Thursday, August 30, 2007
Rakhi: The Thread of Love
The chaste bond of love between a brother and a sister is one of the deepest and noblest of human emotions. 'Raksha Bandhan' or 'Rakhi' is a special occasion to celebrate this emotional bonding by tying a holy thread around the wrist. This thread, which pulsates with sisterly love and sublime sentiments, is rightly called the ‘Rakhi’. It means 'a bond of protection', and Raksha Bandhan signifies that the strong must protect the weak from all that’s evil.
The ritual is observed on the full moon day of the Hindu month of Shravan, on which sisters tie the sacred Rakhi string on their brothers' right wrists, and pray for their long life. Rakhis are ideally made of silk with gold and silver threads, beautifully crafted embroidered sequins, and studded with semi precious stones.
The Social Binding
This ritual not only strengthens the bond of love between brothers and sisters, but also transcends the confines of the family. When a Rakhi is tied on the wrists of close friends and neighbors, it underscores the need for a harmonious social life, where every individual co-exist peacefully as brothers and sisters. All members of the community commit to protect each other and the society in such congregational Rakhi Utsavs, popularized by the Nobel laureate Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore.
The Friendly Knot
It won’t be wrong to say the fashionable friendship band in vogue today is an extension of the Rakhi custom. When a girl feels a friend of the opposite sex has developed a kind of love too strong for her to reciprocate, she sends the guy a Rakhi and turns the relationship into a sisterly one. This is one way of saying, "let’s just be friends", without hurting the other person's soft feelings for her.
The Auspicious Full Moon
In Northern India, Rakhi Purnima is also called Kajri Purnima or Kajri Navami, when wheat or barley is sown, and goddess Bhagwati is worshipped. In Western states, the festival is called Nariyal Purnima or the Coconut Full Moon. In Southern India, Shravan Purnima is an important religious occasion, especially for the Brahmins.
Raksha Bandhan is known by various names: Vish Tarak - the destroyer of venom, Punya Pradayak - the bestower of boons, and Pap Nashak - the destroyer of sins.
Rakhi in History
The strong bond represented by Rakhi has resulted in innumerable political ties among kingdoms and princely states. The pages of Indian history testify that the Rajput and Maratha queens have sent Rakhis even to Mughal kings who, despite their differences, have assuaged their Rakhi-sisters by offering help and protection at critical moments and honoured the fraternal bond. Even matrimonial alliances have been established between kingdoms through the exchange of Rakhis.
History has it that the great Hindu King Porus refrained from striking Alexander, the Great because the latter’s wife had approached this mighty adversary and tied a Rakhi on his hand, prior to the battle, urging him not to hurt her husband.
Why Rakhi?
Rituals like Rakhi, there is no doubt, help ease out various societal strains, induce fellow-feeling, open up channels of expression, give us an opportunity to rework on our role as human beings and, most importantly, bring joy in our mundane lives.
“May all be happy
May all be free from ills
May all behold only the good
May none be in distress.”
This has always been the idea of an ideal Hindu society.
The ritual is observed on the full moon day of the Hindu month of Shravan, on which sisters tie the sacred Rakhi string on their brothers' right wrists, and pray for their long life. Rakhis are ideally made of silk with gold and silver threads, beautifully crafted embroidered sequins, and studded with semi precious stones.
The Social Binding
This ritual not only strengthens the bond of love between brothers and sisters, but also transcends the confines of the family. When a Rakhi is tied on the wrists of close friends and neighbors, it underscores the need for a harmonious social life, where every individual co-exist peacefully as brothers and sisters. All members of the community commit to protect each other and the society in such congregational Rakhi Utsavs, popularized by the Nobel laureate Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore.
The Friendly Knot
It won’t be wrong to say the fashionable friendship band in vogue today is an extension of the Rakhi custom. When a girl feels a friend of the opposite sex has developed a kind of love too strong for her to reciprocate, she sends the guy a Rakhi and turns the relationship into a sisterly one. This is one way of saying, "let’s just be friends", without hurting the other person's soft feelings for her.
The Auspicious Full Moon
In Northern India, Rakhi Purnima is also called Kajri Purnima or Kajri Navami, when wheat or barley is sown, and goddess Bhagwati is worshipped. In Western states, the festival is called Nariyal Purnima or the Coconut Full Moon. In Southern India, Shravan Purnima is an important religious occasion, especially for the Brahmins.
Raksha Bandhan is known by various names: Vish Tarak - the destroyer of venom, Punya Pradayak - the bestower of boons, and Pap Nashak - the destroyer of sins.
Rakhi in History
The strong bond represented by Rakhi has resulted in innumerable political ties among kingdoms and princely states. The pages of Indian history testify that the Rajput and Maratha queens have sent Rakhis even to Mughal kings who, despite their differences, have assuaged their Rakhi-sisters by offering help and protection at critical moments and honoured the fraternal bond. Even matrimonial alliances have been established between kingdoms through the exchange of Rakhis.
History has it that the great Hindu King Porus refrained from striking Alexander, the Great because the latter’s wife had approached this mighty adversary and tied a Rakhi on his hand, prior to the battle, urging him not to hurt her husband.
Why Rakhi?
Rituals like Rakhi, there is no doubt, help ease out various societal strains, induce fellow-feeling, open up channels of expression, give us an opportunity to rework on our role as human beings and, most importantly, bring joy in our mundane lives.
“May all be happy
May all be free from ills
May all behold only the good
May none be in distress.”
This has always been the idea of an ideal Hindu society.
Rakhi: The Thread of Love
Any Indian festival is incomplete without the typical Indian festivities, the gatherings, celebrations, exchange of sweets and gifts, lots of noise, singing and dancing. Festivals are the celebration of togetherness the celebrations of being on of the family. Festival of Rakhi or Raksha Bandhan is one such major occasion.
It is the celebration of brothers and sisters. It is one festival that primarily belongs to the North and Western regions of India but celebrated throughout the country with the same verve. Regional celebrations may be different but Raksha bandhan has become an integral part of those customs.
As per the traditions, the sister on this day prepares the pooja thali with diya, roli, chawal and rakhis. She worships the deities, ties Rakhi to the brother(s) and wishes for their well being. The brother in turn acknowledges the love with a promise to be by the sisters' side through the thick and thin and gives her a token gift.
The festival has been celebrated in the same way with the same traditions for centuries. Only the means have changed with the changing lifestyles. This too to make the celebrations more elaborate.
This is the day that still pulls the siblings together. The increasing physical distances evoke the desire to be together even more. They try to reach out to each other on the Raksha Bandhan day. The joyous meeting, the rare family get-together, that erstwhile feeling of brotherhood and sisterhood calls for a massive celebration.
The sisters tie that thread of love to their brothers amongst chanting of mantras, put roli and rice on his forehead and pray for his well being. She bestows him with gifts and blessings. The brother also wishes her a good life and pledges to take care of her. He gives her a return gift. The gift is the physical acceptance of her love, reminder of their togetherness and a symbol of his pledge. The legends and the reference in history repeated, the significance of the festival is emphasized.
Well that is kind of an end to the rituals but the celebrations actually start after that. For the parents, it is a family reunion. Tasty dishes, wonderful sweets, exchange of gifts and sharing of past experiences.
For those who are not able to visit each other, rakhi cards and e rakhis and rakhis through mails perform the part of communicating the rakhi messages. Hand made rakhis and self-made rakhi cards are just a representation of the personal feelings of the siblings.
Crux is that raksha bandhan brings people together in true spirit of all Indian festivals.
It is the celebration of brothers and sisters. It is one festival that primarily belongs to the North and Western regions of India but celebrated throughout the country with the same verve. Regional celebrations may be different but Raksha bandhan has become an integral part of those customs.
As per the traditions, the sister on this day prepares the pooja thali with diya, roli, chawal and rakhis. She worships the deities, ties Rakhi to the brother(s) and wishes for their well being. The brother in turn acknowledges the love with a promise to be by the sisters' side through the thick and thin and gives her a token gift.
The festival has been celebrated in the same way with the same traditions for centuries. Only the means have changed with the changing lifestyles. This too to make the celebrations more elaborate.
This is the day that still pulls the siblings together. The increasing physical distances evoke the desire to be together even more. They try to reach out to each other on the Raksha Bandhan day. The joyous meeting, the rare family get-together, that erstwhile feeling of brotherhood and sisterhood calls for a massive celebration.
The sisters tie that thread of love to their brothers amongst chanting of mantras, put roli and rice on his forehead and pray for his well being. She bestows him with gifts and blessings. The brother also wishes her a good life and pledges to take care of her. He gives her a return gift. The gift is the physical acceptance of her love, reminder of their togetherness and a symbol of his pledge. The legends and the reference in history repeated, the significance of the festival is emphasized.
Well that is kind of an end to the rituals but the celebrations actually start after that. For the parents, it is a family reunion. Tasty dishes, wonderful sweets, exchange of gifts and sharing of past experiences.
For those who are not able to visit each other, rakhi cards and e rakhis and rakhis through mails perform the part of communicating the rakhi messages. Hand made rakhis and self-made rakhi cards are just a representation of the personal feelings of the siblings.
Crux is that raksha bandhan brings people together in true spirit of all Indian festivals.
Raksha Bandhan: Traditions & Customs
Traditions & Customs
Raksha Bandhan is primarily a North Indian festival kindling the deepest emotions of love and affection amongst the siblings. Just like all Indian festivals, this is also celebrated with lots of verve.
The sister ties the rakhi on the brother's wrist and both pray for each others' well being followed by a pledge from the brother to take care of his sister under all circumstances. The brother then usually gifts something to the sister to mark the occasion. Celebrated enveloped in the festivities. The mirth that surrounds the festival is unsurpassed. Amidst the merriment the rituals are also followed with great devotion.
The rakhis and the sweets are bought and prepared generally before the Purnima. As per the tradition the family members get ready for the rituals early. They take a bath to purify mind and body before starting any preparations. The sisters prepare the thali for the poojan. It contains the rakhi threads, kumkum powder, rice grains, diya (an earthen or a metal lamp used for worshiping), agarbattis (incense sticks) and sweets.
First of all the offerings are made to the deities of the family. The sister then performs the arti of the brother and ties the rakhi. She then Tilaks (puts kumkum powder on the forehead) him and offers sweets. While performing the rituals the Sister chants
Meaning "The sun radiates its sunlight, the radish spreads its seeds, I tie the rakhi to you O brother and wish that may you live long."
After her prayer for a long life for her brother, she says that she is tying the ever-protective Raksha to her brother chanting:
Meaning ," I tie you the rakhi that was tied to king Bali, the king of Demons, O Rakhi I pray that you never falter in protecting your devotee.
The brother in turn blesses the sister and promises to protect her from the evils of the world. He gifts something to her as a token of his love and affection. The rituals may differ a little from region to region but generally carry the same aura.
Raksha Bandhan is primarily a North Indian festival kindling the deepest emotions of love and affection amongst the siblings. Just like all Indian festivals, this is also celebrated with lots of verve.
The sister ties the rakhi on the brother's wrist and both pray for each others' well being followed by a pledge from the brother to take care of his sister under all circumstances. The brother then usually gifts something to the sister to mark the occasion. Celebrated enveloped in the festivities. The mirth that surrounds the festival is unsurpassed. Amidst the merriment the rituals are also followed with great devotion.
The rakhis and the sweets are bought and prepared generally before the Purnima. As per the tradition the family members get ready for the rituals early. They take a bath to purify mind and body before starting any preparations. The sisters prepare the thali for the poojan. It contains the rakhi threads, kumkum powder, rice grains, diya (an earthen or a metal lamp used for worshiping), agarbattis (incense sticks) and sweets.
First of all the offerings are made to the deities of the family. The sister then performs the arti of the brother and ties the rakhi. She then Tilaks (puts kumkum powder on the forehead) him and offers sweets. While performing the rituals the Sister chants
Meaning "The sun radiates its sunlight, the radish spreads its seeds, I tie the rakhi to you O brother and wish that may you live long."
After her prayer for a long life for her brother, she says that she is tying the ever-protective Raksha to her brother chanting:
Meaning ," I tie you the rakhi that was tied to king Bali, the king of Demons, O Rakhi I pray that you never falter in protecting your devotee.
The brother in turn blesses the sister and promises to protect her from the evils of the world. He gifts something to her as a token of his love and affection. The rituals may differ a little from region to region but generally carry the same aura.
Raksha Bandhan in History
Rani Karnawati and Emperor Humayun
During the medieval era, Rajputs were fighting Muslim invasions. Rakhi at that time meant a spiritual binding and protection of sisters was foremost. A famous incident relates how rakhi by then had broken the religious barriers.
When Rani Karnawati the widowed queen of the king of Chittor realised that she could in no way defend the invasion of the Sultan of Gujarat, Bahadur Shah, she sent a rakhi to Emperor Humayun. The Emperor touched by the gesture started off with his troops without wasting any time.
