The Hindu has published an editorial “Brinjal and beyond.”

Did N Ram the Editor of The Hindu write these words:
“He (India’s environment minister) should ignore the huge pressure from organisations that have no time for the scientific evidence while claiming to speak for the environment and the public.”

The editor is saying Greenpeace has no time for scientific evidence!

Did the editor at least try to get in touch with Professor Gilles-Eric Seralini of the Committee for Independent Research and Information on Genetic Engineering (CRIIGEN) – who called Bt Brinjal: Bt Brinjal Unfit for Human Consumption.

The United Kingdom is a ‘democracy’ with a Monarch. Oxymoron.

In such a society, this news shouldn’t be big: Guardian gagged from reporting parliament

If the citizens have no right to know what’s happening in the Parliament… it represents the biggest challenge to democracy – a big one.

For the sake of democracy, Chayakada is reproducing the entire Guardian report.

The Guardian has been prevented from reporting parliamentary proceedings on legal grounds which appear to call into question privileges guaranteeing free speech established under the 1688 Bill of Rights.

Today’s published Commons order papers contain a question to be answered by a minister later this week. The Guardian is prevented from identifying the MP who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found.

The Guardian is also forbidden from telling its readers why the paper is prevented – for the first time in memory – from reporting parliament. Legal obstacles, which cannot be identified, involve proceedings, which cannot be mentioned, on behalf of a client who must remain secret.

The only fact the Guardian can report is that the case involves the London solicitors Carter-Ruck, who specialise in suing the media for clients, who include individuals or global corporations.

The Guardian has vowed urgently to go to court to overturn the gag on its reporting. The editor, Alan Rusbridger, said: “The media laws in this country increasingly place newspapers in a Kafkaesque world in which we cannot tell the public anything about information which is being suppressed, nor the proceedings which suppress it. It is doubly menacing when those restraints include the reporting of parliament itself.”

The media lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC said Lord Denning ruled in the 1970s that “whatever comments are made in parliament” can be reported in newspapers without fear of contempt.

He said: “Four rebel MPs asked questions giving the identity of ‘Colonel B’, granted anonymity by a judge on grounds of ‘national security’. The DPP threatened the press might be prosecuted for contempt, but most published.”

The right to report parliament was the subject of many struggles in the 18th century, with the MP and journalist John Wilkes fighting every authority – up to the king – over the right to keep the public informed. After Wilkes’s battle, wrote the historian Robert Hargreaves, “it gradually became accepted that the public had a constitutional right to know what their elected representatives were up to”.

Looks like the GAG is based on what BBC and Guardian exposed on Trafigura’s toxic dumping in Ivory Coast. Wikileaks has the full Minton Report.

REF:
ABC NEWS [Video]

Statutory Rape

More than 20,000 Tamil civilians were killed in the final throes of the Sri Lankan civil war, most as a result of government shelling, an investigation by The Times has revealed. Read the full story »

This photograph, taken by The Times, shows the graves of Tamil Tiger fighters lying in regimented lines in the former no fire zone
Catherine Philp/The Times

It seems Indian penises are in a league of their own.

A BBC report, Condoms ‘too big’ for Indian men, says,

“A survey of more than 1,000 men in India has concluded that condoms made according to international sizes are too large for a majority of Indian men.”

Five years back, BBC carried another report: Large condoms for S African men

A range of extra-large condoms has been launched in South Africa, to cater for “well-endowed” men.

“A large number of South African men are bigger and complain about condoms being uncomfortable and too small,” said Durex manager Stuart Roberts.

It’s another matter that the Indian Premier League is being played in South Africa at the moment.

Shashi Tharoor’s website has had a facelift.

Check out what Tharoor’s voters are wearing… You’ll find guys in pants and women in short skirts…

I can’t imagine a single woman wearing short skirt going to the polling booth in Thiruvananthapuram.

Why are these qualities necessary? Because of the challenges and possibilities that lie ahead for Thiruvananthapuram, for Kerala and for India.

