Audio transcript of discussion with S Gurumurthy on Quantitative Easing

America which introduces more cash into system is to finance largely imports at the consumption level but in Japan it is quantitative using is to promote exports they do export financing. For example Abe govt (Japan Government) decides that they would pump in $50 billion a month over the next 18 months.

They will finance the Japanese corporate for their exports, in which let us assume Japanese govt. insists on 60% of the exports to be funded from Japan that is the import content of a project of say in Bombay-Delhi corridor, if they say 60% of the export from Japan and they finance this 60% so they convert this inflation into income without affecting the local economy, so the most important thing is you export your currency virtually.

This is because Japanese is savings driven economy but in America same may not work as it is a consumption driven economy, there you are financing consumption, here you are financing exports, which add to GDP, there you are financing consumption in imports which reduces the GDP so there is a huge difference.

How do you see the Quantitative Easing in Europe?

Quantitative Easing in Europe is again because of the weakening of the society which places burden on the state. Most of the economies except Germany weighed down by the enlightenment aged progressing into atomization of families and society. So state dependency is increased; so in 2006, there was a paper circulated in European Union where they discussed this issue, what is happening because they can’t discuss very directly just as you can’t discuss secularism in India, you can’t discuss limitations on individual rights, nobody has the guts & these is no leadership but China can do it, Japan can, even Russia can do it, none of these Anglo Saxon countries or Continental Europe can do it because they just don’t have the intellectual leadership which can take on present situation as they discuss in a very subtle manner how the families and communities has weaken in the process burden on government has increased.

The government is no more able to discharge the burden. They will be citing Scandinavian countries which are just nothing (in size), they are not even half the cities of India. So this is actually a State-Society imbalance in bearing responsibilities which is reflecting in economies. It is the western economies which are now failing and they are trying to correct it within the scope of system which is not going to work unless a very large part of responsibility is given back to the society and the family which they will say is republican approach. It is not correct having destroyed the family you can not hand over responsibility to weaken the family if you have to recreate the family. What you need is not economy, you need culture, tradition, religion which you don’t have and you need reverence. Modernity actually targets reverence. Actually there should be no reverence for anybody and there is a lot of study on all of these individually.

Paul Woodruff has written a book titled Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue. How everybody is equal teacher and students are equal, parents and wards are equal he says, a huge economical consequences this affects propensity to savings, it affects the type of savings whether equity or fixed rate of return so all these are now to be read into economics. So the only Asian can probably re interpret the economics. it is not possible for Europe. May be America will be able to do it because very large part of America even today is religious.

Sree Iyer

This is what you call middle part of the country; i. e. in terms of the economy what it contributes is overall economy is probably is 20%. This is Pareto principle (80:20) the thing is West Coast and East Coast are the ones that are the engines of America, the middle not so much. If you look at really where the productivity of America happens is usually on the coasts.

Gurumurthy

No, I am not talking about economy, I am talking about sustainability. Sustainability of life model is very different from the contribution you measure in economic terms. So that in respect I believe normative living is the only way economy will sustain. There is no normative living, there is regulated living. Normative living is something which is generated by society, family without the intervention of formal system. Formal system is regulatory, so I think ultimately you have got to align normative life style which we call “Dharma”. Where there is self restraint, nobody restrains from enjoying, you restrain yourself. Modernity says you go out and enjoy, who are you? Who is anybody to question you? These are 2 different paradigms even if they tell we don’t do it that is a sustaining the fact you go out and enjoy the world, the world is open to you for enjoying it. This is the basis of modern economics but why you are not doing it?

Sree Iyer

As a rule it was true… One thing is over last 5-10 years small changes are happening… i. e. if a student is going to college for studies, the student loan debt is so high that he/ she doesn’t have a realistic way of paying back that and then start saving to buy a house. So what is happening amongst all families now is that these students are beginning to come back and live with their parents after they do their under graduate education because there is no other source, in a way it is forced upon them. I am not saying it is true for everybody but there is a trend towards that.

Gurumurthy

These are all marginal developments, how many American students are going for higher studies that is percentage of students going for higher studies?

Sree Iyer

Right now everybody has to do an under grad degree rather bachelors degree. One : Two – That is I would say 50% and the other one which misses out are the single families, minorities or where there are immigrants who have just come in so they are not able to get into the system and so on and so forth. This is still one of the highest numbers in terms of people applying to go for under grad education that is going up.

Gurumurthy

See, there are only 28% of American families having husband and wife living with children “Only 28%”. About 21% couples living without children. Parent family is about 20-21% and balance is all……

If you see the rise of single parent families and children and couples with children there is inverse proportion. One is going up and other is going down. See what will happen after 30 years so ultimately if you say single parent families are unable to educate their children’s single parent family are rising. Can you prove it in economics?

Sree Iyer

They get a lot of breaks, though in the sense if you show aptitude the state underwrites a lot of education.