Alexander The Great and King Puru
The oldest reference to the festival of rakhi goes back to 300 B.C. at the time when Alexander invaded India. It is said that the great conqueror, King Alexander of Macedonia was shaken by the fury of the Indian king Puru in his first attempt. Upset by this, Alexander's wife, who had heard of the Rakhi festival, approached King Puru. King Puru accepted her as his sister and when the opportunity came during the war, he refrained from Alexander.
During the medieval era, Rajputs were fighting Muslim invasions. Rakhi at that time meant a spiritual binding and protection of sisters was foremost. A famous incident relates how rakhi by then had broken the religious barriers.
When Rani Karnawati the widowed queen of the king of Chittor realised that she could in no way defend the invasion of the Sultan of Gujarat, Bahadur Shah, she sent a rakhi to Emperor Humayun. The Emperor touched by the gesture started off with his troops without wasting any time.
Alexander The Great and King Puru
The oldest reference to the festival of rakhi goes back to 300 B.C. at the time when Alexander invaded India. It is said that the great conqueror, King Alexander of Macedonia was shaken by the fury of the Indian king Puru in his first attempt. Upset by this, Alexander's wife, who had heard of the Rakhi festival, approached King Puru. King Puru accepted her as his sister and when the opportunity came during the war, he refrained from Alexander.
Meaning & Significance of Raksha Bandhan
The Festival
The relationships are the essence of celebration. This holds true for any Indian festival. Each festival brings the families together. That mere togetherness is celebration. It calls for a total festive environment. The celebration of one such relationship is Raksha Bandhan; the celebration of brother sister relationship. The sibling relationship is nowhere so celebrated as in India. The brother sister relationship is no where so worshiped as here. It is this affection and love that is celebrated on the Raksha Bandhan.
Raksha Bandhan is a festival celebrating the bond of affection between brothers and sisters. The day when the siblings pray for each others' well being and wish for each others' happiness and goodwill. As the name 'Raksha Bandhan' suggests, 'a bond of protection', Raksha Bandhan is a pledge from brothers to protect the sister from all harms and troubles and a prayer from the sister to protect the brother from all evil.
The festival falls on the Shravan Purnima (full moon day of shravan month) which comes generally in the month of August. The sisters tie the silk thread called rakhi on their brother's wrist and pray for their well being and brothers promise to take care of their sisters. The festival is unique to India creates a feeling of belongingness and oneness amongst the family.
The Significance
Though now it is considered as a brother and sister festival, it was not always so. There have been examples in history where in rakhi has just been a raksha or protection. It could be tied by wife, a daughter or mother. The Rishis tied rakhi to the people who came seeking their blessings. The sages tied the sacred thread to themselves to safe guard them from the evil. It is by all means the 'Papa Todak, Punya Pradayak Parva' or the day that bestows boons and end all sins as it is mentioned in the scriptures.
Rakhi for many centuries encompassed the warmth shared between the siblings but now it goes way beyond it. Some tie rakhi to neighbors and close friends signifying a peaceful co-existence of every individual. Congregations like Rakhi Utsavs, popularized by Rabindranath Tagore, promote the feeling of unity and a commitment to all members of society to protect each other and encourage a harmonious Social life.
The day has a deeper perspective in today's scenario. The occasion holds for a life long pledge to practice moral, spiritual and cultural values. The values and the sentiments attached to the rituals of this festival are worth inculcating by the whole human race, the sentiments of harmony and peaceful coexistence.
Raksha Bandhan assumes all forms of Raksha or protection, of righteousness and destroyer of all sin. The rakhi tying ritual has become so much a part of the families that come what may brothers and sisters try to reach out to each other on this particular day bringing back the oneness of the family, binding the family together in an emotional bond.
The relationships are the essence of celebration. This holds true for any Indian festival. Each festival brings the families together. That mere togetherness is celebration. It calls for a total festive environment. The celebration of one such relationship is Raksha Bandhan; the celebration of brother sister relationship. The sibling relationship is nowhere so celebrated as in India. The brother sister relationship is no where so worshiped as here. It is this affection and love that is celebrated on the Raksha Bandhan.
Raksha Bandhan is a festival celebrating the bond of affection between brothers and sisters. The day when the siblings pray for each others' well being and wish for each others' happiness and goodwill. As the name 'Raksha Bandhan' suggests, 'a bond of protection', Raksha Bandhan is a pledge from brothers to protect the sister from all harms and troubles and a prayer from the sister to protect the brother from all evil.
The festival falls on the Shravan Purnima (full moon day of shravan month) which comes generally in the month of August. The sisters tie the silk thread called rakhi on their brother's wrist and pray for their well being and brothers promise to take care of their sisters. The festival is unique to India creates a feeling of belongingness and oneness amongst the family.
The Significance
Though now it is considered as a brother and sister festival, it was not always so. There have been examples in history where in rakhi has just been a raksha or protection. It could be tied by wife, a daughter or mother. The Rishis tied rakhi to the people who came seeking their blessings. The sages tied the sacred thread to themselves to safe guard them from the evil. It is by all means the 'Papa Todak, Punya Pradayak Parva' or the day that bestows boons and end all sins as it is mentioned in the scriptures.
Rakhi for many centuries encompassed the warmth shared between the siblings but now it goes way beyond it. Some tie rakhi to neighbors and close friends signifying a peaceful co-existence of every individual. Congregations like Rakhi Utsavs, popularized by Rabindranath Tagore, promote the feeling of unity and a commitment to all members of society to protect each other and encourage a harmonious Social life.
The day has a deeper perspective in today's scenario. The occasion holds for a life long pledge to practice moral, spiritual and cultural values. The values and the sentiments attached to the rituals of this festival are worth inculcating by the whole human race, the sentiments of harmony and peaceful coexistence.
Raksha Bandhan assumes all forms of Raksha or protection, of righteousness and destroyer of all sin. The rakhi tying ritual has become so much a part of the families that come what may brothers and sisters try to reach out to each other on this particular day bringing back the oneness of the family, binding the family together in an emotional bond.
AOL Leadership: Nisha Kumar
Nisha Kumar
Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer
As Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of AOL LLC, Nisha Kumar oversees all financial operations including financial planning, analysis and reporting as well as tax planning and compliance. She works closely with the senior management team at AOL establishing the company's financial objectives and strategies.
Before she was named to her current position, Kumar was Vice President, Operations, Time Warner Inc., where she worked on a variety of strategic and operational issues across Time Warner’s Internet, cable, networks, filmed entertainment and publishing divisions. Before that, she was Vice President, Mergers & Acquisitions, during which she executed several cross-border, multibillion-dollar transactions for Time Warner.
Prior to her roles with Time Warner, Kumar worked at AOL, beginning in 2001. She served in the company’s Business Affairs group, working on cross-divisional investments for Time Warner.
Kumar has also served as Vice President, Corporate Development, at Internet company Priceline.com, where she was in charge of structuring and executing the company’s investments, joint ventures and strategic alliances. She also was an investment banker at Morgan Stanley, where she advised on and executed a variety of merger, acquisition and financing transactions.
Kumar graduated from Harvard College magna cum laude and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School. She is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and from 1999-2003 served on the junior board of the Make-a-Wish Foundation of Metropolitan New York. Kumar currently serves as a director of the Human Care Charitable Trust, a hospital development in New Delhi, India.
Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer
As Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of AOL LLC, Nisha Kumar oversees all financial operations including financial planning, analysis and reporting as well as tax planning and compliance. She works closely with the senior management team at AOL establishing the company's financial objectives and strategies.
Before she was named to her current position, Kumar was Vice President, Operations, Time Warner Inc., where she worked on a variety of strategic and operational issues across Time Warner’s Internet, cable, networks, filmed entertainment and publishing divisions. Before that, she was Vice President, Mergers & Acquisitions, during which she executed several cross-border, multibillion-dollar transactions for Time Warner.
Prior to her roles with Time Warner, Kumar worked at AOL, beginning in 2001. She served in the company’s Business Affairs group, working on cross-divisional investments for Time Warner.
Kumar has also served as Vice President, Corporate Development, at Internet company Priceline.com, where she was in charge of structuring and executing the company’s investments, joint ventures and strategic alliances. She also was an investment banker at Morgan Stanley, where she advised on and executed a variety of merger, acquisition and financing transactions.
Kumar graduated from Harvard College magna cum laude and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School. She is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and from 1999-2003 served on the junior board of the Make-a-Wish Foundation of Metropolitan New York. Kumar currently serves as a director of the Human Care Charitable Trust, a hospital development in New Delhi, India.
AOL: A History of Leadership
1985 First online service provider for consumers
1989 First consumer instant-messaging service
1992 First consumer ISP to adopt the Windows interface
1994 First to introduce integrated Parental Controls
1996 First to offer Buddy Lists
1997 First online service provider to offer e-mail access from any computer
2002 First to offer free CD-quality streaming radio to broadband members
2003 First to offer integrated voice mail as a premium service to members
2004 First to offer default-on spyware/adware protection
2005 First to broadcast six simultaneous world-wide concerts live online
1989 First consumer instant-messaging service
1992 First consumer ISP to adopt the Windows interface
1994 First to introduce integrated Parental Controls
1996 First to offer Buddy Lists
1997 First online service provider to offer e-mail access from any computer
2002 First to offer free CD-quality streaming radio to broadband members
2003 First to offer integrated voice mail as a premium service to members
2004 First to offer default-on spyware/adware protection
2005 First to broadcast six simultaneous world-wide concerts live online
AOL
http://www.aol.com/
A Global Web Services Company
AOL is a leading global Web services company with a substantial and growing worldwide audience, a suite of powerful Web brands, industry-leading products and one of the largest and fastest-growing advertising networks in the United States.
In 2006, AOL shifted its strategy to build on these strengths, making its popular e-mail and AOL software, along with other services, available free to anyone with an Internet connection. AOL continues to move forward on this strategy in 2007, with a focus on growing the size of its online audience, increasing the engagement of its users and improving its ability to monetize its Web audience.
Core Statistics
114 million
Average domestic monthly unique visitors to the AOL network of Web properties during the quarter ended June 30, 2007.
52 billion
Page views for the AOL network of Web properties, during the quarter ended June 30, 2007
1.7 billion
Instant Messages sent across AOL's messaging networks (AIM and ICQ) each day, during the quarter ended June 30, 2007
1.5 billion
Approximate number of spam e-mails blocked daily, during the quarter ended June 30, 2007
Highlights
The AOL Network: Some of the Web's Best-Known Brands
AOL's network of Web properties is one of the top three in the United States, attracting an average of more than with more than 110 million unique visitors each month, according to comScore Media Metrix. Users are drawn to the robust AOL.com portal and to AOL's suite of popular destinations. MapQuest, for example, is the leading U.S. provider of online maps and directions. AIM is the #1 messaging service in the U.S. Other hits include TMZ.com- developed in partnership with Warner Bros.' Telepictures Productions, which quickly rose to become the #1 domestic celebrity site on the Web - and In2TV, which makes a wide variety of classic TV shows available free and on demand.
To capitalize on the growing demand for online video, AOL continues to improve the AOL Video portal, launched in 2006, to bring together content from leading brands, user-created video, pay-per-download feature films and full-length TV shows. AOL also has an industry-leading video search product, powered by company-owned Truveo.
AOL continues to improve on the essentials of the Web experience. In May 2007, for example, AOL launched a new Webmail service that provides consumers improvements in performance, usability and engagement and offers new opportunities for monetization. AOL also recently launched an upgrade to its AIM software, which a February 2007 technology review column in The Wall Street Journal concluded was the best instant messaging service available. It also has begun to redesign all its channels to offer a cleaner look and make the pages easier to navigate.
AOL also has one of the largest and most effective advertising operations on the Web. In the first quarter of 2007, advertising revenues climbed 40%, compared with the first quarter of 2006. For 2006, AOL's advertising revenues were 41% higher than 2005. With Advertising.com, AOL not only has one of the largest network of Web sites, but it also has the largest third-party display advertising network in the country. To expand the reach of its advertising platform as well as the tools and services available to marketers, AOL in the spring of 2007, acquired a controlling interest in Adtech AG, a leading international online ad-serving company based on Frankfurt, Germany. It also acquired Third Screen Media, a leading mobile advertising network and mobile ad-serving and management platform provider.
To supplement the advertising growth and enhance its already rich programming, AOL announced in April five new programs for the second half of 2007 and first half of 2008, partnering with DreamWorks, Endemol, Madison Road Entertainment, Mark Burnett Productions, Stone & Company and Telepictures Productions. The programs include "Gold Rush Goes Hollywood," "Million Dollar Bill" and "iLand."
AOL operates one of the largest Internet subscription businesses in the United States, with 12 million domestic subscribers at the end of the first quarter of 2007.
Finally, AOL continues to expand on a global basis as a Web services business. In addition to its existing portals in France, the U.K, Germany and Canada, AOL launched portals in India, The Netherlands and Austria, and it continues to explore opportunities elsewhere in Europe and Asia.
