NEWS ALERT 1. Pakistan hangs four prisoners as execution campaign widens 2. Indias BJP Struggles Between Development and Religion 3. Three found dead in Hauz Khas bungalow in New Delhi 4. Google may open own campus in Hyderabad PAKISTAN Pakistan hangs four prisoners as execution campaign widens Pakistan hanged four Islamist militants on Sunday in the second set of executions since the government lifted a moratorium after the Taliban massacred 132 children and nine others at a school last week. None of those hanged has anything to do with the school rampage in Peshawar, and some Pakistani commentators have said the executions are intended to divert attention from the failure to satisfy public demands to find the killers. Four prisoners were executed at the tightly guarded Faisalabad jail for their role in attacking former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf, a senior government official said. Two others had been hanged at the same jail on Friday. Four identified A source in the local Punjab government identified the four as Rasheed Qureshi, Zubair Ahmad, Ghulam Sarwar and Akhlaque Ahmed, also known as Russi, who he said was Russian. Pakistan is home to a range of militant groups, many of them linked to al Qaeda, based in lawless tribal areas. They include an unknown number of foreign fighters, thought to be mostly Arabs, Uzbeks, Chechens and Uighurs. Official sources said more convicts would be executed in coming days, some of them in the city of Lahore, the power base of the prime minister Nawaz Sharif. The Taliban have issued statements promising to stage more attacks around Pakistan in retaliation for the executions of any of their fighters. Tightened security Security has been tightened around major prisons, reflecting fears that the militants, who are fighting to topple the government and set up a state governed by Islamic law, might try to attack jails and free inmates. Rights groups believe Pakistan has about 8,000 prisoners on death row, more than 500 of them for terrorist offences. Interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan told reporters police had arrested a number of suspects in connection with the school attack, but gave no details. The UN human rights office appealed to Pakistan on Friday to refrain from resuming executions. Phelim Kine, deputy Asia director at the US-based Human Rights Watch, said on Sunday the government had “chosen to indulge in vengeful blood-lust instead of finding and prosecuting those responsible”. NEW DELHI Indias BJP Struggles Between Development and Religion All of a sudden, religious issues have come to the forefront of Indian politics. Although the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is a coalition of factions ranging from pro-development, liberal economics positions to the Hindu Right (advocates of the Hindutva ideology), the party came to power on an explicitly pro-development platform. This is a platform that needs to be seriously addressed, because for all its progress, India has some major developmental problems, especially human developmental ones. While a dose of nationalism was overdue and welcome in Indian politics, certain factions of the BJP are seeing their party’s victory as a sign that it is time to push a hard-right religious agenda. This posturing by elements of the BJP, most of whom are also members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist organization, risks torpedoing the BJP’s developmental agenda. Not only can the actions of the hard-right Hindu elements of the BJP lose it votes in the future and distract the party from pursuing a development agenda, they are already uniting all the opposition parties in India’s Parliament against it on unrelated, economic issues. This could also derail the BJP’s reform agenda; at the end of the year, it has not yet managed to pass a single major reform bill. A couple of weeks ago, a BJP minister, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, gave a speech in which she appeared to describe non-Hindus as “bastards.” Such views are not new among some members of the BJP, but these members are now emboldened and believe that BJP electoral victories have given them a free hand to pursue their agenda of asserting the dominance of their variation of Hinduism. Given the slow down in the BJP’s developmental agenda and the rise of voices in the BJP advocating various policies that target minorities (such as forcing children to attend school on Christmas), it is not surprising that some members of the BJP’s leadership, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, are worried. If the BJP deviates too much from the platform it was elected on, it would swiftly squander away its newly won credibility. This is why Modi has very sternly told members of his party to avoid raising religious issues and to stay away from the especially contentious issue of converting non-Hindus to Hinduism. Modi said: “We were elected on the plank of development and governance and we should stay focused on it. No deviation or dilution is acceptable. Even I cannot move away from this if wish to.” An increased Hindu conversion of non-Hindus is an issue that has become increasingly prominent and controversial lately, spurred by a recent incident in the city of Agra where 200 Muslims were mass converted to Hinduism. Some later alleged that they did not know they were being converted and implied that their conversion was coerced. Hindu groups claim (often correctly) that the mass conversion of non-Hindus is a practice no different from Muslim and Christian groups luring poor Hindus into converting to Islam or Christianity. Additional claims are made by Hindu groups (often correctly again) that Hindu-facilitated mass conversions of non-Hindus are merely responses