politicians and businessmen, may be the only way to secure freedom from repression and avoidance of destruction by decent people everywhere. With global warming, mass exploitation of the workers and genocide internationally, at no time does this seem more likely than now !

So there was a lot of point to the RAF but, as with so many organisations, a lot of the detail was not properly placed. When we compare Russian socialism to the present day status of most Westerners, there can be little doubt that some of the actions of the RAF may seem ill advised. When compared to Iran, N. Korea, Israel and even up to a point China, there seems little doubt that however disliked the RAF may have been, there is little doubt as to the good and useful intentions of the RAF, from a Western diplomatic point of view. It is not going too far to suggest that if the RAF had chiefly acted in one of the aforementioned countries they would have been hailed in the West as freedom fighters.

IMO: The moral is that senior politicians, civil servants, businessmen and judges everywhere, should reconsider themselves and improve their existing corrupt patterns of behaviour, and think first before they act.

February 10, 2007: "Fake" bloggers soon to be ‘named and shamed’ says the London Times. Hotels, restaurants and online shops that post glowing reviews about themselves under false identities could face criminal prosecution under new rules that come into force next year. Businesses which write fake blog entries or create whole websites purporting to be from customers will fall foul of a European directive banning them from “falsely representing oneself as a consumer”. From December 31, when the change becomes law in the UK, they can be named and shamed by trading standards or taken to court.

More important: The Times has learnt that the new regulations also will apply to authors who praise their own books under a fake identity on websites such as Amazon.

I wonder how far this law may go. There are numbers of persons who have clearly self-publicised on Wikis for example. And if the new law applies to books on Amazon, how far will it go to insisting on self-suppression of scientific literature, as this is often by books.

IMO: Are people in the UK about to have to suffer, simply for making clear the facts? I used to work at a UK University where anyone who as much as wrote a letter to a newspaper about some topic was very likely to be threatened with dismissal. Incredible but true. Now B.Liar and the yahoo Cameron are apparently trying to remove freedom of the Press, presumably only from the poor and not their own cronies.

David Cameron was disciplined for smoking cannabis at Eton when he was 15 years old, sources close to the Tory leader have admitted.

In later years, his membership of the Bullingdon Club, an elitist Oxford dining society, is now something he regrets. The "hooray" images of lordly students in £1,000 double-breasted tail coats drunkenly smashing up furniture hardly fits with his message of "modern compassionate Conservatism".

Seems that the LibDem Guardian group consider all this an opportunity for an "open debate about drugs". Have they forgotten their own leader being sacked relatively recently for continual drunken behaviour, the reason for his replacement by Menzies-Campbell ?

IMO: Now the media seem to have got bored with asking B. Liar when he'll leave, maybe they should try the same on opposition leader Cameron. All these guys seem a pretty unsavoury lot to run a country.

February 9, 2007: Thousands of doctors of Indian origin Friday lost their legal case against changes in immigration rules that made it difficult for them to gain employment in Britain's National Health Service. Lord Justice Stanley Burton of the High Court of Justice of Queen's Bench Division did not accept that there were sufficient grounds to support the claim that the changes in the immigration rules announced on March 7, 2006 or the subsequent guidance given by the Department of Health was unlawful.

Undoubtedly many of the doctors saw it as unfair. They seem to have seen NHS employment rather than deportation as guaranteed under existing rules.

The truth seems to be that greedy UK doctors had taken too much money out of the kitty and now the Government are trying to retrench without losing votes or support, so they have put out the Indians. They probably cannot do much about the East European doctors.

VBSI said 'On the day when the verdict in the case initiated by Dr Imran Yousaf (and BAPIO) is to be announced, it is very saddening to have learnt of his suicide apparently instigated by the turmoil caused by the Home Office's refusal to grant him a further leave to remain in the UK. We send our deepest condolences to his family and friends'.

IMO: The accursed UK bastard scum make a practice of driving immigrant foreigners to suicide for their pleasure and profit. Perhaps it needs to be better known. It is almost worse than the way bad US and other firms drive Indian farmers to suicide as these people are often skilled, and deserve extra courtesy as would be immigrants. And everyone knows that UK "justice" only exists for those who take the suited line.

