World stands a mute spectator to Gaza conflict

Most countries are only talking politics (Source: Google)

The kidnapping and killing of three Israeli students has reopened a vicious circle of hate, revenge, killings and war in West Asia. 

The ongoing Israeli onslaught in Gaza has entered its second week and the death toll continues to mount. 

More than 300 people have lost their lives and around 50,000 have been rendered homeless, but the world stands a mute spectator.

The scenes of death and chaos aren’t as disturbing as the fact that, apart from condemning the offensive, no nation has even tried to intervene. 

India itself has taken a very cautious stance on the issue. 

Parliament refused to have a debate over the issue since India shares diplomatic ties with both Israel and Palestine. 

India is the largest customer of Israeli military equipment; the West Asian nation is our second-largest military partner after Russia. 

India has also recognised Palestinian statehood following its own declaration in November 1988.

If India took a well-calculated stand, the United States made sure there were no second thoughts on its stand when President Barack Obama said: “Our understanding is the current military ground operations are designed to deal with the tunnels. 

"And we are hopeful that Israel will continue to approach this process in a way that minimises civilian casualties.” 

The way most countries have reacted to the conflict makes it clear they are talking politics, and that the lives at stake are none of their business. 

Instead of demanding a halt to both Hamas and Israel’s war campaign over the Gaza strip, Western powers have chosen to take sides. 

According to the West, if it wasn’t for Hamas’s rockets fired out of Gaza, all of this bloodletting would end. 

It does not matter which side is wrong and which is right, for hundreds of lives have already been lost and the brutal reality is that the bodies will keep piling up if the rest of the world does not step in.

© 2014 Nasreen Ghani

Published in Daily Mail and Mail Today
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/article-2699225/Gaza-conflict-World-stands-mute-spectator.html

India does not have the money to spend on statues

The Statue of Unity - Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel

IN his first Budget, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley pointed at India’s poor performance in the Human Development Index survey. 

He said India’s performance continues to be below the global average in most of the HDI indicators like life expectancy at birth, mean years of schooling and expected years of schooling. 

Yet he chose to allocate Rs 200 crore for the Statue of Unity, a figure of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel while he sanctioned Rs 100 crore for girl child education.

Such allocations are unusual in developing nations where elections are still being fought on issues of bijli, sadak and paani. 

Political parties including the BJP had targeted Mayawati for building the Rashtriya Dalit Prerna Sthal in Noida at a cost of Rs 685 crore, but now it is okay to construct a statue and spend crores on it while children starve to death in a country grappling with poverty, sluggish growth and a daunting deficit. 

Jaitley’s allocation would certainly not be enough since the actual cost of building the statue is pegged at Rs 2,500 crore. 

So what does Prime Minister Narendra Modi plan to do apart from asking people to donate funds? 

Does he expect states to follow in the steps of Gujarat and make a provision for a Rs 100-crore fund for the statue in their budgets? 

And why only blame Modi or Jaitley, the Prithviraj Chavan-led Maharashtra government recently sanctioned a budget of Rs 100 crore for a Chhatrapati Shivaji statue. 

While millions of people in India are still uneducated, don’t have homes to stay in, sleep on empty stomachs and die because of unavailability of medical aid, a substantial amount of the nation’s money is being used to build sculptures. 

No matter which way I say it, the fact remains that it’s a top-down expenditure of public funds and it isn’t unpatriotic to question its usefulness, especially at a time of economic anxiety.

© 2014 Nasreen Ghani

Published in Daily Mail and Mail Today
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2690777/India-does-not-money-spend-statues.html

Indians hit new low over Sharapova

All it took to offend 'patriotic' Indians this time was ace tennis player Maria Sharapova admitting that she did not know who Sachin Tendulkar was. 

Tennis player Maria Sharapova

What hypocrites we Indians are! It turns into a life and death situation if a top Russian tennis player does not follow cricket and has no clue about Tendulkar, but it is all right if more than 90 per cent of Indians don't know what their national game is and who captains the team. 

Some of our Bollywood actors have no clue who the country's President is! 

The outburst on social networking sites including Twitter and Facebook is less about Indians being hypocrites than it is about the patriarchal mindset of Indian men, who have all the time in the world when it comes to demeaning a woman. Any woman, even Sharapova. 

Sharapova's Facebook page was bombarded with such horrid comments that most aren't even print-worthy. 

If cricket is religion and Sachin is God, then all of his followers who went after Sharapova seem to be imps from hell. 

As much as Indians believe that cricket is the only sport being played out there, it is a fact that football, rugby and tennis are watched and loved far more worldwide. 

How many of us know anything about tennis? 

Let me only count our cricket players and keep the rest of the population out of this one - ask any Indian cricket player who Sardara Singh is. I am certain most would not know he is the Indian hockey team captain.

You may even have something to say to Virender Sehwag, an Indian, who did not know who legendary cricket players Vinoo Mankad and Pankaj Roy were, even though they played the same sport for the country. 

If Sharapova's confession was honest, the Indian cyber-reaction to it was pure filth.

© 2014 Nasreen Ghani

Published in Daily Mail and Mail Today
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2682471/WHIPLASH-Indians-hit-new-low-Sharapova.html