India’s Radiation City: Dehli

1,800 CELL TOWERS IN 2006. 6,000 NOW. BARE MINIMUM RADIATION LEVELS IN 2006. A THOUSAND TIMES MORE NOW. THERE’S A NEW THREAT IN DELHI, REPORTS RISHI MAJUMDER

REHAAN DASTUR, 46, is an engineer and an industrialist. he owns and runs a profitable Delhi-based boiler manufacturing company called Universal Boilers. So, it is safe to say he is a man of science and not prone to paranoia. Dastur was one of the first users of the cell phone in India. he bought his phone from airtel in October 1997, 15 days before it was commercially released. Cell phone calls cost rs 18 a minute then. Dastur spoke on his phone for hours on end at times. He continued to use the phone even though it had fallen and had developed a crack, because cell phones then were expensive and the crack didn’t affect his phone’s efficiency.

Tower lobby: Four telecom towers on the roofs of buildings opposite the Taimoor Nagar Gurdwara cause the EMR levels there to soar

Three years after doing this, in 2000, Dastur suffered a stroke that paralysed his body and distorted and froze his face. The doctor treating him at Delhi’s Apollo hospital told him he had Bell’s palsy, caused by Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) emitted from the antennae in his cell phone. The emr travelled through the crack in the phone, into Dastur’s ears, nerves and brain.

C.B.I (Concocting Bizarre Interpretations) In Shopian

By Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal
28 May, 2010 Countercurrents.org

JAMMU, April 10: ‘If you can’t convince someone, you confuse them.’ That was American president Harry S. Truman half a century ago. But right now, this is precisely how the government response to the Shopian rapes and murders (of May 29, 2009) and the campaign for justice that followed can be summed up.

From the very beginning the government response, to one of the biggest controversies ever in the history of Kashmir, has not been marked by consistency. The official investigating agencies – right from the Special Investigation Team of the Jammu and Kashmir Police to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) have been busier spreading canards of lies, spinning rumours and using media as a tool to leak misinformation, rather than clearing the cobwebs.

The CBI report, based on its investigations, is in striking contrast to the Justice Muzaffar Jan Commission report, which despite its limitations and flaws, did indict the police personnel for tampering evidence and deemed it not just dereliction of duty but rather a deliberate calculated move. The CBI, which has cracked its whip on everybody – from the doctors to the lawyers active in the campaign for justice – has been too kind to the police personnel and given them a clean chit.

Women worry Afghan peace jirga will harm rights

As Afghanistan’s most powerful men arrive in Kabul for a major conference aimed at starting a peace process with the Taliban, many women are worried the event could lead to a compromise of their hard-won rights.

Golnar Motevalli

Afghanistan is holding a peace jirga or an assembly of powerful leaders, tribal elders and representatives of civil society to consider plans to open talks with Taliban leaders in an effort to end the nine-year conflict.

A possible return of the Taliban has touched off concern about the fate of women who were banned from schools, the work place and public life during the Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001.

“I would not expect the peace jirga to do anything good for women. My hope is that it will recognize their presence and protect their rights equally to men, as presented in the constitution,” said Orzala Ashraf Nemat, a leading women’s rights activist in Kabul.

30 burnt alive in India bus accident

BANGALORE, India – At least 30 people, including 10 children, were burnt alive on Sunday when a bus bound for the southern Indian city of Bangalore ploughed into a roadblock and caught fire, police said.

At least 30 people, including 10 children, have been burnt alive after a bus in Indiacrashed and caught fire

The state-owned vehicle overturned in a ditch and its fuel tank burst into flames, engulfing the bus, the Press Trust of India news agency reported, adding about 30 other people were injured.

Kashmir needs to be put on the international agenda: MacShane

APP

LONDON - Pointing out the importance of Kashmir in the overall context of regional situation, a British parliamentarian has called for putting the disputed Himalayan State on the international agenda. In his article for The Observer Labour MP Denis MacShane said the burning issue of Kashmir, where 70,000 Muslims have been killed since the Indian army took over full control of the disputed region 20 years ago, needs to be put on the international agenda.

He underscored the channelling of diplomatic and development aid to be redirected to Pakistan and India as well as to China and Iran to remove the widespread feeling among Muslim communities that West is again seeking to control the lives of people whose customs and needs they do not understand.

