A continuous boundary with Bangladesh!

1. The process of handing over Bangladesh's villages within India and India's villages within Bangladesh had begun from the midnight of this day. It's gonna take 11 months for completion and that date will be 30 Jun '16! The agony of the people having to spend in no-man's land without developmental activities coming in must have been a nightmare!

Background.

2. The Land Boundary Arrangement(LBA) was signed by the then Prime Ministers of the two countries, Indira Gandhi and Sheikh Mujibhur Rehman in '74. But the assassination of Sheikh Mujib, soon after, saw the agreement put into cold storage! Let's see the significant aspects of this agreement.

    (a) 162 villages will be exchanged the breakdown of which is:-

          * India will give away 51 villages covering 7,110 acres.
          * Bangladesh will give away 111 villages covering 17,160 acres. 

     (b) Total number of people that will be affected:-
    
           * Indians staying in Bangladesh               37,000
           * Bangladeshis in India                            14,000

3. The LBA was revived and ratified by the Lok Sabha in May, this year, following which the instrument was mutually exchanged by Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Sheikh Hasina on 06 Jun.

4. How did such a phenomenon come about?

    Before India's independence, the Raja of Cooch Behar had gifted away these villages consequent       to losing chess games, played with the local chieftains/rulers!

Some other characteristics of the Agreement.

     * The villagers will have the option of retaining citizenship of whichever country they choose.
     * The right to dual citizenship can also be exercised by them. In a joint survey that was 
        conducted none of those dwelling in the Bangladeshi villages within India want to let go of 
        their Indian citizenship and another 600 have expressed keenness to migrate into India/possess
        Indian citizenship.
     *  The people will have the right to have land holdings on a pro rata basis of their existing 
         holdings.
     *  The relocation will begin in Nov, this year and the Indian government has set aside Rs.3,068
         crores for the purpose.

5. The process of handing over 100 Bangladeshi villages and 50 Indian villages had begun at midnight.


Tailpiece.

A continuous boundary with Bangladesh at long last! Let's hope that this is a trailblazer for a peaceful atmosphere on this border and there will be no more influx of illegal migrants, henceforth! And perhaps, an early agreement on the Teesta water sharing can also not be far behind!! 

Remembrance day of my Ammachi, Mrs. PN Panicker.

Today's the 24th remembrance day of my grandmother as per the Malayalam calendar. My mom and I went through a lot many occasions when Ammachi had guided all of us through her wisdom and matured opinions.

Mom recounted how my grandfather used to bring in people home at short notice and expected my grandmother to provide them with food and many a time, lodging too! It was my ammachi's resourcefulness that at the end of it all, everyone went away happy, singing her praise!! And mind you they're subsisting on a primary school teacher's meagre pension......A truly remarkable lady!

We found that the pain that was inflicted by her passing into the mist of time continued to linger despite the passage of time........ I'd wanted to get my grandparents to the house that we'd set up while at Ooty and I remember ammachi's reply when I'd expressed my desire before leaving for the staff course and I quote, "You tell your Muthachan, who won't say no to you and I'll make sure that we make it."

Ammachi, I miss you........... Mom misses you too!

      *                                *                                  *

Peikarumbu, the resting place of Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam is soon gonna be a centre of tourist attraction. Such is his popularity that Rameswaram, that boasts of being a popular pilgrim centre will further go up in the earning of revenue from tourists, who'd flock to pay their respects to the late President and try to know more about him from the accompanying library and memorabilia, in the proposed memorial!


Tailpiece.

I got an unexpected call from a friend and instructor of mine during my long course - and mind you, he was a damn good teacher. I'd earlier been sounded by a mutual friend about his impending visit to the temple town. Today's call was basically to confirm that programme of his!

Those who kill innocent people are no human beings.

Yakub Memon, a chartered accountant by profession, and 11 others were slapped with the death penalty by the special TADA court in Jul '07 for the 13 serial blasts of Bombay in Jul '93 in which 257 people were killed and 712 were injured. The Supreme Court had upheld Memon's death sentence while commuting the others' to life imprisonment.

Mind you, Ibrahim alias Tiger Memon, the main accused and Dawood Ibrahim, the master mind are still at large. To recap, Memon was found guilty of the following:-

            - criminal conspiracy
            - aiding, abetting and facilitating a terrorist attack
            - illegal possession and transportation of arms and ammunition
            - possessing explosives intending to endanger lives.

My take.

What baffles me is that many social activists and politicians have lent their voice in support of his clemency. Probably, they've arguments for their stand but I just can't comprehend them.

