New generation of Indian writers committed to its melting pot of languages

New Delhi, November 23, 2006. - Following the example of Rabindranath Tagore, who won a Nobel despite writing in Bengali, Indian Literature at the birth of a new generation of writers that advocates expressed in the vernacular.
India has been a prolific pool of writers who used English as the language of high culture, as Kiran Desai, winner of the "Booker" this year for his work "The inheritance of loss".
But the next generation does not follow the patterns of trade and seems obsessed with the return to the roots of their common life, told in their native languages.
"The poets have begun to look at the life of every day, and make up for all to understand. It's using a common language for common people. The new poets have come down from symbolism and fixed in their surroundings, "says EFE Gobind Prasad, a professor of literature at the Jawaharlal Nehru University.
This occurs, for example, the Assamese poet Samir Tanti, known by the local ruling "does not flow through my veins and blood, but tea."
Tanti played in his poetry almost obsessively the sights, smells and sounds of your garden area, the most common plant in Assam, where tea is exported to the entire subcontinent.
It seems that in the literature of the country is strengthening respect for minorities and tribes, but in reality there are no limits when looking for subjects, as illustrated by the work of Raghavan Tamil essayist, she portrays in "Blood for all land "The Palestinian drama.
"Writers who come have understood that freedom is theirs, break boundaries and feel free to create and think," said Prasad.
In the south, in Kerala, Anita Thampi is a good example of this, with its reliance on the weakest and his belief in the creativity of nature and man, says the acclaimed local author Satchidanandan, the newspaper "The Times of India ".
In Bengali master storytellers such as Sukanto Ullash Mallick and Gangopadhyay, following the long tradition that begins with Tagore and counts among its ranks with the legendary Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray.
In this scenario, the national language, Hindi, whose poetry was always highly regarded, seems open to the creative possibilities of other genres, like the stories of the writer of 28 years Neelakshi Singh, concerned with human relations in the world hostile market.
Along with all these authors, however, it includes those who have made ​​English their vehicle creation, and are therefore known in the Western world.
Apart from Kiran Desai, Vikram Seth names like, Amitav Ghosh and Arundhati Roy's own are already established among the Western public, in the wake of the Nobel VS Naipaul or Salman Rushdie himself.
Most of them are writers born in a Western environment but with Indian origin, which inevitably marks his writing, to the point of setting up an eclectic literature on the issues and unique in its origin.
Although English remains the lingua franca of literature in the country, especially because it makes the leap to the world public recognition, there are now other languages, after shaking off the colonial legacy, go with a mixture of pride and vanity to daily.
"English is still predominant among the educated classes, and generates no rejection. What happens is that many authors feel that there is no rule that requires them to speak English. They are simply free, "insists Prasad.
For emerging artists, language determines his writing, perhaps endorsing this quote from Tagore who said that "patriotism is not land, but the men who nurtured."
And the new Indian literature builds the country, on everything from diversity.

The Siachen Glacier, the highest battlefield on earth

New Delhi, November 14, 2006. - The dispute between the two rival powers in South Asia, Pakistan and India, including the demilitarization of a glacier in Kashmir to garrison houses the world's highest, decimated in recent years the cold and despeñamientos.
While Pakistan supports the withdrawal of troops as the next step to the ceasefire signed in 2003, India, which controls the glacier official bid to make the boundary line between the two countries in fact.
EFE said an expert from the Center for Policy Research, Professor Brahma Chellaney, control of the glacier is important for India, because "leaving Pakistan without possibility of threatening the region of Ladakh."
The Indian Army also has been very reluctant in recent days to withdraw from Siachen, as stated by the newspaper "Hindustan Times" Lieutenant General Vijay Oberoi.
"No army surrender territory just like that. The domain of these positions in Siachen gives our troops a strategic advantage over the Pakistanis, located about 1,000 feet below us, "he said.
Upon layers of snow that reach 15 meters, both countries have maintained for decades sporadic fighting at altitudes of 6,700 meters and temperatures reaching 60 degrees below zero.
Siachen overlooks a triangle in the Kashmir region, disputed between India, Pakistan and China, and is the second largest glacier in the world excluding the poles.
The origin of the conflict goes back to a ceasefire signed in 1949, with which, however, failed to reach agreement on border demarcation on the glacier, whose strategic importance is that it dominates the whole area of Ladakh, in the hands of India.
The Indian-controlled Siachen border also prevents contact between the portions of Kashmir-dominated Pakistan and China.
The glacier is in India's military power since 1984, when the army launched "Operation Meghdoot Op" to counter Pakistan's decision to authorize expeditions to Siachen in order to strengthen their territorial claims.
For the Indians, the operation included heroics as leading to a detachment to climb a wall of ice about 500 meters to take a position at a height Pakistan of 6,700 meters.
The period, known as "Bana Post" in honor of the soldier who first reached the summit, is located at higher altitudes detachments of a dozen Indians on the glacier, that 80 percent "are above 4,900 meters "according to the official said Om Prakash a delegation of journalists who visited the site recently.
Siachen soldiers are in the cold to his greatest enemy, as Colonel Sunil Prabhu said the local newspaper "Hindustan Times" because "is not scientifically possible to survive more than 5,500 feet" and to reach more advanced positions , "soldiers must climb for 28 days."
According to Indian newspapers, about 600 soldiers have died since 1984, mostly due to cold or cast down.

