At the end of the baithak, the top BJP leader and leader of the opposition in Lok Sabha, Lal Krishna Advani, is firmly entrenched in his position. So is the senior leader and leader of the opposition in Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley!

The only decision of any consequence relates to the top BJP leader in Rajasthan, Vasudhara Raje.

Vasundhara Raje came under severe attack earlier when she goofed up the Gujjar tangle as the Chief Minister of Rajasthan causing the problem to spill over to neighbouring states thereby converting a local problem into a national problem. The whole issue was handled in a ham-handed fashion.

Not only did Vasundhara Raje antagonize Gujjars by letting loose Meenas on them instead of dealing with the problem through security forces, she also ended up antagonizing the Meenas in the end. This and other issues such as issue of licenses for liquor vends that led to the debacle of the BJP at the Assembly as well as Lok Sabha elections have in a way proved that the BJP’s experiment of translocation of a leader from one state to another has more or less failed. The Congress party has never done this.

However, Vasundhara Raje’s continuing popularity with the party MLAs in Rajasthan resulting in a show of strength which was aimed at challenging the central leadership of the BJP has the central leadership worried. It would be interesting for the central leadership to unearth the secret of her strength.

Following repeated attempts, the central leadership has managed to persuade her to step down as its leader in Rajasthan. She may have to be rehabilitated with a party post in the headquarters of the BJP as was being offered to her. If that happens, she can be expected to give the party president Rajnath Singh some sleepless nights. After all, it was Rajnath Singh and late Sahib Singh Verma who were most strident in demanding her head after the Gujjar mess up.

By now, it is absolutely clear that the real reason behind the exit of Jaswant Singh from the party is not his book on Jinnah but something else. Many in the BJP who demanded his expulsion from the party for his comments on Jinnah and Sardar Patel may not have read his book from cover to cover.

Whether the BJP likes it or not, the expulsion of Jaswant Singh has set off a chain reaction. Sudheendra Kulkarni, long term associate of Atal Behari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani who spearheaded the BJP election campaign for the Lok Sabha elections, has parted company citing differences in ideology as the reason for his exit. Arun Shourie too has been critical of the goings on in the BJP although he has not been dealt with so firmly. In the middle of all this, former head of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, K.S. Sudharshan, has jumped on to the bandwagon that is praising Jinnah. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is the ideological parent of the right wing Bharatiya Janata Party.

As a result of these unpleasant events, lots of skeletons are tumbling out of the BJP’s closets. For one thing, Jaswant Singh, Brajesh Mishra and Yashwant Sinha have now confirmed what Farooq Abdulla had claimed before the Lok Sabha elections—that Advani was fully aware of the swapping of terrorists for the crew and passengers of Indian Airlines flight number IC-814.

In any case, Advani’s statement that he did not know of this swap is intriguing. He was the Home Minister at that point of time and he should have been the first to know of this. If he was kept in the dark, he must have learnt this from the newspapers next morning as the rest of India did. Then, what kept him from resigning from his Home Minister’s post as a protest against this transgression? Why did he have to save this piece of information for his autobiography?

By revealing that the RSS is in favour of younger BJP leaders in the range of 50-60 years of age taking over reigns of the party, the new RSS chief, Mohan Bagwat, has made things difficult for the oldies. For one thing, it has dampened the spirit of the likes of Murali Manohar Joshi who was hoping that he would emerge stronger after the chintan baithak.

In short, Bhagwat’s call might force senior leaders to pack up and languish in the backrooms of the party. But, who will take over the reigns?

Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj are not a mass leaders. Narendra Modi has a mass base but that is in Gujarat. There is no way he can replicate the Gujarat model on India. He has already got a taste of that during the last Lok Sabha elections. Uma Bharti is a spent force. Varun Gandhi? Every sensible leader in BJP is having second thoughts about him.

Unlike the Congress party which has Rahul Gandhi, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Sachin Pilot to name a few promising young leaders, the BJP does not seemed to have a crop of young leaders. At least, they have not been showcased like the young Congress leaders. So, who are the dark horses Mohan Baghwant had on his mind when he hinted that BJP has a good crop of leaders in that range?

Where the BJP goes from here depends largely on who takes over reigns of the BJP at this stage. It depends on how seriously the process of rebuilding the party is taken. That might call of some tough decisions because if you look under the carpet now, all you see is hypocrisy and petty politics.

The Gurgaon Police have hit upon a novel idea to deal with drunken driving, according to The Hindustan Times—a national daily published from the Indian capital, New Delhi.

