Bobby & Jerry : Rise of a Coloured ‘son’ Retold Re majumdar #11

[Good God!!! Another Hindu racist, casteist, fascist, misogynist bigoted freak!!!]

Was it Kissinger who asked, "What has India got, except malaria to export?"?

Learn to handle the truth. Truth sets you free.

As the motto says on the seal of the Government of India, "Satyameva Jayate" (Truth Alone Triunphs).

Bobby & Jerry : Rise of a Coloured ‘son’ Retold More good than Baba Amte, Arundhati Roy, etc., can ever hope to produce:

Following is a note written by Lakshmi Mittal after his visit to TISCO recently.

Lakshmi Mittal:
- Undisputed King of World Steel
- 5th Richest Man, per the Forbes List of Billionaires (2006)
- Richest Indian in the World, with an estimated fortune of $27.7 billion
- Richest in UK according to the Sunday Times Rich List 2006, with a net worth of £14.8
billion.
- 2006 Person of the Year, per The Financial Times

"........I visited Jamshedpur over the weekend to see for myself an India that is fast disappearing despite all the wolf-cries of people like Narayanamurthy and his ilk. It is one thing to talk and quite another to do and I am delighted to tell you that Ratan Tata has kept alive the legacy of perhaps India's finest industrialist J.N. Tata. Something that some people doubted when Ratan took over the House of the Tata's but in hindsight, the best thing to have happened to the Tata's is unquestionably Ratan. I was amazed to see the extent of corporate philanthropy and this is no exaggeration.

For the breed that talks about corporate social responsibility and talks about the role of corporate India, a visit to Jamshedpur is a must. Go there and see the amount of money they pump into keeping the town going; see the smiling faces of workers in a region known for industrial unrest; see the standard of living in a city that is almost isolated from the mess in the rest of the country.

This is not meant to be a puff piece. I have nothing to do with Tata Steel, but I strongly believe the message of hope and the message of goodness that they are spreading
is worth sharing. The fact that you do have companies in India which look at workers as human beings and who do not blow their software trumpet of having changed lives. In fact, I asked Mr. Muthuraman, the managing director, as to why he was so quiet about all they had done and all he could offer in return was a smile wrapped in humility, which said it all. They have done so much more since I last visited Jamshedpur, which was in 1992. The town has
obviously got busier but the values thankfully haven't changed.

The food is still as amazing as it always was and I gorged, as I would normally do. I visited the plant and the last time I did that was with Russi Mody. But the plant this time was gleaming and far from what it used to be. Greener and cleaner and a tribute to environment management. You could have been in the mountains. Such was the quality of air I inhaled! There was no belching smoke; no tired faces and so many more women workers, even on the shop floor. This is true gender equality and not the kind that is often espoused at seminars organised by angry activists. I
met so many old friends. Most of them have aged but not grown old. There was a spring in the air which came from a certain calmness which has always been the hallmark of
Jamshedpur and something I savoured for a full two days in between receiving messages of how boring and decrepit the lack lustre Fashion Week was.

Jamshedji Nusserwanji Tata had created an edifice that is today a robust company and it is not about profits and about valuation. It is not about who becomes a millionaire and who doesn't'. It is about getting the job done with dignity and respect keeping the age-old values intact and this is what I learnt.

I jokingly asked someone as to whether they ever thought of joining an Infosys or a Wipro and pat came the reply: "We are not interested in becoming crorepatis [millionaires]
but in making others crorepatis [millionaires]." Which is exactly what the Tata's have done for years in and around Jamshedpur.

Very few people know that Jamshedpur has been selected as a UN Global Compact City, edging out the other nominee from India, Bangalore. Selected because of the quality of life,
because of the conditions of sanitation and roads and welfare. If this is not a tribute to industrial India, then what is? Today, India needs several Jamshedpurs but it also needs this Jamshedpur to be given its fair due, its recognition. I am tired of campus visits being
publicised to the Infosys and the Wipro's of the world.
Modern India is being built in Jamshedpur as we speak. An India built on the strength of core convictions and nothing was more apparent about that than the experiment with truth
and reality that Tata Steel is conducting at Pipla.

Forty-eight tribal girls (yes, tribal girls who these corrupt and evil politicians only talk about but do nothing for) are being educated through a residential program over nine months. I went to visit them and I spoke to them in a language that they have just learnt: Bengali. Eight weeks ago, they could only speak in Sainthali, their local dialect. But today, they are brimming with a confidence that will bring tears to your eyes. It did to mine.

One of them has just been selected to represent Jharkand in the state archery competition. They have their own women's football team and what's more they are now fond of education. It is a passion and not a burden.

