Patil's Discovery: Homosexuality Is A Disease!

By Roger Alexander

In what is considered a major breakthrough in AIDS research, India's ministry of home affairs (MHA) led by Shivraj Patil has claimed that it has discovered that homosexuality or gay sex is a disease, putting it in line for the next Nobel prize in Medicine.

This was confirmed by additional solicitor general PP Malhotra representing the MHA to the Delhi High court which is hearing a bunch of petitions filed by gay rights activists seeking decriminalisation of gay sex among consenting adults.

Disagreeing with the bench headed by Chief Justice A P Shah - which pointed out that “it is an accepted fact that it is a main vehicle that causes (AIDS) disease but it is not a disease in itself” - Malhotra insisted homosexuality is a disease and legalising it would bring “devastation” to society.

“AIDS is already spreading in the country and if gay sex is legalised then people on the street would start indulging in such practises saying that the High Court has given approval for it. Legalising homosexuality would further divide the country....it will send a wrong signal to youth of our country,” argued Malhotra.

Homosexuality is “immoral” and a “reflection of a perverse mind” and its decriminalisation would lead to moral degradation of society, he said, adding, “Gay sex is against the order of the nature. The State has to take the help of the law to maintain public morality. Homosexuality is a social vice and the state has the power to contain it. If it is allowed then evils of AIDS and HIV would spread and harm the people and would degrade moral values of society.”

Clearly taken aback, the court observed, “It’s a strange situation. Your (home ministry's) first affidavit is silent (and) there is not a single word on what you are saying, while other (health ministry’s) affidavit is pointing out that the penal provision leads to marginalisation of HIV patients.”

Unfazed, Malhotra said, “No act of Parliament can be struck down due to an affidavit or a minister’s (read Ramadoss) statement. Since Parliament passed a law criminalising homosexuality, it represented the will of the people of this country.”

When the bench pointed out that the government needed to prove that allowing gay sex among consenting adults would increase the risk of HIV to an extent to criminalise it, Malhotra countered, “Indian society strongly disapproves of homosexuality and it’s enough to justify it being treated as a criminal offence even where consenting adults indulge in it in private...Our Constitution does not talk about sexual orientation. We cannot impose other countries’ constitutions on us. Our moral and ethical values are different.’’

Roger And Out

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Homophobe Patil Is A Pain In The Ass

By Roger Alexander

Would you believe it? India’s Union Cabinet is stuffed with a bunch of paranoid homophobes. If Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code – which criminalises same sex love – is repealed, it would “have far-reaching consequences,” they claim. Not only that, legalising gay sex would raise “law-and-order issues” and that society – except for some sections of urban India – wasn’t ready for it. Ironically, the homophobic charge is led by the effeminate union home minister Shivraj Patil.

The fertiliser hit the PMO’s air-conditioning when Union health minister Anbumani Ramadoss decided to back a widely held view that Section 377 was an anachronistic law that ought to be repealed. Ramadoss and the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) want homosexuality to be made non-punishable, citing it as a health problem. They argue that Section 377 is hampering the anti-AIDS drive in the country.

In fact, NACO, in its affidavit to the Delhi High Court argues, “Enforcement of Section 377 can adversely contribute to pushing HIV positive persons underground, which would make such risky sexual practices to go unnoticed. The National Commission on Women and the Planning Commission also support the repeal petition pointing out that the anti-gay law is a colonial relic that even the UK rejected in 1967.

Still, at a Cabinet meeting on Thursday, many ministers not only supported Patil but also took exception to Ramadoss’s “uncalled utterances on the issue” which, they said, showed the government in bad light and was causing embarrassment to the ministry of home affairs (read Patil). The Cabinet also decided to continue opposing the demand for it repeal in court. Curiously Ramadoss was not present at the meeting, and the matter was hurriedly discussed without the concerned minister present as is the practice. The Prime Minister, as is his wont, failed to take sides and asked the ministers to sort out their differences through discussions. What a joke.

Nonetheless, Patil continues to tilt at windmills. And if proof is needed that a moron is in charge of the criminal justice system, go no further. Opposing a PIL in The Delhi High Court which seeks the repeal of the archaic Victorian law that still adorns our statute books, additional solicitor general PP Malhotra actually quoted the Bible – presumably the King James’ version – to buttress the government’s against “unnatural sex.” Patil clearly does not know of India’s rich homosexual tradition, both in the mythologies and in secular history that he has to tell his lawyer to take recourse to the Bible, of all things. 

