Communists decide what people should drink

When an NGO lab came up with test results that 11 soft drink brands had pesticide residues more than permissible limits by BIS standards, Kerala State Govt. banned the production and selling of Coke and Pepsi. The State Govt. did not validate the data for itself nor did it wait for results from any other lab. The companies then filed a case in High Court and the court lifted the ban citing that the State Govt. did not have the authority to enforce such bans. The court also noted that the Communists in Kerala did not even bother listening to the companies point of view.

When you live in a country like India, where there is a rule of law, you obey them. But not for the Communists. No, Sir. Following the High Court verdict, the foot soldiers of the Communists attacked godowns stocking cola products.

Around 50 members of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), the youth wing of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM), ransacked the PepsiCo godown opposite the CPM district office. According to eyewitnesses, close to 50 per cent of the stocks were destroyed by the activists. The police arrived late and by that time the DYFI activists had dispersed. No arrests have been made.

When reports of this attack were flashed on TV channels, suspected DYFI activists yesterday evening barged into godowns at Kozhikode in north Kerala and inflicted heavy damage by destroying cola products.

In Palakkad, activists attacked around eight lorries that had come to lift stocks from the Coca-Cola unit there and smashed their windscreens.[Pro-Left activist attacks Kerala cola warehouses]

Fortunately followers of this murderous and anti-national cult and did not kill anyone this time. Mind Curry put it best when he wrote

And the leaders of DYFI and AIYF gave a statement today to justify their acts: “We are just making the “people’s voice” heard”. Isn’t that the lamest reason you could ever hear in a state that gloats under the umbrella of 100% literacy? If the people have a voice why don’t we let them decide? We can just choose to NOT DRINK it, or DRINK it. We don’t need third rate scoundrels or their parties, or even the government, make such decisions for us. I have a right to think, consider facts and decide which is safe and what I want to drink. It is unacceptable that a party makes that choice for the people. The people should have the right of choice, and that is what would have made us seem more literate, democratic and cultured.[Yehi Hai Right Choice]

Once when some farmers in Kerala decided to plant some other crops instead of paddy, the Communists descended on their fields and destroyed all the crops. It was a warning to the farmers that the the Communists were the new Zamindars who would dictate what the farmers should cultivate in their fields. The leader of that movement is the current Chief Minister of Kerala. Koko the monkey might design a spacecraft and go to moon, but still these Communists will never understand the concept of personal freedom.
Update 1 Vinod writes

To furthur insult the intelligence of the people of Kerala, the CM seems to assume that the Colas are a problem affecting the common man. Pray, how? In a state where safe, potable water is not available for the common man, is the CM playing Mary Antoniette and assuming that the common people are now drinking Cola in Kerala? However much I try to extend my imagination, I fail to make a connection between the “common man” and Cola in Kerala, except maybe with Rum.

Update 2 Siddhartha Shome analyzes the anti-Coke movement in India
Update 3 Kuttan writes

This has to be the icing on the cake. Kerala now has a chief minister who not only condones violence but also justifies it publicly. According to him if you dont agree with the judiciary of the land you can take matters into your own hands and run amok destroying private property. He condoned it when SFI resorted to violence against self financing colleges and destroyed property of the colleges now he went a step further justyfing the people who attacked the cola companies.
By saying that he has knocked down one pillars of the constitution and has indirectly called out for an all out war against juduciary. Im not a legal expert but if this doesnt constitute contempt of court I’m not sure what what would.

On Hartals and Bandhs

Dog’s own country has an excellent post on the frequent Hartals and Bandhs which costs Rs. 233 per Keralite for a single day’s shutdown

Most people can point quite readily to the source. Public employees are not required to keep attendance and the costs of cutting work are far lower for them as they are salaried employees. The opportunity cost is even lower for politicians. In fact, they actually gain voting lobbies in the form of government workers and trade union members through such stunts. In contrast, employees in private firms have much to lose by resorting to coercive forms of protest. That is why you see one or two private bus strikes every year. And even those do not lead to full-scale shutdowns. The power to paralyze life has come to define the life of the public sector.[ How Hartals and Bandhs Hijacked our State]

Switching to Organic Foods

With their testing CSE has bought into discussion the amount of pesticides we consume in Colas. Though the war fought by CSE was against Coke and Pepsi, it has provoked discussion and bought into focus the issue that we consume larger quantities of pesticides in daily foods such as milk, tea and sugar than Coke and Pepsi.

