14TH JANUARY - MORE THAN A DIARY ENTRY

Makar Sankranti, is celebrated across Indian States as Pongal, Uttarayan, Lohri, Bihu etc as a harvest season as the revered Sun moves from Southern Hemisphere to Northern Hemisphere. As the Indian society has moved from joint family systems to nuclear families, celebration of festivals too has become more and more solitary. Namma Devasthana, a people's initiative, gave me a chance to experience a festival in a community setting organised by the community itself.

Usually auspicious days, are in high demand in India - this time it was the naming ceremony of our cousin's new-born child. So after completing our prayers and offerings to the Sun we had the prasad as breakfast and hurried to the ceremonial lunch. The rock music loving duo who just got another baby boy, looked excited for long sleepless nights ahead. It was wonderful to see the newly titled great-grand-mothers and grand-parents bless the newly titled parents. I could get a few of those moments captured. After a heartening Kerala lunch, we rushed back home to prepare for our community festival together.

As it was the festival of the Sun - Surya Namaskar was planned - so I kept my Yoga mat.

There were quite a few people expected from the neighbourhood - so I kept some water bottles and ellu-bella (the sesame and jaggery mixture which I had offered in prayers earlier) for sharing with them.

Other thoughtful people brought mosquito repellents and mats for all.

A rangoli participation was on the cards, so I brought out some colours bought ages ago.

On arrival at the Balamuri Ganesha temple, we saw several ladies already draw the rangoli using the white alpana powder. Well I tried my hands at an already in progress mutli-layered multi-petal imaginary flower with dots in every petal and leaves around it. I drew a few leaves before I left to admire others who were proficient and novices like me. There were couples who were doing it together and at a distance were little girls. Freedom to express what they liked - sugarcane, a pot full of harvest, flowers etc - gave an immense sense of satisfaction who got their hands "clean"  in the white powder. For me it was extremely therapeutic and brought an immense sense of attachment to the leaves that I had drawn.

Next was gau-pooja or offering prayers to the cow. Cow being the soft hearted and giver of elixer through her milk, is loved by all. Children even a third the height of the cow, put turmeric and kumkum on the cow and prayed to her to continue to bless us. Jaggery and rice was offered as cow feed and the cow was draped in cloth as a mark of respect.

Mantra Uccharan (mantra-recital) by little boys and girls started off (who had written several shlokas on the Sun God in their note books). The same was led by an old pious lady who had taught them how to do so. It ended with a round of applause.

Andal, the Meera Bai of Tamil Nadu, composed two exceptional works in praise of Vishnu, in her short life of fifteen years. An excerpt of that was sung to remember her on this day - just as how the best loved poet saint of the Tamils, used to. Following this, my yoga mat came handy as we did Surya Namaskar facing the east and I ended up leading the children for the same. The saree obviously was not the best dress to do it in - but I still seemed to have enjoyed it!

The next thing was the Bharatnatyam dance recital by Devi Anuradha. The dance brought out feelings of immense bhakti towards Lord Vishnu among the spectators. One was about "Are you tired my Lord?" and the other on "I love you, Lord - more than any of my family". Before we knew the whole crowd was immersed in bhajans lead by the melodious group led by Shri Shanmukha ji - which slowly changed into dancing for the Lord and the joyous train Parikrama around the temple deity Ganesh ji.

Smt. Shakuntala Iyer introduced the concept of Namma Devasthana, aimed at building communities around temples for spiritual, cultural and economic upliftment of society around it. Today I witnessed spiritual and cultural side of it, and I am sure going forward if people start loving their temple and festivities and Gyan sabhas around it - several of the wasteful expenditures will cease. To make a temple near you, as "my temple" or "Namma Devasthana" just approach the temple near you and fill up https://docs.google.com/forms/d/16YFZnulIVAeb0Vdudv-fPrFOi-3M3OYNZWIErH2uKtg/viewform 

The beautiful evening ended with distribution of bangles, haldi-kumkum, beetal leaves and a blouse piece to the married women, pencil cases for the children and a pot-luck dinner with friends who has signed up for Namma Devasthana (led by Smt. Renuka Gopinath)! You can like "Namma Devasthana" on Facebook and Twitter too!

Looking forward to the celebrations of the MahaShivRatri or the Great Night of Shiva on 27th February 2014 at Namma Devasthana!

What an LSE professor has to say about detention of Baba Ramdev

Dr. Gautam Sen taught international political economy at the London School of Economics and Political Science for more than twenty years.

