If you are a Bengali, changes are that you have already received tweets, SMSs or Orkut/Facebook updates proclaiming that Bengali (বাংলা) has been declared the sweetest language in the world.

Here is the SMS that I received:

130 crores people in the world sing their national anthem in Bengali language.
125 crores in Chineese language and 94 crores in English.
BENGALI is on top not only because yesterday UNESCO declared that Bengali is the sweetest language of the world (2nd and 3rd sweetest being Spanish and Dutch).
So we should feel proud for our language.
Send this SMS to all your friends…
Feel proud to be a BENGALI

Here are some of the updates circulating on Twitter.

Religious and regional jingoism aside, if true, this is indeed reason to celebrate for all bongs across the world. The online poll in question was conducted by UNESCO a couple of months back. However, I couldn’t find any official word on this matter. According to TOI, the official announcement may come on Rabindranath Tagore’s (the first Asian Nobel laureate) 150th birth anniversary in May (পঁচিশে বৈশাখ ).

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Do you remember how three years ago Indian ISPs had all of a sudden started blocking random websites (including all blogspot blogs)? Remember how it felt to have your website banned all of a sudden and without any explanation? Well guess what, if the proposed amendments for the Information Technology Act of 2008 gets passed in it’s current form then such incidents may become a regular occurrence.

The new amendment arms the government with unprecedented powers that allows the blocking of any website without the right to be heard. Your website may be blocked under any of the following pretenses:

Interest of sovereignty or integrity of India
Defence of India
Security of the State
Friendly relations with foreign States
Public order
For preventing incitement to the commission of any cognisable offence relating to above

A new committee called Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) will be formed that will be responsible for monitoring the web. The one sidedness of the affairs is what makes it so terrible. The CERT is not required to get in touch with your before blocking you. And once your website is banned there isn’t much you can do. Not only that, the new amendment permits the government to spy on its citizens in relation with any offense. The authorities can intercept your telephone calls, monitor your sms, read your email and any other online activity. And they can do this for any offence including non-criminal transgressions! And even worse there isn’t any time bound, so they can continue to do this for as long as they want. Be careful about what you have on your computer too. Any inspector can raid and haul off a computer user for questioning — and without a warrant.

The proposed amendment is flirting with danger. It only specifies what the Government can do and not what it can’t do. It doesn’t provide any checks on the government and is simply inviting misuse.

The previous misadventure was a result of knee-jerk reaction to July 11 Mumbai Blast. The new amendments come in the wake of last years terrorist attack on Mumbai. Knee-jerk reactions like these can never be the solution. While the law may severely undermine the right to freedom of speech, its effectiveness in countering terrorism and other threats remains questionable. Does India even have the infrastructure in place to effectively monitor the entire internet? Does it have the level of sophisticated technology and experts required to monitor such huge volumes of data and sniff out the relevant bits?

With every right comes responsibility. The right to freedom of speech can’t be absolute. I am not against sensible censorship. But, the web is not like conventional media. Is it even possible to censor the web? There are billions of websites with thousands being created every day. You can take a website down and within days it will find a new host, you can block a domain and it will simply switch to a new domain. Not only that there are plenty of techniques to bypass censorship at users ends. Proxies perhaps are the most basic and easiest of them. I don’t want India to become China. Neither do I want it to become like Iran – where the political establishment is using censorship to curb freedom of expression and prevent opposition to the government. Unfortunately, with no safeguards in place there is no guarantee that the political parties in power wont misuse the laws. You can find more information on the proposed amendments here. If you don’t want to live in fear of the Big Brother, if you care for your freedom of speech, voice your opinion. Spread the word. Send you suggetions to Dr. Gulshan Rai at grai@mit.gov.in.

[via The Telegraph and Pluggd]
[Image courtesy n0ll]

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Update

#18th July : It seems that I was right. Apparently the Indian government had asked the ISPs to block only specified blogs hosted on blogspot, typepad etc as well as some yahoo geocities site. I am quoting bits and pieces I picked up from other blog and forums.
Gnurag writes ( Thinkdigit ) :

This news has been published in all major newspapers today. Seems like the media has taken this issue very seriously.

