Delhi 67% Polls Recorded, Exit Polls Crown AAP Winner

An estimated 67% turnout was recorded on Saturday in the crucial Delhi assembly polls where BJP and AAP were locked in a battle royale, outcome of which may have ramifications on the national political landscape.

"Around 67% polling was recorded. However, we are still yet to get the final figure as voting continued beyond scheduled deadline of 6 PM," Delhi's Chief Electoral Officer Chandra Bhushan Kumar said.

Kejriwal’s Delhi Belly: An AAP Movement In 'Loose Motion'

By Anita Dhillon | Delhi

Several years ago while researching a story about ageing in India, I happened to meet a very feisty senior citizen named Kanta Advani. When I asked her about the problems of ageing I was expecting the usual list – cataracts, knees, loneliness, finances, absent children. But the outspoken Mrs Advani had more pressing issues on her mind. 

“My main problem about getting old is constipation. That is something we discuss quite openly with other people when we meet them. Constipation. Remember that. You will also get it when you are old.” Then she chuckled knowingly.

Did Arvind Kejriwal Met Congress Mediator In Delhi Hotel?

By Suhasi Sikand | Delhi

The Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) leader, Nitin Gadkari, alleged that an industrialist had brokered a deal between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress in a post hotel in Delhi to cease chances of BJP coming to power in Delhi.

The Chief Minister of Delhi and AAP leader, Arvind Kejriwal, refused these allegations and asked him to provide evidence.

In a press conference, Kejriwal said, ‘‘This is all rubbish. It is sad to note that a senior leader like Gadkari is talking nonsense. If he is making claims, then he should also give evidence.’’

Gadkari had made these allegations in at the Abhinandan Samaroh in the Talkatora Stadium adding that the government in Delhi is not of the AAP but it belongs to the Congress.

Gadkari’s made his statements hours after Kejriwal was sworn in as the Chief Minister of Delhi at the historic Ramlila Maidan on December 28.

One game India can't afford to lose

By M H Ahssan

As time runs out before New Delhi's hosting of the 2010 Commonwealth Games, there is widespread concern about India's levels of preparedness for the spectacle, which was hoped to showcase the nation's rising sporting and economic prowess and rejuvenate the capital's infrastructure.

There was nationwide jubilation in 2005 when New Delhi won the right to host the games, after beating stiff competition from the Canadian city of Hamilton. Expectations were high as this is the first time India will host the event, and is only the third developing country to do so after Jamaica in 1966 and Malaysia in 1998.

The games, scheduled to be held principally at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in October next year, are expected to cost US$1.6 billion, with infrastructure preparations that include the construction of five new stadiums and a games village.

An indoor stadium is being built at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium for weightlifting, at the Indira Gandhi Sports Complex for wrestling, at Siri Fort for badminton and squash, at the Yamuna Complex for table tennis. The world-class games village, being built at cost of $40 million, will accommodate athletes and officials from 20 sports disciplines from 25 countries.

However, while the plans are theoretically in place, factors such as the global economic slowdown, the November 26, 2008, Mumbai terror attacks and a lack of coordination among various urban development authorities have combined to throw numerous games-linked projects in doubt.

To make matters worse, a startling revelation this week by Sitaram Yechury, head of the committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture - which was set up last year to probe the progress of the games' preparation - has thrown up serious doubts about the city's capability to prepare adequate accommodation and security for the competition.

The committee's report, entitled "Development of Tourism Infrastructure and Amenities for Commonwealth games 2010", said that as the December 31 deadline for handing stadia over to the organizing committee swiftly approaches, many projects are yet to be initiated, let alone completed. The report said that despite there being sufficient funds available, the Sheila Dixit government in Delhi did not submit any infrastructure proposals until November 2008.

The 31-member committee has also questioned the capacity of the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) to ready the necessary accommodation, renovate hospitality facilities or modernize tourism sites ahead of the games. The committee said that hotels in the capital and its surrounding cities have only 14,000 rooms available, though 30,000 will be needed for the expected influx of foreign and domestic visitors.

The committee has slammed the New Delhi authorities for a lack of coordination among the various agencies involved in building games-related projects. It said that despite a raft of civic and administrative agencies being responsible for the tasks, there is nobody to coordinate the agencies involved. It said the confusion will lead to problems preparing roads, airports and electric supply, and that entertainment, parking and information centers will not be ready.

Even before the committee raised these inadequacies, global hotel investment service firm Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels (JLLH), had already highlighted Delhi's accommodation shortage. The firm said that the room shortfall had been caused by regulatory and financing impediments, and would likely create chaos.

"The pace of creation of additional hotel accommodation at 39 hotel sites, auctioned by the Delhi Development Authority since January 2006, is way behind schedule," said a senior Sports Ministry official. "Of the proposed 39 additional hotels, work is only going on at 19."

