94 % Indians are sex starved says CNN IBN Poll

Are Indians sex starved or is it lawlessness?

CNN-IBN, Thu, Jan 03, 2008

It was India’s new year shame: two women molested by over 60 men in the heart of Mumbai, a 15-year-old Swedish tourist groped in Kochi and girl students inside a Patna hostel not spared either.

From North to west to South, are women safe in our country? Are Indians sex starved? That was the question discussed on Face The Nation on CNN-IBN, hosted by Bhupendra Chaubey.

On the panel to debate the issue was ad guru Alyque Padamsee, along with Assistant Inspector-General with Punjab Police Amrit Brar and corporate MC and television anchor Geetika Ganjoo.

So how does this maddening behaviour reflect on our society? “It is absolutely disgraceful. When I was in college this kind of thing was unheard of. It was Bombay then, and Bombay had a certain civic sense. People queued up for buses. Today, due to the influx into Mumbai, the whole cultural ethos of good manners, good breeding has totally broken down. People coming in from across the country, particularly from the north, have the idea of treating women like property. Given that 48 per cent of marriages have wife beating, you can imagine at what level men treat women. I’m disgusted that the Mumbai police did not even file a suo motu case,” said Alyque Padamsee.

Molesters on the prowl

But the case in Mumbai is not in isolation. It seems to be happening across the country. Where is such behaviour coming from? Is it just a group of rowdy men getting carried away in what we could call mob frenzy?

“This is the complete failure of the police and judiciary because men seem to think they can get away with it. They need to come down very severely on such elements,” insisted Geetika Ganjoo.

On the part of the police, Commissioner D N Jadhav on Wednesday accused the media of making “mountain out of molehill” in the case, completely downplaying the issue and dismissing it as a “minor issue”. So is the protection of women at all a priority for the police? “The police cannot be looked at in isolation. There were 60 people at the spot. What were the rest of them doing? The police cannot reach out to every single citizen. The police is supposed to respond to certain things but this is not terrorism we are talking about,” said Amrit Brar.

Who’s to blame

But have women now lost the freedom to be out on their own and have a good time? “If you go back in history, a 1000 years ago, it was all marvelous and there was sexual emancipation. Now sex is a taboo like in the Victorian era. We don’t even allow sex education in schools. How many schools have co-education? When men do not have the cultural background about respecting women, when they are in a mob, after a few drinks, they get rowdy and they think women are an amusement. I think the people to blame are the politicians,” said Alyque Padamsee.

If there was a comparison to be made, we see moral police coming out in full force the moment a couple is holding or kissing and in the same country, there are cases of such molestation. Is there not a sense of hypocrisy in our attitude towards sex?

“The politicians allow goonda elements to do anything they like,” put in Alyque Padamsee.

But a lot of people, at the end of the day, put the blame squarely on the women and say they were dressed provocatively. “The world doesn’t belong to men. If they can wear what they want so can the women. I don’t believe this is so much a problem about sex-starvation, I think it’s more about lawlessness. Hang 10-15 of these men or cut them off and we’ll see how many of them have the guts to do it again,” said Geetika Ganjoo.

Taking off from her point, Alyque Padamsee said that it was disgraceful for any man to think any women is pray. “The rapes in this country happen to lots of women wearing saris or those covered from head to toe. There is basically no sex education to treat women equal to men,” he said.

Challenging Alyque Padamsee’s argument, Geetika Ganjoo said that men tend to target women in western attire because they were still not used to it. “But the point is the cops not coming down heavily on such men. Nab them and punish them,” she said.

So has the time now come for our law enforcement agencies to think of with exemplary punishments?

“The law enforcement agency is not the punishing authority. There are courts involved. Has the media said one positive thing about the police the whole day? It’s the courts that are responsible for punishment, not the police,” said Amrit Brar.

Concluding the debate, Alyque Padamsee said if people could be locked up for one to three days for drunk driving why could the police not take similar action for molestation?

SMS Poll

Are Indians sex starved?

Yes: 94 per cent

No: 6 per cent

IBLIVE

 

Google search results: Indians are best at sex and sleaze

Tuesday, 25 December 2007

CHANDIGARH; Indian are more prone to sex or at least to sex talk, to be more precise say dirty talk, if one believes the search data of Google search. Egypt and Turkey follow India in sex searches.

However in “Homosexual”, top position is acquired by Philippines followed by Chile and Venezuela. Chile also made it to the top spot by searching for the word ‘gay’ and weer followed by Mexico and Colombia.

It seemed Love exists only in Philippines, Australia and United States. India which is considered land of Lord Krishna didn’t fine place any place in search for love. As far as “Viagra” is concerned, Italy has the top position followed by United Kingdom, Germany. Indian still seemed surviving on natural herbs.

