Chidambaram's 'sudden doubts' over Afzal Guru's role

Former finance minister Mr.P Chidambaram,who also served as home minister in the previous govt, has made a controversial statement today.

There are doubts over Afzal Guru’s role in Parliament attack: P Chidambaram 

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/there-are-doubts-over-afzal-gurus-role-in-parliament-attack-p-chidambaram/articleshow/51130246.cms

P Chidambaram says, that is, now Mr.Chidambaram says, there are doubts over Afzal Guru's role in Parliament attack. dear Chidambaram, the mercy petition filed by Afzal Guru's wife was pending before the President of India when you were the Home Minister. You could have very well recommended the President to   accept the mercy petition sir.

When Supreme court rejected Afzal's appeal your party was in power. Infact your govt was supported by the Communist party until 2008. the prosecution should have argued in favor of govt,which means, against Afzal Guru. The apex court has rejected his appeal and upheld the death penalty awarded to Afzal in lower courts. While the Supreme court rejected Afzal's appeal against the High court order, it commuted Shaukat Hussain Guru's death sentence to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment and it acquitted S A R Gilani citing lack of evidence.

"At the same time, suspicion however strong, cannot take place of legal proof. Though this conduct was not above board, the court cannot condemn him in the absence of sufficient evidence pointing unmistakably to his guilt," it had said

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Supreme-Court-was-suspicious-of-S-A-R-Gilanis-conduct/articleshow/18423951.cms

Afzal's defense, filed a plea which sought the review of his death sentence which was again dismissed by Supreme court in 2007 saying "there is no merit" in it. Coming back to Congress, Delhi government(Congress) dismissed his mercy petition in the year 2010. Mrs. Sheila Dikshit was the CM of Delhi then.

On 3rd February 2013, the honorable President of India, Mr.Pranab Mukherjee rejected Afzal Guru's mercy petition. As per my understanding, the home minister of India, should recommend the President to reject the mercy petition. It was again when your party was in power, his mercy petition was rejected and Sushil Kumar Shinde was the Home Minister then. He was hanged when your party was in power. His body was not handed over to his family. His family was not informed about the decision to hang Afzal prior to hanging. The Home Minister sent the information about Afzal's hanging through speed post to his family which reached them 2 days after hanging. Afzal Guru, in his last letter, wrote that he was not given enough time to write a detailed letter to his family.

Mr. Chidambaram, your party is responsible for executing Afzal Guru. You were the Home Minister of India for 4 years (2008 - 2012) and the mercy petition was pending before the President of India since 2006. 3 years after hanging Afzal Guru, making a statement like 'I was not the home minister when he was hanged' is just laughable and shows how much your party has been cornered.

Afzal Guru's death penalty was awarded by a trial court, then upheld by a High court, then by a Supreme court. The plea seeking review of the death sentence too was not successful. So Mr.Chidambaram, you mean to say that all these courts made a mistake by awarding death penalty to Afzal Guru? And you were not aware of the mercy petition pending before the President when you were Home minister? Or 'someone' stopped you from acting on the mercy petition? If so who is that 'someone'?

I can only say this is just a proof that the congress party will stoop down to any extent for gaining political mileage.

JNU, Freedom of expression, Patriotism, Communism and More..

The entire nation is concerned about what is happening in Delhi, especially the Delhi Jawaharlal Nehru University. Well, if people who are reading this blog say they are not bothered about what's happening in Delhi, I am sorry you are an alien and you are not living in India. Such is the reaction of the mainstream media and the social media to the recent developments in Delhi JNU. 

