The three million strong diaspora Sikhs, unlike their 21 million compatriots captive in India, are free and prosperous and they are determined - as they believe it is their destiny and pray for it every day; "Raj Karayga Khalsa; (Sikhs will rule) Aaaqi Rahaya nah Koyay: Khawar hoiyey Sab Milaingay; Bachay Sharan Joh Hoyay; DILLI Takht Par Bahay Gee; Aap Guru Kee Fauj; Chattar Chulayn gay Sis Par; Barri Karaygee Mauj," - to create a sovereign, democratic, egalitarian Sikh buffer state of KHALISTAN in South Asia, stretching from the Jumna river on the East, to the Pakistan border on the West, China on the Northeast and Kashmir on the North, playing its God-given role of a granary for countries of Central Asia and acting as a 'bridge of prosperity' and commerce between Central and South Asia.

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Washington DC: January 28, 2004: Eversince the right wing Fundamentalist BJP got lucky and won the elections in three states (Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh & Chattisgarh) late last year the Indian public has been subjected to heavy bombardment of publicity, nay jingoism, (by the Hindutva-fundamentalist 'sons' of Nazi Germany's Joseph Goebbells who was infamous for his big lies) about how the country’s economy is booming, how the stock market is rising, how India's global prestige is on the ascend and how the Indian people have suddenly developed exceptional confidence in their future - how they feel good - and how India will join the developed world by 2020, sixteen years from now. This propaganda, nay disinformation, is reminiscent of the Nazi Germany of 1930's (Third Reich), Prime minister Indira Gandhi's infamous slogan of 'Gareebi Hatao' (remove poverty) and the August 1947 'India's tryst with destiny' remark of Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru the first Prime minister of India - all infamous illusions and false promises of 20th century India.

The Raisina village - is sacred property - owned in perpetuity by a nearly three centuries old Sikh holy shrine, Gurdwara Rakab Ganj, (where Guru Tegh Bahadur Sahib was cremated on November 24, 1675, as per the new Nanakshahi calendar) which Gurdwara shares a boundary wall with the President's House. In last weeks Khalistan Calling this column supported the demand of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee for the return of Gurdwara Rakab Ganj land. Please See: > http://www.khalistan-affairs.org/Main/K_Calling/kc01212004.htm < We urge our readers everywhere to support the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) in their noble task.

As country's prosper around the world their economic muscle is converted into responsibilty at the United Nations which depends on annual assessments paid by its membership for its annual budget. Member countries pay according to their economic muscle and how well they are doing. If any country does well economically - like Japan for example - their annual UN assessment increases. The prestigious Europa World Year Book 2003 (ISBN: 1-85743-034-4: Volume 1: page three) lists the annual assessment for different UN member countries for the UN's 2003 budget, increased/ decreased according to their current economic health. Three leading wannabe permanent UN Security Council members, were assessed to pay percentage contribution to the UN 2003 Budget as follows:- Japan 19. 51575 % (yes over 19%): Germany 9. 76900 % (yes over 9%): and Italy 5. 06475 %.

From 1999 to 2003 Japan was asked to increase its annual UN assessment to the UN budget, based on its economic prosperity, from 15. 43000% to 19. 51575% - an increase of 4. 08575%; South Korea increased its annual UN assessment from 0. 82000% to 1. 85100 - an increase of 1. 03100%; Brazil increased its annual UN assessment from 1. 62000% to 2. 39000% - an increase of 0. 77000%; Germany had to increased its annual UN assessment from 9. 04000% to 9. 76900% - an increase of 0. 72900%; Mexico increased its annual UN assessment from 0. 79000% to 1. 08600% - an increase of 0. 29600%. Australia increased it annual UN assessment from 1. 48000% to 1. 62700% - an increase of 0. 14700%; From 1999 to 2003 the socalled "economically booming" INDIA, whose Prime minister had the audacity of claiming a permanent UN Security Council seat last September at the UN, was asked to increase its annual assessment to the UN budget from a pidly 0. 31000%, less than one third of one percent to 0. 34100% - a laughable increase of 0. 03100% or less than one thirty third of one percent in four years. Who can be a better judge of a country's economic prowess than the United Nations? Obviously, India could not have been doing too well economically in the last five years if the United Nations has assessed that India's UN membership dues, for the year 2003, (which INDIAN propagandists claim has the 'third largest economy' in Asia) at less than one third of one percent (0.341%) as compared to Japan's 19% or or Germany's 9.76% or Brazil's 2.39% or South Korea's 1.85% or Mexico's 1.08%!

