Bhatkal Re-emerges as the Finishing School of Terror

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GAURAV C SAWANT @gauravcsawant

| SITREP | 3-minute read | 05-01-2015

Was the Coast Guard chasing suspected terrorists or "poor innocent" drug

mafia on the high seas on the night of December 31, 2014? Defence Minister

Manohar Parrikar has weighed in, saying they were suspected terrorists, given

the nature of intelligence inputs, intercepts and suspicious movement of the

Pakistani boat in the Arabian sea.

Parrikar clarified the operation was mounted by Coast Guard based on

specific intelligence input and positive identification by a Coast Guard

Dornier aircraft. Subsequently a Coast Guard Inshore Patrol Vessel found the

movement of the Pakistani vessel suspicious loitering on high seas, with its

lights switched off, not responding to repeated Coast Guard calls to identify

itself and then the chase on the high seas.

Five unanswered questions that indicate the boat had suspected terrorists:

#1. Why didn't the sailors jettison the incriminating evidence? Top

ranking officials dealing with counter smuggling operations in the Arabian

Sea told Headlines Today that this is not how smugglers behave. Smugglers

immediately jettison incriminating evidence. "Such is the nature of the game

that smugglers immediate throw the incriminating cargo overboard. At 2,000

metres depth on the high seas, especially when the seas are choppy it is

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Bhatkal re-emerges as the finishing school of terror http://www.dailyo.in/opinion/bhatkal-re-emerges-as-the-finishing-school...

1 of 24 1/14/2015 09:07

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General Coast Guard said.

#2. Why didn't they identify themselves? The occupants of the suspect

Pakistani vessel were repeatedly told on loud hailers to identify themselves.

According to United Nations Convention on Laws of the Seas, all vessels when

stopped by the maritime security agencies are supposed to prepare for

boarding and examination of documents and cargo. But the suspect Pakistani

vessel tried to speed away, repeatedly attempting to dodge the Coast Guard

Inshore Patrol Vessel. Smugglers do not do that. Such is the nature of the

game that smugglers often do go to prison for a limited period of time but get

off without adequate evidence.

#3. Why did they set their boat on fire? Coast Guard officials find it

strange that the sailors on board the suspect vessel, when challenged, went

below deck and set the boat on fire. Smugglers do not burn their boat or

commit suicide when challenged by the Coast Guard. The occupants of the

Pakistani vessel did not want to be caught alive. The nature of their

conversation with their handlers and the fact that they preferred to end their

lives rather than be arrested points towards something far more sinister than

a smuggling operation gone awry.

#4. If they were smugglers, what was their cargo? Diesel and alcohol

smuggling is no longer lucrative and especially not on the high seas, 200

nautical miles from the coast line. The difference in prices of diesel in India

and Pakistan is less than Rs 3 per litre and a 10 metre boat does not carry

enough volume of diesel to make smuggling of diesel or even alcohol

profitable for the operation or worth the risk. Even if the consignment was of

drugs, dealers and peddlers are not likely to embrace "shahadat" for the loss

of one consignment. Reports also indicate that the Pakistani vessel took the

same route from Pakistan as was taken by the 10 Pakistani terrorists who

attacked India on 26/11.

#5. Even if they were smuggling arms, doesn't that make them

terrorists? And finally even if intelligence inputs did not give the entire

picture, smugglers are no innocents. Dawood Ibrahim was a smuggler used by

ISI to ferry explosives to Mumbai before the 1993 blasts that left 257 people

dead and over a thousand injured. Smugglers have been used by Pakistans

ISI to explore chinks in the coastal security armour. This time those who

dispatched the Pakistani vessel clearly bit more than they could chew.

#Porbandar blast

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or

position of DailyO.in or the India Today Group. The writers are solely responsible for any claims arising out of the contents of

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P NARASIMHA @narsim1961

HUMOUR | 0-minute read | 12-01-2015




3 of 24 1/14/2015 09:07

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Professional Cartoonist for past 30 years


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#Vibrant Gujarat, #Mamata Banerjee, #Gujarat, #Anandiben Patel



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TS SUDHIR @iamtssudhir

POLITICS | 3-minute read | 12-01-2015

All is clearly not well on the Karnataka coast. Especially with the port town of

Bhatkal in Uttara Kannada district once again showing up on the terror radar.

The town attained notoriety for having left an imprint in the world of jihadi

terror thanks to the exploits of the Bhatkal brothers - Yasin and Riyaz. Now if

the claims of the Bangalore police are anything to go by, the Bhatkal legacy

lives on through more foot soldiers.

Four men arrested last week have a Bhatkal connection, sending a shiver

down the khaki spine. Interestingly, this Indian Mujahideen module was put

under watch after a intel tip-off from the Andhra Pradesh police. After the

Church street blast in Bangalore on December 28, the police moved in for the

kill, presuming the module's hand in the blast. While it has not been to

establish a link between the two, it unearthed in the bargain, the module's

explosive CV.