Bhutanese Refugees, 100,000 people without a country in the Himalayas

New Delhi, November 10, 2006. - The situation of over 100,000 Bhutanese refugees in UN camps in eastern Nepal is deteriorating with no sign that they can return home, from which they were expelled in 1992, and a germ seeping radicalization among young people, according to a report today warning.
The organization india Indian Social Action Forum (INSAF) gave a news conference in New Delhi a document that addresses the concerns of the refugees and the fear, shared by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), to adolescents they know no other life but choose fields violence.
"We tried to solve our problems peacefully for fifteen years, but now we are angry and we are forced to take up arms," ​​according to testimony taken in the report.
The refugees were expelled by the king of Bhutan, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, arguing that instability caused by his membership in the Bhutan People's Party (BPP, an acronym in English), which called democracy.
"Teens that have grown in the fields, gather and cry out to be provided weapons. It's not just a threat to Nepal and Bhutan, but also against India, "he told a representative of INSAF EFE, Utkarsh Sinha.
The expulsion of these refugees, who are ethnic Nepalese Hindu religion, but were settled in the Buddhist Bhutan for 200 years, had the complicity of India, whose territory had crossed to reach Nepal.
But now, according to India, the problem of refugees is just a bilateral issue between Nepal and Bhutan, who have held 15 rounds of unsuccessful talks on the matter.
The Foreign Minister of Nepal, KP Sharma Oli, will later this month an official visit to Thimpu, the capital of Bhutan, and has publicly stated that a solution be achieved.
But his ministry source who asked to remain anonymous can not be assumed that "the meeting expecting anything" in Thimpu.
Another source of UNHCR, which manages the camps and provide a new census in mid-month, acknowledged privately that has lost hope of repatriation.
The refugees, however, prefer to pin their hopes on the announcement of the King of Bhutan to abdicate in his son and call an election in 2008 to restore democracy in this small eastern Himalayan kingdom.
"Bhutan should repatriate and return our land. If not, we collected here or Nepal or India lets us settle in between. If they are not ready for another option, should launch seven bombs on the camps and exterminate us, "she pleads in Shiva Prasad Pokharel a poem, a refugee 80 years, was quoted as saying Nepalese" Kantipur ".
The 86,000 expelled in 1992 and 110,000 refugees are now living in seven camps. "The truth is that your situation is very bad," he told Reuters Anand Swaroop Verma, another member of the INSAF that New Delhi has brought together representatives from the fields to submit their claims.
In its report, Amnesty International warns of a possible conflict stems from a similar scenario to the Palestinians, in line with other documents of the UNHCR which was seen by Reuters, underscoring the "rising young radicals" in the camps.
According to Verma, nearly half the refugees are young "and not want to go there. They repeat that there is a problem, but nobody understands the language of peace, and may have contacts with the Maoist guerrillas in Nepal ", in the process of dialogue with the government.
In search of a solution, the UNHCR offered U.S. a month ago accommodate 60,000 of them in its territory, and similar proposals were Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
"America just wants cheap labor, Sinha criticized. The Bhutanese refugees are and just want to return to Bhutan. But India will not happen, because it is the main ally of the king of Bhutan. "

