S African Indian minister resigns after sex scandal

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

DURBAN: South African Indian provincial government minister Narend Singh, who led several initiatives to improve ties with India, has resigned after newspapers splashed pictures of him in a sex romp at a hotel with the wife of a prominent local businessman.

A steamy DVD of a tryst between Singh and Roseanne Narandas, a boutique owner and wife of well-known jeweller Bob Narandas, has been circulating for weeks now.

Earlier this week, Singh was adamant that it was a personal matter and that he would not step down as minister of arts, culture and tourism in KwaZulu-Natal province, where he has also served a term as education minister.

But late Tuesday Singh announced his departure from politics at a tearful meeting at his palatial home south of here, in what was also a show of support from his wife of 30 years, Manitha, daughter Keshika Singh, son-in-law Raveen Behari and son Shikar.

Although the provincial premier, S'bu Ndebele, had given Singh 10 days leave of absence while police investigate the motives behind the distribution of the DVD at schools and in private home post boxes, Singh announced his resignation but said he would remain a member of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) led by Zulu leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi.

Singh said he found it "sad" that such a personal and private thing had become a "part of the public domain, in a way that is highly destructive and embarrassing".

Singh said he had resigned because of the huge strain on his family, which he said had been totally supportive.

"While serving the community is close to my heart, I am not prepared to sacrifice the pride and dignity of my family at the altar of blackmail and political backstabbing," Singh said.

Police are investigating alleged blackmail attempts after Singh was told that the DVD would be distributed publicly if he did not withdraw from a provincial and local government election that was held across South Africa March 1 this year.

Singh, who has visited India a number of times, has always been a firm supporter of mutual cooperation between the two countries. A devout Hindu, Singh has also visited a number of Hindu shrines in India, and said he had received support from the head of the Divine Life Society in South Africa, Swami Sahajananda, during his crisis

Roseanne Narandas earlier rejected suggestions that she may have been instrumental in orchestrating the DVD after the national weekly Sunday Times printed extracts from the DVD with a report that Narandas had allegedly steered Singh towards the hidden camera.

Narandas, who also claimed that her husband and family were supporting her, said she would not do anything deliberately that would embarrass her family, which is also a prominent one here.

Although Singh claimed he had been forced to resign because his private life had been made public, supporters of the Moral Regeneration Campaign in South Africa have welcomed his move, saying as a minister of state, he had a duty to set an example.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1459106.cms

http://www.thepost.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=1&fArticleId=3168771

Large spending in the social sector pays off in Finland

Garimella Subramaniam, The Hindu, 16 March 2006

No corruption in public institutions, says Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen

CHENNAI: Finland is the global leader in competitiveness for the fourth time in the past five years, ahead of the United States and other industrial giants of Europe, according to the World Economic Forum

Ranking. It invests heavily in basic education and social welfare, says Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen.

In an interview to The Hindu here, he said Finland's continued success in achieving a combination of fiscal prudence, high quality public institutions and technological innovation owed it to the large spending in the social sector.

"In addition to well-functioning public institutions which are marked by the absence of corruption, we invest substantially in the basic education of our people. The expenditure on education and social welfare also means that people have to be paid high salaries," Mr. Vanhanen said.

"Finland cannot compete with countries such as India in terms of wages. So we necessarily have to fall back upon technological innovation, provision of education, welfare and clean and transparent administration. I don't think the Nordic model can be viable if we sacrifice any of these components. It also means that we have to continuously innovate and create new jobs because of loss of jobs in manufacturing due to globalisation."

Labour migration

Explaining his Government's recent announcement that it would allow people from eight of the 10 new member-states of the European Union to work in Finland, Mr. Vanhanen said the move to open the doors after two years of EU expansion was the decision of Parliament as part of a compromise with trade unions. "We are now confident that we won't face serious problems on account of immigrant labour."