This was possible because I guess people like Ratan Tata and Muthuraman haven't sold their souls to some business management drivel, which tells us that we must only do
business and nothing else. The fact that not one Tata executive has been touched by the Naxalites in that area talks about the social respect that the Tata's have earned.

The Tata's do not need this piece to be praised and lauded. My intent is to share the larger picture that we so often miss in the haze of the slime and sleaze that politics imparts.

My submissions to those who use phrases such as "feel-good" and "India Shining" is first visit Jamshedpur to understand what it all means. See Tata Steel in action to know what
companies can do if they wish to. And what corporate India needs to do.

Murli Manohar Joshi would be better off seeing what Tata Steel has done by creating the Xavier Institute of Tribal Education rather than by proffering excuses for the imbroglio in the IIMs. This is where the Advanis and Vajpayees need to pay homage. Not to all the Sai Babas and the Hugging saints that they are so busy with. India is changing inspite of them and they need to realise that.

I couldn't have spent a more humane and wonderful weekend. Jamshedpur is an eyeopener and a role model, which should be made mandatory for replication. I saw corporate India actually participate in basic nation-building, for when these tribal girls go back to their villages, they will return with knowledge that will truly be life-altering. Corporate India can do it but most of the time is willing to shy away.

For those corporate leaders who are happier winning awards and being interviewed on their choice of clothes, my advise is visit Tata Steel, spend some days at Jamshedpur and
see a nation's transformation. That is true service and true nationalism.

Tata Steel will celebrate 100 years of existence in 2007. It won't be just a milestone in this company's history. It will be a milestone, to my mind of corporate transparency and generosity in this country. It is indeed fitting that Ratan Tata today heads a group which has people who are committed to nation-building than just building influence and power.

JRD must be smiling wherever he is. And so must Jamshedji Nusserwanji. These people today have literally climbed every last blue mountain. And continue to do so with
vigour and passion. Thank god for the Tata's !"

Bobby & Jerry : Rise of a Coloured ‘son’ Retold Re neembu #9

[is that the crackpipe talking?]

If I were taking/teaching Women's Studies one could say that.

But I am not.

Relevance of English Studies in India Re BKisan #2

[Gramsci, Said, Foucalt, post-colonialism etc is a bunch of wank and this article is crap also.]

Calling an article crap is insulting the judgement of Chowk Editors who have chosen to publish the article and could lead to you being banned.

I on the other hand believe that the ideas expressed in this article are just wonderful. In fact, there are no words in the English language that could do justice to the ideas the author espouses.

In short, one-penny words -- which are what the English language equips us with -- have been used to express ideas worth their weight in gold.

Bobby & Jerry : Rise of a Coloured ‘son’ Retold Re neembu #8

[Actually, Africa is the birthplace of all civilization, the continent that has originated astronomy, medicine, science, maths, physics, the most egalitarian society known to antiquity, and anyone with brains and a library card would understand that having read the work of Basil Davidson, Henry Louis Gates, Ivan van Sertima, Toyin Falola and countless other African Studies scholars.]

Once I finish the works of Basil Davidson, Henry Louis Gates, Ivan van Sertima, Toyin Falola and countless other African Studies scholars, I shall move on to Women's Studies scholars.

Each of them (African Studies and Women's Studies) should take about a week, ha ha ha! Though some people have managed to make a life's career at universities based on such stuff!

After that, I shall enroll for classes under Rohit Chopra!

The Price of Loving Karl Marx Hey, you think Jenny had it tough?

We had Nehru and his coterie loving Marx and it got one billion Indians Hell on earth.

Screw Jenny!

In fact, screw Karl Marx!

While we are at it, screw Communists the world over.

Bobby & Jerry : Rise of a Coloured ‘son’ Retold [Africa takes us to the core of what ‘Indian values’ should mean. Baba Amate, Arvind Kejariwal, Verghese Kurien, Aruna Roy, Rajendra Singh, Mabelle Arole are, to name just a few, outstanding heroes who have shown great fortitude, entrepreneurship & resourcefulness in their respective areas of work to create self supporting & self reliant community structures. They have created real wealth, the wealth of dignity & happiness for all. An inclusive growth not just limited to ‘High Achievers’ Rao talks about. The replication of their work would aid generously in taking India to the number one position in GNH - gross national happiness.]

Real African values include schistosomosis, river blindness, AIDS infecting in excess of 40% of the population of a country, and in earlier times, selling one's fellow humans to slave traders. We can add to that genocide and murderous dictatorships in modern times.

In addition, real African values also include having children out of wedlock, a pattern that persists even today some 350+ years after some Africans were forcibly moved out of the Dark Continent to the American continent.