Gurgaon is witnessing growing incidences of driving after heavy drinking which results in accidents, drunken brawls and violent incidents of road rage. Of the 4,183 cases registered since January this year, over 3,400 cases have been registered during the last three months.

The local police have decided to post the names and addresses of repeat offenders together with their photographs on the police website. Joint Police Commissioner, Alok Mittal explains: “This will not only discourage them but also other drivers from committing the crime of drink-driving.”

The Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Satender K. Gupta claims that their drive against drunken driving is yielding results. The Regional Transport Office is also being requested to cancel the licences of drivers who are booked repeatedly for drunken driving.

Gurgaon is a burgeoning city in Haryana adjoining south Delhi which grew at an unimaginable pace following land crunch in Delhi.

The people who dub “secularism” as “pseudo-secularism” find repose in Mohammad Ali Jinnah when they decide to establish their secular credentials.

It has happened not once but twice. The first time when the Bharatiya Janata Party top leader Lal Krishna Advani paid a visit to Pakistan…he was all praise for Muhammad Ali Jinnah who was largely responsible for the partition of India. And, now, senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh praises Jinnah in his book “Jinnah—India, Partition, Independence” and criticizes Jawahar Lal Nehru and Sardar Patel for their roles in the partition of India.

The Bharatiya Janata Party has rightly condemned Jaswant Singh’s stand on these issues. But, the BJP president has displayed small mindedness by standing up for Sardar Patel (whose name the BJP was at one point of time trying to hijack) and keeping silent on Jawahar Lal Nehru with whom the greatest BJP leader to date, Atal Behari Vajpayee, was trying to draw comparisons with throughout his political career.

The fact of the matter is that Mahatma Gandhi, Jawahar Lal Nehru and Sardar Patel were all freedom fighters. All of them were congressmen. The BJP has not produced anyone so far who can measure up to any of them.

Gandhi was a missionary who helped India win freedom through a weapon hitherto unknown—non-violence. Nehru was a visionary who gave this world the “non-aligned movement” which gave nation states the option of remaining neutral towards the superpowers. He is also credited for his role in preparation of the blueprint for industrialization and development of independent India. And, Patel, was a great unifier who consolidated the map of independent India. All of them were great in their own ways. All of them were statesmen. All of them were stalwarts of their time. Jinnah cannot to measure up to any of these great men. He was a dwarf in front of them.

The trouble with India is that we erode the glories of our motherland through criticism. China annexed Tibet. But, do you find a single Tibetan criticizing the Dalai Lama for it?
Then, why criticize Gandhi, Nehru and Patel? Whatever else they did, they gave us the freedom to breath in the independent India. If you choose to peer through a telescope, you cannot see anything nearer home.

The BJP has to learn to be more magnanimous. It has to learn to respect our forefathers. We all make wrong decisions. We all make mistakes. But, those decisions are tied to a time period. Those decisions are tied so specific circumstances. We cannot judge them in hindsight. The BJP must understand that no disciple can hope to achieve enlightenment by criticizing his guru. We must learn to respect our leaders.

Look who is talking—Jaswant Singh—of all the people! There is an old saying: “Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones at others.”

Okay,…so Mahatma Gandhi, Jawahar Lal Nehru and Sardar Patel kept silent when India was being partitioned. But, they did not do what Jaswant Singh did.

Jaswant Singh accompanied the three dreaded Pakistani terrorists to Kandahar to free the Indian Airlines flight IC-814 and all aboard that flight in the dubious deal that brought shame to the nation. It was a slap on the faces of dozens of security personnel who sacrificed their lives to apprehend them. Was that a wise decision? Was that a right decision?

If we hold Gandhi, Nehru and Patel responsible for partition, we must hold Vajpayee, Advani and Jaswant Singh responsible for the irresponsible release of these dreaded terrorists. Much of Pakistani terrorism that we are facing today is the direct result of this deal. So many security personnel and people are still losing their lives in terrorist attacks.

As far as Jaswsant Singh is concerned, he is Rajput who deserted his battlefield in Rajasthan to take refuge in northeast India during the last elections. He could not even stand up to his opponents in his home state. What right does he have to criticize Indian statesmen?

In short, Delhi is getting a facelift. And,the list of activities which is going to gather momentum and enter the fast track during the next year is almost endless. Thanks to Commonwealth Games 2010.