To avoid pesticides either we will have to harvest our own crops or switch to organic foods. Currently in United States, organic food and organic farming are gaining ground. Apart from health conscious stores like Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, you can get organic food in regular grocery stores like Safeway and Albertson’s also.

The United States Department of Agriculture sets very strict standards for food which can be labeled organic. First, the farmers must avoid chemical fertilizers and pesticides for three years. There are strict rules for transporting, processing and selling food. Factories that process both organic and non-organic food need to stop their machines and clean them with an organic solvent before the organic processing starts. Even in stores, non-organic food cannot be store above organic food since the water that drips through non-organic food can pollute the organic food.

Though expensive compared to non-organic food, the prices are expected to fall soon as Wal-Mart is planning to enter this market a big way.

Wal-Mart says it wants to democratize organic food, making products affordable for those who are reluctant to pay premiums of 20 percent to 30 percent. At a recent conference, its chief marketing officer, John Fleming, said the company intended to sell organic products for just 10 percent more than their conventional equivalents.

Food industry analysts say that with its 2,000 supercenters and lower prices, Wal-Mart could soon be the nation’s largest seller of organic products, surpassing Whole Foods. Already, it is the biggest seller of organic milk. [Wal-Mart Eyes Organic Foods]

With the pesticide-in-food issue getting coverage, wouldn’t this be a good time to start an organic brand in India?.

Nehru: We don't need a defence plan!

After India got Independence, the state of Jammu and Kashmir decided to remain independent. Once the British left, a revolt started in Poonch and was supported by tribesmen from North West Frontiner Province, who decided to give a helping hand to their Muslim brothers. Faced with this threat, the Maharajah of Kashmir had to request help from India but the India would not intervene unless the Maharajah joined the Indian Union. So he signed the Instrument of Accession and the airlift of Indian troops began on 27th October. So instead of seeing the fruit falling into his lap , Jinnah saw it fall into India’s lap.

According to a new account, it was this war that saved the Indian Army since Prime Minister J. Nehru wanted to follow the principle of ahimsa and not have a defense policy at all.

The Kashmir war saved the Indian Army from being scrapped, seems strange? Well, a biography of Major General AA “Jick” Rudra of the Indian Army by Major General DK “Monty” Palit claims so.

According to the book, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru blew his top when Lt General Sir Robert Lockhart, the first commander in chief of India took a strategic plan for a Government directive on defence policy.

“Shortly after independence, General Lockhart as the army chief took a strategic plan to the prime minister, asking for a government directive on the defence policy. He came back to Jick’s office shell-shocked. When asked what happened, he replied, The PM took one look at my paper and blew his top. ‘Rubbish! Total rubbish!’ he shouted. ‘We don’t need a defence plan. Our policy is ahimsa (non-violence). We foresee no military threats. Scrap the army! The police are good enough to meet our security needs’,” the Daily Times quotes the book as saying.[‘Nehru wanted army scrapped’]

On the bright side if Nehru’s plan had worked, then there would be no Kashmir issue, no border disputes with China and no need of nuclear weapons. Instead we would all be debating if Urdu or Mandarin would be our national language.

Knee-jerk responses

When The Da Vinci Code was about to be released in India, some Christian organizations made a big fuss about it. Concerned about the consequences, the some states like Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Meghalaya and Nagaland banned the movie even though it was cleared by the censor board. Later the High Court of Andra Pradesh gave a well deserved lecture to the Government of YSR Reddy saying that “The Constitution does not confer or tolerate such individualized hyper-sensitive private censor intrusion into and regulation of guaranteed freedom of others”. The Chennai High Court said that it would be dangerous to allow the State to straitjacket the right to freedom of expression.