MUMBAI: With criminals lodged in the high-security Arthur Road Jail running organised crime syndicates from inside the jail with impunity, prison authorities on Saturday installed a state-of-the-art mobile phone jamming system as part of its long-overdue security upgrade. Jail authorities admit that so far inmates could easily smuggle in cell phones into the high-security prison and carry on their criminal operations from inside their prison cells. The DIG said he was confident the newly installed jamming system will deliver.

IMO: probably about time they did.

By the accountants.

Accounting firm Deloitte and Touche say "Prices are likely to have to rise, if not for the sake of preserving neutrality a the retail consumer end of the market, then for the sake of allowing telecommunications companies, ISPs, and backbone providers, greater headroom for investment in new capacity. Precipitous downward pressure on backbone interconnect prices, paid by internet companies, ISPs and telecommunications firms, has left IP backbone providers with little incentive to light existing and new fiber."

In other word they will price it out of the pocket of consumers who do not simply want crap TV, and possibly even for those who do want crap TV. More details here.

IMO: We can only hope it will not happen.

A new report by the Pentagon's Inspector General documents what everyone other than the hardest core Bush followers already knows: namely, that "Intelligence provided by former undersecretary of defense Douglas J. Feith to buttress the White House case for invading Iraq included 'reporting of dubious quality or reliability' that supported the political views of senior administration officials rather than the conclusions of the intelligence community." It is vitally important to ensure that those who were responsible for the deceit that led us into Iraq are identified and held accountable. Details here.

It further seems that the US media have also simply told lies about Senator John Edwards, for example..

All this is bad and reflects badly on the media.

IMO: Remembering Rupert Murdoch, for instance, from his time in Australia, the worst may well be true. I can recall the very low quality of the Sydney evening papers when controlled by Murdoch for example, about which it was frequently said that they were not even fit for cleansing use in the privy. Bear in mind that Edwards seems to be wanting to do some entirely reasonable things like trying to reach standards of health care in the USA which approach those of Europe and UK, and not leaving 46 million people to fend for themselves when that is not possible for them. God is not about to help these people. Ganesh and Hanuman are more likely to assist for that matter. Even in the UK, parents sometimes have to go to India for private health care. India has more morals than either country and USA should be ashamed of its health care record, which regrettably in no way lives up to the ideals of its founding fathers. I do not criticise the USA as such, just the corruption of some in significant office.

Nero allegedly played the fiddle whilst Rome burned.

Ratan Tata needlessly polluted the atmosphere in expensive foreign aircraft like the F16 whilst valuable farmland was stolen in his name near Kolkata.


Perhaps these two are related ?

In TV interviews, Abu Bakr has said he was bewildered by his arrest and believes Britain is now a police state for Islam as terrorism laws are specifically designed to target Muslims. He has also said he believes last week's operation was designed to take attention away from the cash-for-honours scandal in which Prime Minister Tony Blair and New Labour are accused of offering honours to people who donate money to the party.

But the prime minister's official spokesman said anyone arrested in a police state would not have been freed and allowed to appear on television. He said: "It is a gross caricature of the political process in this country."

IMO: Any established UK citizen should be able to see that the arrest was not the symptom of an established police state. It may be that some police arrests are self-serving in any country.

Nandigram. Roads dug up like trenches and strewn with logs. Militant villagers belching a war cry for every inch of their land. Welcome to the 'police-free republic of Nandigram'.

Nandigram is neither Kashmir nor the insurgency-hit northeast. The situation is worse in Nandigram today because the Indian police cannot even cross the LoC (line of control) etched by the villagers to prevent the entry of cops.

Yes, more deaths and injuries at Nandigram over farmer's land occupied by Tata and Ratan Tata is to fly expensive luxury jets again Friday, this time an F-18. Allegedly Nero just fiddled while Rome burned but Tata flies an F18 whilst India suffers..

Maybe George Bush will offer Ratan Tata honorary US citizenship. After all, some would say Ratan Tata is as evil and foolish as the vile George Bush and his cronies. I believe these people are yesterday's men, denying progress and prosperity to all, ironically including themselves.

IMO:We see people like that in the UK too, of course, including such unfortunate climate change deniers as Lord Nigel Lawson. Such people become unfortunate public clowns - but we have pay the price of their folly too.