What has actually happened in Delhi JNU? The left wing students sought permission for organizing a cultural event in the university and the permission was granted too. In the name of cultural event, they started raising slogans against the hanging of Afzal Guru, man who was convicted for his involvement in Parliament bomb blasts. While protesting, they raised slogans like "Bharat there Tukde Honge"(meaning India will be broken into pieces), “Bharat Ki Barbadi tak Jang rahegi jang rehegi”( the fight will continue till India is destroyed), “Kashimire ki ajadi tak jang rahegi, jang rahegi,(the fight will continue till Kashmir is liberated)”, “India go back”, “Hum Lekar Rahenge Azadi Azadi, Azadi, (We will take freedom come what may)” “Pakistan zindabad”, “Kitne Afzal maroge ghar-ghar se Afzal niklega (Afzals will come out from every home)”. Source -

http://www.dailypioneer.com/todays-newspaper/dsu-activists-raised-anti-india-slogans.html

https://www.facebook.com/Newsxonline/videos/vb.30702412762/10153581181722763/?type=2&theater

The right wing students union, ABVP (Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP)) objected to this act of left wing students and complained about this to the university authorities and the VC has ordered for an inquiry.A Bharatiya Janata Party MP Maheish Girri lodged a complaint against the “anti-constitutional and anti-national elements”  who participated in the demonstration. The police arrested Kanhaiya Kumar , the president of the left dominated JNU students union and charged him with sedition.

While taking this Kanhaiya Kumar to court, some lawyers  attacked him. A BJP MLA O P Sharma assaulted a communist leader outside the Patiala house court. Kumar was remanded to judicial custody till March 2 by a Delhi court.

This is what happened in JNU. Our media and journalists conveniently ignored so many things and they have given a wide coverage to O P Sharma and the lawyers who attacked Kanhaiya Kumar and some journalists. At any cost, violating law and carrying out physical attacks on anyone is unacceptable and its not an act of nationalism but an act of hooliganism/goondaism.  No doubt about it.  Delhi police is responsible for the law and order in Delhi and obviously they have to take up the responsibility for the attacks on the journalists and Kanhaiya Kumar. But is the entire issue restricted to this barbaric act alone? 

The left wing supporters are openly supporting the slogans raised in the event in the name of freedom of expression. While they are so sincere in calling the act of O P Sharma and lawyers as hooliganism, they have maintained a studied silence about the slogans raised in the event. They just keep repeating that freedom of speech/expression should not be crushed. My question is, why are you making such an incomplete statement? Just complete your statement like this - freedom to abuse the nation with slogans like 'India will be broken into pieces' should not be crushed.

The students union and the arrested guy claims they have full faith in Indian constitution and they don't need a certificate from RSS/BJP on patriotism. This is the problem with these left wingers, they are highly obsessed with RSS that they name them for everything that is happening in the country. They claim they have done no wrong. If that is the case, why did these people get permission in the name of cultural event? Should they have not mentioned that the event planned was against the hanging of Afzal Guru and it was also about demanding freedom for Kashmir in the permission requested?Why was that not mentioned?

Briefing about the “incomplete information”, the varsity Registrar Bhupinder Zutshi said, “There was nowhere mentioned in the permission request that the event will be on Afzal Guru, they just said that they wanted to organise a cultural event. How can any talk about disintegration of nation be national?” - http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/afzal-guru-event-anti-india-slogan-at-jnu-campus-disciplinary-enquiry-ordered/

Afzal Guru was hanged in the year 2013. He was given a fair trial from a special court to Supreme Court and it took 7 years for the successive presidents to reject his mercy petition. He was hanged when Congress was in power and Sushil Kumar Shinde was the home minister then. This was the statement he made last year about hanging Afzal Guru.

“After the SC ruling and rejection of the mercy petition, people were expecting that Afzal will be hanged,”  - Sushilkumar Shinde

http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/afzal-guru-not-hanged-for-political-reasons-sushilkumar-shinde/

It has been 3 years since Afzal was hanged. What was the reason to organize an event against it now? Is there a way to bring him back alive? There is a difference between debating about capital punishment and a court judgement. Finally these people ended up blaming Pranab Mukherjee for rejecting Afzal's mercy petition. There is a poster doing rounds against Mr.Mukherjee and being circulated by left wingers and the poster makes an obvious reference to his caste.I don't really understand, in what way Hindutva/Brahminism/RSS is related to Afzal's hanging. Afzal was convicted by the honorable supreme court of India, his mercy petition was rejected by honorable president of India(who is from congress) and hanged during the congress rule which is against all these Hindutva/RSS etc. 

