Liquor, Cheerleaders and the IPL



Blending cricket with celebrities and corporate moguls, IPL has emerged the most colorful sport India has ever seen. Doled out with a teaspoonful of masala (the skimpily clad-‘fireworks,’ in other words) the gala event has been received with unprecedented fan-turnout and copious revenue and thus seeks to redraw the contours of the very sport.
Though many cricket pundits had raised opposition to bending the rules to churn out an instant and miniature version of cricket, those sane voices have ceased to be heard thanks to the overwhelming popularity the IPL matches enjoy now. Against this backdrop, has one to look at some Delhi lawmakers’ criticism of IPL’s assault on India’s age-old notions of modesty and ethics.



They raised the issue accusing that during the IPL matches, in the Ferozeshah Kotla cricket ground, the event organizers of sold liquor in a playing arena, promoted gambling through SMS, encouraged indecent dancing by semi-clad girls and evaded taxes through sale of lowly-priced tickets. Congress Chief Whip Kunwar Karan Singh, pointing that there was evasion of tax taking place through a very innovative manner, says the premium tickets had been priced at Rs.100 instead of Rs.5,000 and this would result in loss of tax to the Delhi Government and the Rs.100 ticket is being used to oblige people through Gate No. 3. They also charge that the Delhi Police personnel present at the stadium were turning a blind eye to all the wrongs there.



One of the congress MLAs, Subhash Chopra, alleged that SMS contests encourage people to send messages on who will win the toss and to win a chance to meet the cheer girls. “This promotes gambling,” he said. Congress MLA Mukesh Sharma also charged that SMS contests that offer a date with the cheer girls were “against our culture”. It is IPL that introduced semi-clad girls’ dance in any sport in India, for the first time in living memory. The Congress MLAs question the manner of dressing up and dancing of these cheer girls. “Who are these cheer girls? This is not our culture,” said Mr. Chopra. Ramakant Goswami, another Congress MLA, termed the cheer dancing as “open mujra”.



The ‘imported’ cheerleaders and other artists who made the inauguration ceremony grand success proves that the Indian tradition or legacy doesn’t have any thing to do with IPL. This instant avatar of cricket plays into the hands of the covert consumerist elements
trying to shake our cultural framework off the hooks and to apply western hedonistic ethos in Indian soil. Parliamentary Secretary to Chief Minister Tarvinder Singh Marwah rightly said, “The dances are spoiling our children”. Why cannot our government take measures to curb such obscenities?



IPL presents an ‘amazing’ combination of liquor and cheer girls. As the Lok Janshakti Party’s Shoaib Iqbal says the dance by semi-clad women and open sale of liquor were giving the image of a night club or bar to the stadium. Every one knows that the owner of Royal challengers Bangalore is Vijay Mallya, the unofficial king of Indian’s liquor business. That he wants to promote his liquor brands through cricket is no more a secret. One of his brands and his team share the same name. Should cricket entertain its fans through such ways that transcend all boundaries of decency?

It can be well assumed that the corporate media need something colorful to fill its columns and airtime is to divert people’s attention from the grave issues that matter. The rulers too want to have issues such as the state-sponsored insurgency in the tribal belts
of our country, price rise, and poverty kept under the carpet. Shedding light on the emerging middle class, India is trying to show to the world something that it is not. IPL is the important element of this propaganda and deception

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When the holy masks are torn apart

Dubious god men occasionally emerge out of their sacrosanct closets to carry forward our so-called spiritual legacy. After Santhosh Madhavan, a 'holy man' from southern Kerala who was jailed last year for 16 years for raping and illegally confining two girls from his orphanage, two new ‘demigods’ have joined the great Indian bandwagon of tainted babas. One is a big brass named Swami Nityanada. A spiritual guru who boasts of two million followers in 33 countries, Nityanada is the founder of Dhyanapeetam, and chairman of the Hindu University of America in Florida. A video broadcast on the Tamil television channel Sun News on 2 March 2010, showed the 32-year-old Swami billing and cooing with two young women in a bedroom. He went at large after Karnataka and Tamil Nadu booked him for criminal cases. Taking cue from his disappearance, disappointed followers and angry villagersransacked his ashram.

The other god man is Shiv Myra Dwivedi, a swami, who allegedly used his South Delhi temple as a front office to cater as many as 200 prostitutes, including airhostesses and college students to his five-star clients. He was arrested along with a pimp and six girls, including one British Airways stewardess in February. According to the Delhi police, he had earned $10 million, while others peg his earnings at more than ten times the amount. Police also unearthed a network of tunnels and secret rooms in Dwivedi’s temple as well as six diaries and other documents carrying details of his sex rackets.