Excited over the prospect of co-piloting the multi-role combat F-16 fighter on Thursday at the Aero India show here, Tata group chief Ratan Tata said flying was a passion for him. "I am eagerly looking forward to flying the F-16. Flying has always been a passion for me. As a licensed pilot, I have been flying for a long time," 69-year-old Tata said here on Wednesday on the sidelines of the air show's inaugural event.

Promising to share his experience with the media after the sortie, Tata admitted it would be the first time he would fly a jet fighter. "With a commercial license pilot, I have been flying a couple of aircraft. Yes, this is the first time I will be co-piloting a fighter. I am looking forward to it," Tata said.

IMO: I believe F-16 is pretty difficult to fly and often a medical examination can be advised in advance.

A British Muslim school is teaching children that Jews are “repugnant apes” and Christians “pigs”, a former teacher claims. Colin Cook, 57, says when he raised his concerns to chiefs at the Saudi government-funded King Fahad Academy in West London he was told: “This is not England. It is Saudi Arabia.” Some of the 1,250 pupils at the faith school are alleged to have been heard idolising Osama bin Laden, praising 9/11 and saying they want to “kill Americans”. Mr Cook is himself allegedly a Muslim [we note he does not have a Muslim name, it seems].

Various reports seem to agree with the above assessment. I would add that Jewish schools in the UK which I have (very rarely) seen have also seemed somewhat on the defensive, but not so vigorously and obviously. The Christian schools tend to vary from decent enough to downright eccentric and I feel that overt eccentricity cannot benefit any school in the long term. My personal preference would be in favour of secular schooling with perhaps a little sparse education (in 'scripture classes') of all religions, which indeed I had as a youngster. It certainly did not stop me from reading the interesting work of Patanjali, hardly a Christian or a Muslim, as a child !

IMO: Perhaps this Muslim School disclosure, no doubt one of many potential disclosures, should be construed as a serious blow to any "faith schools" education project such as the UK under B.Liar are trying. But it also could illustrate the need for ways and means of improvement in morally backward countries like Saudi Arabia. Certainly Saudi Arabia itself seems to have moved Wahabi teachings backwards. When I was a Muslim scholar they assumed, I think, that I had been a Christian but did not even imagine saying that that made me a pig. Backward Saudi teachings have no doubt come to that but up to a point they are trying to defend their faith against foreigners. It is a pity that such teachings seem to have spilled over to the Pakistani madrassas which without substantial revisions must be closed down or bombed out anyway. Such teachings are not Asian but are Western Saudi Wahabi propaganda, and could easily be fairly construed as a misrepresentation of the faith of Islam.

A fraudster sets up a fake terminal in a busy shop or restaurant. When a genuine customer inserts their card into this terminal, the fraudster’s accomplice, in another shop, inserts their counterfeit card into the merchant’s terminal. The fake terminal reads details from the genuine card, and relays them to the counterfeit card, so that it will be accepted. The PIN is recorded by the fake terminal and sent to the accomplice for them to enter, and they can then walk off with the goods. To the victim, everything was normal, but when their statement arrives, they will find that they have been defrauded.

The important point here is that banks have previously claimed that if a fraudulent Chip & PIN transaction was placed, then the customer must have been negligent in protecting their card and PIN, and so must be liable. This work shows that despite customers taking all due care in using their card, they can still be the victim of fraud.

Details online here and it looks relatively easy to do. A child really good at electronics could probably set this up.

[Note: The (UK) Theft Act can give long prison sentences to those who "fraudulently seek to deprive". As of now "Chip & Spin" is by now well enough known in bank security circles. It is thus fraudulent for banks to claim that credit card pin codes are secure and thus blame customers for all breaches in (chip & pin) security. For legal reasons no threat or implied threat is best made to banks on this basis but ultimate blame is clearly squarely with the banks at this time. "Chip & Spin" is certainly only one of many such techniques and is relatively easy at this time. The problem does not seem to have arisen in the same way with non "chip and pin" cards and it could be said that the chief advantage of "chip & pin" to banks is for banks to take advantage of a (faulty) loophole they did not have before. Take knowledgeable legal advice if you have to.]

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said that he will present a plan that would provide health insurance to 47 million uninsured Americans

The plan would free up money for health care coverage by abolishing President Bush's tax cuts for people who make more than $200,000 a year and by having the government collect more back taxes, Edwards said.

