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Demands mount to make Yeddyurappa Karnataka BJP president ahead of 2018 polls

April 4, 2015 by Nasheman

yeddyurappa

Bengaluru: Some top leaders of BJP’s Karnataka unit have been lobbying hard on behalf of former chief minister BS Yeddyurappa to give him state party presidentship at the two-day national executive which began here on Friday.

Senior BJP and Rajya sabha MP Prabhakar Kore on Friday claimed that he and around 20 MLAs met BJP national president Amit Shah and apprised him on the importance of making Yeddyurappa the party president ahead of the 2018 assembly elections. He also said some members of national executive committee will also raise this issue at the meeting.

Kore also maintained that he had earlier met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi to apprise him about the same.

Yeddyurappa who is now the national vice-president of the BJP among eleven others has been lying low after he denied a ministry in the Modi’s cabinet. Moreover, the Lingayat strongman has failed to make his presence felt at the national level since he is not very articulate either in Hindi or English.

Recently, Yeddyurappa had reportedly met Shah and expressed his desire to remain in the state and strengthen the party. “Give me the responsibility to build the BJP in Karnataka. I will bring BJP back to power in 2018″, a Loyalist of g Yeddyurappa said quoting his leader.

The tenure of Lok Sabha member and senior BJP leader Pralhad Joshi, who is the BJP State President now, will only get over in March, 2016, party sources said.

Legislators who are lobbying state presidentship for Yeddyurappa said with BJP getting majority in the centre under the leadership of Narendra Modi and the recent outrage against Siddaramaiah led Congress government over the mysterious death of IAS officxer D K Ravi, the state BJP leaders are too hopeful of bringing BJP back to power in the state provided the party is led by a Lingayat leader.

But sources said the party high command is unlikely to give Yeddyurappa the party president ship because he is still haunted by several corruption cases against him. “I don’t think the national leaders will pitch for Yeddyurappa unless he comes clean in a couple of cases,” a senior BJP leader said.

(Agencies)

 

Filed Under: India Tagged With: Amit Shah, B S Yeddyurappa, BJP, Karnataka, Narendra Modi, Prabhakar Kore

"Your worst qualities have emerged now": Bhushan's open letter to Kejriwal

April 4, 2015 by Nasheman

PrashanT-Bhushan

New Delhi: Days after he and Yogendra Yadav were expelled from the party’s top decision-making fora, rebel AAP leader Prashant Bhushan today fired a fresh salvo at Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal accusing him of turning AAP a “high command-oriented” party and betraying trust of lakhs of supporters.

In an open letter to Kejriwal, Bhushan said “God and history will not forgive what you are doing to the party,”

Bhushan and Yadav were expelled from AAP’s National Executive on March 28 for “anti-party activities”.

“After winning the Delhi elections with such a thumping majority, when you have such good fortune, you should be showing your best qualities to the people of this country. But unfortunately, your worst qualities have emerged now,” Bhushan said.

“The removal of the Lokpal, us and others who questioned the manner of our removal, reminds one of Stalin’s purge of dissenters in the Communist party of Russia. You should read Orwell’s Animal Farm to see the parallels between Stalin’s Russia and what is happening in our party today. God and history will not forgive what you are doing to the party,” Bhushan said.

The party founded with a dream of “clean and principled” politics may well turn into a “nightmare”, he said.

Bhushan also said it would be wrong on Kejriwal’s party to think that people will forget about the “betrayal” if he delivered on good governance.

“Even traditional political parties like Congress, BJP have done some governance. But the dream that we started with for clean and principled politics and corruption-free governance was much much bigger,” he said.

Bhushan said “the fear that I have, is that after how you have behaved and the character traits that you have showed, this dream of clean and principled politics that the Aam Aadmi party was founded on may well turn into a nightmare”.

In the letter, Bhushan also accused Kejriwal of making “false and inflammatory” allegations against him, his father Shanti Bhushan and Yadav at the National Council (NC) meeting on March 28 and inciting the MLAs and some others present there.

Bhushan and Yadav were expelled by NC meeting from National Executive.

“Such was the ferocity of the mob of these MLAs and others as they rushed towards my father, that he felt that he may not get out of this alive,” he claimed.

“What has happened subsequent to the 28th, however, has taken the farce to a level where it seems as if a Stalinist purge is taking place in the party. The party’s internal Lokpal, a person of immense stature and independence, has been removed unconstitutionally, merely because he expressed his wish to attend the National Council meeting and was seen to be fair,” Bhushan said.

“Other members of the National Executive are being suspended, again unconstitutionally,” he said.

In the letter, Bhushan elaborated on reasons for widening rift with Kejriwal and said the differences started after the Lok Sabha elections.

He said after the Lok Sabha elections, Kejriwal felt that the party was “finished” and could only be revived if it were able to form the government again in Delhi.

Bhushan said despite strong opposition from the party leaders, Kejriwal started efforts to get Congress’ support to form government which was one of the major reasons of the rift.

“Instead of abiding by the majority decision, you said that while that may be the majority view, as the Convenor of the party, you have the right to take the final decision, and that you would go ahead with seeking Congress’ support,” he said.

Talking about the AVAM or Aam Aadmi Volunteer Action Manch, which had accused the AAP of receiving funds from shady companies, Bhushan said the group of volunteers wanted their voices heard in the party.

