Dixcy Chick Salman

In a previous post “Media loves crimes, makes crime attractive” I had written about how media glorifies star criminals. Sanjay Dutt ads still appear in the media while he is now in jail. Salman Khan, the other convict under appeal, has a series of ads. The advertising industry has always loved bad boys and star criminals. Salman is also charged with culpable homicide in a 2002 case where he ran over people sleeping on the pavement and killed one while drunk-driving. He has been convicted and sentenced to 5 years in a black-buck hunting case which he has appealed.  “Dar ke aage jeet hai” says his ad for a soft drink but it looks like in real life he’s a scared chicken.

Once the star criminals are exposed they suddenly become do-gooders and people with extraordinary compassion; even for dogs as this Outlook report tells us: “Salman Khan loves dogs. He has two French mastiffs whom he calls My Son and My Jaan. To pamper their palate, he has special food from abroad flown down for them. To keep these thick-coated animals comfortable in Bombay's steamy heat, the ACs in his house run constantly at carefully controlled temperatures. Even when a stray dog in his neighbourhood died, Salman is said to have gone into deep depression”. So you see, a man whose heart bleeds so much for even dogs can hardly be a criminal. Right?

Dogs are not all, Salman even discovered his deep love for humans after he ran into trouble with the law. He started becoming more human and discovered the meaning of “Being Human” as his website will tell you. Such guys fall in love with children all over again like those Miss World winners who want to educate all the children in the world, eliminate poverty, hunger and, of course, eliminate Aids too. Children as leverage! You know, wearing Dixcy ‘Banian’ and ‘Underwear’ turns Salman into quite a Superman. He knocks of goon-monks with his Kung Fu and arm-wrestles to find compassion for a kid.

But Salman Khan showed up for what he really is and what he really has been all along. Nothing but a mindless bully! He had his Barkha Dutt moment and his ‘Streisand’ moment in one go recently. People will remember how Barkha tried to suppress a blogger (Chaitanya Kunte) but ended up making his blog famous. Bollywood juice blogger Soumyadipta Banerjee wrote about the plight of Salman’s police bodyguard who was not only inside the car when the drunken-driving episode killed a person but was also a key witness in the case. Ravindra Patil died a miserable, lonely death after being a witness in the case. Oh yes, SK did make a movie called “Bodyguard” so he should know all about what happened to his own bodyguard. Banerjee’s blog severely slammed both Salman and the Mumbai police for the fate of Ravindra Patil. Readthe whole piece HERE.

After being bullied by Salman, Banerjee pulled his post and expressed his frustration thus:

The last two days have been really excruciating for me. I have received a communication from Mr Salman Khan. There I have been instructed to remove two blog posts that I have written about him. Those articles have been removed from this blog. Here’s a public apology to Mr Salman Khan for writing two blog posts that he didn’t consider appropriate. I am taking a break from writing on this blog till I am in a proper frame of mind to write again.

I am really sorry.

You make your judgement on what was not so “appropriate” about Banerjee’s blog about the fate of Ravindra Patil. What Salman Khan was foolish enough not to know is that bullying someone to pull down an article on the net doesn’t wipe out the footprint but also gets it even more attention than it normally would have. This is what Barkha learnt a long time back after her 26/11 reporting. Her threatening a blogger and getting his post pulled off caused her permanent damage. Salman did the same foolish thing. He probably bullied the blogger and got the post removed but it’s now all over the place. Firstpost ran a longer story on the episode than even Banerjee’s blog did. Banerjee’s blog has a very appropriate image that describes Bollywood and media; the big fish eat the small fish.

But on the internet it’s prudent not to mess with the small fish, especially if it’s speaking the truth. Salman can wear all the Banians and Underwears he wants and pretend and act as Superman but as this episode shows, he still remains a Dixcy Chick.

  

Children As Leverage - Part 2

The fountainhead of corruption is always at the top of heap in the govt. For over 9 years the Congotri of corruption has supported and encouraged many bogus NGOs who ran political campaigns for them. It’s only when some of these NGOs started using their money to protest the UPA’s pet projects that they retaliated. “Govt bans 600 NGOs” says Livemint. The protests against the Kudankulam Nuclear Plant brought about more scrutiny. “Church role in Kudankulam protests merits wider probe” says Firstpost. “Govt bans 72 NGOs from receiving foreign contribution” says Indian Express. An online magazine Uday India files a frightening report about foreign funding of NGOs, especially of the Christian variety, in the context of Kudankulam. Most of these NGOs may or may not be doing some good but their objective is not a secret anymore; it is simply politics, lobbying and religious conversion.