A Global Web Services Company
AOL is a leading global Web services company with a substantial and growing worldwide audience, a suite of powerful Web brands, industry-leading products and one of the largest and fastest-growing advertising networks in the United States.
In 2006, AOL shifted its strategy to build on these strengths, making its popular e-mail and AOL software, along with other services, available free to anyone with an Internet connection. AOL continues to move forward on this strategy in 2007, with a focus on growing the size of its online audience, increasing the engagement of its users and improving its ability to monetize its Web audience.
Core Statistics
114 million
Average domestic monthly unique visitors to the AOL network of Web properties during the quarter ended June 30, 2007.
52 billion
Page views for the AOL network of Web properties, during the quarter ended June 30, 2007
1.7 billion
Instant Messages sent across AOL's messaging networks (AIM and ICQ) each day, during the quarter ended June 30, 2007
1.5 billion
Approximate number of spam e-mails blocked daily, during the quarter ended June 30, 2007
Highlights
The AOL Network: Some of the Web's Best-Known Brands
AOL's network of Web properties is one of the top three in the United States, attracting an average of more than with more than 110 million unique visitors each month, according to comScore Media Metrix. Users are drawn to the robust AOL.com portal and to AOL's suite of popular destinations. MapQuest, for example, is the leading U.S. provider of online maps and directions. AIM is the #1 messaging service in the U.S. Other hits include TMZ.com- developed in partnership with Warner Bros.' Telepictures Productions, which quickly rose to become the #1 domestic celebrity site on the Web - and In2TV, which makes a wide variety of classic TV shows available free and on demand.
To capitalize on the growing demand for online video, AOL continues to improve the AOL Video portal, launched in 2006, to bring together content from leading brands, user-created video, pay-per-download feature films and full-length TV shows. AOL also has an industry-leading video search product, powered by company-owned Truveo.
AOL continues to improve on the essentials of the Web experience. In May 2007, for example, AOL launched a new Webmail service that provides consumers improvements in performance, usability and engagement and offers new opportunities for monetization. AOL also recently launched an upgrade to its AIM software, which a February 2007 technology review column in The Wall Street Journal concluded was the best instant messaging service available. It also has begun to redesign all its channels to offer a cleaner look and make the pages easier to navigate.
AOL also has one of the largest and most effective advertising operations on the Web. In the first quarter of 2007, advertising revenues climbed 40%, compared with the first quarter of 2006. For 2006, AOL's advertising revenues were 41% higher than 2005. With Advertising.com, AOL not only has one of the largest network of Web sites, but it also has the largest third-party display advertising network in the country. To expand the reach of its advertising platform as well as the tools and services available to marketers, AOL in the spring of 2007, acquired a controlling interest in Adtech AG, a leading international online ad-serving company based on Frankfurt, Germany. It also acquired Third Screen Media, a leading mobile advertising network and mobile ad-serving and management platform provider.
To supplement the advertising growth and enhance its already rich programming, AOL announced in April five new programs for the second half of 2007 and first half of 2008, partnering with DreamWorks, Endemol, Madison Road Entertainment, Mark Burnett Productions, Stone & Company and Telepictures Productions. The programs include "Gold Rush Goes Hollywood," "Million Dollar Bill" and "iLand."
AOL operates one of the largest Internet subscription businesses in the United States, with 12 million domestic subscribers at the end of the first quarter of 2007.
Finally, AOL continues to expand on a global basis as a Web services business. In addition to its existing portals in France, the U.K, Germany and Canada, AOL launched portals in India, The Netherlands and Austria, and it continues to explore opportunities elsewhere in Europe and Asia.
The AOL India Story
http://www.aol.in/
Guidance for Today and Tomorrow
The AOL India Leaders
The AOL India venture has been guided from the start by outstanding leaders. Their educational credentials are superior. Their technical abilities have been proven. Their business acumen and management style have been validated over the years. They manage the three functions of the Bangalore site. They keep the channels with AOL's international technical and service centres open. And they are one of the best reasons employment at AOL India is such an excellent opportunity.
Maneesh Dhir - EVP AOL International and Country Head, All AOL Business Units in India
Maneesh Dhir has the educational foundation for leadership in a global endeavor: a B. Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology, an MS from UCLA, and a Stanford MBA. His work resume began at Sun Microsystems, where he founded the company's server appliance business. He then moved to Kiva Software, which was acquired by Netscape, which was acquired by AOL. Maneesh went on to become VP of AOL's West Coast operations. And now he has applied his experience at home and abroad to launch and nurture all three of AOL's Indian Operations.
Rajiv Ahuja - VP, Service Center Operations
If AOL's Bangalore Service Centre runs like clockwork, Rajiv Ahuja is the reason. His career is based on degrees from Stanford University and St. Xavier's College in Calcutta, a certificate in International Management from the National University of Singapore, and nine years in charge of training for the Indian Army Special Task Force. After serving as COO at vCustomer, Rajiv assumed leadership of Dell's US Consumer division in India. In 2002, he accepted the challenge to establish an AOL Service Centre in Bangalore that would be second to none.
Rajiv Jain - VP, Software Development Centre
Rajiv Jain began his education in India with a B.Tech from Rourkee University and continued in the states with a PhD in Electrical/Computer Engineering from the University of Southern California. He became an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin and then left academia to join Agilent. After returning to India, he dedicated his talents to semiconductor and software development for Infineon, a Seimens subsidiary. Now he is combining his teaching and engineering skills to lead AOL's Software Development Centre in Bangalore.
Every day, the work of the AOL India Teams is in evidence on AOL. It’s there in the Snapshots and Web Offers. It’s there in the millions of annotated video streams. It’s there in the connectivity and bug-free applications that users take for granted. It’s there in the efficient and friendly late-night voice that offers help over the phone. AOL India also supports MapQuest, AIM, Moviefone, Singingfish, and Netscape. And a good many back office functions–from finance to call volume forecasting for the service Centres–owe substantial improvement to the work of AOL India employees.This link leads to coverage in the AOL in-house and in the Indian Press about our efforts in the three Bangalore Centres.
Guidance for Today and Tomorrow
The AOL India Leaders
The AOL India venture has been guided from the start by outstanding leaders. Their educational credentials are superior. Their technical abilities have been proven. Their business acumen and management style have been validated over the years. They manage the three functions of the Bangalore site. They keep the channels with AOL's international technical and service centres open. And they are one of the best reasons employment at AOL India is such an excellent opportunity.
Maneesh Dhir - EVP AOL International and Country Head, All AOL Business Units in India
Maneesh Dhir has the educational foundation for leadership in a global endeavor: a B. Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology, an MS from UCLA, and a Stanford MBA. His work resume began at Sun Microsystems, where he founded the company's server appliance business. He then moved to Kiva Software, which was acquired by Netscape, which was acquired by AOL. Maneesh went on to become VP of AOL's West Coast operations. And now he has applied his experience at home and abroad to launch and nurture all three of AOL's Indian Operations.
Rajiv Ahuja - VP, Service Center Operations
If AOL's Bangalore Service Centre runs like clockwork, Rajiv Ahuja is the reason. His career is based on degrees from Stanford University and St. Xavier's College in Calcutta, a certificate in International Management from the National University of Singapore, and nine years in charge of training for the Indian Army Special Task Force. After serving as COO at vCustomer, Rajiv assumed leadership of Dell's US Consumer division in India. In 2002, he accepted the challenge to establish an AOL Service Centre in Bangalore that would be second to none.
Rajiv Jain - VP, Software Development Centre
Rajiv Jain began his education in India with a B.Tech from Rourkee University and continued in the states with a PhD in Electrical/Computer Engineering from the University of Southern California. He became an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin and then left academia to join Agilent. After returning to India, he dedicated his talents to semiconductor and software development for Infineon, a Seimens subsidiary. Now he is combining his teaching and engineering skills to lead AOL's Software Development Centre in Bangalore.
Every day, the work of the AOL India Teams is in evidence on AOL. It’s there in the Snapshots and Web Offers. It’s there in the millions of annotated video streams. It’s there in the connectivity and bug-free applications that users take for granted. It’s there in the efficient and friendly late-night voice that offers help over the phone. AOL India also supports MapQuest, AIM, Moviefone, Singingfish, and Netscape. And a good many back office functions–from finance to call volume forecasting for the service Centres–owe substantial improvement to the work of AOL India employees.This link leads to coverage in the AOL in-house and in the Indian Press about our efforts in the three Bangalore Centres.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Naidu seeks terror report
Hyderabad, Aug. 27: A day after he sought the resignation of Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, holding the Congress government responsible for Saturday’s bomb blasts, Telugu Desam supremo N. Chandrababu Naidu on Monday knocked the doors of Raj Bhavan, demanding that the Governor hold a review of the law and order situation in the State. A delegation of the Telugu Desam led by Mr Naidu called on Governor N.D. Tiwari with the demand that the latter take stock of the law and order situation and call for a report from the government on the blast.
The Telugu Desam supremo spent about half-an-hour with the Governor and later told waiting mediapersons that the Congress government had failed to maintain law and order in the last three years. “It’s high time that Dr Reddy steps down from the Chief Minister’s post. There have been several incidents of breach of law and order. The government did not act after the bomb blast at Mecca Masjid. This has emboldened terrorist elements to strike with more vigour,” Mr Naidu said.
He alleged that there had been a break down of law and order since Dr Reddy took over. The police had been acting with a vengeance and attacking the common man. “There’s no protection for innocent people. Unless the government pulls up its socks, terror incidents will continue to repeat. It should improve the intelligence and vigilance network to tie down the hands of terrorists from striking at public places,” he pointed out. Mr Naidu said the TD would hold peaceful demonstrations all over the State on Tuesday to highlight the “failure” of the Congress government in preventing terror incidents.
The Telugu Desam supremo spent about half-an-hour with the Governor and later told waiting mediapersons that the Congress government had failed to maintain law and order in the last three years. “It’s high time that Dr Reddy steps down from the Chief Minister’s post. There have been several incidents of breach of law and order. The government did not act after the bomb blast at Mecca Masjid. This has emboldened terrorist elements to strike with more vigour,” Mr Naidu said.
He alleged that there had been a break down of law and order since Dr Reddy took over. The police had been acting with a vengeance and attacking the common man. “There’s no protection for innocent people. Unless the government pulls up its socks, terror incidents will continue to repeat. It should improve the intelligence and vigilance network to tie down the hands of terrorists from striking at public places,” he pointed out. Mr Naidu said the TD would hold peaceful demonstrations all over the State on Tuesday to highlight the “failure” of the Congress government in preventing terror incidents.
Nara Chandrababu Naidu: Political Philosophy
Political Philosophy - History cannot afford a political vice, Or civilization a holiday.
The lessons of politics had long since been firmly placed. The brain that constantly thinks, so much that close to him you could hear the clock tick-tock, obviously had long since perfected the plan of what to do, and how to lead, and which ideas to be led by. All power lies with people, we don't rule them, we provide them with governance, and we owe them a good government. A SMART government, one of his several coinages, reflects his inner political clarity and sense of accountability.He knew too well that opportunity comes only once, and if missed, we go right back, or worse. Totally dissatisfied with the development achieved till then, he knew his government had to be on the right track from day one. And must always be steered on course.
Thousands of years ago, and all along history, kings had vices for which common people had to pay. Politicians became the corruption, inefficiency and egocentric power play in modern politics. He dismissed them all. No dinners for ministers, no garlands at public functions, no personal paraphernalia, no one-upmaniship, no showbiz or sycophancy. History according to him is too full of wasted chance, and could no longer afford leader's vice. Simple and moral are the fundamentals to watch.Civilization cannot afford to go to sleep, he repeats, and adds, we need to work incessantly. His leaders and party cadre, and the government setup too, took lessons from his own 18-hours-a-day schedule, and followed suit. His popularity rose, not because of publicity but performance. Accountability was another factor he introduced. He went to the people, surprised as they were, to find a government at their doorstep. His surprise checks to ensure work was done, and pulling-up slack officials and rewarding merit, won the people's hearts.Above all, a transparent government. Long preached but always elusive, it was achieved. People were made partners in the development process, and equally responsible. Everyone must work and achieve. Only then the goal could be reached, but the goal now had a name: Swarnandhra Pradesh.But time was running out, and it was a testing period. Elections. Let us perform and leave the rest to the people, he told his party. The trust in people was not wasted. On the eve of the new Millennium, the TDP emerged victorious. On October 11, 1999, he was sworn CM again.
The lessons of politics had long since been firmly placed. The brain that constantly thinks, so much that close to him you could hear the clock tick-tock, obviously had long since perfected the plan of what to do, and how to lead, and which ideas to be led by. All power lies with people, we don't rule them, we provide them with governance, and we owe them a good government. A SMART government, one of his several coinages, reflects his inner political clarity and sense of accountability.He knew too well that opportunity comes only once, and if missed, we go right back, or worse. Totally dissatisfied with the development achieved till then, he knew his government had to be on the right track from day one. And must always be steered on course.
