AmreekanDesi

Manmohan Singh formed his second government following the UPA’s comprehensive win in the election. There was some drama over ministerial allocations with the DMK trying some hard bargaining for a few extra cabinet berths.

The beacon of change – Barrack Obama called up our Prime Minister. Maybe his inspirational effect will rub off on the new government, and we will see Manmohan Singh turn the economy around in 100 days like he promised before the elections.

Fareed Zakaria’s take on the Indian elections – he thinks the Indian voters got it right. Time has a list of 5 ways Manmohan Singh can do to make India a better place to live.

Horror of horrors – following their defeats  in the elections, Laloo Prasad Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan may face a security downgrade. Imagine the shame if our VIP’s have to travel on the road without a hundred gun toting commandos protecting them.

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The great Indian elections of 2009 are over after five phases of voting spread over a month, over 400 million votes cast, several thousand candidates, and billions of dollars spent by all concerned.

The massive logistical exercise ended in a massive victory for the Congress, which gained plenty of seats at the expense of the left and other regional parties. The BJP came in a distant second. Manmohan Singh is all set for another term as Prime Minister, despite not bothering to contest the elections. His life should be easier now that there is no Left acting as a dampener to the economic reforms that he would (should?) look to implement.

Of course the Congress is elated at exceeding its own expectations.

None of the exit polls came even close in their predictions, but the news channels aren’t complaining. Their favorite party won the election, which is all that matters. Wonder how they would have reacted if the BJP had come up trumps.

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The Great Indian Elections of 2009. Four phases down. Voter turnout in the fourth phase topped 50%. Last phase coming up this week, and a lot of political manipulation coming thereafter as the results are announced towards the end of this month. Some analysis of phase 3 and 4 over at offstumped.

Good news for Indian politics. Of the over 6700 nominees contesting the elections in the first four phases, almost 5700 don’t have a criminal background. Just 1042 of the candidates are known criminals.

We have always felt that the media plays to its prejudices. BS Shantanu writes on how we must take anything the media says with a pinch of salt. WSJ’s story on how smaller news outfits will accept money to promote candidates was shocking, though not too surprising.

Mulayam Singh has made his political ideology clear. Others may go crazy over secularism or economic policy, but he will go with any government that will dismiss the Mayawati government in UP. Because that’s what happens in a democracy – elected governments getting dismissed on the whims of politicians.

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Phase three of the Great Indian Elections is over. Polling was held for 107 Lok Sabha seats last week.

Mumbai turned out to be quite a spectacle, with celebrity after ignorant celebrity raising their middle finger to the eager cameras, after some logistical issues led the election agencies to mark their middle fingers instead of the traditional index finger.

In SriLanka, the LTTE have been pushed into a corner by the government forces, and Tamil leaders in India seem to have taken up support for the separatist LTTE.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Karunanidhi went on a sudden fast demanding cease fire in SriLanka and called it off following the end of the SriLankan offensive. PMK leader S Ramadoss described LTTE chief Prabhakaran as a freedom fighter comparable to Nelson Mandela and Subhash Chandra Bose.

BSP Chief Mayawati alleged that her perennial enemy, the Samajwadi party, was colluding with the BJP to split the muslim vote and thus help the BJP.

Seriously, don’t such statements offend the community being treated as a mere vote bank? What can we expect from such politicians for whom the people are mere votes, to be manipulated and played into submission?
Meanwhile, there is a new ‘5-star’ police chowki in Lucknow to guard the CM’s dream project, the Ambedkar Memorial at Gomtinagar. This police post was constructed at a cost of Rs 1.2 crore, making it the most expensive in the country.

The Supreme Court rapped the Congress government for its failure to provide adequate water supply to the country and constituted a committee to look into solving the water woes of the country.

Time released its list of the 100 most influential people in the world. SAJA did a roundup of desi personalities on the list. Sonia Gandhi is in, as is Ratan Tata, and Ronnie Screwala.

Former President APJ Abdul Kalam received America’s most prestigious engineering prize for service to humanity, the Hoover award, at Columbia University.

11/26 accused Ajmal Amir Kasab raised requests for an Urdu newspaper, perfume, and a toothpaste. Varun Gandhi rued the comparison in a rally - I was given Lauki to eat, and Kasab gets Tandoori Chicken.
Meanwhile Kasab’s trial continues at an expedited pace. The Indian authorities finally concluded that he is an adult, after tests to determine his age. Five months after the November attacks, at least know for sure that he should not be tried in a juvenile court. This trial is progressing at the pace of Chandrayaan approaching the Moon.

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The third phase of The Great Indian Election of 2009 is all set for April 30. A total of 1,567 candidates, including 101 women contestants, are in the fray for the 107 seats going to the polls in round III.

UP Chief Minister Mayawati raised her case for Prime Ministership on caste grounds saying that a dalit”s daughter should be made PM to ensure the upliftment of backward communities in India.

Elsewhere, she was described by NewsWeek as India’s Anti-Obama.

But unlike Obama, who promised a new politics that would transcend not only race but traditional ideology and corrupt Washington ways, Mayawati has built her power on demagogic class warfare.

After all these years finally we all know that the Bofors scandal and the allegations against Rajiv Gandhi were all a lie. Rahul Gandhi told us.

His sister Priyanka Gandhi may insist that she will never join politics, but her husband indicated that it might happen, when the time is right.

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After months of exciting drama, India finally went to vote in the first phase of the 2009 General Elections. The voting for 124 Lok Sabha seats took place relatively peacefully with a voter turnout of about 60%, apart from Naxal attacks in which 17 people were killed.