Asking the court to disregard Ramadoss’s views on legalising gay sex among consenting adults, the advocate general said Section 377 was “the will of the people.” Even the normally status-quoist judiciary was dumbfounded. “These are not scientific reports. These are articles quoting the Bible, which is propaganda. Show us scientific reports which justify criminalisation of  such acts (gay sex),” the bench observed.

Commenting on the ongoing courtroom battle, my friend gay activist Ashok Row Kavi wryly observed, “These gandus don’t know their ass from their elbow.”

Roger And Out

The Emperor Has No Clothes!

By Roger Alexander

Jet Airways Chairman Naresh Goyal protests too much. The decision to lay off workers was taken by the management and I was not fully in the loop,” he claims. Who’s he trying to kid? If he’s not the management, then he’s certainly the mismanagement that sought to correct a tailspin by throwing out young recruit in mid-flight, as RK Laxman noted in today’s Times of India.

But then he gave the game away in the very next sentence. “My directions to the management was to run the company profitably…They took the decision on that basis.” Of course, managements follow the bossman’s orders.

But guess who the bossman is? It is Vijay Mallya, of course. Mallya had declared a day earlier that the new Jet-Kingfisher alliance needed to “cut the flab and be more lean and efficient.” He was not worried about his own girth, of course.

It was sickening to see the two mercenaries hug, kiss and do a jig after having 2000 staffers for breakfast. The two bloated beasts were so stuffed that they could not walk and took a golf cart to have a dekko at the flying machines around the Begumpet airport looking important and wondering whether to buy an Airbus or go in for Boeing.

By sacking 2000 young people, the Goyal-Mallya jodi was hoping to “save” Rs 60 crore annually. But do you know their saving so far: Jet has “saved” Rs 1143.31 crore and Kingfisher Rs 881.02 crore (total Rs 2024.33 cr) in the past few months. And guess, how did they manage this feat? By the simple expedient of refusing to pay their outstanding dues to the Oil companies, of course!

In fact these two fatsos were hoping they would use pal Praful Patel’s clout to have this debt written off. To demonstrate they were in such dire states, they made out the case that if they did not have staff for breakfast, they’d be unable to afford caviar and champagne for lunch and dinner!

Then came the calculated roll of the dice. “Honourable Prime Minister and Finance Minister, could we have a Rs 5000 crore bailout to save the aviation sector, especially since we control 60 per cent of the market? We must keep flying high so that the country’s “growth story” is not affected.” These fat cats are shameless.

To be sure, Mallya was confident that given the gung-ho attitude of the corporate media that has crowned him the ‘King of Good Times’ (sic) would give him easy passage, indeed even salute him for following “prudent business practices”  and “safeguarding shareholder value.”

Well, the diabolical plan did not run according to the carefully-crafted script. The sight of young girls from as far as Manipur and Mizoram , crying their hearts out - mascara and foundation streaming down rosy cheeks - before TV cameras had an electrifying impact across the country. Hey, these kids are “one of us.” Hey, they’ve taken loans to enrol in grooming institutes (that con is another story). Hey, these kids didn’t deserve to be shafted.

These pictures reached everyone from Sonia Gandhi to Sitaram Yechury. Everyone knew what they meant: In an election year you can probably give a spin to farmers’ suicides, but can you have the blood of young cabin crew on your hands on 24x7 satellite TV?

The charlatans in the government were first off the blocks. The government, which is keen to introduce “labour reforms” (basically a hire-and-fire policy as opposed to the current protection-of-workers-rights regime), sought to obfuscate the issue.

“Hiring is reckless and firing is breathless,” thundered Veerappa Moily. Before reporters could digest what that meant, Moily opened another front. “They thought they are emperors…This is India and not America.”

The upshot of the story so far? One more freeloader, no make that freebooter, bites the dust! The King of Good Times will have to settle for a Bermicide’s Feast, after all.

ends

Between A Rock And A Hard Place

By Roger Alexander

The election season is finally upon us. With the Election Commission announcing the poll schedule for Chhattisgarh (Nov 10 & 14), Madhya Pradesh (Nov 25), Delhi (Nov 25), Mizoram, and Rajasthan (Dec 4) , the ball has been set rolling for the grand finale – the Lok Sabha elections in March or April next year.

