A Forgotten Patriot - by Shipra Jaiswal

In Pentonville jail, London, they asked him his name. 'Ram Muhammad Singh Azaad' came the quick reply. The authorities were shocked that how can he be a Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, and Azaad at the same time.

Yes, he was Udham Singh(name given by the British) from Punjab who represented India in his own manner. An orphan, Azaad was involved in social service from the very beginning of his life and it was while doing this he witnessed one of the most vicious crimes against humanity, that was a mass genocide at Jallianwalla Bhagh at Amritsar on April 14, 1919 that was Baisakhi day, an auspicious day for Punjabis. A mass that assembled there for a peaceful protest against the Rowlatt act was shot at till there were no more cartridges left to shower death.

Azaad was grieved by this and this grief turned into hatred for the British imperialism.He joined many revolutionary parties and worked with many other comrades all over the world just to reach O'Dwyer who he had vowed to kill finding him responsible for the genocide of Jallianwala Bagh. The methods of the revolutionaries of the time were sometimes quite indirect like distributing food items on pamphlets which once read would stir the youth of the nation.
Azaad was an ardent supporter of rights of the workers all over the world.

Shot Michael O'Dwyer(note- not General Dyer, who had already died due to paralysis. It was Dyer who was with the squad who shot and O'Dwyer was the one who ordered General Dyer to use such methods) in Caxton Hall, London while he was giving a speech, feeling proud about his doings in Jallianwala Bagh. He didn't panic after the shooting and had a smile of satisfaction on his face when he was arrested. Main mission of his life had been completed.

Was awarded death punishment and accepted that too with a broad smile while Great lawyer like Gandhi, Nehru and Krishna Menon did nothing except passing foolish remarks. The India's elite section, who had gotten education in schools in London, and became our leaders in India were just having tea parties with the British while our one of the most patriotic citizen was being hanged in London. Even his remains were not allowed to be brought to India till this issue was taken up by the rural people themselves and they brought his remains home in 1974.

Have we lived upto the expectations of our Martyrs???

Is this what we have today was the desires of those who sacrificed there everything for our tomorrow??? And do we even know that who were these great martyrs and what they did for us???

Many of the names are still in dark and will remain so but are waiting for the light to fall upon us.

Copyright pulls down children’s joy

A news article in TOI dated 12th October 2007, mentioned the pulling down of pandal in Kolkata, which resembles a quite famous, Harry Potter’s Hogwarts castle.
Hiranmoy Roy Chowdhury, the president of puja committee, which has high profile West Beangal Minister, Subhash Chakraborty as a patron has received a notice from Delhi high court, that they may have to pull down the pandal over the Copyright violations.

Children of the locality day that they don’t want to know about what is Copyright as they felt agitated over the notice. Some of the children felt that the pandal would have made J.K. Rowling among Kolkattans.
Organisers are keeping their fingers crossed as they have deployed a number of eminent lawyers including a SC advocate to plead the case.

Isn’t it weird that the court made such a fuss on a simple Gowgwars castle which was brought up keeping in mind the enthusiasm among children about Potter.

The workers of Kolkata displayed their skills beautifully and proved that they don’t need computer and other electronic help for bringing up the castle.

I have a few questions to ask the petitioners-

- Did J.K. Rowling hire an architect to bring up the castle in her mind and was the plan of the castle registered anywhere to make it a copyright violation??

- Almost everything that we ever see has been shown in one or more movies somewhere or the other. Does it mean that everything comes under the Copyright act. Isn’t it a clear violation of the basic freedom of thought of the artist.??


- Wright brothers made airplane. Was it a violation of Copyright of Jules Verne??

Even J.K. Rowling had thought of Hogwarts while writing her books and even many others would’ve had thoughts like that but never wrote them down. I give full credit to Ms. J.K. Rowling and thank her for bringing us a cult of informed children which are much more interested in books now.
Can’t we see that this is another step in the same direction and has nothing to do with copyright.
We can see it in another way. This was a good thought for bringing together the quite popular historic mythology in synchronization with today’s mythological Hero, our very own Harry Potter
It is a sheer wastage of precious time of our honorary courts which really need much more time for millions of cases already pending there.

"Life is real, life is earnest and the grave is not its goal"

Contributed by Navjot Kaur

Ten years is not a big period of time, it may step in any moment now. The first question that we must ask ourselves is: Are we prepared to receive it? Every era in human history demands a mindset, to tune in with the age. By 2017, science will take a giant leap. Science and history play equal role in world power and with history are related the big names.