Due to the intervention by the courts, the movie was released. Kerala did not join this madness and allowed the movie to be released and it did very well. Newton’s third law states that if you don’t have a knee jerk reaction for one controversy, you can always do it for another.

When an NGO lab came up with test results that 11 soft drink brands had pesticide residues more than permissible limits by BIS standards, Kerala State Govt. banned the production and selling of Coke and Pepsi. In a strange twist the other nine brands (Pepsi Caffechino, Mountain Dew, Mirinda Orange, Mirinda Lemon, Duke Lemonade, 7 Up, Thums Up, Limca and Fanta) in which pesticide residue was detected by CSE were not banned. Now both Coke and Pepsi are selling for large prices in the black market.

The state government did not even bother to wait for reports of testing from a Govt. lab before putting the ban order. They did not even question if CSE is qualified to perform these tests. What if I conduct some tests in my home tomorrow and clear both Pepsi and Coke? Will the Govt. withdraw the ban? The West Bengal Govt. in the mean time collected samples from state and sent it to different labs for testing and the results say that the drinks are safe. So why is one Communist state banning the product while the other has no problem with it?

“Bengal isn’t Kerala. There is a lot of difference between the two states. The people in Kerala speak a different language,”Bose said after a Left Front meeting in Kolkata on Wednesday.[Colas get ‘Lal Salaam’ in Bengal]

Who can disagree with that?

See Also: Anand has a better explanation.

An Independence Day Story

On June 17th, 1806, Mustafa Beg, a sepoy with the Madras Infantry in Vellore Fort in Tamil Nadu told his commanders that a revolt was being planned. This allegation was investigated by his superiors, but they did not find any truth to it and he was imprisoned. What Mustafa Beg was betraying was a military revolt against the British in India which happened half a century before the more famous 1857 mutiny.

The Madras Army of the British East India Company came into existence to protect the Company’s commercial interests. They were mostly untrained guards with only some bearing arms. They were combined into battalions with Indian officers commanding local troops and the Madras Army had made a name for itself in the battle of Wandiwash in 1760 and under Clive in the battle of Plassey.

In 1799, in the Battle of Seringapattanam, led by Arthur Wellesley, who later defeated Napolean in the Battle of Waterloo, Tipu Sultan was killed. Tipu Sultan’s two sons were held in British Custody in Vellore Fort, the same fort which was captured by Shivaji in the 17th century during his attacks on the Bijapur possessions.

In November 1805, the British ordered a change in the head dress of the sepoys from the turban to a round hat. Besides this, the British also ordered the removal of beards which had religious significance, face-paintings, and jewelery which had caste significance. Even though the Commander-in-Chief, Sir John Craddock advised the Governor of Madras, Bentick, to cancel the order, he refused. The round hats were synonymous with Christians and the sepoys saw this as an affront to their religion. The sons and retainers of Tipu used this reason to raise the revolt.

On July 10th at 3 a.m, the 1500 strong Indian garrison at Vellore broke in revolt. The sepoys massacred officers, the sick in hospitals and fired into European barracks. About a hundred of the three hundred and fifty British on garrison duty were killed and by 10 am, the fort was under Indian control. In the confusion Mustafa Beg escaped from prison. An officer who was outside the fort went to the nearest military post in Arcot for help and the I9th Light Dragoons, commanded by Sir Rollo Gillespie rushed with a relief force.

They blew a hole in the gates with their galloper guns and deployed the cavalry. The massacre of the sick had made the British mad with anger that they spared no one. About 100 sepoys who took refuge in the palace were placed against a wall and blasted with canister shot. John Blakiston, an engineer in the army recalled that he could watch the scene with composure since it was an act of summary justice. According to him, due to the nature of combat in India, civilized conventions of European warfare did not apply. The revolt was quelled and the fort came back under British control.

Following this incident, the British started recruiting sepoys from Bengal, Bihar and the United Provinces. The flogging of soldiers which was common was also abolished. Governor Bentick was recalled and new rules prohibiting the tampering of customs and traditions of the sepoys were issued. Still it led to the incident of 1857, in which the Madras Army did not revolt. Mustafa Beg later reported for duty and was given a monetary reward and a subedar’s pension.

