The case of two terrorists

Ajmal Kasab one of the terrorists caught during 26/11 attack on Mumbai was hanged this morning at 7:30 am IST. The execution was carried out after nearly 4 years of the attack on Mumbai. Earlier this week Kasab's mercy petition was rejected by President Pranab. Immediately after the news of Kasab's hanging came through news channels started to praise President Pranab of showing resolve. News channels also reported Mr. Salman Khurshid saying that the Govt of India has sent a strong message to terrorists by hanging the terrorist.

Keeping the adjectives aside. I really can't understand the stance of news channels when they say that President Pranab showed bravery. What is the bravery is rejecting a mercy petition? An act of bravery was shown by the people who caught Kasab and also by the numerous armed forces who fought the terrorists during the 26/11 attack. Just rejecting a mercy petition is no act of bravery!! There was no other choice, the public perception on the delay of the justice to the victims of 26/11 was quite strong and the hanging of Kasab should have happened quite soon.

On 13th December 2001, 5 gunmen infiltrated the heart of Indian democracy (The Parliament). The attack led to the death of a dozen people, including one civilian. In the investigations that followed Afzal Guru was found guilty was sentenced to death. It is nearly 11 years since the attack on the Indian Parliament, but Afzal Guru is yet to be hanged. Be it the earlier President or the incumbent one, none have taken a decision on rejecting his mercy petition.

In my opinion, the only reason for the difference in the treatment of these two terrorists are that one is an Indian while the other is a Pakistani. The hanging of a Pakistani terrorist wouldn't upset the vote-bank, while the hanging of the Indian terrorist would seriously affect the vote-bank. Thus, the Country cannot expect Afzal Guru to be hanged anytime soon. The only message UPA has sent out on hanging Kasab is that only those who do not have political support will be hanged!!

2G auction and media spin

The just concluded 2G auction for 22 licenses fetched the Govt of India INR 9250 Crores. The Govt and the ever obliging media are potraying this as a damp squib auction. Few of the *Usual Suspects* in the media have already started to use this information to state that the CAG's 2G's presumptive loss of 1.76 lakh crores as incorrect and thereby the 2G scam never actually happened!

Firstly everyone has to get their facts right. Mr. A Raja sold 122 licenses of 2G for INR 9150 Crores and this auction was only for 22 licenses of the total 122. If the auctioning of just 22 licenses could have fetched nearly 100 crores more than what Mr. A Raja sold the licenses for, how could this auction be stated as damp squib?

One thing is pretty clear, all those journalists calling this auction as damp squib are absolutely mediocre as they do not have any understanding of the field which they are reporting or they can be very well be assumed to be Govt stooges/Govt propagandists.

If only there wasn't the Internet, everyone would have believed what was being spoken on the "National" media. Thank god for that (Now Rahul Gandhi would want us to thank Congress for this because as per his speech earlier this month, Computers were brought to India by the Congress Govt!)

Arnab Goswami ko gussa kyon aata hai?

On 6th November 2012, a letter written by Ram Jethmalani to Lal Krishna Advani found its way into TimesNow studios. This was apparently leaked by someone within Jethmalani's or Advani's office. TimesNow whole day started to air details of this letter and also an exclusive interview which they managed to secure with Ram Jethmalani.

The contents of the letter were related to Ram Jethmalani and the alleged disagreements of Jaswant Singh, Yashwant Sinha and Shatrugan Sinha on the continuation of Nitin Gadkari as the President of BJP. It must be noted that Mahesh Jethmalani (son of Ram Jethmalani) had earlier resigned from a party post in protest against the continuation of Nitin Gadkari as the President of the party.

Over the past month, TimesNow has been very active in alleging numerous wrong doings on the part of Nitin Gadkari. There have been numerous reports that Purti Group of which Nitin Gadkari is a share holder has numerous companies registered with shoddy addresses (this is the only clear allegation which I could understand). There  have been other allegations from IAC activist Arvind Kejriwal on land grabbing. These charges however were proved to be too weak and shoddy by the CONgress leaning "National" media.

For his point, Nitin Gadkari has said that he is ready for any probe by any organization into his allegations. And most BJP leaders decided to support him and wanted him to continue in office as the President of the party.

If you would ask me I would say, that was a really foolish of them. After all the same party had forced Yeddurappa to quit during the Lokyukta allegations, knowing fully well that the Lokayukta Hegde's investigation was shoddy and there were a lot of shortcomings of his reports when he hadn't found SM Krishna or the JD(S) CM guilty for any of the coal allocations during their tenure. Secondly, BJP being the party with difference, their leaders are expected to behave better, so Nitin Gadkari should have quit and stayed aside until the investigation was over. But that this is only my opinion.