4 of 24 1/14/2015 09:07

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doctor who practices both in Bhatkal and Bangalore. Ideologically part of the

Indian Mujahideen since 2004, he received training in assembling a bomb in

2011 in Pakistan. Police sources claim he used the cover of visiting his in-laws

in Karachi, to meet his handlers across the LoC. He is allegedly the person

who supplied explosives to Indian Mujahideen operative Asadullah Akhtar

alias Haddi and Pakistani national Waqas alias Hasan (both now arrested) to

carry out the twin blasts in Hyderabad's Dilsukhnagar area in February 2013.

The police claim this module procured and supplied explosives, using hawala

channels to transfer money. Afaque procured the explosives from another

accused, Saddam Hussein, who arranged it for a price. Hussein is reportedly

not ideologically indoctrinated to the same extent as Afaque and has a

business-like approach to terror, almost like a paid mercenary.

That Dr Afaque was singing like a canary during the police interrogation was

obvious when based on his information, the police picked up Riyaz Sayeedi on

Saturday night when he was about to board a flight to Dubai from

Mangalore's Bajpe airport. But even as there is hope that the arrest of the four

men will help break the backbone of terror in this part of Karnataka, that may

not happen. That is because the IM ensures each module operates

independently of the other. One is not aware of the existence of the other

modules.

The fact that these sleeper cells managed to operate, keeping their head down,

is obvious from the reaction of their families. They insist that they have been

arrested only because of their postal address. Noor-ul-Nisa, Dr Afaque's

mother asks if travelling to the home of his in-laws in Pakistan is a crime.

Riyaz's sister Nafeesa says he works for a hardware company in Dubai. She

adds the police found nothing at their home, which the cops corroborate.

Cops in Karnataka believe both IM and SIMI modules are in different stages

of activity or inertia and that their targets would be towns in Maharashtra,

Goa, Hubli and Mangalore. What the arrests have done is to bring the heat

back to the investigation trail that had gone cold, with the sleuths unable to

establish how the explosives were sourced. Now with Afaque's arrest, the

police believes they are in a position to connect the dots.

#Bhatkal, #Indian Mujahideen, #Terrorism



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5 of 24 1/14/2015 09:07

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RAJEEV DHAVAN


The attack on the Charlie Hebdo office, the killing of unarmed innocent and

the ensuing hostage crisis has excited trenchant controversy in India. One one

hand, Haji Yaqub Qureshi justified the attack and offered Rs 51 crore to the

killers (which we assume he has) inviting a police case against him. Qazi

Rashideen of Meerut responded with: There is no place for terrorists in

Islam.

Mani Shankar Aiyar called the Charlie Hebdo attacks a backlash against the

wanton attacks on Muslims. Sonia Gandhi is chastised for not correcting

Aiyar. Bhanu Mehta has an inconclusive argument which counsels

self-restraint, and liberal democracies not fighting bad guys to the end of the

earth. Rushdie defends the cartoons as "satire". All government leaders of

liberal democracies condemn the attack. Life will not be the same in France or

Europe. At the end of the hostage crisis, the attackers have won martyrdom

and huge publicity. Charlie Hebdo remains courageous to exercise its right of

free speech to provoke at will.

Martyrs

How are we left at the end of this controversy, which is actually the

beginning? First: there cannot be a right to kill. We live in a world where

"right to kill" has curious recognitions in peace and war. The last century

portrayed the worst killing machines of all time. The example of killing has

been set by the US and others. Arms producers become merchants of death,More from TS Sudhir | POLITICS | Latest of the lot



6 of 24 1/14/2015 09:07

ambiguity in the Heller and McDonald cases (2008-10) over gun sales is

symptomatic. True moral indignation against killings has lost its edge

somewhere to become temporary and inconsequential. West Asia has been

pulverised by the US and by jihadi groups. Israel claims the right to kill at all

or any cost. We need a movement against the culture of killing. More so, the

innocent and children. Ironically, two non-involved persons killed in Paris

were Muslims Ahmed Mehrban and Mustapha Ourad. Nobody weeps, there

is only outrage. All become heroes. There is need for a moral campaign

against death merchants and guns. As technology advances, this becomes all

the more important. Look at "mad" people in the US killing kids in schools,

Khaps and terrorists killing in India, other groups elsewhere, "gun laws"

encourage killing machines Hollywood movies glorify killing as action. We

have become a world of "state" and "civil" terrorism, accepting (under-

transient protest), killing as a way of life. The 21st century sports "state and

"private killings" with weapons of increasing sophistication.

The second issue relates to free speech. Let us be clear. Although gun-killing is

what an Oxford philosopher would call a "speech-act", there is no way that

killing is an exercise in free speech at all. No matter how provocative the free

speech of others or actions of the state is, there is no right to kill as a "speech

act", even if you feel retaliation justified. Cartoons and satire are a part of free

speech. I believe in near absolute speech but there are limits to it in terms of

its consequences. Consider Justice Holmes example of a person shouting

"fire" in a crowded theatre. Consequences matter.

Consequences

Who should limit the consequences when there is an anticipated or existing

clear and present danger? Life today has all the fragility of a tinder box. Who

will effect restraint? The speech maker? Societys demonstrations? The jihadi

or the terrorist? Or the state?

