ANNALILA: People out on roads to celebrate Anna's victory!

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IANS / ibnlive.in.com / Posted on Aug 27, 2011 at 11:47pm IST.

New Delhi: Scores of people came out on the roads in Delhi to express their elation over the victory of activist Anna Hazare, whose three key demands on the Lokpal bill were accepted by parliament on Saturday.

Sporting Anna caps, waving the tricolour and shouting slogans, people were seen heading towards India Gate.

Some people were found to be dancing to the tunes of patriotic songs on roads, while some took out car rallies and processions.

Rest at,

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/people-out-on-roads-to-celebrate-annas-victory/179163-3.html

DESPOT ALI ABDULLAH SALEH: Yemen’s Dangerous Hunger Crisis!

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Ellen Knickmeyer / thedailybeast.com / Jul 18, 2011 9:51 PM EDT.

Scenes of severely malnourished Yemeni children in the Therapeutic feeding center at the Al-Wahda teaching hospital, Aden, Yemen, August 11, 2010., Brent Stirton / Getty Images.

In one of the cities at the center of Yemen’s revolution, tanks and soldiers of President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s loyalist forces occupy the main hospital, turning away the civilian sick and wounded, and using the hospital as a vantage point to shell residential neighborhoods at night.

Prices of water as well as food have soared amid Yemen’s political crisis, so that ever more poor families are resorting to drinking water from rain and other contaminated sources, and new reports of cholera outbreaks are reaching the capital, Sana’a. Yemeni cities are emptying of day laborers and other poor, aid officials and residents told me, as men return with their families to their villages in hopes of escaping hunger.

Months of violent political crisis are depleting the savings and stockpiles of more and more Yemenis, so that not only beggars, but neighbors, come round to quietly ask for food.

“There’s no work, no water, no electricity, no security. When we sleep, my family and I are not sure if we will live until morning, because of the shelling on the houses, and the bullets all night,” says Ali Qassim Abdullah, a 44-year-old father of three young children. Abdullah spoke in Yemen’s southern city of Taiz, where loyalist units commanded by the son of Yemen’s president are accused of nightly—and sometimes random—artillery fire.

“The whole world is watching this happen to us in Taiz. And no one speaks or objects,” Abdullah told a Yemeni reporter in Taiz who helped me talk to civilians.

It’s not surprising that Saleh’s government, and his son and nephews in charge of loyalist security forces, are neglecting and even compounding the suffering of civilians. It was Saleh who has driven the country into chaos since protests started in February, and who ignored the fundamental needs of his people throughout his more than three-decade rule.

Full Story at,

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/07/18/yemen-racked-by-hunger-crisis-water-shortage-saleh-forces-al-qaeda.html

Lok Pal Bill: The discreet charm of civil society!

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P. SAINATH / the hindu.

Social Activist and Member of Lokpal Bill Committee, Anna Hazare, addresses a press conference in New Delhi. Photo: Shanker Chakravarty - The Hindu.

There is nothing wrong in having advisory groups. But there is a problem when groups not constituted legally cross the line of demands, advice and rights-based, democratic agitation.

The 1990s saw marketing whiz kids at the largest English daily in the world steal a term then in vogue among sexually discriminated minorities: PLUs — or People Like Us. Media content would henceforth be for People Like Us. This served advertisers' needs and also helped shut out unwanted content. As the daily advised its reporters: dying farmers don't buy newspapers. South Mumbaikars do. So the suicide deaths of a couple of fashion models in that city grabbed more space in days than those of over 40,000 farmers in Maharashtra did in a decade.

February 2011 saw one of the largest rallies staged in Delhi in years. Lakhs of workers from nine central trade unions — including the Congress party's INTUC — hit the streets to protest against rising food prices and unemployment. This was many times bigger than the very modest numbers at Anna Hazare's fast and larger than Ramdev's rollicking ‘yoga camp.' These were workers and unions not linked to the state. Not market-driven. Not corporate-funded. And expressing clearly the interests and values of their members. In fact, fitting some classic definitions of ‘civil society.' The rally was covered by the BBC, Reuters and AFP but was mostly invisible in mainstream Indian media except when attacked for creating traffic jams.

Perhaps the whizz kids were on to something larger than even they knew. At least one dictionary has since added this entry under People Like Us: “A subtle reference to people of the same socio-economic class.” Only, there was nothing subtle here. The Indian elite play the PLU game like few others do. Entry into the club is by birth or invitation only. And getting certification from the classes that matter takes some work. Your own background can be surmounted however, even turned to advantage, if there are enough strong PLUs around you. Anna Hazare had this. Baba Ramdev did not have it. Both claimed to speak for ‘civil society.' A media applying that word with reverence to those around Anna Hazare, denied it with scorn to those they saw as Ramdev's rabble.

Sections of the media embarrassed by Ramdev point, in contrast, to the ‘many fine people' around Hazare. Most of them part of the Delhi elite with indeed impeccable records of service. Yet, how did their approach differ in principle from Ramdev's?

Very deep Analysis of the the socalled 'Civil Society', which has been an misnomer all along; these are one of the many 'pressure groups', albeit vociferous and hence popular with media and the general public.  A good read for anyone who to see through the game of elite!

Full Article at,

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/sainath/article2110433.ece?homepage=true

SHAME OF INDIA: ‘Number of hungry people in India rose by 65 mn between 1990-2005’!

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PTI / The Hindu.

Oxfam research forecasts that average international prices of key staples, such as maize, will increase by between 120 and 180 per cent by 2030, with up to half of this increase due to climate change - AP.

The number of hungry people in India has increased by 65 million — more than the population of France — because economic development excluded the rural poor, and welfare programmes failed to reach them, according to charity organisation Oxfam.

In a report titled ‘Growing a better future’, it said today that India’s economy doubled in size from 1990 to 2005, but the number of hungry in the country had risen by 65 million during the period.

Oxfam also warned that average prices of staple crops will more than double in 20 years if urgent action is not taken to change the international food system, which is already failing to feed nearly a billion people a day.

National Food Security is something our successive governments have been failing to give to its citizens, while they need Supreme Court to tell to giveaway the procured grains to the hungry rather than allowing them to rot.

Full Story at,

http://www.thehindu.com/health/policy-and-issues/article2065723.ece