Macshane called for the British troops to be called home from Afghanistan saying ‘it is time to stop the blood sacrifice of our young soldiers in Afghanistan.

The Coming China-India Conflict: Is War Inevitable?

ISHAAN THAROOR

By sheer demographics, it’s the world’s most important relationship. China and India comprise 40% of humanity and boast economies that are expected to loom large over the 21st century. They also represent two of the world’s fastest-growing militaries, armed with nuclear weapons, and are expanding their spheres of influence across oceans. Jonathan Holslag, a Brussels-based scholar of Chinese foreign policy and author of the recent book China and India: Prospects for Peace, is among a growing number of observers who have dismissed the idea of “Chindia” – a term once often invoked, expressing optimism over the joint geopolitical rise of the two Asian giants. He spoke to TIME about the fault lines between the two neighbors, Washington’s place in the region and how tensions could escalate into war.

A Chinese soldier stands with an Indian soldier at the ancient Nathu La border between India and China

The subtitle of your book suggests that conflict is already under way. Is greater confrontation and perhaps even war inevitable in the coming years?

India’s Greatest Threat?

Brute force may not be enough to beat the Naxalites, David Axe reports. More focus on development might yield better results.

By David Axe

On the early morning of April 6, the 81 troopers from the Indian Central Reserve Police Force were exhausted. For three days straight, they and a single district policeman had patrolled the thick forests of Chhattisgarh, a state in rural western India. They were on the lookout for fighters from the Naxals, an armed group originating in West Bengal that had split off from the Communist Party of India in 1967. Forty-three years on, senior officials in New Delhi consider the Naxals India’s most serious internal threat.

Army officer booked for civilian killings

Indo-Asian News Service

An Army major and four other people, including a territorial army soldier, were booked for the murder of three civilians in a staged gun battle in Jammu and Kashmir on April 30, 2010, police said on Saturday.

The bodies of the three civilians — Shahzad Ahmad Khan, Riyaz Ahmad Lone and Muhammad Shafi Lone — were exhumed on Friday from a graveyard in Kalaroos village of Kupwara district and identified by their relatives in the presence of a magistrate.

Bashir Ahmad, a former special police officer, and his accomplice Fayaz Ahmad were arrested for the disappearance of the three men belonging to Nadihal village in Rafiabad of north Kashmir.

Abbas Hussain Shah, a jawan of the territorial army, who is the kingpin of the conspiracy, was also arrested on Saturday, police said.

China raises Tibet issue with President Patil

Rahul Karmakar, Hindustan Times

Chinese President Hu Jintao and Chairman of National People’s Congress Wu Bangguo avoided the touchy Tibet issue. So it was left to Jia Quinglin to give the parting shot to President Pratibha Devisingh Patil in Beijing on Friday.

External Affairs officials said it wasn’t unusual for Quinglin to raise the Tibet issue and convey “concern” about the Dalai Lama’s “activities” in India. “He is the Chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) that deals with ethnic issues in China, and that includes the Tibetans,” an official said.

The 2196-member strong CPPCC is regarded as China’s top political advisory body.

Maoists thrive as India’s public enemy No 1

By Rupam Jain Nair

The Maoist insurgency has spread to 20 of India’s 29 states with the main centre of activity in the so-called ‘Red Corridor’ covering the natural resource-rich states of Jharkand, West Bengal, Orissa, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh

In the past five years, Maoist rebels have emerged as the most potent threat to India’s internal stability and left the authorities groping for a response to their increasingly audacious attacks.

Authorities blamed the Maoists for a railway attack in the eastern state of West Bengal early Friday that derailed an express train, killing at least 80 people.

Torture inquiry should leave no stone unturned, says Amnesty

Investigation into human rights abuses promised by William Hague needs to be independent and must look at criminal responsibility, says organisation

Ian Cobain

The foreign secretary, William Hague, has promised an inquiry into the UK’s complicity in torture. Photograph: AP

The coalition government should “leave no stone unturned” in the search for the truth about the UK’s complicity in foreign torture, the head of Amnesty International has said.

An inquiry promised by William Hague, the foreign secretary, needs to be both independent and able to decide whether any individuals should be prosecuted, said Amnesty’s interim secretary general, Claudio Cordone.

Couldn’t she just find a nice Indian boy?