The goddess of beauty and love and hollywood actress “Britney Spears” has highest following in Mexico, Venezuela, Canada.33 year old “Kate Moss”, the England born super model is top choice among serachers in Ireland followed by United Kingdom and Sweden. She is also top model at askmen.com.

The most interesting fact is that ‘Iraq’ is searched by majority of Americans followed by Australians and Canadians. Australia is interestingly among the three top countries, others Pakistan and Philippines which search most for terrorism. ‘Taliban’ is top search in Pakistan, Australia and Canada. Jihad (meaning holy war) seemed to be the most often typed key word in countries like Pakistan, Indonesia and Morocco.The concept of “Car bomb” is most popular in Australia followed by United States and Canada.

Internet users from Germany, Mexico and Austria were the world’s top three searchers of the word “Hitler”, while “Nazi” got most hits in Chile, Australia and the UK.

If you understand the meaning of ‘Hangover’ then it is Ireland, United Kingdom, United States which are most effected by it.

The most users deadly drug “Marijuana”, appeared to be in Canada, USA and Austrailia. “Marijuana” is the common name for a crude drug made from the plant Cannabis sativa.

“Burrito”, a Mexican food is most popular in United States followed by Argentina, Canada. In USA it is also known as Sanfransisco Burrito.

American Actor and Film producer “Tom Cruise” is most popular in Canada followed by United States and Australia.

An anti-aging injection “Botox” is most searched in Australia, United States and United Kingdom. Of late this product is becoming popular in India.

“David Beckham”, the world famous football player is most loved in Venezuela followed by United Kingdom and Mexico.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) gets most visitors from Austria followed by Pakistan and Iran, all Muslim countries.

Punjab Newsline Network

 

HIV women forced into sex for treatment in India: report

Dec 21, 2007

NEW DELHI (AFP) — HIV-positive women in the northern Indian state of Punjab were forced by technicians at a medical institute to have sex in return for tests and medicines, a report said Saturday.

Police were investigating the allegations against employees of the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in state capital Chandigarh, the Times of India said.

The women who complained of abuse were mainly young patients from city slums.

“I was helped by a technician there. He provided me medicines and other testing facilities without any problem,” a 27-year-old widow who was diagnosed with HIV in 2005 told the paper.

“But this was all for his sexual gratification.

The woman said she was also asked to procure other girls for workers at the institute’s AIDS testing and counselling centre.

Stigma and discrimination against HIV-positive people are widespread in the country of 1.1 billion people, where an estimated 2.5 million people are infected with the virus, according to the United Nations.

The number of estimated AIDS cases in India came down sharply this year from estimates of 5.7 million cases in 2005, reflecting an increase in testing and better statistical sampling methods, the UN said.

 

Major prostitution racket busted in Nepal’s border town

KATHMANDU: The authorities in Nepal have busted a major prostitution racket in Rupandehi district’s Butwal town, close to the Indian border.

The Nepal Police arrested at least 22 people, including girls, from different hotels of Butwal Municipality in Rupandehi district, close to the Indian border state of Uttar Pradesh.

They were arrested by the authorities in raid at the three hotels and a restaurant in Butwal after receiving a tip-off, according to the police.

The arrested youths would face a case of public offence, the police said.

Prostitution is considered illegal in Nepal and the Himalayan nation does not have a red light area.

The police said they have intensified raids in the district to control the illegal activity.

Concerned over the deteriorating law and order situation in the country’s Terai plains bordering India, the government has unveiled new security measures for Southern Nepal.

The porous Indo-Nepal border has often facilitated criminal activities, including prostitution and smuggling.

In recent months, the security forces of the two countries have increased vigil to check crimes, including abduction, extortion and other forms of illegal activities in the Terai region.

16 Dec 2007, ,PTI

 

Skewed sex ratio amongst NRI’s in UK

Rachna Prasad, NDTV, December 9, 2007 (London)

The growing Indian population in UK has made it to the headlines recently. But apparently, this growth is an unequal one.

A recent study at Oxford University by Dr Sylvie Dubuc shows a skewed sex ratio among Indians in UK. While there exists an imbalance in India, in the UK, the ratio for Indians is abnormal.

The study shows that for children born to India-born mothers between 1990 and 2005, the sex ratio was 1040 to 1080 boys for every 1000 girls. In cases where there is a third child, the ratio is even more skewed, 1130 boys for every 1000 girls.

”The most plausible explanation for this trend is sex selective abortion that has been used by a small minority of families, where the mother is born in India and she wants to have a boy,” said Dr Sylvie Dubuc, Oxford University.