Initial guesses it seems that they have setup rules on ISPs routers which block any IP addresses that belong to Blogger, Typepad, Geocities etc..

Rediff says :

J Grewal, Spectranet’s Delhi representative at the National Internet exchange of India, told this reporter that, on July 15, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had sent ISPs a list of sites to be blocked. R H Sharma, senior engineer with MTNL, said the list ran into some 22 pages.
Anil Saxena of Spectranet confirmed that the list sent by the DoT contained names of particular blogs, but added that Blogspot as a whole had not been blocked. This is contrary to the experience of customers like Dwivedi, who are still unable to view sites hosted on Blogspot, in addition to those on Typepad and Yahoo!’s Geocities. “The list is confidential and I can’t make it public,” said Saxena.
Web sites can be blocked if they contain pornography, speeches of hate, contempt, slander or defamation, or if they promote gambling, racism, violence or terrorism.

You can find a list of ISPs blocking Blogspot at the moment over here .

Voice your opinion about this at BloggersCollective , or submit an application under the RTI act following the instructions available here .
Lets hope that the Indian ISPs will sort this thing out soon! Meanwhile you can use websites like http://www.the-cloak.com/ or http://www.hidemyass.com/ for checking out blocked sites.

#19th July : Some more information from CNN-IBN :

‘Are we heading towards another Emergency?’
Internet users were in for a mind -’blog’gling experience on Monday when they could not access Blogspot, one of the most popular blog-hosting websites.
After the July 11 Mumbai blasts, a Government order had directed all Internet service providers (ISP) to block access to certain websites.
But why the gag?
ISPs say they were asked to block countrywide access to a list of nearly 20 websites, including Dalitstan.org, Clickatell.com, Hinduunity.com, Princesskimberly.blogspot.com and Hinduhumanrights.org, as they spread “extreme views”.

From Yahoo! India :

“The Indian Internet service providers don’t have the technological wherewithal to block specific blogs on a blogging site. Consequently, they ended up blocking the entire site,” said technology expert Pawan Duggal.

So, now its confirmed that the Indian Government didnt ask the ISPs to block all websites hosted on Blogspot, Typepad and Geocities. Its the over zealous and incompetent ISPs are to be blamed for this fiasco. However, the Indian Media is giving a lot of importance to this story. Infact CNN-IBN is telecasting this story just after the news about Mumbai blasts. So hopefully things will get sorted out soon.

#20th July : I am glad to report that the ban has been lifted by most ISPs including my ISP – Dataone.

#22nd July : From Sify

DoT seeks explanation from ISPs for blocking sites

Under attack for blocking 18 websites in the aftermath of the Mumbai blasts last week, the government on Thursday asked Internet Service Providers to provide “unhindered access” to net users except for some specified webpages.

Referring to its instructions through a communication to ISPs on July 13, the DoT said that it had come to its notice that in some cases the parent website had been blocked in contravention to what was stated in its order. The July 13, 2006 order had sought blocking of only certain websites/webpages.

In a statement, the DoT directed all the ISPs to strictly comply with the order dated July 13 and provide unhindered access to Internet except for the websites/webpages which have been specifically mentioned in its orders issued from time to time.

The DoT has further sought explanation from the erring ISPs as to why action be not taken against them for blocking unintended websites/webpages.

One of the sites which has been banned by the government is http://www.rahulyadav.com/ . It just seems to be a personal blog to me. The webmaster claims that the site has been blocked because it contained  links to various political groups in the Links section of the website. If that is true, its again very disturbing.

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As Mumbaikars try their best to move ahead, and put this cowardly act of terrorism behind them, the question that is in every Indian’s mind is “What’s next ?“. The question is not whether another attack will take place but how soon it will take place.
To understand the gravity of the situation, first lets have a look at the major terrorist attacks since 2001[ Source : Wikipedia ].