All these, because the Commonwealth Games Committee needs assurance from the government that it will have a minimum level of infrastructure in place before the event in order to host the Commonwealth Games.

There is no external funding for developing this infrastructure. On the contrary, we have offered a sop of US dollars 100,000 to every participating country to develop training facilities for athletes in their countries. That includes countries such as Australia, Canada and Newzealand.

The government hopes to recover the expenditure of hosting the Commonwealth Games from sponsorships, sale of television rights, tourism etc. The Commonwealth Games are just 13 months away. Those who are following the preparations for the Games know that there is hardly any effort to hard-sell this event. In fact, there is no tangible marketing effort as of now. How may sponsors do we have for this event. Sponsorship agreements should have been finalized by now.

The Commonwealth Games 2010 is a 12-day event in October 2010. The Government of Delhi and the Government of India are going to such lengths to please and impress the visitors who would be here for just12 days.

The people of Delhi and the people of India who live here 365 days of the year are, however, doomed to roads riddled with potholes, street lights that glow during the day and go off at night, traffic signals that don’t work always, water-logged streets and what not?

Many of the projects for the Commonwealth Games 2010 are behind schedule. Some of them may not be complete before the games. China handled the Beijing Olympics, which required infrastructure on a much larger scale, so efficiently. Projects were complete months ahead of schedule. We simply refuse to learn from good examples.

The question is: why do we have to wait for an event such as the Commonwealth Games to develop our infrastructure? Why can’t we have a state-of-art infrastructure as a matter of routine and do justice to our tax payer’s money?

The best way to give something back to the tax payers is by providing better infrastructure because it improves their quality of life in real terms. Why can’t we invest tax payer’s money on something which benefits every Indian rather than spending it on bailing out sick public sector units? That would also help us to be ever-ready for such events and there would be no fear of failing to complete the projects on time.

A tsunami alert was issued for India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Indonesia and Thailand by The Pacific Tsunami Warning. It was later withdrawn. A similar earthquake had triggered the 2004 tsunami which affected Southeast Asian nations bordering the Indian Ocean. Though Sri Lanka does not figure in the list of nations affected, common sense dictates that it could not have escaped the earthquake because of its geographic co-ordinates in relating to the epicenter of the earthquake.

Tremors were also felt at Chennai, Bhubaneshwar and Calcutta in India. No casualty or major damage has been reported so far. The epicenter of today’s earthquake is believed to be 163 miles to the north of Port Blair in Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Another earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Ritcher scale hit Tokyo, the capital city of Japan earlier on Sunday.

A massive typhoon in China is believe to have displaced over a million Chinese people more recently.

From the look of it, Asia seems to be reeling under a series of natural disasters. Strong surface winds predicted in the Indian Ocean does nothing to improve the situation.
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Gayatri Devi was the daughter of the Maharaja of Cooch Behar and widow of Maharaja “Jai” Man Singh of Jaipur. Sawai Man Singh was an international polo player and he already had two wives when Gayatri Devi married him. Gayatri Devi married Sawai Man Singh against the wishes of her near and dear ones in view of the age difference and the fact that her suitor was twice married. But, soon after Gayatri Devi’s marriage to Sawai Man Singh, his earlier wives were relegated to the background and she occupied the centre stage of Jaipur royalty.

Maharaja Sayaji Rao III was Gayatri Devi’s paternal grand father and Maharani Chimnabai of Baroda was her maternal grand mother.

Gayatri Devi was a ravishing beauty. She figured in the list of the “World’s Ten Most Beautiful Women” put out by Vogue magazine.

When Gayatri Devi won the Lok Sabha elections for the first time on a Swatantra Party ticket in 1962 defeating her congress rival with a record margin, she was described as “the woman with most staggering majority that anyone has ever earned in an election” by President John F. Kennedy of the USA. She was again elected to the Parliament in 1967 and 1971.

During her early childhood as Princess of Cooch-Behar, Gayatri Devi was a tomboy of sorts. She shot her first panther at the age of 12. Gayatri Devi was educated at Shanti Niketan and then in London. The royal family of Cooch Behar was highly westernized.

Gayatri Devi was born to Maharani Indira Devi and her father was Maharaja Jitendra Narayan Bhup Bahadur in London on May 23, 1919. She was named Gayatri Devi on the advice of Hindu astrologers. However, her friends knew her as Ayesha, the name of the heroine of the novel her mother was reading at the time of her birth.