He alleged that there was conspiracy to crush the “rebellion” of the volunteers who felt that they were being used only like “slave labour”. He alleged fabricated SMS was used to defame AVAM.

In the letter, Bhushan also slammed Kejriwal for not following laid down norms in candidate selection for Delhi polls.

“I had said that rather than winning by these kinds of candidates and means, it’s better to go with honourable candidates and run the risk of a possible loss. Because winning with these kinds of candidates and means destroys the founding principles of the party in the short run, and will destroy the party itself in the long run,” he said.

Bhushan further said,”Your coterie have also accused my father, my sister and myself of trying to capture the party. Arvind, you know very well that none of us have even wanted any executive positions or tickets for ourselves or any friends or family members.”

Here is the full text:

Dear Arvind:

In the National Council meeting held on the 28th of March, in your Convenor’s address, instead of giving a review of the party’s situation and the path ahead, you chose to launch an attack on me, Yogendra Ji and my father, making all sorts of false and inflamatory allegations against us. Your speech incited several Delhi MLAs (who were invited despite not being members of the NC) to scream that we were “gaddars” who should be thrown out, and behave in the manner of hooligans. Such was the ferocity of the mob of these MLAs and others as they rushed towards my father, that he felt that he may not get out of this alive.

You did not even allow us to respond to your allegations. Immediately after your speech, in the middle of shouting and screaming by MLAs and others, Manish [Sisodia] read out a resolution for our removal (without any chair, and without anyone allowing him to do so). He then proceeded to call for vote by show of hands without allowing any discussion, forcing us to walk out of what had clearly become a farce.

It was farcical for many reasons: Many members of the NC had not been invited or allowed to attend; more than half the people inside the meeting hall were non-members, which included MLAs, district and state convenors of four states, volunteers and bouncers; there was no orderly conduct of the proceedings for many reasons, including the hooliganism displayed by many people there; no independent videography was allowed, the party’s Lokpal was not allowed, etc.

What has happened subsequent to the 28th however, has taken the farce to a level where it seems as if a Stalinist purge is taking place in the party. The party’s internal Lokpal, a person of immense stature and independence, has been removed unconstitutionally, merely because he expressed his wish to attend the National Council meeting and was seen to be fair; other members of the National Executive are being suspended, again unconstitutionally, only because they had attended a press conference held by us after the hooliganism in the National Council meeting.

Thereafter, you have ordered the release of a carefully edited version of your speech in the National Council meeting, containing various false charges against us, and carefully editing out the portions showing the hooliganism of the mob. It is in such circumstances that I am having to write this open letter to you.

The roots of the problems

In order to respond to your charges, I would need to go back a bit to see where my serious differences started with you. If you will remember, my differences started after the Lok Sabha elections, when a series of things happened, which began to show two serious defects in your character and personality. Firstly, you wanted to push through your decisions at any cost in the party, despite the majority of the PAC or the National Executive disagreeing with you. This included decisions that would have undoubtedly been very harmful for the party and against public interest. And secondly, you were willing to use some very highly unethical and even criminal means to achieve your ends.

After the Lok Sabha elections, you felt that the party was finished and could only be revived if it were able to form the government again in Delhi. So immediately after the elections, you started talking to the Congress party for taking its support again to form the government in Delhi. When news of this came out, a large number of important people in the party including Prithvi Reddy, Mayank Gandhi and Anjali Damania called me up saying this would be disastrous,and if this happens, they would have to quit the party. I was in Shimla at that time, I called you up, and I said that you should not go ahead with this unless there is a proper discussion in the Political Action Committee (PAC).

I immediately came back and we had a meeting of the PAC at your residence. And at that meeting, a majority of the members – 5:4 – felt that we should not go ahead with forming the government with Congress’ support. I had pointed out that this would seem extremely opportunistic, since there was no logical reason for us to change our publicly stated position. I also added that such a government would not last, as the Congress will withdraw support soon, and thereafter, for us to revive the party would become even more difficult.

Verbal arguments

Instead of abiding by the majority decision, you said that while that may be the majority view, as the Convenor of the party, you have the right to take the final decision, and that you would go ahead with seeking Congress’ support. At that point, I had a verbal argument with you. I said the party can’t be run in this manner, and it has to be run by some democratic means. So it was decided to refer this issue to the National Executive which had many more people. This reference was made by email, and people were expected to vote by next morning. By next morning, again a majority of people opposed this decision in the National Executive and yet, a letter was secretly sent by you to the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi saying that he should not dissolve the Assembly for another week because AAP wants to seek the opinion of the people on whether to form the government again.

Immediately after the letter came out, Congress said they were not ready to support AAP and that left us with egg on our face with the result that you had to backtrack the next day and apologize. But despite that, the attempt to form the government with Congress’ support or with the support of breakaway MLAs from the Congress continued, as is clear from the sting tape of Rajesh Garg which shows you were wanting to form the government with the support of those MLAs whom you had yourself accused of having being bought over by the BJP for Rs 4 crore each. How could you even think of forming a government with the support of such people! And this went on till as late as November, just before the dissolution of the Assembly. In November you called Nikhil Dey and asked him to speak to Rahul Gandhi to convince him to get the Congress party to support. But Nikhil told you that he can’t talk to Rahul Gandhi on this issue.