There is nothing wrong in suspecting the involvement of any terrorist/political outfit in a protest against something which happened 3 years ago and happened when a different govt was in power. The home minister said the event had Hafiz Saeed's 'support'. The media and left wingers/seculars/liberals immediately jumped into action and derived the conclusion that Rajnath Singh's statement was based on a fake twitter handle in the name of Hafiz Saeed. They are not ready to give the space for the authorities to complete the inquiry in this issue.

There was another student, Umar Khalid, who is now absconding was allegedly seen shouting those anti-India slogans in the presence of Kanhaiya Kumar. This Umar Khalid's father was part of the banned outfit - Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). The man claims he dissociated himself from SIMI well before it became a banned outfit. But why is his son absconding?

The argument is that Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested because he was against the RSS/ABVP ideology. Are all the anti-RSS/BJP people being arrested? This fellow was a students union leader and the police claims they have valid proof against him to slap sedition charges. The left wing mouth pieces say the police has no proof against him. A video showing Kanhaiya Kumar shouting anti-national slogans has gone viral and it was aired in Times Now tv channel. All other television channels like India Today,AajTak,NDTV etc claims the video is fake and it was doctored one. They have gone to the extent of saying it was Arnab Goswami who doctored the video. 

Suddenly Arnab Goswami is being hailed as a nationalist by a section of people. The fact is Times Now's TRP is much higher than other channels. Times Now and Arnab are shrewd enough to understand the situation and cover the events in such a way that their TRP goes high. While all other channels were covering the JNU issue in same angle, Times Now just covered the other side of the coin. They were able to create a curiosity and people who believe that anti-national activities happened in JNU, preferred Times Now. Going against the popular opinion is a trick which will work out if handled well and it is working wonders for Times Now. Atleast I don't want to join the 'hail Arnab' chorus.

These left wingers and liberals speak so much about freedom of speech,freedom of expression, tolerance etc. But they are unable to tolerate Arnab Goswami and they wants the nation to boycott him. If Barkha Dutt has the right to tweet lies, if Rajdeep Sardesai has the right to distort the facts, if Sagarika Ghose has the right to abuse right wingers and if all this comes under the freedom of speech category, Times Now and Arnab has all the rights to cover JNU issue the way they wants.

According to these left wingers/communists/liberals/seculars slogans like 'the fight will continue till India is destroyed' should be allowed in the name of freedom of speech/expression, but Kamalesh Tiwari(a Hindu fanatic) should not be allowed to abuse Prophet Muhammad. (If you want to know what he said, go through this link - http://zeenews.india.com/news/india/this-is-what-kamlesh-tiwari-said-about-prophet-muhammad-which-infuriated-muslims_1833716.html ). This Kamalesh Tiwari was arrested by the police after they received a complaint against him for making these remarks. One month after he was arrested, a Muslim outfit organized protests against this Kamalesh Tiwari and Hindus were attacked and vehicles were burnt in the protests. This happened in Malda(West Bengal).

These people who wants the anti-India slogans to be allowed, didn't fight for Kamalesh Tiwari's freedom of speech. Infact, they were not satisfied with just the arrest of this Kamalesh Tiwari and except Z news, not a single media house reported about the Malda violence. The moment you ask why the Malda violence was not given importance, you will be branded a 'bhakt'. The bottomline is clear - if Hindus are killed/attacked, it should be tolerated and any statement against it will fetch you the title 'bhakt'.