In UK, sex determination tests are common and are advertised openly. Doctors feel it helps detect genetic abnormalities in the foetus and gives parents more options on how to deal with them.

In such a scenario, abortion based on the sex of the foetus would go almost unnoticed in the larger agenda of UK’s National Health Service.

”Whether the NHS could do something about it, its difficult. The NHS is very open. When a woman is pregnant in this country, of any origin, if she wants to know the sex of her child its easily available. She can walk into an anti natal clinic; have an ultrasound by 20 weeks, the sex is known.

”But when it comes to aborting the female foetus, the NHS will not accept that, I don’t think any hospital, even private will do that. That’s why these people go to India,” said Dr Ramesh Mehta, President, Physicians of Indian Origin, Britain.

The average Indian woman born in Britain is usually well educated but her family may still hold on to values they brought with them from the subcontinent decades ago. Values that are fuelled by television serials from India, that are now easily available on satellite television here.

Rani Atma came to England and qualified as a lawyer in 1971, but changed course to become a social worker aiming to help Asian families adjust to life in England. Her Asian Family counselling service has centres all across the country helping families deal with all kinds of issues, including marriage and children.

”Most of the pressures are that the daughter in law is expected to behave like a traditional woman,” said Rani Atma,Chairman, Asian Family Counselling Service.

”I know somebody who had 5 daughters and wanted a son, he eventually had a son and then had another daughter. He now has 6 daughters and a son. Every time the wife was pregnant she came to us. They did not go in for sex detection but if they had, they might have had an abortion,” she said.

Rani feels that the Indian girl child is finding her place in the UK, getting herself educated and becoming a professional who stands tall among her western counterparts.

But unfortunately, those who want a gender-based abortion don’t go to counsellors like Rani. Instead, they travel to India where despite strict laws and campaigns against female foeticide, it is a facility that seems to be readily available.

This research study is a warning sign for both British Indians and the medical community in the UK. The NHS will continue to offer scans for sex determination, and education will be the only way, Indians will learn to value their girl child.

NDTV

 

India drops down 2 places in HDI, ranks 128th

India growing? It’s not showing, Country unable to break out of class of laggards in UN assessment

The world’s second highest economic growth rate has not yet helped India hoist itself away from its customary position in the global development report card.

The Human Development Report for 2007-08 released by the UNDP today ranked India 128 out of 177 countries, working it out through measures of life expectancy, education and income.

India’s human development index (HDI) of 0.619 puts it just below Equatorial Guinea (0.642) and Solomon Islands (0.602). India’s life expectancy of 63.7 years is sandwiched between Comoros (64.1) and Mauritania (63.2), while Malawi and Rwanda have higher adult literacy than India.

The report found that India’s GDP per capita (purchasing power parity) is $3,452, far below China’s $6,757.

Iceland is at the top with Norway, Australia, Canada, Ireland, Japan, France, the US, the UK, Israel, and Singapore among the top 25 nations in the development chart.

India was ranked 126 by the HDR 2006, a rung higher than the previous year’s 127. This year, it continues to be dubbed a country at medium level of human development.

An economist said he was not surprised that the country’s impressive economic growth rate — only China’s growth surpasses India’s 9 per cent — was not reflected in the human development report.

“Our growth has been lopsided, and has not yet percolated to the masses,” Shyama Prasad Gupta, an economist and a former member of the Planning Commission, said,

India’s richest 20 per cent account for about 31 per cent of the share of income or expenditure, while the poorest 20 per cent account for around 8 per cent, the report said.

“We have two countries in one,” said Abhay Shukla, senior programme coordinator with Sathi-Cehat, a non-government organisation engaged in health and development issues.

The report has ranked India 62 among 108 developing countries in its human poverty index which measures severe deprivation in health in people who are not expected to survive age 40.

“We’re witnessing something called development polarisation. About 20 per cent of the population is showing low mortality and low fertility, key features associated with development, but in the rest of the population we don’t see this change in any significant way,” Shukla said.

The UNDP report suggests that India’s commitment to education measured through public spending dropped from 12 per cent of total government expenditure in 1991 to 10 per cent in 2005.

India’s public spending on health is only 0.9 per cent of its GDP, a fraction of 8.3 per cent in Iceland, 6.9 per cent in the US, 7 per cent in the UK, and lower than China’s 1.8 per cent.

Full report is here http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/

 

The Book of Love: In Search of the Kamasutra

Over the counter once more
Ian Pindar is glad that James McConnachie’s tome of good conduct for men, The Book of Love, has been rescued

The Book of Love: In Search of the Kamasutra
by James McConnachie
272pp, Atlantic, £17.99

In The Book of Love James McConnachie lays to rest some of the enduring myths surrounding the Kamasutra: it is not a sex manual but a book of good conduct. It is not illustrated and it has nothing to do with Tantric sex.

