Surgical strike on black money.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi fired a direct shot at India’s endemic corruption with a surprise move on Tuesday to ban the country’s largest currency bills, starting the next morning.

The ban is intended both to curb the flow of counterfeit money and to take aim at terrorist organizations that rely on unaccounted-for cash. It is also expected to help the government clean up a system that has relied on cash to pay bribes and to avoid taxes.

But the announcemet led to an immediate upheaval in the country. Abolishing the current version of the 500 and 1,000 rupee notes will effectively remove 80 percent of the currency in circulation.

A.T.M.s around the country were overrun Tuesday night with people confused about the plan and trying to complete financial transactions before the machines closed the following day. In some places, hundreds stood in line in front of a single A.T.M.

Cash is so prevalent in Indian society that the ban came with a 72-hour exception for paying for hospital bills and airline tickets. 

“It will be disruptive, it will be inconvenient, but in the medium term, it will be very good.”

Mr. Modi was elected in 2014 after running on an anticorruption platform that included a pledge to fight unaccounted-for cash, also referred to as “black money.” The results have been mixed.

Under one tax amnesty program, Indians owned up this year to about $10 billion in income on which taxes had not been paid, the Modi administration said last month. But another effort encouraging people to declare hidden assets and income abroad met with limited success.

“There’s a perception that whatever he has done on the corruption front is not enough,” said Harsh Pant, a professor of international relations at King’s College London, noting that elections in India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, were expected to take place early next year. “Politically he probably felt he needed to do something more visible.”

While the currency plan had been under discussion for some time, few had expected such a bold step. Mr. Modi kept the decision quiet to prevent holders of vast amounts of unaccounted-for cash from outwitting the ban.

The problems run deep.But it is unclear what the full impact of the ban will be. Studies have shown that corruption can be curtailed by reducing cash transactions, but it is unlikely to be eliminated by the move.Even so, the ban on large bills is very likely to hasten India’s transition away from cash. About 78 percent of transactions in India last year were made in cash, compared with 20 percent to 25 percent in the United States, Britain and other countries, according to a report by Google India and the Boston Consulting Group.

The new policy puts India at the “leading edge of countries restricting the use of high-denomination currency notes that are now seen as mostly fueling illegal activities rather than legitimate commerce,” said Eswar S. Prasad, a trade policy professor at Cornell.

As the ban works its way through the system, the real estate market could face a shock.

Indian politicians, among others, not only hold vast amounts of cash, but they are also heavily invested in real estate, where it has historically been easy to convert unaccounted-for money into legal currency. A large percentage of real estate deals are done in unaccounted for cash.

Without that cash, real estate prices could fall sharply. And developers holding large amounts of unaccounted for cash would find it suddenly rendered virtually useless, making it hard for them to pay their bills and finish their projects.

For some time, people will be able to exchange only 4,000 rupees a day. People holding vast sums of unaccounted for cash will find it hard to exchange the money at banks because they will need to explain where they got it, risking tax investigations, experts said

The honest citizen has to face some inconvenience and difficulties but is willing to sacrifice for the cause of nation. Lets just hope it is not just a political play to win more elections but to build a progressive nation.

Never ending Nirbhaya's

Every day when I open a news paper and read there is always another story of a woman, girl or child raped and I again think to myself … Is this the one that’s going to change everything? Is this the one that’s going to keep me up for days contributing to the news media’s coverage? Or is this just another rape?

There is no such thing as “just another rape” for a victim. Beyond the sexual violation, there is the torture. Nirbhaya who was raped on a bus in New Delhi died as the result of not just rape but brutality beyond description. Everybody knows this, and everybody got angry, but anger runs out.