Personally I don't approve Kamalesh Tiwari or his statements. Rightly the police arrested him for his moronic comments and I support strong punishment to this guy.

Coming back to Kanhaiya Kumar's arrest, his supporters claim the police doesn't have any proof against him. Further, the Delhi police is only going to show the doctored video as an evidence against the students union leader. You ask them how do they know all this? Ask them how did they conclude that the police has no evidence against Kanhaiya Kumar? You will get a response 'you are a bhakt'. 

If a students union leader was prepared to approve the anti-national slogans in the event organized by his union, he should be prepared enough to face the legal actions too. Let him prove his innocence in the court of law and go scot-free. There is another optio -, he should apologize for what has happened in the university and give in writing that he will not be part of such activities again. If he does that, then all the charges against him should be dropped and he should be let off.

The union HRD ministry has ordered that national flag should be hoisted in all the central universities. Immediate reactions in social media and left wingers - ask RSS to hoist national flag. How stupid? Ask them why did they raise anti-national slogans, they will ask you didn't Ghodse kill Gandhi? Don't get puzzled with the reply. Let me explain the Ghodse link - Ghodse belonged to RSS, Ghodse killed Gandhi ji, RSS is the parent organization of BJP, BJP is in power,so these JNU rebels are raising anti-national slogans to avenge Gandhi assassination now(because BJP came to power). 

Ghodse abused the RSS and left RSS in the mid of 1930s. He joined Hindu Maha Sabha. The court has given clean chit to RSS in the Gandhi assassination case and it was clearly proven that RSS had no part in Gandhi assassination. RSS was ideologically against Hindu Maha Sabha and both are different groups(I will write more about this later). Tell this to the left wingers and liberals who are supporting the JNU students, ' courts danced to the tune of Hindutva outfits. RSS bribed the court and judges. Hindu Maha Sabha, RSS, Shiv Sena, Ram Sene are all same. You bhakt, don't try to fool us' - you will get this reply.

These central universities are autonomous bodies. They could have very well objected to the idea of hoisting national flag, but they didn't. So calling it an order of HRD minister itself is wrong.

Central Universities are autonomous bodies established under Acts of Parliament and are governed by their Acts and Statutes and Ordinances made there under. Further, Central Universities are empowered to establish Departments with the recommendation of their statutory bodies and approval of University Grants Commission (UGC) and the Visitor. UGC has instructed all the universities including Central Universities located in non-Hindi speaking areas to establish Hindi Departments. 

- source http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=89770

After the news of flag hoisting in central universities came out, liberals are unable to control their emotions and started branding this an act of Hindutva and demanded flag hoisting in RSS offices. RSS is a private organization, they are not funded by govt and there is no necessity for them to hoist national flags in their offices. It was RSS that drove away Portugese from Goa and hoisted the tri-color flag there. The then PM, Jawaharlal Nehru invited RSS to participate in the Republic Day parade too. This is about RSS. 

Is it such a crime to hoist national flag in universities? 

Shouting slogans like the fight will continue till India is destroyed,Pakistan zindabad etc is purely anti-national and supporting those who shouted these slogans are anti-nationals as well. If you endorse the idea of destroying India, how else should you be called? Knowing all these information, purposefully ignoring the anti-national slogans and speaking as if there is an undeclared emergency is equally wrong. Ask your inner conscience - should we condemn these anti-national slogans or not? If it says, no,then you are an anti-national as well. I don't bother being called a bhakt or a moron for writing this.

Sethupathi - An enjoyable cop film

Sethupathi- is good. Vijay Sethupathi has tried a full length mass movie this time and it has worked out very well. He has a tremendous screen presence and a charismatic body language which makes this movie enjoyable. It has a very good first half, second half starts off slowly,but later the movie gains momentum and ends up as a good entertainer.

