Friday, August 17, 2007

MORE SEPRATIST THAN THE SEPARATISTS-CNN IBN,INDIAN EXPRESS AND CSDS

Learn the art of lying from Yogendra Yadav and Sanjay Kumar.A dash of spice from Sagarika Ghose and the plate of lies presented by Rajdeep Sardesai and Co.
A CNN IBN Circus presentation,showing on a TV Screen in your house.
CNN-IBN, DAWN, INDIAN EXPRESS POLL on KASHMIR/INDIA/ PAKISTAN

What about Poll results from POK and Ladakh?
by Kshmendra Kaul

Significant geographical areas that seem to have been left out in the Poll are Ladakh and what is called Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) in India.

Part of POK is referred to by Pakistan as Azad Kashmir. Contrary to the Indian position, the geographical regions of Gilgit and Baltistan are considered by Pakistan as not being a part of "Disputed Kashmir".

Unless there are some unknown developments, Ladakh is very much a part of "disputed Kashmir".

Why these exclusions? The Poll loses it's credibility by not presenting viewpoints that encompass all of the disputed "Kashmir".

What makes it stranger is that Poll results from Jammu and Srinagar are highlighted in the summaries. One would have thought that such summaries will also be presented from Ladakh, Muzzafarabad, Mirpur, Gilgit etc

Is it being suggested that Jammu and Kashmir are disputed areas but Ladakh and POK (including Gilgit and Baltistan) are not? Do the people of Ladakh and POK have no say in the "Kashmir" dispute?

What is surprising is that three Indian organisations CSDS,Indian Express and IBN-CNN have allowed this distorted representation to take place. If it is not by conscious collusion then it certainly is by ignorant enthusiasm. It only serves to strengthen the impression held by many in India that the India's English Media is "more separatist than the separatists" .

To the credit of DAWN of Pakistan, their reporting of the Poll is very balanced. DAWN covers various topics and areas of common interest and makes no derivative value judgments.

In comparison the "Indian" duo of Yogendra Yadav and Sanjay Kumar are obsessively focused on the "Valley" and gleefully highlight aspects of the Poll that will feed the "separatists" .

Yogendra Yadav and Sanjay Kumar are also woefully unaware of the regions they are commenting upon. The Poll has confined itself to Srinagar and yet the duo call the results as those from the "Valley". They obviously have no idea that Srinagar is only a small part of the "Valley".

Using the 2005 Electoral Rolls as a guideline, Srinagar voters account for 0.67mil (22%) out of 3.11mil in all of Kashmir "Valley". So any Poll results out of Srinagar can by no stretch of imagination be called as being representative of the "Valley".

Interestingly Srinagar voters are only 11% of the total eligible voters in all of Indian controlled J&K

In Jammu 255 people were polled and in Srinagar the number was 226, a ratio of 1:1.13. However, there are 1,058,540 voters in Jammu and 673,648 in Srinagar, a ratio of 1:1.57. The sample sizes chosen from Jammu and Srinagar have some inexplicable and certainly not credible rationale.

Similarly, with India's population five times larger than that of Pakistan, the respective sample sizes of 2030 and 1010 are askew and make little sense.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

15th Aug Protest-Ponderings and Media Clips

15th Aug,a date etched in our memory…the day we achieved what is everyone’s right-freedom.Another landmark in our history of 5000 years…shouldn’t this day be a reason for celebration and joy.
Ideally yes, but that’s if you are free. For a half a million souls in exile since 1989 freedom means just another remembrance of the day when they were forcibly thrown out their homes. It also leaves them with a lingering feeling of deceit that the state has played against them.It was this that moved hundred odd homeless and uprooted Pandits to tie their mouths with black clothes, a sign that they have lost voice, carrying Indian flags as if they carry the cross,a cross because of which they were forced out of their homes. As someone in the crowd said”We are paying a price for being Indians”.
We are Indians,is that too much of a sin…I wondered as I sat among the protestors. How could one reconcile to the truth that Pandits were suffering because they are not “CRY BABIES” like their Muslim brethren or the fact they are not politically significant because of their numbers.
Maybe Indian democracy has come of age. PIONEER

ASIAN AGE

DAINIK JAAGRAN


HINDUSTAN TIMES

http://www.ptinews.com/pti/ptiphoto.nsf/AllByUNID/EB8CB2FA917EEF6D65257338004E2954
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

http://naknews.co.in/newsdet.aspx?9332

NAK NEWS

http://www.dailyindia.com/show/166032.php/Displaced-Kashmiri-Pandits-cry-government-apathy

Daily India.com

http://in.news.yahoo.com/070816/139/6jien.html

YAHOO NEWS

http://news.yahoo.com/photo/070815/481/xgo10208151336

YAHOO NEWS WITH PIC

http://www.newkerala.com/july.php?action=fullnews&id=54175

NEW KERALA.COM

http://news.webindia123.com/news/Articles/India/20070816/743380.html

NEWS.WEBINDIA.123.COM

http://tvscripts.edt.reuters.com/2007-08-15/2da2cb8f.html

REUTERS

http://www.andhranews.net/India/2007/August/16-Displaced-Kashmiri-Pandits-11941.asp

ANDHRANEWS.NET

RIK Protest at India Gate on 15th Aug,07







As nation celebrates Kashmiri Pandits perish..RIK protest at India Gate..some pics...