This is a critical round for the two chief claimants to that seat, the Congress and the BJP. Although these are state elections, both parties see them as a “semi-final” for the 2009 Lok Sabha polls. The results would assume a larger-than-life importance because they will be an indicator of the shape of things to come.

All four states have been with the Congress and the BJP locked in a straight contest ever since the Swatantra Party went into oblivion. However, this time, there is a wild card entry, the BSP, which hopes to upset the applecart of the two national parties by emerging with the support of smaller outfits as the dreaded third force. 

The BJP will be defending its government in MP, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan while the Congress will be trying for a third consecutive term in Delhi. Being so close to the centre of power and with the general elections nearing, the campaign will see a mix of local and national issues, with security, terrorism, and price rise dominating the discourse.

So which way is the political wind blowing? Received wisdom has it that usually incumbent governments face the voters’ wrath that results in the main opposition party making major gains. By this yardstick, the BJP that is leading the governments of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh has a lot to worry about. Similarly, the Congress is on shaky ground in Delhi and the Mizo National Front should be chewing its nails in its backyard.

Alas, things do not usually work this way. This writer, for one, takes the so-called anti-incumbency factor with a generous pinch of salt. The mantra is supposed to work this way: the incumbent government makes such a hash of things that voters automatically plump for the opposition. However, the wily Indian voter is known for delivering nasty surprises and the 2004 verdict is still fresh in the public mind. And they keep their cards so close to the chest that even the governments’ intelligence gathering units fail to gauge the public mood. Independent pollsters are even more clueless.

If elections were to be held tomorrow, in Madhya Pradesh (230 seats), Rajasthan (200 seats) and Chhattisgarh (90 seats), the BJP retains an advantage in Madhya Pradesh, and has a fighting chance in Rajasthan given the disarray in the Pradesh Congress. On the other hand, Congressmen claim they have an in Chhattisgarh, but with Ajit Jogi incapacitated and the Shuklas over the hill, it remains to be seen if this is bravado or hard fact. The electoral race in these states is very finely poised and minor swings can change the nature of the outcome.

True, corruption was emerging as a major electoral issue in the BJP-ruled states where corrupt administrations, ministers and legislators have made it into a salient issue but since the BJP-led state governments have generally delivered on other fronts and there aren’t many other big-picture themes for the opposition to try and exploit during the electoral campaign.

For example, in a move to prop up its prospects in the forthcoming assembly polls, the Vasundhara Raje government on Sept 11 played its trump card: it obliged over 7.3 lakh state employees by announcing a pay hike of 30 to 50 per cent, which is even higher than what the Centre announced for its staff. The hike will have retrospective effect from September 1, 2006. Besides state employees, three lakh pensioners in the state will receive the new pay package from the same period. 

It must be remembered that disgruntled state government employees played a large role in the unexpected and decisive defeat of Ashok Gehlot-led Congress in 2003.

The BSP factor is another headache for the Congress. The BSP has virtually no history in this region, except in parts of Madhya Pradesh. But after the party surprised all including Mayawati by winning 17 municipal seats in Delhi last year, Mayawati has developed ambitions of spreading her wings outside UP.

That victory was put down to sheer fluke at that time but since then, Mayawati has spent considerable time cultivating political space for her party in these states, all of which share borders with UP. It's a moot point how many seats the BSP will succeed in winning. But it could influence results in enough constituencies to tip the balance. And with Mayawati pinning her prime ministerial ambitions hinge on her ability to snatch the Congress party's vote bank of Dalits and Muslims, she will certainly go for the Congress’ jugular. Ironically, a resurgent Mayawati, rather than being a threat to the BJP, could in fact indirectly help its prospects.

In 2003 assembly polls, the BSP won two seats each in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh and polled 4 per cent of the popular vote in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh and 7 per cent in Madhya Pradesh. If the BSP were to, say, secure 10 per cent of the popular vote (comprising mostly the traditional Congress vote, which appears likely), the BJP would return to power in these states delivering devastating defeats to the Congress. In other words, the BJP’s hopes of returning to power in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, may well depend on the BSP’s ability to cut into the Congress’ Dalit vote bank.

