Ace Chinese apologist

M.K.Bhadrakumar is clearly trying to be the ace Chinese apologist in People's Daily of China. If recent history is anything to go by, China has been provocative with respect to India. It is a real pity that this former diplomat sees the hand of American arms manufacturers in India-China relations. Is this not paranoia about American imperialism.
The Hindu : Opinion / Leader Page Articles : The great game pantomime

Somehow, our gurus are missing out on the quintessence of history and diplomacy
The pity is, just the wrong people could exploit Mr. Singh's plain thesis: middlemen for American arms manufacturers.

N.Ram disappointed with verdict

It is not surprising that N.Ram gave more space to Khan's verdict and barely mentioned Sharma. Justice Sharma said that the masjid was built after razing down a temple. Inconvenient truth for N.Ram and so he buried it. But he cant seem to bury his disappointment at the verdict.
The Hindu : Opinion / Editorials : Intriguing compromise could work

At one level, from the standpoint of political morality, the verdict
could be viewed as partially rewarding those who placed the idol
overnight under the central dome of the mosque and those who in 1992
razed it to the ground.

cHindu forced to eat crow on Ayodhya issue

In what is a landmark decision the Allahabad high court ruled that the Babri masjid was built upon the ruins of a temple.
cHindu with its fearless leader(jackass) LiC and his sickular minions are forced to eat crow as the court basically dismissed all arguments that cHindu and its sickular media cohorts were claiming all along.
So in a show of useless defiance, LiC decided to wail on a technicality that the court decided to split the land among 3 parties.

ruled that that the disputed site is the birth place of Lord Ram and that the disputed building constructed by Mughal emperor Babar was built against the tenets of Islam and did not have the character of the mosque.

cHindu journalists to keep monkeys away during CWG

In a news article reported today, all the journalists from cHindu from LiC to Sidd V, Ananth K to Neena Vyas were hired to provide security for the CWG ;)

To keep monkeys away from the Commonwealth Games venues here, the civic authorities are now ‘deploying' langurs. The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has brought in 10 langurs for the same, an official said. The NDMC already has 28 langurs, which are used to scare monkeys in VIP areas of the Capital

In response cHindu langurs were already claiming how Chinese monkeys had better unions and pay structures than the Indian democratic setup.

Jackass of the week - Suhasini Haidar

Read this article by Suhasini Haidar on the cHindu and you can reach your own conclusions on why she deserves this award.
Few snippets to help you..

At one level, the fears of China overrunning Pakistan to open a front with India may seem far-fetched, even hysterical. At another, it may be a much needed wake-up call for India to reassess its preparedness to counter an increasingly assertive Chinese military. At an entirely different level, New Delhi's alarm in the past few weeks could be most constructive if it ensures that India takes a closer look at its own role in the region, and why China is making headway with so many of our neighbours.

She goes on the usual stupid cHindu line that India is raising fear on mystical ghosts.

While many in India would see these projects essentially as aid to a needy neighbour, it is time to invert the prism and see them, just as we accuse China, as ways of increasing our footprint and extending our ambitions to a sphere of influence well beyond our land mass.

A profound revolution

Alan Rusbridger, in this interview, says that chindu still stands for "something" -- this "something" used to be "left-leaning" in the past; now it is "People's Daily of China". N.Ram and his minions have done lasting damage to the brand that it wont be easy to shake this image off. The people of India never forgave Nehru for folly on China and I don't think they will be any more accommodating with chindu.
Chindu's analysis is biased, the brand is tarnished and N.Ram is taking the loyal readers for a ride. Alan is making the right noises but chindu does not look like it is keen to listen. The communists, who are so fond of people's revolution, won't be liking this one.
The Hindu : Opinion / Interviews : ‘We are going through a profound revolution'

We ought to use the information that is out there now, and very widely available, and become aggregators and analysers. We ought to build on the brands that we have, while we have them. Great titles like The Hindu and The Guardian still stand for something and are a kind of viewpoint or set of values. I think it is important that we use that brand, and that community of readers who understand and want to be a part of that community.
If we establish the right relationship with our readers, we can create something which enhances our journalism and enables us to go on doing things that we need to.

