varnam

It was the best of times

Sidestepping political and ideological differences, American and Indian diplomats as well as Left bigwigs are preparing the ground for what will be a pathbreaking first official visit by Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, the Marxist Chief Minister of West Bengal, to the US sometime next year.

In fact, Industry Minister Sen had last December made a presentation to major US oil companies at a top hotel in the Capital on the setting up of a chemical hub in the state. Bhattacharjee was also present at the meeting.

On the IT sector front, Minister Debesh Das wants Bengal to provide 10 to 15 per cent of the country’s total IT revenue — it now stands at around 3 per cent. “We are late starters in IT, but we have the advantage of infrastructure in terms of power, housing and connectivity,” Das said. [In clear signal to investors, Buddha, team plan US trips]

It was the worst of times

The don and the goon are sublimating God, in His own country. Police say the gangs could run into “a few thousands”, with capital Thiruvananthapuram alone home to some 700 gangs. In the three years to 2004, when the menace began to peak, there were more than 39,000 cases of goonda attacks. Police are still processing figures for the last two years.

No longer is the goonda a semiliterate blunt instrument working for the neighbourhood assault or extortion outfit. Kerala has equally virulent political goons, corralled in legitimate jobs and put to use when required. Migrant labourers, farm hands, even college students, including those in professional courses, are known to moonlight for work that needs only threats. Then there are the so-called tie-wearing goondas, who work for, banks, loan sharks, mobile service providers.

The prostitution racket, including organized girl running to service the Gulf markets, is another money spinner; after the land and real estate operations. Though state intelligence estimates peg the sex and land mafia’s turnover at about Rs 15,000 crore, police sources say this could really be “many times more.”[Goon trouble in God’s own country]

The goonda menace did not start instantly after the Communists took power in the state, but trouble has been brewing for sometime. While they were in the opposition, the Communists were harping on this point. They organized marches to various police stations to protest against the break down of law and order in the state and blamed the Congress Govt. for turning a blind eye. The Congress Govt. introduced the Kerala Felonious Activities (Prevention) Bill - 2005,' would empower the police to keep suspected anti-social elements under preventive detention up to six months, but the Communists dropped it as it had some undemocratic provisions. How much ever the public suffers, the Govt. has to make sure that a poor goonda does not suffer from some undemocratic treatment.

If such measures do not make Kerala an investment paradise, then I don't know what will.

Saturday's WSJ had a chilling photo on the front page. It showed a bunch of blindfolded men standing in an open field and facing them were another group of people with rifles in preparation for a mass execution. The command to fire had been given and men had started falling down. The picture shows men at the far end already on the ground, while the man on the far right still standing, waiting for the bullet to pierce his heart.  The photo captures that instant between life and death. It won the Pulitzer prize and the photographer's name was withheld - till now.

This photo was taken in Iran in Aug. 27, 1979. Islamic radicals had overthrown the Shah and Ayatollah Khomeini had taken control. The Kurds were looking for autonomy and troops were sent to supress it.

At the airport, Mr. Razmi stood ready outside the makeshift courtroom as 10 handcuffed men filled a wooden bench before the judge, a black-bearded Shiite cleric named Sadegh Khalkhali. An injured 11th prisoner lay on a stretcher beside the door.

The judge removed his turban, Mr. Bahrami recalls. He removed his shoes. He put his feet on a chair. Scanning the prisoners through thick eyeglasses, he asked their names. Officers of the court told of the defendants' alleged crimes -- of trafficking arms, inciting riots and murder. The prisoners, some with leftward or nationalist leanings, denied the accusations.

No evidence was presented, Mr. Bahrami says. "It was pure speculation." After roughly 30 minutes, Mr. Khalkhali declared the 11 men "corrupt on earth" -- mofsedin fel arz -- the Koranic phrase he cited before issuing a sentence of death. A few of the men cried.

The caravan passed roughly 30 airport workers, both men say. Up front walked Mr. Razmi. In the rear, both men say, was Ali Karimi, one of the judge's bodyguards, wearing white shoes, white pants, white shirt, sunglasses and twin hip holsters. After about 100 yards, an officer halted the condemned on a plain of dry dirt. All but one of the executioners tied about their own heads Iranian shawls called chafiyehs. Both the faces of the Shiites and the eyes of the Kurds were now concealed.[A Chilling Photograph's Hidden History]

India's alleged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh says

“We will have to devise innovative plans to ensure that minorities, particularly the Muslim minority, are empowered to share equitably in the fruits of development. They must have the first claim on resources,” Singh said. [PM’s priority: Muslim development]

So now just because you pray to one God you get preferential treatment. Isn't that wonderful. Sandeep has an excellent analysis of these clowns running the UPA.

According to an Iraqi court Saddam Hussein was  found guilty of the massacre of Iraqis in Dujail and sentenced to death.

"Now, he is in the garbage of history," said Jawad Abdul-Aziz, who lost his father, three brothers and 22 cousins in the reprisal killings that followed a botched 1982 assassination attempt against Saddam in the Shiite town of Dujail. It was the Dujail killings of which Saddam was convicted. [Iraqis execute Saddam for mass killings]

But then in Kerala we mourn for such brutal dictators and a hartal was called by both the Communists and Congress.

Stating that the "American imperialism has raised a grim challenge to the world peace once again through the execution of Saddam Hussein", Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan said the Iraqi leader would be remembered forever as a martyr who heroically fought the imperialist interests.[Hartal in Kerala, leaders condemn Saddam's execution]

For members of a party which think that the Communist occupation and enslavement of Tibet is "peaceful liberation", Saddam could be a martyr. No mention of his invasion of Kuwait or the murder of a large number of Shiites and Kurds or any of the atrocities mentioned in an article in the New York Times.

DOING the arithmetic is an imprecise venture. The largest number of deaths attributable to Mr. Hussein's regime resulted from the war between Iraq and Iran between 1980 and 1988, which was launched by Mr. Hussein. Iraq says its own toll was 500,000, and Iran's reckoning ranges upward of 300,000. Then there are the casualties in the wake of Iraq's 1990 occupation of Kuwait. Iraq's official toll from American bombing in that war is 100,000 — surely a gross exaggeration — but nobody contests that thousands of Iraqi soldiers and civilians were killed in the American campaign to oust Mr. Hussein's forces from Kuwait. In addition, 1,000 Kuwaitis died during the fighting and occupation in their country.
More recently, according to Iraqis who fled to Jordan and other neighboring countries, scores of women have been executed under a new twist in a "return to faith" campaign proclaimed by Mr. Hussein. Aimed at bolstering his support across the Islamic world, the campaign led early on to a ban on drinking alcohol in public. Then, some time in the last two years, it widened to include the public killing of accused prostitutes.

Often, the executions have been carried out by the Fedayeen Saddam, a paramilitary group headed by Mr. Hussein's oldest son, 38-year-old Uday. These men, masked and clad in black, make the women kneel in busy city squares, along crowded sidewalks, or in neighborhood plots, then behead them with swords. The families of some victims have claimed they were innocent of any crime save that of criticizing Mr. Hussein. [How Many People Has Saddam Killed?]

Of course, as usual Americans are terrified after listening to the hardship enforced on Malayalees by Malayalees and are busy googling to see who Achyutanandan is.