IMO: A good thing about USA. So far at least they only give one vote to people earning more than $200,000 a year

Chung, Hyundai chief, convicted Monday for embezzling the equivalent of more than $100-million in company funds, and other charges, plans to appeal the ruling, a process expected to take from six months to two years. He will be free during that time to run Hyundai as chairman. He received a 3 year jail sentence.

Such a pity UK Labor has not succeeded in jailing quite a few top UK executives. Many of them certainly should be in jail but they will probably just move offshore if justice is sought. And poor B. Liar is more likely to go to prison instead. It really is unfair. Maybe B.Liar could do second best at least and get Tessa Jowell put in prison. After all Joe Kagan and Rudy Sternberg went to jail. The next lot could doubtless get the "PP9 treatment", one may well hope. That'll stop them offending again, or perhaps the "Harold Shipman wall hanging treatment" for delinquent directors would be cleaner.

IMO: From the latest Capita Group mail bombing, maybe the citizens are voting with their feet, or in this case with their parcels. But senior executives not jobsworth clerks are perhaps due for rough justice if the regular police enforcement officers will not do more than yap at B.Liar's heels like mangy curs. A certain Gilbert and Sullivan tune about 'gendarmes' come to mind when I think of UK cops.

2007-02-05: The farmers in Singur are losing patience, and yesterday, it showed once again, reports CNBC-TV18.

Police resorted to lathi charge and tear gas, and even used a water cannon to disperse the angry farmers protesting about the farmland been allotted to the Tatas for a small car plant in Singur, West Bengal.

Meanwhile, Mamata Banerjee, who made a high-pitched return to the centre stage of protests, said she would not allow the state government to acquire agricultural land for industries or SEZs. And the Trinamool chief is slated to visit Singur today.

It seems to me that the important issue is the environment. There are definitely various ways the green issues can be dealt with and that is what is important overall. If not, everyone will be the losers. Even Ratan Tata has to live on the world and if that is uncomfortable, he will not like that either. The farmers do not want to lose their land, either to short sighted industrialists like Tata so far seems to have been, or to vast agribusinesses who will put them out of work in a few years. On the face of it, Walmart type businesses do not seem right for India. I heard a BBC program today where some Punjabi was saying something to the effect "I just made millions from mobile phones, now I am going to do the same in agribusiness". Well he could certainly make a fortune in the Punjab, hard to avoid it in Punjab agriculture but overall a certain element of forethought is needed... Estimates show that Walmart style agribusinesses would render millions unemployed..Methods are genuinely improving. But simplistic Walmart methods give one sad memories of the UK 'ground nut' scheme in Africa, which was disastrous because it tried to use UK methods in African conditions. Perhaps the Walmart style guys are setting up an unmitigated disaster.Yet India needs to modernise agriculture. Common sense, realism and caution sound reasonable, not rushing to US methods for a quick profit. and certainly when cars are built , they should be pollution free.I see a bright future for India if it gets things right, not if it gets them wrong. Global pollution and efficient agriculture have to be seriously dealt with. Closing farms to build smelly cars is not one of the answers as China is finding out - possibly to late for China. But it is not too late for India.

IMO:. One place Banerjee could perhaps win support is from the global environmental lobby.

Agriculture must modernise some way but Banerjee looks a lot more right than the Tata over Singur since the land is the farmer's land and Tata just want to build cheap smelly unenvironmentally friendly cars, AFAIK

It is (relatively) easy. Just offer to give Blackpool the big casino license and take it from Manchester.

This is because Blackpool, from being an attractive (by UK standards) resort is getting really run down. Most of the people there are in service/entertainment and allied work. Making it Europe's Las Vegas could make it -well, a little like Las Vegas. Manchester is a serious city, even if stupid, and has had a lot of money already spent on serious things there. Sensible people (in Manchester) will not want more organised crime there. There have always been seedy fleshpots around Ardwick etc. and that has never been any use, but Blackpool can stand it a bit better.

The big advantage in having the big casino in Manchester is that it will become so obviously counterproductive and such a blight, even able to ruin and blight the entire country more than it already has been corrupted and ruined by successive corrupt Governments, both Tory and Labor. So it could be closed down then? In theory, yes, but the rot has almost gone too far already. So I don't give that sensible result much chance. Actually most sensible people prefer no casinos, with Blackpool second choice to that.