India has strong laws to prevent free speech against public order, obscenity

defamation, and affecting group sentiments, including religious believers. (On

the latter (Section 153(a) (provoking enmity) Section 295A (outraging or

insulting religious beliefs)).

The problem with Indian laws, as interpreted by the government and the

courts, is the total lack of balance in punishments.

For example, Satanic Verses, Laine on Shivaji, Doniger on Hinduism,

Sahmats Ramayana exhibition the list in endless, and is decided by vote

bank politics. This mindless use of state power undermines confidence in

state censorship. The silence of our politicians in the conversion controversies

was deafening.




7 of 24 1/14/2015 09:07

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RAJEEV DHAVAN

Supreme Court lawyer.


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This takes us to self-censorship. The Danish and French cartoons went well

over the top. The motive was to ridicule Islam until it became as banal as

Catholicism. Or it was just perverse fun. In Islam, no pictorial representation

of the Prophet has been permitted for 15 centuries. And now we have

malevolent cartoons in what appears as a cartoon jihad against Islam? This

does not absolve killing as counter-jihad. I have seen ridiculous Danish

cartoons which, like the French, depict the Prophet as weird and that too as

an animal. No! No! No! No! No!

Third: how do you react to perverse speech? Certainly not by violence? Bhagat

Singh notwithstanding, Gandhis answer was clear: (i) speech for speech and

(ii) non-violent protests. The state, too, must permit this. The state must allow

non-violent protests, which it often clamps perversely.

Fourth: the Paris and Mumbai attacks were carried out by people prepared to

die for martyrdom and publicity. Those of the faith must tell them that this

route to be a martyr is not condonable. Evidently, India had information on

Mumbai way earlier but ignored it.

We have lost all moral sense of self-restraint and non-violence treating

"death" perfunctorily. God help us. We are losing our capacity to help

ourselves. Free speech is being debased.

#Freedom of Expression, #Paris Shooting, #Charlie Hebdo



this article.



8 of 24 1/14/2015 09:07

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PIYUSH SRIVASTAVA


The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawatis talisman seems to be

crumbling. Mayawati may remain a factor in UP politics and indeed the state

will remember her for the innumerable statues and memorials in Lucknow

and Noida. However, there can not be denying she faces serious problems.

The first problem Mayawati faces is infighting. Though disgruntled BSP

leaders have alleged in the past that she runs the party as her personal

fiefdom, it is for the first time that a Dalit leader has attacked the "Dalit Diva".

Jugul Kishore, a former Dalit leader of the BSP, who was suspended for anti-

party activities has dubbed the former chief minister as a daulat ki beti

(daughter of wealth) instead of "Dalit ki beti" (daughter of a Dalit). Kishore

went on to allege that Mayawati demanded Rs 60 crore for a Rajya Sabha seat,

Rs one point five crore for an Assembly ticket and Rs 50 lakh on reserve

Assembly seats. He also claimed he has a diary which will expose Mayawatis

corrupt practices and has declared he will finish her politically.

Even a Dalit is supposed to cough up at least Rs 50 lakh for a ticket in

Mayawatis party. She has finished the BSP by collecting money in the name

of Dalit politics and the result is for everyone to see. While the party used to

be the third largest party in the country and the first in UP, it is now the third

party in the state, Kishore said.

But Mayawatis supporters allege that even Kishore is not totally free from

allegations of corruption. They say Kishore, in the name of Dalit politics, has

amassed wealth disproportionate to his known sources of income in the last

15 years. Kishore has two luxury cars, two houses in Lucknow and

Lakhimpur Kheri, a college in the name of his family members and over 100

acres of land. He is known for asking ticket-seekers: I have a vote bank for

you. What do you have to offer me in return? said a Mayawati loyalist.

Corruption claims against Kishore are not new. But so far, the needle of

suspicion is very much on the BSP supremo and her loyalists. A prime

example is the case of former family welfare and mining minister Babu Singh

Kushwaha, who is currently languishing in jail for the Rs 5,400 crore National

Rural Health Mission (NRHM) scam. Critics claim Mayawati, as chief

minister of UP, had defended Kushwaha in 2007 and 2011 because he

allegedly gave her money from the scam.More from TS Sudhir | POLITICS | Latest of the lot



9 of 24 1/14/2015 09:07

Writer

PIYUSH SRIVASTAVA

Mail Today journalist based in Lucknow.


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Dalit community remain fiercely loyal to her. But allegations of corruption are

denting her image and that of the partys. Kishore alleges that this lust for

money has blurred her political vision. Akhilesh Das, the partys former Rajya

Sabha member too has made similar allegations against her. He claims

Mayawati had demanded money from him to resend him to the Upper House.

It is not, just not money that governs Mayawati. An insider within the party,

gave a unique perspective into the way the BSP supremo worked: In 2008,

when the Congress government was in minority in Parliament on the issue of

India-US nuclear deal, Behenji had assigned the job of promoting herself as

the prime ministerial candidate to an IAS officer of the state. He added that

the said officer camped in Delhi for over a month, allegedly trying to lure MPs

to back Mayawati but had to return empty handed. Mayawatis PM dream was

further demolished by the Samajwadi Party (SP) president Mulayam Singh

Yadav, who ditched all his alternative front partners and sat in the lap of the

Congress to protect the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government from

falling.