Gurumurthy

So again, it means you are putting burden on the state. See basically you don’t have a self restraining mechanism which says I will sacrifice for my child unless the parent thinks like that it is burden on the state. Unless the child thinks like that, the burden is on state. So how are you going to generate that spirit that is my duty to take care of their house. You can destroy it but cannot recreate it. This is what I think is going to be a terminal issue in the western model f what is known as “A Methodological Individualism” which is foundation of efficient market theory. The problem is with that you are measuring efficient market theory on the paradigm which is failing.

Sree Iyer

What is your outlook on Indian economy in next 4-5 years? How do you see it progressing?

Gurumurthy

See, India will rise because Indian Entrepreneur spirit is on rise. I am not talking about educated entrepreneurship. India is a paradigm of a Uneducated employer and educated employee. Go to Tiruppur, Ludhiana, Patiala etc.., out of 35% largest exporters one half of them is less than 5th standard.

Sree Iyer

I completely believe you, I studied in Hyderabad in Agarwal High School where attendance at school was optional but attendance at shop was mandatory. 3’0 clock after the class we had to go to the shop for collection.

Gurumurthy

RKR institution campus with 30000 students is owned by a person who is 8th standard pass but he is making business out of education

Sree Iyer

Sometimes I think, not educated also helps because you don’t worry about lot of other things that might go wrong

Gurumurthy

You become insecure if you are educated unless you have a fixed income.

Source: performancegurus

Who are Hindus? And is Hinduism even a religion

Some say that it is a culture or way of life, which has some validity as well.

DR DAVID FRAWLEY

 @davidfrawleyved

Hindu as a geographical concept

The question what is yoga and is it a religion reflects the related question as to what is Hinduism and is it a religion?

Some say that Hindu is only a geographical concept and connotes anything Indian, which would quickly end any discussion of Hinduism as a religion. This idea, however, clearly does not work.

Hinduism is a legally-recognised religion throughout the world and has benefits accordingly, like any other religion, including the right of marriage, non-profit status, and the right to establish religious institutions. Those regarding themselves as Hindus in terms of religious identity constitute the most affluent and educated religious group in America along with the Jews, as recent studies have indicated.

Obviously we cannot limit Hindu as an identity to those born in India, as then Hindus outside of India, including Westerners who have taken on a Hindu religious identity, could not be Hindus. Note the Western-published magazine Hinduism Today, which comes out of Hawaii and is written mainly by non-Indians.

While Hindu may have originally been primarily a geographical term, it definitely has taken on a broader religious and cultural meaning. Mahatma Gandhi himself used the term in a religious sense and regarded himself as a Hindu.

Hindu as Sanatana Dharma

If one looks at the ancient literature, the correct term for Hinduism would be "Sanatana Dharma" or the Eternal Dharma, with Shaivite, Vaishnava, Shakta and other groups as its branches. This would identify Hinduism with the Vedic tradition, but in a flexible manner. Most people in the world today tend to do this, regarding, for example, the Bhagavad Gita as the main scripture of Hinduism, though the Gita as a text is older than the term Hindu for Sanatana Dharma.

A case could be made for replacing the term Hinduism with Sanatana Dharma to reduce misconceptions. But, however preferable, that would take much time and effort to accomplish. Hinduism is a legally and academically-recognised religion in the world and the term Sanatana Dharma is not well known.

Yet Hinduism is not a religion like the dominant Western religions, which complicates the discussion. It has no single or final prophet, One God, scripture, institution or code of belief. This has caused some people to say that Hinduism is not a religion at all.

However, Hinduism has probably the world's largest and oldest spiritual and religious literature through the many vedas, puranas, shastras, tantras and modern gurus. It has numerous temples, deities and monastic orders, probably more so than any other religion. Hindu religious festivals like the kumbh mela are by far the largest in the world.

We can perhaps better define Hinduism as a pluralistic religious, cultural and spiritual tradition, rather than try to limit it to the terms that Western religions originally made for themselves. Buddhism is not much different in this regard and conforms even less to the usual Western idea of religion, as it has no God or creator, which many Hindu sects do.

Hinduism as more than a religion

Some say that Hinduism is a culture or way of life, which has some validity as well. Hinduism includes many aspects of culture like art, music, dance and literature. In addition the term can refer to a way of life like the rules of daily living that many Hindus follow.

Some regard Hinduism like yoga as a science of consciousness. Certainly yoga practices of various types are common in all branches of Hinduism. Some prefer the term Hindu Dharma over Hinduism, to bring out more the connection with dharma.

So rather than stereotype Hinduism or Sanatana Dharma in simplistic verbal definitions, perhaps we should just accept the term Hinduism or Hindu Dharma for now - but redefine it in a broader sense as a pluralistic tradition that encompasses religion, spirituality, philosophy and culture. Hindus can choose to practice any part of these, with different Hindu sects having their own emphasis. Even atheists are not barred from being Hindus if they accept the principles of Dharma.

There can be religious or non-religious Hindus, but Hinduism does have an important place among the great religions of the world, whatever name you prefer to give it.

Source: dailyo

India Holds Bill Gates Accountable For His Vaccine Crimes

Christina England

October 5 2014

As Bill Gates faces a lawsuit for the illegal testing of tribal children in India, it appears that his crimes against humanity have finally caught up with him.

