Narendra Modi's development claim 'phoney': Markandey Katju

BHOPAL: Press Council of India chairman Markandey Katju on Sunday hit out at Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi describing as " phoney" his claims of development in the state and saying its malnutrition rate was worse than Somalia.

Katju said Modi had made tall claims about development in Gujarat but pointed out that the living standards of the common people was still "abysmal".

Citing figures, he told reporters that Gujarat's malnutrition rate was higher than that of poor countries like Somalia in Africa.

Katju said the development claim in Gujarat was "phoney", since it had not helped the common man in any way.

The time may come when the people of the state would themselves realise that the development about which Modi boasts a lot was of no use to them, he said.

He also touched upon the the 2002 post-Godhra riots. "There is no way in which the blot on Modi's name due to the 2002 Gujarat communal riots can be wiped out," Katju said.

Asked what he thought of Modi's third successive win in assembly elections, he said that everyone knows how polls are fought and won these days in the country.

He said that in sharp contrast, there was no blot on another BJP-ruled state Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's name.

Katju said that he met Chouhan two days ago and invited him to attend an 'mushaira' (Urdu poetry meet) and the chief minister promised that he would come for only 15 minutes.

Katju said that when Chouhan came, he extended his stay to 50 minutes and appreciated Urdu poetry.

"I found Chouhan to be a polite and humble person," Katju said.

He said Chouhan also promised to do all that he can for the development of Urdu in Madhya Pradesh.

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Pictures: Fungi Get Into the Holiday Spirit


Photograph courtesy Stephanie Mounaud, J. Craig Venter Institute

Mounaud combined different fungi to create a Santa hat and spell out a holiday message.

Different fungal grow at different rates, so Mounaud's artwork rarely lasts for long. There's only a short window of time when they actually look like what they're suppose to.

"You do have to keep that in perspective when you're making these creations," she said.

For example, the A. flavus fungi that she used to write this message from Santa grows very quickly. "The next day, after looking at this plate, it didn't say 'Ho Ho Ho.' It said 'blah blah blah,'" Mounaud said.

The message also eventually turned green, which was the color she was initially after. "It was a really nice green, which is what I was hoping for. But yellow will do," she said.

The hat was particularly challenging. The fungus used to create it "was troubling because at different temperatures it grows differently. The pigment in this one forms at room temperature but this type of growth needed higher temperatures," Mounaud said.

Not all fungus will grow nicely together. For example, in the hat, "N. fischeri [the brim and ball] did not want to play nice with the P. marneffei [red part of hat] ... so they remained slightly separated."

Published December 21, 2012

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Obama, Congress Waving Bye-Bye Lower Taxes?













The first family arrived in the president's idyllic home state of Hawaii early today to celebrate the holidays, but President Obama, who along with Michelle will pay tribute Sunday to the late Sen. Daniel Inouye at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, could be returning home to Washington sooner than he expected.


That's because the President didn't get his Christmas wish: a deal with Congress on the looming fiscal cliff.


Members of Congress streamed out of the Capitol Friday night with no agreement to avert the fiscal cliff -- a massive package of mandatory tax increases and federal spending cuts triggered if no deal is worked out to cut the deficit. Congress is expected to be back in session by Thursday.


It's unclear when President Obama may return from Hawaii. His limited vacation time will not be without updates on continuing talks. Staff members for both sides are expected to exchange emails and phone calls over the next couple of days.


Meanwhile, Speaker of the House John Boehner is home in Ohio. He recorded the weekly GOP address before leaving Washington, stressing the president's role in the failure to reach an agreement on the cliff.


"What the president has offered so far simply won't do anything to solve our spending problem and begin to address our nation's crippling debt," he said in the recorded address, "The House has done its part to avert this entire fiscal cliff. ... The events of the past week make it clearer than ever that these measures reflect the will of the House."








Fiscal Cliff Negotiations Halted for Christmas Watch Video









Cliffhanger: Congress Heads Home after 'Plan B' Vote Pulled from House Floor Watch Video









Fiscal Cliff: Boehner Doesn't Have Votes for Plan B Watch Video





Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell echoed the sentiment while lamenting the failure to reach a compromise.