Thousands of years ago, and all along history, kings had vices for which common people had to pay. Politicians became the corruption, inefficiency and egocentric power play in modern politics. He dismissed them all. No dinners for ministers, no garlands at public functions, no personal paraphernalia, no one-upmaniship, no showbiz or sycophancy. History according to him is too full of wasted chance, and could no longer afford leader's vice. Simple and moral are the fundamentals to watch.Civilization cannot afford to go to sleep, he repeats, and adds, we need to work incessantly. His leaders and party cadre, and the government setup too, took lessons from his own 18-hours-a-day schedule, and followed suit. His popularity rose, not because of publicity but performance. Accountability was another factor he introduced. He went to the people, surprised as they were, to find a government at their doorstep. His surprise checks to ensure work was done, and pulling-up slack officials and rewarding merit, won the people's hearts.Above all, a transparent government. Long preached but always elusive, it was achieved. People were made partners in the development process, and equally responsible. Everyone must work and achieve. Only then the goal could be reached, but the goal now had a name: Swarnandhra Pradesh.But time was running out, and it was a testing period. Elections. Let us perform and leave the rest to the people, he told his party. The trust in people was not wasted. On the eve of the new Millennium, the TDP emerged victorious. On October 11, 1999, he was sworn CM again.
Interview: Nara Chandrababu Naidu
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu is one person that his counterparts from other states in the country would want to emulate. The reasons for such unprecedented admiration and respect are many. For one, Naidu is high-tech savvy, hard-working, spews business buzzwords and reform jargon, mixes poverty with computers and manages politics with a rare acumen. For many chief ministers, Naidu is a model modern politician, who has created a larger-than life image since he assumed power for the first time way back in 1995.
The busiest manager of southern India's largest state sleeps for less than three hours every day. He wakes up sharp at 0330 hours and the next 90 minutes are spent on Yoga, treadmill and the sauna. Then he scans the newspapers, jots down items that need to be taken up with fellow politicians and officials. By 0600, Naidu is there in the ground floor office at his Jubilee Hills home.
The first thing he does as he enters his office is to switch on the computer and check the water level in the major reservoirs and power generation. Soon secretaries and officials troop in to brief him of the law and order and the power and water situation. At 0630, all the district collectors in Andhra Pradesh have to be ready for a one-and-a- half-hour long tele-conference with the chief minister. By 0800, Naidu -- having dissected the state's administration -- is at the table for a light breakfast of fresh fruit and juice.
The Telugu Desam Party chief lives and breathes big dreams. He wants to make Hyderabad a transit hub between China and Europe. He wants to make the city the financial corridor and the cultural and film capital. But his biggest dream is to make Hyderabad the country's top infotech destination in the next five years. But will his dreams come true?
Truly, Naidu's five-year rule has ushered in considerable progress in infotech. Global computer giants like Microsoft, IBM and Oracle have invested in the state. Naidu has nearly computerised most government departments and district headquarters. But look at the state's villages. Where people die of brain fever due to lack of any healthcare, where drinking water is a scarcity, where the computer buzzwords have not eradicated illiteracy and unemployment.
Will his 21th century vision change things on the ground? "I am confident it will because I will continue to act fast. The maxim that the big eat the small has changed. It is now the fast eating the slow," says Naidu as he settled down for an exclusive interview with rediff.com Associate Editor George Iype.
You have survived a bitter political battle to become the most successful chief minister in the country. What is the secret of your success?
I have left politics behind in the last millennium, on the campaign trail. Now as chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, I do not want to talk politics. It is time for me to act and work for the development of the state, which I sincerely believe I am doing these days.
My political agenda now is economic -- empowerment of the poor and women. My political agenda now is to make Andhra Pradesh an economic powerhouse.
Do you believe that information technology can alleviate poverty?
I am confident that information technology can bring accountability, transparency and quick disposal of cases and redressal of grievances in all the villages. I believe it can alleviate poverty. I see three areas where information technology can be an effective tool: job generation, poverty eradication and wealth generation.
If I am following the infotech path these days, it is because I am convinced that is what is bringing in a revolution in my state's villages and changing the common man's life. I have launched the AP State Wide Area Network which connects Hyderabad with all 23 district headquarters. I have launched various other computerisation programmes -- like, if a person wants to obtain a birth certificate, it will be made available in five minutes. Computerisation leads to job generation. Computer schools are being set up in all the villages and internet connections are given in all the villages.
You are going ahead with the Vision 2020 programme. How is it progressing?
My Vision 2020 programmes embodies a Simple, Moral, Accountable, Responsive and Transparent government. I call it the SMART government. As per my programme, everybody -- politicians, bureaucrats and the people -- have to prepare short and long-term plans and then they have to work in that direction. My focus is now not on politics, but on development, the second generation of administrative and economic reforms, information technology and infrastructure projects.
Do you think the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government should also embark on a similar programme?
Certainly. I want the Vajpayee government to launch a Vision 2020 programme for India. I am happy that all the states are now talking about what I am doing here. Look at Karnataka. The Congress party always criticised me for obtaining World Bank loans. Last week, Karnataka Chief Minister S M Krishna himself took the initiative to get huge World Bank loans for various water and infrastructure projects.
All these years, politicians used to deal only in gossip. Making tall promises during elections and forgetting everything about it after the polls. Now there is a good, healthy competition between the states for development. But ultimately, only those who perform and do good work will survive.
Do you like to be called the CEO of Andhra Pradesh?
Why not? There is absolutely nothing wrong in a chief minister being called the CEO of a state. Like a CEO -- who have short and long-term visions for their companies -- I too have similar plans for my state. I am creating wealth for the people of the state. The 7.5 crore people of Andhra Pradesh are my shareholders. My immediate task is to generate 20 million jobs and reduce population growth from 1.4 per cent to 0.83 per cent. I want to achieve a seven to eight-fold increase in per capita income.
You have made Hyderabad an IT destination. Do you want also to make it a business nerve-centre, an alternative to Bombay?
I want to make Hyderabad an economic and business powerhouse. I want to make Hyderabad a knowledge hub and Andhra Pradesh a knowledge state. When all my projects on tourism, health care, finance and employment are successfully executed, Bombay or any other city or the state will be nowhere near Hyderabad and Andhra Pradesh.
Your critics and Opposition parties say there is so much hype about Hyderabad. For instance, last year, IT exports from Hyderabad amounted to just Rs 30 million compared to the Rs 300 million from Madras.
There is no hype in Chandrababu Naidu. I am following a pragmatic reform policy, which my critics are jealous of. When you compare Hyderabad with Bangalore or Madras, kindly remember that we started our information technology mission only four years back. Whereas IT was there in Bangalore and Madras years back. But look at our growth rate in the IT field. We have been achieving 150 per cent growth in IT every year. It is a fantastic growth.
You have been borrowing money from the World Bank and other sources. How will you manage your increasing debt? Every year, you are paying back Rs 40 billion as debt servicing.
This is one area I have been concentrating on very meticulously these days. Yes, we have been borrowing money for infrastructure projects like roads, irrigation and for social projects for employment generation programmes. We have not only to borrow but repay the money. That is what I am working on now because the results of the projects that I have executed with borrowed money will start pouring in. I am going to augment additional resources for better governance. I know we have to take certain tough decisions to mobilise resources. I am always reviewing the revenue flow and the expenditure.
Despite the revolution that you are creating in information technology, Andhra Pradesh is one state with the highest rate of poverty, unemployment and illiteracy. Do you think your plans and reform processes are not going in the right direction?
My plans to eradicate poverty, illiteracy and to improve the healthcare of the people are in the right direction. These are areas which I am actively engaged in. If you look into the past, these are problems that I inherited. When I took over as chief minister, the state's finance was in a mess. I launched an economic reform process with the people's participation.
In my first term as chief minister, I undertook reforms with welfare objectives in mind. In my second term, the second generation reforms that I am implementing will be to achieve harmonious growth of all sectors -- financial, natural, human and technological -- to root out poverty, illiteracy and unemployment from the state. I am confident I will be able to do it in the next five years.
In 1995, you came out with an industrial policy document. Are you planning an agricultural policy for Andhra Pradesh because the state is largely dependent on agriculture for its economy?
I have already initiated a number of agriculture programmes. We are proposing to introduce the crop insurance scheme for the farmers. We have already set up 90 rytu (farmers) bazaars across the state. All the agriculture markets in the state will also be connected through the wide area network and the internet. The rytu bazaars will be a one-stop shop for the farmers. We are planning to spend Rs 30 billion on irrigation alone. We are also talking to the farmers and their associations to assess whether we need to come out with a separate agricultural policy this year.
Are you in favour of taxing the farming sector?
In fact, before deciding on taxing the farming community, we need to evolve a national consensus on the issue. Right now, I am not in favour of taxing agriculture. No country in the world gets much revenue out of taxing the farmers. We want to promote the agriculture sector so that the proceeds from farmers increase. Small and marginal farmers constitute nearly 80 per cent of the farming community in Andhra Pradesh. I want to invest in extension services and institutional credit flows at low interest rates for the farmers. I want to impart training to market committees, supply farm products at a competitive price and control quality.
On the industrial front, despite reforms, many of the infrastructure projects that you planned have been grounded due to various reasons. How do you propose to help these projects take off?
This is one area of concern for me. I have been successfully marketing the state as an attractive place for investment, especially foreign investment. But some projects have been grounded due to various reasons. We are assessing why and how these failures occurred. We are also planning to evolve a more attractive investment package to the industry by fixing project targets and strict time schedules for file clearance.
We are talking to the industrialists for suggestions and recommendations in various industrial aspects. I am also planning many other programmes to attract investment. Irrigation development is one area of my concern. Harnessing water is the key to developing our rural economy. We have estimated that only 120 per cent of rainwater is used meaningfully in the state. Our effort is to trap rainwater and enhance its usage to about 40 per cent.
One of your areas of development is the empowerment of women. But incidence of women and child labour is the highest in Andhra Pradesh when compared to other states in India. Doesn't it show that your women empowerment programmes are yet to take off effectively?
I agree that Andhra Pradesh has the highest rate of women and child labour in the country. The problem is actually poverty. Women comprise nearly 50 per cent of our population. Therefore, any reform process and development initiative has to be done by involving women in it. All our social and economic programmes were meant to bring women into the mainstream.
We have already provided one-third quota for women in education and jobs. We have launched a number of projects focusing on their health, clean and better facilities in villages, provision of drinking water, encouraging thrift movement. Our social schemes like Deepam are entirely for the benefit of women. In the last election, we have given more party tickets to women candidates and I have inducted more women into my cabinet. I will fight hard for 33 per cent reservation for women in politics and in Parliament.
Despite your development initiatives, Naxalism continues unabated in the state.
Earlier, the Naxals said they are fighting because the government is doing no social and economic development activities in their areas and villages. In fact, we have launched a number of developmental schemes in the Naxal areas. But now the Naxals are opposing the development work because they want their areas to remain backward.
Naxals stand not for development. Therefore, people do not support them these days. They have refused any negotiation with the government also. So, I am treating the Naxal menace in the state as a law and order problem and we taking strict measures to ensure that their killings stop.
One accusation is that you are pro-rich.
Opposition parties like the Congress say I am pro-rich because politically they have been decimated and they have no issue to fight with me. But look at my social and economic programmes. All of them are for the poor people. So how can the Opposition accuse me of being pro-rich?
You are the TDP president as well as the chief minister. Do you plan to delegate power to your party colleagues?
True, I am for total delegation of powers. I am implementing that in my party. In fact, I am training my party functionaries to equip them to be an efficient and excellent team. I am remaining just as a supervising authority. In my team of party workers, everybody has to work -- myself, my ministers, members of the legislative assembly and the local party leaders.
Is the legacy of former chief minister N T Rama Rao over in Andhra Pradesh?
NTR was our leader and he will remain our leader forever. He will always be remembered by the people. People cannot forget him because he has done so much for the people of the state. My political opponents always wanted to create confusion and rift between me and NTR. NTR laid the foundation for our party and it will only grow on that strong foundation.
Are you happy with the Vajpayee government's performance in the last 100 days? Do you think the government will last for the next five years?
It is not yet time to examine the performance of the Vajpayee government. They are doing OK now. But they have to do much better. I am confident that the Vajpayee government will last for five years.
Do you see yourself as the future prime minister of India?
No. I don't have any such ideas in my mind. Right now I am interested only in Andhra Pradesh.
We're our own worst terrorists
As the front page of the TOI highlighted on Monday, with the exception of war-riven Iraq, India has emerged as the world’s No. 1 target for terror: in the past few years, this country has suffered more fatalities through terrorist attacks than all the Americas, North, South and Central, and Europe put together.
Part of the reason seems obvious. Our neighbour and arch-foe Pakistan is the biggest exporter of terror in the world. And we’re fighting a 'proxy war'with it in Kashmir. Geography is against us. But are we also against ourselves? Do we, through myriad sins of omission and commission, invite such attacks?
