Navnirman leader may take on Modi

With the lull of Diwali and Gujarati New Year over, the political scene is finally hotting up in Gujarat. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced its first list of 84 candidates on Thursday evening, a day after the Congress named 52 nominees for the Assembly elections next month.

Chief Minister Narendra Modi will contest from Maninagar in Ahmedabad city, the constituency from which he has fought the last two Assembly elections. The Congress may field Navnirman leader Umakant Mankad, 62, against Mr. Modi. The popular Navnirman movement had, in the mid-seventies, unseated the then State government over issues of price rise and corruption. Barring a few, the names declared by the BJP on Thursday were those of sitting legislators.

With two days left for filing of nominations, the lists of all parties for the 182-member House will be out soon. Eighty-seven constituencies will go to the polls in the first phase on December 13. The second phase is scheduled for December 17 and the results will be declared on December 20.

The names of the candidates of the former BJP patriarch, Keshubhai Patel’s Gujarat Parivartan Party were expected on Thursday. The party will contest 181 seats, but has identified 20 constituencies which it says it can win, and thus will focus on those during the campaign, sources said.

Rebel BJP MLA Kanu Kalsaria, who had led a major agitation against detergent giant Nirma in the coastal Saurashtra region and got its proposed cement plant stopped by dragging the Narendra Modi government to the Supreme Court, has launched his own outfit and it will contest five seats. Mr. Kalsaria has held talks with Mr. Patel and the Congress on seat sharing to ensure that anti-BJP votes in Saurashtra are not split. There is also an understanding between the Congress and Mr. Patel that candidates selection should be such that “anti-Modi” votes remain intact.

The Congress played it safe, with 26 of the 52 candidates it announced on Wednesday night being sitting legislators, including Leader of the Opposition Shaktisinh Gohil and PCC president Arjun Modhwadia. Eight of the candidates are former MLAs. The party has also fielded sitting Lok Sabha member Kunwarji Bawalia from Botad. The list has 13 candidates from the Scheduled Tribes and four from the Scheduled Castes, while there are four women and two Muslims in the fray.

However, there were protest demonstrations at the Congress headquarters in Ahmedabad over certain candidates in various regions.

The Congress has left 11 seats to its alliance partner, the Nationalist Congress Party, and will contest 171 seats.

There is a common perception that with the changed demographics of constituencies due to delimitation and Mr. Keshubhai Patel banking greatly on his Patel caste, the elections will be fought on the caste plank.

The Congress’ list reflects the party’s weightage given to the caste of the candidates. Keeping this strategy in mind, the party is trying to convince the former BJP veteran, Shankersinh Vaghela, to contest the elections, though he is reportedly unwilling and would rather devote his energies as the Congress campaign committee chairman.

Mr. Vaghela has a Statewide following among Kshatriyas and the OBCs and the party leaders believe that he could galvanise these castes in favour of the Congress.

Sources said the BJP, too, would give adequate attention to the caste of the candidates, instead of just banking on the development plank and Mr. Modi’s popularity.

Meanwhile, the bad news for the Congress is that the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, which are fielding candidates, could cut into its vote. Though the impact would be marginal, given that these parties do not have any network in Gujarat, in an election as close as this even a few votes would count.

In the rival camp, it bodes well for the BJP that the Shiv Sena, which contested a few seats in the 2007 elections, would desist from doing so this time.

Tendulkar, cricketing fraternity pay tributes to Bal Thackeray

NEW DELHI: The cricketing fraternity today condoled the sad demise of Bal Thackeray with fellow Maharashtrian Sachin Tendulkar leading the pack, saying the Shiv Sena patriarch will “always be remembered and missed”.

Tendulkar said Thackeray’s demise is a “terrible loss” for Maharashtra and he would have personally liked to pay his last respects to the Shiv Sena supremo had he not been playing in the first cricket Test against England in Ahmedabad.