PTI...http://www.ptinews.com/pti/ptiphoto.nsf/AllByUNID/EB8CB2FA917EEF6D65257338004E2954

Monday, August 13, 2007


ROOTS IN KASHMIR
...A Kashmiri Pandit Youth Initiative

"Be There! To Bring a Change"

As India celebrates its 60th year of independenceKashmiri Pandits are in 17th year of exile.

RIK commemorates the day with a sit in at India Gate!

Please be there with your family and friends.A solemn occasion- freedom means exile to many.Let us assemble in a peaceful sit at India Gate,5 PMon the Independence Day!

We appeal to the civil society, NGO's, various social groups and students to be there for support.

Date: 15th August, 2007
Time: 5:00 pm
Venue: India Gate (Front Side), New Delhi

Blog: http://www.kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com
http://www.rootsinkashmir.wordpress.com

Website:
www.rootsinkashmir.org


On behalf of..
Roots in Kashmir(a KP Youth Initiative)

"Exiles at Home"

Bushan Lal Pandit with his family at Mishriwala Camp.

Outside the Pandita home in Mishriwala camp is a walnut tree. It has never produced a walnut, and never will, in the heat of Jammu. However, its jagged green leaves symbolise a lost home and a lost life. For 5,000 Kashmiri Pandit families crammed into squalid one-room tenements on the outskirts of this city, the past is not another country; it is a living thing. On this July afternoon, it’s there, waiting for you, in one stiflingly hot tenement after another—in fading pictures of pretty brides in pherans against green hillsides, in incessant conversations recalling cool weather, streams, ruined orchards, homes abandoned overnight and cattle-sheds "bigger than this room". In the tears that spring to the eyes of Santosh Pandita when she talks about her husband, tortured and hanged by militants in the Valley. In the moans of Dhanwati Pandita who, on her deathbed, wants to go back to Pulwama. Even 11-year old Pooja who can’t speak Kashmiri (to her parents’ chagrin), and only knows camp life, trains her light eyes on you and says, in the broad Hindi Jammu has taught her, Kashmir jannat hai.
Of the roughly one lakh Kashmiri Pandits who fled in fear from the Valley in the chilly spring of 1990, most have secured a better foothold in a new world. The Jammu camps, packed with the families of petty government employees and former agriculturists, widows and old people, are for those who couldn’t find a more dignified life. On a scale of human misery, they are not the worst-off—indeed, they provoke envy because they get a government dole, free rations, and a roof over their heads, even if a tin one. But they are still people with middle-class sensibilities trapped in shanty towns. The effort of adjustment shows in 9x13 ft homes overflowing with piles of children’s schoolbooks, ironed clothes, English newspapers, plastic flowers, small fridges, steel cupboards. Every inch of encroachable space has been colonised to add dignity to their lives—a small toilet, kitchen shelves, a child’s study space....
Avid consumers of newsprint and TV footage, the camp Pandits are acutely aware of their irrelevance. They note that their most vocal political champions, the bjp, only use them to make propaganda points. Liberals, they say, fail to see them as genuine victims of conflict, preferring to believe that their exodus was manufactured by former J&K governor Jagmohan to stigmatise militants (whereas the truth, as many Kashmir scholars have noted, was far more complex). For 17 years, they’ve been told that their slums are "temporary" homes. They listen as every actor in the Kashmir conflict, from government to separatist, routinely calls for their safe return to the Valley—but does little to make it happen. The precarious condition of 4,000-odd Pandits who still live in the Valley makes them despair.
The other day, the prime minister came calling, briefly illuminating their forgotten lives. He announced the building of a more salubrious ghetto several kilometres away, with two room sets, community centres and parks. And so, the Pandits brace themselves for another migration, to a new home. Once again it will be "temporary".

Friday, August 10, 2007

Uruguay backs J&K separatists -Sandhya Jain(in Pioneer)