2001 , October 1 : Terrorist target the Jammu and Kashmir state assembly. 35 people lost their live.
2001, December 13 : Terrorist attack on Indian Parliament. No casualty due to alert security forces.
2002, May 13 : 12 people are killed in the Jaunpur train crash in India, caused when Islamic extremists cut the rails.
2002, September 25 : Terrorist attack the Akshardham temple in Ahmedabad. 30 people died in the incident.
2002, December 21 : 20 people are killed in Kurnool when Islamic Extremists derailed a train.
2003, August 25 : 50 people are killed due to 2 bomb blasts in Mumbai.
2005, June 5 : Terrorists belonging to Lashkar-e-Toiba attacked the Ayodhya Ram Janmbhomi complex in India. No casualties. All the terrorists were gunned down.
2005, October 29 : Multiple bomb blasts hit markets in Delhi, India, killing at least 61 people.
2005, December 28 : Terrorists open fire at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, killing a retired professor of mathematics.
2006, Match 7 : Bombings in the city of Varanasi leave at least 15 people dead.
2006, July 11 : Explosions in local trains in Mumbai.

This list doesn’t include the terrorist attacks in Jammu and Kashmir. There are terrorist attacks there almost every alternate week. On the morning of 7/11 itself 8 tourists were killed in 5 grenade attacks.

The length of this list proves the sheer magnitude of threat India is currently facing from terrorists. Lashkar-e-Toiba’s clout is increasing alarmingly. According to preliminary investigation reports this attack may have been carried out by Lashkar-e-Toiba with the help of SIMI ( Students Islamic Movement of India ). Lashkar is now teaming with local and smaller terrorist organizations in several parts of India to carry out their action. This is a very worrying trend, as it increases their effectiveness by manifolds. However, the involvement of Pakistan in this is almost certain.
Yet, the most shocking thing is the reaction of the Government of India. In fact they have hardly reacted. All they do is to release a statement denouncing the act of terror and stating that we will stand united against Terrorists. Then as the days pass everyone forgets about it, till another attack takes place.
The only way of dealing with this crisis is by hitting back. By striking at the source of the problem. Doesn’t matter how much we strengthen our intelligence service, these kind of attacks will continue happening. The terrorists are bound to succeed at least one out of every 10 times. India is a vast and densely populated country with a lot of soft spots which can be easily targeted. To make matters worse it is surrounded by countries like Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh where ISI as well as Terrorist groups have considerable influence. The security agencies has managed to thwart several attacks in the past. In May, this year 43kg of RDX along with large number of Grenades and AK-47 was seized in Maharashtra. However, it will fail , and when it fails the concequences will be disastrous.
It is no secret that terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Toiba, Harakat ul-Mujahidin, Hizbul Mujahideen, Jaish-e-Mohammed, are based in Pakistan and is supported in various ways by the Government of Pakistan. In spite of several requests from India the Government of Pakistan has refused to take any solid action against these groups. India has been assaulted repeatedly, and every time it chose to ignore it and extend a hand of friendship to Pakistan only to be rewarded by another vicious attack. In this perspective let me quote what Pakistan’s foreign minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri’ said after the blasts :

“Anything can go wrong anywhere in India or Pakistan. There are bomb blasts in India, there are bomb blasts in Pakistan. If you have these disputes, it enables negative forces in both countries to blame the other country and exploit the sentiment…I think we should try and take advantage of this improved atmosphere and resolve outstanding disputes, particularly the core issue of Jammu and Kashmir.”

Its worth nothing how he brought in the dispute over Kashmir while giving his reaction.

On July 12, the terrorist organization, Hezbollah launched an attack on Israel. Israel wasted absolutely no time in taking action on them, and opened fire on Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based. When the World Trade Center was attacked 2,749 people died. America fought back by waging a war against terrorism. India has lost thousands of more people due to persistent terrorism. And we will continue to loose thousands of more citizens, till our Government stands up and takes aggressive action.

WAKE UP INDIA. WAKE UP.

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Here is picture from a local newspaper revealing as to how extraordinary this local governing bodies election was!

Surprised?Yes you probably would be.What is more surprising is that they have been doing it year after year and yet outside West Bengal very few people know about it.And this is exactly how even after dismal performences Communist parties have managed to stay in power for more than 25 years.They have ruled,and countless people have shed thier bloods.