High achievers such as Azim Premji, Narayanamoorthy of Infosys, Ratan Tata, etc., have created more wealth and more millionaires than Baba Amate, Arvind Kejariwal, Verghese Kurien, Aruna Roy, Rajendra Singh, Mabelle Arole, etc. Even the Communists of China have figured out that "sharing of wealth" results only in sharing of misery after the freeloaders use up all the money saved by those who have real respect for the value and power of money.

[GNH is based on the concept of ‘Ubuntu’. Ubuntu is a word that symbolizes the philosophy originating in Southern Africa. Ubuntu means ‘I am because you are’.]

No, Ubuntu really means "Now you are as poor as me".

How Dubai Works You can take skyscrapers to an Islamic country but you can't take Muslim dicks out of other people's @rses.

In Rape Case, a French Youth Takes On Dubai

Bryan Denton for The New York Times
The rape of a 15-year-old French boy in a remote patch of desert outside of Dubai has raised questions about how the country’s legal system treats foreigners.
By THANASSIS CAMBANIS
Published: November 1, 2007
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Oct. 31 — Alexandre Robert, a French 15-year-old, was having a fine summer in this tourist paradise on the Persian Gulf. It was Bastille Day and he and a classmate had escaped the July heat at the beach for an air-conditioned arcade.
Just after sunset, Alex says he was rushing to meet his father for dinner when he bumped into an acquaintance, a 17-year-old native-born student at the American school, who said he and his cousin could drop Alex off at home.
There were, in fact, three Emirati men in the car, including a pair of former convicts ages 35 and 18, according to Alex. He says they drove him past his house and into a dark patch of desert, between a row of new villas and a power plant, took away his cellphone, threatened him with a knife and a club, and told him they would kill his family if he ever reported them.
Then they stripped off his pants and one by one sodomized him in the back seat of the car. They dumped Alex across from one of Dubai’s luxury hotel towers.
Alex and his family were about to learn that despite Dubai’s status as the Arab world’s paragon of modernity and wealth, and its well-earned reputation for protecting foreign investors, its criminal legal system remains a perilous gantlet when it comes to homosexuality and protection of foreigners.
The authorities not only discouraged Alex from pressing charges, he, his family and French diplomats say; they raised the possibility of charging him with criminal homosexual activity, and neglected for weeks to inform him or his parents that one of his attackers had tested H.I.V. positive while in prison four years earlier.
“They tried to smother this story,” Alex said by phone from Switzerland, where he fled a month into his 10th-grade school year, fearing a jail term in Dubai if charged with homosexual activity. “Dubai, they say we build the highest towers, they have the best hotels. But all the news, they hide it. They don’t want the world to know that Dubai still lives in the Middle Ages.”
Alex and his parents say they chose to go public with his case in the hope that it would press the authorities to prosecute the men.
United Arab Emirates law does not recognize rape of males, only a crime called “forced homosexuality.” The two adult men charged with sexually assaulting Alex have pleaded not guilty, although sperm from all three were found in Alex. The two adults appeared in court on Wednesday and were appointed a lawyer. They face trial before a three-judge panel on Nov. 7. The third, a minor, will be tried in juvenile court. Legal experts here say that men convicted of sexually assaulting other men usually serve sentences ranging from a few months to two years.
Dubai is a bustling financial and tourist center, one of seven states that form the United Arab Emirates. At least 90 percent of the residents of Dubai are not Emirati citizens and many say that Alex’s Kafkaesque legal journey brings into sharp relief questions about unequal treatment of foreigners here that have long been quietly raised among the expatriate majority. The case is getting coverage in the local press.
It also highlights the taboos surrounding H.I.V. and homosexuality that Dubai residents say have allowed rampant harassment of gays and have encouraged the health system to treat H.I.V. virtually in secret. (Under Emirates law, foreigners with H.I.V., or those convicted of homosexual activity, are deported.)
Prosecutors here reject such accusations. “The legal and judicial system in the United Arab Emirates makes no distinction between nationals and non-nationals,” said Khalifa Rashid Bin Demas, head of the Dubai attorney general’s technical office, in an interview. “All residents are treated equally.”
Dubai’s economic miracle — decades of double-digit growth spurred by investors, foreign companies, and workers drawn to the tax-free Emirates — depends on millions of foreigners, working jobs from construction to senior positions in finance. Even many of the criminal court lawyers are foreigners.