Now to consider the other side of the spectrum.  It is still not clear what is the alleged wrong doing of Nitin Gadkari? If it is a case of only shoddy addresses, what are various investigating agencies of the Government doing till date? Why haven't any of these companies found anything against Gadkari or his companies over the past 1 month. Surely this would have been the nail on the coffin? There could be two possibilities to this question. Either that there is nothing that the Government agencies can find against Nitin Gadkari, or the Govt(UPA) would like Nitin Gadkari to remain in office as this will take focus away from the corruption allegations against the first family and CONgress party. With an obliging "National" media both of these are very easily possible answers!

BJP grapevine has it that, this actually is a faction war to take control of the BJP Presidency. One faction led which I believe has the blessing of Advani and the other faction (who would like NaMo to be PM candidate). And looks like for now a temporary truce has been agreed. Things will change after the Gujarat polls. The agreement is that even if Nitin Gadkari does resign now, it will not reflect well on the BJP as a CONgress leaning media, will provide a complete new twist to the decision and turn the wave in favour of CONgress party.

The same things happened after BSY resigned and the party is now in tatters in Karnataka. It must also be noted that all cases against BSY fell like nine pins when the matters reached the Karnataka courts. But the perception that came out of that fiasco was not really good for the BJP. Given that BJP/RSS decided to back BJP in the first place, they must continue to do so until there is something serious proved against him or till the end of his Presidency term, which ends later this year. BJP must deal with their President on their own terms and not based on the agenda set by the media!

Now this brings me back to Arnab Goswami. For the past 2 hrs he has been showing his viewers how little air time he provides for non-congress speakers on the debates. He has been leading from the  front in a shouting and interruption competition in which his performance is Sergei Bubka-ish!

But what I really don't get is this? Who is Mr Nitin Gadkari? What public post does he hold? If he remains the President of BJP, how will the common man be affected? Why is Arnab Goswami so angry with Nitin Gadkari continuing office? Why hasn't Arnab Goswami shown the same anger against the more serious allegation of corruption against the sitting ministers, Presidents and Secretaries of Congress Party who still continue to hold some public post. Why doesn't he ask such probing questions to CONgress leaders on his debate? How did he manage to welcome back AMS with a smiling face? Will he care to answer?

Kargil War and FDI in retail

"We supported BJP led NDA during the Kargil War, but the BJP does not support FDI in retail" screamed Rahul Gandhi in the Congress organised ?Mega? rally at Ramlila maidan today.

Now that statement is really something! Why you ask? Well because even if Joseph Goebbels was alive today, he wouldn't have been successful in helping the Congress convert this statement of "Yuvraj" into a political propaganda!

Whether or not Congress supported NDA during the Kargil war is debatable. They have consistently refused to celebrate Kargil Vijay Diwas since they came into power in 2004 and you can read here on their activities during the Kargil War.

During World War II, Britain was run by a coalition Government headed by Winston Churchill (a Conservative) and his deputy was Clement Atlee (from Labour - The principal opponent party). Supporting the Country was/is the only the only choice any patriotic party will have during a war.

What I really don't get in Rahul Gandhi's statement is that did Congress really have another choice during the Kargil war? Is he suggesting that supporting Pakistan was an option? To call this statement of Rahul as absurd would be an understatement. Even school kids would have a better understanding or correlation than Congress's *Yuvaraj*.

What is more disgusting is that an erudite like Shashi Tharoor fawning over Rahul Gandhi's speech and oratory skills today (But then he stopped being an erudite when he joined the Congress party back in 2009)! Has Mr. Tharoor even considered that he was completing his PHd when Rahul was running down around in his nappies. Or this is his balancing act to remain as an MoS?

"National" English channels say that Congress is on a comeback mode! Really? the only comeback I can see in Congress is the shameless re-introduction of all people who were forced to resign for some issue or other in the past 2 years. be it Mr. Tharoor or Dr AM Singhvi, Congress has shamelessly brought them back.

Also I am really impressed with the battery of great orators that Congress brought out today to showcase their *reforms* agenda! Seriously guys, you guys started the rally with Rahul Gandhi's speech followed by Sonia Gandhi reading out from a paper and then followed it up with MMS the robot?? Manish Tewari would have done a better job single-handedly!!

And finally as every day goes by, the shameless "National" English channels can't hold their horses for Rahul Gandhi to become the PM of India(even though Rahul Gandhi's contributions to both Congress and the Nation has been "a Kapil Sibal"), while I am growing in confidence to a statement someone made on Niticentral. "Rahul Gandhi is actually an avatar of Vishnu who has been born to ensure the destruction of dynasty in India!"