A recent report published by Health Impact News has reported that the Gates Foundation has found itself facing a pending lawsuit, due to an investigation that is being carried out by the Supreme Courts of India.

Health Impact News stated:

“While fraud and corruption are revealed on almost a daily basis now in the vaccine industry, the U.S. mainstream media continues to largely ignore such stories. Outside the U.S., however, the vaccine empires are beginning to crumble, and English versions of the news in mainstream media outlets are available via the Internet.

One such country is India, where the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and their vaccine empire are under fire, including a pending lawsuit currently being investigated by the India Supreme Court.” [1]

The Health Impact News article centered largely on a four-page report that was recently published by Economic Times India.

Eager to know more, I investigated their story and discovered that the World Health Organization, the Gates Foundation and two organizations funded by them, PATH (Program for Appropriate Technology in Health) and GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization), have found themselves under fire, after a writ of petition originally submitted to the Supreme Court of India, by Kalpana Mehta, Nalini Bhanot and Dr. Rukmini Rao in 2012, was finally heard by the courts.

The petitioners submitting the petition stated:

“BMGF, PATH and WHO were criminally negligent trialling the vaccines on a vulnerable, uneducated and under-informed population school administrators, students and their parents who were not provided informed consent or advised of potential adverse effects or required to be monitored post-vaccination.” [2]

Young Tribal Girls Tested With HPV Vaccines

The Economic Times India published their report August 2014. They stated that in 2009, tests had been carried out on 16,000 tribal school children in Andhra Pradesh, India, using the human papiloma virus (HPV) vaccine, Gardasil.

According to the report written by KP Narayana Kumar, within a month of receiving the vaccine, many of the children fell ill and by 2010, five of them had died. A further two children were reported to have died in Vadodara, Gujarat, where an estimated 14,000 tribal children were vaccinated with another brand of the HPV vaccine, Cervarix, manufactured by GlaxoSmitheKline (GSK).

Shockingly, the report stated that many of the consent forms used to vaccinate the girls were signed “illegally,” either by the wardens from the hostels where many of the girls resided, or using thumbprints from illiterate parents.

This travesty was not discovered until a team of health activists from the non-government organization SAMA, an organization specializing in women’s health, decided to investigate what had been going on.

According to the report, they were shocked to discover that a total of 120 girls had been taken ill, suffering from a variety of symptoms, including “epileptic seizures, severe stomach aches, headaches and mood swings.”

The Economic Times stated:

“The Sama report also said there had been cases of early onset of menstruation following the vaccination, heavy bleeding and severe menstrual cramps among many students. The standing committee pulled up the relevant state governments for the shoddy investigation into these deaths.

It said it was disturbed to find that ‘all the seven deaths were summarily dismissed as unrelated to vaccinations without in-depth investigations …’ the speculative causes were suicides, accidental drowning in well (why not suicide?), malaria, viral infections, subarachnoid hemorrhage (without autopsy) etc.”

This information is even more shocking when you discover that the organization funding the study was none other than the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, who declared the project a total success.

Kumar wrote:

“According to the BMGF, the WHO, the International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, and the Federation of Obstetric and Gynaecological Societies of India have all recommended vaccination ‘as a proven and highly effective preventive measure for cervical cancer.’ The project used vaccines that are licensed in India and that have been administered safely around the world tens of millions of times, preventing countless cases of cervical cancer illness and death, ‘maintains a BMGF spokesperson in an emailed response (see GAVI & PHFI create incentives …’”

He continued:

“BMGF’s role in funding the controversial studies, however, has led to many healthcare activists in India voicing their apprehensions. ‘BMGF has to take full responsibility because PATH is funded by them. It is also unethical when people championing the cause of vaccines are the same ones who are also investing in vaccine development,’ said V Rukmini Rao, one of the activists who filed a writ petition before the Supreme Court in connection with the HPV vaccine studies.” [3]

Absolutely, and this is not the first time that these organizations have been caught illegally testing vaccines in developing countries.

Gates Foundation, WHO, PATH, GAVI, UNICEF Behind Chad Vaccine Disaster

In December 2012, in the small village of Gouro, Chad, Africa, situated on the edge of the Sahara Desert, five hundred children were locked into their school, threatened that if they did not agree to being force-vaccinated with a meningitis A vaccine, they would receive no further education.

These children were vaccinated without their parents’ knowledge. This vaccine was an unlicensed product still going through the third and fourth phases of testing.

Within hours, one hundred and six children began to suffer from headaches, vomiting, severe uncontrollable convulsions and paralysis. The children’s wait for a doctor began. They had to wait one full week for a doctor to arrive while the team of vaccinators proceeded to vaccinate others in the village.

When the doctor finally came, he could do nothing for the children. The team of vaccinators, upon seeing what had happened, fled the village in fear.

The original report written in a small, local newspaper called La Voix, the only newspaper to have published the original story, stated that forty children were finally transferred to a hospital in Faya and later taken by plane to two hospitals in N’Djamena, the capital city of Chad.

