India is a democracy. Democracy depends upon informed participation of citizens in control and management of the affairs the nation. For informed participation it is essential that the citizens should be able to receive, perceive, interpret and share information. Audio reception of information would not help; because there could be such information, which should need juxtaposition with related information and with relevant documents as otherwise the same information may mislead. Newspapers and journals, which are important sources of information are usually available in print ad one must be able to read in order to receive information through the print media. Another important source of is the internet through which news portals are available. But again, to receive information through the news portals, one is to read. Indian constitution has made provisions for statutory audit of government expenditures so that the peoples can be informed of how the administration executes its responsibilities. The statutory audits are conducted by the Chief Accountant General and the reports thereof are placed before the Parliament and the respective Assemblies and then the citizenry is expected to watch the official actions on these reports. But to do this the audit reports and action taken reports are to be read. In order to help people receive whatever information they need to evaluate official action in depth, Right to Information Act has been framed and enforced in India. But to know as to which would be helpful information in this regards and to know as to what information emanates, one is to read. On the other hand, watching administration is not the whole thing in life of a person and in life of a nation. People must know the history of their land to understand how the society has evolved so that a better society may be built up. They are to read history. The same is in respect of tradition and culture and literature and Laws. The same is also applicable to areas of industry and agriculture, trade and commerce; cooperation and civil administration. So one is to read to rise to become a responsible citizen for making the country a better place to live in.

Illiterates cannot read. Therefore illiteracy needs to be eliminated. Schools have the most major and relevant role in this respect.

Despite planned approach to eliminate illiteracy, literacy has not grown as expected.
Orissa may be cited as an example.

An average of figures indicated by various agencies indicate that 70 per cent of Orissa’s Schedule caste and Schedule Tribe people constituting 43 percent of her population are illiterate. 30 percent of OBC that constitutes 50 percent of Orissa’s population is also illiterate.

Incentives like midday meals and free textbooks etc are failing to stop the flow of school dropouts.

WHY IT IS SO?

Unemployment and lack of the scope of employment of parents is the most major cause of children of school-going age not at all going to schools and dropping out of schools. The ever-increasing numbers of child labor is indicative of this.

In most of the cases, poor children act as babysitters in their huts at the behest of their parents who in search of daily wages acquiesce into drudgery or in search of food, rush into jungles leaving the tiny kids in the care of elder babies. This unavoidable babysitting pushes children of poor families into illiteracy in rural areas.

It is also remarkable that lack of confidence in children of poor families is also a factor of illiteracy. The poor children are often not encouraged to mingle with school children belonging to advantaged families. Thereby a sort of inferior feeling gets injected into their psyche and they fail to acquire courage to aspire for education. This negative trend also spreads illiteracy.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF THE TREND CONTINUES?

Unless this trend is stopped, Indian democracy will be in serious doldrums. As the children shaken by the feeling of inferiority would grow, the psychological gap between them and the advantages children will grow. India can never be a country of equals at least in feeling for the country. It would end up in class wars.

On the other hand, democracy will never get informed participation, as most of the major citizens, bereft of ability to read and receive and analyze information relating to nation building, shall limit their activities to casting their uninformed votes. So majority participation in Indian democracy would be unconcerned participation and that would never be good for the country’s health.

Educated people can manage their hearths and health by themselves without being dependants on the state on every occasion, which the illiterate people can’t. As the global scenario indicates, state role will be diminished in societal management. In that condition, educated people may overcome hurdles and manage themselves. Uneducated people will perish and consequently become the society’s worst detractions.

So, it is time, the advantaged people must address themselves to elimination of illiteracy and for availability of education to all.

WHAT SHOULD BE DONE?

In this respect, Schools have the best role to play.

The Society should encourage the schools to educate their pupils to cultivate fellow feeling for the disadvantaged children.

Every student should be encouraged to adopt a poor child of his locality to literate him or her. As age factor would eliminate the communication gap between them, it would give a positive opportunity to educate the disadvantaged child.

Schools may make this essential role of a student a part of examinational incentives so that every student who makes a child of his locality literate would be rewarded with higher marks are certificates of excellence. What the mid day meals etc are unable to generate – in study aptitude – the students of the schools can do, even as they shall be, thereby, growing as responsible citizens, highly concerned for fellow beings of the society.

The schools, on the other hand, can press its faculty and library to help the environment of mutual trust and cooperation grow in the field of education.

Holidays and vacations may be best used for generation of contact between the school and the members of the society and a collective endeavor to make every body educated may be generated for all round development of all.

But would the planners and intellectuals interact and help how the process should be formulated?

Residents of government quarters in both the sides of Mahatma Gandhi Marg spanning between the Assembly junction and the Railway station roundabout in Bhubaneswar are deeply disturbed due to use of amplifiers by demonstrators who gather in the boulevard in hundreds and in thousands every now and then to voice their protests against unrelenting misrule.

The residents have been demanding for a ban on demonstrations and / or protest gatherings on MGM or in the boulevards in deference to their right to peace and tranquility. And conscious as they are of the adverse impact of noise pollution that the demonstrations generate, they are absolutely justified in raising this demand.