Can you deny any of these facts? All this, showed your willingness to go against majority opinion, break all democratic rules of the party, and seek unethical support of MLAs whom you yourself had accused of being corrupt, all in the pursuit of power at any cost.

Then came the issue of communal posters. A poster accusing the Muslim MLAs of the Congress as being traitors to their religion was got published by Dilip Pandey under your instructions, for which the police arrested Dilip Pandey. At that stage, the party got Amanatullah Khan to send a letter to the police saying that he had got this poster printed, and it was not the party. At the time you yourself tweeted that why is the police arresting Dilip Pandey when they should be arresting Amanatullah Khan. Yet within a week, he was made in charge of the Okhla constituency by the party, promised a ticket and eventually given one! Are such means not unethical?

Role of AVAM

Then came the issue of AVAM or Aam Aadmi Volunteer Action Manch, which was a group of volunteers who wanted their voices heard in the party. Because this was threatening to brew into a rebellion amongst volunteers who felt that they were being used only like slave labour, and because you felt that it was necessary to crush this, it appears that the party got an SMS sent in the name of AVAM, saying that volunteers should join the BJP – the idea was to suggest that AVAM had become an agent of the BJP, though the SMS was fabricated by the party itself in the name of AVAM. And using this, you announced in a Google Hangout that these people had become traitors because of that SMS. And on that basis, Karan Singh, who was the leader of AVAM, was suspended and removed from the party. He appealed to the national disciplinary committee, which I was heading, and he said ‘I had been saying that this is not sent by me, please have this investigated’. So I asked you and Dilip Pandey and others to get this investigated, but you steadfastly refused.

Eventually, Karan Singh had to lodge an FIR, and the police investigated the matter and it was found that a volunteer of the party, not of AVAM, called Deepak Chaudhary, created this identity in the name of AAVAAM and used that to send that SMS. You should know Arvind, that impersonating an organisation or persons in order to defame them, is a serious criminal offence. Unfortunately young volunteers in the party under your tutelage are being taught that use of such means is OK in politics, since any means used to defeat a “Bigger evil” is OK.

Then came the issue of whether the party should contest Assembly elections in Haryana and Maharashtra. Again the matter was put to the National Executive by email, and the majority – 15 is to 4 – said that that should be left to state units to decide in accordance with our principle of Swaraj. But you did not allow that decision to be implemented. And eventually, it was rendered infructuous, because elections came too close and finally in that National Executive meet in Sangrur it was decided that there’s no point, and one should forget about contesting those elections.

When the Delhi elections were announced and campaigning started, you instructed volunteers to start a campaign “Modi for PM, Kejriwal for CM”. I said this is totally unprincipled. It means that our party has gone down on its knees before Modi at a time when it was positioning itself as the main opposition to Modi.

Delhi candidates’ selection

When the process of candidate selection for the Delhi assembly election of 2015 started, I found there was no transparency. Contrary to earlier practice, we were not posting candidates’ names on the website. Even the PAC, which was meant to approve the candidate, was not being sent the bio-data or names of the candidates in advance to enable us to check the records of the candidates. In the second meeting of the PAC to discuss candidate selection, because I had received complaints about two of the candidates who were being proposed in that meeting, I pointed this out. You got very angry saying, “Why do you think we will be selecting crooked people?” I said that is not the point – we need to have some transparency and due diligence. That led to an argument between you and me, and I walked out of that meeting and wrote an email on November 27, that I cannot be a rubber stamp for non-transparent and questionable selection of candidates. That email is now in the public domain.

After that, in the next list, again there were at least four questionable candidates among the 10 names proposed. Yogendra Yadav and I wrote a letter to the PAC on 10th December, detailing the objections against these four and pointing out that this time, the process of candidate selection was very different from the last time. This time, we were giving tickets to a large number of political entrepreneurs who had joined the party only for opportunism, who had jumped ship from Congress, BJP or Bahujan Samaj Party at the last moment, who had no ideological commitment to our party, had no record of public service, and whose sources of wealth weren’t explained.

Some of them were people against whom our party had itself complained that they were distributing money or liquor or had beaten up our volunteers. One of them (our initial choice from Wazirpur), went back to the BJP within 4 hours of us announcing his candidature. Your initial choice for the Mehrauli seat, Gandas, had to be dropped at the last moment only because his photographs were circulated with him showing off, with a glass of liquor in one hand and a revolver in the other. Yet, while he was dropped, his brother was given the ticket. Eventually, even he had to be changed because our Lokpal, Admiral Ramdas gave a strong report against him.

Thereafter, when we sent that letter, AAP stopped having meetings of the PAC or sending names for the approval of the PAC, and started announcing names on their own. When all this happened, I said “Now enough is enough. If this does not stop, and if there is no credible scrutiny of these candidates, I will have to resign from the party and make public the reasons for my resignation.” On that, an emergency meeting was called at my residence on January 4, by Yogendra Yadav, Prithvi Reddy etc which had 16-17 people from all over the country, important functionaries of the party. All of them felt that the party’s campaign would be ruined if I resigned at that stage.