“Really sad to hear about Balasaheb’s demise. His contribution to Maharashtra was immense. It’s a terrible loss and he will always be remembered and missed,” Tendulkar said in a message on his facebook page.

“Unfortunately I am in Ahmedabad as I would have liked to pay my last respects personally. My condolences to his family. May God rest his soul in peace,” he added.

The 86-year-old cartoonist-turned politician, Thackeray, known for his strong views and speaking his mind, breathed his last at 3.30pm at his residence ‘Matoshree’ in suburban Bandra after after having been critically ill for the past few days.

Tendulkar was joined by team-mate Harbhajan Singh in paying tributes to Thackeray.

“Rip to great bala saheb thackeray ji.you wil be missed.very sad to hear the news. condolence to the family. respect,” the off-spinner wrote on his twitter page.

Mumbai batsman Rohit Sharma also paid his respects to Thackeray on his twitter page.

“Roaring tiger of Mumbai-Maharashtra is no more..rip balasaheb thackeray,” he wrote.

IPL chairman and Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs, Rajeev Shukla also offered his condolences on twitter.

“I would like to offer my deepest condolences to the Thakre Family on the passing away of Shri Bal Thakre. May his soul rest in eternal peace,” said Shukla, who is also the vice-president of BCCI.

Bal Thackeray dies, life comes to a halt in Maharashtra

MUMBAI: Life virtually came to a halt in several parts of Maharashtra following the death of Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray today.

Why Bother About The Result

The central teaching of the Bhagwad Gita advises action without desiring the fruits of such action. The Gita’s wisdom is universal; it goes beyond religion and provides deep insights into the working of the human mind. It addresses both the strife outside between two individuals or groups as it does the unceasing struggle that goes on within a person’s mind.

The Gita is also unique in that it is neither doctrinaire nor rigid. It can be interpretated in many different ways without risk of trivialisation, so long as the integrity of all its messages is maintained, the central theme being desireless action.

Today we live in a world that is being pulled in different directions by material riches, expanding scientific and technological innovations, access to information, multiple risks, and daunting challenges, all seen at a scale unprecedented in human history. Unless one intends to renounce the physical world, it is naïve to think that one can escape the complexities of modern society and the intensifying pressures they generate on the human mind and spirit. Interestingly, all these have further enhanced the abiding universal appeal of the Gita’s teachings.

For anyone seeking equanimity in action, the Gita is a good beacon. That may be the reason why J Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, cited verses from the Gita in the hope of distancing himself from the destructive power of the nuclear bomb that he had brought into being.

A sense of detachment is vital even if one is not on the spiritual path – how else can one deal with all the intense competition we face today? The Gita says that if the mind is constantly obsessed with overwhelming thoughts of success or failure, victory or defeat, gain or loss, it sabotages one’s efforts towards achieving the goal that is being pursued.

While one tries to practise the teachings of the Gita either fully or partially, one must do so without the expectation of securing a desired result. In fact, what may appear to be a paradox, the very desire of success in upholding the Gita would be a negation of its core philosophy. One’s duty is only to act, never to hanker after the result.

However, detachment entails strict control over our mind and thoughts which is most difficult to attain. Cognitive psychologists tell us that the human mind works through two distinct but interacting systems: the ‘conscious’ which is subject to voluntary control, and the ‘sub-conscious or unconscious’ which is autonomous and automatic. The latter makes us think of the elephant when all that we are telling our mind is ‘do not think of the elephant’.

If the involuntary mechanism of mind yields to the deliberate system of thinking of the individual, the mind is overcome. One can then carry on with performance of duties without ever being constrained by worries over outcome.

Inspired by the Gita, M K Gandhi found his deepest convictions in truth and non-violence. Let alone doing anything untruthful or violent, he would not even entertain such thoughts. Such was the resoluteness of his mind. By asserting that renunciation of fruits of action would be possible only with observance of non-violence, Gandhi made the Gita his own ‘spiritual reference book’. And he remained an unremitting practitioner of his version of the Gita till the end. (The author is an IPS officer with the National Human Rights Commission. The views expressed are personal ).