"I'm stuck here in Washington trying to prevent my fellow Kentuckians having to shell out more money to Uncle Sam next year," he said.


McConnell is also traveling to Hawaii to attend the Inouye service Sunday.


If the White House and Congress cannot reach a deficit-cutting budget agreement by year's end, by law the across-the-board tax hikes and spending cuts -- the so called fiscal cliff -- will go into effect. Many economists say that will likely send the economy into a new recession.


Reports today shed light on how negotiations fell apart behind closed doors. The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, reported that when Boehner expressed his opposition to tax rate increases, the president allegedly responded, "You are asking me to accept Mitt Romney's tax plan. Why would I do that?"


The icy exchange continued when, in reference to Boehner's offer to secure $800 billion in revenue by limiting deductions, the speaker reportedly implored the president, "What do I get?"


The president's alleged response: "You get nothing. I get that for free."


The account is perhaps the most thorough and hostile released about the series of unsuccessful talks Obama and Boehner have had in an effort to reach an agreement about the cliff.


Unable to agree to a "big deal" on taxes and entitlements, the president is now reportedly hoping to reach a "small deal" with Republicans to avoid the fiscal cliff.


Such a deal would extend unemployment benefits and set the tone for a bigger deal with Republicans down the line.


In his own weekly address, Obama called this smaller deal "an achievable goal ... that can get done in 10 days."


But though there is no definitive way to say one way or the other whether it really is an achievable goal, one thing is for certain: Republican leadership does not agree with the president on this question.


Of reaching an agreement on the fiscal cliff by the deadline, Boehner said, "How we get there, God only knows."



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Tax fight sends GOP into chaos



Now that very issue is tearing the GOP apart and making it an all-but-ungovernable majority for Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) to lead in the House.


Disarray is a word much overused in politics. But it barely begins to describe the current state of chaos and incoherence as Republicans come to terms with electoral defeat and try to regroup against a year-end deadline to avert a fiscal crisis.

The presidential election was fought in large measure over the question of whether some Americans should pay more in taxes. Republicans lost that argument with the voters, who polls show are strongly in favor of raising rates for the wealthy.

But a sizable contingent within the GOP doesn’t see it that way and is unwilling to declare defeat on a tenet that so defines them. Nor are they prepared to settle for getting the best deal they can, as a means of avoiding the tax hikes on virtually everyone else that would take effect if no deal is reached.

When Boehner tried to bend even a little, by proposing to raise rates on income over $1 million, his party humiliated him, forcing him Thursday night to abruptly cancel a vote on his “Plan B.”

“We had a number of our members who just really didn’t want to be perceived as having raised taxes,” Boehner said Friday. “That was the real issue.”

Whether and how the party can resolve the issue has implications going forward. It could determine Boehner’s viability — even his survival— as leader of the only part of the federal government controlled by the Republicans.

It also could set the terms of engagement for the battles that lie ahead, including such contentious ones as immigration and the fiscal 2013 spending bills, which are funded for only half the year and which expire March 31.

As things stand now, some worry that nothing short of a catastrophe could force a resolution.

“We have sunk to the lowest common denominator in order to get a deal — sheer panic,” said Republican strategist Ron Bonjean, a former aide to House and Senate leadership. “The reality of a stock market crash is probably the only way Washington will strike a deal. It is probably the only scenario that could likely force the speaker’s hand and allow for a deal driven by Democratic votes to pass the House.”

Which, of course, is not an ideal way to govern.

“The hard-core anti-tax conservatives in the GOP seem to believe that Barack Obama will be blamed if there is no agreement reached to avoid sequestration and the tax increases that are coming,” said Sheldon D. Pollack, a University of Delaware law and political science professor who has written a history of Republican anti-tax policy. “Calculated gamble? Or are they simply incapable of recognizing that they do not control the White House or the Senate, and hence do not have the ability to control the agenda? Sadly, I think it is the latter.”

Their intransigence alone is unlikely to sell the electorate on the Republican point of view on taxes.

“You have to make an argument. You have to go out there and engage. You can’t just simply assert a position,” said GOP pollster David Winston, who advises the House leadership. “Part of the dynamic for Boehner is that he’s trying to have the debate over economic policies that should have occurred during the election, and he also has to deal with this piece of legislation.”