It is often said that India is a 'soft', instead of a 'hard', state. This means that we, collectively and individually, are willing or unwilling accomplices to a flagrant flouting of the laws of the land. From the street constable who can be bought for Rs 50 to let an errant trucker or motorist go free, to a chief minister who, indicted in a scam, can openly defy the legal system by saying that he is answerable only to the 'court of the people’, the Indian state — as exemplified by its representatives at various levels — is commonly seen to be up for sale or otherwise open to subversion from within.
Time and again, our top law enforcement agencies have been reprimanded by the judiciary for hopelessly bungling or inexcusably delaying investigations with regard to crucial criminal cases, be they terror related or otherwise.
The inevitable suspicion arises as to whether the perpetrators of such acts enjoy political or other patronage which puts them out of reach of the truncated arm of our law: they are above or beyond the law. On the other hand, many thousands of anonymous undertrials are buried alive in jails for years without hope of release or redress: they are not above the law; they are so far beneath it that the law literally can’t see them.
Every now and then the state, in the avatar of its legal system, finds high-profile scapegoats (a Sanjay Dutt or Salman Khan who make for good photo-ops for our law enforcement machinery but are 'safe'whipping boys in that their fans won’t go on a rampage to secure their release, as the minions of a political or communal leader certainly would) to whom it metes out showcase punishment for relatively minor misdemeanours and feels it has done its job. In the meantime, large swathes of the country have become virtual parallel states, ruled by so-called Naxals. Violent mobs can with impunity smash retail outlets of a corporate major which has dared to try and enter the retail food and vegetable business, for long the unchallenged domain of rapacious middlemen and big farmers.
What is the Indian state doing to prevent all this? Precious little. It is too busy ensuring that no one below 25 can have an alcoholic drink in a bar.
It is such tokenism that has made a mockery of the Indian state, a state which dithered ineffectively before caving in submissively to terrorist demands in the Kandahar hijacking episode by releasing convicted subversives. Little wonder we’re a soft target for terror. We’ve drawn an inviting bullseye around ourselves.
Can we — ought we to — pay the price of becoming a 'hard'state, like Israel? Or the US after 9/11, where civil liberties have been curtailed but where terrorist incidents have also been reduced?
A 'hard'state has to learn to be tough on itself first, in upholding its own rule of law and being seen to do so, before it can be tough against terror. Do we — should we — build the political and ethical sinews to do this? It’s a question for our collective conscience. And till we decide, we’ll have to learn to live with terror from outside, and our complicity with it within.
28 Aug 2007, 0141 hrs IST,Jug Suraiya,TNN
Indiatimes is part of India's largest media and entertainment house, The Times Group. One of the most respected business houses in India, the 168-year-old group is a market driver across all media platforms.
Part of the reason seems obvious. Our neighbour and arch-foe Pakistan is the biggest exporter of terror in the world. And we’re fighting a 'proxy war'with it in Kashmir. Geography is against us. But are we also against ourselves? Do we, through myriad sins of omission and commission, invite such attacks?
It is often said that India is a 'soft', instead of a 'hard', state. This means that we, collectively and individually, are willing or unwilling accomplices to a flagrant flouting of the laws of the land. From the street constable who can be bought for Rs 50 to let an errant trucker or motorist go free, to a chief minister who, indicted in a scam, can openly defy the legal system by saying that he is answerable only to the 'court of the people’, the Indian state — as exemplified by its representatives at various levels — is commonly seen to be up for sale or otherwise open to subversion from within.
Time and again, our top law enforcement agencies have been reprimanded by the judiciary for hopelessly bungling or inexcusably delaying investigations with regard to crucial criminal cases, be they terror related or otherwise.
The inevitable suspicion arises as to whether the perpetrators of such acts enjoy political or other patronage which puts them out of reach of the truncated arm of our law: they are above or beyond the law. On the other hand, many thousands of anonymous undertrials are buried alive in jails for years without hope of release or redress: they are not above the law; they are so far beneath it that the law literally can’t see them.
Every now and then the state, in the avatar of its legal system, finds high-profile scapegoats (a Sanjay Dutt or Salman Khan who make for good photo-ops for our law enforcement machinery but are 'safe'whipping boys in that their fans won’t go on a rampage to secure their release, as the minions of a political or communal leader certainly would) to whom it metes out showcase punishment for relatively minor misdemeanours and feels it has done its job. In the meantime, large swathes of the country have become virtual parallel states, ruled by so-called Naxals. Violent mobs can with impunity smash retail outlets of a corporate major which has dared to try and enter the retail food and vegetable business, for long the unchallenged domain of rapacious middlemen and big farmers.
What is the Indian state doing to prevent all this? Precious little. It is too busy ensuring that no one below 25 can have an alcoholic drink in a bar.
It is such tokenism that has made a mockery of the Indian state, a state which dithered ineffectively before caving in submissively to terrorist demands in the Kandahar hijacking episode by releasing convicted subversives. Little wonder we’re a soft target for terror. We’ve drawn an inviting bullseye around ourselves.
Can we — ought we to — pay the price of becoming a 'hard'state, like Israel? Or the US after 9/11, where civil liberties have been curtailed but where terrorist incidents have also been reduced?
A 'hard'state has to learn to be tough on itself first, in upholding its own rule of law and being seen to do so, before it can be tough against terror. Do we — should we — build the political and ethical sinews to do this? It’s a question for our collective conscience. And till we decide, we’ll have to learn to live with terror from outside, and our complicity with it within.
28 Aug 2007, 0141 hrs IST,Jug Suraiya,TNN
Indiatimes is part of India's largest media and entertainment house, The Times Group. One of the most respected business houses in India, the 168-year-old group is a market driver across all media platforms.
It's terror, no use denying it
It's difficult to escape the sense of deja vu. The response to the latest terror outrage in Hyderabad was followed by the by-now familiar and stale drill: vows to bring the culprits to book, levelling, even if well-founded, charges against Pakistan and Bangladesh, condolences for victims and review meetings by the Prime Minister downwards.
People cannot be accused of being cynical if they dismiss these declarations as hollow and seem resigned for the next jehadi strike. For a country that for more than two decades now has been bled by relentless terror attacks, India has offered knee-jerk and sporadic attack-specific responses. In fact, it has been in a state of denial, first by claiming that no Indian was messed up with Al Qaida, and when that proved to be wrong, describing this vicious campaign of violence as the handiwork of a "handful of misguided youth".
The response has to change if the bleeding is to stop. The first corrective will come by recognising the huge problem. The right diagnosis is a pre-requisite for cure, and it ranges from acknowledging that the scourge is no fabrication by agencies to creating synergies among agencies, strengthening policing and by creating the necessary political will.
Just raising elite teams isn't enough nor is holding out threats to Pakistan sufficient. The key to the success of an honest counter-terrorism initiative lies in painstaking and sustained campaign to strengthen the criminal justice system and law enforcement machinery.
For all our aspiration to be a superpower, the harsh fact is that a lethal blend of corruption, inefficiency and political meddling have enfeebled our criminal justice administration and have sapped the police of will and strength to take on those killing the innocent.
Investigation into the Hyderabad carnage is still on, but there are pointers that the loss of life on Saturday could have been averted.
28 Aug 2007, 0029 hrs IST, Diwakar, TNN
The Times of India - World's largest broadsheet English daily
People cannot be accused of being cynical if they dismiss these declarations as hollow and seem resigned for the next jehadi strike. For a country that for more than two decades now has been bled by relentless terror attacks, India has offered knee-jerk and sporadic attack-specific responses. In fact, it has been in a state of denial, first by claiming that no Indian was messed up with Al Qaida, and when that proved to be wrong, describing this vicious campaign of violence as the handiwork of a "handful of misguided youth".
The response has to change if the bleeding is to stop. The first corrective will come by recognising the huge problem. The right diagnosis is a pre-requisite for cure, and it ranges from acknowledging that the scourge is no fabrication by agencies to creating synergies among agencies, strengthening policing and by creating the necessary political will.
Just raising elite teams isn't enough nor is holding out threats to Pakistan sufficient. The key to the success of an honest counter-terrorism initiative lies in painstaking and sustained campaign to strengthen the criminal justice system and law enforcement machinery.
For all our aspiration to be a superpower, the harsh fact is that a lethal blend of corruption, inefficiency and political meddling have enfeebled our criminal justice administration and have sapped the police of will and strength to take on those killing the innocent.
Investigation into the Hyderabad carnage is still on, but there are pointers that the loss of life on Saturday could have been averted.
28 Aug 2007, 0029 hrs IST, Diwakar, TNN
The Times of India - World's largest broadsheet English daily
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Jawaharlal Nehru -- Ultimate Idealist -- 100 PEOPLE WHO SHAPED INDIA IN THE 20TH CENTURY
He had been alive, Jawaharlal Nehru would have been 110 years and one month old at the turn of the century. It is 36 years since his moving away from the centrestage of Indian and world politics. With death and with the passage of time, great leaders undergo a process of demystification . Distances in terms of time and the elimination of the physical presence of these larger-than-life figures enable succeeding generations to a assess their lives more objectively, without being afflicted by their charisma and power, whatever the ingredients of that power might have been.
Nehru even during his life-time went through the spectrum of individual and collective reactions to his leadership, from being adored as a revolutionary and vibrant personification of the forward-looking spirit of India to being described as a pampered young man who accidentally acquired national leadership due to the influence of his father and the favouritism of Mahatma Gandhi. He has been admired as a leader of the freedom movements, as the founding father of institutional democracy in India and as the architect of India's policy in all its manifestations, being the longest serving prime minister of India (from 1946 to 1964).
It would be pertinent to evaluate Nehru as a leader and a statesman because of the decisive and over-arching role that he played in Indian history in the 20th century. Regardless of criticisms, he was one of the most influential leaders of our freedom struggle. He was a pioneering articulator of Asian resurgence and was an unusually idealistic advocate of conscience in international politics. India's parliamentary democracy, free judiciary and media, the apolitical civil servants and armed forces, the commitment to secularism, social justice and equality before law, all originated in the blue print for free India which he worked out.
Nehru had a profound belief in India's destiny as a moral and stabilizing force in inter-state relations. He had faith in the Indian people and an equally strong hope that their maturity and civilisational wisdom would ensure for India an important role in the world. His education in the West, and his exposure to the political movements of Europe in the first three decades of this century, combined with his eclectic sense of history, made him realise that science, technology and economic modernisation and development were essential pre-requisites to fulfill the vision of a free India that he had in mind and to which he devoted three-fourths of his life.
These ingredients and influences, cannot be denied in generic terms but in is necessary to assess Nehru through the prism of India's realities today, and to judge him in the context of criticisms leveled against him as an individual and as a public figure.
This exercise should necessarily be an assessment of him as a leader of the freedom struggle, as a founding ideologue of the Indian Republic, as the prime minister, as an international statesman and as a leader beloved of the people of India, second only to Gandhi in this century. I can do no better than to recall two remarks made by senior members of the Congress over his role as leader of the freedom struggle. Acharya Kripalani, speaking at a seminar of the Gandhi Vichar Parishad in Wardha in 1954, said Nehru became a prominent leader of the freedom struggle basically because of the colonial mindset of the Indians. "He is an Englishman in Indian clothing." So the respect for him. I was one of the audience to which this remark was made. Though we were very young, we did not accept this assessment. We attributed it to the breaking away of Jayaprakash Narayan and Kriplani from the Congress at the point of time.
The second view was expressed years later by former prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao when I asked him how Nehru came to such prominence in the freedom struggle. He said Congressmen made him their leader because of their conviction that he was committed to the cause of freedom and to the service of the people of India. But he also reminded me that Nehru had worked his way up through municipal elections in Allahabad and through mass movements in Pratapgarh of Uttar Pradesh.
As the ideologue of the Indian Constitution and the Indian polity, Nehru's contributions cannot be denied. It is his implementation of the doctrine of secularism and his approach to harmonizing the diversities of India which seem flawed in retrospect. The basic reasoning of secularism which he put forward was valid -- that a plural, multi-religious, civil society like that of India's could remain harmonious and united only if it is underpinned by religious tolerance and separation of religion from politics. The flaw, however, was that he did not underline the fact that the secular ethos of Indian society was rooted in two factors. That Hindus constituted the majority of the people of the country and that Hindu ethos at the profoundest intellectual and spiritual levels believed deeply in religious tolerance and respect for other religions.
If the majority of people in India were not Hindus, India would not have been a secular country. Instead of emphasising this, Nehru put the Hindu majority somewhat on the defensive, predicating Indian secularism on certification by the minorities, that the majority is secular. This resulted in a certain defensiveness and self-conscious denial of their religious and cultural identity by the Hindu community, which has perhaps made secularism a surface phenomenon in India's socio-political processes.