After being shuttled around like cattle, many of these sick, weak children were finally dumped back in their village without a diagnosis and each family was given an unconfirmed sum of £1000 by the government. No forms were signed and no documentation was seen. They were informed that their children had not suffered a vaccine injury.

However, if this were true, why would their government award each family £1000 in what has been described as hush money?

The only mainstream news channel to have highlighted the plight of these poor children was a local channel called Tchad, which filmed footage of the then-Prime Minister of Chad visiting the children in hospital.

VacTruth has copies of both reports, along with medical and government documents.

Despite this evidence and VacTruth’s detailed and extensive coverage, including highlighting television footage, once again, the vaccine program was hailed a success. To watch videos reporting the story, see the references at the end of this article. [4] [5]

The groups involved with this project were PATH, WHO, UNICEF, and the Gates Foundation. During investigations, it was discovered that the whole project was being run by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

In a press release, the Gates Foundation stated:

“MenAfriVac is a tremendous success story for the global health community. It is the first vaccine developed specifically for Africa, and it proves that global partnerships can develop and deliver high-quality, low-cost vaccines.

Ten years ago, we invested in the Meningitis Vaccine Project,  an innovative model that brought together PATH, the World Health Organization, African health ministers and the Serum Institute of India today, we celebrate the result: a modern vaccine selling for less than US 50 cents per dose with the potential to end Africa’s deadly meningitis epidemics.

We believe that vaccines are one of the best buys in global health. In January, Bill and Melinda Gates called on the global community to make this the Decade of Vaccines. There is no better way to launch this decade than with a new vaccine that will improve and save lives.” [6]

VacTruth can prove otherwise.

Government Inquiry Holds GAVI Accountable for Multiple Deaths

Despite the fact the Gates Foundation call vaccines “one of the best buys in global health,” a government inquiry in Pakistan has found the complete opposite.

In 2011, the Express Tribune published a story stating that:

“ISLAMABAD: A government inquiry has found that polio vaccines for infants funded by the Global Alliance for Vaccination and Immunisation are causing deaths and disabilities in regional countries including Pakistan.

The startling revelation is part of an inquiry report prepared by the Prime Minister’s Inspection Commission (PMIC) on the working of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI). The PMIC, headed by Malik Amjad Noon, has recommended that Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani immediately suspend the administration of all types of vaccines funded by the GAVI.”

According to the Express Tribune, the main vaccinations in question were the polio vaccine and the 5-in-1 pentavelent vaccine, which were said to be responsible for the deaths and disability of a number of children in Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Japan.

The vaccines were funded by the Global Alliance for Vaccination and Immunization (GAVI) an organization financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Children’s Vaccine Program, the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, the Rockefeller Foundation, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank.

Writing on the official report, made exclusive to the newspaper, the Express Tribunestated:

“The report states, ‘The procured vaccines are not tested in laboratories to confirm their efficacy and genuineness. This leaves room for use of spurious and counterfeit vaccines.’” [7] (emphasis added)

If this is true, then once again the Gates Foundation has been linked to mass vaccination initiatives using untested, unsafe vaccinations.

The Gates Foundation and WHO Labeled Unethical by Medical Experts

In 2012, Ramesh Shankar Mumbai, an author writing for the Pharmabiz website, reported that two medical experts from India had accused the Gates Foundation and WHO of being unethical.

In his report, Mumbai stated that Dr. Neetu Vashisht and Dr. Jacob Puliyel of the Department of Pediatrics at St. Stephens Hospital in Delhi, wrote the following information in their report in the April issue of Indian Journal of Medical Ethics.

“It was unethical for WHO and Bill Gates to flog this program when they knew 10 years back that it was never to succeed. Getting poor countries to expend their scarce resources on an impossible dream over the last 10 years was unethical.”

Pharmabiz.com reported that Dr. Vashisht and Dr. Puliyel had continued their report by stating:

“Another major ethical issue raised by the campaign is the failure to thoroughly investigate the increase in the incidence of non-polio acute flaccid paralysis (NPAFP) in areas where many doses of vaccine were used. NPAFP is clinically indistinguishable from polio paralysis but twice as deadly.”

Pharmabiz.com continued:

“The authors noted that while India was polio-free in 2011, in the same year, there were 47500 cases of NPAFP. While data from India’s National Polio Surveillance Project showed NPAFP rate increased in proportion to the number of polio vaccine doses received, independent studies showed that children identified with NPAFP ‘were at more than twice the risk of dying than those with wild polio infection.’” [8]

The corruption and deceit by these organizations does not stop there.

The Gates Foundation Blamed for 10,000 Vaccine-Related Deaths

In 2013, yet another report named the Gates Foundation and GAVI as being responsible for multiple deaths using untested vaccinations on children from the developing world.

The report, published on the website Occupy Corporatism and written by Susanne Posel stated:

“It was found out through an investigation, that GAVI was using an untested vaccine; giving this dangerous vaccine to Pakistani children shows the lack of empathy associated with these organizations.