Ayodhya is religious, not political now

Events provide an opportunity for us to reflect upon the changing trends, analyse the impact of the change and, where applicable, suggest constructive criticism. Ayodhya was a mass movement in 1990s and it is no less an emotive issue today. But a lot has changed over the past two decades. Swapan Da captures this in his article.
Ayodhya is religious, not political now : India : Swapan Dasgupta : TOI Blogs

The irony is that this New India is more religiously and assertively Hindu than ever before.
In the 1990s, Ayodhya was a political issue; today its importance is religious.

Vidya Subramaniam, on the other hand, uses it to spread some filth
around and indulge in Hindu bashing. There were a few other articles by
her on Ayodhya over the week. But they all have the same theme. Don't
bother googling for it.
The Hindu : Opinion / Lead : When caution becomes an imperative

While Muslims have consistently favoured judicial adjudication of the title dispute, the difference this time is the strikingly moderate tone adopted by the Hindutva parivar. Forget ratcheting up passions or revving into an overdrive on agitational or celebratory programmes, the Bharatiya Janata Party and its ideological mentor have consciously eschewed provocative postures.

Surprising but true, China gets aid in the billions

There are many countries getting international aid from the various agencies, donor nations etc. Many of them are in desperate need to support and maintain local projects as a significant majority live in abject poverty. However China gets a few billion dollars every year in aid. Yup you read it right, f-ing China gets billions while swindling other nations.

Development aid is not always solely based on need either. Aid groups say China is an ideal place to try out projects, because the authoritarian government can expand successful ones rapidly on a large scale. But China is effectively robbing the poor by competing for grants, said Dr. Jack C. Chow, who was the lead U.S. negotiator in talks that set up the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a major funder of health programs. The $1 billion China has been awarded in grants from the fund could have paid for 67 million anti-malarial bed nets, 4.5 million tuberculosis treatments, or nearly 2 million courses of AIDS therapy in poorer countries, Chow said.

Next time someone praises China for its development efforts keep in mind where it gets some of the money from and how.

Blatant Israel baiting by cHindu

LIC and his minions in cHindu like Sidd Varadarajan have some common motifs when it comes to International affairs. Anything about Palestine should be supported and so should any action against Israel.
So when a bunch of Arab tinpot dictatorships decide to censure Israel for having nukes, a motion which was defeated, cHindu expresses its disappointment in the result.

The resolution expressed “concern about the Israeli nuclear capabilities,” while urging the Jewish state to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and to open its nuclear facilities to IAEA inspection.

How about questioning the human rights practices in those Arab nations? Or the dismal conditions for immigrants, women and minorities there. That's an article which will rarely be written in the cHindu.

India tells Pakistan to f!&% off

In response to Pakistan's "resolutions" passed on J&K, India responded strongly telling that it had no locus standi in J&K. Finally showing backbone the Foreign ministry told

Pakistan should instead tackle the issues of constitutional safeguards, democracy, extremism, terrorism and human rights violations in the part of Jammu and Kashmir that was under its “illegal occupation.”

Also needling our beloved neighbor on its lack of support for human rights,

Crucially, Pakistan must fulfil its stated commitment of not allowing territory under its control to be used for terrorism directed against India in any manner. This would be an important contribution towards safeguarding the welfare of the people of J&K who suffer the consequences of terrorism fomented from across the Line of Control and the International Border,

This will not stop Pak from fomenting trouble, but hey its a nice start.

cHindu does not publish Hindu readers opinions in Babri masjid issue

This set of Letters to the editor is a small sample. But based on the names there is not a single Hindu reader who has any opinion on the Babri masjid issue. One can come their own conclusion on the newspaper's fairness.

Only India - CWG funny pic

This is a pic from the footbridge connecting the CWG Stadium which collapsed yesterday.

Note the large number of policemen idly standing around, what are they doing? Protecting the debris perhaps?
Union Minister Jaipal Reddy said "it a small problem."
Yup 27 laborers getting injured and National pride getting damaged in the process is a small problem.

cHindu advises against obeying the law of the land

There are times a newspaper should know its limits and really read what it publishes. cHindu and its fearless leader LiC have no qualms of reading or understanding what they publish. Case in point this article advising Sri Lankan President Rajapakse to show compassion to Gen. Fonseka. To give a background, Gen. Fonseka was the army leader who lead the dismantling of the LTTE in northern Sri Lanka. His falling out with Rajapakse was public and brutally exposed the inner machinations of Sri Lankan Government. Fonseka was tried and found guilty by the military courts of Sri Lanka.

