Recently Anita Pfaff was in India and when asked about the disappearance of her father Subhash Chandra Bose she said that he could have perished in the air crash of 1945.

Anita Pfaff, 63, who is on a visit here, told IANS: “I don’t think he survived. Unless some fantastically new evidence comes up, if I look at the data available to me, he did not survive.
“I have been present at the interview of some of the survivors of the plane crash, including some Japanese officers, more than 20 years ago, and their story sounded quite consistent, credible and reasonable.”
She says: “Some speculation was also in the reports that the doctor who treated Netaji after the crash when interviewed this time had confusion about what he said earlier. He is 90 years old now and you can’t expect much from an interview unless it is done very carefully of a person of that age.
“Ultimately what he said many years ago made a lot more sense. You certainly have lapses in memory when you become old. Even if his new interview sort of raked up some controversy I would not place too much emphasis on it.” [My father did not survive the air crash: Netaji’s daughter]

She also seems to believe the statement of Brigadier Habib-ur-Rehman who was in the plane with Bose. If there was no plane crash in 1945, then where did the survivors come from? Why did Habib-ur-Rehman fabricate this story?
The Justice Mukherjee Commission of Inquiry has submitted the report to the Parliament and it is supposed to be tabled along with an action taken report by the end of February. Already leaked news has provided some fascinating twists like the fact that there was no air crash and the ashes kept in Japan were not that of Subhash Bose. There is also some evidence that Nehru knew the truth and kept quiet.
Justice Mukherjee was unhappy with the way his visits to Russia and Japan were handled by the Govt. and Anita Pfaff has said that she does not expect anything terribly new to come out of the Mukherjee report. We need to wait till the end of February to see if she is right.

Leftists in West Bengal on Thursday took up cudgels against the axing of Sourav Ganguly from the Indian team for the third Test against Sri Lanka, with CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta sending a protest letter to BCCI chief Sharad Pawar urging him to protect Indian cricket from politics. [Left flays axing of Sourav Ganguly]

In the same letter the CPI MP asked that Ganguly be included in the third test match, thus interfering in Indian cricket politically.

“Glittering like the glitter of gold, silkened in ochry silks, you are like a lotus-tendril garlanded with divine lotuses as your ensemble, who are you?” Thus Ravanan started addressing Seetha
“Oh, rosy faced one, are you the personified numen of Respect, Renown or Resplendence, or the Felicitous Lakshmi herself, or oh, curvaceous one, are you a nymphal Apsara, or the numen of Benefactress, or a self-motivated woman, or Rati Devi, the consort of Manmatha, the Love God. [3-46-17]
“Your teeth are evenly, smooth and their tips are like jasmine buds, and your whitish broad eyes are spotless, reddish at ends, and pupils are black. [3-46-18]
“Your hips are beamy, thighs burly akin to elephant’s trunks, and these two breasts of yours that are ornamented with best jewellery are rotund, rubbing and bumping each other, and they are swinging up and up, their nipples are brawny and jutting out, and they are smoothish like palm-fruits, thus they are covetable for they are beautiful.” [Ramayana Book III : Aranya Kanda – The Forest Trek]

In the land where poetry like this was written it is now considered an offence for a man and woman to hold hands. When will the culture police ban Ramayana?

We are strongly against this air drill since we think it will harm our sovereignty and the protest is aimed at booing the joint exercise,” said Nandy, a CPI-M strongman.
“We are strongly against military exercises with the US because we believe they will be detrimental to our national security and help the US expand its military presence in South Asia,” CPI-M politburo member Anil Biswas said. [Communists protest India-US air force exercise]

Those were the Communists protesting the joint military exercise between India and United States.

Navy ships of India and China Thursday conducted joint exercises off the Kochi coast Thursday in the first bilateral exercise in India. Communication exercises between the two ships, manoeuvre procedures and exercises relating to casualty evacuation were held during the day-long exercises, naval sources in Kochi said. In 2003, Indian naval vessels had taken part in joint exercises in China.[Indian and Chinese naval vessels conduct bilateral exercises]

Note that there were no protests by Communists from Kerala over this. Apparently this does not affect national security, soverignity, dignity etc. etc. since after all these are Chinese and not Americans.
More Communist hypocrisy here: Man bites dog: DYFI opposes CPI(M), The Communist “U” turn, More Catholic than the Pope

George Galloway (at the US Senate)

“Senator, I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader. and neither has anyone on my behalf. I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one – and neither has anyone on my behalf.

Natwar Singh, India’s Foreign Minister

Singh has denied the charges, telling the private NDTV network last week that he has never heard of the Swiss company and that “I don’t even know how to go and buy oil. And what a barrel looks like.” He said he had no intention of stepping down.

Understanding with DIC(K) has helped CPI(M): Pinarayi
I am sure it did.