The romance portion should appears a bit stretched. The supporting cast(including the children), villain and the heroine are good enough to keep up the momentum. It has enjoyable dialogues( the one like 'innum konja emotional ah sollunga' by a media person :D ) and mass scenes, especially handling the rowdies when they surround the hero's family. Songs,by music director Nivas K. Prasanna, are good too, 'naan yaaru' both the versions are terrific with visuals. Throughout the movie audience were clapping and whistling and the movie is sure to attract family audience as well. Director S. U. Arunkumar who made his debut through Pannaiyarum Padminiyum, is back with Sethupathi and the movie is most likely to become a commercial super hit.

Sethupathi - an enjoyable Vijay Sethupathi show B|

Miruthan Review

Miruthan as projected,its a zombie film. The movie is full of zombies and the hero fights them. The duration of the movie is just less than 2 hrs and to an extent its fast too. If the expectation is just to go for a movie which is different and racy, this movie is ok,but if you are looking for some exciting thriller, then Miruthan will surely disappoint you.

Dog bites can cause hydrophobia(fear for water) which is a symptom of rabies in humans. And yes, people diagnosed with rabies,will be fierce and behave like a maniac. If left untreated, they will die within few days. Nowadays, treating dog bites is very simple. All you have to do is to take injections periodically. The director Shakti Soundar Rajan has taken this simple concept and developed a script based on it.

There is nothing wrong in using a simple concept to make an interesting film. But in Miruthan,there are no interesting scenes or tense moments,which are essential for any thriller. The zombie concept seems to be just an exaggeration of hydrophobia/rabies, which didn't work for me. Jayam Ravi just keeps shooting the zombies for most part of the movie. Kaali, Manohar(the one who plays minister) and Sriman,provides comic relief. Their comedy scenes and 2 songs are good. Lakshmi Menon and the girl who plays Ravi's sister are ok, as they don't have much to do. Only one scene(detection of anti-bodies to the virus) stood out. I feel had the director built the screenplay based on the concept explained in that scene, it would have been an interesting movie.

Instead of merely shooting the zombies, had the director made more research on zombies and come up with an interesting screenplay, Miruthan would have been a satisfying experience. Miruthan is not so interesting zombie.

JNU protests against Afzal Guru hanging

Some students of JNU(Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi) organized an event on campus against the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. They pasted posters inviting them to gather for a protest march against “judicial killing of Afzal Guru and Maqbool Bhatt” and in solidarity with “struggle of Kashmiri people for their democratic right to self determination”. Dear students Afzal Guru was hanged 3 years ago, what is that you are going to achieve by holding an event against it? you people sought permission for organizing a cultural event and cleverly you have not mentioned anything about Afzal Guru. Now the university has ordered an inquiry into the matter. Had the university not ordered an inquiry,someone would have wrote about it to HRD ministry and the minister office inturn,would have sought clarification from the university VC. Had something like that happened, by this time intellectuals/liberals/communists would have thrashed Smriti Zubin Irani and branded it a Hindutva move. Afzal Guru's guilt was proved in court. He was given a fair trial from a special court to Supreme Court and it took 7 years for the successive presidents to reject his mercy petition. After showing so much of tolerance only a terrorist can be hanged in India. It has been 3 years since he was hanged,I don't understand how the protests held against it can be a freedom of expression. By organizing and supporting such protests, the people who think they are liberals, are actually trying to create an impression that people belonging to a particular religion are being targeted, while statistics gives a different picture. I am damn sure the media will somehow link Smriti Irani in this issue and bring in Hindutva to defend such anti-national activities. But the university should not take this matter lightly. These students protested in front of RSS office against Rohith Vemula's suicide and abused Narendra Modi and provoked the police. Once the police assaulted them they played victim card with grand support of media and for no reason RSS was blamed. The intention of these people is to disturb the existing peaceful atmosphere in India. The university should take strict action against these people. If it doesn't, then the HRD ministry should step in and make it sure that these fellows are punished. Don't forget, Manmohan Singh was the PM when Afzal Guru was hanged.

