Only 45 minutes more and 26th November, 2008 will be once again, a chunk of history, terrible, painful but real, for yet another year till perhaps its another 26th November of another year. How does it feel to live then for another 365 days in a world that has no god?

Well, I don’t know. Neither can you say or perhaps those who weren’t in the heat of the scene. These scenes that unfolded in a span of 72 hours, had Taj Mahal Hotel, Oberoi Hotel and Nariman House as its prime backdrops. For music there was a cacophony of bullets and cries. Human Cries. Of Pain, of terror, of loss.  And there were many characters. Most of them good and innocent. And there were ten men. Men in black. With hi-tech gadgets, cellphones and weapons. They were the unforgettable mediators of the incredible nights. They were the Jihadis who painted Mumbai red. Blood red.

Several lost their lives. Several were dead before they could utter any word at all. Or perhaps see death’s face properly.  While survivors cluttered towards empty terror-ridden exits, mumbai came alive, nervous, nude and shaken. People ran on streets, on stations. Helping injured. Bodies lay scattered. Someone’s head all smeared, someone paralysed. Several talked of politics and politicians when the rage called Jihaad was busy sweeping Mumbai security off its wobbly floors. But the sentiment was one. It was unique, it was singular. It was “Indian.”

When a young girl ran on the street towards an injured woman, she did not enquire whether the woman buried under blood was a hindu, a jew, a muslim or a christian. All she bothered then was, whether she was alive. When Oberoi’s chief chef decided on the face of death to defy a terrorist’s order to burn the Oberoi restaurant down, he did not think of his mother or father who heard when the bullets tore their sons down. He thought of his duty, and above all, he thought of his country.

There’s no conclusion to my article. No conclusion to the terror nights that shook the very complacency of Indian security infrastructure. No conclusion to the little heavy stories of those unlucky ones who survived the terror. And absolutely no conclusion to the question- If this world has no  god, can man survive at all?

Like

Unlike

©2010 Sapped. All Rights Reserved.

The term Naxalites comes from Naxalbari, a small village in West Bengal, where a section of Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)) led by Charu Majumdar and Kanu Sanyal led a violent uprising in 1967, trying to develop a "revolutionary opposition" in opposition to the CPI(M) leadership. The insurrection started on May 25, 1967 in Naxalbari village when a peasant was attacked by hired hands over a land dispute. Local peasants retaliated by attacking the local landlords and the violence escalated. Majumdar greatly admired Mao Zedong of China and advocated that Indian peasants and lower classes must follow in his footsteps and overthrow the government and upper classes whom he held responsible for their plight. He engendered the Naxalite movement through his writings, the most famous being the 'Historic Eight Documents' which formed the basis of Naxalite ideology. In 1967 'Naxalites' organized the All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (AICCCR), and later broke away from CPI(M). Uprisings were organized in several parts of the country. In 1969 AICCCR gave birth to Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)- wikipedia /picture credits to jagoindia

The “spectre of communism” is engulfing the Indian sub-continent faster than world’s most fearsome terrorist groups active in the country which is playing cards to grab a non-permanent position at the Security Council for the session 2011-12.  The recent arrests of some top leaders of the ‘agitated’ rebels across the nation and the attacks  which are in accordance to the ’scorch-then-salve’ policy’ advocated by aggressive officials and approved by Home Minister P. Chidambaram has aggrieved the perpetrators more than ever now. The Minister’s “crackdown-first-development-later” policy seems to have failed in gathering enough sympathy from former director-secretary of BSF, Mahendra Kumawat, who in an interview to The Telegraph, condemned the ploice activity of killing maoists without harbouring proper amenities to the aggrieved poor who due to shortage of money, are drawn to the rebel circles, stating that it is right now “a counter-productive half measure”. Like most terrorists, naxalites are drawn from the lower and lowest sections of the societies across the affected states like Bengal, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh which are among the worst hit. The Naxalite -Maoist Insurgency, the movement conducted by these rebels has spread over 180 districts across India and has in its sway more than 40% of the Indian population. They are especially concentrated in the “Red corridor”, where they control 92,000 square kilometers.

Naxalites or the Maoists have been since long, considered a threat to the national security and as a doctrine of violence, oppression and aggression, they can be only an enemy to the state. The problem in combating them stems from lack of proper co-ordination between the states. Kmawat points out that states such as Bengal and Jharkhand simply deny access to their data. The turf battles between the various intelligence agencies is a primary reason for the failure. As such, Chidambaram’s statement that Naxal areas need be first “cleansed” of their “disruptive dominance” practically holds no better picture. No matter how much the UPA government tries to score past these stronghold guerrillas, it will be impossible to perpetrate their netted webs without proper information that must be analysed for months before the time of action.

To show their disagreement and dissatisfaction to Chhatradhar Mahato, PCPA leader and Maoist sympathizer’s arrest, Maoists blew up two railway tracks in Purulia, South Bengal. The sites(Adra-Chandil section of Sounth Eastern railway and Rourkela-Chakradharpur section, in Jharkhand) although don’t have much civilian agglomeration or traffic, are indeed vital for maintaining transport connections between Southern and Northern Bengal.

via pakdef

The explosion resulted in blowing up a three-foot section of the track about 100m away, tore wires and left a three-foot deep crater. Two more concrete sleepers have been destroyed.