In that meeting I said, “Look, all these kinds of compromises are being made, various ethical corners are being cut and now you are selecting these kind of candidates without proper transparency or scrutiny. If you go with these kinds of candidates, then even if you win, the further compromises that you will have to make, will be such that they will completely destroy the USP of the party, which is of being a clean, transparent party, wedded to alternative politics. And instead of winning by using these kinds of candidates, it would be better to lose the elections by going with clean and honourable candidates”. That statement is being twisted around to claim that I said that I wanted the party to lose.

Founding principles

I had said that rather than winning by these kinds of candidates and means, it’s better to go with honourable candidates and run the risk of a possible loss. Because winning with these kinds of candidates and means destroys the founding principles of the party in the short run, and will destroy the party itself in the long run.

If I had wanted the party to lose the elections, I would have resigned and gone public with my reasons at that very time. If Yogendra Yadav wanted the party to lose, he would not have convened that meeting and stopped me from going public. Instead, he worked his heart out for this campaign, defended the party on innumerable occasions on TV. And yet you have the temerity to accuse even him, along with me, of working for the defeat of the party!

At the end of that meeting, an arrangement was worked out with your express consent, that: We would immediately refer all the complaints against candidates who had been selected to the Lokpal of the party and his decision would be final. And the rest of the issues of institutional reforms about transparency in the party, accountability, swaraj, inner party democracy – those issues will be taken up immediately after the elections. So those complaints against 12 candidates were referred to the Lokpal. In the four days that he had to do this exercise, he recommended the removal of two against whom there was clear evidence, recommended the issuance of warnings against six against whom there was some evidence, and allowed four to continue. Two were thus removed.

But the other issue of institutional reforms, which was agreed to be taken up within two days of the election results, were not discussed. Instead, the National Executive meeting of February 26, which you chose not to attend, started with Vishwas announcing your resignation and a no holds barred attack on Yogendra Yadav and myself by members of your coterie. The message conveyed by them on your behalf was clear: That the price for your continuing as Convenor was our removal from the PAC and NE. I then responded and pointed out the things I have mentioned above, and the issues of institutional reforms, but those were not discussed. The only issue that was discussed that day was whether you should continue as Convenor.

We all agreed that you should continue, but thereafter, some people went to your residence to meet you, and you made it clear that it’s either you or us, and that we have to be removed. And therefore, that is what happened in the next meeting which was held on March 4.

Clean politics

A charge that is made against me is that I did not campaign for the party during this election. I had said that I can’t campaign for many of these candidates, and given the manner in which these candidates had been selected, I was willing to campaign only for those candidates about whom I was fairly certain that they were the kind of people who would take the ideology of clean politics forward and work in public interest if they win. I had in fact given a list of five people that I thought were decent. But the party did not send me any programme for addressing public meetings. I therefore went for Pankaj Pushkar’s public meetings who had personally invited me. Gopal Rai is falsely stating that I backed out of his meeting which I had agreed to. In fact, on that day when he called me for his meeting, I was in Calicut where I had addressed a party meeting and a press conference in which I had reiterated that Kiran Bedi was not an appropriate choice for the post of CM.

The other charge made against me is that I stopped people from donating to AAP. When other people asked me whether they should donate etc, I’d said, “Look, you should donate to those candidates who appear to be decent and honest to you.” You and your coterie have made the same charge against my sister Shalini Gupta. She also said the same thing that I had said to a closed circle of friends. In fact she strenuously encouraged the global group to donate to deserving candidates, which is why several candidates got so much funds from NRIs.

In your speech you have given a fanciful and utterly false account of how I was responsible for sending you to jail. The truth is that you had publicly stated that you would “rather go to jail, than give bail”, in the Gadkari defamation case, and when the matter came up for hearing, the judge herself explained to you what the meaning of a ‘personal bail bond’ was. You asked me if the judge’s explanation was accurate, to which I replied in the affirmative. And then you decided that in the interest of your’s, and the party’s public image, you should refuse to furnish the personal bond and go to jail. My father and I however defended your decision in court and in public, and said that it highlighted an important public issue of the unnecessary requirement of asking for bail/personal bail bonds in such cases. In fact both of us spent several hours to meet you in jail, to explain the options and to persuade you to fill the bond after you had made your point.

Attacks on family

Your coterie have also accused my father, my sister and myself of trying to capture the party. Arvind, you know very well that none of us have even wanted any executive positions or tickets for ourselves or any friends or family members. We have only tried to contribute and help in every way that we could to see the party grow into a powerful and credible vehicle for alternative politics in the country. My father, apart from donating more than Rs 2 crores as seed money to the party, has spent an enormous amount of time in giving selfless advice, legal and otherwise to the party. He played a major role in the draft of the Jan Lokpal bill. He worked for the well-being of the party with his “tan, man and dhan”. Yes, when he felt that you, for various reasons were not the right person to lead the party organisation, he frankly told you so. Apart from the reasons of ethical compromises mentioned above, he also saw that you were violating the constitution and rules of the party repeatedly, not allowing any working structure of the party organisation to be created (other than a coterie), and were not interested in formulating the policies of the party.

For two years, the elaborate reports of the 34 policy committees that we had set up, have been gathering dust because you havent found the time or have the inclination to look at those reports and apply your mind to them. You accuse my father of having stated that you were his third choice for CM after Kiran Bedi and Ajay Maken. That was his honest view after seeing all the shorcomings in your character that he had been observing. I had immediately publicly disagreed with his opinion, but in the light of what has transpired subsequently, particularly the stage managed lumpenism that you got unleashed in the NC meeting, I regretfully wonder if he was right.