Little is known about its author, Vatsyayana, but he probably lived in third-century northern India. What we do know is that he started a trend – some have called it a revolution – when he decided to write a sutra or scholarly treatise about kama or sexual desire.

The word kamasutra has become a sort of shorthand for “advanced fucking”, says McConnachie, but it doesn’t really deserve its reputation as a book of sexual gymnastics. The sexual positions Vatsyayana discusses (“the crab”, “the lotus”, and so on) are not especially acrobatic, nor are there all that many. Certainly not as many as can be found in The Horn-Book: A Girl’s Guide to Good and Evil (1899), which lists 62 positions – including the “view of the Low Countries” and the “elastic cunt” – or the Golden Book of Love (1907), which offers 531.

Vatsyayana organises sex into eight distinct topics: embracing, kissing, scratching (love marks were “a major fetish in ancient India”), biting, the notorious sexual positions, moaning, “the woman playing the man’s part” (women-on-top) and oral sex (the art of fellatio; cunnilingus is barely mentioned). The Kamasutra is a male fantasy aimed at nagarakas, wealthy young men in the cities, and it presents a world in which women are always available and compliant and never need to be seduced, only aroused in frescoed bedchambers filled with flowers and incense. The effect of the work, says McConnachie, is to surround us in a kind of “erotic cocoon”. If Vatsyayana has advice for women, it is how to keep men happy, not how to enjoy themselves sexually. His greatest crime in modern eyes is not that he never once questions the caste system, but that he appears totally unaware of the existence of the clitoris.

What McConnachie calls the “coffee-table Kamasutra” is a modern invention, usually borrowing erotic images from medieval India, long after Vatsyayana was writing. The Kamasutra is also travestied in modern editions as a book of Tantric sexual positions, but as McConnachie shows Tantrism was a much later development and its aim of harnessing the power of sex to attain spiritual knowledge is at odds with Vatsyayana’s extremely practical and entirely secular approach to sex as an end in itself.

McConnachie’s chapters on the original Kamasutra are interesting, but he is more concerned with the book’s reception in the west. His account only really picks up pace with the entrance of Richard Francis Burton, the charismatic sexual anthropologist whose pioneering 1883 edition introduced The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana to modern Europeans. “The free treatment of topics usually taboo’d will be a great national benefit,” argued Burton, and McConnachie shows how he was the first of many translators to regard the Kamasutra as a key book in the battle against sexual repression. Burton successfully avoided prosecution by emphasising the text’s scholarly credentials: it was not a dirty book at all, but a monument to Oriental wisdom, albeit kinky wisdom. As McConnachie reveals, the shady “Kama Shastra Society” responsible for the landmark 1883 edition was a bizarre mix of Sanskrit scholars and erotic bibliophiles, serious Indologists and creepy erotologists. He is especially good on the curious link between sexual libertinism and religious relativism.

The 1883 Kamasutra was as much of a revelation in India as it was in Europe, its open eroticism hinting at an ancient liberal past that had been totally suppressed by a triple whammy of Hindu asceticism, Victorian prudery and Islamic repression (although one of the last great Sanskrit sex manuals, the Ananga Ranga, was composed in the 16th century for a Muslim ruler, Lada Khan). “Could this be the country that created the Kamasutra?” wondered the filmmaker Mira Nair when her film Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (1996) was banned by India’s Board of Censors. It seems much has changed since Vatsyayana’s time.

The Kamasutra remained an under-the-counter commodity until the end of the Chatterley ban in 1960, which led to what McConnachie calls “the great sex rush” in publishing. For Dr Alex Comfort in The Joy of Sex (1972) the Kamasutra offered an ancient model of sexual sophistication, “devoid of stupid patriarchal hang-ups about the need for her to be underneath”, while in the 90s Alain Daniélou’s translation of the Kamasutra made it a gay text, changing all the pronouns in the chapter on fellatio from “she” to “he”. In the past, translators have tended to “dequeer” the Kamasutra, says McConnachie, for it does mention lady-boys and masseurs, but Daniélou’s translation goes to the opposite extreme.

Today the Kamasutra brand – given a spurious New Age, Tantric twist – has launched a thousand tacky spin-offs lacking all the subtlety and grace of the original, from Viz Fat Slags Kama Sutra to FHM’s Kama Sutra 2, in which two exquisitely bored young women in black lingerie demonstrate the “reverse seated cowgirl” or “extended doggie”. It all has precious little to do with the original Kamasutra, according to McConnachie, and this scholarly and enjoyable book rescues Vatsyayana’s masterpiece from the grubby little corner of the bookshop to which it has been condemned for so long.