Four inmates awaiting execution in Indian jails

New Delhi, November 2, 2006. - The death sentence this week of a Delhi lawyer, who murdered ten years ago a young woman after raping her, has opened a sharp debate on capital punishment in India, whose prisons were estimated that 400 prisoners waiting to be hanged.
The Delhi High Court ruled on 30 October to Santosh Singh, 35, to death by hanging for the murder and rape of the young student Priyadarshini Matoo, 23, whom he had been harassed for two years.
Singh, married and father of a young daughter, had been freed from the burden of the law when he was tried in 1999 for the first time of that offense, and acquitted for lack of evidence, a verdict that raised social controversy and criticism in the media communication.
The Indian Justice applies the death penalty following the "rarest of the rare" ("the rarest of the rare"), an example of which would be the 1989 assassination of President Indira Gandhi assassination, the author paid with death.
This principle covers usually brutal crimes such as murder after a rape or high treason against the state, but the problem is that the Supreme Court not criminalized at the time what crime was "weird" and what "the rarest" of So in the end to death sentences are discretionary.
For Santosh, the judges felt no doubt that the accused, the son of a policeman and a lawyer, should have had an "exemplary", yet harassed his victim for two years, which ended up breaking and killing after assault at home.
But this sentence has driven a wedge between those who advocate the extension of the death penalty in more cases and those calling for a moratorium on executions until the total abolition, including the delegate from India Amnesty International (AI), Soumya Bhaumik.
"There are people who are against the death penalty, but justified the executions in the extreme cases of rape and murder. We have to do education, everyone should understand that the death penalty is not the way ", said Bhaumik Efe.
According to the CEO of AI, there is a growing risk that the public identifies justice with the death penalty, partly because "the insane role of media, playing with the feelings of people ignoring the fact that an execution violates the basic human rights. "
India seemed to have been slow but progressive steps towards abolition of the death penalty since, in 1973, established the obligation of reason in each statement the reasons why they decided the death sentence rather than life imprisonment.
In the early 60's last century, according to estimates by AI, there had been about 1,450 executions in this country.
But the Indian state has recognized only 45 executions since independence in 1947 until 2004, according Baumik.
For AI delegate, step backwards in the fight for the abolition of capital punishment was in 2004 when Dhananjoy Chatterjee was executed, also convicted for the rape and murder of a woman.
That run broke "a moratorium of 15 years," applied after the murderer of President Gandhi, presented Baumik.
And now it is estimated that about a dozen cases awaiting the signature of the Indian President Abdul Kalam, to send as many defendants to the gallows, a figure that declined to confirm or deny Efe director of the Presidential Secretariat, Barun Mitra.
Kalam, in exercise of a constitutional prerogative, has been reluctant so far to sign these statements.
But the main opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), shows on its website a report with the image of a knot of noose and the eloquent legend "India wants the death of the traitor," referring to the case of Mohammed Afzal .
Afzal, who should have been hanged on 20 October by planning an attempt to attack the Indian Parliament in 2001, is pending that Kalam consider a request for clemency