In fact this was not the first revolt. On the eve of Baksar, the Company’s Indian Sepoys refused order and were horribly executed by Hector Munro. Also during the Burmese, Sindh and Punjab wars, sepoys staged mutinies when denied compensation for the loss of caste while serving ‘overseas’.[1]. Still the 1857 mutiny is more famous as the fire set by it, spread to other Lucknow, Kanpur, Meerut, Jhansi, Delhi, Bareilly, Arrah and Jadishpur, while the other mutinies were very localized.

References: The First Mutiny, India: a history by John Keay

Natwar Singh slips on Oil

It was last year in October that the Paul Volker, the former Federal Reserve Chairman released his report on the Iraqi Oil for Food programme. The report mentioned Natwar Singh, the Congress Party, and Bhim Singh as “non-contractual beneficiaries”. The Iraqis had bribed political parties and people in position to influence their opinion.

When the report came out Natwar Singh immediately called it baseless. After that, just to prove that he genuinely had lost his marbles, he suggested that Paul Volker had political designs and was targeting opponents of the war. He also wanted to know why an American was appointed to investigate and not a person from a developing country. The Communists who are always in the race to show they are the benchmark when it comes to stupid statements contributed the gem that all this was due to the liberalization of the economy. Natwar Singh, then went so far, like George Galloway to suggest that he has no idea how a barrel of oil looks like.

It did not matter to these people that Table III in the report listed Americans, British, Italian and Spanish nationals (all from countries who made up the Coalition forces) accused of similar crime. Since we don’t trust Americans, a Committe was appointed to investigate the matter. Now the Justice Pathak Committee has found Natwar Singh and his son Jagat Singh guilty.

Andaleeb Sehgal, a friend of Jagat Singh, and Aditya Khanna, a relative of Natwar Singh, are understood to have received financial payoffs in the deal by getting oil coupons based on the letters of recommendation given by Natwar Singh.

The authority has found that Natwar and his son had misused their position in helping Sehgal and Khanna bag three oil contracts from the UN sanctioned Saddam regime.

Sehgal and Khanna, in turn, passed the contracts on to Swiss oil company Masefield AG which drew the oil and paid them a commission, the report says, adding that on a cut of five cents a barrel, Sehgal and Khanna received a total commission of $1,46,000, which they divided between themselves in a ratio of 4:1. [Natwar Singh, son indicted in oil-for-food scam

Now we know that Natwar Singh was not targeted due to his anti-war stance, but because he was involved in bribery. His anti-war stance came not from any ideology, but due to good payoffs and he was just acting like a good sepoy for Saddam Hussein.

The report has exonerated the Congress Party which was listed as one of the beneficiaries, but since Natwar Singh was a loyal foot soldier of the party, doesn’t the party bear responsibility for this man’s actions? Both Sehgal and Khanna had used the party name and Natwar Singh misusing his position had written several letters to the Iraqi Oil Minister to swing contracts in favor of his son. Now the focus will be on Natwar, since he has been chosen to drink hemlock for the party and in this cacophony the party will escape the scam.

And the answer is..

Normally when terrorists want to trigger communal violence they attack places of worship, usually Hindu temples or holy cities. On September 2002, terrorists attacked the Akshardham temple in Gujarat, killing 31. On July 2005 there was a two-hour gun fight between LeT terrorists and Indian police on the site of the Ram Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya in which six terrorists were killed. On March 7, 2006, a series of blasts occurred in the Hindu holy city of Varanasi. On April 14, 2006 two blasts occured in the Jama Masjid in Old Delhi killing five people and injuring thirteen.

When terrorists attack Mumbai trains in which people of all religions travel how do you find a communal angle to it? You can if you want to and if you are the editor of a major newspaper. This is exactly what Shekhar Gupta did in his opinion piece in Newsweek. Shekhar Gupta wants to believe that the Mumbai terrorist attacks were an attack on secularism and is connected to the 2001 Gujarat riots in which both Hindus and Muslims were killed. His reasoning is that people who travel in first class compartments are rich upper-caste Gujarati Hindus.