The second court martial of Sarath Fonseka, Sri Lanka's former Army commander, has ended predictably with a verdict of guilty on the charge of violating procedures in military procurement. Last month, he was convicted of engaging in political activity while being in office. As punishment, the military court then handed down a dishonourable discharge, stripping him of his rank and all medals he had received in his 38-year career as a soldier. This time the court has recommended a three-year term in jail.

Now cHindu wants Rajapakse to forgive him and for what, show of magnanimity?

While there might be real doubts about Mr. Fonseka's integrity as a soldier, he remains a hero to large sections of Sri Lankans for his leading role in the nearly three-year-long military operation against the LTTE. Mr Rajapaksa stands to lose nothing by waiving the three-year jail sentence handed downto Mr. Fonseka. A pardon would only add to the president's political stature.

Really what next, Rajapakse should posthumous award a medal to Prabhakaran? This fight splits the Sri Lankan Government's rabid leaders of a state sponsored genocide apart and in the end is good for India.

Accomodating hubris

The Hindu : Opinion / Lead : South Asia beckons China

As a senior Indian official put it “They [the Chinese] are a business-like people and they won't invest in that kind of area like that.”

I guess, our Nehruvian socialists still can't distinguish between economic sense and political sense. Reminds me of another famous exchange involving our first prime minister:

Nehru commented that "Not a blade of grass grows in Aksai Chin", attempting to explain that Aksai Chin was a barren, inhospitable land and the nation had lost little by its occupation by China. Tyagi retorted, pointing to his bald head: "Nothing grows here ..should it be cut off or given away to somebody else?".

The following paragraph illustrates why M.K.Bhadrakumar gets space in this Chinese daily.

In short, the rise in China's influence in the region can lead to peace and regional stability provided we eschew outdated notions of “sphere of influence.” On the contrary, a struggle will inevitably ensue if India chooses to contest China's growing influence since the quintessence of that choice will be that India is prepared to sacrifice peace and stability in the region in its quest for regional primacy. Our South Asian neighbours will only see our choice as a quest for regional hegemony and they cannot be expected to accommodate hubris.

A "sphere of influence" is a fairly generic concept. I dont quite understand when M.K.Bhadrakumar calls it an outdated concept. I wonder what has replaced it: a "cube of influence", may be?
It is ridiculous for M.K.Bhadrakumar to say that China's rise in influence can lead to peace and stability whereas India's can lead to conflict. To associate China's ambitions with peace and stability and India's ambitions with regional primacy and hegemony is playing mischief with words. It is preposterous for M.K.Bhadrakumar to suggest that India must accommodate hubris so that China's "peaceful" rise continues.

Muslim fundamentalism in Kerala

Panikkar says Christians are reinforcing the religious fundamentalism of Muslims. But he doesn't miss the opportunity to take pot shots at Hindus.
The Hindu : Opinion / Leader Page Articles : A victim of fundamentalism

Religious fundamentalists are on the rise among Muslims and Hindus.

Falling trust in media

There is the ongoing onslaught of electronic media, but what will eventually come to haunt the mainstream media more than anything else is the growing trust deficit.
Each of the consumption patterns, including electronic media, has a distinct identity wrapped around consumer lifestyle. The newspapers survived and flourished even while television was entrenching into the consumer lifestyle. The print and television media will continue to appeal to people even while electronic media claims its fair share of consumer timespace. What is accelerating the adoption of electronic media is the growing distrust in mainstream media. One particular trend of interest is the number of people adopting the electronic lifestyle by disowning the mainstream media. Having to verify what is being written in print media, or spoken on television, is an additional burden the consumer can get away with by relying on the electronic format. This trend points out that Indians are spending time digging for truth.
The traditional media outlets are not doing themselves any favour by trying to do even better what they have always been good at -- corruption. Take this article, for example, where the bit about incest in mythology was lifted verbatim from a pakistani forum indulging in hate speech. It makes one wonder if ToI really cares about its reader or its own image. Such journalistic ethics leaves consumer with no choice but to dump the mainstream media and switch to electronic sources.