Heard the names, Karl Marx, Fidel Castro, Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, Mao Zedong, the list is long…… but hey.. Am I forgetting any name??????? CHE, ya that's the name, how can I forget the name. All the youth in world take Che as a symbol of freedom, a symbol of life, their ICON. ya surely an ICON. Guevara became an icon of socialist revolutionary movements and a cultural icon worldwide.

An Alberto Korda photo of him has received wide distribution and modification, appearing on t-shirts, protest banners, and in many other formats. The Maryland Institute College of Art called this picture "the most famous photograph in the world and a symbol of the 20th century. In any nation the youth necessarily forms the vangaurd in most spheres of activity, and it is essential that at this critical juncture its power must be mobilised further to strengthen our integrity and our capacity to resist aggression. What is required is an immense burst of idealism and energy among our youth.they constitute an immense reservoir of strength which, if properly channnelised, can prove to be a source of great power to the world. Indeed it is these young people who will soon be called upon to provide leadership in all walks of natural life, and they must train themselves to fulfil their future responsibilities with destinction."Our problem being to form the future, we can only form it on the materials of the past; we must use our heridity,instead of denying it."

The dimension of PATRIOTISM. I am concerned here not so much with the routine meaning of this term as with deeper patriotism which transcends all pettiness and exclusivism, and creates in our youth a deep urge for national unity and progress. This alone can eradicate corruption and nepotism from our land and galvanize our whole process of economic development. The youth of a nation is always the fountainhead of its idealism, and our young men and women must have a full realization that it is up to them to provide a new moral impetus to world. The younger generation today faces challenges graver than any with which their forefathers were confronted. What is at stake is nothing less than whether a secular and democratic nation, founded on principles of justice, liberty, equality and fraternity, can survive in this age. Destiny has given us the privilege of providing the answer to this momentous question, and I am confident that when the history of this turbulent era comes to be recorded our young men and women will not have been found waiting.

Che Lives...

This image of Che by Alberto Korda has been an icon for freedom, ever since the revolutionary was killed by CIA.

Che Guevara is not just about T- Shirts n coffee mugs. He is a thought process. He is feeling. He is what every revolutionary strives to be. The most perfect human being of our age. Inspired by plights of the people that he witnessed on the motorcycle trip that he took along with his friend, Alberto Granado, through Latin Americas, he took to arms just after finishing handling syringes. He saw armed revolution, the only way to fight in that particular scenario. He told his friend and Mentor, Fidel Castro, that he was there only to train to go to fight for the cause of the Rights of the Oppressed, all around the world.
I do wear his T-Shirts but not as a trademark but because they inspire us more than anything else. I would be wearing Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev, Kartar Singh Sarabha, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Battukeshwar Dutt, Ram Prasad Bismil and many of our own revolutionary’s T- Shirts too but alas, you can’t even think of looking for them. I think that is one of the sad things. I m not here to fight for the cause of T-Shirts. We have a bigger cause i.e. protecting the Rights of the Oppressed. But T-Shirts and many of his pics that are all around in my room also have their own significance. I can’t even remember how many of my friends who never thought of anything except than themselves before they knew about Che are now in active social work. Many are preparing for Civil Services like myself and many who right now can’t think of what to do are ready for it, whenever revolution calls them.

And here when I talk of Revolution it doesn’t have to be using Guns n Bullets. It can’t be violent in India’s case. But Che will always keep on being the source of revolution and freedom for the people all around the world.

We always keep on talking about Changing the system. Have we ever tried to work properly inside the system???

How many of us even know how to use there Fundamental Rights which is one of the best features of any kind of Constitution all around the globe???

Come on, wake up. Its time to change the face of the Earth.

Floods - Blacked out...but real

This is a thought triggering editorial of the current issue of Down To Earth, Science and Environmental online...

read on...

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Editorial: Floods: blacked out but real
By Sunita Narain

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I read newspapers and I watch the news unfold on scores of television channels. But in spite of these sources that keep me informed about current affairs, I would not know that floods are still ravaging vast parts of India. I would not know that over 2,800 people have died in these disasters, which have been termed as the worst ever in living memory. I would not know what is happening in the villages that drowned under the fury of nature or how millions are coping with the water that has swept away crops, livestock, worldly belongings, homes, roads, schools and what not. I would not even know how life continues after the fury, when deadly diseases come in the wake
of the flooding.

In retrospect, I would think that I have seen in the Indian media more images of the recent floods in the UK than in Jammu and Kashmir, in Uttar Pradesh, in Bihar, in Assam, in Orissa, in Andhra Pradesh, in Karnataka and in Gujarat. There are two responses to this observation.