Visaranai - Review

Visaranai is hard hitting and interesting yet not satisfying!!! As the title suggests, the movie deals about police inquiry. To be precise,it shows how brutal the police inquiries are.The best part is,the director Vetrimaran has done exceedingly well to extract the best performances out of all the actors involved, which is why everything looks believable and the movie is getting positive reviews. On the downside, the movie is easily predictable. Vetrimaran says the movie is inspired from a real life incident and he even shows one man associated with the incident. But we have come across such incidents and theories many times in newspapers, infact even in movies too.

On 1st January this year, a movie called 'Tharkappu' got released which had a similar storyline to Visaranai and interestingly Samuthirakani played the role of Human Rights Commissioner in that movie too, who plays a cop here. In Tharkappu, Sakthi will kill Riyas Khan in a 'planned' encounter. Riyas Khan, before getting killed will say 'enna konnutingannaa ennoda sendhu pala unmaigalum sethudum'. Kishore's character is very similar to that of Riyas Khan. And in another scene in Tharkappu, Samuthirakani will say 'indha report veliya ponaale neenga uyiroda irukka mudiyadhu officer' to Sakthi. Samuthirakani's character is similar to Sakthi's character. Not sure if Tharkappu was inspired from the same real life incident.

You can make a movie about 'police encounter' only in 2 ways - either supporting the encounter or opposing it. The stills, pre-release hype and the name Vettrimaran itself are enough to understand that the movie is against encounters. There is nothing wrong in showing how the policemen fake the evidences,witnesses and how they torture the innocents to close a case. It happens in every state of India. I have heard about it from some of my close friends who witnessed one such incident personally. While that is the case, why did Vetrimaran chose Andhra Pradesh to establish this point? There is a dialogue in the movie 'you know about these Tamil people'. A Telugu speaking cop will say this to a judge, in the sense that Tamil people are liars. As expected, the dialogue is received with an angry response from the crowd,which booed the Telugu cop(read Telugu people). Linguistic fanaticism has always been a problem in India. If you have dialogues and scenes like this, the situation can get worse. After all, cinema is just about making money and is it fair to instigate linguistic fights? That too for an award winning director like Vetrimaran? There is a reason for choosing Andhra Pradesh as the place where the incident(or inquiry) takes place in first half.

Last year an encounter happened in Andhra Pradesh in which 20 woodcutters from Tamil Nadu, were shot dead by Andhra Pradesh's red sanders anti-smuggling taskforce. There were strong protests in Tamil Nadu against the encounter and infact people went to the extent of pelting stones at Andhra bank branches in Tamil Nadu. Even petrol bombs were hurled at an Andhra Bank branch. The argument against the encounter was that the 20 woodcutters were innocents and they were not smugglers. The police,for the sake of closing the case,killed those innocent people - this was the argument of protesters. This could be the reason for choosing AP. The climax is based on the Chennai Velachery encounter which happened in 2012.

So the director's opinion is these two were fake encounters and he made a movie to express the same. How the AP police treats the Tamil people and how police encounters happen in Tamil Nadu is what Visaranai is all about. In my opinion, Tharkappu had a better logic than Visaranai. Tharkappu explains the horrors of encounters and the trap laid by big shots in carrying out these encounters atleast in one or two scenes. The much hyped climax didn't make any impact at all(atleast for me) and I would have been surprised only had the climax been any different.

The script and writing is pretty ordinary,but making-wise the movie stands tall. I felt like watching a police station for 2 hours.'Attakathi' Dinesh, Murugadass, Samuthirakani and even that ruthless AP police inspector has given life to this movie and should appreciate Vetrimaran for that. G V Prakash's BGM was good enough to make this movie an interesting watch.

Vetrimaran's Visaranai, may win many awards(already the movie has won an international award it seems). It may be a commercial winner too, but not a trendsetter or a unique movie, as it is being projected in social media.