Similarly, Nehru's decision to reorganise the states on the basis of languages, while being good-intentioned, perhaps germinated the seeds of the present centrifugal territorial demands, affecting the unity of our country. While he was the builder of democratic institutions and conventions, one has to acknowledge that he did not groom a second generation of leadership in the party or the country, nor did he show any awareness of the need for anchoring the Congress in a trained cadre of party workers. He presumed that the commitment and organisational cohesion of the Congress during the freedom struggle would continue which was not to be because the party in a freedom movement is always different from a party in power in terms of ethos and motivations.
It is fashionable now to criticise Nehru's economic policies. He is castigated for making the public sector occupy the commanding heights of Indian economy. He is criticised for not linking up with western market economies.
It has to be remembered that the Indian private sector did not have the resources and motivation to invest in infrastructural sectors of the economy which required long-term investments and gestation periods. More importantly, between 1947 and 1955, all his efforts to get the major western powers involved in infrastructural development did not get a positive response. It was in consequence of this predicament that he entrusted the responsibility of mobilising resources and channelling them to fundamental sectors of the Indian economy to the government and the public sector.
While the decisions that he took seem logical and relevant to those times, the question to be answered is whether he would have continued the same policies had he lived into the '80s. Whatever his faults, he was alert and sensitive to changing domestic and international situations. Who knows, he might have been an equally active participant in the process of economic liberalisation and modernisation?
As an international statesman and foreign minister, there is a questioning of his founding the Non-Aligned Movement and its relevance today. It is true that the movement has not been very effective in safeguarding the interests of its member countries, particularly India. Two facts have to be kept in mind while evaluating Nehru's adherence to the movement. First, he made a distinction between being "non-aligned" and being part of "the Non-Aligned Movement".
He believed in non-alignment as a guiding principle of India's foreign policy so that India is assured of having the freedom of choice in making decisions responsive to its national interests without being subject to external influences. He articulated apprehensions about being part of a movement which in itself could become a bloc of countries. It was Krishna Menon who ultimately persuaded him to make India join the movement, arguing that the parallel interests of the countries of the movement would increase their influence in international transactions.
He did not believe in the non-aligned movement as a dogma. He rightly believed in non-alignment (as distinct from neutrality) as a guiding principle of India's foreign and security policies. Nehru can certainly be faulted for his idealism and belief in the sanctity of international law and agreements, in the light of his decision to go to the United Nations on the Kashmir issue and his faith in morality and goodwill as effective principles in inter-state relations. It was only at the end of 1962 after the military debacle against China that he acknowledged this reality, but it was too late. He can be blamed with Vallabhbhai Patel for the impatience which led to Partition about which Maulana Azad has written. In retrospect, Partition was good. It is preferable to India facing more profound centrifugal alienations than it is facing now.
Nehru was the beloved leader of his people. But when one intermeshes his individual persona with his public persona, one cannot but come to the conclusion that he was for the people, was committed to India's destiny being governed by the people but to a great extent was not "of the people". He was essentially a remote, aristocratic, glamorous and private person. Gandhi, Patel and Ambedkar were perhaps more immersed in the mass identity of Indians.
Regardless of the fault lines, Nehru remains the most important architect of free India. The words of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes come to mind here. "A great man represents a great ganglion in the nerves of society, or to vary the figure, at a strategic point in the campaign of history and his greatness consists in seizing that opportunity and being there at that particular strategic point."
1889: Born in Allahabad. Grows up in an influential political family with European governesses and tutors. 1907-10: Takes the Tripos in Natural Sciences at Trinity College, Cambridge and joins Inner Temple, London.1912: Returns to India. Joins the Allahabad High Court Bar. 1916: Marries Kamala Kaul. Their only child, Indira, is born the next year. 1919: The turning point in his life. While travelling on a train, he overhears General Dyer gloating over the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Nehru vows to fight the British. 1920: Begins public career in the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh). Attends special session of Congress at Calcutta as a delegate. 1930s: Forms the left wing of the Congress -- the Congress Socialist Party. 1937: Post-electoral victory of the Congress, Nehru disagrees to a coalition with the Muslim League. Also refuses to join hands with Fazul Haque's Krishak Party as well, throwing Punjab and Bengal into the waiting arms of the League.1938-39: Openly supports Gandhian philosophy in the Gandhi-S.C. Bose rift. Bose resigns as Congress president. 1946: Declares that the Cabinet Mission Plan would be altered once Congress is in power. Sparks insecurity in the League, leading to Jinnah's call for Direct Action.1947: Nehru becomes the first prime minister of Independent India. 1950s: Charts the course of India's development with his Five-Year Plan. Entrusts responsibility of mobilising resources to the public sector.1950s: Nehru outlines his foreign policy with disarmament as its focus. He spearheads the Non-Aligned Movement. The debacle with China in 1962 makes him realises he cannot ignore brewing tensions in neighbouring countries. Foreign policy is accordingly redefined. 1964: Dies in Delhi.
-- J.N. Dixit is a former foreign secretary, and the last generation to serve under Nehru as foreign minister. Among others, he is the author of Across Borders: 50 Years of India's Foreign Policy.
----------
The India Today Group began with a single magazine in 1975. Today it is India's most diversified media group with interests in magazines, newspaper, television, radio, internet, books and music.The group's portfolio includes 13 magazines, 3 radio stations, 2 TV channels, 1 newspaper, leading classical music label, book publishing and India's only book club. Through its subscribers, readers, viewers and listeners the group reaches out to over 35 million individuals.Underlying all these channels of communication is an ethos of excellence and credibility. It believes in journalism which thrives on telling it the way it is without fear or favour.As part of its corporate social responsibility the group set up a charity fund to help the distressed. Since its inception fours years ago it has helped millions. Another public welfare venture of the group is a school with a holistic approach to learning.In the last 28 years the group has evolved with its namesake. It has recorded history as well as made it. It has reflected public opinion as well as shaped it. It has shared the triumphs as well as the tribulations. It has been India's strongest supporter as well as its harshest critic. And in that sense has delivered on its challenging mission to deliver India.
http://www.india-today.com/itoday/index.html
Nehru even during his life-time went through the spectrum of individual and collective reactions to his leadership, from being adored as a revolutionary and vibrant personification of the forward-looking spirit of India to being described as a pampered young man who accidentally acquired national leadership due to the influence of his father and the favouritism of Mahatma Gandhi. He has been admired as a leader of the freedom movements, as the founding father of institutional democracy in India and as the architect of India's policy in all its manifestations, being the longest serving prime minister of India (from 1946 to 1964).
It would be pertinent to evaluate Nehru as a leader and a statesman because of the decisive and over-arching role that he played in Indian history in the 20th century. Regardless of criticisms, he was one of the most influential leaders of our freedom struggle. He was a pioneering articulator of Asian resurgence and was an unusually idealistic advocate of conscience in international politics. India's parliamentary democracy, free judiciary and media, the apolitical civil servants and armed forces, the commitment to secularism, social justice and equality before law, all originated in the blue print for free India which he worked out.
Nehru had a profound belief in India's destiny as a moral and stabilizing force in inter-state relations. He had faith in the Indian people and an equally strong hope that their maturity and civilisational wisdom would ensure for India an important role in the world. His education in the West, and his exposure to the political movements of Europe in the first three decades of this century, combined with his eclectic sense of history, made him realise that science, technology and economic modernisation and development were essential pre-requisites to fulfill the vision of a free India that he had in mind and to which he devoted three-fourths of his life.
These ingredients and influences, cannot be denied in generic terms but in is necessary to assess Nehru through the prism of India's realities today, and to judge him in the context of criticisms leveled against him as an individual and as a public figure.
This exercise should necessarily be an assessment of him as a leader of the freedom struggle, as a founding ideologue of the Indian Republic, as the prime minister, as an international statesman and as a leader beloved of the people of India, second only to Gandhi in this century. I can do no better than to recall two remarks made by senior members of the Congress over his role as leader of the freedom struggle. Acharya Kripalani, speaking at a seminar of the Gandhi Vichar Parishad in Wardha in 1954, said Nehru became a prominent leader of the freedom struggle basically because of the colonial mindset of the Indians. "He is an Englishman in Indian clothing." So the respect for him. I was one of the audience to which this remark was made. Though we were very young, we did not accept this assessment. We attributed it to the breaking away of Jayaprakash Narayan and Kriplani from the Congress at the point of time.
The second view was expressed years later by former prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao when I asked him how Nehru came to such prominence in the freedom struggle. He said Congressmen made him their leader because of their conviction that he was committed to the cause of freedom and to the service of the people of India. But he also reminded me that Nehru had worked his way up through municipal elections in Allahabad and through mass movements in Pratapgarh of Uttar Pradesh.
As the ideologue of the Indian Constitution and the Indian polity, Nehru's contributions cannot be denied. It is his implementation of the doctrine of secularism and his approach to harmonizing the diversities of India which seem flawed in retrospect. The basic reasoning of secularism which he put forward was valid -- that a plural, multi-religious, civil society like that of India's could remain harmonious and united only if it is underpinned by religious tolerance and separation of religion from politics. The flaw, however, was that he did not underline the fact that the secular ethos of Indian society was rooted in two factors. That Hindus constituted the majority of the people of the country and that Hindu ethos at the profoundest intellectual and spiritual levels believed deeply in religious tolerance and respect for other religions.
If the majority of people in India were not Hindus, India would not have been a secular country. Instead of emphasising this, Nehru put the Hindu majority somewhat on the defensive, predicating Indian secularism on certification by the minorities, that the majority is secular. This resulted in a certain defensiveness and self-conscious denial of their religious and cultural identity by the Hindu community, which has perhaps made secularism a surface phenomenon in India's socio-political processes.
Similarly, Nehru's decision to reorganise the states on the basis of languages, while being good-intentioned, perhaps germinated the seeds of the present centrifugal territorial demands, affecting the unity of our country. While he was the builder of democratic institutions and conventions, one has to acknowledge that he did not groom a second generation of leadership in the party or the country, nor did he show any awareness of the need for anchoring the Congress in a trained cadre of party workers. He presumed that the commitment and organisational cohesion of the Congress during the freedom struggle would continue which was not to be because the party in a freedom movement is always different from a party in power in terms of ethos and motivations.
It is fashionable now to criticise Nehru's economic policies. He is castigated for making the public sector occupy the commanding heights of Indian economy. He is criticised for not linking up with western market economies.
It has to be remembered that the Indian private sector did not have the resources and motivation to invest in infrastructural sectors of the economy which required long-term investments and gestation periods. More importantly, between 1947 and 1955, all his efforts to get the major western powers involved in infrastructural development did not get a positive response. It was in consequence of this predicament that he entrusted the responsibility of mobilising resources and channelling them to fundamental sectors of the Indian economy to the government and the public sector.
While the decisions that he took seem logical and relevant to those times, the question to be answered is whether he would have continued the same policies had he lived into the '80s. Whatever his faults, he was alert and sensitive to changing domestic and international situations. Who knows, he might have been an equally active participant in the process of economic liberalisation and modernisation?
As an international statesman and foreign minister, there is a questioning of his founding the Non-Aligned Movement and its relevance today. It is true that the movement has not been very effective in safeguarding the interests of its member countries, particularly India. Two facts have to be kept in mind while evaluating Nehru's adherence to the movement. First, he made a distinction between being "non-aligned" and being part of "the Non-Aligned Movement".
He believed in non-alignment as a guiding principle of India's foreign policy so that India is assured of having the freedom of choice in making decisions responsive to its national interests without being subject to external influences. He articulated apprehensions about being part of a movement which in itself could become a bloc of countries. It was Krishna Menon who ultimately persuaded him to make India join the movement, arguing that the parallel interests of the countries of the movement would increase their influence in international transactions.
He did not believe in the non-aligned movement as a dogma. He rightly believed in non-alignment (as distinct from neutrality) as a guiding principle of India's foreign and security policies. Nehru can certainly be faulted for his idealism and belief in the sanctity of international law and agreements, in the light of his decision to go to the United Nations on the Kashmir issue and his faith in morality and goodwill as effective principles in inter-state relations. It was only at the end of 1962 after the military debacle against China that he acknowledged this reality, but it was too late. He can be blamed with Vallabhbhai Patel for the impatience which led to Partition about which Maulana Azad has written. In retrospect, Partition was good. It is preferable to India facing more profound centrifugal alienations than it is facing now.
Nehru was the beloved leader of his people. But when one intermeshes his individual persona with his public persona, one cannot but come to the conclusion that he was for the people, was committed to India's destiny being governed by the people but to a great extent was not "of the people". He was essentially a remote, aristocratic, glamorous and private person. Gandhi, Patel and Ambedkar were perhaps more immersed in the mass identity of Indians.
Regardless of the fault lines, Nehru remains the most important architect of free India. The words of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes come to mind here. "A great man represents a great ganglion in the nerves of society, or to vary the figure, at a strategic point in the campaign of history and his greatness consists in seizing that opportunity and being there at that particular strategic point."