Even though Shiv Myra Dwivedi calls himself a close disciple of Satya Sayi Baba, police hasn’t taken any step to investigate his relation with the Sayi ashram. There is every reason to doubt that ‘spiritual bigwigs’ like Sri Sri Ravishankar and Satya Sayi Baba have good grip
on law-enforcing agencies, so much so that they preempt any raid or other actions against their institutions. If the governments dare examine behind-the-scene affairs of all the demigods who operate freely without any hassles, the real faces of our numerous ‘holy’ souls will be unmasked.

An undeniable truth is that India is a marshy land where these demigods can heinously misuse the spiritual needs of society. Leading a luxury life and running tainted businesses behind the curtain, they may perhaps outdo underworld dons in every respect. Unwilling to face the ire of their vote banks, politicians always strive to preserve the unholy alliances with them. Law-enforcing agencies too turn a blind eye to the thriving spirituality business, obviously for their own reasons and benefits.

It is quite paradoxical that in this age of science and reason, even after the country has witnessed several scandalous spiritual gurus, demigods cutting across all religions can successfully run parallel establishments that mock modern medicinal practices. Believing that god men have supernatural powers to cure every diseases that exist on earth many prefer these ‘parallel medicos’ to get well even from severe diseases like cancer and AIDS! Once they realize the imposture, they loath to disclose the bitter experience to the world for fear of further disgrace.

Though the recent scandals have prompted calls for stronger legislation and tighter government regulation to expose charlatans and sex offenders, the State have turned a deaf ear to them. An often-overlooked fact is that, whenever a god man is arrested, instead of taking up the real issue, that is, deception and exploitation using false claims, police tends to close the case slapping one or two criminal cases on them. If the State wants to protect its subjects from these frauds, what prevents it from making stringent laws against these deceptive spiritual orders? Why don’t our honourable judges realize it is high time they questioned the rulers of their apparent indifference?

Islamic banking could spell development in India

A ONE of a kind move of Kerala government to set up Islamic financial system in the state joining hand with Kerala State Investment Development Corporation (KSIDC) became controversial as Janatha party president, Subramanya Swami, filed a complaint in Kerala High Court alleging the move is a violation of nation’s secular norms.
KSIDC was likely to start a non banking financial institution under the supervision of Reserve Bank of India accepting11% of the share from Kerala government. But by a fresh notice sent to the State Government and the RBI, the High Court stayed that move. KSIDC, knowing well that Islamic Banking is not allowed by Indian Constitution, decided to start the parallel institution on the basis of Islamic Sharia, an interest free banking, and on the grounds of Reserve Bank Act (chapter 3). As the Constitution 25, 26 acts allow the citizen to open such an institution; KSIDC got registered, without breaching any of the laws. The only difference that makes it different from other non banking institutions is that, it avoids the transactions on the basis of interest. Understanding from the new studies, that the bulk of NRI Muslim investors are reluctant to invest in interest based economy, Kerala government decided to encourage them by setting up such an interest free institution. And also it foresaw that the new system will boost the development process of the state. Since it is open to non Muslim investors as well, obviously, it is not a tread against secularism. But the petitioner argued in his complaint against RBI and state government claiming KSIDC’s stimulus to set up the parallel institution is violation of secular ideas provided by the Constitution.The people, who oppose the coveted opportunity blindly, must pay heed to the secular countries where the new Interest free system exists. In France, the Islamic bonds were legalized some weeks ago, and in America there are 20 Islamic banks (IBs) in addition to several Islamic bonds. In Britain not only the law is amended in favour of Islamic banking but the government is on the way to set London as the center of such institutions in Europe, and today as many as 23 IBs operate there. Singapore, China, and Malaysia are trying to become the hub of Islamic banking, amending the existing laws and encouraging such institutions. And it must be noticed that in Malaysia 40% of the investors are non Muslims. These countries give priority to Islamic Banking not because they keep commitment towards Islamic laws, but, with the understanding that this system has the strength to help economy to recover from the present financial crisis, they consider it as a mode to make a more stable fiscal system than the conventional one. Islamic banking grows parallel to the conventional banking system. It aims at nothing but justice and equality, and will be an effective measure to eradicate poverty. It will also make the Inclusive growth possible. The Raghuram Rajan committee appointed by the Planning Commission on financial reforms in India indicates the importance of interest free banking in India.As, many investors from the Middle East lost their confidence in western banks due to the on-going recession, they have more expectations from India and China, and apparently they wish to invest in an interest free economic system. If we promote them then we can magnetize them. All countries are striving to attract more foreign investments, and if India is taking a discouraging step towards the Islamic financial system on the pretext of its Islamic nature, it will impede nothing but our development. If Paris, London, and Singapore can make themselves more comfortable with the new system, why can’t Mumbai also try a hand?