Public demonstrations and protest rallies are not the only events that bang the boulevards here; but also this is the place where state level ceremonial parades take place to the crippling of free movement of the residents as and when required by the authorities. So, the residents are really disadvantaged.

The Government quarters flanking MGM are of highest types and occupants thereof are high placed official functionaries except a marginal few from media.

No wonder the government has decided to oblige them by promulgating a permanent ban
on demonstrations and protest rallies as per demand of the concerned residents.

The Home Secretary is eager to locate an alternative place where demonstrations may be allowed.

Reportedly a high level team is pressed on the job. Nothing could be more laughable and ludicrous.

Were the boulevards flanking MGM ever earmarked as the places for the aggrieved public to offer their demonstrations that now the government is planning to change?

What sort of a government is in power now? Why it is so confused?

Are the demonstrators rushing to Bhubaneswar streets daring scorching sun or showering clouds or chilling cold waves for a dating with administration so that they should be expected to offer their proposal decently in a designated place?

Peoples are thronging MGM boulevards to voice their protests against lack of probity in administration, against loss of direction in administration, against injustices they are subjected to under administration, in a nutshell, against misadministration.

They are coming to break law on records on the roads of the capital city in order to show the government that they have no more any respect for the laws of the land as the same do not help the peoples but act as umbrellas to protect the exploiters and the enemies of the peoples.

One is to see to believe how enthusiastically peoples are breaking laws and jumping into police vans after administration arrests them; no qualms, no remorse, no repentance. This happens when peoples perform patriotic duties oblivious of repressive measures the government may take.

The Country is theirs and that is collapsing under continuous misrule by commission agents in possession of posts of power. Therefore the protest rallies, therefore the demonstrations.

Is the government expecting that the peoples who gather to register their protests through civil disobedience would obey official orders to demonstrate their protests in a place directed by the government at a far away distance from the State Secretariat?

If the government feels it would happen then here is a government that seriously lacks in sense of proportion.

Peoples will never honor any order that would restrict their rights to voice their protests against misrule.

Therefore, instead of making a farce of its own order, it would be better for the administrators as well as for democracy to dismantle the Indira Gandhi Park and to restore it to its previous position of a democracy points.

When Capital of Orissa shifted to Bhubaneswar, the ground where Indiara Gandhi Park now stands was earmarked as the democracy point. It was reserved for democratic activities. The State Level ceremonial parades on occasion of the Independence Day and the Republic Day were taking place on this ground. When eminent leaders were addressing the peoples they were doing that on this ground. Prime Ministers beginning from Jawaharlal Nehru to Indira Gandhi had addressed the peoples on this ground only. Similarly Leaders of Opposition beginning from the legendary communist leader A.K.Gopalan, who was the first recognized Leader of Opposition in India to the present leader of Opposition L.K.Advani had addressed the peoples on this ground. Leaders neither in power nor in the opposition benches of Parliament but in hearts of every Indian like Rajaji had addressed the peoples from podiums on this ground. This was the ground where aggrieved peoples of Orissa were voicing their concern and demonstrating their protests against bad governance and this was the ground from where peoples of Orissa were receiving informed signals to change administration in their State.

J.B.Patnaik, under whose rule in nineteen eighties, this ground had been umpteen times used by the peoples of Orissa as their lunching pad to send salvoes of protest against corruption and misadministration, had wanted obliteration of this excellent point of vigilant participation of the general public in democracy. The opportunity came to his hand when Indira was assassinated on going back from Orissa after delivering her last speech on this ground. His coterie proceeded immediately to destroy this ground of immortal memories and to extinguish every possibility of its future use by the vigilant public against misrule. In the name of creating crescent lake, profuse money was spent to remove soil from where now the water pool of BDA Nicco Park stands and to dump that soil on this ground to build up Park landscape. Money was looted both the ways; but the loss was nothing for the government to bother. Indiara Gandhi Park emerged on the deathbed of democracy on this ground.

Now when the government is planning to obstruct people from expressing their vigilant reaction on misadministration by putting a ban on use of the MGM by demonstrators, it would be better for officials to note that the government that had then declared to have ceremonial parades in the Kalinga Stadium or in a ground to be named Janata Maidan following conversion of this ground to the Indira Gandhi Park is not keeping to its decision and on the contrary, it is causing the parades on MGM as hinted to above.

So, it is time, the mischief behind creation of Indira Gandhi Park be reassessed and steps be taken to demolish it in order to restore this ground as the democracy ground where peoples as before would address and be addressed in matter of vigilant participation in democracy. It would be rather a befitting tribute to Indira who had delivered her last public address here.

The Forest Park is quite near to this spot and is enough to accommodate the visitors of Indira Gandhi Park.

Unless it is done, any attempt to deny peoples the right to voice their protests against misrule or to air their warnings to their government on basis of vigilant participation in democracy would be futile and lead to confrontation which would be dangerous to democracy.

So, demolish the Indiara Gandhi Park with Indira’s statue kept in tact to witness democratic participation of general public in keeping on leash an errant administration.

Hon’ble Chief Justice of India has termed “debatable” the issue of applicability of the Right To Information (RTI) Act to members of top judiciary.

Ever since the Supreme Court Registry had turned down an application in matter of disclosure of properties of Judges under the RTI Act, the issue has been simmering.