1889: Born in Allahabad. Grows up in an influential political family with European governesses and tutors. 1907-10: Takes the Tripos in Natural Sciences at Trinity College, Cambridge and joins Inner Temple, London.1912: Returns to India. Joins the Allahabad High Court Bar. 1916: Marries Kamala Kaul. Their only child, Indira, is born the next year. 1919: The turning point in his life. While travelling on a train, he overhears General Dyer gloating over the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Nehru vows to fight the British. 1920: Begins public career in the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh). Attends special session of Congress at Calcutta as a delegate. 1930s: Forms the left wing of the Congress -- the Congress Socialist Party. 1937: Post-electoral victory of the Congress, Nehru disagrees to a coalition with the Muslim League. Also refuses to join hands with Fazul Haque's Krishak Party as well, throwing Punjab and Bengal into the waiting arms of the League.1938-39: Openly supports Gandhian philosophy in the Gandhi-S.C. Bose rift. Bose resigns as Congress president. 1946: Declares that the Cabinet Mission Plan would be altered once Congress is in power. Sparks insecurity in the League, leading to Jinnah's call for Direct Action.1947: Nehru becomes the first prime minister of Independent India. 1950s: Charts the course of India's development with his Five-Year Plan. Entrusts responsibility of mobilising resources to the public sector.1950s: Nehru outlines his foreign policy with disarmament as its focus. He spearheads the Non-Aligned Movement. The debacle with China in 1962 makes him realises he cannot ignore brewing tensions in neighbouring countries. Foreign policy is accordingly redefined. 1964: Dies in Delhi.
-- J.N. Dixit is a former foreign secretary, and the last generation to serve under Nehru as foreign minister. Among others, he is the author of Across Borders: 50 Years of India's Foreign Policy.
----------
The India Today Group began with a single magazine in 1975. Today it is India's most diversified media group with interests in magazines, newspaper, television, radio, internet, books and music.The group's portfolio includes 13 magazines, 3 radio stations, 2 TV channels, 1 newspaper, leading classical music label, book publishing and India's only book club. Through its subscribers, readers, viewers and listeners the group reaches out to over 35 million individuals.Underlying all these channels of communication is an ethos of excellence and credibility. It believes in journalism which thrives on telling it the way it is without fear or favour.As part of its corporate social responsibility the group set up a charity fund to help the distressed. Since its inception fours years ago it has helped millions. Another public welfare venture of the group is a school with a holistic approach to learning.In the last 28 years the group has evolved with its namesake. It has recorded history as well as made it. It has reflected public opinion as well as shaped it. It has shared the triumphs as well as the tribulations. It has been India's strongest supporter as well as its harshest critic. And in that sense has delivered on its challenging mission to deliver India.
http://www.india-today.com/itoday/index.html
Comment posted by Creation
at 8/23/2007 6:25:00 PM
Nehru chai peeta tha ?
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Drooly
I look at this DUMMY everyday!Someday she’d turn into a real DEMIGODDESS! LOL
Get this burka girls! It’s ORANGE and it’s JAZZY!
...Phoo-tee-weet?! (Whistling at you with lust in my eyes!) ;-)
Comment posted by Creation
at 8/20/2007 6:07:00 PM
LOL!
HARD CANDY
For three weeks, 14-year-old Hayley Stark has been chatting on-line with ‘Lensmaster319’, a 32-year old fashion photographer, named Jeff. They two agree to meet at a coffee shop called Nighthawks. They hit it off, despite the massive age difference. Hayley appears to flirt with Jeff, and Jeff generally restrains himself, even admitting that he must wait 4-years until he can be with her. But his reservations are apparently not enough to decline when Hayley all but invites herself over to his house. Once at the house, manipulation becomes the name of the game. And pedophile seems to be on the non-traditional side of it.Wednesday, August 15, 2007
61st Independence Day of India
"Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we will redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance... We end today a period of ill fortune, and India discovers herself again."
This is a part of the speech made by Jawaharlal Nehru, as India's first Prime Minister, to the Constituent Assembly, in New Delhi, on the eve of India's Independence -- August 14, 1947.
The Independence Day of India, which is celebrated religiously throughout the Country on the 15th of August every year, holds tremendous ground in the list of national days, since it reminds every Indian about the dawn of a new beginning, the beginning of an era of deliverance from the clutches of British colonialism of more than 200 years. It was on the fateful morning of 15th August 1947 that India was declared independent from British colonialism, and the reins of control were handed over to the leaders of the Country. India’s gaining of independence was a tryst with destiny, as the struggle for freedom was a long and tiresome one, witnessing the sacrifices of many freedom fighters, who laid down their lives on the line. Click here to view the webcast of Independence Day celebrations.
Here's a song for us...Indian expatriates...sing-along:
Lyrics of Aye Mere Pyare Watan
Aye mere pyaare watan aye mere bichhade chaman tuz pe dil kubraan
too hee meree aarajoo, too hee meree aabaru, too hee meree jaan
tere daaman se jo aaye, un hawaaon ko salaam
choom loo main us jubaan ko jis pe aaye teraa naam
sab se pyaaree subah teree, sab se rangee teree shaam
maan kaa dil banake kabhee seene se lag jaataa hain too
aaur kabhee nanheesee betee ban ke yaad aataa hain too
jitanaa yaad aataa hain too, utanaa tadapaataa hain too
chhodakar teree jameen ko door aa pahuche hain hum
fir bhee hain yahee hain tamannaa tere jarro kee kasam
hum jahaan paidaa huye, us jagah hee nikale ye dam
Jai Hind!
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
My Comments: CEH, LPT and ECTT
EC-Council's Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)
EC-Council's Licensed Penetration Tester (LPT)
EC-Council's Tiger Team (ECTT)
That’s RIDICULOUS! (Ethical) Hacking is NOT some certification! (Ethical) Hacking is a mind-set. You’ve to have that element in you…it’s inborn…innate….No Ethical Hacking BOOT CAMP could ever make an (Ethical) Hacker out of a ROOKIE! Sounds Old School eh? I know. But it’s true. Undeniably.
(Ethical) Hacking is 75% Low-tech (Social Engineering etc.) -- 25% Console Skills.
So—go back to BBSs…UNIX Admins...Snake Charmers and Con Artists…you’d probably learn something substantial.
15-days, 3000 Dollars -- Ethical Hacking BOOT CAMP is ZILCH!
By the way, Information Security is a MYTH. Every device / INDIVIDUAL is vulnerable and could be compromised / conned. No infallible Information Security Gurus.
So . . . .
Let's Log Off -- now.
Let's go back to . . . .
Homing Pigeons
Kiteflying
Shady nook under that old ban'yan tree . . . cozy, perfect place for reading
Let's Log Off -- now.
See you real soon comrades -- in my Tree House! :-)
EC-Council's Licensed Penetration Tester (LPT)
EC-Council's Tiger Team (ECTT)
That’s RIDICULOUS! (Ethical) Hacking is NOT some certification! (Ethical) Hacking is a mind-set. You’ve to have that element in you…it’s inborn…innate….No Ethical Hacking BOOT CAMP could ever make an (Ethical) Hacker out of a ROOKIE! Sounds Old School eh? I know. But it’s true. Undeniably.
(Ethical) Hacking is 75% Low-tech (Social Engineering etc.) -- 25% Console Skills.
So—go back to BBSs…UNIX Admins...Snake Charmers and Con Artists…you’d probably learn something substantial.
15-days, 3000 Dollars -- Ethical Hacking BOOT CAMP is ZILCH!
By the way, Information Security is a MYTH. Every device / INDIVIDUAL is vulnerable and could be compromised / conned. No infallible Information Security Gurus.
So . . . .
Let's Log Off -- now.
Let's go back to . . . .
Homing Pigeons
Kiteflying
Shady nook under that old ban'yan tree . . . cozy, perfect place for reading
Let's Log Off -- now.
See you real soon comrades -- in my Tree House! :-)
Comment posted by Creation
at 8/23/2007 6:28:00 PM
Do you really have a tree house ?
Monday, August 13, 2007
EC-Council Tiger Team (ECTT)
EC-Council Tiger Team (ECTT)
EC-Council’s Tiger Team is made up of Licensed Penetration Testers from different disciplines. The Tiger Team consists of Database Penetration Testers, Firewall Penetration Testers, Cisco Penetration Testers, Oracle Penetration Testers, Report writers, etc. A Chief Penetration Tester heads the Tiger Team. EC-Council’s Tiger Team consists of Licensed Penetration Testers around the world.
EC-Council’s Tiger Team is made up of Licensed Penetration Testers from different disciplines. The Tiger Team consists of Database Penetration Testers, Firewall Penetration Testers, Cisco Penetration Testers, Oracle Penetration Testers, Report writers, etc. A Chief Penetration Tester heads the Tiger Team. EC-Council’s Tiger Team consists of Licensed Penetration Testers around the world.
How do I join EC-Council’s Tiger Team?
Penetration Testers can join EC-Council’s Tiger Team after they obtain the LPT license. Once the penetration tester has received his /her license he or she would share a common platform with other LPTs and be a part of EC-Council’s Tiger Team through EC-Council’s member portal for LPT professionals.
My company requires Penetration Testing services?
EC-Council Tiger Team is available to conduct penetration testing services in your organization. We follow strict rules of engagement and offer complete testing services. Please contact us directly if you need our penetration testing consulting services.
EC-Council Tiger Team is available to conduct penetration testing services in your organization. We follow strict rules of engagement and offer complete testing services. Please contact us directly if you need our penetration testing consulting services.
EC-Council's Licensed Penetration Tester
EC-Council's Licensed Penetration Tester
The Most Prestigious Certification for Penetration Testing Professionals
Introduction
EC-Council’s Licensed Penetration Tester (LPT) is a natural evolution and extended value addition to its series of security related professional certifications. The Licensed Penetration Tester standardizes the knowledge base for penetration testing professionals by incorporating the best practices followed by experienced experts in the field.
The objective of a Licensed Penetration Tester is to ensure that each professional licensed by EC-Council follow a strict code of ethics, is exposed to the best practices in the domain of penetration testing and aware of all compliance requirements required by the industry.
Unlike a normal security certification, the licensed penetration tester is a program which trains security professionals to analyze the security posture of a network exhaustively and recommend corrective measures authoritatively. EC-Council's license vouches for their professionalism and expertise thereby making these professionals more sought after by organizations and consulting firms globally.
Requirements
Achieve Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) Certification.
Achieve EC-Council Certified Security Analyst (ECSA) certification.
Complete LPT Training Criteria:
Fill up and submit LPT Application form with payment of USD 500.00.
Complete LPT practical assignment
Documentation on criminal background check, or an authentication from an investigation agency absolving a criminal history. Click here for police verification in your country
Resume with detailed professional experience, previous certification /certificates and references for verification to be submitted.
Agree to EC-Council Code of Ethics.
Attend LPT Workshop at selected EC-Council’s Accredited Training Centers around the world
Achieve EC-Council Certified Security Analyst (ECSA) certification.
Complete LPT Training Criteria:
Fill up and submit LPT Application form with payment of USD 500.00.
Complete LPT practical assignment
Documentation on criminal background check, or an authentication from an investigation agency absolving a criminal history. Click here for police verification in your country
Resume with detailed professional experience, previous certification /certificates and references for verification to be submitted.
Agree to EC-Council Code of Ethics.
Attend LPT Workshop at selected EC-Council’s Accredited Training Centers around the world
Mail the application to:
EC-Council Certification DepartmentEC-Council 3819 Osuna NEAlbuquerque, NM 87109 USA Tel: 1-505-764-5975 Fax: 1-505-212.0667
Benefits
EC-Council's endorsement as a licensed penetration testing professional and allows them to practice as penetration testing consultant internationally.
Industry acceptance as a legal and ethical security professional
Access to proprietary EC-Council software, templates and penetration testing methodologies.
License to practice and conduct security testing in organizations accredited by EC-Council.
Acquire knowledge from experienced hands, on penetration testing methodologies and latest penetration testing practices.
LPT Training
LPT is a professional certification that is used as a yard stick to measure penetration testing skills. A candidate can avail training to become a Licensed Penetration Tester by attending EC-Council’s CEH training program. The duration for the LPT training program is a total of three days. All of the LPT courses come with high quality supporting material, aids and resources.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Shanty: A Hundred Years Ago
A hundred years is a very long time,
Ho, yes, ho!
A hundred years is a very long time,
A hundred years ago.
They used to think that pigs could fly
Ho, yes, ho!
I don't believe it, no, not I.
A hundred years ago.
They thought he moon was made of cheese.
Ho, yes, ho!
You can believe it if you please.
A hundred years ago.
They thought the stars were set a-light,
Ho, yes, ho!
By some good angel every night,
A hundred years ago.
They hung a man for making steam,
They cast his body in the stream.
A hundred years ago.
A hundred years is a very long time,
Ho, yes, ho!
A hundred years is a very long time,
A hundred years ago.
