BJP’s Flag Hoisting Drama

In one classic example of ‘fools rush in where angels fear to tread’, BJP is all set to hoist India’s national flag in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir on 26 January, Republic day. You don’t need to be a highly intelligent person to discern that hoisting the Indian flag in Kashmir now would jeopardise the fragile peace and tranquillity prevailing in the state. The J&K government in consultation with the Central Government has rightly stopped the BJP leaders from entering the state for their 'Ekta Yatra' (a misnomer in itself, for one could hardly understand how such a divisive act would create ekta or unity). They were not allowed to deplane and were sent back to Punjab.

The BJP, without any concrete ideology other than Hindutva, has often resorted to such divisive measures to gain popularity. The move to hoist the Indian flag in Srinagar shows the party's ideological penury and has politically alienated the party. Even their allies in the NDA have distanced themselves from the BJP. Nitish Kumar and Sharad Yadav have rightly pointed out that BJP’s move to hoist Indian flag in Srinagar and to gain political mileage out of it is inherently flawed and would only help in ruining peace and normality in the state. When there are lot of other issues that need serious attention from the main opposition party of the country, they are squandering their time and effort in such trivial subjects. The ruling UPA is mired in a lot of controversies, including corruption and financial impropriety. At such a situation the onus is on the main opposition BJP to show some sense of responsibility in countering widespread corruption in the government.

Patriotism, Samuel Johnson once said, is the last refuge of a scoundrel. BJP and its Sangh Parivar elements have often used the garb of patriotism to cause chaos and disorder in the country. Their present move to hoist the Indian flag in Srinagar claiming that they are doing it because of their patriotism is another such move to scuttle the peace movements in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. BJP claims that they are doing this against the separatists of the state of Jammu and Kashmir and all those who oppose them in this subject are unpatriotic. By saying so they are following George W. Bush’s now infamous ‘you are either with us or against us’ theory. It is high time for our political discourse to move away from such divisive theories and concentrate more on logical reasoning. Let us set the record straight that all of us are patriots, though our opinions on national security or national development may be different and at loggerheads.

After Atal Bihari Vaypayee stepped down as the undisputed leader of BJP, they have failed to find a new leader capable of arousing respect among political opponents and the people. Leaders like LK Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley fall awfully short of people’s expectations. In such a situation it is only natural for the BJP to resort to such desperate efforts to gain some political significance. However as a responsible political party, we expect lot more maturity from BJP. For the sake of peace and security in the volatile state of Jammu and Kashmir, BJP should immediately step back from their intention to hoist the national flag in the state on the Republic Day. True patriotism lies not in hoisting the national flag at place, but in making efforts to bring in peace and development in a country and in doing everything possible towards the achievement of this goal. Let us hope that better sense would prevail sooner rather then later.

Release Prisoner of Conscience, Binayak Sen

(For Amnesty International)

Few legal cases in our country have caused this much of an international outrage as has the arrest and subsequent sentence given to Binayak Sen, one of India’s leading human rights activists. On 24 December 2010, Dr. Binayak Sen, a pioneering medical doctor, was sentenced to life imprisonment after an unfair trial. His fault - public criticism of the Chhattisgarh police and the government for killing local adivasis and not armed Maoists, as claimed by the Police.

Dr. Binayak Sen has lived in Chhattisgarh since 1991 and has been involved in running rural community health projects. He also set up a hospital funded and run by mineworkers and works at his rural health clinic. All was well as long as he was confined to his work among the rural folk. But Dr. Sen was a vocal critic of the Salwa Judum, the militia group supported by the Chhattisgarh government, which was involved in widespread human rights violations against the members of the local community. This has infuriated the government and it has used politically motivated charges against him to put him behind the bars. The lower courts repeatedly rejected bail to Dr. Sen until May 2009, when the Supreme Court finally ordered his release. However again in 24 December 2010 Dr. Sen was sentenced to life imprisonment after being convicted of sedition and conspiracy against the state after an unfair trial.