Alex’s case has raised diplomatic tensions between the Emirates and France, which has lodged official complaints about the apparent cover-up of one assailant’s H.I.V. status and other irregularities. The tension and growing publicity over the case seem to have prompted the authorities to take action.
Mr. Demas, from the Dubai attorney general’s office, said he had no intention of prosecuting Alex and was seeking the death penalty for the two adult attackers. “This crime is an outrage against society,” he said.
However, the investigation file in Alex’s case and a pair of confidential French diplomatic cables obtained by The New York Times confirm the accounts of inexplicable and at times hostile official behavior described by Alex and his parents.
“The grave deficiencies or incoherence of the investigation appear to result, in part, from gross incompetence of the services involved in the United Arab Emirates, but also from the moral, pseudoscientific and political prejudices which undoubtedly influenced the inquiry,” the French ambassador to the United Arab Emirates wrote in a confidential cable dated Sept. 6.
Most infuriating to Alex and his mother, Véronique Robert, is that police inaccurately informed French diplomats on Aug. 15, a month after the assault, that the three attackers were disease-free, the diplomats say. Only at the end of August did the family learn that that the 36-year-old assailant was H.I.V. positive. The case file contains a positive H.I.V. test for the convict dated March 26, 2003.
“They lied to us,” Ms. Robert said. “Now the Damocles sword of AIDS hangs over Alex.”
So far the teenager has not tested positive for H.I.V., but he will not know for sure until January, when he gets another blood test six months after the exposure.
A doctor examined Alex the night of the rape, taking swabs of DNA for traces of the rapists’ sperm. He did not take blood tests or examine Alex with a speculum. Then he cleared the room and told Alex: “I know you’re a homosexual. You can admit it to me. I can tell.”
Alex told his father in tears: “I’ve just been raped by three men, and he’s saying I’m a homosexual,” according to interviews with both of them.
The doctor, an Egyptian, wrote in his legal report that he had found no evidence of forced penetration, which Alex’s family says is a false assessment that could hurt the case against the assailants.
In early September, after the family learned about the older attacker’s H.I.V. status and the French government lodged complaints with the United Arab Emirates authorities, the Dubai attorney general’s office assigned a new prosecutor to the case. Only then were forensic tests performed to confirm that sperm from all three attackers had been found in Alex.
Alex stayed in Dubai in order to testify against his attackers, and went back to school in September, despite suffering unsettling flashbacks.
In early October, however, the family said, their lawyer warned Alex that he was in danger of facing charges of homosexuality and a prison term of one year.
Veteran lawyers here say the justice system is evolving, like the country’s entire system of governance that has blossomed as the economy and population have exploded in just a few decades. Despite its shortfalls, the United Arab Emirates have combined Islamic values with the best practices from the West to create “the most modern legal system among the Arab countries,” said Salim Al Shaali, a former police officer and prosecutor who now practices criminal law.
In business and finance, the nation has worked hard to earn a reputation for impartial and speedy justice. But the criminal justice system has struggled, balancing a penal code rooted in conservative Arab and Islamic local culture, applied to an overwhelming non-Arab population of foreign residents.
A 42-year-old gay businessman who would speak only if identified by his nickname, Ko, described routine sexual harassment by officials during his 13 years living in Dubai. He cut his shoulder-length hair to avoid attention, he said, but after years of living in fear of jail or deportation, he is leaving the country.
Although rape victims here generally keep quiet, some who have been raped in Dubai have shared testimonials in recent days on boycottdubai.com, a Web site started by Alex’s mother.
Prosecutors moved forward with the case against her son’s attackers only as a result of public pressure and diplomatic complaints, Ms. Robert believes. Now, she hopes, the attention could prompt more humane and even-handed justice for future rape victims here.
On advice of his lawyer and French diplomats, Alex says he will not return to Dubai but wants very much for the men to be convicted.
“Sometimes you feel crazy, you know?” he said. “It’s hard, but we have to be strong. I’m doing this for all the other poor kids who got raped and couldn’t do anything about it.”

