Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Why India should have a Popularly Elected President


The President of India is, for the most part, just a rubber-stamp. The President has almost no real power. Then why does India have a President at all?

The President's office is misused as a Retirement Home to reward loyal servants of the Nehru Dynasty. The only exceptions were early Presidents like Rajendra Prasad, and the current President Kalam who was appointed by the NDA, not by Congress.

The current Congress-led UPA Government is talking about choosing the idiot Arjun Singh, loyal servant and pet dog of Sonia Nehru, as the next President. This is absolutely outrageous. Having a lunatic like Arjun Singh as President of India would be a National Shame.

It is time to put an end to this 60-year-long charade. Citizens of India, rise and be heard. Demand change. Here is the demand I want you to consider, and support once you agree it has merit.

"Either the Office of the President must be given real power (and the President must be popularly elected like in the United States), or the Office of the President must be abolished.

We, the Citizens of India, will no longer tolerate the Nehru Dynasty charade of insulting the Nation by rewarding old senile useless unpopular criminal servants and lap-dogs of the Nehru Dynasty, like the current Nehru Dynasty candidate Arjun Singh, by making them Presidents of India."

If you agree to this, forward this demand to all your friends and family. Let the New India rise and be heard. Let the toothless brainless 80+ and 90+ senile lunatics like Arjun Singh go where they belong: to the hospice to wait for death. The President's Office is NOT a Retirement Home.

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Thursday, May 24, 2007

Paki "peace-keeping" soldiers sold guns to terrorists in Congo


This is exactly what one expects Pakis to do. Lie, cheat, steal. All the time.

This kind of Paki trickery has been going on forever. How long will this be tolerated?

BBC reports:
UN troops 'traded gold for guns'
By Martin Plaut
BBC News, eastern DR Congo

Pakistani troops in DR Congo in 2007
Pakistan is the biggest contributor to the UN peacekeeping effort
Pakistani UN peacekeeping troops have traded in gold and sold weapons to Congolese militia groups they were meant to disarm, the BBC has learnt.

These militia groups were guilty of some of the worst human rights abuses during the Democratic Republic of Congo's long civil war.

The trading went on in 2005. A UN investigative team sent to gather evidence was obstructed and threatened.

The team's report was buried by the UN itself to "avoid political fallout".

These events took place in and around the mining town of Mongbwalu, in north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Pakistani battalion of the UN peacekeeping mission deployed there two years ago and helped bring peace to an area that had previously seen bitter fighting between the Lendu and Hema ethnic groups.

Locals welcomed them, but the lure of the rich alluvial gold mines proved too much to resist for some, recalls the head of the miners' association, Liki Likambo.

"I saw a UN Pakistani soldier who came to buy gold from one of the gold negotiators here in Mongbwalu. I was there in the shop. I saw it with my own eyes."

Deals

Soon the Pakistani officers were doing deals directly with the FNI militia.

Weighing gold
The gold from mines run by militias went to Pakistani peacekeepers

Evarista Anjasubu - a local businessman said he had known of transactions between Pakistani officers and two of the most notorious militia leaders called Kung Fu and Dragon who controlled the gold mines.

"They were already friends. I knew well. It was gold that was the basis of their friendship. So the gold extracted from the mines went directly to the Pakistanis. They used to meet in the UN camp in Mongbwalu, in a thatched house."

As the trade developed the Pakistani officers brought in the Congolese army and then Indian traders from Kenya.

Richard Ndilu, in charge of immigration at Mongbwalu airstrip, became suspicious in late 2005 when an Indian businessman arrived there and went to stay at the camp of the Pakistani peacekeepers.

Scandal

Alerted to this illegal trade by her officials, the District Commissioner of Ituri, Petronille Vaweka, went to Bunia airport to intercept a plane from Mongbwalu.

Liki Likambo
I was there in the shop. I saw it with my own eyes
Miners' association head Liki Likambo

She said her way was blocked by Congolese army officers, who refused to allow her to inspect the cargo.

"I knew they had gold because the price of gold increased when the Indians went to Mongwalu," she said.

"When we wanted to verify what was inside the plane the pilot refused to allow us to enter the plane - me who was the chief, he refused! It was a big scandal."

When the UN was alerted to the allegations of gold trading by Human Rights Watch in late 2005, they instituted a major investigation by the Office for Internal Oversight Services.

What they uncovered was even more explosive.

Rearming

This is from a witness statement given to the UN by a Congolese officer engaged in the disarming of the militia in the nearby town of Nizi:

Gold mining
The battle for mining concessions has cost countless lives

"The officer expressed his regrets over the malpractices of a Pakistani battalion under the auspices of Major Zanfar. He revealed the arms surrendered by ex-combatants were secretly returned to them by Major Zanfar thereby compromising the work they had collectively done earlier.

"Repeatedly he saw militia who had been disarmed one day, but the next day would become re-armed again. The information he could obtain was always the same, that it would be the Pakistani battalion giving arms back to the militia."

This evidence was backed up by an interpreter working with the Pakistani battalion at Mongbwalu.

On arriving at the Officer's Mess, the interpreter found two militia leaders - known as Kung Fu and Dragon.

The interpreter said that the first question from Major Ali was to Kung Fu - asking him: 'What about the weapons I gave you? What about the weapons Monuc gave you?'