Compounding the problems is that due to the global economic slowdown, several private builders who took up hotel projects are facing severe funding problems. The fate of the games village is also under a cloud after the Dubai-based developer contracted to build it, Emaar MGF, approached the DDA for a financial bailout.

The government earlier granted Emaar MGF a nine-month deferral on the repayment of a $15.8 million loan from the State Bank of India, and no decision has been made on its request for additional funds.

Apart from infrastructure bottlenecks, the locations for the games' main venues are also in doubt. Environmental cases are pending over the allegedly illegal felling of more than 1,000 trees needed for the area where squash and basketball courts and the games village on the Yamuna River floodplain will be built.

An environmental assessment found that clearing the land could cause serious flooding and affect Delhi's already meager water supply. In view of the magnitude of the problem, the Supreme Court has ordered a re-assessment of the plans.

"Just because you're hosting world-class games, it doesn't mean that you can wreck the city's environment," said environmental activist Kiran Mansukhani. "If due attention isn't given to Delhi's ecology during the preparations for the games, their fallout could be catastrophic. In their hurry to host the games, the planners have failed to present a holistic vision of what Delhi would be like after them."

This is not the first time the Delhi government has faced flak over its preparation for the games. Last year, during an appraisal survey of the venues, the Commonwealth games Federation (CGF) expressed concern over the slow pace of work. The CDF was so upset that it hinted that Delhi might even lose the bid to host the games if it did not improve its performance.

The CGF will do two subsequent reviews to check the progress of the preparations, one in August and another in March 2010. The latter review represents the absolute cut-off point, though there is no precedent of the games being moved at this late stage.

After the CGF's harsh assessment, Suresh Kalmadi, the president of the Indian Olympic Association, scrambled to assure the federation that games venues would be completed by the deadline. "New Delhi's Commonwealth games are happening, let there be no doubt about that," insisted Kalmadi at the time.

Apart from other delays, the largest infrastructure upgrade project that was to be synchronized with the games - the modernization of the dilapidated New Delhi Railway Station - is also off track.

Railway Minister Lalu Prasad had promised to complete the modernization of the capital's main train station by October 2010, but the project has run into a number of delays, including the lack of a traffic clearance from the DDA. Experts say this will hold up the project by at least six months and jeopardize any chance of it being ready before the games.

The problems are disappointing as one of the primary reasons India gave for hosting the competition was matching its arch-rival China's efforts in making a success of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games. Another reason was the transformation of the capital's existing infrastructure, and to generate income, as the new projects should have benefited domestic real estate developers.

But experts have said that financial gains from hosting large sporting evens are notoriously hard to predict, particularly given the current volatility of the world markets - Montreal will this year make the last payment on a $6.2 billion deficit 30 years after it hosted the Olympics Games.

Despite the barrage of criticism, the organizers of the games remain optimistic. Kalmadi has said that that he will provide world-class infrastructure on time, as has Union Sports Minister, MS Gill. "It's like organizing an Indian marriage. This is India and we do it like this," he said recently.

Will 'Big' AAP Win Herald The Birth Of A Populist Modi?

Amit Shah’s son is getting married on February 10 in Gandhinagar. A  lot of BJP leaders would join him for the ceremony. So, whatever happens in Delhi on Tuesday, the BJP chief will have a reason to celebrate.

Otherwise the mood within the party is likely to be sombre if results of the Delhi elections mimic exit polls, which are predicting a huge victory for Arvind Kejriwal and an embarrassing loss for the BJP.

'Terror On Holi Day': Delhi Police 'Unstable' Statements Far From 'Reality'

Liaqat Shah arrived at the Sanauli check-point on the India-Nepal border with his family last weekend, travelling with his wife Akhtar-un-Nisa Geelani, and teenage daughter, Zabeena Geelani.  The family was on an extraordinary journey from Muzaffarabad to their village in northern Kashmir, a stone’s throw across the Line of Control—travelling over a thousand kilometres, through Karachi and Kathmandu. Home was just one train ride away.

But then, at the check-point, something happened.  Shah was taken aside by a small group of men in plainclothes and arrested.  Shah, the Delhi Police said on Friday, is a top Hizb-ul-Mujahideen operative, tasked with conducting a strike that could have claimed dozens of lives before Holi.  The police claim to have recovered an assault rifle and three grenades meant for the attack.

There are a mass of reasons, though, to doubt this account. Unless a credible explanation surfaces, the arrest could explode into a scandal which could undermine the credibility of the Delhi Police’s already-controversial counter-terrorism operations.

Shah’s story began in 1995, when he left his home in the small north Kashmir village of Dardpora in Kupwara district, and crossed the Line of Control to train at a Hizb-ul-Mujahideen camp in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.  He returned home late in 1996, the Jammu and Kashmir Police say, to serve with a Hizb unit operating in the Kupwara area. There are no charges, though, that  Shah participated in any terrorist act. In 1997, he crossed the Line of Control again, now fleeing police pressure, leaving behind first wife Amina  Shah.