Now the way Mayawatis own men are exposing her is a danger signal that she

will not be able to regain power in the state, at least in the near future.

Kishores and allegations by other former partymen have also ended her

ambitions of being prime minister. More worrying for the BSP supremo is

that she has already lost all her seats in the Lok Sabha and has only ten

members in the Rajya Sabha currently. In the UP Assembly, the BSP has only

80 legislators in of a House of 403.

Despite all this, Behenji still remains a force to be wary of. A senior BSP leader

reportedly advised to Kishore: Be careful of the wrath of Mayawati and her

followers.

Kishore clearly has heeded this advice. He has written a letter to home

minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday demanding Z category security as he

feels that his life is in danger. The fact that Mayawati can still instill such fear

is a sign that the Dalit leader is still a force to be reckoned with.

#Mulayam Singh Yadav, #UP, #BSP, #Mayawati



this article.




10 of 24 1/14/2015 09:07

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VIKRAM JOHRI @voharijikram


Eerily, the Charlie Hebdo killings happened on the same day that a friend and

I had a discussion about the contents of my Facebook account. For those of

you who, in the slim chance, are not aware of this feature, Facebook provides

a cover photo option on the profile page, where users put up things that are

personal or meaningful to them.

My cover photos are generally images of male love, with two men embracing,

kissing, or just lying together in bed. I pick up these pictures from a film that I

have watched, or a website that I am reading, because they feel personal

and meaningful. When I watched Lilting, for example, I was so

consumed with the tenderness between Richard and Kai (Ben Whishaw and

Andrew Leung), that writing about it did not seem enough. I wanted to

consecrate it in some grander way, and for weeks, my Facebook cover was a

picture of the protagonists kissing.

For obvious reasons, some of my friends do not agree with my cover photos

subject matter. Not for any homophobic reasons but for proprietys sake. They

think these pictures take away from the seriousness they associate with me,

first as a person, but more pertinently, as a writer. They worry that I am

tarnishing my image with the pictures. I totally get that you are gay, but

when was the last time you saw someone put up pictures of straight people

making out on their profile? a friend asked me the other day, as we watched

news of the Charlie Hebdo massacre flash on TV (I will explain the connection

in a bit).

My friend has a point she does. I understand that the images are mildly

provocative even if there is no pornography involved. The current picture, forMore from TS Sudhir | POLITICS | Latest of the lot



11 of 24 1/14/2015 09:07

directions. I concede it can be disconcerting to log into Facebook, say, early

morning and be overwhelmed by the sight of too much entangled male skin, if

one is not into that sort of thing. Is that a good reason for me to stop posting

the pictures?

Why provoke, right? When some of my relatives started complaining to my

family about the photos, I was forced to consider if I should perhaps find a

middle ground between expressing myself in whatever way I deemed fit and

hewing to more conventional definitions of good taste (my immediate family,

to their credit, never bothered me). They were only photos after all, I told

myself, and were, at any rate, not a match on some of the stuff I was putting

out there emotive write-ups in which I freely explored elements of gay

identity that I found cute, difficult, or both. Why bother with a bunch of

photos?

But I kept coming across moments when a photo of two men would hold a

resonance that a 1,000-word article bawling with rhetoric could only hope to

achieve. One such moment happened as I watched the Italian gay web series

G&T on YouTube recently. Tommaso and Guilio are childhood buddies who

go through confusion, heartbreak and loss before discovering that they are,

after all, meant for one another. The two make for such a beautiful couple,

and not just because of their tortuous story. They are also really good-looking

and come together on screen in a delicate simulation of how I imagine a

perfect relationship to be. (I would like to say more, such as how desire

between men plays itself out, how it is feeds off not merely the physical, but

much more; but thats a topic for another piece.) There was no way I was

going to rest until I had, in some way, let the world know about Tommaso and

Guilio. So I picked up a picture of them nestling their necks and pasted it as

my Facebook cover picture.

Every gay man discovers his own way of locating himself in respect to his

sexuality after coming out (if he finds the time and space to come out, that is).

Sometimes this may involve overstepping conventional boundaries. It is only

natural. Gay men and women go through their early lives, through school and

college, in the hope of a real existence. If they are not being summarily

bullied, they are at least keeping their most intimate desires to themselves for

fear of ridicule and ostracism. When they gather the courage to finally come

out, they cannot but begin to see the world through their sexuality. They come

to wear it on their sleeve and rejoice in it as if it were a secret personal gift,

until they find themselves and settle into calmer waters.

My way of this celebration, among others, has been the Facebook pictures. Its

not even a political statement anymore Look here, I am gay. It was, at one

time, but my ship sailed a while ago and now I only post pictures of something

that really moves me.




12 of 24 1/14/2015 09:07

Writer

VIKRAM JOHRI @voharijikram

Vikram Johri is a Bangalore-based writer.