After over 55 years of self-rule, (and socalled 'tryst with destiny'), and five years of BJP 'feel good' rule there are, today in India, (UN's Human Development Report-2003: > http://www.undp.org/hdr2003/indicator/cty_f_IND.html <) over five hundred million illiterates Indians, nearly 600 million are without access to essential drugs, over 720 million live like animals without latrines and clean drinking water, over 800 million live in squalor for under US$. 2 a day - 347 milllion of them live on less than US$. one a day - with one hundred seventy million outcaste untouchable Indian slaves, who are lower in socio/economic status than even the 600 million of the lower shudra castes. According to the UN's Human Development Report -2003, 72% (over 720 million) of India's population has NO access to sanitation and India's ranking in the world's sanitation 'derby' is a disgusting 168th out of 175 countries surveyed.

Appended below is a comparison (culled from UN's Human Development Report-2003 - page 256: > http://www.undp.org/hdr2003/indicator/cty_f_IND.html <) which shows the percentage of population in 175 different countries with NO access to sanitation in the year 2000:- "Canada 0 %, everyone has access; Singapore everyone has access, 0 %; in Mauritius only 1% of the population has NO access to sanitation; in Egypt only 2% of the population is without access to sanitation; Cuba 2%; Thailand 4%; Sri Lanka 6%; Surinam 7%; Tajikistan 10%; Turkey 10%; South Africa 13%; Iran 17%; Brazil 24%; Mexico 26%; South Korea 37%; Pakistan 38%; Indonesia 45%; Nigeria 46%; Bangladesh 52%; Laos 70%; Nepal 72%; Haiti 72%; INDIA 72% of the population (more than 720 million Indians) have no access to sanitation; Congo 79%; Ethiopia 88%; and Rwanda is last with 92% of its population with NO access to sanitation." To India's eternal shame it is bracketted with 'stone-age' countries like Haiti, Congo, Ethiopia and Rwanda below even Bangladesh and Nepal.

Despite five years of BJP rule an AIDS epidemic is spreading like wild fire in India. According to a Madras-datelined report, from its correspondent, Maxine Frith (published on Nov. 19, 2003) in the London newspaper INDEPENDENT India's Aids epidemic is running wild and its virus will infect twenty five million Indians by 2010, just seven years from now. To read the full report in the Independent please click at: > http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_medical/story.jsp?story=465047 < The latest UN Human Development Report-2003 (2001 figures) India is going to the dogs with one milion five hundred thousand AIDS infected women on 'active duty' (in the age group of 15-49 years) merrily going about their business infecting (age group of 15-49 years) with the horrible contagious disease. In over fifty years of self-rule India has managed to train only 48 physicians per 100, 000 population even lower than mismanaged, equally dirt-poor Pakistan which had 68 physicians per 100, 000 population in 2001. That may be a reason why Pakistan has only 16, 000 Aids infected women as compared to India's one and half million. South Africa, despite 443 physicians per 100, 000 population had the largest number of AIDS infected women in the world in 2001 - two million seven hundred thousand. With ONLY 48 physicians per 100, 000 India - a wannabe world power - is doomed and may have already crossed the three million figure of AIDS infected women on active duty today.

Let us look at BJP run India through another angle. Annual GDP (Gross domestic product) per capita used to be, and still is, a very good measure of a country's prosperity/poverty. Five years of BJP rule has not lifted India from the GDP pits. The world's twenty two most populous countries (who can also be candidates for the expanded UN Security Council permanent seats like India based on population) rank as follows according to the latest UN's Human Development Report -2003; > http://www.undp.org/hdr2003/indicator/cty_f_IND.html <:- United States is Number one - with an annual GDP per capita of US$. 35, 227; Japan is second- with a GDP per capita of US$. 32, 601; UK -3rd- with US$. 24, 219; Germany -4th- US$. 22, 422; France -5th- US$. 22, 129; ITALY -6th- US$. 18, 788; Mexico -7th- US$. 6, 214; Brazil -8th- US$. 2, 915; Turkey -9th- US$. 2, 230; Russia -10th- US$. 2, 141; Thailand -11th- US$. 1, 874; Iran -12th- US$. 1, 767; Egypt -13th- US$. 1, 511; Phillipines -14th- US$. 912; China -15th- US$. 911; Indonesia -16th- US$. 695; After fifty five years of 'tryst with destiny' INDIA is 17th in this group of countries with a paltry US$. 462 annual GDP per capita; Pakistan -18th- US$. 415; Bangladesh -19th- US$. 350; Vietnam -20th- US$. 411; Nigeria -21st- US$. 319; and Ethiopia -22nd- US$. 95.