Like hundreds of one-time jihadists,  Shah discovered Pakistan wasn’t all he’d imagined it to be.  The Hizb-ul-Mujahideen was in decay, torn apart by internal dissensions and diminishing support from Pakistan’s intelligence services. Family members say Shah’s wife, to add to her husband’s woes, flatly refused to leave Kashmir.  Shah was reduced to eking out a living as a labourer—not fighting in the victorious army of liberation of his imagination.

Shah tried, evidently, to settle in. In 2006, he married again—this time, the widow of Noor Hasan Geelani, a Hizb insurgent killed by the Indian Army in 1995.  Geelani’s wife, accompanied by her 19-year-old daughter Zabeena Geelani, travelled to be with her new husband that year, on a legitimate Indian passport.

Geelani, family members have told Firstpost, soon tired of her life, and insisted the family return home to Kashmir. Hundreds of others in the same situation have been making the same choice. This year alone, Jammu and Kashmir government figures show, 14 one-time jihadists have returned, along with 25 family members. Last year, over 150 ex-jihadists and their families returned to Kashmir; the year before, the figure was 140.  In several cases, the families included Pakistani nationals. India and Pakistan have come to a quiet agreement to facilitate these flows—though national laws in both countries continue to deem such crossings illegal.

The Delhi Police, however, claims  Shah’s motives for returning home were less than benign. In a press release issued on Friday, it said the United Jihad Council, the apex organisational alliance of Kashmir jihadist groups, met in January to consider new offensive plans.  Following the meeting, it said, two Hizb operatives told  Shah “that he had been chosen to supervise young fidayeen recruits who would commit spectacular terrorist strikes in Delhi”. Following the attack,  Khan was  to “return to the valley to settle down and to engage himself in talent spotting, i.e. finding new recruits and facilitating their cross border travel”.

Elements of the media have latched on the January date, to suggest it is inconsistent with separate claims that the plot was meant to avenge Parliament attacker Afzal Guru’s execution. “Police said a meeting was held in January to plan this attack,” one account asks triumphantly. “How would the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen have prior knowledge of  Guru’s hanging which took place in February”?

This makes no sense: the plain language of the Delhi Police press release makes clear the attack plot wasn’t conceived as a response to Guru’s execution.  It ought not be implausible to newspaper-readers—a category that hopefully includes journalists—that the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen was planning a strike in January. This is because Hizb chief Mohammad Yusuf Shah—who prefers the vainglorious pseudonym Syed Salahuddin—publicly promised one in a speech made on January 24. Pakistan’s Daily Ausaf newspaper quotes him as threatening to “relaunch the Kashmir jihad”.

But that’s as far as the Delhi Police story can stand up.

Precisely what evidence the Delhi Police has to back up its claim that  Shah was in on this plot is about as clear as mud. Intelligence sources have told Firstpost, information on the alleged plot involving  Shah was first generated by the Research and Analysis Wing. Precisely what it was, though, no-one will say—which means its unlikely to be produced in court. Following the Sanauli arrests, the sources said, the Intelligence Bureau asked the Delhi Police why exactly Shah had been held.  It was told that the police was aware of the background, and was facilitating his return to Kashmir—something we now know to be a flat-out lie.

Now, if the Delhi Police knew  Shah was in contact with the Jammu and Kashmir Police, there is no explanation for why it was never consulted on the investigation.  Shah’s credentials, any half-competent investigator knows, ought to have been verified—something that would have needed nothing more than a phone call.  It is also mystifying that his wife and daughter, who are material witnesses to the alleged plot, were allowed to proceed home to Kupwara. The man who is alleged to have brought the weapon recovered in Delhi, conveniently for investigators, has eluded arrest—and there is thus nothing on record to link him to  Shah.

It isn’t inconceivable that the Delhi Police, backed by RAW, did stumble on a significant terror plot. The Delhi Police’s conduct so far, though, does nothing to inspire confidence.  Part of the problem is the force, just like other elements of government, is addicted to deviousness—engaging in crook-like behaviour even when there’s a straightforward way to deal with a problem. I’ve argued earlier that the Delhi Police’s counter-terrorism operations get a bad rap, and this is why. There is either mind-boggling incompetence at work here—or, of course, worse.  Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar needs to come up with credible answers, fast.

Exclusive: Bizarre UPA-Era Figures Revealed 70% Of Delhi Used For Organic Farming In 2012 And Records Can't Explain Where 100 Crore Subsidies Gone?

Believe it or not, almost 70 per cent of the national Capital was used for organic farming in 2011-2012, according to National Project on Organic Farming (NPOF), which comes under the Ministry of Agriculture. 