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not so adamant about it, I may have eventually given up on the goddamn

thing out of sheer monotony. But now that I am assailed with questions of

respectability, I make it a point to double down on my efforts and refuse to

retire into the bunker. I dont think posting gay pictures puts me in a bucket

that strips me of my standing as a writer. If anything, my choice to post

whatever, melds with my choices as a writer to produce an all-encompassing

gay identity. Remember, provocation is (or was) only partly my aim.

Expression is another, and I dont see how I can resolve the conflict between

that and someones discomfort without compromising on either my idea of

propriety or theirs. To me, propriety is borne of love, or respect, or one of

those gentle, worth-aspiring for emotions. Propriety is personal and

malleable. And if it means I am going to get on some peoples wrong sides,

that is a choice I am happy to make.

As for the Charlie Hebdo link, I know the contexts are very different and there

is no comparison between the complexity of terror and my own niche

dilemma. But here it is. In the aftermath of the Paris massacre, Shekhar

Gupta wrote on this website that he agreed with the cartoonists right to

offend, even if he himself would not publish the cartoons in question. That is a

laudable aim but one that I find untenable. I dont think I can sit on the fence

and merely dip into the intellectual without getting my hands dirty, as it were.

If I am called upon to take sides, I prefer to have my skin in the game. I am

willing to earn the opprobrium that comes with putting (perhaps

inappropriate) pictures of men making out online, if that is the price I am

expected to pay for expressing myself.

#Paris Shooting, #Charlie Hebdo



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SANDEEP BAMZAI @sandeep_bamzai

MONEY | 6-minute read | 11-01-2015

You sell fear and panic and finally the public spectacle turns into a public

execution. The last few days have seen a global risk aversion to equities with a

former member of an exclusive club called PIGS Portugal, Italy, Greece and

Spain Greece once again lurching its way to a new crisis. The slayings at

Charlie Hebdo by Islamic gunmen and the resultant "Islamophobia" in France

is only going to accentuate the complexities in Europe.

Canadian political economist Daniel Drache reckons that Europe could well

be on the verge of a fresh crisis. The happenings in France over the last couple

of days have done nothing to change that feeling. A double whammy of weak

economies struggling to find their feet forming a combustible mixture with

deadly Islamic terror making its presence felt in Europe.

Drache in an interview to Don Pittis of CBC News said that there is a lot of

turmoil ahead and when you move to highly ideologised mentalities, then all

sorts of things can happen. When institutions fail to adapt or change, then

new policies and practices become possible in the crisis. Its a door opener and

a door closer. You can't go back, said Drache. What is of equal concern to

political and economic analysts in Europe is the rise of a radical Left party in

Greece, Syriza, that the research group Oxford Economics says is heading for

a decisive victory in the country's snap election which is about a fortnight

away.

Priority

Almost overnight, the term "Grexit", coined nearly three years ago as a

shorthand for Greece's departure from the Eurozone, is back in the news,

according to Pittis. Last week in an interview to the Financial Times, Syrian

leader Alexis Tsipras has said it will begin a crackdown on the country's

elite, the wealthy oligarchs who, among other things, control Greece's media.

The oligarchs are high on our agenda, George Stathakis, Syrizas economic

spokesman, told the paper. They will be a priority for action.

So, just when one thought that benign crude prices are going to have a

salutary effect on energy-dependent economies like China and India, "Grexit"

has returned to the lexicon to stoke the fires for the prophets of doom.More from TS Sudhir | POLITICS | Latest of the lot



14 of 24 1/14/2015 09:07

the Western world. In fact, the reverse is true. I will tell you why. On

November 14, 2014, in an article entitled The Implications of $75 Oil for the

US Economy in its publication Daily Observations, the highly respected

hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, LP confirmed that lower oil prices will

have a negative impact on the economy. After an initial transitory positive

impact on GDP, the report explained that lower oil investment and production

would lead to a drag on real growth of zero point five per cent of GDP. The

firm noted that over the past few years, oil production and investment have

been adding about zero point five per cent to nominal GDP growth but that if

oil levels out at $75 per barrel, this would shift to something like negative zero

point seven per cent over the next year, creating a material hit to income

growth of one to one point five per cent. So, now we are looking at a triple

whammy effect which can continue to spook the markets: lower crude prices

(great news for India since every time the needle moves by a dollar

downwards, India saves Rs 8,000 cr on its oil pool account), Greeces exit

from the Eurozone, and the impact of Islamic terror on European nations.

External shocks are something that India needs to be wary of as it attempts to

begin its climb from the abyss of gloom. The other day, Bof A Merrill Lynch in

its latest oil update stated, We see a growing risk of WTI (West Texas

Intermediate) and Brent falling to $35 and $40 per barrel near-term to force

either non-OPEC (Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries)

producers or Saudi Arabia to cut. Saudi Arabias influential oil minister Ali

Al-Naimi has asserted that the kingdom the worlds largest exporter of

crude intends to persist with its current strategy of keeping its spigots open

to win back market share regardless of how much oil prices fall. Whether it

goes down to $20, $40, $50, $60, it is irrelevant, Al-Naimi said in an

interview with the Middle East Economic Survey in the last week of

December.