Anyway,considering the track record of Communist parties in Russia,China and elsewhere this is not surprising.Democracy and Communism aren’t the best of friends.Are they?

Below i am quoting an Article from The Statesman

Every child in West Bengal, aged over 10, has immediate perception of vote fraud. Come an election, the CPI-M’s “motorbike brigade” patrols the countryside, their leaders send tatters of white linen, symbol of Hindu widowhood, to the contestants’ wives with the tag: “Stop your husband from submitting the nomination paper, or prepare to be his widow”. The CPI-M cadres scare off their opponents with threats of gang-rape of their women. The voters are told to stay away from the polling booths, and leave it to the cadres to stand in for them, “or vote in front of us if you insist”.

True, in some areas of Kolkata fraud does not take this form, but one can view its footage on TV – of the last municipal election in Salt Lake City, for example, where the district magistrate and a police chief looked on as passive bystanders, while gangsters spewing filth drove away the genuine voters. Nor do you need to go deep into the villages to find evidence of fraud. Go to Bijpur, a bustling town, barely a couple of kilometres from Kanchrapara Rail Station, where almost the entire electorate stands disenfranchised. Indeed, the Jungle Raj – characterised by the politics of arson, rape and murder – has played havoc all across the state today.

Ballot rigging

The first massive ballot rigging in Bengal started during Siddhartha Sankar Ray’s years in power. I used to live then at Nagerbazar, Dum Dum. The booth at which I was registered was shuttered by 11 am, ”since all the ballots have been cast”. However, what happened then was a peanut in comparison with what is happening now. The Left Front has had all the time in the world to cleanse the voting process.

The late Promode Dasgupta, secretary of the CPI-M, preferred to set up instead what he called the “election machinery” – rigging machinery to be sure. The machinery now operates at all levels of the electoral process, right from voter enrolment down to vote counting. The most sinister part of it is its reliance on hundreds of toughs, whom the party has to bring up as such. That is, the party has a vested interest in Bengali character assassination. Here is an example.

The CPI-M’s student wing – the Students’ Federation of India – is said to have over a million members, concentrated in the colleges and universities. The SFI wins numerous students’ union elections unopposed every year, replicating the CPI-M’s victory at the panchayat poll in 2003. D Bandyopadhyay, a former Land Reforms Commissioner, says concerning the panchayat election: “Obviously the figure of 6,800 for 2003 is a gross statistical aberration. This statistically aberrant position tends to substantiate the opposition charge that so many of their candidates were physically prevented from filing nominations”. In 2003, again, Garhbeta College (West Midnapore), among many others, “required” no election as the opponents of the SFI “had failed” to put up any candidate for the 33 seats. This “failure” puts democracy at risk, for how come, after so many years of CPI-M rule, no students want to oppose its affiliate?

The SFI’s clash with the Students’ Forum at the election at the Law College attached to the North Bengal University in October 2001 shows how it ensures uncontested victories. Shortly before the election, the SFI started “bombing”, seriously injuring two members of the Forum. They were taken to hospital. Four SFI workers, bombs in hand, were arrested on the hospital compound. The SFI leaders flocked the court when the accused were brought there. Concerned over the fact that those who should train as keepers of the law were allegedly getting practice in breaking it, the SDJM refused bail.

Poor villagers

An incident at Gurudas College, Kolkata, shows how the SFI bolsters its numbers. On August 2002, one of its students, Shampa Dasgupta, was arrested. Police suspected this sickly girl to be in touch with the People’s War group, for she had tried to get an idea of the living conditions of poor villagers. After her arrest, the students rushed to join the SFI, fearing that anyone who dared to oppose the “SFI here might be branded a Naxalite and put behind bars like Shampa”.

A newspaper reported: “A grievance cell, recently set up by the college authorities, is flooded with complaints of atrocities and even extortion by the SFI”. A student complained, “The SFI leaders sat next to the cashier inside the office room collecting the subscription of Rs 30 for their fund. When I refused to pay, they shooed me away before I could submit my papers”.