As long as there has been a Republican Party, there has been at least a faction within it that has taken a hard-line stance on taxes, Pollack said. But it has not always had the upper hand.

Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, was also the first to put a national income tax into place, as a temporary means of funding the Civil War. Even then, House Ways and Means Chairman Thaddeus Stevens (now enjoying a return to popular consciousness as Tommy Lee Jones’s character in the movie “Lincoln”) denounced the idea of a graduated rate structure as a “strange way to punish men because they are rich.”

The 16th Amendment, which established the constitutionality of the federal income tax in 1913, was proposed by a Republican, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Nelson W. Aldrich. But it was decried by another one, Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, as “confiscation of property under the guise of taxation” and “a pillage of a class.”

The divisions went on until the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan, who ran as an advocate of tax-cutting supply-side economics.

In 1990, Newt Gingrich established himself as the de facto head of his party in the House, when he stood up to a president of his own party and led the opposition to George H.W. Bush’s tax increases.

Gingrich insisted in an interview Friday that the Republicans still have leverage, if they are willing to fight hard enough.

“They need a strategy, not just a way of getting through this week,” he said.

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Man loses S$6,000 in unhonoured online purchase






SINGAPORE: 21-year-old Kenrick Ho is S$6,000 poorer after an online purchase gone wrong.

He had ordered 10 mobile phone sets from an eBay seller named Ms Siah, in September 2012.

But after making full payment, no goods were delivered.

"(I am) very depressed and stressed because I can do alot with S$6,000," he lamented. "What if I need the money urgently? The seller said she'd refund the money, but she kept delaying it."

Like Mr Ho, 46-year-old Madam Teo Kim Sang ordered three mobile phone sets and paid Ms Siah S$1,500 in October.

After much hassle, Madam Teo managed to get a refund of S$750, two weeks after she made full payment.

She said: "If today is Saturday, she'll say '(On) Friday I'll update you, whether I get the phone, whether I deliver, all these things' and sometimes she'll say '(On) Friday I'll deliver (the phones)' but when Friday comes, nothing (arrives)."

The relief teacher has since cancelled her order.

Both Mr Ho and Madam Teo said they will lodge a report with the Small Claims Tribunal next week.

Separately, calls from Channel NewsAsia to Ms Siah went unanswered.

According to the Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE), there were 228 reports of "failure-to-honour" transactions between January and November this year.

Of these, CASE handled and assisted 48 of the reports. Of those that CASE handled, about half were resolved.

Experts say it is more difficult for buyers to recover their money as there is no physical shopfront.

"The practices of the online vendors or online businesses are covered by the Consumers Protection Fair Trading Act and consumers can exercise their right under the Act to file a claim at the Small Claims Tribunal," said Seah Seng Choon, executive director of CASE.

"Secondly, if the consumer suspects foul play or cheating in any way, they should file a complaint with the police. They should ensure that the business is set up in Singapore. For businesses that are set up overseas, consumer would have great difficulty seeking redress if there's any dispute later on."

With more people going online to make their purchases, Mr Seah said it is important to read the terms and conditions of the transaction so as to avoid pitfalls of online shopping.

He added that shoppers who purchase items online has the right under the lemon law to request the businesses to repair, refund or even reduce prices if there are defects on the goods.

Another way to avoid problems in transactions is to go for cash-on-delivery deals.

- CNA/xq



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Mayawati upset with govt but won't withdraw support

NEW DELHI: BSP chief Mayawati is upset with Congress over its "attitude" on the bill for promotions in government jobs for SCs and STs but will continue support to it for rest of its term.


Days after pandemonium scuttled passage of the Constitution Amendment Bill in the Lok Sabha, Mayawati said the "intention" of the Congress is doubtful and the ruling party did not seem serious on the issue.


"Their intention is doubtful...they want the bill to remain hanging," the BSP chief told in an interview, while underlining that the proposed legislation could have been passed if the Congress and the government wanted.


Asked whether she would continue to extend support to UPA in view of her unhappiness, she ruled out pulling the plug.