to conversions away from Hinduism. Hindu groups have supported anti-conversion laws in several Indian states, to the protests of Muslims and Christians. It is not really relevant as to who has the right or wrong of the matter with regard to conversions in India. Yes, Muslim and Christian evangelical groups often use shady tactics to get converts, but so do many hardline Hindu groups. But the concept of mass conversions and converting through such a large, communal event is rather backwards. In countries like the United States, individuals convert and change religions quite often but mass, public conversions, which are really spectacles, are rare. It is really nobody’s business what religion their neighbor or anyone else follows and the energies of the people of India ought to be used for more useful goals rather than going around and mass-converting people. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Three found dead in Hauz Khas bungalow in New Delhi Three men were found dead and a fourth in an unconscious state inside the servants’ quarter of a bungalow in the posh South Delhi neighbourhood of Hauz Khas on Sunday. The police suspect they suffocated due to a fire lit inside to keep themselves warm. All four worked for the family of businessman R.K. Oberoi, who lives in bungalow number L-2 in Hauz Khas Apartments. According to the police, a female domestic help spotted the four lying unconscious around 11.30 a.m. inside the servants’ quarter, where they had been sleeping since the early hours of Sunday. “When they did not turn up for work, the house owner sent her to call them. She alerted her employer immediately when she found Uday (45), Santosh (33), Munna (26) and Rajesh (24) lying unconscious,” said a police officer. Mr. Oberoi called a doctor and admitted all four to a nearby hospital, where all except Uday were declared brought dead. The police was informed and the bodies shifted to the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences for post-mortem. Uday, who remains unconscious, was still in the ICU till late evening, sources said. Uday is a domestic help, while Santosh, Munna and Rajesh worked as driver, gardener and cook respectively. The Hindu was denied access to the room. However, from what a relative of Santosh, who has been inside the room, could recall, the dimensions are small and it is not well ventilated. Confirming this, the officer added that preliminary enquiry revealed the fire had reduced the supply of oxygen, leading to a rise in the concentration of carbon monoxide. “The room is nearly 8x10 feet. There is no supply of fresh air unless the door is open. However, it was closed. We are probing further. Things will become clearer once the post-mortem report comes in,” he added. HYDERABAD Google may open own campus in Hyderabad Internet giant Google plans to open its own permanent and big campus in Hyderabad and is set to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Telangana government shortly to take up the venture. We are likely to sign MoU with Google. They are likely to open their campus here in Hyderabad. It will be the third campus they will have after the US and the UK, Telangana IT, Electronics and Communications Secretary Harpreet Singh told PTI . Google currently operates from rented premises here but wants to move to a permanent campus, he said, adding that the tech major would sign an MoU with the state government shortly. He, however, declined to go into further details of the proposed venture, saying a press conference is scheduled to be held shortly on this but added that it would be a big campus. Mr Singh also said Cisco, Airtel, Vodafone and a Taiwanese company, among others, have responded to the expression of interest floated by the government on proposed venture to make Hyderabad a Wi-Fi-enabled city. Many of them are partnering and coming, Mr Singh said, adding that the Taiwanese firm, in fact, was behind making Taipei a Wi-Fi-enabled city. But he said the companies that have evinced interest have sought information such as detailed maps of the city, including roads, and some clarifications with regard to certain specific points. So, we are preparing the replies; we will give it to them. It will take time (to make the city Wi-Fi-enabled) because business model is the critical issue. Making wi-fi is not a big problem ... but how to monetise it ... is the key issue, he explained. Mr Singh, however, said the contract for this venture is expected to be awarded in the next three-four months after floating the request for proposals and the bidding process. After that, the successful bidder is expected to take six months to roll out the infrastructure, he said, indicating that the city is likely to be Wi-Fi-enabled only towards the end of next year. On the proposed Rs. 30 crore incubator facility for technology start-ups, he said its designs have been completed and the process of tendering is in progress. The 70,000 square feet facility will have 800 seats, housing an expected 500 start-ups in different stages of growth, he said. We are planning to formally inaugurate this building on June two (on the first anniversary of Telangana States formation). As for software exports from Hyderabad, he noted that it was Rs. 57,000 crore or roughly $10 billion in the year 2013-14. This year (2014-15), I think its (going to be) 12 per cent (more). We may do slightly better (better than 12 per cent growth), Mr Singh added. Note for Recipients: Advisory is based on analysis of open source information; local environmental conditions should be factored in by recipients to assess holistic impact on business continuity.
Posted on: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 06:16:20 +0000
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