While the total geographical area of Delhi is 1.48 lakh hectares, NPOF data shows 100238.74 hectares (almost twice the size of Mumbai) was used for organic farming during that period. 

What smacks of data fudging and a gigantic scam took place between 2009 and 2012 when the Sheila Dikshit government was in power in Delhi and the Congress-led UPA ruled at the Centre.

Is Delhi Govt Prejudiced Against Differently-Abled Players?

By Siddhi Sharma | INNLIVE

The Constitution secures to the citizens, including the differently-abled, a right of justice, liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship, equality of status and of opportunity and for the promotion of fraternity. But is this thought meant only to fill up pages of our constitution booklet ? Or does it hold some relevance and truth? Does our nation uphold its constitutional rights?

In an analysis done by INNLIVE, we have come across some shocking revelation . There are lots of voices , unheard. There are lots of sports people, falling in the category of the differently abled, who have made our nation proud, are suffering this bias. In such scenario, do we even have rights to call ourselves a citizen of a nation who believes in equality? When every ounce of the definition has been compromised?

City Of Fears: Is Delhi Any Safer For Women?

By Kajol Singh / INN Bureau

For a city that has witnessed unprecedented anti-rape protests, boasts four helplines for women — 100, 1091, 1096 and 181 — has Delhi become any safer? Not really. Revisiting the Munirka bus stop from where the young physiotherapy student took a private bus on December 16, while women continue to travel in buses that ply in late evenings, their journeys are fraught with  fear.

Deepa Joshi, a 25-year-old who boards a bus from the stand five days a week told the newspaper that her parents still get worried and call her up to ask her whereabouts.

Like many women who use public transport out of necessity, Joshi feels safer because she abides by a set of unwritten rules for women in the city. She dresses demurely, makes no eye contact, avoids the more crowded buses and gets home early. In short, she takes all the advice that was handed out to women by the police and politicians in the wake of the December protests.

SPECIAL REPORT: THE 'BAHUJAN SAMAJ PARTY'S BILLIONAIRES'

By Kajol Singh / Delhi

The party of the downtrodden is fielding candidates rolling in wealth. Just what’s the election plan?

When Deepak Bhardwaj stands on the terrace of his house in Nitesh Kunj near the Delhi-Gurgaon border off NH 8, he is the king of all he surveys. “All the trees, all the land you can see from here, is mine,” he says. The tone, though, is not one of flaunting wealth; it is that of achievement, of social mobility. Bhardwaj was born in rural Sonepat, Haryana, in 1950. His family had a few acres of land. After graduating in commerce from Delhi University’s School of Correspondence, he became a stenographer with the Delhi government’s sales tax office. Seven years later, he knew he was meant for higher things. He started a business of automobile parts.

OpEd: Can 'Aam Aadmi Party' Become A National Force?

By Hartosh Singh Bal (Guest Writer)

PRESPECTIVE When the Delhi assembly, amidst the expected uproar, voted 42 to 27 to block the introduction of the Jan Lokpal Bill on 14 February, it signalled the end of the Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal’s volatile seven weeks as chief minister. 

In a characteristic act of showmanship, Kejriwal tried to project the failure as the result of a united effort by the Congress and the BJP to scuttle the AAP’s cherished anti-corruption legislation, and not of his government’s attempt to sidestep constitutional procedure by bringing the bill to the floor without the approval of the central government. 

Nepal's Maoists cry Indian foul play

By M K Bhadrakumar

For any Indian who ever felt intrigued as to why South Asian neighbors often dislike his country, the past fortnight offered clues. Like in a Tennessee Williams play, painful to watch as the plot thickens slowly and invidiously, as protagonists begin tearing each other apart in quiet despair after love begins to drain or threatens to flee, India and Nepal are still locked in an embrace.

Someone must do the merciful act of separating them; of making them behave as they should - as two sovereign countries. Indian papers are full of interviews by Nepal's former prime minister Prachanda, who claims he was deposed in a concerted conspiracy by the Indian bureaucratic establishment. He repeatedly claimed that at a time when the seasoned Indian politicians who by instinct understood Nepali politicians and their native ways have been out of Delhi on the grueling campaign trail in the current parliamentary elections, the mandarins of the Indian bureaucratic establishment settled scores with him and his Maoist party.

According to the Maoists, the Indian establishment has forced them out of power in a virtual coup by rallying disparate political elements and vested interests opposed to them in Kathmandu on various counts, including the Nepalese army and Nepal's deposed king.

The Indian establishment is not generally known for such neat planning or efficiency. But what matters is that in Nepali public perceptions, the allegation resonates. Any Indian diplomat who has served in India's neighborhood can tell that India carries the burden of a larger-than-life profile. There is a wealth of misconceptions among India's neighbors about its capacity to harm. The common perception is that India can be a ill-tempered, self-righteous bully.