My sister Shalini Gupta, as well as many other highly qualified persons, left their lucrative jobs abroad to help you build credible and efficient systems which would have proper cells and expertise so that it could function as a world class organisation. On repeated occasions you had yourself asked Shalini to give up her job for the sake of the country and said that her role as Organisation Development Advisor was only an advisory role and not a formal position with any power in the party as discussed in the PAC before she was appointed. However it became clear over time that you did not want any professional advice in this matter. Instead you asked Ashutosh who has no such professional expertise to come up with an alternative plan to make each cell of the party organisation an appendage to your coterie and accountable only to you. My sister worked day and night for the party and mobilized the support of Indians all across the world that contributed so much to the success of the party. One-third of all the donations to the party came from NRIs.

Fighting by PIL

It is true Arvind that I have not contributed as much as you for the party. I have not fasted, nor gone to jail. I have been mostly involved in my various PILs against various scams, 2G, Coalgate, the CBI director, 4G, the Reliance Gas robbery, against GM foods, Nuclear Power Plants, destructive Hydel projects, Section 66A, Tobacco and Gutka, etc. I have spent the rest of my time giving legal and other advice to the party and fighting its cases in court. I have never been interested in any executive posts and I have seen my role in the party mainly as a person who will try and ensure that it remains true to its founding principles. And it is for this reason that I have raised my voice whenever I have found it to be slipping from its path.

It is in this spirit that I have been telling you that you need to have a majority of independent and credible voices in the decision-making bodies of the party particularly the PAC and the NE, and people who have the spine to stand up to you and tell you when you are wrong. And for this, my family and I are being seen as troublemakers who want to destroy the party! Arvind, you must realise that you cannot go very far with a party of just yesmen. The party would certainly be destroyed if you try and do that, but even you cannot go very far with this kind of culture that you are trying to breed in the party.

Arvind, this party was founded with a lot of idealism by thousands of people, especially young people, who came out and spent a lot of their time, effort, energy, money, sweat and blood in order to create a vehicle for alternative politics, in order to create a party that would practice clean and transparent politics. But unfortunately, all those principles are being betrayed by you and your coterie, who are currently in control of the party. And it has become a supremo-oriented, high-command culture kind of party.

After winning the Delhi elections with such a thumping majority, when you have such good fortune, you should be showing your best qualities to the people of this country. But unfortunately, your worst qualities have emerged now. The removal of the Lokpal, us and others who questioned the manner of our removal, reminds one of Stalin’s purge of dissenters in the Communist party of Russia. You should read Orwell’s Animal Farm to see the parallels between Stalin’s Russia and what is happening in our party today. God and history will not forgive what you are doing to the party.

You feel that you can rectify everything by running the Delhi government well in the five years that you have. You think that if you deliver on governance, people will forget what you have done to the party. I wish you well in that endeavour. Even traditional political parties like Congress, BJP have done some governance. But the dream that we started with for clean and principled politics and corruption free governance was much much bigger. The fear that I have, is that after how you have behaved and the character traits that you have showed, this dream of clean and principled politics that the Aam Aadmi Party was founded on may well turn into a nightmare. But still, I wish you well.

Goodbye and good luck,

Prashant

Filed Under: India Tagged With: Aam Aadmi Party, AAP, Arvind Kejriwal, Prashant Bhushan, Yogendra Yadav

664 Indians return from strife-torn Yemen

April 4, 2015 by Nasheman

indians-yemen

Mumbai/Kochi: Over 660 Indian nationals evacuated from Yemen arrived home by two IAF planes and a special Air India flight tonight, taking the total number of evacuees who have been safely brought back from the strife-torn country to 1022.

While two Indian Air Force planes carrying 334 people landed in Mumbai past 11 PM, a special Air India flight with 330 Indians reached Kochi airport post midnight.

They were part of evacuees who were brought to Djibouti from Sanaa earlier in the day today.

The two Air Force C-17 Globemasters which landed in Mumbai carried among others, 306 evacuees — 251 men, 38 women, 17 children — rescued by Navy vessel INS Sumitra.

In Kochi, the evacuees, including nurses and workers, were welcomed at the airport by Kerala Minister for Diaspora K C Joseph along with state government officials.

Yesterday, 358 Indians evacuated from the Yemen were brought home by two IAF planes. The first plane carrying 168 people, mostly nurses from Kerala, had landed at Kochi airport, while the second plane carrying 190 Indian nationals had landed in Mumbai.

Yemen has been witnessing fierce battle between Saudi-led coalition and Shiite rebels, who have battled their way into the heart of the country’s main southern city Aden where fighting raged in the former stronghold of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi who has fled overseas.

(PTI)

Filed Under: India Tagged With: Conflict, Yemen

Smriti Irani finds hidden camera in changing room

April 3, 2015 by Nasheman

Smriti Irani

Candolim: A police complaint has been registered in Goa after Union Education Minister Smriti Irani spotted a hidden camera inside a changing room at an outlet of popular clothing chain Fabindia.

Irani, who is on holiday in the sea-side state that her party the BJP rules, had gone shopping at the Fabindia store in Candolim, when she spotted the camera.

She called a local legislator, Micheal Lobo of her party, who filed the FIR. Lobo said that the camera was positioned in a way that it pointed right into the changing or trial room and was not easily visible.