* Shashi Tharoor is highly qualified, having earned four degrees, including a PhD., by the age of 22, and been awarded two subsequent honorary doctorates by prestigious foreign universities.
* He has led a global life at the United Nations that has been about reconciling the differing positions and attitudes of people from different parts of the world.
* In his writings he has displayed a profound patriotism, deep insights into the problems facing India, and a passion to help the nation overcome them.
* In his UN career he has repeatedly proved himself a reformer witha remarkable ability to address and solve problems. At the same time, he is “one of us”:
* He has experiences like any other Malayali who has left home to travel to some foreign land to make a living.
* His success is anchored in his Malayali up bringing and the cultural parameters instilled in him, including by annual visits to his ancestral village in Kerala:hard work, self-respect and eagerness to move forward.
* He is determined to use his considerable skills and energies to bringing the best to the people of Thiruvananthapuram.

As Shashi Tharoor says:

“To represent the great citizens of this wonderful city would be an honour, but it is more important for Thiruvananthapuram’s own sake that the people study all the candidates and vote for the person who can help them the most to improve their daily lives.”

So what is he going to do for the people of Thiruvananthapuram?

After watching the Guardian video, one thing is very evident – the policeman had no business in shoving and hurting a citizen. Let there be NO DOUBT on whether the shove had anything to do with Ian Tomlinson’s death; the man is dead. The evidence is clear.

Tomlinson didn’t die of natural causes; he was pushed to death by a cop – whose first and foremost responsibility in a democracy is to protect people and not protect property.

Britain or England has never been a proper democracy; they still have a Queen and a royal family that is a symbol of a rotting system. People of England have to rise and claim what is rightfully theirs – a democratic nation.

Brown, Blair, John Major, Margaret Thatcher – all are the same. They are pro-business, pro-money, pro-capital, and pro-corporate. They are anti-people and anti-democratic.
If Tomlinson’s murder doesn’t cause a tsunami of political upheaval in Britain (What the hell is United Kingdom?), rest of the world would know for sure that the citizens of the British nation don’t have a conscience. They never had a conscience when Great Britain was one of the biggest Imperial / Colonial powers of the world.

At least now, people of Britain must stand up for democracy and justice.

***

This is also the time to remember a genuine man, Dr David Kelly

He was found dead in July 2003. Why he “had to die” is simply cause he was unwilling to be an accomplice to the biggest lie ever created by Blair and his sidekick Alastair Campbell – to start a war in Iraq. Kelly knew there were no WMDs.

Even Blair and Bush knew there were no WMDs. It is highly unlikely that these two war criminals will ever be sent to The Hague for a ‘fair trial’. If the British people really care about democracy and freedom, they should get hold of Blair and hand him over to the International Court of Justice.

On October 15, 2007, it was discovered, through a Freedom of Information request, that the knife with which Kelly allegedly committed suicide had no fingerprints on it.

Did every Briton actually believe the biggest *&%wash in the history The Hutton Inquiry?

]]> http://chayakada.wordpress.com/2009/04/09/the-british-conscience/feed/ 1 McMenon http://chayakada.wordpress.com/2009/04/05/tharoorian-capitalism/ http://chayakada.wordpress.com/2009/04/05/tharoorian-capitalism/#comments Sun, 05 Apr 2009 12:42:54 +0000 McMenon http://chayakada.wordpress.com/?p=266 ]]>

Shashi Tharoor, who worked at the United Nations for 29 years, is now a Congress Party candidate for the Lok Sabha (Indian Parliament) election. Must be quite a journey for Tharoor after having spend these many years in New York to actually try to represent the people of Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum).

Here is a bit from an interview he gave to Rediff.com in May 2007.

Afras Ventures, Dr Tharoor said, would promote investment “from wherever we can get it — it can be the US, it can be the Gulf countries, whatever. The idea is to see whether we can do something for development. The private sector frankly now is the engine of development, so I want to see what I can do in that area.”

Surprise, surprise! “The private sector frankly now is the engine of development”

What he really meant in his heart is, “The private sector frankly now is the engine of private development.”

Malayalees are smart enough to understand the real meaning of altruism in corporates.

If he so believes in private sector, why the heck is he running for a public office? Is it because he thinks being in the public office can actually do wonders to “private development.”