Reportedly, more than 400 youths from Lalgarh and surrounding areas were trained by the Maoists to use weapons and explosives. The seriousness of the “clever tacticians” and perpetrators has come to surface now more sharply than ever.

Like

Unlike

©2010 Sapped. All Rights Reserved.

Democracy is the art and science of mobilizing the entire physical, economic and spiritual resources of various sections of the people in the service of the common good of all

-Mahatma Gandhi

When our nation’s Father visualized a free India, he probably forgot that age will wither the ideals that were once fresh in every Indian heart that throbbed with the name “India” What could be a more ironic turnout than the recent detection of the UPA government’s flagship National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) being exploited by corrupt Panchayat heads and officials  on pretext of rural development. Could the government be less exorbitant on such a sensitive issue? Perhaps better committment to the purpose could have saved the cause of upliftment at areas that include the drought-stricken Bundelkhand which has been most unfortunate in wielding to basic necessities of its inhabitants. The allocation of Rs. 39,100 crores  for this year’s budget by UPA fails to stop the increasing corruption in the systems that are required to be functional withe NREGS scheme. The “hoarding” of job cards by sarpanchs, panchayat secretaries or others is a common problem which gives them enough time, space and power to manipulate the days of work. To this Jean Dreze, development economist answers,  “they want to be free to make fake entries in the job cards, beyond public scrutiny, as part of their attempts to fudge the records and siphon off NREGS funds.“  Besides, according to him, this “hoarding can be made a punishable offense once the Grievance section comes into action under NREGS program” He further says that the development of  kaccha roads has been instrumental in connecting the Jharkhand mandis and villages with the cities (which has long been an important strategy of agro-driven Punjab). It is yet to be seen how well NREGS  fairs in the wake of unemployment.

India is where diversity reigns not only in culture  but also in provision and guarantee of basic amnesties of life. Gandhi’s ideal of “work is worship” and work for the “common good for all” is perhaps a hollow symbolic heritage of the past, of the age which boasted of unity in diversity. On the 2nd of October, every year, we resolve to make a better world, free from violence. And every year, the crime graph, in accordance with Crimes In India (CII) annual reports published by CBI, raises questions on women’s security in particular. Violence graph is on the rise with a 35-40% increase in rape cases with 2/3rd of them unreported due to various stigmas associated with the rape-victims. Deaths by burning that fall under Dowry cases are increasing at an alarming pace. At an  age when feminism is the literary furore, and the idiot box is dominated by females, Indian stand is really on the brink of ridicule.

via cleveland blog

Coming to the global front, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon believes, as he stated in a message marking the third annual International Day of Non-violence, that Mahatma Gandhi’s “powerful idea”  of non-violence could stabilize the major inconsistencies of the world. He agrees that ‘We strive, for example, to rid the world of weapons of mass destruction,’ he said. ‘Recent initiatives and meetings, including last week’s Security Council summit on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, have improved prospects for reductions in global arsenals.’ And not just that, the purpose must go beyond the use of weapons, he stressed.

Perhaps there is a hint of disapproval here of India’s refusal to be a part of Nuclear disarmament program as organized by UN. But Ban-Ki-moon’s message was clear enough. A change is necessary to stabilize worldly equations in the wake of recession and security threat.

Like

Unlike

©2010 Sapped. All Rights Reserved.

Today  Sapped comes to life. However, the Indian sun proved a lot more merrier than the Indians themselves. While at one side of the world, Indians were rejoicing the birth of a new era with the discovery of water (H2O) by Chandrayan 1 which happens to be the first time solid proofs were collected by humans of any country (NASA had belief but no evidence) and the assumption of the possibility of life once again throbs in every intellectual mind, on the other hand, racial discrimination of Indian students in Australia once again reaches a breaking point as a good number of agitated and grieved Indian students collectively marched the streets of Australia shouting slogans against racial violence. This reminds me of an interview by NDTV of an Indian student residing and educating himself in Australia, who unfortunately, has been made one of the unlucky victims of this racial bias. The student faced such slighting comments from his one of his own professors: “Indians can be good laborers only… they can’t become managers… like Red Indians.” Why yes, which Indian’s blood won’t boil at this point? I can hear every Indian heart beating with a constant pulse that reverberates throughout the air saying, “Just one chance. Give me one chance to prove myself!”

Yes, perhaps John Bramby, the Victorian Premier who visited India recently, is doing a good job while calling these hideous incidents as “an assault”. But hey, where are the results? I heard the Australian PM claiming “stringent” punishment against such wrong-doers. But the question remains hidden at grass-root level.

Let us transcend from the Indian territory to the macrocosm.

Can racism ever end?

Can it be subjugated?

Can education prevent it?

Or perhaps, we need some spiritual awakening…

But why are Indians pointing at another country? Don’t we know how dark girls are treated here? Well? The largest selling cream in the sub-continent is- No points for guessing, Fair and Lovely!

Moving Around,

At another part of the country (lets go north), India’s biggest and most prestigious medical institution, AIIMS suffered a show-down with twelve of the senior doctors resigning from their services without adequate reasons! Now, I heard CNBC saying that at AIIMS specifically, the government spends around one crore rupees on every individual to make him a responsible and knowledgeable doctor. Well? The question is, have you given a thought to the demand of establishment of six more AIIMS across the nation asap? Ahem.. a purely terrifying thought!

Like

Unlike

©2010 Sapped. All Rights Reserved.