Ho, yes, ho!
A hundred years is a very long time,
A hundred years ago.
They used to think that pigs could fly
Ho, yes, ho!
I don't believe it, no, not I.
A hundred years ago.
They thought he moon was made of cheese.
Ho, yes, ho!
You can believe it if you please.
A hundred years ago.
They thought the stars were set a-light,
Ho, yes, ho!
By some good angel every night,
A hundred years ago.
They hung a man for making steam,
They cast his body in the stream.
A hundred years ago.
A hundred years is a very long time,
Ho, yes, ho!
A hundred years is a very long time,
A hundred years ago.
What are shanties
Around the turn of the century steamships entered service. They replace more and more sail ships. With the demise of these sail ships, also called tall ships, the demise of the so called shanties set in. These rhythmic working songs where sung during e.g. the raising or trimming of the sails, during the raising of the anchor and during the hard and monotonous work on the pumps.There are more than one explanations about the word "Shanty". One of those says it is a degeneration of the English word "chant", this means something like singing, a definition for negro songs. An other explanation says that it is a degeneration of the France word "chanter". The france speaking negro-ship workman in New-Orleans used to pronounce this as "chantez.
Apart from working songs are also ballads sung. These ballades describe the hard life on board the tall ships, about the arbitrariness by the officers, about the good or bad properties of the ship or about the emotional links with the shore. Some of these ballads started life as working songs by wood-cutters or gold diggers. Others were sung by negroes loading and unloading cargo. In general we can say that shanties are those songs that support the work. The rhythm of these songs is important.
The rest, mostly melancholy songs (fore-bitters), can be described as sea songs. Both categories give a clear picture of life on board the international sailing fleet.
Types of shanties
There are two main kinds of shanties. First are the work shanties that are divided into short drag (short haul), long drag (halyard), windlass, and capstan songs. Second are the forecastle or fo'c'sle shanties. These are often ballads or tell of some historical event, and take their name from the part of the ship where the singing usually took place, the forecastle, which was the crew's quarters.
There are two main kinds of shanties. First are the work shanties that are divided into short drag (short haul), long drag (halyard), windlass, and capstan songs. Second are the forecastle or fo'c'sle shanties. These are often ballads or tell of some historical event, and take their name from the part of the ship where the singing usually took place, the forecastle, which was the crew's quarters.
Short Drag Shanty
Short drag or short haul shanties were for tasks that required quick pulls over a relatively short time, such as shortening or unfurling sails. When working in rough weather these songs kept the sailors in a rhythm that got the job done safely and efficiently.
Long Drag Shanty
Long drag or halyard shanties were for work that required more setup time between pulls. It was used for heavy labour that went on for a long time, for example, raising or lowering a heavy sail. This type of shanty gave the sailors a rest in between the hauls, a chance to get a breath and a better grip, and coordinated their efforts to make the most of the group’s strength for the next pull. This type of shanty usually has a chorus at the end of each line.
Capstan Shanty
Capstan (or windlass) shanties were used for long or repetitive tasks that simply need a sustained rhythm. Raising or lowering the anchor by winding up the heavy anchor chain was their prime use. This winding was done by walking round and round pushing at the capstan bars, a long and continuous effort. These are the most developed of the work shanties.
Forecastle Shanties
In the evening, when the work was done, it was time to relax. Singing was a favored method of entertainment. These songs came from places visited, reminding the sailors of home or foreign lands. Naturally the sailors loved to sing songs of love, adventure, pathos, famous men, and battles. Of course after all the hard work just plain funny songs topped their list.
Whaling Shanties
Life on a whaler was worse than on any other type of vessel; your life might be shorter on a pirate’s ship, but the work wouldn't be so hard! Voyages typically lasted from two to three years, and sailor’s lives were filled with unrelenting, dangerous work and the ever-present stench of whale oil. Whalers risked maiming and death when giving chase in small boats that were often overturned or even smashed by the whale’s tail in the fight! Songs helped give these men the will to go on in the face of their dreadful circumstances.
We Shall Overcome
1.
We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome some day
CHORUS:
Oh, deep in my heart
I do believe
We shall overcome some day
2.
We'll walk hand in hand
We'll walk hand in hand
We'll walk hand in hand some day
CHORUS
3.
We shall all be free
We shall all be free
We shall all be free some day
CHORUS
4.
We are not afraid
We are not afraid
We are not afraid some day
CHORUS
5.
We are not alone
We are not alone
We are not alone some day
CHORUS
6.
The whole wide world around
The whole wide world around
The whole wide world around some day
CHORUS
7.
We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome some day
CHORUS
History of an American Folk Song
"We Shall Overcome" became particularly popular in the 1960s, during the Civil Rights movement in America, after Pete Seeger picked it up, adapted it, and taught it to his audiences to sing. However, the song had a half century (or so) to evovle and expand its meaning before Seeger and Joan Baez popularized it during the folk revival.
The melody dates back to before the Civil War, from a song called "No More Auction Block For Me." Originally, the lyrics were "I'll overcome someday," which dates back to a turn-of-the-20th-century song by the Reverend Charles Tindley of Philadelphia.
The song didn't appear on a large scale until 1946, during a labor strike at the American Tobacco Company. One of the women striking that day – Lucille Simmons – began singing slowly, "Deep in my heart I do believe we'll overcome some day."
Zilphia Horton, whose husband was the co-founder of the Highlander Folk School (aka Highlander Research and Education Center), learned the song from Simmons and, a year later, taught it to folk singer Pete Seeger.
The adaptation of the song to its current lyric is often attributed to Pete Seeger, but there is some debate over whether Seeger changed the lyric to "We Shall Overcome," or whether this was the doing of others at the Highlander School. At any rate, Seeger taught the song to other folksingers and, a decade later (1959), the song was brought back to the Highlander School.
Since then, "We Shall Overcome" has spread from folksinger to folksinger, through protests and peace rallies, song circles, and open mics. It was recorded by Joan Baez in 1963 and became a major anthem of the Civil Rights movement.
Lyrics derived from Charles Tindley's gospel song "I'll Overcome Some Day" (1900), and opening and closing melody from the 19th-century spiritual "No More Auction Block for Me" (a song that dates to before the Civil War). According to Professor Donnell King of Pellissippi State Technical Community College (in Knoxville, Tenn.), "We Shall Overcome" was adapted from these gospel songs by "Guy Carawan, Candy Carawan, and a couple of other people associated with the Highlander Research and Education Center, currently located near Knoxville, Tennessee. I have in my possession copies of the lyrics that include a brief history of the song, and a notation that royalties from the song go to support the Highlander Center."
SOURCES:
Eileen Southern, The Music of Black Americans: A History, Second Edition (Norton, 1971)
We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome some day
CHORUS:
Oh, deep in my heart
I do believe
We shall overcome some day
2.
We'll walk hand in hand
We'll walk hand in hand
We'll walk hand in hand some day
CHORUS
3.
We shall all be free
We shall all be free
We shall all be free some day
CHORUS
4.
We are not afraid
We are not afraid
We are not afraid some day
CHORUS
5.
We are not alone
We are not alone
We are not alone some day
CHORUS
6.
The whole wide world around
The whole wide world around
The whole wide world around some day
CHORUS
7.
We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome some day
CHORUS
History of an American Folk Song
"We Shall Overcome" became particularly popular in the 1960s, during the Civil Rights movement in America, after Pete Seeger picked it up, adapted it, and taught it to his audiences to sing. However, the song had a half century (or so) to evovle and expand its meaning before Seeger and Joan Baez popularized it during the folk revival.
The melody dates back to before the Civil War, from a song called "No More Auction Block For Me." Originally, the lyrics were "I'll overcome someday," which dates back to a turn-of-the-20th-century song by the Reverend Charles Tindley of Philadelphia.
The song didn't appear on a large scale until 1946, during a labor strike at the American Tobacco Company. One of the women striking that day – Lucille Simmons – began singing slowly, "Deep in my heart I do believe we'll overcome some day."
Zilphia Horton, whose husband was the co-founder of the Highlander Folk School (aka Highlander Research and Education Center), learned the song from Simmons and, a year later, taught it to folk singer Pete Seeger.
The adaptation of the song to its current lyric is often attributed to Pete Seeger, but there is some debate over whether Seeger changed the lyric to "We Shall Overcome," or whether this was the doing of others at the Highlander School. At any rate, Seeger taught the song to other folksingers and, a decade later (1959), the song was brought back to the Highlander School.
Since then, "We Shall Overcome" has spread from folksinger to folksinger, through protests and peace rallies, song circles, and open mics. It was recorded by Joan Baez in 1963 and became a major anthem of the Civil Rights movement.
Lyrics derived from Charles Tindley's gospel song "I'll Overcome Some Day" (1900), and opening and closing melody from the 19th-century spiritual "No More Auction Block for Me" (a song that dates to before the Civil War). According to Professor Donnell King of Pellissippi State Technical Community College (in Knoxville, Tenn.), "We Shall Overcome" was adapted from these gospel songs by "Guy Carawan, Candy Carawan, and a couple of other people associated with the Highlander Research and Education Center, currently located near Knoxville, Tennessee. I have in my possession copies of the lyrics that include a brief history of the song, and a notation that royalties from the song go to support the Highlander Center."
SOURCES:
Eileen Southern, The Music of Black Americans: A History, Second Edition (Norton, 1971)
Comment posted by Creation
at 8/23/2007 6:31:00 PM
That song reminded me of that hindi thing kiya tha ... yeah! Hum ho gay kamyab ..hum ho gay kamyab ek din ...lol
Saturday, August 11, 2007
vital statistics -- version # 2
What's your name?
Maqsood Qureshi a.k.a. Charles Sobhraj...the Lady-killer and Alpha Geek
Where do you live?
Oh--quite nearby--you know . . . South-eastern tip of the Arabian peninsula between 22º 50 and 26º north latitude and between 51º and 56º 25 east longitude. :-)
Define yourself in a few words.
Idealistic. Misfit. Lounge Lizard. Eccentric. Pervert. Scarecrow. Egghead. Skirt Chaser.
A pet peeve?
Profanity. Shock Jocks (Radio Disc Jockeys).
What do you love doing?
Reading. Ethical Hacking. Sleeping. MMS-Sex.
What do you love about Hyderabad?
Its heritage.
What do you hate about Hyderabad?
People: their mind-set.
Dream date.
Florence Vanida Faivre
Your dream?
I want to be a pilot.
Favorite movies?
Parallel Cinema or anything starring Dilip Kumar + Anthony Hopkins + Robert Redford.
Favorite bedroom line?
#1 (Clonk!) It's a cinch! He'd have bought you biometric Chastity Belt! ;-)
#2 Baby show me how you can go from Zero to Bitch in 6.8 Seconds!
#3 Open sesame, Marjaneh! ;-)
The wildest thing you have done.
(Whiz-bang!) Hahahaha! So you thought RAPEX could save you eh? ;-)
People who have inspired me:
Osho. Charles Sobhraj.
Hobbies.
Polo. Muay Thai. Flying. Horse Riding. Reading et cetera.
Your anthem.
I'll tell you later.
What's your favorite poison?
I believe in assisted suicide.
Think you have the style, spunk and attitude to be a Rocking Rookie?
Postscript: Don't be put off . . . This is just for a goof. :-)
Maqsood Qureshi a.k.a. Charles Sobhraj...the Lady-killer and Alpha Geek
Where do you live?
Oh--quite nearby--you know . . . South-eastern tip of the Arabian peninsula between 22º 50 and 26º north latitude and between 51º and 56º 25 east longitude. :-)
Define yourself in a few words.
Idealistic. Misfit. Lounge Lizard. Eccentric. Pervert. Scarecrow. Egghead. Skirt Chaser.
A pet peeve?
Profanity. Shock Jocks (Radio Disc Jockeys).
What do you love doing?
Reading. Ethical Hacking. Sleeping. MMS-Sex.
What do you love about Hyderabad?
Its heritage.
What do you hate about Hyderabad?
People: their mind-set.
Dream date.
Florence Vanida Faivre
Your dream?
I want to be a pilot.
Favorite movies?
Parallel Cinema or anything starring Dilip Kumar + Anthony Hopkins + Robert Redford.
Favorite bedroom line?
#1 (Clonk!) It's a cinch! He'd have bought you biometric Chastity Belt! ;-)
#2 Baby show me how you can go from Zero to Bitch in 6.8 Seconds!
#3 Open sesame, Marjaneh! ;-)
The wildest thing you have done.
(Whiz-bang!) Hahahaha! So you thought RAPEX could save you eh? ;-)
People who have inspired me:
Osho. Charles Sobhraj.
Hobbies.
Polo. Muay Thai. Flying. Horse Riding. Reading et cetera.
Your anthem.
I'll tell you later.
What's your favorite poison?
I believe in assisted suicide.
Think you have the style, spunk and attitude to be a Rocking Rookie?
Postscript: Don't be put off . . . This is just for a goof. :-)
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