How could Shashi escape the American influence? After all, he spent 29 long years in the UN and lived many years in a country of “lobbying politicians for corporate benefits.”

ഉണ്ടോ‌ണ്ടിരുന്ന നായര്‍ക്കു വിളി വന്ന പോലെ – തരൂരിനും വന്നു ഒരു വിളി. ഇനി ഉള്ള കാലം നാട്ടുകാരെ സേവിച്ചു സേവിച്ചു അങ്ങിനെ ഞാനും ഒരു വലിയ കാശ് കാരന്‍ നായരാവും!

പപ്പനാഭന്റെ മണ്ണില്‍ നിന്ന് തന്നെ തുടക്കം. ഭേഷ്!

Came across this correspondence in some online mail archive. Makes an interesting read.

——-

14 February 2009

An Open Letter to Shashi Tharoor

You are aware that Coca Cola plant at Plachimada, Palakkad in your native State of Kerala has been shut down since 2004 as they failed to get the requisite licenses from the Kerala Pollution Control Board and the Perumatty Panchayat.

The primary reasons for this are:

Coca Cola polluted the ground water with deadly toxic and carcinogenic cadmium and lead which Coca Cola does not list under raw materials and refuse to provide an explanation for their presence Coca Cola distributed and spread around these deadly toxic and carcinogenic cadmium and lead through their waste sludge and slurry under the guise that these are good soil nutrients Coca Cola did not supply piped water to the affected families as ordered by the Supreme Court Monitoring Committee on Hazardous Waste Coca Cola, as the single most largest extractor of ground water extracting at the highest rate, largest transporter of water to the outside through softdrinks, a non-essential luxury good, contributed the largest to the depletion of ground water

The anti Coca Cola struggle launched in 2002 in Plachimada by primarily the Adivasis and Dalits, is the longest popular struggle in the history of Kerala supported by the widest sections of the people of Kerala and of all political hues.

You may be aware that protests have been going on elsewhere in the country against many other Coca Cola plants as in Mehdi Ganj and Kala Dera for similar destruction of environment, water and livelihoods. You may also be aware about the allegations against Coca Cola for getting its own workers assassinated in Columbia through the drug mafia which was to be enquired into by ILO. Coca Cola products were also indicted by Centre for Science & Environment, New Delhi , for producing and selling bottled water and softdrinks with pesticide and other contaminants. Latest in the series is the $7.59 million penalty that Coca Cola agreed to pay in February 2009 to the City of American Canyon in Napa County , USA , for violations in wastewater treatment permit since 2005 till May 2008 that resulted in high concentrations of contaminants that interfered with the City’s wastewater treatment process and posed an environmental hazard.

A former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, author, writer-columnist and an advisor to several institutions and reportedly nurturing political ambition, it is with shock and dismay that we, in your native Kerala, have to see you as a Member of the Advisory Board of Coca-Cola India Foundation. We condemn your insensitivity and unconcern to align with the criminal Coca-Cola against the people of PLACHIMADA..

VELUR
SWAMINATHAN. SECRETARY
Plachimada Adivasis Samrakshana Sangham
And
R.AJAYAN.CONVENER
Plachimada Samara
Aikyadhardya Samithy

R.Ajayan
Convener
Plachimada Solidarity Committee
Ph:- Res 0471-2730464
Mob- 09847142513
Res Add – Neerajam,
Kudappanakunnu,
Trivandrum-695043
Kerala , India

==================================================================

26 February 2009

An Open Response to “an Open Letter to Shashi Tharoor”

Dear Mr Swaminathan and Mr Ajayan,

Thank you for sending me your letter on February 24. I note, however, that for several days prior to your sending it to me, you had already released it to the media and in various Internet forums. It would appear that your communication was therefore not designed to elicit a genuine answer from me, but rather to score political points. Nonetheless I am doing you the courtesy of taking your public charges in good faith and responding to them point by point.