I'm of the opinion that:-

         (a) Those who kill innocent people are no human beings and deserve no kindness.
         (b) They could be brainwashed in thinking that they're carrying out a holy war(Jihad means
               that) and it's futile trying to bring them back to sanity after having committed the crime.
         (c) The rest of the society will always look at them as wrongdoers and hence, their
               rehabilitation and complete acceptance is impossible.
         (d) They, themselves, might not like to prolong their condemned, wretched lives!
         (e) Capital punishment, therefore, is the only redeemer.


Tailpiece.

Why doesn't education overcome the process of getting brainwashed? It should have helped them to come to the simple conclusion that destroying the life of another is not the done thing.

PS.
While in prison, Yakub Memon had earned two masters degrees in English Literature and Political Science from the Indira Gandhi National Open University.  

   

A quiet existence.

I was asked to be at Thiruvananthapuram on 30 Jul, to be made the head of the feeder organisation that provides the administrative/executive umbrella for the Foundation's activities. The executive committee, comprising of 11 distinguished members, drawn from various walks of life, are meeting up for the purpose.  The added factor was that the day also happens to be the 24th remembrance day of my Ammachi and the family had wanted me to join them for the connected ceremony.  

It's a fairly tricky proposition on three counts viz.:-

    (a) Lekha's foot is being bandaged everyday after cleaning and massage to ensure that the graft
          is secure in its place while integrating the newly-formed contours, post surgery into a smooth,
          leveled disposition. It takes up half an hour every morning though her assistant helps me with
          it.

     (b) I walk mom - though not really in need of any assistance as she does all her work herself -
           every evening in the courtyard. This, along with two excursions up and down the flight of
           seventeen steps of the main staircase, form her main workout every day! The beauty about it
           is that Lekha substitutes for me in case of my absence and conducts it even better than I do!

     (c) In addition to the above, I've been following a 'siddha' course of medicines for skin eruptions
          thanks to an allergy. Carrying the oils and having medicines alternately, with water and milk
          against a prescribed periodicity is not only a pain but would entail the hosts' indulgence -
          though it's family - and I wanted to avoid it.

I was desperately hoping, against hopes, for the postponement of the meeting. A delay of one week would sort out the factor mentioned at serial (c) above.

This sort of a quiet existence has been in place from mid-May, over a month after the 'yatra' through all the districts of the state. But other important milestones could be achieved during the period.


Tailpiece.

Finally, the way out is in sight. The meeting has been postponed to 07 Aug!




           

Adieu, Abdul Kalam sir.

He'd many names...

        * the missile man of India
        * the mad Indian scientist(What Pakistan called him after the second Pokharan explosion).
        * the people's President!

Dr. Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Kalam, all of 83 years, passed into the mist of time at 1852h in the midst of one of his passionate endeavours - interacting with the youth at IIM, Shillong. The media has been covering every aspect of this great son of India and hence, I shall desist from dwelling more on him. He shall be remembered for his simplicity, easy accessibility, minimal requirements and humility.

RIP, Abdul Kalam sir. My tears and prayers for a worthy icon of the country.

PS.

We're in the process of acquiring his guidance for our activities at the PN Panicker Foundation, especially with the e-literacy project, after the passing away of Justice Krishna Iyer. I suppose that will remain an unfulfilled dream.

      *                                     *                                         *

Did you know?

Here's an interesting story about why a horse-shoe is considered to be a good luck charm.

Long, long ago in England, there lived a blacksmith named Dunstan. In those days, one of the main jobs a blacksmith did was the making and fitting of horseshoes. On a wild, windy night a man came to Dunstan's smithy asking him to fit horseshoes on his feet. The startled Dunstan noticed that his visitor had hooves and not, normal feet, for, it was the Devil himself.

While Dunstan nailed the horseshoes into the Devil's feet, he'd chained the latter while he writhed in pain. He was released on completion after the extraction of a promise that the Devil would never enter a building which had a horseshoe over the door.

The superstition of hanging a horseshoe at the main door of the house persists even to this day!   


Tailpiece.

A quiet and uneventful day which ended up in a pall of gloom after the news from Shillong. It was as though one had lost one's own! 

This is how crazy we, Indians, can be!

I'm just going to narrate a few incidents that happened today, in different parts of the country, to show as to how crazy we can be. And so, here I go:-

 (a) From Bombay. 

       Salman Khan tweets that Yakub Memon - waiting for the gallows on the 30th of this month for
       his involvement in the Bombay blasts of '93 - is innocent and it's his brother, Tiger Memon, who
       should be paraded, tried and punished. Protests were quick to erupt and later on in the day, he'd
       removed the tweet and apologised after being prodded by his dad, Salim Khan.