Few days back, there was an interview (click on Listen) with Amartya Sen on National Public Radio about his new book, The Argumentative Indian. In this book he argues that civic debate is as important as elections in a democracy and India had a long history of encouraging dispute and discussion from Vedic times.He starts with the Bhagawad Geeta in which initially Krishna and Arjuna take two morally opposing positions and finally Krishna convinces Arjuna to participate in the war through reason.
The other examples he cites are from the Rig Veda, supposed to be a classical Hindu text, but one which has debate on if God exists and if he created the world. The Buddhist council held during various times argued about the Buddhist teachings and Emperor Asoka set forth rules for conducting debates. Amartya Sen’s reasons that, it was this historical track record that helped democracy succeed in India while it failed in many other colonies that got freedom from the British.
Last month, actress Khusboo expressed an opinion about pre-martial sex and said that people should take safe measures to prevent AIDS and pregnancy. Immediately members of the Dalit Panthers of India went to the office of the Film Artistes’ association in Chennai carrying brooms and slippers and demanded an apology. Pattali Makkal Katchi said it will protest outside the house of the actress. Khusboo was forced to apologize.
The Govt. of India is currently following the path of liberalizing the economy so that more people can increase their standard of living and naturally the Communists are against it. The path they chose to express their dissent was to shutdown the whole country. Communists are members of the Parliament, the body established to debate such issues, but they seem to have scant respect for the Parliament and the process etablished there.
An Oriya writer, Bibhudha Ranjan has a new book on Mahatma Gandhi called Michha Mahatma which contains some objectionable content according to some. The book has not been released yet, and hence this information comes from reviews. But that did not prevent people from demanding a ban on the book and burning the effigy of the writer. The author of the book claims that he has used only previously published material, but then who has time to read, think independently and engage in debate.
I have not read Amarya Sen’s book and hence don’t know if he claims that the Argumentative Indian still exists in India. If you look around you will see such species only in some pockets and soon they have to be added to the endangered species list. We as a society seem to have undergone reverse evolution to become The Coercive Indian.

It is said that earthquakes don’t kill people, but buildings constructed not to withstand them do. There are many factors which contributed to the deadliness of the Kashmir quake and poorly constructed buildings are just one of them. There is little we can do about the terrain and the density of population hence it would seem logical to make sure that the new buildings that are constructed will be able to withstand future quakes.

Key buildings in need of better earthquake-proofing have been identified in Delhi, and work is under way. Similar plans elsewhere have come too late to help the hospitals in Indian Kashmir. Though it is impossible to make buildings completely resistant to earthquakes, they can be made much safer. In both India and Pakistan, building codes exist; in both countries, they have been poorly enforced, with masses of unprotected housing stock in areas of great danger.[Preparing for the unknowable]

As a person who has survived multiple earthquakes, I can say that since I was inside buildings built to code, I am still alive. But it seems Kashmirs have a way of construction called bajji-diwari system which is capable of withstanding quakes.

The system, with wooden frame and special nogging (placement of bricks), ‘‘proved to be quake-resistant’’, Arya said. The team includes seismologists and engineers. ‘‘Though Uri is in ruins (because of indiscriminate and excessive use of stone and mortar for walls), in Baramulla we found that buildings constructed in the bajji-diwari style had suffered the least damage. Some of them, even very old ones, developed only a few cracks,’’ he added.[Wood and brick homes withstood Saturday Shiver]

Even the folks who built Qutub Minar had ideas on how to withstand earthquakes.

‘‘Saturday’s recordings show that while Delhi shook, Qutub stood still. There has been no damage and no noticeable vibration was recorded. Though the data is being closely analysed, we can say that certain architectural facets of the Minar and its design patterns helped Qutab withstand the tremors. Materials used in construction, wall thickness and proportionate base weight and the corresponding height besides stones used for construction helped Qutub withstand the shocks.’[When Delhi shook, Qutub stood still]’

There is a lot to be learned from both local and ancient construction techniques.

Justice Mukherjee commission that went to Russia has returned without finding anything. Some people had suggested that after faking a plane crash in Taiwan, Subhash Bose had reached Russia and the Commission had gone there to find the truth about it. Some of the leads were fake and some were just accounts published in books of which the Commission requested an English Translation.
The truth, according to some is in the KGB archives. So Justice Mukherjee called up KGB and asked if they had any documents about Bose and they said no. So he just walked away.

Authorities of the Central Archive of the KGB, Central State Archive of Russian Federation Defence, Russian State Library, State Archive of Russian Federation, Russian State Military Archive and the Russian State Historical Archives for the Far East have informed the Commission that they had no documents relevant to its terms of enquiry, Mukherjee said.[Mukherjee Commission returns sans Netaji documents]

If Justice Mukherjee had watched even a single James Bond movie he would have known that this is not the way to get information out from such places. I am not suggesting that the Honorable Justice drown a Martini, shaken, but not stirred and crash into the archives in a Tank, but instead rely on some investigative reporters who know to get information out. Even if someone asked for chai-paani money for providing the information, the Justice will have to send a written note to the Ministry of Home Affairs, who will forward the note to a financial desk, who will then forward it to the senior most officer who is on a five year vacation. Well, you get the picture. A Govt. appointed commission operating in an honest straightforward way will only be able to collect limited information.
So far from all the information available, it seems like Subhash Bose was not in Russia and that story too was planted like the plane crash.
Previous Links: Subhash Bose: The Investigations – II, Subhash Bose: The investigations, How did Subhash Bose die?