You express your “shock and dismay” at my membership of the Advisory Board of Yatn, the Coca-Cola India Foundation and go on to “condemn [my] insensitivity and unconcern to align with the criminal Coca-Cola against the people of Plachimada.” First of all, I should point out the difference between the Foundation and the company. I serve, alongside several renowned social activists and human rights leaders, under the chairmanship of the former Supreme Court Chief Justice and former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Justice J. S. Verma, on the advisory board of a purely philanthropic organization. The Foundation is financed by the Coca-Cola Company as part of its corporate social responsibility, which is a practice that I have encouraged around the world since my United Nations days, when UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan launched the “Global Compact” to encourage corporations around the world to adhere to certain globally-accepted principles and practices. Far from “aligning against the people”, the purpose of encouraging such a Foundation is precisely to ensure that the company looks beyond its commercial bottom-line and serves the people of our country.

I have been, and remain, strongly committed to the belief that in our liberalizing economy, private sector companies should not only maintain the highest employment and labour standards, but also take pro-active steps to benefit the communities in which they operate.. My membership of the Foundation’s Advisory Board aims at promoting such benefits through a number of concrete projects, particularly in the area of safe drinking water, which is in such short supply in our country.

You level a number of charges against the Coca-Cola company’s operations at the Plachimada plant, notably relating to ground-water exploitation and pollution of groundwater through toxic waste from its plant. As I stressed, I do not represent the company in any way, but I am fully aware that such charges led to the plant ceasing operations in 2004. Needless to say, far from being “unconcerned”, I enquired into the matter to satisfy myself that these allegations had been thoroughly examined by the competent authorities. I note that a Division Bench of the Kerala High Court ruled, in a judgement dated 7 August 2005, that the company was not guilty of unfairly exploiting the groundwater, and that indeed the groundwater in Plachimada continued to dry up after the company ceased operations, leading the Court to conclude that other factors, including a shortage of rainfall, were to blame. The Court based its conclusions on a number of detailed independent expert studies, including one that the Court itself had commissioned from the Centre for Water Resources Development and Management (CWRDM), Kozhikode , which is a part of the Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and the Environment. I do not understand on what basis you are questioning the Kerala High Court’s conclusions.

On the question of ground-water toxins and toxic sludge, I have seen reports from reputed governmental bodies, including the Kerala State Pollution Control Board and the Central Ground Water Board, New Delhi , refuting your charges. Once again, I am unable to understand the scientific basis for your continued charges against the company, and can only conclude that they are politically- motivated.

Finally, with regard to the discontinuation of the supply of drinking water by the company, I note that this supply in fact continued till December 2007, almost four years after the plant’s forced closure, but that it was not practical for the company to continue beyond that date in view of its lack of operations in the area. The Court order required it to supply drinking water to the community only so long as it continued operations there. Nonetheless, the Yatn Foundation intends to give thought to developing a philanthropic project in Kerala in the area of drinking water, an issue to which I have personally attached the highest importance in my interventions on the Advisory Board.

Let me add, in conclusion, and with a heavy heart, how much I deplore both the content and tone of your letter. Since leaving the United Nations, I have been doing my best to promote investment into Kerala, which alone can generate the employment that is so desperately needed by our people. As a Keralite, I am ashamed that our people have to find work elsewhere in India and in the Gulf because the over-politicized atmosphere in Kerala discourages companies from investing in our state. The only result of your agitation over the Plachimada plant has been to close down an investment worth over Rs 80 crores in our state, which provided direct employment to 400 people and indirect employment to more than 5000 persons, including transporters, construction workers, and distributors. While all these people are now out of a job, no one has benefited from your continued protests. Instead, the image of Kerala as a place in which it is unwise for businesses to invest has been reinforced.

It is tragic that actions such as yours ensure that politics overrides the genuine needs of the people. If you are truly concerned about the well-being of the people of Plachimada, I would urge you instead to attempt to do what you can to persuade businesses like Coca-Cola to invest in Kerala and provide employment and drinking water to the people of our state. I would be pleased to join you in such an endeavour.

And instead of being dismayed by my service in such a Foundation, I urge you to applaud whatever help the other Advisory Board members and I can provide to steer the Foundation’s resources towards helping people on issues like safe drinking water, energy resources, waste management, and the development of backward areas.

Yours sincerely,
Shashi Tharoor