GAVI was blamed for the deaths of 10,000 children in Pakistan when they came in and administered polio vaccines that resulted in casualties.” [9]

As we know, GAVI is heavily funded by the Gates Foundation. [10]

So, what was the name of the organization that investigated GAVI and found them using untested polio vaccinations in Pakistan?

According to the Express Tribune article, which I referred to earlier in this article, it was none other than the Indian government, who, upon discovering the shocking truth, recommended the immediate suspension of the administration of all types of vaccines funded by GAVI. [7]

In a recent radio show hosted by Sallie O. Elkordy, Susanne Posel gave her frank and honest views on the whole sorry mess that we find ourselves in today.

Warning: This report is not for the faint-hearted. [11]

Conclusion

It is difficult to believe that, despite the mounting evidence outlining the many crimes against humanity that have been committed by the Gates Foundation, GAVI, UNICEF and PATH, Bill Gates is portrayed as a hero among many.

However, according to the definition of hero in the Oxford Dictionary, the word hero means:

“A person, typically a man, who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities.” [12]

The dictionary I used said nothing about vaccinating innocent, vulnerable children with untested and unsafe vaccinations, causing them to suffer agonizing, untimely deaths.

Source: vactruth

Silicon Valley will be laughing at the anti-Modi 'moral advisory' by academics

By Madhu Purnima Kishwar

Even if Narendra Modi doesn’t do any other good as prime minister of India, he has made one historic contribution to politics: he has exposed the hollowness, hypocrisy and sheer venality of what masquerades as secularism and human rights activism with regard to India.

Recently a moral advisory has been issued by a group of US academics to Silicon Valley professionals that they should boycott India as an investment destination because its current prime minister is allegedly a tainted man and is “almost certainly” going to misuse information technology for spying on its citizens (see full text of original letter here).

To quote the advisory in its own words, “As it stands, ‘Digital India’ seems to ignore key questions raised in India by critics concerned about the collection of personal information and the near certainty that such digital systems will be used to enhance surveillance and repress the constitutionally protected rights of the citizens.”

In a democracy everyone has a right to criticise, oppose and even hate politicians whose actions are out of sync with their expectations. Modi certainly deserves criticism on several counts. I myself have critiqued various acts of commission and omission of the Modi government. These academics are also welcome to critique or even display open hostility to Modi provided they don’t distort facts and masquerade their hatred of the man as defence of “academic freedom” and “civil liberties.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Dubai. PTI

Several signatories to this ridiculous appeal are my friends. Some of them have hosted my lectures in the US and offered me warm hospitality. Some of them have even contributed insightful articles to Manushi, the journal I edited. Knowing them well, I can only say that they seem to have signed this absurd appeal under peer pressure, without applying critical thought that is expected of academics in premier universities. To my old friends in this group, I can only appeal that they should do a reality check before they undertake political interventions where they end up being used by vested interests with devious agendas. The rest of my rejoinder is addressed to those who have made a religion out of nursing mortal enmity towards Modi and BJP at the behest of vested interests.

It is noteworthy that there is not a single scientist, engineer, lawyer or IT professional in this list of signatories. This campaign, and several other anti-Modi ones, have almost always come from the domain of feminist studies and the departments of South Asian studies which have been systematically nurtured by the US establishment to breed anti-India propaganda under the guise of upholding human rights and social justice. It is in the domain of science and technology that Indians have excelled and emerged winners in open competition with their American colleagues. Their relationship with India is far more constructive than that of academics employed in the ghettos of South Asian studies.

The Emperor has no clothes: It is hard to believe that this learned faculty does not know that they their own “Emperor has no clothes”. Residing in the US and bankrolled by its agencies or institutions, these "neo-Anglo-Saxons" choose to forget that the US and Britain have been running the equivalent of a worldwide police state for the past several decades, where almost any phone call or communication could be tapped by their intelligence agencies.

As pointed out by Prof K Gopinath of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, “the Silicon Valley honchos they appeal to have pioneered countless technologies that are routinely used for offensive and defensive intelligence operations. They petition technologists and businessmen in Silicon Valley to be wary of privacy violations (only in India?) when, for many of them, it is part of their daily bread and butter! As one of their tribe announced in 1999 (Scott McNealy, former CEO of Sun Microsystems), “You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.”

“Note that this quote applies to US citizens; it goes without saying that non-US citizens are completely at the mercy of US/British agencies without any recourse! Microsoft, AT&T, Yahoo, Google and other companies have routinely assisted (under duress/subpeona sometimes) “US national security operations”. Many Silicon Valley companies have actively sought out customers among well-known autocratic regimes. A well-known video-calling product, Skype, though certified by a leading cryptographer as being secure, was revealed to have a backdoor that provided the Chinese authorities access to every conversation in real time with almost no effort. If they had dared meddle with American investors going to China or even Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, they would have been asked to go see a shrink and certainly ruled out of tenured jobs!