The Guardian,UK

 

Indira Gandhi International Airport listed among world’s worst

October 2007,
Hate flying? You’re not alone. But often, it’s not the crowded, overly air-conditioned airplanes themselves that are the problem: Just getting on and off the plane is the real nightmare. For this week’s List, FP looks at five airports around the world that make traveling hell.

Indira Gandhi International Airport

Firsthand account: “Of all the regional capital airports this one takes the cake … a piece of crap … bring the bug spray.” —Anonymous commenter, The Budget Traveller’s Guide to Sleeping in Airports, Dec 11, 2005

Why it’s so bad: Because it’s sheer chaos. The IT boomtowns of Hyderabad and Bangalore have built shiny new airports in recent years, but old standbys like New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport have failed to benefit from India’s economic expansion. Visitors report aggressive panhandlers, filthy bathrooms where attendants charge for toilet paper, and used syringes on the terminal floor. The main terminal building was even closed to visitors for a few months in 1999 after a flight from Nepal was hijacked. Things have hopefully gotten a little safer since an Australian tourist was murdered by a taxi driver leaving IGIA in 2004, prompting the Indian government to form a special tourist police force. But there’s still a danger of things going slightly awry: In 2005, an act of sabotage in an ongoing feud between cable television providers led to a pornographic film appearing on the airport’s television monitors. Let’s just hope it provided a much-needed respite from CNN International.

Foreign Policy.COM

 

Muslims convicts in India is 19.1%, while the number of undertrials is 22.5%

Counter View: A Few Myths, Fewer Facts about Muslims

When Zakir Hussain was sentenced to death by hanging for his part in planting the bombs during the “Bombay Blasts” of 1993, he shouted, “If a Hindu does something, a commission is set up. But if a Muslim does something, he is hanged.” This was in reference to the destruction of the Babri Masjid and the riots that had followed in December 1992 and January 1993.

The Srikrishna Commission, constituted to determine the causes of the riots in which approximately 900 people, predominantly Muslim, were killed, had stated that, “One common link between the riots of December 1992 and January 1993 and bomb blasts of 12th March 1993 appear to be that the former appear to have been a causative factor for the latter. There does appear to be a cause and effect relationship between the two riots and the serial bomb blasts.”

The recommendations of the Commission have never been brought into force. This has led to a number of people speculating whether justice is done to Muslims in India, whether they are being punished disproportionately, that, “Soon India’s jails will be choc-a-block with Muslims.”

Indian Muslims in Jail

In such cases it is possibly best to check the facts. The prison statistics from the National Crimes Record Bureau indicate that the percentage of Muslims convicts in India is 19.1%, while the number of undertrials is 22.5%.

This is higher than the percentage of Muslims living in India, at 13.4% or thereabouts. It would be tempting to shout, “Aha! Proof of bias!” but a rigorous analysis would lead to a more nuanced view because of the geographic distribution of both prison population and Muslims. Over half of Indian Muslims live in the four states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Assam, which account for 21% of convicted prisoners and 42% of undertrials in Indian jails. In effect Indian Muslims live in geographic areas where more people are sent to jail, either as convicts or as undertrials.

A far more fascinating result is that the percentage of Muslims who are undertrials is slightly less than that of those convicted. In other words proportionately more Muslims are adjudged “innocent” than Hindus (whose undertrial to convict ratio is: 69.6% to 70.7% and even Christians (whose undertrial to convict ratio is 3.8% to 4.2%).

Indian Muslims and Crime

The question of bias could also be turned on its head, and it could be said that high proportionately of Muslims means more crime. The data does not support such a conclusion.

The two states where such high population of people are in jail, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, have a Muslim population of 18.5% and 16.5% respectively and contribute 6.7% and 5.4% of All-India crimes . West Bengal and Assam, in which the percentage of Muslims is at 25.2% and 30.9%, contribute only 3.6% and 2.3% of all-India crimes.

Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu all produce more than 8.5% of India’s crimes individually, making them the most crime-prone states in the country. In all of these high crime states Indian Muslims make up, at the most, 10.6% of the population, less than the Indian average.

The one state where Muslims constitute a majority of the population, at 67% in Jammu & Kashmir, which has been wracked by militancy and violence, contributes to only 1.1% of Indian crime, about the same as its population compared to all-India figures.

Indian Muslims as Citizens or as Muslims

Despite these statistics it would be idle to say that Indian Muslims do not, from time to time, face problems, as do most people that constitute a marginalised group in society. The recent Sachar Committee report by the Government of India cites very low levels of socio-economic indicators for Indian Muslims.