Nathu La traders pay suspicion between India and China

New Delhi, November 1, 2006. - Trading has never been easy between India and China, as evidenced by the meager balance of the first three months after the opening of business of the passage of Nathu-La, Tibet connecting thread with the small eastern Sikkim region of India in the foothills of the Himalayas.
After a closure that lasted 45 years, the authorities opened the border on July 6 for a period of three months before the winter seasonal closure, after tough negotiations, with high expectations and very questionable result.
The flow of investments has been tiny at that time: according to the Government of Sikkim, India has exported goods to China for 15,000 euros, while the value of imports amounted to 19,000.
Very little if one takes into account the forecasts of 36 million euros for 2007 made ​​by the Study Group on Trade Nathu-La before the publication of the terms of the opening.
And a negligible amount to two countries exchanged goods and services worth 14.713 million euros in 2005, 37.5 percent more than last year, mostly by sea.
In Nathu-La, shortly after the opening of the passage in the mountains, the vice chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region, Hao Peng, and told reporters that India had applied too many conditions to the exchange of products.
"I hope the Indian authorities take a more egalitarian with respect to trade with China, rather than impose such restrictions," he said.
But in India, things are otherwise, as he told EFE Minister of Commerce and Industry in the region of Sikkim, RB Subba, for whom the opening of Nathu-La is the result of a "border agreement, not free trade. "
"We can export and import products 29 15, and perhaps this is a cause for the amount of trade is so low. But we have sent a request to the Government of India to expand the list, "he said.
The reality is that local merchants are discouraged by the difficulties of trading across the border, with a preset list of permitted and limited to only stay one day.
The result of both obstacle is that, as he told the Indian press secretary of the Merchants' Association of Sikkim, Anil Kumar Gupta, a trader has to get up "every day at three o'clock to sell in China and return the same day ".
And in three months, only 696 Indians and 1,253 small Chinese vendors have guts to get up so early and go out and sell agricultural products, such as those derived from yak, vegetables or fruits, and simple manufactures.
The merchants also face a peculiar condition, which limits individual transactions to a maximum of 435 euros a day, which, according to Gupta, "prevents large-scale development activities."
Subba Minister shares the criticism: "The Government of Sikkim supports free trade across borders, because it is the only way to grow trade between China and India, so I look forward to a review of the agreement."
Until then, the minister prefers to take things on the positive side, and, as recognized by EFE, considers that the agreement is the first "peace symbol and a sign of friendship between two giants."
Because, with its limitations, open the passage was the result of three years of negotiations between two countries that have serious differences in the pattern of their border, both in Sikkim and in Kashmir, to the point of having waged a war.
So for Subba, the small and limited trade flows in Nathu-La is a hopeful sign of mutual acceptance between the two most populous countries.

Suicides in India do not understand caste

New Delhi, October 27, 2006. - Ruined farmers, soldiers, under pressure, tired of living or nursing school marked by competitiveness are some of the faces of suicide in India, a growing problem that no one knows quite how to deal with.
The 1021 farmers have committed suicide in central India since July 2005 are just a sample of a phenomenon that has also become the region of Tamil Nadu in the south, in the place of the planet with the highest rate of teen suicide.
Indian newspapers do not normally have modesty in addressing this issue, taboo in other cultures, and often report suicides among adolescents in the pages of events giving full details.
In Tamil Nadu, for example, the suicide rate among young people is 103 per 100,000 inhabitants, nine times the world average and more than 50 percent of young female deaths are due to this cause.
There and in the neighboring state of Kerala produce half of the 100,000 annual deaths induced car registered in India, which have risen 60 percent in a decade.
Kerala, according to statistics, is the most cultured and literate of all India.
Efe said the sociologist Nandu Ram, "in Tamil Nadu and other southern regions there is a cult leader who leads people to kill themselves, as happened after the death of MG Ramachandran", an actor and prime minister of the region died in 1984 and drew over 100 people to suicide.
Meanwhile, students are prone to self-esteem crisis due to family problems, domestic violence, failed love or mental illness, also affected the Indian education system that is strongly committed to competitiveness in the face of job placement.
"Many children are unable to meet the demands of their parents or school and that it generates complex and makes them think that there is no other way out," said the sociologist.
In the case of farmers, suicide has become a response to a field without a future, especially in Vidarbha, where the debts generated by falling cotton prices and drought are the main reasons cited by local analysts .
Most are illiterate peasants in India, hence more difficult to achieve many bank loans that go to illegal moneylenders, even if it means the payment of interests that can reach 60 percent and are charged sometimes with methods coercive.
The Indian government passed a series of measures to improve the farmers, but suicide rates have increased as support, according to the version of the unions fail.
According to the spokesman for the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti agricultural (VJAS) Kishor Tivari, suicides are common trace: occur between small indebted farmers who face family illness, a daughter of marriageable age and a son unemployed, plus a fall in prices or production.
Now, the organization provides VJAS "gandhigiris", a sort of strikes that follow the principles of "Gandhian" truth, tolerance, nonviolence and unity in order to achieve a "fair price" of about 45 per quintal of cotton.
Meanwhile, the Indian Army, less given to "gandhigiris" that the peasants, has announced the hiring of psychologists against the scourge of suicides among its ranks, estimated at about 500 since 2002 and mainly concentrated in the disputed region of Kashmir .
However, the controversy surrounding the suicide is the same: determine the value of life in a country that has 1,100 million people and has barely begun to develop.
And in India, something as individual as suicide has become a mass problem and knows no caste.