Indian Exceptionalism: Colonial Stereotypes and Postcolonial Realities Re hamidm2 #61

[... the only point i am trying to make is that if the common man cannot understand what the intellectuals are talking about, what good is it ? ....... should the common man just trust the intellectuals to think for them while they go about doing the grunt work ?......... why don't we all just bend over and let the denizens of this or that think tank or institute have at it !]

But then, wouldn't that be the kind of exceptionalism that Rohit Chopra and Samina Shah are railing against?

Indian Exceptionalism: Colonial Stereotypes and Postcolonial Realities Re antihistory #40

[Is it a bad thing that Dalits use the same logic to gain political capital and voice? The quick answer: it is not a bad thing only as long as that does not shut out other voices, within or outside the Dalit community. But already there is some evidence that some segments of the highly fractured (by region, language, gender, and religion etc.) community will benefit more than others from this narrative.]

Yeah; like Lallu Prasad Yadav, M. Karunanidhi, Murasoli Maran and his children, and above all, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadera, have benefitted and will continue to benefit.

Indian Exceptionalism: Colonial Stereotypes and Postcolonial Realities Re hamidm2 #23

[........ and don't pull a homi bhaba on me because if, for a while, the ruse of desire is calculable for the uses of discipline soon the repetition of guilt, justification, pseudo-scientific theories, superstition, spurious authorities, and classification can be seen as the desperate effort to 'normalize' formally the disturbance of a discourse of splitting that violates the rational, enlightened claims of its enunciatory modality.]

I take my hat off to you. I had you pegged down as the guy who can talk for an hour with just 6 Powerpoint slides and who says things like "...vertical and horizontal integration of business units.... empowering key decision-makers along the entire spectrum of the organization.... monetizing business opportunities", etc. To think that you can pull a Samina Shah on us, and on Samina herself!

Neoliberalism and Madrassas: An Unholy Connection Re masadi #13

[islamislam writes "We don't have Hindus wandering around with suicide belts."

Hindus were one of the pioneers of suicide attacks....]

If you are talking about the attacks in Sri Lanka, it is not the RSS schools in India that indoctrinated them into becoming suicide bombers. Nor were the bombers quoting The Bhagavad Gita or saying "Kali Mata ki Jai" as they set off the bombs....as opposed to "Allahu Akbar", if you get the drift of what I am trying to say here.

[....The Koran has nothing to do with suicide attacks, I challenge you to produce one verse which supports the phenomena....]

The frikking Arabs had no idea about explosives or triggering mechanisms, otherwise there would have been explicit instructions in the Koran as to killing the kaffirs with suicide bombs.

Now, you are not going to deny Koranic verses about killing the kaffirs, are you?

While you are at it, since there were no loudspeakers in Mo's time, why do your mullahs use loudspeakers to call the Faithful to prayers?

By extension, suicide bombs are also sanctioned in the Koran.

[...It has more to do with a group's reaction to real or preceived oppression. The Koran has been with Pakistan for a long time as have been madrassas but suicide bombings in Pakistan are a new phenomena therefore you cannot hold either the Koran or the madrassa as the cause,....]

Okay, it is the Pakistani mindset, not the Islamic mindset. How come then the suicide bombers in Spain, London, Glasgow, etc., are all Muslims?

[....rather it is the direct consequence of the so called US war or terror- yes, the US elite are the cause of producing it by their tactics and policies that deliberately want to perpetuate such things to feed the so-called war on terror, a war without end...]

Yes, the-Great-Satan-made-me-do-it defense!

Neoliberalism and Madrassas: An Unholy Connection There has been an explosion of private schools in India too.

We don't have Hindus wandering around with suicide belts.

It is the Koran, stupid.

Indian Exceptionalism: Colonial Stereotypes and Postcolonial Realities Rohit Chopra writes [....any number of Hindu nationalist initiatives in India and the diaspora to censor or harass voices opposed to them; the harrasment of artistes on charges of obscenity;....]

The harassment of artists started with the banning of "Satanic Verses" in India. You couldn't/wouldn't say that because of YOUR bias but had to reference a BBC article talking about the harassment of that M F (hey, Chowkidars, try and ban me for that!) Hussain and Richard Gere.

Stop making exceptions for Muslims in India first.

Indian Exceptionalism: Colonial Stereotypes and Postcolonial Realities Re neembu #1

[What is particularly interesting is that this is also a transnational construction that taps into the "Model Minority Myth" in the West. This is particularly significant when we see some elements of Indian communities distance themselves from Muslim and Pakistan immigrant communities post 9/11 and the attendent domestic and international policies of the US.]

Wanting to nuke Mecca and to deport all Muslims back to their countries of origin post-9/11 has nothing to do with buying into the Model Minority Myth and everything to do with common sense.

Communists and the Making of Pakistan Re masanamuthu #98

[The truth is Rajaji / Periyar had no bones in the Pakistan / Partition stuff.. So they can coolly support Jinnah's demands whereas the North Indian Congress leaders cannot.]

Rajaji was an astute observer of the political scene. By the early 1940s, he had seen enough of the intransigence of Jinnah-bhai that he realized that the mad man was bent upon Pakistan and would not stop at mass murder to get it. It had nothing to do with not having any bone in the Partition stuff and everything to do with having a brilliant intellectual approach to politics.

E V Ramaswamy Naicker thought that if the British conceded any partition demand, that would automatically support his wet dream of Dravidastan. He had no principles or scruples, a trend that continues in today's Tamil Nadu.