There is something even more alarming. The site VigilOnline talks about a very dangerous trend of connections between NGOs, foreign funding and activists. The book (pic) is said to be published after a great deal of research by Radha Rajan and Krishen Kak. The report at VigilOnline says: “The book is a blistering attack of some of our leading NGOs and activists and documents their treasonous agenda for our country, listing in convincing detail their foreign sponsorships, donors and funds. The foreign focus is on the USA and Muslim and Christian organizations based there, that promote and finance Nehruvian secularism in Hindustan through their Indian stooges, of whom the book identifies Harsh Mander as representative…. This offering of V'mala exposes some more linkages of what in the book is called the Manderweb - with Harsh Mander in the centre of the web… IMC is connected to the jihadi Lashkar-e-Toiba, and the L-e-T is connected to Pakistan's ISI. Now, Refugee Watch, in its same section, goes on to report that "AIM intends to forge links with progressive Indians and has been working on establishing links with Pakistani Americans." Both Harsh Mander and Aruna Roy, as eminent Nehruvian secularists, are certainly "progressive Indians". These are stray excerpts so I recommend that you read the whole article at VigilOnline for proper context and clarity. Most of these NGOs invariably are hearts that bleed for children. And that precisely is our context.

So looks like this guy Harsh Mander is all over the place, isn’t he? And yet he was in the policy drafting body of NAC, he runs multiple NGOs. One of his NGOs was headed by an arrested Maoist terrorist who was released as ransom. One of his NGO outlets has been accused of “Abuse alleged at Children home”. Yet this man roams free with no investigation against him and no scrutiny of any of his NGO “firms”. Oh yeah… he’s a darling of NDTV and CNN-IBN. Why so much latitude? Well, he was one of the pioneers of the anti-Modi campaigns and a Congress helper. Neither NDTV nor CNN-IBN ever questioned him on any of his NGOs’ activities. After all, he’s doing a world of good for children too, isn’t he? Is that all? No! In an extensive investigation DeshGujarat, an online news site, reports Harsh Mander’s NGO businesses received over 12 Crores of donations in two financial years through a maze of organisations. Take a good look at the report. A large chunk of it is for “welfare of children”. Did someone say ‘stylish begging’? Harsh Mander gave up his IAS job for all this. Seems quite a sensible guy!

It’s a fashion for celebrities to somehow associate themselves with some charity for children. Let’s not doubt their motives; they may be well-intentioned and not everyone is looking deep into what every NGO is doing and shouldn’t be expected to. However, I would certainly set a different measure for news media celebs who are in the business of looking deeper into everything. Here’s Rajdeep Sardesai doing an interview with World Vision (WV), a charity he supports. He has very kind words to say and you can watch and listen to the full interaction on Youtube. If Rajdeep is so strongly endorsing World Vision do you expect that he or CNN-IBN ever honestly investigate WV if some issue or report crops up? On the contrary, our channels are more known for covering up misdeeds of the parties and organisations they support. Tehelka reports and stings are ones that our media frequently uses to target a certain politician and a party. But there is a Tehelka guy who seems to have made a report on WV for CNN-IBN which they reportedly never carried.

V.K. Shashikumar’s report can be read here in full. I do not vouch for the introduction part but would Rajdeep read and respond to such reports? I doubt it, because it would destroy his credibility of all the “morals” he claims in the video I mentioned above. The report suggests that WV is not just into children’s welfare but a large-scale religious conversion operation. This is true of many tribal areas where missionaries operate and which has been the cause of constant conflict in such areas. I quote a report of 2002 from this article which mentions an event in Dahod (Gujarat) a few months after the riots:

Take, for instance, World Vision New Zealand’s report (4 September 2002) on the funding of ADP in Dahod, Gujarat. Under the head, “spiritual development” the report states: “Held a vacation Bible school for 150 children from different villages. The children participated in games, Bible quizzes, drama and other activities. Organised a one-day spiritual retreat for 40 young people and a children’s Christmas party. Each of Dahod’s 45 villages chose five needy children to attend the party.” In Dumaria, Banka district, eastern Bihar, “the ADP supports local churches by running leadership-training courses for pastors and church leaders”.

Now, WV advertises all over the net (including on this blog site through Google) on how you can lift a child out of poverty with as low as Rs.800/- What part of lifting a child out of poverty involves religion? What part of formal education of a child involves religion? I have absolutely no problems if WV wants to preach religion. Why should they preach it with your money? Most of their money in India comes from people who contribute for education and a healthy life for children, not for religious preaching or conversion. The answer is simple! Just like Coca-Cola wants to catch them young, conversions too are easy if you catch them young. Will Rajdeep Sardesai look at all the reports on activities of WV and air a report? Oh no… their heart CRIES for children, you see!