Gujarat tops states in number of Muslim policemen

NEW DELHI: Gujarat, which faced one of the worst anti-Muslim riots in the country barely 10 years ago, has emerged as the state with the largest number of Muslim cops posted in police stations, beating states with a higher proportion of the community in their population.

The data, shared by the home ministry in response to an RTI query filed by TOI, shows that 10.6% of Gujarat’s cops posted in police stations are Muslims. This is higher than the proportion of Muslims in the state’s population, which is 9.1% (2001 census).

The state has 5,021 cops from the community out of a total of 47,424 in its 501 police stations. On an average, Gujarat has 10 Muslim cops per police station — higher than any other state which shared data with the Centre.

The trend comes to light at a time when most states have failed to implement a key recommendation of the Sachar Committee report, suggesting that more Muslim cops be in police stations to build confidence among the community.

Assam and Kerala, home to a much larger chunk of Muslims, have a higher percentage of the community in their police forces. But Gujarat has higher number of Muslim cops. Along with Odisha, it is the only state where the percentage of Muslims in the police force is higher than in the general population.

The list includes 17 states and six Union Territories (UTs) and leaves out states such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh (where Muslim population is 10% or more), which did not share data with the home ministry despite several reminders.

Gujarat has 5,021 Muslim police personnel in its 501 police stations compared to 2,210 Muslim cops in 451 police stations in Kerala, 2,048 in 525 police stations in West Bengal, 930 in 773 police stations in Rajasthan and 616 in 417 police stations in Jharkhand.

Absence of data from 11 states and one UT (Puducherry) may spare them from being scrutinized at this juncture by the Centre but not sharing figures of Muslim cops may itself raise a question mark over these states’ commitment to implement the Sachar committee recommendations.

TOI had sought information under the transparency law in the context of the home ministry’s missive to states reminding them about implementing Sachar panel’s recommendations on posting a minimum of one Muslim inspector or sub-inspector in police stations which catered to a sizeable number of the minority community. This, the committee said, should be done “not eliminate discrimination but as an initiative to build confidence”.

The ministry also sought details of action taken by the states in this regard on a half-yearly basis.

The Sachar committee, constituted on March 9, 2005 under the chairmanship of Justice Rajinder Sachar to prepare a comprehensive report on the social, economic and educational status of Muslims in India, had submitted its findings in November 2006.

Union home ministry’s data on Muslim police personnel as on October 16, 2012:

1. No. of Muslim police personnel who are posted in ‘police stations’ (top six states):

Gujarat – 5021

Assam – 2210

Kerala – 2210

West Bengal – 2048

Tamil Nadu – 1206

Rajasthan — 930

2. Share (percentage) of Muslim personnel in total number of cops in ‘police stations’

Assam – 21.5%

Kerala – 11.6%

Gujarat – 10.6%

West Bengal – 8.4%

Jharkhand – 6.4%

Rajasthan – 3.9%

3. Proportion of Muslim population in these states (2001 Census data)

Assam – 30.9%

West Bengal – 25.2%

Kerala – 24.7%

Jharkhand – 13.8%

Gujarat – 9.1%

Rajasthan – 8.5%

4. Proportion of Muslim population to total population of India (2001 Census data) – 13.4%

5. Eleven states – UP, Bihar, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Mizoram, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh – have not shared data with the home ministry

Gandhiji’s great grandson elected to Kansas State Assembly

A great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi has been elected to a State Assembly in the United Stated during the general elections held on November 6.

Shanti Gandhi, 72, contesting as a Republican Party candidate, defeated his Democratic rival Theodore “Ted” Ensley by nine percentage point for the Kansas’s 52nd Assembly District.

He is son of late Saraswati Gandhi, wife of Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson – the late Kanti Lal.

Gandhi, a cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon retired in 2010 from Stormont-Vail Hospital at Topeka City in the Kansas State, received 6,413 votes against Ensley’s 5,357 in the elections held on Tuesday for the State’s, according to the results declared by the Kansas Secretary of State.