Thus trained, the students, like the youths of the Democratic Youth Federation of India, form an important part of the CPI-M’s election machinery. A section of the Bengali press, close to the CPI-M, reported before the Lok Sabha poll in 2004 that the party was drawing up a list of one lakh students that would ensure the CPI-M’s victory at the hustings. The president of the SFI, however, noted that election duty put off some of his peers. “But this time every student must bend his energies unreservedly to securing victory for the LF. Indeed, we are going to commit our entire vote machinery to this purpose”. Judge now what kind of democratic values the president of the SFI and his one lakh colleagues are imbibing, with a compliant police force and committed bureaucracy at their back. If this is not character assassination, what is?

However, most of the vote-riggers, aged between and 18 and 40, are jobless school-dropouts, who are generally guided by someone like hatkata Dilip (Banerjee). Transport minister, Subhas Chakraborty, came close to admitting that Dilip was released from jail shortly before the last parliamentary poll – but not at his instance. Dilip’s wife, Baisakhi, told newspapermen that it was the CPI-M leaders that had made her husband what he was. They had used him in vote-rigging, extortion, murder and what have you, in their own interest, but chucked him out when he needed their help. “Where is Subhasda now”, she asked, “who promised Dilip all help whenever he needed it? Well, I hate the political leaders, having closely observed them. I am sure Dilip in his condemned cell hates them too. The goons who operate in public suffer: those who manipulate them from behind do not. Isn’t that a shame?”

Clueless people

The end to the shame is not in sight. In the horrific maelstrom caused by democratic institutions being used to subvert democracy, and squabbles within the ruling party getting increasingly bloodier, people in the countryside in particular are clueless as to their security. Take the case of Adikondo Dolui, a “job assistant” of the panchayat at Birsachak (Midnapore), who sided with the Mahajot (Grand Alliance) against the CPI-M. When a Mahajot leader was killed in a fracas with the CPI-M, Adikondo, among others of his ilk, joined the CPI-M-led Co-ordination Committee. The “original cadres”, however, continued to bicker with them. After the murder of a leader of the other faction, they targeted Adikondo, who sheltered in a local schoolteacher’s house. He was hounded out, doused with petrol, and set on fire – in front of policemen in uniform. As Adikondo was burning alive, his wife Bijalibala rushed to the spot and cried: “What’s burning there?” A policeman answered: “O, just a dog”.

Clearly, being on the side of the CPI-M does not ensure security any more. Two, Alimuddin Street inspires little loyalty among its 2,74,000 members – a whopping rise from the CPI’s 4,000 in 1949. Most of them crave for the spoils of office. Recently, while inaugurating a multi-storied party-office complex, built at a cost of nearly Rs 32 lakh at Jalpaiguri, secretary Anil Biswas regretted the lifestyle of the upwardly mobile and increasingly free-spending “section of the leadership”. The dichotomy between Biswas’s thought and action shows that his regret is for the record only: that is, the vote fraud will continue unabated in the forthcoming elections, no matter how fractured the worthless opposition is.

We can only hope that someday the end is going to come.Even an US invasion would be welcomed by me

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Jinnah was an well educated Muslim who didnt belive in the supersitions and rituals of the religion.Initially he was an open minded individual.Infact he played an important role in the Lukhnow Pact.This Pact brought the Muslim League and the Congress closer together.During this period he was a secular man who wanted Hindu Muslim unity.

But things began to change after 1925.Gandhiji’s influence began to rise.The congress left constitutional means of agitation and switched to more effected and drastic means like Non cooperation.This pushed the League and the Congress apart.Due to clever British policy of divide and rule and his own jealousy and ambition Jinnah started to belive that no good could be done to the Muslims as long as Congress was at large.In later stages of his carrier he definitely wasnt secular.

Click here to read an interesting article published by The Telegraph on this topic.

Here are the excerpts

Even as late as 1925, Jinnah retained the political attributes that harked back to the early Congress. He remained committed to secular reform and national independence. When the young Raja of Mahmudabad spoke of himself as a ?Muslim first??, Jinnah chided him: ?My boy, no, you are an Indian first and then a Muslim.?? Jinnah began on the fringes of Muslim politics but he marked out for himself a space in Indian politics by becoming the sole spokesman of Muslims in India and also by making himself the champion of the two-nation theory……
…..He was a Westernized and secular man who contributed to the making of communal politics in India.