One (cynical) answer is that middle-class India, for whom the media now delivers news (or infotainment), is simply not interested in events that affect poor India. In addition, the advertising revenue of the competitive and consolidated business of the media kicks in when it caters to the purchasing segments of society, not its market-unconnected parts. Floods in non-metropolitan cities don't make the grade, as far as news is concerned.

The other, equally plausible reason could be that floods in India are after all not news. While floods in the UK are unusual; they are increasingly understood to be part of the changing climate system and so they make it to the headlines. But floods in India are annual events. The cycle of devastation is not worth reporting-droughts followed by floods in one region or another, and then water-related diseases, from malaria to cholera. There is no news to tell.

But whatever explanation you choose to believe, we cannot switch off reality. The story of floods is partly usual but also mainly unusual. There is much we know but still do not heed so that devastation is less painful. But equally, there is much that we do
not know because of which the pain is much more frightful.

We know that the areas classified as flood-prone-defined as area affected by overflowing rivers (not areas submerged because of heavy rains)-has progressively increased over the past decades. It was 25 million hectares (mha) in 1960, which went up to 40 mha in 1978 and by the mid-1980s an estimated 58 mha was flood affected. But importantly, over these years the area under floods increased each year even though average rainfall levels did not increase. In other words, we were doing something wrong in the way we manage the spate of water so that rivers would overflow each season.

The answer is not difficult to find. In flood-prone areas-from the flood plains of the mighty Himalayan rivers to many other smaller watersheds-the overflow of the river brought fertile silt and recharged groundwater so the next crop was bountiful.

But over the years, we learnt not to live with floods. We built over the wetlands, we filled up the streams that dispersed and then carried the water of the rivers and we built habitations in lowlands which were bound to be inundated. We cut down our forests, which would to some extent have mitigated the intensity of the flood by impeding the flow of water. All in all, we have become more vulnerable to annual floods.

The current floods are all that, and much more. In recent years, the flood fury has intensified because of the changing intensity of rainfall. The deluge comes more frequently because of the sheer fury of incessant rain, which has nowhere to go. Just last week torrential rain in villages of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka killed over 60 people. We know that climate change models had predicted extreme rain events. Is there a connection here?

Then there is the issue of the release of water from reservoirs into lands, which are already deluged by rain. It is this combo effect that seems to be playing a big role in the floods we see today. There is some evidence that reservoirs-dams upstream of drowned lands-were already full of water at the beginning of the monsoon period. There is no hard evidence, as yet, to link this high reservoir level with increased flow from melting glaciers. But there is a possibility.

We know that dam authorities maintain high reservoir levels because of the uncertainty of rains. We also know that when there are intense bursts of rain and levels of water rise to an extent that could endanger the dam, the gates are opened and the water rushes out. If this flow of water is combined with even more rain in the region, then a deluge becomes inevitable. We know that variability in our rainfall is increasing at the sub-regional level. What then will this mean for the management of our reservoirs in the future? The question is do we understand the phenomenon of floods?

We don't. We have no mechanism to be informed of the changing intensity of rainfall; of the increased inflow into our reservoirs and of the water released by dam authorities. The fact is that today's floods are a double tragedy: of mismanagement of our land and water combined with mismanagement of science and data.

This mismanagement is criminal. Let's at least know that.

Too Possessed...

Tribute by me to the Martyr on his Martrydon Day

Feeling the numbness reaching the third eye,
feeling the touch of the next level of the high,
HIGHER i go with every word read,
but the mortal cast i bear bending its head,
i strive to go far ahead,
Alas!!! I have to carry the physique too dead...
Feeling no fear of the task ahead,
i try to derive the power from the dead.

They say he reminds of the christ on the cross,
Only man who was ready to bear every material loss...
They say, he was a Utopian dreamer,
Do dreams still fly from the land of those deceased???
Do the many coloured crow still flies low???

CHE, they call him, as we know...
Yes, dreams still flow when the soul calls Soul...
they make us ready and again i boil,
feeling possessed by the soul of the Star,
Still feeling if he was ever really dead...
the third eye opens and now i can see,
the path so clear to push the mortal ahead...
Is it we who make him live or he who gives us life???

I don't have the time to answer,the possession to strong...
Feeling no danger i move ahead, with my head too high...
And now i get to know why he is always looking towards the skies...
Here i come to embrace the next stage,
Here i am to lead the war i wage...