Moreover, two acts of the UPA government could also emerge as new poll issues in these highly polarised states and could hurt the Congress’ prospects. One is the union government’s controversial submission to the Supreme Court that Ram Sethu cannot be worshipped because Lord Ram himself had destroyed it hence was not an integral part of Hindu religion requiring protection under Articles 25 and 26 of the Constitution (dealing with right to freedom of religion). Government counsel argued before the bench hearing the case that religious texts showed that though the bridge had been built, it had been broken by Lord Ram himself and that anything broken could not be worshipped.

The other issue that the BJP is already using to whip up religious passions is the J&K government’s decision to withdraw transfer of land to the Amarnath board owing to pressure from Muslim groups. This issue is likely to find many takers in north India.

The outcome of these state elections will set the tone for general elections in 2009. If the Congress fails to win at least two of the three BJP-ruled states, the game could be over for the Congress at the Centre. If the BJP fails to retain two of the three states, the party’s hopes of coming to power in New Delhi may appear to be misplaced. Not surprisingly, neither party looks confident about its prospects. Both are ridden with factionalism and may soon be busy putting out bushfires in the form of rebel candidates and defections to the BSP once the process of ticket distribution begins.

Ends 

Bush's 'Signing Statement' Is Not US Law

By Roger Alexander

India has now ‘operationalised’ the 123 Agreement with the US despite the US Congress HR 7081 or  the US-India Nuclear Cooperation Approval and Nonproliferation Enhancement Act. The new US domestic legislation has put an end to the Government of India’s spin that the 123 Agreement does not trump the provisions of the Hyde Act as far as American obligations are concerned. This has been done by explicitly inserting rules of construction stating that nothing in the Agreement should be construed to supersede the legal requirements of the Hyde Act.

India’s Ambassador to the US Ronen Sen curtly brushed aside pointed questions saying that India was “completely satisfied” by President Bush’s ‘Signing Statement’. A ‘Signing Statement’ is a written comment issued by a President at the time of signing legislation. Often, signing statements merely comment on the bill signed, saying that it is good legislation or meets some pressing needs etc.

The more controversial statements involve claims by presidents that they believe some part of the legislation is unconstitutional and therefore they intend to ignore it or to implement it only in ways they believe is constitutional. Some critics argue that the proper presidential action is either to veto the legislation (Constitution, Article I, section 7) or to “faithfully execute” the laws (Constitution, Article II, section 3).

In one frequently used phrase, George W. Bush has routinely asserted that he would not act contrary to the constitutional provisions that direct the president to “supervise the unitary executive branch.”  This formulation can be found first in a signing statement of Ronald Reagan, and it was repeated several times by George HW Bush. Basically, George W Bush asserts that Congress cannot pass a law that undercuts the constitutionally granted authorities of the President. 

John W. Dean, a FindLaw columnist, argues that Bush has used signing statements like ‘line item vetoes.’ Yet the US Supreme Court held the line item vetoes are unconstitutional. In 1998, in Clinton v New York, the High Court said a president had to veto an entire law: Even Congress, with its Line Item Veto Act, could not permit him to veto provisions he might not like.

The Court held the Line Item Veto Act unconstitutional in that it violated the Constitution's Presentment Clause. That Clause says that after a bill has passed both Houses, but "before it become[s] a Law," it must be presented to the President, who "shall sign it" if he approves it, but "return it" - that is, veto the bill, in its entirety - if he does not.

Following the Court's logic, and the spirit of the Presentment Clause, a president who finds part of a bill unconstitutional, ought to veto the entire bill - not sign it with reservations in a way that attempts to effectively veto part (and only part) of the bill. Yet that is exactly what Bush has been doing over the past eight years. The Presentment Clause makes clear that the veto power is to be used with respect to a bill in its entirety, not in part. The powers of foot-dragging and resistance-by-signing-statement are not mentioned in the US Constitution alongside the veto, after all.