Between then and now, there have been many reports  about rape incidents. Which one was going to be the big one? Is it  that of a five-year-old girl in east Delhi,  a neighbor kidnapped her, raped her and tried to kill her. Then the police tried to bribe the parents 2,000 rupees to not talk about the case or a six-year-old girl assaulted in Delhi, five-year-old girl rapped and killed in Ranchi or another 10 year old girl raped and than locked in jail:

Hindustan Times wrote an article about a study by the Asian Center for Human Rights. It said this: “48,338 child rape cases were recorded during 2001-11, which was an increase of 336% in such cases since 2001 when only 2,113 child rape cases were recorded. The number rose to 7,112 cases in 2011. With 9,465 cases, Madhya Pradesh was on the top of the child rape table, followed by Maharashtra (6,868) and Uttar Pradesh (5,949), while Daman and Diu (9), Dadra and Nagar Haveli (15) and Nagaland (38) reported the least number of child rape cases during 2001-11.”

My question is, are we fit to be called a civilized society? Reading such stories makes my heart say ‘no’

In a more mature and educated world, conversations like ‘don’t let your girl out after dark’ and ‘don’t let her wear that’ don’t happen. Most certainly, people with public profiles do not make statements over microphones and megaphones that make growing boys even more acutely aware of the seemingly barbaric privilege of being a man. It’s the one thing he has over a woman that she can never have. The power to hurt her deeply with his own body.

Our laws allow us to let off the so called juvenile rapist in the Nirbhaya rape and murder case. This man went way beyond his hormones and used unthinkable actions to cause her grievous pain and lethal harm. What sexual pleasure could he have possibly derived through an iron rod gouged into Nirbhaya? And where had he learnt this behavior? I suspect he had seen it done before, and perhaps even tried it before and someone in his society negotiated a fair deal on the victim, left with a bleeding body and a soul damaged beyond repair. The budding rapist probably paid his way through his ‘bad behavior’ and came out for an encore.

If members of society condone rape as “a mistake sons make”, and believe their daughters can be bought off, married off and even disposed off at will, then the fault lies singularly with those of us who know better than to let them. Please don’t tell me that our rape laws are understood by every Indian in every language or that they even take it seriously. It’s a rape, not a piece of meat you are entitled to negotiate over.

Awareness spreads through conversations at home, education in school, what we see in movies and most certainly what we see every day on the news. When was the last time there were serial public debates in every language about the price a rapist should pay for rape?

We are publicly outraged by a censor board disallowing a kiss in a Bollywood movie. It’s time we accept that neither public display of affection nor premarital sex on celluloid teach a boy or men how to rape. Watching other men get away with it does. We don’t need the moral police and khap panchayats and more morons for ministers. We need rape laws that can actually let a common man distinguish the value of right from the price of wrong.

Kashmir of gardens and graves.

Kashmir which continues to bleed has  often been described as “Emerald set in Pearls”, “Jewel of Asia “ and “ Heaven on Earth”.

These enchanting beauties provoked the famous Persian poet Urfi Shiraz to say that” if roasted fowl is brought to Kashmir not only shall it come to life, but shall be on its wings again”. In his first visit to Kashmir, the founder of Mogul Empire, Emperor Zahiruddin Bahar said” if there is a paradise on earth, it is here”.

Such is the indescribable beauty of the snow clad mountains of Kashmir with all its delightful flower beds, luscious green forests, lakes and canals.

Set like a jeweled crown on the map of India, Kashmir is a multi-faceted diamond, changing its hues with the seasons – always extravagantly beautiful. Two major Himalayan ranges, the Great Himalayan Range and the Pir Panjal, surround the landscape from the north and south respectively. They are the source of great rivers, which flow down into the valleys, forested with orchards and decorated by lily-laden lakes.

The Mughals aptly called Kashmir ‘Paradise on Earth’ where they journeyed across the hot plains of India, to the valley’s cool environs in summer. Here they laid, with great love and care, Srinagar’s many formal, waterfront gardens, now collectively known as the Mughal Gardens. Anecdotes of four and five centuries ago describe their love for these gardens, and the rivalries that centered around their ownership. They also patronized the development of art & craft among the people of Kashmir, leaving behind a heritage of exquisite artisan ship among these people and making the handicrafts of the land prized gifts all over the world.