The Hon’ble CJ was once of the view that Judges being constitutional authorities could not be subjected to RTI act.

But again, to utter discomfort of all who love democracy and like to rely on judiciary, there are judges who in circumstances have contributed to creation of an environment that has made thinking minds in many spheres comprising even eminent jurists to say aloud that there is a necessity to make judges accountable.

The judges should place before the public very clearly the details of their properties and there should be every facility for the public to know how far their incumbency in judicial position affects their property position.

In this country the criminals are now ruling the roost and that with ever more rising ferocity. This is indicative of only the one factor that has dragged India to such sorry state and that is failure of administration of law.

So people to whom their country is more important than any other phenomenon has a right to know as to who of the public functionaries assigned with administration of laws has failed and how, where, under what circumstances and whether or not willfully.

Knowing and watching property position of judges would be helpful in this.

Plutocracy has already eclipsed our democracy and it has its tentacles in the guise of functionaries in all the organs of administration. So it is urgent for patriots to dig out as to who is a tentacle of plutocracy in which organ of our disadvantaged democracy.

Judiciary should cooperate in this and therefore should never shy at the RTI Act.

Notwithstanding different and rival geographical nationalities, human society has now become ‘global’.

A single factor is responsible for this. And, that is ‘industry’.

Industry has only one aim. That is ‘profit’.

Profit has two types of ‘utilization’.

When private operators – individual or corporate – own Industry, the profit goes to personal coffers for benefit of the private operator. When ‘Society’ owns Industry, profit goes to the State Exchequer for utilization in social welfare. The former phenomenon has its philosophical base in Political Economy of Capitalism and the later in Political Economy of Socialism.

Socialism as a social science has developed in seeking end of uncompensated exploitation of natural and human resources by private profiteers and with its emergence it has ushered in confidence in human beings for continued freedom from oppression.

Oppressive forces have conspired against the new order and their planted agents have sabotaged socialist countries from within in aggressive attempts at extinguishing the latest political light that shows ways for utilization of industrial profit in cause of social welfare instead of getting stored in the black chambers of individual coffers. And to their preening best, they have unilaterally declared that the world is now unipolar!

But what has happened to this unipolar world?

Amusing it is to note that the principal architect and highest leader of the unipolar world, US of America is in quagmire due to excesses of capitalism!

Anne D’Innocenzio, Business Writer of Associated Press gives glimpses of this when on Apr 29, 2008 he informs:

“Struggling with mounting debt and rising prices, faced with the toughest economic times since the early 1990s, Americans are selling prized possessions online and at flea markets at alarming rates.
“To meet higher gas, food and prescription drug bills, they are selling off grandmother’s dishes and their own belongings. Some of the household purging has been extremely painful — families forced to part with heirlooms”.

The position is so precarious that policy-makers representing the Group of Seven free-market democracies after meeting in Washington have pledged “to purge capitalism of the excess that caused the latest crisis in financial markets” and “to finish much of the groundwork within 100 days and the rest by year-end”, reports Brian Love, European Economics Correspondent of Reuters on April 13, 2008.

But, quoting Geithner he says, it is “hard to do, complicated to figure out how to do it well”.

But capitalism cannot be purged of its excesses.

Notwithstanding lexical meanings, it stands for “competition to grab profit”.

In the perception of the profit grabbers, competition ushers in free-market and free-market upkeeps democracy. So to them, democracy is synonymous with free-market.

In a free-market the operators never compete to share the profit with the peoples or to pump in the profit to the public exchequer. Competition takes place only in order to generate more and more profit and to grab the same for personal use by the operators of industries.

For an instance, Mukesh Ambani’s 27-floor skyscraper tipped to be the costliest home in the world now under construction at Malabar Hill of south Mumbai attracts attention.

It is on records before Judiciary that the plot on which the house is being built belongs primarily to an Orphanage over which the Maharashtra State Wakf Board claims to be the custodian.

The state government’s steps to cancel the deed that has helped Ambani occupy the Wakf land was stayed by the Mumbai High Court in October 2007 and now the Supreme Court has rejected a plea against the HC order with observation that the HC is competent to decide the case.

Without any prejudice to judiciary’s role in the matter, it can safely be said that had industrial profit not been grabbed by Mukesh as personal property such a naked exhibition of individual opulence mocking at the wretched existence of majority Indians could not have mattered on the soil of India.

The judiciary can nullify the land transaction deed but cannot intervene in exhibition of opulence howsoever that may mock at the people of India perishing under poverty.

This unrestrainedly displayable opulence is a strong factor of industrial competition facilitated by free-market economy.

This competition therefore is competition amongst industry owners and traders to amass personal wealth by maximizing exploitation of natural and human recourses of the country where they operate.

Thus, when a small number of individuals amass huge volume of wealth, like the top 20 ‘rich Indians’ having amassed wealth equivalent to earning of 30 crore of (middle class) people of India as reported by PTI quoting Reserve Bank of India’s former Governor, Bimal Jalan on Jan 25, 2008, citizens of the citadel of capitalism, USA, as reported by AP, “are selling prized possessions online and at flea markets at alarming rates” to “meet higher gas, food and prescription drug bills”.