Baba Ramdev, India’s prominent Yoga guru and campaigner against corruption, was unexpectedly detained when he arrived at London’s Heathrow airport on Friday, the 20th September. He had visited the UK regularly in recent years and was the guest of honour at the celebrations for Swami Vivekananda’s 150th birth anniversary. The young Asian woman immigration officer informed him he would have to wait. When he enquired after a half hour why he was being held up, she curtly told him to remain in the detention centre, failing to recognise her famed guest. His hosts waiting outside were growing anxious and Baba Ramdev phoned to inform them he was not being allowed to enter the country. After three hours he exercised the right, he was told he had, to demand the reason. None was forthcoming.

Persistent representations from his hosts failed to elicit any explanation from the immigration authorities. Legal representatives who arrived to offer counsel and inquire had no luck either. The Indian High Commission in London was contacted, but claimed it could not fathom why Baba Ramdev was being denied entry. It cannot be said they evinced undue interest over the issue, perhaps conscious of the Congress party’s abhorrence for Baba Ramdev and all his works.
Eventually, after being detained for eight hours, Baba Ramdev was granted temporary entry to the UK, but required to return for a further interview the following day. His passport, the leaflets he was carrying and his personal diary were seized while Hindi and Sanskrit translators were sought to scrutinize them. The timing of the immigration interview he was required to attend coincided exactly with the commencement of the Vivekananda birth anniversary celebrations. It was evident they did not wish him to participate.
One of Baba’s devotees telephoned the Rt. Honourable Keith Vaz, MP for Leicester and Chair of the Home Affairs Parliamentary Select Committee, a position of authority pertaining to official police and immigration policy. He swung into action immediately, inviting Baba Ramdev to his home to discuss the situation. It is unprecedented to be invited to the home of a MP to confer about an issue raised by a member of the public. Keith Vaz, whose wife happens to be a leading expert on immigration issues, spent several hours on the phone to the authorities involved at Heathrow, the Home Secretary as well as 10 Downing, Street, the prime minister’s official residence. He berated the immigration authorities roundly and then unexpectedly accompanied Baba Ramdev to Heathrow airport. The immigration authorities suddenly became receptive and acceded to Keith Vaz’s demand that Baba Ramdev’s passport and the seized documents be restored to him immediately. All this only took five minutes and he was granted a two-year multiple entry visa on by the immigration authorities on their own initiative. Keith Vaz earned the profound gratitude of Baba Ramdev’s followers and British Hindus for his huge efforts and extraordinary courtesy towards their revered saint.
It transpired that a coded notation, visible to scanners used in airports, had been imprinted in Baba Ramdev’s passport by the authorities at New Delhi immigration control, as he was departing for the UK. Such a notation is reserved for terror suspects and drugs warlords and prompted an instant red alert when Baba Ramdev arrived at Heathrow. It would seem that the highest political authorities in New Delhi sought to disrupt Baba Ramdev’s travel abroad, to the UK and US, where he was participating in various events connected to Swami Vivekananda’s 150th birth anniversary. It can only be inferred that they have become so fearful of his campaign against corruption and support for political change in India that they were prepared to sink to the lowest depth imaginable. No doubt Baba Ramdev’s support for Narendra Modi’s prime ministerial candidature compounded their rage, prompting disregard for all legal and moral norms. They were prepared to instigate the humiliation and possible arrest of a Hindu saint to perpetuate their corrupt hold on power and persist in their increasing disregard for the Indian Constitution. The prime minister himself and his patron, who has usurped political and constitutional authority in India, must both be personally held to account for this outrage against Hindus.
In the event, Vivekananda 150th birth anniversary celebrations in London’s Hounslow Borough were a huge success. The audience was amply rewarded for their patience, having waited many hours for Baba Ramdev’s presence. He delivered a pithy and thoughtful speech when he arrived at the closing minutes of the first day’s session. The Rt. Honourable Shri Venkiah Naidu also spoke at length about India and its future in the context of Swami Vivekananda’s aspirations for Hindu civilisation. On the following day, many speakers, from doctors to educationists and women’s rights activists, delivered inspiring talks about the future for India they volunteered to help promote. Baba Ramdev spoke at length about the parlous situation in India, suggesting some extraordinarily useful economic solutions that any out-of-the-box policy maker should take seriously. He counselled more modest aspirations for material advancement in India since European and American standards of living would be unrealistic for Indians to expect. Interestingly, he criticised the waste of resources, citing the huge land holdings of the Indian railways that could be used for economic development. Such imaginative ideas for a yoga guru were a surprise! He ended by giving a ringing endorsement of Shri Narendra Modi, much to the universal delight of the audience!
It only remains to reiterate the sense of outrage that pervaded the event in London at the treatment meted out to Baba Ramdev at the instigation of the Indian government and its supreme authorities. It seems that they will stop at nothing to retain political power. However, their egregious misconduct against opponents suggests anxiety that they are poised for consignment to the political wilderness indefinitely since comprehensive demolition of the Congress party appears to be in prospect. They and their countless venal retainers, not least in the media, have every cause to feel anxious that the good life, through prodigious illegalities, is destined to come to an unhappy end, with some facing prosecution for legion violations of the law. The Congress party itself has been seized by foreign interests, seeking to cause massive harm to India. One by one, national institutions are being compromised, first parliament through outright purchase of votes, followed by the courts and then India’s intelligence services. These traitors are now engaged in subverting India’s armed forces to gain temporary electoral advantage, by revealing the innermost secrets of the Indian State. One may legitimately infer that when the anointed her apparent identified Hindus as the principal terror threat in India, against all the evidence, he was speaking in deadly earnest to his possible patrons. This is why Hindus are being routinely fitted up for terror crimes known to be committed by Pakistani agencies. The assault against Baba Ramdev is only the latest in their many calumnies.