By the twitching of my thumbs, fresh mischief is brewing over our northern frontier. The signs are ominous: There is renewed violence in Jammu & Kashmir, including an attack on Amarnath pilgrims. There is Ms Pamela Mountbatten's titillating leak that her father used Edwina Mountbatten to manipulate Jawaharlal Nehru and subvert Indian national interest in the border State. There is US pressure on Ms Benazir Bhutto to cut a deal with President Pervez Musharraf, and Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama's threat of direct action against terrorists in Pakistan.
Hizbul Mujahideen has asked non-Kashmiri (read non-Muslim) workers to quit the Valley, triggering an exodus. Around this time, Uruguay hosted a Kashmir Conference (July 31) to discuss resolution of the India-Pakistan dispute. Organised by Washington-based Ghulam Nabi Fai of the Kashmiri American Council, the conference proceedings leave little doubt it was backed by the US State Department.
According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, Mr Fai funds Hizbul Mujahideen, which has close links with the Jamaat-e-Islami in the Kashmir Valley and Pakistan. Hizbul was close to Afghan Mujahideen groups like Hizb-e-Islami (which received arms training against the Soviets) and has cordial links with Pakistan's ISI and United Jihad Council. Mr Fai is reputedly friendly with the Hurriyat's Yasin Malik.
The meet was largely ignored by the international media and India, but Pakistan's national television and Islamic websites reported it extensively. Seventeen Uruguan senior Army officers attended; 11 were in uniform and, significantly, had served in Jammu & Kashmir as part of the infamous United Nations Military Observers Group for India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP). India remembers UNMOGIP for trying to alter the boundary-markers in favour of Pakistan, a fact which embarrassed Nehru and made him give up ideas for a plebiscite in the State.
Gen Ricardo Galarza of Uruguay, former Chief of UNMOGIP, made the astounding claim that Maharaja Hari Singh's Instrument of Accession (to India) was accepted by Lord Mountbatten subject to the reference of the people! He reiterated Uruguay's support for the 'right of self-determination of the people of Kashmir' (whatever that means). This is a gross intrusion in our internal affairs and New Delhi should take it up with the Uruguan authorities.
In India, few Kashmiri refugees have even heard of Mr Jatinder Bakshi of the Committee of the Return of Kashmiri Pandits. Yet this worthy pontificated that a lasting solution was possible only through peaceful dialogue between India, Pakistan and the People of Jammu & Kashmir (read separatists). Indians are more familiar with Dr Angana Chatterji, darling of the separatists; she demanded demilitarisation (naturally) to improve the 'human rights situation'.
The conference adopted a pompously-worded Montevideo Declaration, beginning with a demand to recognise the inalienable right to self-determination of the people of Jammu & Kashmir. It bears emphasising, therefore, that the Instrument of Accession is final and non-negotiable; foreigners have no locus standi to speak of self-determination for Indian citizens.
The declaration calls for a "new beginning and manifested sensible approach to resolve the Kashmir dispute through a peaceful negotiated settlement" keeping in view the sensitivities and wishes of the Kashmiri people. This is probably a certificate to the participants and organisers as the only competent persons to handle the issue. New Delhi should unequivocally inform Uruguay that Kashmiris have expressed their political mandate through free elections, which even international busy-bodies have acknowledged as fair. The Montevideo Conference appears to have a distinct bias towards the Hurriyat.
Irritatingly, the declaration calls for making Kashmiris an integral part of the 'peace process' of which they are primary stakeholders, in order to facilitate a "permanent, durable and honourable settlement of the Kashmir dispute". Kashmiri migrants, however, question the repetitive use of the word 'dispute', and point out that elected representatives of Kashmiris are already sitting in the State Assembly and Indian Parliament. Even more brazenly, the declaration states that the "ceasefire line as an option is totally unacceptable". The Indian view is that Pakistan must vacate Occupied Kashmir so that we can regain control of our 1947 border.
The Uruguay Conference favours an "intensive and comprehensive dialogue between different opinions and regions of the State on both sides of dividing line", so as to "improve the level of trust and confidence... to develop consensus in conflict resolution". It calls upon the Governments of India and Pakistan to provide travel documents to such participants. This vacuous opinion has been repeated ad nauseum in so many forums that it reflects the intellectual bankruptcy of the participants.
Surely, it is pertinent that while New Delhi is going all out to ensure travel documents to Pakistani nationals wishing to visit Jammu & Kashmir, not a single Kashmiri Hindu has received documents to visit the sacred Sharada Peeth in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, despite thousands of applications for permission. Even more telling is the fact that Pakistani nationals who entered India on tourist visas to watch cricket matches (for example, at Mohali, Punjab) or visit Sufi shrines, have simply melted into the night. It is certainly risky, therefore, for India to mindlessly keep an open door policy for infiltrators.
The conference has demanded an end to "all types of human rights violations". These West-funded jholawallahs should tell us why they don't speak about human rights violations against Hindus of Jammu & Kashmir, especially the genocide and ethnic cleansing intended to further a pan-Islamic agenda. India must make it clear that in internal or external discourse, we will not allow talk of Gujarat riots without acknowledging Godhra, or discussion of Jammu & Kashmir without admitting who began the selective killings and why.
The final mention about the return of all displaced persons, including Kashmiri Pandits, is polite piffle. The declaration favours Kashmir-specific confidence-building measures, demilitarisation to promote peace and reconciliation, and release of prisoners. Yet, demilitarisation can only augment the terrorists' ability to strike at will, and unsavoury characters like Yasin Malik and Bitta Karate have already been released.
Probably Uruguay and its American mentor want a Pakistani walkover in Jammu & Kashmir to placate Muslim rage over what is happening to the community in the Gulf and the Western world. Pakistan itself was a compensation for the creation of Israel, just as Israel was compensation to the Jews for European racism and religious bigotry. We are walking the same terrain again.