IMO: I have been to Las Vegas a number of times, though I do not gamble, and I disapprove of casinos existing at all. But Blackpool is more harmless for a big casino, and more suited.. There are many other things than casinos that could make both Blackpool and Manchester prosper - I've tried to make that clear in earlier blogs - and the right thing would be to ban large organised gambling entirely in the UK as the results otherwise will certainly be extremely ugly. But the violent Mafia crime scum who call themselves politicians in this country think only of their own pockets and to Hell with the citizens

Raj Thackeray and Narayan Rane's exit was believed to have dealt near-fatal, twin body blows to the Shiv Sena until it rebounded with a resounding victory in the 2007 BMC elections. While the tiger is still roaring, the cubs have been left licking their wounds, reports CNBC-TV18.
The celebrations that began outside Bal Thackeray’s Matoshree residence told the story. For a party which was being written off only weeks ago this was a turnaround of sorts. Predictably the heroes for the Shiv Sena were the father-son duo of Bal and Uddhav Thackeray especially Udhav who had taken responsibility for the party's campaign.

Shiv Sena leader Manohar Joshi says, “Uddhav Thackeray is like Sachin Tendulkar." By contrast, the Congress headquarters outside the Bombay Municipal Corporation wore a deserted look.

For Uddhav Thackeray, the man who was written off by one and all, the municipal elections have given him a second lease of life. With the Sena likely to be once again in power at the country's richest civic body, its the Congress-NCP alliance which will have to ask itself some searching questions.

Some voter's comments:

The Fact is that Congress is a party which supports minorities in all matters and due to this the middle class suffers and is still suffering... be it reservation or taxation... Shiv Sena and BJP at least think of the Middle class and so it up to us to go out and vote

Not minorities, just the muslims and that too for their votes, they have no ideology except self-preservation, it is up to the vast hindu middle-class to fulfil their duties to their country and show tv-happy pseudo-secularists their place

Politics and religion are two separate entitities in a society. It is not uncommon, though for political parties in India to use religion to secure vote banks. This is blatant manipulation of the Indian society. Fortunately, with education, emphasis on a brighter economy and broader exposure to global politics, have ensured that this is changing. Politics is not a game played by radicals. Religion should not be the theme in a political manifesto. I urge fellow voters to vote for the 'better' party, based on overall upliftment of the country, and not vested interest in their own religion or community. 60 years into our independence, we have a Muslim President and a Sikh Prime Minister. Let this be the first step in more practical and rational elections, which will ensure stability (needed so badly for the economy to keep shining)..

If you are 1 among the 78% and going down Hindu in the country.. think about this.. and no offense to anybody as such.. Congress is good in some areas.. but it has too many weakness to be a party we can believe in.. I will say the bigger one is rise of Christiuanity in the country and more so the conversion angle going rampant.. Vatican is trying hellbent to convert as much as Indians to Christianity as possible.. For so many years world said population is bad.. Now suddenly they see the power of India is in its 1 billion.. however that 1 billion is not Christian, but mostly Hindu.. so they identified the Achilles heel which was the dalith/lower caste section (which mind you is about 30%) for conversion.. Just think of the dynamics.. If these 30% go over to Christianity then Hindus are actually on threshold of becoming minority.. Muslims as we always know are never going to completely take the side of India as a country.. i.e they will never integrate they will have hundreds of issue.. we need a place on earth (and what is wrong in that??) where we can practice Hindu traditions the Divalis the diyas (And not candles) then we need a party that beleives in that ism.

Whoever be the winner i know the loser. Its WE THE PEOPLe

Our Country under Manmohan Singh and P. C. hasn't really achieved anything and let\'s not talk about this Congress. This party right from the day we became independent, has made the citizens insecure and selfish; however the Congressmen have prospered and have created wealth for themselves.

More here

IMO: Global warming may be the true issue. Certainly in the Bay of Bengal a lot of land has already been lost to the sea, and I thought really hard about sea level before purchasing my small ground floor Mumbai flat. In adjacent blocks a number of people were flooded out recently - and left. It will be even worse for those with next to no money and no real living space, bad enough now for them in all fairness. A lot to be done. Certainly reason and tolerance do not seem much of an answer either. In the UK, essentially the minorities are often much more trouble than anything else. e.g. Muslims, the main minority, are attacking UK army members to torture and then kill them and the Scots simply seek independence, ridiculous as turning one tiny country (UK) into two tinier countries is going to make things much worse, even B.Liar is against that ! The whole population of Scotland is barely as big in population as Vasai and smaller than the population of Thane ! Nobody is yet looking to have Vasai independent of India. So the UK are actually worse at politics than India to have such a dilemma.