       And everything is back to normal, thankfully!

  (b) From Calcutta.

        There has been a news item that's abuzz on the social media that stray dogs are being massacred
        indiscriminately in Kerala. It, further, exhorts tourists to keep away from the state whereas this
        forum had pointed out the truth, on the ground, a few posts back. Well, in Calcutta, the film
        fraternity had held street protests, along with dogs, asking everyone to shun Kerala on this
        account.

        Truth, the casualty, even with an ever alert media and many television channels per language?

   (c) From Delhi.

         'Kargil Diwas' was being celebrated with the political leaders and service officers paying
         floral tributes at the Amar Jawan Jyothi at New Delhi and many other places all over the
         country. Ironically, the 'powers that be' gave a wide berth to the striking ex-servicemen in
         the nearby Jantar Mantar and other places, elsewhere in every state. They're trying to coax the
         government on speedy implementation of the 'One Rank One Pension'(OROP) which they've
         been promising since ages!

         False show of solidarity with the serving servicemen while shunning the ex-servicemen who'd
         given their best years for the country?

   (d) From Kozhikode, Kerala.

         The owner of a swanky car had parked his vehicle across a main thoroughfare of the city
         after overtaking a bus of the state road transport corporation, for having caused a minor
         damage on its chassis. The bus driver insisted that he'd done nothing wrong while the car
         owner insisted upon financial compensation for making good the damage. A consensus was
         being arrived at to call in the police to sort the matter out.

         With both sides hardening their stand and traffic piling up on either direction, a few 'peace
         initiators' and the already delayed passengers arrived upon a novel idea. Collecting @ Rs.10/-,
         Rs.5/-, Rs.2/- and even Re.1/- from the passengers, they could cough up Rs.350/- to hand
         over to the owner who was satisfied with the amount and drove away!

         Every man, I've heard, has a price. I never knew that there could be such lowly priced ones
         too. What about the time loss that he'd caused to the bus passengers and the traffic snarl that
         ensued?


Tailpiece.

Does it require anything else to show that we're a crazy lot?   

Baffled, yet again!

1. The Delhi trial court has dropped charges against Sreesanth, Chavan and Chandila in the IPL spot-fixing case, that had rocked the nation two years ago, because the police had failed to make out a case against them. The three were accused of cheating and conspiracy along with charges under the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime(MCOCA)! They're banned from the game for life by the BCCI, soon after the police action!

2. What baffles me is that even after the charges have been cleared, the BCCI has reiterated that its ban against the three players will remain. Secondly, Sreesanth consumed almost the entire prime time television of all the Malayalam channels today.......... A sensational case, with tell tale evidence as touted then, ending up in a whimper........does it all add up, I wonder!

        *                                   *                                    *

3. The logjam in Parliament continues and no solution seems to be in sight. As reported, Rahul Gandhi has said that the opposition will continue to boycott the session until Sushma Swaraj resigns while the ruling party has said that its minister was willing to have the matter discussed on the floor of the house and that, she'll not resign. In parliamentary democracy, the ruling party and the opposition taking diametrically opposite views is not uncommon but disruptive tactics - of a prolonged nature as it's happening in this case - are never resorted to. Discussions by the sane bring everyone back on to the negotiating table.

4. My question is as to whether the decision to disrupt the session is an individual decision of the inexperienced Rahul Gandhi because the following factors point to such a situation:-

        (a) there are rumblings within the party against the continuous disruption as the party gets a
             bad name that it's running away from discussions within the house.
        (b) the allies of the Congress also don't seem to want to continue this sort of stonewalling
              because by doing so, they're playing into the hands of the BJP.
        (c) more muck is being thrown around its chief ministers and it can have after effects locally.
             Though on this aspect, by showing the other as bad, the BJP can't afford to wash away its
             sins. Sushma Swaraj and Vasundhara Raje have to speak the truth and face action.

5. But what baffles me is that by resorting to disruptive tactics why are you delaying the 'reforms process'? You've no right to play with the nation's destiny!

         *                                    *                                       *

6. VS Achuthanandan, the leader of the opposition, continues to hurl personal charges at his opponents and the lion's share is reserved for the chief minister. It would have been nice had he also accepted charges against him in a sporting manner. Instead, he's shown a zero level tolerance which is sad. Decency and gentlemanly behaviour necessitate that!

Or is it the way that he wants to prove that he's an 'effective' leader of the opposition to his party bosses? .........Sad at the plight of the founding member of the party!  


Tailpiece.

There doesn't seem to be a dull moment, ever!