Question: Was the government right in arresting BJP leaders, who marched to hoist Indian flag in Srinagar, Kashmir (India)?
Before you answer this please consider this:
Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi organised a march in Dandi to “illegally” produce salt, against applied tax by British Raj in India. It was “within” the political boundaries of India, had a “political aspiration” with a motive of achieving a “political goal”! Now, back to BJP:
Disclaimer: As any liberal need to announce this, to avoid branding. My support here is issue based and this statement is not sarcastic.
South Sudan voting for its independence, and we will have a secular country in six months, in one month we will come to know about it! I see it as India-Pakistan of Africa with one country with single defined state religion/language while the other being multicultural and secular (and corrupt). Whatever it may be, I congratulate south Sudan (or the name they call it in two months) all the very best.
All southerners need to do is to turn up at least 60% and vote at least 51%, and boom! There is very little chance that South will vote for unity (after all things happened) that would be unfortunate. Good news is, so far they dint find anyone who wants to vote for unity (look at us! Celebrating defeat of unity 🙂 ). There is also a tiny chance that north will deny the independence for south (as happened in Burmese election). But for the time being let’s not put this idea into their head.
I will be celebrating it with a Champagne, in February, so will billion others around the world. This probably will be most celebrated divorce ever, for a million reasons. A small fraction of those million reasons I can think of are:
Peace! After couple of million killed over couple of decades.
Home rule, spending its own money on their own country!
There will be roads, schools and hospitals in south! Which rest of the world built centuries ago? (Fact: First tar road out of any town in South Sudan being laid in 2011)
Multi-cultural! Good to have no dominant culture which decides how rest of the tribes can be flogged!
There is international community to help newborn country. BTW Did I mention George Clooney is my favourite actor?
Once advice for South, don’t be precious on Abyei region. We have a similar situation here, we call it Kashmir.
If you get a chance you should create your own country, just for the sake of it. It’s always nice to have own a country and a football team. And who will run it ? Don’t worry ! You can always blackmail rest of the world threatening to implode your own country, they will pay.
Last week Kashmiris mindlessly marched again calling for azadi. It was as if the arithmetic of economics didn’t apply to Kashmir. As if someone will always pick up their bills.
In October 2002, India Today computed that in 12 years between 1990 and 2002, Jammu and Kashmir got Rs 35,571 crore in grants assistance. I revisited the numbers. Grants from the Centre doubled to touch Rs 38,156 crore in five years between 2003 and 2008. The extent of pampering is revealing.
In 2007-08 the state contributed a princely sum of Rs 533 crore as direct taxes to the Centre and received Rs 1,471 crore from the Central tax kitty and Rs 8,962 crore in grants. Its own revenue of Rs 2,299 crore will not cover the salary bill of Rs 4,389 crore.
Even without Jammu and Ladakh, azadi unsustainable. To sum up, of Rs 16,267 crore spent last year, two-thirds or 65 paise out of every rupee came from the Centre. This year the state will spend Rs 17,354 crore of which Rs 11,510 crore or Rs 11,510 per person will come from the Centre.
Compare this with the Rs 700 per capita that Uttar Pradesh gets. Worse, Uttar Pradesh will return 70 per cent of the grant while Jammu & Kashmir only 10 per cent.
So, don’t worry about money, someone will always pay for your bills and you still can march against them. So, if you are seriously thinking about creating one, here is step by step procedure :
The Bach 