It is not known as to what is perceived by leaders of free economy as “excess” of Capitalism that the imperialists want to purge out within 100 days; but this precarious condition to which the people have been pushed into is certainly an outcome of the excesses of capitalism.

And the situation is so very precarious, because any attempt to save people from unbearable cost of living would be resented to by industry owners as thereby the the quantum of profit they fetch may be affected, the policy makers also express fear that the purging would be “hard to do”, even “complicated to figure out how to do”.

What would happen if they fail to do what they want to do?

India has examples to offer.

She had, on her soil, in the past, around six hundred persons who were Kings and Emperors who had been exploiting the people and the soil to their personal advantage and displaying their opulence in form of massive palaces, even in tombs for their spouses like the Taj. They had made bards sing their glories and made poets write scriptures equating them with Vishnu, the celestial Lord.

Where are they now?

They are no more the Lords. No more the moving Vishnus.

People of India under guidance of the Communists, who, in many kingdoms had raised armed revolutions against the kings and emperors, at the summit of freedom movement, dethroned them and threw them into the dustbin of time.

That would happen, for sure, again in respect of owners of Industry all over the world if individual opulence remains its creed than welfare of human society.

Therefore, it can be said that the decision of Group of Seven Capitalist countries at Washington to purge the excess of capitalism is perhaps the last hope for their survival.

The sooner Indian Industry and advocates of free economy understand this phenomenon, the better for them that would be.

Termination of Nepal kingdom under leadership of the Communists is perhaps the last warning to private cofferists to understand the truth that notwithstanding who owns industries, profits are the creation of community and if community is denied to have necessary benefits out of that, whatsoever office stands on the way, the community must throw that away.

If immediate rescue from the quagmire is the aim, for the capitalist seeking their system purged of excesses of capitalism, Gandhiji’s Theory of Trusteeship, if adopted whole-heartedly, may grant them a temporary reprieve.

The Chief Minister and his cabinet colleagues are briefed by bureaucrats to show how the State has been paying attention to well-being of working class, which they may vouch for from podiums on occasion of the May Day.

I am not going to details of that.

I am not going to say how the number of unemployed persons has increased many folds and how industrial workers in Orissa are not receiving the minimum wages as prescribed under the Minimum Wages Act.

I am not going to say how more and more persons from different parts of Orissa are entering into the category of bonded labors and leaving their respective homes and families in search of avenues of livelihood in neighboring and far away States.

I am not going to show how victimized workers of various factories have been spending decades in labor courts in Orissa because of absolute inadequacy of labor courts vis-à-vis profuse rush of complaint and referred cases.

I am not going to say how labor officers, all over Orissa, after failure of conciliation, are abandoning all the cases in adjudication stage even though the same cases are based on their respective reports and leaving the tortured and illiterate workers to defend their respective stands against victimization all by themselves to the total advantage of touts and the employers.

I am not going to say how newspapers and NGOs are looting the State exchequer hand-in-glove with the official functionaries in the guise of awareness campaigns against child labor and I am not going to show how private employers having caught attention for torturing child labors under their employment have not been punished for their pernicious offenses in any case during Navinraj so far.

I am going to show you some pictures of how under the scorching sun and unbearable dehydrating heat the unorganized workers categorized under the law as casual labor are blacktopping Bhubaneswar roads with boiling liquid bitumen sans shoes on their feet, sans any apron on their body, sans any mask on their nose, sans any protective glass on their eyes, sans any drinking water in their workplace. Mark them.

If, as human beings, you feel that human beings should not be treated so inhumanly, rise to the occasion and take the authorities to task for having shown such blatant disregard to human life.

Let Navin Patnaik, the autocratic chief of the mischief of democracy in this part of the globe be warned that when the labor of Orissa reduced to a state of inanity by his pro-rich administration has the courage to kick at the hot bitumen with their bare feet under the scorching sun just to elk out a day’s living, what would happen if they decide one day to deal with whosoever is responsible for their present predicament.

May Day stands witness to victory of labor over exploiters.

Starting from the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893 the exploiters have adopted innumerable Ravi Shankars to pacify the exploited all over the world. But the victory march of labor is surging ahead. Whatever welfare measures are drawn up and codified in any part of the globe are because of inherent ability of labor to unite against exploitation.

Against this backdrop, again you may peruse the pictures that show how workers are exploited in broad daylight in Orissa and you may advise the present rulers not to make a farce of May Day, but to cogitate if the workforce goes on being thus neglected, what would happen one day.

Orissa is under the climate of crime.

Chief Minister Navin Patnaik has dragged this splendid and traditionally peaceful land into the hot lap of capitalism and all the crimes that capitalism generates and instigates have now engulfed the State.

Administration has gone such astray that the people of Orissa are being compelled to pay for officers who under official orders are exempted from rendering any service!

This was earlier done in cases of noted miscreants Ramesh Behera and Santosh Mishra of Indian Administrative Service as well as Sisir Acharya and Amaresh Jaiswal of Indian Forest Service. Now it is Priyabrata Pattnaik of IAS.

But the Chief Minister protecting Priyabrata from Law is not new.