CRY is appropriate. Sometimes it goes by ‘Child Relief & You’ and sometimes as “Child Rights & You’. I am not sure which one is in vogue. This organisation started off mostly selling greeting cards to people and corporates to generate funds for their activities. Quite a noble and fair way one would say. Since the Card business invaded India some decades ago all kinds of days became fashionable. Mother’s day, Father’s day, Kissing day, Flowers day, Valentine’s day, Grandpa’s day, Grandma’s day and we always had that Children’s day too. But there is a shocking report on CRY diverting its funds to other causes that hardly have anything to do with children. Once again, DeshGujarat reports some group called MARAG is protesting a Special Investment Region in Gujarat. Of the 1.12 crores received by this group to carry out their agitation it is reported that 1.03 crores came from CRY, another Children’s NGO called ‘Save the Children’ and a Swiss Agency.

That there are foreign forces and corrupt people who are involved in political games in projects in India is definitely a dangerous trend. But if organisations raising money in the name of children are using it for purposes other than those stated in their objectives and made public to donors then it’s a serious crime of using children as leverage. The Chief Information Commissioner has just brought certain political parties under RTI. While it may be challenged in court there is justification for bringing NGOs too under RTI. Many of these NGOs use public money, govt money and some even use hawala money. Many are also ‘benami’ NGOs. While not all NGOs are criminals, a huge number of them are slowly starting to show up being involved in financial crimes and acting with political motives. In this context the ones to be most concerned about is those who use children as leverage. Our media will never report on their deeds, they are part of the crime. 

Who Is Responsible, Mr. RahulG?

I had earlier warned that ‘hunting season’ had begun. Seems the first target of the hunt was N. Srinivasan. Now that N. Srinivasan has failed to oblige our media hopefully sanity will return to people like Arnab Goswami and Rajdeep Sardesai. They can lick their wounds in peace and think of getting back to hunting Narendra Modi or some other politician from the BJP. Some of them may already have had a sneak preview of the Food Security ad under Bharat Nirman and will be hoping FSB passes in parliament so that a fresh dose of BN ads can continue. So what was this first round of hunting covering up? You guessed right; it was the Chattisgarh Maoists attack on a Congress convoy on May 25. Post the disaster TimesNow, CNN-IBN, NDTV, HeadlinesToday all rushed to Chattisgarh but none reported the story from people on the ground. None held any serious debates on the killings.

It’s now 10 days since the attack and there is no sign these cowardly channels are going to seriously discuss the Maoists issue. But there is another serious issue that concerns the Congress party. It’s about fools rushing in where angels fear to tread. In an attack like the one on the Congress convoy any mature politician would have held his horses and waited for some detailed information before mindless outrage. Not Rahul Gandhi! He rushed to Chattisgarh along with mummy and at a meeting kept asking the Chief Secretary “Who is responsible?” for the carnage, which was also an indirect question to the CM Raman Singh. It’s also important to understand that this man had no business to be in that meeting at all. But you’re a Gandhi, so everything passes. And that is not all. The Amul baby even made grandiose statements like this is an “attack on democracy, an attack on the idea of India”. My guess is he has learned to parrot these lines from TV morons.

News was already trickling in that the Maoist attack was a conspiracy by certain Congress members and there were a lot of rumours floating in the territory. So let’s help the “power is poison” fellow with some more news. This is all from Dainik Bhaskar and I just quote:

National Investigation Agency (NIA) officials on Sunday told Dainik Bhaskar that four party leaders were in 'constant touch' with Naxalites on the fateful day.

 While two of the leaders are confirmed to have been were present in the convoy itself,  other two at the venue of departure reportedly gave ‘running commentary’ as soon as the convoy left for Keslur town from Darbha block. 

“We are investigation the call records which were made through the Jagdalpur cellphone tower. Four Congress have been identified who we believe provided minute-by-minute information to the Naxalites. Two of them were present in the convoy,” a NIA officer said.

“At present, we think that one of those in the convoy was the mastermind who planned the strike,” he added.

The suspicion over insiders being involved in the attack was first raised by Mahendra Karma’s son Deepak, who claims that such a ‘precision strike couldn’t have been possible without ‘insider inputs’… “They cannot carry out such a big operation successfully without inputs on Congress leaders' movement. This information was provided by someone who was privy to the movement plan," Deepak had alleged in a chat with Times of India. He had even asked as to who had ‘forced’ his slain father to take the same route from which he went to Darbha, revealing that Karma ‘did not use to take the same route twice’.