“Have these worthies already forgotten the National Security Agency (NSA) classified information leaked in 2013 by Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee and government contractor? These leaks revealed numerous global surveillance programmes, many run by the NSA and the Five Eyes with the cooperation of telecommunication companies and European governments. Any unbiased observer can see how persistently (across six decades or more) the US, Britain and Europe have been taking the rest of the world for a privacy/security ride with the active collaboration of Silicon Valley.”

Though their pious appeal is bound to be laughed at by Silicon Valley, it can't be ignored because it seems to have been inspired by vested interests who wish to keep India mired in poverty, promote strife among its people, and keep it vulnerable to terror attacks.

Witch-hunting under the guise of piety: This coterie of Modi baiters reminds Silicon Valley entrepreneurs of their moral “responsibilities and obligations” but seems to be oblivious to their own “responsibilities and obligations” as academics, where they are expected to rely on facts rather than manufacture demonology around a leader whose popularity they cannot stomach. So blinded are they by their malevolent prejudice that they can't tell the difference between hating Modi and hurting India. By calling upon the global community to go for an economic boycott of India and declare it an apartheid state simply because of their hatred of one man, they have more likely been acting as pawns - some of them knowingly and others unwittingly - in the hands of forces inimical to India. The investments that come to India are by no means going to Modi’s pocket.

This is not the first time American academics have crossed the Lakshman Rekha that divides honest, well-meaning criticism from witch-hunting for ideological reasons. They, along with their collaborators in Indian academia, had launched a similar campaign in 2005 addressed to the US government demanding that Modi be denied a US visabecause they, not the Indian courts, consider him guilty of “masterminding” the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002. The fact that they launched this campaign three years after the riots and only after the Sonia Gandhi-headed Congress came to power indicates whose game they were playing, and whose interests they were serving.

Since the appeal had the backing of well-entrenched hardcore evangelical groups in the US who hate the BJP for opposing conversion drives in India, the US government readily obliged and announced a ban on Modi’s entry from 2005 and till he became prime minister in 2014. They wouldn’t even let him address a video-conference when invited by American universities or NRIs. It is noteworthy that not a single FIR had been registered against Modi at that time (or even till date), and no police station or court had registered any case against him. And yet the US academics began a McCarthy type witch-hunt against a popularly elected chief minister for the simple reason that vested interests in the US and India had failed to defeat Modi politically. They, therefore, began using patently lawless means to dislodge him from power.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the US establishment is uncomfortable with the rise of Modi and the BJP to power. Otherwise such hate campaigns would not have repeatedly emanated from American campuses. A majority of these academics are of Indian origin but the brains behind the whole move are undoubtedly white American. Rabid evangelical organisations are backing and funding anti-BJP hysteria because they find that, unlike the Congress Party, the BJP is unwilling to open up India for large-scale conversions to Christianity.

Absurd charges against Modi: The academics’ claim that Digital India is a Modi conspiracy for citizen surveillance, but are they so disconnected from reality that they are unaware that digitisation pre-dates Modi’s assumption of power as PM?

Digitisation is the magic wand that can help transform the face of governance in India, by making it transparent and more accountable. It is the only way the administration can deliver efficient and speedy services and welfare measures to citizens. The e-governance mantra has been adopted by all major political parties in India due to strong pressure from citizens to move in that direction. India has already lost precious time and fallen behind the rest of the world because leftist trade unions obstructed computerisation for nearly two decades. But now nobody in India is willing to brook delays and obstruction in this regard.

Yes, some of these technologies are bound to be used for surveillance, including crime detection, surveillance of hawala networks, monitoring terror networks and beefing up border security. But no one is complaining in India because people realise that India is among the most endangered countries in the world, thanks to its misfortune of having Pakistan as a next-door neighbour, whose self-declared policy is bleeding India to death through a thousand cuts! If these academics are genuinely bothered about the misuse of digital technologies for violating citizens’ right to privacy, let them first persuade the US to dismantle its global snooping systems. They rest of the world, including India, will gladly follow the example.

Incompetents in key posts: The academics also indict the Modi government for appointing incompetent people in key jobs. It is noteworthy that they cannot cite more than three cases. In each

Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Madison Square Garden. PTI image

of these three cases, the Modi government has indeed chosen very incompetent persons to head those institutions. But the list does not stop at these three. Many of us are dismayed that the Modi government has allowed too many incompetents and mischief mongers appointed by the Congress regime to either continue in key jobs or even be elevated to higher posts. These are far more glaring examples because they involve officers who were established cronies of the Congress Party and yet managed to get patronage even under the current regime. But such people don't rankle the signatories of this ludicrous appeal because they are "secular crooks."

I am sure there are plenty of such questionable appointments even in American universities. Did people stop investing in the US on that account? The merits of an appointment under any and every regime, in every country of the world, are often questioned and even challenged. This has happened during all regimes in India. But is it their case that before investing in India (and no other country) American investors must scrutinise all government appointments as per the norms set by these self-appointed guardians of academic excellence?

