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This was the response to IPL matches being moved out of Bangalore :
“We had provided full security to the match on Saturday and assure that all security measures needed for the semi-finals will be provided,” Yeddyurappa said.
“The government will not allow anyone to disturb peace in Bangalore,” he added.
Ahead of the meeting, Bidari described as “unfair” the IPL decision to move the semi-finals to Navi Mumbai.
The decision has been taken on “baseless and false presumption”, he said in a statement.
“If they don’t revise the decision to shift, I am afraid the BCCI will be committing a serious mistake and will be besmirching the fair name of a secure city like Bangalore,” Bidari said.
“We will take full and complete responsibility for the security,” Bidari said.
Those are gutsy statements, enough to make terrorists rethink their plans, if any.
Except for the teeny-tiny fact : There was an explosion in Bangalore just a couple of days earlier.
.. is Karnataka Home Minister V.S. Acharya who “made a quick exit after realising he was addressing the wrong election rally“.
VS Acharya, the home minister of the southern state and a Bharatiya Janata Party member, saw an opportunity to address a rally in Udupi district.
It said when he rose to speak Mr Acharya was still unaware of his surroundings and began by praising the achievements of the BJP government in Karnataka. Witnesses said the Congress supporters seemed to be giving him a fair hearing until they became restless at his criticism of the Congress-led federal government. Observers said he seemed oblivious as he denounced the Congress government – in front of Congress supporters.
All our leaders have to do in their lifetime is attend their own rallies and make promises. Is that really too much to ask for ?
Link via e-mail by Rohit W.
Just a few days earlier, Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa (hmm .. what could the BS possibly stand for) who made the statement that he would not allow growth of “pub culture” in the state, but I didn’t go as far as calling it a fall into disgrace.
But now I can, this time for falling from his chair. Not a figurative one. A literal one !
For those interested in a discussion, the problem with his first statement was that he should have called it ‘his personal opinion’, but the ‘I will not allow growth of pub culture’ doesn’t make him any different from the people who actually did not allow it in Mangalore. In this context, I appreciate the statements of Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan, who mentioned he was against it. Fair enough.
P.S. : Why is every Chief Minister being asked about his/her stand on ‘pub culture’ ?
Continuing on the series of attacks on the rights of other people, a hitherto unknown Sri Rama Sena acted as a moral brigade (and I must say got right into the skin of the character. Take that Aamir.) and attacked hapless victims at a pub in Mangalore.
Speaking with CNN-IBN from Maharashtra, Muthalik defended his organisation and said it was not a big issue and that the media was blowing it out of proportion.
“It’s a small incident and we were only working against obscenity in public. You are not talking about the issue, which is obscenity and inappropriate behaviour,” he said.
Muthalik – who was also the Karnataka Chief of the Shiv Sena but parted ways with them over the Belgaum border issue – also said Ram Sena was a non-profit organisation and its objective was to “serve the society and prevent bad begaviour”. (sic)
I am sure there are going to be quite a few takers for the “working against obscenity in public” reason. But like I mentioned in a previous post here, this was private property and trespassing might just be one of the lesser crimes they committed.
The National Commission for Women has been very vocal against this incident and so has anyone who is tired of the self-proclaimed moral brigades.
But the issue here again is a fundamental right. The right to freedom. It is ironical that the one right we fought hardest to attain is the one we are blatantly deprived of.
P.S. : In case you want to say anything about the issue, I would appreciate if the crux is spoken about in your comment. And the crux cannot be how they were dressed. Firstly, because they were on private property and they were not in any way invading any right of any other individual.
Ask anyone their opinion on why the riots broke out in Orissa and Karnataka. While just a few would attribute it to fanatics/fundamentalists/assisted terrorists, most of them would probably go and and explain to you the way Christian missionaries were wrongly converting tribal and poor people to Christianity (wrongly in this sense means by giving them food, education and medical supplies). This is how a fellow student here was explaining the incident to an American a few days ago. I have a few questions, and would appreciate if you can try to answer :
1. The missionaries get a lot of funding from outside India. They distribute texts that mock Hinduism in many ways. They convert people by giving them some basic necessities of life. Agreed and I condemn them for this form of exploitation. But if not for the Christian missionaries, how long would the government even take to realize there are people inhabiting those tribal areas ? How long would the government/Bajrang Dal/RSS take to provide the same help ?
2. As far as I know, the Christian missionaries have not engaged in violent activities (the murder of the Swamiji in Orissa has been claimed by Maoists). When the terror strikes are said to be in retaliation of incidents like the Mumbai/Gujarat riots, we are quick to condemn them, even though it is a form of violence for violence. Then why do we not condemn a form of violence against non-violence equivocally, if not even more aggressively ? (and not blabber on about the cause of the issue, viz. conversions) On that note, if tomorrow there is a terror attack which claims to be in retaliation for this incident, whom would you curse for your feeling of insecurity ? This switch to a violent form, in a chain of actions, is what is most dangerous according to me, because the chain never returns back to a non-violent form.
3. Assuming conversion is the main issue, why is it that we perceive Christiantity to be a bigger threat than Buddhism ? Kandhamal has about 40,000 more Christians from 75,000 in the last 10 yrs. But there are conversions where lakhs of people convert to Buddhism in a single day, where the vows include “I shall have no faith in Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwara nor shall I worship them. (ditto for Rama, Krishna, Gauri, Ganpati)” and “I do not and shall not believe that Lord Buddha was the incarnation of Vishnu. I believe this to be sheer madness and false propaganda.”
Is it just because Christians are easier targets than the Dalits in such huge numbers ? Is it just because they are not as violent ?
4. Now for the basic underlying issue. If you think religious conversion is fundamentally a wrong thing, none of the religions would have survived today if not for large scale conversions (and that includes Hinduism, Buddhism and every religion you can think of, all you need to prove it is induction).
5. And lastly, why do we have this general perception of Muslims as terrorists and Christians as converters ?
In a landmark judgement, Andhra Pradesh joins the elite group of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka in providing 4% reservation to Muslims in educational institutions (Link). While the Constitution of India does not allow for any reservation based on religion, but just to reinforce our belief (or disbelief) as to how easily the judiciary can be twisted, this is how the nod was obtained :
Andhra Pradesh government had argued that the Muslim quota had not been introduced on the basis of religion but because of the social and educational backwardness of the community.
Given this argument, I demand granting reservation in educational institutions to all fans of Himesh Reshammiya ! (based on the argument that a large chunk of his fans are autowallahs (Link), who are socially and educationally backward.)