Anyway, Bush remains in the White House for three more months before he retires to Crawford on January 20, 2009. And by incorporating an explicit reference to Bush’s letter — as well as other “authoritative representations” on the subject by the administration — Congress has given its interpretations a definite legislative status, which will live well beyond the life of the current presidency. The next President may well choose to ignore Bush’s personal interpretation of the Berman Law. And that is what is going to remain of the statute books.

ends

Secrets Of Iraq's Death Chamber

October 07, 2008

(It can't get more depressing than this. George W Bush invaded Iraq to make it a 'democracy'. And this is what happened. Pl keep a barf bag ready as you read Robert Fisk's dispatch - it'll make you puke)

Prisoners are being summarily executed in the government's high-security detention centre in Baghdad. Robert Fisk of The Independent reports 

Like all wars, the dark, untold stories of the Iraqi conflict drain from its shattered landscape like the filthy waters of the Tigris. And still the revelations come.

The Independent has learnt that secret executions are being carried out in the prisons run by Nouri al-Maliki's "democratic" government.

The hangings are carried out regularly – from a wooden gallows in a small, cramped cell – in Saddam Hussein's old intelligence headquarters at Kazimiyah. There is no public record of these killings in what is now called Baghdad's "high-security detention facility" but most of the victims – there have been hundreds since America introduced "democracy" to Iraq – are said to be insurgents, given the same summary justice they mete out to their own captives.

The secrets of Iraq's death chambers lie mostly hidden from foreign eyes but a few brave Western souls have come forward to tell of this prison horror. The accounts provide only a glimpse into the Iraqi story, at times tantalisingly cut short, at others gloomily predictable. Those who tell it are as depressed as they are filled with hopelessness.

"Most of the executions are of supposed insurgents of one kind or another," a Westerner who has seen the execution chamber at Kazimiyah told me. "But hanging isn't easy." As always, the devil is in the detail.

"There's a cell with a bar below the ceiling with a rope over it and a bench on which the victim stands with his hands tied," a former British official, told me last week. "I've been in the cell, though it was always empty. But not long before I visited, they'd taken this guy there to hang him. They made him stand on the bench, put the rope round his neck and pushed him off. But he jumped on to the floor. He could stand up. So they shortened the length of the rope and got him back on the bench and pushed him off again. It didn't work."

There's nothing new in savage executions in the Middle East – in the Lebanese city of Sidon 10 years ago, a policeman had to hang on to the legs of a condemned man to throttle him after he failed to die on the noose – but in Baghdad, cruel death seems a speciality.

"They started digging into the floor beneath the bench so that the guy would drop far enough to snap his neck," the official said. "They dug up the tiles and the cement underneath. But that didn't work. He could still stand up when they pushed him off the bench. So they just took him to a corner of the cell and shot him in the head."

The condemned prisoners in Kazimiyah, a Shia district of Baghdad, are said to include rapists and murderers as well as insurgents. One prisoner, a Chechen, managed to escape from the jail with another man after a gun was smuggled to them. They shot two guards dead. The authorities had to call in the Americans to help them recapture the two. The Americans killed one and shot the Chechen in the leg. He refused medical assistance so his wound went gangrenous. In the end, the Iraqis had to operate and took all the bones out of his leg. By the time he met one Western visitor to the prison, "he was walking around on crutches with his boneless right leg slung over his shoulder".

In many cases, it seems, the Iraqis neither keep nor release any record of the true names of their captives or of the hanged prisoners. For years the Americans – in charge of the notorious Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad – did not know the identity of their prisoners. Here, for example, is new testimony given to The Independent by a former Western official to the Anglo-US Iraq Survey Group, which searched for the infamous but mythical weapons of mass destruction: "We would go to the interrogation rooms at Abu Ghraib and ask for a particular prisoner. After about 40 minutes, the Americans brought in this hooded guy, shuffling along, shackled hands and feet.

"They sat him on a chair in front of us and took off his hood. He had a big beard. We asked where he received his education. He repeatedly said 'Mosul'. Then he said he'd left school at 14 – remember, this guy is supposed to be a missile scientist. We said: 'We know you've got a PhD and went to the Sorbonne – we'd like you to help us with information about Saddam's missile project'. But I said to myself : 'This guy doesn't know anything 'bout fucking missiles.' Then it turned out he had a different name from the man we'd asked for, he'd been picked up on the road by the Americans four months earlier, he didn't know why. So we said to the Americans: 'Wrong gentleman!' So they put the shackles on him and took him back to his cell and after 20 or 30 minutes, they'd bring someone else. We'd ask him where he went to school and he told us he had never been to school.