The unwritten history of great genocide

The latest reports of Survival International apparently serve as death knells for the original inhabitants in several parts of the world. Modern man’s selfish deeds have resulted in their near-extinction. Leading a life in harmony with nature, these exploited lots now stand to be wiped out of their own land for good.
The Great Andaman Trunk Road has spelt doom for Jarwas, the tribe that inhabits central islands of Andaman. Adding to their miseries are, widespread encroachments on their land and illegal poaching. The case of the Onge and Sentinelese tribes are no different while the Jangil tribe of Rutland Island has already been part of history. Onges, who used to number more than 650 in 1900, are less than 100 today whereas Jarwas number less than 300. Despite a Supreme Court order and the growing protests by human rights activists, the work of the Trunk road continued, of course, in connivance with the local politicians. What the indigenous people got in return were some hitherto-unheard –of diseases.
For over a century between 1870 and 1970, over 150,000 native Indian children in Canada were taken away from their families and put in church-run residential schools. These government-funded schools were ostensibly set up to educate them. But their hidden motive was to Christianize and assimilate them into the European population. Uprooted from their families and put in an alien environment, these children were subjected to all sorts of emotional, physical and sexual abuse. They were treated like dogs and subjected to physical torture if they spoke their native languages.
Subjected to inhuman treatment, many took to drugs and alcohol. While thousands never went back to their parents half of them were estimated to have succumbed to deadly diseases in unhygienic school conditions. Though the Canadian government spends billions of dollars for them annually, they fare very badly on human development indices. Early-age deaths, suicides and alcoholism are common among them.
The state-funded Human Rights Commission says Australia's original inhabitants, whose cultures date several thousands of years back, aborigines would be deeply affected by the impact of global warming,. Blood-borne tropical diseases such as malaria and dengue fever would increase and food security of indigenous populations would be threatened. They have much higher rates of infant mortality, health problems and suicide than other Australians, with many living in squalid camps rife with unemployment, alcoholism and lawlessness. They are jailed five times more often than black males who were imprisoned in South Africa under apartheid. They are twice as likely as their non-Indigenous peers to be a victim of violent aggression, with 24 per cent of them reported as being victims of violence in every year and also11 times more likely to be in prison. At the time of white settlement in 1788 aborigines were believed to number more than one million, but now account for just 2.5 per cent of the population, with an estimated 517,000 people. A quarter of these lived in remote outback and coastal areas, with up to 80 per cent of adults in these communities relying on the natural environment for livelihood. They controlled, used, managed or had access to about 20 per cent of the Australian continent. Now they are considered uncivilized and have reached the disastrous stage where their language, culture and even their very survival are threatened.
In Botswana, the indigenous people of southern Africa known as The Bushmen of the Kalahari are on the verge of losing their ancestral homeland. The government forced out virtually all the Bushmen from their land in 1997, 2002 and 2005. Their homes were dismantled, their school and health post closed down, water supply destroyed and finally the people were trucked away. Although the Bushmen won a legal battle to go back to their land in 2006, the government did everything it could to make their return impossible. It banned them from using their water borehole, and refused to issue a single permit to hunt on their land, the state police arrested more than 50 Bushmen for hunting to feed their families, and also banned them from taking their small herds of goats back to the reserve. Survival International report says, “They now live in resettlement camps outside the reserve. Rarely able to hunt, and arrested and beaten when they do, they are dependent on government handouts. They are now gripped by alcoholism, boredom, depression, and illnesses such as TB and HIV/AIDS. Unless they can return to their ancestral lands, their unique societies and way of life will be destroyed, and many of them will die.’’
Before Portuguese invaders set their foot on the Brazilian land there were more than 50, 00000 original inhabitants. The atrocious exploitation and genocide reduced their count to 3, 50000. The current law of Brazil denies them the right to land and considers them as ‘minors’. In 1986, 4000 gold excavators encroached the land and granted them a new disease, malaria, which left 20 per cent of them dead.
In India, we are going to witness another cataclysmic act against the original inhabitants or Adivasis of the Naxal-affected area. Under the pretext of eradicating Naxals, the state government declared the war against its own tribal people. There is every reason to doubt that ‘Operation Green Hunt’ aims at the tribal people of the Naxal belt gifted with abundant treasures of minerals. The war within the nation is not for its people, but for the corporate giants who are lured into the huge collections of boxite, iron ore, silica, silver ore, and other minerals in Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, etc. The corporates like, Mittal, Tata, Posco , Vedanta and A star have only one obstacle: the tribal people who tirelessly quarrel with the government against the move to hand over the land to these companies.
Which established tradition or segment in history speaks about the survival of the indigenous people? Don’t they have right to live on their on land and preserve their age-old culture? Terminating indigenous people from their own land is, perhaps, what ‘the civilized” mean by being modern and trendy.
The history of holocaust was well-documented and is often reminded of in the present times, but these genocides remain shrouded in negligence in history, albeit those who lost their lives in them are hundred times more than those killed in the holocaust.