Gayatri Devi did not see eye to eye with Indira Gandhi who abolished privy purses a privilege extended to the royal families of erstwhile princely states. During the emergency when rights of the citizens were curtailed, raids were carried out at Jaipur palaces and Gayatri Devu was subsequently imprisoned for several months in Delhi’s Tihar Jail.

Gayatri Devi’s autobiography entitled “A Princess Remembers” ghost written by Santha Rama Rau was well received in the market and has gone into several print runs.

Gayatri Devi was widowed when Sawai Man Singh died in the polo field. Thereafter, his son Colonel Bhawani Singh became the Maharaja and his wife Padmini became the Maharani.

As Rajmata, Gayatri Devi, continued to hold sway over the people of Jaipur and she applied herself to social welfare activities. Education of women was a matter of prime concern for her and she has financed several schools and other educational institutions in Jaipur. The Maharani Gayatri Devi College for Girls stands out as a premier institution of her educational projects.

Whatever she did, Gayatri Devidid in style. She had an air of aristocracy around her and she left her indelible impression on everything she did. I think that is how Gayatri Devi would have liked to be remembered.

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Rain came down in torrents bringing Sahstradara to Delhi. In no time, there were thousands of rainwater streams flowing all over Delhi!

When I pulled out my car from the parking lot, I knew I was in for a rainy day. I seldom set the wiper on the windscreen of my car on ‘high.’ But, last evening, I had to do it. In spite of that the visibility was poor. Fresh rain water kept sweeping across the windscreen even before the wiper blades managed to wipe it clean.

As I drove into the main road, my worst fears came true. The roads were waterlogged and there was a massive traffic jam. Drivers were in a hurry to move out of the waterlogged areas. In the process, they created more traffic jams…everyone trying to outrun the others.

As if that was not enough, the traffic signals chose to go off at that time. While some traffic cops got drenched trying to bring some semblance of order in the traffic, some others vanished from the scene adding to the chaos.

Some inexperienced drivers shot through waterlogged streets in a hurry to get out of the mess and braked when they approached the vehicle in their front. That is all they needed…water entered the engine through the exhaust pipe. That would cost them a few thousand rupees to get the car started once again and they can leave the car in water for the rest of the night and come back the next morning accompanied by a mechanic to retrieve it.

I, for one, learnt my lessons in driving through waterlogged streets in good time. Whenever I found the water level higher than the exhaust pipe level, I would shift to second gear and wade through it slowly never once taking my foot off the accelerator. So long as you have exhaust fumes pushing out, water cannot gush in. That is pure logic.

Finally, I reached the Press Club. I found the Club unusually crowded. That was because people who would sit in the lawns had to be accommodated inside due to rain.

As I ordered my first drink, I found an uninvited guest entering the Press Club. There are three ways you can gain entry into the Press Club. First, you must be a member of the Club. Two, you have to be a family member of one of the members. Or, three, you must be a guest of one the members in which case you can gain entry by paying the requisite guest entry fee.

But, rain entered the Press Club without permission. It was neither a member nor a family member of a member. Nor even a guest. And, it did not even pay the guest entry fee. Even the watchman did not stop it. It just entered the Press Club in full flow and inundated the entire club in no time.

That is all you needed. Photographers who had gulped down a few drinks went shutter happy. Not to be outdone, the others too pulled out their mobile phones to record this historic event.

It is not as if this is the first time when the Press Club has been flooded. The last time it happened was some 15 years ago.

Many raised their feet to avoid the water that was rushing in. Others rolled up their pants. I have always believed that there is child in all of us. That child came alive in one of the members last evening when he quickly made a paper boat and set it on sail in the flooded Press Club!

Contrary to popular belief, history is not an account of our glorious past. Nor is it a glorious account of our past. History is, in fact, a glorified account of the past.

In 99 out of a 100 cases, what we read as history is the version of an event as recorded by the victor. History is never written by the vanquished. So, it is, more often than not, lop-sided view of events.

History is also suppression of facts.

Many an historical events are results of invasions and conquests. When there is a battle or a war, the victorious army kills all the men amongst their opponents or makes captives out of them, rape their women and destroy their archives.

By doing this, they do three things in one go.

One, they put an end to the growth of the community of the vanquished. Two, they perpetuate and enhance their own lineage through the women belonging to the vanquished community. And, three, they destroy the history of the vanquished community.

How many communities have been wiped out from the pages of history by the victors?
Nobody knows. It must be in millions.

Yet, we read history books and believe what we read in them without once stopping to think as to how much of it is laden with lies.