Denying that it was a recent European Commission report highlighting the benefits of labour inflow from the East that prompted the decision, he said it was based on an independent assessment by the country's trade unions and employers' organisations. It was true that Britain, Ireland and Sweden opened their doors to labour from the new member-states right from the beginning of the 2004 EU enlargement. But the member-countries were free to review the transition period (leading to full freedom of labour movement), which was allowed for a maximum of seven years.

European Constitution

Talking about the European Constitution, in limbo following the Dutch and French rejection last year, Mr. Vanhanen, who will chair the EU Council from July to December 2006 as Finland assumes the six-monthly rotating presidency, said progress on its ratification might not be possible till the general elections in the two countries. The Prime Minister, who was involved in the negotiations on the treaty, said the Constitution that was framed when the EU had only 15 member-states might need changes. "We need new rules now because we have enlarged and we will have more new members in the future."

Against NATO membership

Asked whether the success of European integration would determine the extent to which Finland could resist pressures to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), Mr. Vanhanen noted that his country, a traditionally non-aligned state, had to take independent responsibility for its own security. "There is a large unanimity both within and outside Parliament against NATO membership. There was only one candidate (who secured just one per cent of the vote in the recent presidential election) who advocated membership of NATO. Support for NATO membership was only one-fifth even in the opinion polls."

Untouchability’ does not spare IAS officer

Wednesday, 15 March 2006

From Anand V Yamnur DH News Service Gulbarga:

Even when the news of Dalits being denied water from a community tank in a village of Koppal district looms in the minds of the people, a similar case has come to light in a village of Surpur taluk of Gulbarga district.

Even when the news of Dalits being denied water from a community tank in a village of Koppal district looms in the minds of the people, a similar case has come to light in a village of Surpur taluk of Gulbarga district.

A Dalit IAS officer has been denied permission by the forward castes to conduct the marriage of his kin in the community hall of a temple.

Amidst complaints that Dalits are still facing untouchability in their own villages, the latest victim of this practice is none other than Pre-University Examination Board Director Gonal Bheemappa.

Untouchability is apparently still in vogue in Devar Gonal village in Surpur taluk of the district, the native of Mr Gonal Bheemappa. The Mouneshwar temple in the village is a symbol of communal amity with both Hindus and Muslims converging to pray.

However, the managing committee of the temple denied permission to Mr Bheemappa to hold the marriage of his younger brother’s son in the community hall attached to the temple, just because he is a Dalit.

Common practice

When Mr Bheemappa's younger brother Kenchappa Gonal sought his help for conducting his son Hanumantha’s wedding in the temple community hall, the former telephoned temple managing committee members Basavalingayya and Basavanthrai, both teachers by profession, for permission.

It is a common practice in the village to hold marriages in the temple and the feast in the community hall.

However, permission was flatly refused and the marriage was held at Gopalaswami temple at Surpur.

This in spite of Mr Gonal Bheemappa being a donor of the temple, said his brother Kenchappa. Bheemappa is even denied entry into the temple and has to be content praying from outside.

Apart from Dalits being denied entry inside the Mouneshwar temple, separate cups and utensils are kept for Dalits at hotels in the village.

The same practice prevails in about 40 other villages in Surpur taluk.

Kenchappa told Deccan Herald that as he did not wish to make an issue, he did not repeat his request to the temple management or complain to Surpur Tahsildar, who is the Chairman of the temple managing committee. The temple comes under Muzrai department.

Ethnic Indian Woman could be Malaysia's First Astronaut

Kuala Lumpur, Mar 15: An ethnic Indian woman was on Tuesday named among four candidates short listed to become Malaysia's first astronaut and travel to the International Space Station next year.

S Vanajah Siva Subramaniam, 35, will travel along with three Malay men to the Russian Space Agency in Moscow soon to undergo medical and technical tests that will establish which of them will take part in the scientific expedition on board the International Space Station in 2007.

The three men are Malaysia Airlines pilot Mohammed Faiz Kamaluddin, 34; army dentist Faiz Khaleed, 26; and Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, a 34-year-old hospital medical officer.