"Wrong person again. It was a complete farce. The incompetence of the US military was astounding, criminal. Eventually, of course, they found the right guy and brought him in and took his hood off. He was breathing heavily, overweight, pudgy, disoriented, a little bit scared."

On this occasion, the Americans had found the right man. The British and American investigators asked the guards to remove the man's shackles, which they did – but then they tied one of the man's legs to the floor. Yes, he had a PhD.

Again, the official's testimony: "We went through his history, what he'd worked on – he was obviously just a minor functionary in one of Saddam's missile programmes. Iraqi scientists didn't have the knowledge how to make nuclear missiles nor did they have the financial support necessary. It just remained in the dreams of Saddam."

The scientist-prisoner in Abu Ghraib miserably told his captors that he'd been arrested by the Americans after they'd knocked on his front door in Baghdad and found two Kalashnikov rifles a woman's hijab, verses from the Koran and, obviously of interest to his captors, "physics and missile textbooks on his bookshelves." But this supposedly valuable prisoner was never charged or previously interviewed even though he admitted he was a rocket scientist.

"I don't know what happened to him," the former official told me. "I tried to tell the UK and the US military that we've arrested this man but that he's got a wife, children, a family. I said that by locking up this one innocent person, you've got 50 men radicalised overnight. No, I don't know what happened to him."

For many of the investigators working for the Anglo-American authorities in Baghdad, the trial for the crime for which the Iraqi dictator was himself subsequently hanged was a fearful experience that ultimately ended in disgust. Through captured documents, they could see the dark, inner workings of Saddam's secret police. The idea of the Saddam trial was less to bring members of the former regime to justice than to show Iraqis how justice and the rule of law should operate.

"It was exhilarating to see Saddam being cross-examined," one of the court investigators said. "The low point was when he was executed. What drove me on was seeing how Saddam dealt with his victims – I was looking at a microcosm of all the deaths that had taken place in Iraq. But when he was executed, it was done in such a savage way."

Saddam Hussein was hanged in the same "secure" unit at Kazimiyah where Mr al-Maliki's people, in an echo of Saddamite Baathist terror, now hang their victims.

Iraq The death penalty

*The death penalty in Iraq was suspended after Saddam Hussein was deposed in 2003. It was reinstated by the interim government in August 2004.

*The United Nations, the European Union and international human rights organisations all spoke out against the reintroduction.

*At the time, the government claimed the death penalty was a necessary measure until the country had stabilised. Amnesty International claims that "the extent of violence in Iraq has increased rather than diminished, clearly indicating that the death penalty has not proved to be an effective deterrent."

*Saddam, left, his half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and Iraq's former chief judge Awad Hamed al-Bandar were hanged at the end of 2006 for their part in the killings of 148 people in the mainly Shia town of Dujail in 1982. Illicit videos of all three executions later became public. Saddam's body could be seen on a hospital trolley, his head twisted at 90 degrees. Barzan – Iraq's former intelligence chief –was decapitated by the noose. Officials said it was an accident.

*According to Amnesty, there were at least 33 executions reported in Iraq last year. About 200 people were estimated to have been sentenced to death.

Sphere: Related Content

Iran: Indo-US N. Deal to Create New Crises

(Here's Iran's take on the Indo-US Nuclear Deal. The Persians have a point)

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran on October 6 warned that the Indo-US nuclear deal has "endangered" the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and will trigger a "new crises" for the international community.

"The method used by several nuclear states to transfer the technology to non-members of the NPT, will create new crises for the international community," Deputy head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization Mohammad Saeedi said. 

"Cooperation in the area of transfer of nuclear technology to the NPT non-members will endanger the treaty," he said, adding that although India is enjoying nuclear weapons it is not a signatory to the NPT. 

He said that "privileges" to India which is not a member of NPT will endanger the treaty. 

According to the NPT, only signatories to the treaty can make use of the rights mentioned in the treaty, Saeedi noted. 

Both houses of the US Congress voted in favor of the landmark nuclear deal this week and President George W. Bush is expected to sign it into law on Wednesday. 