Consternation

The Telegraph of London believes that Al-Naimi will come under increasing

pressure from other members of the OPEC to row back on its current strategy

and agree to holding an emergency meeting of the cartel ahead of its next

scheduled gathering in the summer. Opinions differ among the 12 members of

OPEC over whether the decision to keep the groups quota of 30m barrels per

day (bpd) of crude unchanged in November was the correct course of action

given the risks this now poses to their economies. Saudis could blink too and

cut supplies, says Bof A Merrill Lynch in its report.

All of this is happening at a very crucial time in our economic turnaround

plan. The BJP has come to power on a development plank and already the

Sangh Parivars lunatic fringe has created consternation with its controversial

statements. Added to that on the ground, there appears to be an erosion in

Modis equity with the Ghar Wapsi programmes. This is the year ofMore from TS Sudhir | POLITICS | Latest of the lot



15 of 24 1/14/2015 09:07

Writer

SANDEEP BAMZAI @sandeep_bamzai

The writer is editor, Mail Today.


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add ballast.

The government is clearly showing intent with a catalogue of ordinances,

unwilling to lie inert as the Opposition continues to impede the legislative

process. Finance minister Arun Jaitley has articulated the new strategic

imperative by saying that the Constitution provides for mechanisms to

continue with the decision-making process. Those instrumentalities, one

expects, will be utilised to the hilt.

Once the Delhi elections are out of the way sometime in mid-February, there

are no elections for the government till November 2015, when Bihar goes to

the polls. With the electoral calendar freed up, Modi has a huge window of

opportunity to ram reforms down our throats. There is another interesting

nugget of information which needs to be factored into the equation. Last year

almost Rs 97,000 crore came into equities, but debt flows have been

humungous as much as one point seven times equity and the FIIs are

betting on the impending rate cuts. Most analysts claim over the next 12 to 15

months, a 100 basis points of cuts in both the repo and reverse repo rates,

from seven per cent and six per cent respectively is anticipated.

Stimulate

India needs to stimulate its domestic demand, it has no choice. For that it

needs a softer interest rate regime, which boosts demand through greater

bank lending and investment. Unpalatable structural reform remains at the

very kernel of change and shock therapy needs to be administered to a nation,

which sadly has been deep in the arms of Morpheus for close to a decade. In

fact, we need something akin to Arun Shouries disinvestment programme, to

help shake us out of our stupor.

If India has to remain insulated as it did in 1997 when the East Asian

contagion ran riot or in 2008 when the Western economies fell off the cliff,

then it has to ring fence itself with self-administration of brutal reforms. It

will hurt, but then detox treatment is always painful. The question is do we

have the stomach for it?

#Charlie Hebdo, #Indian Economy, #Economic Reforms



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16 of 24 1/14/2015 09:07

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HUMOUR | 0-minute read | 12-01-2015

#AAP, #Narendra Modi, #Arvind Kejriwal, #Delhi elections



this article.




17 of 24 1/14/2015 09:07


Professional Cartoonist for past 30 years

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RAVINDRAN @1951ravi

# Saffron sees others in Red .

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RAHUL SINGH


It could be Indias most sensational murder mystery of 2015, even though the

alleged murder took place in the beginning of 2014. I am of course referring to

the tragic end of Sunanda Pushkar Tharoor, the beautiful wife of the

high-profile Indian member of Parliament and former minister, Shashi

Tharoor. After remaining inexplicably silent for a year, the Delhi Police chief

stunned the country by recently announcing that Sunanda had not committed

suicide, nor died from an accidental dose of drugs and alcohol, as had been

believed earlier, but had actually been done away with.

Why it took the Delhi Police a whole year to come to this startling conclusion

is baffling. Their explanation that India does not have a laboratory to test the

viscera in question for poison, sounds both lame and questionable. Even if

India does not have such a facility, why did it take a year to send the viscera

abroad and get back the reports? The police point to the 15 bruises on

Sunandas body and a puncture mark, to back their claim of violence and

poisoning bruises and a mark that were visible a year ago.

The timing of the police announcement is also suspect. It took place, with a

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-dominated government in power. WhenMore from TS Sudhir | POLITICS | Latest of the lot



18 of 24 1/14/2015 09:07

was a Congress minister and also close to the partys president, Sonia Gandhi.

Is the police announcement connected with the change in government? It

would seem so: The Indian police and even the main investigation agency, the

Central Bureau of Intelligence (CBI), though they are meant to be immune

from political pressures, are notorious for bending towards whichever party is

in power. This could be the BJPs way of embarrassing Tharoor and the

Congress party.

Be that as it may, the needle of suspicion has fallen on Shashi Tharoor who, to

avoid media glare, fled to an Ayurvedic health spa in his home state of Kerala

(since then, he gave a brief press conference on January 9 evening).

Meanwhile, his detractors have been baying for his blood. I was on a TV show

the evening of the police announcement. The anchor of the show had already

made up his mind on Tharoors guilt, as had most of the panelists, which

included two women lawyer-activists. I could hardly get a word in, so worked

up was the anchor and the panelists against Tharoor.