Why? Because,…we too belong to the community of victors. That is why we are here. That is why we are alive and kicking.

What we read as history today is a glorified account of our past. It glorifies us. It glorifies our community. It glorifies our ancestors. So, we lap it up without any second thoughts.

Long live the history of the world laden with half-truths, suppressed information and lies!

With the attack on Mir Kazim Ali Khan in Melbourne on Monday (reported in the Delhi edition of The Hindustan Times on June 24, 2009), the number of attacks in the ongoing series of attacks on Indians in Australia has gone up to 16.

The Australian government can no longer label these attacks as petty crimes. Nor can it claim that there is no racial angle to these attacks.

These attacks prove one of the two things.

One: that these are indeed racial attacks in which case Australian government needs to do more than provide lip service by trying to explain this away as petty crimes and deal with this as such.

Two: that these are common crimes in which case Australia cannot claim to be a safe country no matter what kind of statistics it chooses to throw at us.

The total area of Australia is 7,686,850 sq km. By comparison, the total area of India is less than half of Australia at 3,300,000 sq. km. The population of Australia is estimated at 20,434,176. By comparison, India’s estimated population is about 1,103,371,000 which is more than five times the population of Australia.

The pressure on land and other resources is ten times more in India as compared to Australia. So, the safety and security in Australia cannot be determined by the number of crimes committed. All these figures have to be viewed against the backdrop of the larger picture taking into account all the factors that lead to crime.

The attacks have been too many and too frequent. Strangely, only Indians are being targeted each time except for one. It is too much of a coincidence if it is true. The emerging pattern of crime is alarming.

When a similar attack was carried out on Indians in Canada recently, the Canadian government responded immediately by rounding up all the four miscreants and charging them with racial attacks. A similar response is imperative in Australia as only such an action can restore the confidence of the Indians in Australia.

Considering the fact that a huge chunk of the expatriate students in Australia come from India, it might cut into the Australian economy where education is a big draw from the economy point of view.

In any case, enough is enough. The time for explanations and justifications is over. It is time for the Australian government to act and show to the world that a government which can maintain some semblance of law and order still exists in Australia.

Ganshyam managed to kill four police officers including a company commander of the Provincial Armed Constabulary after being isolated from over a dozen members of his gang with whom he was moving at the time of the encounter. Inspector General of Police V K Gupta, Deputy Inspector General S K Singh and Special Task Force in charge of Allahabad Navendu Singh were among the five police officials who were injured in the encounter. Thereafter, Additional Director General of Police (Law & Order) Brij Lal took over the reins of the operation.

The police lobbed a grenade at Ganshyam’s hideout to smoke out the dacoit, who single-handedly engaged the 500-strong police force and kept it on its toes, and followed it up with intermittent gunfire. Alarmed by the sudden spurt in police action, Ganshyam climbed up the stairs and jumped off the roof of a house where he was holed up and tried to flee to the nearby jungle using a drain for cover before he was given a hot chase for and shot down by the police.

Ganshyam goes by the alias “Naam” and carried a reward of Rs.50,000 on his head from the state government. Though he was nowhere near dacoits “Gujjar” and “Daduwa” who were liquidated by the Uttar Pradesh Police in recent years, the reward in no way indicated how dangerous and dreaded Ganshyam was. If he had escaped during the encounter, he would have been a greater terror in the area than Gujjar and Daduwa.

Over 12 cases of dacoity, murder and extortion are registered against Ganshyam and his gang in Chitrakoot which is part of the Bundelkhand region bordering Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh which has been decoit-infested for decades and produced some of the most dreaded dacoits of India. His gang has killed two policemen in the past.

The police recovered a .315 bore gun and hand grenades from Ganshyam. The Jamauli village in Chitrakoot where he was hunted down is inhabited by Kewats, the community to which Ganshyam belongs. Over 12 cases of dacoity, murder, kidnapping and extortion are registered against him.

At the end of the 52-hour live encounter covered by Sahara Samay Television Channel, the ADG Brij Lal’s eyes welled up as he claimed that the operation was a great success for the Uttar Pradesh Police though they had to pay a heavy price for it.

Brij Lal said the turning point in the operation came when the police identified the house in which Ganshyam was holed up. He moved from one thatched house to another as the police kept setting them on fire and finally holed up in concrete house made of bricks and mortar.

Hours later Director General of Uttar Pradesh Police, Vikram Singh, held a press conference in Lucknow to hand out details of the operation.