This is while Washington and its Western allies accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, although they have never presented any corroborative evidence to substantiate their allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. 

Tehran stresses that the country has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry. 

Despite the rules enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entitling every member state, including Iran, to the right of uranium enrichment, Tehran is now under three rounds of UN Security Council sanctions for turning down West's illegitimate calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment. 

Tehran has dismissed West's demands as politically tainted and illogical, stressing that sanctions and pressures merely consolidate Iranians' national resolve to continue the path. 

Iran insists that it should continue enriching uranium because it needs to provide fuel to a 300-megawatt light-water reactor it is building in the southwestern town of Darkhoveyn as well as its first nuclear power plant in the southern port city of Bushehr. 

Iran currently suffers from an electricity shortage that has forced the country into adopting a rationing program by scheduling power outages - of up to two hours a day - across both urban and rural areas. 

Iran plans to construct additional nuclear power plants to provide for the electricity needs of its growing population. 

The Islamic Republic says that it considers its nuclear case closed as it has come clean of IAEA's questions and suspicions about its past nuclear activities. 

Political observers believe that the United States has remained at loggerheads with Iran mainly over the independent and home-grown nature of Tehran's nuclear technology, which gives the Islamic Republic the potential to turn into a world power and a role model for other third-world countries. Washington has laid much pressure on Iran to make it give up the most sensitive and advanced part of the technology, which is uranium enrichment, a process used for producing nuclear fuel for power plants. 

Washington's push for additional UN penalties contradicts a recent report by 16 US intelligence bodies that endorsed the civilian nature of Iran's programs. Following the US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) and similar reports by the IAEA head - one in November and the other one in February - which praised Iran's truthfulness about key aspects of its past nuclear activities and announced settlement of outstanding issues with Tehran, any effort to impose further sanctions on Iran seems to be completely irrational. 

The February report by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, praised Iran's cooperation in clearing up all of the past questions over its nuclear program, vindicating Iran's nuclear program and leaving no justification for any new UN sanctions. 

The UN nuclear watchdog has so far carried out at least 14 surprise inspections of Iran's nuclear sites so far, but found nothing to support West's allegations. 

Also in his latest report to the 35-nation Board of Governors, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei confirmed "the non-diversion" of nuclear material in Iran and added that the agency had found no "components of a nuclear weapon" or "related nuclear physics studies" in the country. 

The IAEA report confirmed that Iran has managed to enrich uranium-235 to a level 'less than 5 percent.' Such a rate is consistent with the construction of a nuclear power plant. Nuclear arms production, meanwhile, requires an enrichment level of above 90 percent. 

The Vienna-based UN nuclear watchdog continues snap inspections of Iranian nuclear sites and has reported that all "declared nuclear material in Iran has been accounted for, and therefore such material is not diverted to prohibited activities." 

Many world nations have called the UN Security Council pressure against Iran unjustified, especially in the wake of recent IAEA reports, stressing that Tehran's case should be normalized and returned to the UN nuclear watchdog due to the Islamic Republic's increased cooperation with the agency. 

Observers believe that the shift of policy by the White House to send William Burns - the third highest-ranking diplomat in the US - to the latest round of Iran-West talks happened after Bush's attempt to rally international pressure against Iran lost steam due to the growing international vigilance. 

US President George W. Bush finished a tour of the Middle East in winter to gain the consensus of his Arab allies to unite against Iran. 

But hosting officials of the regional nations dismissed Bush's allegations, describing Tehran as a good friend of their countries. 

ends

After Muslims, Indian Christians Under Siege

By Roger Alexander

[Note: I have resisted writing on this topic so far for fear of being labelled an apologist, given my name. I was only born in a Christian family and have been an atheist since high school. However, curious to know how a minuscule section of an ancient civilisation converted to an “alien” religion, I worked on ‘The Political Economy of Religious Conversions’ for my PhD.

I came across enough evidence to demonstrate that most Christians in Rajasthan (the area of the study) – and indeed the rest of the country with the possible exception of Kerala and Goa – are indeed ‘Rice Christians’ i.e. the marginalised sections, especially Dalits and Tribals who embraced Christianity in exchange for a more dignified and hunger-free life. Many upper-caste, educated Hindus also came into the Christian fold in order to boost their careers in the service of the British Raj.