The new India facing their particular housing bubble

New Delhi, October 22, 2006. - The huge Indian GDP growth has been accompanied by increases of 100 percent annually in the price of housing in some areas of the capital, New Delhi, where golf courses are raised with the slums .
Simply browse just housing supplements of major newspapers to realize that India is experiencing a real estate fever particularly in the case of the capital of the apartments has a good reach for most in a country whose GDP, more to grow, gallops to 10 percent.
An example of escalating prices is the central artery Panchseel Urban Road, where rents were in the first half of this year 110 percent higher than in 2005.
These days, the local newspaper "The Times of India" said wryly that to own a house in the downtown streets, valued at some 23 million euros, have to be a minister, an issue which would not comment Efe responsible Development of Delhi, DD Neemodhar.
And indeed, one of the finest neighborhoods to live, Aurangzeb Road, is packed with great dignitaries who paid a rental income of 8,000 euros per month in a country where tea costs ten cents.
According to the promoter told Efe Yograj Agrawal, urban pressures of the capital comes from its "shortage of land" which has caused many investors have turned their interests to the "emerging markets of the towns adjacent to New Delhi".
The same consultant confirms M. Arvind, who told Efe that the high population density in Delhi has caused many residential areas are transformed into commercial, so there is no soil to live.
"Every three months the prices increase substantially and demand will continue to grow, especially since half of the customers just want high housing property as an investment for the future," said Arvind.
According to the consultant, who refused to call it speculation, it is a very wise investment as the economy continues to grow so fast, especially because, he said, "investing in housing is now 60 percent more profitable than anything else."
So, as happens in large European cities, many natives of Delhi have been forced to live in nearby towns and go to work every day to the capital.
But these new cities, far from being mere dormitories, are the best example of the strength India: Gurgaon, for example, only during the past year have been leased 450,000 square meters of land for business use, at prices 44 percent expensive than the previous year.
That's easy to see lines of business and shopping centers as a symptom of what in India is known as the "second revolution", an opening to capitalism since 1993, has generated "reverse ghettos" of residential neighborhoods isolated from the poverty.
In town, near New Delhi, will rise 20 luxury hotels with 10,000 rooms by 2010, coinciding with the celebration in India of the Commonwealth Games.
Many young couples look to that time as fetish year, according to Arvind Agarwal and mark the end of the "boom" of the house.
But until then, many fear that prices of new houses in Gurgaon, this urban fervor reflected in its luxury shopping centers, golf courses and an emerging middle class, continue to grow at the rate of 180 percent this year.
And then, as Arvind said, "when Gurgaon has unaffordable prices, there will a lot of ground in the rest of India to build houses."

Traffic accidents cause 100,000 deaths in India annually

New Delhi, October 21, 2006. - The 61 passengers who drowned this week after falling into a lake a bus line in Madhya Pradesh in central India, represent the drama of a country that is bleeding on the road, with almost 100,000 deaths a year in traffic accidents, 8.3 percent of the world total.
In this incident, reports indicate that the driver lost control of the bus due to a failure in the steering, so the car went through a weak wall of mud and fell into a deep pond.
The success of the bus, who escaped alive only seven people, joins a long list of accidents recorded this year, as happened on April 20 in Sarupeta, where 47 people drowned in similar circumstances.
There are no reliable statistics in India on the exact number of deaths, but the fact is that the status of transportation routes, no lighting, no signage and pavement with potholes, causes only six people die daily in New Delhi.
The president of the Institute of Road Traffic Education (IRTE), Rohit Baluja, "the total number of accidents, being so high, it is very important because many of them do not even make reports."
The biggest losers are the road safety for pedestrians and cyclists who, he told Efe Baluja, account for 75 percent of the 1,200,000 injuries that occur each year in road.
With some 30 million cars, India has only one percent of the world fleet, but more than eight percent of those killed in the accident, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated at 1.2 million last year.
Spain has almost the same number of vehicles registered in India and 3,329 road deaths in 2005.
Movement on Indian roads often depends on the goodwill of the users, that in the absence of a culture developed traffic, road signs or mirrors in vehicles, honk to pass.
Los “rickshaws”, populares taxis motorizados de tres ruedas, llevan escrito en letras artesanas “Mantenga la distancia” o “Toque el claxon, por favor”, para evitar choques mientras se cuelan por los huecos inverosímiles que dejan los vehículos más grandes.
Conducir en sentido contrario es casi natural, sobre todo porque no hay líneas pintadas que delimiten sentidos y arcenes, y es frecuente encontrar párvulos uniformados con cara de susto pero resueltos a cruzar solos una vía de 4 carriles sin que ningún conductor se avenga a detenerse, incluso aunque haya un improbable paso de cebra.
La región india que ostenta el dudoso honor de encabezar el número de muertes es Andhra Pradesh , en el sureste del país, con unos 11.000 muertos en 2005, lo que supone un incremento del 30 por ciento respecto a 2001.
Allí, según Baluja, la mejora de las vías no se ha visto acompañada de una mayor protección al volante, porque “muchos conductores irresponsables tienden a sobrepasar la velocidad permitida y no existe una concienciación suficiente sobre la seguridad”.
Lo mismo dijo a Efe el comisionado de Transportes de la región, Krishna Reddy, para quien las carreteras de Andhra Pradesh tienen “más tráfico” y son “mejores que las de otras regiones”.
“El problema es que aquí hay muchos conductores que no conocen las normas de tráfico, y además los vehículos rápidos de las autopistas tienen que vérselas con otros extremadamente lentos”, explicó.
En efecto, una vía india es a veces una auténtica aventura donde pueden aparecer más de diez formas distintas de transporte, incluidos vacas, yaks, elefantes, triciclos motorizados, bicicletas de mercancías y hasta un camión transportando un submarino militar a 1.100 kilómetros del mar.
Mientras en Andhra Pradesh el Gobierno desarrolla informes y programas educativos con el convencimiento de que “las muertes bajarán”, parece claro que en la India no hay, por ahora, una solución que pueda domar las desbocadas estadísticas de la carretera.

