From Gandhi to this day, fasting as a political weapon

New Delhi, December 14, 2009. - Since getting the issuance of a cricket league to the partition of a federal state, the use of fasting continues to revenues in India, inspired by the struggle of the "Mahatma" Gandhi and strong base in Hindu religion.
The results of the hunger strike as a weapon of political pressure has again been demonstrated in recent days with the government announcement of partition southeastern state of Andhra to create Telangana, after 11 days of fasting regional leader K.Chandrasekhara Rao.
It so happens that the very Andhra born in the 1950s of another hunger strike which killed Potti Sriramulu, whose death fighting for a homeland for Indian Telugu language generated strong political tension that the Government today has tried to avoid.
But the announcement of creation of Telangana has unleashed a storm of protests and resignations of regional deputies, one of which, L. Rajagopal, was arrested today for several hours while returning to Hyderabad with the intention of starting their own protest fast because, they claimed the agents "did not have permission to do so", the agency IANS.
The popularity of the baby fasts of the influence of "Mahatma" (great soul) Gandhi, who frequently resorted to them to combat sectarian violence and also to achieve its political purpose, independence of India, obtained in 1947.
The tactics of the father of Indian independence, inspired by the fasts still in use in Hinduism and Jainism, has set an example in recent decades politicians and citizens.
Buddhist monks calling for Tibetan independence or Hindu priests who want more support for their temples, villagers with demands for better roads, or teachers and nurses who want more wages, they all have been heard in recent months of a hunger strike .
In April, the prisoners in the jail of Calcutta stopped eating to get the school management agreed to give televised league cricket, a sport so popular that players from the hockey also fasted to demand the same attention in sports sections of the Indian media.
In this edition of the "Big Brother", one of the contestants decided to stop eating and drinking to get one of her fellow television venture surrender to his love.
"If I say 'I love you", not "he repeated emaciated but after 36 hours of indifference of his beloved, he left the Gandhian strategy and applied to other purposes.
"For the countless problems that plague India must add a common practice. Every day, some group of idiots launched a hunger strike, "complained an internet forum" Searchindia.com "protest about Telangana.
Example sounded was the Bengali leader Mamata Banerjee, who fasted for 25 days over a stage set up in 2006 on the streets of Calcutta (northeast) to achieve the cessation of a car plant of Tata Motors, which eventually succeeded.
Or the case of the octogenarian head of Government of Tamil Nadu (south), M. Karunanidhi, who appeared one morning last April on a bed lying on the beach in Chennai and fasted for six hours to demand an end to the war in Sri Lanka.
Aware of social sympathy earned by fasting in India, the government frequently access negotiations to placate the strikers, as with Banerjee or Rao.
For political commentator Amulya Ganguli, with the precedent Sriramulu's death in 1952, "if someone can muster the courage to court death, it is virtually impossible for a government to reject his claim" at least as important as state Andhra.
Because sometimes the effort is unsuccessful, as has happened to the remote activist Irom Sharmila of Manipur state, which is being fed forcibly through the nose after eight years using fasts to demand the withdrawal of special powers in the Army Northeast Indian conflict.

New large salad ingredient for india: Telangana region

New Delhi, December 10, 2009. - The Great Indian salad identities will soon have a new political ingredient, after the government's decision to create southwest Telangana region following a hunger strike "until death" undertaken by a local leader.
"It will start the process of forming Telangana state. An appropriate resolution will be presented at the Regional Assembly (Andhra), "said Indian Minister of Interior, P. Chidambaram, according to a statement issued last midnight.
The people of Telangana had decades complaining of government neglect and economic backwardness suffered in the State of which are broken off, Andhra, the Telugu language sharing the twists and turns but with an accent of its own.
Telangana leaders began calling for the separation of the two regions in the 1970s, and took a violent protest in 1979 when 369 people were killed in clashes and police firing.
And popular pressure led to major Indian parties, the Congress Party government today and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party - to support the claim of the telanganos in different elections, but none took the final step in coming to power.
Until I decided to be brave regionalists: twelve days ago, the leader of the formation Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), K. Chandrasekhara Rao, initiated a "fast unto death" which generated a wave of student protests and seems to have softened the present Government, the Congress Party.
Minister's announcement was greeted with joy in the city of Hyderabad, a major service center, and the ten Telangana districts that make up supposedly located in the impoverished inland areas in north Andhra.
According to IANS, several leaders and activists of TRS went last night to celebrate the decision outside the Nizam Institute of Medical Science (NIMS) where Chandrasekhara Rao announced shortly after ended his fast and drank lemon juice.
"It's a step in the right direction and welcome. Expect to see a clear roadmap for the formation of Telangana state, "said the son of the striker, and also a deputy-, K. Tarakarama Rao on the announcement of Chidambaram.
The resolution must obtain the approval of the Assembly of Andhra, where the Congress Party has a majority, and from there travel to the central Parliament, to be approved by law the status of State for the Home of the telanganos.
To complete the division of Andhra and Telangana, will be in the first 13 coastal districts-nine, the richest, and four inside-with some 40 million people, while the second will have a population of about 35 million people.
Besides, the Government shall decide the role of the city of Hyderabad, located in the heart of Telangana but considered key by the Andhra leaders, who have called him a status of "Union territory" to serve as capital to both states .
Since independence in 1947, the creation of the Indian states has pursued an ad hoc: some regions achieved their goal by cultural or historical reasons, while others were merely an attempt to accommodate interest in the complex Indian political puzzle.
Under the process set beats the feeling of belonging in India, subject to breaches of religion, ethnicity and caste, which often serve overlapping and make it a challenge to form regions based on a single block of identity.
After a period of stability only apparent, the Government of India it agreed in 2000 to the creation of three new regions, driven by the urge local leaders: Jharkhand (northeast), Chattisgarh (center-east) and Uttarkhand ( north).
After Telangana, everything suggests that the fragmentation process will not stop: strongly demand the status region of Gorkhaland political leaders in Bengal (northeast), or of Bundelkhand in Uttar (north).
To achieve its goal, will accompany the 28 regions and seven territories currently drawn on all maps of the country, which in any case must be replaced to include Telangana if the Government concludes the legislative process promised.

