Thursday, January 31, 2013

Poorest Chief Mininster in India

 Manik Sarkar, who is running for the fourth consecutive term as Tripura chief minister, is probably the poorest of all the chief ministers in the country. And he has only become poorer after his third term.

The 64-year-old CPM stalwart, who is always dressed in white kurta and pyjama, starts off his campaign this election with just Rs 1,080 cash in hand. In 2003, he was better off with Rs 3,000 cash in hand.

In 2008, his total cash in hand and in bank deposits was Rs 16,120.38, which has reduced by Rs 5,320 in the last five years, according to affidavits he has submitted to the Election Commission. Sarkar has just one savings bank account, at SBI, Agartala branch, (account number 01190058811) with a deposit of Rs 9,720.38. In 2008, he had a different savings account (number 10915315442) with the same branch and a deposit of Rs 8,992.38.

He also had a second savings account with UCO bank in Agartala (number 35789) with a deposit of Rs 4,928. Both these accounts have not been shown in his current affidavit.

His wife, Panchali Bhattacharjee, is a retired state government employee, and according to the mandatory declaration of her financial position, Sarkar's affidavit says she has Rs 22,015 cash in hand. The Sarkars' gold assets have grown by 10 gm in the last five years.

His wife, who has retired now, has cash deposits in banks worth Rs 24,52,395, of which Rs 18,930 and Rs 84,118 are in two savings accounts with the SBI, Agartala branch. The rest of the money is in the form of fixed deposits. Five years ago, she had a savings account with the SBI with a balance of Rs 49,193 and a fixed deposit of Rs 80,080. She also had a provident fund deposit of Rs 6,53,453.

The Sarkars don't own a vehicle. While the chief minister used his official vehicle to commute, his wife traveling in a rickshaw to office has been a common sight on the streets of Agartala.

He has no email account, neither does he carry a cellphone. He can be reached on the landline numbers of his official residence and his office.

Sarkar had also inherited a 0.01 acre plot of agricultural land along with his sister from their mother at Krishnagar after her death in 2009. Sarkar is a 1971 batch commerce graduate from Maharaja Bir Bikram College of Agartala.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manik_Sarkar
 

Monday, January 28, 2013

Government has no intention of doing anything in this regard.

In its report, the three-member Justice JS Verma Committee, which was set up after the December 16 gang rape, says that the panel feels electoral reforms are “integral to the achievement of gender justice and the prevention of sexual offences against women”. It then goes on to make proposals for ridding the legislature of persons who have criminal cases pending against them. Soon after the report was made public, Union law minister Ashwani Kumar stated that he had asked the Law Commission of India to recommend steps to prevent people with criminal charges pending against them from being elected to Parliament and assemblies. This is a clear indication that the government has no intention of doing anything in this regard.

Friday, January 25, 2013

Save your Child from Sexual Harassment & Save future of the society

Yuva Satta's (The Youth Wing of Lok Satta) Zero Tolerance Campaign-'Maharashtra Govt Guidelines for School Buses'

 

 

Dear Responsible Citizen,

The molestation incident with a 4 year old school girl in Jamnabai Narsee School,Juhu by an employee of the contractor of the school bus last week,has shocked and terrified all of us.

The brutal Delhi Rape and subsequent death of Nirbhaya- 23 year old victim had angered the country like never before and we saw high decibel protests and 'Candle Light Marches'.

The Keenan-Reuben murders in Amboli,where these two boys were brutally murdered for standing up to the molesters of one their female friends also saw lots of protests and a lot of rage among everybody in general and Mumbaikars in particular.

The Zero Tolerance Campaign was launched by us soon after that to combat sexual harassment against women.

Rather than 'protesting' which is the usual response of the citizenry,we are circulating an abridged version of guidelines which is mandatory for all schools to implement.

These guidelines are part of law as legislated by the Maharashtra Govt.

Notification on the Maharashtra Motor Vehicles ( Regulations for School buses), Rules 2011:

1. Every school should have a transport committee to look into safety, transport and fire safety issues. It should be headed by the principal and one representative from the PTA.  It should also include RTO official, education officer and local authority representatives as members.

2.Bus Stops need to be specified and pre-decided where students will board or alight.

3.School buses should be painted as per colour code and must prominently display the school name and address.


4.Also a golden brown band on all sizes of buses should be installed below the window for it to be recognizable from a distance.

5.Bus contractors are to recruit a bus driver with minimum 5 years experience and an attendant for every school bus.They are to wear ID cards while on duty.

6.Buses are required to have a list of students travelling in the vehicle along with their blood groups,emergency/ parental contact no.,address and the name of the bus stop from which the student boards or alights from the bus.


 7.Speed governor, first aid kit and a fire extinguisher have been made compulsory.

8.School buses are to ply only on a separate school transport permit which is different from that of a pvt bus.

9.School Principal expected to review the system twice a year.