One should read the story of Dr. Binayak Sen’s unfair trial and sentence together with the attack on Salman Taseer and his subsequent death in Pakistan. Both are results of growing intolerance in our society; if the former is state’s intolerance towards freedom of speech and expression, the latter is an example of religious intolerance. His imprisonment is stopping Dr. Sen from continuing with his human rights activism and with his health work in the rural area. The severe sentence of life imprisonment handed down to Binayak Sen will set a dangerous precedence in India of state authorities seeking harsh sentences against outspoken human rights defenders across the country. If that becomes the order of the day there is a greater threat of India’s democracy falling into dire straits and India becoming a failed state.

Amnesty International has reopened his case file and is campaigning for his release as it believes that Binayak Sen is a prisoner of conscience. Rights organisations, intellectuals and around 2,000 doctors from all around the world have signed petitions demanding Dr. Sen’s release. The Home Minister of India Mr. P. Chidambaram has said that he will discuss the issue with the Chhattisgarh authorities, but so far no concrete steps have been taken. It is quite imperative to send an urgent appeal to the Indian authorities to make sure that all charges against him are dropped and he is released immediately. Please use the below mentioned link to send your appeal.

http://www.amnesty.org.uk/actions_details.asp?ActionID=398

Mobile Number Portability in India from Today

Mobile Number Portability (MNP) is the service by which you can migrate from one mobile operator to another without changing your mobile number. For example, you can opt for Vodafone service from your Airtel number or vice-versa. MNP is becoming operational pan-India from today, 20 January 2011.

Some important facts about Mobile Number Portability.

• For porting your mobile number, first you’ve to get your unique porting code (UPC) from your existing service provider. For this you’ve to SMS PORT Your Mobile Number to 1900.

• Your existing operator will send you the 8 digit alpha-numeric UPC from the number 1901 as an SMS (the UPC will be valid only for 24 hours).

• Then you need to approach the new service provider you want to migrate to with this UPC and relevant documents required for starting a new connection.

• After consulting with your existing operator, the new operator will move your number within 4 days (maximum).

• Porting charge is a maximum of Rs.19.

• Till the porting process is over you can use the service of the existing operator.

• The date and time of the completion of the porting process will be intimated to you through SMS.

• Your number will remain dead for about 2 hours just before the porting gets completed. But this downtime of 2 hours would be between 10PM and 5AM IST, so that there is less inconvenience to you.

• After this time you can use your new Sim card and you will start getting the services of your new operator.

• Once you use MNP service to change your operator, you can use it a second time only after 90 days.

• During porting, you will lose your remaining balance talk-time amount in the case of pre-paid connections.

• You can use MNP service only within a telecom circle.

• You can also migrate from your post-paid connection to a new pre-paid connection. But this is possible only after you clear all pending dues with your current operator.

• You can migrate from CDMA connection to GSM connection and vice versa. However your existing mobile phone will be rendered useless if you opt to migrate from CDMA to GSM.

As there is cut-throat competition in the telecom sector in India you can expect to receive freebies from your new operator once you use MNP service. Make the MNP decision after a thorough contemplation and choose your new telecom operator wisely.

A New Decade has Dawned

The new decade has dawned and with it has come new hopes and new aspirations for all of us. This blog has always tried to endorse and encourage optimism among its readers. But as we know, all is not that sound and rosy in our world. There are lot of works to be done this decade in our efforts to bring down poverty considerably, to bring in sustainable development and to create a new world order that is based on peace and tranquillity and not on war and bloodshed. Some issues are pleading for our immediate attention.

• Millennium Development Goals – Summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted a global action plan to end poverty by the year 2015. We have only 4 more years to make good our promises made to the poor people in this world. An analysis of the goals achieved hitherto reveals that we are awfully short of attaining the goals by 2015. International organisations, government, research organisations, foundations, private sector and the civil society must kick start an honest drive to achieve the MDGs.

• Climate change – The issue of climate change got a lot of attention in the last decade; or we could say that it was in the last decade that a significant global attention fell on this grave crisis. Climate change summits in Copenhagen and Cancun, in 2009 and 2010 respectively, saw world leaders contemplating on the steps needed to avert the huge risks of climate change on humanity. It must be ruefully held that very little has been agreed upon in the summits to counter perilous effects of climate change. Floods that hit Australia, Brazil and Sri Lanka recently are examples of the sort of havoc that climate change can create around the world. It is imperative for us to take immediate actions to avoid the harmful effects of climate change.