The four were chosen from more than 11,000 candidates who had submitted their applications in a process that started in 2003.

Vanajah is an engineer by profession. She was the only woman to be short-listed. All the three men are from the dominant Malay community, while Vanajah belongs to the ethnic Indian community, which comprises 8 per cent of Malaysia’s 26-million-strong population.

The two-week round in Russia will test the candidates neurological fitness and ability to adapt to a weightless environment. Two candidates will be chosen out of the three and the two will undergo 18 months of training at the Russian Space Agency.

Later only one will get to spend 10 days in a planned scientific expedition aboard the International Space Station in October 2007.

Malaysia’s space programme is likely to cost around 25 million dollars.

British grooms fly out with dowry, but without the bride

Monday, 13 March 2006

The Times

NEW DELHI: Hundreds of British Asian men have been accused of abandoning new brides in India after securing lucrative dowry payments.

Police in India are investigating more than a thousand allegations from young women who claim that they have been lured into arranged marriages with the promise of a new life in Britain. Once dowries of up to £9,000 have been paid, the men abandon them, it is claimed.

The men, in some instances, return to India to marry a number of times, but the women’s lives are left in ruins in a society where divorce is still frowned upon.

“It’s a common sight: young girls with their parents, clutching their marriage papers and weeping. We have thousands of abandoned wives,” Parminder Kaur, chairwoman of the National Commission for Women in the Punjab, said.

Poorva Sharma, 24, from the village of Surajpur, Punjab, believed that her parents had found her a perfect partner in Rakesh Gupta, 35, a businessman from Coventry. They married in a traditional Hindu ceremony in India in July 2002 and lived together in India for a fortnight before he returned to Britain.

According to Ms Sharma’s solicitor, her father paid £5,625 to Gupta as a dowry payment: the now illegal deal, still widely practised, whereby a groom is paid for entering a marriage. The family was later asked for more money, it was alleged.

Ms Sharma’s dreams were shattered when she applied for permission to join her husband in Coventry and the British High Commission refused, because it said that Gupta had already married other Indian women.

“They told me he had been married a number of times, and they were suspicious of why I would want to go out there. I felt like dying. My life had ended before it had begun,” Ms Sharma said.

It emerged that Gupta was unemployed and had previously married two other women in the Punjab, according to court documents. One of them, Vandana Gupta, allegedly married Mr Gupta in July 1995 in Ludhiana. She left him in January 1996 after her parents repeatedly received demands for a dowry payment, she said. After parting, she discovered that she was pregnant.

She said that her husband obtained an ex parte divorce without informing her and had failed to pay maintenance for their son.

Following a complaint from Sharma, Gupta was arrested in March 2003 for dowry harassment but left India before the case came to court. Police documents show that he is now a “proclaimed offender” in India after skipping bail.

Rajinder Singh Rathi, Deputy Superintendent of Police in the Punjab, said: “We hope to get him through Interpol.”

The Times tracked down Mr Gupta to a terraced house that he owns in Coventry. He said that he had married only once in India — to Ms Sharma — and that he had been subjected to threats and blackmail from her family. “She was not a good wife,” he said. He added that he had never married Ms Gupta.

Gupta appears to have failed to tell his solicitors that he was wanted by Indian police. When The Times sent the law firm Heer Manak a police document proving this, the senior partner, Kulwant Manak, said that he was surprised to see it.

Social workers who help the Punjab’s abandoned women said that grooms exploited the overpowering desire of some Indians to go abroad. Britain, Canada and America still hold an allure for some in India as countries where jobs and good salaries are guaranteed.

Punjab police said that there had been a 40 per cent rise in the number of fraudulent marriages in the past three years. The authorities have issued a booklet warning parents to check the background of prospective grooms abroad.

In some cases software engineers have turned out to be welders, while doctors were waiters, social workers said.