Lead India Debate Visited

Having not slept for last complete night, it was tough for me to go to the Lead India contest’s debate phase where I was invited as a jury member. But having taken the responsibility, I carried my mortal self through the power of my soul that was feeling that I m going to find lots n lots of good things there than I can ever find in a movie show or something where we never miss going if we have bought tickets to.
Quite a good number of people had turned up there and many have made a good research on the candidates(or were doing so right then) as it seemed from the TOI copies in there hands.
I got seated in the hall at around 3:40 PM as they had asked us to do so before 3:45 PM. I was almost sleeping when the debate started and to make it worse, the candidates who were the first to speak were singing good night songs in the hall. The topic of the debate was carefully chosen- Which form of democracy you find is more appropriate in a country like India- The Presidential or The Parliamentary?
The first 3 candidates had their view but were almost reading it mechanically from a paper making me feel sleepier. But from the fourth candidate, the momentum got picked up n that woke me up. Most of them were in the favor of Parliamentary system while one candidate said that the debate is irrelevant as both have there pros n cons and cannot be compared. The last candidate upped the ante by saying that as for so long we have had no success with the Parliamentary one, it becomes somewhat necessary to try the Presidential one.
The candidates who I enjoyed were-
Aseem Puri- He seemed clear about his view and had statistics to back his view. He spoke in the favor of the Parliamentary system.
Sanjiv Kaura- Only candidate to have spoken in the favor of the Presidential one was very good with experience, qualifications, knowledge and confidence to back him. He based his thoughts mostly on what he had himself witnessed n not just theory.

My View-
Both Presidential and Parliamentary forms are equally good as what remains to be seen as who is the leader who’ll get the power in the end. It all depends on the Political will of our Leaders.n the people, i.e. you guys. Its not the system that is at fault here, its us.
If a wood is eaten by termites, whose fault is it??? The wood’s or the Termite’s???
Its we who converted the system to what it is now n now we want a change. If after the change too we keep working like this then we’ll make the other system too the same.
Countries of both types have faced both good n bad situations so citing examples will be faulty but what more can we demand than a mixed one that we already have. We have almost all the good features of both and I say as that everything has changed since we first coined these terms, we should first try to find that are these the only two ways???? Why not try to find even a better one if possible.
Hey thinkers, have u stopped writing or is our technology too loud for any of us to hear you??

Youth murdered by beloved's father for marrying her

This article will surely make you wonder, in which century we are living.

Rizwanur Rahman, who had married Priyanka without her parents' consent on August 18 under the Special Marriage Act, was found dead beside the railway tracks near Dum Dum at 10.30 am on Friday — barely 20 minutes after he fixed up an appointment with a human rights activist for a visit to Lalbazar.

He had earlier sought police protection, which he never got.

In a complaint he had filed with the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR) just two days before his death, Rahman had claimed two deputy commissioners of police posted at the Lalbazar headquarters had threatened to arrest him if Priyanka did not return to her parents. A copy of his letter was submitted to the state human rights commission.

WBHRC chairman Shyamal Sen has since asked police commissioner Prasun Mukherjee to conduct an inquiry and submit the report in three weeks.

Rahman's death triggered anger in Tiljala, where he lived. On Saturday, thousands of residents of Park Circus and surrounding localities took to the streets. They blocked bridge no. 4, the critical link to the Park Circus-EM Bypass connector, demanding a probe into the death. The protesters vented their anger on the police. They were particularly furious that officers of Karaya police station had refused to accept an FIR filed by Rahman's parents. Rumours that the body had gone missing from police custody further inflamed the protesters, who went on the rampage, torching a police jeep and wrecking nine other vehicles. The police lathicharged the mob, which retaliated with brickbats. The street fights continued for over an hour.

The administration, however, did not seem moved by the anger on the streets. When asked if the government would initiate an inquiry into the alleged involvement of senior IPS officers in the case, home secretary Prasad Ranjan Roy said: "Police have not submitted any report. We have not asked for one either."

Mukherjee only said a probe would be initiated. "The police even refused to accept an FIR. They only made a general diary entry, stating that Rizwanur had encountered an unnatural death," Rahman's brother Rukbanur said. According to Rahman's complaint to APDR, police had repeatedly summoned him and Priyanka to Lalbazar and Karaya police station and put pressure on them to split. On September 8, a deputy commissioner at Lalbazar had allegedly threatened to arrest Rahman if Priyanka did not return to her businessman father, A Todi. Priyanka agreed, but the couple asked for a written undertaking that she would return to Rahman after seven days. The officer refused to give it.

Rizwanur had not heard from Priyanka since September 12. On Friday, he planned to go to Lalbazar, with APDR's Sujato Bhadra, to submit documents regarding his marriage and the threats he had been getting. His body was found barely 25 minutes after he called Bhadra.

Bhadra has demanded an impartial probe into the case and asked the police to immediately produce Rahman's "missing wife". Priyanka's whereabouts are still unknown. Repeated attempts to contact Todi both at his residence and on his cellphone failed.