10.Contractors and drivers flouting ruled would be liable for criminal charges against them.


It has been noticed that these guidelines are not being seriously implemented by schools cutting across boards.Also,it is mandatory that all schools implement these guidelines irrespective of the board of their affiliation-SSC,ICSE or CBSE.

So if your son or daughter or any relative is studying in a school in Mumbai,it is in your interest to visit your ward's school and ensure implementation of these guidelines.

This communication is being issued by 'ZERO TOLERANCE CAMPAIGN' in public interest and the same is being circulated extensively via email by AGNI, Bombay Catholic Sabha, ALMs in Mumbai, PTA Associations, Lok Satta Party, Aam Admi Party and many other like minded organisations.

We sincerely hope that these issues will be taken to it's logical conclusion by responsible citizens like you.

You may feel free to contact us for any further assistance or to report cases of non-implementation.

We will be more than happy to help.

Thanking You.

Yours' Sincerely,

Ruben Mascarenhas

Co-ordinator,
Yuva Satta-Youth wing of Lok Satta Movement.
Contact: 9820249942

Ankita Verma
Gen.Secretary,
Yuva Satta-Youth wing of Lok Satta Movement
Contact: 9322172045

Aditya Paul,
Campaign Co-ordinator,

Zero Tolerance Campaign,
A Yuva Satta Initiative
Contact : 9820720267

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Kejriwal Letter to Mukesh Ambani

Mukesh Ambani aims to Gag Media on Arvind Kejriwal


Open letter to Mukesh Ambani from Arvind Kejriwal....

Comment your views...



4 MPs and 29 MLAs declare cases under Prevention of Corruption Act. Political Parties gave tickets to 98 such candidates in last 5 years.

Dear Friends

In the wake of the recent judgment of by the Special CBI court where former Haryana CM and his son were sentenced to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment,  we have conducted an analysis on how many of our current MLAs/MPs are facing probe under Prevention of Corruption Act. While all political parties claim that they are working on removing corruption from society, almost all of them have been consistently giving tickets to candidates who are facing cases under Prevention of Corruption Act. We appeal to Political Parties to stop giving tickets to such people and also appeal that all cases on current MPs & MLAs should be fast-tracked. 

PRESS RELEASE

ADR has analyzed the self declared affidavits, submitted to the Election Commission of India at the time of contesting election, of 4835 sitting MPs and MLAs across the country. Out of these 4835, 1448 members or 31 % have declared criminal cases against them. Out of these 1448 members who have declared criminal cases, 641 have declared serious criminal cases like rape, murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, robbery, extortion etc.

This report focuses on elected representatives who have declared in their self-sworn affidavit corruption cases under Prevention of Corruption Act.

 Executive Summary

  •  A total of 98 candidates with corruption cases under Prevention of Corruption Act have been given tickets by various political parties during elections in last 5 years (including Lok Sabha 2009 and all the state assembly elections since 2008).
  • Of the major political parties who have given tickets (in Lok Sabha and State Assembly elections in last 5 years) to candidates facing cases under Prevention of Corruption Act, INC has given tickets to 24 such candidates, BSP to 9 such candidates, AIADMK to 7 such candidates, SAD to 6 such candidates, DMK to 5 such candidates, BJP to 5 such candidates, INLD to 4 such candidates and RJD also to 4 such candidates.
  •   Out of these 98 candidates, 36 candidates won the elections. These include 4 sitting MPs in Lok Sabha 2009, 3 sitting MPs in the current Rajya Sabha and 29 MLAs in various state assemblies.

 

Lok Sabha 2009 and Rajya Sabha

  • In Lok Sabha 2009 elections, a total of 15 candidates with cases under Prevention of Corruption cases were given tickets by various political parties.Of these 15 candidates, INC gave tickets to 4 candidates with cases under Prevention of corruption Act. BSP and BJP each gave to 2 such candidates and AIADMK, SAD, DMK, RJD,  INLD, JDU, SP each gave ticket to 1 such candidate
  • Of these 15 candidates who have declared cases under Prevention of Corruption Act , 4 MPs won.  These are: Jagdis Sharma of JDU from Jahanabad constituency, Rajaiah Siricilla of INC from Warangal constituency, Dr. Rattan Sign Ajnala of SAD from Khadoor Sahib constituency and Lalu Prasad Yadav of RJD from Saran constituency.
  •  Also, in the current Rajya Sabha, 3 MPs have declared Prevention of Corruption cases against them. These are T. M. Selvaganapathi of DMK, Faggan Singh Kulaste of BJP and Rashid Masood of INC.