"We extended support to UPA to see that communal forces do not get strengthened at the central level.... I supported it for three-and-a-half years. Now only one-and-a-quarter year is left.... We will give them further chance," she said.


The reservation bill, being pushed by BSP, was passed by the Rajya Sabha but the debate on it in the Lok Sabha could not be completed because of pandemonium created by Samajwadi Party on December 19 and 20, the last two days of the just-concluded Winter Session.


Mayawati said the government deliberately created a situation in the Lok Sabha where even BJP created uproar after its senior leader L K Advani was disallowed from making his point on the quota bill.


"Had the government been actually willing to get the bill passed, it could have requested for use of marshals (against protesting SP members in Lok Sabha). Marshals were used in Rajya Sabha during Women's Reservation Bill," she said.


She also accused the government of failing on other fronts like economic and poverty alleviation besides uplift of SC and STs. "I am upset," she said.

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Pictures: Fungi Get Into the Holiday Spirit


Photograph courtesy Stephanie Mounaud, J. Craig Venter Institute

Mounaud combined different fungi to create a Santa hat and spell out a holiday message.

Different fungal grow at different rates, so Mounaud's artwork rarely lasts for long. There's only a short window of time when they actually look like what they're suppose to.

"You do have to keep that in perspective when you're making these creations," she said.

For example, the A. flavus fungi that she used to write this message from Santa grows very quickly. "The next day, after looking at this plate, it didn't say 'Ho Ho Ho.' It said 'blah blah blah,'" Mounaud said.

The message also eventually turned green, which was the color she was initially after. "It was a really nice green, which is what I was hoping for. But yellow will do," she said.

The hat was particularly challenging. The fungus used to create it "was troubling because at different temperatures it grows differently. The pigment in this one forms at room temperature but this type of growth needed higher temperatures," Mounaud said.

Not all fungus will grow nicely together. For example, in the hat, "N. fischeri [the brim and ball] did not want to play nice with the P. marneffei [red part of hat] ... so they remained slightly separated."

Published December 21, 2012

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'Cliff' Deniers Put Faith in No Deal













Not everyone thinks the "fiscal cliff" is so bad.


If the Dec. 31 deadline passes, income taxes will go up and across-the-board spending cuts will hit government programs. But while most of the political world frets as if a major disaster is looming, others have treated it more like the Y2K bug: a fiscal canard ginning up a lot of unnecessary panic.


The cliff is a "fantasy," former House speaker Newt Gingrich told a sold-out crowd at the Ronald Reagan library in Simi Valley, Calif., a week before Election Day.


"It is an excuse to panic," Gingrich said. "It is a device to get all of us running down the road so we accept whatever Obama wants, because otherwise we will have failed the fiscal cliff, and how can you be a patriot if you don't do what the fiscal cliff requires?"



Fiscal Cliff 'Plan B' Is Dead: Now What?


The former speaker wanted Republicans to stop negotiating with President Obama, for fear of giving too much away. "Back out of all of this negotiating with Obama," Gingrich publicly advised House Republicans. "The president is overwhelmingly dominant in the news media" but, at the opposite end of the political spectrum, liberals have said the same thing for a similar reason.






Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images











Fiscal Cliff: Boehner Doesn't Have Votes for Plan B Watch Video









'Fiscal Cliff' Negotiations: Boehner's Plan B Watch Video







While the "cliff" would mean higher taxes on the middle class, it would also mean higher taxes on the wealthy, a chief demand for liberals. Automatic budget cuts would hit defense programs, which liberals have wanted to cut anyway, but not the Medicare and Social Security entitlements that Democrats and progressives want so badly to protect.


Boehner Pulls 'Plan B' Amid GOP Disarray


Van Jones, the environmental activist and resigned White House green jobs "czar," sought to quiet the "fiscal cliff" alarms Election Night on CNN. "The problem with the label 'the cliff' is that it creates a mindset that there is nothing worse that this set of cuts, and there are things that are worse," Jones said.


"We cannot be in a situation where we get bullied or stampeded into putting in a deal that's even worse than what the fiscal cliff is about."