Our TV channels had already screamed there was intelligence failure, lack of adequate security blah, blah blah… All these normally result only in random, mindless killings. The incident on May 25 doesn’t appear to be random killing by any stretch of imagination. It seems a very well-planned attack with inside information provided to the Maoists by members from the very party which wants to play victim. I wonder if Arnab Goswami and Rajdeep Sardesai will now go after Rahul Gandhi as they did after N. Srinivasan. It will reveal a lot more than the Chattisgarh attack. It will also reveal how the Congress has directly or indirectly supported Maoist sympathisers and through that Maoist killers themselves. The BJP has even directly accused Ajit Jogi of conspiracy, something political parties normally don’t do.

They need to ask the great white hope only one question: Who is responsible, Mr.RahulG?

Multiple Organ Failure

The last major political leader from the Congress to die of natural causes was Vilasrao Deshmukh in August 2012. While Deshmukh seemed quite active in the months prior to his death it was a surprise to find he was ailing so seriously and a last minute liver transplant was also aborted because the donor died before the operation. Other than the scams that he was accused of Deshmukh was quite a popular leader in Maharashtra. Final reports on his death indicate he was suffering from liver failure which led to kidney failure which led to lungs failure and all of these led to heart failure. That sounds like total chaos, a lot like the Congress and UPA which are suffering multiple ailments. 

For 16 consecutive days now our media has been soaked in the IPL scam with just a pause for minor news items like naxal attacks or ministers resigning in Andhra. All of them just want one thing; N. Srinivasan to resign as BCCI president. TimesNow has gone a step beyond NDTV, CNN-IBN and HeadlinesToday, the channel is now calling it “Crusade for Cricket”. When George Bush used the term “crusade” after the 9/11 attacks for the war against terrorism he quickly withdrew that term and settled for ‘Operation enduring freedom’. I hope the liberals and Islamists don’t attack TimesNow for carrying out a “Crusade” for Cricket. All of them want Srinivasan to resign on moral grounds. It’s a fair demand but the political leadership from which most morals flow in public life has long dumped morals. The last time morals were seen in Indian Cricket was when GR Vishwanath recalled Bob Taylor for a wrong dismissal in the 1979-80 Golden Jubilee test. Well, Taylor went on to score a century and India lost the match. Since then it has been “law will take its course”. But the IPL scam reporting was helping bury many a Congress-UPA crime but when organs fail, they are bound to give a rude shock. The Chattisgarh naxal attack of May 25 was one massive heart attack to the Congress, BJP and the media.

Now that more details of the Maoists attack trickle in it seems quite obvious that the attack was a conspiracy hatched by a politician or a group of politicians. The Maoists seemed to know who will be there in the convoy and sought out specific politicians as targets and killed them. Their main target was Mahendra Karma, who supposedly founded the Salwa Judum, but they allowed Kawai Lakma, a close associate of Ajit Jogi, to escape. Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Manmohan Singh all rushed to Raipur. Amazing! 14 Congress lives and 7 security personnel were killed. I’m quite sure these three Congress heads didn’t rush to Raipur for the security personnel killed.

At the Governor’s meet over the incident, where neither SoniaG nor RahulG had any right to be present, RahulG kept asking “who is responsible”? Funny, isn’t it? A man who is responsible for nothing and to no one in this country asks that question. A man whose own constituency Amethi has failed on most development index and who is an “Eid ka chand” in parliament talks about responsibility. This was the guy who was partying after 26/11. This is the same Pappu who said “Congress supported BJP during Kargil”. Responsibility? Chest-beating at best! Never mind! And Minister Jairam Ramesh screams “we will win the war against naxalism”. How he proposes to do so, nobody knows.

Contrast all the drama of the trinity from Congress to the deadly attack on CRPF and Police personnel in April 2010. 75 were ambushed and brutally killed. SoniaG, RahulG or MMS didn’t rush to Dantewada. It seems only when their party men are attacked that wakes up politicians. This must make the naxals feel that targeting politicians pays better dividends. The moronery and hypocrisy of MMS and his party wasn’t more visible than in the fact that in October 2009 he grandly stated naxalism “is the greatest internal threat to India”. Well, what has he done about it? We don’t know. Hundreds have died since then. That statement by MMS wasn’t made at some security meet it was made to reporters at a function of the National Centre for Performing Arts. Very artful indeed! The horrible fact is that the GOI has no clue, no policy on how to deal with the naxals. And they reward convicted Maoist sympathisers like Binayak Sen with positions in the Planning Commission.