At this point a personal disclosure is called for.

I have known Shashi Tharoor, on and off, since his college days. His uncle

(fathers brother), Tharoor Parameshwar, was the managing director of the

magazine of which I was the editor, the Readers Digest. In fact, Shashis

father, Chandran Tharoor, also worked for a short while with the Digest.

Shashi was an outstanding student who went to the USA for higher studies,

before joining the United Nations (U.N.). He rose in the U.N. to the second

highest rank and when the top job, that of secretary general, fell vacant, he

put up his candidacy, with the Indian government actively supporting it. Both

the then Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, and Sonia Gandhi were said to

have had a soft corner for him.

Though Tharoor failed in his U.N. bid, he returned to India, joined politics,

with the Congress giving him a safe seat in Kerala, from where he was

elected to Parliament. He went on to become a minister. His undoing was his

involvement in the lucrative cricket IPL and his somewhat messy personal

life. He bought a stake in a cricket team and gave Sunanda, who had become

his girlfriend (both had been married twice before), sweat equity worth a

large sum in the team. His controversial cricket deal forced his resignation as

minister. Meanwhile, he married Sunanda, a head-strong lady and a

successful entrepreneur in Dubai. They became a very high-profile and

glamorous couple, constantly in the news.

Other women were clearly attracted to the handsome, intelligent and highly

articulate Shashi Tharoor. Pakistani socialite, Mehr Tarar, was one of them.

Sunanda discovered tweets and messages between the two that infuriated her.

Tharoors domestic help, Narain, whom the Delhi Police have been

questioning, has given a new twist to the case. He has revealed that oneMore from TS Sudhir | POLITICS | Latest of the lot



19 of 24 1/14/2015 09:07

Writer

RAHUL SINGH

Former Assistant Editor, Times of India; also Editor,

Reader's Digest and Sunday Observer

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RANBIR KHANNA @ranbir_k1

P ing judgement, when the matter is still under investigation,

is not fair.

Narain also claimed that the couple had frequent fights and that Sunanda had

told Tharoor that he was finished, just before her death. Well-known

journalist Nalini Singh, a close friend of Sunanda, is also on record as saying

that Sunanda was planning to hold a press conference, the implication being

that she was going to expose her husband. Expose what? His supposed

infidelity, or something else?

So, was she murdered to keep her silent? And by whom? Apart from Tharoor,

who could be the other possible suspects? What would have been their

motives? The hotel in which she died has CCTV coverage of those who entered

and left her room. It should not be difficult to identify all those persons and

narrow down the suspects, if indeed she was murdered.

To me at least, these wild conspiracy theories dont wash and the most

plausible explanation for Sunandas death remains what the earlier autopsy

report showed: Suicide or accidental death. However, the Delhi Police think

otherwise and there is no doubt that many new and intriguing questions have

been raised. I suspect the final answer to the mystery will take quite a long

while to unfold.

#United Nations, #Congress, #BJP, #Shashi Tharoor



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20 of 24 1/14/2015 09:07

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PALASH KRISHNA MEHROTRA @palashmehrotra


How does one define terror? The best definition, to my mind, is in a book

published in 1901, a time when terrorism as we know it today, didnt exist.

Christopher Hitchens quotes from it in his memoir Hitch 22. It comes from

HFB Lynchs Armenia: Travels and Studies: Terror, the most abject terror,

is in the atmosphere about us a consuming passion, like that of jealousy a

haunting, exhausting spectre, which sits like a blight upon life. Such a settled

state of terror is one the most awful of human phenomena. The air holds

ghosts, all joy is dead; the sun is black, the mouth parched, the mind rent and

in tatters.

Terror

Over the last few weeks we have seen a spate of terror attacks, each one very

different from the other. There was the lone wolf attack in a Sydney cafe.

There was the unprecedented massacre of more than a hundred

schoolchildren in Pakistan. And then, most recently, the terror strike in Paris.

The horrific shooting at the offices of French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo

though is different from the usual. It was more than mere bloodshed. It was

an attack on something abstract, a treasured French value the freedom of

speech, which also includes the right to insult. The gunmen violently attacked

individuals who stood for and executed these values, every working day of

their lives. The French have a grand tradition of satire, and Charlie Hebdo

had its own glorious past. It was not just fundamentalist Islam that their

cartoonists lampooned. The Pope wasnt spared either. Neither were

governments around the world. Nor were homophobes and racists. The idea

being that there are no holy cows. Everything that should be sent up was sent

up. Behind the joke lies something very serious. Its about questioning and

critiquing the world around us. And doing so in as provocative a manner as

possible. You ruffle feathers, you ruffle feathers. There is no polite way of

going about it.

The freedom to mock is crucial to any vibrant democracy. From political

authoritarianism to religious bigotry, Charlie took on everything and

everybody. You might disagree with some of it. But you cant stop people from

expressing themselves. You certainly cannot kill them for doing so. On the

contrary, as Voltaire said: I do not agree with what you have to say, but Ill

defend to the death your right to say it.




