What a country - INDIA?
Two contrasting countries in one! Starving Bharat with 700 million unwashed hungry & elitist India with a world-record 2, 791 Generals
India falls off the league table of top universities of the world
Washington, D.C., Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - India what a country? Earlier this month the world saw a unique protest rally (Janadesh march) by 25, 000 starving unwashed Tribals (hailing from 15 Indian states who make up about 9 % of India's Billion plus population - about a hundred million) march into Delhi from Gwalior, after covering 200 miles distance in a month on foot, and traversing through Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.The Tribals had marched to Delhi to highlight their demand for land reforms and air their need to land ownership rights for themselves which are currently being denied them, as they have lived ‘free’ in the India’s forests for centuries. This 100 million strong unwashed Indian Tribal minority is being systematically pushed off their land, without compensation, by the minority Brahmin/Bania ruling elite (only 5% of the population) which has ruled India for the past sixty years ever since the British Colonials quit South Asia, in 1947, after World War ll. No wonder there are fifty on-going tribal insurgencies in which the Indian Army is involved all over India!
The above marathon march was a telling reminder that India is sharply divided into two countries, starving ‘Bharat’ and ‘India’. Claims of 8% GDP growth in India notwithstanding, the problems of poverty and illiteracy still remain and are growing. The disparity between Bharat and India is overwhelming and the gap is constantly increasing. While some parts of urban India revels in lavish marriages and obscene exhibitions of wealth, the lesser mortals of Bharat, like the hundred million Tribals, the two hundred fifty million Untouchables and other minorities (like the 135 million Muslim minority) continue to lead wretched lives with no one to care for their uplift or their hunger or their rights.
Janadesh-2007, the foot march to Delhi of nearly 25,000 tribals, who are all landless tillers and laborers, who have been deprived of their land rights, reached the Capital in early November, after losing seven dead on the way, with the resolve that they would not go back to their miserable jhuggies (huts) till the Government accepted their demands and came up with concrete plans to address their problems. Addressing the gathering at Ramlila Grounds in Delhi, Ekta Parishad president Raj Gopal warned that if the government does not talk to the landless people, it should begin “making arrangements for picking up the bodies of those who had participated in the march” as these tired people are suffering from malnutrition. There was little point in returning if they had to go back to the same old system. The Ekta Parishad president said that dispossession from land and displacement was a phenomenon limited not only to the tribals and the Dalits as today thousands of acres of village land is being acquired in the name of special economic zones. Small shopkeepers are being forced to close their business to make way for corporate giants who are entering the retail business. Some of the demands of Janadesh-2007 included establishment of a national land authority to provide a clear statement on land utilization in the country, identify lands available for redistribution and regularize holdings of the poor and the marginal peasantry.
The protest march also demanded setting up of fast-track courts to settle past and present conflicts and disputes related to land. Congress Member of Parliament Jyotiraditya Scindia assured the 25, 000 unwashed marchers gathered in the Ramlila Grounds that the Congress party and the Prime Minister were determined to find solutions to the problems of the poor and the landless people. The usual self-appointed mediators like Swami Agnivesh, Gandhian Nirmala Deshpande, social activist Sunder Lal Bahuguna, Magsaysay Award winner Rajendra Singh and farmers’ leader from Madhya Pradesh Sunilam, who always suddenly appear in such protest gatherings, also addressed the gullible crowd and hoodwinked them with soothing words without suggesting any course of action or getting a commitment from the Manmohan Singh government to get the landless their rights.
As if synchronized with the above mentioned Janadesh march by Bharat’s unwashed and persecuted Tribal minority, organized by the Ekta Parishad, India's new Army chief, General Deepak Kapoor, who has just started living in the massive Army House, built by the Colonial British on stolen Sikh Gurdwara land, in New Delhi, has had the chutzpah to write to the Indian government demanding that the Indian Army's 2, 000 Brigadiers should be re-designated as Brigadier-Generals so that they can join the 'General's club' of the Indian Army. This elite ‘General’s club’ is currently made up of 600 Major Generals and 190 Lieutenant Generals. With this mass promotion the Indian army will boast a world record 2, 791 active duty Generals as compared to a total of twelve Generals who command the superb battle-tested Israeli Defence Force which can field, within 24 hours, a million plus Soldiers/Sailors and Airmen in war time – about the same number the top heavy Indian Armed Forces can put on the field in wartime.
According to yesterday’s Calcutta-based Telegraph newspaper the real reason for the Indian Army recommendation to re-designate Brigadiers, as Brigadier Generals, is a worry in military headquarters that their senior officers are not being accorded due prestige and status in comparison with senior police officers. This is a source of concern because the army is committed to internal security duties in Jammu and Kashmir and in the Northeastern states. The re-designation to Brigadier-General would place the officer holding that rank above a deputy inspector-general of police in the “warrant of precedence” prepared by the Union home ministry. A “warrant of precedence” lays down the hierarchy of government functionaries. At the apex is the President (Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces).
As a prelude to the recommended change, army headquarters in New Delhi has allowed Brigadiers to fly their flags on staff cars. This was a privilege reserved for officers who held the rank of Major General and above (and equivalent in the air force and navy) in the armed forces. With the army asking for re-designation of the Brigadier rank, the navy will also have to enhance the Commodore to Admiral status and the air force the Air Commodore to Marshal status. The equivalent naval and air force ranks may not have to be re-designated — because the military lexicon is limited — but they will have to be assigned “flag” rank to ensure parity among the armed forces. The creation of the “Brigadier-General” rank was suggested by a committee six years back. But the recommendation was junked. The committee had then suggested creation of an additional rank. But now the army wants merely a re-designation. Some national army!
Another Indian myth about the excellence of its universities has been broken. For the first time, no Indian university figures in Britain’s most authoritative league table of the world’s top 200 universities while China is in with six universities revealing a wide gap in higher educational standards between the two. The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), which figured regularly in all the previous rankings, since The Times Higher – Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings began three years ago, have fallen off the map this year. The six Chinese universities included among the world’s Top 200 are Peking University, Tsinghua University (also listed among the 50 best technology institutions), Fudan University, Nanjing University, the University of Science and Technology of China and Shanghai’s Jiao Tong University. For this year’s survey, individual IITs were assessed, and not the “IIT system as a whole.” And none of the seven IITs (in India) was considered good enough to find a place among the top-ranking world universities. (> http://www.thehindu.com/2007/11/12/stories/2007111254061300.htm <)
According to Martin Ince, who edited the rankings compiled by Times Higher and QS, an international education trust, the survey, covers 28 countries. It confirms the English-speaking world’s dominance in higher education with America and Britain leading the pack. Harvard University tops the league table followed by Cambridge and Oxford at second and third positions respectively. The top 10 universities are all either in U.S. or Britain. “These rankings show the U.S. and the U.K. to be home to the top universities on a wide range of measures, reflecting their success as well as the esteem in which they are held worldwide by academics and employers”. Canada, Australia, Japan and Hong Kong are the only other countries to appear in the top 20. “The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie- deliberate, contrived and dishonest – but the myth – persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.” President John F. Kennedy, commencement address Yale University, 1962.
Sikhs MUST beware of the persistent, persuasive and unrealistic myths (India Shining etc., great IT Institutes, et al.,) the Indian ruling elite spins, from time to time, to fool the people ‘held captive in the Indian map’.