3 Simple Reasons Why Youth Should be on Twitter

1.       No time for blogging? Micro-blogging is in!

While I post this article on my blog, an abstract of not more than 140 characters called tweet is bound to expand its reach. Prof Vaidyanathan, a IIM-B professor, has an amazing website called www.prof-vaidyanathan.com but only his presence on Twitter and personal interaction through “Direct Message” on Twitter led me to it. I share my academic pursuits with him now. The Indian politician with the maximum number of ‘followers’ on Twitter is Mr. Narendra Modi with 2.2 million followers, and you would be surprised to know that he follows me, among 670 others. What caught his attention about me on Twitter is difficult to ascertain but this proves one point – people care about your opinion and for the first time, it can reach those who can make a difference.

People have relied on diary writing to express themselves from time immemorial, few decades ago people starting blogging and now it is twitter. In fact I call my Twitter account as my personal diary – as it chronologically stores my events, news, my views, views of others that I re-tweet, - for future reference. The only difference is KISS (Twitter Keeps It Short & Sweet). In fact all of tweets ever tweeted in the world can be stored on a pen drive!

2.        Better your job perspectives!

Social Media has been gaining popularity with HR professionals, head hunters – for recruitment as well as employee engagement. A recent report by SHRM India, titled “Top 20 Indian HR Influencers on Social Media” revealed that the leading force for this transition is young, emerging workforce that is bold and more social than ever.

The compiled list includes experts, like Gautam Ghosh, GM, HR, Philips (31 tweets per day), Abhijit Bhaduri, CLO, Wipro (142 relies per 100 tweets), Anand Pillai, VP&CLO, Reliance Industries, Vineet Nayar, VC & Joint MD, HCL Tech (440 Retweets per 100 tweets), NS Rajan, Group Chief HR Officer, Tata Sons & Aadil Bandukwala, Recruitment & Product Consultant, LinkedIn India among others.

The compiled list is not limited to HR executives in big companies but also includes those individuals who are constantly generating ideas and creating and sustaining a buzz about the industry. There is lot of content dissemination happening on this platform, thus adding tremendous value for employee analysis, learning and training.

3.       Knowledge resource to form your opinion and make it heard!

We have all heard our grandparents and parents discussing politics in drawing rooms. Today any type of intelligent discussion is not to be restrained in four walls. News analysis, discussions, politics and media itself is debated upon on Twitter. Everyone knows social media played a key role in US elections for Barack Obama. The viral effect of social media is being harnessed by political parties even in India by organizing seminars for party workers on to how to conduct themselves on Social Media and training them to influence the growing number of influencers.

5-Steps to get started

1.       Create Login and password – Easiest steps of them all. You may chose to use your given name or even create a subject-specific account called “handle” (denoted by @____ )

2.       Start following people/handles on the basis of your interest – More the number you follow more the tweets on your home screen. Avoid following too many to avoid a deluge that leads to missing tweets from important people. You may of course, “unfollow” any one you have followed at anytime. Do not restrict yourself to media houses, journalists, business people, social workers, politicians can give you views from all quarters, to develop your own opinion.

3.        Every Character Counts – You can get started by expressing practically anything or by simply replying to another’s tweet. Restricting it to 140 characters may not come easily but will not be too difficult as we are all used to the sms language, though try to be lucid. You can tweet more effectively by:

a)      Using # (hashtag) to create or participate in a trend, as # defines the common thread lots of people tweet about – making it a trend.

b)      Using @ (handle) of different people on twitter to involve others in a conversation.