In 2000, his conduct in context of a youth congregation styled Dreamfest at the Bhubaneswar Club was so sexually offensive and crude that the Government had been compelled to appoint a single judge judicial enquiry headed by District Judge Mahendra Patnaik. His report was submitted to Chief Minister Navin Patnaik. It has been suppressed and no action has been taken as yet.

His conduct in respect of the most valuable Kandadhara mines needed special investigation when people of Orissa were sharpening their protest against POSCO.

The foreign firm was so eager to grab Khandadhar mines and was so apprehensive of not getting it in view of public protests that it was suspected to have tried to succeed in its design using the Bhubaneswar club headed by Priyabrata as a mask. The secret deal could have been unveiled had the modus operandi of Bhubaneswar Club applying for Khandahara on lease been investigated into and Priyabrata’s clandestine connection, if any, with POSCO in violation of the Code of Conduct of Government Servants could have come to light. This could not happen as the Chief Minister’s chair was occupied by Navin Patnaik.

Going into the history of such misdemeanor is not relevant at the moment. What is relevant is the conduct of Chief Minister in protecting him despite he having admitted that Priyabrata’s conduct was not becoming of an officer.

The order he has passed for posting of Priyabrata as Officer without portfolio confirms that the Government has lost confidence in the officer. To the Government he is not trustworthy.

But by posting him as Officer without portfolio, Navin has ensured that he shall continue enjoying his rank and receiving his salary sans any work and the peoples shall go on bearing compulsorily the burden of his high pay package without obtaining any service from him.

This is sufficient evidence of how the Chief Minister has supported a man whose nexus with the underworld has hit the police hard emanating directly from the lips of a contract killer who by profession is a hit man, in course of interrogation in the matter of cold-blooded murder of Judo coach Biranchi Das.

Murder of Biranchi yet unsolved and suspected assassins yet at large; it does not look correct to deal with that subject.

In our view, police should be kept off pressure so that investigation would proceed systematically. Media activism should be least encouraged in crime investigation. The media in Orissa has no criminologist on employment and no media organization has ever imparted in-service training in criminology to any journalist reporting crime. So, as we have watched, Orissa media having no education or expertise in criminology, has overwhelmed the process of investigation with uncalled for suggestions, unqualified suspicions and immature innuendoes and like mud water suits the crab, the confusion created by media has suited the assassinator of the Judo coach so far.

Therefore without any prejudice to how the prosecutors are proceeding in the instant case, we shall limit our focus on the climate of crime the CM has allowed to engulf Orissa in Priyabrata context.

This blue-eyed boy of POSCO-Navin nexus, after Acharya’s close colleague Chagala alleged that the hit men including himself were engaged by Priyabrata, had wanted to keep on records in a press conference that he neither had known nor had ever seen gangster Raja Acharya, the suspected killer of Biranchi. But in course of a mild interrogation he confessed before the police that he had met Raja a couple of days before Biranchi was murdered.

Whether or not he had hired the hit men is a matter for the State to reveal. But the people do not wait for the State to see how the needle of suspicion is sharply rushing towards him.

By posting him as an officer without portfolio, Navin Patnaik has ensured that he can freely and in opportune moments contact any functionary anywhere in the citadel of power.

In the climate of crime that Navin Patnaik has ushered into Orissa, what better method could have been invented to help an untrustworthy officer escape Law?

With this site exposing how Buddhists all over the world have failed to honor canonical instruction for paying homage to Gurudev Buddha in the place of his birth at least once in life, as they are misled by a historical mischief placing his birthplace in Nepal, there was a short-lived but acrimonious shrill of protest in a section of global media following which a new wave of academic activities has commenced flowing with incisive interest to find out if Orissa’s claim is correct.

We are sure, the truth must prevail and the future world shall surely accept Kapilavastu of Tosala, converted to present day Kapileswar near Bhubaneswar, as the real birthplace of Buddha; because that is his birthplace.

Intellectuals who are seriously pursuing this issue are active in different parts of the glove. One of these truth seekers is Sri Ajit Kumar Tripathy, an IAS officer, currently the Chief Secretary of Orissa. He has published two booklets on Buddha’s birthplace abridging the research work of late Pandit Chakradhar Mohapatra, who was the first to revive the status of Kapileswar as the birthplace Kapilavastu of Buddha.

Produced with clarity and in eloquent English, the two booklets, while acknowledging the contributions of Mohapatra, inasmuch as the author telling us that he “does not claim any original research on the subject of birthplace of Gautam Buddha but he has arranged the materials systematically often using the same language in the book of Sri Chakradhar Mohapatra” (preface to Goutam Buddha and Kalinga), it is clear from the steps Tripathy has taken that he has gone through the findings of Mohapatra quite seriously and juxtaposing them with materials and observations of eminent scholars beyond Mohapatra, has been convinced that yesterday’s Kapilavastu is today’s Kapileswar and therefore, by systematically abridging the arguments Mohapatra in his two booklets has advanced, he has added authenticity to his finding.

Students of history all over the world would be glad to note that Tripathy’s step is a positive step towards making history arrive at the truth in the matter of Orissa being Buddha’s birthplace.

As initiator of global debate in this matter we offer our thanks to Mr. Tripathy.

