W’end Links: Celeb Crusades, Armed Intrusion, Bofors

Start this weekend with P Sainath at his best on Celeb crusades & the death of politics. A very brief excerpt:

The Lok Sabha constituencies of Mumbai averaged over 60 per cent voting between 1957 and 1977….

The barrage of celebrity propaganda to “get out there to vote” had an impact in Mumbai. Voting fell by 6 per cent….In Mumbai, voting was 41.41 per cent this time around as compared to 47.15 per cent in 2004.

Corporate media’s cutest efforts failed to arrest a decline in voting percentage. Nor did corporate-sponsored events and NGO activism fare any better.

Next, read Bhavna Vij-Aurora on The new terror threat in which she mentions the new phrase being used at the LoC:

There’s a new phrase being used by the security forces guarding the LoC to describe infiltration attempts from across the border. It’s now called “armed intrusion”….

 That’s because…security forces are stunned by the advanced levels of training, equipment and the sheer numbers that are attempting to infiltrate into India. So daring and well-planned is the strategy that while reviewing the security situation in Kashmir during inter-ministerial meetings, comparisons were being made with Kargil 1999.

In the article, she also talks of Veiled Jhadis:

Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor may have been the first to officially admit that women were being trained in terror camps across the LoC to infiltrate into India but intelligence agencies have been talking about it for quite some time now.

…According to sources, women are the new weapon of choice because they are not allowed to be frisked by male army personnel because of the sensitive situation in J&K.

…Ashiya Begum, 25 (arrested in November last year)…disclosed that 700 women were being trained in ISI-run camps at Bhimbar, Kotil and Sinsa where they were being also shown video footage of the fencing on the LoC and taught how to breach it. According to her interrogation report from Jammu Jail, there are already a number of women terrorists operating in India.

Next read the engrossing account of an unusual journey across Rajasthan: Desert stormed by Rohit Parihar, from which a fleeting excerpt:

When 12 riders galloped past villages in the deep desert of Rajasthan, their horses excited children, were surprised by camels and had people worshipping them. The 1,000-mile expedition, organised by the Indian Army’s Directorate-General of Mechanised Forces and the Adventure Wing, covered 200 villages in 60 days and was the first to be organised after Independence.

Next, a searing comment on the Bofors affair in the Indian Express: What loyalty costs from which this excerpt

…The revelations, reported by this newspaper, that the UPA government withdrew the Interpol red corner notice against Bofors accused Ottavio Quattrocchi, have exposed the CBI as following its master’s voice. Equally shocking are the revelations that the very same voice reached the ears of Attorney General Milon Banerji and Law Minister H.R. Bharadwaj.

…At least the law minister is a member of the cabinet and of Parliament, and can offer that as an excuse for playing partisan politics. Milon Banerji has no such cover. The attorney general is a constitutional appointee. His job is to give independent legal advice, not cover up for the government. Yet, as this newspaper pointed out, in 2004 he ensured that the CBI did not appeal against a high court order quashing all charges in the Bofors case. He then used this decision not to appeal to justify removing an Interpol red corner notice against Mr Q — a circuitous justification if there ever was one. The government’s number one lawyer has compounded his pliancy with ineptitude. In the last five years, he’s made few appearances in court, forcing the government to rely on its other lawyers. This begs the very same question that the law minister can be asked — what, then, are they there for? The answer, alas, seems to be fidelity, that sister of the law.

and finally A Surya Prakash on PM’s concert in ‘Q’ major:

…The Prime Minister, Mr Manmohan Singh, has surely established himself as a conductor par excellence in the eyes of his benefactor by defending the withdrawal of the ‘Red Corner Notice’ against Ottavio Quattrocchi. He has declared that the Quattrocchi case is an “embarrassment” for the Government because the world sees this Italian fugitive and friend of Mr Sonia Gandhi as someone who is being “harassed” by us.

Bonus: Shy Rao, shameless Singh  by S Gurumurthy from which the concluding excerpt:

The Bofors scam — pay-off for India’s gun purchase deal with Sweden — broke out in 1987. A third of the Indians living today were not yet born then; and a fourth of the Indians living then are no more alive today.

…Including the payoff of $36.5 million to Q, the Bofors deal contemplated three streams of payoff totalling $250 million. Persistent investigations by the media and the CBI brought out the involvement of Q in the gun deal.

Enjoy the weekend. Stay healthy. keep smiling.

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All the past weekend links are here