Most important of all, those critiquing the Modi government’s appointments should remember that none of them can beat the unsuitability of Gopa Sabharwal’s anointment as Vice Chancellor of Nalanda University by none other than the venerable Amartya Sen – who is well known to be the intellectual godfather of this academic gang. Gajendra Chauhan is no doubt a poor choice to head the FTII, but Sabharwal is by all accounts even less worthy of the job she was handpicked for in violation of rules, regulations and qualifying criteria. In fact, Sen himself may have been a celebrated economist, but he has earned a lot of ignominy by treating Nalanda as a personal fief, running its affairs through remote control and with little accountability. (Read some of the details here).

Sen’s mismanagement of the affairs of Nalanda caused former President APJ Abdul Kalam, who was the prime mover behind this project, to publicly dissociate himself from it. Sen went around complaining about “political interference in academic institutions” just because the NDA government did not renew his tenure in office when his term ended in July 2015. In fact, Amartya Sen landed this prestigious job only because of nepotism, as he is a personal friend of Manmohan Singh and a leading courtier in Sonia Gandhi’s durbar.

The truth of the matter is that a small coterie of leftist intellectuals and academics have been allowed total monopoly on prized institutions, and have thus come to expect such jobs as their birth right. Whenever this monopoly has been questioned or touched, they rise in outrage and make life hell for whichever regime dares bring in a different set of people. Eminent academics, artists and intellectuals whose credentials are widely respected have been hounded out of their jobs if they do not have the stamp of approval of this intellectually tyrannical coterie. Anyone who dares fall out of line with their agendas and ideological prisms has their careers marred for life.

As far as their charge of government interference in academic institutions is concerned, I wish the Indian signatories to this naïve petition had stayed on in India and launched a determined campaign to free educational institutions from statist controls which were institutionalised when regimes of their choice were in power! Have they forgotten that under CPM rule in West Bengal, leave alone a professor’s job, one could not get even a peon's job without being a card-carrying member of the Communist party? But since these academics chose greener pastures for themselves, let them not waste their precious efforts fretting about the sorry fate of our educational institutions, for the rot began with the Congress party, which ruled India for over five decades. The Congress institutionalised the idea of political interference in institutions. They can rest assured that many of us in India are committed to changing the rules of the game in favour of academic freedom – a task these worthies failed to undertake when they had a chance to do so

NDA crackdown on some NGOs: The statement in their letter, that Modi’s first year in office has meant “bans and restrictions on NGOs” is product of paranoia. They are crying wolf simply because same of their allies among US-funded NGOs have been issued notices to explain why year after year they have knowingly avoided filing audited accounts for the hefty funds they received from western donor agencies, thus violating income-tax laws and FCRA regulations.

A handful of NGOs have had their FCRA registrations cancelled following enquiries which yielded solid documentary evidence of gross corruption, including siphoning of funds to personal accounts, as well as spending money for purposes that were different from the ones originally stated. The most notorious case is that of a Mumbai-based NGO, whose founders Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand, are great favourites with this clique. These celebrities have been accused of using crores of rupees from a fund collected in the names of the victims of the 2002 Gujarat riots. Teesta and her family allegedly used the money for purchasing personal luxuries, beauty treatments, wine, branded clothes, feasts and foreign travel. It is noteworthy that the investigation into Teesta’s misdemeanors began only after the concerned riot victims filed a police complaint alleging fraud and misappropriation against this NGO. And yet they are being treated as victims of Modi’s wrath!

Is it their case that their favoured NGOs are above the law of the land? Don’t they know how people accused of fraud and non-compliance would have been treated in the US? Yes, Greenpeace has been deprived of FCRA registration. But adverse reports were filed by the Intelligence Bureau against this international NGO under the “secular” UPA regime. In any case, cancellation of FCRA registration only means it cannot receive foreign funds for its political activism. It is free to carry on its propaganda and advocacy campaigns with locally raised resources, as lakhs of NGOs in India do. The FCRA law enacted under the Congress regime mandates that political activity cannot be carried out with foreign funds. Even political parties are banned from doing so. In such a situation, if NGOs indulge in political campaigns for or against this or that party using foreign funds, it cannot by any stretch of imagination be treated as a crackdown on dissent. There is no bar on their activism, provided they abide by the country’s laws like the others. No self-respecting country can allow its politics and economy to be held to ransom by a coterie of organisations propped up by foreign powers, especially those that have a history of harming India’s interests.

As for the charge that Modi’s regime has brought in harassment and censorship of opinions critical to his government, even a casual glance at our newspapers, magazines, TV debates, news programmes and academic writings would show that Modi is under the harshest possible public scrutiny by both media and academia. Some of the criticisms levelled against Modi are well deserved but a good part of it is malicious. Not a single journalist or academic can claim to have suffered on account of Modi bashing. There is only one person in the Modi government who the media chooses not to criticise because he has been their loved one for many long years - much before Modi came to the national scene. The rest in BJP, including Modi, are easy prey!

Then there is the charge of violation of “religious freedom” under the BJP government. This is nothing but a sinister way of painting India as a rogue nation where religious minorities, meaning Christians and Muslims, are under grave threat and being forever massacred. They have mastered the Goebbelsian technique of endlessly repeating lies with vehemence till they acquire the force of truth.