This explains why one of my friends survived the bombing. He was traveling in one of the trains in which the bomb exploded. Fortunately he was in a different first class compartment. Probably the terrorists after realizing that he was a upper-caste Malayali Hindu moved the bomb to another compartment. And if the aim of terrorists was to murder upper-caste Gujarati Hindus why did they come to Mumbai when Gujarat is right next door, as Sandeep asks.
But finally we have an answer to The Acorn’s question: who is the bigger fool?

If you don't learn from history..

In 1999, yet another peace process was started by India. This time Prime Minister Vajyapee decided to take a bus to Lahore and sing a few poems for peace. The idea it seems was to attack the Jihadi heart, not with bullets, but with words. The Indian Prime Minister or the genius who came up with the idea hoped that under the impact of the bus trip, Pakistan would give up claims on Kashmir and maybe even donate Karachi to India.

While Indians were planning the bus trip, the Pakistanis were also into planning the Kargil War, under the leadership of the current dictator Musharraff. The Indian Prime Minister was received by Nawaz Sharif, who was the alleged Prime Minister of Pakistan at that time. They sang songs, lighted candles and danced around the trees, while Pakistani soldiers and terrorists crossed the border into India.

We called Nawaz Sharif, the alleged Prime Minister because he came to know of this whole incident of incursion from Prime Minister Vajpayee. You cannot blame him also since no one bothered to tell him about the the planned Army operation since he was just, you know, the Prime Minister. Now in a new book, Ghaddar Kaun? Nawaz Sharif ki Kahani unki Zubani, which sounds like the title of a Sunny Deol-Anil Sharma movie, Nawaz Sharif has revealed all.

Giving his account of the 1999 conflict in the book Ghaddar Kaun? Nawaz Sharif ki Kahani unki Zubani, Sharif has reiterated his contention that Musharraf, the then Army chief, did not take him into confidence on the situation in Kargil and that he learnt the details from his Indian counterpart, Atal Behari Vajpayee.

World to India: Trust a terrorist nation

Immediately after condemning the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, Pakistani Foreign Minister, Khurshid Kasuri suggested that the best way to deal with terrorism was to tackle the real issue of Jammu and Kashmir. What has a bomb blast in Mumbai got to do with Kashmir, you may wonder, but that seems to be the association in the Western World as well. When Michael Krasny made this association in Forum the Consul General of India, B.S. Prakash, asked him the same question.

Note that all this association was already made, very prematurely, even before the Police had clues connecting SIMI and LeT and before the congratulatory phone calls were traced. Even before this, suggestions came from various experts that the peace process should not suffer due to such terrorist activities and even thinking about reviewing the process would be falling into the terrorist trap.

Echoing the insensitive line by Khurshid Kasuri , Xenia Dormandy suggested that Kashmir is the problem and India needs to step up in offering something in Kashmir. To give her credit, and she said the right things on her interview with Neil Conan on Talk of the Nation, that the terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan is a big problem. Now the Economist too has suggested that India and Pakistan should solve the Kashmir issue.

All this faith in the peace process is built on the assumption that once the Kashmir resolved, with major “compromises” (code word for land donation), there will be ever lasting peace process in the sub-continent. Israel has learned the hard way this week that making such compromises do not guarantee anything, other than an escalation in violence.

Last September Israel withdrew from the Gaza strip and Gaza became the first completely independent Palestinian territory. The Palestinians fired rockets from Gaza, and then later dug a tunnel from there and kidnapped an Israeli soldier. Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000. United Nations verified the withdrawal and was satisfied with it. Now from Lebanon, Hezbollah entered Israel and kidnapped two soldiers. Now Israel is fighting a war on two fronts.

What is the guarantee that Gaza and Lebanon will not happen to India. How can you trust a nation which does not want to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure and which was planning Kargil, while yet another peace process was going on?<