Kashmir is a land where myriad holiday ideas are realized. In winter, when snow carpets the mountains, there is skiing, tobogganing, sledge-riding, etc. along the gentle slopes. In spring and summer, the honey- dewed orchards, rippling lakes and blue skies beckon every soul to sample the many delights the mountains and valleys have to offer. Golfing at 2,700 m above the sea, water-skiing in the lakes and angling for prized rainbow trout, or simply drifting down the willow fringed alleys of lakes in shikaras and living in gorgeous houseboats are some of the most favored ones.  This is my beautiful Kashmir my valley of gardens which sadly turned into VALLEY OF GRAVES.

This is my Kashmir now where killings don’t matter as they happen regularly. Where blood is cheaper than water, Where days are darker then nights.

Many people still have no idea what Kashmir truly is or what it means to be Kashmiri. Being from that part of the world, I’ve seen how many people have no idea what the conflict is or how many have died in that region. The important thing is that in Kashmir according to local activist, Rahim Khursheed around 90000 to 100000 people have been killed and missing. A staggering statistic, yet people around the world are oblivious to this fact.

Human rights abuses in Kashmir is an ongoing issue. The abuses range from mass killings, enforced disappearance,  torture,rape and sexual abuse, to political repression and suppression of freedom of speech. The Indian Army, central reserve police force, border security personnel and various separatist militant groups  have been accused and held accountable for committing severe human rights abuses against kashmiri civilians.

Kashmiri children grow up watching graveyards populate their villages. Locals and human rights groups suspect the graves contain bodies of some of the nearly 8,000 civilians who were "disappeared" during the indiscriminately harsh Indian military campaign against the Pakistan-backed rebels.That rebellion stands largely crushed today. But over half a million Indian troops stationed in camps dotting Kashmir are a constant reminder that the war is far from over. Now the armed militants have been replaced by armies of stone-throwing youth. In the battle of stone versus bullet, the "Gen Next" of Kashmir dies fighting pitch battles and the graves continues to rise in numbers. 

Two decades of military crackdown have transformed Kashmir into a powder keg of bitter memories. Residents often say they are subjected to collective punishment whenever they rise in protest. 

The people in Kashmir feel that for sixty-three years they have lived a life of spiritual suffering, political dis empowerment and mistrust by the Indian state, military brutality and militancy by rebels since 1990. This collective sense of deprivation and disconnection with their past, mixed with the experience of lethal injustice, has been nudging people to find their own place in the world.

“Kashmir is still a favorite destination for tourists but i wonder how much time it will take for Kashmir to be a place to Live In Peace for a Native Kashmiri” be it a Kashiri muslim  or a Kashmiri pandit.

Defination of nationalism = Bharat mata ki jai?

The remarks of the All India Majlise-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi that he won’t raise the slogan ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’, even if someone puts a knife to his throat, became the raging controversy in the Indian mainstream political and social circles. Bollywood actor Anupam Kher went on another extreme when he tweeted that chanting “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” should be the only definition of nationalism for those living in India, all others are escape routes.

In the same context, the famous lyricist and parliamentarian Javed Akhtar earned laurels nationwide for lashing out at Owasi in his farewell speech in Rajya Sabha, when he said, “He (Owasi) said he will not say ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ as the Constitution does not require him to say so. The Constitution even does not ask him to wear sherwani (dress) and topi (cap)... I don’t care to know whether saying ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ is my duty or not, it is my right”.

If we rationally consider these statements, the ones uttered by Mr Owasi and Mr Kher represent orthodox and extreme views while that of Mr Akhtar appears liberal and rational.

On Wednesday March 16, AIMIM MLA Waris Pathan was suspended from the Maharashtra Assembly for refusing to say ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’. In a milieu when allegations and allegiances are marked on the basis of slogans shouted or the refusal to chant one, it may be pertinent to note that Waris Pathan was willing to say ‘Jai Hind‘. His refusal was only for ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’.