Miles de animales sacrificados para aplacar a los dioses hindúes

Nueva Delhi, 18 oct 2006.- Miles de cabras, patos, búfalos y palomas son sacrificados estos días en la India por devotos fieles en ceremonias organizadas para aplacar a los dioses hindúes, según denunciaron a Efe activistas del ecologismo.
Este año, sólo en la región de Orissa , en el este del país, fueron sacrificados durante las fiestas hindúes de la “Durga Puja” unos 10.000 animales, afirmó la ONG “ People for Animals ” (PFA).
“El problema es que la gente todavía cree que sacrificar animales les conducirá a una vida mejor en la que se cumplirán sus deseos”, declaró a Efe Jiban Das, delegado para Orissa de PFA.
En áreas tribales existe la costumbre de consagrar sobre todo cabras, patos y palomas, pero también algunos búfalos.
Jiban Das concentra ahora sus esfuerzos en que la venidera fiesta de “ Diwali “, una especie de Navidad hindú, no se convierta en otra “masacre” como la que su organización denuncia en el estado nororiental de Assam, en el templo de Kamakhya, también durante la “ Durga Puja “.
La versión de la PFA, que cuantifica los sacrificios de Kamakhya en unos 20 búfalos, 3.000 cabras y miles de palomas, contrasta con la posición de las autoridades del templo, para quienes dichas cantidades son una “exageración”.
“Sabemos que 20 búfalos y algunas cabras fueron sacrificadas este año, pero, ¿cómo puede alguien sacrificar en un templo 3.000 cabras en tres días?. Es imposible”, ha declarado el secretario del templo, Nabakanta Sarma.
Con fecha de 1960, la ley india de Prevención de la Crueldad Animal no prohibía el sacrificio de animales en lugares religiosos, lo que ha llevado recientemente a algunas regiones, entre las que se cuenta Orissa , a desarrollar normativas más restrictivas.
Aunque Das afirma que los políticos de Orissa están comprometidos con la prohibición de este ceremonial, ello no impidió que el consejero de Desarrollo Urbano, KV Singhdeo, celebrara hace tiempo un sacrificio dentro del palacio de su propiedad.
El presidente de la región, Naveen Patnaik , se apresuró a condenar el hecho, pero lo cierto, según la prensa local, es que ningún partido se atreve a censurarlo, pues teme perder votos en un país tradicionalmente muy devoto.
En enero pasado, por ejemplo, las autoridades restringieron las visitas a Khairguda, una localidad en la que tiene lugar cada año el sacrificio de 20.000 animales para aplacar la ira de los dioses.
La celebración se mantuvo, pero ni los habitantes de los pueblos vecinos ni los activistas que protestaban cerca del lugar pudieron ver a la “ Dehuri “, la joven que representa la encarnación de los dioses y bebe la sangre de los animales sacrificados mientras baila al son de los tambores.
El problema, como reconoce a Efe la activista Sangeeta Goswami, que ha denunciado estas ceremonias del templo de Kamakhya, reside en que los sacrificios están tan extendidos que cuando Amitabh Bachchan , el actor más popular de Bollywood , enfermó en diciembre, se sacrificaron dos búfalos en el templo para lograr que sanara.
El caso Bachchan desencadenó la ira de las entidades ecologistas porque el actor es un destacado miembro de PETA , otra asociación protectora de animales, pero nada pudo impedir que sus fans pusieran en práctica una tradición con más de 3.000 años de antigüedad.
Con todo, la consagración de animales es una anécdota si se compara con otra práctica más cruenta, consistente en el sacrificio de niños, como ocurrió la semana pasada en Benarés , cuando un brujo secuestró y degolló a un pequeño que jugaba junto al Ganges para ofrecérselo a los dioses como “sacrificio”.