The police have registered a case of outraging a woman’s modesty against the store and are investigating to find out who had put the camera there.

Irani, 39, has recorded a statement at the Candolim police station.

(Agencies)

Filed Under: India Tagged With: Candolim, Fabindia, Goa, Smriti Irani

Is the world going Muslim? One in ten Europeans will be by 2050

April 3, 2015 by Nasheman

Christianity will no longer be the world's dominant faith in the next generation. (AFP/File)

Christianity will no longer be the world’s dominant faith in the next generation. (AFP/File)

by Kashmira Gander, The Independent

A new study charting how religions will develop globally over the next four decades has predicted that one in 10 of the next generation of Europeans will be Muslim.

Research published today by a US think tank has also revealed that Christianity will no longer be the world’s dominant faith by 2050,  as almost all of the major religious groups will increase in numbers.

As of 2010, Christianity was by far the world’s largest religion, with nearly a third of all 6.9 billion people on Earth adhering to it, while Islam was second, with 1.6 billion adherents, or 23 per cent of the global population.

Over the course of the next four decades, the number of Muslims will nearly equal the number of Christians around the world for the first time in history – at 31 per cent and 30 per cent of the global population, respectively.

In those four decades, four out of every 10 Christians in the world will live in sub-Saharan Africa, the Pew Research Centre study suggests.

The Hindu population will rise by 34 per cent from a little over 1 billion to nearly 1.4 billion, while the global Jewish population is expected to grow from a little less than 14 million in 2010 to 16.1 million worldwide in 2050.

The number of followers of so-called folk religions, including African traditional religions, Chinese folk religions, Native American religions and Australian aboriginal religions – are projected to increase from 405 million to nearly 450 million.

Meanwhile, the number of Buddhists will be about the same size as it was in 2010, due to low fertility rates and aging populations in countries such as China, Thailand and Japan.

At the same time, the number of atheists, agnostics, and other people not affiliated with any religion will decline, from 16 per cent in 2010 to 13 per cent by the middle of the century, but increase in countries including the US and France.

In Europe, the percentage of Muslims will rise to around 10 per cent of the population in 2010.

While a larger Muslim population is not an issue in itself, Conrad Hackett, the lead researcher and demographer for the Pew report, stressed in an interview with the New York Times that this figure may be seized by anti-immigrant groups who warn of a Muslim-dominated “Eurabia”.

“We just don’t see that happening,” Dr. Hackett said.

The results are the culmination of a six-year study compiled from more than 2,500 censuses, surveys and population registers from across the world. Researchers took into account the current size and geographic distribution of the world’s major religions, age differences, fertility and mortality rates, international migration and patterns in conversion.

The Pew Research Centre study reasons that religious populations will grow because adherents are younger and have more children, while a smaller portion of people will switch or take up new faiths.

According to the study, Muslims have the highest fertility rate, an average of 3.1 children per woman – higher than 2.1, the minimum needed to maintain a stable population. Christians came in second, at 2.7 children per woman, Hindu at 2.4, while Jewish women gave birth to  2.3 children on average.

All the other groups have fertility levels under 1.8, which is too low to sustain their populations.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Europe, Islam, Muslims, Pew Research Center

Iran and world powers strike initial nuclear deal

April 3, 2015 by Nasheman

Agreement will curb Iran’s nuclear programme and end most sanctions imposed on country.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said a "decisive step" has been achieved [Reuters]

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said a “decisive step” has been achieved [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

The United States, Iran and five other world powers have sealed a breakthrough framework agreement outlining limits on Iran’s nuclear programme to keep it from being able to produce atomic weapons.

Reading out a joint statement on Thursday evening, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said a “decisive step” has been achieved.

“This is a crucial decision laying the agreed basis for the final text of joint comprehensive plan of action. We can now start drafting the text and annexes,” said Mogherini, who has acted as a coordinator for the six powers – Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.

The US and Iran each hailed the efforts of their diplomats over eight days of marathon talks in Swiss city of Lausanne.

Speaking at the White House, US President Barack Obama called it a “good deal” that would address concerns about Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The US president said that the US and its allies had “reached a historic understanding with Iran”.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called it a “win-win outcome”.

The Islamic Republic has been promised an end to years of crippling economic sanctions, but only if negotiators transform the plan into a comprehensive pact by June 30.

‘Solid foundation’

US Secretary of State John Kerry said the agreement in Lausanne was a “solid foundation for a good deal”.

Al Jazeera’s James Bays, reporting from Lausanne, said that US diplomats still faced the challenge of convincing opposition Republican dissenters in Congress, and its strongest ally, Israel, that the deal was sufficient.

“There are a lot of places where this deal will not be accepted and one of those is Israel,” Bays said.

Obama said his security officials would be working with Israel and Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, to make sure their concerns are addressed.

Iranians celebrate on a street in northern Tehran the nuclear agreement with world powers in Lausanne [The Associated Press]

Israel voiced its “strong opposition” to the deal. In a phone conversation with Obama, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a final deal based on this agreement “would threaten the survival of Israel”.

House Speaker John Boehner said it would be “naive to suggest the Iranian regime will not continue to use its nuclear programme, and any economic relief, to further destabilize the region.”

But Obama said that the issues at stake are “bigger than politics”.