As a child I lived in the Oil & Natural Commission compound in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. It is a city that has faced many riots and we were the only Muslims in the compound. During times of tension when my father was working offshore on the oilrig, our manservant, Jumraati would assure my mother, “They’ll have to get through me first, behni”.

A decade or so later, my great-uncle, Major-General Afsir Karim, was asked to deploy troops in the same city to help the civilian administration keep the peace. In 2000, when he was with the National Security Advisory Board, he was questioned by a woman during a televised talk show about minorities. He interrupted her to say, “Ma’am, I am a citizen of India, and so are you. What minorities are you talking about?”

His response to state failure is strikingly different to that of the recently convicted Zakir Hussain. Whereas one tried to make sure that such failure did not recur, the other became a pawn used to kill innocents in a supposed act of “vengeance”. For me, between the words of a man of somebody who has put his life on the line many times in the defence of innocent civilians and those of somebody convicted of murdering them, there can only be one choice.

(Omair Ahmad works on issues of Security, Law & Strategic Affairs for PRS Legislative Research, an autonomous institute that provides research support for Indian Parliamentarians. He has previously worked for the British High Commission, New Delhi, and the Voice of America, Washington DC. His novel, “Encounters” on the radicalisation of two young men during the curfew days of the 90s was published in 2007.)

Omair Ahmad / IBNLive Specials; Thursday, August 16, 2007 www.ibnlive.com

 

India approves 2.5 billion deal with Israeli Defence

New Delhi – India has started a 2.5-billion-dollar (Rs10,000 crore)  joint venture with Israel to develop an advanced range surface-to-air missile capable of detecting and destroying hostile aircraft, missiles and spy planes, news reports said Friday. India now buys half of its arms from Israel, making it Israel’s biggest customer. It is thus funding the Israeli occupation in Palestine, because the Israeli economy rests on its defense industry, its main export, as well as the inflow of US tax dollars.

With more than a billion people, India is a country of striking contrasts. India accounts for 40 per cent of the world’s poor and its fiscal deficit is one of the highest in the world. Almost half of Indian women are still illiterate; about 40 million primary school-age children are not in school. 21 percent increase and India. Just one lakh people in India account for at least one tenth of the country’s GDP. In 2006, India had 1,00,015 people with a personal net worth in excess of at least $1 million (Rs 4.1 crore) each, according to the World Wealth Report. Last year, the number of Indians getting richer grew at 20.5%.

According to the Israel National Insurance Institute findings, one of every four Israelis lives below the poverty line — that’s 1.6 million people. Thirty-five percent of children are living in poverty, leaving Israel with this unhappy distinction. The number of Israeli millionaires per capita is twice the world average, according to the 2005 World Wealth Report.  The rate of increase in the number of millionaires in Israel is 50 higher than global rates, says Merrill Lynch report (2006).

During BJP rule, the pro- zionist Hindutva intelligentia took the controle of political corridors of power in the Prime Minister’s office, the Defence Ministry and the Home ministry, in New Delhi. It is being alleged that the presence of this arms trading network were traced in many armed conflicts across India. This influential network also established various research institutions across India to hype security risks and thus to promote weapon trade. The money coming from the bribes and the kick backs have been channelised to the welfare of Sangh Parivar empire.  The military agreements, collaboration on nuclear and missile defense, and sharing of intelligence with Israel has continued even with the communist supported new United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.

India’s Cabinet Committee on Security chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday approved the project between the Defence Research and Development Organization and Israel Aerospace Industries for developing the missile system which would have a range of about 70 kilometres, the Times of India daily reported. The CCS’s meeting was attended by defence minister AK Antony, external affairs minister, Pranab Mukherjee, finance minister, P Chidambaram and home minister, Shivraj Patil. The venture would work towards developing an air defence system for the Indian Air Force to replace its ageing Soviet-era Pechoura missile system. India, which has traditional ties with the Non Aligned Movement (NAM) and has supported the Palestinian cause for decades, established diplomatic relations with Israel in 1992. Defense ties between the two countries have also boomed due to the ideological bondage between India’s Hindutva Fascism and  Israel’s Zionism.

Business Week reported in 2005 that India became Israel’s largest importer of weapons the previous year, accounting for about half of the $3.6 billion worth of weapons exported by that country. Not coincidentally, that year also proved to be the second best recorded year for the Israeli weapons industry, making Israel the 5th largest weapons exporter in the world and accounting for about 10 percent of the world’s weapons trade.