The MSM was forced to reluctantly report the Chattisgarh killings only to return to the IPL scam all over again. One fails to understand why this obsession with a betting and fixing scam which is relatively petty when compared to other issues of importance. Let’s not complain too much. In between there were some other issues too. RahulG, continuing his moronic utterances, made a grand statement to his partymen “My mother is lenient but I am strict” he said. Very nice! And following this stupidity NDTV held a debate on who is the tougher boss, SoniaG or RahulG. I’m not joking, take a look yourself. For NDTV that’s a serious issue to be debated as it is a serious concern for voters.  

It also helps that the IPL scam coverage helped to completely ignore the indictment of Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit by the Lokayukta. She has been indicted for misusing 22 crores of public money for promotions and has been asked to repay 11 crores. And while the IPL coverage was on and was brutally interrupted by the Chattisgarh disaster the Congress continued to run Bharat Nirman ads. Irony! In the commercial breaks while reporting the deadly Maoist attacks TV channels were running a “minority appeasement” ad under Bharat Nirman. The ad claims 1.65 lakh crores worth of loans/scholarships to 65 lakh minority students. I wonder how they arrived at these figures. In another ad the Congress claims having started 27 new central universities in print and 11 of the same in the TV ad. Why these differences? Media usually doesn’t debate content of commercial ads as a policy. But the BN ads are not mere commercials. They are govt and political ads whose content needs verification and analysis. The amounts involved are far higher than the IPL betting scam. The BN ads on TV and in print have conflicting numbers in many ads and our media won’t verify or question it. Why should they? After all, they are the beneficiaries. There must be a warning from upstairs: ‘No negative news about Congress, else no BN ads for you, so behave’!

Amidst all this the Telengana issue has started to burn again. A senior Congress CWC member, Keshav Rao, has quit the party in support of Telengana and joined the TRS party. I guess the politicians will push Telengana to a stage where it will create more Maoists and then will sit and discuss strategy. RahulG will ask “who is responsible?” and our media will be happy to show sensational scenes of riots and self-immolation. And while the Chattisgarh attacks happened our Home Minister happily extended his stay in the US. His reason for extension was an appointment with an eye doctor on May 28. Sushil Kumar Shinde’s casual approach is quite reflective of the failure of the Congress party and its govt. So while there is tall talk by the Congress on its achievements it seems the Indian colleges, hospitals and doctors are simply not good enough for their party members. It’s always US or some foreign country. (Read An Idiot’s guide to Bharat Nirman) Remember, during the December 2012 agitation over the Delhi gangrape Shinde famously said... let me just quote him:

"It is very easy to ask the Home Minister to go to India Gate and talk. Tomorrow if any other party's demonstration goes on why should not the Home Minister go there. Tomorrow Congress and BJP will demonstrate, tomorrow Maoists will come here to demonstrate with weapons,"… Shinde said the people should understand the government's role and the government should not go anywhere. This will happen tomorrow, for any government. Why should the government go anywhere"?  There, that should tell you how Shinde views Maoists but it proves that MMS, SoniaG and RahulG wouldn’t have rushed to Raipur if the Congressmen weren’t killed. And today, May 31, when Shinde did manage to visit Chattisgarh he again made the most moronic statement: “This Maoist attack is worse than any terrorism”. The Congress didn’t feel so when the 75 jawans were killed in Dantewada.

The latest to play the victim is Aruna Roy. She has quit the private durbar of SoniaG called NAC because she is unhappy the govt is not implementing policies for the poor (that she wants?). In short Aruna Roy is telling us: Govt bad, SoniaG good! Surprising, since the Bharat Nirman ads claim they have done a lot for the poor. Congress has even given a darshan of Metro rail in Delhi to village bumpkins. What more do you want? In a chat with NDTV (who else) Roy mentioned she would now like to work from the “outside”. Really? When exactly was she working from “within”? The NAC is not a part of the govt so she was anyway an outsider in SoniaG’s coterie trying to legislate for the parliament. So like it or not even a Darbari from SoniaG’s coterie is not happy with govt’s work for the poor.

In conclusion, one has to make the sad comparison between the final days of Vilasrao Deshmukh and his party itself. It is now a party and a govt that is suffering multiple ailments of a serious nature. Many critical parts have failed beyond repair and it makes a bad picture.

SoniaG, MMS, RahulG, Ministers, Policy paralysis, foreign policy failure, economic sluggishness, corruption of media, never-ending number of scams, low morale of army and police, and it goes on and on and on. When Deshmukh died he must have at the very least left a fair bit of assets for his family. Each failure of the Congress results in worsening shock. When the UPA2 dies, the nation will be five years older and deeper in debt and our media friends will still be chasing Srinivasan. Cause of death: Multiple organ failure.