Both these slogans emerged during India’s freedom struggle. Both are reverential. Yet, both are markedly different. While in the first, the nation is abstract, in the second it is both abstract and an icon, a goddess, a mother. We know that various religions, including Islam, forbid the practice of idol worship and goddess worship.

Origin of Bharat Mata dates back to the later part of nineteenth century and the inspiration behind this conception was the famous Bengali writer Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (1838-1894). In his novel Anandamath, he wrote the song Vande Matram wherein the land of birth has been personified as Bharat Mata and in a particular stanza symbolized her with the Goddess Durga. He perhaps did it with a view to generate patriotic feelings among Indians to rise against the British rule. The Muslims, however, believe that to sing the song would tantamount to worshipping the deity Bharat Mata, while Islam prohibits idol worship, hence they are against it.

It is true that the majority Muslims look at the BJP and RSS with suspicion. The reasons are many and quite obvious. Firstly, BJP does not pursue appeasement policy unlike Congress and some regional parties. Then BJP’s stand on Article 370 of Constitution, accusations of love-jihad, opposition of beef consumption, talks of withdrawing the minority status to Aligarh Muslim University etc are some of the issues which Muslims feel, are against their interests.

If the likes of Owasi and their vehement opposition to a slogan represent one extreme, the tweet of the Anupam Kher, however well-intentioned, setting new definition of nationalism for Indians represents another extreme. Such a moral policing would perhaps neither be of any help in generating patriotic or nationalist sentiments in this land of diversities nor in any way strengthen our democracy.

While rationalists and liberals in both communities would agree that there is no need of going in semantics of the slogans ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’, ‘Vande Matram’ or ‘Jai Hind’ in the modern times, at they essentially convey the same abstract meaning i.e. our love, respect and allegiance to the land of our birth. Semantics are not so important because it is our love and sentiments for the nation that really matters. Liberals like Javed Akhtar and many others understand this point but those who do not realize should also not be forced to do it with coercion or violence.

Today's ANTI NATIONAL India.

What’s happening? It used to be BJP versus the rest. Then the tolerant fought pitched battles with the intolerant. How did it become nationalists versus anti-nationals?

Is India paying the price for electing Bharatiya Janta Party into power?

Since Modi assumed office in Delhi, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been hurtling the country from one controversy to another.
An atmosphere of fear has been created where any opposition to majoritarian politics is termed anti-national and the questioning of the government’s divisive agenda invites counter protests and blame for vitiating the atmosphere of the country. The state, therefore, has created enemies out of its own citizens by labelling them liberals, seculars, freethinkers and religious minority.

The recent controversy involving New Delhi based Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is an extension of the majoritarian narrative that started with the arrival of Modi. The campus debate on capital punishment and politics in Kashmir has been blown out of proportion and students have been arrested on charges of sedition. This is an unprecedented situation, where the country is witnessing an undeclared state of emergency and any voice of dissent and non-conformism is being termed as seditious.
The JNU is a popular university in India which excels not only in academics but also in politics; a place where students regardless of their ideological beliefs are made politically aware of the issues affecting the world.
For the first time, we have a situation where a xenophobic mob that holds loyalty with the right-wing government is being imposed on those who question the ruling dispensation. No one is safe, be it the students, academicians or journalists – they are all on the hit-list of the lynch mob, because they don’t subscribe to how Hindu radicals perceive nationalism.

The BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) have always struggled to find their mark in this kind of liberal space. Their rigid worldview does not find space among people who counter their ideological agenda. In order to establish its presence in the university campus, the BJP is trying to use the might of the state machinery to control the bastion of liberal education.