Describing how Orissa had attacked and subdued the Muslim Bengal, Dr. K. R. Quanungo writes in ‘The History of Bengal, Muslim Period’ at pp.48-52, that, Tughral Tughan Khan was no doubt out-generalled by the king of Orissa who had drawn the enemy far away from their frontier and must have concealed more than one surprising party along the whole route of the enemy’s advance. A greater disaster had not till then befallen the muslims in any part of Hindustan. The Muslims, says Minhaj [the historian Minhaj-i-Siraj who had also joined the war that was, to him, a ‘holy war’], sustained the overthrow, and a great number of those holy warriors attained martyrdom.

Relying on Havel, who noted in ‘Indian Sclupture and Painting’ that the war horses and elephants sculptured at Konarka depict the “pride of victory and glory of triumphant warfare”, Dr. K. C. Panigrahi writes in ‘History of Orissa’ at pp.413-414 that King of Orissa, Langula Narasimha “began his campaigns against Muslim Bengal in 1243 A.D. His victory over the Muslims of Bengal and his acquisition of the southern districts of Western Bengal must have enormously raised his prestige in the eyes of the contemporary Hindu Rulers, and augmented his resources, which in all likelihood enabled him to undertake the construction of a stupendous structure like the temple of Konark, designed to exhibit his power, prestige, opulence, devotion and perhaps to commemorate his victory also”.

But despite this truth recorded by history, Bankim Chandra of Bengal had overreached over a Bengali claim over Konarka through throwing an article in a school textbook in Bengali that Narasingh Dev belonged to Bengal and the Sun temple was an epitome of Bengali architecture!

Bankim Chandra’s trick was just an instance of how taking advantage of the British rule in Bengal when Orissa had kept them at bay and was the last land to have been annexed by the British but the first land to have raised a revolution against them in the entire country of India, the Bengalis had tried to misappropriate every gem of Oriya culture to create for themselves a fabricated cultural heritage. Their false claims over Sri Jaya Dev, creator of Radha and author of Sahajiya love lyrics squeezed into the Geet Govind as well as on Chaurashi Siddhacharyas, authors of Charyagitis (Bauddha Gan o Doha) have been exposed in these pages, wherein their mens rea behind this cultural dishonesty has been discussed.

It has also been discussed in these pages that the sculptures of Konark, the love lyrics of Sri Jaya Dev and the Charyagitis of Chaurashi Siddhacharyas are intricately linked to and influenced by Orissa’s now extinct Mahodadhi Civilization.

The sea in Orissa region was famous as the Mahodadhi. But the Bengalis, under circumstances hinted to above, as in the aforesaid three instances, have succeeded in changing the name of Mahodadhi to Bay of Bengal.

This wrong done to history needs correction.

The Mahodadhi civilization of Orissa was so developed that in whole of India, it was only Orissa the people of which were the pioneers amongst Indians to establish their colonies and dominions in far away lands beyond Indian limits where geographical names akin to names of Orissa give ample evidences in this regard.

Dr. Nihar Ranjan Roy informs us in ‘Brahminical Gods in Burma’,

“The ancient name attributed to old Prome is Srikshetra, so often mentioned in the Mon records as Sikset or Srikset, and by the Chinese pilgrims as Si-li-cho-ta-lo; and Srikshetra is the holy land of Puri on the ancient Kalinga coast”.

“Likewise” he also informs, “the earliest colonization of the Malaya Peninsula and Java had probably been made from Kalinga, for the Hindus of the Peninsula and the islands were and are still known as Kling.”

“The two examples from Tholan, now housed in the Rangoon Museum”, he says, “are decidedly Indian in form and composition as also in execution, done no doubt locally by Indian artists or by artists trained under Indian masters. They seem to have very intimate artistic affinities with the most recent finds of Brahminical and Mahayanist divinities from Orissa by Rai Bahadur Ram Prasad Chanda, B.A., now housed in the Indian Museum.”

Melaka, one of the thirteen States of Malaysia, was founded 2 degrees north of the equator by the shore of the Straits between Singapore to its south and Kuala Lumpur to its north by an Oriya prince, probably Hamvira (known there as Hang Tuah), which as far back as the early 15th century, had become a metropolis with traders and merchants of very many nations from east and west having there their business negotiation centers. It was developed by its founder for this purpose and also as a common shelter for seafaring traders and the response was so worm that as many as 84 different languages were being spoken there at the height of its glory. Melaka is a typical Oriya word (as in MELAKA PADICHHI RAJA YOTAKA) and the place where the prince of Orissa, its founder, breathed his last and took his final rest is famous as Tanjung Keling. When people of the place mean Kalinga (Orissa) by Keling, Tanjung means to people of Orissa even today the moving throne of the king and it stands for the chair on which seated the Gajapati Maharaja of Puri visits the temple or chariots of Sri Jagannatha.

A letter received recently from Sri Ramroop Jugurnauth of Mauritius is very significant. He writes, “My ancestors came to Mauritius more than 150 years ago. I made searches for my roots and I came to know that my ancestor came from Orissa. I also have in my possession some handwritten documents in an ancient Indian language. An Indian friend of mine forwarded it to the BHU (Language Dept). There they confirmed it to be an ancient Oriya. I therefore consider myself a cut-off branch from Oriya culture”. He further writes, “My family name Jugurnauth is infact Jagganath and it itself suggests my Oriya origin”. The pictures below are pages of handwritten Oriya manuscripts preserved by his family for 150 years in Mauritius.