AMBER RAHIM SHAMSI

Now the Shiv Sena has a problem with Indian tennilebrity Sania Mirza marrying Pakistan’s cricket captain Shoaib Malik. To quote the right-wing Hindu party’s octogenarian chief Bal Thackeray: “Had [Sania's] heart been Indian, it wouldn’t have beaten for a Pakistani. If she wished to play for India, she should have chosen an Indian life partner.” No surprises there.

It kind of reminds me of a comedy sketch in BBC’s Brit-Asian show Goodness Gracious Me. An Indian boy decides to come out of the sandooqcha with his British boyfriend to his middle-class Indian parents. They drop hint after hint to the clueless parents, who keep missing the lobs like Maria Sharapova on clay, until the gay couple declare the full nature of their relationship. The parents forbid him from being gay. Desperate for his parents to accept him, the boy goes up to them and says: “Look, I’m still the same person.” The mother hisses to her son: “You couldn’t have found a nice Indian boy?”

The Strange Islam Originating from Lahore

There is a ‘mass madness’ ranging from TV talk shows to headlines of News Papers and debate on internet. Charged workers of religious organizations are out in streets of Pakistan. As Malaysian are relatively more religious people as compared to Pakistani’s and share the same Prophet. I was thinking that today country would be choked like Pakistan from electronic blackout to burning shopping malls and McDonalds. Especially, the State of my work my worst as it is currently being ruled by a conservative religious party considered as ‘fanatic’ as Jamat e Islami of Pakistan.The conservative religious rulers of the State where I work have already declared Friday as a off day despite the fact the rest of the country have off days of Saturday and Sunday.

Since yesterday Pakistan Telecommunication authority has blocked Facebook, Youtube and Wikipidia along with interruption in Blackberry services on orders of a ‘Holly Lordship’ of Lahore High Court. The bearded Mullah are on the loose in streets chanting against western infidels burning tyre’s and destroying public property. There are 45 million Pakistani users of social media site Facebook, twice the entire population of another Islamic state, Malaysia. Many of them running businesses, charities and communicating with families and friends have been deprived of access to communication without being heard by a religiously charged self righteous judiciary. All being done in name of a ‘Holly Cause’ to defend the Prophet of Islam (PBUH) from conspiracies of Infidel west.

Rail track blast kills 65, injures 200 in West Bengal

PTI

Sixty-five passengers of a Maharashtra-bound express train were killed early Friday and 200 injured in a suspected Maoist attack which led to derailment of 13 coaches that were hit by a goods train coming from the opposite direction.

An injured passenger reacts at the scene of the Maoist-triggered train accident, which killed at least 65 people near Sardiya, about 150 km from Kolkata on Friday. Photo: AP

The bodies of the passengers were removed from the mangled remains of the ill-fated coaches of the Howrah-Kurla Lokmanya Tilak Gyaneshwari Super Deluxe Express and the injured taken out with the help of gas cutters, a South Eastern Railway (SER) spokesman said.

“65 bodies have been recovered. The toll could go up,” West Bengal Home Secretary Samar Ghosh said.

China offers no support for UNSC seat to India

Beijing: Indian officials on Thursday painted a positive picture of securing greater Chinese support, or at least more understanding, on the question of United Nations reforms and India’s bid for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council. China still stopped short of expressing outright support for India’s Security Council aspirations, even as Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao described as a “forward movement” the “understanding” shown by the Chinese leadership when visiting Indian President Pratibha Patil raised the issue at talks in Beijing. Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao said the Chinese leadership had been positive about engaging with India on the issue, showing increasing awareness of the legitimacy of India’s position on the matter. But whether or not this reflected any change in China’s actual position remained unclear after Thursday’s talks. U.N. reforms, and India’s calls for Chinese support, found no mention in the statement issued by China’s Foreign Ministry following the talks between President Pratibha Patil and Chinese President Hu Jintao.

President Patil held a series of meetings with her Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao on Thursday. Patil, who is on a six-day state visit to China, arrived in Beijing on Wednesday. “China understands India’s desire, aspiration to ensure a more prominent role in the United Nations Security Council and also understands that representation of developing countries should be increased, especially in the UNSC,” Rao said on Thursday evening. Since Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to India in 2005, China’s official position has been that Beijing “understood and supported India’s aspirations to play an active role in the U.N. and international affairs.”