He arrived in the US in 1967 as a medical graduate from University of Bombay.

BBC director-general resigns over Newsnight fiasco

The BBC was on Sunday likened by one of its veteran broadcasters to “a rudderless ship heading towards the rocks” after its new Director General George Entwistle was forced to resign over his handling of a report falsely implicating a former adviser to the former Tory Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, in a child abuse scandal.

Mr. Entwistle, who had been in office for just 54 days, quit after Prime Minister David Cameron warned against a “witch-hunt” over sex abuse allegations and Chris Patten, chairman of the BBC Trust, called the report “shoddy journalism” amid calls for his own resignation.

The controversial report, telecast on the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme Newsnight on November 2, was based on an interview with a man called Steve Messham who claimed that he had been abused by a Tory grandee in a north Wales care home during the 1970s.

The report did not name anybody but appeared to point towards Robert Alistair McAlpine (now Lord McAlpine), a former Tory party treasurer and adviser to Ms. Thatcher. Soon the Internet was buzzing with messages mentioning his name. Lord McAlpine dismissed the allegation as “wholly false and seriously defamatory” and threatened to sue the BBC.

Mr. Messham, meanwhile, admitted that he had been mistaken and apologised to Lord McAlpine.

Shambolic interview

Mr. Entwistle’s fate was sealed when in a shambolic interview on BBC’s Today programme, he admitted that he had been unaware of Newsnight allegations, giving the impression of a man totally out of his depth. Within hours, he was standing outside Broadcasting House in central London to announce his resignation.

With Lord Patten by his side, Mr. Entwistle said that as the man “ultimately responsible for all content, and in the light of the unacceptable journalistic standards” at Newsnight, he had decided that “the honourable thing to do is to step down from the post of director general.”

Lord Patten called for a “thorough, radical, structural overhaul” of the BBC and said that a new director-general would be appointed within weeks.

The row came as the BBC was already facing criticism for suppressing a Newsnight investigation into a sex abuse scandal allegedly involving late Jimmy Savile, once one of its most pampered celebrity performers.

The programme was axed at the last minute, allegedly to avoid a clash with BBC’s Christmas tribute to Savile — two months after his death last October.

Poke Me: Why India has become a living tragedy of self-delusion

This week’s ” Poke Me”, invites your comments on Why India has become a living tragedy of self-delusion. The feature will be reproduced on the edit page of the Saturday edition of the newspaper with a pick of readers’ best comments. (Readers’ comments published in ET)

So be poked and fire in your comments to us right away. Comments reproduced in the paper will be the ones that support or oppose the views expressed here intelligently. Feel free to add reference links etc. in support of your comments.

Raghu Dayal

A land of myths, India takes mythology rather seriously till some myth-buster jolts it down to reality. We have not unoften deluded ourselves that we are intellectually up there with the best in the world till the OECD-conducted PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) of 15 year school children had Indian students scoring second from the bottom, only ahead of Kyrgyzstan, among half a million students from 73 countries.

While the PISA ranking laid bare India’s poor school education, the 2012 QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) World University rankings include none of Indian universities or institutes among world’s top 200. China has seven in the top 200 list. India has over 26,000 higher education institutes with 15 million students on rolls; a survey has found 92% of their graduates are deficient in programming or algorithms and 78% of them falter in English.

Although there are more children in school, they are now learning less. As per Annual Survey of Education 2011, only 48% of class V children are able to read a class II text, and less than 30% of those in class III can do a 2-digit sum. Some 1.25 crore students come to the job market every year who have no skills. Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen is at pains to lament, “education in India is in peril”.

Mere enunciation of rights to education can be no solution. Andre Beteille termed the UPA move as “the Marie Antoinette Solution” – “they don’t have schools, so give them rights…” India’s high growth potential is largely predicated by its assumed demographic dividend. This very demography appears likely to end up as the Achilles’ heel and worse, with country’s youth remaining inadequately educated and trained. There is serious dearth of employable technicians – plumbers, carpenters, electricians. India’s 1.4 million schools are in need of 4 million new teachers and 8 million more to be retrained.

