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 

CONSUMERISM - THE WORST WAY TO GROW?

When the world desperately wants to survive amidst problems of global warming and wide-spread poverty, we ought to look at consumerism and how fast and drastically it has affected the world. Consumerism is a social and economic order that encourages the purchase of goods and services in ever-greater amounts.

Where does this start from? If I say it starts from the stock market, the link may not seem direct. Let me explain, investors put in money on stocks of companies which they feel will grow, giving them higher dividends and price appreciation. Companies get this cash from investors and invest in projects which will bring highest returns. Companies are become biased towards growth because they want to show increased turnover and profits quarter on quarter to their investors. How do they grow? One, by manufacturing more goods and services, catering to more geographical locations, and two, more importantly by 'creating' more demand by using promotion and marketing. Today, advertising is a several hundred-billion-dollar industry, which is about ten times the entire GDP of the U.S. economy at the turn of the twentieth century when the industry began. This growth imperative is a result of the capitalist system, which extends beyond the investor to the system itself. 

If Infosys recently has not been growing it has been shunned by the investors, who are looking for greener pastures. Infosys on the other hand, by growing too slow risks being taken over. Very few slow-growers, would be willing to admit that and hence return the money back to the share holders, because of their inherent urge to grow. Central banks and Governments of all countries try to spur growth, because falling growth reduces investments, which in turn slows production ad sales. This is the gloom or recession, which could lead to depression or failure of capitalist system. Workers experience layoffs and default on their bank loans; falling profits and share prices in the stock markets deplete the value of pension funds; bankruptcies soar along with government budget deficits and budget cuts.

For this reason, most observers are very hesitant to question this growth imperative of capitalism. We understand the importance of consuming more. But have we missed out on issues that are probably more important than to keep the capitalist system thriving?

Human civilisation as a whole has caused ecocide 200 times more in the last 200 years, as compared to the last 20,000 years. Wake up call? Disparities between humans have never been so great. At United Nations University a reports says that the richest 1% of adults alone owned 40% of global assets in the year 2000. The question is not the sustainability of an economic system, the question is sustainability of the planet and true happiness of its souls. 

Consumption driven growth is an inefficient way of achieving reduction in poverty. Between 1990 and 2001, for every growth of US$100 in world's per capita incomw; just $0.60 made its way into the hands of the people who needed it. With this ratio to achieve poverty reduction by one dollar, an extra US$166 worth needs to be produced and consumed globally. Such an approach is both economically and ecologically inefficient. 

We measure what we produce, in GDP, as a measure of growth - which economists call a mathematical and universally common measure of growth. However, Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz (on Sustainability and Growth) talked about the idea that “we grow what we measure." and because we are measuring the wrong stuff, we are growing wrong. 

I am not concerned about India's GDP growth slowing to under 5%, I am concerned about India's Gross National Happiness degrowing every year. Of course it may temporarily lead to more unemployment, crash in the stock market but if we address issues of happiness we probably do not need to worry. 

People, rich and poor alike, attempt to impress others and seek to gain advantage through what Veblen coined "conspicuous consumption" and the ability to engage in “conspicuous leisure.” In this work Veblen argued that consumption is used as a way to gain and signal status. Through "conspicuous consumption" often came "conspicuous waste," which Veblen detested.

Human mind has been re-programed to think happiness is consuming and possessing things, measured by the numbered of toys one owns. Changing that outlook, that has been shaped over the last century, is a big challenge. 

Contemplation in the path of spirituality and yog under a selfless Guru, may give us, the much required deeper thinking before we consume more than just-required.    

WHY THE HAMBURGER IS NOT REALLY CHEAP?

HOW AMERICANS SHOULD CALCULATE THE COST OF A HAMBURGER

(Excerpts from Interview with Micheal Pollan, a former editor at Harper's Magazine, is the author of The Botany of Desire and several other books that examine the intersections between science and culture.)

41,000,000 cows are slaughtered every year for beef in US alone. The U.S. beef industry is made up of more than 1 million businesses, farms and ranches. Per capita spending for beef in retail and food service was about $249 in 2008 — up about $50 from 2001, almost 5 times growth in 7 years! Ever wondered how this growth came about? Let us understand some background.

Cows have the most highly evolved digestive organ on the planet, called the rumen. And the rumen can digest grass. It takes cellulose in grass, and turns it into protein, very nutritious protein. However, cows for slaughter are not fed grass on grasslands but corn on choked cow-farms or feedlots. Corn is cheap and makes them grow much more quickly and fatter and people like their meat really fat and marbled. In capitalism, time is money. The big problem is that cows are not evolved to digest corn. It creates all sorts of problems for them including their rumen bloating up like a balloon or their liver abscesses. By feeding them what they're not equipped to eat well, we then go down the path of technological fixes – primarily antibiotics.

Why should we have a problem with this system?

1.       Cheap meat is a product of lots of antibiotics given to animals. Over half of the antibiotics in the U.S. go to livestock -- that means these drugs no longer work for human patients. The reason you have trouble finding a good antibiotic when your child has an ear infection is directly related to the cost of that cheap hamburger.

2.      When the animals arrive at the meatpacking plant from cow-farms, they're carrying quite a bit of manure. Microbes like E.Coli O157 is now very common in the manure of feedlot animals. And if we ingest only 10 of those bacteria, they can kill us, because they release this lethal toxin. Food poisoning and costs of death is never calculated in the price you pay for a hamburger.

3.       If you talk to environmentalists, they're very concerned about cow farms because all of the water that comes out of them is also full of pharmaceuticals. There are hormones in the water. They are finding fish with strange sexual characteristics downstream from feedlots. The antibiotics get into the environment also.

4.       The reason we can grow corn so cheaply is because we give the corn, chemical fertilizer that is a fossil fuel product. It's takes about 100 gallons of oil to grow a single animal! So we've taken the rumen, which is this sustainable solar organ, and we've turned it into just another fossil fuel burner. We surely do not want that!

5.       Due to centralized system of meat processing, infection from one animal can spread rapidly country wide. Authorities find it hard to trace the source.

The great lesson of ecology is that everything is connected. And it's true. So next time you're reaching for that cheap food, you might ask, is it really so cheap and above all, worth taking the risk?

Each one of us should try and connect to ourselves deeply, through Yog and Pranayaam. That way, we will think twice before we hurt anyone in the ecology.