Jones later wrote on his blog that the "fiscal cliff" is actually a "fiscal bluff": "The so-called fiscal cliff is actually a fiscal bluff --- a made-up crisis to make us think our government is out of money and time. Congress continues to drag its feet over raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans, despite the top 1% earning 23% of the nation's income, and insists on calling for cuts to vital programs instead of reining in massive subsidies ($100 billion in 2011 alone) to major corporations that already make billions in profits.


"America isn't broke --- it's being robbed.
Gingrich and Jones started the conversation, but as the deadline creeps closer, others are finishing it."


To some, the "fiscal cliff" offers a clearer upside.


"Democratic and progressive leverage goes immensely up if we get past the beginning of the year," Adam Green of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee told ABC News. "Once they have to proactively lower taxes on the rich, it makes it harder and harder to move that number up and makes it easier and easier to force votes or demand votes on policies that clearly benefit the middle class."


Green says liberals will get what they want immediately, if the Dec. 31 deadline passes without a deal.


"We really want to get past the first of the year so that we have that leverage in the bag," Green told ABC. "It will also show that the fiscal cliff was a mess. If we get into 2013, the really good stuff happens right away, and the really big cuts are a 10-year phasing."






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Venture Scouts, Girl Guides conferred prestigious awards






SINGAPORE: Eighteen Venture Scouts and seven Girl Guides in Singapore have been conferred the highest honour in the movement.

President Tony Tan Keng Yam presented the President's Scout Award and the President's Guide Award for 2012 at the Istana on Friday.

The awards are the highest honour given to Singapore's most all-rounded Venture Scouts and Girl Guides.

The awards come as recognition of the recipients' excellent performance, dedication to the movement, and service to the community.

- CNA/ck



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Human beings are actually 'sick animals': Iranian-Canadian philosopher

Ramin Jahanbegloo, 56, is a renowned Iranian-Canadian philosopher and political activist with a doctorate in philosophy from Sorbonne University, France. A professor of political science and a research fellow in the Centre for Ethics at University of Toronto, he has been dealing with ideas of non-violence and political philosophy. Currently in India to speak on the Global Gandhian movement, Jahanbegloo talks to The Times of India about how he has been actively involved with Gandhian ideologies and practices and why he wishes to create a global movement on the same.

Tell us a little about yourself.
I was born in Tehran and lived in France for nearly 20 years where my contact with India started. I was always interested and attracted to India. It wasn't as a tourist or in any romantic way. My parents always had contacts with Indian diplomats in Iran and also when we were in France. I came to India in 1989, when I had already started working on Gandhi. I lived in Delhi for two years. I've written nine books in India; six are conversations with eminent Indians.

What really drew you towards Gandhi?
A: I started with Gandhi because most of the famous philosophers -- Hegel, Marx and Nietzsche -- that I had studied and worked on when I was doing my PhD at Sorbonne University, admitted to violence and war as a crucial principle in history which did not appeal to me. When I started my PhD I was very keen on getting involved with the philosophy of nonviolence, which brought me to study Gandhi and look into the western intellectual foundations of Gandhi like Ruskin, Tolstoy etc. For me, non-violence has two aspects which are the philosophical and the activist aspect.

What directed you towards philosophy?
A: I decided to study philosophy because of the main question that is asked by humanity which is why there is 'being' rather than 'non-being'? I will add another question to it now because of the work on violence I have done: Why do we have violence rather than non-violence? I think the main foundation of philosophical being brought me to a second ethical question: why are human beings so violent? Who are the authors and thinkers who have confronted this violence politically, socially and philosophically? After Jesus Christ, Buddha and St Francis, the name of Gandhi comes first in the 21st century as a propagator of non-violence.

Do you believe that violence can be eliminated form society completely?
No and yes. Well you see, we have to distinguish between aggression and violence in a society. That is why we think that animals and humans can both be violent because it is inherent in our nature. However, human violence is learned socially and politically, more than being an instinct.