Hitler, Roosevelt y Stalin, candidatos al mismo parlamento

Nueva Delhi, 13 oct 2006.- Adolf Lu Hitler no ha muerto, sino que ha desarrollado su carrera política en Meghalaya, en el este de India , junto a políticos como Frankenstein o Tony Curtis , herederos de una larga tradición tribal de dar a los bebés nombres raros.
Meghalaya acoge así, al menos en el plano nominal, un curioso experimento donde un tal John Fitzgerald Kennedy puede tomar el té a la sombra de un árbol junto a Billy el Niño sin salir corriendo.
Las últimas elecciones de ese estado auparon a la Cámara al citado Billy el Niño (“BillyKid”), Tony Curtis ya un émulo del criado de Robinson Crusoe , Viernes, pero dejaron en la cuneta a otros muchos políticos de curioso nombre, como el propio Frankenstein y el trío formado por Stalin, Roosevelt y Hitler .
“No sabemos cuál es el origen de la costumbre. La gente aquí es algo iletrada y escoge nombres que les parecen atractivos o que tienen un sonido divertido, como por ejemplo JFK o Adolf Hitler, que siguen vivos por aquí”, afirmó a Efe AK Baruah, profesor de ciencia política en la universidad local.
Adolf L. Hitler Marak llegó a ser ministro de Medio Ambiente en la región, si bien luego fue arrestado por mantener contactos con una organización ilegal, la ANVC, uno de los muchos grupúsculos terroristas del noroeste indio.
“Tal vez el nombre les gustó a mis padres, y por eso me llamaron Hitler. Estoy contento con mi nombre, aunque no tengo ninguna tendencia dictatorial”, declaró el político al periódico local “ Hindustan Times “.
La mayoría de los modelos en los que se miran los habitantes de Meghalaya son anglosajones, de ahí que Roosevelt, Chamberlain o Churchill sean, además de personajes históricos, nombres de pila, aunque no faltan los meghalayos de adscripción comunista que dieron a sus bebés los nombres de Lenin o Stalin .
Los independientes pueden acogerse a la tradición histórica o clásica, como hicieron los papás de Ulises , político en odisea con cuatro hermanas llamadas Inglaterra, Finlandia, Suiza y Nueva Zelanda, o como los progenitores de Guerra Británica (“British War”).
Y, además, hay hasta un apartado de cargos y virtudes, que recogen otro buen número de parlamentarios con nombres curiosos, como los traducidos del inglés “Osadía Nongum”, “Piedra de Esperanza Lyngdoh”, “John Modales Marak” o “Almirante Sangma”.
Meghalaya es un pequeño estado de mayoría cristiana en el nordeste indio donde hay apenas dos millones de habitantes y que se vanagloria de contar en su territorio con Cherrapunjee , la ciudad que tiene el récord mundial de lluvias anuales, entre otros hitos.
Las próximas elecciones tendrán lugar en la región el próximo año ya ellas concurrirán a buen seguro tocayos de las grandes estrellas de la política en los años 80, que sirvieron de inspiración a muchas mamás meghalayas para poner nombre a sus retoños.
Quizá la causa de todo resida en que, como afirma el señor Gupta, director de la Casa de Meghalaya en Nueva Delhi, en su región “la gente es amable y es feliz”.

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