Poverty rates in Israel reached a new peak in 2005, although they leveled off in 2006, according to statistics by the National Insurance Institute. It ranks among Western countries with the greatest percentage of poor children, according to the insurance institute.

Some 7,400 Israelis are worth at least $1 million, the World Wealth Report said, including 84 who have at least $30 million. The total liquid assets of Israel’s upper echelon grew by 25 percent, to $30 billion, between 2004 and 2005, according to the report. Those designated by the report as the nine richest Israelis made their fortunes in everything from diamonds to real estate to communications to entertainment.

But, India and Israel have found a shared enemy to target in their respective “anti-terrorism” operations, conflating Kashmir and Pakistan with Palestine, and also common agreement on a framework that has gained global currency with Bush’s “war on terrorism,” resulting in the new “India-Israel-US axis.” US based Indian scholar, Vijay Prashad says Mossad and India’s Research Analysis Wing (RAW) shared information and analysis from the late 1970s onwards.

The door to Washington, many have realized, is through Tel Aviv. And in the U.S., according to some, the door to Capitol Hill is through AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group that shuts down all criticism of Israel as “anti-Semitic.” Hindu right-wing groups, such as the Indian American Political Action Committee (USINAPAC) and the Hindu American Foundation (linked to the VHP) have forged alliances with AIPAC and the American Jewish Committee. The missile deal has been hanging fire for at least a year, but its approval just before India’s national security adviser M.K. Narayanan’s trip to Washington is a signal to the powerful Jewish lobby in the US, whose support will be vital in seeing through the 123 Agreement in the US Congress. Reports says that US may get  another lucrative order from the Indian Air Force for 126 multi-role combat aircraft, the biggest military aviation deal in history.

The Israeli help comes after repeated delays in the indigenous Akash missile project that is still to undergo user trials, the Indian Express newspaper reported.

Meanwhile, sources told the IANS news agency that 18 command and launch systems would be built for the new missile system. The new missile is likely to be an advanced version of the Israeli Spyder quick-reaction missile which has an effective range of 55 kilometres.

India and Israel are already in a 14-billion-rupee project to develop an extended-range version of the Barak missile that is deployed on frontline Indian Navy warships. The next-generation Barak will have a 70-kilometre range against the 10-kilometre radius of the existing missile.

India and Israel have increased cooperation in varied fields particularly in military and intelligence ventures since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1992.

According government estimates, Israel has become India’s second biggest defence supplier after Russia, providing military equipment worth 1.6 billion dollars in 2006.

India has already acquired the Green Pine early-warning radar from Israel.

Other joint-venture projects are underway for spy planes, electronic warfare systems and AWACS (airborne warning and control systems), while Israel is helping India with the modernization of its Soviet-era fighter jets and tanks.

Recent Major Indian deals with Israel

Feb 2007

In Delhi, the Ashkenazi chief rabbi met top Hindu leaders including leaders of the RSS and BJP in what was termed as “Jewish-Hindu summit.” It led to a 9-point “Declaration of Mutual Understanding and Cooperation from the First Jewish-Hindu Leadership Summit”. The declaration was signed from the Hindu side by Swami Dayanand Saraswati, head of Dharma Acharya Sabha, who is close to the RSS. The tainted Kanchi Shankaracharya Swami Jayendra Saraswati too was involved with the Hindu side represented by some thirty prominent Hindu leaders. Israeli Ambassador David Danieli was also present during the dinner at Advani’s official residence while the (Jewish) Indian officer, Lt. Gen. (retd) JFR Jacob, was part of the Jewish delegation.  “Since Jews were a powerful community in the US, their association with Hindus would help to strengthen Indo-US relations.”  said, another key organizer, Mr. Bawa Jain.

Israel recently transferred five million shekels (5.5 Crores of Indian Rupees) to the Israel Anti-Drug Abuse Foundation (IADAF) operations in Goa. The  organization’s hostel in Goa which treats hundreds of Israelis who suffer from symptoms of drug abuse while traveling in the Indian sub-continent each year. Young Israelis after having to serve 3 years in the Army feel they need to explore the world and get away from all the problems of Israel. Every year, many Israeli young people enjoy their  freedom by visiting Indian beaches of Goa and Kerala and indulge in drug usage .

June 2007

Israeli deputy chief of general staff Major General Moshe Kaplinsky visited J&K from June 14 to discuss various issues with army officers in the state. He met Lt Gen Tej Sapru, general officer commanding of 16 corps and other senior officers in the state to discuss issues of mutual interest. Israel, ranks fifth globally in security-related exports and the role of its spy agency, MOSSAD is being  alleged in  many armed conflicts around the world.