But the ungainly truth, as often happens, gingerly lies somewhere in the middle. True, India can probably muster a quick temper and may even be capable of doing mischief if its feathers are ruffled, but then, if its neighbors are clever enough, they can pay back in the same coin.

Take Sri Lanka. In the early 1980s, Delhi took a deliberate decision to start a quarrel with Sri Lanka's Western-oriented leadership in Colombo. Several complicated factors led to the quarrel, including vanities at the leadership level, but it overtly wore the look of a pale Indian variant of the Monroe Doctrine.

Delhi wanted the unhelpful leadership in Colombo to be put in its place - like the Maoists in Kathmandu who showed the audacity to warm up to China's friendly overtures. Books have been written which graphically describe that Delhi fostered the Sri Lankan Tamil insurgent groups as an instrument of foreign policy to pressure the then Sri Lankan government under president J R Jayewardene.

If so, Delhi truly underestimated the tenacity of the Colombo political elite to hit back. The grit of small countries, which depend paramountly on their wits rather than muscle to safeguard their autonomy, is something too hard to believe. Before Delhi could count to ten, Jayewardene sought and won an Indian military intervention in Sri Lanka to put down the very same Tamil insurgency it thoughtfully fostered in the first instance. And, amazingly, in no time, Delhi agreed to do the unthinkable - dispatch an expedition to intervene in a neighboring country's civil war.

But Colombo soon made yet another neat somersault and the Indian military expedition in Sri Lanka found itself to be the common target of the Tamil insurgents and the Sri Lankan security forces alike. The result was that after the loss of a few thousand Indian soldiers and the assassination of a former Indian prime minister, Delhi wound up its expedition in Sri Lanka in shame and ignominy and sailed home. But the story didn't end there.

The Colombo elite, having tasted blood, allowed Delhi a brief respite before working on its vanities again and getting the Indian elite on its side even as another bloody chapter of the civil war was unrolling. Some say the Indian establishment was not so dumb-witted as made out to be, but was probably on a brilliant Machiavellian act in assisting Colombo to vanquish the Tamil insurgent army. Time will tell.

At any rate, if the Maoists are clever, they would do a Colombo act on Delhi. It seems they may do just that. They are reaching out to a political formation at the other end of Nepal's fragmented political spectrum comprising Nepalis of ethnic Indian origin who are commonly seen as Delhi's proxy on the Nepalese democratic chessboard - the Joint Madhesi Democratic Front (JMDF).

Quite possibly, the Maoists may have calculated that with their 230 members in an alliance with the 83 members of the JMDF, they can be a force in the 601-member parliament that can spike the incipient plans of a ganging-up by Nepal's status quo parties as a new non-Maoist coalition government. At the very least, the Maoists are seeking to avoid political isolation.

But it could presage something more. The Maoists are evidently reaching out to Indian public opinion as well over the head of the Indian bureaucratic establishment. They are doing what the Colombo elite would have surely done in similar circumstances.

At the very minimum, one has to be truly moronic to miss the point that the Maoists want to play by the democratic rules; that they do not want to return to the jungles and become guerillas again; that they are pragmatic enough to cross ideological divides; and, quite probably, they want to be Delhi's favorites in the corridors of power in Kathmandu. So, what is the problem?

The problem seems to lie in a five-letter word - China. The malaise bears a striking similarity with the early 1980s when the Jayewardene government in Colombo took to the free market with gusto, was favorably inclined to accede to the setting up of a Voice of America transmitter within earshot of India, was reportedly allowing in Israeli intelligence specialists, and was toying with the idea of leasing out Trincomalee's fine natural harbor and its vast "oil farm" built by imperial Britain during World war II as a naval base for the Americans.

The supreme irony is that today Delhi is not going to lose sleep over any of those daredevil things that Jayewardene likely contemplated. Today, a quarter century later, India has not only taken to the market, but the current government in Delhi, which is about to complete its term, subscribed to the Washington consensus even after the Americans began losing faith in it.

The Israelis of course are all over India, with the visiting Israeli army chief taken to Kashmir last September on a counter-insurgency tour and Indian space scientists launching away Israeli "spy" satellites. India today not only desires a strong US naval presence in the Indian Ocean (as a "counterweight" to China) but aspires to be the US Navy's preferred partner. If Indians don't care to listen to Voice of America, it is merely because they have chosen to watch CNN.

Alas, the Indian strategic community's ire about the Nepalese Maoist dalliance with China is a replay of the xenophobia that was prevalent in Delhi in the early 1980s. True, China is taking an excessively high degree of interest in Nepal. But that isn't because Nepal's biggest political party subscribes to Maoism or because Beijing wants to add yet another "pearl" to its "string" around India, to borrow the famous words of a minor analyst working for the Pentagon which have become the hot favorite idiom among Indian strategic thinkers.