Hat tip to B.Shantanu. (Link 1, Link 2)

cHindu welcomes alliances with despotic nations

In what is a clear exhibition of lack of vision or even rabid insanity, cHindu reiterates its vision for India to have close friendly diplomatic ties with nations like Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan while warning against ties with democratic nations. It laments the fact that India was not invited to a tea party organized by four nations which had a little get together and did not invite India.
However the author does not realize that the whole exercise while touted did little in actual value.

In Sochi, Mr. Medvedev renewed Russia's offer to rebuild about 140 industrial and infrastructure projects in Afghanistan, which the Soviet Union set up during its 10-year military intervention. The deals may be worth over $1 billion, and may entail further Russian investments in Afghanistan's oil, gas and minerals. Russia's comeback will also encourage many of the 2,00,000 Soviet-educated Afghans, who fled the Taliban to Russia, to return to their homeland.

There were no deals signed and even if realized the value is quite small. The whole NATO investment is about 50 times that amount spent every month.
Of course no Vladimir Radyuhin being the usual Ruskie stooge takes potshots at the US stating,

The Barack Obama administration has “a regional strategy for both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Russia can play an important role along with other countries in the region,” Assistant Secretary of State Philip J. Crowley was quoted as saying in a comment on the Sochi summit. Russia is giving considerable support to the U.S. in Afghanistan in line with the broader “reset” in their bilateral ties, but Washington of course is overly presumptuous to think that Moscow will toe its “strategy” in the region, assuming, of course, that the White House has one.

Long story short, the author's POV that this meeting is like the second coming of Magna Carta is simply ridiculous and any Indian diplomat reading this would laugh it off. There is probably significant value for India to discuss with the individual nations separately and sign agreements than deal with all these monkeys together.

The failed communist state

The communists, who keep showcasing the paradise that is Cuba and its demigod Fidel Castro, must be crestfallen to hear that the Cuban model doesn't work. I hope the comrades in chindu realise the falsity of this ideology and take course correction. I know, I know. How about chindu stops giving disproportionate amount of coverage to Cuba and Castro.
The Hindu : International : Cuban model doesn't work: Castro

Mr. Castro replied — “The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore,”

China willing to work with India for South Asia peac

given the nature of conflict and the context within which the statement was made, manmohan's call to confront china's territorial ambitions should have made it to the front page verbatim. instead, n.ram uses his editorial judgement to send a message which is contradictory. this is worse than appeasement. it is a clear indication that chindu is being run from china.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Xinhua Ram

India's PM says China's territorial ambition must be challenged
Beijing has funded a number of strategic roads and deepwater ports in these countries, known as the "String of Pearls"

So far this is yet to be reported by People's Daily of Chennai. For them, only Peace and Good Intentions radiate from that land to all corners of the world:
China willing to work with India for South Asia peace

A sophisticated anti-occupation resistance

N.Ram's suggestion is a lot more relevant to Tibet than Iraq: Tibetans must develop a sophisticated anti-occupation resistance against the Chinese or risk being wiped out by the ongoing genocide. But his ideological disposition and his allegiance to his Chinese masters wont let N.Ram spell out such a thing. Instead he makes the usual war cries against American imperialism.
The Hindu : Opinion / Editorials : Meaning of withdrawal

The Iraqis now have a hard choice: either surrender to Washington's diktat and witness the emergence of their country as a full-blown American satellite state in the heart of West Asia, or revive at all levels a sophisticated anti-occupation resistance that steers clear of al-Qaeda terrorism and Iraq's sectarian fault lines.

Imaginary threads to weave emperor's clothes

In another case of truth by repeated assertion, we have Vidya Subramanyam telling us about the incident of a catholic nun raped in Kandhamal. The media ran the story of Jhabua nun rape case endlessly until the truth emerged that the perpetrators where christians. But that is no deterrent for Vidya, the bleeding heart intellectual. She repeats in gory detail the rape incident even though it is now public knowledge that the alleged rape was a fabrication. She is imagining all these common threads and creating a fabric to dress the emperor with no clothes.