21 of 24 1/14/2015 09:07

The right to "say it" is what has been defended by tens of thousands of people

in Europe. The pen, pencil and paintbrush have become symbols of freedom.

In marches, people have held up the pen to show their solidarity with the dead

cartoonists. The pencil has featured prominently in the cartoons published in

the aftermath. One shows pencils raining down like missiles. Another one

shows two pencils crashing into the twin towers like aeroplanes.

What we need to grasp is that freedom of speech is absolute and total. The

right to offend and the right to insult is part of it. Its a cornerstone of

European and American society. You can take on one "offensive" cartoon

with, maybe, another cartoon, but never with the gun. In America, the First

Amendment guarantees the right to preach hatred. Words and images dont

kill anyone. Culture is all about debate and discussion, which, after all, is the

business of words.

Implications

What are the implications of this for us in India? For here, it is the opposite.

The right to insult is replaced with a hypocritical "right to respect". We dont

poke fun at anything. No other liberal democracy bans as many books as we

do. PILs are filed at will because the "sentiments" of an individual or

community are always "being hurt". There is no question of questioning the

orthodoxies of religion because we "respect all religions". As the cartoonist

Sudhir Tailang said, Its very difficult for a cartoonist living in this part of the

world to be able to freely express opinions on religion. This makes us a very

unquestioning society. We blindly and unthinkingly respect everyone and

everything. You respect your parents, your teachers, your elders, the boss.

You agree with everyone. At the same time we are also an extremely intolerant

society where demagogues deliver inflammatory speeches at will, but creative

people self-censor, or dont question anything at all in the first place. And its

not just about being humourless. As a society, we lack innovation, something

that Nandan Nilekani never tires of pointing out. Creativity stems from

irreverence, which we singularly lack. We might work more hours every week

than anybody else, but at the end of the day, we remain a nation of

underachievers.

You ask an average Indian why we are like this, and hell say: this is India.

What works in Europe and France doesnt work here. This is hardly an

argument. Its this very rigidity that prevents us from borrowing ideas and

values from other cultures. Its what prevents us from realising our dreams of

becoming a "world power". We need to realise that freedom of speech is about

the right to question. Its an absolute right that has to be protected at all costs.

Without it, no progress is possible.




22 of 24 1/14/2015 09:07

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PALASH KRISHNAMEHROTRA @palashmehrotra

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ART & CULTURE | 3-minute read | 11-01-2015

It is a case of theatre owners and those who distributed Lingaa expecting

Rajinikanth to emulate his character in real life. In Lingaa, the king

Lingeswaran played by the Superstar, gives up his wealth and position to

ensure the people of his kingdom in pre-1947 India live safely after a dam is

constructed. Cut to 2014, when the distributors want Rajini to give up a part

of his wealth, to compensate for the losses they claim they have incurred.

The distributors contend that Lingaa that released on Rajini's birthday on

December 12, did not do the kind of super business the Superstar's films are

expected to. Not true, say those associated with the film. Lingaa was the

highest Tamil grosser of 2014, reportedly earning Rs 100 crore. The movie

made with a budget of Rs 120 crore reportedly sold its different rights for

about Rs 200 crore. The filmmakers therefore say, the complainants are

talking through their hat.




23 of 24 1/14/2015 09:07

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The writer is an editor with TV Today Network-India Today

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per cent revenue but realised only 30 per cent. Arguing that he put in money

banking on Rajinikanth, he wants the actor to compensate for the 70 per cent

loss. There are 200 other distributors and exhibitors who relate a similar story

and sat on a hunger strike in Chennai to appeal to the man in Poes Garden -

Rajinikanth.

Over the last three weeks or so, these distributors and exhibitors have been

asking Rajini to do what he did in 2002, when his Baba became a black sheep

at the box-office. Then Rajini had paid distributors who had lost money. Now

again the distributors say they invested in Lingaa only because the producer

Rockline Venkatesh and director KS Ravikumar had been identified to helm

this project by Rajini. Which is why they are telling Rajini, "Whatever the

revenue and what we have paid, adjust the money and refund."

While the two sides indulge in verbal volleys, there is a lesson in this for the

Tamil film industry. And for every other industry. That buyers need to take

responsibility for their decision. A film is not like a white good that promises a

particular quality. So if the showroom or online portal has delivered you a

defective branded mobile phone or an ill-fitting shirt, you can exchange it or

ask for a refund. But to expect every Rajinikanth film to be a money spinner

without looking at whether the script had sufficient punch in it, makes bad

investor sense. After all, even mutual funds proclaim that past performance is

no indication of how the fund may perform in the future.

At the same time, filmmakers too are guilty of over-hyping their product,

especially if it features someone like Rajini. The budgets are lavish and the

risk factor goes up manifold too. In this case, it has scalded the distributors

and theatre owners and burnt a hole in the carefully built-up superstar image

of Rajinikanth.

#Rajinikanth, #Lingaa



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24 of 24 1/14/2015 09:07

Bhatkal Re-emerges as the Finishing School of Terror

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