Remember your tweet is seen on your profile, but will not appear on another person’s profile till he/she re-tweets

c)       Using photos/links/graphs to prove your point

4.       Know the slang – Some of the commonly used terminology on twitter is:

a)      RT – Retweet

b)      MT – Modified Tweet

c)       FF – Friday Follows (when you recommend handles to your followers to follow)

d)      MMS – Dr. Manmohan Singh

e)      DM – Direct Message

f)       IMO – In my opinion

….you will discover lots more as you start.

5.       Avoid trolling, foul language, disclosing too many personal details while on Social Media.

YOUR STORY

Let me tell you a short story with YOU as the protagonist:

You live a society with some people rich and others poor. Your family has inherited not only wealth but also rich culture since your great ancestors preserved the family culture. But since your family is a big one – per person earnings, net wealth etc becomes very low. 

The head of your family today is someone who lives beyond the means. He is prodigal and spends extravagantly to keep his image high in the society. He has not been able to create a culture of work amidst his family members by denying them quality education and adequate food. There is no unity among family members and the head takes advantage of this situation to steal the family inheritance for his selfish ends.

Unlike most families whose head is a patriarch, your family has an elected head. While every family member individually feels that this set up gives them the power to change the head, anytime they want – it virtually never works out that way. This is simply because the other family members do not trust each other to be the future head and the present head uses the stolen wealth to buy gifts for uneducated family members, who again nominate him to power. This has been going on for ages.

The head has taken on debt from neighbors, whose liability falls on all the members of your family. When the interest of debt falls due, the head goes and arranges for new debt to pay for interest because the family earns just enough to take care of the large family. The society runs a chit fund, to help families in need. Of course this is not free and requires stringent conditions to get the fund – once due to strained resources your family had to borrow from his chit fund – compromising with the family traditions. Now a similar situation seems lurking.

Religion plays a big role in your family and most members offer their reverence to God in the form of time and wealth. The head is secular and he allows all members of the family to practice any religion of their choice. Most family members have chosen to retain their ancestral religion – a lot of the newer members of the family are trying out other religions as practiced by the other families in society. The head of the family is secular but he has been partial to the neo-religion family members. Wealth is spared by all the working members of your family but the head manages only the donations given by the followers of ancestral religion. As expected those charitable donations have not been used as intended. Recently it is heard that your family might have to sell family’s inherited gold and silver utensils to repay the loans and stop the family reputation from coming down.

The home is well fortified from all directions by large walls on one side and water bodies on the other. Though the family should feel secure with such a set up – it is very common to find that things get stolen and locks are broken. It is suspected that neighbors are behind these thefts because neighbors hear of the thefts within your family by the head himself.

Question 1: What should you do to help your family? Please answer this question before you go to the next question.

Question 2: Who are you, in the story? Can you identify others? (Answer Hint given below)

Now combine your answer 1 and 2

HINT FOR ANSWER 2: You are Bharat; Society is World; Head of your family is Congress; Chit Fund is WTO

POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA – ARE YOU HARNESSING IT OR WASTING TIME?

Twitter is a great tool at our disposal. But sometimes it just seems like it’s a canvass given to angry Indians and all of them are scribbling their rants on it, with absolutely no coherence. Once every couple of days, the likes of Sanjay Jha and Dijvijay Singh (with a host of paid media people or left so-called intellectuals) tweet something which sets a new #trend as the angry Indians scourge to post witty tweets.

Just step back for a minute and re-read the earlier paragraph. This chaotic way of tweeting for one-up man-ship is not leading us anywhere when we really need to preserve our anger and trend things that matter.  Niti Central and Media Crooks to name a few do not generally get outraged by the “tunchmaal”. They stay calm and keep their focus on exposing national issues. We must stay focused too. When the provocation will stop provoking us, the strategy of the goons will stop working.

Why Twitter contributed to Arab Spring, was because people there were not bothered about proving themselves. When they “followed” someone they really emulated, they did as was directed. Coordination of activism and viral spread of injustices is what needs to be undertaken as priority. 