IMO: India could solve the world's climate problems and benefit greatly thereby. This really can happen and may have to. India could within a generation become the worlds leading nation. Jai Hind !!!

The honeymoon seems to be over for Windows Vista. According to reports, hackers have once again managed to get the better of Microsoft. The recently launched Vista is said to have a flaw that could allow remote attackers to take advantage of the operating system's speech recognition feature.

IMO:Heh, heh, what did anyone expect of Vista, which (some said in advance) was "unhackable". I would say customers should at the very least be as wary as with any earlier version of Windows, probably more so.

The Guardian says, sanctimoniously as usual but probably rather fairly in this case, on Jane Goody: "The individuals smashing her windows or leaving her vindictive voicemail messages are the attack dogs of those commentators and politicos who described Goody as the face of "ugly thick white Britain". Edwina Currie called her a "slag" on Question Time. The News of the World decided to turn her into an object of "national fury". The paper also published a piece by Trevor Phillips of the Commission for Racial Equality, in which he accused Goody of "vicious racial bigotry" and "hate-filled abuse". Next to a photo of Goody crying, Phillips wrote: "Crocodile tears won't wash away her guilt." No, she had to cry real tears - and now she has. Is that better, Trevor?

We can frown on those issuing the death threats or promising violence against Goody and her family. But let's not forget that their actions have been legitimated - more than that, inflamed - by the "national fury" whipped up by the tabloids, the broadsheets and political and quango leaders."

IMO: Trevor Phillips should consider resignation if he can't do better than that, but of course for all I know, by now Phillips may also be a victim of the media on the issue.

Anyway, the bright side is that the UK police probe new Big Brother racist claims, apparently made subsequent to the present commotion. Maybe some of the Directors of Channel 4 will end up sharing a cell with Tony Blair. They should help him to empty the slop buckets of urine and excrement as coming from Channel 4 they are even more used to worthless crap than Tony B. Liar. Perhaps not as much as unfortunate inhabitants of Mumbai are, some of whom, as pointed in an earlier blog, have to share one toilet between 1440 people. Though unlike those worthless UK criminal fat cats, they are decent people who have done nothing wrong. And the police should put Trevor Phillips in the cell with them indefinitely, for his anti-white descrimination.

British Prime Minister Tony B. Liar has rejected calls to step down early after being questioned a second time by police as part of a political corruption investigation.

"You'll have to put up with me for a bit longer,"Liar said in a BBC Radio interview broadcast Friday.

IMO: I should hope so too. Giving in to the media pressure in such a way would be cowardly, even for a British Prime Minister. Besides, he seems to have sensible views on adoption by gay male "buddies", pedophiles more likely (a mad idea). Unfortunately the Olympic discrepancies, Tessa Jowell's apparent connections with organised crime, unfair treatment to NHS patients, deportation of Indian doctors, the lunatic casinos which are said to prevent organised crime but will in fact be run by organised crime, really look bad. I believe the largest casino will be in Manchester, not noted for the common sense of its citizens I'm afraid. Still we know that the Tories are far worse.

British police have questioned UK Prime Minister Tony Blair for a second time as part of an investigation into political party funding, his spokesman says.

Downing Street refused to comment on the content of the interview, which came a few days after the January 19 arrest of Mr Blair's close aide, Ruth Turner, on suspicion of perverting the course of justice, and shortly before this week's arrest of his chief fundraiser, Lord Levy, on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

I'd say "At least he'll know what it is like for a not guilty person to be verballed" except for the fact that IMO he is guilty and had even admitted it on UK TV but most of the viewers did not notice.

IMO: Give Tony B. Liar the "Think First" program. For those who do not know it, it is a Home Office training program which is a sort of combination of "Fatfighters" on "Little Britain" and the "Work Training" on the comic series "League of Gentlemen". About as much use too, i.e. no use - rather like Tony B. Liar and his "Home Office" and Police forces.