Luckily there are still some honest journalists around in India who have the ability to see through the smoke-screen being laid by the Hindutva-fundamentalist BJP for the coming general elections to brain-wash the Indian electorate. Praful Bidwai, one of India's leading columnist, is one such whose columns are published in India and Pakistan newspapers. In a recent column in NEWS, (headlined, 'India isn’t quite Shining' > http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/jan2004-daily/22-01-2004/oped/o3.htm >) Bidwai exposed the BJP 'feel good' disinformation, and explained how its policies have effected Punjab among other states, when he wrote:- "India’s worst economic reality is the agrarian crisis, which affects 700 million people. The post-1996 period has seen a decline in returns from agriculture - to the point that cultivation has become commercially unviable in many parts of India. Thousands of farmers have committed suicide. The causes: rising input costs, stagnant crop prices, heavy debt and physical-mental collapse. Yields of all major crops have stagnated - reversing a 30 years long trend. The costs of water, fertiliser, pesticide, seeds and power have risen. With declining public investment in agricultural research, the farmer has become dependent on costly private seeds. Higher cultivation costs aren’t offset by support prices.

‘Such prices benefit a small minority (read Banias) in traditionally food-surplus states like Punjab and Haryana’, says Professor Abhijit Sen, former chairman of the Commission on Agricultural Costs and Prices. The government doesn’t procure grain from Bihar or Karnataka. Non-procurement hurts the bulk of farmers in cruel ways. They exploit their own family labour harder: they have no choice. Where farmers have a choice, they quit agriculture as an occupation. ‘Contract farming’ is growing in Punjab, Haryana and Andhra. The farmer is passing on his losses to even poorer peasants! The Indian farmer’s plight has worsened because falling returns have coincided with imports of agricultural products in a global situation of falling prices in the 1990s."

Another Indian journalist, Shankar Aiyar, writing an Opinion piece in the January 13, 2004, Telegraph, Calcutta, on the same subject, (under the headline, ' INDIA SHINING - OR INDIA DIMMING?) concludes his article by writing, " Yes, it is India Shining for about 3 million Indians of the Reliance/CII kind. And yes, there is a little light for the 200 million-strong middle class. But for 800 million of the poor and near-poor, it is, alas, India Dimming! Agriculture, we have seen, is stagnating. Handlooms, the second largest employer after agriculture, is shutting down. For the first time since the first five-year plan, population growth is outstripping the growth rate of foodgrains. Over the Eighties, oilseeds output was doubled from 9 million tonnes to 18 million tonnes. So, edible oil imports, which at the beginning of the Eighties were the second biggest import after crude oil, dropped so fast that under the 1991-96 Congress regime, India became a net exporter of edible oils. Under this NDA lot, edible oil imports have zoomed to $ 2,000 million. Almost all soya oil processing plants in the country have closed down. Oilseeds output has stagnated. At best, this year’s "bumper crop" will be a whisker higher than fifteen years ago. Oilseeds are the commercial crop of India’s poorest dryland farmers. They’ve not had it so bad in decades. Alas, it’s India Dimming!"

Khalistan Calling weekly newsletter (and its archives) can be viewed on the South Asia Tribune site at:

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It can also be seen by clicking at: > http://www.khalistan-affairs.org/Main/K_Calling/kc01282003.htm <.

The above newsletter has been published in the leading Punjabi-English newspaper of the Sikh diaspora, Surrey Canada-based CHARHDI KALA, Issue of January 28 - February 03, 2004 :: Vol. 20 : No. 04. Last week's Khalistan Calling is available on the Khalistan Affairs Centre website at: (> http://www.khalistan-affairs.org/Main/K_Calling/kc01212003.htm <) The Khalistan Calling newsletter was also published in the fourth week of January 2004, in the Vancouver-based PUNJAB GUARDIAN, and AKAL GUARDIAN, Toronto-based SANJH SAVERA, Calgary-based SIKH VIRSA and numerous other Punjabi/English weekly and monthly publications which cater to the three million strong Sikh diaspora in Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia.

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