Muslim Intellectual Forum (MIF), a Mumbai based platform of intellectuals, thinkers and human rights activists has linked the  release of Al-Qaida related CDs with the visit of Israeli military and intelligence delegation to India. In a statement Feroze H. Mithiborwala, Convenor of MIF, said, “The latest addition of the Al- Qaida Hind tapes appeared on the same day that an Israeli military and intelligence delegation was to visit India and advice the government on counter-terror measures in Jammu and Kashmir.” He added that it has been the observation MIF that the Al-Qaida tapes come at the most opportune times for US president George Bush and Israel.

“In our estimation, Al-Qaida is nothing but a front organization of the CIA and MOSSAD. The US-Zionist empire has stated that their war against terror will be fought endlessly and across borders and for that they have created a phantom organization, the Al-Qaida. Interestingly, the growth of US-Israeli Imperialism is directly proportional to the growth of terrorism and inversely proportional to the growing resistance,” Feroze said.

The 7/11 Mumbai terror attack occurred on the same day that Israel launched its war on Lebanon. The terror attack on the Sankatmoc-han Mandir on March 7, 2006, occurred a few days after the greatest Indian upsurge after the Quit India movement, against the visit of Bush. Even the terror attack on the Indian Parliament has never been investigated, he said.  The Convenor of MIF viewed that in India basically terror attacks have replaced communal riots as a strategy of the state to divide, confuse and terrorise the people. No terrorist attack requires a commission of enquiry, only pin the blame on some Muslim sounding organization.

In  Jun, 2007, The State Bank of India (SBI) has become the first foreign bank to open a branch in the Israel’s diamond exchange.  The Central Bank of India owns 59.7% of it.

In July 2007, India’s Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) found many ‘blood diamonds’ are being smuggled in to Surat, the country’s polishing center.The rough diamonds from “Antwerp, London and Israel  are brought on fishing boats through the shallow waters of Gujarat’s west coast, they said. Blood or Conflict diamonds originate primarily from war zones where they are illegally mined and later sold secretly. The perpetrators use the profits to buy arms, fund civil wars and military coups against legitimate governments there.

Surat’s gems and jewellery industry, which comprises of more than 6,000 small and big diamond cutting and polishing units, employs around seven lakh people. Being the largest processor and exporter of precious stones in the world, India, with a turnover of Rs 45,000 crore, has always been suspected of getting blood diamonds processed here, DRI officials say. And with nine out of every 11 diamonds in the world being cut in Surat, the city’s cutting and polishing industry is closely associate itself with hinutva mafia. Rough diamond activity in Israel was in high gear in June. Israel’s exports of rough diamonds skyrocketed, totaling $341 million, a 74.5 percent rise over the $195 million in rough diamonds in June 2006.

Critics of the diamond industry point to Botswana, the largest supplier of uncut diamonds in the world, where a fourth of the population lives on less than a dollar a day. A third of the people of are undernourished and the life expectancy is 36 years. Botswana has the second largest per capita AIDS rate on the planet, with nearly a quarter of the people infected. Similar conditions persist throughout the diamond-producing regions of the world.

Indian-Israeli trade – primarily in diamonds, machinery, chemicals, rubber and plastic – grew from $200 million in 1992 to $3 billion in 2006.

July 2007

Israel Desalination Enterprises Technologies (IDE) won two tenders to build three more desalination plants in Gujarat for $9.5 million. Earlier in 2002, IDE built a plant capable of producing 5,500 cu m in Gujarat province where it plans to build one of the plants. “Gujarat and Israel are divided by land but are united by water, in terms of its management and renewable resources’ Modi said. (Ahmedabad News Line, ExpressIndia.com, June 22, 2007)

Hindutva’s  “super patriotic” government in Gujarat also help Jews in Gujarat to migrate to their dream land. Loshana havah Yerusalim (Next year in Jerusalem) became the goal of this tiny population of little over 200 aspiring jews.

Indian drug manufacturer, Elder Pharmaceuticals Ltd said  it had entered into an exclusive in-licensing deal with Israel’s Enzymotec to sell the latter’s cholesterol reducing dietary supplement, CardiaBeat, in India.  Under the deal, Enzymotec will supply the bulk drug to Elder, which would make and sell the finished drug in India under the brand name of Lipicheck.

A study conducted by Elder pegs the size of the domestic cardio vascular drugs market at about Rs 4.5-5 billion, with an annual growth rate of 18-20 per cent, it said. CardiaBeat will be launched by September 2007 and is expected to generate revenue of nearly Rs 200 million by the end of the third year, the company said in a statement.

The technology giant, Cisco’s second biggest non-U.S. R&D facility is in Israel even though,  its Bangalore site is the largest in the world.

16 July 2007