“These are matters of war and peace,” he said, and if Congress kills the agreement “international unity will collapse, and the path to conflict will widen.”

The deal will limit Iran’s nuclear activity to the Natanz plant and reduce the number of centrifuges it operates from 19,000 today to just over 6,104.

Iran has also agreed to not build any new facilities for the purpose of enriching uranium for 15 years.

Zarif said the countries had agreed an elaborate mechanism if any of the parties to the agreement “returned to old practices” and reneged on their obligations.

“We will not allow excuses that will allow a return to the old system,” Zarif said.

Mogherini said the seven nations would now start writing the text of a final accord.

She cited several agreed-upon restrictions on Iran’s enrichment of material that can be used either for energy production or in nuclear warheads. She said Iran will not produce weapons-grade plutonium.

Sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear programmes would be suspended by the US, the United Nations and the European Union after the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed Iran’s compliance.

 

Filed Under: Muslim World Tagged With: Iran, Israel, Nuclear, United States, USA

Al-Shabab siege of Kenya university leaves 147 dead

April 3, 2015 by Nasheman

Day-long siege of campus in northeastern town comes to bloody end, with mostly students killed.

kenya-attack-Al-Shabab

by Al Jazeera

At least 147 people have been killed after Kenyan troops cleared a university dormitory in the town of Garissa in northeast Kenya that had been seized by al-Shabab gunmen, the interior ministry says.

Members of the Somalia-based group attacked the campus after dawn on Thursday and were holed up in a dormitory with hostages until the evening.

Officials said 79 students had been injured in the attack, and 587 had been evacuated.

Security forces had encircled the building exchanging sporadic bursts of gunfire with the fighters inside, who were believed to have been holding scores of students hostage.

Witnesses told Al Jazeera they heard heavy gunfire and saw smoke coming from the campus on Thursday evening as the standoff came to an end.

Joseph Nkaissery, the interior minister, said four attackers had strapped themselves with explosives.

587 students have been evacuated from Garissa University College, 79 injured. All students have been accounted for.

— Disaster Operations (@NDOCKenya) April 2, 2015

A female student who escaped the hostage drama told Al Jazeera that she had stepped over more bodies than she could count as she got out of the university.

Al Jazeera’s Malcolm Webb, reporting from Garissa, said security officials were now working on identifying bodies and moving them to the morgue.

The attack was the worst in Kenya since the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi by al-Qaeda, when 213 people were killed by a huge truck bomb.

In 2013, al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the attack on the Westgate mall that left 67 people dead.

Thursday’s assault began when the first grenades were used before dawn to blast open the gates of the university, near the border with war-torn Somalia.

The masked gunmen then stormed the university as students were sleeping in their dormitories, shooting dead dozens before taking hostages. Al-Shabab said it had set Muslims free and captured Christians.

The al-Qaeda-linked group said the assault was launched in revenge for Kenya sending troops to fight al-Shabab in Somalia.

Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta said the lack of security infrastructure had contributed to the crisis.

“We have suffered unnecessarily due to a shortage of security personnel. Kenya needs additional officers, and I will not keep the nation waiting,” he said.

After the attack, the country’s interior ministry announced a 12-hour curfew starting at 6.30pm in Garissa, Wajir, Mandera, and Tana River counties.

Rescued hostages were treated at a nearby hospital [Alinoor Moulid Bosh/Al Jazeera]

Security forces surrounded the campus after gunmen opened fire indiscriminately in campus hostels [AP]

Filed Under: Muslim World Tagged With: Al Shabab, Garissa, Kenya, Kenya University

BJP will rule 10-20 years, party says at leadership meet

April 3, 2015 by Nasheman

karnataka-bjp

Bengaluru: The BJP, which stormed to power nationally last year, will rule India for 10-20 years, party president Amit Shah announced here on Friday as the party opened a meeting of its top leaders.

“This government has arrived,” Shah said to thunderous applause at the two-day meet, addressing 330 delegates including Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “The BJP will be in power for the next 10-20 years.”

Speaking in chaste Hindi, Shah also listed out the achievements of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Modi’s government since May 2014 on various fronts, including economy and foreign policy.

He said the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government had brought an end to the policy paralysis of the earlier Congress regime. “We have brought a new political culture.”

And after becoming the world’s largest political party, the BJP announced that it would train the over 15 lakh new members while further speeding up its nationwide membership drive.

Party leader Prakash Javadekar, who briefed the media about Shah’s comments, said the BJP had become the biggest party in the world with 9.25 crore members. “We will cross the 10 crore mark soon.”

Among those attending the meeting is party patriarch L.K. Advani.

As it was the executive’s first meeting after the BJP got a majority in the Lok Sabha, an upbeat mood marked the inaugural session at a star hotel in the city centre amidst tight security.

Javadekar pointed out that besides ruling world’s largest democracy, the BJP was in power in a dozen states — “including eight states where we are in power on our own and four in alliance with our partners”.

In his speech, Shah played down the BJP’s shock defeat in Delhi in February but quickly added the party’s Delhi unit needs to revive itself.

“The party president said we have had successes, and one failure in Delhi is not a big deal,” Javadekar quoted Shah as saying.

“He said such things happen. We should not get arrogant after victory and desperate after defeat.”

