The Supreme Court of India today put Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the dock by ordering a fresh investigation by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) into the 2002 communal riots that led to the massacre of over a thousand Muslims.

Comprising a total of five members (three senior IPS officers from Gujarat, retired CBI Director RK Raghavan and retired Uttar Pradesh police officer CB Satpathy),  the SIT is expected to complete its probe in three months and submit a report. The three IPS officers from Gujarat are Geeta Johri, Shivanand Jha and Ashish Bhatia.

Today’s order for a fresh probe into Gujarat Communal riots was a result of a petition made by Human Rights Groups expressing fears of bias in investigations.

The probe would focus on cases related to Gulberg, Ode and Sardarpur massacres, and the Naroda Gaon, Naroda Patiya, Baranpura, Machipith, Tarsali, Pandarwada and Raghovpura killings.

BJP leader and current Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi was at the helm of the state government during the massacre too. But like the Roman Emperor Nero, Modi’s government was fiddling while the wholesale massacre of Muslims was happening.

After days of dilly-dallying, the Mumbai Police finally gathered the courage to arrest Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray, who has been inciting locals against Mumbai residents who hail from other states of India like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

Raj Thackeray, who is the nephew of Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray, was arrested on Wednesday after a First Information Report was filed against him for inciting violence.

Bollywood star and long-time Mumbai resident Amitabh Bachchan (who is originally from Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh) was also at the receiving end of some of Raj Thackeray’s outbursts against “outsiders” in Mumbai.

In the violence that followed Raj Thackeray’s inflammatory comments, many poor people like taxi drivers suffered at the hands of goons. Many of the taxi drivers in Mumbai are from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

Following Raj Thackeray’s arrest, violence has broken out in parts of Maharashtra.

One person died in a stone-throwing incident in Nashik.

Samajwadi Party leader Abu Asim Azmi has also been arrested.

Both Raj Thackeray and Abu Asim Azimi were later freed on bail.

And you thought Mumbai was part of India.

Don’t tell that to Mumbai politician Raj Thackeray and his goons.

Indian newspapers are full of reports that North Indians (particularly those from the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar) in Mumbai are being attacked by supporters of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, a regional political party founded by Raj Thackeray in Maharashtra.

Living in USA, we’re no strangers to anti-immigrant sentiments.

But, who’d have thought Indians in India would face the wrath of anti-immigrant goons in India.

This is beyond bizarre.

Guess, such things can happen only in India.

U.S. Presidential candidate Barack Obama trounced rivals Hillary Clinton and John Edwards in the Democratic primaries in South Carolina.

Obama got 55% of the votes while Hillary secured 27% and Edwards 18%.

Following his decisive victory in South Carolina, Obama said:

Tonight, the cynics that said what began in the snows of Iowa was just an illusion were told a different story by the good people of South Carolina. After four great contests in every corner of this country, we have the most votes, the most delegates and the most diverse coalition of Americans we’ve seen in a long, long time.

Smart South Carolina voters gave Hillary and her husband former President Bill Clinton, who campaigned aggressively for her, the heave ho.

We are happy.

When it comes to hypocrisy, it’s hard to beat these Gujarati politicians. 

These scumbag Gujarati politicians are such hypocrites that they can’t protect the lives and property of minority Muslims in their state but they want the Government of India to take prompt action to help the Gujarati Non-Resident Indians in Kenya. Many of these Gujarati NRIs in Kenya are most likely not even Indian citizens.

Of course, India should provide whatever assistance it can to the poor Gujaratis of Indian origin caught in the crossfire of violence in Kenya.

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has written two letters to the Central Government of India asking for assistance for the Gujaratis caught in the post-election violence that has enveloped the African nation of Kenya.

But what was this blackguard Narendra Modi doing Continue Reading…

Pakistan has taken billions of dollars from U.S. aid to attack Al Queda and Taliban and diverted it to acquire weapons to counter India, reports the New York Times in the Monday edition of the paper.

The NYT reports that U.S. aid of $5 billion since 9/11 to boost Pakistan’s military efforts against Al Queda and Taliban has been a waste and that some invoices are inflated by as much as 30%.

The NYT article says:

Bush administration and military officials said they believed that much of the American money was not making its way to frontline Pakistani units. Money has been diverted to help finance weapons systems designed to counter India, not Al Qaeda or the Taliban, the officials said, adding that the United States has paid tens of millions of dollars in inflated Pakistani reimbursement claims for fuel, ammunition and other costs.

Besides the $5 billion provided through the Coalition Support Funds,  the U.S. also offers Pakistan $300 million every year for military equipment and training.

The party of Ram Bhaktas - BJP - notched up a decent victory in the Legislative Assembly elections in the western Indian state of Gujarat.

Lord Ram flanked by brother Lakshman & wife Sita
with Hanuman kneeling before him

Here’s the latest Gujarat Election tally:

Party        Seats Won  

BJP            117    
Congress      59       
Others           6       
Total          182 

Both Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi campaigned extensively in the state.

But ultimately Modi’s message seems to have resonated better with the people.