Rachel; The true martyr of the decade

March 16, 2003 in Palestine a girl from America stood before an Israeli Bulldozer with a held up head against Zionist terrorism to prevent a demolition of Palestine's house. The driver looked at her and listened to her pleads to get back from the mission, but he was as heinous as a demon then. He just drew the tank back and ran over her with out any hesitation. The tank fully pressed her in to the dry sand and cracked her head left her brutally killed in front her colleagues who were trying to stop the Bulldozer. Zionist terrorism again proved it gives zero value to the human lives. Thus she joined her hand with other innumerable Palestine victims.
The incident described above is the one which attracted the world attention towards the Zionist brutality in Palestine. Rachel corrie, that was her name, was member of International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a human right association including UK and USA activists. Taking a year off from her college, Evergreen State College,USA, she and her friends reached out Palestine and were working as “human shields" to protect the Palestine’s house from the Zionist demolition. It was the time Israel released its all monstrous acts against the Palestine settlement in Gaza. A lot of people were brutally murdered and several houses were demolished leaving thousands of Palestines with out shelter.
Like all other chances Rachel tried to stop the bulldozer was coming towards the house of Samir Nasrallah, a Palestinian pharmacist. Wearing her fluorescent jacket, she knelt down at least 15 meters in front of the bulldozer, and began waving her arms and shouting, just as activists had successfully done dozens of times that day... When it got so close that it was moving the earth beneath her, she climbed onto the pile of rubble being pushed by the bulldozer... Her head and upper torso were above the bulldozer’s blade, and the bulldozer driver and co-operator could clearly see her. Despite this, the driver continued forward, which caused her to fall back, out of view of the diver. He continued forward, and she tried to scoot back, but was quickly pulled underneath the bulldozer. We ran towards him, and waved our arms and shouted; one activist with the megaphone. But the bulldozer driver continued forward, until Rachel was all the way underneath the central section of the bulldozer.
Despite the big controversy emerged the incident never was taken seriously by the USA, who help relentlessly the Zionist to kill men, and the Israeli government. But she made an impact among the human right activists who keep the guts to stand against the inhuman action in the earth. More than 30 songs were written about and dedicated to her since 2003 by various musicians including Patti Smith, Alice Shields, Mike Stout, Billy Bragg, and Philip Munger. Every year philistines and human lovers remember her as the gem of martyrs’ history.
She is the genuine hero; she is the real martyr of last decade
Oh! Rachel you live in our heart still
As a red star blessed with the martyrdom!

Indhira and a strange phenomenon in Kazakhstan

Indira Gandhi! It’s a name which will turn out assorted feelings among hearers, the victims of internal emergency will howl, the buffs will turn their heart in a fervent mood. But every one should at least don’t wry their face when they consider she is our ‘chachji’s daughter. I really condole and pray for the souls of the preys of internal emergency, but I ought to say the fable of Indiraji, not one you listened to frequently, contains quite amusing parts, one that you will never expect. Now let your ears to hear.The fable takes place, not in India, in Kazakhstan, the world's largest landlocked country, the land of Kazak nomads who made a great threat to Chengiz khan at the very time. The fable starts when Indhira Gandhi, visited Kazakhstan along with her father, our first prime minister, Nehru in 1955. When some country leaders visit other nations, reactions of people are deferent, some one abuses, others hoist black flags, pour black oil and abusive words, but new trend is ‘flinging shoos at’ the respected leader! But shoos deserve only the faces of wicked leaders like Bush. Indiraji never deserved it, if deserved, no one dared to throw at in India or in abroad.In Kazakhstan she was received with warm welcome as though she was the real guest of honors, frankly speaking she got much attention and fame than Premier Nehru! People of Kazak celebrated her arrival with fervor they made unusual holidays to make it up. The fable is not going to stop here, it prolonged after her departure. The after math of her visit was obviously astonishing, if you hear, and incredible.What after math? You may ask with out patience! Indiraji left a marvelouse influence among the people of that country so much so that the new born girls, born between 1980 and 1990, approximately one tenth of them, bear the name ‘Indira’. Indira mervova, Indira Opesnova, Ospanova Indira the names continue! In Astana, the main city of Kazakhstan, one of the main woman leader’s name is Indira.“It was my grand father who compelled to name me ‘Indira’” tells Indira Ospanova a five star hotel employee. “It is really proud to have the name of a world famous leader” Indira Smalgova, an air hostess of Air Astana, smiles with confidence. One of the main priests of Almati says Indira who spent only half day in capita along with Nehru left wonderful influence in their life. The ambassador of India in Kazakhstan witnesses that, says, “The people of Kazak keep a hearty relation ship with Indians”.Now, ‘dear opponents of Indiraji’ pleas be harmonious. This is not lie at all, believe me!