Vidya Subramanyam now joins that non-state actor, Arundhati Susan Roy, in the liar club.
The Hindu : Opinion / Op-Ed : Three pogroms held together by a common thread

The Hindu of September 30, 2008 reported the case of a Catholic nun who was stripped naked and brutally gang-raped in front of a police post with 12 policemen from the Orissa State Armed Police present and watching. The Catholic priest who was with her was mercilessly thrashed for refusing to participate in the atrocity.

Here is the Sep 30, 2008 report filed by Parvathi Menon, which made it to the front page of chindu:
The Hindu : Front Page : Nun was gang raped and priest brutally assaulted in Kandhamal

The gang rape of the young nun, whose “virginity [was] grossly violated in public” ... took place in front of a police outpost with 12 policemen from the Orissa State Armed Police present and watching, according to Father Thomas Chellan, the priest who was dragged out and badly beaten.

“Around 1 p.m., a gang came and pulled me and the Sister out of the house where we had taken shelter and started assaulting us,” Father Chellan told The Hindu in a telephonic interview from Kerala where he is recuperating.

“My appeals to the policemen who were standing nearby and watching only resulted in further beating. At one point the nun slipped away to plead with the police for help but she was dragged back by the mob and her blouse torn,” he said. The nun was gang raped in a nearby building, and he was doused with kerosene by the mob, which threatened to set him on fire. They were saved by a group of youth who took them to the police outpost where “one among the attackers was present with the police between 3 p.m. and 9 p.m.,” Father Chellan said.

News of the K. Nuagaon atrocity was conveyed through mobile phones to several priests and nuns hiding in the forests, fearing for their lives as the anti-Christian hunt was on. The victims were taken to the Baliguda police station around 9 p.m. where they lodged First Information Reports. “I believe the Sister wrote in her complaint that she was raped,” Father Chellan said.

Vidya Subramanyam is probably well aware of the direction in which the case is going but she avoids referring to a more recent update on the case. Below is 27 July 2010 news item from chindu hidden in the Other States - Orissa section:
The Hindu : Other States / Orissa News : Nun rape case: priest deposes before judge

Baliguda Catholic church Father Thomas Chelathin—a key witness to the Kandhamal nun rape case, admitted before a trial court here on Monday that he had not mentioned about the rape incident in his first FIR filed on August 26, 2008, just a day after the nun was allegedly raped during the communal riots in the district.

But to get a really good idea, read Sandhya Jain's article on Daily Pioneer, dated August 3, 2010. Link and Excerpts below:
The Pioneer > Online Edition : >> A conspiracy unravels

Fr Thomas Chellan’s admission in court on July 26 that he did not report the alleged rape of the nun when filing the first information report with the police on August 26, 2008. The Baliguda Catholic Church pastor, a key witness in the case, admitted during cross-examination before Cuttack district and sessions judge Bira Kishore Mishra that he had not mentioned the alleged rape in the FIR filed a day after the incident is said to have occurred. His complaint caused the arrest of 23 people.
He identified two accused in court as being part of the mob that attacked his church, but had failed to identify either man during the test identification parade held at Choudwar jail last year.
Interestingly, Dr Chotray Marandia, who first treated the nun after the alleged assault-cum-rape, testified on August 28 that she had only complained of swelling on her face. “I only treated the swelling on her face and she did not complain of anything else,” he replied when asked by defence lawyers about other injuries on her body. So we have no evidence of rape.

The then block development officer, Mr BB Mishra, testified that he had accompanied the nun and priest to the local police station to file their complaint about the mob attack. Both thus had full official protection while filing the complaint, and cannot claim that the police did not record the FIR properly, or that the rape charge was ignored by the police. These testimonies are damning.

That the rape is most likely a fabrication can be seen from the nervousness of the prosecution. Earlier, her lawyers had sought a month’s time for the nun to appear before the court. This is suspicious to say the least, but fits in with the church’s hiding the nun from the local people and producing a veiled woman with a thick Malayalam accent at a Press conference in Delhi. Interestingly, last Saturday the nun failed to identify the key accused at a test identification parade.

The Church-prosecution embarrassment has been aggravated by the June 12 arrest of Pandit Bishimajhi for allegedly plotting to kill the nun and priest to prevent them from testifying against the mob. It was alleged that Bishimajhi led several mob attacks, one of which stripped and paraded the nun and Fr Chellan, and is thus complicit in the fast-disintegrating rape case.