The fact is that China is keen to plug the infiltration route of Tibetan militants who travel to and from India via Nepal. It is a crucial issue for Beijing. Unsurprisingly, China will go the extra mile to ensure there is a friendly government in Kathmandu that dissociates itself completely from the "low-intensity war" waged in Tibet by militants coming in from outside. Just as China pays enormous attention to its Central Asian neighbors to ensure that Uyghur militants from the outside world do not infiltrate the Xinjiang Autonomous Region.

Kyrgyzstan may have a population less than five million, but when a Kyrgyz dignitary comes calling, Beijing rolls out a red carpet as if US President Barack Obama had arrived. That shows an acute sense of national priorities, as a sizeable Uyghur community lives in Kyrgyzstan.

Therefore, it shouldn't come as a surprise that China has begun assiduously courting the democratic leadership in Nepal. Or, that the Maoist government began cooperating with China to clamp down on the activities of the Tibetan activists who operated out of Nepalese soil through the past half-century.

China will not be deterred from befriending Nepal on the crucial question of tranquility and stability in Tibet, no matter what it takes. The time is not far off before Beijing offers Nepal a berth in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Indeed, China has the political will and the financial capacity to offer to Nepal what Delhi could have offered through the past six decades and failed to do - staking a common future as partners in economic development and regional stability. China's reach is enormous today. It has just replaced the United States as Brazil's top trade partner.

Countering the Chinese challenge in Nepal needs imagination, a coherent game plan and a sustained approach on India's part. Muscle-flexing is not the answer. Nor is diplomatic one-upmanship the answer or the pretensions by the right-wing Hindu nationalist outfits in India that Nepal is their sequestered pasture.

Antagonizing the Maoists will not be a smart thing to do, as they represent historical forces that are on the ascendance and they will be around as the dominant political force in Nepal, sure as the sun rises in the east. But there are pragmatic ways in which the Maoists could be made to view Delhi as their preferred partner. Arguably, the Maoists are themselves already intensely conscious that they cannot do without India's cooperation.

Contrary to the Indian security establishment's earlier doomsday scenario, the Maoists are not messing around with the radical left movements professing to follow Mao Zedong's ideology which are active in something like 160 out of India's 600 districts. That shows a high degree of sensitivity to India's national-security concerns.

But what Delhi should scrupulously avoid is any interference in Nepal's internal affairs. Let the Nepalese settle their squabbles themselves over drawing up a new constitution and charting out their future. Leave it to the Nepalese political parties to carve out their space on the democratic arena. Political parties begin to die when they cease to be relevant.

The forces, which Delhi might have favored when Nepal was a "Hindu kingdom", may no more be capable of representing the people's aspirations. India cannot resurrect them. Let them die. Of course, it will be dangerous to encourage the Nepalese army to harbor Praetorian instincts, either. South Asia has had enough of armies.

India will always enjoy a huge advantage over China in cultivating Nepal - of history, geography, culture, ethnicity, economy and social bonds and kinship. Where India loses is that it cannot get its act together as a driving force for Nepal's emergence out of abject poverty. That is the leitmotif of China's challenge to India. The entire sub-Himalayan region will incrementally feel gravitation toward China as Tibet surges forward at its present level of economic transformation and Beijing shows a willingness to share the cake.

Kejriwal's Speech Is A Mix Of Symbolism And Pragmatism

A mix of symbolism and pragmatic straight talk marked the post swearing in address of Arvind Kejriwal at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi. As the anti-corruption crusader took oath for the second time at the same venue, which hosts the symbolic destruction of ego and arrogance every Dussehra with the burning of the effigy of king Ravana at the hands of Lord Rama every year, he reminded his party colleagues and followers to keep away from both human weaknesses.

No Water, No Medicine, No Help: Dehydration Kills 35 Inmates Of 'Old-Age Home' As Govt. Become Deaf & Dumb

By Kajol Singh in New Delhi

INNLIVE readers can see in the photo that hungry inmates are having lunch along with a dead body in lying with them and without any care the hungry inmates are eating food which fed to them after three-days. This is the situation in this Old-Age Home in Delhi. And the government is virtually become deaf and dumb over these old orphan people.  

Death lurks here. With the searing heat scorching one and all, the residents in Delhi’s only government-recognised old-age home are dying. 

The Minimum Leader: The Unravelling Of Arvind Kejriwal

By NEWSCOP | INNLIVE

Two years on, it is becoming apparent that Arvind Kejriwal is no breakaway from the typical mould of the politician as deception artist.

Arvind Kejriwal’s resume could be kept concise and hilarious: Underdog Extraordinaire. Arvind Kejriwal, Chief Minister of Delhi, is a politician with an obvious appetite for theatrics, and he deserves admiration for his knack for blurring the line between the reality of his problems with the Narendra Modi Government at the Centre and the tricks of his own house of mirrors in the capital that cast him as a superhero who champions the rights of the common man. What has helped so far, in no small measure, is his projection of himself as the ultimate victim-hero.