Although Modi came under fire over the 2002 communal riots that led to a wholesale massacre of Muslims in the state, in the end the issue did not carry weight with the largely Hindu electorate.

When Narendra Modi is sworn in as Chief Minister of Gujarat on December 27, this will be his third term as leader of the state.

India’s Supreme Court issued a notice to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for justifying during his recent election campaign the staged killing of a Muslim Sohrabuddin Sheikh in a police encounter.

Modi has already received a notice from India’s Election Commission for his inflamatory campaign speech on December 4 in Mangrol that justified the staged killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh in an Indian-style encounter with the police.

The Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case is now before the Supreme Court.

Gujarat Chief Minister and BJP leader Narendra Modi has received a notice from India’s Election Commission for his inflamatory campaign speech on December 4 in Mangrol that justified the killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh in an Indian-style encounter with the police.

The Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case is now before India’s Supreme Court.

In a notice to Modi asking him to submit his reply by Saturday, the Election Commission of India said:

The Commission has considered the various inputs and the complaint, and has viewed the video recording of the said speech referred to above. The Commission, prima facie, is of the view that the references to Late Shri Sohrabuddin and linking his name to terrorism, made in the speech, amounts to indulging in activity which may aggravate existing differences, creating mutual hatred and causing tension between different communities, and would involve violation of the provision of clause (1) and (3) of Item I of the Model Code of Conduct.

Citing the the Model Code of Conduct, the Election Commission said in its notice to Modi:

No party or candidate shall indulge in any activity which may aggravate existing differences or create mutual hatred or cause tension between different castes and communities, religious or linguistic.

There shall be no appeal to caste or communal feelings for securing votes. Mosques, Churches, Temples or other places of worship shall not be used as forum for election propaganda.

The Election Commission said that a complaint had also been filed by Teesta Setalvad alleging that Modi’s speech amounted to an open exhortation of violence and misuse of religion for political ends and a violation of the Model Code of Conduct.

With the first phase of elections in Gujarat less than a week away, it’s anybody’s guess whether Dr.Death a.k.a. Narendra Modi can trump India’s Italian Bahu a.k.a Sonia Gandhi.

While Chief Minister Narendra Modi is in the dock over communal violence in 2002 that led to the massacre of many Muslims in Gujarat, his arch rival Congress Party chief Sonia Gandhi is an unimpressive leader whose only claim to fame is that she was lucky (or may be unlucky) enough to marry into the Nehru-Gandhi family.

Lately, the Congress party has referred to Modi as Dr.Death for justifying the death of Sohrabuddin Sheikh in a police encounter.

So for the hapless people of the western Indian state of Gujarat, they are caught between the Scylla of Narendra Modi and the Charybdis of Sonia Gandhi.

We don’t envy those poor folks of Gujarat.

The head of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam’s (LTTE) Political Division S.P. Tamilselvan was killed in a Sri Lankan Air Force aerial bombardment on Friday at 6.00 AM local time, according to a LTTE web site.

A note on the LTTE web site said: 

With deep sorrow we announce to the people of Tamil Eelam, the Tamil people living all over the world and the international community that at 6.00am today, Friday 2nd November 2007, Head of our organization’s Political Division, Brig. S P Tamilselvan was killed by the Sri Lankan Air Force aerial bombing. With him Lt Col Anpumani (Alex), Major Mihuthan, Major Nethagy, Lt Adchgivel, and Lt Mavaikkumaran were also killed.

The LTTE has been involved in a bitter war with the Sri Lankan armed forces for over 24 years now in a bid to carve out an independent homeland for the Tamil-speaking minority in the North and East of this island nation.

The war has so far claimed the lives of over 70,000 people in Sri Lanka, including 5,000 since early 2006.

The U.S. State Department has included the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam on its list of foreign terrorist organizations since 1997.

Oh boy, oh boy.

As Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh cozies up to the Bush Administration, his youngest daughter Amrit Singh blasts the same administration for borrowing methods from tyrannical regimes (and she is right).

In her new book Administration of Torture, Manmohan Singh’s U.S-based daughter Amrit Singh plunges the dagger deep into the rotting carcass of the Bush administration, twists the knife around and exposes the maggot of lies and evasions surrounding the brutal torture of prisoners by American soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.

Written in a take-no-prisoner style, Amrit Singh and her co-author Jameel Jaffer tell a compelling and shameful story of pervasive torture, abuse and mistreatment of prisoners by the U.S. military in America’s war on terror.

Through meticulous documentation, Amrit Singh and Jameel Jaffer leave no doubt that American servicemen tortured prisoners through beating, sleep deprivation, electrocution, burning, kicking, intimidation with dogs, waterboarding and occasionally by murder.

Some American soldiers, in fact, have gone beyond torture of detainees by engaging in rape and murder of civilians as well. But American soldiers’ atrocities on civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan is a story for another day.

Administration of Torture tears into the Bush administration for merely talking the talk on commitment to democracy and human rights but not walking the walk when it comes to action.

 
Amrit Singh
(Courtesy: ACLU)

A graduate of Yale Law School, Cambridge and Oxford Universities and a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, Amrit Singh

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