Stand-off

A UN investigation team arrived in Mongbwalu in August 2006.

At first the Pakistani battalion there cooperated with them. But when they attempted to seize a computer with apparently incriminating documents on it a stand-off ensued.

Mongbwalu
The UN-found weapons were returned to militias in Mongbwalu

The Pakistanis surrounded the UN police accompanying the investigators with barbed wire and put two armoured personnel carriers outside their living quarters at a nearby Christian mission.

Thoroughly intimidated, the investigators were airlifted out of Mongbwalu.

The Pakistani troops are replaced every six months and the BBC investigation concerns events that took place prior to the deployment of the current Pakistani battalion.

When we put the allegations of weapons trading to the head of the UN in Congo, Ambassador William Swing, he denied emphatically that peacekeepers had been rearming the militia.

"This I can categorically deny. What we have done is just the opposite. We have demobilised more than 20,000. We have taken in caches of arms. We have destroyed arms. We have done public burnings of these arms. And there is absolutely nothing to that allegation."

He says that the investigation into gold trading has yet to be completed.

A UN official connected with the inquiry told the BBC there seems to have been a plan to bury it, to avoid alienating Pakistan - the largest contributor of troops to the UN.

The UN in New York has refused to explain what took place or why, nearly two years after the allegations first surfaced, the Congolese people have no idea what action - if any - has been taken to discipline the Pakistani soldiers concerned.

Pakistan's foreign ministry said the UN had informed it of the allegations only on Tuesday, and they would be looked into.






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Monday, May 21, 2007

UK study shows vegetarians have higher IQ and better health


Many ancient customs of India have often been mocked and made fun of by ignorant prideful Westerners.

"Why do you not eat beef?" "Is it some kind of weird Hindoo superstition?" "Do you consider the cow to be your mother?" "Holy cow!"

Every Indian Hindu who has travelled or lives abroad is very familiar of snide remarks of this kind.

Most of them have proved their strength of spirit and resolve by steadfastly following the ancient wisdom contained in these ancient customs handed down by their ancestors in spite of these insulting comments they have often faced, living in Christian-majority and Muslim-majority societies.

A small minority of them has proved susceptible to peer-pressure and started eating beef. Most of the latter try to justify their decision by calling themselves "open minded" and "progressive" [and bad-mouthing Hindus who don't eat beef as "backward" and "full of superstition"].

In truth these beef-eating Hindus are just weaklings who could not resist peer pressure from the beef-eating Christians and Muslims they live among. They should be pitied for their weakness; not disliked for their insulting and superior attitude towards Hindus who continue to follow ancient customs. May Lord Krishna have pity upon them and grant them more mental strength.

Now a study conducted in the UK shows that vegetarians have higher IQ and live healthier lives than those who regularly eat beef. People who eat only chicken and fish (but not beef etc) have just as high IQ and live just as healthy lives. People who regularly eat beef have lower IQ and live less healthy lives.

BBC reports:
High IQ link to being vegetarian
Fruit and vegetables
Vegetarianism has been linked to better heart health
Intelligent children are more likely to become vegetarians later in life, a study says.

A Southampton University team found those who were vegetarian by 30 had recorded five IQ points more on average at the age of 10.

Researchers said it could explain why people with higher IQ were healthier as a vegetarian diet was linked to lower heart disease and obesity rates.

The study of 8,179 was reported in the British Medical Journal.

Twenty years after the IQ tests were carried out in 1970, 366 of the participants said they were vegetarian - although more than 100 reported eating either fish or chicken.

Men who were vegetarian had an IQ score of 106, compared with 101 for non-vegetarians; while female vegetarians averaged 104, compared with 99 for non-vegetarians.

We've always known that vegetarianism is an intelligent, compassionate choice benefiting animals, people and the environment
Liz O'Neill, of The Vegetarian Society

There was no difference in IQ score between strict vegetarians and those who said they were vegetarian but who reported eating fish or chicken.

Researchers said the findings were partly related to better education and higher occupational social class, but it remained statistically significant after adjusting for these factors.

Vegetarians were more likely to be female, to be of higher occupational social class and to have higher academic or vocational qualifications than non-vegetarians.

However, these differences were not reflected in their annual income, which was similar to that of non-vegetarians.

Lead researcher Catharine Gale said: "The finding that children with greater intelligence are more likely to report being vegetarian as adults, together with the evidence on the potential benefits of a vegetarian diet on heart health, may help to explain why higher IQ in childhood or adolescence is linked with a reduced risk of coronary heart disease in adult life."

Intelligence

However, she added the link may be merely an example of many other lifestyle preferences that might be expected to vary with intelligence, such as choice of newspaper, but which may or may not have implications for health.

Liz O'Neill, of the Vegetarian Society, said: "We've always known that vegetarianism is an intelligent, compassionate choice benefiting animals, people and the environment.

"Now we've got the scientific evidence to prove it. Maybe that explains why many meat-reducers are keen to call themselves vegetarians when even they must know that vegetarians don't eat chicken, turkey or fish."

But Dr Frankie Phillips, of the British Dietetic Association, said: "It is like the chicken and the egg. Do people become vegetarian because they have a very high IQ or is it just that they tend to be more aware of health issues?"

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