Like education, health too has been a sad story. As many as 130 million of Indians have no access to basic health care; as Census 2011 shows, half of country’s population defecate in the open; 20% of households have to travel more than half a km for drinking water; more than two-thirds of houses (87% rural, 26% urban) use firewood, crop residue, cow dung, coal. The number of physicians per 1,000 population for the world is 1.5, for India it is 0.6; the number of hospital beds per 1,000 population in India is 0.9, much lower than the world average of 3.3. Almost 2 million children die in India before reaching their first birth day. The country boasts of more than 30 million tonne of grains stacked, some of which in open for want of warehouses; yet 40% of its children are underweight and 70% anaemic. According to a WHO 2000 estimate, of the annual 529,000 maternal deaths globally, 136,000 or about 26% of them occur in India.

Although some pockets of the country have experienced material gains and people now live longer, no fewer than 37.5% of countrymen are reported to remain mal-nourished, 41.6% of them subsisting on less than $ 1.25/day (The World Development Report, 2012). While, on one hand, the Global Hunger Index 2007 by International Food Policy Research Institute ranked India 96th among 119 countries, well below all its neighbours except Bangladesh, on the other hand, it imported 1,100 tonne of gold last year, valued at Rs 3.5 lakh crore.

When the wide world around said India had all the basic wherewithal of an emerging global economic powerhouse, we started behaving as if we were already there. The Pew Research Centre survey of 21 major economies just conducted has revealed how Indians have had their optimism faded, how they have lost faith in the Indian economy and its future. Along with a dysfunctional Parliament, country’s polity is mired in sleaze; a bumper crop of robber barons mulct the national wealth.

Albeit a vibrant democracy it claims to be, India remains torn by language, region, caste, religion, no less than by pockets of wealth. We took pride in the steel frame of governance we had; today, it is left to be a creaking bamboo frame. Symptomatic of a major myth, some erudite commentators have found in Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson a facile belief that India would ultimately outpace China by dint of its inclusive political institutions, China being pulled back, as they perceive, because of its extractive political institutions. This pervasive myth of the delusion of democracy, as in effect it is practised in India, engenders only derision. More and more of us keep striving to become more equal than others. Money and muscle rule the roost. An Election Commission analysis revealed that no less than 40 among Hon’ble MPs and 700 MLAs among the legislators had suffered criminal indictment.

India lays great stores by the world’s largest democracy it is with constitutional freedom of expression, yet it has no qualms in slapping a young cartoonist with a incredible charge of sedition. India’s parliamentarians, notwithstanding their hysterical avowals of its sovereignty, meddle in the minutiae of deciding which textbooks will have what text or which cartoons, exposing the hollowness of our democracy. With more than 30 million cases pending in courts, up to 26 years old, it takes an average of 17 years to get a judicial decision. What better embodiment of our enduring myths than Delhi being touted as world’s “most beautiful city”, or Mumbai outshining Shanghai, or, better still, Kolkata soon transforming, Mamata di-style, into “better than London”!

We generally like to believe nice things about ourselves – a kind of collective mythomania. We fancy ourselves as a tolerant society and yet we have cases like Rushdie, Taslima, M F Hussain, et al. We hold the teaching profession in reverence, yet we kill a teacher who says no to cheating. We similarly give our parents a pedestal just short of godhead but countless cases occur of old parents being dispossessed, cheated, even murdered in property disputes. We respect womanhood as nothing short of devi or Mother (yatra naryastu pujyante, ramante tatra devata) but cases of rape and other crimes against women, shameful treatment of girl child (in embryo and after birth) and the fact that no woman considers herself safe after dark in the capital of India show that this is the biggest myth of all. We believe in welcoming tourists and visitors to our country (atithi devo bhava) but few such guests would ever revisit after the harrowing time we give them.