The violence that we use is not comparable with the aggressive instinct of animals. Animals do not construct concentration camps, they not organise mass killings. And they do not go into a school and kill innocent children. Their fear is conditioned. Human beings are actually 'sick animals'. The solution to eliminate violence from society is, hence, historical, social and political rather than psychological. For example, the rapes that happen in Delhi are because of poverty, under education, bad social situation of people. The solution lies in going to the roots and attacking them, fighting the social and political evils and importantly through education rather than hanging these people. As Gandhi as well as Martin Luther King said, you have to fight the murder not the murderer. By killing the murderer, nothing can change.

Tell us something about 'Global Gandhian Movement,' the topic that you often speak on.

Gandhi has influenced not just India but the world. The Gandhian mode of thinking has a much deeper impact than people may believe. People like Mandela, Martin Luther King, Aung Sang Suu Kyi and Dalai Lama have been directly influenced by Gandhi. But students in Egypt, Serbia, Tunisia, have been indirectly influenced by him. A global Gandhian movement is prevalent in society. Most importantly, the Gandhian method of politics is the extension of ethical ideas. People are not fighting just for change of power. They are fighting for something more than power. I will be highlighting how youth are fighting to change the social ills of society and struggling with all the ethical wrong doings.

What is this 'power' that people are fighting for?
We must distinguish between political power and empowerment of society. I mean it is the empowerment of civil society rather than state related power that the Gandhian movement consists of. For Gandhi, active citizenship and enlargement of pluralism was much more important than state oriented politics. Gandhi was also a listener. He listened to Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Parsis and then inculcated it and acted accordingly. Others did not have the capacity of listening, and did not succeed as well as Gandhi because they inculcated their ideologies before really listening to the masses. They do not leave behind the same legacy, for example, Jinnah. So fighting for sovereignty and empowerment of civil society is more important than political power.

Does ancient Indian philosophy interest you?
Of course! I've been very inspired by Buddhism. I've read a lot about Vivekananda, and many other spiritual thinkers. I'm very interested in Tagore. I wrote a book on Tagore! He is my second favourite person after Gandhi. Tagore for me is very close to the Persian culture. I always say, either I was an Indian in my previous life or I will be an Indian in my next life! Persian culture has always been inter-twined in the Indian context. Hence I have always been very close to India. I've read a lot of Sarojini Naidu as a poet. I've even read B.R Amedkar and I've done critiques by him on Gandhi. I like the intercultural, diversity of India. In fact the very idea of non-violence is diversity. It is essentially solidarity of difference.

Do you have a favourite book or author?
One would definitely be Gandhi's autobiography. A book by Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation. Leo Tolstoy's 'War and Peace' is a book I love and always keep going back. Finally, Magic mountain by Thomas Mann. I'm actually choosing a few books from each civilization and combining it to give me a wholesome experience for my life.

You were imprisoned by the Iranian government for nearly four months. How did it affect your life?
I went to prison because I'm a non-violent activist, and I believe in non-violent changes in Iran. But I believe the Iranian government imprisoned me because I had become too popular in Iran and the regime did not like me very much. Solitary confinement isn't the best thing, and it affected me a lot. I think I became even more devoted to nonviolent thinking. I think it was because I read Gandhi's autobiography over and over again while in prison because it was the only book that I was allowed to keep. When I came out of prison, I decided that I want to fight against the spirit of revenge. I think to fight against the evil is to fight the evil itself. The question that was always on my mind like I have seen with Nazis, or Stalinism or colonialism: Why do some humans suppress or disrespect other humans to feel that they are somehow superior? I needed to understand why this evil was prevalent and I had to understand the very reason for it.

Apart from being a philosopher and a teacher, do you have any other hobbies that you engage in?
I have a lot of hobbies. I love classical movies. I am a film critic. I will probably write book in the next few years on Satyajit Ray. I went to Kolkata and met his son, as I was very inspired by his works. I love his cinema. But I'm truly a fan of classical cinema, the 1930's-40's. My favourite actors are Spencer Tracy and James Cagney. I watch 1-2 classical movies every day. I sleep only 4-5 hours, so I make it a point to watch movies at night. I enjoy classical music too.

Apart from Gandhi, who do you draw inspiration from?
One living person who has inspired me and been very close to is Dalai Lama. He is the living expression of Gandhi. I make it a point to visit him every time that I am in India. For me, he is a symbol of peace and tolerance and Ahimsa.

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