Harish Jharia

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19 July 2011

13/7 bomb blasts in Mumbai: India is the most vulnerable target for terrorists

New Delhi, India

                                13/7 Blast Site


Terrorists have once again attacked India with serial blasts in Mumbai on 13th July 2011 the Wednesday evening. This is a repetition of massacre of innocent Indians in less than three years after the ghastly 26/11 terrorist attacks of 2008. The terrorists blew three time bombs, in a sequence, at 6.30 pm, 6.45 pm, and 7 pm IST, finishing their task in just half an hour flat. They targeted the biggest jewelry market Zaveri Bazaar, followed by Opera House and the Kabutarkhana area of Dadar West. 


Zaveri Bazaar the largest market for gold jewelry and diamonds is adjacent to the iconic Mumbadevi temple after which the city has derived its name ‘Mumbai’. It is shameful for the largest democracy on the earth that Zaveri Bazaar and Kabutarkhana were also targeted in the 1993 serial blasts. The terrorists have felt quite convenient to explode time bombs like  children light crackers on festivals and other occasions. 


India has become a soft target for terrorists who simply walk-in at any venue in this country, plant time-bombs at places of their choice, trigger them off killing dozens of innocent Indian citizens and devastating properties worth millions. They have not even spared the highest seat of power in India the parliament house situated in immediate neighborhood of Rashtrapati Bhawan (Official residence of the President of India) and the North and South Blocks from where the republic of India is ruled by the union government. 


We the common people of India keep observing these ghastly incidents helplessly as the politicians, who are governing this country, come out of their luxury offices and aristocratic residences for announcing inquiry commissions, enumerating statistics about the people killed in the blasts and evaluating the damages to the properties and infrastructures. These politicians usually compare the statistics of the current incidents of terrorists’ attacks with the data available with them in respect of similar killings in the past attacks. 


This happens only in India that senior leaders and spokespersons of political parties enlist dozens of excuses for the repeated terrorists’ attacks on Indian people inside the Indian territories. Let us enlist what all the politicians have spoken as an aftermath of the 13/7 terrorists’ attacks: 


1. One of the most common excuses is that the terrorists’ attacks are sponsored by Pakistan. (Naturally, what can we do with the activities carried out by terrorists in some other country?) By saying so, they divert the attention of the people from the rampant mushrooming of terrorists among the Indian population. The organizations like Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) — the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and the Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami (HuJI) use to get breathing spaces out of the prejudices statements of Indian politicians. The terrorists hiding in the Indian crowd never face fierce threats from the authorities so much so that they should not dare repeating their terrorist activities.


2. What message might have gone to the growing strength of   Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) — the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and the Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami (HuJI) when a senior politician straightaway refuted involvement of these terrorist organizations and accused Hindu terrorism for the 13/7 blasts. Incidentally the politicians who usually raise the bogey of Hindu terrorism are themselves Hindus. 


3. Indian politicians hypothetically relate the terrorist activities with particular religions like Islam and Hinduism. They quote these religions at their convenience keeping their vote-banks in mind. Muslims being a minority community has acquired a prime status as the most sought-after vote bank. This is the reason why many political parties claim themselves to be the well-wishers of the minorities and try to fetch their votes in elections. But the socioeconomic condition of Indian Muslims has not at all improved in the last 62 years. Minorities have been exploited by politicians before elections and ignored for the rest of the time. That is the reason why the majority population of Indian Muslims lives in stark poverty and social discrimination


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10 July 2011

Rampant Poverty in Bundelkhand, India: No Food to Eat and No Water to Drink for Rural India

New Delhi, India


- Harish Jharia


We boast about the richest Indians who have figured among the world’s wealthiest individuals. There are thousands of people having private choppers and aircrafts. Many have their own helipads on their private lands and some might be having it on their rooftops. 
Indian film stars are as wealthy as those in Hollywood


Most of the Indian cricketers in India are billionaires. India has a huge crowd of page-3 celebrities. All the metros and big cities in India have amusement hubs like night clubs, rave parties and all sorts of pleasure troves for the neo-rich mushrooming in the modern India. 


The world has observed one corruption scam after the other in India like Commonwealth Games scam, hoarding of black money in foreign banks, Telecom scam, and many other cases of embezzlement of the scares people’s money in the tune of millions of billions of rupees.  


We have also observed religious institutions and ashrams having treasure-troves of tons of gold, silver, jewels and countless cash to the tune of billions of billions of rupees. 


  2011 Picture of Poverty in Bundelkhand, India


We Indians are used to praise ourselves with one excuse or the other. We call ourselves the global teacher (Jagadguru) and our country as the golden bird (Sone ki Chidiya). We keep dazzled with the wealth and grandeur that we see all around ourselves, deliberately ignoring our own middle or lower middle class condition that we belong to. We keep our eyes closed and avoid looking at the rampant poverty spread in the downtowns and slums in our neighborhoods. 


Poverty is the real identity of India, because, 80% of Indians are living in poverty. Government statistics might be showing something different on their papers, but the reality is just opposite to it. The recent reports of starvation and thirst in the Bundelkhand area of Uttar Pradesh, India have opened the eyes of the Indian masses. People of Bundelkhand have resorted to eat food made out of grass and grass seeds.  


Kakahandi area of Orissa, India is well known all over the world for the starvation deaths and people resorting to consuming rodents and stray animals for filling their starving bellies. People of the rural India in all the states of India are living as bad lives as that described about Kakahandi and Bundelkhand. 


The union Government of India and the governments of the respective states use to launch many schemes for the upliftment of the rural poor. But the money and food meant for the village people are eaten away by the politicians, civil servants and the village heads. Resultantly, the starving rural India keeps waiting for the food and money throughout their lives and eventually, dies without food and water. 


The media, including the electronic media and print media tactfully ignore the majority population of rural India and cover only the sensational news items that enhance their TRP and readership.  Politicians and civil servants never visit these areas and rule the country from their air-conditioned offices in the capitals situated in metro cities.


It is hard to understand as to how the Indian republic really deserves a permanent seat in the Security Council of the United Nations. If we are serious about being elected for the coveted slot in the UN, then, we will have to wash away the black blots of corruption from our face, eradicate poverty and uproot social discrimination prevalent in the name of lower-casts in India.         


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