Be it Mauritius or Melaka, be it Singapore or Ceylon, it is Oriyas of India that had established their colonies and commercial empires because they alone had the best of ships and shipping activities.

Even the British have admitted it. Writing to W.B.Bayley, Secretary to Government in the Judicial Department, in his Report dated 3 May 1817, E. Watson, 4th Judge, Calcutta Court of Circuit has unambiguously told of the ships of Orissa that they “were by far the best that I ever saw in any part of India”.

Nowhere any of the British authorities has recognized so eloquently any marine activity of Bengal even though they had there their seat of power.

So, it was wrong on part of the British to have named the sea that was under shipping activities principally of the people of Orissa as Bay of Bengal.

This offense the British colonialists and their Bengali collaborators have committed against the people of Orissa by obliterating the ancient name of Mahodadhi and by replacing it with Bay of Bengal shall have to be changed in respect of Orissa region.

This should be the program of Oriyas on the occasion of celebration of the birthday of Madhubabu (Kulabruddha Madhusudan Das) today.

The lawyers of Berhampur have been brutally beaten up by Police as they were mounting collective pressure for establishment of a branch of Orissa High Court in that part of the State.

The lawyers of Sambalpur have already kept their demands for a branch of the High Court in their region on records.

Bhubaneswar has already witnessed a lawyers’ stir in demanding a High Court seat.

Similar demands from remote parts of Orissa have started rumbling.

But, the police assault on Berhampur lawyers has not only made lawyers of different parts of Orissa emotionally embarrassed, but also has tormented the litigant public to apprehend that it perhaps portends a judicial anarchy.

We are made to believe that stir of lawyers for a seat of High Court in their respective regions has earned stern disapproval of the High Court. But that cannot be a cause for subjecting lawyers to such a nasty treat.

If the lawyers have been building up collective pressure for a seat of the High Court in their respective regions, it is not in their personal interest, but in interest of the litigant public.

The litigant publics of Orissa are severely hit by inordinate delay in justice. Justification of delay in disposal of cases under the plea of insufficiency in numbers of judges in the High Court is itself a mockery of justice. A High Court is the highest court of justice in a state and is the controlling authority of dispensation of justice in the area under its jurisdiction. A High Court is competent to make laws as would be required in interest of justice. A High Court is competent also to issue a judicial direction to a government to carry out the judicial law it so frames. If existing judges are inadequate in Orissa High Court to dispose off cases without delay, it should formulate necessary methods to avoid delay in justice and if more judges are required it should determine the required number and make the government arrange for their appointment. Instead of doing that why should there be maintained a climate where delay in justice would be justified?

Peoples have a birthright to receive justice at the quickest possible opportunity; but in Orissa they are being compelled to tolerate enforced loss of their age and energies in waiting for the High Court decisions.

Besides O.J.C., litigants affected by decisions at lower level also prefer appeals in the High Court. The lower Court lawyer, eager to protect his/her client’s interest often prefers an appeal in the High Court.

In these or in Writ cases, whosoever prefers any litigation in the High Court, may be by own intelligence or under advice of the lawyer of the lower court, does so only through a High Court practitioner at Cuttack.

So when a case gets inordinately delayed in the High Court, the lawyer in the periphery through whom the litigant might have contacted or engaged a High Court practitioner at Cuttack is bound to be embarrassed by being required to explain his or her client the delay. On the other hand, there are brilliant lawyers in the periphery who, notwithstanding failure in the lower court, might be because of deficiency in comprehension or lack of probity on part of the concerned judge, are much more competent than many of the High Court practitioners to handle the case in the High Court, interpretation of the Law there being pivotal. In the circumstances demand for a High Court seat in Berhampur, Sambalpur and elsewhere is justified and is not averse to justice.

In fact, establishment of seats of a High Court in various regions of a State would be an act of ensuring speedy and less expensive justice to the peoples.

Demands for branches of the High Court cannot be anything other than a revolutionary expression of legal activism that aims at making justice available at doorstep.

Instead of appreciating this silent revolution, if repression goes on, judicial anarchy would spread.

Needless it is to elaborate that judicial anarchy cannot be preferred to legal activism as long as democratic sovereignty remains the creed of the country.

Do you need heavy cash to invest in business? Do you want that there should be no interest charged for the large amount you would take? Do you find it impossible to obtain such interest-free finance from any nationalized /commercial Bank?

Do not worry. Satisfy a minister of Orissa specifically if he or she belongs to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and a way would surely be devised to help you loot an official institute.

Look at how a team of land dealers styled as Konark Hovel (P) Ltd (herein after called Hovel) has looted the premier cooperative housing society of Bhubaneswar, the Capital Cooperative Housing Limited (hereinafter called the Society). You may get the clue.

Look at what has happened.

In 2004, operators of Hovel were in need of funds worth about Rs.50 lakhs to invest in real estate trade. No Bank was ready to grant it a loan of such heavy amount.

Had they taken a loan they would have paid heavy interest; the trade being speculative and the time to earn ability on their part to repay the loan being uncertain and inestimable.