As an aside, let me mention that if you come across a Christian with a westernised name like mine, 99 per cent of the times such a person is the progeny of some Dalit or Tribal convert a century ago. A Christian with an upper-caste surname like Singh or Sharma or even a Haidar Ali (like my wife) had well-off forefathers who served the Raj well in the hope of out-of-turn promotions or plum postings. Or as in the case of Goa, they were landed gentry who used the simple expedient of conversion to prevent their land being expropriated by the marauding Inquisition-driven Portuguese colonialists.]

Now that you have survived the lengthy intro, let’s get down to what’s happening today in Orissa, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan – all NDA-ruled states – besides other parts of the country. The Sangh Parivar’s recurring theme is that Christian missionaries are “forcibly” converting Hindus, or offering “allurements/inducements” to win converts.

What is the reality? If there were so many thousands of conversions, as claimed by the Sangh Parivar, the number of Christians should have skyrocketed. The opposite is true. The Census of India shows a decline in the percentage of the Christian population of India vis-à-vis the total population: 2.6 per cent in 1971; 2.44 per cent in 1981 and 2.32 per cent in 1991, 2.3 per cent in 2001! This decline continues.

Besides, there is a disincentive to any Dalit to convert: those who convert forfeit the right to be recognized as a Schedule Caste and benefit from the reservation policy in education and government jobs.

Moreover, several states have passed anti-conversion bills. The first was Arunachal Pradesh in 1978, Gujarat in 2003, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in 2006, and Himachal Pradesh in 2007. There exist very stringent punishments for conversions by force or allurement. Till today, not a single case of such conversion has been brought forward.

The fact that the even the NDA state governments have not been able to bring up even one case, is an indication that this charge is a fabrication. The very fact that a majority of secular Hindus, not to speak of the rabid right, vie to send their children to Christian schools for education is a sign that they do not really worry about conversion.

Indeed, even the likes of LK Advani and Bal Thackeray have testified that they are not worried their grandchildren studying in Christian schools might stray away from the Hindu fold. And we should not forget that come admission time, principals of Christian schools and colleges are threatened by these very same people of “dire consequences” if their children do not get a seat in Nursery and KG!

The attacks on the Christian community are not restricted only to Mangalore or Orissa, but have spread to other states like Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Chhattisgarh and even the national capital. They are military-like operations, carried out with clinical precision and are brutal, with no discrimination - sparing neither clergy nor women and children. (Remember the brutal burning alive of Graham Staines and his two sons?)

Not only that, we are now witnessing the forced reconversion of Christians to Hinduism by Hindutva groups, especially in Kandhamal district of Orissa. Christian families have already suffered the loss of their homes, possessions and places of worship in sustained attacks by marauding mobs of Sangh supporters from August 24, and even now more than a month later they now cannot return to their villages unless they reconvert to Hinduism, reports Parvathi Menon of The Hindu from Ground Zero in Orissa.

In fact, there is now a sectarian movement that has not been experienced in independent India. August and September this year has witnessed a steady depopulation of villages of their Christian population who fled fearing for their lives. Now, if families wish to return, reconversion to Hinduism is the price they must pay.

“I am a tribal and my nephews are searching to kill me,” Father Lakshmikant, parish priest of the St Paul’s Catholic Church in Baliguda told Menon. In his testimony he said he had to flee from the mobs that were after him and spend days in the forest before he reached Bhubaneshwar.

Menon reports that thousands of Christian families in relief camps, who rejected the option of reconversion, have little hope of returning to their homes and villages that they left more than a month ago. In fact, Christian priests, pastors and nuns are unlikely to be able to return to their places of work in Kandhamal district in the near future. Some have been marked and get regular threatening calls.

Therefore, the most important question that has to asked is whether the reconversion or ghar wapsi programme of the Hindu fundamentalists fall under the anti-conversion law especially since gifts and incentives are given to people to return to the Hindu fold? Whatever happened to the anti-conversion law?

For the saffron brigade, Muslims have been fair game for long. But why are Christians – less than 3 per cent of the population - being targeted?

I’m putting together a cogent argument (hey, I’m the alleged expert). Watch this space tomorrow.

[Ends for the moment. But the debate continues! Pl post a comment. It helps me build up traffic that I need. Thanx]