Archive for the 'Politics (India)' Category
New Delhi: In a one-off case, the Supreme Court has ruled that the government has the power to ban or forfeit any publication that endangers public order, even if it means restricting the freedom of expression guaranteed by the Indian Constitution.
“Government has the power to confiscate material, which contain references that could spark violence,” the Bench comprising Justices B P Singh and H S Bedi observed while upholding the Karnataka government’s decision to ban a vernacular novel in the state.
The ruling comes in the wake of a ban imposed by Karnataka government on a novel titled Dharmakaarana which allegedly contains derogatory references to a 12th century saint Basaveshwara. The novel was banned in 1995 by the state government following a public outcry.
However, author P V Narayana and others challenged the ban in the Karnataka High Court, which upheld the government’s decision. Following this, an appeal was filed in the Supreme Court.
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Read the rest of the article here.
So, here it is. No freedom of speech in India.
India, Culture (India), Politics (India) | 6.05.2007 12:10 | No Comments
Chennai: It’s a film that is bound to be noticed, if not for anything else, at least its title which is Kelvikkuri or the question mark. A movie on custodial deaths, Kelvikkuri has managed to get on the wrong side of the Censor Board, which has questioned the very premise of the film.
The Board has refused to certify the film claiming that it portrays the police in a bad light. But the film’s director Jailani feels otherwise about it.
“They are banning it for a reason that I think is unreasonable and that hurts all the more,” Jailani says.
Read the rest of the article here
This is about censorship, but stuff that the censor board is trying to censor is nothing really. How can something like this be censored? Is this North Korea or some place?
India, Culture (India), Politics (India) | 2.05.2007 13:39 | No Comments
I’m slightly getting tried of living in India, and when I read news articles like this, I just sigh.
Delhi: A Muzaffarpur court has issued summons to actors Aishwarya Rai and Hrithik Roshan to appear before it on May 30 in connection with a kissing scene in the hit flick Dhoom 2.
District Judge H K Shrivastava ordered issuing of summons to them after taking cognizance of a complaint petition filed by an advocate Sudhir Kumar Ojha.
In his petition, Ojha alleged Aishwarya, Hrithik, producer of the film Aditya Chopra and director Sanjay Gardi had hurt the sensibilities of the audiences by the ‘obscene’ kissing scene.
Read the rest of the article here
I don’t know how to respond to this. Stupidity? Dumb? Ridiculous? I watched this movie, and I can assure you all that it was nothing special. Two sets of lips touched for a second and they parted; that was about it.
India, Culture (India), Politics (India) | 28.04.2007 5:42 | No Comments
New Delhi: The infamous kiss between Hollywood star Richard Gere and actress Shilpa Shetty at a public function in Delhi earlier this month has landed the two in legal trouble.
A Jaipur court on Thursday issued arrest warrants against the duo for their public kiss, which had evoked strong protests in several cities.
Jaipur city Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Dinesh Gupta issued the warrants on the basis of a PIL filed by Jaipur resident Poonam Chand Bhandari.
The controversial incident, which the organisers later described as an unplanned and harmless dance-and-kiss spoof, took place at an AIDS event organised by philanthropist Parmeshwar Godrej.
During the function, Gere jokingly grabbed Shilpa and planted several kisses on her cheek, to howls of appreciation from an audience, which mainly comprised lorry drivers.
Read the rest of the article here
Well, stupidity is everywhere. Making a big deal out of this itself was pretty damn, but … now, lawsuits are being filed. This is crazy. Oh, this also tells us another universal truth. Lawyers are total scumbags and idiots. They should’ve just dismissed this instead of actually filing out papers to file lawsuits. *** sigh ***
India, Culture (India), Politics (India) | 26.04.2007 4:19 | No Comments
Madurai VC accused of accepting bribe
New Delhi: A senior police official said in Madurai on Friday that the Vice Chancellor (VC) of Madurai Kamaraj University has been accused of accepting Rs 2 lakh from a professor as illegal gratification for appointing him as the Dean.
Head of the Department of English (Research) Prof M Kannan has lodged a complaint alleging that the VC Maruthamuthu accepted Rs 2 lakh from him a month ago, Superintendent of Police (Madurai Rural), T S Anbu told PTI.
Kannan said, in the complaint, he had more than 20 years of experience in English language research and had approached the VC with a request to appoint him as the Dean.
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Source
This is a very strange news article. See, the thing is that corruptions are everywhere in India. Everyone bribes everyone else. So, news about corruptions are not exactly news. There is nothing surprising about those news stories, and I don’t see why anyone needs to report those stories. This is why this news article is very strange.
India, Politics (India) | 9.03.2007 5:55 | No Comments
Shortly after I moved to India, reading about the country on various websites has become one of my hobbies. One of articles that I read was about India’s Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, and I was pretty impressed when I learned about his background and career. The following is a rough outline of his background and career.
- First Class Honours degree in Economics, University of Cambridge, (1957)
- Punjab University, Chandigarh, India
- Senior Lecturer, Economics (1957-1959)
- Professor of International Trade (1969-1971)
- Reader (1959-1963)
- Professor (1963-1965)
- D. Phil in Economics, Nuffield College at Oxford University, (1962)
- Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi
- Honorary Professor (1996)
- Chief, Financing for Trade Section, UNCTAD, United Nations Secretariat, New York
- 1966 : Economic Affairs Officer 1966
- Economic Advisor, Ministry of Foreign Trade, India (1971-1972)
- Chief Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance, India, (1972-1976)
- Honorary Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (1976)
- Director, Reserve Bank of India (1976-1980)
- Director, Industrial Development Bank of India (1976-1980)
… a bunch of high government posts.
(He also formerly served in the International Monetary Fund.)
Source
Punjabi is his native tongue and he is an educated Indian person who spent much time in north India, so I’m 99% certain that he speaks Hindi also. He obviously speaks English, so he speaks three languages at the very least.
Looking at this, I’d say that he is the kind of person who would be going after Nobel Prize if he were in academia. If he were in the corporate world, he would be running one of the top 10 companies in the world as CEO. He lead India’s Economic Reform in 1991 and I was getting the impression that India has made great progress economically and politically since the reform took place.
However, I recently learned that his Economic Reform didn’t exactly make everyone happy. I was talking with a friend of mine, who is an Indian person, a couple of days ago, and Dr. Manmohan Singh actually destroyed his business many years ago. To be clear, my friend was not doing anything illegal or shady; Dr. Manmohan Singh’s Economic Reform was so radical in many ways that it actually destroyed so many businesses.
Generally speaking, I do not have high opinions about politicians, but when I learned about Dr. Manmohan Singh’s career background, I was impressed; however, maybe he is just one of many politicians after all. I don’t want to jump right into that conclusion without learning more about Dr. Manmohan Singh, but I am being lead to believe that politicians are after all politicians no matter where you find them in the world. They are power-hungry and corrupt; it’s not exaggeration to say that they love money, young girls (and young boys), drugs, alcohol, fame and power more than any gangsters and celebrities.
India, Politics (India) | 27.02.2007 7:20 | No Comments