Example of few strategies:

·        1. Divide and Rule: Adopt tweets to divide those who have been dividing us from the last 65 years. Make it a trend. It will catch their eye and they will start internal bickering. E.g. This tweet to Digvijaya:

·         2. Promote Activism on ground: Whenever, wherever any event, activity is happening which aims to unite the people, even if not directly for a political issue, should be promoted by retweets. It spreads the word and gives chance to communicate issues at such gatherings. E.g. #JadibootiSaptah initiative of Baba Ramdev:

Thought of sharing what I am still learning

History & Comparison of Riots in Gujarat

GOVERNMENT CONTROL OVER TEMPLES

The Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HRCE) Department website of the Govt. of Tamil Nadu welcomes a visitor with a polite reminder that “the management and control of the temples and the administration of their endowments is one of the primary responsibilities of the State.” Through the HRCE Act of 1951, state governments have appointed managers to the boards of temples in the name of better administration, while mosques and churches are completely autonomous. 

At the outset of the article, titled 'Secular loot and plunder of Hindu temples', O.P. Gupta, a retired IFS officer writes: "The Constitution of India stipulates India to be a secular country, but the government of India and provincial governments under the Congress party, Communist parties or other political parties have been targeting only Hindu temples for government takeover in the name of better management, leaving aside all mosques, gurdwaras and churches.” He has argued against the appointment of non-Hindus and atheists as government nominees on the governing body of any Hindu temple.

“This deprives the Hindu community of their constitutional rights (Articles 25 and 26) to manage their own religious affairs without government interference," he argues. He lists several well-known Hindu temples that are under government control including those at Puri, Tirupati, Guruvayoor, Kashi, Mathura, Ayodhya, Badrinath, Kedarnath, Vaishno Devi, Mumbai (Shree Siddhi Vinayak Temple), Shirdi, Amarnath, Srisailam, Madurai and Rameshwaram

Dr Late Mr. Y Samuel Rajasekhar Reddy (YSE) was a “very devoted Christian”, whose daughter married Anil Kumar, a well known young evangelist. In an Open letter to, YSR of Congress, the then Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, written by Hindu Jagran Forum (USA) on August 27, 2006 raised questions on the patronizing and penalizing of religions by AP Govt. termed them unconstitutional as follows: a) massive Govt. grants for Churches are brazen State patronage; b) usurpation of temples and demolition of religious infrastructures are penalization and persecution of Hindus; c) jurisdiction of temples should be transferred to a Waqf- like Hindu Board. The claims were not rejected by the State Government.

The Tirupati Tirumala Devasthanam’s commodities contract went to a Christian company by name JRG Wealth Management as reported by the Hindu-Business Line. Chandrababu Naidu, minister of the opposition, ally of BJP, accused YSR of mismanagement of TTD’s affairs and demanded dissolution of the TTD Board. In May 2012, he campaigned that TTD during the Congress regime had declined to such an ‘abysmal level' as to have a “non-believer” like Karunakara Reddy as its Board Chairman and also as how he and other members of the board went on to amass wealth by allegedly selling the darshan tickets in blackmarket.

Stephen Knapp, in his book titled “Crimes Against India: the Need to Protect Its Ancient Vedic Tradition”, writes that only 18% of the revenue of these temples is said to be given back for temple purposes, while the remaining 82% is used for other things by the government at their discretion.

In Karnataka, Udupi Sri Krishna Temple and Gokarna Temple had been handed over to religious mutts by the previous BJP government but the new Congress state government under Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s would consider bringing the two temples under the Muzrai Department.

 A writ petition filed by Sri Dayananda Saraswati Swamiji, Sri Paramatmananda Saraswati Swamiji and Sri Vishweswaranand Giriraj Maharaj in the Supreme Court has challenged the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Acts of the respective governments. The petitioners said “even the conduct of religious rites and rituals are completely constricted and regulated by the Executive Officers and by the Trustees appointed by the Government… The temples are thus virtually treated as the personal freedom of political masters.” A Bench of Justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and Dipak Misra issued notice after hearing senior counsel and sought the response of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh and the Union Territory of Puducherry governments.

During the Nationalist Congress Party regime in Maharashtra, the Bombay High Court set up a three-member committee headed by Justice (retd) V P Tipnis to probe allegation on a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Kewal Simlani on misuse of temple funds due to political interference. The probe conducted by the Justice Tipnis committee on disbursal of surplus funds named institutions linked to or directly controlled some former and current ministers. ''The most shocking aspect of the matter is that there is no method or principle followed for particular institutions. The only criteria for selection was recommendation or reference by trustees or the minister or a political heavy-weight, generally belonging to ruling party'' the committee said in the report submitted to the Bombay High Court.

To sum up in words of Stephen Knapp - the Government has usurped the freedom of Hindus to manage their temples, denied their human rights and engaged in continuous discrimination of Hindus.

The article has reliable references which can be made available upon request. 

Email me on shivali.1223@gmail.com