An unsung Hero

Baba Amte who fought against caste and religious prejudice and founded clinics for lepers and handicapped children, died in his sleep today at a clinic he founded for the disabled in Chandrapur. He was 93.

Amte was born on Born on 26th December 1914 into a wealthy upper-caste family. Baba Amte has devoted his life to the care and rehabilitation of Leprosy patients, even allowing his body to be used for experiments to grow leprosy germs. His community development project at Anandwan (Forest of Bliss) near Nagpur in Maharashtra, India, is recognised and respected around the world and has done much to dispel prejudice against leprosy victims. Baba Amte also launched the Bharath Jodo (Unite India) movements from Kanayakumari to Kashmir in 1985 and Gujarat to Arunachal Pradesh in 1988, with the mission of establishing peace and raising environmental consciousness.

People like Baba Amte are rare in todays India where people are jostling each other for Bharath Ratnas. If there is one person who deserve Bharath Ratna then its Baba Amte.

My Salute for the Great Soul

One more Hindu Minority District in Kerala

Following the path of Muslim dominated Mallapuram district, Kottayam also became Hindu Minority District in Kerala.

As per the details published by Department of Economics and statistics,  out of 19,53,646 population the so called Minority Religions counts for 9,88,057 while the Hindu population is only 9,63,497.

It may be recalled that the secularists CPM in the state had the distinction of creating firstever Muslim-majority district. The district was created on the basis of religion, adopting vote bank politics.

The current demographic trends in Kerala indicate that within the next five years Hindus will become a minority in the land of Sankaracharya (Kerala).

The new National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme

Two Years back UPA Government rolledout its National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. As per scheme , It aims to provide 100 days of guaranteed wage employment  every year to each rural household that needs work. Since the scheme is specifically designed to help the very poor, it has been decided that work will be provided to one person in a poor family. A very Noble scheme indeed.

However, for last two years Government was at its wits end to find ways to make this program successful. Now they have come up with a Winner Idea.

The Law Commission has proposed reducing the minimum age of marriage for men from 21 to 18 years. This would be great now Boys can Marry straight after their schools. This would be great favour to the guys also since now they are spared from the rigor of going thru the motions of getting a good degree/Good Job to impress Gals. I guess now they will be saying "Will you marry me? I got 95% marks".

Congress again at its old Tricks!

Old Habits rarely die. one of the legacies of Indira gandhi was her subversion of independent constitutional institution. During her time, every constitutional Institution was subverted and was used to further her political agenda.

After almost 50 Years, it took one Mr. T N Seshan to take Election Commission out of clutches of Political Leadership. Most of the elections held after T N Seshan was free an fair(gone were the days when entire J&K Election was rigged by Congress Government). The election held in J&K under Atal Behari Vajpayee was considered as first independent election in J&K.

Now Congress is back with their old tricks. Earlier, they had appointed Navin Chawla who is considered very close to congress. Ford the uninitiated, Navin Chawla was Indira Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi's stooge during the Dark Days of Emergency. His excesses during Emergency is mentioned in Justice Shah Commission report which investigated excesses during Emergency. The Shah Commission, which inquired into the  excesses during the Emergency, indicted Mr Chawla for having been  'authoritarian and callous' and for gross misuse of power "in cynical  disregard of the welfare of citizens". Further, it declared that he was  "unfit to hold any public office which demands an attitude of fair play  and consideration for others".The  Congress has planted Navin Chawla so that he would be the Chief Election Commissioner in 2009 when the general election is due.

One hundred and eighty MPs have signed a petition addressed to the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) asking him to recommend the “removal” of Navin Chawla as Election Commissioner. There is a very good chance that CEC would consider this petition favourably. In an attempt to pre-empt Mr Chawla’s disqualification UPA Govt is contemplating amending the Constitution. Yes You heard it right! UPA is planning to amend Constitution to protect one individual.

A B Bardhan, General Secretary, CPI correctly captured the sentiments when he said "to amend the constitution will be admitting that there is an attempt to save one person. Constitution cannot be changed everyday,''

The issue was reminiscent of an equally partisan and ill-conceived initiative in 1975 by the then prime minister Indira Gandhi, after being unseated from the Lok Sabha by the Allahabad high court.

Keeping one child hungry to feed another

In a highly controversial move, The central government today approved a scheme, providing for 2.5 million pre-matric scholarships to meritorious minority students, entailing an expenditure of Rs 1,868.50 crore during the 11th Plan period. Under the scheme, to be launched during 2007-08, scholarships will be awarded to minority students who are studying in India in government or private schools from classes I to X, including residential government institutes, and eligible private institutes.

In another related Incident, Central Govt. has reduced the Scholarship Benefits for Scheduled Castes . The central government Wednesday said students from the Scheduled Castes obtaining less than 60 percent marks at the higher secondary level will not be considered for the scholarship.

This is consistent with Various other moves of UPA turning Hindus into a second Class Citizen in their own country.

Now some eye Opening facts:

- As per the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) report of March 30, 2007, unemployment rate among Muslims and Hindus of both sexes in urban areas differs by just about 0.5 per cent

- Per Census Report of 2001 Muslim males have higher literacy rate than Hindu males in eleven states (Andhra Pradesh, Andaman & Nicobar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharastra, Orissa, Pondicherry and Tamil Nadu).

- In Kerala, Muslim literacy rate is 89.4 per cent, Hindus (90.2 per cent) and SC/ST (80.8 per cent). Still the Congress manifesto of 2004 declared all Muslims as educationally backwards in Kerala

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