After Modi, Rahul: 'The Real Political Genius Is Kejriwal'

By M H Ahssan | INN Live

Move over Modi and Rahul, Kejriwal may be the real political genius Behind that utterly simple and benign aam aadmi look ticks a brilliant mind. While that's not exactly breaking news, considering Arvind Kejriwal is an IIT graduate, now it's clearer than ever that he also has a brilliant political mind and that the strong showing of the AAP in Delhi under his leadership was only the beginning. 

Consider this--the BJP which was literally taunting the Aam Aadmi Party to form the government in Delhi is now wailing like a petulant child. Delhi BJP leader and CM candidate Harsh Vardhan is crying from the rooftops that the AAP has betrayed the people of Delhi and is hungry for power.

Why we should be concerned about juvenile crime?

Of the six men accused of raping and brutally assaulting the 23-year-old woman, one of them turned out to be a juvenile, making him ineligible to be tried with the others but raising questions about what needs to be done to curb the rising number of crimes committed by teenagers.

According to the police, Ankur (name changed to protect identity), who worked at odd jobs at eateries in Delhi before becoming a helper for a white line bus, was the one who asked the couple to board the bus and got involved in one of the most gruesome gangrapes witnessed in the recent history of crime in India.

While Ankur will be tried in a juvenile court, experts say that the implementation of Juvenile Justice (JJ) Act- meant to prevent juvenile delinquency and reform offenders such as Ankur- falls way below expectations.
On paper, JJ Act mandates the operation of observation homes, child welfare committees and juvenile justice boards. But, on ground, “the Act has been made a mockery,” the Supreme Court observed in 2010.
More than 850 juveniles were booked for their alleged involvement in rape cases in 2010, up from 399 in 2001.

Kidnapping and abduction cases against juveniles witnessed a rise from 79 to 391 in the same time period. Crimes committed by juvenile suspects was 1.1 per cent of total crime in the country in 2011.
“We wake up reacting when we see children ending up doing something horrible. The question we should be asking is: What are we doing about juvenile crime prevention?” said Anant Asthana, lawyer and child rights activist.

Among the many lacunae in the implementation of JJ Act is the absence of a dedicated police unit for juveniles, he said.

“Delhi Police did not obey the circular issued by the police commissioner on juvenile police officers who would work exclusively on juvenile issues. Secondly, Delhi government has not set up district child protection units in all districts, which are mandated under the law to reach out to such children and their families,” Asthana said.

Probation units is another problem area. Under law probation units in JJ Boards (JJB) will have probation officers who act as an additional guardian of the juvenile offender and are responsible for restoration of the child.

“However, in practice the probation unit working with JJ Board 1 (JJB) is almost dead. No probation officer in any matter has come up with a rehabilitation plan of a child or has given insight to the Board on the needs of any juvenile. The probation unit thus is not doing the work that the Acts expects from and requires it to do and is as such a complete disappointment,” observed the principal magistrate of JJB 1 (one of the juvenile courts in the national capital) about the functioning of probation officers in an order in March 2011.

A study done by the Department of Community Medicine, Maulana Azad Medical College, Delhi, and Prayas observation home for boys highlighted “a strong positive association between drug use and crime in adolescents.” Based on interviews of the staff of an observation home in Delhi, researchers found that the prevalence of any drug use among the boys before coming to the observation home was between 60- 70 per cent.

“In order to purchase drugs, boys indulged in shoplifting, gambling, pick- pocketing, burglaries and even murder. Thus, drug use led to other criminal activities,” noted the study.

However, it appears that the government has not acknowledged the drug- crime link among juveniles. The country’s only government drug de-addiction and rehabilitation centre for juveniles became operational in Delhi in 2011 after rejoinders from Delhi High Court.

“Drug use and sexual assault are common with street kids. Many of these boys have their own cult. Among their peers, they boast about having more than one girl friend,” said Dr Rajesh Kumar, executive director, Society for Promotion of Youth & Masses, which runs the centre in North Delhi.

On our preparedness to curb substance abuse in juveniles, Dr Kumar said, “We are not prepared to tackle issues as complex as drug use among juveniles in conflict with law. Such cases (Delhi gang rape) are warnings that we need to act.”

For better clarity and to bring maximum number if children under the ambit of the system, JJ Act (Central Model Rules 2009) mandates that the state government, JJB, child welfare committee, other competent authorities and agencies ensure that every person, school or other educational institutions abide by the guidelines issued from time to time by state and central government. But neither states nor Centre have formed guidelines. Hearing a public interest litigation filed by Delhi based NGO HAQ centre for child rights, Delhi High Court, in October 2012, asked the Centre and Delhi government to submit a status update on framing of these guidelines.