• Terrorism – As anyone would approve, terrorism is going to be one of the most important issues that the world would face this decade. Terrorism of various colours causing havoc around the world. A paradigm shift in which we view terrorism happened last decade with the September 11 attacks on the United States by terrorists under al-Qaeda. It was also in the last decade that the LTTE in Sri Lanka was exterminated from the island nation. This decade the world community has its task cut out as Osama bin Laden is still at large; all efforts to capture him resulted in fiasco. At the same time terrorism is on the rise in all parts of the world, none as immense as in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Countries like Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Israel, Indonesia, Sudan, and many more countries are facing problems of terrorism or armed struggle. It would take a concerted effort from all countries to wipe off terrorism from the face of the world.

• Intolerance – Intolerance of various kinds, religious intolerance in particular, is of grave concern in today’s world. As in the last decade, in this decade also we would have to face it and counter with all our might. The latest manifestation of religious intolerance was in Pakistan, where the liberal and secular leader of the Pakistan People’s Party and Punjab Governor Salman Taseer was shot dead by his own security guard. Reason, he spoke against and stood against the archaic blasphemy law in Pakistan. Intolerance of the state towards people who criticise its action is on the rise all over the world, including India. The arrest and detention of Dr. Binayak Sen in India is a perfect example of state’s intolerance. Many Communists countries are also notorious for their intolerance. China’s indifference towards those who criticise the government’s human rights violations is a perfect example of that. Intolerance is inimical to freedom of speech and expression. In the new decade we need to take all actions to protect freedom of speech and expression and to curtail intolerance in all forms, otherwise democracy, hence human freedom would be in peril.

• Nuclear tussle – The alleged efforts by Iran and North Korea to make nuclear warheads have created bewilderment in the west, particularly the United States. The US put pressure on the United Nations to place sanctions on both countries. It has created two divergent fronts in the UN, those who support the sanctions and those who oppose it. In the new decade the international community has to take efforts to find solution to this problem.

• Peace processes – In the new decade its imperative for the world community to accelerate peace process in West Asia and find solution to the Palestinian problem. The Gaza strip is an open prison for the Palestinians and Israel has put a lot of sanctions in Gaza. As a result the people in Gaza are in dire straits and are in need of medicines and food. Peace efforts by different countries as well as the United Nations haven’t brought any palpable difference to the West Asian crisis. Let it be this decade that would stay in history as the decade that has found a solution for this serious crisis. Kashmir issue also calls for immediate action and there is a need to move forward with the peace process on the issue.

There are lot of other issues and concerns we have to face in this decade and what has been written about in the former paragraphs are only a sample of it. We need to put in our brains and minds together to solve all issues of this world. Let us hope that this decade would predominantly be one of peace and tranquillity all over the world.

Lane Traffic to be Implemented in Kochi

In a bid to reduce the occurrences of road accidents, Kerala Government is implementing lane traffic system in Kochi. In an experimental basis the system started working in the 16 km stretch Edappally-Aroor NH 47 bypass from yesterday, 12 January 2011. The system would be extended to other city roads once reasonable degree of lane adherence is attained on the NH.

As a driver of a two-wheeler or a four-wheeler you should not randomly switch from one lane to another. Before moving to another lane you should make sure that no vehicle is speeding towards you from behind and should switch on the indicator very well in advance. Motorists should not zig-zag through the traffic, should not drive through the middle of the road cutting the white lines, should not block free-left turns and lanes reserved for vehicles awaiting the right turn at junctions, should not jump red lights at junctions, should not use high beams and should avoid indiscriminate honking. Bus, trucks and other heavy, slow moving vehicles should always keep to the left lane on highways. All vehicles should wait in a queue at traffic signals and traffic bottlenecks.

People who violate the lane traffic rules would have to pay a penalty ranging from Rs.100 to Rs.2000, or would have to face jail terms ranging from 6 months to 2 years based on the severity of the violation. So while you drive, make sure that you are following all traffic rules.

Happy driving.

Happy New Year 2011

I wish all my readers a very happy and prosperous New Year 2011. This is the start of a new decade and let us hope that this decade would predominantly be one of peace and tranquility all over the world.