Earlier the Supreme Court snubbed the UP government for booking Varun Gandhi under the stringent NSA. “Varun Gandhi is not a criminal, why were such drastic measures invoked against him”. He was later released on parole for two weeks after he gave an undertaking to Etah jail authorities that he will not make inflammatory speeches.

The trial of 26/11 accused Ajmal Kasab keeps getting interesting.

First the Shiv Sena tried to force public prosecutor Anjali Waghmare to get off the case, then she was dropped from the case after it was revealed that she had earlier accepted the case of one of the witnesses in the case seeking compensation from the government.

Now Mr Kasab wants a Pakistani lawyer.

Meanwhile in true bureaucratic tradition, India continues to screw up on the investigation, making Pakistan actually look better. And to think Manmohan Singh is touting 26/11 as one of his government’s achievements!

Sanjay Dutt got in trouble as he campaigned in UP.

First he expressed his solidarity with Muslims saying that he was subjected to third degree torture following his arrest in connection with the 1993 Mumbai bombings, because his mother was a Muslim. (Wrong, Mr Dutt. You probably were beaten up because you were party to a criminal act.) No NSA was invoked against Dutt, as Amar Singh openly declared his support for him, and dared the Mayawati government to make a Varun out of Sanjay.

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George Bush may not be the US president anymore, but he sure left a legacy.

During a press conference being addressed by P Chidambaram following CBI’s exoneration of Jagdish Tytler’s involvement in the 1984 riots, Singh lobbed a shoe at Chidambaram. It didn’t connect, but that didn’t seem to be his intention. He ended up being a hero, and the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) promptly offered him a job in case he lost the one he currently holds.

The gesture worked, and Congress eventually removed Tytler and Sajjan Kumar from its list of candidates contesting the election.

For those who missed the first shoe, there was another one coming up as a retired school teacher hurled a shoe at Naveen Jindal during a rally. Our politicians better get their act together. The Indian people seem to be losing it.

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The week began on a jingoist note as the hyper nationalists of Shiv Sena attacked lawyer Anjali Waghmare because she is going to be the lawyer for 11/26 terrorist Kasab. Poor woman is just doing her job – she was appointed by the court as Kasab’s lawyer. On the positive side, now that we know who are the most patriotic people in India, we know how to replenish the ranks defending our borders. Let’s send them all to Kashmir.

Varun Gandhi may now be in jail, but turns out Chhota Shakeel had ordered his ‘execution’. Maybe being in jail proved to be a blessing in disguise for him.

His cousin Rahul Gandhi proclaimed that the Congress will always work for the progress of the aam aadmi. That makes the aam aadmi wonder that why then has his condition not really improved much after many decades of the Congress rule.

Meanwhile the Gandhis still keep harping on Kandahar. Does the fact that we had one unfortunate incident earlier make the current security issues any less critical?

Rahul, the-prime-minister-in-waiting keeps giving us news headlines. This time there was news of Bittu and Danny, two candidates handpicked by Gandhi, who have become an embarrassment for the party. Bittu has never been to college, and the Akalis are starting a literacy campaign in his name now. Danny is facing flak over some wrong certificates that he produced for selection on compassionate grounds as a police inspector.

Meanwhile, George Fernandes was expelled from JD(U) because he defied the party by deciding to contest from Muzaffarpur as an independent, when the party had refused to give him the ticket, ostensibly because he has health issues.

Janata Dal, not-so-United anymore!

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Here’s some of the prominent happenings from India this past week.

Varun Gandhi continued to hog the headlines. After his anticipatory bail expired on Mar 29, he surrendered in Pilibhit. Only it wasn’t quite peaceful. Following a violent protest by his supporters, the UP government invoked the National Security Act (NSA) against him.

Now that he has been booked under the NSA, it looks like he will be contesting the elections from behind bars.

Meanwhile, Raj Thackeray revived his anti north India campaign at an election rally in Nashik, and was subsequently booked for his hate speech.

The Indian cricket team clawed their way back into the second New Zealand test to bat out the last two days to save the test, thanks to gritty innings from Gambhir and Laxman, who provided some fireworks towards the end.

After weeks of contention over the status of the Indian Premier League (IPL), the tournament was finally shifted out of India. South Africa is going to host the league this year.

The Australian tennis federation requested to move their Davis cup tie out of India for security reasons. Is India the new Pakistan?

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Here’s a short recap of what went on in the world this past week.

NCP chief Sharad Pawar raised demands for a maharashtrian Prime Minister following the upcoming elections. Soon, Shiv Sena joined in.

So is this how it is going to be? Maybe we will see a rotating policy for PM in the future. Last time it was Punjab. This time Tamil Nadu. Next time West Bengal.

BJP candidate Varun Gandhi was alleged to have made some defamatory comments in an election speech. Now he is in deep shit trouble. The BJP hasn’t expelled him, but has distanced itself from him.

Meanwhile, former BJP leader and Bhartiya Janashakti Party President Uma Bharti declared her support for BJP and Advani. Her own party is not contesting the elections due to a lack of funds.

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Starting a weekly roundup of news and interesting events from around the world.

Here’s edition number one.

The week started with this CAG report on how Assam police personnel carried their fancy AK-47 assault rifles for two years, without any bullets. Looks like we need a law enforcement agency to take care of these law enforcers.

There was drama earlier as some Gandhi memorabilia was scheduled to be auctioned in New York. Indian government talked a lot about getting them back, but eventually Vijay Mallya bought the items for $1.8 million. Things got more interesting when the minister for culture, Ms Ambika Soni claimed that Mallya was representing the Indian government, and he denied that anybody from the government had ever contacted him.

It’s not over yet. James Otis, the owner of these 5 items now wants to file a case to get them back!

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