Current State Assemblies

  • 80 candidates with cases under Prevention of Corruption Act have been given tickets by various political parties in elections to various state assemblies that have been held in last 5 years.
  • Out of these 80, 29 won and are currently MLAs
  • Of these 29 MLAs who declared criminal cases on them, state-wise distribution is as follows:  7 MLAs are from Tamil Nadu and 3 each from Haryana, Jharkhand and Punjab. Current Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa assemblies have 2 MLAs each who have cases under Prevention of Corruption Act.
  •  Of these 29 MLAs who declared criminal cases on them, party-wise distribution is as follows: 8MLAs won on INC ticket, 6 on AIADMK ticket, 3 on INLD ticket and 2 on SAD ticket. BJP, BJD, DMK, JMM, NCP each have 1 such MLA who has declared cases under Prevention of Corruption Act.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Is there such a thing as 'Hindu terrorism', as Home Minister Shinde is heavily hinting at?




Is there such a thing as 'Hindu terrorism', as Home Minister Shinde is heavily hinting at? Well, I am one of that rare breed of foreign correspondents — a lover of Hindus! A born Frenchman, Catholic-educated and non-Hindu, I do hope I'll be given some credit for my opinions, which are not the product of my parents' ideas, my education or my atavism, but garnered from 25 years of reporting in South Asia (for Le Journal de Geneve and Le Figaro).

In the early 1980s, when I started freelancing in south India, doing photo features on Kalaripayattu, the Ayyappa festival, or the Ayyanars, I slowly realised that the genius of this country lies in its Hindu ethos, in the true spirituality behind Hinduism. The average Hindu you meet in a million villages possesses this simple, innate spirituality and accepts your diversity, whether you are Christian or Muslim, Jain or Arab, French or Chinese. It is this Hinduness that makes the Indian Christian different from, say, a French Christian, or the Indian Muslim unlike a Saudi Muslim. I also learnt that Hindus not only believed that the divine could manifest itself at different times, under different names, using different scriptures (not to mention the wonderful avatar concept, the perfect answer to 21st century religious strife) but that they had also given refuge to persecuted minorities from across the world—Syrian Christians, Parsis, Jews, Armenians, and today, Tibetans.

In 3,500 years of existence, Hindus have never militarily invaded another country, never tried to impose their religion on others by force or induced conversions. You cannot find anybody less fundamentalist than a Hindu in the world and it saddens me when I see the Indian and western press equating terrorist groups like SIMI, which blow up innocent civilians, with ordinary, angry Hindus who burn churches without killing anybody. We know also that most of these communal incidents often involve persons from the same groups—often Dalits and tribals—some of who have converted to Christianity and others not. However reprehensible the destruction of Babri Masjid, no Muslim was killed in the process; compare this to the 'vengeance' bombings of 1993 in Bombay, which wiped out hundreds of innocents, mostly Hindus. Yet the Babri Masjid destruction is often described by journalists as the more horrible act of the two. We also remember how Sharad Pawar, when he was chief minister of Maharashtra in 1993, lied about a bomb that was supposed to have gone off in a Muslim locality of Bombay.

I have never been politically correct, but have always written what I have discovered while reporting. Let me then be straightforward about this so-called Hindu terror. Hindus, since the first Arab invasions, have been at the receiving end of terrorism, whether it was by Timur, who killed 1,00,000 Hindus in a single day in 1399, or by the Portuguese Inquisition which crucified Brahmins in Goa. Today, Hindus are still being targeted: there were one million Hindus in the Kashmir valley in 1900; only a few hundred remain, the rest having fled in terror. Blasts after blasts have killed hundreds of innocent Hindus all over India in the last four years. Hindus, the overwhelming majority community of this country, are being made fun of, are despised, are deprived of the most basic facilities for one of their most sacred pilgrimages in Amarnath while their government heavily sponsors the Haj.. They see their brothers and sisters converted to Christianity through inducements and financial traps, see a harmless 84-year-old swami and a sadhvi brutally murdered. Their gods are blasphemed. So sometimes, enough is enough.

At some point, after years or even centuries of submitting like sheep to slaughter, Hindus—whom the Mahatma once gently called cowards—erupt in uncontrolled fury. And it hurts badly. It happened in Gujarat. It happened in Jammu, then in Kandhamal, Mangalore, Malegaon, or Ajmer. It may happen again elsewhere. What should be understood is that this is a spontaneous revolution on the ground, by ordinary Hindus, without any planning from the political leadership.

Therefore, the BJP, instead of fighting over each other as to whom should be the next party president, or who will be their PM candidate for the 2014 elections, should do well to put its house together. For it’s evident that the Congress has decided on this absurd strategy of the absurd, the untrue, the unjust, the treacherous, only to target Mr Narendra Modi, their enemy number One.

It should also fight the Untrue with Truth: there are about a billion Hindus, one in every six persons on this planet. They form one of the most successful, law-abiding and integrated communities in the world today. Can you call them terrorists? Let the BJP compile a statistics of how many Hindus were killed by Muslims since 1947 and how many Muslims by Hindus. These statistics will speak by themselves

Francois Gautier


http://www.francoisgautier.com/en/