Conceding that the implementation of JJ Act leaves much to be desired, Bharti Ali of HAQ said that only systemic corrections will not help in containing juvenile delinquencies.

“Giving a child in conflict with the law a choice between being in an institutional facility or outside, is actually no choice at all as both suffer from ills that defeat the ends of justice and reform. Work is required at both ends. It is like making a choice between treating crime or criminal, when you need to work on both,” Ali said.

Exclusive: Kiran Bedi May 'Loose', Kejriwal May 'Win' Delhi

The BJP has tried all tricks in the book to win Delhi, from announcing regularisation of slum colonies to paradropping Kiran Bedi in the state unit to making political capital of the Obama visit, but nothing seems to be working for it at the moment. 

Not long ago, the consensus among poll observers was that Delhi would be a cake-walk for the party what with its spectacular performance in assembly elections in other states. Only a couple of weeks ago, everyone accepted AAP was a strong challenger but that BJP had the edge with the Congress nowhere in the picture. How things have changed!

DELHI - THE WORLD'S GAMES CENTRE

By NEWSCOP

Next year’s Commonwealth Games will put tremendous pressure on the already-stretched infrastructure of the city and test the government’s ability to host a global event

The country’s Capital city is a sea of multitudes, a mix of different cultures, a metropolis where the old and the new cohabit. The city is gearing up to host next year’s Commonwealth Games, the biggest sporting event to be held in the country so far.

As it aspires to achieve the status of a world-class city that can put up a great show for the world and play host to athletes and visitors from 57 countries, one wonders if it is really prepared for this challenge? The Games will put tremendous pressure on the already-stretched infrastructure of the city. Delhi may wow the world with its hospitality but what about safety of the visitors? The city doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to maintaining law and order and ensuring safety of its citizens, especially women. How then can it hope to impress the world next year?

The city may not be there yet but efforts are being made at various levels to ensure it performs better on these parameters in future, says Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Delhi head and Feedback Ventures MD Rumjhum Chatterjee. A CII team recently met Delhi government officials and representatives from the Commonwealth Games organising committee. “They are working behind the scenes to avoid media fatigue. The participants are confident they will be able to put the required infrastructure in place in time,” she says. For instance, at least 136 infrastructure projects would be completed by December 2009, while another 30 would be finished by March 2010. The projects include widening of roads, building new flyovers and setting up sports stadia. Plans to set up hotels to accommodate the 1-1.5 lakh foreign visitors are also well on track.

Transport plays a very critical role in holding an event of such magnitude. This includes not just making travel within the city easier but also within the National Capital Region (NCR). Another requirement would be multi-modal integrated transport within the region.

So, Delhi, Noida, Faridabad and Gurgaon are working towards ensuring seamless travel within NCR. A new fleet of 11,000 low-floor buses is being introduced. Most of these buses would start plying on the roads by December this year. A training initiative for the bus drivers and conductors is also being planned. It would not only ensure a better travelling experience for the international visitors but also provide relief to the city’s commuters. Also, work on the new metro train lines within Delhi and those connecting it to Noida and Gurgaon are well on track.

As far as the security is concerned, the law enforcement agencies of Delhi and other cities in the National Capital Region are being trained to manage the law and order situation better. There are also plans to audit these agencies and ensure they meet certain specified standards.

The importance of the Commonwealth Games lies not just in presenting Brand Delhi to the world but also developing a sense of pride among the residents of the city. “The Games will act as a reference point and a great opportunity to develop and promote Delhi as a truly international city but more than that, they should be seen as a step towards building awareness and a sense of belonging among the residents of Delhi,” Ms Chatterjee says.

The city, which is home to different cultures, has no unique culture of its own that could bind its citizens into a common bond. The word ‘Delhiite’ doesn’t usually have a good connotation among its residents and has come to mean someone who’s pretentious and a snob.

Holding a great international event without the involvement of the lo-cal community would be a very difficult task for a city. It’s citizen volunteers that make a sporting event a great success, as the Sydney Olympics and Manchester Commonwealth Games have shown in the past. Volunteers can perform a variety of tasks, such as ushering visitors, looking after athletes, carrying equipment and maintaining order in the stadium. There are attempts underway to rope in volunteers for the Commonwealth Games in Delhi. The city is hoping its citizens will finally claim it as their own.

AAP's 'Valentines' Day: Quits On Feb 14, Returns On Feb 14

Its going to be exactly a year where he had resigned as Delhi Chief Minister, the AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal will be taking oath as the CM in the capital state again on February 14 at Ramlila Maidan.

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government ended dramatically their 49-day-old tenure, where the then Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal stepped down on a Friday evening when their government’s move to introduce the Jan Lokpal Bill was defeated by the BJP and Congress in the Delhi Assembly.