Rabindranath Tagore’s Tasher Desh has a message wherein citizens, who had lost their vitality and elan, and their capacity to respond to the rhythm of life, were played a magic flute whereupon their vitality flowed back. Some similar transformation India needs, a leader to play that magic flute, to turn some myths into reality.

Gujarat’s model of economic development is not impressive on a closer look at figures

Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi says the state’s model of economic development can be implemented in the rest of the country. But a closer look at figures shows that the model may not be so impressive after all.

In a recent election rally, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi advised Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, one of the country’s top economists, to follow the Gujarat model of development, to cure the country of its ills.

“Mr Prime Minister, if you try to follow the path of Gujarat state, the condition of the country will be transformed.” Modi, who is projecting himself as the champion of economic growth in a bid to shun his poster boy-of-Hindutva image, said. But what exactly is the Gujarat growth model if you strip it of the rhetoric?

Both Modi baiters and Modi supporters are unanimous on one count – that Gujarat is one of the fastest growing states in the country. Endorsements have even come from the British government which has revived diplomatic engagement with Modi after more than a decade of the 2002 riots. But ask baiters and supporters if the growth is equitable, sustainable and broad-based , and a war of words breaks out with many claiming that only a small portion of the population has gained from the boom.

According to the Planning Commission report of 2011, Gujarat’s high growth rate over the years has not percolated to the marginalized sections of society, particularly scheduled castes (SC) and scheduled tribes (ST). Good rains in the past decade, the Sardar Sarovar project, introduction of BT cotton and efforts by enterprising farmers have fuelled high agriculture growth. However , it has contributed only 15.5% to net state domestic product (NSDP) even as the sector employs a high 52% people.

In fact, Gujarat fares the worst in terms of overall hunger index among high per capita income states, the report adds. Gujarat ranked 13 out of 17 major states on the hunger index, below Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Assam to name a few. So, who is accruing the benefits of the booming industries? A very small percentage of the population, according to some experts.

Well-known economist and former Union minister Y K Alagh says Gujarat has much to show for economic development, but it can’t ignore the ugly truths either. “Given the fast rate of urbanisation in Gujarat , a clear land use plan, with communication strategy built-in should be an essential part of the development strategy. We should develop long-term plan for education , health and skill development for eastern tribal belt. As per National Sample Survey data, high levels of poverty are visible in the tribal region.”

White House has housed 13 presidents since WWII

WASHINGTON: Thirteen presidents, seven Democrats and six Republicans, have called the White House home since the United States entered World War II in 1941 after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Full Coverage of US Presidential Elections 2012

Below is a list showing when they were elected to when their successors were voted into office.

1932-1945: Franklin Roosevelt (Democrat)

Re-elected for the fourth time in 1940 — the country’s two-term limit was adopted in 1951 — he died on April 12, 1945, less than a month before the end of the war in Europe.

1945-1952: Harry Truman (Democrat)

As vice president, he took office after Roosevelt’s death and was re-elected in 1948.

1952-1960: Dwight Eisenhower (Republican)

1960-1963: John Kennedy (Democrat)

Assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

1963-1968: Lyndon Johnson (Democrat)

As vice president, he took office in 1963 after Kennedy’s death and was re-elected in 1964.

1968-1974: Richard Nixon (Republican)

Re-elected in 1972, he resigned in 1974 over the Watergate scandal.

1974-1976: Gerald Ford (Republican)

As vice president, he replaced Nixon following his resignation. To this day, he is the only president who was never elected after losing his 1976 bid to Jimmy Carter.

1976-1980: Jimmy Carter (Democrat)

1980-1988: Ronald Reagan (Republican)

1988-1992: George Bush (Republican)

1992-2000: Bill Clinton (Democrat)

Clinton is the only Democrat to serve two terms in the White House since the end of World War II. Obama is vying to become the second.

2000-2008: George W. Bush (Republican)

2008- : Barack Obama (Democrat)