So, looting cash of an official institute seemed more lucrative. Aravind Dhali, then of BJP, was minister in charge of the department of cooperation. This department runs and controls banking networks. He agreed to collaborate and organized the necessary umbrage for the looting.

The Society at that time was running perfectly under an elected Board of Directors. The Government in the department of Cooperation under Dhali superseded the elected Board and appointed a man called T. Prasad Rao Dora as President and a pack of sycophants of Dhali as Directors of the Society.

Rao and his team provided Hovel with the funds it needed from the funds of the Society.

To this effect a scheme was cooked up.

Accordingly the Society would search for land to develop a housing project and Hovel would come forward with an offer and money was to be paid to it against procurement of ghost lands.

Even as the Society would not get the land registered, Hovel would be free to use the money received against the offered land in its own business and return the amount sans any interest at any unspecific time to its own advantage. And, the amount so refunded would be accepted by the Society as to its prudence it would then be fed that an unregistered agreement for transfer of any property having no legal binding under The Transfer of Property Act, 1882, it would be better to get back the money, at least in principal.

But this transaction being entirely illegal, it was planned to purchase cooperation of the Chief Executive (an officer of the cooperation department) and the officer, according to a source, agreed to agree to the proposal at a price of Rs.10 lakhs.

The source says, Rs.0.10 lakh was paid to him immediately on 6 March 2004 and it was decided to pay him Rs.10 lakhs in two installments. Firstly a token amount of Rs.2 lakhs would be sanctioned as advance against cost of land so that Hovel would be sure of the flow of money. On receipt of the first installment of Rs.2 lakhs towards advance, Hovel should pay that entire amount to the Chief Executive. After receipt of the final dose, Hovel would pay him the rest amount of Rs.8 lakhs, it was decided.

Then came the question of agreement.

A Notary was taken to confidence. But sensing the rat, the Notary demanded half a lakh of Rupees to Notarize the agreement. The deal was finalized at a sum of Rs.0.40 lakhs on 8 March 2004.

A ghost agreement was notarized in the same night.

And, it was decided to pay Hovel Rs.2.40 lakhs instead of Rs.2 lakhs so that the payment of Rs.0.40 lakhs to the Notary would be covered therein. Signatures of the parties and witnesses were to be collected on the body of the ghost agreement later in order to give it a genuine color.

The signatures of the parties and witnesses were collected on 10 March 2004 and then, as conspired, on 12 March 2004, a sum of Rs.2.40 was paid to the Chief Executive of the Society by Hovel in cash against receipt of the same amount from the Society as a token of advance payment against the proposed land deal.

After cooperation of the departmental officer thus purchased, a sum of Rs.40 lakhs was paid to Hovel only the next day, i.e. on 13 March 2004.

Hovel was in dire need of this money. But Rao and his team of Directors wanted their mutually decided amount of payola out of this payment lest it escapes with the money, as they knew that the so-called agreement would have no legal enforceability.

At this stage Dhali came to the rescue of Hovel.

Under his advice off the record, the Chief Executive devised a new trick of cheating.

Accordingly an “Irrevocable General Power of Attorney”(IGPA) was formulated and a further sum of Rs.15 lakhs was paid to Hovel on 29 April 2004. Rao and his team of Directors shared their share of payola with Dhali out of this payment.

The IGPA was later registered authorizing the Chief Executive, Dr. Prasant Kumar Pradhan, s/o Anant Charan Pradhan of village Nuapada under P.S. Kundeigola of Deogarh district to dispose off any portion or entire of the land mentioned in the agreement to any party or parties as he would prefer at any time on behalf of the Society.

Even as this document was used to hoodwink the general members of the Society in case any of them gets suspicious about the transaction, it was mutually decided that the Attorney holder would never use this IGPA and to ensure that Dr. Pradhan remains loyal to this decision, he was paid the rest of the promised amount i.e. Rs.8 lakhs on 13 May 2004 by Hovel after receiving the amount in shape of advance on that day.

With the loot thus complete, Rao and his co-Directors gave way for election of a new Board. The CE being involved with the loot, the matter could not come to the notice of the general members.

It needs be marked that Dr. Pradhan is continuing as the CE, but has neither got the land registered in the Society’s name nor has ever used the IGPA to its advantage.

Had he wanted, he could never have succeeded; because, he knew the so-called documentation had no practical enforceability. He was only organizing time so that Hovel could organize a repayment without interest.

But with an elected Board in power, it could not have been possible to keep the issue dormant always. So a nominated body was needed.

It was not a problem with the saffron lady Surama Padhi as the Minister of Cooperation.

She took such steps that election was not carried out in respect of the Society. The department nominated a saffronist Govind Chandra Panda as the President –cum-single member Board of the Society. Notwithstanding election of the Board much later, Panda ccontinued as President and Hovel was provided with the necessary climate to refund the money sans interest and get rid of the threatening ghost deal issue forever.

With this congeniality established, after long four years, Hovel has returned Rs.62 lakhs against the principal amount of Rs.65.10 lakhs drawn from the Society funds and paid to it as discussed above.

The amount has clandestinely been accepted putting the Society in loss of several crores of Rupees.

If you want to have interest-free finance, you may try this trick till the Cooperation department is in charge of a saffronist minister.