Satnam Chana, a social worker in Jalandhar, Punjab, said that parents were often too eager to marry off their daughters quickly. “We tell parents that we can ask people in the UK to check a groom’s background but we’ve had only two requests in two years. They just hope blindly that it will be all right,” she said.

The motivations of British Asian men vary. Most, according to the authorities, are hoping for dowry payments. Others, however, are second-generation British Asians forced into marriages in India by their parents.

Many of the rejected women, convinced that their lives are over, become suicidal. Left in limbo, in a society obsessed with marriage, they are neither married in the real sense nor free to remarry.

Legal action against missing British grooms is difficult. An Indian family court can send a summons to a British Asian man but it can easily be ignored.

The extradition treaty between Britain and India does not cover matrimonial crimes, according to legal experts. The British High Commission in Delhi said that officials were examining ways of closing this legal loophole. There is, at least, a growing awareness of the problem in India. Ms Sharma said that her sister married last month — to a local man. “I didn’t want her to suffer the way I have. I’m rotting here, with no future. I just want my husband to rot in jail too,” she said.

How much India is there in US?

Thursday, 02 March 2006

New Delhi, February 27: Home away from home, how much of India is there is the US? A survey of telephone directory of Plainfield area, which is roughly as small as a Taluka in India, found 780 Patels, 200 Shahs, 134 Singhs, 50 Guptas, and a large number of Sharma, Rao, Reddy, Joshi and Kulkarni.

Another survey of telephone directory of San Jose in California found 280 Patels, 159 Gupta's, 115 Rao, 100 Singh besides a large number of Joshi, Reddy, Agarwal, Patil....

What more, there are 28 Indian periodicals in USA in English, four in Gujarati, three in Hindi, an equal number of Punjabi and one Konkani. "This shows the high magnitude of Indian impact in USA," says a new book "how to see, know and understand America" by Dr A V Saoji, G D Munshi and Dr Sanjay V Deshpande.

"In the year 2002, of the entire total 1063732 immigrants to USA from all the countries, as many as 66864 were from India. According to the US census, the overall growth rate for Bharatians from 1990 to 2000 was 105.87 per cent. The average growth rate for the whole of USA was only 7.6 per cent," say the authors.

Indians comprise 16.4 per cent of the Asian-American community. They are the third largest in the Asian American population. In 2000, of all the foreign born population in USA, Bharatians were 1007 thousands. Their percentage was 3.5 per cent," says the book.

"From 2000 onwards the growth rate and the percent rate of Indians amongst all the immigrants has increased by more than 100 times. A vast majority of them are waiting for green card and could not get themselves included in the census.... If included the percentage would come to about five per cent," it says.

"Indian Americans are economically most successful group in the United States," writes Swati A Dandekar, said state representative in the state of Iowa.

The book, as the authors say, is a must for all those immigrating to the US. Besides giving geographical details of the country, it also gives tips to immigrants on obtaining visa, about the currency, stay and even places of visit. However, it notes that lack of mobility is the only troublesome factor for visitors to USA"... Public buses are few. There are no railway locals that can be compared to that of Mumbai. Taxis are there but not freely available on road. Parking is a problem beyond imagination."

"If you want to enjoy America, you must have four 'C' - car driving, computer, cell phone and credit card," it says. "It is better to undertake insurance cover in India, before starting the journey rather than having it after reaching," it advises.

On things peculiar to USA, it says "there are many things which are not odd, but still are peculiar to USA... The Americans don'T mix solids and liquids, so eating Dal with Roti or Dal with rice is not seen."

"There is no system of putting name plates on houses in America... So unless you know the number of house you want to visit, it is impossible to trace that house."

On odds in USA, it says "contract system of jobs, bankruptcy and liquidation." (about the book: How To See Know And Understand America: by Dr A V Saoji, G D Munshi and Dr Sanjay V Deshpande; published by Sukhad Publications; price Rs 150, pages 160)