Click here to see excerpts from Jinnah’s address on Aug11,1947

Another interesting piece was in a Bengaly newspaper.It says that there was a rumour that when Advani was 20 he was among the group of people that had tried to kill Jinnah.Was Advani trying to compensate for the mistake he commited in his youth?

The post Was Jinnah Secular? appeared first on Pallab dot Net.

?The file was not in good shape but after looking at it, we have found that the name of Advani does not appear either in the statements of prosecution witnesses or in the list of accused who had absconded,? the official said.

Before Advani’s trip the Pakistani media had prominently featured these rumours.

According to reports, the FIR in question was filed at Jamshed Quarters police station in Karachi on September 10, 1947, and named 19 Hindus for conspiring to kill Jinnah.

According to the FIR, the RSS had sent Rs 52,585 to the accused persons to help them execute the plan. Cheques of Rs 1,500, Rs 2,500 and Rs 3,000 were also deposited in banks in the names of the accused. The file revealed that weapons and explosives were purchased with the money sent by the then RSS president, the weekly said.

The plan came to the notice of the police following a bomb explosion in Shikarpuri Haveli on August 10, 1947, in which one person was killed and several injured.

A tribunal had found the accused guilty of conspiring to murder Jinnah, the file said. However, its last two pages were missing.

Offcourse this issue had been relegated to the back seat after the controvery about Jinnah’s secularism sparked off.But now I have reservations about that allegation too.
This article by Deep opened my eyes.He says that Advani had never made any such comment.You can read Advani’s full speech here.

He said

Swami Ranganathananda passed away in April this year. The last time I met him was in Kolkata last year. He was 96 but still very agile in mind and radiant in spirit. Our talk, among other things, turned to his years and my years in Karachi. He asked me, ‘Have you read Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s speech in Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly on August 11, 1947? It is a classic exposition of a Secular State, one which guarantees every citizen’s freedom to practice his or her religion but the State shall not discriminate between one citizen and another on the basis of religion.‘

He says that he belives that this is the ideal that India, Pakistan as well as Bangladesh — the three present-day sovereign and separate constituents of the undivided India of the past, sharing a common civilisational heritage — should follow.

But no where in his speech he mentinoed that Jinnah was secular or that Pakistan is a secular state.And undoubtedly Jinnah’s speech on Aug11,1947 was secular.It is another fact that it never materialised.You can see some excerpts from the speech here

It seems like it is the media which should be blamed for this contreoversy.Any comments?

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Recently there has been a lot of controversy over the ownership of the Taj.Recently it was declared Sunni Wakf property on the ground that it is the grave of a woman whose emperor husband was a Sunni.Untill now The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) had been looking after it.

Hoever there are people who are raising an entirely different questions.
Was the Taj Mahal a Vedic Temple?

This is what the site has to say:

We have all heard how the Taj Mahal, which is considered one of the great wonders of the world, was built as the preeminent expression of a man’s love for a wife. That it was built by emperor Shah Jahan in commemoration of his wife Mumtaz. However, in our continuous effort to get to the truth, we have recently acquired some very important documents and information. There is evidence that the Taj Mahal was never built by Shah Jahan. Some say the Taj Mahal pre-dates Shah Jahan by several centuries and was originally built as a Hindu or Vedic temple/palace complex. Shah Jahan merely acquired it from its previous owner, the Hindu King Jai Singh.

This controversy is something I have explained more thoroughly in my book, “Proof of Vedic Culture’s Global Existence.” So, for those who want to know the details of this issue, you can find it there. And here is the photographic evidence that will provide greater insights into this. The point to consider is how much more of India’s history has been distorted if the background of such a grand building is so inaccurate.

Not only that the site also contains photographs and references to proove it’s point.

So,is this true?Or is the author of the page a budding Dan Brown?

Don’t forget to read the full article here

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