To legitimize their action, the ruling party blamed the students for shouting anti-India slogans in the name of observing the death anniversary of Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri, who was hanged in 2013 for his complicity in the attack on the Indian parliament in 2001. It’s very common for students to debate over the issue of Kashmir and capital punishment. The student wing of the BJP, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) acted as an agent provocateur leading to the president of the JNU students’ union, Kanhaiya Kumar, being arrested on charges of sedition along with two students who have been detained on the same charges.
The JNU campus has debated over the issues of Guru, capital punishment and the Kashmir dispute for many years, but why has it become ‘seditious’ this time?
Why did the state intervene in such a heavy handed manner? Why should the Indian government monitor debates at universities?
It is bizarre to accuse students of being anti-nationals.
This is not only an attack on the campus, but an extremely planned intrusion into the democratic space of India. This is a collaborated attempt to impose a narrow sectarian worldview on the campus which prides itself on its diversity.
Right from the beginning of Modi’s  term, the government has been in a very confrontational mood. It banned a large majority of NGOs and their activities as a means of ‘protecting national interest’. Divisive issues like the beef ban and love jihad were brought to the forefront. When intellectuals and artists came forward to confront the country for rising intolerance, the ruling dispensation unleashed its own supporters on the liberals. In other words, anyone bringing up the issue of intolerance was maligned and hounded. An ecosystem of fear has been created.

With that said, Modi keeps launching ‘Make in India,’ ‘Digital India’ and other programmes to portray his image as a concerned PM in terms of his country’s development, yet he deliberately remains silent on the divisive issues that are agitating the nation; just like he did during the Gujarat Riots. He blames the opposition for this mess, claiming that it’s a conspiracy to destabilize his government.
The first two years are generally the honeymoon period for any new government, but BJP has proven to be a nightmare for the masses in just 20 months.

Pathankot attack: A national embarrassment.

  

                      

                  

On January 2 2016, The Pathankot Air Base in Punjab got attacked by trained militants of Pakistan. While we were busy welcoming the new year, some of our soldiers gave up their lives fighting the terrorists. Their families will forever remember the New Year as a black day in their lives. The incident shook the nation and has raised alarming questions over our national security systems. Predictably, the long-drawn out militant attack on the Pathankot airbase has generated waves of criticism across the country with some finding fault with the government’s handling of the issue, and others questioning the entire rationale of Modi’s Pakistan strategy and focusing on the conduct of operations in Pathankot.

Pattern of terrorists sneaking in from Pakistan and launching attack on high profile targets within hours of infiltration has been the new pattern in the last couple of years. In July this year a similar attack was launched in Gurudaspur by terrorists who came in from across the border.

The Pathankot terror attack is a huge national embarrassment. There can be no arguments over it. It has exposed the inefficiency and incompetence of our intelligence agencies, Punjab Police and the lack of coordination among the various agencies involved in taking on the terrorists and flushing them out.
All this happened near one of the most heavily guarded international borders in the world.
Pathankot incident should be treated like a national embarrassment and some serious actions are needed.
More men on the border
In Jammu and Kashmir, a BSF company (about 100 men) guards an average frontage of 2.75km. In Punjab it covers 5.6km, underlining an urgent need of more men and equipment on international border.
Strengthen intelligence
Garner more real-time actionable inputs, especially from human sources. Also need better-trained officers to glean such intelligence more effectively.
Bust the narcotics route
Thriving cross-border drug smuggling network is suspected to be providing an extensive logistics support to terror outfits based in Pakistan.
A clear structure
For operations involving multiple security agencies like the NSG, army and police, a clear command and control structure can check any gaps in coordination at an operation level.
Bridging the gap
Experts pointed out huge gaps in vigilance, planning, coordination and counter-terrorism force application during the operations.
Security audit
A thorough security audit, in a time-bound manner, at all vulnerable military installations would work to address lacunae in the existing security architecture.
Although the main target was “geared to drive a wedge” between India and Pakistan , media on both sides of the border concluded that calling off talks would adhere to the script of those who want to perpetuate the climate of distrust between the two nuclear-armed countries and by not calling off talks immediately after the attack, the Indian government seems to have indicated it will not allow the terrorist groups the satisfaction of achieving those aims. A sustained dialogue is the only fitting answer to terrorist groups and to their handlers inside the Pakistan establishment who wish to destabilize the peace process.
Delhi must, however, bring to the table a clear agenda for the actions it needs to take and expects Pakistan to take on terrorism.
Hope, it will be the last such embarrassment.