The two most powerful Indian political struggle for hegemony

New Delhi, October 16, 2008. - The construction of a railway factory has been the trigger with the two most powerful political India, Sonia Gandhi and Mayawati, have unearthed the hatchet and with a view to the forthcoming general elections .
Gandhi, who heads the Congress Party government, traveled to the district of Rae Bareli to support the construction of a wagon factory, after the project would be parked by the regional government of Uttar in the hands of Mayawati.
"I'm ready to go even to prison," said Sonia Gandhi shocked at landing a private plane in Rae Bareli, the district for which she was elected to parliament.
On Saturday, the Mayawati government canceled the allocation of land for the project advocated by Gandhi specious "claims" of local farmers, a ban that has been appealed in court.
Besides, the Government banned the celebration of Mayawati in Rae Bareli a massive rally of Gandhi, who came flying to her district and was angry on camera.
"Rae Bareli is like my home. I wonder, can anyone stop me from coming to my house? Nobody can, "the official told reporters, greeted with garlands by his supporters.
The districts of Rae Bareli and Amethi are the traditional stronghold of the Nehru-Gandhi family: in them were elected in 2004 Sonia and her son Rahul, and previous election-law and husband of the leader, the deceased Indira and Rajiv Gandhi.
But today, these districts are under the regional government of Mayawati, who belongs to the disadvantaged community "untouchable"-outside the Hindu caste system, and is making the opposition Congress Party a pillar of its policy of ahead of elections.
"The whole thing is a calculated move of the Congress regarding the upcoming legislative elections in 2009. Sonia Gandhi and her party are misleading people by saying that my party is against development, "the leader" untouchable ".
"(Sonia Gandhi) has set up a drama and is carrying out a political conspiracy," he said, quoted by the Indian agency IANS.
The factory building lies a white glove duel for dominance in Indian politics: Mayawati preaches his ambition to be Prime Minister, while Sonia Gandhi decides charges of government since its dominant position in his party.
Sonia, born in Italy but linked to India for her marriage to Rajiv Gandhi, won the 2004 elections, but his political opponents mounted a campaign to prevent an Italian came to power in India.
And the leader, to the surprise of many, then resigned to head the government and appointed as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, although he retained his post at the head of the party and now plans to lead the campaign.
Mayawati, meanwhile, arrives at the next election supported by his victory in the elections of 2007 the most populous region, but will have to overcome the lack of attachment of his party, the Bahujan Party Samadi, the rest of India.
To warm things up, both parties measure their strength in five regional elections scheduled for next month, including the manor capital, New Delhi, now in the hands of Congress.
Both Congress and the Bahujan-and also the largest opposition party, the BJP-Hindu radical, seeking to strengthen its regional weight to hold the legislative power in 2009, but for now their skirmishes are summarized in the virtual factory in Rae Bareli .
"Congress is only concerned with Rae Bareli. And I am concerned the whole region of Uttar "Mayawati defended.
The importance of the legislative elections in Uttar lies in its people: there live 166 million people, as many as in France, Italy and Spain together, so that the direction of their votes may be decisive for the final victory in India.
"Do the math," he told journalists-in-Hindi Italian off the plane Gandhi in Rae Bareli.
At issue is determining who is the most powerful woman in India.

"I am not a bird"

Video: Chal Re Panch Ja you.

When the old General Pervez Mush Arraf, defeated at the polls, had to resign as chairman, have an assistant came into his office and caught him listening to his favorite song: "Fly bird fly." His assistant asked if probed go into exile. "No, I'm not a bird, Musharraf replied -. And I stay in Pakistan. "

Updated 07/10/09. Musharraf lives in London under heavy police protection and lives by giving lectures at universities in the United States. Not return to Pakistan poses. At least for the moment.