The Aam Aadmi Party routed the BJP in the February assembly election, winning 67 of the 70 seats. The BJP, which won 31 seats in 2013, could bag only three seats.

Talking about upcoming assembly polls in Bihar, Shah said the “jungle raj” was back in the state since the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) broke away from the BJP.

Riding high on becoming the world’s largest political party, the national executive began its meeting earlier to take stock of its 10-month rule and chalk out strategies to spread its wings in India.

The party’s Karnataka leaders honoured Advani, Modi, Shah and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in the local style by crowning them with the famous Mysore petha (headgear), draping a shawl and garlanding them.

Modi inaugurated the meeting by lighting a lamp with the other three leaders on the dais. The meet was not open to the media.

Shah heaped praise on Modi’s corruption-free government. “The economy is looking up and prices have been brought under control as evident from decline in inflation.

“A number of policy initiatives and administrative measures have been taken to revive growth and improve infrastructure.”

The meeting will deliberate over various issues, including the controversial land acquisition bill which was stalled by the opposition in the Rajya Sabha.

The executive will also draw a plan to expand the party’s footprint in states like Andhra Pradesh, Telengana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal and the north-east region where its presence is minimal.

“The meeting will also work out strategies to capture power in Bihar where elections are due this year,” a party source said.

(IANS)

Filed Under: India Tagged With: Amit Shah, Bengaluru, BJP, Congress, Narendra Modi, NDA

India to have largest Muslim population by 2050; Hindus to be third largest in world: Report

April 3, 2015 by Nasheman

indians-muslims

Washington: Hindus will become the world’s third largest population by 2050, while India will overtake Indonesia as the country with the largest Muslim population, according to a new study.

According to the Pew Research Center’s religious profile predictions assessed data released today, the Hindu population is projected to rise by 34 per cent worldwide, from a little over 1 billion to nearly 1.4 billion by 2050.

By 2050, Hindus will be third, making up 14.9 per cent of the world’s total population, followed by people who do not affiliate with any religion, accounting for 13.2 per cent, the report said.

The people with no religious affiliation currently have the third largest share of the world’s total population.

Muslims are projected to grow faster than the world’s overall population and that Hindus and Christians are projected to roughly keep pace with worldwide population growth, the report said.

“India will retain a Hindu majority but also will have the largest Muslim population of any country in the world, surpassing Indonesia,” it said.

“Over the next four decades, Christians will remain the largest religious group, but Islam will grow faster than any other major religion,” according to the report.

The report predicted that by 2050 there will be near parity between Muslims (2.8 billion, or 30 per cent of the population) and Christians (2.9 billion, or 31 per cent), possibly for the first time in history.

There were 1.6 billion Muslims in 2010, compared to 2.17 billion Christians.

“The number of Muslims will nearly equal the number of Christians around the world,” it added.

If the trend continues, Islam will be the most popular faith in the world after 2070, it said.

By 2050, Muslims will make up about 10 per cent of the Europe’s population, up from 5.9 per cent in 2010.

Over the same period, the number of Hindus in Europe is expected to roughly double, from a little under 1.4 million (0.2 per cent of Europe’s population) to nearly 2.7 million (0.4 per cent), mainly as a result of immigration, it said.

In North America, the Hindu share of the population is expected to nearly double in the decades ahead, from 0.7 per cent in 2010 to 1.3 per cent in 2050, when migration is included in the projection models. Without migration, the Hindu share of the region’s population would remain the same.

Buddhism is the only faith that is not expected to increase its followers, due to an ageing population and stable fertility rates in Buddhist countries, such as China, Japan and Thailand.

The projections considered fertility rates, trends in youth population growth and religious conversion statistics.

(PTI)

Filed Under: India, Indian Muslims Tagged With: Christians, Hindus, Indian Muslims, Muslims, Pew Research Center

President gives nod to land ordinance

April 3, 2015 by Nasheman

Republic Day Pranab Mukherjee

New Delhi: The land acquisition ordinance, which the government could not get converted into a legislation in Rajya Sabha due to stiff opposition, was today re-promulgated, a day before it is to lapse.

President Pranab Mukherjee has signed the ordinance as recommended by the union cabinet on March 31, official sources said. The earlier ordinance is to lapse tomorrow as it has not been converted into a legislation during the first part of the budget session as required under the Constitution.

The fresh ordinance, which is the 11th by the Narendra Modi government, incorporates nine amendments that were part of the bill passed in Lok Sabha last month. It is pending before the Rajya Sabha where the ruling NDA coalition lacks the numbers to get it passed.

The pending measure, titled Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Bill, that was passed in Lok Sabha sought to replace the ordinance that was promulgated in December.

The Opposition was not in a mood to oblige the government and, in fact, mounted a strong campaign against it. Led by Sonia Gandhi, the Opposition parties demanded the passage of the original land bill that was passed during the UPA regime.

To enable re-promulgation of the ordinance, the government last week got the Rajya Sabha prorogued.

Under the Constitution at least one of the Houses has to be prorogued for Government to issue an ordinance. Parliament is currently on a month-long recess after the Budget session started on February 23.

The land ordinance was among the six executive orders issued by the government in the inter session period. While five of them were cleared by Parliament, the land measure is stuck.

(PTI)

Filed Under: India Tagged With: BJP, Land Acquisition Act, Land Ordinance, Pranab Mukherjee

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