This sustained propaganda has put India on top of the hit-list of jihadi terrorists and created prejudice and fear among global investors. They are thus endangering India by making Islamic terror groups feel justified in executing bomb blasts and other murderous attacks in India. Many among this worthy list had signed similar appeals to Indian voters to prevent Modi from becoming PM, alleging that under his reign India would be engulfed by communal riots and rivers of blood would flow. They are outraged that nothing of the sort has happened. Therefore, they are reduced to gross exaggeration and outright lies by presenting half a dozen minor cases of theft or vandalism of some churches by local hoodlums as proof of the NDA's anti-minority policy. As per police records, in the same period, over 258 cases of theft and vandalism took place in Hindu temples of Delhi, without evoking any hysteria among Hindus or words of sympathy from the votaries of “religious freedom.”

Whatever be their other faults (and the BJP has many), none of the BJP-ruled states - be it Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan or Chhattisgarh - has witnessed communal riots that became the hallmark of Congress regimes. Even Gujarat, which was the most riot-prone state during Congress rule, became totally riot-free for 12 years after Modi understood and brought under control the forces that had instigated the 2002 killings. Since Modi became PM, communal riots have taken place in states ruled by "secular parties" such as the Samajwadi Party in UP and the Congress Party in Manipur and Assam.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Canada. Reuters

It is no coincidence that this pious group of global conscience-keepers has never lobbied for apartheid or economic boycott of military-dominated Pakistan, a state well known for having decimated religious minorities - Hindus, Christians and Sikhs alike - and promoted the most hostile policies against the minuscule non-Muslim minorities that have survived murders, abductions, tyranny, extortion, forced conversions and lack of full citizenship rights. The Pakistani state doesn’t even spare Muslim sects like Ahmediyyas that are considered heretical by Sunni Muslims. At the time of partition, Hindus constituted over 28 percent of the population in the areas that became Pakistan. Today, Hindus constitute about 1.8 percent of Pakistan's population and 8.2 percent of Bangladesh’s. By contrast, the population of Muslims in India has grown from 9.8 percent in 1951 to 14.2 percent in the 2011 census. Yet, it is India and not Pakistan that is consistently targeted by these self-appointed guardians of political morality. These worthies have never mobilised world opinion against Pakistan even though, in pursuit of its undying hostility towards India, Pakistan has made itself the fountainhead of global terrorism. Why? Because Pakistan’s regimes have been bankrolled by the US and act as its puppets.

Would these academics dare petition foreign governments to ban the entry of US presidents whose devious political interventions have wrecked numerous countries and caused mass slaughters in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria?

For the n’th time, they have raised yet again the charge that during Modi’s tenure 1,000 Muslims died in communal riots. However, for once they got their figures somewhat close to reality. Earlier they wouldn’t stop at less than 3,000 Muslim deaths. But they deliberately fail to mention that the total number of killings were as follows: 262 Hindus killed, either by Muslims or in police/army firing on riotous mobs, as against 863 Muslims done to death by Hindus or in police firing. Riots have taken place in several states of India under non-BJP regimes. How is it that their heart bleeds only for the victims of the 2002 riots? How come they have never grieved for the 58 Hindu men, women and children who were burnt alive in a train coach at Godhra by a Muslim mob – an incident that triggered off the retaliatory violence? Their harping on Modi’s complicity even after the Supreme Court of India found no evidence against him, after subjecting Modi’s handling of the riots to intense scrutiny for three long years, shows that their motive is not so noble.

Incidentally, the officers of the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigative Team (SIT) which grilled Modi and his administration were handpicked with due approval of the professional Modi-baiter, Teesta Setalvad. Yet Modi emerged unscathed. I would feel very privileged if these self-appointed guardians of Indian Muslims would care to challenge and rebut my detailed fact-sheet detailing day-by-day handling of the 2002 riots by Modi’s government, including his public statements. This has been published in my book Modi, Muslims and Media. (It is available on Amazon.com)

I can only conclude by telling the ‘Hate Modi’ Brigade, that the more irrational and malicious their rants against Modi, the more they strengthen public opinion in his defence. The vigorous protest on social media against this petition have not all come from Modi admirers. Many of us who signed the rejoinder to the Silicon Valley petition (read here) are fairly critical of the current functioning of the Modi government. And yet we feel compelled to rise in his defence because the ‘Hate Modi’ campaign has clear ‘Hurt India’ overtones and motivated by the desire to reinstall a scam-ridden regime which has been junked by Indian voters for being venal and harmful for the country.

Those who wish their criticism to be taken seriously have to earn the right by being visibly non-partisan. This includes having the courage to acknowledge the positive aspects and good deeds of the person targeted for scrutiny. There are as many serious lapses being committed by Modi government as there are attempts to improve things. But the petitioners’ blind prejudice is not tempered by reason or a reality check. Therefore, they are only damaging their own credentials and taking attention away from important issues.

The author is a Professor at CSDS and founder of Manushi

Source: firstpost